PREFACE.
This life of Susanna Wesley, the mother of John Wesley the founder, and of Charles Wesley the poet, of Methodism, differs from previous ones in not being written from a sectarian nor even from an eminently religious point of view. Having been much associated with those who had been in familiar intercourse with Charles Wesley's widow and children, and having heard Susanna Wesley continually spoken of as a woman "who underwent and overcame" more difficulties than most, the ideal of her life early aroused my imagination. I was delighted with the opportunity of writing her memoir, and have done so with the sympathetic admiration natural to one in whose veins runs some of her blood, however much diluted.
I have done my best to reconcile dates, and give events and letters in their proper order; but it has been a somewhat difficult task, partly because the Old and New Styles have evidently been used indiscriminately, and partly on account of the habit of the family of making rough drafts as well as fair copies
