Charles Wesley had taken refuge from a mob in a spring-house when he wrote a special hymn . He, with his brother, John Wesley, and Richard Pilmore, were holding one of their evening meetings on the common, when a mob attacked them, and they were compelled to flee for their lives.

They at last found a season of shelter from the stones with which they were severely pelted, behind a hedge. After lying there for some time, the darkness deepened upon them, and they found their way to a deserted spring-house, where they struck a light with a flint-stone, washed their faces in the clear, cold water, brushed the dirt from their clothes, and felt at least a moment’s security from the missiles which had pelted them.

Charles Wesley had with him a piece of lead hammered out into a pencil, which he pulled from his pocket, and with his soul fired with the terror of the hour and turned toward Jesus, he composed the world-renowned hymn:

“Jesus, lover of my soul,

Let me to thy bosom fly;

While the nearer waters roll,

While the tempest still is high!”

That the flight from the mob and the cooling waters of the spring helped him to form this hymn, no one could doubt. “Let the healing streams abound,” and the last stanza:

“Thou of life the fountain art,

Freely let me take of thee;

Spring thou up within my heart,

Rise to all eternity,”

. . . how wondrously the writer, that night of flight from a mob to a protecting shelter, penned the words which have helped thousands to fly to the bosom of Jesus.

Selected, Signs of the Times, December 18, 1884. With permission from Dale Galusha dalgal@pacificpress.com