Composed at Little Britain in May 1738 alongside "Where shall my wondering soul begin?", this landmark hymn was written during the profound personal conversion experience of Charles Wesley. The intense spiritual struggles and ultimate conversion recorded in his diary during that week are directly reflected throughout its stanzas. It was first published in John Wesley's Psalms and Hymns (1738) and reprinted in Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739, p. 117) in six stanzas of six lines. When adopted into the 1780 Wesleyan Hymn Book as Number 201, the fifth stanza was omitted, an arrangement kept in the revised 1875 edition and subsequently adopted throughout global English hymnody.
Related Hymns
Hymns in the library connected to this dictionary topic.
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And Can It Be That I Should Gain?
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Love Divine, All Loves Excelling
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Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
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Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus
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Jesus, Lover of My Soul
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O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing
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A Charge to Keep I Have
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Christ the Lord is risen today
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