O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing

The Story Behind O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing

Charles Wesley was plagued by an experience of pleurisy in May 1738, while he and his brother were studying under the Moravian professor Peter Boehler in London. Wesley was concerned by extreme doubts about his faith during his sickness. On May 21 Wesley was visited by a gathering of Christians who offered him testimony and health assistance, and he was strongly influenced by this. He read from his Bible and found himself profoundly encouraged by the words, and at peace with God.

One year after his sickness, Wesley was moved to produce another hymn, this one in recognition of his revival of faith. This hymn was created as an 18-stanza poem, beginning with the opening lines 'Glory to God, and praise, and love,/Be ever, ever given' and printed in 1740, named 'For the anniversary day of one's conversion'. The seventh verse starts with, 'O for a thousand tongues to sing', which is now regularly the first verse of a shorter hymn of the same name. The hymn was placed first in John Wesley's A Collection of Hymns for the People Called Methodists published in 1780. 

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