IVEighteenth-century Hymns

My Shepherd will supply my need;Jehovah is His Name;In pastures fresh He makes me feed,Beside the living stream.

My Shepherd will supply my need;

Jehovah is His Name;

In pastures fresh He makes me feed,

Beside the living stream.

TheMethodist Hymn-bookomits the last verse, which is given in most other collections—

There would I find a settled rest,While others go and come;No more a stranger or a guest,But like a child at home.

There would I find a settled rest,

While others go and come;

No more a stranger or a guest,

But like a child at home.

It is a beautiful paraphrase of ‘Thy house for ever.’ He felt, however, that his experiment was so novel and so likely to provoke adverse criticism, that he continually explained or defended his versions in notes appended to the psalms, which form a sort of running commentary.

Watts’sPsalmsmark the passage from psalm-singing to hymn-singing. Slowly but surely the distinction disappears from modern hymn-books, and psalm-versions take their place amongst ‘hymns.’ This was not Watts’s design, but it is a part of the success of his enterprise. If to-day we had to make choice of any one metrical version of the Psalter for use in Christian worship, it would be impossible to find anything better than Watts’s. Indeed, if feeble ‘aliters’ (to use Barton’s phrase) and poor verses were omitted, the result would show how near he came to achieving success.

It is difficult to overstate the service rendered to the worship of the Christian Church by Dr. Watts. As Lord Selborne says, ‘He was the first to understand the nature of the want,’ and he ‘led the way in providing for it.’ Yet it is easy to quote poor verses, to find lines that are intolerably flat. His rhymes are often either discordant in the extreme or lacking altogether. Sometimes he is too colloquial, as in

Well, the Redeemer’s goneTo appear before our God.

Well, the Redeemer’s gone

To appear before our God.

Perhaps no hymn-writer needs editing so much as Watts, and certainly none has been edited more skilfully. Not a few of his hymns owe their place in our hymnals to the judicious way in which they have been ‘improved.’ We cannot dispute Dr. Johnson’s criticism

The rhymes are not always sufficiently correspondent.... His lines are commonly smooth and easy, and his thoughts always religiously pure; but who is there that, to so much piety and innocence, does not wish for a greater measure of sprightliness and vigour?[99]

Hymn-writers are in a special degree affected by their surroundings. There is an open-air life in many of the psalms attributed to David which is lacking in those—e.g. the cxix.—which belong to a more formal age. Watts was a student, a scholar, a recluse, an invalid, who yet came into frequent contact with the Church life of the Independents. He could not be coarse or fantastic, and he both consciously and conscientiously condescended to men of low estate. The sacrifice of his own taste to that of the unlearned reader was part of his offering to the Lord, and it did not cost him nothing. The pity of it is that he misjudged and under-estimated the intelligence of those who would use his hymns. It is but just to bear his self-imposed limitation in mind, yetit must also be allowed that, like many a far greater poet—Wordsworth, for example—he did not know which were the superior and which the inferior pieces. He believed hisLyricsto be his best poetical work, and possibly this may have been the judgement of his friendly contemporaries; but the severer taste of later times has forgotten theLyricswhile treasuring the hymns.

Watts seldom writes without a consciousness of the congregation for whose use he intended his hymns. The story—probably true—that he undertook to write one every week for the Independent Chapel at Southampton explains the character of very many of them, and accounts at once for their strength and weakness. On the one hand, he avoided the tiresome verbosity of Tate and Brady and the halting rhythm of Barton and, on the other, he abstained from the ‘conceits’ which are the charm of Herbert and Vaughan, but which make many a lovely poem impossible as a hymn. The ease and simplicity of his best hymns, which no hymn-writer surpasses and few have attained, endeared them to ‘men of heart sincere,’ alike among the unlearned and ignorant and among men of culture. He has that sweet, plaintive undertone of perplexity concerning the mysteries of life and death which touches all thoughtful souls, and is so true to the inner life of one whose many infirmities made him die daily. He had in large measure the rich indwelling of the word of God without which a man may write hymns,but can never be one of God’s great singers. His hymns are full of scriptural phrases, though less so than those of Charles Wesley, and he has many happy and instructive applications of passages both from the Old and New Testament. Take, for instance, one of his sacramental hymns, in which he uses the parable of the Great Supper as a type of the Supper of the Lord—an application singularly appropriate, though not often made.[100]

How rich are Thy provisions, Lord,Thy table furnished from above;The fruits of life o’erspread the board,The cup o’erflows with heavenly love.

How rich are Thy provisions, Lord,

Thy table furnished from above;

The fruits of life o’erspread the board,

The cup o’erflows with heavenly love.

We are the poor, the blind, the lame,And help was far and death was nigh;But at the gospel-call we came,And every want received supply.

We are the poor, the blind, the lame,

And help was far and death was nigh;

But at the gospel-call we came,

And every want received supply.

From the highway that leads to hell,From paths of darkness and despair,Lord, we are come with Thee to dwell,Glad to enjoy Thy presence here.

From the highway that leads to hell,

From paths of darkness and despair,

Lord, we are come with Thee to dwell,

Glad to enjoy Thy presence here.

It cost Him death to save our lives,To buy our souls it cost His own,And all the unknown joys He gives,Were bought with agonies unknown.[101]

It cost Him death to save our lives,

To buy our souls it cost His own,

And all the unknown joys He gives,

Were bought with agonies unknown.[101]

The ‘sacramentarian’ element is naturally absent from Watts’s twenty-five hymns ‘prepared for the holy ordinance of the Lord’s Supper,’ which are, with a few exceptions, much less solemn and impressive than those of Wesley. Two have, however, a permanent place among our Communion hymns. The seventh of the series, ‘Crucifixion to the World by the Cross of Christ’—

When I survey the wondrous Cross

is so great a hymn, and consecrated by so many hallowed associations, that comment is superfluous and criticism impertinent. The third, ‘The New Testament in the Blood of Christ, or The New Covenant Sealed,’ is absent from the chief hymnals to-day with the exception of the Methodist, to which it was added in 1830. It begins—

‘The promise of my Father’s loveShall stand for ever good,’He said; and gave His soul to death,And sealed the grace with blood.

‘The promise of my Father’s love

Shall stand for ever good,’

He said; and gave His soul to death,

And sealed the grace with blood.

Watts wrote no great festival hymns to be compared with ‘Hark! how all the welkin rings,’ or ‘Hail the day that sees Him rise.’ His best work is found in his hymns and spiritual songs, some of which are among the most spiritual and most scriptural ever written. The tone of triumph is comparatively rare, though now and again, as in ‘Join all the glorious names,’ he rises as high as ever Charles Wesley rose in his hymns for‘Believers rejoicing.’ Such are, ‘My God, the spring of all my joys’; ‘Come, we that love the Lord’; ‘Jesus shall reign where’er the sun’; ‘Come, let us join our cheerful songs.’

To Dr. Watts, with his delicate health and protracted sicknesses, songs in a minor key were peculiarly suitable, and some of his most precious hymns are those which speak of the life to come. He seldom writes of death as Wesley does, and such a line as

Ah, lovely appearance of death

would have been impossible to him; but no Christian poet has touched the sorrows of our hearts more tenderly or comforted the bereaved more wisely than he has done in such a hymn as

Give me the wings of faith to rise;

while

There is a land of pure delight

has voiced the thoughts of myriads of anxious souls, to whom only ‘a prospect of heaven’ could make ‘death easy.’ Watts seldom, if ever, showed the ecstasy of Charles Wesley. He never sang

The promised land, from Pisgah’s top,I now exult to see;

The promised land, from Pisgah’s top,

I now exult to see;

but he knew that

Could we but climb where Moses stood,And view the landscape o’er,Not Jordan’s stream nor death’s cold floodShould fright us from the shore.

Could we but climb where Moses stood,

And view the landscape o’er,

Not Jordan’s stream nor death’s cold flood

Should fright us from the shore.

There are few more tender lines than the verse in his hymn for ‘The Death and Burial of a Saint’—

The graves of all His saints He blessed,And softened every bed:Where should the dying members rest,But with their dying Head?

The graves of all His saints He blessed,

And softened every bed:

Where should the dying members rest,

But with their dying Head?

But Dr. Watts was not a man whose whole thought was centred on the world to come. After the fashion not only of his own time, but of the religious men of most times, he speaks slightingly of earth and its charms; but when he allows himself to dwell on its beauty and glory he writes, I think, with a clearer and more poetic vision than Wesley, as in his ‘Song to Creating Wisdom’—

Eternal Wisdom, Thee we praise.

The hymns of Dr. Watts are so well known that it is difficult to select any that would worthily represent him without repeating what is already familiar to every reader. ‘The Cradle Song’ is one of the most delightful lullabies ever written, and shows Watts in a charming and unexpected light.

Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber;Holy angels guard thy bed!Heavenly blessings without numberGently falling on thy head.

Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber;

Holy angels guard thy bed!

Heavenly blessings without number

Gently falling on thy head.

Sleep, my babe; thy food and raiment,House and home, thy friends provide;All without thy care or payment,All thy wants are well supplied.

Sleep, my babe; thy food and raiment,

House and home, thy friends provide;

All without thy care or payment,

All thy wants are well supplied.

How much better thou’rt attendedThan the Son of God could be,When from heaven He descended,And became a child like thee!

How much better thou’rt attended

Than the Son of God could be,

When from heaven He descended,

And became a child like thee!

Soft and easy is thy cradle:Coarse and hard thy Saviour lay:When His birthplace was a stable,And His softest bed was hay.

Soft and easy is thy cradle:

Coarse and hard thy Saviour lay:

When His birthplace was a stable,

And His softest bed was hay.

Blessèd Babe, what glorious features,Spotless, fair, divinely bright!Must He dwell with brutal creatures?—How could angels bear the sight!

Blessèd Babe, what glorious features,

Spotless, fair, divinely bright!

Must He dwell with brutal creatures?—

How could angels bear the sight!

Was there nothing but a mangerCursèd sinners could affordTo receive the heavenly Stranger?Did they thus affront their Lord?

Was there nothing but a manger

Cursèd sinners could afford

To receive the heavenly Stranger?

Did they thus affront their Lord?

Soft, my child—I did not chide thee,Though my song might sound too hard;’Tis thy mother sits beside thee,And her arm shall be thy guard.

Soft, my child—I did not chide thee,

Though my song might sound too hard;

’Tis thy mother sits beside thee,

And her arm shall be thy guard.

Yet to read the shameful story,How the Jews abused their King;How they served the Lord of Glory,Makes me angry while I sing.

Yet to read the shameful story,

How the Jews abused their King;

How they served the Lord of Glory,

Makes me angry while I sing.

See the kinder shepherds round Him,Telling wonders from the sky!There they sought Him, there they found Him,With His Virgin Mother by.

See the kinder shepherds round Him,

Telling wonders from the sky!

There they sought Him, there they found Him,

With His Virgin Mother by.

See the lovely Babe a-dressing;Lovely Infant, how He smiled!When He wept, the Mother’s blessingSoothed and hushed the holy Child.

See the lovely Babe a-dressing;

Lovely Infant, how He smiled!

When He wept, the Mother’s blessing

Soothed and hushed the holy Child.

Lo, He slumbers in His manger,Where the hornèd oxen fed;Peace, my darling, here’s no danger;Here’s no ox a-near thy bed!

Lo, He slumbers in His manger,

Where the hornèd oxen fed;

Peace, my darling, here’s no danger;

Here’s no ox a-near thy bed!

’Twas to save thee, child, from dying,Save my dear from burning flame,Bitter groans, and endless crying,That thy blest Redeemer came.

’Twas to save thee, child, from dying,

Save my dear from burning flame,

Bitter groans, and endless crying,

That thy blest Redeemer came.

May’st thou live to know and fear Him,Trust and love Him all thy days;Then go dwell for ever near Him,See His face, and sing His praise!

May’st thou live to know and fear Him,

Trust and love Him all thy days;

Then go dwell for ever near Him,

See His face, and sing His praise!

I could give thee thousand kisses,Hoping what I most desire;Not a mother’s fondest wishesCan to greater joys aspire.[102]

I could give thee thousand kisses,

Hoping what I most desire;

Not a mother’s fondest wishes

Can to greater joys aspire.[102]

From Isaac Watts we turn naturally to Philip Doddridge (1702-51), another name which is amongst the glories of the Nonconforming Churches, and of him also it may be said that every Christian Church would rejoice to have adopted him. He was the twentieth child of his parents, was all his life in delicate health, and died of consumption at Lisbon, where he was buried in the English cemetery. His life was happy and devout from the earliest days, when he learnt from his mother’s lips the Bible stories which were illustrated by the Dutch tiles in the fireplace in his childhood’s home in London—‘London! dear city of my youth!’ On his father’s side he was descended from a good stockof English gentlemen, some of whom were men of renown in their own generation. His father was a tradesmen, but his grandfather was Rector of Shepperton until the Act of Uniformity made him a Nonconformist. His mother was the daughter of a Protestant refugee from Bohemia, whose Bible (Luther’s version) he kept as his most cherished possession. As a child he attracted the notice of the Duchess of Bedford, who offered to send him to Oxford or Cambridge, and to provide a living for him if he took orders in the Church of England. He declined the offer, though discouraged by the great Dissenter, Calamy, in his purpose of entering the Independent ministry. But his old friend and pastor, Samuel Clark, of St. Albans (author ofScripture Promises), encouraged him, bidding him come to his house and make it his home during his preliminary studies.

Like Watts, he was a scholar and a gentleman, and was revered and loved in all Churches. Doddridge was a man of broad views and wide sympathies, and was honoured by the enmity of Watts’s old adversary, Thomas Bradbury, whose ‘zeal and fury’ in opposing ‘Moravians and Methodists and all who will not go his length in putting them down’ he deprecated. Indeed, his sympathy with Methodism led less vehement Dissenters than Bradbury to remonstrate with him, and when he not only preached at Whitefield’s Tabernacle, but invited that great evangelist to preach in his chapel at Northampton, even moderate men inhis own communion thought he had given just offence to the Nonconformist conscience of the day. He found it necessary to explain and apologize for his patronage of the enthusiasm which sober Churchmen and Dissenters alike abhorred.

His hymns were often written to be sung in his own chapel at the Castle Hill, Northampton, and were upon the subjects of his sermons. Written on the same principle as Watts’s hymns, they belong to the same class; and while they are on the whole inferior to those of Watts, they make a distinct and very precious addition to our hymnals. There is less variety of theme, metre, and expression in Doddridge than in Watts, but he is rarely so completely on the level of the ‘vulgar capacities’ for whom his great predecessor had such a tender regard. His hymns are the prayers and praises of a saint, ‘they shine,’ as Montgomery said, ‘in the beauty of holiness,’ and some must live while Christianity endures.

He is like Watts also in his indebtedness to editors. The best known of the hymns that bear his name, ‘O God of Bethel,’ would make a fine specimen for a polychrome hymn-book, though I venture to suggest that no ‘higher critic’ could pick out the portions supplied by the various revisers if he were left solely to subjective considerations. Dr. Julian says that its authorship should be thus described—‘P. Doddridge, Jan. 173⁶/₇ Scottish Trs. and Paraphs., 1745; J. Logan, 1781; and Scottish Paraphs., 1781.’

The earliest form is still extant in Doddridge’s own handwriting.

From Gen. xxxiii. 20, 22.

O God of Bethel, by whose HandThine Israel still is fedWho thro’ this weary PilgrimageHast all our Fathers led

O God of Bethel, by whose Hand

Thine Israel still is fed

Who thro’ this weary Pilgrimage

Hast all our Fathers led

To thee our humble Vows we raiseTo thee address our Prayer,And in thy kind and faithful BreastDeposite all our Care

To thee our humble Vows we raise

To thee address our Prayer,

And in thy kind and faithful Breast

Deposite all our Care

If thou thro’ each perplexing PathWilt be our constant GuideIf thou wilt daily Bread supplyAnd Raiment wilt provide

If thou thro’ each perplexing Path

Wilt be our constant Guide

If thou wilt daily Bread supply

And Raiment wilt provide

If thou wilt spread thy Shield aroundTill these our wand’rings ceaseAnd at our Father’s loved AbodeOur Souls arrive in Peace

If thou wilt spread thy Shield around

Till these our wand’rings cease

And at our Father’s loved Abode

Our Souls arrive in Peace

To thee as to our Covenant GodWe’ll our whole selves resignAnd count that not our tenth aloneBut all we have is Thine.January 16, 173⁶/₇.[103]

To thee as to our Covenant God

We’ll our whole selves resign

And count that not our tenth alone

But all we have is Thine.

January 16, 173⁶/₇.[103]

Another hymn, even better known and loved than this, at least amongst Methodist congregations, is—

O happy day that fixed my choice.

This also has been edited to its advantage. It has been the birthday song of countless redeemed souls. Dr. A. B. Bruce says that St. Matthew’s feast, at which ‘a great company of publicans and of others sat down,’ ‘was a kind of poem, saying for Matthew what Doddridge’s familiar lines say for many another.’[104]

Contemporary with Watts and Doddridge, but having closer spiritual affinity with John Bunyan, was Joseph Hart (1712-68), whose hymns, with two or three exceptions, have almost disappeared from our hymnals, though in older books, and in Spurgeon’sOur Own Hymn-book, they are fairly numerous. To the first edition of his hymns he prefixed ‘a brief summary account of the great things’ God had ‘done for’ his ‘soul,’ which, but for its Calvinism, might have been written by one of the early Methodist preachers. Again and again this narrative recallsGrace Abounding, though Hart has little of the vigour, and none of the humour, of Bunyan. He was ‘born of believing parents,’ but after his conversion he ‘hasted to make myself a Christian by mere doctrine, adopting other men’s opinions before I had tried them.’ The result was, according to his own account, a deplorable fall into the prevalent Antinomianism, against whichFletcher and Wesley wrote so energetically. After seven or eight years ‘in this abominable state’ he ‘began by degrees to reform a little,’ and in the week before Easter, 1757, he had ‘an amazing view of the agony of Christ in the garden,’ which affected all his after life. ‘While these horrors remained’ he found occasional comfort at Whitefield’s Tabernacle in Moorfields, or his chapel in Tottenham Court Road, but on Whit Sunday (which was also Charles Wesley’s Day of Pentecost), at the Moravian chapel in Fetter Lane, under a sermon on Rev. iii. 10, he felt ‘deeply impressed,’ and hastening home found himself ‘melting away with a strange softness of affection.’ His experience was that of Christian at the Cross, his ‘burden’ under which he was ‘almost sinking’ was immediately taken from his shoulders. ‘Tears ran in streams from my eyes, and I was so swallowed up in joy and thankfulness that I hardly knew where I was.’ After this ‘reconversion’ he had many Bunyan-like temptations, but walked humbly with God, and ministered till his death to the Independent church in Jewin Street.

His hymns are said, in the ‘advertisement’ to the edition published after his death, to describe his preaching exactly, and they are evidently the fruit of his own experience.

The vicissitudes of a trembling faith, the alternations of comfort and depression, the ever-recurring conflict between grace and sin, and all the emotions of a soul‘ready to halt,’ but knowing where to look for strength, are plentifully and feelingly represented. But he has little acquaintance either with the joyful hope and buoyant cheerfulness of Wesley or with the ‘quietness and confidence’ of Keble.[105]

He had a small poetic gift, and some of his hymns, with their happy alliterations, quaint phrases, easy rhythm, and, above all, their simple piety, have charm and power. Dr. Johnson’s estimate of Hart may be inferred from a curious incident. ‘I went to church. I gave a shilling; and, seeing a poor girl at the sacrament in a bed-gown, I gave her privately half a crown, though I saw Hart’s hymns in her hand.’

The hymns by which he is, and will be, known, are—

Come, Holy Spirit, come,Let Thy bright beams arise.

Come, Holy Spirit, come,

Let Thy bright beams arise.

Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched,

And

This God is the God we adore.

Some of his forgotten verses have real epigrammatic force, e.g.—

If profit be thy scope,Diffuse thy alms about.The worldling prospers laying up,The Christian laying out.

If profit be thy scope,

Diffuse thy alms about.

The worldling prospers laying up,

The Christian laying out.

A few other hymn-writers belong to the Dissenting Church of the eighteenth century, but they have passed or are passing from our modern hymn-books. SimonBrowne (1680-1732), pastor of an Independent church in Old Jewry, published in 1720 a supplement to Watts, which shows how early Watts began to be regarded as the standard hymn-book in Congregational Churches. There is a pathetic interest in the strange affliction from which he suffered. In 1723 he was attacked by highwaymen, and defended himself with such vigour that his adversary, when he released him, was found to be dead. Browne was overwhelmed with grief, and sank into a state of melancholy which was deepened by family bereavement. ‘He imagined that God had in a gradual manner annihilated in him the thinking substance,’ yet he continued his ministry, and wrote many books, including an exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians in Matthew Henry’sCommentary. His best-known hymn is still to be found in many hymn-books.

Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,My sinful maladies remove.

Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,

My sinful maladies remove.

Its form is altered and improved, having passed through the hands of many editors.

He was also the author of a penitential hymn, which is much more impressive when given as Browne wrote it in the first person singular. In other respects editors have improved it by slight alterations.

Lord, at Thy feet a sinner lies,And knocks at mercy’s door;With heavy heart and downcast eyesThy favour I implore.

Lord, at Thy feet a sinner lies,

And knocks at mercy’s door;

With heavy heart and downcast eyes

Thy favour I implore.

On me the vast extent displayOf Thy forgiving love;Take all my heinous guilt away,This heavy load remove.

On me the vast extent display

Of Thy forgiving love;

Take all my heinous guilt away,

This heavy load remove.

Without Thy grace I sink opprest,Down to the gates of hell:O give my troubled spirit rest,And all my fears dispel.

Without Thy grace I sink opprest,

Down to the gates of hell:

O give my troubled spirit rest,

And all my fears dispel.

’Tis mercy, mercy, I implore,I would Thy pity move,Thy grace is an exhaustless storeAnd Thou Thyself art love.

’Tis mercy, mercy, I implore,

I would Thy pity move,

Thy grace is an exhaustless store

And Thou Thyself art love.

Benjamin Beddome (1717-95) was for more than half a century a Baptist minister at Bourton-on-the-Water, refusing for the sake of his rustic flock the attractions of a call to more conspicuous pastorates. ‘I would rather honour God,’ he said, ‘in a station even much inferior to that in which He has placed me, than intrude myself into a higher without His direction.’ His hymns were written for his own congregation, and usually to suit his sermon for the day.

There is not much to choose amongst Beddome’s pious verses. The following lines are interesting since they may, perhaps, have suggested Montgomery’s well-known hymn:

Prayer is the breath of God in man,Returning whence it came;Love is the sacred fire within,And prayer the rising flame.

Prayer is the breath of God in man,

Returning whence it came;

Love is the sacred fire within,

And prayer the rising flame.

It gives the burdened spirit ease,And soothes the troubled breast;Yields comfort to the mourning soul,And to the weary rest.

It gives the burdened spirit ease,

And soothes the troubled breast;

Yields comfort to the mourning soul,

And to the weary rest.

When God inclines the heart to pray,He hath an ear to hear;To Him there’s music in a sigh,And beauty in a tear.

When God inclines the heart to pray,

He hath an ear to hear;

To Him there’s music in a sigh,

And beauty in a tear.

To these clerical hymn-writers of the school of Watts must be added the name of Anne Steele (1716-78), daughter of William Steele, timber-merchant and Baptist minister at Broughton, Hants. Miss Steele is the first Englishwoman who takes a permanent place amongst hymn-writers. She has been called the Miss Havergal of the eighteenth century, and so far as popularity and piety are concerned the comparison is fair. She wrote under the name of ‘Theodosia,’ and her hymns were for a hundred years extensively used in Nonconformist worship, and several are to be found in Anglican hymnals.

Dr. Watts was her acknowledged model. She cries—

O for the animating fireThat tuned harmonious Watts’s lyre,To sweet seraphic strains![106]

O for the animating fire

That tuned harmonious Watts’s lyre,

To sweet seraphic strains![106]

She was so modest and devout, suffered and sorrowed so much, that one is glad to know that some at least of her songs will take their place among the permanent treasures of Christian song. Her hymns are generally improved by the omission of some verses, and by slight changes; but Miss Steele is never guilty of the clumsy and offensive phrases which mar so many contemporary hymns. Her best-known hymns are ‘When I surveylife’s varied scene,[107]and ‘Father of mercies, in Thy word.’

Here are a few verses from a hymn on the text, ‘Because I live, ye shall live also’ (John xiv. 19)—

If my immortal Saviour lives,Then my immortal life is sure;His word a firm foundation gives:Here let me build and rest secure.

If my immortal Saviour lives,

Then my immortal life is sure;

His word a firm foundation gives:

Here let me build and rest secure.

Here let my faith unshaken dwell:Immovable the promise stands;Not all the powers of earth or hellCan e’er dissolve the sacred bands.

Here let my faith unshaken dwell:

Immovable the promise stands;

Not all the powers of earth or hell

Can e’er dissolve the sacred bands.

Here, O my soul, thy trust repose!If Jesus is for ever mine.Not death itself, that last of foes,Shall break a union so divine.

Here, O my soul, thy trust repose!

If Jesus is for ever mine.

Not death itself, that last of foes,

Shall break a union so divine.

Dr. John Ryland (1753-1825), one of the pioneers of the modern missionary revival, and a few others are still remembered as hymn-writers, but there is little distinctive about their poetry. Indeed one is compelled to admit that a very large portion of the hymns of the school of Watts are dull, formal, and prosaic. For the most part they were written to suit particular sermons, and the shades of the meeting-house are about them still. To many of them Montgomery’s criticism of Beddome applies: ‘His compositions are calculated to be far more useful than attractive.’

The ‘atmosphere’ was hardly likely to inspireenthusiasm. The long struggle between King and Parliament, Catholic and Protestant was stilled, the Toleration Act (1689) had given to orthodox Nonconformists a religious liberty unknown before, and, though there were occasional fears lest the old, bad conditions should be revived, their freedom became gradually larger and more thoroughly established. Watts and Doddridge represent the best side of the Nonconformity which settled down after ‘the glorious Revolution’ into sedate, intelligent, unaggressive, and highly respectable Churches, rejoicing devoutly, but without enthusiasm, in the right to worship God in their own sanctuaries, and to ‘sit under’ the ministry of their own pastors. ‘Then had the Churches rest, and walking in the comfort of the Holy Ghost were multiplied.’ The high character and sound scholarship of the leading Nonconformist ministers compelled the respect and won the esteem of their episcopalian neighbours, with whom they lived in pleasant relationships. It was just the time for a quiet reform in modes of worship, and it was in the years between the Toleration Act and the Methodist Revival that the hymn, already known but not yet loved, won its way to a sure and increasingly honourable place in the service of the sanctuary. Had the hymns been more original and aggressive in tone, they would not so readily have won the ear and heart of Independent congregations at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

The first Wesleyan hymn-book is earlier than the Evangelical Revival. When John Wesley sailed for Georgia, he took with him Herbert’sPoems, Watts’sPsalms and Hymns, and John Austin’sOffices. From these and some other books he prepared ‘the first hymn-book compiled for use in the Church of England.’[108]It was published at Charlestown in 1737, and is entitled,A Collection of Psalms and Hymns. The book is a ‘Christian week’ rather than a Christian year, being divided into three sections—for Sunday; for Wednesday and Friday; for Saturday. It is in many respects a most interesting volume. There is little trace of ‘catholic’ doctrine, unless it be in the verses taken from Austin’sOffice of the Saints, and there is less of sacramental teaching than in the presentMethodist Hymn-book.

Of the seventy hymns half are by Dr. Watts, and amongst these are his version of Ps. c, with Wesley’s famous first lines—

Before Jehovah’s awful throne,Ye nations, bow with sacred joy;

Before Jehovah’s awful throne,

Ye nations, bow with sacred joy;

and the cxlvi., which Wesley repeated with his dying breath. Seven hymns are by John Austin; six are moderately successful attempts to make some of Herbert’s matchless poems available for use in public worship. The Wesleyan portion of the book consists of five hymns by Samuel Wesley, senior; five by Samuel Wesley, junior; and five translations from the German by John Wesley himself. Charles Wesley’s hymns are conspicuous by their absence. Probably the explanation is that, as he had already sailed for England, his MSS. were not at his brother’s disposal.

In 1738, on his return to England, John Wesley published another small hymn-book, with the same title and a similar arrangement, though the contents are different. This is, I think, the only one of his many hymn-books in which Ken’s hymns are included. In 1739 the brothers issued their first joint publication, ‘Hymns and Sacred Poems, published by John Wesley, M.A., Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, and Charles Wesley, M.A., Student of Christ Church, Oxford. London. Printed by William Strahan, and sold by James Hutton, bookseller, at the Bible and Sun without Temple Bar; Mr. Bray’s, a brazier, in Little Britain,M DCC XXXIX.’ In this volume Charles Wesley’s first published poems appeared, and from this time he is the recognized poet of the Revival.

Charles Wesley was born at Epworth Rectory onDecember 18, 1707. Notwithstanding poverty, debt, difficulty, and persecution, there was probably no more truly Christian home in England. The cultivation of personal religion and simple faith in God found congenial soil here, and doubtless in other obscure country parsonages. The Rector of Epworth was a poet of some gifts, which the whole family inherited in greater or less degree. His eldest son—sixteen years older than Charles—was a minor poet and hymn-writer, and the younger members of the family grew up in an atmosphere which must have made it natural for them to write verses.

We have, however, no indication of precocious hymn-writing on the part of Charles Wesley, nor, indeed, of any poetic composition till he was seven-and-twenty, when he writes to convey a protest against his sister’s marriage. Probably he did not discover his special talent till he was in Georgia, where the Governor’s wife wrote, ‘Mr. Wesley has the gift of verse, and has written many sweet hymns, which we sing.’[109]

But if Charles Wesley wrote little poetry before his American mission, he had received much of the training which was in due season to yield such abundant fruit. The gracious influences of the Lincolnshire rectory, of the Oxford Methodists, of his Moravian fellow passengers, all helped to mould his fervent spirit. The poet within him could not long be silent, and hadalready awoke when he received the baptism of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, 1738. This was the time of his evangelical conversion, when he passed out of the state of the anxious and conscientious servant into the glorious liberty of the child of God. From that time the word of Christ dwelt in him richly. ‘The wealth of God’[110]was bestowed upon him, and out of the abundance of a heart enriched by the indwelling word he poured forth psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs in an almost ceaseless stream. Had Charles Wesley never passed through this experience he would have been one of our greatest ecclesiastical hymn-writers, and would have ranked with Heber and Keble, but there would have been no distinctively Methodist hymnody, and the Evangelical Revival would have been immeasurably poorer. Moreover, he did very much to preserve the standard of good taste, as well as the fervour of religious feeling, in primitive Methodism.

Charles Wesley, a Christ Church student, came to add sweetness to this sudden and startling light. He was the ‘sweet singer’ of the movement. His hymns expressed the fiery conviction of its converts in lines so chaste and beautiful, that its more extravagant features disappeared. The wild throes of hysteric enthusiasm passed into a passion for hymn-singing, and a new musical impulse was aroused in the people which gradually changed the face of public devotion throughout England.[111]

Charles Wesley would probably have accepted Keble’s judgement as to the value of ‘a sober standard of feeling in matters of practical religion,’ but his standard allowed a much wider range and warmer glow to feeling than was possible to the poet of the later Oxford Movement. Both the Wesleys shrank with the instinct of the scholar and the gentleman from extravagance and vulgarity. Their energies were often devoted to restraining the exuberant manifestations of the fervour of their converts; and though they dared not deal too strictly with what they believed to be indications of genuine spiritual emotion, they deprecated undue excitement, and regarded hysterical testimonies in a very different light from that in which Edward Irving viewed the speaking with tongues.

Saved from the fear of hell and death,With joy we seek the things above;And all Thy saints the spirit breatheOf power, sobriety, and love.

Saved from the fear of hell and death,

With joy we seek the things above;

And all Thy saints the spirit breathe

Of power, sobriety, and love.

Pure love to God Thy members find,Pure love to every soul of man;And in Thy sober, spotless mind,Saviour, our heaven on earth we gain.[112]

Pure love to God Thy members find,

Pure love to every soul of man;

And in Thy sober, spotless mind,

Saviour, our heaven on earth we gain.[112]

If Charles Wesley impressed himself upon the Methodist Revival to its great benefit, the Revival in its turn most advantageously affected his hymn-writing. In many of his poems it is easy to trace the influence of the Anglican Prayer-book or the Moravian prayer-meeting,but the typically Methodist hymns show little trace of either; they are songs of the open-air service or of the class-room. Beecher’s statement that Charles Wesley’s ‘hymns are only Moravian hymns re-sung’ is more than a gross exaggeration.

In the early days of Methodism, Charles Wesley was as energetic and as successful an evangelist as John. He loved the stir, the tumult, the triumph of those great outdoor gatherings, where testimony must be borne before mobs who might at any time endanger the property and even the lives of preacher and hearers. In this regard the poet of the Evangelical Revival had a great advantage over the poet of the Tractarian Movement. Keble is one of the singers of the country parsonage. At Fairford and Hursley he found, as Cowper at Olney,

The calm retreat, the silent shade,With prayer and praise agree;

The calm retreat, the silent shade,

With prayer and praise agree;

but Charles Wesley was moved to his highest flights of praise by hard-won victories amongst his wild hearers in Cornwall, or Moorfields, at Kingswood, or Walsall. The depths of his soul were moved when he saw the first signs of penitence in the unwonted tears which cut white channels in the begrimed faces of the colliers, whom he taught to sing

But O the power of grace Divine!In hymns we now our voices raise,Loudly in strange hosannas join,And blasphemies are turned to praise!

But O the power of grace Divine!

In hymns we now our voices raise,

Loudly in strange hosannas join,

And blasphemies are turned to praise!

Nor must we overlook the influence of the Methodist class-meeting upon Charles Wesley’s hymns. That institution was of the essence of Methodism. It provided a ‘Holy Club,’ or a number of holy clubs, in every place where converts had been gathered. True to his mission as the poet of Methodism, he provided hymns for the Societies in their private meetings as well as in their vast evangelistic gatherings. The hymn-book naturally begins with the section headed ‘Exhorting and Beseeching to Return to God,’ but the majority of the hymns are for the penitent, the mourner, the believer, and for the backslider—the man in whom old habits have proved too strong, who has wandered back to sin, but longs to turn to God again. Charles Wesley shared with John the pastoral oversight of the converts, often spending many weeks in Dublin, Newcastle, or Bristol, or passing rapidly through Cornwall or the Black Country, not only preaching the gospel, but carefully examining, encouraging, and sifting the societies. The class-meeting gave the distinctive tone to Methodist devotion, and Charles Wesley was quick to sympathize with the varying moods of religious experience related by the members. His hymns were often written for use by the Society in its stated gatherings or by Christian friends meeting socially in each other’s houses. In every revision of theMethodist Hymn-bookit has been recognized that ample provision must be made for such occasions, and that hymns might be very useful and, infact, extensively used though never heard in public worship.

The Wesleys were singularly open to impressions from those whom they met, or whose books they read. Anglican, Moravian, Mystic by turns, they only gradually developed into Methodists. In their first joint publication they note that ‘some verses ... were wrote upon the scheme of the Mystic divines’ whom they ‘had once in great veneration, as the best explainers of the gospel of Christ.’[113]George Herbert, John Norris (that other less famous parson of Bemerton), Henry More, and such German hymn-writers as Freylinghausen, Christian Friedrich Richter, and W. C. Dessler, were their first masters of Christian song; but Charles Wesley soon found his own wings, and ceased to belong to any school of poets, though to the end traces of other men’s writings are to be found—amounting occasionally to actual verbal quotation, e.g. from Milton, Young, Tate and Brady.

It is not possible to assign dates for the composition of many of Charles Wesley’s hymns after the early years of the Revival, except those called forth by some special occasion, such as the ‘Earthquake Hymns,’ and those for the troubled days of the Insurrection of 1745. At such times the hymns must have been written as a kind of task-work, and the result is rarely more than commonplace. The poet seemed to think it his duty, as the laureate of Methodism, to provide suitable hymnsfor the special services rendered necessary by stirring events, and usually wrote one or two in each of the favourite metres. These were issued in small pamphlets at a few pence, and no doubt sold very extensively, as did John Wesley’s prose tracts, through which he ‘unawares became rich.’

It is difficult for a Methodist preacher of the fourth generation, whose earliest and most sacred associations are hallowed by memories of Wesley’s hymns, to attempt an impartial, not to say a critical, survey of them. If, then, I seem to place too high an estimate on the Wesley poetry as compared with the hymns of others, I trust it may be credited rather to early training and inherited affection than to denominational partiality.

It may at once be granted that Charles Wesley wrote far too easily and too diffusely to secure permanent remembrance for the majority of his hymns. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, might disappear without serious loss to the spiritual and devotional life of the Church. It may be admitted, further, that he did not know which were his best and which his worst productions, and that John Wesley’s editing might with advantage have been more severe. The printing-press was dangerously convenient to Charles Wesley, and the certainty of extensive sale for everything he published, combined with the enthusiasm with which their people received what the brothers wrote, either in prose or verse, presented a temptation to rapid and frequent publicationwhich few poets could resist. Moreover, much that he wrote was designed for immediate use, and had to be written, printed, published ere the occasion passed. Yet it is probable that not much would have been gained by elaborate revision. Charles Wesley was too tender-hearted to treat his literary offspring as David treated the Moabites, measuring two lines to put to death and one full line to keep alive, though both he and Dr. Watts might not unwisely have adopted some such heroic measure.

His hymns were often written at white heat, but they underwent constant revision by their author, and generally they had a further revision by his brother. The poet himself records eight revisions of his Short Hymns on the Gospels and Acts, which he noted were ‘finished April 24, 1765,’ and revised for the last time May 11, 1787.

In hisJournal, John Wesley records, under date December 15, 1788—

This week I dedicated to the reading over my brother’s works. They are short poems on the Psalms, the four Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles. Some are bad; some mean; some most excellently good; they give the true sense of Scripture, always in good English, generally in good verse; many of them are equal to most, if not to any, he ever wrote; but some still savour of that poisonous mysticism with which we were both not a little tainted before we went to America.

‘Some bad, some mean, some most excellently good.’ The judgement is just, though we who are accustomedto our richer and more varied hymn-books should probably place not a few in a fourth class—certainly not ‘bad’ or ‘mean,’ yet hardly ‘excellently good.’

In theMethodist Hymn-book429 hymns are attributed to Charles Wesley; in the hymnals of other Churches there are to be found a number which are unknown in Methodism. It is safe to say that of Charles Wesley’s hymns about 500 are living still.

The first great service Wesley’s hymns rendered to Christian song was to raise the standard of feeling in matters of practical religion. John Wesley’s emendation of a line of Doddridge’s may illustrate the influence of Methodist hymns upon religious emotion. Doddridge wrote—

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