The late Dr. Charles Maclean, writing in the July-August, 1910, issue of the monthly journal of the International Musical Society, upon the Wesley Commemoration, let fall some characteristically pungent and succinct remarks. He said: "As composer, and in the domain of Church music, S. S. Wesley eclipsed his father and towered above all his contemporaries. He did this because alone of all of them he could write a tune . . . His fame rests chiefly on his two dozen anthems. Each of the large anthems is a symphony of several vocal numbers, and each number will be found to be based on a single melodious theme.He inherited his father's aptitude for counterpoint, which in turn was founded largely on the Bach model." And he went on : "If in forty years of anthem writing he never surpassed his early ' Wilderness ' in romantic beauty, and subtle polish, his eight-part ' O Lord,Thou art my God,' for his doctor's degree seven years later, is one of the noblest monuments of solid and powerful English music." << less