Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/382

 370 THE METHODIST HYMN-BOOK ILLUSTRATED

Hymn 691. Brethren in Christ, and well beloved.

CHARLES WESLEY (i).

Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1740; Works, i. 340. On the admis sion of any person into the Society. Two verses are omitted.

2. Scaped from the world, redeemed from sin,

By fiends pursued, by men abhorr d, Come in, poor fugitive, come in, And share the portion of thy Lord.

8. In part we only know Thee here,

But wait Thy coming from above : And I shall then behold Thee near, And I shall all be lost in love.

The hymn begins Brother in Christ. The change to the plural in all the verses was made for the 1831 Supplement to the Methodist hymn-book.

Such a hymn promises to be more and more useful as the service for the reception of new members gains greater hold on Methodism.

Hymn 692. Thou God of truth and love.

CHARLES WESLEY (i).

Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1749; Works, v. 422. Hymns for Christian Friends, No. 13. The last verse is omitted.

On September u, 1803, Jabez Bunting, then a young London minister of twenty-four, returned home one Sunday evening after a hard day s work in the Borough and at Rother- hithe. His superintendent, Joseph Taylor, arrived a little later, and said it had been the hardest day s work he had performed since he left Cornwall many years before. They tried to rouse each other by singing, O may Thy Spirit seal, to Beaumont s tune, which was a favpurite with them both, but had not strength enough to finish the verse ; so they gave it up and began to talk about Macclesfield.

James Smetham writes, February u, 1872, For a long time past I have seen into a something most wondrous, in what

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