Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/117

 THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 105

in my hand when I began the hymn. Its composition occupied and gladdened a \vet Sunday in the November of 1868, and seldom have I spent a day so delightful.

Hymn 97. Come, let us join our cheerful songs. ISAAC WATTS, D.D. (3).

Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 1707. Headed Christ. Jesus, the Lamb of God, worshipped by all the creation, Rev. v. 11-13. Ver. 4 is omitted

Let all that dwell above the sky,

And air, and earth, and seas, Conspire to lift Thy glories high,

And speak Thine endless praise.

A dying sailor, who could not read, remembered the first two verses of this hymn, and as he repeated them to himself, the words slain for us laid hold of him. He turned them over in his mind till he saw the way of peace, and died in humble confidence in his Saviour.

Mrs. Samuel Evans quoted the second verse of this hymn as she was dying (see 164).

Hymn 98. Jesus ! the name high over all. CHARLES WESLEY (i).

Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1/49; Works, v. III. Headed After preaching (in a Church). It has twenty-two verses, and begins

Jesu, accept the grateful song,

My Wisdom and my Might, Tis Thou hast loosed the stammering tongue,

And taught my hands to fight.

The hymn is made up of verses 9, 10, 12, 13, 18, 22. Ver. 5 reads, His saving grace proclaim.

This hymn has stamped itself deep in the religious life of Methodism.

On August 6, 1744, Charles Wesley preached in Mr. Bennet s church at Laneast, in Cornwall. As he was speaking against their drunken revels, a person in the congregation contradicted and blasphemed. The preacher asked, Who is he that pleads for the devil? and one answered in those very words, I am he that pleads for the devil. He says, I took occasion from

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