"We will all be changed-in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed." 1 Corinthians 15:51-52
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Words: Charles Wesley, Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1749; original title: "Glory and Thanks to God We Give."
Music: "Maryton," Henry Percy Smith, 1874
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The Methodist Hymn Book Notes, by Stevenson, 1883, give the origin of this hymn. It came about as a result of Wesley's visit to a Methodist society meeting in Leeds, England, March 14, 1744:
…in a cold upper room, which was densely packed, and crowds could not gain admission. He removed nearer the door that those without might hear, and drew the people towards him. Instantly the rafters broke off short, close to the main beam, the floor sank, and more than one hundred people fell, amidst dust and ruins, into the room below. Several were severely injured, but none were killed. Charles Wesley himself escaped with slight injuries. "I lifted up my head," he said, "and saw the people under me, heaps upon heaps. I cried out, 'Fear not, the Lord is with us; our lives are all safe,' and then gave out, 'Praise God from Whom all blessings flow.'"
This hymn, in 12 stanzas, appeared five years later in Hymns and Sacred Poems, headed, "After deliverance from death by the fall of an house." In 1780, stanzas 6-9, 11 & 12 were given in the Wesleyan Hymn Book as one of the hymns "Describing Judgment."