ASTONISHING PEOPLE

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13137, 11 September 1940, Page 2

ASTONISHING PEOPLE

WE SING HIS HYMNS TO-DAY “0, for a thousand tongues to sing,” this is the 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 18 th century. Moreover, it was Charges Wesley’s hymns which did much. to. kindle fervour in the first . Methodists. ! CharleSj 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 near-sighted) 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 seem. at first, Charles Wesley is believed to have written no less than 6,500 hymns. Oyer 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 gx-eat mission. It may be truly said he taught the world to sing again.