Proverbs 31:10,25-30
Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.
Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): This description of the virtuous woman is designed to show what wives the women should make and what wives the men should choose.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): “Many daughters have done virtuously.” This is undoubtedly the speech of the husband, giving testimony to the excellence of his wife: “Her husband also, and he praiseth her, saying, many daughters,” or women, “have done virtuously,” with due propriety as wives and mothers “but thou,”—my incomparable wife—“excellest them all;”—thou hast carried every duty, every virtue, and every qualification and excellency, to a higher perfection, than any of whom we have ever read or heard. Let the reader seriously consider the above particulars, and he will be probably of the same mind.
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): This is a beautiful description of a virtuous woman.
ADAM CLARKE: But high as the character of this Jewish matron stands in the preceding description, I can say that I have met at least her equal in the mother of John and Charles Wesley. I am constrained to add this testimony, after having traced her from her birth to her death, through all the relations that a woman can bear upon earth. Her Christianity gave to her virtues and excellences a heightening, which the Jewish matron could not possess; besides, Susannah was a woman of great learning and information, and of a depth of mind, and reach of thought seldom to be found among the daughters of Eve, and not often among the sons of Adam.
ABEL STEVENS (1815-1897): She was married to Samuel Wesley about 1689, when nineteen or twenty years of age. She had been thoroughly educated, was acquainted with the Latin, Greek, and French languages.
THE EDITOR: Susannah was educated far beyond the norm for women in the 17th century. She was trained in logic, not often a feminine virtue, and was deeply interested in the religious discussions of her day; her wedding occurred during the “glorious revolution” of 1688-89, when the Catholic King James II was disposed from the English throne, and replaced by the Dutch Protestant William of Orange and his wife Mary, which led to significant changes in the government and constitution, granting Parliament more power, and establishing a constitutional monarchy. Her husband Samuel was a staunch supporter of Protestant liberties, but Susannah supported the ousted king; this led to many quarrels; she refused to say “Amen,” to their daily prayer, which included prayer for the new king’s health; in 1701, an angry Samuel told her, “If we have two kings, we must have two beds;” in frustration, he left Epworth for London, leaving Susanna with their six children. But their separation didn’t last long; they reunited in 1702, after William of Orange died after a fall from his horse, and his sister-in-law Anne became Queen. Let married men and women glean some scriptural lessons from that incident for our own times.
J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): She was a daughter of Samuel Annesley, well-known to readers of Puritan theology as one of the chief promoters of the Morning Exercises, who was ejected from St. Giles’ Cripplegate in 1662. From him she seems to have inherited the masculine sense and strong decided judgment which distinguished her character.
THE EDITOR: She was certainly no overly-indulgent protective mother.
SUSANNAH WESLEY (1669-1742): As self-will is the root of all sin and misery; whatever cherishes this in children ensures their wretchedness and irreligion; whatever checks and mortifies it, promotes their future happiness and piety. This is still more evident, if we further consider, that religion is nothing else than the doing the will of God, and not our own: that the one grand impediment to our temporal and eternal happiness being this self-will, no indulgence of it can be trivial—so that a parent who studies to subdue it in a child, works together with God in the renewing and saving a soul; the parent who indulges it does the devil’s work.
THE EDITOR: Regarding John, the future leader of Methodism, she wrote in her diary, “I do intend to be more particularly careful of the soul of this child, that Thou hast so mercifully provided, that I may do my endeavour to instill into his mind the principles of Thy true religion and virtue.” In 1851, Isaac Taylor, in Wesley and Methodism, wrote that she 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 directions given to them were visibly repeated in the character and conduct of her son.”
J. C. RYLE: To the influence of his mother’s early training and example, John Wesley, doubtless, was indebted for many of his peculiar habits of mind and qualifications. A mother of this stamp was just the person to leave deep marks and impressions on the minds of her children.
THE EDITOR: She began teaching each child at age five.
SUSANNAH WESLEY: The way of teaching was this: the day before, the house was set in order, everyone’s work appointed, and a charge given that none should enter the room from nine to twelve, or from two to five, which were our school hours…One day was allowed the child to learn its letters, and each in that time knew all its letters, except Molly and Nancy, who were a day and a half before they knew them perfectly; I thought them very dull, but the reason was because the rest learned so readily—Samuel, the first child I ever taught, learned the alphabet in a few hours, and when he knew the letters, he began with the first Chapter of Genesis.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Reading the life of John Wesley’s mother, I was pleased to notice how she set apart Monday to speak to one of her daughters, Tuesday to speak to another, Wednesday to speak, as she says, “to Jack,” meaning him, and Thursday to speak to Charles—so each had a day—and an hour each day, given to speak to each child about the affairs of the soul. That is the way to win the children for God!
THE EDITOR: In all, Susannah bore 19 children, 9 of whom died in infancy, so she was no stranger to sorrow. In 1727, at age 58, she wrote to twenty-four-year-old John about the many trials in her life.
SUSANNAH WESLEY: It is certainly true that I have had large experience of what the world calls adverse fortune. But I have not made those improvements in piety and virtue, under the discipline of Providence, that I ought to have done; therefore I humbly conceive myself to be unfit for an assistant to another in affliction, since I have so ill performed my own duty…Yet if hereafter you should meet with troubles of various sorts, as it is probable you will in the course of your life, be it of short or long continuance, the best preparation I know of for sufferings is a regular and exact performance of present duty; for this will surely render a man pleasing to God, and put him directly under the protection of His good providence, so that no evil shall befall him, but what he will certainly be the better for it.
