Charles Wesley was born just before before Christmas in 1707. He was premature and neither cried nor opened his eyes. His mother, Susanna, kept him tightly wrapped in wool until his actual due date, whereupon he opened his eyes and cried. At age eight, he was taken to London to attend Westminster Schoo. At thirteen, he became a King’s Scholar at Westminster, and upon graduating, Charles enrolled at Oxford. He was nineteen and full of life. He later said, “My first year of college I lost in diversions.” During his second year at Oxford, he grew serious about spiritual things. Neither he nor his brother, John, had yet received Christ as Savior, but they began seeking to live the Christian life so methodically they were dubbed “Methodists” by fellow students. Their studies completed, the brothers volunteered to go to Georgia, a new colony in America for those in Britain’s debtors’ prisons, founded by Colonel James Oglethorpe. But as a missionary, Charles was an utter failure. He was demanding and autocratic, and he insisted on baptizing infants, not by sprinkling, but by immersing them three times in succession. One angry woman fired a gun at him. Charles left America ill and depressed. Some time later, John also returned in low spirits. Finding themselves in spiritual crisis, the brothers began attending meetings led by the Moravian Christian, Peter Boehler. Finally, on Sunday, May 21, 1738 Charles, 31, wrote, “I now found myself at peace with God, and rejoiced in hope of loving Christ. I saw that by faith I stood.” John came to Christ about the same time, saying, “I felt my heart strangely warmed.” On Tuesday, May 23, Charles wrote in his journal, “I began a hymn upon my conversion.” We aren’t certain which hymn he meant, but many historians think it was “And Can It Be,” because of the vivid testimony of verse 4. There is a verse often left out of the singing that goes as such: “‘Tis myst’ry all! Th’Imortal dies: who can explore his strange design? In vain the firstborn seraph tries to sound the depth of love divine. ‘It’s mercy all! Let earth adore, let angel minds inquire no more.” The resources used for the podcast include, but not limited to; “How Great Thou Art” written by Robert J. Morgan and Hymnary.org