O for a thousand tongues to sing

O for a thousand tongues to sing. Charles Wesley* (1707-1788). This is a selection from a hymn of eighteen 4-line stanzas, first published in Hymns and Sacred Poems (1740) beginning ‘Glory to God, and praise, and love’ and entitled ‘For the Anniversary Day of one’s Conversion’. The title indicates the importance of the new ‘birthday’ for Charles Wesley: the hymn is thought to date from May 1739, a year after the ‘new birth’ of his conversion experience, when ‘my second, real, living life/ I then began to live’ (from the original stanza 3). A selection of stanzas (7-13, 15-18) was published by John Wesley* in his edition of Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1753), and from that point on the hymn...

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