Instantly, in a clear voice, the traveler sent ringing down the hills the glad response in his brother’s words:
“The promised land, from Pisgah’s top,
I now exult to see:
My hope is full, O glorious hope!
Of immortality.”
And then the two greatest little men in all England, John Wesley and Isaac Watts, met and talked together of the deep things of God.
How indebted we are to these two men for the enrichment of English hymnody! Watts sang of the majesty of God while Charles Wesley, the brother of the founder of Methodism, magnified the love of God, but all three were one in purpose. We join with Watts in singing, “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun,” and with the same enthusiasm we sing with Charles Wesley, “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.”
How profoundly Watts had influenced his contemporaries is seen in
John Wesley’s Last Hymn
The great evangelist had reached the age of eighty-eight and his passing hence was in a cloud of glory. Arnold Lunn thus describes it in his book John Wesley:[2] “The end was very beautiful. He lingered for three days, surrounded by those who loved him. No pain, only a growing sense of weakness, and a tranquil acceptance of the inevitable. He slept much and spoke little, but sometimes the dying flame flickered up, and the inner light which had changed the face of England glowed with its old intensity. On the afternoon before he died, he surprised his friends by bursting into song: