WESLEY, CHARLES: One of the founders of Methodism; b. at Epworth (23 m. n.w. of Lincoln) Dec. 18, 1708, O. S. (Dec. 29, N. S.); d. in London Mar. 29, 1788. He was the son of Samuel Wesley, Sr., and brother of Charles Wesley (qq.v.). In childhood he declined an offer of adoption by a wealthy namesake in Ireland; and the person taken in his stead became an earl, and grandfather to the duke of Wellington. He was educated at Westminster School, London, under his brother Samuel, 1716; at St. Peter's College, Westminster, London, 1721; and at Christ Church, Oxford, 1726, where, with his brother John and one or two others, he received the nickname of "Methodist" in consequence of the method they employed in prayer and daily life. In 1735 he was ordained, and went with John Wesley to Georgia, returning 1736. May 21, 1738, he "experienced the witness of adoption," and at once joined his brother's evangelistic work, traveling much, and preaching with great zeal and success. He never held ecclesiastical preferment, and bore his share of the persecutions which beset the early Methodists. Apr. 8, 1749, he married Sarah Gwynne: by her he had eight children, two of whom became eminent musicians. John Wesley's expression, " his least praise was his talent for poetry," is unmeaning: whatever his other gifts and graces, it is because he was " the poet of Methodism "and one of the most gifted and voluminous of English hymn-writers that his fame and influence live. The Poetical Works of John arid Charles Wesley, as reprinted by the Wesleyan Conference (London, 1868-72), fill thirteen volumes, or near 6,000 pages. Of the original publications, the earlier ones bore the names of both brothers, but most were the work of Charles alone. While in the books of joint authorship it is not always possible to distinguish with absolute certainty between the two, it is generally agreed that John wrote only the translations (almost wholly from the German, some forty in all) and a
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the most choice and helpful devotional literature, and many of them seem to be wholly unaffected by the marked changes in religious thought and in the emphasis placed upon various doctrines. NonMethodists long suspected and shunned this poetry, and still need to exercise discrimination in making selections from it. Its author was given not only to extravagances of expression (which were sometimes pared down by his brother's severer taste), but to unrestrained and often violent emotion. Withal he is too fluent, too rhetorical; his mannerism at times involves a lack of simplicity; his "fatal facility of strong words" is a fault both literary and religious. Yet his intensely sincere and fervent piety, his intellectual strength and acuteness, his unmistakably high culture, and the matchless spontaneity of his eloquence, place him easily near the head of British sacred lyrista. No collection is complete-probably for a century none has been formed-without his hymns; and they are now perhaps more generally and widely used than of old. He is entitled to rank not merely as a hymnwriter, but among Christian poets. Many of his pieces which are not adapted to public worship, and very little known, possess much literary and human interest; his autobiographic and polemic verses, e.g., are probably unequaled. He cannot be adequately judged by his fragmentary appearances in the hymnals, not even by John Wesley's Collection for the Use of the People called Methodists (1780; supplement 1830); though that presents a considerable fraction of his writings, with much less abridgment and alteration than any other, and has nearly all the qualities claimed by its editor in his vigorous and memorable preface.
[A somewhat higher estimate than the above of the poetry and hymns of Charles Wesley is furnished by Canon Overton (Julian, Hymnology, p. 1258): "As a hymn-writer Charles Wesley was unique. He is said to have written . . . 6,500 hymns, and though . . in so vast a number some are of unequal merit, it is . . . marvelous how many there are which rise to the highest degree of excellence. His feelings on every occasion of importance . . . found their best expression in a hymn. . .
Nor must we forget his hymns for little children, a branch of sacred poetry in which the mantle of Dr. Watts seems to have fallen upon him . . . . The saying that a really good hymn is as rare an appearance as that of a comet is falsified by the work of Charles Wesley."]
Bibliography: Besides the preface to John Wesley's Collection for the Use of the People Called Methodists, ut sup, and The Early Journal of 193659, London, 1910, consult: T. Jackson, Life of Rev. Charles Wesley, 2 vols., London and New York, 1842 (the authoritative work); D. Creamer, Methodist Hymnology, New York, 1848; C. Adams, Memorials of Charles Wesley, ib. 1859; F. A. Archibald, Methodism and Literature, Cincinnati, 1883; S. W. Duffield, English Hymns, pp. 346-351, New York, 1887; J. Telford, Life of the Rev. Charles Wesley, enlarged ed., London, 1900; N. Smith, Hymns historically Famous, pp. 69-83, Chicago, 1901; Julian, Hymnology, pp. 726-729, 1255-66; the literature dealing with the early history of Methodists, and that under Wesley, John; and R. Green, The Works of John and Charles Wesley. A Bibliography containing an exact Account of all the Publications issued by the Wesley Brothers . . . in chronological Order, London, 1896,
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