Excellent Women

In 1809 her religious novel, Coelebs in Search of a Wife, issued anonymously, roused universal attention. In twelve months as many editions came out; and during the author's lifetime thirty editions of a thousand copies each were printed in America. This was followed shortly by Practical Piety, which soon ran to the tenth edition, and which brought the author to the end of her life numerous gratifying testimonies of its results. As a sequel to this work, Christian Morals was published in 1812, and was also widely circulated. Three years later, when the author had entered her seventieth year, she wrote an Essay on the Character and Writings of St. Paul, in two volumes, which, notwithstanding absorbing political events, was received with the same eagerness which greeted her former works. Moral Sketches of Prevailing Opinions and Manners, Foreign and Domestic, was published in 1819, being chiefly directed against the rage for copying French customs and manners. At the age of eighty-two she collected from her later works her Thoughts on Prayer and re-issued them in a little volume, with a short preface. This was her last literary effort. She said to a friend that the only remarkable thing which belonged to her as an author was that she had written eleven volumes after the age of sixty.

Between 1813 and 1818 her four sisters died. The last to go was Martha, Hannah's trusty helpmeet and lieutenant in all her benevolent schemes, and her tender consoler in many a season of sickness. Soon after this event Miss More's long illness of seven years occurred. Unable to give proper supervision to her servants, she was victimised in household matters in various ways. Extravagance and misconduct at length gave rise to scandal; and at the representation of friends Miss More reluctantly decided to break up her establishment, and remove to another and smaller residence at Clifton. It was with a sad heart that she left her charming dwelling; and as she glanced back into the beautiful garden, with its shady bowers, she exclaimed, "I am driven, like Eve, out of Paradise; but not, like Eve, by angels."

She lived five and a half years at Clifton, tranquilly waiting for the end, and attending, as far as failing strength would permit, to the distribution of her charities, the work of her schools and the entertainment of friends.

Almost to the last she retained unimpaired the use of her faculties. The intellectual vivacity of early days often reappeared. During one of her illnesses some one remarked, in allusion to the struggle of the remnant of sin in a person recently awakened to the truth, "The old man dies hard!" "The old woman dies hard!" exclaimed the invalid. At eighty-three she said, "I have too many petty cares at that age when the grasshopper is a burden. I have many grasshoppers, and seem to have less time and more labour than ever."

Her last days were spent almost entirely in prayer, invoking blessings on those around her and on the village work which lay so near her heart. She said to a friend during her last illness, "To go to heaven, think what that is! to go to my Saviour who died that I might live! Lord, humble me, subdue every evil temper in me. May we meet in a robe of glory! Through Christ's merits alone can we be saved… Lord, I believe—I do believe with all the powers of my weak, sinful heart. Lord Jesus, look down upon me from Thy holy habitation; strengthen my faith, and quicken me in my preparation. Support me in that trying hour when I most need it! It is a glorious thing to die!" No vanity or self-praise on the ground of her life's labours ever found a place in her thoughts. Some one began to speak of her good deeds. "Talk not so vainly," she exclaimed; "I utterly cast them from me, and fall low at the foot of the cross." She sank gradually, and without pain, and on September 7, 1833, quietly passed away.

There are few thoughtful students who will hesitate to rank Hannah More with the leading religious and educational reformers of the eighteenth century. In essential matters she was a kindred spirit with Whitfield, Wesley, Raikes, and others, and worked, in the way marked out for her by God, for the regeneration of her country.

With regard to her books, she believed they would be little read after her death. To a considerable extent her judgment has been verified. Her writings were a continual seed-sowing, which later workers fertilised, and brought to maturity.

They were republished in eleven volumes in 1830. Besides the prominence given to their religious or moral purpose, most of them are remarkable for sustained fervour, persuasiveness of tone, and practical common sense. We give a few extracts from some of the principal works, to illustrate Hannah More's methods of appealing to the conscience and awakening spiritual concern.

"There are two things of which a wise man will be scrupulously careful—his conscience and his credit. Happily, they are almost inseparable concomitants; they are commonly kept or lost together; the same things which wound the one usually giving a blow to the other; yet it must be confessed, that conscience and a mere worldly credit are not, in all instances, allowed to subsist together….

"Between a wounded conscience and a wounded credit, there is the same difference as between a crime and a calamity. Of two inevitable evils, religion instructs us to submit to that which is inferior and involuntary. As much as reputation exceeds every worldly good, so much, and far more, is conscience to be consulted before credit—if credit that can be called, which is derived from the acclamations of a mob, whether composed of 'the great vulgar or the small'"—Christian Morals (chapter xxiv.).

"One cause, therefore, of the dulness of many Christians in prayer, is their slight acquaintance with the sacred volume. They hear it periodically, they read it occasionally, they are contented to know it historically, to consider it superficially; but they do not endeavour to get their minds imbued with its spirit. If they store their memory with its facts, they do not impress their hearts with its truths. They do not regard it as the nutriment on which their spiritual life and growth depend. They do not pray over it; they do not consider all its doctrines as of practical application; they do not cultivate that spiritual discernment which alone can enable them judiciously to appropriate its promises, and apply its denunciations to their own actual case. They do not use it as an unerring line, to ascertain their own rectitude, or detect their own obliquities."

* * * * *

"The discrepancies between our prayers and our practice do not end here. How frequently are we solemnly imploring of God that 'His kingdom may come,' while we are doing nothing to promote His kingdom of grace here, and consequently His kingdom of glory hereafter."

* * * * *

"Prayer draws all the Christian graces into its focus. It draws Charity, followed by her lovely train, her forbearance with faults, her forgiveness of injuries, her pity for errors, her compassion for want. It draws Repentance, with her holy sorrows, her pious resolutions, her self-distrust. It attracts Faith, with her elevated eye,—Hope, with her grasped anchor,—Beneficence, with her open hand,—Zeal, looking far and wide to serve,—Humility, with introverted eye, looking at home. Prayer, by quickening these graces in the heart warms them into life, fits them for service, and dismisses each to it appropriate practice. Cordial prayer is mental virtue; Christian virtue is spiritual action."—The Spirit of Prayer (chapters iii., viii., and xi.).

"If good we plant not, vice will fill the place,
And rankest weeds the richest soils deface.
Learn how ungoverned thoughts the mind pervert,
And to disease all nourishment convert.
Ah! happy she, whose wisdom learns to find
A healthful fancy, and a well-trained mind.
A sick man's wildest dreams less wild are found
Than the day-visions of a mind unsound.
Disordered phantasies indulged too much.
Like harpies, always taint whate'er they touch.
Fly soothing Solitude! fly vain Desire!
Fly such soft verse as fans the dang'rous fire!
Seek action; 'tis the scene which virtue loves;
The vig'rous sun not only shines, but moves.
From sickly thoughts with quick abhorrence start,
And rule the fancy if you'd rule the heart:
By active goodness, by laborious schemes,
Subdue wild visions and delusive dreams.
No earthly good a Christian's views should bound,
For ever rising should his aims be found.
Leave that fictitious good your fancy feigns,
For scenes where real bliss eternal reigns:
Look to that region of immortal joys,
Where fear disturbs not, nor possession cloys;
Beyond what Fancy forms of rosy bowers,
Or blooming chaplets of unfading flowers;
Fairer than o'er imagination drew,
Or poet's warmest visions ever knew.
Press eager onward to these blissful plains,
Where life eternal, joy perpetual reigns."

The Search after Happiness.

HENRY JOHNSON.

SUSANNA WESLEY

I.

PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION

The mother of John Wesley was the daughter of Dr. Samuel Annesley, an eminent minister of the Church of England at the period of the great Civil War. He resigned his charge, being one of the two thousand who, after the Restoration, declared for Nonconformity, and preached their farewell sermons in the Established Church, on the 17th of August, 1662. He found his sphere in the meeting-house of Little St. Helen's, Bishopsgate.

Dr. Annesley's second wife, the mother of Susanna, was a woman of eminent piety, and beloved of all who knew her. "How many children has Dr. Annseley?" was a question asked of the eminent Puritan preacher Manton, who had just been officiating at the baptism of one of the number. "I believe it is two dozen, or a quarter of a hundred," he replied. Such was the family into which the mother of the Wesleys was born on the 20th of January, 1669. Of this crowded household, the majority were daughters, and Susanna was the youngest of these. In her own Journals, which form the only account of her childhood, we read of several instances of her "preservation from accidents," and once from a "violent death." The method of her education is not clearly stated, but "the tree is known by its fruits." There is evidence that it was sound and liberal, and up to the best standard of the day in any rank of society. French and music were evidently among her attainments, while in her letters and treatises there are abundant tokens that logic and philosophy were also held in effective possession and use. She tells us that which might have been expected when she says that she "was early initiated and instructed in the first principles of the Christian religion;" and in after days we find her giving to her son a rule which had proved to be a blessing to her own girlhood—"Never to spend more time in any matter of mere recreation in one day, than I spend in private religious duties."

The thoroughness of her own "private religious duties" is shown by the fact that in the year 1700 she made a resolution to spend one hour morning and evening in private devotion. This practice she kept up through life as far as circumstances would admit.

II.

THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

Soon we find Susanna Wesley studying the works of Jeremy Taylor, of the early Puritan Divines, and the immortal Bunyan, till at length her vigour of intellect and enterprise in reading led her into danger. By reading Arian and Socinian authors of the period, her faith was shaken. This, however, was not to be for long, and the manner of her recall was marked by interesting circumstances.

It is at this juncture that Samuel Wesley, her future husband, first appears in the story as the friend of her soul. This young student, seven years her senior, had himself made "proof" of Socinianism. In the course of some literary work, he had been specially well paid for the translation of Socinian writings from the Latin; but his strong mind revolted from their principles, the task was resigned, and his faith became more firmly rooted in Christ as the eternal Son of God. In this frame of mind Mr. Wesley met Susanna Annesley, and by God's help, succeeded in accomplishing her complete extrication from the meshes of doctrinal error and distress.

It can be gathered from her writings, about this time, that the salutary change proceeded not out of complaisance to the lover, but by reception of a fulness of light from heaven. Clearness, zeal, and love mark her Meditations and Disquisitions on the Holy Trinity; the Godhead and Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ; the Personality and Work of the Holy Spirit.

Another epoch in the girlhood of this remarkable young lady was the engagement, somewhat previously, of her mind in the controversy between the Church and Nonconformity. Here she had ample opportunity of being well-informed, for her father's house was the resort of many able men on both sides of the question. The result was that, with all due respect toward her beloved parent, she, renounced his ecclesiastical views and attached herself to the Established Church. "I was educated among the Dissenters," she writes, "and because there was something remarkable in my leaving them at so early an age, not being full thirteen, I had drawn up an account of the whole transaction, under which I had included the main of the controversy between them and the Established Church as far as it had come to my knowledge." Clearly, Susanna Wesley is not to be considered as having merely accepted the ecclesiastical situation, turning "Churchwoman" by marriage.

III.

MARRIAGE

Dr. Annesley's daughters were remarkable for their personal beauty, and from all accounts it would seem that the subject of this narrative shared this "dower." She was of average stature and slight frame.

"Some time, late in 1689 or early in 1690," Susanna Annesley was married to Samuel Wesley. Mr. Wesley was at that time a curate at a salary of £30 a year, and with his newly-wedded wife, took lodgings in London till the autumn of 1690, when he received the living of South Ormsby, in Lincolnshire, through the presentation of the Marquis of Normanby.

While exercising, in his pastoral duties, a diligence and faithfulness such as to put him for the most part above censure, the young husband toiled hard in literary work for the support of his household, and by various publications of a theological character in verse and prose—at one time a metrical Life of Christ, at another a treatise on The Hebrew Points, and chiefly by articles in Dunton's Athenian Oracle—he earned the means of keeping his family at least above distress.