CHAPTER IV.

I gave my life for thee,My precious blood I shed,That thou might'st ransomed beAnd quickened from the dead.I gave my life for thee:What hast thou given for me?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, a189 /155clergyman 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 consecratedwordswere destined to outlast her by many generations.“Writing isprayingwith me,” she said. Death met her in 1879, when still in the prime of womanhood.193 /opp 158Frances Ridley HavergalFrances Ridley HavergalHymnalTHE 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.* Mr. Bliss himself changed the spelling of his name, preferring to let the third P. do duty alone, as a middle initial.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 American190 /156beginning of the series ofGospel 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.Jesus, keep me near the Cross,There a precious Fountain191 /157Free to all, a healing stream,Flows from Calv'ry's mountain.Chorus.In the Cross, in the CrossBe my glory ever,Till my raptured soul shall findRest beyond the river.* * * * * *Near the Cross! O Lamb of God,Bring its scenes before me;Help me walk from day to dayWith its shadows o'er me.Chorus.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 asemployeeand 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 Christian192 /158experience, 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 the195 /159conditions 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'sChristian Yearillustrates 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 a196 /160German 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.Sun of my soul, my Saviour dear,It is not night if Thou be near.O may no earth-born cloud ariseTo hide Thee from Thy servants' eyes.* * * * * *Abide with me from morn till eve,For without Thee I cannot liveAbide with me when night is nigh,For without Thee I cannot die.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 /16123, 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.Did Christ o'er sinners weep,And shall our cheeks be dry?Let floods of penitential griefBurst forth from every eye.The Son of God in tearsAdmiring angels see!Be thou astonished, O my soul;He shed those tears for thee.He wept that we might weep;Each sin demands a tear:In heaven alone no sin is found,And there's no weeping there.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, like198 /162Murillo 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 theCoronation 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.* The fact that this sweet melody recalls to some a similar tune sung sixty years ago reminds us again of the story of the tune “America.” It is not impossible that an unconsciousmemoryhelped to shape the air that came to Dr. Gordon's mind; though unborrowed similarities have been inevitable in the whole history of music.199 /163My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine,For Thee all the pleasures of sin I resign;My gracious Redeemer, my Saviour art Thou,If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.* * * * * *I will love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath,And say when the death-dew lies cold on my brow,If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.In mansions of glory and endless delightI'll ever adore Thee, unveiled to my sight,And sing, with the glittering crown on my brow,If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.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 by200 /164the 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.201 /165CHAPTER IV.MISSIONARY HYMNS.“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:Jesus shall reign where'er the sunDoes his successive journeys run,His kingdom stretch from shore to shoreTill moons shall wax and wane no more.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.202 /166THE 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 theEvangelical 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 /1677, 1717, nearLlandovery. 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.O'er the gloomy hills of darknessLook my soul! be still, and gaze!See the promises advancingTo a glorious Day of grace!Blessed Jubilee,Let thy glorious morning dawn!Let the dark, benighted pagan,Let the rude barbarian seeThat divine and glorious conquestOnce obtained on Calvary.Let the GospelLoud resound from pole to pole.This song of anticipation has dropped out of the modern hymnals, but the last stanza lingers in many memories.Fly abroad, thou mighty Gospel!Win and conquer, never cease;May thy lasting wide dominionMultiply and still increase.Sway Thy scepter,Saviour, all the world around!THE TUNE.Oftener than any other the music of “Zion” has been the expression of William Williams'204 /168Missionary Hymn. It was composed by Thomas Hastings, in Washington, Ct., 1830.“HASTEN, LORD, THE GLORIOUS TIME.”Hasten, Lord, the glorious timeWhen beneath Messiah's swayEvery nation, every climeShall the Gospel call obey.Mightiest kings its power shall own,Heathen tribes His name adore,Satan and his host o'erthrownBound in chains shall hurt no more.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.HerSpirit 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 /169and, 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'sDictionary of Hymns and Hymn-writerscredits “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 livingmusicis Lowell Mason's “Eltham.” Its harmony is like a chime of bells.“LET PARTY NAMES NO MORE.”Let party names no moreThe Christian world o'erspread;Gentile and Jew, and bond and free,Are one in Christ the Head.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.206 /170“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.”1.Watchman, tell us of the night.What its signs of promise are!(Antistrophe)Traveler, on yon mountain height.See that glory-beaming star!2Watchman, does its beauteous rayAught of hope or joy foretell?(Antistrophe)Trav'ler, yes; it brings the day,Promised day of Israel.3Watchman, tell us of the night;Higher yet that star ascends.(Antistrophe)207 /171Trav'ler, blessedness and lightPeace and truth its course portends.4Watchman, will its beams aloneGild the spot that gave them birth?(Antistrophe)Trav'ler, ages are its own.See! it bursts o'er all the earth.“YE CHRISTIAN HERALDS, GO PROCLAIM.”In some versions “Ye Christianheroes,” 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 inMissionary and Devotional Hymnsat Portsea, Wales, in 1797. In this Dr. Breed follows (he says) “the accepted tradition.” On the other hand theCoronation 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—208 /172God shield you with a wall of fire!With flaming zeal your breasts inspire;Bid raging winds their fury cease,And hush the tumult into peace,—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'llshield 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 TUNEIs 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, theAmerican Harp,1832, andThe Ancient Lyre, 1833. His compositions are remarkably spirited and vigorous, and his work as a tune-maker was much209 /173in 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.Soon may the last glad song ariseThrough all the millions of the skies.That song of triumph which recordsThat “all the earth is now the Lord's.”“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 /1741855, 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.On the mountain-top appearing,Lo! the sacred herald stands,Joyful news to Zion bearing,Zion long in hostile lands;Mourning captive,God himself will loose thy bands.Has the night been long and mournful?Have thy friends unfaithful proved?Have thy foes been proud and scornful,By thy sighs and tears unmoved?Cease thy mourning;Zion still is well beloved.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 “MarseillaiseHymn” (seeChap. 9) is printed in theAmerican 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 Francis213 /175Mason 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.Ye Christian heroes, wake to glory:Hark, hark! what millions bid you rise!See heathen nations bow before you,Behold their tears, and hear their cries.Shall pagan priest, their errors breeding,With darkling hosts, and flags unfurled,Spread their delusions o'er the world,Though Jesus on the Cross hung bleeding?To arms! To arms!Christ's banner fling abroad!March on! March on! all hearts resolvedTo bring the world to God.O, Truth of God! can man resign thee,Once having felt thy glorious flame?Can rolling oceans e'er prevent thee,Or gold the Christian's spirit tame?Too long we slight the world's undoing;The word of God, salvation's plan,Is yet almost unknown to man,While millions throng the road to ruin.To arms! to arms!The Spirit's sword unsheath:March on! March on! all hearts resolved,To victory or death.“HAIL TO THE LORD'S ANOINTED.”James Montgomery (says Dr. Breed) is “distinguished as the only layman besides Cowper214 /176among 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.Hail to the Lord's anointed,King David's greater Son!Hail, in the time appointedHis reign on earth begun.* * * * * *Arabia's desert rangerTo Him shall bow the knee,The Ethiopian strangerHis glory come to see.* * * * * *Kings shall fall down before HimAnd gold and incense bring;All nations shall adore Him,His praise all people sing.The hymn is really the seventy-second Psalm in metre, and as a version it suffers nothing by215 /177comparison 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 famousCommentary. 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 /178He composed instrumental melodies besides many anthems, services, and other sacred pieces for choir and congregational singing. Died in Gloucester, April 19, 1876.211 /opp 174Bishop Reginald HeberThe Right Rev. Reginald Heber, D.D.Hymnal“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—Waft, waft, ye winds, His story,And you, ye waters, roll;—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 /179By 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'schef-d'œuvrein 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 /180Yes, my native land, I love thee,All thy scenes, I love them well.Friends, connections, happy country,Can I bid you all farewell?Can I leave youFar in heathen lands to dwell?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.The morning light is breaking!The darkness disappears;The sons of earth are wakingTo penitential tears;Each breeze that sweeps the oceanBrings tidings from afar,Of nations in commotion,Prepared for Zion's war.Rich dews of grace come o'er usIn many a gentle shower,And brighter scenes before usAre opening every hour.219 /181Each cry to heaven goingAbundant answer brings,And heavenly gales are blowingWith peace upon their wings.* * * * * *Blest river of Salvation,Pursue thy onward way;Flow thou to every nation,Nor in thy richness stay.Stay not till all the lowlyTriumphant reach their home;Stay not till all the holyProclaim, “The Lord is come!”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 itsMissionary 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 or220 /182less 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 popularlyknownas “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 190George James WebbGeorge James WebbHymnalDr. 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

I gave my life for thee,My precious blood I shed,That thou might'st ransomed beAnd quickened from the dead.I gave my life for thee:What hast thou given for me?

I gave my life for thee,

My precious blood I shed,

That thou might'st ransomed be

And quickened from the dead.

I gave my life for thee:

What hast thou given for me?

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, a189 /155clergyman 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 consecratedwordswere destined to outlast her by many generations.

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

Frances Ridley HavergalFrances Ridley HavergalHymnal

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.

* Mr. Bliss himself changed the spelling of his name, preferring to let the third P. do duty alone, as a middle initial.

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 American190 /156beginning of the series ofGospel 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.

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.

Jesus, keep me near the Cross,There a precious Fountain191 /157Free to all, a healing stream,Flows from Calv'ry's mountain.Chorus.In the Cross, in the CrossBe my glory ever,Till my raptured soul shall findRest beyond the river.* * * * * *Near the Cross! O Lamb of God,Bring its scenes before me;Help me walk from day to dayWith its shadows o'er me.Chorus.

Jesus, keep me near the Cross,There a precious Fountain191 /157Free to all, a healing stream,Flows from Calv'ry's mountain.

Jesus, keep me near the Cross,

There a precious Fountain

Free to all, a healing stream,

Flows from Calv'ry's mountain.

Chorus.In the Cross, in the CrossBe my glory ever,Till my raptured soul shall findRest beyond the river.

Chorus.

In the Cross, in the Cross

Be my glory ever,

Till my raptured soul shall find

Rest beyond the river.

* * * * * *

Near the Cross! O Lamb of God,Bring its scenes before me;Help me walk from day to dayWith its shadows o'er me.

Near the Cross! O Lamb of God,

Bring its scenes before me;

Help me walk from day to day

With its shadows o'er me.

Chorus.

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 asemployeeand 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.

This threnody (we may almost call it) of W.A. Muhlenberg, illustrating one phase of Christian192 /158experience, 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.

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 the195 /159conditions 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.”

This gem from Keble'sChristian Yearillustrates 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 music to this hymn of almost unparalleled poetic and spiritual beauty was arranged from a196 /160German 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.

Sun of my soul, my Saviour dear,It is not night if Thou be near.O may no earth-born cloud ariseTo hide Thee from Thy servants' eyes.* * * * * *Abide with me from morn till eve,For without Thee I cannot liveAbide with me when night is nigh,For without Thee I cannot die.

Sun of my soul, my Saviour dear,It is not night if Thou be near.O may no earth-born cloud ariseTo hide Thee from Thy servants' eyes.

Sun of my soul, my Saviour dear,

It is not night if Thou be near.

O may no earth-born cloud arise

To hide Thee from Thy servants' eyes.

* * * * * *

Abide with me from morn till eve,For without Thee I cannot liveAbide with me when night is nigh,For without Thee I cannot die.

Abide with me from morn till eve,

For without Thee I cannot live

Abide with me when night is nigh,

For without Thee I cannot die.

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.”

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 /16123, 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.

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

Did Christ o'er sinners weep,And shall our cheeks be dry?Let floods of penitential griefBurst forth from every eye.The Son of God in tearsAdmiring angels see!Be thou astonished, O my soul;He shed those tears for thee.He wept that we might weep;Each sin demands a tear:In heaven alone no sin is found,And there's no weeping there.

Did Christ o'er sinners weep,And shall our cheeks be dry?Let floods of penitential griefBurst forth from every eye.

Did Christ o'er sinners weep,

And shall our cheeks be dry?

Let floods of penitential grief

Burst forth from every eye.

The Son of God in tearsAdmiring angels see!Be thou astonished, O my soul;He shed those tears for thee.

The Son of God in tears

Admiring angels see!

Be thou astonished, O my soul;

He shed those tears for thee.

He wept that we might weep;Each sin demands a tear:In heaven alone no sin is found,And there's no weeping there.

He wept that we might weep;

Each sin demands a tear:

In heaven alone no sin is found,

And there's no weeping there.

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, like198 /162Murillo 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.

The real originator of theCoronation 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.

* The fact that this sweet melody recalls to some a similar tune sung sixty years ago reminds us again of the story of the tune “America.” It is not impossible that an unconsciousmemoryhelped to shape the air that came to Dr. Gordon's mind; though unborrowed similarities have been inevitable in the whole history of music.

My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine,For Thee all the pleasures of sin I resign;My gracious Redeemer, my Saviour art Thou,If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.* * * * * *I will love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath,And say when the death-dew lies cold on my brow,If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.In mansions of glory and endless delightI'll ever adore Thee, unveiled to my sight,And sing, with the glittering crown on my brow,If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine,For Thee all the pleasures of sin I resign;My gracious Redeemer, my Saviour art Thou,If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine,

For Thee all the pleasures of sin I resign;

My gracious Redeemer, my Saviour art Thou,

If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

* * * * * *

I will love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath,And say when the death-dew lies cold on my brow,If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

I will love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,

And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath,

And say when the death-dew lies cold on my brow,

If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

In mansions of glory and endless delightI'll ever adore Thee, unveiled to my sight,And sing, with the glittering crown on my brow,If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

In mansions of glory and endless delight

I'll ever adore Thee, unveiled to my sight,

And sing, with the glittering crown on my brow,

If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

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 by200 /164the 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.

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:

Jesus shall reign where'er the sunDoes his successive journeys run,His kingdom stretch from shore to shoreTill moons shall wax and wane no more.

Jesus shall reign where'er the sun

Does his successive journeys run,

His kingdom stretch from shore to shore

Till moons shall wax and wane no more.

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.

“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 theEvangelical Hymnal.

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

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.

This notable hymn was written, probably about 1750, by the Rev. William Williams, a Welsh Calvinistic Methodist, born at Cefnycoed, Jan.203 /1677, 1717, nearLlandovery. 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.

O'er the gloomy hills of darknessLook my soul! be still, and gaze!See the promises advancingTo a glorious Day of grace!Blessed Jubilee,Let thy glorious morning dawn!Let the dark, benighted pagan,Let the rude barbarian seeThat divine and glorious conquestOnce obtained on Calvary.Let the GospelLoud resound from pole to pole.

O'er the gloomy hills of darknessLook my soul! be still, and gaze!See the promises advancingTo a glorious Day of grace!Blessed Jubilee,Let thy glorious morning dawn!

O'er the gloomy hills of darkness

Look my soul! be still, and gaze!

See the promises advancing

To a glorious Day of grace!

Blessed Jubilee,

Let thy glorious morning dawn!

Let the dark, benighted pagan,Let the rude barbarian seeThat divine and glorious conquestOnce obtained on Calvary.Let the GospelLoud resound from pole to pole.

Let the dark, benighted pagan,

Let the rude barbarian see

That divine and glorious conquest

Once obtained on Calvary.

Let the Gospel

Loud resound from pole to pole.

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

Fly abroad, thou mighty Gospel!Win and conquer, never cease;May thy lasting wide dominionMultiply and still increase.Sway Thy scepter,Saviour, all the world around!

Fly abroad, thou mighty Gospel!

Win and conquer, never cease;

May thy lasting wide dominion

Multiply and still increase.

Sway Thy scepter,

Saviour, all the world around!

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

Hasten, Lord, the glorious timeWhen beneath Messiah's swayEvery nation, every climeShall the Gospel call obey.Mightiest kings its power shall own,Heathen tribes His name adore,Satan and his host o'erthrownBound in chains shall hurt no more.

Hasten, Lord, the glorious time

When beneath Messiah's sway

Every nation, every clime

Shall the Gospel call obey.

Mightiest kings its power shall own,

Heathen tribes His name adore,

Satan and his host o'erthrown

Bound in chains shall hurt no more.

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.

HerSpirit 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 /169and, 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'sDictionary of Hymns and Hymn-writerscredits “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 livingmusicis Lowell Mason's “Eltham.” Its harmony is like a chime of bells.

Let party names no moreThe Christian world o'erspread;Gentile and Jew, and bond and free,Are one in Christ the Head.

Let party names no more

The Christian world o'erspread;

Gentile and Jew, and bond and free,

Are one in Christ the Head.

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.

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.”

1.Watchman, tell us of the night.What its signs of promise are!(Antistrophe)Traveler, on yon mountain height.See that glory-beaming star!2Watchman, does its beauteous rayAught of hope or joy foretell?(Antistrophe)Trav'ler, yes; it brings the day,Promised day of Israel.3Watchman, tell us of the night;Higher yet that star ascends.(Antistrophe)207 /171Trav'ler, blessedness and lightPeace and truth its course portends.4Watchman, will its beams aloneGild the spot that gave them birth?(Antistrophe)Trav'ler, ages are its own.See! it bursts o'er all the earth.

1.Watchman, tell us of the night.What its signs of promise are!(Antistrophe)Traveler, on yon mountain height.See that glory-beaming star!

Watchman, tell us of the night.

What its signs of promise are!

(Antistrophe)

Traveler, on yon mountain height.

See that glory-beaming star!

2Watchman, does its beauteous rayAught of hope or joy foretell?(Antistrophe)Trav'ler, yes; it brings the day,Promised day of Israel.

Watchman, does its beauteous ray

Aught of hope or joy foretell?

(Antistrophe)

Trav'ler, yes; it brings the day,

Promised day of Israel.

3Watchman, tell us of the night;Higher yet that star ascends.(Antistrophe)207 /171Trav'ler, blessedness and lightPeace and truth its course portends.

Watchman, tell us of the night;

Higher yet that star ascends.

(Antistrophe)

Trav'ler, blessedness and light

Peace and truth its course portends.

4Watchman, will its beams aloneGild the spot that gave them birth?(Antistrophe)Trav'ler, ages are its own.See! it bursts o'er all the earth.

Watchman, will its beams alone

Gild the spot that gave them birth?

(Antistrophe)

Trav'ler, ages are its own.

See! it bursts o'er all the earth.

In some versions “Ye Christianheroes,” 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 inMissionary and Devotional Hymnsat Portsea, Wales, in 1797. In this Dr. Breed follows (he says) “the accepted tradition.” On the other hand theCoronation 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—

God shield you with a wall of fire!With flaming zeal your breasts inspire;Bid raging winds their fury cease,And hush the tumult into peace,

God shield you with a wall of fire!

With flaming zeal your breasts inspire;

Bid raging winds their fury cease,

And hush the tumult into peace,

—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'llshield 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.”

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, theAmerican Harp,1832, andThe Ancient Lyre, 1833. His compositions are remarkably spirited and vigorous, and his work as a tune-maker was much209 /173in 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.

Soon may the last glad song ariseThrough all the millions of the skies.That song of triumph which recordsThat “all the earth is now the Lord's.”

Soon may the last glad song arise

Through all the millions of the skies.

That song of triumph which records

That “all the earth is now the Lord's.”

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 /1741855, 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.

On the mountain-top appearing,Lo! the sacred herald stands,Joyful news to Zion bearing,Zion long in hostile lands;Mourning captive,God himself will loose thy bands.Has the night been long and mournful?Have thy friends unfaithful proved?Have thy foes been proud and scornful,By thy sighs and tears unmoved?Cease thy mourning;Zion still is well beloved.

On the mountain-top appearing,Lo! the sacred herald stands,Joyful news to Zion bearing,Zion long in hostile lands;Mourning captive,God himself will loose thy bands.

On the mountain-top appearing,

Lo! the sacred herald stands,

Joyful news to Zion bearing,

Zion long in hostile lands;

Mourning captive,

God himself will loose thy bands.

Has the night been long and mournful?Have thy friends unfaithful proved?Have thy foes been proud and scornful,By thy sighs and tears unmoved?Cease thy mourning;Zion still is well beloved.

Has the night been long and mournful?

Have thy friends unfaithful proved?

Have thy foes been proud and scornful,

By thy sighs and tears unmoved?

Cease thy mourning;

Zion still is well beloved.

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.

This rather crude parody on the “MarseillaiseHymn” (seeChap. 9) is printed in theAmerican 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 Francis213 /175Mason 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.

Ye Christian heroes, wake to glory:Hark, hark! what millions bid you rise!See heathen nations bow before you,Behold their tears, and hear their cries.Shall pagan priest, their errors breeding,With darkling hosts, and flags unfurled,Spread their delusions o'er the world,Though Jesus on the Cross hung bleeding?To arms! To arms!Christ's banner fling abroad!March on! March on! all hearts resolvedTo bring the world to God.O, Truth of God! can man resign thee,Once having felt thy glorious flame?Can rolling oceans e'er prevent thee,Or gold the Christian's spirit tame?Too long we slight the world's undoing;The word of God, salvation's plan,Is yet almost unknown to man,While millions throng the road to ruin.To arms! to arms!The Spirit's sword unsheath:March on! March on! all hearts resolved,To victory or death.

Ye Christian heroes, wake to glory:

Hark, hark! what millions bid you rise!

See heathen nations bow before you,

Behold their tears, and hear their cries.

Shall pagan priest, their errors breeding,

With darkling hosts, and flags unfurled,

Spread their delusions o'er the world,

Though Jesus on the Cross hung bleeding?

To arms! To arms!

Christ's banner fling abroad!

March on! March on! all hearts resolved

To bring the world to God.

O, Truth of God! can man resign thee,Once having felt thy glorious flame?Can rolling oceans e'er prevent thee,Or gold the Christian's spirit tame?Too long we slight the world's undoing;The word of God, salvation's plan,Is yet almost unknown to man,While millions throng the road to ruin.To arms! to arms!The Spirit's sword unsheath:March on! March on! all hearts resolved,To victory or death.

O, Truth of God! can man resign thee,

Once having felt thy glorious flame?

Can rolling oceans e'er prevent thee,

Or gold the Christian's spirit tame?

Too long we slight the world's undoing;

The word of God, salvation's plan,

Is yet almost unknown to man,

While millions throng the road to ruin.

To arms! to arms!

The Spirit's sword unsheath:

March on! March on! all hearts resolved,

To victory or death.

James Montgomery (says Dr. Breed) is “distinguished as the only layman besides Cowper214 /176among 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.

Hail to the Lord's anointed,King David's greater Son!Hail, in the time appointedHis reign on earth begun.* * * * * *Arabia's desert rangerTo Him shall bow the knee,The Ethiopian strangerHis glory come to see.* * * * * *Kings shall fall down before HimAnd gold and incense bring;All nations shall adore Him,His praise all people sing.

Hail to the Lord's anointed,King David's greater Son!Hail, in the time appointedHis reign on earth begun.

Hail to the Lord's anointed,

King David's greater Son!

Hail, in the time appointed

His reign on earth begun.

* * * * * *

Arabia's desert rangerTo Him shall bow the knee,The Ethiopian strangerHis glory come to see.

Arabia's desert ranger

To Him shall bow the knee,

The Ethiopian stranger

His glory come to see.

* * * * * *

Kings shall fall down before HimAnd gold and incense bring;All nations shall adore Him,His praise all people sing.

Kings shall fall down before Him

And gold and incense bring;

All nations shall adore Him,

His praise all people sing.

The hymn is really the seventy-second Psalm in metre, and as a version it suffers nothing by215 /177comparison 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 famousCommentary. 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 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 /178He composed instrumental melodies besides many anthems, services, and other sacred pieces for choir and congregational singing. Died in Gloucester, April 19, 1876.

Bishop Reginald HeberThe Right Rev. Reginald Heber, D.D.Hymnal

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—

Waft, waft, ye winds, His story,And you, ye waters, roll;

Waft, waft, ye winds, His story,

And you, ye waters, roll;

—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.

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

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.”

Not far behind Dr. Heber'schef-d'œuvrein 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—

Yes, my native land, I love thee,All thy scenes, I love them well.Friends, connections, happy country,Can I bid you all farewell?Can I leave youFar in heathen lands to dwell?

Yes, my native land, I love thee,

All thy scenes, I love them well.

Friends, connections, happy country,

Can I bid you all farewell?

Can I leave you

Far in heathen lands to dwell?

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.

The morning light is breaking!The darkness disappears;The sons of earth are wakingTo penitential tears;Each breeze that sweeps the oceanBrings tidings from afar,Of nations in commotion,Prepared for Zion's war.Rich dews of grace come o'er usIn many a gentle shower,And brighter scenes before usAre opening every hour.219 /181Each cry to heaven goingAbundant answer brings,And heavenly gales are blowingWith peace upon their wings.* * * * * *Blest river of Salvation,Pursue thy onward way;Flow thou to every nation,Nor in thy richness stay.Stay not till all the lowlyTriumphant reach their home;Stay not till all the holyProclaim, “The Lord is come!”

The morning light is breaking!

The darkness disappears;

The sons of earth are waking

To penitential tears;

Each breeze that sweeps the ocean

Brings tidings from afar,

Of nations in commotion,

Prepared for Zion's war.

Rich dews of grace come o'er usIn many a gentle shower,And brighter scenes before usAre opening every hour.219 /181Each cry to heaven goingAbundant answer brings,And heavenly gales are blowingWith peace upon their wings.

Rich dews of grace come o'er us

In many a gentle shower,

And brighter scenes before us

Are opening every hour.

Each cry to heaven going

Abundant answer brings,

And heavenly gales are blowing

With peace upon their wings.

* * * * * *

Blest river of Salvation,Pursue thy onward way;Flow thou to every nation,Nor in thy richness stay.Stay not till all the lowlyTriumphant reach their home;Stay not till all the holyProclaim, “The Lord is come!”

Blest river of Salvation,

Pursue thy onward way;

Flow thou to every nation,

Nor in thy richness stay.

Stay not till all the lowly

Triumphant reach their home;

Stay not till all the holy

Proclaim, “The Lord is come!”

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 itsMissionary 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 or220 /182less in use in church worship, and eight for Sabbath school collections.

“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 popularlyknownas “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.

George James WebbGeorge James WebbHymnal

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.

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—

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