8. Come Thou Almighty King
Charles Wesley, 1707-88
This hymn of praise and prayer is widely used in all branches of the Christian church in the English speaking world and has been translated into many foreign languages. It has been generally attributed to Charles Wesley, the great “Bard of Methodism,” but the authorship is uncertain. The hymn appeared as the first of only two selections in a small booklet published by John Wesley about 1757. The second hymn was by Charles Wesley and was entitled, “The Backslider.” “Come, Thou Almighty King,” with the title, “An Hymn to the Trinity,” did not bear the name of Charles Wesley, and it appears nowhere in his collected works. No one can be certain, therefore, of the authorship or date of its writing. Like all good hymns, it rises above time or personal circumstance and expresses for all Christians their feeling of praise and adoration of God. It was originally sung to the tune, “God Save the King,” the hymn following the same metrical pattern as the British National Anthem and our own “America.”
MUSIC. ITALIAN HYMN, also called “Trinity,” and “Moscow,” is one of our most famous hymn tunes and deserves its renown. It was composed for this hymn by Felice de Giardini, 1716-1796, an Italian violinist, who spent many years in England and ranked among the top-notch artists and teachers of violin in Europe. Though a great artist, he was a capricious and peevish personality, had few friends and many enemies, was a poor business manager, and died in poverty and distress in the city of Moscow where he had gone to better his fortune and failed.