Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/86

 74 THE METHODIST HYMN-BOOK ILLUSTRATED

Hymn 41. The Lord Jehovah reigns. ISAAC WATTS, D.D. (3).

From Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 1709 (Book II. 169). It appeared in Wesley s Psalms and Hymns, 1738.

Mr. Taylor, in his Apostles of Fylde Methodism, gives an account of Martha Thompson, the first Methodist in Preston, who came as a servant to London, heard Wesley preach in Moorfields, and, when the service closed with this hymn, was thrown into a transport of joy. All day at her work she sang, And will this Sovereign King. Her master and mistress had her confined in a lunatic asylum. After some weeks she got a letter sent to Wesley, who soon procured her release and took her northwards behind him on a pillion till she found a carrier s cart to convey her to Preston. There she entered into business as a mantle-maker and milliner. She died in 1820, at the age of eighty-eight. Round her bed she gathered her children and grandchildren, and begged them to sing her hymn, And will this Sovereign King.

Hymn 42. Father of all ! whose powerful voice.

JOHN WESLEY (36).

Paraphrase of the Lord s Prayer. Works, ii. 335. Published in Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1742, in nine stanzas of eight lines. It was given in three parts in the Wesleyan hymn-book, 1780.

Dr. Julian says, This hymn is sometimes ascribed to John Wesley, but upon what authority we have been unable to ascertain. Mr. C. D. Hardcastle writes {Proceedings, Wesley Historical Society, ii. 8, p. 200), This hymn has been attri buted to John Wesley because he appended it to his sixth &quot; Sermon on the Mount,&quot; accompanied by the following note : &quot; I believe it will not be unacceptable to the serious reader to subjoin a paraphrase on the Lord s Prayer.&quot; He does not say he is the author, but in several other instances he appends hymns acknowledged to have been written by his brother to sermons and pamphlets without mentioning the author s name, thus complying with the agreement, said by Mr. S. Bradburn to have been made with his brother, not to distinguish their hymns. The paraphrase is supposed to be of a more classic

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