Has she not then for griefs and fears—
The day of woe the watchful night,—
For all her sorrows, all her fears,—
An overpayment of delight?”
While Mrs. Wesley, like every good mother, thanked God for gladdening the earth with little children, she knew that they were sent for another purpose than merely to keep up the population. That a family so numerous, and composed of characters so powerfully constituted as the Wesleys, should grow up from childhood to maturity without their domestic disquietudes, would be beyond the range of probability. There were trials deep and heavy, but as far as we can judge, the family of the Epworth parsonage are now collected in the many-mansioned house above. A mother’s influence is the first cord of nature, and the last of memory. She who rocks the cradle, rules the world. A generation of mothers like Mrs. Wesley, would do more for the regeneration of society, than all our Sunday-schools, day-schools, refuges, reformatories, home missions, and ragged kirks put together.
HOME EDUCATION.
The code of laws laid down by Mrs. Wesley for the education of her children was about perfect. We can do little more than suggest some of the main principles upon which she acted in the discharge of this important duty. No sooner were her children born than their infant lives were regulated by method. True she delayed their literary education until they were five years old, but from their birth they were made to feel the power of her training hand; and before they could utter a word they were made to feel that there was a God. Some parents talk of beginning the education of their children. Every child’s education begins the moment it is capable of forming an idea, and it goes on like time itself, without any holidays. She aimed at the education of all their mental and bodily powers. The sleep, food, and even crying of her children was regulated. Her son John informs us, that she even taught them as infants to cry softly. One of the most difficult problems of education is, to form a child to obedience without making it servile. The will is the key of the active being, and in a great measure the key of the receptive too. Along with the inclinations, its purveyors and assessors, it must be the earliest subject of discipline. Without subjecting the will you can do nothing. On this subject we believe the views of Mrs. Wesley to be equally just and propound—to lie at the very foundation of the philosophy of education. “In order to form the minds of children,” she writes, “the first thing to be done is, to conquer their will, and bring them to an obedient temper. To inform the understanding is a work of time, and must with children proceed by slow degrees, as they are able to bear it. But the subjecting of the will is a thing that must be done at once, and the sooner the better. For by neglecting timely correction, they contract a stubbornness and obstinacy which are hardly ever conquered, and never without using such severity as is painful to me, as well as the child.” But education is something more than the teaching of proper obedience; hence she developed their physical powers, stored their intellects, cultured their tastes, and disciplined their consciences. God blessed Mrs. Wesley with signal ability for teaching; and even had the pecuniary circumstances of the family not compelled her to undertake the literary instruction of her children; she would have felt that their religious education was her special charge, and that the solemn responsibility could not be delegated to another. She was the sole instructress of her daughters. Her work was arduous, but she encouraged herself with the faith that He who made her a mother had placed in her hands the key to the recesses of the hearts of her offspring; and that the great part of family care and government consisted in the right education of children.
RELATION TO METHODISM.
Never has a century risen on Christian England so void of soul and faith as the seventeenth. Profligacy and vice everywhere prevailed, and the moral virtues of the nation were at their last gasp. God had witnesses—men of learning, ability, and piety: but they won no national influence. Methodism was the great event of the eighteenth century. For several generations there had been at work powerful influences in the ancestry of its appointed founders, which look like providential preparations. In the history of John Westley, of Whitchurch, we find a beautiful pre-shadowing of the principles more extensively embodied in the early Methodist preachers whom the illustrious grandson who bore his name associated with himself in that glorious revival. The rector of Epworth, looked favourably upon what the churchmen of his day regarded as unjustifiable irregularities, and published an eloquent defence of those religious societies which existed at the time. The religious pedigree, so evident in the paternal ancestry, was no less observable in the mother of the founder of Methodism. Maternal influence exerted over John Wesley and his brothers an all but sovereign control. His mental perplexities, his religious doubts and emotions were all submitted to the judgment and decision of his mother. When Thomas Maxfield began to preach, Wesley hurried to London to stop him. The opinion of his mother was unmistakable, and led to important consequences. “John, you know what my sentiments have been. You cannot suspect me of favouring readily anything of this kind. But take care what you do with respect to that young man; for he is as surely called of God to preach as you are. Examine what have been the fruits of his preaching, and hear him for yourself.” In estimating this remarkable woman’s relation to Methodism, we must not forget that during the different times of her husband’s absence, she read prayers and sermons, and engaged in religious conversation with her own family, and any of the parishioners who came in accidentally. What was this, but a glorious Methodist irregularity? How significant are the words of Isaac Taylor: “The Wesleys’ mother was the mother of Methodism in a religious and moral sense; for, her courage, her submissiveness to authority, the high tone of her mind, its independence, and its self-control, the warmth of her devotional feelings and the practical direction given to them,—came up, and were visibly repeated in the character and conduct of her sons.”
CHARACTER OF MRS WESLEY.