John was the fifteenth, and Charles the eighteenth, child of Samuel Wesley, Rector of Epworth, Lincolnshire, and his wife, Susannah. John was born on June 17th, 1703, and Charles on December 18th, 1707. Of the nineteen Wesley siblings, only ten lived to maturity. Under their mother’s tutelage, all of them were schooled each day in six-hour sessions, always begun and concluded with the singing of psalms.

Their theological writings and sermons are still widely appreciated, but it is through their hymns—especially those of Charles, who wrote over six thousand of them—that their religious experience, and their Christian faith and life, continue to touch the hearts of many.

Both Wesleys were educated at Christ Church, Oxford, John later being elected a fellow of Lincoln College, where they gathered a few friends to join a “Holy Club” in strict adherence to the worship and discipline of the Prayer Book, and were thus given the name “Methodists.” John was ordained in 1728 and Charles in 1735. Both were profoundly attached to the doctrine and worship of the Church of England, although they were deeply moved by and critical of the church’s neglect of the poor. Their affection for the Church of England remained despite abusive opposition to their cause and methods.

The two brothers went together to Georgia in 1735, John as a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and Charles as secretary to James Oglethorpe, the Governor. The mission was a disaster, and both brothers returned to England, dejected and disappointed. Shortly after their return home, however, they each experienced an inner conversion. On May 21st, 1738—Pentecost—Charles “felt the Spirit of God striving with his spirit ‘till by degrees He chased away the darkness of unbelief.” Three days later, at a meeting on May 24th in Aldersgate Street in London with a group of Moravians, during a reading of Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans, John recorded, “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

So the revival was born. The two brothers placed a strong emphasis on preaching, and appointed lay people, both men and women, as preachers and evangelists to work together with the clergy in proclaiming the gospel.

The formal separation of the Methodists from the Church of England occurred only after the deaths of the two brothers in London —Charles on March 29th, 1788, and John on March 2nd, 1791. In recent decades there has been increased cooperation and growth in agreement between Anglicans and Methodists, and growing appreciation for our common heritage.