PARTING.

While with ceaseless course the sun,—and Charles Wesley's—Come let us anew our journey pursue;the one a voice at the next year's threshold, the other a song at the open door.While with ceaseless course the sunHasted thro' the former yearMany souls their race have runNevermore to meet us here.* * * * * *As the winged arrow fliesSpeedily the mark to find,As the lightening from the skiesDarts and leaves no trace behind,Swiftly thus our fleeting daysBear we down life's rapid stream,Upward, Lord, our spirits raise;All below is but a dream.A grave occasion, whether unexpected or periodical, will force reflection, and so will a grave556 /494truth; and when both present themselves at once, the truth needs only commonplace statement. If the statement is in rhyme and measure more attention is secured. Add atuneto it, and the most frivolous will take notice. Newton's hymn sung on the last evening of the year has its opportunity—and never fails to produce a solemn effect; but it is to the immortal music given to it in Samuel Webbe's “Benevento” that it owes its unique and permanent place. Dykes' “St. Edmund” may be sung in England, but in America it will never replace Webbe's simple and wonderfully impressive choral.Charles Wesley's hymn is the antipode of Newton's in metre and movement.Come, let us anew our journey pursue,Roll round with the yearAnd never stand still till the Master appear.His adorable will let us gladly fulfilAnd our talents improveBy the patience of hope and the labor of love.Our life is a dream, our time as a streamGlides swiftly away,And the fugitive moment refuses to stay.The arrow is flown, the moment is gone,The millennial year,Rushes on to our view, and eternity's near.One could scarcely imagine a greater contrast than between this hymn and Newton's. In spite of its eccentric metre one cannot dismiss it as rhythmical jingle, for it is really a sermon shaped into a popular canticle, and the surmise is not a559 /495difficult one that he had in mind a secular air that was familiar to the crowd. But the hymn is not one of Wesley'spoems. Compilers who object to its lilting measure omit it from their books, but it holds its place in public use, for it carries weighty thoughts in swift sentences.O that each in the Day of His coming may say,“I have fought my way through,I have finished the work Thou didst give me to do.”O that each from the Lord may receive the glad word,“Well and faithfully done,Enter into my joy, and sit down on my throne.”For a hundred and fifty years this has been sung in the Methodist watch-meetings, and it will be long before it ceases to be sung—and reprinted in Methodist, and some Baptist hymnals.The tune of “Lucas,” named after James Lucas, its composer, is the favorite vehicle of song for the “Watch-hymn.” Like the tune to “O How Happy Are They,” it has the movement of the words and the emphasis of their meaning.No knowledge of James Lucas is at hand except that he lived in England, where one brief reference gives his birth-date as 1762 and “about 1805” as the birth-date of the tune.“GREAT GOD, WE SING THAT MIGHTY HAND.”The admirable hymn of Dr. Doddridge may be noted in this division with its equally admirable560 /496tune of “Melancthon,” one of the old Lutheran chorals of Germany.Great God, we sing that mighty handBy which supported still we stand.The opening year Thy mercy shows;Thy mercy crown it till its close!By day, by night, at home, abroad,Still we are guarded by our God.As this last couplet stood—and ought now to stand—pious parents teaching the hymn to their children heard them repeat—By day, by night, at home, abroad,We are surrounded still with God.Many are now living whose first impressive sense of the Divine Omnipresence came with that line.PARTING.“GOD BE WITH YOU TILL WE MEET AGAIN.”A lyric of benediction, born, apparently, at the divine moment for the need of the great “Society of Christian Endeavor,” and now adopted into the Christian song-service of all lands. The author, Rev. Jeremiah Eames Rankin, D.D., LL.D., was born in Thornton, N.H., Jan. 2, 1828. He was graduated at Middlebury College, Vt., in 1848, and labored as a Congregational pastor more561 /497than thirty years. For thirteen years he was President of Howard University, Washington, D.C. Besides the “Parting Hymn” he wroteThe Auld Scotch Mither,Ingleside Rhymes,Hymns pro Patria, and various practical works and religious essays. Died 1904.THE TUNE.As in a thousand other partnerships of hymnist and musician, Dr. Rankin was fortunate in his composer. The tune is a symphony of hearts—subdued at first, but breaking into a chorus strong with the uplift of hope. It is a farewell with a spiritual thrill in it.Its author, William Gould Tomer, was born in Finesville, Warren Co., N.J., October 5, 1832; died in Phillipsburg, N.J., Sept. 26, 1896. He was a soldier in the Civil War and a writer of good ability as well as a composer. For some time he was editor of theHigh Bridge Gazette, and music with him was an avocation rather than a profession. He wrote the melody to Dr. Rankin's hymn in 1880, Prof. J.W. Bischoff supplying the harmony, and the tune was first published inGospel Bellsthe same year.FUNERALS.The style of singing at funerals, as well as the character of the hymns, has greatly changed—if,562 /498indeed, music continues to be a part of the service, as frequently, in ordinary cases, it is not. “China” with its comforting words—and terrifying chords—is forever obsolete, and not only that, but Dr. Muhlenberg's, “I Would Not Live Alway,” with its sadly sentimental tune of “Frederick,” has passed out of common use. Anna Steele's “So Fades the Lovely, Blooming Flower,” on the death of a child, is occasionally heard, and now and then Dr. S.F. Smith's, “Sister, Thou Wast Mild and Lovely,” (with its gentle air of “Mt. Vernon,”) on the death of a young lady. Standard hymns like Watts', “Unveil Thy Bosom, Faithful Tomb,” to the slow, tender melody of the “Dead March,” (from Handel's oratorio of “Saul”) and Montgomery's “Servant of God, Well Done,” to “Olmutz,” or Woodbury's “Forever with the Lord,” still retain their prestige, the music of the former being played on steeple-chimes on some burial occasions in cities, during the procession—Nor pain nor grief nor anxious fearInvade thy bounds; no mortal woesCan reach the peaceful sleeper hereWhile angels watch the soft repose.The latter hymn(Montgomery's) is biographical—as described onpage 301—Servant of God, well done;Rest from thy loved employ;The battle fought, the victory won,Enter thy Master's joy.563 /499Only five stanzas of this long poem are now in use.The exquisite elegy of Montgomery, entitled “The Grave,”—There is a calm for those who weep,A rest for weary mortals foundThey softly lie and sweetly sleepLow in the ground.—is by no means discontinued on funeral occasions, nor Margaret Mackay's beloved hymn,—Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep,—melodized in Bradbury's “Rest.”Mrs. Margaret Mackay was born in 1801, the daughter of Capt. Robert Mackay of Hedgefield, Inverness, and wife of a major of the same name. She was the author of several prose works andLays of Leisure Hours, containing seventy-two original hymns and poems, of which “Asleep in Jesus” is one. She died in 1887.“MY JESUS, AS THOU WILT.”(Mein Jesu, wie du willst.)This sweet hymn for mourners, known to us here in Jane Borthwick's translation, was written by Benjamin Schmolke (or Schmolk) late in the 17th century. He was born at Brauchitzchdorf, in Silesia, Dec. 21, 1672, and received his education at the Labau Gymnasium and Leipsic University. A sermon preached while a youth, for his564 /500father, a Lutheran pastor, showed such remarkable promise that a wealthy man paid the expenses of his education for the ministry. He was ordained and settled as pastor of the Free Church at Schweidnitz, Silesia, in which charge he continued from 1701 till his death.Schmolke was the most popular hymn-writer of his time, author of some nine hundred church pieces, besides many for special occasions. Withal he was a man of exalted piety and a pastor of rare wisdom and influence.His death, of paralysis, occurred on the anniversary of his wedding, Feb. 12, 1737.My Jesus, as Thou wilt,Oh may Thy will be mine!Into Thy hand of loveI would my all resign.Thro' sorrow or thro' joyConduct me as Thine own,And help me still to say,My Lord, Thy will be done.The last line is the refrain of the hymn of four eight-line stanzas.THE TUNE.“Sussex,” by Joseph Barnby, a plain-song with a fine harmony, is good congregational music for the hymn.But “Jewett,” one of Carl Maria Von Weber's exquisite flights of song, is like no other in its intimate interpretation of the prayerful words.565 /501We hear Luther's “bird in the heart” singing softly in every inflection of the tender melody as it glides on. The tune, arranged by Joseph Holbrook, is from an opera—the overture to Weber's DerFreischutz—but one feels that the gentle musician when he wrote it must have caught an inspiration of divine trust and peace. The wish among the last words he uttered when dying in London of slow disease was, “Let me go back to my own (home), and then God's will be done.” That wish and the sentiment of Schmolke's hymn belong to each other, for they end in the same way.My Jesus, as Thou wilt:All shall be well for me;Each changing future sceneI gladly trust with Thee.Straight to my home aboveI travel calmly on,And sing in life or deathMy Lord, Thy will be done.“I CANNOT ALWAYS TRACE THE WAY.”In later years, when funeral music is desired, the employment of a male quartette has become a favorite custom. Of the selections sung in this manner few are more suitable or more generally welcomed than the tender and trustful hymn of Sir John Bowring, rendered sometimes in Dr. Dykes' “Almsgiving,” but better in the less-known but more flexible tune composed by Howard M. Dow—566 /502I cannot always trace the wayWhere Thou, Almighty One, dost move,But I can always, always sayThat God is love.When fear her chilling mantle flingsO'er earth, my soul to heaven aboveAs to her native home upsprings,For God is love.When mystery clouds my darkened path,I'll check my dread, my doubts reprove;In this my soul sweet comfort hathThat God is love.Yes, God is love. A thought like thisCan every gloomy thought remove,And turn all tears, all woes to blissFor God is love.The first line of the hymn was originally, “'Tis seldom I can trace the way.”Howard M. Dow has been many years a resident of Boston, and organist of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons at the Tremont St. (Masonic) Temple.WEDDING.Time was when hymns were sung at weddings, though in America the practice was never universal. Marriage, among Protestants, is not one of the sacraments, and no masses are chanted for it by ecclesiastical ordinance. The question of music at private marriages depends on convenience,567 /503vocal or instrumental equipment, and the general drift of the occasion. At public weddings the organ's duty is the “Wedding March.”To revive a fashion of singing at home marriages would be considered an oddity—and, where civil marriages are legal, a superfluity—but in the religious ceremony, just after the prayer that follows the completion of the nuptial formula, it will occur to some that a hymn would “tide over” a proverbially awkward moment. Even good, quaint old John Berridge's lines would happily relieve the embarrassment—besides reminding the more thoughtless that a wedding is not a mere piece of social fun—Since Jesus truly did appearTo grace a marriage feastO Lord, we ask Thy presence hereTo make a wedding guest.Upon the bridal pair look downWho now have plighted hands;Their union with Thy favor crownAnd bless the nuptial bands* * * * * *In purest love these souls uniteThat they with Christian careMay make domestic burdens lightBy taking each a share.Tune, “Lanesboro,” Mason.A wedding hymn of more poetic beauty is the one written by Miss Dorothy Bloomfield (now Mrs. Gurney), born 1858, for her sister's marriage in 1883.568 /504O perfect Love, all human thought transcending,Lowly we kneel in prayer before Thy throneThat their's may be a love which knows no endingWhom Thou forevermore dost join in one.O perfect Life, be Thou their first assuranceOf tender charity and steadfast faith,Of patient hope and quiet, brave endurance,With childlike trust that fears nor pain nor death.Grant them the joy which brightens earthly sorrow,Grant them the peace which calms all earthly strife,And to their day the glorious unknown morrowThat dawns upon eternal love and life.Tune by Joseph Barnby, “O Perfect Love.”FRUITION DAY.“LO! HE COMES WITH CLOUDS DESCENDING.”Thomas Olivers begins one of his hymns with this line. The hymn is a Judgment-day lyric of rude strength and once in current use, but now rarely printed. The “Lo He Comes,” here specially noted, is the production of John Cennick, the Moravian.Lo! He comes with clouds descendingOnce for favored sinners slain,Thousand thousand saints attendingSwell the triumph of His train.Hallelujah!God appears on earth to reign.* * * * * *569 /505Yea, amen; let all adore TheeHigh on Thy eternal throne.Saviour, take the power and glory,Claim the kingdom for thine own;O come quickly;Hallelujah! Come, Lord, come.THE TUNES.Various composers have written music to this universal hymn, but none has given it a choral that it can claim as peculiarly its own. “Brest,” Lowell Mason's plain-song, has a limited range, and runs low on the staff, but its solemn chords are musical and commanding. As much can be said of the tunes of Dr. Dykes and Samuel Webbe, which have more variety. Those who feel that the hymn calls for a more ornate melody will prefer Madan's “Helmsley.”“LO! WHAT A GLORIOUS SIGHT APPEARS.”The great Southampton bard who wrote “Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood” was quick to kindle at every reminder of Fruition Day.Lo! what a glorious sight appearsTo our believing eyes!The earth and seas are passed away,And the old rolling skies.From the third heaven, where God resides,That holy, happy place,The New Jerusalem comes down,Adorned with shining grace.570 /506This hymn of Watts' sings one of his most exalted visions. It has been dear for two hundred years to every Christian soul throbbing with millennial thoughts and wishful of the day when—The God of glory down to menRemoves His best abode,—and when—His own kind hand shall wipe the tearsFrom every weeping eye,And pains and groans, and griefs and fears,And death itself shall die,—and the yearning cry of the last stanza, when the vision fades, has been the household ?†of myriads of burdened and sorrowing saints—How long, dear Saviour, O how longShall this bright hour delay?Fly swifter round ye wheels of Time,And bring the welcome day!† Transcriber's note: This question mark is in the original. It is possibly a compositor's query which the author missed when correcting the proofs. The missing text could be ‘word’.THE TUNES.By right of long appropriation both “Northfield” and “New Jerusalem” own a near relationship to these glorious verses. Ingalls, one of the constellation of early Puritan psalmodists, to which Billings and Swan belonged, evidently loved the hymn, and composed his “New Jerusalem” to the verse, “From the third heaven,” and his “Northfield” to “How long, dear Saviour.” The former is now sung only as a reminiscence of the music of the past, at church festivals, charity fairs and571 /507entertainments of similar design, but the action and hearty joy in it always evoke sympathetic applause. “Northfield” is still in occasional use, and it is a jewel of melody, however irretrievably out of fashion. Its union to that immortal stanza, if no other reason, seems likely to insure its permanent place in the lists of sacred song.John Cole's “Annapolis,” still found in a few hymnals with these words, is a little too late to be called a contemporary piece, but there are some reminders ofIngalls'“New Jerusalem” in its style and vigor, and it really partakes the flavor of the old New England church music.Jeremiah Ingalls was born in Andover, Mass.,March1, 1764. A natural fondness for music increased with his years, but opportunities to educate it were few and far between, and he seemed like to become no more than a fairly good bass-viol player in the village choir. But his determination carried him higher, and in time his self-taught talent qualified him for a singing-school master, and for many years he travelled through Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, training the raw vocal material in the country towns, and organizing choirs.Between his thirtieth and fortieth years, he composed a number of tunes, and, in 1804 published a two hundred page collection of his own and others' music, which he called theChristian Harmony.572 /508His home was for some time in Newberry, Vt., but he subsequently lived at Rochester and at Hancock in the same state.Among the traditions of him is this anecdote of the origin of his famous tune “Northfield,” which may indicate something of his temper and religious habit. During his travels as a singing-school teacher he stopped at a tavern in the town of Northfield and ordered his dinner. It was very slow in coming, but the inevitable “how long?” that formulated itself in his hungry thoughts, instead of sharpening into profane complaint, fell into the rhythm of Watts' sacred line—and the tune came with it. To call it “Northfield” was natural enough; the place where its melody first beguiled him from his bodily wants to a dream of the final Fruition Day.Ingalls died in Hancock, Vt., April 6, 1828.573 /509CHAPTER XIV.HYMNS OF HOPE AND CONSOLATION.“JERUSALEM THE GOLDEN.”Urbs Sion Aurea.“The Seven Great Hymns” of the Latin Church are:Laus Patriae Coelestis,—(Praise of the Heavenly Country).Veni, Sancte Spiritus,—(Come, Holy Spirit)Veni, Creator Spiritus,—(Come, Creator Spirit)Dies Irae,—(The Day of Wrath)Stabat Mater,—(The Mother Stood By)Mater Speciosa,—(The Fair Mother.)Vexilla Regis.—(The Banner of the King.)Chief of these is the first named, though that is but part of a religious poem of three thousand lines, which the author, Bernard of Cluny, named “De Contemptu Mundi” (Concerning Disdain of the World.)Bernard was of English parentage, though born at Morlaix, a seaport town in the north of France.574 /510The exact date of his birth is unknown, though it was probably about A.D. 1100. He is called Bernard of Cluny because he lived and wrote at that place, a French town on the Grone where he was abbot of a famous monastery, and also to distinguish him from Bernard of Clairvaux.His great poem is rarely spoken of as a whole, but in three portions, as if each were a complete work. The first is the long exordium, exhausting the pessimistic title (contempt of the world), and passing on to the second, where begins the real “Laus Patriae Coelestis.” This being cut in two, making a third portion, has enriched the Christian world with two of its best hymns, “For Thee, O Dear, Dear Country,” and “Jerusalem the Golden.”Bernard wrote the medieval or church Latin in its prime of literary refinement, and its accent is so obvious and its rhythm so musical that even one ignorant of the language could pronounce it, and catch its rhymes. The “Contemptu Mundi” begins with these two lines, in a hexameter impossible to copy in translation:Hora novissima; tempora pessima sunt; Vigilemus!Ecce minaciter imminet Arbiter, Ille Supremus!'Tis the last hour; the times are at their worst;Watch; lo the Judge Supreme stands threat'ning nigh!Or, as Dr. Neale paraphrases and softens it,—The World is very evil,The times are waxing late,Be sober and keep vigil,The Judge is at the gate,575 /511—and, after the poet's long, dark diorama of the world's wicked condition, follows the “Praise of the Heavenly Fatherland,” when a tender glory dawns upon the scene till it breaks into sunrise with the vision of the Golden City. All that an opulent and devout imagination can picture of the beauty and bounty of heaven, and all that faith can construct from the glimpses in the Revelation of its glory and happiness is poured forth in the lavish poetry of the inspired monk of Cluny—Urbs Sion aurea, patria lactea, cive decora,Omne cor obruis, omnibus obstruis, et cor et ora.Nescio, nescio quae jubilatio lux tibi qualis,Quam socialia gaudia, gloria quam specialis.Jerusalem, the golden;With milk and honey blest;Beneath thy contemplationSink heart and voice opprest.I know not, O I know notWhat joys await us there,With radiancy of glory,With bliss beyond compare.They stand, those halls of Zion,All jubilant with song,*And bright with many an angel;And all the martyr throng.The Prince is ever in them,The daylight is serene;The pastures of the blessedAre decked in glorious sheen.* * * * * *576 /512O sweet and blessed country,The home of God's elect!O sweet and blessed country,That eager hearts expect!Jesu, in mercy bring usTo that dear land of rest,Who art, with God the Father,And Spirit, ever blest.* In first editions, “conjubilantwith song.”Dr. John Mason Neale, the translator, was obliged to condense Bernard's exuberant verse, and he has done so with unsurpassable grace and melody. He made his translation while “inhibited” from his priestly functions in the Church of England for his high ritualistic views and practice, and so poor that he wrote stories for children to earn his living. His poverty added to the wealth of Christendom.THE TUNE.The music of “Jerusalem the Golden” used in most churches is the composition of Alexander Ewing, a paymaster in the English army. He was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, Jan. 3d, 1830, and educated there at Marischal College. The tune bears his name, and this honor, and its general favor with the public, are so much testimony to its merit. It is a stately harmony in D major with sonorous and impressive chords. Ewing died in 1895.“WHY SHOULD WE START AND FEAR TO DIE?”Probably it is an embarrassment of riches and despair of space that have crowded this hymn—577 /513perhaps the sweetest that Watts ever wrote—out of some of our church singing-books. It is pleasant to find it in the newMethodist Hymnal, though with an indifferent tune.Christians of today should surely sing the last two stanzas with the same exalted joy and hope that made them sacred to pious generations past and gone—O if my Lord would come and meet,My soul would stretch her wings in haste.Fly fearless through death's iron gate,Nor feel the terrors as she passed.Jesus can make a dying bedFeel soft as downy pillows are,While on His breast I lean my headAnd breathe my life out sweetly there.THE TUNE.The plain-music of William Boyd's “Pentecost,” (with modulations in the tenor), creates a new accent for the familiar lines. Preferable in every sense are Bradbury's tender “Zephyr” or “Rest.”No coming generation will ever feel the pious gladness of Amariah Hall's “All Saints New” in E flat major as it stirred the Christian choirs of seventy five years ago. Fitted to this heart-felt lyric of Watts, it opened with the words—O if my Lord would come and meet,in full harmony and four-four time, continuing to the end of the stanza. The melody, with its slurred syllables and beautiful modulations was almost578 /514blithe in its brightness, while the strong musical bass and the striking chords of the “counter,” chastened it and held the anthem to its due solemnity of tone and expression. Then the fugue took up—Jesus can make a dying bed,—bass, treble and tenor adding voice after voice in the manner of the old “canon” song, and the full harmony again carried the words, with loving repetitions, to the final bar. The music closed with a minor concord that was strangely effective and sweet.Amariah Hall was born in Raynham, Mass., April 28, 1785, and died there Feb. 8, 1827. He “farmed it,” manufactured straw-bonnets, kept tavern and taught singing-school. Music was only an avocation with him, but he was an artist in his way, and among his compositions are found in some ancient Tune books his “Morning Glory,” “Canaan,” “Falmouth,” “Restoration,” “Massachusetts,” “Raynham,” “Crucifixion,” “Harmony,” “Devotion,” “Zion,” and “Hosanna.”“All Saints New” was his masterpiece.“WHEN I CAN READ MY TITLE CLEAR.”No sacred song has been more profanely parodied by the thoughtless, or more travestied, (if we may use so strong a word), in popular religious airs, than this golden hymn which has made Isaac Watts a benefactor to every prisoner of hope. Not579 /515to mention the fancy figures and refrains of camp-meeting music, which have cheapened it, neither John Cole's “Annapolis” nor Arne's “Arlington” nor a dozen others that have borrowed these speaking lines, can wear out their association with “Auld lang Syne.” The hymn has permeated the tune, and, without forgetting its own words, the Scotch melody preforms both a social and religious mission. Some arrangements of it make it needlessly repetitious, but its pathos will always best vocalize the hymn, especially the first and last stanzas—When I can read my title clearTo mansions in the skiesI'll bid farewell to every fearAnd wipe my weeping eyes.* * * * * *There shall I bathe my weary soulIn seas of heavenly rest,And not a wave of trouble rollAcross my peaceful breast.“VITAL SPARK OF HEAVENLY FLAME.”This paraphrase, by Alexander Pope, of the Emperor Adrian's death-bed address to his soul—Animula, vagula, blandula,Hospes, comesque corporis,—transfers the poetry and constructs a hymnic theme.An old hymn writer by the name of Flatman wrote a Pindaric, somewhat similar to “Adrian's Address,” as follows:580 /516When on my sick-bed I languish,Full of sorrow, full of anguish,Fainting, gasping, trembling, crying,Panting, groaning, speechless, dying;Methinks I hear some gentle spirit say,“Be not fearful, come away.”Pope combined these two poems with the words of Divine inspiration, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” and made a pagan philosopher's question the text for a triumphant Christian anthem of hope.Vital spark of heavenly flame,Quit, oh quit this mortal frame.Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying,Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife,And let me languish into life.Hark! they whisper: angels say,“Sister spirit, come away!”What is this absorbs me quite,Steals my senses, shuts my sight,Drowns my spirit, draws my breath,Tell me, my soul, can this be death?The world recedes: it disappears:Heaven opens on my eyes; my earsWith sounds seraphic ring.Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!O grave where is thy victory?O death, where is thy sting?THE TUNE.The old anthem, “The Dying Christian,” or “The Dying Christian to his Soul,” which first made this581 /517lyric familiar in America as a musical piece, will never be sung again except at antique entertainments, but it had an importance in its day.Beginning in quadruple time on four flats minor, it renders the first stanza in flowing concords largo affettuoso, and a single bass fugue, Then suddenly shifting to one flat, major, duple time, it executes the second stanza, “Hark! they whisper” ... “What is this, etc.,” in alternate pianissimo and forte phrases; and finally, changing to triple time, sings the third triumphant stanza, andante, through staccato and fortissimo. The shout in the last adagio, on the four final bars, “O Death! O Death!” softening with “where is thy sting?” is quite in the style of old orchestral magnificence.Since “The Dying Christian” ceased to appear in church music, the poem, for some reason, seems not to have been recognized as a hymn. It is, however, a Christian poem, and a true lyric of hope and consolation, whatever the character of the author or however pagan the original that suggested it.The most that is now known of Edward Harwood, the composer of the anthem, is that he was an English musician and psalmodist, born near Blackburn, Lancaster Co., 1707, and died about 1787.“YOUR HARPS, YE TREMBLING SAINTS.”This hymn of Toplady,—unlike “A Debtor to Mercy Alone,” and “Inspirer and Hearer of Prayer,” both now little used,—stirs no controversial582 /518feeling by a single line of his aggressive Calvinism. It is simply a song of Christian gratitude and joy.Your harps, ye trembling saintsDown from the willows take;Loud to the praise of Love DivineBid every string awake.Though in a foreign land,We are not far from home,And nearer to our house aboveWe every moment come.* * * * * *Blest is the man, O God,That stays himself on Thee,Who waits for Thy salvation, Lord,Shall Thy salvation see.THE TUNE.“Olmutz” was arranged by Lowell Mason from a Gregorian chant. He set it himself to Toplady's hymn, and it seems the natural music for it. The words are also sometimes written and sung to Jonathan Woodman's “State St.”Jonathan Call Woodman was born in Newburyport, Mass., July 12, 1813. He was the organist of St. George's Chapel, Flushing L.I. and a teacher, composer and compiler. HisMusical Casketwas not issued until Dec. 1858, but he wrote the tune of “State St.” in August, 1844. It was a contribution to Bradbury'sPsalmodist, which was published the same year.583 /519“YE GOLDEN LAMPS OF HEAVEN, FAREWELL.”Dr. Doddridge's “farewell” is not a note of regret. Unlike Bernard, he appreciates this world while he anticipates the better one, but his contemplation climbs from God's footstool to His throne. His thought is in the last two lines of the second stanza, where he takes leave of the sun—My soul that springs beyond thy sphereNo more demands thine aid.But his fancy will find a function for the “golden lamps” even in the glory that swallows up their light—Ye stars are but the shining dustOf my divine abode,The pavement of those heavenly courtsWhere I shall dwell with God.The Father of eternal lightShall there His beams display,Nor shall one moment's darkness mixWith that unvaried day.THE TUNE.The hymn has been assigned to “Mt. Auburn,” a composition of George Kingsley, but a far better interpretation—if not best of all—is H.K. Oliver's tune of “Merton,” (1847,) older, but written purposely for the words.“TRIUMPHANT ZION, LIFT THY HEAD.”This fine and stimulating lyric is Doddridge in another tone. Instead of singing hope to the584 /520individual, he sounds a note of encouragement to the church.Put all thy beauteous garments on,And let thy excellence be known;Decked in the robes of righteousness,The world thy glories shall confess.* * * * * *God from on high has heard thy prayer;His hand thy ruins shall repair,Nor will thy watchful Monarch ceaseTo guard thee in eternal peace.The tune, “Anvern,” is one of Mason's charming melodies, full of vigor and cheerful life, and everything can be said of it that is said of the hymn. Duffield compares the hymn and tune to a ring and its jewel.It is one of the inevitable freaks of taste that puts so choice a strain of psalmody out of fashion. Many younger pieces in the church manuals could be better spared.“SHRINKING FROM THE COLD HAND OF DEATH.”This is a hymn of contrast, the dark of recoiling nature making the background of the rainbow. Written by Charles Wesley, it has passed among his forgotten or mostly forgotten productions but is notable for the frequent use of its 3rd stanza by his brother John. John Wesley, in his old age, did not so much shrink from death as from the thought of its too slow approach. His almost constant prayer was, “Lord, let me not live to be useless.”585 /521“At every place,” says Belcher, “after giving to his societies what he desired them to consider his last advice, he invariably concluded with the stanza beginning—

While with ceaseless course the sun,

—and Charles Wesley's—

Come let us anew our journey pursue;

the one a voice at the next year's threshold, the other a song at the open door.

While with ceaseless course the sunHasted thro' the former yearMany souls their race have runNevermore to meet us here.* * * * * *As the winged arrow fliesSpeedily the mark to find,As the lightening from the skiesDarts and leaves no trace behind,Swiftly thus our fleeting daysBear we down life's rapid stream,Upward, Lord, our spirits raise;All below is but a dream.

While with ceaseless course the sunHasted thro' the former yearMany souls their race have runNevermore to meet us here.

While with ceaseless course the sun

Hasted thro' the former year

Many souls their race have run

Nevermore to meet us here.

* * * * * *

As the winged arrow fliesSpeedily the mark to find,As the lightening from the skiesDarts and leaves no trace behind,Swiftly thus our fleeting daysBear we down life's rapid stream,Upward, Lord, our spirits raise;All below is but a dream.

As the winged arrow flies

Speedily the mark to find,

As the lightening from the skies

Darts and leaves no trace behind,

Swiftly thus our fleeting days

Bear we down life's rapid stream,

Upward, Lord, our spirits raise;

All below is but a dream.

A grave occasion, whether unexpected or periodical, will force reflection, and so will a grave556 /494truth; and when both present themselves at once, the truth needs only commonplace statement. If the statement is in rhyme and measure more attention is secured. Add atuneto it, and the most frivolous will take notice. Newton's hymn sung on the last evening of the year has its opportunity—and never fails to produce a solemn effect; but it is to the immortal music given to it in Samuel Webbe's “Benevento” that it owes its unique and permanent place. Dykes' “St. Edmund” may be sung in England, but in America it will never replace Webbe's simple and wonderfully impressive choral.

Charles Wesley's hymn is the antipode of Newton's in metre and movement.

Come, let us anew our journey pursue,Roll round with the yearAnd never stand still till the Master appear.His adorable will let us gladly fulfilAnd our talents improveBy the patience of hope and the labor of love.Our life is a dream, our time as a streamGlides swiftly away,And the fugitive moment refuses to stay.The arrow is flown, the moment is gone,The millennial year,Rushes on to our view, and eternity's near.

Come, let us anew our journey pursue,

Roll round with the year

And never stand still till the Master appear.

His adorable will let us gladly fulfil

And our talents improve

By the patience of hope and the labor of love.

Our life is a dream, our time as a streamGlides swiftly away,And the fugitive moment refuses to stay.The arrow is flown, the moment is gone,The millennial year,Rushes on to our view, and eternity's near.

Our life is a dream, our time as a stream

Glides swiftly away,

And the fugitive moment refuses to stay.

The arrow is flown, the moment is gone,

The millennial year,

Rushes on to our view, and eternity's near.

One could scarcely imagine a greater contrast than between this hymn and Newton's. In spite of its eccentric metre one cannot dismiss it as rhythmical jingle, for it is really a sermon shaped into a popular canticle, and the surmise is not a559 /495difficult one that he had in mind a secular air that was familiar to the crowd. But the hymn is not one of Wesley'spoems. Compilers who object to its lilting measure omit it from their books, but it holds its place in public use, for it carries weighty thoughts in swift sentences.

O that each in the Day of His coming may say,“I have fought my way through,I have finished the work Thou didst give me to do.”O that each from the Lord may receive the glad word,“Well and faithfully done,Enter into my joy, and sit down on my throne.”

O that each in the Day of His coming may say,

“I have fought my way through,

I have finished the work Thou didst give me to do.”

O that each from the Lord may receive the glad word,

“Well and faithfully done,

Enter into my joy, and sit down on my throne.”

For a hundred and fifty years this has been sung in the Methodist watch-meetings, and it will be long before it ceases to be sung—and reprinted in Methodist, and some Baptist hymnals.

The tune of “Lucas,” named after James Lucas, its composer, is the favorite vehicle of song for the “Watch-hymn.” Like the tune to “O How Happy Are They,” it has the movement of the words and the emphasis of their meaning.

No knowledge of James Lucas is at hand except that he lived in England, where one brief reference gives his birth-date as 1762 and “about 1805” as the birth-date of the tune.

The admirable hymn of Dr. Doddridge may be noted in this division with its equally admirable560 /496tune of “Melancthon,” one of the old Lutheran chorals of Germany.

Great God, we sing that mighty handBy which supported still we stand.The opening year Thy mercy shows;Thy mercy crown it till its close!By day, by night, at home, abroad,Still we are guarded by our God.

Great God, we sing that mighty handBy which supported still we stand.The opening year Thy mercy shows;Thy mercy crown it till its close!

Great God, we sing that mighty hand

By which supported still we stand.

The opening year Thy mercy shows;

Thy mercy crown it till its close!

By day, by night, at home, abroad,Still we are guarded by our God.

By day, by night, at home, abroad,

Still we are guarded by our God.

As this last couplet stood—and ought now to stand—pious parents teaching the hymn to their children heard them repeat—

By day, by night, at home, abroad,We are surrounded still with God.

By day, by night, at home, abroad,

We are surrounded still with God.

Many are now living whose first impressive sense of the Divine Omnipresence came with that line.

A lyric of benediction, born, apparently, at the divine moment for the need of the great “Society of Christian Endeavor,” and now adopted into the Christian song-service of all lands. The author, Rev. Jeremiah Eames Rankin, D.D., LL.D., was born in Thornton, N.H., Jan. 2, 1828. He was graduated at Middlebury College, Vt., in 1848, and labored as a Congregational pastor more561 /497than thirty years. For thirteen years he was President of Howard University, Washington, D.C. Besides the “Parting Hymn” he wroteThe Auld Scotch Mither,Ingleside Rhymes,Hymns pro Patria, and various practical works and religious essays. Died 1904.

As in a thousand other partnerships of hymnist and musician, Dr. Rankin was fortunate in his composer. The tune is a symphony of hearts—subdued at first, but breaking into a chorus strong with the uplift of hope. It is a farewell with a spiritual thrill in it.

Its author, William Gould Tomer, was born in Finesville, Warren Co., N.J., October 5, 1832; died in Phillipsburg, N.J., Sept. 26, 1896. He was a soldier in the Civil War and a writer of good ability as well as a composer. For some time he was editor of theHigh Bridge Gazette, and music with him was an avocation rather than a profession. He wrote the melody to Dr. Rankin's hymn in 1880, Prof. J.W. Bischoff supplying the harmony, and the tune was first published inGospel Bellsthe same year.

The style of singing at funerals, as well as the character of the hymns, has greatly changed—if,562 /498indeed, music continues to be a part of the service, as frequently, in ordinary cases, it is not. “China” with its comforting words—and terrifying chords—is forever obsolete, and not only that, but Dr. Muhlenberg's, “I Would Not Live Alway,” with its sadly sentimental tune of “Frederick,” has passed out of common use. Anna Steele's “So Fades the Lovely, Blooming Flower,” on the death of a child, is occasionally heard, and now and then Dr. S.F. Smith's, “Sister, Thou Wast Mild and Lovely,” (with its gentle air of “Mt. Vernon,”) on the death of a young lady. Standard hymns like Watts', “Unveil Thy Bosom, Faithful Tomb,” to the slow, tender melody of the “Dead March,” (from Handel's oratorio of “Saul”) and Montgomery's “Servant of God, Well Done,” to “Olmutz,” or Woodbury's “Forever with the Lord,” still retain their prestige, the music of the former being played on steeple-chimes on some burial occasions in cities, during the procession—

Nor pain nor grief nor anxious fearInvade thy bounds; no mortal woesCan reach the peaceful sleeper hereWhile angels watch the soft repose.

Nor pain nor grief nor anxious fear

Invade thy bounds; no mortal woes

Can reach the peaceful sleeper here

While angels watch the soft repose.

The latter hymn(Montgomery's) is biographical—as described onpage 301—

Servant of God, well done;Rest from thy loved employ;The battle fought, the victory won,Enter thy Master's joy.

Servant of God, well done;

Rest from thy loved employ;

The battle fought, the victory won,

Enter thy Master's joy.

Only five stanzas of this long poem are now in use.

The exquisite elegy of Montgomery, entitled “The Grave,”—

There is a calm for those who weep,A rest for weary mortals foundThey softly lie and sweetly sleepLow in the ground.

There is a calm for those who weep,

A rest for weary mortals found

They softly lie and sweetly sleep

Low in the ground.

—is by no means discontinued on funeral occasions, nor Margaret Mackay's beloved hymn,—

Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep,

—melodized in Bradbury's “Rest.”

Mrs. Margaret Mackay was born in 1801, the daughter of Capt. Robert Mackay of Hedgefield, Inverness, and wife of a major of the same name. She was the author of several prose works andLays of Leisure Hours, containing seventy-two original hymns and poems, of which “Asleep in Jesus” is one. She died in 1887.

This sweet hymn for mourners, known to us here in Jane Borthwick's translation, was written by Benjamin Schmolke (or Schmolk) late in the 17th century. He was born at Brauchitzchdorf, in Silesia, Dec. 21, 1672, and received his education at the Labau Gymnasium and Leipsic University. A sermon preached while a youth, for his564 /500father, a Lutheran pastor, showed such remarkable promise that a wealthy man paid the expenses of his education for the ministry. He was ordained and settled as pastor of the Free Church at Schweidnitz, Silesia, in which charge he continued from 1701 till his death.

Schmolke was the most popular hymn-writer of his time, author of some nine hundred church pieces, besides many for special occasions. Withal he was a man of exalted piety and a pastor of rare wisdom and influence.

His death, of paralysis, occurred on the anniversary of his wedding, Feb. 12, 1737.

My Jesus, as Thou wilt,Oh may Thy will be mine!Into Thy hand of loveI would my all resign.Thro' sorrow or thro' joyConduct me as Thine own,And help me still to say,My Lord, Thy will be done.

My Jesus, as Thou wilt,

Oh may Thy will be mine!

Into Thy hand of love

I would my all resign.

Thro' sorrow or thro' joy

Conduct me as Thine own,

And help me still to say,

My Lord, Thy will be done.

The last line is the refrain of the hymn of four eight-line stanzas.

“Sussex,” by Joseph Barnby, a plain-song with a fine harmony, is good congregational music for the hymn.

But “Jewett,” one of Carl Maria Von Weber's exquisite flights of song, is like no other in its intimate interpretation of the prayerful words.565 /501We hear Luther's “bird in the heart” singing softly in every inflection of the tender melody as it glides on. The tune, arranged by Joseph Holbrook, is from an opera—the overture to Weber's DerFreischutz—but one feels that the gentle musician when he wrote it must have caught an inspiration of divine trust and peace. The wish among the last words he uttered when dying in London of slow disease was, “Let me go back to my own (home), and then God's will be done.” That wish and the sentiment of Schmolke's hymn belong to each other, for they end in the same way.

My Jesus, as Thou wilt:All shall be well for me;Each changing future sceneI gladly trust with Thee.Straight to my home aboveI travel calmly on,And sing in life or deathMy Lord, Thy will be done.

My Jesus, as Thou wilt:

All shall be well for me;

Each changing future scene

I gladly trust with Thee.

Straight to my home above

I travel calmly on,

And sing in life or death

My Lord, Thy will be done.

In later years, when funeral music is desired, the employment of a male quartette has become a favorite custom. Of the selections sung in this manner few are more suitable or more generally welcomed than the tender and trustful hymn of Sir John Bowring, rendered sometimes in Dr. Dykes' “Almsgiving,” but better in the less-known but more flexible tune composed by Howard M. Dow—

I cannot always trace the wayWhere Thou, Almighty One, dost move,But I can always, always sayThat God is love.When fear her chilling mantle flingsO'er earth, my soul to heaven aboveAs to her native home upsprings,For God is love.When mystery clouds my darkened path,I'll check my dread, my doubts reprove;In this my soul sweet comfort hathThat God is love.Yes, God is love. A thought like thisCan every gloomy thought remove,And turn all tears, all woes to blissFor God is love.

I cannot always trace the wayWhere Thou, Almighty One, dost move,But I can always, always sayThat God is love.

I cannot always trace the way

Where Thou, Almighty One, dost move,

But I can always, always say

That God is love.

When fear her chilling mantle flingsO'er earth, my soul to heaven aboveAs to her native home upsprings,For God is love.

When fear her chilling mantle flings

O'er earth, my soul to heaven above

As to her native home upsprings,

For God is love.

When mystery clouds my darkened path,I'll check my dread, my doubts reprove;In this my soul sweet comfort hathThat God is love.

When mystery clouds my darkened path,

I'll check my dread, my doubts reprove;

In this my soul sweet comfort hath

That God is love.

Yes, God is love. A thought like thisCan every gloomy thought remove,And turn all tears, all woes to blissFor God is love.

Yes, God is love. A thought like this

Can every gloomy thought remove,

And turn all tears, all woes to bliss

For God is love.

The first line of the hymn was originally, “'Tis seldom I can trace the way.”

Howard M. Dow has been many years a resident of Boston, and organist of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons at the Tremont St. (Masonic) Temple.

Time was when hymns were sung at weddings, though in America the practice was never universal. Marriage, among Protestants, is not one of the sacraments, and no masses are chanted for it by ecclesiastical ordinance. The question of music at private marriages depends on convenience,567 /503vocal or instrumental equipment, and the general drift of the occasion. At public weddings the organ's duty is the “Wedding March.”

To revive a fashion of singing at home marriages would be considered an oddity—and, where civil marriages are legal, a superfluity—but in the religious ceremony, just after the prayer that follows the completion of the nuptial formula, it will occur to some that a hymn would “tide over” a proverbially awkward moment. Even good, quaint old John Berridge's lines would happily relieve the embarrassment—besides reminding the more thoughtless that a wedding is not a mere piece of social fun—

Since Jesus truly did appearTo grace a marriage feastO Lord, we ask Thy presence hereTo make a wedding guest.Upon the bridal pair look downWho now have plighted hands;Their union with Thy favor crownAnd bless the nuptial bands* * * * * *In purest love these souls uniteThat they with Christian careMay make domestic burdens lightBy taking each a share.

Since Jesus truly did appearTo grace a marriage feastO Lord, we ask Thy presence hereTo make a wedding guest.

Since Jesus truly did appear

To grace a marriage feast

O Lord, we ask Thy presence here

To make a wedding guest.

Upon the bridal pair look downWho now have plighted hands;Their union with Thy favor crownAnd bless the nuptial bands

Upon the bridal pair look down

Who now have plighted hands;

Their union with Thy favor crown

And bless the nuptial bands

* * * * * *

In purest love these souls uniteThat they with Christian careMay make domestic burdens lightBy taking each a share.

In purest love these souls unite

That they with Christian care

May make domestic burdens light

By taking each a share.

Tune, “Lanesboro,” Mason.

A wedding hymn of more poetic beauty is the one written by Miss Dorothy Bloomfield (now Mrs. Gurney), born 1858, for her sister's marriage in 1883.

O perfect Love, all human thought transcending,Lowly we kneel in prayer before Thy throneThat their's may be a love which knows no endingWhom Thou forevermore dost join in one.O perfect Life, be Thou their first assuranceOf tender charity and steadfast faith,Of patient hope and quiet, brave endurance,With childlike trust that fears nor pain nor death.Grant them the joy which brightens earthly sorrow,Grant them the peace which calms all earthly strife,And to their day the glorious unknown morrowThat dawns upon eternal love and life.

O perfect Love, all human thought transcending,Lowly we kneel in prayer before Thy throneThat their's may be a love which knows no endingWhom Thou forevermore dost join in one.

O perfect Love, all human thought transcending,

Lowly we kneel in prayer before Thy throne

That their's may be a love which knows no ending

Whom Thou forevermore dost join in one.

O perfect Life, be Thou their first assuranceOf tender charity and steadfast faith,Of patient hope and quiet, brave endurance,With childlike trust that fears nor pain nor death.

O perfect Life, be Thou their first assurance

Of tender charity and steadfast faith,

Of patient hope and quiet, brave endurance,

With childlike trust that fears nor pain nor death.

Grant them the joy which brightens earthly sorrow,Grant them the peace which calms all earthly strife,And to their day the glorious unknown morrowThat dawns upon eternal love and life.

Grant them the joy which brightens earthly sorrow,

Grant them the peace which calms all earthly strife,

And to their day the glorious unknown morrow

That dawns upon eternal love and life.

Tune by Joseph Barnby, “O Perfect Love.”

Thomas Olivers begins one of his hymns with this line. The hymn is a Judgment-day lyric of rude strength and once in current use, but now rarely printed. The “Lo He Comes,” here specially noted, is the production of John Cennick, the Moravian.

Lo! He comes with clouds descendingOnce for favored sinners slain,Thousand thousand saints attendingSwell the triumph of His train.Hallelujah!God appears on earth to reign.* * * * * *569 /505Yea, amen; let all adore TheeHigh on Thy eternal throne.Saviour, take the power and glory,Claim the kingdom for thine own;O come quickly;Hallelujah! Come, Lord, come.

Lo! He comes with clouds descendingOnce for favored sinners slain,Thousand thousand saints attendingSwell the triumph of His train.Hallelujah!God appears on earth to reign.

Lo! He comes with clouds descending

Once for favored sinners slain,

Thousand thousand saints attending

Swell the triumph of His train.

Hallelujah!

God appears on earth to reign.

* * * * * *

Yea, amen; let all adore TheeHigh on Thy eternal throne.Saviour, take the power and glory,Claim the kingdom for thine own;O come quickly;Hallelujah! Come, Lord, come.

Yea, amen; let all adore Thee

High on Thy eternal throne.

Saviour, take the power and glory,

Claim the kingdom for thine own;

O come quickly;

Hallelujah! Come, Lord, come.

Various composers have written music to this universal hymn, but none has given it a choral that it can claim as peculiarly its own. “Brest,” Lowell Mason's plain-song, has a limited range, and runs low on the staff, but its solemn chords are musical and commanding. As much can be said of the tunes of Dr. Dykes and Samuel Webbe, which have more variety. Those who feel that the hymn calls for a more ornate melody will prefer Madan's “Helmsley.”

The great Southampton bard who wrote “Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood” was quick to kindle at every reminder of Fruition Day.

Lo! what a glorious sight appearsTo our believing eyes!The earth and seas are passed away,And the old rolling skies.From the third heaven, where God resides,That holy, happy place,The New Jerusalem comes down,Adorned with shining grace.

Lo! what a glorious sight appears

To our believing eyes!

The earth and seas are passed away,

And the old rolling skies.

From the third heaven, where God resides,

That holy, happy place,

The New Jerusalem comes down,

Adorned with shining grace.

This hymn of Watts' sings one of his most exalted visions. It has been dear for two hundred years to every Christian soul throbbing with millennial thoughts and wishful of the day when—

The God of glory down to menRemoves His best abode,

The God of glory down to men

Removes His best abode,

—and when—

His own kind hand shall wipe the tearsFrom every weeping eye,And pains and groans, and griefs and fears,And death itself shall die,

His own kind hand shall wipe the tears

From every weeping eye,

And pains and groans, and griefs and fears,

And death itself shall die,

—and the yearning cry of the last stanza, when the vision fades, has been the household ?†of myriads of burdened and sorrowing saints—

How long, dear Saviour, O how longShall this bright hour delay?Fly swifter round ye wheels of Time,And bring the welcome day!

How long, dear Saviour, O how long

Shall this bright hour delay?

Fly swifter round ye wheels of Time,

And bring the welcome day!

† Transcriber's note: This question mark is in the original. It is possibly a compositor's query which the author missed when correcting the proofs. The missing text could be ‘word’.

By right of long appropriation both “Northfield” and “New Jerusalem” own a near relationship to these glorious verses. Ingalls, one of the constellation of early Puritan psalmodists, to which Billings and Swan belonged, evidently loved the hymn, and composed his “New Jerusalem” to the verse, “From the third heaven,” and his “Northfield” to “How long, dear Saviour.” The former is now sung only as a reminiscence of the music of the past, at church festivals, charity fairs and571 /507entertainments of similar design, but the action and hearty joy in it always evoke sympathetic applause. “Northfield” is still in occasional use, and it is a jewel of melody, however irretrievably out of fashion. Its union to that immortal stanza, if no other reason, seems likely to insure its permanent place in the lists of sacred song.

John Cole's “Annapolis,” still found in a few hymnals with these words, is a little too late to be called a contemporary piece, but there are some reminders ofIngalls'“New Jerusalem” in its style and vigor, and it really partakes the flavor of the old New England church music.

Jeremiah Ingalls was born in Andover, Mass.,March1, 1764. A natural fondness for music increased with his years, but opportunities to educate it were few and far between, and he seemed like to become no more than a fairly good bass-viol player in the village choir. But his determination carried him higher, and in time his self-taught talent qualified him for a singing-school master, and for many years he travelled through Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, training the raw vocal material in the country towns, and organizing choirs.

Between his thirtieth and fortieth years, he composed a number of tunes, and, in 1804 published a two hundred page collection of his own and others' music, which he called theChristian Harmony.

His home was for some time in Newberry, Vt., but he subsequently lived at Rochester and at Hancock in the same state.

Among the traditions of him is this anecdote of the origin of his famous tune “Northfield,” which may indicate something of his temper and religious habit. During his travels as a singing-school teacher he stopped at a tavern in the town of Northfield and ordered his dinner. It was very slow in coming, but the inevitable “how long?” that formulated itself in his hungry thoughts, instead of sharpening into profane complaint, fell into the rhythm of Watts' sacred line—and the tune came with it. To call it “Northfield” was natural enough; the place where its melody first beguiled him from his bodily wants to a dream of the final Fruition Day.

Ingalls died in Hancock, Vt., April 6, 1828.

“The Seven Great Hymns” of the Latin Church are:

Chief of these is the first named, though that is but part of a religious poem of three thousand lines, which the author, Bernard of Cluny, named “De Contemptu Mundi” (Concerning Disdain of the World.)

Bernard was of English parentage, though born at Morlaix, a seaport town in the north of France.574 /510The exact date of his birth is unknown, though it was probably about A.D. 1100. He is called Bernard of Cluny because he lived and wrote at that place, a French town on the Grone where he was abbot of a famous monastery, and also to distinguish him from Bernard of Clairvaux.

His great poem is rarely spoken of as a whole, but in three portions, as if each were a complete work. The first is the long exordium, exhausting the pessimistic title (contempt of the world), and passing on to the second, where begins the real “Laus Patriae Coelestis.” This being cut in two, making a third portion, has enriched the Christian world with two of its best hymns, “For Thee, O Dear, Dear Country,” and “Jerusalem the Golden.”

Bernard wrote the medieval or church Latin in its prime of literary refinement, and its accent is so obvious and its rhythm so musical that even one ignorant of the language could pronounce it, and catch its rhymes. The “Contemptu Mundi” begins with these two lines, in a hexameter impossible to copy in translation:

Hora novissima; tempora pessima sunt; Vigilemus!Ecce minaciter imminet Arbiter, Ille Supremus!'Tis the last hour; the times are at their worst;Watch; lo the Judge Supreme stands threat'ning nigh!

Hora novissima; tempora pessima sunt; Vigilemus!Ecce minaciter imminet Arbiter, Ille Supremus!

Hora novissima; tempora pessima sunt; Vigilemus!

Ecce minaciter imminet Arbiter, Ille Supremus!

'Tis the last hour; the times are at their worst;Watch; lo the Judge Supreme stands threat'ning nigh!

'Tis the last hour; the times are at their worst;

Watch; lo the Judge Supreme stands threat'ning nigh!

Or, as Dr. Neale paraphrases and softens it,—

The World is very evil,The times are waxing late,Be sober and keep vigil,The Judge is at the gate,

The World is very evil,

The times are waxing late,

Be sober and keep vigil,

The Judge is at the gate,

—and, after the poet's long, dark diorama of the world's wicked condition, follows the “Praise of the Heavenly Fatherland,” when a tender glory dawns upon the scene till it breaks into sunrise with the vision of the Golden City. All that an opulent and devout imagination can picture of the beauty and bounty of heaven, and all that faith can construct from the glimpses in the Revelation of its glory and happiness is poured forth in the lavish poetry of the inspired monk of Cluny—

Urbs Sion aurea, patria lactea, cive decora,Omne cor obruis, omnibus obstruis, et cor et ora.Nescio, nescio quae jubilatio lux tibi qualis,Quam socialia gaudia, gloria quam specialis.

Urbs Sion aurea, patria lactea, cive decora,

Omne cor obruis, omnibus obstruis, et cor et ora.

Nescio, nescio quae jubilatio lux tibi qualis,

Quam socialia gaudia, gloria quam specialis.

Jerusalem, the golden;With milk and honey blest;Beneath thy contemplationSink heart and voice opprest.I know not, O I know notWhat joys await us there,With radiancy of glory,With bliss beyond compare.They stand, those halls of Zion,All jubilant with song,*And bright with many an angel;And all the martyr throng.The Prince is ever in them,The daylight is serene;The pastures of the blessedAre decked in glorious sheen.* * * * * *576 /512O sweet and blessed country,The home of God's elect!O sweet and blessed country,That eager hearts expect!Jesu, in mercy bring usTo that dear land of rest,Who art, with God the Father,And Spirit, ever blest.

Jerusalem, the golden;

With milk and honey blest;

Beneath thy contemplation

Sink heart and voice opprest.

I know not, O I know not

What joys await us there,

With radiancy of glory,

With bliss beyond compare.

They stand, those halls of Zion,All jubilant with song,*And bright with many an angel;And all the martyr throng.The Prince is ever in them,The daylight is serene;The pastures of the blessedAre decked in glorious sheen.

They stand, those halls of Zion,

All jubilant with song,*

And bright with many an angel;

And all the martyr throng.

The Prince is ever in them,

The daylight is serene;

The pastures of the blessed

Are decked in glorious sheen.

* * * * * *

576 /512O sweet and blessed country,The home of God's elect!O sweet and blessed country,That eager hearts expect!Jesu, in mercy bring usTo that dear land of rest,Who art, with God the Father,And Spirit, ever blest.

O sweet and blessed country,

The home of God's elect!

O sweet and blessed country,

That eager hearts expect!

Jesu, in mercy bring us

To that dear land of rest,

Who art, with God the Father,

And Spirit, ever blest.

* In first editions, “conjubilantwith song.”

Dr. John Mason Neale, the translator, was obliged to condense Bernard's exuberant verse, and he has done so with unsurpassable grace and melody. He made his translation while “inhibited” from his priestly functions in the Church of England for his high ritualistic views and practice, and so poor that he wrote stories for children to earn his living. His poverty added to the wealth of Christendom.

The music of “Jerusalem the Golden” used in most churches is the composition of Alexander Ewing, a paymaster in the English army. He was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, Jan. 3d, 1830, and educated there at Marischal College. The tune bears his name, and this honor, and its general favor with the public, are so much testimony to its merit. It is a stately harmony in D major with sonorous and impressive chords. Ewing died in 1895.

Probably it is an embarrassment of riches and despair of space that have crowded this hymn—577 /513perhaps the sweetest that Watts ever wrote—out of some of our church singing-books. It is pleasant to find it in the newMethodist Hymnal, though with an indifferent tune.

Christians of today should surely sing the last two stanzas with the same exalted joy and hope that made them sacred to pious generations past and gone—

O if my Lord would come and meet,My soul would stretch her wings in haste.Fly fearless through death's iron gate,Nor feel the terrors as she passed.Jesus can make a dying bedFeel soft as downy pillows are,While on His breast I lean my headAnd breathe my life out sweetly there.

O if my Lord would come and meet,

My soul would stretch her wings in haste.

Fly fearless through death's iron gate,

Nor feel the terrors as she passed.

Jesus can make a dying bed

Feel soft as downy pillows are,

While on His breast I lean my head

And breathe my life out sweetly there.

The plain-music of William Boyd's “Pentecost,” (with modulations in the tenor), creates a new accent for the familiar lines. Preferable in every sense are Bradbury's tender “Zephyr” or “Rest.”

No coming generation will ever feel the pious gladness of Amariah Hall's “All Saints New” in E flat major as it stirred the Christian choirs of seventy five years ago. Fitted to this heart-felt lyric of Watts, it opened with the words—

O if my Lord would come and meet,

in full harmony and four-four time, continuing to the end of the stanza. The melody, with its slurred syllables and beautiful modulations was almost578 /514blithe in its brightness, while the strong musical bass and the striking chords of the “counter,” chastened it and held the anthem to its due solemnity of tone and expression. Then the fugue took up—

Jesus can make a dying bed,

—bass, treble and tenor adding voice after voice in the manner of the old “canon” song, and the full harmony again carried the words, with loving repetitions, to the final bar. The music closed with a minor concord that was strangely effective and sweet.

Amariah Hall was born in Raynham, Mass., April 28, 1785, and died there Feb. 8, 1827. He “farmed it,” manufactured straw-bonnets, kept tavern and taught singing-school. Music was only an avocation with him, but he was an artist in his way, and among his compositions are found in some ancient Tune books his “Morning Glory,” “Canaan,” “Falmouth,” “Restoration,” “Massachusetts,” “Raynham,” “Crucifixion,” “Harmony,” “Devotion,” “Zion,” and “Hosanna.”

“All Saints New” was his masterpiece.

No sacred song has been more profanely parodied by the thoughtless, or more travestied, (if we may use so strong a word), in popular religious airs, than this golden hymn which has made Isaac Watts a benefactor to every prisoner of hope. Not579 /515to mention the fancy figures and refrains of camp-meeting music, which have cheapened it, neither John Cole's “Annapolis” nor Arne's “Arlington” nor a dozen others that have borrowed these speaking lines, can wear out their association with “Auld lang Syne.” The hymn has permeated the tune, and, without forgetting its own words, the Scotch melody preforms both a social and religious mission. Some arrangements of it make it needlessly repetitious, but its pathos will always best vocalize the hymn, especially the first and last stanzas—

When I can read my title clearTo mansions in the skiesI'll bid farewell to every fearAnd wipe my weeping eyes.* * * * * *There shall I bathe my weary soulIn seas of heavenly rest,And not a wave of trouble rollAcross my peaceful breast.

When I can read my title clearTo mansions in the skiesI'll bid farewell to every fearAnd wipe my weeping eyes.

When I can read my title clear

To mansions in the skies

I'll bid farewell to every fear

And wipe my weeping eyes.

* * * * * *

There shall I bathe my weary soulIn seas of heavenly rest,And not a wave of trouble rollAcross my peaceful breast.

There shall I bathe my weary soul

In seas of heavenly rest,

And not a wave of trouble roll

Across my peaceful breast.

This paraphrase, by Alexander Pope, of the Emperor Adrian's death-bed address to his soul—

Animula, vagula, blandula,Hospes, comesque corporis,

Animula, vagula, blandula,

Hospes, comesque corporis,

—transfers the poetry and constructs a hymnic theme.

An old hymn writer by the name of Flatman wrote a Pindaric, somewhat similar to “Adrian's Address,” as follows:

When on my sick-bed I languish,Full of sorrow, full of anguish,Fainting, gasping, trembling, crying,Panting, groaning, speechless, dying;Methinks I hear some gentle spirit say,“Be not fearful, come away.”

When on my sick-bed I languish,

Full of sorrow, full of anguish,

Fainting, gasping, trembling, crying,

Panting, groaning, speechless, dying;

Methinks I hear some gentle spirit say,

“Be not fearful, come away.”

Pope combined these two poems with the words of Divine inspiration, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” and made a pagan philosopher's question the text for a triumphant Christian anthem of hope.

Vital spark of heavenly flame,Quit, oh quit this mortal frame.Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying,Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife,And let me languish into life.Hark! they whisper: angels say,“Sister spirit, come away!”What is this absorbs me quite,Steals my senses, shuts my sight,Drowns my spirit, draws my breath,Tell me, my soul, can this be death?The world recedes: it disappears:Heaven opens on my eyes; my earsWith sounds seraphic ring.Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!O grave where is thy victory?O death, where is thy sting?

Vital spark of heavenly flame,Quit, oh quit this mortal frame.Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying,Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife,And let me languish into life.

Vital spark of heavenly flame,

Quit, oh quit this mortal frame.

Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying,

Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!

Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife,

And let me languish into life.

Hark! they whisper: angels say,“Sister spirit, come away!”What is this absorbs me quite,Steals my senses, shuts my sight,Drowns my spirit, draws my breath,Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

Hark! they whisper: angels say,

“Sister spirit, come away!”

What is this absorbs me quite,

Steals my senses, shuts my sight,

Drowns my spirit, draws my breath,

Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

The world recedes: it disappears:Heaven opens on my eyes; my earsWith sounds seraphic ring.Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!O grave where is thy victory?O death, where is thy sting?

The world recedes: it disappears:

Heaven opens on my eyes; my ears

With sounds seraphic ring.

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!

O grave where is thy victory?

O death, where is thy sting?

The old anthem, “The Dying Christian,” or “The Dying Christian to his Soul,” which first made this581 /517lyric familiar in America as a musical piece, will never be sung again except at antique entertainments, but it had an importance in its day.

Beginning in quadruple time on four flats minor, it renders the first stanza in flowing concords largo affettuoso, and a single bass fugue, Then suddenly shifting to one flat, major, duple time, it executes the second stanza, “Hark! they whisper” ... “What is this, etc.,” in alternate pianissimo and forte phrases; and finally, changing to triple time, sings the third triumphant stanza, andante, through staccato and fortissimo. The shout in the last adagio, on the four final bars, “O Death! O Death!” softening with “where is thy sting?” is quite in the style of old orchestral magnificence.

Since “The Dying Christian” ceased to appear in church music, the poem, for some reason, seems not to have been recognized as a hymn. It is, however, a Christian poem, and a true lyric of hope and consolation, whatever the character of the author or however pagan the original that suggested it.

The most that is now known of Edward Harwood, the composer of the anthem, is that he was an English musician and psalmodist, born near Blackburn, Lancaster Co., 1707, and died about 1787.

This hymn of Toplady,—unlike “A Debtor to Mercy Alone,” and “Inspirer and Hearer of Prayer,” both now little used,—stirs no controversial582 /518feeling by a single line of his aggressive Calvinism. It is simply a song of Christian gratitude and joy.

Your harps, ye trembling saintsDown from the willows take;Loud to the praise of Love DivineBid every string awake.Though in a foreign land,We are not far from home,And nearer to our house aboveWe every moment come.* * * * * *Blest is the man, O God,That stays himself on Thee,Who waits for Thy salvation, Lord,Shall Thy salvation see.

Your harps, ye trembling saintsDown from the willows take;Loud to the praise of Love DivineBid every string awake.

Your harps, ye trembling saints

Down from the willows take;

Loud to the praise of Love Divine

Bid every string awake.

Though in a foreign land,We are not far from home,And nearer to our house aboveWe every moment come.

Though in a foreign land,

We are not far from home,

And nearer to our house above

We every moment come.

* * * * * *

Blest is the man, O God,That stays himself on Thee,Who waits for Thy salvation, Lord,Shall Thy salvation see.

Blest is the man, O God,

That stays himself on Thee,

Who waits for Thy salvation, Lord,

Shall Thy salvation see.

“Olmutz” was arranged by Lowell Mason from a Gregorian chant. He set it himself to Toplady's hymn, and it seems the natural music for it. The words are also sometimes written and sung to Jonathan Woodman's “State St.”

Jonathan Call Woodman was born in Newburyport, Mass., July 12, 1813. He was the organist of St. George's Chapel, Flushing L.I. and a teacher, composer and compiler. HisMusical Casketwas not issued until Dec. 1858, but he wrote the tune of “State St.” in August, 1844. It was a contribution to Bradbury'sPsalmodist, which was published the same year.

Dr. Doddridge's “farewell” is not a note of regret. Unlike Bernard, he appreciates this world while he anticipates the better one, but his contemplation climbs from God's footstool to His throne. His thought is in the last two lines of the second stanza, where he takes leave of the sun—

My soul that springs beyond thy sphereNo more demands thine aid.

My soul that springs beyond thy sphere

No more demands thine aid.

But his fancy will find a function for the “golden lamps” even in the glory that swallows up their light—

Ye stars are but the shining dustOf my divine abode,The pavement of those heavenly courtsWhere I shall dwell with God.The Father of eternal lightShall there His beams display,Nor shall one moment's darkness mixWith that unvaried day.

Ye stars are but the shining dustOf my divine abode,The pavement of those heavenly courtsWhere I shall dwell with God.

Ye stars are but the shining dust

Of my divine abode,

The pavement of those heavenly courts

Where I shall dwell with God.

The Father of eternal lightShall there His beams display,Nor shall one moment's darkness mixWith that unvaried day.

The Father of eternal light

Shall there His beams display,

Nor shall one moment's darkness mix

With that unvaried day.

The hymn has been assigned to “Mt. Auburn,” a composition of George Kingsley, but a far better interpretation—if not best of all—is H.K. Oliver's tune of “Merton,” (1847,) older, but written purposely for the words.

This fine and stimulating lyric is Doddridge in another tone. Instead of singing hope to the584 /520individual, he sounds a note of encouragement to the church.

Put all thy beauteous garments on,And let thy excellence be known;Decked in the robes of righteousness,The world thy glories shall confess.* * * * * *God from on high has heard thy prayer;His hand thy ruins shall repair,Nor will thy watchful Monarch ceaseTo guard thee in eternal peace.

Put all thy beauteous garments on,And let thy excellence be known;Decked in the robes of righteousness,The world thy glories shall confess.

Put all thy beauteous garments on,

And let thy excellence be known;

Decked in the robes of righteousness,

The world thy glories shall confess.

* * * * * *

God from on high has heard thy prayer;His hand thy ruins shall repair,Nor will thy watchful Monarch ceaseTo guard thee in eternal peace.

God from on high has heard thy prayer;

His hand thy ruins shall repair,

Nor will thy watchful Monarch cease

To guard thee in eternal peace.

The tune, “Anvern,” is one of Mason's charming melodies, full of vigor and cheerful life, and everything can be said of it that is said of the hymn. Duffield compares the hymn and tune to a ring and its jewel.

It is one of the inevitable freaks of taste that puts so choice a strain of psalmody out of fashion. Many younger pieces in the church manuals could be better spared.

This is a hymn of contrast, the dark of recoiling nature making the background of the rainbow. Written by Charles Wesley, it has passed among his forgotten or mostly forgotten productions but is notable for the frequent use of its 3rd stanza by his brother John. John Wesley, in his old age, did not so much shrink from death as from the thought of its too slow approach. His almost constant prayer was, “Lord, let me not live to be useless.”585 /521“At every place,” says Belcher, “after giving to his societies what he desired them to consider his last advice, he invariably concluded with the stanza beginning—

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