Birthday of Charles Wesley - hymnwriter / pastoral theologian of Methodism

Biographical mini-essay from Writer's Almanac (Garrison Keillor, Am. Public Media):

December 18 is the birthday of Charles Wesley (1708), born in Epworth, Lincolnshire, England. He was the 18th of 19 children, and the third surviving son. Born prematurely, he wasn't expected to survive; he lay silently in his woolen blanket for the first two months of his life. He received his early education from his mother, who ran a schoolroom of sorts for her large family. She taught them for six hours a day. After studying at Oxford, he became an Anglican clergyman like his father and brothers before him. Along with his brother John, he cofounded the Methodist movement within Protestantism. "Methodist" was intended as an insult, because the brothers held to a strict regimen of early rising and Bible study, but the Wesleys didn't see anything wrong with being strict, so they adopted the term for themselves without protest. The Wesleys became itinerant preachers, traveling the country and speaking wherever there was an audience: in fields, prisons, and coal mines. Charles Wesley estimated he preached before almost 150,000 people over a five-year period.
His other contribution was musical, and it was significant. He wrote hymns, averaging 10 lines a day for 50 years. He wrote "Christ the Lord is Risen Today," "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling," and "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing." He also wrote the perennial Christmas favorite, "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." All told, he wrote more than six thousand hymns.
A quote by Wesley is carved on his monument in Westminster Abbey: "God buries his workmen, but carries on his work."