A chance meeting with a Jesuit priest led naturally led to an exchange of comments about our work and interests. He explained that he was a Jesuit who spent half of each year teaching in a boy's school near London, and the other half year he spent reading, writing and studying. I talked about Greensboro College and the United Methodist Church. He quickly interrupted my conversation about the Methodists and said, "Ah yes, you Methodists. You have all the good tunes!"

Indeed we do have "good tunes," and it is no accident. The hymns of Charles Wesley are inseparably connected with the beginning of the Methodist renewal movement within the Anglican church in the 18th century. From the earliest days, Methodists have sung their faith. The study of Charles Wesley is the study of the formation of Christian faith.

Charles Wesley wrote over 9,000 poems and 180,000 lines. Over a ministry of 50 years that would require 10 lines of poetry a day. The poetry was so ingrained in him that nearly everything he had to say was expressed through poetry, not just religious subjects. He was a good poet, but he was at his best when his lines were sung to the right musical settings.

E. H. Sugden has claimed that, "The real embodiment of Methodist theology is the Methodist Hymnbook and especially Charles Wesley's hymns. Duke Professor Thomas Langford quotes Frank Baker in stating that Charles Wesley was the main theologian of the two brothers. He did not participate actively with his brother in the social mission so characteristic of the Methodists. He is not remembered as one who visited the sick, the poor, the imprisoned. Instead he seems to have been the connection with the small group of Methodists of the middle and upper class. He focused his energies in expressing the vision of their mission through poetry.

While traveling to North America to begin their work in Georgia, the Wesleys met Moravians who introduced them to a living and warm life of faith that deeply impressed them. This meeting provided the impetus for the development of their own hymnody as an expression of Wesleyan spirituality. Charles Wesley was the tireless composer of new hymns for the Methodist renewal movement. A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists, published in 1780, was the most important of these hymnbooks. Its structure traces the path of believers from the turning from sin, to conversion, to the life of faith. (It literally and musically followed John Wesley's "Plan of Salvation.") The Wesleys employed the hymn as a vehicle both to teach the faith and stir and express the depths of Christian experience in human spirit.

The Wesleys produced some 60 hymn books. Of all the hymn-books the most definitive is 1780, containing some 525 items. It is a spiritual biography. In the hymns of this book one can find the entire message of John Wesley to the thousands who listened to his sermons and read is writings.

"Ah, you Methodists. You have all the good tunes." Indeed we do!