Charles Wesley Naylor (1874-1950) is a songwriter and religious leader born in southern Ohio and reared in Ohio and West Virginia by grandparents. He is considered one of the most prolific and inspiring songwriters of the Church of God (based in Anderson, Indiana) writing 150 songs. Despite being bedridden for much of his adult life, he wrote eight books, a column for the newspaper, a column for “The Gospel Trumpet”, and articles for the Church of God youth magazine, “Young People’s Friend”.
At the age of nineteen he left the Methodist church for the Church of God. He worked for a while at the Gospel Trumpet Company in Grand Junction, Michigan and on some evangelistic tours. He was ordained in 1899 in Springfield, Ohio. He was first injured in 1908 in Florida while moving timbers from under a meeting tent. He suffered a dislocated kidney and other internal injuries. A year later he was in a bus accident that left him an invalid for the rest of his life.