John Wesley inveighed against “hymn-cobblers,” but he was a most efficient and skillful “hymn-cobbler” himself. He deserves high commendation for his literary skill and taste in cutting the rough diamonds that passed through his editorial hands. A few instances will illustrate his success. “Before Jehovah’s awful throne” is recognized as one of Watts’ noblest hymns of worship. But it is Wesley’s reconstruction that brought out its essential nobility. Watts began it in rather mechanical fashion, “Sing to the Lord with joyful voice, Let every land his name adore; The British Isles shall send the noise Across the ocean to the shore.” Wesley omitted this stanza entirely. Beginning with the second stanza, “With gladness bow before his throne, And let his presence raise your joys; Know that the Lord is God alone And formed our soul and framed our voice” (which shows that Watts’ inspiration had begun to rise), Wesley transformed it into a majestic expression of pure worship: “Before Jehovah’s awful throne, Ye nations, bow with sacred joy; Know that the Lord is God alone, He can create and he destroy.” He was equally successful with Watts’ third stanza: “Infinite power, without our aid, Figured our clay to human mould; And when our wandering feet had strayed, He brought us to his sacred fold.” The first line is faulty: the accent of “infinite” is on the first syllable: Watts placed it on the second. The second line conveys no clear idea: how is clay “figured”? The third and fourth lines are bald and ordinary, lacking in poetic grace. See how deftly Wesley took Watts’ material and gave it grace and dignity: “His sovereign power, without our aid, Made us of clay and formed us men; And when like wand’ring sheep we strayed, He brought us to his fold again.” Transforming Watts’ fourth stanza in like manner, he added a majestic fifth stanza of his own: “Wide as the world is thy command, Vast as eternity thy love; Firm as a rock thy truth shall stand When rolling years shall cease to move,” completing one of the noblest hymns in the language. Another hymn of Isaac Watts was enriched by passing through the hands of John Wesley. Besides correcting minor infelicities and curtailing its impracticable length, he rewrote the third stanza of the very popular hymn, “Come, ye that love the Lord,” transforming Watts’ “The God that rules on high And thunders when he please, That rides upon the stormy sky And manages the seas,” into “The God that rules on high, That all the earth surveys, That rides upon the stormy sky And calms the roaring seas.” He might have gone further and obviated the break of the sentence occurring between the third and fourth stanzas. Some hymnal editors meet the difficulty by omitting both.