We can suppose the melody to which it was sung to have been very rude; but it was, perhaps, new to the people, and the preacher was affected as he saw how, over the congregation, the people were singing earnestly, and melted to tears while they sang; and at the close of the service many old people gathered round Doddridge, their hearts all alive with the hymn, and they wished it were possible, only for once, to look upon the face of the dear old Dr. Watts. Doddridge was so pleased that he thought his old friend would be pleased also, and so he wrote the account of the little incident in a letter to him. In many other parts of the country, no doubt, the people were waiting and wishful for popular sacred harmonies. And when the Great Revival came, and congregations met by thousands, and multitudes who had been accustomed to song, thoughtless, foolish, very often sinful and licentious, still needed to sing (for song and human nature are inseparable, apparently, so far as we know anything about it, in the next world as well as in this), it was necessary that, as they had been “brought up out of the horrible pit and miry clay,” “a new song of praise” should be put in the mouth. John Wesley had heard much of Moravian singing. He took Count Zinzendorf’s hymns, translated them, and immensely improved them; he was the first who introduced into our psalmody the noble words of Paul Gerhardt. Some of the finest of all the hymns in the Wesleyan collection are these translations. Watts was unsparingly used. Wesley’s first effort to meet this necessity of the Revival was the publication of his collection in 1739.[9] And thus, most likely without knowing the anecdote of Luther we have quoted above, Wesley and his coadjutors did exactly what the Reformer had done. They gave effect to the Revival by the ordinance of song, and preached the Gospel in sweet words, and often recurring Gospel refrains. Footnote 9: See Appendix.