“Love’s redeeming work is done
Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won,
Alleluia!”
Friday, July 23, 1742, John Wesley was with his beloved mother. “Her look was calm and serene,” said he, “and her eyes fixed upward, while we commended her soul to God. Soon the soul was set at liberty. There was no struggle. Those present then stood round the bed, and fulfilled her last request, uttered a little while before she lost her speech, ‘Children, as soon as I am released, sing a psalm of praise to God.’”
The passion-tide and an Easter message is summed up in the undying words of one of the singing sons of that honored mother which the family and friends of Grace Beaven sang on that Easter Monday soon after, being released from suffering, she joined the great multitude of the singing company in the celestial city.
What other hymn has such a triumphant climax?
“Made like Him, like Him we rise,
Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies,