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Hymn- Writers 
 
 THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 BT 
 
 THE REV. s. w. Christophers. 
 
 ■' There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of 
 
 them are without signification What is it then ? I will sing with the 
 
 spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also."— 1 Cor. siv. 10, 15. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., 
 
 770 Broadway, cor. 9TH St., 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
yVxw^i--.' vr -.-^ 
 
 I RtC. SEP 1BB2 
 
 TO THE DAUGHTEE OF A HOME ONCE RICH IN THE 
 MUSIC OF HYMNS AND PSALMS ; 
 
 TO 
 
 EMMA, 
 
 THE WIFE AND MOTHER, 
 
 WHOSE VOICE AND SMILE STILL AWAKEN DAILY SONGS 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF MY PILGEIMAGE, 
 
 STfjrsf pages arc DciiratfU, 
 
 WITH MOST TENDER AND HALLOWED AFFECTION, 
 
 BY HER HUSBAND, 
 
 S. W. CHRISTOPHERS. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 TO THE EEADEB ......... ix 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTKODUCTOEY CHAPTEE 1 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 THE FIBST HYMX-BOOK .14 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HYMN'S or THE LATTER DAY MORNING 29 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HYMNS OF THE FATHERS .44 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MORE HYMNS OF THE FATHERS . . . . . . . o7 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HYMNS OF OLD ENGLAND'S CHRISTIAN BIRTH-TIME . . .71 
 
TI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PAGE 
 ItYMNS FROJt OLD CLOISTERS 8(3 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SOXGS IN HIGH PLACES 100 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SONGS IN PRISON 116 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PSALMS IN ENGLISH METRE 132 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 HYMN -MENDERS . . 1-18 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HYMNS OF CREATION 164 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HYMNS ABOUT THE BOOK 180 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HYMNS OF THE SABBATH . . . . . . . .195 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 HYMNS BY THE WAY .211 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 KYilNS ON THE WATERS 227 
 
CONTENTS. Vli 
 
 CHAPTER XYII. 
 
 TACK 
 SONGS OF THE MOENING 243 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 SONGS IN THE NIGHT 257 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 MAHEIAGE SONGS AND BIETH-DAT HYMNS 272 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 HYMNS FEOM BENEATH THE CLOUD 290 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 HYMNS OF GETHESEMANE AND THE CEOSS ..... 306 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 FUNEEAL HYMNS ......... 322 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 JUDGMENT HYMNS 335 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 SONGS OF GLOEY 340 
 
THEOLOGIC:' 
 
 TO THE READER. 
 
 " What ! another hj^mn-book ? Why surely the world has 
 hymn-books enough." Well, that may be, and yet here is 
 something like another. It is something like another, as 
 there are hymns in it ; and yet it is rather unlike any other, 
 in that it has the hymns interwoven with what may be 
 called gossip, innocent, and, it is hoped, not unpleasant 
 gossip, about the hymns and those who wrote them. Who 
 does not like to know the why, the when, and the where- 
 fore of men and things ? Who does not love a chat about 
 the people and the affairs which interest him ? Here, 
 then, is chat about hymns, their birth and parentage, 
 their circumstances, their character and their influence. 
 These pages make no pretensions to learning — that is left 
 to the doctors. Nor do they aim at criticism, that belongs 
 to those who go up the Ehine. Neither do they affect the 
 style of history — that has been well done in other volumes. 
 It will be enough if the lover of sacred music should 
 
X TO THE READER. 
 
 snatcli up the book now and then, after a good practice 
 in psalmody, and opening it anywhere, find a chapter 
 containing some story about a dear old hymn which makes 
 that hymn still dearer to his heart. Or, if those who like 
 to have some fresh stanzas always on their merry lips, 
 should catch new strains from the voices which mingle in 
 these chapters of chat ; or, if those who turn over the 
 leaves should find an hour's pleasant communion with 
 the spirit of Christian hymns, or with the mind and 
 hearts of those who wrote them ; or, if a chapter, per- 
 chance, arrest the soul of any reader, and teach him the 
 secret of a happy, cheerful, and tuneful life, a life of in- 
 ward hymn and song, — the book will answer its purpose, 
 and fill its place. Whatever may be thought of the setting, 
 the gems with which these pages are enriched, the psalms 
 and hymns which illuminate the text, need no commenda- 
 tion but their own transparent richness and beauty. 
 
 Many of these hymns are from living authors, and grate- 
 ful acknowledgments are due for permission to reprint 
 them. Mrs. Julius Collins's fine rendering of the hymn 
 from the Synagogue Morning Service has been inserted by 
 the kind consent of Dr. Beniseh. Mrs. Charles has freely 
 sanctioned the use of several of her translations of ancient 
 hymns. The following are hers : — Hymn from Ephrem 
 Syrus " On the Children in Paradise ; " St. Ambrose's 
 "Advent Hymn;" Bede's hymn "On the Ascension;" 
 portions of St. Bernard's hymn, " To Christ on the Cross ; " 
 
TO THE REAIjEK. XI 
 
 the "Veni, Sancte Spiritus," by King Eobert II. of 
 France; and the "Dies Irse." These are all taken from 
 her beautiful and instructive "Voice of Christian Life in 
 Song." Five hymns translated by Miss Winkworth are 
 reprinted from her ''Lyra Germanica," by permission of 
 Messrs. Longman, Green, and Co. — " Gustavus Adolphus' 
 Battle Song," " Queen Maria of Hungary's Song," "Jesus 
 my Redeemer Lives," by Louisa Henrietta, Electress of 
 Brandenburg; "Leave aU to God," by Anton Ulrich, 
 Duke of Brunswick; and Notker's hymn by Luther, "In 
 the Midst of Life, Behold." All the other renderings of 
 ancient hjrmns, without a name in the volume, are new. 
 Among the modern hymns selected, those by the Eev. John 
 S. B. Monsell are from his "Parish Musings," and are given 
 by the gifted author's permission. The Rev. John Keble, 
 author of the " Christian Year," very kindly sanctions 
 the use of those hymns, which are inserted as from his 
 pen. Most of the other hymns in the volume come from 
 hymnists who are now above our thanks ; but " the memory 
 of the just is blessed." 
 
 Yes, it may be repeated, " the memory of the just is 
 blessed ; " for scarcely had the above record of John 
 Keble's Christian kindness found its way to the press, 
 before he too had joined the hymnists who are "now 
 above our thanks." It was but the other evening that 
 one looked at him as his bending form moved gently over 
 the sands along the beautiful shore of Mount's Bay, in 
 
Xll TO THE KEADEK. 
 
 Cornwall ; and as Ms peaceful face was now and then 
 turned upwards to the star-lighted heavens, it seemed as 
 if he were inwardly singing his own deeply spiritual hymn 
 for "the Fourth Sunday after Easter;" but those who 
 kept him company little thought that he would so soon 
 realize the consoling prophecy of his own verse : — 
 
 Then, fainting soul, arise and sing ; 
 
 Mount, biit be sober on the wing ; 
 
 Mount up, for heaven is won by prayer, 
 
 Be sober, for thou art not there ; 
 
 Till death the weary spirit free, 
 
 Thy God hath said, 'Tis good for thee 
 
 To walk by faith and not by sight : 
 
 Take it on trust a little while ; 
 Soon shalt thou read the mystery right 
 
 In the f vdl sunshine of His smile. 
 
 S. W. 0. 
 
 Croydon, Mat/, 1866. 
 [First' Edition.) 
 
J^tC. SEP iiiol 
 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEir'fi¥|ig^.„,^' 
 
 ir^r-^' 
 
 INTEODUCTOEY CHAPTEE. 
 
 Psalms of praise were the first-fruits of creation. Hj'inns 
 were the earliest utterances of human nature in the morn- 
 ing light of the world — man's first responses to the voice 
 of his Creator — the earth's first echoes to the music of the 
 heavens, when "the morning stars sang together, and all 
 the sons of God shouted for joj.'" This world's first love 
 was told in hymns. Music first broke forth in psalms. 
 The earliest recorded essays of human language are in 
 spiritual song. Spiritual songs were the delight of the 
 world in the days of her youth ; they have been her solace 
 during her advance towards maturity; and they Avill 
 brighten the eventide and close of her life. The antedilu- 
 vian age seems to have had its darling household songs. 
 In patriarchal times the father's blessing was sometimes 
 poured forth in lofty hymnic measures. In the youth-tide 
 of her national life Israel gave out her joys of deliverance 
 in sea-side hymns. She was once shut uj) between the 
 mountains, the sea, and her infuriated enemies. In her 
 distress God divided the waters before her, and the tribes 
 went safely through the depths. Their foes, essaying to 
 follow them, were overwhelmed in the flood ; and while 
 charioteer and horseman were struggling with the waves 
 and the sea was uttering a loud requiem over the sinking 
 hosts, the redeemed multitude confidently stood on the 
 
 A 
 
2 HYJklN-WKITEES AND THEIR HYMIS'S. 
 
 shore, and mingled tlieir hymn of triumph with the sound 
 of the waters. 
 
 Sing unto the Lord, 
 
 Tor He hath triiunjjhed gloriously ! 
 
 The horse and his rider 
 
 He hath cast into the sea ! 
 
 The Lord is my strength and song, 
 
 And He is become my salvation. 
 
 Who is like nnto Thee, 
 O Lord, among the gods ? 
 Who is like Thee— 
 Glorious in holiness. 
 Fearful in praises, 
 Doino: wonders ? 
 
 The Lord shall reign for ever and ever ! 
 The song which thus first rose "o'er Egypt's dark sea" 
 rose again, ever and anon, along the desert and in the land 
 of promise. Israel kejDt up the circlings of her religious 
 dances to the song of Moses and the music of Miriam. In 
 the fulness of her meridian strength, her psalms were her 
 delights as she went up to the house of the Lord, and 
 plaintive hymns have been the solace of her faithful child- 
 ren all through the weary periods of her decline. The 
 primitive and purer literature of even those false or cor- 
 rupted systems of religion which sprung up against the 
 early claims of the true Messiah take the hymnic form, as 
 if that form must be the most natural, the most sacred, and 
 the most happy mode of religious utterance. The founda- 
 tions of the Christian Church, too, were laid amidst the 
 hymnings of her first converts. She owes the preservation 
 of her spiritual life, and the continued piu-ity of her belief, 
 in a large measure, to the service of song ; and how many 
 of her generations have left hymns as the only living me- 
 morials of their character and works. "Psalms and hymns 
 and spiritual songs" form the native language of Chris- 
 tianity. The religion of the new covenant is the happy 
 religion. It calls its people to "rejoice evermore, and in 
 everything to give thanks." When it is allowed to exert 
 its proper and full infiuence on the human character, it 
 regulates the affections, without desti'oying man's capacity 
 for delight ; it composes and cheers the soul ; it banishes 
 mere levity, and checking all vicious and boisterous mirth, 
 
rNTRODUCTORT CHAPTER. 3 
 
 it fills the mind with serene joy, and gives a tone of cheer- 
 fulness to the manners and to the voice. But how many 
 have mistaken the Christian's calling ! The Christianity 
 of some has been seemingly made up of depressing recol- 
 lections of the j)ast, gloomy views of the present, and dark 
 apprehensions of the future. And if an inward joy is ever 
 felt, such people think it their duty to repress it, or at 
 least not to give it expression, but rather to keep up an 
 aspect in unbroken accordance with the gravity of their 
 notions. They are not of this world, they say, and there- 
 fore they have no smiles for those around them, no songs 
 for themselves. Theirs are melancholy manners, austere 
 looks, and voiceless lives — a religion which threatens to 
 extinguish all gladness, to dark the face of nature, and to 
 destroy the very relish of life. But does not the Saviour 
 call His people to open a cheerful face upon the world, and 
 to cheer it with grateful hymns? " Let your light so shine 
 before men," says He, "that they may see your beautiful 
 works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." 
 " Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the 
 moon, and clear as the sun?" Is it not the Messiah's 
 spouse, the Saviour's Church? And who should be as 
 claeerful as the sunlight, if Christ's people are not ? ' ' Truly 
 the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is to behold the 
 sun ; which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, 
 and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race." All nature 
 is glad when the day-spring opens. The sparkling sea, 
 the lucid rivulet, the iluttei-ing leaf, the colours and the 
 tones of creation, all tell how the sunbeams cheer the 
 world. All see the light, and all bless the light-bearer. 
 And what is so cheerful in its character and influence as 
 the Christian religion ? " Light is sown for the righteous, 
 and gladness for the upright in heart." Revelation opens 
 around the Christian solemnities holy enough to chasten 
 his spirit, but it throws a light upon Grod's character and 
 will which inspires the believer with sacred cheerfulness. 
 All the principles and all the feelings which now command 
 him dispose the Christian to form the habit of turning the 
 bright side of things towards himself — the habit of keeping 
 Divine goodness in sight, of marking the blessings of every 
 moment as it passes, and of communing with a happy 
 futiu-e, until he learns to speak to himself ''in psalms and 
 
4 HYMN-WllITEES AKD THEIE HYMNS. 
 
 hymns and spiritual songs, singing, and making melody in 
 his heart unto the Lord." And when praise thus lives in 
 the heart, it will express itself in pleasant music and lively 
 measures. The peaceful conscience and merry heart will 
 have songs for the outside world. And when all Chris- 
 tians breathe this happy spirit of their religion, the Chris- 
 tian Church will be the beautiful embodiment of a haj)py 
 godliness, and will be ceaseless in its service of song. 
 
 But as the rise and advance and decline of the human 
 race, or of human empires, or of religious systems, may 
 somewhat answer to the stages of an individual life — or as 
 the history of a single life may picture the course of the 
 world, or the career of a people — so those favourite modes 
 of utterance which the world or any one of its communities 
 have used, as distinctive of the different stages of its course 
 have their answering types in the most-loved forms of in- 
 dividual expression. Childhood loves to lisp its joys in a 
 hymn. Manhood, in its times of purest and most exalted 
 feeling, speaks to itself in hymns. Hymns, too, most 
 naturally weave themselves into the language of declining 
 life, and often supply the dejoarting soul with its most happy 
 words. 
 
 There is scarcely anything that retains a more perma- 
 nent influence over human thought and feeling in the pre- 
 sent life than the hymns and songs which the soul drinks 
 in during our childhood. The simplicity of children makes 
 them capable of being swayed through life by the earliest 
 lessons. The little one's mind is so retentive that first 
 impressions are most lasting and powerfid. The first 
 suppHes of knowledge find the deepest and most secure 
 lodgment in the soul ; and especially when the knowledge 
 comes in an agreeable form, as in the rhythm and rhyme of 
 simple hymns. These are entertained for life, and often live 
 to make themselves felt in spite of all the changes and dis- 
 tracting circumstances of the later course. There has been 
 many, many an instance like those which, a few years ago, 
 were recorded in a pastoral address to a Christian Church. 
 The minister was guarding his flock against the danger of 
 betrayal into hardness and bitter feeling by those trials 
 which spring out of the seeming unequal distribution of 
 good and evil in the world. " I am free to tell you," said 
 he, " that sometimes in the course of my life, I have been 
 
INTRODUCTOET CHAPTEE. 6 
 
 powerfully tempted to hardness when the thought has been 
 insinuated, that my share in life has been wearisome toil 
 and frequent depression, while others have been lapped 
 in ease and plenty, though apparently not a whit more 
 deserving than myself; and I confess that now and then the 
 temptation has been so timed that my soul has gone too far 
 through the process of transformation into something like 
 cold iron or steel. But one gentle corrective has always 
 prevented the hardening process from being complete. 
 When I have been all but shut up to the curse of a stony 
 heart, some stanza from one of the simple hymns or * divine 
 songs,' which used to touch and soften me in childhood, 
 has come up from its home in my memory, and like a divine 
 charm has soothed and melted me into childlike tender- 
 ness, simplicity, and love. Verses that seemed to have 
 been lost for j^ears have suddenly sprung into life again, 
 and brought so many good recollections in their train, that 
 my rugged nature has yielded at once, and all within and 
 all without have responded to the music of the hymn, as 
 the face of nature answers to the genial sunbeams of spring. 
 And I have met in the course of my life with many others 
 whose experience might be taken as a reflection of mj^own. 
 One remarkable instance, however, somewhat varies from 
 the rest ; inasmuch as it shows how the well-timed recur 
 rence of verses once fondly cherished by the young memory 
 and heart, may give the deciding touch to the wandering 
 soul, and convert a prodigal from ' the error of his way.' 
 A good man in declining life told me that the first book in 
 which, as a child, he took an interest, was a small edition 
 of Watts's ' Hymns and Divine Songs' for children. Each 
 hymn was headed by a woodcut, and one especially was his 
 favourite. It represented a little boy, something like him- 
 self, as he thought, leaning at an open window, looking 
 with a calm happy face on the setting sun, which was 
 throwing his parting light upon a quiet country scene. 
 Many of the hj'mns, and that one in particular, had been 
 read often, until they lived in his soul. But as he grew up, 
 the impressions were worn off by more exciting and less 
 pure thoughts and pursuits. He fell into a course of dis- 
 sipation and vice, and seemed for a time to be given up to 
 sin, and devoted to ruin. Worn down at last, and threat- 
 ened with consumption, he was ordered into the country 
 
6 HYMN-WRITEBS AlVD THEIE HYMNS. 
 
 for cliange of air ; and after some time sj)ent in quietness 
 and retirement, far away from the scenes of old temptations, 
 lie wandered out one evening about sunset, and hanging 
 pensively over a gate, he watched the sun as it sunk be- 
 hind the copse, and was throwing its last beams upon the 
 silent and peaceful hill-side. There was a hush upon his 
 spirits, and suddenly, as if sketched by an unseen hand 
 before his inward eye, the little picture which used to inter- 
 est his boyish mind lived again, and the h3'mn which it 
 illustrated seemed to be spoken sweetly to his heart — 
 
 And now another clay is gone, 
 I'll sing my Maker's praise. 
 
 The tear started. He had seen many of his days go, but 
 as yet his Maker had never heaxd an even-song from his 
 lips or from his heart. What an ungrateful life his had 
 been ! The ' remembrance was grievous.' But his heart 
 was broken, and there and then the softened man made his 
 vows of return to God, and offered the prayer which was 
 answered in blessings which filled both the mornings and 
 evenings of his mature life Witn hymns and songs of 
 thanksgiving and praise." 
 
 And how important, and holy, and happy is the office of 
 psalms and hymns in the service of human nature amidst 
 the struggles and toils, the conflicts and victories, the 
 sorrows and joys of mature life. Their mission has been 
 to the multitude as well as the individual heart. How 
 often has the popular use of a few songs swayed the 
 thoughts and feelings of a nation, or quickened, united, 
 directed, and rvded the energies of a people, or perman- 
 ently given a distinct character to an entire race. .Facts 
 would sustain the philosophy of the man who said, " Let 
 me furnish a nation with its songs, and I will govern it." 
 Psalms and hymns, too, have many times afforded the se- 
 cret of union, and harmony, and strength, and consolation 
 to persecuted households, down-trodden tribes, and op- 
 pressed poiDulations. They have been as food to the 
 famine-stricken crowd, and as waters in the wilderness 
 to fugitive churches. How often have they cheered the 
 souls of congregated confessors in Eoman catacombs, in 
 the recesses of Eastern deserts, in the fastnesses of Swiss 
 mountains, and in the Highland glens and moorland hoi- 
 
INTEODUCTOEY CHAPTER. 7 
 
 lows of Scotland. The psalm and choral chant have some- 
 times nerved the host for battle on behalf of home, and 
 conscience, and truth. The Divine Spirit Himself has re- 
 corded an exemplar " hallelujah victory." Jehoshaphat's 
 appeal for Divii^j help against the enemies of goodness and 
 faith was answered by a revelation of Grod's order of battle. 
 "And when he had consulted with the people, he ap- 
 pointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the 
 beauty of holiness as they went out before the army, and 
 to say, Praise the Lord, for His mercy endureth for ever. 
 And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set 
 ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and 
 Mount Seir, which were come against Judah, and they 
 \ were smitten." The singers were victorious ; the spoil was 
 gathered to the music of psalms. "And on the fourth day 
 they assembled themselves in the valley of Berachah, for 
 ' there they blessed the Lord ; therefore the name of the 
 'same place was called the valley of Berachah unto this 
 day. Then they returned every man of Judah and Jeru- 
 salem, and Jehoshaphat in the forefront of them, to go 
 again to Jerusalem with joy, for the Lord had made them 
 to rejoice over their enemies." Yes, and since then many 
 a Christian army has kept up the strain, and have made 
 prayerful hymns and hymns of praise their battle songs. 
 Nor has Jehoshaphat's victory been the only "hallelujah 
 victory." It was probably repeated once on the Welsh 
 border, and has had its antitpyes in the history of Pro- 
 testant struggles for freedom on many a storied field of 
 Europr". 
 
 And how much of their youthful freshness, and manly 
 courage, and constitutional vigour, and public spirit, 
 nations owe to the habitual use of their national anthems, 
 who can tell ? How France has glowed at the sound of a 
 popular hymn ! how Scotland kindles at an old psalm or 
 song which embalms the name of her hero ! and how 
 Englishmen's hearts swell and come together when they 
 sing 
 
 Rule Britannia ! 
 
 or when they uncover and unite in the grand old strain, 
 Grod save our gracious Queen ! 
 It is most pleasant to the Chiistian, however, to trace 
 
8 HYMN- WRITERS XNV THEIR HYJINS. 
 
 the influence of devout psalmody in tlie shaping of a 
 people's happily distinct character. Among the most 
 blessed results of faithfully-administered truth to a teach- 
 able and obedient people, is their perpetuated fondness for 
 " psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs." Nor can there 
 be any richer or more agreeable fruits of the Holy Spirit's 
 work upon human masses than a popular love for psalm- 
 ody, the culture of sacred music in the people's homes, and 
 the habitual enjoyment of favourite hymns continued from 
 parents to children, and renewing its freshness among 
 children's children. AVill the old Scotch version of the 
 psalms ever cease to be music to those who owe so much 
 to the covenanting fathers who first sang them ? Will the 
 spiritual songs of the first Reformers ever die out from the 
 mind and heart of Germany ? The cheerful character and 
 influence of the primitive churches left memorials for many 
 generations among the hymn-singing populations of many 
 spots in Europe. Richard Baxter's labours at Kidder- 
 minster were crowned with many a holy song. He toiled 
 and prayed until from every house within his pastorate 
 there was daily the all but ceaseless voice of psalms and 
 hymns. He was literally "compassed about with songs of 
 deliverance." Vital piety makes people cheerful, and 
 their cheerfulness naturally expresses itself in devout and 
 merry rhyme and metre. 
 
 Perhaps no district in England has a population so 
 deeply and widely imbued with religious thought and feel- 
 ing as the county of Cornwall. As a whole, the Cornish 
 folk may be called a religious people, and their great love 
 for sacred music, and especially hymn singing, may be at 
 once a cause and efi'ect of their sustained religious life. 
 Nowhere has the gospel of Christ wrought more happy 
 changes ; nowhere has it left a more permanently cheerful 
 impress ; nowhere could an entire population so generally 
 illustrate obedience to the apostolic rule, " Is any merry? 
 let him sing psalms." No one who has seen them can for- 
 get the lines and knots of merry creatures who preserve a 
 kind of elegant appearance amidst their rough work, in 
 open sheds, and among heaps of tin and copper ore on the 
 surface of the Cornish mines. Who could forget these 
 girls' standard and style of beauty? and who that has 
 heard them will ever forget the music of their hymns, as 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 9 
 
 tliey sing in concert, while they ply their hammers, that 
 mnsic at once so reverent, so earnest, and so lovely ? They 
 seem to have hymns appropriate for all times and seasons, 
 and sometimes their stanzas have been beautifully timed. 
 A few of the more gay and thoiightless of a large group 
 had been indulging a laugh at one good Christian girl, 
 ■whom they charged with inconsistent conformity to the 
 world because she wore a pair of tasteful ear-rings. The 
 jeers were meekly borne for awhile, but at length the per- 
 secuted girl lifted up her voice in song, and quietly taking 
 the jewels from her ears, she placed them on the block 
 before her, and demolished them with a stroke of her 
 hammer, singing as she did it a stanza from a favourite 
 hymn — 
 
 Neitlier passion nor pride Thy cross can abide, 
 
 But melt ia the fountain that streams from Thy side. 
 
 Her persecutors were silenced, and blushed as she sang 
 out her hymn of submissive but triumphant faith. The 
 same spirit of holy song is breathed by the men, who cheer 
 the deep caverns in which they toil with heartfelt psalmody. 
 The road-side and the cottage hearth, the engine-house, 
 the stream-works, the moorland, and the barren earn, the 
 unpretending chapel, and the quiet grave-yai-d, are all 
 hallowed in turn by the melodies and harmonies of this 
 hymn and anthem-loving race. Seldom have the hearts 
 and voices of a race been more graciously blended in the 
 service of Him who said, by the spirit of prophecy, " In 
 the midst of the church will I sing jiraise unto Thee." 
 
 The claims of Christianity as the religion of universal man, 
 and its adaptation to all races and people, circumstances 
 and times, are beaiitifully illustrated by the fact, that those 
 happy features of character which it impressed upon the 
 Cornish families are the same with those which distinguish 
 the Christianized tribes of Southern Africa. On the tes- 
 timony of a venerable misssionary, who was the first to 
 open the gospel to the Little Namacquas, that poj)ular love 
 of sacred song which is so peculiar to the Keltic masses in 
 Western England, became the habitual feeling and dis- 
 tinctive pleasure of the converted African tribes. Hymn 
 singing in both cases seemed to be the natural action of 
 public religious life. Spiritual songs, says the African 
 
10 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 evangelist, were soon interwoven with their daily exist- 
 ence ; all their movements seemed to be made to the music 
 of hymns ; and how many a time I have listened to their 
 voices of an evening, as they walked homeward from the 
 field or the bush singing some favovirite hymn, as a kind of 
 spiritual march. I remember having my heart deeply 
 touched once as I hearkened to the happy bands psalming 
 it, and responding to one another while approaching the 
 village. I caught the strain of an old Dutch hymn — 
 
 Faith loves the Saviour, and beholds 
 
 His sufferings, dtc^tli, and pain; 
 And this shall ne'er grow old nor cold, 
 
 TiU we with Him shall reign. 
 
 It was the song of Southern Africa's first love. The 
 first-fruits of Ethiopia's praise to God ; the tuneful earnest 
 of what an ancient hymn foretold. "Princes shall come 
 out of Eg3'pt, Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands 
 unto God. Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth ; 
 sing praises unto the Lord ; Selah !" 
 
 But what Christian psalmody has done for nations, and 
 races, and tribes, it does for many an individual man and 
 woman. What hymns have been to the multitude they 
 have been to many a solitary Christian soul. To the 
 gentle and to the simple, to the great and to the small, to 
 the bond and to the free, to the strong and to the weak, to 
 the cultured and to the rude, divine songs have served to 
 brighten and bless the different stages and turns of per- 
 sonal history. Many of the ruling spirits of the world, 
 men whose names will be always landmarks in history, 
 have had tender fondness for psalmody and holy song. 
 There have been rojal psalmists, imperial songsters, and 
 courtly hymnists. Many a great leader of his generation, 
 while he has been guiding the world's mind and heart 
 amidst the dangers of revolution, and through the deep 
 and broad processes of moral and religious renewal, has 
 cheered his own soul with favourite hymns. Hymns have 
 been his chosen expressions of joy in success. Hymns 
 have been his solace in moments of darkness and depres- 
 sion. Luther and his companions, with all their bold 
 readiness for danger and death in the cause of tru.th, had 
 times when their feelings were akin to those of a divine 
 
INTEODTJCTOEY CHAPTER. 1 1 
 
 singer tvIio said, " Wiiy art thou cast down, my soul ?" 
 But in such, hours the unflinching Reformer would cheerily 
 say to his friend Melancthon, "Come, Philip, let us sing 
 the forty-sixth Psalm ;" and they could sing it in Luther's 
 own characteristic version — 
 
 A sure stronghold our God is He, 
 
 A timely shield and weapon ; 
 Our help He'll be, and set us free 
 
 From every ill can happen. 
 
 And were the world with devils fill'd, 
 
 All eager to devour us, 
 Our souls to fear shall little yield, 
 
 They cannot overpower us. 
 
 Later Reformers in our own land have been equally re- 
 markable for their love of sacred music, and their aptness 
 at using it for the encouragement of the multitude, and 
 their own secret comfort amidst their sufferings and toils. 
 
 Some of the noblest intellects, too, the most cultured and 
 refined of their race — men whose thoughts and feelings are 
 embalmed in an undying literature, have had each his own 
 cherished psalm or tenderly-loved hymn. And the psalm 
 or hymn has been called up in every time of need ; as if it 
 had a comforting power which no other voice coxild bring. 
 The great Niebuhr was lovingly attached to von Lowen- 
 stern's hymn — 
 
 Christ, Thou the champion of that war-worn host. 
 
 And might be heard now and then refr.-'sjiing his own soul 
 amidst its intense labours and researches by murmuring 
 the metrical prayer — 
 
 And give us peace ; peace in the church and school, 
 Peace to the powers who o'er our country rule, 
 Peace to the conscience, peace within the heart. 
 Do Thou impart. 
 
 So shnll Thy .p-oorlness here be still adored, 
 Thou Guardian of Thy little flock, dear Lord ; 
 And heaven and earth through all eternity 
 ShaU worship Thee ! 
 
 And what was the solace of Niebuhr has been the conso- 
 lation of many a commanding and highly cultured mind. 
 
12 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HY^INS. 
 
 The hA'^mn of joy and the hymn of plaintive appeal have 
 ministered strength and peace, in sweet alternation, through 
 all the scenes of mental action. 
 
 And how often has the master mind, the truly great soul 
 finished its brilliant and successful course with a closing 
 hymn ! Saintly and useful men like Rowland Hill have 
 died on consecrated ground with the music of a hymn in 
 their souls. But minds of another class also have ended 
 their course with songs. "Walter Scott's last utterances 
 were stanzas of favourite ancient hymns. It is stated that 
 Cobden departed repeating that grand old strain, rendered 
 from the German by John Wesley— 
 
 Thee will I love, my joy, my crown, 
 Thee will I love, my Lord, my God : 
 
 Thee will I love, beneath Thy frown. 
 Or smile — Thy sceptre or Thy rod : 
 
 What though iny flesh and heart decay, 
 
 Thee shall I love in endless day ! 
 
 And our own Prince Albert "the good," breathed as his 
 last song, while his spirit mounted — 
 
 Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in Thee ! 
 
 And how many thousands after thousands in the more 
 retired and obscure scenes of life have had psalms and 
 hymns of victory on their dying lips. 
 
 Indeed, the holiest and best of people, those who have 
 done most to make the world happy, have hallowed every 
 stage of life, every turn in their history, every relation 
 which they have sustained, and every time and season of 
 their mortal pilgrimage with " thanksgiving and the voice 
 of melody." Their record is above ; but neither they nor 
 their hymns can be forgotten below. Many of their names 
 are recorded in the following pages ; and some of their 
 hymns are interwoven with the outlines of their character 
 and the memorials of their history. 
 
 And perhaps the lover of sacred melody will learn to 
 love hymn-writers and their hymns more deeply, and to 
 sing with more spiritual joy, while he spends an hour, 
 now and then, over chapters about the first hymn-book ; 
 and hymns of the latter day morning, hymns of the fathers, 
 and hymns of old England's Christian birth-time ; hymns 
 
INTEOBUCTORY CHAPTER. 13 
 
 from old cloisters, songs in high, j^laces, and songs in 
 prison. From tliese he may pass to chapters about psalms 
 in English metre, hymn menders, and songs of creation. 
 Then come hymns about the book, songs of the Sabbath, 
 hymns by the waj^, hymns on the waters, hymns of the 
 morning, and songs in the night. Nor will the world ever 
 lose its interest in chapters on marriage songs and birth- 
 day hymns, or hymns from beneath the cloud, hymns of 
 Gethsemane and the cross, funeral hymns, judgment hymns, 
 and songs of glory. 
 
 To catch the spirit, and to be enriched with the music of 
 the first hymn-book, is to be prepared for dally " speaking 
 to ourselves in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, 
 singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord ; 
 giving thanks always for all things unto God and the 
 Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ ; " and a life 
 thus spent will certainly issue in songs of glory. 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 
 TEE FIEST E72IN-B00E. 
 
 " Thy statutes liave been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage." 
 
 ISpeak to yourselves in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual 
 songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the 
 Lord. Happy advice from a happy man ! If ever man 
 had his life on earth enriched and brightened by the 
 psalmody of heaven, St. Paul was that man. He seems 
 now and then to be an impersonation of the jubilant 
 religion which he preached. Here and there he uses a 
 threefold form of speech, as if the notion of a Trinity were 
 ever in his mind, and as if the Triune form gave the com- 
 pletest possible expression to his feeling as to that full 
 harmony of fixed belief, triumphant principle, and exidtant 
 feeling, to which he called the Christian Church. He 
 challenged the generations of the future to an unbroken 
 service of song, and the family lines of God's children 
 have ever since been singing and chanting in resjjonse, 
 Paul had heard the chant of the Temple service, and had 
 so often joined in the songs and hj^mns of the synagogue, 
 that, like his fellow apostles of the circumcision, he en- 
 joj'ed ample means of expression for all the joys of the 
 Holy Spirit's dispensation. The church of his fathers had 
 treasured the forms of praise which now furnish the 
 kingdom of Christ with hymns and songs for all ages of 
 its militant and triumphant course. Nor is the harmony 
 of inspired truth ever felt to be more impressive than in 
 the use which the blessed Spirit makes of Old Testament 
 psalmody in his work on the souls of New Testament 
 saints. The three inspired songs which graced the mani- 
 festation of Immanuel : the rich gush of Mary's devotional 
 
THE HEST HTMX-BOOK. 15 
 
 joy, the proptetic strain of Zacharias, and the holy song 
 of Simeon, all sho^ the influence of Old Testament style 
 and spirit. " Tlie Word of Christ," as once issued in the 
 law of " Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms," 
 had dwelt in Marj^'s heart so " richly" as to give its own 
 character to her rapturous utterances. The lips of Zacharias 
 were touched with fire from the very altar before which the 
 Messianic seers had kindled into ecstasy. And Simeon had 
 chanted the hymns of his rapt ancestry u.ntil his own in- 
 spired sentences breathed in unison with voices from "holy 
 men of old." Mary, and Hannah, and Deborah drank 
 into one another's spirit ; and their tones have that like- 
 ness and unlikeness which belong to daughters of the same 
 family. The celebration of Old Testament victories and 
 the joy of gospel salvation melt into oneness and harmony 
 in "the song of Moses and the Lamb." And when will 
 earth or heaven cease to echo to the psalms of ancient 
 Zion? Judah's holy song book, " the Book of Psalms, hath 
 exercised the hearts and lips of all saints, and is reple- 
 nished with the types of aU possible spiritual feelings, 
 and suggests the forms of all Grod-ward emotions, and 
 furnishes the choice expressions of all true worship, the 
 utterances of all divine praise, the expressions of all 
 spiritual humihty, with the raptures of all spiritual joy." 
 This well-spring in the desert has never failed to refresh 
 the j)ilgrim church from age to age. Israelite and Sama- 
 ritan, " Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircu.mcision, 
 barbarian, Scythian, bond and free," east and west, the 
 old world and the new — all confess the sacred power and 
 sweetness of David's voice ; all kindle into songs under his 
 leadership. That ever-living sympathy with the most 
 cherished interests of God's children, that spirituality 
 which so deeply touches the believer's inner man; and that 
 expression which so engages all conditions of men, and 
 adapts itself to all circumstances of humanity ; indeed, all 
 the immortal sweetness, grandeur, and power which dis- 
 tinguish the Old Testament Psalms, are found living still, 
 and renewing their freshness in the inspired hymns and 
 songs of those who went up to the Temple in "the last 
 days," and spoke "in other tongues the wonderful works 
 of God, as the Spirit gave them utterance." How much 
 like a psalm of ancient Israel is that early song of 
 
16 HYMN-WEITERS ANT) THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 the primitive Christians which the SjDirit has left on re- 
 cord. The little persecuted community sang in the style of 
 their fathers, when they " lift up their voices to God with 
 one accord and said," 
 
 Lord, Thou art God, 
 
 "Wliich hast made heaven and earth. 
 
 And the sea, 
 
 And all that in them is : 
 
 Who by the month of David 
 
 Thy servant, hath said, 
 
 Why did the heathen rage 
 
 And the people imagine vain things ? 
 
 The kings of the earth stood up, 
 
 And the rulers were gathered together 
 
 Against the Lord, 
 
 And against His Christ. 
 
 Tor of a truth. 
 
 Against Thy Holy Child Jesus, 
 
 Whom Thou hast anointed, 
 
 Both Herod and Pontius Pilate, 
 
 With the Gentiles, 
 
 And the people of Israel, 
 
 Are gathered together ; 
 
 For to do whatever Thy hand 
 
 And Thy counsel 
 
 Determined before to be done. 
 
 And now, Lord ! 
 
 Behold their threatenings ! 
 
 And grant unto Thy servants, 
 
 That with all boldness 
 
 They may speak Thy word. 
 
 By stretching f oi'th Thy hand to heal ; 
 
 And that signs and wonders 
 
 May be done 
 
 By the name 
 
 Of Thy Holy Child Jesus. 
 
 Nearest akin to these odes of highest inspiration are the 
 songs of the synagogue service. The family features, and 
 much in the distinctive manner, sometimes deeply touch 
 the soul. In their simple grandeur, lofty vigour, solemn 
 measure, and glow of holy feeling, they are felt to be close 
 allies of the anthems of revelation; though not bearing 
 the divine honours of those holier forms into which the 
 Spirit of God once " breathed the breath of life." AVould 
 you realize the grand simplicity of primitive hymns ? Then 
 go to the synagogue and hear the lineal descendants of 
 
THE FIRST HYMN-BOOK. 17 
 
 Grod's ancient people sing in their Sabbath morning 
 service — 
 
 Praised be Thy name for ever, our Bang ! 
 
 Thou Sovereign G-od ! 
 
 The Great and the Holy in heaven and in earth : 
 
 For unto Thee, Jehovah, our God, 
 
 And the God of our fathers, 
 
 Belong song and praise ; 
 
 Hymn and psalm ; 
 
 Strength and dominion ; 
 
 Victory, greatness, and power ; 
 
 Adoration and glory ; 
 
 Holiness and majesty ; 
 
 Blessings and thanksgivings ; 
 
 From this time forth and for ever I 
 
 Blessed art Thou, Jehovah ! 
 
 Sovereign God ! 
 
 Great in praises ; 
 
 The God of thanksgivings ; 
 
 The Lord of wonders ; 
 
 The Chooser of song and psalmody ; 
 
 King Eternal ! Ever-living God ! 
 
 Sometimes the utterance of the synagogue is as the 
 voice of one longing soul ; now jubilant, now melting into 
 warm, tender, spiritual feeling, and now swelling again 
 into lofty celebrations of Divine Majesty ; as if the devout 
 heart breathed by turns the spirit of the Psalms, the 
 Canticles, and the Prophets. So it is in " the Hymns of 
 Glory." 
 
 Sweet hymns I attune. 
 
 And songs I weave. 
 
 For my soul panteth after Thee I 
 
 My soul longeth in the shadow of Thy hand 
 
 All Thy secret of secrets to know ! 
 
 Whilst my words speak Thy glory, 
 
 My heart is yearning for Thy love. 
 
 Therefore in Thee I speakof Thy glorious things; 
 
 And with songs of love I honour Thy name : 
 
 I will tell of Thy glory 
 
 Though I saw Thee not ; 
 
 And though I knew Thee not, 
 
 I arrange my similitudes of Thee. 
 
 By the hand of Thy prophets, 
 
 By Thy trusty servants, 
 
 Thou hast symbolized the glorious honour of Thy majesty. 
 
 Thy greatness and Thy might 
 
 They named after the powers of Thy creation. 
 
 B 
 
18 HYMN-WBITEES AND THEIE HYMNS. 
 
 They compared Thee, 
 
 But not as Thou art ; 
 
 And they likened Thee, 
 
 According- to Thy works, 
 
 They represented Thee in midtiplied visions : 
 
 Yet behold, Thou art one in all semblances ! 
 
 The Head, Thy "Word, is the Truth, 
 
 Proclaiming from the beginning, 
 
 From generation to generation. 
 
 Thy people are ever seeking Thee ! 
 
 An'ay thyself in the multitude of my psalms, 
 
 And let my singing come near to Thee ! 
 
 Let my praise be a crown to Thy head. 
 
 And my hymns acceptable incense. 
 
 Let the song of the poor be precious to Thee, 
 
 As the anthems over the gifts of the altar. 
 
 Let my blessing ascend to the Almighty Head, 
 
 The Beginning, the Lifegiver, the Righteous Mighty One ! 
 
 And when I bless, let Thy Head be inclined to me, 
 
 And take it to Thyself as chief perfumes ; 
 
 Let it be pleasant to Thee, 
 
 For my soid panteth unto Thee I 
 
 The claiigliters of Israel liave not yet lost the spirit of 
 ancient psalmody. There are Hebrew women now who 
 can emulate the mothers of Hebrew song, who have 
 spiritual warmth enough to revive the service of praise in 
 both synagogue and household ; and whose heart, intellect, 
 taste, and culture are sufficient to prove that the hymns of 
 their fathers may be happily rendered in English metre and 
 rhyme. Mrs. Hester Eothschild has inserted the opening 
 hymn of the Sabbath morning service in her volume of 
 " Prayers and Meditations," and acknowledges her obliga- 
 tion to the talented pen of Mrs. Julius Collins for this 
 beautiful version : — 
 
 Before Thy heavenly Word revealed the wonders of Thy will ; 
 Before the earth and heavens came forth from chaos, deep and 
 
 still; 
 E'en then Thou reignedst Lord supreme ! as Thou wilt ever 
 
 reign. 
 And moved Thy Holy Spirit o'er the dark unfathomed main ; 
 
 But when through all the empty space Thy mighty voice was 
 
 heard. 
 Then darkness fled, and heavenly light came beaming at Thy word ; 
 All nature then proclaimed the king, most blessed and adored ! 
 The great Creator ! God alone ! — the Universal Lord ! 
 
THE PIEST HYMN-BOOK. 19 
 
 And when this vast created world returns to endless night, 
 When heaven and earth shall fade away at Thy dread word of 
 
 might ; 
 Still Thon in Majesty wilt rule, Almighty One alone, 
 Great G-od, with mercy infinite, on thy exalted throne. 
 
 Immortal power ! Eternal One ! with Thee what can compare, 
 Thy glory shines in heaven and earth, and fills the ambient air ; 
 All time, aU space, by Thee iUumed, grows bright and brighter still, 
 Obedient to Thy high behest, and to Thy heavenly will. 
 
 To Thee dominion sole belongs, and 'tis to Thee alone, 
 My Father! Saviour! living drod ! I make my soitows known ; 
 Thy love celestial and divine descends upon my heart, 
 Inspiring courage, hope, and joy, and bidding grief depart. 
 
 Protected by Thy boundless love, my body sinks to rest ; 
 My soul, within Thy heavenly arm reposes, calm and blest. 
 Lord of my life ! in darkest night I sleep and have no fear. 
 And in the early dawn of day 1 wake and find Thee near. 
 
 As tlie official honours and powers which have their 
 united seat in Him who is Head over all things to the 
 Chnrch, are by His Spirit divided and distributed among 
 His people, so the "lights and perfections " which are all 
 harmoniously embodied in the psalmody of Holy Writ, are 
 scattered and variously apportioned among the later 
 children of song. With one is the grandeur, with another 
 the beauty ; here the sweetness, there the power ; this 
 voice is plaintive, that triumphant. Now we have harmony, 
 now gracefiilness ; now deep contemplative life, and now a 
 fidl and holy unction. There are different ministrations. 
 Nor has the gift of coming most agreeably near to the 
 standard of highest hymnic inspiration always fallen on 
 those to whom the Church would soonest look for aid. 
 That Grod, who perfectly knows every man's mental and 
 moral constitution, and sees at a glance all the fitnesses of 
 human agency for the fidfilment of His own purposes, 
 may sometimes tax the gifts of even a Balaam, and, 
 wrapping him in awful visions, constrain him to give out 
 utterances with which his own will and disposition are 
 somewhat in discord, and which become immortalized as 
 at once witnesses for God, and memorials of the faithless 
 prophet's imconsecrated talents. A Rousseau may dream 
 of heavenly music, and wake to jot down the melody which 
 has helped many Christians to give touching expression to 
 
20 IIYMN-WKITEKS A^D TnEIR HYMXS. 
 
 their purest and sweetest liymns. And who would expect 
 a combination of features so near akin to those of old 
 prophetic psalmody as are now associated in a few produc- 
 tions of Byron, Scott, and Olivers ? "What a trio ! a 
 sensuous scorner, and idolized novelist, and a Methodist 
 preacher ! And were all these among the prophets ? If 
 to write hymns like prophets' hymns is to have the shadow 
 of a prophet's claim, let them share the honour of being- in 
 the train of prophetic hymnists. The three men wrote three 
 remarkable hymns, each of which is instinct with some 
 virtue of Hebrew psalmody. Byron has happily caught the 
 spirit of the 137th Psalm, and in his plaintive but spirited 
 melody gives the soul pleasant yet mournful touches, after 
 the manner of the original ode, "By the rivers of Babylon," 
 etc. — 
 
 We sat down and wept by the waters 
 
 Of Babel, and thought of the day 
 When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters, 
 
 Made Salem's high places his prey; 
 And ye, oh her desolate daughters ! 
 
 Were scatter' d all weeping away. 
 
 While sadly we gazed on the river 
 
 Which rolled on in freedom below, 
 They demanded the song ; but, oh never 
 
 That triumph the stranger shall know ! 
 May this right hand be wither' d for ever, 
 
 Ere it string our high harp for the foe. 
 
 On the vdllow that harp is suspended — 
 
 Oh Salem ! its sound should be free ; 
 And the hour when thy glories were ended, 
 
 But left me that token of thee : 
 And ne'er shall its soft tones be blended 
 
 With the voice of the spoiler by me I 
 
 He who could breathe so deeply in unison with the harp 
 of captive Judah cannot, with all his sins and errors, be 
 shut out from among the children of sacred minstrelsy. It 
 may still be a wonder how such a hand as his could string 
 its harp to melody like this; but there must have been 
 something in the poet, both in his heart and intellect, 
 which was capable of occasional sympathy with the sublime 
 mysteries of the Old Testament, the grand march of its 
 history, and the deep variations of its prophetic songs. It 
 was this occasional sympathy which expressed itself in the 
 
THE FIRST HYMN-BOOK. 21 
 
 awful dramas, "Cain" and "Heaven and Earth," and which 
 sometimes showed itself in more pleasing beauty and power 
 in his " Hebrew Melodies." "Will the religious world ever 
 forget his musical verses on Sennacherib ? 
 
 The Assyrian came down like a wolf on tlie fold ; 
 
 but where and when had the touch been given which ever 
 after acted now and then like a charm, and hushed his 
 dark tempestuous soul into communion with the scenes, and 
 the men, and the music of the Bible ? Minds and hearts 
 like his are not left by Grod without Divine visitation from 
 above. Truth speaks at intervals with commanding power. 
 A loving voice sometimes whispers, "My salvation is 
 near ; " and to Byron such a voice came in his earlier 
 course. 
 
 "Lord Byron and I met once," said an old man to a 
 friend, as they sat in the window of a quiet little parlour 
 looking out vqDon Falmouth harbour. " It was one even- 
 ing in the year 1809. I had been sitting here thinking 
 how Providence and the Holy Ghost work together in 
 promoting the salvation of man, when the servant girl, who 
 had gone out on an errand, came rushing back in a great 
 hurry, and ran upstairs. She was closely followed by a 
 gentleman, who, when he saw me, apologized in a jaunty 
 way for his intrusion, but at the same time walked in, took 
 a seat, and seemed at perfect ease. He was a noble, hand- 
 some young man. I shall never forget the bright glance 
 of his light eyes as they playfully lightened from under 
 his ver}^ dark eyebrows. There sparkles of fii'e seemed to 
 float on the surface of a thoughtful depth. 
 
 " 'Was that your girl, old gentleman?' said he. 
 
 " 'Yes, sir ; pray what is the matter ? ' 
 
 " ' Oh, nothing ; but I wanted to make her acquaintance 
 on the terrace yonder. She gave me a spirited reception, 
 and provoked me to the chase ; so here I am. I admire 
 that girl of yours for her virtuous energy. But now, 
 letting her alone in her retreat, turn out your cards, and 
 let us have some play.' 
 
 " 'We keep no cards here, sir,' said I, looking at him 
 gravel}-. 
 
 " 'No cards ! Perhaps you have a novel or two one could 
 look over ? ' 
 
22 HYMN-WRITEES AND THEIR UYMNS. 
 
 '* ' No, sir ; such things are never found in this house.' 
 
 " ' What have you got then, eh?' 
 
 " ' I have a book here that might interest you,' I replied, 
 ' and one that I am sure will not only refine your taste, but 
 do your heart good.' I opened the Bible before him. He 
 started. The gay life passed away from his countenance, 
 and he was silent and thoughtful, while I gave him some 
 lessons on the Bible and from the Bible. ' I have not the 
 pleasui-e of knowing your name, sir,' said I, as he rose to 
 d.ej)art, ' but I pray God to bless you.' 
 
 '''Thank you,' was his parting reply, 'my name is 
 Greorge, Lord Byron. Good-bye ! ' " 
 
 It was the future poet on his way to Lisbon, and who 
 knows how far the quiet old Methodist's lesson "on the 
 Bible and from the Bible" influenced his after thought and 
 feeling, as the author of " Hebrew Melodies;" and was it 
 the echo of that good little man's touching appeal that 
 sometimes in after days, and in other climes, made him 
 " silent and sombre," as when he said in the presence of 
 his friend Shelley, " Here is a little book which somebody 
 has sent me about Christianity, that has made me very 
 uncomfortable ; the reasoning seems to me very strong, the 
 proofs are very staggering. I don't think you can answer 
 it, Shelley, at least, I am sure I can't, and what is more, I 
 don't wish it." Poor Byron! his heart cherished some 
 early lessons "on the Bible and from the Bible;" and 
 sometimes, as in his correspondence with Mr. Shepherd, 
 prompted him to express his feelings of concern about his 
 own spiritual condition, by nobly saying, "I can assure 
 you that all the fame which ever cheated humanity into 
 higher notions of its importance would never Aveigh in my 
 mind against the pure and pious interest which a virtuous 
 being maj^ be pleased to take in my welfare." But what- 
 ever he owed to the words and prayers of the old man in 
 the quiet parlour at Falmouth, he owed something, and, 
 perhaps, much, to another, who seems to have been the 
 only man who was kind, and faithful, and Christian 
 enough to warn him against evil, and recommend him to 
 the good, in the midst of his successes, and in the height of 
 his poetic glory. That man was Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 " Would you have me turn Methodist?" said Byron, in 
 reply to his friend's advice. 
 
THE FIRST HYMN-BOOK. 23 
 
 " No," was the reply, "I cannot conceive of your being 
 a Methodist, but you might be a Catholic Christian." 
 
 His heart seems never to have lost the impression of 
 that affectionate touch, and he recorded it by saying, "I 
 have known Sir Walter Scott long and well, and in occa- 
 sional situations which call forth the real character ; and 
 I can assure you that his character is worthy of admir- 
 ation. I say that Walter Scott is as nearly a good 
 man as man can be, because I know it by experience to 
 be the case." Scott had shown himself to be Byron's true 
 friend ; but he proved too that he ^was akin to him in sym- 
 pathy with the Hebrew psalmist. His higher moral stand- 
 ing, however, gave him the advantage, and his immortal 
 hymn is more full in its conformity to the ancient and holy 
 standard. Byron had the pathos and the tone of wailing 
 Israel, but Scott, equal in all this, entered into the spirit of 
 Hebrew worship, and rises into the grandeur of devout 
 submission and holy trust. 
 
 When Israel of the Lord beloved, 
 
 Out of the land of bondage came ; 
 Her father's God before her moved, 
 
 An awful guide in smoke and flame. 
 By day along the astonished lands 
 
 The cloudy pillar glided slow ; 
 By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands 
 
 Returned the fiery column's glow. 
 
 There rose the choral hymn of praise, 
 
 And trump and timbrel answered keen : 
 And Zion's daughters poured their lays, 
 
 "With priest's and warrior's voice between. 
 No portents now our foes amaze, 
 
 Forsaken Israel wanders lone ; 
 Our fathers would not know Thy ways, 
 
 And Thou hast left them to their own. 
 
 But present still, though now unseen, 
 
 When brightly shines the prosperous day ; 
 Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen 
 
 To temper the deceitful ray. 
 And oh, when stoops on Judah's path, 
 
 In shade and storm the frequent night ; 
 Be Thou long-suffering, slow to wrath, 
 
 A buxnins: and a shining- lijrht. 
 
24 HYMN-WEITEBS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Our harps we left by Babel's streams, 
 
 The tp'ant's pest, the Gentile's scorn; 
 No censer round oiu" altar beams, 
 
 And mute are timbrel, trump, and horn. 
 But Thou hast said the blood of goat, 
 
 The flesh of rams I will not prize ; 
 A contrite heart, a humble thought, 
 
 Are mine accepted sacrifice. 
 
 But it remained for the Methodist preacher to show the 
 modern hymn in its stronger family likeness to those old 
 spiritual songs in which all beautiful, grand, and devout 
 thoughts, expressions, and feelings are so richly combined. 
 He has done more than this. He has brought the spirit of 
 the old covenant into harmony with that of the new ; and 
 in one hymn has finely blended the voices of all Abraham's 
 spiritual children, whether " Greek or Jew, barbarian, 
 Scythian, bond or free." His hymn takes position above 
 those of Byron and Scott. The hymns of this remarkable 
 trio are like a " psalm of degrees." They move in an 
 upward gradation, raising the swell of Christian song until 
 it rivals the music of Hebrew fathers. Under Byron's 
 hand, the distinctive form of beauty began to breathe and 
 unfold its tender charms. At Scott's touch it expands into 
 more majestic proj)ortions, and puts forth more of its inner 
 life. But at Olivers' command, it manifests its maturity of 
 soul, and gives full and harmonious expression to all its 
 heavenliness of thought and affection. In the course of 
 conversation a few years ago, the son of an old minister 
 said, " I remember my father telling me that he was once 
 standing in the aisle of City-road Chapel, during a Con- 
 ference in Wesley's time, and Thomas Olivers, one of the 
 preachers, came down to him, and unfolding a manuscript, 
 said, ' Look at this, I have rendered it from the Hebrew, 
 giving it as far as I could a Christian character, and I 
 have called on Leoni, the Jew, who has given me a syna- 
 gogue melody to suit it ; here is the tune, and it is to be 
 called Leoni.' I read the composition, and it was that 
 now well-known, grand imitation of ancient Israel's 
 hymns — 
 
 The God of Abraham praise, 
 • Who reigns enthroned above, 
 
 Ancient of everlasting days, 
 And God of love ; 
 
THE FIEST HYMN-BOOK. 25 
 
 Jehovah ! Great I am I 
 By earth and heaven confest ; 
 I bow and bless the sacred name 
 For ever blest I 
 
 The God of Abraham praise ! 
 At whose supreme command 
 From earth I rise and seek the joys 
 At His right hand : 
 I all on earth forsake, 
 Its wisdom, fame, and power, 
 And Him my only portion make, 
 My shield and tower. 
 
 The God of Abraham praise ! 
 Whose all-sufficient grace 
 Shall guide me all my happy days 
 In all my ways : 
 He by Himself hath sworn, 
 I on His oath depend ; 
 I shall, on eagle's wings iipborne, 
 To heaven ascend ; 
 I shall behold His face, 
 I shall His power adore. 
 And sing the wonders of His grace 
 For evermore. 
 
 Though nature's strength decay, 
 And earth and hell withstand, 
 To Canaan's bounds I urge my way 
 At His command : 
 The watery deep I pass 
 With Jesus in my view, 
 And through the howling wilderness 
 My way pursue. 
 
 The goodly land I see, 
 With peace and plenty blest, 
 A land of sacred liberty, 
 And endless rest : 
 There milk and honey flow, 
 And oil and wine abound. 
 And trees of life for ever grow. 
 With mercy crown'd. 
 
 There dwells the Lord our King, 
 The Lord our Rig-hteoiisness, 
 Triumphant o'er the world and sin. 
 The Prince of Peace ! 
 On Zion's sacred height 
 His kingdom still maintains. 
 And glorious with His saints in light, 
 For ever reigns 1 
 
26 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMXS. 
 
 He keeps His own seciu'e ; 
 He guards them by His side ; 
 Arrays in garments white and pure 
 His spotless bride ; 
 With streams of sacred bliss, 
 With groves of living joys, 
 With all the fruits of Paradise, 
 He still supplies. 
 
 Before the great Three-One 
 They all exulting stand, 
 And tell the wonders He hath done. 
 Through all their land ; 
 The listening spheres attend 
 And swell the growing fame, 
 And sing in songs which never end, 
 The wondi'ous name ! 
 
 The God who reigns on high, 
 The great archangels sing, 
 And " Holy, Holv, Holy," cry, 
 " Almighty king ! 
 Wlio was and is the same, 
 And evermore shall be ! 
 Jehovah ! Father I great I Am ' 
 We worship Thee I " 
 
 Before the Saviour's face 
 The ransom'd nations bow, 
 Overwhelm'd at His almighty grace, 
 For ever new : 
 He shows His prints of love ; 
 They kindle to a flame, 
 And sound, through all the worlds above, 
 The slaughter' d Lamb ! 
 
 The whole triumphant host 
 Give thanks to God on high ; 
 " Hail ! Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!" 
 They ever cry ; 
 Hail ! Abraham's God and mine ! 
 I join the heavenly lays ; 
 All might and majesty are Thine, 
 And endless praise I 
 
 How little Bjron knew, when lie shrank from what he 
 thought to be Scott's recommendation of Methodism, that 
 a Methodist preacher would be honoured as more than his 
 equal in true " Hebrew melodies." And how little Scott 
 thought, when he found himself arrested by "Wesley's 
 
THE FIRST HYMN-BOOK. 27 
 
 preaching in Kelso churchyard, that the name of one of 
 Wesley's itinerant companions would stand in the lists of 
 immortality above his own, in the line of Israelitish 
 hymnists. It is interesting, too, to see posterity balancing 
 the relative claims of Olivers and his bitter theological 
 antagonist Toplady. Wesley emjjloyed Olivers as his 
 ''corrector of the press." But he was more. He some- 
 times took part in the doctrinal strife which was raging 
 then between the Arminians and the Calvinists. Olivers, 
 though once a cobbler, had a great deal of native logic, 
 and could use a syllogism with all the effect which he was 
 once apt to give to his awl. He knew how to stitch up 
 collegians like Toplady ; and poor Toplady was now and 
 then irritated under the process, until bitter and even 
 vulgar outcries were his only mode of defence. " Mr. 
 Wesley," cries he, "has taken refuge under a cobbler's 
 apron!" Alas! for the gentleman when the theological 
 polemic rises. Human nature is a strange complexity, 
 even in its most hallowed condition, especially when its 
 religious taste and temper take the form of controversy. 
 He who grins about a cobbler's aprou to-day, sings to- 
 morrow, 
 
 Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in Thee ! 
 
 and has thus rendered it difficult to say whether he or his 
 cobbler foe was the greater benefactor to the Christian 
 world when they exercised their higher and diviner calling 
 as Christian hymnists. Toplady' s name will ever be balmy 
 to those whose tremulous spirits feel the need of the cross ; 
 while those who can rise into the jubilant assurance of 
 pilgrims on the very banks of Jordan Avill bless the 
 memory of the man whose memorial is thus recorded by 
 his comjDanions in travel with characteristic brevity and 
 force. "Thomas Olivers died advanced in years. In his 
 younger days he was a zealous, able, and useful travelling 
 preacher ; but for a long period of his life he was em- 
 ployed by Mr. Wesley as the corrector of his press. His 
 talents were very considerable : and his attachment to Mr. 
 Wesley and Methodism was fully evidenced by several 
 masterly publications." He proved himself to be no 
 mean writer, logician, poet, and musical composer. With 
 
28 HYMN-"WKITEES AND THEIE HYMNS. 
 
 all this he was a good man ; and long ago he fully realized 
 the blessedness which his last stanza anticipated — 
 
 Hail ! Abraham's God and mine ! 
 I join the heavenly lays ; 
 All might and majesty are Thine, 
 And endless praise 1 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 HYMNS OF TEE LATTER BAY MORNING. 
 
 " But who the melodies of morn can tell." 
 
 The morning light of the Christian Church fell upon Pliny 
 the younger ; and in that light he saw the martyr spirit of 
 our first century. He had seen the Christians of his time 
 suffer, and knew that their sufferingsnever broke their joy. 
 Their morning hymns had never, perhaps, touched his 
 ear ; hut he has bequeathed a precious testimony to the 
 cheerful devotion of the people who could be charged with 
 no crime but that of meeting on "a stated day before it 
 was light, to sing hymns to Christ as God," and to renew 
 their mutual pledges of truthfulness, purity, and love. 
 Blessed souls ! ' ' The word of Christ dwelt in them so 
 richly" that they must needs '' prevent the dawning of the 
 day" with their songs. The apostolic spirit was still alive 
 in them. They were rejoicing in the dawn of the latter 
 day. They were in jeopardy every hour; every little 
 group was "baptized for the dead;" but they ate their 
 "meat with gladness," cheering their meat-time with 
 joyful psalmody ; their love-feasts were brightened with 
 chant and chorus, and their homes were vocal with simple 
 melodies and favoiuite hymns. What hymns must they 
 have been which were pure overflowings of hearts full of 
 divine influence ? What songs, when every singer gave 
 out the form of old anthems newly instinct with Christian 
 life, or extemporized in melody and rhythm according to 
 his own distinctive s]jiritual gift? What was their stjde of 
 hymn ? How did they sing ? Their psalmody must have 
 been at once a reiteration of the past and an embodiment 
 of exemplar songs for the future. Echoes from that morning 
 
30 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 of cluirch. music come to our ears and hearts even now in 
 some hymns which still breathe the perfume of an apostolic 
 age. The warm and jubilant spirit, and the triumphant 
 heavenliness of tone which distinguish those ancient songs, 
 give life to our modern liturgies, and are so like the worship 
 of prophets, apostles, and martyrs, that in singing them 
 we may enjoy a feeling of unison with choirs of the first 
 Christian converts. When we join "with angels and 
 archangels" in the " thrice holy , " or lift up our hearts with 
 the '■'■gloria ■in excelsis,''^ or help to swell the anthem peal of 
 the Te Deum, are we not using fragments from that early 
 collection of hymns in which the praises of the old covenant 
 saints were taken up and poured onward in richer Christian 
 harmony through the first ages of Messiah's kingdom ? 
 In them we have the first Christian responses to the songs 
 of patriarchal and prophetic days. The first song in 
 which the people join at the Holy Communion "with 
 angels and archangels," etc., is one of the first echoes of 
 the Christian Church to those voices of seraphims which 
 the prophet heard in the temple, and which were answered 
 and repeated from Patmos in the hearing of a rapt 
 apostle : — 
 
 Holy, holy, holy, 
 
 Jehovah Sabaoth, 
 
 The whole earth is full 
 
 Of His glory. 
 
 The anthem of " Glory to God in the Highest," sang by 
 the multitude of "heavenly hosts," was first responded to 
 by the happy shepherds as they "returned glorifying and 
 praising God for all the things they had heard and seen ;" 
 and then both angels and shepherds were answered by the 
 martyr church in the glorious old Greek hymn which in 
 our English Liturgy the communicants are called to chant 
 at the close of the Sacramental Supper. And if, as the 
 tradition goes, the Te Deum broke in alternate parts from 
 the lips of Ambrose and Augustine during the solemnities 
 of Augustine's baptism, it is probable that the holy singers 
 merely caught the full-toned expression of an earlier time, 
 the day-spring of the Church, when the company of be- 
 lievers gave forth utterances in which creeds, and praises, 
 and thanksgivings, and intense prayer, and living hopes 
 were interwoven and wrought up into one grand church 
 
HYMNS OF THE LATTER DAY MORNING. 31 
 
 hymn for all generations and all times. One inci- 
 dent in the history of Robert Hall serves to set forth the 
 native majesty of the Te Beum, and its close conformity to 
 the spirit and manner of inspired psalms. He had com- 
 posed a sermon on a text which had touched his fine 
 sense of grandeur and had deeply moved his heart. On 
 completing his sermon, he turned to the concordance to find 
 the text. It was not to be found. It was not in the Bible. 
 It was a sentence from the Te Deum, " All the earth doth 
 worship Thee, the Father everlasting." All ears are not 
 fine enough to be charmed with the rhythm of these 
 ancient hymns ; and many sincere worshippers even lack 
 the power of fairly appreciating their simple grandeur and 
 glowing power. Translations necessarily dim their glory, 
 lower their tone, and lessen their power. But now and 
 then some hymnist of deep sj^mpathy with the past, 
 drinks inspiration from these ever-living springs of song, 
 and casts the whole breathing measures into metrical form 
 and rhyme, which at once suit the taste and command the 
 hearts of wider multitiides and later times. How many 
 who were never moved into fellowship with " all the com- 
 pany of heaven" by the liturgical translation of the Ter 
 Sa7ictus, have risen into something like an api^roach to the 
 old strain when singing Bishop Mant's more popular but 
 beautiful verses — 
 
 Bright the vision that delighted 
 
 Once the sight of Judah's seer, 
 Sweet the countless tongues united 
 
 To entrance the prophet's ear. 
 Round the Lord in glory seated, 
 
 Chembim and seraphim 
 Fill'd his temple, and repeated 
 
 Each to each th' alternate hymn. 
 
 " Lord, thy glory fills the heaven, 
 
 Earth is with its fulness stored ; 
 Unto Thee be glory given, 
 
 Holy, holy, holy, Lord !" 
 Heaven is still with glory ringing. 
 
 Earth takes iip the angels' cry, 
 "Holy, holy, holy," singing, 
 
 " Lord of hosts, the Lord most high ! " 
 
 Ever thus in God's high praises. 
 Brethren, let our tongues unite ; 
 
32 HYMN-T^RITEBS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Chief the heart when duty raises 
 
 God-ward at his raystic rite - 
 With His seraph train before Him, 
 
 With His holy Church below, 
 Thus conspire we to adore Him, 
 
 Bid we thus one anthem flow ! 
 
 " Lord, Thy glory fills the heaven. 
 
 Earth is with its fulness stored ; 
 Unto Thee be glory given, 
 
 Holy, holy, holy Lord I " 
 Thus Thy glorious name confessing, 
 
 We adopt Thy angels' cry, 
 "Holy, holy, holy," blessing 
 
 Thee, " the Lord of hosts most high !" 
 
 As rank after rank from "the noble army of mart3rrs" 
 passed away during the morning tide of the Church, leaving 
 no record, and without the least care about the preservation 
 of their memory upon earth, so, many of the hymnists of 
 early days were happy in expressing their joys in song 
 while they lived, and then departed, bequeathing their 
 hymns to following generations, without a single effort to 
 secure for their own names the future honours of author- 
 ship. Some of their simple, tender, trustful, hymns, full 
 of Christ and winged with heavenliness, still remain as 
 nameless memorials of the generation whose purity insjDired 
 contemporary authorities with wonder. One hymn there 
 is which seems to claim a place among those which Pliny 
 says the Christians used to sing before the morning dawn. 
 It is in the spirit of the Psalmist, who said, ' ' My ejes 
 prevent the night watches," and may be rendered thus : — 
 
 From our midnight sleep uprising, ■ 
 Thee, Gracious One, we will adore ; 
 Loud the angels' hymn uplifting 
 To Thee, Almighty, evermore I 
 The holy, holy, holy Lord and God art Thou ! 
 In mercy's name, have mercy on us now ! 
 
 From the couch and death-like slumber 
 
 Thou makest me, Lord, to rise : 
 Thou my mind and heart enlighten, 
 And free my lips from sinful ties. 
 So may I 'fore Thee, Triune God, vnth praises bow ; 
 For l^oly, holy, holy Lord and God art Thou I 
 
HYM-NS OF THE LATTER DAY MORKLNGt. 33 
 
 With multitudes on multitudes, 
 
 The coming Judge wiU soon be here ; 
 And ev'ry deed of ev'ry man 
 Wni bai-e and open then appear. 
 We'll wait in filial fear, cheering our midnight now, 
 With holy, holy, holy Lord and God art Thou ! 
 
 Many of tlie voices whicli were thus lifted up in tlie 
 niglit watches of Pliny's time were contemporaries of the 
 " beloved disciple;" and among the rhythmical fragments 
 which survive there seem to be traces of the influence which 
 the last of the apostles had shed upon the mind and heart 
 of the youthful Church. Indications may be found here 
 and there of familiarity with the last apostle's closing 
 utterances, "Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every 
 spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, 
 is of God, .... and we know that the Son of God is 
 come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may 
 know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, 
 even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and 
 eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols." 
 This closing admonition was sacredly observed by these 
 "little children," while they kept their adoring eyes on 
 John's last vision of "the Lamb in the midst of the 
 throne," and continued to admonish one another "in 
 psalms, and hj'mns, and spiritual songs " about the incar- 
 nate Saviour, their reigning Lord. One of their strains is 
 so like John, and so befitting his "little children " in its 
 pure simplicity, its joyful earnestness, and reverent friend- 
 ship with a present Saviour, that it must ever have a charm 
 for all who have spiritual sympathy with the apostle of 
 " perfect love." It loses much, of course, by translation 
 into English rhyme, but in that form it is most likely to 
 touch the present generation : — 
 
 We adore Thy pure image, 
 
 good Lord, imploring Thee ! 
 Pardon all our sins and failures, 
 
 Christ, our gracious Deity. 
 Thou didst come in Thy good-will, 
 
 Taking flesh with all its woe, 
 Thy own creatures to redeem 
 
 From the bondage of the foe. 
 Therefore cry we thankfully, 
 
 Fulness of delight, to Thee, 
 Our Saviour, once appearing, 
 
 Purging earth's iniquity. 
 
34 HTMx-vsrrEKS A^'D xiizni htm^js. 
 
 Some of tlie hymns of early dawn mnst have mingled 
 irith the joy of angels over penitent hearts. Human 
 nature "was sinfiJ then as it is now. The contrite heart 
 and broken spirit had its psalm then as it ever will. 
 Apostle churches were never lacking in — 
 
 The grodlv grief, the pleasing smart. 
 
 The meltings of a bruken heart ; 
 
 The tear that tells the son "s forgiren. 
 
 The sighs that waft the soul to heaven. 
 
 The guiltless shame, the sweet distress, 
 
 The unutterable tenderness. 
 
 The genuine meek humility. 
 
 The wonder, '■ why such love to me I"' 
 
 One of these plaintive psalms of primitive repentance 
 seems to sob and moan with gentle sorrow, and to palpi- 
 tate with mystic penitential joy and tender longings lor 
 Christ : — 
 
 Long-suffring Jesus, precious Jesus ! 
 
 HeaL oh, heal my wounded soul ! 
 Oh. sweeten Thou my heart, my Jestis I 
 Save. I pray Thee, make me whole I 
 That saved by Thee, my Saviour, I 
 May Thy great mercy magnify. 
 
 Lover of man, oh. hear me. Saviour ! 
 
 Thine afflicted servant cries : 
 Oh. deliver me from judgment ; 
 Bid the sentenced culprit rise ! 
 
 Thou merciful, long-suffering Son, 
 Oh. most sweet Jesus, only One ! 
 
 Do let Thy servant come, my Saviour ! 
 Sinking 'fore Thee now with tears ; 
 Save me. Jesus I me repenting I 
 Save from hell, and helliih fears I 
 O Master ; my deep wounds I feel I 
 Kow heal me '. blessed Saviour, heal ! 
 
 With Thy strong hand, my Saviour, rescue 
 
 From that Spirit-murd'rer fell ; 
 In compassion snatch from Satan ; 
 Though I've sinn'd and merit hell : 
 MercifuL lonff-suff''ring One, I flee 
 To Thy def enc« I to Thee I to Thee ! 
 
 Oh, meeten me to Thy blest kingdom, 
 
 Jesus, be my inward light I 
 To my lost soul Thou art salvation ; 
 From hell redeeming by Thy might. 
 Here, weeping like a helpless child. 
 Save me. O Christ I Jesus mild '. 
 
HYMNS OF THE LATTER DAY MORNING. 35 
 
 Sucli meltings, bemoanings, struggles of tlaought, 
 regrets, half-plaintive, lialf-joyful, now desponding, and 
 now hopeful appeals, are felt to be his own by every 
 prodigal sinner in every age, and all the world over. Re- 
 pentance never changes its character. Its language, though- 
 varied in metre, is essentially one. The old eastern jDeni- 
 tential psalm falls naturally from the lips of a penitent 
 transgressor in our modern western world, and any genuine 
 living hymn from a truly softened English heart, aiipealing 
 to its Saviour, would be chanted amidst tears by penitent 
 worshippers in an Eastern basilica. A good man from the 
 far West, not many years ago, during his pilgrimage in 
 the East, found his way into an Armenian church at Con- 
 stantinople. The people were singing. The language of 
 their hymn was foreign ; but it was evident that the singers 
 were in earnest, and that there was deep feeling in the 
 words of their song. The music was a simple melody. All 
 sang with closed eyes, but as the strain continued, tears 
 ware starting, and trickling down many, many a cheek. 
 Dr. Pomeroy would fain have joined in the plaintive, 
 tender, yet glowing hymn. "What were they singing ? The 
 stanzas were translated, and as they fell on his ear, his 
 heart resjjonded to the precious, well-known verses — 
 
 Rock of Ages, cleft for me. 
 
 Let me hide myself in Thee ; 
 
 Let the water and the blood, 
 
 From Thy wounded side which flowed, 
 
 Be of sin the double cure. 
 
 Cleanse me from its guilt and power. 
 
 Not the labours of my hands 
 Can ftilfil 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 ! 
 
 While I draw this fleeting breath, 
 When my eye-strings break in death, 
 
36 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 When I soar through tracts unknown, 
 See Thee on Thy judgment-throne : 
 Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in Thee ! 
 
 Who would not like to have heard and seen the 
 author of this hymn ? He might have been found 
 once in a sequestered village in the eastern corner of 
 Devon. There, amidst the beautiful hills which are 
 overlooked by the western slopes of the Black Down 
 range, the quiet parish church of Broad Hembury stands 
 silently inviting the folks of the hamlet to " seek the living 
 among the dead." Within those walls on any Sunday 
 about the year 1770 the vicar might be found, during 
 church hours, fervently leading the devotions of his flock, 
 and then dispensing saving truth from the pxdpit in a style 
 and spirit not to be enjoyed everywhere, especially in those 
 times. The preacher is descril)ed as having an " ethereal 
 countenance, and light, immortal form. His voice was 
 music. His vivacity would have caught the listener's eye, 
 and his soul-filled looks and movements would have inter- 
 preted his language, had there not been such commanding 
 solemnity in his tones as made apathy impossible, and such 
 simplicity in his words that to hear was to understand. 
 From easy explanations he advanced to rapid and conclu- 
 sive arguments, and warmed into importunate exhortations, 
 till conscience began to burn and feelings to take fire from 
 his own kindled spirit, and himself and his hearers were 
 together drowned in sympathetic tears." The preacher 
 was Augustus Montague TojDlady. He was the son of 
 Major Toplady, who died at the siege of Carthagina in 
 1740, leaving his infant Augustus to the care of a tender 
 but judicious mother, under whose oversight the gentle and 
 affectionate character of the future hymnist was happily 
 developed and matured. He owed much to his mother ; 
 and his heart was always ready for returns of filial love 
 and duty. The genuine and decided nature of his conver- 
 sion, however, was the deeper secret of his distinctive 
 character as a divine, a preacher, and a hymnist. "When 
 he was but sixteen, during a visit to Ireland with his 
 mother, he found his way into a barn at Codymain," where 
 an uncultivated but warm-hearted layman was preaching 
 from Eph. ii. 13. The human instrument was unpolished, 
 
HYMNS OF THE LATTER DAY MOENING. 37 
 
 but tlie divine word was effectual ; and looking back, after 
 some years, on the happy change which passed over his 
 heart during that hour in the barn, and speaking of the 
 gracious sentence which so deeply touched him, he says, 
 "It was from that passage that Mr. Morris preached on 
 the memorable evening of my effectual call by the grace of 
 God. Under the ministry of that dear messenger, and 
 under that sermon, I was, I trust, ' brought nigh by the 
 blood of Christ,' in August, 1756. Strange that I, who 
 had so long sat under the means of grace in England, 
 should be brought nigh unto Grod in an obscure part of 
 Ireland, amidst a handful of God's people met together in 
 a barn, and under the ministry of one who could hardly 
 spell his name. Surely it is the Lord's doing, and it is 
 marvellous. The excellency of such power must be of 
 God, and cannot be of man." 
 
 He was ordained in June, 1762. The circumstances 
 and mode of his conversion seem to have disposed him to a 
 strong and ruling conviction of the Calvinistic sense of the 
 articles to which he subscribed, and to which, as he said, 
 he subscribed because he believed them. He entered on 
 his rural charge at Broad Hembury in 1768. And there 
 his finely- tempered soul regaled itself now and then amidst 
 the delicious retreats on the banks of the Otter stream, by 
 celebrating the grace of his Eedeemer in the immortal 
 hymns and sjDiritaal songs from which so many penitent 
 and believing heai-ts continue to gather saving balm. 
 Strange that harsh and bitter words should have been 
 uttered in controversy with such kindred hymnists as Wes- 
 ley and Olivers ! When these poetic spirits sang, they 
 were in perfect harmony ; but when they dogmatized, there 
 was intemperate discord. Toplady's strong conviction and 
 warm zeal for those dogmas whose exclusive claims he 
 thought to be demonstrated by his own conversion, some- 
 times mastered his native gentleness and Christian feeling, 
 and led him astra}^ into a false position. His example 
 cautions the lover of truth against allowing himself to be 
 provoked into controversy. Better let the truth work its 
 own way. His polemic essays may repose on the theologi- 
 cal shelf, but his hymns will for ever wreathe his name 
 with holy light in the memory and heart of the Christian 
 Church. 
 
38 HYMN -"WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 HoTV beautiful Avas the closing scene of his life ; " Sick- 
 ness is no affliction," said the saintly pilgrim, " pain no 
 curse, death itself no dissolution." To one who inquired 
 "whether his consolations always abounded, it was replied, 
 " I cannot say there are no intermissions ; for if there were 
 not, my consolations would be more and greater than I 
 could possibly bear ; but when they abate they leave such 
 an abiding sense of God's goodness, and of the certainty of 
 my being fixed upon the eternal rock Christ Jesus, that my 
 soul is still filled with peace and joy." Happy hymnist ! 
 He now realized the full meaning of his own 
 
 Rock of Ages, cleft for me. 
 
 Like many others, he had mistaken Wesley on one point, 
 and, with strange perversity of error, condemned him for 
 teaching the doctrine of " absolute perfection," as the 
 Christian's privilege. It was in his zeal against this 
 illusion that he entitled his " Eock of Ages," "A living 
 and dying prayer for the holiest believer in the world." 
 But AVetley was as innocent of this alleged heresy as was 
 Toplady himself; and no believer in the world would 
 sing Toplady's hymnic prayer with more reverent feeling 
 than John Wesley. Indeed, the last utterances of the two 
 men were graciously akin. Wesley breathed the spirit of 
 Toplady's hymn when in dej)artiug he sang — 
 
 I the chief of sinners am, 
 But Jesus died for me. 
 
 Blessed spirits ! They have met in clearer light, and now 
 see " eye to eye." 
 
 Hallowed genius continues to consecrate itself to that 
 holy " name whereby we must be saved." Nor does it fail 
 to furnish the succession of believing penitents with 
 happy, suitable forms of tuneful expression in their 
 appeals to Jesus. What the old Greek hymnists did for 
 those who were coming to Christ in their day, and what 
 Toplady did for later generations, both in east and west, 
 has been done for the hearts that the Lord opens by still 
 later voices of equal sweetness and power. Some of these 
 are the voices of " devout women." A woman took the 
 lead in holy song at the dawning of the "latter day." 
 Women were most ready to weep with Him who wept for 
 
HYMNS OF THE LATTER DAY MORNING. 39 
 
 US, and to rejoice in His joy. The voices of women swelled 
 tlie joy of the resurrection, mingled in the strains which 
 cheered the simple tables around which the first disciples 
 " ate their meat with gladness," and filled up the har- 
 m.onies of those gatherings whose cheerful worship and 
 happy expression gave them " favour with all the jieople." 
 Many of the hymns preserved to us from the Syrian and 
 Greek hymnists were, doubtless, from the hearts and pens 
 of sons of holy mothers ; or, it may be, some of the simple 
 rhythmical celebrations of the birth and glory of the 
 "Child Jesus" were utterances of widow-confessors, or 
 mothers of consecrated "little ones." No name, however, 
 has come down to us. No fragment can be verified as 
 a woman's hymn. It has remained for more modern 
 days to hear songs from " devout women " which equal the 
 tenderest and most happy of all tender and happy melodies 
 adapted to the softened hearts which long for a Saviour. 
 One of these comes from Devon, from its southern coast. 
 If anybody wishes to enjoy, within the limits of a few 
 days' ramble, one of the richest interminglings of balmy 
 air and bright blue sea, of hill and dale, copsy knoll and 
 ferny hollow, villa-crowned heights and cottages in dells, 
 noble cliffs and terraced gardens, mountain-paths and quiet 
 sparkling beaches, weedy rocks and whispering caverns, 
 ever-varying, ever-harmonizing scenes, amidstwhich, above, 
 beneath, around, and everywhere, grandeur is melting into 
 beauty — he must be a quiet sojourner for a little while in 
 the neighbourhood of Torquay. Of those who seek and 
 find enjoyment in that delicious retreat, one lady has 
 happily brightened the scenes already briglit by the charm 
 of a pious example, the quiet but diligent difi'usion of truth, 
 and the gracious exercise of her Christian charity. A lover 
 of nature, a lover of souls, a lover of Christ, her talents and 
 zeal have shed tlieir best and most lasting blessing on the 
 Christian world by the issue of those hymns which promise 
 ever to reflect blessing on her name. Thousands who never 
 saw Torquay, thousands who merely know the name of 
 Charlotte Elliott, will find themselves nearer to the blessed 
 Jesus while they sing her justly jDopular hymn — 
 
 Just as I am, without one plea 
 But that Thy blocid was shed for me, 
 And that Thou bidst me come to Thee, 
 Lamb of God, I come ! 
 
40 HYMN-WEITER3 AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Just as I am, and waiting- not 
 To rid my soul of one dark blot, 
 To Thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot, 
 O Lamb of God, I come ! 
 
 Just as I am, though toss'd about 
 With many a conflict, many a doubt. 
 Fightings and fears within, without, 
 O Lamb of God, I come! 
 
 Just as I am. poor, wretched, blind, 
 Sight, riches, healing of the mind, 
 Yea, all I need, in Thee I find, 
 
 Lamb of God, I come ! 
 
 Just as I am. Thou wilt receive, 
 
 Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relicTe ! 
 
 Because Thy promise I believe, 
 
 Lamb of God, I come ! 
 
 Just as I am (thy love unknown 
 Has broken every ban-icr down), 
 Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone, 
 O Lamb of God, I come ! 
 
 Just as I am, of that free love 
 
 The breadth, length, depth, and height to prove, 
 
 Here for a season, then above, 
 
 Lamb of God, I come ! 
 
 This sounds like repeated and still repeated echoes of 
 some sweet music ; and indeed the verses may be listened 
 to as if they were the echoes of the coast-hills of Devon 
 answering to the voice of spiritual songs which a century 
 before arose from a quiet garden on the borders of the 
 Hampshire downs. That, too, was a woman's voice ; and 
 that voice, too, was the voice of tender, melting desire for 
 the Saviour — the voice of a penitent believer answering to 
 the Divine call, " Come unto Me, and I will give jou rest." 
 It was the voice of one chosen "in the furnace of afflic- 
 tion ; " but the tones were sweet and clear, with that gentle 
 ring which thrills the devotional heart as if something of 
 pure heavenliness had touched it. So where it was when 
 this song was uttered — 
 
 Thou lovely Source of true delight, 
 
 Whom I unseen adore. 
 Unveil Thy beauties to my sight, 
 
 That I may love Thee more. 
 
HYMNS OF THE LATTER DAY MORNING. 41 
 
 Thy glory o'er creation shines, 
 
 But in Thy sacred word 
 I read, in fairer, brighter lines, 
 
 My bleeding, dying Lord. 
 
 'Tis here, whene'er my comforts droop, 
 
 And sins and sorrows rise. 
 Thy love, with cheerful beams of hope, 
 
 My fainting heart supplies. 
 
 But ah, too soon the pleasing scene 
 
 Is clouded o'er with pain ; 
 My gloomy fears rise dark between, 
 
 And I again complain. 
 
 Jesus, my Lord, my life, my light, 
 
 Oh come with blissfid ray, 
 Break radiant through the shades of night. 
 
 And chase my fears away. 
 
 Then shall my soul with rapture trace 
 
 The wonders of Thy love ; 
 But the full g'lories of Thy face 
 
 Are only known above. 
 
 This hymn, with many othei's, had a deep interest in 
 the heart of a venerable Nonconformist minister, who, in 
 1757, had the pastoral charge of a congregation, meeting 
 in the village of Broughton in Hampshire, on the spot 
 where their fathers had worshipped from the time of the 
 Commonwealth. The good pastor writes in his diary: — 
 " 1757, Nov. 29. This day Nanny sent a part of her com- 
 jjosition to London to be printed. I entreat a gracious 
 Grod, who enabled and stirred her np to snch a work, to 
 direct in it, and bless it for the good and comfort of many." 
 And again: — " Oct. 1759. Her brother brought with him 
 her poetry, not yet bound. I earnestly desire the blessing 
 of God upon that work, that it may be made very useful. 
 I can admire the gifts that others are blessed with, and 
 praise God for His distinguishing favours to our family. I 
 have now been reading our daughter's printed books, 
 which I have earnestly desired might be accompanied with 
 the Divine Spirit in the perusing." And yet again: — 
 " Nov. 27. Mr. W spoke very liighly in commenda- 
 tion of her book. I pray God to make it useful, and keep 
 her humble." Which is most beautiful in all this, the 
 simple naturalness of the father's feeling, or the devout 
 
42 HYilX-WEITEUS AND THEIE, HYMNS. 
 
 spirit of the Christian parent? The good man's prayers 
 were richly answered in his daughter's character and life, 
 and in the hearts of all who read her pious, pure, and 
 finely-toned hymns. One song alone of hers forbids a 
 doubt of this— 
 
 Jesus, my Lord, in Thy dear name unite, 
 
 All tilings my heart calls great, or good, or sweet ; 
 
 Divinest springs of wonder and delight, 
 
 In Thee, Thou fairest of ten thousand, meet. 
 
 Do I not love Thee ? ah, my conscioiis heart 
 
 Nor boldly dares affirm, nor can deny ; 
 Oh, bid these clouds of gloomy fear depart. 
 
 With one bright ray from Thy propitious eye ! 
 
 Do I not love Thee ? can I then allow 
 
 Within my breast pretenders to Thy throne ? 
 
 Oh, take my homag-e, at Thy feet I bow '. 
 No other Lord my heart desires to own. 
 
 Take, take my passions in Thy sovereign hand. 
 Refine and mould them with Almighty skill ; 
 Then shall I love the voice of Thy command, 
 • And all my powers rejoice to do Thy will. 
 
 Thy love inspires the a^jtive sons of light. 
 
 With swift-wing'd zeal they wait upon Thy word ; 
 
 Oh, let that love, in these abodes of night. 
 Bid my heart glow to serve my dearest Lord. 
 
 Come, love Divine, my languid wishes raise ! 
 
 With heavenly zeal this faint cold heart inflame, 
 To join with angels in my Saviour's praise. 
 
 Like them obey His will, adore His name. 
 
 But can the mind, with heavy clay opprest, 
 
 To emulate seraphic ardour rise ? 
 While sin pollutes her joys, forbids her rest. 
 
 How can she join the worship of the skies ? 
 
 Yet He commands to love and to obey, 
 
 Whose hand sustains those happy spirits there ; 
 
 In Him,'"my soul, who is thy Guide, thy Stay, 
 In Him confide, to Him commit thy care. 
 
 Jesus, my Lord, oh give me strength divine ! 
 
 Then shall my powers in glad obedience move ; 
 Receive the heart that wishes to be Thine, 
 
 And teach, oh teach me to obey and love ! 
 
HYMNS OF THE LATTEE DAY MORNING. 43 
 
 This is one of the hymns from the volume on which the 
 fond father invoked a blessing — a volume of hymns and 
 poems by "Theodosia." And who and what Theodosia 
 was is happily revealed in one of her letters to her " hon- 
 oured father:" — "As many of these verses have been 
 favoured with your approbation, I have now at your desire 
 collected them into a little book, which I beg leave to 
 present to you as a humble acknowledgment of my grate- 
 ful sense of your parental affection, and the benefit 1 have 
 received from your instructions. If you should survive me, 
 it will, I doubt not, be preserved by joii (however incon- 
 siderable its real value) as a mournfully pleasing remem- 
 brance of a departed child who once shared your tender 
 regard. If you think they are capable of affording pleasure 
 or profit, you may, if you please, communicate any of them 
 to friends or fellow-Christians. They may, j)erhaps, find 
 seasons when the thoughts of the unworthy writer may 
 suit their own, and the resemblance produce delight. If 
 while I am sleeping in the silent grave my thoughts are of 
 any real benefit to the meanest of the servants of my God, 
 be the praise ascribed to the Almighty Griver of all grace. 
 May the blessed hope of eternal life cheer my soul amidst 
 the pangs of dissolution ! May the blissfvd smiles of my 
 Redeemer illuminate the gloomy shades of death, and 
 point out my passage to the mansions of eternal day; that 
 I may be able to say, in the full evidence of faith and 
 hope, I am going to 'be ever with the Lord.' Then shall 
 my God be gloiified, and my dear relatives comforted in 
 my death. May the Almighty long preserve your valuable 
 life, and continue to make you a blessing to your family, a 
 useful instructor to the people under your care, and an 
 ornament to religion, is the ardent wish and prayer of, 
 dear and honoured father, your ever dutiful and grateful 
 daughter, " Anne Steele." 
 
CHAPTEE ly. 
 
 EYMNS OF TEE FATHERS. 
 
 "Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised Thee." 
 
 Who, in his dreams of tlie past, has not sometimes found 
 himself floating across the Mediterranean down to ancient 
 Egypt, and there moving, as none but spirits can move, 
 along the face of those venerable and mysterious deposits 
 of the Delta over which Egyptian, Ethiopian, Assvrian, 
 Persian, Roman, and Saracen, in successive generations, 
 have passed before him ? and whose imagination has not 
 wandered up the Nile in quiet visionary fashion, now 
 under the shadow of African palms, and now through lily 
 banks b}^ the side of gliding pelicans, and within sight of 
 the giraffe and the gazelle freely rambling on the desert 
 sands ? Who has not in his dreams looked at the calcare- 
 ous cliffs from which the generations of the Old World dug 
 their lime ? or at the sandstone quarries which supplied 
 slabs and blocks for the temjDles that had fallen into ruin 
 long before England began her course? or at the awful gran- 
 ite jiiles from whence came the materials for those gigantic 
 sculptures which still overawe mankind ? or at the wilder- 
 ness of ruins and sepulchres which, with their myriads of 
 mummy forms, give to our hearts such lessons on human 
 life ? Who has not wandered there thinking of Abraham 
 and Sarah, Jose])h and his brethren, Jacob worshipping on 
 his staff, his embalmment, and his funeral ; and then of 
 another Joseph and Marj^, and the Holy Child ; and then 
 of the first Christian disciples, and their first flight to the 
 desert ? Our dreamy flights have sometimes led us from 
 Egypt across the Eed Sea to the base of Mount Colzim, 
 
HYMNS OP THE FATHERS. 45 
 
 just wliere its bend looks out through the desert pass of 
 Mount Kallil towards the plain of Baccarah, there to look 
 at a few palms, sustained by three brackish springs, with 
 a little garden of potherbs, onions, and dourah ; and to find 
 a human form seated at the entrance of a recess, dressed in 
 wash-leather, with a sallow face expressive of quiet earneEt- 
 ness and high purpose, the lustrous depth of his upturned 
 eye revealing the joy of his communion with heaven ; the 
 man who might be called the father of that recluse life 
 which, though springing from perverted Christian principle, 
 yet for so many ages swayed the movements of the Christian 
 world, and gave out the precious streams of hymns and 
 songs which helped to preserve the spiritual life of a clois- 
 tered church. Then, have there not been visions of old 
 Alexandria? visions which, like dissolving views, have 
 changed from brilliant palaces to libraries and lecture-halls, 
 from close retired streets to old basilicas, from students' 
 cells to crowded places filled with multitudes struggling 
 and heaving amidst the processes of transition from old 
 heathenism to a half-formed Christianity; and then our 
 visionary path has been crossed by the shadows of such 
 men as Clement, and Origen, and Didyraus, and their 
 trains of disciples who peopled the first Christian schools 
 of Alexandria. One would like to arrest the shade of 
 Clement, and ask him to give us a few more hymns, or to 
 sing to us some of the fragments that we have caught up 
 from the ruins of his music-school, and to sing them as he 
 and his scholars used to sing them both at home and in 
 the church. It is difficult to catch even a dreamy outline 
 of Clement's person and life; he has left a few touches of 
 his own character. At the end of the second century, 
 Alexandria was like a great centre of telegraphic com- 
 munication, mysteriously linking itself with all the out- 
 standing points in the world of thought. In and around 
 that centre many were running to and fro asking and 
 answering questions, and voices from all nations were 
 mingling in deep-toned inquiries after the sujireme good. 
 There, in the midst, was Clement, anxiously looking hither 
 and thither, always intensely hungering and thirsting after 
 truth. Now, he took lessons from the retreats of Lebanon, 
 now from Assyria, and now from the Hebrew school of 
 Tiberias. It was a weary search ; but perfect sincerity is 
 
46 HYMN-WMTEHS AND THEIE HYMNS. 
 
 always honoured from above, and is sure of its goal. His 
 heart foiind rest at last ; where his heart rested, there the 
 wants of his intellect were supplied. He says enough 
 about himself and Christianity to prove that he had found 
 the secret of Christian life, and that he had been "trans- 
 formed by the renewing of his mind." Still, his long in 
 and out and round-about search for truth, and the hard 
 processes through which his mind and heart had passed 
 in the course of his religious pursuit, gave a peculiar 
 shaping to his mental and spiritual character as a Christian. 
 Some of his peculiar views, his views of Christian perfec- 
 tion, caught the attention of "Wesley, who, stigmatized as 
 a perfectionist himself, though coming very much nearer 
 to the truth than the Alexandrian father, has ingeniously 
 given a versified exposition of Clement's mistaken notion, 
 and has embodied it in his collection of hymns and sacred 
 poems. It seems fitting that one of the earliest hymnists 
 among the Fathers should have his distinctive views thrown 
 into a hymnic form by a modern Father of spiritual hymns 
 and songs. Wesley sings "on Clement Alexandrinus's 
 descrij)tion of a perfect Christian: " — 
 
 Here from afar the finish' d height 
 
 Of holiness is seen ; 
 But oh what heavy tracts of toil, 
 
 What deserts lie between ! 
 
 Man for the simple life divine 
 
 What will it cost to break, 
 Ere pleasure soft and wily pride 
 
 No more within him speak ? 
 
 What ling'ring anguish must corrode 
 
 The root of nature's joy ? 
 Wliat secret shame and dire defeats 
 
 The pride of heart destroy ? 
 
 Learn thou the whole of mortal state 
 
 In stillness to sustain ; 
 Nor soothe with false delights of earth, 
 
 Whom God hath doomed to pain. 
 
 Thy mind no multitude of thoughts, 
 
 Nor stupor shall distress ; 
 The venom of each latent vice 
 
 Wild images impress. 
 
HYMNS OF THE FATHERS. i i 
 
 Yet darkly safe with God thy soul 
 
 His arm still onward bears, 
 Till through each tempest on her face 
 
 A peace beneath appears. 
 
 'Tis in that peace we see and act 
 
 By instincts from above, 
 With finer taste of wisdom fraught, 
 
 And mystic powers of love. 
 
 Yet ask not in mere ease and pomp 
 
 Of ghostly gifts to shine. 
 Till death, the lownesses of man, 
 
 And pitying griefs are thine. 
 
 As an exposition of Clement's doctrine of Christian 
 perfection, this is sufficiently clear to guard those whose 
 service of song the author intended to regulate ; Avhile it is 
 aptly made to fall off into that kind of haziness which in- 
 dicates the uncertain theology of the Alexandrine Father. 
 But whatsoever peculiar turn of thought Clement's mind 
 might take on some theological points, Christianity had 
 simplified his heart and kindled his poetic powers into 
 hallowed devotion to his beloved Redeemer. The artless 
 child seems to brighten into the praiseful seraph in his 
 hymn '"of the Saviour Christ." An English rendering, 
 somewhat in imitation of the original metre, may help us 
 to sing with Clement: — 
 
 Lead, Holy One, lead ! 
 The little ones need 
 The voice of their Eang. 
 The footprints of Jesus 
 Are shining before us, 
 His children to lead. 
 On the heavenly way their footsteps to bring. 
 
 O Age Infinite ! 
 Original Light ! 
 Divine Living Word ! 
 The Fountain of mercy ! 
 Creator of beauty ! 
 Sustainer of might 
 To all happy spirits ; Christ Jesus our Lord ! 
 
 By milk from above 
 For babes of Thy love, 
 Thy wisdom's sweet store, 
 Their tender lips nourished, 
 
48 HYMN-WKITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Refreshed, and replenished ; 
 They sing o'er and o'er 
 Their otvti artless hymns, as tow'rds Thee they move. 
 
 Christ our King, 
 Together we sing ; 
 Onr hymns never cease. 
 Of rewards from the Holy ; 
 To the child ever mighty. 
 Our chorus shall sing. 
 Till thy kindred see the God of all peace. 
 
 The history of Christian hymnology affords here and 
 there an interesting iUustration of the truth, "Surely the 
 wrath of man shall praise Thee." When the apostate 
 Julian ascended the tlirone, he turned his legislation 
 against Christ, and prohibited all Christians from learning 
 or teaching the classic literature of the Gentile world. He 
 thought to extinguish Christianity by shutting up Christians 
 to barren ignorance. His policy, however, worked against 
 his own purpose. The poetic power and taste of Christian 
 leaders were now called forth to supply purer elements of 
 education than the popular classic poets could yield ; and 
 driven from heathen measures. Christians were supplied 
 with hymns and songs, which at once formed literary 
 lessons and means of chaste excitement for the heart. 
 Among several who took the lead in opening these fresh 
 supplies of poetic food for youthful Christianity, there was 
 one who had been a schoolfellow and companion of Julian 
 himself. The interior of Asia Minor, now so little known, 
 was open during the third century to the genial influence 
 of the Christian religion. To us the richly diversfied land- 
 scapes are all but forbidden ground ; but once the mountain 
 ranges and romantic glens, the fruitful plains and garden- 
 like valleys, the charming dales and upland forests of pine 
 and beach and odorous cedar, the perfumed flower-beds 
 broadly sheltered by tlie plane-tree, and the river banks 
 adorned with the verdure of mastic and tamarind groves, 
 combined to form a scene in which the Christian Church, 
 trained some of her noblest sons. Several of these were 
 the sons of holy women : one was Basil the Great ; and 
 anotlier was his schoolfellow and life-long friend, Gregory 
 of Nazianzen, whose father lived to see his son associated 
 with him in the bishopric of his native township, and 
 
HYMNS OF THE FATHEES. 49 
 
 wliose saintlj'^ motlier, Nonna, had. her last days cheered by 
 the hymns and spiritual songs of the boy in whose holy 
 character and life she saw the answer to her prayers. Basil's 
 letters to his friend, from his own religions retreat, throw 
 some light upon Gregory's character as a Christian poet ; 
 and from one to whose love for nature and fine taste the 
 cultivated Basil could make such affectionate and charming 
 appeals, we might expect such hymnic contributions as 
 even now assist our service of song. Gregory might be 
 said to have spent his useful life — 
 
 'Twixt the mount and multitude ; 
 Doing or receiving good. 
 
 With the multitude he sang of Christ; and he instructed 
 his flock in their creed, while he taught them to sing — 
 
 Hear tis now, King eternal ; 
 Give us power to hymn Thy praise ; 
 Thou, our Lord ; and Thou our Master ; 
 By Thee alone our songs we raise. 
 By Thee the choirs of angels glow ; 
 By Thee the ceaseless ages flow. 
 By Thee the sun appears in glory ; 
 The moon in brightness keejDS her pace ; 
 Stars shine forth in smiling beauty ! 
 And reason marks the human race. 
 Man breathed that light from Th?o alone, 
 That all Thy other works outslioi:e. 
 Thou art of all things the Creatoi' ; 
 Life springs where'er Thy voice is heard ; 
 All is ordered by Thy wisdom ; 
 All is finished by Thy word ; 
 Thy Holy Word, Thy only Son 
 With Thee in might and glory one. 
 As Lord of all we Him confess ; 
 With Him the Holy Ghost we bless ; 
 Pervading and inspiring all, 
 O Triune God ; on Thee we call ! 
 
 But the junior bishop had to psalm it in "troublous 
 times." He was sometimes touched by circumstances so 
 like those of ancient psalmists, that his feelings seemed to 
 be reflections of theirs; and his metrical expression is 
 sweetly attuned to their measures. Things around him, 
 both in Church and State, were heaving and breaking up, 
 threatening indeed a return of chaotic confusion. "Men's 
 
50 HTMN-WEITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 hearts were failing them for fear, and for looking after those 
 things Trt'hich were coming on the earth" — Ecclesiastical 
 tremor, social corruption, storms from "high places," and 
 faithlessness among the masses, all pressed hardly upon the 
 spirits of Gregory. His heart was overwhelmed at times, 
 and like another sweet singer, he was ready to cry, " Oh, 
 that I had wings like a dove ! for then would I fly away, 
 and be at rest. Lo, then would I wander far off, and 
 remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape from 
 the windy storm and tempest." One of his plaintive songs 
 has reached us from his religious retreat — 
 
 My fatherland alone to me remains, 
 
 The floods of faction o'er my country sweep ;' 
 For my uncertain feet, the laud retains 
 No resting-place ; no friend to weep ; 
 No child to soothe the homeless poor forlorn ; 
 I wander day by day with trembling limbs and torn. 
 
 Wliat lot awaits me ? What my mortal doom ? 
 
 Where shall this jaded body find its rest? 
 Shall this poor trembling- flesh e'er find a tomb ? 
 By whom shall these dim eyes in death be blest ? 
 Will any watch ? WiU any pity me ? 
 Will they be Christian watchers ? Or, shall sinners see ? 
 
 Or shall no grave enclose this mortal frame ? 
 
 When laid a heavy breathless corpse of clay ? 
 Cast on the rock uncovered and in shame; 
 
 Or tossed in scorn to birds and beasts of prey ? 
 Or burnt to ashes, given to the air ? 
 Or thrown into the weedy deep to perish there ? 
 
 Thy will be done, Lord ! That day shall spring, 
 
 When at Thy word, this clay shall reajDpear ! 
 No death I dread, but that which sin will bring ; 
 No fire or flood without Thy wrath I fear ; 
 For Thou, O Christ, my Lord, art fatherland to me ! 
 My wealth, and might, and rest ; my all I find in Thee ! 
 
 There is something in the calm light and devout stillness 
 of the evening hour which touchingly answers to the solemn 
 peacefulness of the Christian's last moments on earth. 
 This has been felt in all ages by Christian genius. And 
 the feeling has found expression in a line of evening 
 hymns, hymns which served to hush the spirits of God's 
 children from generation to generation ; and from age to 
 age to hallow the mysterious advances of nightly repose. 
 
HYMNS OF THE FATHERS. 51 
 
 Gregory is among the leaders in evening song ; and ho^r 
 his music lulls us — 
 
 Christ, my God, I come to praise Thee, 
 
 As the day dims into night ; 
 Thou who art from everlasting — ■ 
 
 Light of ever living light. 
 
 Thou didst melt orig'nal darkness, 
 Give to light its first luifolding, 
 
 That all things might live in light. 
 Settling the unsettled chaos 
 Into forms of beauteous order, 
 
 As we see them fair and bright. 
 
 Reason's light to man Thou gavest, 
 
 'Bove the speechless creature's dight, 
 That on light in Thy light grazing, 
 
 He himself might be all light. 
 
 Thou hast deck'd the heavens vsdth radiance ; 
 "With Thy clust'ring lamps of glory, 
 
 Hanging the expanse above ; 
 Calling day and night to service. 
 Like a hajipy brotherhood, by turns 
 
 Obedient to the law of love. 
 
 Thou by night, from tears and toiling, 
 
 Giv'st our wearied nature rest, 
 Waking us as day arises, 
 
 To the works Thou lovest best. 
 
 While the last stanza lingers on our ears, who does not 
 think of Bishop Ken? who is not ready to sing that 
 immortal "even-song" of his, which for a century and a 
 half has been naturally rising to the lips of English 
 Christians — 
 
 Soon as the evening shades prevail ? 
 
 How alike were Bishop Gregory of Nazianzen and 
 Bishop Ken in some of the closing circumstances of their 
 career ! and how alike was their mode of uttering the quiet 
 joys of their life in retreat. Gregory had mastered the 
 swellings of heresy, and had weathered the storm of 
 imperial hate ; but just as he saw the dawn of favour from 
 " high places," and there was the promise of some reward 
 for his faithfulness on earth, unforeseen difficulties beset 
 his way to ecclesiastical preferment ; and shrinking from 
 strife for mere position, he turned aside from the public 
 
52 HYMN-WEITEES AXD THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 scenes of action, and, as a lone man, spent his last few years 
 in attuning his heart to the melodies of heaven. So, good 
 Bishop Ken, having stood a faithful witness for Christian 
 purity in two courts, under AVilliam of Orange in Holland, 
 and then as chaplain to Charles II. of England, securing 
 in both cases the esteem of those whom he consistently 
 reproved ; and having shared imprisonment with his six 
 episcopal brethren, for resisting the irregular measures of 
 James II., his conscience found difficulty in accepting the 
 continuance of ecclesiastical honour under William, and he 
 retired into private life, to solace himself with hymns and 
 songs while waiting for his divine Master's coming. His 
 spirit shrank from the strife of part3^ He would take no 
 part in the vain contention. "No, no!" said he, in his 
 own stjde, 
 
 I gladly wars ecclesiastic fly, 
 Wliere'er contentious spirits I descry ; 
 Eas'd of my sacred load, I live content, 
 In hymns, not in disputes, my passions vent. 
 
 And had his meek and tuneful spirit found no other vent 
 than in his blessed evening hymn, his memory would never 
 lose its freshness, interwoven as it is with the evening 
 devotion of so many English homes. Have you, as a lover 
 of contemplative goodness, ever lingered of an evening 
 among the peaceful homes of Berkhampstead, in Hertford- 
 shu'e. Ken's birthplace ? or did you ever sit in the summer 
 gloaming on the old bench in Winchester School, where he 
 took his early lessons, and try to call up the presence of 
 the poetic boy ? or have you joined at even song, in the 
 noble old church at Bath, where the jiious bishop used 
 to compose prayers as well as hymns for his flock ? or have 
 you watched the sunset from amidst the quiet beauties of 
 Longleat, in Wiltshire, where the venerable pilgrim closed 
 his life-journey, saying, "I die in the communion of the 
 Chui'ch of England, as it stands distinguished from all 
 Papal and Puritan innovations, and as it adheres to the 
 doctrine of the Cross"? Have you ? Then the evening 
 hymn will always have music for jouv heart ; and like one 
 who had caught the spirit of the gentle-minded hymnist, 
 you will learn at every night-fall to pass devoutly into 
 sleep singing within your soul — 
 
HYMNS OF THE FATHERS. 53 
 
 All praise to Tliee, ray God, this niglit, 
 For all the blessings of the light,_ 
 Keep me, oh, keep me. King of kings, 
 Beneath Thine own Almighty wings ! 
 
 Forgive me, Lord, for Thy dear Son, 
 The iU that I this day have done ; 
 That with the world, myself, and Thee, 
 I, ere I sleep, at peace may be. 
 
 Teach me to live that I may dread 
 The grave as little as my bed ! 
 To die, that this vile body may 
 Rise glorious at the awful day ! 
 
 Oh, may my soul on Thee repose. 
 And may sweet sleep mine eyelids close ; 
 Sleep, that may me more vig'rous make, 
 To serve my God when I awake ! 
 
 When in the night I sleepless lie, 
 
 My soul with heavenly thoughts supply ! 
 
 Let no ill di-eams disturb my rest, 
 
 No powers of darkness me molest ! 
 
 Dull sleep, of sense me to deprive ! 
 I am but half my time alive ; 
 Thy faithful lovers. Lord, are grieved 
 To lie so long of Thee bereav'd. 
 
 But though sleep o'er my frailty reigns, 
 Let it not hold me long in chains ; 
 And now and then let loose my heart, 
 Till it an hallelujah dart ! 
 
 The faster sleep the senses binds, 
 The more unfettered are oiu- minds ; 
 Oh, may my soul from matter free. 
 Thy loTeliness unclouded see ! 
 
 Oh, when shall I in endless day, 
 For ever chase dark sleep away, 
 And hymns with the supernal choir 
 Incessant sing, and never tire ? 
 
 Oh, may my Guardian while I sleep. 
 Close to my bed his vigils keep ; 
 His love angelical instil ; 
 Stop aU the avenues of ill : 
 
 May he celestial joy rehearse. 
 
 And thought to thought with me converse ; 
 
 Or in my stead, aU the night long, 
 
 Sing to my God a grateful song ! 
 
54 nyMN-WKITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Praise G-od, from Trhom all blessings flow, 
 Praise Him, all creatures here below ! / 
 
 Praise Him above, ye heavenly host ! 
 Praise Father, Sou, and Holy G-host ! 
 
 Grregory of Nazianzen and Bishop Ken have long since 
 met, and sung together where evening shadows never fall ; 
 and there, too, are the kindred spirits whose evening hymns 
 form the links between the times of Grregory and Ken. 
 There, among the rest, is Hilary of Aides, once bishop, 
 popular preacher, theologian, and poet. And there is 
 Ambrose of Milan, whose morning and evening melodies 
 gave form of devotional expression to the softened heart of 
 the great Augustine, who "alone upon his bed" remem- 
 bered the verses of his friend — 
 
 Maker of all, the Lord 
 
 And ruler of the height, 
 Wlio, robing day in lig'ht, has poured 
 
 Soft slumbers o'er the night, 
 That to our limbs the power 
 
 Of toil may be renew' d, 
 And hearts be rais'd that sink and cower, 
 
 And sorrows be subdu'd. 
 
 From one of these hymnists we have one touching 
 strain, one of the living links in the Church's line of 
 evening hymns — 
 
 Christ our day, our brig-htest light, 
 With Thy face illume the night ; 
 Very Light of light art Thou, 
 Most blessed light imparting now. 
 
 Oh most holy Lord, we pray ; 
 Mighty Guardian, with us stay ; 
 "With quiet blest these hours be ; 
 All calm, while we have rest in Thee. 
 
 Let not heavy sleep oppress ; 
 Let no deadly foe distress ; 
 Nor our flesh through him beguile, 
 And in Thy sight our soiils defile. 
 
 Though sleep fasten on our eyes, 
 Keep our hearts in wakeful guise ; 
 With Thine own right hand defend 
 Thy servants who on Thee depend. 
 
HYMNS OF THE FATHEES. 55 
 
 Servants pixrchased with. Tliy blood, 
 Bearing still their mortal load, 
 Lord, remember ! meet us here, 
 Thou soul defender, now be near ! 
 
 How beautiful are the oneness and the harmony of 
 the evening voices that thus come to us from the dif- 
 ferent periods of Christian history. And no one can 
 catch the tones of evening worship from far-off ages 
 without feeling that they sweetly melt into that tender 
 melody of John Keble's, to which so many hearts of our 
 own times respond, in singing the evening hymn founded 
 on St. Luke xxiv. 29, "Abide with us: for it is toward 
 evening, and the day is far spent " — 
 
 'Tis gone, that bright and orbed blaze. 
 Fast fading from our wistful gaze ; 
 Ton mantling- cloud has hid from sight 
 The last faint pulse of quivering light. 
 
 In darkness and in weariness 
 The traveller on his way must press. 
 No gleam to watch on tree or tower, 
 Whiling away- the lonesome hoxir. 
 
 Sun of my soul ! Thou Saviour dear. 
 It is not night if Thou be near ; 
 Oh may no earth-bom cloud arise 
 To hide Thee from Thy servant's eyes. 
 
 When round Thy wondrous works below. 
 My searching rapturous glance I throw ; 
 Tracing out Wisdom, Power, and Love, 
 In earth or sky, in stream or grove ; — 
 
 Or by the light Thy words disclose. 
 Watch Time's full river as it flows ; 
 Scanning Thy gracious providence. 
 Where not too deep for mortal sense ; — 
 
 When with dear friends sweet talks I hold. 
 And all the flowers of life unfold ; 
 Let not my heart within me burn. 
 Except in all I Thee discern. 
 
 Wben the soft dews of kindly sleep 
 
 My wearied eyelids gently steep ; ' 
 
 Be my last thought, how sweet to rest 
 
 For ever on my Saviour's breast. j 
 
 Abide with me from morn till eve, 
 
 For withovit Thee I cannot live : 
 
 Abide with me when night is nigh. 
 
 For without Thee I dare not die. 
 
56 HYMX-WKITERS AXD THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Thou Framer of tlie liglit and dark, 
 Steer through the tempest Thine own ark ; 
 Amid the howling wintry sea 
 We are in port if we have Thee. 
 
 The rulers of this Christian land, 
 'Twixt Thee and us ordained to stand ; 
 Guide Thou their course, Lord, aright. 
 Let all do all as in Thy sight. 
 
 Oh, by Thine own sad burthen, borne 
 So meekly up the hill of scorn. 
 Teach thoa Thy priests their daily cross 
 To bear as Thine, nor count it loss ! 
 
 If some poor wandering child of Thine 
 Have spurn' d to-day the voice divine ; 
 Now, Lord, the gracious work begin ; 
 Let him no more lie down in sin. 
 
 "Watch by the sick : enrich the poor 
 With blessings from Thy boundless store : 
 Be every mourner's sleep to-night 
 Like infant's slumbers, pure and light. 
 
 Come near and bless ixs when we wake, 
 Ere thi-ough the world oiu* way we take ; 
 Till in the ocean of Thy love 
 We lose ourselves in heaven above. 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 MORE HYMNS OF TEE FATEEES. 
 " Showing to the generations to come the praises of the Lord." 
 
 Primitive Christianity soou fonnd its way to the old seats 
 of patriarchal life. Some of its first songs came from across 
 the land which has " neither mountain, valley, or even 
 plain — the whole being an unequal surface like the high 
 and long waves of a deep sea when subsiding from a 
 tempest into a calm ; " with verdant hollows here and there, 
 but with no ' ' tree anywhere in sight to relieve the monotony 
 of the scene." Along this mysterious reach, this Mesopo- 
 tamia, Abraham came, refreshing himself now and then on 
 a grassy jilot, on his way to Canaan. He came out of 
 "Ur of the Chaldees " to be the Father of the faithful ; 
 and from the same place one, at least, of the Christian 
 fathers came. He, too, was faithful ; and by his Christian 
 hymns he made faithfulness pleasant to his own generation 
 and to many following ages. Ephrem Syrus was born by 
 the crystal waters which refresh the city of Orfah, once 
 Edessa, and which form the lake known to those who enjoy 
 the mulberry groves which overshadow its banks as 
 "Abraham the beloved, or the Friend of Grod." Ephrem, 
 like all who aimed at high spirituality in the fourth century, 
 became a devoted monk ; and on some aspects of his char- 
 acter there still remain shadows of the asceticism which 
 was peculiar to a time of reaction from social licentiousness 
 and decay. But with all Ephrem's asceticism, his hymns 
 testify that he had learnt the lesson which the Saviour so 
 gracefully taught his disciples ; that, though in some cases 
 religious celibacy might be in keeping with the spirit and 
 
58 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 principles of His kingdom — liardness and severity were in 
 no ease consistent with Christian piety ; that the hardness 
 which the law of Moses admitted, and which showed itself 
 in those stern rebukes which were cast on the women who 
 brought their infants to Jesus, must yield to that gentle 
 love which looked with utmost tenderness upon the little 
 ones whose humility, simplicity, and submissiveness typify 
 the highest style of the Christian character. The venerable 
 Mesopotamian hymnist, however severe in his treatment of 
 self, was like his divine Master in his feelings towards 
 children. He must have laid his hands on them lovingly. 
 His smile must have been full of blessing. How sweetly 
 he attunes his music to the voices of his "little flock," 
 while he teaches them to sing in unison with the children 
 in paradise — 
 
 To Thee, G-od, be praises 
 From lips of babes and sucklings, 
 As in the heavenly meadows 
 
 Like spotless lambs they feed. 
 
 'Mid leafy trees they pasture. 
 Thus saith the Blessed Spirit ; 
 And Gabriel, j^rince of angels. 
 That happy flock doth lead. 
 
 The messengers of heaven. 
 With sons of light united, 
 In purest regions dwelling-, 
 No curse or woe they see. 
 
 And at the resurrection, 
 "With joy arise their bodies ; 
 Their spirits knew no bondage. 
 Their bodies now are free. 
 
 Brief here below their sojourn. 
 Their dwelling- is in Eden, 
 And one bright day their parents 
 Hope yet with them to be. 
 
 The heart that is gentle enough to be childlike among 
 childi'en must always have deep sympathy with parents, 
 especially vmder the sorrows of bereavement. And many a 
 lover of little children, though never himself really touched 
 by the unspeakable pang of seeing his own babe breathe 
 its last, has shown himself capable of entering very deeply 
 
MORE HYMNS OF THE FATHERS. 59 
 
 into the feeling of the desolated parent, almost as if that 
 feeling were his own. A few touching verses from a living 
 author afford an example of such inspirations of sympa- 
 thizing genius. The author of " liecords of the Western 
 Shore," had no child of his own when he issued his first 
 volume but he utters the grief of a Cornish mother 
 thus : — 
 
 They say 'tis a sin to sorrow, 
 
 That what God doth is best, 
 But 'tis only a month to-morrow 
 
 I bui'ied it from my breast ! 
 
 I know it should be a pleasure 
 
 Youi- child to God to send. 
 But mine was a precious treasure 
 
 To me and to my poor Friend ! 
 
 I thought it wordd call me mother 
 
 The very first words it said; 
 Oh ! I never can love another. 
 
 Like the blessed babe that's dead ! 
 
 I shall make my best endeavour 
 
 That my sins may be forgiven ; 
 I will serve God more than ever 
 
 To meet my child in heaven ! 
 
 I will check this foolish sorrow, 
 
 For what God doth is best ; 
 But oh ! 'tis a month to-morrow, 
 
 I buried it from my breast ! 
 
 Ephrem Syrus, too, monk as he was, could deeply 
 sympathize with a bereaved heart ; and he shows how 
 truly he made another's sorrows his own when he per- 
 sonates the Christian father lamenting the death of his 
 boy. He becomes as natural in his utterance of parental 
 feeling as he is happy in the expression of living faith: — 
 
 Babe, the gift of God's sweet mercy 
 
 To thy mother's heart and mine, 
 To this world of sorrow coming. 
 
 Beautiful by Grace Divine ; 
 Fair as some sweet summer flower : 
 
 Till that hand of deathly shade 
 Scathed the beavity of my blossom, 
 
 Made the lovely petals fade. 
 Yet I will not grieve nor murmur, 
 
 For the King of kings is thine ; 
 To his marriage chamber taken. 
 
 Bridal joys are ever tliine. 
 
60 HYMN-WKITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Nature would have me repining, 
 
 Love would hold a mournful sway : 
 But I tell them, heav'n hag call'd thee 
 
 To its scenes of endless day. 
 And I fear that by lamenting, 
 
 Breathing tearfully thy name, 
 I might in the Royal presence 
 
 For my sorrow merit blame ; 
 By my tears of bitter anguish 
 
 Desecrate the home of joy; 
 Therefore will I, meekly bending, 
 
 Give thee up to G-od, my boy. 
 
 Still thy voice, thy infant music 
 
 Dwells for ever in my ears ; 
 And fond mem'ry, while I listen, 
 
 Sheds forth many natural tears. 
 Of thy pretty prattle thinking. 
 
 And the lispings of thy love, 
 I should soon begin to murmur, 
 
 Were I not to look above ; 
 But the songs of blessed sjDirits 
 
 Make me wonder, love, and long : — 
 Oh those endless sweet hosannas ; 
 
 Angels sing thy bridal song. 
 
 Hymns like tliese come down to ns as pleasant records 
 of tliat Christian simplicity with which some of the fathers 
 showed forth the spirit and meaning of their Saviour's 
 words, " Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this 
 little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of 
 heaven." One of the finest examples of this Christian 
 greatness, this beautiful association of mental dignity and 
 spiritual power with childlike simplicity and pure humble- 
 ness and submissiveness, is seen in the justly-celebrated 
 and sainted Augustine. He has not, like Ephrem, em- 
 balmed his gentle spirit in hymns for little ones ; but he 
 has immortalized those who, like himself, were " converted 
 and became as little children," and who, amidst the joys 
 of their first love, consecrated their genius to the work of 
 providing both the elders and the children of the Church 
 with hymns and spiritual songs. " I remember," says he, 
 in his holy converse with Grod — "I remember the tears I 
 shed at the psalmody of Thy Church, in the beginning of 
 
 my recovered faith How did I weep through Thy 
 
 hymns and canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of 
 Thy sweet attuned Church. The voices sank into mine 
 
MORE HYMNS OF THE FATHERS. 61 
 
 ears, and the truth distilled into mine heart ; whence the 
 affections of my devotions overflowed, tears ran down, and 
 
 happy was I therein And how at this time I was 
 
 moved, not with the sing-ing, hut with the things sung. 
 When they are sung with a clear voice and modulation 
 most suitable, I acknowledge the great use of this institu- 
 tion." His account of the first hymn-service in the church 
 at Milan, the place of his first love, is touching and instruc- 
 tive. ''It was a year, or not much more, that Justina, 
 mother to the Emperor Valentinian, then a child, perse- 
 cu.ted Thy servant Ambrose in favour of her heresy, to 
 which she was seduced by the Ai-ians. The devout people 
 kept watch in the church, ready to die with their bishop. 
 Thy servant. There my mother. Thy handmaid, bearing a 
 chief part in those anxieties and watchings, lived for 
 prayer. We, yet unwarmed by the heat of Thy Spirit, still 
 were stirred up by the sight of the amazed and disquieted 
 city. Then it was instituted that, after the manner of the 
 Eastern Churches, hymns and psalms should be sung, lest 
 the people should wax faint through the tediousness of 
 sorrow, and from that day to this the custom is retained." 
 The Christian "Hock which thus kejjt up their chant and 
 song in "troublous times," were supplied with many of 
 their favourite hymns by their diligent, faithful, and gifted 
 bishop, Ambrose, Augustine's beloved friend. Some of 
 his songs are favourites still, and have been sung from 
 age to age, becoming fresher and fresher until our own 
 times, and are now giving the promise of renewed life. It 
 is interesting to see that the man who, under the prejudices 
 of his times, utters libels ujDon matrimony, melts into child- 
 like tenderness when he sings of Jesus, and feels that his 
 Saviour became an infant that He might save infants, and 
 hallow human nature in aU its relations. This more pure 
 and gentle Christian feeling may be traced in the " Advent 
 Hymn," so well known as one of the flowers which wreathe 
 his memory — 
 
 Redeemer of the nations, come ; 
 Pure offspring- of the Virgin's womb, 
 Seed of the Avoman promised long, 
 Let ages swell Thine advent song. 
 
 Once from the Father came He forth, 
 Home to the Father rose from earth ; 
 
62 HTMN-WRITEES AJTD THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 The depths of hell the Saviour trod, 
 Now seated on the throne of God. 
 
 To God the Father equal, Word, 
 Thy mortal vesture on Thee gird ; 
 The wealcness of our flesh at length 
 Sustaining by Thy changeless strength. 
 
 Thy cradle shine the darkness through, 
 Illuming night with lustre new, 
 Which never night shall hide again. 
 But faith in ceaseless lig'ht retain. 
 
 Nor has hallo'wed genius lost its tender affection for the 
 " Holy Child Jesus." Ephrem Syrus has long since left 
 his Eastern retreat, and the cloisters of the West no longer 
 echo to the voices of Ambrose and his companions ; but 
 spirits of equal simplicity, and voices of even more than 
 equal sweetness continue to supply God's children with 
 hymns and spiritual songs. One of Ambrose's last strains 
 seems to have some gentle relation to the hymn of a 
 modern bishop, whose amiable soul breathes its music from 
 an Eastern mission Church. Ephrem, and Ambrose, and 
 Heber were kindred spirits. They might be thought to 
 emulate each other in songs on " the childhood of Christ." 
 The pure and delicate beauty of Heber' s hj^mn would have 
 charmed the ancient hymnists, as it insinuates its affec- 
 tionate devotion into every "new-born babe" in Christ 
 who has learnt to sing it — 
 
 By cool Siloam's shady rill 
 
 How sweet the lily grows ; 
 How sweet the breath beneath the hill 
 
 Of Sharon's dewy rose ! 
 
 Lo, such the chUd, whose early feet 
 
 The paths of peace have trod ; 
 Whose secret heart, with influence sweet. 
 
 Is upward drawn to God ! 
 
 By cool Siloam's shady rill 
 
 The lily miist decay ; 
 The rose that blooms beneath the hill 
 
 Must shortly fade away. 
 
 And soon, too soon, the -wintry hour 
 
 Of man's maturer age, 
 Will shake the soul with sorrow's power, 
 
 And stormy passions rage ! 
 
MOBE HYMNS OF THE FATHERS. 63 
 
 Thou whose infant feet were found 
 
 "Within Thy Father's shrine! 
 Whose years, with changeless virtue crowned, 
 
 Were all alike di^ane. 
 
 Dependent on Thy bounteous breath, 
 
 We seek Thy grace alone, 
 In childhood, manhood, age, and death, 
 
 To keep us stiU Thine own ! 
 
 We can never sing tHiis abont tlie cliildhood of Christ 
 without having our pleasures deepened by the assurance 
 that our children have a sacred interest in "the Holy 
 Child." Yes, Jesus smiles to see the cradled infant hushed 
 by a Christian lullaby. Each little one is sacred to Him 
 who was once swaddled in the manger. It was this thought 
 that used at once to melt and brighten the sturdy German 
 Reformer as he hung over his sleeping darling, and sang — 
 
 Sleep well, my dear ; sleep safe and free ; 
 The holy angels are with thee, 
 Who always see thy Father's face, 
 And never slumber nights nor days. 
 
 Thou liest in down, soft every way ; 
 Thy Saviour lay in straw and hay ; 
 Thy cradle is far better drest 
 Than the hard crib where He did rest. 
 
 None dare disturb thy i^resent ease ; 
 He had a thousand enemies ; 
 Thou liv'st in great security ; 
 But He was punished, and for thee ! 
 
 Grod make thy mother's health increase, 
 To see thee grow in strength and grace, 
 In wisdom and hiimility, 
 As infant Jesus did for thee ! 
 
 God fill thee with His heavenly light 
 To steer thy Christian coiu'se arig-ht ; 
 Make thee a tree of blessed root. 
 That ever bends with godly fruit ! 
 
 Sleep now, my dear, and take thy rest ; 
 And if with riper years thou'rt blest. 
 Increase in vrisdom, day and night. 
 Till thou attain' st th' eternal light ! 
 
 And who that knows Greorge Wither's "rocking hymn" 
 is not thankful to providence that it has outlived the storms 
 
64 HYMN-WKITEES AND THEIK HYMNS. 
 
 that beset its author's later life, and is still adapted to its 
 original purpose ? " Nurses," says he, quaintly, " usually 
 sing their children asleep, and, throught want of pertinent 
 matter, they oft make use of unprofitahle, if not worse 
 songs ; this was therefore prepared, that it might help 
 acquaint them and their nurse children with the loving 
 care and kindness of their heavenly Father." 
 
 ■ Sweet baby, sleep ; what ails my dear ; 
 What ails my darling thus to cry ? 
 Be still, my child, and lend thine ear. 
 To hear me sing thy lullaby. 
 
 My pretty lamb, forbear to weep ; 
 
 Be still, my dear ; sweet baby, sleep. 
 
 Thou blessed soul, what can'st thou fear ? 
 "What thing to thee can mischief do ? 
 Thy God is now thy Father dear, 
 His holy spouse thy mother too. 
 
 Sweet baby, then, forbear to weep ; 
 
 Be still, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 
 
 Whilst thus thy lullaby I sing, 
 
 For thee great blessings ripening be ; 
 
 Thine eldest brother is a king, 
 
 And hath a kingdom bought for thee. 
 
 Sweet baby, then, forbear to weep ; 
 
 Be still, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 
 
 Sweet baby, sleep, and nothing fear, 
 For whosoever thee offends, 
 By thy protector threaten' d are. 
 And God and angels are thy friends. 
 
 Sweet baby, then, forbear to weep ; 
 
 Be still, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 
 
 When God with us was dwelling here, 
 In little babes He took delight ; 
 Such innocents as thou, my dear ! 
 Are ever precious in His sight. 
 
 Sweet baby, then, forbear to weep ; 
 
 Be still, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 
 
 A little infant once was He, 
 
 And strength in weakness then was laid 
 
 Upon his virgin mother's knee. 
 
 That power to thee might be conveyed. 
 
 Sweet baby, then, forbear to weep ; 
 
 Be still, my babe ; sweet baby sleep. 
 
MORE HYMNS OF THE FATHERS. 65 
 
 In this thy frailty and thy need, 
 He friends and helpers doth prepare, 
 "Which thee shall cherish, clothe, and feed ; 
 For of thy weal they tender are. 
 
 Sweet baby, then, forbear to weep ; 
 
 Be still, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 
 
 The liing of kings, when He was born. 
 Had not so miich for outward ease ; 
 By him such dressings were not worn, 
 Nor such like swaddling clothes as these. 
 
 Sweet baby, then, forbear to weep ; 
 
 Be still, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 
 
 "Within a manger lodged thy Lord I 
 "Where oxen lay, and asses fed ; 
 "Warm rooms we do to thee afford, 
 An easy cradle or a bed. 
 
 Sweet baby, then, forbear to weep ; 
 
 Be still, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 
 
 The wants that He did then sustain 
 Have purchased wealth, my babe, for thee ; 
 And by His torments and His pain 
 Thy rest and ease secured be. 
 
 My baby, then, forbear to weep ; 
 
 Be still, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 
 
 Thou hast yet more to perfect this, 
 A promise and an earnest got. 
 Of gaining everlasting bliss, 
 Though thou, my babe, perceiv'st it not. 
 
 Sweet baby, then, forbear to weep ; 
 
 Be still, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 
 
 The author of this pattern Christian lullaby was horu 
 June 11, 1588. His portrait has come down to us sur- 
 rounded by the quaint motto, "I grow and wither both 
 together; " but neither the portrait nor the motto gives us 
 so deep and clear an insight into his character as the poems 
 of his earlier life. His genius shone brightest while he 
 was a Eoyalist ; and his " Eocking Hymn " was probably 
 written before his tenderness had given way to the more 
 bitter spirit of satire, which he sometimes vented after he 
 had sided with Cromwell, and had tasted the bitter fruits 
 of change in the loss of both power and fortune. Who is 
 not sorry to see the man whose early hymns gave forth 
 " the finest bursts of sunshine," struggling for popularity 
 
 E 
 
66 UTiCf-TrRTTERS AlfD THEIR HY^INS. 
 
 under the thick cloxul which gathered at last over his party 
 and his character, b}" sending out squibs under the title of 
 "abuses whipt and stript?" Nevertheless, peace to his 
 memory. He has taught many a Christian mother and 
 nurse to hush her baby into rest by singing of its happy 
 relation to Jesus : and perhaps Watts had seen his verses, 
 and caught from them the notion of his own " Cradle 
 Hymn." At all events, we naturally think of Watts as 
 we sing the "Rocking H3^mn " over the cradle. Nobody 
 can sing about children, or teach children to sing, without 
 grateful thoughts of Isaac Watts. He, too, had felt 
 deeply that the " Holy child Jesus" had procured for our 
 children the joy of taking a part in " Hosannas to the 
 Son of David;" that the voice of " little ones " is divine 
 music in the ears of Jesus ; and that to Him the songs of 
 infancy are as the incense of the morning. " During my 
 stay by the sea-side, at one time," said a lady whose 
 appearance was always graceful, though she never seemed 
 to follow the fashion, "I used to be charmed everj" morn- 
 ing by the voices of the children in the nursery, singing as 
 they dressed, under the guidance of the nurse, the inimi- 
 table little song by Watts, ' against pride in clothes.' The 
 music seemed to be the voice of innocence itsplf. I used 
 to think of Him who taught us how to be clothed with 
 humility ; and my soul felt now and then as if He must be 
 listening with pleasure to the dear little creatures singing 
 their morning lesson about the ' blest apparel.' The les- 
 son was hallowed to me. The exquisite little song was 
 never to leave me, and I am all the better for the habit 
 which those darling children tavight me of humming to 
 myself, now aiad then — 
 
 Why should our garments, made to hide 
 Our parents' shame, provoke our pride ? 
 The act of dress did ne'er begin 
 Till Eve our mother learnt to sin. 
 
 When first she pixt the covering en, 
 Her robe of innocence was gone ; 
 And yet her children vainly boast 
 In the sad marks of glory lost. 
 
 How proud we are, how fond to show 
 Our clothes, and call them rich and new ; 
 When the poor sheep and silkworm wore 
 That very clothing long before. 
 
KOEE HYMNS OF THE FATHERS. 67 
 
 The tulip and the butterfly- 
 Appear in gayer clothes than I : 
 Let me be drest fine as I will, 
 Flies, worms, and flowers exceed me still. 
 
 Then wiU I set my heart to flnd 
 Inward adornings of the mind ; 
 Knowledge and virtue, truth and grace. 
 These are the robes of richest dress. 
 
 No more shall worms with me compare, 
 This is the raiment angels wear ; 
 The Son of God, when here below. 
 Put on this blest apjiarel too. 
 
 It never fades, it ne'er grows old. 
 
 Nor fears the rain, nor moth, nor mold ; 
 
 It takes no spot, but still refines. 
 
 The more 'tis worn, the more it shines. 
 
 In this on earth would I appear. 
 Then go to heaven, and wear it there ; 
 Grod will approve it in His sight, 
 'Tis His own work, and His delight." 
 
 Would that the childisli multitude were learning to 
 "murmur" this heautiful lesson, and to practise it, in 
 these days of growing strife and vicious rage for mere 
 appearances. "Watts" should be a household name 
 among all English children. He is always at home with 
 little ones. He is heart to heart with them, and therefore 
 always makes them understand ; and never fails to sway 
 their feeling. He is the child's hymnist. As such, none 
 have surpassed him ; few are his equals. He never lowers 
 the manliness of his simplicity when he sings with chil- 
 dren, though be not unfrequently becomes puerile when 
 he provides hymns for men. In this respect Charles 
 Wesley has the advantage over him. Wesley never, like 
 Watts, brings a mature congregation plump down from 
 grandeur into childishness. When leading the devo- 
 tions of adults, his vigour never fails, though his music 
 may now and then falter. He never has to make so 
 curious an apology for namby-pamby verses as Watts j^uts 
 forth in excuse for occasional trips into tameness. "If," 
 says Watts, "the verses appear so gentle and flowing as 
 to incur the censure of feebleness, I may honestly affirm 
 that sometimes it cost me labour to make it so. Some of 
 
68 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 the beauties of poesy are neglected, and some wilfully 
 defaced, lest a more exalted turn of thought or language 
 should darken or disturb the devotions of the weakest 
 souls." Who can wonder that such an apologist should 
 sometimes flatter the devotions of adult worshippers by 
 forcing on them a sense of the ridiculous ? Wesley never 
 does that ; at the same time, as a child's hymnist, he is 
 never below the standard of Watts ; never being out of 
 tune with the voices, thoughts, or hearts of little ones. 
 Some of his hymns for children have been issued, on some 
 occasions, with Watts' s name attached, comparative igno- 
 rance of hymnology favouring the notion that all merit in 
 juvenile psalmody must necessarily belong to the author of 
 " Divine and Moral Songs." So it has happened with one 
 of the best known of Wesley's " Hymns for the Youngest." 
 
 Gentle Jesus, meek and mild. 
 Look upon a little child ; 
 Pity m.y simplicity. 
 Suffer me to come to Thee. 
 
 Fain I would to Thee be brought, 
 Dearest God, forbid it not ; 
 Give me, dearest God, a place 
 In the kingdom of Thy grace. 
 
 Put Thy hands upon my head. 
 Let me in Thy arms be stay'd, 
 Let me lean upon Thy breast. 
 Lull me, lull me. Lord, to rest. 
 
 Hold me fast in Thy embrace. 
 Let me see Thy smiling face. 
 Give me. Lord, Thy blessing give, 
 Pray for me, and I shall live : 
 
 I shall live the simple life. 
 Free from sin's uneasy strife, 
 Sweetly ignorant of ill, 
 Innocent and happy still. 
 
 that I may never know 
 What the wicked people do ! 
 Sin is contrary to Thee, 
 Sin is the foi-bidden tree. 
 
 Keep me from the great offence, 
 Guard my helpless innocence. 
 Hide me, from all evil hide. 
 Self, and stubbornness, and pride. 
 
MOEE HYMNS OF THE FATHERS. 69 
 
 The second part of this favourite hymn is of surpassing 
 beauty. It wins its way into the soul of every child who 
 lisps it ; gently opening the heart to let the infant Saviour 
 in : — 
 
 Lamb of God, I look to Thee, 
 
 Thou shalt my example be ; 
 
 Thou art gentle, meek, and mild ; 
 
 Thou was't once a little child. 
 
 Fain I would be as Thou art, 
 Grive me Thy obedient heart ; 
 Thou art pitiful and kind. 
 Let me have Thy loving mind. 
 
 Meek and lowly may I be, 
 Thou art all humility ; 
 Let me to my betters bow. 
 Subject to Thy parents Thou. 
 
 Let me above all fulfil 
 God my heavenly Father's will. 
 Never His good Spirit grieve. 
 Only to His glory live. 
 
 Thoti did'st live to God alone, 
 Thou did'st never seek Thine own, 
 Thou thyself did'st never please, 
 God was all Thy happiness. 
 
 Lo-\^ng Jesus, gentle Lamb, 
 In Thy gracious hands I am, 
 Make me, Savioiir, what Thou art, 
 Live Thyself witliin my heart. 
 
 I shall then show forth Thy praise, 
 Serve Thee all my happy days. 
 Then the world shall always see 
 Christ, the holy Child, in me. 
 
 James Montgomery has followed Watts and Wesley, 
 not to rival their fame, or to eclipse it ; but to claim a 
 share in the joy of teaching childhood to honour and love 
 the Divine lover of little children. Nor does he claim an 
 equal place in vain. His voice, his taste, his manner, and 
 his heart are all worthy of a position in the leading choir 
 of children's hymnists ; and one of his tender expressions 
 of youthful devotion may be gracefully associated with 
 the most piu'e and touching hymns of the fathers about 
 the childhood of Jesus. 
 
70 1IYMX-"WEITEE8 AND THEIR HYMXS. 
 
 When Jesus left His Father's throue, 
 
 He chose an humble birth ; 
 Like us, unhonoured and unknown, 
 
 He came to dwell on earth. 
 
 Like Him, may we be fomid below 
 
 In wisdom's paths of peace ; 
 Like Him, in grace and knowledge grow, 
 
 As years and strength increase. 
 
 Jesus pass'd by the rich and great 
 
 For men of low degree ; 
 He sanctified our parents' state, 
 
 For poor, like them, was He. 
 
 Sweet were His words, and kind His look. 
 When mothers round Him press'd ; 
 
 Their infants in His arms He took, 
 And on His bosom bless' d. 
 
 Safe from the world's alluring harms, 
 
 Beneath His watchful eye, 
 Thus in the circle of His arms 
 
 May we for ever lie ! 
 
 When Jesus into Salem rode, 
 
 The childi-en sang around ; 
 For joy they pluck' d the palms, and strew' d 
 
 Their garments on the ground. 
 
 Hosanna our glad voices raise, 
 
 Hosanna to our King ! 
 Shoiild we forget our Saviour's praise. 
 
 The stones themselves would sing I 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 SYJIXS OF OLD ENGLAND'S CHRISTIAN BIRTH-TIME. 
 " And the j)eople that shall be created shall praise the Lord." 
 
 "When I lived at Lichfield," said a lady to a clerical 
 friend, " I used, now and then, to attend the ordination 
 service ; and I learnt one thing at least." 
 
 " What was that ? " 
 
 "Why, that there are some hymns which, though they 
 are known to be mere human compositions, are scarcely 
 ever sung without touching the soul in a manner very like 
 that of inspired truth." 
 
 " Pray, what impressed you with that thought ? 
 
 "Well, I observed that there were always some among 
 the candidates for ordination who seemed disposed to go 
 through the service without seriousness, if not in a style 
 approaching to levity, even during the time allowed for 
 silent prayer ; but that as soon as the hymn ' Veni Creator 
 Spiritus ' was begun, a solemn hush and reverent feeling 
 appeared to rest on each and all." 
 
 " Which of the hymns do you refer to ? There are two 
 in the ordination service." 
 
 "The first. And now let me read it. And if I can 
 read so as to give you the feeling with which it always 
 impresses me, I think you will believe as I do, that the 
 Holy Ghost honours the hymn by M'hich He is honoured, 
 and breathes a holy power into its gracious lines. Let 
 me read." 
 
 Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, 
 And lif^hten with celestial fire. 
 
72 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Thou the anointing Spirit art, 
 
 Who dost Thy seven-fold gifts impart. 
 
 Thy blessed unction from above 
 Is comfort, life, and fire of love. 
 
 Enable with perpetual light 
 The dulness of our blinded sight. 
 
 Anoint and cheer our soiled face 
 With the abundance of Thy grace. 
 
 Keep far our foes, give peace at home : 
 Where Thou art guide no ill can come. 
 
 Teach us to know the Father, Son, 
 And Thee of both to be but one ; 
 
 That through the ages all along, 
 This may be our endless song ; 
 
 Praise to Thine eternal merit, 
 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 
 
 The lady was right ; and her clerical friend confessed to 
 the feeling in which manj^ many have shared, a sense of 
 the spiritual nnction which attends this as well as several 
 other hymns of like primitive simplicity and power. And 
 he was reminded, he said, of Keble's Ordination Hymn, 
 in which this feeling is so sweetly expressed. The hymn 
 is founded on that passage in tlie rubric in the " Office for 
 Ordering Priests," "After this the congregation shall be 
 desired, secretly in their prayers to make their humble 
 supplication to God for all these things; for the which 
 prayers there shall be silence kept for a space. After 
 which shall be sung or said by the bishop (the persons to 
 be ordained priests all kneeling) ' Veni Creator Spiritus.' " 
 
 'Twas silence in Thy temple. Lord, 
 
 When slowly through the hallowed air. 
 
 The spreading clovid of incense soared, 
 
 Charged with the breath of Israel's prayer. 
 
 'Twas silence round Thy throne on high, 
 
 When the last wondrous seal unclos'd; 
 And in the portals of the sky 
 
 Thine armies awfully repos'd. 
 
 And this deep pause, that o'er us now 
 
 Is hovering — comes it not of Thee ? 
 Is it not like a mother's vow, 
 
 When with her darling on her knee, 
 
HYMNS OF OLD ENGLAND'S CHRISTIAN BIRTH-TIME. 73 
 
 She weighs and numbers o'er and o'er 
 Love's treasures hid in her fond breast ; 
 
 To cull from that exhaustless store 
 The dearest blessing and the best ? 
 
 And where shall mother's bosom find, 
 
 "With all its deep love-leanied skill, 
 A prayer so sweetly to her mind, 
 
 As, in this sacred hour- and still, 
 
 Is wafted from the white-rob'd choir. 
 
 Ere yet the pvire high -breathed lay, 
 "Come, Holy Ghost, our soiUs inspire," 
 
 Rise floating on its dove-like way ? 
 
 And when it comes, so deep and clear 
 
 The strain, so soft the melting fall. 
 It seems not to the entranced ear 
 
 Less than Thine own heart-cheering call. 
 
 Spirit of Christ — Thine earnest given 
 
 That these our prayers are heard ; and they 
 
 Who grasp, this hour, the sword of heaven 
 Shall feel Thee on their weary way. 
 
 The " Vmi Creator Spiritns^' was introduced into tlie 
 ritual of the AVestern Church about the end of the eleventh 
 century ; and with beautiful consistency, as an utterance, 
 probably, from the lips of one whose name marks an era in 
 the history of church music ; and it was gracefullj' retained 
 in the service of the English Church as a contribution from 
 the man to whom England owes her first lesson in Chris- 
 tianity. This was Gregory the Great, a man whose name 
 is one of the landmarks of history, and whose character, in 
 grand oiitline, will ever remain as the most distinguished 
 honour of his generation. He was a man for his times. 
 Shut up in Eome, with savage hordes at the gates, and 
 pestilence, famine, and flood within ; with heresy in the 
 provinces, and the care of every department weighing 
 heavily upon him at home, he never " bated jot of heart 
 or hope,'' but met every demand in turn ; always ready, 
 always prompt, alwaj^s decided, and generally successful. 
 He was modest and simple in his dress, plain in his house- 
 hold, severe to himself, but ceaselessly kind to others. 
 He was at once the domestic economist, the vigilant land- 
 owner, the municipal overseer. Now, he is the watchful 
 diplomatist ; then the soldier, superintending his own 
 commissariat, planning his own defences, and directing his 
 
/ 4 HYMN-WBITEKS AND THEIR nYMU S. 
 
 troops. Now in the pulpit, passionately rousing his flock 
 to spiritual life and action ; in the cloisters, keeping his 
 monks to their discipline ; or in his closet, writing 
 " morals " on the Book of Job, or keeping up a wide cor- 
 respondence with kings and queens, ecclesiastics and 
 scholars. Then, in the choir, reforming the church ser- 
 vice, and giving that musical impulse to the Christian 
 ■world which will be felt as long as the " Gregorian Chant" 
 continues to charm a human soul. Indeed he was evevj- 
 thing which his chui'ch and his times required. If to us 
 he seems over- credulous, he was only conformed to the 
 fashion of his day ; and it is a remarkable fact that the 
 same reproach, if reproach it be, has been cast upon 
 almost every man who has been a leader of his generation. 
 In his time the Teutonic tribes had cut out their " marks" 
 in this island, and had fairly taken possession of the soil. 
 They were as yet heathen, but thej^ were the chosen in- 
 struments of heaven in renovating and reorganizing the 
 Avestern world, and in preparing Christendom for her 
 benevolent mission 
 
 " to the farthest verge 
 Of the green earth." 
 
 But who first ministered to them the truth which touched, 
 and purified, and consecrated their minds and hearts to the 
 nobler service of Him by whose providence they had so far 
 been trained ? It was Gregory the Great. Let no Pro- 
 testant be alarmed; his religion is not in danger. Pro- 
 testantism must never be blind to truth, nor do its interests 
 ever require us to be unfair. The scattered remnants of 
 the unfaithful British Church had proved themselves 
 unable or unwilling to evangelize the rude Teutons, and 
 the first Christian mission to these Teutons was from 
 Gregory. The sight of some young Saxon slaves in the 
 Roman markets probably touched his heart, and suggested 
 the first thought of a mission to England. He would fain 
 have entered on the mission himself, but he was too 
 valuable a man for Pome to lose. When raised to the 
 Papal chair, amidst all his labours and cares, his favourite 
 scheme was not forgotten. His first purpose was to pro- 
 cure young natives from the slave market, and have them 
 trained as evangelists to their countrj^men. This process. 
 
HYMNS OF OLD ENGLAND'S CHRISTIAN BIRTH-TIME. 75 
 
 however, was too slow for Lis impatient zeal. He fell 
 back on his mouks, selected a missionary band of nearly 
 forty, and in the year 596 sent them, with many exhorta- 
 tions and blessings, to the coast of Kent. England still 
 reaps the fruit of his success, and, it may be, records her 
 early sense of obligation to Gregory in her national legend 
 of " St. Greorge (or St. Gregory) and the Dragon." Pagan- 
 ism (the "Dragon") in England fell before the cross; and 
 the ultimate result of Augustine's mission was the establish'^ 
 ment of a Saxon Church, which, for many generations, 
 exemplified the purity and power of the Christian faith. 
 Like the primitive churches, it had its "psalms, and hymns, 
 and spiritual songs," some of them borrowed from the 
 land to which it owed its spiritual birth, and others, in 
 native Saxon rhythm, springing from the warm and simple 
 hearts of English converts. A few precious fragments of 
 native hymnology remain, and a translation from the 
 Codex Exoniensis may afford some notion of the simple 
 heartiness and quaint music of a Saxon hvmn "to the 
 Holy Trinity." 
 
 Holy art Thou, holy. 
 Lord of archangels, 
 True Lord of triiimph, 
 Ever Thou art holy, 
 Lord of lords. 
 Thy power for ever lasteth 
 Earthly with men, 
 In every time 
 Widely revered ; 
 Thou art God of hosts, 
 Eor Thou hast filled 
 Earth and heavens — 
 Safeguard of warriors ! 
 "With Thy glory, 
 Patron of all beings ! 
 Be to Thee in the highest 
 Eternal health. 
 And on earth praise. 
 Bright with men. 
 Live Thou blessed, 
 Who, in the Lord's name, 
 With power comest. 
 In comfort to the humble ; 
 To Thee in the heavens be, 
 Ever without end. 
 Eternal praise. 
 
76 HYlSm-WRITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 But the Saxon Church, was not left to its own resources 
 merely for supplies to its "service of song." Many a 
 choral chant and many a grand old Latin hymn came 
 floating across the Channel from the churches of Italy and 
 Graul. England had its schools of church music, and dili- 
 gently enriched its public devotion with the compositions 
 of Continental hymnists. Venantius Fortunatiis was in 
 his prime during Grregory's early life. A monk, too, in 
 his later days, he exemplified the possibility of harmoniz- 
 ing literary freedom and cheerful or even light-hearted 
 contentment with monastic vows. He could enjoy many a 
 quiet laugh in his correspondence with saintly ladies, and 
 yet furnish them with grand hymns to grace their church 
 processions. One of these immortal productions was com- 
 posed for a special service, in which Grregory of Tours and 
 the author's lady friend St. Eadigund took a leading part. 
 It would be sung as a kind of spiritual march, " a song of 
 degrees," as they moved with devout steps towards the 
 church which was to be consecrated. The strain is not 
 quite so simple and unpretending as some hj-mns of an 
 earlier time, but it has a solemn swell and a subduing 
 pathos : — 
 
 The royal ensigns onward go ; 
 
 The cross in mystic glory beams, 
 "Where He who made us bears our woe, 
 
 Our curse removes, our soul redeems. 
 
 Where gushing life flows from His side, 
 To wash our hearts — a precious flood ; 
 
 Where deeply once the spear was dy'd, 
 And mingling water came with blood. 
 
 Fulfill' d is David's song of old, 
 
 How David's Son and Lord is He 
 Who rules the nations, as foretold ; 
 
 The God who triumphs from the tree.* 
 
 In royal purple richly drest, 
 
 O cross of light ! O tree of grace ! 
 Chosen was Thy triumphal breast, 
 
 For holy limbs, a resting-place ! 
 
 * An allusion to Psalm xcvi. 10, which, in the Italic version, is 
 rendered, " Tell it among the heathen that the Lord reigneth from 
 the tree." 
 
HYMNS OF OLD ENGLAND S CHRISTIAN BIKTH-TIME. / / 
 
 So widely Thy dear arms were spread, 
 
 The ransom of the world to bear — 
 To pay the price in sinners' stead, 
 
 And spoils from our fell spoiler tear. 
 
 From all thy boughs, fragrant tree, 
 
 Sweetest of nectar sweets distil. 
 And praises richly bloom on thee, 
 
 And fruits of peace thy branches fill. 
 
 Hail, holy victim ! Hail, O life ! 
 
 Who death for sinners once endured ; 
 Victoi'ious from Thy passion' s strife, 
 
 Thy death hath Hfe for man procured 1 
 
 We can never think of England's Christian birth- time 
 without thinking of one of her first and holiest Christian 
 children — one whose memory is now honoured under the 
 title of the "Venerable Bede." Nor can this nam.e ever 
 cease to be associated with Christian psalmody. Born, 
 about the year 672, near the spot on which the good 
 Benedict Biscop soon afterwards founded the Abbey of 
 Wearmouth, he became a pupil under Biscop when seven 
 years old, and remained a devout brother of the monastery 
 of Wearmouth until death. His earlier years were spent 
 in the study, of the Scriptures, and in the practice of 
 psalmody, which formed a prominent part in the daily 
 services of the church. His taste for psalms and hymns 
 and holy music was cidtivated under the care of John the 
 arch-chanter, who had accompanied Biscop from Eome. 
 In his nineteenth year he was made deacon, and at thirty 
 was ordained a priest. His life was spent in tranquil study, 
 earnest prayer, and cheerful praise. His disciple and 
 friend Cuthbert, who witnessed his end, gives us the follow- 
 ing beautiful and touching story : — " He had been laboiu'ing 
 under a severe attack of difficulty of breathing, yet 
 without pain, for nearly two weeks before the day of our 
 Lord's resurrection; and in this state he continued, cheei- 
 ful and rejoicing, and giving thanks to Almighty Grod, 
 both day and night, even every hour, until ascension day. 
 He daily instructed us his disciples, and spent the remain- 
 der of the day in the singing of psalms, and continued on 
 also during the night in joy and thanksgiving, except 
 when interrupted by a moderate sleep. On awaking, he 
 returned to his accustomed occupation, and with out- 
 
78 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 stretched hands ceased not to give thanks to Grod. He 
 was in truth a blessed man. He chanted the passage from 
 St. Paul, ' It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of 
 the living Grod; ' and many other passages of Holy Writ, 
 in which he admonished us to rise from the sleep of the 
 soul hj^ anticipating the last hour. And being skilled in 
 our poetry, he thus spoke in the Saxon language of the 
 awful departure of the soul from the body : — 
 
 Before the need-fare 
 
 No man becometh 
 
 Of thought more prudent 
 
 Than is needful to him 
 
 To consider 
 
 Before his departure 
 
 What, to his spirit, 
 
 Of good or evil 
 
 After his death-daj^ 
 
 Will be adjudg-ed. 
 
 He also sang anthems, as well for our consolation as his 
 own, one of which was the following : — 
 
 O King of glory, 
 
 God of might. 
 
 Who didst ascend to-day, 
 
 In triumph above all heavens. 
 
 Leave us not orphans. 
 
 But send upon us 
 
 The promise of the Father, 
 
 The Spirit of truth. 
 
 Hallelujah! 
 
 And when he came to the words, ' Leave us not orphans,' 
 he burst into tears, and wept much ; and, after the space 
 of an hour, he resumed the repetition of what he had 
 beo-uu. As we heard, we wept along with him; one while 
 we read, another while we wept ; and our reading was 
 always mingled with tears. In such kind of joy as this 
 we passed the days between Easter, and up to the day 
 which I have mentioned ; and he rejoiced exceedingly, and 
 thanked Grod, who had thought him worthy of suffering .... 
 In addition to the lessons we received from him, and the 
 sino-ing of psalms, he strove all this time to finish two 
 very important works — the Grospel of St. John, which he 
 was translating into Saxon for the use of the Church, and 
 
IIYMK^S OF OLD ENGLAND S CHRISTIAN" BIRTH-TIME. / 9 
 
 certain extracts from the Looks of the Eotee of St. Isidore. 
 'Learn quickly,' he would say, 'for I know not how 
 long I may abide, nor how soon He who created me may 
 take me away.' One of lis remained with him one day, 
 and said, ' Dearly beloved master, one chapter is still 
 wanting ; and it appears to be painful to you that I should 
 ask any further cpiestions.' But he said, ' It does not 
 trouble me ; take your pen, and be attentive, and write 
 quickly.' At the ninth hour he expressed a wish to see 
 all the presbyters, that he might admonish them, and dis- 
 tribute a few gifts among them. They all mourned or 
 wept, chiefly because he told them that they should no 
 longer see his face in the world ; but they rejoiced when 
 he said, ' It is time that I returned to Him who made me, 
 who created me, and formed me out of nothing. I have 
 had a long life upon the earth ; the merciful Judge has 
 also been pleased to ordain for me a happy life. The time 
 of my departure is at hand, for I have a clesire to depart, 
 and to be with Christ.' And with many such like remarks 
 he passed the day until eventide ; then the boy whom we 
 have already mentioned said to him, ' Still one sentence, 
 dear master, remains unwritten.' He replied, ' Write 
 quickly ! ' After a little while the boy said, ' Now the 
 sentence is finished. ' He answered, ' You have spoken 
 the truth ; it is indeed finished. Raise my head in your 
 hands, for it pleases me much to recline opposite to that 
 holy place of mine in which I used to pray, so that, while 
 resting there, I may call upon Grod my Father.' And 
 being placed upon the pavement of his cell, he said, 
 ' Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 
 Grhost ! ' and as soon as he had named the name of the 
 Holy Ghost, he breathe out his own spirit, and so de- 
 parted to the kingdom oi heaven." Blessed man ! he has 
 followed 
 
 The Saviour's pathway to his home above. 
 
 And while we linger around the scene of his departure, 
 we catch the music of that divine "Ascension hymn" of 
 his, in which he used to express the longing of his soul in 
 its upward gaze after the ascending Lord : — 
 
 A hymn of glory let ixs sing ; 
 
 New hjonns throughout the wond shall ring ; 
 
80 HYMN- WRITERS A^^) THEIR HYMXS. 
 
 By a new way none ever trod, 
 
 Christ mountetli to the throne of God. 
 
 The apostles on the mountain stand — 
 The mystic mount in Holy Land ; 
 Thej", with the Virgin Mother, see 
 Jesus ascend in majesty. 
 
 The angels say to the eleven, 
 " Why staud ye gazing into heaven ? 
 This is the Saviour — this is He I 
 Jesus hath triumph' d gloriously ! " 
 
 They said the Lord should come again, 
 As these beheld Him rising then, 
 Calm soaring through the radiant sky, 
 Mounting its dazzling summits high. 
 
 May our affections thither tend, 
 And thither constantly ascend. 
 When, seated on the Father's throne, 
 Thee, reigning in the heavens, we own I 
 
 Be Thou our present joy, Lord, 
 Who wilt be ever our reward ; 
 And as the countless ages flee, 
 May all our glory be in Thee ! 
 
 In this tymn, as well as in tlie other fragments which, 
 have come to us from the venerable Bede, there is the h.oly 
 familiarity with the historical parts of the New Testament, 
 and the same simple and devout pleasure in them which 
 distinguish most of the earlier hymns of the Christian 
 Church. Bede, too, keeps up that fixed adoring gaze 
 upon the divine objects of faith, and that deejjly reverent 
 3^et jubilant feeling of devotion which give the songs of 
 Christianity's first love the secret of their beauty and life. 
 In him, also, there is sometimes that tender sympathy 
 with infancy and youth which is so often associated with 
 pure heaveuliness of spirit in the trvily primitive Christian 
 Fathers. This feeling breathes sweetly in his hymn " for 
 the Holy Innocents : " — 
 
 Raise the conquering martyr's song ; 
 Song of the Victor Innocents ; 
 Outcasts from tli' unholy throng, 
 Niunber'd now with heaven's saints ; 
 Those whose angels see God's face. 
 Pour unceasing shouts along ; 
 While they ever hjonn His grace, 
 Raise the conquering martyr's song I 
 
HYMNS OF OLD ENGLAND'S CHRISTIAN BIETH-TIME. 81 
 
 By that cursed ruler slain ; 
 
 By their loving Maker crowned ; 
 
 Sorrowless with Him to reign, 
 
 Where beautj^, light, and peace abound. 
 
 There He gives them mansions all ; 
 
 They have changed their loss for gain ; 
 
 In their heavenly Father's hall, 
 
 By that cui'sed ruler slain. 
 
 A wailing voice in Eamah rose, 
 
 From weeping mothers all forlorn ; 
 
 Sad Rachel mourned her children's woes, 
 
 Her victim babes, for murder born. 
 
 Now their triumph is complete ; 
 
 XJnconquered by tormenting foes ; 
 
 Though once from homes, and fields, and street, 
 
 A wailing voice in Eamah rose. 
 
 Blest little flock, no longer fear 
 The lion that prey'd on your life. 
 For now your heav'nly Shepherd dear 
 Gives pastures never scath'd by strife: 
 On Sion's hill now dwelling safe. 
 The footprints of the Lamb are clear ; 
 No tyrant there your souls will chafe, 
 Blest little flock, no longer fear. 
 
 The tear is wiped from every eye 
 By His, your tender Father's, hand ; 
 No harm of death is ever nigh, 
 Wliere life breathes o'er the happy land. 
 Who sow in tears, in joy shall reap ; 
 Their harvest-home is found on high ; 
 The light of heav'n sees no one weep ; 
 The tear is wiped from every eye. 
 
 A city blest through all the earth. 
 With martyr's' triumphs, martyrs' love ; 
 Thy boast is in thy Saviour's birth, 
 which gives thee greatness far above 
 ALL cities that would count thee small, 
 Or rival thee in pride or mirth ; 
 Thy holy claim surpasses all, 
 O city blest through all the earth ! 
 
 That venerable hymnist, wlio thus supplied the choir 
 with appropriate means of celebrating the day of ' ' Holy 
 Innocents," quotes from other hymnists here and there — 
 hymuists whose names, it may be, we shall never know in 
 this world, but whose hymns seem to have been familiar to 
 Bede, and were probably used in the English Church in 
 
 F 
 
82 HTMN-WEITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 that its Christian Lirtli-time. Of these, one is a fine old 
 judgment hymn, which, as Dr. Neale observes, manifestly 
 contains the germ of the Dies Ira, to which, however inferior 
 in lyric fervour and effect, it scarcely yields in devotion and 
 simple realization of its subject: — 
 
 That great day of wrath is coming, 
 
 Day of doom and final woe ; 
 Like a midnight robber breaking 
 
 On the sons of men below ; 
 When the world's proud life is over. 
 
 All her pomp of ages pass'd. 
 And her cliildren stand in anguish, 
 
 That the end is come at last; 
 And the blast of that loud trumpet, 
 
 Through earth's quarters pealing dread, 
 Louder and yet louder waxing. 
 
 Calls together quick and dead; 
 And the glorious King appearing 
 
 On His throne so high and white, 
 And His holy bands of angels 
 
 Wait within His circling light ; 
 And the sun, like sackcloth darkling. 
 
 And the moon a bloody red, 
 And the stars from heaven falling, 
 
 As untimely figs are shed ; 
 Tempests, fires, and desolation 
 
 Tore the Judge's footsteps go ; 
 Earth and sea, all life's abysses. 
 
 Shall his final sentence know. 
 
 Wlierefore man, while judgment lingers, 
 
 riy the dragon's charm of sin ; 
 And with bread supply the needy. 
 
 If thou would' st thy heaven win ; 
 Gird thy loins, be up and ready. 
 
 Heart all pure, and conscience right ; 
 Let the Bridegroom, when He cometh, 
 
 Eind thy lamp-flame clear and bright. 
 
 Who does not wish to realize oneness with those who 
 used to sing such hymns ? In many respects mere trans- 
 lations are defective, but in this case they may be so far in 
 the spirit and manner of the originals as to show us that 
 the early English Christians really learnt to "admonish one 
 another in psalms, and hymns, and sjjiritual songs." 
 
 England, however, may be said to have had a second 
 Christian birth-time, when she was saved from the dark- 
 
HYiixs OF OLD England's ohristian bieth-time. 83 
 
 ness and corruption wliicli for many centuries, in her later 
 history, had been enclosing and oppressing her Christian 
 life, when in all her sanctuaries she might have sung one 
 of her own bishop's hymns : — 
 
 Hence in Thy trutli Thy Church delights, 
 
 From all corruptions freed; 
 Unblemish'd worship, spotless rites, 
 
 And unadulterate creed : 
 Hence Thy pure words her children lead 
 
 To speak the united prayer. 
 Their Saviour's name alone to plead, 
 
 His cup of blessing share. 
 
 God, whose love, our country's guides, 
 
 Once nerved with courage strong, 
 And still o'er us, their sons, presides, 
 
 Accept our grateful song. 
 And oh, the truth, revived among 
 
 Our sires from times of old, 
 Do Thou to future times prolong, 
 
 And grant our sons to hold ! 
 
 The process of England's Christian renewal was some- 
 what slow ; beginning amidst the changes under Henry 
 VIII., and unfolding its first definite results as the claims 
 of the Stuart dynasty yielded to the rights of conscience 
 and of law. The seventeenth century may be called the 
 age of England's renovation, and the period was marked 
 by a quickening in every department of public life. Every 
 sphere of science, literature, arts, and religion was adorned 
 with the most illustrious talent, learning and genius. Nor 
 was the age wanting in poets whose hallowed powers were 
 given to Him whose grace had inspired the new Christian 
 life. Psalms and hymns broke forth then, as well as in 
 the earlier times of deliverance. The hymns were not per- 
 haps so simple, so childlike ; their manner and style had 
 more of the artificial ; and, like the times which gave them 
 birth, they had too many elaborated conceits, and quaint 
 tiu'ns of thought and expression ; still, they had their dis- 
 tinctive beauty, and were quite eqvial in spirituality, and 
 cheerfulness, and warmth. Among other hymnists of the age 
 there was Erancis Quarles. Who can forget him ? He was 
 * ' the darling of our plebeian judgment s, " as Milton's nephew, 
 Phillips, called him, with a kind of prophetic insight into 
 
84 HYMN- WRITERS AK'D THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 the unfailing popularity of " Quarles' Divine Emblems," 
 in the cottage homes of his country. Born in Essex in 
 1592, Quarles was by and by known among the Cambridge 
 scholars, then respected as a student in Lincoln's Inn ; 
 and then, by turns, he acted as cupbearer to a ro^'al h3'mnist, 
 Elizabeth of Bohemia, as secretary to Ai'chbishop Usher, 
 and as chronologer to the City of London. Amidst all the 
 activities of his busy aud public life his poetic genius was 
 kept in full play; ever and anon giving to the world either a 
 "Job Militant," or a "Feast of Worms," or " Sion's 
 Elegies," or the fruits of "the Morning Muse." The good 
 man, however, like many of his fellows, suffered so much 
 from the strife of parties that he fell a victim to sorrow at 
 the age of fifty-two. His "Emblems" have enriched the 
 thoughts of many a peasant ; but peasant and prince alike 
 may enjoy his noble hymn on " Delight in Grod Only." 
 
 I love (and have some cause to love) the eartli : 
 She is my Maker's creature ; therefore good : 
 She is my mother, for she gave m^e birth ; 
 She is my tender mu'se — she gives me food ; 
 
 But what's a creatiu-e, Lord, compared with Thee ? 
 
 Or "what's my mother, or my nurse to me ':' 
 
 I love the air : her daily sweets refresh 
 
 My drooping sovil, aud to new sweets invite me ; 
 
 Her shrill-mouth'd quire siistains me with their flesh, 
 
 And with their polyijhonian notes delight me ; 
 But what's the air, or all the sweets that she 
 Can bless my soul withal, compared to Thee ? 
 
 I love the sea : she is my fellow creature, 
 My careful purveyor ; she provides me store ; 
 She walls me round ; she makes my diet greater ; 
 She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore : 
 
 But, Lord of oceans, when compared with Thee, 
 
 What is the ocean, or her wealth to me ? 
 
 To heaven's high city I direct my joui'ney, 
 Whose spangled suburbs entertain my eye, 
 Mine eye, by contemplations great attorney. 
 Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky : 
 
 But what is heaven, great God, comijared to Thee ? 
 
 Without Thy presence heaven's no heaven to me. 
 
 Without Thy presence earth gives no refection ; 
 Without Thy presence sea affords no treasure ; 
 
HYMN'S OF OLD ENGLAND'S CHRISTIAN BIRTH-TIME. 85 
 
 Without Thy presence air's a rank infection ; 
 
 Without Thy presence heaven itself no pleasure ; 
 If not possess' d, if not enjoy'd in Thee, 
 "V^^lat 's earth, or sea, or air, or heaven to me ? 
 
 The highest honours that the world can boast, 
 
 Are subjects far too low for my desire ; 
 
 The brightest beams of glory are (at most) 
 
 But d;sdng- sj^arkles of Thy living- fire : 
 
 The loudest flames that earth can kindle, be 
 But mighty glow-worms, if compared to Thee. 
 
 Without Thy presence wealth is bags of cares ; 
 
 Wisdom but folly ; joy disquiet sadness : 
 
 Friendship is treason, and delights are snares ; 
 
 Pleasures but pain, and mirth but pleasing madness ; 
 Without Thee, Lord, things be not what they be, 
 Nor have they being when compared with Thee. 
 
 In having all things, and not Thee, what have I ? 
 Not having Thee, what have my labours got ? 
 Let me enjoy but Thee, what further crave I ? 
 And having Thee alone, what have I not? 
 I wish nor sea nor land ; nor would I be, 
 _ Possess' d of heaven, heaven unijossess'd of Thee. 
 
CHAPTEE yil. 
 
 HYMNS FROM OLD CLOISTERS. 
 
 '• Tlie wilderness and the solitaiy place shall be glad for them; and the 
 desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, 
 and rejoice even with joy and singing. 
 
 Have you learned to bless tlie name of Jesus from the 
 depth of a loving heart ? Then, at times, you have been 
 sweetly touched or strangely warmed, while trying to 
 realize communion with all that is holy in the past, as you 
 caught the music of a hj'mn coming, now but faintly, and 
 now in swelling fervent tones from successive generations 
 of the faithful. Listen ! Do you know the gracious heart- 
 felt verses ? 
 
 Jesus, the only thought of Thee, 
 
 "With sweetness fills my breast ; 
 But sweeter far it is to see, 
 
 And on Thy beauty feast. 
 
 No sound, no harmony so gay, 
 
 Can art, or music frame : 
 No thought can reach, no words can say, 
 
 The sweebs of Thy bless' d name. 
 
 Jesus, our hoiDe, when we repent. 
 
 Sweet source of all our grace ; 
 Sole comfort in our banishment ; 
 
 ! what when face to face ! 
 
 Jesus ! that name inspires my mind 
 
 With springs of life and light, 
 Moi-e than I ask in Thee I find, 
 
 And lavish in delight. 
 
HYMNS FROM OLD CLOISTERS. 87 
 
 Nor art or eloquence of man 
 
 Can tell the joys of love ; 
 Only the saints can understand, 
 
 What they in Jesus prove. 
 
 Thee, then I'll seek, retired apart 
 
 From world and business free ; 
 When these shall knock, I'll shut my heart. 
 
 And keep it all for Thee. 
 
 Before the morning light I'll come, 
 
 With Magdalen to find, 
 In sighs and tears, my Jesus' tomb, 
 
 And there refresh my mind. 
 
 My tears upon His grave shall flow, 
 
 My sighs the garden fill ; 
 Then at His feet myself I'll throw, 
 
 And there I'll seek His will. 
 
 Jesxs, in Thy bless'd steps I'll tread. 
 
 And walk in all Thy ways ; 
 I'll never cease to weep and plead, 
 
 Till I'm restored to grace. 
 
 O King of love, Thy blessed fire. 
 
 Does such sweet flames excite. 
 That first it raises the desire, 
 
 Then fills it with delight. 
 
 Thy lovely presence shines so clear 
 
 Thro' every sense and way. 
 That souls which once have seen Thee near. 
 
 See all things else decay. 
 
 Come then, dear Lord, possess my heart, 
 
 Chase thence the shades of night ; 
 Bid all but perfect love depart, 
 
 Before Thy shining light. 
 
 Thy name I then will ever sing. 
 
 And with Thy saints rejoice ; 
 My heart shall own Thee as its king. 
 
 Midst never-ending joys. 
 
 From whence did tMs song arise ? Who first sang it ? 
 Let us seek its birthplace in a manj-storied land. In one of 
 the eastern departments of France, not far from the source 
 of the Seine, and on the banks of tlie tranquil Saone, we 
 should be far away from commercial bustle and mechanical 
 strife, in a region where a simple and quiet husbandry is 
 
00 nyMX-"vriiiTEES axd their hymns. 
 
 content, without the aid of science ; -where the multiplied 
 subdivisions of the fruitful soil, Trild and neglected tracts, 
 UTid a population of unaspiring cultivators would scarcely 
 seem to witness of an illustrious past. Nevertheless, we 
 should find ourselves surrounded by monuments of former 
 splendour. There are ancient tokens of lordly jiride and 
 martial power, footprints of bright intellect, hallowed 
 learning, religious mystery, saintly thought, and heavenly 
 devotion. There are remnants of old cities, and castles, 
 and abbeys, with garden grounds, and vine-covered slopes, 
 and verdant hills ; indeed, enough in nature, and still 
 enough of art to show that old Burgund^^ was " a land of 
 corn and wine," in appearance, and resources, and fruitful- 
 ness, verily the " golden land." There, in a forest valley, 
 within a recess adorned with interwoven flowers, and over- 
 shadowed by primitive oaks and beeches, somewhat more 
 than seven centuries ago, heaven first heard the music of 
 our hymn to " the sweet memory of Jesus." It arose from 
 the sanctified heart and lips of Bernard, deservedly 
 honoured as St. Bernard, the " mellifluous doctor." He 
 was a monk ; but, though a monk, he was never what one 
 prejudiced biographer supposed that, as a monk, he must 
 necessarily be, "a turbulent and hot-headed fanatic." No; 
 Bei-nard was a saintly man. He was not " above his 
 Master." It was enough for him that " the disciple be as his 
 Master"; and there had been those who said of his Master, 
 *' He hath a devil and is mad." But who could sing of 
 Jesus as Bernard did, unless he was ruled by " the love of 
 Christ"? The monastery in Bernard's day was the only 
 home for such high-toned piety as his. He had scarcely 
 passed into mature manhood when he was elected as the 
 leader of twelve recluses, who, with himself, were devoted 
 to the work of foimding a new religious community in the 
 desert. Their chief design was to save themselves and 
 the souls of the people among whom they exercised their 
 itinerant ministry- ; but the}' were also bent upon toiling 
 until "the land that was desolate was become like the 
 Garden of Eden." They were among the first "model 
 farmers " of Europe. And though they may not be classed 
 with the " genial fraternities " whose names still mark the 
 most distinguished vineyards of modern times, they share 
 the honour of those labourers who first broke the soil of 
 
HYMNS FROM OLD CLOISTERS. 89 
 
 our -n-estern -wastes, and taug-lit it to unfold its resources 
 so as to meet the advancing claims of modern civilization. 
 Bernard found a spot within a pathless forest, haunted by 
 robbers, and dreaded as the "valley of wormwood " ; and 
 there he and his companions began their task with cheer- 
 ful courage, and worked, now in a devotional silence, and 
 now, with chant and psalmody, literally speaking to them- 
 selves and answering one another, "in psalms, and hymns, 
 and spiritual songs," till "the valley of wormwood" be- 
 came Clairvaux, "the bright valley"; and the fruitful 
 little church in the desert might rejoice in the fulfilment 
 of the promise, "I will give her her vineyards from thence, 
 and the valley of Achor for a door of hope ; and she shall 
 sing there as in the daj-s of her j'outh, and as in the day 
 when she came up out of the land of Egypt." It was 
 amidst the toils and songs, the prayers and chants of that 
 valley that the character of Bernard attained its maturity 
 of Christian manliness. There his character seemed to 
 perfect its balance, and to show how unearthliness and 
 tender humanity, the contemplative and the practical, the 
 severe and the gentle, the strict and the free, the frugal 
 and the generous, the truthful, the wise, and the loving, 
 could all harmonize in blessing the existing generation, and 
 in shedding balmy lessons on the minds and hearts of 
 following ages. How much Bernard owed to his mother! 
 and how often when his name occurs do we think of Han- 
 nah and the child of her many prayers. Hannah's inspired 
 joy as a mother gave holy song to the "church through- 
 out all the world " ; and the prayers of the Lady Aletta 
 for her boy who first saw the light in a.d. 1091, under the 
 vine slopes of Cote d'Or, had their full answer in the 
 jubilant piety and songful life of her converted Bernard. 
 She prayed that he might be a monk ; believing that such a 
 life was best for his soul ; and what she praj^ed for, her 
 well- trained child was brought to enjoy. Like Hannah, 
 she had " lent him to the Lord," and like Hannah's son he 
 found the joy of his life in the " Beautj^ of Holiness." His 
 mother's death-chamber was to him the birthplace of a new 
 life. Aletta wished to depart with the chant of a litany on her 
 ears. She lived to catch the touching appeal, "By thy 
 cross and passion," and her last words were the response, 
 " Good Lord deliver us ! " She was gone to her rest ; her 
 
90 HYMN-'WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 works of piety and charity follow her ; but her boy was 
 left to record the hour of her departure as the turning 
 point of his own life. He had lost his mother, but Jesus 
 her Saviour was now his own ; and with the hallowed 
 memory of Aletta's final hour still touching his soul, he 
 breathed his hymn of appeal to Christ — 
 
 When my dying' hour must be, 
 Be not absent then from m.e ; 
 In that dreadful hour, I pray, 
 Jesus, come without delay, 
 
 See and set me free ! 
 When Thou biddest me depart, 
 Whom I cleave to with my heart, 
 Lover of my soul be near. 
 With Thy saving cross appear, 
 
 Show Thyself to me ! 
 
 The character of Bernard was a faithful mirror of his 
 times. The crusade against the " infidel," and the rescue 
 of his own countrymen's souls from sin, both engaged his 
 burning zeal and eff'ective eloquence and prayers. He 
 advocated a high spiritual standard of Romanism. He 
 entered the controversial lists against scejotical Churchmen 
 and fashionable heresies ; but whatever he did, he did it 
 "to the Lord," and did it with all his heart. It is most 
 pleasant, however, to commune with him as the expositor 
 of evangelical truth, and the tender, ardent, and spiritual 
 hymnologist of the universal Church, We love him for 
 his warm and spirited, but reverent, testimony for Christ, 
 especially in his atoning work ; but how all our powers and 
 feelings harmonize in choral service, when his theme of 
 Clmstian controversy glows and kindles into song ! 
 Where is the Christian heart that is not ready to sing with 
 him? — 
 
 Fix, oh, fix each crimson wound, 
 And those nail-prints so profound, 
 In my heart engrave them fully, 
 That I may grow like Thee wholly, 
 
 Jesus, Saviour, sweet ! 
 Pitying God, to Thee I cry. 
 Guilty at Thy feet Hie; 
 Oh ! be merciful to me, 
 Nor bid me, unworthy, flee 
 
 From Thy sacred feet ! 
 
HYMNS FROM OLD CLOISTERS. 91 
 
 Prostrate, see Thy cross I grasp, 
 And Thy pierced feet I clasp ; 
 Gi'acious Jesus, spurn me not ; 
 On me, with compassion fraught, 
 
 Let Thy g-lances fall. 
 !Frona Thy cross of agony. 
 My beloved, look on me ; 
 Turn me wholly unto Thee ; 
 " Be thou whole," say openly ; 
 
 " I forgive thee all." 
 
 Of all the men of his time, he seems to have had the 
 deepest insight into St. Paul's spirit and views ; and he 
 richly exemplified the connexion bet^^een right views of 
 the cross and genuine zeal for the Church and the salva- 
 tion of the world. His recorded views of the atonement 
 show that he kept his acute intellect attuned to his sub- 
 dued will and high-toned affections, while they afford us 
 an insight into the secret of his deep feeling and power as 
 a leader in psalms, and hymns, and chants in praise of 
 Christ. "We cannot fathom the mystery of the Divine 
 will," says he ; " yet we can feel the effect of the (atoning) 
 work, we can be sensible of the benefit. Why did He 
 accomiilish that by His blood which He might have accom- 
 plished by a word ? Ask Himself ? It is vouchsafed to 
 me to know that the fact is so, but not the ivherefore. . . . 
 It was not the death of Christ in itself, but the will of Him 
 who freely offered Himself, that was acceptable to God ; 
 and because this precious death, procuring the downfall of 
 sin, could only be brought about by sin, so God had no 
 pleasure in the sin, but used it for good. God did not only 
 require the death of His Son, but accepted it when offered. 
 He did not thirst for man's blood, but for man's salvation. 
 . . . . Three things here meet together— the humility 
 of self-renunciation ; the manifestation of love, even to the 
 death of the cross ; the mystery of redemption, whereby 
 He overcame death. The two former facts are nothing 
 without the third. The examples of humility and love are 
 something great, but have no firm foundation without the 
 redemption." . Some of Bernard's first converts were his 
 own father, and brothers, and personal friends. Like 
 Andrew, "he first found his oicm, and brought them to 
 Jesus." He closed his father's eyes in peace and hope, 
 
92 IIYMN-WEITEKS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 and then he saw his best-beloved brother, Gerard, take his 
 flight into eternal life. What a touching memorial he has 
 bequeathed to us of the last scene ! It is like a jilfiintive 
 parting hymn, having all poetic beauty and pathos in the 
 form of prose. "Who could ever have loved me as he 
 did ? He was a brother by blood, but far more by reli- 
 gion God grant, Gerard, I may not have 
 
 lost thee, but that thou hast preceded me ; for of a suretj'^ 
 thou hast joined those whom, in thy last night below, 
 thou didst invite to praise God, when suddenly, to the 
 great siirprise of all, thou, with a serene countenance and 
 a cheerful voice, didst commence chanting, * Praise ye the 
 Lord from the heaven ; praise Him, all ye angels ! ' At 
 that moment, my brother, the day dawned on thee, 
 though it was night to us ; the night to thee was all 
 brightness. . . . Just as I reached his side, I heard 
 him utter aloiid those words of Christ, ' Father, into Thine 
 hands I commend my spirit ! ' Then repeating the verse 
 over again, and resting on the word ' Father ! ' ' Father ! ' 
 he turned to me, and, smiling, said, ' Oh, how gracious of 
 God to be the Father of men, and what an honour for men 
 to be His children ! ' And then, very distinctly, ' If chil- 
 dren, then heirs.' And so he died; and so dying, he well 
 nigh changed my grief into rejoicing, so completely did 
 the sight of his happiness overpower the recollection of my 
 own misery. ... Lord, Thou hast but called for 
 Thine own. Thou hast but taken what belonged to Thee! 
 And now my tears put an end to my words, I pray thee 
 teach me to put an end to my tears!" By and by 
 Bernard's own call was come. He had Kved as a witness 
 for tne truth. He had taught his neighbours to be indus- 
 trious, and holy, and happy. He had preached Christ as 
 the life and soul of the " Song of songs." He had helped 
 to brighten and enrich the aspect of his native land. He 
 had gathered many a family of spiritual children, had led 
 his own household to the Saviour, and now, having spent his 
 little remaining strength in the work of a "peace-maker," 
 he found his reward, and passed into the ' ' kingdom of 
 heaven." He departed exhorting his weeping friends to 
 " abound more and more in every good work," and mur- 
 muring, as his last sentence on earth, ' ' I am in a strait 
 betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with 
 
HYMNS FROM OLD CLOISTERS. 93 
 
 Christ, which is far better!" Happy Bernard! His 
 Eedeemer had given the full response to his hymn — 
 
 Let me true coraniiuiion know 
 With Thee in Thy sacred -woe, 
 Counting all beside but dross, 
 Dying- with Thee on Thy cross ; — 
 
 'Neath it will I die ! 
 Thanks to Thee, with every breath, 
 Jesus, for Thy bitter death ; 
 Grant Thy guilty one this prayer, 
 When my dying hour is near, 
 
 Gracious God, be nigh ! 
 
 Old Burgundy was verily the "golden land;" for it 
 found a cloistered home for a second Bernard — a monk 
 likewise, and contemporary with the saint; one who, from 
 the fulness of his gifted and consecrated soul, gave birth 
 to that "thing of beauty," the hymn now so widely known 
 as " Jerusalem the Grolden." Two such hymnists, in the 
 same province, in the same time, and of the same name, 
 and saints both, may well be confounded, as they have 
 sometimes been, by people who are more equal to the joy 
 of singing their hymns than to the pains of exploring the 
 old cloisters in which they wrote them. Bernard of Mor- 
 laix never found a place in the saints' calendar ; but his 
 glorious verses have now secured a home for him in the 
 best hearts of Christendom. Of English parentage, and 
 a child of old Brittany, he found his way into the clois- 
 ters of the celebrated Cluny, and spent his devoted 
 life in praying and singing of judgment and of heaven, 
 under the fatherly direction of Peter the venerable abbot, 
 himself a master of spiritual song, and then at the summit 
 of his reputation. Bernard's home was supreme in 
 monastic fame. Surrounded by a host of brethren, wor- 
 shipping in the grandest old church in France, and daily 
 joining in the most full and impressive ritual of his times, 
 there would seem to be no way open for unpleasant in- 
 trusion on his contemplative life. But, alas ! no cloisters, 
 however richly furnished, or however strictly guarded, are 
 at all times inviolable retreats from the gathering woes 
 and sorrows of a sinful world. Bernard felt the heaving 
 outside. He saw the darkness thickening on society, he 
 heard the voices of woe foretelling dissolution, change, 
 
94 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 and judgment. To liim tlie judge was at the door, and 
 he tried to keep himself in the posture of readiness by 
 singing hymns of admonition. How plaintive is his voice, 
 yet how it thrills ! — 
 
 The world is old and sinful, 
 
 Its passing hour is near ; 
 Keep watch, be hushed, and sober, 
 
 The Judge's knock to hear. 
 The Judge in mercy coming, 
 
 The Judge enthroned in might, 
 All evil things to banish, 
 
 All good to crown with light. 
 That Monarch just and gentle 
 
 The dead from thrall shall free. 
 Let trembling- seize the guilty. 
 
 For G-od and man is He ! 
 Rise, Christian, rise to meet Him, 
 
 Let wrong give way to right, 
 Let teai's of godly sorrow 
 
 Melt into songs of light — 
 The light that has no setting. 
 
 Too new for moon or sun. 
 So crystal-like and golden. 
 
 So like its Maker, one. 
 And when the Son shall render 
 
 The kingdom up once more. 
 And God the Father's glory 
 
 Shall brighten evennore. 
 Then light, as yet unfolded, 
 
 Shall open on the blest. 
 All mysteries revealing 
 
 Of holy, endless rest. 
 
 The note struck in the last stanza opened a transition 
 movement, and Bernard's soul caught an insight into the 
 clear jasper light and balmy atmosphere of his own " sweet 
 and happy region." What a happy proof of the har- 
 monizing power of heavenliness is shown in the fact that 
 the hymn of this heavenly-minded monk has found its 
 way into the hearts of all classes of Christians, and into the 
 choirs and public services of all Christian Churches. The 
 sweet accordance of this hymn with the spirit of the New 
 Jerusalem, and with the mind of its Divine Lord, is 
 shown, too, in the response which it has from the most 
 hallowed depths of the consecrated heart, and in its sacred 
 diarm over the spirit of those of whom Jesus said, ' ' Who- 
 
HYMN'S FROM OLD CLOISTERS. 95 
 
 soever, therefore, shall humble himself as this little child, 
 the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." The 
 hymn has sometimes brought heaven still nearer, even 
 when the departing spirit has felt itself on the threshold 
 of its home. So it was with the dear little sufferer men- 
 tioned by Dr. Neale in his notes on Bernard. Almost un- 
 equalled agony attended the upward passage of the child, 
 but the youthful sufferer was hushed by the music of this 
 hymn, and would lie without a murmur while they re- 
 peated it — 
 
 Jerusalem, the golden, 
 
 Where milk and honey flow, 
 
 Both heart and voice sink fainting 
 
 Beneath thy crystal glow. 
 
 I know not, oh, I know not 
 What joys of home are there, 
 What bright unfolding glory, 
 What bliss beyond compare ! 
 
 They stand, those courts of Zion, 
 All glad with holy song, 
 And radiant with the angels, 
 And all the martyr throng ; 
 
 The Prince abides within them, 
 Amid serenest light, 
 And all the blest ones' pastures 
 In glorious sheen are dight. 
 
 There is the throne of David, 
 And there, all free from care, 
 Are conquerors in triumph ; 
 And feast and song are there. 
 
 And they who with their Captain 
 
 Have overcome in fight, 
 
 For ever and for ever 
 
 Are robed with Him in white ! 
 
 O sacred, peaceful harp-notes ! 
 never-ending hymn ! 
 hallow' d, sweet refreshment, 
 And peace of seraphim ! 
 
 ceaseless, ardent thirsting. 
 With ever full content ! 
 real matchless vision 
 Of God omnipotent ! 
 
96 HYMX- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 There are the many mansions 
 For many a saintly heir, 
 And various compensations 
 For divers claimants there ; 
 
 As 'midst the starry clusters 
 That deck our lower sky 
 One star excels another, 
 So will it be on high ! 
 
 Jerusalem, the glorious, 
 The pride of the elect, 
 Dear vision of the future, 
 That longing hearts expect. 
 
 By faith I now behold thee, 
 Thy walls I here discern ; 
 My thoughts are kindling for thee, 
 And strive, and pant, and yearn ! 
 
 Jerusalem, in oneness. 
 That dost our lowness see, 
 Thou, thou art all my boasting ; 
 All shame belongs to me ! 
 
 Jerusalem, triumphant, 
 On that safe, happy shore, 
 I hope, I long, I sing thee. 
 And love thee more and more ! 
 
 I do not plead my merit, 
 I seek not such a plea ; 
 My merit is perdition 
 Abiding upon me ; 
 
 And yet I venture, trusting. 
 And hoping on my way, 
 For those rewards immortal 
 To laboui- night and day. 
 
 My Father, best and dearest, 
 Who made and saved His child, 
 Bore with me in my weakness, 
 And washed me when defiled. 
 
 When in His strength contending. 
 For joy my spirits leap ; 
 Wlien quailing in the conflict, 
 I weep, or fain would weep. 
 
 And grace, sweet heavenly unction, 
 Shall all its virtue prove, 
 And Da^'id's royal fountain 
 Shall every stain remove. 
 
HYMNS FBOM OLD CLOISTERS. 97 
 
 O Sion, mine, the golden, 
 More lovely far than gold ; 
 With bands of laurell'd bright ones 
 For ever there enrolled ! 
 
 O sweet and happy region, 
 Wilt thou ever bless my eyes ? 
 
 sweet and happy region, 
 Wilt thou ever be my prize ? 
 
 1 hare the inward earnest. 
 The hope to cheer and bless, 
 Shall I ever gaia the land itself? 
 Tell me, tell me, yes ! 
 
 Rejoice, O dust and ashes ! 
 The Lord shall be thine own ! 
 And thou art His for ever ! 
 His now, and His alone ! 
 
 For many generations sucli winged thoughts as these 
 about the new Jerusalem contimiecl, at times, to rise accept- 
 ably to heaven from the monastic cells of Europe. The 
 song of the Monk of Cluny is so akin to the strain of 
 another monk, a Dutch brother of " The Common Life," 
 that to sing the one is to be carried in imagination to the 
 cloisters where the other first came gushing from the soul 
 of its devout author. About the middle of the fifteenth 
 century, in one of the retreats of his order, an eminently 
 pious recluse, as he used to walk with his brethren in the 
 cloisters or in the garden, would sometimes stop and say, 
 " Dear brethren, I must go ; there is some one waiting for 
 me in my cell." That " some one" was the object of his 
 supreme affection, the chosen companion of his soul, his 
 Redeemer and Lord. Those who heard him knew with 
 whom he wished to commune, and have told us that what 
 he said to the Lord, and what the Lord said to him at such 
 times, is left for our instruction in his tract on the inward 
 discourse of Christ to the faithful soul. This tract forms 
 the first part of that book which ''came forward as an 
 answer to the sighing of Christian Europe for light from 
 heaven, and which contained so many rivulets of truth 
 silently stealing away unto light from that interdicted 
 fountain," the Bible, that its wide-spread " diffusion over 
 Christendom, anticipated in 1453 the diffusion of the Bible 
 itself in 1853." In that "one remarkable book," as Dean 
 
98 HYMN-WEITEES XHB THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Milman says, "was gatliered and concentrated all that was 
 elevating, passionate, profoundly pious, in all tlie older 
 mystics. G-erson, EysBroek, Tauler, all wlio addressed 
 the heart in later times, were summed up and brought into 
 one circle of light and heat, in this single small volume. 
 That this hook supplied some imperious want in the 
 Christianity of mankind, that it supjilied it with fulness 
 and felicity, which left nothing, at this period of Chris- 
 tianity, to be desired, its boundless popularitj'' is the one 
 unanswerable testimony. . . . The size of the book, the 
 manner, the style, the arrangement, as well as its profound 
 sympathy with all the religious feelings, wants, and 
 passions ; its vivid and natural expressions, to monastic 
 Christianity what the Hebrew psalms are to our common 
 religion, to our common Christianity ; its contagious j)iety ; 
 — all conspired to its universal dissemination. Its manner, 
 its short quivering sentences, which went at once to the 
 heart, and laid hold of and clung tenaciously to the memory 
 with the compression and completeness of proverbs ; its 
 axioms, each of which suggested endless thought ; its 
 imagery, scriptural and simple, were ahke original, 
 unicj[ue. . . . No book has been so often reprinted, no 
 book has been so often translated, or into so many lan- 
 guages, as 'The Imitation of Christ.'" Who does not 
 bless the memory of its author ; who does not enjoy the 
 sentences of the man who wrote as the Saviour was speaking 
 to his heart ? who does not love the name of Thomas a 
 Kempis ? He who instructed the world on the " Imitation 
 of Christ," could sing too of the heaven where he hoped to 
 see his beloved Master. He was a hymnist, and the joys 
 above formed his chosen theme. Let those who would, 
 like him, find Christ after waiting for them in their cell, be, 
 like him, ever ready for devotion, and breathing more and 
 more deeply his heavenly spirit from day to day, they wiU 
 find a daily joy in singing with him — 
 
 High tlie angel choirs are raising 
 
 Heart and voice in harmony ; 
 The Creator EJing still praising, 
 
 Whom in beauty there they see. 
 
 Sweetest strains, from soft harps stealing ; 
 Trumpets, notes of triumph pealing" ; 
 Radiant wings and white stoles gleaming, 
 Up the steps of glory streaming ; 
 
HYMNS FROM OLD CLOISTERS. 99 
 
 Wteii the heavenly bells are ringing, 
 Holy, holy, holy, singing 
 
 To the mighty Trinity ; 
 Holy, holy, holy ! crying ; 
 For all earthly care and sighing 
 
 In that city cease to be ! 
 
 Every voice is there harmonious, 
 Praising God in hymns symphonious ; 
 Love each heart with light enfolding, 
 As they stand in peace beholding 
 
 There the Triune Deity ! 
 Whom adore the seraphim, 
 Aye with love eternal burning; 
 Venerate the cherubim. 
 
 To their want of honour turning ; 
 Whilst angelic thrones adoring 
 Graze upon His majesty. 
 
 Oh, how beautiful that region, 
 And how fair that heavenly region, 
 
 Where thus men and angels blend ; 
 Glorious will that city be, 
 Full of deep tranquillity, 
 
 Light and peace from end to end ! 
 All the happy dwellers there 
 
 Shine in robes of purity. 
 
 Keep the law of charity, 
 
 Bound in fervent unity ; 
 Labour finds them not, nor care. 
 
 Ignorance can ne'er perplex. 
 
 Nothing tempt them, nothing vex ; 
 
 Joy and health their fadeless blessing. 
 
 Always all things good possessing. 
 
CHAPTEE YIII. 
 SO]}fGS IN HIGS PLACES. 
 
 " Praise Him in the heights. Kings of the earth, and all people, 
 princes, andall judges of the earth,let them praise the name oftheLord." 
 
 The great dramatist gives us no mere fancy sketeli wten 
 lie makes an inheritor of royalty say of himself : — 
 
 The government I cast upon my brother, 
 
 And to my state grew stranger, being transported 
 
 And rapt In secret studies. 
 
 I pray thee mark me. 
 I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated 
 To closeness and the bettering of my mind 
 With that which, but by being so retired, 
 O'er prized all popular rate, in my false brother 
 Awaked an evil nature. 
 
 Such princes have lived, and studied, and prayed, and 
 suffered, to the edification of a few, and to the sorrow of 
 many. Hugh Capet, the father of the third line of French 
 kings, showed himself quite equal to his position, and held 
 the reins so as to keep his rude and kicking subjects within 
 the traces. He knew how to preserve quietness within his 
 own border, and how to make a sufficiently awful im- 
 pression outside. He was a ruler at home and a terror 
 abroad ; and in those days both were desirable virtues in 
 men of his calling. He pi'ospered, and finished his royal 
 career in 996. But like does not always beget like. His 
 son Eobert came to the throne, bringing to it all his father's 
 softer virtues, without those sterner qualities for govern- 
 ment which are necessary to keep the balance of state. He 
 wanted to be good, and was good. But he was too willing 
 to cast the affairs of government upon some brother, and 
 
SONGS m HIGH PLACES. 101 
 
 false brothers are not lacking. If not to be found in 
 France, Italy could furnish one. Gregory the Fifth could 
 do the jwlitics for him, and the fighting too, and manage 
 at the same time to lord it over King Robert's conscience. 
 The king was not fit for kingship ; he was more disposed 
 to the cloisters. Anybody might rule for him. He might 
 have had rule in Italy ; yes, and the imperial crown might 
 have been on his brow. But no, not he : "Let me alone," 
 he seemed to say, "my joy is in secret; give me my 
 psalter, my service-book, my psalm, my hymn, and I am 
 happy." And so he was. He took his choice. The out- 
 side world might wag its way as it pleased ; he would be a 
 royal monk, and his palace should be his cell. And so he 
 lived, and prayed, and chanted, and sung ; and whether 
 France or the world were ever the better for his rule or not, 
 Christendom is the better for one hymn at least, which he 
 left as the fruit of his devotion, and in which his reverent, 
 tender, and peacful spirit is graciously embalmed. As a 
 king, his memory might have melted into oblivion ; but as 
 a hymnist his name will be dear to every following gene- 
 ration of those who breathe the feeling and sustain the 
 music of his Veni Sancte Spiritus. 
 
 Holy Spirit eome, we pray, 
 Come from heaven and shed the ray 
 Of Thy Ught divine. 
 
 Come, thou Father of the poor, 
 Giver from a boundless store, 
 
 Light of hearts, O shine ! 
 
 Matchless comforter in woe, 
 Sweetest guest the soul can know. 
 Living waters blest. 
 
 When we weep our solace sweet, 
 Coolest shade in summer heat. 
 In our labour rest. 
 
 Holy and most blessed light, 
 Make our inmost sjDirits bright, 
 
 With Thy radiance naild ; 
 
 For without Thy sacred powers, 
 Nothing can we own of ours. 
 Nothing undefiled. 
 
 What is arid, fresh bedew, 
 What is sordid, cleanse anew. 
 
 Balm on the wounded pour. 
 
102 HYMN-WEITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Wliat is rigid, gently bend, 
 On what is cold Thy fervour send ; 
 What has strayed, restore. 
 
 To Thine own in every place 
 Give the sacred, seven-fold grace, 
 Give Thy faithful this. 
 
 Give to virtue its reward, 
 Safe and peaceful end afford, 
 
 Give eternal bliss. 
 
 By bequeathing tliis liymn to us King Eobert has left the 
 world better than he found it. Nevertheless, it is a mercy 
 for the world that Providence makes heroes as well as 
 monks. Monkish monarchs have been blessings in their 
 way. But both, men and tilings need leaders now and 
 then of harder make. Human nature being as it is, 
 the master heart may be called for, the mighty arm, and 
 the sceptre of steel. And there have been men starting up, 
 at some junctures, above the strife and rage of human 
 opposition to the good and the true, who have exemplified 
 the possibility of being valiant for truth in the field as well 
 as in the closet and the choir. And if these have not been 
 hymnists, they have never lacked a hymn to cheer them in 
 the day of battle, in the day of victory, in the day of death. 
 Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden had the spirit of a king, 
 the powers of a hero, and the heart of a Christian ; all this 
 he proved in his chivalrous advance to the succour of the 
 German Protestants in their long and terrible struggle for 
 liberty of conscience and worship. He landed on the coast 
 of Pomerania with thirty thousand men on the 24th of 
 June, 1630, and in imison with his German allies marched 
 to successive victories, and, as it proved, to victorious death. 
 He was cheered onward by those who hailed him as their 
 deliverer ; but he needed more. His heart looked to the 
 source of might ; and who can tell how richly and mightily 
 that heart received responses of power by means of one 
 hymn? If he could not, like Robert of France, write hymns 
 for his own use, God could supply the lack. Out of the 
 ranks of battling Protestants the hymnist rose whose words 
 were to nerve the arm and strengthen the heart of the hero 
 and his bands. In 1631 Altenburg issued that hymn, now 
 so widely known and loved by so many hearts. He called 
 
SONGS IN HIGH PLACES. 103 
 
 it "a heart-cheering song of comfort, or the watch-word of 
 the evangelical army in the battle of Leipsic, September 7, 
 1631, 'Grocl with lis.' " This became the battle song of 
 Gustavus. The conqueror often sung it with his troops. He 
 sang it for the last time when entering the field of Liitzen 
 against the famous Wallenstein — his last field, the scene 
 of his last victory, and to him the field of triumphant 
 death. The hero's parting song has cheered many a 
 Christian soldier since then. Let it cheer us now. 
 
 Fear not, O little flock, the foe 
 Who madly seeks yoiu* overtliroTV, 
 
 Dread not his rage and power ; 
 Wliat tliough yoiir courage sometimes faints, 
 His seeming triumph o'er God's saints 
 
 Lasts but a little hour. 
 
 Be of g'ood cheer, your cause belongs 
 To Him who can avenge your wrongs, 
 
 Leave it to Him our Lord. 
 Though hidden yet from all our eyes. 
 He sees the Grideon who shall rise 
 
 To save us and His word. 
 
 As true as G-od's own word is true, 
 Nor earth nor hell with all theii- crew 
 
 Against us shall prevail. 
 A j est aud by-word are they grown ; 
 God is with us, we are His own. 
 
 Our victory cannot fail. 
 
 Amen, Lord Jesus, grant our prayer! 
 Great Captain, now Thine arm make bare ; 
 
 right for us once again ! 
 So shall Thy saints and martyi's raise 
 A mighty chorus to Thy praise. 
 
 World without end. Amen. 
 
 Songs in high places have not been always "songs of 
 deliverance," or hymns of victory. No high places on earth 
 are so high as to be beyond the swell of human sorrow. The 
 floods will arise in days of darkness, and occasionally 
 desolate the homes and hearts of royal life. So it was in 
 the court of Hungary in 1526. The Turkish hordes had 
 swept down upon the Christian borders, and the king, who 
 had armed himself for the defence of his throne, had been 
 cut down with the flower of his nobility, leaving Maria, his 
 queen, a defenceless widow, open not only to Turkish 
 
104 HYMX-WEITEBS AJSTD THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 violence, but what was more dreadful to lier, an invasion 
 of her Christian rights of conscience on the part of those 
 who bore the hallowed name of the Savioiu", whom she 
 loved. Her attachment to the reformed doctrine rendered 
 her desolated home unsafe ; and for her religion's sake 
 she fled from Buda, trusting alone to Him, who is the 
 husband of the widow, and the " present help " and reward 
 of those who suifer for His name's sake. Nothing is 
 grander than the sight of a human soul cut off from all 
 visible help, casting itself with all its interests in time and 
 eternity upon the power and goodness of God alone. Such 
 sublime action is recorded in the song of this bereaved, 
 persecuted, and fugitive queen. 
 
 Can I my fate no more withstand, 
 Nor 'scape the hand 
 That for faith would grieve me ; 
 This is my strength, that well I knoTv 
 In weal or woe, 
 God's love the world must leave me. 
 God is not far, though hidden now, 
 He soon shall rise and make them bow, 
 Who of His "Word bereave me. 
 
 Judge as ye will my cause this hour, 
 Yours is the power, 
 God bids me strive no longer ; 
 I know what mightiest seems to-day 
 Shall pass away. 
 Time than yoiu- rule is stronger. 
 The eternal God I rather choose, 
 And fearless all for this I lose, 
 God help me thus to conquer ! 
 
 All has its day, the proverb saith ; 
 This is my faith. 
 Thou, Christ, wilt be beside me. 
 And look on all this pain of mine 
 As were it Thine, 
 When sharpest woe betide me ; 
 Must I then tread this jjath — I jdeld ; 
 World, as thou wilt, God is my shield, 
 And He will rightly guide me ! 
 
 We have no record of the divine response to the widow's 
 act of trust, but the " record is on high." Trust in God is 
 never long without its answering hush from above. God 
 arranges His times and instruments of blessing so as most 
 
SONGS IN HIGH PLACES. 105 
 
 happily to aid the sufferer and most fully to glorify Himself, 
 and how often does the blessing come by means of a com- 
 fortable hymn ? From time to time the hymn of plaintive 
 appeal is replied to by the hymn of consolation. In many 
 an individual history it is so ; and it is always so in the 
 history of the Church. Now Grod's children are supplied 
 with hymns expressive of reliance ; and now with forms of 
 "joy in tribulation." Thus, " one generation shall praise 
 His works to another." Nor can it be otherwise than 
 instructive and cheering to listen to the voices of song from 
 the "high places" of Grermany, as they come in successive 
 responses through the periods of her suffering, joy answer- 
 ing to sorrow, and triumph to depression. Though a 
 century passes between, it is not difficult to recognise some- 
 thing like an inspiration responsive to Queen Maria's 
 trustful hymn in the song which in 1653 rose from the full 
 heart of Louisa Henrietta, Electress of Brandenburgh. 
 How the music lulls the tremulous sufiferer ! 
 
 Jesus, my Redeemer, lives, 
 
 Christ, my trust, is dead no more ; 
 ,Iii the strength this knowledge gives. 
 
 Shall not all my fears be o'er, 
 Though the night of death be fraught 
 Still with many an anxious thought ? 
 
 Jesus, my Redeemer, lives, 
 
 And His life I once shall see ; 
 Bright the hope this promise gives. 
 
 Where He is I too shall be. 
 Shall I fear, then ? Can the Head 
 Rise and leave the members dead ':* 
 
 Close to Him my soul is bound, 
 
 In the bonds of hope enclasp'd ; 
 Faith's strong hand this hold hath found. 
 
 And the Rock hath firmly grasp' d ; 
 Arid no care of death can part 
 Prom our Lord the trusting heart. 
 
 I shall see Him with these eyes, 
 
 Him whom I shall surely know ; 
 Not another shall I rise. 
 
 With His love this heart shall glow ; 
 Only there shall disappear 
 Weakness in and round me here. 
 
106 HYMN-WRITEKS A2s^D THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Ye who suffer, sigli, and moan, 
 
 Fresh and glorious there shall reign ; 
 
 Earthly here the seed is sown, 
 Heavenly it shall rise again ; 
 
 Natm-al here the death we die, 
 
 Spiritual our life on high. 
 
 Body, be thou of good cheer, 
 
 In thy Savioiu''s care rejoice ; 
 Give not place to gloom and fear, 
 
 Dead thou yet shalt know His voice, 
 When the final trump is heard, 
 And the deaf cold grave is stirr'd. 
 
 Laugh to scorn, then, death and hell ; 
 
 Laugh to scorn the gloomy grave : 
 Caught into the air to dwell 
 
 With the Lord, who comes to save, 
 We shall trample o'er our foes. 
 Mortal weakness, fear, and woes. 
 
 Only see ye that your heart 
 
 Rise betunes from earthly lust : 
 Would ye there with Him have part. 
 
 Here obey your Lord and trust, 
 Fix your hearts beyond the skies. 
 Whither ye yourselves would rise. 
 
 Another sliort interval, and the soothing response to the 
 widow's hymn is repeated by a masculine voice, in fine 
 harmony with the utterance of the Brandenbiirgh Princess. 
 The voice comes this time from an ancient and princely 
 house, the name of which is dear to every English heart, 
 loyal and reverent enough to acknowledge the Providence 
 which associated that name with the happiest period of 
 English royalty. Who does not thank God for the line of 
 Brunswick? Even losing sight of the blessings which 
 have come to us in our national relation to that illustrious 
 line, there will always be Christian hearts, which, while 
 the Grerman or the English language lives, will gather 
 strength and joy from one, at least, who graced that 
 Brunswick pedigree. In the noble family succession from 
 Henry the Lion to the honoured and beloved lady who 
 now sways the sceptre of Great Britain, there have been 
 names distinguished by many family virtues and courtty 
 actions ; but one has left a longer-lived memorial in a few 
 sweet and touching hymns. One of these is a song for the 
 
SONGS m HIGH PLACES. 107 
 
 soul in bereavement and sorrow. It comes upon the bur- 
 dened heart with a soothing music, like that which touched 
 the lonely spirit of the bereaved widow at Nain, when 
 Jesus " had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep 
 not!" 
 
 Leave all to God, 
 Forsaken one, and stay tliy tears ; 
 
 For the Highest knows thy pain, 
 Sees thy sufferings and thy fears ; 
 
 Thou slialt not wait His help in vain, 
 Leave all to God. 
 
 Be still and trust ! 
 For His strokes are strokes of love, 
 
 Thou must for thy jDrofit bear ; 
 He thy filial fear would move, 
 Trust thy Father's loving care. 
 Be still and trust ! 
 
 Know, God is near ! 
 Though thou think Him far away, 
 
 Though His mercy long- have slept. 
 He will come and not delay, 
 
 When His child enough hath wept. 
 For God is near ! 
 
 Oh, teach Him not 
 Wlien and how to hear thy prayers ; 
 
 Never doth our God forget. 
 He the cross who longest bears 
 Finds his sorrows' bounds are set. 
 Then teach Him not. 
 
 If thou love Him, 
 Walking truly in His ways. 
 
 Then no trouble, cross, or death 
 E'er shall silence faith and praise ; 
 All things serve thee here beneath, 
 If thou love God ! 
 
 This was the hymn of Anthony Ulric, Duke of Bruns- 
 wick Wolfenbuttel. He gave it to the Christian world in 
 1667, and it will ever live as the precious utterance of a 
 noble heart in its purest and most hallowed state of feeling. 
 There is, however, another hymn whose birth and history 
 claim a page in the chronicles of the House of Brunswick. 
 How finely wrought are some of the most important links 
 of things in human history ; how minute and delicate the 
 
108 HTMisr-wniTEiis and their hymns. 
 
 points on wliich the most weighty consequences turn ; how 
 slight a touch, at certain junctures, would have turned the 
 mightiest current of human affairs ! About the middle of 
 the sixteenth century, the seven sons of William of Bruns- 
 wick cast lots to determine which of them should marry. 
 Poor young princes ! the patrimony was probably not rich 
 enough to bless them all with matrimonial rights ! The 
 lot fell upon George, the sixth son. After four of his 
 brothers had reigned, of coiu-se without issue, the govern- 
 ment came to Christian Lewis, his son ; then to Greorge 
 William, another son, who left as his heiress Sophia 
 Dorothea, who married her cousin, George Lewis, of 
 Hanover, afterwards George I. of England. George Lewis 
 was, on his mother's side, the grandson of Elizabeth, 
 Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I. of England. 
 The houses of Stuart and Brunswick were thus at one, and 
 the results, as happily developed in the history of modern 
 England, may, perhaps, illustrate the divine proverb, 
 "The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing 
 thereof is of the Lord." This remarkable linking of 
 Stuart and Brunswick has a peculiar interest for the lover 
 of spiritual hymns and songs. There was a hymnist among 
 the Brunswickers, and one, too, among the Stuarts. 
 EHzabeth, the grandmother of George I., used to solace 
 herself with hj^mns ; and one of these has come down to us 
 among the evidences of her piety and talents. Its music 
 is not flowing throughout; it has some of the quaintness of 
 its time, but it is pleasant in its simplicity ; it breathes a 
 vigorous spirit, and has a rich and cheerful tone of Chris- 
 tian feeling. The hymnist was the daughter of James I. 
 The morning-tide of her life was bright ; she had been 
 brought from Scotland an infant when her father came to 
 the throne of the United Kingdom ; and her first English 
 residence was Combe Abbey, in Warwickshire, where, 
 amidst scenes of quiet rural beauty, she spent some of the 
 happiest days of her life. She soon gave promise of those 
 charms of person, mind, and manners which afterwards 
 secured for her the title of " Queen of Hearts." She must 
 have had an inspiring presence to bring from Ben Jonson 
 that remarkable poetic combination of compliment and 
 prophecy which he addressed to the King and Queen when 
 their eldest son was created Prince of Wales : — 
 
SONGS IN HIGH PLACES. 109 
 
 Nor shall less joy your royal hopes pursue 
 
 In that most princely maid, whose form might call 
 
 The world to war, and make it hazard all 
 
 Its valour for her beauty ; she shall be 
 
 Mother of nations, and her princes see 
 
 Rivals almost to these. 
 
 Could Ben Jonson liave foreseen that she would be 
 the mother of that illustrious line now represented by 
 our beloved Queen Victoria? A foreign prince, who 
 saw Elizabeth in 1608, says that she was "handsome, 
 and of a noble expression of countenance;" and one 
 of her own countrymen, who knew her, tells us that 
 she was " a princess of lovely beauty, in whom at the first 
 glance, majesty shines out, though hidden by courtesy. 
 Although she has not yet passed her twelfth year, yet all 
 behold in her lively proofs of most excellent and noble 
 dispositions. Her wit is acute, her memory tenacious, her 
 judgment discerning, beyond her years. In piety and 
 knowledge of languages she excels. She also diligently 
 cultivates music, and is a great proficient in the art ; for 
 this tranquil liberal science most fittingly accords with the 
 temper of the most placid and illustrious maiden. Added 
 to this, her manners are most gentle ; and she shows no 
 common skill in those liberal exercises of mind and body 
 which become a royal maiden. In fine, whatever was ex- 
 cellent or lofty in Queen Elizabeth is all compressed into 
 the tender age of this virgin princess, and if God spare her 
 to us, will be found there accumulated." She and her 
 brother, Henry, Prince of Wales, loved one another very 
 tenderly. The one could scarcely be happy in the other's 
 absence. Nor was the tender bond at all loosened by the 
 attachment which now sprang up between Elizabeth and 
 her husband elect, Frederic Y., Count Palatine of the 
 Ehine. Just, however, as all were preparing themselves 
 for mutual congratulations on Elizabeth's marriage, Henry 
 was seized with fever. His afi'ectionate sister, distressed 
 at being forbidden to see him, stole away from St. James's 
 more than once in disguise, and made vain attempts to gain 
 admittance to his chamber. She never saw him again. 
 He died, saying, ""Where is my dear sister?" A dark 
 shadow fell on the soul of the tender-hearted princess. 
 This was her first pang of bereavement ; and, alas ! it 
 
110 HYMN- WRITERS AICD THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 proved to be tlie foreshadowing of future sorrows, the 
 earnest of a long succession of clouds upon her eventful 
 life. It was while this early tribulation pressed upon her 
 heart that she gave expression to her feelings in the hymn 
 so remarkable for its beauty and pathos : — 
 
 This is joy, this is true pleasure, 
 If we best things make oiir treasure, 
 And enjoy them at full leisiu'e, 
 Evermore in richest treasure. 
 
 God is only excellent, 
 Let up to Him our love be sent ; 
 Whose desires are set or bent 
 On aught else, shall much repent. 
 
 Theirs is a most wretched case 
 Wbo themselves so far disgrace, 
 That they their affections place 
 Upon tilings named vile and base. 
 
 Let us love of heaven receive, 
 These are joys our hearts will heave 
 Higher than we can conceive, 
 And shall us not fail nor leave. 
 
 Earthly things do fade, decay, 
 Constant to us not one day ; 
 Suddenly they pass away. 
 And we cannot make them stay. 
 
 All the vast world doth contain. 
 To content man's heart, are vain, 
 That still justly will complain. 
 And unsatisfied remain. 
 
 God most holy, high, and great. 
 Our delight doth make complete ; 
 Wlien in us He takes His seat, 
 Only then we are replete. 
 
 Why should vain joys us transport. 
 Earthly pleasures are but short. 
 And are mingled in such sort. 
 Griefs are greater than the sport. 
 
 my God ! for Christ His sake. 
 Quite from me this dulness take ; 
 Cause me earth's love to forsake, 
 And of heaven my realm to make. 
 
SONGS IN HIGH PLACES. Ill 
 
 If early thanks I render Thee, 
 That Thou hast enlightened me 
 With such knowledge that I see 
 What things most behovef ul be ; 
 
 That I hereon meditate. 
 That desire I find (tho' late) 
 To prize heaven at higher rate, 
 And these pleasures vain to hate ; 
 
 O enlighten more my sight, 
 And dis^Del my darksome night, 
 Good Lord, by Thy heavenly light, 
 And Thy beams most pure and bright. 
 
 Since in me such thoughts are scant, 
 Of Thy grace repair my want, 
 Often meditations grant, 
 And in me more deeply plant. 
 
 Work of wisdom more desire. 
 Grant I may, with holy ire. 
 Slight the world, and me inspire 
 With Thy love to be on fii-e. 
 
 Wliat care I for lofty place. 
 If the Lord grant me His grace ; 
 Showing me His pleasant face, 
 And with joy I end my race. 
 
 This is only my desire. 
 This doth set my heart on fire, 
 That I may receive my hire, 
 With the saints and angels' quire. 
 
 O my soul, of heavenly birth. 
 Do thou scorn this basest earth ; 
 Place not here thy joy and mirth, 
 Where of bliss is greatest dearth. 
 
 From below thy mind remove, 
 And affect the things above ; 
 Set thy heart and fix thy love 
 Where thou truest joy shalt prove. 
 
 If I do love things on high. 
 Doubtless them enjoy shall I ; 
 Earthly pleasures if I try, 
 They piu'sued faster fly. 
 
 Lord, glorious, yet most kind, 
 
 Thou hast these thoughts put in my mind ; 
 
 Let me grace increasing find. 
 
 Me to Thee more fii-mly bind. 
 
112 HYMN- WRITEKS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 To God glory, thanks, and praise, 
 I will render all my days ; 
 Who hath blest me many ways, 
 Shedding on me gracious rays. 
 
 To me grace, Father, send, 
 On Thee wholly to depend ; 
 That all may to Thy glory tend — 
 So let me live, so let me end. 
 
 Now to the true Eternal King, 
 Not seen with human eye, 
 Th' immortal, only wise, true God, 
 Be praise perpetually ! 
 
 Ill-fated hymnist ! How many, many a time after 
 slie penned tMs first hymn, and gave it into the hand 
 of her friend and tutor, Lord Harrington, was she called to 
 test the faithfulness of her God in hours of trouble. She 
 went a happy bride to her husband's hereditary palace at 
 Heidelberg, became a happy mother at eighteen, saw her 
 husband placed on the throne of Bohemia, and realized the 
 dream of her own youthful ambition — a crown. But scarcely 
 had she shown her queenly presence in Bohemia, before 
 her husband was driven from his royalty. She fled for her 
 life, and entered on the dark succession of misfortunes 
 which crowded on her all through the " tliirty years' war." 
 Hers was indeed a life of royal suffering. Widowed at 
 last, beggared, tortured by her father's crooked policy, 
 living to hear of her brother Charles's death on the scaffold, 
 parting with her children for lack of means to support them, 
 treated with cold neglect by the only son who coxdd help 
 her, having her sound Protestant heart smitten at the 
 perversion of others of her children to Eomanism ; yet her 
 hopeful and buoyant heart kept up until, after forty 
 sorrowful years of exile, and thirty years of desolate 
 widowhood, she returned, at the age of sixty-five, to finish 
 her eventful career in the land of her infancy. She died 
 in Leicester House, Leicester Square, leaving the relics of 
 her royal furnitiire to be preserved in that same Combe 
 Abbey which had witnessed the pleasures of her youth, 
 and the beginnings of that piety which sustained her in 
 sorrow, and gave peace to her last hour. Of her surviving 
 daughters, it was said that Elizabeth, Abbess of Hervarden, 
 was the most learned woman, that Louise was the greatest 
 
SONGS IN" HIGH PLACES. 113 
 
 artist, and that Sopliia, lier youngest, was the most accom- 
 plished woman in Europe. Elizabeth's memory as a 
 hymnist is remarkably associated with the names of some 
 of the most distinguished hymnists of her time. Dr. John 
 Doune wrote her epithalamium on her marriage- day. 
 Gfeorge Wither presented complimentary stanzas on her 
 betrothal, and her music master was no other than John 
 Bull, the reputed author of that national hymn in which 
 all British hearts now offer their prayer for the illustrious 
 living descendant of her youngest daughter — 
 
 God save our gracious Queen. 
 Long live our noble Queen, 
 
 God save the Queen ! 
 Send her victorious, 
 Happy and glorious. 
 Long to reign over us, 
 
 God save the Queen ! 
 
 O Lord our God, arise, 
 Scatter her enemies. 
 
 And make them fall. 
 Frustrate their knavish tricks, 
 Confound their politics ; 
 On her our hearts we fix : i 
 
 God save the Queen ! 
 
 Thy richest gifts in store, 
 On her be pleased to pour ; 
 
 Long may she reign ! 
 May she defend our laws. 
 And ever give us cause 
 To sing with heart and voice, 
 
 God save the Queen ! 
 
 On the Sunday after the coronation of Yietoria, " our 
 m.ost religious and gracious Queen," there was an interest- 
 ing scene at Brixham in South Devon. A crowd of sailors 
 and fishermen attended the church — the church that looks 
 out upon Torbay, on whose waters so many of the hardy 
 sons of that beautiful sea-board have been trained to man 
 " the wooden walls of Old England." The parson of the 
 parish was in the pulpit, the gifted and gentle-spirited 
 Henry E. Lyte, beloved by all who knew him, and still 
 talked of with reverence and affection by the children of 
 those whom he taught in sea-songs to remember God upon 
 the mighty waters. He had intended to preach from 
 another text that day ; but seeing the character of his con- 
 
 H 
 
114 t HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 gregation, he ehangfxl liis theme, and addressed them from 
 the Lord's words to the lishermeu of Galilee, " Cast the net 
 on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find." He 
 showed his hearers that "it is the religious man that is 
 always, and in every relation of life, the best member of 
 society, the most useful to others, and the most happy in 
 himself," and that no man ever " casts the net on the 
 right side of the ship, none ever catches anything worth 
 his finding, who does not seek and find the favour of God 
 through Christ." Then referring to the circumstances 
 under which they were met — those of the coronation week 
 — he said, " The manner in which our fishermen have 
 conducted themselves through all this week cannot have 
 failed to gratify all who have witnessed it. The people 
 of Brixham may well be proud of a body of men who 
 have so practically proved that they can command them- 
 selves But if the opening of 3'our proceedings 
 
 was praiseworthy, the close of them is not less so. To 
 meet you here, my brethren, in the house of God, to 
 witness your orderly conduct, jomy devotional manner, is, 
 
 indeed, most pleasing and encouraging It 
 
 seems to me to intimate that you have a proper sense ol 
 the religious nature of the great ceremony we have just 
 been celebrating in these realms ; that you view it, as 
 indeed it is, as a solemn national transaction, carried on 
 in the sight of God, in one of His holy temples, be- 
 tween His vicegerent on earth and the people He has 
 committed to her charge ; and that you are aware that 
 God must be appealed to, in order that she may prove 
 a blessing to us, or that we may be enabled to discharge 
 our duties to her. My dear friends, nothing is really 
 great in which God and religion have not a j)lace. De- 
 prive the coronation of these, strip the pageant of its 
 heavenly halo, and how poor and insignificant does it 
 become ! It is, as connecting itself with God, with His will, 
 His sanctuary. His appointment, and His blessing, that the 
 ceremony becomes truly impressive. In this light I trust 
 that your presence here to-day shows that you view it. It 
 is, I trust, as if you said. We have but half discharged our 
 duty on this occasion till we have gone to the house of God, 
 and asked His blessing on our youthful sovereign — asked 
 the King of kings and the Lord of lords to supply the 
 
SONGS IN HIGH PLACES. 115 
 
 deficiencies of our services towards her. The prayers iu 
 which we have all joined here to-day afford a striking com- 
 pendium both to monarch and subject of their respective 
 duties to each other ; and I trust that we shall all make a 
 point of studying their contents, and of pouring them forth 
 earnestly every Sabbath at the throne of grace. Then may 
 our loyalty be expected to be, not like the vows and 
 garlands that adorned the festal hour, and then faded away, 
 but like the jewels of the royal crown, that have come 
 down, precious and untarnished, through successive gene- 
 rations. Oh, let the loyalty of British hearts once thus 
 vent itself in fervent, persevering prayer for their 
 sovereign, and who shall say what benefits may thus 
 descend upon her head, and, through her, upon her 
 people ?" The preacher's address was closed, and all rose 
 and sang a hymn, a beautifully condensed and accom- 
 modated paraphrase of the 21st Psalm, composed for the 
 occasion by the j)astor himself : — 
 
 Lord, Thy best blessings shed 
 On our Queen's youthful head; 
 
 Round her abide. 
 Teach her Thy holy will, 
 Shield her from every ill, 
 Guard, guide, and speed her still 
 
 Safe to Thy side. 
 
 Grant her, O Lord, to be 
 "Wise, just, and good like Thee, 
 
 Blessing and blest. 
 With every virtue crowned, 
 Honoured by nations round, 
 Midst earthly monarchs found 
 
 Greatest and best. 
 
 Long let her people share 
 Here her maternal care ; 
 
 Long 'neath her smile 
 May every good increase. 
 May every evil cease, 
 And freedom, health and peace 
 
 Dance round our isle. 
 
 Under Thy mighty wings 
 Keep her, King of kings ! 
 
 Answer her prayer : 
 Till she shall hence remove 
 Up to Thy courts above, 
 To dwell in light and love 
 
 Evermore there. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SONGS IN FSISON. 
 
 " From the freed spirit every shackle falls, 
 Earth's gloom is lost in heaven's glorious light." 
 
 Who would not like to have lieard that miduiglit song of 
 Paul and Silas in the prison at Pliilippi ? With bodies 
 lacerated by the executioner's whip, and cast upon the bare 
 floor of the dungeon under the torturing burden of the 
 Poman stocks, parched and weary after a day's labour, 
 excitement, and abuse, whither should they look for help 
 and comfort? They knew their refuge, and, "having 
 prayed, they sang a hymn to God, and the prisoners heard 
 them." They sang heartily, "with the spirit and with 
 the understanding also." Their hymn is not recorded; 
 but we may be sure that Jesus was its leading theme, that 
 they uttered their theme distinctly enough for the pri- 
 soners to know what they were singing about, and that 
 the spirit of their hymn and its rhythm, its manner and its 
 music, were such as accorded most fully with the simple, 
 childlike devotion of the unselfish and heavenly-minded 
 prisoners. Had their strain come down to our ears with 
 sufficient clearness and certainty to allow us to render 
 it into English metre or rhyme, it might have appeared 
 somewhat similar to an ancient hymn which broke forth 
 from the bars of a prison a few centuries later. It was on 
 a Palm Sunday, about seven hundred and fifty years after 
 Paul's song in the prison. The Emperor Louis, the 
 Debonnaire, and his Court, were on their way to the 
 cathedral at Mentz in full procession, and, when passing a 
 dungeon, the following hymn issued from an open window, 
 and was tkken up by the choristers: — 
 
SONGS IN PRISON. 
 
 117 
 
 Glory, and honour, and praise, 
 
 To Thee, our Redeemer and King ; 
 To -whom little children sang lays, 
 
 To whom our hosannas we bring. 
 
 Pavid's own heir to the throne 
 
 Of Israel's royal domain; 
 Thou Blessed One, come to Thine own, 
 
 Thy kingdom for ever maintain ! 
 
 Angelical choirs above 
 
 Sing glory to Thee from on high ; 
 And mortals and all things that move 
 
 Give anthems and songs in reply. 
 
 Those Hebrew people of old 
 
 Went singing before Thee with psalms ; 
 
 With prayers and praises untold. 
 We, too, will be waving our palms ! 
 
 While hastening on to Thy death, 
 
 They loudly uplifted their voice ; 
 But we with our every breath, 
 
 In Thy exaltation rejoice. 
 
 Fragrant to Thee was their praise, 
 
 Oh smile on the offering we bring ; 
 Thy joy is in all pleasant lays, 
 
 Thou Blessed and All-gracious King ! 
 
 This was the prison song of Theodulph of Orleans, after- 
 wards named in the calendar as a " saint" ; and not with- 
 out some reason, for he was a saintly man. Like many 
 other saintly men, he had incurred the ill-will of those on 
 whom his goodness reflected reproof, and suffered impri- 
 sonment on the testimony of false accusers. His hymn 
 from the prison, however, touched the heart of Charle- 
 magne's imperial son, and the persecuted bishop, like Paul 
 and Silas, found the joy of deliverance coming after his 
 song. Those who have Christian cheerfulness enough to 
 begin their hymns in the straits of tribulation will often 
 find themselves swelling the chorus "in a large place." 
 
 Songs in prison ! who can think of them without some 
 thought about the " beloved disciple," the last of his order, 
 the aj)0stle of love, in his banishment, his narrow sea-girt 
 prison. Shut up "for the word of God, and for the testi- 
 mony of Jesus Christ," he had songs nevertheless. His 
 Patmos was "compassed about with songs of deliverance " ; 
 songs frooi the New Jerusalem ; songs that for ever filled 
 
118 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIK HYMNS. 
 
 his heart with responsive music. How his soul must have 
 repeated the hymns which he had caught in his vision of 
 the Holy City ! His record of the vision is a lofty hymn, 
 ' whose music lives for ever. "And I John saw the holy 
 city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, 
 prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard 
 a great voice out of heaven saying. Behold, the tabernacle 
 of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and 
 they shall be His people ; and God Himself shall be with 
 them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all 
 tears from their eyes; and there shall be no death, neither 
 sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain : 
 for the former things are passed away." How many 
 suffering Christians, from generation to generation since 
 "the Lord's-day" of the apostle's vision, have caught the 
 light of the city from the narrow windows of their prison- 
 house in the flesh. Into how many a deep cell has his 
 ever-living vision shed its cheering radiance! Some frag- 
 ments of one "prisoner's song" have come to our ears, 
 witnessing to the power of Christian hope in giving the 
 soul a refreshing sense of its heavenly freedom, even while 
 the body is j)ining in bondage. The prisoner solaced him- 
 self in his loneliness by writing and singing of the New 
 Jerusalem. HapjDy man ! his cell became his little heaven, 
 while he was preparing for a "better inheritance." Some 
 cell in that storied old "Tower" on the banks of the 
 Thames was often illumed by a light from the distant 
 home, towards which the imprisoned citizen of heaven was 
 daily and nightly turning his longing eyes. It was there, 
 probably, towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, that a long 
 prison song was written by F. B. P., alias Francis Baker. 
 His hymn found a home in the British Museum. It is too 
 long to be sung every hour, but it had too much life to stay, 
 all of it, in its Museum cell. Precious bits have slipped 
 out into tuneful liberty, and have found their way into 
 thousands of hearts, north and south, in the Old World and 
 in the New, How many a prisoner of hope has been 
 heard singing — 
 
 Jerusalem, my liappy home. 
 
 When shall I come to thee ? 
 When shall my sorrows have au end, 
 
 Thy joys when shall I see 'i 
 
SONGS IN PRISON. 119 
 
 Oh happy harbour of the saints ! 
 
 Oh sweet and pleasant soil ! 
 In Thee no sorrow may be found, 
 
 No grief, no care, no toil. 
 
 There lust and lucre cannot dwell. 
 
 There envy bears no sway ; 
 There is no hunger, heat, nor cold, 
 
 But pleasure every way. 
 
 Thy walls are made of precious stones. 
 
 Thy bulwarks diamonds square ; 
 Thy gates are of right orient pearl, 
 
 Exceeding rich and rare. 
 
 Thy turrets and thy pinnacles 
 
 With carbuncles do shine ; 
 Thy very streets are paved with gold. 
 
 Surpassing clear and fine. 
 
 Oh, my sweet home, Jerusalem, 
 
 Would God I were in thee ! 
 Would God, my woes were at an end, 
 
 Thy joys that I might see ! 
 
 Thy saints are crown'd with glory great ; 
 
 They see God face to face ; 
 They triumph still, they still rejoice, 
 
 Most happy in their case. 
 
 We that are here in banishment 
 
 Continually do moan. 
 We sigh, and sob, we weep, and wail. 
 
 Perpetually we groan. 
 
 Our sweet is mix'd with bitter gall, 
 
 Our pleasure is but pain, 
 Our joys scarce last the looking on, 
 
 Our sorrows still remain. 
 
 But there they live in such delight, 
 
 Such pleasure and such play; 
 As that to them g, thousand years 
 
 Doth seem as yesterday. 
 
 Thy gardens and thy gallant walks 
 
 Continually are green, 
 There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers 
 
 As nowhere else are seen. 
 
 Quite through the street with silver sound 
 
 The flood of life doth flow ; 
 Upon whose banks on every side. 
 
 The wood of life doth grow. 
 
120 HYMN-WEITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 There trees for evermore bear fruit 
 
 And evermore do spring ; 
 There evermore the angels sit, 
 
 And evermore do sing. 
 
 Jerusalem, my happy home, 
 
 Would God I were in thee ! 
 "Would God my woes were at an end. 
 
 Thy joys that I might see ! 
 
 Many versions of this "prisoner's lij-mn" have found 
 their way into different parts of Europe; and many a home 
 and many a prison, it may be, have been made the happier 
 by its simple soothing tones, and its tuneful alternations of 
 plaintiveness and triumph. Snatches of it used to be heard 
 among the hills and glens of Scotland. They lived in the 
 memory and heart of many a Scotch mother; and seem to 
 have been sung as devout and cheering accompaniments to 
 the daily duties of cottage life. Nor was this without good 
 fruit even in distant lands — fruit that sprang up far away 
 from the spot where the seed first fell. A young Scotch- 
 man who was on his death-bed at New Orleans, says the 
 American biograjiher of Whitefield, was visited by a Pres- 
 byterian minister, but continued for a time to shut himself 
 up against all the good man's efforts to reach his heart. 
 Somewhat discouraged, at last the visitor turned away, 
 and scarcely knowing why, unless it was for his own com- 
 fort, began to sing, "Jerusalem, my happy home." That 
 was enough, a tender chord was touched. The young 
 patient's heart was broken ; and with bursting tears he 
 said, " Mj^ dear mother used to sing that hymn." His 
 softened spirit was now open to his Eedeemer. Jesus g^ve 
 the penitent peace ; and hope threw light upon his passage 
 to the city which is now for ever the " hajipy home " of his 
 mother and her son. The prisoner, too, whose song went 
 out from the Tower to fulfil such heavenly missions, now 
 enjoys the city of his desire; and many have gathered 
 around him there, whose way thither had been brightened 
 by the music of his hymn. And there he has met with 
 others, once psalmists like himself in prison, but now at 
 large to commune amidst the joys of immortal freedom, 
 ancl to watch the accumulatingfruit of their prison psalmody. 
 Among the rest is one rapt spirit, the spirit of a sainted 
 lady who now realizes the truth of her Saviour's words, 
 
SONGS IN PRISON. * 121 
 
 " Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute 
 you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, 
 for my sake. Eejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is 
 your reward in heaven." 
 
 Jane Marie Bouviers de la Mathe Guion was a suf- 
 ferer for Christ; and was in one sense a martyr for 
 the honour of the Blessed Spirit. "In the time of the 
 ancient law," as she herself remarks, "there were 
 several of the Lord's martyrs, who suffered for asserting 
 and trusting in the one true Grod. In the primitive 
 Church of Christ, the martyrs shed their blood for 
 maintaining the truth of Jesus Christ crucified ; but 
 now there are martyrs of the Holy Spirit, who suffer for 
 their dependence on Him, for maintaining His reign in 
 souls, and for being subject to the Divine will. . . . The 
 devil now directly attacks the dominion of the Holy Spirit, 
 opposing His celestial unction in souls, and discharging his 
 hatred on the bodies of those whose minds he cannot hurt." 
 Like many others whose spiritiiality has been too high and 
 full for a carnal world and a worldly Church, she was called 
 to suffer from human efforts to repress and shut up the 
 overflowings of " perfect love." She was imprisoned for 
 her spiritual-mindedness and her uncontrollable zeal for 
 a religion of inward spirit and power. Bom on Easter 
 Eve, April 13, 1648, at Montargis, about 50 miles south of 
 Paris, of gentle blood, tender and delicate constitution, 
 and trained in a style which prepared her for intercourse 
 with frequenters at court, while it made her familiar with 
 the sorrows of ill-tempered government at home ; this 
 distinguished woman entered on her remarkable course of 
 suffering, discipline, and activity, in her sixteenth year, 
 when, as a tall, beautiful girl, she was made the victim of 
 convenience, by marriage with an elderly gentleman, who 
 in conjunction with his mother ruled her as a pupil if not 
 a slave. Her decided conversion to vital Christianity, 
 however, very soon laid the foundation of that exemplary 
 piety, charity, and devotion, which she sustained for so 
 many years as a wife, a mother, a widow, and a consecrated 
 evangelist for Christ. The instrument of her conversion 
 was a modest but devoted religious recluse, who quietly 
 dropped a passing word to her on the subject of inward 
 godliness. It was " a word in season." She had been 
 
122 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 groping after truth, feeling after God ; but those few 
 " good words" opened the blessed to her heart. " They 
 were unto me," she says, "like the stroke of a dart, which 
 pierced my heart asunder. I felt at the instant a wound 
 very deep, smitten with the love of God ; a wound so 
 delightful that I desired it never to be cured. These 
 words brought into my heart what I had been seeking so 
 many years. ... infinite goodness ! Beauty ancient 
 and new ! why have I known Thee so late ? Alas ! I 
 sought Thee where Thou wast not, and did not seek Thee 
 where Thou wast. It was for want of understanding these 
 words of Thy gospel, ' The kingdom of God cometh not 
 with observation ; neither shall they say, lo here, or lo 
 there ; for behold the kingdom of God is within you.' 
 This I now ex]Derienced, since Thou became my King, and 
 my heart Thy kingdom, where Thou didst reign as sove- 
 reign, and didst all Thy will. This fell out on Magdalen's 
 Day, 1668." On Magdalen's Eve, 1676, her husband 
 died, and on the following morning she renewed what she 
 called her marriage-contract with the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 " I renewed it every year," she writes, "on Magdalen's 
 Day." She proved herself equal to all the business of 
 settling her husband's affairs ; and then, she gave herself 
 as a " widow indeed " to the work of proclaiming the sal- 
 vation which she had foimd, and of gathering souls for 
 her Divine Lord. Full of spiritual power and love, she 
 went everywhere, wherever her way was open, in France 
 and in Italy; and under great bodily suffering, "in j)erils of 
 waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by her own country- 
 men, in perils of the city, in j^erils of the wilderness, in 
 perils among false brethren," and false sisters, "in weari- 
 ness and painfulness, in watchings often, and in fastings 
 often," she prayed, and exhorted, and taught, and pei- 
 suaded, until in convents, in monasteries, in homes, by the 
 way, wherever she came indeed, the fruit of her labours 
 multiplied in many souls saved from sin, and brought to 
 love Christ with all their heart, and to commune with the 
 Father and the Son in the Holy Ghost. Her writings 
 were voluminous, and these brought upon her, at last, the 
 ecclesiastical authorities of the day. Her soul-converting 
 power excited the wrath of many ; but her writings, not in 
 all points accurate, and never to be understood by those 
 
SONGS IN PRISON. ] 23 
 
 who were most forward to judge, afforded seeming reason 
 for tliat continued persecution which resulted, at length, 
 in her consignment to prison by order of the king. She 
 was at first consigned to a convent, under the cruel over- 
 sight of a severe nun ; her child was torn from her, and 
 all comforts were withdrawn; but she had "an interior 
 joy at her new humiliation." By and by, however, after 
 various examinations by church dignitaries, she was 
 thrown into the prison at Yincennes. " There," she tells 
 us, "I passed my time in great peace, content to pass the 
 rest of my life there, if svich were the will of God. I sang 
 songs of joy, which the maid who served me learned by 
 heart, as fast as I made them; and we together sang Thy 
 praises, my God ! The stones of my prison looked in 
 m.y eyes like rubies. I esteemed them more than all the 
 gaudy brilliancies of the world. My heart was full of 
 that joy. Thou givest to them that love Thee in the midst 
 of their greatest crosses." The free music of her hymn, 
 and her warm and flowing devotion, move us even now as 
 she and her maid sing — 
 
 Great G-od, here at ease, 
 Thee singly to please, 
 
 I sing all the length of the day ; 
 Shut up in a cage, 
 Yet sheltered from rage, 
 
 Oh listen and smile on the lay ! 
 
 From sorrow released. 
 With solace increased, 
 
 The bars of my prison I love ; 
 All toil here untried, 
 All wants well supplied, 
 
 I am blest and em-iehed from above. 
 
 What if aliens are prone 
 To despise, as unknown, 
 
 A language in heaven understood ? 
 'Tis a feast to the taste 
 Of the soul that is chaste, 
 
 As it flows from the fountain of good. ^ 
 
 Tho' my foes have combined, 
 And my body confined, 
 
 Yet my soul is with liberty blest ; 
 I am humbly content 
 With whatever is sent, 
 
 For I know that Thy pleasui-e is best. 
 
1 24 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Oil pleasure divine, 
 All excellence Thine, 
 
 And Thee will I love and adore ; 
 The more piercing my pain, 
 The more freedom I gain. 
 
 And of every choice blessing the more. 
 
 Accept then, 1 pray, 
 The tribute I pay, 
 
 I sing, as a bird full of joy ; 
 Vivacious, exposed. 
 In a cage when enclosed. 
 
 His warbling effusions employ. 
 
 Grant my hymns uttered here, 
 Melodious to cheer, 
 
 Tho' tend'rer and softer than fine ; 
 And the strength ever deign 
 Of my life to sustain. 
 
 Of that durable life which is Thine. 
 
 Thy wondrous defence 
 Makes a cell seem immense — 
 
 It sheds so peculiar a grace ; 
 Such a pleasure abounds. 
 Such a glory surrounds. 
 
 And the joys of Thy kingdom embrace. 
 
 All my foes I behold. 
 
 All the stout and the bold. 
 
 Perplexing their hearts with their pain ; 
 Confounded, I see, 
 While happily free, 
 
 How they vent all their furies in vain ! 
 
 With a spirit tlms unsubdued, and a soul tlius joyfully 
 communing with the heaven which the storms of persecu- 
 tion never disturb, she found her enemies still unwearied 
 with the efforts of their false zeal. They kept her in 
 prison several years in a sick and suffering condition. 
 Her keepers in every case learnt to respect and love her ; 
 and then, to avert the danger of such attachments, she was 
 moved from prison to prison. Now at Vincennes, then at 
 Yaugirard, and from Vaugirard to the Bastile. Still her 
 truthfulness was clear, her purity was transparent, and 
 her unsullied character as a Christian convinced even the 
 gainsayers. Her songs, too, were unfailing. Nor was the 
 notorious Bastile left unsanctified by a hymn. There she 
 sang — 
 
SONGS IN PRISON. 125 
 
 My dearest Protector, see how tliey detain 
 My life in a dungeon ! Yet let me remain 
 While such is Thy pleasure : for better no doubt 
 In a, prison with Thee than a. palace without ! 
 
 No thought in my heart dares to lift up its head, 
 
 But the thought which to love, and to serve Thee, is led. 
 
 I wish'd to be Thine from my tenderest age : 
 
 No lovers beside have I sought to engage ; 
 
 No slender supports of the loftiest reeds ; 
 
 No trust in their words, and no hope of their deeds. 
 
 In every probation, to Thee the recourse 
 
 Of my soul, in Thy grace is its only resource. 
 
 What else can I do, so surrounded with foes, 
 
 But fly to Thy goodness which heals all my woes ? 
 
 When my hair shall grow white, and infirmities shake 
 This old shatter'd fabric. Thou wilt not forsake. 
 
 I was formerly pain'd when I saw night and day, 
 What innocence suffered in walking her way ; 
 But since I have learn'd, we are summon'd to prove 
 By the weight of our suffering the weight of our love. 
 
 Love perfect and pure goes farther than thought ; 
 None knows, till he proves it, how dear 'twill be Ijought ; 
 Yet 'tis well worth its price, and a thousand times more, 
 Since it brings us to heaven when our labours are o'er. 
 
 The imprisoned sufferer was happy in the will of Grod ; 
 but she felt herself called ceaselessly to demand a fair 
 trial, that her crime, if there were any, might be ojDenly 
 specified and proved. The only response to her appeals 
 seems to have been an inquisitorial process of inquiry for 
 some evidence to damage her case. All, however, was 
 vain ; her character was stainless. She was dismissed 
 from prison; but because of the alleged doubtfulness of 
 her doctrines, they banished her to Blois, where for nearly 
 twelve years her example shed the calm and j)ure light of 
 a Christian eventide, and in the end left bright memorials 
 of its holiness in the hearts of all who knew her. She died 
 in peace amidst a few of her best friends. Some of 
 Madame Gruion's teachings would have seemed less doubt- 
 ful, it may be, had her terminology been fully understood ; 
 or had her mode of expression been less symbolical and 
 dreamy. Her experience as a Christian was not far dif- 
 ferent from that of many other highly spiritual Christians 
 
126 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 who have never been accused of an aj)proach to error. 
 " Perfect love, " in all ages, bears the same Divine impress. 
 Some of Madame Gruion's last sayings must ever secure a 
 hallowed memory for her name. "Nothing," says she, 
 "is greater than God, nothing less than myself. He is 
 rich, I am poor ; and yet I want nothing. Life or death 
 is equal to me ; God is love. I want nothing but God and 
 His glory." The leading notion of her theology, if she 
 may be said to teach theology, is given in her " Spiritual 
 Torrents." " As soon as a soul is touched of God in such 
 a manner as to return to Him in all sincerity, after the 
 first purgation, or cleansing, which confession and contrition 
 have made, God gives it a certain instinct for turning to 
 Him in a more perfect manner, to be united to Him ; as it 
 then clearly sees that it was not created for the amusements 
 and trifles of the world, but that it has a centre, to which 
 it must strive to return, and out of which it can never find 
 true repose." That her holiness was truly Christian is 
 seen in her last words to her many spiritual children : 
 " Oh, my dear children, open your eyes to the light of 
 truth. ' Holy Father, sanctify them through Thy truth.' 
 Thy Divine Word has spoken to them through my mouth. 
 Christ alone is the Truth. He said of His apostles, ' For 
 their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanc- 
 tified through the truth.' Oh, say the same thing to my 
 children. Sanctify Thyself in them and for them. It is 
 being truly sanctified in all holiness, to have none of our 
 own, but only the holiness of Jesus Christ. Let Him alone 
 be all in all in us, and for us, that the work of sanctification 
 may be carried on through the experimental knowledge of 
 
 the Divine truth My children, receive the 
 
 instruction from your mother, and it will procure you life. 
 Receive it through her, not as for her, but as of and for 
 God. Amen. Lord Jesus Christ." Amen! 
 
 Give! glory to Jesus, our Head, 
 
 With all that encompass His throne ; 
 
 A widow, a widow indeed, 
 A mother in Israel is gone ! 
 
 Rejoice for a sister deceased, 
 Our loss is her infinite gain ; 
 
 A soul out of prison released, 
 And free from its bodily chain. 
 
SONGS IN PRISON. 127 
 
 "With song let us follow her flight, 
 
 And mount with her spirit above, 
 Escaped to the mansions of light, 
 
 And lodged in the Eden of love. 
 
 It is pleasant to read the songs of a prisoner who has 
 learned to be happy in prison ; and the pleasure is greater 
 when the hymns come from a " jirisoner of Jesus Christ" — 
 one who suffers bondage purely for Christ's sake. But 
 even that pleasure is equalled, if not surpassed, by the joy 
 with which we joy over that goodness of heart, that over- 
 flowing charity which constrains a man to task his genius in 
 providing appropriate, instructive, and cheery prison hymns 
 for those who have neither heart nor genius to compose 
 hymns for themselves, or in teaching those who have merited 
 imprisonment so to sing as to beguile their hours of 
 confinement, to make legal penalties contribute to their 
 heart's welfare, and to prepare themselves while in bondage 
 for the privileges and duties of freedom. Such is the joy 
 which must bless those who tune themselves for com- 
 panionship with the man under whose striking old portrait 
 the lover of quaint but well-strung psalmody may read — 
 
 So this is he whose infant muse began 
 
 To brave the world before years styled him man ; 
 
 Though praise be slight, and scorns to make his rhymes 
 
 Beg favours or opinion of the times, 
 
 Yet few by good men have been more approved 
 
 None so unseen, so generally loved. 
 
 A very good character, especially for a man whose sym- 
 pathy with prisoners was strengthened by his own ex- 
 perience as a prisoner, having been in "durance vile" 
 three successive times — once for wi-iting a little too freely 
 as some people thought, about public abuses ; a second time 
 because he chose to be a "roundhead," while some of his 
 more powerful neighbours lorded it as cavaliers ; and once 
 more because it was thought impertinent for him to remon- 
 strate against being stripped of the sj^oils which he had 
 picked up while he happened to stand on the winning side of 
 the game. His second period of bondage might have been 
 fatal but for the plea of a fellow-poet, Denham, who wore 
 royalist colours. " Let him live, " was the plea, " for while 
 he lives I shall not be thought the worst poet. " It was a 
 
128 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 good joke, for it saved a good life ; and Greorge Wither 
 lived to show his tuneful sympathy with poor prisoners. 
 "Men in affliction, " says he, very kindly, " are somewhat 
 easier when they can find words whereby to express their 
 sufferings ; to help them who want expression of their 
 endurance in imprisonment, and to remember prisoners of 
 such meditations as are pertinent to their condition, is the 
 intent of this hymn : " — 
 
 I whom of late 
 
 No thraldom did molest, 
 Of that estate 
 
 Am wholly dispossess' d : 
 My feet once free, 
 
 Are strictly now confined, 
 Which breeds in me 
 
 A discontented mind. 
 
 Those prospects f air 
 
 Which I was wont to have, 
 That wholesome air 
 
 Which fields and meadows gave, 
 Are changed now 
 
 For close, unpleasant cells, 
 Where secret woe 
 
 And open sorrow dwells. 
 
 Instead of strains 
 
 Delightful to mine ear, 
 Gyves, bolts, and chains 
 
 Are all my music, here ; 
 And ere I get 
 1 Those things for which I pray, 
 
 I must entreat 
 
 With patience in delay. 
 
 To feed or sleep, 
 
 To work or take mine ease, 
 I now must keep 
 
 Such hoiu-s as others please ; 
 To make me sad, 
 
 Complaints are likewise heard, 
 And often made 
 
 Of wrongs without regard. 
 
 Lord ! as I ought 
 
 My freedom had I used. 
 Of this, no doubt, 
 
 I might have been excused : 
 
SONGS IN PEISON. 129 
 
 But I confess 
 
 The merit of my sin 
 Deserves no less , 
 
 Than hath inflicted been. 
 
 Let me, O God ! 
 
 My sin Thine anger move ; 
 But let this rod 
 
 Correct my faults in love : 
 With patient mind 
 
 Let me Thy stripes endure, 
 And freedom find 
 
 "When they have wrought their cure. 
 
 Whilst here I 'bide 
 
 Though I unworthy be, 
 Do Thou provide 
 
 All needful things for me : 
 And though friends grow 
 
 Unkind in my distress, 
 Yet leave not Thou 
 
 Thy servant comfortless. 
 
 So though in thrall 
 
 My body must remain, 
 In mind I shall 
 
 Some freedom stUl retain ; 
 And wiser made 
 
 By this restraint shall be. 
 Than if I had 
 
 Until my death been free. 
 
 Tender-hearted Wither! This hymn, which in his 
 gentleness he offers to the lips and heart of a prisoner as a 
 devout mode of beguiling his solitary hours, was doubtless 
 the very song of his own soul, under the rigours of his 
 unalleviated confinement, and in the damp and gloomy 
 atmosphere of his comfortless dungeon. His were hard 
 times ; ■ and those who got the upper hand sometimes for- 
 got their own sufferings in their turn. It was not easy, 
 however, to clip or singe the wings of Wither's muse. 
 Some of his best verses were made in the Marshalsea ; and 
 we cannot but pay honourable tribute to the memory of the 
 man who, while he helped those who had less genius and 
 fewer resources than himself to sing with him, cheered on 
 his own muse in a style hke this — 
 
 If thy verse do bravely tower. 
 
 As she makes wing she gets power ; 
 
130 HYMN-WEITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Yet the higher she doth soar, 
 
 She 's affronted still the more ; 
 
 Till she to the high'st hath past, 
 
 Then she rests with fame at last : 
 
 Let naught, therefore, thee affright, 
 
 But make forward in thy flight ; 
 
 For, if I could match thy rhyme, 
 
 To the very stars I'd climb ; 
 
 There begin again, and fly 
 
 Till I reached eternity. 
 
 But alas ! my muse is slow ; 
 
 For thj^ page she flags too low : 
 
 Yea, the more's her hapless fate. 
 
 Her short wings were clipt of late ; 
 
 And poor I, her fortune rueing-, 
 
 Am myself put up a-mewing ; 
 
 But if I my cage can rid, 
 
 I'll fly where I never did ; 
 
 And though for her sake I'm crost, 
 
 Though my best hopes I have lost, 
 
 And knew she would make me trouble 
 
 Ten times more than ten times double : 
 
 I should love and keep her too, 
 
 Spite of all the world could do. 
 
 For, though banish' d from my flocks, 
 
 And confiu'd within these rocks, 
 
 Here I waste away the light. 
 
 And consume the sullen night, 
 
 She doth for my comfort stay. 
 
 And keeps many cares away. 
 
 She doth tell me where to borrow 
 Comfort in the midst of sorrow ; 
 Makes the desolatest place 
 To her presence be a grace ; 
 And the blackest discontents 
 Be her fairest ornaments. 
 In my former days of bliss. 
 Her divine skill taught me this, 
 That, from everything I saw, 
 I could some invention draw ; 
 And raise pleasure to her height, 
 Through the meanest object's sight : 
 By the murmur of a spring, 
 Or the least bough's rustleing ; 
 By a daisy, whose leaves spread, 
 shut when Titan goes to bed ; 
 Or a shady bush or tree. 
 She could more infuse in me. 
 Than all Nature's beauties can 
 In some other wiser man. 
 
SONGS IN PRISON. 131 
 
 By her help I also now 
 
 Make this churlish place allow 
 
 Some things that may sweeten gladness, 
 
 In the very gall of sadness. 
 
 The dull loneness, the black shade, 
 
 That these hanging vaults have made ; 
 
 The strange music of the waves, 
 
 Beating in these hollow caves ; 
 
 This black den which rocks emboss. 
 
 Overgrown with eldest moss ; 
 
 The rude portals that give light 
 
 More to terror than delight ; 
 
 This my chamber of neglect. 
 
 Walled about with disrespect ; — 
 
 "From all these and this dull air, 
 
 A fit object for despair, 
 
 She hath taught me by her might 
 
 To draw comfort and delight. 
 
 Therefore, thou best earthly bliss, 
 
 I will cherish thee for this. 
 
 "Well sung, "Wither ! He lias broken his prison ; he has 
 reached the home of freedom, and now drinks at its very 
 source the inspiration which still gives life to his best 
 hymns. Let his name be wreathed with peace ! 
 
CHAPTEE X. 
 
 PSALMS IN ENGLISH METRE. 
 
 " As through Thy temple now the deep strains peal, 
 And choral minstrelsy is heard to swell, 
 Devotion wakes within ns, and we feel' 
 
 All that the Psalmist hath expressed so well." 
 
 How few among the legion of modern versifiers have ever 
 
 caught either the spirit or the manner of the sacred old 
 
 hymns, which they have tried to throw into English metre. 
 
 With few exceptions, those who have aimed at a literal 
 
 version of the Psalms in metre are tame, and have lost the 
 
 soul of the original ; while many of the paraphrasers are 
 
 lacking in dignity, and excite any feeling but that of 
 
 devotion, by calling their neighbours to sing their psalms 
 
 " done into metre." Sternhold and Hopkins must be 
 
 venerated as we revere antiquity even in its dotage. 
 
 Brady and Tate are always associated with our early 
 
 impressions of old Church psalmody, when the parish-clerk 
 
 used to act as head singer, and give the key-note on a 
 
 doleful instrument that they called a pitch-pipe. As to 
 
 the music of the Scotch version, it is enough that it is 
 
 admired most by those who abominate the organ, while 
 
 they are agreeably moved by the notes of a Highland piper. 
 
 It would be better to let the old Eughsh Psalter alone. 
 
 Many a weary poet would have been spared his pains, and 
 
 many psalm-singers would have escaped bewilderment 
 
 am^idst wildernesses of dreary verse, had due and wide 
 
 attention been given to a few verses from one whose happily 
 
 expressed opinion is of some value. An author who 
 
 inherited poetic taste from a gifted father, who shared 
 
 poetic power with two brothers still more gifted, who had 
 
 passed twenty years of classical discipline in Westminster 
 
PSALMS IN ENGLISH METRE. 133 
 
 School, and wlio lived to catch, the spirit of Hebrew 
 melodies, and enjoy communion with holy psalmists 
 among the inspiring beauties of Devonian valleys and 
 hills, has a right to have his opinion respected on the 
 question of metrical psalmody. AVho that has sought out 
 the loveliest retreats of our native island can ever forget the 
 valle}^ of the Exe. as it winds down from the borders of 
 Exmoor to the old-storied town of Tiverton, overlooking 
 from its southern slopes the ancient fords of the Exe and 
 the Leman, lapped amidst orchards and gardens, and its 
 streets and houses refreshed and beautified by the clear 
 bright stream which flows down through it from the upper 
 springs ? Two pilgrims of nature once found their way to 
 this old Two-ford-town. One of them lives to remember 
 that, having lingered about the remains of the castle, and 
 having mused and talked over the fortunes of the j^ensive 
 daughter of Edward IV., who sj^ent the days of her widow- 
 hood in its delicious retirement, and having talked about 
 those who for many ages had lived, and sung, and fought, 
 and died in and around the sturdy fortress, they found 
 their wa}^, by an avenue of venerable trees, into the famous 
 grammar-school, founded in 1599, by the will of Peter 
 Blundell ; and there, after sundry speculations over the 
 ponderous antique oaken desks and benches, with their 
 multitudinous records of penknife work, they found them- 
 selves standing in silence before a remarkable portrait. 
 It represented one of the former masters of the school, 
 nor could its distinctive family features be mistaken. 
 " Look at that," said the one to the other, ^' does not the 
 face seem instinct with life ? It looks as if it knew what 
 we have been saying, in our way down the valley, about 
 the various efi'orts of people to produce a metrical version 
 of the Psalms. Surely those lips are moving, as if they 
 would re-utter what they expressed so long ago." 
 
 "What was that?" 
 
 "What? Why, just listen, and hear with what quiet 
 ease keen polished satire may be made to pass into warm 
 and beautiful hymnic devotion " — 
 
 Has David Christ to come foresliow'd? 
 
 Can Christians then aspire 
 To mend the harmony that iiow'd 
 
 From his prophetic lyre P 
 
134 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 How curious are their wits, and vain, 
 
 Their erring zeal how bold, 
 Who durst with meaner dross profane 
 
 His purity of gold ! 
 
 His Psalms unchanged the saints employ, 
 
 Unchanged our God applies ; 
 They suit th' apostles in their joy, 
 
 The Saviour when He dies. 
 
 Let David's pure unaltered lays 
 
 Transmit through ages down 
 To Thee, O David's Lord, our praise ! 
 
 To Thee, O David's Son ! 
 
 Till judgment calls the seraph throng 
 
 To join the human choir, 
 And Grod, who gave the ancient song. 
 
 The new one shall inspire. 
 
 So thouglit and so sang Samuel "Wesley; thereby some- 
 wliat condemning, not only "Watts, against whom chiefly 
 these lines had been directed, but his brother Charles 
 also — yea, his own father, and even himself; for each of 
 them had tried his powers in translating or paraphrasing 
 Hebrew psalms into English rhyme. Nor had Samuel 
 "Wesley, the father, failed in every case. His version of 
 Psalm cxiv. may be sung with unbroken pleasure — 
 
 When ransom' d Israel came 
 
 From faithless Egypt's bands, 
 The house of Jacob's name 
 From foreign hostile lands, 
 Judah alone 
 God's holy place, 
 And Israel's grace 
 
 Was His bright throne. 
 Amazed old ocean saw, 
 
 And to its chambers fled ; 
 While Jordan's streams withdraw 
 To seek their distant head. 
 Tall mountains bound 
 Like jocund rams, 
 The hills like lambs 
 Skipp'd lightly round. 
 
 What ail'd thee, thou sea, 
 
 To leave thine ancient bed ? 
 Why did old Jordan flee, 
 Ajid seek its distant head ? 
 Ye mountains, why 
 Leap'd ye like rams, 
 While lulls Like lambs 
 Skipp'd lightly by ? 
 
PSALMS IN ENGLISH METRE. 135 
 
 All nature's utmost bound 
 The God of Jacob's own, 
 Where sea or land is found, 
 Fall trembling at His throne ; 
 At whose command 
 Hard rocks distil 
 A crystal rill 
 
 And drench the sand. 
 
 The tasteful old rector shows himself alive to the grand 
 simplicity, the condensed power, elegant conciseness, and 
 noble imagery of this seeming fragment of a sublime ode ; 
 and he will be thought to have approached nearer to the 
 original than his own son Charles, who has rendered the 
 same psalm more freely, and in more pompous measure. 
 The mind and pen which gave its distinctive character to 
 the " Spectator" would naturally feel the inspiration of a 
 psalm like this; and Addison has remarked that "its 
 author has written so as deej)ly to impress the mind of his 
 readers by pointing out miraculous effects without mention- 
 ing an agent, till at last, when the sea is seen rapidly re- 
 tiring from the shore, Jordan retreating to its source, and 
 the mountains and hills running away like a flock of 
 affrighted sheep, that the passage of the Israelites might 
 be every way uninterrupted; then the cause of all is sud 
 denly introduced, and the presence of God in His grandeur 
 solves every difficulty." Literature was Addison's calling. 
 Like many others who have been tempted into positions 
 unsuited to their character, or to which their powers have 
 not proved equal, Addison found that marriage into high 
 life afforded "no addition to his happiness," and that 
 elevation to official state entailed burdens from which an 
 easy and happy relief is not always possible. Retreat 
 alone gave him the promise of peace at the last. Pensioned 
 and in retirement, he sought for solace in preparing a 
 " defence of the Christian religion," and in planning a new 
 poetical version of the Psalms. Neither plan was completed. 
 And perhaps it is better for his reputation, as a psalmist, 
 that he left mere specimen fragments of his intended version. 
 
 What he wrote will always live. Nor is there in what 
 he wrote anything, either in spirit or tone, which favours 
 in the least degree the suspicion which some have cast upon 
 his Christian sincerity. His memory will not be damaged 
 
136 HYMN-WEITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 by the unworthy insinuations of Pope, neither will lovers 
 of charity think the worse of him because the unsympathiz- 
 ing and unloving Tonson " always thought him a priest in 
 his heart." As an undying minister of instruction and 
 pleasure to English minds and hearts, his memory will not 
 take the tarnish of contemporary slander. All lovers of 
 well-applied genius will love him, were it only for his version 
 of Psalm xix. It has been thought that the pure love for 
 "silently living nature" which gives such a devotional 
 charm to his verses, and which he so sweetly expresses on 
 introducing his psalm to the readers of the " Spectator," 
 must have breathed its first and deepest inspiration into 
 his soul amidst some of the quiet scenes of his boyhood. 
 One of these was the cathedral close at Lichfield. It was 
 evening when for the first time we entered that reverend 
 enclosure. The sun had gone down, and it was our' time 
 of preparation for the Sabbath. Where could such an hour 
 be more solemnly kept than amidst the associations which, 
 seen and unseen, gathered beneath the shadows of so 
 venerable a sanctuary ? The outer world was growing 
 dim, but everything that was visible ofi'ered an agreeable 
 introduction to the invisible. Among the whisperings which 
 came to the ear of fancy, as we paced up and down that 
 noble avenue on the north side of the church, known as "the 
 Dean's walk," there came many remarkable names, which, 
 as they touched us in succession, called up some deep think- 
 ings about the present life and action of those who once en- 
 joyed the shade of these same trees, and figured familiarly 
 in these same sequestered dwellings. On this scene the 
 last century had witnessed some curious interlacings of 
 character. The sober and the frolicsome, the comic and the 
 tragic, the sacred and the profane, had strangely mingled 
 and manoeuvred here at times. Many a day had seen 
 Addison, as a school-boy, passing to and fro through the 
 deanery garden. There the wit and imagination of Par- 
 quhar were stimulated to immortalize the dishonours of 
 his licentious age ; there the Bishop's Eegistrar, Gilbert 
 Walmsley, saved his own name from oblivion by acting the 
 patron to David Garrick. At the end of the walk, the eye 
 could wander over the parapet of the close, and command 
 the beautiful valley where Samuel Johnson used to wander 
 in early life. The mysteries of nightfall were beginning to 
 
PSALMS IN ENGLISH METRE. 137 
 
 shroud it here and there ; but Stow Hill was standing in 
 clear outline against the sky, in affectionate watchfulness 
 over its still waters. There, at the foot of the hill, was the 
 old tower of St. Chad's church, where, tradition says, "Ovin 
 heard the angels sing at St. Chad's obit." We lingered 
 long, watching the brightening reflections of the stars in 
 Stow-Pool, and musing on the possibility of angels taking 
 a part in the anthem at a saint's burial, until our ear 
 caught a sweet, thrilling harmony coming up seemingly 
 from the recesses of the cathedral crjqot, and floating tremu- 
 lously along the dark aisles above. Was it the music of 
 angels ? It might rather be the voice of choristers tuning 
 themselves for the morrow's psalmody. But it touched 
 one's very soul, and called up the voice of a psalm from 
 within. Just then the rising moon threw up her light from 
 the horizon, and gave the last insjiiring touch. The spirit 
 of Addison himself might be there joining us in his own 
 inimitable psalm — 
 
 The spacious firmament on high, 
 
 With all the blue ethereal sky, 
 
 And spangled heavens, a shining frame, 
 
 Their great Original proclaim. 
 
 The unwearied sun, from day to day. 
 
 Does his Creator's power display, 
 
 And publishes to every land 
 
 The work of an Almighty hand. 
 
 Soon as the evening shades prevail. 
 The moon takes wp the wondrous tale, 
 And nightly to the listening earth 
 Repeats the story of her birth ; 
 Whilst all the stars that round her burn. 
 And all the planets in their turn. 
 Confirm the tidings as they roll. 
 And spread the truth from pole to pole. 
 
 What, though in solemn silence all 
 Move round the dai-k terrestrial ball ; 
 What, though no real voice or sound 
 Amidst their radiant orbs be found ; 
 In reason's ear they all rejoice, 
 And utter forth a glorious voice, 
 For ever singing as they shine, 
 "The hand that made us is Divine." 
 
 The author of this noble psalm in English metre may 
 have been thrown back in imagination to quiet evenings 
 
138 HTMN-WEITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 under the elms in Lichfield Close, when, amidst the excite- 
 ments of literary life, he issued his Saturday invitation to 
 the pleasures of psalmody, and prepared his readers for 
 them by saying, "Faith and devotion naturally grow in 
 the mind of every reasonable man who sees the impressions 
 of Divine power and wisdom in every object on which he 
 casts his eye. The Supreme Being has made the best 
 arguments for His own existence, in the formation of the 
 heaven and the earth ; and these are arguments which a 
 man of sense cannot forbear attending to, who is out of the 
 noise and hurry of human affairs." Peace to the memory 
 of the man who thus taught his generation to enjoy the 
 inspired utterance that "the heavens declare the glory of 
 God, and the firmament showeth His handy-work." Nor 
 can any one despise the reflections of Divine power and 
 goodness which come upon us from suns, moons, and stars, 
 without being in danger of debasing his own soul ; at the 
 same time, to confine ourselves to the lights of the visible 
 creation, or even to the lessons of a mere general providence, 
 is to rest in a religion of sentiment rather than of life, and to 
 be in danger of looking for satisfaction in a partial and 
 comparatively powerless devotion. No, God must be sought 
 chiefly in His revealed Word, and should be contemplated 
 in the work of His Holy Spirit, and in the person and king- 
 dom of His manifested Son. How the devotion of the 
 inspired psalmist kindles and glows when he looks at God 
 in the face of the reigning Messiah ! Can anything be 
 more sublime than Psalm Ixxii ? Could there be a more 
 perfect harmony of the Divine and the human in prayer and 
 praise ? And who does not thank God for the man who 
 threw that song into English metre, so happily as to give 
 it all the charms of new music, so effectually as to natural- 
 ize it to the purest taste and to the warmest hearts of 
 Christian England ? James Montgomery did this when he 
 taught us to sing — 
 
 Hail to the Lord's Anointed, 
 
 Great David's greater Son ! 
 Hail, in the time appointed, 
 
 His reign on earth begun ! 
 He comes to break oppression, 
 
 To let the captive free, 
 To take away transgression. 
 
 And rule in equity. 
 
PSALMS IN ENGLISH METRE. 139 
 
 He comes with succour speedy, 
 
 To those who suffer wrong ; 
 To help the poor and needy, 
 
 And bid the weak be strong ; 
 To give them songs for sighing, 
 
 Their darkness turn to light. 
 Whose souls, condemn' d and dying, 
 
 Were precious in His sight. 
 
 He shall come down like showers 
 
 Upon the fruitful earth. 
 And love, joy, hope, like flowers, 
 
 Spring in His path to birth ; 
 Before Him on the mountains, 
 
 Shall peace, the herald, go ; 
 And righteousness, in fountains, 
 
 From hill to valley flow. 
 
 Arabia's desert ranger 
 
 To Him shall bow the knee ; 
 The Ethiopian stranger 
 
 His glory come to see ; 
 With offerings of devotion 
 
 Ships from the isles shall meet. 
 To pour the wealth of ocean 
 
 In tribute at His feet. 
 
 Kings shall fall down before Him, 
 
 And gold and incense bring ; 
 All nations shall adore Him, 
 
 His praise all people sing ; 
 For He shall have dominion 
 
 O'er river, sea, and shore ; 
 Far as the eagle's pinion 
 
 Or dove's light wing can soar. 
 
 For Him shall prayer unceasing. 
 
 And daily vows ascend. 
 His kingdom still increasing, ^ 
 
 A kingdom without end. 
 The mountain dews shall nourish 
 
 A seed in weakness sown. 
 Whose fruit shall spread and flourish, 
 
 And shake like Lebanon. 
 
 O'er every foe victorious. 
 
 He on His throne shall rest. 
 From age to age more glorious, 
 
 All blessing and all blest : 
 The tide of time shall never 
 
 His covenant remove ; 
 His name shall stand for ever, 
 
 That name to us is Love. 
 
140 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 But while a versifier here and there has given a psalm 
 in rhyme without entirely degrading the holy strain of the 
 inspired Psalmist; it may be said again, better, on the 
 whole, to let the grand old English Psalter alone. Chant 
 its measures, sing them, or murmur them in holy under- 
 tones, but let nobody try to make them all into a book of 
 rhymes. Were we to judge from what Milton did in this 
 line, even he would fail in the larger attempt ; and, after 
 his failure, we might expect as little as we get from Watts 
 and Charles Wesley, and their modern followers in whole- 
 sale psalmody. Watts wrote too fast ; Wesley was faster 
 still. One of Wesley's zealous advocates amuses and in- 
 structs us by saying, "You may take all the poetry of 
 Watts, and Cowper, and Pope, and the hj'mnic composi- 
 tions of many others, who have a well-earned name as 
 sacred poets, and they are all outnumbered by the single 
 prolific pen of the poet of Methodism." The standard is 
 quantity then ! How much, did he write ? " Seven thousand 
 ' psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs '" ! Seven thotisand 
 from one pen ! and that the pen of a zealous, busy, evan- 
 gelist and pastor ! These thousands could not all be gems ; 
 nor, indeed, could multitudes of them have any claim even 
 to the honour of paste jewellery. No man can write so 
 many verses, and so fast, and always write well. Not 
 that the voluminous pages of Wesley and Watts are left 
 without adornment of rich gems set here and there. 
 Amidst many dreary pages. Watts sometimes clothes a 
 psalm in simple and unblemished beauty. AVhose grati- 
 tude, and trust, and hope, have not kindled into quiet 
 fervour while singing thus ? 
 
 My Shepherd will supply my need, 
 
 Jehovah is His name ; 
 In pastures fresh He makes me feed. 
 
 Beside the living stream. 
 
 He brings my wandering spirit back. 
 
 When I forsake His ways ; 
 And leads me for His mercy's sake. 
 
 In paths of truth and grace. 
 
 When I walk through the shades of death, 
 
 Thy presence is my stay ; 
 A word of Thy supporting breath 
 
 Drives all my fears away. 
 
PSALMS IN ENGLISH METRE. 141 
 
 Thy hand, in spite of all my foes, 
 
 Doth still my table spread ; 
 My cup with blessings overflows, 
 
 Thine oil anoints my head. 
 
 The sure provisions of my God 
 
 Attend me all my days ; 
 O may Thy house be my abode, 
 
 And all my work be praise ! 
 
 There would I find a settled rest, 
 
 (While others go and come) 
 No more a stranger or a guest. 
 
 But like a child at home. 
 
 Charles Wesley, however, is more equal throughout than 
 Watts, and holds a more gracefully sustained flight. Where 
 the rapt psalmist specially invites us to a celestial elevation, 
 Watts sometimes 
 
 Meets 
 A vast vacuity : all unawares 
 
 Fluttering his pennons vain, plump down, he drops 
 Ten thousand fathom deep. , 
 
 Wesley's power in metrical psalmody is seen to the best 
 advantage where most others are least successful. His 
 version of Psalm cxix. is one of his best. What Manton 
 required an awful folio to explain, Wesley sets forth, with 
 charming fulness and transparency, in the light of twenty- 
 four pages. He shows himself at once the expositor, the 
 theologian, the Hebrew chorister, and the poet ; nor is it 
 too much to say that, in his version of this remarkable 
 didactic ode, he has presented to us "an enchanting and 
 well-sustained poem, which, without any approach to 
 tautology, exhibits all the pleasing variety, warmth, and 
 freshness of original verse, while it tenaciously adheres to 
 the spirit of the inspired Psalmist." The world had well- 
 nigh lost this pleasant morsel ; the manuscript turned up 
 to a friendly eye where it was not looked for. There are 
 mysteries in the world of literature, and especially about 
 the ins and outs of the literary market, which, in a way, 
 answer to some of the curious secrets of nature. There 
 have been precious germs of vegetable life unseen and un- 
 known for years, treasured up far below the surface, until 
 some modern road-makers effect their cutting through the 
 hill-side, and then, at the very next spring season, up start. 
 
142 HYMN- WRITERS AKD THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 on the bare slope, many a plant and flower that had 
 hitherto been thought foreign to the neighbourhood ; or, 
 as the warm summer sun oj)ens on some sea-side garden of 
 our inland coast, a tiny seed-vessel, borne on the ocean 
 current or on the breeze, or by a winged carrier from 
 across the water, opens its beauty on this strange soil, and 
 excites a wonder how it should have come here. So, now 
 and then, a freakish inroad on the deep accumulations of 
 some venerable library makes way for some hidden trea- 
 sures to show themselves ; or, perhaps, a curious current 
 of interest, or even a questionable side-wind, carries out a 
 manuscript or two from their obscurity, and leaves them 
 open to the daylight on some unpretending bookstall. How 
 the wind blew, or from what point the stream came which 
 dislodged Charles Wesley's manuscript from its college 
 confinement, must still be a mystery. It is clear, however, 
 that, with some of its library honours yet upon it, it was 
 found by a book-hunter as he was scouring the book- 
 market, possibly in one of the many indefinable stages 
 of Bibliomania. Had there been nothing more in the 
 volume than "Wesley's rendering of Psalm cxix., it 
 would have been worth finding. The seventh and eighth 
 parts, answering to Zai7i and Cheth in the original, are fair 
 specimens of the poet's embodiment of the Psalmist's 
 spirit, in a kind of harmonized paraphrase and transla- 
 tion : — 
 
 Thee, O Lord, the good, the just, 
 
 True and faithful I receive ; 
 Keep Thy word, in which I trust, 
 
 Thou who gav'st me to believe : 
 Hoping for Thy promised aid, 
 
 Comfort in my grief I find ; 
 This my fainting mind hath stay'd. 
 
 Still it stays my fainting mind. 
 
 Me the proud have greatly scorn'd ; 
 
 Yet I still unshaken stood, 
 Never from Thy statutes tum'd, 
 
 Never left the narrow road. 
 On Thine ancient works I thought, 
 
 Look'd again the same to see ; 
 Thou of old hast wonders wrought, 
 
 "Wonders Thou shalt work for me. 
 
 Tearless of the scomer's power, 
 Fearful for their souls I was. 
 
PSALMS IN ENGLISH METRE. 143 
 
 Saw hell open to devour 
 
 All wlio break Thy righteous laws : 
 Lord, Thy laws my songs have been 
 
 In my pilgrimage below, 
 Kept by them from woe and sin, 
 
 In a world of sin and woe. 
 
 Thee I have remembered, Lord, 
 
 Musing in the silent night, 
 Loved Thy name, and kept Thy word. 
 
 Pure and permanent delight 
 I did in Thy precepts prove : 
 
 Heaven on earth obedience is, 
 Perfect liberty and love, 
 
 Perfect power and perfect peace. 
 
 Thou my portion art, O Lord ! 
 
 Long resolved through Thee I am 
 To fulfil Thine every word, 
 
 Give me but the help I claim : 
 All my heart hath sought Thy face. 
 
 Still Thy favour I implore ; 
 Grant me now the promised grace, 
 
 Bid me go and sin no more. 
 
 All my sins I call'd to mind, 
 
 Own'd, and left them all for God; 
 Labour' d the right way to find, 
 
 Thee with earnest zeal pursued ; 
 Turn'd my feet without delay ; 
 
 Long'd Thine utmost will to prove. 
 Eager all Thy law to obey. 
 
 Restless to retrieve Thy love. 
 
 Spoil' d and hated for Thy sake, 
 
 Thee I never would forego, 
 "Would not from Thy law turn back ; 
 
 Oh my Life, my Heaven below. 
 Thee I all day long will praise. 
 
 Thee I will at midnight sing ! 
 True and righteous are Thy ways. 
 
 Glory to my God and King ! 
 
 Join'd to all who fear the Lord, 
 
 Them my dearest friends I own ; 
 Them that keep Thy holy word, 
 
 Saved by grace through faith alone. 
 Earth is full of love divine ; 
 
 Love divine for all is free ; 
 Teach me, then, the law benign ; 
 
 Guide, and save, and perfect me. 
 
144 HYMN-WEITEKS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Psalm xc. comes to us in a metrical English version of 
 beautiful simplicity from one wko has been called " the 
 Shakespeare of Scotland." It is said of Robert Burns that 
 he never failed in any poetic attempt, escej)t in epigrams. 
 He certainly did not fail in this essay at turning an old 
 eastern ode into charming English verse. The" man had 
 indeed a versatile genius. He could sing in Scotch or 
 English, or in a musical mixture of the two. He could be 
 comic or serious, tender or lofty, each and all by turns. He 
 engages our hearts in a " Cotter's " family devotion, 
 laughs and jokes with "auld Nickie-ben," dances and 
 rides with witches, mimics the voice of Bruce with effect, 
 becomes an impersonation of passionate love for a " bonnie 
 lassie," and melts into tenderness over a crushed daisy or 
 a broken mouse's nest. With the prayerful he prays, 
 with the toper he rants, and with the truly "merry" he 
 can " sing psalms." Gifts that were distributed among 
 many other penmen were happily combined in him. Would 
 that we could alwaj^s see Burns in the purer and generous 
 light of his earlier days, in his youthful manliness and 
 integrity. Would that we could always think of him as 
 swayed by the better feelings of even his later life ; when, 
 for instance, those feelings prompted him to say in a letter to 
 a lady, whose manners and principles reproved him at times, 
 " I have some favourite flowers in spring, among which are 
 the mountain daisy, the harebell, the foxglove, the wild-brier 
 rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I 
 view and hang over with particular delight. I never hear 
 the loud solitary whistle of the curlew on a summer noon, 
 or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of grey plovers in 
 an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul, 
 like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my 
 dear friend, to what can this be owing ? Ai-e we a piece 
 of machinery, which, like the iEolian harp, passive, takes 
 the impression of the passing accident ? Or do these work- 
 ings argue something within us above the trodden clod ? 
 I own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and 
 important realities — a Grod that made all things — man's 
 immaterial and immortal nature, and a world of weal or 
 woe beyond death and the grave." It would be pleasant 
 indeed ever to have the poet before us, warm with the 
 feeling which moved him when he wrote — 
 
PSALMS IN ENGLISH METEE. 145 
 
 But deep this trutli impressed my mind, 
 
 Tliroug-h all His works abroad, 
 The heart benevolent and kind 
 
 The most resembles God. 
 
 Or Iviiidling into tlie still more devout spirit of Ms little 
 gem of a psalm — 
 
 Thou, the first, the greatest friend 
 
 Of all the human race ! 
 Whose strong right hand has ever been 
 
 Their stay and dwelling-place. 
 
 Before the mountains heaved their heads 
 
 Beneath Thy forming hand ; 
 Before this ponderous globe itself 
 
 Arose at Thy command, 
 
 That power which raised and still upholds 
 
 This universal frame ; 
 From countless unbeginning time 
 
 Was ever still the same. 
 
 Those mighty periods of years, 
 
 Which seem to us so vast, 
 Appear no more before Thy sight 
 
 Than yesterday that's past. 
 
 Thou giv'st Thy word, Thy creature, man, 
 
 Is to existence brought ; 
 Again Thou sayest, "Ye sons of men, 
 
 Keturn ye into nought." 
 
 Thou layest them, with all their cares, 
 
 In everlasting sleep ; 
 As with a flood Thou tak'st them off 
 
 With overwhelming sweep. 
 
 They flourish like the morning flower. 
 
 In beauty's pride arrayed ; 
 But, long ere night, cut down it Kes, 
 
 All withered and decayed. 
 
 But shadows sometimes gather around the memory of 
 this departed genius ; shadows that even to this day dim 
 the moral life of scenes in which that memory is cherished. 
 It is not pleasant to doubt of any human life, whether the 
 good it bequeathed is equal to the mischief it entails. 
 But Burns is gone, as all the sons of genius must go, hal- 
 lowed or unhallowed; gone with the "flood," as he him- 
 
 K 
 
146 HYMN-WEITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 self psalmecl it, or as Watts, with, more sublimity, renders 
 the same truth — 
 
 The busy tribes of flesh and blood, 
 
 With all their lives and cares, 
 Are carried downwards by the flood, 
 
 And lost in following years. 
 
 Time, like an ever-rolling stream, 
 
 Bears all its sous away ; 
 They fly, forgotten, as a dream 
 
 Dies at the opening day. 
 
 Like flow'ry fields the nations stand, 
 
 Pleas' d with the morning light ; 
 The flow'rs, beneath the mower's hand, 
 
 Lie with'ring ere 'tis night. 
 
 The fragment of this psalm which Burns has left is 
 precious, were it only to show how a master of his own 
 pure native English can succeed in imitating the crystal- 
 like beauty and simple grandeur of an ancient Hebrew 
 hymn, even though his own heart never realized full sym- 
 pathy with the higher spiritual feeling of the original 
 Psalmist. "The Spirit of the Psalms" has been more 
 happily caught in later times by one whose own spirit had 
 learnt deeply to converse with the author of holiest inspi- 
 ration. Quietly toiling in a sea-side parish of Soiith 
 Devon, about thirty jeuvs ago, a devout and gentle-minded 
 parson consecrated his poetic genius to the work of pro- 
 viding "an apj)ropriate Manual of Psalmody" for the use 
 of the Church. "With characteristic modesty, he tells us 
 that he " simply endeavoured to give the spirit of each 
 psalm in such a compass as the public taste would tolerate, 
 and to furnish, sometimes, when the length of the original 
 would admit of it, an almost literal translation ; sometimes, 
 a kind of spiritual paraphrase ; and at others, even a brief 
 commentary on the whole psalm." He published his col- 
 lection under the title of " The Spirit of the Psalms." 
 What he wrote he taught his flock to sing, and beautiful 
 was it to find Henry P. Lyte leading the psalmody of his 
 congregation by singing with them his own metrical ver- 
 sions. One Sunday morning, in the summer of 1838, his 
 chtirch was ci'owded with seafaring men and their families. 
 He took for his text the Saviour's words to the boatmen of 
 
PSALMS m e::^glish metre. 147 
 
 Galilee, " Cast the net on tlie right side of the ship, and ye 
 shall find ; " and he began by saying : " The affecting and 
 interesting sight which presents itself here to-day induces 
 me to select a subject directly suitable to our dear fisher- 
 men, whom I so rejoice to meet in the house of God this 
 morning. There is surely not one person present who 
 does not partake of the emotions which I feel in standing 
 up among such a body of my parishioners, and who will 
 not excuse me for addressing my self on this occasion almost 
 exclusively to them." Then followed a faithful and touch- 
 ing appeal to those who saw God's " wonders in the deep," 
 and then this beautiful and appropriate version of Psalm 
 xlvi. : — 
 
 The Lord is oivc refuge, the Lord is our guide ; 
 
 We smile upon dang-er, -with Hijn at our side : 
 
 The billows may blacken, the tempest increase, 
 
 Though earth may be shaken, His saints shall have peace. 
 
 A voice still and small by His people is heard, 
 
 A whisper of peace from His life-giving- word. 
 
 A stream in the desert, a river of love, 
 
 Flows down to their hearts from the Fountain above. 
 
 Be near us, Redeemer, to shield us from iU ; 
 Speak Thou but the word, and the tempest is still. 
 Thy presence to cheer us. Thy arm to defend, 
 A worm grows almighty with Thee for a friend. 
 
 The Lord is our helper ; ye scorners, be awed ! 
 Ye earthhngs, be still, and acknowledge your God. 
 The proud He will humble, the lowly defend ; 
 O happy the people with God for a friend I 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 HYMN-M END EES. 
 
 "For the ear trieth words as the mouth tasteth meat." 
 
 No man was ever more apt at writing an eflfeetive preface 
 than John Wesley. Never did author more decidedly 
 assert his own claims and powers, or more strikingly adver- 
 tise the virtue of his own pages. Eead the notice on the 
 title-page of his remarkable "Pocket Dictionary:" — 
 " N.B. The author assures you he thinks this is the best 
 English Dictionary in the world ! " And then, who does 
 not enjoy the satirical humour and playful earnestness of 
 his address to the reader, " as incredible as it ma}^ appear, 
 I must avow that this dictionary is not published to get 
 money, but to assist persons of common sense and no learn- 
 ing to understand the best English authors ; and tliat witli 
 as little expense of time and money as the nature of the 
 
 thing will allow I should add no more, but that 
 
 I have so often observed, the only way, according to the 
 modern taste, for any author to procure commendation to 
 his book is, vehemently to commend it himself. For want of 
 this deference to the public, several excellent tracts lately 
 printed, but left to commend themselves by their intrinsic 
 worth, are utterly unknown or forgotten. "Whereas if a 
 writer of tolerable sense will but bestow a few violent 
 encomiums on his own work, especially if they are skilfully 
 ranged on the title-page, it will pass through six editions 
 in a trice ; the world being too complaisant to give a 
 gentleman the lie, and taking it for granted he under- 
 stands his own performance best. In compliance, therefore, 
 with the taste of the age, I add, that this little dictionary 
 
HYMN-MENDERS. 149 
 
 is not only the shortest 'and the cheapest, but like-^ise by 
 many degrees the most correct which is extant at this day. 
 Many are the mistakes in all the other EngKsh dictionaries 
 which. I have yet seen. Whereas I can truly say, I know 
 of none in this ; and I conceive the reader will believe me ; 
 for if I had, I shoidd not have left it there. Use then 
 this help till you find a better." This is all anonymous, 
 and some might doubt its authorship, but for its unmistak- 
 able claim to the same parentage with the preface to 
 ' ' A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People called 
 Methodists, by John Wesley, M.A." Who can doubt the 
 identity of the self-reliance, firm decision, strong sense, 
 straightforward sincerity, and transparent purity of pur- 
 pose ? "The hymn-book you have now before you," 
 says the writer, "is not so large as to be either cumbersome 
 or expensive ; and it is large enough to contain such a 
 variety of hymns, as will not soon be worn threadbare. . . 
 As but a small part of these hymns is of my own compos- 
 ing, I do not think it inconsistent with modesty to declare 
 that I am persuaded no such hymn-book as this has as yet 
 been published in the English language. In what other 
 publication of the kind have you so distinct and full an 
 account of Scriptural Christianity? Such a declaration 
 of the heights and depths of religion, speculative and 
 practical ? So strong cautions against the most plavisible 
 errors; particularly those that are now most prevalent? 
 and so clear directions for making your calling and election 
 sure ; for perfecting holiness in the fear of God ? May I 
 be permitted to add a few words with regard to the 
 poetry ? Then I will speak to those who are judges thereof 
 with all freedom and unreserve. To these I may saj^, 
 without offence — 1. In these hymns there is no doggerel ; 
 no blotches ; nothing put in to patch up the rhyme ; no 
 feeble expletives. 2. Here is nothing turgid or bombast, 
 on the one hand, or low and creeping on the other. 
 3. Here are no cant expressions ; no words without mean- 
 ing. Those who impute this to us know not what they 
 say. We talk common sense, both in prose and verse, and 
 use no word but in a fixed and determinate sense. 4. Here 
 are, allow me to say, both the purity, the strength, and 
 the elegance of the English language ; and, at the same 
 time, the utmost simplicity and plainness, suited to every 
 
150 HYHN-VEITEES AND TUEIK HYilKS. 
 
 capacity. Lastly, I desire men of taste to judge (these 
 are tlie onl}^ comjietent judges) whether there be in some 
 of the following hymns the true spirit of poetry, such as 
 cannot be acquired by art and nature, but must be the gift 
 of nature." 
 
 This is a fair challenge, and the majority of those to 
 whom the appeal is made seem to have a growing convic- 
 tion that Wesley's judgment was cj^uite equal to his poetic 
 taste and power ; but now comes the assertion of other 
 claims. " And here," continues the writer, "I beg leave 
 to mention a thought which has been long upon my mind, 
 and which I should long ago have inserted in the public 
 papers, had, I not been unwilling to stir up a nest of 
 hornets. Man}' gentlemen have done my brother and me 
 (though without naming us) the honour to reprint many of 
 our hymns. Now, they are perfectly welcome so to do, 
 l^rovided they print them just as they are ; but I desire they 
 would not attempt to mend them, for they really are not 
 able. None of them is able to mend either the sense or 
 the verse. Therefore, I must beg of them one of these two 
 favours — either to let them stand just as they are, to take 
 them for better for worse ; or to add the true reading in the 
 margin, or at the bottom of the page, that we may no 
 longer be accountable either for the nonsense or for the 
 doggerel of other men." Who does not recognise here 
 the voice of the humorous, trenchant, and self-possessed 
 compiler of "the best English Dictionary in the world" ? 
 John Wesley feels himself equal alike to lexicography and 
 hymnic composition. He might be called a prophet too. 
 At all events, there is something in his j)reface like a fore- 
 casting of times, when the rage for compiling hymn-books 
 would lead to all sorts of h^mm-mending. Did he foresee 
 this age of literary sacrilege ? He seemed to deprecate the 
 early attempts to improve his hymns, as foretokens of the 
 days which have fallen upon us ; days of adaptation 
 hymn-books, when churches high and low, congregations 
 great and small, communions close and open, connexions 
 loose and tight, schools both wholesome and ragged, 
 associations young and old, all sects, all parties, all shades 
 and standards of doctrine and feeling, all and each must 
 have a hymn-book; " yea, every one hath a psalm, hath a 
 doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an inter- 
 
HYMN-MENDERS. 151 
 
 pretation" ? Poor "Wesley ! tlie reckless menders began 
 wMle lie was yet alive, and surely his critical sense must 
 have been painfully touched when, among many other 
 violations, the first verse of his brother's jubilant hymn on 
 the name of Jesus was weakened into compliance with 
 another creed. The original hymn sings — 
 
 Let earth and heaven agree, 
 
 Angels and men be join'd, 
 To celebrate with me 
 
 The Savioiu- of mankind ; 
 To adore the all- atoning Lamb, 
 And bless the sound of Jesu's name. 
 
 But, instead of this closing couplet, the menders would 
 make us sing — 
 
 To fall before the atoning Lamb, 
 And praise the blessed Jesu's name. 
 
 In another noble h;)Tnn " for the Jews," we are taught to 
 pray — 
 
 Come, then, Thou great Deliverer, come ! 
 
 The veil from Jacob's heart remove ; 
 Eeceive thy ancient people home ! 
 
 That, quickened by Thy dying love, 
 The world may their reception find, 
 Life from the dead for all mankind. 
 
 This, however, is too large a prayer for some, and, to suit 
 their narrower views, the last lines are softened down to 
 this — 
 
 That, quickened by Thy djdng- love. 
 
 The world may their reception view. 
 
 And shout to God the glory due ! 
 
 Of all that Charles "Wesley ever wrote, nothing ought 
 to have been held more sacred from the touch of mere 
 senseless mutilators than the hymn which has hushed 
 and cheered so many souls amidst the tempests of this 
 mortal life. How many voices from both worlds pro- 
 nounce it sacrilege to alter that hymn ! One heart, at 
 least, still beats by whom it is held as an invaluable 
 treasure, nor is it for ever enshrined in that heart without 
 good reason. About twenty years ago, on a winter's 
 night, a heavy gale set in upon the precipitoiis rock-bound 
 coast of one of our western counties. A tight, brave little 
 
152 IlYMX-^TEITEES AXD THEIK HYMNS. 
 
 coasting vessel struggled hard and long to reach, some 
 shelter in the Bristol Channel, but the struggle -u-as vain ; 
 one dark fearful headland covild not be weathered ; the 
 bark must go on shore, and what a shore it was the fated 
 men well knew. Then came the last jduU for life ; the 
 boat was swung off and manned ; captain and crew united 
 in one more brave effort, but their toiling at the oai- was 
 soon over, their boat was swamjied. They seemed to have 
 sunk together, " and in death they were not divided," for, 
 when the morning dawned, they were found lying all but 
 side by side under the shelter of a weedy rock. They 
 might have been saved had they stayed in the ship, for 
 she had been borne in upon a heaw;/ sea close under the 
 cliff, where she was jammed immovably between two 
 rocks, and in the morning the ebb tide left her lying high 
 and dry. There was no sign of life on deck, and below 
 scarcely anything told of her late distress. One token of 
 peace and salvation there was ; it was the captain's hymn- 
 book still Ijing on the locker, closed upon the jDencil with 
 which the good man had marked the last passages upon 
 which his eye had rested before he left the ship to meet 
 his fate. A leaf of the page was turned down, and there 
 were pencil lines in the margin at several passages of 
 Charles Wesley's precious hymn — 
 
 Jestis, lover of my soizl, 
 
 Let me to Thy bosom fly ; 
 "Wliile the nearer waters roll, 
 
 While the tempest still is high I 
 Hide me, ray Savioiu', hide, 
 
 Till the storm of life is past, 
 Safe into the haren guide ; 
 
 Oh receive my soul at last ! 
 
 Other refuge have I none ; 
 
 Hangs my helpless soul on Thee ; 
 Leave, ah ! leave me not alone. 
 
 Still support and comfort me : 
 All my trust on Thee is stay'd, 
 
 All my help from Thee I bring : 
 CoA^er my defenceless head 
 
 With the shadow of Thy wing ! 
 
 Wilt Thou not regard my call ? 
 
 Wilt Thou not accept my prayer ? 
 Lo ! I sink, I faint, I fall ! 
 
 Lo ! on Thee I cast mv care ! 
 
HYMN-MEXDEES. 153 
 
 Reacli me out Thy pracious hand ! 
 
 While I of Thy strength receive, 
 Hoping against hope I stand, 
 
 Dying, and behold I live ! 
 
 Thou, Christ, art all I want ; 
 
 More than all in Thee I find : 
 Raise the fallen, cheer the faint. 
 
 Heal the sick, and lead the blind ! 
 Just and holy is Thy name ; 
 
 I am all unrighteousness ; 
 False and full of sin I am. 
 
 Thou art full of truth and grace ! 
 
 Plenteous grace with Thee is found, 
 
 Grace to cover all my sin ; 
 Let the healing streams aboiind ; 
 
 Make and keep me pure within ! 
 Thou of life the fountain art ; 
 
 Treely let me take of Thee ; 
 Spring Thou up within my heart, 
 
 Rise to all eternity ! 
 
 This was the pious captain's death-song. And who that 
 loves his memory, or who that has mused by his green 
 seaside grave, where his dust awaits the resurrection, or 
 who that has learnt to sing his favourite verses, " with the 
 spirit and with the understanding also," but must be pain- 
 fully touched at finding any part of the hymn mangled and 
 flattened, until its spirit and life are all but gone ? Yet 
 to such grief some of our hymn-manglers would subject 
 the lovers of original poetic beauty and power. Alas ! for 
 the taste of the man who could blot out Charles "Wesley's 
 first four exquisite lines to substitute his own thus — 
 
 Jesus, refuge of my soxil, 
 
 Let me to thy mercy fly ; 
 Wliile the raging billows roll, 
 
 WliUe the tempest still is high ! 
 
 But even this is nothing, compared with the stupid imperti- 
 nence exemplified in some of the little spiritual song books 
 which swarm from the press for the use of various parties 
 professing to be the unsectarian representatives of spiritual 
 revival. The two shores of St. George's Channel seem to 
 strive for the mastery in doggerel. One manual gives a 
 version of Wesley's glorious hymn — 
 
154 HYMN-WEITEES AXD THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Oh love divine, how sweet thou art ! 
 When shall I find my willing heart 
 
 All taken up by Thee ? 
 I tliirst, I faint, I die to prove 
 The greatness of redeeming love, 
 
 The love of Christ to me ! 
 
 The glowing climax of the last three lines, so finely 
 expressive of the rising warmth of the soul in its longing 
 for Christ, breaks down into flatness at the touch of the 
 emendator's pen — 
 
 Oh may I faint, and thii-st to prove 
 
 The greatness of redeeming love — 
 
 The love of Christ to me I 
 
 Wesley keeps up the swell of the soul's devotion in the 
 following verse — 
 
 God only knows the love of G-od : 
 Oh that it now were shed abroad 
 
 In this poor stony heart ! 
 For love I sigh, for love I pine : 
 This only portion, Lord, be mine. 
 
 Be mine the better part ! 
 
 But our modern editor thinks the " ^Door stony heart " too 
 cold, and makes it a "poor longing heart"; yet falls 
 immediately into doubtfulness as to the reality of its pre- 
 sent desires, and awkwardly changing both mood and tense, 
 timidly promises, that if the love 
 
 were shed abroad 
 
 In this poor longing heart, 
 
 he would sigh for it still, and pine for it still — 
 
 For love Td sigh, for love Td pine ! 
 
 The subhmest strain is not safe from the damaging touch 
 of conceited hymn-menders. Evidence of this is found in 
 the humiliating fact that the inimitable hymn founded on 
 St. Paul's saying, " of whom the whole family in heaven 
 and earth is named," has been published in a mutilated 
 form. The first verse begins — 
 
 Come let us join our friends above 
 
 That have obtained the prize, 
 And on the eagle wings of love 
 
 To joys celestial rise. 
 
HYMX- MENDERS . 155 
 
 Such, eagle fliglits arelbeyond the power of some songsters, 
 and they change it by singing — 
 
 Come let us join our friends above 
 
 Who have obtained the prize, 
 And happy in the Saviour's love, 
 
 To joys celestial rise. 
 
 Nor can that grand expression of realizing faith at the close 
 of the hymn be allowed to remain, but instead of 
 
 Our spirits too shall quickly join, 
 Like theirs with glory crown' d ! 
 
 The weaker and more wavering confidence says — 
 
 The morning comes when all shall join. 
 Alike with glory crown' d. 
 
 Another of Charles AVesley's joyful outbreaks of Christian 
 assurance needs to be checked and qualified, as his censor 
 thinks. The original hymnist shouts — 
 
 Away with our sorrow and fear. 
 
 We soon shall recover our home ; 
 ■ The city of saints shall appear, 
 
 The day of eternity come. 
 From earth we shaU quickly remove, 
 
 And mount to our native abode ! 
 The house of our Father above. 
 
 The palace of angels and God. 
 
 The second line is tamed clown to 
 
 We soon shall have enter' d our home. 
 
 And as if the good people were afraid to mount in Wesley's 
 style, they sing — 
 
 From earth we shall quickly remove, 
 
 To dwell in our native abode, 
 In mansions of glory above, 
 
 Prepared by our Father and God. 
 
 And then follows a jumble of stanzas gathered from 
 several hymns of the same metre, the heterogeneous mix- 
 ture being introduced by a distinctive Irishism — 
 
 Ah ! who upon earth can conceive 
 The bliss that in heaven tct'' II share ? 
 
156 IIYMX-"WKITERS A^"D THEIR IITIIXS. 
 
 The writer of course means the bliss that we shall share ; 
 but, like many of his incurable countrymen, he must have 
 it icill, expressive, doubtless, of his fixed determination 
 to have his own share of hymning in the other world, as 
 well as his own way of hymn-mending in this. But enough 
 has been said to show that John Wesley had reason for 
 shrinking from being " accountable for the nonsense or the 
 doggerel of other men." It is not surprising, however, 
 that the unskilful multitude should try their hands at 
 hymn-mending, when masters in the art have set such 
 examples. Critical inquiries into the history of hymnology 
 open up some curious scenes. The Weslej^s are seen 
 mending Herbert and "Watts, Toplady and Madan are found 
 hashing and re-cooking Charles Wesley. Somebody else 
 is trying to improve Toplady. Heber makes free with 
 Jeremy Taylor. Montgomery is altering and altered. 
 Keble, and Milman, and Alford are all pinched, and 
 twisted, and re-dressecl in turn. Among all these menders 
 John Wesley was perhaps one of the best. He was posi- 
 tively sure that nobody could mend his own hymns ; but 
 he was not scrupulous in mending other people's. His 
 critical power and poetic taste, however, were exercised 
 chiefly on the productions of his brother Charles, and 
 generally his emendations were improvements. And 
 perhaps, too, it was happy for Charles that he had a 
 brother so severe ; for one who wrote so many verses and 
 so fast, needed another eye and another hand to guard him 
 from the consequences of voluminous rhyming. In dealing 
 with other authors, whose hymns are brought to enrich his 
 hymn-book, John Wesley's touches are, for the most part, 
 delicate but effective. Bj^ the slightest stroke he some- 
 times turns weakness into strength, commonplaces into 
 beauties, and irregularity into order. A transforming 
 word or two from him, now and then, makes questionable 
 things j)ure, and calls up grandeur from what was puerile 
 or mean. Witness the transformation of some verses in 
 Watts's hymn on " Heavenly joys on earth." The original 
 first verse is — 
 
 Come, we that love the Lord, 
 
 And let our joys be knovrn ; 
 Join in a song with sweet accord. 
 
 And thus surround the throne. 
 
HYMN-MENDEES. 157 
 
 Wesley takes away the sign of "weakness by rendering it — 
 
 Come, yc tliat love the Lord, 
 
 And let your joys be known, 
 E'en in a song with sweet accord, 
 
 While ye surround Sis throne. 
 
 The rise from something akin to silliness into grandeur is 
 still more strikingly seen in the change of the foiu'th verse 
 from 
 
 The God that rules on high. 
 
 And thunders when He please, 
 That rides upon the stormy sky, 
 And manages the seas. 
 into 
 
 The God that rules on high. 
 That all the earth surveys, 
 That rides upon the stormy sky, 
 And calms the roaring seas. 
 
 The noble hymn ie thus equalized, and saved from those 
 occasional lapses into weaknesses which so sadly break the 
 grand march of some of Watts' s best productions. What 
 additional dignity Wesley gives to Watts' s version of the 
 Psalm cslvi. by a slight alteration of two lines, changing 
 
 I'll praise my Maker with my breath, 
 into 
 
 I'll praise my Maker ichile I've breath, 
 and rendering 
 
 The Lord hath eyes to give the blind, 
 thus — 
 
 The Lord poiirs eyesight on the blind. 
 
 Still more remarkable is the improvement in the hymn on 
 " Christ dying, rising, and reigning." Watts' s first verse 
 begins too fondly, and then becomes puerile. 
 
 He dies ! The heavenly Lover dies ! 
 
 The tidings strike a doleful sound 
 On my poor heart-strings. Deep He lies 
 
 In the cold caverns of the ground. 
 
 Wesley's improvement opens with great beauty of thought 
 and grandeur of imagery, consistently leading the mind 
 into the noble strain of the following verses — 
 
158 HYMN-WEITERS AND THEIR HTMNS. 
 
 He dies ! The Friend of sinners dies ! 
 
 Lo! Salem's daiighters weep aronnd; 
 A solemn darkness veils the skies, 
 
 A sudden tremblimg shakes the ground. 
 
 The Cliristian Cliiircli will never cease to enjoy tlie grand 
 swell of the Psalm c. as given by Watts ; but thanks will 
 ever be due to Wesley for making the first verses worthy 
 of the last. Watts's verses begin without much pro- 
 mise : — 
 
 Sing to the Lord with joyful voice ; 
 
 Let every land His name adore ; 
 The British isles shall send the noise 
 
 Across the ocean to the shore. 
 
 Nations attend before His throne 
 With solemn fear, -with sacred joy. 
 
 Wesley drops the first verse, and begins the second 
 thus: — 
 
 Before Jehovah's awful throne, 
 Ye nations, bow with sacred joy; 
 
 giving a noble completeness to the hymn, opening it with 
 a majesty suitable to its continued swell, and preparing 
 us for that sublime close which leaves the devout multi- 
 tude rapt before God in solemn joy. 
 
 We'll crowd thy gates with thankful songs. 
 
 High as the heavens ovir voices raise ; ' 
 
 And earth, with her ten thousand tongues. 
 Shall fill Thy courts with sounding- praise. 
 
 Wide as the world is Thy command. 
 
 Vast as eternity Thy love ; 
 Firm as a rock Thy truth shall stand, 
 
 When rolling years shall cease to move. 
 
 The Wesleyan hymn-menders are not always as happy, in 
 dealing with other hymnists, as in their emendations of 
 Watts. For instance, when they alter that beautiful hymn 
 by Berridge — 
 
 Jesus, cast a look on me, 
 
 and place the altered form in their collection as beginning 
 with 
 
 Lord, that I may learn of Thee. 
 
HYMN- MENDERS. 159 
 
 The original should have been held sacred. It is founded 
 on Psalm cxxxi. 2, "My soul is even as a weaned child." 
 Thus :— 
 
 Jesus, cast a look on me, 
 Give me STveet simplicity ; 
 Make me poor, and kee-p me low, 
 Seeking only Thee to know. 
 
 "Weaned from my lordly self, 
 Weaned from the miser's pelf. 
 Weaned from the sconier's ways, 
 Weaned from the lust of praise. 
 
 All that feeds my busy pride. 
 Cast it evermore aside ; 
 Bid my will to Thine submit, 
 Lay me humbly at Thy feet. 
 
 Make me like a little child. 
 Of my strength and wisdom spoil'd ; 
 Seeing- only in Thy light, 
 Walking only in Thy might. 
 
 Leaning on Thy loving breast, 
 Where a weary soul may rest ; 
 Feeling well the peace of God, 
 Flowing from Thy precious blood I 
 
 In this pasture let me live, 
 And hosannas daily give ; 
 In this temper let me die, 
 And hosannas ever cry ! 
 
 It must be said of John Wesley, that whether he worked 
 as compiler, or critic, or hymn-writer, he evidently worked 
 with a pure aim. His object was to provide for his peoj^le 
 a hymn-book distinguished by completeness of rhyme, a 
 large variety of metre, energy of thought and expression, 
 soimd argument, thorough evangelical orthodoxy, and 
 pure and warm religious feeling. The great popularity 
 and widening usefulness of his collection show the measure 
 of his success. Many peojile woidd naturally ask what 
 sort of hymns such a hymn-mender as he coulcl write. He 
 wrote but few. But these few fairly sustain his claims as 
 a worthy member of a poetic family, and a leader among 
 the hymnists of his day. One of his hymns is highly 
 characteristic at once of his genius and his religious charac- 
 
160 hy:mn-vkitebs ajstd their hymn's. 
 
 ter, and marks some peculiar phases of his experience, as 
 ■well as some points of his personal history. The hymn 
 may be called " the Pilgrim's Hymn: " — 
 
 How hapijy is the pilgrim's lot ! 
 How free from every anxious thought, 
 
 From worldly hope and fear ! 
 Confined to neither court nor cell, 
 His soul disdains on earth to dwell, 
 
 His only sojourn 's here. 
 
 His happiness in part is mine, 
 Already saved from low design, 
 
 From every creature love ; 
 Blest with the scorn of finite good, 
 My soul is lightened of its load. 
 
 And seeks the things above. 
 
 The things eternal I pursue ; 
 A happiness beyond the view 
 
 Of those that basely pant 
 For things by nature felt and seen ; 
 Their honours, wealth, and pleasures mean, 
 
 I neither have nor want. 
 
 I have no babes to hold me here ; 
 But childi-en more secui'ely dear, 
 
 For mine I humbly claim ; 
 Better than daughters or than sons, 
 Temples divine of living stones. 
 
 Inscribed with Jesu's name. 
 
 No foot of land do I possess. 
 No cottage in this wilderness ; 
 
 A poor waj'f aring man, 
 I lodge awhile in tents below. 
 Or gladly wander to and fro. 
 
 Till I my Canaan gain. 
 
 Nothing on earth I call my own ; 
 A stranger, to the world unknown, 
 
 I all their goods despise ; 
 I trample on their whole delight, 
 And seek a country out of sight, 
 
 A country in the skies. 
 
 There is my house, my portion fair ; 
 My treasure and my heart are there. 
 
 And my abiding home ; 
 For me my elder brethren stay, 
 And angels beckon me away. 
 
 And Jesus bids me come. 
 
HYMN-MENDEES. 161 
 
 I come — Thy servant, Lord, replies — 
 I come to meet Thee in the skies, 
 
 And claim my heavenly rest ! 
 Now let the pilgrim's journey end ; 
 Now, O my Saviour, Brother, Friend, 
 
 Receive me to Thy breast ! 
 
 One stanza is now generally omitted. It was written 
 probably wbile be was unmarried ; and under tbe influence 
 of views sometimes peculiar to unmarried life — 
 
 I have no sharer of my heart, 
 To rob my Saviour of a part. 
 
 And desecrate the whole : 
 Only betrothed to Christ am I, 
 And wait His coming from the sky, 
 
 To wed my happy soul. 
 
 There have been many Christian souls who, during some 
 period of their life, would take up the language of this 
 remarkable hymn, and sing it on their lonely way. It 
 may be said of some one part of many a man's life-journey, 
 "it was desert" ; and that desert part he may have gone 
 over single-handed, scripless and alone. How often, in 
 such cases, has the music of this hymn risen on the silent 
 air, as an acceptable sacrifice of holy confidence, gratitude, 
 and joy. Of one singular character, at least, it may be said 
 that he could adopt it, and use it from his first starting in 
 Christian life to his final hour. To those who knew him, 
 and many, many in the west of England were thankful to 
 know him, it seemed as if the hymn were made for him. 
 Nor was there a day through his somewhat lengthened life 
 in which some stanza of it was not on his lips. " Foolish 
 Dick," people called him, and not without some share of 
 reason. In early life he was enough of an idiot to be 
 unequal to any labour that required a tolerable amount of 
 regulated thought or skill. But he proved to be one of 
 those whose history strikingly shows the quickening, 
 expanding, and regulating power of vital religion on the 
 human intellect, even in its nearest approaches to hopeless 
 idiocy. Dick was one morning on his way to the well for 
 water, when an old Christian man who was leaning over 
 the garden gate said, " So you are going to the well for 
 water, Dick ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir.". 
 
162 HYMN-WRITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 " "Well, Dick ; the woman of Samaria found Jesus Christ 
 at the weU." 
 
 "Did she, sir?" 
 
 "Yes, Dick." 
 
 That was enough. A quickening thought had struck 
 into his half-awakened mind. The thought worked ; and 
 when he came to the well, he said, within himself, but loud 
 enough to he heard by his Saviour, " Why should not I find 
 Jesus Christ at the well ? Oh that I could find Him ! WiU 
 He come to we?" Yes, his prayer was heard; and Dick 
 returned bearing his full pitcher; but bringing in his heart, 
 too, the joy of which Jesus said, " It shall be in him a well 
 of water, springing up into everlasting life." From that 
 hour, Dick "left his watering-pot"; and gave himself up 
 to the work of telling his neighbours the story of his con- 
 version at the well, and indeed to the work of preacliing 
 Christ, in his way, in discourses marked by strong sense, 
 warm feeling, and stirring appeals to the sinner's conscience 
 and heart. Every facidty of his mind, and all the passions 
 of his soul now seemed to unfold new powers and fresh life. 
 He was verily born again. His memory soon showed 
 marvellous power. To hear a chapter in the Bible, or a 
 hj'mn read to him, was to know it, and to have power to 
 reproduce it. His new gifts were used for Christ. He went 
 forth as an itinerant evangelist ; going without piirse or 
 scrip ; and through a life-long pilgrimage round and round 
 his native county, and sometimes over the Border, he went 
 everywhere preaching Jesus. He never lacked food or 
 raiment, and when he entered into rest, many, many happy 
 spirits hailed him as the instrument of their salvation from 
 sin and death. He was indeed a pilgrim preacher, rude 
 and unpolished, as some thoiight, but certainly taught of 
 Christ. The "Pilgrim's Hj-mn " was always in keeping 
 from his lips. It was his favourite hymn, and every home 
 that welcomed him had its hearth cheered by his music; for 
 he would sit and wave too and fro, and sing, in a way that 
 set forth the elegant simplicity of the lines — 
 
 No foot of land do I possess. 
 No cottage in this -wilderness ; 
 
 A poor waj'iariiig' man, 
 T lodge awhile in tents below ; 
 Or gladly wander to and fro, 
 
 Till I my Canaan gain. 
 
HYMN-MElfDEIlS. 163 
 
 This was his song all through the land of his pilgrimage. 
 And not long ago, followed by the blessings of his genera- 
 tion, the weary old pilgrim departed, to realize the full 
 answer to his last stanza — 
 
 Now let tlie pilgrim's journey end ; 
 Now, O my Saviour, Brother, Friend, 
 Eeceiye me to Thy breast ! 
 
CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 HYMNS OF CREATION. 
 
 " Thou art worthy, Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: 
 for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and 
 were created." 
 
 "I ONCE joined a party for a day's j)leasure trij) in the west 
 of England," says an old rambler ; " onr plan was to get to 
 the top of the highest hill in the neighbourhood, and there 
 for a time take our fill of joy from the grandeur and beauty 
 of the scenes around and beneath us. Alas, for human 
 pleasures ! The morning opened with rain, and we were 
 seemingly doomed to disappointment. At length, encour- 
 aged by some weather-wise folks, we resolved to-accomplish 
 our piu'pose, even at the risk of wet jackets by the way. 
 We climbed the steeps in spite of wind and rain, and came 
 by and by, on the highest peak, to some steps leading to 
 the door of an old tower, which from time immemorial had 
 withstood the rush of years and storms. As we mounted 
 these steps, we found, to our wonderment and delight, that 
 on looking out, our eyes glanced along the upper surface of 
 the clouds ; and when we had fairly reached the roof of 
 the old tower, there was nothing of our native earth to be 
 seen but the few square feet of stone-work on which we 
 stood. Beneath us was an ocean of clouds ; above us were 
 the bright blue heavens. The sun had gone down just to 
 the horizon, where the clear sky touched the cloud-billows. 
 The faint-looking crescent of the new moon was peeping on 
 us too from above the offing line of the cloudy deep. "We 
 could hear the carol of a lark, but otherwise the silence of 
 nature was profound and solemn. AVe felt ourselves for 
 once beyond the sight and sound of the world which gave 
 
HYMA'S OF CEEATION. 165 
 
 US birth. One voice uttered the key-note, and then, as if 
 we had hut one soul, we sang — 
 
 High in the heavens, Eternal God, 
 
 Thy goodness in full giory shines ; 
 Thy truth shall break through every cloud 
 
 That veils and darkens Thy designs. 
 
 For ever firm Thy justice stands, 
 
 As mountains their foundations keep ; 
 
 Wise are the wonders of Thy hands ; 
 Thy judgments are a mighty deep. 
 
 There was a charm in psalmodj^ at that moment which I 
 had never felt before, and it really seemed as if that charm 
 were acknowledged by nature ; for just at this moment 
 there were movements in the cloud-world beneath us — the 
 masses were rolling, heaving, and cleaving here and there. 
 Now the top of a green hill appeared, like an island rising 
 from the depths to court the sunlight ; now a slope was 
 seen opening from beneath the passing mist ; now a spire 
 rose above the surface ; and now a village peeped on the 
 hill-side, and the clustering roofs of a more distant town 
 sparkled as the sunbeams touched them. The clouds 
 resolved themselves at length into river-like courses, filling 
 the valleys and leaving the uplands to show themselves. 
 The rivers narrowed, became shallow streams, and at last, 
 like silvery threads, they ran off towards the shore, until 
 every filmy vapour was gone, even from the face of the 
 sea, and the whole scene, with its glorious variety of hill 
 and plain, valley and heath, woods and ocean, lay bright, 
 calm, and beautiful beneath the setting sun. Fresh in- 
 spiration now came upon us, and we sang again — 
 
 God is a name my soul adores, 
 
 Th' Almighty Three, th' eternal One, 
 Nature and grace, with all their powers, 
 
 Confess the infinite Unknown. 
 
 From Thy great self Thy being springs ; 
 
 Thou art Thy own original, 
 Made up of uncreated things, 
 
 And self-sulficience bears them all. 
 
 Thy voice produced the seas and spheres, 
 
 Bid the waves roar and planets shine ; 
 But nothing like Thyself appears 
 
 Through all these spacious works of Thine. 
 
166 HTMN-WEITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Still restless nature dies and grows ; 
 
 From change to change the creatures run ; 
 Thy being no succession knows, 
 
 And all Thy vast designs are one. 
 
 A glance of Thine runs through the globes, 
 Eides the bright world, and moves their frame : 
 
 Broad sheets of light compose Thy robes, 
 Thy guards are formed of living flame. 
 
 Thrones and dominions round Thee fall, 
 
 And worship in submissive forms ; 
 Thy presence shakes this lower ball, 
 
 Tlus little dwelling-place of worms. 
 
 How shall affrighted mortals dare 
 
 To sing Thy glory or Thy grace; 
 Beneath Thy feet we lie so far. 
 
 And see but shadows of Thy face. 
 
 Who can behold the blazing light ? 
 
 Who can approach consuming flame ? 
 None but Thy wisdom knows Thy might, 
 
 None but Thy word can speak Thy name. 
 
 "'Well,' said one, as we came down from the tower, 'I 
 never before felt tlie music and power of those fine old 
 hymns so deeply. "Watts does not always keep us up so 
 steadily to the end of the strain. Dear old singer! he had 
 times of deep sympathy with the natiu-al world, and often 
 helps one, as he helped us to-day, to catch the inspiring- 
 breath of natural grandeur and beauty, so as to feel as if 
 we were one with all the works of our heavenly Father.' 
 
 " 'Yes,' said somebody else ; 'but we owe much of our 
 enjoyment of Watts to association, to the lingering in- 
 fluence of our early impressions about his hymns ; and a 
 great deal, too, in his case, depends on the music to which 
 his hymns are set. We enjoy his verses when they are sung 
 more frequently than when we read them. I have a notion 
 that it is with his hymns somewhat as it is with many of 
 Thomas Moore's "Irish Melodies"; about which I am 
 very willing to admit all that is said as to their graceful 
 thought, their tender pathos, and bursts of heroic feeling. 
 They have wonderful melody of words, too ; but it strikes 
 me that we have learnt to award to Moore's verses much 
 that really belongs to the old tunes for which he provided 
 the words. At all events, in reading many of them you 
 
HYMNS OF CREATIOX. 1G7 
 
 but seldom find your soul arrested, while to hear them 
 sung is to be mastered by the feeling which they create. 
 Now, speaking of Tom Moore, I like him best when he 
 gets away from amidst the rather wearisome gorgeousness 
 of his Eastern imager}^, and from the brilliant circles in 
 which his genius and wit so brightly sparkle, and allows 
 himself to be hushed into a devout feeling within the 
 quietude of his cottage retreat. I like to find him in that 
 little Wiltshire home, with its old-fashioned windows and 
 trellised doorway, hung about with creepers and ever- 
 greens, and surrounded by such touching evidences of 
 Divine goodness as melt the heart, and constrain the 
 genius to express itself in hymns and spiritual songs. 
 You say Watts had times of deep sympathy with the 
 natural world — had not Moore ? And had he not some 
 reverent sympathy with the God of nature, too ? And does 
 he not help us to praise the source of life and beauty V 
 Only listen to this : — 
 
 Thou art, O God, the life and Kght 
 Of all this wondrous world we see ; . 
 
 Its glow by day, its smile by night, 
 Are but reflections caught from Thee. 
 
 Where'er we turn, Thy glories shine, 
 
 And all things fair and bright are Thine. 
 
 When day, with fare"s\"ell beam, delays 
 
 Among the opening clouds of even, 
 And we can almost think we gaze 
 
 Through golden vistas into heaven : 
 Those hues that make the sun's decline 
 So soft, so radiant, Lord, are Thine. 
 
 When night, with wings of starry gloom, 
 
 O'ershadows all the earth and skies, 
 Like some dark beauteous bird, whose plume 
 
 Is sparkling with unuvunbered eyes : 
 That sacred gloom, those fires di%dne, 
 So grand, so countless. Lord, are Thine. 
 
 When youthful spring around us breathes, 
 Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh ; 
 
 And every flower the siunmer -^Teathes, 
 Is boru beneath that kindling eye. 
 
 Where'er we turn. Thy glories shine, 
 
 And aU things bright and fair are Thine. 
 
 " ' Yes,' said a pleasant-looking companion, as we all 
 
1 68 HYMN-WEITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 flung ourselves clown among tlie heath, as if we were all 
 disposed to keep xip the chat about hymns, ' yes, Moore is 
 much to my taste in a few of his hymns ; and I wish some 
 severe people that I know would get a little more of his 
 spirit. I know some who seem to have a notion that a 
 knowledge and enjoyment of nature is so distinct from 
 inward religion as to be opposed to it, that warm devotion 
 to the one almost necessarily excludes any eminent success 
 in the pursuit of the other. This notion leads them to set 
 God's works in opposition to His Word, and to view what 
 they call natural religion as altogether independent of 
 revealed truth. But I think a deeper insight into the 
 sacred volume convinces us that, as the harmony of the 
 Divine character is absolutely perfect, so all the manifesta- 
 tions of that character to man are in sacred concord, 
 whether they come as reflections from nature or revelations 
 of the Spirit. While the mere intellect is cultivated to 
 the neglect of the heart, or the will or affections are in- 
 dulged at the expense of the understanding, the nature of 
 man is out of course, and his character is so discordant in 
 itself that he is incapable of discovering the invariable 
 agreement of the natural and the spiritual, of religion and 
 science. This Divine unison can be known and enjoyed by 
 none but the harmonized soul. The human spirit must be 
 attimed to the voice of God. The sanctified intellect must 
 act in concert with the purified heart. The rectified will 
 must fully accord with the Word of God. And then the 
 visible universe and the region of mind, the creature, the 
 Word, and the Spirit, the world without and the world 
 within, all harmonize aroimd the happy man, and lead him 
 to his God. Now, you have spoken of Thomas Moore 
 and his " Irish Melodies " ; let me illustrate what I have 
 said by a song from old Ireland. It comes from a quiet 
 rectory in county Antrim, and shows that the truly 
 harmonized Christian soul can exercise its hallowed genius 
 in hymns to the God of nature, and teach us to live in the 
 spirit of that hymnist who said, "All Thy works praise 
 Thee, Lord ; and Thy saints bless Thee." Listen to John 
 S. B. Monsell's song : — 
 
 Oh, wliat a gloomy, cheerless scene, 
 A world accursed might have been, 
 If He, who in His mercy hath 
 Strew' d such delight along life's path. 
 
HYMA'S OF CREATION. 169 
 
 Had changed each passing hreath and sound 
 That floats in harmony around, 
 To discords, such as would destroy 
 Sensation's every pulse of joy ! 
 
 But He who bids us seek His face 
 Makes Nature handmaiden to Grace ; 
 And lest our souls — to earth too prone — 
 Should faint before they reach the throne, 
 The sea beneath, the sky above, 
 Hath form'd as mirrors of His love ; 
 And ev'ry rock, and flow'r, and tree, 
 Made vocal for eternity. 
 
 Where'er we move or walk abroad, 
 "We see, we feel a present God ! 
 The very balm that scents the air 
 Breathes of a piirer essence there ; 
 The bubbling runnels, as they flow, 
 Chant sweetest anthems soft and low ; 
 And every bird, from bush and brake, 
 To praise, the sylvan echoes wake. 
 
 Nature, Avith one harmonioiis voice, 
 Seems in her Maker to rejoice ; 
 Earth's flowers reflect Him in their bloom, 
 And breathe His praise in rich perfume. 
 The sun by day, the moon by nig-ht, 
 The stars, those heavenly flow'rs of light. 
 All in one sweet accord, His name 
 Almighty ! Wonderful ! proclaim. 
 
 And oh, shall I, when flowers and trees, 
 Things soulless, senseless, such as these, 
 Live to His praise, as though they seemed 
 His own. His purchas'd. His redeem' d ! 
 Shall I, for whom His blood was poured, 
 The blood of the Incarnate Lord, 
 Be silent, when this heart should raise 
 To its Redeemer hymns of praise ? 
 
 Lord, when among the songs of earth, 
 Forgetful of my heavenly birth, 
 My harp hangs on the willow-tree. 
 And renders back no praise to Thee ; 
 Let the sweet hymns of those who know 
 Not half the debt of love I owe. 
 If not for love, at least for shame. 
 Move this dull soul to praise Thy name. 
 
 " 'This is one of the tuneful "Parish Musings " which 
 vre owe to Mr. Monsell's hallowed taste and heart, open as 
 they have been to the music of his Saviour's voice, and as. 
 
170 HYMN-WEITERS AIs^D THEIR HYIIXS. 
 
 in companionship with, the blessed Spirit, they have had 
 suggestions from the "incidents or feelings of each 
 passing day," as he tells us, "in storm or sunshine, by 
 the way-side or on the hill-top, in the country meadow or 
 the busy street, by day or by night, wherever duty called, 
 and whenever the spiiit caught from without or from within 
 subject matter for serious conversation with heaven." I like 
 the way in which he infuses the Christian element into his 
 song of creation. Some professing Christians seem never 
 to have either taste or heart for anj'thing but what they 
 term evangelical doctrine and experience ; the outer world 
 is never allowed to associate its happy influences with what 
 they call their "inner life." But Christianity is love — love 
 to Grod, and love for everything which bears His image, or 
 is marked by Him as lovable. " "VVe love Him," says an 
 apostle, " because He first loved us." His love to us is 
 shown first, and above all, in His only-begotten Son Jesus 
 Christ. But as He " created all things by Jesus Christ," 
 as Christ "upholds all things by the word of His power," 
 and as, by virtue of the Redeemer's cross, all things are 
 to be reconciled and harmonized, ' ' whether they be things 
 in earth or things in heaven," all who truly love God, and 
 hold loving communion with "the Father and His Son 
 Jesus Christ," will be affectionately ready to catch reflec- 
 tions of His love from everything that bears His impress, 
 everything on which his mind and heart are set. The well- 
 regulated Christian heart will turn pleasantly towards the 
 tiniest thing for which God cares, or in which Jesus has 
 shown an interest. All beauty, all grandeur, all light, all 
 life, all melodies, harmonies, and fitnesses of things are 
 His ; He made them, He loves them, His sympathy with 
 all is perfect. And so they are objects of admiration, 
 sympathy, and love to human souls, just as these souls 
 are "perfect as He, their heavenly Father, is perfect." The 
 noblest minds, the greatest hearts, the most Christlike 
 characters are those who, with the deepest spiritual 
 intercourse with the heavenly and the unseen, have the 
 most tender, gentle, childlike attachment to everything 
 that God smiles upon in visible life. Now, I am disposed 
 to class the author of the "Christian Year" with these; 
 he is not always equal. In a few instances his verses lack 
 vigour, are simply pretty ; but when he hymns it in his 
 
HYMNS OF CKEATION. 171 
 
 best style, he gives iis a sweet relish for that devotion 
 which seems at once to hnsh and exalt tlxe soul amidst the 
 analogies of creation. How beantifully he interweaves 
 nature and grace, the visible and the invisible, in his 
 hymn for Septuagesima Sunday : — 
 
 There is a book who runs may read, 
 
 Which heav'nly truth imparts ; 
 And all the love its scholars need, 
 
 Pure eyes and Christian hearts. 
 
 The works of God above, below. 
 
 Within us and around, 
 Are pages in that book to show 
 
 How God Himself is found. 
 
 The glorious sky, embracing all. 
 
 Is like the Maker's love, 
 Wlierewith encompass' d, great and small. 
 
 In peace and order move. 
 
 The moon above, the church below, 
 
 A wondrous race they run ; 
 But all their radiance, all their glow. 
 
 Each borrows of its sun. 
 
 The Saviour lends the light and heat 
 
 That crowns His holy hill ; 
 The saints, like stars, aroiind His seat, 
 
 Perform the courses still. 
 
 The saints above are stars in heaven — 
 
 What are the saints on earth ? 
 Like trees they stand whom God has given. 
 
 Our Eden's happy birth. 
 
 Faith is their fix'd, unswerving root, 
 
 Hope their unfading flower ; 
 Fair deeds of charity their fruit. 
 
 The glory of their bower. 
 
 The dew of heaven is like Thy grace. 
 
 It steals in silence down ; 
 But where it lights, the favoiu-'d place 
 
 By richest fruits is known. 
 
 One name above all glorious names. 
 
 With its ten thousand tongues, 
 The everlasting sea proclaims. 
 
 Echoing angelic songs. 
 
172 HYMN-WEITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 The raging fire, the roaring -wind, 
 
 Thy boundless power display ; 
 But in the gentler breeze we find 
 
 Thy Spirit's viewless way. 
 
 Two worlds are ours : 'tis only sin 
 
 Forbids us to descry 
 The mystic heaven and earth within. 
 
 Plain as the sea and sky. 
 
 Thou who hast given me eyes to see 
 
 And love this sight so fair, 
 Give me a heart to find out Thee, 
 
 And read Thee everjnvhere.' 
 
 ' ' ' Thank yon, ' cried one of our most earnest young men — 
 one whose full round bass voice I have often admired when 
 coming' into the chorus swell of a jubilant psalm or anthem, 
 ' thank you. John Keble often succeeds, as he does in this 
 case, in making us feel what he calls "that soothing tendency 
 in the Prayer-Book " ; and which, as he adds, "it is the 
 chief purj)ose of " his hymns "to exhibit." But now, by 
 way of a little variation, let us have that spirited and in- 
 spiriting psalm of George Wither' s, which seems to bring 
 up around one's expanding and rising heart all the voices 
 and instruments that heaven and earth can muster, to 
 swell the mighty chorus of creation before the throne of 
 its Maker. Come ! ' said he starting up, and beckoning 
 us into position, ' come let us chant it ! ' — 
 
 Come, oh come ! in pious lays 
 
 Sound we God Almighty's praise; 
 
 Hither bring in one consent, 
 
 Heart and voice, and instrument. 
 
 Music add, of ev'ry kind ; ' 
 
 Sound the trump, the cornet wind ; 
 
 Strike the viol, touch the lute; 
 
 Let no tongue, nor string be mute ; 
 
 Nor a creature dumb be found. 
 
 That hath either voice or sound. 
 
 Let those things which do not live 
 In still music praises give : 
 Lowly pipe, ye worm^s that creep 
 On the earth or in the deep : 
 Loud aloft your voices strain, 
 Beasts and monsters of the main : 
 Birds, your warbling treble sing ; 
 Clouds, your peals of thunder ring : 
 
 Sun and moon, exalted higher, 
 
 And bright stars augment this choir. 
 
HYilXS OF CEEATIOX. 1 , o 
 
 Come, ye sons of liuman race, 
 In this chorus take a place, 
 Ajid amid the mortal throng, 
 Be you masters of the song. 
 Angels, and supernal powers, 
 Be the noblest tenor yours ; 
 Let in praise of God, the sound 
 Eim a never-ending round : 
 
 That our song of j^raise may be 
 
 Everlasting as is He. 
 
 From earth's vast and hollow womb, 
 irusic's deepest bass may come ; 
 Seas and floods, from shore to shore, 
 Shall their counter-tenors roar. 
 To this consort when we sing-, 
 Whistling winds, your descants bring ; 
 That our song may over climb 
 All the bounds of place and time, 
 
 And ascend from sphere to sphere, 
 
 To the great Almighty's ear. 
 
 So from heaven, on earth He shaU 
 Let His gracious blessings f aU ; 
 And this huge, wide orb we see, 
 Shall one choir, one temple be ; 
 Where, iu such a praise, full tone 
 We win sing what He hath done, 
 ' That the ciu-sed fiends below 
 
 Shall thereat impatient grow. 
 
 Then, oh come, in pious lays, 
 
 Sound we God Almighty's praise. 
 
 " Our united cliant seemed to awaken a kind of emulation 
 in calling up favourite hymns. Tlie scenes around us ap- 
 peared to claim our homage to one theme. Our songs must 
 all be songs of creation. It was suggested that a woman's 
 voice had sometimes given forth sweet melodies ; could any 
 of us remember a hymn from among the daughters of holy 
 song? Yes, of course; whose mind did not go off at once to 
 that comfortable-looking old house in the village of Brough- 
 ton in Hampshire, with its high roof and massive chimneys, 
 its anticjue porch and riu'al garden palisades overshadowed 
 by the trees which beautified Theodosia's village birth- 
 place on the borders of the ' Downs' '? Theodosia ! ' The 
 gift of God ' ; and ' eminently so in this world of ours ' ; 
 and who would not think of that affectionate address to 
 Theodosia's niece, by an old friend who loved her memory, 
 and has helped us to love it too ? — 
 
174 HYMK-WRITEKS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Still I am musing in your nistic bower, 
 
 Under that moss-deck'd roof; and gaze in thought, 
 
 Down the soft turfy vista, where, between 
 
 Those aged pines (friends of yovir infancy), 
 
 The fleeting sunshine and the broader shade 
 
 Picture our path to heaven. I trace the walk, 
 
 "Where at this noontide hour, no foot perhaps 
 
 Is seen : but thought hath iDeox^led it. I see 
 
 In fancy's telescopic mirror, forms 
 
 Of some that were — that are, that would be there. 
 
 I mark the forms that were there : those who walk'd 
 With God, and spake to artless minds of Him ; 
 And, with them, one who pour'd a sylvan strain 
 Of meek devotion in those quiet shades — 
 Bequeathing thence her Christian heart and hope 
 To other generations. 
 
 " Let tlie scene be immortalized ; that terrace walk look- 
 ing clown on tlie slirnbbery and garden, and tlie avenue 
 of firs, where, about the middle of the last ceutiuy, Anne 
 Steele, with a body enfeebled by affliction, used to regale 
 her tender and devout soul, and give forth those utter- 
 ances of hallowed genius which so refresh all childlike 
 spirits who long to sing of Him whom she supremely 
 loved. 'I enjoy a calm evening on the terrace walk,' said 
 that gentle voice, tremulous with holy feeling, 'and I wish, 
 though in vain, for numbers sweet as the lovely prospect ; 
 and gentle as the vernal breeze, to describe the beauties of 
 charming spring ; but the reflection, how soon these 
 blooming pleasures will vanish, spread a melancholy 
 gloom, till the mind rises, by a delightful transition, to the 
 celestial Eden — the scenes of undecaying pleasure and im- 
 immutable perfection.' She did not wish for 'sweet num- 
 bers' entirely in vain. Her songs never rose to the higher 
 strain which some have reached ; but they never became 
 xmworthy of" her theme. They are always read with as 
 much pleasure as they are sung ; always simple in thought 
 and expression, alwaj's full of warm and tender feeling, and 
 are always welcome to the peaceful heart when it wants 
 a song to express its quiet joys. It was probably on 
 her favourite terrace walk, or in the avenue where the 
 zephyrs whispered music among the fir-trees, that she first 
 sang her hymn ' On Creation and Providence' — 
 
 Lord, when my raptured thought surveys 
 Creation's beauties o'er. 
 
HYMNS OF CREATION. 175 
 
 All nature joins to teacli Thy praise 
 And bid my soul adore. 
 
 Where'er I turn my gazing eyes, 
 
 Thy radiant footsteps shine ; 
 Ten thousand pleasing wonders rise, 
 
 And speak their source divine. 
 
 The living tribes of countless forms, 
 
 In earth, and sea, and air ; 
 The meanest flies, the smallest worms. 
 
 Almighty power declare. 
 
 All rose to life at Thy command. 
 
 And wait their daily food 
 From Thy paternal, bounteous hand, 
 
 Exhaustless springs of good ! 
 
 The meads an-ay'd in smiling* green. 
 
 With wholesome herbage crown' d ; 
 The fields with corn, a richer scene, 
 
 SjDread thy full bounties round. 
 
 The fruitful tree, the blooming flower. 
 
 In varied charms appear ; 
 Their varied charms display Thy power, 
 
 Thy goodness all declare. 
 
 The sun's productive, quickening beams, 
 
 The growing verdure spread ; 
 Refreshing rains and cooling streams 
 
 His gentle influence aid. 
 
 The moon and stars his absent light 
 
 Supply with borrowed rays. 
 And deck the sable veil of night. 
 
 And speak their Maker's praise. 
 
 Thy wisdom, power, and goodness, Lord, 
 
 In all Thy works appear ; 
 And oh, let man Thy praise record ; 
 
 Man, Thy distinguish' d care. 
 
 From Thee the breath of life he di-ew ; 
 
 That breath Thy power maintains ; 
 Thv tender mercy ever new, 
 
 His brittle frame sustains. 
 
 Let nobler favours claim his praise 
 
 Of reason's light possess'd ; 
 By revelation's brighter rays 
 
 Still more di^^nelv blest. 
 
176 HYMN-WRITEES AXD THEIR HYHXS. 
 
 Thy providence, his constant guard 
 
 "Wlien threatening -woes impend, 
 Or will the impending dangers ward. 
 
 Or timely succoiu's lend. 
 
 On me that providence has shone 
 
 With gentle smiling rays ; 
 Oh let my li^js and life make known 
 
 Thy goodness and Thy praise. 
 
 All bounteous Lord, Thy grace impart ; 
 
 Oh teach me to improve 
 Thy gifts with ever g-ratefid heart, 
 
 And crown them with Thy love. 
 
 ' ' Somebody inquired whether Anue Steele was not the 
 daug'liter of a Dissenting minister. 'Yes/ was the reply, 
 ' her father preached to the Baptist congregation in 
 Broughton for sixty years, and he followed his uncle in 
 the same pastorate, an uncle who was equally remarkable 
 with her father for piety, amiable simplicity, and indus- 
 ti'iovis attention to his flock. There is a story told of him 
 which is rather instructive. He was so popular as a 
 preacher in Broughton, his native village, that the parson 
 reported at the Episcopal visitation that his parochial 
 province was sadly invaded by the Dissenter. "How can 
 I best oppose him?" was his query to the Bishop, the 
 celebrated Grilbert Burnet. "Go home," said the wise 
 Diocesan, " and preach better than Henry Steele, and the 
 people will retiu-n ;" a piece of good advice that might 
 be happily followed in all other cases of parochial rivalry.' 
 
 " Anne Steele's connexion with Dissent naturally brought 
 up the name of anotlier lady hymnist, whose family rela- 
 tions belonged to the same religious school. Anna Letitia 
 Barbauld issued her first lyrics during her residence with 
 her father, Dr. Aiken, in a Dissenting academy at "War- 
 rington ; continued her literary pursuits as the wife of 
 a French Protestant minister, who acted in the double 
 capacity of tutor and Dissenting- pastor ; while she 
 cheered her widowhood with songs and hymns from 
 her overflowing heart, and prolific and cultured genius. 
 Her memory is fresh in many a family circle, in its 
 association with the tales in 'Evenings at Home.' Her 
 verses still speak of her extensive and varied reading, and 
 show that she had vigour of intellect to balance her 
 
HYMNS OF CEEATION. 177 
 
 flowing imagination. Our conversation on the hill-side 
 about songs of creation was closed with the rehearsal of 
 her charming hymn, and one of her last : — 
 
 Praise to God, immortal praise, 
 For the love that crowns our days ; 
 Bounteous Source of every joy, 
 Let Thy praise our tongues employ. 
 
 For the blessings of the field, 
 Tor the stores the gardens yield, 
 For the vine's exalted juice, 
 For the gen'rous olive's use. 
 
 Flocks that vrhiten all the plain. 
 Yellow sheaves of ripened grain; 
 Clouds that drop their fattening- dews, 
 Suns that temperate warmth difi'use. 
 
 All that spring, with bounteous hand. 
 Scatters o'er the smiling- land; 
 All that liberal autumn pours 
 From her rich o'erflowing stores. 
 
 These to Thee, my God, we owe. 
 Source whence all our blessings flow ; 
 And for these my soul shall raise 
 Grateful vows and solemn praise. 
 
 Yet, shoidd rising whiiiwinds rear 
 From its stem the rip'ning ear ; 
 Should the fig-tree's blasted shoot 
 Drop her green, untimely fruit; 
 
 Should the vine put forth no more, 
 Nor the olive j-icld her store ; 
 Thoiigh the sick'ning flocks should fall, 
 And the herds desert the stall ; 
 
 Should Thine altered hand restrain 
 The early and the latter rain, 
 Blast each op'ning bud of joy. 
 And the rising year destroy ; 
 
 Yet to Thee my soul shall raise 
 Grateful vows and solemn praise ; 
 And when every blessing's flown, 
 Love Thee for Thyself alone. 
 
 This agreeable and pious hymnistwas a native of Kib worth, 
 in Leicestershire, and ceased her psalmody on earth in 
 March, 1825, aged fourscore years and two." 
 
 M 
 
178 HYMN-WEITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 But no chapter of talk about Hymns of Creation should 
 be ended without homage paid to the memory of one 
 whose glorious hymn may always serve as the closing 
 anthem peal to all such chapters. Scotland has given birth 
 to man}' a genius, whose imfolding powers it has lacked 
 either skill or disposition to cherish. Among the 'rest 
 there was one who first saw the liglit at Ednam, in Rox- 
 burghshire, on the 11th of September, 1700; and there, 
 amidst rich and varied scenery, in a land of wild romance, 
 he gave the first promise of poetic wealth. But his 
 sensuous and indolent, though guileless, generous, and 
 glowing nature, must needs court the congenial influences 
 of a more southern clime. Like many other young northern 
 adventurers, however, his native powers were first piit forth 
 \inder the pressure of poverty. His pure, fresh, childlike 
 "perfect love" of nature; his deep sympathy with all 
 visible created things; his luxurious, enthusiastic afi'ec- 
 tion for all living grandeurs, beauties, and harmonies, 
 made their practice felt in the world of taste, when, 
 in 1730, his "all-embracing genius" charmed the 
 English public with his living pictures of " The 
 Seasons." Thompson, "the fine fat fellow," was not 
 without his errors ; but he was a loving brother, a fast 
 friend, a sharp and accurate observer of men and things, 
 and gave hope, in his last hours, that he "died in the faith." 
 Who can think of him without affection and gratitude as 
 the author of that sublime hymn, with which his poem on 
 the Seasons closes ? It has been well said of that hymn 
 " that in it the essential beauty of tliis poem is collected in a 
 cloud of fragrance, and by the breath of devotion directed 
 up to heaven." Who does not listen breathless to its 
 opening music and its closing swell ? 
 
 Almiglity Father ! 
 
 The rolling year 
 Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing spring 
 Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love 
 Wide flush the fields ; the softening air is balm ; 
 Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles ; 
 And every sense and every heart is joy. 
 Then comes Thy glory in the summer months. 
 With light and heat refulgent. Then Thy sun 
 Shoots full perfection through the swelling year ; 
 And oft Thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks, 
 
HYMN'S OF CREATION. 179 
 
 And oft at da-\vn, deep noon, or falling eve, 
 By brooks and groves, in hoUow whispering gales ; 
 Thy bounty shines in autumn unconfined, 
 And spreads a common feast for aU that lives. 
 In winter, awful Thou ! with clouds and storms 
 Around Thee thrown ! on the whirlwind's wing 
 Riding sublime, Thou bidst the world adore. 
 And tremblest nature -ndth Thy northern blast. 
 
 Shoxdd fate command me to the furthest verge 
 
 Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, 
 
 Rivers unknown to song, where first the sun 
 
 Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam 
 
 Flames on th' Atlantic isles, 'tis nought to me ; 
 
 Since God is ever present, ever felt. 
 
 In the void waste, and in the city full ! 
 
 And where He vital breathes there must be joy. 
 
 When e'en, at last, the solemn hour shall come, 
 
 And wing my mystic flight to future worlds, 
 
 I cheerfid will obey ; there with new powers, 
 
 With rising wonders, sing. I cannot go 
 
 Where universal love not sliines around, 
 
 Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns, 
 
 From seeming- evil still educing good. 
 
 And better them again, and better still, 
 
 In infinite progression. But I lose 
 
 Myself in Him, in light ineffable ! 
 
 Come, then, expressive silence ! muse His praise. 
 
CHAPTEE XIII. 
 HYMNS ABOUT THE BOOK. 
 "In God will I praise His word ; in the Lord will I praise His word." 
 
 England has lier classic divinity; a theological creation 
 affording everything to enlighten the minds, regulate the 
 lives, and warm the hearts of the most cultivated Chris- 
 tians, as long as the English language lives. In the midst 
 of this brilliant firmament of religious literature, like a 
 central and imperishable sun, stands our Bible. This is 
 the one Book of the Christian ; that which affords enough 
 to form his character, were all other volumes consumed with 
 the dust of their authors. The great design of this Book 
 is to regulate the affections of man, and to perfect his 
 character for an immortal state. But it affords innumer- 
 able pleasures to the mind which it sways, and allures the 
 soul toward religious maturity by gratifying its distinctive 
 taste. Do we seek for beauty of composition ? In the 
 Bible we find the most natural simplicity and force, the 
 most genuine strength and grandeur. Do we look for 
 poetry ? Here we may feast on the amazing sublimities 
 of Isaiah, and read with pleasure the pastorals of Solomon; 
 we are excited to heavenly feeling by the sound of David's 
 lyre, are sometimes melted by the pathetic strains of 
 Jeremiah, and at intervals overwhelmed by the awful 
 grandeurs of the entranced Ezekiel. Does our taste lead 
 us to inquire for the beauties of logic ? In the Bible we 
 have the most delicate distinctions, the most acute reason- 
 ings, and the most perfect developments of the human mind. 
 Do we wish to gratify our taste for the science of numbers? 
 Questions may be drawn from this Book, the solution of 
 which may deeply engage the most profound calculators. 
 
HYMNS ABOUT THE BOOK. 181 
 
 Are we astronomical in our propensity ? Then we may 
 follow the inspired penman, and ride uj)on the wings of the 
 wind, fly above these lower elements, perform the circnit 
 of the earth, consider the influences of the moon, mark 
 the Pleiades, measure the bands of Orion, follow the 
 "going forth" of Mazaroth, or commune with Areturus 
 and his sons. Are we in pursuit of geographical know- 
 ledge ? Here are notices interesting, explanatory, and 
 illustrative. Are we students in natural philosophy ? Here 
 the wide field of nature is open to us; and the philosophical 
 writers of this Book direct us to particulars and universals. 
 In the Bible the pious politician meets with the great 
 principles of civil and ecclesiastical polity, and here is a 
 system of moral philosophy which far transcends all that haa 
 been produced among men. Aud all these secondary lights 
 are so placed in the sj)here of truth, that their beams unite 
 to glorify and render prominent the great Source of all 
 good. Nor can we trace their rays without being led to 
 contemplate the glorious character and righteous will of 
 the Divine Being. The Book that thus gratifies our taste 
 introduces the mind to God, and assimilates it to His image 
 by calling it to enjoy the writings of the law, the oracles 
 of the prophets, the doctrine of types, the experience of 
 histories, the instruction of proverbs, the beauty of pro- 
 mises, and the music of psalms. There is no book which 
 has such power to transform and perfect the character of 
 the Christian ; none which holds in such pleasurable servi- 
 tude the intellect over which it has the entire sway. 
 While the mind has a strong passion for books, and a 
 relish for great variety prevails, it is difficult for the young 
 Christian to give the Bible its j)roper place, to afford it its 
 proper share of his time, attention, and heart. But to the 
 self-denying student, who devotes himself to revealed 
 truth, that Book opens its hitherto veiled beauties, and 
 fixes and absorbs the wondering and ravished mind. Dr. 
 Kennicott was occupied for thirty years on his edition of 
 the Hebrew Bible. During that time it was Mrs. Kenni- 
 cott' s office, in their daily airings, to read to him those 
 different portions to which his immediate attention was 
 called. When preparing for their ride, the day after his 
 great work was completed, upon her asking him what 
 book she should now take, " Oh," exclaimed he, "let us 
 
182 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 begin the Bible ag'ain." So, then, the love of the sacred 
 volume grows as our acquaintance with it deepens ; and 
 just as its various riches and powers open our hearts, we 
 shall take up the simple but touching melody of Anne 
 Steele's hymn on " the excellency of the Scriptures," and 
 
 Father of mercies, in Thy "Word, 
 
 "What endless glory i.>hines ! 
 For ever be Thy name adored 
 
 For these celestial lines. 
 
 Here mines of heavenly wealth disclose 
 Their bright unbounded store ; 
 
 The glittering gem no longer glows, 
 And India boasts no more. 
 
 Here may the wretched sons of want 
 
 Exhaustless riches find ; 
 Eiches above what earth can grant, 
 
 And lasting as the mind. 
 
 Here the fair tree of knowledge grows. 
 
 And yields a free repast ; 
 Sublimer sweets than nature knows 
 
 Invite the longing taste. 
 
 Here may the blind and hungry come, 
 
 And light and food receive ; 
 Here shall the meanest guest have room, 
 
 And taste, and see, and live. 
 
 Amidst these gloomy wilds below, 
 "When dark and sad we stray ; 
 
 Here beams of heaven relieve our woe, 
 And guide to endless day. 
 
 Here springs of consolation rise. 
 
 To cheer the fainting mind ; 
 And thirsty souls receive supplies, 
 
 And sweet refreshment find. 
 
 When guilt and terror, pain and grief. 
 
 United rend the heart, 
 Here sinners meet divine relief, 
 
 And cool the raging smart. 
 
 Here the Redeemer's welcome voice 
 Spreads heavenly peace around ; 
 
 And life, and everlasting joys. 
 Attend the blissful sound. 
 
HYMNS ABOTTT THE BOOK. 183 
 
 But when His painful sufferings rise 
 
 (Delightful, di-eadful scene!) 
 Angels may read with wondering eyes 
 
 That Jesus died for men. 
 
 Oh, may these heavenly pages be 
 
 My ever dear dehght. 
 And still new beauties may I see, 
 
 And still increasing light. 
 
 Divine instructor, gracious Lord, 
 
 Be Thou for ever near ; 
 Teach me to love Thy sacred Word, 
 
 And view my Saviour there. 
 
 There is sometliing, too, iu this blessed Book which seems 
 to infuse a kind of immortal vigour into the wi'itings of 
 those men who have made it their chief study. There are 
 two authors whose writings breathe immortality, whose 
 books will live, while myriads of subsequent productions 
 pass into oblivion — John Milton and John Bunyan. 
 Milton's masterpiece is his "Paradise Lost," and though 
 every page of that poem shows the vast range of his read- 
 ing, it would seem that we owe the life of its best parts to 
 the poet's deep communion with the Hebrew Scriptures. 
 Some of the most sublime passages of "Paradise Lost" 
 are poetic translations and paraphrases of Hebrew words 
 and sentences used by Moses and the prophets ; in his daily 
 intercourse with whom, Milton's soul gathered strength 
 for a flight through the depths of chaos, and into the 
 regions of the blessed. And where is the secret of that 
 life which animates " Pilgrim's Progress" ? that undying 
 vigour and immortal beauty which enchant every successive 
 generation of readers ? Why, you have it in the fact that 
 Bunyan was a man of one Book, and that Book was the 
 English Bible. Bunyan and Milton, both imperishable 
 authors, gather their life, the one from the Hebrew 
 Scriptures, and the other from their incomparable English 
 version. 
 
 To the same volume we may trace that power which 
 formed those mature and influential characters who have 
 left such gracious impressions on the Church and the world — 
 Luther, Calvin, "Wesley, and Whitefield. One of them has 
 opened his heart to us, and has shown the source of that 
 energy which distinguished his preaching, and which still 
 
184 HYMN-WIHTERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 lives in the volumes wliich. he -wrote. He says : — " To 
 candid, reasonable men, I am not afraid to lay open what 
 have been the inmost thoughts of my heart. I have 
 thought I am a creature of a day, passing through life as 
 an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from Grod, 
 and returning to God ; just hovering over the great gulf, 
 till, a few moments hence, I am no more seen ; I drop into 
 an unchangeable eternity ! I want to know one thing — the 
 way to heaven ; how to land safe on that happy shore. God 
 Himself has condescended to teach the way ; for this very 
 end He came from heaven. He hath written it down in a 
 Book. Oh give me that Book ! At any price, give me the 
 Book of God ! I have it. Here is knowledge enough for 
 me. Let me be a man of one book. Here I am, far 
 from the busy ways of men. I sit down alone ; only 
 God is here. In His presence I open, I read His Book ; 
 for this end I find the Avay to Heaven. Is there a doubt 
 concerning the meaning of what I read ? Does any- 
 thing appear dark or intricate ? I lift up my heart to 
 the Father of lights : — Lord, is it not Thy word, ' If 
 any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God'? Thoii ' givest 
 liberally and upbraidest not.' Thou hast said, 'If any 
 man .be willing to do Thy will, he shall know.' I am 
 wilKng to do, let me know Thy will. I then search after 
 and consider parallel passages of Scripture, 'comparing 
 spiritual things with spiritual.' I meditate thereon with 
 all the attention and earnestness of which my mind is 
 capable. If any doubt still remains, I consult those who 
 are experienced in the things of God ; and then the writings, 
 whereby being dead, they yet speak. And what I thus 
 learn, that I teach." Thus speaks John Wesley in his 
 preface to his sermons ; and the spirit of the beautiful and 
 striking passage has been happily caught by his brother 
 Charles, and embodied in the forrd of a metrical paraphrase 
 on Deut. vi. 6, 7 — "And these words, that I command thee 
 this day, shall be in thine heart ; and thou shalt teach 
 them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them 
 when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest 
 by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou 
 risest up." 
 
 The table of my heart prepare 
 
 (Such power belongs to Thee alone), 
 
HYMNS ABOUT THE BOOK. 185 
 
 And -write, O God, Thy precepts there, 
 
 To show Thou still canst -«-i-ite in stone, 
 So shall my pure obedience prove 
 All things are possible to love. 
 
 Father, instruct my docile heart, 
 
 Apt to instruct I then shall be, 
 I then shall all Thy words impart. 
 
 And teach (as taught myself by Thee) 
 My cliildren, in their earliest days, 
 To know and live the life of grace. 
 
 "When quiet in my house I sit, 
 
 Thy Book be my companion still, 
 My joy Thy sayings to repeat. 
 
 Talk o"er the records of Thy will, 
 And search the oracles divine, 
 Till every heartfelt word is mine. 
 
 Oh, might the gracious words divine 
 
 Subject of all my converse be. 
 So wovild the Lord His follower join, 
 
 And walk and talk Himself with me ; 
 So would my heart His presence prove, 
 And bum with everlasting love. 
 
 Oft as I lay me down to rest. 
 
 Oh, may the reconciling Word 
 Sweetly compose my weary breast. 
 
 While on the bosom of my Lord 
 I sink in blissful dreams away, 
 And visions of eternal day. 
 
 Rising to sing my Saviour's praise, 
 
 Thee may I publish all day long, 
 And let Thy precious word of gi-ace 
 
 Flow from my heart and fill my tongue ; 
 Fill all my life with purest love. 
 And join me to Thy Church above. 
 
 Tliis hymn has become a sort of household joy to 
 thousands who 'guide the daily devotions of their families ; 
 and its music promises to be happily familiar to a widening- 
 circle of devout Bible students whose homes are hallowed 
 as scenes of daily communion with inspired truth. As a 
 hymnist,however, Charles Wesley was never content merely 
 to record his own or even his brother's experience in tune- 
 ful measures. He was not among the lyric poets who find 
 full emplojTuent for their muse amidst the intricacies and 
 subtle workings of their own inner world. He had a large 
 
186 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 share of tliat unselfishness which so eminently distinguished 
 his more active brother, and longed, like an apostle, " to 
 sjoend and be spent," rather in guiding, blessing, and saving 
 others than in dwelling complacently or uneasily upon the 
 throne of his own spiritual kingdom. Or if, like St. Paul, 
 he sometimes threw his own experience into the form of an 
 examjDle, it was only that he might the more effectually 
 teach the world, and assist the devotions of the Church. 
 Thus, while in one hymn he takes the individual mode of 
 expression, singing as a person, that every like-minded 
 person may have a song about the Book ; in another he 
 pours the desire of his soul into a metrical prayer so adapted 
 to the many, that ministers and peoj^le may sing together 
 in "the great congregation." 
 
 Inspirer of the ancient seers, 
 
 Who -wrote from Thee the sacred page, 
 
 The same through all succeeding years, 
 To us in our degenerate age, 
 
 The spirit of Thy Word impart, 
 
 And breathe the Kf e into our heart. 
 
 While now Thine oracles we read, 
 
 With earnest prayer and strong desire, 
 
 let Thy Spirit from Thee proceed, 
 Our souls to awaken and inspire ; 
 
 Our weakness help, our darkness chase, 
 
 And guide us by the light of grace ! 
 
 Whene'er in error's paths we rove, 
 
 The living God through sin forsake, 
 Our conscience by Thy Word reprove, 
 
 Convince and bring the wanderers back. 
 Deep wounded by Thy Spirit's sword, 
 And then by Gilead's balm restored. 
 
 The sacred lessons of Thy grace. 
 
 Transmitted through Thy Word, repeat ; 
 
 And train us up in all Thy ways, 
 To make us in Thy will complete ; 
 
 Fulfil Thy love's redeeming plan. 
 
 And bring us to a perfect man. 
 
 Fumish'd out of Thy treasury, 
 
 Oh may we always ready stand 
 To help the souls redeemed by Thee, 
 
 For what their various states demand ; 
 To teach, convince, correct, reprove. 
 And build them up in holiest love ! 
 
HYMNS ABOUT THE BOOK. 187 
 
 There are but two hymns ''on the Scriptures" in the 
 Olney collection ; and they stand side by side, as if to 
 remind us of that bond of spiritual fellowship which once 
 held their authors heart to heart. In some respects it was 
 a strange association, that of Cowper and Newton. The 
 one robust, trained to hardihood upon the high seas ; the 
 other frail, instinctively shrinking from both wave and wind. 
 Unlike in birth and education, and, indeed, in all the cir- 
 cumstances of their earlier course, yet one in their love of 
 truth, and united in their work of giving new songs to the 
 Christian world. Many passages of the blessed Book, 
 Cowper, in his morbid depression, would misinterpret 
 against his own soul ; as if he were unwilling that the fire 
 of Divine wrath should ever glance on any but the one on 
 whom they were to be concentrated — himself. Whether 
 his friend Newton's spiritual direction was the best for him 
 has been a question; but, however that maybe, there were 
 times when his enjoyment of the Sacred Yolume was equal 
 not only to his own support, but to the consolation of all 
 lovers of truth, who have followed him, and have learnt his 
 bright and hopeful little hymn, on " The Light and Glory 
 ofthe Word:"— 
 
 The Spirit breathes upon the "Word, 
 
 And brings the truth to sight ; 
 Precepts and promises afford 
 
 A sanctifying light. 
 
 A glory gilds the sacred page, 
 
 Majestic like the sun ; 
 It gives a light to ev'ry age. 
 
 It gives, and borrows none. 
 
 The hand that gave it still supplies 
 
 The gracious Light and heat ; 
 His truths upon the nations rise, 
 
 They rise but never set. 
 
 Let everlasting thanks be Thine, 
 For such a bright display, 
 , As makes a world of darkness shine 
 
 With beams of heavenly day. 
 
 My soul rejoices to pursue 
 
 The steps of Him I love ; 
 Till glory breaks upon my view 
 
 In brighter worlds above. 
 
188 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Then comes Newton's happy song on " The Word more 
 Precious than Grokl." How like a man of his temper is 
 this hymn ? How expressive from the lips of one who had 
 passed through the remarkable experiences of his life. 
 How differently Cowper and he had been dealt with by 
 Divine mercy. But as it was in both cases the same provi- 
 dence and the same spirit, so they were brought to the 
 same goal. Newton himself has put this in his own style. 
 "Imagine to yourself a niunber of vessels, at different 
 times, and from different places, bound to the same port, 
 there are some things in which all these would agree — the 
 compass steered by, the port in view, the general rule of 
 navigation, both as to the management of the vessel and 
 determining their astronomical observations, would be the 
 same in all. In other respects they would differ ; perhaps 
 no two of them would meet with the same distribution of 
 wind and weather. Some we see set out with a prosperous 
 gale ; and when they almost think their passage secured, 
 they are checked by adverse blasts; and after enduring 
 much hardship and danger, and frequent expectations of 
 shipwreck, they just escaj^e, and reach the desired haven. 
 Others meet the greatest difficulties at first ; they put forth 
 in a storm, and are often beaten back ; at length their 
 voyage proves favourable, and they enter the port with a 
 'rich and abundant entrance.' Some are hard beset with 
 cruisers and enemies, and obliged to fight their way 
 through ; others meet with little remarkable in their pas- 
 sage. Is it not so in the spiritual Kfe ? All true believers 
 ' walk by the same rule,' and mind the same things; the 
 "Word of God is their comj)ass ; Jesus is their polar star. 
 .... Yet their experience, formed upon these common 
 principles, is far from being uniform. The Lord, in His 
 first call, and His following dispensations, has a regard to 
 the situation, temper, talents of each, and to the particular 
 sorrows or trials He has appointed them for. Though aR 
 are exercised at times, yet some pass through the voyage 
 of life much more smoothly than others." 
 
 With all the varieties of their personal histories, 
 both Cowper and Newton had learnt to love the Bible ; 
 and both hearts found an inexhaustible treasure in 
 that "one Book." Newton's mother had taught him to 
 read the Bible, and to store his memory with its chap- 
 
HYMNS ABOUT THE BOOK. 189 
 
 ters, wlien he was but four years old, and, as lie says, 
 " though in process of time I sinned away all the advan- 
 tages of these early impressions, yet they were for a great 
 while a restraint upon me ; they returned again and again, 
 and it was very long before I could wholly shake them oflf ; 
 and when the Lord at length opened my eyes, I found a 
 great benefit from the recollection of them." In the course 
 of his subsequent wanderings, he picked up Shaftsbury's 
 " Chai'acteristics," "in a petty shop at Middleburg in 
 Holland." " The title," says he, allured me to buy it, 
 and the style and manner gave me great pleasure in read- 
 ing Thus with fine words and fair* speeches, 
 
 my simple heart was beguiled No immediate 
 
 effect followed ; but it ojjerated like a slow poison." Evil 
 companionship finished what Shaftsbuxy began, — it con- 
 firmed him in blank infidelity. But when, at last, extreme 
 suffering and danger brought him to cry to God for mercy, 
 the sacred utterances with which his youthful mind had 
 been stored unfolded their meaning to his heart ; and that 
 Word which he had taught himself to despise was now his 
 best friend, the companion of his leisure hours, and the 
 source of those holy lessons which, as a preacher, he after- 
 wards gave out to his flock, and with which, as a hymnist, 
 he enriched his undying hymns. Who can wonder that he 
 sang of the Book thus ? — 
 
 Precious Bible ! what a treasure 
 
 Does the "Word of God afford ? 
 All I want for life or pleasure, 
 
 Food and med'cine, shield and sword : 
 Let the world account me poor, 
 Having this I need no more. 
 
 Food to which the world 's a stranger, 
 
 Here my hungry soul enjoys ; 
 Of excess there is no danger, 
 
 Tho' it fills, it never cloys ; 
 On a dying Christ I feed, 
 He is meat and drink indeed ! 
 
 "\r\Tien my faith is faint and sickly, 
 
 Or when Satan wounds my mind, 
 Cordials to revive me quickly, 
 
 Healing med'cines here I find : 
 To the promises I flee, 
 Each affords a remedy. 
 
190 HYMN-WEITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 In the hour of dark temptation 
 
 Satan cannot make me yield ; 
 For the word of consolation 
 
 Is to me the mighty shield : 
 T\^lile the Scripture truths are sure, 
 From his malice I'm seciu'e. 
 
 Vain his tlrreats to overcome me, 
 
 "When I take the Spirit's sword ; 
 Then "with ease I drive him from me, 
 
 Satan trembles at the Word : 
 'Tis a sword for conquest made, 
 Keen the edge and strong the blade. 
 
 Shall I envy then the miser. 
 
 Doting on his g'olden store ? 
 Sui'e I am or should be wiser, 
 
 I am rich, 'tis he is poor : 
 Jesus gives me in His "Word, 
 Food and med'cine, shield and sword. 
 
 Cliarles Lamb once resolved, if possible, to check a 
 young friend wbo was rather too ready to abandon 
 himself to dependence on a literary profession, and he 
 wrote to him, saying, " Throw yourself on the world, 
 without any rational plan of support beyond what the 
 chance employ of booksellers would afford you ! Throw 
 yourself rather, my dear sir, from the steep Tarpeian 
 rock, slap-dash headlong upon iron spikes. If you have 
 but five consolatory minutes between the desk and the bed^ 
 make much of them, and live a century in them, rather 
 than turn slave to the booksellers. They are Turks and 
 Tartars when they have poor authors at their beck. 
 Hitherto you have been at arm's length from them — come 
 not within their grasp. I have known many authors want 
 for bread — some repining, others enjoying the blessed 
 security of a counting-house — all agreeing they had rather 
 have been tailors, weavers, what not ? rather than the 
 things they were. I have known some starved, some go 
 mad, one dear friend literally djdug in a workhouse. Oh, 
 you know not — may you never know — the miseries of 
 subsisting by authorship ! " This strong preventive was 
 effectual ; and Bernard Barton stuck to his banking estab- 
 lishment at Woodbridge in Suffolk. Lamb knew his man 
 and gave wise counsel. Happy was it for Barton that he 
 listened to a true friend. His were not the talents for the 
 
HYMNS ABOUT THE BOOK. 191 
 
 general literary market. In 1820 he puLlislied a volume 
 of miscellaneovis poems, remarkable for their simple 
 elegance, chasteness of style, and j)urity of feeling. The 
 pieces will always be agreeable to those who love quiet 
 English scenery pictured with gentle feeling ; or meditative 
 verses breathing tenderness and devotion, alwaj^s soothing 
 and always happy. There is little that would strike, little 
 that would seem original ; yet Bernard Barton is always 
 welcome to the cultivated taste. He was a hymnist, and 
 one hymn is about " the Book " and full of sweetness. 
 With all his distinctive notions as a Quaker about -'in- 
 ward light," he had a deep reverence for the written Word, 
 and a childlike trust in the certainty of its gviidance ; and 
 expresses his love for inspired truth, and his faith in its 
 lessons, in the hymn founded on Psalm cxix. 105 — " Thy 
 word is a lamp unto my feet" — 
 
 Lamp of our feet, whereby we trace 
 
 Our path, when wont to stray, 
 Stream from the foimt of heavenly grace, 
 
 Brook by the traveller's way. 
 
 Bread of onr souls whereon we feed. 
 
 True manna from on high : 
 Our guide and chart, wherein we read 
 
 Of realms beyond the sky : 
 
 Pillar of fire through watches dark. 
 
 And radiant cloud by day ; 
 When waves would whelm our tossing bark, 
 
 Oiu' anchor and our stay : 
 
 Word of the everlasting God, 
 
 Will of His glorious Son ; 
 Without thee how could earth be trod, 
 
 Or heaven itself be won ? 
 
 Lord, grant lis all aright to learn 
 
 The wisdom it imparts ; 
 And to its heavenly teaching turn, 
 
 With simple, childlike hearts. 
 
 But pleasant as it is to sing tliese later hymns about the 
 Book, the older songs must not be forgotten. Who can for- 
 get Gleorge Herbert's hymn on "the Holy (Scriptures"? 
 More antique it is, more quaint, less adapted to popular 
 
1 92 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 music than some others ; yet how full of deep thought — too 
 full, perhaps, for most thinkers now-a-days — and how richly 
 it is coloured by the living- breath of insjiired truth itself ! 
 Nobody would expect anything but hymns and songs about 
 truth and love from him. AVhether at home or abroad, in the 
 church or in the household, the author of the " Country 
 Parson" was always, in appearance, manner, and spirit, 
 the holy parson. ' ' He was, ' ' says his venerable biographer, 
 "for his person, of a stature inclining towards tallness ; 
 his body was very straight ; and so far from being cum- 
 bered with too much flesh, that he was lean to an extremity. 
 His aspect was cheerful, and his si^eech and motion did 
 both declare him a gentleman ; for they were all so meek 
 and obliging, that they purchased love and respect from all 
 that knew him." He entered, in his thirty- sixth year, on 
 his parsonage at Bemerton, saying, "I beseech God that 
 my humble and charitable life may so win upon others, as 
 to bring glory to my Jesus, whom I have this day taken to 
 be my Master and Governor ; and I am so proud of His 
 service, that I will always observe, and obey, and do His 
 will, and always call Him Jesus my Master." And 
 Herbert's life answered to his prayer. It was " so full of 
 charity, humility, and all Christian virtues," says a friend, 
 "that it deserves the eloquence of St. Chrysostom to com- 
 mend and declare it ! — a life that, if it were related by a 
 pen like his, there would then be no need for this age to 
 look back into times past for the examples of primitive 
 piety, for they might be all found in the life of George 
 Herbert." Alas ! his holy career was short, though full. 
 Dr. Humphrey Henchman, afterwards Bishop of London, 
 who was present at his ordination to the priesthood, plain- 
 tively says, "I laid my hand on Mr. Herbert's head, and, 
 alas ! within less than three years, lent my shoulder to 
 carry my dear friend to his grave." But " he, being dead, 
 yet speaketh ; " and speaketh in rich, glowing praise of 
 the blessed Book from whose commands, doctrines, and 
 promises he gathered the secret of his holy character and 
 life. 
 
 Oh Book ! infinite sweetness ! let my heart 
 
 Suck every letter, and a honey gain, 
 Precious for any grief in any part, 
 
 To clear the breast, to mollify all pain. 
 
HYMNS ABOUT THE BOOK. 193 
 
 Thou art all health, health thriving', till it make 
 
 A full eternity : thou art a mass 
 Of strange delights, where we may wish and take. 
 
 Ladies, look here ; this is the thankful glass. 
 
 That mends the looker's eyes : this is the well 
 That washes what it shows. Who can endear 
 
 Thy praise too much ? Thou art heaven's lieger here. 
 Working against the states of death and hell. 
 
 Thou art joy's handsel : heaven lies flat in thee, 
 Subject to every mounter's bended knee. 
 
 Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine, 
 
 And the configiirations of their glorj- ! 
 Seeing not only how each verse doth shine, 
 
 But all the constellations of the story. 
 
 This verse marks that, and both do make a motion 
 
 Unto a third, that ten leaves ofl: doth lie ; 
 Then as dispersed herbs do watch a potion, 
 
 These three make up some Christian's destiny. 
 
 Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good. 
 And comments on thee ; for in everything 
 
 Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring, 
 And in another make me understood. 
 
 Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss : 
 This Book of stars lights to eternal bliss. 
 
 Would young men improve their taste, their thinking 
 powers, and, above all, the tone of their piety? Let them 
 make Greorge Herbert their companion and study, until 
 they lose sight of all in him that at first appears rugged, 
 grotesque, and quaint in their deep enjoyment of his 
 fragrant thoughts, poetic glow, and heavenly feeling ; and 
 when they wish for an occasional change to the more 
 simple style of psalmody, they may turn to "Watts' s hymn 
 on "Instruction from Scripture," founded on parts of 
 Psalm, cxix. : — 
 
 How shall the young secure their hearts, 
 
 And guard their lives from sin ? 
 Thy Word the choicest rule imparts, 
 
 To keep the conscience clean. 
 
 When once it enters to the mind, 
 
 It spreads such light abroad, 
 The meanest souls instruction find, 
 
 And raise their thoughts to God. 
 
194 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIE HYMNS. 
 
 'Tis like the sun, a heavenly light, 
 That guides us all the day ; 
 
 And through the dangers of the night, 
 A lamp to lead our way. 
 
 The men that keep Thy law with care, 
 And meditate Thy Word, 
 
 Grow wiser than their teachers are, 
 And better know the Lord. 
 
 Thy precepts make me truly wise ; 
 
 I hate the sinner's road ; 
 I hate my own vain thoughts that rise, 
 
 But love Thy love, my God. 
 
 The starry heavens Thy rule obey, 
 The earth maintains her place ; 
 
 And these Thy servants night and day 
 Thy skill and power express. 
 
 But still Thy law and gospel, Lord, 
 Have lessons more divine : 
 
 Not earth stands firmer than Thy Word, 
 Nor stars so nobly shine. 
 
 Thy Word is everlasting truth, 
 How pure is ev'ry page ; 
 
 That holy Book shall guide our youth. 
 And well support our age. 
 
CHAPTEE XIY. 
 
 KTMNS OF THE SABBATH. 
 
 " How still the morning oX the hallowed day ! 
 Mute is the voice of rural labour, 
 While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke 
 O'ermounts the mist, is heard, at intervals, 
 The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise." 
 
 " How certainly the outside world sometimes answers to the 
 condition of our inner life ! The face of creation seems 
 troubled when our souls are uneasy. Signs of sorrow 
 appear around us when our hearts are distressed. All 
 music is discord when we ourselves are out of tune ; and 
 all forms are rugged, all outlines harsh, when irregulari- 
 ties and unlovely tempers are taking unholy shapes in our 
 own inward selves. But all forms of creation become lines 
 of beauty, all shapes make themselves agreeable, all sounds 
 harmonize, and aU influences are calm, when our souls are 
 conformed to God's will, when we enjoy the repose of a 
 spiritual Sabbath." These were the thoughts of a pilgrim 
 who had lived and journeyed till he had seen all the com- 
 panions of his earlier course drop off from the road, and 
 who had learned to turn with tremulous delight towards any- 
 thing in nature that seemed to wear an expression of sym- 
 pathy with him in his loneliness. Hills, rocks, valleys, and 
 waters, flowers, and all tiny forms of beauty, he had become 
 happily familiar with ; and friendship with nature, in his 
 case, was so akin to friendship with "the Grod of all grace," 
 that they seemed to blend their influences for his pleasure, 
 and to act by turns as a sort of brotherhood on his behalf. 
 He was sometimes far away from the Sabbath assemblies 
 of God's people ; but everything in the outer world, at 
 
196 HYMK'-WKITEES AICD THEIR HTMXS. 
 
 sucli times, tendered its sympathies, and offered its minis- 
 trations, and joined him in the celebration of his Sunday 
 service. So it was, one Simday morning, as he went 
 quietly, but with buoyant footsteps, over the soft, turfy 
 undulations which, like the waves of a quietly-subsiding 
 sea, sank from the hills of the coast down to the low cliff, 
 and formed the marshy, lawn-like approach to a lone cot- 
 tage which looked out upon the waters of the Atlantic. 
 Every step brought up fragrance from the crushed camo- 
 mile or the wild thyme. No breeze disturbed the sea. 
 There was something solemnly calm in the very sunlight. 
 "Nature feels her Sabbath," said he to himself, "and is 
 still ; but my undertoned music will only deepen her still- 
 ness; " and then, as he went, his steps kept tune with his 
 low chant, as he sang a charming hymn, which in that day 
 was just beginning to float about in a few private circles of 
 religious life : — 
 
 Hail, thou bright and sacred mom, 
 
 Risen with gladness in thy beams ! 
 Light, which not of earth is born, 
 
 From thy dawn in glory streams : 
 Airs of heaven are breathed around, 
 And each place is holy ground. 
 
 Sad and weary were our way, 
 
 Fainting oft beneath our load, 
 But for thee, thou blessed day, 
 
 Resting-place on life's rough road ! 
 Here flow forth the streams of grace. 
 Strengthened hence we run the race. 
 
 Great Cz-eator, who this day 
 
 From Thy perfect work didst rest, 
 By the sotds that own Thy sway. 
 
 Hallow' d be its hours, and blest ; 
 Cares of earth aside be thrown. 
 This day given to heaven alone ! 
 
 Saviour ! who tliis day didst break 
 
 The dark prison of the tomb ; 
 Bid my slumbering soul awake, 
 
 Shine through all its sin and gloom : 
 Let me, from my bonds set free, 
 Rise from sin, and live to Thee ! 
 
 BlesF.ed Spirit ! Comforter ! 
 
 Sent this day from Christ on high ; 
 
HYMNS OF THE SABBATH. 197 
 
 Lord, on me Thy gifts confer, 
 Cleanse, illumine, sanctify: 
 All Thine influence shed abroad. 
 Lead me to the truth of God ! 
 
 Soon, too soon, the sweet repose 
 
 Of this day of Grod will cease ; 
 Soon this glimpse of heaven will close, 
 
 Vanish soon the hours of peace, 
 Soon return the toil, the strife, 
 All the weariness of life. 
 
 But the rest which yet remains 
 
 For Thy people. Lord, above, 
 Knows nor change, nor fears, nor pains, 
 
 Endless as their Saviour's love : 
 Oh, may every Sabbath here 
 Bring us to that rest more near ! 
 
 The last line still lingered on liis lips as he entei-ed the 
 cottage. 
 
 "Ah! you were singing," said a young woman who 
 was lying on a conch, so placed that she could look out 
 upon the ocean; "you were singing. Well, I do not 
 wonder at that, for who could help singing on a morning 
 like this ? Does not all nature seem to feel its Sabbath 
 hush and its Sabbath joy ?" 
 
 " That was the very thought which moved me to sing," 
 was the reply; "and I was indulging in that sort of 
 inward murmur of which the psalmist speaks as of one of 
 his devotional pleasures. I was murmuring the praise 
 which seemed to rise with a kind of naturalness from my 
 quiet heart, and Mrs. Lyte's beautiful hymn appeared to be 
 my best form of expression." 
 
 " That is rather remarkable," said the young sufferer, 
 with a smile that told the whole story of her long disci- 
 pline of affliction, and the peaceful submission and patience 
 which she had learnt in the process of her trial. " Just 
 before you came in I was humming to myself that 
 sweet Sabbath hymn by Bishop Heber. How often some 
 of his hymns rise within my soul, as if the hand of my 
 Redeemer had touched all the musical chords within 
 me ! I sing them to myself, while the sea is whispering 
 and roaring by turns on the beach ; and then I look on the 
 waters as I lie here, and love to think of that cultivated and 
 
198 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 gifted man crossing the deep under the constraining power 
 of his Eedeemer's love, and gladly sacrificing all the 
 comforts and honours of his native island for the joy of 
 proclaiming peace to the multitudes of India. I think 
 of him, gentleman, poet, scholar, theologian, as he was, 
 going out to live and die amidst the idolatrous millions 
 of that vast old country, that he might, as he said, ' in 
 some degree, however small, be enabled to conduce to the 
 spiritual advantage of creatures so goodly, so gentle, and 
 now so misled and blinded.' How I love to foUow him in 
 his travels ! Everything that he describes lives before me. 
 How I like to watch him as the tear trembles in his 
 eye at hearing one of his own blessed hymns sung far up 
 in India, at Meerut, and suug, as he says, ' better than he 
 had ever heard it sung before.' Then to go with him from 
 Delhi to Bombay, from Bombay to Ceylon, where he seems 
 to have caught the inspiration for his missionary hymn : — 
 
 What though the spicy breezes 
 
 Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle ; 
 Thoug-h every prospect pleases. 
 
 And only man is vile : 
 In vain with lavish kindness 
 
 The gifts of God are strown, 
 The heathen in his blindness 
 
 Bows down to wood and stone. 
 
 Can we, whose souls are lighted 
 
 "With wisdom from on high, 
 Can we to men benighted 
 
 The lamp of life deny ? 
 Salvation ! oh, salvation ! 
 
 The joyful sound proclaim, 
 Till each remotest nation 
 
 Has learnt Messiah's name. 
 
 And then to follow him to the south, the scene of his last 
 charge, and his mysterious call to his reward. Oh that 
 last kind, loving, truly Christian address, at Trichinopoly ! 
 How often I have read it. ' And now,' says he, ' dej)art 
 in the faith and favour of the Lord ; and if what you have 
 learned and heard this day has been so far blessed as to 
 produce a serious and lasting effect on you, let me entreat 
 you to remember sometimes in your prayers those 
 ministers of Christ who have laboured for your instruction, 
 
HYMNS OF THE SABBATH. 199 
 
 that we who have preached to you may not ourselves be 
 cast away, but that it may be given to us also to walk in 
 this present life according to the words of the gospel which 
 we have received of the Lord, and to rejoice hereafter with 
 you, the children of our care, in that land where the 
 weary shall find repose, and the wicked cease from 
 troubling ; where we shall behold God as He is, and be 
 ourselves made like unto God in innocence, and happiness, 
 and immortality.' Blessed man ! he soon found his rest 
 after he had uttered these words. How touching it is, 
 that story of his end ! Alone in his last moment, and his 
 happy spirit suddenly departing, • and leaving his body in 
 the waters of the bath in which he had sought refreshment 
 after his Sabbath toils. I wonder where he wrote that 
 beautiful Sabbath hymn. I have often pictured him lying 
 yonder, sick and weary, under the pressure of a tropical 
 climate, still bent on his holy mission, but feeling the lack 
 of England's Sabbath pleasures, and looking upwards in 
 hope — 
 
 Longing, gasping after home ; 
 
 and then I seem to have pleasant sympathy with him ; and 
 his Lord's-day song comes with deeper pathos and richer 
 music upon my soul as I sing it : — 
 
 Thousands, Lord of Hosts, to-day, 
 
 Within Thy temple meet ; 
 And tens of tliousands throng to pay 
 
 Their homage at Thy feet. 
 
 They see Thy power and glory there, 
 
 Where I have seen Thee too ; 
 They read, they hear, they join in prayer. 
 
 As I was wont to do. 
 
 They sing Thy deeds as I have sung, 
 
 In sweet and solemn lays ; 
 Were I among them, my glad tongue 
 
 Might learn new themes of praise. 
 
 For Thou art in the midst to teach, 
 
 While they look uj) to Thee ; 
 And Thou hast blessings, Lord, for each. 
 
 And blessings, too, for me. 
 
 Behold Thy prisoner, loose my bands, 
 
 If 'tis Thy gracious will ; 
 If not, contented in Thy hituds, 
 
 Only be with me still. 
 
200 HYMX-VRITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 I may not to Thy courts repair, 
 
 Yet here Thou svirely art ; 
 Oh give me here a house of prayer, 
 
 Here Sabbath joys impart ! 
 
 To faith reveal the things unseen, 
 
 To hope the joys unfold ; 
 Let love, without a veil between, 
 
 Thy glory now behold." 
 
 The closing prayer of her hymn was answered. There 
 was an ethereal light on her face as from the unfolding 
 visions of faith. Her eyes seemed to reflect the smile 
 of her loving Saviour. An air of deeper stillness pervaded 
 the little chamber, and for a time the two r6mained in 
 silence — silence that was full of Sabbath peace and joy. 
 The poor girl had been long a sufferer. A spinal affection 
 kept her to her couch ; but she was contented and happy 
 in daily companionship with Jesus. A little table-like 
 bracket had been fixed on the wall by her bed-side, so that 
 she coTild at any time take a book from it, or regale herself 
 with the perfume of the flowers with which she was daily 
 supplied. On that Sunday morning her visitor saw 
 Herbert's poems near her; she had been using it, he 
 thought, and taking it up, he said, " Do you like 
 Herbert?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," said she, "I like him, for he makes me 
 think, while I am enjoying the old-fashion music of his 
 verses. There is that rich old hymn for 'Sunday'; it 
 always sends my thoughts back to the time when, in my 
 childhood, I used to keep my eyes on the glorious old 
 painted window that was over against me in the church, 
 and, while they were singing the anthem, used to fancy 
 that the music and the coloured light were like one another 
 somehow. I wish I could sing that hymn ; but I am 
 never tired of saying it over to myself. Eead it to me, 
 will you ?" 
 
 The hymn was read ; and how fuU of thought and 
 Sabbath feeling it is — 
 
 , day most calm, most bright, 
 
 The fruit of this, the next world's bud, 
 
 Th' indorsement of supreme delight, 
 
 "Writ by a friend, and with His blood ; 
 
 The couch of time, care's balm and bay, 
 
 The week were dark but for thy light : 
 Thy torch doth shew the way. 
 
HYMNS OF THE SABBATH. 201 
 
 The other days and thou 
 Make up one man, whose face thou art, 
 Knocking at heaven with thy brow : 
 The working days are the back part ; 
 The burden of the week lies there. 
 Making the whole to stoop and bow. 
 
 Till thy release appear. 
 
 Man had straight forward gone 
 To endless death ; but thou dost pull 
 And turn us round to look on One 
 Whom, if we were not very dull, 
 We could not choose biit look on still : 
 Since there is no place so alone 
 
 The which He doth not fill. 
 
 Sundays the pillars are 
 On which heaven's palace arched lies : 
 The other days fill up the spare 
 And hollow room with vanities ; 
 They are the fruitful beds and borders 
 In God's rich garden : that is bare 
 
 Which parts their ranks and orders. 
 
 The Sundays of man's life, 
 Threaded together on time's string, 
 Make bracelets to adorn the wife 
 Of the eternal glorious King. 
 On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope ; 
 Blessings are plentiful and rife. 
 
 More plentiful than hope. 
 
 This day my Saviour rose. 
 And did enclose this light for His : 
 That, as each beast his manger knows, 
 Man might not of his fodder miss. 
 Christ has took in this piece of ground, 
 And made a garden there for those 
 
 Who want herbs for their wound. 
 
 The rest of our creation 
 Our great Redeemer did remove 
 With the same shake, which at His passion 
 Did th' earth and all things with it move. 
 As Samson bore the doors away, 
 Christ's hands, thoiigh nailed, wrought our salvation, 
 
 And did unhinge that day. 
 
 The brightness of that day 
 We sullied by our foul offence : 
 Wherefore that robe we cast away. 
 Having a new at His expense, 
 
202 HYMN-WRITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Whose drops of blood paid the full price, 
 Tha.t was requia-ed to make us gay, 
 And fit for paradise. 
 
 Thou art a day of mirth : 
 And where the week-day trails on ground, 
 Thy flight is higher, as thy birth : 
 Oh let me take thee at the bound, 
 Leaping with thee from seven to seven. 
 Till that we both being tossed from earth, 
 
 Fly hand in hand to heaven. 
 
 *' Th-ankyou," said the smiling sufferer. "How often 
 have I repeated that hymn to myself ; and then I have 
 gone off into pleasant dream-like thoughts about * Holy 
 Greorge Herbert.' I have pictured Montgomery Castle 
 where he was born, and I have imagined that birth- day, 
 April 3, 1593, to be a Sunday ; and then I have seen that 
 blessed pious mother of his watching her boy with that 
 look of ' cheerful gravity ' which those who knew her wit 
 and kindness and piety so admired; and then I have 
 listened to that evening music from the pious boy's cham- 
 ber at college, the music with which he cheered himself and 
 guarded his own soul against outward mischiefs. Then 
 comes up the image of Jane Danvers, who fell in love 
 with liim before she saw his face, and who became his wife 
 three days after their first interview ; and I think of what 
 happy old Isaak Walton says about the wedded pair, ' The 
 eternal lover of mankind made them happy in each other's 
 mutual and equal affections and compliance, indeed so 
 happy that there never was any opposition betwixt them, 
 unless it were a contest which should most incline to a 
 compliance with the other's desires. And though this 
 begat, and continued in them, such a mutual love, and 
 joy, and content, as was no way defective ; yet this 
 mutual content, and love, and joy did receive a daily 
 augmentation by such daily obligingness to each other, as 
 still added such new influences to the former fulness of 
 these divine souls, as was only improvable in heaven, 
 where they now enjoy it.' I think, too, of Bemerton, 
 and long to visit it, to see the scene of that holy man's life 
 as a parish priest, happy in his home and happy amidst 
 his flock, happy in the church, and happy in the homes 
 which he visited. I try to picture him on the ground 
 
HYMNS OF THE SABBATH. 203 
 
 before tlie altar in silent prayer on the day of his entrance 
 on his charge ; then going with his wife and household 
 twice a day to prayers in the chiu"ch; then practising 
 psalmody with 
 
 The sound of glory ringing in his ears ; 
 
 then walking twice a week into Salisbury Cathedral, where 
 he used, as he said, ' to find heaven on earth ; ' and then I 
 see him on his last bed, worn to a shadow, but all soul and 
 all heavenly devotion, glowing with hope and love. And 
 oh ! that last Sunday scene before he fied to his rest ! when 
 he rose from his bed, seized his favourite instrument, and 
 sang as he played — 
 
 My God, my God, 
 My music shall find Thee, 
 
 And every striug 
 Shall have his attribute to sing ! 
 
 Finishing with part of that very hymn for ' Sunday,' which 
 was just now read ; thus at the very last, as Walton says, 
 ' singing on earth such hjTuns and anthems as the angels, 
 and he and Mr. Ferrar are now singing in heaven.' 
 Blessed to me is the memory of George Herbert, were it 
 only for that Sunday hymn. How pleasant it is to be here 
 so quiet, and so near to Jesus, listening to such hymns ! 
 Do you know any others? Please to let me hear them. 
 These spiritual songs so refresh me." 
 
 "Well," said the pilgrim, "there are Mason's 'Spiri- 
 tual Songs ; ' have you any knowledge of them ? " 
 
 "No; who was he? Tell me something about him; 
 and then I shall be glad to hear some of his songs." 
 
 " I will try to meet your wishes. I am sure joxi would 
 like some of his hymns. Eichard Baxter says that Mason 
 was ' the glory of the Church of England ; ' that ' the fi-ame 
 of his spirit was so heavenly, his deportment so humble 
 and obliging, his discourse of spiritual things, and little 
 else could we hear from him, so weighty, with such apt 
 words and delightful air, that it charmed all that had any 
 spiritual relish, and was not biu'densome to others, as dis- 
 courses of that nature have been from other ministers.' " 
 
 " Mr. Mason was a minister, then? " 
 
 "Yes; he was brought up in Northamptonshire, and 
 
204 HYMX-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 l)egan Ms ministry in tlie same county, as curate of 
 Isham, after he had gone through his course at Cambridge. 
 In October, 1668, he became vicar of Stanton-Bury, and in 
 January, 1674, rector of Water- Stratford, in Buckingham- 
 shire, where he spent his holy and useful life, and finished 
 his course in the year 1694. Like many other good men, 
 he fell into some rather wild notions in his latter days. 
 Among these notions some would class his persuasion that 
 he had seen the Lord. In that, however, he was not more 
 peculiar than very many highly spiritual Christians whose 
 faith sometimes brightens into something very like open 
 vision. He was wild in his notions about Christ's per- 
 sonal reign upon the earth ; and, like many others who 
 mistake fulfilled for unfulfilled prophecy, he led his neigh- 
 bours astray into the fervent expectation that Christ woidd 
 appear in His glory at Water- Stratford. But his mistakes 
 were not inconsistent with perfect love, and he left the 
 scene of mortality and human mistakes exclaiming, ' I am 
 full of the loving-kindness of the Lord!' One who fol- 
 lowed him in the parish of Stanton-Bury says, 'My 
 acquaintance with Mr. Mason I have esteemed one of the 
 greatest mercies I ever received. His afi'ections were so 
 fervent, and his zeal so great, that as they were the com- 
 fort, so they were the admiration of those who feared Grod 
 and lived near him.' His hymns still live, to testify to his 
 personal holiness, and to keep alive the fruits of his 
 hallowed genius. His songs seem to have been relished 
 by Pope, and Watts, and the Wesleys, who now and then 
 garnished their own verses with choice bits from his 
 hymns. James Montgomery was of opinion that ' his style 
 is a middle tint between the raw colouring of Quarles and 
 the daylight clearness of Watts,' that ' his talent is equally 
 poised between both, having more vigour, but less versa- 
 tility, than that of either his forerunner or his successor.' 
 That is probably correct. But you would like to hear some 
 of his verses. He has two Sabbath hymns. One of them 
 would rather remind one of Herbert's hymns about which we 
 have talked ; this is it : — 
 
 Blest day of God, most calm, most briglit, 
 
 The first and best of days ; 
 The lab'rer's rest, the saint's delight, 
 
 A day of mirth and praise : 
 
HYMNS or THE SABBATH. 205 
 
 My Saviour's face did make thee shiiie, 
 
 His rising did thee raise : 
 This made thee heavenly and divine 
 
 Beyond the common days. 
 
 The first-fruits do a blessing prove 
 
 To all the sheaves behind ; 
 And they that do a Sabbath love, 
 
 An happy week shall find : 
 My Lord on thee His name did fix, 
 
 Which makes thee rich and gay ; 
 Amidst His g-olden candlesticks 
 
 My Saviour walks this day. 
 
 He walks in's robes, His face sliines bright, 
 
 The stars are in His hand ; 
 Out of His mouth, that place of might, 
 
 A two-edged sword doth stand. 
 Graced with our Lord's apj)earance thus, 
 
 As well as vath His name. 
 Thou may'st demand respect from us 
 
 Upon a double claim. 
 
 This day doth God His vessels broach, 
 
 His conduits run with wine : 
 He that loves not this day's approach, 
 
 Scorns heaven, and Saviour's shine. 
 What slaves are those who slav'ry choose, 
 
 And garlick for their feast. 
 Whilst milk and honey they refuse, 
 
 And the Almighty's rest ? 
 
 This market day doth saints enrich. 
 
 And smiles upon them all ; 
 It is their Pentecost, on which 
 
 The Holy Ghost doth fall. 
 Oh day of wonders ! mercies' pawn. 
 
 The weary soul's recruit, 
 The Christian's Goshen, heaven's da\vn. 
 
 The bud of endless fruit. 
 
 Oh could I love as I have loved 
 
 Thy watches heretofore : 
 As England's glory thou hast proved, 
 
 May'st thou be so yet more. 
 This day I must for God appear ; 
 
 For, Lord, the day is Thine : 
 Oh, let me spend it in Thy fear ! 
 
 Then shall the day be mine. 
 
 Throughout the day cease work and play. 
 
 That I to God may rest ; 
 Now let me talk with God, and walk 
 
 With God, and I am blest." 
 
206 HYMN-WRITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 " Do yoii not think," said the young listener, as the pil- 
 grim finished, "do you not think that Mason must have 
 seen Herbert's hymns? He has those happy expressions 
 of Herbert's in his first line — 
 
 Most calm, most bright. 
 
 Perhaps Herbert's hymn touched his chords of psalmody, 
 and gave him the first note." 
 
 " Perhaps so ; but he has another ' song of praise for the 
 Lord's-day,' which is generally thought to be the better 
 hymn ; and it has original power and beauty enough to 
 show that, though he might for once have caught a key- 
 note from his predecessor, he had native talent distinctive 
 enough to mark him as Herbert's brother hymnist. Listen 
 to this : — 
 
 My Lord, my Love was crucified, 
 
 He all the pains did bear ; 
 But in the sweetness of His rest 
 
 He makes His servants share. 
 
 How sweetly rest Thy saints above, 
 
 Which in Thy bosom lie ; 
 The Chxirch below doth rest in hope 
 
 Of that felicity. 
 
 Thou, Lord, who daily feed'st Thy sheep, 
 
 Mak'st them a weekly feast : 
 Thy flocks meet in their several folds 
 
 Upon this day of rest. 
 
 Welcome and dear unto my soul 
 
 Are these sweet feasts of love ; 
 But what a Sabbath shall I keep 
 
 When I shall rest above. 
 
 I bless Thy wise and wondrous love, 
 
 Which binds us to be free ; 
 Which makes us leave our earthly snares, 
 
 That we may come to Thee. 
 
 I come, I wait, I hear, I pray : 
 
 Thy footsteps, Lord, I trace : 
 I sing to think this is the way 
 
 Unto my Saviour's face. 
 
 These are my preparation days : 
 
 And when my soul is drest, 
 The Sabbaths shall deliver me, 
 
 To mine eternal rest." 
 
HTMN^S OF THE SABBATH. 207 
 
 " Yes, I like that," said tlie happy-looking girl, 
 
 " What a Sabbath shall I keep, 
 When I shall rest above ! 
 
 Some of these old hymns have undying vigour and beauty. 
 I have sometimes thought how much I should like to see 
 and feel all the music and Christian life of the still older 
 Latin hymns. I have one here in a translation, which I 
 am very fond of, and I try to sing it sometimes on a Sunday 
 morning, realizing, as far as I can, the thought that I am 
 singing the very hymn which many, many sincere Clu-istians 
 have sung on Sunday mornings for more than a thousand 
 years, it may be. This is the hymn I mean : — 
 
 On this first day, when heaven and earth 
 Rose at the Triune's word to birth ; 
 The day when He, who gave iis breath. 
 Revived our souls and vanquish' d death ; 
 
 Why close in sleep your languid eyes ? 
 Shake off dull slumber, wake, arise ; 
 And, mindful of the prophet's voice. 
 Right early in our God rejoice. 
 
 That He may hear the ascending cry ; 
 That He may stretch His hand from high ; 
 That He may cleanse and make us meet 
 To join Hun in that heavenly seat : 
 
 That, while each consecrated hour 
 We praise and sing His glorious power, 
 The offerings of this day of rest 
 May with His choicest gifts be blest. 
 
 Paternal Glory, Sire of all, 
 Thee with o'erflowing hearts we call, 
 That we this day may serve Thee, freed 
 From guilty thought and sinful deed : 
 
 That no foul passion's lawless flame 
 May injure this corporeal frame, 
 Nor the unhallow'd heart's desire 
 Plunge us in flames of fiercer fire. 
 
 Saviour of men, whose blood alone 
 Can for a ruin'd world atone, 
 Cleanse Thou our hearts, and upward lift 
 To share in Thy perennial gift. 
 
 To Thee, most Holy Sire ; to Thee, 
 Co-equal, only Son, we flee : 
 With Him, the union to complete, 
 The Spirit best, the Paraclete." 
 
208 HYMX- WRITERS AND THEIR HYilNS. 
 
 "That hymu is very old," said the pilgrim. "It has 
 been sung for ages, as you say, in its original form ; but 
 this is a translation by Bishop Mant, who was always 
 happier in translating old hymns, and in emulating the 
 ancients in hymns of his own, than he was in fencing 
 with the Methodists in his Bampton Lectures, though his 
 lectures did more than his hymns, it may be, in opening 
 his way to a bishopric. It is always happier to move one- 
 self to devotion by aiding the devotions of others, than to 
 be offering battle to our neighbours about notions which 
 those neighbours never held. It is more gracious to ' ad- 
 monish one another in psalms, and hj'mns, and spiritual 
 songs,' than to array ourselves against foes who do not 
 exist, and to 'fight as one that beateth the air.' I say 
 again, Mant was happy as a hymnist ; some of his hymns 
 will long outlive his lectures, and one of his best original 
 hymns is ' commemorative of the Day of Holy Rest.' Let 
 me repeat it — 
 
 Blest day, by G-od in mercy giveu 
 
 To soothe, refresh, and cheer. 
 We greet the blest of all the seven, 
 
 And hold thee doubly dear. 
 
 We prize thee as the day of rest, 
 
 WTiicli toil nor travail knows ; 
 The Sabbath-day, when man and beast 
 
 From week-day works repose. 
 
 We prize thee as the day design' d 
 
 From worldly studies freed, 
 The Holy Day, to train the mind 
 
 To holy thought and deed. 
 
 We prize thee as God's living sign 
 
 Join'd with His faithfixl Word, 
 How man was form'd by power Divine, 
 
 By power Divine restored. 
 
 Blest day, by God's commandment made 
 
 The goodliest of the seven, 
 Type of the heavenly rest, our aid 
 
 In journeying to heaven : 
 
 May holy thoughts and holy rites 
 
 Thy peaceful hours employ, 
 Till we, through love of such delights, 
 
 God's endless rest enjoy ! 
 
HYMNS OF THE SABBATH. 209 
 
 There hymn, amid His heavenly host, 
 
 The praise on earth begun, 
 Of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 
 
 The uncreated One ! " 
 
 " Do you know that liymn, ' on the joys and blessings of 
 the Sabbath,' which begins with — 
 
 Dear is the hallowed morn to me ? " 
 
 " No ; whose is it ?" 
 
 "It is said to be Allan Cunningham's, and I like it 
 all the better. I like hymns that come gushing from the 
 heart of a man of original and uncultured genius in his 
 devotional moments, — they are so fresh ; and this one of 
 Cunningham's is like the clear, tuneful rivulet of his native 
 hills, that flows and sparkles with pure, joyful life, 
 
 Adown by the greenwood side. 
 
 The author was a diligent, earnest man, whose life, from 
 1784 to 1842, was well filled, every nook, and corner, and 
 chink of it. His work as the superintendent in Sir Prancis 
 Chantrey's studio would have been enough for any ordinary 
 man ; but, over and above all that, he has immortalized 
 his name as the biographer of eminent British painters, 
 sculptors, and architects, and has adorned his own memory 
 with many a beautiful song. He has helped us to catch the 
 spirit of the old Covenanters' love-songs and hill-side 
 psalmody, and one enjoys his effusions the more entirely 
 because he never prostituted his genius to the claims of 
 vice. It cannot be said of him, as it is alleged of a more 
 popular Scotch songster, that his unpublished songs have 
 left a moral taint upon the social life of the neighbourhood 
 in which they were circulated and sung. But let me sing 
 to you his Sunday song, and then I must say good-bye. 
 Try to sing with me : — 
 
 Dear is the hallowed mom to me. 
 When village bells awake the day ; 
 
 And, by their sacred minstrelsy. 
 Call me from earthly cares away. 
 
 And dear to me the winged hour. 
 Spent in Thy holy courts, Lord ! 
 
 To feel devotion's soothing power, 
 And catch the manna of Thy "Word. 
 
210 HYMN-WEITEKS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 And dear to me the loud Amen, 
 
 Which echoes throvigh the blest abode ; 
 
 Which swells and sinks, and swells again, 
 Dies on the walls, but lives to God. 
 
 And dear the rustic harmony. 
 
 Sung with the pomp of village art ; 
 
 That holy, heavenly melody, 
 The music of a thankful heart. 
 
 In secret I have often prayed, 
 
 And still the anxioiis tear would fall ; 
 
 But, on Thy sacred altar laid. 
 
 The fire descends, and dries them all. 
 
 Oft when the world, with iron hands, 
 Has bound me in its six-days' chain, 
 
 This biirsts them, like the strong man's bands 
 And lets my spirit loose again. 
 
 Then dear to me the Sabliath mom, 
 
 The village bells, the she^jherd's voice ! 
 
 These oft have found my heart forlorn. 
 And always bid that heart rejoice. 
 
 Go, man of pleasure, strike the lyre. 
 Of broken Sabbaths sing the charms ; 
 
 Ours be the prophet's car of fire, 
 Which bears us to a Father's arms. 
 
CHAPTEE XY. 
 
 HYMNS BY TEE WAY. 
 
 " Yea, they sing in the ways of the Lord." 
 
 Ho"W often has some sweet singer clioered his own way 
 through the changes of life's journey with snatches of song ! 
 Some pretty peep, some qniet nook, or happy turn, or 
 unfolding prospect, or storied way-mark, or remarkable 
 adventure, or impressive event, has touched his soul, and 
 awakened a tuneful tribute or suggested an immortal hymn. 
 And in how many cases such hymns have helped to beguile 
 the journey of other travellers, or furnished the means of 
 lightening the steps of pilgrims of other days on their daily 
 march. No hymnist was ever more open to wayside in- 
 spiration than Charles Wesley. His eye was always open 
 to beauty and goodness. His ear was ever delicately alive 
 to kindred harmonies, and his heart was never out of tune, 
 never indisi^osed to entertain the tuneful thought that 
 touched it. Hymns came welling up from his soul amidst 
 the changes and activities of his evangelizing course, and 
 the habit of wayside composition became so fixed, that in 
 his last days, when he had gone beyond his ''three score 
 years and ten," and growing infirmity obliged him to per- 
 form his street journeys in London on a little pony, he 
 always kept a supply of small cards in his pocket, and as 
 he jogged along, he might be seen now and then jotting 
 down a stanza ; and then on arriving at City Road House, 
 he was out of the saddle, and might be heard hurriedly 
 calling for pen and ink that he might fix the results of his 
 street inspirations. To him the saddle was the seat of 
 ease and quiet, and had peculiar charms, as a place of poetic 
 study. ''Near Ripley," says he, with a spice of that 
 
212 HYMX-WRITEKS AJXB THEIR HYMXS. 
 
 sportive humour which is so often showing itself in his 
 and in his brother's journals, " my horse threw and fell 
 upon me. My companion thought I had broken my neck ; 
 but my leg only was bruised, my hand sprained, and my 
 head stunned, which spoiled my making hymns till the 
 next day." His journals afford many instructive illustra- 
 tions of the manner in which his hymns were brought out 
 of real life and passing circumstances. He goes to the 
 Newcastle colliers with his message of salvation, and the 
 fires amidst which he found them laboiu-ing awakened 
 thoughts about divine flames, and brought from his kind- 
 ling soul that stirring hymn — 
 
 See how great a flame aspires, 
 
 Kindled by a spark of grace ! 
 Jesu's love the nations fires, 
 
 Sets the kingdoms on a blaze ; 
 To bring fire on earth He came ; 
 
 Kindled in some hearts it is ; 
 Oh that all might catch the flame, 
 
 All partake the glorious bliss ! 
 
 Touched, too, at the sight of needy and eager multitudes 
 crowding around him to hear his proclamation of the 
 Sinner's Friend, he utters his feelings in that outburst of 
 beautiful song — 
 
 Who are these that come from far, 
 
 Swifter than a flying cloud ? 
 Thick as flocking doves they are, 
 
 Eager in pursuit of God : 
 Trembling as the storm draws nigh, 
 
 Hastening to the place of rest. 
 See them to the windows fly, 
 
 To the ark of Jesu's breast ! 
 
 Who are these, but sinners poor. 
 
 Conscious of their lost estate ; 
 Sin-sick souls who for their cure 
 
 On the good Physician wait ; 
 Fallen, who bewail their fall. 
 
 Proffer' d mercy who embrace, 
 Listening to the gospel call 
 
 Longing to be saved by grace ? 
 
 Tor his mate the turtle moans, 
 
 For his God the sinner sighs ; 
 Hark, the music of their groans. 
 
 Humble groans that pierce the skies I 
 
HYMNS BY THE WAY. 218 
 
 Surely God their sorrow hears, 
 
 Every accent, every look, 
 Treasures up their gracious tears, 
 
 Notes their sufferings in His book. 
 
 He who hath their cure begxm, 
 
 Will He now despise their pain ? 
 Can He leave His work undone. 
 
 Bring them to the birth in vain ? 
 No ; we all who seek shall find, 
 
 "We who ask shall all receive, 
 Be to Christ in spirit join'd. 
 
 Free from sin for ever live. 
 
 At another time he is found at Portland. He is on a 
 missionary tour ; like his brother John, going first to those 
 who wanted him most. The uncultured and uncared for 
 «|uarrymen, and their households, had drawn his zealous 
 steps towards their rude and isolated scenes of life. Those 
 to whom every passing glance at St. Paul's Cathedral 
 yields fresh pleasure would think it worth while to visit 
 Portland, as the source from which Wren drew his 
 materials for giving reality to the conceptions of his 
 genius. And all who love to listen to the " testimony of 
 the rocks" would he drawn to Portland by the mysterious 
 voices from the buried forests of its wonderful " dirt bed." 
 But Charles Wesley, though free from sympathy with 
 those who, like one of his preaching followers, " never go 
 a step out of their way to see a curiosity or a wonder," yet 
 kept his main object before him — the salvation of his 
 perishing countrymen. On June 4th, 1746, we find him 
 about nine o'clock at night, after a wearisome journey, 
 arriving at William Nelson's quaint-looking old stone- 
 house in the village of Fortune's Well. There, on the 
 following Friday, he sajs, in true Wesley style, "I 
 preached to a houseful of staring, loving people, from 
 Jer. i. 20. Some wept, but most looked quite unawakened. 
 At noon and night I preached on a hill in the midst of the 
 island. Most of the inhabitants came to hear, but few 
 as yet feel the burden of sin, or the want of a Saviour." 
 
 " Sunday, June 8th After evening service we had all 
 
 the islanders that were able to come. I asked, ' Is it 
 nothing to you, all ye that pass by?' About half a 
 dozen answered, ' It is nothing to us,' by turning their 
 backs, but the rest hearkened wdth greater signs of emotion 
 
214 IIYMN-WRITEKS AND THElll HYMNS. 
 
 than I had before observed. I found faith that our labour 
 would not be in vain. 
 
 " Monday, June 9th. — At Southwell, the farthest village, 
 I expounded the Song of Simeon. Some very old men 
 attended. I distributed a few books among them, rode 
 round the island, and returned by noon to preach on the 
 hill, and by night at my lodgings. Now the power and 
 blessing came. My mouth and their hearts were opened. 
 The roeks wure broken in pieces, and melted into tears on 
 every side." And now the inspiration came on the hymnist 
 as well as the preacher; and with the sound of the Port- 
 land hammers in his ears, and the sight of broken hearts 
 before him, he cries — 
 
 Come, Thou all victorious Lord, 
 
 Thy power to us make known ; 
 Strike with the hammer of Thy Word, 
 
 And break these hearts of stone ! 
 
 Oh that we all might now begin 
 
 Our foolishness to mourn ; 
 And turn at once from every sin, 
 
 And to our Saviour turn ! 
 
 Give us ourselves and Thee to know. 
 
 In this our gracious day ; 
 Repentance unto life bestow, 
 
 And take our sins away. 
 
 Conclude us first in unbelief, 
 
 And freely then release ; 
 Fill every soul with sacred grief, 
 
 And then with sacred peace. 
 
 Impoverish, Lord, and then relieve, 
 
 And then enrich the poor ; 
 The knowledge of our sickness give ; 
 
 The knowledge of oui- cure. 
 
 That blessed sense of guilt impart, 
 
 And then remove the load ; 
 Trouble, and wash the troubled heart 
 
 In the atoning blood. 
 
 Our desperate state through sin declare, 
 
 And speak our sins forgiven ; 
 By perfect holiness prepare, 
 
 And take us up to heaven. 
 
HYMNS BY THE WAY. 215 
 
 The poetic pilgrim finds his way, by and by, into Corn- 
 wall, still in search of those who were most in want of 
 truth; and here he finds himself in scenes and circum- 
 stances equally, and even more exciting, than all he had 
 witnessed at Portland or in Newcastle. He found poets in 
 Cornwall who could lustily sing their own verses, and sere- 
 nade him under his window with 
 
 Charles Wesley is come to town, 
 To try to pull the churches down ! 
 
 This, however, was a mistaken fancy on the part of the 
 gifted mob ; he was come not to pull down, but to gather 
 and to build. Nor was he without success, as his journal 
 testifies. A modern Eomish tourist, who has gone over 
 the line of Wesley's journey, says that " a curious spot in 
 the parish of Gwennap may deserve a visit. An antiquary, 
 stumbling upon it by chance, would be apt to fancy that he 
 had lighted upon a Eoman circus in a wonderful state of 
 preservation. It is, however, a pit — so called — of modern 
 formation, with circular seats ofturf rising one above the 
 other, precisely after the fashion of ancient amphitheatres, 
 from the area of which the great apostle of Methodism 
 used to preach to assembled thousands." Here Charles, 
 as well as John, Wesley seems to have had the joy of 
 seeing the fields " white unto the harvest." " On Sunday, 
 August 10th, 1746," he tells us, " at Grwennap, nine or ten 
 thousand, by computation, listened with all eagerness, 
 while I commended them to God, and to the Word of His 
 grace. For near two hours I was enabled to preach repent- 
 ance towards God, and faith in Jesus Christ. I broke out 
 again and again in prayer and exhortation. I believed 
 not one word would return empty. Seventy years' suffer- 
 ings were overpaid by one such opportunity 
 
 Never had we so large an efi'usion of the Spirit as in the 
 
 society I expressed the gratitude of my heart 
 
 in the following thanksgiving : — 
 
 All thanks be to God, 
 
 "Who scatters abroad, 
 
 Throughout every place, 
 By the least of His servants, His savour- of grace. 
 
 Who the victory gave, 
 
 The praise let Him have. 
 
 For the work He hath done : 
 All honour and glory to Jesus alone. 
 
216 HTMN-WRITEKS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Our conquering Lord 
 
 Hath prospered His Word, 
 
 Hath made it prevail, 
 And mightily shaken the kingdom of heU. ' 
 
 His arm He hath bared, 
 
 And a people prepared 
 
 His glory to show, 
 And witness the power of His passion below. 
 
 He hath opened a door 
 
 To the penitent poor, 
 
 And rescued from sin. 
 And admitted the harlots and publicans in. 
 
 They have heard the glad sound, 
 
 They have liberty found 
 
 Through the blood of the Lamb, 
 And plentiful pardon in Jesus' name. 
 
 And shall we not sing 
 
 Our Saviour and King ? 
 
 Thy witnesses, we 
 With rapture ascribe our salvation to Thee I 
 
 Thou, Jesus, hast bless'd. 
 
 And believers increased. 
 
 Who thankfully own 
 We are freely forgiven through mercy alone. 
 
 His Spirit revives 
 
 His work in our lives, 
 
 His wonders of grace, 
 So mightily wrought in the primitive days. 
 
 Oh that all men might know 
 
 His token below. 
 
 Our Saviour confess, 
 And embrace the glad tidings of pardon and peace ! 
 
 Then Saviour of all. 
 
 Effectually call 
 
 The sinners that stray ; 
 And, oh, let a nation be born in a day! 
 
 Thy sign let them see, 
 
 And flow unto Thee, 
 
 For the oil and the wine, 
 For the blissful assurance of favour Divine. 
 
 Our heathenish land, 
 
 Beneath Thy command. 
 
 In mercy receive ; 
 And make us a pattern to all that believe : 
 
 Then, then let it spread, 
 
 Thy knowledge and dread, 
 
 Till the earth is o'erflow'd. 
 And the universe filled with the glory of God." 
 
HYMNS BY THE WAY. 217 
 
 He who could be thus jubilant over the work of the blessed 
 Spirit upon the souls of sinful multitudes, was not, like 
 some spiritual zealots, blind and heartless towards the 
 beauties and grandeurs of the natural world. He must 
 needs enjoy a visit to the " Land's End." And who would 
 not ? " Such a panorama of lonely grandeur as the Land's 
 End affords to one fond of contemplating nature under her 
 most sublime aspects, will not be readily forgotten," says 
 a tasteful stranger, who once saw it ; " a gentle green slope 
 conducts the traveller to the edge of the cliff so designated. 
 Here the scenery is at once of a sublime and awful charac- 
 ter. Erom the rocks that guard the extremity of the 
 promontory, he looks down perpendicularly upon a raging 
 sea, the Atlantic Ocean bringing the full force of its mighty 
 waves to bear against the iron-bound basement of the 
 coast. All around are vast gigantic masses of granite, in 
 every variety of grotesque form and situation ; some hang- 
 ing overhead, and seeming about to topple from their frail 
 fastenings, and overwhelm the pigmy lords of creation 
 in their fall. It would be difficult amidst this grand 
 scenery not to recognise the striking handiwork of Divine 
 foresight in the barrier which the wonderful cliffs of this 
 tremendous coast oppose to the billows of the wide ocean, 
 which perpetually thunder against their shores." Amidst 
 these grandeurs Charles Wesley once stood ; and there, it 
 is said, feeling himself tremulous between the mysterious 
 past and the boimdless future, he gave utterance to the 
 hymn which always impresses one with a sense of solemn 
 awfulness — 
 
 Thou God of glorioii8 majesty, 
 To Thee, against myself, to Thee, 
 
 A worm of earth I cry ; 
 A half-awakened child of man ; 
 An heir of endless bliss or pain ; 
 
 A sinner born to die ! 
 
 Lo, on a narrow neck of land, 
 'Twixt two unbounded seas I stand, 
 
 Secure, insensible; 
 A point of time, a moment's space, 
 Removes me to that heavenly place, 
 
 Or shuts me up in hell. 
 
 The conception of this hymn rising from such a scene is 
 
218 IIYMN-WRITEES AND THEIB HYJINS. 
 
 confessedly very fine ; nor, perhaps, is the full sublimity of 
 the hymn itself felt until one tries to sing it on that " awful 
 neck of land." The tradition may be cherished. But 
 Wesley himself says, "Tuesday, July, 29, 1753. — We rode 
 to Zunning, and took up our lodgings at a hospitable 
 farmer's. I walked with our brother Shepherd to the 
 Land's End, and sang on the extremest point of the 
 rocks — 
 
 Come, Divine Immanuel, come. 
 Take possession of Thy home ; 
 Now Thy mercy's mngs expand, 
 Stretch throughout the happy land. 
 
 Carry on Thy victory, 
 Spread Thy rule from sea to sea ; 
 Re-convert the ransomed race ; 
 Save us, save us. Lord, by grace. 
 
 Take the purchase of Thy blood, 
 Bring us to a pardoning God; 
 Give us eyes to see our day, 
 Hearts the glorious truth t' obey. 
 
 Ears to hear the gospel sound, 
 Grace doth more than sin abound ; 
 God appeased, and man forgiven, 
 Peace on earth and joy in heaven. 
 
 Oh that every soul might be 
 Suddenly subdued to Thee ! 
 Oh that all in Thee might know- 
 Everlasting life below ! 
 
 Now Thy mercy's wings expand, 
 Stretch throughout the happy land, 
 Take possession of Thy home, 
 Come, Divine Immanuel, come." 
 
 His thought seems to have turned on Isaiah's expression 
 (chap. viii. 8), "And the stretching out of his wings shall 
 fill the breadth of thy land, Immanuel." At all events 
 his heart was set upon his Saviour's glory, and his hopes 
 upon the fulfilment of the promise, " He shall have 
 dominion also from sea to sea." Everything he met with on 
 his way must be turned to account in the pursuit of his great 
 object. He could make the sublimities and beauties of 
 nature pay tribute to his Divine Master ; but he had tact 
 and genius enough to turn the freaks and follies of men 
 also into means of blessing and praise. 
 
HYMNS BY THE WAY. 219 
 
 " Come here," said an old Cornishmau, as he took the 
 arm of a visitor in one of our south-western seaports, 
 " come here and look at this house. This is the house in 
 which I was born and reared ; and here," he continued, 
 leading his companion up a narrow passage, to an old- 
 fashioned heavy door, with a ponderous iron knocker, 
 " look at these pits and dents in the door, these were made 
 once by the mob as they were trying to break in upon Mr. 
 Wesley, who had taken refuge there. My father used to 
 tell me the story, and put me to feel the marks in the door. 
 Well, the people kept beating the door until they burst it 
 open, and rushing in, they found that the clear Httle man 
 was in a small room divided from the hall by a wooden 
 partition. They were trying to force the door of the 
 parlour, when up came some sailors from a ship-of-war ; 
 and as Jack is always ready for sport or mischief, they 
 forced their way in, crying, ' Avast, boys ! ' and putting 
 their shoulders to the door, in it went, and in they leaped. 
 There was Mr. Wesley at the upper end of the room, 
 calmly waiting the result. When the sailors got in, he 
 quietly looked at them, and said, ' AVho wants me ?' They, 
 quite as ready now to befriend the persecuted as they had 
 been ignorantly to aid the persecutors, surrounded the 
 Methodist, and violently clearing the way, and defying 
 any one to touch him, they led him out in triumph, and 
 conducted him to a boat as the safest mode of conveyance 
 from the town." 
 
 "Well done. Jack Tars!" said the old Cornishman's 
 companion; " well done ! But I have a story about an 
 adventure of Charles Wesley and some sailors, somewhere 
 in these parts, I believe." 
 
 " Oh yes, " was the reply ; " my father knew all about 
 that, too. Mr. C. Wesley had just begun a hymn in the 
 open air, intending to preach to the gathering crowd, 
 when some jolly fellows, ' half seas over,' as they say, 
 came and struck up a favourite song. Between the hymn 
 and their song it was but sorry music ; but the preacher's 
 ear was quick enough to catch the metre of their song, 
 and to master their tune there and then. He challenged 
 them to come again by and by, when he would be there, 
 and sing a song to their tune. They came, and he gave 
 out a new hymn made for the occasion ; the new tune was 
 
220 HYMX-VRITEES AND TnEIR HYMX?. 
 
 started, and the merry tars very soon found themselves 
 beaten, and giving up the contest, seemed to enjoy the hymn 
 more than their old song. The hymn was this : — 
 
 Listed into tlie cause of sin. 
 
 Why should a good be evil ? 
 Music, alas ! too long has been 
 
 Prest to obey the devil. 
 Drunken, or lewd, or light the lay, 
 
 Flowed to the soul's undoing ; 
 Widened and strewed with flowers the w:iy 
 
 Down to eternal ruin. 
 
 Who on the part of God will rise, 
 
 Innocent sound recover ; 
 Fly on the prey and take the prize, 
 
 Plunder the carnal lover ; 
 Strip him of every moving strain, 
 
 Every melting measure ; 
 Music in virtue's cause retain, 
 
 Rescue the holy pleasure ? 
 
 Come, let us try if Jesu's love 
 
 Will not as well inspire us ; 
 This is the theme of those above, 
 
 This upon earth shall fire us. 
 Say, if your hearts are timed to sing, 
 
 Is there a subject greater? 
 Harmony all its strains may bring, 
 
 Jesu's name is sweeter. 
 
 Jesus the soul of music is, 
 
 His is the noblest passion ; 
 Jesu's name is joy and peace, 
 
 Happiness and salvation. 
 Jesu's name the dead can raise, 
 
 Show us our sins forgiven, 
 Fill us with all the light of grace, 
 
 Carry us up to heaven. 
 
 Who hath a right like us to sing — 
 
 Us whom His mercy raises ? 
 Merry our hearts, for Christ is King, 
 
 Cheerful are all our faces. 
 Who of His love doth once partake, 
 
 He evermore rejoices ; 
 Melody in our hearts we make, 
 
 Melody with our voices. 
 
 He that a sprinkled conscience hath. 
 
 He that in God is merry ; 
 Let him sing Psalms, the Spirit saith, 
 
 Joyful and never weary. 
 
HYMNS BY THE WAY. 221 
 
 Offer the sacrifice of praise, 
 
 Hearty and never ceasing ; 
 Spiritual songs and anthems raise, 
 
 Honour, and thanks, and blessing, 
 
 Then let us in His praises join, 
 
 Triumph in His salvation ; 
 Glory ascribe to love Divine, 
 
 Worship and adoration. 
 Heaven already is begun, 
 
 Opened in each behever ; 
 Only believe, and still go on. 
 
 Heaven is ours for ever ! , 
 
 " That's the hymn," said the old Cornishman, " and the 
 tune was ' Nancy Dawson ; ' and a cheeiy thing it was to 
 hear my father sing it, just as the old folks, he said, used 
 to sing it. Yes, and I used to sing it with him, and love 
 to sing it now, though he is gone, and my voice is not 
 what it used to be. He and I shall join again, by and by, 
 and then we shall sing as we never could sing in this 
 world — 
 
 Heaven is ours for ever ! " 
 
 It has occurred to some, that one of Charles Wesley's 
 most glorious hymns may have sprung into life under the 
 influence of circumstances distinctive of some remarkable 
 point on his personal way through life. That being sup- 
 posed, the hymn may be classed with hymns by the way. 
 The hymn in question is the one of which Watts, with 
 great nobility of spirit, said, " That single poem, ' Wrest- 
 ling Jacob,' is worth all the verses which I have ever 
 written." 
 
 "I used often to read that hymn to my family," said a 
 man whose face showed deep lines of sorrow overlying a 
 calm expression of peacefulness, " and often have I called 
 their attention to its wonderfiil combination of majesty and 
 tenderness, beauty and power, rich music, deep feeling, 
 grajDhic life, and lofty devotion. But when I used to read 
 it to myself, I felt as if there were something in it as an 
 expression of Christian experience which I could not make 
 my own. Not that I ever adopted the opinion of a critic 
 who thinks that it is a fault in a hymn to be 'in a too 
 elevated strain of Christian experience ; ' no, Christians 
 are prone enough to grovel. They often need elevated 
 strains to keep them to the height of their calling. But I 
 
222 HYMX- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 seemed to lack the power of singing that hymn with a full 
 relish of its meaning and spirit. Were any peculiar cir- 
 cumstances needed to put me in a condition to adoj)t it as 
 the felt utterance of my own heart ? I prayed that I 
 might understand its full power. Little, however, did I 
 think that my prayer would be answered as it was. I was 
 called to a journey with my household. On the way the 
 hand of the Lord arrested us. The shadow of that hand 
 grew dark, and yet darker. One child I watched as he 
 passed from among us. Another was soon gone ; and yet 
 another. Then, last of all, the mother, the wife of my 
 youth, and the light of my home ! I was left alone in deso- 
 lation ! What a night was that ! I wandered out into the 
 darkness, and, friendless in my woe, paced the margin of 
 a stream. I thought of Jacob, alone with God. Verilj' I 
 had seen all that was dear to me on earth pass over the 
 brook before me. Was I kept behind to meet with Jacob's 
 Grod? I raised my eyes upward in silent prayer, and then 
 it seemed as if my soul were seized with the spirit of 
 agonizing prayer. A sense of the Divine power was uj)on 
 me ; and as I tried to fasten my soul u.pon the truth and 
 love of Grod, now my only helper, it appeared as if some 
 holy prompter were rehearsing my favourite hymn within 
 me. My spirit seemed to pass through all the deep pro- 
 cesses which that hymn records ; and now it came gushing 
 from an understanding heart : — 
 
 Come, Thoii Traveller unknown, 
 
 Whom still I hold, but cannot see, 
 My company before is gone, 
 
 And I am left alone with Thee ; 
 With Thee all night I mean to stay. 
 And wrestle till the break of day. 
 
 I need not tell Thee who I am, 
 
 My misery or sin declare ; 
 Thyself hast called me by my name ; 
 
 Look on Thy hands, and read it there ! 
 But who, I ask Thee, who art Thou ? 
 Tell me Thy name, and tell me now. 
 
 In vain Thou strugglest to get free, 
 
 I never will unloose my hold ; 
 Art Thou the Man that died for me ? 
 
 The secret of Thy love unfold. 
 Wrestling I will not let Thee go. 
 Till I Thy name, Thy nature know. 
 
HYMNS BY THE WAY. 223 
 
 Wilt Thou not yet to me reveal 
 
 Thy new, nnntterable name H 
 Tell me. I still beseech Thee, tell : 
 
 To know it now resolved I am : 
 Wrestling I will not let Thee go, 
 Till I Thy name, Thy nature know. 
 
 'Tis all in vain to hold Thy tongue, 
 
 Or touch the hollow of my thigh ; 
 Though every sinew be unstrvuig, 
 
 Out of my arms Thou shalt not fly : 
 Wrestling I will not let Thee go, 
 Till I Thy name, Thy nature know. 
 
 What though my shrinking flesh complain, 
 
 And ntiurmur to contend so long ? 
 I rise superior to my pain ; 
 
 When I am weak then I am strong : 
 And when my all of strength shall fail, 
 I shall with the God-Man prevail. 
 
 My strength is gone ; my natiire dies ; 
 
 I sink iDeneath Thy weighty hand, 
 Faint to revive, and faU to rise ; 
 
 I fall, and yet by faith I stand : 
 I stand, and will not let Thee go, 
 Till I Thy name. Thy nature know. 
 
 Yield to me now, for I am weak, 
 
 But confident in self-despair ; 
 Sjjeak to my heart, in blessings speak, 
 
 Be conquer' d by my instant prayer ; 
 SjDeak, or Thou never hence shalt move, 
 And teU me if Thy name is Love ? 
 
 'Tis Love ! 'tis Love! Thou diedst for me ! 
 
 I hear Thy whisper in my heart ! 
 The morning breaks, the shadows flee ; 
 
 Pure universal Love Thou art ! 
 To me, to all Thy bowels move ; 
 Thy nature and Thy name is Love ! 
 
 My prayer hath power with God ; the grace 
 
 Unspeakable I now receive ; 
 Through faith I see Thee face to face, 
 
 I see Thee face to face, and live : 
 In vain I have not wept and strove ; 
 Thy nature and Thy name is Love. 
 I know Thee, Saviour, who Thou art : 
 
 Jesus, the feeble sinner's Friend! 
 Nor wilt Thou with the night depart, 
 
 But stay, and love me to the end I 
 Thy mercies never shall remove, 
 Thy nature and Thy name is Love. 
 
224 IIYMN-WRITEIIS ASSD THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 The Siin of Righteousness on me 
 
 Hath rose Avith healing in His wings ; 
 Wither" d my nature's strength, from Thee 
 
 My soul its life and succour brings ; 
 My help is aU laid up above ; 
 Thy nature and Thy name is Love. 
 
 Contented now, upon my thigh 
 
 I halt tiU Kfe's short joui-ney end ; 
 All helplessness, all weakness, I 
 
 On Thee alone for strength depend ; 
 Nor have I power from Thee to move ; 
 Thy nature and Thy name is Love. 
 
 Lame as I am, I take the prey, 
 
 Hell, earth, and sin with ease o'ercome ; 
 
 I leap for joy, pursue my way, 
 
 And as a bounding hart iiy home ! 
 
 Through aU eteiiiity to prove. 
 
 Thy nature and Thy name is Love." 
 
 The author of this hymn came to the end of his journey 
 at last. His toils, and wrestlings, and hymnings by the 
 way were over ; but, true to his calling up to the latest 
 ytep, even when his feet were " dipped in the brim of the 
 Jordan," he gave forth, as his final hymn by the way, his 
 pai'ting song — 
 
 In age and feebleness extreme, 
 Who shall a sinful worm redeem ? 
 Jesus, my only hope Thou art. 
 Strength of my failing flesh and heart ; 
 Oh, could I catch one smile from Thee, 
 And drop into eternity ! 
 
 His prayer was answered. He caught that smile, and now 
 it may be said of him, that the principles and feelings with 
 which he began his course as a hymnist were his principles 
 and feelings up to the end ; they were holy and i)ure. 
 " From the first day until the day of Christ " dawned on 
 him, he had been " steadfast, uumovable, always abound- 
 ing in the work of the Lord." This is more than can be 
 recorded of some whose hymns still give pleasure to every 
 Christian who knows and sings them. There is a touching 
 and instructive tradition about one in particular, showing 
 that hymns once given out from a simple loving Christian 
 heart may serve to beguile the journey of many a pious 
 
HYMNS BY THE WAY. 22^ 
 
 wayfarer, while they now and then, in after days, spring 
 up in the path of their authors to reprove them for deny- 
 ing and forsaking that Saviour of whom and to whom they 
 once BO sweetly sane,-. It used to be more easy to beguile 
 the way with chat in the old coaching days than it is now 
 amidst the hurry, rattle, and screech of our iron roads. 
 It was more possible then to get an occasional bit of 
 agreeable reading too, and, among inside passengers 
 especially, there was, at times, a sort of Old English free- 
 dom in the mutual enjoyment of a book. It is said that 
 one day, on one of the well-known roads, a lady had 
 been for some time engaged over one page of a little book, 
 which, in the course of the journey, she had occasionally 
 consulted. Turning, at length, to her companion in 
 travel, a gentleman from whose appearance she gathered 
 that an appeal on such a question would not be disagreeable, 
 she held the open page towards him, and said, " May I 
 ask your attention to this hymn, and ask you to favour me 
 with your opinion of it ? Do you know it ?" It was — 
 
 Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, 
 
 Tune my heart to sing Thy grace : 
 Streams of mercy, never ceasing. 
 
 Call for songs of loudest praise. 
 Teach me some celestial measiire, 
 
 Sung by ransomed hosts above ; 
 Oh, the vast, the boundless treasxire 
 
 Of my Lord's unchanging love I 
 
 Here I raise my Ebenezer ; 
 
 Hither, by Thy help I'm come ; 
 And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, 
 
 Safely to arrive at home. 
 Jesus sought me when a stranger, 
 
 Wandering from the fold of God ; 
 He, to save my soul from danger, 
 
 Interposed His precious blood. 
 
 Oh ! to grace how great a debtor, 
 
 Daily I'm coiistrained to be ; 
 Let that grace. Lord, like a fetter, 
 
 Bind my wandering soul to Thee. 
 Prone to wander ; Lord, I feel it ; 
 
 Prone to leave the God I love ; 
 Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it. 
 
 Seal it from Thy courts above. 
 
 Her companion glanced down the page, and made an 
 
 P 
 
226 HYMN- WRITERS A^"D THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 attempt to excuse himself from conversation on the 
 merits of the hymn ; but the lady ventured on another 
 appeal. 
 
 " That hymn has given me so much pleasure," she 
 said ; "its sentiments so touch me ; indeed, I cannot tell 
 you how much good it has done me. Don't you think it 
 very good?" 
 
 "Madam!" said the stranger, bursting into tears, "I 
 am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many 
 years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had 
 them, to enjoy the feelings I then had." 
 
 Poor Robinson ! it was he, the victim of eccentricity, 
 love of change, and self-conceit; it was he of whom Robert 
 Hall said, " He had a musical voice, and was master of all 
 its intonations ; he had wonderful self-passion, and could 
 say what he pleased, ivhen he pleased, and hoiv he pleased." 
 Like many other men of popular and versatile talents, 
 however, he ran a zigzag course. Now, one of Whitefield's 
 converts, and a student at "the Tabernacle" as a Cal- 
 vinistic Methodist ; now, an Independent minister ; now, 
 a Baptist, translating Saurin's sermons, dealing in coals 
 and corn, writing a history of baptism, in which all the 
 jumbled powers and oddities of his character seem to be 
 reflected ; and, at last, a Socinian, groping his way down- 
 ward into the cheerless gloom, to realize the awful meaning 
 of an inspired utterance, "He that despised Moses' law 
 died without mercy under two or three witnesses : of how 
 much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought 
 worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and 
 hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was 
 sanctified, an uniioly thing, and hath done despite unto the 
 Spirit of grace ?" 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 EYMJSrS ON TEE WATERS. 
 
 " Hast tKou heard of a shell on the margin of ocean, 
 Whose pearly recesses the echoes still keep, 
 Of the music it canght when, with tremnlous motion, 
 It joined in the concert poured forth by the deep ? 
 
 " And fables have told us when far inland carried, 
 To the waste sandy desert and dark ivied cave. 
 In its musical chambers some murmurs have tarried, 
 It learnt long before of the wind and the wave." 
 
 Just at the opening of the seventeenth century, a clergy- 
 man in Hull was stepping into a boat with a young couple, 
 whom he was going to marry in Lincolnshire. The weather 
 was calm, and there was the promise of a bright voyage to 
 the scene of the wedding; but a mysterious sense of coming 
 danger pressed upon the good parson's heart, and throwing 
 his cane on shore as the boat went off, he cried, "Ho, for 
 heaven ! " The shout was prophetic ; neither he, nor 
 bridegroom, nor bride returned. They never reached the 
 altar. They sank together. It was indeed, "Ho, for 
 heaven ! " The son of that prophetic pastor lived to give 
 us one of the best boat songs that ever floated over the 
 waters, or charmed a pilgrim on the ocean. This was 
 Andrew Marvel, the friend of Milton, and his associate as 
 private secretary to Cromwell. A man who was faithful to 
 his principles, and held his integrity though tempted in the 
 hour of need by offers of a royal bribe ; one whose ability 
 and honourable bearing secured his election as Member of 
 Parliament for his native city ; and whose genius, talent, 
 honour, and wit were always engaged for goodness and 
 truth against corruption, falsehood, and wrong. Did you 
 
228 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 ever read his Tvhimsical reflections on Holland ? They 
 prove that Dutchmen were not his favourites. Their politics, 
 were not his. And his lines serve, too, to show the powev 
 which he could wield as a satirist : — 
 
 Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land, 
 
 As but th' offscouring of the British sand ; 
 
 And so much earth as was contributed 
 
 By English pilots when they heave the lead, 
 
 Or what by th' ocean's slow alluvion fell 
 
 Of shipwreck' d cockle and the mussel shell — 
 
 This undigested vomit of the sea 
 
 Fell to the Dutch by just propriety. 
 
 This is enough as evidence that his memory justly in- 
 herits the distinction of great humour and satirical genius. 
 But he was a good man. Nor was he, as a poet, less cap- 
 able of tenderness and reverent beauty, when they were 
 called for, than for logical and acute philippic. Of course, 
 he would deeply sympathize with the emigrants who in his 
 day fled their country to avoid the oppression to which they 
 were subject for their religious and ecclesiastical principles ; 
 and for those of them who found their way to the Bermudas 
 he wrote a hymn which lives to give pleasure to the devout 
 taste of every following generation : — 
 
 Where the remote Bermudas ride 
 
 In ocean's bosom unespied, 
 
 From a small boat that row'd along, 
 
 The listening winds received their song. 
 
 " What should we do but sing His praise 
 That led us through the watery maze, 
 Unto an isle so long unknown, 
 And yet far kinder than our own ! 
 
 " Where Ho the huge sea-monsters racks, 
 That Hf t the deep upon their backs ; 
 He lands us on a grassy stage, 
 Safe from the storm's and tyrant's rage. 
 
 " He gave us this eternal spring 
 Which here enamels everything, 
 And sends the fowls to us in care, 
 On daily visits through the air. 
 
 " He hangs in shades the orange bright, 
 Like golden lamps in a green night, 
 And in these rocks for us did frame, 
 A temple where to sound His name. 
 
nY:«NS ON THE WATERS. 229 
 
 *' Oh ! let our voice His praise exalt 
 Till it arrive at heaven's vault, 
 Wliich then perhaps rebounding may 
 Echo bej^ond the Mexique bay." 
 
 Thus sang they in the English boat 
 A holy and a cheerful note, 
 And all the way to guide their chime, 
 With falling oars they kept the time. 
 
 None but a kind heart, and a good one, too, wonid 
 provide hymns like this for those who toil at the oar, and 
 it is a happy thing for human life that such kind hearts do 
 not fail. 0]ie follows another, as men need songs on the 
 waters. Marvel sang for emigrant boatmen on the island 
 shores of the west ; AVordsworth has furnished us with 
 h^^mn music from the boatmen on the Neckar. Those who 
 have wandered on the Eliine, and have allowed themselves 
 to be drawn aside by the charms which surround some of 
 its tributaries, will remember the beauties that cluster 
 about Heidelberg, and allow many of its river scenes to 
 enrich the imagery of their dreams in after-life. It would 
 not be difficult to picture one wanderer there ; a wanderer 
 in whose witching company many of us have sauntered 
 on an "Excursion" among the liighlands of Scotland, the 
 English Lakes, and on the banks of the Wye and the 
 Wharfe : a Cumberland man, tall, though scarcely of dig- 
 nified carriage ; evidently used to travel, notwithstanding 
 his " narrowness and drop about the shoulders " ; with a 
 face, however, telling of deep thoughts and beautiful day- 
 dreams, and eyes that seemed like windows opening into 
 some pure spiritual world, and emitting " the light that 
 never was on land or sea." Who would not know William 
 Wordsworth? and who would not enjoy to watch him, on 
 the river bank or near the rapids, catching the spirit of 
 the boatmen's chant, and helping us to sympathize with 
 them in danger, and to join them in their hymn? — 
 
 Jesu ! bless our slender boat, 
 
 By the current swept along; 
 Loud its threatenings — let them not 
 
 Drown the music of a song 
 Breathed Thy mercy to implore, 
 Where these troubled waters roar. 
 
 Saviour, for our warning, seen 
 Bleeding on that precious rood ; 
 
230 HYMN-WRITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 If while through the meadows green 
 
 Gently woimd the peaceful flood, 
 We forgot Thee, do not Thou 
 Disregard Thy suppliants now ! 
 
 Hither, like yon ancient tower 
 
 Watching o'er the river's bed, 
 Ming the shadow of Thy power, 
 
 Else we sleep among the dead ; 
 Thou who trod'st the billowy sea, 
 Shield us in our jeopardy. 
 
 Guide our bark among the waves ; 
 
 Through the rocks our passage smooth ; 
 Where the whirljDOol frets and raves. 
 
 Let Thy love its anger soothe ; 
 All our hope is placed in Thee ; 
 Miserere Domine ! 
 
 No one can think of Wordsworth, and the English lakes 
 without having Coleridge and Southey before him. Nor 
 could he fail to see that plain-looking house a little way 
 out of Keswick, standing on a gentle eminence over the 
 river Greta, near the old hridge. Greta Hall woidd be 
 interesting to all who love songs on the waters; for there it 
 was that Caroline Bowles appeared as Mrs. Southey a 
 few years before the poet's death ; and there she minis- 
 tered to the paralysed man who had so widely influenced 
 the literature of his times ; and there, like his guardian 
 spirit, she watched and soothed him through the dimness 
 and depression of his closing hours. She would be thought 
 of with deep respect as the second wife of Southey, but 
 she has for ever established her claim on our admiration 
 and esteem by such touching appeals to our best feelings 
 as we have in her Mariner's Hymn : — 
 
 Launch thy bark, mariner ! 
 
 Christian, God speed thee ! 
 Let loose the rudder-bands — 
 
 Good angels lead thee ! 
 Set thy sails warily, 
 
 Tempests will come ; 
 Steer thy course steadily ; 
 
 Christian, steer home ! 
 
 Look to the weather bow. 
 
 Breakers are round thee ; 
 Let fall the plummet now. 
 
 Shallows may ground thee. 
 
HYMNS ON THE WATERS. 231 
 
 Reef in the foresail, there ! 
 
 Hold the helm fast ! 
 So — let the vessel wear — 
 
 There swept the blast. 
 
 " What of the night, watchman ? 
 
 What of the night?" 
 " Cloudy — all quiet — 
 
 No land yet — all's right." 
 Be wakeful, be vigUant — 
 
 Danger may be 
 At an hour when all seemeth 
 
 Securest to thee. 
 
 How! gains the leak so fast? 
 
 Clean out the hold — 
 Hoist up thy merchandise, 
 
 Heave out thy gold ; 
 There — let the ingots go — 
 
 Now the ship rights ; 
 Hurra ! the harbour's near^ 
 
 Lo ! the red lights ! 
 
 Slacken not sail yet 
 
 At inlet or island ; 
 Straight for the beacon steer, 
 
 Straight for the high land ; 
 Crowd all thy canvas on, 
 
 Cut through the foam — 
 Christian, cast anchor now — 
 
 Heaven is thy home ! 
 
 Hymns on tlie waters come Ayitli their richer and deeper 
 m.usic to the heart when they are sung to us by gifted 
 spirits, who have themselves gone "down to the sea in 
 ships, to do business in great waters, to see the works of 
 the Lord and His wonders in the deep ; " or who, on 
 missions of mercy, have been "in the deep," " in perils of 
 waters, and in perils in the sea." Among these Charles 
 Wesley is a remarkable example, combining as he does, in 
 his ocean songs, the recollections of an experienced ob- 
 server, fine poetic power, a jubilant faith, and devout feel- 
 ing. There is a record in the journal which he kept on his 
 voyage back from America, in 1736, which helps to open 
 the secret of his success in his hymns for mariners : 
 " Thursday, Oct. 28th," says he, " the captain warned me 
 of a storm approaching. In the evening, at eight, it came, 
 and rose higher and higher. Often I thought it must have 
 
232 HTMN-"SVEITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 come to its strength, for I did not lose a moment of it, 
 being obliged by bodily suffering to rise freqnently. At 
 last the long-Trished-for morning came, but brought no 
 abatement of the storm. There was so prodigious a sea, 
 that it quickly washed away our sheep, and half our hogs, 
 and drowned most of our fowls. The ship had been new 
 caulked at Boston, how carefully it now appeared ; for, 
 being deeply laden, the sea streamed in at all sides so 
 plentifully, that it was so much as four men could do, by 
 continual pumping, to keep her above water. I rose and 
 lay down by turns. 1 it could remain in no posture long; 
 strove vehemently to pray, but in vain ; persisted in striv- 
 ing, yet still without effect. I prayed for power to pray, 
 for faith in Jesus Christ, continiialh^ rej^eating His name, 
 till I felt the virtue of it at last, and knew that I abode 
 under the shadow of the Almighty. It was now about 
 three in the afternoon, and the storm at the height. I 
 endeavoured to encourage poor Mr. Brig and Cutler, who 
 were in the utmost agony of fear. I prayed with them 
 and for them till four, at which time the ship made so much 
 water, that the captain, finding it impossible otherwise to 
 save her from sinking, cut down the mizen mast. In this 
 dreadful moment, I bless God, I found the comfort of hope, 
 and such joy in finding I could hope as the world can 
 neither give nor take away. I had that conviction of the 
 power of God present with me, overruling my strongest 
 passion, fear, and raising me above what I am by nature, 
 as surpassed all rational evidence, and gave me a taste of 
 the Divine goodness. At the same time I found myself 
 constrained in spirit to bear witness to the ^Mth." With 
 scenes like these pictured in his soiil, who can wond^^r that 
 his hallowed genius found expression in such hymns as 
 this : — 
 
 O Thoii who didst prepare 
 The ocean's eavemed cell, 
 And teach the gathering waters there 
 To meet and dwell ; 
 Toss'd in our rei lin.,- bark 
 Upon this briny sea, 
 Tliy wondrous ways, O Lord, we mark, 
 And sing to Thee. 
 
 That glorious hand of Thine 
 Which fills the fount of day, 
 
HYMNS ON THE "WATERS. 233 
 
 And gives the lunar orb to sliine 
 With silv'ry ray, 
 Which hangeth forth on high 
 The clustering dews of night, 
 Can point beneath a beamless sky 
 Our course aright. 
 
 Borne on the dark'ning wave, 
 In measured sweep we go, 
 Nt.r dread th' unfathomable grave 
 Which yawns below; 
 * For He is nigh who trod 
 
 Amid the foaming spray, 
 Wliose billows own'd th' Incarnate God, 
 And died away. 
 
 How terrible art Thou 
 In all Thy wonders shown ; 
 Though veiled in Thine eternal brow, 
 Thy steps unknown ! 
 Invisible to sight, 
 But oh ! to faith how near ; 
 Beneath the gloomiest cloud of night 
 Thou beamest here. 
 
 To peaceful rest we go, 
 And close our tranquil eyes ; 
 Though deep beneath the waters iiow. 
 And circling rise. 
 Though swells the flowing tide. 
 And threatens far above. 
 We know in Whom our souls confide 
 With f fearless lo'-o. 
 
 Snatch'd from a darker deep. 
 And waves of wilder foam, 
 Thou, Lord, oiu- trusting souls wilt keep. 
 And waft them home — 
 Home, where no storm can sound, 
 Nor angry waters roar. 
 Nor troiiblous biUows heave around 
 That peaceful shore. 
 
 The journal continues, "Towards morning, the sea heard 
 and obeyed the Divine voice, 'Peace, be still ! ' The calm 
 day that now broke on the weather-beaten men was Sun- 
 day ; and," says the hymnist, " my first business to-day — 
 may it be the business of all my days ! — was to offer up 
 the sacrifice of jiraise and thanksgiving. Then we all 
 joined in thanks for our deliverance." And how he could 
 render thanks for such deliverances we know from the echo 
 of his song. It is repeated to this day. 
 
234 HYMN-WEITEKS AJS^D THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 All praise to the Lord, 
 
 Who rules with a word 
 
 Th' untractable sea, 
 And limits its rage by His steadfast decree ; 
 
 Whose providence binds 
 
 Or releases the winds. 
 
 And compels them again, 
 At His beck to put on the invisible chain. 
 
 Oh that all men would raise 
 
 A tribute of praise, 
 
 His goodness declare. 
 And thankful confess His fatherly care! 
 
 With joy we embrace 
 
 This pledge of His grace, 
 
 And wait to outfly 
 These storms of affliction, and land in the sky 
 
 It is natviral that one wlio had known the mingled 
 pleasures, discomforts, and dangers of a sea voyage, should 
 look with kind sympathy on those who are just emLarking; 
 and, where a kind heart and ready muse are agreed, that 
 symjoathy would i:)rom2^t a tuneful prayer for the use of all 
 who look for God's blessing when "going on shipboard." 
 Charles Wesley, always in tune for such service, has 
 cheered tremulous hearts on many a deck with his hymn — 
 
 Lord, whom winds and waves obey, 
 Guide us through the wateiy way ; 
 In the hollow of Thy hand, 
 Hide and bring us safe to laud. 
 
 Jesus, let our faithful mind 
 Rest, on Thee alone reclined ; 
 Every anxious thought repress, 
 Keep our souls in perfect peace. 
 
 Keep the souls whom now we leave. 
 Bid them to each other cleave ; 
 Bid them walk on life's rough sea ; 
 Bid them come by faith to Thee. 
 
 Save, till all these tempests end, 
 All who on Thy love depend ; 
 Waft our happy spirits o'er ; 
 Land us on the heavenly shore. 
 
 About a hundred and twenty years ago, on a low sandy 
 island, almost covered with palm trees, a few leagues 
 south-east from Sierra Leone, on the western coast of 
 
HYMNS ON THE WATEES. 235 
 
 Africa, a wretched-looking young Englishman might be 
 seen toiling in a plantation of lemon trees. He was 
 barely covered with an old trousers and shirt, a j-ard or 
 two of cotton wrapped about his shoulders, and an old 
 handkerchief around his head. There he worked, without 
 shelter from the sun, or the gales and torrents of the rainy 
 season, half-starved, craving unwholesome roots to allay 
 his hunger. Like another prodigal, "no man gave unto 
 him" — no, nor woman either. Slaves shunned him; and 
 the only woman who noticed him was a sinful black 
 tyrant, who, in vicious association with his master, sported 
 with his miseries, and answered his appeals for mercy by 
 aggravating his woe. He had brought himself into this 
 coi liiion by his reckless profligacy. He was but twenty ; 
 but his few years had been filled to overflowing with un- 
 godliness in its most blasphemous forms. Born of a pious 
 mothe-", his childhood hallowed by her instruction, and 
 blessed in youth with fair j^rospects, he nevertheless took 
 to the sea in early life in a manner which disappointed his 
 friends ; cut himself off from one good after another ; was 
 pressed into the naval service, degraded from his first 
 honours ; passed into the African trade on the slave 
 coast ; was now a castaway, and had become all but the 
 hopeless slave f^f a man who engaged him in the meanest 
 drudgery of his meanest traffic. This woe-begone pro- 
 digal was John Newton, afterwards known as the reverend 
 rector of St. Woolnoth, London, the friend of Cowper, the 
 compiler of the " Olney Hymns," and the hymnist whose 
 songs have so often quickened failing hearts into cheerful 
 worship both on land and at sea. His adventures on sea 
 and land may be called romantic. On escaping from his 
 degradation on the African coast, he was still a rover, but 
 at last on a homeward voyage, Divine mercy arrested him. 
 A terrible storm fell on them. Death raged around the 
 sinking ship ; and then it was, as he says, "I began to 
 
 pray I could not utter the prayer of faith ; I could 
 
 not draw near to a reconciled God, and call Him Father. 
 My prayer was like the cry of the ravens, which yet the 
 Lord does not disdain to hear." The Lord heard his cry. 
 The storm was hushed ; but then came on the horrible 
 thought of slow death uj)on the deep from the failure of 
 provisions, and the lack of means to hasten the shattered 
 
236 HYMN- "WRITERS AND THEIR HTMNS. 
 
 vessel toward the land. "I had a New Testament," he 
 tells us, "I was struck with several passages, but parti- 
 cularly the ' Prodigal,' a case, I thought, that had never 
 been so nearly exemplified as by myself ; and then, the 
 goodness of the fatlier i:i receiving, . ay, in running to 
 meet such a son, and this intended to illustrate the Lord's 
 goodness to returning sinners. This gained upon me. I 
 continued much in prayer ; I saw that the Lord had inter- 
 posed so far to save me, and I hoped he would do more. 
 The outward circumstances h piped in this place to make me 
 still more serious and earnest in crying to Him who alone 
 could relieve. I saw that, by the way pointed out in the 
 gosj)el, God might declare, not His mercy onlj', but His 
 justice also, in the pardon of sin on the account of the 
 obedience and sufferings of Jesus Christ. . . . Thus, 
 to all appearance, I was a new man." In this return to 
 his heavenly Father, amidst the terrors of an ocean storm 
 there was, it may be, the first kindling of that hallowed 
 genius wliich afterwards recorded the penitent mourner's 
 feelings thus : — 
 
 I hear the tempest's awful sound, 
 I feel the vessel's quick rebound ; 
 And fear might now my bosom fill, 
 But Jesus tells me, "Peace ! Be still ! " 
 
 More and more loud the billows roar, 
 
 Par distant is the friendly shore ; 
 
 But evei storms obey PI will, 
 
 And He can tell them, " Peace ! Be still ! " 
 
 In this dread hour I cling to Thee, 
 
 My Saviour crucified for me. 
 
 If that 1 23erish be Thy will, 
 
 In death, Lord, whisper, " Peace ! Be stiU ! " 
 
 My soul, I charge thee not to fear : 
 
 Jesus is nigh, my p:'ayer to hear ; 
 
 His promise He can now fulfil, 
 
 And to the waves say, " Peace ! Be still '. " 
 
 Hark ! He has listen' d while I prayed. 
 Slowly the tempest's rage is stayed ; 
 The yielding waves obey His will, 
 Jesus hath bid them, " Peace ! Be still ! " 
 
 I/ord, I adore Thy sovereign power ! 
 My Rescuer from danger's hour ; 
 Oh, when dark fears my bosom fill, 
 "Whisper me ever, " Peace I Be still ! " 
 
HYMNS ON THE WATERS. 237 
 
 Newton returned to liis native land a new man, not, as 
 he modestly said, " to all appearance" merely, but tridy 
 so in lieart and life. His circumstances improved as his 
 Christian character brightened ; and although his peculiar 
 habits, contracted under uncommon circumstances, kept 
 him in almost a secret enjoyment of inward religion for 
 several years, his light could not be hid. His Christian, 
 life was not interrupted even by the associations around 
 him in the slave trade, which, like many good men of his 
 day, he continued to share in. While yet a lad, he had 
 conceived a pure and warm affection for a young girl, the 
 daughter of his departed mother's nearest friends; and 
 that affection which, like a cord of heaven's weaving, kept 
 his heart in gentle bondage all through his seven years 
 of wild, uneasy departure from Grod, now drew him into a 
 happy marriage with the woman who was still the choice 
 of his soul. And now his peaceful life was spent between 
 quiet scenes at home and voyaging and travelling abroad. 
 While in the country at home, " Some hours every day," 
 he writes, "I passed in retirement, when the weather 
 was fair; sometimes in the thickest woods, sometimes 
 on the highest hills, where almost every step varied the 
 prospect. There it was my custom for many years to 
 perform my devotions. These rural scenes have a 
 tendency both to refresh and compose my spirits. A 
 beautiful diversified pros]5eet gladdens my heart. I 
 consider myself as in the great temple which "the Lord 
 has built for His own honour." He was now in easy 
 circumstances ; and what a change ! What a hush was 
 come upon him ! and how the world even had altered its 
 aspect towards him! "I remember," says he, "that on 
 some of those mournful days which I spent on that African 
 island, I was busied in planting lemon trees. The plants 
 I put into the ground were no larger than a young goose- 
 berry bush ; my master and his black mistress, passing by 
 my place, stopped awhile to look at me; at last, 'Who 
 knows,' says he, ' who knows but by the time these trees 
 grow up and bear, you may go home to England, obtain 
 the command of a ship, and return to reap the fruit of your 
 labours? we see strange things sometimes happen.' This, 
 as he intended it, was a cutting sarcasm. I believe he 
 thought it full as probable that I should live to be the 
 
238 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 king of Poland. Yet it proved a prediction, and they (one 
 of them at least) lived to see nae return from England, in 
 the capacity lie had mentioned, and pluck some of the first 
 limes from those very trees." Yes, his life was a life of 
 ■wondrous change and romantic interest. His course of 
 life as a sea-captain was equally remarkable with his 
 adventures as a young outcast. On his voyages, he rubbed 
 up his Latin, until his classic reading was respectable. 
 He mastered the Greek of the New Testament and 
 the Septuagint, so far as to enjoy the sacred text. He 
 learnt to read the Hebrew Pentateuch and Psalms without 
 the aid of a lexicon ; did something in Sj^riac ; gained 
 French enough to transact business in foreign parts, and 
 read much of the best English divinity. What an interest 
 gathers round the seafaring student ! " To be at sea," he 
 remarks, " withdrawn out of the reach of innumerable 
 temptations, Avith opportunity and a turn of mind disposed 
 to observe the wonders of God in the great deep, with the 
 two noblest objects of sight, the expanded heaven and the 
 expanded ocean, continually in view; and when evident 
 interpositions of Divine Providence, in answer to prayer, 
 occur almost every day; — these are helps to quicken and 
 confirm the life of faith, which in a good measure supply 
 to a religious sailor the want of those advantages which 
 can be enjoyed only upon the shore. I never knew sweeter 
 or more frequent hours of divine communion than in my 
 last two voyages to Guinea, when I was either almost 
 secluded from society on shipboard, or when on shore 
 amongst the natives. I have wandered through the woods, 
 reflecting on the singular goodness of the Lord to me, in a 
 place where perhaps there was not a person that knew 
 Him for some thousand miles around me. Many a time, 
 upon these occasions, I have restored the beautiful lines of 
 Propertius to their right owner ; lines full of blasphemy 
 and madness when addressed to a creature, but full of 
 comfort and propriety in the mouth of a believer : — 
 
 Sic ego desertis joassim bene vivere sylvis, etc., etc. 
 
 paraphrased — 
 
 In desert woods with Thee, my God, 
 Wliere hirnian footsteps never trod. 
 How happy could I be : 
 
htm:n"s on the "waters. 239 
 
 Thou my repose from care, my light 
 Amidst the darkness of the night, 
 In solitude my company." 
 
 How instructive is it to Tvatcli this future pastor and 
 hymnist through the processes of his preparation for the 
 usefulness of his life's eventide. How the beauty of some 
 of his hymns brightens, and how much more deeply they 
 touch us, when they are read and sung with the scenes in 
 which he learnt to sing vividly before us. Who can follow 
 the studious, prayerful, and .poetic sea-captain over the 
 waters of his changeful life without having a richer relish 
 for that sea-going hymn of his on Paul's voyage ? — 
 
 If Paul in Caesar's court must stand. 
 
 He need not fear the sea ; 
 Secured from harm on every hand 
 
 By the Divine decree. 
 
 Although the ship in which he sailed 
 
 By dreadful storms was tossed ; 
 The promise over all prevailed. 
 
 And not a life was lost. 
 
 Jesus, the God whom Paul adored, 
 
 Who saves in time of need, 
 Was then confessed by all on board, 
 
 A present help indeed. 
 
 Though neither sun nor stars were seen, 
 
 Paul knew the Lord was near ; 
 And faith preserved his soul serene, 
 
 When others shook for fear. 
 
 Believers thus are tossed about 
 
 On life's tempestuous main ; 
 But grace assures beyond a doubt 
 
 They shall their port attain. 
 
 They must, they shall, appear one day 
 
 Before their Saviour's throne ; 
 The storms they meet with by the way 
 
 But make His power known. 
 
 Their passage lies across the brink 
 
 Of many a threatening wave ; 
 The world expects to see them sink. 
 
 But Jesus lives to save. 
 
 Lord, thoug'h we are but feeble worms, 
 
 Yet since Thy word is passed. 
 We'll venture through a thousand storms, 
 
 To see Thy face at last. 
 
240 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Otliers "besides old sailors, however, can sometimes give 
 us hymns on the waters. Quiet, home-keeping spirits, like 
 Toplady or Kelly, when they have felt the breath of that 
 Spirit who " moved upon the face of the waters," have 
 given out utterances which have been caught " afar off 
 upon the sea," and have fallen upon the tremulous half- 
 engulphed soul with hushing and reviving power, akin to 
 the voice " which stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of 
 the waves, and the tumult of the people." " I was once on 
 my way to the Antipodes," said a voyager, who had gone 
 around the world several times. " The vessel was a trans- 
 port ; and we had a large number of troops on board. So 
 multitudinous a companionship was not exactly to my taste 
 on the high seas ; but one must make the best of circum- 
 stances ; and, on the whole, my cabin life was as pleasant 
 as could be in such a case. All went on very safely till one 
 night, the horrors of which will live to play discords on my 
 nerves as long as nerves are a part of my inheritance. I 
 had got into my berth, and was fast asleep; when about 
 the middle of the night, I was startled by a shock, and 
 then alarmed by a strange hubbub of creaking timbers, 
 shuffling feet, and hoarse voices, striving with the whist- 
 ling roaring wind, and then, my senses were scarcely 
 clear from sleep, when there came a thundering crash ; 
 down went the vessel on her beam-ends, and down came the 
 rushing sea, all but filling the cabins, and at once putting 
 out the lights. There was an awful hush for a moment, 
 and then the first voice that broke it came from an officer 
 who leaped out of an adjoining berth, with imprecations 
 that made my blood run chill, and cried, ' This is like hell 
 when the fire is put out ! ' One felt for an instant as if he 
 were engulphed in hell itself, but just then some gentle 
 spirit seemed to touch my tremulous heart ; there came a 
 sweet calm over my soul. I quietly lay in my berth, and 
 felt as if voices from the better land were singing to me 
 that beautiful hymn — 
 
 Why those fears ? Behold, 'tis Jesus 
 Holds the helm and guides the ship ; 
 
 Spread the sails and catch the breezes, 
 Sent to waft us through the deep, 
 
 To the regions 
 Where the mourners cease to weep. 
 
HYMNS ON THE WATERS. 241 
 
 Led by Him, we brave the ocean ; 
 
 Led by Him, the storm d^fy ; 
 Cabn amidst tumultuous motion, 
 
 Knowing that our Lord is nigh. 
 Waves obey Him, 
 
 And the storms before Him fly. 
 
 Safe in His most sure protection, 
 
 We shall pass the watery waste ; 
 Trusting to His wise direction. 
 
 We shall gain the port at last ; 
 And, with wonder, 
 
 Think on toils and dangers past. 
 
 Oh, what pleasures there await us I 
 
 There the tempests cease to roar ; 
 There it is, that they who hate us 
 
 Shall molest our peace no more : 
 Troixble ceases 
 
 On that tranquil, happy shore ! 
 
 We lived to outride tlie storm, but as long as I live I shall 
 feel that the experience of that night for ever hallowed to 
 me the memory of Thomas Kelly. His long life (from 1 769 
 to 1855, began and ended in Dublin) was not spent in vain, 
 if that hymn alone had been all its fruit. One thinks with 
 pleasure of his sixty years of Christian usefulness; but, oh, 
 that hymn ! on that night ! Blessings on his name ! " As 
 a hymnist, verily, Kelly's ever-living influence will illustrate 
 his own happy saying. Lord Plunket, an old school-fel- 
 low of his, met him one day in later life, and said, " You 
 will live to a great age, Mr. Kelly!" "Yes," was his 
 reply, " I am confident I shall, as I expect never to die ! " 
 The circumstances under which Kelly's charming verses 
 came with such soothing music to the voyager amidst the 
 horrors of the midnight squall, naturally send the thoughts 
 to a scene in "the last days of Bishop Heber." Archdeacon 
 Eobinson states that, when sailing to Madras, they had a 
 detachment of invalid troops on board. The good bishop's 
 heart was engaged in their behalf, and he claimed the privi- 
 lege of acting as their pastor. ' ' I have too little in my 
 situation," he said, "of those pastoral duties, which are as 
 useful to the minister as to his people ; and I am delighted at 
 the opportunity thus unexpectedly afforded me." And so, 
 with his Prayer-book in his hand, he went below from 
 time to time, to minister to the sufferers. Nor was it in vain; 
 
 Q 
 
242 nYMN- WRITERS AXD THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 their hearts were touched. "Only think," they said, "of sueh 
 a great man as the bishop coming between decks to jpray 
 with such poor fellows as we are." One poor mother on 
 board had lost her infant ; the bishop committed the little 
 one to the deep, and then visited the mourner in her cabin, 
 and ministered consolation to her heart. "At intervals," 
 says a witness, "I hear him weeping and praying for her 
 in his own cabin. I have never seen such tenderness, 
 never such humble exercise of Christian love. Alas ! how 
 his spirit shames us all ! I thank Grod that I have seen 
 his tears, that I heard his prayers, his conversation with 
 the afflicted mother, and his own pi-ivate reflections upon 
 it. It has made me love him more, and has given me a 
 lesson of tenderness, in visiting the afflicted, that 1 trust 
 will not be in vain." Happy was it for the transport ship 
 in which Heber had a berth. Not that even his gracious 
 presence could secure her from squalls, but his loving zeal 
 could minister life to the souls on board ; and when squalls 
 came, his sanctified genius could teach his companions in 
 danger to chant the disciples' prayer, "Save, Lord, or we 
 perish ! " 
 
 "VAHien th"'oiig-li the torn sail 
 The Tvild tempest is streaming, 
 
 "When o'er the dark wave 
 
 The red lightning is gleaming, 
 
 Nor hope lends a I'ay 
 The poor seaman to cherish. 
 
 We fly to our Maker — 
 
 " Save, Lord ! or we perish ! " 
 
 O Jesus I once toss'd 
 
 On the breast of the billow. 
 Aroused by the shriek 
 
 Of despair from Thy pillow. 
 High now in Thy gloiy 
 
 Still the mariner cherish, 
 Who cries, in his anguish, 
 
 " Save, Lord ! or we perish ! " 
 
 And oh, when the storm 
 
 Of wild passion is raging, 
 When sin in our hearts 
 
 Its fierce warfare is waging. 
 Arise in Thy strength, 
 
 Tliy redeemed to cherish, 
 Eebuke the destroyer — 
 
 " Save, Lord ! or we perish ! " 
 
CHAPTEE XVII. 
 SOXGS OF THE MORNING. 
 
 " But I will sing of Thy power : yea, I will sing aloud of Thy mercy in 
 the morning." 
 
 It is pleasant to sit in tlie oriel windoTV of an old gramniar- 
 school library, ^vith the many-coloured light falling on the 
 open folio as it lies on the ponderous reading-desk, and to 
 hear, amidst one's musings, the music of the boys' voices 
 as their morning hymn comes floating up along the gallery, 
 gently touching the soul with its mellow harmony. How 
 many a time since the fourteenth century, when William 
 of Wykeham opened his AVinchester School, has such 
 morning music charmed the old college of that storied city. 
 Bishop Mant used to think with pleasure of the morning 
 hymn which the boys used to sing in that school in his days. 
 It was the simple, beautiful, and devout old song, '^ Jam 
 lucis orto sidere,^'' etc., and nothing could be more happily 
 chosen as a morning song for the young scholars. Mant 
 threw his whole soul into his translation of it : — 
 
 Brightly shines the morning star : 
 
 Pray we God His grace to give, 
 That from sin and danger far 
 
 We the coming day may live. 
 
 That the tongue by Him withheld, 
 May from sounds of strife refrain ; 
 
 That the eye, from roving quelled, 
 Seek not sights corrupt or vain ; 
 
 That the heart, with pureness fraught, 
 
 May from folly turn aside ; 
 And the flesh, by temperance taught, 
 
 Calm its lusts and veil its pride. 
 
244 HYMN-WEITERS AJSTD THEIE HYMN'S. 
 
 That, when the day shall close, 
 
 And the night successive bring, 
 We, triiunphant o'er our foes, 
 
 May oui- hymn of glory sing ; 
 
 Glory, Sire of all, to Thee ; 
 
 And to Thee, co-equal Son, 
 With the Spirit glory be ; 
 
 One in Three, and Three in One. 
 
 Between one and two hundred years before Mant's time, 
 that same hymn was sung in that same school, and among 
 the rest of the voices then swelling the devout music there 
 was Ken's ; and how far the style, and manner, and sjDirit 
 of that ancient hymn served to form that habit of tuneful 
 expression which afterwards distinguished the good bishop, 
 who can tell ? Should we ever have had his inimitable 
 morning hymn but for that early Winchester exercise? 
 Probably, when in after-life he used to chant his own 
 morning and evening hymns to the music of his lute, his 
 soul was giving forth the echoes of the old melody which 
 had so deeply touched his poetic soul while yet a boy. To 
 think of morning songs is always to think of Bishop Ken, 
 and, whether the morning be bright or dull, his hymn is 
 always fresh : — 
 
 Awake, my soul, and with the sun 
 Thy daily stage of duty run ; 
 Shake off dull sloth, and joyful rise 
 To pay thy morning sacrifice. 
 
 Thy precious time misspent redeem ; 
 Each present day thy last esteem ; 
 Improve thy talent with due care ; 
 Por the great day thyseK prepare. 
 
 In conversation be sincere ; 
 Keep conscience as the noontide clear ; 
 Tliiuk how all-seeing God thy ways 
 And all thy secret thoughts surveys. 
 
 By influence of the light divine. 
 Let thy own light to others shine ; . 
 Keflect all heav'n's propitious rays, 
 In ardent love and cheerful praise. 
 
 Wake and lift up thyself, my heart, 
 And with the angels bear thy part. 
 Who all night long unwearied sing 
 High praise to the Eternal King. 
 
SONGS OF THE MORNING. 245 
 
 A-wuke ! awake ! ye heavenly choir, 
 May your devotion me inspire, 
 That I, like you, my age may spend, 
 liike you, may on my God attend. 
 
 May I, like you, in God delight, 
 Have all day long my God in sight. 
 Perform hke you my Maker's vsoll ! 
 Oh may I never more do ill 1 
 
 Had I your wings, to heaven I'd ily ; 
 But God shall that defect supply ; 
 And my soul, wing'd with warm, desire, 
 Shall all day long to heaven aspire. 
 
 AU praise to Thee, who safe has kept, 
 And hast refreshed me while I slept ! 
 Grant, Lord, when I from death shall wake, 
 I may of endless light partake i 
 
 I would not wake nor rise again, 
 Ev'n heaven itself I would disdain, 
 "Wert Thou not there to be enjoy'd 
 And I in hymns to be employ'd. 
 
 Heav'n is, dear Lord, where'er Thou art ; 
 Oh never then from me depart 1 
 For, to my soiil, 'tis heU to be 
 But for one moment void of Thee. 
 
 Lord, I my vows to Thee renew ; 
 Disperse my sins as morning dew. 
 Guard my first springs of thoiight and will, 
 And with Thyself my spirit fill. 
 
 Direct, control, suggest, this day, 
 
 All I design, or do, or say ; 
 
 That all my powers, with all their might. 
 
 In Thy sole glory may unite. 
 
 Praise God, from whom all blessings flow ! 
 Praise Him, all creatures here below ! 
 Praise Him above, ye heavenly host ! 
 Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
 
 .The best of men are never entirely independent of cir- 
 cumstances. Our religious feelings and expressions often 
 take their tone from the atmosj^here about us, and espe- 
 cially from the present physical condition of the outer man. 
 Thoiaght flows freely, or lags in heaviness, just as the 
 subtle influences around us quicken or oppress. And 
 though no mere circumstances can entirely quench the fire 
 
243 HYMjy-WRITEES A^"D THEIR HYMIsS. 
 
 of genius, or prevent tlie Cliristiau poet from uttering his 
 inspirations, 3'et his hymns and songs will often be sprightly 
 or plaintive as outward changes pass over him, or as the 
 condition of his physical life is shadowy or bright. Each 
 morning seems to bring its own inspiration to every pious 
 hymnist. The morning song should be sprightly ; but 
 sometimes even the morning has shadows which give a 
 kind of holy melancholy to the tone of praise. The praise 
 that should wing its way upward, now and then lingers in 
 the form of plaintive reflection or humble appeal. So in 
 one of Toplady's songs of the morning. Not far from a 
 spot in his Devonshire parish, where Cluniac monks used 
 to sing such morning songs as came from their brother, 
 Bernard of Morlaix, and others, his kindred hymnists, 
 Toplady learnt to wear his weak body down by nightly 
 stud}'-, until his morning songs became rather sombre or 
 languid at times, so that they touch our human sympathy, 
 while they give a subdued tone of feeling to our worship. 
 Nevertheless, that day is well begun which opens with a 
 s,ong from the author of " Eock of Ages." His " Hymn 
 for the Morning " runs thus : — 
 
 Jesus, by wliose grace I live, 
 
 From the fear of evil kept, 
 Thou hast lengthen'd my reprieve, 
 
 Held in being while I slept ; 
 With the day my heart renew ; 
 Let me wake Thy will to do. 
 
 Since the last revolving dawn 
 
 Scattered the nocturnal cloud, 
 Oh, how many souls have gone, 
 
 Unprepared to meet their God ! 
 Yet Thou dost prolong niy breath, 
 Hast not seal'd my eyes in death. 
 
 Oh, that I may keep Thy word, 
 Taught by Thee to watch and pray 
 
 To Thy service, dearest Lord, 
 Sam tify th' ensuing day ; 
 
 Svidft its fleeting moments haste ; 
 
 Doom'd, perhaps, to be my last. 
 
 Crucified to all below. 
 
 Earth shall never be my care : 
 Wealth and honour I forego ; 
 
 This my only wish and care. 
 Thine in Life and death to be, 
 Now and to eternity. 
 
SONGS OF THE MORNING. 247 
 
 There was another hj-mnist of Toplady's time, of a meiTier 
 constitution than he — more disposed to look at the bright 
 side of things, and having somewhat broader and more 
 pleasant sympathy with the human multitude. His reli- 
 gious notions would, perhaps, have a brighter influence on 
 his character and utterances than those of Toplady ; while 
 one at least of his fixed principles, as a Christian minister, 
 would give a more lively and agreeable effect to his minis- 
 trations both in prose and verse. While Toplady was 
 spending his energies in fruitless controversy, his contem- 
 porary, not, perhaps, less learned, but more practical, was 
 acting on his own advice given to a younger man, " Look 
 simply unto Jesus for preaching food, and what is wanted 
 will be given, and what is given will be blessed, whether 
 it be barley or a wheaten loaf, a crust or a crumb. When 
 your heart is right, meek, and simple, Jesus will make an 
 orator of you ; when you grow lofty and are pleased with 
 your prattle, Jesus will make a fool of you. Your mouth 
 will be a flowing stream, or a fountain sealed, according as 
 your heart is. Avoid all controversy in preaching, talking, 
 or writing; preach nothing down but the devil, and no- 
 thing up but Jesvis Christ." A man of such views, such 
 principles, and such diction, when gifted with poetic genius, 
 and a faculty for writing hymns, would surely give out 
 pleasant songs for the common people — songs always loved, 
 too, by the cultured lover of pure Saxon, strong sense, 
 playful fancy, pith, point, and tender feeling. Such songs 
 sometimes come from the heart and life of the amusing and 
 lovable man who has bequeathed to us a morning hymn. 
 His mornings were always bright, it would seem, and his 
 hymn shows how his cheerful sense of renewed vigour was 
 in harmony with his reverent reliance on his God. 
 
 Through Jesu's watchful caie 
 
 I safely pass the night ; 
 His providential arm was near, 
 
 And kept off every fright. 
 
 No pains upon my bed 
 
 Prevented my repose ; 
 But laying down my weary head, 
 
 Refresh' d with sleep I rose. 
 
 And here I stand possest 
 
 Of strength and vigour new ; 
 
248 nTMK'-'WEITEES AJSTD THEIR HTM^STS. 
 
 And Trith my limbs and senses blest, 
 Anotlier morn I view. 
 
 From Thee my mercies flow, 
 
 In pearly drops they fall ; 
 But give a thankful bosom too, 
 
 The sweetest pearl of all. 
 
 Be Thou my g^de to-day. 
 
 My arm whereon to rest, 
 My sun to cheer me on the way, 
 
 My shield to guard my breast. 
 
 From Satan's fiery dart, 
 
 And men of purpose base. 
 And from the plag'ue within my heart, 
 
 Defend me by Thy grace. 
 
 Tliere is an amusing story told of tlie anthor of this 
 liymn. He was one of those clergymen of his clay Avho 
 sometimes turned out from their parishes as occasional 
 itinerant preachers, going up and down proclaiming the 
 gospel to the neglected masses. He had come, it is said, 
 to a village in the North of England on a Saturday even- 
 ing. He must needs stay there over the Sabbath. But 
 always ready for work, he requested his host at the inn to 
 go to the parson of the parish and state that a clergyman 
 was stopping at his house who would be glad to assist the 
 vicar at the service to-morrow. The vicar was cautious. 
 " We must be careful," said he, " for you know there are 
 many of these wandering Methodist preachers about. 
 What sort of a man is he ?" " Oh, it is all right, sir," was 
 the reply ; "just see his nose, sir, that will tell you he is 
 no Methodist." "Well, ask him to call on me in the 
 morning," said the parson, " and I shall judge for myself." 
 
 The call was made, and the waggish and somewhat 
 rubicund nose was a sufficient introduction to the pulpit. 
 The morning came. The congregation gathered. The 
 vicar read prayers, and then the stranger mounted the 
 pulpit. It must be all right, tlie vicar may have thought ; 
 for there seemed to be waggish thoughts playing around 
 the corners of the preacher's mouth, and there was that 
 remarkable peaked and kindling nose which threatened to 
 provoke a laugh among his hearers. Nor would his first 
 address belie his features. It seemed to be pleasant talk 
 from the pulpit. The preacher is rather homely and blunt. 
 
SOKGS OF THE MORNING. 249 
 
 But everybody listens, for everybody thinks and feels that 
 the parson is speaking to him. By and by, however, his 
 home-thrusts at the conscience make his hearers somewhat 
 uneasy ; but ere they are prepared for defence, the sharp 
 piercing sentences come in such rapid succession that both 
 vicar and flock find themselves arrested as sinners before 
 God— 
 
 And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray. 
 
 The service past, around the pious man. 
 
 With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran ; 
 
 E'en children follow'd with endearing wile, 
 
 And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile. 
 
 The "good man's smile" was always ready for those 
 who sought it, and his loving, mirthful heart was always 
 open to those who wanted to know more about his Divine 
 Lord and Master. The gifted itinerant was no other than 
 t]ie humorous but holy and eminently useful John 
 Berridge, vicar of Everton, in Bedfordshire. His racy 
 letters, brimful of wit ; his " Christian World Unmasked," 
 with its' union of drollery and seriousness ; the floating 
 traditions about his active and holy life ; and the still 
 accumulating fruits of his preaching ; — all serve to keep 
 alive and fresh the memory of this early Methodist clergy- 
 man ; this eccentric but sanctified genius, who, with Wesley 
 and others, worked in the pulpit, with his pen, at home 
 and abroad for the religious renovation of his country. He 
 wrote his hymns as he preached his sermons, for those who 
 needed them most ; and he never failed to engage the 
 hearts as well as the taste and understanding of those to 
 whom he preached, and for whom he wrote. What child 
 of Grod who has learnt his " Labourer's Morning Hymn," 
 will ever cease to love the name of the man who has helped 
 him to sing of a morning : — 
 
 I thank my Lord for kindly rest 
 
 Afforded in the night ; 
 Eefresh'd and with new vigour blest, 
 
 I wake to view the light. 
 
 What need I grieve to earn my bread, 
 
 When Jesus did the same ? 
 If in my Master's steps I tread, 
 
 No harm I get, or shame. 
 
250 HYMN-WEITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Oh let me bless with thankful miud, 
 
 My Saviour's love and care, 
 That I am neither sick, nor blind, 
 
 Nor lame as others are ! 
 
 A trusty workman I would be, 
 
 Ajiid well my task pursue ; 
 Work when my master does not see, 
 
 And work with vigour too. 
 
 And whilst I ply the busy foot, 
 
 Or heave the labouring arm, 
 Do Thou my withering strength recruit, 
 
 And guard me well from harm. 
 
 To sweeten labour let my Lord 
 
 Look on, and cast a smile ; 
 For Jesus can such looks afford, 
 ' As well the hours beguile. 
 
 Berridge was ready for all work, and for work 
 among all classes, for his Master's sake ; but in all his 
 works, and among all classes, he was the same honest, 
 transparent, loving spirit, acting and speaking "with the 
 most earnest purity amidst all the sparkle and ^jlay of 
 his humorous genius ; always, and to all, expressing 
 himself in the purest, clearest, most pithy, racy, and pro- 
 verb-like style of his native tongue. Now, as in his 
 " Christian World Unmasked," he says, " Gentle reader, 
 lend me a chair, and I will sit down and talk a little with 
 you. Give me leave to feel your pulse. Sick, indeed, sir, 
 very sick, of a mortal disease, which infects your whole 
 mass of blood. . . . .' Let me step into your closet, 
 sir, and peep upon its furniture. My hands are pretty 
 honest, you may trust me ; and nothing will be found, I 
 fear, to tempt a man to be a thief. Well, to be sure, what 
 a filthy place is here ! never swept for certain since you 
 were christened ! and what a fat idol stands skulking in 
 the corner ! — a darling sin, I warrant it ! How it simpers, 
 and seems as pleasant as a right eye! Can you find a 
 will to part with it, or strength to pluck it out? And 
 supposing you a match for the self-denial, can you so com- 
 mand your heart as to hate the sin you do forsake ? This 
 is certainly required ; truth is called for in the inward 
 parts." At another time he is writing to his dear Eowly 
 (young Eowland Hill), "When I began to itinerate, a 
 
SONGS OF THE MOENIJS'G. 251 
 
 miiltitucle of dangers seemed ready to engulpli me. My 
 friends were up in arms, my college was provoked, my 
 bishop incensed, the clergy on fire, and the church canons 
 were pointing their ghastly mouths at me ; my fii-st 
 diocesan told me that I should soon be either in Bedlam 
 or in jail. But, through the good blessing of my God, I 
 am yet in the possession of my senses, my tithes, and my 
 liberty ; and He who has hitherto delivered, I trust will 
 yet deliver me from ecclesiastical fires, and the j)aw of 
 worldly bears. I have suffered from nothing except from 
 lapidations and pillory treats, which yet have proved more 
 frightful than hurtful. If you are invited to go out, and 
 feel yourself inclined to do so, take a lover's leap, neck or 
 nothing, and commend yourself to Jesus. Ask no man's 
 leave to preach Christ ; that is imevangelical and shame- 
 ful. Seek not much advice about it ; that is dangerous. 
 Such advice, I find, generally comes the wrong way — 
 heels uppermost. Most preachers love a snug church and 
 a whole skin, and what they love they will prescribe. If 
 you are determined to be evangelically regular, that is, 
 secidarly irregular, then expect, wherever you go, a 
 storm will follow you, which may fright you, but will 
 bring no real harm. Make the Lord your whole trust, 
 and all will be well." And then again, from such stirring 
 correspondence with clerical friends, we find him turning 
 to give lessons in psalmody to such as do not often catch 
 the attention of educated poets — the domestic servant. Ho 
 teaches her to sing, as she begins her morning work : — 
 
 To Jesus, my dear Lord, I owe 
 
 The rest I had this night ; 
 By Him preserved from every "woc, 
 
 I wake to view the light. 
 
 Accept, O Lord, my early praise, 
 
 It is Thy tribute due ; 
 And let the morning song I raise, 
 
 Rise with affection too. 
 
 My dear Redeemer, while on earth, 
 
 A servant was to all ; 
 With ready foot He stepped forth, 
 
 Attentive to each call. 
 
 If unto labour I am bred. 
 
 My Saviour was the same ; 
 Why then should I a service dread, 
 
 Or count it any shame ? 
 
252 HTMN-WHITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Tet, Lord, I need a patient mind, 
 
 And beg a ready will, 
 To pay my master service kind, 
 
 And every task fulfil. 
 
 No saucy language I would use, 
 
 Nor act a treacherous part, 
 But serve him with the purest views, 
 
 And work with freest heart. 
 
 Many labourers and many servants thank tliee for thy 
 verses, liappy, plain-spoken, kind "old Berridge," and we 
 hope to see thy face some bright morning when the Sab- 
 bath sun rises never to set again ! There is something 
 about "old Berridge" which reminds one of Gfeorge 
 Wither— the sympathy with all classes, with human 
 nature under all circumstances, the hearty readiness to 
 employ the whole soul for the good of all, and the wonder- 
 ful facility for adapting forms of hymnic expression to the 
 taste and heart of those for whom their good feeling is 
 engaged. Wither has his morning hymn, too ; and it is 
 one of his finest ; less rugged, and more free from those 
 quaint conceits and uncouth modes of expression which 
 suited the ear of his times better than our own. It was 
 his way, and a good way it was, freely to give a "reason" 
 not merely for "the hope within" him, but for all the 
 utterances of his thought and feeling which he put forth 
 to the world. "Many dangers hang over us all the day," 
 he says, " therefore, before we venture forth to follow our 
 afi'airs, we might be more safe if we were first charmed by 
 such invocations as these : — 
 
 Since Thou hast added now, O God ! 
 Unto my life another day, 
 And giv'st me leave to walk abroad, 
 And laboiu- in my lawful way ; 
 
 My walks and works with me begin ; 
 
 Conduct me forth, and bring me in. 
 
 In ev'ry power my soul enjoys 
 
 Internal virtues to improve ; 
 
 In ev'ry sense that she employs 
 
 In her external works to move, 
 
 Bless her, G-od, and keep me sound, 
 From outward harm and inward wound. 
 
SOXGS OF THE MOENIXG. 253 
 
 Let sin nor Satan's fraud prevail, 
 To make my eye of reason blind ; 
 Or faith, or hope, or love to fail, 
 Or any virtues of the mind ; 
 
 But more and more let them increase, 
 
 And bring me to my end in peace. 
 
 Lewd courses let my feet forbear. 
 
 Keep Thou my hands from doing- wrong ; 
 
 Let not ill counsel pierce my ear, 
 
 Nor wicked words defile my tongue ; 
 
 And keep the windows of each eye, 
 That no strange lusts climb in thereby. 
 
 But guard Thou safe my heart in chief, 
 
 That neither hate, revenge, or fear. 
 
 Nor vain desire, vain joy, or grief. 
 
 Obtain command or dwelling there. 
 
 And, Loi'd, with ev'ry saving grace, 
 Still true to Thee maintain that place. 
 
 From open wrongs, from secret hates. 
 Preserve me likewise, Lord, this day ; 
 From slanderous tongues, from wicked mates. 
 From ev'ry danger in my way. 
 
 My goods to me, secure Thou too, 
 
 And prosper all the works I do. 
 
 So till the evening of this morn, 
 My time shall then so well be spent. 
 That when the twilight shall return, 
 I may enjoy it with content ; 
 
 And to Thy praise and honour say. 
 
 That this has proved a happy day." 
 
 But who, in the course of his morning devotions, can 
 omit a song which so associates the first kindlings of praise 
 and thanksgiving with balmy thought about gracious 
 example, as the h^^mn which comes to us from the reverend, 
 gentle, elegant, and glowing Bishop Heber? His eye 
 falls, it may be, on David's anthem of thanksgiving, 
 "Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits," 
 and his devout and tuneful spirit sings : — 
 
 Wliat secret hand at morning light, 
 
 By stealth unseals mine eye ; 
 Draws back the curtain of the night, 
 
 And opens earth and sky ? 
 
 'Tis Thine, my Grod ! — the same which kept 
 
 My resting hours from harm ; 
 No ill came nigh me, for I slept, 
 
 Beneath th' .Almighty's arm. 
 
254 HYMN-WEITEES AND THEIR HYMXS. 
 
 'Tis Thine my daily bread ■which brings 
 
 Like manna scattered round ; 
 And clothes me as the lily springs 
 
 In beauty from the ground. 
 
 This is the hand which saved my frame, 
 
 And gave my pulse to beat ; 
 '\^^lich bare me oft through flood and flame, 
 
 Through tempest cold, and heat. 
 
 In death's dark valley though I stray, 
 
 'Twould there my steps attend ; 
 Guide with the staff my lonely way, 
 
 And with the rod defend. 
 
 May that dear Hand uphold me still, 
 
 Through life's uncertain race, 
 To bring me to Thy holy hill, 
 
 And to Thy dwelling-place. 
 
 Have yoii learnt to sing within yourself a hymn like 
 this as each morning opens on you ? If not, enter on the 
 practice and pursue it, until it becomes your morning 
 habit, and you will realize the habitual enjo}"ment of a 
 poor, but religiously intelligent man, whose very ajipear- 
 ance and manners were beautifully illustrative of a peace- 
 ful, happy religion. It was thought that the secret of his 
 inward but evident repose would be touched by one 
 question ; he was asked, " I suppose your first work of a 
 morning is to pray? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "No! What then is it ? " 
 
 " Praise," said he. " Praise is my first act ; and when 
 the day begins with praise, prayer and every good thing 
 comes in its turn ; for you soon learn the hajipy art of 
 turning the bright side of things towards yourself, of 
 looking at God's goodness until it always cheers you, of 
 marking the blessings of each hour as the hour passes, 
 and of communing with a happy future until you find it 
 possible to ' rejoice evermore, jjray without ceasing, and in 
 everything give thanks.' Thvis ' joy in Christ Jesus ' passes 
 into prayer, and prayer into thanks, and thanksgiving brings 
 the happy soul back again to the blessed Saviour ; and so 
 the day passes, and from hour to hour the heart keeps up 
 its music like a sweet jpeal of bells ; yes, and the Holy 
 
SONGS OF THE MORNING. 25^ 
 
 Spirit Himself seems to be ringing the clianges in my soid 
 of praise and praj'er, love and joy, gratitude and peace." 
 
 "Thank you," said the old man's friend, "thank you 
 for your lesson on morning music. God gives you the 
 grace of praise ' new every morning ' ; you must have some 
 favourite morning hymns." 
 
 " Oh yes, many, many a hymn and psalm come 
 springing up, and sometimes I wonder how they come, 
 for I do not knoAv that I ever took very great pains to learn 
 them. Among them all I have my favourite verses, and 
 they are always fresh ; and it strikes me that they bring 
 their own tunes with them, for the verses no sooner come 
 to my mind, than some suitable tune flows from my tongue. 
 Scarcely a morning opens but these verses are forthcoming 
 from my heart and lips : — 
 
 Christ, whose glory fills the skies, 
 
 Christ, the true, the only light, 
 Sun of Righteousness, arise, 
 
 Triumi^h o'er the shades of nig-ht. 
 Day-spring from on high, be near, 
 Day-star in my heart appear. 
 
 Oh disclose Thy lovely face. 
 
 Quicken all m.j drooping powers ; 
 Gasps my fainting soul for grace, 
 
 As a thirsty land for showers. 
 Haste, my Lord, no more delay, 
 Come, my Saviour, come away. 
 
 Dark and cheerless is the morn, 
 
 Unaccompanied by Thee ; 
 Joyless is the day's return, 
 
 Till Thy mercy's beams I see. 
 Till Thou inward light impart. 
 Glad my eyes and cheer my heart. 
 
 Visit, then, this soul of mine, 
 
 Pierce the gloom of sin and grief ; 
 Fill me, Eadiancy Di^dne, 
 
 Scatter all my unbelief ; 
 More and more Thyself display. 
 Shining to the perfect day." 
 
 " Whose verses are these ? " 
 
 "AVhose? Why, Charles Wesley's; and th9y are so 
 like him. Prayer and praise are always so cheerfully 
 
256 HYMN-WEITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 intermingling in his hymns. He must have been a cheer- 
 ful Christian ; and I like cheerful Christians, they are so 
 consistent with their profession. If the New Testament 
 teaches anything, it is that the discij)les of Jesus are to be 
 happy ; and Charles Wesley's sj)iritual songs apj^ear to 
 breathe that livelj^, bappy spirit which is so sweetly in tune 
 with the promises of the new covenant^' There is another 
 morning hymn of his that I am fond of singiug. It tells out 
 one's sense of weakness and dejDendence so sweetly, and yet 
 gives the longing soul new fire, and makes it feel that while 
 it kindles into warmer desires after God, everything within, 
 and everything without, brightens with sjpiritual joy. This 
 is the hymn : — 
 
 Jesus, the all-restoring word. 
 
 My fallen spirit's hope, 
 After Thy lovely likeness, Lord, 
 
 Ah, when shall I wake up ? 
 
 Thou, O my God ! Thou only art 
 
 The Life, the Truth, the Way ; 
 Quicken my soul, instruct my heart, 
 
 My sinking footsteps stay. 
 
 Of all Thou hast in earth below. 
 
 In heaven above to give, 
 Give me Thy only love to know. 
 
 In Thee to walk and live. 
 
 Fill me with all the life of love ; 
 
 In mystic union join 
 Me to Thyself, and let me prove 
 
 The fellowship divine. 
 
 Open the intercourse between 
 
 My longing soul and Thee, 
 Never to be broke off again 
 
 To all eternity." 
 
CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 SOIiGS IJ^ TEE NIGET. 
 
 " Ye shall have a song, as in the night when a holy solemnity is kept." 
 
 " Thoughts at uight are deepest," said tlie heavenly- 
 minded Leigliton. And perhaps some who are more used 
 to night watchings than to "night thoughts" will be 
 disposed to take up his style, and pronounce that music at 
 night is sweetest. At all events, many of those who have 
 known the weariness of night watches will have some 
 pleasant recollections of times when their spirits have 
 been cheered by a night carol, or when some pipe or flute, 
 or horn, has given them a strain, plaintive or merry, 
 touching theu' jaded soul pleasantly as it has come floating 
 upon the calm air of night. It has seemed doubly sweet 
 in the dark and dreary hour ; and has brought its own 
 welcome to the watcher. For some reason or other, night 
 music seems to have a more mellow richness and sweeter 
 melting touch for the soul when we listen to it by the sea- 
 side. On the wild precipitous coast of Northern Cornwall, 
 there are the remains of an ancient castle. Tradition says 
 it was the birth-place of the British King Arthur. More 
 certain records show that as early as 1245, Richard, Earl 
 of Cornwall, gave shelter there to the rebellious David, 
 Prince of "Wales ; that, after witnessing many changes, it 
 became a state prison under Pichard II.; that in 1385, 
 John Northampton, Lord Mayor of London, for his "un- 
 ruly mayoralty was condemned thither as a perpetual 
 penitentiary ; " and that about ten years later it held as a 
 prisoner Tliomas, Earl of Warwick. About the middle 
 of the sixteenth century, the first and last " antiquary 
 royal" of England, John Leland, visited the spot, and 
 
258 HYMX-VPJTEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 says, "This castelle liatli bene a marvehis strong and 
 notable forteris, and almost situ loci inexpugnabile, especi- 
 ally for the dungeon, that is on a great high terrible 
 cragge, environed with the se, but having a draw-bridge 
 from the residew of the castelle into it. Shepe now fede 
 within the dungeon. The residew of the buildings of the 
 castelle be sore wether-beten and yn ruine, but it hath 
 beene a large thinge." 
 
 A somewhat later chronicler describes it in his day — 
 "Half of the buildings were raised on the continent, and 
 the other half on an iland, continued together (within 
 man's remembrance) by a drawe bridge, but now divorced 
 by the down-fain steepe cliffes, on the farther side, which, 
 though it shut out the sea from his wonted recourse, hath 
 yet more strengthened the iland ; for in passing thither 
 you miist fu'st descend with a dangerous declyning, and 
 then make a worse ascent, by a path, through his stickle- 
 ness occasioning, and through his steepnesse threatening, 
 the ruin of yoiir life, with the falling of your foote. At 
 the top, two other terrifying steps give you an entrance to 
 the hill, which supplieth pasture for sheep and cowyes ; 
 upon the same I saw a decayed chappelle. Under the 
 iland runs a cove, throw which you may rowe at ful sea, 
 but not without a kind of horrour at the uncouthnesse of 
 the place." A tourist who saw it in the reign of James I., 
 says: — "By a very narrow rockye and wyndinge waye 
 up the steepe sea cliffe, under which the sea waves wallow, 
 and so assayle the foundation of the ile, as may astonish 
 an unstable brayne to consider the perill, for the least 
 slipp of the foote sendes the whole bodye into the devour- 
 inge sea ; and the worste of all is higheste of all, nere the 
 gate of entraunce into the hill, where the offensive stones 
 so exposed hang over the head, as while a man res- 
 pecteth his footinge he endaungers his head ; and lookinge 
 to save the head, endaungers the footinge, according to the 
 old proverb, Incidit in Sojllam qui zidt vitare Charyhdim — 
 He must have his eyes that will scale Tyntagelle." 
 
 Not quite thirty years ago, an enthusiastic band of 
 pedestrians reached this romantic scene. It was about 
 twelve o'clock at niglit ; and the young moon was throw- 
 ing a faint light over the sea, gently touching the ruined 
 walls, and half revealing the mj^steries of the "great high 
 
SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 259 
 
 terrible cragge." All the dangers which the old chro- 
 niclers had felt were threatening still ; hut they were 
 braved, and the green sward within the old bounds of the 
 "dungeon" was gained. There the band gathered. It 
 was a still night. The sea far below was whispering 
 among the caves and rocks. But tlie hush was broken by 
 the sudden swell of a night song. The voices of the 
 devout travellers were as harmonious as their souls while 
 they sang : — 
 
 Join all ye ransomed sons of grace, 
 
 The holy joy prolong, 
 And shout to the Redeemer's praise 
 
 A solemn midnight song. 
 
 Blessing, and thanks, and love, and might 
 
 Be to our Jesus given. 
 Who turns our darkness into light, 
 
 Who turns our hell to heaven. 
 
 Thither our faithful souls He leads, 
 
 Thither He bids us rise 
 With crowns of joj"- upon our heads, 
 
 To meet Him in the skies. 
 
 This was the first time probably that old Tintagel had 
 heard a midnight song like this. It was one of Charles 
 Wesley's " watch-night " hymns. And what holy associa- 
 tions gather around those finely-adapted " Songs of the 
 Night Season !" The primitive martyr churches were in 
 " watchings often." Theirs were nights of prayers, 
 interwoven with psalms and hymns ; vigils, sometimes in 
 fear and sometimes jubilant. And who can chant the 
 hymns that have come down to us from the night services 
 of early childlike generations of Christian households, 
 without catching a little of their holy, watchful S23irit ! 
 The first "watch-night" among the Methodists was held 
 in London on the 9th of April, 1742. "The custom," 
 says a Methodist chronicler, " was begun at Kingswood by 
 the colliers there, who, before their conversion, used to spend 
 every Saturday night at the ale-house." "We commonly 
 chose," says Wesley himself, " for this solemn service, the 
 Friday night nearest the full moon, either before or after, 
 that those of the congregation who live at a distance may 
 have light to their several houses. The service begins 
 
260 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 half an hour past eight, and continues till a little after 
 midnight. We have often found a peculiar blessing at 
 these seasons. There is generally a deep awe upon the 
 congregation ; perhaps, in some measure, owing to the 
 silence of night — particularly in singing the hymn with 
 which we commonly conckide : " — 
 
 Hearken to the solemn Toice, 
 
 The awful midnight cry ! 
 Waiting souls, rejoice, rejoice, 
 
 And see the Bridegroom nigh : 
 Lo ! He comes to keep His word. 
 
 Light and joy His looks impart : 
 Go ye forth to meet your Lord, 
 
 And meet Him. in youi- heart. 
 
 Ye who faint beneath the load 
 
 Of sin, your heads lift up ; 
 See your great redeeming God, 
 
 He comes and bids you hojDe : 
 In the midnight of your grief, 
 
 Jesus doth His mourners cheer ; 
 Lo ! He brings j^ou sure relief ; 
 
 Believe, and feel Him here. 
 
 Ye whose loins are girt, stand forth, 
 
 Whose lamps are biu-ning bright ; 
 Worthy, in yoiu' Savioiu-'s worth, 
 
 To walk with Him in white : 
 Jesus bids yoiu- hearts be clean ; 
 
 Bids you all His promise prove ; 
 Jesus comes to cast out sin. 
 
 And perfect you in love. 
 
 Wait we all in patient hope, 
 
 Till Christ, the Judge, shaU come ; 
 We shall soon be all caught up 
 
 To meet the general doom : 
 In an hour to us unknown. 
 
 As a thief in deepest night, 
 Christ shall suddenly come down 
 
 With all His saints in light. 
 
 Happy he whom Christ shall find 
 
 Watching to see Him come ; 
 Him, the Judge of all mankind 
 
 Shall bear triuniphant home. 
 Who can answer to His word ? 
 
 Which of you dares meet His day ? 
 " Rise, and come to judg-ment ! " Lord, 
 
 We rise, and come away. 
 
SOKGS IN THE NIGHT. 261 
 
 A watcli-nig]it of great solemnity is always observed by 
 the Methodists on New Year's Eve. A sermon is preached, 
 suitable addresses are given, and the intervals are spent in 
 singing and prayer ; all kneel, and spend some minutes, 
 immediately before and after the stroke of midnight, in 
 silent prayer, broken at length by the hymn with which 
 they enter on the New Year. 
 
 Between thirty and forty years ago, there was an Eng- 
 lish missionary and his Iwife stationed on the island of 
 Zante, " the flower of the Levant," in the Ionian Sea. 
 The mission was a quiet one, and, like most quiet things, 
 it had some lasting fruit ; but like Enghsh rule, in more 
 cases than one, its duration proved to be limited. The 
 missionary came back alone ; God had taken from him the 
 wife of his youth. There is one now living who remembers 
 how the tears crept down his cheeks as he listened to that 
 missionary's plaintive and touching story. "My wife and 
 I," said he, " entered on our work in hope ; but we soon 
 felt that we were pilgrims indeed in a strange land. We 
 had sympathy from few ; none joined us in our distinctive 
 religious services ; but we kept at our work. New Year's 
 Eve came round, and my clear wife and I observed the 
 watch-night by ourselves. We could sing, both of us, and 
 our voices were as one ; and we prayed by turns, and sang 
 together, as midnight approached, some verses of Charles 
 Wesley's : — 
 
 We will not close our wakef iil eyes, 
 
 "We will not let oiir eyelids sleep. 
 But humbly lift them to the skies, 
 
 And all a solemn vigil keep : 
 So many years on sin bestow" d, 
 Can we not watch one night for God ? 
 
 We can, Jesus, for Thy sake 
 
 Devote our every hour to Thee : 
 Sjjeak biit the word, our souls shall wake. 
 
 And sing with cheerful melody ; 
 Thy praise shall oiu- glad tongues employ. 
 And every heart shall dance for joy. 
 
 Oh may we all triumphant rise, 
 
 With joy iipon our heads retxrm, 
 And far above these nether skies, 
 
 By Thee on eagles' wings upborne. 
 Through all yon radiant circles move, 
 And gain the highest heaven of love ! 
 
262 nYHX-WEITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 "The next ISTotv Year's Eve came, for years roll along 
 amidst all human changes, but, ah! my wife was gone ! 
 I had Nvatched her across the Jordan, and I was alone. 
 What could I do ? It was the watch-night. I had to 
 watch alone with Grocl. Where could I watch but by my 
 Mary's grave-side ? There I went ; there I wept ; there I 
 prayed. I had no soul to commune with or to speak to ; 
 but surely, I thought, my Mary is here ; and better even 
 than that, my Jesus is here. I tried to sing again what 
 we sang together the year before, but tears choked my 
 utterance till the midnight hour struck, and then there was 
 a hush in my soul ; I knelt by my Mary's grave, renewed 
 my covenant with Christ, gave myself once more to His 
 will ; and, feeling as if I were not without blessed com- 
 pany — yea, as if I heard one beloved voice in harmony 
 with mine — I raised the old New Tear's song, and sang as 
 in company with the glorified — 
 
 Come, let us anew our jouruey pursue, 
 
 Eoll round with the year, 
 And never stand still till the Master appear. 
 
 His adorable will let us gladly fulfil, 
 
 And oiu" talents improve, 
 By the patience of hope and the labour of love. 
 
 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 
 Hushes on to oiu" view, and eternity's here. 
 
 Oh 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.' 
 
 Oh that each from his Lord may receive the glad word, 
 
 ' Well, and faithfully done ; 
 Enter into my joy, and sit down on my throne.' 
 
 This was my last watch-night hj'mn in the Ionian Sea ; 
 and ' I call to remembrance my song in the night,' and 
 now calmly await the call unto that world where 
 
 Death, and grief, and pain, 
 And parting are no more." 
 
SONGS IX THE XIGHT. 263 
 
 The lone missionary liacl his call from above at last. He 
 and his Mary join their voices again now, not in night 
 songs, but in hymns of gratitude to Him who once gave 
 them " songs in the night" in the house of their pilgrimage. 
 There is one happy spirit with whom they are now asso- 
 ciated, to whom thousands are indebted for happy means 
 of beguiling the wearisome hours of wakeful nights in 
 sickness and languor. He learnt to extract devout music 
 from the hours of suffering which passed over him ; and 
 thus solacing his own soul, he has left consolation for all 
 true lovers of sweet and soothing hymns at night. 
 
 "What, in tears again, my dear doctor!" Lady Hun- 
 tingdon said, more than once of a morning, as she entered 
 the room where a very impersonation of meekness, resigna- 
 tion, and love, was reclining, with a tremulous tear on his 
 cheek. 
 
 "Yes," was the reply; "but they are tears of joy, my 
 dear lady." 
 
 These tears of joy were upon the placid countenance of 
 Philip Doddridge. His outward man was perishing, but 
 "the inward man was renewed day by day." Yes, and 
 night by night, for he had caught the spirit of Wesley's 
 night song : — 
 
 O Thou jealous God ! come down, 
 
 God of spotless purity ; 
 Claim, aud seize me for Thine own, 
 
 Consecrate my heart to Thee : 
 Under Thy protection take ; 
 
 Songs in the right season give ; 
 Let me sleep to Thee, aud wake ; 
 
 Let me die to Thee, and live. 
 
 Only tell me I am Thine, 
 
 And Thou -wilt not quit Thy right ; 
 Answer me in dreams divine, 
 
 Dreams and visions of the night ; 
 Bid me even in sleep go on 
 
 Restlessly, my God desire ; 
 Moxu-n for God in every groan, 
 
 God ui every thought reqmre. 
 
 Loose me from the chains of sense, 
 
 Set me from the body free ; 
 Draw with stronger influence 
 
 My unfetter' d soul to Thee ; 
 
264 HYMN-WRITEES AND THEIR nTUNS. 
 
 In mc, Lord, Thj'self reveal ; 
 
 Fill me with a sweet sui'prise ; 
 Let me, Thee, when waking feel, 
 
 Let me in Thy image rise. 
 
 It "Was not in vain that lie had sought to hallow his 
 writings by using his pen in private companionship with 
 his Saviour. It was not in vain that the first Monday in 
 every month was spent in meditation, intercession, and 
 prayer, in that consecrated vestry of his meeting-house in 
 Northampton. He had become so holily familiar with 
 truth and love, that his days of decline were blessed with 
 tears of heavenly joy, and his wakeful nights became 
 fruitful with hymns and psalms. How the grateful calm- 
 ness, the spiritual repose, the Christian submission, and 
 the heavenly glow of the saintl}^ hj-mnist's spirit continues 
 to breathe on us as we chant with him on the return of 
 night : — 
 
 Interval of grateful shade, 
 
 Welcome to my weary head ; 
 
 Weleome slumber to my eyes, 
 
 Tired with glaring vanities. 
 
 My great Master stiU allows 
 Needful periods of repose ; 
 By my heavenly Father blest, 
 Thus I give my powers to rest. 
 
 Heavenly Father ! gracious name ! 
 Night and day His love the same ! 
 Far be each suspicious thought, 
 Every anxious care forgot. 
 
 Thou, my ever-bounteous God, 
 Crown' st my days with various good 
 Thy kind eye, that camiot sleep. 
 These defenceless hours shall keep. 
 
 What thoiigh downy slumbers flee, 
 Strangers to my coiich and me ? 
 Sleepless, well I know to rest, 
 Lodged within my Father's breast. 
 
 While the empress of the night 
 Scatters mild her silver light ; 
 Wliile the vivid planets stray, 
 Various through their mystic way ; 
 
 While the stars unnumbered roll 
 Round the ever constant pole, 
 Far above these spangled skies 
 All my soul to God shall rise. 
 
SOJS'GS m THE NIGHT. 265 
 
 'Mid the silence of the night, 
 Mingling with those angels bright, 
 Whose harmonious voices raise, 
 Ceaseless love and ceaseless praise. 
 
 Through the throng His gentle ear 
 Shall my tuneless accents hear ; 
 From on high doth He impart 
 Secret comfort to my heart. 
 
 He in these serenest hours 
 Giudes my intellectual powers, 
 And His Spirit doth diffuse 
 Sweeter far than midnight dews, 
 
 Lifting all my thoughts above. 
 On the wings of faith and love : 
 Blest alternative to me, 
 Thus to sleep, or wake with Thee. 
 
 What if death my sleep invade ? 
 Should I be of death afraid 'i 
 Whilst encircled by Thy arm, 
 Death may strike, but cannot harm. 
 
 What if beams of opening day 
 Shine around my breathless clay ? 
 Brighter visions from on high 
 Shall regale my mental eye. 
 
 Tender friends awhile may mourn 
 Me from their embraces torn ; 
 Dearer, better friends I have 
 In the realms beyond the grave. 
 
 See the guardian angels nigh, 
 Wait to waft my soul on high ! 
 See the golden gates displayed ; 
 See the crown to grace my head ; 
 
 See a flood of sacred light, 
 Which no more shall yield to night. 
 Transitory world, farewell ! 
 Jesus calls, with Him to dwell ! 
 
 With Thy heavenly presence blest, 
 Death is life, and labour rest ; 
 Welcome sleep or death to me, 
 Still secure, for still with Thee. 
 
 Doddridge's hymns, aud some of his most useful prose 
 treatises, were produced in stray moments, or what 
 have been called loose intervals of time. They came 
 
266 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 richly oozing through, the crevices of the day or the 
 night, the overflowings of a mind full of goodness for 
 all who needed Llessing. So when harder work had 
 wearied his thinking head, and all but exhausted his 
 spirits, his tuneful genius breathed forth its life for his 
 own refreshment in his hymn for the night ; and so his 
 prose chapters on " The Eise and Progress of Religion in 
 the Soul" were penned now and then as the happy 
 thoughts' occurred, and welled up during moments of 
 comparative leisure. And it is beyond our power to say 
 which has instilled its saving unction into the greater 
 number of human souls — his midnight hymn, or his 
 "prayers" for the seeker of "religion in the soul." 
 "Will those who have gathered life from the daily study 
 of his prose pages outnumber the sufferers whose night 
 watches have been brightened by the Divine music of his 
 hymn ? Who can tell ? The fruit of both is ever living, 
 and is ever accumulating its harvest joys. And the fruit 
 of the one is ever mixing with the kindred fruit of the 
 other. The holy work of a few well-improved fragments 
 of time gives out a virtue which, like well-directed elec- 
 trical influence, conveys gracious and quickening power to 
 hearts far away in space, and at the most distant points of 
 time. Baxter filled up his remnants of hours by writing 
 his "Saint's Everlasting Eest;" that book touched the 
 soul of Doddridge, and gave it life. Doddridge, in tiu-n, 
 employed his leisure moments in throwing ofl' his pages 
 on " Religion in the Soul ;" those pages touched the heart 
 of Wilberforce, and engaged his intellect for Chi'ist. He 
 filled up spare hours by writing his ' ' Practical View of 
 Chi'istianity ;" that volume touched the mighty mind and 
 heart of Chalmers : and whose mind and heart has not 
 been, and will not be, touched by the works of Chalmers ? 
 " I used to read a great many books in my young 
 days," said a languid sufierer to one who sat by him, 
 " but of all I ever read, nothing did me so much good, 
 and so helped me to see my way clear to Christ, as 
 Doddridge's ' Eise and Progress of Religion in the Soul.' 
 I was then feeling after God, and a young friend lent me 
 the book ; and oh, how thankfid I shall always be for it ! 
 The prayers at the ends of the chapters were such gracious 
 helps to me. I used to pray them over on my knees, with 
 
SOXGS i:?^ THE NIGHT. 267 
 
 many tears ; and then I learut the happy art of throwing 
 the soul into a suitable form of prayer. Indeed, these 
 forms of prayer taught me to pray. And the answers 
 have been coming upon me ever since. Here I am, often 
 half the night sleepless and uneasy ; but if anything 
 hushes me, it is going over those ^oages, and then in turn 
 humming a hymn to myself." 
 
 "What is your favourite hymn? Do you use Dodd- 
 ridge's beautiful hymn ' for the night' ? " 
 
 " No, I did not know that he had written one. Had I 
 known it, I shovJd have chosen that above all ; I love 
 Doddridge so much. I wish I had known his hymn. 
 But my favourite has been the good old hymn for mid- 
 night, by Bishop Ken." 
 
 Well did the sufferer call that hymn, "the good old 
 hymn." It is good, and will always be good; it is as 
 fresh now as when it was first sung. The saintly old 
 bishop, put out of his bishopric for conscience' sake, had 
 gone from his residence at Longleat, in Wiltshire, on a 
 visit to his nephew, so dear to those who love good 
 biography, Isaac Walton, then Prebendary of Salisbury. 
 That great storm which swept over the island, in 1703, 
 touched the old city rather roughly as it passed, and blew 
 down a stack of chimneys, which fell cutting through the 
 bed-room in which Ken was lodged, without touching his 
 person ; but rushing on upon Wells, it hurled another 
 stack throitgh the chamber of the bishop who had sup- 
 planted Ken, and killed him on the spot. Strange 
 thoughts would perplex some minds as to the meaning of 
 this variety of action by the same storm ; but whatever we 
 may think, it may be that we owe much of the spirit and 
 power of Ken's midnight hymn to the effects of that pre- 
 serving presence which was manifest in his case. With 
 what swelling feeling would he ever after sing in his 
 night-watch : — 
 
 My God, now I from sleep awake. 
 
 The sole possession of me take ; 
 
 From midnight terrors me secure, 
 
 And guard my heart from thoughts impure ! 
 
 Bless' d angels, while we silent lie, 
 Tour hallelujahs sing on liigh ; 
 Tou joyful hymn the Ever-blest, 
 Before the throne, and never rest. 
 
268 HTM:N--V\rRITERS AXD THEIR HTMJTS. 
 
 I, with your choir celestial join 
 In offering- up a hymn divine ; 
 With you in heaven I hope to dwell, 
 And bid the night and world farewell. 
 
 My soul, when I shake off this dust, 
 Lord, in Thy arms I will entrust : 
 Oh make me Thy peculiar care ; 
 Some mansion for my soul prepare ! 
 
 Give me a place at Thy saints' feet, 
 Or some fall'n angel's vacant seat ; 
 I'll strive to sing as loud as they 
 Who sit above in brighter day. 
 
 Oh may I always ready stand, 
 With my lamp bviming in my hand ; 
 May I in sight of heaven rejoice 
 Whene'er I hear the Bridegroom's voice ! 
 
 All praise to Thee, in light arrayed, 
 Who light Thy dwelling-place hast made ; 
 A boundless ocean of bright beams 
 From Thy aU-glorious Godhead streams. 
 
 The sun in its meridian height 
 
 Is very darkness in Thy sight ; 
 
 My soul, oh, lighten and inflame 
 
 With thought and love of Thy great name. 
 
 Bless' d Jesu, Thou, on heaven intent, 
 Whole nights hast in devotion spent ; 
 But I, frail creature, soon am tired. 
 And all my zeal is soon expired. 
 
 My soul, how canst thou weary grow 
 Of antedating bliss below ? 
 In sacred hymns, and heavenly love, 
 Which will eternal be above ? 
 
 Shine on me. Lord, new life impart. 
 Fresh ardours kindle in my heart ; 
 One ray of Thy all-quickening light 
 Dispels the sloth and clouds of night. 
 
 Lord, lest the tempter me surprise, 
 Watch over Thine own sacrifice ; 
 All loose, all idle thoughts cast out, 
 And make my very dreams devout. 
 
 Praise God, from whom aU blessings flow ; 
 Praise Him, all creatures here below ; 
 Praise Him above, ye heavenly host ; 
 Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
 
SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 269 
 
 Heaven has watched over many a night- watcher besides 
 Bishop Ken. It is now nearly a hundred years ago that a 
 poor girl in Ipswich lost her father, and her mother being 
 left with a large family unprovided for, she, at the age of 
 sixteen, went out into domestic service. There, however, 
 she was seized with a complicated disorder, which baffled 
 all medical skill, and shut her up to a life of suffering. 
 But her affliction was hallowed to her. Christ revealed 
 Himself as her Saviour, and became her Divine companion. 
 She taught herself to write, and then solaced herself during 
 the weary days and nights of languishing by composing 
 hymns and psalms. Her songs were worthy of notice, and 
 were published by her friends as " Songs in the Night." 
 Her genius and j)iety, spirit and exj)ression, are fairly 
 given in an acrostic which reveals her name : — 
 
 S hall I presume to tell the world my name ? 
 
 TJ p to this hour I glory in my shame : 
 
 S o great my weakness, that I boast of might, 
 
 A fool in knowledge, yet in wisdom right ; 
 
 N o life, and yet I live ; I'm sick, and well ; 
 
 N ot far from heaven, though on the brink of hell, 
 
 A nd words and oaths, and blood, delight me well. 
 
 H ow strange ! I'm deaf, and dimib, and lame, and blind, 
 
 A nd hear, and see, and walk, and talk, you find. 
 
 R obbed by my dearest friend, I'm truly poor, 
 
 E, iches immense I always have in store. 
 
 I 'm fed by mortals ; but let mortals know 
 
 S uch is my food, no mortal can bestow. 
 
 O h, how I long to die, and wish to live ! 
 
 N ow, if you can, explain th' account I give. 
 
 Her songs are approjoriately entitled "Songs iu the 
 Night." Mere circumstances were aU dark around her ; 
 but there was undying light in her soul, and her hymns 
 breathe a reverent cheerfulness, a placid resignation, and 
 a comfortable hope. Her genius was uncultiu-ed, but in 
 sentiment, diction, and musical tone, many of her hymns 
 are worthy of being closet companions with the night songs 
 of hymnists bearing far more distinguished names. The 
 poor sufferer used to sing as night came on : — 
 
 God of my days, God of my nights, 
 Source of my soul's supreme delights. 
 Come, manifest Thy love to me. 
 And let me close this day with Thee. 
 
270 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS, 
 
 Nearness to Christ I fain would find, 
 Oh let not distance vex my mind ; 
 I long to know my sins forgiven, 
 To converse with the God of heaven. 
 
 Send, Source of Light, some cheering ray, 
 To turn my darkness into day ; 
 I mourn, and think Thy absence long, 
 Oh listen to my evening song. 
 
 Command my blindness to depart, 
 Still keep me from a careless heart ; 
 Lord, captivate each vain desire, 
 And raise these vile affections higher. 
 
 Oh let the mercies of this day 
 Teach me to praise as well as pray : 
 Now take, my soul, on Jesu's breast, 
 Thy sweetest, safest, surest rest ! 
 
 In her last hours she "u^as truly " compassed about with 
 songs of deliverance." " I have not sung for some time," 
 she said. "Sing with me; it will not hurt me. Sing 
 Dr. Watts' s hymn : — 
 
 How sweet and awful is the place, 
 
 With Christ within the doors ; 
 While everlasting love displays 
 
 The choicest of her stores." 
 
 The hymn was softly sung by her friends ; and then she 
 added, " Let us sing again" : — 
 
 Come, let us join our cheerful songs 
 
 With angels roiind the throne ; 
 Ten thousand thousand are their tongues, 
 
 But all their joys are one. 
 
 Worthy the Lamb that died, they cry. 
 
 To be exalted thus ; 
 Worthy the Lamb, our lips reply. 
 
 For He was slain for us. 
 
 Jesus is worthy to receive 
 
 Honour and power divine ; 
 And blessings more than we can give, 
 
 Be, Lord, for ever Thine. 
 
 Nobody seemed able to sing with her. Her voice was 
 like something more than human, and she waved her arm 
 
SONGS IN THE NIGHT. 271 
 
 exxiltingly, as she sang. "You do not sing -svitli me," 
 she said; " well, I cannot forbear." Then she continued 
 nearly the whole night warbling softly, though at times 
 apparently dying. Her last night was full of song ; and 
 just before she took her iipward flight, she pointed heaven- 
 ward, and said, " I cannot talk, but I shall soon sing 
 there r 
 
CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 MARRIAGE SONGS ANB BIRTEBAY EJMNS. 
 
 " And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage." 
 
 It is said of Solomon that " his songs were a thousand 
 and five." One of this number occupies a distinguished 
 place in the sacred canon, and is caUed "The Song of 
 Songs, which is Solomon's," or " the most beautiful or 
 excellent of his songs." It was written a thousand years 
 before Christ — long before the earliest profane poets whose 
 works are extant; but the freshness of its unrivalled 
 beauty has remained through all the changes of time and 
 manners, while its charms continue to exert their power 
 under all the disadvantages of incompetent translation. 
 It may be called a pastoral, in which two leading characters 
 are represented as speaking and acting throughout the 
 poem. The one is a king called Shelomoh, " The peaceful, 
 or Prince of Peace," the other a female, who from being a 
 rustic shepherdess becomes his queen ; she bears the 
 name of Shelomith, which is simply the feminine form 
 of Shelomoh. Whether this poem was written by 
 Solomon on the occasion of his own marriage or not, 
 it seems to stand among the oracles of inspiration as a 
 seal of divine approbation on the institution of marriage, 
 or as the fixed light of God's smile upon the fervid but 
 modest and delicate affection of conjugal life. Both 
 ancients and moderns, Jews and Christians, have agreed 
 that under its face of poetic beauty an allegorical meaning 
 is hid, for the instruction and solace of the teachable, chaste, 
 and believing soid. Indeed, we cannot conceive that Ezra, 
 a man under divine inspiration, and the members of the 
 
MAERIAGE SONGS AND BIRTH-DAY HYMNS. 273 
 
 great synagogue, or those who assisted in collecting the 
 sacred writings, would have admitted this song into the 
 sacred canon if they had not a full conviction that under 
 its mysterious and luxuriant imagery there lay concealed 
 some great truths bearing on the interests of God's 
 kingdom and people. It is an Oriental book, written bj^ 
 a highly poetical Eastern monarch, intended, in the first 
 place, for an Oriental people such as seven-eighths of the 
 human race liave been, and such as form one-half of the 
 present jDopulation of the earth. The book should there- 
 fore be interpreted in accordance with Eastern manners 
 and rules of composition. It has always been the universal 
 custom in the East to represent spiritual things under such 
 figures as are beautifully sketched in the Song of Solomon. 
 Numerous examples might be quoted from mere heathen 
 authorities ; but the Bible is full of them. David, Isaiah, 
 Jeremiah, the evangelists, apostles, and our Lord Himself, 
 all speak of the intercourse of the divine and the human 
 under the imagery of marriage feasts and conjugal com- 
 munion. And in this light the Song of Solomon has always 
 been viewed, both by Jews and Christians. The Jews ex- 
 plained it as a song of Jehovah's love for the synagogue ; 
 the Christians, as celebrating the union of Christ and His 
 Church. Both have agreed, however, that the spirit and 
 design of the book can be realized by none but the chaste 
 and devotional mind. The Jews denied it to the weak and 
 the profane, as too strong for the one, and too holy for the 
 other. They have always guarded and honoured it not 
 only as holy, but as they say, "the Holy of holies"; 
 and have ever used it as an incentive to holy thought and 
 intense devotion. While the Christians, who have con- 
 sulted it as the expression of Christ's love to the community 
 of the faithful, have ever found in it a refreshing sweetness 
 and power, leading them, as it does, to meditate on tie 
 mutual afi'ection of the Redeemer and His people, a;^ sociated 
 with trials and vicissitudes in this hfe, but promising per- 
 fect fruition and repose in the world to come. This may 
 be illustrated by one passage from a personal history. 
 
 " Ah ! my dear friend, is that you ?" said a kind-hearted 
 and intelligent Polish Jew, as he affectionately took the 
 hand of a Methodist preacher, who had taken his seat by 
 the side of his sick-bed. The two had known each other 
 
274 HYMN-WRITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 in earlier life, and had learnt to "love one another," 
 distinct as they were in creed as well as by birth. After 
 some years of separation, the Gentile had found out his 
 Jewish brother and first Hebrew teacher, in his affliction ; 
 and now once more they were heart to heart, and entered 
 into communion about the sacred text which they had at 
 one time so lovingly studied together. The Jew was 
 gentle, tender, and open as a child, and freely told out his 
 hope in the mercy of that God who had been pleased, as 
 he said, " to put the innocent for the uninnocent, that the 
 sinner, who was jienitent over the sacrifice, and trvisted 
 there, might be saved." And then he talked about divine 
 love, how it begat love in us ; what a comfort it was to 
 him ; how it helped him in his sickness ; and how it 
 disposed him to love everybody around him. The holy texts 
 from his Hebrew Bible " ca,me bubbling up in his mind," 
 he said, " and there were no words which seemed to speak 
 the feelings of his heart so happily as some of the words 
 in Solomon's Song." 
 
 " Somebody said to me, the other day," he remarked, 
 ' What is the use of Solomon's Song ? I cannot understand 
 it ; I think it had better be left out of the book ! ' Oh, I 
 was grieved ; and I said, that is wicked. No ! you do not 
 see the use of that blessed book ! how can you ? You do 
 not understand it. How should you ? Those who do not 
 love the truth cannot see the use of it, or understand it. 
 You are not a spiritual man ; and you do not see. There 
 now is my box, poor looking box to you. What is the 
 use of it ? you may say, it might as well be thrown 
 away. Ah ! it is locked ! you do not see what is in it ! 
 nor can you tell what is the value or the beauty of 
 the jewels that are there. But if I give you the key, and 
 you open it, then you may be able to talk about the box, 
 for you will see and know all that is in it. So you have 
 no key to Solomon's Song ; none but spiritual men have a 
 key to it !" 
 
 And so the afflicted Hebrew talked. He might have 
 communed, one would think, with that disciple of Gamaliel 
 who says, "The natural man receiveth not the things of 
 the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him ; neither 
 can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 
 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things." Nor coidd 
 
MARRIiftjE SONGS AND BIRTH-DAY HYMNS. 275 
 
 his Methodist friend help thinking, at the moment, of 
 Charles Wesley's metrical introduction to Solomon's Song. 
 There was something so remarkably akin in the pure 
 simplicity of the poor Hebrew's thoughts and those of the 
 Methodist poet. Wesley expresses what the Jew thought 
 and felt, with becoming purity and spirit, and in a pleasant 
 hymnic form, thus : — 
 
 Hence, ye profane ; far off remove, 
 Te strangers to redeeming love ; 
 Sinners, whom Jesus never knew. 
 The Song of Songs is not for you ! 
 Away, ye worldly goats and swine, 
 "Who trample on this pearl divine, 
 Wliich only wisdom's sons esteem. 
 While fools and infidels blaspheme. 
 
 With deepest shame, with humblest fear, 
 T to Thine oracle draw near. 
 To meet Thee in the holiest place, 
 To learn the secret of Thy grace. 
 Now. Lord, explain the mystery. 
 Display Thy precious self to me, 
 And when Thou dost the veil remove, 
 My heart shall sing the song of love. 
 
 Thou heavenly Solomon divine, 
 To teach the Song of Songs is Thine ; 
 Thy Spirit alone the depth reveals. 
 Opens the book, and breaks the seals : 
 Oh might I find the bar removed. 
 And love the Lord as I am loved. 
 This moment gain my heart's desire, 
 The next within Thine arms expire ! 
 
 The Jew kindled with his theme, and with that 
 charming intonation which is natural to the children 
 of the synagogue, he gave voice to his loving heart in 
 a succession of stanzas from the "Song of Songs." He 
 repeated again and again with growing warmth, and with 
 a music of expression that seemed like the voice of love 
 itself, " Tell me, Thou whom my soul loveth, where Thou 
 feedest, where Thou makest Thy flock to rest at noon ! " 
 The afflicted child of Abraliam had wandered long among 
 strangers, and. was now longing for rest with the Great 
 Shepherd to whom his fathers had been gathered. By 
 a Methodist, such as his friend and visitor was, Charles 
 Wesley was, of course, thought of again, and that 
 
276 HYMN-"WRITEES AND THEIR HYI^NS. 
 
 tender, glowing paraphrase of Solomon's stanza came, 
 as the Jew who had quoted it said, "bubbling up in the 
 mind " :— 
 
 Thou Shepherd of Israel and mine, 
 
 The joy and desire of my heart, 
 For closer communion I pine, 
 
 I long to reside where Thou art : 
 The pasture I languish to find. 
 
 Where all, who their Shepherd obey, 
 Are fed on Thy bosom reclined, 
 
 And screen'dfrom the heat of the day. 
 
 Ah ! show me that happiest place. 
 
 The place of Thy people's abode. 
 Where saints in an ecstasy gaze. 
 
 And hang on a crucified God. 
 Thy love for a sinner declare, 
 
 Thy passion and death on the tree : 
 My spirit to Calvary bear. 
 
 To suffer and triumph with Thee. 
 
 'Tis there, with the lambs of Thy flock. 
 
 There only I covet to rest. 
 To lie at the foot of the rock. 
 
 Or rise to lie hid in Thy breast : 
 'Tis there I would always abide, 
 
 And never a moment depart ; 
 Conceal" d in the cleft of Thy side, 
 
 Eternally held in Thy heart. 
 
 "Do you think that the ' Song of Songs ' was written by 
 Solomon on the occasion of his own marriage? " said the 
 Gentile visitor to the Jewish patient. 
 
 " Yes, that is my opinion. I think God has given it to 
 us as a marriage song, to show that marriage is His own 
 arrangement and ordinance for our comfort, and the purity 
 and happiness of the world. But it means something more 
 than that ; it is a song of love between the Messiah and 
 His people. Ah ! that is a mysterious love ; but it is sweet, 
 and he only who enjoys it deeply can sing Solomon's Song 
 as it was intended to be sung." 
 
 In hearing this from a Jew, who would not think of 
 one, in earlier times, who was trained a Pharisee, but be- 
 coming, like the suffering Polish wanderer, a truly spiritual 
 man, uttered kindred thoughts ? "Husbands, love your 
 wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave 
 Himself for it ; that He might sanctify and cleansd it 
 
MARRIAGE SONGS AND BIRTH-DAY HYMNS. 277 
 
 ■with the washing of water by the Word, that He might 
 present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, 
 or wrinkle, or any snch thing ; but that it should be holy 
 and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as 
 their own bodies. He that loveth his wife lo-veth himself. 
 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh ; but nourisheth 
 and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church ; fnr we are 
 members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. 
 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and 
 shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one 
 flesh. This a great mystery : but I speak concerning 
 Christ and the Church." 
 
 If, then, Solomon's Song is an inspired marriage song, 
 having under its beautiful surface a spiritual allusion to a 
 still deeper mystery of love, marriage songs are not \inac- 
 ceptable to God, nor can they be out of place at a wedding- 
 feast. They should, however, emulate the spirit and tone 
 of the inspired exemplar ; and the hymnist who so hap- 
 pily introduces Solomon's divine pastoral, and who has 
 left us so many sweet little hymnic paraphrases of favourite 
 passages from the " Song of Songs," has furnished an 
 appropriate song for the bridal morn. One who so deeply 
 enjoyed the chaste pleasures of conjugal life, and whose 
 soul was so full of hymn and song, would certainly aid the 
 newly-married pair with forms of devout expression. Here 
 is one of his marriage hymns : — 
 
 Thou God of truth and love, 
 
 We seek Thy perfect way. 
 Ready Thy choice to approve, 
 
 Thy Providence to obey ; 
 Enter into Thy wise design, 
 And sweetly lose our will in Thine. 
 
 Why hast Thou cast our lot 
 
 In the same age and place ? 
 And why together brought 
 
 To see each other's face? 
 To join with softest sympathy, 
 And mix our friendly so'ils with Thee ? 
 
 Didst Thou not make us one, 
 
 That we might one remain, 
 Together travel on. 
 
 And bear each other's pain; 
 Till all Thy utmost goodness prove. 
 And rise renew' d in perfect love ? 
 
278 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Surely Thou didst unite 
 
 Our kindred spirits here, 
 That all hereafter might 
 
 Before Thy throne appear ; 
 Meet at the marriage of the Lamb, 
 And all Thy glorious love proclaim. 
 
 Then let us ever bear 
 
 The blessed end in view, 
 And join, with mutual care. 
 
 To fight oixr passage through ; 
 And kindly help each other on. 
 Till all receive the starry crown. 
 
 Oh may the Spirit seal 
 
 Our souls unto that day. 
 With all Thy fulness fill, 
 
 And then transport away ! 
 Away to our eternal rest, 
 Away to our Redeemer's breast ! 
 
 Old George Withers would make marriage songs as 
 a matter of course ; for he made songs and hymns about 
 everything, for all times, all ci^nditions, and all circum- 
 stances. His " Halleluiah " is fall of psalms for days of 
 every name and shade, and for every part of every day; 
 for nights starry and nights dark, for sea and for land, for 
 storm and for calm, for battle and for peace. He has 
 hymns for all seasons; for woi'kers, for idlers, for kinsfolk, 
 for strangers, for the bond and tlie free, for plenty and for 
 famine, for kings and for people, for pastors and for flocks, 
 for seed-time and for harvest, for saints and for sinners, 
 for young and for old, for every place, for every calling, 
 for all til e world, and for " himself." His marriage song 
 must have a choir in advance and a choir in the rear. He 
 teaches us to hymn it over a marriage-contract. "This 
 hymn," says he, "is tendered to those who purpose a 
 contract of marriage, in hope it may so remember them to 
 consider what they intend that it shall keep them from 
 proceeding farther than they lawful may, and from 
 professing more than they mean. Sing this," he adds, " as 
 Te Deum^^ : — 
 
 Lord ! in Thy name, and in Thy fear 
 
 Our faith we plighted have ; 
 And that our meanings are sincere. 
 
 Thy witness now we crave. 
 
MARRIAGE SONGS AND BIRTH-DAY HYMNS. 279 
 
 We come not only to repeat 
 
 Our vows before Thy face, 
 But that we may likewise entreat 
 
 Thy favour aud Thy grace. 
 
 For mutual helpers while we live, 
 
 According to our might ; 
 Ourselves we to each other give. 
 
 So far as we have right ; 
 And we profess that free we are, 
 
 For aught that we do know, 
 To be each other's wedded pair, 
 
 If Thou permit it so. 
 
 "We see no contradicting cause, 
 
 But that we may be joined, 
 Without infringement of the laws 
 
 Whereby we are confined. 
 Nor any such infirmity 
 
 In us do we suspect 
 As that our marriage bond thereby 
 
 Shall prove of no effect. 
 
 We have no guileful dealings med, 
 
 Our purpose to acquire. 
 Nor one another's trust abused, 
 
 To gain what we desire. 
 But our affections are sincere. 
 
 And as they have been true, 
 Upright those courses likewise are. 
 
 By which we them pursue. 
 
 If both have now, Lord, professed 
 
 What may not be denif d ; 
 Let our affections so be blest 
 
 That nothing us divide. 
 Let not by beauty, wit, or wealth, 
 
 By high or low degree, 
 By want of riches or of health 
 
 Our hearts estranged be. 
 
 But if that either of us now 
 
 Hath trod a faithless way, 
 Or shall infringe this holy vow 
 
 Before our wedding day : 
 Lord ! let the party innocent, 
 
 From blame and guilt be free ; 
 For truth a contract never meant, 
 
 Where naught but falsehoods be. 
 
 Then out of liis full soul the quaint but musical and 
 happj liy mnist pours forth a song for the marriage, telling 
 
280 HYMN-WRITEES AND THEIE HYMNS. 
 
 US that "God is hereby besought to bless the marriage 
 solemnized to all there present, and so to prosper the 
 bridegroom and bride in their desires and afi'ections, 
 that the waters of their carnal contentment may be tui'ned 
 into the wine of spiritual delights" : — 
 
 To grace, Lord ! a marriage feast 
 
 In Cana, long ago, 
 It pleased Thee to be a guest, 
 
 And there Thy power to show; 
 For by a miracle divine, 
 
 Wlien they their wine had spent, 
 Thou changedst water into wine, 
 
 Which did their want prevent. 
 
 Lord ! let the brightness of Thy face 
 
 Among us now appear ; 
 So let the bounties of Thy grace 
 
 Be manifested here : 
 That neither bridegroom, bride, nor guest, 
 
 In body or in mind. 
 Of less content may be possess' d, 
 
 Than they have hope to find. 
 
 All joys which in a married life, 
 
 Well matched couples know, 
 On this new wedded man and wife 
 
 Vouchsafe Thou to bestow; 
 Fulfil their hopes, prevent their fears, 
 
 Grant them their just desires ; 
 Increase that love which keeps off cares, 
 
 And warms with lawful fires. 
 
 To wine those heartless waters turn 
 
 Which in their vessels be ; 
 To give them comfort when they mourn, 
 
 And make them glad in Thee. 
 And though the pleasures of their love 
 
 Have yet a pleasing taste, 
 Yet let them daily sweeter prove, 
 
 And best of all at last. 
 
 The dear old hymnist seems to have had contentment iii 
 marriage, and is willing that all who are blessed with like 
 satisfaction in matrimonial life should never lack the means 
 of expressing their settled pleasure in devout and cheerful 
 psalmody; and he introduces his hymn "for one con- 
 tentedly married" by insinuating some very salutary 
 lessons to parties concerned. "The intent of this ode," 
 he says, " is to show that our natural affections are never 
 
MATSEIAGE SONGS AND BIKTH-DAY HYMNS. 281 
 
 fully satisfied in tlie choice of our helpers, until God bring 
 man and wife together by, as it were, making- the one out 
 of the other through a frequent conversing together, and 
 by observing and approving each other's condition, which is 
 never done till those passions are cast into a sleep which 
 make them dote on wealth, honour, beauty, and such unfit 
 marriage makers" : — 
 
 Since they in singing take delight 
 
 Who in their love unhappy be, 
 Why should not I in song delight 
 
 Who from their sorrow now are free ? 
 That such as can believe may know 
 What comforts are on earth below, 
 And prove what blessings may be won 
 By loving so as I have done. 
 
 When first affection warmed my blood, 
 
 Which was ere wit could rii^eu'd be, 
 And ere I fully understood 
 
 What fire it was that warmed me ; 
 My youthful heat a love begat, 
 That love did love I know not what ; 
 But this I know, I felt more pains 
 Than many a broken heart sustains. 
 
 When years informed me how to see 
 
 What had such wandering passions wroiight. 
 
 The more my knowledge gi-ew to be. 
 The greater torments still it brought ; 
 
 Then sought I means to cure love's wound. 
 
 The more I sought, less ease I found ; 
 
 And milder pangs than I have had. 
 
 Make many lovers sick and mad. 
 
 I have a deep-indented heart, 
 
 Wliich no content would let me find. 
 Until her proper counterpart 
 
 Should thereunto be firmly joined ; 
 Ere far I sought or searched much, 
 I many found who seemed such. 
 But them when I did nearly view 
 Not one in heart was fully true. 
 
 Alas ! thought I, to what I seek 
 
 Why should so many draw so near, 
 And at the last prove nothing like 
 
 To what at first they did appear ? 
 So much why do so many please, 
 Since I was made for none of these ? 
 And why in show have I been one, 
 Beloved much, yet loved of none ? 
 
282 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMN?. 
 
 Could wealtli have bought my marriage bed, 
 
 Or honour brought me true delight, 
 I could these ways have better sped 
 
 Than many do believe I might ; 
 Nay, beauty, though none loves it more, 
 Nor proffer" d loves though I had store, 
 Could make me think now found is she 
 That proves a helper fit for me. 
 
 Nor ease nor pleasure could I find 
 In beauty, honour, love, or pelf ; 
 Nor means to gain a settled mind. 
 Till I had found my second self ; 
 Thus till our grand-dame Eve was made, 
 No helper our first parent had ; 
 "Which proves a wife in value more 
 Than all the creatures made before. 
 
 Half tired in seeking what I sought 
 
 I fell' into a sleep at last ; 
 And God for me my wishes wrought, 
 
 When hope of them were almost past ; 
 "With Adam I this favour had. 
 That out of me my wife was made. 
 And when I waked I espied 
 That God for me had found a bride. 
 
 How He this riddle brought to pass, 
 This curious world shall never hear ! 
 
 A secret work of His it was, 
 Ivor fit for ev'ry v-ulgar ear : 
 
 Out of each other formed were we, 
 
 Within a third our beings be ; 
 
 And our well-being was begun, 
 
 By being in ourselves undone. 
 
 I have the heig'ht of my desii-e, 
 
 In secret no dislike I find ; 
 Love warms me with a kindly fire, 
 
 No jealous pangs torment my mind : 
 I breathe no sigh, I make no moan. 
 As others do, and I have done ; 
 Nor do I mark, nor do I care, 
 How fair or lovely others are. 
 
 My heart at quiet lets me lie. 
 
 And moves no passion in my breast ; 
 Nor tempting tongue, nor speaking eye, 
 
 Nor smiling lip, can break my rest ; 
 The peer I sought by me is f ovmd. 
 My earthly hopes by thee are crown'd ; 
 And I in one all pleasures find, 
 That may be found in womai;kind. 
 
MAREIAGE SONGS AND BIRTH-DAY HYMNS. 283 
 
 Each hath of other like esteem, 
 
 Aud what that is we need not tell ; 
 For we are one thoug'h two we seem, 
 
 And in each other's hearts we dwell : 
 There dwells He two embracing thus 
 By whom we were endeared thus ; 
 He makes lis rich, though seeming poor, 
 And when we want will give us more. 
 
 Lord ! let our love in Thee begun, 
 
 In Thee, likewise, continuance have ; 
 And if Thy will may so be done. 
 
 Together lodge us in one grave ; 
 Then on the Lamb' s great wedding-day 
 Raise us together from the clay ; 
 And where the Bridegroom doth remain 
 Let us both live and love again. 
 
 Another of this prolific poet's songs is " a hymn for house- 
 warming." "The ancient and laudable use of house- 
 warmings is here insinuated," as he says, " for in this 
 hymn the friends assembled are taught to beseech God 
 Almighty to make that habitation prosperous and comfort- 
 able to them and theirs, who are newly come thither to 
 dwell" :— 
 
 Among those points of neighbourhood 
 "Which oui' forefathers did allow, 
 
 That custom in esteem hath stood 
 Which we do put in practice now. 
 
 For when their friends new dwellings had, 
 
 Them thus they welcome thither made ; 
 
 That they the sooner might be free 
 
 From strangeness, where they strangers be. 
 
 To this good end we partly came, 
 
 And partly friendship to augment ; 
 But if we fail not in the same. 
 
 This is the prime of our intent. 
 We come with holy charms to bless 
 The house our friends do now p issess ; 
 In hope that God amen will say. 
 To that for which we now shall pray. 
 
 Lord ! keep this place, we Thee desire, 
 
 To these new comers ever free. 
 From raging winds, from harmful fire, 
 
 From waters that offensive be ; 
 From graceless child, from servants ill, 
 From neighbours bearing no good will : 
 And from the chiefest plague of life, 
 A husband false, a faithless wife. 
 
'284 HYMlSr-WIlITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Let neither thieves that rove by night, 
 
 Nor those that sneak about by day, 
 Have i^ower their persons to afti-ight, 
 
 Or to purloin their goods away. 
 Let nothing here be seen or heard 
 To make by day or night afear'd ; 
 No sndden cries, no fearful noise. 
 No vision grim nor dreadful voice. 
 
 Let on this house no curse remain, 
 
 If any on the same is laid ; 
 Let no imposture power obtain 
 
 To make the meanest wit afraid. 
 Let here nor Zim nor Dim be seen, 
 The fabled fairy king or queen ; 
 Nor such delusions as are said 
 To make the former age afraid. 
 
 Keep also, Lord, we pray, from hence 
 
 As much as frailty will allow ; 
 The guiltiness of each offence, 
 
 Which to a crying sin may grow. 
 Let no more want, wealth, hope, or fear, 
 Nor greater griefs nor joys be here ; 
 Thou may still keep them in Thy grace, 
 Who shall be dwellers in this place. 
 
 But that just measure let them have 
 
 Of every means which may acquire, 
 The blessedness which they most crave, 
 
 Who to the truest bliss aspire. 
 And if well-wishers absent be. 
 Who better wish them can than we, 
 To make this blessing up entire. 
 We thereto add what they desire. 
 
 The composition of verses' on cheerful themes has not 
 unfrequently afforded refreshment to afflicted genius. It 
 was so with a hj'mn- writer of the last century. "Ill 
 health," says he, in a preface to a collection of hymns, 
 " some years past, having kept me from travelling or 
 preaching, I took up the trade of hj'mn-making, a handi- 
 craft much followed of late, but a business I was not born 
 or bred to, and undertaken chiefly to keep a long sickness 
 from preying on my spirit, and to make tedious nights 
 pass over more smoothly. Some tinkling employment was 
 wanted, which might amuse and not fatigue ine." Merry 
 old Berridge ! even he, at times, needed "some tinkling 
 employment" to keep his spirits up; and even he had 
 
MARRIAGE SONGS AND BIRTH-DAY HYMNS. 285 
 
 seasons of reaction from clieerful excitement, during which 
 the good frviit of his recreation was in danger of being 
 consigned to oblivion. " These hymns," he writes, " were 
 composed in a six months' illness, and have since laid 
 neglected by me ; often threatened with the fire, but have 
 escaped that martyrdom. Fatherly mercy prevented that 
 literary death, for authors can seldom prove cruel to their 
 own olfs]jring, however deformed ; but they came into the 
 world naked, neither clothed with recommendation or 
 correction of any friend. Such as they are, I offer them to 
 the reader, and suppose he may find in them the common 
 lot of human productions, some things to blame and some 
 to commend. Some of the hymns have occasionally 
 rambled into magazines, under the signature of * Old 
 Everton'' and are now finding their way home again." 
 Among these returning ramblers there is his hymn on " a 
 Christian wedding," and those who wish to enter on 
 married life with the holy songs of a hallowed wedding- 
 day in their hearts will be thankful for the fruit of " Old 
 Everton's" " tinkling employment," and learn to sing with 
 him: — 
 
 Our Jesus freely did appear ^ 
 
 To grace a marriage feast ; 
 
 And, Lord, we ask Thy presence here, 
 To make a wedding guest. 
 
 Upon the bridal pair look down, 
 
 Who now have plighted hands ; 
 Their union with Tliy favour crown. 
 
 And bless the nuj)tial bands. 
 
 With gifts of grace their hearts endow, 
 
 Of all rich dowries best! 
 Their substance bless, and peace bestow, 
 
 To sweeten all the rest. 
 
 In purest love their souls unite, 
 
 And link'd in kindly care, 
 To render family burdens light, 
 
 By taking mutual share ; 
 
 True helpers may they prove indeed 
 
 In prayer, and faith, and hope ; 
 And see with joy a godly seed 
 
 To buOd the household up. 
 
 As Isaac and Rebecca, give 
 
 A pattern chaste and kind; 
 So may this new-met couple live 
 
 In faithful friendship joined. 
 
286 HYMN-WRITEES AND THEIR HYIVHSTS. 
 
 The joys and contentment of matrimony should never 
 interfere with the pleasures of commemorating one's birth- 
 day. The birth-day of wife or husband, of son or daughter, 
 affords an opportunity of cheerful congratulation and 
 devout thanksgiving. Nor can we forget to liang another 
 wreath about our memorial of the man who has done so 
 much to brighten the changes of domestic life with his 
 sprightly and instructive hymns. "They who observe 
 their birth-days," says the poet who taught us to sing at a 
 " house-warming," " which many anciently have done, and 
 some yet do, may by tliis hymn be remembered of such 
 meditations as are pertinent to their anniversary, and God 
 may be thereby the more often praised for our temporal 
 being : — 
 
 Lord, oil this day Thou didst bestow 
 
 A breathing- life on me ; 
 This day an actor here below, 
 
 I first began to be ; 
 And but few rounds the sun hath made 
 
 Since I that now am here, 
 No portion of an essence had 
 
 Except in Thee it were. 
 
 But now there is a part of me — 
 
 And, Lord, from Thee it spring-s — 
 That shall both named and numbered be 
 
 "With everlasting- things. 
 And that which time doth wear away, 
 
 Time's ruin -will restore, 
 To be rejoined thereto for aye, 
 
 When time shall be no more. 
 
 We now are Thy probationers. 
 
 And as we run this race. 
 The life which is to come prefers 
 
 To honour or disgrace. 
 And they which here the pathway miss 
 
 That unto virtue tends, 
 Shall find no means nor hope of bliss 
 
 When this brief lifetime ends. 
 
 Another year is now begun, 
 
 And yet I do not see 
 How far the time which forth has run, 
 
 I can account to Thee. 
 For I confess I have misspent — 
 
 My longings to fulfil — ■ 
 The times which unto me were but 
 
 To execute Thy will. 
 
MARRIAGE SONGS AND BIRTH-DAY HYMNS. 287 
 
 And in the days which are behind, 
 
 Behind if anj'- be, 
 Wliat profit may I hope to find. 
 
 What will they pleasure me ? 
 Since, though time past I might redeem, 
 
 So much that work will cost, 
 As, first or last, my time will seem 
 
 In hazard to be lost. 
 
 Lord, let this day of my first birth. 
 
 Occasion yearly give. 
 To keep me mindful why on earth 
 
 My being I receive ; 
 And of my second birth, likewise. 
 
 So mind Thou me thereby, 
 That I to life may not arise, 
 
 A second death to die. 
 
 But let this day, and all the days, 
 
 Which I hereafter view, 
 Employed be to give Thee praise. 
 
 To whom all praise is due. 
 And thus let no man say of me. 
 
 When I to dust return, 
 Oh, well with him now would it be. 
 
 If he had ne'er been born. 
 
 Charles Wesley never allowed a birth-day to pass with- 
 out some cheerful hymn. Like Withers, he knew how to 
 extract sweets from every passing hour, and never failed to 
 engage the inspiration which touched him as times and 
 seasons went along in brightening with songs every token 
 of our mortal state. No one whom he teaches to sing on his 
 bii"th-day can forget that hymn which closes with so fine an 
 allusion to the beautiful old Jewish tradition that God drew 
 the soul of Moses out of his body with a kiss ; a tradition 
 founded on Deut. xxxiv. 5, " He died according to the 
 word of the Lord," or literally, "at the mouth of Jehovah." 
 The sprightly verses run thus : — 
 
 God of my life, to Thee 
 
 My cheerful soul I raise ; 
 Thy goodness bade me be, 
 
 And still prolongs my days. 
 I see my natal hour return. 
 And bless the day that I was born. 
 
 A clod of living earth. 
 Oh glorify Thy name, 
 
288 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 For whom alone my birth, 
 
 And all my blessings came ; 
 Creating and preserving grace, 
 Let all that is within me praise I 
 
 Long as I live beneath, 
 
 To Thee, O let me live ; 
 To Thee my every breath 
 
 In thanks and praises give. 
 "Whate'er I have, whate'er I am, 
 Shall magnify my Maker" s name. 
 
 My soul, and all its powers, 
 
 Thine, wholly Thine, shall be ; 
 AH, all my happy hours 
 
 I consecrate to Thee. 
 Me to Thine image now restore. 
 And I shall praise Thee evermore. 
 
 I wait Thy wiU to do, 
 
 As angels do in heaven ; 
 In Christ a creature new. 
 
 Most graciously forgiven. 
 I wait Thy perfect will to prove. 
 All sanctified by spotless love. 
 
 Then, when the work is done — 
 
 The work of faith with power — 
 Receive Thy favoured son. 
 
 In death's triumphant hour. 
 Like Moses to Thyself convey, 
 And kiss my raptured soul away. 
 
 Greorge Withers and Charles Wesley have helped to 
 deck many a bridal service with wreaths of song, and to 
 hallow the merriment of many a grateful birth-day ; but 
 there is a name which will ever be balmy to those who 
 devoutly hail the light of a wedding-day. The tender 
 simplicity and quiet devotion of Keble's hymn on " Holy 
 Matrimony" will always be welcome to those who wish to 
 have their nuptial joj-s happily interwoven with prayer and 
 praise : — 
 
 The voice that breathed o'er Eden, 
 
 The earliest wedding-day. 
 
 The primal marriage blessing. 
 
 It hath not passed away. 
 
 Still in the pure espousal 
 
 Of Chi'istian man and maid. 
 The Holy Three are with us. 
 
 The threefold grace is said : 
 
MARRIAGE SONGS AKD BIRTH-DAY HYMNS. 289 
 
 For dower of blessed children, 
 
 For love and faith's sweet sake, 
 For high mysterious union, 
 
 Which nought on earth may break. 
 
 Be present, awful Father, 
 
 To give away this bride. 
 As Eve Thou gav'st to Adam, 
 
 Out of his own pierced side. 
 
 Be present. Son of Mary, 
 
 To join their loving hands, 
 As Thou didst bind two natures 
 
 In Thine eternal bands. 
 
 Be present, holiest Spirit, 
 
 To bless them as they kneel ; 
 As Thou, for Christ, the Bridegroom, 
 
 The heavenly spouse doth seal. 
 
 Oh spread Thy pure wing o'er them. 
 
 Let no ill power find place, 
 When onward to Thine altar. 
 
 The hallow'd path they trace. 
 
 To cast their crowns before Thee, 
 
 In perfect sacrifice. 
 Till to the home of gladness, 
 
 With Christ's own bride they rise. 
 
CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 HYMNS FROM BENEATH THE CLOUD. 
 
 " When gathering clouds around I view, 
 And days are dark, and friends are few, 
 On Him I lean, who not in vain 
 Experienced every human pain ; 
 He sees my wants, allays my fears, 
 And counts and treasures up my tears." 
 
 The ''mercy-seat" of old was sometimes covered with a 
 mysterious cloud, whose shade graciously qualified the 
 lustre of Divine majesty, and from whose depths were 
 evolved the most cheering tokens of God's favour. From 
 that cloud Aaron had seen the fire of wrath shoot forth to 
 consume his unholy sons, and to him it was now like the 
 shadow of death, the fearful symbol of his bitterest trial as 
 a parent and as a priest. But Grod, by the mouth of 
 Moses, encouraged him to approach, even to that cloud, 
 with the blood of a sin-offering in his hand, giving him 
 the promise, "I will ajDpear in the cloud upon the mercy- 
 seat." The believing Christian, like Aaron, has access to 
 the mercy-seat of his reconciled God, but sometimes finds 
 a cloud on it. His heavenly Father occasionally permits 
 dark mysterious trials to overshadow his way to the propi- 
 tiatory ; trials which, though they appear inscrutable, are 
 blessings in disguise, dispensations of mercy in the form of 
 mysterious trial. He is assured, however, that while he 
 comes by faith in the sacrifice of Christ, those very trials 
 will afford some of the most satisfactory revelations of 
 God's character and will, " I will appear as a cloud upon 
 the mercy-seat." And when our clouds are around the 
 mercy-seat, in gracious association with the purposes of 
 mercy, and the Divine wisdom and power, goodness, 
 
HYMNS FROM BENEATH THE CLOUD. 291 
 
 holiness, and love, are opened upon the soul from^the very- 
 clouds which overshadow it, our sorrows are turned into 
 joy, rather than followed by it, and our hearts are com- 
 forted with hymns and " songs of deliverance." About 
 forty years ago, Wilson, in his " Noctes Ambrosiance," 
 says, " Have you seen a little volume entitled ' Tales in 
 Verse, by the Eev. H. F. Lyte,' which seems to have 
 reached a second edition ? Now that is the right kind of 
 religious poetry. Mr. Lyte shows how the sins and 
 sorrows of men flow from irreligion, in simple yet strong 
 domestic narrations, told in a style and spirit reminding 
 one sometimes of Groldsmith and sometimes of Crabbe. A 
 volume so humble in its appearance and pretensions runs 
 the risk of being jostled off the highway into by-paths ; 
 and, indeed, no harm if it should, for in such retired places 
 it will be pleasant reading — pensive in the shade, and 
 cheerful in the sunshine. Mr. Lyte has reaped 
 
 The harvest of a quiet eye 
 
 That broods and sleeps on its own heart, 
 
 and his Christian tales will be read with interest and 
 instruction by many a fireside. * The Brothers ' is exceed- 
 ingly beautiful. lie ought to give us another volume." The 
 gentle and unpretending man, whose volume was so 
 beautiful a reflection of his own character, did * ' give us 
 another volume," under the title of "Poems, Chiefly 
 Eeligious." Some of his poems were, indeed, hymns from 
 under the cloud. Though comparatively young, he had 
 often found clouds " upon the mercy-seat." But God had 
 appeared to him, inspiring and hallowing his genius, and 
 calling up songs from his heart, that have been peacefully 
 and resignedly sung by many a tried, but happy Christian. 
 Here is one springing from " thoughts in weakness," and 
 entitled * * Submission ' ' — 
 
 Yet think not, my soul, to keep 
 
 Thy progress on to God, 
 By any road less rough and steep 
 
 Than that thy fathers trod. 
 In-tears and trials thou must sow 
 
 To reap in joy and love ; 
 We cannot find our hom« below, 
 
 And hope for one above. 
 
292 HYMN-WBITEKS AKD THEIK HYMNS. 
 
 No ; here we labour, watch, and pray, 
 
 Our rest and peace are there ; 
 God will not take the thorn away, 
 
 But give us strength to bear. 
 The holiest, greatest, best, have thus 
 
 In wisdom learnt to grow ; 
 Yea, He that gave Himself for us 
 
 "Was perfected by woe. 
 
 Thou — Man of Sorrows — Thou didst not 
 
 The bitter cup decline, 
 "Why should I claim a better lot, 
 
 A smoother path than Thine ? 
 Thou sought' st no treasure here on earth, 
 
 No glory 'neath the skies ; 
 And what Thou dream' dst so little worth. 
 
 Shall I so highly prize ? 
 
 Did not reproach and wrong rain down 
 
 Upon Thy hallowed head ? 
 Didst Thou not strip off glory's crown 
 
 To wear the thorns instead ? 
 When foes reviled, didst Thou reply, 
 
 Or render ill for ill ? 
 Didst Thou for man bleed, faint, and die. 
 
 And shall I falter still ? 
 
 In early life to Thee I was 
 
 Consigned by solemn vow, 
 Enlisted 'neath Thy holy cross. 
 
 Shall I desert it now ? 
 I then 'gainst ev'ry hostile power 
 
 Engaged to follow Thee ; 
 And shall I, at the trying hour. 
 
 Be found the first to flee ? 
 
 Thou didst not flee, O King of love. 
 
 When Thou wert sorely tried ; 
 When all men fled, and God above 
 
 Appeared His face to hide. 
 Intent that guiltless blood to shed. 
 
 That should for guilt atone. 
 The mighty winepress Thou didst tread, 
 
 Unshrinking, though alone. 
 
 And shall I murmur or repine 
 
 At aught Thy hand may send ? 
 To whom should I my cause resign, 
 
 If not to such a friend ? 
 Where love and wisdom deign to choose, 
 
 Shall I the choice condemn, 
 Or dare the medicine to refuse 
 
 That is prescribed by them ? 
 
HYMNS FROM BENEATH THE CLOUD. 293 
 
 Oh, small the gain "when men aspire 
 
 Their Maker to control ; 
 He gives, perhaps, their hearts' desire, 
 
 And leanness to their soul. 
 Not His to quench the smoking flax, 
 
 Or break the bruised reed ; 
 Or with one pang our patience tax. 
 
 But what He knows we need. 
 
 Yet must our steadfastness be tried — 
 
 Yet must our graces grow 
 By holy warfare. What beside 
 
 Did we expect below ? 
 Is not the way to heavenly gain 
 
 Through earthly grief and loss ? 
 Rest must be won by toil and pain — 
 
 The crown repays the cross. 
 
 As woods, when shaken by the breeze. 
 
 Take deeper, firmer root ; 
 As winter's frosts but make the trees 
 
 Abound in summer fruit ; 
 So every heaven-sent pang and throe 
 
 That Christian firmness tries, 
 But nerves us for our work below. 
 
 And forms us for the skies. 
 
 He wlio sang like this had all the qualifications of a sweet 
 pensive hymnist; but his intellect and heart must have 
 had long chastening. The cloudy shadows were often 
 upon him. Though of somewhat gentle blood, coming 
 into the world at Kelso, in June, 1793, and having all the 
 early advantage of a much-beloved mother's gentle influ- 
 ence and holy lessons, he was soon made to feel the misery 
 of narrow resources, and had to struggle hard for the 
 benefit of a liberal education. His superior and versatile 
 talent, in happy association with firm integrity and amiable 
 temper, opened his way to academical honour, and at last 
 to a "dreary" Irish curacy. While tenderly and faith- 
 fully watching a brother clergyman in his last moments, 
 his own heart was made free by the truth which sustained 
 the dying Christian. But watchings by the sick, and sub- 
 sequent labours on behalf of the bereaved widow and her 
 children, overtaxed his system, and he sank into that con- 
 sumptive tendency which brought frequent clouds over 
 him all through his remaining life. He travelled on the 
 Continent ; and on his return, after trying the climate of 
 
294 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Bristol, and, " after being jostled about from one curacy 
 to another," be settled for a time as lecturer, in the quiet 
 little town of Marazion, on the shore of the beautiful bay 
 of Mount St. Michael, in Cornwall. Here he married. 
 Then, he is found at Lymington, writing poems and the 
 tales that so charmed Professor Wilson. Then on the 
 banks of the Dart, in South Devon. Those who have had 
 the joy of gliding on the waters of that lovely river well 
 remember its strange twists and turns — especially at one 
 point, where it turns back on its course, and where, in 
 following it, we seem now to be plunging into a depth of 
 oaken woods, and now are suddenly amidst an open 
 amphitheatre of leafy heights rising one above another, 
 and opening here and there into bright green lawns and 
 ferny slopes. Around a point, and there, under the 
 shelter of hills crowned with billowy foliage, her line of 
 rustic roofs just peeping above the many masses of copse 
 and garden verdure, in dreamy stillness, and in simple and 
 homely beauty, is the village of Dittisham. There the 
 wandering curate nestled in a cottage ; going out now and 
 then to officiate at Lower Brixham. Brixham was at last 
 his parish ; and there, for twenty years, he toiled in his 
 pastorate imder many a cloud — clouds of personal suffer- 
 ing, clouds of pastoral difficulty and discom'agement. To 
 his tender, sensitive nature, the peculiar condition of his 
 flock must frequently have been a source of trial. His 
 charge was the busy, shrewd, somewhat rough, but warm- 
 hearted population of a fishing coast and sea-faring dis- 
 trict, which had been subjected to all the corrupting influ- 
 ences peculiar to the neighbourhood of naval and military 
 forces during the French war. The social character of his 
 flock had been rendered still more difficult to deal with by 
 the religious prejudices which had sprung up amidst the 
 doctrinal strife between the disciples of such teachers as 
 Dr. Hawker of Plymouth, and their Arminian opponents. 
 The form and face of one old Arminian is still remembered 
 at Brixham — one who was always apt at argument, but 
 who was inexhaustible, too, in the use of sarcasm where 
 argument seemed to be pointless. He was seen one Sun- 
 day morning, just outside the door of the Calvinist chapel, 
 bending over the margin of a filthy pool. As the congre- 
 gation came out, he was in the act of stirring up the 
 
HYMNS FROM BENEATH THE CLOUD. 295 
 
 stagnant water -with a long stick. "What are you look- 
 ing for ? " said his theological antagonists, as they gathered 
 around him. " I am searching," said he, without looking 
 up, but still stirring up the mud, "I am searching for the 
 'eternal decrees'!" Among a people capable of such 
 modes of religious strife, and with characters so complicated, 
 and imder the sway of so many influences, Mr. Lyte would 
 have many a cloud passing over his spirits during his 
 course of pastoral labour. But he never shrank from work. 
 His heart never quailed in suffering. But he solaced 
 himself, and frequently softened and subdued the hard 
 natures around him with hymns from under the cloud. He 
 made hymns for his little ones, and hymns for his hardy 
 fishermen, and hymns for sufferers like himself. How 
 many a cloudy day was cheered by a song like this ! — 
 
 My spirit on Thy care, 
 
 Blest Saviour, I recline ; 
 Thou wilt not leave me to despair, 
 
 For Thou art love Divine. 
 
 In Thee I place my trust. 
 
 On Thee I calmly rest ; 
 I know Thee good, I know Thee just. 
 
 And count Thy choice the best. 
 
 ' Whate'er events betide. 
 
 Thy will they all perform ; 
 Safe in Thy breast my head I hide, 
 Nor fear the coming storm. 
 
 Let good or ill bef al. 
 
 It must be good for me ; 
 Secure of having Thee in all, 
 
 Of having all in Thee. 
 
 The Brixham hymnist' s days were numbered. His strength 
 gradually failed. The climate of Italy was several times 
 tried ; and his life was spun out for a little while. But 
 the end must come. The autumn of 1847 was approaching, 
 and he must needs take his last journey to the genial south. 
 It was always hard to leave his dear Berry Head. " They 
 tell me," says he, " that the sea is injurious to me. I hope 
 not ; for I know of no divorce I should more deprecate than 
 from the lordly ocean. Prom childhood it has been my 
 friend and playmate, and never have I been weary of 
 gazing on its glorious face. Besides, if I cannot live by 
 
296 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 the sea, adieu to poor Berry Head — adieu to the wild 
 birds, and wild flowers, and all the objects that have made 
 my old residence so attractive." But by-and-by he adds, 
 "I am meditating flight again to the south. The little 
 faithful robin is every morning at my window, sweetly 
 warning me that autumnal hours are at hand. The 
 swallows are preparing for flight, and inviting me to 
 accompany them ; and yet, alas ! while I talk of flying, I 
 am just able to crawl, and ask myself whether I shall be 
 able to leave England at all." He did go, never to return. 
 Before he went, he wished once more to preach to his 
 people. His family was alarmed at the thought ; but he 
 gently replied, "It is better to loear out than to rust out." 
 He felt equal to this last effort, and had no fear. He 
 preached. It was on the " Holy Communion," and it was 
 solemnly significant to hear him say, " Oh, brethren, I can 
 speak feelingly, experimentally, on this point ; and I stand 
 here among you seasonably to-day, as alive from the dead, 
 if I may hope to impress it upon you, and induce you to 
 prepare for that solemn hour, which must come to all, by 
 a timely acquaintance with, appreciation of, dependence 
 on, the death of Christ." This was his last appeal. And 
 for the last time he dispensed the sacred elements to his 
 sorrowing flock ; and then, exhausted with his effort, he 
 retired with a soul in sweet repose on that Christ whom 
 he had preached with his dying breath. And as the 
 evening drew on he handed to a near and dear relative 
 those undying verses, and his own adapted music for the 
 hymn : — 
 
 Abide with me ! Fast falls the eventide ; 
 The darkness deepens ; Lord, with me abide ! 
 When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, 
 Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me ! 
 
 Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day ; 
 Earth's joys grow dim ; its glories pass away ; 
 Change and decay in all around I see ; 
 Thou, who changest not, abide with me ! 
 
 Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word, 
 But as Thou dwell'st with Thy disciples, Lord, 
 Familiar, condescending, patient, free, 
 Come, not to sojourn, but abide with me! 
 
HYMNS FROM BENEATH THE CLOUD. 297 
 
 Come not in terrors, as the Eang of kings, 
 But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings : 
 Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea, 
 Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me ! 
 
 Thou on my head in early youth didst smile, 
 And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile, 
 Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee, 
 On to the close, O Lord, abide with me ! 
 
 I need Thy presence every passing hour, 
 What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power ? 
 Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be, 
 Through cloud and sunshine, oh, abide with me ! 
 
 I fear no foe with Thee at hand to bless : 
 Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness. 
 Where is death's sting? where, grave, thy victory ? 
 I triumph still, if Thou abide with me. 
 
 Hold, then, Thy cross before my closing eyes ; 
 Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies ; 
 Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee. 
 In life and death, Lord, abide with me ! 
 
 This was his last hymn upon earth. He reached Nice, 
 and there his spirit entered into rest. He pointed upwards 
 in passing, and murmured softly, "peace," "joy!" while 
 his face brightened into smiles as the shadow of his last 
 cloud melted before the " Light of Life." 
 
 Lyte was not the first pastor and preacher who was 
 used to sing hymns under the cloud. The complex 
 opinions and tempers of society around him in his parish, 
 often perplexing his soul, and making it less easy to keep 
 up his spirits under personal affliction, might remind us of 
 the strange varieties of rehgious and social life which 
 distinguished the times of Eichard Baxter ; and probably 
 aggravated that good pastor's sufferings in his own person. 
 No student of curiosities in human life and character coidd 
 possibly desire a more rare and comprehensive collection 
 of religious party freaks, fancies, and monstrous delusions, 
 than clustered within the range of Eichard Baxter's 
 observation. With multiform battalions of Presbyterians, 
 Independents, and Anabaptists, there were Familists 
 begotten in the hotbeds of America, Seekers, Eanters, 
 Quakers, and the stunned and astonished admirers of 
 Jacob Behmen — all pressing their bewildering claims 
 
298 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 upon Ms notice. How many a trial of faith and patience 
 must he have had amidst his opportunities of insight into 
 party complications ! If we may judge from the tone of 
 his remarks on parties at court, some of his heaviest trials 
 from without must have come upon him in his intercourse 
 with Cromwell. He had several interviews with the 
 Protector; and he speaks of being "wearied" with his 
 speeches, and says, "I told him a little of my judgment; 
 and when two of his company had spun out a great deal more 
 of the time in such tedious hut mere ignorant speeches, some 
 four or five hours being spent, I told him that if he would 
 be at the labour to read it, I could tell him more of my 
 mind in writing on two sheets than in that way of speaking 
 in many days. . . . He received my paper, but I scarce 
 believe that he ever read it; fori saw that what he learned 
 m.ust be from himself, being more disposed to speak many 
 hours than to hear one ; and little heeding what another said 
 when he had spoken himself." Who would not like to 
 have had the privilege of a quiet glance or two, first at 
 one and then at the other of those two great antagonist 
 faces, during the grave performance of this comical act ? 
 Wlio can pretend to a conception of the style in which the 
 political chief kept up appearances ? Baxter's visage 
 would of coiirse be true to its mission. A remakable 
 visage was that of his ; never to be forgotten if once seen. 
 Long it was, but decided. Hard, some would say, but 
 telling with fearful eloquence how bravely his righteous 
 soul maintained a life struggle against the acrid humours 
 of a diseased body ; .how superhuman labours for the 
 world's health had been continued amidst losses of blood 
 and daily sweats, brought upon him, he tells us, by 
 "the acrimonious medicaments" of stupid doctors who 
 thought to save him from the effects of a youthful taste 
 for sour apples, by over-doses of "scurvy grass," worm- 
 wood-beer, horse-radish, and mustard ! He looked, indeed, 
 like one who, as a last remedy for a depressing afiliction, 
 had literally swallowed a " gold bullet of thirty shillings' 
 weight," and, having taken it, "knew not how to be 
 delivered of it again!" With all this, the marks of a 
 confessor were traceable on the good man's countenance. 
 He had been driven from place to place. Now, in prison 
 for preaching at Acton ; now, kept out of his pulpit by 
 
HYMSrS FEOM BENEATH THE CLOUD. 299 
 
 a militaiy guard ; now, seized again, and his goods and 
 books sold to pay the fine for preaching five sermons — he 
 being so ill that he could not be imprisoned without, 
 danger of death; and now again, in the King's Bench 
 under a warrant from the villanous Jeffreys, for writing 
 a paraphrase on the New Testament. His later life was 
 often "in peril" for Christ's sake; and there must have 
 been something deeply touching in that impress of digni- 
 fied sorrow which brought tears into the eyes of Judge 
 Hale when he saw the persecuted man standing before the 
 Bench. His presence must have been felt wherever he ap- 
 peared. Everybody who knew him acknowledged his mental 
 and moral grandeur. And yet there was a maziness about 
 the action of his versatile powers which seems to be for 
 ever hindering us from completing our estimate of his 
 character. Here, he is seen searching for some mode of 
 efi'ecting a comprehension of religious parties ; there, he 
 seems to be pushing and poking in every direction, just by 
 way of keeping things around him alive ; ever and anon, 
 however, stopping to make distinctions, or stumbling upon 
 some difficulties which keep him back from his object. 
 Now, he is thundering in the pulpit ; now, catechising 
 children; now, lecturing " the powers that be"; now, act- 
 ing the pastor in true plodding style ; now, smelling out 
 heresies, or scenting disguised papists and infidels ; and 
 now, making reformed liturgies for all scrupulous souls. 
 How wondrous is the action of his j)en ! To-day, we see 
 it sketching scenes of " everlasting rest," as if it were an 
 ethereal plume ; to-morrow, it is waving to call up terrors 
 from beneath upon the consciences of sinners. Then again, 
 he wields it as a polemical lance, with all the sharpness 
 and unsparing dexterity of a Saracen knight-errant ; and 
 then, as if instinct with hopeful submission, it gives birth 
 to a hymn from beneath clouds of trial and suffering, 
 thus : — 
 
 Now, it belongs not to my care 
 Whether I die or live ; 
 
 To love and serve Thee is my share, 
 
 And this Thy grace must give. ' 
 
 If death shall bruise this springing seed 
 
 Before it coines to fruit, 
 The -will with Thee goes for the deed, 
 
 Thy life was in the root. 
 
300 HYMN- WRITERS AKD THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Would I long bear my heavy load, 
 
 And keep my sorrows long ? 
 Would I long sin against my God, 
 
 And His dear mercy wrong ? 
 
 How mucli is sinful flesh my foe, 
 
 That doth my soul pervert 
 To linger here in sin and woe, 
 
 And steals from God my heart ! 
 
 Christ leads me through no darker rooms 
 
 Than He went through before ; 
 He that unto God's kingdom comes 
 
 Must enter by this door. 
 
 Come, Lord, when grace hath made me meet 
 
 Thy blessed face to see ; 
 For if Thy work on earth be sweet. 
 
 What will Thy glory be ? 
 
 Then I shall end my sad complaints, 
 
 And weary, sinful days, 
 And join with the triumphant saints 
 
 That sing Jehovah's praise. 
 
 My knowledge of that hfe is small ; 
 
 The eye of faith is dim ; 
 But it 's enough that Christ knows all. 
 
 And I shall be with Him. 
 
 This is among the ever-living fruits of Richard Baxter's 
 trials. He lived to toil and sing amidst clouds of all 
 variety in -weight and shade. But one cloud of more 
 mysterious depth and more awful darkness came at 
 intervals, in a later period, upon a gentler spirit than 
 l^axter, one who seemed far less prepared to rejoice in 
 tribulation. What morbid horrors sometimes wrapped the 
 soul of Cowper ! and yet he sang. His hymns arose even 
 from his depth of depression ; nor was there ever a sweeter, 
 more simple, and trustful hymn from beneath a cloud 
 than this : — 
 
 O Lord, my best desire fulfil. 
 
 And help me to resign 
 Life, health, and comfort to Thy will. 
 
 And make Thy pleasure mine. 
 
 Why should I shrink from Thy command. 
 
 Whose love forbids my fears ? 
 Or tremble at the gracious hand 
 
 That wipes away my tears ? 
 
HYMNS FROM BENEATH THE CLOUD. 301 
 
 No, rather let me freely yield 
 
 What most I prize to Thee, 
 Who never hast a good withheld, 
 
 Or "wilt withhold from m^e. 
 
 Thy favour, all my journey through, 
 
 Thou art engaged to grant ; 
 What else I want, or think I do, 
 
 'Tis better still to want. 
 
 But ah ! my inward spirit cries, 
 
 Still bend me to Thy sway ! 
 Else the next cloud that veils the skies 
 
 Drives all those thoughts away. 
 
 Like Cowper, " Theodosia," or Anne Steele, sjjent 
 her life in quiet retirement, suffering the mysterious 
 will of God alone, or in a retreat to which but few 
 kindred spirits had access. Her rural home, under the 
 shelter of the Hampshire Downs, was to her ceaselessly 
 overshadowed by aiSiction. She was ever bending 
 beneath infirmities which limited her sphere of physical 
 activity; but she exemplified the inspired truth that, 
 though "no chastening for the present seemeth to be 
 joyous, but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth 
 the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them which 
 are exercised thereby." The fruit in her case, as in 
 many others, was to be perpetually renewing itself. 
 Many of her best hymns were the fruit of hallowed 
 affliction, and they live to bring forth "the peaceable 
 fruits of righteousness" in the souls of chastened 
 Christians from generation to generation. How many a 
 heart "desiring resignation and thankfulness" she has 
 taught to sing : — 
 
 When I survey life's varied scene. 
 
 Amid the darkest hours, 
 Sweet rays of comfort shine between, 
 
 And thorns are mix'd with flowers. 
 
 Lord, teach me to adore Thy hand, 
 
 From whence my comforts flow ; 
 And let me in this desert land, 
 
 A glimpse of Canaan know. 
 
 Is health and ease my happy share ? 
 
 Oh, may I bless my God ; 
 Thy kindness let my songs declare, 
 
 And spread Thy praise abroad. 
 
302 HYMN-WEITEES A^T) THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 WMle such delightful gifts as these 
 
 Are kindly dealt to me, 
 Be all my hours of health and ease 
 
 Devoted, Lord, to Thee. 
 
 In griefs and pains Thy sacred word 
 
 (Dear solace of my soul !) 
 Celestial comforts can afford, 
 
 And all their power control. 
 
 When present sufferings pain my heart, 
 
 Or future terrors rise. 
 And light and hope almost depart 
 
 From these dejected eyes : 
 
 Thy powerful word supports my hope. 
 
 Sweet cordial of the mind ; 
 And bears my fainting spirit up, 
 
 And bids me wait resign'd. 
 
 And oh, whate'er of earthly bliss 
 
 Thy sovereign hand denies, 
 Accepted at Thy throne of grace, 
 
 Let this petition rise : 
 
 " Give me a calm, a thankful heart, 
 
 Trom every murmur free ; 
 The blessings of Thy grace impart, 
 
 And let me live to Thee. 
 
 " Let the sweet hope that Thou art mine. 
 
 My path of life attend ; 
 Thy presence through my journey shine, 
 
 And bless its happy end." 
 
 These childlike expressions of Anne Steele's calm resig- 
 nation and heavenly desires yviH, perhaps, bring up in 
 many a heart a feehng of gratitude for the eongs of many 
 other devout but suffering women. Who has not been 
 melted into more perfect resignation, amidst the sorrows 
 of daily life, while singing, in harmony with the family 
 group of an evening, Charlotte Elliott's well-known verses, 
 *' Thy will be done!" 
 
 My God and Father, while I stray 
 Far from my home on life's rough way, 
 Oh teach me from my heart to say, 
 Thy will be done ! 
 
 Though dark my path and sad my lot, 
 Let me be still, and murmur not, 
 Or breathe the prayer divinely taught, 
 Thy will be done ! 
 
HYMNS FROM BENEATH THE CLOUD. 303 
 
 What though in lonely grief I sigh 
 For friends beloved, no longer nigh, 
 Submissive still would I reply, 
 Thy will be done ! 
 
 Though Thou hast called me to resign 
 What most I prized, it ne'er was mine, 
 I have but yielded what was Thine ; 
 Thy wiU be done ! 
 
 Should grief or sickness waste away 
 My life in premature decay, 
 My Father ! still I strive to say, 
 Thy will be done ! 
 
 Let but my fainting heart be blest 
 With Thy sweet Spirit for its guest, 
 My God, to Thee I leave the rest ; 
 Thy will be done ! 
 
 Kenew my will from day to day ; 
 Blend it -with Thine ; and take away 
 All that now makes it hard to say, 
 Thy will be done ! 
 
 Then, when on earth I breathe no more, 
 The prayer, oft mix'd with tears before, 
 I'll sing upon a happier shore. 
 Thy will be done ! 
 
 How this hushes the tremulous heart ! and how gently 
 the touches of its music persuade the soul into repose 
 beneath the "cloud upon the mercy-seat"! Charles 
 Wesley's hymns, entitled, "Believer's Suffering," are of 
 another class. They lack, in most cases, that tender, 
 soothing grace which has distinguished the songs of 
 more retired and less observed sufferers ; but of all hymns 
 beneath clouds of trial, they approach nearest, it may be, 
 to that triumphant faith, unquenchable joy, and boastful 
 reliance on Grod, which St. Paul exemplifies and sets forth 
 in his teaching. So in those fine verses of his : — 
 
 Peace ! doubting heart ; my God's I am ! 
 
 Who form'd me man, forbids my fear : 
 The Lord hath call'd me by my name j 
 
 The Lord protects, for ever near ; 
 His blood for me did once atone. 
 And still He loves and guards His own. 
 
 When passing through the watery deep, 
 I ask in faith His promised aid, 
 
304 HYMN-WKITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 The waves in awful distance keep, 
 
 And shrink from my devoted head ; 
 Tearless their violence I dare, 
 They cannot harm, for God is there. 
 
 To Him mine eye of faith I turn, 
 
 And through the fire pursue my way ; 
 The fire forgets its power to bum. 
 
 The lambent flames around me play ; 
 I own His power, accept the sign, 
 And shout to prove the Saviour mine. 
 
 Still nigh me, my Saviour, stand ! 
 
 And guard in fierce temptation's hour ; 
 Hide in the hollow of Thy hand ; 
 
 Show forth in me thy Saviour's power ; 
 Still be Thy arms my sure defence : 
 Nor earth nor heU shall pluck me thence. 
 
 Since Thou hast bid me come to Thee, 
 (Good as Thou art, and strong to save ;) 
 
 I'll walk o'er life's tempestuous sea, 
 Upborne by the unyielding wave. 
 
 Dauntless, though rocks of pride be near, 
 
 And yawning whirlpools of despair. 
 
 When darkness intercepts the sides, 
 
 And sorrow's waves around us roll, 
 Wlien high the storms of passion rise. 
 
 And half o'erwhelm my sinking soul, 
 My soul a sudden calm shall feel, 
 And hear a whisper, " Peace, be stiU. ! " 
 
 Though in affliction's furnace tried, 
 
 Unhurt on snares and death I'll tread. 
 Though sin assail, and hell, thrown wide, 
 
 Pour all its horrors on my head ; 
 Like Moses' bush, I'll mount the higher. 
 And flourish unconsumed in fire. 
 
 No Christian suiferer can sing this without having St. 
 Paul's utterances amidst tribulation sounding in his ear and 
 in his heart, "We rejoice in hope of the glory of God; 
 and not only so, but we glory in tribulation also, knowing 
 that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experi- 
 ence ; and experience, hope; and hope maketh not ashamed, 
 because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by 
 
 the Holy Ghost which is given unto us I am 
 
 exceeding joyful in all our tribulations Who shall 
 
 sej)arate us from the love of Christ ? shall tribulation, or 
 
HYMNS FROM BENEATH THE CLOUD. 305 
 
 distress, or persecution, or famine, or peril, or sword ? 
 Nay,- in all tliese things we are more than conquerors 
 through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that 
 neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
 powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, 
 nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate 
 us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our 
 Lord." 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 EYMNS OF GETHSEMANE AND TEE CROSS. 
 
 " Grod forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ." 
 
 There are some doctrines of Christianity which all true 
 believers acknowledge as peculiarly sacred — doctrines 
 whose proper place in the Christian systena is far removed 
 from the inquisitive touch of mere reason ; so that they 
 stand confessedly exempt from the test of human contro- 
 versy. Such doctrines seem to be the " heavenly things" 
 which answer to the most hallowed types of former ages. 
 Like the consecrated symbols of the " holiest place," they 
 are designed neither to gratify the eye of vain curiosity, 
 nor to furnish the disputer with materials for strife. No, 
 they are never to be approached but for purposes of 
 devotion. Among these inviolable truths is the doctrine 
 of the cross. This excites the highest devotion of the 
 glorified ; while it is viewed with the deepest veneration 
 by " the holy church throughout all the world." What the 
 ark or the altar was to the ancient Jew, the cross is to the 
 true Christian, his holiest thing. While he comes to it as 
 his guide to the mercy-seat, it is his joy, his glory, his life ; 
 but when he carries it into the battle-field, he loses his 
 Shekinah, and that in which he gloried is profaned by the 
 aliens of Askalon and Gath. While he comes to the altar 
 of the cross with his hands washed in innocency, he 
 receives the blessings of a propitiation; but when he 
 ventures to mutilate the altar that he may secure weapons 
 for theological combat, he is in danger of being scathed by 
 the fire which but now had kindled his sacrifice. Hence 
 there is nothing which revelation so carefully guards as the 
 
HYMNS FROM GETHSEMANE AND THE CROSS. 307 
 
 cross of Jesus Christ. Around this the angels make their 
 circles, with holy desire to look into its mysteries. By this, 
 Moses and the prophets take their stand, and pour around 
 it the jasper light of visions and the glory of prophetic 
 oracles. Here are trains of typical priests, attended by the 
 prefigurations of bleeding victims and sacrificial patterns. 
 By the scene of agony and the cross, apostles and martyrs 
 bear "witness, and watch, and pray. Of the cross they 
 write and speak ; for the cross they toil, and suffer, and die. 
 The cross is their only altar, their highest boast, their 
 strength in life, their hope in death, their song in heaven. 
 What a mysterious hush comes over the soul at the mention 
 of Grethsemane ! What a holy charm is there in the cross ! 
 How deeply the heart, in its best moments, responds to 
 the name of Christ crucified ! — 
 
 Is it not strange, the darkest hour 
 
 That ever dawn'd on sinful earth 
 Should touch the heart with softer power 
 For comfort, than an angel's mirth ? 
 That to the cross the mourner's eye should turn, 
 Sooner than where the stars of Christmas bum ? 
 
 Tet so it is : for duly there 
 
 The bitter herbs of earth are set. 
 Till temper'd by the Saviour's prayer, 
 And with the Saviour's life-blood wet, 
 They turn to sweetness, and drop holy balm, 
 Soft as imprison'd martyr's death-bed calm. 
 
 But those only know this " sweetness" who have felt the 
 bitterness of sin, and have come to Calvary hopeless of 
 healing balm from every other source. Nor has any 
 human psalmist ever breathed the spirit of Gethsemane or 
 the cross until his own heart has been agonized by a sense 
 of its sinfulness, and, by virtue of the Eedeemer's blood, 
 has been melted into loving sympathy with his suffering 
 Lord. No mere genius can worthily sing of the "agony 
 and bloody sweat." No unhallowed poetic intellect has 
 ever produced a hymn replete with the Divine life and 
 saving power of the cross. Those hymns of Gethsemane 
 and the cross which are most precious to saintly hearts, 
 and which will be sung with deeper and deeper feeling by 
 every coming generation of English Christians, are from 
 the pens of those whose will and affections have been most 
 
308 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 profoundly hallowed in fellowship with Him whose soul, 
 for our sakes, was " exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." 
 One of these has said, "The week before Easter, 1757, I 
 had such an amazing view of the agony of Christ in the 
 garden, as I know not well how to describe. I was lost in 
 wonder and adoration ; and the impression was too deep, 
 I believe, ever to be obliterated. I shall say no more of 
 this ; but only remark, that, notwithstanding all that is 
 talked about the sufferings of Jesus, none can know any- 
 thing of them, but by the Holy Ghost ; and I believe, that 
 he that knows most knows but very little. It was then I 
 made the first part of my hymn ' On the Passion.' " That 
 hymn remains, thus : — 
 
 Come, all ye chosen saints of God 
 That long to feel the cleansing blood, 
 In pensive pleasures join with me 
 To sing of sad G-ethsemane. 
 
 Gethsemane, the olive press ! 
 (And why so call'd let Christians guess,) 
 Fit name, fit place, where vengeance strove. 
 And grip'd and grappled hard with love. 
 
 'Twas here the Lord of life appeared, 
 
 And sigh'd, and groan'd, and pray'd, and fear'd ! 
 
 Bore all Incarnate God could bear, 
 
 "With strength enough, and none to spare. 
 
 The powers of hell united pressed. 
 
 And squeezed His heart, and bruised His breast. 
 
 What dreadful conflicts raged within. 
 
 When sweat and blood forced through the skin ! 
 
 Despatched from heaven an angel stood, 
 Amazed to find Him bathed in blood ; 
 Adored by angels, and obeyed ; 
 But lower now than angels made ! 
 
 He stood to strengthen, not to fight : 
 Justice exacts its utmost mite. 
 This Victim vengeance will pursue : 
 He undertook, and must go through. 
 
 Three favoured servants, left not far, 
 Were bid to wait and watch the war ; 
 But Christ withdrawn, what watch we keep 
 To shun the sight, they sank in sleep. 
 
 Backwards and forwards thrice He ran, 
 As if He sought some help from man : 
 Or wished, at least, they would condole 
 ('Twaa all they could) His tortured soul. 
 
HYMNS FEOM GETHSEMANE AND THE CROSS. 309 
 
 Whate'er He sought for, there was none : 
 Our Captain fought the field alone. 
 Soon as the Chief to battle led, 
 That moment every soldier fled. 
 
 Mysterious conflict ! dark disguise ! 
 Hid from all creatures' peering eyes. 
 Angels astonish' d view'd the scene, 
 And wonder yet what all could mean. 
 
 O Mount of Olives, sacred grove ! 
 
 O garden, scene of tragic love ! 
 
 What bitter herbs thy beds produce ! 
 
 How rank their scent, how harsh their juice ! 
 
 Rare virtues now these herbs contain ; 
 The Saviour suck'd out all their bane. 
 My mouth with those if conscience cram, 
 I'll eat them with the Paschal Lamb. 
 
 O Kedron, gloomy brook, how foul 
 Thy black, polluted waters roll ! 
 No tongue can tell, but some can taste, 
 The filth that into thee was cast. 
 
 In Eden's garden there was food 
 
 Of every kind for man while good ; 
 
 But banish' d hence, we flee to thee, i 
 
 O garden of Gethsemane ! 
 
 The hymnist who thus so deeply sympathized with his 
 agonizing Lord was Joseph Hart, who, from 1760 to 1768, 
 was the earnest, eloquent, and much-beloved minister of 
 the congregation which met in the old wooden meeting- 
 house in Jewin Street, built in 1672 for the well-known 
 William Jenkyn. Born in London, about the year 1712, 
 and brought up by j)ious parents, he began, when 
 entering on manhood, to be deeply anxious about his 
 personal salvation. For seven years his life was, as he 
 tells us, "an uneasy, restless round of sinning and 
 repenting, working and dreading. At length the Lord 
 was pleased to comfort me a little by enabling me to 
 appropriate, in some measure, the merits of the Saviour to 
 my own soul. In this blessed state my continuance was 
 but short, for, rushing impetuously into notions beyond my 
 experience, I hasted to make myself a Christian by mere 
 doctrine, adopting other men's opinions before I had tried 
 them ; and set up for a great light in religion, disregarding 
 
310 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 the internal work of grace began in my soul by tlie Holy 
 Ghost. This liberty, assumed by myself and not given by 
 Christ, soon grew to libertinism, in which I took large 
 progressive strides, and advanced to a dreadful height, both 
 in principle and practice. In a word, I ran such dangerous 
 lengths both of carnal and spiritual wickedness, that I even 
 outwent professed infidels, and shocked the irreligious and 
 profane with my horrid blasphemies and monstrous im- 
 pieties. . , In this abominable state I continued for 
 more than ten years. . . , Then I began by degrees to 
 reform a little, and to live in a more soberly and orderly 
 manner. . . . For several years I went on in this easy, cool, 
 smooth, and indolent manner, with a lukewarm, insipid 
 kind of religion. . . . But the fountains of the great deeps 
 of my sinful nature were not broken up. . . . Nor was 
 the blood of Christ effectually applied to my soul. I 
 looked on His death, indeed, as the grand sacrifice for sin, 
 but I did not see the inestimable value of His blood and 
 righteousness clearly enough to make me abhor myself, and 
 count all things but dung and dross. On the contrary, 
 when I used to read the Scriptures (which I now did con- 
 stantly, both in English and the original languages), though 
 my mind was often affected, and my understanding illumi- 
 nated by many passages that treated of the Saviour, yet I 
 was so far from seeing or owning that there was such a 
 necessity for His death, and that it could be of such infinite 
 value as is represented, that I have often resolved — oh, the 
 horrible depth of man's fall, and the desperate wickedness 
 of the human heart ! — that I never would believe it. After 
 a time, I fell into a deep despondency of mind, and, 
 shunning all company, I went about alone, bewailing my 
 sad and dark condition. . . . This suffering was aggravated 
 by physical infirmity and pain, and in this sad state I went 
 moping about till Whit Sunday, 1757, when I haj)pened to 
 go in the afternoon to the Moravian ChajDel in Fetter Lane. 
 The minister j)reached from Eev. iii. 10. I was much im- 
 pressed. I thought of hastening to Tottenham Court 
 Chapel, but presently altered my mind, and returned to 
 my own house. I was hardly got home, when I felt myself 
 melting away into a strange softness of affection which 
 made me fling myself on my knees before God. My 
 horrors were immediately expelled, and such light and 
 
HYMNS FROM GETHSEMANE AND THE CROSS. 311 
 
 comfort flowed into my heart as no words can paint. The 
 Lord, by His Spirit of love, came not in a visionary manner 
 into m.j brain, but with such Divine power and energy into 
 my soul that I was lost in blissful amazement. I cried 
 out, 'What, me. Lord?' His Spirit answered in me, 
 'Yes, thee ! ' I objected, ' But I have been so unspeak- 
 ably vile and wicked ! ' The answer was, ' I pardon thee 
 freely and fully ! ' The alteration I then felt in my soul 
 was as sudden and palpable as that which is experienced 
 by a person staggering and almost sinking under a burden 
 when it is immediately taken from his shoulders. Tears 
 ran in streams from my eyes for a considerable while, and 
 I was so swallowed up in joy and thankfulness that I 
 hardly knew where I was. I threw myself willingly into 
 my Saviour's hands; lay weeping at His feet, wholly 
 resigned to His will, and only begging that I might, if He 
 were graciously pleased to permit it, be of some service to 
 His' Church and people. . . . Jesus Christ and Him 
 crucified is now the only thing I desire to know. AH 
 things to me are rich only when they are enriched with the 
 blood of the Lamb." In this remai-kable course of soul 
 discipline, and this deep experience of Divine mercy through 
 the sufferings and death of the Saviour whom he had 
 blasphemed, is to be found the secret of that spiritual fresh- 
 ness and touching power of his hymn on the " passion and 
 the cross." None but a heart like his could have uttered 
 his hymn on Grood Friday : — 
 
 Oh ! what a sad and doleful night 
 
 Preceded that day's mom, 
 When darkness seized the Lord of light. 
 
 And sin by Chi-ist was borne ! 
 
 When our intolerable load 
 
 Upon His soul was laid, 
 And the vindictive wrath of God 
 
 Flamed furious on His head ! 
 
 We in our Conqueror well may boast : 
 • • For none but God alone 
 
 Can know how dear the victory cost, 
 How hardly it was won. 
 
 Forth from the garden f uUy tried, 
 
 Our bruised Champion came, 
 To suffer what remain' d beside 
 
 Of pain, and grief, and shame. 
 
312 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Mock'd, spat upon, and crown'd with thorns, 
 
 A spectacle He stood ; 
 His back with scourges lashed and torn, 
 
 A victim bathed in blood. 
 
 NaU'd to the cross throug-h hands and feet. 
 
 He hung in open 'vriew ; 
 To make His sorrows quite complete, 
 
 By God deserted too ! 
 
 Through nature's works the woes He felt 
 
 With soft infection ran ; 
 The hardest things could break or melt, 
 
 Except the heart of man ! 
 
 This day before Thee, Lord, we come, 
 
 Oh, melt our hearts, or break ; 
 For, should we now continue dumb. 
 
 The very stones would speak ! 
 
 True, Thou hast paid the heavy debt, 
 
 And made believers clean ; « 
 
 But he knows notliing of it yet 
 Who is not grieved at sin. 
 
 A faithful friend of grief partakes ; 
 
 But union can be none 
 Betwixt a heart like melting wax 
 
 And hearts as hard as stone ; 
 
 Betwixt a Head diffusing blood. 
 
 And members sound and whole ; 
 Betwixt an agonizing God, 
 
 And an unfeeling soul. 
 
 Lord, my long'd happiness is full, 
 
 When I can go with Thee 
 To Golgotha: the place of skull 
 
 Is heav'n on earth to me ! 
 
 With, a soTil thus finding its heaven at the foot of the 
 cross, and overflowing with the love of Christ, and pity 
 and compassion for those whose sins were laid upon Jesus, 
 and to whom his Divine Master was saying, " Come unto 
 me," Mr. Hart had his way opened to the pulpit' in Jewin 
 Street, where, for eight years, he zealously and afi'ection- 
 ately pressed the invitations of his Lord upon the hearts 
 of his fellow-men. Nor can the spirit of his ministry be 
 better expressed than in his simple, warm, and persuasive 
 hymn, entitled, " Come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ : " — 
 
HYMNS FKOM GETHSEMANE AND THE CEOSS. 313 
 
 Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched, 
 
 Weak and wounded, sick, and sore ; 
 Jesus ready stands to save you. 
 
 Full of pity, joined with power, 
 He is able. 
 
 He is willing ; doubt no more. 
 
 Ho ! ye needy, come, and welcome, 
 
 God's free bounty glorify ; 
 True belief, and true repentance, 
 
 Ev'ry grace that brings us nigh, 
 Without money. 
 
 Come to Jesus Christ and buy. 
 
 Let not conscience make you linger. 
 
 Nor of fitness fondly dream ; 
 All the fitness He requireth, 
 
 Is to feel your need of Him. 
 This He gives you ; 
 
 'Tis the Spirit's rising beam. 
 
 Come, ye weary, heavy-laden. 
 
 Bruised and mangled by the fall ; 
 If you tarry till you're better. 
 
 You will never come at all. 
 Not the righteous, 
 
 Sinners Jesus came to call. 
 
 View Him grov'lling in the garden, 
 
 Lo ! your Maker prostrate lies ; 
 On the bloody tree behold Him ! 
 
 Hear Him cry before He dies, 
 " It isfinish'd! " 
 
 Sinner, will not this suffice ? 
 
 Lo ! th' incarnate God ascended 
 
 Pleads the merits of His blood ; 
 Venture on Him, venture wholly. 
 
 Let no other trust intrude. 
 None but Jesus 
 
 Can do helpless sinners good. 
 
 Saints and angels, join'd in concert, 
 
 Sing the praises of the Lamb ; 
 While the blissful seats of heaven 
 
 Sweetly echo with His name. 
 HaUeluiah ! 
 
 Sinners here may sing the same. 
 
 All who are familiar with hymns of the cross will always 
 associate the names of two hymnists in loving companion- 
 ship at the Saviour's feet, the names of two men of differ- 
 
314 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS, 
 
 ent training and different temper, in some tilings alike, 
 and yet unlike — Newton and Cowper — more happy in their 
 union as hymnists than in the fruit of their spiritual 
 fellowship. There was Newton on the banks of the Ouse, 
 with his iron frame still unbroken by the hardships, 
 changes, and excesses of an ungodly life, spent in hostile 
 climates and on shipboard, now giving his redeemed 
 energies to Christ, and pouring forth the peace, and joy, 
 and hoj)e, and love of his regenerated nature from the 
 pulpit, and in his Olney hymns. Ever alive to the virtue 
 of the atonement, he touchingly records the story of his own 
 conversion in the hymn which he teaches us to sing while 
 " looking at the cross " : — 
 
 In evil long I took delight, 
 
 Unawed by shame or fear, 
 Till a new object struck my sight, 
 
 And stopp'd my wild career. 
 
 I saw One hanging on the tree. 
 
 In agonies and blood, 
 Who fixed His languid eyes on me, 
 
 As near Hi^ cross I stood. 
 
 Sure never till my latest breath 
 
 Can I forget that look ; 
 It secm'd to charge me with His death, 
 
 Though not a word He spoke. 
 
 My conscience felt and own'd the guilt, 
 
 And plunged me in despair ; 
 I saw my sins His blood had spilt, 
 
 And help'd to nail Him there. 
 
 Alas ! I knew not what I did, 
 
 But now my tears are vain ; 
 Where shall my trembling soul be hid ? 
 
 For I the Lord have slain. 
 
 A second look He gave, which said 
 
 " I freely all forgive ; 
 The blood is for thy ransom paid, 
 
 I die that thou may'st live." 
 
 Thus, while His death my sin displays 
 
 In all its blackest hue, 
 (Such is the mystery of grace), 
 
 It seals my pardon too. 
 
HYMNS FROM GETHSEMANE AND THE CROSS. 315 
 
 With pleasing grief, and mournful joy. 
 
 My spirit now is fill'd, 
 That I should such a life destroy, 
 
 Yet live by Him I kill'd. 
 
 There, too, was the timid, gentle Cowper, ever tremu- 
 lous as lie thought of eternal woe. There, on the banks 
 of the same quiet Ouse, brooding over the inward horrors 
 of his diseased imagination, yet ever proving to those 
 around him the goodness of his heart, and out of his 
 gracious treasures preparing blessings for the future 
 generations of those- who love purity, beauty, and truth. 
 Unhappy, and yet happy Cowper ! Who does not weep 
 over his sorrows? Who does not bless heaven for his 
 genius, his devotion, and his works ? AVho does not, as he 
 speeds past on the rail, look with a sigh and a smile upon 
 his quiet birth-place, Berkhampstead, still reposing in its 
 verdant hollow ? And few, perhaps, as the old tower of 
 his father's church is lost to sight, will fail to indulge in 
 pensive thoughts about the pensive man, who, after a 
 youth-tide spent " from morning to night in giggling and 
 making giggle," was found shattered and broken in 
 spirits, victimized by morbid melancholy, living, as he tells 
 us, like one descending a ladder which dipped into the 
 infernal regions, until he hung on the last frail step, only 
 needing a touch to send him for ever into the fiery abyss. 
 Now at Huntingdon, now at Olney, and then at Weston. 
 Ministered to, as by angels, by his Mary, Mrs. Unwin, 
 Lady Austen, and Lady Hesketh ; tormented ever and 
 anon by dark fiendish thoughts about himself, he writes 
 for amusement or for relief ; and with a fancy ever fresh, 
 a poetic genius as pvire and clear as the morning, and, 
 amidst all his dreadful fears, with a heart most tenderly 
 alive to good, and most warmly devoted to his Eedeemer, 
 he graced his friend Newton's Olney Hymn-book with 
 many a precious gem, and taught, all who have followed 
 him to the cross to sing of the Blessed One in whose 
 Divine presence he and the kind companions of his fitful 
 life are now for ever at rest. He now realizes the hopes 
 which in one of his happier moments on earth he uttered 
 in that immortal hymn of "Praise for the Fountain 
 Opened ; " that hymn that will always be on some happy 
 lips: — 
 
316 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 There is a foimtain fill'd with blood, 
 
 Drawn from Emmaniiers veins, 
 And sinners plunged beneath that ilood. 
 
 Lose all their guilty stains. 
 
 The dying thief rejoiced to see 
 
 That fountain in his day ; 
 And there have I, as vile as he, 
 
 Wash'd all my sins away. 
 
 Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood 
 
 Shall never lose its power, 
 Till all the ransom' d Church of God 
 
 Be saved to sin no more. 
 
 E'er since by faith I saw the stream 
 
 Thy flowing wounds supply, 
 Redeeming love has been my theme. 
 
 And shall be tiU I die. 
 
 Then in a nobler, sweeter song, 
 
 I'U sing Thy power to save. 
 When this poor lisping, stamm'ring tongue 
 
 Lies silent in the grave. 
 
 Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared 
 
 (Unworthy though I be) 
 For me a blood-bought free reward, 
 
 A golden harp for me ! 
 
 'Tis strung, and tuned, for endless years, 
 
 And formed by power Divine, 
 To sound in God the Father's ears 
 
 No other name but Thine. 
 
 Many consecrated singers gather around the cross ; 
 generation after generation they press upward to the holy 
 scene ; and each brings its tributary hymns. The devoted 
 genius i^ of all variety ; the manner of the music changes 
 as the hymnists follow each other ; but amidst all changes 
 of time, all variations of circumstance, rhythm, rhyme, 
 metre, and tone, the theme is the same, ever fresh, never 
 exhausted — the holy, the mysterious, the life-giving cross. 
 Greek choristers may pass away, Latin hymnists may leave 
 the world — a Wesley, a Toplady, a Hart, a Newton, and a 
 Cowper may cease their mortal psalmody, but voices come 
 on still ; the hymning does not cease. Witness this strain 
 that floated across the Irish Channel a few years ago from 
 one who still lives to sing on a " Good Friday." " And 
 it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness all 
 over the land until the ninth hour" : — 
 
HYMNS FROM GETHSEMANE A2^D THE CROSS. 317 
 
 Dark and dim the daylight rose, 
 Destined with Thy life to close ; 
 With the life Thou didst assume 
 As Thy passport throtigh the tomb ; 
 But a drop in the great sea, 
 Lord, of Thine eternity. 
 
 On the tree accursed dying, 
 
 Death and hell beneath Thee lying, 
 
 There their doom long look'd for meet, 
 
 Crush' d beneath Thy bruised feet ; 
 
 Bitter scorn and cruel pain 
 
 Do their -worst with Thee in vain, 
 
 Por Thou answerest not again ! 
 
 Prayers for them are Thy replies 
 To Thy taunting enemies ; 
 From Thy jjierced side doth flow 
 Medicine for all our woe. 
 
 Thy dear arms outstretch' d we see, 
 Drawing the whole world to Thee ; 
 And that head so meekly bow'd 
 'Neath the momentary cloud. 
 Breathes, with its departing breath, 
 Life accomplished in death. 
 
 Lo ! the veil is rent asunder. 
 Darkness over head, and under ; 
 Graves are open'd, earth doth quake. 
 And the very dead awake. 
 
 Angels who beside Thee kept 
 Watch, and o'er Thy passion wept. 
 Now before Thee, at the gate 
 Of Thy paradise, do wait ; 
 Hymns celestial round Thee pouring. 
 As they bend, the might adoring 
 Of Thy Godhead laid to rest 
 In the regions of the blest. 
 
 Savioui- of Thy people ! Now, 
 With Thy wounded hands and brow. 
 Gone to plead beside the Throne, 
 Thy redemption for Thine own, 
 Grace to seek in large supplies, 
 Even for Thine enemies ; 
 
 Hear us when to Thee we cry, 
 Make us feel that Thou art nigh, 
 Help us when in time of need, 
 We Thy great deliv'rance plead ; 
 Cleanse us with Thy precious blood, 
 Thou gentle Lamb of God ! 
 
318 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 By Thy cross and passion save us ; 
 By the hope those suff' rings gave us ; 
 By Thine agony and sweat ; 
 By Thy prayers on Olivet ; 
 By Thy sighs and by Thy tears ; 
 By Thy people's hopes and fears ; 
 By the peace vouchsafed to Thee 
 When in dark Gethsemane ! 
 
 By the sacramental tide 
 Gushing from Thy wounded side ; 
 By the load of others' sin, 
 That oppress'd Thy soul within ; 
 By the wondrous love Thou bore us, 
 That by death Thou shouldst restore us ; 
 By that mercy and that love, 
 Hear us, Lord, in heav'n above ! 
 
 In the midnight of our sadness, 
 
 In the noontide of our gladness, 
 
 Through each changing scene of life, 
 
 Calm and sunshine, storm and strife ; 
 
 At the last dread parting hour, 
 
 In Thy judgment's might and power — 
 
 Lord, deliver and defend us, 
 Let "Thy Spirit still attend us ; 
 Be Thine eye our leading star, ' 
 Guiding upward from afar ; 
 Here, — the surety Thou art nigh, 
 There, — the blest reality ! 
 
 This fine help to our devotion on the anniversary of the 
 Holy Cross is from the " Parish Musings" of John S. B. 
 Monsell, now the vicar of Egham, in Surrey. And every 
 heart that has learnt to utter a daily litany, and with 
 holy fervour to cry, " By Thine agony and bloody sweat ; 
 By Thy cross and passion. Good Lord deliver us ! " will 
 ever think of the reverend hymnist as one whose 
 "Musings" have kindled holy fire in many, many a 
 heart beside his own. Nor can our gratitude ever equal 
 the blessing which comes upon England in answer to the 
 metrical prayers of her pious laymen ; laymen whose 
 simple and earnest piety adorns many a lordly home of 
 the land ; laymen, who wear their knightly honours in 
 humble dependence on their Saviour ; and who, like Sir 
 Robert Grant, have mind and heart enough to lead the 
 devotions of the multitudes around them, in solemn, 
 litanies like this : — 
 
HYMNS FROM GETHSEMANE AWD THE CROSS. 319 
 
 Saviour, when in dust to Thee 
 
 Low we bend the adoring knee ; 
 When repentant to the skies 
 . Scarce we lift our weeping eyes ; 
 
 Oh ! by all the pains and woe 
 Suffer' d once for man below, 
 Bending from Thy throne on high, 
 Hear our solemn Litany ! 
 
 By Thy helpless infant years ; 
 
 By Thy life of want and tears ; i 
 
 By Thy days of sore distress 
 
 In the savage wilderness ; 
 
 By the dread mysterious hour 
 
 Of th' insulting tempter's power : 
 
 Turn, oh, turn a favouring eye, 
 
 Hear our solemn Litany 1 
 
 By the sacred griefs that wept 
 O'er the grave where Lazarus slept ; 
 By the boding tears that flowed 
 Over Salem's loved abode ; 
 By the anguish'd sigh that told 
 Treachery lurk'd within Thy fold ; 
 From Thy seat above the sky, 
 Hear our solemn Litany ! 
 
 By Thine hour of dire despair ; 
 By Thine agony of prayer ; 
 By the cross, the nail, the thorn, 
 Piercing spear, and torturing scorn ; 
 By the gloom that veil'd the skies 
 O'er the dreadful sacrifice ! 
 Listen to our humble cry, 
 Hear our solemn Litany ! 
 
 By Thy deep expiring groan ; 
 By the sad sepulchral stone ; 
 By the vault, whose dark abode 
 Held in vain the rising God ; 
 Oh ! from earth to heaven restored, 
 Mighty re-ascended Lord, 
 Listen, listen to the cry 
 Of our solemn Litany ! 
 
 Calvary was a scene of mournful attraction to the 
 "women wLich followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering 
 unto Him. Among which was Mary Magdalene, and 
 Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of 
 Zebedee's children." Blessed women ! To them it was a 
 dark day indeed. That cross was to them a bitter cross ; 
 
320 HYMN-WEITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 for it was the cross of their beloved Master. But they 
 found life in that very cross ; and out of that deep darkness 
 came the light of life, healing for ever their broken hearts. 
 Women have never ceased to surround the cross. They 
 come from age to age, not from Galilee merely, but from 
 far off among the Grentiles. Theirs has been the deepest 
 homage ; theirs the warmest devotion ; theirs the profound- 
 est sympathy; theirs the sweetest songs. Among the 
 women, the English women, who have loved the cross, and 
 sung of its salvation, Caroline Bowles, afterwards Mrs. 
 Southey, has left one touching proof of her own living, 
 happy interest in her Saviour's death. It comes to us in a 
 hymn which devoutly records her own heart's experience 
 on Calvary ; while it affords the secret of that Christian 
 tenderness which she exempHfied as the gentle and pious 
 helpmeet of the declining and departing Southey. Her 
 hymn beautifully shows the harmony between reverent 
 peacefulness and holy joy in all true devotion to the cross : 
 thus : — 
 
 Down from the willow bough 
 
 My slumbering harp I'll take. 
 And bid its silent strings 
 
 To heavenly themes awake ; 
 Peaceful let its breathings be 
 When I sing of Calvary. 
 
 Love, love divine I sing ; 
 
 Oh for a seraph's lyre, 
 Bathed in Siloa's stream, 
 
 And touch' d with living fire ; 
 Lofty, pure the strain should be 
 When I sing of Calvary. 
 
 Love, love on earth appears. 
 
 The wretched throng His way ; 
 He beareth all their griefs, 
 
 He wipes their tears away ! 
 Soft and sweet the strain should be, 
 Saviour, when I sing of Thee. 
 
 He saw me as He passed, 
 
 In hopeless sorrow lie, 
 Condemned and doomed to death. 
 
 And no salvation nigh ; 
 Loud and long the strain should be, 
 When I sing His love to me. 
 
HYMNS FROM GETHSEMANE AJS^D THE CEOSS. 321 
 
 "I die for thee," He said — 
 
 Behold the cross arise ; 
 And lo, He bows His head — 
 
 He bows His head and dies. 
 Soft, my harp, thy breathing be, 
 Let me weep on Calvary. 
 
 He lives ! again He lives ! 
 
 I hear the voice of love, 
 He comes to soothe my fears, 
 
 And draw my soul above ; 
 Joyful now the strain should be, 
 When I sing of Calvary. 
 
CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 FUNERAL HYMNS. 
 
 " So when even was come, the Lord of the vineyard saith imto his 
 steward, Call the labourers, and give them theii- hire." 
 
 Who has not gone to the grave-side often enoiigli, even 
 during a short life, to become mournfully familiar with 
 the solemn magnificence of our English Burial Ser- 
 vice? It can scarcely be said which is the more deeply 
 impressive, the holy fervour, reverent submission, soaring 
 faith, and heavenward swell of the jDrayers, or the simple 
 grandeur of the anthems, awing and melting us by turns. 
 Now the soul kindles, and now it softens into tears ; and 
 now again its death-song becomes intense with prayerful 
 feeling, as the utterances rise : — 
 
 In the midst of life we are in death : 
 
 Of whom may we seek for succour 
 
 But of Thee, '0 Lord! 
 
 Who for our sins art justly displeased. 
 
 Yet, Lord God most holy, 
 
 Lord most mighty, 
 
 O holy and most merciful Saviour, 
 
 Deliver us not into the bitter pains 
 
 Of eternal death ! 
 
 Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts ; 
 
 Shut not Thy merciful ears to our prayer ; 
 
 But spare us. Lord most holy, 
 
 God most mighty, 
 
 O holy and merciful Saviour, 
 
 Thou most worthy Judge eternal, 
 
 Suffer us not at our last hour, 
 
 For any pains of death, 
 
 To f aU from Thee ! 
 
FUNERAL HYMNS. 323 
 
 This is an ancient hymn. It comes to us borne along from 
 generation to generation by the voices of nearly a thousand 
 years. Just about the beginning of the tenth century, 
 there was a Swiss monk in the celebrated monastery of St. 
 Gall, whose name was Notker. If not " slow of speech," 
 he lisped, and was, therefore, nicknamed by his brethren, 
 Balbulus. His defect of speech, however, as in the case 
 of many a deep thinker and bright genius, was no check 
 upon his thoughts ; he was a quiet thinker. Nor did it 
 prevent the play of his somewhat hallowed imagination. 
 As he watched the samphire-gatherers fearfully pendant 
 over the brink of death, as they pursued their perilous 
 calling on the precipices around St. Gall, he caught the 
 suggestion of " death in the midst of life ; " and when he 
 saw the bridge-builders at Martinsbruck exposing them- 
 selves every moment to death, in order to secure for the 
 living a safe passage over danger, the suggestion ripened 
 into a fruitful form ; and his monastery was taught to 
 sing or chant the anthem which soon became common to 
 entire Christendom. Notker himself died, and was buried 
 in 912; but his funeral hj'mn will never die while any 
 European Christians live to bury their dead amidst the 
 solemnities of the ancient service for the grave-side. 
 Notker' s hymn long formed a part of the funeral service in 
 Germany ; and Luther's translation of it is still with us, 
 rendered into English thus — 
 
 In the midst of life, behold 
 Death hath girt us round, 
 Whom for help then shall we pray, 
 
 Where shall grace be found ? 
 In Thee, O Lord, alone ! 
 We rue the evil we have done, 
 That Thy wrath on us hath drawn. 
 Holy Lord and God ! 
 Strong and holy God ! 
 Merciful and holy Saviour, 
 
 Eternal God ! 
 Leave us not to sink beneath 
 Those dark pains of bitter death, 
 Kyrie eleison. 
 
 In the midst of death, the jaws 
 
 Of hell against us gape. 
 Who from peril dire as this 
 
 Openeth us escape ? 
 
324 HYMN-"WEITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 'Tis Thou, O Lord, alone ! 
 Our bitter suffering and our sin 
 Pity from Thy mercy win, 
 
 Holy Lord and God ! 
 
 Strong and holy God ! 
 Merciful and holy Saviour ! 
 
 Eternal God ! 
 Let not dread our souls o'erwhelm, 
 Of the dark and burning realm, 
 
 Kyrie eleison. 
 
 In the midst of hell would sin 
 
 Drive us to despair ; 
 Whither shall we flee away ? 
 
 Where is refuge, where ? 
 With Thee, Lord Christ, alone ! 
 For Thou hast shed Thy precious blood, 
 All our sins Thou makest good. 
 
 Holy Lord and God ! 
 
 Strong and holy God ! 
 Merciful and holy Saviour I 
 
 Eternal God, 
 Leave us not to fall on death. 
 From the hope of Thy true faith, 
 
 Kyrie eleison ! 
 
 lu the year 1768, as the month of May was closing, 
 there was a .great gathering in the burial ground of BunhiU 
 Fields. The crowd was densely packed around an open 
 grave, by the side of which stood the Rev. Andrew Kins- 
 man, of Plymouth. He was delivering a funeral oration, 
 in the course of which he said of the departed: — " I had 
 the pleasure of knowing, and, I will say, the honour, too, 
 of preaching the Gospel to his aged parents, who both 
 died in the faith. I knew him to be the son of many 
 prayers years ago ; and from this knowledge, as soon as I 
 had read his ' Experience ' and hymns (believing his tender 
 parents' earnest addresses to the throne of grace for him 
 were in some measure answered), I found my heart warmed 
 with the relation, and my soul knit to the writer. This 
 love led me eagerly to seek after a personal interview, and, 
 from the year 1759, a religious and literary correspond- 
 ence ensued. Oh, how full were his epistles of sound 
 experience ! How sweetly did he write of Jesus and His 
 great salvation ! Since that we have loved as brethi-en 
 and servants of the same Master." The address was 
 ended, and then the multitude lifted up their voices and 
 sang: — 
 
FITNEEAL HYMNS. 325 
 
 Sons of Grod by bless'd adoption, 
 
 View the dead with steady eyes ; 
 What is sown thus in corruption 
 
 Shall in incorruption rise. 
 What is sown in death's dishonour 
 
 Shall revive to glory's light ; 
 What is sown in this weak manner 
 
 Shall be raised in matchless might. 
 
 Earthly cavern, to thy keeping 
 
 We commit our brother's dust ; 
 Keep it safely, softly sleeping, 
 
 Till our Lord demand thy trust. 
 Sweetly sleep, dear saint, in Jesus : 
 
 Thou with us shalt wake from death ; 
 Hold he cannot, though he seize us ; 
 
 We his power defy by faith. 
 
 Jesus, Thy rich consolations 
 
 To Thy mourning people send ; 
 May we all, with faith and patience, 
 
 Wait for our approaching end. 
 Keep from courage, vain or vaimted ; 
 
 For our change our hearts prepare : 
 Give us confidence undaunted. 
 
 Cheerful hope and godly fear. 
 
 The funeral liyinn liad been written by the one whose 
 dust was now covered. The grave was closed, and the 
 stone which was laid upon it is still there ; and those who 
 visit the spot should linger awhile, and think of the youth- 
 ful errors and sins, the dark conflicts, the bitter tears, the 
 spiritual struggles, the sound conversion, the consecrated 
 talents, the faithful ministry, and the fresh and fruitful 
 hymns of Joseph Hart; and when they have caught the 
 fragrance of his memory, and hear the songs of those who 
 still thank God for his ministry in the old meeting-house of 
 Jewin Street, they may be ready to chant the soothing and 
 assuring hymn which arose, in some solemn moments, nearly 
 fifty years ago, from the heart of Henry Hart Milman, 
 whose venerable form is now fast bending towards the 
 sepulchre of his fathers, as if in token that the hymn will 
 soon serve as his own requiem : — 
 
 Brother, thou art gone before us, and thy saintly soul is flown 
 Where tears are wiped from every eye, and sorrow is unknown ; 
 From the burden of the flesh, and from care and fear released, 
 Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. 
 
326 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 The toilsome way thou'st travelled o'er, and borne the heavy load ; 
 But Christ has taught thy weary feet to reach His blest abode : 
 Thou'rt sleeping now, like Lazarus, upon his Father's breast, 
 Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. 
 
 Sin can never taint thee now, nor doubt thy faith assail ; 
 Nor thy meek trust in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit faU : 
 And then thou'rt sure to meet the good, whom on earth thou 
 
 lovedst best. 
 Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. 
 
 Earth to earth, and dust to dust, the solemn priest hath said ; 
 So we lay the turf above thee now, and we seal thy narrow bed ; 
 But thy spii'it, brother, soars away among the faithful blest, 
 Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. 
 
 And when the Lord shall siunmon us, whom thou hast left behind, 
 May we, untainted by the world, as sure a welcome find ! 
 May each, like thee, depart in peace, to be a glorious guest, 
 Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. 
 
 In the same hallowed burial-ground with Joseph Hart 
 lies the body of Susanna "Wesley, the mother of John 
 Wesley and Charles, the Methodist hymnist. She finished 
 her course in a chamber at the very top of the old build- 
 ing at Moorfields. That chamber, during her parting 
 moments, was the scene of intense devotion ; all the saintly 
 woman's daughters sat on her bedside, and sang a requiem, 
 to her parting soul — such a requiem, it may be, as her own 
 son has given us : — 
 
 Happy soul, thy days are ended, 
 
 AH thy mourning days below ; 
 Go, by angel guards attended, 
 
 To the sight of Jesus go ! 
 
 Waiting to receive thy spirit, 
 
 Lo, the Saviour stands above, 
 Shows the purchase of His merit. 
 
 Reaches out the crown of love ! 
 
 Struggle through thy latest passion. 
 
 To thy dear Redeemer's breast, 
 To His uttermost salvation. 
 
 To His everlasting rest. 
 
 For the joy He sets before thee, 
 
 Bear a momentary pain. 
 Die to live the life of glory ; 
 
 Suffer, with thy Lord to reign ! 
 
FTJNERAL HYMNS. 327 
 
 Her ctildren's tremulous song ceased^ and then, says 
 her own son John, " She continued in just the same way as 
 my father was, struggling and gasping for life, tliough, 
 as I could judge by several signs, perfectly sensible, till 
 near four o'clock. I was then going to drink a dish of 
 tea, being faint and weary, when one called me again to 
 the bedside. It was just four o'clock. She opened her 
 eyes wide, and fixed them upward for a moment. Then 
 the lids dropped, and the soul was set at liberty, without 
 one struggle, or groan, or sigh. We stood around the bed, 
 and fulfilled her last request, uttered a little before she 
 lost her speech, ' Children, as soon as I am released, sing 
 a song of praise to Grod. ' " What psalm they sang is not 
 yet recorded ; but that triumphant death-scene would ever 
 live in the souls of those who formed that family choir 
 around the corpse of their gifted, loving, sainted mother. 
 And in the deep, solemn joys of that hour may be found 
 the secret of the inspiration to which we owe several of 
 Charles Wesley's unrivalled hymns. The ' ' psalm of praise 
 to God" which was sung by the bereaved family around 
 the bed of their widowed mother may have given those 
 touches to the hymnist's chastened heart which brought 
 out his Hymn on the Death of a Widow — a hymn which 
 may be supposed to express the triumphant faith which 
 for the moment subdued the more tender feelings of 
 Susanna Wesley's children, and which has many, many a 
 time since then gone swelling upwards from the scene of 
 Christian victory, until the voices of resigned and reliant 
 orphans have mingled with the songs of the reunited 
 parents before God : — 
 
 Give glory to Jesus our Head, 
 
 With all that encompass His throne ; 
 A widow, a widow indeed, 
 
 A mother in Israel is gone ! 
 The winter of trouble is past ; 
 
 The storms of affliction are o'er ; 
 Her struggle is ended at last, 
 
 And sorrow and death are no more. 
 
 The soul hath o'ertaken her mate, 
 
 And caught him again in the sky ! 
 Advanced to her happy estate. 
 
 And pleasure that never shall die ! 
 
328 HYMN-WMTERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Wheii glorified spirits, by sight, 
 
 Converse in their holy abode, 
 As stars in the firmament bright, 
 
 And pure as the angels of God. 
 
 Heaven ! what a triumph is there ! 
 
 Where all in His praises agree ; 
 His beautiful character bear, 
 
 And shine with the glory they see : 
 The glory of God and the Lamb 
 
 (While all in the ecstasy join) 
 Darts into their spiritual frame, 
 
 And gives the enjoyment Divine. 
 
 In loud hallelujahs they sing, 
 
 And harmony echoes His praise ; 
 When, lo ! the Celestial King 
 
 Pours out the full light of His face : 
 The joy neither angel nor saint 
 
 Can bear, so ineffably great ; 
 But, lo ! the whole company faint, 
 
 Ajid heaven is found — at His feet. 
 
 It is probable, too, that his mother's last words, " Sing 
 as soon as I am released," suggested to the son the hymn 
 which so harmonizes with the thoughts and feelings which 
 hallowed her final hour : — 
 
 Blessing, honour, thanks, and praise, 
 
 Pay we, gracious God, to Thee : 
 Thou, in Thine abundant grace, 
 
 Givest us the victory : 
 True and faithful to Thy word, 
 
 Thou hast glorified Thy Son, 
 Jesus Christ, our dying Lord, 
 
 He for us the fight hath won. 
 
 Lo ! the prisoner is released, 
 
 Lighten' d of his fleshly load; 
 Where the weary are at rest, 
 
 He is gather' d unto God. 
 Lo ! the pain of life is past ; 
 
 All his warfare now is o'er ; 
 Death and hell behind are cast. 
 
 Grief and suffering are no more. 
 
 Yes, the Christian's course is run, 
 
 Ended is the glorious strife ; 
 Fought the fight, the work is done. 
 
 Death is swallow' d up of life ! 
 
FTTNEBAL H"SMNS. 329 
 
 Borne by angels on their wings, 
 
 Far from earth the spirit flies, 
 Finds his God, and sits, and sings, 
 
 Triumphing in Paradise. 
 
 Join we then with one accord 
 
 In the new, the joyful song : 
 Absent from our loving Lord 
 
 "We shall not continue long. 
 We shall quit the house of clay, 
 
 We a better lot shall share ; 
 We shall see the realms of day. 
 
 Meet our happy brother there. 
 
 Let the world bewail their dead. 
 
 Fondly of their loss complain ; 
 Brother, friend, by Jesus freed. 
 
 Death to Thee, to us is gain : 
 Thou art enter' d into joy : 
 
 Let the unbelievers mourn ; 
 We in songs our lives employ, 
 
 Till we all to God return. 
 
 There are no funeral hymns equal, on the whole, to 
 Charles Wesley's ; none which so fully express that sub- 
 lime union of solemn awe, victorious faith, and overflowing 
 joy, which is embodied in the writings and examples of 
 inspired men and primitive saints. With a few excep- 
 tions, they are lacking in soft plaintiveness, but in energy 
 and grandeur they are matchless. None but the soul who 
 enjoys a clear and deep interest in eternal life, and has a 
 realizing impression of the nearness of the heavenly world, 
 can sing them with the spirit in which they were written. 
 To be felt in the fidness of their power, they should be 
 heard as they have sometimes been sung by a devout crowd 
 of Cornish miners at the burial of a departed comrade. 
 As a class, or race, Cornish miners seem to be distinguished 
 by a sort of religious instinct or taste. A kind of devo- 
 tional feeling appears to sway them. At all events, their 
 minds soon take a pious turn under the influence of truth, 
 when suitably administered, especially in some of its 
 forms. They are not to be touched by anything religiously 
 cold in spirit, or entirely bald in devotion. To them naked 
 logic is equally powerless with mere figurative swell or 
 wordy show. They must have a union of the sensuous 
 and the practical. Their hearts are to be reached and 
 
330 HYMN- WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 moved most easily through the understanding. To call 
 their intellect into pleasurable exercise about religion is 
 most fully to engage their affections on its behalf. They 
 are, indeed, religiously intelligent in a high degree ; and 
 Mrs. Schimmelpenninck showed that her discrimination as 
 an observer was quite equal to her power of literary expres- 
 sion, when she said that "the Cornishman who seeks 
 religion, seeks it not to inspire him in conversation, but to 
 support him in adversity, or accidents of the most appalling 
 nature, and at the hour of death. Hence, his religion 
 is a religion not of cant, but of spirit and truth." Then, 
 they love music, too, especially sacred music ; and, for 
 the most part, have voices which seem to give out the 
 fine tone of their Christian character. No people have 
 been more benefited by the labours of the Wesleys ; no 
 men, as a class, are better prepared to appreciate Charles 
 "Wesley's funeral hymns ; and none have ever given them 
 more worthy expression. 
 
 Those who have rambled among the remarkable varia- 
 tions of Cornish scenery will remember the picturesque 
 hill of Carnbrae. The wild romantic scramble up among 
 its scattered masses of granite, which lie in heaps among 
 the furze and heath, the venerable fragment of a castle on 
 the top, the curious piles of weather-beaten rocks, looking 
 as if they had been familiar with the lights and shadows 
 of the world's childhood, and the glorious prospect of hill, 
 and plain, and sea, which opens around one — all contri- 
 bute to give a sense of enlargement and exhilaration, 
 strangely associated with feelings of awe, which can never 
 be entirely lost. Amidst the exciting varieties of the 
 more distant prospect, there is something touching in 
 the appearance of a lonely old grey tower at the foot of 
 the hill, speaking to the soul, as it does so plaintively, 
 in memory of a former race of Cornish saints. It is the 
 parish steeple of Redruth. Some few years ago, of a 
 summer's evening, a long crowd was seen passing down 
 the church path from the town, pressing around a bier as 
 if they would affectionately guard it in front, and flank, 
 and rear, and singing as they moved. The strain was 
 measured like their steps, and it was in the minor key, 
 although it seemed at times more like a triumphant shout 
 than a wail of sorrow. They were keeping up the beauti- 
 
FTJNEEAL HYMNS. 331 
 
 ful custom of their fathers, the evening funeral, and the 
 burial hymn from the house of bereavement to the 
 grave. They were singing one of their grandest tunes to 
 one of Charles Wesley's grandest hymns : — 
 
 Rejoice for a brother deceased, 
 
 Our loss is his infinite gain ; 
 A soul out of prison released, 
 
 And free from its bodily chain ; 
 With songs let us follow his flight 
 
 AjQd mount with his spirit above. 
 Escaped to the mansions of light. 
 
 And lodged in the Eden of love. 
 
 Our brother the haven hath gain'd, 
 
 Out-flying the tempest and wind ; 
 His rest he hath sooner obtained, 
 
 And left his companions behind, 
 Still toss'd on a sea of distress, 
 
 Hard toiling to make the blest shore. 
 Where all is assurance and peace, 
 
 And sorrow and sin are no more. 
 
 As the music of the last line melted away, there was 
 the quiet swell of a calm but majestic voice — " I am the 
 resurrection and the life, saith the Lord." — The bier and 
 the train passed into the ancient sanctuary, by and by 
 again to appear, moving towards the grave. The bene- 
 diction had scarcely closed the funeral service before the 
 devout multitude once more lifted up its voice — it was a 
 full, a mighty voice — and pressing around the open grave, 
 they uttered, in thrilling tones, that glowing and im- 
 passioned hymn that seems to melt the earthly and the 
 heavenly into one: — 
 
 Come, let us join our friends above, 
 
 That have obtained the prize. 
 And on the eagle wings of love 
 
 To joys celestial rise. 
 Let all the saints terrestrial sing 
 
 With those to glory gone, 
 For all the servants of our King 
 
 In earth and heaven are one. 
 
 One family, we dwell in Him, 
 
 One church, above, beneath, 
 Though now divided by the stream, 
 
 The narrow stream of death. 
 
332 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 One army of the living God, 
 
 To His command we bow ; 
 Part of His host hath cross' d the flood, 
 
 And part is crossing now. 
 
 Ten thousand to their endless home 
 
 This solemn moment fly : 
 And we are to the margin come, 
 
 And we expect to die ; 
 His militant embodied host 
 
 With wishful looks we stand ; 
 And long to see that happy coast. 
 
 And reach that heavenly land. 
 
 Our old companions in distress 
 
 We haste again to see, 
 And eager long for our release 
 
 And full felicity : 
 Even now by faith we join our hands 
 
 With those that went before. 
 And greet the blood-besprinkled bands 
 
 On the eternal shore. 
 
 Our spirits too shall quickly join. 
 
 Like theirs with glory crown' d, 
 And shout to see our Captain's sign. 
 
 To hear His trumpet sound. 
 Oh ! that we now might grasp our Guide ! 
 
 Oh ! that the word were given ! 
 Come, Lord of Hosts ! the waves divide, 
 
 And land us all in heaven ! 
 
 The swell of the closing appeal was thrilling-. The men's 
 voices were not to be surpassed. Their bass tones were 
 distinctive of their class. It might be supposed that the 
 inimitable deep round fulness, the organ-Kke tone of a 
 Cornish miner's bass voice had some subtle relation to 
 the peculiar atmospheric influences to which his lungs are 
 subject ; so that the music of his voice would seem like an 
 unearthly remembrancer of the fact that a great propor- 
 tion of Cornwall's subterranean workmen are doomed to 
 an early death. Among the singers at that funeral there 
 was one young man who appeared to be rapt while he 
 sang. It seemed as if his music were that of pure spirit. 
 How he kindled as he poured forth some of the last notes ! 
 There was something in his voice, something in his expres- 
 sion, something in the flow of light from his eye, which 
 might be thought to mark him as the next to whom a 
 
FUNERAL HYMNS. 333 
 
 summons from above would come. "Yes," thought one 
 who looked at him that evening under the calm light of 
 the setting sun, " you are singing your own requiem, young 
 man!" And so it was. The one who noted the unmis- 
 takable token of his nearness to the land of his fathers, 
 shortly found him on his deathbed. But he had not lost 
 the spirit of that triumphant hymn. " I am going ! " said 
 he, "I am going! going early ; but God has brightened 
 my short life into a full one ! Oh, those hymns ! they 
 have taught me to live in the light of the future ! They 
 have been * my songs in the house of my pilgrimage ' ! 
 How often when I have sung them down deep in the mine 
 has the darkness been light about me ! Never, since I 
 learnt to praise God from my heart, have I begun to work 
 in the rock for blasting, without stopping a moment to ask 
 myself, ' Now, if the hole should go off about me, am I 
 ready for heaven ? ' Sometimes, sir, there has been a 
 little shrinking and some doubt, and then I have dropped 
 on my knees, and asked God to bless me before I gave one 
 stroke ; and never did I pray in vain ; my prayer has 
 always passed into praise. And those blessed hymns have 
 come bursting from my heart and lipts as I have toiled at 
 the point of death ! Oh, sir ! do you remember our sing- 
 ing at the last funeral ? " " Yes," it was replied, " and 
 some thought then, that you would never eing again;" 
 "Never sing again, sir! why I shall sing for ever! Oh 
 that glorious hymn, let us sing it now ! " And he be- 
 
 Oh ! that we now might grasp our Guide ! 
 
 Oh ! that the word were given ! 
 Come, Lord of Hosts ! the waves divide, 
 
 And land us. . . .land. . . .me. . . .now in 
 
 " Heaven ! " he would have sung, but he was gone ! He 
 had joined another choir ! 
 
 Such uses and such fruits of funeral psalmody might 
 have suggested the lines which a grandson of good Dr. 
 Hawker, of Plymouth, Wesley's contemporary, inscribed 
 on the grave- stone of one of his young parishioners in the 
 quiet burial-place of Morwenstow, on the Cornish coast. 
 The memorial verses are not unworthy of their author, nor 
 of their title, " A Cornish Death-Song : "— 
 
334 HYMN-WEITERS AIJD THEIE HYMNS. 
 
 Sing ! from the chamber to the grave, 
 Thus did the dead man say : 
 
 A sound of melody I crave 
 Upon my biirial day ! 
 
 Bring forth some tuneful instrument, 
 
 And let your voices rise ; 
 My spirit listen'd as it went 
 
 To music of the skies ! 
 
 Sing sweetly as you travel on, 
 And keep the funeral show : 
 
 The angels sing where I am gone, 
 And you should sing below ! 
 
 Sing from the threshold to the porch, 
 
 Until you hear the bell ; 
 And sing you loudly in the church 
 
 The psalms I love so well. 
 
 Then bear me gently to the grave ; 
 
 And as you pass along, 
 Remember 'twas my wish to have 
 
 A pleasant funeral song ! 
 
 So earth to earth — and dust to dust — 
 And though my bones decay, 
 
 My soul shall sing among the just. 
 Until the judgment day! 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 JUDGMENT StMNS. 
 
 " And after these things I heard a voice of much people in heaven, 
 saying, AUekiia ; salvation, and gloty, and honour, and power, unto 
 the Lord our God: for true and righteous are His judgments." 
 
 From age to age the Christian Church has been listening 
 in solemn awe to her Divine Master's utterance, "When 
 the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy 
 angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His 
 glory; and before Him shall be gathered all nations." 
 Nor at any period since the time when the glory of the 
 descending Judge filled the visions of apostles, has the 
 Church entirely lost her sense of the Bridegroom's approach ; 
 there have been seasons of slumber, and many have fallen 
 asleep ; but watchful virgins have always kejjt their lamps 
 trimmed and burning, with oil in their vessels, while their 
 watchful hours have been kept vocal with successive sono-s 
 of holy confidence and patient joyful hope. Scarcely have 
 the tones of one hymn died away before another has been 
 grandly swelling upon the ear of Christendom. In the 
 fourteenth century the music of the Church was becoming 
 faint. Truth was sending out its messages, but in under- 
 tones. Spiritual religion was keeping up its struggling 
 existence within narrow retreats. But even then, as in 
 every crisis of Christian history, there came awakening 
 voices, such as those of Francis of Assissi, and his friend 
 and biographer, Thomas of Celano ; one, the great father of 
 itinerant preaching friars ; the other, that hymnist whose 
 one judgment hymn roused the slumbering choirs of 
 Europe, and still sends forth its deep and solemn music, 
 making sinners' ears tingle, and thrilling the heart of every 
 
336 HYMJ^-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Cliristian generation. Tlie hymn is tlie natural voice of 
 the times which gave it birth. It is the voice of bondage 
 rather than of freedom, of fearfulness rather than of joy. 
 It is the language of a prodigal deprecating his Father's 
 wrath, rather than the utterance of a son jubilant in anti- 
 cipation of his inheritance. Its tone is one of deeper 
 humiliation than that of apostolic days ; it is not equal to 
 that "full assurance of hope" which the hymns of later 
 times express. But it has doubtless helped many a heart 
 to prepare for judgment, and brought timely comfort to 
 many departing souls by its solemn and unearthly music. 
 It has gathered deeper interest in the affections of many 
 from its association with the last moments of Sir Walter 
 Scott. He requested, as he neared the end, that a dear 
 relative would read to him. " What book shall I read ? " 
 it was asked. "What book?" said he; "there is but 
 one!" Blessed book! that alone could show him his 
 way ; but after hearing God's voice, his soul feU back upon 
 ancient songs. Some of the magnificent old hymns in 
 which he had delighted were now murmured by the dying 
 poet. Those who were gathered around him say, "We 
 have often heard distinctly the cadence of the * Dies Irse,' 
 Thomas of Celano's grand and immortal Song of Judgment. 
 Scott had himself translated it in part. No trail slation, 
 however, among the scores which have been issued, can be 
 called fully adequate in all respects. The spirit and tone 
 have been faithfully and powerfully rendered thus : — 
 
 Lo, the day of wrath, the day, 
 Earth and heaven melt away, 
 David and the Sybil say. 
 
 Stoutest heart with fear shall quiver, 
 When to Him that erreth never, 
 All must strict account deliver. 
 
 Lo ! the trumpet's wondrous pealing, 
 Rung through each sepulchral dwelling, 
 All before the throne compeUing ! 
 
 Nature shrinks appall'd, and death. 
 When the dead regain their breath, 
 To the Judge each answereth. 
 
 Then the Written Book is set, 
 All things are contained in it. 
 Then each learns his sentence meet. 
 
JUDGMENT HYMNS. 337 
 
 When the Judge appears again, 
 Hidden things shall be made plain, 
 Nothing unavenged remain. 
 
 What shall I, unworthy, plead ? 
 Who for me will intercede. 
 When the just will mercy need ? 
 
 King of dreadful majesty. 
 
 Who sav'st the saved of mercy free. 
 
 Fount of pity, save Thou me ! 
 
 Think of me, good Lord, I pray. 
 Who trodd'st for me the bitter way, 
 Nor forsake me in that day. 
 
 Weary sat'st Thou, seeking me, 
 Diedst redeeming on the tree ; 
 Not in vain such toil can be ! 
 
 Judge avenging, let me win 
 Free remission of my sin, 
 Ere that dreadful day begin. 
 
 Sinful, o'er my sins I groan, 
 Guilt my crimson' d face must own. 
 Spare, O God, Thy suppliant one. 
 
 Mary was by Thee forgiven, 
 
 To the thief Thou open'dst heaven, 
 
 Hope to me, too, Thou hast given. 
 
 All unworthy is my prayer ; 
 Gracious One, be gracious there ; 
 From that quenchless fire, oh spare. 
 
 Place Thou me at Thy right hand, 
 'Mongst Thy sheep, oh make me stand, 
 Far from the convicted band. 
 
 When the accursed condemn' d shall be 
 Doom'd to keenest flames by Thee, 
 'Midst the blessed call Thou me. 
 
 Contrite, suppliant, I pray, 
 Ashes on my heart I lay, 
 Care Thou for me in that day. 
 
 To write a judgment liyinii with that spirit, and power, 
 and majesty which become the theme, requires a glowing 
 intellect under the full command of inspired truth; a 
 genius in deep sympathy with Divine revelations ; a soul 
 devoutly familiar with spiritual unseen things, capable, by 
 
338 HYMN-WEITEKS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 strong faith, of realizing the presence of the Judge, and of 
 expressing its sense of that presence so as to make others 
 see and feel much of what it sees and feels itself; one indeed 
 who lives in frequent visions of the unearthly and the divine. 
 Hymnists of this class have sometimes sprung up where, 
 by most people, they would not he looked for. On the 
 morning of October 24th, 1753, a somewhat remarkable 
 figure was seen walking out from the town of Bradford, in 
 Wiltshire. He had on a long, heavy great-coat, covering 
 a dress of dark blue, of primitive cut, rather after the style 
 of the ordinary dress of a modern English bishop. He 
 wore heavy riding-boots, however, and had saddle-bags 
 filled with books and linen slung across his shoulder. His 
 face would arrest attention ; the open, well-formed, mauly 
 features, and the ever-kindling eye giving expression to a 
 rare combination of acute perception, deep thoughtfulness, 
 logical power, hapj)y temper, quiet humour, and bold ima- 
 gination. It was one of Mr. Wesley's itinerant preachers, 
 on his way to Cornwall, afoot. After many curious adven- 
 tures on the road, he entered on his perilous "round" 
 among the then rude masses of the extreme west. His 
 own rare bit of autobiography helps us to follow his steps. 
 "As to trials," says he, "I do not remember that I had 
 any in these parts which deserve the name. Indeed, in 
 one place the high constable came to press me for a soldier 
 while I was preaching. He said, ' As you preach so well, 
 you are very fit to serve his Majesty. I therefore desire 
 you will get ready to go with me to a magistrate to-morrow 
 morning.' I answered, ' Why not to-night ? I am ready 
 to go with you now.' He then said, ' Well, you may first 
 finish your sermon.' Accordingly, I began again where I 
 had left off, and the constable and his companion stayed to 
 hear me, and then went quietly away. The next morning 
 I waited for his return, but he never came ; so that, in all 
 probability, what he heard was a means, at least, of cooling 
 his courage." 
 
 The man who could act and write like this was no com- 
 mon man. He was a dreamer, at all events ; for he tells 
 us : — " When I was in this neighbourhood, I dreamed one 
 night that Christ was come in the clouds to judge the 
 world, and also that He looked exceeding black at me. 
 When I awoke I was much alarmed. I therefore humbled 
 
JUDGMENT HYMNS. 339 
 
 inyself exceedingly, with fastings and prayer, and was 
 determined never to give over till nay evidence of the love 
 of Christ was made quite clear. One day, as I was at 
 prayer in my room, with my eyes shut, the Lord, as it 
 were, appeared, to the eye of my mind, as standing just 
 before me, while ten thousand small streams of blood 
 seemed to issue from every part of His body. This sight 
 was so unexpected, and at the same time so seasonable, 
 that, for once, I wept aloud ; yea, and almost fainted away. 
 I now more fully believed His love to me, and that, if He 
 was then to come to judgment, He would not frown, but 
 rather smile on me ; therefore I loved and praised Him 
 with all my heart. Some years after, I had a dream of a 
 quite different sort ; I dreamed that I was talking with 
 two women concerning the day of judgment. Among other 
 things, I thought I told them I was certain it was very 
 near. On hearing this, I thought they burst into laughter, 
 and rejected all I said. Being much grieved at this, I told 
 them, ' I will go and see if it is not as I said.' Accord- 
 ingly I went to the door, and, on looking up southward, 
 thought I saw the heavens open, and a stream of fire, as 
 large as a small river, issuing forth. On seeing this, I 
 thought I ran back to the women, and said, ' You would 
 not believe me ; but come to the door, and you will see 
 with your own eyes that the day is come.' On hearing 
 this, I thought they were much alarmed, and ran with me 
 to the door. By the time we were got thither, I thought 
 the whole concave, southward, was filled with an exceed- 
 ingly thick, fiery mist, which swiftly moved northward in a 
 huge body, filling the whole space between the heaven and 
 the earth as it came along. As it drew near, I thought, 
 ' The day is come of which I have so often told the world, 
 and now, in a few moments, I shall see how it will be with 
 me to all eternity,' And for a moment I seemed to feel 
 myself in a state of awful suspense. When the fire was 
 come close to me, I was going to shrink back, but thought, 
 ' This is all in vain, as there is now no place of shelter left.' 
 I then pushed myself forward into it, and found that the 
 fire had no power to hurt me, for I stood as easy in the 
 midst of it as ever I did in the open air. The joy I felt, on. 
 being able to stand unhurt and undismayed amidst this 
 awful burning, cannot be described. Even so shall it be 
 
340 HTMN-WRIIERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 with, all who are cai-eful to enter in at the strait gate, and 
 to walk closely and steadily in the narrow way all the days 
 of their life. All these shall 
 
 Stand secure, and smile, 
 Amidst the jarring elements, 
 The wreck of matter and the crash of worlds !" 
 
 This dream might remind us of Charles Wesley's grand 
 hymn : — 
 
 Stand th' omnipotent decree : 
 
 Jehovah's will be done ! 
 Nature's end we wait to see, 
 
 And hear her final gToan ; 
 Let this earth dissolve, and blend 
 
 In death the wicked and the just ; 
 Let those ponderous orbs descend, 
 . And grind us into dust. 
 
 Rests secure the righteous man. 
 
 At his Redeemer's beck, 
 Sure to emerge, and rise again. 
 
 And mount above the wreck ; 
 Lo, the heavenly spirit towers. 
 
 Like flame, o'er nature's funeral pyre, 
 Triumphs in immortal powers. 
 
 And claps his wings of fire ! 
 
 Nothing hath the just to lose 
 
 By worlds on worlds destroyed, 
 Far beneath his feet he views 
 
 With smiles the flaming void ; 
 , Sees the universe renew' d, 
 
 The grand millennial reign begTin, 
 Shouts, with all the sons of God, 
 
 Around the eternal throne ! 
 
 Resting in this glorious hope 
 
 To be at last restored. 
 Yield we now our bodies up 
 
 To earthquake, plague, or sword. 
 Listening for the call Divine, 
 
 The latest trumpet of the seven ; 
 Soon our souls and dust shall join, 
 
 And both fly up to heaven. 
 
 The dreamer may have had this hymn in his mind ; at all 
 events, the visions of judgment, the awful scenes of the 
 consummation entranced him. And whether his dreams 
 arose from the cherished imaginations of his soul in its daily 
 
JUDGMEICT HYMNS. 341 
 
 commimion with the future, or whether the dream which he 
 records gave to his consecrated genius the inspiring touches 
 which kindled it into song, the story of his dreams will 
 ever be associated with his immortal judgment hymn : — 
 
 Come, immortal KJing of Glory ! 
 
 Now Avith all Thy saints appear ; 
 While astonish' d worlds adore Thee, 
 
 And the dead Thy clarions hear. 
 Shine refulgent. 
 
 And Thy deity maintain. 
 
 HaU ! the world's adored Creator ! 
 
 In Thy radiant vesture seen. 
 Hail ! the Lord of life and nature ! 
 
 Hail ! the Almighty Nazarene ! 
 They who pierced Him, 
 
 Every eye shall see Him come. 
 
 But, how diverse the sensation I 
 
 Saints with joy and rapture fill'd, 
 Glow with holy exultation. 
 
 To redemption's glory seal'd ; 
 While , the wicked 
 
 Wail His coming's dread design. 
 
 Lo ! He comes with"clouds descending : 
 
 Hark ! the trump of God is blown : 
 And th' archangel's voice attending, 
 
 Make the high procession known. 
 Sous of Adam, 
 
 Rise and stand before your God ! 
 
 Crowns and sceptres fall before Him, 
 Kings and conquerors own His sway, 
 
 Haughtiest monarchs now adore Him, 
 Wliile they see His lightnings play. 
 
 How triumphant 
 Is the world's Eedeemer now. 
 
 Light primeval in its lustre 
 
 Doth in Jesu's aspect shine ; 
 Blazing comets are not fiercer 
 
 Than His eyes of flame Divine. 
 Oh, how dreadful 
 
 Doth the Ci ucified appear ! 
 
 Hear His voice as mighty thunder. 
 
 Sounding in eternal roar, 
 "While its echo rends in sunder 
 
 Hocks and mountains, sea and shore. 
 Hark, His accents 
 
 Thro' th' unfathom'd deep resound ! 
 
342 HYMN-WRITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 See His throne of jasper whiteness ; 
 
 Throne of justice and of grace ; 
 See Jehovah's equal brightness 
 
 Shining in Emmanuers face. 
 Saints exulting 
 
 Shout with joy th' accomplish' d prayer. 
 
 " Come, Lord Jesus, oh come quickly : " 
 Oft has pray'd the mourning bride. 
 
 Lo ! He answers, " I come quickly," 
 Who Thy coming may abide ? 
 
 AU who loved Him, 
 All who long'd to see His day. 
 
 See the awful expectation ! 
 
 See the heavens themselves on fire ! 
 Melting in the conflagration, 
 
 See the elements expire ! 
 While the trumpet 
 
 Blows around, "Ye dead, arise!" 
 
 Lo ! the dead arise, and standing 
 At their great Creator's bar : 
 
 While the Judge of all commanding, 
 Cries, " To meet your God prepare." 
 
 All whose judgments 
 And His ways are equal found ! 
 
 Now the dreadful volumes opening. 
 Scenes of various deeds disclose, 
 
 WhUe the Judge proclaims the sentence, 
 Righteous sentence on His foes : 
 
 Wrath to sinners ; 
 To His saints the crown of life ! 
 
 Gather ye His saints together, 
 Now with Him in judgment sit; 
 
 See the vile as stubble wither, 
 Ashes now beneath your feet ! 
 
 While His vengeance 
 Seals their everlasting doom. 
 
 Hark! the universal groaning ; 
 
 Hark ! the cries of guilt and fear ; 
 Hear them each his fate bemoaning, 
 
 Each the cause bemoaning hear. 
 God no longer 
 
 Patient, merciful or kind. 
 
 " Come, ye mountains, and fall on us, 
 Come, ye rocks, our heads conceal, 
 
 For the day is come upon us, 
 
 Day of wrath that bums to hell ; 
 
 Where the gnawing 
 Worm of conscience never dies. 
 
JUDGMENT HYMNS. 
 
 Where no more for them remaining, 
 Hope no more awaits their call ; 
 
 But in iron bonds detaining, 
 
 Heav'ns high justice binds up all. 
 
 While His mercy 
 To remorseless judgment turns. 
 
 Lo ! the Grod of all contending, 
 
 Calls the heavens from afar, 
 Bids, earth, thy eons attending, 
 
 Hear Him, for Himself declare 
 All His -wisdom, 
 
 And His righteous acts unfold. 
 
 Stopt for ever all complaining ; 
 
 Stopt the mouth of murmuring pride ; 
 Fools no more their God disdaining. 
 
 Atheists now no more deride, 
 But with trembling 
 
 Wait His judgment's last award. 
 
 " Go from Me," He saith, "ye cursed," 
 
 Ye for whom I bled in vain. 
 Who My utmost gi-ace resisted ; 
 
 Go ye to unending pain. 
 Lord Almighty, 
 
 True and righteous are Thy ways ! 
 
 " Come," He saith, " ye heirs of glory," 
 Come, ye purchase of my blood. 
 
 Claim the kingdom now before you. 
 Rise, and fill the mount of God : 
 
 Fix'd for ever, 
 Where the Lamb on Sion stands. 
 
 See ten thousand burning seraphs 
 
 From their thrones as lightnings fly: 
 
 Take, they cry, your seats above us, 
 Nearest Him that rules the sky, 
 
 Patient sufferers. 
 How rewarded are ye now ! 
 
 Ransom'd victors, see His ensign, 
 
 Waving high in purple air ! 
 Jesus, with His ancients reigning, 
 
 Shall to each His conquest share : 
 He who made them 
 
 More than conquerors thro' His blool. 
 
 Now their trials all are ended, 
 Now the dubious warfare's o'er ; 
 
 •Joy no more with sorrow blended ; 
 They shall sigh and weep no more : 
 
 God for ever 
 Wipes the tear from every eye. 
 
 343 
 
344 HYMN--WEITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Thro' His passion, all victorious ; 
 
 Now they driiik: immortal wine : 
 In Emmanuel's likeness, glorious 
 
 As the firmament they shine : 
 Shine for ever 
 
 With the bright and morning star. 
 
 Where His sceptre's sway extending, 
 Jesus high His right maintains; 
 
 Heaven, and earth, and hell commanding, 
 God omnipotent He reigns : 
 
 Prince of princes ! 
 King of kings, and Lord of lords ! 
 
 Shining in His bright expansion, 
 King of saints behold Him sit ! 
 
 Joy of each adoring mansion, 
 Sunk for ever at His feet. 
 
 Lord of Glory ! 
 And His kingdom without end ! 
 
 Shout aloud, ye ethereal choirs, 
 Triumph in Jehovah's praise, 
 
 Kindle all your heavenly fires, 
 All your palms of vict'ry raise : 
 
 Shout His conquests. 
 Shout, " Salvation to the Lamb." 
 
 See in sacred pomp ascending, 
 Jesus and His glorious train : 
 
 Countless myriads now attending 
 Hail the empyrean plain. 
 
 "HaUelujah," 
 First and last and Lord of all ! 
 
 In full triumph see them marching, 
 Through the gates of massy light : 
 
 While the city walls are sparkling 
 With meridian glory bright. 
 
 Oh how lovely 
 Are the dwellings of the Lamb ! 
 
 See His beauty all resplendent : 
 See in Him the Godhead shine : 
 
 See Him above all transcendent, 
 FuU of Deity Divine. 
 
 Hail ! eternal ! 
 Sov'reign Lord of worlds unknown ! 
 
 On His throne of sapphired azure, 
 High above all height He reig-ns : 
 
 Reigns the fount of endless pleasure ; 
 Self-subsistent He remains. 
 
 How diffusive 
 Shines the uncreated blaze ! 
 
JUDGMENT HYMNS. 345 
 
 Hosts angelic all adore Him, 
 
 Circling round His orient seat, 
 Elders cast their crowns before Him, 
 
 Fall and worship at His feet. 
 Oh how "holy, 
 
 "And how reverend is Thy name ! " 
 
 Shout aloud the new creation, 
 
 All ye heavenly arches ring, 
 Echo to the Lord — salvation, 
 
 " Glory to th' eternal king!" 
 Dread Jehovah ! 
 
 " God with God ! and Son of man ! " 
 
 I am Alpha and Omega, 
 
 I the firi^t and last am He : 
 He who was and is to come — who 
 
 Am and will for ever be : 
 Jah, Jehovah, 
 
 Jah, Jehovah, is my name. 
 
 Hail ! Thou Alpha and Omega ! 
 
 First and last of all alone ! 
 He that is, and was, and shall be, 
 
 And beside whom there is none, 
 Take the glory. 
 
 Great eternal Three in One ! 
 
 Praise be to the Father given : 
 
 Praise to the co-eval Son : 
 Praise the Spirit, one and seven ; 
 
 Praise the mystic Three in One, 
 Hallelujah! 
 
 Everlasting praise be Thine. 
 
 The dreamer will be known from his hymn. He was no 
 other than Thomas Olivers, the wandering Methodist 
 preacher, Wesley's companion, and Toj)lady's theological 
 antagonist. Thomas Olivers was born at Tregonan, in 
 Montgomerj^shire, in 1725. His father died four years 
 after his birth ; in three months his mother's heart was 
 broken by her loss ; and he, with a younger brother, were 
 left to the care of his mother's friends. Placed at a 
 neighbouring school, he " received such learning as was 
 thought necessary " ; but proved a more apt scholar in vice 
 than in virtue. At eighteen he was apprenticed to a 
 shoemaker, and entered on a course of youthful pi'ofligacy 
 in which he soon outstripped most of his compeers ; and 
 was obliged at length to fly from the scene of his wicked- 
 
346 nYMN-WlUTERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 ness, in order to escape public indignation. As a wanderer 
 from place to place, he exemplified the misery of those 
 who plunge deeper and deeper into sin, vainly striving to 
 shake ofi', or alleviate the terrors of an evil conscience. 
 Reduced at last to beggary, and extreme wretchedness of 
 mind and body, he found his way to hear Whitefield preach 
 at Bristol. The preacher's text was, " Is not this a brand 
 plucked out of the fire?" It was a word in season. 
 Olivers became a new man, and on the first Sunday after, 
 "I went," he says, " to the cathedral at six in the morn- 
 ing. When the Te Beum was read, I felt as if I had done 
 with earth and was praising God before His throne. No 
 words can set forth the joy, the rapture, the awe and 
 reverence I felt." His course was altered. He joined the 
 Methodists. All his debts were gradually paid. He 
 began to preach ; was at length sent into Cornwall by Mr. 
 Wesley ; and having run a useful, happy, and honourable 
 course, he suddenly departed in ]\rarch, 1799, leaving his 
 dust to be deposited in Wesley's own tomb. He has be- 
 queathed to us one of the grandest judgment hymns that 
 ever the Church sang, or that ever brought the sound of the 
 Judge's approach to the ears of the world. It is remark- 
 able that Charles AVesley and he should have the same 
 line in the two hymns that so strikingly rival each other in 
 magnificence. Each sings : 
 
 Lo ! He comes with clouds descending. 
 Whether Wesley caught the key-note from Olivers, or 
 Olivers from Wesley, they evidently breathed the same 
 inspiration. Each hymnist has the same vivid realization 
 of the overwhelming majesty of the final scene ; and neither 
 of the two hymns can be devoutly sung without an ever- 
 deepening feeling of solemn awe and reverent hope. How 
 striking and sublime is Wesley's third verse, in which the 
 Judge appears still bearing the tokens of His passion, thus 
 exciting the holy rapture of those who have been redeemed 
 by His agony and death : — 
 
 The dear tokens of His passion 
 
 Still His dazzling body bears ; 
 Cause of endless exultation 
 
 To His ransom' d worshippers : 
 With what rapture 
 
 Gaze we on those glorious scars ! 
 
JUDGMENT HYMNS. 
 
 347 
 
 Most of Charles Wesley's judgment hymns are of the 
 highest class. Several of them were written in December, 
 1755, just when the public mind was agitated by the fearful 
 news of the Lisbon earthquake ; and while the nation was 
 in tremulous suspense, awaiting the threatened French 
 invasion. Some of these have special allusion to the dis- 
 tinguishing circumstances of the times ; but others may be 
 on the lips and hearts of all, in all ages, who prayerfully 
 look for the day of account. No hymn can more graciously 
 dispose the subjects of future judicial inspection for the 
 holiest and safest posture of readiness for the trumpet's 
 voice than this: — 
 
 Thou Judge of quick and dead, 
 
 Before whose bar severe, 
 With holy joy or guilty dread, 
 
 "We all shall soon appear ; 
 Our caution'd souls prepare 
 
 For that tremendous day ; 
 And fill us now with watchful care, 
 
 And stir us up to pray — 
 
 To pray and wait the hour. 
 
 That awful hour unknown ; 
 When, robed in majesty and power. 
 
 Thou shalt from heaven come down, 
 The immortal Son of man. 
 
 To judge the human race, 
 With all Thy Father's dazzling train, 
 
 With aU Thy glorious grace. 
 
 To damp our earthly joys, 
 I To increase our gracious fears, 
 
 For ever let the Archangel's voice 
 
 Be sounding in our ears ; 
 The solemn midnight cry, 
 
 " Ye dead, the Judge is come ; 
 Arise and meet Him in the sky. 
 
 And meet your instant doom ! ' ' 
 
 Oh, may we thus be found 
 
 Obedient to His word ; 
 Attentive to the trumpet's sound, 
 
 And looking for our Lord ! 
 Oh, may we thus ensure 
 
 A lot among the blest ; 
 And watch a moment to secure 
 
 An everlasting rest ! 
 
348 HYMN-"WE.ITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 But among the many judgment hymns which must be 
 ever precious to those who " look for their Lord," who can 
 forget one that rose from Oxford, about forty years ago, 
 kindling afresh the faith of English Christians, and 
 awakening the Church to brighter and holier anticipations 
 of its Lord's descent. Henry Hart Milman will always be 
 reverenced by the lovers of high class Church history, and 
 be thought of with admiration and thankfulness by all 
 who enjoy the Christian hymn when it rises into impres- 
 sive grandeur. Dean Milman, now a venerable man 
 bending under the weight of years, is the son of Sir 
 Francis Milman, physician to George III. Born in 1791 ; 
 educated at Eton and Oxford, he was advanced in 1817 to 
 the vicarage of St. Mary's, Reading ; and four years after 
 was installed as University Professor of Poetry at Oxford ; 
 and while filling that chair, he gave forth his hymn on 
 " The Last Day" :— 
 
 The chariot, the chariot ! its wheels roll on fire, 
 
 As the Lord cometh down in the pomp of His ire ; 
 
 Self -moving, it drives on its pathway of cloud, 
 
 And the heavens with the burthen of Godhead are bowed. 
 
 The glory, the glory ! around Him are poured, 
 The myriads of angels that wait on the Lord ; 
 And the glorified saints, and the martyrs are there, 
 And all who the palm-wreath of victory wear. 
 
 The trumpet, the trumpet ! the dead have all heard, 
 Lo ! the depths of the stone-covered charnel are stirred ; 
 Prom the ocean and earth, from the south and the north, 
 Lo ! the vast generations of ages come forth ! 
 
 The judgment, the judgment ! the thrones are all set. 
 Where the Lamb and the white-vested elders are met ; 
 All flesh is at once in the sight of the Lord, 
 And the doom of eternity hangs on His word. 
 
 Oh mercy, oh mercy ! look down from above, 
 Redeemer, on us Thy sad children, with love. 
 When beneath, to their darkness the wicked are driven, 
 May our sanctified souls find a mansion in heaven. 
 
CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 SONGS OF GLOR Y. 
 
 " And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Sion with 
 songs and everlasting joy upon their heads." 
 
 There are many who look wishfully for immortal pleasures 
 in heaven, while they withhold themselves from preparatory 
 religious pleasures upon earth. And some, too, who with 
 a sort of instinctive yearning for repose in the future, sing 
 of eternal rest, though as yet they have not been fully sub- 
 missive to Him who is the only source and giver of rest. 
 There are moments in the life of human genius when 
 divine and celestial realities assert their claims on the gifted 
 soul, and call out from it songs and hymns, which have a 
 music and a power for minds far more spiritual than the 
 author's, a music and a power which the hymnist himself, 
 perhaps, never so deeply felt. Thomas Moore, it may be, 
 though expressing the aspiration of his own soul in one 
 of its better moments, never knew with how deep a charm 
 his verses touch the more fully sanctified spirit, who 
 patiently longs for the moment of its upward spring into 
 eternal life. 
 
 The bird let loose in Eastern skies 
 
 When hastening fondly home, 
 Ne'er stoops to earth his wing, nor flies 
 
 Where idle warblers roam ; 
 But high she shoots through air and light, 
 
 Above all low delay, 
 Where nothing earthly bounds her flight, 
 
 Nor shadow dims her way. 
 
 So grant me, God, from every care, 
 
 And stain of passion free, 
 Aloft, through virtue's purer air, 
 
 To hold my course to Thee ! 
 
350 HYMN- -WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 No sin to cloud, no lure to stay 
 
 Jfy soul as home she springs ; 
 Thy sunshine on her joyful M^ay, 
 
 Thy freedom in her wings ! 
 
 Many a heavenly-minded Christian, with whom Moore 
 would have but little sympathy, will thank God for the 
 pen of the man who has thus afi'orded him a tuneful form of 
 expressing what he himself could never so express, while 
 pluming his wings for a homeward flight. So, the same 
 hymnist has furnished a song of glory which those whose 
 heavenliness is a principle and hahit, rather than a mere 
 sentiment, will always sing with feelings richer probably, 
 and holier, than the inspiration which gave it birth : — 
 This world is all a fleeting show 
 
 For man's illusion given ; 
 The smiles of joy, the tears of woe, 
 Deceitful shine, deceitful flow ; 
 There's nothing true but Heaven! 
 
 And false the light on glory's plume, 
 
 As fading hues of even ; 
 And love, and hope, and beauty's bloom 
 Are blossoms gathered from the tomb ; 
 
 There's nothing bright but Heaven ! 
 
 Poor wanderers of a stormy day. 
 
 From wave to wave we're driven ; 
 And fancy's flash, and reason's ray, 
 Serve but to light the troubled way ; 
 There's nothing calm but Heaven! 
 
 To those whose heavenly-mindedness is pure enough to 
 long for the future without being embittered with the pre- 
 sent, this hymn expresses a Christian's preference for 
 heaven ; a peaceful and holy superiority to the vanities of 
 earth ; but on other lips it may have another meaning : it 
 may be the language of one who turns plaintively towards 
 heaven in the crisis of bitter disappointment and vexation 
 with the falsehoods of this world. Those who can sing 
 from their hearts — 
 
 Thou Iniow'st in the spirit of prayer, 
 
 "We long Thy appearing to see, 
 Resign'd to the bui'den we bear. 
 
 But longing to triumph with Thee ; 
 'Tis good at Thy word to be here, 
 
 'Tis better in Thee to be gone, 
 And see Thee in glory appear, 
 
 And rise to a share in Thy throne ; 
 
SONGS OF GLORY. 351 
 
 those who in "patience possess their souls," while they 
 linger in sweet suspense on the shadowy borders of time, 
 love rather the quiet and submissive joyfulness of songs 
 like Anne Steele's hymn on " The Promised Land." Peace- 
 fully looking out into the brightening distance from her 
 chamber of sickness, or from her garden terrace, where 
 her Saviour's strength was made perfect in her weakness, 
 or from the avenue of fir-trees where whispers of mortal 
 strife sometimes touched her ear, she used to sing : — 
 
 Far from these narrow scenes of night 
 
 Unbounded glories rise, 
 And realms of infinite delight, 
 
 Unknown to mortal eyes. 
 
 Far distant land ! could mortal eyes 
 
 But half its joys explore, 
 How would our spirits long to rise, 
 
 And dwell on earth no more ! 
 
 There pain and sickness never come, 
 
 And grief no more complains ! 
 Health triumphs in immortal bloom, 
 
 And endless pleasure reigns ! 
 
 From discord free, and war's alarms, 
 
 And want and pining care ; 
 Plenty and peace unite their charms. 
 
 And smile unchanging there. 
 
 There rich varieties of joy 
 
 Continual feast the mind ; 
 Pleasures which fill, but never cloy, 
 
 Immortal and refined ! 
 
 No factious strife, no envy there, 
 
 The sons of peace molest ; 
 But harmony and love sincere 
 
 Fill every happy breast. 
 
 No cloud those blissful regions know. 
 
 For ever bright and fair ! 
 For sin, the source of mortal woe. 
 
 Can never enter there. 
 
 There no alternate night is known, 
 
 Nor sun's faint sickly ray; 
 But glory from the sacred throne 
 
 Spreads everlasting day. 
 
 The glorious monarch there displays 
 
 His beams of wondrous grace ; 
 His happy subjects sing His praisr, 
 
 And bow before His face. 
 
352 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Oh may the heavenly prospect fire 
 
 Our hearts with ardent love, 
 Till ways of faith and strong desire 
 
 Bear every thought above. 
 
 Prepare us, Lord, by grace Divine, 
 
 For Thy bright courts on high ; 
 Then bid our spirits rise and join 
 
 The chorus of the sky. 
 
 Who can sing of Canaan without recalling some lovely 
 scenes of southern England, and thinking of one whose 
 harp was often strung in praise of — 
 
 Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood ? 
 
 In the year 1782, there was a deacon of the Independent 
 church at Southampton, whose son, in his eighteenth year, 
 felt, now and then, during the Sunday psalm or hymn, 
 somewhat like a finely sensitive ear feels at the sound of a 
 file sharpening a saw ; and he complained that the old 
 hymnists were sadly out of taste. " Give us something 
 better, young man," was the reply. The young man did 
 it ; and the church was invited to close its evening service 
 with a new hymn, thus : — 
 
 Behold the glories of the Lamb 
 
 Amidst His Father's throne ; 
 Prepare new honours for His name, 
 
 Ajid songs before unknown. 
 
 Let elders worship at His feet, 
 
 The church adore around, 
 "With vials full of odours sweet, 
 
 And harps of sweeter sound. 
 
 Those are the prayers of the saints. 
 
 And those the hymns they raise : 
 Jesus is kind to our complaints, 
 
 He loves to hear our praise. 
 
 Eternal Father, who shall look 
 
 Into Thy secret will ? 
 "Who but the Son shall take that book, 
 
 And open every seal ? 
 
 He shall fulfil Thy great decrees, 
 
 The Son deserves it well ; 
 Lo, in His hand the sov'reign keys 
 
 Of heaven, and death, and hell ! 
 
 Now to the Lamb that once was slain, 
 
 Be endless blessings paid ; 
 Salvation, glory, joy remain 
 
 For ever on Thy head. 
 
SONGS OF GLORY. 363 
 
 Thou hast redeem'd our souls with blood, 
 
 Hast set the pris'uers free, 
 Hast made us kings and priests to God, 
 
 And we shall reign with Thee. 
 
 The worlds of nature and of grace 
 
 Are put beneath Thy power ; 
 Then shorten these delaying days, 
 
 And bring the i^romised hour ! 
 
 This was Isaac TVatts's first liymn; a uew vein of song 
 was opened ; the little hymnist had struck a chord which 
 gave birth to fresh harmonies in the chui'ch. Hymn fol- 
 lowed hymn, until the young essayist published his first 
 and successful edition of "Hymns and Spiritual Songs." 
 Young poets are susceptible of love and beauty, and Isaac 
 soon paid court to the accomplished and pious Elizabeth 
 Singer, afterwards better known as Mrs. Eowe. She told 
 her suitor that she loved the jewel, but could not admire 
 the casket, and thus lost the honour of being Mrs. Watts ; 
 while she sent the grieved young Chi-istian poet to his 
 Saviour's feet, devoutly to consecrate himself for life to 
 science, philosophy, literature, and the service of holy song. 
 How sweetly his disappointment in the creature melts in 
 devotion to his Lord : — 
 
 How vain are all things here below ! 
 
 How false, and yet how fair ! 
 Each pleasure hath its poison too, 
 
 And every sweet a snare. 
 
 The brightest things below the sky- 
 Give but a flatt'ring light ; 
 
 We should suspect some danger nigh 
 Where we possess delight. 
 
 Our dearest joys and nearest friends, 
 
 The partners of our blood, 
 How they divide our wav'ring minds, 
 
 And leave but half for God. 
 
 The fondness of a creatxire's love. 
 
 How strong it strikes the sense ! 
 Thither the warm affections move. 
 
 Nor can we call them thence. 
 
 Dear Saviour ! let Thy beauties be 
 
 My soul's eternal food, 
 Ajid g^ace command my heart away 
 
 From all created good. 
 
354 nYMN-"WRITEKS AND THEIK HYMNS. 
 
 Thus driven back from the pursuit of conjugal pleasures, 
 he turns to the future with more' entire aifection. Heaven 
 brightens on him as earth withholds its smile ; and sitting 
 at his parlour window, looking out upon the waters of the 
 Itchen, with the Isle of AVight in the distance, and the 
 rich landscape opening its inviting beauties on the other 
 side of the river, he thought of Canaan, and the Jordan, 
 and the final passage, and the calm and immortal repose of 
 the inheritance beyond ; and then arose that soothing 
 and cheering hymn which, as long as Christianity expresses 
 its hopes in the English language, will pleasantly sustain 
 its title in the hearts of God's children, and assure them 
 that "a prospect of heaven makes death easy." How 
 many souls have felt this prospect brightening as they 
 sang : — 
 
 There is a land of pure delight, 
 
 Where saints immortal reig-n ; 
 Infinite day excludes the night, 
 
 ^\jid pleasures banish pain. 
 
 There everlasting spring abides, 
 
 And never -"with'ring flowers ; 
 Death, like a narrow sea, divides 
 
 This heavenly land from ours. 
 
 Sweet fields, beyond the swelling flood,- 
 
 Stand dress' d in living green ; 
 So to the Jews old Canaan stood. 
 
 While Jordan rolled between. 
 
 But tim'rous mortals start and shrink 
 
 To cross this narrow sea ; 
 And linger, shivering on the brink, 
 
 And fear to launch away. 
 
 Oh ! could we make our doubts remove, 
 
 Those gloomy doubts that rise, 
 And see the Canaan that we love 
 
 With unbeclouded eyes ! 
 
 Could we but climb where Moses stood, 
 
 And view the landscape o'er, 
 Not Jordan's stream, nor death's cold flood. 
 
 Should fright us from the shore. 
 
 Watts passed from the mortal shore, and happily 
 crossed the river, in his seventy-fifth year, after a season of 
 
 Calm decay and peace divine. 
 
SONGS OF GLORY. 355 
 
 The beautiful retirement and holy friendships of Abney 
 Park, the last retreat of "Watts, would be associated in 
 the mind who loves sweet song-s of glory, with a picture 
 once exhibited in the Eoyal Academy — a picture of Greorge 
 Herbert in his garden at Bemerton. That garden was the 
 little earthly paradise where Herbert used to sing of a 
 brighter laud, and pour forth his warm desires for freedom 
 to wing his way to rest. His paradise at Bemerton de- 
 tained him but a little more than two years. Just before 
 his soul ceased to be 
 
 An entangled, hampered tiling-, 
 
 he put a small manuscript into a friend's hand, saying, 
 " Sir, I pray deliver this little book to my dear brother 
 Farrer, and tell him he shall find in it a picture of the 
 many spiritual conflicts that have passed betwixt God and 
 my soul before I would subject mine to the will of Jesus 
 my Master, in whose service I have now found perfect 
 freedom. Desire him to read it, and then, if he can think 
 it may turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul, let 
 it be made public ; if not, let him burn it, for I and it are 
 less than the least of God's mercies." " Brother Farrer " 
 did not burn it : it was too precious a legacy ; and were 
 there nothing else in it but his hymn of desire after God 
 and his "Home," it would be truly " the precious life-blood 
 of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose 
 to a life beyond life." The song has a quaintness, here 
 and there, which scarcely suits the modern taste ; there 
 are little curious conceits and grotesque allusions, which 
 to us do not appear as natural as they really were to the 
 writer himself ; but the exquisite fancy, the rich imagina- 
 tion, the pregnant thought, the spiritual music, and the 
 intenselj^ boly feeling which show themselves in "the 
 Temple," all combine in his rhythmical praj^er for the 
 freedom of " Home," and invite us to chant : — 
 
 Come, Lord, my head doth burn, my heart is sick, 
 
 While Thou dost ever, ever stay ; 
 
 Thy long deferrings wound me to the quick. 
 
 My spirit gaspeth night and day. 
 
 Oh show Thyself to me, 
 
 Or take me up to Thee ! 
 
356 HYM^r-■v^EITEKS and their hymns. 
 
 Yet if Thou stayest still, why must I stay ? 
 
 My G-od, what is this world to me ? 
 This world of woe ? Hence, all ye clouds, away. 
 Away, I must get up and see. 
 Oh show Thyself to me, 
 Or take me up to Thee ! 
 
 Wliat is this weary world, this meat and drink, 
 
 That chains vis by the teeth so fast ? 
 What is this woman-kind, which I can wink 
 Into a blackness and distaste ? 
 Oh show Thyself to me, 
 Or take me up to Thee ! 
 
 With one small sigh Tliou gavest me th' other day 
 
 I blasted all the joys about me ; 
 And scowling on them as they pined away, 
 Now come again, said I, and plant me. 
 Oh show Thyself to me, 
 Or take me up to Thee ! 
 
 Nothing but drought and dearth, but buijh and brake, 
 
 Which way soe'er I look, I see. 
 Some may d)eam merrily, and when they wake, 
 They dress themselves and come to Th.ee> 
 Oh show Thyself to me, 
 Or take me up to Thee !. 
 
 We talk of harvests ; there are no such things, 
 
 But when we leave our com and hay ; 
 There is no fruitfid yeai", but that which brings 
 The last and loved, though dreadful day. 
 Oh show Thj'self to me, 
 Or take me up to Thee ! 
 
 Oh loose this frame, this knot of man untie, 
 
 That my free soul may use her wing, 
 
 Which now is pinion" d with mortality, 
 
 As an entangled, hampered tiling. 
 
 Oh show Thyself to me. 
 
 Or take me up to Thee ! 
 
 What have I left, that I should stay and groan ? 
 
 The most of me to heaven is fled ; 
 My thoughts and joys are all pack'd up and gone, 
 And for their old acqviaintance plead. 
 Oh show ThJ^self to me. 
 Or take me up to Thee ! 
 
 Come, dearest Lord, pass not this holy season, 
 My flesh and bones and joints do pray ; 
 
SONGS OF GLORY. 357 
 
 And even my verse, when by the rhyme and reason 
 The word is ston, says ever, come. 
 Oh show Thyself to me, 
 Or take me up to Thee ! 
 
 Herbert's hymn found an echo from the parish of 
 another country parson. John Mason may have heard 
 the voice from Bemerton in his rectory at Water-Stratford. 
 At all events he breathed the spirit of Herbert ; his man- 
 ner is somewhat akin, and his diction marks his brother- 
 hood. Like his predecessor in quaint but hallowed song, 
 the secret of Mason's sweetness and power in divine melody 
 ■was found in his private devotion. Six times a day he went 
 aside to wrestle with his Lord in prayer ; and his character 
 and life exemplified the saying, "When thou prayest, enter 
 into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to 
 thy Father which is in secret ; and thy Father which seeth 
 in secret shall reward thee openly." The reward came on 
 Mason in his strength to labour, and his grace to sing ; in 
 the fruit of his happy toil among his parishioners, and in 
 the joys which his songs of praise called up around him 
 while he lived, and perpetuated in the heart of successive 
 generations with whom, though dead, he yet sings. His 
 voice is still in our ears in his "Song of Praise for the 
 Hope of Glory:"— 
 
 I sojourn in a vale of tears, 
 
 Alas, how can I sing ? 
 M\^ harp doth on the willows hang, 
 
 Distuned in every string. 
 My music is a captive's chains. 
 
 Harsh sounds my ears do fill ; 
 How shall I sing sweet Sion's song 
 
 On this side Sion's hill ? 
 
 Yet lo! I hear a joyful sound, 
 
 Surely I quickly come; 
 Each word much sweetness doth distil, 
 
 Like a full honey-comb. 
 And dost Thou come, my dearest Lord ? 
 
 And dost Thou surely come ? 
 And dost Thou surely quickly come ? 
 
 Methinks I am at home. 
 
 Come then, my dearest, dearest Lord, 
 
 My sweetest, sui-est Friend ; 
 Come, for I loathe these Kedar tents, 
 
 The fiery chariots send. 
 
358 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HTMXS. 
 
 What have I here ? my thoughts and jots 
 Are all pack'd up and gone ; 
 
 My eager soul would follow them 
 "To Thine eternal throne. 
 
 "UTiat have I in this barren land ? 
 
 My Jesus is not here : 
 Mine eyes will ne'er be blest, until 
 
 My Jesus doth appear. 
 My Jesus is gone up to heaven 
 
 To get a place for me ; 
 For 'tis His will that where He is, 
 
 There should His servants be. 
 
 Canaan I view from Pisgah's top, 
 
 Of Canaan's grajjes I taste ; 
 My Lord, who sends unto me here. 
 
 Will send for me at last. 
 I have a God that change th not. 
 
 Why should I be perplext '? 
 My God, that owns me in this world. 
 
 Will own me in the next. 
 
 Go fearless, then, my soul, with God 
 
 Into another room ; 
 Thou, who hast walked with Him here. 
 
 Go see thy God at home. 
 View death with a believing eye. 
 
 It hath an angel's face ; 
 And this kind angel will prefer 
 
 Thee to an angel's place. 
 
 The grave is but a fining pot 
 
 Unto believing eyes. 
 For there the flesh shall lose its dross, 
 
 And like the sun shall rise. 
 The world, which I have known too well. 
 
 Hath mocked me with its lies ; 
 I How gladly could I leave behind 
 
 Its vexing vanities ! 
 
 My dearest friends they dwell above, 
 
 There will I go to see ; 
 And all my friends in Christ below 
 
 Will soon come after me. 
 Fear not the trump's earth-rending sound, 
 
 Dread not the day of doom, 
 I For He that is to be thy judge, 
 
 Thy Saviour is become. 
 
 Blest be my God that gives me light, 
 Who in the dark did grope ; 
 
 Blest be my God, the God of love, 
 Who causeth me to hope. 
 
SONGS OF GLOEY. 359 
 
 Here's the Word's signet, comfort's staff, 
 
 And here is grace's chain ; 
 By these Thy pledges, Lord, I kno-w 
 
 My hopes are not in vain. 
 
 There are some modern songs of glory which are in 
 STveet harmony with Herbert's music about " Home," and 
 with the echoes of that music from the soul of the saintly 
 Mason. There are "Parish Musings," which, as the 
 musing hymnist modestly says, claim no merit but this, 
 "that they are practical, not theoi-etical ; not the cold 
 musings of the head of one at ease, but the warm gushings 
 of the heart of one toiling himself, and striving to lead 
 others amid the dust and conflict of the journey of life." 
 Ears that are finely tuned may, even in the passing bell, 
 hear the Master's voice, "Arise, let us go hence;" but the 
 voice, though solemn, is happy, for it calls us towards 
 "Home:"— 
 
 Deep tolls the muffled bell 
 
 With its voice of woe ; 
 Bidding solemn, sad farewell 
 To all things below ; 
 
 Home, home ! 
 
 Come home ! 
 Thus it seems to say — 
 
 Where rest 
 
 Awaits the blest. 
 In eternal day ! 
 
 Sweet sounds the Sabbath bell, 
 
 Summoning to prayer. 
 Bidding cheerful, glad farewell 
 To all worldly care ; 
 
 Oh ! enter in. 
 
 And from sin, 
 Thus it seems to say — 
 
 Here rest. 
 
 Where the blest 
 Come to kneel and pray I 
 
 Lord ! so true to Thee alone, 
 Tune this discordant soul. 
 That with the same soft Sabbath tone 
 Whenever it may toll ; 
 
 That sweet bell 
 
 Of joy may tell. 
 And ever seem to say — 
 
 Home, home! 
 
 Come home ! 
 Come to Christ away ! 
 
360 HYMN-WRITEES AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 Do we cry, in chiildlike longing, "When, Lord?" and 
 "How long?" the same sweet psalmist gives the answer, 
 " Soon and for ever!" " Gro thou thy way till the end be ; 
 for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the 
 days." Mr. Monsell brings a holy song out___of " a dying 
 Christian's last words," thus : — 
 
 " Soon and for ever," 
 
 Such promise our trust, 
 Tho' ashes to ashes, 
 
 And dust unto dust : 
 " Soon and for ever " 
 
 Our union shall be 
 Made perfect, our glorious 
 
 Redeemer, in Thee ; 
 When the sins and the sorrows 
 
 Of time shall be o'er, 
 Its pangs and its partings 
 
 Remembered no more ; 
 Where life cannot fail. 
 
 And where death cannot sever, 
 Christians with Christ shall be 
 
 " Soon and for ever." 
 
 " Soon and for ever," 
 
 The breaking of day- 
 Shall drive all the night-clouds 
 
 Of sorrow away : 
 *' Soon and for ever," 
 
 We'll see as we're seen, 
 And learn the deep meaning 
 
 Of things that have been ; 
 When fightings without us. 
 
 And fears from within. 
 Shall weary no more 
 
 In the warfare with sin ; 
 Where fears, and where tears. 
 
 And where death shall be never j 
 Christians with Christ shall be 
 
 " Soon and for ever." 
 
 " Soon and for ever," 
 
 The work shall be done ; 
 The warfare accomplish'd, 
 
 The victory won : 
 " Soon and for ever," 
 
 The soldier lay down 
 His sword for a harp, 
 
 And his cross for a crown. 
 Then droop not in sorrow, 
 
 Despond not in fear ; 
 
SONGS OP GLORY. 361 
 
 A glorious to-morro-w 
 
 Is brio-htenina' and near ; 
 When (blessed reward 
 
 Of each faithful endeavour) 
 Christians with Christ shall be 
 
 " Soon and for ever." 
 
 Mr. Mousell is always sweet and pleasant, though his 
 music has mostly a plaintive tone, even when he sings of 
 heaven. To some spirits this tone is always welcome ; to 
 others the future is full of bright, cheerful, and exultant 
 songs. In dispensing "psalms, and hymns, and spiritual 
 songs," the inspiring Spirit deals with us according to oiu' 
 faith. 
 
 " I remember," said an old man, the other day, his face 
 brightening with the recollections which he was calling up 
 — "I remember, some years ago, a minister coming into 
 our neighbourhood to preach. He was a good man, and a 
 good preacher ; but I can mind his singing much better 
 than his sermons. He used to preach not far from where 
 I lived; and when I saw the people flocking to the chapel, 
 I used to go to hear the famous singer. Ah, he was a 
 singer ! And I believe one great secret of his music was, 
 that his heart was in it. His voice was like an angel's, as 
 they say, though I never heard an angel sing ; but I can 
 scarcely think that an angel, or any other singer, could 
 beat that happy-looking preacher. He was a man with a 
 long face, and a high, bald head. And his eyes used to 
 sparkle as he sang, as if the hymns were coming up from 
 his soul; and so they did. There was one hymn I always 
 liked to hear him sing, he would sing it after the sermon ; 
 it was one of his own composing, and the tune was his, too. 
 I learnt to sing it mj^self, and I taught my boy to sing it ; 
 and sometimes, long after that singing preacher was gone 
 to his own ' Jerusalem divine,' my boy and I, and three or 
 foui" more, used to get together of an evening, and sing it 
 in full harmony. Oh, it was so rich ; and it seemed to lift 
 one towards heaven while we sang. This was the 
 hymn : " — 
 
 Jerusalem divine, 
 
 When shall I call thee mine ? 
 And to thy holy hill attain, 
 
 Where weary pilgrims rest, 
 
 And in thy glories blest, 
 With God Messiah ever reign ? 
 
;i(i:i nYMX-wiaxERS and their hymns. 
 
 The saints and angels join 
 
 In fellowshiiJ divine, 
 And raptnrc swells the solemn lay : 
 
 While all "with one accord 
 
 Adore their glorious Lord, 
 And shout His j)raise in endless day. 
 
 May I but find the grace 
 
 To fill an humble place 
 In that inheritance above ; 
 
 My tuneful voice I'll raise 
 
 In songs of loudest praise, 
 To spread Thy fame, Redeeming Love ! 
 
 Reign, true Messiah, reign! 
 
 Thy kingdom shall remain 
 When stars and sun no more shall shine, 
 
 Mysterious Deity, 
 
 Who ne'er began to be. 
 To sound Thy endless praise be mine ! 
 
 The musical preacher and hymnist left happy impres- 
 sions upon ^-erj' many souls, besides the old man who re- 
 corded his music. The preacher was Benjamin Rhodes, 
 the son of a schoolmaster at Hexborough, in the West 
 Riding of Yorkshire. He was born in the year 1743, and 
 had the advantage of a pious training by godlj^ parents. 
 Before he was eleven years of age, his fathtr took him to 
 hear Mr. Whitefield ; he was melted into tears, and re- 
 ceived religious impressions which, though dimmed occa- 
 sionally during his youthful course, finally led him to 
 Cliristian decision and eminent devotedness to Christ. 
 When about nineteen, his religious enjoyments were great. 
 " In this happy season," he tells us, " my joy frequently 
 prevented my sleep, while my soul was taken up with Him 
 who is altogether lovely ; and in ecstasies of joy, in the 
 stillness of the night, I often sang my great Deliverer's 
 praise." Thus his native musical powers, and his talent 
 as a hymnist, were hallowed by religious delight. In the 
 year 1766, he was employed by Mr. AVesley as an itinerant 
 preacher, and was faithful and happy in that calling for 
 about half a century. His end answered to the simj^licit}" 
 of his character and the integrity of his life ; it was peace. 
 He is now honoured as the author of that one hymn, the 
 latter part of which the old man used to sing with such 
 l^leasure. Mr. Ehodes was not a rival of Charles Wesley, 
 
SONGS OF GLOEY. S6o 
 
 but his " Jerusalem divine " ma}' be a companion liymu 
 for Wesley's sougs of glory, tlio songs which, probably, 
 come nearest to the apostolic standard of Christian hope. 
 One of them melted the judge and the entire court in Exeter 
 Castle, about twelve or thirteen years ago. A good young 
 woman had been set upon by a villain, ou her way from the 
 Sunday school, and was left for dead by the roadside. On 
 being discovered, she was restored to consciousness so far 
 as to identify the perpetrator of the crime ; and then she 
 died, singing one of Charles Wesley's triumphant anthems 
 of hope : — 
 
 How happy every child of grace, 
 
 Wlio knows his sins forgiven ! 
 This earth, he cries, is not my place, 
 
 I seek my place in heaven ; 
 A country far from mortal sight ; — 
 
 Yet, oh ! by faith I see 
 The land of rest, the saints' delight. 
 
 The heaven prepared for me. 
 
 A stranger in the woaid below, 
 
 I calmly sojourn here ; 
 Nor can its happiness or woe 
 
 Provoke my hop>e or fear : 
 Its evils in a moment end. 
 
 Its joys as soon are past ; 
 But, oh ! the bliss to which I tend 
 
 Eternally shall last. 
 
 To that Jerusalem above 
 
 "With singing I repair ; 
 While in the flesh my hojie and love. 
 
 My heart and soul are there ; 
 There my exalted Savioiu' stands. 
 
 My merciful High Priest, 
 And stUl extends His wounded hands 
 
 To take me to His breast. 
 
 What is there here to coiirt my stay, 
 
 Or hold me back from home, 
 While angels beckon me away. 
 
 And Jesus bids me come ? 
 Shall I regret my parted friends 
 
 Still in the vale confined ? 
 Nay, but whene'er my soul ascends. 
 
 They will not stay behind. 
 
3G4 HYMN-WRITERS AND THEIR HYMNS. 
 
 The race we all are running now ; 
 
 And if I first attain, 
 They too their willing head shall bow, 
 
 They too the prize shall gain. 
 Now on the brink of death we stand ; 
 
 And if I pass before, 
 They all shall soon escape to land, 
 
 And hail me on the shore. 
 
 Then let me suddenly remove, 
 
 That hidden life to share ; 
 I shall not lose my friends above, 
 
 But more enjoy them there. 
 There we in Jesu's praise shall join, 
 
 His boundless love proclaim, 
 And solemnize in songs divine 
 
 The marriage of the Lamb. 
 
 Oh, what a blessed hope is ours ! 
 
 While here on earth we stay. 
 We more than taste the heavenly powers, 
 
 And antedate that day : 
 We feel the resurrection near, 
 
 Our life in Christ conceal'd. 
 And with His glorious presence here 
 
 Our earthen vessels fill'd. 
 
 Oh, would He more of heaven bestow, 
 
 And let the vessel break. 
 And let our ransom'd spirits go 
 
 To grasp the God we seek : 
 In rapt'rous awe on Him to gaze 
 
 Who bought the sight for me ; 
 And shout, and wonder at His grace, 
 
 Through all eternity ! 
 
 The counsel for the prosecution at the murderer's trial, 
 in his appeal to the jmy, described the death-scene, and 
 rehearsed the hymn, a pare of ^yhich the dying girl sang 
 on her iipward flight. The judge, the jury, all but the 
 prisoner, wept. Who could help it ? To hear, in that 
 solemn court, the youthful martyr's song of glory ! and 
 such a song I Many hearts there on that day were ready 
 to repeat the last song of the young murdered Chris- 
 tian : — 
 
 Oh, would He more of heaven bestow, 
 
 And let the vessel break. 
 And let our ransom'd spirits go 
 
 To grasp the God we seek ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
INDEX TO THE HYMNS. 
 
 A STTEE stronghold oiir God is He Luther 11 
 
 All praise to Thee, my God, this night .... Ken 53 
 
 A hymn of glory let us sing Bede 79 
 
 Away with our sorrow and fear C. Wesley 155 
 
 Almighty Father ! the rolling year is full 
 
 of Thee TJiompso>i 178 
 
 AU thanks be to God C. Wesley 215 
 
 All praise to the Lord C. Wesley 234 
 
 Awake, my soul, and with the sun Ken 24-1 
 
 Among those points of neighbourhood .... Wither 283 
 
 Abide with me ! Fast falls the eventide . . Henry F. Lyte . . 295 
 
 Before Thy heavenly Word revealed .... Mrs. Julius Collins 1 8 
 
 Bright the visionjthat delighted Mant 31 
 
 Babe, the gift of God's sweet mercy Ephrem Syrus. ... 59 
 
 By cool Siloam's shady rill Heber 62 
 
 Before the need-fare Bede 78 
 
 Before Jehovah's awful throne Watts 158 
 
 Blest day of God, most calm, most bright. . Mason 204 
 
 Blest day by God in mercy given Mant 208 
 
 Brightly shines the morning star Translation by Mant 243 
 
 Brother, thou art gone before us Milman 325 
 
 Blessing, honour, thanks and praise C. Wesley 328 
 
 Behold the glories of the Lamb Watts 352 
 
 Cheist, Thou the champion of that war- 
 worn host Lotvenstern 11 
 
 Christ, my God, I come to praise Thee .... Gregory of Nazianzen 5 1 
 
 Christ, our day, our brightest light St. Augnsiine's time 54 
 
 2 A 
 
366 INDEX TO THE HYMIs^S. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire Gregory I. 71 
 
 Can I my fate no more "withstand Queen Maria of Hungary 104 
 
 Come, then, Thou great Deliverer, come . . C. Wesley 151 
 
 Come let us join our friends above C. Wesley 156,331 
 
 Come ye that love the Lord Watts 157 
 
 Come, oh come ! in pious lays Wither 172 
 
 Come, Thou all victorious Lord C. Wesley 214 
 
 Come, Di^dne Immanuel, come 0. Wesley 218 
 
 Come, O Thou traveller unknown C. Wesley 222 
 
 Come, Thou fount of every blessing Robinson 225 
 
 Come, let us anew our journey pursue .... C. Wesley 262 
 
 Come, let us join our cheerful songs Watts 270 
 
 Come, all ye chosen saints of God Joseph Hart 308 
 
 Come, ye siuners poor and wretched Joseph Hart 313 
 
 Come, immortal King of Glory T. Olivers 341 
 
 Come, Lord, my head doth bum, my heart 
 
 is sick Herbert 355 
 
 Christ, whose glory fills the sky C. Wesley 255 
 
 Deae is the hallowed morn to me Allan Cunningham 209 
 
 Dark and dim the daylight rose Monsell 317 
 
 Down from the willow bough Caroline Bowles . . 320 
 
 Deep tolls the muffled bell Monsell 359 
 
 Peom out midnight sleep uprising Early Christian . . 32 
 
 Fix, oh fix each crimson wound St. Bernard 90 
 
 Fear not, oh little flock, the foe Altenburg 103 
 
 Father of mercies, in Thy Word Ayine Steele 182 
 
 Far from these narrow scenes of night .... Anne Steele 351 
 
 Gentle Jesus, meek and mild C. Wesley 68 
 
 God save our gracious Queen Dr. John Bull. ... 113 
 
 Glory, and honour, and praise Theodulf of Orleans 117 
 
 Great God, here at ease Madame Guion. ... 123 
 
 God is a name my soul adores Watts 165 
 
 God of my days, Gt d of my nights Susanna Harrison 269 
 
 God of my life, to Thee C.Wesley 287 
 
 Give glory to Jesus our Head C. Wesley 327 
 
 Here from afar the finished height C. Wesley 46 
 
 Hear us now, King eternal Gregory of Nazianzen 49 
 
INDEX TO THE HYMNS. 367 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Holy art Thou, holy .... From the Saxon in the '■'■Codex Exoniensis" 75 
 
 Hence in Thy truth Thy Church delights. . 3Iaiit 83 
 
 High the angel choirs are raising Thomas a Kempis 98 
 
 Holy Spirit, come, we pray Ki)>g Robert of France 101 
 
 Has David Christ to come foreshow'd .... Samuel TJ'es/ei/, Jun. 133 
 
 Hail to the Lord's Anointed .' James 3£ontgomery 138 
 
 He dies, the Friend of sinners dies Watts 158 
 
 How happy is the pilgTim's lot John Wesley .... 160 
 
 High in the heavens, eternal G-od Watts 165 
 
 How shall the young secure their hearts . . Watts 193 
 
 Hail, thou bright and sacred morn Mrs. Lijte 196 
 
 Hearken to the solemn voice C. Wesley 260 
 
 How sweet and awful is the place Watts 270 
 
 Hence, ye profane, far off remove C. Wesley 275 
 
 Happy soul, thy days are ended C. Wesley 326 
 
 How vain are all things here below Watts 353 
 
 How happy every child of grace C. Wesley 363 
 
 I LOVE (and have some cause to love) the 
 
 earth Qaarles 84 
 
 I, whom of late Wither 128 
 
 If thy verse do bravely tower Wither 129 
 
 Inspirer of the ancient seers C. Wesley 186 
 
 In age and feebleness extreme C. Wesley 224 
 
 I hear the tempest's awful sound Keu-ton 236 
 
 If Paul in Ccesar's court must stand Nticton 239 
 
 I thank my Lord for kindly rest Berridge 249 
 
 Interval of grateful shade Boddridye 264 
 
 Is it not strange, the darkest hour Keble 307 
 
 In evil long I took delight Newton 314 
 
 In the midst of life we are in death Notker 322 
 
 In the midst of Ufe, behold Lutlier 323 
 
 I sojoiu'n in a vale of tears Mason 357 
 
 JtrsT as I am, without one plea Charlotte Elliott. . 39 
 
 Jesus, my Lord, in Thy dear name unite . . Anne Steele 42 
 
 Jesus, the only thought of Thee St. Bernard 86 
 
 Jesus, my Redeemer, lives 
 
 Louisa Henrietta, Electress of Brandenburgh . . 105 
 
 Jesus, lover of my soul C. Wesley 152 
 
 Jesus, cast a look on me Berridge 159 
 
368 INDEX TO THK HYMNS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Jesu ! bless oui' slender boat IFordsworth 229 
 
 Jesus, by whose grace I live Tuplady 246 
 
 Jesus, the all-restoring "Word C. Wesley 256 
 
 Join, all ye ransomed sons of grace C. Wesley 259 
 
 Jemsalem divine B. Rhodes ........ 361 
 
 Jerusalem the golden Bernard of Morlaix 95 
 
 Jerusalem, my happy home Francis Baker .... 118 
 
 LoED, Thou art God First Christians . . 16 
 
 Long-suffering Jesus, precious Jesus Early Christian . . 34 
 
 Lead, Holy One, lead Clement of Alexandria 47 
 
 Lamb of God, I look to Thee C. Wesley 69 
 
 Let me true commimion know St. Bernard 93 
 
 Leave all to God Anthony TJlriCjBiike of Brunswick 107 
 
 Lord, Thy best blessings shed Henry F. Lyte. ... 115 
 
 Let earth and heaven agree C. Wesley 151 
 
 Lord, when my raptured thought surveys. . Anne Steele 174 
 
 Lamp of our feet, whereby we trace Bernard Barton . . 191 
 
 Listed into the cause of sin C. Wesley 220 
 
 Launch thy bark, mariner Caroline Bowles . . 230 
 
 Lord, whom winds and seas obey C. Wesley 234 
 
 Lord, in Thy name and in Thy fear ...... Wither 278 
 
 Lord, on this day Thou didst bestow Wither 286 
 
 Lo, the day of wrath, the day Thomas of Celano 336 
 
 My fatherland alone to me remains Gregory of Nazianzen 50 
 
 Maker of all, the Lord Ambrose of Milan 54 
 
 My dearest Protector, see how they detain . . Madame Guion .. 125 
 
 My Shepherd will supply my need Watts 140 
 
 My Lord, my love was crucified Maion 206 
 
 My God, now I from sleep .awake Ken 267 
 
 My spirit on Thy care Henry F. Lyte .... 295 
 
 My God and Father, while I stray Charlotte Elliott . . 302 
 
 Now it belongs not to my care Richard Baxter . . 299 
 
 King of glory Bede 78 
 
 O Thou, the first, the greatest friend Burns 145 
 
 O Love Divine, how sweet thou art C. Wesley 154 
 
 Oh, what a gloomy, cheerless scene Monsell 168 
 
 Oh book ! infinite sweetness ! let my heart Herbert 192 
 
 Oh day most calm, most bright Herbert 200 
 
INDEX TO THE HYMNS. 369 
 
 PAGE 
 
 On this first day, when heaven and earth 
 
 From Latin hymn, by Mant 207 
 
 O Thou who didst prepare C. Wesley 232 
 
 O Thou jealous God ! come down C. Wesley 263 
 
 Our Jesus freely did appear Berridge 285 
 
 O Lord, my best desire fulfil Cowper 300 
 
 Oh ! what a sad and doleful night Joseph- Hart 311 
 
 PEAiSEDbe Thy name for ever, O our King Synagogue Service 17 
 
 Praise to God, immortal praise Letitia Barbauld. . 177 
 
 Precious Bible ! what a treasure Newton 189 
 
 Peace ! doubting heart ; my God's I am ! . . C. Wesley 303 
 
 Rock of Ages, cleft for me Toplady 35 
 
 Redeemer of the nations, come Ephrem Syrm .... 61 
 
 Raise the conquering martyr's song Bede 80 
 
 Rejoice for a brother deceased C. Wesley 331 
 
 Sing unto the Lord ! Ancient Israel. ... 2 
 
 Sweet hymns I attune Synagogue Hymn of Glory 17 
 
 Sleep well, my dear; sleep safe and free. . . . Luther 63 
 
 Sweet baby, sleep ; what ails my dear ? . . . . Wither 64 
 
 See how great a flame aspires G. Wesley 212 
 
 Since Thou hast added now, O God ! Wither 252 
 
 Since they in singing take delight Wither 281 
 
 Sons of God by bless'd adoption Joseph Hart 325 
 
 Sing from the chamber to the grave R. S. Hawker .... 334 
 
 Stand th' omnipotent decree ! C. Wesley 340 
 
 Saviour, when in dust to Thee Eobert Grant .... 319 
 
 Soon and for ever Jlonsell 360 
 
 The God of Abraham praise T. Olivers 24 
 
 The godly grief, the pleasing smart C. Wesley 34 
 
 Thou lovely Source of true delight Anne Steele 40 
 
 'Tis gone, that bright and orbed blaze Keble 55 
 
 To Thee, O God, be praises Ephrem Syrus .... 58 
 
 They say 'tis a sin to sorrow R. S. Hawker 59 
 
 'Twas silence in Thy temple, Lord Keble 72 
 
 This is joy, this is true pleasure . . . .Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia 110 
 
 The spacious firmament on high Addison 137 
 
 Thee, Lord, the good, the just C.Wesley 142 
 
 The busy tribes of flesh and blood Watts 146 
 
370 INDEX TO THE HYMNS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Lord is our refuge, the Lord is our guide Henry F. Lyte. .. . 147 
 
 The roj-al ensigns onward go Vcnaidhis Fortiinatm 76 
 
 The great day of wrath i» coming Early Judgment Jlymn 82 
 
 The world is old and sinful Bernard oJ'Morlaix 94 
 
 Thou art, O God, the life and light T. Moore 167 
 
 There is a book who runs may read Kcbh 171 
 
 The table of my heart prepare C. Wesley 184 
 
 The Spirit breathes upon the word Cowpcr 187 
 
 Thousands, O Lord of Hosts, to-day, Hcbcr 199 
 
 Thou God of glorious majesty. C. JFesley 217 
 
 Through Jesii's watcliful care Birr i dye 247 
 
 To Jesus, my dear Lord, I owe . , Berridye 251 
 
 Thou Shepherd of Israel and mine C. Wesley 276 
 
 Thou God of truth and love C. Wesley 277 
 
 To grace, Lord, a marriage feast Wither 280 
 
 The voice that breathed o'er Eden Keblc 288 
 
 There is a fountain fill'd with blood Gowper 316 
 
 Thou Judge of quick and dead C. Wesley 347 
 
 The chariot, the chariot ! its wheels roll on 
 
 fire MUman 348 
 
 The bird let loose in Eastern skies T. Moore 349 
 
 This world is all a fleeting show T. Moore 350 
 
 Thou know'st in the spirit of prayer C. Wesley 350 
 
 There is a land of pure delight Watts 354 
 
 We sat down and wept by the waters Byron 20 
 
 When Israel of the Lord beloved Walter Seott 23 
 
 We adore Thy pure image Early Christian . . 33 
 
 Why should our garments, made to hide . . Watts 66 
 
 Wlien Jesus left His Father's throne James Montgomery 70 
 
 When my dying hour must be St. Bernard 90 
 
 When ransom'd Israel came Samvel Wesley, Sen. 134 
 
 What though the spicy breezes Heber 198 
 
 Who are these that come from far (7. Wesley 212 
 
 Wbere the remote Bei'mudas ride Andrew Marvel . . 228 
 
 Why those fears ? behold, 'tis Jesus Kelly 240 
 
 When through the torn sail Heber 242 
 
 What secret hand at morning light Heber 253 
 
 We will not close our wakeful eyes C. Wesley 261 
 
 When I svu'vey life's varied scene Anne Steele 301 
 
 Yet think not, my soul, to keep Henry F. Lyte. . . . 291 
 
GENEEAL INDEX. 
 
 FAOB 
 
 Anctent Israel's hymn 2 
 
 Africa's first love, and songs 10 
 
 Anonymous hymns in the early church 32 
 
 Augustine's recollections of early hymnology 60 
 
 Above the clouds, in the west of England 164 
 
 A noble and gifted widow 103 
 
 Addison's thoughts about Psalm cxiv. : his boyhood 135 
 
 Anne Steele's home in Hampshire 173 
 
 Albert the good : his last hymn 12 
 
 A happy pilgrim, hymning on his way 196 
 
 Allan Cunningham's songs and hjonns 209 
 
 A poet's visit to Portland, and its results 213 
 
 Andrew Marvel : his character, satires, and hymns 227 
 
 A prodigal rescued in a storm 235 
 
 A Christian bishop on shipboard , 241 
 
 Awful scene in a transport ship 240 
 
 Amusing story of a clerical hymnist 243 
 
 Antidote for daily dangers 252 
 
 An old Christian's account of his morning music 255 
 
 A calm and holy sunset to life 297 
 
 A great Puritan: his versatile powers 299 
 
 Apostolic style of singing under trial 303 
 
 Abney Park, Watts's last retreat 355 
 
 Assize Court in tears 364 
 
 Approach of the Bridegroom felt by the Church 335 
 
 Baxtee and his psalm-singing flock at Kidderminster 8 
 
 Byron, Scott, and Olivers, a trio 20 
 
 Byron at Palmouth, and the lesson he received 21 
 
372 QENEEAX INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 BurgTindy and its saintly hymnists 88 
 
 Bernard of Morlaix in his monastic home 93 
 
 Brunswick family and its hymnists 106 
 
 Brixham, an interesting scene in its parish church 113 
 
 Bums in his better time as a psalm-writer 144 
 
 Berridge's hymn on Psalm cxxxi. 2, spoiled 158 
 
 Broughton, and its pastor 176 
 
 Boat scene and bridal party at Hidl in the olden time 227 
 
 Bishop Burnet's good advice to a graceless pastor 176 
 
 Barbauld, Anna Letitia : her character and pvu-suits 176 
 
 Beautiful and impressive passage in Wesley's experience 184 
 
 Bernard Barton : his character and poems 190 
 
 Bright and cheerful piety in a hymnist , . . . 247 
 
 Berridge's racy letters and essays 250 
 
 Beautiful finish to a suffering life 271. 
 
 Baxter, and his complex times 297 
 
 Bunhill Fields, and a funeral oration in 1768 324 
 
 Bemerton, and Herbert's rich bequest 355 
 
 Benjamin Rhodes, preacher and hymnist 362 
 
 Cheistianity cheerful in its nature 3 
 
 Cornish psalmody and religious life 9 
 
 Cobden's last hours 12 
 
 Collins, Mrs. Julius : her translations 18 
 
 Clement of Alexandria, and Wesley 46 
 
 Challenge for a new style of hymn 352 
 
 Cornish mother's lament 59 
 
 Chanting hymns of praise on a hill-side 172 
 
 Cowper and Newton, unlike and yet one 187 
 
 Charles Wesley's eye for beauties by the way 211 
 
 Charles Lamb's warning to Bernard Barton 190 
 
 Cornwall : one of its pits as seen by a Romish tourist 215 
 
 Cornish rhyme in honour of Charles Wesley 215 
 
 Christian genius in its last moments on earth 224 
 
 Caroline Bowles as Mrs. Southey at Keswick 230 
 
 Circumstances in their influence on a poet 245 
 
 Call from a waggish -looking parson, and its results 248 
 
 Chain of conversions 266 
 
 Classic divinity of England : its centre the Bible 180 
 
 Contentment in marriage 280 
 
 Clouds upon the mercy-seat 290 
 
 Cromwell and Richard Baxter face to face 298 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 373 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Cowper's sufferings and songs 300 
 
 Christian tenderness learnt on Calvary 319 
 
 Cambrse, and its surrounding scenery 330 
 
 Cornish death-song 334 
 
 Christian sympathy with the beauties and harmonies of nature 170 
 
 Devonian 8cenes,.poetic pilgrims 133 
 
 Danvers, Jane : her love for Herbert 202 
 
 Doddridge in tears, yet happy 263 
 
 Dreams suggestive of hymns 338 
 
 Dean Milman, family, and course 348 
 
 Disappointment of "Watts, and its happy issue 353 
 
 Egypt, her scenes and songsters 44 
 
 Evening songs, their succession in the Church 50 
 
 Elizabeth Singer's response to her poetic suitor 353 
 
 England's second birth -time 82 
 
 England's renovation in the seventeenth century 83 
 
 Easter reflections and feelings 307 
 
 FiEST Latin missionaries to England 74 
 
 F. B. P. in the Tower, and his long hymn 118 
 
 Foolish Dick, the happy pilgrim 161 
 
 Fragments of time well filled 266 
 
 Funeral hymns excelling in grandeur and power 329 
 
 Frequent prayer the secret of Mason's sweetness and grace .... 357 
 
 Germans, and their love of psalmody 10 
 
 Gregory of Nazianzen : scenes of his life and times 48 
 
 George Wither's portrait 65 
 
 Gregory the Great : his character and works 73 
 
 Germ of the " Dies Irse " 82 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus: his character and victories 102 
 
 Guion, Madame : her conversion, trials, songs, and death 121 
 
 Grave-side anthems 322 
 
 Hymnic style of early language 1 
 
 Hymns in their influence on the spiritual life of the Church . . 2 
 
 Hymns favourites with children 4 
 
 Hallelujah victories 7 
 
 Hugh Capet of France, and his son Robert . f 100 
 
374 GENERAL IITDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Hymn-meudcrs instructed and reproved 150 
 
 Hymn-books for all classes 150 
 
 Holy Scripture in its influence on great "writers 183 
 
 Herbert : his person, short and full career 192 
 
 Henchman's plaintive record of Herbert's life 192 
 
 Hebcr : his last charge 198 
 
 Heaven in a little chamber of sickness 2U0 
 
 Hymn-composing in the saddle : its dangers and frmts 211 
 
 Hymnists gathering eongs from the deep 231 
 
 Hebrew talk about the secrets of truth 274 
 
 Hymns for everybody, by George Wither 278 
 
 House-warming in old times 283 
 
 Hart the hymnist : his experience and ministry 309 
 
 Henry H. Milma.n in his decline 325 
 
 Heaven'secn from the sick chamber 351 
 
 " Home," a summons from the muffled bell , . . 359 
 
 Itinerant life, and its adventures . . 338 
 
 Irish hymn-menders 153 
 
 " In the midst of life we are in death " 323 
 
 James Montgomery on the childhood of Jesus 70 
 
 John Bull the author of the National Anthem 113 
 
 John Wesley as a hymnist 159 
 
 Jewish consolation on a sick-bed 274 
 
 Joseph Hart's funeral 324 
 
 Ken : his trials and character 51 
 
 Keble, in harmony with the music of former ages 55 
 
 Kingly students and hymn-writers 100 
 
 Keble' s beautiful interweaving of nature and grace 170 
 
 Kennicott's thirty years' labour on his Hebrew Bible : his gifted 
 
 " help-meet," and how she helped him 181 
 
 Kelly and Lord Plunket, old school-fellow 241 
 
 Ken's recollections of Winchester 244 
 
 King Arthur's castle in North Cornwall 257 
 
 Lasting influence of hymns learnt in childliood 4 
 
 Lullabies, and their authors 63 
 
 Lichfield, private chat and public services 71 
 
 Lichfield, and its Cathedi-al Close 136 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 375 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Louisa Henrietta of Brandenbiirgh, and her hushing song- .... 105 
 
 Lady Aletta, St. Bernard's mother 89 
 
 Land's End : its grandeurs 217 
 
 Leigh ton's time for deepest thought 257 
 
 LoneUness on New Year's Eve 262 
 
 Lady Huntingdon and Dr. Doddridge 263 
 
 Lyte, Henry F. : his birthjalace and beautifid career 293 
 
 Lyte: his preaching and hymns 113 
 
 Laymen's hallowed genius 318 
 
 Last words suggestive to consecrated genius 328 
 
 Last Sunday of a parson 203 
 
 Last words of a dejjarting Christian 360 
 
 Last moments of a murdered Sunday-school teacher 363 
 
 Melancholy Christians 3 
 
 Mesopotamia : its psalmists and psalmody 57 
 
 Monkish monarchs and martial rulers 102 
 
 Maria of Hungaiy, and her hymn in bereavement 103 
 
 Marriages of i^rinces by lot 108 
 
 Meditation about departed worthies 136 
 
 Montgomery's fine version of Psalm Ixxii 138 
 
 Mysteries in the history of old books 141 
 
 Moore's Irish Melodies, and his Wiltshire cottage 167 
 
 Monsell, andhis " Parish Musings " 169 
 
 Milton and John Bunyan, their obligation to the Bible 183 
 
 Mason's character, by Richard Baxter 203 
 
 Mason and Herbert alike in piety and genius 206 
 
 Mant, as a translator of Latin hymns 207 
 
 Mant, ignorant of those about whom he lectured 208 
 
 Morning- hymn in Mant's school days 243 
 
 Methodist clergyman of early times 249 
 
 Missionary sorrows in the Island of Zante 261 
 
 Methodist preacher and Polish Jew in happy companionship . . 273 
 
 Medical skill in Baxter's times 298 
 
 Mystery and joy of the cross 306 
 
 Monsell, and his sanctified muse 318 
 
 Monica and St. Ambrose 61 
 
 National character swayed by popular songs 6 
 
 National anthems and their power 7 
 
 Nature and grace in harmony 168 
 
376 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Newton's illustration of variety in Christian character and 
 
 calling 188 
 
 Newton's eventful life 231 
 
 Night scenes in the Ionian Sea 261 
 
 Northampton, monthly devotion in its old meeting-house 264 
 
 Nuptial joys interwoven with praise and prayer 288 
 
 Notker, and his immortal hymn 323 
 
 Old age melted and hallowed by renewal of early impressions 5 
 
 Our English Bible, and what is in it 181 
 
 " Old Everton " on a " Christian wedding " 285 
 
 Olivers the hymnist and comj)anion of "Wesley 345 
 
 Old hymnists out of taste 352 
 
 Old man's story about a tuneful preacher 361 
 
 Pastoral recollections of first hymn lessons 5 
 
 Primitive ChristiaA psalmody in relation to that of the Syna- 
 gogue 16 
 
 Poetic gifts hallowed for the good of the Church 19 
 
 Pomeroy, Dr. : his interesting story about Armenian psalmody 35 
 
 Palm-Sunday at Mentz in the time of Louis Debonnaire 116 
 
 Psalm from a prison window 116 
 
 Patmos, and its songs 117 
 
 Psalms " done into metre " 132 
 
 Prolific hymnists and fast poets 140 
 
 Peace and joy in affliction 197 
 
 Piety associated with some false notions 204 
 
 Portland, and its people 213 
 
 Praise as the first act in the morning 254 
 
 Poverty, piety, and genius in a. girl 269 
 
 Praise for the fountain opened, from a sufferer 315 
 
 Parish musings on Good Friday 316 
 
 Piety and taste in Cornwall 329 
 
 " Queen of Hearts : " her parentage, life, character, and hymn 108 
 
 Robert Hall, an incident in his history 31 
 
 Robinson of Cambridge : an adventure in a stage coach 225 
 
 Robert Hall's opinion of Robinson 226 
 
 Romantic adventures of a hymnist 235 
 
 " Rock of Ages : " its birthplace 246 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 377 
 
 PAeB 
 
 Romantic scene in pilgi-im life 258 
 
 " Rise and progress of Religion in the Soul " 266 
 
 Requiem by the bed-side of a departing saint 327 
 
 Redruth Churchyard, and its burial hymns 330 
 
 Remarkable traveller in 1753 338 
 
 Song of a persecuted girl in Cornwall 10 
 
 St. Paul's view of spiritual song 14 
 
 Synagogue hymns 17 
 
 Scott, "Walter : his faithfulness to Byron 22 
 
 Scotch mothers, and the happy fruit of their psalmody 120 
 
 Saxon slaves in the Roman market 74 
 
 St. George and the Dragon 75 
 
 Saxon hymnology 75 
 
 St. Bernard's birthplace, parentage, character, and happy death 88 
 
 Sea Captain's death song 152 
 
 Scene from the top of an old tower 164 
 
 Songs above the storm 165 
 
 Songs from old Ireland 168 
 
 Scotland the birthplace of genius 178 
 
 Shaftesbury's " Characteristics : " their mischievous influence. . 189 
 
 Spmpathy of the soul with the outer world 195 
 
 Stories of other days, by an old Cornishman 219 
 
 Sabbath peace on the waters 233 
 
 Secret of happy and useful preaching 247 
 
 Suffering mingled with songs in the night 267 
 
 Solomon's Song : its claims and design 272 
 
 Sweets extracted from birthdays 287 
 
 Songs of suffering women 301 
 
 Susanna "Wesley's last charge 327 
 
 Southampton psalmody in early times 352 
 
 Scene in Exeter Castle during the Assizes 363 
 
 Song of a murdered young Christian 364 
 
 ToPLADY and Olivers as controversialists and hymnists 27 
 
 " Ter Sancfus," " Gloria in excelsts," and the " Te Dcum " 30 
 
 Toplady's parish : his life and character ■ 36 
 
 " Theodosia : " her thoughts and hymns 43 
 
 Theodulph of Orleans 117 
 
 Tiverton Grammar School and its old master 133 
 
 " The spii-it of the Psalms," by H. T. Lyte 146 
 
378 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Thomas a Keiupis: his cloister life, his "Imitation of Christ," 
 
 and his hymns 97 
 
 Thompson's character : his grand closing hjmin 178 
 
 Talk in a sea-side cottage 197 
 
 Tintagel ruins by the sea 258 
 
 Tinkling employment for a merry old man 284 
 
 Tales in verse 291 
 
 The decrees, and where to find them : a queer story 295 
 
 The young miner singing his own requiem 333 
 
 Triumphant song with the last breath 333 
 
 Thomas of Celano's judgment hymn •. 336 
 
 Thomas Moore's better moments and upward looks 349 
 
 " Veiii Creator Spirifm : " its author 73 
 
 Venantius Fortunatus : his character and friends 76 
 
 Venerable Bade at "Wearmouth : his last hours, etc 77 
 
 WiNCHESTEB School 52 
 
 "Watts and Wesley : their comparative merits in childi-en' s hymns 6 7 
 
 Wither, George : his sympathy with prisoners 127 
 
 Wesley, Samuel, sen. : his version of psalms 134 
 
 Wesley, Charles, as a psalmist 141 
 
 Wesley's dictionary and the preface to his hymn-book 148 
 
 Wesley as a hymn- mender 156 
 
 Women's voices in songs of creation 173 
 
 Walton's beautiful sketch of Herbert's conjugal life 202 
 
 " Wrestling Jacob," by C. Wesley, remarkably illusti-ated .... 222 
 
 Wordsworth at Heidelbei'g and on the Neckar 229 
 
 William of Wykeham and his school 243 
 
 Watch-night services among old Methodists 259 
 
 Wilson and his " Noctes Ambrosianae " 291 
 
 Women at the cross 319 
 
 Walter Scott's last breathings 336 
 
 Watts's first essay at hymn writing 353 
 
 Women devoted to song 38 
 
 Youthful suffering hushed by Bernard's hymn 95 
 
 Yearning for future repose 349 
 
 LONDON : 8. W. PABTEIDGE AND CO. 9 PATEKNOSTER KOW. 
 
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