MRS. WESLEY OUTSIDE OF HER FAMILY by Stephen Nelson Haskell

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 25, 1880

MRS. WESLEY OUTSIDE OF HER FAMILY.

By Stephen Nelson Haskell

BY ELD. S. N. HASKELL.

HISTORY affords but little information respecting Mrs. Wesley's influence and labors outside of her family, but sufficient to show that her interest and the watchful care were not wholly absorbed in it. To the management of her household, especially the training and education of her children, she gave her first attention, but even in the accomplishment of this, a breadth of thought and feeling is evinced which extended beyond the limits of the family circle. This principle, which led Mrs. Wesley to interest herself for the good of those around her, had a moulding influence upon her children, especially Charles and John, who, at an early age, possessed much of the missionary spirit and afterward transmitted the same to the denomination which they were instrumental in founding.

In a work on Methodism we find recorded the following sentence, which, in her own words, expresses the sentiments of Mrs. Wesley's heart: "If comparatively to despise and undervalue all the world contains, which is esteemed great, fair, or good; if earnestly and constantly to desire Thee—thy favor, thy acceptance, thyself—rather than any or all things thou hast created, be to love Thee—I do love Thee." It would be impossible for a heart, thus aglow with divine love, not to reach out after the salvation of all for whom Christ died. Love to God and man are inseparably blended together, and both will find expression in the lives of those who possess them, and so they did in Mrs. Wesley's life.

Abel Stevens, in his history of Methodism, records the fact of her having opened her doors, during her husband's absence, for public worship which she conducted herself. He says: "She read sermons, prayed, and conversed directly with the rustic assembly." That Mrs. Wesley was an active missionary in the community where she lived, this statement furnishes ample evidence.

A step of this kind, so far in advance of the time in which she lived, could only have been prompted by an acquaintance with the spiritual and moral condition and wants of the people, such as could not be obtained excepting by personally laboring among them. A person of her judgment and foresight would not have ventured to thus violate the customs of society and the church without seeing and feeling a necessity for it. Even her husband revolted at the novelty of the move and advised her to desist, or to compromise the matter by getting some one else to read the sermons. Her reply to him was as follows: "I chose the best and most awakening sermons we had. Last Sunday, I believe we had above two hundred hearers, and yet many went away for want of room. We banish all temporal concerns from our society;

none are suffered to mingle any discourse about them with our reading and singing. We keep close to the business of the day, and as soon as it is over they all go home. And where is the harm of this? As for your proposal of letting some other person read, alas! you do not consider what a people they are. I do not think one man among them could read a sermon without spelling a good part of it; and how would that edify the rest? Nor has any of our family a voice strong enough to be heard by such a number of people."

Very soon she assembled around her a larger assembly than had usually met at the church itself, and some of the leading parishioners, with her husband's curate, wrote to him against the assembly, which again called out a reply from her full of good sense and womanly feeling. She stated that the measure was reclaiming many of the common people from immorality; that it was filling the parish church; that some who had not attended the latter for years were now seen there, and prayed him to relieve her from the responsibility of ending these useful services by assuming it himself as her husband and pastor.

From this reply it is easy to judge of the motives which led to what, at that time, seemed a singular course of action. It was because she saw a work to be done and no one to do it, because she felt the needs of the people and longed to see them meet, that she engaged in the work herself. It was the languishing cause of God that stirred her soul and nerved her to action. No personal interest had she to plead in her defense, but the people were receiving benefit, and for their sake she would not cease her efforts unless upon her husband's responsibility. Zeal like this in the work of God will meet with divine approval, and efforts however feeble, if prompted by such motives will be accompanied with the blessing of God. His blessing will make much of little, and bring great results from feeble means.