Today in Language: Charles Wesley

I would count Charles Wesley among my top five favorite hymn writers, and he's probably even in the top two or three.

Last week I sung a Wesley hymn I had never heard before (at least as far as I could remember, and my memory is no guarantee). It was a short song titled "A Charge to Keep I Have." One could find things to disagree with theologically in certain verses, but here is one verse in particular that I really like: 

To serve the present age,
My calling to fulfill:
O may it all my powers engage
To do my Master’s will!

That juxtapositions well with the preceding verse, which is also appropriate in light of the fact that Wesley died on March 29, 1788. He no doubt had death and the next life in mind when he penned these lines:

A charge to keep I have,
A God to glorify,
A never-dying soul to save,
And fit it for the sky.