132 OUB HYMNS :
CHARLES WESLEY, M.A.
17081788.
THIS eminent member of the Wesley family, to whom by common consent has been assigned the appellation of " the bard of Methodism," was the third son of Samuel Wesley, sen., and five years younger than his brother John, the founder of the Wesleyan denomination. He was at first educated at Y^est- minster School, under his eldest brother Samuel ; and aftenvards proceeded to Oxford, where he graduated M.A.
His purpose was to remain in the capacity of a tutor at Ox ford ; but in 1735 he was prevailed upon to take orders and accompany his brother John as a missionary to Georgia. This was a colony in North America, intended for prisoners in this country who, having completed their time of imprisonment, found on their liberation no prospect in life. It was founded by General Oglethorpe, who took a deep interest in that class of sufferers. John and Charles Wesley went to the new colony as the missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gos pel in Foreign parts, and Charles became also secretary to the General. But, a siie could not work harmoniously with him, he returned to England in the year 1736.
Up to this time he does not appear to have been personally in the possession of what he afterwards saw to be vital godliness. Writing in his diary in 1760, he says, " Just twenty-two years ago, I received the first grain of faith," i.e., in the year 1738. The reading of Luther s " Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians" was of the greatest spiritual service to him. Leaving the unsatisfying methods of self-righteousness, he found the better way of justification by faith. It was during an illness that he thus found " saving health." The pious conversation of Peter Bohler, a Moravian minister, of whom he speaks in his diary, April 19, 1738, and who went to visit him during his illness at Oxford, was very helpful to him. And he speaks of
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