Thought for the week: Inspiration for hymn writer Charles Wesley in Co Down
The enduring legacy of 18th century evangelist Charles Wesley upon the Christian church has come not so much from his preaching but from his hymn writing.
In all, he penned some 6,500 hymns, including some of the most familiar hymns that are still regularly sung in Church services.
Hymns such as ‘And can it be that I should gain’, and ‘Hark! The Herald Angels sing’. But one of his greatest hymns was inspired by events that took place in his life during a visit to Ulster.
Charles was preaching in the open air near to Killyleagh, Co Down when he was attacked by a mob that was not sympathetic to the Gospel message. As a result, he had to run for his life, and take refuge in a nearby farmyard.
It was with very little time to spare that Mrs Jane Moore, wife of a local farmer, hid the evangelist in the milkhouse, because just a few moments later Wesley’s persecutors arrived at her door.
Mrs Moore tried to detain these men in her home by providing them with refreshments, but she was afraid they would search the farmyard and find Mr Wesley.
So, she went out to the milkhouse to get a cold drink for the band of men, but also to warn Charles that he needed to climb through the back window and hide under the hedge. He immediately responded to the warning and found some branches overhanging a stream with a pool, which afforded him a pleasant place of hiding.
As Charles waited for the mob to give up their search for him, he considered his circumstances, especially how he had to flee for refuge, and it made him think of what Christ had done for him in the Salvation. So just there under the hedge outside Killyleagh, Co Down he pulled out his notebook and pencil and wrote down the verses of that tremendous hymn - ‘Jesus, Lover of my soul, Let me to thy Bosom fly’.
George Duffield who wrote, ‘Stand up, Stand up for Jesus’ said of this hymn by Charles Wesley: “If there is anything of Christian experience, of joy and sorrow, of affliction and prosperity, of life and death – that hymn truly is the hymn of the ages”.
Just consider the opening line of the hymn: ‘Jesus, Lover of my soul’. What a truth! The Lord Jesus loves your soul and died to save it. It was the truth of God’s love for them personally that brought Stanley Arnot, the missionary to Africa, and William Tyndale, the Bible translator to Christ in salvation.
May that great truth also touch your heart today, so that you turn for your sins and flee to Christ for salvation.