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THE STORY OF THE
HYMNS AND TUNES

BY

THERON BROWN

AND

HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH

Multae terricolis linguae, coelestibus una.

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Ten thousand, thousand are their tongues,
But all their joys are one.

NEW YORK, 1906

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CONTENTS

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LIST OF PORTRAITS.

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PREFACE.

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When the lapse of time and accumulation of fresh material suggested the need of a new and revised edition of Mr. Hezekiah Butterworth's Story of the Hymns, which had been a popular text book on that subject for nearly a generation, the publishers requested him to prepare such a work, reviewing the whole field of hymnology and its literature down to date. He undertook the task, but left it unfinished at his lamented death, committing the manuscript to me in his last hours to arrange and complete.

To do this proved a labor of considerable magnitude, since what had been done showed evidence of the late author's failing strength, and when, in a conference with the publishers, it was proposed to combine the two books of Mr. Butterworth, the Story of the Hymns and the Story of the Tunes, in one volume, the task was doubled.

The charming popular style and story-telling gift of the well-known compiler of these books had kept them in demand, the one for thirty and the other for fifteen years, but later information had discounted some of their historic and biographical 8 / vi matter, and, while many of the monographs were too meagre, others were unduly long. Besides, the Story of the Tunes, so far from being the counterpart of the Story of the Hymns, bore no special relationship to it, only a small portion of its selections answering to any in the hymn-list of the latter book. For a personal friend and practically unknown writer, to follow Mr. Butterworth, and “improve” his earlier work to the more modern conditions, was a venture of no little difficulty and delicacy. The result is submitted as simply a conscientious effort to give the best of the old with the new.

So far as was possible, matter from the two previous books, and from the crude manuscript, has been used, and passages here and there transcribed, but so much of independent plan and original research has been necessary in arranging and verifying the substance of the chapters that the Story of the Hymns and Tunes is in fact a new volume rather than a continuation. The chapter containing the account of the Gospel Hymns is recent work with scarcely an exception, and the one on the Hymns of Wales is entirely new.

Without increasing the size of this volume beyond easy purchase and convenient use, it was impossible to discuss the great oratorios and dramatic set-pieces, festival and occasional, and only passing references are made to them or their authors.

Among those who have helped me in my work special acknowledgements are due to Mr. Hubert 9 / vii P. Main of Newark, N.J.; Messrs. Hughes & Son of Wrexham, Wales; the American Tract Society, New York; Mr. William T. Meek, Mrs. A.J. Gordon, Mr. Paul Foster, Mr. George Douglas, and Revs. John R. Hague and Edmund F. Merriam of Boston; Professor William L. Phelps of New Haven, Conn.; Mrs. Ellen M.H. Gates of New York; Rev. Franklin G. McKeever of New London, Conn.; and Rev. Arthur S. Phelps of Greeley, Colorado. Further obligations are gratefully remembered to Oliver Ditson & Co. for answers to queries and access to publications, to the Historic-and-Geneological Society and the custodians and attendants of the Boston Public Library (notably in the Music Department) for their uniform courtesy and pains in placing every resource within my reach.

THERON BROWN.

Boston, May 15th, 1906. 11 / ix

INTRODUCTION.

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Augustine defines a hymn as “praise to God with song,” and another writer calls hymn-singing “a devotional approach to God in our emotions,”—which of course applies to both the words and the music. This religious emotion, reverently acknowledging the Divine Being in song, is a constant element, and wherever felt it makes the song a worship, irrespective of sect or creed. An eminent Episcopal divine, (says the Christian Register,) one Trinity Sunday, at the close of his sermon, read three hymns by Unitarian authors: one to God the Father, by Samuel Longfellow, one to Jesus, by Theodore Parker, and one to the Holy Spirit, by N.L. Frothingham. “There,” he said, “you have the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

It is natural to speak of hymns as “poems,” indiscriminately, for they have the same structure. But a hymn is not necessarily a poem, while a poem that can be sung as a hymn is something more than a poem. Imagination makes poems; devotion makes hymns. There can be poetry without emotion, but a hymn never. A poem may 12 / x argue; a hymn must not. In short to be a hymn, what is written must express spiritual feelings and desires. The music of faith, hope and charity will be somewhere in its strain.

Philosophy composes poems, but not hymns. “It is no love-symphony we hear when the lion thinkers roar,” some blunt writer has said. “The moles of Science have never found the heavenly dove's nest, and the Sea of Reason touches no shore where balm for sorrow grows.”

On the contrary there are thousands of true hymns that have no standing at the court of the muses. Even Cowper's Olney hymns, as Goldwin Smith has said, “have not any serious value as poetry. Hymns rarely have,” he continues. “There is nothing in them on which the creative imagination can be exercised. Hymns can be little more than the incense of a worshipping soul.”

A fellow-student of Phillips Brooks tells us that “most of his verse he wrote rapidly without revising, not putting much thought into it but using it as the vehicle and outlet of his feelings. It was the sign of responding love or gratitude and joy.”

To produce a hymn one needs something more exalting than poetic fancy; an influence

It is the Divine Spirit wakening the human heart to lyric language.

Religion sings; that is true, though all “religions” do not sing. There is no voice of sacred 13 / xi song in Islamism. The muezzin call from the minarets is not music. One listens in vain for melody among the worshippers of the “Light of Asia.” The hum of pagoda litanies, and the shouts and gongs of idol processions are not psalms. But many historic faiths have lost their melody, and we must go far back in the annals of ethnic life to find the songs they sung.

Worship appears to have been a primitive human instinct; and even when many gods took the place of One in the blinder faith of men it was nature worship making deities of the elements and addressing them with supplication and praise. Ancient hymns have been found on the monumental tablets of the cities of Nimrod; fragments of the Orphic and Homeric hymns are preserved in Greek anthology; many of the Vedic hymns are extant in India; and the exhumed stones of Egypt have revealed segments of psalm-prayers and liturgies that antedate history. Dr. Wallis Budge, the English Orientalist, notes the discovery of a priestly hymn two thousand years older than the time of Moses, which invokes One Supreme Being who “cannot be figured in stone.”

So far as we have any real evidence, however, the Hebrew people surpassed all others in both the custom and the spirit of devout song. We get snatches of their inspired lyrics in the song of Moses and Miriam, the song of Deborah and Barak, and the song of Hannah (sometimes called “the Old Testament Magnificat”), in the hymns of David 14 / xii and Solomon and all the Temple Psalms, and later where the New Testament gives us the “Gloria” of the Christmas angels, the thanksgiving of Elizabeth (benedictus minor), Mary's Magnificat, the song of Zacharias (benedictus major), the “nunc dimittis” of Simeon, and the celestial ascriptions and hallelujahs heard by St. John in his Patmos dream. For what we know of the first formulated human prayer and praise we are mostly indebted to the Hebrew race. They seem to have been at least the only ancient nation that had a complete psalter—and their collection is the mother hymn-book of the world.

Probably the first form of hymn-worship was the plain-song—a declamatory unison of assembled singers, every voice on the same pitch, and within the compass of five notes—and so continued, from whatever may have stood for plain-song in Tabernacle and Temple days down to the earliest centuries of the Christian church. It was mere melodic progression and volume of tone, and there were no instruments—after the captivity. Possibly it was the memory of the harps hung silent by the rivers of Babylon that banished the timbrel from the sacred march and the ancient lyre from the post-exilic synagogues. Only the Feast trumpet was left. But the Jews sang. Jesus and his disciples sang. Paul and Silas sang; and so did the post-apostolic Christians; but until towards the close of the 16th century there were no instruments allowed in religious worship. 15 / xiii

St. Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers has been called “the father of Christian hymnology.” About the middle of the 4th century he regulated the ecclesiastical song-service, wrote chant music (to Scripture words or his own) and prescribed its place and use in his choirs. He died A.D. 368. In the Church calendars, Jan. 13th (following “Twelfth Night”), is still kept as “St. Hilary's Day” in the Church of England, and Jan. 14th in the Church of Rome.

St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, a few years later, improved the work of his predecessor, adding words and music of his own. The “Ambrosian Chant” was the antiphonal plain-song arranged and systematized to statelier effect in choral symphony. Ambrose died A.D. 397.

Toward the end of the 6th century Christian music showed a decline in consequence of impatient meddling with the slow canonical psalmody, and “reformers” had impaired its solemnity by introducing fanciful embellishments. Gregory the Great (Pope of Rome, 590–604) banished these from the song service, founded a school of sacred melody, composed new chants and established the distinctive character of ecclesiastical hymn worship. The Gregorian chant—on the diatonic eight sounds and seven syllables of equal length—continued, with its majestic choral step, to be the basis of cathedral music for a thousand years. In the meantime (930) Hucbald, the Flanders monk, invented sight music, or written notes—happily called the art of “hearing with the eyes and seeing 16 / xiv with the ears"; and Guido Arentino (1024) contrived the present scale, or the “hexachord” on which the present scale was perfected.

In this long interval, however, the “established” system of hymn service did not escape the intrusion of inevitable novelties that crept in with the change of popular taste. Unrhythmical singing could not always hold its own; and when polyphonic music came into public favor, secular airs gradually found their way into the choirs. Legatos, with their pleasing turn and glide, caught the ear of the multitude. Tripping allegrettos sounded sweeter to the vulgar sense than the old largos of Pope Gregory the Great.

The guardians of the ancient order took alarm. One can imagine the pained amazement of conservative souls today on hearing “Ring the Bells of Heaven” substituted in church for “Mear” or the long-metre Doxology, and can understand the extreme distaste of the ecclesiastical reactionaries for the worldly frivolities of an A.D. 1550 choir. Presumably that modern abomination, the vibrato, with its shake of artificial fright, had not been invented then, and sanctuary form was saved one indignity. But the innovations became an abuse so general that the Council of Trent commissioned a select board of cardinals and musicians to arrest the degeneration of church song-worship.

One of the experts consulted in this movement was an eminent Italian composer born twenty miles from Rome. His full name was Giovanni Pietro Aloysio da Palestrina, and at that time he 17 / xv was in the prime of his powers. He was master of polyphonic music as well as plain-song, and he proposed applying it to grace the older mode, preserving the solemn beauty of the chant but adding the charming chords of counterpoint. He wrote three “masses,” one of them being his famous “Requiem.” These were sung under his direction before the Commission. Their magnificence and purity revealed to the censors the possibilities of contrapuntal music in sanctuary devotion and praise. The sanction of the cardinals was given—and part-song harmony became permanently one of the angel voices of the Christian church.

Palestrina died in 1594, but hymn-tunes adapted from his motets and masses are sung today. He was the father of the choral tune. He lived to see musical instruments and congregational singing introduced^* in public worship, and to know (possibly with secret pleasure, though he was a Romanist) how richly in popular assemblies, during the Protestant Reformation, the new freedom of his helpful art had multiplied the creation of spiritual hymns.

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Contemporary in England with Palestrina in Italy was Thomas Tallis who developed the Anglican school of church music, which differed less from the Italian (or Catholic) psalmody than that of the Continental churches, where the revolt of the Reformation extended to the tune-worship as notably as to the sacraments and sermons. This 18 / xvi difference created a division of method and practice even in England, and extreme Protestants who repudiated everything artistic or ornate formed the Puritan or Genevan School. Their style is represented among our hymn-tunes by “Old Hundred,” while the representative of the Anglican is “Tallis' Evening Hymn.” The division was only temporary. The two schools were gradually reconciled, and together made the model after which the best sacred tunes are built. It is Tallis who is called “The father of English Cathedral music.”

In Germany, after the invention of harmony, church music was still felt to be too formal for a working force, and there was a reaction against the motets and masses of Palestrina as being too stately and difficult. Lighter airs of the popular sort, such as were sung between the acts of the “mystery plays,” were subsidized by Luther, who wrote compositions and translations to their measure. Part-song was simplified, and Johan Walther compiled a hymnal of religious songs in the vernacular for from four to six voices. The reign of rhythmic hymn music soon extended through Europe.

Necessarily—except in ultra-conservative localities like Scotland—the exclusive use of the Psalms (metrical or unmetrical) gave way to religious lyrics inspired by occasion. Clement Marot and Theodore Beza wrote hymns to the music of various composers, and Caesar Malan composed both hymns and their melodies. By the beginning of the 18th century the triumph of the hymn-tune and the 19 / xvii hymnal for lay voices was established for all time.

* * * * * *

In the following pages no pretence is made of selecting all the best and most-used hymns, but the purpose has been to notice as many as possible of the standard pieces—and a few others which seem to add or re-shape a useful thought or introduce a new strain.

To present each hymn with its tune appeared the natural and most satisfactory way, as in most cases it is impossible to dissociate the two. The melody is the psychological coëfficient of the metrical text. Without it the verse of a seraph would be smothered praise. Like a flower and its fragrance, hymn and tune are one creature, and stand for a whole value and a full effect. With this normal combination a complete descriptive list of the hymns and tunes would be a historic dictionary. Such a book may one day be made, but the present volume is an attempt to the same end within easier limits. 21 / 1

CHAPTER I.

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HYMNS OF PRAISE AND WORSHIP.

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“TE DEUM LAUDAMUS.”

This famous church confession in song was composed A.D. 387 by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, probably both words and music.

In the whole hymn there are thirty lines. The saying that the early Roman hymns were echoes of Christian Greece, as the Greek hymns were echoes of Jerusalem, is probably true, but they were only echoes. In A.D. 252, St. Cyprian, writing his consolatory epistle^* during the plague in Carthage, when hundreds were dying every day, says, “Ah, perfect and perpetual bliss! [in heaven.] There is the glorious company of the apostles; 22 / 2 there is the fellowship of the prophets rejoicing; there is the innumerable multitude of martyrs crowned.” Which would suggest that lines or fragments of what afterwards crystalized into the formula of the “Te Deum” were already familiar in the Christian church. But it is generally believed that the tongue of Ambrose gave the anthem its final form.

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Ambrose was born in Gaul about the middle of the fourth century and raised to his bishopric in A.D. 374. Very early he saw and appreciated the popular effect of musical sounds, and what an evangelical instrument a chorus of chanting voices could be in preaching the Christian faith; and he introduced the responsive singing of psalms and sacred cantos in the worship of the church. “A grand thing is that singing, and nothing can stand before it,” he said, when the critics of his time complained that his innovation was sensational. That such a charge could be made against the Ambrosian mode of music, with its slow movement and unmetrical lines, seems strange to us, but it was new—and conservatism is the same in all ages.

The great bishop carried all before him. His school of song-worship prevailed in Christian Europe more than two hundred years. Most of his hymns are lost, (the Benedictine writers credit him with twelve), but, judging by their effect on the powerful mind of Augustine, their influence among the common people must have been 23 / 3 profound, and far more lasting than the author's life. “Their voices sank into mine ears, and their truths distilled into my heart,” wrote Augustine, long afterwards, of these hymns; “tears ran down, and I rejoiced in them.”

Poetic tradition has dramatized the story of the birth of the “Te Deum,” dating it on an Easter Sunday, and dividing the honor of its composition between Ambrose and his most eminent convert. It was the day when the bishop baptized Augustine, in the presence of a vast throng that crowded the Basilica of Milan. As if foreseeing with a prophet's eye that his brilliant candidate would become one of the ruling stars of Christendom, Ambrose lifted his hands to heaven and chanted in a holy rapture,—

He paused, and from the lips of the baptized disciple came the response,—

and so, stave by stave, in alternating strains, sprang that day from the inspired lips of Ambrose and Augustine the “Te Deum Laudamus,” which has ever since been the standard anthem of Christian praise.

24 / 4

Whatever the foundation of the story, we may at least suppose the first public singing^* of the great chant to have been associated with that eventful baptism.

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The various anthems, sentences and motets in all Christian languages bearing the titles “Trisagion” or “Tersanctus,” and “Te Deum” are taken from portions of this royal hymn. The sublime and beautiful “Holy, Holy, Holy” of Bishop Heber was suggested by it.

THE TUNE.

No echo remains, so far as is known, of the responsive chant actually sung by Ambrose, but one of the best modern choral renderings of the “Te Deum” is the one by Henry Smart in his Morning and Evening Service. In an ordinary church hymnal it occupies seven pages. The staff-directions with the music indicate the part or cue of the antiphonal singers by the words Decani (Dec.) and Cantor (Can.), meaning first the division of the choir on the Dean's side, and second the division on the Cantor's or Precentor's side.

Henry Smart was one of the five great English composers that followed our American Mason. He was born in London, Oct. 25, 1812, and chose music for a profession in preference to an offered commission in the East Indian army. His talent 25 / 5 as a composer, especially of sacred music, was marvellous, and, though he became blind, his loss of sight was no more hindrance to his genius than loss of hearing to Beethoven.

No composer of his time equalled Henry Smart as a writer of music for female voices. His cantatas have been greatly admired, and his hymn tunes are unsurpassed for their purity and sweetness, while his anthems, his oratorio of “Jacob,” and indeed all that he wrote, show the hand and the inventive gift of a great musical artist.

He died July 10, 1879, universally mourned for his inspired work, and his amiable character.

“ALL GLORY, LAUD AND HONOR.”

Gloria, Laus et Honor.

This stately Latin hymn of the early part of the 9th century was composed in A.D. 820, by Theodulph, Bishop of Orleans, while a captive in the cloister of Anjou. King Louis (le Debonnaire) son of Charlemagne, had trouble with his royal relatives, and suspecting Theodulph to be in sympathy with them, shut him up in prison. A pretty story told by Clichtovius, an old church writer of A.D. 1518, relates how on Palm Sunday the king, celebrating the feast with his people, passed in procession before the cloister, where the face of the venerable prisoner at his cell window caused an involuntary halt, and, in the moment of silence, the bishop raised his voice and sang this 26 / 6 hymn; and how the delighted king released the singer, and restored him to his bishopric. This tale, told after seven hundred years, is not the only legend that grew around the hymn and its author, but the fact that he composed it in the cloister of Anjou while confined there is not seriously disputed.

Theodulph was born in Spain, but of Gothic pedigree, a child of the race of conquerors who, in the 5th century, overran Southern Europe. He died in 821, but whether a free man or still a prisoner at the time of his death is uncertain. Some accounts allege that he was poisoned in the cloister. The Roman church canonized him, and his hymn is still sung as a processional in Protestant as well as Catholic churches. The above Latin lines are the first four of the original seventy-eight. The following is J.M. Neale's translation of the portion now in use:

The translator, Rev. John Mason Neale, D.D., was born in London, Jan. 24, 1818, and graduated at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1840. He was a prolific writer, and after taking holy orders he held the office of Warden of Sackville College, East Grimstead, Sussex. Best known among his published works are Mediæval Hymns and Sequences, Hymns for Children, Hymns of the Eastern Church and The Rhythms of Morlaix. He died Aug. 6, 1866.

THE TUNE.

There is no certainty as to the original tune of Theodulph's Hymn, or how long it survived, but various modern composers have given it music 28 / 8 in more or less keeping with its character, notably Melchior Teschner, whose harmony, “St. Theodulph,” appears in the new Methodist Hymnal. It well represents the march of the bishop's Latin.

Melchior Teschner, a Prussian musician, was Precentor at Frauenstadt, Silesia, about 1613.

“ALL PRAISE TO THEE, ETERNAL LORD.”

Gelobet Seist du Jesu Christ.

This introductory hymn of worship, a favorite Christmas hymn in Germany, is ancient, and appears to be a versification of a Latin prose “Sequence” variously ascribed to a 9th century author, and to Gregory the Great in the 6th century. Its German form is still credited to Luther in most hymnals. Julian gives an earlier German form (1370) of the “Gelobet,” but attributes all but the first stanza to Luther, as the hymn now stands. The following translation, printed first in the Sabbath Hymn Book, Andover, 1858, is the one adopted by Schaff in his Christ in Song:

THE TUNE.

The 18th century tune of “Weimar” (Evangelical Hymnal), by Emanuel Bach, suits the spiritual tone of the hymn, and suggests the Gregorian dignity of its origin.

Karl Philip Emanuel Bach, called “the Berlin Bach” to distinguish him from his father, the great Sebastian Bach of Saxe Weimar, was born in Weimar, March 14, 1714. He early devoted himself to music, and coming to Berlin when twenty-four years old was appointed Chamber musician (Kammer Musicus) in the Royal Chapel, where he often accompanied Frederick the Great (who was an accomplished flutist) on the harpsichord. His most numerous compositions were piano music but he wrote a celebrated “Sanctus,” and two oratorios, besides a number of chorals, of which “Weimar” is one. He died in Hamburg, Dec. 14, 1788.

30 / 10

THE MAGNIFICAT.

Μεγαλύνει ἡ ψυχή μου τὸν Κύριον.

Magnificat anima mea Dominum,
Et exultavit Spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo.

Luke 1:46–55.

We can date with some certainty the hymn itself composed by the Virgin Mary, but when it first became a song of the Christian Church no one can tell. Its thanksgiving may have found tone among the earliest martyrs, who, as Pliny tells us, sang hymns in their secret worship. We can only trace it back to the oldest chant music, when it was doubtless sung by both the Eastern and Western Churches. In the rude liturgies of the 4th and 5th centuries it must have begun to assume ritual form; but it remained for the more modern school of composers hundreds of years later to illustrate the “Magnificat” with the melody of art and genius. Superseding the primitive unisonous plain-song, the old parallel concords, and the simple faburden (faux bourdon) counterpoint that succeeded Gregory, they taught how musical tones can better assist worship with the beauty of harmony and the precision of scientific taste. Musicians in Italy, France, Germany and England have contributed their scores to this inspired hymn. Some of them still have place in the hymnals, a noble one especially by the blind English tone-master, Henry Smart, author of the oratorio of “Jacob.” None, however, have equaled 31 / 11 the work of Handel. His “Magnificat” was one of his favorite productions, and he borrowed strains from it in several of his later and lesser productions.

George Frederic Handel, author of the immortal “Messiah,” was born at Halle, Saxony, in 1685, and died in London in 1759. The musical bent of his genius was apparent almost from his infancy. At the age of eighteen he was earning his living with his violin, and writing his first opera. After a sojourn in Italy, he settled in Hanover as Chapel Master to the Elector, who afterwards became the English king, George I. The friendship of the king and several of his noblemen drew him to England, where he spent forty-seven years and composed his greatest works.

He wrote three hymn-tunes (it is said at the request of a converted actress), “Canons,” “Fitzwilliam,” and “Gopsall,” the first an invitation, “Sinners, Obey the Gospel Word,” the second a meditation, “O Love Divine, How Sweet Thou Art,” and the third a resurrection song to Welsey's words “Rejoice, the Lord is King.” This last still survives in some hymnals.

THE DOXOLOGIES.

32 / 12

This sublime quatrain, attributed to Nahum Tate, like the Lord's Prayer, is suited to all occasions, to all Christian denominations, and to all places and conditions of men. It has been translated into all civilized languages, and has been rising to heaven for many generations from congregations round the globe wherever the faith of Christendom has built its altars. This doxology is the first stanza of a sixteen line hymn (possibly longer originally), the rest of which is forgotten.

Nahum Tate was born in Dublin, in 1652, and educated there at Trinity College. He was appointed poet-laureate by King William III. in 1690, and it was in conjunction with Dr. Nicholas Brady that he executed his “New” metrical version of the Psalms. The entire Psalter, with an appendix of Hymns, was licensed by William and Mary and published in 1703. The hymns in the volume are all by Tate. He died in London, Aug. 12, 1717.

Rev. Nicholas Brady, D.D., was an Irishman, son of an officer in the royal army, and was born at Bandon, County of Cork, Oct. 28, 1659. He studied in the Westminster School at Oxford, but afterwards entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1685. William made him Queen Mary's Chaplain. He died May 20, 1726.

The other nearly contemporary form of doxology is in common use, but though elevated and devotional in spirit, it cannot be universal, owing to its credal line being objectionable to non-Trinitarian Protestants:

33 / 13

The author, the Rev. Thomas Ken, was born in Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire, Eng., July, 1637, and was educated at Winchester School, Hertford College, and New College, Oxford. In 1662 he took holy orders, and seventeen years later the king (Charles II.) appointed him chaplain to his sister Mary, Princess of Orange. Later the king, just before his death, made him Bishop of Bath and Wells.

Like John the Baptist, and Bourdaloue, and Knox, he was a faithful spiritual monitor and adviser during all his days at court. “I must go in and hear Ken tell me my faults,” the king used to say at chapel time. The “good little man” (as he called the bishop) never lost the favor of the dissipated monarch. As Macaulay says, “Of all the prelates, he liked Ken the best.”

Under James, the Papist, Ken was a loyal subject, though once arrested as one of the “seven bishops” for his opposition to the king's religion, and he kept his oath of allegiance so firmly that it cost him his place. William III. deprived him of his bishopric, and he retired in poverty to a home kindly offered him by Lord Viscount Weymouth in Longleat, near Frome, in Somersetshire, where he spent a serene and beloved old age. He died æt. seventy-four, March 17, 1711 (N.S.), and was 34 / 14 carried to his grave, according to his request, by “six of the poorest men in the parish.”

His great doxology is the refrain or final stanza of each of his three long hymns, “Morning,” “Evening” and “Midnight,” printed in a Prayer Manual for the use of the students of Winchester College. The “Evening Hymn” drew scenic inspiration, it is told, from the lovely view in Horningsham Park at “Heaven's Gate Hill,” while walking to and from church.

Another four-line doxology, adopted probably from Dr. Hatfield (1807–1883), is almost entirely superseded by Ken's stanza, being of even more pronounced credal character.

The Methodist Hymnal prints a collection of ten doxologies, two by Watts, one by Charles Wesley, one by John Wesley, one by William Goode, one by Edwin F. Hatfield, one attributed to “Tate and Brady,” one by Robert Hawkes, and the one by Ken above noted. These are all technically and intentionally doxologies. To give a history of doxologies in the general sense of the word would carry one through every Christian age and language and end with a concordance of the Book of Psalms.

37 / 15

THE TUNE.

Few would think of any music more appropriate to a standard doxology than “Old Hundred.” This grand Gregorian harmony has been claimed to be Luther's production, while some have believed that Louis Bourgeois, editor of the French Genevan Psalter, composed the tune, but the weight of evidence seems to indicate that it was the work of Guillaume le Franc, (William Franck or William the Frenchman,) of Rouen, in France, who founded a music school in Geneva, 1541. He was Chapel Master there, but removed to Lausanne, where he played in the Catholic choir and wrote the tunes for an Edition of Marot's and Beza's Psalms. Died in Lausanne, 1570.

“THE LORD DESCENDED FROM ABOVE.”

A flash of genuine inspiration was vouchsafed to Thomas Sternhold when engaged with Rev. John Hopkins in versifying the Eighteenth Psalm. The ridicule heaped upon Sternhold and Hopkins's psalmbook has always stopped, and sobered into admiration and even reverence at the two stanzas beginning with this leading line—

Thomas Sternhold was born in Gloucestershire, Eng. He was Groom of the Robes to Henry VIII, and Edward VI., but is only remembered for his Psalter published in 1562, thirteen years after his death in 1549.

THE TUNE.

“Nottingham” (now sometimes entitled “St. Magnus”) is a fairly good echo of the grand verses, a dignified but spirited choral in A flat. Jeremiah Clark, the composer, was born in London, 1670. Educated at the Chapel Royal, he became organist of Winchester College and finally to St. Paul's Cathedral where he was appointed Gentleman of the Chapel. He died July, 1707.

The tune of “Majesty” by William Billings will be noticed in a later chapter.

TALLIS' EVENING HYMN.

This stanza begins the second of Bp. Ken's three beautiful hymn-prayers in his Manual mentioned on a previous page.

39 / 17

THE TUNE.

For more than three hundred and fifty years devout people have enjoyed that melody of mingled dignity and sweetness known as “Tallis' Evening Hymn.”

Thomas Tallis was an Englishman, born about 1520, and at an early age was a boy chorister at St. Paul's. After his voice changed, he played the organ at Waltham Abbey, and some time later was chosen organist royal to Queen Elizabeth. His pecuniary returns for his talent did not make him rich, though he bore the title after 1542 of Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, for his stipend was sevenpence a day. Some gain may possibly have come to him, however, from his publication, late in life, under the queen's special patent, of a collection of hymns and tunes.

He wrote much and was the real founder of the English Church school of composers, but though St. Paul's was at one time well supplied with his motets and anthems, it is impossible now to give a list of Tallis' compositions for the Church. His music was written originally to Latin words, but when, after the Reformation, the use of vernacular hymns, was introduced he probably adapted his scores to either language.

It is inferred that he was in attendance on Queen Elizabeth at her palace in Greenwich when he died, for he was buried in the old parish church there in November, 1585. The rustic rhymer who 40 / 18 indited his epitaph evidently did the best he could to embalm the virtues of the great musician as a man, a citizen, and a husband:

“THE GOD OF ABRAHAM PRAISE.”

This is one of the thanksgivings of the ages.

The hymn, of twelve eight-line stanzas, is too long 41 / 19 to quote entire, but is found in both the Plymouth and Methodist Hymnals.

Thomas Olivers, born in Tregynon, near Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Wales, 1725, was, according to local testimony, “the worst boy known in all that country, for thirty years.” It is more charitable to say that he was a poor fellow who had no friends. Left an orphan at five years of age, he was passed from one relative to another until all were tired of him, and he was “bound out” to a shoemaker. Almost inevitably the neglected lad grew up wicked, for no one appeared to care for his habits and morals, and as he sank lower in the various vices encouraged by bad company, there were more kicks for him than helping hands. At the age of eighteen his reputation in the town had become so unsavory that he was forced to shift for himself elsewhere.

Providence led him, when shabby and penniless, to the old seaport town of Bristol, where Whitefield was at that time preaching,^* and there the young sinner heard the divine message that lifted him to his feet.

---

“When that sermon began,” he said, “I was one of the most abandoned and profligate young men living; before it ended I was a new creature. The world was all changed for Tom Olivers.”

His new life, thus begun, lasted on earth more than sixty useful years. He left a shining record 42 / 20 as a preacher of righteousness, and died in the triumphs of faith, November, 1799. Before he passed away he saw at least thirty editions of his hymn published, but the soul-music it has awakened among the spiritual children of Abraham can only reach him in heaven. Some of its words have been the last earthly song of many, as they were of the eminent Methodist theologian, Richard Watson—

THE TUNE.

The precise date of the tune “Leoni” is unknown, as also the precise date of the hymn. The story is that Olivers visited the great “Duke's Place” Synagogue, Aldgate, London, and heard Meyer Lyon (Leoni) sing the Yigdal or long doxology to an air so noble and impressive that it haunted him till he learned it and fitted to it the sublime stanzas of his song. Lyon, a noted Jewish musician and vocalist, was chorister of this London Synagogue during the latter part of the 18th century and the Yigdal was a portion of the Hebrew Liturgy composed in medieval times, it is said, by Daniel Ben Judah. The fact that the Methodist leaders took Olivers from his bench to be one of their preachers answers any suggestion that the converted shoemaker copied the Jewish hymn and put Christian phrases in it. 43 / 21 He knew nothing of Hebrew, and had he known it, a literal translation of the Yigdal will show hardly a similarity to his evangelical lines. Only the music as Leoni sang it prompted his own song, and he gratefully put the singer's name to it. Montgomery, who admired the majestic style of the hymn, and its glorious imagery, said of its author, “The man who wrote that hymn must have had the finest ear imaginable, for on account of the peculiar measure, none but a person of equal musical and poetic taste could have produced the harmony perceptible in the verse.”

Whether the hymnist or some one else fitted the hymn to the tune, the “fine ear” and “poetic taste” that Montgomery applauded are evident enough in the union.

“O WORSHIP THE KING ALL GLORIOUS ABOVE.”

This hymn of Sir Robert Grant has become almost universally known, and is often used as a morning or opening service song by choirs and congregations of all creeds. The favorite stanzas are the first four—

This is a model hymn of worship. Like the previous one by Thomas Olivers, it is strongly Hebrew in its tone and diction, and drew its inspiration from the Old Testament Psalter, the text-book of all true praise-song.

Sir Robert Grant was born in the county of Inverness, Scotland, in 1785, and educated at Cambridge. He was many years member of Parliament for Inverness and a director in the East India Company, and 1834 was appointed Governor of Bombay. He died at Dapoorie, Western India, July 9, 1838.

Sir Robert was a man of deep Christian feeling and a poetic mind. His writings were not numerous, but their thoughtful beauty endeared him to a wide circle of readers. In 1839 his brother, Lord Glenelg, published twelve of his poetical pieces, and a new edition in 1868. The volume contains the more or less well-known hymns—

The starry firmament on high,
Saviour, when in dust to Thee,

and—

When gathering clouds around I view.

45 / 23

Sir Robert's death, when scarcely past his prime, would indicate a decline by reason of illness, and perhaps other serious affliction, that justified the poetic license in the submissive verses beginning—

THE TUNE.

Several musical pieces written to the hymn, “O, Worship the King,” have appeared in church psalm-books, and others have been borrowed for it, but the one oftenest sung to its words is Haydn's “Lyons.” Its vigor and spirit best fit it for Grant's noble lyric.

“MAJESTIC SWEETNESS SITS ENTHRONED.”

Rev. Samuel Stennett D.D., the author of this hymn, was the son of Rev. Joseph Stennett, and grandson of Rev. Joseph Stennett D.D., who wrote—

All were Baptist ministers. Samuel was born in 1727, at Exeter, Eng., and at the age of twenty-one 46 / 24 became his father's assistant, and subsequently his successor over the church in Little Wild Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London.

Samuel Stennett was one of the most respected and influential ministers of the Dissenting persuasion, and a confidant of many of the most distinguished statesmen of his time. The celebrated John Howard was his parishoner and intimate friend. His degree of Doctor of Divinity was bestowed upon him by Aberdeen University. Besides his theological writings he composed and published thirty-eight hymns, among them—

On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,
When two or three with sweet accord,
Here at Thy table, Lord, we meet,

and—

“'Tis finished,” so the Saviour cried.

47 / 25

“Majestic Sweetness” began the third stanza of his longer hymn—

To Christ the Lord let every tongue.

Dr. Stennett died in London, Aug. 24, 1795.

THE TUNE.

For fifty or sixty years “Ortonville” has been linked with this devout hymn, and still maintains its fitting fellowship. The tune, composed in 1830, was the work of Thomas Hastings, and is almost as well-known and as often sung as his immortal “Toplady.” (See chap. 3, “Rock of Ages.”)

“ALL HAIL THE POWER OF JESUS' NAME.”

This inspiring lyric of praise appears to have been written about the middle of the eighteenth century. Its author, the Rev. Edward Perronet, son of Rev. Vincent Perronet, Vicar of Shoreham, Eng., was a man of great faith and humility but zealous in his convictions, sometimes to his serious expense. He was born in 1721, and, though eighteen years younger than Charles Wesley, the two became bosom friends, and it was under the direction of the Wesleys that Perronet became a preacher in the evangelical movement. Lady Huntingdon later became his patroness, but some needless and imprudent expressions in a satirical poem, “The Mitre,” revealing his hostility to the union of church and state, cost him her favor, 48 / 26 and his contention against John Wesley's law that none but the regular parish ministers had the right to administer the sacraments, led to his complete separation from both the Wesleys. He subsequently became the pastor of a small church of Dissenters in Canterbury, where he died, in January, 1792. His piety uttered itself when near his happy death, and his last words were a Gloria.

With two disused stanzas omitted, the hymn as it stands differs from the original chiefly in the last stanza, though in the second the initial line is now transposed to read—

The fourth stanza now reads—

49 / 27

And what is now the favorite last stanza is the one added by Dr. Rippon—

THE TUNE.

Everyone now calls it “Old Coronation,” and it is entitled to the adjective by this time, being considerably more than a hundred years of age. It was composed in the very year of Perronet's death and one wonders just how long the hymn and tune waited before they came together; for Heaven evidently meant them to be wedded for all time. This is an American opinion, and no reflection on the earlier English melody of “Miles Lane,” composed during Perronet's lifetime by William Shrubsole and published with the words in 1780 in the Gospel Magazine. There is also a fine processional tune sung in the English Church to Perronet's hymn.

35 / opp 14

The author of “Coronation” was Oliver Holden, a self-taught musician, born in Shirley, Mass., 1765, and bred to the carpenter's trade. The little pipe organ on which tradition says he struck the first notes of the famous tune is now in the 50 / 28 Historical rooms of the Old State House, Boston, placed there by its late owner, Mrs. Fanny Tyler, the old musician's granddaughter. Its tones are as mellow as ever, and the times that “Coronation” has been played upon it by admiring visitors would far outnumber the notes of its score.

Holden wrote a number of other hymn-tunes, among which “Cowper,” “Confidence,” and “Concord” are remembered, but none of them had the wings of “Coronation,” his American “Te Deum.” His first published collection was entitled The American Harmony, and this was followed by the Union Harmony, and the Worcester Collection. He also wrote and published “Mt. Vernon,” and several other patriotic anthems, mainly for special occasions, to some of which he supplied the words. He was no hymnist, though he did now and then venture into sacred metre. The new Methodist Hymnal preserves a simple four-stanza specimen of his experiments in verse:

Sacred music, however, was the good man's passion to the last. He died in 1844.

“Such beautiful themes!” he whispered on his death bed, “Such beautiful themes! But I can write no more.”

The enthusiasm always and everywhere aroused by the singing of “Coronation,” dates from the 51 / 29 time it first went abroad in America in its new wedlock of music and words. “This tune,” says an accompanying note over the score in the old Carmina Sacra, “was a great favorite with the late Dr. Dwight of Yale College (1798). It was often sung by the college choir, while he, catching, as it were, the music of the heavenly world, would join them, and lead with the most ardent devotion.”

“AWAKE AND SING THE SONG.”

This hymn of six stanzas is abridged from a longer one indited by the Rev. William Hammond, and published in Lady Huntingdon's Hymn-book. It was much in use in early Methodist revivals. It appears now as it was slightly altered by Rev. Martin Madan—

The sixth verse is a variation of one of Watts' hymns, and was added in the Brethren's Hymn-book, 1801—

The Rev. William Hammond was born Jan. 6, 1719, at Battle, Sussex, Eng., and educated at St. 52 / 30 John's College, Cambridge. Early in his ministerial life he was a Calvinistic Methodist, but ultimately joined the Moravians. Died in London, Aug. 19, 1793. His collection of Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs was published in 1745.

The Rev. Martin Madan, son of Col. Madan, was born 1726. He founded Lock Hospital, Hyde Park, and long officiated as its chaplain. As a preacher he was popular, and his reputation as a composer of music was considerable. There is no proof that he wrote any original hymns, but he amended, pieced and expanded the work of others. Died in 1770.

THE TUNE.

The hymn has had a variety of musical interpretations. The more modern piece is “St. Philip,” by Edward John Hopkins, Doctor of Music, born at Westminster, London, June 30, 1818. From a member of the Chapel Royal boy choir he became organist of the Michtam Church, Surrey, and afterwards of the Temple Church, London. Received his Doctor's degree from the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1882.

“CROWN HIS HEAD WITH ENDLESS BLESSING.”

The writer of this hymn was William Goode, who helped to found the English Church Missionary Society, and was for twenty years the Secretary of the “Society for the Relief of Poor Pious Clergymen.” 55 / 31 For celebrating the praise of the Saviour, he seems to have been of like spirit and genius with Perronet. He was born in Buckingham, Eng., April 2, 1762; studied for the ministry and became a curate, successor of William Romaine. His spiritual maturity was early, and his habits of thought were formed amid associations such as the young Wesleys and Whitefield sought. Like them, even in his student days he proved his aspiration for purer religious life by an evangelical zeal that cost him the ridicule of many of his school-fellows, but the meetings for conference and prayer which he organized among them were not unattended, and were lasting and salutary in their effect.

Jesus was the theme of his life and song, and was his last word. He died in 1816.

53 / opp 30

THE TUNE.

“Haydn,” bearing the name of its great composer, is in several important hymnals the chosen music for William Goode's devout words. Its strain and spirit are lofty and melodious and in entire accord with the pious poet's praise.

56 / 32

Joseph Haydn, son of a poor wheelwright, was born 1732, in Rohron, a village on the borders of Hungary and Austria. His precocity of musical talent was such that he began composing at the age of ten years. Prince Esterhazy discovered his genius when he was poor and friendless, and his fortune was made. While Music Master for the Prince's Private Chapel (twenty years) he wrote many of his beautiful symphonies which placed him among the foremost in that class of music. Invited to England, he received the Doctor's degree at Oxford, and composed his great oratorio of “The Creation,” besides his “Twelve Grand Symphonies,” and a long list of minor musical works secular and sacred. His invention was inexhaustible.

Haydn seems to have been a sincerely pious man. When writing his great oratorio of “The Creation” at sixty-seven years of age, “I knelt down every day,” he says, “and prayed God to strengthen me for my work.” This daily spiritual preparation was similar to Handel's when he was creating his “Messiah.” Change one word and it may be said of sacred music as truly as of astronomy, “The undevout composer is mad.”

Near Haydn's death, in Vienna, 1809, when he heard for the last time his magnificent chorus, “Let there be Light!” he exclaimed, “Not mine, not mine. It all came to me from above.”

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“NOW TO THE LORD A NOBLE SONG.”

When Watts finished this hymn he had achieved a “noble song,” whether he was conscious of it or not; and it deserves a foremost place, where it can help future worshippers in their praise as it has the past. It is not so common in the later hymnals, but it is imperishable, and still later collections will not forget it.

A rather finical question has occurred to some minds as to the theology of the word “works” in the last line, making the second person in the Godhead apparently a creature; and in a few hymn-books the previous line has been made to read—

But the question is a rhetorical one, and the poet's free expression—here as in hundreds of other cases—has never disturbed the general confidence in his orthodoxy.

Montgomery called Watts “the inventor of hymns in our language,” and the credit stands practically undisputed, for Watts made a hymn style that no human master taught him, and his 58 / 34 model has been the ideal one for song worship ever since; and we can pardon the climax when Professor Charles M. Stuart speaks of him as “writer, scholar, thinker and saint,” for in addition to all the rest he was a very good man.

THE TUNE.

Old “Ames” was for many years the choir favorite, and the words of the hymn printed with it in the note-book made the association familiar. It was, and is, an appropriate selection, though in later manuals George Kingsley's “Ware” is evidently thought to be better suited to the high-toned verse. Good old tunes never “wear out,” but they do go out of fashion.

The composer of “Ames,” Sigismund Neukomm, Chevalier, was born in Salzburg, Austria, July 10, 1778, and was a pupil of Haydn. Though not a great genius, his talents procured him access and even intimacy in the courts of Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and England, and for thirty years he composed church anthems and oratorios with prodigious industry. Neukomm's musical productions, numbering no less than one thousand, and popular in their day, are, however, mostly forgotten, excepting his oratorio of “David” and one or two hymn-tunes.

George Kingsley, author of “Ware,” was born in Northampton, Mass., July 7, 1811. Died in the Hospital, in the same city, March 14, 1884. He compiled eight books of music for young people and several manuals of church psalmody, and was for 59 / 35 some time a music teacher in Boston, where he played the organ at the Hollis St. church. Subsequently he became professor of music in Girard College, Philadelphia, and music instructor in the public schools, being employed successively as organist (on Lord's Day) at Dr. Albert Barnes' and Arch St. churches, and finally in Brooklyn at Dr. Storrs' Church of the Pilgrims. Returned to Northampton, 1853.

“EARLY, MY GOD, WITHOUT DELAY.”

This and the five following hymns, all by Watts, are placed in immediate succession, for unity's sake—with a fuller notice of the greatest of hymn-writers at the end of the series.

In the memories of very old men and women, who sang the fugue music of Morgan's “Montgomery,” still lingers the second stanza and some of the “spirit and understanding” with which it used to be rendered in meeting on Sunday mornings.

THE TUNE.

Many of the earlier pieces assigned to this hymn were either too noisy or too tame. The best and 60 / 36 longest-serving is “Lanesboro,” which, with its expressive duet in the middle and its soaring final strain of harmony, never fails to carry the meaning of the words. It was composed by William Dixon, and arranged and adapted by Lowell Mason.

William Dixon, an English composer, was a music engraver and publisher, and author also of several glees and anthems. He was born 1750, and died about 1825.

Lowell Mason, born in Medfield, Mass., 1792, has been called, not without reason, “the father of American choir singing.” Returning from Savannah, Ga., where he spent sixteen years of his younger life as clerk in a bank, he located in Boston (1827), being already known there as the composer of “The Missionary Hymn.” He had not neglected his musical studies while living in the South, and it was in Savannah that he made the glorious harmony of that tune.

He became president of the Handel and Haydn Society, went abroad for special study, was made Doctor of Music, and collected a store of themes among the great models of song to bring home for his future work.

The Boston Academy of Music was founded by him and what he did for the song-service of the Church in America by his singing schools, and musical conventions, and published manuals, to form and organize the choral branch of divine worship, has no parallel, unless it is Noah Webster's service to the English language.

Dr. Mason died in Orange, N.J., in 1872.

61 / 37

“SWEET IS THE WORK, MY GOD, MY KING.”

This is one of the hymns that helped to give its author the title of “The Seraphic Watts.”

THE TUNE.

No nobler one, and more akin in spirit to the hymn, can be found than “Duke Street,” Hatton's imperishable choral.

Little is known of the John Hatton who wrote “Duke St.” He was earlier by nearly a century than John Liphot Hatton of Liverpool (born in 1809), who wrote the opera of “Pascal Bruno,” the cantata of “Robin Hood” and the sacred drama of “Hezekiah.” The biographical index of the Evangelical Hymnal says of John Hatton, the author of “Duke St.”: “John, of Warrington; afterwards of St. Helens, then resident in Duke St. in the township of Windle; composed several hymn-tunes; died in 1793.^* His funeral sermon was preached at the Presbyterian Chapel, St. Helens, Dec. 13.”

---

“COME, WE THAT LOVE THE LORD.”

Watts entitled this hymn “Heavenly Joy on Earth.” He could possibly, like Madame Guyon, 62 / 38 have written such a hymn in a dungeon, but it is no less spiritual for its birth (as tradition will have it) amid the lovely scenery of Southampton where he could find in nature “glory begun below.”

Mortality and immortality blend their charms in the next stanza. The unfailing beauty of the vision will be dwelt upon with delight so long as Christians sing on earth.

THE TUNE.

“St. Thomas” has often been the interpreter of the hymn, and still clings to the words in the memory of thousands.

The Italian tune of “Ain” has more music. It is a fugue piece (simplified in some tune-books), 63 / 39 and the joyful traverse of its notes along the staff in four-four time, with the momentum of a good choir, is exhilarating in the extreme.

Corelli, the composer, was a master violinist, the greatest of his day, and wrote a great deal of violin music; and the thought of his glad instrument may have influenced his work when harmonizing the four voices of “Ain.”

Arcangelo Corelli was born at Fusignano, in 1653. He was a sensitive artist, and although faultless in Italian music, he was not sure of himself in playing French scores, and once while performing with Handel (who resented the slightest error), and once again with Scarlatti, leading an orchestra in Naples when the king was present, he made a mortifying mistake. He took the humiliation so much to heart that he brooded over it till he died, in Rome, Jan. 18, 1717.

For revival meetings the modern tune set to “Come we that love the Lord,” by Robert Lowry, should be mentioned. A shouting chorus is appended to it, but it has melody and plenty of stimulating motion.

The Rev. Robert Lowry was born in Philadelphia, March 12, 1826, and educated at Lewisburg, Pa. From his 28th year till his death, 1899, he was a faithful and successful minister of Christ, but is more widely known as a composer of sacred music.

64 / 40

“BE THOU EXALTED, O MY GOD.”

In this hymn the thought of Watts touches the eternal summits. Taken from the 57th and 108th Psalms—

THE TUNE.

Haydn furnished it out of his chorus of morning stars, and it was christened “Creation,” after the name of his great oratorio. It is a march of trumpets.

“BEFORE JEHOVAH'S AWFUL THRONE.”

No one could mistake the style of Watts in this sublime ode. He begins with his foot on Sinai, but flies to Calvary with the angel preacher whom St. John saw in his Patmos vision:

TUNE—OLD HUNDRED.

Martin Madan's four-page anthem, “Denmark,” has some grand strains in it, but it is a tune of florid and difficult vocalization, and is now heard only in Old Folks' Concerts.

The Rev. Isaac Watts, D.D., was born at Southampton, Eng., in 1674. His father was a deacon of the Independent Church there, and though not an uncultured man himself, he is said to have had little patience with the incurable penchant of his boy for making rhymes and verses. We hear nothing of the lad's mother, but we can fancy her hand and spirit in the indulgence of his poetic tastes as well as in his religious training. The tradition handed down from Dr. Price, a colleague of Watts, relates that at the age of eighteen Isaac became so irritated at the crabbed and untuneful hymns sung at the Nonconformist meetings that he complained bitterly of them to his father. The deacon may have felt something 66 / 42 as Dr. Wayland did when a rather “fresh” student criticised the Proverbs, and hinted that making such things could not be “much of a job,” and the Doctor remarked, “Suppose you make a few.” Possibly there was the same gentle sarcasm in the reply of Deacon Watts to his son, “Make some yourself, then.”

Isaac was in just the mood to take his father at his word, and he retired and wrote the hymn—

Behold the glories of the Lamb.

There must have been a decent tune to carry it, for it pleased the worshippers greatly, when it was sung in meeting—and that was the beginning of Isaac Watts' career as a hymnist.

So far as scholarship was an advantage, the young writer must have been well equipped already, for as early as the entering of his fifth year he was learning Latin, and at nine learning Greek; at eleven, French; and at thirteen, Hebrew. From the day of his first success he continued to indite hymns for the home church, until by the end of his twenty-second year he had written one hundred and ten, and in the two following years a hundred and forty-four more, besides preparing himself for the ministry. No. 7 in the edition of the first one hundred and ten, was that royal jewel of all his lyric work—

When I survey the wondrous cross.

Isaac Watts was ordained pastor of an Independent Church in Mark Lane, London, 1702, but 67 / 43 repeated illness finally broke up his ministry, and he retired, an invalid, to the beautiful home of Sir Thomas Abney at Theobaldo, invited, as he supposed, to spend a week, but it was really to spend the rest of his life—thirty-six years.

Numbers of his hymns are cited as having biographical or reminiscent color. The stanza in—

—which reads in the original copy,—

—is said to have been an allusion to Voltaire and his attack upon the church, while the calm beauty of the harbor within view of his home is supposed to have been in his eye when he composed the last stanza,—

According to the record,—

—was one of his “pulpit hymns,” and followed a sermon preached from Rom. 1:16. Another,—

—after a sermon from I Cor. 3:22; and another,—

68 / 44

—enforced his text, “All things are yours.” The hymn,—

—was, as some say, suggested to the writer by a visit to the abattoir in Smithfield Market. The same hymn years afterwards, discovered, we are told, in a printed paper wrapped around a shop bundle, converted a Jewess, and influenced her to a life of Christian faith and sacrifice.

A young man, hardened by austere and minatory sermons, was melted, says Dr. Belcher, by simply reading,—

—and became partaker of a rich religious experience.

The summer scenery of Southampton, with its distant view of the Isle of Wight, was believed to have inspired the hymnist sitting at a parlor window and gazing across the river Itchen, to write the stanza—

The hymn, “Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb,” was personal, addressed by Watts “to Lucius on the death of Seneca.”

A severe heart-trial was the occasion of another hymn. When a young man he proposed marriage 69 / 45 to Miss Elizabeth Singer, a much-admired young lady, talented, beautiful, and good. She rejected him—kindly but finally. The disappointment was bitter, and in the first shadow of it he wrote,—

Miss Singer became the celebrated Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe, the spiritual and poetic beauty of whose Meditations once made a devotional text-book for pious souls. Of Dr. Watts and his offer of his hand and heart, she always said, “I loved the jewel, but I did not admire the casket.” The poet suitor was undersized, in habitually delicate health—and not handsome.

But the good minister and scholar found noble employment to keep his mind from preying upon itself and shortening his days. During his long though afflicted leisure he versified the Psalms, wrote a treatise on Logic, an Introduction to the Study of Astronomy and Geography, and a work On the Improvement of the Mind; and died in 1748, at the age of seventy-four.

“O FOR A THOUSAND TONGUES TO SING.”

Charles Wesley, the author of this hymn, took up the harp of Watts when the older poet laid it down. He was born at Epworth, Eng., in 1708, the third son of Rev. Samuel Wesley, and died in London, March 29, 1788. The hymn is believed to have 70 / 46 been written May 17, 1739, for the anniversary of his own conversion:

The remark of a fervent Christian friend, Peter Bohler, “Had I a thousand tongues I would praise Christ Jesus with them all,” struck an answering chord in Wesley's heart, and he embalmed the wish in his fluent verse. The third stanza (printed as second in some hymnals), has made language for pardoned souls for at least four generations:

Charles Wesley was the poet of the soul, and knew every mood. In the words of Isaac Taylor, “There is no main article of belief ... no moral sentiment peculiarly characteristic of the gospel that does not find itself ... pointedly and clearly conveyed in some stanza of Charles Wesley's poetry.” And it does not dim the lustre of Watts, considering the marvellous brightness, versatility and felicity of his greatest successor, to say of the latter, with the London Quarterly, that he “was, perhaps, the most gifted minstrel of the modern Church.”

71 / opp 46 73 / 47

Most of the hymns of this good man were hymns of experience—and this is why they are so dear to the Christian heart. The music of eternal life is in them. The happy glow of a single line in one of them—

Love Divine, all loves excelling,

—thrills through them all. He led a spotless life from youth to old age, and grew unceasingly in spiritual knowledge and sweetness. His piety and purity were the weapons that alike humbled his scoffing fellow scholars at Oxford, and conquered the wild colliers of Kingwood. With his brother John, through persecution and ridicule, he preached and sang that Divine Love to his countrymen and in the wilds of America, and on their return to England his quenchless melodies multiplied till they made an Evangelical literature around his name. His hymns—he wrote no less than six thousand—are a liturgy not only for the Methodist Church but for English-speaking Christendom.

The voices of Wesley and Watts cannot be hidden, whatever province of Christian life and service is traversed in themes of song, and in these chapters they will be heard again and again.

A Watts-and-Wesley Scholarship would grace any Theological Seminary, to encourage the study and discussion of the best lyrics of the two great Gospel bards.

THE TUNES.

The musical mouth-piece of “O for a thousand tongues,” nearest to its own date, is old “Azmon” 74 / 48 by Carl Glaser (1734–1829), appearing as No. 1 in the New Methodist Hymnal. Arranged by Lowell Mason, 1830, it is still comparatively familiar, and the flavor of devotion is in its tone and style.

Henry John Gauntlett, an English lawyer and composer, wrote a tune for it in 1872, noble in its uniform step and time, but scarcely uttering the hymnist's characteristic ardor.

The tune of “Dedham,” by William Gardiner, now venerable but surviving by true merit, is not unlike “Azmon” in movement and character. Though less closely associated with the hymn, as a companion melody it is not inappropriate. But whatever the range of vocalization or the dignity of swells and cadences, a slow pace of single semibreves or quarters is not suited to Wesley's hymns. They are flights.

Professor William Gardiner wrote many works on musical subjects early in the last century, and composed vocal harmonies, secular and sacred. He was born in Leicester, Eng., March 5, 1770, and died there Nov. 16, 1853.

There is an old-fashioned unction and vigor in the style of “Peterborough” by Rev. Ralph Harrison (1748–1810) that after all best satisfies the singer who enters heart and soul into the spirit of the hymn. Old Peterborough was composed in 1786.

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“LORD WITH GLOWING HEART I'D PRAISE THEE.”

This was written in 1817 by the author of the “Star Spangled Banner,” and is a noble American hymn of which the country may well be proud, both because of its merit and for its birth in the heart of a national poet who was no less a Christian than a patriot.

Francis Scott Key, lawyer, was born on the estate of his father, John Ross Key, in Frederick, Md., Aug. 1st, 1779; and died in Baltimore, Jan. 11, 1843. A bronze statue of him over his grave, and another in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, represent the nationality of his fame and the gratitude of a whole land.

Though a slaveholder by inheritance, Mr. Key deplored the existence of human slavery, and not only originated a scheme of African colonization, but did all that a model master could do for the chattels on his plantation, in compliance with the Scripture command,^* to lighten their burdens. He helped them in their family troubles, defended them gratuitously in the courts, and held regular Sunday-school services for them.

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Educated at St. John's College, an active member of the Episcopal Church, he was not only a scholar but a devout and exemplary man.

THE TUNE.

“St. Chad,” a choral in D, with a four-bar unison, in the Evangelical Hymnal, is worthy of the hymn. Richard Redhead, the composer, organist of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Paddington, Eng., was born at Harrow, Middlesex, March 1, 1820, and educated at Magdalene College, Oxford. Graduated Bachelor of Music at Oxford, 1871. He published Laudes Dominæ, a Gregorian Psalter, 1843, a Book of Tunes for the Christian Year, and is the author of much ritual music.

“HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, LORD GOD ALMIGHTY.”

There is nothing so majestic in Protestant hymnology as this Tersanctus of Bishop Heber.

The Rt. Rev. Reginald Heber, son of a clergyman of the same name, was born in Malpas, 77 / 51 Cheshire, Eng., April 21st, 1783, and educated at Oxford. He served the church in Hodnet, Shropshire, for about twenty years, and was then appointed Bishop of Calcutta, E.I. His labors there were cut short in the prime of his life, his death occurring in 1826, at Trichinopoly on the 3d of April, his natal month.

His hymns, numbering fifty-seven, were collected by his widow, and published with his poetical works in 1842.

THE TUNE.

Grand as the hymn is, it did not come to its full grandeur of sentiment and sound in song-worship till the remarkable music of Dr. John B. Dykes was joined to it. None was ever written that in performance illustrates more admirably the solemn beauty of congregational praise. The name “Nicæa” attached to the tune means nothing to the popular ear and mind, and it is known everywhere by the initial words of the first line.

Rev. John Bacchus Dykes, Doctor of Music, was born at Kingston-upon-Hull, in 1823; and 78 / 52 graduated at Cambridge, in 1847. He became a master of tone and choral harmony, and did much to reform and elevate congregational psalmody in England. He was perhaps the first to demonstrate that hymn-tune making can be reduced to a science without impairing its spiritual purpose. Died Jan. 22, 1876.

“LORD OF ALL BEING, THRONED AFAR.”

This noble hymn was composed by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, born in Cambridge, Mass., 1809, and graduated at Harvard University. A physician by profession, he was known as a practitioner chiefly in literature, being a brilliant writer and long the leading poetical wit of America. He was, however, a man of deep religious feeling, and a devout attendant at King's Chapel, Unitarian, in Boston where he spent his life. He held the Harvard Professorship of Anatomy and Physiology more than fifty years, but his enduring work is in his poems, and his charming volume, The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. Died Jan. 22, 1896.

THE TUNE.

Holmes' hymn is sung in some churches to “Louvan,” V.C. Taylor's admirable praise tune. Other hymnals prefer with it the music of “Keble,” one of Dr. Dykes' appropriate and finished melodies.

Virgil Corydon Taylor, an American vocal composer, was born in Barkhamstead, Conn., April 2, 1817, died 1891.

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CHAPTER II.

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SOME HYMNS OF GREAT WITNESSES.

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JOHN OF DAMASCUS.

Ἔρχεσθε, ὦ πιστοί,
Ἀναστάσεως Ἡμέρα.

John of Damascus, called also St. John of Jerusalem, a theologian and poet, was the last but one of the Christian Fathers of the Greek Church. This eminent man was named by the Arabs “Ibn Mansur,” Son (Servant?) of a Conqueror, either in honor of his father Sergius or because it was a Semitic translation of his family title. He was born in Damascus early in the 8th century, and seems to have been in favor with the Caliph, and served under him many years in some important civil capacity, until, retiring to Palestine, he entered the monastic order, and late in life was ordained a priest of the Jerusalem Church. He died in the Convent of St. Sabas near that city about A.D. 780.

His lifetime appears to have been passed in 80 / 54 comparative peace. Mohammed having died before completing the conquest of Syria, the Moslem rule before whose advance Oriental Christianity was to lose its first field of triumph had not yet asserted its persecuting power in the north. This devout monk, in his meditations at St. Sabas, dwelt much upon the birth and the resurrection of Christ, and made hymns to celebrate them. It was probably four hundred years before Bonaventura (?) wrote the Christmas “Adeste Fideles” of the Latin West that John of Damascus composed his Greek “Adeste Fideles” for a Resurrection song in Jerusalem.

The nobler of the two hymns preserved to us, (or six stanzas of it) through eleven centuries is entitled “The Day of Resurrection.”

Both these hymns of John of Damascus were translated by John Mason Neale.

THE TUNE.

“The Day of Resurrection” is sung in the modern hymnals to the tune of “Rotterdam,” composed by Berthold of Tours, born in that city of the Netherlands, Dec. 17, 1838. He was educated at the conservatory in Leipsic, and later made London his permanent residence, writing both vocal and instrumental music. Died 1897. “Rotterdam” is a stately, sonorous piece and conveys the flavor of the ancient hymn.

“Come ye faithful” has for its modern interpreter Sir Arthur Sullivan, the celebrated composer of both secular and sacred works, but best 82 / 56 known in hymnody as author of the great Christian march, “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

Hymns are known to have been written by the earlier Greek Fathers, Ephrem Syrus of Mesopotamia (A.D. 307–373), Basil the Great, Bishop of Cappadocia (A.D. 329–379) Gregory Nazianzen, Bishop of Constantinople (A.D. 335–390) and others, but their fragments of song which have come down to us scarcely rank them among the great witnesses—with the possible exception of the last name. An English scholar, Rev. Allen W. Chatfield, has translated the hymns extant of Gregory Nazianzen. The following stanzas give an idea of their quality. The lines are from an address to the Deity:

This is reverent, but rather philosophical than evangelical, and reminds us of the Hymn of Aratus, more than two centuries before Christ was born.

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ST. STEPHEN, THE SABAITE.

This pious Greek monk, (734–794,) nephew of St. John of Damascus, spent his life, from the age of ten, in the monastery of St. Sabas. His sweet hymn, known in Neale's translation,—

—is still in the hymnals, with the tunes of Dykes, and Sir Henry W. Baker (1821–1877), Vicar of Monkland, Herefordshire.

KING ROBERT II.

Veni, Sancte Spiritus.

Robert the Second, surnamed “Robert the Sage” and “Robert the Devout,” succeeded Hugh Capet, his father, upon the throne of France, about the year 997. He has been called the gentlest monarch that ever sat upon a throne, and his amiability of character poorly prepared him to cope with his dangerous and wily adversaries. His last years were embittered by the opposition of his own sons, and the political agitations of the times. He died at Melun in 1031, and was buried at St. Denis.

Robert possessed a reflective mind, and was fond of learning and musical art. He was both a poet and a musician. He was deeply religious, and, from unselfish motives, was much devoted to the church.

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Robert's hymn, “Veni, Sancte Spiritus,” is given below. He himself was a chorister; and there was no kingly service that he seemed to love so well. We are told that it was his custom to go to the church of St. Denis, and in his royal robes, with his crown upon his head, to direct the choir at matins and vespers, and join in the singing. Few kings have left a better legacy to the Christian church than his own hymn, which, after nearly a thousand years, is still an influence in the world:

THE TUNE.

The metre and six-line stanza, being uniform with those of “Rock of Ages,” have tempted some to borrow “Toplady” for this ancient hymn, but Hastings' tune would refuse to sing other words; and, besides, the alternate rhymes would mar the euphony. Not unsuitable in spirit are several existing tunes of the right measure—like “Nassau” or “St. Athanasius”—but in truth the “Veni, Sancte Spiritus” in English waits for its perfect setting. Dr. Ray Palmer's paraphrase of it in sixes-and-fours, to fit “Olivet,”—

Come, Holy Ghost in love, etc.

—is objectionable both because the word Ghost is an archaism in Christian worship and more especially because Dr. Palmer's altered version usurps the place of his own hymn. “Olivet” with “My faith looks up to Thee” makes as inviolable a case of psalmodic monogamy as “Toplady” with “Rock of Ages.”

ST. FULBERT.

“Chori Cantores Hierusalem Novae.”

St. Fulbert's hymn is a worthy companion of Perronet's “Coronation”—if, indeed, it was not 86 / 60 its original prompter—as King Robert's great litany was the mother song of Watts' “Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove;” and the countless other sacred lyrics beginning with similar words. As the translation stands in the Church of England, there are six stanzas now sung, though in America but four appear, and not in the same sequence. The first four of the six in their regular succession are as follows:

Bishop Fulbert, known in the Roman and in the Protestant ritualistic churches as St. Fulbert of Chartres, was a man of brilliant and versatile mind, and one of the most eminent prelates of his time. He was a contemporary of Robert II, and his intimate friend, continuing so after the Pope 87 / 61 (Gregory V.) excommunicated the king for marrying a cousin, which was forbidden by the canons of the church.

Fulbert was for some time head of the Theological College at Chartres, a cathedral town of France, anciently the capital of Celtic Gaul, and afterwards he was consecrated as Bishop of that diocese. He died about 1029.

THE TUNE.

The modern tone-interpreter of Fulbert's hymn bears the name “La Spezia” in some collections, and was composed by James Taylor about the time the hymn was translated into English by Robert Campbell. Research might discover the ancient tune—for the hymn is said to have been sung in the English church during Fulbert's lifetime—but the older was little likely to be the better music. “La Spezia” is a choral of enlivening but easy chords, and a tread of triumph in its musical motion that suits the march of “Judah's Lion”:

James Taylor, born 1833, is a Doctor of Music, organist of the University of Oxford and Director of the Oxford Philharmonic Society.

Robert Campbell, the translator, was a Scotch lawyer, born in Edinburgh, who besides his work as an advocate wrote original hymns, and in other ways exercised a natural literary gift. He compiled 88 / 62 the excellent Hymnal of the diocese of St. Andrews, and this was his best work. The date of his death is given as Dec. 29, 1868.

THOMAS OF CELANO.

Latin ecclesiastical poetry reached its high water mark in that awful hymn. The solitaire of its sphere and time in the novelty of its rhythmic triplets, it stood a wonder to the church and hierarchy accustomed to the slow spondees of the ancient chant. There could be such a thing as a trochaic hymn!—and majestic, too!

It was a discovery that did not stale. The compelling grandeur of the poem placed it distinct and alone, and the very difficulty of staffing it for vocal and instrumental use gave it a zest, and helped to keep it unique through the ages.

Latin hymnody and hymnography, appealing to the popular ear and heart, had gradually substituted accent for quantity in verse; for the common people could never be moved by a Christian song in the prosody of the classics. The religion of the cross, with the song-preaching of its propagandists, created medieval Latin and made it 91 / 63 a secondary classic—mother of four anthem languages of Western and Southern Europe. Its golden age was the 12th and 13th centuries. The new and more flexible school of speech and music in hymn and tune had perfected rhythmic beauty and brought in the winsome assonance of rhyme.

The “Dies Irae” was born, it is believed, about the year 1255. Its authorship has been debated, but competent testimony assures us that the original draft of the great poem was found in a box among the effects of Thomas di Celano after his death. Thomas—surnamed Thomas of Celano from his birthplace, the town of Celano in the province of Aquila, Southern Italy—was the pupil, friend and co-laborer of St. Francis of Assisi, and wrote his memoirs. He is supposed to have died near the end of the 13th century. That he wrote the sublime judgment song there is now practically no question.

The label on the discovered manuscript would suggest that the writer did not consider it either a hymn or a poem. Like the inspired prophets he had meditated—and while he was musing the fire burned. The only title he wrote over it was “Prosa de mortuis,” Prosa (or prosa oratio)—from prorsus, “straight forward”—appears here in the truly conventional sense it was beginning to bear, but not yet as the antipode of “poetry.” The modest author, unconscious of the magnitude of his work, called it simply “Plain speech concerning the dead."^*

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The hymn is much too long to quote entire, but can be found in Daniel's Thesaurus in any large public library. As to the translations of it, they number hundreds—in English and German alone, and Italy, Spain and Portugal have their vernacular versions—not to mention the Greek and Russian and even the Hebrew. A few stanzas follow, with their renderings into English (always imperfect) selected almost at random:

The solemn strength and vibration of these tremendous trilineals suffers no general injury by the variant readings—and there are a good many. As a sample, the first stanza was changed by some canonical redactor to get rid of the heathen word Sybilla, and the second line was made the third:

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In some readings the original “in favilla” is changed to “cum favilla,” “with ashes” instead of “in ashes”; and “Teste Petro” is substituted for “Teste David.”

THE TUNE.

The varieties of music set to the “Hymn of Judgment” in the different sections and languages of Christendom during seven hundred years are probably as numerous as the pictures of the Holy Family in Christian art. It is enough to say that one of the best at hand, or, at least, accessible, is the solemn minor melody of Dr. Dykes in William Henry Monk's Hymns Ancient and Modern. It was composed about the middle of the last century. Both the Evangelical and Methodist Hymnals have Dean Stanley's translation of the hymn, the former with thirteen stanzas (six-line) to a D minor of John Stainer, and the latter to a C major of Timothy Matthews. The Plymouth Hymnal has seventeen of the trilineal stanzas, by an unknown translator, to Ferdinand Hiller's tune in F minor, besides one verse to another F minor—hymn and tune both nameless.

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All the composers above named are musicians of fame. John Stainer, organist of St. Paul's Cathedral, was a Doctor of Music and Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and celebrated for his works in sacred music, to which he mainly devoted his time. He was born June 6, 1840. He died March 31, 1901.

Rev. Timothy Richard Matthews, born at Colmworth, Eng., Nov. 20, 1826, is a clergyman of the Church of England, incumbent of a Lancaster charge to which he was appointed by Queen Alexandra.

Ferdinand Hiller, born 1811 at Frankfort-on-the-Main, of Hebrew parentage, was one of Germany's most eminent musicians. For many years he was Chapel Master at Cologne, and organized the Cologne Conservatory. His compositions are mostly for instrumental performance, but he wrote cantatas, motets, male choruses, and two oratorios, one on the “Destruction of Jerusalem.” Died May 10, 1855.

The Very Rev. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster, was an author and scholar whom all sects of Christians delighted to honor. His writings on the New Testament and his published researches in Palestine, made him an authority in Biblical study, and his contributions to sacred literature were looked for and welcomed as eagerly as a new hymn by Bonar or a new poem by Tennyson. Dean Stanley was born in 1815, and died July 18th, 1881.

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THOMAS À KEMPIS.

Thomas à Kempis, sub-prior of the Convent of St. Agnes, was born at Hamerkin, Holland, about the year 1380, and died at Zwoll, 1471. This pious monk belonged to an order called the “Brethren of the Common Life” founded by Gerard de Groote, and his fame rests entirely upon his one book, the Imitation of Christ, which continues to be printed as a religious classic, and is unsurpassed as a manual of private devotion. His monastic life—as was true generally of the monastic life of the middle ages—was not one of useless idleness. The Brethren taught school and did mechanical work. Besides, before the invention of printing had been perfected and brought into common service, the multiplication of books was principally the work of monkish pens. Kempis spent his days copying the Bible and good books—as well as in exercises of devotion that promoted religious calm.

His idea of heaven, and the idea of his order, was expressed in that clause of John's description of the City of God, Rev. 22:3, “and His servants shall serve Him.” Above all other heavenly joys that was his favorite thought. We can well understand that the pious quietude wrought in his mind and manners by his habit of life made him a saint in the eyes of the people. The frontispiece of one edition of his Imitatio Christi pictures him as 96 / 68 being addressed before the door of a convent by a troubled pilgrim,—

—and his answer completes the couplet,—

Of all that is best in inward spiritual life, much can be learned from this inspired Dutchman. He wrote no hymns, but in his old age he composed a poem on “Heaven's Joys,” which is sometimes called “Thomas à Kempis' Hymn”:

These lines are not in the hymnals of today—and whether they ever found their way into choral use in ancient times we are not told. Worse poetry has been sung—and more un-hymnlike. Some future composer will make a tune to the words of a Christian who stood almost in sight of his hundredth year—and of the eternal home he writes about.

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MARTIN LUTHER.

“Ein Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott.”

Of Martin Luther Coleridge said, “He did as much for the Reformation by his hymns as he did by his translation of the Bible.” The remark is so true that it has become a commonplace.

The above line—which may be seen inscribed on Luther's tomb at Wittenberg—is the opening sentence and key-note of the Reformer's grandest hymn. The forty-sixth Psalm inspired it, and it is in harmony with sublime historical periods from its very nature, boldness, and sublimity. It was written, according to Welles, in the memorable year when the evangelical princes delivered their protest at the Diet of Spires, from which the word and the meaning of the word “Protestant” is derived. “Luther used often to sing it in 1530, while the Diet of Augsburg was sitting. It soon became the favorite psalm with the people. It was one of the watchwords of the Reformation, cheering armies to conflict, and sustaining believers in the hours of fiery trial.”

“After Luther's death, Melancthon, his affectionate coadjutor, being one day at Weimar with his banished friends, Jonas and Creuziger, heard a little maid singing this psalm in the street, and said, ‘Sing on, my little girl, you little know whom you comfort:’”

Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, in Saxony, Nov. 10, 1483. He was educated at the University of Erfurth, and became an Augustinian monk and Professor of Philosophy and Divinity in the University of Wittenberg. In 1517 he composed and placarded his ninety-five Theses condemning certain practices of the Romish Church and three years later the Pope published a bull excommunicating him, which he burnt openly before a sympathetic multitude in Wittenberg. His life was a stormy one, and he was more than once in 99 / 71 mortal danger by reason of his antagonism to the papal authority, but he found powerful patrons, and lived to see the Reformation an organized fact. He died in his birthplace, Eisleben, Feb. 18th, 1546.

The translation of the “Ein feste burg,” given above, in part, is by Rev. Frederick Henry Hedge, D.D., born in Cambridge, March 1805, a graduate of Harvard, and formerly minister of the Unitarian Church in Bangor, Me. Died, 1890.

Luther wrote thirty-six hymns, to some of which he fitted his own music, for he was a musician and singer as well as an eloquent preacher. The tune in which “Ein feste Burg” is sung in the hymnals, was composed by himself. The hymn has also a noble rendering in the music of Sebastian Bach, 8-4 time, found in Hymns Ancient and Modern.

BARTHOLOMEW RINGWALDT.

“Great God, What Do I See and Hear?”

The history of this hymn is somewhat indefinite, though common consent now attributes to Ringwaldt the stanza beginning with the above line. The imitation of the “Dies Irae” in German which was first in use was printed in Jacob Klug's “Gesangbuch” in 1535. Ringwaldt's hymn of the Last Day, also inspired from the ancient Latin original, appears in his Handbuchlin of 1586, but does not contain this stanza. The first line is, “The awful Day will surely come,” (Es ist 100 / 72 gewisslich an der Zeit). Nevertheless through the more than two hundred years that the hymn has been translated and re-translated, and gone through inevitable revisions, some vital identity in the spirit and tone of the one seven-line stanza has steadily connected it with Ringwaldt's name. Apparently it is the single survivor of a great lost hymn—edited and altered out of recognition. But its power evidently inspired the added verses, as we have them. Dr. Collyer found it, and, regretting that it was too short to sing in public service, composed stanzas 2d, 3d and 4th. It is likely that Collyer first met with it in Psalms and Hymns for Public and Private Devotion, Sheffield 1802, where it appeared anonymously. So far as known this was its first publication in English. Ringwaldt's stanza and two of Collyer's are here given:

Bartholomew Ringwaldt, pastor of the Lutheran Church of Longfeld, Prussia, was born in 1531, and died in 1599. His hymns appear in a collection entitled Hymns for the Sundays and Festivals of the Whole Year.

Rev. William Bengo Collyer D.D., was born at Blackheath near London, April 14, 1782, educated at Homerton College and settled over a Congregational Church in Peckham. In 1812 he published a book of hymns, and in 1837 a Service Book to which he contributed eighty-nine hymns. He died Jan, 9, 1854.

THE TUNE.

Probably it was the customary singing of Ringwaldt's hymn (in Germany) to Luther's tune that gave it for some time the designation of “Luther's Hymn,” the title by which the music is still known—an air either composed or adapted by Luther, and rendered perhaps unisonously or with extempore chords. It was not until early in the last century that Vincent Novello wrote to it the noble arrangement now in use. It is a strong, even-time harmony with lofty tenor range, and very 102 / 74 impressive with full choir and organ or the vocal volume of a congregation. In Cheetham's Psalmody is it written with a trumpet obligato.

Vincent Novello, born in London, Sept. 6, 1781, the intimate friend of Lamb, Shelley, Keats, Hunt and Hazlitt, was a professor of music who attained great eminence as an organist and composer of hymn-tunes and sacred pieces. He was the founder of the publishing house of Novello and Ewer, and father of a famous musical family. Died at Nice, Aug. 9, 1861.

ST. FRANCIS XAVIER.

“O Deus, Ego Amo Te.”

Francis Xavier, the celebrated Jesuit missionary, called “The Apostle of the Indies,” was a Spaniard, born in 1506. While a student in Paris he met Ignatius Loyola, and joined him in the formation of the new “Society for the Propagation of the Faith.” He was sent out on a mission to the East Indies and Japan, and gave himself to the work with a martyr's devotion. The stations he established in Japan were maintained more than a hundred years. He died in China, Dec. 1552.

His hymn, some time out of use, is being revived in later singing-books as expressive of the purest and highest Christian sentiment:

After recounting Christ's vicarious sufferings as the chief claim to His disciples' unselfish love, the hymn continues,—

The translation is by Rev. Edward Caswall, 1814–1878, a priest in the Church of Rome. Besides his translations, he published the Lyra Catholica, the Masque of Mary, and several other poetical works. (Page 101.)

THE TUNE.

“St. Bernard”—apparently so named because originally composed to Caswall's translation of 104 / 76 one of Bernard of Clairvaux's hymns—is by John Richardson, born in Preston, Eng., Dec. 4, 1817, and died there April 13, 1879. He was an organist in Liverpool, and noted as a composer of glees, but was the author of several sacred tunes.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

“Give Me My Scallop-Shell of Quiet.”

Few of the hymns of the Elizabethan era survive, though the Ambrosian Midnight Hymn, “Hark, 'tis the Midnight Cry,” and the hymns of St. Bernard and Bernard of Cluny, are still tones in the church, and the religious poetry of Sir Walter Raleigh comes down to us associated with the history of his brilliant, though tragic career. The following poem has some fine lines in the quaint English style of the period, and was composed by Sir Walter during his first imprisonment:

The musings of the unfortunate but high-souled nobleman in expectation of ignominious death are interesting and pathetic, but they have no claim to a tune, even if they were less rugged and unmetrical. But the poem stands notable among the pious witnesses.

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.

“O Domine Deus, Speravi in Te.”

This last passionate prayer of the unhappy Mary Stuart just before her execution—in a language which perhaps flowed from her pen more easily than even her English or French—is another witness of supplicating faith that struggles out of darkness with a song. In her extremity the devoted Catholic forgets her petitions to the Virgin, and comes to Christ:

One would, at first thought, judge this simple but eloquent cry worthy of an appropriate tone-expression—to be sung by prison evangelists like the Volunteers of America, to convicts in the jails and penitentiaries. But its special errand and burden are voiced so literally that hardened hearers would probably misapply it—however sincerely the petitioner herself meant to invoke spiritual rather than temporal deliverance. The hymn, if we may call it so, is too literal. Possibly at some time or other it may have been set to music but not for ordinary choir service.

SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.

This hymn is biographical, but not autobiographical. Like the discourses in Herodotus and Plutarch, it is the voice of the dead speaking through the sympathetic genius of the living after long generations. The strong, stern Calvinist of 1636 in Aberdeen was not a poet, but he bequeathed his spirit and life to the verse of a poet of 1845 in Melrose. Anne Ross Cousin read his two hundred and twenty letters written during a two 107 / 79 years' captivity for his fidelity to the purer faith, and studied his whole history and experience till her soul took his soul's place and felt what he felt. Her poem of nineteen stanzas (152 lines) is the voice of Rutherford the Covenanter, with the prolixity of his manner and age sweetened by his triumphant piety, and that is why it belongs with the Hymns of Great Witnesses. The three or four stanzas still occasionally printed and sung are only recalled to memory by the above three lines.

Samuel Rutherford was born in Nisbet Parish, Scotland, in 1600. His settled ministry was at Anworth, in Galloway—1630–1651—with a break between 1636 and 1638, when Charles I. angered by his anti-prelatical writings, silenced and banished him. Shut up in Aberdeen, but allowed, like Paul in Rome, to live “in his own hired house” and write letters, he poured out his heart's love in Epistles to his Anworth flock and to the Non-conformists of Scotland. When his countrymen rose against the attempted imposition of a new holy Romish service-book on their churches, he escaped to his people, and soon after appeared in Edinburgh and signed the covenant with the assembled ministers. Thirteen years later, after Cromwell's death and the accession of Charles II. the wrath of the prelates fell on him at St. Andrews, where the Presbytery had made him rector of the college. The King's decree indicted him for treason, stripped him of all his offices, and would have forced him to 108 / 80 the block had he not been stricken with his last sickness. When the officers came to take him he said, “I am summoned before a higher Judge and Judicatory, and I am behooved to attend them.” He died soon after, in the year 1661.

The first, and a few other of the choicest stanzas of the hymn inspired by his life and death are here given:

A reminiscence of St. Paul in his second Epistle to Timothy (chap. 4) comes with the last two stanzas.

THE TUNE.

The tender and appropriate choral in B flat, named “Rutherford” was composed by D'Urhan, a French musician, probably a hundred years ago. It was doubtless named by those who long afterwards fitted it to the words, and knew whose spiritual proxy the lady stood who indited the hymn. It is reprinted in Peloubet's Select Songs, and in the Coronation Hymnal. Naturally in the days of the hymn's more frequent use people became accustomed to calling “The sands of time are sinking,” “Rutherford's Hymn.” Rutherford's own 110 / 82 words certainly furnished the memorable refrain with its immortal glow and gladness. One of his joyful exclamations as he lay dying of his lingering disease was, “Glory shineth in Immanuel's Land!”

Chretien (Christian) Urhan, or D'Urhan, was born at Montjoie, France, about 1788, and died, in Paris, 1845. He was a noted violin-player, and composer, also, of vocal and instrumental music.

Mrs. Anne Ross (Cundell) Cousin, daughter of David Ross Cundell, M.D., and widow of Rev. William Cousin of the Free church of Scotland, was born in Melrose (?), 1824. She wrote many poems, most of which are beautiful meditations rather than lyrics suitable for public song. Her “Rutherford Hymn” was first published in the Christian Treasury, 1857.

GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.

“Verzage Nicht Du Hauflein Klein.”

The historian tells us that before the battle of Lutzen, during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), King Gustavus of Sweden, in the thick fog of an autumn morning, with the Bohemian and Austrian armies of Emperor Ferdinand in front of him, knelt before his troops, and his whole army knelt with him in prayer. Then ten thousand voices and the whole concert of regimental bands burst forth in this brave song:

The army of Gustavus moved forward to victory as the fog lifted; but at the moment of triumph a riderless horse came galloping back to the camp. It was the horse of the martyred King.

The battle song just quoted—next to Luther's “Ein feste Burg” the most famous German hymn—has always since that day been called “Gustavus Adolphus' Hymn”; and the mingled sorrow and joy of the event at Lutzen named it also “King Gustavus' Swan Song.” Gustavus Adolphus did 112 / 84 not write hymns. He could sing them, and he could make them historic—and it was this connection that identified him with the famous battle song. Its author was the Rev. Johan Michael Altenburg, a Lutheran clergyman, who composed apparently both hymn and tune on receiving news of the king's victory at Leipsic a year before.

Gustavus Adolphus was born in 1594. His death on the battlefield occurred Nov. 5, 1632—when he was in the prime of his manhood. He was one of the greatest military commanders in history, besides being a great ruler and administrator, and a devout Christian. He was, during the Thirty Years' War (until his untimely death), the leading champion of Protestantism in Europe.

The English translator of the battle song was Miss Catherine Winkworth, born in London, Sept. 13, 1827. She was an industrious and successful translator of German hymns, contributing many results of her work to two English editions of the Lyra Germania, to the Church Book of England, and to Christian Singers of Germany. She died in 1878.

The tune of “Ravendale” by Walter Stokes (born 1847) is the best modern rendering of the celebrated hymn.

PAUL GERHARDT.

“Befiehl Du Deine Wege.”

Paul Gerhardt was one of those minstrels of experience who are—

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He was a graduate of that school when he wrote his “Hymn of Trust:”

Gerhardt was born at Grafenheinchen, Saxony, 1606. Through the first and best years of manhood's strength (during the Thirty Years' War), a wandering preacher tossed from place to place, he was without a parish and without a home.

After the peace of Westphalia he settled in the little village of Mittenwalde. He was then forty-four years old. Four years later he married and removed to a Berlin church. During his residence there he buried his wife, and four of his children, 114 / 86 was deposed from the ministry because his Lutheran doctrines offended the Elector Frederick, and finally retired as a simple arch-deacon to a small parish in Lubben, where he preached, toiled, and suffered amid a rough and uncongenial people till he died, Jan. 16, 1676.

Few men have ever lived whose case more needed a “Hymn of Trust”—and fewer still could have written it themselves. Through all those trial years he was pouring forth his soul in devout verses, making in all no less than a hundred and twenty-five hymns—every one of them a comfort to others as well as to himself.

He became a favorite, and for a time the favorite, hymn-writer of all the German-speaking people. Among these tones of calm faith and joy we recognize today (in the English tongue),—

Since Jesus is my Friend,
Thee, O Immanuel, we praise,
All my heart this night rejoices,
How shall I meet Thee,

—and the English translation of his “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,” turned into German by himself from St. Bernard Clairvaux's “Salve caput cruentatum,” and made dear to us in Rev. James Alexander's beautiful lines—

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THE TUNE.

A plain-song by Alexander Reinagle is used by some congregations, but is not remarkably expressive. Reinagle, Alexander Robert, (1799–1877) of Kidlington, Eng., was organist to the church of St. Peter-in-the-East, Oxford.

The great “Hymn of Trust” could have found no more sympathetic interpreter than the musician of Gerhardt's own land and language, Schumann, the gentle genius of Zwickau. It bears the name “Schumann,” appropriately enough, and its elocution makes a volume of each quatrain, notably the one—

Robert Schumann, Ph.D., was born in Zwickau, Saxony, June 8, 1810. He was a music director and conservatory teacher, and the master-mind of the pre-Wagnerian period. His compositions became popular, having a character of their own, combining the intellectual and beautiful in art. He published in Leipsic a journal promotive of his school of music, and founded a choral society in Dresden. Happy in the coöperation of his wife, herself a skilled musician, he extended his work to Vienna and the Netherlands; but his zeal wore him out, and he died at the age of forty-six, universally lamented as “the eminent man who had done so much for the happiness of others.”

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Gerhardt's Hymn (ten quatrains) is rarely printed entire, and where six are printed only four are usually sung. Different collections choose portions according to the compiler's taste, the stanza beginning—

Give to the winds thy fears,

—being with some a favorite first verse.

The translation of the hymn from the German is John Wesley's.

Purely legendary is the beautiful story of the composition of the hymn, “Commit thou all thy griefs”; how, after his exile from Berlin, traveling on foot with his weeping wife, Gerhardt stopped at a wayside inn and wrote the lines while he rested; and how a messenger from Duke Christian found him there, and offered him a home in Meresburg. But the most ordinary imagination can fill in the possible incidents in a life of vicissitudes such as Gerhardt's was.

LADY HUNTINGDON.

“When Thou My Righteous Judge Shalt Come.”

Selina Shirley, Countess of Huntingdon, born 1707, died 1791, is familiarly known as the titled friend and patroness of Whitefield and his fellow-preachers. She early consecrated herself to God, and in the great spiritual awakening under Whitefield and the Wesleys she was a punctual and sympathetic helper. Uniting with the Calvinistic Methodists, she nevertheless stood aloof from none 117 / 89 who preached a personal Christ, and whose watchwords were the salvation of souls and the purification of the Church. For more than fifty years she devoted her wealth to benevolence and spiritual ministries, and died at the age of eighty-four. “I have done my work,” was her last testimony. “I have nothing to do but to go to my Father.”

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At various times Lady Huntingdon expressed her religious experience in verse, and the manful vigor of her school of faith recalls the unbending confidence of Job, for she was not a stranger to affliction.

Her great hymn, that keeps her memory green, has the old-fashioned flavor. “Massa made God BIG!” was the comment on Dr. Bellany made by his old negro servant after that noted minister's death. In Puritan piety the sternest self-depreciation qualified every thought of the creature, while every allusion to the Creator was a magnificat. Lady Huntingdon's hymn has no flattering phrases for the human subject. “Worthless worm,” and “vilest of them all” indicate the true Pauline or Oriental prostration of self before a superior 118 / 90 being; but there is grandeur in the metre, the awful reverence, and the scene of judgment in the stanzas—always remembering the mighty choral that has so long given the lyric its voice in the church, and is ancillary to its fame:

THE TUNE.

The tune of “Meribah,” in which this hymn has been sung for the last sixty or more years, is one of 119 / 91 Dr. Lowell Mason's masterpieces. An earlier German harmony attributed to Heinrich Isaac and named “Innsbruck” has in some few cases claimed association with the words, though composed two hundred years before Lady Huntingdon was born. It is strong and solemn, but its cold psalm-tune movement does not utter the deep emotion of the author's lines. “Meribah” was inspired by the hymn itself, and there is nothing invidious in saying it illustrates the fact, memorable in all hymnology, of the natural obligation of a hymn to its tune.

Apropos of both, it is related that Mason was once presiding at choir service in a certain church where the minister gave out “When thou my righteous Judge shalt come” and by mistake directed the singers to “omit the second stanza.” Mason sat at the organ, and while playing the last strain, “Be found at thy right hand,” glanced ahead in the hymnbook and turned with a start just in time to command, “Sing the next verse!” The choir did so, and “O Lord, prevent it by Thy grace!” was saved from being a horrible prayer to be kept out of heaven.

ZINZENDORF.

“Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness.”

Nicolaus Ludwig, Count Von Zinzendorf, was born at Dresden, May 26, 1700, and educated at Halle and Wittenberg. From his youth he evinced 120 / 92 marked seriousness of mind, and deep religious sensibilities, and this character appeared in his sympathy with the persecuted Moravians, to whom he gave domicile and domain on his large estate. For eleven years he was Councillor to the Elector of Saxony, but subsequently, uniting with the Brethren's Church, he founded the settlement of Herrnhut, the first home and refuge of the reorganized sect, and became a Moravian minister and bishop.

Zinzendorf was a man of high culture, as well as profound and sincere piety and in his hymns (of which he wrote more than two thousand) he preached Christ as eloquently as with his voice. The real birth-moment of his religious life is said to have been simultaneous with his study of the “Ecce Homo” in the Dusseldorf Gallery, a wonderful painting of Jesus crowned with thorns. Visiting the gallery one day when a young man, he gazed on the sacred face and read the legend superscribed, “All this I have done for thee; What doest thou for me?” Ever afterwards his motto was “I have but one passion, and that is He, and only He”—a version of Paul's “For me to live is Christ.”

Nearly all the hymns of the great Moravian are now out of general use, having accomplished their mission, like the forgotten ones of Gerhardt, and been superseded by others. More sung in Europe, probably, now than any of the survivors is, “Jesus, geh voran,” (“Jesus, lead on,”) which has been translated into English by Jane Borthwick^* (1854). Two others, both translated by John Wesley, are with us, the one above quoted, and “Glory to God, whose witness train.” “Jesus, Thy blood,” which is the best known, frequently appears with the alteration—

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THE TUNE.

“Malvern,” and “Uxbridge” a pure Gregorian, both by Lowell Mason, are common expressions of the hymn—the latter, perhaps, generally preferred, being less plaintive and speaking with a surer and more restful emphasis.

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ROBERT SEAGRAVE.

“Rise, My Soul, and Stretch Thy Wings.”

This hymn was written early in the 18th century, by the Rev. Robert Seagrave, born at Twyford, Leicestershire, Eng., Nov. 22, 1693. Educated at Cambridge, he took holy orders in the Established Church, but espoused the cause of the great evangelistic movement, and became a hearty co-worker with the Wesleys. Judging by the lyric fire he could evidently put into his verses, one involuntarily asks if he would not have written more, and been in fact the song-leader of the spiritual reformation if there had been no Charles Wesley. There is not a hymn of Wesley's in use on the same subject equal to the one immortal hymn of Seagrave, and the only other near its time that approaches it in vigor and appealing power is Doddridge's “Awake my soul, stretch every nerve.”

But Providence gave Wesley the harp and appointed to the elder poet a branch of possibly equal usefulness, where he was kept too busy to enter the singers' ranks.

For eleven years he was the Sunday-evening lecturer at Lorimer's Hall, London, and often preached in Whitefield's Tabernacle. His hymn is one of the most soul-stirring in the English language:

This hymn must have found its predestinated organ when it found—

THE TUNE.

“Amsterdam,” the work of James Nares, had its birth and baptism soon after the work of Seagrave; and they have been breath and bugle to the church of God ever since they became one song. In The Great Musicians, edited by Francis Huffer, is found this account of James Nares:

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“He was born at Hanwell, Middlesex, in 1715; was admitted chorister at the Chapel Royal, under Bernard Gates, and when he was able to play the organ was appointed deputy for Pigott, of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and became organist at York Minster in 1734. He succeeded Greene as organist and composer to the Chapel Royal in 1756, and in the same year was made Doctor of Music at Cambridge. He was appointed master of the children of the Chapel Royal in 1757, on the death of Gates. This post he resigned in 1780, and he died in 1783, (February 10,) and was buried in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster.

“He had the reputation of being an excellent trainer of boy's voices, many of his anthems having been written to exhibit the accomplishments of his young pupils. The degree of excellence the boys attained was not won in those days without the infliction of much corporal punishment.”

Judging from the high pulse and action in the music of “Amsterdam,” one would guess the energy of the man who made boy choirs—and made good ones. In the old time the rule was, “Birds that can sing and won't sing, must be made to sing"; and the rule was sometimes enforced with the master's time-stick.

A tune entitled “Excelsius,” written a hundred years later by John Henry Cornell, so nearly resembles “Amsterdam” as to suggest an intention to amend it. It changes the modal note from G 127 / 97 to A, but while it marches at the same pace it lacks the jubilant modulations and the choral glory of the 18th-century piece.

SIR JOHN BOWRING.

“In the Cross of Christ I Glory.”

In this hymn we see, sitting humbly at the feet of the great author of our religion, a man who impressed himself perhaps more than any other save Napoleon Bonaparte upon his own generation, and who was the wonder of Europe for his immense attainments and the versatility of his powers. Statesman, philanthropist, biographer, publicist, linguist, historian, financier, naturalist, poet, political economist—there is hardly a branch of knowledge or a field of research from which he did not enrich himself and others, or a human condition that he did not study and influence.

Sir John Bowring was born in 1792. When a youth he was Jeremy Bentham's political pupil, but gained his first fame by his vast knowledge of European literature, becoming acquainted with no less than thirteen^* continental languages and dialects. He served in consular appointments at seven different capitals, carried important reform measures in Parliament, was Minister Plenipotentiary to China and Governor of Hong Kong, and concluded a commercial treaty with Siam, where every previous commissioner had failed. But in 128 / 98 all his crowded years the pen of this tireless and successful man was busy. Besides his political, economic and religious essays, which made him a member of nearly every learned society in Europe, his translations were countless, and poems and hymns of his own composing found their way to the public, among them the tender spiritual song,—

—and the more famous hymn indicated at the head of this sketch. Knowledge of all religions only qualified him to worship the Crucified with both faith and reason. Though nominally a Unitarian, to him, as to Channing and Martineau and Edmund Sears, Christ was “all we know of God.”

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Bowring died Nov. 23, 1872. But his hymn to the Cross will never die:

THE TUNE.

Ithamar Conkey's “Rathbun” fits the adoring words as if they had waited for it. Its air, swelling through diatonic fourth and third to the supreme syllable, bears on its waves the homage of the lines from bar to bar till the four voices come home to rest full and satisfied in the final chord—

Gathers round its head sublime.

Ithamar Conkey, was born of Scotch ancestry, in Shutesbury, Mass., May 5th, 1815. He was a noted bass singer, and was for a long time connected with the choir of the Calvary church, New York City, and sang the oratorio solos. His tune of “Rathbun” was composed in 1847, and published in Greatorex's collection in 1851. He died in Elizabeth, N.J., April 30, 1867.

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CHAPTER III.

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HYMNS OF CHRISTIAN DEVOTION AND EXPERIENCE.

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“JESU DULCIS MEMORIA.”

“Jesus the Very Thought of Thee.”

The original of this delightful hymn is one of the devout meditations of Bernard of Clairvaux, a Cistercian monk (1091–1153). He was born of a noble family in or near Dijon, Burgundy, and when only twenty-three years old established a monastery at Clairvaux, France, over which he presided as its first abbot. Educated in the University of Paris, and possessing great natural abilities, he soon made himself felt in both the religious and political affairs of Europe. For more than thirty years he was the personal power that directed belief, quieted turbulence, and arbitrated disputes, and kings and even popes sought his counsel. It was his eloquent preaching that inspired the second crusade.

His fine poem of feeling, in fifty Latin stanzas, has been a source of pious song in several languages:

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Literally—

The five stanzas (of Caswall's free translation) now in use are familiar and dear to all English-speaking believers:

The Rev. Edward Caswall was born in Hampshire, Eng., July 15, 1814, the son of a clergyman. He graduated with honors at Brazenose College, Oxford, and after ten years of service in the ministry of the Church of England joined Henry Newman's Oratory at Birmingham, was confirmed in the Church of Rome, and devoted the rest of his life to works of piety and charity. He died Jan. 2, 1878.

THE TUNE.

No single melody has attached itself to this hymn, the scope of selection being as large as the 132 / 102 supply of appropriate common-metre tunes. Barnby's “Holy Trinity,” Wade's “Holy Cross” and Griggs' tune (of his own name) are all good, but many, on the giving out of the hymn, would associate it at once with the more familiar “Heber” by George Kingsley and expect to hear it sung. It has the uplift and unction of John Newton's—

“GOD CALLING YET! SHALL I NOT HEAR?”

Gerhard Tersteegen, the original author of the hymn, and one of the most eminent religious poets of the Reformed German church in its early days, was born in 1697, in the town of Mors, in Westphalia. He was left an orphan in boyhood by the death of his father, and as his mother's means were limited, he was put to work as an apprentice when very young, at Muhlheim on the Ruhr, and became a ribbon weaver. Here, when about fifteen years of age, he became deeply concerned for his soul, and experienced a deep and abiding spiritual work. As a Christian, his religion partook of the ascetic type, but his mysticism did not make him useless to his fellow-men.

At the age of twenty-seven, he dedicated all his resources and energies to the cause of Christ, writing the dedication in his own blood. “God graciously called me,” he says, “out of the world, and granted me the desire to belong to Him, and 133 / 103 to be willing to follow Him.” He gave up secular employments altogether, and devoted his whole time to religious instruction and to the poor. His house became famous as the “Pilgrims' Cottage,” and was visited by people high and humble from all parts of Germany. In his lifetime he is said to have written one hundred and eleven hymns. Died April 3, 1769.

The hymn was translated from the German by Miss Jane Borthwick, born in Edinburgh, 1813. She and her younger sister, Mrs. Findlater, jointly translated and published, in 1854, Hymns From the Land of Luther, and contributed many poetical pieces to the Family Treasury. She died in 1897.

Another translation, imitating the German metre, is more euphonious, though less literal and less easily fitted to music not specially composed for it, on account of its “feminine” rhymes:

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THE TUNE.

Dr. Dykes' “Rivaulx” is a sober choral that articulates the hymn-writer's sentiment with sincerity and with considerable earnestness, but breathes too faintly the interrogative and expostulary tone of the lines. To voice the devout solicitude and self-remonstrance of the hymn there is no tune superior to “Federal St.”

The Hon. Henry Kemble Oliver, author of “Federal St.,” was born in Salem, Mass., March, 1800, and was addicted to music from his childhood. His father compelled him to relinquish it as a profession, but it remained his favorite avocation, and after his graduation from Harvard the cares of none of the various public positions he held, from schoolmaster to treasurer of the state of Massachusetts, could ever wean him from the study of music and its practice. At the age of thirty-one, while sitting one day in his study, the last verse of Anne Steele's hymn—

So fades the lovely blooming flower,

—floated into his mind, and an unbidden melody came with it. As he hummed it to himself the words shaped the air, and the air shaped the words.

—became—

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—and with the change of a word and a tense the hymn created the melody, and soon afterward the complete tune was made. Two years later it was published by Lowell Mason, and Oliver gave it the name of the street in Salem on which his wife was born, wooed, won, and married. It adds a pathos to its history that “Federal St.” was sung at her burial.

This first of Oliver's tunes was followed by “Harmony Grove,” “Morning,” “Walnut Grove,” “Merton,” “Hudson,” “Bosworth,” “Salisbury Plain,” several anthems and motets, and a “Te Deum.”

In his old age, at the great Peace Jubilee in Boston, 1872, the baton was put into his hands, and the gray-haired composer conducted the chorus of ten thousand voices as they sang the words and music of his noble harmony. The incident made “Federal St.” more than ever a feature of New England history. Oliver died in 1885.

“MY GOD, HOW ENDLESS IS THY LOVE.”

The spirited tune to this hymn of Watts, by Frederick Lampe, variously named “Kent” and “Devonshire,” historically reaches back so near to the poet's time that it must have been one of the earliest expressions of his fervent words.

Johan Friedrich Lampe, born 1693, in Saxony, was educated in music at Helmstadt, and came to 136 / 106 England in 1725 as a band musician and composer to Covent Garden Theater. His best-known secular piece is the music written to Henry Carey's burlesque, “The Dragon of Wantley.”

Mrs. Rich, wife of the lessee of the theater, was converted under the preaching of the Methodists, and after her husband's death her house became the home of Lampe and his wife, where Charles Wesley often met him.

The influence of Wesley won him to more serious work, and he became one of the evangelist's helpers, supplying tunes to his singing campaigns. Wesley became attached to him, and after his death—in Edinburgh, 1752—commemorated the musician in a funeral hymn.

In popular favor Bradbury's tune of “Rolland” has now superseded the old music sung to Watts' lines—

William Batchelder Bradbury, a pupil of Dr. Lowell Mason, and the pioneer in publishing Sunday-school music, was born 1816, in York, Me. His father, a veteran of the Revolution, was a 137 / 107 choir leader, and William's love of music was inherited. He left his father's farm, and came to Boston, where he first heard a church-organ. Encouraged by Mason and others to follow music as a profession, he went abroad, studied at Leipsic, and soon after his return became known as a composer of sacred tunes. He died in Montclair, N.J., 1868.

“I'M NOT ASHAMED TO OWN MY LORD.”

The favorite tune for this spiritual hymn, also by Watts, is old “Arlington,” one of the most useful church melodies in the whole realm of English psalmody. Its name clings to a Boston street, and the beautiful chimes of Arlington St. church (Unitarian) annually ring its music on special occasions, as it has since the bells were tuned:

Dr. Thomas Augustine Arne, the creator of “Arlington,” was born in London, 1710, the son of a King St. upholsterer. He studied at Eton, and though intended for the legal profession, gave his whole mind to music. At twenty-three he began 138 / 108 writing operas for his sister, Susanna (a singer who afterwards became the famous tragic actress, Mrs. Cibber).

Arne's music to Milton's “Comus,” and to “Rule Brittannia” established his reputation. He was engaged as composer to Drury Lane Theater, and in 1759 received from Oxford his degree of Music Doctor. Later in life he turned his attention to oratorios, and other forms of sacred music, and was the first to introduce female voices in choir singing. He died March 5, 1778, chanting hallelujahs, it is said, with his last breath.

“IS THIS THE KIND RETURN?”

Dr. Watts in this hymn gave experimental piety its hour and language of reflection and penitence:

United in loving wedlock with these words in former years was “Golden Hill,” a chime of sweet counterpoint too rare to bury its authorship under the vague phrase “A Western Melody.” It was caught evidently from a forest bird^* that flutes its clear solo in the sunsets of May and June. There 139 / 109 can be no mistaking the imitation—the same compass, the same upward thrill, the same fall and warbled turn. Old-time folk used to call for it, “Sing, my Fairweather Bird.” It lingers in a few of the twenty- or thirty-years-ago collections, but stronger voices have drowned it out of the new.

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“Thacher,” (set to the same hymn,) faintly recalls its melody. Nevertheless “Thacher” is a good tune. Though commonly written in sharps, contrasting the B flat of its softer and more liquid rival of other days, it is one of Handel's strains, and lends the meaning and pathos of the lyric text to voice and instrument.

“WHEN I SURVEY THE WONDROUS CROSS.”

This crown of all the sacred odes of Dr. Watts for the song-service of the church of God was called by Matthew Arnold the “greatest hymn in the English language.” The day the eminent critic died he heard it sung in the Sefton Park Presbyterian Church, and repeated the opening lines softly to himself again and again after the services. The hymn is certainly one of the greatest in the language. It appeared as No. 7 in Watts' third edition (about 1710) containing five stanzas. The second line—

—read originally—

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Only four stanzas are now generally used. The omitted one—

—is a flash of tragic imagination, showing the sanguine intensity of Christian vision in earlier time, when contemplating the Saviour's passion; but it is too realistic for the spirit and genius of song-worship. That the great hymn was designed by the writer for communion seasons, and was inspired by Gal. 6:14, explains the two last lines if not the whole of the highly colored verse.

THE TUNE.

One has a wide field of choice in seeking the best musical interpretation of this royal song of faith and self-effacement:

To match the height and depth of these words with fitting glory of sound might well have been an ambition of devout composers. Rev. G.C. Wells' tune in the Revivalist, with its emotional chorus, I.B. Woodbury's “Eucharist” in the Methodist Hymnal, Henry Smart's effective choral in Barnby's Hymnary (No. 170), and a score of others, have woven the feeling lines into melody with varying success. Worshippers in spiritual sympathy with the words may question if, after all, old “Hamburg,” the best of Mason's loved Gregorians, does not, alone, in tone and elocution, rise to the level of the hymn.

“LOVE DIVINE, ALL LOVES EXCELLING.”

This evergreen song-wreath to the Crucified, was contributed by Charles Wesley, in 1746. It is found in his collection of 1756, Hymns for Those That Seek and Those That Have Redemption in the Blood of Jesus Christ.

The hymn has been set to H. Isaac's ancient tune (1490), to Wyeth's “Nettleton” (1810), to Thos. H. Bailey's (1777–1839) “Isle of Beauty, fare thee well” (named from Thomas Moore's song), to Edward Hopkins' “St. Joseph,” and to a multitude of others more or less familiar.

Most familiar of all perhaps, (as in the instance of “Far from mortal cares retreating,”) is its association with “Greenville,” the production of that brilliant but erratic genius and freethinker, Jean Jacques Rousseau. It was originally a love serenade, (“Days of absence, sad and dreary”) from the opera of Le Devin du Village, written about 1752. The song was commonly known years afterwards as “Rousseau's Dream.” But the unbelieving philosopher, musician, and misguided moralist builded better than he knew, and probably better than he meant when he wrote his immortal choral. Whatever he heard in his “dream” (and one legend says it was a “song of 143 / 113 angels”) he created a harmony dear to the church he despised, and softened the hearts of the Christian world towards an evil teacher who was inspired, like Balaam, to utter one sacred strain.

Rousseau was born in Geneva, 1712, but he never knew his mother, and neither the affection or interest of his father or of his other relatives was of the quality to insure the best bringing up of a child.

He died July, 1778. But his song survives, while the world gladly forgets everything else he wrote. It is almost a pardonable exaggeration to say that every child in Christendom knows “Greenville.”

“WHEN ALL THY MERCIES, O MY GOD.”

This charming hymn was written by Addison, the celebrated English poet and essayist, about 1701, in grateful commemoration of his delivery from shipwreck in a storm off the coast of Genoa, Italy. It originally contained thirteen stanzas, but no more than four or six are commonly sung. It has put the language of devotional gratitude into the mouths of thousands of humble disciples who could but feebly frame their own:

Another hymn of Addison—

How are Thy servants bless'd, O Lord,

—was probably composed after the same return from a foreign voyage. It has been called his “Traveller's Hymn.”

Joseph Addison, the best English writer of his time, was the son of Lancelot Addison, rector of Milston, Wiltshire, and afterwards Dean of Litchfield. The distinguished author was born in Milston Rectory, May 1, 1672, and was educated at Oxford. His excellence in poetry, both English and Latin, gave him early reputation, and a patriotic ode obtained for him the patronage of Lord Somers. A pension from King William III. assured him a comfortable income, which was increased by further honors, for in 1704 he was appointed Commissioner of Appeals, then secretary of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and in 1717 Secretary of State. He died in Holland House, Kensington, near London, June 17, 1719.

His hymns are not numerous, (said to be only five), but they are remarkable for the simple beauty of their style, as well as for their Christian spirit. Of his fine metrical version of the 23rd Psalm,—

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—one of his earliest productions, the tradition is that he gathered its imagery when a boy living at Netheravon, near Salisbury Plain, during his lonely two-mile walks to school at Amesbury and back again. All his hymns appeared first in the Spectator, to which he was a prolific contributor.

THE TUNE.

The hymn “When all Thy mercies” still has “Geneva” for its vocal mate in some congregational manuals. The tune is one of the rare survivals of the old “canon” musical method, the parts coming in one after another with identical notes. It is always delightful as a performance with its glory of harmony and its sweet duet, and for generations it had no other words than Addison's hymn.

John Cole, author of “Geneva,” was born in Tewksbury, Eng., 1774, and came to the United States in his boyhood (1785). Baltimore, Md. became his American home, and he was educated there. Early in life he became a musician and music publisher. At least twelve of his principal song collections from 1800 to 1832 are mentioned by Mr. Hubert P. Main, most of them sacred and containing many of his own tunes.

He continued to compose music till his death, Aug. 17, 1855. Mr. Cole was leader of the 146 / 116 regimental band known as “The Independent Blues,” which played in the war of 1812, and was present at the “North Point” fight, and other battles.

Besides “Geneva,” for real feeling and harmonic beauty “Manoah,” adapted from Haydn's Creation, deserves mention as admirably suited to “Addison's” hymn, and also “Belmont,” by Samuel Webbe, which resembles it in style and sentiment.

Samuel Webbe, composer of “Belmont,” was of English parentage but was born in Minorca, Balearic Islands, in 1740, where his father at that time held a government appointment; but his father, dying suddenly, left his family poor, and Samuel was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker. He served his apprenticeship, and immediately repaired to a London teacher and began the study of music and languages. Surmounting great difficulties, he became a competent musician, and made himself popular as a composer of glees. He was also the author of several masses, anthems, and hymn-tunes, the best of which are still in occasional use. Died in London, 1816.

“JESUS, I LOVE THY CHARMING NAME.”

When Dr. Doddridge, the author of this hymn, during his useful ministry, had finished the preparation of a pulpit discourse that strongly impressed him, he was accustomed, while his heart was yet glowing with the sentiment that had 147 / 117 inspired him, to put the principal thoughts into metre, and use the hymn thus written at the conclusion of the preaching of the sermon. This hymn of Christian ardor was written to be sung after a sermon from Romans 8:35, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”

Earlier copies have—

Philip Doddridge, D.D., was born in London, June 26, 1702. Educated at Kingston Grammar School and Kibworth Academy, he became a scholar of respectable attainments, and was ordained to the Non-conformist ministry. He was pastor of the Congregational church at Northampton, from 1729 until his death, acting meanwhile as principal of the Theological School in that place. In 1749 he ceased to preach and went to Lisbon for his health, but died there about two years later, of consumption, Oct. 26, 1752.

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THE TUNE.

The hymn has been sometimes sung to “Pisgah,” an old revival piece by J.C. Lowry (1820) once much heard in camp-meetings, but it is a pedestrian tune with too many quavers, and a headlong tempo.

Bradbury's “Jazer,” in three-four time, is a melody with modulations, though more sympathetic, but it is hard to divorce the hymn from its long-time consort, old “Arlington.” It has the accent of its sincerity, and the breath of its devotion.

“LO, ON A NARROW NECK OF LAND.”

This hymn of Charles Wesley is always designated now by the above line, the first of the second stanza as originally written. It is said to have been composed at Land's End, in Cornwall, with the British Channel and the broad Atlantic in view and surging on both sides around a “narrow neck of land.”

The preachers and poets of the great spiritual movement of the eighteenth century in England abated nothing in the candor of their words. The terrible earnestness of conviction tipped their tongues and pens with fire.

THE TUNE.

Lady Huntingdon would have lent “Meribah” gladly to this hymn, but Mason was not yet born. Many times it has been borrowed for Wesley's words since it came to its own, and the spirit of the pious Countess has doubtless approved the loan. It is rich enough to furnish forth her own lyric and more than one other of like matter and metre.

The muscular music of “Ganges” has sometimes carried the hymn, and there are those who think its thunder is not a whit more Hebraic than the words require.

“COME YE SINNERS POOR AND NEEDY.”

Few hymns have been more frequently sung in prayer-meetings and religious assemblies during the last hundred and fifty years. Its author, Joseph Hart, spoke what he knew and testified what he felt. Born in London, 1712, and liberally educated, he was in his young manhood very religious, but he went so far astray as to indulge in evil practices, and 150 / 120 even published writings, both original and translated, against Christianity and religion of any kind. But he could not drink at the Dead Sea and live. The apples of Sodom sickened him. Conscience asserted itself, and the pangs of remorse nearly drove him to despair till he turned back to the source he had forsaken. He alludes to this experience in the lines—

During Passion Week, 1767, he had an amazing view of the sufferings of Christ, under the stress of which his heart was changed. In the joy of this experience he wrote—

—and—

Probably no two hymn-lines have been oftener repeated than—

The complete form of the original stanzas is:

151 / 121

The whole hymn—ten stanzas—is not sung now as one, but two, the second division beginning with the line—

Come ye weary, heavy laden.

Rev. Joseph Hart became minister of Jewin St. Congregational Chapel, London, about 1760, where he labored till his death, May 24, 1768.

THE TUNE.

A revival song by Jeremiah Ingalls (1764–1828), written about 1804, with an easy, popular swing and a sforzando chorus—

Turn to the Lord and seek salvation,

—monopolized this hymn for a good many years. The tunes commonly assigned to it have since been “Greenville” and Von Weber's “Wilmot,” in which last it is now more generally sung—dropping the echo lines at the end of each stanza.

Carl Maria Von Weber, son of a roving musician, was born in Eutin, Germany, 1786. He developed no remarkable genius till he was about twenty years old, though being a fine vocalist, his singing brought him popularity and gain; but in 1806 he nearly lost his voice by accidently drinking nitric acid. He was for several years private secretary to Duke Ludwig at Stuttgart, and in 1813 Chapel-Master at Prague, from which place he went to Dresden in 1817 as Musik-Director.

Von Weber's Korner songs won the hearts of all Germany; and his immortal “Der Freischutz” 152 / 122 (the Free Archer), and numerous tender melodies like the airs to “John Anderson, my Jo” and “O Poortith Cauld” have gone to all civilized nations. No other composer had such feeling for beauty of sound.

This beloved musician was physically frail and delicate, and died of untimely decline, during a visit to London in 1826.

“O HAPPY SAINTS WHO DWELL IN LIGHT.”

Sometimes printed “O happy souls.” This poetical and flowing hymn seems to have been forgotten in the making up of most modern church hymnals. Hymns on heaven and heavenly joys abound in embarrassing numbers, but it is difficult to understand why this beautiful lyric should be universally neglected. It was written probably about 1760, by Rev. John Berridge, from the text, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord,”

The first line of the second stanza—

Released from sorrow, toil and strife,

—has been tinkered in some of the older hymn-books, where it is found to read—,

Released from sorrows toil and grief,

—not only committing a tautology, but destroying the perfect rhyme with “life” in the next line. The whole hymn, too, has been much altered by substituted words and shifted lines, though not generally to the serious detriment of its meaning and music.

153 / 123

The Rev. John Berridge—friend of the Wesleys, Whitefield, and Lady Huntingdon—was an eccentric but very worthy and spiritual minister, born the son of a farmer, in Kingston, Nottinghamshire, Eng., Mar. 1, 1716. He studied at Cambridge, and was ordained curate of Stapleford and subsequently located as vicar of Everton, 1775. He died Jan. 22, 1793. He loved to preach, and he was determined that his tombstone should preach after his voice was still. His epitaph, composed by himself, is both a testimony and a memoir:

“Here lie the earthly remains of John Berridge, late vicar of Everton, and an itinerant servant of Jesus Christ, who loved his Master and His work, and after running His errands many years, was called up to wait on Him above.

“Reader, art thou born again?

“No salvation without the new birth.

“I was born in sin, February, 1716.

“Remained ignorant of my fallen state till 1730.

“Lived proudly on faith and works for salvation till 1751.

“Admitted to Everton vicarage, 1755.

“Fled to Jesus alone for refuge, 1756.

“Fell asleep in Jesus Christ,—” (1793.)

THE TUNE.

The once popular score that easily made the hymn a favorite, was “Salem,” in the old Psalmodist. It still appears in some note-books, though the name of its composer is uncertain. Its notes (in 6-8 time) succeed each other in syllabic modulations that give a soft dactylic accent to the measure and a wavy current to the lines:

154 / 124

Another version reads:

“THOU DEAR REDEEMER, DYING LAMB.”

The author, John Cennick, like Joseph Hart, was led to Christ after a reckless boyhood and youth, by the work of the Divine Spirit in his soul, independent of any direct outward influence. Sickened of his cards, novels, and playhouse pleasures, he had begun a sort of mechanical reform, when one day, walking in the streets of London, he suddenly seemed to hear the text spoken “I am thy salvation!” His consecration began at that moment.

He studied for the ministry, and became a preacher, first under direction of the Wesleys, then under Whitefield, but afterwards joined the Moravians, or “Brethren.” He was born at Reading, Derbyshire, Eng., Dec. 12, 1718, and died in London, July 4, 1755.

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THE TUNE.

The word “Rhine” (in some collections—in others “Emmons”) names a revival tune once so linked with this hymn and so well known that few religious people now past middle life could enjoy singing it to any other. With a compass one note beyond an octave and a third, it utters every line with a clear, bold gladness sure to infect a meeting with its own spiritual fervor.

The composer of the bright legato melody just described was Frederick Burgmüller, a young German musician, born in 1804. He was a remarkable genius, both in composition and execution, but his health was frail, and he did not live to fulfil the rich possibilities that lay within him. He died in 1824—only twenty years old. The tune “Rhine” (“Emmons”) is from one of his marches.

“WHILE THEE I SEEK, PROTECTING POWER.”

Helen Maria Williams wrote this sweet hymn, probably about the year 1800. She was a brilliant woman, better known in literary society for her political verses and essays than by her hymns; but the hymn here noted bears sufficient witness to her deep religious feeling:

156 / 126

Miss Williams was born in the north of England, Nov. 30, 1762, but spent much of her life in London, and in Paris, where she died, Dec. 14, 1827.

THE TUNE.

Wedded so many years to the gentle, flowing music of Pleyel's “Brattle Street,” few lovers of the hymn recall its words without the melody of that emotional choral.

The plain psalm-tune, “Simpson,” by Louis Spohr, divides the stanzas into quatrains.

“JESUS MY ALL TO HEAVEN IS GONE.”

This hymn, by Cennick, was familiarized to the public more than two generations ago by its revival tune, sometimes called “Duane Street,” long-metre double. It is staffed in various keys, but its movement is full of life and emphasis, and its melody is contagious. The piece was composed by Rev. George Coles, in 1835.

The fact that this hymn of Cennick with Coles's tune appears in the New Methodist Hymnal indicates the survival of both in modern favor.

159 / 127

The memory has not passed away of the hearty unison with which prayer-meeting and camp-meeting assemblies used to “crescendo” the last stanza—

The Rev. George Coles was born in Stewkley, Eng., Jan. 2, 1792, and died in New York City, May 1, 1858. He was editor of the N.Y. Christian Advocate, and Sunday School Advocate, for several years, and was a musician of some ability, besides being a good singer.

“SWEET THE MOMENTS, RICH IN BLESSING.”

The Hon. and Rev. Walter Shirley, Rector of Loughgree, county of Galway, Ireland, revised this hymn under the chastening discipline of a most trying experience. His brother, the Earl of Ferrars, a licentious man, murdered an old and faithful servant in a fit of rage, and was executed at Tyburn for the crime. Sir Walter, after the 160 / 128 disgrace and long distress of the imprisonment, trial, and final tragedy, returned to his little parish in Ireland, humbled but driven nearer to the Cross.

All the emotion of one who buries a mortifying sorrow in the heart of Christ, and tries to forget, trembles in the lines of the above hymn as he changed and adapted it in his saddest but devoutest hours. Its original writer was the Rev. James Allen, nearly twenty years younger than himself, a man of culture and piety, but a Christian of shifting creeds. It is not impossible that he sent his hymn to Shirley to revise. At all events it owes its present form to Shirley's hand.

---

The influence of Sir Walter's family misfortune is evident also in the mood out of which breathed his other trustful lines—

(changed now to “hath taught these scenes” etc).

Sir Walter Shirley, cousin of the Countess of Huntingdon, was born 1725, and died in 1786. 161 / 129 Even in his last sickness he continued to preach to his people in his house, seated in his chair.

Rev. James Oswald Allen was born at Gayle, Yorkshire, Eng., June 24, 1743. He left the University of Cambridge after a year's study, and became an itinerant preacher, but seems to have been a man of unstable religious views. After roving from one Christian denomination to another several times, he built a Chapel, and for forty years ministered there to a small Independent congregation. He died in Gayle, Oct. 31, 1804.

The tune long and happily associated with “Sweet the Moments” is “Sicily,” or the “Sicilian Hymn”—from an old Latin hymn-tune, “O Sanctissima.”

“O FOR A CLOSER WALK WITH GOD.”

The author, William Cowper, son of a clergyman, was born at Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire, Eng., Nov. 15, 1731, and died at Dereham, Norfolk, April 25, 1800. Through much of his adult life he was afflicted with a mental ailment inducing melancholia and at times partial insanity, during which he once attempted suicide. He sought literary occupation as an antidote to his disorder of mind, and besides a great number of lighter pieces which diverted him and his friends, composed “The Task,” an able and delightful moral and domestic poetic treatise in blank verse, and in the same style of verse translated Homer's Odyssey and Iliad.

162 / 130

One of the most beloved of English poets, this suffering man was also a true Christian, and wrote some of our sweetest and most spiritual hymns. Most of these were composed at Olney, where he resided for a time with John Newton, his fellow hymnist, and jointly with him issued the volume known as the Olney Hymns.

THE TUNE.

Music more or less closely identified with this familiar hymn is Gardiner's “Dedham,” and also “Mear,” often attributed to Aaron Williams. Both, about equally with the hymn, are seasoned by time, but have not worn out their harmony—or their fitness to Cowper's prayer.

William Gardiner was born in Leicester, Eng., March 15, 1770, and died there Nov. 11, 1853. He was a vocal composer and a “musicographer” or writer on musical subjects.

One Aaron Williams, to whom “Mear” has by some been credited, was of Welsh descent, a composer of psalmody and clerk of the Scotch church in London. He was born in 1734, and died in 1776. Another account, and the more probable one, names a minister of Boston of still earlier date as the author of the noble old harmony. It is found in a small New England collection of 1726, but not in any English or Scotch collection. “Mear” is presumably an American tune.

163 / 131

“WHAT VARIOUS HINDRANCES WE MEET.”

Another hymn of Cowper's; and no one ever suffered more deeply the plaintive regret in the opening lines, or better wrought into poetic expression an argument for prayer.

The whole hymn is (or once was) so thoroughly learned by heart as to be fixed in the church among its household words. Preachers to the diffident do not forget to quote—

And there is all the lifetime of a proverb in the couplet—

Tune, Lowell Mason's “Rockingham.”

164 / 132

“MY GRACIOUS REDEEMER I LOVE.”

This is one of Benjamin Francis's lays of devotion. The Christian Welshman who bore that name was a Gospel minister full of Evangelical zeal, who preached in many places, though his pastoral home was with the Baptist church in Shortwood, Wales. Flattering calls to London could not tempt him away from his first and only parish, and he remained there till his triumphant death. He was born in 1734, and died in 1799.

Tune, “Birmingham”—an English melody. Anonymous.

“BLEST BE THE TIE THAT BINDS.”

Perhaps the best hymn-expression of sacred brotherhood, at least it has had, and still has the indorsement of constant use. The author, John Fawcett, D.D., is always quoted as the example of his own words, since he sacrificed ambition and personal interest to Christian affection.

Born near Bradford, Yorkshire, Jan. 6, 1739, and converted under the preaching of Whitefield, 165 / 133 he joined the Methodists, but afterwards became a member of the new Baptist church in Bradford. Seven years later he was ordained over the Baptist Society at Wainsgate. In 1772 he received a call to succeed the celebrated Dr. Gill, in London, and accepted. But at the last moment, when his goods were packed for removal, the clinging love of his people, weeping their farewells around him, melted his heart. Their passionate regrets were more than either he or his good wife could withstand.

“I will stay,” he said; “you may unpack my goods, and we will live for the Lord lovingly together.”

It was out of this heart experience that the tender hymn was born.

Dr. Fawcett died July 25, 1817.

Tune, “Boylston,” L. Mason; or “Dennis,” H.G. Nägeli.

“I LOVE THY KINGDOM, LORD.”

“Dr. Dwight's Hymn,” as this is known par eminence among many others from his pen, is one of the imperishable lyrics of the Christian Church. The real spirit of the hundred and twenty-second Psalm is in it, and it is worthy of Watts in his best moments.

166 / 134

Timothy Dwight was born at Northampton, Mass, May 14, 1752, and graduated at Yale College at the age of thirteen. He wrote several religious poems of considerable length. In 1795 he was elected President of Yale College, and in 1800 he revised Watts' Psalms, at the request of the General Association of Connecticut, adding a number of translations of his own.

Dr. Dwight died Jan. 11, 1817.

Tune, “St. Thomas,” Aaron Williams, (1734–1776.)

Mr. Hubert P. Main, however, believes the author to be Handel. It appeared as the second movement of a four-movement tune in Williams's 1762 collection, which contained pieces by the great masters, with his own; but while not credited to Handel, Williams did not claim it himself.

“MID SCENES OF CONFUSION.”

This hymn, common in chapel hymnbooks half a century and more ago, is said to have been written by the Rev. David Denham, about 1826.

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THE TUNE.

“Home, Sweet Home” was composed, according to the old account, by John Howard Payne as one of the airs in his opera of “Clari, the Maid of Milan,” which was brought out in London at Drury Lane in 1823. But Charles Mackay, the English poet, in the London Telegraph, asserts that Sir Henry Bishop, an eminent musician, in his vain search for a Sicilian national air, invented one, and that it was the melody of “Home, sweet Home,” which he afterwards set to Howard Payne's words. Mr. Mackay had this story from Sir Henry himself.

John Howard Payne, author at least, of the original words of “Home, Sweet Home,” was born in New York City June 9, 1791. He was a singer, and became an actor and theatrical writer. He composed the words of his immortal song in the year 1823, when he was himself homeless and hungry and sheltered temporarily in an attic in Paris.

His fortunes improved at last, and he was appointed to represent his native country as consul in Tunis, where he died, Apr. 9, 1852.

168 / 136

“O, COULD I SPEAK THE MATCHLESS WORTH.”

The writer of this hymn of worshiping ardor and exalted Christian love was an English Baptist minister, the Rev. Samuel Medley. He was born at Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, June 23, 1738, and at eighteen years of age entered the Royal Navy, where, though he had been piously educated, he became dissipated and morally reckless. Wounded in a sea fight off Cape Lagos, and in dread of amputation he prayed penitently through nearly a whole night, and in the morning the surprised surgeon told him his limb could be saved.

The voice of his awakened conscience was not wholly disregarded, though it was not till some time after he left the navy that his vow to begin a religious life was sincerely kept. After teaching school for four years, he began to preach in 1766, Wartford in Hertfordshire being the first scene of his godly labors. He died in Liverpool July 17, 1799, at the end of a faithful ministry there of twenty-seven years. A small edition of his hymns was published during his lifetime, in 1789.

169 / 137

THE TUNE.

“Colebrook,” a plain choral; but with a noble movement, by Henry Smart, is the English music to this fine lyric, but Dr. Mason's “Ariel” is the American favorite. It justifies its name, for it has wings—in both full harmony and duet—and its melody feels the glory of the hymn at every bar.

157 / opp 126

“ROCK OF AGES CLEFT FOR ME.”

Augustus Montagu Toplady, author of this almost universal hymn, was born at Farnham, Surrey, Eng., Nov. 4, 1740. Educated at Westminster School, and Trinity College, Dublin, he took orders in the Established Church. In his doctrinal debates with the Wesleys he was a harsh controversialist; but his piety was sincere, and marked late in life by exalted moods. Physically he was frail, and his fiery zeal wore out his body. Transferred from his vicarage at Broad Hembury, Devonshire, to Knightsbridge, London, at twenty-eight years of age, his health began to fail before he was thirty-five, and in one of his periods of illness he wrote—

And the same homesickness for heaven appears under a different figure in another hymn—

170 / 138

Possessed of an ardent religious nature, his spiritual frames exemplified in a notable degree the emotional side of Calvinistic piety. Edward Payson himself, was not more enraptured in immediate view of death than was this young London priest and poet. Unquestioning faith became perfect certainty. As in the bold metaphor of “Rock of Ages,” the faith finds voice in—

A debtor to mercy alone,

—and other hymns in his collection of 1776, two years before the end came. Most of this devout writing was done in his last days, and he continued it as long as strength was left, until, on the 11th of August, 1778, he joyfully passed away.

Somehow there was always something peculiarly heartsome and “filling” to pious minds in the lines of Toplady in days when his minor hymns were more in vogue than now, and they were often quoted, without any idea whose making they were. “At anchor laid” was crooned by good old ladies at their spinning-wheels, and godly invalids found “When languor and disease invade” a comfort next to their Bibles.

“Rock of Ages” is said to have been written after the author, during a suburban walk, had been forced to shelter himself from a thunder 171 / 139 shower, under a cliff. This is, however, but one of several stories about the birth-occasion of the hymn.

It has been translated into many languages. One of the foreign dignitaries visiting Queen Victoria at her “Golden Jubilee” was a native of Madagascar, who surprised her by asking leave to sing, but delighted her, when leave was given, by singing “Rock of Ages.” It was a favorite of hers—and of Prince Albert, who whispered it when he was dying. People who were school-children when Rev. Justus Vinton came home to Willington, Ct., with two Karen pupils, repeat to-day the “la-pa-ta, i-oo-i-oo” caught by sound from the brown-faced boys as they sang their native version of “Rock of Ages.”

Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, the famous Confederate Cavalry leader, mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern, Va., and borne to a Richmond hospital, called for his minister and requested that “Rock of Ages” be sung to him.

The last sounds heard by the few saved from the wreck of the steamer “London” in the Bay of Biscay, 1866, were the voices of the helpless passengers singing “Rock of Ages” as the ship went down.

A company of Armenian Christians sang “Rock of Ages” in their native tongue while they were being massacred in Constantinople.

No history of this grand hymn of faith forgets the incident of Gladstone writing a Latin 172 / 140 translation of it while sitting in the House of Commons. That remarkable man was as masterly in his scholarly recreations as in his statesmanship. The supreme Christian sentiment of the hymn had permeated his soul till it spoke to him in a dead language as eloquently as in the living one; and this is what he made of it:

TOPLADY.

173 / 141

GLADSTONE.

The wonderful hymn has suffered the mutations common to time and taste.

—becomes—

—getting rid of the unpoetic word, and bettering the elocution, but missing the writer's thought 174 / 142 (of the unknown path,—instead of going to many “worlds”). The Unitarians have their version, with substitutes for the “atonement lines.”

But the Christian lyric maintains its life and inspiration through the vicissitudes of age and use, as all intrinsically superior things can and will,—and as in the twentieth line,—

—modernized to—

—the hymn will ever adapt itself to the new exigencies of common speech, without losing its vitality and power.

THE TUNE.

A happy inspiration of Dr. Thomas Hastings made the hymn and music inevitably one. Almost anywhere to call for the tune of “Toplady” (namesake of the pious poet) is as unintelligible to the multitude as “Key” would be to designate the “Star-spangled Banner.” The common people—thanks to Dr. Hastings—have learned “Rock of Ages” by sound.

Thomas Hastings was born in Washington, Ct., 1784. For eight years he was editor of the Western Recorder, but he gave his life to church music, and besides being a talented tone-poet he wrote as many as six hundred hymns. In 1832, by invitation from twelve New York churches, he went 177 / 143 to that city, and did the main work of his life there, dying, in 1872, at the good old age of eighty-nine. His musical collections number fifty-three. He wrote his famous tune in 1830.

175 / opp 142

“MY SOUL BE ON THY GUARD”

Strangely enough, this hymn, a trumpet note of Christian warning and resolution, was written by one who himself fell into unworthy ways.^* But the one strong and spiritual watch-song by which he is remembered appeals for him, and lets us know possibly, something of his own conflicts. We can be thankful for the struggle he once made, and for the hymn it inspired. It is a voice of caution to others.

---

George Heath, the author, was an English minister, born in 1781; died 1822. For a time he was pastor of a Presbyterian Church at Honiton, Devonshire, and was evidently a prolific writer, having composed a hundred and forty-four hymns, an edition of which was printed.

THE TUNE.

No other has been so familiarly linked with the words as Lowell Mason's “Laban” (1830). It has dash and animation enough to reënforce the hymn, and give it popular life, even if the hymn had less earnestness and vigor of its own.

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“PEOPLE OF THE LIVING GOD.”

Montgomery felt every line of this hymn as he committed it to paper. He wrote it when, after years in the “swim” of social excitements and ambitions, where his young independence swept him on, he came back to the little church of his boyhood. His father and mother had gone to the West Indies as missionaries, and died there. He was forty-three years old when, led by divine light, he sought readmission to the Moravian “meeting” at Fulneck, and anchored happily in a haven of peace.

James Montgomery, son of Rev. John Montgomery, was born at Irvine, Ayeshire, Scotland, 179 / 145 Nov. 4, 1771, and educated at the Moravian Seminary at Fulneck, Yorkshire, Eng. He became the editor of the Sheffield Iris, and his pen was busy in non-professional as well as professional work until old age. He died in Sheffield, April 30, 1854.

His literary career was singularly successful; and a glance through any complete edition of his poems will tell us why. His hymns were all published during his lifetime, and all, as well as his longer pieces, have the purity and polished beauty, if not the strength, of Addison's work. Like Addison, too, he could say that he had written no line which, dying, he would wish to blot.

The best of Montgomery was in his hymns. These were too many to enumerate here, and the more enduring ones too familiar to need enumeration. The church and the world will not soon forget “The Home in Heaven,”—

Nor—

—with its impressive couplet—

Nor the haunting sweetness of—

180 / 146

Nor, indeed, the hymn of Christian love just now before us.

THE TUNE.

The melody exactly suited to the gentle trochaic step of the home-song, “People of the living God,” is “Whitman,” composed for it by Lowell Mason. Few Christians, in America, we venture to say, could hear an instrument play “Whitman” without mentally repeating Montgomery's words.

“TO LEAVE MY DEAR FRIENDS.”

This hymn, called “The Bower of Prayer,” was dear to Christian hearts in many homes and especially in rural chapel worship half a century ago and earlier, and its sweet legato melody still lingers in the memories of aged men and women.

Elder John Osborne, a New Hampshire preacher of the “Christian” (Christ-ian) denomination, is said to have composed the tune (and possibly the words) about 1815—though apparently the music was arranged from a flute interlude in one of Haydn's themes. The warbling notes of the air are full of heart-feeling, and usually the best available treble voice sang it as a solo.

---

“SAVIOUR, THY DYING LOVE.”

This hymn of grateful piety was written in 1862, by Rev. S. Dryden Phelps, D.D., of New Haven, and first published in Pure Gold, 1871; afterwards in the (earlier) Baptist Hymn and Tune Book.

The penultimate line, originally “Some sinful wanderer won,” was altered by the author himself. 182 / 148 The hymn is found in most Baptist hymnals, and was inserted by Mr. Sankey in Gospel Hymns No. 1. It has since won its way into several revival collections and undenominational manuals.

Rev. Sylvester Dryden Phelps, D.D., was born in Suffield, Ct., May 15, 1816, and studied at the Connecticut Literary Institution in that town. An early call to the ministry turned his talents to the service of the church, and his long settlement—comprising what might be called his principal life work—was in New Haven, where he was pastor of the First Baptist church twenty-nine years. He died there Nov. 23, 1895.

THE TUNE.

The Rev. Robert Lowry admired the hymn, and gave it a tune perfectly suited to its metre and spirit. It has never been sung in any other. The usual title of it is “Something for Jesus.” The meaning and sentiment of both words and music are not unlike Miss Havergal's—

I gave my life for thee.

“IN SOME WAY OR OTHER.”

This song of Christian confidence was written by Mrs. Martha A.W. Cook, wife of the Rev. Parsons Cook, editor of the Puritan Recorder, Boston.

It was published in the American Messenger in 1870, and is still in use here, as a German 183 / 149 version of it is in Germany. The first stanza follows, in the two languages:

In the English version the easy flow of the two last lines into one sentence is an example of rhythmic advantage over the foreign syntax.

Mrs. Cook was married to the well-known clergyman and editor, Parsons Cook, (1800–1865) in Bridgeport, Ct., and survived him at his death in Lynn, Mass. She was Miss Martha Ann Woodbridge, afterwards Mrs. Hawley, and a widow at the time of her re-marriage as Mr. Cook's second wife.

THE TUNE.

Professor Calvin S. Harrington, of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Ct., set music to the words as printed in Winnowed Hymns (1873) and arranged by Dr. Eben Tourjee, organizer of the great American Peace Jubilee in Boston. In the Gospel Hymns it is, however, superseded by the more popular composition of Philip Phillips.

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Dr. Eben Tourjee, late Dean of the College of Music in Boston University, and founder and head of the New England Conservatory, was born in Warwick, R.I., June 1, 1834. With only an academy education he rose by native genius, from a hard-working boyhood to be a teacher of music and a master of its science. From a course of study in Europe he returned and soon made his reputation as an organizer of musical schools and sangerfests. The New England Conservatory of Music was first established by him in Providence, but removed in 1870 to Boston, its permanent home. His doctorate of music was conferred upon him by Wesleyan University. Died in Boston, April 12, 1891.

Philip Phillips, known as “the singing Pilgrim,” was born in Jamestown, Chautauqua, Co., N.Y., Aug. 13, 1834. He compiled twenty-nine collections of sacred music for Sunday schools, gospel meetings, etc.; also a Methodist Hymn and Tune Book, 1866. He composed a great number of tunes, but wrote no hymns. Some of his books were published in London, for he was a cosmopolitan singer, and traveled through Europe and Australia as well as America. Died in Delaware, O., June 25, 1875.

“NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE.”

Mr. William Stead, fond of noting what is often believed to be the “providential chain of 185 / 151 causes” in everything that happens, recalls the fact that Benjamin Flower, editor of the Cambridge Intelligencer, while in jail (1798) at the instigation of Bp. Watson for an article defending the French Revolution, and criticising the Bishop's political course, was visited by several sympathizing ladies, one of whom was Miss Eliza Gould. The young lady's first acquaintance with him there in his cell led to an attachment which eventuated in marriage. Of that marriage Sarah Flower was born. By the theory of providential sequences Mr. Stead makes it appear that the forgotten vindictiveness of a British prelate “was the causa causans of one of the most spiritual and aspiring hymns in the Christian Hymnary.”

“Nearer, My God, to Thee” was on the lips of President McKinley as he lay dying by a murderer's wicked shot. It is dear to President Roosevelt for its memories of the battle of Las Quasimas, where the Rough Riders sang it at the burial of their slain comrades. Bishop Marvin was saved by it from hopeless dejection, while practically an exile during the Civil War, by hearing it sung in the wilds of Arkansas, by an old woman in a log hut.

A letter from Pittsburg, Pa., to a leading Boston paper relates the name and experience of a forger who had left the latter city and wandered eight years a fugitive from justice. On the 5th of November, (Sunday,) 1905, he found himself in Pittsburg, and ventured into the Dixon Theatre, 186 / 152 where a religious service was being held, to hear the music. The hymn “Nearer, My God, to Thee” so overcame him that he went out weeping bitterly. He walked the floor of his room all night, and in the morning telephoned for the police, confessed his name and crime, and surrendered himself to be taken back to the Boston authorities.

Mrs. Sarah Flower Adams, author of the noble hymn (supposed to have been written in 1840), was born at Harlow, Eng., Feb. 22, 1805, and died there in 1848. At her funeral another of her hymns was sung, ending—

The attempts to evangelize “Nearer, My God, to Thee” by those who cannot forget that Mrs. Adams was a Unitarian, are to be deplored. Such zeal is as needless as trying to sectarianize an Old Testament Psalm. The poem is a perfect religious piece—to be sung as it stands, with thanks that it was ever created.

THE TUNE.

In English churches (since 1861) the hymn was and may still be sung to “Horbury,” composed by Rev. John B. Dykes, and “St. Edmund,” by Sir Arthur Sullivan. Both tunes are simple and appropriate, but such a hymn earns and inevitably 187 / 153 acquires a single tune-voice, so that its music instantly names it by its words when played on instruments. Such a voice was given it by Lowell Mason's “Bethany,” (1856). (Why not “Bethel,” instead, every one who notes the imagery of the words must wonder.) “Bethany” appealed to the popular heart, and long ago (in America) hymn and tune became each other's property. It is even simpler than the English tunes, and a single hearing fixes it in memory.

“I NEED THEE EVERY HOUR.”

Mrs. Annie Sherwood Hawks, who wrote this hymn in 1872, was born in Hoosick, N.Y., in 1835.

She sent the hymn (five stanzas) to Dr. Lowry, who composed its tune, adding a chorus, to make it more effective. It first appeared in a small collection of original songs prepared by Lowry and Doane for the National Baptist Sunday School Association, which met at Cincinnati, O., November, 1872, and was sung there.

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One instance, at least, of a hymn made doubly impressive by its chorus will be attested by all who have sung or heard the pleading words and music of Mrs. Hawks' and Dr. Lowry's “I need Thee, Oh, I need Thee.”

“I GAVE MY LIFE FOR THEE.”

This was written in her youth by Frances Ridley Havergal, and was suggested by the motto over the head of Christ in the great picture, “Ecce Homo,” in the Art Gallery of Dusseldorf, Prussia, where she was at school. The sight—as was the case with young Count Zinzendorf—seems to have had much to do with the gifted girl's early religious experience, and indeed exerted its influence on her whole life. The motto read “I did this for thee; what doest thou for me?” and the generative effect of the solemn picture and its question soon appeared in the hymn that flowed from Miss Havergal's heart and pen.

Miss Frances Ridley Havergal, sometimes called “The Theodosia of the 19th century,” was born at Astley, Worcestershire, Eng., Dec. 14, 1836. Her father, Rev. William Henry Havergal, a 189 / 155 clergyman of the Church of England, was himself a poet and a skilled musician, and much of the daughter's ability came to her by natural bequest as well as by education. Born a poet, she became a fine instrumentalist, a composer and an accomplished linguist. Her health was frail, but her life was a devoted one, and full of good works. Her consecrated words were destined to outlast her by many generations.

“Writing is praying with me,” she said. Death met her in 1879, when still in the prime of womanhood.

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THE TUNE.

The music that has made this hymn of Miss Havergal familiar in America is named from its first line, and was composed by the lamented Philip P. Bliss (christened Philipp Bliss^*), a pupil of Dr. George F. Root.

---

He was born in Rome, Pa., Jan. 9, 1838, and less than thirty-nine years later suddenly ended his life, a victim of the awful railroad disaster at Ashtabula O., Dec. 29, 1876, while returning from a visit to his aged mother. His wife, Lucy Young Bliss, perished with him there, in the swift flames that enveloped the wreck of the train.

The name of Mr. Bliss had become almost a household word through his numerous popular Christian melodies, which were the American 190 / 156 beginning of the series of Gospel Hymns. Many of these are still favorite prayer-meeting tunes throughout the country and are heard in song-service at Sunday-school and city mission meetings.

“JESUS KEEP ME NEAR THE CROSS.”

This hymn, one of the best and probably most enduring of Fanny J. Crosby's sacred lyrics, was inspired by Col. 1:29.

Frances Jane Crosby (Mrs. Van Alstyne) the blind poet and hymnist, was born in Southeast, N.Y., March 24, 1820. She lost her eyesight at the age of six. Twelve years of her younger life were spent in the New York Institution for the Blind, where she became a teacher, and in 1858 was happily married to a fellow inmate, Mr. Alexander Van Alstyne, a musician.

George F. Root was for a time musical instructor at the Institution, and she began early to write words to his popular song-tunes. “Rosalie, the Prairie Flower,” and the long favorite melody, “There's Music in the Air” are among the many to which she supplied the text and the song name.

She resides in Bridgeport, Ct., where she enjoys a serene and happy old age. She has written over six thousand hymns, and possibly will add other pearls to the cluster before she goes up to join the singing saints.

William Howard Doane, writer of the music to this hymn, was born in Preston, Ct., Feb. 3, 1831. He studied at Woodstock Academy, and subsequently acquired a musical education which earned him the degree of Doctor of Music conferred upon him by Denison University in 1875. Having a mechanical as well as musical gift, he patented more than seventy inventions, and was for some years engaged with manufacturing concerns, both as employee and manager, but his interest in song-worship and in Sunday-school and church work never abated, and he is well known as a trainer of choirs and composer of some of the best modern devotional tunes. His home is in Cincinnati, O.

“I WOULD NOT LIVE ALWAY.”

This threnody (we may almost call it) of W.A. Muhlenberg, illustrating one phase of Christian 192 / 158 experience, was the outpouring of a poetic melancholy not uncommon to young and finely strung souls. He composed it in his twenties,—long before he became “Doctor” Muhlenberg,—and for years afterwards tried repeatedly to alter it to a more cheerful tone. But the poem had its mission, and it had fastened itself in the public imagination, either by its contagious sentiment or the felicity of its tune, and the author was obliged to accept the fame of it as it originally stood.

William Augustus Muhlenberg D.D. was born in Philadelphia, Sept. 16, 1796, the great-grandson of Dr. Henry M. Muhlenberg, founder of the Lutheran church in America. In 1817 he left his ancestral communion, and became an Episcopal priest.

As Rector of St. James church, Lancaster, Pa., he interested himself in the improvement of ecclesiastical hymnody, and did much good reforming work. After a noble and very active life as promoter of religious education and Christian union, and as a friend and benefactor of the poor, he died April, 8, 1877, in St. Luke's Hospital, N.Y.

THE TUNE.

This was composed by Mr. George Kingsley in 1833, and entitled “Frederick” (dedicated to the Rev. Frederick T. Gray). Issued first as sheet music, it became popular, and soon found a place in the hymnals. Dr. Louis Benson says of the 195 / 159 conditions and the fancy of the time, “The standard of church music did not differ materially from that of parlor music.... Several editors have attempted to put a newer tune in the place of Mr. Kingsley's. It was in vain, simply because words and melody both appeal to the same taste.”

“SUN OF MY SOUL, MY SAVIOUR DEAR.”

This gem from Keble's Christian Year illustrates the life and character of its pious author, and, like all the hymns of that celebrated collection, is an incitive to spiritual thought for the thoughtless, as well as a language for those who stand in the Holy of Holies.

The Rev. John Keble was born in Caln, St. Aldwyn, April 25, 1792. He took his degree of A.M. and was ordained and settled at Fairford, where he began the parochial work that ceased only with his life. He died at Bournmouth, March 29, 1866.

His settlement at Fairford, in charge of three small curacies, satisfied his modest ambition, though altogether they brought him only about £100 per year. Here he preached, wrote his hymns and translations, performed his pastoral work, and was happy. Temptation to wider fields and larger salary never moved him.

THE TUNE.

The music to this hymn of almost unparalleled poetic and spiritual beauty was arranged from a 196 / 160 German Choral of Peter Ritter (1760–1846) by William Henry Monk, Mus. Doc., born London, 1823. Dr. Monk was a lecturer, composer, editor, and professor of vocal music at King's College. This noble tune appears sometimes under the name “Hursley” and supersedes an earlier one (“Halle”) by Thomas Hastings.

The tune “Hursley” is a choice example of polyphonal sweetness in uniform long notes of perfect chord.

The tune of “Canonbury,” by Robert Schumann, set to Keble's hymn, “New every morning is the love,” is deservedly a favorite for flowing long metres, but it could never replace “Hursley” with “Sun of my soul.”

“DID CHRIST O'ER SINNERS WEEP?”

The Rev. Benjamin Beddome wrote this tender hymn-poem while pastor of the Baptist Congregation at Bourton-on-the-water, Gloucestershire, Eng. He was born at Henley, Chatwickshire, Jan. 197 / 161 23, 1717. Settled in 1743, he remained with the same church till his death, Sept. 3, 1795. His hymns were not collected and published till 1818.

THE TUNE.

“Dennis,” a soft and smoothly modulated harmony, is oftenest sung to the words, and has no note out of sympathy with their deep feeling.

The tune of “Dennis” was adapted by Lowell Mason from Johann Georg Nägeli, a Swiss music publisher, composer and poet. He was born in Zurich, 1768. It is told of him that his irrepressible genius once tempted him to violate the ethics of authorship. While publishing Beethoven's three great solo sonatas (Opus 31) he interpolated two bars of his own, an act much commented upon in musical circles, but which does not seem to have cost him Beethoven's friendship. Possibly, like 198 / 162 Murillo to the servant who meddled with his paintings, the great master forgave the liberty, because the work was so good.

Nägeli's compositions are mostly vocal, for school and church use, though some are of a gay and playful nature. The best remembered of his secular and sacred styles are his blithe aria to the song of Moore, “Life let us cherish, while yet the taper glows” and the sweet choral that voices Beddome's hymn.

“MY JESUS, I LOVE THEE.”

The real originator of the Coronation Hymnal, a book into whose making went five years of prayer, was Dr. A.J. Gordon, late Pastor of the Clarendon St. Baptist church, Boston. While the volume was slowly taking form and plan he was wont to hum to himself, or cause to be played by one of his family, snatches and suggestions of new airs that came to him in connection with his own hymns, and others which seemed to have no suitable music. The anonymous hymn, “My Jesus, I Love Thee,” he found in a London hymn-book, and though the tune to which it had been sung in England was sent to him some time later, it did not sound sympathetic. Dissatisfied, and with the ideal in his mind of what the feeling should be in the melody to such a hymn, he meditated and prayed over the words till in a moment of inspiration the beautiful air sang itself to him^* which with its simple concords has carried the hymn into the chapels of every denomination.

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The memory of the writer returns to a day in a railway-car en route to the great Columbian Fair in Chicago when the tired passengers were suddenly surprised and charmed by the music of this melody. A young Christian man and woman, husband and wife, had begun to sing “My Jesus, I love Thee.” Their voices (a tenor and soprano) were clear and sweet, and every one of the company sat up to listen with a look of mingled admiration and relief. Here was something, after all, to make a long journey less tedious. They sang all the four verses and paused. There was no clapping of hands, for a reverential hush had been cast over the audience by 200 / 164 the sacred music. Instead of the inevitable applause that follows mere entertainment, a gentle but eager request for more secured the repetition of the delightful duet. This occurred again and again, till every one in the car—and some had never heard the tune or words before—must have learned them by heart. Fatigue was forgotten, miles had been reduced to furlongs in a weary trip, and a company of strangers had been lifted to a holier plane of thought.

Besides this melody there are four tunes by Dr. Gordon in his collection, three of them with his own words. In all there are eleven of his hymns. Of these the “Good morning in Glory,” set to his music, is an emotional lyric admirable in revival meetings, and the one beginning “O Holy Ghost, Arise” is still sung, and called for affectionately as “Gordon's Hymn.”

Rev. Adoniram Judson Gordon D.D. was born in New Hampton, N.H., April 19, 1836, and died in Boston, Feb. 2d, 1895, after a life of unsurpassed usefulness to his fellowmen and devotion to his Divine Master. Like Phillips Brooks he went to his grave “in all his glorious prime,” and his loss is equally lamented. He was a descendant of John Robinson of Leyden.

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CHAPTER IV.

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MISSIONARY HYMNS.

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“JESUS SHALL REIGN WHERE'ER THE SUN.”

One of Watts' sublimest hymns, this Hebrew ode to the final King and His endless dominion expands the majestic prophesy in the seventy-second Psalm:

The hymn itself could almost claim to be known “where'er the sun” etc., for Christian missionaries have sung it in every land, if not in every language.

One of the native kings in the South Sea Islands, who had been converted through the ministry of English missionaries, substituted a Christian for a pagan constitution in 1862. There were five thousand of his subjects gathered at the ceremonial, and they joined as with one voice in singing this hymn.

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THE TUNE.

“Old Hundred” has often lent the notes of its great plain-song to the sonorous lines, and “Duke Street,” with superior melody and scarcely inferior grandeur, has given them wings; but the choice of many for music that articulates the life of the hymn would be the tune of “Samson,” from Handel's Oratorio so named. It appears as No. 469 in the Evangelical Hymnal.

Handel had no peer in the art or instinct of making a note speak a word.

“JOY TO THE WORLD! THE LORD IS COME!”

This hymn, also by Watts, is often sung as a Christmas song; but “The Saviour Reigns” and “He Rules the World” are bursts of prophetic triumph always apt and stimulating in missionary meetings.

Here, again, the great Handel lends appropriate aid, for “Antioch,” the popular tone-consort of the hymn, is an adaptation from his “Messiah.” The arrangement has been credited to Lowell Mason, but he seems to have taken it from an English collection by Clark of Canterbury.

“O'ER THE GLOOMY HILLS OF DARKNESS.”

Dros y brinian tywyl niwliog.

This notable hymn was written, probably about 1750, by the Rev. William Williams, a Welsh Calvinistic Methodist, born at Cefnycoed, Jan. 203 / 167 7, 1717, near Llandovery. He began the study of medicine, but took deacon's orders, and was for a time an itinerant preacher, having left the established Church. Died at Pantycelyn, Jan. 1, 1781.

His hymn, like the two preceding, antedates the great Missionary Movement by many years.

This song of anticipation has dropped out of the modern hymnals, but the last stanza lingers in many memories.

THE TUNE.

Oftener than any other the music of “Zion” has been the expression of William Williams' 204 / 168 Missionary Hymn. It was composed by Thomas Hastings, in Washington, Ct., 1830.

“HASTEN, LORD, THE GLORIOUS TIME.”

Miss Harriet Auber, the author of this melodious hymn, was a daughter of James Auber of London, and was born in that city, Oct. 4, 1773. After leaving London she led a secluded life at Broxbourne and Hoddesdon, in Hertfordshire, writing devotional poetry and sacred songs and paraphrases.

Her Spirit of the Psalms, published in 1829, was a collection of lyrics founded on the Biblical Psalms. “Hasten Lord,” etc., is from Ps. 72, known for centuries to Christendom as one of the Messianic Psalms. Her best-known hymns have the same inspiration, as—

Wide, ye heavenly gates, unfold.
Sweet is the work, O Lord.
With joy we hail the sacred day.

Miss Auber died in Hoddesdon, Jan. 20, 1862. She lived to witness and sympathise with the pioneer missionary enterprise of the 19th century, 205 / 169 and, although she could not stand among the leaders of the battle-line in extending the conquest of the world for Christ, she was happy in having written a campaign hymn which they loved to sing. (It is curious that so pains-taking a work as Julian's Dictionary of Hymns and Hymn-writers credits “With joy we hail the sacred day” to both Miss Auber and Henry Francis Lyte. Coincidences are known where different hymns by different authors begin with the same line; and in this case one writer was dead before the other's works were published. Possibly the collector may have seen a forgotten hymn of Lyte's, with that first line.)

The tune that best interprets this hymn in spirit and in living music is Lowell Mason's “Eltham.” Its harmony is like a chime of bells.

“LET PARTY NAMES NO MORE.”

This hymn of Rev. Benjamin Beddome sounds like a prelude to the grand rally of the Christian Churches a generation later for united advance into foreign fields. It was an after-sermon hymn—like so many of Watts and Doddridge—and spoke a good man's longing to see all sects stand shoulder to shoulder in a common crusade.

Tune—Boylston.

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“WATCHMAN, TELL US OF THE NIGHT.”

The tune written to this pealing hymn of Sir John Bowring by Lowell Mason has never been superseded. In animation and vocal splendor it catches the author's own clear call, echoing the shout of Zion's sentinels from city to city, and happily reproducing in movement and phrase the great song-dialogue. Words and music together, the piece ranks with the foremost missionary lyrics. Like the greater Mason-Heber world-song, it has acquired no arbitrary name, appearing in Mason's own tune-books under its first hymn-line and likewise in many others. A few hymnals have named it “Bowring,” (and why not?) and some later ones simply “Watchman.”

“YE CHRISTIAN HERALDS, GO PROCLAIM.”

In some versions “Ye Christian heroes,” etc.

Professor David R. Breed attributes this stirring hymn to Mrs. Vokes (or Voke) an English or Welsh lady, who is supposed to have written it somewhere near 1780, and supports the claim by its date of publication in Missionary and Devotional Hymns at Portsea, Wales, in 1797. In this Dr. Breed follows (he says) “the accepted tradition.” On the other hand the Coronation Hymnal (1894) refers the authorship to a Baptist minister, the Rev. Bourne Hall Draper, of Southampton (Eng.), born 1775, and this choice has the approval of Dr. Charles Robinson. The question occurs whether, when the hymn was published in good faith as Mrs. Vokes', it was really the work of a then unknown youth of twenty-two.

The probability is that the hymn owns a mother instead of a father—and a grand hymn it is; one of the most stimulating in Missionary song-literature.

The stanza—

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—has been tampered with by editors, altering the last line to “Calm the troubled seas,” etc., (for the sake of the longer vowel;) but the substitution, “He'll shield you,” etc., in the first line, turns a prayer into a mere statement.

The hymn was—and should remain—a God-speed to men like William Carey, who had already begun to think and preach his immortal motto, “Attempt great things for God; expect great things of God.”

THE TUNE

Is the “Missionary Chant,” and no other. Its composer, Heinrich Christopher Zeuner, was born in Eisleben, Saxony, Sept. 20, 1795. He came to the United States in 1827, and was for many years organist at Park Street Church, Boston, and for the Handel and Haydn Society. In 1854 he removed to Philadelphia where he served three years as organist to St. Andrews Church, and Arch Street Presbyterian. He became insane in 1857, and in November of that year died by his own hand.

He published an oratorio “The Feast of Tabernacles,” and two popular books, the American Harp, 1832, and The Ancient Lyre, 1833. His compositions are remarkably spirited and vigorous, and his work as a tune-maker was much 209 / 173 in demand during his life, and is sure to continue, in its best examples, as long as good sacred music is appreciated.

To another beautiful missionary hymn of Mrs. Vokes, of quieter tone, but songful and sweet, Dr. Mason wrote the tune of “Migdol.” It is its musical twin.

“ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP APPEARING.”

This admired and always popular church hymn was written near the beginning of the last century by the Rev. Thomas Kelly, born in Dublin, 1760. He was the son of the Hon. Chief Baron Thomas Kelly of that city, a judge of the Irish Court of Common Pleas. His father designed him for the legal profession, but after his graduation at Trinity College he took holy orders in the Episcopal Church, and labored as a clergyman among the scenes of his youth for more than sixty years, becoming a Nonconformist in his later ministry. He was a sweet-souled man, who made troops of friends, and was honored as much for his piety as for his poetry, music, and oriental learning.

“I expect never to die,” he said, when Lord Plunkett once told him he would reach a great age. He finished his earthly work on the 14th of May, 210 / 174 1855, when he was eighty-five years old. But he still lives. His zeal for the coming of the Kingdom of Christ prompted his best hymn.

THE TUNE.

To presume that Kelly made both words and music together is possible, for he was himself a composer, but no such original tune seems to survive. In modern use Dr. Hastings' “Zion” is most frequently attached to the hymn, and was probably written for it.

“YE CHRISTIAN HEROES, WAKE TO GLORY.”

This rather crude parody on the “Marseillaise Hymn” (see Chap. 9) is printed in the American Vocalist, among numerous samples of early New England psalmody of untraced authorship. It might have been sung at primitive missionary meetings, to spur the zeal and faith of a Francis 213 / 175 Mason or a Harriet Newell. It expresses, at least, the new-kindled evangelical spirit of the long-ago consecrations in American church life that first sent the Christian ambassadors to foreign lands, and followed them with benedictions.

“HAIL TO THE LORD'S ANOINTED.”

James Montgomery (says Dr. Breed) is “distinguished as the only layman besides Cowper 214 / 176 among hymn-writers of the front rank in the English language.” How many millions have recited and sung his fine and exhaustively descriptive poem,—

Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,

—selections from almost any part of which are perfect definitions, and have been standard hymns on prayer for three generations. English Hymnology would as unwillingly part with his missionary hymns,—

The king of glory we proclaim.
Hark, the song of jubilee!

—and, noblest of all, the lyric of prophecy and praise which heads this paragraph.

The hymn is really the seventy-second Psalm in metre, and as a version it suffers nothing by 215 / 177 comparison with that of Watts. Montgomery wrote it as a Christmas ode. It was sung Dec. 25, 1821, at a Moravian Convocation, but in 1822 he recited it at a great missionary meeting in Liverpool, and Dr. Adam Clarke was so charmed with it that he inserted it in his famous Commentary. In no long time afterwards it found its way into general use.

The spirit of his missionary parents was Montgomery's Christian legacy, and in exalted poetical moments it stirred him as the divine afflatus kindled the old prophets.

THE TUNE.

The music editors in some hymnals have borrowed the favorite choral variously named “Webb” in honor of its author, and “The Morning Light is Breaking” from the first line of its hymn. Later hymnals have chosen Sebastian Wesley's “Aurelia” to fit the hymn, with a movement similar to that of “Webb”; also a German B flat melody “Ellacombe,” undated, with livelier step and a ringing chime of parts. No one of these is inappropriate.

Samuel Sebastian Wesley, grandson of Charles Wesley the great hymnist, was born in London, 1810. Like his father, Samuel, he became a distinguished musician, and was organist at Exeter, Winchester and Gloucester Cathedrals. Oxford gave him the degree of Doctor of Music. 216 / 178 He composed instrumental melodies besides many anthems, services, and other sacred pieces for choir and congregational singing. Died in Gloucester, April 19, 1876.

211 / opp 174

“FROM GREENLAND'S ICY MOUNTAINS.”

The familiar story of this hymn scarcely needs repeating; how one Saturday afternoon in the year 1819, young Reginald Heber, Rector of Hodnet, sitting with his father-in-law, Dean Shipley, and a few friends in the Wrexham Vicarage, was suddenly asked by the Dean to “write something to sing at the missionary meeting tomorrow,” and retired to another part of the room while the rest went on talking; how, very soon after, he returned with three stanzas, which were hailed with delighted approval; how he then insisted upon adding another octrain to the hymn and came back with—

—and how the great lyric was sung in Wrexham Church on Sunday morning for the first time in its life. The story is old but always fresh. Nothing could better have emphasized the good Dean's sermon that day in aid of “The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,” than that unexpected and glorious lyric of his poet son-in-law.

217 / 179

By common consent Heber's “Missionary Hymn” is the silver trumpet among all the rallying bugles of the church.

THE TUNE.

The union of words and music in this instance is an example of spiritual affinity. “What God hath joined together let no man put asunder.” The story of the tune is a record of providential birth quite as interesting as that of the hymn. In 1823, a lady in Savannah, Ga., having received and admired a copy of Heber's lyric from England, desired to sing it or hear it sung, but knew no music to fit the metre. She finally thought of a young clerk in a bank close by, Lowell Mason by name, who sometimes wrote music for recreation, and sent her son to ask him if he would make a tune that would sing the lines. The boy returned in half an hour with the composition that doubled Heber's fame and made his own.

In the words of Dr. Charles Robinson, “Like the hymn it voices, it was done at a stroke, and it will last through the ages.”

“THE MORNING LIGHT IS BREAKING.”

Not far behind Dr. Heber's chef-d'œuvre in lyric merit is the still more famous missionary hymn of Dr. S.F. Smith, author of “My Country, 'Tis of Thee.” Another missionary hymn of his which is widely used is—

218 / 180

Drs. Nutter and Breed speak of “The Morning Light is Breaking,” and its charm as a hymn of peace and promise, and intimate that it has “gone farther and been more frequently sung than any other missionary hymn.” Besides the English, there are versions of it in four Latin nations, the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French, and oriental translations in Chinese and several East Indian tongues and dialects, as well as one in Swedish. It author had the rare felicity, while on a visit to his son, a missionary in Burmah, of hearing it sung by native Christians in their language, and of being welcomed with an ovation when they knew who he was.

Samuel Francis Smith, D.D., was born in Boston in 1808, and educated in Harvard University (1825–1829). He prepared for the ministry, and was pastor of Baptist churches at Waterville, Me., and Newton, Mass., before entering the service of the American Baptist Missionary union as editor of its Missionary Magazine.

He was a scholarly and graceful writer, both in verse and prose, and besides his editorial work, he was frequently an invited participant or guest of honor on public occasions, owing to his fame as author of the national hymn. His pure and gentle character made him everywhere beloved and reverenced, and to know him intimately in his happy old age was a benediction. He died suddenly and painlessly in his seat on a railway train, November 16, 1895 in his eighty-eighth year.

Dr. Smith wrote twenty-six hymns now more or 220 / 182 less in use in church worship, and eight for Sabbath school collections.

THE TUNE.

“Millennial Dawn” is the title given it by a Boston compiler, about 1844, but since the music and hymn became “one and indivisable” it has been named “Webb,” and popularly known as “Morning Light” or oftener still by its first hymn-line, “The morning light is breaking.”

George James Webb was born near Salisbury, Wiltshire, Eng., June 24, 1803. He studied music in Salisbury and for several years played the organ at Falmouth Church. When still a young man (1830), he came to the United States, and settled in Boston where he was long the leading organist and music teacher of the city. He was associate director of the Boston Academy of Music with Lowell Mason, and joint author and editor with him of several church-music collections. Died in Orange, N.J., Nov. 7, 1887.

229 / opp 190

Dr. Webb's own account of the tune “Millennial Dawn” states that he wrote it at sea while on his way to America—and to secular words and that he had no idea who first adapted it to the hymn, nor when.

“IF I WERE A VOICE, A PERSUASIVE VOICE.”

This animating lyric was written by Charles Mackay. Sung by a good vocalist, the fine solo air composed (with its organ chords) by I.B. Woodbury, is still a feature in some missionary meetings, especially the fourth stanza—

221 / 183

Charles Mackay, the poet, was born in Perth, Scotland, 1814, and educated in London and Brussels; was engaged in editorial work on the London Morning Chronicle and Glasgow Argus, and during the Corn Law agitation wrote popular songs, notably “The Voice of the Crowd” and “There's a Good Time Coming,” which (like the far inferior poetry of Ebenezer Elliot) won the lasting love of the masses for a superior man who could be “The People's Singer and Friend.” He came to the United States in 1857 as a lecturer, and again in 1862, remaining three years as war correspondent of the London Times. Glasgow University made him LL.D. in 1847. His numerous songs and poems were collected in a London edition. Died Dec. 24, 1889.

Isaac Baker Woodbury was born in Beverly, Mass., 1819, and rose from the station of a blacksmith's apprentice to be a tone-teacher in the church. He educated himself in Europe, returned 222 / 184 and sang his life songs, and died in 1858 at the age of thirty-nine.

A tune preferred by many as the finer music is the one written to the words by Mr. Sankey, Sacred Songs, No. 2.

“SPEED AWAY! SPEED AWAY!”

This inspiriting song of farewell to departing missionaries was written in 1890 to Woodbury's appropriate popular melody by Fanny J. Crosby, at the request of Ira D. Sankey. The key-word and refrain are adapted from the original song by Woodbury (1848), but in substance and language the three hymn-stanzas are the new and independent work of this later writer.

“ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS!”

Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, the author of this rousing hymn of Christian warfare, a rector of the Established Church of England and a writer of note, was born at Exeter, Eng., Jan. 28, 1834. Educated at Clare College, Cambridge, he entered the service of the church, and was appointed Rector of East Mersea, Essex, in 1871. He was the author of several hymns, original and translated, and introduced into England from Flanders, numbers of carols with charming old Christmas music. The “Christian Soldiers” hymn is one of his (original) processionals, and the most inspiring.

THE TUNE.

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan, Doctor of Music, who wrote the melody for this hymn, was born in London, May 13, 1842. He gained the Mendelssohn Scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, and also at the Conservatory of Leipsic. He was a fertile genius, and his compositions included operettas, symphonies, overtures, anthems, hymn-tunes, an oratorio (“The Prodigal Son”), and almost every variety of tone production, vocal and instrumental. Queen Victoria knighted him in 1883.

The grand rhythm of “Onward, Christian Soldiers”—hymn and tune—is irresistible whether in band march or congregational worship. Sir Arthur died in London, November 22, 1900.

“O CHURCH ARISE AND SING”

Designed originally for children's voices, the hymn of five stanzas beginning with this line was written by Hezekiah Butterworth, author of the Story of the Hymns (1875), Story of the Tunes (1890), and many popular books of historic interest for the young, the most widely read of which is Zigzag Journeys in Many Lands. He 225 / 187 also composed and published many poems and hymns. He was born in Warren, R.I., Dec. 22, 1839, and for twenty-five years was connected with the Youth's Companion as regular contributor and member of its editorial staff. He died in Warren, R.I., Sept. 5, 1905.

The hymn “O Church, arise” was sung in Mason's tune of “Dort” until Prof. Case wrote a melody for it, when it took the name of the “Convention Hymn.”

Professor Charles Clinton Case, music composer and teacher, was born in Linesville, Pa., June, 1843. Was a pupil of George F. Root and pursued musical study in Chicago, Ill., Ashland, O., and South Bend, Ind. He was associated with Root, McGranahan, and others in making secular and church music books, and later with D.L. Moody in evangelical work.

As author and compiler he has published numerous works, among them Church Anthems, the Harvest Song and Case's Chorus Collection.

“THE BANNER OF IMMANUEL!”

This hymn, set to music and copyrighted in Buffalo as a floating waif of verse by an unknown author, and used in Sunday-school work, first appeared in Dr. F.N. Peloubet's Select Songs (Biglow and Main, 1884) with a tune by Rev. George Phipps.

The hymn was written by Rev. Theron Brown, a Baptist minister, who was pastor (1859–1870) of churches in South Framingham and Canton, Mass. He was born in Willimantic, Ct., April 29, 1832.

Retired from pastoral work, owing to vocal disability, he has held contributory and editorial relations with the Youth's Companion for more than forty years, for the last twenty years a member of the office staff.

Between 1880 and 1890 he contributed hymns more or less regularly to the quartet and antiphonal chorus service at the Ruggles St. Church, Boston, the “Banner of Immanuel” being one of the number. The Blount Family, Nameless Women of the Bible, Life Songs (a volume of poems), and several books for boys, are among his published works.

The Rev. George Phipps, composer of the tune, “Immanuel's Banner,” was born in Franklin, Mass., Dec. 11, 1838, was graduated at Amherst College, 1862, and at Andover Theological Seminary, 1865. Settled as pastor of the Congregational Church in Wellesley, Mass., ten years, and at Newton Highlands fifteen years.

He has written many Sunday-school melodies, notably the music to “My Saviour Keeps Me Company.”

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CHAPTER V.

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HYMNS OF SUFFERING AND TRUST.

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One inspiring chapter in the compensations of life is the record of immortal verses that were sorrow-born. It tells us in the most affecting way how affliction refines the spirit and “the agonizing throes of thought bring forth glory.” Often a broken life has produced a single hymn. It took the long living under trial to shape the supreme experience.

—The anguish of the singer
Made the sweetness of the song.

Indeed, if there had been no sorrow there would have been no song.

“MY LORD, HOW FULL OF SWEET CONTENT.”

Jeanne M.B. de la Mothe—known always as Madame Guyon—the lady who wrote these words in exile, probably sang more “songs in the night” than any hymn-writer outside of the Dark Ages. She was born at Montargis, France, in 1648, and 231 / 191 died in her seventieth year, 1771, in the ancient city of Blois, on the Loire.

A convent-educated girl of high family, a wife at the age of fifteen, and a widow at twenty-eight, her early piety, ridiculed in the dazzling but corrupt society of Louis XIV's time, blossomed through a long life in religious ministries and flowers of sacred poetry.

She became a mystic, and her book Spiritual Torrents indicates the impetuous ardors of her soul. It was the way Divine Love came to her. She was the incarnation of the spiritualized Book of Canticles. An induction to these intense subjective visions and raptures had been the remark of a pious old Franciscan father, “Seek God in your heart, and you will find Him.”

She began to teach as well as enjoy the new light so different from the glitter of the traditional worship. But her “aggressive holiness” was obnoxious to the established Church. “Quietism” was the brand set upon her written works and the offense that was punished in her person. Bossuet, the king of preachers, was her great adversary. The saintly Fenelon was her friend, but he could not shield her. She was shut up like a lunatic in prison after prison, till, after four years of dungeon life in the Bastile, expecting every hour to be executed for heresy, she was banished to a distant province to end her days.

Question as we may the usefulness of her pietistic books, the visions of her excessively exalted 232 / 192 moods, and the passionate, almost erotic phraseology of her Contemplations, Madame Guyon has held the world's admiration for her martyr spirit, and even her love-flights of devotion in poetry and prose do not conceal the angel that walked in the flame.

Today, when religious persecution is unknown, we can but dimly understand the perfect triumph of her superior soul under suffering and the transports of her utter absorption in God that could make the stones of her dungeon “look like jewels.” When we emulate a faith like hers—with all the weight of absolute certainty in it—we can sing her hymn:

And could a dearer vade mecum enrich a Christian's outfit than these lines treasured in memory?

Cowper, and also Dr. Thomas Upham, translated (from the French) the religious poems of Madame Guyon. This hymn is Cowper's translation.

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THE TUNE.

A gentle and sympathetic melody entitled “Alsace” well represents the temper of the words—and in name links the nationalities of writer and composer. It is a choral arranged from a sonata of the great Ludwig von Beethoven, born in Bonn, Germany, 1770, and died in Vienna, Mar. 1827. Like the author of the hymn he felt the hand of affliction, becoming totally deaf soon after his fortieth year. But, in spite of the privation, he kept on writing sublime and exquisite strains that only his soul could hear. His fame rests upon his oratorio, “The Mount of Olives,” the opera of “Fidelio” and his nine wonderful “Symphonies.”

“NO CHANGE IN TIME SHALL EVER SHOCK.”

Altered to common metre from the awkward long metre of Tate and Brady, the three or four stanzas found in earlier hymnals are part of their version (probably Tate's) of the 31st Psalm—and it is worth calling to mind here that there is no hymn treasury so rich in tuneful faith and reliance upon God in trouble as the Book of Psalms. This feeling of the Hebrew poet was never better expressed (we might say, translated) in English than by the writer of this single verse—

THE TUNE.

The sweet, tranquil choral long ago wedded to this hymn is lost from the church collections, and its very name forgotten. In fact the hymn itself is now seldom seen. If it ever comes back, old “Dundee” (Guillaume Franc 1500–1570) will sing for it, or some new composer may rise up to put the spirit of the psalm into inspired notes.

“WHY DO WE MOURN DEPARTED FRIENDS?”

This hymn of holy comfort, by Dr. Watts, was long associated with a remarkable tune in C minor, “a queer medley of melody” as Lowell Mason called it, still familiar to many old people as “China.” It was composed by Timothy Swan when he was about twenty-six years of age (1784) and published in 1801 in the New England Harmony. It may have sounded consolatory to mature mourners, singers and hearers in the days when religious emotion habitually took a sad key, but its wild and thrilling chords made children weep. The tune is long out of use—though, strange to say, one of the most recent hymnals prints the hymn with a new minor tune.

Timothy Swan was born in Worcester, Mass., July 23, 1758, and died in Suffield, Ct., July 23, 1842. He was a self-taught musician, his only “course of study” lasting three weeks,—in a country singing school at Groton. When sixteen years old he went to Northfield, Mass., and learned the hatter's trade, and while at work began to practice making psalm-tunes. “Montague,” in two parts, was his first achievement. From that time for thirty years, mostly spent in Suffield, Ct., he wrote and taught music while supporting himself by his trade. Many of his tunes were published by himself, and had a wide currency a century ago.

Swan was a genius in his way, and it was a true comment on his work that “his tunes were remarkable for their originality as well as singularity—unlike any other melodies.” “China,” his masterpiece, will be long kept track of as a curio, and preserved in replicates of old psalmody to illustrate self-culture in the art of song. But the major 236 / 196 mode will replace the minor when tender voices on burial days sing—

Another hymn of Watts,—

—sung to Lowell Mason's liquid tune of “Ward,” and the priceless stanza,—

doubly prove the claim of the Southampton bard to a foremost place with the song-preachers of Christian trust.

The psalm (Amsterdam version), “God is the refuge,” etc., is said to have been sung by John Howland in the shallop of the Mayflower when an attempt was made to effect a landing in spite of tempestuous weather. A tradition of this had doubtless reached Mrs. Hemans when she wrote—

“FATHER, WHATE'ER OF EARTHLY BLISS.”

This hymn had originally ten stanzas, of which the three usually sung are the three last. The above line is the first of the eighth stanza, altered from—

And O, whate'er of earthly bliss.

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Probably for more than a century the familiar surname “Steele” attached to this and many other hymns in the hymn-books conveyed to the general public no hint of a mind and hand more feminine than Cowper's or Montgomery's. Even intelligent people, who had chanced upon sundry copies of The Spectator, somehow fell into the habit of putting “Steele” and “Addison” in the same category of hymn names, and Sir Richard Steele got a credit he never sought. But since stories of the hymns began to be published—and made the subject of evening talks in church conference rooms—many have learned what “Steele” in the hymn-book means. It introduces us now to a very retiring English lady, Miss Anna Steele, a Baptist minister's daughter. She was born in 1706, at Broughton, Hampshire, in her father's parsonage, and in her father's parsonage she spent her life, dying there Nov. 1778.

She was many years a severe sufferer from bodily illness, and a lasting grief of mind and heart was the loss of her intended husband, who was drowned the day before their appointed wedding. It is said that this hymn was written under the recent sorrow of that loss.

In 1760 and 1780 volumes of her works in verse and prose were published with her name, “Theodosia,” and reprinted in 1863 as “Hymns, Psalms, and Poems, by Anna Steele.” The hymn “Father, whate'er,” etc., is estimated as her best, though some rank it only next to her—

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Dear Refuge of my weary soul.

Other more or less well-known hymns of this devout and loving writer are,—

Lord, how mysterious are Thy ways,
O Thou whose tender mercy hears,
Thou lovely Source of true delight,
Alas, what hourly dangers rise,
So fades the lovely blooming flower.

—to a stanza of which latter the world owes the tune of “Federal St.”

THE TUNE.

The true musical mate of the sweet hymn-prayer came to it probably about the time of its hundredth birthday; but it came to stay. Lowell Mason's “Naomi” blends with it like a symphony of nature.

“GUIDE ME, O THOU GREAT JEHOVAH.”

This great hymn has a double claim on the name of Williams. We do not have it exactly in its 239 / 199 original form as written by Rev. William Williams, “The Watts of Wales,” familiarly known as “Williams of Pantycelyn.” His fellow countryman and contemporary, Rev. Peter Williams, or “Williams of Carmarthen,” who translated it from Welsh into English (1771) made alterations and substitutions in the hymn with the result that only the first stanza belongs indisputably to Williams of Pantycelyn, the others being Peter's own or the joint production of the two. As the former, however, is said to have approved and revised the English translation, we may suppose the hymn retained the name of its original author by mutual consent.

The second and third stanzas have not escaped the touch of critical editors. The line,—

—becomes,—

—with which alteration there is no fault to find except that it is needless, and obliterates the ancient mark. But the third stanza, besides losing its second line for—

—is weakened by a more needless substitution. Its original third line—

—is exchanged for the commonplace—

That is modern taste; but when modern taste meddles with a stalwart old hymn it is sometimes more nice than wise.

It is probable that the famous hymn was sung in America before it obtained a European 241 / 201 reputation. Its history is as follows: Lady Huntingdon having read one of Williams' books with much spiritual satisfaction, persuaded him to prepare a collection of hymns, to be called the Gloria in Excelsis, for special use in Mr. Whitefield's Orphans' House in America. In this collection appeared the original stanzas of “Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah.” In 1774, two years after its publication in the Gloria in Excelsis, it was republished in England in Mr. Whitefield's collections of hymns.

The Rev. Peter Williams was born in the parish of Llansadurnen, Carmarthenshire, Wales, Jan. 7, 1722, and was educated in Carmarthen College. He was ordained in the Established Church and appointed to a curacy, but in 1748 joined the Calvinistic Methodists. He was an Independent of the Independents however, and preached where ever he chose. Finally he built a chapel for himself on his paternal estate, where he ministered during the rest of his life. Died Aug. 8, 1796.

THE TUNE.

If “Sardius,” the splendid old choral (triple time) everywhere identified with the hymn, be not its original music, its age at least entitles it to its high partnership. The Sacred Lyre (1858) ascribes it to Ludovic Nicholson, of Paisley, Scotland, violinist and amateur composer, born 1770; died 1852; but this is not beyond dispute. Of several 242 / 202 names one more confidently referred to as its author is F.H. Barthelemon (1741–1808).

“PEACE, TROUBLED SOUL”

Is the brave faith-song of a Christian under deep but blameless humiliation—Sir Walter Shirley.^*

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THE TUNE.

Apparently the favorite in several (not recent) hymnals for the subdued but confident spirit of this hymn of Sir Walter Shirley is Mazzinghi's “Palestine,” appearing with various tone-signatures in different books. The treble and alto lead in a sweet duet with slur-flights, like an obligato to the bass and tenor. The melody needs rich and cultured voices, and is unsuited for congregational singing. So, perhaps, is the hymn itself.

243 / 203

As now sung the word “scenes” is substituted for “rocks” in the second line, eliminating the poetry. Rocks give an echo; and the vivid thought in the author's mind is flattened to an unmeaning generality.

Count Joseph Mazzinghi, son of Tommasso Mazzinghi, a Corsican musician, was born in London, 1765. He was a boy of precocious talent. When only ten years of age he was appointed organist of the Portuguese Chapel, and when nineteen years old was made musical director and composer at the King's Theatre. For many years he held the honor of Music Master to the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline, and his compositions were almost numberless. Some of his songs and glees that caught the popular fancy are still remembered in England, as “The Turnpike Gate,” “The Exile,” and the rustic duet, “When a Little Farm We Keep.”

Of sacred music he composed only one mass and six hymn-tunes, of which latter “Palestine” is one. Mazzinghi died in 1844, in his eightieth year.

“BEGONE UNBELIEF, MY SAVIOUR IS NEAR.”

The Rev. John Newton, author of this hymn, was born in London, July 24, 1725. The son of a sea-captain, he became a sailor, and for several years led a reckless life. Converted, he took holy orders and was settled as curate of Olney, Buckinghamshire, and afterwards Rector of St. Mary of 244 / 204 Woolnoth, London, where he died, Dec. 21, 1807. It was while living at Olney that he and Cowper wrote and published the Olney Hymns. His defiance to doubt in these lines is the blunt utterance of a sailor rather than the song of a poet:

THE TUNE

Old “Hanover,” by William Croft (1677–1727), carries Newton's hymn successfully, but Joseph Haydn's choral of “Lyons” is more familiar—and better music.

“Hanover” often accompanies Charles Wesley's lyric,—

Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim.

“HOW FIRM A FOUNDATION.”

The question of the author of this hymn is treated at length in Dr. Louis F. Benson's Studies of Familiar Hymns. The utmost that need to be said here is that two of the most thorough and indefatigable hymn-chasers, Dr. John Julian and Rev. H.L. Hastings, working independently of each other, found evidence fixing the authorship with strong probability upon Robert Keene, a precentor in Dr. John Rippon's church. Dr. Rippon was pastor of a Baptist Church in London from 245 / 205 1773 to 1836, and in 1787 he published a song-manual called A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors, etc., in which “How Firm a Foundation” appears as a new piece, with the signature “K——.”

The popularity of the hymn in America has been remarkable, and promises to continue. Indeed, there are few more reviving or more spiritually helpful. It is too familiar to need quotation. But one cannot suppress the last stanza, with its powerful and affecting emphasis on the Divine promise—

THE TUNE.

The grand harmony of “Portuguese Hymn” has always been identified with this song of trust.

One opinion of the date of the music writes it “about 1780.” Since the habit of crediting it to John Reading (1677–1764) has been discontinued, it has been in several hymnals ascribed to Marco Portogallo (Mark, the Portuguese), a musician born in Lisbon, 1763, who became a composer of operas in Italy, but was made Chapel-Master to the Portuguese King. In 1807, when Napoleon invaded the Peninsula and dethroned the royal house of Braganza, Old King John VI. fled to Brazil and took Marco with him, where he lived till 1815, but returned and died in Italy, in 1830. Such is the story, and it is all true, only the man's name was 246 / 206 Simao, instead of Marco. Grove's Dictionary appends to Simao's biography the single sentence, “His brother wrote for the church.” That the Brazilian episode may have been connected with this brother's history by a confusion of names, is imaginable, but it is not known that the brother's name was Marco.

On the whole, this account of the authorship of the “Portuguese Hymn”—originally written for the old Christmas church song “Adeste Fideles”—is late and uncertain. Heard (perhaps for the first time) in the Portuguese Chapel, London, it was given the name which still clings to it. If proofs of its Portuguese origin exist, they may yet be found.

“How Firm a Foundation” was the favorite of Deborah Jackson, President Andrew Jackson's beloved wife, and on his death-bed the warrior and statesman called for it. It was the favorite of Gen. Robert E. Lee, and was sung at his funeral. The American love and familiar preference for the remarkable hymn was never more strikingly illustrated than when on Christmas Eve, 1898, a whole corps of the United States army Northern and Southern, encamped on the Quemados hills, near Havana, took up the sacred tune and words—

“Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed.”

Lieut. Col. Curtis Guild (since Governor Guild of Massachusetts) related the story in the Sunday School Times for Dec. 7, 1901, and Dr. Benson quotes it in his book.

249 / 207

“WHILE THEE I SEEK, PROTECTING POWER.”

Miss Helen Maria Williams, who wrote this gentle hymn of confidence, in 1786, was born in the north of England in 1762. When but a girl she won reputation by her brilliant literary talents and a mental grasp and vigor that led her, like Gail Hamilton, “to discuss public affairs, besides clothing bright fancies and devout thoughts in graceful verse.” Most of her life was spent in London, and in Paris, where she died, Dec. 14, 1827.

THE TUNES.

Old “Norwich,” from Day's Psalter, and “Simpson,” adapted from Louis Spohr, are found with the hymn in several later manuals. In the memories of older worshipers “Brattle-Street,” with its melodious choral and duet arranged from Pleyel 250 / 208 by Lowell Mason, is inseparable from Miss Williams' words; but modern hymnals have dropped it, probably because too elaborate for average congregational use.

Ignaz Joseph Pleyel was born June 1, 1757, at Ruppersthal, Lower Austria. He was the twenty-fourth child of a village schoolmaster. His early taste and talent for music procured him friends who paid for his education. Haydn became his master, and long afterwards spoke of him as his best and dearest pupil. Pleyel's work—entirely instrumental—was much admired by Mozart.

During a few years spent in Italy, he composed the music of his best-known opera, “Iphigenia in Aulide,” and, besides the thirty-four books of his symphonies and chamber-pieces, the results of his prolific genius make a list too long to enumerate. Most of his life was spent in Paris, where he founded the (present) house of Pleyel and Wolfe, piano makers and sellers. He died in that city, Nov. 14, 1831.

“COME UNTO ME.”

This sweet hymn, by Mrs. Catherine Esling, is well known to many thousands of mourners, as also is its equally sweet tune of “Henley,” by Lowell 251 / 209 Mason. Melody and words melt together like harp and flute.

Mrs. Catherine Harbison Waterman Esling was born in Philadelphia, Apr. 12, 1812. A writer for many years under her maiden name, Waterman, she married, in 1840, Capt. George Esling, of the Merchant Marine, and lived in Rio Janeiro till her widowhood, in 1844.

247 / opp 206

JOHN WESLEY'S HYMN.

These are the opening lines of “John Wesley's Hymn,” so called because his other hymns are mostly translations, and because of all his own it is the one commonly quoted and sung.

John Wesley, the second son in the famous Epworth family of ministers, was a man who knew how to endure “hardness as a good soldier of Christ.” He was born June 27, 1703, and studied at Charterhouse, London, and at Christ Church, Oxford, becoming a Fellow of Lincoln College. After taking holy orders he went as a missionary to Georgia, U.S., in 1735, and on his return began his remarkable work in England, preaching a more spiritual type of religion, and 252 / 210 awakening the whole kingdom with his revival fervor and his brother's kindling songs. The following paragraph from his itinerant life, gathered probably from a page of his own journals, gives a glimpse of what the founder of the great Methodist denomination did and suffered while carrying his Evangelical message from place to place.

On February 17, 1746, when days were short and weather far from favorable, he set out on horseback from Bristol to Newcastle, a distance between three and four hundred miles. The journey occupied ten days. Brooks were swollen, and in some places the roads were impassable, obliging the itinerant to go round through the fields. At Aldrige Heath, in Staffordshire, the rain turned to snow, which the northerly wind drove against him, and by which he was soon crusted over from head to foot. At Leeds the mob followed him, and pelted him with whatever came to hand. He arrived at Newcastle, February 26, “free from every anxious thought,” and “every worldly fear.”

How lightly he regarded hardship and molestation appears from his verses—

And that he actually enjoys the heroic freedom of a rough-rider missionary life is hinted in his hymn—

253 / 211

God evidently built John Wesley fire-proof and water-proof with a view to precisely what he was to undertake and accomplish. His frame was vigorous, and his spirit unconquerable. Besides all this he had the divine gift of a religious faith that could move mountains and a confidence in his mission that became a second nature. No wonder he could suffer, and last. The brave young man at thirty was the brave old man at nearly ninety. He died in London, March 2, 1791.

THE TUNE.

An air found in the Revivalist (1869), in sextuple time, that has the real camp-meeting swing, preserves the style of music in which the hymn was sung by the circuit-preachers and their congregations—ringing out the autobiographical verses with special unction. The favorite was—

More modern voices sing the John Wesley hymn to the tune “Habakkuk,” by Edward Hodges. It has a lively three-four step, and finer melody than the old.

Edward Hodges was born in Bristol, Eng., July 20, 1796, and died there Sept. 1876. Organist at Bristol in his youth, he was graduated at Cambridge and in 1825 received the doctorate of music from that University. In 1835 he went to Toronto, Canada, and two years later to New York city, where he was many years Director of Music at Trinity Church. Returned to Bristol in 1863.

“WHEN GATHERING CLOUDS AROUND I VIEW.”

One of the restful strains breathed out of illness and affliction to relieve one soul and bless millions. It was written by Sir Robert Grant (1785–1838).

The lines are no less admirable for their literary beauty than for their feeling and their faith. Unconsciously, it may be, to the writer, in this and the following stanza are woven an epitome of the Saviour's history. He—

255 / 213

—and the crowning assurance of Jesus' human sympathy is expressed in the closing prayer,—

THE TUNE.

Of the few suitable six-line long metre part songs, the charming Russian tone-poem of “St. Petersburg” by Dimitri Bortniansky is borrowed for the hymn in some collections, and with excellent effect. It accords well with the mood and tenor of the words, and deserves to stay with it as long as the hymn holds its place.

Dimitri Bortniansky, called “The Russian Palestrina,” was born in 1752 at Gloukoff, a village of the Ukraine. He studied music in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vienna, Rome and Naples. Returning to his native land, he was made Director of Empress Catharine's church choir. He reformed and systematized Russian church music, and wrote original scores in the intervals of his teaching labors. His works are chiefly motets and concertos, which show his genius for rich harmony. Died 1825.

256 / 214

“JUST AS I AM, WITHOUT ONE PLEA.”

Charlotte Elliott, of Brighton, Eng., would have been well-known through her admired and useful hymns,—

My God, my Father, while I stray,
My God, is any hour so sweet,
With tearful eyes I look around,

—and many others. But in “Just as I am” she made herself a voice in the soul of every hesitating penitent. The currency of the hymn has been too swift for its authorship and history to keep up with, but it is a blessed law of influence that good works out-run biographies. This master-piece of metrical gospel might be called Miss Elliott's spiritual-birth hymn, for a reply of Dr. Cæsar Malan of Geneva was its prompting cause. The young lady was a stranger to personal religion when, one day, the good man, while staying at her father's house, in his gentle way introduced the subject. She resented it, but afterwards, stricken in spirit by his words, came to him with apologies and an inquiry that confessed a new concern of mind. “You speak of coming to Jesus, but how? I'm not fit to come.”

“Come just as you are,” said Dr. Malan.

The hymn tells the result.

Like all the other hymns bound up in her Invalid's Hymn-book, it was poured from out the heart of one who, as the phrase is, “never knew a 257 / 215 well day”—though she lived to see her eighty-second year.

Illustrative of the way it appeals to the afflicted, a little anecdote was told by the eloquent John B. Gough of his accidental seat-mate in a city church service. A man of strange appearance was led by the kind usher or sexton to the pew he occupied. Mr. Gough eyed him with strong aversion. The man's face was mottled, his limbs and mouth twitched, and he mumbled singular sounds. When the congregation sang he attempted to sing, but made fearful work of it. During the organ interlude he leaned toward Mr. Gough and asked how the next verse began. It was—

Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind.

“That's it,” sobbed the strange man, “I'm blind—God help me!”—and the tears ran down his face—“and I'm wretched—and paralytic,” and then he tried hard to sing the line with the rest.

“After that,” said Mr. Gough, “the poor paralytic's singing was as sweet to me as a Beethoven symphony.”

Charlotte Elliott was born March 18, 1789, and died in Brighton, Sept. 22, 1871. She stands in the front rank of female hymn-writers.

The tune of “Woodworth,” by William B. Bradbury, has mostly superseded Mason's “Elliott,” and is now the accepted music of this lyric of perfect faith and pious surrender.

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“MY HOPE IS BUILT ON NOTHING LESS.”

The Rev. Edward Mote was born in London, 1797. According to his own testimony his parents were not God-fearing people, and he “went to a school where no Bible was allowed;” but at the age of sixteen he received religious impressions from a sermon of John Hyatt in Tottenham Court Chapel, was converted two years later, studied for the ministry, and ultimately became a faithful preacher of the gospel. Settled as pastor of the Baptist Church in Horsham, Sussex, he remained there twenty-six years—until his death, Nov. 13, 1874. The refrain of his hymn came to him one Sabbath when on his way to Holborn to exchange pulpits:

There were originally six stanzas, the first beginning:

The refrain is a fine one, and really sums up the whole hymn, keeping constantly at the front the corner-stone of the poet's trust.

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Wm. B. Bradbury composed the tune (1863). It is usually named “The Solid Rock.”

“ABIDE WITH ME! FAST FALLS THE EVENTIDE.”

The Rev. Henry Francis Lyte, author of this melodious hymn-prayer, was born at Ednam, near Kelso, Scotland, June first, 1793. A scholar, graduated at Trinity College, Dublin; a poet and a musician, the hard-working curate was a man of frail physique, with a face of almost feminine beauty, and a spirit as pure and gentle as a little child's. The shadow of consumption was over him all his life. His memory is chiefly associated with the district church at Lower Brixham, Devonshire, where he became “perpetual curate” in 1823. He died at Nice, France, Nov. 20, 1847.

On the evening of his last Sunday preaching and communion service he handed to one of his family the manuscript of his hymn, “Abide with me,” and the music he had composed for it. It 260 / 218 was not till eight years later that Henry Ward Beecher introduced it, or a part of it, to American Congregationalists, and fourteen years after the author's death it began to be sung as we now have it, in this country and England.

THE TUNE

There is a pathos in the neglect and oblivion of Lyte's own tune set by himself to his words, especially as it was in a sense the work of a dying man who had hoped that he might not be “wholly mute and useless” while lying in his grave, and who had prayed—

His prayer was answered in God's own way. Another's melody hastened his hymn on its useful career, and revealed to the world its immortal value.

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By the time it had won its slow recognition in England, it was probably tuneless, and the compilers of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861) discovering the fact just as they were finishing their work, asked Dr. William Henry Monk, their music editor, to supply the want. “In ten minutes,” it is said, “Dr. Monk composed the sweet, pleading chant that is wedded permanently to Lyte's swan song.”

William Henry Monk, Doctor of Music, was born in London, 1823. His musical education was early and thorough, and at the age of twenty-six he was organist and choir director in King's College, London. Elected (1876) professor of the National Training School, he interested himself actively in popular musical education, delivering lectures at various institutions, and establishing choral services.

His hymn-tunes are found in many song-manuals of the English Church and in Scotland, and several have come to America.

Dr. Monk died in 1889.

“COME, YE DISCONSOLATE.”

By Thomas Moore—about 1814. The poem in its original form differed somewhat from the hymn we sing. Thomas Hastings—whose religious experience, perhaps, made him better qualified than Thomas Moore for spiritual expression—changed the second line,—

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—to—

—and in the second stanza replaced—

—with—

—and for practically the whole of the last stanza—

—Hastings substituted—

Dr. Hastings was not much of a poet, but he could make a singable hymn, and he knew the rhythm and accent needed in a hymn-tune. The determination was to make an evangelical hymn of a poem “too good to lose,” and in that view perhaps the editorial liberties taken with it were excusable. It was to Moore, however, that the real hymn-thought and key-note first came, and the title-line and the sweet refrain are his own—for which the Christian world has thanked him, lo these many years.

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THE TUNE.

Those who question why Dr. Hastings' interest in Moore's poem did not cause him to make a tune for it, must conclude that it came to him with its permanent melody ready made, and that the tune satisfied him.

The “German Air” to which Moore tells us he wrote the words, probably took his fancy, if it did not induce his mood. Whether Samuel Webbe's tune now wedded to the hymn is an arrangement of the old air or wholly his own is immaterial. One can scarcely conceive a happier yoking of counterparts. Try singing “Come ye Disconsolate” to “Rescue the Perishing,” for example, and we shall feel the impertinence of divorcing a hymn that has found its musical affinity.

“JESUS, I MY CROSS HAVE TAKEN.”

This is another well-known and characteristic hymn of Henry Francis Lyte—originally six stanzas. We have been told that, besides his bodily affliction, the grief of an unhappy division or difference in his church weighed upon his spirit, and that it is alluded to in these lines—

Tunes, “Autumn,” by F.H. Barthelemon, or “Ellesdie,” (formerly called “Disciple”) from Mozart—familiar in either.

“FROM EVERY STORMY WIND THAT BLOWS.”

This is the much-sung and deeply-cherished hymn of Christian peace that a pious Manxman, Hugh Stowell, was inspired to write nearly a hundred years ago. Ever since it has carried consolation to souls in both ordinary and extraordinary trials.

It was sung by the eight American martyrs, Revs. Albert Johnson, John E. Freeman, David E. Campbell and their wives, and Mr. and Mrs. McMullen, when by order of the bloody Nana Sahib the captive missionaries were taken prisoners and put to death at Cawnpore in 1857. Two little children, Fannie and Willie Campbell, suffered with their parents.

Rev. Hugh Stowell was born at Douglas on the Isle of Man, Dec. 3, 1799. He was educated at Oxford and ordained to the ministry 1823, receiving twelve years later the appointment of Canon to Chester Cathedral.

He was a popular and effective preacher and a graceful writer. Forty-seven hymns are credited to him, the above being the best known. To presume it is “his best,” leaves a good margin of merit for the remainder.

“From every stormy wind that blows” has practically but one tune. It has been sung to Hastings “Retreat” ever since the music was made.

“CHILD OF SIN AND SORROW.”

Words and music by Thomas Hastings.

“LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT.”

John Henry Newman, born in London, Feb. 21, 1801—known in religious history as Cardinal Newman—wrote this hymn when he was a young clergyman of the Church of England. “Born 268 / 224 within the sound of Bow bells,” says Dr. Benson, “he was an imaginative boy, and so superstitious, that he used constantly to cross himself when going into the dark.” Intelligent students of the fine hymn will note this habit of its author's mind—and surmise its influence on his religious musings.

The agitations during the High Church movement, and the persuasions of Hurrell Froude, a Romanist friend, while he was a tutor at Oxford, gradually weakened his Protestant faith, and in his unrest he travelled to the Mediterranean coast, crossed to Sicily, where he fell violently ill, and after his recovery waited three weeks in Palermo for a return boat. On his trip to Marseilles he wrote the hymn—with no thought that it would ever be called a hymn.

When complimented on the beautiful production after it became famous he modestly said, “It was not the hymn but the tune that has gained the popularity. The tune is Dykes' and Dr. Dykes is a great master.”

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Dr. Newman was created a Cardinal of the Church of Rome in the Catholic Cathedral of London, 1879. Died Aug. 11, 1890.

THE TUNE.

“Lux Benigna,” by Dr. Dykes, was composed in Aug. 1865, and was the tune chosen for this hymn by a committee preparing the Appendix 269 / 225 to Hymns Ancient and Modern. Dr. Dykes' statement that the tune came into his head while walking through the Strand in London “presents a striking contrast with the solitary origin of the hymn itself” (Benson).

“I HEARD THE VOICE OF JESUS SAY.”

Few if any Christian writers of his generation have possessed tuneful gifts in greater opulence or produced more vital and lasting treasures of spiritual verse than Horatius Bonar of Scotland. He inherited some of his poetic faculty from his grandfather, a clergyman who wrote several hymns, and it is told of Horatius that hymns used to “come to” him while riding on railroad trains. He was educated in the Edinburgh University and studied theology with Dr. Chalmers, and his 270 / 226 life was greatly influenced by Dr. Guthrie, whom he followed in the establishment of the Free Church of Scotland.

Born in 1808 in Edinburgh, he was about forty years old when he came back from a successful pastorate at Kelso to the city of his home and Alma Mater, and became virtually Chalmers' successor as minister of the Chalmers Memorial Church.

The peculiar richness of Bonar's sacred songs very early created for them a warm welcome in the religious world, and any devout lyric or poem with his name attached to it is sure to be read.

Dr. Bonar died in Edinburgh, July 31, 1889. Writing of the hymn, “I heard the voice,” etc., Dr. David Breed calls it “one of the most ingenious hymns in the language,” referring to the fact that the invitation and response exactly halve each stanza between them—song followed by countersong. “Ingenious” seems hardly the right word for a division so obviously natural and almost automatic. It is a simple art beauty that a poet of culture makes by instinct. Bowring's “Watchman, tell us of the night,” is not the only other instance of similar countersong structure, and the regularity in Thomas Scott's little hymn, “Hasten, sinner, to be wise,” is only a simpler case of the way a poem plans itself by the compulsion of its subject.

THE TUNE.

The old melody of “Evan,” long a favorite; and since known everywhere through the currency given to it in the Gospel Hymns, has been in many collections connected with the words. It is good congregational psalmody, and not unsuited to the sentiment, taken line by line, but it divides the stanzas into quatrains, which breaks the happy continuity. “Evan” was made by Dr. Mason in 1850 from a song written four years earlier by Rev. William Henry Havergal, Canon of Worcester Cathedral, Eng. He was the father of Frances Ridley Havergal.

The more ancient “Athens,” by Felice Giardini (1716–1796), author of the “Italian Hymn,” has clung, and still clings lovingly to Bonar's hymn in many communities. Its simplicity, and the involuntary accent of its sextuple time, exactly reproducing the easy iambic of the verses, inevitably made it popular, and thousands of older singers today will have no other music with “I heard the voice of Jesus say.”

“Vox Jesu,” from the andante in one of the quartets of Louis Spohr (1784–1859), is a psalm-tune of good harmony, but too little feeling.

An excellent tune for all the shades of expression 272 / 228 in the hymn, is the arrangement by Hubert P. Main from Franz Abt—in A flat, triple time. Gentle music through the first fifteen bars, in alternate duet and quartet, utters the Divine Voice with the true accent of the lines, and the second portion completes the harmony in glad, full chorus—the answer of the human heart.

“Vox Dilecti,” by Dr. Dykes, goes farther and writes the Voice in B flat minor—which seems a needless substitution of divine sadness for divine sweetness. It is a tune of striking chords, but its shift of key to G natural (major) after the first four lines marks it rather for trained choir performance than for assembly song.

It is possible to make too much of a dramatic perfection or a supposed indication of structural design in a hymn. Textual equations, such as distinguish Dr. Bonar's beautiful stanzas, are not necessarily technical. To emphasize them as ingenious by an ingenious tune seems, somehow, a reflection on the spontaneity of the hymn.

Louis Spohr was Director of the Court Theatre Orchestra in Cassel, Prussia, in the first half of the last century. He was an eminent composer of both vocal and instrumental music, and one of the greatest violinists of Europe.

Hubert Platt Main was born in Ridgefield, Ct., Aug. 17, 1839. He read music at sight when only ten years old, and at sixteen commenced writing hymn-tunes. Was assistant compiler with both Bradbury and Woodbury in their various 273 / 229 publications, and in 1868 became connected with the firm of Biglow and Main, and has been their book-maker until the present time. As music editor in the partnership he has superintended the publication of more than five hundred music-books, services, etc.

“I LOVE TO STEAL AWHILE AWAY.”

The burdened wife and mother who wrote this hymn would, at the time, have rated her history with “the short and simple annals of the poor.” But the poor who are “remembered for what they have done,” may have a larger place in history than many rich who did nothing.

Phebe Hinsdale Brown, was born in Canaan, N.Y., in 1783. Her father, George Hinsdale, who died in her early childhood, must have been a man of good abilities and religious feeling, being the reputed composer of the psalm-tune, “Hinsdale,” found in some long-ago collections.

Left an orphan at two years of age, Phebe “fell into the hands of a relative who kept the county jail,” and her childhood knew little but the bitter fare and ceaseless drudgery of domestic slavery. She grew up with a crushed spirit, and was a timid, shrinking woman as long as she lived. She married Timothy H. Brown, a house-painter of Ellington, Ct., and passed her days there and in Monson, Mass., where she lived some twenty-five years.

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In her humble home in the former town her children were born, and it was while caring for her own little family of four, and a sick sister, that the incident occurred (August 1818), which called forth her tender hymn. She was a devout Christian, and in pleasant weather, whenever she could find the leisure, she would “steal away” at sunset from her burdens a little while, to rest and commune with God. Her favorite place was a wealthy neighbor's large and beautiful flower garden. A servant reported her visits there to the mistress of the house, who called the “intruder” to account.

“If you want anything, why don't you come in?” was the rude question, followed by a plain hint that no stealthy person was welcome.

Wounded by the ill-natured rebuff, the sensitive woman sat down the next evening with her baby in her lap, and half-blinded by her tears, wrote “An Apology for my Twilight Rambles,” in the verses that have made her celebrated.

She sent the manuscript (nine stanzas) to her captious neighbor—with what result has never been told.

Crude and simple as the little rhyme was, it contained a germ of lyric beauty and life. The Rev. Dr. Charles Hyde of Ellington, who was a neighbor of Mrs. Brown, procured a copy. He was assisting Dr. Nettleton to compile the Village Hymns, and the humble bit of devotional verse was at once judged worthy of a place in the new 275 / 231 book. Dr. Hyde and his daughter Emeline giving it some kind touches of rhythmic amendment,

—became,—

In the last line of this stanza—

—was changed to—

—and the few other defects in syllabic smoothness or literary grace were affectionately repaired, but the slight furbishing it received did not alter the individuality of Mrs. Brown's work. It remained hers—and took its place among the immortals of its kind, another illustration of how little poetry it takes to make a good hymn. Only five stanzas were printed, the others being voted redundant by both author and editor. The second and third, as now sung, are—

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Phebe Brown died at Henry, Ill., in 1861; but she had made the church and the world her debtor not only for her little lyric of pious trust, but by rearing a son, the Rev. Samuel Brown, D.D., who became the pioneer American missionary to Japan—to which Christian calling two of her grandchildren also consecrated themselves.

THE TUNE.

Mrs. Brown's son Samuel, who, besides being a good minister, inherited his grandfather's musical gift, composed the tune of “Monson,” (named in his mother's honor, after her late home), and it may have been the first music set to her hymn. It was the fate of his offering, however, to lose its filial place, and be succeeded by different melodies, though his own still survives in a few collections, sometimes with Collyer's “O Jesus in this solemn hour.” It is good music for a hymn of praise rather than for meditative verse. Many years the hymn has been sung to “Woodstock,” an appropriate and still familiar tune by Deodatus Dutton.

Dutton's “Woodstock” and Bradbury's “Brown,” which often replaces it, are worthy rivals of each other, and both continue in favor as fit choral interpretations of the much-loved hymn.

Deodatus Dutton was born Dec. 22, 1808, and educated at Brown University and Washington College (now Trinity) Hartford Ct. While there he was a student of music and played the organ 277 / 233 at Dr. Matthews' church. He studied theology in New York city, and had recently entered the ministry when he suddenly died, Dec. 16, 1832, a moment before rising to preach a sermon. During his brief life he had written several hymn-tunes, and published a book of psalmody. Mrs. Sigourney wrote a poem on his death.

“THERE'S A WIDENESS IN GOD'S MERCY.”

Frederick William Faber, author of this favorite hymn-poem, had a peculiar genius for putting golden thoughts into common words, and making them sing. Probably no other sample of his work shows better than this his art of combining literary cleverness with the most reverent piety. Cant was a quality Faber never could put into his religious verse.

He was born in Yorkshire, Eng., June 28, 1814, and received his education at Oxford. Settled as Rector of Elton, in Huntingdonshire, in 1843, he came into sympathy with the “Oxford Movement,” and followed Newman into the Romish Church. He continued his ministry as founder and priest for the London branch of the Catholic congregation of St. Philip Neri for fourteen years, dying Sept. 26, 1863, at the age of forty-nine.

His godly hymns betray no credal shibboleth or doctrinal bias, but are songs for the whole earthly church of God.

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No tone of comfort has breathed itself more surely and tenderly into grieved hearts than these tuneful and singularly expressive sentences of Frederick Faber.

THE TUNE.

The music of S.J. Vail sung to Faber's hymn is one of that composer's best hymn-tunes, and its 279 / 235 melody and natural movement impress the meaning as well as the simple beauty of the words.

Silas Jones Vail, an American music-writer, was born Oct., 1818, and died May 20, 1883. Another charming tune is “Wellesley,” by Lizzie S. Tourjee, daughter of the late Dr. Eben Tourjee.

“HE LEADETH ME! OH, BLESSED THOUGHT.”

Professor Gilmore, of Rochester University, N.Y., when a young Baptist minister (1861) supplying a pulpit in Philadelphia “jotted down this hymn in Deacon Watson's parlor” (as he says) and passed it to his wife, one evening after he had made “a conference-room talk” on the 23d Psalm.

Mrs. Gilmore, without his knowledge, sent it to the Watchman and Reflector (now the Watchman).

Years after its publication in that paper, when a candidate for the pastorate of the Second Baptist Church in Rochester, he was turning the leaves of the vestry hymnal in use there, and saw his hymn in it. Since that first publication in the Devotional Hymn and Tune Book (1865) it has been copied in the hymnals of various denominations, and steadily holds its place in public favor. The refrain added by the tunemaker emphasizes the sentiment of the lines, and undoubtedly enhances the effect of the hymn.

“He leadeth me” has the true hymn quality, combining all the simplicity of spontaneous thought and feeling with perfect accent and liquid rhythm.

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Professor Joseph Henry Gilmore was born in Boston, April 29, 1834. He was graduated at Phillips Academy, Andover, at Brown University, and at the Newton Theological Institution, where he was afterwards Hebrew instructor.

After four years of pastoral service he was elected (1867) professor of the English Language and Literature in Rochester University. He has published Familiar Chats on Books and Reading, also several college text-books on rhetoric, logic and oratory.

THE TUNE.

The little hymn of four stanzas was peculiarly fortunate in meeting the eye of Mr. William B. Bradbury, (1863) and winning his musical sympathy and alliance. Few composers have so exactly caught the tone and spirit of their text as Bradbury did when he vocalized the gliding measures of “He leadeth me.”

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CHAPTER VI.

---

CHRISTIAN BALLADS.

---

Echoes of Hebrew thought, if not Hebrew psalmody, may have made their way into the more serious pagan literature. At least in the more enlightened pagans there has ever revealed itself more or less the instinct of the human soul that “feels after” God. St. Paul in his address to the Athenians made a tactful as well as scholarly point to preface a missionary sermon when he cited a line from a poem of Aratus (B.C. 272) familiar, doubtless, to the majority of his hearers.

Dr. Lyman Abbot has thus translated the passage in which the line occurs:

---

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“RISE, CROWNED WITH LIGHT.”

Alexander Pope, a Roman Catholic poet, born in London 1688, died at Twickenham 1744, was not a hymnist, but passages in his most serious and exalted flights deserve a tuneful accompaniment. His translations of Homer made him famous, but his ethical poems, especially his “Essay on Man,” are inexhaustible mines of quotation, many of the lines and couplets being common as proverbs. His “Messiah,” written about 1711, is a religious anthem in which the prophecies of Holy Writ kindle all the splendor of his verse.

THE TUNE.

The closing strain, indicated by the above line, has been divided into stanzas of four lines suitable to a church hymn-tune. The melody selected by the compilers of the Plymouth Hymnal, and of the Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book is “Savannah,” an American sounding name for what is really one of Pleyel's chorals. The music is worthy of Pope's triumphal song.

“OH, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT?”

This is a sombre poem, but its virile strength and its literary merit have given it currency, and 283 / 239 commended it to the taste of many people, both weak and strong, who have the pensive temperament. Abraham Lincoln loved it and committed it to memory in his boyhood. Philip Phillips set it to music, and sang it—or a part of it—one day during the Civil war at the anniversary of the Christian Sanitary Commission, when President Lincoln, who was present, called for its repetition.^* It was written by William Knox, born 1789, son of a Scottish farmer.

---

The poem has fourteen stanzas, the following being the first and two last—

Philip Phillips was born in Jamestown, Chautauqua Co., N.Y., Aug. 11, 1834, and died in 284 / 240 Delaware, O., June 25, 1895. He wrote no hymns and was not an educated musician, but the airs of popular hymn-music came to him and were harmonized for him by others, most frequently by his friends, S.J. Vail and Hubert P. Main. He compiled and published thirty-one collections for Sunday-schools and gospel meetings, besides the Methodist Hymn and Tune Book, issued in 1866.

He was a pioneer gospel singer, and his tuneful journeys through America, England and Australia gave him the name of the “Singing Pilgrim,” the title of his song collection (1867).

“WHEN ISRAEL OF THE LORD BELOVED.”

The “Song of Rebecca the Jewess,” in “Ivanhoe,” was written by Sir Walter Scott, author of the Waverly Novels, “Marmion,” etc., born in Edinburgh, 1771, and died at Abbotsford, 1832. The lines purport to be the Hebrew hymn with which Rebecca closed her daily devotions while in prison under sentence of death.

The “Hymn of Rebecca” has been set to music though never in common use as a hymn. Old “Truro”, by Dr. Charles Burney (1726–1814) is a grand Scotch psalm harmony for the words, though one of the Unitarian hymnals borrows Zeuner's sonorous choral, the “Missionary Chant.” Both sound the lyric of the Jewess in good Christian music.

“WE SAT DOWN AND WEPT BY THE WATERS.”

The 137th Psalm has been for centuries a favorite with poets and poetical translators, and its pathos appealed to Lord Byron when engaged in writing his Hebrew Melodies.

Byron was born in London, 1788, and died at Missolonghi, Western Greece, 1824.

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—Written April, 1814. It was the fashion then for musical societies to call on the popular poets for contributions, and tunes were composed for them, though these have practically passed into oblivion.

Byron's ringing ballad (from II Kings 19:35)—

—has been so much a favorite for recitation and declamation that the loss of its tune is never thought of.

Another poetic rendering of the “Captivity Psalm” is worthy of notice among the lay hymns not unworthy to supplement clerical sermons. It was written by the Hon. Joel Barlow in 1799, and published in a pioneer psalm-book at Northampton, Mass. It is neither a translation nor properly a hymn but a poem built upon the words of the Jewish lament, and really reproducing something of its plaintive beauty. Two stanzas of it are as follows:

Like Pope, this American poet loved onomatope and imitative verse, and the last line is a word-picture 287 / 243 of home-sick weariness. This “psalm” was the best piece of work in Mr. Barlow's series of attempted improvements upon Isaac Watts—which on the whole were not very successful. The sweet cantabile of Mason's “Melton” gave “Along the banks” quite an extended lease of life, though it has now ceased to be sung.

Joel Barlow was a versatile gentleman, serving his country and generation in almost every useful capacity, from chaplain in the continental army to foreign ambassador. He was born in Redding, Ct., 1755, and died near Cracow, Poland, Dec. 1812.

“AS DOWN IN THE SUNLESS.”

Thomas Moore, the poet of glees and love-madrigals, had sober thoughts in the intervals of his gaiety, and employed his genius in writing religious and even devout poems, which have been spiritually helpful in many phases of Christian experience. Among them was this and the four following hymns, with thirty-four others, each of which he carefully labelled with the name of a music composer, though the particular tune is left indefinite. “The still prayer of devotion” here answers, in rhyme and reality, the simile of the sea-flower in the unseen deep, and the mariner's compass represents the constancy of a believer.

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It is sung in Plymouth Hymnal to Barnby's “St. Botolph.”

“THE TURF SHALL BE MY FRAGRANT SHRINE”

Is, in part, still preserved in hymn collections, and sung to the noble tune of “Louvan,” Virgil Taylor's piece. The last stanza is especially reminiscent of the music.

“O THOU WHO DRY'ST THE MOURNER'S TEAR”

Is associated in the Baptist Praise Book with Woodbury's “Siloam.”

“THE BIRD LET LOOSE IN EASTERN SKIES”

Has been sung in Mason's “Coventry,” and the Plymouth Hymnal assigns it to “Spohr”—a namesake tune of Louis Spohr, while the Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book unites to it a beautiful triple-time melody from Mozart, and bearing his name.

“THOU ART, O GOD, THE LIFE AND LIGHT.”

This is the best of the Irish poet's sacred songs—always excepting, “Come, Ye Disconsolate.” It is said to have been originally set to a secular melody composed by the wife of Hon. Richard Brinsley 289 / 245 Sheridan. It is joined to the tune of “Brighton” in the Unitarian books, and William Monk's “Matthias” voices the words for the Plymouth Hymnal. The verses have the true lyrical glow, and make a real song of praise as well a composition of more than ordinary literary beauty.

“MOURNFULLY, TENDERLY, BEAR ON THE DEAD.”

A tender funeral ballad by Henry S. Washburn, composed in 1846 and entitled “The Burial of Mrs. Judson.” It is rare now in sheet-music form but the American Vocalist, to be found in the stores 290 / 246 of most great music publishers and dealers, preserves the full poem and score.

Its occasion was the death at sea, off St. Helena, of the Baptist missionary, Mrs. Sarah Hall Boardman Judson, and the solemn committal of her remains to the dust on that historic island, Sept. 1, 1845. She was on her way to America from Burmah at the time of her death, and the ship proceeded on its homeward voyage immediately after her burial. The touching circumstances of the gifted lady's death, and the strange romance of her entombment where Napoleon's grave was made twenty-four years before, inspired Mr. Washburn, who was a prominent layman of the Baptist denomination, and interested in all its ecclesiastical and missionary activities, and he wrote this poetic memorial of the event:

Mrs. Sarah Judson was the second wife of the Rev. Adoniram Judson, D.D., the celebrated pioneer 291 / 247 American Baptist missionary, and the mother by her first marriage, of the late Rev. George Dana Boardman, D.D., LL.D., of Philadelphia.

The Hon. Henry S. Washburn was born in Providence, R.I., 1813, and educated at Brown University. During most of his long life he resided in Massachusetts, and occupied there many positions of honor and trust, serving in the State Legislature both as Representative and Senator. He was the author of many poems and lyrics of high merit, some of which—notably “The Vacant Chair”—became popular in sheet-music and in books of religious and educational use. He died in 1903.

THE TUNE.

“The Burial of Mrs. Judson” became favorite parlor music when Lyman Heath composed the melody for it—of the same name. Its notes and movement were evidently inspired by the poem, for it reproduces the feeling of every line. The threnody was widely known and sung in the middle years of the last century, by people, too, who had scarcely heard of Mrs. Judson, and received in the music and words their first hint of her history. The poem prompted the tune, but the tune was the garland of the poem.

Lyman Heath of Bow, N.H., was born there Aug. 24, 1804. He studied music, and became a vocalist and vocal composer. Died July 30, 1870.

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“TELL ME NOT IN MOURNFUL NUMBERS.”

Longfellow's “Psalm of Life” was written when he was a young man, and for some years it carried the title he gave it, “What the Young Man's Heart Said to the Psalmist”—a caption altogether too long to bear currency.

The history of the beloved poet who wrote this optimistic ballad of hope and courage is too well known to need recounting here. He was born in Portland, Me., in 1807, graduated at Bowdoin College, and was for more than forty years professor of Belles Lettres in Harvard University. Died in Cambridge, March 4, 1882. Of his longer poems the most read and admired are his beautiful romance of “Evangeline,” and his epic of “Hiawatha,” but it is hardly too much to say that for the last sixty years, his “Psalm of Life” has been the common property of all American, if not English school-children, and a part of their education. When he was in London, Queen Victoria sent for him to come and see her at the palace. He went, and just as he was seating himself in the waiting coach after the interview, a man in working clothes appeared, hat in hand, at the coach window.

“Please sir, yer honor,” said he, “an' are you Mr. Longfellow?”

“I am Mr. Longfellow,” said the poet.

“An' did you write the Psalm of Life?” he asked.

“I wrote the Psalm of Life,” replied the poet.

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“An', yer honor, would you be willing to take a workingman by the hand?”

Mr. Longfellow gave the honest Englishman a hearty handshake, “And” (said he in telling the story) “I never in my life received a compliment that gave me more satisfaction.”

The incident has a delightful democratic flavor—and it is perfectly characteristic of the amiable author of the most popular poem in the English language. The “Psalm of Life” is a wonderful example of the power of commonplaces put into tuneful and elegant verse.

The thought of setting the poem to music came to the compiler of one of the Unitarian church singing books. Some will question, however, whether the selection was the happiest that could have been made. The tune is “Rathbun,” Ithamar Conkey's melody that always recalls Sir John Bowring's great hymn of praise.

“BUILD THEE MORE NOBLE MANSIONS.”

This poem by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, known among his works as “The Chambered Nautilus,” was considered by himself as his worthiest achievement in verse, and his wish that it might live is likely to be fulfilled. It is stately, and in character and effect a rhythmic sermon from a text in “natural theology.” The biography of one of the little molluscan sea-navigators that continually enlarges its shell to adapt it to its 294 / 250 growth inspired the thoughtful lines. The third, fourth and fifth stanzas are as follows:

Dr. Frederic Hedge included the poem in his hymn-book but without any singing-supplement to the words.

WHITTIER'S SERVICE SONG.

It may not be our lot to wield
The sickle in the harvest field.

If this stanza and the four following do not reveal all the strength of John G. Whittier's spirit, 295 / 251 they convey its serious sweetness. The verses were loved and prized by both President Garfield and President McKinley. On the Sunday before the latter went from his Canton, O., home to his inauguration in Washington the poem was sung as a hymn at his request in the services at the Methodist church where he had been a constant worshipper.

The second stanza is the one most generally recognized and oftenest quoted:

John Greenleaf Whittier, the poet of the oppressed, was born in Haverhill, Mass., 1807, worked on a farm and on a shoe-bench, and studied at the local academy, until, becoming of age, he went to Hartford, Conn., and began a brief experience in editorial life. Soon after his return to Massachusetts he was elected to the Legislature, and after his duties ended there he left the state for Philadelphia to edit the Pennsylvania Freeman. A few years later he returned again, and established his home in Amesbury, the town with which his life and works are always associated.

He died in 1892 at Hampton Falls, N.H., where he had gone for his health.

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THE TUNE.

“Abends,” the smooth triple-time choral joined to Whittier's poem by the music editor of the new Methodist Hymnal, speaks its meaning so well that it is scarcely worth while to look for another. Sir Herbert Stanley Oakeley, the composer, was born at Ealing, Eng., July 22, 1830, and educated at Rugby and Oxford. He studied music in Germany, and became a superior organist, winning great applause by his recitals at Edinburgh University, where he was elected Musical Professor.

Archbishop Tait gave him the doctorate of music at Canterbury in 1871, and he was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1876.

Besides vocal duets, Scotch melodies and student songs, he composed many anthems and tunes for the church—notably “Edina” (“Saviour, blessed Saviour”) and “Abends,” originally written to Keble's “Sun of my Soul.”

“THE BIRD WITH THE BROKEN PINION.”

This lay of a lost gift, with its striking lesson, might have been copied from the wounded bird's own song, it is so natural and so clear-toned. The opportune thought and pen of Mr. Hezekiah Butterworth gave being to the little ballad the day he heard the late Dr. George Lorimer preach from a text in the story of Samson's fall (Judges 16:21) “The Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza ... 297 / 253 and he did grind in the prison-house.” A sentence in the course of the doctor's sermon, “The bird with a broken pinion never soars as high again,” was caught up by the listening author, and became the refrain of his impressive song. Rev. Frank M. Lamb, the tuneful evangelist, found it in print, and wrote a tune to it, and in his voice and the voices of other singers the little monitor has since told its story in revival meetings, and mission and gospel services throughout the land.

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In the tune an extra stanza is added—as if something conventional were needed to make the poem a hymn. But the professional tone of the appended stanza, virtually all in its two lines—

—is forced into its connection. The poem told the truth, and stopped there; and should be left to fasten its own impression. There never was a more solemn warning uttered than in this little apologue. It promises “compensation” and “healing,” but not perfect rehabilitation. Sin will leave its scars. Even He who “became sin for us” bore them in His resurrection body.

Rev. Frank M. Lamb, composer and singer of the hymn-tune, was born in Poland, Me., 1860, and educated in the schools of Poland and Auburn. He was licensed to preach in 1888, and ordained the same year, and has since held pastorates in Maine, New York, and Massachusetts.

Besides his tune, very pleasing and appropriate music has been written to the little ballad of the broken wing by Geo. C. Stebbins.

UNDER THE PALMS.

In the cantata, “Under the Palms” (“Captive Judah in Babylon”)—the joint production of George F. Root^* and Hezekiah Butterworth, several 301 / 255 of the latter's songs detached themselves, with their music, from the main work, and lingered in choral or solo service in places where the sacred operetta was presented, both in America and England. One of these is an effective solo in deep contralto, with a suggestion of recitative and chant—

Another is—

—with the chorus—

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“IF YOU CANNOT ON THE OCEAN.”

This popular Christian ballad, entitled “Your Mission,” was written one stormy day in the winter of 1861–2 by Miss Ellen M. Huntington (Mrs. Isaac Gates), and made her reputation as one of the few didactic poets whose exquisite art wins a hearing for them everywhere. In a moment of revery, while looking through the window at the falling snow, the words came to her:

She turned away and wrote the lines on her slate, following with verse after verse till she finished the whole poem. “It wrote itself,” she says in her own account of it.

Reading afterwards what she had written, she was surprised at her work. The poem had a meaning and a “mission.” So strong was the impression that the devout girl fell on her knees and consecrated it to a divine purpose. Free copies of it went to the Cooperstown, N.Y., local paper, and to the New York Examiner, and appeared in both. From that time the history and career of “Your Mission” presents a marked illustration of “catenal influence,” or transmitted suggestion.

In the later days of the Civil War Philip Phillips, who had a wonderfully sweet tenor voice, was invited to sing at a great meeting of the United States Christian Commission in the Senate Chamber at Washington, February, 1865, President Lincoln and 303 / 257 Secretary Seward (then president of the commission) were there, and the hall was crowded with leading statesmen, army generals, and friends of the Union. The song selected by Mr. Phillips was Mrs. Gates' “Your Mission”:

The hushed audience listened spell-bound as the sweet singer went on, their interest growing to feverish eagerness until the climax was reached in the fifth stanza:

In the storm of enthusiasm that followed, President Lincoln handed a hastily scribbled line on a bit of paper to Chairman Seward,

“Near the close let us have ‘Your Mission’ repeated.”

Mr. Phillips' great success on this occasion brought him so many calls for his services that he 304 / 258 gave up everything and devoted himself to his tuneful art. “Your Mission” so gladly welcomed at Washington made him the first gospel songster, chanting round the world the divine message of the hymns. It was the singing by Philip Phillips that first impressed Ira D. Sankey with the amazing power of evangelical solo song, and helped him years later to resign his lucrative business as a revenue officer and consecrate his own rare vocal gift to the Christian ministry of sacred music. Heaven alone can show the birth-records of souls won to God all along the journeys of the “Singing Pilgrims,” and the rich succession of Mr. Sankey's melodies, that can be traced back by a chain of causes to the poem that “wrote itself” and became a hymn. And the chain may not yet be complete. In the words of that providential poem—

Mrs. Ellen M.H. Gates, whose reputation as an author was made by this beautiful and always timely poem, was born in Torrington, Ct., and is the youngest sister of the late Collis P. Huntington. Her hymns—included in this volume and in other publications—are much admired and loved, both for their sweetness and elevated religious feeling, and for their poetic quality. Among her published books of verse are “Night,” “At Noontide,” and “Treasures of Kurium.” Her address is New York City.

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THE TUNE.

Sidney Martin Grannis, author of the tune, was born Sept. 23, 1827, in Geneseo, Livingston county, N.Y. Lived in Leroy, of the same state, from 1831 to 1884, when he removed to Los Angeles, Cal., where several of his admirers presented him a cottage and grounds, which at last accounts he still occupies. Mr. Grannis won his first reputation as a popular musician by his song “Do They Miss Me at Home,” and his “Only Waiting,” “Cling to the Union,” and “People Will Talk You Know,” had an equally wide currency. As a solo singer his voice was remarkable, covering a range of two octaves, and while travelling with members of the “Amphion Troupe,” to which he belonged, he sang at more than five thousand concerts. His tune to “Your Mission” was composed in New Haven, Ct., in 1864.

“TOO LATE! TOO LATE! YE CANNOT ENTER NOW.”

“Too Late” is a thrilling fragment or side-song of Alfred Tennyson's, representing the vain plea of the five Foolish Virgins. Its tune bears the name of a London lady, “Miss Lindsay” (afterwards Mrs. J. Worthington Bliss). The arrangement of air, duo and quartet is very impressive^*.

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The words are found in “Queen Guinevere,” a canto of the “Idyls of the King.”

“OH, GALILEE, SWEET GALILEE.”

This is the chorus of a charming poem of three stanzas that shaped itself in the mind of Mr. Robert Morris while sitting over the ruins on the traditional site of Capernaum by the Lake of Genneseret.

Robert Morris, LL.D., born Aug. 31, 1818, was a scholar, and an expert in certain scientific subjects, and wrote works on numismatics and the “Poetry of Free Masonry.” Commissioned to Palestine in 1868 on historic and archaeological service for the United Order, he explored the 307 / 261 scenes of ancient Jewish and Christian life and event in the Holy Land, and being a religious man, followed the Saviour's earthly footsteps with a reverent zeal that left its inspiration with him while he lived. He died in the year 1888, but his Christian ballad secured him a lasting place in every devout memory.

THE TUNE.

The author wrote out his hymn in 1874 and sent it to his friend, the musician, Mr. Horatio R. Palmer,^* and the latter learned it by heart, and carried it with him in his musings “till it floated out in the melody you know,” (to use his own words.)

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CHAPTER VII.

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OLD REVIVAL HYMNS.

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The sober churches of the “Old Thirteen” states and of their successors far into the nineteenth century, sustained evening prayer-meetings more or less commonly, but necessity made them in most cases “cottage meetings” appointed on Sunday and here and there in the scattered homes of country parishes. Their intent was the same as that of “revival meetings,” since so called, though the method—and the music—were different. The results in winning sinners, so far as they owed anything to the hymns and hymn-tunes, were apt to be a new generation of Christian recruits as sombre as the singing. “Lebanon” set forth the appalling shortness of human life; “Windham” gave its depressing story of the great majority of mankind on the “broad road,” and other minor tunes proclaimed God's sovereignty and eternal decrees; or if a psalm had His love in it, it was likely to be sung in a similar melancholy key. Even in his gladness the good minister, Thomas Baldwin, of the Second Baptist Church, 309 / 263 at Boston, North End, returning from Newport, N.H., where he had happily harmonized a discordant church, could not escape the strait-lace of a C minor for his thankful hymn—

“The Puritans took their pleasures seriously,” and this did not cease to be true till at least two hundred years after the Pilgrims landed or Boston was founded.

Time, that covered the ghastly faces on the old grave-stones with moss, gradually stole away the unction of minor-tune singing.

The songs of the great revival of 1740 swept the country with positive rather than negative music. Even Jonathan Edwards admitted the need of better psalm-books and better psalmody.

Edwards, during his life, spent some time among the Indians as a missionary teacher; but probably neither he nor David Brainerd ever saw a Christian hymn composed by an Indian. The following, from the early years of the last century, is apparently the first, certainly the only surviving, effort of a converted but half-educated red man to utter his thoughts in pious metre. Whoever trimmed the original words and measure into printable shape evidently took care to preserve the broken English of the simple convert. It is an interesting relic of the Christian thought and sentiment of a pagan just learning to prattle prayer and praise:

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The above hymn, which may be found in different forms in old New England tracts and hymn-books, and which used to be sung in Methodist 311 / 265 conference and prayer-meetings in the same way that old slave-hymns and the “Jubilee Singers” refrains are sometimes sung now, was composed by William Apes, a converted Indian, who was born in Massachusetts, in 1798. His father was a white man, but married an Indian descended from the family of King Philip, the Indian warrior, and the last of the Indian chiefs. His grandmother was the king's granddaughter, as he claimed, and was famous for her personal beauty. He caused his autobiography and religious experience to be published. The original hymn is quite long, and contains some singular and characteristic expressions.

The authorship of the tune to which the words were sung has been claimed for Samuel Cowdell, a schoolmaster of Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, 1820, but the date of the lost tune was probably much earlier.

In the early days of New England, before the Indian missions had been brought to an end by the sweeping away of the tribes, several fine hymns were composed by educated Indians, and were used in the churches. The best known is that beginning—

It was composed by three Indians at the planting of a memorial pine on leaving Dartmouth College, where they had been studying. The lines indicate an expectation of missionary life and work.

This parting piece was sung in religious meetings as a hymn, like the other once so common, but later,—

—to a tune in B flat minor, excessively plaintive, and likely to sadden an emotional singer or hearer to tears. The full harmony is found in the American Vocalist, and the air is reprinted in the Revivalist (1868). The fact that minor music is the natural 313 / 267 Indian tone in song makes it probable that the melody is as ancient as the hymn—though no date is given for either.

Tradition says that nearly fifty years later the same three Indians were providentially drawn to the spot where they parted, and met again, and while they were together composed and sang another ode. Truth to tell, however, it had only one note of gladness, and that was in the first stanza:

The remaining three stanzas dwell principally on the ravages time has made. The reunion ode of those stoical college classmates of a stoical race could have been sung in the same B flat minor.

“AWAKED BY SINAI'S AWFUL SOUND.”

The name of the Indian, Samson Occum, who wrote this hymn (variously spelt Ockom, Ockum, Occam, Occom) is not borne by any public institution, but New England owes the foundation of Dartmouth College to his hard work. Dartmouth College was originally “Moore's Indian Charity School,” organized (1750) in Lebanon, Ct., by Rev. Eleazer Wheelock and endowed (1755) by Joshua Moore (or More). Good men and women who 314 / 268 had at heart the spiritual welfare of a fading race contributed to the school's support and young Indians resorted to it from both New England and the Middle States, but funds were insufficient, and it was foreseen that the charity must inevitably outgrow its missionary purpose and if continued at all must depend on a wider and more liberal patronage.

Samson Occum was born in Mohegan, New London Co., Ct., probably in the year 1722. Converted from paganism in 1740 (possibly under the preaching of Whitefield, who was in this country at that time) he desired to become a missionary to his people, and entered Eleazer Wheelock's school. After four years study, then a young man of twenty-two, he began to teach and preach among the Montauk Indians, and in 1759 the Presbytery of Suffolk Co., L.I., ordained him to the ministry. A benevolent society in Scotland, hearing of, his ability and zeal, gave him an appointment, under its auspices, among the Oneidas in 1761, where he labored four years. The interests of the school at Lebanon, where he had been educated, were dear to him, and he was tireless in its cause, procuring pupils for it, and working eloquently as its advocate with voice and pen. In 1765 he crossed the Atlantic to solicit funds for the Indian school, and remained four years in England and Scotland, lecturing in its behalf, and preaching nearly four hundred sermons. As a result he raised ten thousand pounds. The donation was put in charge of a Board of 315 / 269 Trustees of which Lord Dartmouth was chairman. When it was decided to remove the school from Lebanon, Ct., the efforts of Governor Wentworth, of New Hampshire, secured its location at Hanover in that state. It was christened after Lord Dartmouth—and the names of Occum, Moore and Wheelock retired into the encyclopedias.

The Rev. Samson Occum died in 1779, while laboring among the Stockbridge (N.Y.) Indians. Several hymns were written by this remarkable man, and also “An Account of the Customs and Manners of the Montauks.” The hymn, “Awaked by Sinai's Awful Sound,” set to the stentorian tune of “Ganges,” was a tremendous sermon in itself to old-time congregations, and is probably as indicative of the doctrines which converted its writer as of the contemporary belief prominent in choir and pulpit.

The rugged original has been so often and so variously altered and “toned down,” that only a few unusually accurate aged memories can recall it. The hymn began going out of use fifty years ago, and is now seldom seen.

The name “S. Chandler,” attached to “Ganges,” leaves the identity of the composer in shadow. It is supposed he was born in 1760. The tune appeared about 1790.

“WHERE NOW ARE THE HEBREW CHILDREN?”

This quaint old unison, repeating the above three times, followed by the answer (thrice repeated) and climaxed with—

—was a favorite at ancient camp-meetings, and a good leader could keep it going in a congregation or a happy group of vocalists, improvising a new start-line after every stop until his memory or invention gave out.

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Sometimes it was—

—and,—

—and again,—

—and so on, finally announcing—

The enthusiasm excited by the swinging rhythm of the tune sometimes rose to a passionate pitch, and it was seldom used in the more controlled religious assemblies. If any attempt was ever made to print the song^* the singers had little need to read the music. Like the ancient runes, it came into being by spontaneous generation, and lived in phonetic tradition.

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A strange, wild pæan of exultant song was one often heard from Peter Cartwright, the muscular circuit-preacher. A remembered fragment shows its quality:

There is a tradition that he sang it over a stalwart blacksmith while chastising him for an ungodly 318 / 272 defiance and assault in the course of one of his gospel journeys—and that the defeated blacksmith became his friend and follower.

Peter Cartwright was born in Amherst county, Va., Sept. 1, 1785, and died near Pleasant Plains, Sangamon county, Ill., Sept., 1872.

“THE EDEN OF LOVE.”

This song, written early in the last century, by John J. Hicks, recalls the name of the eccentric traveling evangelist, Lorenzo Dow, born in Coventry, Ct., October 16, 1777; died in Washington, D.C., Feb. 2, 1834. It was the favorite hymn of his wife, the beloved Peggy Dow, and has furnished the key-word of more than one devotional rhyme that has uplifted the toiling souls of rural evangelists and their greenwood congregations:

The words and tune were printed in Leavitt's Christian Lyre, 1830.

The same strain in the same metre is continued in the hymn of Rev. Wm. Hunter, D.D., (1842) printed in his Minstrel of Zion (1845). J.W. Dadmun's Melodian (1860) copied it, retaining, apparently, 319 / 273 the original music, with an added refrain of invitation, “Will you go? will you go?”

The old hymn-tune has a brisk out-door delivery, and is full of revival fervor and the ozone of the pines.

“O CANA-AN, BRIGHT CANA-AN”

Was one of the stimulating melodies of the old-time awakenings, which were simply airs, and were sung unisonously. “O Cana-an” (pronounced in three syllables) was the chorus, the hymn-lines being either improvised or picked up miscellaneously from memory, the interline, “I am bound for the land of Cana-an,” occurring between every two. John Wesley's “How happy is the pilgrim's lot” was one of the snatched stanzas swept into the current of the song. An example of the tune-leader's improvisations to keep the hymn going was—

And then hymn and tune took possession of the assembly and rolled on in a circle with—

—till the voices came back to another starting-line and began again. There was always a movement to the front when that tune was sung, and—with all due abatement for superficial results in the sensation of the moment—it is undeniable that many souls were truly born into the kingdom of God under the sound of that rude woodland song.

Both its words and music are credited to Rev. John Maffit, who probably wrote the piece about 1829.

“A CHARGE TO KEEP I HAVE.”

This hymn of Charles Wesley was often heard at the camp grounds, from the rows of tents in the morning while the good women prepared their pancakes and coffee, and

THE TUNE.

was invariably old “Kentucky,” by Jeremiah Ingalls. Sung as a solo by a sweet and spirited voice, it slightly resembled “Golden Hill,” but oftener its halting bars invited a more drawling style of execution unworthy of a hymn that merits a tune like “St. Thomas.”

Old “Kentucky” was not field music.

“CHRISTIANS, IF YOUR HEARTS ARE WARM.”

Elder John Leland, born in Grafton, Mass., 1754, was not only a strenuous personality in the Baptist 321 / 275 denomination, but was well known everywhere in New England, and, in fact, his preaching trip to Washington (1801) with the “Cheshire Cheese” made his fame national. He is spoken of as “the minister who wrote his own hymns”—a peculiarity in which he imitated Watts and Doddridge. When some natural shrinking was manifest in converts of his winter revivals, under his rigid rule of immediate baptism, he wrote this hymn to fortify them:

He found use for the hymn, too, in rallying church-members who staid away from his meetings in bad weather. The “poetry” expressed what he wanted to say—which, in his view, was sufficient apology for it. It was sung in revival meetings like others that he wrote, and a few hymnbooks now long obsolete contained it; but of Leland's hymns only one survives. Gray-headed men and women remember being sung to sleep by their mothers with that old-fashioned evening song to Amzi Chapin's^* tune—

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—and with all its solemnity and other-worldness it is dear to recollection, and its five stanzas are lovingly hunted up in the few hymnals where it is found. Bradbury's “Braden,” (Baptist Praise Book, 1873,) is one of its tunes.

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Elder Leland was a remarkable revival preacher, and his prayers—as was said of Elder Jabez Swan's fifty or sixty years later—“brought heaven and earth together.” He traveled through the Eastern States as an evangelist, and spent a season in Virginia in the same work. In 1801 he revisited that region on a curious errand. The farmers of Cheshire, Mass., where Leland was then a settled pastor, conceived the plan of sending “the biggest cheese in America” to President Jefferson, and Leland (who was a good democrat) offered to go to Washington on an ox-team with it, and “preach all the way”—which he actually did.

The cheese weighed 1450 lbs.

Elder Leland died in North Adams, Mass., Jan. 14, 1844. Another of his hymns, which deserved to live with his “Evening Song,” seemed to be answered in the brightness of his death-bed hope:

“AWAKE, MY SOUL, TO JOYFUL LAYS.”

This glad hymn of Samuel Medley is his thanksgiving song, written soon after his conversion. In 323 / 277 the places of rural worship no lay of Christian praise and gratitude was ever more heartily sung than this at the testimony meetings.

THE TUNE,

With its queer curvet in every second line, had no other name than “Loving-Kindness,” and was probably a camp-meeting melody in use for some time before its publication. It is found in Leavitt's Christian Lyre as early as 1830. The name “William Caldwell” is all that is known of its composer, though he is supposed to have lived in Tennessee.

“THE LORD INTO HIS GARDEN COMES.”

Was a common old-time piece sure to be heard at every religious rally, and every one present, saint and sinner, had it by heart, or at least the chorus of it—

The anonymous^* “Garden Hymn, as old, at 324 / 278 least, as 1800,” has nearly passed out of reach, except by the long arm of the antiquary; but it served its generation.

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Its vigorous tune is credited to Jeremiah Ingalls (1764–1838).

“THE CHARIOT! THE CHARIOT!”

Henry Hart Milman, generally known as Dean Milman, was born in 1791, and was educated at Oxford. In 1821 he was installed as university professor of poetry at Oxford, and it was while filling this position that he wrote this celebrated hymn, under the title of “The Last Day.” It is not only a hymn, but a poem—a sublime ode that recalls, in a different movement, the tones of the “Dies Irae.”

Dean Milman (of St Paul's), besides his many striking poems and learned historical works, wrote at least twelve hymns, among which are—

Ride on, ride on in majesty,
O help us Lord; each hour of need
Thy heavenly succor give,
When our heads are bowed with woe,

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—which last may have been written soon after he laid three of his children in one grave, in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey. He lived a laborious and useful life of seventy-seven years, dying Sept. 24, 1868.

There were times in the old revivals when the silver clarion of the “Chariot Hymn” must needs replace the ruder blast of Occum in old “Ganges” and sinners unmoved by the invisible God of Horeb be made to behold Him—in a vision of the “Last Day.”

The name “Williams” or “J. Williams” is attached to various editions of the trumpet-like tune, but so far no guide book gives us location, date or sketch of the composer.

“COME, MY BRETHREN.”

Another of the “unstudied” revival hymns of invitation.

This colloquial rhyme was apt to be started by some good brother or sister in one of the chilly pauses of a prayer-meeting. The air (there was never anything more to it) with a range of only a fifth, slurred the last syllable of every second line, giving the quaint effect of a bent note, and altogether the music was as homely as the verse. Both are anonymous. But the little chant sometimes served its purpose wonderfully well.

“BRETHREN, WHILE WE SOJOURN HERE.”

This hymn was always welcome in the cottage meetings as well as in the larger greenwood assemblies. It was written by Rev. Joseph Swain, about 1783.

The tune was sometimes “Pleyel's Hymn,” but oftener it was sung to a melody now generally forgotten of much the same movement but slurred in peculiarly sweet and tender turns. The cadence 327 / 281 of the last tune gave the refrain line a melting effect:

Some of the spirit of this old tune (in the few hymnals where the hymn is now printed) is preserved in Geo. Kingsley's “Messiah” which accompanies the words, but the modulations are wanting.

Joseph Swain was born in Birmingham, Eng. in 1761. Bred among mechanics, he was early apprenticed to the engraver's trade, but he was a boy of poetic temperament and fond of writing verses. After the spiritual change which brought a new purpose into his life, he was baptized by Dr. Rippon and studied for the ministry. At the age of about twenty-five, he was settled over the Baptist church in Walworth, where he remained till his death, April 16, 1796.

For more than a century his hymns have lived and been loved in all the English-speaking world. Among those still in use are—

How sweet, how heavenly is the sight,
Pilgrims we are to Canaan bound,
O Thou in whose presence my soul takes delight.

“HAPPY DAY.”

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These were voices as sure to be heard in converts' meetings as the leader's prayer or text, the former sung inevitably to Rimbault's tune, “Happy Day,” and the latter to a “Western Melody” quite as closely akin to Wesley's words.

Edward Francis Rimbault, born at Soho, Eng., June 13, 1816, was at sixteen years of age organist at the Soho Swiss Church, and became a skilled though not a prolific composer. He once received—and declined—the offer of an appointment as professor of music in Harvard College. Died of a lingering illness Sept, 26, 1876.

“COME, HOLY SPIRIT, HEAVENLY DOVE.”

—Watts.

This was the immortal song-litany that fitted almost anywhere into every service. The Presbyterians and Congregationalists sang it in Tansur's “St. Martins,” the Baptists in William Jones' “Stephens” and the Methodists in Maxim's “Turner” (which had the most music), but the hymn went about as well with one as with another.

The Rev. William Jones (1726–1800) an English rector, and Abraham Maxim of Buckfield, Me., (1773–1829) contributed quite a liberal share of the “continental” tunes popular in the latter part of the 18th century. Maxim was eccentric, but the tradition that an unfortunate affair of the heart once drove him into the woods to make away with himself, but a bird on the roof of a logger's hut, 329 / 283 making plaintive sounds, interrupted him, and he sat down and wrote the tune “Hallowell,” on a strip of white birch bark, is more likely legendary. The following words, said to have inspired his minor tune, are still set to it in the old collections:

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Maxim was fond of the minor mode, but his minors, like “Hallowell,” “New Durham,” etc., are things of the past. His major chorals and fugues, such as “Portland,” “Buckfield,” and “Turner” had in them the spirit of healthier melody and longer life. He published at least two collections, The Oriental Harmony, in 1802, and The Northern Harmony, in 1805.

William Tansur (Tans-ur), author of “St. Martins” (1669–1783), was an organist, composer, compiler, and theoretical writer. He was born at Barnes, Surrey, Eng., (according to one account,) and died at St. Neot's.

“COME, THOU FOUNT OF EVERY BLESSING.”

This hymn of Rev. Robert Robinson was almost always heard in the tune of “Nettleton,” composed by John Wyeth, about 1812. The more 330 / 284 wavy melody of “Sicily” (or “Sicilian Hymn”) sometimes carried the verses, but never with the same sympathetic unction. The sing-song movement and accent of old “Nettleton” made it the country favorite.

Robert Robinson, born in Norfolk, Eng., Sept. 27, 1735, was a poor boy, left fatherless at eight years of age, and apprenticed to a barber, but was converted by the preaching of Whitefield and studied till he obtained a good education, and was ordained to the Methodist ministry. He is supposed to have written his well-known hymn in 1758. A certain unsteadiness of mind, however, caused him to revise his religious beliefs too often for his spiritual health or enjoyment, and after preaching as a Methodist, a Baptist, and an Independent, he finally became a Socinian. On a stage-coach journey, when a lady fellow-passenger began singing “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” to relieve the monotony of the ride, he said to her, “Madam, I am the unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago; and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, if I could feel as I felt then.”

Robinson died June 9, 1790.

John Wyeth was born in Cambridge, Mass., 1792, and died at Harrisburg, Pa., 1858. He was a musician and publisher, and issued a Music Book, Wyeth's Repository of Sacred Music.

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“A POOR WAYFARING MAN OF GRIEF,”

Written by James Montgomery, Dec., 1826, was a hymn of tide and headway in George Coles' tune of “Duane St.,” with a step that made every heart beat time. The four picturesque eight-line stanzas made a practical sermon in verse and song from Matt. 25:35, telling how—</