Additional Notes for Saturday, March 21st, 2026

273 St. Bees. Partners of a glorious hope

These words of Wesley’s (Note 105) were selected by an unknown editor, from a poem of one hundred and twenty-eight lines and four parts, in A Collection of Hymns for the use of the People called Methodists, as the Wesleyan Hymnal was still called, in 1877. This shows the composite nature of much good hymnody, where lines rearranged may make, as here, an excellent hymn. For Dykes, see Note 169. St. Bees appeared in Chope’s Congregational Hymn and Tune Book, 1892. In 1816 St. Bees College was founded on the coast of Cumberland and named for a nunnery started there in 650. There is a reference to it, in Scott’s Ivanhoe.

105 Dedham. Help us to help each other, Lord

There is something very beautiful in the story of the Wesley family. Divided in religious opinion though they were, they stated their ideas frankly, and continued faithfully to love one another. The eldest brother, Samuel, was of High Church associations and remonstrated with John and Charles when, through their Oxford experience, about 1730, they joined the group that was already known as Oxford Methodists, of whom John Wesley was to be the renowned leader.

Charles agreed with John in desire for a simpler form of worship and in his missionary zeal. But when John began to ordain his own clergymen, Charles disapproved. To the last he claimed membership in the Established Church of England. But he rendered to his brother’s work an immense service, in the hymns which came singing from his heart, straight to the hearts of the people. He found occasion for a hymn in every event of private or public life—his own conversion, his marriage, the earthquake panic, the defeat at Culloden, the Gordon riots, every festival and every doctrine of the church, countless Bible passages, and the experiences of all his friends!

Critics say that if we consider both the high quality of his work and its astonishing amount, Wesley is the most amazing hymn writer of them all. For he published four thousand hymns and left two thousand more in manuscript. For spontaneity and simplicity of feeling, a free outpouring of love to God and man, few hymnists equal him. He was also a great preacher, second only to his brother John.

The Wesley family claimed descent from the de Wellesleys, one of whom was made a thane (or baron) by Athelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great. Perhaps it was this sense of long homemaking in England which brought the brothers back from Georgia, in America, where they went in 1735, Charles as secretary to General Oglethorpe, the founder of that colony, and John to represent the missionary society. (See Note 336.)

The words here are from a hymn beginning, “Try us, O God, and search the ground of every sinful heart.”

The tune Dedham appeared anonymously in Gardiner’s Sacred Melodies from Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. William Gardiner (1770–1853), born in Leicester, England, traveled much on the Continent to seek out music and music makers. He was at Bonn for the unveiling of the Beethoven statue. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were there, and the young Englishman was asked to sign his name next to theirs on the parchment put into the base of the statue. Gardiner, indeed, claimed to have been the first to introduce the music of Beethoven into England.