Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/298

 286 THE METHODIST HYMN-BOOK ILLUSTRATED

Hymn 464. Light of the world, Thy beams I bless. CHARLES WESLEY (i).

Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1749; Works, v. 17. Hymns for Believers. The way of duty the way of safety. The hymn begins, Are there not in the labourer s day.

Verses r and 2 are taken from this hymn, verses 3-5 from But can it be, that I should prove, Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1 749, In Temptation. Hymn 13 (Works, iv. 479).

In ver. 3 the original reading is My Keeper be.

��Hymn 465. Worship, and thanks, and blessing.

CHARLES WESLEY (i).

Hymns for those that seek and those that have Redemption in the Blood of Jesus Christ, 1747 ; Works, iv. 237. Written after a deliverance in a tumult.

Two verses are omitted

5. Safe as devoted Peter

Betwixt the soldiers sleeping,

Like sheep we lay

To wolves a prey, Yet still in Jesu s keeping. Thou from the infernal Herod, And Jewish expectation,

Hast set us free :

All praise to Thee, O God of our salvation.

Ver. 3, cf. Milton

As on dry land, between two crystal walls, Awed by the rod of Moses so to stand Divided till his rescued gain their shore.

(Paradise Lost, xii. 1. 196-8.)

One of the fiercest riots Charles Wesley ever faced was that at Devizes in February, 1747. The Rev. John Meriton, a clergyman from the Isle of Man, who died in 1753 and spent his last years in accompanying and helping the Wesleys, was his companion. The mob surrounded the house where they were staying, broke the windows, tore down the shutters, blocked the

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