"Ah, whither should I go" is an eighteenth-century Lenten hymn written by the English hymnwriter Charles Wesley. It was first published in 1741 in his Hymns on God's Everlasting Love (No. 14), originally structured across sixteen eight-line stanzas.
In 1780, two separate centos were extracted from the original text for inclusion in A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists (the Wesleyan Hymn-Book), under the section titled "For mourners convinced of Sin." The first four stanzas formed an independent hymn retaining the original opening line, while stanzas fourteen through sixteen were compiled as a second hymn beginning with the line "Lo in Thy hand."
Although "Lo in Thy hand" was omitted from the revised edition of the Wesleyan Hymn-Book in 1875, both selections achieved widespread adoption across numerous collections throughout Great Britain and North America. The complete original text was preserved and reprinted in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley (1868 to 1872, Volume III, page 89).
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