CHAPTER VII.

When Israel of the Lord belovedOut of the land of bondage cameHer fathers' God before her moved,An awful Guide in smoke and flame.* * * * * *Then rose the choral hymn of praise,And trump and timbrel answered keen,And Zion's daughters poured their lays.With priest's and warrior's voice between.* * * * * *285 /241By day along th' astonished landsThe cloudy Pillar glided slow,By night Arabia's crimson'd sandsReturned the fiery Column's glow.* * * * * *And O, when gathers o'er our pathIn shade and storm the frequent nightBe Thou, long suffering, slow to wrath,A burning and a shining Light!The “Hymn of Rebecca” has been set to music though never in common use as a hymn. Old “Truro”, by Dr. Charles Burney (1726–1814) is a grand Scotch psalm harmony for the words, though one of the Unitarian hymnals borrows Zeuner's sonorous choral, the “Missionary Chant.” Both sound the lyric of the Jewess in good Christian music.“WE SAT DOWN AND WEPT BY THE WATERS.”The 137th Psalm has been for centuries a favorite with poets and poetical translators, and its pathos appealed to Lord Byron when engaged in writing hisHebrew Melodies.Byron was born in London, 1788, and died at Missolonghi, Western Greece, 1824.We sat down and wept by the watersOf Babel, and thought of the dayWhen the foe, in the hue of his slaughters,Made Salem's high places his prey,And ye, Oh her desolate daughters,Were scattered all weeping away.286 /242—Written April, 1814. It was the fashion then for musical societies to call on the popular poets for contributions, and tunes were composed for them, though these have practically passed into oblivion.Byron's ringing ballad (from II Kings 19:35)—Th' Assyrian came down like a wolf on the foldAnd his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,—has been so much a favorite for recitation and declamation that the loss of its tune is never thought of.Another poetic rendering of the “Captivity Psalm” is worthy of notice among the lay hymns not unworthy to supplement clerical sermons. It was written by the Hon. Joel Barlow in 1799, and published in a pioneer psalm-book at Northampton, Mass. It is neither a translation nor properly a hymn but a poem built upon the words of the Jewish lament, and really reproducing something of its plaintive beauty. Two stanzas of it are as follows:Along the banks where Babel's current flowsOur captive bands in deep despondence strayed,While Zion's fall in deep remembrance rose,Her friends, her children mingled with the dead.The tuneless harps that once with joy we strungWhen praise employed, or mirth inspired the lay,In mournful silence on the willows hung,And growing grief prolonged the tedious day.Like Pope, this American poet loved onomatope and imitative verse, and the last line is a word-picture287 /243of home-sick weariness. This “psalm” was the best piece of work in Mr. Barlow's series of attempted improvements upon Isaac Watts—which on the whole were not very successful. The sweet cantabile of Mason's “Melton” gave “Along the banks” quite an extended lease of life, though it has now ceased to be sung.Joel Barlow was a versatile gentleman, serving his country and generation in almost every useful capacity, from chaplain in the continental army to foreign ambassador. He was born in Redding, Ct., 1755, and died near Cracow, Poland, Dec. 1812.“AS DOWN IN THE SUNLESS.”Thomas Moore, the poet of glees and love-madrigals, had sober thoughts in the intervals of his gaiety, and employed his genius in writing religious and even devout poems, which have been spiritually helpful in many phases of Christian experience. Among them was this and the four following hymns, with thirty-four others, each of which he carefully labelled with the name of a music composer, though the particular tune is left indefinite. “The still prayer of devotion” here answers, in rhyme and reality, the simile of the sea-flower in the unseen deep, and the mariner's compass represents the constancy of a believer.As, still to the star of its worship, though clouded,The needle points faithfully o'er the dim sea,So, dark as I roam in this wintry world shrouded,The hope of my spirit turns trembling to Thee.288 /244It is sung inPlymouth Hymnalto Barnby's “St. Botolph.”“THE TURF SHALL BE MY FRAGRANT SHRINE”Is, in part, still preserved in hymn collections, and sung to the noble tune of “Louvan,” Virgil Taylor's piece. The last stanza is especially reminiscent of the music.There's nothing bright above, below,From flowers that bloom to stars that glow;But in its light my soul can seeSome feature of Thy deity.“O THOU WHO DRY'ST THE MOURNER'S TEAR”Is associated in theBaptist Praise Bookwith Woodbury's “Siloam.”“THE BIRD LET LOOSE IN EASTERN SKIES”Has been sung in Mason's “Coventry,” and thePlymouth Hymnalassigns it to “Spohr”—a namesake tune of Louis Spohr, while theUnitarian Hymn and Tune Bookunites to it a beautiful triple-time melody from Mozart, and bearing his name.“THOU ART, O GOD, THE LIFE AND LIGHT.”This is the best of the Irish poet's sacred songs—always excepting, “Come, Ye Disconsolate.” It is said to have been originally set to a secular melody composed by the wife of Hon. Richard Brinsley289 /245Sheridan. It is joined to the tune of “Brighton” in the Unitarian books, and William Monk's “Matthias” voices the words for thePlymouth Hymnal.The verses have the true lyrical glow, and make a real song of praise as well a composition of more than ordinary literary beauty.Thou art, O God, the life and lightOf all this wondrous world we see;Its glow by day, its smile by nightAre but reflections caught from Thee.Where'er we turn Thy glories shine,And all things fair and bright are Thine.* * * * * *When night with wings of starry gloomO'ershadows all the earth, and skiesLike some dark, beauteous bird, whose plumeIs sparkling with unnumbered eyes,That sacred gloom, those fires divine,So grand, so countless, Lord, are Thine.When youthful spring around us breathes,Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh,And every flower the summer wreathesIs born beneath that kindling eye.Where'er we turn Thy glories shine,And all things fair and bright are Thine.“MOURNFULLY, TENDERLY, BEAR ON THE DEAD.”A tender funeral ballad by Henry S. Washburn, composed in 1846 and entitled “The Burial of Mrs. Judson.” It is rare now in sheet-music form but theAmerican Vocalist, to be found in the stores290 /246of most great music publishers and dealers, preserves the full poem and score.Its occasion was the death at sea, off St. Helena, of the Baptist missionary, Mrs. Sarah Hall Boardman Judson, and the solemn committal of her remains to the dust on that historic island, Sept. 1, 1845. She was on her way to America from Burmah at the time of her death, and the ship proceeded on its homeward voyage immediately after her burial. The touching circumstances of the gifted lady's death, and the strange romance of her entombment where Napoleon's grave was made twenty-four years before, inspired Mr. Washburn, who was a prominent layman of the Baptist denomination, and interested in all its ecclesiastical and missionary activities, and he wrote this poetic memorial of the event:Mournfully, tenderly, bear on the dead;Where the warrior has lain, let the Christian be laid.No place more befitting, O rock of the sea;Never such treasure was hidden in thee.Mournfully, tenderly, solemn and slow;Tears are bedewing the path as ye go;Kindred and strangers are mourners today;Gently, so gently, O bear her away.Mournfully, tenderly, gaze on that brow;Beautiful is it in quietude now.One look, and then settle the loved to her restThe ocean beneath her, the turf on her breast.Mrs. Sarah Judson was the second wife of the Rev. Adoniram Judson, D.D., the celebrated pioneer291 /247American Baptist missionary, and the mother by her first marriage, of the late Rev. George Dana Boardman, D.D., LL.D., of Philadelphia.The Hon. Henry S. Washburn was born in Providence, R.I., 1813, and educated at Brown University. During most of his long life he resided in Massachusetts, and occupied there many positions of honor and trust, serving in the State Legislature both as Representative and Senator. He was the author of many poems and lyrics of high merit, some of which—notably “The Vacant Chair”—became popular in sheet-music and in books of religious and educational use. He died in 1903.THE TUNE.“The Burial of Mrs. Judson” became favorite parlor music when Lyman Heath composed the melody for it—of the same name. Its notes and movement were evidently inspired by the poem, for it reproduces the feeling of every line. The threnody was widely known and sung in the middle years of the last century, by people, too, who had scarcely heard of Mrs. Judson, and received in the music and words their first hint of her history. The poem prompted the tune, but the tune was the garland of the poem.Lyman Heath of Bow, N.H., was born there Aug. 24, 1804. He studied music, and became a vocalist and vocal composer. Died July 30, 1870.292 /248“TELL ME NOT IN MOURNFUL NUMBERS.”Longfellow's “Psalm of Life” was written when he was a young man, and for some years it carried the title he gave it, “What the Young Man's Heart Said to the Psalmist”—a caption altogether too long to bear currency.The history of the beloved poet who wrote this optimistic ballad of hope and courage is too well known to need recounting here. He was born in Portland, Me., in 1807, graduated at Bowdoin College, and was for more than forty years professor of Belles Lettres in Harvard University. Died in Cambridge, March 4, 1882. Of his longer poems the most read and admired are his beautiful romance of “Evangeline,” and his epic of “Hiawatha,” but it is hardly too much to say that for the last sixty years, his “Psalm of Life” has been the common property of all American, if not English school-children, and a part of their education. When he was in London, Queen Victoria sent for him to come and see her at the palace. He went, and just as he was seating himself in the waiting coach after the interview, a man in working clothes appeared, hat in hand, at the coach window.“Please sir, yer honor,” said he, “an' are you Mr. Longfellow?”“I am Mr. Longfellow,” said the poet.“An' did you write the Psalm of Life?” he asked.“I wrote the Psalm of Life,” replied the poet.293 /249“An', yer honor, would you be willing to take a workingman by the hand?”Mr. Longfellow gave the honest Englishman a hearty handshake, “And” (said he in telling the story) “I never in my life received a compliment that gave me more satisfaction.”The incident has a delightful democratic flavor—and it is perfectly characteristic of the amiable author of the most popular poem in the English language. The “Psalm of Life” is a wonderful example of the power of commonplaces put into tuneful and elegant verse.The thought of setting the poem to music came to the compiler of one of the Unitarian church singing books. Some will question, however, whether the selection was the happiest that could have been made. The tune is “Rathbun,” Ithamar Conkey's melody that always recalls Sir John Bowring's great hymn of praise.“BUILD THEE MORE NOBLE MANSIONS.”This poem by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, known among his works as “The Chambered Nautilus,” was considered by himself as his worthiest achievement in verse, and his wish that it might live is likely to be fulfilled. It is stately, and in character and effect a rhythmic sermon from a text in “natural theology.” The biography of one of the little molluscan sea-navigators that continually enlarges its shell to adapt it to its294 /250growth inspired the thoughtful lines. The third, fourth and fifth stanzas are as follows:Year after year beheld the silent toilThat spread the lustrous coil;Still, as the spiral grew,He left the last year's dwelling for the new,Stole with soft step the shining archway through,Built up its idle door,Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,Child of the wand'ring sea,Cast from her lap forlorn!From thy dead lips a clearer note is bornThan ever Triton blew fromwreathédhorn!While on my ear it ringsThrough the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings,“Build thee more noble mansions, O my soul.As the swift seasons roll:Leave thy low-vaulted past!Let each new temple, nobler than the last,Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,Till thou at length art free,Leaving thy outgrown shell by life's unresting sea.”Dr. Frederic Hedge included the poem in his hymn-book but without any singing-supplement to the words.WHITTIER'S SERVICE SONG.It may not be our lot to wieldThe sickle in the harvest field.If this stanza and the four following do not reveal all the strength of John G. Whittier's spirit,295 /251they convey its serious sweetness. The verses were loved and prized by both President Garfield and President McKinley. On the Sunday before the latter went from his Canton, O., home to his inauguration in Washington the poem was sung as a hymn at his request in the services at the Methodist church where he had been a constant worshipper.The second stanza is the one most generally recognized and oftenest quoted:Yet where our duty's task is wroughtIn unison with God's great thought,The near and future blend in one,And whatsoe'er is willed, is done.John Greenleaf Whittier, the poet of the oppressed, was born in Haverhill, Mass., 1807, worked on a farm and on a shoe-bench, and studied at the local academy, until, becoming of age, he went to Hartford, Conn., and began a brief experience in editorial life. Soon after his return to Massachusetts he was elected to the Legislature, and after his duties ended there he left the state for Philadelphia to edit thePennsylvania Freeman. A few years later he returned again, and established his home in Amesbury, the town with which his life and works are always associated.He died in 1892 at Hampton Falls, N.H., where he had gone for his health.296 /252THE TUNE.“Abends,” the smooth triple-time choral joined to Whittier's poem by the music editor of the newMethodist Hymnal, speaks its meaning so well that it is scarcely worth while to look for another. Sir Herbert Stanley Oakeley, the composer, was born at Ealing, Eng., July 22, 1830, and educated at Rugby and Oxford. He studied music in Germany, and became a superior organist, winning great applause by his recitals at Edinburgh University, where he was elected Musical Professor.Archbishop Tait gave him the doctorate of music at Canterbury in 1871, and he was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1876.Besides vocal duets, Scotch melodies and student songs, he composed many anthems and tunes for the church—notably “Edina” (“Saviour, blessed Saviour”) and “Abends,” originally written to Keble's “Sun of my Soul.”“THE BIRD WITH THE BROKEN PINION.”This lay of a lost gift, with its striking lesson, might have been copied from the wounded bird's own song, it is so natural and so clear-toned. The opportune thought and pen of Mr. Hezekiah Butterworth gave being to the little ballad the day he heard the late Dr. George Lorimer preach from a text in the story of Samson's fall (Judges 16:21) “The Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza ...297 /253and he did grind in the prison-house.” A sentence in the course of the doctor's sermon, “The bird with a broken pinion never soars as high again,” was caught up by the listening author, and became the refrain of his impressive song. Rev. Frank M. Lamb, the tuneful evangelist, found it in print, and wrote a tune to it, and in his voice and the voices of other singers the little monitor has since told its story in revival meetings, and mission and gospel services throughout the land.I walked through the woodland meadowsWhere sweet the thrushes sing,And found on a bed of mossesA bird with a broken wing.I healed its wound, and each morningIt sang its old sweet strain,But the bird with a broken pinionNever soared as high again.I found a young life brokenBy sin's seductive art;And, touched with a Christ-like pity,I took him to my heart.He lived—with a noble purpose,And struggled not in vain;But the life that sin had strickenNever soared as high again.But the bird with a broken pinionKept another from the snare,And the life that sin had strickenSaved another from despair.Each loss has its compensation,There is healing for every painBut the bird with a broken pinionNever soars as high again.298 /254In the tune an extra stanza is added—as if something conventional were needed to make the poem a hymn. But the professional tone of the appended stanza, virtually all in its two lines—Then come to the dear Redeemer,He will cleanse you from everystain,—is forced into its connection. The poem told the truth, and stopped there; and should be left to fasten its own impression. There never was a more solemn warning uttered than in this little apologue. It promises “compensation” and “healing,” but not perfect rehabilitation. Sin will leave its scars. Even He who “became sin for us” bore them in His resurrection body.Rev. Frank M. Lamb, composer and singer of the hymn-tune, was born in Poland, Me., 1860, and educated in the schools of Poland and Auburn. He was licensed to preach in 1888, and ordained the same year, and has since held pastorates in Maine, New York, and Massachusetts.Besides his tune, very pleasing and appropriate music has been written to the little ballad of the broken wing by Geo. C. Stebbins.UNDER THE PALMS.In the cantata, “Under the Palms” (“Captive Judah in Babylon”)—the joint production of George F. Root*and Hezekiah Butterworth, several301 /255of the latter's songs detached themselves, with their music, from the main work, and lingered in choral or solo service in places where the sacred operetta was presented, both in America and England. One of these is an effective solo in deep contralto, with a suggestion of recitative and chant—By the dark Euphrates' stream,By the Tigris, sad and loneI wandered, a captive maid;And the cruel Assyrian said,“Awake your harp's sweet tone!”I had heard of my fathers' glory from the lips of holy men,And I thought of the land of my fathers; I thought of my fathers' land then.Another is—O church of Christ! our blest abode,Celestial grace is thine.Thou art the dwelling-place of God,The gate of joy divine.Whene'er I come to thee in joy,Whene'er I come in tears,Still at the Gate called BeautifulMy risen Lord appears.—with the chorus—Where'er for me the sun may set,Wherever I may dwell,My heart shall nevermore forgetThy courts, Immanuel!* Seepage 316.299 /opp 254Ellen M.H. GatesEllen M.H. GatesHymnal302 /256“IF YOU CANNOT ON THE OCEAN.”This popular Christian ballad, entitled “Your Mission,” was written one stormy day in the winter of 1861–2 by Miss Ellen M. Huntington (Mrs. Isaac Gates), and made her reputation as one of the few didactic poets whose exquisite art wins a hearing for them everywhere. In a moment of revery, while looking through the window at the falling snow, the words came to her:If you cannot on the oceanSail among the swiftest fleet.She turned away and wrote the lines on her slate, following with verse after verse till she finished the whole poem. “It wrote itself,” she says in her own account of it.Reading afterwards what she had written, she was surprised at her work. The poem had a meaning and a “mission.” So strong was the impression that the devout girl fell on her knees and consecrated it to a divine purpose. Free copies of it went to the Cooperstown, N.Y., local paper, and to the New YorkExaminer, and appeared in both. From that time the history and career of “Your Mission” presents a marked illustration of “catenal influence,” or transmitted suggestion.In the later days of the Civil War Philip Phillips, who had a wonderfully sweet tenor voice, was invited to sing at a great meeting of the United States Christian Commission in the Senate Chamber at Washington, February, 1865, President Lincoln and303 /257Secretary Seward (then president of the commission) were there, and the hall was crowded with leading statesmen, army generals, and friends of the Union. The song selected by Mr. Phillips was Mrs. Gates' “Your Mission”:If you cannot on the oceanSail among the swiftest fleet,Rocking on the highest billows,Laughing at the storms you meet,You can stand among the sailorsAnchored yet within the bay;You can lend a hand to help themAs they launch their boats away.The hushed audience listened spell-bound as the sweet singer went on, their interest growing to feverish eagerness until the climax was reached in the fifth stanza:If you cannot in the conflictProve yourself a soldier true,If where fire and smoke are thickestThere's no work for you to do,When the battlefield is silentYou can go with careful tread;You can bear away the wounded,You can cover up the dead.In the storm of enthusiasm that followed, President Lincoln handed a hastily scribbled line on a bit of paper to Chairman Seward,“Near the close let us have ‘Your Mission’ repeated.”Mr. Phillips' great success on this occasion brought him so many calls for his services that he304 /258gave up everything and devoted himself to his tuneful art. “Your Mission” so gladly welcomed at Washington made him the first gospel songster, chanting round the world the divine message of the hymns. It was the singing by Philip Phillips that first impressed Ira D. Sankey with the amazing power of evangelical solo song, and helped him years later to resign his lucrative business as a revenue officer and consecrate his own rare vocal gift to the Christian ministry of sacred music. Heaven alone can show the birth-records of souls won to God all along the journeys of the “Singing Pilgrims,” and the rich succession of Mr. Sankey's melodies, that can be traced back by a chain of causes to the poem that “wrote itself” and became a hymn. And the chain may not yet be complete. In the words of that providential poem—Though they may forget the singerThey will not forget the song.Mrs. Ellen M.H. Gates, whose reputation as an author was made by this beautiful and always timely poem, was born in Torrington, Ct., and is the youngest sister of the late Collis P. Huntington. Her hymns—included in this volume and in other publications—are much admired and loved, both for their sweetness and elevated religious feeling, and for their poetic quality. Among her published books of verse are “Night,” “At Noontide,” and “Treasures of Kurium.” Her address is New York City.305 /259THE TUNE.Sidney Martin Grannis, author of the tune, was born Sept. 23, 1827, in Geneseo, Livingston county, N.Y. Lived in Leroy, of the same state, from 1831 to 1884, when he removed to Los Angeles, Cal., where several of his admirers presented him a cottage and grounds, which at last accounts he still occupies. Mr. Grannis won his first reputation as a popular musician by his song “Do They Miss Me at Home,” and his “Only Waiting,” “Cling to the Union,” and “People Will Talk You Know,” had an equally wide currency. As a solo singer his voice was remarkable, covering a range of two octaves, and while travelling with members of the “Amphion Troupe,” to which he belonged, he sang at more than five thousand concerts. His tune to “Your Mission” was composed in New Haven, Ct., in 1864.“TOO LATE! TOO LATE! YE CANNOT ENTER NOW.”“Too Late” is a thrilling fragment or side-song of Alfred Tennyson's, representing the vain plea of the five Foolish Virgins. Its tune bears the name of a London lady, “Miss Lindsay” (afterwards Mrs. J. Worthington Bliss). The arrangement of air, duo and quartet is very impressive*.*Methodist Hymnal, No. 743.“Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill:Late, late, so late! but we can enter still."“Too late! too late! ye cannot enter now!”306 /260“No light! so late! and dark and chill the night—O let us in that we may find the light!"“Too late! too late! ye cannot enter now!”* * * * * *“Have we not heard the Bridegroom is so sweet?O let us in that we may kiss his feet!"“No, No—! too late! ye cannot enter now!”The words are found in “Queen Guinevere,” a canto of the “Idyls of the King.”“OH, GALILEE, SWEET GALILEE.”This is the chorus of a charming poem of three stanzas that shaped itself in the mind of Mr. Robert Morris while sitting over the ruins on the traditional site of Capernaum by the Lake of Genneseret.Each cooing dove, each sighing bough,That makes the eve so blest to me,Has something far diviner now,It bears me back to Galilee.ChorusOh, Galilee, sweet Galilee,Where Jesus loved so much to be;Oh, Galilee, blue Galilee,Come sing thy song again to me.Robert Morris, LL.D., born Aug. 31, 1818, was a scholar, and an expert in certain scientific subjects, and wrote works on numismatics and the “Poetry of Free Masonry.” Commissioned to Palestine in 1868 on historic andarchaeologicalservice for the United Order, he explored the307 /261scenes of ancient Jewish and Christian life and event in the Holy Land, and being a religious man, followed the Saviour's earthly footsteps with a reverent zeal that left its inspiration with him while he lived. He died in the year 1888, but his Christian ballad secured him a lasting place in every devout memory.THE TUNE.The author wrote out his hymn in 1874 and sent it to his friend, the musician, Mr. Horatio R. Palmer,*and the latter learned it by heart, and carried it with him in his musings “till it floated out in the melody you know,” (to use his own words.)* Seepage 311.308 /262CHAPTER VII.OLD REVIVAL HYMNS.The sober churches of the “Old Thirteen” states and of their successors far into the nineteenth century, sustained evening prayer-meetings more or less commonly, but necessity made them in most cases “cottage meetings” appointed on Sunday and here and there in the scattered homes of country parishes. Their intent was the same as that of “revival meetings,” since so called, though the method—and the music—weredifferent. The results in winning sinners, so far as they owed anything to the hymns and hymn-tunes, were apt to be a new generation of Christian recruits as sombre as the singing. “Lebanon” set forth the appalling shortness of human life; “Windham” gave its depressing story of the great majority of mankind on the “broad road,” and other minor tunes proclaimed God's sovereignty and eternal decrees; or if a psalm had His love in it, it was likely to be sung in a similar melancholy key. Even in his gladness the good minister, Thomas Baldwin, of the Second Baptist Church,309 /263at Boston, North End, returning from Newport, N.H., where he had happily harmonized a discordant church, could not escape the strait-lace of a C minor for his thankful hymn—From whence doth this union arise,That hatred is conquered by love.“The Puritans took their pleasures seriously,” and this did not cease to be true till at least two hundred years after the Pilgrims landed or Boston was founded.Time, that covered the ghastly faces on the old grave-stones with moss, gradually stole away the unction of minor-tune singing.The songs of the great revival of 1740 swept the country with positive rather than negative music. Even Jonathan Edwards admitted the need of better psalm-books and better psalmody.Edwards, during his life, spent some time among the Indians as a missionary teacher; but probably neither he nor David Brainerd ever saw a Christian hymn composed by an Indian. The following, from the early years of the last century, is apparently the first, certainly the only surviving, effort of a converted but half-educated red man to utter his thoughts in pious metre. Whoever trimmed the original words and measure into printable shape evidently took care to preserve the broken English of the simple convert. It is an interesting relic of the Christian thought and sentiment of a pagan just learning to prattle prayer and praise:310 /264In de dark wood, no Indian nigh,Den me look heaben, send up cry,Upon my knees so low.Dat God on high, in shinee place,See me in night, with teary face,De priest, he tell me so.God send Him angel take me care;Him come Heself and hear um prayer,If Indian heart do pray.God see me now, He know me here.He say, poor Indian, neber fear,Me wid you night and day.So me lub God wid inside heart;He fight for me, He take my part,He save my life before.God lub poor Indian in de wood;So me lub God, and dat be good;Me pray Him two times more.When me be old, me head be gray,Den He no lebe me, so He say:Me wid you till you die.Den take me up to shinee place,See white man, red man, black man's face,All happy 'like on high.Few days, den God will come to me,He knock off chains, He set me free,Den take me up on high.Den Indian sing His praises blest,And lub and praise Him wid de rest,And neber, neber cry.The above hymn, which may be found in different forms in old New England tracts and hymn-books, and which used to be sung in Methodist311 /265conference and prayer-meetings in the same way that old slave-hymns and the “Jubilee Singers” refrains are sometimes sung now, was composed by William Apes, a converted Indian, who was born in Massachusetts, in 1798. His father was a white man, but married an Indian descended from the family of King Philip, the Indian warrior, and the last of the Indian chiefs. His grandmother was the king's granddaughter, as he claimed, and was famous for her personal beauty. He caused his autobiography and religious experience to be published. The original hymn is quite long, and contains some singular and characteristic expressions.The authorship of the tune to which the words were sung has been claimed for Samuel Cowdell, a schoolmaster of Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, 1820, but the date of the lost tune was probably much earlier.In the early days of New England, before the Indian missions had been brought to an end by the sweeping away of the tribes, several fine hymns were composed by educated Indians, and were used in the churches. The best known is that beginning—When shall we all meet again?It was composed by three Indians at the planting of a memorial pine on leaving Dartmouth College, where they had been studying. The lines indicate an expectation of missionary life and work.When shall we all meet again?When shall we all meet again?312 /266Oft shall glowing hope expire,Oft shall wearied love retire,Oft shall death and sorrow reignEre we all shall meet again.Though in distant lands we sigh,Parched beneath a burning sky,Though the deep between us rolls,Friendship shall unite our souls;And in fancy's wide domain,There we all shall meet again.When these burnished locks are gray,Thinned by many a toil-spent day,When around this youthful pineMoss shall creep and ivy twine,(Long may this loved bower remain!)Here may we all meet again.When the dreams of life are fled,When its wasted lamps are dead,When in cold oblivion's shadeBeauty, health, and strength are laid,Where immortal spirits reign,There we all shall meet again.This parting piece was sung in religious meetings as a hymn, like the other once so common, but later,—“When shall we meet again,Meet ne'er to sever?”—to a tune in B flat minor, excessively plaintive, and likely to sadden anemotionalsinger or hearer to tears. The full harmony is found in theAmerican Vocalist, and the air is reprinted in theRevivalist(1868). The fact that minor music is the natural313 /267Indian tone in song makes it probable that the melody is as ancient as the hymn—though no date is given for either.Tradition says that nearly fifty years later the same three Indians were providentially drawn to the spot where they parted, and met again, and while they were together composed and sang another ode. Truth to tell, however, it had only one note of gladness, and that was in the first stanza:Parted many a toil-spent year,Pledged in youth to memory dear,Still to friendship's magnet true,We our social joys renew;Bound by love's unsevered chain,Here on earth we meet again.The remaining three stanzas dwell principally on the ravages time has made. The reunion ode of those stoical college classmates of a stoical race could have been sung in the same B flat minor.“AWAKED BY SINAI'S AWFUL SOUND.”The name of the Indian, Samson Occum, who wrote this hymn (variously spelt Ockom, Ockum, Occam, Occom) is not borne by any public institution, but New England owes the foundation of Dartmouth College to his hard work. Dartmouth College was originally “Moore's Indian Charity School,” organized (1750) in Lebanon, Ct., by Rev. Eleazer Wheelock and endowed (1755) by Joshua Moore (or More). Good men and women who314 /268had at heart the spiritual welfare of a fading race contributed to the school's support and young Indians resorted to it from both New England and the Middle States, but funds were insufficient, and it was foreseen that the charity must inevitably outgrow its missionary purpose and if continued at all must depend on a wider and more liberal patronage.Samson Occum was born in Mohegan, New London Co., Ct., probably in the year 1722. Converted from paganism in 1740 (possibly under the preaching of Whitefield, who was in this country at that time) he desired to become a missionary to his people, and entered Eleazer Wheelock's school. After four years study, then a young man of twenty-two, he began to teach and preach among the Montauk Indians, and in 1759 the Presbytery of Suffolk Co., L.I., ordained him to the ministry. A benevolent society in Scotland, hearing of, his ability and zeal, gave him an appointment, under its auspices, among the Oneidas in 1761, where he labored four years. The interests of the school at Lebanon, where he had been educated, were dear to him, and he was tireless in its cause, procuring pupils for it, and working eloquently as its advocate with voice and pen. In 1765 he crossed the Atlantic to solicit funds for the Indian school, and remained four years in England and Scotland, lecturing in its behalf, and preaching nearly four hundred sermons. As a result he raised ten thousand pounds. The donation was put in charge of a Board of315 /269Trustees of which Lord Dartmouth was chairman. When it was decided to remove the school from Lebanon, Ct., the efforts of Governor Wentworth, of New Hampshire, secured its location at Hanover in that state. It was christened after Lord Dartmouth—and the names of Occum, Moore and Wheelock retired into the encyclopedias.The Rev. Samson Occum died in 1779, while laboring among the Stockbridge (N.Y.) Indians. Several hymns were written by this remarkable man, and also “An Account of the Customs and Manners of the Montauks.” The hymn, “Awaked by Sinai's Awful Sound,” set to the stentorian tune of “Ganges,” was a tremendous sermon in itself to old-time congregations, and is probably as indicative of the doctrines which converted its writer as of thecontemporarybelief prominent in choir and pulpit.

When Israel of the Lord belovedOut of the land of bondage cameHer fathers' God before her moved,An awful Guide in smoke and flame.

When Israel of the Lord beloved

Out of the land of bondage came

Her fathers' God before her moved,

An awful Guide in smoke and flame.

* * * * * *

Then rose the choral hymn of praise,And trump and timbrel answered keen,And Zion's daughters poured their lays.With priest's and warrior's voice between.

Then rose the choral hymn of praise,

And trump and timbrel answered keen,

And Zion's daughters poured their lays.

With priest's and warrior's voice between.

* * * * * *285 /241

* * * * * *

By day along th' astonished landsThe cloudy Pillar glided slow,By night Arabia's crimson'd sandsReturned the fiery Column's glow.

By day along th' astonished lands

The cloudy Pillar glided slow,

By night Arabia's crimson'd sands

Returned the fiery Column's glow.

* * * * * *

And O, when gathers o'er our pathIn shade and storm the frequent nightBe Thou, long suffering, slow to wrath,A burning and a shining Light!

And O, when gathers o'er our path

In shade and storm the frequent night

Be Thou, long suffering, slow to wrath,

A burning and a shining Light!

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

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

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

We sat down and wept by the watersOf Babel, and thought of the dayWhen the foe, in the hue of his slaughters,Made Salem's high places his prey,And ye, Oh her desolate daughters,Were scattered all weeping away.

We sat down and wept by the waters

Of Babel, and thought of the day

When the foe, in the hue of his slaughters,

Made Salem's high places his prey,

And ye, Oh her desolate daughters,

Were scattered all weeping away.

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

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

Th' Assyrian came down like a wolf on the foldAnd his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,

Th' Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,

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

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

Along the banks where Babel's current flowsOur captive bands in deep despondence strayed,While Zion's fall in deep remembrance rose,Her friends, her children mingled with the dead.The tuneless harps that once with joy we strungWhen praise employed, or mirth inspired the lay,In mournful silence on the willows hung,And growing grief prolonged the tedious day.

Along the banks where Babel's current flowsOur captive bands in deep despondence strayed,While Zion's fall in deep remembrance rose,Her friends, her children mingled with the dead.

Along the banks where Babel's current flows

Our captive bands in deep despondence strayed,

While Zion's fall in deep remembrance rose,

Her friends, her children mingled with the dead.

The tuneless harps that once with joy we strungWhen praise employed, or mirth inspired the lay,In mournful silence on the willows hung,And growing grief prolonged the tedious day.

The tuneless harps that once with joy we strung

When praise employed, or mirth inspired the lay,

In mournful silence on the willows hung,

And growing grief prolonged the tedious day.

Like Pope, this American poet loved onomatope and imitative verse, and the last line is a word-picture287 /243of home-sick weariness. This “psalm” was the best piece of work in Mr. Barlow's series of attempted improvements upon Isaac Watts—which on the whole were not very successful. The sweet cantabile of Mason's “Melton” gave “Along the banks” quite an extended lease of life, though it has now ceased to be sung.

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

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

As, still to the star of its worship, though clouded,The needle points faithfully o'er the dim sea,So, dark as I roam in this wintry world shrouded,The hope of my spirit turns trembling to Thee.

As, still to the star of its worship, though clouded,

The needle points faithfully o'er the dim sea,

So, dark as I roam in this wintry world shrouded,

The hope of my spirit turns trembling to Thee.

It is sung inPlymouth Hymnalto Barnby's “St. Botolph.”

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

There's nothing bright above, below,From flowers that bloom to stars that glow;But in its light my soul can seeSome feature of Thy deity.

There's nothing bright above, below,

From flowers that bloom to stars that glow;

But in its light my soul can see

Some feature of Thy deity.

Is associated in theBaptist Praise Bookwith Woodbury's “Siloam.”

Has been sung in Mason's “Coventry,” and thePlymouth Hymnalassigns it to “Spohr”—a namesake tune of Louis Spohr, while theUnitarian Hymn and Tune Bookunites to it a beautiful triple-time melody from Mozart, and bearing his name.

This is the best of the Irish poet's sacred songs—always excepting, “Come, Ye Disconsolate.” It is said to have been originally set to a secular melody composed by the wife of Hon. Richard Brinsley289 /245Sheridan. It is joined to the tune of “Brighton” in the Unitarian books, and William Monk's “Matthias” voices the words for thePlymouth Hymnal.The verses have the true lyrical glow, and make a real song of praise as well a composition of more than ordinary literary beauty.

Thou art, O God, the life and lightOf all this wondrous world we see;Its glow by day, its smile by nightAre but reflections caught from Thee.Where'er we turn Thy glories shine,And all things fair and bright are Thine.* * * * * *When night with wings of starry gloomO'ershadows all the earth, and skiesLike some dark, beauteous bird, whose plumeIs sparkling with unnumbered eyes,That sacred gloom, those fires divine,So grand, so countless, Lord, are Thine.When youthful spring around us breathes,Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh,And every flower the summer wreathesIs born beneath that kindling eye.Where'er we turn Thy glories shine,And all things fair and bright are Thine.

Thou art, O God, the life and light

Of all this wondrous world we see;

Its glow by day, its smile by night

Are but reflections caught from Thee.

Where'er we turn Thy glories shine,

And all things fair and bright are Thine.

* * * * * *

When night with wings of starry gloomO'ershadows all the earth, and skiesLike some dark, beauteous bird, whose plumeIs sparkling with unnumbered eyes,That sacred gloom, those fires divine,So grand, so countless, Lord, are Thine.

When night with wings of starry gloom

O'ershadows all the earth, and skies

Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume

Is sparkling with unnumbered eyes,

That sacred gloom, those fires divine,

So grand, so countless, Lord, are Thine.

When youthful spring around us breathes,Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh,And every flower the summer wreathesIs born beneath that kindling eye.Where'er we turn Thy glories shine,And all things fair and bright are Thine.

When youthful spring around us breathes,

Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh,

And every flower the summer wreathes

Is born beneath that kindling eye.

Where'er we turn Thy glories shine,

And all things fair and bright are Thine.

A tender funeral ballad by Henry S. Washburn, composed in 1846 and entitled “The Burial of Mrs. Judson.” It is rare now in sheet-music form but theAmerican Vocalist, to be found in the stores290 /246of most great music publishers and dealers, preserves the full poem and score.

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

Mournfully, tenderly, bear on the dead;Where the warrior has lain, let the Christian be laid.No place more befitting, O rock of the sea;Never such treasure was hidden in thee.Mournfully, tenderly, solemn and slow;Tears are bedewing the path as ye go;Kindred and strangers are mourners today;Gently, so gently, O bear her away.Mournfully, tenderly, gaze on that brow;Beautiful is it in quietude now.One look, and then settle the loved to her restThe ocean beneath her, the turf on her breast.

Mournfully, tenderly, bear on the dead;Where the warrior has lain, let the Christian be laid.No place more befitting, O rock of the sea;Never such treasure was hidden in thee.

Mournfully, tenderly, bear on the dead;

Where the warrior has lain, let the Christian be laid.

No place more befitting, O rock of the sea;

Never such treasure was hidden in thee.

Mournfully, tenderly, solemn and slow;Tears are bedewing the path as ye go;Kindred and strangers are mourners today;Gently, so gently, O bear her away.

Mournfully, tenderly, solemn and slow;

Tears are bedewing the path as ye go;

Kindred and strangers are mourners today;

Gently, so gently, O bear her away.

Mournfully, tenderly, gaze on that brow;Beautiful is it in quietude now.One look, and then settle the loved to her restThe ocean beneath her, the turf on her breast.

Mournfully, tenderly, gaze on that brow;

Beautiful is it in quietude now.

One look, and then settle the loved to her rest

The ocean beneath her, the turf on her breast.

Mrs. Sarah Judson was the second wife of the Rev. Adoniram Judson, D.D., the celebrated pioneer291 /247American Baptist missionary, and the mother by her first marriage, of the late Rev. George Dana Boardman, D.D., LL.D., of Philadelphia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I am Mr. Longfellow,” said the poet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

This poem by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, known among his works as “The Chambered Nautilus,” was considered by himself as his worthiest achievement in verse, and his wish that it might live is likely to be fulfilled. It is stately, and in character and effect a rhythmic sermon from a text in “natural theology.” The biography of one of the little molluscan sea-navigators that continually enlarges its shell to adapt it to its294 /250growth inspired the thoughtful lines. The third, fourth and fifth stanzas are as follows:

Year after year beheld the silent toilThat spread the lustrous coil;Still, as the spiral grew,He left the last year's dwelling for the new,Stole with soft step the shining archway through,Built up its idle door,Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,Child of the wand'ring sea,Cast from her lap forlorn!From thy dead lips a clearer note is bornThan ever Triton blew fromwreathédhorn!While on my ear it ringsThrough the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings,“Build thee more noble mansions, O my soul.As the swift seasons roll:Leave thy low-vaulted past!Let each new temple, nobler than the last,Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,Till thou at length art free,Leaving thy outgrown shell by life's unresting sea.”

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread the lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the last year's dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step the shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,Child of the wand'ring sea,Cast from her lap forlorn!From thy dead lips a clearer note is bornThan ever Triton blew fromwreathédhorn!While on my ear it ringsThrough the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings,

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wand'ring sea,

Cast from her lap forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew fromwreathédhorn!

While on my ear it rings

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings,

“Build thee more noble mansions, O my soul.As the swift seasons roll:Leave thy low-vaulted past!Let each new temple, nobler than the last,Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,Till thou at length art free,Leaving thy outgrown shell by life's unresting sea.”

“Build thee more noble mansions, O my soul.

As the swift seasons roll:

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thy outgrown shell by life's unresting sea.”

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

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

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

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

Yet where our duty's task is wroughtIn unison with God's great thought,The near and future blend in one,And whatsoe'er is willed, is done.

Yet where our duty's task is wrought

In unison with God's great thought,

The near and future blend in one,

And whatsoe'er is willed, is done.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I walked through the woodland meadowsWhere sweet the thrushes sing,And found on a bed of mossesA bird with a broken wing.I healed its wound, and each morningIt sang its old sweet strain,But the bird with a broken pinionNever soared as high again.I found a young life brokenBy sin's seductive art;And, touched with a Christ-like pity,I took him to my heart.He lived—with a noble purpose,And struggled not in vain;But the life that sin had strickenNever soared as high again.But the bird with a broken pinionKept another from the snare,And the life that sin had strickenSaved another from despair.Each loss has its compensation,There is healing for every painBut the bird with a broken pinionNever soars as high again.

I walked through the woodland meadows

Where sweet the thrushes sing,

And found on a bed of mosses

A bird with a broken wing.

I healed its wound, and each morning

It sang its old sweet strain,

But the bird with a broken pinion

Never soared as high again.

I found a young life brokenBy sin's seductive art;And, touched with a Christ-like pity,I took him to my heart.He lived—with a noble purpose,And struggled not in vain;But the life that sin had strickenNever soared as high again.

I found a young life broken

By sin's seductive art;

And, touched with a Christ-like pity,

I took him to my heart.

He lived—with a noble purpose,

And struggled not in vain;

But the life that sin had stricken

Never soared as high again.

But the bird with a broken pinionKept another from the snare,And the life that sin had strickenSaved another from despair.Each loss has its compensation,There is healing for every painBut the bird with a broken pinionNever soars as high again.

But the bird with a broken pinion

Kept another from the snare,

And the life that sin had stricken

Saved another from despair.

Each loss has its compensation,

There is healing for every pain

But the bird with a broken pinion

Never soars as high again.

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

Then come to the dear Redeemer,He will cleanse you from everystain,

Then come to the dear Redeemer,

He will cleanse you from everystain,

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

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

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

In the cantata, “Under the Palms” (“Captive Judah in Babylon”)—the joint production of George F. Root*and Hezekiah Butterworth, several301 /255of the latter's songs detached themselves, with their music, from the main work, and lingered in choral or solo service in places where the sacred operetta was presented, both in America and England. One of these is an effective solo in deep contralto, with a suggestion of recitative and chant—

By the dark Euphrates' stream,By the Tigris, sad and loneI wandered, a captive maid;And the cruel Assyrian said,“Awake your harp's sweet tone!”I had heard of my fathers' glory from the lips of holy men,And I thought of the land of my fathers; I thought of my fathers' land then.

By the dark Euphrates' stream,By the Tigris, sad and loneI wandered, a captive maid;And the cruel Assyrian said,“Awake your harp's sweet tone!”

By the dark Euphrates' stream,

By the Tigris, sad and lone

I wandered, a captive maid;

And the cruel Assyrian said,

“Awake your harp's sweet tone!”

I had heard of my fathers' glory from the lips of holy men,And I thought of the land of my fathers; I thought of my fathers' land then.

I had heard of my fathers' glory from the lips of holy men,

And I thought of the land of my fathers; I thought of my fathers' land then.

Another is—

O church of Christ! our blest abode,Celestial grace is thine.Thou art the dwelling-place of God,The gate of joy divine.Whene'er I come to thee in joy,Whene'er I come in tears,Still at the Gate called BeautifulMy risen Lord appears.

O church of Christ! our blest abode,Celestial grace is thine.Thou art the dwelling-place of God,The gate of joy divine.

O church of Christ! our blest abode,

Celestial grace is thine.

Thou art the dwelling-place of God,

The gate of joy divine.

Whene'er I come to thee in joy,Whene'er I come in tears,Still at the Gate called BeautifulMy risen Lord appears.

Whene'er I come to thee in joy,

Whene'er I come in tears,

Still at the Gate called Beautiful

My risen Lord appears.

—with the chorus—

Where'er for me the sun may set,Wherever I may dwell,My heart shall nevermore forgetThy courts, Immanuel!

Where'er for me the sun may set,

Wherever I may dwell,

My heart shall nevermore forget

Thy courts, Immanuel!

* Seepage 316.

299 /opp 254Ellen M.H. GatesEllen M.H. GatesHymnal302 /256

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

If you cannot on the oceanSail among the swiftest fleet.

If you cannot on the ocean

Sail among the swiftest fleet.

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

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

In the later days of the Civil War Philip Phillips, who had a wonderfully sweet tenor voice, was invited to sing at a great meeting of the United States Christian Commission in the Senate Chamber at Washington, February, 1865, President Lincoln and303 /257Secretary Seward (then president of the commission) were there, and the hall was crowded with leading statesmen, army generals, and friends of the Union. The song selected by Mr. Phillips was Mrs. Gates' “Your Mission”:

If you cannot on the oceanSail among the swiftest fleet,Rocking on the highest billows,Laughing at the storms you meet,You can stand among the sailorsAnchored yet within the bay;You can lend a hand to help themAs they launch their boats away.

If you cannot on the ocean

Sail among the swiftest fleet,

Rocking on the highest billows,

Laughing at the storms you meet,

You can stand among the sailors

Anchored yet within the bay;

You can lend a hand to help them

As they launch their boats away.

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

If you cannot in the conflictProve yourself a soldier true,If where fire and smoke are thickestThere's no work for you to do,When the battlefield is silentYou can go with careful tread;You can bear away the wounded,You can cover up the dead.

If you cannot in the conflict

Prove yourself a soldier true,

If where fire and smoke are thickest

There's no work for you to do,

When the battlefield is silent

You can go with careful tread;

You can bear away the wounded,

You can cover up the dead.

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

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

Mr. Phillips' great success on this occasion brought him so many calls for his services that he304 /258gave up everything and devoted himself to his tuneful art. “Your Mission” so gladly welcomed at Washington made him the first gospel songster, chanting round the world the divine message of the hymns. It was the singing by Philip Phillips that first impressed Ira D. Sankey with the amazing power of evangelical solo song, and helped him years later to resign his lucrative business as a revenue officer and consecrate his own rare vocal gift to the Christian ministry of sacred music. Heaven alone can show the birth-records of souls won to God all along the journeys of the “Singing Pilgrims,” and the rich succession of Mr. Sankey's melodies, that can be traced back by a chain of causes to the poem that “wrote itself” and became a hymn. And the chain may not yet be complete. In the words of that providential poem—

Though they may forget the singerThey will not forget the song.

Though they may forget the singer

They will not forget the song.

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

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

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

*Methodist Hymnal, No. 743.

“Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill:Late, late, so late! but we can enter still."“Too late! too late! ye cannot enter now!”306 /260“No light! so late! and dark and chill the night—O let us in that we may find the light!"“Too late! too late! ye cannot enter now!”* * * * * *“Have we not heard the Bridegroom is so sweet?O let us in that we may kiss his feet!"“No, No—! too late! ye cannot enter now!”

“Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill:Late, late, so late! but we can enter still."“Too late! too late! ye cannot enter now!”

“Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill:

Late, late, so late! but we can enter still."

“Too late! too late! ye cannot enter now!”

“No light! so late! and dark and chill the night—O let us in that we may find the light!"“Too late! too late! ye cannot enter now!”

“No light! so late! and dark and chill the night—

O let us in that we may find the light!"

“Too late! too late! ye cannot enter now!”

* * * * * *

“Have we not heard the Bridegroom is so sweet?O let us in that we may kiss his feet!"“No, No—! too late! ye cannot enter now!”

“Have we not heard the Bridegroom is so sweet?

O let us in that we may kiss his feet!"

“No, No—! too late! ye cannot enter now!”

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

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

Each cooing dove, each sighing bough,That makes the eve so blest to me,Has something far diviner now,It bears me back to Galilee.ChorusOh, Galilee, sweet Galilee,Where Jesus loved so much to be;Oh, Galilee, blue Galilee,Come sing thy song again to me.

Each cooing dove, each sighing bough,That makes the eve so blest to me,Has something far diviner now,It bears me back to Galilee.

Each cooing dove, each sighing bough,

That makes the eve so blest to me,

Has something far diviner now,

It bears me back to Galilee.

ChorusOh, Galilee, sweet Galilee,Where Jesus loved so much to be;Oh, Galilee, blue Galilee,Come sing thy song again to me.

Chorus

Oh, Galilee, sweet Galilee,

Where Jesus loved so much to be;

Oh, Galilee, blue Galilee,

Come sing thy song again to me.

Robert Morris, LL.D., born Aug. 31, 1818, was a scholar, and an expert in certain scientific subjects, and wrote works on numismatics and the “Poetry of Free Masonry.” Commissioned to Palestine in 1868 on historic andarchaeologicalservice for the United Order, he explored the307 /261scenes of ancient Jewish and Christian life and event in the Holy Land, and being a religious man, followed the Saviour's earthly footsteps with a reverent zeal that left its inspiration with him while he lived. He died in the year 1888, but his Christian ballad secured him a lasting place in every devout memory.

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

* Seepage 311.

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

From whence doth this union arise,That hatred is conquered by love.

From whence doth this union arise,

That hatred is conquered by love.

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

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

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

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

In de dark wood, no Indian nigh,Den me look heaben, send up cry,Upon my knees so low.Dat God on high, in shinee place,See me in night, with teary face,De priest, he tell me so.God send Him angel take me care;Him come Heself and hear um prayer,If Indian heart do pray.God see me now, He know me here.He say, poor Indian, neber fear,Me wid you night and day.So me lub God wid inside heart;He fight for me, He take my part,He save my life before.God lub poor Indian in de wood;So me lub God, and dat be good;Me pray Him two times more.When me be old, me head be gray,Den He no lebe me, so He say:Me wid you till you die.Den take me up to shinee place,See white man, red man, black man's face,All happy 'like on high.Few days, den God will come to me,He knock off chains, He set me free,Den take me up on high.Den Indian sing His praises blest,And lub and praise Him wid de rest,And neber, neber cry.

In de dark wood, no Indian nigh,Den me look heaben, send up cry,Upon my knees so low.Dat God on high, in shinee place,See me in night, with teary face,De priest, he tell me so.

In de dark wood, no Indian nigh,

Den me look heaben, send up cry,

Upon my knees so low.

Dat God on high, in shinee place,

See me in night, with teary face,

De priest, he tell me so.

God send Him angel take me care;Him come Heself and hear um prayer,If Indian heart do pray.God see me now, He know me here.He say, poor Indian, neber fear,Me wid you night and day.

God send Him angel take me care;

Him come Heself and hear um prayer,

If Indian heart do pray.

God see me now, He know me here.

He say, poor Indian, neber fear,

Me wid you night and day.

So me lub God wid inside heart;He fight for me, He take my part,He save my life before.God lub poor Indian in de wood;So me lub God, and dat be good;Me pray Him two times more.

So me lub God wid inside heart;

He fight for me, He take my part,

He save my life before.

God lub poor Indian in de wood;

So me lub God, and dat be good;

Me pray Him two times more.

When me be old, me head be gray,Den He no lebe me, so He say:Me wid you till you die.Den take me up to shinee place,See white man, red man, black man's face,All happy 'like on high.

When me be old, me head be gray,

Den He no lebe me, so He say:

Me wid you till you die.

Den take me up to shinee place,

See white man, red man, black man's face,

All happy 'like on high.

Few days, den God will come to me,He knock off chains, He set me free,Den take me up on high.Den Indian sing His praises blest,And lub and praise Him wid de rest,And neber, neber cry.

Few days, den God will come to me,

He knock off chains, He set me free,

Den take me up on high.

Den Indian sing His praises blest,

And lub and praise Him wid de rest,

And neber, neber cry.

The above hymn, which may be found in different forms in old New England tracts and hymn-books, and which used to be sung in Methodist311 /265conference and prayer-meetings in the same way that old slave-hymns and the “Jubilee Singers” refrains are sometimes sung now, was composed by William Apes, a converted Indian, who was born in Massachusetts, in 1798. His father was a white man, but married an Indian descended from the family of King Philip, the Indian warrior, and the last of the Indian chiefs. His grandmother was the king's granddaughter, as he claimed, and was famous for her personal beauty. He caused his autobiography and religious experience to be published. The original hymn is quite long, and contains some singular and characteristic expressions.

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

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

When shall we all meet again?

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

When shall we all meet again?When shall we all meet again?312 /266Oft shall glowing hope expire,Oft shall wearied love retire,Oft shall death and sorrow reignEre we all shall meet again.Though in distant lands we sigh,Parched beneath a burning sky,Though the deep between us rolls,Friendship shall unite our souls;And in fancy's wide domain,There we all shall meet again.When these burnished locks are gray,Thinned by many a toil-spent day,When around this youthful pineMoss shall creep and ivy twine,(Long may this loved bower remain!)Here may we all meet again.When the dreams of life are fled,When its wasted lamps are dead,When in cold oblivion's shadeBeauty, health, and strength are laid,Where immortal spirits reign,There we all shall meet again.

When shall we all meet again?When shall we all meet again?312 /266Oft shall glowing hope expire,Oft shall wearied love retire,Oft shall death and sorrow reignEre we all shall meet again.

When shall we all meet again?

Oft shall glowing hope expire,

Oft shall wearied love retire,

Oft shall death and sorrow reign

Ere we all shall meet again.

Though in distant lands we sigh,Parched beneath a burning sky,Though the deep between us rolls,Friendship shall unite our souls;And in fancy's wide domain,There we all shall meet again.

Though in distant lands we sigh,

Parched beneath a burning sky,

Though the deep between us rolls,

Friendship shall unite our souls;

And in fancy's wide domain,

There we all shall meet again.

When these burnished locks are gray,Thinned by many a toil-spent day,When around this youthful pineMoss shall creep and ivy twine,(Long may this loved bower remain!)Here may we all meet again.

When these burnished locks are gray,

Thinned by many a toil-spent day,

When around this youthful pine

Moss shall creep and ivy twine,

(Long may this loved bower remain!)

Here may we all meet again.

When the dreams of life are fled,When its wasted lamps are dead,When in cold oblivion's shadeBeauty, health, and strength are laid,Where immortal spirits reign,There we all shall meet again.

When the dreams of life are fled,

When its wasted lamps are dead,

When in cold oblivion's shade

Beauty, health, and strength are laid,

Where immortal spirits reign,

There we all shall meet again.

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

“When shall we meet again,Meet ne'er to sever?”

“When shall we meet again,

Meet ne'er to sever?”

—to a tune in B flat minor, excessively plaintive, and likely to sadden anemotionalsinger or hearer to tears. The full harmony is found in theAmerican Vocalist, and the air is reprinted in theRevivalist(1868). The fact that minor music is the natural313 /267Indian tone in song makes it probable that the melody is as ancient as the hymn—though no date is given for either.

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

Parted many a toil-spent year,Pledged in youth to memory dear,Still to friendship's magnet true,We our social joys renew;Bound by love's unsevered chain,Here on earth we meet again.

Parted many a toil-spent year,

Pledged in youth to memory dear,

Still to friendship's magnet true,

We our social joys renew;

Bound by love's unsevered chain,

Here on earth we meet again.

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

The name of the Indian, Samson Occum, who wrote this hymn (variously spelt Ockom, Ockum, Occam, Occom) is not borne by any public institution, but New England owes the foundation of Dartmouth College to his hard work. Dartmouth College was originally “Moore's Indian Charity School,” organized (1750) in Lebanon, Ct., by Rev. Eleazer Wheelock and endowed (1755) by Joshua Moore (or More). Good men and women who314 /268had at heart the spiritual welfare of a fading race contributed to the school's support and young Indians resorted to it from both New England and the Middle States, but funds were insufficient, and it was foreseen that the charity must inevitably outgrow its missionary purpose and if continued at all must depend on a wider and more liberal patronage.

Samson Occum was born in Mohegan, New London Co., Ct., probably in the year 1722. Converted from paganism in 1740 (possibly under the preaching of Whitefield, who was in this country at that time) he desired to become a missionary to his people, and entered Eleazer Wheelock's school. After four years study, then a young man of twenty-two, he began to teach and preach among the Montauk Indians, and in 1759 the Presbytery of Suffolk Co., L.I., ordained him to the ministry. A benevolent society in Scotland, hearing of, his ability and zeal, gave him an appointment, under its auspices, among the Oneidas in 1761, where he labored four years. The interests of the school at Lebanon, where he had been educated, were dear to him, and he was tireless in its cause, procuring pupils for it, and working eloquently as its advocate with voice and pen. In 1765 he crossed the Atlantic to solicit funds for the Indian school, and remained four years in England and Scotland, lecturing in its behalf, and preaching nearly four hundred sermons. As a result he raised ten thousand pounds. The donation was put in charge of a Board of315 /269Trustees of which Lord Dartmouth was chairman. When it was decided to remove the school from Lebanon, Ct., the efforts of Governor Wentworth, of New Hampshire, secured its location at Hanover in that state. It was christened after Lord Dartmouth—and the names of Occum, Moore and Wheelock retired into the encyclopedias.

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

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