Chapter 7

Jesus my all to heaven is gone,He whom I fixed my hopes upon;His track I see, and I'll pursueThe narrow way till Him I view.The way the holy prophets went,The road that leads from banishment,The King's highway of holinessI'll go for all Thy paths are peace.The memory has not passed away of the hearty unison with which prayer-meeting and camp-meeting assemblies used to “crescendo” the last stanza—Then will I tell to sinners roundWhat a dear Saviour I have found;I'll point to His redeeming blood,And say “Behold the way to God.”The Rev. George Coles was born in Stewkley, Eng., Jan. 2, 1792, and died in New York City, May 1, 1858. He was editor of theN.Y. Christian Advocate, andSunday School Advocate, for several years, and was a musician of some ability, besides being a good singer.“SWEET THE MOMENTS, RICH IN BLESSING.”The Hon. and Rev.Walter Shirley, Rector of Loughgree, county of Galway, Ireland, revised this hymn under the chastening discipline of a most trying experience. His brother, the Earl of Ferrars, a licentious man, murdered an old and faithful servant in a fit of rage, and was executed at Tyburn for the crime. Sir Walter, after the160 /128disgrace and long distress of the imprisonment, trial, and final tragedy, returned to his little parish in Ireland, humbled but driven nearer to the Cross.Sweet the moments, rich in blessingWhich before the Cross I spend;Life and health and peace possessingFrom the sinner's dying Friend.All the emotion of one who buries a mortifying sorrow in the heart of Christ, and tries to forget, trembles in the lines of the above hymn as he changed and adapted it in his saddest but devoutest hours. Its original writer was the Rev. James Allen, nearly twenty years younger than himself, a man of culture and piety, but a Christian of shifting creeds. It is not impossible that he sent his hymn to Shirley to revise. At all events it owes its present form to Shirley's hand.Trulyblessédis the stationLow before His cross to lie,While I see Divine CompassionBeaming in His gracious eye.** “Floating in His languid eye” seems to have been the earlier version.The influence of Sir Walter's family misfortune is evident also in the mood out of which breathed his other trustful lines—Peace, troubled soul, whose plaintive moanHath taught these rocks the notes of woe,(changed now to “hath taughtthese scenes” etc).Sir Walter Shirley, cousin of the Countess of Huntingdon, was born 1725, and died in 1786.161 /129Even in his last sickness he continued to preach to his people in his house, seated in his chair.Rev. James Oswald Allen was born at Gayle, Yorkshire, Eng., June 24, 1743. He left the University of Cambridge after a year's study, and became an itinerant preacher, but seems to have been a man of unstable religious views. After roving from one Christian denomination to another several times, he built a Chapel, and for forty years ministered there to a small Independent congregation. He died in Gayle, Oct. 31, 1804.The tune long and happily associated with “Sweet the Moments” is “Sicily,” or the “Sicilian Hymn”—from an old Latin hymn-tune, “O Sanctissima.”“O FOR A CLOSER WALK WITH GOD.”The author, William Cowper, son of a clergyman, was born at Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire, Eng., Nov. 15, 1731, and died at Dereham, Norfolk, April 25, 1800. Through much of his adult life he was afflicted with a mental ailment inducing melancholia and at times partial insanity, during which he once attempted suicide. He sought literary occupation as an antidote to his disorder of mind, and besides a great number of lighter pieces which diverted him and his friends, composed “The Task,” an able and delightful moral and domestic poetic treatise in blank verse, and in the same style of verse translated Homer'sOdysseyandIliad.162 /130One of the most beloved of English poets, this suffering man was also a true Christian, and wrote some of our sweetest and most spiritual hymns. Most of these were composed at Olney, where he resided for a time with John Newton, his fellow hymnist, and jointly with him issued the volume known as theOlney Hymns.THE TUNE.Music more or less closely identified with this familiar hymn is Gardiner's “Dedham,” and also “Mear,” often attributed to Aaron Williams. Both, about equally with the hymn, are seasoned by time, but have not worn out their harmony—or their fitness to Cowper's prayer.William Gardiner was born in Leicester, Eng., March 15, 1770, and died there Nov. 11, 1853. He was a vocal composer and a “musicographer” or writer on musical subjects.One Aaron Williams, to whom “Mear” has by some been credited, was of Welsh descent, a composer of psalmody and clerk of the Scotch church in London. He was born in 1734, and died in 1776. Another account, and the more probable one, names a minister of Boston of still earlier date as the author of the noble old harmony. It is found in a small New England collection of 1726, but not in any English or Scotch collection. “Mear” is presumably an American tune.163 /131“WHAT VARIOUS HINDRANCES WE MEET.”Another hymn of Cowper's; and no one ever suffered more deeply the plaintive regret in the opening lines, or better wrought into poetic expression an argument for prayer.What various hindrances we meetIn coming to a mercy-seat!Yet who that knows the worth of prayerBut wishes to be often there?Prayer makes the darkest clouds withdraw,Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw.The whole hymn is (or once was) so thoroughly learned by heart as to be fixed in the church among its household words. Preachers to the diffident do not forget to quote—Have you no words? ah, think again;Words flow apace when youcomplain.* * * * * *Were half the breath thus vainly spentTo Heaven in supplication sent,Our cheerful song would oftener be,“Hear what the Lord hath done for me!”And there is all the lifetime of a proverb in the couplet—Satan trembles when he seesThe weakest saint upon his knees.Tune, Lowell Mason's “Rockingham.”164 /132“MY GRACIOUS REDEEMER I LOVE.”This is one of Benjamin Francis's lays of devotion. The Christian Welshman who bore that name was a Gospel minister full of Evangelical zeal, who preached in many places, though his pastoral home was with the Baptist church in Shortwood, Wales. Flattering calls to London could not tempt him away from his first and only parish, and he remained there till his triumphant death. He was born in 1734, and died in 1799.My gracious Redeemer I love,His praises aloud I'll proclaim,And join with the armies above,To shout His adorable name.To gaze on His glories divineShall be my eternal employ;To see them incessantly shine,My boundless, ineffable joy.Tune, “Birmingham”—an English melody. Anonymous.“BLEST BE THE TIE THAT BINDS.”Perhaps the best hymn-expression of sacred brotherhood, at least it has had, and still has the indorsement of constant use. The author, John Fawcett, D.D., is always quoted as the example of his own words, since he sacrificed ambition and personal interest to Christian affection.Born near Bradford, Yorkshire, Jan. 6, 1739, and converted under the preaching of Whitefield,165 /133he joined the Methodists, but afterwards became a member of the new Baptist church in Bradford. Seven years later he was ordained over the Baptist Society at Wainsgate. In 1772 he received a call to succeed the celebrated Dr. Gill, in London, and accepted. But at the last moment, when his goods were packed for removal, the clinging love of his people, weeping their farewells around him, melted his heart. Their passionate regrets were more than either he or his good wife could withstand.“I willstay,” he said; “you may unpack my goods, and we will live for the Lord lovingly together.”It was out of this heart experience that the tender hymn was born.Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one,Our comforts and our cares.Dr. Fawcett died July 25, 1817.Tune, “Boylston,” L. Mason; or “Dennis,” H.G. Nägeli.“I LOVE THY KINGDOM, LORD.”“Dr. Dwight's Hymn,” as this is knownpar eminenceamong many others from his pen, is one of the imperishable lyrics of the Christian Church. The real spirit of the hundred and twenty-second Psalm is in it, and it is worthy of Watts in his best moments.166 /134Timothy Dwight was born at Northampton, Mass, May 14, 1752, and graduated at Yale College at the age of thirteen. He wrote several religious poems of considerable length. In 1795 he was elected President of Yale College, and in 1800 he revised Watts' Psalms, at the request of the General Association of Connecticut, adding a number of translations of his own.I love Thy kingdom, Lord,The house of Thine abode,The Church our blest Redeemer savedWith His own precious blood.I love Thy Church, O God;Her walls before Thee stand,Dear as the apple of Thine eye,And graven on Thy hand.Dr. Dwight died Jan. 11, 1817.Tune, “St. Thomas,” Aaron Williams, (1734–1776.)Mr. Hubert P. Main, however, believes the author to be Handel. It appeared as the second movement of a four-movement tune in Williams's 1762 collection, which contained pieces by the great masters, with his own; but while not credited to Handel, Williams did not claim it himself.“MID SCENES OF CONFUSION.”This hymn, common in chapel hymnbooks half a century and more ago, is said to have been written by the Rev. David Denham, about 1826.167 /135THE TUNE.“Home, Sweet Home” was composed, according to the old account, by John Howard Payne as one of the airs in his opera of “Clari, the Maid of Milan,” which was brought out in London at Drury Lane in 1823. But Charles Mackay, the English poet, in the London Telegraph, asserts that Sir Henry Bishop, an eminent musician, in his vain search for a Sicilian national air,inventedone, and that it was the melody of “Home, sweet Home,” which he afterwards set to Howard Payne's words. Mr. Mackay had this story from Sir Henry himself.Mid scenes of confusion and creature complaintsHow sweet to my soul is communion with saints,To find at the banquet of mercy there's roomAnd feel in the presence of Jesus at home.Home, home, sweet, sweet home!Prepare me, dear Savior for glory, my home.John Howard Payne, author at least, of the originalwordsof “Home, Sweet Home,” was born in New York City June 9, 1791. He was a singer, and became an actor and theatrical writer. He composed the words of his immortal song in the year 1823, when he was himself homeless and hungry and sheltered temporarily in an attic in Paris.His fortunes improved at last, and he was appointed to represent his native country as consul in Tunis, where he died, Apr. 9, 1852.168 /136“O, COULD I SPEAK THE MATCHLESS WORTH.”The writer of this hymn of worshiping ardor and exalted Christian love was an English Baptist minister, the Rev. Samuel Medley. He was born at Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, June 23, 1738, and at eighteen years of age entered the Royal Navy, where, though he had been piously educated, he became dissipated and morally reckless. Wounded in a sea fight off Cape Lagos, and in dread of amputation he prayed penitently through nearly a whole night, and in the morning the surprised surgeon told him his limb could be saved.The voice of his awakened conscience was not wholly disregarded, though it was not till some time after he left the navy that his vow to begin a religious life was sincerely kept. After teaching school for four years, he began to preach in 1766, Wartford in Hertfordshire being the first scene of his godly labors. He died in Liverpool July 17, 1799, at the end of a faithful ministry there of twenty-seven years. A small edition of his hymns was published during his lifetime, in 1789.O could I speak the matchless worth,O could I sound the glories forthWhich in my Saviour shine,I'd soar and touch the heavenly stringsAnd vie with Gabriel while he sings,In notes almost divine!169 /137THE TUNE.“Colebrook,” a plain choral; but with a noble movement, by Henry Smart, is the English music to this fine lyric, but Dr. Mason's “Ariel” is the American favorite. It justifies its name, for it has wings—in both full harmony and duet—and its melody feels the glory of the hymn at every bar.157 /opp 126Augustus Montague TopladyAugustus Montague TopladyHymnal“ROCK OF AGES CLEFT FOR ME.”Augustus Montagu Toplady, author of this almost universal hymn, was born at Farnham, Surrey, Eng., Nov. 4, 1740. Educated atWestminsterSchool, and Trinity College, Dublin, he took orders in the Established Church. In his doctrinal debates with the Wesleys he was a harsh controversialist; but his piety was sincere, and marked late in life by exalted moods. Physically he was frail, and his fiery zeal wore out his body. Transferred from his vicarage at Broad Hembury, Devonshire, to Knightsbridge, London, at twenty-eight years of age, his health began to fail before he was thirty-five, and in one of his periods of illness he wrote—When languor and disease invadeThis trembling house of clay,'Tis sweet to look beyond my painsAnd long to fly away.And the same homesickness for heaven appears under a different figure in another hymn—170 /138At anchor laid remote from home,Toiling I cry, “Sweet Spirit, come!Celestial breeze, no longer stay,But swell my sails, and speed my way!”Possessed of an ardent religious nature, his spiritual frames exemplified in a notable degree the emotional side of Calvinistic piety. Edward Payson himself, was not more enraptured in immediate view of death than was this young London priest and poet. Unquestioning faith became perfect certainty. As in the bold metaphor of “Rock of Ages,” the faith finds voice in—A debtor to mercy alone,—and other hymns in his collection of 1776, two years before the end came. Most of this devout writing was done in his last days, and he continued it as long as strength was left, until, on the 11th of August, 1778, he joyfully passed away.Somehow there was always something peculiarly heartsome and “filling” to pious minds in the lines of Toplady in days when his minor hymns were more in vogue than now, and they were often quoted, without any idea whose making they were. “At anchor laid” was crooned by good old ladies at their spinning-wheels, and godly invalids found “When languor and disease invade” a comfort next to their Bibles.“Rock of Ages” is said to have been written after the author, during a suburban walk, had been forced to shelter himself from a thunder171 /139shower, under a cliff. This is, however, but one of several stories about the birth-occasion of the hymn.It has been translated into many languages. One of the foreign dignitaries visiting Queen Victoria at her “Golden Jubilee” was a native of Madagascar, who surprised her by asking leave to sing, but delighted her, when leave was given, by singing “Rock of Ages.” It was a favorite of hers—and of Prince Albert, who whispered it when he was dying. People who were school-children when Rev. Justus Vinton came home to Willington, Ct., with two Karen pupils, repeat to-day the “la-pa-ta, i-oo-i-oo” caught by sound from the brown-faced boys as they sang their native version of “Rock of Ages.”Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, the famous Confederate Cavalry leader, mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern, Va., and borne to a Richmond hospital, called for his minister and requested that “Rock of Ages” be sung to him.The last sounds heard by the few saved from the wreck of the steamer “London” in the Bay of Biscay, 1866, were the voices of the helpless passengers singing “Rock of Ages” as the ship went down.A company of Armenian Christians sang “Rock of Ages” in their native tongue while they were being massacred in Constantinople.No history of this grand hymn of faith forgets the incident of Gladstone writing a Latin172 /140translation of it while sitting in the House of Commons. That remarkable man was as masterly in his scholarly recreations as in his statesmanship. The supreme Christian sentiment of the hymn had permeated his soul till it spoke to him in a dead language as eloquently as in the living one; and this is what he made of it:TOPLADY.Rock of ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee;Let the water and the blood,From Thy riven side which flowed,Be of sin the double cure,Cleanse me from its guilt and power.Not the labor of my handsCan fulfil Thy law's demands;Could my zeal no respite know,Could my tears for ever flow,All for sin could not atone,Thou must save, and Thou alone.Nothing in my hand I bring,Simply to Thy cross I cling;Naked, come to Thee for dress,Helpless, look to Thee for grace:Foul, I to the fountain fly;Wash, me, Saviour, or I die.Whilst I draw this fleeting breath,When my eyestrings break in death;When I soar through tracts unknown,See Thee on Thy judgment throne,Rock of ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee.173 /141GLADSTONE.Jesus, pro me perforatus,Condar intra tuum latus;Tu per lympham profluentem,Tu per sanguinem tepentem,In peccata mi redunda,Tolle culpam, sordes munda!Coram Te nec justus foremQuamvis tota vi laborem,Nec si fide nunquam cesso,Fletu stillans indefesso;Tibi soli tantum munus—Salva me, Salvator Unus!Nil in manu mecum fero,Sed me versus crucem gero:Vestimenta nudus oro,Opem debilis imploro,Fontem Christi quæro immundus,Nisi laves, moribundus.Dum hos artus vita regit,Quando nox sepulcro legit;Mortuos quum stare jubes,Sedens Judex inter nubes;—Jesus, pro me perforatus,Condar intra tuum latus!The wonderful hymn has suffered the mutations common to time and taste.When I soar thro' tracts unknown—becomes—When I soar to worlds unknown,—getting rid of the unpoetic word, and bettering the elocution, but missing the writer's thought174 /142(of the unknownpath,—instead of going to many “worlds”). The Unitarians have their version, with substitutes for the “atonement lines.”But the Christian lyric maintains its life and inspiration through the vicissitudes of age and use, as all intrinsically superior things can and will,—and as in the twentieth line,—When my eyestrings break in death;—modernized to—When my eyelids close in death,—the hymn will ever adapt itself to the new exigencies of common speech, without losing its vitality and power.THE TUNE.A happy inspiration ofDr. Thomas Hastingsmade the hymn and music inevitably one. Almost anywhere to call for the tune of “Toplady” (namesake of the pious poet) is as unintelligible to the multitude as “Key” would be to designate the “Star-spangled Banner.” The common people—thanks to Dr. Hastings—have learned “Rock of Ages” bysound.Thomas Hastings was born in Washington, Ct., 1784. For eight years he was editor of theWestern Recorder,but he gave his life to church music, and besides being a talented tone-poet he wrote as many as six hundred hymns. In 1832, by invitation from twelve New York churches, he went177 /143to that city, and did the main work of his life there, dying, in 1872, at the good old age of eighty-nine. His musical collections number fifty-three. He wrote his famous tune in 1830.175 /opp 142Thomas HastingsThomas HastingsHymnal“MY SOUL BE ON THY GUARD”Strangely enough, this hymn, a trumpet note of Christian warning and resolution, was written by one who himself fell into unworthy ways.*But the one strong and spiritual watch-song by which he is remembered appeals for him, and lets us know possibly, something of his own conflicts. We can be thankful for the struggle he once made, and for the hymn it inspired. It is a voice of caution to others.* I have been unable to verify this statement found in Mr. Butterworth's “Story of the Hymns.”—T.B.George Heath, the author, was an English minister, born in 1781; died 1822. For a time he was pastor of a Presbyterian Church at Honiton, Devonshire, and was evidently a prolific writer, having composed a hundred and forty-four hymns, an edition of which was printed.THE TUNE.No other has been so familiarly linked with the words as Lowell Mason's “Laban” (1830). It has dash and animation enough to reënforce the hymn, and give it popular life, even if the hymn had less earnestness and vigor of its own.178 /144Ne'er think thevict'rywonNor lay thine armor down:Thy arduous work will not be doneTill thou hast gained thy crown.Fight on, my soul till deathShall bring thee to thy God;He'll take thee at thy parting breathTo His divine abode.“PEOPLE OF THE LIVING GOD.”Montgomeryfeltevery line of this hymn as he committed it to paper. He wrote it when, after years in the “swim” of social excitements and ambitions, where his young independence swept him on, he came back to the little church of his boyhood. His father and mother had gone to the West Indies as missionaries, and died there. He was forty-three years old when, led by divine light, he sought readmission to the Moravian “meeting” at Fulneck, and anchored happily in a haven of peace.People of the living GodI have sought the world around,Paths of sin and sorrow trod,Peace and comfort nowhere found:Now to you my spirit turns—Turns a fugitive unblest;Brethren, where your altar burns,Oh, receive me into rest.James Montgomery, son of Rev. John Montgomery, was born at Irvine, Ayeshire, Scotland,179 /145Nov. 4, 1771, and educated at the Moravian Seminary at Fulneck, Yorkshire, Eng. He became the editor of theSheffield Iris, and his pen was busy in non-professional as well as professional work until old age. He died in Sheffield, April 30, 1854.His literary career was singularly successful; and a glance through any complete edition of his poems will tell us why. His hymns were all published during his lifetime, and all, as well as his longer pieces, have the purity and polished beauty, if not the strength, of Addison's work. Like Addison, too, he could say that he had written no line which, dying, he would wish to blot.The best of Montgomery was in his hymns. These were too many to enumerate here, and the more enduring ones too familiar to need enumeration. The church and the world will not soon forget “The Home in Heaven,”—Forever with the Lord,Amen, so let it be.Life from the dead is in that word;'Tis immortality.Nor—O where shall rest be found,—with its impressive couplet—'Tis not the whole of life to liveNor all of death to die.Nor the haunting sweetness of—There is a calm for those who weep.180 /146Nor, indeed, the hymn of Christian love just now before us.THE TUNE.The melody exactly suited to the gentle trochaic step of the home-song, “People of the living God,” is “Whitman,” composed for it by Lowell Mason. Few Christians, in America, we venture to say, could hear an instrument play “Whitman” without mentally repeating Montgomery's words.“TO LEAVE MY DEAR FRIENDS.”This hymn, called “The Bower of Prayer,” was dear to Christian hearts in many homes and especially in rural chapel worship half a century ago and earlier, and its sweet legato melody still lingers in the memories of aged men and women.Elder John Osborne, a New Hampshire preacher of the “Christian” (Christ-ian) denomination, is said to have composed the tune (and possibly the words) about 1815—though apparently the music was arranged from a flute interlude in one of Haydn's themes. The warbling notes of the air are full of heart-feeling, and usually the best available treble voice sang it as a solo.To leave my dear friends and from neighbors to part,And go from my home, it affects not my heartLike the thought of absenting myself for a dayFrom that blest retreat I have chosen to pray,I have chosen to pray.181 /147The early shrill notes of the loved nightingaleThat dwelt in the bower, I observed as my bell:It called me to duty, while birds in the airSang anthems of praises as I went to prayer,As I went to prayer.*How sweet were the zephyrs perfumed by the pine,The ivy, the balsam, the wild eglantine,But sweeter, O, sweeter superlative wereThe joys that I tasted in answer to prayer,In answer to prayer.* TheAmerican Vocalistomits this stanza as too fanciful as well as too crude“SAVIOUR, THY DYING LOVE.”This hymn of grateful piety was written in 1862, by Rev. S. Dryden Phelps, D.D., of New Haven, and first published inPure Gold, 1871; afterwards in the (earlier)Baptist Hymn and Tune Book.Saviour, Thy dying loveThou gavest me,Nor should I aught withholdDear Lord, from Thee.* * * * * *Give me a faithful heart,Likeness to Thee,That each departing dayHenceforth may seeSome work of love begun,Some deed of kindness done,Some wand'rer sought and won,Something for Thee.The penultimate line, originally “Some sinful wanderer won,” was altered by the author himself.182 /148The hymn is found in most Baptist hymnals, and was inserted by Mr. Sankey inGospel Hymns No. 1. It has since won its way into several revival collections and undenominational manuals.Rev. Sylvester Dryden Phelps, D.D., was born in Suffield, Ct., May 15, 1816, and studied at the Connecticut Literary Institution in that town. An early call to the ministry turned his talents to the service of the church, and his long settlement—comprising what might be called his principal life work—was in New Haven, where he was pastor of the First Baptist church twenty-nine years. He died there Nov. 23, 1895.THE TUNE.The Rev. Robert Lowry admired the hymn, and gave it a tune perfectly suited to its metre and spirit. It has never been sung in any other. The usual title of it is “Something for Jesus.” The meaning and sentiment of both words and music are not unlike Miss Havergal's—I gave my life for thee.“IN SOME WAY OR OTHER.”This song of Christian confidence was written by Mrs. Martha A.W. Cook, wife of the Rev. Parsons Cook, editor of thePuritan Recorder, Boston.It was published in theAmerican Messengerin 1870, and is still in use here, as a German183 /149version of it is in Germany. The first stanza follows, in the two languages:In some way or other the Lord will provide.It may not be my way,It may not be thy way,And yet in His own wayThe Lord will provide.Sei's so oder anders, der Herr wird's versehn;Mag's nicht sein, wie ich will,Mag's nicht sein, wie du willst,Doch wird's sein, wie Er will:Der Herr wird's versehn.In the English version the easy flow of the two last lines into one sentence is an example of rhythmic advantage over the foreign syntax.Mrs. Cook was married to the well-known clergyman and editor, Parsons Cook, (1800–1865) in Bridgeport, Ct., and survived him at his death in Lynn, Mass. She was Miss Martha Ann Woodbridge, afterwards Mrs. Hawley, and a widow at the time of her re-marriage as Mr. Cook's second wife.THE TUNE.Professor Calvin S. Harrington, of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Ct., set music to the words as printed inWinnowed Hymns(1873) and arranged by Dr. Eben Tourjee, organizer of the great American Peace Jubilee in Boston. In theGospel Hymnsit is, however, superseded by the more popular composition of Philip Phillips.184 /150Dr. Eben Tourjee, late Dean of the College of Music in Boston University, and founder and head of the New England Conservatory, was born in Warwick, R.I., June 1, 1834. With only an academy education he rose by native genius, from a hard-working boyhood to be a teacher of music and a master of its science. From a course of study in Europe he returned and soon made his reputation as an organizer of musical schools and sangerfests. The New England Conservatory of Music was first established by him in Providence, but removed in 1870 to Boston, its permanent home. His doctorate of music was conferred upon him by Wesleyan University. Died in Boston, April 12, 1891.Philip Phillips, known as “the singing Pilgrim,” was born in Jamestown, Chautauqua, Co., N.Y., Aug. 13, 1834. He compiled twenty-nine collections of sacred music for Sunday schools, gospel meetings, etc.; also aMethodist Hymn and Tune Book, 1866. He composed a great number of tunes, but wrote no hymns. Some of his books were published in London, for he was a cosmopolitan singer, and traveled through Europe and Australia as well as America. Died in Delaware, O., June 25, 1875.“NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE.”Mr. William Stead, fond of noting what is often believed to be the “providential chain of185 /151causes” in everything that happens, recalls the fact that Benjamin Flower, editor of theCambridge Intelligencer, while in jail (1798) at the instigation of Bp. Watson for an article defending the French Revolution, and criticising the Bishop's political course, was visited by several sympathizing ladies, one of whom was Miss Eliza Gould. The young lady's first acquaintance with him there in his cell led to an attachment which eventuated in marriage. Of that marriage Sarah Flower was born. By the theory of providential sequences Mr. Stead makes it appear that the forgotten vindictiveness of a British prelate “was thecausa causansof one of the most spiritual and aspiring hymns in the Christian Hymnary.”“Nearer, My God, to Thee” was on the lips of President McKinley as he lay dying by a murderer's wicked shot. It is dear to President Roosevelt for its memories of the battle of Las Quasimas, where the Rough Riders sang it at the burial of their slain comrades. Bishop Marvin was saved by it from hopeless dejection, while practically an exile during the Civil War, by hearing it sung in the wilds of Arkansas, by an old woman in a log hut.A letter from Pittsburg, Pa., to a leading Boston paper relates the name and experience of a forger who had left the latter city and wandered eight years a fugitive from justice. On the 5th of November, (Sunday,) 1905, he found himself in Pittsburg, and ventured into the Dixon Theatre,186 /152where a religious service was being held, to hear the music. The hymn “Nearer, My God, to Thee” so overcame him that he went out weeping bitterly. He walked the floor of his room all night, and in the morning telephoned for the police, confessed his name and crime, and surrendered himself to be taken back to the Boston authorities.Mrs. Sarah Flower Adams, author of the noble hymn (supposed to have been written in 1840), was born at Harlow, Eng., Feb. 22, 1805, and died there in 1848. At her funeral another of her hymns was sung, ending—When falls the shadow, cold in deathI yet will sing with fearless breath,As comes to me in shade or sun,“Father, Thy will, not mine, be done.”The attempts toevangelize“Nearer, My God, to Thee” by those who cannot forget that Mrs. Adams was a Unitarian, are to be deplored. Such zeal is as needless as trying to sectarianize an Old Testament Psalm. The poem is a perfect religious piece—to be sung as it stands, with thanks that it was ever created.THE TUNE.In English churches (since 1861) the hymn was and may still be sung to “Horbury,” composed by Rev. John B. Dykes, and “St. Edmund,” by Sir Arthur Sullivan. Both tunes are simple and appropriate, but such a hymn earns and inevitably187 /153acquires a single tune-voice, so that its music instantly names it by its words when played on instruments. Such a voice was given it by Lowell Mason's “Bethany,” (1856). (Why not “Bethel,” instead, every one who notes the imagery of the words must wonder.) “Bethany” appealed to the popular heart, and long ago (in America) hymn and tune became each other's property. It is even simpler than the English tunes, and a single hearing fixes it in memory.“I NEED THEE EVERY HOUR.”Mrs. Annie Sherwood Hawks, who wrote this hymn in 1872, was born in Hoosick, N.Y., in 1835.She sent the hymn (five stanzas) to Dr. Lowry, who composed its tune, adding a chorus, to make it more effective. It first appeared in a small collection of original songs prepared by Lowry and Doane for the National Baptist Sunday School Association, which met at Cincinnati, O., November, 1872, and was sung there.I need Thee every hour,Most gracious Lord,No tender voice like ThineCan peace afford.Chorus.I need Thee, Oh, I need Thee,Every hour I need Thee;Oh, bless me now, my Saviour,I come to Thee!188 /154One instance, at least, of a hymn made doubly impressive by its chorus will be attested by all who have sung or heard the pleading words and music of Mrs. Hawks' and Dr. Lowry's “I need Thee, Oh, I need Thee.”“I GAVE MY LIFE FOR THEE.”This was written in her youth by Frances Ridley Havergal, and was suggested by the motto over the head of Christ in the great picture, “Ecce Homo,” in the Art Gallery of Dusseldorf, Prussia, where she was at school. The sight—as was the case with young Count Zinzendorf—seems to have had much to do with the gifted girl's early religious experience, and indeed exerted its influence on her whole life. The motto read “I did this for thee; what doest thou for me?” and the generative effect of the solemn picture and its question soon appeared in the hymn that flowed from Miss Havergal's heart and pen.

Jesus my all to heaven is gone,

He whom I fixed my hopes upon;

His track I see, and I'll pursue

The narrow way till Him I view.

The way the holy prophets went,

The road that leads from banishment,

The King's highway of holiness

I'll go for all Thy paths are peace.

The memory has not passed away of the hearty unison with which prayer-meeting and camp-meeting assemblies used to “crescendo” the last stanza—

Then will I tell to sinners roundWhat a dear Saviour I have found;I'll point to His redeeming blood,And say “Behold the way to God.”

Then will I tell to sinners round

What a dear Saviour I have found;

I'll point to His redeeming blood,

And say “Behold the way to God.”

The Rev. George Coles was born in Stewkley, Eng., Jan. 2, 1792, and died in New York City, May 1, 1858. He was editor of theN.Y. Christian Advocate, andSunday School Advocate, for several years, and was a musician of some ability, besides being a good singer.

The Hon. and Rev.Walter Shirley, Rector of Loughgree, county of Galway, Ireland, revised this hymn under the chastening discipline of a most trying experience. His brother, the Earl of Ferrars, a licentious man, murdered an old and faithful servant in a fit of rage, and was executed at Tyburn for the crime. Sir Walter, after the160 /128disgrace and long distress of the imprisonment, trial, and final tragedy, returned to his little parish in Ireland, humbled but driven nearer to the Cross.

Sweet the moments, rich in blessingWhich before the Cross I spend;Life and health and peace possessingFrom the sinner's dying Friend.

Sweet the moments, rich in blessing

Which before the Cross I spend;

Life and health and peace possessing

From the sinner's dying Friend.

All the emotion of one who buries a mortifying sorrow in the heart of Christ, and tries to forget, trembles in the lines of the above hymn as he changed and adapted it in his saddest but devoutest hours. Its original writer was the Rev. James Allen, nearly twenty years younger than himself, a man of culture and piety, but a Christian of shifting creeds. It is not impossible that he sent his hymn to Shirley to revise. At all events it owes its present form to Shirley's hand.

Trulyblessédis the stationLow before His cross to lie,While I see Divine CompassionBeaming in His gracious eye.*

Trulyblessédis the station

Low before His cross to lie,

While I see Divine Compassion

Beaming in His gracious eye.*

* “Floating in His languid eye” seems to have been the earlier version.

The influence of Sir Walter's family misfortune is evident also in the mood out of which breathed his other trustful lines—

Peace, troubled soul, whose plaintive moanHath taught these rocks the notes of woe,

Peace, troubled soul, whose plaintive moan

Hath taught these rocks the notes of woe,

(changed now to “hath taughtthese scenes” etc).

Sir Walter Shirley, cousin of the Countess of Huntingdon, was born 1725, and died in 1786.161 /129Even in his last sickness he continued to preach to his people in his house, seated in his chair.

Rev. James Oswald Allen was born at Gayle, Yorkshire, Eng., June 24, 1743. He left the University of Cambridge after a year's study, and became an itinerant preacher, but seems to have been a man of unstable religious views. After roving from one Christian denomination to another several times, he built a Chapel, and for forty years ministered there to a small Independent congregation. He died in Gayle, Oct. 31, 1804.

The tune long and happily associated with “Sweet the Moments” is “Sicily,” or the “Sicilian Hymn”—from an old Latin hymn-tune, “O Sanctissima.”

The author, William Cowper, son of a clergyman, was born at Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire, Eng., Nov. 15, 1731, and died at Dereham, Norfolk, April 25, 1800. Through much of his adult life he was afflicted with a mental ailment inducing melancholia and at times partial insanity, during which he once attempted suicide. He sought literary occupation as an antidote to his disorder of mind, and besides a great number of lighter pieces which diverted him and his friends, composed “The Task,” an able and delightful moral and domestic poetic treatise in blank verse, and in the same style of verse translated Homer'sOdysseyandIliad.

One of the most beloved of English poets, this suffering man was also a true Christian, and wrote some of our sweetest and most spiritual hymns. Most of these were composed at Olney, where he resided for a time with John Newton, his fellow hymnist, and jointly with him issued the volume known as theOlney Hymns.

Music more or less closely identified with this familiar hymn is Gardiner's “Dedham,” and also “Mear,” often attributed to Aaron Williams. Both, about equally with the hymn, are seasoned by time, but have not worn out their harmony—or their fitness to Cowper's prayer.

William Gardiner was born in Leicester, Eng., March 15, 1770, and died there Nov. 11, 1853. He was a vocal composer and a “musicographer” or writer on musical subjects.

One Aaron Williams, to whom “Mear” has by some been credited, was of Welsh descent, a composer of psalmody and clerk of the Scotch church in London. He was born in 1734, and died in 1776. Another account, and the more probable one, names a minister of Boston of still earlier date as the author of the noble old harmony. It is found in a small New England collection of 1726, but not in any English or Scotch collection. “Mear” is presumably an American tune.

Another hymn of Cowper's; and no one ever suffered more deeply the plaintive regret in the opening lines, or better wrought into poetic expression an argument for prayer.

What various hindrances we meetIn coming to a mercy-seat!Yet who that knows the worth of prayerBut wishes to be often there?Prayer makes the darkest clouds withdraw,Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw.

What various hindrances we meetIn coming to a mercy-seat!Yet who that knows the worth of prayerBut wishes to be often there?

What various hindrances we meet

In coming to a mercy-seat!

Yet who that knows the worth of prayer

But wishes to be often there?

Prayer makes the darkest clouds withdraw,Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw.

Prayer makes the darkest clouds withdraw,

Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw.

The whole hymn is (or once was) so thoroughly learned by heart as to be fixed in the church among its household words. Preachers to the diffident do not forget to quote—

Have you no words? ah, think again;Words flow apace when youcomplain.* * * * * *Were half the breath thus vainly spentTo Heaven in supplication sent,Our cheerful song would oftener be,“Hear what the Lord hath done for me!”

Have you no words? ah, think again;Words flow apace when youcomplain.

Have you no words? ah, think again;

Words flow apace when youcomplain.

* * * * * *

Were half the breath thus vainly spentTo Heaven in supplication sent,Our cheerful song would oftener be,“Hear what the Lord hath done for me!”

Were half the breath thus vainly spent

To Heaven in supplication sent,

Our cheerful song would oftener be,

“Hear what the Lord hath done for me!”

And there is all the lifetime of a proverb in the couplet—

Satan trembles when he seesThe weakest saint upon his knees.

Satan trembles when he sees

The weakest saint upon his knees.

Tune, Lowell Mason's “Rockingham.”

This is one of Benjamin Francis's lays of devotion. The Christian Welshman who bore that name was a Gospel minister full of Evangelical zeal, who preached in many places, though his pastoral home was with the Baptist church in Shortwood, Wales. Flattering calls to London could not tempt him away from his first and only parish, and he remained there till his triumphant death. He was born in 1734, and died in 1799.

My gracious Redeemer I love,His praises aloud I'll proclaim,And join with the armies above,To shout His adorable name.To gaze on His glories divineShall be my eternal employ;To see them incessantly shine,My boundless, ineffable joy.

My gracious Redeemer I love,

His praises aloud I'll proclaim,

And join with the armies above,

To shout His adorable name.

To gaze on His glories divine

Shall be my eternal employ;

To see them incessantly shine,

My boundless, ineffable joy.

Tune, “Birmingham”—an English melody. Anonymous.

Perhaps the best hymn-expression of sacred brotherhood, at least it has had, and still has the indorsement of constant use. The author, John Fawcett, D.D., is always quoted as the example of his own words, since he sacrificed ambition and personal interest to Christian affection.

Born near Bradford, Yorkshire, Jan. 6, 1739, and converted under the preaching of Whitefield,165 /133he joined the Methodists, but afterwards became a member of the new Baptist church in Bradford. Seven years later he was ordained over the Baptist Society at Wainsgate. In 1772 he received a call to succeed the celebrated Dr. Gill, in London, and accepted. But at the last moment, when his goods were packed for removal, the clinging love of his people, weeping their farewells around him, melted his heart. Their passionate regrets were more than either he or his good wife could withstand.

“I willstay,” he said; “you may unpack my goods, and we will live for the Lord lovingly together.”

It was out of this heart experience that the tender hymn was born.

Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one,Our comforts and our cares.

Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one,

Our comforts and our cares.

Dr. Fawcett died July 25, 1817.

Tune, “Boylston,” L. Mason; or “Dennis,” H.G. Nägeli.

“Dr. Dwight's Hymn,” as this is knownpar eminenceamong many others from his pen, is one of the imperishable lyrics of the Christian Church. The real spirit of the hundred and twenty-second Psalm is in it, and it is worthy of Watts in his best moments.

Timothy Dwight was born at Northampton, Mass, May 14, 1752, and graduated at Yale College at the age of thirteen. He wrote several religious poems of considerable length. In 1795 he was elected President of Yale College, and in 1800 he revised Watts' Psalms, at the request of the General Association of Connecticut, adding a number of translations of his own.

I love Thy kingdom, Lord,The house of Thine abode,The Church our blest Redeemer savedWith His own precious blood.I love Thy Church, O God;Her walls before Thee stand,Dear as the apple of Thine eye,And graven on Thy hand.

I love Thy kingdom, Lord,The house of Thine abode,The Church our blest Redeemer savedWith His own precious blood.

I love Thy kingdom, Lord,

The house of Thine abode,

The Church our blest Redeemer saved

With His own precious blood.

I love Thy Church, O God;Her walls before Thee stand,Dear as the apple of Thine eye,And graven on Thy hand.

I love Thy Church, O God;

Her walls before Thee stand,

Dear as the apple of Thine eye,

And graven on Thy hand.

Dr. Dwight died Jan. 11, 1817.

Tune, “St. Thomas,” Aaron Williams, (1734–1776.)

Mr. Hubert P. Main, however, believes the author to be Handel. It appeared as the second movement of a four-movement tune in Williams's 1762 collection, which contained pieces by the great masters, with his own; but while not credited to Handel, Williams did not claim it himself.

This hymn, common in chapel hymnbooks half a century and more ago, is said to have been written by the Rev. David Denham, about 1826.

“Home, Sweet Home” was composed, according to the old account, by John Howard Payne as one of the airs in his opera of “Clari, the Maid of Milan,” which was brought out in London at Drury Lane in 1823. But Charles Mackay, the English poet, in the London Telegraph, asserts that Sir Henry Bishop, an eminent musician, in his vain search for a Sicilian national air,inventedone, and that it was the melody of “Home, sweet Home,” which he afterwards set to Howard Payne's words. Mr. Mackay had this story from Sir Henry himself.

Mid scenes of confusion and creature complaintsHow sweet to my soul is communion with saints,To find at the banquet of mercy there's roomAnd feel in the presence of Jesus at home.Home, home, sweet, sweet home!Prepare me, dear Savior for glory, my home.

Mid scenes of confusion and creature complaints

How sweet to my soul is communion with saints,

To find at the banquet of mercy there's room

And feel in the presence of Jesus at home.

Home, home, sweet, sweet home!

Prepare me, dear Savior for glory, my home.

John Howard Payne, author at least, of the originalwordsof “Home, Sweet Home,” was born in New York City June 9, 1791. He was a singer, and became an actor and theatrical writer. He composed the words of his immortal song in the year 1823, when he was himself homeless and hungry and sheltered temporarily in an attic in Paris.

His fortunes improved at last, and he was appointed to represent his native country as consul in Tunis, where he died, Apr. 9, 1852.

The writer of this hymn of worshiping ardor and exalted Christian love was an English Baptist minister, the Rev. Samuel Medley. He was born at Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, June 23, 1738, and at eighteen years of age entered the Royal Navy, where, though he had been piously educated, he became dissipated and morally reckless. Wounded in a sea fight off Cape Lagos, and in dread of amputation he prayed penitently through nearly a whole night, and in the morning the surprised surgeon told him his limb could be saved.

The voice of his awakened conscience was not wholly disregarded, though it was not till some time after he left the navy that his vow to begin a religious life was sincerely kept. After teaching school for four years, he began to preach in 1766, Wartford in Hertfordshire being the first scene of his godly labors. He died in Liverpool July 17, 1799, at the end of a faithful ministry there of twenty-seven years. A small edition of his hymns was published during his lifetime, in 1789.

O could I speak the matchless worth,O could I sound the glories forthWhich in my Saviour shine,I'd soar and touch the heavenly stringsAnd vie with Gabriel while he sings,In notes almost divine!

O could I speak the matchless worth,

O could I sound the glories forth

Which in my Saviour shine,

I'd soar and touch the heavenly strings

And vie with Gabriel while he sings,

In notes almost divine!

“Colebrook,” a plain choral; but with a noble movement, by Henry Smart, is the English music to this fine lyric, but Dr. Mason's “Ariel” is the American favorite. It justifies its name, for it has wings—in both full harmony and duet—and its melody feels the glory of the hymn at every bar.

Augustus Montague TopladyAugustus Montague TopladyHymnal

Augustus Montagu Toplady, author of this almost universal hymn, was born at Farnham, Surrey, Eng., Nov. 4, 1740. Educated atWestminsterSchool, and Trinity College, Dublin, he took orders in the Established Church. In his doctrinal debates with the Wesleys he was a harsh controversialist; but his piety was sincere, and marked late in life by exalted moods. Physically he was frail, and his fiery zeal wore out his body. Transferred from his vicarage at Broad Hembury, Devonshire, to Knightsbridge, London, at twenty-eight years of age, his health began to fail before he was thirty-five, and in one of his periods of illness he wrote—

When languor and disease invadeThis trembling house of clay,'Tis sweet to look beyond my painsAnd long to fly away.

When languor and disease invade

This trembling house of clay,

'Tis sweet to look beyond my pains

And long to fly away.

And the same homesickness for heaven appears under a different figure in another hymn—

At anchor laid remote from home,Toiling I cry, “Sweet Spirit, come!Celestial breeze, no longer stay,But swell my sails, and speed my way!”

At anchor laid remote from home,

Toiling I cry, “Sweet Spirit, come!

Celestial breeze, no longer stay,

But swell my sails, and speed my way!”

Possessed of an ardent religious nature, his spiritual frames exemplified in a notable degree the emotional side of Calvinistic piety. Edward Payson himself, was not more enraptured in immediate view of death than was this young London priest and poet. Unquestioning faith became perfect certainty. As in the bold metaphor of “Rock of Ages,” the faith finds voice in—

A debtor to mercy alone,

—and other hymns in his collection of 1776, two years before the end came. Most of this devout writing was done in his last days, and he continued it as long as strength was left, until, on the 11th of August, 1778, he joyfully passed away.

Somehow there was always something peculiarly heartsome and “filling” to pious minds in the lines of Toplady in days when his minor hymns were more in vogue than now, and they were often quoted, without any idea whose making they were. “At anchor laid” was crooned by good old ladies at their spinning-wheels, and godly invalids found “When languor and disease invade” a comfort next to their Bibles.

“Rock of Ages” is said to have been written after the author, during a suburban walk, had been forced to shelter himself from a thunder171 /139shower, under a cliff. This is, however, but one of several stories about the birth-occasion of the hymn.

It has been translated into many languages. One of the foreign dignitaries visiting Queen Victoria at her “Golden Jubilee” was a native of Madagascar, who surprised her by asking leave to sing, but delighted her, when leave was given, by singing “Rock of Ages.” It was a favorite of hers—and of Prince Albert, who whispered it when he was dying. People who were school-children when Rev. Justus Vinton came home to Willington, Ct., with two Karen pupils, repeat to-day the “la-pa-ta, i-oo-i-oo” caught by sound from the brown-faced boys as they sang their native version of “Rock of Ages.”

Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, the famous Confederate Cavalry leader, mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern, Va., and borne to a Richmond hospital, called for his minister and requested that “Rock of Ages” be sung to him.

The last sounds heard by the few saved from the wreck of the steamer “London” in the Bay of Biscay, 1866, were the voices of the helpless passengers singing “Rock of Ages” as the ship went down.

A company of Armenian Christians sang “Rock of Ages” in their native tongue while they were being massacred in Constantinople.

No history of this grand hymn of faith forgets the incident of Gladstone writing a Latin172 /140translation of it while sitting in the House of Commons. That remarkable man was as masterly in his scholarly recreations as in his statesmanship. The supreme Christian sentiment of the hymn had permeated his soul till it spoke to him in a dead language as eloquently as in the living one; and this is what he made of it:

Rock of ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee;Let the water and the blood,From Thy riven side which flowed,Be of sin the double cure,Cleanse me from its guilt and power.Not the labor of my handsCan fulfil Thy law's demands;Could my zeal no respite know,Could my tears for ever flow,All for sin could not atone,Thou must save, and Thou alone.Nothing in my hand I bring,Simply to Thy cross I cling;Naked, come to Thee for dress,Helpless, look to Thee for grace:Foul, I to the fountain fly;Wash, me, Saviour, or I die.Whilst I draw this fleeting breath,When my eyestrings break in death;When I soar through tracts unknown,See Thee on Thy judgment throne,Rock of ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee.

Rock of ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee;Let the water and the blood,From Thy riven side which flowed,Be of sin the double cure,Cleanse me from its guilt and power.

Rock of ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee;

Let the water and the blood,

From Thy riven side which flowed,

Be of sin the double cure,

Cleanse me from its guilt and power.

Not the labor of my handsCan fulfil Thy law's demands;Could my zeal no respite know,Could my tears for ever flow,All for sin could not atone,Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Not the labor of my hands

Can fulfil Thy law's demands;

Could my zeal no respite know,

Could my tears for ever flow,

All for sin could not atone,

Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,Simply to Thy cross I cling;Naked, come to Thee for dress,Helpless, look to Thee for grace:Foul, I to the fountain fly;Wash, me, Saviour, or I die.

Nothing in my hand I bring,

Simply to Thy cross I cling;

Naked, come to Thee for dress,

Helpless, look to Thee for grace:

Foul, I to the fountain fly;

Wash, me, Saviour, or I die.

Whilst I draw this fleeting breath,When my eyestrings break in death;When I soar through tracts unknown,See Thee on Thy judgment throne,Rock of ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee.

Whilst I draw this fleeting breath,

When my eyestrings break in death;

When I soar through tracts unknown,

See Thee on Thy judgment throne,

Rock of ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee.

Jesus, pro me perforatus,Condar intra tuum latus;Tu per lympham profluentem,Tu per sanguinem tepentem,In peccata mi redunda,Tolle culpam, sordes munda!Coram Te nec justus foremQuamvis tota vi laborem,Nec si fide nunquam cesso,Fletu stillans indefesso;Tibi soli tantum munus—Salva me, Salvator Unus!Nil in manu mecum fero,Sed me versus crucem gero:Vestimenta nudus oro,Opem debilis imploro,Fontem Christi quæro immundus,Nisi laves, moribundus.Dum hos artus vita regit,Quando nox sepulcro legit;Mortuos quum stare jubes,Sedens Judex inter nubes;—Jesus, pro me perforatus,Condar intra tuum latus!

Jesus, pro me perforatus,Condar intra tuum latus;Tu per lympham profluentem,Tu per sanguinem tepentem,In peccata mi redunda,Tolle culpam, sordes munda!

Jesus, pro me perforatus,

Condar intra tuum latus;

Tu per lympham profluentem,

Tu per sanguinem tepentem,

In peccata mi redunda,

Tolle culpam, sordes munda!

Coram Te nec justus foremQuamvis tota vi laborem,Nec si fide nunquam cesso,Fletu stillans indefesso;Tibi soli tantum munus—Salva me, Salvator Unus!

Coram Te nec justus forem

Quamvis tota vi laborem,

Nec si fide nunquam cesso,

Fletu stillans indefesso;

Tibi soli tantum munus—

Salva me, Salvator Unus!

Nil in manu mecum fero,Sed me versus crucem gero:Vestimenta nudus oro,Opem debilis imploro,Fontem Christi quæro immundus,Nisi laves, moribundus.

Nil in manu mecum fero,

Sed me versus crucem gero:

Vestimenta nudus oro,

Opem debilis imploro,

Fontem Christi quæro immundus,

Nisi laves, moribundus.

Dum hos artus vita regit,Quando nox sepulcro legit;Mortuos quum stare jubes,Sedens Judex inter nubes;—Jesus, pro me perforatus,Condar intra tuum latus!

Dum hos artus vita regit,

Quando nox sepulcro legit;

Mortuos quum stare jubes,

Sedens Judex inter nubes;—

Jesus, pro me perforatus,

Condar intra tuum latus!

The wonderful hymn has suffered the mutations common to time and taste.

When I soar thro' tracts unknown

—becomes—

When I soar to worlds unknown,

—getting rid of the unpoetic word, and bettering the elocution, but missing the writer's thought174 /142(of the unknownpath,—instead of going to many “worlds”). The Unitarians have their version, with substitutes for the “atonement lines.”

But the Christian lyric maintains its life and inspiration through the vicissitudes of age and use, as all intrinsically superior things can and will,—and as in the twentieth line,—

When my eyestrings break in death;

—modernized to—

When my eyelids close in death,

—the hymn will ever adapt itself to the new exigencies of common speech, without losing its vitality and power.

A happy inspiration ofDr. Thomas Hastingsmade the hymn and music inevitably one. Almost anywhere to call for the tune of “Toplady” (namesake of the pious poet) is as unintelligible to the multitude as “Key” would be to designate the “Star-spangled Banner.” The common people—thanks to Dr. Hastings—have learned “Rock of Ages” bysound.

Thomas Hastings was born in Washington, Ct., 1784. For eight years he was editor of theWestern Recorder,but he gave his life to church music, and besides being a talented tone-poet he wrote as many as six hundred hymns. In 1832, by invitation from twelve New York churches, he went177 /143to that city, and did the main work of his life there, dying, in 1872, at the good old age of eighty-nine. His musical collections number fifty-three. He wrote his famous tune in 1830.

Thomas HastingsThomas HastingsHymnal

Strangely enough, this hymn, a trumpet note of Christian warning and resolution, was written by one who himself fell into unworthy ways.*But the one strong and spiritual watch-song by which he is remembered appeals for him, and lets us know possibly, something of his own conflicts. We can be thankful for the struggle he once made, and for the hymn it inspired. It is a voice of caution to others.

* I have been unable to verify this statement found in Mr. Butterworth's “Story of the Hymns.”—T.B.

George Heath, the author, was an English minister, born in 1781; died 1822. For a time he was pastor of a Presbyterian Church at Honiton, Devonshire, and was evidently a prolific writer, having composed a hundred and forty-four hymns, an edition of which was printed.

No other has been so familiarly linked with the words as Lowell Mason's “Laban” (1830). It has dash and animation enough to reënforce the hymn, and give it popular life, even if the hymn had less earnestness and vigor of its own.

Ne'er think thevict'rywonNor lay thine armor down:Thy arduous work will not be doneTill thou hast gained thy crown.Fight on, my soul till deathShall bring thee to thy God;He'll take thee at thy parting breathTo His divine abode.

Ne'er think thevict'rywonNor lay thine armor down:Thy arduous work will not be doneTill thou hast gained thy crown.

Ne'er think thevict'rywon

Nor lay thine armor down:

Thy arduous work will not be done

Till thou hast gained thy crown.

Fight on, my soul till deathShall bring thee to thy God;He'll take thee at thy parting breathTo His divine abode.

Fight on, my soul till death

Shall bring thee to thy God;

He'll take thee at thy parting breath

To His divine abode.

Montgomeryfeltevery line of this hymn as he committed it to paper. He wrote it when, after years in the “swim” of social excitements and ambitions, where his young independence swept him on, he came back to the little church of his boyhood. His father and mother had gone to the West Indies as missionaries, and died there. He was forty-three years old when, led by divine light, he sought readmission to the Moravian “meeting” at Fulneck, and anchored happily in a haven of peace.

People of the living GodI have sought the world around,Paths of sin and sorrow trod,Peace and comfort nowhere found:Now to you my spirit turns—Turns a fugitive unblest;Brethren, where your altar burns,Oh, receive me into rest.

People of the living GodI have sought the world around,Paths of sin and sorrow trod,Peace and comfort nowhere found:

People of the living God

I have sought the world around,

Paths of sin and sorrow trod,

Peace and comfort nowhere found:

Now to you my spirit turns—Turns a fugitive unblest;Brethren, where your altar burns,Oh, receive me into rest.

Now to you my spirit turns—

Turns a fugitive unblest;

Brethren, where your altar burns,

Oh, receive me into rest.

James Montgomery, son of Rev. John Montgomery, was born at Irvine, Ayeshire, Scotland,179 /145Nov. 4, 1771, and educated at the Moravian Seminary at Fulneck, Yorkshire, Eng. He became the editor of theSheffield Iris, and his pen was busy in non-professional as well as professional work until old age. He died in Sheffield, April 30, 1854.

His literary career was singularly successful; and a glance through any complete edition of his poems will tell us why. His hymns were all published during his lifetime, and all, as well as his longer pieces, have the purity and polished beauty, if not the strength, of Addison's work. Like Addison, too, he could say that he had written no line which, dying, he would wish to blot.

The best of Montgomery was in his hymns. These were too many to enumerate here, and the more enduring ones too familiar to need enumeration. The church and the world will not soon forget “The Home in Heaven,”—

Forever with the Lord,Amen, so let it be.Life from the dead is in that word;'Tis immortality.

Forever with the Lord,

Amen, so let it be.

Life from the dead is in that word;

'Tis immortality.

Nor—

O where shall rest be found,

—with its impressive couplet—

'Tis not the whole of life to liveNor all of death to die.

'Tis not the whole of life to live

Nor all of death to die.

Nor the haunting sweetness of—

There is a calm for those who weep.

Nor, indeed, the hymn of Christian love just now before us.

The melody exactly suited to the gentle trochaic step of the home-song, “People of the living God,” is “Whitman,” composed for it by Lowell Mason. Few Christians, in America, we venture to say, could hear an instrument play “Whitman” without mentally repeating Montgomery's words.

This hymn, called “The Bower of Prayer,” was dear to Christian hearts in many homes and especially in rural chapel worship half a century ago and earlier, and its sweet legato melody still lingers in the memories of aged men and women.

Elder John Osborne, a New Hampshire preacher of the “Christian” (Christ-ian) denomination, is said to have composed the tune (and possibly the words) about 1815—though apparently the music was arranged from a flute interlude in one of Haydn's themes. The warbling notes of the air are full of heart-feeling, and usually the best available treble voice sang it as a solo.

To leave my dear friends and from neighbors to part,And go from my home, it affects not my heartLike the thought of absenting myself for a dayFrom that blest retreat I have chosen to pray,I have chosen to pray.181 /147The early shrill notes of the loved nightingaleThat dwelt in the bower, I observed as my bell:It called me to duty, while birds in the airSang anthems of praises as I went to prayer,As I went to prayer.*How sweet were the zephyrs perfumed by the pine,The ivy, the balsam, the wild eglantine,But sweeter, O, sweeter superlative wereThe joys that I tasted in answer to prayer,In answer to prayer.

To leave my dear friends and from neighbors to part,

And go from my home, it affects not my heart

Like the thought of absenting myself for a day

From that blest retreat I have chosen to pray,

I have chosen to pray.

181 /147The early shrill notes of the loved nightingaleThat dwelt in the bower, I observed as my bell:It called me to duty, while birds in the airSang anthems of praises as I went to prayer,As I went to prayer.*

The early shrill notes of the loved nightingale

That dwelt in the bower, I observed as my bell:

It called me to duty, while birds in the air

Sang anthems of praises as I went to prayer,

As I went to prayer.*

How sweet were the zephyrs perfumed by the pine,The ivy, the balsam, the wild eglantine,But sweeter, O, sweeter superlative wereThe joys that I tasted in answer to prayer,In answer to prayer.

How sweet were the zephyrs perfumed by the pine,

The ivy, the balsam, the wild eglantine,

But sweeter, O, sweeter superlative were

The joys that I tasted in answer to prayer,

In answer to prayer.

* TheAmerican Vocalistomits this stanza as too fanciful as well as too crude

This hymn of grateful piety was written in 1862, by Rev. S. Dryden Phelps, D.D., of New Haven, and first published inPure Gold, 1871; afterwards in the (earlier)Baptist Hymn and Tune Book.

Saviour, Thy dying loveThou gavest me,Nor should I aught withholdDear Lord, from Thee.* * * * * *Give me a faithful heart,Likeness to Thee,That each departing dayHenceforth may seeSome work of love begun,Some deed of kindness done,Some wand'rer sought and won,Something for Thee.

Saviour, Thy dying loveThou gavest me,Nor should I aught withholdDear Lord, from Thee.

Saviour, Thy dying love

Thou gavest me,

Nor should I aught withhold

Dear Lord, from Thee.

* * * * * *

Give me a faithful heart,Likeness to Thee,That each departing dayHenceforth may seeSome work of love begun,Some deed of kindness done,Some wand'rer sought and won,Something for Thee.

Give me a faithful heart,

Likeness to Thee,

That each departing day

Henceforth may see

Some work of love begun,

Some deed of kindness done,

Some wand'rer sought and won,

Something for Thee.

The penultimate line, originally “Some sinful wanderer won,” was altered by the author himself.182 /148The hymn is found in most Baptist hymnals, and was inserted by Mr. Sankey inGospel Hymns No. 1. It has since won its way into several revival collections and undenominational manuals.

Rev. Sylvester Dryden Phelps, D.D., was born in Suffield, Ct., May 15, 1816, and studied at the Connecticut Literary Institution in that town. An early call to the ministry turned his talents to the service of the church, and his long settlement—comprising what might be called his principal life work—was in New Haven, where he was pastor of the First Baptist church twenty-nine years. He died there Nov. 23, 1895.

The Rev. Robert Lowry admired the hymn, and gave it a tune perfectly suited to its metre and spirit. It has never been sung in any other. The usual title of it is “Something for Jesus.” The meaning and sentiment of both words and music are not unlike Miss Havergal's—

I gave my life for thee.

This song of Christian confidence was written by Mrs. Martha A.W. Cook, wife of the Rev. Parsons Cook, editor of thePuritan Recorder, Boston.

It was published in theAmerican Messengerin 1870, and is still in use here, as a German183 /149version of it is in Germany. The first stanza follows, in the two languages:

In some way or other the Lord will provide.It may not be my way,It may not be thy way,And yet in His own wayThe Lord will provide.Sei's so oder anders, der Herr wird's versehn;Mag's nicht sein, wie ich will,Mag's nicht sein, wie du willst,Doch wird's sein, wie Er will:Der Herr wird's versehn.

In some way or other the Lord will provide.It may not be my way,It may not be thy way,And yet in His own wayThe Lord will provide.

In some way or other the Lord will provide.

It may not be my way,

It may not be thy way,

And yet in His own way

The Lord will provide.

Sei's so oder anders, der Herr wird's versehn;Mag's nicht sein, wie ich will,Mag's nicht sein, wie du willst,Doch wird's sein, wie Er will:Der Herr wird's versehn.

Sei's so oder anders, der Herr wird's versehn;

Mag's nicht sein, wie ich will,

Mag's nicht sein, wie du willst,

Doch wird's sein, wie Er will:

Der Herr wird's versehn.

In the English version the easy flow of the two last lines into one sentence is an example of rhythmic advantage over the foreign syntax.

Mrs. Cook was married to the well-known clergyman and editor, Parsons Cook, (1800–1865) in Bridgeport, Ct., and survived him at his death in Lynn, Mass. She was Miss Martha Ann Woodbridge, afterwards Mrs. Hawley, and a widow at the time of her re-marriage as Mr. Cook's second wife.

Professor Calvin S. Harrington, of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Ct., set music to the words as printed inWinnowed Hymns(1873) and arranged by Dr. Eben Tourjee, organizer of the great American Peace Jubilee in Boston. In theGospel Hymnsit is, however, superseded by the more popular composition of Philip Phillips.

Dr. Eben Tourjee, late Dean of the College of Music in Boston University, and founder and head of the New England Conservatory, was born in Warwick, R.I., June 1, 1834. With only an academy education he rose by native genius, from a hard-working boyhood to be a teacher of music and a master of its science. From a course of study in Europe he returned and soon made his reputation as an organizer of musical schools and sangerfests. The New England Conservatory of Music was first established by him in Providence, but removed in 1870 to Boston, its permanent home. His doctorate of music was conferred upon him by Wesleyan University. Died in Boston, April 12, 1891.

Philip Phillips, known as “the singing Pilgrim,” was born in Jamestown, Chautauqua, Co., N.Y., Aug. 13, 1834. He compiled twenty-nine collections of sacred music for Sunday schools, gospel meetings, etc.; also aMethodist Hymn and Tune Book, 1866. He composed a great number of tunes, but wrote no hymns. Some of his books were published in London, for he was a cosmopolitan singer, and traveled through Europe and Australia as well as America. Died in Delaware, O., June 25, 1875.

Mr. William Stead, fond of noting what is often believed to be the “providential chain of185 /151causes” in everything that happens, recalls the fact that Benjamin Flower, editor of theCambridge Intelligencer, while in jail (1798) at the instigation of Bp. Watson for an article defending the French Revolution, and criticising the Bishop's political course, was visited by several sympathizing ladies, one of whom was Miss Eliza Gould. The young lady's first acquaintance with him there in his cell led to an attachment which eventuated in marriage. Of that marriage Sarah Flower was born. By the theory of providential sequences Mr. Stead makes it appear that the forgotten vindictiveness of a British prelate “was thecausa causansof one of the most spiritual and aspiring hymns in the Christian Hymnary.”

“Nearer, My God, to Thee” was on the lips of President McKinley as he lay dying by a murderer's wicked shot. It is dear to President Roosevelt for its memories of the battle of Las Quasimas, where the Rough Riders sang it at the burial of their slain comrades. Bishop Marvin was saved by it from hopeless dejection, while practically an exile during the Civil War, by hearing it sung in the wilds of Arkansas, by an old woman in a log hut.

A letter from Pittsburg, Pa., to a leading Boston paper relates the name and experience of a forger who had left the latter city and wandered eight years a fugitive from justice. On the 5th of November, (Sunday,) 1905, he found himself in Pittsburg, and ventured into the Dixon Theatre,186 /152where a religious service was being held, to hear the music. The hymn “Nearer, My God, to Thee” so overcame him that he went out weeping bitterly. He walked the floor of his room all night, and in the morning telephoned for the police, confessed his name and crime, and surrendered himself to be taken back to the Boston authorities.

Mrs. Sarah Flower Adams, author of the noble hymn (supposed to have been written in 1840), was born at Harlow, Eng., Feb. 22, 1805, and died there in 1848. At her funeral another of her hymns was sung, ending—

When falls the shadow, cold in deathI yet will sing with fearless breath,As comes to me in shade or sun,“Father, Thy will, not mine, be done.”

When falls the shadow, cold in death

I yet will sing with fearless breath,

As comes to me in shade or sun,

“Father, Thy will, not mine, be done.”

The attempts toevangelize“Nearer, My God, to Thee” by those who cannot forget that Mrs. Adams was a Unitarian, are to be deplored. Such zeal is as needless as trying to sectarianize an Old Testament Psalm. The poem is a perfect religious piece—to be sung as it stands, with thanks that it was ever created.

In English churches (since 1861) the hymn was and may still be sung to “Horbury,” composed by Rev. John B. Dykes, and “St. Edmund,” by Sir Arthur Sullivan. Both tunes are simple and appropriate, but such a hymn earns and inevitably187 /153acquires a single tune-voice, so that its music instantly names it by its words when played on instruments. Such a voice was given it by Lowell Mason's “Bethany,” (1856). (Why not “Bethel,” instead, every one who notes the imagery of the words must wonder.) “Bethany” appealed to the popular heart, and long ago (in America) hymn and tune became each other's property. It is even simpler than the English tunes, and a single hearing fixes it in memory.

Mrs. Annie Sherwood Hawks, who wrote this hymn in 1872, was born in Hoosick, N.Y., in 1835.

She sent the hymn (five stanzas) to Dr. Lowry, who composed its tune, adding a chorus, to make it more effective. It first appeared in a small collection of original songs prepared by Lowry and Doane for the National Baptist Sunday School Association, which met at Cincinnati, O., November, 1872, and was sung there.

I need Thee every hour,Most gracious Lord,No tender voice like ThineCan peace afford.Chorus.I need Thee, Oh, I need Thee,Every hour I need Thee;Oh, bless me now, my Saviour,I come to Thee!

I need Thee every hour,Most gracious Lord,No tender voice like ThineCan peace afford.

I need Thee every hour,

Most gracious Lord,

No tender voice like Thine

Can peace afford.

Chorus.I need Thee, Oh, I need Thee,Every hour I need Thee;Oh, bless me now, my Saviour,I come to Thee!

Chorus.

I need Thee, Oh, I need Thee,

Every hour I need Thee;

Oh, bless me now, my Saviour,

I come to Thee!

One instance, at least, of a hymn made doubly impressive by its chorus will be attested by all who have sung or heard the pleading words and music of Mrs. Hawks' and Dr. Lowry's “I need Thee, Oh, I need Thee.”

This was written in her youth by Frances Ridley Havergal, and was suggested by the motto over the head of Christ in the great picture, “Ecce Homo,” in the Art Gallery of Dusseldorf, Prussia, where she was at school. The sight—as was the case with young Count Zinzendorf—seems to have had much to do with the gifted girl's early religious experience, and indeed exerted its influence on her whole life. The motto read “I did this for thee; what doest thou for me?” and the generative effect of the solemn picture and its question soon appeared in the hymn that flowed from Miss Havergal's heart and pen.

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