Born at Epworth, Lincs., 29 Dec. 1707. At Westminster School, 1716–26. Matric. Ch. Ch., Oxford, 13 June, 1726; B.A., 1730; M.A., 1733. One of founders of “Methodist” Society at Oxford, 1730. Ordained Deacon and Priest, 1735. To Georgia, as Sec. to Gen. Oglethorpe, 1735. Returned to England, 1736. Active life as religious missionary in England, 1736–56. Married Sarah Gwynne, 8 April, 1749. Lived in Bristol, 1749–71; in London, 1771–88. Died, in London, 29 March, 1788. Buried in Marylebone Parish Churchyard. Works: His publications consist almost entirely of hymns; for the most part written with his brother John, and published anonymously, between 1744 and 1782. His “Hymns and Sacred Poems” (2 vols.) were pubd. in 1729; his “Sermons” (posthumously) in 1816; his “Journal” (2 vols.) in 1849. Life: by J. Telford, 1886.
Personal
We find and present Charles Wesley to be a person of ill-fame, a vagabond, and a common disturber of his Majesty’s peace, and we pray that he may be transported!
Persuaded two or three young scholars to accompany me, and to observe the method of study prescribed by the statutes of the university. This gained me the harmless nickname of Methodist.
Mr. Wesley was of a warm and lively disposition; of great frankness and integrity, and generous and steady in his friendships. His love of simplicity, and utter abhorrence of hypocrisy, and even of affectation in the professors of religion, made him sometimes appear severe on those who assumed a consequence, on account of their experience, or, were pert and forward in talking of themselves and others. These persons were sure of meeting with a reproof from him, which some, perhaps, might call precipitate and imprudent, though it was evidently founded on a knowledge of the human heart. In conversation he was pleasing, instructive, and cheerful; and his observations were often seasoned with wit and humor. His religion was genuine and unaffected. As a minister, he was familiarly acquainted with every part of divinity; and his mind was furnished with an uncommon knowledge of the Scriptures. His discourses from the pulpit were not dry and systematic, but flowed from the present views and feelings of his own mind. He had a remarkable talent of expressing the most important truths with simplicity and energy; and his discourses were sometimes truly apostolic, forcing conviction on the hearers in spite of the most determined opposition. As a husband, a father, and a friend, his character was amiable. Mrs. Wesley brought him five children, of whom two sons and a daughter are still living. The sons discovered a taste for music, and a fine musical ear, at an early period of infancy, which excited general amazement; and are now justly admired by the best judges for their talents in that pleasing art.
The character of Mr. Charles Wesley has been beautifully drawn by one of his daughters, in a letter to a friend. In speaking of some remarks made by a certain author in reference to her deceased father, she says: “Mr. Moore seems to think that my father preferred rest to going about doing good. He had a rising family, and considered it his duty to confine his labors to Bristol and London, where he labored most sedulously in ministerial affairs, and judged that it was incumbent upon him to watch over the youth of his sons, especially in a profession which nature so strongly pointed out, but which was peculiarly dangerous. He always said his brother was formed to lead, and he to follow. No one ever rejoiced more in another’s superiority, or was more willing to confess it. Mr. Moore’s statement of his absence of mind in his younger days is probably correct, as he was born impetuous, and ardent, and sincere. But what a change must have taken place when we were born! For his exactness in his accounts, in his manuscripts, in his bureau, &c., equalled my uncle’s. Not in his dress indeed; for my mother said, if she did not watch over him, he might have put on an old for a new coat, and marched out. Such was his power of abstraction, that he could read and compose with his children in the room, and visitors talking around him. He was nearly forty when he married, and had eight children, of whom we were the youngest. So kind and amiable a character in domestic life can scarcely be imagined. The tenderness he showed in every weakness, and the sympathy in every pain, would fill sheets to describe. But I am not writing his eulogy; only I must add, with so warm a temper, he never was heard to speak an angry word to a servant, or known to strike a child in anger,—and he knew no guile!”
In studying their biographies, one cannot well avoid the conclusion that though Charles was less aggressive than his brother, and though his fame, in part on this account, has been wholly overshadowed by that of the latter, his was the steadier and better rounded character of the two; and that to him their common success as religious leaders is largely due. Charles was the forerunner in the movement at Oxford, and again, though only by a few days, in his “conversion;” and above all, Charles was the hymn-writer of Methodism, and the influence of the service of song upon the Methodist movement it is almost impossible to exaggerate. Charles Wesley, it is said, wrote more than six thousand hymns; and though in this vast flux of words he sometimes—nay, often—“ran to emptins,” there are among his sacred songs some which appeal to people of every faith, and promise to live as long as Divine service is continued. The strong musical bias in his blood is shown in the fact that his son Samuel played on the organ at three, and composed an oratorio at eight.
Tender and sensitive, his family affections were strong; his warmth of temper never led him into angry heats; to his brother he looked up with a loving reverence, undisturbed by their differences. In defensive repartee he was as ready, though not so pungent, as his brother. He had no faculty for government. Though he had plenty of courage, he was swayed by conflicting feelings, with the result that his half-measures conveyed an impression of timidity.
Hymns
I do not at all desire to discourage your publication. But when you tell me you write, not for the critic, but for the Christian, it occurs to my mind that you might as well write for both; or in such a manner that the critic may, by your writing, be moved to turn Christian, rather than the Christian turn critic. I should be wanting, I fear, in speaking freely and friendly upon this matter, if I did not give it as my humble opinion that, before you publish, you might lay before some experienced Christian critics the design which you are upon. But I speak this with all submission. It is very likely that, in these matters, I may want a spur more than you want a bridle.
In these Hymns there is no doggerel, no botches, nothing put in to patch up the rhyme, no feeble expletives. Here is nothing turgid or bombast on the one hand, or low and creeping on the other. Here are no cant expressions, no words without meaning. Here are (allow me to say) but the purity, the strength, and the elegance of the English language, and at the same time the utmost simplicity and plainness, suited to every capacity.
I write this, my dear Mary, in a situation that would make your soul freeze with horror; it is on the last projecting point of rock of the “Land’s End,” upwards of two hundred feet perpendicular above the sea, which is raging and roaring most tremendously, threatening destruction to myself and the narrow point of rock on which I am now sitting. On my right hand is the Bristol Channel, and before me the vast Atlantic Ocean. There is not one inch of land, from the place on which my feet rest, to the vast American continent! This is the place, though probably not so far advanced on the tremendous cliff, where Charles Wesley composed those fine lines,—
| “Lo! on a narrow neck of land, | |
| Twixt two unbounded seas I stand,” etc. |
| “O God! my inmost soul convert, | |
| And deeply on my thoughtful heart | |
| Eternal things impress; | |
| Give me to feel their solemn weight, | |
| And tremble on the brink of fate, | |
| And wake to righteousness.” |
Next to Dr. Watts, as a hymn-writer, undoubtedly stands the Rev. Charles Wesley. He was probably the author of a greater number of compositions of this kind, with less variety of matter or manner, than any other man of genius that can be named.
It is as a writer of devotional poetry, that Mr. Charles Wesley will be permanently remembered, and that his name will live in the annals of the Church. In the composition of hymns adapted to Christian worship, he certainly has no equal in the English language, and is perhaps superior to every other uninspired man that ever lived. It does not appear, that any person beside himself, in any section of the universal Church, has either written so many hymns, or hymns of such surpassing excellence…. During the last fifty years few Collections of Hymns, designed for the use of evangelical congregations, whether belonging to the Established Church, or to the Dissenting bodies, have been made, without a considerable number of his compositions, which are admired in proportion as the people are spiritually-minded. His hymns are, therefore, extensively used in secret devotion, in family-worship, and in public religious assemblies. Every Sabbath day, myriads of voices are lifted up, and utter, in the hallowed strains which he has supplied, the feelings of penitence, of faith, of grateful love, and joyous hope, with which the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, has inspired them; and are thus in a course of training for the more perfect worship of heaven…. As long as the language in which they are written is understood, and enlightened piety is cherished, the hymns of this venerable man will be used as a handmaid to devotion.
Charles and John Wesley seemed to fulfill toward their great family of disciples the offices commonly assigned to Woman and Man. Charles had a narrower, tamer, less reasoning mind, but great sweetness, tenderness, facility and lyric flow. “When successful in effecting the spiritual good of the most abject, his feelings rose to rapture.” Soft pity fired his heart, and none seemed so near to him as the felon and the malefactor, because for none else was so much to be done. His habitual flow of sacred verse was like the course of a full fed stream.
No hymn-writer is more intellectual: none puts more doctrine, thought, solid mental pabulum, into his poems. And certainly none is more awakening and edifying; few others, in fact, approach him in native moral earnestness, force, fire; and none possesses a higher, purer, more consistent, uniform, and positive spirituality. How and why then does it happen, all this being so, that his writings are not more largely known, honored, and used?… It has been considered a difficult point to decide which is entitled to stand first among hymn-writers, Charles Wesley or Dr. Watts. The difficulty lies simply here, that Dr. Watts was merely a hymn-writer, and could and did, most naturally, put all his powers within the proper limits of a song suited to public worship. The only question to ask relative to anything of his is, is it good enough? Whereas twenty reasons may unfit Wesley’s poems for that use. If a piece of the Doctor’s is unfit to sing, it is probably unfit to read: not so with the other; for Wesley was a poet in a larger sense. Their relative claims as poets will soon be settled, by the good taste of competent judges, whenever Wesley’s poetry becomes sufficiently known. Dr. Watts’s confession that his rival’s “Wrestling Jacob” was worth all his own effusions, proves nothing but the modesty and generosity of the speaker; but there are other grounds for believing that Wesley excelled him in originality, variety, intensity, and elevation. Dr. Watts has been appreciated within the church at large; Charles Wesley has not. Let him not be judged further than as he is known. It is an easy task to compare our poet with the other more eminent hymnists. Doddridge and Steele are diluted reproductions of Dr. Watts. Montgomery, a professed and lifelong poet, is inferior to Wesley in all the qualities mentioned above, and in no respect above him in propriety, harmony, and grace of style. Heber, the most elegant and mellifluous of sacred poets, is not more polished and fluent than his Methodist predecessor; nor has he anything of his solidity, strength, and fire. Cowper is the greatest name in the hymn books; but Cowper’s best poems, which are very few, are but equal, not superior, to Wesley’s best, which are very many. Toplady approaches most nearly to the Methodist poet; but Toplady borrowed his inspiration from Wesley, and reproduced his style; and it is the Calvinist’s highest praise that his finest pieces are undistinguishable from those of his Arminian neighbor. No other names in British sacred lyric poetry can be mentioned with that of Charles Wesley; and when it is remembered that all these counted their poems by dozens or hundreds, while he by thousands; and that his thousands were in power, in elegance, in devotional and literary value above their few, we call him, yet more confidently, great among poets, and prince of English hymnists.
In Charles Wesley’s verses we trace the influence of his careful classical training, though this is less manifest than we might have expected…. Neither Wesley nor Watts has left any one great poem. Wesley will, perhaps, be judged to have best maintained his claim to the name of poet, but the question of which is the better hymn-writer must still, we think, be left undecided. Even the greatest admirers of Charles Wesley admit that Watts excels him in the sweeter flow of his numbers, and in those of his hymns which are designed to administer comfort to the afflicted.
I do not say that many of these songs possess much literary merit, but many of them are real lyrics; they have that essential element, song, in them. The following, [“Wrestling Jacob”,] however, is a very fine poem. That certain expressions in it may not seem offensive, it is necessary to keep the allegory of Jacob and the Angel in full view—even better in view, perhaps, than the writer does himself.
We love and honor Charles Wesley, not only as a hymn writer, but as a man and a preacher. He has made the church and the world forever his debtor. It is doubtful indeed whether the Methodist church could have been established, it certainly could not have grown and flourished as it has without his hymns. The author of “Jesus, lover of my soul,” “O, for a thousand tongues to sing,” “A charge to keep I have,” and others of this character, need have no fear of being eclipsed; nor should his friends and admirers betray any want of confidence in the justness of the claims they make in his behalf, by being over-sensitive at honors paid at another shrine.
Charles Wesley, with higher poetical gifts than his brother, produced several of the finest hymns known to the language. His “Jesus, lover of my soul,” has no equal in modern, perhaps in ancient, sacred song; and the poet has expressed in tuneful numbers the last aspiration of all undoubting faith.
Charles Wesley, a Christ-Church student, came to add sweetness to this sudden and startling light. He was the “sweet singer” of the movement. His hymns expressed the fiery conviction of its converts in lines so chaste and beautiful that its more extravagant features disappeared. The wild throes of hysteric enthusiasm passed into a passion for hymn-singing, and a new musical impulse was aroused in the people which gradually changed the face of public devotion throughout England.
What John Wesley said of Charles Wesley’s Hymns on the Nativity might well have been extended to many dozens. “Omit one or two of them and I will thank you. They are namby-pambical.” But Charles nevertheless had within him a poetic fervour, perhaps a scholar-like polish, which his brother wanted. These gifts showed themselves in the closer tenacity with which he clung to the Church of his fathers, and also gave to his hymns a literary character which redeems many of them from the pedestrian and argumentative style which disfigures so large a part of his own and his brother’s poems. Secondly, there is a redeeming quality in the subjects themselves round which hymns have clustered: although it is true that polemics and over-strained metaphors and sounding words are dangerous pitfalls, yet when a genuine religious soul strikes on one of the greater themes of religion, either touching the simpler emotions of the human heart or the more unquestionable doctrines of Christianity, is struck a spark which not unfrequently rises into true and lasting poetry.
It is as a hymn writer that the name of Charles Wesley will live, and live for long. It is said that he composed altogether above six thousand hymns. He was writing and publishing them almost to the day of his death. They are of all kinds, and for all occasions. He contributed the great majority of the hymns in the Wesleyan Collection. From the year 1741 onwards, he published very many volumes of hymns. Some are of remarkable excellence, and are justly popular with nearly all bodies of Christians. It is said that some were written on cards, as he rode on horseback. At times, he would hasten home, and rush for pen and ink, that he might put down the words which were burning within him.
Among our English hymnists, the Wesleys—Charles and John—shine as twin stars, and stars also of the first magnitude…. Charles composed the multitude of beautiful hymns that bear the name of Wesley. He at least equalled Watts, in the average excellence of his hymns; in these respects, he stands foremost among the priesthood of Christian minstrelsy.
It was Charles who sang the doctrines of the Methodists into the hearts of believers—and his evangelical fervor is such that he has made all Christendom his parish in a grander sense even than his administrative brother, John.
“Jesu, Lover of my Soul.” This is Charles Wesley’s masterpiece. “I would rather have written this hymn,” says Henry Ward Beecher, “than to have the fame of all the kings that ever sat on the earth…. That hymn will go on singing until the last trump brings forth the angel-band; and then, I think, it will mount up on some lip to the very presence of God.”… Round this hymn are gathering the delightful traditions which convert the driest facts into fascinating fairy tales. There is no end to the stories which good Methodists will tell you as to how this hymn has helped poor mortals in the hour and article of death. Shipwrecked captains read it before they perish in the deep. A mother and child lashed upon a spar float down the Channel, the poor woman lifts her feeble voice singing this hymn, and she is rescued. Passengers on board a steamer in the heart of a thunderstorm allay panic and prepare for death amid blinding sheets of flame and bursts of thunder by raising the familiar tune. Dr. Lyman Beecher dies listening to the first two lines as they were read to him by his wife. It is, they say, the finest heart hymn in the English language. As befits a poem so freely incrusted with traditions, it has a suitable legendary origin. It is said that “Charles Wesley was sitting at his desk when a bird pursued by a hawk flew into the open window. The baffled hawk did not dare to follow, and the poet took his pen and wrote this immortal song.”
Whatever subject disturbed the public mind, his prolific muse took up, and a hymn or a poem was the result. In 1749 a collection of hymns and sacred poems in two volumes was published, with the name of Charles Wesley alone as the author. Many thousand singing marvelously fervent descriptions of religious experience in every stage from conviction to the highest attainments of Christian life—the whole sustained by a framework of doctrine rigorously clear and logical in definition, expressed in vigorous English—produced an effect hardly second to that of the preaching. It was alike instructive and inspiring, afforded the materials for maintaining services in the absence of preachers, and attracted many to the meetings who would never have been drawn to hear any minister, however renowned.
Among the many services rendered by Charles Wesley to the cause of religion, his work as a hymn-writer stands pre-eminent. Exercising an hereditary gift, he had early written verses both in Latin and English, but the opening of the vein of his spiritual genius was a consequence of the inward crisis of Whit-Sunday, 1738. Two days later his hymn upon his conversion was written. He doubted at first whether he had done right in even showing it to a friend. The first collection of hymns issued by John Wesley (1737) contains nothing by Charles. From 1739 to 1746, the brothers issued eight collections in their joint names. Some difficulty has been felt in assigning to each his respective compositions. To John are usually given all translations from German originals, as it is doubtful whether Charles could read that language; and if this is not conclusive (as the originals might have been interpreted for him), a strong argument may be found in his constant inability to write on subjects proposed to him, and not spontaneously suggested by his own mind. All original hymns, not expressly claimed by John in his journals and other writings, are usually given to Charles. But it must be remembered that these were edited by John, who adapted his brother’s pieces for public use, both by omission and by combination. Charles Wesley’s untouched work is to be seen in publications issued in his sole name, and in posthumous prints from his manuscript.
The poet of the movement, the “sweet singer” of Methodism, was, there is no gainsaying, Charles Wesley. John might be—he was—a competent translator, a correct and elegant verse-writer. But Charles was more; he had flaming in him something of the true poetic fire. Himself familiar with the varied phases of Methodist experience he could describe with equal truth and equal sympathy the feelings of a weeping sinner and a rejoicing saint; and all the intermediate emotions were to him as A, B, C. Methodism, John Wesley defined as religion of the heart. Charles gave to the Methodist people a transfused and transfigured theology, theology rememberable as verse. Not didactic verse, though didaxis was in it, but verse that was passionate—perhaps too passionate…. If another criticism may be permitted, it is that many of Charles Wesley’s hymns are better adapted for private devotional study than for public worship. They are concerned with the fears and the failings, the hopes and the aspirations of the individual. No doubt, congregations are made up of individuals, but the individuals that make up congregations are not Wesleys, and it is undesirable that they should be asked to express, as I or me, what they probably do not feel and may not sympathise with.
General
As a hymnist, this author is widely famous, though either beyond or beneath his merit, according to sectarian accidents of creed and name; but as a poet, he is scarce heard of or suspected; for the critical world is yet but half-persuaded that a hymn can be poetry. To remedy this injustice, which lies alike on the fame of him departed, and on the living that are robbed of many a gem of sacred song, is in some degree attempted in this book: for it is believed that, whatever eccentricities of temper, habit, or opinion may have marred the Methodist preacher’s verses, there is in them the genuine fire, and that in such portion as has been bestowed on few that used the English tongue…. We should take the Methodist poet, as it is attempted to present him here: fairly, yet at his best; with appreciation, but discriminating; not allowing sympathy and admiration to run into blind worship, nor difference of creed to hide from us his merits and his uses. There does not exist in America or England that Christian Church, sect, or man, that can afford to forget his obligations to Charles Wesley; and we can acknowledge those obligations best by increasing them.
