CHARLES WESLEY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 December 1940, Page 6

CHARLES WESLEY

WRITER OF MANY HYMNS. O’ for a thousand tongues to sing,” this is tile first line of one of the most familiar hymns in the world, and it was written by one of the most remarkable of all men, Charles Wesley. Everyone knows his brother. Charles is not so well known, and yet it was probably his methodical ways at Oxford which earned the title Methodists for the great denominational revival of the 18th century. Moreover, it was Charles Wesley’s hymns which did much to kindle fervour in the first Methodists.

Charles, brother of John Wesley, was born at Epworth in Lincolnshire in 1707. He died at 81. We may think of him in his later years as a little man though strongly and sturdily built, always very ab-sent-minded, and so oblivious to what was going on round him (he was nearsighted) that he could read and study with a hubbub at his elbow. For over half his ..life he was for ever riding up and down England (as was his brother), and there has come down to us a picture of him in old age, wearing his winter suit in summer, and riding a little horse, grey with age. But it is as a composer and poet that he stands pre-eminent. Incredible though it may seen at first, Charles Wesley is believed to have written no less than 6,500 hymns. Over two hundred of them are in the Methodist hymn book, and there is no hymn book in Christianity which has not some of his hymns. They are sung in Methodist chapels and in great cathedrals. They are known in every continent. They are full of melody and a rich spiritual fervour, and they have swayed hundreds of thousands of people. Jesus, the name high over all”; “Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild;” “What Shall I Render to My God,” these are some of them; the author was a man with a great passion and a great mission. It may be truly said he taught the world to sing again. t