Hymns of this class have an important place in the story of the Methodist Revival, as well as in the Calvinistic controversy. The vehemence, the violence, with which the Wesleys asserted their doctrine was largely, if not entirely, due to their sense of what it meant to the vast crowds of neglected, ignorant, savage folk who listened with amazement to the messengers who proclaimed God’s love to them. Sinners, believe the gospel word, Jesus is come your souls to save! Jesus is come, your common Lord; Pardon ye all in Him may have, May now be saved, whoever will; This Man receiveth sinners still. See where the lame, the halt, the blind. The deaf, the dumb, the sick, the poor, Flock to the Friend of human kind, And freely all accept their cure; To whom doth He His help deny? Whom in His days of flesh pass by?[140] And again— O unexampled Love, O all-redeeming Grace! How freely didst Thou move To save a fallen race! What shall I do to make it known What Thou for all mankind hast done? O for a trumpet voice, On all the world to call! To bid their hearts rejoice In Him who died for all; For all my Lord was crucified, For all, for all my Saviour died![141] This was a new voice crying in the wilderness of dull religious mediocrity or of self-satisfied religious devotion, it was the clarion-cry of one that brought good tidings to the outcasts of Israel. 4. Hymns of the Methodist Evangel From the first the Methodists made their own experience the starting-point of their preaching. John Wesley desired no help from any who had not ‘the witness in himself.’ His itinerants must set to their seal that God is true. ‘We are witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost.’ This personal element, the testimony of the man who believed and therefore spoke, differentiated at once Methodist preaching from the cold impersonal moral essays of the parish church. But Methodist preaching would not have been what it was had John Wesley’s sermons rather than Charles Wesley’s hymns represented Methodism to the masses. John Wesley’s keen intellect held his deep religious fervour in check, but Charles took full advantage of the poet’s licence to say what was in his heart without reserve and without modifying explanations. His hymns of invitation strike a new note. There is nothing to compare with them in earlier hymn-writers, and comparatively little in later. They are the battle-songs of an open-air preacher, and are borne on the wings of the tempest that raged around the heroic little poet as he faced cheerily the rage or ridicule of the mob. His metres are bright and lilting, winning the ear of the simple and arresting the casual passer-by. The mercy I feel To others I show, I set to my seal That Jesus is true: Ye all may find favour Who come at His call, O come to my Saviour, His grace is for all!