66 66 most ceased to be a power in the land, and by his verse, this most prolific, most powerwhen the chill of an icy formalism rested ful, and most poetical of British hymn-wrieven on the pious. The hymns of the Wes-ters is comparatively unknown. The gloleys were written in the great Methodist re- rious reproach of Methodism" still attaches vival, and before the burst of spring had to his name; Dissenters and Presbyterians subsided into the glowing luxuriance of distrust the great Arminian poet; Churchsummer. They are the hymns of birth, not men sing his hymns in ignorance or distaste of burial, and of a nation "born in a day." of their authorship. In England, he is alThey are the hymns of a Gospel liberated, most solely known by 626 of his hymns pubof the Rock re-smitten, of the descent of the lished in the Collection of Hymns for the Comforter, of the Pentecost of the land. Use of the People called Methodists," put They are the utterances of an emancipated forth by his brother John in 1779. The Christianity, of a fully enlightened faith. various Methodist collections in the United They are hymns of the light and of the day, States contain about 800 of his hymns, and soaring sunward at once, on the pinions of not more than 100 of the whole are known a victorious faith. They are the monu- outside the pale of the Methodist societies. ment and the expression of the best day These are scattered throughout the innumerthat ever dawned for England. They throb able collections in England and America; with the pulse of the Great Awakening. and, except in a few compilations, the auThey are the spiritual autobiography of the thor's name is not attached. So little is leaders of the true English Reformation. this great poet studied, that thousands of persons have a general appreciation of him, who are unaware that he is the composer of about 7,000 hymns, 4,000 of which were published during his lifetime, and are to be found in thirty-one separate publications put forth between 1740 and 1785. Few of these have been reprinted, and only about a ninth of his hymns are accessible to any but the curious. The Wesleyan hymns may be regarded as the work of Charles Wesley, though they bear throughout the impress of the severe taste and vigorously applied pruning-knife of John. John, however, wrote a few original hymns, and, after his visit to the Moravian settlements, where he first learned the power of hymn-singing, he made some very successful translations from Gerhard, Tersteegen, Zinzendorf, and other evangelical German It is not on record that Charles Wesley hymnists. Among the best known of these showed any precocious poetical talent, or, are the imitation of Bernard's famous hymn, indeed, that he wrote any hymns at all, un"O sacred head once wounded," 66 Thou til he was twenty-nine. On his return, hidden love of God, whose height," "Com- gloomy and dissatisfied, from his unsuccessmit thou all thy griefs;" and the soul-stirr- ful mission to Georgia, his religious disquieing hymn, in which the recovered Gospel tude broke forth into the famous hymn for was bound up, "Jesus, Thy blood and midnight, "Fain would I leave the world righteousness. Among his original hymns, below," part of which, altered to a more none is so well known as, "Ho, every one hopeful tone, still stands in the English that thirsts, draw nigh;" but the less known Methodist Hymn-book. A few as defective one, "How happy is the pilgrim's lot!" followed, and then he appears to have hung is, perhaps, the first in poetic merit. There his harp on the willows for nearly a year. are many touching associations connected It was not till May 21, 1738, the date (as with the hymn, which has a great power of he believed) of his passing from death unto commending itself to the sad and friendless. life, that he took it down, and the full A simpleton, by repute an idiot, became en- tide of gladness burst forth in the hymn, Hightened on the subject of saving faith, and Where shall my wondering soul begin? for many years itinerated over the north of To his brother, at the same time, he adEngland, a simple, but successful preacher dressed the lines beginning, "What morn of the Gospel. He sang this hymn at every on thee with sweeter ray," entitled "Conhearth which gave him a night's shelter, and gratulation to a Friend on Believing in died repeating the last half of the last Christ," and a year later, "For the Anniversary of One's Conversion," he wrote the justly popular hymn," "O for a thousand tongues to sing," which strikes the key-note of the Methodist hymnody, and is the first hymn in the Methodist collection. It was a tide of song that never ebbed whose source was that well of water which springeth up unto everlasting life. From the hour in which he said for the first time, verse: "Now let the pilgrim's journey end: Now, O my Saviour, Brother, Friend, Receive me to Thy breast!" Charles Wesley's poetry is the richest, though the least explored region of English hymnody. Though he has enriched every hymn-book of every Christian denomination LIVING AGE. VOL. XIII. 518 66 n a stream 46 My Beloved is mine, and I am his," until | Yet a passage in his diary justifies that the day, half a century later, when, with strong expression. At Cork, where his latheswellings of Jordan" about his feet, bours were unusually popular, he writes, he dictated the lines, bright with the same "Wherever we go we are received as angels faith and hope, "In age and feebleness ex- of God. Were this to last I would escape treme," his facility of poetic expression for my life to America." Again, in the fanever failed. No man who has written so mous funeral hymn, Ah, lovely appearmuch ever wrote so well. 66 ance of death," the lines occur- The corpse when the spirit is fled, Like his brother, he was a man of strong individuality; he took nothing second-hand, and his style of thought and language is distinctively his own. He was a man of strong mind as well as strong emotions; a poet by Yet this was no mere rhapsody. The hymn nature; intensely spiritually-minded; his 13, 1744. We find the entry in his diary, "We were all in tears. I felt throughout my soul that I would rather be in his condition than enjoy the whole of created good. The spirit at its departure had left marks of happiness upon the clay. No sight upon earth is in my eyes half so lovely." For some phrases, such as— "On the wings of his love I was carried above All sin, and temptation, and pain," &c., he had no Scripture warrant, but there is no doubt that the temporary state of mind described was not only the experience of the poet, but of hundreds of his followers. soul more open to impressions from the was written after standing by the corpse of spiritual than from the material world. In a pious Methodist, who died at Cardiff, Aug. fact, with him the seen only suggested the unseen. He presented a rare combination of the true reformer's fire with tenderness and sensibilities seldom equalled. He had renounced self, and with it all that men most prize. His objects in life were personal holiness and successful evangelism. Highly cultured and exquisitely refined, his hymns with all their singular vigour have a finish about them which is surprising, considering the circumstances under which they were written. He was the most laborious of evangelists, the most locomotive of itinerant preachers. His hymns were composed on horseback, and jotted down as the animal jogged quietly along; in rambles by the The Wesleyan hymns are most peculiar; sea-side, at all times, and in all surround- their peripatetic composition, their autobiings. He rarely retouched anything heographical cast, their lofty spirituality, their wrote. Whatever revision his hymns underwent was owing to the severer taste of his brother. Yet under these disadvantageous circumstances his verses, though of very various merits, rarely sink below a high lit-religious; both had a singular capacity for erary standard. His rhymes never halt, and are never forced; he never descends to doggerel, and if he offends the taste of any, it is not by irreverent familiarity, sensuousness, or vulgarity. We must remember that he was emotional and excitable, and lived in a time of high religious pressure, and, above all, that his intense spirituality carried him aloft habitually into regions wherein most men never or rarely tread. Consequently some of his expressions appear to us extravagant and fanciful, while to him they were the utterance of honest convictions concerning spiritual realities. Among these are — intense life and practicality, and their high poetic merit, place them by themselves. Charles Wesley,like his brother John, was an intense believer. Both were naturally 66 receiving spiritual truth. Of this intense "Whosoever will, let him take of the waters | their hymn-books, "For Believers Reof life freely." It was with an earnestness joicing, Fighting, Praying, Watching, Workand directness arising from his own strong ing, Suffering, Seeking for full Redempconvictions that he occasionally cast aside tion," -any strangeness or unreality to poetic refinements, and apostrophized his hearers with singular plainness of speech. In Wales, one of the roughest audiences ever assembled was melted into tears, almost as one man, by the singing of the hymn, "Lovers of pleasure more than God," in which the bold verse occurs : "Outcasts of men, to you I call — Harlots, and publicans, and thieves! them. Indeed, it is rather to be supposed that the Christianity which smiles contempuously on these, is languid and effete rather than masculine, utterly falling short of that full stature of manhood in Christ to which C. Wesley had attained. It is not wonderful that a man who wrote so much and corrected so little, and to whom theological systems were second to personal holiness, should occasionally use phraseology which does not bear close analysis. In truth, the veriest dabbler in theology could Nor was the audience melted to tears pick flaws in the greatest of hymnists. Motes alone, but out of the thrilled and tumultuous in the sunbeam, one and all! Pitiable truly assemblage Christ rescued his own, many is the criticism which would maunder about of whom became preachers of righteousness. "Arminianism "* and "Patripassianism," Along with Luther and other Reformers, in presence of the thousands on whom spiritthe Wesleys believed in a personal devil. ual life has dawned by means of these Life to them was not a mere tournament, hymns, and of the tens of thousands whose but a real battle with the great adversary devotions they have kindled, and who have of man. The principalities and powers of made them their songs in the house of their darkness, marshalled by the prince of the pilgrimage! A follower of Wesley is still power of the air, were no myths of an apos- remembered in the west of England who tle's dream, but terrible realities; they warmly resented this species of criticism, stood prepared to fight unto the death with and who assailed the critics with sarcasms the world, the flesh, and the devil. How more effectual than his arguments. One C. Wesley fought and conquered is written Sunday morning, still remembered by the in his hymns. The Io peans of victory aged, he was lingering by the margin of a burst from his own heart. He was a man filthy pool just outside the Calvinist chapel, of whom it might be said emphatically, that and as the congregation came out, was aphis fellowship was with the Father and the parently absorbed in stirring up the stagSon. The lofty mysticism of his earlier nant water with a stick. What are you years had given place to a loftier spiritual looking for?" asked some of his antagolife, nurtured on intimate communion with nists, not without an uncomfortable susthe Father of spirits. If this sublime fel-picion that he had hit upon a new method lowship places some of his hymns beyond of controversy. "I am searching," he rethe comprehension of ordinary Christians, plied, without looking up, and still stirring there are babes in Christ, lowly and pure the mud, "I am searching for the eternal in heart, who tread the holy of holies with decrees." reverent feet, and enter in with the poet among the mysteries of things eternal and invisible. That wonderful hymn, "Come, O thou traveller unknown!" which many critics consider the finest in our language, and which Watts thought was worth all that he himself had ever written, is of this cast; so is, Thee, Jesus, Thee, the sinner's friend," with many others. But he wrote for a people whose experiences were something akin to his own. Were they not brands plucked out of the burning? Had they not passed "through infinite sorrow into infinite peace"? Did he groan in penitence, or rejoice in hope, or mourn 66 over Among the peculiar characteristics of Wesley's hymns, the following are specially remarkable. Deep penitence, and intense feeling of sin. Continual prayers for a more enlightened self-knowledge. An intense desire for personal holiness. A triumphant and aspiring faith. A longing to know "the glory of God." An exceeding consciousness of the indwelling love of God. *This remark applies only to that amount of "Arminianism" which appears in the hymns. It is doubtful whether the majority of readers have any Wesleys really was, so much has it been caricatured definite idea what the doctrinal teaching of the by their opponents, and exaggerated by some of their followers. A Calvinist writer, the Rev. J. C. backsliding, or aspire over perfection? istry of John Wesley," gives the following much Ryle, at the close of a vigorous sketch of" The minSo did they. Those whom Christ then res-needed advice-"I only say, before any one despises cued sang Wesley's hymns as their own ex- thoroughly understand what kind of doctrines he this great man because he was an Arminian, let him periences; nor had the quaint divisions of used to preach in England a hundred years ago." 66 19 6 All A strong belief in "the communion of tunity. I expressed the gratitude of my saints." A stimulating conviction of the heart in the following thanksgiving," presence of a God of absolute purity; and thanks be to God, who scatters abroad," a of the powers of the world to come." hymn so jubilant in word and measure as to There is not a feeling of the awakened sin-produce unbounded enthusiasm whenever ner or of the believer which has not its ex-it is sung. It was amidst the lonely granpression in these hymns; not a truth of the deurs of the Land's End that he wrote the Gospel which is not uttered in unfaltering sublime hymn, "Thou God of glorious tones. Of their influence in forming the majesty; " and on the same mysterious character of the Methodist societies, none spot, "Come Divine Immanuel, come." who have studied the past and present of His facility of composition was once put to Methodism can doubt. With regard to an almost ludicrous test on the same coast. "the communion of saints," a Christian He had just begun to sing a hymn in the privilege strongly insisted on by both midst of a gathering crowd, when some brothers, we have only to turn to the four sailors, half tipsy, attempted to drown his sections of Part V. of the Wesleyan hymn- voice by roaring the favourite song, book,-"For the Society Meeting, Giving Nancy Dawson." In the midst of the Thanks, Praying, Parting,". -to find one discordant contest between hymn and song, of the most successful modes of practically his quick ear caught the metre and air, and promoting social Christianity that the world he challenged them to come again, when he has seen. Here are the secret ties which would be there and sing a new song to their bind these fervent brotherhoods together in tune. When both arrived at the same the face of the world. If the Methodist so-place in the evening, Wesley sang the new cieties come nearer the ideal of a church hymn than other bodies, if they carry out more fully than others the social intentions of the Gespel, if, in truth, the joy or sorrow of the individual be a cause of joy or sorrow to the whole, next to the love of Christ, the bond of fellowship is none other than the social strains of C. Wesley. 66 The popularity of Wesley's hymns among the Methodists is greatly increased by the circumstances of their composition, and the associations connected with them. With marvellous facility he wove every incident into poetic meditation, and had a psalm" for every occasion of his long career. On going down to preach among the Newcastle colliers, the fires with which he saw them surrounded suggested the stirring hymn, "See how great a flame aspires!" Again, in the same neighbourhood, the sight of weary and eager multitudes thronging to hear the Gospel, inspired the fine hymn, "Who are these that come from far, Swifter than a flying cloud?" Preaching among the Portland stone quarries with such success, that "the rocks were broken and melted into tears on every side," he wrote the popular hymn, "Come, O Thou all-victorious Lord," with its vigorous allusion to "hearts of stone." In the great pit at Gwennap, where the seats of turf rose tier above tier like an ancient amphitheatre, the poet preached to 10,000 persons with a larger effusion of the Spirit than had ever before attended his ministry. and writes afterwards, "Seventy years of sufferings were overpaid by one such oppor 66 "Listed into the cause of sin, Why should good be evil?" to the time of "Nancy Dawson," and many who had accompanied the sailors "to scoff, remained to pray." In no hymns are C. Wesley's intense beliefs more apparent than in his funeral and judgment hymns. So long as a witness within ourselves testifies of a world to come, and men die, and mourners stand round open graves, so long will these retain their popularity and power. Perhaps it is not too much to say that the judgment hymn, "Thou God of glorious majesty," ranks in this class next to the Dies Ira, though its popularity will never be so great as that of " Lo, He comes with clouds descending," three stanzas of which are by C. Wesley. It is interesting to notice that Helmsley, the tune indissolubly linked to this hymn, was adapted to it by Olivers, the Welsh blacksmith, himself the composer of "The God of Abraham praise," one of the most sublime of Christian lyrics. This eminent man, before his conversion, was continually to be seen hanging about the margin of the open-air Methodist meetings, convulsed with weeping during the singing of Wesley's hymns. John Wesley was right in assigning a very high place to his brother's funeral hymns. They are songs, not dirges; thanksgivings for "the good fight foughten well," for the emancipation of the spirit, for the everlasting life. Fitting strains are they wherewith to escort the good soldier to the grave, to comfort mourners, and stimulate the living to holi Nothing is worth a thought beneath, That never, never dies? A mansion in the skies?" ness and zeal. No man knew better how or guilty dread," must stand before that to make use of the hope of "our gathering "bar severe." So, together unto Him." So he takes the very moment of Death's triumph, when dust meets dust, to celebrate Faith's final victory, when (to use his own beautiful words), "The church which suffers with Christ here, and the church which reigns with Him there, shall be gathered into one temple." Trained in the Church of England, and with his ear attuned to the simple majesty of her Liturgy, he had caught the spirit of her grand Communion chorus, "Therefore, with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven," &c., and this spirit nowhere beams more brightly than in his funeral hymns. In Cornwall, the paradise of Methodism, these particular hymns receive more worthy expression than elsewhere. The Cornish miners are distinguished for their strong religious instincts, and for the tenacity with which they have held fast the truth as received from the Wesleys. In many primitive districts they keep up the custom of their fathers, the evening funeral, and the singing of a hymn from the house of mourning to the grave. The joyous hymn to a spirit-stirring tune which is in general use on these occasions is, "Rejoice for a brother deceased," and fitly on its latest line falls like softer music, Christ's words of hope, "I am the resurrection and the life," with which the English burial-service opens, and at the close, the hymn, "Come let us join our friends above," is sung, as the crowd of mourners presses around the open grave. Alike above and under ground, on sea and land, in fishing-boats, forecastles, mines, and coal-pits, Wesley's hymns on Death, Judgment, and Heaven, are preaching the Gospel to the poor, and teaching men to live in the light of the future. His hymns on heaven have sometimes produced a thrilling effect on those who heard them for the first time. Some years ago, the recital of one them by the counsel in a murder case tried at Exeter, as having been the last words of a murdered girl, melted the judge, the bar, the jury, and the audience into tears. In the judgment hymns, C. Wesley uses the prospect of this "tremendous day" as the most powerful of all incentives to holiness. No room for mirth or trifling here," for "the inexoraable throne" is at hand. “The Judge is at the door." "The archangel's trump may sound any moment: this is enough to sober earthly joys," and fill "our cautioned souls" with "watchful care," for, "a point of time, a moment's space," and the unclothed soul, either "with holy joy This is the great question which humanity asks, and to it the Wesleys spent their lives in replying. There is hardly a hymn by Charles Wesley which does not contain the answer, stated with more or less of detail. And just because he was so real, and so thoroughly in earnest, his hymns He did not care to will live for evermore. adapt God's truth to man's reason or man's inclination, but he stood up between the living and the dead, with the tables of Sinai in one hand, and the pardon of Calvary in the other, and assaulted an arrogant scepticism and an icy formalism with these old-fashioned weapons, history tells us how successfully. There is nothing apologetic or faltering in any line he ever wrote. Some of his most beautiful hymns are found in Part III. of the "Methodist Hymn-Book," "For Mourners convinced of Sin," and for "Backsliders convinced; " and in Part IV., under the headings, “For Believers Fighting," and "Seeking for Full *The first lines of a few of the finest of the Wesrefer to the Methodist Hymn-Book: John Wesley: leys' hymns follow. Where figures are given, they "Jesu, behold the wise from far." "Jesu, Thy boundless love to me." "O God, of good th' unfathomed sea." "O Jesu, source of calm repose." "How happy is the pilgrim's lot!" "I thirst, Thou wounded Lamb of God." "Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness." "Commit thou all thy griefs," 613. Give to the winds thy fears." "O Thou to whose all-searching sight," 321. "Thou hidden love of God, whose height." Charles Wesley: "And have I measured half my days?" "A charge to keep I have," 306. And am I only born to die?" 47. "And did my Lord on earth endure?" "Come, let us join tre of our hopes Thou art," 478. our friends above," 664. "Come on, my partners in distress," 316. "Come, O Thou Traveller Unknown," " "Cen "Fain Father, to would I leave the world below," 151. are we!" 215. disclose Thy lovely face," 153. "O Love Divine, "When |