The Sun of Righteousness appears. S. Wesley, jun. [Easter Day.] First published in his Poems on Several Occasions, 1736, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines, and again in Nicholl's reprint of the same, 1862. At an early date it appeared in the Psalma & Hymns of J. & C. Wesley, and other collections. It has passed into a limited number of modern hymn-books. The fourth stanza is noteworthy as being that upon which C. Wesley based his stanzas iii. in "Christ the Lord is risen today."
S. Wesley's hymn was given in Bishop Heber's posthumous Hymns, &c, 1827, p. 69, as Anonymous. In a few collections stanzas iii., iv. are given as "Alone the dreadful race He ran."
--Excerpts from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
Samuel Wesley, M.A., the younger, was the eldest child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley, and was born in or near London in 1691. He received his early education from his mother, who always took a special interest in him as her firstborn. In 1704 he went to Westminster School, where he was elected King's Scholar in 1707. Westminster had, under the mastership of Dr. Busby for 55 years, attained the highest reputation for scholarship, and Samuel Wesley, as a classical scholar, was not unworthy of his school. In 1709, Dr. Spratt, Bishop of Rochester, patronised the young scholar, and frequently invited him to Bromley. In 1711 he went with a Westminster studentship to Christ Church, Oxford, and having taken his degree, returned to Westminster as an… Go to person page >
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