Paper
Reflections
The Wesley brothers - Charles Wesley
PART TWO
In part one of this series I made some brief comments about the family that Charles Wesley was born into on 18th December 1707. Then I turned to focus on Samuel Wesley, Charles’ father. We noted that as well as being an ordained minister of the Church of England, Samuel was also something of a poet. It was from his father that Charles inherited his poetic gift. This, he went on to use with great effect in his writing of something like 7000 hymns.
But now, back to Charles and his early life. After being home schooled in his early years by Susanna, Charles transitioned to a public school, Westminster, the Westminster Abbey school in London. While there it is very likely he sang as part of the school choir in Westminster Abbey. The school in due course nominated him as a “King’s Scholar”, a top honour, and he became the head boy of the school. Clearly Charles made his mark and was highly thought of by staff and presumably pupils as well.
Charles then headed to Oxford where his older brother John was already a scholar. There, following in his father’s footsteps he studied classical languages and literature. However, Charles was not just interested in academic pursuits he was also keen to develop his Christian spirituality. This led him, along with some of his peers and his older brother John, to form a Bible study and prayer group. Other students nicknamed the group The Holy Club. This however was not simply a study and prayer group, practical Christianity was high on the agenda for the Holy Club. For Charles this resulted in a lifelong involvement in prison ministry. In his Journal he tells of ministering to prisoners on their way to execution. It wasn’t long before a new nickname emerged for the members of the Holy Club, they were now called “the Methodists”. This came about because the members of the group were seen to be very methodological in their approach both to the Bible and their mode of living.
A little over a hundred years later, in 1849, Thomas Jackson who wrote the introduction to the first volume of Charles Wesley Journal, describes the guiding principles adopted by members of the Holy Club as follows: Jackson says: “they adopted the purest rules of conduct; keeping a constant watch over their minds and hearts, and subjecting themselves at stated periods to the most searching scrutiny; that they might ascertain whether or not they had fulfilled their sacred vows, or had trifled with their engagements and responsibilities.” It was this, involving as it did the need to report to one another, that led both Charles and John to take up the practise of keeping a diary and later a journal. In these they recorded the events of each day and in Jacksons’ words ”their spiritual conflicts, victories, and failures”. Of course, neither Charles nor John in those early days ever considered the possibility that one day their journals would no longer be private documents but would become public and available to all. The years at the University of Oxford, from 1720 to 1724, were undoubtedly significant for Charles both academically and spiritually. At the end of his university career Charles Wesley graduated with an MA from Christ Church, Oxford.
Leaving Oxford behind Charles next travelled by ship to the Americas. A little background will be helpful here. Prior to Charles arriving, in the early 1730s, James Oglethorpe, a prominent English gentleman, who has been described as a ”visionary, social reformer, and military leader”, conceived of and implemented a plan to establish a colony in America. This was to become the , the colony of Georgia. In November 1732 Oglethorpe left England on the frigate Anne with a group of 114 potential settlers. The voyage took over two months. They landed at the site where the city of Savannah stands today, on February 1, 1733. Due to Oglethorpe’s vision, the original charter of this colony banned slavery and granted religious freedom. What is significant about this for our story is that Oglethorpe knew the Wesley family and had agreed to employ Charles as his secretary.
In 1735, the year following his completion of his MA degree, and just two years after the founding of the colony, Charles Wesley was ordained a deacon and priest. Within months of that he was on a ship to Georgia accompanied by his brother John. They arrived on March 9th, 1736. On the following Sunday Charles says “I preached with boldness, on singleness of intention, to about twenty people, among whom was Mr. Oglethorpe”.
Charles enthusiasm at the end of his first Sunday in Georgia soon wore off. The fact is that things did not go particularly well for Charles in Georgia, and were even worse for his brother John but that is another story. This led Charles to return to England after a mere eight months. The problem was that in Georgia, Charles, who appears to have been a more sensitive soul than John, experienced spiritual despair and physical exhaustion. There were at least three possible reasons for this:
1) While he respected Oglethorpe his relationship with his mentor and boss was rather up and down. On 24th March 1736 Charles wrote this in his Journal “I was enabled to pray earnestly for my enemies, particularly Mr Oglethorpe, who I now looked upon as the chief of them.” Note, this was a mere two weeks after landing in the colony!
2) In addition to his secretarial role, he was required to act as chaplain to the soldiers at Fort Frederica. Charles hadn't bargained on that.
3) At the same time, he was expected to minister to the settlers in Savannah. It all proved too much!
And so it was that on the 16th August 1736 Charles boarded a ship and headed back to England. If there was a positive note to come from his time in Georgia it was probably summed up in the words of James Oglethorpe’s wife who commented favourably about Charles’ “many sweet hymns”.
Charles “conversion” experience
Back in England, some twenty months were to pass before Charles and then John would experience what is often referred to as their respective “conversions”. Let me ask a question here. Is “conversion” the right word to describe their experience? Some Wesleyan scholars have argued that an assurance that God loved them might better describe their experience. The late Albert Outler, the American Methodist historian famed for his description of what he called the “Wesleyan quadrilateral”, says that John Wesley’s “Aldersgate” was Wesley’s “experience” of “Assurance”, an assurance that God really did love him! I suspect he would say the same regarding the experience of Charles. The account of Charles “conversion” or his experience of “assurance” that God loved him is less well known than John’s story. It happened like this. It was Sunday 21st May, 1738, Pentecost Sunday in the Christian calendar. At the time Charles, who was unwell was staying in the home of a friend, a Mr Bray. While resting there he heard a voice saying “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, arise, and believe, and thou shall be healed of all thy infirmities”. In fact, it was the voice of Mr Bray’s sister. In a dream she had felt herself commanded to say these words out loud. On hearing the words, Charles, though unwell, got out of bed, turned to his Bible and read from a Psalm the words “He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God”. Following this he wrote in his journal “I now found myself at peace with God, and rejoiced in the hope of loving Christ.” Three days later on May 24th brother John had his Aldersgate Street experience.
In an article about Charles, Timothy Dudley Smith who himself has written many hymns, reports that within two days of his “experience” Charles began to write a hymn about his “conversion” but “broke off for fear of pride”. However, others encouraged Charles to finish the hymn and apparently it was sung the next day in the company of his brother and some friends. What was that hymn? We can’t be absolutely certain. But Dudley Smith thinks it was most likely “Where Shall My Wondering Soul Begin?” It reads as follows:
Where shall my wondering soul begin?
How shall I all to heaven aspire?
A slave redeemed from death and sin,
A brand plucked from eternal fire,
How shall I equal triumphs raise,
And sing my great deliverer’s praise!
Harlots and publicans, and thieves!
He spreads His arms t’embrace you all;
Sinners alone His grace receives:
No need of him the righteous have,
He came the lost to seek and save.
Reflecting on this hymn J. E. Rattenbury, a prominent British Methodist in the first half of the 20thC, said: “No more strangely prophetic verses were ever written. How should this little sick man imagine, as he seems to have done, the men and women to whom he and his brother will in the future appeal? What likelihood that the voices of these High Anglicans should ever reach such people? No one yet had even imagined field preaching. That sick room must have been crowded with ghosts of the future as Charles Wesley penned the prelude to the great revival.”
It was not until March 1739 that John Wesley, encouraged by his good friend, George Whitefield, first preached in the open air. Consenting “to become more vile” as he put it! Two months later, on the 29th May Charles records in his Journal that “Franklyn, a farmer, invited me to preach in his field. I did so, to about five hundred, on, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” I returned to the house rejoicing.”