CHAPTER VI.

No foot of land do I possess,No cottage in this wilderness;A poor wayfaring man,254 /212I lodge awhile in tents below,Or gladly wander to and froTill I my Canaan gain.More modern voices sing the John Wesley hymn to the tune “Habakkuk,” by Edward Hodges. It has a lively three-four step, and finer melody than the old.Edward Hodges was born in Bristol, Eng., July 20, 1796, and died there Sept. 1876. Organist at Bristol in his youth, he was graduated at Cambridge and in 1825 received the doctorate of music from that University. In 1835 he went to Toronto, Canada, and two years later to New York city, where he was many years Director of Music at Trinity Church. Returned to Bristol in 1863.“WHEN GATHERING CLOUDS AROUND I VIEW.”One of the restful strains breathed out of illness and affliction to relieve one soul and bless millions. It was written by Sir Robert Grant (1785–1838).When gathering clouds around I view,And days are dark, and friends are few,On Him I lean who not in vainExperienced every human pain.The lines are no less admirable for their literary beauty than for their feeling and their faith. Unconsciously, it may be, to the writer, in this and the following stanza are woven an epitome of the Saviour's history. He—255 /213Experienced every human pain,—felt temptation's power,—wept o'er Lazarus dead,—and the crowning assurance of Jesus' human sympathy is expressed in the closing prayer,——when I have safely passedThro' every conflict but the last,Still, still unchanging watch besideMy painful bed—forThou hast died.THE TUNE.Of the few suitable six-line long metre part songs, the charming Russian tone-poem of “St. Petersburg” by Dimitri Bortniansky is borrowed for the hymn in some collections, and with excellent effect. It accords well with the mood and tenor of the words, and deserves to stay with it as long as the hymn holds its place.Dimitri Bortniansky, called “The Russian Palestrina,” was born in 1752 at Gloukoff, a village of the Ukraine. He studied music in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vienna, Rome and Naples. Returning to his native land, he was made Director of Empress Catharine's church choir. He reformed and systematized Russian church music, and wrote original scores in the intervals of his teaching labors. His works are chiefly motets and concertos, which show his genius for rich harmony. Died 1825.256 /214“JUST AS I AM, WITHOUT ONE PLEA.”Charlotte Elliott, of Brighton, Eng., would have been well-known through her admired and useful hymns,—My God, my Father, while I stray,My God, is any hour so sweet,With tearful eyes I look around,—and many others. But in “Just as I am” she made herself a voice in the soul of every hesitating penitent. The currency of the hymn has been too swift for its authorship and history to keep up with, but it is a blessed law of influence that good works out-run biographies. This master-piece of metrical gospel might be called Miss Elliott's spiritual-birth hymn, for a reply of Dr. Cæsar Malan of Geneva was its prompting cause. The young lady was a stranger to personal religion when, one day, the good man, while staying at her father's house, in his gentle way introduced the subject. She resented it, but afterwards, stricken in spirit by his words, came to him with apologies and an inquiry that confessed a new concern of mind. “You speak of coming to Jesus, but how? I'm not fit to come.”“Come just as you are,” said Dr. Malan.The hymn tells the result.Like all the other hymns bound up in herInvalid's Hymn-book, it was poured from out the heart of one who, as the phrase is, “never knew a257 /215well day”—though she lived to see her eighty-second year.Illustrative of the way it appeals to the afflicted, a little anecdote was told by the eloquent John B. Gough of his accidental seat-mate in a city church service. A man of strange appearance was led by the kind usher or sexton to the pew he occupied. Mr. Gough eyed him with strong aversion. The man's face was mottled, his limbs and mouth twitched, and he mumbled singular sounds. When the congregation sang he attempted to sing, but made fearful work of it. During the organ interlude he leaned toward Mr. Gough and asked how the next verse began. It was—Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind.“That's it,” sobbed the strange man, “I'm blind—God help me!”—and the tears ran down his face—“and I'm wretched—and paralytic,” and then he tried hard to sing the line with the rest.“After that,” said Mr. Gough, “the poor paralytic's singing was as sweet to me as a Beethoven symphony.”Charlotte Elliott was born March 18, 1789, and died in Brighton, Sept. 22, 1871. She stands in the front rank of female hymn-writers.The tune of “Woodworth,” by William B. Bradbury, has mostly superseded Mason's “Elliott,” and is now the accepted music of this lyric of perfect faith and pious surrender.258 /216Just as I am,—Thy love unknownHath broken every barrier down,Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,O Lamb of God, I come, I come.“MY HOPE IS BUILT ON NOTHING LESS.”The Rev. Edward Mote was born in London, 1797. According to his own testimony his parents were not God-fearing people, and he “went to a school where no Bible was allowed;” but at the age of sixteen he received religious impressions from a sermon of John Hyatt in Tottenham Court Chapel, was converted two years later, studied for the ministry, and ultimately became a faithful preacher of the gospel. Settled as pastor of the Baptist Church in Horsham, Sussex, he remained there twenty-six years—until his death, Nov. 13, 1874. The refrain of his hymn came to him one Sabbath when on his way to Holborn to exchange pulpits:On Christ the solid rock I stand,All other ground is sinking sand.There were originally six stanzas, the first beginning:Nor earth, nor hell, my soul can move,I rest upon unchanging love.The refrain is a fine one, and really sums up the whole hymn, keeping constantly at the front the corner-stone of the poet's trust.259 /217My hope is built on nothing lessThan Jesus' blood and righteousness.I dare not trust the sweetest frame,But only lean on Jesus' name.On Christ the solid Rock I standAll other ground is sinking sand.When darkness veils His lovely faceI trust in His unchanging grace,In every high and stormy galeMy anchor holds within the veil.On Christ the solid Rock, etc.Wm. B. Bradbury composed the tune (1863). It is usually named “The Solid Rock.”“ABIDE WITH ME! FAST FALLS THE EVENTIDE.”The Rev. Henry Francis Lyte, author of this melodious hymn-prayer, was born at Ednam, near Kelso, Scotland, June first, 1793. A scholar, graduated at Trinity College, Dublin; a poet and a musician, the hard-working curate was a man of frail physique, with a face of almost feminine beauty, and a spirit as pure and gentle as a little child's. The shadow of consumption was over him all his life. His memory is chiefly associated with the district church at Lower Brixham, Devonshire, where he became “perpetual curate” in 1823. He died at Nice, France, Nov. 20, 1847.On the evening of his last Sunday preaching and communion service he handed to one of his family the manuscript of his hymn, “Abide with me,” and the music he had composed for it. It260 /218was not till eight years later that Henry Ward Beecher introduced it, or a part of it, to American Congregationalists, and fourteen years after the author's death it began to be sung as we now have it, in this country and England.Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide,The darkness deepens,—Lord with me abide!When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,Help of the helpless, O abide with me!* * * * * *Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies;Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me!THE TUNEThere is a pathos in the neglect and oblivion of Lyte's own tune set by himself to his words, especially as it was in a sense the work of a dying man who had hoped that he might not be “wholly mute and useless” while lying in his grave, and who had prayed—O Thou whose touch can lendLife to the dead. Thy quickening grace supply,And grant me swan-like my last breath to spendIn song that may not die!His prayer was answered in God's own way. Another's melody hastened his hymn on its useful career, and revealed to the world its immortal value.261 /219By the time it had won its slow recognition in England, it was probably tuneless, and the compilers ofHymns Ancient and Modern(1861) discovering the fact just as they were finishing their work, asked Dr. William Henry Monk, their music editor, to supply the want. “In ten minutes,” it is said, “Dr. Monk composed the sweet, pleading chant that is wedded permanently to Lyte's swan song.”William Henry Monk, Doctor of Music, was born in London, 1823. His musical education was early and thorough, and at the age of twenty-six he was organist and choir director in King's College, London. Elected (1876) professor of the National Training School, he interested himself actively in popular musical education, delivering lectures at various institutions, and establishing choral services.His hymn-tunes are found in many song-manuals of the English Church and in Scotland, and several have come to America.Dr. Monk died in 1889.“COME, YE DISCONSOLATE.”By Thomas Moore—about 1814. The poem in its original form differed somewhat from the hymn we sing. Thomas Hastings—whose religious experience, perhaps, made him better qualified than Thomas Moore for spiritual expression—changed the second line,—262 /220Come, at God's altar fervently kneel,—to—Come to the mercy seat,—and in the second stanza replaced—Hope when all others die,—with—Hope of the penitent;—and for practically the whole of the last stanza—Go ask the infidel what boon he brings us,What charm for aching hearts he can reveal.Sweet as that heavenly promise hope sings us,“Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal,”—Hastings substituted—Here see the Bread of life, see waters flowingForth from the throne of God, pure from above!Come to the feast Love, come ever knowingEarth has no sorrow but heaven can remove.Dr. Hastings was not much of a poet, but he could make asingablehymn, and he knew the rhythm and accent needed in a hymn-tune. The determination was to make an evangelical hymn of a poem “too good to lose,” and in that view perhaps the editorial liberties taken with it were excusable. It was to Moore, however, that the real hymn-thought and key-note first came, and the title-line and the sweet refrain are his own—for which the Christian world has thanked him, lo these many years.263 /221THE TUNE.Those who question why Dr. Hastings' interest in Moore's poem did not cause him to make a tune for it, must conclude that it came to him with its permanent melody ready made, and that the tune satisfied him.The “German Air” to which Moore tells us he wrote the words, probably took his fancy, if it did not induce his mood. Whether Samuel Webbe's tune now wedded to the hymn is an arrangement of the old air or wholly his own is immaterial. One can scarcely conceive a happier yoking of counterparts. Try singing “Come ye Disconsolate” to “Rescue the Perishing,” for example, and we shall feel the impertinence of divorcing a hymn that has found its musical affinity.“JESUS, I MY CROSS HAVE TAKEN.”This is another well-known and characteristic hymn of Henry Francis Lyte—originally six stanzas. We have been told that, besides his bodily affliction, the grief of an unhappy division or difference in his church weighed upon his spirit, and that it is alluded to in these lines—Man may trouble and distress me,'Twill but drive me to Thy breast,Life with trials hard may press me,Heaven will bring me sweeter rest.264 /222O, 'tis not in grief to harm meWhile Thy love is left to me,O, 'tis not in joy to charm meWere that joy unmixed with Thee.Tunes, “Autumn,” by F.H. Barthelemon, or “Ellesdie,” (formerly called “Disciple”) from Mozart—familiar in either.“FROM EVERY STORMY WIND THAT BLOWS.”This is the much-sung and deeply-cherished hymn of Christian peace that a pious Manxman, Hugh Stowell, was inspired to write nearly a hundred years ago. Ever since it has carried consolation to souls in both ordinary and extraordinary trials.It was sung by the eight American martyrs, Revs. Albert Johnson, John E. Freeman, David E. Campbell and their wives, and Mr. and Mrs. McMullen, when by order of the bloody Nana Sahib the captive missionaries were taken prisoners and put to death at Cawnpore in 1857. Two little children, Fannie and Willie Campbell, suffered with their parents.From every stormy wind that blows,From every swelling tide of woesThere is a calm, a sure retreat;'Tis found beneath the Mercy Seat.Ah, whither could we flee for aidWhen tempted, desolate, dismayed,Or how the hosts of hell defeatHad suffering saints no Mercy Seat?267 /223There, there on eagle wings we soar,And sin and sense molest no more,And heaven comes down our souls to greetWhile glory crowns the Mercy Seat.Rev. Hugh Stowell was born at Douglas on the Isle of Man, Dec. 3, 1799. He was educated at Oxford and ordained to the ministry 1823, receiving twelve years later the appointment of Canon to Chester Cathedral.He was a popular and effective preacher and a graceful writer. Forty-seven hymns are credited to him, the above being the best known. To presume it is “his best,” leaves a good margin of merit for the remainder.“From every stormy wind that blows” has practically but one tune. It has been sung to Hastings “Retreat” ever since the music was made.“CHILD OF SIN AND SORROW.”Child of sin and sorrow, filled with dismay,Wait not for tomorrow, yield thee today.Heaven bids thee come, while yet there's room,Child of sin and sorrow, hear and obey.Words and music by Thomas Hastings.“LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT.”John Henry Newman, born in London, Feb. 21, 1801—known in religious history as Cardinal Newman—wrote this hymn when he was a young clergyman of the Church of England. “Born268 /224within the sound of Bow bells,” says Dr. Benson, “he was an imaginative boy, and so superstitious, that he used constantly to cross himself when going into the dark.” Intelligent students of the fine hymn will note this habit of its author's mind—and surmise its influence on his religious musings.The agitations during the High Church movement, and the persuasions of Hurrell Froude, a Romanist friend, while he was a tutor at Oxford, gradually weakened his Protestant faith, and in his unrest he travelled to the Mediterranean coast, crossed to Sicily, where he fell violently ill, and after his recovery waited three weeks in Palermo for a return boat. On his trip toMarseilleshe wrote the hymn—with no thought that it would ever be called a hymn.When complimented on the beautiful production after it became famous he modestly said, “It was not the hymn but thetunethat has gained the popularity. The tune is Dykes' and Dr. Dykes is a great master.”265 /opp 222John B. DykesJohn B. DykesHymnalDr. Newman was created a Cardinal of the Church of Rome in the Catholic Cathedral of London, 1879. Died Aug. 11, 1890.THE TUNE.“Lux Benigna,” by Dr. Dykes, was composed in Aug. 1865, and was the tune chosen for this hymn by a committee preparing the Appendix269 /225toHymns Ancient and Modern. Dr. Dykes' statement that the tune came into his head while walking through the Strand in London “presents a striking contrast with the solitary origin of the hymn itself” (Benson).Lead, kindly Light, amid th' encircling gloom,Lead Thou me on.The night is dark and I am far from home;Lead Thou me on.Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to seeThe distant scene,—one step enough for me.* * * * * *So long Thy power hath bless'd me, sure it stillWill lead me on,O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, tillThe night is gone,And with the morn those angel faces smileWhich I have loved long since, and lost awhile.“I HEARD THE VOICE OF JESUS SAY.”Few if any Christian writers of his generation have possessed tuneful gifts in greater opulence or produced more vital and lasting treasures of spiritual verse than Horatius Bonar of Scotland. He inherited some of his poetic faculty from his grandfather, a clergyman who wrote several hymns, and it is told of Horatius that hymns used to “come to” him while riding on railroad trains. He was educated in the Edinburgh University and studied theology with Dr. Chalmers, and his270 /226life was greatly influenced by Dr. Guthrie, whom he followed in the establishment of the Free Church of Scotland.Born in 1808 in Edinburgh, he was about forty years old when he came back from a successful pastorate at Kelso to the city of his home and Alma Mater, and became virtually Chalmers' successor as minister of the Chalmers Memorial Church.The peculiar richness of Bonar's sacred songs very early created for them a warm welcome in the religious world, and any devout lyric or poem with his name attached to it is sure to be read.Dr. Bonar died in Edinburgh, July 31, 1889. Writing of the hymn, “I heard the voice,” etc., Dr. David Breed calls it “one of the most ingenious hymns in the language,” referring to the fact that the invitation and response exactly halve each stanza between them—song followed by countersong. “Ingenious” seems hardly the right word for a division so obviously natural and almost automatic. It is a simple art beauty that a poet of culture makes by instinct. Bowring's “Watchman, tell us of the night,” is not the only other instance of similar countersong structure, and the regularity in Thomas Scott's little hymn, “Hasten, sinner, to be wise,” is only a simpler case of the way a poem plans itself by the compulsion of its subject.I heard the voice of Jesus say,Come unto me and rest,Lay down, thou weary one, lay downThy head upon My breast:271 /227I came to Jesus as I was,Weary and worn and sad,I found in Him a resting-place,And He has made me glad.THE TUNE.The old melody of “Evan,” long a favorite; and since known everywhere through the currency given to it in theGospel Hymns, has been in many collections connected with the words. It is good congregational psalmody, and not unsuited to the sentiment, taken line by line, but it divides the stanzas into quatrains, which breaks the happy continuity. “Evan” was made by Dr. Mason in 1850 from a song written four years earlier by Rev. William Henry Havergal, Canon of Worcester Cathedral, Eng. He was the father of Frances Ridley Havergal.The more ancient “Athens,” by Felice Giardini (1716–1796), author of the “Italian Hymn,” has clung, and still clings lovingly to Bonar's hymn in many communities. Its simplicity, and the involuntary accent of its sextuple time, exactly reproducing the easy iambic of the verses, inevitably made it popular, and thousands of older singers today will have no other music with “I heard the voice of Jesus say.”“Vox Jesu,” from the andante in one of the quartets of Louis Spohr (1784–1859), is a psalm-tune of good harmony, but too little feeling.An excellent tune for all the shades of expression272 /228in the hymn, is the arrangement by Hubert P. Main from Franz Abt—in A flat, triple time. Gentle music through the first fifteen bars, in alternate duet and quartet, utters the Divine Voice with the true accent of the lines, and the second portion completes the harmony in glad, full chorus—the answer of the human heart.“Vox Dilecti,” by Dr. Dykes, goes farther and writes the Voice in B flatminor—which seems a needless substitution of divine sadness for divine sweetness. It is a tune of striking chords, but its shift of key to G natural (major) after the first four lines marks it rather for trained choir performance than for assembly song.It is possible to make too much of a dramatic perfection or a supposed indication of structural design in a hymn. Textual equations, such as distinguish Dr. Bonar's beautiful stanzas, are not necessarily technical. To emphasize them as ingenious by an ingenious tune seems, somehow, a reflection on the spontaneity of the hymn.Louis Spohr was Director of the Court Theatre Orchestra in Cassel, Prussia, in the first half of the last century. He was an eminent composer of both vocal and instrumental music, and one of the greatest violinists of Europe.Hubert Platt Main was born in Ridgefield, Ct., Aug. 17, 1839. He read music at sight when only ten years old, and at sixteen commenced writing hymn-tunes. Was assistant compiler with both Bradbury and Woodbury in their various273 /229publications, and in 1868 became connected with the firm of Biglow and Main, and has been their book-maker until the present time. As music editor in the partnership he has superintended the publication of more than five hundred music-books, services, etc.“I LOVE TO STEAL AWHILE AWAY.”The burdened wife and mother who wrote this hymn would, at the time, have rated her history with “the short and simple annals of the poor.” But the poor who are “remembered for what they have done,” may have a larger place in history than many rich who did nothing.Phebe Hinsdale Brown, was born in Canaan, N.Y., in 1783. Her father, George Hinsdale, who died in her early childhood, must have been a man of good abilities and religious feeling, being the reputed composer of the psalm-tune, “Hinsdale,” found in some long-ago collections.Left an orphan at two years of age, Phebe “fell into the hands of a relative who kept the county jail,” and her childhood knew little but the bitter fare and ceaseless drudgery of domestic slavery. She grew up with a crushed spirit, and was a timid, shrinking woman as long as she lived. She married Timothy H. Brown, a house-painter of Ellington, Ct., and passed her days there and in Monson, Mass., where she lived some twenty-five years.274 /230In her humble home in the former town her children were born, and it was while caring for her own little family of four, and a sick sister, that the incident occurred (August 1818), which called forth her tender hymn. She was a devout Christian, and in pleasant weather, whenever she could find the leisure, she would “steal away” at sunset from her burdens a little while, to rest and commune with God. Her favorite place was a wealthy neighbor's large and beautiful flower garden. A servant reported her visits there to the mistress of the house, who called the “intruder” to account.“If you want anything, why don't you come in?” was the rude question, followed by a plain hint that no stealthy person was welcome.Wounded by the ill-natured rebuff, the sensitive woman sat down the next evening with her baby in her lap, and half-blinded by her tears, wrote “An Apology for my Twilight Rambles,” in the verses that have made her celebrated.She sent the manuscript (nine stanzas) to her captious neighbor—with what result has never been told.Crude and simple as the little rhyme was, it contained a germ of lyric beauty and life. The Rev. Dr. Charles Hyde of Ellington, who was a neighbor of Mrs. Brown, procured a copy. He was assisting Dr. Nettleton to compile theVillage Hymns, and the humble bit of devotional verse was at once judged worthy of a place in the new275 /231book. Dr. Hyde and his daughter Emeline giving it some kind touches of rhythmic amendment,I love to steal awhile awayFrom little ones and care,—became,—I love to steal awhile awayFromevery cumb'ringcare.In the last line of this stanza—In gratitude and prayer—was changed to—In humble, grateful prayer,—and the few other defects in syllabic smoothness or literary grace were affectionately repaired, but the slight furbishing it received did not alter the individuality of Mrs. Brown's work. It remainedhers—and took its place among the immortals of its kind, another illustration of how little poetry it takes to make a good hymn. Only five stanzas were printed, the others being voted redundant by both author and editor. The second and third, as now sung, are—I love in solitude to shedThe penitential tear,And all His promises to pleadWhere none but God can hear.I love to think on mercies pastAnd future good implore,And all my cares and sorrows castOn Him whom I adore.276 /232Phebe Brown died at Henry, Ill., in 1861; but she had made the church and the world her debtor not only for her little lyric of pious trust, but by rearing a son, the Rev. Samuel Brown, D.D., who became the pioneer American missionary to Japan—to which Christian calling two of her grandchildren also consecrated themselves.THE TUNE.Mrs. Brown's son Samuel, who, besides being a good minister, inherited his grandfather's musical gift, composed the tune of “Monson,” (named in his mother's honor, after her late home), and it may have been the first music set to her hymn. It was the fate of his offering, however, to lose its filial place, and be succeeded by different melodies, though his own still survives in a few collections, sometimes with Collyer's “O Jesus in this solemn hour.” It is good music for a hymn ofpraiserather than for meditative verse. Many years the hymn has been sung to “Woodstock,” an appropriate and still familiar tune by Deodatus Dutton.Dutton's “Woodstock” and Bradbury's “Brown,” which often replaces it, are worthy rivals of each other, and both continue in favor as fit choral interpretations of the much-loved hymn.Deodatus Dutton was born Dec. 22, 1808, and educated at Brown University and Washington College (now Trinity) Hartford Ct. While there he was a student of music and played the organ277 /233at Dr. Matthews' church. He studied theology in New York city, and had recently entered the ministry when he suddenly died, Dec. 16, 1832, a moment before rising to preach a sermon. During his brief life he had written several hymn-tunes, and published a book of psalmody. Mrs. Sigourney wrote a poem on his death.“THERE'S A WIDENESS IN GOD'S MERCY.”Frederick William Faber, author of this favorite hymn-poem, had a peculiar genius for putting golden thoughts into common words, and making them sing. Probably no other sample of his work shows better than this his art of combining literary cleverness with the most reverent piety. Cant was a quality Faber never could put into his religious verse.He was born in Yorkshire, Eng., June 28, 1814, and received his education at Oxford. Settled as Rector of Elton, in Huntingdonshire, in 1843, he came into sympathy with the “Oxford Movement,” and followed Newman into the Romish Church. He continued his ministry as founder and priest for the London branch of the Catholic congregation of St. Philip Neri for fourteen years, dying Sept. 26, 1863, at the age of forty-nine.His godly hymns betray no credal shibboleth or doctrinal bias, but are songs for the whole earthly church of God.278 /234There's a wideness in God's mercyLike the wideness of the sea;There's a kindness in His justiceWhich is more than liberty.There is welcome for the sinnerAnd more graces for the good;There is mercy with the Saviour,There is healing in His blood.There's no place where earthly sorrowsAre more felt than up in heaven;There's no place where earthly failingsHave such kindly judgment given.There is plentiful redemptionIn the blood that has been shed,There is joy for all the membersIn the sorrows of the Head.For the love of God is broaderThan the measure of man's mind,And the heart of the EternalIs most wonderfully kind.If our love were but more simpleWe should take Him at His word,And our lives would be all sunshineIn the sweetness of the Lord.No tone of comfort has breathed itself more surely and tenderly into grieved hearts than these tuneful and singularly expressive sentences of Frederick Faber.THE TUNE.The music of S.J. Vail sung to Faber's hymn is one of that composer's best hymn-tunes, and its279 /235melody and natural movement impress the meaning as well as the simple beauty of the words.Silas Jones Vail, an American music-writer, was born Oct., 1818, and died May 20, 1883. Another charming tune is “Wellesley,” by Lizzie S. Tourjee, daughter of the late Dr. Eben Tourjee.“HE LEADETH ME! OH, BLESSED THOUGHT.”Professor Gilmore, of Rochester University, N.Y., when a young Baptist minister (1861) supplying a pulpit in Philadelphia “jotted down this hymn in Deacon Watson's parlor” (as he says) and passed it to his wife, one evening after he had made “a conference-room talk” on the 23d Psalm.Mrs. Gilmore, without his knowledge, sent it to theWatchman and Reflector(now theWatchman).Years after its publication in that paper, when a candidate for the pastorate of the Second Baptist Church in Rochester, he was turning the leaves of the vestry hymnal in use there, and saw his hymn in it. Since that first publication in theDevotional Hymn and Tune Book(1865) it has been copied in the hymnals of various denominations, and steadily holds its place in public favor. The refrain added by the tunemaker emphasizes the sentiment of the lines, and undoubtedly enhances the effect of the hymn.“He leadeth me” has the true hymn quality, combining all the simplicity of spontaneous thought and feeling with perfect accent and liquid rhythm.280 /236He leadeth me! Oh, blessed thought,Oh, words with heavenly comfort fraught;Whate'er I do, where'er I be,Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me!* * * * * *Lord, I would clasp Thy hand in mine,Nor ever murmur nor repine—Content, whatever lot I see,Since 'tis my God that leadeth me.Professor Joseph Henry Gilmore was born in Boston, April 29, 1834. He was graduated at Phillips Academy, Andover, at Brown University, and at the Newton Theological Institution, where he was afterwards Hebrew instructor.After four years of pastoral service he was elected (1867) professor of the English Language and Literature in Rochester University. He has publishedFamiliar Chats on Books and Reading, also several college text-books on rhetoric, logic and oratory.THE TUNE.The little hymn of four stanzas was peculiarly fortunate in meeting the eye of Mr. William B. Bradbury, (1863) and winning his musical sympathy and alliance. Few composers have so exactly caught the tone and spirit of their text as Bradbury did when he vocalized the gliding measures of “He leadeth me.”281 /237CHAPTER VI.CHRISTIAN BALLADS.Echoes of Hebrew thought, if not Hebrew psalmody, may have made their way into the more serious pagan literature. At least in the more enlightened pagans there has ever revealed itself more or less the instinct of the human soul that “feels after” God. St. Paul in his address to the Athenians made a tactful as well as scholarly point to preface a missionary sermon when he cited a line from a poem of Aratus (B.C. 272) familiar, doubtless, to the majority of his hearers.Dr. Lyman Abbot has thus translated the passage in which the line occurs:Let us begin from God. Let every mortal raiseThe grateful voice to tune God's endless praise,God fills the heaven, the earth, the sea, the air;We feel His spirit moving everywhere,And we His offspring are.*He, ever good,Daily provides for man his daily food.To Him, the First, the Last, all homage yield,—Our Father wonderful, our help, our shield.* Τοῡ γὰρ καὶ γένος ἐσμέν.282 /238“RISE, CROWNED WITH LIGHT.”Alexander Pope, a Roman Catholic poet, born in London 1688, died at Twickenham 1744, was not a hymnist, but passages in his most serious and exalted flights deserve a tuneful accompaniment. His translations of Homer made him famous, but his ethical poems, especially his “Essay on Man,” are inexhaustible mines of quotation, many of the lines and couplets being common as proverbs. His “Messiah,” written about 1711, is a religious anthem in which the prophecies of Holy Writ kindle all the splendor of his verse.THE TUNE.The closing strain, indicated by the above line, has been divided into stanzas of four lines suitable to a church hymn-tune. The melody selected by the compilers of thePlymouth Hymnal, and of theUnitarian Hymn and Tune Bookis “Savannah,” an American sounding name for what is really one of Pleyel's chorals. The music is worthy of Pope's triumphal song.The seas shall waste, the skies to smoke decay,Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away,But fixed His Word; His saving power remains:Thy realm shall last; thy own Messiah reigns.“OH, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT?”This is a sombre poem, but its virile strength and its literary merit have given it currency, and283 /239commended it to the taste of many people, both weak and strong, who have the pensive temperament. Abraham Lincoln loved it and committed it to memory in his boyhood. Philip Phillips set it to music, and sang it—or a part of it—one day during the Civil war at the anniversary of the Christian Sanitary Commission, when President Lincoln, who was present, called for its repetition.*It was written by William Knox, born 1789, son of a Scottish farmer.* This account so nearly resembles the story of Mrs. Gates' “Your Mission,” sung to a similar audience, on a similar occasion, by the same man, that a possible confusion by the narrators of the incident has been suggested. But that Mr. Phillips sang twice before the President during the war does not appear to be contradicted. To what air he sang the above verses is uncertain.The poem has fourteen stanzas, the following being the first and two last—Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloudA flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,He passeth from life to rest in the grave.* * * * * *Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,Are mingled together like sunshine and rain;And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,Still follow each other like surge upon surge.'Tis the wink of an eye; 'tis the draft of a breathFrom the blossom of health to the paleness of death,From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?Philip Phillips was born in Jamestown, Chautauqua Co., N.Y., Aug. 11, 1834, and died in284 /240Delaware, O., June 25, 1895. He wrote no hymns and was not an educated musician, but the airs of popular hymn-music came to him and were harmonized for him by others, most frequently by his friends, S.J. Vail and Hubert P. Main. He compiled and published thirty-one collections for Sunday-schools and gospel meetings, besides theMethodist Hymn and Tune Book, issued in 1866.He was a pioneer gospel singer, and his tuneful journeys through America, England and Australia gave him the name of the “Singing Pilgrim,” the title of his song collection (1867).“WHEN ISRAEL OF THE LORD BELOVED.”The “Song of Rebecca the Jewess,” in “Ivanhoe,” was written by Sir Walter Scott, author of the Waverly Novels, “Marmion,” etc., born in Edinburgh, 1771, and died at Abbotsford, 1832. The lines purport to be the Hebrew hymn with which Rebecca closed her daily devotions while in prison under sentence of death.

No foot of land do I possess,No cottage in this wilderness;A poor wayfaring man,254 /212I lodge awhile in tents below,Or gladly wander to and froTill I my Canaan gain.

No foot of land do I possess,

No cottage in this wilderness;

A poor wayfaring man,

I lodge awhile in tents below,

Or gladly wander to and fro

Till I my Canaan gain.

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

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

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

When gathering clouds around I view,And days are dark, and friends are few,On Him I lean who not in vainExperienced every human pain.

When gathering clouds around I view,

And days are dark, and friends are few,

On Him I lean who not in vain

Experienced every human pain.

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

Experienced every human pain,—felt temptation's power,—wept o'er Lazarus dead,

Experienced every human pain,

—felt temptation's power,

—wept o'er Lazarus dead,

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

—when I have safely passedThro' every conflict but the last,Still, still unchanging watch besideMy painful bed—forThou hast died.

—when I have safely passed

Thro' every conflict but the last,

Still, still unchanging watch beside

My painful bed—forThou hast died.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The hymn tells the result.

Like all the other hymns bound up in herInvalid's Hymn-book, it was poured from out the heart of one who, as the phrase is, “never knew a257 /215well day”—though she lived to see her eighty-second year.

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

Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind.

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

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

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

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

Just as I am,—Thy love unknownHath broken every barrier down,Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am,—Thy love unknown

Hath broken every barrier down,

Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,

O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

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

On Christ the solid rock I stand,All other ground is sinking sand.

On Christ the solid rock I stand,

All other ground is sinking sand.

There were originally six stanzas, the first beginning:

Nor earth, nor hell, my soul can move,I rest upon unchanging love.

Nor earth, nor hell, my soul can move,

I rest upon unchanging love.

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

My hope is built on nothing lessThan Jesus' blood and righteousness.I dare not trust the sweetest frame,But only lean on Jesus' name.On Christ the solid Rock I standAll other ground is sinking sand.When darkness veils His lovely faceI trust in His unchanging grace,In every high and stormy galeMy anchor holds within the veil.On Christ the solid Rock, etc.

My hope is built on nothing lessThan Jesus' blood and righteousness.I dare not trust the sweetest frame,But only lean on Jesus' name.On Christ the solid Rock I standAll other ground is sinking sand.

My hope is built on nothing less

Than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

I dare not trust the sweetest frame,

But only lean on Jesus' name.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand

All other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness veils His lovely faceI trust in His unchanging grace,In every high and stormy galeMy anchor holds within the veil.On Christ the solid Rock, etc.

When darkness veils His lovely face

I trust in His unchanging grace,

In every high and stormy gale

My anchor holds within the veil.

On Christ the solid Rock, etc.

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

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

On the evening of his last Sunday preaching and communion service he handed to one of his family the manuscript of his hymn, “Abide with me,” and the music he had composed for it. It260 /218was not till eight years later that Henry Ward Beecher introduced it, or a part of it, to American Congregationalists, and fourteen years after the author's death it began to be sung as we now have it, in this country and England.

Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide,The darkness deepens,—Lord with me abide!When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,Help of the helpless, O abide with me!* * * * * *Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies;Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me!

Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide,The darkness deepens,—Lord with me abide!When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,Help of the helpless, O abide with me!

Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide,

The darkness deepens,—Lord with me abide!

When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, O abide with me!

* * * * * *

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies;Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me!

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;

Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies;

Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;

In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me!

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

O Thou whose touch can lendLife to the dead. Thy quickening grace supply,And grant me swan-like my last breath to spendIn song that may not die!

O Thou whose touch can lend

Life to the dead. Thy quickening grace supply,

And grant me swan-like my last breath to spend

In song that may not die!

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

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

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

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

Dr. Monk died in 1889.

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

Come, at God's altar fervently kneel,

—to—

Come to the mercy seat,

—and in the second stanza replaced—

Hope when all others die,

—with—

Hope of the penitent;

—and for practically the whole of the last stanza—

Go ask the infidel what boon he brings us,What charm for aching hearts he can reveal.Sweet as that heavenly promise hope sings us,“Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal,”

Go ask the infidel what boon he brings us,

What charm for aching hearts he can reveal.

Sweet as that heavenly promise hope sings us,

“Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal,”

—Hastings substituted—

Here see the Bread of life, see waters flowingForth from the throne of God, pure from above!Come to the feast Love, come ever knowingEarth has no sorrow but heaven can remove.

Here see the Bread of life, see waters flowing

Forth from the throne of God, pure from above!

Come to the feast Love, come ever knowing

Earth has no sorrow but heaven can remove.

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

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

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

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

Man may trouble and distress me,'Twill but drive me to Thy breast,Life with trials hard may press me,Heaven will bring me sweeter rest.264 /222O, 'tis not in grief to harm meWhile Thy love is left to me,O, 'tis not in joy to charm meWere that joy unmixed with Thee.

Man may trouble and distress me,

'Twill but drive me to Thy breast,

Life with trials hard may press me,

Heaven will bring me sweeter rest.

O, 'tis not in grief to harm me

While Thy love is left to me,

O, 'tis not in joy to charm me

Were that joy unmixed with Thee.

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

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

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

From every stormy wind that blows,From every swelling tide of woesThere is a calm, a sure retreat;'Tis found beneath the Mercy Seat.Ah, whither could we flee for aidWhen tempted, desolate, dismayed,Or how the hosts of hell defeatHad suffering saints no Mercy Seat?267 /223There, there on eagle wings we soar,And sin and sense molest no more,And heaven comes down our souls to greetWhile glory crowns the Mercy Seat.

From every stormy wind that blows,From every swelling tide of woesThere is a calm, a sure retreat;'Tis found beneath the Mercy Seat.

From every stormy wind that blows,

From every swelling tide of woes

There is a calm, a sure retreat;

'Tis found beneath the Mercy Seat.

Ah, whither could we flee for aidWhen tempted, desolate, dismayed,Or how the hosts of hell defeatHad suffering saints no Mercy Seat?

Ah, whither could we flee for aid

When tempted, desolate, dismayed,

Or how the hosts of hell defeat

Had suffering saints no Mercy Seat?

There, there on eagle wings we soar,And sin and sense molest no more,And heaven comes down our souls to greetWhile glory crowns the Mercy Seat.

There, there on eagle wings we soar,

And sin and sense molest no more,

And heaven comes down our souls to greet

While glory crowns the Mercy Seat.

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

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

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

Child of sin and sorrow, filled with dismay,Wait not for tomorrow, yield thee today.Heaven bids thee come, while yet there's room,Child of sin and sorrow, hear and obey.

Child of sin and sorrow, filled with dismay,

Wait not for tomorrow, yield thee today.

Heaven bids thee come, while yet there's room,

Child of sin and sorrow, hear and obey.

Words and music by Thomas Hastings.

John Henry Newman, born in London, Feb. 21, 1801—known in religious history as Cardinal Newman—wrote this hymn when he was a young clergyman of the Church of England. “Born268 /224within the sound of Bow bells,” says Dr. Benson, “he was an imaginative boy, and so superstitious, that he used constantly to cross himself when going into the dark.” Intelligent students of the fine hymn will note this habit of its author's mind—and surmise its influence on his religious musings.

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

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

John B. DykesJohn B. DykesHymnal

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

“Lux Benigna,” by Dr. Dykes, was composed in Aug. 1865, and was the tune chosen for this hymn by a committee preparing the Appendix269 /225toHymns Ancient and Modern. Dr. Dykes' statement that the tune came into his head while walking through the Strand in London “presents a striking contrast with the solitary origin of the hymn itself” (Benson).

Lead, kindly Light, amid th' encircling gloom,Lead Thou me on.The night is dark and I am far from home;Lead Thou me on.Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to seeThe distant scene,—one step enough for me.* * * * * *So long Thy power hath bless'd me, sure it stillWill lead me on,O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, tillThe night is gone,And with the morn those angel faces smileWhich I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

Lead, kindly Light, amid th' encircling gloom,

Lead Thou me on.

The night is dark and I am far from home;

Lead Thou me on.

Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see

The distant scene,—one step enough for me.

* * * * * *

So long Thy power hath bless'd me, sure it stillWill lead me on,O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, tillThe night is gone,And with the morn those angel faces smileWhich I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

So long Thy power hath bless'd me, sure it still

Will lead me on,

O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till

The night is gone,

And with the morn those angel faces smile

Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

Few if any Christian writers of his generation have possessed tuneful gifts in greater opulence or produced more vital and lasting treasures of spiritual verse than Horatius Bonar of Scotland. He inherited some of his poetic faculty from his grandfather, a clergyman who wrote several hymns, and it is told of Horatius that hymns used to “come to” him while riding on railroad trains. He was educated in the Edinburgh University and studied theology with Dr. Chalmers, and his270 /226life was greatly influenced by Dr. Guthrie, whom he followed in the establishment of the Free Church of Scotland.

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

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

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

I heard the voice of Jesus say,Come unto me and rest,Lay down, thou weary one, lay downThy head upon My breast:271 /227I came to Jesus as I was,Weary and worn and sad,I found in Him a resting-place,And He has made me glad.

I heard the voice of Jesus say,

Come unto me and rest,

Lay down, thou weary one, lay down

Thy head upon My breast:

I came to Jesus as I was,

Weary and worn and sad,

I found in Him a resting-place,

And He has made me glad.

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

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

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

An excellent tune for all the shades of expression272 /228in the hymn, is the arrangement by Hubert P. Main from Franz Abt—in A flat, triple time. Gentle music through the first fifteen bars, in alternate duet and quartet, utters the Divine Voice with the true accent of the lines, and the second portion completes the harmony in glad, full chorus—the answer of the human heart.

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

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

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

Hubert Platt Main was born in Ridgefield, Ct., Aug. 17, 1839. He read music at sight when only ten years old, and at sixteen commenced writing hymn-tunes. Was assistant compiler with both Bradbury and Woodbury in their various273 /229publications, and in 1868 became connected with the firm of Biglow and Main, and has been their book-maker until the present time. As music editor in the partnership he has superintended the publication of more than five hundred music-books, services, etc.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crude and simple as the little rhyme was, it contained a germ of lyric beauty and life. The Rev. Dr. Charles Hyde of Ellington, who was a neighbor of Mrs. Brown, procured a copy. He was assisting Dr. Nettleton to compile theVillage Hymns, and the humble bit of devotional verse was at once judged worthy of a place in the new275 /231book. Dr. Hyde and his daughter Emeline giving it some kind touches of rhythmic amendment,

I love to steal awhile awayFrom little ones and care,

I love to steal awhile away

From little ones and care,

—became,—

I love to steal awhile awayFromevery cumb'ringcare.

I love to steal awhile away

Fromevery cumb'ringcare.

In the last line of this stanza—

In gratitude and prayer

—was changed to—

In humble, grateful prayer,

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

I love in solitude to shedThe penitential tear,And all His promises to pleadWhere none but God can hear.I love to think on mercies pastAnd future good implore,And all my cares and sorrows castOn Him whom I adore.

I love in solitude to shedThe penitential tear,And all His promises to pleadWhere none but God can hear.

I love in solitude to shed

The penitential tear,

And all His promises to plead

Where none but God can hear.

I love to think on mercies pastAnd future good implore,And all my cares and sorrows castOn Him whom I adore.

I love to think on mercies past

And future good implore,

And all my cares and sorrows cast

On Him whom I adore.

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

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

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

Deodatus Dutton was born Dec. 22, 1808, and educated at Brown University and Washington College (now Trinity) Hartford Ct. While there he was a student of music and played the organ277 /233at Dr. Matthews' church. He studied theology in New York city, and had recently entered the ministry when he suddenly died, Dec. 16, 1832, a moment before rising to preach a sermon. During his brief life he had written several hymn-tunes, and published a book of psalmody. Mrs. Sigourney wrote a poem on his death.

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

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

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

There's a wideness in God's mercyLike the wideness of the sea;There's a kindness in His justiceWhich is more than liberty.There is welcome for the sinnerAnd more graces for the good;There is mercy with the Saviour,There is healing in His blood.There's no place where earthly sorrowsAre more felt than up in heaven;There's no place where earthly failingsHave such kindly judgment given.There is plentiful redemptionIn the blood that has been shed,There is joy for all the membersIn the sorrows of the Head.For the love of God is broaderThan the measure of man's mind,And the heart of the EternalIs most wonderfully kind.If our love were but more simpleWe should take Him at His word,And our lives would be all sunshineIn the sweetness of the Lord.

There's a wideness in God's mercy

Like the wideness of the sea;

There's a kindness in His justice

Which is more than liberty.

There is welcome for the sinner

And more graces for the good;

There is mercy with the Saviour,

There is healing in His blood.

There's no place where earthly sorrowsAre more felt than up in heaven;There's no place where earthly failingsHave such kindly judgment given.There is plentiful redemptionIn the blood that has been shed,There is joy for all the membersIn the sorrows of the Head.

There's no place where earthly sorrows

Are more felt than up in heaven;

There's no place where earthly failings

Have such kindly judgment given.

There is plentiful redemption

In the blood that has been shed,

There is joy for all the members

In the sorrows of the Head.

For the love of God is broaderThan the measure of man's mind,And the heart of the EternalIs most wonderfully kind.If our love were but more simpleWe should take Him at His word,And our lives would be all sunshineIn the sweetness of the Lord.

For the love of God is broader

Than the measure of man's mind,

And the heart of the Eternal

Is most wonderfully kind.

If our love were but more simple

We should take Him at His word,

And our lives would be all sunshine

In the sweetness of the Lord.

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

The music of S.J. Vail sung to Faber's hymn is one of that composer's best hymn-tunes, and its279 /235melody and natural movement impress the meaning as well as the simple beauty of the words.

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

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

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

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

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

He leadeth me! Oh, blessed thought,Oh, words with heavenly comfort fraught;Whate'er I do, where'er I be,Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me!* * * * * *Lord, I would clasp Thy hand in mine,Nor ever murmur nor repine—Content, whatever lot I see,Since 'tis my God that leadeth me.

He leadeth me! Oh, blessed thought,Oh, words with heavenly comfort fraught;Whate'er I do, where'er I be,Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me!

He leadeth me! Oh, blessed thought,

Oh, words with heavenly comfort fraught;

Whate'er I do, where'er I be,

Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me!

* * * * * *

Lord, I would clasp Thy hand in mine,Nor ever murmur nor repine—Content, whatever lot I see,Since 'tis my God that leadeth me.

Lord, I would clasp Thy hand in mine,

Nor ever murmur nor repine—

Content, whatever lot I see,

Since 'tis my God that leadeth me.

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

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

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

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

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

Let us begin from God. Let every mortal raiseThe grateful voice to tune God's endless praise,God fills the heaven, the earth, the sea, the air;We feel His spirit moving everywhere,And we His offspring are.*He, ever good,Daily provides for man his daily food.To Him, the First, the Last, all homage yield,—Our Father wonderful, our help, our shield.

Let us begin from God. Let every mortal raise

The grateful voice to tune God's endless praise,

God fills the heaven, the earth, the sea, the air;

We feel His spirit moving everywhere,

And we His offspring are.*He, ever good,

Daily provides for man his daily food.

To Him, the First, the Last, all homage yield,—

Our Father wonderful, our help, our shield.

* Τοῡ γὰρ καὶ γένος ἐσμέν.

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

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

The seas shall waste, the skies to smoke decay,Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away,But fixed His Word; His saving power remains:Thy realm shall last; thy own Messiah reigns.

The seas shall waste, the skies to smoke decay,

Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away,

But fixed His Word; His saving power remains:

Thy realm shall last; thy own Messiah reigns.

This is a sombre poem, but its virile strength and its literary merit have given it currency, and283 /239commended it to the taste of many people, both weak and strong, who have the pensive temperament. Abraham Lincoln loved it and committed it to memory in his boyhood. Philip Phillips set it to music, and sang it—or a part of it—one day during the Civil war at the anniversary of the Christian Sanitary Commission, when President Lincoln, who was present, called for its repetition.*It was written by William Knox, born 1789, son of a Scottish farmer.

* This account so nearly resembles the story of Mrs. Gates' “Your Mission,” sung to a similar audience, on a similar occasion, by the same man, that a possible confusion by the narrators of the incident has been suggested. But that Mr. Phillips sang twice before the President during the war does not appear to be contradicted. To what air he sang the above verses is uncertain.

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

Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloudA flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,He passeth from life to rest in the grave.* * * * * *Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,Are mingled together like sunshine and rain;And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,Still follow each other like surge upon surge.'Tis the wink of an eye; 'tis the draft of a breathFrom the blossom of health to the paleness of death,From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloudA flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,He passeth from life to rest in the grave.

Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud

A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,

He passeth from life to rest in the grave.

* * * * * *

Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,Are mingled together like sunshine and rain;And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,Still follow each other like surge upon surge.

Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,

Are mingled together like sunshine and rain;

And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,

Still follow each other like surge upon surge.

'Tis the wink of an eye; 'tis the draft of a breathFrom the blossom of health to the paleness of death,From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

'Tis the wink of an eye; 'tis the draft of a breath

From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,

From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,

Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

Philip Phillips was born in Jamestown, Chautauqua Co., N.Y., Aug. 11, 1834, and died in284 /240Delaware, O., June 25, 1895. He wrote no hymns and was not an educated musician, but the airs of popular hymn-music came to him and were harmonized for him by others, most frequently by his friends, S.J. Vail and Hubert P. Main. He compiled and published thirty-one collections for Sunday-schools and gospel meetings, besides theMethodist Hymn and Tune Book, issued in 1866.

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

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

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