CHARLES WESLEY, A BIOGRAPHY
By Gary Best
Epworth Press. 390 pages. £19.99
ISBN 978-071-6-2061-56
December 18 is the tercentenary of the birth of probably the greatest English hymn writer, Charles Wesley. This book is the first major biographical study for 150 years. Charles has laboured under the enduring shadow of his famous brother, John, who he affectionately knew as Jack!
This is a thorough-going, well-researched treatment of his life, background, times and ministry as a major figure of the great 18th-century Evangelical Awakening, alongside his brother and the illustrious George Whitefield. To those who have read Dallimore’s Heart set free, it will take them into areas hitherto undiscovered. I have been a lifelong lover of the seraphic Wesley since first singing, ‘O for a thousand tongues’, ‘And can it be…’ and ‘Love divine, all loves excelling’. I have explored the thousands of other hymns he wrote which have now largely been forgotten… he was surely the Shakespeare of the English hymn.
