HYMNS 
 
 AND THEIR STORIES 
 
B.1.2.1 
 
 LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON. N. J. 
 
 Division. 
 
 Section...7A.!ji.7..... 
 
HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
HYMNS 
 
 AND THEIR STORIES 
 
 A. E. C. 
 
 WITH A PREFACE • 
 
 BY 
 
 EDGAR C. S. GIBSON, M.A., 
 
 FKIXCIPAL OF THE THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE, WELLS, AND PREEENbARY OF 
 WELLS CATHEDRAL. 
 
 PUBLISHED UNDER THE DH^ECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE. 
 
 SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGl 
 
 LONDON : NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C. J 
 
 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.G. 
 
 BRIGHTON: 129, north st.ceet. 
 New York: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. 
 
 1896. 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 A CONSIDERABLE portion of this little book was 
 written before Dr. Julian's wonderful and ex- 
 haustive work, The Dictionary of Hymnology, 
 appeared. 
 
 The Author most gratefully acknowledges the 
 great help that the latter book has been in verifying 
 facts, correcting errors, and supplying additional 
 information ; and strongly recommends it for study 
 to all who wish to. learn more upon the subject of 
 Hymns. 
 
 The Author feels also deeply indebted to 
 Mr. John Murray, who has generously agreed to 
 withdraw his just claim for transgression of his 
 copyright. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 We are told in Dr. Julian's Dictionary of Hymn- 
 ology that "the total number of Christian hymns in 
 the two hundred or more languages and dialects 
 in which they have been written or translated is 
 not less than four hundred thousand " — a fact which 
 bears striking testimony to the position that the 
 singing of hymns holds in the devotions of the 
 Christian Church. And although hymns must 
 always stand or fall by their own merits, and 
 the origin and authorship of many of the noblest 
 of them is unknown, yet there can be no doubt 
 that the interest attaching to a hymn is greatly 
 increased when we are able to refer them to their 
 right authors, and assign them to particular occa- 
 sions in their lives. We all know what a gain it 
 is to the Psalms when we are permitted to associate 
 them with definite incidents in the life of David, 
 or to illustrate them from the evisnts of the history 
 of Israel. So is it with the hymns which we use in 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 our churches. In many cases there are traditions 
 of no slight interest and beauty — in some cases 
 authentic information is not wanting — in regard to 
 the occasions on which they were composed ; while 
 even to know the names of their authors, and the 
 times at which they Hved is sometimes sufficient to 
 suggest associations which give fresh interest to 
 famihar words. To give but a single example. 
 Such hymns as " Brief life is here our portion," 
 and " Jerusalem, the golden," receive a new signifi- 
 cance when we recollect that they belong to the 
 age of the Crusades, when " men's hearts were fired 
 with love and devotion to that Master in Whose 
 honour they bore the Red Cross, and Whose tomb 
 they went to rescue from heathen spoilers." With 
 this thought in our minds, we can see at once that 
 "the hymns themselves speak of the time in 
 which they were written — of the glories of the 
 New Jerusalem, of peace after war, of rest after 
 battle."! 
 
 It is no wonder then that the study of Hymn- 
 ology has proved a fascinating one, and that the 
 works which deal with it are very numerous. 
 Never perhaps was greater interest taken in it 
 than at the present day. In this country the works 
 of Lord Selborne, the late Archbishop Trench, 
 and John Mason Neale did perhaps more than 
 
 ^ See p. 60. 
 
PREFACE. vil 
 
 anything else to awaken this Interest, and promote 
 a knowledge of the subject, while quite recently a 
 fresh impetus has been given to the study by the 
 publication of Dr. Julian's great work already 
 alluded to, the Dictionary of Hymnology^ a work in 
 which full information may be found on an enormous 
 number of hymns, and on all subjects connected 
 with them and their authors. This volume, how- 
 ever, is of course designed for the student rather 
 than for the general reader, and is on too large a 
 scale to be widely circulated. There was room, 
 therefore, for a small work which should popularize 
 the subject, and tell in simple language the story 
 of the growth of Christian hymnody, assigning, 
 as far as possible, to their proper dates and authors 
 those universal favourites which find a place in all 
 the hymn-books in common use. This work has 
 been admirably done by A. E. C, who, in this 
 series of papers, to which I have been asked to 
 contribute a few words by way of Preface, has 
 given a very careful sketch of the whole subject — 
 stopping short designedly before the present day, 
 so as to exclude reference to living writers In this 
 country. Portions of some of these papers have 
 already appeared in the Dazvn of Day, but they 
 have been considerably altered and added to, and 
 are well worth preserving in a permanent form. 
 They furnish an excellent introduction to a subject 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 which seems to grow in interest the more it is 
 studied, and the stories collected in them will often 
 be found to furnish new and delightful illustrations 
 of the old truth that — 
 
 " A verse may find him whom a sermon flies, 
 And turn delisfht into a sacrifice." 
 
 Edgar C. S. Gibson. 
 
 WellSf Somerset, 
 July 7, 1894. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. BiDLE Hymns ii 
 
 II. Prayer-Book Hymns 17 
 
 III. Hymns of the Eastern Church : Second 
 
 to Sixth Centuries 24 
 
 IV. Later Greek Hymns : Seventh, Eighth, and 
 
 Ninth Centuries 30 
 
 V. Latin Hymns : Fourth and Fifth Centuries 37 
 
 VI. „ „ Sixth to Eighth Centuries ... 43 
 VII. „ ^, Ninth and Tenth Centuries 
 
 — Sequences ... ... 50 
 
 VIII. 5, „ Eleventh and Twelfth Cen- 
 turies 58 
 
 IX. „ „ Thirteenth and following 
 
 Centuries ... ... ... 66 
 
 X. Early English Hymns 73 
 
 XI. Psalms in Verse . ... 80 
 
 xn. Christmas Carols 87 
 
 XIII. German Hymns 95 
 
 XIV. „ „ The Thirty Years' War ... loi 
 XV. „ „ Eighteenth and Nineteenth 
 
 Centuries in 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XVI. 
 
 French Hymns 
 
 
 
 ii8 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Italian Hymns., 
 
 
 
 125 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Scandinavian Hymns 
 
 131 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Welsh Hymns . 
 
 
 
 136 
 
 XX. 
 
 English Hymns ; 
 
 : Sixteenth and Seventeenth 
 
 
 
 
 Centuries 
 
 142 
 
 XXI. 
 
 3J 5> 
 
 Religious Revival of Eigh- 
 
 
 
 
 teenth Century 
 
 152 
 
 XXII. 
 
 5) )) 
 
 Beginning of Nineteenth 
 
 
 
 
 Century 
 
 162 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 American Hymns 
 
 171 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Modern English Hymns 
 
 180 
 
 
 Index 
 
 .. 
 
 189 
 
HYMNS 
 
 AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 I. 
 
 BIBLE HYMNS. 
 
 " And when they had sung an hymn." — S. Matt. xxvi. 30. 
 "And at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and sing- 
 ing hymns unto God, and the prisoners were listening to 
 them." — Acts xvi. 25, R.V. "Speaking to yourselves in 
 psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs ; singing and 
 making melody in your hearts to the Lord." — Eph. v. 19 ; 
 Col. iii. 16. 
 
 Perhaps there is hardly anything which will give 
 us more interest in Church history or make us feel 
 what a grand heritage our Catholic Church possesses, 
 than the study of her hymns. We have to go back 
 into far-off countries, and centuries long ago, and 
 when we find that we are singing the very same 
 grand old hymns which were sung by Apostles, by 
 S. Ambrose, by King Alfred, by S. Patrick, and the 
 saintly Bede, we realize more and more the great 
 doctrine of the Communion of Saints. 
 
 We have now to speak of Christian hymns ; but 
 we must remember that the old Hebrew songs were 
 the foundation of our hymns, and that the Book of 
 Psalms was the Hymn Book of our Lord and His 
 
12 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 Apostles, and the Great Hallel probably the last 
 hymn He sang. 
 
 The earliest New Testament hymns were the 
 songs of Zacharias and of the Blessed Virgin, the 
 song of the angels at the birth of Christ, and the 
 song of Simeon. 
 
 From very early times the Benedictus — " Blessed 
 be the Lord God of Israel " — was used as an early 
 morning hymn. We use it most appropriately 
 after the second lesson in the morning service, 
 when we have just heard the glad news of the 
 Gospel. Still more is the Nunc Dimittis — the song 
 of Simeon — an evening hymn, and from the earliest 
 Christian times it has been sung at vespers. Both 
 these Canticles speak of Christ as TJie Light. In 
 the first, the rising sun — " the dayspring from on 
 high," giving " light to them that sit in darkness 
 and the shadow of death " — is used as a type of 
 Christ ; and the Benedictus may be called the sun- 
 rise hymn. Bishop Alexander tells us that the 
 figure in the last verse is that of a caravan, which 
 has lost its way in the dark. The travellers wait in 
 the gloom till the sun arises to show them their 
 way. So is the Nunc Dimittis the sunset hymn — 
 sleep has always been the type of death — and here 
 Christ is the " Light to lighten the Gentiles," the 
 Light to lighten the dark valley of the shadow of 
 death. The hymn has often been used, too, as a 
 prayer for a holy death, and also as a Post Com- 
 munion hymn, when our Blessed Saviour has taken 
 up His abode in our hearts. 
 
 There used to be a very pretty custom on Candle- 
 mas Day, that is, the Feast of the Purification, the 
 day on which the Nunc Dimittis was first sung by 
 
BIBLE HYMNS. 13 
 
 Simeon. The people all took tapers to church, 
 which were lighted at a fire kindled by the Bishop. 
 A rubric of the time of Henry VIII. says : — "On 
 Candlemasse Days it shall be declared that the 
 bearing of candles is done in memorie of Christe, 
 the spiritualle lighte,of whom Simeon did prophccye, 
 as it is read in the Church at this day." There is 
 an old Latin hymn, by Adam of S. Victor, of whom 
 we shall hear later, for the blessing of the candles— 
 
 "As one, love to Jesus bearing, 
 In this festal custom sharing, 
 
 Doth a waxen taper hold ; 
 So the Father's Word supernal, 
 Pledge of purity maternal, 
 
 Did old Simeon's arms enfold." 
 
 It is a curious fact that, with the great exception 
 of the Magnificat, we hear of scarcely any other 
 Christian hymns written by women until quite 
 modern times. If they were written, the names of 
 their authors remain hidden from us. The resem- 
 blance between this song of the Blessed Virgin and 
 the song of Hannah, in the Old Testament, has 
 often been noticed. 
 
 The first Christian hymn, in the sense of being 
 the first sung after the Birth of Christ, was the 
 Gloria in Excelsis — the Angels' song, " Glory to 
 God in the highest," etc. Pliny, a writer who lived 
 in the first century after Christ, says that the 
 Christians used "to meet at an early hour, be- 
 fore dawn, to sing a hymn of praise to Christ as 
 God." Many think that this was the Gloria in 
 Excelsis ; and it has even been suggested that it 
 may have been part of the Te Deum, the first 
 ten verses of which have been found in Greek. 
 
14 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 S. Cbrysostom says : " They met together daily, to 
 sing their morning hymn, with one mouth, to God ; 
 among which they sang this angeHcal hymn, with 
 the Angels in Heaven." We are quite sure, there- 
 fore, that in very early times, the Angels' song was 
 enlarged into something like its present form, and 
 used in the Eastern Church, as a morning hymn. 
 Its Eucharistic use is Western. The heavenly song 
 comes, in our Prayer Book, just at the climax of 
 the Divine Service, when our hearts are filled with 
 love to Christ, and men's words seem insufficient 
 to express our feelings. Thus, having received 
 Angels' food, we sing Angels' words, in a burst of 
 thanksgiving. 
 
 Other fragments of early Christian hymns are 
 supposed to exist in the Bible, and may be found 
 in these passages : Acts iv. 24 — 30 ; Eph. v. 14 ; 
 I Tim. iii. 16 ; 2 Tim. ii. ii — 13 ; Rev. i. 4 — 8 ; xi. 
 15 — 19 ; XV. 3, 4 ; xxi. i — 8 ; xxii. 10 — 18. Perhaps 
 some of these may have been the hymns sung by 
 Paul and Silas, when the prisoners heard them. 
 
 There is one word very largely used in the Bible 
 which, though we can hardly call it a hymn in 
 itself, must be spoken of in connection with hymns 
 — Alleluia, or, more properly, Hallelu-jah — " Praise 
 Jehovah," or " Praise the Lord." It occurs before 
 many of the Psalms (see Ps. civ. 35 ; cv. 45*; cxlvi., 
 cl., etc.), and was always sung by the Jews on solemn 
 days of rejoicing. It is supposed to be one of the 
 oldest words of devotion — for it has been found to 
 be used by many other nations. Perhaps, indeed, 
 it came straight from Heaven to earth, for S. John 
 (Rev. xix. I — 6) tells us how the heavenly host sang 
 " Alleluia." It became the " burden and prelude " 
 
BIBLE HYMNS. 15 
 
 of all Christian song. Little children lisped it from 
 their cradles, and by the fourth century it was 
 known as the Christian shout of joy or victory. 
 Christian rowers, as they rowed their boats, chanted 
 Alleluia, as a song to make them pull together ; 
 and labourers at the plough sang it as they worked. 
 This was not, however, in the earliest ages of the 
 Church, for at first the Christians were very careful 
 how they used it, fearing lest the angehc word 
 might become a mere empty sound. S. Jerome 
 tells us that the sound of the Alleluia summoned 
 the monks to say their office; and we find, by his 
 epitaph on Fabiola, that it was used at funerals. 
 He says that "the whole multitude were singing 
 psalms together, and making the golden roof of the 
 church shake with echoing forth the Alleluia." One 
 of our beautiful hymns for the burial of a child, 
 translated from the Latin, retains the Alleluia : 
 
 " Let no tears to-day be shed, 
 Holy is this narrow bed. Alleluia ! " 
 
 (Ch. Hy, 248.) 
 
 It was also much used at baptisms. The story 
 of the Hallelujah Victory takes us back to the 
 time when there were many Christians in Wales, 
 but few in any other part of Britain, and there were 
 numbers of heathen Picts and others, who robbed 
 and plundered the country, and waged war against 
 the Christians. S. Germanus had come over to 
 preach in Britain against a certain heresy, and he 
 converted and baptized a large number of people. 
 
 "The holy days of Lent were also at hand, and were 
 rendered more religious by the presence of the priests, inso- 
 much that the people, being instructed by daily sermons. 
 
t6 hymns and their stories. 
 
 resorted in crowds to be baptized, for most of the army 
 desired admission to the saving water ; a church was pre- 
 pared with boughs for the feast of the resurrection of our 
 Lord, and so fitted up in that martial camp as if it were a 
 city. The army advanced, still wet with the baptismal 
 water, the faith of the people was strengthened, and whereas 
 human power had before been despaired of, the Divine 
 assistance was now relied upon. ... A multitude of fierce 
 enemies appeared, whom as soon as those that lay in ambush 
 saw approaching, Germanus, bearing in his hands the 
 standard, instructed his men all in a loud voice to repeat his 
 words, and the enemy advancing securely, as thinking to 
 take them by surprise, the priests three times cried ' Hal- 
 lelujah.' A universal shout of the same word followed, and 
 the hills resounding the echo on all sides, the enemy was 
 struck with dread, fearing that not only the neighbouring 
 rocks, but even the very skies were falling upon them ; and 
 such was their terror that their feet were not swift enough to 
 deliver them from it. They fled in disorder, casting away 
 their arms, and well satisfied if, with their naked bodies, 
 they could escape the danger ; many of them, in their pre- 
 cipitate and hasty flight, were swallowed up by the river 
 which they were passing. . . . The prelates thus triumphed 
 over the enemy without bloodshed, and gained a victor)^ by 
 faith, without the aid of human force, and prepared to return 
 home." 
 
 Before we go on to study further the history of 
 hymns, we must remember the words of S. Paul, 
 which occur tivice in his Epistles : " Speaking to 
 yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual 
 songs, singing and making melody in your hearts 
 to the Lord." Our hymns will be of no use to us 
 unless we think of the words as we sing them, and 
 " lift up our hearts " in praise and prayer. This 
 lesson is beautifully brought out in the curious old 
 " legend of the Magnificat." There was a certain 
 abbey, built on very marshy ground, and the monks 
 who lived in it led pure and holy lives, tending the 
 
rRAVER-r.OOK HYMNS. 1 7 
 
 sick and sorrowing. But they had one great trouble, 
 not one of them could sing. They tried to sing 
 their Magnificat each day, though with harsh and 
 croaky voices, yet with all their hearts. One day 
 there came to the abbey a monk who had a lovely 
 voice, and while he sang the others were silent, 
 and that night the abbot had a dream. An angel 
 appeared to him and asked him, *' Why was Mag- 
 nificat not sung to-night ? All these years the voices 
 of praise reached heaven, to-night there was silence." 
 And then the abbot knew that the monk with the 
 lovely voice was singing for earth and not for 
 heaven, and that the other voices which had been 
 silenced were more pleasing to God, though harsh 
 and untunable, because the melody in them came 
 front the heart. 
 
 II. 
 
 PRAYER-BOOK HYMNS. 
 
 " It was the custom of these Christians to meet on a fixed 
 day, before light, and to sing together, in turn, a hymn 
 to Christ as God, then to separate, and after a time 
 re-assemble, in order to eat together a simple and harmless 
 meal." — Pliny''s Letters. 
 
 We have spoken of the canticles, or Bible Songs, 
 and we come now. to what may be more strictly 
 termed a hymn, and has, indeed, been called the 
 greatest of all hymns — the Te Deum. It is said by 
 tradition to have been composed by S. Ambrose, 
 and sung in the Church at Milan at the baptism 
 
l8 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 of S. Augustine, the two saints answering each 
 other in alternate verses, and Monica crying, "I 
 had rather have thee, Augustinus, Christian, than 
 Augustinus Emperor^ 
 
 But this legend, beautiful as it is, has no founda- 
 tion, for we cannot trace the Te Deum, as it now 
 stands, so far back in history. Its origin Hes in 
 obscurity, though the first ten verses, as we noticed 
 before, existed in Greek in comparatively early 
 times, and as a Latin hymn in its present, or nearly 
 its present, form, it is known to have been used as 
 a hymn for matins on Sunday, before the last 
 lesson, from the beginning of the sixth century. 
 
 In different churches its form varies, but the last 
 verses are always sentences taken mainly from the 
 Bible, seven of them being from the Psalter and 
 one from the Book of Daniel. The hymn is an act 
 of adoration, beginning with praise from ourselves, 
 and finally leads up to the song of the highest 
 ranks of angels, using the very words of their 
 worship, " Holy ! Holy ! Holy ! " Then comes 
 the adoration of the elect in Paradise — Apostles, 
 Prophets, Martyrs, the Church triumphant uniting 
 with the Church militant in the worship of the 
 Holy Trinity. 
 
 Then the hymn is addressed to Christ, and 
 becomes a kind oi creed, of six verses, describing the 
 Incarnation, the Redemption, the Resurrection, 
 Ascension, and the glorious coming. 
 
 The third part of the hymn (verse 20 to end) is 
 prayer, and in some churches, chiefly on the 
 Continent, it is the custom for the people to kneel 
 during the singing of it. Thus this most beautiful 
 and " most famous non-biblical hymn of the early 
 
PRAYER-BOOK HYMNS. I9 
 
 Church " is a type of what every good hymn should 
 be, an act o{ praise, oi faith, and oi prayer. 
 
 The Te Deum has been sung, not only at great 
 religious festivals — Councils of the Church, corona- 
 tions, public thanksgivings, baptisms, weddings — 
 but on the battle-field, on the scaffold, on the 
 occas'on of great discoveries, as when Columbus 
 and his crew discovered the New World, and when 
 the first French adventurers reached the mouth of 
 the Mississippi. Many of our greatest musicians 
 have composed solemn Te Deums, and its history 
 might form a book in itself. 
 
 Another very short " Prayer-book hymn " is the 
 Gloria Patri, or lesser doxology, so called in contrast 
 to the Gloria in Excelsis, or greater doxology, 
 the "Glory be to the Father," etc., which we sing at 
 the end of every Psalm. This dates, possibly, from 
 the time of the Apostles, though the words, " As 
 it was in the beginning," were added later, to con- 
 fute some heretics who denied the eternal Deity of 
 the Son of God. The Gloria Patri was offered as a 
 solemn act of praise to God, not only after every 
 Psalm — in the Western Church — or after the last 
 Psalm in a section — in the Eastern Church — but also 
 after many prayers, and, as we still keep it, under 
 varying forms, after sermons. It is not only an act 
 of praise, but a short creed in itself. Polycarp, one 
 of the early Christian martyrs, used it when bound 
 to the stake, before the flames reached him ; and 
 Bede, a very saintly man, and a hymn-writer him- 
 self, died with the words of the Gloria upon his lips. 
 In later days, ;;2£'/;7r^/ doxologies came into vogue, 
 and were much used in Latin, and afterwards in 
 English, our most famous one being Bishop Ken's — 
 
20 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 " Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow, 
 Praise Him all creatures here below," etc. 
 
 Some of the old Latin doxologies are very beauti- 
 ful, and emphasize the day or the season for which 
 they are appointed. 
 
 Another hymn used in our Liturgy, or Holy 
 Communion Office, besides the Gloria in Excelsis, 
 is the Tersanctus, also an angelic hymn, " Holy, 
 Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth 
 are full of Thy glory : Glory be to Thee, O Lord 
 most high " (see Isaiah vi. 3 ; Rev. iv. 8). This 
 is taken directly from Holy Scripture, as also are 
 the other two Eucharistic hymns, which, though 
 not appointed to be used in our Prayer-book, are 
 now commonly employed as other hymns are — 
 the Benedictus and the Agnus Dei. The first of 
 these is the triumphal chorus sung by the people as 
 they waved their palm-branches before our Blessed 
 Lord, on His entry into Jerusalem (S. Matt. xxi. 
 9 ; S. Mark xi. 9 ; S. Luke xix. 38). The words 
 vary a little in the three Gospels ; S. Luke alone 
 giving us the angelic words, " Peace in heaven, glory 
 in the highest" (see S. Luke ii. 14, where the 
 words at the Saviour's birth are " peace on earth"). 
 Gcikie, in his Life of Christ, tells us that this was 
 sung, in the early Church, as one of the first 
 Christian hymns ; it would run something like 
 this^ 
 
 " Hosanna to the Son of David, 
 Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord, 
 Peace in heaven, glory in the highest. 
 Blessed be the kingdom of our Father David, 
 That cometh in the Name of the Lord. 
 Hosanna in the highest." 
 
PRAYER-BOOK HYMNS. 21 
 
 It is always interesting to find our worship con- 
 nected with the Temple worship, and we find that 
 the words of the hymn are taken partly from Ps. 
 cxviii. 25, 26, Bible version. Hosaima, " Save now," 
 was a favourite Jewish cry, and we keep it in the 
 versicle, " O Lord, save Thy people." The Bene- 
 dictus is used sometimes in the most solemn part 
 of our Liturgy — before the prayer of Consecra- 
 tion, and the Agnus Dei after it. The words of 
 the latter hymn are also taken directly from the 
 Bible (see S. John i. 29 ; S. Matt. viii. 8). 
 
 " O Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world 
 — have mercy upon us — grant us Thy peace." 
 
 The fragments of two old hymns are in our 
 Burial Service, the Media vita, " In the midst of 
 life we are in death," a very famous Latin hymn of 
 the ninth century, written by Notker, a German 
 monk, of whom we shall hear later, into which is 
 woven the Trisagioii, a much older hymn, which 
 was used in the Liturgy, and has been sometimes 
 confounded with the Tersanctus, — *' Holy God, 
 Holy and Mighty. Holy and Immortal, have mercy 
 upon us." There is a legend that, at the time of a 
 dreadful earthquake in Constantinople, about A.D. 
 434, this hymn was miraculously given from heaven 
 to the terror-stricken people, but no doubt it is far 
 older than that time. 
 
 The only metrical hymns left in our Prayer-book 
 are two translations of the Veni Creator, a Latin 
 hymn of the ninth century, which ranks only second 
 to the Te Deum in fame, and has been used at 
 Ordinations for many centuries. Of this hymn we 
 shall speak later. 
 
22 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 It is necessary that we should know the mean- 
 ing of some of the words used in the Liturgy, 
 and the first we will take is the word Anthem, 
 which is derived from Antiphon, the alternate sing- 
 ing of a choir from side to side. This had its 
 origin in the Jewish Church (i Chron. vi. 31), and 
 many of the Psalms, notably Psalm cxviii., were 
 written to be sung antiphonally^ that is, in turn. 
 
 This mode of singing was introduced into the 
 Christian Church in its earliest ages. S. Ignatius 
 of Antioch is said to have had a vision of angels 
 in heaven singing antiphonally the praises of God, 
 but it was used first in the Eastern Church, and 
 may have arisen partly from the side to side sing- 
 ing of the Greek chorus. S. Basil tells us that, in 
 his time, the Christians, " rising from their prayers, 
 proceeded to singing of psalms, dividing themselves 
 into two parts, and singing by turns." By degrees, 
 the verses of psalms or hymns thus sung began 
 to be called antiphoiis, and varied for different 
 seasons. 
 
 The " Reproaches " or antiphons for Good Friday, 
 " O my people, what have I done unto thee, where- 
 in have I wearied thee .'' Answer Me," were based 
 on portions of Jer, ii. and Micah vi., and the Tris- 
 agion was woven in among them. They are still 
 used in some of our churches in their prose form, 
 and one metrical version has been made. Then 
 there were the special antiphons to the Magnificat, 
 sung on the eight days before Christmas, from 
 which the several days took their name — for 
 instance, we shall find December i6th in the 
 Prayer-book calendar called O Sapiejitza ; the 
 others being O Adonai, O Root of Jesse , Key of 
 
PRAYER-BOOK HYMNS. 23 
 
 David, O Daivning LigJit, O King — desire of all 
 nations, and O Emmanuel. Upon these the old 
 hymn, come, O come, Emmanuel, is founded. 
 
 Books, services, and seasons, as well as days, 
 were sometimes named after antiphons. Thus 
 Vespers for the Dead were called Placebo, from 
 the antiphon to the first psalm ; and matins for 
 the dead, Dirige, for the same reason. The first 
 Sunday in Lent was called Invocavit me, from 
 the opening words of the Introit. 
 
 We only keep a few antiphons in our Prayer- 
 book, the best known being that in the Burial 
 Service, " I heard a voice from heaven," etc. ; and 
 that in the Visitation of the Sick, " O Saviour of 
 the world. Who by Thy Cross and precious Blood 
 hast redeemed us, save us and help us, we humbly 
 beseech Thee, O Lord." The modern anthem grew 
 out of the antiphon, and dates as part of the 
 English service from 1662. An Introit was a short 
 anthem, so called because sung when the faithful 
 were entering the church. It is now sung at the 
 beginning of the Holy Communion, as the clergy 
 enter the altar rails. Some Sundays take their 
 names from the special Introit for the day — the 
 fourth Sunday in Lent, for instance, being called 
 Lsetare Sunday. 
 
 The Gradual was an anthem sung after the 
 Epistle, and so called because chanted on the steps 
 (gradus) as the deacon went up to the ambon, or 
 altar. When sung by one person, it was called 
 Tractus, or Tract. 
 
 The Alleluia, which afterwards grew into what 
 was called the Sequence hymn, followed the 
 Gradual. In our next chapter we shall come to 
 
24 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 the earliest metrical hymns, having laid the found- 
 ation of our history upon the two great rocks — the 
 Bible and the Prayer-book. 
 
 III. 
 
 HYMNS OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 
 
 SECOND TO SIXTH CENTURIES. 
 
 " Then it was first instituted that, after the manner of the 
 Eastern Churches, Hymns and Psahiis should be sung." — 
 S. Augustine. 
 
 We come now to the earliest metrical hymns, 
 which were written in Greek, and two very early 
 ones have been preserved to us. The first was a 
 hymn for the young, by Clement of Alexandria, 
 composed between the years A.D. 190 and 195. He 
 was a famous scholar and teacher, and the head of 
 a Christian school at Alexandria. A persecution 
 broke out there, and he had to fly for his life. The 
 hymn was found at the end of one of his books, a 
 Greek work, called The Tutor. Many translations 
 have been made from it, but it is rugged and 
 not easy to render in English. A free translation 
 is given in the Church Sunday School Hymn- 
 book — 
 
 " Shepherd of tender youth. 
 
 Guiding in love and truth. 
 Through devious ways ; 
 
 Christ, our triumphant King, 
 
 We come Thy name to sing. 
 
 And here our children bring, 
 To sing Thy praise. 
 
IlYiMNS OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 2$ 
 
 Thou art our Holy Lord, 
 The all-subduing Word, 
 
 Healer of strife, 
 Thou didst Thyself abase, 
 That from sin's deep disgrace 
 Thou mightest save our race, 
 
 And give us life." etc. 
 
 The next is also a very old hymn, and much 
 better known. It may belong to the second 
 century, but the author and date are uncertain. It 
 was the earliest metrical evening hymn of the 
 Christian community, and was sung when the 
 lamps were brought in at dusk. S. Basil, who was 
 born in the year 329, mentions the hymn as an old 
 one, even in his days. He says about it — " It seemed 
 good to our forefathers not to receive the gift of 
 the evening light altogether in silence, but to give 
 thanks immediately upon its appearance." 
 
 The hymn has had many translators. The ver- 
 sion in A. & M. (No. 18) is by Keble— 
 
 " Hail, gladdening light, of His pure glory formed." 
 
 There is another in Church Hymns (No. 25) — 
 " O Brightness of the Eternal Father's face." 
 
 And another, well known to us by Sullivan's beau- 
 tiful music, is in Longfellow's Golden Legend, the 
 hymn sung by Elsie and the children in the 
 forester's cottage — 
 
 " O gladsome light of the Father eternal." 
 We may picture to ourselves one of those early 
 Christian households. The work of the day was 
 over ; fathers and brothers returned from their field 
 labours or business in the city. The sun had set, 
 and the deepening twilight spread over hill and 
 
26 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 plain. Then the eldest daughter of the house 
 would enter, bearing in her hands a lamp, and as 
 she appeared the whole family would stand, their 
 eyes raised to heaven, singing — 
 
 *' Gladsome light 
 Of the immortal Father, 
 
 Holy, blessed, Jesus Christ, 
 Having come to sunset. 
 Beholding the light of evening. 
 
 We praise 
 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." etc. 
 
 The lamp was taken as the symbol of Christ, 
 and thus, as in many other ways, religion was 
 brought by these primitive Christians into every 
 act of daily life. Might we not copy them, in 
 these practical, unpoetical, scientific days ? An old 
 English custom was kept up until the time of 
 Charles II., that when the lights were brought in 
 at nightfall, the people said, *' God send us the 
 light of heaven," but this beautiful old custom was 
 dropped by the Puritans. Psalms were also much 
 used as lainp-ligJiting songs. 
 
 We must leave the Greek hymns for a little 
 while, and turn to those written in Syriac, a 
 language very much Hke Hebrew, and still more 
 like the language spoken by the common people in 
 Palestine in the time of our Lord. In the north- 
 east of Syria was the town of Edessa, where lived 
 a heretic called Bardesanes. He was a great poet, 
 and composed many beautiful hymns, containing 
 his false doctrines. He set them to popular tunes, 
 and they so caught the fancy of the people that 
 even the children soon knew them by heart, and 
 used to sing them at their play, and thus the heresy 
 
HYMNS OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 27 
 
 was spread. But God raised up a good man to 
 fight against it — a monk named Ephrem, of Edcssa. 
 He saw to his grief how the false doctrines of Bar- 
 desanes were spreading, and determined to fight 
 against the heretic with his own weapons. So he 
 composed a large number of sound doctrinal 
 hymns, and trained young girls to sing them in 
 chorus. They were so beautiful, that all the city 
 flocked to hear them, and they checked the pro- 
 gress of the heresy. Thus we see, in the very early 
 days of Christianity, what we shall find exemplified 
 in all ages of the Church, the immense power and 
 value of hymn-singing. Many of Ephrem's hymns 
 were for children, and have titles such as, The 
 Children in Paradise, etc. Here is a verse from 
 one of his Sunday hymns — 
 
 " Glory to the glorious One, 
 Good and great, one God alone, 
 Who this day hath glorified, 
 First and best of all beside, 
 Making it for every clime, 
 Of all times the sweetest time." 
 
 A hymn of Syriac origin, for Holy Baptism, said 
 to be by Ephrem, is given in Church Hymns (221) — 
 
 " Glad sight ! the Holy Church 
 Spreads forth her wings of love, 
 To welcome to her breast a child 
 Begotten from above." 
 
 Ephrem died about the year 381, and with his 
 dying breath he made the daughter of the governor 
 of Syria swear never again to be carried by slaves, 
 because "the neck of man should bear no yoke 
 but that of Christ." Other Syriac hymn-writers 
 followed him, and their hymns are still used in 
 
28 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 the ancient churches of Mesopotamia, Syria, and 
 Western Persia. There the Syriac language is still 
 used in the Liturgy, just as Latin is used in the 
 Western Church ; but as a vernacular (that is, a 
 language of the people), it has given way to others. 
 These Christians, in the early centuries, fell into 
 grievous error, and we are now sending to them 
 teachers to help them to understand the true faith. 
 In Southern India, on the Malabar coast, and near 
 Madras, are the so-called Christians of St. TJiomas, 
 who speak Tamil as their language, but still use 
 Syriac prayers and hymns in their Liturgy, showing 
 that they are descendants, probably, of Assyrian 
 Christians, who came, centuries ago, from Western 
 Asia, and settled there. 
 
 But we must return to the Greek hymns, and to 
 the next great hymn-poet, S. Gregory Nazianzen 
 (A.D. 326 — 389), one of the Fathers of the Eastern 
 Church. He was the first who banished pagan 
 plays from the stage at Constantinople, and intro- 
 duced stories from the Bible in their place, these 
 being the earliest miracle or mystery plays, of 
 which we shall hear later. We use none of his 
 hymns now, in a metrical form, although many 
 have come down to us. 
 
 There are translations also in A. & M. of two 
 early Greek hymns, of unknown authorship. The 
 first is the beautiful morning hymn of the fifth 
 century — 
 
 " Awaked from sleep, we fall " (No. 474) ; 
 
 and the other, for Lent, belongs to the sixth or 
 seventh century — 
 
 " Fain would I, Lord of Grace." (No. 491 .) 
 
HYMNS OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 29 
 
 The last Greek hymn-writer we shall speak of in 
 this chapter is S. Anatoli us, who lived in the sixth 
 or seventh century, and of whom we know very 
 h'ttle. He is said to have been the author of a 
 very celebrated hymn — the great eveninj^ hymn of 
 the Greek Church — which comes in the Great After 
 Supper, or After Vespers Service. It is a long 
 hymn, and Dr. Neale translated some parts of it, 
 and made it into our lovely evening hymn — 
 
 "The day is past and over." (Ch. Hy., 31 ; A. & M., 21.) 
 
 He says — " It is to the scattered hamlets of Chios 
 and Mitylene what Bishop Ken's evening hymn is 
 to the villages of our own land." Another transla- 
 tion by Dr. Neale from a hymn of Anatolius is to 
 be found in the Hymnal Companion (534) — 
 
 " Fierce was the wild billow, 
 
 Dark was the night, 
 Oars laboured heavily, 
 
 Foam glittered white ; 
 Trembled the mariner, 
 
 Peril was high, 
 Then said the Son of God, 
 
 ' Peace !— It is I.' " etc. ' 
 
 We will finish this chapter by describing a scene, 
 very similar to that at Edessa, where, no doubt, 
 many of the Greek hymns we have spoken of were 
 used. There was a famous heretic called Arius, 
 who, like his forerunner, Bardesanes, made his 
 doctrines popular by the hymns which he composed, 
 and set to lively, taking tunes. The Arians had 
 been forbidden to hold worship at Constantinople ; 
 but when S. John Chrysostom arrived there as 
 Bishop, he found that these heretics used to meet 
 
30 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 on Sundays and Festivals outside the city walls, 
 and sing their hymns, after sunset, in procession 
 through the streets. So he set up, like S. Ephrem, 
 rival bands of orthodox hymn-singers, who carried 
 crosses and lights, and formed nightly processions, 
 often coming into contact with the Arians. But, 
 unhappily, their rival singing caused so much 
 rioting and bloodshed, that, after the chief officer 
 of the Empress had been wounded, a stop was put 
 to the processions. At Alexandria, Athanasius 
 used the same means to fight against the doctrines 
 of Arius, and thus, in three great centres of the 
 Church, hymns were used aln::ost, as we might say, 
 as weapons In a religious warfare, and so became 
 much more popular and more widely spread. 
 
 IV. 
 
 LATER GREEK HYMNS. 
 
 SEVENTH, EIGHTH, AND NINTH CENTURIES. 
 
 " Nothing so lifteth up and, as it were, wingeth the soul, so 
 freeth it from earth and looseth it from the chains of the 
 body, so leadeth it into wisdom and a contempt of all 
 earthly things, as the choral symphony of a sacred hymn." 
 — S. Chrysostom. 
 
 Before telling the stories of the Greek hymns 
 of the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, It will 
 be necessary to describe the form In which they 
 were written. The Eastern Liturgies contain 
 many different forms, but the three with which we 
 shall have most to do are the IdiomeloUy the Ode, 
 
LATER GREEK HYMNS. 3I 
 
 and the Canon. The first of these was much the 
 same as any other short hymn, being sung at great 
 Festivals, at Matins, and most of all during the 
 quiet hours of the night, in the western part of the 
 Church, ''glowing with the processional torches." 
 When several of these were combined, they were 
 called SticJiera (verses) or Idioinela. 
 
 The Ode was made up of a variable number of 
 short strophes, or verses ; each of which had the 
 highest expression of feeling thrown into the closing 
 line. Odes are found \x\ groups ; sometimes a pair, 
 but more often a series of three, or of eight or nine, 
 the latter number forming a Canon. 
 
 The Canon was the highest form of Greek 
 hymnody, and was founded on the Canticles then 
 used. There was a separate Canticle for each day 
 of the week. Monday, the song of Moses (Ex. 
 XV.) ; Ttiesday, the song of Moses (Deut. xxxii.) ; 
 Wednesday, the song of Hannah ; Thursday, the 
 song of Habakkuk ; Friday, Isaiah xxvi. 9 — 20 ; 
 Saturday, Jonah's Prayer; Sunday, the first pait 
 of the Benedicite. To these seven were added 
 (eight) the rest of the Benedicite ; (nine) the 
 Magnificat and Benedictus. Thus the Canon, in 
 its full form, consisted of nine cdes, but the second 
 Canticle is so severe and penitential in its character, 
 that the ode corresponding to it is only found in 
 Lenten Carons, so that most consist of eight odes 
 only. 
 
 The great master of the Canon Vv^as S. Andrew 
 of Crete (a.D. 663 — 732), who was born at Damas- 
 cus, and became a monk at Jerusalem, and after- 
 wards Archbishop of Crete. He wrote what is 
 called the Great Canon, or King of Canons, for 
 
32 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 Mid-Lent week, consisting of three hundred stanzas 
 of examples from the Bible of penitential grief 
 The hymn — 
 
 " Whence shall my tears begin ? " 
 is taken from it. But S. Andrew's name will be 
 memorable to us through Dr. Neale's grand render- 
 ing of the hymn taken from the Canon for the 
 second week in Lent — 
 
 " Christian, dost thou see them ? " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 104; A. &M., 91.) 
 
 Next comes one who, in contrast with S. Andrew, 
 we may call our Easter poet, S. John Damascene, 
 also a native of Damascus. He was born of wealthy 
 parents, about the beginning of the eighth century, 
 and died A.D. 780. He is generally thought to be 
 Wv^ greatest of the Greek hymn-poets. He retired 
 from the world to the famous monastery of Mar 
 Saba, built on the steep slopes of the Kedron 
 Valley, near the Dead Sea, where his tomb is still 
 shown. One of his most famous hymns was called 
 The Stichei'a of the Last Kiss. These were solemn 
 verses, sung by the grave-side, in the funeral 
 service of the Eastern Church, while friends and 
 relations gave a parting kiss to the corpse, the 
 priest kissing it last of all. 
 
 " Take the last kiss, the last for ever, 
 
 Yet render thanks amid your gloom ; 
 
 He, severed from his home and kindred, 
 
 Is passing onwards to the tomb. 
 
 For earthly labours, earthly pleasures, 
 
 And carnal joys he cares no more ; 
 
 Where are his kinsfolk and acquaintance ? 
 
 They stand upon another shore. 
 
 Let us say, around him pressed, 
 Grant him, Lord, ' eternal rest.' " 
 
LATER GREEK HYMNS. 33 
 
 S. John also did much service to the imisic of 
 the Eastern Church — training choristers, and, so 
 some say, founding the system of notation. He 
 wrote three great Canons for Easter Sunday, Low 
 Sunday, and Ascension Day. The first was called 
 the Golden Canon^ or Queen of Canons, and is 
 the grandest piece in Greek sacred poetry. Our 
 beautiful Easter hymn, translated by Dr. Neale, 
 
 "The Day of Resurrection " (Ch. Hy., 137 ; A. & M., 132), 
 is taken from the first ode of this great Canon, and 
 the other Easter hymn we owe to S. John is from 
 the Canon for Low Sunday — 
 
 " Come, ye faithful, raise the strain." 
 
 (Ch. Hy, 135 ; A. & M, 133.) 
 
 Dr. Neale has given us a description of an Easter 
 Eve at Athens, thus — 
 
 " As midnight approached, the Archbishop, with his priests, 
 accompanied by the King and Queen, left the church, and 
 stationed themselves on the platform. Every one remained 
 in breathless expectation, holding their unlighted tapers in 
 readiness when the glad moment should come. Suddenly, 
 the single report of a cannon announced that twelve had 
 struck, and Easter Day begun. The Archbishop, raising 
 the cross, exclaimed, ' Christ is risen,' and every one took up 
 the cry. The darkness was succeeded by a blaze of light 
 from the tapers, and bands of music struck up joyous strains. 
 The drum rolled through the town, the cannon roared, 
 rockets flashed up hill and plain. Men clasped each other's 
 hands, and the aged priest chanted a glorious old hymn of 
 victory." 
 
 This was a short hymn — • 
 
 " Christ is risen from the dead, 
 Death by death down doth He tread, 
 And on those within the tombs 
 He bestoweth life.'' 
 
 C 
 
34 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 After this had been repeated two or three times, 
 the Golden Canon of S. John was sung. 
 
 Another hymn we owe to him is taken from an 
 Idiomela for All Saints ; it is very beautiful — 
 
 " Those eternal bowers man hath never trod." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 524.) 
 
 We come back to the monastery of Mar Saba 
 for two more hymn-poets — one the foster-brother, 
 the other the nephew of S. John Damascene. 
 vS. Cosmas holds the second place among the 
 Greek ecclesiastical poets. He and S. John were 
 brothers in friendship and in love, and excited one 
 another to write hymns. S. Cosmas was very fond 
 of types: he wrote two fine canons for Christmas 
 Day and for the Transfiguration. From the first 
 a hymn (No. 142, Hymnary) is taken — 
 
 " Christ is born, tell forth His fame, 
 Christ from heaven, His love proclaim ; 
 Christ on earth, exalt His name ! 
 Sing to the Lord, O world, with exultation, 
 Break forth in glad thanksgiving, every nation, 
 For He hath triumphed gloriously," 
 
 From the second, a beautiful Transfiguration 
 hymn — ■ 
 
 " In days of old, on Sinai." (No. 460, A. & M.) 
 
 The last and youngest of the trio of the hymn- 
 writers of Mar Saba was S. Stephen the Sabaite 
 (a.D. 725 — 794). He entered the monastery at 
 the early age of ten — perhaps because he was tlie 
 nephew of the great doctor — and spent the whole 
 of his life there, dying in his seventieth year. 
 From one of his hymns Dr. Neale (if he did not 
 quite translate it) took the idea of 
 
LATER GREEK HYMNS. 35 
 
 "Art thou weary, art thou languid?" 
 
 (Ch. Hy, 333 ; A. & M, 254.) 
 
 It seems to picture to us the wilderness in which 
 Mar Saba was placed, with the gHmpse of the 
 Dead Sea, through which Jordan flowed, and to 
 convey the feehrrg of languor and weariness which 
 no doubt the monks often experienced. 
 
 S. Stephen also wrote a fine poem called TJie 
 Martyrs of UTar Saba, giving an account of monks 
 killed in defending their monastery from robbers. 
 
 There was another great religious house in the 
 East, which also became the home of hymn-writers : 
 this was the monastery of the Stiidunn, at Con- 
 stantinople, where dwelt the poets S. Theodore, 
 S. Theophanes, and S. Joseph. Theodore {d. 826) 
 wrote a grand Canon on the Judgment, said to be 
 the finest before the Dies Irce was composed. 
 Theophanes was a fine poet, but we have few 
 English translations from his works. But to Joseph 
 of the Studium, the last Greek hymn-poet we shall 
 name, we owe some very favourite hymns. He 
 lived in the early part of the ninth century, and 
 was a native of Sicily. He was captured by pirates, 
 and became a slave in Crete, but, after regaining 
 his liberty, he went to Constantinople and became a 
 monk of the Studium. No doubt he had seen much 
 of sailors and seafaring life, and understood their 
 trials and dangers, for he gave us the beautiful 
 hymn — 
 
 " Safe home, safe home in port." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 462 ; A. & M., 609.) 
 
 Dr. Neale, to whom we owe nearly all our best 
 translations of Greek hymns, had this sung to him 
 
36 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 on his death-bed. Other hymns founded on those 
 of S. Joseph are — 
 
 " Stars of the morning, all gloriously bright." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 1 86; A. & M., 423.) 
 
 " O happy band of pilgrims." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 468 ; A. & M., 224.) 
 
 " Let our choir new anthems raise." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 200 ; A. & M., 423.) 
 
 This last Saint's Day hymn is taken from a long 
 Canon for the feast of SS. Timothy and Maura, a 
 deacon of Constantinople and his wife, who suffered 
 martyrdom, A.D. 304. Kingsley has written a 
 beautiful poem on the subject, called 6*. Maitra. 
 The story tells how Maura at first wished her 
 husband to deny Christ to save himself, but when 
 she saw his reproachful look she repented, and 
 asked to be crucified by his side. As they hung 
 upon two crosses, close together, suffering torture 
 for Christ's sake, Timothy preached to the people 
 from the cross, and his wife encouraged him, until 
 death put an end to their sufferings. 
 
 We must leave our beautiful Greek liymns now, 
 although we might learn much more about them, 
 hoping that, before very long, a second Dr. Neale 
 may arise, and more may be translated for us. 
 From the year 900 they gradually declined, and 
 gave way to the large influx of Latin hymns. Two 
 verses from S. Joseph's Canon on the Ascc?ision, 
 said to be the finest Ascension hymn extant, wil{ 
 conclude our chapter — 
 
 "Jesus, Lord of life eternal, 
 Taking those He loved the best, 
 Stood upon the Mount of Olives, 
 And His own the last time blest ; 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 37 
 
 Then, though He had never left it, 
 Sought again His Father's Breast. 
 
 Knit is now our flesh to Godhead, 
 Knit in everlasting bonds ; 
 Call the world to highest festal, 
 Floods and oceans, clap your hands ; 
 Angels, raise the song of triumph. 
 Make response, ye distant lands." 
 
 (Sarum Hymnal, loi.) 
 
 V. 
 
 LATIN HYMNS OF FOURTH AND FIFTH 
 CENTURIES. 
 
 AMBROSIAN. 
 
 " How did I weep, in Thy hymns and canticles, touched to 
 the quick by the voices of Thy sweet attuned Church. 
 The voices flowed into mine ears, and the Truth distilled 
 into my heart ; whence the affection of my devotion over- 
 flowed, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein." — 
 S. Augustine. 
 
 We must turn back now for awhile to the Western 
 Church, and see what her hymn-writers were doing 
 all this time. 
 
 The first Latin hymn-poet of whom we know 
 anything was S. Hilary of Poitiers. In our Prayer- 
 book calendar, January 13th is dedicated to him. 
 He died in January 368. His morning hymn is 
 the best known — 
 
 " Thou bounteous Giver of the light." 
 
 But the real founder of hymn-singing in the 
 West was S. Ambrose (340 — 397), perhaps the 
 
38 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 greatest bishop the world has ever seen. He was 
 born at Treves, and was the son of a prefect in 
 Gaul. The story is told that, when an infant in 
 the cradle, a swarm of bees lighted upon his head 
 and mouth, without injuring him, and that his 
 father, on seeing this, exclaimed, " If the boy lives 
 he will be a great man." For this reason the old 
 pictures represent him with a beehive near him. 
 
 Ambrose was highly educated in Rome, where 
 his mother removed after her husband's death, but 
 was brought up a heathen. He was appointed 
 Governor of Liguria and Prefect of Milan. The 
 Bishop of that place died, and there was a quarrel 
 between Catholics and Arians who should be 
 Bishop. Ambrose appeared to quell the disturb- 
 ance, and as he spoke to the people, they listening 
 in sileTice, a child's voice was heard saying, 
 " Ambrose shall be Bishop ! " The people took up 
 the cry and forced him to consent. He tried to 
 fly, declaring that though a Christian by conviction, 
 he had never been baptized ; but the Emperor 
 commanded him to consent, and within eight days 
 he was baptized, ordained, and consecrated. The 
 Empress Justinia had made a demand that one 
 church in Milan should be given up for Arian 
 worship. Ambrose refused, and soldiers were sent 
 to try and force the church from him. The people 
 were so devoted to their Bishop that they stuck to 
 him and kept guard day and night in the church, 
 ready, if need be, to die with him. He preached 
 to them, and gave them hymns to _'sing — in some 
 cases with tunes of his own — so as to cheer their 
 spirits. S. Augustine tells us the story, and these 
 are his own words about it — 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 39 
 
 " At this time it was instituted that, after the manner of the 
 Eastern Churches, hymns and psahns should be sung, lest 
 the people should grow weary and faint through their sorrow ; 
 which custom has ever since been retained, and is cultivated 
 by almost all the congregations throughout the world." 
 
 So that ,f^rand old church at Milan was the nursery 
 of our Western hymn-singing. 
 
 The soldiers watched the church all day and 
 night, and at last, finding Ambrose determined, 
 they left ; probably being all really in favour of 
 him. Monica was in the congregation, for S. 
 Augustine says — 
 
 " 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 of those anxieties and watch- 
 ings, lived for prayer." 
 
 There are nearly one hundred hymns extant 
 called Ambrosian, some of which were written by 
 the good Bishop himself, and some which belong to 
 the period in which helived. Four of them are 
 quoted by Augustine, "'His mother, Monica, to 
 whom he was devoted, died some time after he had 
 become a Christian. The night after her funeral, 
 as he lay upon his bed stricken with grief, he says — 
 
 " Then I slept, and woke up again, and found my grief not 
 a little softened ; and as I was alone in my bed I remem- 
 bered those true verses of Ambrose — 
 
 * Maker of all, the Lord, 
 
 And Ruler of the height. 
 Who, robing day in light, has poured 
 
 Soft slumbers o'er the night, 
 That to our limbs the power 
 
 Of toil may be renewed. 
 And hearts be raised that sink and cower, 
 
 And sorrows be subdued.' " 
 
40 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 The grand Advent hymn, given in A. & M. (55) 
 among the hymns for Christmas — 
 
 " O come, Redeemer of mankind, appear," 
 is, perhaps, the noblest hymn of S. Ambrose, full, 
 as indeed they all are, of sound doctrine and faith. 
 He had a way of making things very clear, and 
 wrote to uphold the true teaching of the Church 
 against Arianism. Here we have emphasized the 
 great doctrine of the Incarnation — 
 
 " Of twofold substance, human and Divine, 
 As giant swift, rejoicing on His way." 
 
 To S. Ambrose we owe, also, the beautiful little 
 evening hymn, O lux beata TiHnitas — 
 
 " O Trinity, most blessed light " (A. & M., 14), 
 on which is founded the better known 
 
 " Three in One, and One in Three " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 529; A. &M, 163), 
 
 taken probably from a German version of the 
 Latin. Thus from Latin to German, from German 
 back to English, the main idea of the hymn is 
 kept, and its beauty cannot die. Two versions of 
 another of his hymns are given in A. & M., the 
 Aeterna Christi viiinera^ and a hymn for martyrs. 
 " The eternal gifts of Christ the King." (No. 430.) 
 " Ye servants of our glorious King." (No. 444.) 
 
 And two beautiful morning hymns are also ascribed 
 to him, the first being the hymn sung for 1 600 
 years at the hour of prime — 
 
 " Now that the daylight fills the sky." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 9 ; A. & M., i.) 
 
 The second, the beautiful hymn to the Holy 
 Trinity, especially to Christ, the Light of the 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 4I 
 
 world, and a prayer for help and guidance through 
 the day — 
 
 " O JesLi, Lord of life and grace." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 11; A. &M., 2.) 
 
 This is one of his crecd-Iike hymns, describing the 
 true faith of the writer. Those who are troubled 
 with doubts and difficulties cannot do better than 
 turn to these fine hymns of the early Church, which 
 have lasted more than fifteen centuries, and still 
 remain as fresh and beautiful as ever. 
 
 S. Ambrose, too, introduced the grander form of 
 worship. He divided the singers into two choirs, 
 singing chants and alternate responses. His 
 music, like his poetry, was severe, but more 
 melodious than that of Gregory, and a great im- 
 provement on any Church music that had hitherto 
 been used. Before giving a list of some of the 
 best known Ambrosian hymns now in use, we must 
 give a Httle time to one of the most celebrated, 
 said, though without good authority, to be by S. 
 Ambrose himself, and at any rate belonging to his 
 time — 
 
 "At the Lamb's high feast we sing." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 128; A. & M, 127.) 
 
 A second translation of this hymn is given in 
 A. & M.— 
 
 "The Lamb's high banquet called to share." (No. 128.) 
 
 Dr. Neale says — " In order to understand this hymn, we 
 must know for whom it was written. It was the custom of 
 the early Church that baptism should be administered to 
 Catechumens on Easter Eve. A white garment was given 
 to each of the persons baptized, with words like these, ' Take 
 this white vesture, for a token of the innocence which by 
 God's grace, in this Holy Sacrament of Baptism, is given 
 unto thee, and for a sign whereby thou art admonished, as 
 
42 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 long as thou livest, to give thyself to innocency of living, 
 that after this transitory life thou mayest be partaker of life 
 everlasting.' " 
 
 The chrisovi robes, as they were called, were worn 
 from Easter Eve to Low Sunday, and for this 
 reason the week-days were marked in albis — "in 
 white." So that the second Hne of the hymn 
 refers to the snow-white chrisom robes — 
 
 " Arrayed in garments white and fair." 
 And the banquet they were waiting for was the 
 Holy Communion. Thus the study of these old 
 hymns teaches us the history and customs of the 
 early Church. The Ambrosian hymns are very 
 numerous, and these are only a few of the best 
 known — 
 
 " Come, Holy Ghost, Who ever one." 
 
 (Ch. Hy, 347 ; A. & M., 9.) 
 " O God, of all the Strength and Power." 
 
 (A.&M., II.) 
 " O Strength and Stay, upholding all creation." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 15; A. & M., 12.) 
 " Before the ending of the day." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 19; A. &M., 15.) 
 " Hark, a thrilling voice is sounding." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 67 ; A. & M., 47.) 
 " O Christ, Who art the light and day." 
 
 (A. & M., 95.) 
 " Light's glittering morn bedecks the sky." 
 
 (A. & M., 126 ; Parts i, 2, 3.) 
 ' " Jesu, our hope, our heart's desire." 
 
 (A. & M., 150.) 
 
 The next great Latin hymn-poet was Prudentiiis 
 (348 — 413). He was born in Spain, and was a 
 lawyer and judge, holding a high appointment at 
 court. When about fifty-seven years old, a change 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 43 
 
 came over him ; he felt that worldly fame could 
 not satisfy him, and determined to devote the 
 rest of his life to God. At this time he wrote 
 his hymns. Two are still great favourites ; the 
 Epiphany one — 
 
 " Earth has many a noble city " (A. & M., 76), 
 
 and the lovely little hymn for Holy Innocents' 
 Day— 
 
 " Sweet flowrets of the martyr band." (A. & M., 68.) 
 
 He also wrote a long Christmas poem, from which 
 is taken our Christmas hymn — 
 
 " Of the Father's love begotten " (A. & M., 56), 
 
 with its refrain, "evermore and evermore"; and a 
 good hymn for Sunday evening — 
 
 "Father most high, be with us." (A. & M., 493.) 
 
 VL 
 
 LATIN HYMNS OF SIXTH AND SEVENTH 
 CENTURIES. 
 
 GREGORY AND FORTUNATUS. 
 
 " The singing of psalms bringeth with it much gain, support, 
 and sanctification, and can supply various lessons of 
 wisdom, if the words purify the heart and the Holy Ghost 
 straightway descends on the soul of the singer." — S. 
 CHRYSOSTOM. 
 
 We pass on to the sixth century, and to a name 
 second only to S. Ambrose, Gregory the Great. 
 
44 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 He was born at Rome, in the year 540, and was 
 the son of a rich Roman senator, sprung from one 
 of the most illustrious Roman races. His mother, 
 Sylvia, was a very clever woman, and taught her 
 son well. He became praetor of Rome, and the 
 people were very fond of him. Then he made a 
 friendship with the followers of S. Benedict, and 
 broke all worldly ties, devoting his money to the 
 foundation of six new monasteries in Sicily. In 
 his own palace, on the Coelian Hill in Rome, he 
 founded a seventh, under the rule of S. Benedict, 
 and himself became a monk there. He distributed 
 all the rest of his wealth to the poor and served the 
 beggars with his own hands, in his own house. 
 He was soon made one of the cardinal deacons of 
 Rome, and then sent, as Nuncio, to the Emperor 
 Tiberius, at Constantinople. Then he returned to 
 Rome, to his peaceful monastery, of which he was 
 elected abbot, being much loved by all the monks. 
 Every one knows the story of the angel children in 
 the market-place, and how Gregory set off on his 
 way to England, but was brought back again by the 
 Pope's messenger, for the people could not spare him 
 from Rome. In the year 390 he was elected Pope ; 
 at first he refused and fled from the city, v/ander- 
 ing for days in disguise in the woods, but he was 
 discovered and led back to reign. It was to the 
 Liturgy, or service of the Church, that Gregory gave 
 the most help. He collected the ancient melodies 
 of the Church, and arranged them for worship. He 
 also composed the words and music of several 
 hymns, and established at Rome a celebrated school 
 of religious music, where Christians of every nation 
 came to learn. The httle room in Rome is still to 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 45 
 
 be seen where he taught the choristers singing, and 
 the whip which he is said to have used to correct 
 them. 
 
 When the missionaries were sent to England, 
 Gregory did not forget what music could do to 
 help on the work of the mission. S. Augustine 
 brought with him, from Rome, a band of trained 
 choristers, and Ethelbert and Bertha were much 
 impressed by their singing and solemn chanting. 
 No doubt, besides the older hymns of S. Ambrose 
 and others, they would sing some of those written 
 by Gregory himself. These are some which have 
 been ascribed to him : — ^ 
 
 1. Sunday morning. " On this^day, when days began." ^ 
 
 (Ch. Hy, 37.) 
 
 2. Sunday evening. " Blest Creator of the light." 
 
 (A. & M., 38.) 
 
 " Good it is to keep the fast." (A. & M., 89.) 
 
 "O merciful Creator, hear." (A. & M., 87; 
 Ch. Hy., 109.) 
 
 " Lo ! now is our accepted day." (A. & M., 88.) 
 
 " O Thou Who dost to man accord." 
 (A. & M., 86.) 
 
 7. And two hymns for early morning, translated by 
 Cardinal Newman. 
 
 Gregory was the first Pope who took tb.e title of 
 *• Servant of the servants of God," and he acted up 
 to the title by having twelve poor pilgrims to dine 
 with him every day, serving them, and washing 
 their hands and feet. He also sent dishes to the 
 sick from his own table. Gregory is generally 
 represented in pictures with a dove, the legend 
 being that his secretary once saw the Holy 
 
 3. 
 4. 
 
 Lent. 
 Lent. 
 
 5. 
 
 6. 
 
 Lent. 
 Lent. 
 
46 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 Ghost, in the form of a dove, perched upon his 
 shoulder while he was writing. He wrote much on 
 the books of the Bible, and ranks with S. Ambrose, 
 S. Augustine, and S. Jerome, among the four 
 Fathers of the Latin Church. He died March 
 12, 604, aged 55. 
 
 Another Bishop of Poitiers, who lived two cen- 
 turies or more after S. Hilary, wrote some famous 
 hymns. His name was Venantius Fortunatus, and 
 he was an Italian by birth, and passed his early 
 life as a wandering minstrel, earning money by his 
 clever verse. His youth was spent in gaiety, and 
 when a student at Ravenna he became nearly blind, 
 and recovered his s'ght, miraculously, as he thought, 
 after anointing his eyes with oil taken from a lamp 
 that burned upon the altar tomb of S. Martin at 
 Tours ; so he made a pilgrimage to that place, and 
 from that time led a changed life. He was always 
 a great favourite, from his wit and gay humour, and 
 after he became a monk was able to turn to use 
 for the Church his valuable gift of poesy. 
 
 There was a certain princess, by name Rhade- 
 gund, a daughter of the King of Thuringia, who 
 was made prisoner by Clotaire I. in 529. He 
 made her his wife, but she had such a longing to 
 take the veil, that at last her husband let her do so, 
 and gave her permission to found a monastery at 
 Poitiers. She led a most saintly life, preferring to 
 be a simple nun, while a young girl took the place 
 of Abbess. The climax of her happiness was 
 reached when the Emperor Justin granted her a 
 fragment of the true Cross, as a sacred relic for her 
 monastery. Fortunatus was at that time visiting 
 the sanctuaries of Southern France, and had formed 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 47 
 
 a friendship with S. Rhadegund. He wrote his 
 famous hymn Vexilla Regis, 
 
 " The Royal banners forward go ." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., ii8; A. & M., 96), 
 
 for the reception of this part of the true Cross at 
 Poitiers. It is a grand processional hymn, and 
 this is a description of the way it was sung — 
 
 " Escorted by a numerous body of clergy, and of the faith- 
 ful, holding lighted torches, the Bishop started in the midst 
 of liturgical chants, which ceased not to resound in honour of 
 the hallowed wood of the Redemption. A league from 
 Poitiers, the pious cortege found the delegates of Rhadegund 
 — Fortunatus at their head — rejoicing in the honour which 
 had fallen to them ; some carrying censers with perfumed 
 incense, others torches of white wax. The meeting took 
 place at Migne, at the place where, twelve centuries and a 
 half later, the cross appeared in the air. It was on this 
 occasion that the hymn Vexilla Regis was heard for the 
 first time — the chant of triumph, composed by Fortunatus, 
 to salute the arrival of the true Cross. It was the 19th 
 November, 569." 
 
 We can picture the grandeur and solemnity of 
 the scene, as they chanted — 
 
 " O Tree of gloiy, Tree most fair, 
 Ordained those Holy limbs to bear ; 
 How bright in purple robe it stood, 
 The purple of a Saviour's blood." 
 
 Fortunatus used, in this hymn, the word pati- 
 bubun} which means a cross formed thus — Y, or 
 thus -v/a ; this last form representing the stem of the 
 tree, with the branches on which, as on a balance, 
 the ransom of the world was weighed (ver. 5). 
 
 " Upon its arms, like balance true, 
 He weighed the price for sinners due.'' 
 
 1 See Dictionary of Hyiwiology, p. 1220. 
 
48 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 The hymn has always been sung on Passion 
 Sunday, and also as a daily hymn from that time 
 to Maundy Thursday. Our other equally famous 
 Passion Sunday hymn, the Pange lingua Gloriosiy 
 
 " Sing, my soul, the glorious batde " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 117; A. & M., 97), 
 
 was also written by Fortunatus, for the Abbey of 
 St. Croix, on the same subject. The second verse 
 refers, no doubt, to the ancient mediaeval legend 
 that the Cross of Christ was made from part of 
 a tree which sprang from the seed of the Tree of 
 Life — the seed being given to Adam or to Seth, 
 by the angel who guarded the Garden of Eden, 
 and that so God 
 
 " Marked e'en then this tree, the ruin 
 Of the first tree to dispel." 
 
 This hymn was used all through Lent, and most 
 of all on Good Friday. Another of our Passion 
 hymns, by Bishop Mant, 
 
 "See the destined day arise" (A. & M. 113), 
 
 is also, most likely, taken from the Pange lingua. 
 Fortunatus also composed a splendid Easter Pro- 
 cessional — the Salve Festa Dies — said to have been 
 sung by Jerome of Prague at the stake, A.D. 1416, 
 He looked upon the day of his death as his birth- 
 day, and welcomed it as such, singing — 
 
 " Hail, festal day, for evermore adored, 
 Wherein God conquered Hell, and upward soared j 
 
 See the world's beauty, budding forth anew. 
 Shows with the Lord, His gifts returning too. 
 
 The earth with flowers is decked ; the sky serene. 
 The heavenly portals glow with brighter sheen." etc. 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 49 
 
 We have another translation of the hymn — 
 
 " ' Welcome, happy morning ! ' age to age shall say." 
 (Ch. Hy., 131 ; A. & M., 497.) 
 
 There is a similar Latin hymn for the Ascen- 
 sion, beginning in the same way, and no doubt 
 founded on that of Fortunatus. He also wrote a 
 hymn for the Annunciation — 
 
 "The God Whom earth, and sea, and sky." (A. & M., 449.) 
 
 -He was made Bishop in the year 599, twelve years 
 after the death of Queen Rhadegund. He died in 
 the year 609. 
 
 For the next two centuries we hear of no great 
 names among Latin hymn-writers, but many beau- 
 tiful hymns, whose authors' names are unknown, 
 come down to us from this time. One is the 
 "rugged but fine old hymti," Urbs Beata Hieru- 
 salerriy ''sung throughout Europe of old time," and 
 said to belong to the seventh century. It is a 
 splendid paraphrase of Rev. xxi. 2, 19, 21, and has 
 been beautifully translated for us by Dr. Neale — 
 
 " Blessed city, Heavenly Salem." 
 
 " Christ is made the sure foundation." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 338 ; A. & M., 396.) Parts i & 2. 
 
 It is a grand description of the glories of the 
 heavenly Jerusalem, and "a hymn of degrees," 
 ascending from things earthly to things heavenly, 
 and making the first interpreters of the last. The 
 prevailing intention in building and dedicating a 
 church with the rites thereto appertaining was to 
 carry up men's thoughts from that temple built 
 with hands, which they saw, to that other, built of 
 
 D 
 
50 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 living stones in heaven, of which this was but a 
 weak shadow. 
 
 Two Ascension Hymns (Nos. 144 and 145, A. & 
 M.) also belong to this time. 
 
 VII. 
 
 LATIN HYMNS OF NINTH AND TENTH CENTURIES. 
 
 SEQUENCES. 
 
 " What, then, is more blessed than to imitate on the earth the 
 concert of angels ; than to haste to prayer at the very dawn 
 of day, and to honour the Creator with hymns and songs ; 
 then, when the sun shines brightly, turning to work in 
 which prayer is ever present, to spice our labours with 
 hymns as with salt."— S. Basil. 
 
 There is a story connected with the very favourite 
 and well-known hymn for Palm Sunday — 
 
 " All glory, laud, and honour 
 To Thee, Redeemer, King." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 113; A. & M., 98). 
 
 At the beginning of the ninth century, there lived 
 a good bishop, named Theodulph, who was unjustly 
 imprisoned by the Emperor, in the town of Metz, 
 or, as some say, Angers. On Palm Sunday there 
 was a grand procession through the town ; the 
 clergy and choristers, carrying palms blessed by 
 the Pope, being followed by the Emperor himself. 
 As they passed the prison walls, a voice was heard 
 chanting a hymn of praise. The Emperor asked 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 51 
 
 to see the singer, and when Theodulph himself 
 appeared singing the new hymn he had composed 
 during his dreary imprisonment, he was pardoned 
 and set free. Such is said to be the origin of the 
 " All glory, laud, and honour," sung every Palm 
 Sunday through Christendom, for so many hundred 
 years, as a Processional hymn. There were many 
 different customs and ways of singing it. Accord- 
 ing to Sarum Use, the first four stanzas were sung 
 by seven boys, near the south door, before leaving 
 the church. In the York Use, the choir boys seem 
 to have gone up to a temporary gallery over the 
 church door, and there sung the first four stanzas. 
 After each of the first three stanzis, the choir 
 kneeling below, sang the refrain (" All glory, laud, 
 and honour"). At the end of the fourth stanza the 
 boys began the refrain, and the rest of the choir, 
 standing up, sang it with them. In the Hereford 
 Use, the procession went to the gates of the town. 
 These being shut, seven boys of the choir went up 
 the tower, and there sang the refrain. In the Uses 
 of Tours and Rouen, the hymn was also sung at the 
 gates of the city. 
 
 About the same time (815) two fine hymns for 
 S. Michael and All Angels were composed by S. 
 Rhabanus Maurus. The translation of one is in 
 A. & M., 616— 
 
 " Life and strength of all Thy servants." 
 
 We now come to the celebrated 5^^^^;/ <:^ Hymns, 
 which had their rise also in the ninth century. 
 There was a very famous religious house, called 
 the Abbey of S. Gall, near Constance, and there 
 lived a monk named Notker. He was struck with 
 
52 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 the wearisomeness and almost vain repetition of 
 the word AUehiia used in the Liturgy before the 
 Gospel. The final syllable, ia, used to be sung over 
 and over again, like a run, and it struck him what 
 a good thing it would be to put words to the 
 musical notes or sequences. So he wrote a hymn 
 and took it to one of the two precentors of the 
 Abbey Church, who, after suggesting some altera- 
 tions, "gave thanks to God, and commended the 
 new composition to the brethren of the monastery." 
 This was the origin of the Sequence Hymns, sung 
 between the Epistle and Gospel, and generally 
 bearing upon the special festival or subject of the 
 day. At first they were called Proses^ because not 
 written in a metrical form. Notker composed 
 about thirty-five of these Sequence Hymns ; one, 
 on the Holy Spirit, being especially beautiful. 
 Tradition says that this was suggested to him by 
 the sound of the mill-wheel turning. It soon 
 became popular throughout Europe, and in a 
 Spanish Missal the priest is ordered to hold a 
 ivhite dove in his hands, while intoning the first 
 syllables of the hymn, and then to let it go, of 
 course, as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Notker 
 left another beautiful legacy to the Church, in a 
 hymn, or antiphon, called Media vita} part of 
 which is still kept in our Burial Service. 
 
 " In the midst of life we are in death : of whom may we 
 seek for succour, but of Thee, O Lord, Who for our sins art 
 justly displeased," etc. 
 
 Notker is said, according to the story, to have 
 composed it while watching some workmen build 
 
 ^ See p. 95. 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 53 
 
 a bridge over a mountain gorge at peril of their 
 lives ; or, as another tradition ^ says, while watching 
 some boys climb the cliffs, near S. Gall, to gather 
 samphire. By the middle of the thirteenth, century 
 this hymn had come into universal use as a supplica- 
 tion in time of trouble, and was even used as an in- 
 cantation. It was supposed to be magic in its effects, 
 and was also used at funerals and as a battle song. 
 
 The Trisagion, the very old Greek hymn of which 
 we have heard, " Holy Lord," etc., is woven into it. 
 Luther made a very good metrical translation of 
 the Media vita into German, which is still much 
 in use, for the dying, in his country. All Notker's 
 hymns are very earnest and devout. 
 
 Another monk, named Godescalcus, who lived 
 with Notker at the Abbey of S. Gall, is said to 
 have written the famous Alleluiatic Sequence — 
 
 "The strain upraise of joy and praise." 
 
 (Ch. Hy, 516; A. &M.,295), 
 
 but it was more probably also by Notker. This 
 was originally written for Epiphany, when the 
 Alleluia was used for the last time before Easter. 
 
 Two other hymns to the Holy Spirit were 
 probaby written about this time — the Veni Creator^ 
 and the Veni sancte spiritus. Both are said to 
 have been composed by kingly hymn-writers — the 
 first by Charlemagne, the second by King Robert 
 H. of France, but we have no good authority for 
 supposing this to be true. 
 
 The Veni Creator — " Come, Holy Ghost, our souls 
 inspire" — holds the second place only to the Te 
 
 ^ It must be said that the evidence for these traditions is 
 very uncertain. 
 
54 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 Deum among the famous Latin hymns, and is the 
 only metrical hymn left in our Prayer-books, the 
 translation in the Ordination Service being, most 
 probably, by Bishop Cosin. There is another 
 translation, by Caswall, in A. & M., 347 — 
 
 " Come, Holy Ghost, Creator Blest." 
 
 If this hymn could speak, it could tell us almost as 
 interesting a history as the Te Deum. It has been 
 used for ten centuries throughout the Western 
 Church, not only at ordinations and consecrations 
 of bishops, but at the coronation of kings, at great 
 meetings and synods, and at confirmations. In 
 medieval times, the singing of the Vent Creator was 
 marked by ringing of bells, use of incense, lights, 
 and the best vestments. There is no evidence as 
 to its authorship. It has been ascribed to Ambrose, 
 Gregory, and others. It has not been found in 
 any MSS. earlier than the latter part of the tenth 
 century. The Veni sancte spiritiis — 
 
 " Come, Thou Holy Spirit, come : 
 And from Thy celestial home" (A. & M., 156), 
 
 " the loveliest of all the hymns in the whole circle 
 of Latin poetry," as Archbishop Trench calls it, 
 has been assigned to Stephen Langton, Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, and to Pope Innocent III., besides 
 King Robert. It was called the Golden Sequence. 
 Robert II. was a good man, learned and accom- 
 plished, a musician and a poet, though a weak 
 king. He directed the choir of the Church of S. 
 Denis, and used to sing with the monks at mass. 
 He certainly wrote other hymns, with suitable 
 music, and presented them at Rome on the Altar 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 55 
 
 of S. Peter. One of King Robert's friends, S. 
 Fulbert, Bishop of Cha.rtres, gave us the Easter 
 hymn, Chorus novcu Jerusalem — 
 
 " Ye choirs of New Jerusalem " (A. & M., 125), 
 
 the second verse of which is founded on a curious 
 old medieval belief that the lion's whelps are born 
 dead, and their father, by roaring over them, raises 
 them to life the third day. 
 
 " For Judah's Lion bursts His chains, 
 Crushing the serpent's head ; 
 And cries aloud through death's domain, 
 To wake the imprison'd dead." 
 
 There was a very celebrated Easter Sequence, of 
 unknown date and authorship, but certainly earlier 
 than A.D. 1000, called the VictiincE Paschali. It is 
 short, picturesque, and simple, and soon came into 
 use for Easter services, and also, being very 
 dramatic in style, formed a striking feature in 
 many Easter Mystery Plays. There was a curious 
 old custom at matins on Easter Day, at which this 
 hymn was much used, connected wath the Easter 
 SepulcJire. This was a representation of the tomb 
 of our Blessed Lord, sometimes carved in stone, 
 as found in many old churches in England, and 
 sometimes a temporary structure of wood. 
 
 On the evening of Maundy Thursday, the 
 Crucifix and Host were taken from the Altar, and 
 placed in the sepulchre ; candles were lighted 
 round, and watchers stood by. In some cases 
 real soldiers kept guard on Easter Eve, to represent 
 the Roman guards, and making the ceremony 
 more impressive. Then, on Easter Sunday, "very 
 
56 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 early in the morning," the Crucifix and Host were 
 taken out, with every sign of reverence and joy, 
 and placed back on the Altar ; all being done, of 
 course, in memory of Christ's Death, Burial, and 
 Resurrection. This ceremony is now performed in 
 many churches in Rome. 
 
 Here is a description of one of the Easter morn- 
 ing services, at which the Victimcu Paschali was 
 sung. Two boys, vested in white, took their places, 
 one on the right, the other on the left of the 
 High Altar, to represent the angels at the Holy 
 Sepulchre. Then three deacons, in white dalmatics, 
 representing the three Maries, came from the right 
 side, and stood before the Altar. The angels 
 ask the three Maries, " Whom seek ye in the 
 sepulchre V and they answer, "Jesus of Nazareth." 
 Then the angels, taking off the white altar-cloth, 
 representing the grave-clothes, reply, " He is not 
 here." The Maries, turning to the choir, sing, 
 " Alleluia, the Lord has risen." Then, passing down 
 towards the choir, the first Mary sings (first stanza) — 
 
 " Unto the Paschal Victim bring, 
 Christians, your thankful offering." 
 
 The second sings (the next stanza of the VictimcB 
 P as c kali) — 
 
 " The Lamb the sheep hath ransomed, 
 Christ the undefiled, 
 Hath sinners to His God and Father reconciled." 
 
 And the third sings (stanza three) — 
 
 " Death and life, in wondrous strife, 
 Came to conflict sharp and sore, 
 Life's Monarch, He that died, 
 Now dies no more." 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 57 
 
 Then the succentor, coming to the first steps of the 
 Altar, asks the first Mary — 
 
 " What thou sawest, Mary, say, 
 As thou wentest on thy way ? " 
 
 and she answers — 
 
 " I saw the slain One's earthly prison, 
 I saw the glory of the Risen." 
 
 The second Mary — 
 
 " The witness angels by the cave, 
 And the garments of the grave." 
 
 The third Mary— 
 
 " The Lord, my Hope, is risen. 
 And He before you goes to Galilee." 
 
 Then the succentor, pointing to the first Mary and 
 turning to the choir, sings — 
 
 " We know that Christ is risen from death indeed," 
 
 and the whole choir join in the last line of the 
 hymn — 
 
 " Thou Victor Monarch, for Thy suppliants plead.'' 
 
 Meanwhile, the Maries retire to the vestry, the 
 bishop or succentor begins the Te Deum. This 
 was only one of the many forms of the same 
 service, held after the first lesson, at matins on 
 Easter Day.^ The translation of the Victiince is 
 that given in the Hymnary and Hymnal Noted, 
 because more literal and true to the dramatic form 
 than the better known translation (A. & M., 131) — 
 " Christ the Lord is risen to-day." 
 It is a pity that the third stanza of this is 
 
 ^ The hymn is inserted by permission of Messrs. Novello 
 and Co. 
 
58 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 omitted, giving the words of the Maries and the 
 angels. A description of a somewhat similar service, 
 in Durham Cathedral, is given by an old writer — 
 
 " There was a very solemn service betwixt three and four 
 of the clock in the morning (of Easter Day) in honour of the 
 Resurrection, where two of the eldest monks of the quire 
 came to the Sepulchre, set up upon Good Friday, after the 
 Passion, all covered with red velvet, embroidered with gold, 
 and did then cense it, either of the monks with a pair of silver 
 censers sitting on their knees before the Sepulchre. Then 
 they, both rising, came to the sepulchre, out of which, with 
 great reverence, they took a marvellous beautiful image of 
 our Saviour representing the Resurrection, with a cross 
 in His Hand. Then . . . singing the anthem of Christiis 
 Resitrgens, they brought it to the Altar." 
 
 The Victiince PascJiali is one of the five se- 
 quences kept in the Roman Missal, the others 
 being the Veni sancte spiritus, for Pentecost ; the 
 Dies Irce, for funerals ; the Landa Sion, for Corpus 
 Christi ; and the Stabat Mater^ for festivals of the 
 Blessed Virgin. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 LATIN HYMNS. 
 ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH CENTURIES. 
 
 " I have no hesitation in saying that I look upon these verses of 
 Bernard as the most lovely, in the same way that the Dies 
 Irce is the most sublime, and the stabat Mater the most 
 pathetic of medieval poems." — Dr. Neale. 
 
 We come now to the eleventh century, and the 
 first name to remember is that of vS. Peter Dauiiani 
 (988— 1072). He was born at Ravenna, and his 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 59 
 
 early life was very sad. His mother abandoned 
 him as a Httle baby, but a faithful servant discovered 
 him, and took care of him until the mother relented 
 and took him back. When still very young both 
 parents died, and a brother took compassion on him 
 and had him educated. He became a Benedictine 
 monk, and afterwards rose to be a Cardinal and 
 coadjutor-Pope to Gregory VH. Late in life he 
 retired to the monastery of Santa Croce d'Avellano, 
 and spent the rest of his life in meditation, and in 
 composing sacred verse. He wrote a hymn for 
 Advent, on Death, which has been called " the Dies 
 Irce of the individual life." It is translated in the 
 Hymnary — ^ 
 
 " Day of death, in silence speeding, «/ 
 
 On the wings of darkness near, 
 How my inmost nature trembles, 
 Melting with excess of fear, 
 When in sleepless thoughts reclined, 
 I depict it to my mind." 
 
 One of his most beautiful hymns was the Ad 
 peremiis vitce fonteift, of which there is a good 
 translation in the Sarum Hymnal — 
 
 " For the fount of life eternal thirstily the spirit yearns, *^ 
 
 Swift the soul to break her prison in the flesh a prisoner 
 
 burns, 
 And like exile, panting, writhing, struggling, homeward ever 
 
 turns. 
 
 Sun, nor moon, nor starry courses, changing seasons, these 
 
 obey, 
 For the Lamb is that blest city's light of undeclining ray ; 
 He, o'er night and time triumphant, bringeth in perpetual 
 
 day." etc. 
 
 A great religious movement, namely, the Crusades, 
 was going on in the twelfth century. Everywhere, 
 
6o HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 throug^hout Christendom, men's hearts were fired 
 with love and devotion to that Master in Whose 
 honour they bore the Red Cross, and Whose tomb 
 they went to rescue from heathen spoilers. Now, 
 whenever the world has been stirred by great 
 religious revivals or events, great hymns seem to 
 have been written. Just as the Reformation in 
 Germany, and the religious revival of the eighteenth 
 century in England, heralded an outburst of sacred 
 song, the Crusades wrought a religious enthusiasm, 
 expressed in many beautiful hymns. Indeed, the 
 twelfth century has been called the ''golden era of 
 the harvest-field of hymnology." The hymns them- 
 selves speak of the time in which they were written 
 — of the glories of the Nezv Jerusalem, of peace after 
 war, of rest after battle. 
 
 The five great hymn-writers of the twelfth 
 century were the two S. Bernards, Adam of S. 
 Victor, Archbishop Hildebert, and Peter the 
 Venerable. 
 
 About the year 1140 two monks of the same 
 name, dwelling not more than one hundred and 
 fifty miles from each other, were each composing 
 hymns which were to last, not only for years, but for 
 centuries. 
 
 vS. Bernard of Clairvaux (109 1 — 1 153) was born, 
 of noble parents, in Burgundy. He was among the 
 number of great and famous men who had good 
 mothers. Her name was the Lady Aletta ; she 
 brought up her children well, and lived a most holy 
 life, and they all became remarkable men and 
 women. Her death-bed made a great impression 
 upon the young Bernard, and at the age of twenty- 
 two he became a monk in the monastery of Citeaux. 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 6 1 
 
 This became so crowded that it was thought fit to 
 found another one, so two years after S. Bernard 
 had become an inmate the Abbot chose out twelve 
 monks, representing the Twelve Apostles, with 
 Bernard as their leader, representing our Lord, and 
 going before them, cross in hand. The gates of the 
 convent closed behind them, and they went out 
 into the world, trusting God to show them their 
 future home. They settled in a lonely vale, called 
 " The Valley of Wormwood," and by hard and 
 ceaseless labour they transformed the desolate land 
 into a fertile garden, and the name of the place was 
 changed, and it was called Clairvaitx — "the 
 Bright Valley." S. Bernard was considered the 
 founder of the order of monks called Cistercian, and 
 it is remarkable how many of their houses, like 
 Bolton Abbey in Wharfedale, were built in valleys. 
 S. Bernard had very delicate health, yet he gave 
 himself much manual labour, reaping, digging, and 
 meditating as he worked. He says — " Take the 
 testimony of my own experience, and believe me 
 thou wilt find more in woods than in books, and 
 trees and stones will teach thee more than thou 
 canst learn from man." His life was a very busy 
 one, for he took part in public affairs, and preached 
 in France and Germany, trying to persuade the 
 people to join the second Crusade, and rousing 
 much enthusiasm. But the Crusade proved 
 disastrous, and Bernard was partly blamed for it ; 
 and weary of the world and its disappointments, he 
 retired into solitude, to meditate on the love of 
 Christ, and at this time, probably, wrote his famous 
 hymns. The Jesn dulcis memoria was a long hymn 
 of forty-eight stanzas, called the Jubilee Rliythm of 
 
62 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 the Name of Jesus. The translations, which form 
 separate hymns, are these — 
 
 " Jesuj the very thought is sweet." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 402 ; A. & M., 177.) 
 " Jesu, the very thought of Thee." 
 
 (A. & M., 178; 3 parts.) 
 "Jesu, Thy mercies are untold." 
 
 (A. &M., 189.) 
 "Jesu, Thou joy of loving hearts." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 403; A.&M., 190.) 
 
 And no doubt many other hymns of this nature 
 are translated or adapted from the Jesu dulcis. 
 S. Bernard's other famous hymn was the Salve 
 viundi salutare, a poem of three hundred and 
 seventy lines, addressed to tlie different members 
 of the Body of Christ hanging upon the Cross. 
 Tradition says that he wrote it when gazing on a 
 crucifix, when the Figure of Ch-ist appeared to 
 come down from the Cross and embrace him. The 
 German poet, Gerhardt, made a very beautiful 
 translation of this into his own language, and from 
 it is taken our hymn — 
 
 " O sacred Head, surrounded 
 By crown of piercing thorn." (A. & M., iii.) 
 
 But we must pass on to the second S. Bernard, 
 author of the beautiful Rhythm of the Heavenly 
 Country, which has given us our very favourite 
 hymns — 
 
 " Brief life is here our portion." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 341 ; A. & M., 225.) 
 
 " The world is very evil." (A. & M., 226.) 
 
 " For thee, O dear, dear country." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 365 ; A. & M., 227.) 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 63 
 
 "Jerusalem the eolden." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 395 ; A. & M., 228.) 
 
 S. Bernard of Chuiy wrote a long poem of three 
 thousand Hnes, called De Conteinptu inundi ; and he 
 began his treatise on " the contempt of the world " by 
 a lovely set of verses on the joys and glories of 
 heaven. This was translated by Dr. Neale, and 
 from this translation our hymns are taken. He 
 tells us that it is impossible to give any idea of the 
 beauty of the original Latin verse ; in fact, S. 
 Bernard himself says he believes only the inspira- 
 tion of the Spirit of God could have enabled him to 
 write it. Many tired wayfarers, many sufferers, 
 worn with pain and trouble, have been soothed 
 and cheered by these beautiful descriptions of the 
 heavenly country. One little child, who was suffer- 
 ing such agonies as the doctors declared to be 
 almost unparalleled, would lie perfectly still while 
 the whole four hundred lines were being read to him. 
 
 S. Bernard was born, of English parents^ at 
 Morlaix, on the sea-coast of Brittany. He is some- 
 times called Bernard of Morlaix^ from his birth- 
 place ; but more often Bernard of Clnny, from the 
 celebrated abbey where he became monk under 
 the still more celebrated abbot, Peter the Vener- 
 able, himself a hymn-writer. His hymns, however, 
 and those of Hildebert, Archbishop of Tours, are 
 not so famous as those of the two S. Bernards, 
 although many of them are very beautiful. Both 
 were great men in their day, and we hear that 
 Hildebert wrote more than ten thousand verses. 
 
 But \kiQ: greatest hymn-writer of the century was 
 Adam of S. Victor, born in Britannia, which may 
 mean Britain, or Brittany. He took his name from 
 
64 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 the great school of the Abbey of S. Victor, in Paris, 
 where he studied, and where he died, about the 
 year 1 192. His hymns show us his deep knowledge 
 of Scripture and of theology, and his fondness for 
 types. For instance, in a hymn on Holy Com- 
 munion, many Old Testament types are given — 
 
 " Honey in the lion's mouth, 
 Emblem mystical, divine, 
 How the sweet and strong combine, 
 Cloven rock of Israel's drouth. 
 Treasure-house of golden grain, 
 By our Joseph laid in store." etc. 
 
 Adam wrote a large number of sequences, among 
 which was one for S. Stephen's Day, translated in 
 a most spirited way by Dr. Neale — 
 
 "Yesterday, with exultation." (A. & M., 64.) 
 
 Another was for S. John the Evangelist's Day, 
 
 from which it is possible that Keble may have 
 
 taken some ideas for his hymn of S. John's Day 
 (A. & M., 6^)— 
 
 " Word supreme, before creation." 
 
 Two other hymns in A. & M., for Festivals of 
 Apostles and Evangelists (Nos., 620 & 621) — 
 
 " In royal robes of splendour," 
 " Come sing, ye choirs exultant," 
 
 are taken from Adam of S. Victor ; and the hymn 
 by Robert Campbell (A. & M., 434)— 
 
 " Come, pure hearts, in sweetest measures," 
 is no doubt adapted from his sequence for the four 
 Evangelists, Juc?mdare, plebs fidelis. Adam also 
 wrote two beautiful Easter sequences, and one for 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 65 
 
 the Invention of the Cross, considered to be his 
 masterpiece — 
 
 " Be the Cross our theme and story, 
 We, who in the Cross's glory 
 
 Shall exult for evermore. 
 By the Cross the warrior rises. 
 By the Cross the foe despises. 
 
 Till he gains the heavenly shore." etc. 
 
 The hymn, 
 
 " O what the joy and the glory must be" (A. & M., 235), 
 
 was written by Abelard (1079 — 1142), and is in 
 a hymn-book which he wrote for Heloise and the 
 nuns of the Abbey of the Paraclete, and which has 
 been only recently discovered. 
 
 To the twelfth, or perhaps the beginning of the 
 thirteenth, century we can trace one of our Advent 
 and three of our Easter hymns, though their 
 authors are unknown — 
 
 "O come, O come, Emmanuel." (A. & M., 49.) 
 
 " The strife is o'er, the battle done." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 139; A.&M., 135.) 
 
 " O sons and daughters, let us sing." (A. & M., 130.) 
 
 "Jesu, the world's redeeming Lord." (A. & M., 141.) 
 
 We will finish this chapter by some verses from a 
 Song of Pilgrims^ translated by Dr. Neale from an 
 MS. of the eleventh century, and probably written 
 at the beginning of the Crusades for the pilgrims to 
 chant as they went on their way — 
 
 " O Christ, our King, give ear ! 
 O Lord and Maker, hear ! 
 And guide our footsteps lest they stray. 
 
 O ever Three in One, 
 Protect our course begun, 
 And lead us on our holy way ! 
 
 E 
 
66 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 Thy faithful guardian send, 
 Thy Angel, who may tend. 
 And bring us to Thy holy seat. 
 
 Defend our onward path, 
 Protect from hostile wrath, 
 And to our land return our feet. 
 
 And, O good Lord, at last, 
 Our many wanderings past. 
 Give us to see Thy realm of light." etc 
 
 IX. 
 
 LATIN HYMNS. 
 
 THIRTEENTH AND FOLLOWING CENTURIES. 
 
 " Nor did they march in silence, but chanted, as they went, 
 hymns of hope and joy." — S. ChrysOSTOM. 
 
 It is rather a curious fact, and worthy of note, 
 that, while all the great hymn-writers of the twelfth 
 century were French^ those of the thirteenth were 
 Italian. All, however, wrote in Latin, except S. 
 Francis of Assisi, whose hymns were in his native 
 language, and therefore come under the heading of 
 Italian hymns.i Three of his disciples, Bonaventura, 
 Jacobus de Benedictus, and Thomas of Celano were 
 great hymn-writers. 
 
 S. Bonaventura was born in Tuscany, in the year 
 1221. In his childhood he had a dangerous illness, 
 and his mother, in her grief, brought the little fellow 
 to the good S. Francis, beseeching him to pray for 
 the child's life, and to heal him, and it is said that 
 when S. Francis saw him, he exclaimed, " O buona 
 
 ^ Seep. 125. 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 6/ 
 
 ventura"("0 happy chance"); and the mothcr,in her 
 dehght at the boy's recovery, dedicated him to God 
 under that name. He became a friar of the Order 
 of S. Francis, and was distinguished for his great 
 learning. When asked the source of it, he used to 
 point in silence to his Crucifix, meaning that he 
 looked to Christ to guide him in all he undertook. 
 Among other hymns, he wrote one for the hour of 
 the Passion, which has been translated by Mrs. 
 Charles, and is in the Rev. Godfrey Thring's hymn- 
 book. The hymn, 
 
 "In the Lord's atoning grief" (A. & M., 105), 
 
 is also taken from it. 
 
 One of the greatest medieval hymns was the 
 Stabat Mater, written, it was said, by Jacobus 
 or Jacopone de Benedictis,^ who was born at Lodi, 
 in Umbria, of noble parents. He was a lawyer, and 
 full of humour and satire, and lived a secular life 
 until the death of his wife, who was killed by an 
 accident in a theatre. She v/as a very good woman, 
 and her death made a great impression on him, and 
 he withdrew from the world to join the Order of S. 
 Francis, turning his gifts of poetry to the honour of 
 God. The epitaph on his tombstone at Lodi is a 
 very curious one — " The bones of Jacobus of Lodi, 
 who, a fool for Christ's sake, deluded the world by 
 this strange wile, and seized heaven." The hymn 
 called Stabat Mater is founded on S. John xlx. 25, 
 S. Luke ii. 35, Zech. xiii. 6, 2 Cor. iv. 10, Gal. vi. 
 17 ; and consists of ten stanzas of six lines each. It 
 was called " A sequence or prose on the seven griefs 
 of the Blessed Virgin Mary," and was appointed, in 
 
 ^ There is no real evidence as to the author. 
 
6S HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 the Romish Church, to be sung between the Epistle 
 and Gospel, at High Mass, on the Friday in Passion 
 Week and on the third Sunday in September. In 
 the fourteenth century, the Flagellants brought it 
 into more common use by singing it from town to 
 town. The words inspired many great composers 
 to set them to music, amongst others Palestrina, 
 Pcrgolesi, Haydn, Rossini, and Dvorak. We keep 
 part of the Stabat Mater in our beautiful Passion 
 hymn — 
 
 "At the Cross her station keeping." (A. & M., 117.) 
 
 The twelfth century produced two S. Bernards, 
 and the thirteenth two S. Thomases, living near to 
 each other, and writing hymns. 
 
 S. Thomas of Celano, near Naples, was one of 
 the eleven disciples of S. Francis d'Assisi, who 
 first joined him in 1208. These brothers, the 
 nucleus of the Franciscan Order, were called Fratres 
 Mi7i07'es, or lesser brotJiers^ to remind them that 
 humility was to be their great virtue. S. Thomas 
 must have been a great poet, if, as we suppose, he 
 wrote the famous Dies Irce, " the great medieval 
 masterpiece of sacred song," and the only example, 
 in Old Church poetry, of triple i^hyine. The hymn 
 has been translated into all the languages of civilized 
 countries. One of the earliest English renderings 
 is by Sylvester (162 1), a hymn-writer of the reign of 
 James I. Thirty years later, in the time of Charles 
 I., another translation was made by Crashaw ; and, 
 in the reign of Charles H., one by the Earl of Ros- 
 common. His last words were two lines from his 
 own version of the Dies Irce^ uttered with loud 
 voice — 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 69 
 
 " My God, my Father, and my Friend, 
 Do not forsake me at my end." 
 
 Then Sir Walter Scott brought his translation into 
 TJie Lay of tJie Last Minstrel — 
 
 "That day of wrath, that dreadful day." (A. & M., 206.) 
 
 It is found in many hymn-books, and Sir Walter 
 himself often repeated it on his death-bed. But the 
 finest and best translation is that by Dr. Irons — 
 
 " Day of wrath, O day of mourning. 
 See fulfilled the prophets' warning, 
 Heaven and earth in ashes burning." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 355 ; A. & M., 398), 
 
 in which the triple rhyme is kept. 
 
 This hymn was published in the year 1848, during 
 the great French Revolution, and it is very interest- 
 ing to learn how it came to be written. One of the 
 most dreadful scenes of terror and bloodshed in 
 Paris during that fearful time was the death of 
 Monseigneur Afifre, the Archbishop of Paris, who 
 was shot on the 25th of June on the barricade of the 
 Place de la Bastille, while trying to persuade the 
 insurgents to cease firing. He was quietly buried 
 ten days Liter, and as soon as it was safe, his funeral 
 sermon was preached in Notre Dame, with a most 
 solemn and impressive requiem service, and the 
 Dies Lrce was sung by an immense body of priests. 
 
 Dr. Irons was in Paris, and was present at the 
 service, and he was so much struck with the 
 solemnity of it all, partly owing to the terror of 
 the times and to the magnificent way in which the 
 Dies Lrce was sung, that, as soon as he got away 
 from the cathedral, he at once composed his trans- 
 lation of the grand old hymn. Dr. Irons was the 
 
70 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 son of a Dissenting minister, but became a preben- 
 dary of S. Paul's. 
 
 The ritual use of the Dies IrcB was as a sequence 
 for the Burial of the Dead, but we often use it as an 
 Advent hymn. It is a marvellous description of 
 the terror of the last day ; yet the hymn is full of 
 rest and trust in God. Like the Stabat MateVy it 
 has been set to music by many great composers. 
 The poet Goethe has woven it in with great effect 
 to his play of Faust. 
 
 But we must leave this famous hymn, and hasten 
 on to the second S. Thomas, called Aquinas, son of 
 a count of Aquino, near Naples, and born in 1227. 
 He became a friar, not of the Order of S. Francis, 
 but of S. Dominic. It is said that his parents were 
 very anxious to prevent him from taking monastic 
 vows, and that when he was seventeen he escaped 
 to a convent at Naples in order to make them, 
 his mother rushing after him to try and stop it. 
 Then he took flight, and was waylaid by his two 
 brothers, who tore his robe from his back and took 
 him back to the castle. There he was shut up, and 
 no one allowed to see him except his two sisters, 
 whom he converted. They helped him to escape 
 again, and let him down in a basket from a window 
 of the castle, and at last he was allowed to remain 
 peaceably in his convent. He was called "the 
 angelic Doctor," because of his very sweet temper ; 
 and in spite of his great learning, was so humble 
 that he received the nickname of " The Ox." His 
 daily prayer was — " Give me, O Lord, a noble heart, 
 which no earthly affection can drag down." The 
 famous hymns of S. Thomas Aquinas were written 
 for the Festival of Corpus Christi, which he induced 
 
LATIN HYMNS. /I 
 
 Pope Urban IV. to institute in 1264. They are 
 the Pange lingiui gloriosi — 
 
 " Now my soul the mystery telling." (A. & M., 309.) 
 
 Adoro te devote^ beautifully translated by Dr. 
 Woodford — 
 
 " Thee we adore, O hidden Saviour, Thee. 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 216; A. «& M., 312.) 
 
 Verbum stipermun — 
 
 " The heavenly Word proceeding forth." (A. & M., 311.) 
 
 The last stanza of this, " O salutaris " (" O saving 
 Victim "), is used in the Romish Church at the Office 
 of Benedictus, and also, sometimes, at High Mass, 
 after the hymn Benedictus. Gounod's beautiful 
 music to it is well known, and sung in many 
 English churches. 
 
 The Lauda Sion, the great sequence of S. 
 Thomas, was also written for the same festival. It 
 has been found difficult to translate for use in the 
 Eng-lish Church, because of the doctrine which it 
 teaches, but one canto, the Ecce panis, was often 
 used as a separate hymn, and we have it as — 
 
 " Lo, the angels' food is given." (A. &: M., 310.) 
 
 The esca viatoruni^ another beautiful hymn 
 on Holy Communion, has been said to be by S. 
 Thomas, but is really of later date — 
 
 " O Food that weary pilgrims love." (A. & M., 314.) 
 
 There was still a tJiird S. Thomas, a hymn-writer 
 well known by his famous book. The Imitation 
 of Christ. He was called a Kempis, from his 
 birthplace Kempen^ near Diisseldorf. He was born 
 about the year 1380, a century after the two Italian 
 
72 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 saints, and died in 147 1. He lived a most holy life, 
 and it is said that when he prayed his face shone 
 like heaven. His sacred poems were all in Latin, 
 and are not well known to us, though some have 
 been translated. One is on " the joys of heaven." 
 A very favourite hymn, the Jerusalem luniinosay 
 " On the glory of the heavenly Jerusalem, concern- 
 ing the endowment of the glorified body," has been 
 ascribed, without good authority, to S. Thomas a 
 Kempis. It is translated — 
 
 " Light's abode, celestial Salem. (A. «& M., 232.) 
 
 There is a sequence for the dying in time of 
 pestilence, which occurs in a Mass arranged by Pope 
 Clement VI. at Avignon, during a dreadful pesti- 
 lence, brought over by' merchants from the Levant. 
 All those who heard the Mass were to bear in the 
 hand a lighted candle, and hold it kneeling, and so 
 sudden death would not hurt them. It is translated 
 in the Hymnary — 
 
 " Holy Trinity, before Thee, 
 
 Lo ! Thy people prostrate fall ; 
 
 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 
 Lord, have mercy now on all ; 
 
 Helper of the poor and helpless. 
 On Thy Name Thy servants call. 
 
 For our hearts are torn with anguish, 
 
 All around are fear and woe ; 
 And the stoutest hearts are failing, 
 
 At the dread insidious foe. 
 Spreading far and near contagion, 
 
 Lays the best and fairest low," etc. 
 
 Another well-known hymn of the fourteenth 
 century, of unknown authorship, for Holy Com- 
 munion, is the prayer, Anima Christi sanctijia me. 
 
LATIN HYMNS. 73 
 
 There are many prose and metrical translations of 
 it— 
 
 sJ^ SoiijM Christ, my soul make pure." etc. 
 
 Although all the later medieval hymn-writers 
 seem to have been monks, and to have written 
 their hymns in the cloister, there are many Latin 
 hymns of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries of 
 unknoivn authorship, and these are some of the 
 best known by their translations — 
 
 "Alleluia, song of sweetness." (Ch. Hy., 102 ; A. & M., 82.) 
 " O come, all ye faithful." {Adeste Jideles.) 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 85 ; A. & M., 59.) 
 " To the Name of our salvation." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 536; A. &M, 179.) 
 "O love, how deep, how broad, how high." (A. & M., 173 ) 
 " Blessed feasts of blessed Martyrs." (A. & M., 440.) 
 " Who the multitudes can number." (A. & M., 619.) 
 "Again the Lord's own day is here." (A. & M., 35.) 
 "With hearts renewed." (A. & M., 159.) 
 "Zion's daughter, weep no more.'' (A. & M., 100.) 
 
 X. 
 
 EARLY ENGLISH HYMNS. 
 
 " Give me the making of the people's hymns, and I care not 
 who makes their creeds." 
 
 There is no doubt that Christian hymns were 
 in use in Britain before Augustine and his monks 
 landed in Kent and brought with them the Latin 
 hymns of Gregory and Ambrose, in the year A.D. 
 
74 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 597. Indeed, the first hymn-writer of whom we 
 have any record, in the British Isles, was 5. Patrick, 
 the second bishop and patron-saint of Ireland. 
 He was born in 372, most probably near Dumbarton 
 in Scotland, and at the age of sixteen was carried 
 off as a slave to Ireland. There he stayed six 
 years, feeding swine, and his misfortunes led him 
 to become a Christian. He escaped at last, and 
 went back to his parents, but later in life he 
 determined to become a missionary to the heathen 
 Irish; and the legend of his teaching the people 
 the doctrine of the Holy Trinity by means of a 
 shamrock leaf is well known. 
 
 S. Patrick's Irish hymn is a very famous one. 
 Tradition says that it was composed after a miracle 
 in the plains of Tara, where, at a heathen festival 
 on Easter Sunday, the saint, raising his staff, called 
 on the Name of Jesus, and the great idol which stood 
 there fell, broken to pieces, and the king and his 
 people were converted and baptized. Then, in his 
 joy, S. Patrick composed a beautiful hymn, which 
 was the means of spreading the faith far and near. 
 It is called The Breastplate^ of S. Patrick, and in 
 the seventh century was ordered to be sung in all 
 monasteries and churches throughout the whole of 
 Ireland. Mrs. Alexander wrote a fine version of 
 the hymn sung throughout Ireland on S. Patrick's 
 Day, 1889, and at the enthronement of the Arch- 
 bishop of York, on the same day, in 1891 — ■ 
 
 " I bind unto myself to-day, 
 The strong Name of the Trinity, 
 By invocation of the same, 
 The Three in One and One in Three. 
 
 ^ Lorica. 
 
EARLY ENGLISH HYMNS. 75 
 
 I bind unto myself to-day, 
 
 The power of God to hold and lead, 
 His eye to watch, His might to stay, 
 
 His ear to hearken to my need, 
 The wisdom of my God to teach. 
 
 His hand to guide, His shield to ward, 
 The Word of God to give me speech. 
 
 His heavenly host to be my guard. 
 
 Christ be with me, Christ within me, 
 Christ behind me, Christ before me, 
 Christ beside me, Christ to win me, 
 Christ beneath me, Christ above me, 
 Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, 
 Christ in hearts of all that love me, 
 Christ in mouth of friend or stranger." etc. 
 
 A hymn was written in honour of S. Patrick by 
 Sechnall, his nephew, about the year 458, which 
 was said to be a coat of mail to all who repeated 
 it; and other hymns of the ancient Irish Church 
 have been found. Music was largely used in 
 worship in this branch of the Christian Church, 
 and was very probably in the Eastern style, for 
 the Celtic Church is said to be of Eastern origin. 
 We read of a hymn which was sung after the 
 prayer of consecration, during the communion of 
 the clergy and before that of the people. This 
 was the 
 
 " Sancti venite, 
 Corpus Christi sumite," 
 
 which Dr. Neale has translated so beautifully — 
 
 "Draw nigh and take the Body of the Lord, 
 And drink the holy Blood for you outpoured." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 207; A. &M. 313.) 
 
 One of the old legends relates how a choir of 
 angels was heard in the Church of S. Sechnall, in 
 Ireland, chanting this hymn. 
 
^6 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 Crossing over to the west coast of Scotland, we 
 find that S. Columba, the missionary, in his lonely 
 island of lona, besides his translation of the 
 Psalms, wrote a noble hymn called the Alius 
 Prosatoi% containing the substance of the Creeds 
 in one hundred and fifty lines ; and it is said that 
 his voice was so powerful that he could be heard 
 chanting a mile off. In Wales, another birthplace 
 of Christianity, we have already heard of the 
 Alleluia battle, and there is little doubt that the 
 Britons were renowned for their fine voices. The 
 historian, Gildas, speaks of "the musical voices of 
 the young, sweetly singing the praises of God." 
 
 There is a very old Saxon hymn. To tJie Holy 
 Trinity, from which I believe our Trinity Sunday 
 hymn is taken — 
 
 "All hail, adored Trinity" (A. & M., 158) ; 
 and in the service of the Anglo-Saxon Church a 
 rendering of the Apostles' Creed used to be sung 
 to the harp, and is given in a book on the early 
 Church, beginning — 
 
 " Father of unchanging might, 
 Set above the welkin's height, 
 Thro' the unsullied tracts of air, 
 Didst in their own space prepare, 
 And the solid earth as fast, 
 With its deep foundation cast." etc. 
 
 Cxdmon, the swineherd of Whitby, wrote a 
 w^onderful sacred hymn, beginning with the creation 
 of the world, and going on to the Redemption ; and 
 we read of Aldhelm, abbot of Malmesbury, the 
 saintly man who, laying aside all state and dignity 
 for awhile, and sitting on a rustic bridge over the 
 Avon, sang David's psalms to David's strings with 
 
EARLY ENGLISH HYMNS. ^J 
 
 harp in hand. Dr. Porter, in his Lives of the Saints^ 
 gives us a description of this : 
 
 " In King Elfred's time many of S. Aldhelme's ditties were 
 sung in England. One thing related of this purpose by 
 King Elfred is most worthy of memoir. The people of those 
 times, being yet rude rustics, and verie negligent in the 
 Divine service, seemed to come to church but for fashion's 
 sake (as manie now-a-days doe), where they made noe long 
 stay, but as soon as the misterie of masse was done, they 
 flocked homewards without any more adoe. Our prudent 
 Aldhelme, perceiving this small devotion in the people, 
 placed himself on a bridge over which they were to passe 
 from church to their villages, where, when the hasty multitude 
 of people came (whose minds were already on their beef- 
 pots at home), he began to put forth his voice with all the 
 musical art he could, and charmed their ears with his songs. 
 For which, when he grew to be grateful and plausible to 
 that rustic people, and perceived that his songs flowed into 
 their eares and mindes, and the great pleasure and content- 
 ment of both, he beganne by little and little to mingle his 
 ditties with more serious and holy matters, taken out of the 
 Holy Scriptures, and by that meanes brought them in time 
 to a feeling of devotion and to spend their Sunday and holy 
 daies with farre greater profit to their owne soules." 
 
 Another picture, this, of the great power and 
 value of hymn-singing. 
 
 Aldhelm died in the year 709, and about the 
 time of his death another saint, still more celebrated 
 and learned, was writing hymns far away in the 
 extreme north of England, at Jarrow-on-the-Tyne. 
 This was the Venerable Bede^ born about A.D. 
 673, at Wearmouth, and when seven years old 
 given into the care of Benedict Biscop, to be 
 brought up to the religious life. He was ordained 
 deacon at the age of nineteen, and after, priest, and 
 spent his life in the religious house at Jarrow, be- 
 coming the most cultivated man of his age and 
 
78 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 country. He wrote at pleasure in prose or verse, 
 in Anglo-Saxon or in Latin, and on an immense 
 variety of subjects. He was called the father of 
 English learning ; but, unlike so many very clever 
 men, he kept his faith in, and love of God, and 
 this made him wonderfully humble. This is the 
 prayer with which he ends the story of his labours 
 and of the forty-five works he had written — 
 
 " O good Jesu, Who hast deigned to refresh my soul with 
 the sweet stream of knowledge, grant to me that I may one 
 day mount to Thee, Who art the source of all wisdom, and 
 remain for ever in Thy Divine Presence." 
 
 Among his many writings was "A Book of 
 Hymns, in several sorts of metre and rhyme." These 
 Avere written in Latin, but he also composed them 
 in Anglo-Saxon. One of them is translated in 
 A. & M., 415— 
 
 " The great forerunner of the morn." 
 
 Two others are well known : for the Ascension, 
 and for the Feast of the Holy Innocents-— 
 
 *' The hymn for conquering martyrs raise 
 The victor Innocents we praise, 
 W' hom in their woe earth cast away, 
 But heaven with joy received to-day : 
 Whose Angels see the Father's face. 
 World without end, and hymn His grace, 
 And while they chant unceasing lays, 
 The hymn for conquering martyrs raise." 
 
 The account of Bede's death is most beautiful, 
 and is told by one of his monks, an eye-witness — 
 
 " Nearly a fortnight before Easter he was seized with an 
 extreme weakness, in consequence of his difficulty of breath- 
 ing, but without pain. He continued thus until Ascension 
 Day,"always joyous and happy, giving thanks to God day and 
 
EARLY ENGLISH HYMNS. 79 
 
 night. He gave us our lessons daily, and employed the*rest 
 of his time in chanting psalms, and passed every night, after 
 a short sleep, in joy and thanksgiving, but without closing 
 his eyes. From the moment of waking he resumed his 
 prayers and praises to God, with his arms in the form of a 
 cross. He also sang anthems. ... At this time he was 
 finishing a translation of the Gospel of S. John into our 
 English tongue, for the use of the Church. On the eve of 
 the Feast of Ascension, at the first dawn of morning, he 
 desired that what had been commenced should be quickly 
 finished. In the evening the young secretary said to him, 
 ' Beloved Master, there remains only one verse which is not 
 written.' ' Write it then, quickly,' he said. And the young 
 man cried, 'It is finished.' 'You say truly " It is finished,"' 
 said he. ' Support my head in thine arms, for I desire to sit 
 in the holy place where I am accustomed to pray, that sitting 
 there, I may call upon my Father.' Thus, lying on the floor 
 of his cell, he sang for the last time, ' Glory be to the Father, 
 and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit'; and with these 
 last words on his lips, — a fitting close to one who had sung 
 God's praises in his life — he gave up the ghost." 
 
 The last early English hymn-writer we shall 
 mention is King Alfred himself, who, amongst his 
 other writings, is said to have composed Latin 
 hymns. A translation of one of them, for the 
 morning, said, though without proof, to be by him, 
 is given in the Sarum Hymnal — 
 
 "As the sun doth daily rise, 
 Brightening all the morning skies, 
 So to Thee, with one accord, 
 Lift we up our hearts, O Lord. 
 
 Day by day provide us food, 
 For from Thee come all things good ; 
 Strength unborn our souls afford. 
 From Thy Living Bread, O Lord. 
 
 Be our Guard in sin and strife, 
 Be the Leader of our life. 
 Lest like sheep we stray abroad. 
 Stay our wayward feet, O Lord," etc. 
 
80 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 XI. 
 
 PSALMS IN VERSE. 
 
 " Has David, Christ to come foreshowed ? 
 Can Christians then aspire, 
 To mend the harmony that flowed 
 From his prophetic lyre ? 
 
 Let David's pure, unaltered lays 
 
 Transmit through ages down 
 
 To Thee, O David's Lord, our praise, 
 
 To Thee, O David's Son."— Samuel Wesley. 
 
 A VERY great number of efforts have been made 
 in England to versify the Psalter, but with very 
 little success. We have heard already of Aldhelm, 
 the good Saxon abbot, who, harp in hand, taught 
 the people to sing, on the bridge over the Avon. 
 It is supposed that he made a metrical version 
 of most of the Psalms, for a Saxon version was 
 found in an old French monastery ; the first fifty 
 in prose, the rest in verse, and the metrical part, at 
 any rate, is said to be by Aldhelm. He very wisely 
 tried to suit the meaning of the Psalms to the 
 customs of his day, and the homely imagery suited 
 the people. For instance, he speaks of the peace- 
 stool, or stone seat, placed near the altar in English 
 churches, as a place of refuge, where culprits might 
 be free for seven days. " God is the place of peace 
 to the poor " (Ps. xcix.). " The Lord God is become 
 my peace-stooV (Ps. cxiv. 22). The harp-songs, as 
 the metrical versions were called, were not only 
 simple, but really poetical and devotional. These 
 are two examples (from Churton's Early English 
 Church) — 
 
PSALMS IN VERSE. 8 1 
 
 "As the beacon fire by night, 
 That the host of Israel led, 
 Such the glory fair and bright 
 Round the good man's dying bed ; 
 'Tis a beacon, bright and fair, 
 Telling that the Lord is there."— Ps. cxvi. 15. 
 
 *' Lord, to me Thy minsters are 
 Courts of honour, passing fair, 
 And my spirit deems it well 
 There to be and there to dwell. 
 Heart and flesh would soon be there, 
 Lord, Thy life. Thy love, to share." 
 
 Ps. Ixxxiv. T, 2. 
 
 To come to later days, four great attempts, 
 besides many smaller ones, were made to put the 
 Psalms into English verse. 
 
 The first was that of Sternhold and Hopkins, in 
 1 55 1, the time of the Reformation. Thomas Stern- 
 hold was groom of the robes to Henry VHI. and 
 Edward VI., and John Hopkins was a clergyman 
 in Suffolk, Fuller says of them that they were 
 " men whose piety was better than their poetry/' 
 and his words are very true, as may be seen from 
 the following examples — 
 
 " So many buls do compass me, 
 That be full strong of head, 
 Yea, buls so fat, as though they had 
 In Basan field been fed." 
 
 " They shall heap sorrow on their heads, 
 Which run as they were mad ; 
 To offer to the idol gods, 
 Alas, it is too bad ! " 
 
 Yet, in spite of the indifference in their composi- 
 tion, these Psalms of the Old Version became 
 most popular, and great crowds of people used to 
 gather round S. Paul's Cross and sing them, " sadly 
 
 F 
 
82 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 annoying the mass-priests and the devil," as Bishop 
 Jewel says. We still keep in our hymn-book two 
 psalms from a later edition of the Old Version, 
 neither of which, however, is by Sternhold or 
 Hopkins. The first is the Old Hundredth, 
 
 " All people that on earth do dwell," 
 
 probably written by William Kethe, a native of 
 Scotland and a refugee with John Huss at Geneva ; 
 and the second, Psalm cxliii., 
 
 " O Lord, turn not Thy face from me, 
 Who lie in woful state," 
 
 supposed to be by John Marchant (1380). 
 
 The public singing of the Psalms ceased under 
 Queen Mary's reign, though they were used 
 privately more than ever ; and when Queen Eliza- 
 beth came to the throne, nothing could exceed the 
 enthusiasm of the people at being allowed to sing 
 them again, when, in June 1559, permission was 
 given that they should be sung in public worship. 
 
 Many smaller attempts at versification were 
 attempted at this time by Queen Elizabeth herself, 
 by Fairfax, Lord Bacon, and other poets and theo- 
 logians. Spenser versified the seven penitential 
 psalms, but these, unfortunately, have been lost. 
 Sir Philip Sydney and his sister, Lady Pembroke, 
 made, between them, a metrical version of the 
 Psalms, which, though never used in public worship, 
 has, perhaps, more poetry in it than any other. 
 Here is a verse from it — 
 
 " O Lord, in me there lieth nought, 
 But to Thy search revealed lies, 
 For when I sit, 
 Thou makest it, 
 
PSALMS IN VERSE. 83 
 
 No less Thou notest when I rise. 
 Yea, closest closet of my thought, 
 Hath open windows to Thine eyes." — Ps. cxxxix. 
 
 Another version, made in 1612, was Ainsworth's 
 Book of Psalms, carried by the Pilgrim Fathers to 
 New England ; and Longfellow speaks of it in his 
 Courtship of Miles Standish. Priscilla sits spinning 
 and 
 
 "Singing the Hundredth Psalm, the grand old Puritan 
 
 anthem, 
 Music that Luther sang to the sacred words of the 
 
 Psalmist, 
 Full of the breath of the Lord, consoling and comforting 
 
 many." 
 
 This is the part of the psalm most quaintly 
 rendered — 
 
 " Shout to Jehovah, all the earth. 
 Serve ye Jehovah with gladness. 
 Before Him come with singing mirth, 
 Know that Jehovah He God is. 
 
 It's He that made us, and not wee, 
 His sheep and folk of His feeding ; 
 O with confession enter yee. 
 His gates. His courtyards with praising." 
 
 There is a still more curious rendering of Psalm 
 cxxxvii., which no doubt the Pilgrims sang with 
 heart as well as voice — 
 
 "Jehovah's song now sing shall wee, 
 Within a foreign people's land ; 
 Jerusalem, if I doo Thee 
 Forget— forget let my right hand.'' 
 
 This " Book of Psalms, Englished both in prose 
 and metre," contains tunes, popular melodies ; as 
 Ainsworth says, *'the gravest and the easiest." 
 
 The second ^r^^^ metrical version was the Scottish 
 
84 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 Psalter, adopted in the time of the Commonwealth. 
 It was compiled by Francis Rouse, an M.P., and 
 has been used in Scottish kirks from May ist, 1650, 
 until the present time. A family named Wedder- 
 burn, at Dundee, composed many of the psalms ; 
 and John Knox brought some of them from Ger- 
 many, where he had heard Luther's hymns. They 
 have always been dear to the hearts of the Scotch 
 people, and were sung from many a rocky glen 
 and wild moor by the fugitive Covenanters. An 
 account of the use of one of them, at the battle of 
 Drumclog, is given in Old Mortality — 
 
 "As the horsemen halted their lines on the ridge of the 
 hill, their trumpets and kettledrums sounded a bold and 
 warlike flourish of menace and defiance, that rang along the 
 waste like the shrill summons of a destroying angel. The 
 wanderers, in answer, united their voices, and sent forth, in 
 solemn modulation, the first two verses of the seventy-sixth 
 Psalm, according to the metrical version of the Scottish 
 Kirk— 
 
 " In Judah's land God is well known, 
 
 His Name in Israel great. 
 
 In Salem is His tabernacle, 
 
 In Zion is His seat. 
 
 There arrows of the bow He brake, 
 The shield, the sword, the war. 
 More glorious Thou than hills of prey, 
 More excellent art far." etc. 
 
 This Psalter of Rouse's was added to in 1745, 
 when Paraphrases of other paints of the Bible were 
 admitted. These were really hymns, adhering, as 
 closely as possible, to the words of Scripture, and 
 we keep some in our books now. The Ascension 
 hymn (see 2 Cor. v. i) — 
 
 " Where high the heavenly temple stands " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 552 ; A. & M., 201), 
 
PSALMS IN VERSE. 85 
 
 by Michael Bruce, the son of a weaver, who died in 
 1767, at the early age of twenty-one ; 
 
 " The people that in darkness sat " (Is. ix. 2), (A. & M., 80,) 
 
 by John Morrison ; and 
 
 " How bright those glorious spirits shine " (Rev. vii. 14 — 17), 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 384 ; A. & M., 438,) 
 
 by William Cameron, are three of the most widely- 
 known of these paraphrases. 
 
 Archbishop Sandys (1577 — 1643) wrote many 
 paraphrases of Psalms, and Milton made several 
 metrical versions. One, the cxxxvi., was written 
 when he was a school-boy of fifteen. It begins — 
 
 " Let us, with a gladsome mind, 
 Praise the Lord, for He is kind." 
 
 The refrain of each verse has been borrowed in our 
 well-known Harvest hymn — 
 
 " For His mercies aye endure, 
 Ever faithful, ever sure." 
 
 In Milton's time there was a great talk about 
 making a New Version of the Psalms, to super- 
 sede that of Sternhold and Hopkins ; but though 
 James I. himself tried his hand at the work, nothing 
 was really done until 1696, when the third great 
 Psalter, that of the Restoration, by Nahum Tate 
 and Nicholas Brady, both Irishmen, was published, 
 and permitted to be used in churches and chapels. 
 This New Version was almost as dull and dry 
 as the Old, but a few of the Psalms still live in our 
 hymn-books. 
 
 " Through all the changing scenes of life " (Ps. xxxiv.). 
 (Ch. Hy., 530 ; A. & M., 290.) 
 
 " Have mercy, Lord, on me " (Ps. li.). (A, & M., 249.) 
 
86 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 " O God of hosts, the mighty Lord" (Ps. Ixxxiv.). 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 443 ; A. & M., 237.) 
 
 " Ye boundless realms of joy " (Ps. cxlviii.) ; and 
 "As pants the hart" (Ps. xlii.) 
 
 (Ch. Hy.,334; A.&M.,238.) 
 
 A supplement to the Psalter was added in 1703, 
 containing some hymns, notably Tate's famous 
 Christmas paraphrase — 
 
 " While shepherds watched their flocks by night." 
 
 (See S. Luke ii. 8—14.) 
 
 At later dates were added Bishop Ken's morning 
 and evening hymns, and 
 
 " Hark the herald angels sing," 
 
 " High let us swell our tuneful notes," 
 
 *' My God, and is Thy table spread," 
 
 "Jesus Christ is risen to-day," 
 
 " Christ from the dead is raised again," 
 
 the only hymns sung in the churches in the days of 
 our grandparents. 
 
 The fourth and last great Psalter was that of 
 Watts, in the early days of the great evangelical 
 revival ; but this was more of a hymn-book based 
 upon the Psalter, and as we may come to his hymns 
 at some future time, we will pass it over now. Two 
 well-known psalms from his book are — 
 
 *' O God, our help in ages past" (Ps. xc). 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 446 ; A. & M., 165.) 
 
 "Jesus shall reign where'er the sun" (Ps. Ixxii.). 
 
 (Ch. Hy. 407 ; A. & M. 220.) 
 
 Later still, Keble wrote what is called the Oxford 
 Psalter, and he, like Sternhold, rendered the Psalms 
 from the original Hebrew, 
 
PSALMS IN VERSE. 87 
 
 Three metrical versions by Lyte are popular — 
 
 " Far from my heavenly home " (Ps. cxxxvii.). 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 358 ; A. & M., 284.) 
 
 "Pleasant are Thy courts above" (Ps. Ixxxiv.). 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 483 ; A. & M., 240.) 
 
 " Praise, my soul, the King of heaven " (Ps. ciii.). 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 484; A. &M., 298.) 
 
 Montgomery wrote a good version of Ps. Ixii., 
 
 " Hail to the Lord's Anointed " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 379; A. & M., 219); 
 
 and Sir Robert Grant gave us Ps. cviii. — 
 
 " O worship the King " (Ch. Hy., 477 ; A. & M., 167.) 
 The most modern are three good versions by Sir 
 Henry Baker — 
 
 "The King of love my Shepherd is." (A. & M., 197.) 
 
 " Rejoice to-day with one accord." (A. & M., 378.) 
 
 " Praise ! O praise our God and King." (A. & M., 381.) 
 
 XII. 
 
 CHRISTMAS CAROLS. 
 
 " Then came the merry masquers in. 
 And carols roared with blithesome din. 
 If unmelodious was the song. 
 It was a hearty note and strong ; 
 Who lists, may in their mumming see 
 Traces of ancient mystery." 
 
 The word Carol is taken from the Latin cayitare^ 
 to sing^ and rola^ an interjection of joy — or from 
 
88 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 the Italian carolare, "to sing songs of joy." Carols 
 were originally accompanied by a dance^ and we 
 find that, in the earliest ages of mankind, both song 
 and dance were employed as acts of Divine wor- 
 ship, whether of the true God or of heathen deities. 
 Choral dancing was a great part of Hebrew wor- 
 ship, and instances of its use abound in the Bible. 
 '' Let us praise His Name in the dance," etc. 
 
 This choral dancing was kept up in Christian 
 times, and we still see it in the rhythmic move- 
 ments of the chorus at Ober Ammergau. An old 
 proverb of the fourteenth century says : — " The 
 French sing ox pipe, the English carol, the Spaniards 
 wail, the Germans howl, the Italians capery Carols 
 have survived in England, but the dancing with 
 them has almost entirely disappeared, except in 
 the case of some of the mummers. 
 
 The Gloria in excelsis was the first Christmas 
 Carol, and many others have since been founded 
 upon the angels' words : yet, strange to say, no 
 carols from the early Christian Church have come 
 down to us. The reason probably is that, in earlier 
 times, Christmas was kept as a quiet, religious sea- 
 son, partly, no doubt, on account of the persecu- 
 tions, which made the Christians refrain from any 
 outward expressions of joy, at any particular fes- 
 tival. Then, gradually, the heathen rites and cus- 
 toms connected with the New Year were joined to 
 the religious rites, and when the Christians could 
 meet without fear, Christmas became the great 
 time for joyful festivity. 
 
 Some of the earliest carols were sung in Italy, in 
 the time of S. Francis of Assisi. There had been 
 a great deal of heresy on the subject of the Incar- 
 
CHRISTMAS CAROLS. 89 
 
 nation, and S. Francis, who wished to make the 
 ignorant people understand and realize it better, 
 asked leave of the Pope to celebrate Christmas in 
 a new way. 
 
 After obtaining permission, he and his monks 
 set forth to a little village called Graecia, near 
 Assisi, and with great pains they prepared in the 
 church a representation of the Nativity. On 
 Christmas Eve the villagers came to the church, 
 carrying lighted torches, and when they saw the 
 strange new scene, the manger filled with hay, the 
 ox and ass standing in their places, the Virgin and 
 her Child, and heard the hymns or carols sung by 
 S. Francis and his friars, we read that " they poured 
 forth praise to God for His wondrous love to man." 
 
 Indeed, the effect upon the people was so wonder- 
 ful, that we are told that S. Francis stood by the 
 manger all night long, sighing for joy, and giving 
 God thanks that by this means the hearts of the 
 people had been touched. This is the first account 
 of a mystery in Italy. In England, the mystery, 
 miracle, and moraHty plays arose much in the same 
 way. The clergy wished to bring home to the 
 people the great facts of Bible history, and the lives 
 and legends of the saints. So, on great festivals, 
 when the time came for the lesson, it was not read, 
 but realized — acted in the church by the clergy, 
 while the choir sang appropriate hymns and carols. 
 When the crowd became too great, the plays were 
 removed from the inside to the outside of the 
 church, and finally, when the people began to 
 trample on the graves in the churchyards, plat- 
 forms were erected in unconsecrated ground, and 
 gradually the laity began to take part, and the 
 
90 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 plays became most popular, until the Reformation 
 put a stop to them. The connection between the 
 original service and the plays was kept up by the 
 carols and hymns of the choristers. This is a 
 description of one of the plays, called The Massacre 
 of the Li }io cents. 
 
 First, a procession of children in white robes (to 
 represent the Holy Innocents) marched through 
 the cloisters of the monastery, chanting, " How 
 glorious is Thy kingdom ; send down, O Lord, Thy 
 Lamb." Then the Lamb appeared, represented 
 by a man, carrying a banner, bearing a figure of 
 the Lamb, and taking his place at the head of the 
 children. Meanwhile Herod, seated on his throne, 
 gave his sword to his armour-bearer, and the 
 children still went on singing, '' Hail, Lamb of God, 
 O hail ! " Then came the mother, entreating mercy, 
 while the children fell dead. As Rachel appeared, 
 an angel sang, " Suffer the little children to come 
 to Me," and at his voice the children entered the 
 choir, and the Te Deum was sung. Some of these 
 plays have been found in MS., and so we have 
 become possessed of the carols found in them. 
 Many others of the carols called traditional would 
 be sung first during the miracle plays, and by the 
 fifteenth century carol-singing was widely spread 
 all over England, and waits and mummers went 
 about singing for money and for food. 
 
 Many of the carols which have come down to us 
 from this time contain Latin words ; and" some are 
 half-Latin, half-English. This speaks of the days 
 when the Church service was still said in Latin, 
 and when the wish began to have it in *' a language 
 understanded of the people." For instance, the carol, 
 
CHRISTMAS CAROLS. 9I 
 
 " When Christ was born of Mary free," 
 
 has for its refrain, In excelsis gloria. It was found 
 in the Harleian MS. of the year 1500. A still 
 more curious one, dating also from the fifteenth 
 century — 
 
 "A Babe is born, all of a maid " (No. 48,1 S. & S.), 
 
 has for the last line of each verse the first line of 
 some well-known ancient Latin hymn — 
 
 " A Babe is born, all of a maid, 
 To bring salvation unto us ; 
 No more are we to sing afraid, 
 Vent J Creator spiritus.^^ 
 
 The other Latin hymns ending the verses are — • 
 
 " O lux beat a Triiiitas" ) _^ 
 
 " A soils ortus cardineP j ^^"^^^ ^^ S. Ambrose. 
 
 ^'■Jain lucis orto sidere." 
 
 " Gloria tibi Dor?ti?iey 
 
 Other traditional carols of the fifteenth century, 
 or thereabouts, are given in Stainer's and Bramley's 
 book. One, from the Towneley Mysteries — 
 " The angel and the shepherds " (No. 60) ; 
 another, from the Coventry Mysteries — 
 
 "The Coventry Carol" (No. 61) ; 
 and 
 
 " The Virgin and Child " (No. 25), 
 
 a very beautiful one. 
 
 Passing on to the sixteenth century, we find a 
 good many carols and songs in the Elizabethan 
 era. One of the best is by Robert Southwell, a 
 
 ^ Stainer and Bramley's Christmas Carols^ published by 
 Novello. 
 
92 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 Jesuit priest, who was sent in the year 1584, when 
 only twenty-four, as a missionary to England. 
 There was a very bitter feeling in England at that 
 time against the Roman Catholics, and a few years 
 after his arrival in England, Southwell was arrested 
 and imprisoned in the Tower. There he lingered 
 for three years, and on February 22, 1594, after 
 having suffered ten times the tortures of the rack, 
 he was executed. His carol begins thus — 
 
 " Behold a silly ^ tender Babe, 
 
 In freezing winter night, 
 In homely manger trembling lies, 
 
 Alas ! a piteous sight : 
 The inns are full, no man will yield 
 
 This little Pilgrim bed ; 
 But forced He is with silly beasts 
 
 In crib to shroud His head." (No. 47.) 
 
 Ben Jonson is the author of the carol — 
 
 " I sing the Birth was born to-night" (No. 55). 
 
 The well-known carols — 
 
 " God rest you, merry gentlemen " (No. i), 
 and 
 
 " I saw three ships come sailing in " (No. 64), 
 
 also belong, probably, to the sixteenth century. 
 
 During the Commonwealth the singing of carols 
 was more or less subdued, but at the Restoration 
 they broke out again. 
 
 Herrick, the poet, has left us quite a picture of 
 the Christmas season of his time in his poems. 
 He wrote a carol which was sung before the king 
 at Whitehall. 
 
 ^ Simple. 
 
CHRISTMAS CAROLS. 93 
 
 " What sweeter music can we bring, 
 Than a carol for to sing, 
 The Birth of this our heavenly King. 
 Awake the voice ! awake the string, 
 Heart, ear, and eye, and ever>^thing. 
 
 The Darling of the world is come, 
 And fit it is we find a room. 
 To welcome Him. 
 
 The nobler part 
 Of all the house here is the heart ; 
 Which we will give Him, and bequeath 
 This holly and this ivy wreath ; 
 To do Him honour, Who's our King, 
 And Lord of all this revelling." 
 
 This is only part of the carol, which was sung, 
 apparently, by two choruses, or by a single voice 
 and a chorus. 
 
 Another Christmas poet, on the side of the 
 Parliament, was George Wither, who wrote many 
 quaint and beautiful verses. His carol begins — 
 
 " As on the night before this happy morn, 
 A blessed angel unto shepherds told. 
 Where (in a stable) He was poorly born. 
 Whom nor the earth, nor heaven of heavens can hold." 
 
 William Austin (1630) wrote three carols for 
 Christmas, one of which is well known — 
 
 "All this night bright angels sing." (No. 41.) 
 
 The eighteenth century brought us very few 
 carols, but during the nineteenth there has been a 
 great revival of them. Coleridge wrote his — 
 
 " The shepherds went their hasty way, 
 And found the lowly stable shed " (No. 63), 
 
 in 1799, just at the dawn of the century; and 
 many modern carols, written since then, are very 
 
94 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 good. Dr. Neale has given us two very popular 
 ones, imitations of old carols — 
 
 and 
 
 " Good Christian men, rejoice," 
 " Good King Wenceslas looked forth." 
 
 Other modern carols are too numerous to men- 
 tion. Carols were, and are still, popular in other 
 countries besides England ; in fact, Germany 
 possesses even more than we do. One of the most 
 celebrated is Luther's carol, written for his little 
 son Hans — 
 
 " From highest heaven I come to tell 
 The gladdest news that ere befell ; 
 These tidings true to you I bring, 
 And of them I will say and sing. 
 
 To you this day is born a Child, 
 
 Of Mary, chosen Virgin, mild ; 
 
 That blessed Child, so sweet and kind, 
 
 Shall give you joy and peace of mind." etc. 
 
 A very sad story is told in connection with this. 
 It used to be sung by a boy who was let down 
 from the roof of a church, dressed as an angel ; 
 but one day, sad to relate, the rope broke, and the 
 boy was killed, and this put an end to a very 
 beautiful but dangerous Christmas custom. 
 
 There are Spanish and Besangon carols in Stainer 
 and Bramley's book (Nos. 36 and 49). Indeed, in 
 whatever country Christmas is kept at all, it is 
 kept with singing. 
 
GERMAN HYMNS. 95 
 
 XIII. 
 
 GERMAN HYMNS. 
 
 " There is a certain country called Germany, wherein dwell 
 Christians, and of a truth very pious ones ; who, as you 
 know, often come as pilgrims into our land, with their 
 long staves and great boots ; and amid the most sultry 
 heat, and bathed in sweat, yet visit all the thresholds of 
 the holy shrines, and sing hymns of praise to God and all 
 His saints." — ^S". Fi'ancis of Assist to his Monks^ 1221. 
 
 No other country is so rich in hymns as Germany ; 
 and we shall find that some of our favourite hymns 
 are translated from the German. The grandest 
 of them had their origin in troublous times, in the 
 storms of the Reformation, or the perils of the 
 Thirty Years' War ; indeed, it has been said that 
 " the Church hymn, in the strict sense of the term, 
 as 2i popular religious lyric, in praise of God, to be 
 sung by the congregation in public worship, was 
 born with the German Reformation." 
 
 From the earliest times we hear of the love of 
 the German race for song, and how they sang 
 hymns in their heathen worship, and pictured 
 heaven as echoing with the songs of the brave 
 heroes who had fallen in battle. About the sixth 
 century, missionaries spread the Christian faith 
 throughout Germany, and brought in with them 
 Latin hymns ; but we hear of no hymns written in 
 Germany until the ninth century. Then it was 
 that Notker, the monk of S. Gall, wrote his famous 
 sequence hymn, Media vita} This was after- 
 wards translated into German by Luther. These 
 
 ^ See p. 52. 
 
96 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 Latin sequence hymns gave rise to the earliest 
 German hymns. The only part that the people 
 had to take at that time in the Church service was 
 to utter continually during the service the words, 
 " Kyrie leison, Christe eleison!' ^ Soon after Notker 
 started the idea by his sequence hymns, the priests 
 began to write irregular verses which ended with 
 Kyrie eleison^ and from this the early German 
 hymns were called Leisen. At first these were 
 not used at Mass, but only on pilgrimages and at 
 festivals. In the time of the Crusades these Z^/j-^/2 
 became much more common, and at last they were 
 introduced into the churches, and sung at Mass. 
 One for Easter became the first verse of one of 
 Luther's hymns — 
 
 " Christ the Lord is risen 
 Out of Death's dark prison, 
 Let us all rejoice to-day, 
 Christ shall be our hope and stay. 
 Kyrie eleison, 
 Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia." 
 
 Special songs, too, were written for the Crusades, 
 to be sung on pilgrimages, such as — 
 
 " Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison — 
 O help us now, Thou Holy Ghost, 
 O Thou most Blessed Voice of God, 
 To tread with joy the toilsome road 
 Toward thee, Jerusalem. 
 Kyrie eleison." 
 
 Many Latin hymns, too, were translated into 
 German at this time, and used in cathedrals and 
 churches. Mystery and miracle plays came into 
 
 ^ " Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon 
 
GERMAN HYMNS. 97 
 
 fashion, and hymns and carols were written for 
 them. In the fifteenth century Henry of Laufen- 
 burg, a priest of Freiburg, translated many Latin 
 hymns, and wrote some of mixed Latin and 
 German. There is a lovely little cradle-song of 
 his, which has been well translated by Miss Wink- 
 worth and made into a baptismal hymn (Ch. Hy., 
 
 223)— 
 
 " Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord most dear, 
 As Thou wast once an Infant here, 
 So give this child of Thine, we pray, 
 Thy grace and blessing day by day. 
 O Holy Jesu, Lord Divine, 
 We pray Thee, guard this child of Thine." 
 
 But it was not until Luther's time that hymn- 
 singing during Church service became general in 
 Germany. We are told that " it was on the wings 
 of hymns that the Reformation flew through Ger- 
 many," Wandering minstrels had been popular 
 for some time ; and now, instead of the songs of 
 love and war written by the minnesingers, they 
 got hold of the last new hymn of Luther, or of 
 some kindred spirit, and sang it in the streets. A 
 Jesuit remarked, " The songs of Luther have killed 
 more souls than his books and his words." 
 
 Luther was born November 10, 1485, at Eisleben, 
 a little village in Germany. He was always very 
 fond of music and poetry, and his after-dinner 
 recreation was playing on the lute, and singing 
 with his children or his friends. Once, we are 
 told, he was sitting at his window, when he heard 
 a blind beggar sing. " Ah," he thought, " if only 
 I could make Gospel songs which people would 
 sing, and which would spread themselves up and 
 down the cities ! " The wish was father to the 
 
 G 
 
gS HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 thought, and after his imprisonment in the Wart- 
 burg, in 1522, he began to try and alter the service 
 of the Church, to introduce hymns, and to compose 
 them himself, and translate them from the Latin. 
 He says — " It is my intention, after the example 
 of the prophets and the ancient Fathers, to make 
 German psalms for the people ; that is, spiritual 
 songs, whereby the Word of Gcd may be kept 
 alive among them by singing." 
 
 Luther has been called "The Ambrose of Ger- 
 man hymnology" ; for his hymns, like those of 
 S. Ambrose, are simple and strong, full of Church 
 doctrine, and express great thoughts in very clear 
 language. Next to the Bible in German, his hymns 
 proved the best means of spreading the reformed 
 doctrines. Eight of Luther's hymns were psalms 
 in verse, the best known being Ps. xlvi. — '' Ein 
 Feste Burg," the Marseillaise of the Reformation, 
 as it has been called, and the national hymn of 
 Germany. He is said to have composed it on the 
 road to Wurms, in the year 1 521. It has always 
 been a favourite hymn in Germany, and Luther 
 himself composed the Chorale, which Mendelssohn 
 has woven into the Reforuiation Symphony. The 
 hymn and tune were sung over Luther's grave, at 
 Wittenberg, in February 1 546, and the first Hne is 
 cut on his tombstone — 
 
 "A sure stronghold our God is He, 
 A trusty shield and weapon." ^ 
 
 Another of Luther's famous psalm-hymns was 
 Ps. cxxx. — 
 
 " Out of the depths I cry to Thee, 
 Lord God ! Oh, hear my prayer." ^ 
 
 ^ Lyra Germaiiica, 235. ^ Ibid., 282. 
 
GERMAN HYMNS. 99 
 
 This was composed in 1524, in the midst of his 
 troubles, was also sung over his grave, and has 
 ever since been one of the funeral hymns of 
 Germany. 
 The hymn— 
 
 " Great God, what do I see and hear ? " 
 
 (Ch. Hy, 375 ; A. & M, 52), 
 
 has wrongly been called ** Luther's hymn." It 
 was written, in 1586, by Ringwaldt, a village pastor, 
 who took the idea of it from the Dies IrcE. He 
 lived in a time of famine, pestilence, and trouble. 
 The tune, however, is almost certainly by Luther. 
 
 All Luther's hymns were thoroughly congrega- 
 tional, and intended, not for private use, but for 
 public worship ; they show his deep faith and 
 devotion, his trust and courage, though they are 
 plain and rugged, like the man himself. As soon 
 as they were printed, pedlars carried them about 
 the country for sale, and none of the arts of the 
 Roman priests could stop their circulation. They 
 filled a gap, and met with hearty response wher- 
 ever they went. Some were written for children, 
 and the Te Deum, Ten Commandments, Lord's 
 Prayer, and Nunc Dimittis were put into verse. 
 
 Luther had two friends who were hymn-writers 
 like himself — Justus Jonas and Paul Eber. Jonas 
 was a clever young lawyer, who helped Luther in 
 translating the Psalms into German verse. Eber 
 was the son of a tailor, and as he was passionately 
 fond of books, his father sent him to college at 
 Nuremburg. He was much persecuted on account 
 of his faith, and being very sensitive, his health 
 gave way. His hymns are very touching, and full 
 
lOO HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 of pathos. Two for the dying are very popular in 
 Germany. 
 
 We must speak next about the hymns of the 
 Bohemian Brethren. Christianity was introduced 
 into Bohemia by two Greek monks in the eighth 
 century, and tliree centuries later, this ancient 
 Church of Bohemia separated itself from the Roman 
 Church, and tried to keep the native language 
 in public worship, as the Waldenses did in Italy. 
 But the Brethren were persecuted by the Popes, 
 and after many sufferings, they had a district 
 assigned to them in the borders of Silesia and 
 Moravia, where they continued their old form of 
 worship under the name of the United Brethren. 
 The persecution continued until the Reformation 
 allowed them to worship in peace. 
 
 The Bohemian race are very musical, and they 
 used many hymns in public worship. Michael 
 Weiss, one of their leaders, who lived in Luther's 
 time, published the hymns of the Brethren, trans- 
 lated into German. One is the well-known Easter 
 hymn — 
 
 " Christ the Lord is risen again." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 133; A. &M., 136.) 
 
 Another is a most beautiful evening hymn — 
 " Now God be with us, for the night is closing, 
 The hght and darkness are of His disposing. 
 And 'neath His Shadow here to rest we yield us, 
 
 For He will shield us. 
 Let evil thoughts and spirits flee before us, 
 Till morning cometh, watch, O Master, o'er us, 
 In soul and body Thou from harm defend us. 
 Thine angels send us." 
 
 A good old man, named Nicolas Herrmann, 
 precentor of Joachimstal, wrote two beautiful 
 
GERMAN HYMNS. 101 
 
 hymns (1560) ; one, a translation from the Latin, 
 sung at many German funerals — 
 
 " Now hush your cries, and shed no tear, 
 On such death none should look with fear, 
 He died a faithful Christian man. 
 And with his death true life began. 
 
 The buried grain of wheat must die. 
 Withered and worthless long must lie, 
 Yet springs to light all sweet and fair, 
 And proper fruits shall richly bear." etc.^ 
 
 Nicolas loved music passionately, and pictured 
 heaven as a place where " every organist will take 
 some holy text and strike upon his organ and lute, 
 and every one will be able to sing at sight, by 
 himself, four or five different parts, and there will 
 be no confusion or mistake." 
 
 The last hymn-poet we shall name is Hans 
 Sachs, the last of the master-singers and first of the 
 new style of modern poets, who lived at Nurem- 
 burg, and was born there in 1494, during a dreadful 
 plague, and became a shoemaker-poet. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 GERMAN HYMNS. 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 
 
 "Whenever the Holy Ghost inspireth a new hymn, it is His 
 wont to inspire some one with a good tune to fit it." 
 
 Those are the words of a very old writer, but 
 even in our own time we have proof that really 
 ^ Lyra Germam'ca, 632. 
 
102 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 inspired words bring with them really inspired 
 tunes. 
 
 This was the case, certainly, with two hymns, 
 written at the end of the sixteenth century, by 
 Nicolai, a pastor in Westphalia. He wrote for 
 them such fine, stirring tunes, that they have been 
 called the king and queen of chorales. During 
 the year 1597 ^ dreadful pestilence was raging in 
 the little town of which he was pastor, and in a 
 very short time more than 1400 people died. From 
 his window Nicolai could see the funerals passing 
 to the church, and he began to meditate a great 
 deal on eternal life, and to study The City of God, 
 by S. Augustine. Two years later he published a 
 book on Life Eternal, to which he added the two 
 hymns which became so popular all over Germany. 
 Those who have heard Mendelssohn's .S. Paul will 
 remember one of these hymns, 
 
 " Sleepers, wake, a voice is calling," 
 
 with its fine chorale. This is another translation — 
 
 " Wake, wake ! for night is flying, 
 The watchmen on the heights are crying, 
 
 Awake, Jerusalem, at last. 
 Midnight hears the solemn voices, 
 And at the thrilling cry rejoices. 
 
 Come forth, ye virgins, night is past. 
 The Bridegroom comes, awake ! 
 Your lamps with gladness take. 
 Hallelujah ! 
 And for His marriage-feast prepare, 
 For ye must go and meet Him there." 
 
 The other hymn was composed by Nicolai when 
 he was in great trouble. He was sitting thinking 
 of all the misery and death around him, and then 
 
GERMAN HYMNS. IO3 
 
 his spirit rose above this, and he thought of the 
 love of Christ for us, and from the depths of his 
 heart came this beautiful hymn. He forgot all 
 that was going on, even his mid-day meal, and he 
 did not rise until the hymn was finished. It 
 begins — 
 
 " O Morning Star, how fair and bright 
 Thou beamest forth in truth and light, 
 O Sovereign, meek and lowly." 
 
 This hymn and its tune became very popular ; it 
 was often used at weddings, because of its allusion 
 to the heavenly marriage-feast, and the tune rang 
 out from city chimes. 
 
 Now we come to the Thirty Years' War (161 8 — 
 1650). This was mainly one between the Roman 
 and Reformed Church, and, as is always the case 
 in religious wars, there was fearful suffering and 
 persecution. But times of suffering often bring 
 out men's best spiritual feehngs, and certainly the 
 hymns composed at this period were very fine. 
 The star of German hymn-writers, Paul Gerhardt, 
 lived at this time. He was pastor of S. Nicholas, 
 a large church in Berlin, where he worked very 
 hard, and was a very favourite preacher. Then 
 the Elector published an edict, with which Gerhardt 
 could not comply, so he was deprived of his living. 
 Three of his children had died during their infancy, 
 and now he lost one of his two remaining boys. 
 On his death he wrote a most touching hymn — 
 
 " Thou'rt mine, yes, still thou art mine own." 
 
 But his greatest trouble was his dear wife's sick- 
 ness. She fell into a decline, and during this time 
 he wrote many of his most beautiful hymns, which 
 
104 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 Speak of the sorrow and the crosses he had to bear, 
 yet how he rose above them to earnest trust in 
 God. 
 
 A story is told about one of the most famous of 
 Gerhardt's hymns, made known to English people 
 by John Wesley's translation. Paul had been 
 banished from Berlin, and was wandering about 
 with his wife and children, not knowing where to 
 go. One day he turned with his family into a 
 small wayside inn. His wife was very low and 
 depressed, and to comfort her he repeated Psalm 
 xxxvii. 5 : " Commit thy way unto the Lord, and 
 put thy trust in Him, and He shall bring it to pass." 
 Then they went out into the garden together, and 
 sat under an apple-tree, and there he composed 
 the hymn. 
 
 " Commit thou all thy griefs 
 And ways into His hands ; 
 To His sure truth and tender care, 
 Who heaven and earth commands." 
 
 The story goes on to relate how, that very evening, 
 messengers arrived to offer Gerhardt a post of 
 distinction under the Duke of Merseburg. 
 
 A very pretty custom was kept up in some of 
 the high schools of Germany, that, when pupils 
 left, their companions went with them to the gates 
 of the town, singing this hymn, and thus commit- 
 ting them to the sure protection of their Heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 One of Gerhardt's finest hymns was a translation 
 from the Latin of S. Bernard's famous Passion hymn, 
 and from the German is taken our translation — 
 
 "O sacred Head, surrounded." (A. & M., in.) 
 
GERMAN HYMNS. 105 
 
 Many other hymns by Gerhardt are given in Lyra 
 Gernianica ; one is a prayer for the nation, written 
 during the Thirty Years' War, and there are two 
 beautiful morning and evening hymns, the latter 
 being much used by German children — 
 
 " Now all the woods are sleeping, 
 And night and stilhiess creeping 
 
 O'er field and city, man and beast ; 
 But thou, my heart, awake thee, 
 To prayer awhile betake thee. 
 
 And praise thy Maker ere thou rest." ^ 
 
 Gerhardt died in 1676, and his last words were 
 from one of his own hymns — 
 
 " Me no death hath power to kill." 
 His hymns have lived because they are so full of 
 feeling and sympathy, and because the language is 
 so simple, and pure, and earnest. They have been 
 translated into many languages, and we read that 
 Schwartz, a great Indian missionary, was comforted 
 on his death-bed by hearing native Christians sing 
 some of Gerhardt's hymns in their own language. 
 
 One of Paul Gerhardt's friends and patronesses 
 was Louisa Henrietta, Electress of Brandenburg, a 
 noble Christian lady, and the granddaughter of 
 Admiral Coligny. She was married at the age of 
 nineteen, and her firstborn son was taken from her, 
 to her own and her husband's deep sorrow. Her 
 charity was unbounded ; she founded schools and 
 orphanages, and the people became so devoted to 
 her that her portrait hung on almost every cottage 
 wall, and Louisa became the favourite name for 
 girls. But one thing weighed upon her mind : she 
 had no other child, until at last her prayers were 
 
 ^ Lyra Germanica^ 51. 
 
I06 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 answered, and a little son was born to her. She 
 was very fond of reading and singing hymns, and 
 made a collection of them. She also composed 
 them, and the most celebrated is her favourite 
 Easter hymn — 
 
 "Jesus, my Redeemer, hves ! 
 
 Christ, my trust, is dead no more ; 
 In 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 .'"' ^ 
 
 This was written after the death of her first little 
 son, in 1649. In gratitude for her second child, 
 she founded an orphan house at Oranienburg. 
 
 There were many other hymn-writers at this 
 time. To Heinrich Albert (1644) we owe a 
 beautiful morning hymn — 
 
 " God, Who madest earth and heaven, 
 
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; 
 Who the day and night hast given, 
 
 Sun, and moon, and starry host ; 
 All things wake at Thy command, 
 Held in being by Thy hand." ^ 
 
 Simon Dach, a friend of Albert, and Professor of 
 Poetry in the University of Konigsberg, wrote 
 some beautiful hymns on the sufferings of Christians 
 on earth. 
 
 " Wouldst thou inherit life with Christ on high? 
 
 Then count the cost, and know 
 
 That here on earth below 
 Thou needst must suffer with thy Lord, and die. 
 We reach that gain to which all else is loss. 
 
 But through' the Cross." ^ 
 
 1 Lyra Gerjuanica. Tuesday in Easter week. 
 
 2 Lyra Germanica^ 15. ^ /^/^.^ 812. 
 
GERMAN HYMNS. 10/ 
 
 Another famous hymn of this period was 
 
 " Leave God to order all thy ways," ^ 
 
 by George Neumark. A baker's boy used to sing it 
 at his work, and the people flocked to hear him, 
 until it became carried all over the country. 
 
 Then we come to a rather different class of hymns, 
 less simple, and more full of imagery. They 
 speak much of the love of Christ, and of the 
 soul's longing to be like Christ. Johann Franck, a 
 burgomaster, wrote, about the year I7ii,a beautiful 
 hymn for Easter Eve — 
 
 " So rest, my Rest, 
 Thou ever blest. 
 Thy grave with sinners making ; 
 By Thy precious death from sin 
 My dead soul awaking. 
 
 Here Thou hast lain, 
 
 After much pain, 
 Life of my life, reposing ; • 
 
 Round Thee now a rock-hewn grave, 
 Rock of Ages, closing. 
 
 Breath of all Breath ! 
 I know from death 
 Thou wilt my dust awaken. 
 Wherefore should I dread the grave, 
 Or my faith be shaken ? " etc. 
 
 Franck also made a beautiful translation of S. 
 Ambrose's famous hymn (A. & M., 55). 
 
 Angelus Silesius \vas another great poet of the 
 time. His hymns breathe profound love to Christ. 
 One is well known — 
 
 " O Love, Who formedst me to wear." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 456 ; A. & M., 192.) 
 
 1 Ly?'a Germanica. Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity. 
 
I08 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 Johann Herrmann, who lived a little later, wrote 
 his beautiful Passion hymns when he was not only- 
 suffering from bodily disease, but was in danger 
 from perils of war. More than once he only 
 escaped being killed by a miracle. A beautiful 
 story is told about one of his hymns, written to be 
 sung " in time of war " — 
 
 "It was in the depth of winter, January 5, 1814, when, 
 during a war, the enemy entered the town of Schleswig. 
 Close by the entrance to the town, in a little cottage, there 
 lived a poor widow, with her daughter and her grandson. 
 The night before that fatal 5th the boy was reading to his 
 grandmother out of his hymn-book, and he came to this 
 hymn of Hermann's, one of the verses containing the line — 
 
 ' A wall about us build,' 
 
 and when the boy came to it, he stopped, and said, ' It would 
 be a good thing, grandmother, if our Lord God would build 
 a wall around us/ They went to bed in fear and trembling, 
 knowing that the next day might be their last ; but though 
 cries of misery and distress were heard all through the town, 
 before their door all was still. A terrific snowstorm had 
 come on during the night, and strange to say, God had built 
 a wall round them ; for a snowdrift had concealed them from 
 the enemy's view, and in the midst of the anguish and terror 
 in the city, they remained unharmed." 
 
 We come now to a very famous hymn — one that 
 has been often called the " Te Deum of Germany." 
 The war had gone on for years, and at last there 
 seemed a prospect of a general peace. In the 
 town of Eilenburg, in Saxony, there lived a good 
 pastor, Martin Rinkart. Early in the month of 
 November 1648, he sat at his study window, read- 
 ing, when he heard the sound of a trumpet. His 
 first thought was that soldiers were coming to 0* 
 devastate the town, but on going out into the*<^/ 
 
GERMAN HYMNS. IO9 
 
 Streets, he found the people weeping, not for 
 sorrow, but for joy. The trumpeter had brought 
 the joyful news that peace had been made, and 
 that the Thirty Years' War was over. Rinkart went 
 back into his study to pray, and praise God, and 
 opening his Bible, his eye fell upon these words — 
 " Now, therefore, bless ye the Lord God of all, 
 which only doeth wondrous things " (Ecclus. 1. 22). 
 An angel seemed to guide his hand as he sat down 
 and wrote out the inspired hymn — 
 
 " Now thank we all our God, 
 
 With heart, and hands, and voices, 
 Who wondrous things hath done. 
 In Whom His world rejoices." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 439 ; A. & M., 379.) 
 
 Then, as he wrote the last line, a melody seemed 
 to fall upon his ear, as if the angels had lent it to 
 him from heaven, and he wrote that out also. He 
 went out into the public square, where the people 
 were gathered together, rejoicing with one another, 
 and kneeling down, he began to sing that wonderful 
 hymn, which, with its grand chorale, has been sung 
 at so many public thanksgivings for the last three 
 centuries, and which Mendelssohn has worked 
 with such great effect into his Hymn of Praise. 
 Rinkart, though not a soldier, like Gustavus 
 Adolphus, was as true a hero. A fearful plague 
 had devastated the country, and he visited and 
 cheered the poor people, and buried more than 
 four thousand of them ; and then, during the 
 famine which followed the plague, he helped the 
 poor sufferers as much as possible. 
 
 A story is told about this grand hymn of Rinkart's 
 by the American poet, Russell Lowell. A dreadful 
 
no HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 fire had broken out in Hamburg, and had spread 
 to the tower of the beautiful old church of S. 
 Nicholas, from which the chimes rang out, at cer- 
 tain times of the day, the fine chorale composed 
 by Rinkart to his hymn. An old verger, named 
 Herrmann, had charge of these chimes, and like 
 many another hero, died at the post of duty. 
 
 " Up in his tower old Herrmann sat, and watched with quiet 
 
 look, 
 His soul had trusted God too long to be at last forsook ; 
 He could not fear, for surely God his pathway would unfold, 
 Through this Red Sea, for faithful hearts, as once he did 
 
 of old. 
 
 Upon the peril's desperate peak his heart stood up sublime, 
 His first thought was for God alone, his next was for his 
 
 chime ; 
 ' Sing now, and make your voices heard in hymns of 
 
 praise,' cried he, 
 As did the Israelites of old, safe walking through the sea. 
 
 Through the Red Sea our God hath made the pathway 
 
 safe to shore. 
 Our promised land stands full in sight, shout now as ne'er 
 
 before ; ' 
 And as the tower came crashing down, the bells, in clear 
 
 accord. 
 Pealed forth the grand old German hymn, ' All good souls 
 
 praise the Lord.' " 
 
 We must not forget the fine hymn composed 
 by Lowenstein, during the Thirty Years' War, and 
 translated by Philip Pusey — 
 
 " Lord of our life, and God of our salvation." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 269; A. &M., 214.) 
 
GERMAN HYMNS. Ill 
 
 XV. 
 
 GERMAN HYMNS. 
 EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES. 
 
 " The devil, that lost spirit, cannot endure sacred songs of 
 joy. Our passions and impatiences, our complainings 
 and our cryings, our ' Alas ! ' and our ' Woe is me ! ' please 
 him well ; but our songs and psalms vex and grieve him 
 sorely."— Luther. 
 
 A GREAT hymn-writer of the early part of the 
 eighteenth century was Gerhardt Tersteegcn, a 
 ribbon manufacturer at Muhlheim. He lived alone, 
 had very simple habits, and gave away a great 
 deal of money. He spent a great deal of his 
 working time in meditation and prayer, and people 
 used to come and talk to him, or send for him to 
 read and pray with the sick. His hymns show his 
 love of God and his childlike spirit. He used to 
 say, " Father, I love most to be with Thee, but I 
 am glad to be with Thy children." One of his 
 beautiful hymns is given in Lyra Geimaiiica, for 
 the Holy Innocents' Day — 
 
 " Dear Soul, couldst thou become a child, 
 While yet on earth, meek, undefiled, 
 Then God Himself were ever near, 
 And Paradise around thee here." 
 
 In the same book is a lovely little evening hymn — 
 
 " The day expires, 
 My soul desires 
 And pants to see that day, 
 When the vexing cares of earth 
 Shall be done away. 
 
112 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 The night is here, 
 Oh, be Thou near, 
 Christ, make it light within ; 
 Drive away from out my heart 
 All the night of sin." etc. 
 
 Two of our harvest hymns are from German 
 sources. That for a deficiency in the crops — 
 
 " What our Father does is well " (A. & M., 389), 
 
 written by Schmolck, a pastor in Silesia, who died 
 in 1737, and translated by Sir Henry Baker; and 
 the very popular hymn — 
 
 "We plough the fields, and scatter " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 282 ; A. & M., 383), 
 
 translated by Miss Campbell from a hymn by 
 Matthias Claudius, born in Schleswig-Holstein 
 in 1740. This appeared first in a tale by the 
 author, called Paul Erdniann s Fest. 
 
 Another of our favourites, the All Saints' hymn — 
 
 " Who are these like stars appearing " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 554; A. & M.,427), 
 
 translated by Miss Cox, was written by Heinrich 
 Theobald Schenk, a school-master, who died in 
 1727. The original hymn contains fourteen verses. 
 Now we come to a celebrated Easter hymn, 
 sung, in its translated form, almost as much in 
 England as in Germany — 
 
 "Jesus lives ! no longer now 
 Can thy terrors, death, appal us." 
 
 (A. & M., 140.) 
 
 Its author was Christian Fiirchtegott Gellert, born 
 in 171 5 at Haynichen, in Saxony. He studied at 
 Leipzig, intending to be a pastor ; but he was too 
 
GERMAN HYMNS. 1 13 
 
 modest and retiring to preach, and became a tutor 
 and professor in the Universit3\ At one time the 
 poet Goethe was among his pupils. While he was 
 at Leipzig a war broke out, and theie was fearful 
 distress and poverty in the city. Gellert could not 
 bear to see his fellow-creatures suffer, and he gave 
 them so much of his small means that he was 
 reduced to great straits himself. One winter morn- 
 ing, as he was going out into the country for a 
 walk, he saw a poor woman sitting by the roadside, 
 sobbing bitterly. He found that, owing to her 
 husband's illness, she and her family were without 
 food, and the landlord threatened to turn them out 
 of their little home if the rent was not paid that 
 very day. The money owing was thirty thalers, 
 and Gellert possessed the exact sum ; but it was all 
 he had, and he had saved it to buy firewood for 
 the winter. The poor woman's need was greater 
 than his own, so he gave her the money, and then 
 went to the landlord, made him see how hard he 
 was, so that he refused to take the poor woman's 
 money, and she was able to take it for food. Next 
 day Gellert began to feel the piercing cold and to 
 realize the sacrifice he had made. He became 
 chillier and chillier, so that the power nearly went 
 out of his fingers ; and then he took up his Bible, 
 found the Book of Job, and read ch. ii. lo : " What ? 
 shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall 
 we not receive evil .'' " Then he took up his pen, 
 and as fast as his blue fingers would allow him, he 
 wrote the famous hymn — • 
 
 " I have had my days of blessing, 
 All the joys of life possessing, 
 Unnumbered they appear. 
 
 II 
 
114 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 Then let faith and patience cheer me, 
 Now that trials gather near me. 
 
 Where is life without a tear ? " ^ 
 
 He had just finished writing this, when a friend 
 of his, a good doctor, came in, noticed how cold the 
 room was, saw the hymn, and soon found out the 
 whole story, not from Gellert himself, but from the 
 poor woman he had helped. The doctor had to 
 go to a farmhouse to see a patient, and there he 
 found some Prussian officers sitting at dinner. 
 One of them, who turned out to be Prince Henry 
 of Prussia, inquired after Gellert, upon which the 
 doctor told the story and produced the hymn. 
 The story soon spread, and the farmer sent ofif a 
 great load of firewood to Gellert, saying it was a 
 present for a hymn. The old landlord, too, was 
 touched, and sent back the thirty thalers, without 
 any name, to the poet ; and lastly. Prince Henry 
 himself called upon him, thanked him for his hymn, 
 and gave hi mi a valuable present. Gellert died at 
 Leipzig in 1767, having held the Professorship of 
 Poetry and Philosophy there, and written many 
 books and much sacred poetry. 
 
 Three beautiful hymns, translated by Miss Jane 
 Borthwick, in Hymns f?'o?n the Land of Lnther^ 
 were written about this time. One by Spitta, for 
 lay helpers — 
 
 " How blessed, from the bonds of sin." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 300 ; A. M., 357). 
 
 A fine and spirited Advent hymn, by Laurenti, who 
 died in 1722 — 
 
 " Rejoice, all ye believers, 
 
 And let your lights appear ; 
 
 1 Translated in Hym7is from the Land of Luthet\ 
 
GERMAN HYMNS. II5 
 
 The evening is advancing, 
 
 And darker night is near. 
 The Bridegroom is arising, 
 
 And soon He draweth nigh ; 
 Up, pray, and watch, and wrestle. 
 
 At midnight comes the cry." 
 
 (Hymn. Comp,, 70.) 
 
 The most beautiful of the three is the morning 
 hymn, by Knorr von Rosenroth, who died in 1689 — 
 
 " Jesu, Sun of Righteousness, 
 
 Brightest beam of Love Divine, 
 With the early morning rays 
 
 Do Thou on our darkness shine, 
 And dispel with purest light 
 
 All our night." (Hymn. Comp., 7.) 
 
 Another pretty little hymn, by the same trans- 
 lator, is from the German of Krummacher (1767 — 
 1845), ^^d is given in a story of his of the festal 
 dedication of a village church, destroyed in time 
 of war, sung by boys and girls after the celebration 
 of Holy Communion — 
 
 " Yes, our Shepherd leads with gentle hand 
 Through the dark pilgrim land. 
 His flock so dearly bought. 
 So long and fondly sought. Alleluia ! " 
 
 (Children's Hy. Bk, 188.) 
 
 Now we come to the Moravian hymns, from 
 which John and Charles Wesley toolc so many of 
 their best known hymns. The Moravians were 
 descendants of the Bohemian Brethren, followers 
 of John Huss, in the fifteenth century, and had 
 their chief settlement at Fulnek, in Moravia. They 
 were very earnest, pious people, and great mission- 
 aries. There was a certain Count von Zinzendorf, 
 a nobleman of great wealth, who joined the Mor- 
 
Il6 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 avian sect during the eighteenth century. He was 
 passing one day through the picture gallery at 
 Dusseldorf, when he saw a painting of our Saviour, 
 crowned with thorns, with the words inscribed 
 on it — 
 
 "All this have I done for thee, 
 What doest thou for Me ? " 
 
 This had so much effect upon the Count that he 
 resolved to devote his life to God and to work 
 for Him. He became a great missionary, and 
 founded Moravian settlements in America, Eng- 
 land, and other countries. Amongst other things, 
 he wrote no less than 2000 hymns. One, translated 
 by Miss Winkworth, is well known — 
 
 "Christ will gather in His own." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 244 ; A. & M., 400.) 
 
 Another, very beautiful, given in the Hymn. Comp. 
 
 (17), is— 
 
 "Jesu, still lead on, 
 Till our rest be won, 
 And, although the way be cheerless, 
 We will follow, calm and fearless ; 
 Guide us by Thy Hand, 
 To our Fatherland." 
 
 John Wesley formed a great friendship with 
 Zinzendorf, and took many of his ideas about 
 hymns from the Moravians, who used them a great 
 deal in their worship. The modern German hymns 
 and writers are too numerous to name, and we will 
 only mention one or two of the best known — 
 
 "When morning gilds the skies " (A. & M., 303), 
 
 translated by the Rev. E. Caswall, from a German 
 hymn of unknown authorship, of the eighteenth or 
 
GERMAN HYMNS. 11/ 
 
 nineteenth century. Another favourite hymn for 
 mourners, by Schenk {b. 175 1) — 
 
 " O let him whose sorrow 
 No relief can find." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 471 ; A. & M., 286.) 
 
 Two other translations we owe to Miss Winkworth, 
 a baptismal hymn, written by a pastor named 
 Albert Knapp {d. 1864), for the baptism of his 
 own children — 
 
 " O Father, Thou Who hast created all " ; 
 
 and the beautiful hymn for the Burial of a Child — 
 
 " Tender Shepherd, Thou hast stilled." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 249 ; A. & M., 402.) 
 
 This was written by a Lutheran pastor, named 
 Meinhold {d. 1851), after the death of one of his 
 own children. In his poems it is headed : "Sung 
 in four parts beside the body of my little fifteen- 
 months-old son, Johannes Ladislaus." It may also 
 be interesting to know that Dr. Dykes, who had 
 long been anxious to write a tune for this hymn, 
 and had never before been able to satisfy himself, 
 composed a beautiful tune just after the death of 
 his youngest daughter Mabel, from scarlet fever, 
 at the age of ten years. This was sung at her 
 funeral, so both words and music were inspired by 
 personal feeling, and written under very touching 
 circumstances. 
 
Il8 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 FRENCH HYMNS. 
 
 " O bien heureux qui voir pourra 
 Fleurir le temps que Ton vira, 
 Le laboureur a sa charrue, 
 Le charretier parmi la rue, 
 Et I'artisan en sa boutique, 
 Aveques une Psaume ou Cantique 
 En son labeur se soulager."— Clement Marot. 
 
 Although French literature is so famous, the 
 field of French hymnody is not nearly so large as 
 that of Germany. Indeed, we can hardly trace 
 any hymns before the sixteenth century, although 
 several of the carols still used are very old, and 
 are found in different patois, which shows that 
 there may have been hymns like them. Breton 
 carols, especially, were very numerous ; and we 
 hear, in very early times, of the blind Breton poet, 
 Herve, who became the head of a small monastic 
 school, and used to teach his pupils sacred songs 
 and hymns of this sort — 
 
 " Approach, my little children ; come and hear a new song 
 . -which I have composed expressly for you — take pains to 
 remember it entirely. When you awake in your bed, offer 
 your heart to the good God ; make the sign of the cross, 
 and say with faith, hope, and love, ' My God, I give Thee 
 my body and my soul, make me to be a good man, or else 
 to die before my time.' When you see a raven fly, think 
 that the devil is as black and wicked ; when you see a little 
 white dove fly, think that your angel is as sweet and white." 
 
 Until the sixteenth century, only Latin hymns 
 were used in the Church services ; but France, 
 
FRENCH HYMNS. II9 
 
 like Germany, had her great outburst of song at 
 the Reformation, and the first hymns, or, rather, 
 metrical psalms, we have to speak of are those 
 sung by the persecuted Huguenots in the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries, and chiefly written by 
 Clement Marot, a great Huguenot psalmist. He 
 was born at a little French town called Cahors- 
 sur-Quercy, and spent the first ten years of his 
 life there. The town stands upon a rock, round 
 three sides of which a river winds, and the people 
 still show an oak under which the gifted boy used 
 to sit. His father, Jean Marot, had the same 
 talent, and in the year 1506 became poet to Anne 
 of Brittany, second wife of Louis XIL, and 
 brought his wife and child to settle in Paris. 
 Jean was a good man, and his boy, trained at 
 Court, became honest, thoughtful, and poetical. 
 Anne died in 15 14, but Marot still remained at 
 Court, encouraging his son's poetic genius, and 
 teaching him in the long evenings. Then Clement 
 went to the wars with Francis L , who was about 
 the same age as himself, and afterwards was 
 made valet in the house of Marguerite, Duchesse 
 d'Alencon, a beautiful and clever woman, who took 
 great interest in the Reformation. After Jean 
 Marot died, with his son's hand in his, Clement 
 went forth to fight again. He was made prisoner 
 at the battle of Pavia, and the rest of his life was a 
 series of adventures and imprisonments. While 
 in prison he wrote much poetry, and even during 
 severe illness he was bright and cheerful, and 
 "poured forth in verse his creeds, his prayers, 
 and grace before and after meat." After being 
 exiled and condemned to the stake, Marot, after 
 
120 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 many adventures, took refuge at Lyons, and then 
 began to turn the Psalms of David into verse. 
 
 When, on New Year's Day, 1 540, Charles V. and 
 Francis I. rode into Paris side by side, Clement 
 presented to Charles the thirty psalms he had then 
 translated. Before this time they had been dark 
 enigmas to the people ; now, in their own language 
 and in easy rhyme, they were clear to all. 
 
 A little book, printed in 1542, contains "The 
 form of prayer in French churches and French 
 hymns." Among the hymns are Marot's thirty 
 psalms, which -were soon set to popular airs, and 
 became fashionable both at Court and in cottage. 
 Children sang them at play, and for three cen- 
 turies they have been household words to the 
 Huguenots and their descendants in France and 
 Switzerland, Clement died at Turin in 1544. 
 His motto still Hves — " La mort ny morty 
 
 "Among the poets, Clement Marot, whether he sung of 
 human or Divine love, whether in jest or prayer, always 
 expressed in simple and fit words thoughts suitable to the 
 occasion. He wrote like a good Frenchman, generous, 
 courteous, loving France, fame, fair ladies ; but God above 
 them all:' 
 
 At the request of Calvin, Marot's Psalter was 
 afterwards finished, and published in 1552, and 
 became most popular. The Huguenots used 
 special psalms for special occasions — for instance, 
 Psalm iii. for the stationing of sentinels to guard 
 against sudden attack, because of the verse, " I 
 will not be afraid for ten thousands of the people, 
 that have set themselves against me round about." 
 And then, when danger was over, and they could 
 worship again in peace, they would sing Psalm 
 
FRENCH HYMNS. 121 
 
 cxxii., " O, pray for the peace of Jerusalem." But 
 the most celebrated of Marot's psalms was the 
 sixty-eighth, sung before many a battle — " Let 
 God arise," etc. 
 
 " Que Dieu se montre seulement 
 Et I'on verra dans un moment, 
 
 Abandonner la place ; 
 Le camp des ennemis epars, 
 Epouvante de toutes parts, 
 
 Fuira devant sa face." 
 
 In 1589, Henri IV., the great Huguenot leader, 
 was overtaken by the Roman Catholic party at 
 Dieppe, and his small force nearly crushed by 
 the hostile power. "Come," said the king, "lift 
 the psalm ; it is full time." And the battle-song 
 of Marot rolled out from those brave men — 
 
 " Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered." 
 
 " Slowly moving along, the two companies split the armies 
 of the leaguers. The swing of the psalm was tuned to the 
 long roll of the gims, and then, strange to say, the fog which 
 had come in from the sea lifted — hung around and above 
 them as they sang, ' Like as the mist vanisheth, so shalt 
 Thou drive them away,' and the leaguers were scattered." 
 
 Again, at the siege of La Rochelle, the sime 
 psalm was sung. Huguenot fugitives had fled 
 from all parts to this rocky fortress ; it was 
 occupied by 1600 citizens and 1500 strangers, and 
 in 1572 the royal army was sent to besiege it. 
 
 " The fort was well provisioned and garrisoned, and after 
 battering the walls for five weeks, with no success, the 
 enemy determined upon a regular assault. Four attempts 
 were made, and four times the battle-song re:-ounded from 
 the towers, and the besiegers were driven back, though on 
 both sides there was fearful loss of life. The women helped 
 to drive away the besiegers by mounting the walls and 
 
123 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 pouring down boiling tar and stones on them. In the month 
 of June the fort was still not taken, though food had run 
 short ; but the Huguenots managed to get some shell-fish 
 from the bay, which kept them alive until the siege was 
 raised and peace restored." 
 
 Smith says that this sixty-eighth Psalm was the 
 Marseillaise of the Camisards,^ their war-song in 
 many battles ; and that when it was sung, each 
 soldier became a lion in courage. Once, when the 
 Camisards were attacked, they received the first 
 fire of the soldiers on one knee, singing — 
 
 " Que Dieu se montre seulement." 
 
 Singing was certainly a great power among 
 these persecuted people, and their enemies knew 
 it, and at certain times during the struggle the 
 singing of psalms was forbidden, on land or water, 
 in workshops or dwellings, under pain of death. 
 
 Once, during a lull in the persecutions in Paris, 
 in 1558, thousands of people assembled to listen to 
 psalms, sung by men of " The Religion," as they 
 marched along. One of the favourites among 
 Marot's psalms was the fourth, sung as an evening 
 hymn, and also at funerals — 
 
 " Si qu'en paix et surete bonne, 
 Coucherai et reposerai, 
 Car 'Seigneur, ta bonte tout ordonne 
 Et elle seule espoir, me donne, 
 Que sur et seul regnant serai." 
 
 " I will lay me down in peace and take my rest," etc. 
 
 We might give many more instances of the way 
 these psalms were sung, but we must pass on to 
 the hymns of the Roman Church. The great 
 
 ^ A band of Huguenots. 
 
FRENCH HYMNS. I23 
 
 French poets, Racine and Corneille, each left some, 
 sacred songs or hymns amongSt their poetry. 
 Corneille versified the Imitation of Christ, and 
 some parts of this have been used as hymns, and 
 are found in most collections. Then Fenelon, like 
 Ephrem of old, composed some hymns, in the hope 
 of replacing the wicked ballads used at Court ; and 
 he repeated one of his own hymns on his death-bed. 
 
 We come next to a celebrated name, that of 
 Madame Guyon (1648 — 1717), the leader of a 
 religious movement called the Ouietist Movement. 
 She married very early, when only sixteen, M. 
 Guyon, a rich man, of weak health, who was 
 twenty-two years older than herself, and their 
 married life was very unhappy. He died in 1686, 
 and then she began to try and spread abroad her 
 doctrines, which gave great offence in some 
 quarters. Madame Guyon came to Paris, and there 
 she was taken up and imprisoned for her opinions in 
 a convent of Faubourg S. Antoine; but, after eight 
 months, she was released. Then she rose to the 
 height of her fame, and many of the Court, with 
 Fenelon and the Ladies of the College of S. Cyr, 
 came under the spell of her doctrine and holy life. 
 She was again imprisoned, and not released till 
 1702, after which she spent the rest of her life in 
 retirement, with her daughter, the Marquise de 
 Vaux, at Blois. She died in full communion with 
 the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 Her writings fill forty volumes ; she wrote a 
 great many hymns, but they were much more 
 suitable for private than public use, and many 
 were written when she was in prison, or when ill 
 in bed. She often wrote as many as five or six a 
 
124 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 day, and she believed that they were directly in- 
 spired by God rather than composed by herself, 
 and nearly all were upon the Love of God. There 
 were nearly 900 of these Cantiques SpiriUiels^ and 
 in 1782 our poet Cowper translated thirty-seven of 
 them into English. This is a verse of one — 
 
 " I love my God, but with no love of mine, 
 
 For I have none to give ; 
 I love Thee, Lord, but all the love is Thine, 
 
 For by Thy life I live. 
 I am as nothing, and rejoice to be 
 Emptied, and lost, and swallowed up in Thee." 
 
 To return to the hymns of the French Reformed 
 Church. In 1705, fifty-four hymns were added to 
 Marot's Psalter^ and soon became popular. One 
 was the Christmas hymn which has been so well 
 translated by Bishop Jenner — 
 
 " Christians, sing out with exultation." (A. & M., 484.) 
 
 But the greatest French hymn-writer was Caesar 
 Malan, of Geneva, who gave the first impulse to 
 hymn-singing in public worship. There was a 
 movement called the Reveil, or awakening, some- 
 thing like that of the Wesleys in our country at 
 the early part of this century, and Malan's hymns, 
 with his own melodies, did much to help the move- 
 ment. His family came from the valleys of Pied- 
 mont, but were driven, by persecution, to Geneva ; 
 and here, in 1787, the poet was born. His hymns 
 are still widely used, and we know his name best 
 by one found in many hymn-books — 
 
 *' It is not death to die ; 
 
 To leave this weary road. 
 And 'mid the brotherhood on high 
 To be at home with God. 
 
ITALIAN HYMNS. 125 
 
 Jesus, Thou Prince of Life ! 
 
 Thy chosen cannot die ; 
 Like Thee, they conquer in the strife 
 
 To reign with Thee on high." 
 
 We must not forget the two devoted pastors of 
 the Alps— FeHx Neff (1798— 1829) and OberHn, 
 both hymn-writers; and Jacques Bridaine (i/Ol — 
 1767), a celebrated preacher, also gave us the 
 hymn so beautifully translated by the Rev. T. B. 
 Pollock— 
 " My Lord, my Master, at Thy feet adoring." (A. & M., 494.) 
 
 XVII. 
 
 ITALIAN HYMNS. 
 
 " For all we know 
 Of what the blessed do above, 
 Is that they si)ig — and that they loveP 
 
 Although Italy was renowned in the Middle 
 Ages as the country of music and poetry, and 
 though we have seen what famous Latin hymn- 
 writers she produced, it is known that there was 
 no writing in the Italian language before the 
 thirteenth century. In the early part of that 
 century (11 82 — 1225) lived one whose saintly life 
 of voluntary poverty has made his name a house- 
 hold word amongst us, S. Francis of Assisi, who 
 turned his gift of song to the glory of God. 
 
 In his early days he used to roam about the 
 streets of his native town with his fellow-troubadours, 
 singing songs of love and war, soft serenades, and 
 
126 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 romantic ballads. When he was about twenty-five 
 he resolved to give himself and all that he had to 
 God, and to live alifeof poverty and self-denial. His 
 father, a rich merchant, cast him off, and he went 
 out into the snow-covered hills and wintry woods 
 — a pilgrim bereft of every earthly thing. But 
 as he wandered, not knowing where he went, the 
 pilgrim lifted his voice and sang. " In the heart of 
 Italy, through the crackling, leafless woods, with 
 nothing on him but his hair-shirt covered with a 
 peasant's frock, the visionary went singing God's 
 praises in the gay tongue of France." It is said that 
 he met robbers, who, startled by his singing, threw 
 him into a snow-drift ; but at this he only rejoiced, 
 praising God yet louder. 
 
 Although S. Francis sang in French, the language 
 of the troubadours, he wrote his hymns afterwards 
 in Italian. He was soon joined by companions, 
 who went about with him preaching and collecting 
 alms, and one of them helped him with the songs 
 he wrote to the praise and glory of God. About 
 the year 1224, S. Francis spent forty nights in his 
 prayers and vigils, after which he desired one of 
 the brothers to write, and chanted what is called the 
 Canticle of the Sun, or the Song of the Creatures, 
 It is a song of praise from creation, not unlike the 
 fine medieval hymn ''The strain upraise," although 
 the rhythm is not so exact. It is a curious, irre- 
 gular hymn, but it describes the man and his 
 intensely loving feelings to God and to Nature — 
 
 " Great God of all, omnipotent and high, 
 To Thee be glory, honour, laud, and praise, 
 And blessing, Lord, we raise ; 
 We are not worthy e'en Thy Name to say. 
 
ITALIAN HYMNS. 12; 
 
 Praise be to God the Lord, 
 From creatures one and all, 
 From Brother Sun, our Lord, 
 Who lights us by his rays, 
 And radiant makes the days. 
 All glory to the Lord be given. 
 
 Praise be to God my Lord, 
 
 From Sister Moon, so fair and bright. 
 
 And from the stars that make the darkness light. 
 
 Praise be to God our Lord, 
 
 From Brother Wind, from clouds and air, 
 
 From weather dull and fair. 
 
 Praise be to God the Lord, 
 
 From Sister Water, chaste and pure, 
 
 So precious, useful and demure. 
 
 Praise be to God my Lord, 
 
 From Brother Fire, gay, robust and strong. 
 
 Who sparkles merrily the whole night long. 
 
 Praise be to God for our dear mother-earth, 
 
 In whom all fruits and flowers have their birth." 
 
 This was the original song, but two more verses 
 were added on separate occasions. The first was 
 this: — There had been a quarrel between the Bishop 
 of Assisi and the magistrates of the town, so great 
 that the Bishop had put the town under an inter- 
 dict, and the magistrates had outlawed the Bishop. 
 The tender, loving heart of Francis was grieved by 
 this, and he determined to try and make peace. 
 So he asked the people of the town to meet at the 
 Bishop's palace, and when they arrived his disciples 
 broke forth singing the new verse of the canticle 
 he had made for the occasion — 
 
 " Praise be to God my Lord, 
 By those who, pardoning, suffer and are strong. 
 And meekly bear, for Thy Sake, shame and wrong. 
 Blessed are those who glory in Thy Love, 
 
 ch above." 
 
128 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 We read that when the song, with its new verse, 
 fell on their ears, their hearts smote them ; they 
 embraced each other and made up the quarrel. 
 They were taken by storm, and Francis's victory 
 was complete. 
 
 The last verse of all is, perhaps, still more touch- 
 ing. S. Francis had been ill. In the midst of hi=; 
 suffering and weakness he had a vision which told 
 him that in two years' time his sufferings would be 
 ended, and he should enter into rest. Then he 
 added the last verse — 
 
 " Praise be to God for our dear Sister Death, 
 From whom no Hving man can nm or fly : 
 Woe ! woe to them in mortal sin who die ; 
 Blessed be they who in Thy Holy Will spend the last 
 
 hour ; 
 On them the second death shall have no power. 
 Praise, thanks and blessing to our Master be, 
 Serve ye Him all, with great humility." 
 
 Several other hymns, written either by S. Francis 
 or his disciples, have come down to us. One is 
 nearly certainly by him. Each verse begins and 
 ends, " Love sets my heart on fire " — 
 
 " My heart breaks with desire, 
 Love sets my heart on fire." 
 
 In the cities of Northern Italy, people had been 
 accustomed to listen in the public places to the 
 songs of jongletirs, or travelling musicians ; and 
 about the year 1250, Giacomo of Verona, like S. 
 Aldhelm at Sherborne, composed religious poems 
 in the Veronese dialect, which were sung to the 
 people as they sat in the piazzas. These were 
 chiefly about the terror of the Inferno, the glory 
 and beauty of the heavenly Jerusalem. In the 
 
ITALIAN HYMNS. 1 29 
 
 latter part of the thirteenth century appeared the 
 Flagellants, enthusiasts who led large processions 
 of men, women, and children from city to city, 
 girded with ropes and scourging themselves, sing- 
 ing hymns and chanting prayers. Then Jacopone, 
 the author of the celebrated Latin hymn, Stabat 
 Mater, wrote Italian hymns. He was put into 
 prison for denouncing the wickedness of the age, 
 and especially the wrong-doings of the Popes, and 
 he employed himself, like so many other prisoners, 
 by composing hymns, which soon became popular. 
 We come next to a great name, that of Savona- 
 rola. Like so rnany other great reformers, he not 
 only preached to the people, but used the means 
 of sacred song to denounce the vice and luxury of 
 the time. Lorenzo de Medici had written some 
 carnival songs, which were much sung by the young 
 nobles, and were most profane and wicked. In 
 order to counteract their influence, Savonarola 
 composed sacred songs or hymns, of the same 
 metre, and set to the same tunes, for the people to 
 sing. He began by trying to reform the children. 
 
 " Foreseeing that it would be extremely difficult to entirely 
 abolish the old customs, he decided to transform them by 
 substituting religious for carnival gaieties. Accordingly, at 
 the same street-corners where the children formerly assembled 
 to demand money for their bouquets, he caused small altars 
 to be erected, before which they were to take their stand, 
 and beg contributions, not, however, for purposes of self- 
 indulgence, but for alms to the poor. ' Sing as much as ye 
 will,' he said to the boys, 'but sing hymns and sacred lauds 
 instead of indecent songs.' Then Palm Sunday being at 
 hand, he arranged a very edifying and solemn procession for 
 the children, first preaching a sermon to them, ending with 
 these words : ' O Lord, from the mouths of these little ones 
 shall Thy true praises proceed.' " 
 
 I 
 
130 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 The hymns written by Savonarola for these 
 festivals were not always very poetical, but all 
 show great originality and elevation of thought, 
 and became very popular. It is strange how often, 
 at different periods of Church history, sacred 
 hymns have been used to supplant wicked and 
 blasphemous songs. There are now several col- 
 lections of Italian hymns ; but for some time it was 
 not considered right in the Roman Catholic Church 
 to have hymns in the common language of the 
 people, at any rate, during Mass. However, they 
 are used now for special occasions, especially during 
 missions, and during the month of May, when 
 there are many services in honour of the Blessed 
 Virgin. In North Italy there is a popular col- 
 lection of hymns and songs called the Catholic 
 Lyra, often sung by the peasants at work in the 
 fields. The Waldensians have a hymn-book con- 
 taining translations from well-known English and 
 German hymns. The only hymn w^hich we use 
 translated from the Italian is a very beautiful 
 Passion hymn, by an unknown author, probably of 
 the eighteenth century — 
 
 " Viva, viva, Jesu." " Glory be to Jesus." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 369 ; A. & M., 107.) 
 
SCANDINAVIAN HYMNS. I3I 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 HYMNS OF SCANDINAVIA AND HOLLAND. 
 
 " And where are kings and empires now, 
 Since then, that went and came? 
 But Holy Church is praying yet, 
 A thousand years the same ! 
 And these that sing shall pass away. 
 New choirs their room shall fill ; 
 Be sure thy children's children here 
 Shall hear those anthems still." — Bishop Coxe. 
 
 Until the Reformation, the churches of Den- 
 mark, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland used Latin 
 hymns only; but as soon as the service began to be 
 said in the mother-tongue, hymns in the language 
 of the people were introduced. In Sweden, the 
 first hymn-writers were two renowned brothers, 
 Olaf and Lawrence Petersen, fellow-reformers with 
 the king, Gustavus Vasa. Besides original hymns, 
 they made many translations from the Latin and 
 German. Then, curiously enough, came two other 
 brothers, the Andersens, who published a hymn- 
 book in the year 1536, and the elder of whom, 
 Lawrence, brought out a Swedish edition of the 
 Bible. 
 
 In the same century we have two ro3^al names 
 in the list of hymn-writers. One was the ill- 
 fated king, Erik, who died by poison in 1577, and 
 who left two hymns, one a paraphrase of Psalm li. 
 The other was the hero-king, Gustavus Adolphus 
 (1594 — 1632), a great and good man. He was 
 called " The Lion of the North," and was possessed 
 of the most wonderful calmness and serenity — 
 
132 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 smiling, it is said, in the very thick of the battle. 
 He appointed to each regiment a chaplain, who 
 gathered the soldiers round them, while, bare- 
 headed, they chanted their morning and evening 
 prayer. No wonder that, with such a leader, they 
 feared no foe. The battle-cry of Gustavus Adolphus 
 was " God with us " ; and after his victory at Leipsic, 
 September 7, 163 1, he wrote out roughly the sketch 
 of a hymn. This he showed to his chaplain, Fab- 
 ricius, who made it into regular verse ; and it was 
 published under the title, A Heart-cheering Song 
 of Comfort on the Watchiuord of the Evangelical 
 Army in the Battle of Leipsic — " God with us." 
 Another chaplain, Altenburg, composed a chorale 
 for the hymn, and it was sung continually by 
 the army. These are the first and last verses, 
 translated — 
 
 " Fear not, O little flock, the foe. 
 Who madly seeks your overthrow ; 
 
 Dread not his rage and power : 
 What though your courage sometimes faints, 
 His seeming triumph o'er God's saints 
 
 Lasts but a little hour. 
 Amen, Lord Jesus, grant our prayer, 
 Great Captain, now Thine arm make bare ; 
 
 Fight for us once again ! 
 So shall Thy saints and martyrs raise 
 A mighty chorus to Thy praise. 
 
 World without end. Amen.'' ^ 
 
 The account of the last time this hymn was 
 used by the hero, at the battle of Liitzen, is very 
 touching — 
 
 " A severe wound prevented the king from putting on his 
 armour that day ; ' but,' said he, ' God is my armour.' In 
 
 ^ Lyra Gernianica^ 239. 
 
SCANDINAVIAN HYMNS. 1 33 
 
 the presence of the foe, while the morning mist hung over 
 the field, he commanded Luther's well-known psalm — ' Ein 
 feste burg ' — to be sung, and then his own hymn. The hymns 
 were accompanied by all the guns and trumpets of the whole 
 army. Immediately after the mist broke, and the sunshine 
 burst upon the two armies. Kneeling by his horse, he re- 
 peated his usual battle-prayer, ' O Lord Jesus Christ, bless 
 our arms and this day's battle, for the glory of Thy Holy 
 Name.' A few words of encouragement to his soldiers ; the 
 battle-cry, ' God with us ' ; and at the head of a regiment he 
 rushed at the enemy. His left arm was shattered by a pistol- 
 shot ; then, shot through the back, he fell from his horse. His 
 body was found by the Swedes, with seven fresh wounds and 
 the scars of thirteen more. Thus fell a man, a Christian, a 
 hero, a king." 
 
 During the next century there were a succession 
 of Swedish hymn-writers. Norway and Iceland 
 took their hymns chiefly from Denmark ; but the 
 sacred poetry of that country ranks ahnost as high 
 as that of Germany. Even as early as the year 
 1569, the Danish hymns were so numerous that 
 Bishop Thomison wrote a history of them, from 
 the beginning of the Reformation until that year. 
 Bishop Kingo re-edited the Danish hymn-book in 
 1689, and in the next year he published a beautiful 
 hymn on GetJisemane. Both hymn and tune were 
 very popular in Denmark — 
 
 " Over Kedron Jesus treadeth, 
 To His passion for us all." 
 
 One of Kingo's hymns is — 
 
 "O Jesu, Blessed Lord, to Thee" (A. & M., 558) ; 
 and the well-known hymn, 
 " Through the night of doubt and sorrow " (A. & M., 274), 
 
 is by Ingemann, a Danish poet (1789 — 1862), who 
 edited a new hymn-book, founded upon Kingo's, 
 
134 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 with many new additions. There is no doubt that 
 many other beautiful Danish hymns worthy of 
 translation might be found. 
 
 The chief hymn-book used throughout the 
 Lutheran North now is the Danish and Norwegian 
 Psalm-book, which contains five hundred and sixty 
 hymns, one of the most popular being 
 
 " Jesu, o'er Thy bleeding frame, 
 Sad I ponder, full of woe ; 
 Stirs my soul with grief and shame. 
 That my Lord should suffer so." etc. 
 
 A Danish princess, Leonora Christina, daughter 
 of King Christian IV. of Denmark, who was un- 
 justly imprisoned in the year 1663, became one of 
 the many prisoner-hymnists. Pen and ink were 
 denied her, but some one gave her a small piece of 
 chalk, and she wrote her hymns on a board, wiping 
 the words away as soon as it was full. Some of 
 her hymns have been preserved and translated into 
 English. One, for the morning — 
 
 " God's praise I will be singing, 
 
 In every waking hour, 
 My grateful tribute bringing, 
 
 To magnify His power, 
 
 And His Almighty love. 
 His angel- watchers sending, 
 My couch with mercy tending, 
 
 And watching from above." 
 
 One of the warders was very rude to the princess, 
 and never ceased to torment and ridicule her. On 
 Good Friday, 1667, his conduct had been particu- 
 larly bad, and Leonora wrote on her board a hymn 
 on the sufferings of Christ, which, unfortunately, 
 has not been preserved. She used often to sing 
 
SCANDINAVIAN HYMNS. 135 
 
 this hymn to herself, and one day the man heard 
 the words, and they so softened his heart that he 
 asked her forgiveness. After twenty years of this 
 terrible Hfc Leonora was released, and a royal 
 manor and yearly pension given her. Her daily 
 prayer was — " May the Lord help all prisoners ; 
 console the guilty, and save the innocent." 
 
 Holland has also its national hymnody. As 
 'in other countries, Latin hymns were first used 
 there ; then, gradually, some came to be of mixed 
 Latin and Dutch ; and, after the Reformation, 
 though hymns at first were thought by the Calvin- 
 ists to be wrong, a collection of Psalter Songs was 
 published in 1539, and eagerly sung. After this 
 several other versions of the Psalter were made, 
 some being translations from the French of Marot 
 and Beza. One of these was by Peter Datheen, 
 a monk who renounced his vows and preached 
 Ca,lvinism to very large crowds, who came round 
 him to hear his sermons, and sing psalms in the 
 open air. 
 
 In 1580, Philip van S. Aldegonde, who was 
 called "poet, orator, hymn-book maker, burgo- 
 master, lawyer, and soldier," added to his version 
 of the Psalter some metrical versions of Bible 
 hymns, the Lord's Prayer, etc. In 1612 a rule 
 was made that hymns upon the Life of our Lord 
 might be used in public worship ; but these were 
 suppressed again, and it was really not until the 
 beginning of this century that the hymnal of the 
 Dutch Church was authorized. It contains many 
 beautiful hymns, few original, many from the Ger- 
 man ; and much sung by the Boers, the Dutch 
 settlers in South Africa. 
 
136 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 \YELSH HYMNS. 
 
 " Their Lord they will praise, 
 Their speech they will keep, 
 Their land they will lose, 
 
 Except wild Wales." 
 
 " No musician is skilful unless he extols the Lord, and no 
 singer is correct unless he praises the Father." — Taliesin 
 (a British bard of the sixth century, apropos of Welsh 
 Hymns). 
 
 Now we come to the corner of our kingdom where 
 Christianity was first planted, and where the 
 Alleluia victory was won. We see by the place- 
 names in Wales, many of which are very old, how 
 religion was the foundation, as it were, of all the 
 people did. How many begin with Llan, which 
 means " church " ^ ; and over and over again we find 
 Capel = " chapel," and Merthyr = " martyr." We 
 know that there were Christians in Wales in the 
 second century; and so, no doubt, where there were 
 Christians there were also Christian hymns, for 
 the Welsh have always been renowned for their 
 love of music. 
 
 Although we know that these early hymns 
 existed, and read of the fine voices of the ancient 
 Britons, we find no record of any till the year 1340, 
 when David Dhu, a canon of S. Asaph, composed 
 some Welsh hymns, and translated the Te Deum 
 and some psalms into Welsh metre. Then, at the 
 Reformation, the fire of song burst forth, as it did 
 in England and Germany, and other countries ; for, 
 
 ^ Originally " enclosure." 
 
WELSH HYMNS. 137 
 
 before that time, the Latin hymns had chiefly been 
 sung in the Welsh churches. In the year 1579, 
 Vicar Pritchard wrote what was called The WelsJi- 
 man's Caudle^ a sort of Welsh hymn-book. He 
 was the first preacher of his day, and so popular, 
 that when he came into residence as a canon of S. 
 David's, he used a movable pulpit, which was put 
 into the churchyard, because the cathedral was 
 too small to hold the number of people who came 
 to hear him. Then, finding that his hearers were 
 fond of singing, he wisely turned the substance of 
 his sermons into verse, and so gave the Welsh 
 people some of their earliest hymns. In 1588 
 came the whole Bible, translated into Welsh, and 
 this gave a spur to the poets, and helped them to 
 write their sacred songs. Then, just before the 
 dawn of the seventeenth century, two poetical 
 versions of the Psalms into Welsh appeared. One 
 tvas by a soldier — Captain Williams Middleton, 
 one of those brave men who defended England from 
 the Spaniards. Captain IMiddleton, being a very 
 warlike man, seems to have liked best those psalms 
 which speak of the enemies of the Lord being 
 pursued. He translated these into Welsh, " keep- 
 ing as near as he could to the mind of the Holy 
 Ghost " ; but, sad to say, his metres were so hard 
 that no music would fit them, and his work proved 
 a failure on earth, though no doubt rewarded in 
 heaven. It was finished in the Island of Scutum, 
 in the West Indies, January 24, 1595. While 
 Middleton was far away from his beloved moun- 
 tains, a countryman of his, Edward Kyffin, was 
 doing the same work at home, " for such of his 
 beloved countrymen as love the glory of the Lord 
 
138 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 and the cherishing of their own mother-tongue." 
 He only put thirteen of the Psalms into verse, 
 hoping that it might be an inducement to others to 
 do the same. 
 
 In 1 62 1 was published the complete Psalter of 
 Archdeacon Prys, who was accustomed to prepare 
 a psalm for each Sunday, in order, as he said, 
 *' that the Welsh people might be enabled to praise 
 God from their hearts." His Psalter is one of the 
 chief treasures of Welsh hymnology, being sung 
 by the people, not only in service, but in the fields 
 or on the mountains. In some cases his render- 
 ing of a verse throws a flood of light upon its 
 meaning. A story is told about one verse. A 
 Roundhead preacher of the eighteenth century 
 went over to the Isle of Anglesey, and met with 
 great opposition there. The people declared that, 
 if he began to preach, they would kill him ; but he 
 was a brave man, and did not fear them. So he 
 stood upon a rock ready to begin his sermon, while 
 the people began to come near him, threatening 
 him with their staves. Then, looking up into the 
 sky, he gave out this verse, to be sung with the few 
 who sided with him — 
 
 " I lift mine eyes unto the hills, 
 Whence willing help shall come." (Ps. cxxi. i, 2.) 
 
 The people, imagining that the preacher expected 
 some soldiers coming to rescue him, retreated. 
 Then some of them thought they would like to 
 hear what the good man had to say, unseen by 
 him ; and one of them relates how the preacher 
 convinced him of his sin, and he became a devoted 
 follower of Christ. 
 
WELSH HYMNS. 139 
 
 Two poets, both named Vaughan, come next on 
 our list. Roivland Vaughan's chief work was 
 translating hymns into Welsh — amongst others, 
 the Veni Creator ; but he was a Royalist, and his 
 love for the king brought him great sufferings. 
 His house was burnt down by the Republicans, and 
 his estates confiscated. 
 
 Henry Vaughan is well known as the author of 
 many beautiful sacred poems, but we can hardly 
 call him a hymn-writer. 
 
 A beautiful Welsh funeral hymn, which always 
 appeared in the Welsh Prayer-book after the year 
 1 7 10, was written by Elis Wyn, who was born near 
 Harlech, in the year 1670. During the eighteenth 
 century, a cattle-dealer, named David Jones, trans- 
 lated Dr. Watts' Psalms and Hymns into Welsh, 
 and these became very popular. But William 
 Williams was the great hymn-writer of Wales. 
 He, like many great poets, was brought up in 
 troublous times. His father was the deacon of 
 an Independent Chapel, whose congregation had to 
 hide in a cave, at twilight hour, for fear of their 
 persecutors. Williams chose the profession of a 
 doctor, and went to college. One Sunday morning 
 he passed through a little village, and hearing the 
 church bells ring, he went into church. The 
 service was cold and dull, and made no impression 
 on him ; but, as he came out, he saw that the people 
 were standing about, waiting for something, and 
 presently a tall, dark-looking man stood up on one 
 of the gravestones and began to preach. It was 
 Whitfield, whose sermons were stirring up the Welsh 
 to great religious enthusiasm. Williams was so 
 much impressed by what he heard, that his whole 
 
140 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 life was altered, and two years later he was ordained 
 deacon in the English Church. He became not 
 only a great hymn-writer, but a great preacher, going 
 about all over the country, as Whitfield did. Most 
 of his hymns were written in his native language, 
 and are, like most Welsh hymns, picturesque, 
 speaking of rocks and mountains, valleys and 
 brooks, of storm and sunshine, of wandering on 
 dangerous narrow paths, of Nature and all her 
 many moods. Once, during a long season of 
 drought, Williams was walking through the fields 
 and found some little animals making mischief 
 amon^:: the grreen corn, and at once he turned this 
 subject into a hymn. Another time, when he was 
 staying near the Priscelly hills, he woke up early 
 in the morning and saw the hills lying dark and 
 gloomy under the mist, while, in the east, the dawn 
 was breaking and the sky brightening. So he 
 brought this picture into his missionary hymn — • 
 
 " O'er the gloomy hills of darkness." 
 
 But the hymn we know best, by Williams, in its 
 translation from the Welsh original, is — 
 
 " Guide me, O Thou great Redeemer." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 376; A. &M., 196.) 
 
 He wrote over eight hundred hymns, which, like 
 those of Wesley in England, did more than any- 
 thing else to rouse the people of Wales from the 
 dull sleep into which they had fallen. Williams 
 died in 1791, and is buried in a quiet village 
 churchyard in a Welsh valle3\ 
 
 Another hymn-writer was David Williams, a 
 school-master. He had a wife whose temper was 
 a great trial to him. One stormy night he came 
 
WELSH HYMNS. I4I 
 
 home from a preaching tour, and his wife's tongue 
 was raging with such vehemence that he preferred 
 the storm outside to that within the house. So he 
 went to stand by the river, and the rush of its 
 waters reminded him of another mighty river, the 
 river of Death, and he sang — 
 
 ** In the waves and mighty waters 
 No one will support my head, 
 But my Saviour, my Beloved, 
 Who was stricken in my stead : 
 In the cold and mortal river, 
 He will hold my head above ; 
 I shall through the waves go singing, 
 For one look of Him I love." 
 
 This is generally called the miners' hymn, and a 
 very touching incident is connected with it. In 
 the month of April 1877, a colliery in Wales was 
 flooded. All know what that means ; what anguish 
 to wife, mother, and child, knowing that the men 
 and boys who went down in the morning may be 
 drowned or suffocated before night sets in. Four- 
 teen of the miners were in a dark prison below ; 
 safe for a time from the water, but hourly expect- 
 ing death from starvation or want of air. The 
 rescue-party toiled day and night to release them ; 
 but seven long days passed, and they had not been 
 found. On the eighth day nine of the men were 
 found at the point of death, having been without 
 air or food for a long time. When they recovered 
 and were able to tell their story, they said that 
 despair would have driven them' mad had it not 
 been for the miners' hymn, which they sang over 
 and over again. 
 
 There have been no great Welsh hymn-writers 
 
■142 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES.. 
 
 since the last century, for the EngHsh language is 
 now so freely spoken that there is not the same 
 occasion for Welsh hymns. The last writer we can 
 name was a farmer's daughter, named Ann Griffiths, 
 born 1776. She used to repeat her hymns as she 
 composed them to a servant named Ruth, and the 
 two sang them together. After her mistress's 
 death, Ruth wrote them down, and they were after- 
 wards published, and are now much used in Wales. 
 Whether or no it is a fact that mountainous 
 countries are musical, we are certain that, ever 
 since the days of the bards, the Welsh have excelled 
 in music and harmony. Even now it is the custom 
 to sing hymns or psalms on the way to funerals, 
 and the powerful voices of the men peal across glen 
 and mountain, as they carry the body to its last 
 resting-place. 
 
 XX. 
 
 ENGLISH HYMNS. 
 THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 
 
 " A verse may find him whom a sermon flies, 
 And turn delight into a sacrifice." — G. Herbert. 
 
 We come now to the sixteenth century in Eng- 
 land, the time when men began to write more 
 smoothly and in better rhythm — the Elizabethan 
 period, when poets like Spenser, courtiers like 
 
ENGLISH HYMNS. I43 
 
 Raleigh and Sir Philip Sydney, put their inmost 
 thoughts and feelings into verse. 
 
 At the same time^ we must remember that 
 hardly any of the hymns written at this time have 
 descended into congregational use at the present 
 day, for they were much more suitable for private 
 than for public worship. It seems strange that, 
 while the Reformation in Germany and other 
 European countries produced a great wave of 
 glorious hymns, in England it seemed rather to 
 banish them. All the beautiful Latin hymns were 
 taken out of the services, in the time of Edward VI., 
 although Archbisv-op Cranmer had wished to keep 
 them ; and after that hardly any hymns were used 
 in public worship for about three hundred years, 
 except the metrical psalms and the six hymns ap- 
 pended to the Old Version. A national hymn was 
 written byChristopher Barker in 1 5 78, and appended 
 to the Accession Service of Queen Elizabeth's reign, 
 to be sung after evening prayer at all times — 
 
 " As for Thy gifts, we render praise." 
 
 Then William Hunnis, a gentleman of the 
 Chapel Royal, under Edward VI., and Master of 
 the Children under Elizabeth, wrote hymns. A 
 quaint Elizabethan sacred poem, called The High- 
 way to Mount Calvarie, by Samuel Rowlands, 
 begins — 
 
 *' Up to Mount Calvarie, 
 If thou desire to goe, 
 Then take thy crosse and follow Christ, 
 Thou canst not misse it so," 
 
 Spenser's Hymn of Heavenly Love would hardly 
 be called a hymn in these days — 
 
144 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 " O Blessed Well of Love ! O Floure of Grace, 
 O glorious Morning Starre ! O Lamp of Light ! 
 Most lively image of Thy Father's Face, 
 Eternal King of glorie, Lord of might." etc. 
 
 A very beautiful hymn, on the glories of the 
 New Jerusalem, was written during the sixteenth 
 century by an unknown author — a prisoner in the 
 Tower. This hymn, in MS., was signed F. B. P., 
 and some have thought that these initials stood for 
 Francis Baker, Priest — a Roman Catholic who was 
 imprisoned for his faith. The hymn is founded on 
 a passage from S. Augustine, and begins — 
 
 " Jerusalem, my happy home, 
 When shall I come to thee ? 
 When shall my sorrows have an end ? 
 Thy joys when shall I see ? " 
 
 The hymn is a long one, and many of the verses 
 are very quaint and beautiful, for instance — 
 
 " Quyt through the streets, with silver sound, 
 The Flood of Life doth flowe, 
 Upon whose banks on every side 
 The Wood of Life doth growe. 
 
 There trees for evermore bear fruite, 
 And evermore doe springe ; 
 There evermore the Angels sit, 
 And evermore doe singe." 
 
 Another hymn, very much like this, was written 
 and published in 1585 by W. Prid, and the title of 
 the book in which it is found is T/ie Glasse of Vain 
 Glorie. It is stated that the verses, which number 
 forty-four, are " faithfully translated out of S. 
 Augustine, his book ; " and Prid says, " I have, as 
 near as I could, followed the words of mine author." 
 Some of the stanzas are very much like F. B. P.'s. 
 These are the two last verses — 
 
ENGLISH HYMNS. I45 
 
 "And grant, O Lord, for Christ His sake, 
 That once dcvoide of strife 
 I may Thy holy hill attainc 
 To dwell in all my life. 
 With Cherubims, and Scraphims, 
 And holy soules of men, 
 To sing Thy praise, O Lord of hostes. 
 For ever and ever. Amen." 
 
 Then a Scotch minister, named David Dickson 
 (1583 — 1663), wrote another hymn, of two hundred 
 and forty lines, which really combines the two 
 hymns, though some of the stanzas are altered. 
 It begins — 
 
 " O mother dear, Jerusalem, 
 When shall I come to thee ? " 
 
 And about the same time, another version was 
 published in England, altered from that of F. B. P. 
 The last verses show that it was written just after 
 the Restoration (1660) — 
 
 " God still preserve our royal King, 
 Our Queen likewise defend, 
 And many happy, joyful days, 
 Good Lord, unto them send. 
 
 Thus to conclude I end my song, 
 Wishing health, wealth, and peace, 
 And all that wish the Commons' good. 
 Good Lord, their ways increase." 
 
 There were other versions still, and our hymn — 
 
 "Jerusalem, my happy home," 
 
 remains as a short epitome of them all. There is 
 no doubt that the passage in S. Augustine was the 
 foundation of all. Another favourite hymn, also 
 on the New Jerusalem, written about the same 
 time, and perhaps suggested by the former hymn, 
 
 K 
 
146 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 was written by a Prebendary of Bristol Cathedral, 
 named Samuel Grossman (1624 — 1683) — 
 
 " Jerusalem on high, 
 My song and city is." (A. & M., 233.) 
 
 Our poem is only a part of the original, taken 
 from a poem called Heaven. 
 
 The earliest attempt at an English hymn-book 
 was George Wither's Hymns and Songs of the 
 Church, He obtained a patent from the king, in 
 1623, that this should be bound up with every copy 
 of the metrical psalms, but this only brought him 
 persecution and loss. The book contains para- 
 phrases of Scripture, hymns for the festivals and 
 for all sorts of occasions ; but with the exception 
 of one or two, these did not survive. The sunset 
 hymn is used still — 
 
 " Behold the sun, that seemed but now 
 Enthroned overhead." (A. & M., 476.) 
 
 Wither's note to this hymn is — " The singing or 
 meditating to such purposes as are intimated in 
 this hymn when we see the sun declining, does 
 perhaps expel unprofitable musings, and arm 
 against the terrors of approaching darkness." 
 Another volum.e by Wither contains two hundred 
 and thirty-three hymns for all possible occasions, 
 for instance — "A hymn while we are washing," 
 " A hymn for a house-warming," " For one whose 
 beauty is much praised." Many of the verses are 
 very quaint. One of his hymns, to be sung during 
 Holy Communion, was of two hundred lines, and 
 in defence of it he says that it was " to meet the 
 custom among us, that during the time of ad- 
 ministering the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's 
 
ENGLISH HYMNS. I47 
 
 Supper, there is some hymn or psalm sung, the 
 better to keep the thoughts of the communicants 
 from wandering." The people used to sing this 
 hymn, sitting, till 1840. 
 
 We have heard of Ben Jonson's Carol.^ He also 
 wrote a hymn of devotion to God the Father, 
 beginnings 
 
 " Hear me, O God, 
 A broken heart 
 Is my best part." 
 
 In the next century we have a longer list of 
 sacred poets, but still no hymn-writers, properly 
 so called. Dr. Donne, Dean of S. Paul's ; Her- 
 rick, a poet - priest ; Richard Crashaw, George 
 Herbert, Jeremy Taylor, Henry Vaughan, Richard 
 Baxter, and the great poet Milton, all wrote sacred 
 verses, invaluable for private reading and study, but 
 not really suitable for singing in church. Dr. Donne, 
 the famous preacher of his time, certainly wrote, 
 during a long and painful illness, a hymn to God, 
 which he caused "to be set to a most grave and 
 solemn tune, and to be often sung to the organ by 
 the choristers of S. Paul's Church, in his own 
 hearing, especially at the evening service " — 
 
 "Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begin, 
 Which was my sin, though it were done before ; 
 Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run, 
 And do run still, though still I do deplore. 
 When Thou hast done. Thou hast not done, 
 For I have more." 
 
 Richard Baxter's hymn for the sick-room, written 
 for his wife, is also a very beautiful one. He was 
 born November 12, i6i5,at Rowton, in Shropshire, 
 
148 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 and was the son of a yeoman. He became a 
 clergyman at Kidderminster, and at the age of 
 fifty married a wife of twenty, a very good woman, 
 who was most helpful to him. He was a man of 
 very saintly character, and wrote a book well 
 known by name, The Saints Rest. The hymn, 
 which has comforted many sick people, is — 
 
 " Lord, it belongs not to my care, 
 Whether I die or hve." (A. & M., 535.) 
 
 He also wrote — 
 
 " Ye holy angels bright." (A. & M., 546.) 
 
 Herrick's Litany to the Holy Spirit is the only 
 one of his sacred poems which has come down into 
 our hymn-books in a modified form. The original 
 is very quaint, and begins — 
 
 "In the hour of my distress, 
 When temptations me oppress, 
 And when I my sins confess. 
 Sweet Spirit, comfort me." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 390.) 
 
 George Herbert also wrote hymns and sang 
 them to his viol, but few are suitable for public 
 worship. 
 
 " Let all the world in every corner sing, 
 My God and King" (A. & M., 548), 
 
 is one of the best. Nicolas Ferrar, his friend, 
 who lived in retirement at Little Gidding, wrote 
 hymns to be sung at his services, but they are all 
 lost. 
 
 Jeremy Taylor, the poet-preacher, as he was 
 called, was born of humble parents, in 161 3. He 
 was very clever, and had a most successful career 
 
ENGLISH HYMNS. I49 
 
 at college ; he was ordained, and afterwards made 
 chaplain to the Earl of Carbery, at Golden Grove, 
 Carmarthenshire, from which his book is named. 
 He was made Bishop of Down and Connor, and 
 died in 1667, There are some festival hymns in 
 the Golden Grove — one, a very fine one, being 
 given, with a few alterations, in the Sarum 
 Hymnal — 
 
 " Draw nigh to Thy Jerusalem, O Lord, 
 Thy faithful people cry, with one accord ; 
 Ride on triumphantly ! Behold, we lay 
 Our passions, lusts, and proud wills in Thy way." 
 
 Another beautiful hymn, still often used — 
 
 "A living stream, as crystal clear " (A. & M., 213), 
 
 was written by the Rev. J. Mason, Rector of Water 
 Stratford, Bucks, who died in 1694.^ 
 
 Now we come to a great man, a hero as well as 
 a hymn-writer — Bishop Ken. He was born at 
 Little Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, in 1637, 
 and went to school at Winchester. There, as in 
 after-life, he was noted for his early rising ; and 
 even on the coldest winter mornings would be up 
 long before the other boys. At Oxford, we hear 
 of him as "student, poet, and musician." He wrote 
 a manual for the Winchester scholars, containing 
 some beautiful prayers, and another well-known 
 book, TJie Pi-actice of Divine Love. His famous 
 hymns were written while at Winchester for his 
 own use, and he would sing them in his own 
 musical voice, accompanying himself on the lute — 
 for he played lute, viol, and organ with great 
 
 ^ This was afterwards adapted by Keblc — p. 181. 
 
150 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 proficiency. He was made rector of Brightstone, 
 a lovely spot in the Isle of Wight, in 1667. We 
 are told that such was the purity of Ken's mind 
 that those who knew him called him " seraphicus," 
 and " spiritualis." He published four volumes of 
 hymns and poems, but none of these have lived 
 except the well-known Morning, Evening, and 
 Midnight hymns — 
 
 " Awake, my soul, and with the sun " 
 
 (A. & M., 3), 
 
 " Glory to Thee, my God, this night " 
 
 (A. & M., 23), 
 
 and that for midnight — 
 
 " 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, 
 Your Hallelujahs sing on high, 
 Your joyful hymn the ever-blessed, 
 Before the throne, and never rest." etc. 
 
 In 1683, Ken was made Bishop of Bath and 
 Wells, and then began the terrible time of anxiety 
 for the Church. He spent three days and nights 
 at the death-bed of Charles II., for the king re- 
 spected him, and used to say he would go and hear 
 Ken " tell him of his faults." Then, in James 
 II.'s reign, followed the Trial of the Seven Bishops, 
 of whom Ken was one, and after which he was 
 deprived of his bishopric. He retired into the 
 country, and his last days are sad to read of. For 
 some time he had suffered from a painful disease, 
 and is said to have carried his shroud about with 
 
ENGLISH HYMNS. 15 I 
 
 him in his portmanteau. He died in 171 1, at the 
 age of seventy-three, and by his own desire was 
 buried at sunrise, under the cast window of the 
 church at Frome. His last declaration deserves to 
 be remembered. " As for my religion, I die in the 
 Holy Catholic and Apostolic Faith, professed by 
 the whole Church before the disunion of East and 
 West ; more particularly I die in the Communion 
 of the Church of England, as it stands distinguished 
 from all Papal and Puritan innovations, and as it 
 adheres to the doctrine of the Cross." These 
 verses are from his epitaph — 
 
 " To him is raised no marble tomb, 
 Within the dim cathedral fane, 
 But some faint flowers of summer bloom, 
 And silent falls the winter's rain. 
 
 No village monumental stone 
 Records a verse, a date, a name. 
 
 What boots it ? When thy task is done, 
 Christian, how vain the sound of fame. 
 
 Oh, far more grateful to thy God, 
 The voices of poor children rise, 
 
 W^ho hasten o'er the dewy sod 
 To pay their morning sacrifice." 
 
152 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL OF THE EIGHTEENTH 
 CENTURY. 
 
 " It was mostly the hymns," said Toby ; " first the Bible, 
 and then mostly the hymns ; for they are the Bible, for 
 the most part, only set to music-like, so that it rings in 
 your heart like a tune. Our class-leader is no great 
 speaker ; but he's got a wonderful feeling heart, and a 
 fine voice for the hymns ; and it's they that has finished 
 Parson Wesley's work, and healed the wound he made." 
 
 It seems strange that nearly all the great hymn- 
 writers of the eighteenth century should have been 
 (with the exception of the Wesleys) Nonconformists. 
 The Church of England had lapsed into a cold, 
 formal state, and many good people left it because 
 they found more life and energy among the Dis- 
 senters. The first hymn- writer of the eighteenth 
 century was Isaac Watts, born at Southampton, 
 of Huguenot ancestry, in 1674. He became an 
 Independent minister, and his greatest recreation 
 was verse-making. He wrote altogether between 
 four and five thousand hymns. When a young 
 man of twenty-two, he was sitting at a window at 
 Southampton, looking over the water at the 
 beautiful country beyond, and he thought of 
 another still more beautiful country, and of the 
 water which parts it from us, and he wrote the 
 hymn — 
 
 " There is a land of pure delight. 
 Where saints immortal dwell " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 519; A. cS: M., 536), 
 
ENGLISH HYMNS. 153 
 
 in which come the Hnes — 
 
 " I)eath, Hke a narrow sea, divides 
 This heavenly land from ours." 
 
 A h'ttle story is told about this hymn. During 
 the Crimean War, one bitterly cold night, a poor 
 soldier was suffering such torture from hunger, 
 sickness, and cold, that he had almost made up his 
 mind to put an end to himself, when suddenly he 
 heard a voice singing — 
 
 "There is a land of pure delight." 
 
 He called out loudly, and the singer made his 
 way through the blinding snow to the soldier. 
 He was a good man, named Duncan Mathieson, 
 who had lost his way in the storm, and was keeping 
 his spirits up by singing. So he comforted the 
 poor soldier and saved him from his awful thoughts. 
 Watts is chiefly known as the author of the 
 Divine Songs, the only children's hymns our 
 grandparents possessed. They were written for 
 the children of Sir Thomas Abney, with whom he 
 lived for a long time. Many were written in the 
 summer-house of the Hertfordshire garden, and 
 lessons were drawn from the " busy bee," the ant, 
 or the caterpillar, for the children's use. By far the 
 most poetical of these is the Cradle Hymn — 
 
 " Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber, 
 Holy angels guard thy bed ; 
 Heavenly blessings without number, 
 Gently falling on thy head. 
 
 Soft and easy is thy cradle. 
 
 Coarse and hard thy Saviour lay. 
 When His birthplace was a stable, 
 
 And His softest bed was hay. 
 
154 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 See the kinder shepherds round Him, 
 
 Telling wonders from the sky ; 
 Where they sought Him, there they found Him, 
 
 With His Virgin Mother by. 
 
 May'st thou live to know and fear Him, 
 
 Trust and love Him all thy days ; 
 Then go dwell for ever near Him, 
 
 See His Face, and sing His Praise." 
 
 But Watts wrote more famous hymns than 
 these — 
 
 " O God, our Help in ages past " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 446; A. &M., 165), 
 
 " When I survey the wondrous Cross " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 547 ; A. & M., 108), 
 
 sung through England on New Year's Day and 
 Good Friday, and 
 
 *' Come, let us join our cheerful songs 
 With angels round the Throne." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 348 ; A. & M., 299.) 
 
 "Jesus shall reign where'er the sun." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 407 ; A. & M., 220.) 
 
 The last has become a famous missionary hymn. 
 We read of one occasion when it was used, in a 
 country whose king had just exchanged a heathen 
 for a Christian form of worship — 
 
 "Under the spreading branches of the banyan-trees sat 
 some five thousand natives, from Tonga, Fiji, and Samoa, 
 on Whitsunday, 1862, assembled for divine worship. Fore- 
 most amongst them all sat King George himself. Around 
 him were seated old chiefs and warriors, who had shared 
 with him the dangers and fortunes of many a battle. It 
 would be impossible to describe the deep feeling mani- 
 fested when the solemn service began by the entire audience 
 singing Dr. Watts' hymn — 
 
 'Jesus shall reign where'er the sun.'" 
 
ENGLISH HYMNS. 155 
 
 One of Watts' friends, Doddridge — another In- 
 dependent minister, whose grandfather had escaped 
 from religious persecution in Bohemia, with no 
 other possessions than Luther's Bible and some 
 gold pieces — was also a great hymn-writer. Three 
 of his hymns are still much sung — 
 
 *' Hark, the glad sound ! the Saviour comes " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 68 ; A. & M., 53), 
 
 "Ye servants of the Lord" (Ch. Hy., 562 ; A. & M., 208) ; 
 
 and, most famous of all, the hymn which was 
 inserted at the end of the Prayer-book at the 
 beginning of the century — 
 
 "My God, and is Thy Table spread." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 212; A. & M., 317.) 
 
 It is a curious fact that, while many in the 
 Church of England still look upon hymns during 
 Holy Communion with suspicion, it was at one 
 time the only occasion when they were used by 
 Nonconformists. 
 
 Two well-known hymns were written by John 
 Byrom, born 1691, a Lancashire man, and a good 
 scholar and poet — 
 
 " Christians, awake, salute the happy morn " 
 and (A. & M., 61), 
 
 "My spirit longs for Thee" (Ch. Hy., 436), 
 
 the curious part of the hymn being that the last 
 line of each verse forms the first line of the next. 
 Another beautiful Easter hymn of this century, by 
 an unknown author, is — 
 
 "Angels, roll the rock away, 
 Death, yield up thy mighty prey. 
 See ! He rises from the tomb. 
 Glowing with immortal bloom. Hallelujah. 
 
156 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 'Tis the Saviour ; Angels, raise 
 Fame's eternal trump of praise, 
 Let the earth's remotest bound 
 Hear the joy-inspiring sound. Hallelujah." etc. 
 
 But the great leaders of the Evangelical revival 
 of the eighteenth century were two brothers, John 
 and Charles Wesley, who, although they never left 
 the Church themselves, became the founders of the 
 sect now called Wesleyans. John Wesley saw at 
 once that hymns could be utilized, not only to raise 
 devotion, but to instruct in the faith, and he meant 
 them to be a kind of creed in verse. The brothers 
 were born at Ep worth, in Lincolnshire, and their 
 parents were very good people ; in fact, the mother 
 of the Wesleys has become famous for her piety, 
 and for the clever way in which she brought up 
 her children. John and Charles were at Oxford 
 together, and there they formed a little band of 
 young men uniting together to lead purer, holier 
 lives, and to attend the Holy Communion, to visit 
 the poor, to fast and pray. For this they were 
 ridiculed by a crowd of undergraduates ; but they 
 began to influence others, and later on they went 
 about preaching all over England, and trying to 
 wake people up from the dead, cold, formal religion 
 that was so prevalent. Then it was that the hymns 
 took so much effect. They did almost more even 
 than the preaching, in bending stubborn wills, and 
 making them feel the love of Christ. The best 
 known by Charles Wesley are — 
 
 " Hark, the herald angels sing." (A. & M., 60.) 
 " Hail the day that sees Him rise." (A. & M., 147.) 
 " Christ, Whose gloiy fills the skies." (A. & M., 272.) 
 "O Love Divine, how sweet thou art." (A. & M., 195.) 
 
ENGLISH HYMNS. 1 57 
 
 " Rejoice, the Lord is King." (A. & M., 202.) 
 " Let saints on earth in concert sing." (A. e^ AL, 221.) 
 " Love Divine, all love excelling." (A. & M., 520.) 
 " Shepherd Divine, our wants relieve." (A. & M., 248 ) 
 " Soldiers of Christ, arise " (A. & M., 207) ; 
 and, most famous of all — 
 
 "Jesu, Lover of my soul." (A. & M., 193.) 
 
 Charles Wesley was a true poet and a perfect 
 hymn-writer. Looking at any of his hymns, we 
 shall find that there is no confusion of thought in 
 them ; one idea is carried through and worked out. 
 For instance, in the last-named hymn, the idea is 
 that of a drowning man clinging to his Saviour, 
 and the analogy is kept up throughout. This 
 hymn must have been a help to thousands in 
 danger of body or of mind. There are several 
 stories of the way in which it has been sung. 
 
 " Forty years ago, on a winter's night, a heavy gale set in 
 upon the precipitous rock-bound coast of one of our western 
 counties. A brave little coasting-vessel struggled hard and 
 long to reach some shelter in the Bristol Channel, but the 
 struggle was vain — one dark, fearful headland could not be 
 weathered ; the bark must go on shore, and what a shore it 
 was, the fated men well knew. Then came the last pull for 
 life. The boat was swung off and manned — captain and 
 crew united in one more brave effort ; but their toiling at 
 the oar was soon over — their boat was swamped. They 
 seem to have sunk together, for in the morning, when the 
 day dawned, they were found lying all but side by side under 
 the shelter of a weedy rock. There was no sign of life on 
 deck, and below scarcely anything told of late distress. One 
 token of peace there was — the captain's hymn-book still 
 lying upon the locker, closed upon the pencil with which he 
 had marked some passages before he left the ship to meet 
 his fate. A leaf of the page was turned down, and several 
 pencil-marks were seen on the margin of Charles Wesley's 
 hymn— 
 
158 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 *Jesu, Lover of my soul, 
 Let me to Thy Bosom fly.'" 
 
 " A ship caught fire, and on board, among the passengers, 
 were a father, mother, and child. The father was separated 
 from them in the tumult that followed the breaking out of 
 the flames, and the mother and child fell into the sea. On 
 the afternoon of the same day the crew of another vessel 
 passing by heard a sound of singing, and looking over the 
 water they saw a black speck floating. A boat was lowered, 
 and the sailors who rowed towards the speck heard distinctly 
 over the waves the words — 
 
 *Je?u, Lover of my soul, 
 Let me to Thy Bosom fly.' 
 
 They rowed nearer, and at last they saw, clinging to a 
 fragment of the burnt ship, a mother and child. The mother 
 was singing, as she thought, her dying prayer to the Saviour ; 
 but her earnest faith and trust saved her and her child, and 
 the two were safely landed in the other ship." 
 
 Charles Wesley composed his hymns at all times 
 and seasons — on horseback, in a stage-coach, in a 
 boat ; in fact, he says he hardly ever ceased to 
 write them. His Eucharistic hymns are specially 
 fine. Two are given in Hymns A. & M. (554, 556), 
 and another is — ■ 
 
 " All hail, Redeemer of mankind, 
 Thy Life on Calvary resigned, 
 Did freely once for all atone. 
 Thy Blood has paid our utmost price, 
 Thy everlasting sacrifice 
 Remains eternally alone." etc. 
 
 Charles Wesley died in 1788, and was buried in 
 Marylebone Churchyard, for he had said, " I have 
 lived and I die in the Communion of the Church 
 of England, and I will be buried in the yard of my 
 parish church." 
 
 A hymn "with a history" we owe to one of the 
 
ENGLISH HYMNS. 1 59 
 
 disciples of the Wesleys, Thomas OhVers. He 
 was born in Montgomeryshire, 1725, and in his 
 early life apprenticed to a shoemaker. He was a 
 wild, reckless youth, and led a bad life until at 
 Bristol he heard Whitfield preach from the text, 
 " Is not this a brand plucked from the burning.''" 
 This sermon changed his whole life, and a little 
 later, at Bradford-on-Avon, he met John Wesley, 
 who made him one of his preachers, and sent him 
 to Cornwall. He worked there until his death in 
 1799, and was buried in Wesley's tomb, City Road, 
 London. He wrote several hymns, but the one 
 that has made his name famous is — 
 
 "The God of Abraham praise." 
 
 (Ch. Hy. 511 ; A. & M., 6qi.) 
 
 This is a free rendering of the Hebrew Yigdal, 
 or doxology, which tells, in metrical form, the 
 thirteen articles of the Hebrew Creed, and is sup- 
 posed to have been composed by Daniel ben 
 Judah, a medieval writer. Olivers gave, as far as 
 possible, a Christian character to it. The Yigdal is 
 in the Hebrew prayer-books, and is sung at the 
 end of the Synagogue service on the eve of 
 Sabbaths and festivals, and at family worship in 
 Jewish homes. It may now be heard any Friday 
 evening, chanted to the melody called Lconz, after 
 a great public singer of the name — a chorister 
 of the Great Synagogue, Aldgate, London, at the 
 end of last century. Olivers is said to have written 
 the hymn at the house of John Bakewell, at West- 
 minster, 1770 ; and he went to see Leoni, who gave 
 him the Synagogue melody. Montgomery calls 
 this hymn ''the noble ode of an unlettered man." 
 He says — 
 
l6o HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 " There is not, in our language, a lyric of more majestic 
 style, more elevated thought, or more glorious imagery. Its 
 structure, indeed, is unattractive and, on account of its short 
 lines, occasionally uncouth ; but, like a stately pile of archi- 
 tecture severe and simple in design, it strikes less on the 
 first view than after deliberate examination, when its pro- 
 portions become more graceful, its dimensions expand, and 
 the mind itself grows greater by contemplating it." 
 
 Another very well-known hymn, the author of 
 which is unknown, appeared about this time, the 
 favourite Easter hymn — 
 
 "Jesus Christ is risen to-day" (A. & M., 134), 
 
 probably taken from a Latin hymn of the four- 
 teenth century. 
 
 We must not forget Toplady, author of the 
 famous 
 
 " Rock of ages, cleft for me." (A. & M., 184.) 
 
 He wrote this while dying of consumption, and 
 its title is, " A living and dying prayer for the 
 hoHest believer in the world." It has been trans- 
 lated irto Latin by Gladstone, and is sung in many 
 languages almost all over the Christian world. It 
 comforted the Prince Consort, and no doubt many 
 others in their dying hours. 
 
 The " Olney hymns " belong to the eighteenth 
 century. They were written by the poet Cowper 
 and his friend, John Newton. The latter had a 
 strange history. He was born in London in 1725, 
 and as his mother died when he was only seven 
 years old, he was left to grow up anyliow, and fell 
 in with bad companions. He led a wild life after 
 entering the navy, which he deserted, becoming 
 a slave-trader and captain of a slave-ship. One 
 day (he was about twenty-four years old) he picked 
 
ENGLISH HYMNS. l6l 
 
 Up, during a voyage, a copy of the Imitation of 
 Christ, and read it. He thought, ''Can these 
 things be true ? " And that very night a terrible 
 storm arose, and the ship was nearly wrecked. 
 F'rom that time he led a different life, and when 
 he was thirty-nine he was ordained to the curacy 
 of Olney, where he worked hard for many years. 
 It was there that he met the poet Covvper, and 
 together they composed hymns for a religious 
 meeting held by Newton. A collection of these 
 was published in 1779, and called the Olney 
 Hymns ; sixty-eight by Cowper, two hundred and 
 eighty by Newton. Few of these are now left in 
 our modern hymn-books, but three of them have 
 a world-wide fame. One is by Newton — 
 
 "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds." (A. & M., 176.) 
 
 Cowper was subject to dreadful fits of melancholy, 
 almost amounting to madness. During one of 
 these temporary fits he became possessed with the 
 idea that he should go to a particular part of the 
 river Ouse and drown himself. So he hired a post- 
 chaise and started ; but happily the driver missed 
 his way, and as he walked back through the fields 
 the cloud seemed to be lifted from his mind, and 
 he composed a beautiful hymn called, *' Light 
 shining out of darkness " — 
 
 " God moves in a mysterious way 
 His wonders to perform." 
 
 (Ch. Hy, 257 ; A. & M., 373.) 
 
 But his most touching hymn is — 
 
 " Hark, my soul, it is the Lord " (A. & M., 260.) 
 This gives one a much happier idea of the man ; 
 
l62 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 indeed, one who saw him after death said, "With 
 the calmness of the face there mingled, as it were, 
 a holy surprise." 
 
 XXTI. 
 BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 "Then Christian gave three leaps for joy and went on 
 singing." — Pilgjifn's Progress, 
 
 Any one living in Nottingham about the year 
 1792 might perhaps have seen a little butcher's 
 boy carrying legs of mutton from his father's shop, 
 and following him home as the evening twilight 
 gathered in, and entering the kitchen, might have 
 witnessed rather a remarkable sight. The little 
 fellow, who was only seven years old, sitting with 
 a grave, studious face at the head of the table, 
 while two or three rough-looking servants were 
 poring over the copies he gave them to write, or 
 the letters he was teaching them to form into 
 words. The lad's name was Henry Kirke White. 
 By the time he was seventeen he had published 
 a volume of poems, besides studying law, and 
 learning Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and Spanish. 
 His great ambition was to go to the University, 
 and to be ordained ; and after overcoming many 
 difficulties, he entered S. John's College, Cam- 
 bridge, in the year 1 805. But, sad to say, he 
 worke^ too hard for his strength, and after being 
 
ENGLISH HYMNS. 163 
 
 first man of his college for two years, it gave way, 
 and he died at the age of twenty-two. After his 
 death the fragment of a hymn was found among 
 his mathematical papers — 
 
 " Much in sorrow, oft in woe, 
 Onward, Christians, onward go ; 
 Fight the fight, and worn with strife, 
 Steep with tears the Bread of Life. 
 
 Onward, Christians, onward go, 
 Join the war and face the foe ; 
 Faint not, much doth yet remain. 
 Dreary is the long campaign. 
 
 Shrink not. Christians, will ye yield ? 
 Will ye quit the painful field ? " 
 
 Thus far the hymn had gone, and it was afterwards 
 completed by a lady, Fanny Maitland, and remains 
 one of our best-known hymns. 
 
 One great hymn-writer of the early part of this 
 century was James Montgomery. His parents 
 were Moravians, and after sending their boy to the 
 Moravian school at Fulneck, near Leeds, they 
 went out to the West Indies as missionaries, and 
 died there. They had meant their little son to be 
 a preacher too, but he had made up his mind to 
 be a poet, and although poetry was forbidden at 
 the school, he had written before he was fourteen 
 a poem of one thousand lines. He entered a 
 newspaper office, and afterwards became an editor, 
 and all his life he continued to write poetry. The 
 hymns by Montgomery we know best are — 
 
 " Hail to the Lord's Anointed." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 379 ; A. & M., 219.) 
 
 **Go to dark Gethsemane." (Ch. Hy., 372 ; A. & M., no.) 
 
164 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 " Lord, teach us how to pray aright." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 370; A. &M.,247.) 
 
 " Songs of praise the angels sang." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 503 ; A. & M., 297.) 
 
 " For ever with the Lord." (Ch. Hy., 363 ; A. & M., 231.) 
 " Lard, pour Thy Spirit from on high." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 253 ; A. & M., 355-) 
 "Palms of glory, raiment bright." (A. & M., 445.) 
 
 The beautiful penitential hymn — - 
 
 " In the hour of trial, 
 Jesus, pray for me" (Ch. Hy., 391), 
 
 was written in a lady's album, and dated Dec. 8, 
 1834. In the MS. the second line is, "Jesus, stand 
 by me" ; but Montgomery altered this afterwards. 
 Some little stories about his hymns are known. 
 One day in the month of February 1832, he was 
 travelling with a friend between Gloucester and 
 Tewkesbury, when he noticed some women and 
 girls working in a field lately ploughed. They 
 were stooping down in rows, but they could not be 
 weeding. What were they doing .? Then he was 
 told that their work was called dibbling, and that, 
 instead of throwing in the grain broadcast over the 
 field, holes were pricked in straight lines, and into 
 each of these holes two or three grains of wheat 
 were dropped. " Dibbling is unpoetical and un- 
 picturesque," said Montgomery ; " give me broad- 
 cast sowing." And then he began to think about 
 sowing the good seed — the dibbling of Sunday- 
 school teaching and visiting — here a little, there 
 a little ; and the broadcast sowing of the preacher. 
 Gradually his ideas shaped themselves into verse, 
 and he wrote the hymn — -, 
 
ENGLISH HYMNS. 165 
 
 " Sow in the morn thy seed, 
 At eve hold not thy hand ; 
 To doubt and fear give thou no heed, 
 Broadcast it o'er the land. 
 
 Thou know'st not which may thrive, 
 
 The late or early sown ; 
 Grace keeps the chosen germ alive, 
 
 When and wherever strown." etc. 
 
 Another hymn, " Eternity, eternity," has a pretty 
 story connected with it. Montgomery was walking 
 one day on the Castle Hill at Scarborough, and 
 stood on the edge of the cliff, meditating. He had 
 with him a little girl, and he had just been telling 
 her the meaning of the word ''horizon," and she 
 was wishing she could see it, for a mist hid the 
 meeting of sea and sky. " It is far more sublime 
 as it is," said the poet; "it is like looking into 
 eternityy "What is eternity.?" asked the child. 
 "You have asked a question which none of the 
 wise men in the world can answer," said he ; " God 
 only can comprehend eternity." The child pondered 
 a while, and then said, " I do not like to think 
 about eternity — it stretches my head. I think I 
 shall be so tired of it." " Do not think about it 
 any more, my child," he said, " it stretches all our 
 minds." This was the origin of the hymn. 
 
 Two other hymns for Christmas and Easter 
 by Montgomery are — 
 
 " Angels from the realms of glory," 
 .and 
 
 "Come, see the place where Jesus lay." (A. & M., 139.) 
 
 Thomas Kelly, the son of an Irish judge, wrote a 
 great many hymns, the best known of which are— 
 
l66 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 " Through the day Thy love has spared us." 
 
 (Ch. Hy.,34; A.&M.,25.) 
 "The Head that once was crowned with thorns." 
 
 (A. & M., 301.) 
 
 "We sing the praise of Him Who died." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 542 ; A. & M., 300.) 
 
 Then follow two bishops. The first, Bishop 
 Mant, who died in 1848, was born, like Watts, at 
 Southampton, and became Bishop of Down and 
 Connor, in Ireland. He was a writer both of prose 
 and verse, and to him we owe the fine translation 
 of the Stab at Mater — 
 
 "At the Cross her station keeping" (A. & M., 117) ; 
 also the Good Friday hymn — 
 
 " See the destined day arise." (A. & M., 113.) 
 "Bright the vision that delighted." (A. & M., 161.) 
 
 His chief work was translating from the Latin. 
 
 There is a good deal more to say about the next 
 bishop — Reginald Heber. His parents were both 
 Yorkshire people, but he was born in Cheshire, 
 in 1783. As a child he was remarkable for the 
 eagerness with which he read the Bible and re- 
 membered it after. He was noted in his school-boy 
 days for his gentleness and wonderful kindness of 
 heart. He was so liberal with his pocket-money, 
 that it was found necessary to sew within the 
 linings of his pockets the bank-notes given him for 
 his half-yearly pocket-money, so that he might not 
 give it all away in charity on the road. At Oxford 
 he gained the University prize for his beautiful 
 poem, Palestine. After leaving college, Heber 
 went on a tour to Russia and the North before 
 his ordination. He was an excellent parish priest, 
 
ENGLISH HYMNS. 167 
 
 and felt sorely the need of improving the hymn- 
 singing in churches, for in those days it was very 
 dreary. He composed many hymns at odd 
 moments when not engaged in parish work, and 
 most of them were published after his death. One 
 of the finest of our modern hymns is his — • 
 
 " Holy, holy, holy. Lord God Almighty." 
 
 It is so completely a hymn of adoration. All 
 thought of self is merged in the thought of the 
 holiness and greatness of God. Heber was always 
 very particular to use reverent language in his 
 hymns, for he was shocked at some which con- 
 tained improper epithets in speaking of God. He 
 generally connected his hymns with the Collect or 
 Gospel for the day in question, and meant them 
 to be sung between the Nicene Creed and the 
 sermon. Some of his finest are — 
 
 " Brightest and best of the sons of the morning " 
 
 (Ch. Hy, 95) ; 
 " Hosanna to the living Lord " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 383 ; A. & M., 241) ; 
 
 "The Son of God goes forth to war" 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 201 ; A. & M., 439) ; 
 
 and the first verse of the beautiful little evening 
 hymn — 
 
 " God, Who madest earth and heaven." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 22 ; A. & M., 26.) 
 
 The second verse was added by Archbishop 
 Whately, some years later, and is founded upon 
 the antiphon — 
 
 " Save us, O Lord, while waking, guard us sleeping, that 
 we may watch with Christ, and may repose in peace." 
 
 Two beautiful introits by Heber are — 
 
l68 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 " Oh, most merciful ! 
 Oh, most bomitiful ! 
 God the Father Almighty ! 
 By the Redeemer's sweet intercession, 
 Hear us, help us, when we cry." 
 
 " Bread of the world, in mercy broken, 
 Wine of the soul, in mercy shed. 
 By Whom the words of life were spoken, 
 And in Whose death our sins are dead ; 
 
 Look on the heart by sorrow broken. 
 Look on the tears by sinners shed, 
 
 And be Thy feast to us the token 
 
 That by Thy grace our souls are fed." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 204.) 
 
 Heber wrote a burial hymn, on the death of his 
 first child, a great grief to him — 
 
 " Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee. 
 Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb ; 
 The Saviour hath passed through its portals before thee. 
 And the lamp of His love is thy guide thro' the gloom." 
 
 And a fine hymn for sailors — • 
 
 " When through the torn sail the wild tempest is streaming. 
 When o'er the dark wave the red lightning is gleaming. 
 Nor hope sends a ray the poor seaman to cherish. 
 We fly to our Maker, ' Save, Lord, or we perish ! ' " 
 
 This hymn was written upon the Gospel for the 
 Fourth Sunday after Epiphany. All through his 
 life Heber had taken the deepest interest in 
 missions, and he wrote the missionary hymn — 
 
 " From Greenland's icy mountains " 
 
 (Ch. Hy.,290; A. &M., 358), 
 
 for an S.P.G. service on Whitsunday, 1 8 19. 
 
 Four years after this he became Bishop of Cal- 
 cutta, and went out with his wife to India, to begin 
 his missionary life. But, sad to say, his splendid 
 
ENGLISH HYMNS. 169 
 
 work was very quickly over. On the morning of 
 April 3, 1826, the good bishop had held a Con- 
 firmation at a place named Trichinopoly, before 
 breakfast. After it was over, he went to have a 
 cold bath. He did not appear, as usual, directly 
 after it, and his servant went into the room to see 
 what was the matter. To his great distress, he 
 found his master dead in the bath, with his face 
 downwards. A blood-vessel on the brain had 
 burst, and the good bishop was no more. 
 
 Hebcr had intended to publish a collection of 
 hymns connected with the Church's year ; but it 
 was not until after his death that this hymn-book 
 was brought out. It contained some very fine 
 hymns by Dean Milman, a son of one of George 
 IIl.'s physicians. He wrote, for Palm Sunday — 
 " Ride on, ride on, in majesty " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 114; A. &M., 99); 
 
 for the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity — 
 " When our heads are bowed with woe " 
 
 (Ch. Hy, 348 ; A. & M., 399) ; 
 for Good Friday, the beautiful Passion hymn — 
 
 " Bound upon the accursed tree. 
 Faint and bleeding. Who is He.'*" 
 
 Another hymn-writer of the early part of this 
 century was Sir Robert Grant, born 1785, of an 
 old Scotch family. He was Governor of Bombay, 
 and his two most famous hymns are — 
 
 " O worship the King, all glorious above " 
 
 (Ch. Hy, 477 ; A. & M., 167) ; 
 
 and the beautiful Litany hymn — 
 
 " Saviour, when in dust to Thee, 
 Low we bow the adoring knee." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 494; A. & M., 251.) 
 
170 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 Then came one whose short life was a very holy 
 one — Thomas Whitehead (1815 — 1843). He went 
 out to New Zealand as chaplain to Dr. Selwyn ; 
 but shortly after landing he ruptured a blood- 
 vessel, and never was able to take any duty. He 
 spent what little time and strength remained to 
 him in correcting the Maori translation of the 
 Bible and Prayer-book, and wrote Seven Hymns 
 towards a Holy Week, The last, for Saturday, is 
 the best known — 
 
 "Resting from His work to-day, 
 In the tomb the Saviour lay." (A. & M., 124.) 
 
 Five days before he died he wrote to a friend — 
 
 "I took up the translation of the Evening Hymn into 
 Maori rhyming verse — the first of the kind of the same metre 
 and rhythm as the English. Two hundred and fifty copies 
 have been printed, and sung in church and school by the 
 natives ; and several of them came and sang by my window. 
 They call it ' the new hymn of the sick minister,' It is hard 
 to compress Bishop Ken's lines into the same bounds in a 
 rude language. However, it is done, and people seem pleased 
 with it ; ahd it is a comfort to think one has introduced 
 Bishop Ken's beautiful evening hymn into the Maori evening 
 worship, and left them this legacy when I could do no more 
 for them." 
 
 The last hymn-poet we shall name is Henry 
 Francis Lyte. He died in consumption, and just 
 after preaching his last sermon wrote a hymn 
 which will probably never die — 
 
 " Abide with me, fast falls the eventide." (A. & M., 27.) 
 
 In one of his last poems he wrote — 
 
 " And grant me, swan-like, my last breath to spend 
 In songs that may not die." 
 
 And the prayer was answered. 
 
AMERICAN HYMNS. I/I 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 AMERICAN HYMNS. 
 
 " Brethren of the West, my soul 
 Oft to you will westward wing, 
 When some hymn ascendeth whole, 
 
 At the hour of offering. 
 Thinking how 'twill onward roll. 
 
 Till your voice the same shall sjng ; 
 Uttered o'er and o'er again. 
 Till ye give the last Amen." 
 
 Coxe's Christian Ballads. 
 
 It is a beautiful fact that the song of praise to 
 God never ceases ; for, while we of the English 
 Church are sleeping, our Brethren of the West are 
 singing their early matin or late evening hymns. 
 
 *' When the gorgeous day begins. 
 
 In the world's remotest East, 
 And the sun his pathway wins, 
 
 Bringing back some glorious feast, 
 There, forestalling fears and sins, 
 
 Kneels the faithful English priest, 
 There the Altar glitters fair. 
 Spread for Eucharistic prayer. 
 
 And, as each meridian line 
 
 Gains the travelled sun that day, 
 
 Still begin those rites Divine, 
 Still new priests begin to pray ; 
 
 Still are blest the Bread and Wine, 
 Still one prayer salutes his ray ; 
 
 Continent and ocean round 
 
 Rolls the tidal wave of sound. 
 
 That same hymn, ere I have sung, 
 Has been sung in England's fanes, 
 
 And perchance, in barbarous tongue, 
 'Mid the orient hills and plains. 
 
172 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 And to die, the woods among, 
 
 Swells from aisles and tinted panes, 
 To the forest's solemn cells, 
 Where the roving red man dwells." 
 
 Before the present century hardly any hymns 
 were sung in America — metrical psalms taking 
 their place ; but, during the last fifty or sixty years, 
 not only have our best English hymns found their 
 way there, but many of our own most beautiful 
 hymns come from the " new country." We will 
 speak first of the hymns written by members of the 
 Episcopal Church — our own sister Church. Dr. 
 Miihlenberg (1796 — 1879), the rector of a church 
 in New York, wrote many hymns, amongst them 
 the beautiful little baptismal hymn — 
 
 " Saviour, Who Thy flock art feeding." 
 
 (Children's Hy. Bk., 284.) 
 
 Mrs. Beecher-Stowe, the popular authoress of 
 Uncle Tom's Cabin, composed several hymns, 
 among them the well-known mission hymn (London 
 Mission Hy. Bk., 64) — 
 
 " Knocking, knocking, who is there "i 
 Waiting, waiting, oh, how fair !" 
 
 and another — 
 
 " Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh." 
 Bishop Doane (1799 — 1859) wrote many hymns, 
 amongst others one for missions — 6^*^^ 
 " Fling out the banner, let it float," 
 and 
 
 " Thou art the Way, to Thee alone 
 From sin and death we flee." 
 
 (Ch. Hy.. 526; A. & M., 199.) 
 
 And the Rev. Charles William Everest gave us a 
 still better known hymn — 
 
AMERICAN HYMNS. 1/3 
 
 " Take up thy cross, the Saviour said." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 307 ; A. & M., 263.) 
 
 Then comes Dr. Coxe, one of whose Christian 
 Ballads has been quoted. He is Bishop of the 
 Western Diocese of New York, and wrote the 
 famous missionary hymn — 
 
 " Saviour, sprinkle many nations " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 294; A. &M., 359), 
 
 when on a visit to England. It was begun on 
 Good Friday, 1850, and finished in 185 1, in the 
 grounds of Magdalen College, Oxford. He also 
 wrote a hymn for Holy Week, one for S. Bar- 
 tholomew's Day — 
 
 " Behold an Israelite indeed 
 In whom no guile is found ; " 
 
 and one for S. Matthew's Day — 
 
 " He who for Christ hath left behind, 
 Or house, or land, or wife." 
 
 In his collection of poems there also occurs a very 
 pretty carol — 
 
 " Carol, carol. Christians, 
 Carol joyfully ; 
 Carol for the coming 
 Of Christ's Nativity." 
 
 Dr. Coxe also wrote a very good translation of a 
 Latin hymn, supposed to have been written in 
 prison by Mary, Queen of Scots — 
 
 " O Blessed Redeemer, I've trusted in Thee, 
 O Saviour, my Jesu, now liberate me ; 
 
 In horrible prison 
 
 And gloom have arisen 
 My sighs, O my Jesu, incessant to Thee ; 
 
 But oh ! on my sorrow 
 
 Has brightened no morrow. 
 Yet hear me, my Jesu, and liberate me." 
 
174 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 Now we come to the hymns written by those 
 who were not members of the Episcopal Church, 
 and first to the poets, for nearly all the great 
 American poets wrote, at any rate, one good hymn. 
 
 Whittier, the Quaker poet of anti-slavery {b. 
 1807), began life first as a farm-boy, then as a 
 shoemaker, but he afterwards became a successful 
 journalist and poet. He modestly wrote of him- 
 self — " I am really not a hymn-writer, for the good 
 reason that I know nothing of music. A good 
 hymn is the best use to which poetry can be de- 
 voted, but I do not claim that I have succeeded in 
 composing one." When we look at some verses 
 from one of his hymns, we shall find, however, that 
 he was not quite just in his estimate of himself — 
 
 "We may not climb the heavenly steeps, 
 To bring the Lord Christ down, 
 In vain we search the lowest deeps 
 For Him Who fills Heaven's Throne. 
 
 But to the contrite spirit yet, 
 
 A present help is He, 
 And faith has still its Olivet, 
 
 And love its Galilee, 
 
 The healing of His seamless dress, 
 
 Is by our beds of pain ; 
 We touch Him in life's throng and press. 
 
 And we are whole again. 
 
 We faintly hear, we dimly see ; 
 
 In differing phrase we pray ; 
 But, dim or clear, we own in Thee 
 
 The Life, the Truth, the Way." 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes, the great doctor and 
 novelist (1809 — 1891), gives us, among his poems, 
 a very fine hymn for Sunday morning — 
 
AMERICAN HYMNS. 175 
 
 " Lord of all being, throned afar, 
 Thy glory flames from sun and star ; 
 Centre and soul of every sphere, 
 Yet to each loving heart how near. 
 
 Our midnight is Thy smile withdrawn, 
 Our noontide is Thy gracious dawn : 
 Our rainbow arch Thy mercy's sign. 
 All, save the clouds of sin, are Thine." 
 
 The whole hymn is well worthy of a place In more 
 of our English hymn-books. Dr. Holmes wrote 
 other hymns, one being for soldiers. 
 
 We must not forget Longfellow, whose " Hymn 
 for my brother's ordination " is hardly fitted for 
 public use, though very beautiful — 
 
 " Christ to the young man said — ' Yet one thing more, 
 If thou would'st perfect be ; 
 Sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor, 
 And come and follow Me.' " 
 
 Next on our list come tu'o poetesses — (i) Sarah 
 Elizabeth Miles, who wrote — 
 
 " Thou Who didst stoop below, 
 
 To drain the cup of woe, 
 And wear the form of frail mortality ; 
 
 Thy blessed labours done, 
 
 Thy crown of victory won, 
 Hast passed from earth, passed to Thy home on high. 
 
 It was no path of flowers, 
 
 Through this dark world of ours, 
 Beloved of the Father, ThOu didst tread ; 
 
 And shall we, in dismay, 
 
 Shrink from the narrow way, 
 When clouds and darkness are around it spread ? " etc. 
 
 (2) Adelaide Proctor was a Roman Catholic, but 
 amongst her Legends and Lyrics there is a very 
 beautiful evening hymn— 
 
1/6 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 " The shadows of the evening hours 
 
 Fall from the darkening sky ; 
 Upon the fragrance of the flowers 
 
 The dews of evening lie ; 
 Before Thy Throne, O Lord of Heaven, 
 
 We kneel at close of day ; 
 Look on Thy children from on hi^di, 
 
 And hear us while we pray. 
 Let peace, O Lord, Thy peace, O God, 
 
 Upon our souls descend, 
 From midnight fears and perils, Thou 
 
 Our trembling hearts defend ; 
 Give us a respite from our toil, 
 
 Calm and subdue our woes ; 
 Through the long day we suffer, Lord, 
 
 O give us now repose." 
 
 Others of her poems are used as hymns. 
 
 Bryant and Emerson also wrote hymns, but they 
 are not well known in England. 
 
 Edmund Sears gave us two well-known 
 Christmas hymns — 
 
 " Calm on the listening ear of night," 
 and 
 
 " It came upon the midnight clear." 
 
 A great many of our most popular mission hymns 
 come from America. Horatio Palmer, a doctor of 
 music, wrote the hymn — 
 
 " Yield not to temptation, 
 For yielding is sin ; " 
 
 but his namesake, Dr. Ray Palmer {h. 1808), the 
 son of a judge in Rhode Island, is the author of 
 a much more famous hymn, as well known in 
 America as " Rock of Ages " in England. It was 
 written in 1 830, and he says — "I gave form to 
 what I felt, by writing, with little effort, these 
 stanzas. I recollect I wrote them with very tender 
 
AMERICAN HYMNS. 177 
 
 emotion, and ended the last line with tears." It 
 begins — 
 
 " My faith looks up to Thee, 
 Thou Lamb of Calvary, 
 
 Saviour Divine. 
 Now hear me when I pray, 
 Take all my guilt away, 
 O let me from this day 
 Be wholly Thine. 
 
 While life's dark maze I tread, 
 And griefs around me spread. 
 
 Be Thou my guide ; 
 Bid darkness turn to day, 
 Wipe sorrow's tears away, 
 Nor let me ever stray 
 
 From Thee aside. 
 
 When ends life's transient dream, 
 When death's cold sullen stream 
 
 Shall o'er me roll ; 
 Blest Saviour, then in love, 
 Fear and distrust remove, 
 O bear me safe above, 
 
 A ransomed soul." (Hymn. Comp., 202.) 
 
 On the eve of one of the most fearful battles of 
 the American civil war, some six or eight young 
 soldiers had assembled in a tent for prayer. They 
 knew quite well they might die in the battle, and 
 they wished their friends to know that they had 
 died in the faith of Christ, so one of them wrote 
 out this hymn, and each man signed his name at 
 the bottom of the paper. Only one survived the 
 battle, and he told the story. Dr. Palmer wrote 
 several other poems and hymns, notably a beautiful 
 translation of part of S. Bernard's hymn — 
 
 "Jesu, Thou joy of loving hearts." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 402 ; A. & M, i;?-) 
 M 
 
178 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 Another famous mission hymn — 
 
 " Return, O wanderer, to thy home" (A. & M., 628), 
 
 was written by Thomas Hastings, a doctor of 
 music, who did a great deal for church music and 
 choirs. Then Phihp Bliss, a CongregationaHst, 
 who died in a raihvay accident in 1876 while trying 
 to save his wife, is well known by his favourite 
 hymns — ■ 
 
 "Ho, my comrades, see the signal," 
 
 " Light in the darkness, sailor," 
 
 " Only an armour-bearer," 
 
 and many others in mission hymn-books. 
 We also know the origin of the hymn — 
 
 " Shall we gather at the river ? " 
 
 Robert Lowry, a Baptist minister, was sitting in 
 his room in Brooklyn, New York, one day at a 
 time when an epidemic was raging, and many 
 people in mourning were passing along the street, 
 and the question began to rise in his heart — " Shall 
 we meet again .'* We are parting at the river of 
 death, shall we meet at the river of hfe } " So he 
 seated himself at his organ, and the words and 
 music seemed to flow out, as he tells us, by 
 inspiration. 
 
 There is quite a long list of American lady hymn- 
 writers, beginning with Anna Warner, the authoress 
 of T/ic Wide, Wide World, and . €nrrs Christmas 
 Stocking. In the latter story th6re is a very pretty 
 child's hymn — 
 
 " O little child, lie still and sleep, \ ,^^ . :^ ^.*--v 
 
 Jesus is nearj^ thou need'st not feaf, V"'^, 
 
AMERICAN HYMNS. 1 79 
 
 No one need fear whom God doth keep 
 
 By day or night ; 
 Then lay thee down, in skimber deep, 
 
 Till morning light." 
 
 Miss Warner also translated many hymns, and 
 edited a little book, Hymns of the Church Militant. 
 Next we have a biijid hymn-writer, Francis Jane 
 Crosby (Mrs. Van Alst}aie). When six weeks old 
 she lost her sight, and was brought up at the New 
 York Blind Institute. She became a teacher there, 
 and afterwards married Alexander Van Alstyne, 
 a musician, and also blind. She wrote a great 
 many poems, and more than two thousand songs 
 and hymns, many of which have become very 
 popular. 
 
 " Safe in the arms of Jesus " 
 
 was written in 1868, at the request of Mr. W. H. 
 Doane, to his popular melody, and he also wrote 
 tunes to twenty of her hymns. Others, well known, 
 are — 
 
 " Rescue the perishing, care for the dying." 
 
 " All the way my Saviour leads me." 
 
 " A blessing for you, will ye take it .-^ " 
 
 " Revive Thy work, O Lord." 
 
 " Pass me not, O gentle Saviour." 
 
 Mary Baker wrote the popular mission hymn — 
 
 " Master, the tempest is raging," 
 
 which has been sung at many festival services^ 
 among others, at that of Garfield. We will con- 
 clude with the beautiful little evening hymn, by 
 John Leland, a Baptist minister, well known by the 
 last verse — 
 
l8o HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 " The day is past and gone, 
 The evening shades appear, 
 O may we all remember well 
 The night of death draws near. 
 
 We lay our garments by, 
 Upon our beds and rest, 
 
 So death shall soon disrobe us all 
 Of what is here possest. 
 
 Lord, keep us safe this night, 
 Secure from all our fears, 
 
 May angels guard us while we sleep, 
 Till morning light appears." 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 MODERN ENGLISH HYMNS. 
 
 " Such as found out musical tunes, and recited verses in 
 writing." — EcCL. xliv. 5. 
 
 Perhaps we hardly realize, even now, how much 
 hymns helped on the Church revival of the present 
 century. We can only mention a few of the leading 
 names of those who wrote them, and we may begin 
 with a group of three — Keble, Williams, and Neale. 
 
 Keble was one of the hymn-poets who lived in 
 a quiet country place, and wrote amid the scent of 
 the flowers and the songs of the birds. He was 
 Vicar of Hursley, in Hampshire, where, in the year 
 1866, he was buried. His descriptions of scenery 
 and of nature are most beautiful, and his mind was 
 so imbued with the Bible, that he describes the 
 Holy Land almost as if he had seen it. He was 
 
MODERN ENGLISH HYMNS. l8l 
 
 more of a poet than a hymn-writer ; but, although 
 we do not use vianyoi his hymns in public worship, 
 we could ill spare those which have become almost 
 household words. Those for morning and evening — 
 
 " New every morning is the love " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 8 ; A. & M., 4), 
 " Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 29 ; A. & M, 24), 
 " Blest are the pure in heart " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 339 ; A. & M., 261), 
 " The voice that breathed o'er Eden " 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 241 ; A. & M., 350), 
 "A living stream, as crystal clear" ^ 
 
 (A.&M., 213); 
 
 and, besides several others, the beautiful translation 
 of the lamp-lighting hymn of the early Church — 
 " Hail, gladdening Light." (A. & M., 18.) 
 One of Keble's friends and fellow-curates was 
 the Rev. Isaac Williams (1802 — 1865). At Oxford 
 he obtained the prize for Latin verse, and this 
 threw him at once into close companionship with 
 Keble, who looked over the poem for him ; and 
 afterwards he spent all his long vacations with his 
 "spiritual father," as he called him. Williams 
 stands very high as a devotional writer, both in 
 prose and verse ; he translated many Greek and 
 Latin hymns, and composed original ones. Trans- 
 lations — 
 
 " Disposer Supreme." (Ch. Hy., 356 ; A. & M., 431,) 
 " O heavenly Jerusalem." (A. & M., 429.) 
 " Morn of morns, and day of days." (A. & M., 33.) 
 " O Word of God above." (A. & M., 395.) 
 
 1 An adaptation of Mason's hymn, p. 149. 
 
l82 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 Originals — 
 
 " Lord, in this Thy mercy's day." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 419 ; A. & M., 94.) 
 " Be Thou my Guardian and my Guide." 
 (A. & M., 282.) 
 
 Then we come to a man to whom EngHsh 
 hymnody owes more, perhaps, than any one else 
 in this century — John Mason Neale (18 18 — 1866). 
 He founded the well-known sisterhood at East 
 Grinstead, and spent most of his life in retirement 
 there. His translations of the early Latin and 
 Greek hymns are wonderful, for he always managed 
 to keep close to the original, and yet to put so 
 much fire and spirit into the English renderings, 
 that they hardly seem like translations. A little 
 illustration shows what power he had in this way. 
 One day, Keble, with whom he was staying, had 
 to go out of the room to fetch something, and 
 when he came back, Neale said, "Why, Keble, I 
 thought you always told me that the Christian 
 Year was original." " Yes," he said, " it certainly 
 is." " Then how comes this } " and Neale placed 
 before him the Latin of one of Keble's poems. 
 Keble could not understand it, until at last Neale 
 relieved him by telling him it was his own. Neale's 
 hymns and translations are too numerous to 
 mention. 
 
 Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln, 
 nephew of the poet Wordsworth, was one of our 
 greatest modern hymn-writers. He was born in 
 1807, and died 1885 ; but most of his hymns were 
 published about twenty years before, in a little 
 volume called the Holy Year, containing hymns 
 for all the Sundays and Church seasons. Words- 
 
MODERN ENGLISH HYMNS. 183 
 
 worth was not perhaps such a poet as Keble, but he 
 was a better hymn-writer : some of his hymns arc 
 very grand and inspiring, and more like the old 
 Latin hymns than many of our modern ones. Like 
 the Weslcys, the good bishop looked upon hymns 
 as a valuable means of making people remember 
 the doctrines of the Church, and thought the first 
 duty of a hymn-writer to teach sound doctrine. 
 Like the Greek hymn-writers, he loved to interpret 
 the Bible mystically, and thought that materials 
 for hymns should be found in the Bible, and in old 
 Christian writings and poetry. Some of his best- 
 known hymns are — 
 
 " Songs of thankfulness and praise." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 100; A. & M., 81.) 
 
 " O day of rest and gladness." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 45 ; A. & M., 36.) 
 "Alleluia, Alleluia ! hearts to heaven and voices raise." 
 (Ch. Hy., 127; A. & M., 137.) 
 
 " See the Conqueror mounts in triumph." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 147 ; A. & M., 148.) 
 
 " Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost." 
 
 (Ch. Hy., 274; A. & M., 210.) 
 
 A beautiful Trinity Sunday hymn, not so well 
 known, is — 
 
 " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord, 
 
 God of hosts, eternal King, 
 By the heavens and earth adored, 
 Angels and archangels sing ; 
 Chanting everlastingly 
 To the blessed Trinity." 
 
 A little group of English priests, who, within a 
 year or two of each other (between 1845 and 1847), 
 joined the Church of Rome, were all fine hymn- 
 
1 84 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 writers — Faber, Newman, and Caswall. Faber was 
 a poet first, a theologian after. When he told 
 Wordsworth that he was going to be ordained into 
 the Anglican Church, Wordsworth remarked— "I 
 do not say that you are wrong, but England loses 
 a poet." After he had joined the Church of Rome, 
 and had found out the power of song, and how 
 hymn-singing had stirred Christians in all times, 
 he started the practice of singing in the oratory. 
 Some favourite hymns by Faber are — 
 
 " Sweet Saviour, bless us ere we go." 
 
 " O Paradise, O Paradise." 
 
 " Hark, hark, my soul." 
 
 " O come and mourn with me awhile." 
 
 "Jesu, gentlest Saviour." 
 
 Cardinal Newman wrote most of his verses while 
 travelling abroad, in Italy. His most famous 
 hymns are — 
 
 " Lead, kindly light." 
 
 " Praise to the Holiest in the height." 
 
 Edward Caswall wrote the fine hymn — • 
 
 " Days and moments quickly flying" ; 
 
 but his chief forte lay in translation, some of the 
 best being — 
 
 " When morning gilds the skies.'' 
 
 " The sun is sinking fast." 
 
 "Jesu, the very thought of Thee." 
 
 " Glory be to Jesus." 
 
 We must not enter on the lists of living hymn- 
 writers, but we may mention one or two of the 
 women who have immortalized themselves by their 
 hymns. 
 
MODERN ENGLISH HYMNS. 1 85 
 
 Harriet Auber (1773 — 1862) gave us a rich 
 heritage in 
 
 " Our blest Redeemer ere He breathed." (A. & M., 207.) 
 Charlotte Elliot, an invalid lady, left us — 
 "My God, my Father, while I stray." (A. & M., 264.) 
 "Just as I am, without one plea." (A. & M., 255.) 
 "Christian, seek not yet repose." (A. & M., 269.) 
 Miss Havergal — 
 
 " Thy Life was given for me." (A. & M., 259.) 
 " Thou art coming, O my Saviour." (A. & M., 203.) 
 " Lord, speak to me, that I may speak" (A. & M., 356) ; 
 
 and many others. She wrote all her hymns prayer- 
 fully, and she says — 
 
 " Writing is praying with me. I never seem to write even 
 a verse by myself, and feel like a little child writing. You 
 know how a little child would look up at every sentence and 
 say, ' And what shall I say next } ' That is just what I do. 
 I ask that at every line He would give me, not merely thought 
 and power, but also every word— even the very rhyme." 
 
 Mrs. Alderson, a sister of the late Dr. Dykes, 
 left us the beautiful Passion and Almsgiving 
 hymns — 
 
 " And now, beloved Lord, Thy soul resigning." 
 
 (A. & M.,- 121.) 
 " Lord of glory. Who hast bought us." 
 
 (A. & M., 367.) 
 
 This short account of hymns and their stories 
 cannot end better than by showing how, in modern 
 times, we have proof of the immense value of 
 hymns in foreign missions in all parts of the 
 world. It is quite wonderful to find how they 
 have helped the work of missionaries. To begin 
 with the North Pole ! The Greenlanders have 
 
l86 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 had their own printed hymn-book since 1772, 
 introduced by the Moravian missionaries, and they 
 often sing in their boats, as well as in their churches. 
 Then, in Labrador, a Greenlander, named Jans 
 Haven, in the year 1770, sang to the Eskimos a 
 hymn in his own language, which they understood, 
 and " in the midst of a barbaric dance they were 
 charmed by it into silence." They now sing 
 Christian hymns at morning and evening prayer, 
 and have a book of about nine hundred, translated 
 for them. 
 
 Hymns have been found of great use in British 
 Columbia, Queen Charlotte's Islands, Vancouver 
 Island, the Sandwich Islands, Polynesia, the 
 Caroline Islands, the Solomon Islands, Loyalty 
 Islands, Borneo and Singapore, and have been 
 translated into the native languages. The Fiji 
 Islanders possess a book of one hundred and 
 seventy-eight hymns, and delight in singing them. 
 In Bishop Patteson's district, the Norfolk Islands, 
 etc., there is a book of sixty-seven hymns, twenty- 
 five of which are by the martyr-bishop himself. 
 In Japan the work of translating and adapting 
 has been very difficult, because the Japanese 
 poetry has no rhyme nor metre like ours; but, in 
 spite of this, there are at least five Japanese hymn- 
 books, and three hundred and fifty hymns. 
 
 It was also found difficult to introduce congre- 
 gational singing, as, in the Buddhist services, the 
 priests alone chant. The first Chinese hymn-book 
 was published in 1818, and contained thirty hymns, 
 and now there are many more. In India, also, 
 hymns have been much used. In some places the 
 school-children learn to sing them, and so introduce 
 
MODERN ENGLISH HYMNS. 1 8/ 
 
 them to their famihes ; and in others, the mission- 
 aries have introduced Christian Kirttans. These 
 are, really, musical performances, in honour of some 
 god, by the Hindoos; and some of the native 
 teachers have written choruses, to be sung in the 
 same way by Christian singers, and so attracted 
 the people. 
 
 Then, coming to Africa, we find hymns in the 
 native dialect of Madagascar, Mauritius, Basuto- 
 land, Zululand, Natal, Cape Colony, Kaffirland, 
 etc. One of the earliest Christian Kaffir converts 
 composed a most remarkable hymn, in pure Kaffir 
 rhythm, beginning, " Thou art the great God, He 
 Who is in heaven " ; which, together with the tra- 
 ditional music, is unique. We cannot do better 
 than finish with a hymn story from the life of one 
 of our noblest missionaries — James Hannington, 
 Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa. 
 
 This great and good man had gone off upon a 
 missionary journey, and had come to the territory 
 of a chieftain who was in deadly enmity to the 
 Christians. He knew that his life was in danger, 
 but he was perfectly calm about it — where he felt 
 it his duty to go, he went ; and nothing and nobody 
 could make him swerve from what he considered 
 to be the path of duty. Hannington was fond of 
 singing, and those who were with him in that 
 perilous journey tell us that " ever and anon his 
 emphatic voice would be raised in the notes of 
 some old familiar tune, and the wilderness would 
 ring to the sound of a Christian hymn." 
 
 One of his favourites was — 
 
 " Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin." 
 
 (A. & M, 537.) 
 
1 88 HYMNS AND THEIR STORIES. 
 
 At last he was taken prisoner by the wicked 
 king, and he knew that his end was near. He 
 says — 
 
 " Suddenly about twenty ruffians fell on us, and threw me 
 to the ground. Feeling that I was being dragged away, to 
 be murdered at a distance, I sang, ' Safe in the arms of Jesus,' 
 and then laughed at the very agony of the situation." 
 
 He died a martyr's death. At the same time 
 three native Christian lads were taken prisoners. 
 
 " They were tortured ; their arms were cut off, and they 
 were bound alive to the scaffolding, under which a fire was 
 made, and so they were slowly buriied to death. As they 
 hung in their protracted agony over the flames, Myasi (the 
 wicked king) and his men stood around jeering, and told 
 them to pray now to Jesus Christ, if they thought that He 
 could do anything to help them. The spirit of the martyrs 
 at once entered into these lads, and together they raised 
 their voices and praised Jesus in the fire, singing till their 
 shrivelled tongues refused to form the sound, Killa siku 
 tiuisifii — a hymn translated into the musical language of 
 Uganda. These were the words they sang — 
 
 * Daily, daily, sing to Jesus, 
 
 Sing, my soul. His praises due ; 
 All He does deserves our praises, 
 
 And our deep devotion too : 
 For in deep humiliation, 
 
 He for us did live below ; 
 Died on Calvary's Cross of torture, • 
 
 Rose to save our souls from woe.' " 
 
INDEX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 Abelard, 65 
 
 Adam of S. Victor, 13, 63, 
 
 64 
 Ainsworth, 83 
 Albert, Heinrich, 106 
 Aldegonde, P. Van S., 135 
 Alderson, Mrs., 185 
 Aldhelm, 77, 80 
 Alfred, King, 11, 79 
 Alstyne, Van, Mrs., 179 
 Altenburg, 132 
 Ambrose, S., 17, 37—41 
 Anatolius, S., 29 
 Andersens, 131 
 Andrew of Crete, 31, 32 
 Athanasius, 30 
 Auber, Miss, 185 
 Austin, W., 93 
 
 Bacon, Lord, 82 
 
 Baker (F. B. P.), 144 
 
 Baker, Sir H., 87 
 
 Baker, Mary, 179 
 
 Barker, 143 
 
 Baxter, Richard, 147 
 
 Bede, 19, 77—79 
 
 Ben Jonson, 92 
 
 Bernard of Clairvaux, 60 — 62 
 
 Bernard of Cluny, 63 
 
 Bliss, 178 
 
 Bonaventura, 66, 67 
 
 Brady, 85 
 
 Bridaine, Jacques, 125 
 
 Bruce, M., 85 
 
 Bryant, 176 
 Byrom, 155 
 
 C^DMON, 76 
 Cameron, 85 
 Campbell, Miss, II2 
 Caswall, 54, 184 
 Charlemagne, 53 
 Chrysostom, S. John, 29 
 Claudius, 1 12 
 Clement of Alexandria, 24 
 Coleridge, 93 
 Columba, 76 
 Corneille, 123 
 Cosin, 54 
 Cosmas, S., 34 
 Cowper, 160, 161 
 Cox, Miss, 112 
 Coxe, Dr., 173 
 Crash aw, 147 
 Crossman, 146 
 
 Dach, 106 
 Datheen, 135 
 David Dhu, 136 
 Dickson, 145 
 Doane, Bishop, 172 
 Doddridge, 155 
 Donne, Dr., 147 
 
 Eber, Paul, 99 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 82 
 Elliot, C, 185 
 Emerson, 176 
 
190 
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 Ephrem, 27 
 Erik, 131 
 Everest, 172 
 
 Faber, 184 
 
 Fairfax, 82 
 
 Ferrar, 148 
 
 Fortunatus, 46 
 
 Francis of Assisi, 88, 125 
 
 P'ranck, 107 
 
 Fulbert, 55 
 
 Gellert, 112 — 114 
 GerharcU, 103 — 105 
 Godescalcus, 53 
 Grant, Sir R., 87, 169 
 Gregory the Great, 41—45 
 Gregory Nazianzen, 28 
 Griffiths, Ann, 142 
 Gustavus Adolphus, 131, 132 
 Guyon, Madame, 123 
 
 Hastings, 178 
 Havergal, Miss, 185 
 Heber, 166 — 169 
 Henry of Lau fen burg, 97 
 Herbert, 147 
 Herrick, 92, 147, 148 
 Herrmann, Nicolas, 100 
 ,, Johann, 108 
 
 Herve, 1 18 
 Hilary of Poitiers, 37 
 Holmes, Dr., 174 
 Hopkins, 81 
 Hunnis, 143 
 
 Ingemann, 133 
 Irons, Dr., 69 
 
 Jacobus, 67 
 Jenner, Bishop, 124 
 John Chrysostom, S., 29 
 John Damascene, S., 32—34 
 Jonson, Ben, 92, 147 
 Joseph, S., 35, 36 
 Justus, Jonas, 99 
 
 Keble, 25, 86, 180 
 
 Kelly, 165 
 
 Ken, 19, 86, 149— 151 
 
 Kethe, 82 
 
 Kingo, Bishop, 133 
 
 Knapp, 117 
 
 Knimmacher, 115 
 
 Kyffin, 137 
 
 Langton, Stephen, 54 
 
 Laufenburg, Henry of, 97 
 
 Laurenti, 114 
 
 Leland, 179 
 
 Leonora Christina, 134 
 
 Longfellow, 175 
 
 Louisa of Brandenburg, 105 
 
 Lowenstein, no 
 
 Lowry, 178 
 
 Luther, 94 — 98 
 
 Lyte, 87, 170 
 
 Malan, 124 
 
 Mant, 48, 166 
 
 Marchant, 82 
 
 Marot, 119, 121 
 
 Mason, 149 
 
 Maurus, S. Rhabanus, 51 
 
 Meinhold, 117 
 
 Middleton, 137 
 
 Miles, 175 
 
 Milman, 169 
 
 Milton, 85, 147 
 
 Montgomery, 87, 163—165 
 
 Morrison, 85 
 
 Muhlenburg, 172 
 
 Neale, 49, 180 — 182 
 NefF, 125 
 Neumark, 107 
 Newman, 184 
 Newton, 160, 161 
 Nicolai, 102 
 Notker, 21, 51—53, 95 
 
 Oberlin, 125 
 Olivers, 159 
 
INDKX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 191 
 
 Palmer, Horatius, 176 
 Palmer, Dr., 176, 177 
 Patrick, S., 74, 75 
 Pembroke, Lady, 82 
 Peter Damiani, S., 58, 59 
 Petersen, 131 
 Prid, 144 
 Pritchard, 137 
 Proctor, Adelaide, 175 
 Prudentius, 42 
 Prys, 138 
 Pijsey, Philip, no 
 
 Racine, 123 
 
 Rinkart, 108 
 
 Rosenroth, Knorr von, 115 
 
 Rouse, 84 
 
 Rowlands, 143 
 
 Sachs, Hans, ioi 
 
 Sandys, 85 
 
 Savonarola, 129 
 
 Schenk, 112, 117 
 
 Schmolck, 112 
 
 Scott, Sir W., 69 
 
 Sears, 176 
 
 Sechnall, 75 
 
 Silesius, 107 
 
 Simeon, 12, 13 
 
 Southwell, 91, 92 
 
 Spenser, 82, 143 
 
 Spitta, 114 
 
 Stephen the Sabaile, S., 34 
 
 Slernhold, 81 
 
 Stowe, Mrs. Beecher-, 172 
 Sydney, Sir Philip, 82 
 Sylvester, 68 
 
 Tate, 85 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy, 147 
 Tersteegen, in 
 Theodore, S., 35 
 Theodulph, 50, 51 
 Theophanes, S., 35 
 Thomas of Celano, S. , 6S 
 Thomas Aquinas, S. , 70 
 Thomas a Kempis, S., 71 
 Toplady, 160 
 
 Vaugiian, Henry, 139 
 
 ,, Rowland, 139 
 
 Verona, Giacomo of, 128 
 Virgin, the Blessed, 13 
 
 Warner, 178 
 
 Watts, S6, 152—154 
 
 Weiss, 100 
 
 Wesley, John, 156 
 ,, Charles, 156 
 
 White, Kirke, 162 
 
 Whitehead, 170 
 
 Whittier, 174 
 
 Williams, William, 139 
 ,, Isaac, i£o, 181 
 
 ,, David, 140 
 
 Winkworth, Miss, 117 
 
 Wither, 93, 146 
 
 Wordsworth, 182 
 
 Wyn, 139 
 
INDEX OF HYMNS. 
 
 A Babe is bom, all of a maid 
 
 A blessing for you, will ye take it? 
 
 A living stream, of crystal clear 
 
 A sure stronghold our God is He 
 
 Abide with me, fast falls the eventide 
 
 Again the Lord's own day is here 
 
 Agnus Dei . . , . 
 
 Alleluia ! . 
 
 Alleluia, Alleluia ! hearts to heaven and voices 
 
 Alleluia, song of sweetness 
 
 All glory, laud, and honour 
 
 All hail, Redeemer of mankind 
 
 All hail, adored Trinity . 
 
 All people that on earth do dwell 
 
 All the way my Saviour leads me 
 
 All this night bright angels sing 
 
 And now, beloved Lord, Thy soul resign 
 
 Angels from the realms of glory 
 
 Angels, roll the rock away 
 
 A f lima Christ i .... 
 
 Anthem . . • . . 
 
 Antiphon ..... 
 
 Art thou weary, art thou languid? 
 
 As for Thy gifts we render praise 
 
 As on the night 
 
 As one, love to Jesns bearing . 
 
 As pants the hait . . , 
 
 As the beacon fire by night 
 
 As the sun doth daily rise 
 
 At the Cross her station keeping 
 
 At the Lamb's high feas*t we sing 
 
 Awake, my soul, and with the sun 
 
 Awaked from sleep we fall . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 91 
 
 179 
 
 49, 181 
 
 98 
 
 170 
 
 73 
 20, 21 
 
 .8^ 
 
 73 
 50 
 
 158 
 76 
 82 
 
 179 
 
 93 
 
 185 
 
 16s 
 
 155 
 
 72, 73 
 
 22 
 
 22 
 
 35 
 
 143 
 
 93 
 
 13 
 
 86 
 
 81 
 
 79 
 o, 166 
 
 41 
 150 
 28 
 
INDEX OF HYMNS. 
 
 193 
 
 Before tlie ending of tlie day . 
 Behold a silly, tender Babe 
 Behold an Israelite indeed 
 
 Behold the sun 
 
 Benedicttis 
 
 Be the Cross our theme and story . 
 
 Be Thou my Guardian and my Guide 
 
 Blessed city, heavenly Salem 
 
 Blessed feasts of blessed martyrs 
 
 Blest are the pure in heart 
 
 Blest Creator of the light . 
 
 Bound upon the accursed tree . 
 
 Bread of the world, in mercy broken 
 
 Brief life is here our portion 
 
 Brightest and best of the sons of the mor 
 
 Bright the vision that delighted 
 
 Calm on the listening ear of night . 
 Carol, carol, Christians 
 Christ from the dead is raised again 
 Christ is born, tell forth His fame . 
 Christ is made the sure foundation . 
 Christ is risen from the dead . 
 Christ the Lord is risen to-day 
 Christ the Lord is risen . 
 Christ the Lord is risen again . 
 Christ to the young man said . 
 Christ, Whose glory fills the skies . 
 Christ will gather in His own . 
 Christian, dost thou see them? 
 Christian, seek not yet repose . 
 Christians, awake .... 
 Christians, sing out with exultation . 
 Come, Holy Ghost, Creator Blest . 
 Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire 
 Come, Holy Ghost, Who ever one . 
 Come, let us join our cheerful songs 
 Come, pure hearts, in sweetest measures 
 Come, see the place where Jesus lay 
 Come sing, ye choirs exultant . 
 Come, Thou Holy Spirit, come 
 Come, ye faithful, raise the strain 
 Commit thou all thy griefs 
 
 Daily, daily, sing to Jesus , , 
 
 ning 
 
 188 
 
194 
 
 INDEX OF HYMNS. 
 
 Day of death, in silence speeding 
 Day of wrath, O day of mourning 
 Days and moments, quickly flying 
 Dear Soul, couldst thou become a child 
 Dies Irce ..... 
 Disposer Supreme 
 Draw nigh and take . 
 Draw nigh to Thy Jerusalem 
 
 Earth hath many a noble city 
 
 Fain would I, Lord of Grace 
 Far from my heavenly home 
 Father most high, be with us . 
 Father of unchanging might 
 Fear not, O little flock . 
 Fierce was the wild billow 
 Fling out the banner 
 For ever with the Lord 
 For the fount of life eternal 
 For thee, O dear, dear country 
 From Greenland's icy mountains 
 From highest heaven 
 
 Glad sight ! the Holy Church . 
 
 Gloria in Excelsis 
 
 Gloria Patri .... 
 
 Glory be to Jesus 
 
 Glory to the glorious One 
 
 Glory to Thee, my God, this night 
 
 Go to dark Gethsemane . 
 
 God moves in a mysterious way 
 
 God rest you, merry gentlemen 
 
 God, Who madest earth and heaven 
 
 God, Who madest earth and heaven 
 
 Holy Ghost 
 God's praise I will be singing 
 Good Christian men, rejoice 
 Good it is to keep the fast 
 Good King Wenceslas 
 Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost 
 Gradual .... 
 Great God of all 
 Great God, what do I see and hear 
 Guide me, O Thou great Redeemer 
 
 Father 
 
 Son, 
 
 and 
 
 59 
 69 
 
 184 
 
 III 
 
 68 
 
 181 
 
 75 
 149 
 
 43 
 
 28 
 87 
 43 
 
 76 
 
 132 
 
 29 
 
 172 
 164 
 
 59 
 
 62 
 
 168 
 
 94 
 
 27 
 3, B8 
 
 19 
 ), 184 
 
 27 
 150 
 163 
 161 
 
 92 
 167 
 
 106 
 
 134 
 94 
 45 
 94 
 
 183 
 23 
 
 126 
 
 99 
 140 
 
INDEX OF HYMNS. 
 
 195 
 
 Hail, festal clay 
 
 Hail, gladdening light 
 
 Hail the day that sees Him rise 
 
 Hail to the Lord's anointed 
 
 Hark, a thrilling voice 
 
 Hark, my soul, it is t.lie Lord . 
 
 Hark, the glad sound ! 
 
 Hark, the herald angels 
 
 Hark, hark, my soul 
 
 Have mercy, Lord, on mc 
 
 Hear me, O God 
 
 He who for Christ 
 
 High let us swell 
 
 Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord . 
 
 Holy, holy, holy. Lord God Almighty 
 
 Holy Trinity, before Thee 
 
 Ho, my comrades 
 
 Hosanna to the living Lord 
 
 How blessed from the bonds of sin 
 
 How bright those glorious 
 
 How sweet the Name 
 
 Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber 
 
 I BIND unto myself to-day 
 
 I have had my days of blessing 
 
 I love my God . 
 
 I saw three ships 
 
 I sing the biilh 
 
 In days of old . 
 
 In royal robes . 
 
 In the hour of my distress 
 
 In the hour of trial . 
 
 In the Lord's atoning grief 
 
 In the waves 
 
 Introit .... 
 
 It came upon 
 
 It is not death to die 
 
 Jerusalem, my happy home 
 
 Jerusalem on high 
 
 Jerusalem the golden 
 
 Jesu, gentlest Saviour 
 
 Jesu, lover of my soul 
 
 Jesu, o'er Thy bleeding frame 
 
 Jesu, our hope, our heart's desire 
 
196 
 
 INDEX OF HYMNS. 
 
 Jesu, still lead on ... . 
 tesu, Sun of Righteousness 
 Jesu, the very thought is sweet 
 Jesu, the very thought of Thee 
 Jesu, the world's redeeming Lord 
 Jesu, Thou joy of lovhig hearts 
 Jesu, Thy mercies are untold . 
 Jesus Christ is risen to-day 
 Jesus lives ! no longer now 
 Jesus, Lord of life eternal 
 Jesus, my Redeemer, lives . 
 Jesus shall reign where'er the sun 
 Just as I am 
 
 Knocking, knocking, who is there? 
 Kyrie eleison ..... 
 
 Lauda Sion 
 
 Lead, kindly light .... 
 
 Leave God to order all thy ways 
 
 Let all the world in every corner sing 
 
 Let our choir new anthems raise 
 
 Let saints on earth in concert sing . 
 
 Let us, with a gladsome mind . 
 
 Life and strength of all Thy servants 
 
 Light's abode, celestial Salem . 
 
 Light's glittering morn bedecks the sky 
 
 Light in the darkness, sailor 
 
 Lo ! now is our accepted day . 
 
 Lo ! the angels' Food is given . 
 
 Lord, in this Thy mercy's day . 
 
 Lord, it belongs not to my care 
 
 Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord most dear 
 
 Lord of all being, throned afar 
 
 Lord of glory, Who hast bought us . 
 
 Lord of our life, and God of our salvation 
 
 Lord, pour Thy spirit from on high 
 
 Lord, speak to me, that I may speak 
 
 Lord, teach us how to pray aright . 
 
 Love Divine, all loves excelling 
 
 Magnificat 
 
 Maker of all, the Lord 
 iklaster, the tempest is raging . 
 Media vita ...... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 116 
 
 115 
 62 
 62, 184 
 
 65 
 62, 177 
 62 
 ^6, 160 
 112 
 36 
 106 
 86, 154 
 185 
 
 13, 16 
 
 39 
 
 179 
 
 52, 95 
 
Index of hymns. 
 
 19; 
 
 Mom of morns, and day of days 
 
 Much in sorrow, oft in woe 
 
 My faith looks up to Thee 
 
 My God, and is Thy Table spread 
 
 My God, my Father, while I stray 
 
 My God, now I from sleep awake 
 
 My Lord, my Master, at Tiiy Feet adoring 
 
 My spirit longs for Thee . 
 
 New every morning is the love 
 
 Now all the woods are sleeping 
 
 Now God be with us 
 
 Now hush your cries. 
 
 Now, my soul, the mystery telling 
 
 Now thank we all our God 
 
 Now that the daylight 
 
 O Blessed Redeemer 
 
 O Blessed Well of Love ! 
 
 O Brightness of the Eternal Father's face 
 
 O Cln-ist, our King, give ear . 
 
 O Christ, Who art the light and day 
 
 O come, all ye faithful 
 
 O come and mourn with me awhile 
 
 O come, O comie, Emmanuel . 
 
 O come, Redeemer of mankind 
 
 O day of rest and gladness 
 
 O Father, Thou Who hast created all 
 
 O Food that weary pilgrims love 
 
 O gladsome light 
 
 O God of all the Strength and Power 
 
 O God of Hosts, the mighty Lord 
 
 O God, our help in ages past . 
 
 O happy band of pilgrims 
 
 O heavenly Jerusalem 
 
 O Jesu, blessed Lord, to Thee . 
 
 O Jesu, Lord of Life and Grace 
 
 O let him, whose sorrow . 
 
 O little child, lie still and sleep 
 
 O Lord, in me there lieth nought 
 
 O Lord, turn not Thy Face from me 
 
 O Love Divine, how sweet thou art 
 
 O Love, how deep, how broad, how high 
 
 O Love, Who formedst me to wear 
 
 O merciful Creator, hear . 
 
 86, 
 
 173 
 144 
 
 25 
 65 
 42 
 
 184 
 65 
 40 
 
 183 
 117 
 
 71 
 25 
 42 
 86 
 86, 154 
 36 
 iSi 
 
INDEX OF HYMNS. 
 
 O Morning Star 
 
 O most merciful ! 
 
 O Paradise, O Paradise 
 
 O sacred Head, surrounded 
 
 O sons and daughters 
 
 O Strength and Stay 
 
 O Thou, Who dost to man accord 
 
 O Trinity, most blessed Light . 
 
 O what the joy . 
 
 O \^ord of God above 
 
 O worship the King . 
 
 O'er the gloomy hills of darkness 
 
 Of the Father's love begotten . 
 
 Only an armour-bearer 
 
 On this day, when days began . 
 
 Our blest Redeemer , 
 
 Out of the depths I cry to Thee 
 
 Over Kedron Jesus treadeth 
 
 Palms of glory, raiment bright 
 
 Pass me not, 6 gentle Saviour . 
 
 Peace, perfect peace . 
 
 Pleasant are Thy courts above , 
 
 Praise God, from Whom . 
 
 Praise, my soul, the King of heaven 
 
 Praise, O praise our God and King 
 
 Praise to the Holiest . 
 
 Proses ..... 
 
 Que Dieu se montre seulement 
 
 Rejoice, all ye believers . 
 Rejoice, the Lord is King. 
 Rejoice to-day with one accord . 
 Reproaches .... 
 
 Rescue the perishing . . . , 
 Resting from His work to-day . 
 Return, O wanderer, to thy home 
 Revive Thy work, O God 
 Ride on, ride on, in majesty 
 Rock of ages, cleft for me 
 
 Safe home, safe home in port . 
 Safe in the arms of Jesus . 
 Saviour, sprinkle many nations . 
 
 RAGE 
 
 103 
 168 
 184 
 62, 104 
 
 65 
 
 42 
 
 45 
 40 
 
 65 
 181 
 
 140 
 
 43 
 
 178 
 
 45 
 185 
 
 98 
 133 
 
 35 
 179 
 
 173 
 
INDEX OF HYMNS. 
 
 199 
 
 PAGK 
 
 Saviour, when in dust to Thee 169 
 
 Saviour, Who Thy flock art feeding 
 
 
 
 
 
 172 
 
 See the Conqueror mounts in triump 
 
 h 
 
 
 
 
 • i«3 
 
 See the destined day arise. 
 
 
 
 
 
 48, 166 
 
 Shall we gather at the river? . 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 178 
 
 Shepherd Divine, our wants relieve 
 
 
 
 
 
 157 
 
 Shepherd of tender youth . 
 
 
 
 
 
 24 
 
 Sing, my soul, the glorious battle 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 4« 
 
 Si qu'en paix .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 122 
 
 Sleepers, wake, a voice is calling 
 
 
 
 
 
 102 
 
 Soldiers of Christ, arise 
 
 
 
 
 
 157 
 
 Songs of praise the angels sang 
 
 
 
 
 
 164 
 
 Songs of thankfulness and praise 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 183 
 
 So rest, my rest 
 
 
 
 
 
 107 
 
 Sow in the morn thy seed 
 
 
 
 
 
 165 
 
 Stars of the morning . 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 36 
 
 Still, still with Thee . 
 
 
 
 
 
 172 
 
 Sun of my soul .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 181 
 
 Sweet flowrets .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 43 
 
 Sweet Saviour, bless us 
 
 
 
 
 
 . ' 184 
 
 Take the last kiss . 
 
 
 
 
 
 32 
 
 Take up thy cross 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 173 
 
 Te Deuvi . . . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 17—19 
 
 Tender Shepherd 
 
 
 
 
 
 117 
 
 Tersanctus 
 
 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 That day of wrath . 
 
 
 
 
 
 69 
 
 The angel and the shepherds . 
 
 
 
 
 
 91 
 
 The day expires 
 
 
 
 
 
 III 
 
 The day is past and gone . 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 180 
 
 The day is past and over . 
 
 
 
 
 
 29 
 
 The day of Resurrection . 
 
 
 
 
 
 33 
 
 The eternal gifts 
 
 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 The God of Abraham praise 
 
 
 
 
 
 159 
 
 The God Whom earth and sea and j 
 
 ,ky 
 
 
 
 
 49 
 
 The great foreranner .... 
 The Head that once . 
 
 
 
 
 
 78 
 
 
 
 
 
 166 
 
 The heavenly Word .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 71 
 
 The hymn for conquering martyrs 
 
 
 
 
 
 78 
 
 The King of Love .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 87 
 
 The Lamb's high banquet . 
 
 
 
 
 
 41 
 
 The people that in darkness sat 
 
 
 
 
 
 85 
 
 The royal banners .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 47 
 
 The shadows of the evening hours . 
 
 
 
 
 
 176 
 
 The shepherds went their hasty way. 
 
 
 
 
 
 93 
 
206 
 
 INDEX OF HYMNS. 
 
 The Son of God goes forth to war 
 
 The strain upraise 
 
 The strife is o'er 
 
 The sun is sinking fast 
 
 The voice that breathed o'er Eden 
 
 The world is very evil 
 
 Thee we adore . 
 
 There is a land . 
 
 Those eternal bowers 
 
 Thou art coming 
 
 Thou art gone to the grave 
 
 Thou art the Way . 
 
 Thou bounteous Giver 
 
 Thou'rt mine, yes, still 
 
 Thou Who didst stoop below . 
 
 Three in One 
 
 Through all the changing scenes of life 
 Through the day Thy love hast spared us 
 Through the night of doubt and sorrow 
 Thy life was given for me 
 To the Name of our salvation . 
 
 Unto the Paschal Victim bring 
 Up to Mount Calvarie 
 
 Veni Creatot ..... 
 
 Wake, wake, for night is flying 
 
 We may not climb the heavenly steeps 
 
 We plough the fields .... 
 
 We sing the praise . 
 
 Welcome, happy morning ! 
 
 What our Father does is well 
 
 What sweeter music shall we bring 
 
 When Christ was born 
 
 When I survey . 
 
 When morning gilds the skies . 
 
 When our heads are bowed with woe 
 
 When through the torn sail 
 
 Whence shall my tears begin? . 
 
 While shepherds watched . 
 
 Who are these like stars appearing? 
 
 Who the multitudes can number ? 
 
 Wilt Thou forgive? , 
 
 With hearts renewed . 
 
"INDEX OF HYMNS. 
 
 201 
 
 Word Supreme, before creation 
 Would'st thou inherit 
 
 Ye boundless realms of joy 
 Ye choirs of New Jerusalem 
 Ye Holy Angels bright 
 Ye servants of our glorious Kin 
 Ye servants of the Lord . 
 Yes, our Shepherd leads . 
 Yesterday, with exultation . 
 Yield not to temptation 
 
 Zion's daughter, weep no more 
 
 PAGB 
 
 64 
 
 106 
 
 86 
 
 55 
 148 
 
 40 
 155 
 115 
 
 64 
 176 
 
 73 
 
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 LONDON : 
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C. 
 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.G. 
 
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Princeton Th«oloaical Seminary Li^^^^^^^ 
 
 1012 01210 5781 
 
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