CHAPTER IX.

* Hail, beauteous stranger of the wood,Attendant on the Spring;Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,And woods thy welcome ring.THE TUNE.Old “Balerma” was so long the musical mouth-piece of the pious boy-schoolmaster's verses that346 /298the two became one expression, and one could not be named without suggesting the other.“Balerma” (Palermo) was ages away in style and sound from the later type of Sunday-school tunes, resembling rather one of Palestrina's chorals than the tripping melodies that took its place; but in its day juvenile voices enjoyed it, and it suited very well the grave but winning words.How happy is the child who hearsInstruction's warning voice,And who celestial Wisdom makesHis early, only choice!For she hath treasures greater farThan East and West unfold,And her rewards more precious areThan all their stores of gold.She guides the young with innocenceIn pleasure's path to tread,A crown of glory she bestowsUpon the hoary head.Robert Simpson, author of the old tune,*was a Scottish composer of psalmody; born, about 1722, in Glasgow; and died, in Greenock, June, 1838.* The tune was evidently reduced from the still older “Sardius” (or “Autumn”)—Hubert P. Main.“O DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED.”Written about 1803, by the Rev. John A. Grenade, born in 1770; died 1806.O do not be discouraged,}For Jesus is your Friend;}bisHe will give you grace to conquer,And keep you to the end.347 /299Fight on, ye little soldiers,}The battle you shall win,}bisFor the Saviour is your Captain,And He has vanquished sin.And when the conflict's over,}Before Him you shall stand,}bisYou shall sing His praise foreverIn Canaan's happy land.THE TUNE.The hymn was made popular thirty or more years ago in a musical arrangement by Hubert P. Main, with a chorus,—I'm glad I'm in this army,And I'll battle for the school.Children took to the little song with a keen relish, and put their whole souls—and bodies—into it.“LITTLE TRAVELLERS ZIONWARD”Belongs to a generation long past. Its writer was an architect by occupation, and a man whose piety equalled his industry. He was born in London 1791, and his name was James Edmeston. He loved to compose religious verses—so well, in fact, that he is said to have prepared a new piece every week for Sunday morning devotions in his family and in this way accumulated a collection which he published and calledCottager's Hymns. Besides these he is credited with a hundred Sunday-school hymns.348 /300Little travellers Zionward,Each one entering into restIn the Kingdom of your Lord,In the mansions of the blest,There to welcome Jesus waits,Gives the crown His followers win,Lift your heads, ye golden gates,Let the little travellers in.The original tune is lost—and the hymn is vanishing with it; but the felicity of its rhyme and rhythm show how easily it adapted itself to music.“I'M BUT A STRANGER HERE.”The simple beauty of this hymn, and the sympathetic sweetness of its tune made children love to sing it, and it found its way into a few Sunday-school collections, though not composed for such use.A young Congregational minister. Rev. Thomas Rawson Taylor, wrote it on the approach of his early end. He was born at Osset, near Wakefield, Yorkshire, Eng., May 9, 1807, and studied in Bradford, where his father had taken charge of a large church, and at Manchester Academy and Airesdale College. Sensible of a growing ailment that might shorten his days, he hastened to the work on which his heart was set, preaching in surrounding towns and villages while a student, and finally quitting college to be ordained to his sacred profession. He was installed as pastor of Howard St. Chapel, Sheffield, July, 1830, when349 /301only twenty-three. But in less than three years his strength failed, and he went back to Bradford, where he occasionally preached for his father, when able to do so, during his last days. He died there March 15, 1835. Taylor was a brave and lovely Christian—and his hymn is as sweet as his life.I'm but a stranger here,Heaven is my home;Earth is a desert drear,Heaven is my home.Dangers and sorrows standRound me on every hand;Heaven is my Fatherland—Heaven is my home.What though the tempest rage,Heaven is my home;Short is my pilgrimage,Heaven is my home.And time's wild, wintry blastSoon will be overpast;I shall reach home at last—Heaven is my home.In his last attempt to preach, young Taylor uttered the words, “I want to die like a soldier, sword in hand.” On the evening of the same Sabbath day he breathed his last. His words were memorable, and Montgomery, who loved and admired the man, made them the text of a poem, part of which is the familiar hymn “Servant of God, well done."** Seepage 498350 /302THE TUNE.Sir Arthur Sullivan put the words into classic expression, but, to American ears at least, the tune of “Oak,” by Lowell Mason, is the hymn's true sister. It was composed in 1854.“DEAR JESUS, EVER AT MY SIDE.”One of Frederick William Faber's sweet and simple lyrics. It voices that temper and spirit in the human heart which the Saviour first looks for and loves best. None better than Faber could feel and utter the real artlessness of Christian love and faith.Dear Jesus, ever at my side,How loving must Thou beTo leave Thy home in heaven to guardA sinful child like me.Thy beautiful and shining faceI see not, tho' so near;The sweetness of Thy soft low voiceI am too deaf to hear.I cannot feel Thee touch my handWith pressure light and mild,To check me as my mother didWhen I was but a child;But I have felt Thee in my thoughtsFighting with sin for me,And when my heart loves God I knowThe sweetness is from Thee.353 /303THE TUNE.“Audientes” by Sir Arthur Sullivan is a gentle, emotional piece, rendering the first quatrain of each stanza in E flat unison, and the second in C harmony.“TIS RELIGION THAT CAN GIVE.”This simple rhyme, which has been sung perhaps in every Sunday-school in England and the United States, is from a small English book by Mary Masters. In the preface to the work, we read, “The author of the following poems never read a treatise of rhetoric or an art of poetry, nor was ever taught her English grammar. Her education rose no higher than the spelling-book or her writing-master,”'Tis religion that can giveSweetest pleasure while we live;'Tis religion can supplySolid comfort when we die.After death its joys shall beLasting as eternity.Save the two sentences about herself, quoted above, there is no biography of the writer. That she was good is taken for granted.The tune-sister of the little hymn is as scant of date or history as itself. No. 422 points it out inThe Revivalist, where the name and initial seem to ascribe the authorship to Horace Waters.** From hisSabbath Bell. Horace Waters, a prominent Baptist layman, was born in Jefferson, Lincoln Co., Me., Nov. 1, 1812, and died in New York City, April 22, 1893. He was a piano-dealer and publisher.354 /304“THERE IS A HAPPY LAND FAR, FAR AWAY”This child's hymn was written by a lover of children, Mr. Andrew Young, head master of Niddrey St. School, Edinburgh, and subsequently English instructor at Madras College, E.I. He was born April 23, 1807, and died Nov. 30, 1899, and long before the end of the century which his life-time so nearly covered his little carol had become one of the universal hymns.THE TUNE.AHindooair or natural chanson, that may have been hummed in a pagan temple in the hearing of Mr. Young, was the basis of the little melody since made familiar to millions of prattling tongues.Such running tone-rhythms create themselves in the instinct of the ruder nations and tribes, and even the South African savages have their incantations with the provincial “clicks” that mark the singers' time. With an ear for native chirrups and trills, the author of our pretty infant-school song succeeded in capturing one, and making a Christian tune of it.The musician, Samuel Sebastian Wesley, sometime in the eighteen-forties, tried to substitute another melody for the lines, but “There is a happy land” needs its own birth-music.355 /305“I HAVE A FATHER IN THE PROMISED LAND.”Another cazonet for the infant class. Instead of a hymn, however, it is only a refrain, and—like the ring-chant of the “Hebrew Children,” and even more simple—owes its only variety to the change of one word. The third and fourth lines,—My father calls me, I must goTo meet Him in the Promised Land,—take their cue from the first, which may sing,—I have a Saviour——I have a mother——I have a brother———and so on ad libitum. But the little ones love every sound and syllable of the lisping song, for it is plain and pleasing, and when a pinafore school grows restless nothing will sooner charm them into quiet than to chime its innocent unison.Both words and tune are nameless and storyless.“I THINK WHEN I READ THAT SWEET STORY”While riding in a stage-coach, after a visit to a mission school for poor children, this hymn came to the mind of Mrs. Jemima Thompson Luke, of Islington, England. It speaks its own purpose plainly enough, to awaken religious feeling in young hearts, and guide and sanctify the natural childlike interest in the sweetest incident of the Saviour's life.356 /306I think when I read that sweet story of oldWhen Jesus was here among men,How He called little children as lambs to His fold,I should like to have been with them then.I wish that His hands had been laid on my head,And I had been placed on His knee,And that I might have seen His kind look when He said,“Let the little ones come unto me.”This is not poetry, but it phrases a wish in a child's own way, to be melodized and fixed in a child's reverent and sensitive memory.Mrs. Luke was born at Colebrook Terrace, near London, Aug. 19, 1813. She was an accomplished and benevolent lady who did much for the education and welfare of the poor. Her hymn—of five stanzas—was first sung in a village school at Poundford Park, and was not published until 1841.THE TUNE.It is interesting, not to say curious, testimony to the vital quality of this meek production that so many composers have set it to music, or that successive hymn-book editors have kept it, and printed it to so many different harmonies. All the chorals that carry it have substantially the same movement—for the spondaic accent of the long lines is compulsory—but their offerings sing “to one clear harp in divers tones.”The appearance of the words in one hymnal with Sir William Davenant's air (full scored) to Moore's love-song, “Believe me, if all those357 /307endearing young charms,” now known as the tune of “Fair Harvard,” is rather startling at first, but the adoption is quite in keeping with the policy of Luther and Wesley.“St. Kevin” written to it forty years ago by John Henry Cornell, organist of St. Paul's, New York City, is sweet and sympathetic.The newest church collection (1905) gives the beautiful air and harmony of “Athens” to the hymn, and notes the music as a “Greek Melody.”But the nameless English tune, of uncertain authorship*that accompanies the words in the smaller old manuals, and which delighted Sunday-schools for a generation, is still the favorite in the memory of thousands, and may be the very music first written.* Harmonized by Hubert P. Main.“WE SPEAK OF THE REALMS OF THE BLEST.”Mrs. Elizabeth Mills, wife of the Hon. Thomas Mills, M.P., was born at Stoke Newington, Eng., 1805. She was one of the brief voices that sing one song and die. This hymn was the only note of her minstrelsy, and it has outlived her by more than three-quarters of a century. She wrote it about three weeks before her decease in Finsbury Place, London, April 21, 1839, at the age of twenty-four.We speak of the land of the blest,A country so bright and so fair,And oft are its glories confest,But what must it be to be there!* * * * * *358 /308We speak of its freedom from sin,From sorrow, temptation and care,From trials without and within,But what must it be to be there!THE TUNE.The hymn, like several of the Gospel hymns besides, was carried into the Sunday-schools by its music. Mr. Stebbins' popular duet-and-chorus is fluent and easily learned and rendered by rote; and while it captures the ear and compels the voice of the youngest, it expresses both the pathos and the exaltation of the words.George Coles Stebbins was born in East Carleton, Orleans Co., N.Y., Feb. 26, 1846. Educated at common school, and an academy in Albany, he turned his attention to music and studied in Rochester, Chicago, and Boston. It was in Chicago that his musical career began, while chorister at the First Baptist Church; and while holding the same position at Clarendon St. Church, Boston, (1874–6), he entered on a course of evangelistic work with D.L. Moody as gospel singer and composer. He was co-editor with Sankey and McGranahan ofGospel Hymns.“ONLY REMEMBERED.”This hymn, beginning originally with the lines,—Up and away like the dew of the morning,Soaring from earth to its home in the sun,359 /309—has been repeatedly altered since it left Dr. Bonar's hands. Besides the change of metaphors, the first personal pronoun singular is changed to the plural. There was strength, and a natural vivacity in—So letmesteal away gently and lovingly,Only remembered for whatIhave done.As at present sung the first stanza reads—,Fading away like the stars of the morningLosing their light in the glorious sun,Thus wouldwepass from the earth and its toilingOnly remembered for whatwehave done.The idea voiced in the refrain is true and beautiful, and the very euphony of its words helps to enforce its meaning and make the song pleasant and suggestive for young and old. It has passed into popular quotation, and become almost a proverb.THE TUNE.The tune (inGospel Hymns No. 6) is Mr. Sankey's.Ira David Sankey was born in Edinburgh, Lawrence Co., Pa., Aug. 28, 1840. He united with the Methodist Church at the age of fifteen, and became choir leader, Sunday-school superintendent and president of the Y.M.C.A., all in his native town. Hearing Philip Phillips sing impressed him deeply, when a young man, with the power of a gifted solo vocalist over assembled multitudes, but he did not fully realize his own capability till Dwight360 /310L. Moody heard his remarkable voice and convinced him of his divine mission to be a gospel singer.The success of his revival tours with Mr. Moody in America and England is history.Mr. Sankey has compiled at least five singing books, and has written theStory of the Gospel Hymns. Until overtaken by blindness, in his later years he frequently appeared as a lecturer on sacred music. The manuscript of his story of theGospel Hymnswas destroyed by accident, but, undismayed by the ruin of his work, and the loss of his eye-sight, like Sir Isaac Newton and Thomas Carlyle, he began his task again. With the help of an amanuensis the book was restored and, in 1905, given to the public. (Seepage 258.)“SAVIOUR, LIKE A SHEPHERD LEAD US.”Mrs. Dorothy Ann Thrupp, of Paddington Green, London, the author of this hymn, was born June 20, 1799, and died, in London, Dec. 14, 1847. Her hymns first appeared in Mrs. Herbert Mayo'sSelection of Poetry and Hymns for the Use of Infant and Juvenile Schools, (1838).We are Thine, do Thou befriend us,Be the Guardian of our way:Keep Thy flock, from sin defend us,Seek us when we go astray;Blessed Jesus,Hear, O hear us when we pray.361 /311The tune everywhere accepted and loved is W.B. Bradbury's; written in 1856.“YIELD NOT TO TEMPTATION”A much used and valued hymn, with a captivating tune and chorus for young assemblies. Both words and music are by H.R. Palmer, composed in 1868.Yield not to temptation,For yielding is sin;Each vict'ry will help youSome other to win.Fight manfully onward,Dark passions subdue;Look ever to Jesus,He will carry you through.Horatio Richmond Palmer was born in Sherburne, N.Y., April 26. 1834, of a musical family, and sang alto in his father's choir when only nine. He studied music unremittingly, and taught music at fifteen. Brought up in a Christian home, his religious life began in his youth, and he consecrated his art to the good of man and the glory of God.He became well-known as a composer of sacred music, and as a publisher—the sales of hisSong Queenamounting to 200,000 copies. As a leader of musical conventions and in the Church Choral Union, his influence in elevating the standard of song-worship has been widely felt.362 /312“THERE ARE LONELY HEARTS TO CHERISH.”“While the days are going by” is the refrain of the song, and the line by which it is recognized. The hymn or poem was written by George Cooper. He was born in New York City, May 14, 1840—a writer of poems and magazine articles,—composed “While the days are going by” in 1870.There are lonely hearts to cherishWhile the days are going by.There are weary souls who perishWhile the days are going by.Up! then, trusty hearts and true,Though the day comes, night comes, too:Oh, the good we all may doWhile the days are going by!There are few more practical and always-timely verses than this three-stanza poem.THE TUNE.A very musical tune, with spirited chorus, (inGospel Hymns) bears the name of the refrain, and was composed by Mr. Sankey.A sweet and quieter harmony (uncredited) is mated with the hymn in the oldBaptist Praise Book(p. 507) and this was long the fixture to the words, in both Sunday-school and week-day school song-books.351 /opp 302Fanny J. CrosbyFanny J. Crosby(Mrs. Van Alstyne)Hymnal“JESUS THE WATER OF LIFE WILL GIVE.”This Sunday-school lyric is the work of Fanny J. Crosby (Mrs. Van Alstyne). Like her other and363 /313greater hymn, “Jesus keep me near the Cross,” (noted on p. 156,) it reveals the habitual attitude of the pious author's mind, and the simple earnestness of her own faith as well as her desire to win others.Jesus the water of life will giveFreely, freely, freely;Jesus the water of life will giveFreely to those who love Him.The Spirit and the Bride say “ComeFreely, freely, freely.And he that is thirsty let him comeAnd drink the water of life.”Full chorus,—The Fountain of life is flowing,Flowing, freely flowing;The Fountain of life is flowing,Is flowing for you and for me.THE TUNE.The hymn must be sung as it wasmadeto be sung, and the composer being many yearsen rapportwith the writer, knew how to put all her metrical rhythms into sweet sound. The tune—in Mr. Bradbury'sFresh Laurels(1867)—is one of his sympathetic interpretations, and, with the duet sung by two of the best singers of the middle class Sunday-school girls, is a melodious and impressive piece.364 /314“WHEN HE COMETH, WHEN HE COMETH.”The Rev. W.O. Cushing, with the beautiful thought in Malachi 3:17 singing in his soul, composed this favorite Sunday-school hymn, which has gone round the world.When He cometh, when He comethTo make up His jewels,All the jewels, precious jewels,His loved and His own.Like the stars of the morning,His bright brow adorningThey shall shine in their beautyBright gems for His crown.He will gather, He will gatherThe gems for His Kingdom,All the pure ones, all the bright ones,His loved and His own.Like the stars, etc.Little children, little childrenWho love their Redeemer,Are the jewels, precious jewelsHis loved and His own,Like the stars, etc.Rev. William Orcutt Cushing of Hingham, Mass., born Dec. 31, 1823, wrote this little hymn when a young man (1856), probably with no idea of achieving a literary performance. But it rings; and even if it is a “ringing of changes” on pretty syllables, that is not all. There is a thought in it thatsings. Its glory came to it, however, when it365 /315got its tune—and he must have had a subconsciousness of the tune he wanted when he made the lines for his Sunday-school. He died Oct. 19, 1902.THE TUNE.The composer of the music for the “Jewel Hymn"*was George F. Root, then living in Reading, Mass.* Comparison of the “Jewel Hymn” tune with the old glee of “Johnny Schmoker” gives color to the assertion that Mr. Root caught up and adapted a popular ditty for his Christian melody—as was so often done in Wales, and in the Lutheran and Wesleyan reformations. He baptized the comic fugue, and promoted it from the vaudeville stage to the Sunday School.A minister returning from Europe on an English steamer visited the steerage, and after some friendly talk proposed a singing service—it something could be started that “everybody” knew—for there were hundreds of emigrants there from nearly every part of Europe.“It will have to be an American tune, then,” said the steerage-master; “try ‘His jewels.’”The minister struck out at once with the melody and words,—When He cometh, when He cometh,—and scores of the poor half-fare multitude joined voices with him. Many probably recognized the music of the old glee, and some had heard the sweet air played in the church-steeples at home. Other voices chimed in, male and female, catching the air, and sometimes the words—they were so easy and so many times repeated—and the volume of366 /316song increased, till the singing minister stood in the midst of an international concert, the most novel that he ever led.He tried other songs in similar visits during the rest of the voyage with some success, but the “Jewel Hymn” was the favorite; and by the time port was in sight the whole crowd of emigrants had it by heart.The steamer landed at Quebec, and when the trains, filled with the new arrivals, rolled away, the song was swelling from nearly every car,—When He cometh, when He cometh,To make up His jewels.The composer of the tune—with all the patriotic and sacred master-pieces standing to his credit—never reaped a richer triumph than he shared with his poet-partner that day, when “Precious Jewels” came back to them from over the sea. More than this, there was missionary joy for them both that their tuneful work had done something to hallow the homes of alien settlers with an American Christian psalm.George Frederick Root, Doctor of Music, was born in Sheffield, Mass., 1820, eldest of a family of eight children, and spent his youth on a farm. His genius for music drew him to Boston, where he became a pupil of Lowell Mason, and soon advanced so far as to teach music himself and lead the choir in Park St. church. Afterwards he went to New York as director of music in Dr. Deems's Church of the367 /317Strangers. In 1852, after a year's absence and study in Europe, he returned to New York, and founded the Normal Musical Institute. In 1860, he removed to Chicago where he spent the remainder of his life writing and publishing music. He died Aug. 6, 1895, in Maine.In the truly popular sense Dr. Root was the best-known American composer; not excepting Stephen C. Foster. Root's “Hazel Dell,” “There's Music in the Air,” and “Rosalie the Prairie Flower” were universal tunes—(words by Fanny Crosby,)—as also his music to Henry Washburn's “Vacant Chair.” The songs in his cantata, “The Haymakers,” were sung in the shops and factories everywhere, and his war-time music, in such melodies as “Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom” and “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching” took the country by storm.“SCATTER SEEDS OF KINDNESS.”This amiable and tuneful poem, suggested by Rom. 12:10, is from the pen of Mary Louise Riley (Mrs. Albert Smith) of New York City. She was born in Brighton, Monroe Co., N.Y. May 27, 1843.Let us gather up the sunbeamsLying all along our path;Let us keep the wheat and rosesCasting out the thorns and chaff.368 /318Chorus.Then scatter seeds of kindness (ter)For our reaping by and by.Silas Jones Vail, the tune-writer, for this hymn, was born Oct. 1818, and died May 20, 1883. For years he worked at the hatter's trade, with Beebe on Broadway, N.Y. and afterwards in an establishment of his own. His taste and talent led him into musical connections, and from time to time, after relinquishing his trade, he was with Horace Waters, Philip Phillips, W.B. Bradbury, and F.J. Smith, the piano dealer. He was a choir leader and a good composer.“BY COOL SILOAM'S SHADY RILL.”This hymn of Bp. Heber inculcates the same lesson as that in the stanzas of Michael Bruce before noted, with added emphasis for the young on the briefness of time and opportunity even for them.How fair the lily grows,—is answered by—The lily must decay,—but, owing to the sweetness of the favorite melody, it was never a saddening hymn for children.THE TUNE.Though George Kingsley's “Heber” has in some books done service for the Bishop's lines, “Siloam,”369 /319easy-flowing and finely harmonized, is knit to the words as no other tune can be. It was composed by Isaac Baker Woodbury on shipboard during a storm at sea. A stronger illustration of tranquil thought in terrible tumult was never drawn.“O Galilee, Sweet Galilee,” whose history has been given at theend of chapter six, was not only often sung in Sunday-schools, but chimed (in the cities) on steeple-bells—nor is it by any means forgotten today—on the Sabbath and in social singing assemblies. Like “Precious Jewels,” it has been, in many places, taken up by street boys with a relish, and often displaced the play-house ditties in the lips of little newsboys and bootblacks during a leisure hour or a happy mood.“I AM SO GLAD”This lively little melody is still a welcome choice to many a lady teacher of fluttering five-year-olds, when both vocal indulgence and good gospel are needed for the prattlers in her class. It has been as widely sung in Scotland as in America. Mr. Philip P. Bliss, hearing one day the words of the familiar chorus—O, how I love Jesus,—suddenly thought to himself,—“I have sung long enough of my poor love to Christ, and now I will sing of His love for me.” Under the inspiration of this thought, he wrote—370 /320I am so glad that our Father in heavenTells of His love in the book He has givenWonderful things in the Bible I see,This is the dearest—that Jesus loves me.Both words and music are by Mr. Bliss.The history of modern Sunday-school hymnody—or much of it—is so nearly identified with that of theGospel Hymnsthat other selections like the last, which might be appropriate here, may be considered in a later chapter, where that eventful series of sacred songs receives special notice.371 /321CHAPTER IX.PATRIOTIC HYMNS.The ethnic anthologies growing out of love of country are a mingled literature of filial and religious piety, ranging from war-like pæans to lyric prayers. They become the cherished inheritance of a nation, and, once fixed in the common memory and common heart, the people rarely let them die. The “Songs of the Fathers” have perennial breath, and in every generation—The green woods of their native landShall whisper in the strain;The voices of their household bandShall sweetly speak again.—Felicia Hemans.ULTIMA THULE.American pride has often gloried in Seneca's “Vision of the West,” more than eighteen hundred years ago.Venient annisSæcula seris, quibus OceanusVincula rerum laxet, et ingens372 /322Pateat tellus, Typhisque novosDetegat orbes, nec sit terrisUltima Thule.A time will come in future ages farWhen Ocean will his circling bounds unbar.And, opening vaster to the Pilot's hand,New worlds shall rise, where mightier kingdoms are,Nor Thule longer be the utmost land.This poetic forecast, of which Washington Irving wrote “the predictions of the ancient oracles were rarely so unequivocal,” is part of the “chorus” at the end of the second act of Seneca's “Medea,” written near the date of St. Paul's first Epistle to the Thessalonians.Seneca, the celebrated Roman (Stoic) philosopher, was born at or very near the time of our Saviour's birth. There are legends of his acquaintance with Paul, at Rome, but though he wrote able and quotable treatisesOn Consolation,On Providence,On Calmness of Soul, andOn the Blessed Life, there is no direct evidence that the savor of Christian faith ever qualified his works or his personal principles. He was a man of grand ideas and inspirations, but he was a time server and a flatterer of the Emperor Nero, who, nevertheless, caused his death when he had no further use for him.His compulsory suicide occurred A.D. 65, the year in which St. Paul is supposed to have suffered martyrdom.373 /323“THE BREAKING WAVES DASHED HIGH.”Sitting at the tea-table one evening, near a century ago, Mrs. Hemans read an old account of the “Landing of the Pilgrims,” and was inspired to write this poem, which became a favorite in America—like herself, and all her other works.The ballad is inaccurate in details, but presents the spirit of the scene with true poet insight. Mr. James T. Fields, the noted Boston publisher, visited the lady in her old age, and received an autograph copy of the poem, which is seen in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Mass.The breaking waves dashed high, on a stern and rock-bound coast,And the woods against a stormy sky, their giant branches tossed,And the heavy night hung dark, the hills and waters o'er,When a band of exiles moored their bark on the wild New England shore.Not as the conqueror comes, they, the true-hearted, came;Not with the roll of stirring drums, and the trumpet that sings of fame;Not as the flying come, in silence and in fear,—Theyshook the depths of the desert's gloom with their hymns of lofty cheer.Amidst the storm they sang, and the stars heard, and the sea!And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang to the anthem of the free!The ocean eagle soared from his nest by the white waves' foam,And the rocking pines of the forest roared,—this was their welcome home!374 /324There were men with hoary hair amidst that pilgrim band,—Why hadtheycome to wither there, away from their childhood's land?There was woman's fearless eye, lit by her deep love's truth;There was manhood's brow, serenely high, and the fiery heart of youth.What sought they thus afar? bright jewels of the mine?The wealth of seas? the spoils of war?—They sought a faith's pure shrine!Ay, call it holy ground, the soil where first they trod;They left unstained what there they found,—freedom to worship God!Felicia Dorothea Browne (Mrs. Hemans) was born in Liverpool, Eng., 1766, and died 1845.THE TUNE.The original tune is not now accessible. It was composed by Mrs. Mary E. (Browne) Arkwright, Mrs. Hemans' sister, and published in England about 1835. But the words have been sung in this country to “Silver St.,” a choral not entirely forgotten, credited to an English composer, Isaac Smith, born, in London, about 1735, and died there in 1800.“WESTWARD THE COURSE OF EMPIRE.”Usually misquoted “Westward theStarof Empire,” etc. This poem of Bishop Berkeley possesses no lyrical quality but, like the ancient Roman's words, partakes of the prophetic spirit, and has always been dear to the American heart375 /325by reason of the above line. It seems to formulate the “manifest destiny” of a great colonizing race that has already absorbed a continent, and extended its sway across the Pacific ocean.Not such as Europe breeds in her decay;Such as she bred when fresh and young,When heavenly flame did animate her clay,By future poets shall be sung.Westward the course of empire takes its way;The four first acts already past,The fifth shall close the drama of the day:Time's noblest offspring is the last.George Berkeley was born March 12, 1684, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. A remarkable student, he became a remarkable man, as priest, prelate, and philosopher. High honors awaited him at home, but the missionary passion seized him. Inheriting a small fortune, he sailed to the West, intending to evangelize and educate the Indians of the “Summer Islands,” but the ship lost her course, and landed him at Newport, R.I., instead of the Bermudas. Here he was warmly welcomed, but was disappointed in his plans and hopes of founding a native college by the failure of friends in England to forward funds, and after a residence of six years he returned home. He died at Cloyne, Ireland, 1753.The house which Bishop Berkeley built is still shown (or was until very recently) at Newport after one hundred and seventy-eight years. He wrote thePrinciples of Human Knowledge,376 /326theMinute Philosopher, and many other works of celebrity in their time, and a scholarship in Yale bears his name; but he is best loved in this country for hisOde to America.Pope in his list of great men ascribes—To Berkeley every virtue under heaven.“SOUND THE LOUD TIMBREL.”One would scarcely guess that this bravura hymn of victory and “Come, ye disconsolate,” were written by the same person, but both are by Thomas Moore. The song has all the vigor and vivacity of his “Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls,” without its pathos. The Irish poet chose the song of Miriam instead of the song of Deborah doubtless because the sentiment and strain of the first of these two great female patriots lent themselves more musically to his lyric verse—and his poem is certainly martial enough to convey the spirit of both.

* Hail, beauteous stranger of the wood,Attendant on the Spring;Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,And woods thy welcome ring.

Old “Balerma” was so long the musical mouth-piece of the pious boy-schoolmaster's verses that346 /298the two became one expression, and one could not be named without suggesting the other.

“Balerma” (Palermo) was ages away in style and sound from the later type of Sunday-school tunes, resembling rather one of Palestrina's chorals than the tripping melodies that took its place; but in its day juvenile voices enjoyed it, and it suited very well the grave but winning words.

How happy is the child who hearsInstruction's warning voice,And who celestial Wisdom makesHis early, only choice!For she hath treasures greater farThan East and West unfold,And her rewards more precious areThan all their stores of gold.She guides the young with innocenceIn pleasure's path to tread,A crown of glory she bestowsUpon the hoary head.

How happy is the child who hearsInstruction's warning voice,And who celestial Wisdom makesHis early, only choice!

How happy is the child who hears

Instruction's warning voice,

And who celestial Wisdom makes

His early, only choice!

For she hath treasures greater farThan East and West unfold,And her rewards more precious areThan all their stores of gold.

For she hath treasures greater far

Than East and West unfold,

And her rewards more precious are

Than all their stores of gold.

She guides the young with innocenceIn pleasure's path to tread,A crown of glory she bestowsUpon the hoary head.

She guides the young with innocence

In pleasure's path to tread,

A crown of glory she bestows

Upon the hoary head.

Robert Simpson, author of the old tune,*was a Scottish composer of psalmody; born, about 1722, in Glasgow; and died, in Greenock, June, 1838.

* The tune was evidently reduced from the still older “Sardius” (or “Autumn”)—Hubert P. Main.

Written about 1803, by the Rev. John A. Grenade, born in 1770; died 1806.

O do not be discouraged,}For Jesus is your Friend;}bisHe will give you grace to conquer,And keep you to the end.347 /299Fight on, ye little soldiers,}The battle you shall win,}bisFor the Saviour is your Captain,And He has vanquished sin.And when the conflict's over,}Before Him you shall stand,}bisYou shall sing His praise foreverIn Canaan's happy land.

O do not be discouraged,}For Jesus is your Friend;}bisHe will give you grace to conquer,And keep you to the end.

O do not be discouraged,}

For Jesus is your Friend;}bis

He will give you grace to conquer,

And keep you to the end.

347 /299Fight on, ye little soldiers,}The battle you shall win,}bisFor the Saviour is your Captain,And He has vanquished sin.

Fight on, ye little soldiers,}

The battle you shall win,}bis

For the Saviour is your Captain,

And He has vanquished sin.

And when the conflict's over,}Before Him you shall stand,}bisYou shall sing His praise foreverIn Canaan's happy land.

And when the conflict's over,}

Before Him you shall stand,}bis

You shall sing His praise forever

In Canaan's happy land.

The hymn was made popular thirty or more years ago in a musical arrangement by Hubert P. Main, with a chorus,—

I'm glad I'm in this army,And I'll battle for the school.

I'm glad I'm in this army,

And I'll battle for the school.

Children took to the little song with a keen relish, and put their whole souls—and bodies—into it.

Belongs to a generation long past. Its writer was an architect by occupation, and a man whose piety equalled his industry. He was born in London 1791, and his name was James Edmeston. He loved to compose religious verses—so well, in fact, that he is said to have prepared a new piece every week for Sunday morning devotions in his family and in this way accumulated a collection which he published and calledCottager's Hymns. Besides these he is credited with a hundred Sunday-school hymns.

Little travellers Zionward,Each one entering into restIn the Kingdom of your Lord,In the mansions of the blest,There to welcome Jesus waits,Gives the crown His followers win,Lift your heads, ye golden gates,Let the little travellers in.

Little travellers Zionward,Each one entering into restIn the Kingdom of your Lord,In the mansions of the blest,

Little travellers Zionward,

Each one entering into rest

In the Kingdom of your Lord,

In the mansions of the blest,

There to welcome Jesus waits,Gives the crown His followers win,Lift your heads, ye golden gates,Let the little travellers in.

There to welcome Jesus waits,

Gives the crown His followers win,

Lift your heads, ye golden gates,

Let the little travellers in.

The original tune is lost—and the hymn is vanishing with it; but the felicity of its rhyme and rhythm show how easily it adapted itself to music.

The simple beauty of this hymn, and the sympathetic sweetness of its tune made children love to sing it, and it found its way into a few Sunday-school collections, though not composed for such use.

A young Congregational minister. Rev. Thomas Rawson Taylor, wrote it on the approach of his early end. He was born at Osset, near Wakefield, Yorkshire, Eng., May 9, 1807, and studied in Bradford, where his father had taken charge of a large church, and at Manchester Academy and Airesdale College. Sensible of a growing ailment that might shorten his days, he hastened to the work on which his heart was set, preaching in surrounding towns and villages while a student, and finally quitting college to be ordained to his sacred profession. He was installed as pastor of Howard St. Chapel, Sheffield, July, 1830, when349 /301only twenty-three. But in less than three years his strength failed, and he went back to Bradford, where he occasionally preached for his father, when able to do so, during his last days. He died there March 15, 1835. Taylor was a brave and lovely Christian—and his hymn is as sweet as his life.

I'm but a stranger here,Heaven is my home;Earth is a desert drear,Heaven is my home.Dangers and sorrows standRound me on every hand;Heaven is my Fatherland—Heaven is my home.What though the tempest rage,Heaven is my home;Short is my pilgrimage,Heaven is my home.And time's wild, wintry blastSoon will be overpast;I shall reach home at last—Heaven is my home.

I'm but a stranger here,Heaven is my home;Earth is a desert drear,Heaven is my home.

I'm but a stranger here,

Heaven is my home;

Earth is a desert drear,

Heaven is my home.

Dangers and sorrows standRound me on every hand;Heaven is my Fatherland—Heaven is my home.

Dangers and sorrows stand

Round me on every hand;

Heaven is my Fatherland—

Heaven is my home.

What though the tempest rage,Heaven is my home;Short is my pilgrimage,Heaven is my home.

What though the tempest rage,

Heaven is my home;

Short is my pilgrimage,

Heaven is my home.

And time's wild, wintry blastSoon will be overpast;I shall reach home at last—Heaven is my home.

And time's wild, wintry blast

Soon will be overpast;

I shall reach home at last—

Heaven is my home.

In his last attempt to preach, young Taylor uttered the words, “I want to die like a soldier, sword in hand.” On the evening of the same Sabbath day he breathed his last. His words were memorable, and Montgomery, who loved and admired the man, made them the text of a poem, part of which is the familiar hymn “Servant of God, well done."*

* Seepage 498

Sir Arthur Sullivan put the words into classic expression, but, to American ears at least, the tune of “Oak,” by Lowell Mason, is the hymn's true sister. It was composed in 1854.

One of Frederick William Faber's sweet and simple lyrics. It voices that temper and spirit in the human heart which the Saviour first looks for and loves best. None better than Faber could feel and utter the real artlessness of Christian love and faith.

Dear Jesus, ever at my side,How loving must Thou beTo leave Thy home in heaven to guardA sinful child like me.Thy beautiful and shining faceI see not, tho' so near;The sweetness of Thy soft low voiceI am too deaf to hear.I cannot feel Thee touch my handWith pressure light and mild,To check me as my mother didWhen I was but a child;But I have felt Thee in my thoughtsFighting with sin for me,And when my heart loves God I knowThe sweetness is from Thee.

Dear Jesus, ever at my side,

How loving must Thou be

To leave Thy home in heaven to guard

A sinful child like me.

Thy beautiful and shining face

I see not, tho' so near;

The sweetness of Thy soft low voice

I am too deaf to hear.

I cannot feel Thee touch my handWith pressure light and mild,To check me as my mother didWhen I was but a child;But I have felt Thee in my thoughtsFighting with sin for me,And when my heart loves God I knowThe sweetness is from Thee.

I cannot feel Thee touch my hand

With pressure light and mild,

To check me as my mother did

When I was but a child;

But I have felt Thee in my thoughts

Fighting with sin for me,

And when my heart loves God I know

The sweetness is from Thee.

“Audientes” by Sir Arthur Sullivan is a gentle, emotional piece, rendering the first quatrain of each stanza in E flat unison, and the second in C harmony.

This simple rhyme, which has been sung perhaps in every Sunday-school in England and the United States, is from a small English book by Mary Masters. In the preface to the work, we read, “The author of the following poems never read a treatise of rhetoric or an art of poetry, nor was ever taught her English grammar. Her education rose no higher than the spelling-book or her writing-master,”

'Tis religion that can giveSweetest pleasure while we live;'Tis religion can supplySolid comfort when we die.After death its joys shall beLasting as eternity.

'Tis religion that can give

Sweetest pleasure while we live;

'Tis religion can supply

Solid comfort when we die.

After death its joys shall be

Lasting as eternity.

Save the two sentences about herself, quoted above, there is no biography of the writer. That she was good is taken for granted.

The tune-sister of the little hymn is as scant of date or history as itself. No. 422 points it out inThe Revivalist, where the name and initial seem to ascribe the authorship to Horace Waters.*

* From hisSabbath Bell. Horace Waters, a prominent Baptist layman, was born in Jefferson, Lincoln Co., Me., Nov. 1, 1812, and died in New York City, April 22, 1893. He was a piano-dealer and publisher.

This child's hymn was written by a lover of children, Mr. Andrew Young, head master of Niddrey St. School, Edinburgh, and subsequently English instructor at Madras College, E.I. He was born April 23, 1807, and died Nov. 30, 1899, and long before the end of the century which his life-time so nearly covered his little carol had become one of the universal hymns.

AHindooair or natural chanson, that may have been hummed in a pagan temple in the hearing of Mr. Young, was the basis of the little melody since made familiar to millions of prattling tongues.

Such running tone-rhythms create themselves in the instinct of the ruder nations and tribes, and even the South African savages have their incantations with the provincial “clicks” that mark the singers' time. With an ear for native chirrups and trills, the author of our pretty infant-school song succeeded in capturing one, and making a Christian tune of it.

The musician, Samuel Sebastian Wesley, sometime in the eighteen-forties, tried to substitute another melody for the lines, but “There is a happy land” needs its own birth-music.

Another cazonet for the infant class. Instead of a hymn, however, it is only a refrain, and—like the ring-chant of the “Hebrew Children,” and even more simple—owes its only variety to the change of one word. The third and fourth lines,—

My father calls me, I must goTo meet Him in the Promised Land,

My father calls me, I must go

To meet Him in the Promised Land,

—take their cue from the first, which may sing,—

I have a Saviour——I have a mother——I have a brother——

I have a Saviour——

I have a mother——

I have a brother——

—and so on ad libitum. But the little ones love every sound and syllable of the lisping song, for it is plain and pleasing, and when a pinafore school grows restless nothing will sooner charm them into quiet than to chime its innocent unison.

Both words and tune are nameless and storyless.

While riding in a stage-coach, after a visit to a mission school for poor children, this hymn came to the mind of Mrs. Jemima Thompson Luke, of Islington, England. It speaks its own purpose plainly enough, to awaken religious feeling in young hearts, and guide and sanctify the natural childlike interest in the sweetest incident of the Saviour's life.

I think when I read that sweet story of oldWhen Jesus was here among men,How He called little children as lambs to His fold,I should like to have been with them then.I wish that His hands had been laid on my head,And I had been placed on His knee,And that I might have seen His kind look when He said,“Let the little ones come unto me.”

I think when I read that sweet story of oldWhen Jesus was here among men,How He called little children as lambs to His fold,I should like to have been with them then.

I think when I read that sweet story of old

When Jesus was here among men,

How He called little children as lambs to His fold,

I should like to have been with them then.

I wish that His hands had been laid on my head,And I had been placed on His knee,And that I might have seen His kind look when He said,“Let the little ones come unto me.”

I wish that His hands had been laid on my head,

And I had been placed on His knee,

And that I might have seen His kind look when He said,

“Let the little ones come unto me.”

This is not poetry, but it phrases a wish in a child's own way, to be melodized and fixed in a child's reverent and sensitive memory.

Mrs. Luke was born at Colebrook Terrace, near London, Aug. 19, 1813. She was an accomplished and benevolent lady who did much for the education and welfare of the poor. Her hymn—of five stanzas—was first sung in a village school at Poundford Park, and was not published until 1841.

It is interesting, not to say curious, testimony to the vital quality of this meek production that so many composers have set it to music, or that successive hymn-book editors have kept it, and printed it to so many different harmonies. All the chorals that carry it have substantially the same movement—for the spondaic accent of the long lines is compulsory—but their offerings sing “to one clear harp in divers tones.”

The appearance of the words in one hymnal with Sir William Davenant's air (full scored) to Moore's love-song, “Believe me, if all those357 /307endearing young charms,” now known as the tune of “Fair Harvard,” is rather startling at first, but the adoption is quite in keeping with the policy of Luther and Wesley.

“St. Kevin” written to it forty years ago by John Henry Cornell, organist of St. Paul's, New York City, is sweet and sympathetic.

The newest church collection (1905) gives the beautiful air and harmony of “Athens” to the hymn, and notes the music as a “Greek Melody.”

But the nameless English tune, of uncertain authorship*that accompanies the words in the smaller old manuals, and which delighted Sunday-schools for a generation, is still the favorite in the memory of thousands, and may be the very music first written.

* Harmonized by Hubert P. Main.

Mrs. Elizabeth Mills, wife of the Hon. Thomas Mills, M.P., was born at Stoke Newington, Eng., 1805. She was one of the brief voices that sing one song and die. This hymn was the only note of her minstrelsy, and it has outlived her by more than three-quarters of a century. She wrote it about three weeks before her decease in Finsbury Place, London, April 21, 1839, at the age of twenty-four.

We speak of the land of the blest,A country so bright and so fair,And oft are its glories confest,But what must it be to be there!* * * * * *358 /308We speak of its freedom from sin,From sorrow, temptation and care,From trials without and within,But what must it be to be there!

We speak of the land of the blest,A country so bright and so fair,And oft are its glories confest,But what must it be to be there!

We speak of the land of the blest,

A country so bright and so fair,

And oft are its glories confest,

But what must it be to be there!

* * * * * *

358 /308We speak of its freedom from sin,From sorrow, temptation and care,From trials without and within,But what must it be to be there!

We speak of its freedom from sin,

From sorrow, temptation and care,

From trials without and within,

But what must it be to be there!

The hymn, like several of the Gospel hymns besides, was carried into the Sunday-schools by its music. Mr. Stebbins' popular duet-and-chorus is fluent and easily learned and rendered by rote; and while it captures the ear and compels the voice of the youngest, it expresses both the pathos and the exaltation of the words.

George Coles Stebbins was born in East Carleton, Orleans Co., N.Y., Feb. 26, 1846. Educated at common school, and an academy in Albany, he turned his attention to music and studied in Rochester, Chicago, and Boston. It was in Chicago that his musical career began, while chorister at the First Baptist Church; and while holding the same position at Clarendon St. Church, Boston, (1874–6), he entered on a course of evangelistic work with D.L. Moody as gospel singer and composer. He was co-editor with Sankey and McGranahan ofGospel Hymns.

This hymn, beginning originally with the lines,—

Up and away like the dew of the morning,Soaring from earth to its home in the sun,

Up and away like the dew of the morning,

Soaring from earth to its home in the sun,

—has been repeatedly altered since it left Dr. Bonar's hands. Besides the change of metaphors, the first personal pronoun singular is changed to the plural. There was strength, and a natural vivacity in—

So letmesteal away gently and lovingly,Only remembered for whatIhave done.

So letmesteal away gently and lovingly,

Only remembered for whatIhave done.

As at present sung the first stanza reads—,

Fading away like the stars of the morningLosing their light in the glorious sun,Thus wouldwepass from the earth and its toilingOnly remembered for whatwehave done.

Fading away like the stars of the morning

Losing their light in the glorious sun,

Thus wouldwepass from the earth and its toiling

Only remembered for whatwehave done.

The idea voiced in the refrain is true and beautiful, and the very euphony of its words helps to enforce its meaning and make the song pleasant and suggestive for young and old. It has passed into popular quotation, and become almost a proverb.

The tune (inGospel Hymns No. 6) is Mr. Sankey's.

Ira David Sankey was born in Edinburgh, Lawrence Co., Pa., Aug. 28, 1840. He united with the Methodist Church at the age of fifteen, and became choir leader, Sunday-school superintendent and president of the Y.M.C.A., all in his native town. Hearing Philip Phillips sing impressed him deeply, when a young man, with the power of a gifted solo vocalist over assembled multitudes, but he did not fully realize his own capability till Dwight360 /310L. Moody heard his remarkable voice and convinced him of his divine mission to be a gospel singer.

The success of his revival tours with Mr. Moody in America and England is history.

Mr. Sankey has compiled at least five singing books, and has written theStory of the Gospel Hymns. Until overtaken by blindness, in his later years he frequently appeared as a lecturer on sacred music. The manuscript of his story of theGospel Hymnswas destroyed by accident, but, undismayed by the ruin of his work, and the loss of his eye-sight, like Sir Isaac Newton and Thomas Carlyle, he began his task again. With the help of an amanuensis the book was restored and, in 1905, given to the public. (Seepage 258.)

Mrs. Dorothy Ann Thrupp, of Paddington Green, London, the author of this hymn, was born June 20, 1799, and died, in London, Dec. 14, 1847. Her hymns first appeared in Mrs. Herbert Mayo'sSelection of Poetry and Hymns for the Use of Infant and Juvenile Schools, (1838).

We are Thine, do Thou befriend us,Be the Guardian of our way:Keep Thy flock, from sin defend us,Seek us when we go astray;Blessed Jesus,Hear, O hear us when we pray.

We are Thine, do Thou befriend us,

Be the Guardian of our way:

Keep Thy flock, from sin defend us,

Seek us when we go astray;

Blessed Jesus,

Hear, O hear us when we pray.

The tune everywhere accepted and loved is W.B. Bradbury's; written in 1856.

A much used and valued hymn, with a captivating tune and chorus for young assemblies. Both words and music are by H.R. Palmer, composed in 1868.

Yield not to temptation,For yielding is sin;Each vict'ry will help youSome other to win.Fight manfully onward,Dark passions subdue;Look ever to Jesus,He will carry you through.

Yield not to temptation,For yielding is sin;Each vict'ry will help youSome other to win.

Yield not to temptation,

For yielding is sin;

Each vict'ry will help you

Some other to win.

Fight manfully onward,Dark passions subdue;Look ever to Jesus,He will carry you through.

Fight manfully onward,

Dark passions subdue;

Look ever to Jesus,

He will carry you through.

Horatio Richmond Palmer was born in Sherburne, N.Y., April 26. 1834, of a musical family, and sang alto in his father's choir when only nine. He studied music unremittingly, and taught music at fifteen. Brought up in a Christian home, his religious life began in his youth, and he consecrated his art to the good of man and the glory of God.

He became well-known as a composer of sacred music, and as a publisher—the sales of hisSong Queenamounting to 200,000 copies. As a leader of musical conventions and in the Church Choral Union, his influence in elevating the standard of song-worship has been widely felt.

“While the days are going by” is the refrain of the song, and the line by which it is recognized. The hymn or poem was written by George Cooper. He was born in New York City, May 14, 1840—a writer of poems and magazine articles,—composed “While the days are going by” in 1870.

There are lonely hearts to cherishWhile the days are going by.There are weary souls who perishWhile the days are going by.Up! then, trusty hearts and true,Though the day comes, night comes, too:Oh, the good we all may doWhile the days are going by!

There are lonely hearts to cherish

While the days are going by.

There are weary souls who perish

While the days are going by.

Up! then, trusty hearts and true,

Though the day comes, night comes, too:

Oh, the good we all may do

While the days are going by!

There are few more practical and always-timely verses than this three-stanza poem.

A very musical tune, with spirited chorus, (inGospel Hymns) bears the name of the refrain, and was composed by Mr. Sankey.

A sweet and quieter harmony (uncredited) is mated with the hymn in the oldBaptist Praise Book(p. 507) and this was long the fixture to the words, in both Sunday-school and week-day school song-books.

Fanny J. CrosbyFanny J. Crosby(Mrs. Van Alstyne)Hymnal

This Sunday-school lyric is the work of Fanny J. Crosby (Mrs. Van Alstyne). Like her other and363 /313greater hymn, “Jesus keep me near the Cross,” (noted on p. 156,) it reveals the habitual attitude of the pious author's mind, and the simple earnestness of her own faith as well as her desire to win others.

Jesus the water of life will giveFreely, freely, freely;Jesus the water of life will giveFreely to those who love Him.The Spirit and the Bride say “ComeFreely, freely, freely.And he that is thirsty let him comeAnd drink the water of life.”

Jesus the water of life will giveFreely, freely, freely;Jesus the water of life will giveFreely to those who love Him.

Jesus the water of life will give

Freely, freely, freely;

Jesus the water of life will give

Freely to those who love Him.

The Spirit and the Bride say “ComeFreely, freely, freely.And he that is thirsty let him comeAnd drink the water of life.”

The Spirit and the Bride say “Come

Freely, freely, freely.

And he that is thirsty let him come

And drink the water of life.”

Full chorus,—

The Fountain of life is flowing,Flowing, freely flowing;The Fountain of life is flowing,Is flowing for you and for me.

The Fountain of life is flowing,

Flowing, freely flowing;

The Fountain of life is flowing,

Is flowing for you and for me.

The hymn must be sung as it wasmadeto be sung, and the composer being many yearsen rapportwith the writer, knew how to put all her metrical rhythms into sweet sound. The tune—in Mr. Bradbury'sFresh Laurels(1867)—is one of his sympathetic interpretations, and, with the duet sung by two of the best singers of the middle class Sunday-school girls, is a melodious and impressive piece.

The Rev. W.O. Cushing, with the beautiful thought in Malachi 3:17 singing in his soul, composed this favorite Sunday-school hymn, which has gone round the world.

When He cometh, when He comethTo make up His jewels,All the jewels, precious jewels,His loved and His own.Like the stars of the morning,His bright brow adorningThey shall shine in their beautyBright gems for His crown.He will gather, He will gatherThe gems for His Kingdom,All the pure ones, all the bright ones,His loved and His own.Like the stars, etc.Little children, little childrenWho love their Redeemer,Are the jewels, precious jewelsHis loved and His own,Like the stars, etc.

When He cometh, when He cometh

To make up His jewels,

All the jewels, precious jewels,

His loved and His own.

Like the stars of the morning,

His bright brow adorning

They shall shine in their beauty

Bright gems for His crown.

He will gather, He will gatherThe gems for His Kingdom,All the pure ones, all the bright ones,His loved and His own.Like the stars, etc.

He will gather, He will gather

The gems for His Kingdom,

All the pure ones, all the bright ones,

His loved and His own.

Like the stars, etc.

Little children, little childrenWho love their Redeemer,Are the jewels, precious jewelsHis loved and His own,Like the stars, etc.

Little children, little children

Who love their Redeemer,

Are the jewels, precious jewels

His loved and His own,

Like the stars, etc.

Rev. William Orcutt Cushing of Hingham, Mass., born Dec. 31, 1823, wrote this little hymn when a young man (1856), probably with no idea of achieving a literary performance. But it rings; and even if it is a “ringing of changes” on pretty syllables, that is not all. There is a thought in it thatsings. Its glory came to it, however, when it365 /315got its tune—and he must have had a subconsciousness of the tune he wanted when he made the lines for his Sunday-school. He died Oct. 19, 1902.

The composer of the music for the “Jewel Hymn"*was George F. Root, then living in Reading, Mass.

* Comparison of the “Jewel Hymn” tune with the old glee of “Johnny Schmoker” gives color to the assertion that Mr. Root caught up and adapted a popular ditty for his Christian melody—as was so often done in Wales, and in the Lutheran and Wesleyan reformations. He baptized the comic fugue, and promoted it from the vaudeville stage to the Sunday School.

A minister returning from Europe on an English steamer visited the steerage, and after some friendly talk proposed a singing service—it something could be started that “everybody” knew—for there were hundreds of emigrants there from nearly every part of Europe.

“It will have to be an American tune, then,” said the steerage-master; “try ‘His jewels.’”

The minister struck out at once with the melody and words,—

When He cometh, when He cometh,

—and scores of the poor half-fare multitude joined voices with him. Many probably recognized the music of the old glee, and some had heard the sweet air played in the church-steeples at home. Other voices chimed in, male and female, catching the air, and sometimes the words—they were so easy and so many times repeated—and the volume of366 /316song increased, till the singing minister stood in the midst of an international concert, the most novel that he ever led.

He tried other songs in similar visits during the rest of the voyage with some success, but the “Jewel Hymn” was the favorite; and by the time port was in sight the whole crowd of emigrants had it by heart.

The steamer landed at Quebec, and when the trains, filled with the new arrivals, rolled away, the song was swelling from nearly every car,—

When He cometh, when He cometh,To make up His jewels.

When He cometh, when He cometh,

To make up His jewels.

The composer of the tune—with all the patriotic and sacred master-pieces standing to his credit—never reaped a richer triumph than he shared with his poet-partner that day, when “Precious Jewels” came back to them from over the sea. More than this, there was missionary joy for them both that their tuneful work had done something to hallow the homes of alien settlers with an American Christian psalm.

George Frederick Root, Doctor of Music, was born in Sheffield, Mass., 1820, eldest of a family of eight children, and spent his youth on a farm. His genius for music drew him to Boston, where he became a pupil of Lowell Mason, and soon advanced so far as to teach music himself and lead the choir in Park St. church. Afterwards he went to New York as director of music in Dr. Deems's Church of the367 /317Strangers. In 1852, after a year's absence and study in Europe, he returned to New York, and founded the Normal Musical Institute. In 1860, he removed to Chicago where he spent the remainder of his life writing and publishing music. He died Aug. 6, 1895, in Maine.

In the truly popular sense Dr. Root was the best-known American composer; not excepting Stephen C. Foster. Root's “Hazel Dell,” “There's Music in the Air,” and “Rosalie the Prairie Flower” were universal tunes—(words by Fanny Crosby,)—as also his music to Henry Washburn's “Vacant Chair.” The songs in his cantata, “The Haymakers,” were sung in the shops and factories everywhere, and his war-time music, in such melodies as “Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom” and “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching” took the country by storm.

This amiable and tuneful poem, suggested by Rom. 12:10, is from the pen of Mary Louise Riley (Mrs. Albert Smith) of New York City. She was born in Brighton, Monroe Co., N.Y. May 27, 1843.

Let us gather up the sunbeamsLying all along our path;Let us keep the wheat and rosesCasting out the thorns and chaff.368 /318Chorus.Then scatter seeds of kindness (ter)For our reaping by and by.

Let us gather up the sunbeamsLying all along our path;Let us keep the wheat and rosesCasting out the thorns and chaff.

Let us gather up the sunbeams

Lying all along our path;

Let us keep the wheat and roses

Casting out the thorns and chaff.

368 /318Chorus.Then scatter seeds of kindness (ter)For our reaping by and by.

Chorus.

Then scatter seeds of kindness (ter)

For our reaping by and by.

Silas Jones Vail, the tune-writer, for this hymn, was born Oct. 1818, and died May 20, 1883. For years he worked at the hatter's trade, with Beebe on Broadway, N.Y. and afterwards in an establishment of his own. His taste and talent led him into musical connections, and from time to time, after relinquishing his trade, he was with Horace Waters, Philip Phillips, W.B. Bradbury, and F.J. Smith, the piano dealer. He was a choir leader and a good composer.

This hymn of Bp. Heber inculcates the same lesson as that in the stanzas of Michael Bruce before noted, with added emphasis for the young on the briefness of time and opportunity even for them.

How fair the lily grows,

—is answered by—

The lily must decay,

—but, owing to the sweetness of the favorite melody, it was never a saddening hymn for children.

Though George Kingsley's “Heber” has in some books done service for the Bishop's lines, “Siloam,”369 /319easy-flowing and finely harmonized, is knit to the words as no other tune can be. It was composed by Isaac Baker Woodbury on shipboard during a storm at sea. A stronger illustration of tranquil thought in terrible tumult was never drawn.

“O Galilee, Sweet Galilee,” whose history has been given at theend of chapter six, was not only often sung in Sunday-schools, but chimed (in the cities) on steeple-bells—nor is it by any means forgotten today—on the Sabbath and in social singing assemblies. Like “Precious Jewels,” it has been, in many places, taken up by street boys with a relish, and often displaced the play-house ditties in the lips of little newsboys and bootblacks during a leisure hour or a happy mood.

This lively little melody is still a welcome choice to many a lady teacher of fluttering five-year-olds, when both vocal indulgence and good gospel are needed for the prattlers in her class. It has been as widely sung in Scotland as in America. Mr. Philip P. Bliss, hearing one day the words of the familiar chorus—

O, how I love Jesus,

—suddenly thought to himself,—

“I have sung long enough of my poor love to Christ, and now I will sing of His love for me.” Under the inspiration of this thought, he wrote—

I am so glad that our Father in heavenTells of His love in the book He has givenWonderful things in the Bible I see,This is the dearest—that Jesus loves me.

I am so glad that our Father in heaven

Tells of His love in the book He has given

Wonderful things in the Bible I see,

This is the dearest—that Jesus loves me.

Both words and music are by Mr. Bliss.

The history of modern Sunday-school hymnody—or much of it—is so nearly identified with that of theGospel Hymnsthat other selections like the last, which might be appropriate here, may be considered in a later chapter, where that eventful series of sacred songs receives special notice.

The ethnic anthologies growing out of love of country are a mingled literature of filial and religious piety, ranging from war-like pæans to lyric prayers. They become the cherished inheritance of a nation, and, once fixed in the common memory and common heart, the people rarely let them die. The “Songs of the Fathers” have perennial breath, and in every generation—

The green woods of their native landShall whisper in the strain;The voices of their household bandShall sweetly speak again.—Felicia Hemans.

The green woods of their native land

Shall whisper in the strain;

The voices of their household band

Shall sweetly speak again.

—Felicia Hemans.

American pride has often gloried in Seneca's “Vision of the West,” more than eighteen hundred years ago.

Venient annisSæcula seris, quibus OceanusVincula rerum laxet, et ingens372 /322Pateat tellus, Typhisque novosDetegat orbes, nec sit terrisUltima Thule.A time will come in future ages farWhen Ocean will his circling bounds unbar.And, opening vaster to the Pilot's hand,New worlds shall rise, where mightier kingdoms are,Nor Thule longer be the utmost land.

Venient annisSæcula seris, quibus OceanusVincula rerum laxet, et ingens372 /322Pateat tellus, Typhisque novosDetegat orbes, nec sit terrisUltima Thule.

Venient annis

Sæcula seris, quibus Oceanus

Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens

Pateat tellus, Typhisque novos

Detegat orbes, nec sit terris

Ultima Thule.

A time will come in future ages farWhen Ocean will his circling bounds unbar.And, opening vaster to the Pilot's hand,New worlds shall rise, where mightier kingdoms are,Nor Thule longer be the utmost land.

A time will come in future ages far

When Ocean will his circling bounds unbar.

And, opening vaster to the Pilot's hand,

New worlds shall rise, where mightier kingdoms are,

This poetic forecast, of which Washington Irving wrote “the predictions of the ancient oracles were rarely so unequivocal,” is part of the “chorus” at the end of the second act of Seneca's “Medea,” written near the date of St. Paul's first Epistle to the Thessalonians.

Seneca, the celebrated Roman (Stoic) philosopher, was born at or very near the time of our Saviour's birth. There are legends of his acquaintance with Paul, at Rome, but though he wrote able and quotable treatisesOn Consolation,On Providence,On Calmness of Soul, andOn the Blessed Life, there is no direct evidence that the savor of Christian faith ever qualified his works or his personal principles. He was a man of grand ideas and inspirations, but he was a time server and a flatterer of the Emperor Nero, who, nevertheless, caused his death when he had no further use for him.

His compulsory suicide occurred A.D. 65, the year in which St. Paul is supposed to have suffered martyrdom.

Sitting at the tea-table one evening, near a century ago, Mrs. Hemans read an old account of the “Landing of the Pilgrims,” and was inspired to write this poem, which became a favorite in America—like herself, and all her other works.

The ballad is inaccurate in details, but presents the spirit of the scene with true poet insight. Mr. James T. Fields, the noted Boston publisher, visited the lady in her old age, and received an autograph copy of the poem, which is seen in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Mass.

The breaking waves dashed high, on a stern and rock-bound coast,And the woods against a stormy sky, their giant branches tossed,And the heavy night hung dark, the hills and waters o'er,When a band of exiles moored their bark on the wild New England shore.Not as the conqueror comes, they, the true-hearted, came;Not with the roll of stirring drums, and the trumpet that sings of fame;Not as the flying come, in silence and in fear,—Theyshook the depths of the desert's gloom with their hymns of lofty cheer.Amidst the storm they sang, and the stars heard, and the sea!And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang to the anthem of the free!The ocean eagle soared from his nest by the white waves' foam,And the rocking pines of the forest roared,—this was their welcome home!374 /324There were men with hoary hair amidst that pilgrim band,—Why hadtheycome to wither there, away from their childhood's land?There was woman's fearless eye, lit by her deep love's truth;There was manhood's brow, serenely high, and the fiery heart of youth.What sought they thus afar? bright jewels of the mine?The wealth of seas? the spoils of war?—They sought a faith's pure shrine!Ay, call it holy ground, the soil where first they trod;They left unstained what there they found,—freedom to worship God!

The breaking waves dashed high, on a stern and rock-bound coast,

And the woods against a stormy sky, their giant branches tossed,

And the heavy night hung dark, the hills and waters o'er,

When a band of exiles moored their bark on the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes, they, the true-hearted, came;Not with the roll of stirring drums, and the trumpet that sings of fame;Not as the flying come, in silence and in fear,—Theyshook the depths of the desert's gloom with their hymns of lofty cheer.

Not as the conqueror comes, they, the true-hearted, came;

Not with the roll of stirring drums, and the trumpet that sings of fame;

Not as the flying come, in silence and in fear,—

Theyshook the depths of the desert's gloom with their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang, and the stars heard, and the sea!And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang to the anthem of the free!The ocean eagle soared from his nest by the white waves' foam,And the rocking pines of the forest roared,—this was their welcome home!

Amidst the storm they sang, and the stars heard, and the sea!

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang to the anthem of the free!

The ocean eagle soared from his nest by the white waves' foam,

And the rocking pines of the forest roared,—this was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair amidst that pilgrim band,—Why hadtheycome to wither there, away from their childhood's land?There was woman's fearless eye, lit by her deep love's truth;There was manhood's brow, serenely high, and the fiery heart of youth.

There were men with hoary hair amidst that pilgrim band,—

Why hadtheycome to wither there, away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye, lit by her deep love's truth;

There was manhood's brow, serenely high, and the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar? bright jewels of the mine?The wealth of seas? the spoils of war?—They sought a faith's pure shrine!Ay, call it holy ground, the soil where first they trod;They left unstained what there they found,—freedom to worship God!

What sought they thus afar? bright jewels of the mine?

The wealth of seas? the spoils of war?—They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Ay, call it holy ground, the soil where first they trod;

They left unstained what there they found,—freedom to worship God!

Felicia Dorothea Browne (Mrs. Hemans) was born in Liverpool, Eng., 1766, and died 1845.

The original tune is not now accessible. It was composed by Mrs. Mary E. (Browne) Arkwright, Mrs. Hemans' sister, and published in England about 1835. But the words have been sung in this country to “Silver St.,” a choral not entirely forgotten, credited to an English composer, Isaac Smith, born, in London, about 1735, and died there in 1800.

Usually misquoted “Westward theStarof Empire,” etc. This poem of Bishop Berkeley possesses no lyrical quality but, like the ancient Roman's words, partakes of the prophetic spirit, and has always been dear to the American heart375 /325by reason of the above line. It seems to formulate the “manifest destiny” of a great colonizing race that has already absorbed a continent, and extended its sway across the Pacific ocean.

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay;Such as she bred when fresh and young,When heavenly flame did animate her clay,By future poets shall be sung.Westward the course of empire takes its way;The four first acts already past,The fifth shall close the drama of the day:Time's noblest offspring is the last.

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay;Such as she bred when fresh and young,When heavenly flame did animate her clay,By future poets shall be sung.

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay;

Such as she bred when fresh and young,

When heavenly flame did animate her clay,

By future poets shall be sung.

Westward the course of empire takes its way;The four first acts already past,The fifth shall close the drama of the day:Time's noblest offspring is the last.

Westward the course of empire takes its way;

The four first acts already past,

The fifth shall close the drama of the day:

Time's noblest offspring is the last.

George Berkeley was born March 12, 1684, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. A remarkable student, he became a remarkable man, as priest, prelate, and philosopher. High honors awaited him at home, but the missionary passion seized him. Inheriting a small fortune, he sailed to the West, intending to evangelize and educate the Indians of the “Summer Islands,” but the ship lost her course, and landed him at Newport, R.I., instead of the Bermudas. Here he was warmly welcomed, but was disappointed in his plans and hopes of founding a native college by the failure of friends in England to forward funds, and after a residence of six years he returned home. He died at Cloyne, Ireland, 1753.

The house which Bishop Berkeley built is still shown (or was until very recently) at Newport after one hundred and seventy-eight years. He wrote thePrinciples of Human Knowledge,376 /326theMinute Philosopher, and many other works of celebrity in their time, and a scholarship in Yale bears his name; but he is best loved in this country for hisOde to America.

Pope in his list of great men ascribes—

To Berkeley every virtue under heaven.

One would scarcely guess that this bravura hymn of victory and “Come, ye disconsolate,” were written by the same person, but both are by Thomas Moore. The song has all the vigor and vivacity of his “Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls,” without its pathos. The Irish poet chose the song of Miriam instead of the song of Deborah doubtless because the sentiment and strain of the first of these two great female patriots lent themselves more musically to his lyric verse—and his poem is certainly martial enough to convey the spirit of both.

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