Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/209

 197

Some of the omitted verses are worth remembering for their quaint simplicity

Your grounds forsake, your oxen quit, Vour every earthly thought forget, Seek not the comforts of this life, Nor sell your Saviour for a wife.

Have me excused, why will ye say? Why will ye for damnation pray ? Have you excused from joy and peace ! Have you excused from happiness :

Excused from coming to a feast ! Excused from being Jesus guest ! From knowing now your sins forgiven, From tasting here the joys of heaven.

Excused, alas ! why should you be From health, and life, and liberty, From entering into glorious rest, From leaning on your Saviour s breast.

The Wesleys saw clearly that, should belief in a limited redemption spread in their Society, they would but labour in vain and spend their strength for nought. The mission of Thomas Coke more than a hundred years ago, the great city missions of our own time, the work of William Booth, of Hugh Price Hughes and Samuel F. Collier, would have been impossible had they not been able to say anywhere and to all, &quot;Sent by my Lord, on you I call. &quot; Dr. A. E. Gregory.

Jesse Lee, the evangelist of New England, introduced Methodism into Boston, Mass., in July, 1790. The churches were closed against him, but he borrowed a table from some one living near the common, took his stand under a great elm- tree, and began his service with this hymn. The tree was blown down in a storm, and in 1879 a chair made from its wood was presented to the Boston Methodist Preachers Meeting.

Hymn 271. Ho ! every one that thirsts, draw nigh ! CHARLES WESLEY (i).

Ify mns and Sacred Poems, 1 740 ; \Vorks t \.2QZ&amp;gt;. Isa.lv. Thirty- one verses. It is the first hymn in the volume.

Rev. Richard Green says this hymn is attributed to John Wesley, according to the almost universal testimony. No reason

�� �