Give to the winds thy fears

Give to the winds thy fears. Paul Gerhardt* (1607-1676), translated by John Wesley* (1703-1791). This is a free translation of part of Gerhardt’s ‘Befiehl du deine Wege’*. It followed the four 8-line stanzas of ‘Commit thou all thy griefs’*. Wesley’s translation was first printed in Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739). It was entitled ‘Trust in Providence. From the German.’ Subsequently it was often divided into two separate hymns, and sometimes printed as two parts of the same hymn, as in HP (1983). They were not included in A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People called Methodists (1780), but appeared in the Supplement of 1831 in eight 4-line stanzas. They remained in Methodist books...