William Preston Johnston - John Wesley lyrics

CENTURIES of form and dogma had o'erpast Since Christ had shown men how to live and die, And saints had come and gone, and now at last Religion cloaked conventionality. The world was sunk in sense--a living lie-- And England's easy ethics, futile thought, Cast in a mould of smug gentility, Deemed poor humanity a thing of naught. But underneath that rotten thin veneer Surged fires volcanic, born of human hate, That wrecked the order and the idea old; So all seemed lost, but that Ithuriel's spear, In Wesley's hand, unmasked the potentate Of Hell, and warmed to life men's hearts grown cold.