1788
Death of Charles Wesley
Charles Wesley (1707-88) was one of the greatest contributors to Protestant hymnody in the English language and an able companion to his brother John’s evangelistic project.
The Wesley brothers were sons of a clergyman and attended Oxford University where their regular devotions and lives of service earned them and their friends the nicknames “Methodist” and “Holy Club”. After an abortive attempt to spread the gospel in the American colony of Georgia, Charles and John returned to London where they both underwent conversion experiences in 1738. While John would undertake a massive program of itinerant preaching, Charles settled in London where he would write most of his 6,000 hymns.
Among the most popular of his compositions were “Arise, My Soul, Arise”, “And Can It Be”, “Christ, the Lord, is Risen Today”, “Jesus, Lover of My Soul”, “Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending”, “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”. On Christmas morning, 1739 Wesley was walking to church when he was struck by the beauty of the ringing bells. He was thus inspired to create a piece which he called “For Christmas Day” and which began “Hark, how all the welkin rings” — welkin being an antique term for the heavens. Over the years, a number of authors including Wesley’s fellow-Methodist George Whitefield and Martin Madan revised the poem until it gradually assumed the form of the hymn we now know as “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”.