THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 287
door with a wagon. Next day they poured water on the house with a hose. A constable carried this off, but they obtained the larger engine, flooded the rooms, and destroyed the furni ture. The mob untiled the roof that they might get hold of the Methodist preacher. At last the friends mounted their horses, and were escorted out of the town by the constable and his posse. We rode a slow pace up the street, the whole multitude pouring along on both sides, and attending us with loud acclamations. Such fierceness and diabolical malice I have not seen in human faces. We felt great peace and acquiescence in the honour done us, while the whole town were spectators of our march. When they reached Wrexal, We joined in hearty praises to our Deliverer, singing the hymn, " Worship, and thanks, and blessing," &.c. The hymn implies that it was written before this visit to Devizes. Mr. W. C. Sheldon {Proceedings of Wesley Historical Society, vol. iv. p. 57) makes out a strong case for the composition of the hymn at Walsall after the riots of October 20, 1743, when John Wesley was dragged about for three hours by the mobs of three towns. Charles Wesley welcomed him to Nottingham next clay. My brother came, delivered out of the mouth of the lion. He looked like a soldier of Christ. His clothes were torn to tatters. Charles Wesley visited the scene of the riot on the 25th, and Mr. Sheldon thinks, from a comparison between his y<7r<z/ and the hymn, that this was the moment of its birth. The riots at St. Ives in the previous July may have helped to shape the hymn.
Hymn 466. A safe stronghold our God is still.
MARTIN LUTHER (173) ; translated by THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881).
Heine says, A battle-hymn was this defiant song with which he and his comrades entered Worms [April 16, 1521]. The old cathedral trembled at these new notes, and the ravens were startled in their hidden nests in the towers. This hymn, the Marseillaise Hymn of the Reformation, has preserved its potent spell even to our days, and we may yet soon use again in similar conflicts the same mailed words. It was first printed in 1529, entitled Der 46 Psalm. Deus noster refugium et virtus. It may have been written for the Diet of Speyer (April,
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