Samuel Wesley

Samuel Wesley

It was on April 25 in 1735 that Samuel Wesley, father of John, Charles and other siblings, died.  He was rector of Epworth Parish in Britain.  His father was a nonconformist minister, but Samuel came into the Church of England after he graduated from Exeter College, Oxford.  The church ordained him priest in 1689.  He married Susannah Annesley during his time as a London parish curate.  The couple had 19 children, ten of whom survived their infancy.  He was a High Churchman who recommended the monthly celebration of the Eucharist rather than quarterly.  He urged that parishioners offer their children for baptism publicly rather than privately.  He supported the use of contemporary hymns rather than the “Old Version” Psalter that congregations commonly used in those days.

He was a poet of some note in his day, and he wrote a widely-acclaimed scholarly work on the Book of Job.

While rector of Epworth he ran into continual frustrations.   Parishioners were suspects in the starting of a rectory fire in 1709.  Onlookers spotted John in an upstairs window after everyone else had evacuated the house.  There was no point of entry, and so people formed a human pyramid in order to rescue the child.

Samuel’s response after the delivering of the child, “Let us give thanks to God!  He has given me all my eight children; Let the house go, I am rich enough.”