Resignation

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Angels wherever we go attend

Author: Charles Wesley
Published in 22 hymnals

Representative Text

1 Angels, where'er we go, attend
Our steps, what'er betide,
With watchful care their charge defend,
And evil turn aside.

2 Myriads of bright cherubic bands,
Sent by the King of kings,
Rejoice to bear us in their hands,
And shade us with their wings.

3 Jehovah's charioteers surround;
The ministerial choir
Encamp where'er his heirs are found,
And form our wall of fire.

4 Ten thousand offices unseen
For us they gladly do,
Deliver in the furnace keen,
And safe escort us through.

5 But thronging round, with busiest love
They guard the dying breast,
The lurking fiend far off remove,
And sing our souls to rest.

6 And when our spirits we reign,
On outstretched wings they bear,
And lodge us in the arms of divine,
And leave us ever there.

Source: The Book of Worship #146

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Author: Charles Wesley

Charles Wesley, M.A. was the great hymn-writer of the Wesley family, perhaps, taking quantity and quality into consideration, the great hymn-writer of all ages. Charles Wesley was the youngest son and 18th child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley, and was born at Epworth Rectory, Dec. 18, 1707. In 1716 he went to Westminster School, being provided with a home and board by his elder brother Samuel, then usher at the school, until 1721, when he was elected King's Scholar, and as such received his board and education free. In 1726 Charles Wesley was elected to a Westminster studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1729, and became a college tutor. In the early part of the same year his religious impressions were much deepene… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	Angels wherever we go attend
Title:	Resignation
Author:	Charles Wesley
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

Angels where'er we go attend. C. Wesley. [Ministry of Angels.] Two centos beginning with this stanza are in common use as follows: (1) Mercer, Oxford ed. App. 1873, No. 532. This is compiled from the hymn "Which of the petty Kings of earth," by C. Wesley, which was included from his manuscript in Dr. Leifchild's Original Hymns, 1842, in 12 stanzas of 4 lines, and again in the Poetical Works of J. & C. Wesley, 1868-72, vol. xiii. pp. 118-119, in 6 stanzas of 8 lines, and based on Heb. i. 14. The arrangement in Mercer is—stanza i. is Wesley iii., 1. 1-4; ii. is Wesley i., 1. 5-8; iii. and iv. are Wesley v.; and v. and vi. are Wesley vi. (2) The second cento is in the American Dutch Reformed Hymns of the Church, N. Y. 1869, thus: stanza i. and ii., as in Mercer, slightly altered; iii. is Wesley i., 1.1-4; and iv. is lines 5-8 of stanza vi. of Wesley's hymn, "Ye simple souls that stray." (q. v.) 1747.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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