Wesley, Charles, has been called "the poet of Methodism," but this designation is too narrow for him. He might more properly be called the poet of Christendom, for the entire Christian world is indebted to him for many of its most valuable hymns. For the first place among English hymn writers he has never had but one competitor. Hymnologists have sometimes instituted a comparison between the hymns of Wesley and those of Watts. Some have given the preference to one, and some to the other. We must remember that these men were not rivals. They were too good, too great, and too unlike to be antagonists. They were both princes--aye, kings--of song, but each in his own realm. Watts's great theme was divine majesty, and no one approaches him in excellence upon this subject. Wesley's grandest theme was love--the love of God--and here he had no rival. Charles Wesley was born in Epworth, England, December 18, 1707. He was educated at Westminster School and Oxford University, where he took his degree in 1728. It was while a student at Christ Church College that Wesley and a few associates, by strict attention to duty and exemplary conduct, won for themselves the derisive epithet of "Methodists." He was ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1735, and that same year he sailed with his brother John as a missionary to Georgia, but soon returned to England. He was not converted, according to his own statement, until Whitsunday, May 21, 1738. (See note under No. 1.) On that day he received a conscious knowledge of sins forgiven, and this event was the real beginning of his mission as the singer of Methodism. He tells his own experience beautifully in the hymn beginning:

Charles Wesley's hymns may be generally classified as follows: Hymns of Christian experience ("O for a thousand tongues to sing" is an example); invitation hymns (of which "Come, sinners, to the gospel feast" is a good specimen); sanctification hymns ("O for a heart to praise my God" is one of them); funeral hymns ("Rejoice for a brother deceased"); and hymns on the love of God, a subject on which he never became weary. "Wrestling Jacob" represents the last class. But it is preëminently in portraying the various phases of experimental religion--conviction of sin, penitence, saving faith, pardon, assurance, entire sanctification--that Charles Wesley is quite without a peer among hymn writers. His songs have been one of the most potent forces in Methodism since its organization. Nor was he a singer alone, but as an itinerant preacher he was a busy and earnest colaborer with his brother John. After his marriage, in 1749, his itinerant labors were largely restricted to London and Bristol. He died March 29, 1788. "After all," says Dr. John Julian, the greatest authority in English Hymnology, "it was Charles Wesley who was the great hymn writer of the Wesley family, and perhaps, taking quantity and quality into consideration, the great hymn writer of all ages." Of the six thousand and five hundred hymns by Charles Wesley (all of which were written after his conversion), this collection contains one hundred and twenty-one. (See page 451 for a complete list of the poetical publications of John and Charles Wesley.)