And blasphemies are turned to praise.'
Twenty-five thousand persons! and it is said he was able to make everyone hear his words; wonderful, whether we think of the acoustical properties of the church itself, the attentiveness the preacher could command, or the marvellous strength, the clearness and fulness of his voice.
Of all the helpers from whom Wesley derived assistance essential to the carrying on his work, his brother Charles was the most providential. He was a narrow ecclesiastic, and often troublesome, but he did good service. Much as Wesley loved the service of the Church of England, it was utterly impossible to employ it in the work he set himself to perform; but it has been felt again and again, whether it has been expressed or not, that a religious service without liturgies is impossible. People may disclaim and disown the word liturgy, and substitute for it psalms and hymns, the fact remains the same; psalms and hymns are liturgies in rhyme—liturgies sung instead of said. Congregations need to be held together; the voice of a solitary soul is not enough for religious purposes, and especially for the pressure of overwrought emotions; multitudes require something more than a mere monologue. Wesley arose at a time when that popular and united form of worship, the hymn, had but just ceased to be regarded as an innovation. There were Churches in London—Maze Pond, for instance—which had divided upon the question of singing, and the unmusical members went off, and formed a community of their own, undistracted by notes of song. Watts had only just published some of his psalms and hymns, when Wesley came down among the people and began to move to and fro amongst his congregations. The want of simple forms of prayer and praise was soon felt. No doubt his recent acquaintance with the Moravians had given him invaluable suggestions, of which he was prepared to avail himself. Amidst much which was worse than foolish, the Moravians had, as he knew, many inspiring psalms, and a far greater variety of metre than English devotional verse had heretofore employed. Some of the most magnificent hymns in the Wesleyan collection are Wesley's translations from Zinzendorf and other German psalmists; but the fulness and splendour of Wesleyan psalmody was developed by Charles Wesley. His hymns have been the liturgies of Methodism, the creeds of that Church have been embodied in them, they have formed its collects, and enshrined its loftiest bursts of devotional ardour. What sentiment of Christian experience is there which does not find an utterance in them? What phase of Methodist faith is there which is not translated into some of these verses? In preparing the hymn-book, indeed, a great number of Watts's hymns were included, and included not only without any acknowledgment, but the preface, from the pen of John, claims for the Wesleys all the hymns in the volume. In this condition the hymn-book remains to this day, and we have often conversed with Methodists who have stoutly maintained that certain hymns in the volume legitimately belong to it, although published by Watts years before its compilation. This, however, in no way interferes with the estimate we have to form of these sacred lyrics; of course, the Methodist estimate of them is that they are the highest achievements of sacred song. That which we are constantly using, and which touches our affections becomes supremely precious and dear to us. They are all eminently experimental; they seem to have been constructed for the class-meeting and band-meeting; they are especially conjubilant, hymns well calculated to excite and stir, and carry aloft the feelings of the people; and they have become—they very soon became—the voices of the Church.
Wesley, in his reformation, soon commenced the work of reforming the singing. Throughout his life and labours he often remarks upon the questionable psalmody by which he was greeted; thus at Warrington, he says:—
'I put a stop to a bad custom which was creeping in here; a few men, who had fine voices, sang a psalm which no one knew, in a tune fit for an opera, wherein three, four, or five persons sung different words at the same time; what an insult to common sense! what a burlesque upon public worship! no custom can excuse such a mixture of profanity and absurdity.'
Elsewhere he says,—
'Beware of formality in singing, or it will creep upon us unawares; is it not creeping in already by those complex tunes which it is scarce possible to sing with devotion? Such is the long quavering "Hallelujah," and next, the morning song tune, which I defy any man living to sing devoutly, the repeating the same words so often, especially while another repeats different words, shocks all common sense, brings in dead formality, and has no more religion in it than a Lancashire hornpipe.'
In harmony with the Hymns, he introduced tunes, which appropriately rendered the words, and were soon used throughout the whole communion; from one end of the country to the other these have echoed and rolled; few are the circumstances in which they have not awakened or sustained some thrilling emotion. They hailed the bridal party as it returned from the church singing,—
'We kindly help each other,
Till all shall wear the starry crown.'