7 Inspirational songs for Pentecost

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, June 09, 2019

O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing

One of the most notable hymns from prolific songwriter Charles Welsey, “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” was written in 1739 to commemorate his born-again Christian experience the year before.

The original hymn text has 18 stanzas. The seventh stanza eventually became the first in the hymn text most commonly used in the English speaking world.

“More than two centuries after its composition, the hymn still has international appeal,” explained MaryBeth Sanders of the Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University.

“The hymn was first published in A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists (1780). The significance of this hymn in the Methodist tradition is symbolized by its appearance as the first hymn in the United Methodist Hymnal (1989).”