Scripture Verse

Introduction

Anecdote

Charles Wes­ley’s Jour­nal gives ma­ny glimps­es of that try­ing year when the Young Pre­tend­er en­tered Ed­in­burgh in tri­umph.

On Sep­tem­ber 6, he says, The night we passed in pray­er. I read them my hea­vy tid­ings out of the north. On Sun­day, Sep­tem­ber 18, the spir­it of sup­pli­ca­tion was giv­en us in the So­ci­ety for His Ma­jes­ty King George; and in strong faith, we asked his de­liv­er­ance from all his ene­mies and trou­bles.

On Sep­tem­ber 25, I heard the news con­firmed, of Ed­in­burgh be­ing ta­ken by the re­bels. Next day, Tid­ings came that Ge­ne­ral Cope was cut off with all his ar­my.

One who saw much of Bish­op He­ber in his last months in In­dia writes, “On re­tur­ning from church in the morn­ing I was so ill as to be ob­liged to go to bed, and, with his us­ual af­fec­tion­ate con­sid­er­ation, the bish­op came and sat the great­er part of the af­ter­noon with me.

“Our con­ver­sa­tion turned chief­ly on the bless­ed­ness of hea­ven, and the best means of pre­par­ing for its en­joy­ment. He re­peat­ed sev­er­al lines of an old hymn of Charles Wes­ley, which, he said, in spite of one or two ex­press­ions, he ad­mired as one of the most beau­ti­ful in our lang­uage for a rich and ele­vat­ed tone of de­vo­tion­al feel­ing—

Head of Thy church tri­um­phant,
We joy­ful­ly adore Thee.”

Telford, pp. 249–50