138 OUR HYMNS :
is a favourable example. All must feel the force and poetry of such lines as
" On faith s strong eagle-pinions rise, And force your passage to the skies, And scale the mount of God."
Neither Wesley nor AVatts have left any one great poem. Wesley will, perhaps, he judged to have hest maintained his claim to the name of poet, but the question of which is the better hymn-writer must still, we think, be left undecided. Even the greatest admirers of Charles Wesley admit that Watts excels him in the sweeter flow of his numbers, and in those of his hymns which are designed to administer comfort to the afflicted. Watts is certainly very happy in describing the safety and happiness of God s people, as we may see in hymns 132 and 213, and in many others. We also observe in him, along with unaffected simplicity, a manifestation of conscious strength that is very pleasing. Free from exaggeration and painful effort, nature itself speaks to us.
Take for instance, (Xo. 17)
" The heavens declare Thy glory, Lord,"
his rendering of the 19th Psalm. Notice its happy presentation of the original, its Christian application, its practical aim, the noble apostrophe of the fifth verse
" Great Sun of Righteousness, arise,"
and the strength, beauty, and sublimity of the whole. By such productions Watts has taken a position of peerless excellence. As a further illustration, take Watts s admirable hymn " Blest morning, whose young dawning rays." No. 755.
Charles Wesley did not stand alone as a hymn-writer. Besides the relation in which he stood to his brother John in this respect, his diary shows the association he had with John Cennick, Edward Perronet, Count Zinzendorf, and other hymn-writers of his day.
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