| Charles Wesley (1707-1788) was never quite sure of his own birthday. It was after all, just before Christmas; he was his mother’s eighteenth child, born some weeks premature, so small and frail that he seemed |
|
| more dead than alive. For two months he neither cried nor opened his eyes. But he was quite sure of the date of what he called his ‘second birth’ – May 21, 1738. On that day he responded to the love and grace of God. He wrote this hymn a year later, ‘For the anniversary day of one’s conversion.’ According to Hymnary.org, this hymn has been published more than 1,700 times! | |
