RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Wesle Wesse
(1700); and the posthumous Letter to a Curate (1735; an excellent statement of clerical duties). His hymn, “‘ Behold the Saviour of Mankind,” written in 1709, has been widely used. H. K. Carro.u.
BrstiocrapHy: L. Tyerman, Life and Times of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, London, 1866 (a painstaking study; includes letters, and others are given in the same author's life of John Wesley); A. & Wood, Athene Oxonienses, ed. P. Bliss, iv. 503, and Fasti, ii. 403, 4 vols., ib. 1813— 20; J. Dove, Biographical Hist. of the Wesley Family, ib. 1833; W. Beal, Fathers of the Wesley Family, 2d ed., ib. 1862; G. J. Stevenson, Memorials of the Wesley Family, ib. 1876; S. W. Duffield, English Hymns, pp. 64-65, New York, 1886; Julian, Hymnology, pp. 1255-56; and the literature under the articles on Charles, John, and Susannah Wesley.
WESLEY, SAMUEL JR.: Eldest son of Samuel Wesley, Sr.; b. in London Feb. 10, 1690; d. at Tiverton (55 m. s.w. of Bristol) Nov. 6, 1739. He was educated at Westminster and Christ Church College, Oxford (B.A., 1715; M.A., 1718); became head usher at Westminster School, 1713, and was ordained soon after; became head master of the Free School at Tiverton, 1733. He was a man of considerable learning, great talent, high character, and decidedly philanthropic in disposition and action. As an old-fashioned churchman, he had no sympathy with the ‘‘ new faith ”’ of his brothers, but he contributed generously for their education. His Poems on Several Occasions (1736; reprinted, with additions and Life, 1862) have much merit, and include one or two of our best epigrams, besides hymns to the Trinity, for Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter, and on the death of a young lady. These are of a high order, and show much of Charles Wesley’s splendor of diction; they have been largely used in church hymn-books.
F. M. Brrpt. Revised by H. K. Carrot.
BrstioGRAPHy: Besides the Life in the Poems (ut sup.), and the literature under the articles on the other Wesleys, consult: Julian, Hymnology, pp. 1256-57.
WESLEY, SUSANNAH: Mother of John and Charles Wesley; b. in London Jan. 20, 1669; d. there July 23, 1742. Her father, Samuel Annesley, was a prominent non-conformist divine, but she renounced non-conformity in her thirteenth year, and joined the Church of England, In 1689 she married
Samuel Wesley (q.v.), and bore him nineteen children, of whom nine, however, died in infancy. She was a remarkable woman. Tyerman gives this account of her home discipline: “‘ When the child was one year old, he was taught to fear the rod, and, if he cried at all, to cry in softened tones. The children were limited to three meals a day. Eating and drinking between meals was strictly prohibited. All the children were washed and put to bed by eight o’clock, and on no account was a servant to sit by a child till it fell asleep. The children were taught the Lord’s Prayer as soon as they could speak, and repeated it every morning and every night. They were on no account allowed to call each other by their proper name without the addition of brother or sister, as the case might be. Six hours a day were spent at school, the parents being the teachers. They were not taught to read till five years old, and then only a single day was allowed wherein to learn the letters of the alphabet, great and small. _ Psalms were sung every morning, when school was opened, and also every night, when the duties of the day were ended. In addition to this, at the commencement and close of every day, each of the elder children took one of the younger, and read the psalms appointed for the day, and a chapter in the Bible, after which they severally went to their private devotions ” (Life of Wesley, 1.17-18). It would be unjust to infer from this statement that Mrs. Wesley was a martinet. She was methodical in her ways, but she was a woman of lovely character, a tender mother, quick in perception, wise in judgment, and ever ready to extend the hand of helpfulness. She was very influential with her son John and her impress was made on early Methodism. H. K. Carro.u.
Bistiograpuy: J. Kirk, The Mother of the Wesleys, London,
1872; Eliza Clarke, Susanna Wesley, ib. new ed., 1896;
M. R. Brailsford, Susannah Wesley, the Mother of Method-
asm, ib. 1910.
WESLEYAN METHODIST ASSOCIATION. See Meruopists, I., 6.
WESLEYAN METHODIST CONNECTION OR CHURCH OF AMERICA. See Mrruonpisrts, IV., 4.
WESLEYAN METHODISTS. See Meruopists, I.