Sl£U J5>Nci£Iu the CHARLES WESLEY SOCIETY
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Jlrnc££oings nf W4£ 0l4arl£s ~£sl£U j5>nci£iu Volume 6 1999-2000 S T Kimbrough, Jr. Charles A. Green Editor Assistant Editor PAPERS PRESENTED AT THE ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE CHARLES WESLEY SOCIETY July 2000 Liverpool, England Frederick E. Maser: 1908-2002 ................................ 3 Introduction: 1999 and 2000 . 7 S T Kimbrough, Jr. The Image of Christ in the Poor: On the Medieval Roots of the Wesleys' Ministry with the Poor: Synopsis . .. 11 Ted A. Campbell Perfection Revisited: Charles Wesley's Theology of "Gospel-Poverty" and "Perfect Poverty": Synopsis . .. 13 S T Kimbrough, Jr. Charles Wesley's Experience of Salvation: The Evidence of the Sermon Corpus . .. 15 Kenneth G. C. Newport A Single, Steady Aim: Images of Hope in Wesleyan Hymnody . .. 31 Elaine A. Robinson "Experimental and Practical Divinity": Charles Wesley and John Norris .. 59 J. Richard Watson Charles Wesley's View of the Self. .. 73 Martin Groves Ted A. Campbell, President J. Richard Watson, Vice President Wilma J. Quantrille, Secretary Charles A. Green, Treasurer E. Alan Rose, Secretary-Treasurerfor the United Kingdom S T Kimbrough, Jr., Director ofPublications Elaine A. Robinson, Program Director Board of Directors Friedemann W. Burkhardt Kenneth G. C. Newport John R. Tyson Paul W. Chilcote Kenneth D. Shields Maxine E. Walker Timothy S. Alexander-Macquiban Carlton R. Young Proceedings of The Charles Wesley Society 1999-2000 Published in the United States by The Charles Wesley Society, 2002 Editor; S T Kimbrough, Jr. Assistant Editor; Charles A. Green Copyright © 2002 by The Charles Wesley Society. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of The Charles Wesley Society. The Charles Wesley Society Archives and History Center Drew University Madison, NJ 07940 Ted A. Campbell, President J. Richard Watson, Vice President Wilma J. Quantrille, Secretary Charles A. Green, Treasurer E. Alan Rose, Secretary-Treasurerfor the United Kingdom S T Kimbrough, Jr., Director ofPublications Elaine A. Robinson, Program Directorpro tempore Board ofDirectors Friedemann W. Burkhardt Kenneth G. C. Newport John R. Tyson Paul W. Chilcote Kenneth D. Shields Maxine E. Walker Timothy S. Alexander-Macquiban Carlton R. Young A Bibliography of Translations of Wesley Hymns S T Kimbrough, Jr. The translation of Wesley hymns has a relatively long history, but to this author's knowledge there is no systematic bibliography of them and the subject has not been properly researched. There is a partial bibliography which has been assembled by Martin Brose' but it is largely European in its orientation. The organizing principle chosen here is that of an alphabetical list of first lines of hymns which have been translated into other languages. The first line is then followed by a designation of the country, source, date, language, numbers of stan zas, and the name of the translator, if known. There are a few exceptions, for there are a number of Spanish-language translations which do not have a specific country location, therefore, occasionally the reader will read simply "Spanish lan guage" instead of a country name. This is also true of some "Russian language" translations. Also, there are no country designations for the French translations which appear in Africa, L'Afrique Chante/Africa Sings (Conference des Eglises de toute I'Afrique/All Africa Council of Churches, 1987), therefore the continent of Africa appears in the place of the name of a country. However, these French language translations may have originated in Europe. It is extremely difficult to determine when many translations were made. Though they appear in a specific source for the first time, that does not mean that the date of the publication is the date of the original translation. In some instances translations have appeared within periodicals (usually texts only) and not within songbooks. Hence, we do not know whether they were ever sung. For example, this may be the case for the Russian translation of "Jesus, Lover of my soul," which first appeared in the first issue of the Russian Methodist Khristianski Pobornik (Christian Advocate) in 1909, and the Latvian translation of "A charge to keep I have," which first appeared in the Latvian Methodist Kristigs Aistavis (Christian Advocate) in 1923. The former may have appeared in the Russian Methodist Episcopal Hymnal which was published in St. Petersburg in 1913, but no extant copy of that hymnal is known. It must first be said that this bibliography is incomplete. It needs much more work and this is only a beginning of a comprehensive bibliography of Wesley hymn translations. One arena of translations which requires much more work is that of Spanish-language Wesley hymn translations. There are many Spanish language hymnbooks that have included translations. Secondly, it must be emphasized that this bibliography makes no attempt to evaluate the quality of the translations in terms of their faithfulness to the origi nal texts, their singability, structure, diction, and the formation of poetical Ian 1See Zum Lob befreit: Charles Wesley und das Kirchenlied (Stuttgart: Christliches Verlagshaus, 1997), pp. 215-280. 13 14 Proceedings of The Charles Wesley Society 2001 guage in the language of translation. These are matters which require skills far beyond those of the compiler of the bibliography. There are some conclusions that may be drawn from the bibliography, how ever, and they will be addressed. Geographical Location of Translations The translation of Wesley texts has in some sense followed the mission of the church in the Wesleyan tradition. This bibliography reflects a strong impact of the texts in Europe with concentrations in Europe (Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland). One will note a number of new transla tions in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia. Estonia is the only one of the Baltic states which included some Wesley translations in its early hymnody of the twentieth century. The Lithuanian and Latvian Methodist hymnbooks of 1924 and 1925 respectively included no Wesley hymn translations at all. A few were included in evangelical songbooks but none are known to have existed within Methodism in those two countries, except "A charge to keep I have" which was published in translation in the Latvian Methodist Kristigs Aistavis (Christian Advocate). There is a glaring absence of French translations of Wesley hymns, even though French Methodist hymnody had a strong start on the Isle de Manche and the first French-language Methodist hymnbook was published in 1868 by the Methodist Conference in England for use on the Isle de Manche. A second such hymn book was later published. Unfortunately there are no indications of trans lations in the books and no names of authors and translators. While one suspects that certain Wesley hymns have been translated into French, it is difficult to state unequivocally that this is the case. Wesleyan hymnody is only now beginning to make a stronger impact in German Methodism. In 1969 a hymnbook was published by The United Methodist Church in Germany, just after union with the Evangelische Gemeinschaft, and it included only six Wesley hymns. Rejoice! the Lord is King A charge to keep I have 0 for a heart to praise my God Help us to help each other, Lord Jesus, Lover of my soul One of these hymns, "A ~harge to keep I have," may be a composite of more than one Wesley hymn. They are identical to the selections in the 1926 hymnal of the German Methodist Church with two exceptions, the originals of which this author has not been able to identify. A Bibliography of Translations of Wesley Hymns 15 In 1989, however, the EmK (Evangelisch-Methodistische K.irche) in Germany printed a hymn supplement, Leben und Loben, which included a number of new translations of Wesley hymns. What shall I do my God to love Give me the faith which can remove the mountain Come, let us with the Lord arise Love divine, all loves excelling The hymn book published in 2002 for the United Methodist Church of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland also includes twenty-two Wesley hymns and some new translations of Wesley texts. Karl Eisele is a German author who translated quite a number of Wesley hymns into German which were published in his book about Charles Wesley in 1933, however, none of his translations have survived in hymn books. Wolfgang Hammer, a missionary of the German United Methodist Church, who spent many years in Africa as a missionary, was committed to translating the 1780 hymnbook of the Wesleys into Germany. This author has a copy of the material he either produced or collected and, indeed, the entire 1780 book has been translated. However, to this writers' knowledge none of this material has ever been pub lished. The story of Russian translations is an interesting one. In 1925/26 a Russian language hymnal, Songs of Zion, was prepared for use by the mission of The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and its congregations in Siberia/Manchuria. From 1920 to 1927 it had flourishing mission work among Koreans, Russians, and Chinese in areas which had been part of the old Russian Empire and China. In 1921 a mission office was opened in Vladivostok and Professor H. W. Jenkins began the Russian work. When Vladivostok fell to the Bolsheviks in 1922, the Methodist property was confiscated but worship was permitted. By spring of the following year the mission had moved to Harbin, Manchuria and most phases of the work continued in evangelism, education, and medical care.2 There was a thriving and intensive publishing program implemented by missionaries such as Mr.