Rite and Reason:Charles Wesley, a founder of Methodism and writer of some of the best-loved hymns, was born 300 years ago today. He spent quite some time in Ireland, writes Dudley Levistone Cooney
Charles Wesley was born to Susanna, wife of the Rev Samuel Wesley, in the rectory at Epworth in Lincolnshire, and was the youngest of their three sons to survive to adult life. Receiving his early education from his parents, Charles then went to Westminster school, rising to be head of school in his final year.
He followed his two brothers to Christ Church College, Oxford. Charles invited a number of his undergraduate friends to meet him regularly to study the Bible, and when his brother John, 3½ older, was recalled to his duties as a Fellow of Lincoln, his seniority and commanding personality made him the leader of the group.
Because of its systematic observance of the Prayer Book rules on worship, fasting and works of charity, the group was nicknamed Methodists by derisive undergraduates.
In 1735 John persuaded Charles to take holy orders, which John himself had done some years earlier, and the two went out to the new colony of Georgia in North America.
Having failed to establish their ideals there, they had returned to England by 1738.
On the way to America the brothers had met a party of Moravians who were travelling to the same place, and on their return to London made contact with another company of them who had settled there.
Under the influence of the Moravians, both John and Charles underwent transforming experiences in May 1738, Charles three days before John.
A year later the brothers began the work of forming a chain of religious societies within the Church of England. John, as the stronger personality as well as the elder, took the lead in this, but another factor was involved.
Charles had been born two months prematurely, and for two months had survived only by being wrapped in soft wool.
That he survived at all was a remarkable achievement, but it left him with a legacy of poor health that prevented his travelling as energetically as his brother.
John Wesley paid his first visit to Ireland in 1747, and had not long returned to England when the chapel that the Methodists were using in Dublin's Marlborough Street was attacked by a mob. In alarm John asked Charles to go to Ireland and try to restore confidence.
He did more than that. In the next two years he spent a total of eight months in this country and supervised the expansion of Methodism out of Dublin into the Irish midlands and south. He personally did some pioneering work in the small towns around Cork city.
From Kinsale he wrote wittily, "Rejoice with me, for I have found the sheep which was lost - and not one only, but a whole flock".
John continued to come here regularly until 1789, but after 1748 Charles did not return. He settled into happy domesticity.
On his first journey to Ireland he had stopped at the home of Marmaduke Gwynne in Wales, and there had met Gwynne's daughter Sarah.
They were married in 1749. Sally was 19 years younger than Charles, but such an age difference was not uncommon at the time. It was a very happy marriage, and they made their first home in Bristol.
Their first son John died of smallpox in infancy. They had seven more children, of whom three lived to mature life - Charles, Sally and Samuel. It was soon evident that each of the two boys was a musical genius, and to give their talents greater scope the family moved to London.
Charles died there in 1788 at the age of 81, and was buried in the churchyard at Marylebone.
Towards the end of his life Charles gradually withdrew from Methodist work.
He recognised that some of the actions of his brother John would inevitably lead to a separation of the Methodists from the Church of England.
Though they disagreed, the brothers never lost their warm affection for each other.
Charles Wesley is best remembered as a hymn writer. Among his hymns are Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, Love Divine, All Loves Excelling and And Can It Be That I Should Gain an Interest in the Saviour's Blood.
It was through them that the early Methodists learned their theology, the language of the verses being rich in biblical allusion.
Ernest Ker commented, "Charles Wesley at his second best is better than any other hymn writer at his best".
His poetic output ran to almost 9,000 poems. Some of these were nonsense written for children; some were political; more were literary; and most were religious. Critics have argued that much of his work could stand beside that of any lyrical poet in the English language.
Charles Wesley deserves to be better remembered as a poet and a theologian as well as a hymn writer.
He was born 300 years ago on this day, December 18th, 1707.
• Rev Dudley Levistone Cooney is a Methodist minister and historian