Charles Wesley wrote six thousand Christian hymns, but this is arguably his best known. Composed in 1738, he often worked in collaboration with his older brother, John, while they were both studying at Oxford. As part of a study group called The Holy Club, they were known to approach prayer, hymn writing and Bible study in an extremely methodical manner. As a result, their classmates […]
The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) was as long and as agonizing as it sounds. Martin Rinkart, a Lutheran minister, spent a good part of it in the walled city of Eilenburg, Saxony, where he wrote this hymn (circa 1636) amidst great distress and destruction. The walls did little good; armies had overrun the city three times, and pestilence, famine and overcrowding added to the pain […]