Hymns 
 
 ant) 
 
 Singfers 
 
 Of tbe 
 
 1^. iSi. c. B. 
 
 Rev. James H. Ross, 
 Cambridge^ Mass. 
 
 Published with the sanction of the International 
 Jubilee Convention Committee, 1901 
 
 Arakelyan Press. 
 
r 
 
 It was a happy thought which led Rev. 
 James H. Ross to publish Hymns and Singers 
 of the Y. M. C. A. Xot only is the theme a 
 fruitful one, but its author has apparently 
 canvassed with thoroughness a field not pre- 
 viously covered. The growth of the Y. M. 
 C. A., its use of hyinns, the stimulus they have 
 given to the growth of "the music that helps," 
 the hymns and singers of the Jubilee Conven- 
 tion, hymns of the soldiers, association hym- 
 nists, singers and composers, including, the la- 
 mented hymn-loving secretary, R. R. McBur- 
 ney, are among the topics treated. The whole 
 makes a booklet of nearly eighty pages with 
 illustrations. The frontispiece is a picture of 
 P^ben Tourjee, who originated the praise serv- 
 ice in ISjI. 
 
Digitized by tlie Internet Arcliive 
 in 2013 
 
 http://arcliive.org/details/hngersofyoOOross 
 
i_ 
 
 Q)a-c^ 
 
 
 Originator of Praise Service 185 1. 
 President of Boston Association 1871-2. 
 
HYMNS AND SINGERS 
 
 . , APR 26 1937 ^ 
 
 OF THE V*^ c<> 
 
 U937 
 
 Logical 8t^ 
 
 Young Men's Christian Association 
 
 THE JUBILEE, l8vl-1S01 
 
 By v^ 
 
 REV. JAMES H. ROSS, 
 
 Cambridge, 
 
 Mass. 
 
 Prepared with the sanxtion of 
 
 The International Jubilee Convention Committee 
 
 1901 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 Xlbe pilgrim press 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
Copyrighted iqoi, by Rev. James H. Ross. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
DEDICATED TO 
 
 AND 
 
 of Mlustt 
 
Table of Contents 
 
 I. Hymnal History of the Boston Y. M. C. A. 
 
 II. The Convention Hymns and Singers . 
 
 III. Occasional Hymns 
 
 IV. The Hymns of the Soldiers 
 V. A Hymn Loving Secretary. R. R. McBurney 
 
 VI. Association Hymnists. Sincjers and Composers 
 
 VII. The Future of Hymns and Singers . 
 
 13 
 
 25 
 38 
 46 
 61 
 64 
 76 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Justin McCarthy, in his "History of our own Times," says that a 
 great many remarkable events occurred in the year 1851. It was the 
 year in which the Y. M. C. A. oiriginated in Montreal and in Boston, 
 and thereby in North America, inclusive of Canada and the United 
 States. That year was the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth 
 century. It was fitting that new men and institutions, new movements 
 and methods, should be born. There was a poetic providence in such 
 origins. The year was a transition year from the first to the second 
 half of the nineteenth century. Intrinsically and relatively its impor- 
 tance in chronology and history is obvious. This is true with reference 
 to modern sacred poetry and to hymnology and to hymn-tunes, and to 
 popular, evangelistic music. A long look backward, as far backward as 
 the time of the Pilgrims and Puritans, enables us to discern that music 
 held a secondary place in Protestant church services, which in those 
 days were churches of ''the standing order," Congregational churches. 
 Professor Louis C. Elson,* of the New England Conservatory of Music, 
 Boston, says that ''a church choir would have been held in abomina- 
 tion by the early Pilgrims." The familiar facts are that the Puritans 
 were opposed to the use of the organ in church services, that they had 
 inherited the Calvinistic distaste, in Continental Europe and Great 
 Br''i-)in, for church music, that the hymnal which the Pilgrims brought 
 to these shores was 'The Booke of Psalms: EngHshed both in Prose and 
 Metre," printed at Amsterdam, by the Rev. Henry Ainsworth, in 1612. 
 The Psalms were translations from the Hebrew. The book contained 
 musical notes. Two psalms had been customary in Holland, in the 
 order of church service. Five only of the tunes in Ainsworth's book 
 were commonly sung, two of which were "Old Hundred(th)" and "Wind- 
 sor." In Boston, only one psalm was sung in the earliest days and serv- 
 ices. Progress in hymnology and in sacred music was very slow, and 
 uniformly in the face of opposition. The clergy were reformers and 
 were obliged to encounter the criticisms commonly bestowed upon 
 leaders and innovators. Singing by note and the formation of choirs 
 
 *'The National Music of America," L. C. Page & Co.. Boston. 1900. 
 
10 PREFACE 
 
 were reforms and signs and stages of progress. It was aljout one hun- 
 dred years l)efore the origin of the Y. AI. C. A. when the first church 
 choirs were organized. Books of sacred music followed. The first 
 American edition of Watts' Psalms was published in Boston, 1741, ex- 
 actly no years before the Alontreal and Boston Y. ^I. C. A.'s were 
 organized. The first pipe organ in a New England church was 
 set up about 171 3, in King's Chapel, corner of School and Tremont 
 Streets, Boston, and is said to be in possession of St. John's Churcli, 
 Portsmouth, N. H., in good condition. In 1770, a Congregational 
 church in Providence, R. I., for the first time in American history, al- 
 lowed an organ to be used in its service. William Billings (1746-1800) 
 was the first American composer, the first to introduce the violoncello in 
 New England churches, and the pitch-pipe "to set the tune." Oliver 
 Holden (1765- 1792) the author of the tune "Coronation," was among 
 the first to use music type in Boston. The piano in Boston was a great 
 rarity in the year 1800. Lowell Alason (i 792-1872) was the father of the 
 modern musical convention. The Stoughton Musical Society, the first 
 to be organ "zed in New England, was established Nov. 17, 1786. The 
 first concert of the Handel and Haydn Society, of Boston, was given in 
 1815; and in 1818 the same society gave the first complete performance 
 of an oratorio in America. Gottlieb Graupner, the father of the orches- 
 tra in this country, came to Boston in 1798. 
 
 Hymn-writing in the United States began w^ith the nineteenth century. 
 Previous to that period only metrical versions of the Psalms were in use, 
 of which the first collection was the Bay Psalm Book, or New England 
 version, published in 1640. At the end of the eighteenth century, many 
 editions of Isaac Watts' Psalms and Hymns were in use. Nothing 
 native ^vas available. Gradually the Psalms were replaced by hynms. 
 Thus far, scarcely more than one-tenth of the hymns selected by com- 
 pilers and leaders of w^orship are American. Neither English nor 
 American hymns were used until President Timothy Dwight. D.D., 
 (1752-1817) led the way. American Methodists have borrowed whole- 
 sale the hymns of the Wesleys, but American Methodism itself dates 
 from the Conference in Baltimore in 1784. 
 
 This brief review of the history of music and of hymnology in 
 America is the historic background for the realization of the fact that 
 ''the praise-meeting," as people know it who were born when the Y. M. 
 C. A. w^as born, or since that time, is essentially modern, recent, young. 
 It might be supposed that it was of ancient origin, or that it existed in 
 the days of the Pilgrims and Puritans, or in the first half of the nine- 
 teenth centurv. But the facts are that it was an inventi'jn, not a discov- 
 
PREFACE 11 
 
 ery, that its originator was Eben Tourjee (1834-1891), best known as tlie 
 founder of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, 1867. In 
 1 85 1, when he was a youth of seventeen, and Hving in Warren, R. I., he 
 conceived and executed the plan of the praise-meeting, technically so 
 called. He held meetings for praise. He soon united the congregation, 
 the choir and the Sabbath-schools in what he called ''sings." With the 
 approval of Lowell Mason and George Webb, two musical pioneers and 
 leaders, he gave them the name of praise-meetings. His aim was to blend 
 responsive Scripture readings on a given theme with responsive singing 
 by the congregation, and to preserve a logical order in the musical and 
 devotional program. A variety of such services has been held since, 
 inclusive of the widely prevailing song-service of the Y. M. C. A. 
 
 Mr. Toujee was president of the Y. M. C. A. in Boston, in 1871-2. 
 
 The history of psalmody, of hymnology, of church music, is perpetu- 
 ated and illustrated in part in the history of the Y. ]\1. C. A. It is un- 
 known and unwritten. Now is the time for learning it and writing it, 
 for this is the Jubilee Year of the Y. M. C. A., its fiftieth anniversary. 
 There is enough of it to deserve attention. It is a phase of the history 
 which the writer alone, so far as he is aware, has had in mind. Those 
 most familiar with Y. M. C. A. history have said that the facts are few 
 and insignificant. Let the facts speak for themselves. They are not few 
 for the period covered, they are not unimportant, they belong to a distinct 
 era in the history of Christian union and of Protestant American evan- 
 gelism. Nevertheless, it is not easy to state the history in chronological 
 order, nor in philosophical form, because this is the first half-century of 
 Association history, when the materials of history have been made but 
 not completely collected, although there is a line Y. M. C. A. historical 
 library in SpringfieFd, Mass. Such a beginning is here made as has been 
 possible in a brief time for preparation and production. It is a very 
 modest one, but it is a beginning and a suggestion for the future workers 
 and historians of the Y. M. C. A. The motto of the Boston Association 
 is 'Teneo et teneor." I hold to the singers and the songs, the standard 
 English and American hymnists, and the simpler but possibly more influ- 
 ential Gospel Songs that have encircled the Association services for fifty 
 years and have made the tour of the globe, in many lands and languages. 
 The writer has been held spellbound by them, as he has ranged over 
 the literature of the "subject, hymnal, biographical, reportorial, conven- 
 tional and ecclesiastical. The Y. M. C. A. has sung ''the hymns that 
 have helped," and no other hymns. The fact that they have helped is a 
 sufBcient excuse for the singing; it is a vindication of their authors 
 against all critics and hypercritics, who prefer art to nature, and things 
 
12 PREFACE 
 
 to human nature. The blowing- of this Jubilee trumpet is a doxology 
 an ascription and shout of praise to God, vocal and instrumental, per 
 sonal and historical. It is nothing more; it is nothing less. 
 
 JAMES H. ROSS. 
 1/ Lancaster St., No. Cambridge, Mass., June i, 1901. 
 
HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 HYMXAL HISTORY OF THE BOSTON Y. M. C. A. 
 
 The history begins December 15th, 185 1, when the first meeting was 
 held for the organization of the Boston Association, in the Central Con- 
 gregational Church on Winter Street. It expanded with the history of the 
 Boston Association, with the Association movement, with the Interna- 
 tional Conventions, with the Gospel Songs and singers. It will cease 
 to expand when the last Y. M. C. A. closes its doors and work with a 
 dirge. 
 
 The meeting of December 15th was in the organ-loft of the Central 
 Congregational Church, because the key to the vestry was inaccessible. 
 The place was appropriate and providential. It may be construed as typi- 
 cal of the hymnal and musical history of the Association, for many melo- 
 dies were to be occasioned in the progress of the history; numerous 
 hymns were to be written, and innumerable singers were to be utilized. 
 The service of song was to become historic and to encircle the globe 
 practically on every day or evening of the week. 
 
 We are reminded by these facts of the hymn written in 1849 by James 
 ^lontgomery (1771-1854), who' was asked by the Church Alissionary So- 
 ciety of the Church of England, on the occasion of its Jubilee, to write a 
 missionary hymn which was to be translated into all :he languages in 
 which the gospel had been preached and was to be sung, and was sung, 
 by its members or representatives at the same time in all the lands under 
 heaven. The hymn was 
 
 "'Jlie King of glory we proclaim." 
 
 The original meetings for the organization of the Boston Association, 
 three of which were held in the month of December, 185 1, were neces- 
 sarily business meetings to consider whether there should be an Associa- 
 tion, and what its constitution and by-laws should be, and who should 
 constitute its first board of officers ; but the Association was ushered into 
 being in an atmosphere of praise and prayer. It was a novel experience, 
 
14 HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE V. }L C. A. 
 
 ill some respects, to hear the classic Christian hymns, including the dox- 
 ology, sung- by male voices, and this fact was referred to by some of those 
 present when the beginnings of Association life were made. 
 
 The first rooms of the Boston Association were in the fourth story of 
 the building on the south-east corner of Washington and Summer Streets. 
 They were dedicated March nth, 1852, and the hymnal program con- 
 sisted, first, of an original hymn by O. W. Withington, Esq., sung to the 
 tune of ''Greenville." It consisted of four eight-line stanzas. The first 
 stanza expressed the spirit of welcome in the pleasant union; the second 
 characterized the place as a suitable one for the youthful soul, 
 
 "no longer 
 Blest by Home's endearing ties." 
 
 This was expressive of the chief idea of the originators, which was that 
 the Association should be a home for young men who had left the country 
 to risk and acquire fame and fortune in the city. A large majority of 
 those who were present at the original meetings were found to have been 
 born in the country; this fact being brought out by first asking those 
 who liad been born there to rise, and then those who had been born in the 
 city. i 
 
 The third stanza invoked a blessing on the Association, "its object and 
 its end," and this blessing surely has been realized. The last stanza was 
 expressive of praise to God — 
 
 "The One, whose Blessing ever 
 
 iMakes the feeble purpose strong." 
 
 An original hymn by Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney, (1791-1865), to the 
 tune of "Alarlow," was the great feature of the hymnal program. Mrs. Sig- 
 ourney was then the first female poet of America, and ranked with Mrs. 
 Felicia D. Hemans of England. She took a great interest in the organi- 
 zation of the Association, and contributed her works, in prose and verse, 
 to the Association library. Her home was in Hartford, Conn. She was 
 then widely know^n as the author of four hymns whose first lines were: 
 'AVhen adverse winds and waves arise," ''Blest Comforter divine," "On- 
 ward, onward, men of heaven," "Laborers of Christ, arise." Some of 
 these are still in common use. Her hymn for the dedication of the rooms 
 of the Association was as follows: 
 
 God of our children, hear our prayer. 
 
 When from their homes they part, 
 Those idols of our fondest care, 
 
 Those jewels of the heart. 
 
HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE V. M. C. A. 15 
 
 We miss their smile in hall and bower. 
 
 We miss their voice of cheer. 
 We speak their names at midnight hour, 
 
 When none but Thou dost hear. 
 
 God of their spirits : be their stay, 
 
 When from the parents' side 
 Their boat is launched, to find its way 
 
 O'er life's tempestuous tide. 
 
 Tho' toss'd 'mid breakers wild and strong. 
 
 Its veering helm should stray 
 Where sirens wake the mermaid song — 
 
 Guide thou their course, alway. 
 
 O God of goodness : — bless the band. 
 
 Who, moved by Christian love. 
 Take the young stranger's friendless hand. 
 
 And lead his thoughts above. 
 
 May their own souls the sunbeam feel 
 
 They thus have freely given. 
 And be the plaudit of their zeal 
 
 The sweet "Well done" of Heaven. 
 
 Two familiar hymns were sung, one, 
 
 "Blest be the tie that binds," 
 
 to the tune of "St. Thomas." The hymn was written by the Rev. John Faw- 
 cett, (1739-1817), of Wainsgate, Eng., who had been caUed to a pastorate 
 in London and had accepted; his goods were packed and loaded for re- 
 moval, but the people were so importunate in their desire to have him 
 remain, that he yielded to their entreaties, and said to his wife that ties 
 so strong ought not to be broken, and then he wrote the hymn. One 
 form of it is: 
 
 "Blest is the tie that binds." 
 
 It has always been a hymn of fellowship, not so much betvveen pastor and 
 people, according to its origin, as between Christians of different com- 
 munions. Hence the propriety of using it when a new Christian Associa- 
 tion was forming. It became, as we shall see, a convention hymn of the 
 Y. M. C. A., and the reasons are apparent from these facts. 
 
 The concluding hymn was Bishop Ken's doxology. Charles Demond, 
 a charter member of the Association, and a leader in its origin, who was 
 its president in 1857-8, wrote an account of the dedication meeting for 
 
16 HVMXS AND SINGERS OF THE V. M. C. A. 
 
 "The Congregationalist," in which he said that as the doxology and Old 
 Hundred "rose from the mass of yoimg men, it was as though God was 
 present by his divine Spirit sanctifying and consecrating the rooms.'' 
 
 The hymnists whose hymns were used at the time of the dedication 
 were Baptist and Episcopahan or Church of England. They were local, 
 national and international in reputation. The fellowship thus expressed 
 in the selection of hymns and hymn-writers was aniother typical fact, for 
 Christian imion was the watchword of the hour, and the expression of 
 it under the conditions then prevailing was a comparatively new^ and 
 uncommon experience. It was itself a revival. The previous ten years 
 in the history of American Christianity had been divisive; the whole at- 
 mosphere of Boston and New England, ecclesiastically considered, had 
 been controversial. 
 
 The audience which sang those hymns numbered between seven and 
 eight hundred people, and most of them were young men. The clergy of 
 the denominations which supported the Association w^ere well repre- 
 sented; those denominations were Baptist, Episcopal, Congregational 
 and Methodist, and w^ere commonly called evangelical. Among the 
 prominent clergy were the venerable Lyman Beecher, then pastor of 
 Park Street Church, and Bishop Eastburn, then Bishop of J\Iassa- 
 chusetts. Bishop Eastburn w-as a poet, and, in the subsequent history of 
 the Association, wrote a number of hymns and poems which w^ere sold 
 at the Christmas fair in 1858 and at other bazaars and festivals which were 
 held during the fifties. One of these was a Sabbath evening hymn. The 
 manuscripts were offered for sale. 
 
 Mrs. Sigourney wrote another hymn for the Association on its eighth 
 anniversary, May 23rd, 1859, in Tremont Temple. It was as follows: 
 
 Eight years ! eight years ! with grateful hearts 
 
 Our birthday, Lord, we keep, 
 And join to praise the quickening Hand 
 
 1"liat liroke our infant sleep, — 
 
 And onward in a blessed path, 
 
 Where love and duty meet 
 And hope, like song-birds, cheers the way 
 
 Allured our early feet. 
 
 So bid our adolescence. Lord, 
 Still in thy strength rejoice. 
 
 And bring to full maturity 
 The purpose of our choice. 
 
HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 17 
 
 And if a patriarchal date 
 
 We through thy grace attain, 
 May every added year enhance 
 
 Our wisdom, and its gain ! 
 
 Nor ever let this hallowed zeal 
 
 To save our race decline. 
 But gather fresh supplies from Thee, 
 
 For all the good is thine. 
 
 Another hymn for the same occasion was written by Rev. Elijah Kel- 
 logg, the well known writer for boys, who has died w^ithin the past year. 
 It was sung to the tune of "Balerma," which was composed by Robert 
 Simpson (1790-1832) of Scotland, and arranged by Lowell Mason. 
 
 At the opening of the National Theatre for the third time under the 
 direction of the Association, the Rev. D. C. Eddy, of the Harvard Street 
 Baptist Church, in a distinct voice read the hymn commencing 
 
 "All hail the power of Jesus' name, 
 Let angels prostrate fall," 
 
 which the great congregation joined in singing. The contemporary 
 newspaper account of the incident said that the fact of so many voices 
 joining in unison was thrilHng. At the conclusion of the singing, the 
 Rev. Phineas Stowe of the Seaman's Bethel offered a fervent prayer in 
 which he alluded to the place and its associations and uses. Another 
 hymn that was printed on slips of paper and distributed among the audi- 
 ence, was the familiar one, "Return, O wanderer, return," by Rev. W. 
 B. Collyer (1782-1853), of England, and was sung to the favorite tune of 
 "Uxbridge." 
 
 There are cumulative evidences that the officials of the Association 
 were men of taste and sentiment, in artistic, literary, poetic and hymnal 
 matters. They were on the alert for original hymns, for the uses of 
 hymns in promoting the power of services, and generating spiritual life 
 in Christians and non-Christians. It was felicitous in this respect that a 
 man like L. P. Rowland should be selected as the Association's first gen- 
 eral secretary, who served from 1859 to 1873. He was a hymn-lover, and 
 the fact appears more or less constantly in his work, as it did afterward in 
 the career of the great secretary of the New York Association, Robert R. 
 McBurney. 
 
 The Association became accustomed to print sheets of familiar hvmns 
 to be used in many of its services, especially those in the ojien air. 
 
 Durirg the war, as soon as the Christian Commission had been or- 
 ganized, the Association, in common with several of the leading Associa- 
 
18 
 
 HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE V. M. C. A 
 
 tions in the great cities, such as Xew York and Chicago, issued a Sol- 
 diers' Hymn-Book, of which 250,000 copies were circulated. 
 
 Charles Demond, the most active member of the Boston Association 
 in forwarding the work of the Christian Commission in 186 1-5, sat on the 
 Exchange in Boston with E. S. Tobey, after the battles of Gettysl)urg, the 
 Wilderness, and after the taking of Richmond, to receive the voluntary 
 offerings of the people for the relief of the wounded. No one was asked 
 to give; no attempt was made to awaken enthusiasm except l)y giving 
 notice in each day's papers of the sums given. It was a movement of the 
 pce-ple. At times there was a crowd around the tables, and many were 
 waiting their turn to give. When they were receiving money after the 
 battle of Gettysburg, one day there was written upon the great black- 
 board upon which were put the telegraph dispatches, "\'icksburg has sur- 
 rendered. U. S. Grant." Instantly shouts went up from the assembled 
 merchants. They all uncovered and joined in singing "Praise God, from 
 whom all blessings flow." Some one said, "Let us show our gratitude by 
 our gifts," and the crowd came to the table, and for some time they could 
 not take the money as fast as it was offered. Contributions soon began to 
 come in by mail on each of the occasions mentioned, and continued after 
 the receivers had left the Exchange until the funds received w^ere $100,- 
 000, $60,000 and $50,000. 
 
 Secretary Rowland, in 1867, published a "Y. M. C. A. Hymn-Book" 
 under the imprint of the American Tract Society. He pleaded for short 
 
 h\ mns. The British custom is to sing ever}- 
 verse of a hymn, however long. The Amer- 
 ican custom is to omit stanzas. Secretary 
 Rowland thought that, generally, two 
 stanzas at a time are sufficient and that 
 often one is enough, especially if the singing- 
 is spontaneous, the tune familiar, not re- 
 ({uiring the loss of a moment in turning the 
 leaves of the book. He also thought that 
 the hymn should not be read through, ex- 
 cept occasionally, for a sjjecial purpose, 
 when one would emphasize its meaning. 
 1'he hymns were analogous to those that 
 gave life to the extem])orized prayer-meet- 
 ings of 1857, the influence of which still 
 lived in the spontaneous song- worship of 
 the Cnited States. 0])inions differ on the uses of hymns. Secretary Row- 
 Ian:! wanted animation, life, as well as harmony and 1)eaut\-, in consonance 
 
 L. F. ROWLAND, 
 First Association Compilei 
 
HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE V. M. C. A. 19 
 
 with the whole spirit of tlie Y. M. C. A. He itahcized his hymnal motto 
 and punctuated it with exclamation points. It was: — 
 
 ''Do something! do it noiv! with all thy might! 
 An angel's wing would droop if long at rest, 
 And God himself inactive were no longer blest !" 
 
 The words and tunes Avere printed separately ; some of the composers 
 were William B. Bradbury, George F. Root and Lowell Mason. The 
 hymn-book contained martial hymns, patriotic and temperance hymns. 
 The fruits of the war were in evidence in the patriotic hymns. The 
 book was a creditable piece of compilation for the object aimed at. 
 
 At one of the services of the Association in May, 1867, a Christian 
 young man related his experience of success in a case of personal effort 
 which he had made, and he called upon all to be active in the 
 service cf Christ, in the daily walks of business. At the close of the 
 meeting, a lady gave a paper to him with the following lines in it, say- 
 ing, "How applicable to what you said!" We give it here, as an appeal 
 to every member to act for Christ: 
 
 LOST SHEEP 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF "yOUR MISSION " 
 
 How many sheep are straying. 
 
 Lost from the Saviour's fold ! 
 Upon the lonely mountains. 
 
 They shiver with the cold ; 
 Within the tangled thickets, 
 
 Where poison vines do creep, 
 And over rocky ledges, 
 
 Wander the poor lost sheep. 
 
 O who will go to find them ? 
 
 Who, for the Saviour's sake, 
 Will search with tireless patience 
 
 Through brier and through brake? 
 Unheeding thirst or hunger, 
 
 Who still, from day to day, 
 Will seek as for a treasure. 
 
 The sheep that go astray? 
 
 Say, will yoii seek to find them? 
 
 From pleasant bowers of ease. 
 Will you go forth determined 
 
 To find the "least of these?" 
 For still the Saviour calls them. 
 
 And looks across the wold, 
 And still he holds wide open 
 
 The door into his fold. 
 
20 I/YMXS AXD SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 
 
 How sweet 'twould be at evening, 
 
 If you and I could say, 
 Good Shepherd, we 've been seeking 
 
 The sheep that went astray. 
 Heart-sore and faint w'ith hunger, 
 
 We heard them making moan, 
 And, lo ! we come at nightfall 
 
 Bearing them safely home. 
 
 The author and the hymn referred to, "Your ^lissioii," disclose a gen- 
 eral fact in Association history. The hymn was written by ^Irs. Eliza- 
 beth Ellen (Huntington) Gates, of Elizabeth, N. J. She wrote it on her 
 slate one snowy afternoon in i860. She knew then, she says, as she 
 knew afterward, that the poem was only a simple little thing, but some- 
 how she had a presentiment that it had wings and would fiy into sorrow- 
 ful hearts, uplifting and strengthening them. The tune was written by 
 Philip Phillips, who was a Sankey before Sankey. He was what he 
 called one of his books, the "Singing Pilgrim." The hymn ap- 
 peared and reappeared in the meetings of churches and associations, as 
 a solo, and as a congregational hymn. Mrs. Gates is the author of the 
 following hymns, which Mr. Sankey has popularized m his "Sacred 
 Songs and Solos" and by his own singing of them: 
 
 "Come home, come home, 
 You are weary at heart." 
 
 "I am now a child of God," 
 
 "I will sing you a song of that beautiful land," 
 
 "O. the clanging bells of time," 
 
 "Say, is your lamp burning, my brother?" 
 
 In 1871-2, Dr. Tourjee (1834-1891) was president of tlie Association, 
 The Association rooms were then in Tremont Temple, and the year of his 
 presidency w-as the last year in wdiich the Association occupied that his- 
 toric building. Removal to the corner of Tremont and Eliot Streets oc- 
 curred in 1873. The receipts during his presidency were a little over $14,- 
 000, a large sum for those days. The Association was entering upon an 
 era cf expansion and increased prosperity, but Dr. Tourjee's activity in 
 behalf of Association work did not cease with his retirement from the 
 presidency. Early in the autumn of 1876, he organized a grand chorus 
 which led the singing during the Moody and Sankey services in the Bos- 
 ton Tabernacle on Tremont Street, which began Jan. 28th, 1877, and con- 
 tinued luitil April 2C)Xh. The evangelists returned for sub.^equent series 
 
H}'MXS AXD SIXGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 21 
 
 of meetings. The Tabernacle was erected largely through the efforts Oi 
 the Boston Association, under the leadership of Dr. Tourjee's successor 
 in the presidency, Russell Sturgis, Jr., who broke the one term record of 
 the presidency and held the office from 1872 to 1877. Dr. Tourjee's chorus 
 was composed of about 2,000 voices, separated into five or six sections. 
 He usually conducted the singing, sometimes holding a praise-meeting, 
 sometimes rendering the grand old choruses, always holding himself in 
 readiness for such music as the evangelists might call for. In the words 
 of Mr. Hezekiah Butterworth, the well-known author and editor: "Who 
 can ever forget the singing by that chorus, of the thrilling Gospel song, 
 To the work! To the work'?" 
 
 The Association in 1875-6 printed Toplady's hymn "Rock of Ages" as 
 it first appeared in the Gospel ^lessenger one hundred years before; the 
 reason for so doing was the centennial of the hymn. From these copies 
 it was printed in a number of anniversary programs. The Rev. John Ju- 
 lian, the first living authority on hymnology, says that "no other English 
 hymn can be named which has laid so broad and firm a grasp upon the 
 English-speaking world." The publication of it by the Boston Associa- 
 tion marked an era of progress in Christian union, for Toplady and John 
 ^^'esley were personal controversialists, using epithets freely. Toplady's 
 *'Rock of Ages" was directed against the Wesleyan doctrine of perfec- 
 tion. But it has become a unifying hymn, acceptable in the main to all 
 English-speaking Christians. 
 
 At the anniversary of the Boston Association, 3^Iay 22, 1878, 'Sir. San- 
 key was present and sang a hymn that had been written a few years pre- 
 viously and dedicated to him. Its first line was 
 
 "O what are you going to do, brother?" 
 
 After the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Association and the coming 
 to Boston of ]\Ioody and Sankey, the hymnal history graduated into the 
 use of the "Gospel Hymns," and whether this has been the title of the 
 book in use or not, it describes the character of the hvnms. 
 
DWIGHT L. MOODY. 
 •A good judge of a good hymn. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 COXX'EXTIOX HYMXS AXD SIXGERS 
 
 The first convention of leaders in specific work for young men that 
 ever assembled in an English speaking country, was the convention of 
 the Associations ot the United States and British Provinces which met 
 in Buffalo, Wednesday morning, June 7. 1854. At the evening session 
 the delegates sang the hymn which has since become the "convention 
 hymn." We have already referred to its origin, the hynm 
 
 "Blest be the tie that binds." 
 
 The early International Conventions are those whicli preceded the 
 Civil War of 1865. They were held in Cincinnati, 1855; ^Montreal, 1856; 
 Richmond, 1857: Charleston, 1858; Troy, 1859; X'ew Orleans, i860. One 
 hymn that soon obtained currency in those conventions obtained it as a 
 farewell'hymn. It was an old camp-meeting melody. It was not born; 
 it grew. It scarcely deserves to be called a hymn, yet it was popular 
 and useful, simply as an appeal to the emotions when conventions were 
 adjourning and brethren were separating, never to meet again on earth 
 under precisely the same conditions. In each stanza the first line was 
 repeated three times. The first stanza was a cjuestion, to which the 
 second was responsive and there was a variety of ways in which the 
 stanzas were alternated, one portion of the audience, possibly a soloist 
 or a choir, singing the first stanza, and the audience responding. In re- 
 duced form, omitting simiply the repetitions, the hvmn was as follows: 
 
 Say. brothers, will yon meet us. 
 On Canaan's happy shore? 
 
 By the grace of God we'll meet yon. 
 Where parting is no more. 
 
 Jesus lives and reigns forever 
 On Canaan's happy shore. 
 
 Glory, glory, hallelujah. 
 For ever, evermore. 
 
 The veterans of the early Associations and Conventions have vivid recol- 
 lections of the effect of the frequent singing of it, for it was not used ex- 
 
26 HVMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. J/. C. A. 
 
 chisively as a farewell hymn. It could be caught up, learned and sung 
 in an instant, and was very useful for those who were seeking life, vi- 
 vacity, speed, usefulness, uplift, in services. 
 
 Those early conventions covered the period known as the Confedera- 
 tion period (1854-1859). The Troy Convention met July 13th, 1859. It 
 was exciting, yet spiritual. At a critical moment, the President of the 
 Convention, George H. Stuart, of Philadelphia, said to H. Thane Miller: 
 ''Come, Mr. Miller, sing-, 'Say, brothers, will you meet us?' " They 
 sang it, and the convention dispersed in a good-natured and serene 
 frame of mind. 
 
 Mr. Miller was a phenomenal man in Association history and his sing- 
 ing was unique, and pathetic, and effective, the pathos and power of his 
 voice being enhanced by the sympathy of his auditors wath his blindness. 
 Some of his favorite hymns were: "Jesus, Saviour, Pilot me;" "Waiting 
 by the River;" "The Old, Old Story." 
 
 Mr. Cephas Brainerd, of New York, who for twenty-five years w^as the 
 chairman of the International Committee of the Young Men's Christian 
 Associations, says: "Those of you who have seen Thane — as those of us 
 who loved him best liked to call him — those of you who have heard him, 
 know the effect of Thane Miller's singing on a whole convention under 
 such circumstances." 
 
 The President of the Troy Association, Joseph De Golyer, in making 
 his report at the end of the year 1859, wrote as follows: 
 
 ''Who will forget the final adieu, as it came wafted back on the gentle 
 breeze from the departing steamer, mingled with the soul-inspiring song 
 of ^ 
 
 "Say, brothers, will you meet us?" 
 
 and the response as it went back from a hundred hearts and voices: 
 
 ''By the grace of God, we'll meet you." 
 
 There had been a pioneer and elder school of authors of popular 
 hymns and composers of popular tunes. Oliver Holden, Lowell Mason, 
 Thomas Hastings, L B. Woodbury, George J. Webb and Henry K. 
 Oliver were among its representatives. The immediate contemporaries 
 and successors of this school of hymnists and musicians were such men 
 as Robert LowTy, William B. Bradbury, William F. Sherwin, Hubert 
 P. Main, D. E. Jones, Phili]) Phillips, George F. Root, WilHam H. 
 Doane, S. Dryden Phelps, H. Thane Miller and others. They wrote, 
 and played, and composed, and sang for the Young Men's Christian As- 
 sociations, but not for them alone. Thev aided the Sundav-schools, the 
 
H. THANE MILLER, 
 The Blind Singer. 
 
HYMNS AND SIXGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 2y 
 
 conventions uf their respective denominations, the local churches, and 
 kindred assemblies. There were two singers who obtained prominence 
 in the conventions of the Young ]\Ien's Christian Association, Dr. 
 Doane and H. Thane ^Miller. Both represented the Cincinnati xA^sso- 
 ciation and both attended the International Conventions. Mr. Alil- 
 ler was president of more conventions than any other man in Asso- 
 ciation history. Dr. Doane united with the Central Baptist Church in 
 Norwich, Conn., in 1851; the same year in which the Association was 
 organized in Xorth America, His religious life, therefore, and the life 
 of the Association were exactly parallel as long as he lived. He had 
 been interested in music from boyhood, and when ten years of age sang 
 in the church choir. He was a versatile musician, a composer, an in- 
 strumentalist on varied instruments, a singer, etc. He began musical 
 composition when he was thirteen. In 1854, he assisted one of his mu- 
 sical instructors, B. F. Baker, in a musical convention. He composed 
 more than six hundred Sunday-school songs, about 150 church and 
 prayer-meeting hymns, and 250 other songs and ballads. 
 
 He was one of the composers whose tunes often floated into popularity 
 the hymns of Fanny Crosby. 
 
 His tune for "Rescue the Perishing," written by her, is a good ex- 
 ample. It was composed for the anniversary meeting of the Indianapolis 
 Association and was first published in his "Songs of Devotion,"' 1870. It 
 is said to have become the favorite hymn of slum workers and soldiers 
 cf the Salvation Army in all Christian lands. 
 
 In 1885. when there was a tremendous outburst of indignation in 
 England following the publication entitled "The Maiden Tribute," it 
 was the hynm that vras universally sung in public meetings in connection 
 with the agitation: an agitation which was due to a new consciousness 
 on the part of the public that young girls were victims of vice bv the 
 thousand. 
 
 Dr. Doane wrote the music to "Tell me the old, old story," under 
 the following circumstances: — The words were given to liim in 1867, ^^ 
 ^M-^ntreal, by Alajor-general Russell, then the commander of the 
 Queen's forces in Canada, during the Fenian excitement. General Rus- 
 sell had read the words from a sheet of foolscap paper at one of the ses- 
 sions of the International Y. AI. C. A. Convention, in that city. Dr. 
 Doane. who had been impressed by the words and the reading of them. 
 went from :\Iontreal to the White Alountains, and on the stage-coach, 
 on a hot summer afternoon between the Glen House and the Crawford 
 House, wrote the music. On the same evening, in the parlor 
 of the Crawford House, the sweet hymn, that proved to be so 
 
30 HYMNS AND SINGERS OP THE Y. M. C. A. 
 
 popular, was sung by a few who gathered around the piano for 
 a "sing." It was afterw-ard pubhshed in Cincinnati, in sheet form. Dr. 
 Doane did not know the name of the author of the words. The hymn 
 w^as w^ritten by Miss Katherine Hankey, an EngUsh lady, who in 1866 
 published "The Old, Old Story;" and in 1879, "The Old, Old Story and 
 other Verses;" and between those two dates, some enlargements and 
 revisions bearing the name of "Heart to Heart," 1870. The poem was 
 long, and was a Life of Jesus in meter. It had two parts, "The Story 
 Wanted," and "The Story Told." It has appeared in manifold forms, 
 and been translated into numerous languages. The answering hymn 
 was : 
 
 "I love to tell the story." 
 
 At the farewell meeting of the Montreal Convention, June, 1867, Ma- 
 jor-general Russell repeated the hymn wdiose first line is, 
 
 "Hark! 'tis the watchman's cry." 
 
 It was written by Horatius Bonar. It had been sung by the British sol- 
 diers at Aldershot, England. It is a hymn based on Christ's exhorta- 
 tions to prayer and watchfulness during his bodily absence from earth 
 and wdiile expecting his coming again. It expressed the premillennial 
 views of its author. The date of its composition is unknown, a fact that is 
 true of many of Dr. Bonar's hymns, because he made no record of "times 
 and seasons" in the composition of his hymns and wdien taxed to recall 
 the occasions and conditions of their composition was unable to do so. 
 This hymn is No. 493 in the "Annotations upon Popular Hymns" by 
 Charles Seymour Robinson, D.D., (New- York, Hunt & Eaton, 1893) 
 and No. 118 in "The Church Hymnary" (Henry Frowde, New^ York, 
 1898). 
 
 The conventions of the w^ar period were the convention of November 
 14th, 1 86 1, in the rooms of the New York Association, Bible House, 
 New York, where the Christian Commission was formed to provide for the 
 religious, moral and mental w^elfare of the soldiers; the Chicago Conven- 
 tion of 1863; the Boston Convention of 1864, and the Philadelphia Con- 
 vention of 1865. ^^^ Christian Commission transferred, as we shall 
 note, the major portion of the Association work to the camp and the 
 field. The other conventions of the period sang, in part, national, pa- 
 triotic hymns, and the hymn-book published by Secretary Rowland of 
 the Boston Association in 1865 contained such songs as "The Star- 
 Spangled Banner," "God Speed the Right," "The Dear Old Flag," "The 
 Stars and Stripes." "The Union Forever," and inevitably "America." 
 
HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 31 
 
 There was one couplet in "The Union Forever," which is of special 
 significance. It was as follows: 
 
 "We've prayers for the foemen, that yet they may see 
 Plow bright and enduring a Union may be." 
 
 The war not only divided the Union, but the Associations, and there 
 was bitter controversial correspondence between the Associations in 
 Richmond and in New York. Surviving soldiers and seamen of both 
 armies participated in the Jubilee Convention in 1901, rejoicing in a re- 
 united country and reunited Associations. 
 
 With the Albany Convention of 1866, the Associations started on a 
 new career. We have noted hymnal events in connection with the Mon- 
 treal Convention of 1867. The welcome hymn for the Detroit Conven- 
 tion in 1868 was written by D. Bethrme Duffield, Esq., of that city. It 
 was in the same meter as "America." It was a missionary hymn, rather 
 than a hymn relative to young men and to Christian work for them. Its 
 most significant stanza, in the light of history, was the fourth, as follows: 
 
 "Loud to the poor proclaim 
 That One prevailing name, 
 
 Jesus, our God. 
 And forth, o'er land and sea. 
 With his Word ever free. 
 Spread Christian liberty 
 
 Widely abroad." 
 
 Apparently, this sentiment was reminiscent of the war, although the 
 foreign missionary sentiment was characteristic of the six stanzas. 
 
 To that Detroit Convention, Judge Young, of Prince Edward's Is- 
 land, presented a large card, which had been given hinii by a lady of the 
 Island, for the uses of the convention. It bore the inscription: "Christ 
 for all the w^orld, and all the world for Christ." The card was suspended 
 in a conspicuous place, facing the audience. Its inscription was mis- 
 sionary in spirit. It procaimed the universal Christ, and the need of 
 universally offering and accepting him and his gospel. It was copied 
 and used in other conventions, large and sinall. It reappeared in ever- 
 green letters, in the State Convention of Ohio, at Cleveland, in 1869 and 
 was noticed by the Rev. Samuel Wolcott, D.D., (1813-1886), the super- 
 intendent then of the State Congregational Home Missionary Society. 
 It suggested a hymn, wdiich he is said to have composed on the wav 
 home and to have written out after his arrival at home. Its first couplet 
 is: 
 
 "Christ for the v.'orld we sing, 
 The world to Christ we bring." 
 
32 HYMXS AXD SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 
 
 The missionary sentiment of the inscription impressed Dr. W'olcott, 
 whcse whole hfe was associated with home and foreign missions. The 
 hymn has been adopted by numerous compilers. It was sung at the 
 funeral of its author in the various churches he had served. It has 
 been adopted by Yankton College, South Dakota, as the hymn with 
 which each term opens. The extemporization of the hymn may seem 
 strange, but it is a fact. It was in the previous year, 1868, when Dr. 
 Wolcott was 56 years old, that he wrote his first hymn, and thereafter 
 he composed more than 200 hymns, most of which have never been 
 published. Among the successful hymns that Dr. Wolcott wrote were 
 the following: 
 
 "Goodly were thy tents, O Israel." 
 
 "O gracious Redeemer! O Jesus our Lord!" 
 
 "Tell me whom my soul doth love." 
 
 To the Portland Convention of 1869, the Rev. Dr. \\ yhe of Phila- 
 delphia was introduced as the pastor of George H. Stuart, who had 
 L>ecn censured for singing hymns unauthorized by the Synod. The 
 records of the Portland Convention state that the delegates and audience 
 ''rose and sang to the good old tune of 'China,' " 
 
 "Alas! and did my Saviour bleed?" 
 
 A season of silent prayer followed. 
 
 The Portland Convention authorized the adoption of a hymnal which 
 Dr. W. H. Doane was known to be preparing as an Association hymnal. 
 It w^as published in 1870 under the title ''Songs of Devotion," It con- 
 tained hymns for men and Association hymns, but none of those which 
 were special seem to have come into common use. 
 
 It was at the Indianapolis Convention, 1870. that D wight L. Moody 
 first met Mr. Sankey. He led a morning prayer-meeting at 6 o'clock 
 There was some difficulty in starting the singing until a friend of Mr. 
 Sankey, who had come with him, urged him to begin one. He started, 
 
 ''There is a fountain filled with blood." 
 
 in which all the audience joined. At the close, Mr. Sankey w-as in- 
 troduced to Mr. Moody by his companion, and was recognized as the 
 leader of the singing. A few^ inquiries were made as to '\lv. Sankev's 
 family and as to his occupation. Then Mr. Moodv said, "\AV11, vou'll 
 
HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE V. M. C. A. 33 
 
 have to give it up! You are the man I have been looking for, and 1 
 want you to come to Chicago and help me in my work." Later in the 
 day, ^Ir. Sankey met an appointment to assist Mr. Moody in an open- 
 air service. Mr. Moody procured an empty box from a store and stand- 
 ing upon it, asked Mr. Sankey to sing 
 
 "Am I a soldier of the cross?" 
 
 After a service of fifteen or twenty minutes, Mr. Moody announced 
 another meeting at the Academy of Music. The crowd sang 
 
 "Shall we gather at the river?" 
 
 as they marched down the street. Some months later, ]\Ir. Sankey 
 visited Chicago for a week and decided to join Mr. Moody. 
 
 Mr. Aloody went to Great Britain in 1872. It was his thought to leave 
 Mr. Sankey in Chicago to carry on work in the mission church and in 
 the Young Men's Christian Association; but he decided that the British 
 call was a call to Mr. Sankey as well as to himself, for a few months at 
 least. 
 
 At Newcastle-on-Tyne the demand for a hymn-book was due to the 
 want of adaptation of the hymns and tunes in use in the British churches 
 and chapels for evangelistic services, and to a lack of familiarity on the 
 part of Messrs. Moody and Sankey with the books in use. For their 
 meetings, therefore, they adopted Philip Phillips' book, entitled "Hal- 
 lowed Songs," which contained American hymns and a modest number 
 of English tunes. Mr, Sankey used some hymns which he had been 
 singing in Chicago and which were not in the book by ]\Ir. Phillips. 
 These became popular and requests were made for their publication. 
 Mr. Sankey wrote to the publishers of "Hallowed Songs" ofifering to 
 supply a dozen more that he was singing, if they would print them 
 in the back part of their own book. This offer was twice refused, and 
 Mr. Moody determined to publish them on his own responsibility. 
 Messrs. Morgan and Scott were engaged to issue a pamphlet of sixteen 
 pages, the cost of which was guaranteed by Mr. ]\Ioody. The little col- 
 lection was known as "Sacred Songs and Solos." There v.as a great de- 
 mand for it at twelve cents per copy. For the time being it was used as 
 a solo book in connection with the "Hallowed Songs." New songs were 
 gradually added, and, after the lapse of several months, the words onlv 
 were published and sold for two cents per copy, when the use of "Hal- 
 lowed Songs" was discontinued. "Sacred Songs and Solos" was ad- 
 vertised in "The Christian," a British paper, on September 18, 1873, and 
 
34 HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. AL C. A. 
 
 the advertisement increased the demand. The pubHshers copyrighted 
 the book. When Mr. Moody went to London in tlie same year, he 
 placed the disposition of the royahies in tiie hands of a committee of 
 which Mr. Hngli M. Matheson was cliairman. in a short time the 
 royalties amonnted to $35,000. The conmiittee were offered this 
 amount, but refused to use it for public purposes, stating that they did 
 not propose that Mr. Moody should pay this large sum for the privilege 
 of preaching in London. It was donated to Mr. Moody's church in 
 Chrcago, which, owing to the panic of 1873-4, had been only partially re- 
 built, and the Chicago Avenue Church, which for nearly thirty years 
 has been phenomenal in activity and usefulness, was completed and 
 dedicated free of debt. 
 
 During the absence of Messrs. Moody and Sankey in Great Britain, 
 Mr. P. P. Bliss (1838- 1876) the musical associate in evangelistic work 
 of Major D. W. Whittle, brought out a small volume of hynnis and 
 tunes under the title of ''Gospel Songs" of which Mr. BUss was the chief 
 author. When Mr. Moody returned to this country in 1875, these 
 books were united and their titles combined so that it read, "Gospel 
 Hymns and Sacred Songs." The evangelistic meetings of Moody and 
 Sankey made an immense demand for it. Messrs. Bliss, Sankey, James 
 McGranahan and George C. Stebbins were constantly adding new 
 hymns and tunes as Mr. Moody's work went on, and special editions of 
 ''Gospel Hymns" — a shortened title — were numbered until six had been 
 issued. 
 
 The royalties were given into the hands of a committee of business 
 men, George H. Stuart of Philadelphia, John V. Farw^ell of Chicago, 
 and William E. Dodge of New York, who was chairman. They were 
 appropriated for religious, philanthropic and educational objects in dif- 
 ferent parts of the United States. Three halls at Northfield and Mount 
 Hermon were erected out of these funds, East Hall, Stone Hall and 
 Recitation Hall. The royalties at the present time are paid to the 
 trustees of Mr. Moody's schools at Northfield and Mount Hermon. 
 
 Mr. Bliss joined with Moody and Sankey in the self-sacrifice which 
 surrendered copyrights and refused to receive royalties. By September, 
 1885, the royalties amounted to $357,388. In speaking of the self-sacrifice, 
 Mr. Dodge has said, 'T never knew anything like it." Yet it was misrepre- 
 sented, and the evangelist and singers were slandered in Great Britain 
 and in this country. The lawyer to wdiom legal questions were referred 
 was so impressed with the self-sacrifice that he refused to take any fee, 
 when a large one might legitimately have been demanded. 
 
 Mr. George C. Ste1)l)ins in 1871 occasionally assisted i\Ir. Moody in 
 
HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 35 
 
 noon meetings in Chicago, and in 1876 came directly in touch with him. 
 He entered upon evangeHstic work at the request of Mr. Moody, and his 
 first undertaking was the organizing and drihing of a choir of eight hun- 
 dred singers for Mr. Moody's Tabernacle w-ork in Chicago. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. James McGranahan became associated in similar 
 work with Major Whittle, but also assisted Mr. Moody frequently in 
 conventions and in his schools. Mr. McGranahan says, "I soon learned 
 to prize his judgment as to the value and usefulness of a hymn for our 
 work." 
 
 "Gospel Songs" belong, confessedly, not to the realm of artistic, but 
 of popular music. They have been depreciated because simple and pop- 
 ular; the assumption being that they have but little value because they 
 do not enter into the permanent literature of hymnology. The Rev. 
 Wm. G. Horder, a British hymnologist of the first rank as historian, 
 compiler and critic, says that the great success of "Sacred Songs and 
 Solos" by Ira D. Sankey has arisen chiefly from the bright, lively tunes, 
 and the catching, easy choruses by which the "Sacred Songs" are accom- 
 panied, and that the new hymns included are exceedingly dull, that in 
 many cases the words seem to have been written for the music and are 
 destitute of all that goes to make up a worthy hymn; that the same music 
 might have given currency to hymns of a far higher and more helpful 
 type. But the music has been criticized quite as much as the poetry. Mr. 
 Sankey has said that he finds it much more diiihcult to get good w^ords than 
 good music. It is the law of natural selection — the survival of the fittest — 
 which admits any hymn, or set of hymns, into the permanent literature 
 of hymnology. When hymns are admitted into the collections of the 
 higher order as to literary quality, some of them become obsolescent or 
 obsolete. They are then excluded, so that the general process is a 
 double one, of failure to be admitted or rejection after transient or pro- 
 tracted use. In either case, a hymn may have great usefulness — and 
 usefulness is the supreme and final test rather than literary or artistic 
 quality. Some of the finest h}^mns from the literary standpoint exhaust 
 their usefulness in arousing the emotional nature and never occasion a 
 radical revolution in individual life; but the glory of these discredited 
 ''Gospel Hymns" is that they touch the human heart, and that they 
 have been providentially used for the conversion of men, according to the 
 strict etymology of the word, and the evangelistic view of conversion in 
 theology. 
 
 The Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D., whose literary merits will hardly be 
 
 discredited, in the introduction to his Plymouth Collection (1894) says: 
 
 "Musically the development of the churches has taken two directions. 
 
36 HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE V. M. C. A. 
 
 — one toward a broader, the other toward a higher, musical culture. 
 Through the leadership of such men as ]\lr. Sankey and 2^1r. Stebbins, 
 and through their musical compositions and those of some of their 
 contemporaries of the same musical school, music has become an ex- 
 pression of the spiritual life for thousands who before were without a 
 voice in public worship, and, as suppressed feeling easily dies, were often 
 withoiit'any share in public worship. I desire to put on record my pro- 
 found sense of the obligation of the Christian Church to those whose 
 musical service has been rendered through what are known as 'The 
 Gospel Songs.' " 
 
 Likewise, Mr. W. T. Stead, in publishing in 1897 a collection of hymns 
 which have been found most useful, says that it would be difficult to over- 
 estimate the extent to which the religious life of the English-speaking 
 world has been quickened and gladdened by the songs and solos of 
 Mr. Sankey. And, before Mr. Sankey's advent, he says, "The American 
 Sacred Songs of Mr. Phillips did much to enliven the British service of 
 song." To-day, says Mr. Stead, the American hymns and spiritual songs 
 are more popular among the masses in Great Britain than any others. 
 When mass meetings are held, or a revival is in progress, in the majority 
 of cases the American hymns are used as a matter of course. It is not 
 impossible to trace the influence of the inspiring strains of these Ameri- 
 can sacred songs even in the High Anglican services. 
 
 The point to be emphasized, and which has been chronologically and 
 historically noted, is that the union between Moody and Sankey origi- 
 nated in a Y. M. C. A. convention; that in all their antecedents both 
 men were Association men, and remained so in all their subsequent 
 history. Mr. Moody held innumerable meetings under Y. M. C. A. 
 auspices. Many of the results of his work, and many of the anecdotes 
 which illustrate the power of Mr. Sankey's singing, had their origin in 
 Y. M. C. A. meetings. 
 
 The general effectiveness of the hymns can be illustrated. A 
 working man sent to Mr. Stead an expression of tlie hope that 
 whatever else might be left out of the hymn-books, No. 28 in ^Ir. San- 
 key's hymn book might not be the one. The reference was to the hymn 
 beginning, 
 
 "I left it all with Jesns long ago." 
 
 The working man described his experience thus : — 
 
 'T thought I had done my best, but still that was unsatisfactory. 
 Something always seemed to be kept back ; something that ought to 
 have come out and did not, or rather, perha])s I should say, that was 
 
HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 37 
 
 not fully understood by the one to whom it was told. I had no doubt 
 of my wish to repent, no doubt of my willingness to make every repara- 
 tion in my power, but still peace would not come. At last I took it all 
 straight to Jesus, and the burden rolled away from my heart. That is 
 why I love No. 28 of Mr. Sankey's collection of 'Sacred Songs and 
 Solos/ " 
 
 This history is successive and climactic. The hymnal history in con- 
 ventions is analogous to that of the Boston Association. It was natural 
 that the Associations should yearn for a new style of hymns and music. 
 They accepted the style in vogue, so far as it was suitable for their uses. 
 They generated another mode, of the same general type, and more ef- 
 fective in practice, because evangelism needed it, and demanded it. 
 There has been a growing feeling that is reactionary toward a more 
 general use of the ''Church Hymns," and progressive toward a larger 
 infusion of hymns of literary merit, and tunes of a more sober style. 
 But "Gospel Hymns" have dominated Associations, locally and in con- 
 ventions, since the advent of Moody and Sankey. ''Church Hymns and 
 Gospel Songs." is a union of titles, a combination between the old and 
 new styles of hymns and tunes, constituting an equalitv of rank and a 
 compromise between differing opinions. 
 
CHAPTER IIJ 
 
 OCCASIONAL HYMNS 
 
 Three hymns have been written in connection with Y. M. C. A. serv- 
 ices of so noteworthy a character and history that they deserve to l)e 
 emphasized. The first of these is 
 
 "Stand up, stand up for Jesus." 
 
 It was written by the Rev. George Duftield (1813-1888) who was pastor 
 in Philadelphia during the very years that covered the first decade, prac- 
 tically, of Y. M. C. A. history, 1852-1861. The hymn was based on the dy- 
 ing message of the Rev. Dudley A. Tyng to the Young Men's Christian 
 Association and to the ministers associated w^ith the young men in the 
 noonday prayer-meeting in Philadelphia during the revival of 1858. 
 Mr. Tyng was the son of the Rev. Stephen Tyng of New York, and the 
 Tyng family might almost be called an Association family, for Dr. Tyng 
 the father was identified with the early history of the Association in 
 New York and another son was one of the early members and workers 
 of the Association in San Francisco. On the Sabbath before his 
 death Dudley Tyng preached a sermon in Jaynes' Hall, Philadelphia, 
 which was one of the most effective sermons of modern times. It was 
 preached to an audience of five thousand and it is believed to have oc- 
 casioned the conversion of one thousand, or one-fifth of the audience. 
 Its text was Exodus 10:11 : ''Go now ye that are men, and serve the 
 Lord ; for that ye did desire." On the following Wednesday, Mr. Tyng 
 was killed by a mule which was at work on a horse-power, shelling corn. 
 His dying message as already stated was ''Stand up for Jesus." On the 
 following Sunday, the Rev. George Duffield, Jr., D.D. preached from 
 Eph. 6:14, "Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, 
 and having on the breastplate of righteousness." 
 
 After the manner of many of the early English hymnists. Dr. Duffield 
 concluded his sermon with some verses written as his final exhortation. 
 He gave the manuscript to the superintendent of the Sabbath-school, who 
 printed the hymn for the children. A stray copy found its way into a 
 Baptist newspaper, a fact that recalls the publication cf the letter of 
 
HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE V. M. C. A 39 
 
 Rev. George M. Van Derlip in the "Watchman and Reflector" of Boston, 
 Oct. 30, 1 85 1, a letter that occasioned the organization of the Boston 
 Y. M. C. A., the first in the United States, and therefore occasioned 
 the whole Association movement in this country. The hymn was 
 speedily translated into German and Latin. It was never altered 
 by the author in a single verse, line or word, and it was his wish that it 
 should remain unaltered until the ''soldiers of the Cross" should replace 
 it by something better. The iirst time the author heard it outside of his 
 own denominational services was in 1864, as the favorite hymn of the 
 Christian soldiers in the army of the James. The first copy ever made 
 for the press was made by the Rev. Samuel W. Duffield, son of the 
 author, who became an eminent authority on English hymns. A 
 cob of corn from the threshing floor where Dudley Tyng was injured 
 hung on the study wall of the author of the hymn as long as he lived. 
 The hymn, consisting of six eight-line stanzas, first appeared in "The 
 Psalmist" and afterward in ''Lyra Sacra Americana" (1868.) The first 
 regular use of the hymn in a hymnal was in the supplement of Dr. Be- 
 man's "Church Psalmist" prepared by the New School Presbyterian 
 Publication Committee, Philadelphia, 1859. The hymn was repeatedly 
 ccmmended by Professors Phelps and Park, of Andover Theological 
 Seminary, in "Hymns and Choirs," a book issued by them in i860 as ex- 
 planatory of some subjects in hymnology, and in their "New Sabbath 
 Hymn and Tune Book." They mated it to the tune "Tyng." The Rev. 
 Charles S. Robinson, D.D., the associate in hymnal matters of the son of 
 the author of the hymn, joined it in 1862 to the tune "Yarmouth." Wm. 
 B. Bradbury in his "Golden Chain" adopted the tune "Webb," named 
 after its composer, George J. Webb. "Webb" is the tune to which it or- 
 dinarily has been sung. 
 
 The hymn has been translated into many languages other than the 
 German and Latin into which it was at first transferred. There is a 
 version in Chinese prepared by the Rev. W. J. McKee of Ning-po, China, 
 and there is another in Welsh by J. D. Evans, and another in the lan- 
 guage of the Congo people, in Africa. The phrase in the third verse, 
 "Ye that are men now serve Him," is usually quoted in print, because it 
 is a part of the text on which the hymn was based. Dr. Duffield on 
 three different occasions entered a church and found the congregation 
 singing his hymn, once in the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
 Church in session in Brooklyn, once at a meeting of the American Board 
 of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and once at a mass meeting of 
 Sabbath-schools in Illinois. On each occasion he was vexed by out- 
 ward and inward trouble, and he said that the feelino- of comfort was in- 
 
40 HVMNS AND SIXGERS OF THE V. \L C. A. 
 
 expressible, to have his own hymn thns sung- to him by tliose who were 
 unaware of liis presence. It was as though an angel strengthened him. 
 
 On one occasion the little four year old child of the Rev. Dr. Roberts 
 of Princeton while sojourning in Saratoga heard the hymn given out in 
 church, and sang it fearlessly, unconscious of the admiration bestowed 
 by those of the congregation who w^ere seated near her. Her singing 
 was loud and joyous and made melody unto the Lord and unto the 
 people. 
 
 The hymn has been called a "Soldier Song," precisely the kind de- 
 sired by young men and by the Young Alen's Christian Association. 
 There are few such hymns in any hymnal. The son of the author of 
 "Stand up for Jesus" enumerates the following list: 
 
 "I am not ashamed to own my Lord." 
 "Onward, Christian soldiers." 
 "My soul, be on thy guard." 
 "Brightly gleams our banner." 
 ''Stand up, my soul, shake off thy fears." 
 "We march, we march to victory." 
 "Brethren, while we sojourn here." 
 
 These hymns were given together in "Laudes Domini" by the Rev. 
 Charles S. Robinson, D.D., 1884, for the first time in hymnology. ]\Ir. 
 Duffield said that they come from every place and all denominations of 
 Christians and that they are among the most popular, useful and valued 
 lyrics of the Church. Our times, he said, preeminently call for this style 
 of composition. In the Latin hymnology there was only one such hymn 
 "Pugnate Christi milites" (Fight on, ye Christian soldiers). Such 
 militant hymns stand in marked contrast with those which express 
 a longing for death. 
 
 "Stand up, stand up for Jesus" is one of the most commonly used 
 and wddely circulated hynms in the English language, its circulation 
 ranking after the circulation of "My faith looks up to Thee" by Ray 
 
 Palmer, D.D., and "The Morning Light is Breaking," by the Rev. S. F. 
 Smith, the author of "America." 
 
 Another Association hymn originated m Philadelphia, of which 
 another Presbyterian pastor was the author, the Rev. Daniel March, 
 
 D.D., (i8t6- ) now a retired Congregational pastor in W^oburn, 
 
 Massachusetts. (See Nutter's "Hymn Studies" 1884.) 
 
HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 
 
 41 
 
 In 1868, while Dr. March was pastor of the North Broad Street 
 Church in Philadelphia, he heard Philip Phillips sing:, "Your Mission." 
 
 On the following Sunday, October 
 1 8th, he was to have the annual meet- 
 ing of the Young ]\Ien's Christian 
 Association in his own church and to 
 preach the sermon himself. His text 
 was Isaiah 6: 8, "PTere am I, send 
 me." He thought that he would like 
 to have "Your Mission" sung, but on 
 looking it up found some lines that 
 did not please him. So, on Saturday, 
 in great haste he sat down and wrote 
 the hymn, "Here am I; send me," 
 as it is often called, gave it to his 
 soprano on a sheet of foolscap, and 
 she sang it from manuscript. It was 
 liked and the people had it printed on 
 a card, and thus it found its way into 
 common use. Its first couplet is: 
 
 REV. DANIEL MARCH, D.D. 
 Author of Anniversary Hymn. 
 
 "Hark! the voice of Jesus calling 
 Who will go and work to-day?" 
 
 It was first published in the Methodist Episcopal Hymnal, 1878. 
 
 In "Praise Songs" compiled by Arthur H. Dadmun, of Auburn, N. Y., 
 in 1898, the tune "Birtchnell" is assigned to the hymn and is named 
 after the composer, Frank Birtchnell. The atithor's name is given as 
 David March, and the hymn is assigned to 1878, instead of 1868. 
 
 "Your Mission" is a hymn wdiich has occasioned several hymns in the 
 same stanza and of similar sentiments. One was written by J. W. 
 Evans and is Xo. 637 in "Songs of Devotion," by W. H. Doane. The 
 poetry is w^orthy of its origin and author, and the hymn and tune have 
 not lost their usefulness, although they seem to be obsolescent. The 
 following are the last two stanzas of the hymn of Mr. Evans: — 
 
 "If upon the towering mountain 
 
 Thou can'st find no place to toil. 
 Seek it in the lowly valley 
 
 Where the dews, enrich the soil ; 
 If thou canst not with the reapers 
 
 Gather in the bearded sheaves. 
 Go and glean where they have trodden 
 
 Golden grain among the leaves. 
 
42 HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE V. M. C. A. 
 
 On the shores of sounding ocean, 
 
 By the river's roHing tide, 
 On the banks of flowing streamlet, 
 
 Scatter truth on every side. 
 Where earth's noxious weeds are growing, 
 
 Thou can'st plant some seed of love, 
 Whose eternal bloom shall greet thee, 
 
 In the far off realms above." 
 
 The Rev. A. J. Gordon, D.D. (1836-1895), pastor of the Clarendon 
 Street Baptist church in Boston, was identified in fact and in spirit with 
 the Boston Association and with the Student Volunteer Movement. 
 In 1886, at the School for Bible Study organized by Dwight L. ]^loody 
 in Northfield, Massachusetts, where the Student \'olunteer ^^lovement 
 for foreign missions originated, Dr. Gordon wrote a hymn for the four 
 students who were chosen to visit the colleges in different parts of the 
 country and endeavor to awaken a deeper interest in foreign missions 
 during the next academic year. The hymn was as follows : 
 
 WHOM SHALL T SEND? 
 Lsaiah 6: 8. 
 
 O Spirit's anointing, 
 For service appointing, 
 
 On us descend ; 
 For millions are dying. 
 And Jesus is crying, 
 
 "Whom shall I send!^" 
 
 Ethiopia reaching 
 
 Scarred hands is beseeching, 
 
 "Rend, Christians, rend 
 The chains long enthralling!" 
 And Jesus is calling, 
 
 "Whom shall I send?" 
 
 Lo ! China unsealing 
 Her gates, and revealing 
 
 Fields without end ! 
 Her night is receding, 
 And Jesus is pleading, 
 
 "Whom shall I send?" 
 
 Dark India is breaking 
 
 Her caste chains, and making 
 
 Strong cries ascend 
 To Jesus, once bleeding. 
 But now interceding. 
 
 "Whom shall I scnd^" 
 
REV. A, J. GORDON, D.D., 
 
 Author of Student Volunteer Hvmn. 
 
HYMNS AND SINGERS OP THE Y. M. C. A. 45 
 
 See Japan awaking, 
 Old errors forsaking; 
 
 Haste, your aid lend ! 
 "More light !" hear her crying. 
 And Jesus replying, 
 
 "Whom shall I send?" 
 
 While Israel's unveiling, 
 And penitent wailing, 
 
 All things portend. 
 Why, why our delaying? 
 Since Jesus is saying 
 
 "Whom shall I send?" 
 
 The islands, once hating 
 His yoke, are now waiting 
 
 Humbly to bend. 
 "To bear help and healing," 
 Hear Jesus appealing, 
 
 "Whom shall I send?" 
 
 Such occasional Hymns as are here mentioned have nor been numer- 
 ous, but they have had a history peculiar to themselves and they have 
 been identified with men and movements that have been historic in As- 
 sociation affairs. Dr. Gordon was fond of hymns, composed and com- 
 piled them, made them a vital part of his own spiritual life and sought 
 to induce others to do likewise. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 THE HYMNS OF THE SOLDIERS 
 
 It is impossible to do justice to the religious history of the Unitea 
 States, or the history of the Young Men's Christian Association, during 
 the latter part of its first decade, without connecting the revivals of 
 1857-8, which were prayer-meeting revivals, with the condition of the 
 country when the war of 186 1-5 broke out. They were related to each 
 other as preparation is related to productiveness, as providence is re- 
 lated to seed-time and harvest. Prayer and praise were the means of 
 grace specially honored by God and man, by Christians and churches, 
 in the revivals of the closing years of the decade which preceded the war 
 and which were coextensive with the great cities of the country. There 
 was a religious preparation of the people for the fiery trials through 
 which the North and the South were to pass. When war was declared 
 in April, 1861, the religious forces of the country asserted themselves 
 at once. War was declared in the spring, and in the fall (November 14th) 
 the Christian Commission was organized in the rooms of the New York 
 Association, by a Convention which had been called by the Central 
 Committee of the Associations, then located in Philadelphia. When 
 the war broke out, the 7th Regiment of New York contained many 
 members of the Xew York Association; likewise the 12th and 71st 
 Regiments. Chaplain Francis E. Butler, of the 25th Regiment, was 
 one of the original incorporators of the New York Association and had 
 held office in several of its Boards. 
 
 The situation was similar as related to the Boston Association and to 
 other Associations in the ^Middle West. It was natural that such sol- 
 diers, who had passed through the revivals of 1857-8, should want hymn- 
 books and that Associations under such conditions should provide 
 them. Chaplains and delegates of the Christian Commission were re- 
 gardful of the needs of soldiers and of their own members who had 
 enlisted, by providing hymn-books. The committee of the Chicago Asso- 
 ciation on devotional meetings, before the early summer of 1861, began 
 religious meetings in Camp Douglas and published a soldiers' hymn- 
 book to facilitate their work. The New York Association published a 
 ''Soldiers' Hymn-Book" of vest-pocket size, containing seventy-seven 
 hymns and songs, of which sixty-one were devotional and the remain- 
 
HVMXS AXD SIXGERS OF THE V. M. C. A. 47 
 
 cler were temperance and patriotic hymns. It attained speedy and great 
 popularity. In rapidly succeeding editions, it reached a circulation of 
 over 100,000 copies. Seventy thousand copies were published and cir- 
 culated by the Army Committee of the Xew York Association and the 
 remainder were furnished to the Young Men's Christian Associations 
 of Philadelphia, Brooklyn and Chicago, and to the American Sunday- 
 School Union, for distribution in their respective spheres of labor. 
 Those Associations supplied the funds for the several editions used by 
 them. The Boston Association cooperated. The hymn-book was used 
 in the barracks and in camp, in the hospital and on the march. The 
 motto on the front cover included a familiar quotation from one of 
 Faber's hymns: 
 
 'Tor right is right, since God is God, 
 
 And right the day must win ; 
 To doubt would be disloyalty, 
 
 To falter would be sin." 
 
 From Xew York, packages of hymn-books and other reading matter 
 were forwarded almost daily to \\'ashington, Alexandria, Fortress ]\Ion- 
 roe, Cairo, III., Camp Holt, Ky., and other points where regiments were 
 forming or temporarily located. On May 14th, 1861, X'oble Heath, Jr., 
 corresponding secretary of the X'ew York Association wrote that "in 
 every (Northern) Assembly the good old Union hymns are (were) sung 
 amid tears and cheers of generous, godly people." Among the earliest 
 Christian workers for the soldiers was the Rev. B. W. Chidlaw, who 
 during the summer and autumn of 1861 was chaplain of the 39th 
 Ohio Regiment and afterward was intimately connected vrith the opera- 
 tions of the Christian Commission and of its Cincinnati Branch. He 
 wrote an account of the early history of his work in which he said: 
 ''We needed hymn-books, and in response to my application the Young 
 Men's Christian Association of Xew York sent me several thousand 
 copies of 'The Soldiers' and Sailors' Hymn-book.' just what we needed 
 and what the soldiers always gladly received and carefully preserved." 
 
 By May loth, 1863, the circulation of the Army Hymn-book 
 amounted to 150,000 copies. Some were sold, but most of them were 
 given to the soldiers. In the month of September, 1863, the distribu- 
 tion of hymn-books in the \Vashington hospitals amounted to 6,900. 
 
 In tracing the religious history of the w^ar and the history of the 
 Christian Commission, it is not easy to discriminate uniformly between 
 the work of chaplains appointed by the government, state or national, 
 and the volunteer or paid workers of the Commission. But, obviously, 
 the hymnal history of the Association is properly included in whatever 
 
48 HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 
 
 happened that related to the uses of hymns, after the Commission was 
 organized. One of the early leaders in this department was \'incent 
 Collyer, an Association leader, who as early as July 23d, 1861, went 
 through the wards of a hospital in Washington, opened a large package 
 of tracts, and allowed each soldier lying on the cots to select for him- 
 self. A number of the wounded who were seated on the verandah, 
 noticing what was happening within, sent in several of their number to 
 make a selection for them. Mr. Collyer took the package out on the 
 verandah and the majority selected hymn-books. Soon they were all 
 singing Cowper's familiar hymn : 
 
 "There is a fountain filled with blood. 
 Drawn from Immanuel's veins." 
 
 The Rev. George Bringhurst wrote to President George TI. Stuart 
 from Yorktown, in 1862, that after a prayer-meeting, in the month of 
 July, as he was returning to his quarters, his attention was arrested by 
 footsteps behind him. Turning, he met the gaze of a young soldier, 
 belonging to a regiment called the "Lost Children," "O sir," said he, 
 'Svon't you please tell me how I can be a Christian? I was at prayer- 
 meeting to-night, and felt as though I could talk with you." "WTiat 
 made you think of being a Christian?" asked the clergyman." "WTiy, 
 sir, when I was on guard, I was thinking of a beautiful hymn I had read 
 in my Soldier's Hymn-book, beginning: 'Rock of Ages, Cleft for ]Me,' 
 and I wondered if I could not be built upon that Rock.' " "Certainly, 
 you can," was the reply. "Shall we pray together?" Then on the dusty 
 road-side, beneath the stars, a prayer went up to God which sent the 
 weary soldier-boy to his duties with a light and happy heart. After- 
 ward, the clergyman fell in with him and found him resting on the 
 Rock. 
 
 The Rev. S. Hopkins Emery, of Quincy, Illinois, wrote under date 
 of November nth, 1863, that "prayer, or some sweet hymn of praise, is 
 oftentimes better than medicine." 
 
 In 1863, the Rev. Edward P. Smith, a delegate of the Christian Com- 
 mission, was selected from the corps of delegates in the Army of the 
 Potomac and sent as a field agent to the West, with instructions, in 
 part, to open a systematic line of Christian work. Mr. Smith, who had 
 been a delegate to the Army of the Potomac since January 26th, 1863, 
 continued in the service of the Christian Connuission until its dissolu- 
 tion. He asked General Grant, then commander of the Departments of 
 the Mississippi, for five privileges. General Grant issued an order 
 covering the points made and Mr. Smith said that he came back to his 
 
HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 49 
 
 quarters with his heart full of the first line of the "Doxology in Long 
 Meter." ]\Iany thousands of Testaments, hymn-books and religious 
 papers were distributed throughout each corps of the Army of the Po- 
 tomac. At Falmouth Village, Va., in 1863, the station agent organized 
 a Sabbath-school for the children, w^hich came to be held every day in 
 the week. Thirty or forty "little rebels" were gathered in, who, for 
 two years of w^ant and war, had heard nothing of school or church. 
 They soon learned to recite hymns from the Soldiers' Hymn-book and 
 chapters from the Testament. 
 
 A little girl in Philadelphia, aged seven years, under date of April 
 17th, 1863, addressed a letter, signed Lizzie S., to "Some Sick Soldier." 
 It was sent with a Testament, to a hospital in Xashville, Tenn. It con- 
 tained this inquiry: "Do you know the hymn. 
 
 There is a happy land?' " 
 
 It was given by a delegate of the Commission to a soldier in the con- 
 valescent ward of Hospital Xo. 8. He was the first soldier who rose 
 for prayers in the first meeting there after the letter and Testament ar- 
 rived in X^ashville. He replied and said: "Yes, 'there is a happy land.' 
 Alay we meet in that happy land." He was of the Fourth Alichigau 
 Cavalry. 
 
 The great year in the history of the Christian Commission was the 
 year 1864. By ]\Iarch 15th, it had built one hundred and forty 
 chapels throughout the army. The Rev. H. A. Reid, cJiaplain of the 
 Fifth Regiment of AMsconsin A'olunteers, wrote to the president of the 
 Commission, George H. Stuart, a leader of the early Association move- 
 ment in Philadelphia and in its national expansion, giving him an ac- 
 count of the dedication of the chapel of his regiment, near Brandy 
 Station, N2.. The letter was dated February 22d, 1864. Air. Reid en- 
 closed an original hymn, written for that dedication service. It consisted 
 of six four-line stanzas, in long meter. It was in sentiment an ascrip- 
 tion of praise to God, a prayer for his favor, a dedication of the chapel, 
 a plea for victory in the war. We quote the last two stanzas: 
 
 *'0 grant our righteous cause success.. 
 
 That still our nightly couch may be 
 A day's march nearer conquered peace, 
 
 A day's march nearer conquered peace, 
 
 "And as Thou giv'st us strength to do. 
 
 And hearts to dare, through gain or loss, 
 ]\Iay we be freedom's soldiers true. 
 
 Nor less true soldiers of the cross." 
 
50 Hl'MNS AXD SIXGERS OF THE V. J/. C. A. 
 
 There was no more touching scene in the war than was presented one 
 morning in the Army ot the Cumberland, among the mule wagons 
 which were used to transport the wounded from the general Held hos- 
 pital, two miles from the Tennessee river, to the town of Bridgeport, 
 ihe road lay over Waldon's Ridge, over precipices so steep and rocky 
 that the wagons were often let down by ropes from one rock to another, 
 amid the groans and shrieks of tortured men. When the train was wait- 
 ing tlie order to move, K. A. Burnell, a delegate from Illinois, standing 
 on a driver's seat, proposed a prayer-meeting. "Yes, yes, give us a 
 pra}er-meeting," came from a hundred voices. The hymn 
 
 "When I can read my title clear," 
 
 a few words of the Saviour's love and cheer, a prayer for the sufferers, 
 some of whom were to die on their way and for their comrades remain- 
 ing, many of whom were to die for w-ant of such transportation, and for 
 their country and their friends far aw^ay, the benediction and the fervent 
 responding "Amen," were all the services of that wagon prayer-meet- 
 ing, — to not a few of the worshipers their last earthly scene of song and 
 prayer. 
 
 There was a revival at Ringgold, Tenn., where William Reynolds, 
 "Chairman" of the Young Men's Christian Association of Peoria, Illi- 
 nois, was the delegate who invited candidates for baptism to meet at 
 the church on Sabbath afternoon, April loth, 1864. Forty-four pre- 
 sented themselves. Twenty-four chose immersion as the mode of bap- 
 tism, eighteen sprinkling, and two pouring. The congregation marched 
 in solemn procession to Cowper's hymn and tune 
 
 "There is a fountain filled with blood" 
 
 down to the Chickamauga creek. The soldiers stood on the banks, join- 
 ing hands and continuing the hymn, while their comrades went down 
 into the water, — some for immersion, some for sprinkling, and others 
 for pouring, but all for baptism into the name of the Father and of the 
 Son and of the Holy Ghost. After administering the ordinance of bap- 
 tism, the congregation returned to the church, singing the Rev. Henry 
 Francis Lyte's hymn, 
 
 "Jesus, I my cross have taken," 
 
 and then sat down, about four hundred in number, at the table of their 
 common Lord and Saviour. Commissary bread, currant wine, tin plates 
 
HVMXS AXD SIXGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 51 
 
 and tin cups were the circumstances of the Communion. It was said 
 to have been the first Communion that many of the soldiers had en- 
 joyed for two years and to many of them the last, until they entered into 
 the heavenl}- kingdom. 
 
 Kingston, Georgia, became the base hospital for the Army of the 
 Cumberland, during the fights at Pumpkinvine Creek, Dallas and Xew 
 Hope Church. An Indiana soldier, in the hospital, who was dying, sent 
 for an agent in the night, because there was no available delegate. He 
 was a fair-faced boy of eighteen years. He asked the agent to take his 
 last words home to his mother and sister. He handed over his memo- 
 randum and pocketbook and a number of keepsakes. He asked the 
 agent to pull the two rings from his hand and send to his sister, and to 
 tell her that they were taken off after his hand was getting cold. After 
 prayer the ever-recurring hymn of Cowper was simg: 
 
 "There is a fountain filled with blood." 
 
 He joined in, breaking the tune now and then with "Yes, yes, if he could 
 trust Him, I can." "Yes, u'hcn I die." "That t^'z// be sweeter." "Power 
 to save; power to save; I used to sing that hymn at tiome, but it was 
 never so good as this — power to save." 
 
 That midnight scene, wrote the agent who participated in it, cannot 
 be described: — the patients in the ward that could walk, gathering 
 round; others in their beds, rising up on elbow, the nurses standing 
 about, one of them holding, at the head of the cot, the single candle of 
 the ward, the prayer, the hymn, the last message, the good-bye, the 
 family leave-takings, and the consecration unto death on the altar of 
 country. 
 
 William Hambline, Campany D, Fifth Maine Regiment, was suffer- 
 ing from the amputation of a leg. The Rev. F. P. ^lonfort, delegate of 
 the Commission from Greensburg, Indiana, ministered to him. Fie 
 evinced childlike simplicity and sincerity. The clergyman said to him: 
 "Here's just what you need. Can you not make it your own, while 
 you express it before God? 
 
 A gfuilty. weak, and helpless worm. 
 
 On thy kind arms I fall ; 
 Be Thou my strength, my righteousness. 
 ]\Iy Saviour and my all I' *' 
 
 Every feature of the dying soldier's countenance indicated the encour- 
 agement derived from a new thought. He responded: "Won't you 
 please say that again?" The stanza was repeated, and the dying soldier 
 
02 HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 
 
 repeated it, a line, or part of a line at a time, until he came to the clos- 
 ing line: "My Saviour and my All,*' which was uttered with an emphasis 
 warm from the heart, and then a sweet smile, as from a sense of accept- 
 ance by God rose to his face and settled there. The delegate commended 
 him to God and left his bedside, assured that a new-born soul was soon 
 to be received into glory. 
 
 Isaac Baker, of Philadelphia, was in Fredericksburg, Va., in May, 
 1864, to minister to those who had suffered in the Wilderness battles. 
 He was in the Fifth Corps hospital. Second Division. On the first morn- 
 ing there, the patients sang: "Rest for the Weary'' and one man whose 
 whole thigh had been shattered by a shell, lay perfectly calm and even 
 happy. He smiled when the delegate came to his couch and said: ''Oh, 
 that hymn cheered me ! I forgot my pains while I listened to it, and I 
 know it cheered many of the boys." The first couplet of the hymn is: 
 
 "In the Christian's home in glory 
 There remains a land of rest." 
 
 ^Irs. Annie Wittenmeyer, of Iowa, was sanitary agent for that state, 
 in the early years of the war. She distributed among the Iowa trooj^s 
 in the \\'estern armies the supplies furnished by the people, under the 
 direction of the state government. She introduced a system of diet 
 kitchens into General Hospitals. She wrote a book, "Under the Guns," 
 which gave thrilling experiences of the war. She became president of 
 the Woman's Relief Corps. She was the first president of the National 
 Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and served for five years. She 
 was one of the founders of Our Union, the first ofihcial organ, which was 
 afterwards consolidated with The Signal and became The Union Signal, 
 the organ of the W. C. T. U. Her Christian hymns have been sung 
 around the world and the best known is : 
 
 'T have entered the valley of blessing so sweet." 
 
 In January, 1901, ]\Ir. Frank Damrosch of Xew York an- 
 nounced that the Choral Union of which he is the condtictor would 
 sing Lincoln's favorite hymn at the Lincoln birthday celebration, which 
 was to be held at Carnegie Hall on the evening of February nth, if he 
 could ascertain what that favorite was. After he made his announce- 
 ment he received a letter from a person in Pennsylvania mentioning the 
 name of Lincoln's alleged favorite hynm and giving data to prove it. 
 Thereafter letters poured in on hini from all parts of the country, each 
 giving a new hymn, with one or two exceptions. ^Ir. Damrosch then 
 
HVJIXS AXD SIXGERS OF THE V. 3/. C. A. 53 
 
 wrote to the Secretary of State, John Hay. of Washington, who. as Mr. 
 Lincoln's private secretary, might be expected to have particular knowl- 
 edge on the subject. Secretary Hay replied that he was unable to tell 
 with any certainty what was ]\Ir. Lincoln's favorite hymn, but that there 
 was one which President Lincoln particularly liked, beginning: 
 
 "Father, whate'er of earthh- bliss 
 Thy sovereign will denies." 
 
 Air. Damrosch decided to select this hymn for rendition by the Choral 
 Union. The difficulty seems to have been that the request was for a 
 single hymn. Any lover of hymns. Air. Lincoln not excepted, has favorite 
 hymns. He may be undecided as to which is the best among several or 
 many that appeal to him. It has long been understood that one of Air. 
 Lincoln's favorite hymns was entitled "Your Alission," the origin of 
 which has been stated. It is easy to conceive of Air. Lincoln as liking 
 it, when sung by such a singer as Air. Phillips (see Duffield's English 
 Hymns, p. 257). He loved hymns, and found in them the same inspira- 
 tion and solace that come to innumerable believers among the plain 
 people that he represented and revered. 
 
 At the public anniversary of the Christian Commission on a Sabbath 
 evening in the hall of the House of Representatives in Washington, 
 January 29th, 1865. Chaplain, now Bishop C. C. AlcCabe. sang Julia 
 Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic." and Philip Phillips sang 
 "Your Alission." The historian of the Christian Commission, and its 
 home secretary. Rev. Lemuel AIoss, who dedicated his "Annals" in 
 1868 to the Young Alen's Christian Association, wrote that "Both 
 songs thrilled the audience and were accompanied with manifestations 
 of extraordinary emotion, — the first stirring every heart like the blast 
 of a trumpet and the second, by its tenderness and pathos, suffusing all 
 eyes with tears. It was noticed that President Lincoln arose with the 
 throng and joined heartily in the chorus of the 'Battle Hymn' and that 
 while Air. Phillips was singing he shared fully in the emotions of all 
 around him." The anniversary was repeated in Philadelphia on Tues- 
 day evening, January 31st. Chaplain AlcCabe and Philip Phillips re- 
 peated the singing of the same hymns. 
 
 February nth. 1866, the Christian Commission held its final meeting 
 at Washington, in the hall of the House of Representatives, where its 
 annual meetings had been held in 1863, 1864 and 1865. The singing 
 at the meetings in 1865, when Lincoln was present, had been so im- 
 pressive as to be well remembered; and at the meeting in 1866. after the 
 death of Lincoln, it was publicly recalled. Charles Demond, of the 
 
54 HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 
 
 Boston Association, delivered an address as one of the original mem- 
 bers of the Christian Commission and of its executive committee, as the 
 member who drew the resolutions which w^ere adopted in the Convention 
 that formed the Commission, and who aided in its management through- 
 out its history. He told how President Lincoln had been moved to 
 tears by the touching melody of "Your Mission," and had asked for its 
 repetition. *'He has been a true disciple," said Mr. Demond, and "is 
 now, we doubt not, joining heart and voice in the song, more sweet, 
 more loud, the 'Song of Moses and the Lamb.' " Speaker Schuyler Col- 
 fax, who presided, before introducing Mr. Philip Phillips to sing ''Your 
 Mission," as an anniversary hymn of the Commission and a favorite of 
 Mr. Lincoln's, gave his own account of similar services one year pre- 
 viously. He said: "Abraham Lincoln, with his tall form, his care- 
 furrowed face and his nobly throbbing heart, was here, and after listening 
 in tears, he sent up, written upon the back of this program (holding up 
 the precious sheet), in that plain, familiar handwriting, by that hand 
 that now lies cold in the grave, this request: — 
 
 "Near the close let us have 'Your Mission' repeated by Mr. Phillips. 
 Don't say I called for it. Lincoln." 
 
 It was then sung once more. We are accustomed to designate Lin- 
 coln as "Honest Abe Lincoln." Just as appropriately, it will be seen, 
 he might be called "Modest Abe Lincoln." 
 
 The Rev. Herrick Johnson, then of Pittsburg, Penn., now professor 
 of Homiletics in McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, and a Doc- 
 tor of Divinity, had been in the Commission's work. He was one of the 
 speakers of the last anniversary. He said: "Go with me for a moment 
 and look upon one of the hospital scenes. There lies a young soldier 
 wounded unto death. 'What can I do for you, my brave fellow?' 'Speak 
 to me of Jesus.' " The words that suggested themselves to Mr. John- 
 son were those of Charles Wesley's famous hymn 
 
 "Jesus, lover of my soul. 
 Let me to thy bosom fly." 
 
 The young soldier asked that the hynm might be sung, and another 
 wounded soldier, lying near, started the hynm. The dying drummer- 
 boy, for such he was, repeated the address to Jesus and the prayer, and 
 even while the words were on his lips, the prayer was answered and his 
 soul was away on its flight to the bosom of Jesus. 
 
 After the address of the Rev. Herrick Johnson, a stirring patriotic 
 
HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 55 
 
 hymn from the "Musical Leaves," entitled "We are rising as a people," 
 was sung by PhiHp Phillips, the audience joining in full chorus. 
 
 Bishop Matthew Simpson, in his address, quoted a hymn which, lie 
 said, he was taught in his youth to repeat : 
 
 "Angels now are hovering round us, 
 
 Unperceived they mix the throng. 
 Wondering at the love that crowned us, 
 Glad to join the holy song." 
 
 The records state that "a new and sweet song" entitled the "Home of 
 the Soul," written by Mrs. Ellen Huntington Gates, author of "Your 
 Mission," was sung by Philip Phillips. 
 
 The Hutchinson family sang two songs, embodying the sentiment: 
 'T will live for the good I can do," and forecasting the "good time" to be 
 ushered in by the recognition of universal freedom and the brotherhood 
 of man. 
 
 In 'The Summary" of the Annals of the Christian Commission is the 
 following statement: "These hymn-books — the companions of the 
 Testaments, how often have they lightened the march and the camp, 
 and brought the home altar nearer the soldier's heart." 
 
 As a rule the soldiers necessarily sang familiar hymns, such as they 
 had learned at home and in the Sabbath-school, and in church and 
 Sabbath services. The simple sentiments of piety, the encouragements 
 to bravery, obedience, hopefulness, patience under trial, the expecta- 
 tions of immortality, expressed in hymns, were the sentiments appro- 
 Driate to their experiences. That soldier was to be pitied who had never 
 learned the child's prayer, altered from Watts, and beginning : 
 
 "Now I lay me down to sleep." 
 
 It has been a child's evening prayer, wherever the English language 
 has been spoken, for nearly two centuries. John Qumcy Adams re- 
 peated it nightly throughout life. It is so brief as not to require much 
 time for its devout offering, and many a soldier had neither the disposi- 
 tion nor the audacity to lie down at night without prayer. No formu- 
 lated prayer was ever written better adapted to retirement. There will 
 be wars and rumors of wars before children and adults will cease to re- 
 peat it, before mothers will be willing to yield the teaching of it to their 
 children. 
 
 Pilgrim hymns were sung, the hymns of joy, of hope, of faith, at one 
 extreme; and the hymns of sorrow and victory over death, at the other. 
 We refer to such hymns as "Joyfully, joyfully onward I move." "I'm a 
 
56 HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. AL C. A. 
 
 pilgrim and I'm a stranger," "I'm but a stranger here," "My days are 
 gliding swiftly by," "There is a happy land." 
 
 Hymns of trust in God for a blessing upon distant kindred and friends, 
 of prayer for health and continued life, for ability to die willingly for 
 God and country, for home and native land, for the cause at heart, and a 
 race of slaves, were common. In this connection hymns of the sacrifice 
 of Christ for sinners were appropriate. 
 
 One delegate wrote to a friend as follows: "The one hundred hymn- 
 books you sent will be very useful. There is one hymn in the book that 
 I can never forget, if I live a thousand years. It b?^'"^''!^: 
 
 'One sweetly solemn thought.' 
 
 I had held several prayer-meetings by the bedside of a dying soldier. 
 This hymn was his favorite and he always wanted it sung. He used to 
 sing it to the sweet tune of 'Dennis.' One evening, in the course of the 
 evening, I asked him what hymn we should sing. He answered: 'My 
 hymn.' We knew very well what that was and sung it as far as the con- 
 clusion of the third verse and there we had to stop: 
 
 "Nearer to leave the heavy cross ; 
 Nearer to gain the crown.' " 
 
 He went to wear the starry crown just as he was singing those ver)- 
 words. The hymn thus signalized was Phoebe Carey's familiar, beauti- 
 ful and consoling hymn. 
 
 "Call Jehovah thy Salvation," was written by James Montgomery 
 (1771-1854). It appeared in his Songs of Zion, 1822, entitled, ''God's 
 Merciful Guardianship of his People." It was a favorite with the sol- 
 diers. It was printed upon a leaflet for distribution in large meetings 
 held in the army. 
 
 Another well known hynm by Montgomery is: 
 
 ''People of the living God. 
 
 I have sought the world around." 
 
 It was written on the occasion of his being publicly recognized as a 
 member of the Moravian Society at the close of 1814. It was included 
 in Cotterill's Selection, 1819. with the title "Choosing the Portion of 
 God's Heritage." It is annotated by the following anecdote: A 
 young soldier, when in barracks, knelt down to pray before going to 
 bed: his fifteen comi:(anions began to jeer, some even going so far as to 
 
HVMXS AXD SIXGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 57 
 
 throw various articles at him. Undeterred by this treatment, he con- 
 tinned to kneel night after night, and soon he was surprised to find his 
 companions, one after the other, steal to his side and kneel with him. 
 By his faithful confession of Jesus, that soldier won all his companions 
 to the Lord. 
 
 Dying hymns were the old, familiar, standard hymns, such as: "Xearer 
 my God to thee,'' "J^^^^^, lover of my soul," 'Xly faith looks up to thee." 
 "Rock of Ages cleft for me," "J^st as I am without one plea." 
 
 Some of the war songs and ballads contain reminiscences that revive 
 unpleasant sentiments and facts that we would gladly forget. George 
 F. Root, the composer of many of them, said that after the war ceased, 
 the singing of those songs ceased, as if the songs themselves had been 
 shot. But the hymns of war and peace, of Christ and the Church, of the 
 home and the Sabbath-school, of the battlefield and the hospital, may 
 well be revived, for they will do us good. It is almost impossible that 
 they should do us any harm. They are not divisive but unifying. In 
 the last analysis they are the hymns of eternal life. They are worthy 
 expressions of the love of man to God, and to his fellow man. They are 
 the vehicles of praise and glory, of praise to our Maker and Redeemer, 
 and of that glory which lies beyond death and the grave for all those who 
 commit their spirits to God as Christ committed His own spirit. 
 
ROBERT R. McBURXEY 
 A Hvmn-loving Secretary. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 A HYMN-LOVER— R. R. McBURXEY 
 
 The Xew York Y. ^I. C. A. was organized in June, 1853. Its first 
 decade was one of activity, risks and dangers of division over slavery; 
 of revival interest that developed in 1857-8 by the establishment of the 
 Fulton Street prayer-meeting and the awakening of the churches of the 
 city, in common with those of the country. \Mien Robert R. AIcBurney 
 became the employed executive of the Association, in 1862, the Asso- 
 ciation acquired a hymn-lover. He was a ^Methodist and it might be 
 taken for granted that at least he loved the Wesleyan h}mns. But he 
 was not a singer. He was fond of congregational singing and revealed 
 early and late in his life his love of hymns and his disposition to use 
 them in Christian work, in Association services. He became a collector 
 of hynmals. He was accustomed to cjuote hymns in addresses and re- 
 ports, in services and in private life. He was always on the lookout for 
 an appropriate hymn for special occasions. The history of his secretary- 
 ship from 1862 to 1898 is penetrated with the hymnal spirit. 
 
 The dedicatory hymn for the dedication, December 2d, 1869, o^ the 
 building of the Xew York Y. ]\I. C. A. was written by A. D. F. 
 Randolph, the well-known publisher. It is published in the report of 
 the X^'ew York Association for 1870. It consisted of five eight-line 
 stanzas and is adapted to the tune "Webb." The second and third 
 stanzas were ascriptions of praise to Cod for his power as shown in na- 
 ture and his grace in dwelling in and cooperating with men. The first. 
 fourth and fifth stanzas were invocations of God's blessing upon 
 the building and those hymnal prayers have been abundantly answered. 
 Mr. Randolph wrote a hymn in 1849, which is in a few collections. Its 
 first line was : 
 
 "Weary, Lord, of struggling liere." 
 
 In 1873, while preparing his annual report, Mr. McBurney discovered 
 in a hymnal one day when he and Secretary Richard C. Morse were 
 working over the report for that year, two verses of a hymn which de- 
 lighted him. Secretary Morse says that with a light in liis countenance 
 and joy in his voice, he exclaimed : "We must put these verses at the 
 end of the report this year." Thev were so placed. They expressed the 
 asniration of his life and are as follows: 
 
{j'2 HWUXS .IXD SIXGERS OF THE Y. ^L C. A. 
 
 "We who so tenderly were sought, 
 
 Shall we not joyful seekers be. 
 And to Thy feet divinely brought. 
 
 Help weaker souls, O Lord, to Thee '. 
 
 "Celestial Seeker, send us forth! 
 
 Almighty Love, teach us to love ! 
 When shall we yearn to help on earth 
 As yearned the Holy One above?" 
 
 In 1 87 1 -2, Association hall was nearly filled on Sab1)atli evening and 
 a half hour was spent in singing hymns. Four pamphlets of sixteen 
 Images each, containing hymns and tunes, were printed for that service. 
 Many of the hymns and tunes were written especially for the uses of 
 that meeting, and the selections were the choicest in the language and 
 had special reference to the religious impressions sought to be produced 
 upon the young men who attended the service. 
 
 The writer is greatly nidebted to President L. L. Doggett, Ph.D.., 
 president of the Y. AI. C. A. Training School in Springfield, Massa- 
 chusetts, for the privilege of reading in manuscript his "Life of Secre- 
 tary AIcBurney," soon to be published, in which a hymnal anecdote is 
 narrated, which relates to a hymn and a class of hymns already con- 
 sidered in Chapter II, viz, "Convention Hymns." 
 
 The twelfth International Convention w-as held in Montreal in 1867. 
 The time was immediately subsequent to the Civil War. When Major- 
 general W. T. Gregory, of Fredericksburg, Va., reported for his state, 
 Mr. E. V. C. Eato, president of the colored Association of New York 
 City, responded. He was asked to go forward. When he reached the 
 platform. General Gregory stepped forward and took him by the hand. 
 The Convention appreciated the situation, the Southern ex-Confederate 
 and the Northern colored man, fraternizing on neutral ground, and af- 
 ter the war w^as over. The entire audience arose, handkerchiefs were 
 waved and all joined in singing: 
 
 "Say. brothers, will you meet us?" 
 
 In Dr. Doggett's "Life," the reminiscences of George A. Warburton, 
 secretary of the Railroad Associations in New York, are included. He 
 says that Secretary McBurney in his thought about the Bible and his 
 love of hymns, w^as like the Methodists that he knew many years ago; 
 that his mother was always fond of quoting Wesley's hymns and that 
 he loved to hear McBurney quote them. It was one bond of union be- 
 tween McBurnev and himself. 
 
HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y, M. C. A. b3 
 
 In his will, Secretan' McBurney provided for congregational singing 
 at a memorial service which, he knew, had been planned by his friends. 
 
 In American Association history, Secretary McBurney ranks with 
 such men as Charles Demond, Cephas Brainerd, William E. Dodge, H. 
 Thane Miller, John Wanamaker, George H. Stuart, Richard C. Morse 
 and Dwight L. Moody, all of whom were his warm friends and co- 
 laborers. He is the model secretary. He was versatile, and as a model, 
 deserves to be imitated in hymnal matters, for the mere announcement 
 of a hymn from a compilation and collection, while the primary and legiti- 
 mate use of a hymnal, does not meet the expectations entertained of a 
 trained secretary, any more than it does of a trained clergyman. To a 
 good degree. Secretary McBurney was a specialist in hymnology, but 
 any secretary can be educated in it, as a part of his normal training and 
 constant w^ork. Dwight L. Moody was not a hymnist nor a com- 
 piler, but he w'as a keen student of the numerous and possible uses of 
 hymns, a good judge of their utility and power, and a discriminating- 
 evangelist in moving individuals and an audience by hymns no less 
 than by personal appeals and by preaching. Secretary McBurney w^as 
 like Mr. Moody in these particulars. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 ASSOCIATION HYMNISTS, SINGERS AND COMPOSERS 
 
 It has been said that in the history of popular hymnology there was 
 an elder school of authors and composers. There was a later, a junior 
 school. There is a third generation of the same class of writers and 
 composers. They have been versatile men, most of them poets, singers, 
 instrumentalists, composers, preachers and evangehsts. Like Philip 
 Phillips, they have been Singing Pilgrims. Their one object has been 
 to win sinners to Christ as the only Lord and Saviour. Their labors 
 have been performed in the Associations, in part; becavise these organi- 
 zations furnished an opportunity for uniting all the denominations, or 
 most of them, in a common effort for the conversion of young men and 
 the awakening of the entire community. 
 
 The senior member of this school was Philip P. Bliss (1834- 1876). Pie 
 was a pupil of George F. Root in Chicago, and a typical man of the 
 school referred to. Pie was a Western man and most of the members 
 cf this school were from the Middle States or from the Central Western 
 States. Chicago was their chief city, the center of their operations. 
 They were associated with Dwight L. Moody, directly and indirectly. 
 It was hearing Mr. Bliss sing in Farwell Hall, Chicago, that im- 
 pressed Mr. Moody with the idea of engaging a gospel singer to aid him 
 in evangelistic and revival work. In the spring of 1874, Major D. W. 
 Whittle invited Mr. Bliss to devote himself entirely to evangelism and the 
 invitation was accepted. Some of his hymns have been sung in all 
 English-speaking countries and been translated into foreign tongues. 
 FortA'-nine of them are annotated in Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology, 
 the greatest book ever written on its theme. The Rev. F. ]\I. Bird, the 
 first American authority on hymnology, says that as the writer of hymns 
 added to simple melodies Mr. Bliss is second only to Airs. Van Alstvne 
 (Fanny Crosby). The following are the first lines of his hymns \\hich 
 have been most widely and frequently sung: ''Whosoever heareth, shout, 
 shout the sound," "Almost persuaded, now to believe," "Ho, my com- 
 rades! see the signal," "Light in the darkness, sailor, day is at hand," 
 "Down life's dark vale we wander," "IMore holiness give me," "Onlv an 
 armor-bearer." "A long time I wandered," "Brightly beams our Father's 
 mercy," "Free from the law, O happy condition," "Have you on the Lord 
 
HYMXS AXD SIXGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 65 
 
 believed?" "I know not the hour when my Lord wih come," "The whole 
 world was lost in the darkness of sin," "Repeat the story o'er and o'er,'' 
 "I will sing of my Redeemer," "Sing them over again to me." 
 
 In Boston, January 7th, 1877, a meeting in memory of ^Ir. Bliss 
 was held in the hall of the Association. Dr. Eben Tourjee led the 
 music, which was confined to the singing of the hymns of Mr. and ^Irs. 
 Bliss. Rev. ^L. R. Deming spoke concerning the power of their Gospel 
 Songs. 
 
 Major D. W. Whittle wrote "Christ is All" for P. P. Bliss in 1875. It 
 was his first hymn. Before it had been set to music Mr. Bliss and his 
 wife met death in the Ashtabula disaster, Ohio. The hymn was found 
 afterward in their trunk. James McGranahan composed the music for it. 
 Thereafter ]\Ir. Whittle was a frequent writer of hymns and Dwight L. 
 ]^Ioodv pronounced some of them to be among the best hymns of the 
 nineteenth century. Like Fanny Crosby, Major Whittle often concealed 
 his identity, and it might almost be said that he revealed his identity by 
 the use of his initials, by giving them in the reverse order and by the use 
 of a nom de plume, the most frequent one being "El Xathan." The first 
 lines of his best known hymns are as follows: "When God the way of life 
 would teach." "There shall be showers of blessings," "Our Lord is now" 
 rejected," "Come on the wings of the morning," "Fierce and wild the 
 storm is raging,'' "While we pray, and while we plead." 
 
 The record of "Aloment by ^Moment" based on Isaiah 27:3, is that 
 
 ^Irs. A , a widow, had been forced to sue for the rent of a house that 
 
 she owned, the occupant of which was a tenant who mocked and jeered 
 at her when she applied for the rent. She had come to feel that God had 
 forsaken her when she saw a notice of some meetings in the East As- 
 sembly hall, conducted by Rev. Andrew ^lurray. The notice read 
 "Three days with God.'' She was starting to attend them and had her 
 hand on the door when a young policeman knocked, asking "Does Mrs. 
 
 A live here? ^ly wife is dying — I must be on my beat.'' She halted 
 
 for a monient between two opinions, whether to go to the meetings or to 
 the dying woman. She decided in favor of caring for the policeman's 
 sick wife who had been nursed by a drimken woman and who was in 
 agony, at intervals crying aloud with pain. "Xo quiet days with God 
 for me," she thought. On the following morning she was relieved by a 
 neighbor and returned to her home, and in the afternoon went to Mr. 
 Alurray's meeting. The theme was "Love,'' and it raised the question 
 in her mind whether she could love the man whose jeering and refusal of 
 rent occasioned her financial distress. Air. ^Murray urged his hearers to 
 kneel in silent prayer, and pour out their hearts to God. She confessed 
 
66 HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 
 
 her hatred of her tenant, and her doubts of God's love arid pleaded for 
 forgiveness and the idling of her own soul with the love of God. Her 
 prayer was answered and as she arose Major Whittle's hymn "Moment 
 by Moment" was given out. It thrilled her, especially the last stanza: 
 
 "Never a battle with wrong for the right, 
 Never a contest that He does not fight ; 
 Lifting above iis His banner so bright. 
 Moment by moment I'm kept in His sight." 
 
 She returned to the evening meeting and then returned to the sick-room 
 of the policeman's wife. The invalid said to her, "How rested you look," 
 and she replied, "I have been to the East End and have got such a bless- 
 ing that all my care is gone and I have brought you a w^onderful hymn," 
 which she read. "Read it again," said the sick woman as she subsided into 
 quietude. About midnight an elderly lady of seventy-six years inquired 
 concerning her condition and the sick woman replied, "My nurse has 
 brought me a beautiful hymn, which will do you good too," and the 
 hymn was read again. Within a few moments the hymn was read four 
 times. In the morning the old lady came and asked if the nurse would 
 visit her mother, aged ninety-six, up-stairs, and read the wonderful hymn 
 to her. The visit was made, and this mother proved to be a sweet- 
 faced, bright woman, notwithstanding her extreme age. 'T hear that 
 
 you have a w^onderful hymn that has done Mrs. S good. Nurse and I 
 
 want you to read it to me. I'm very miserable." "What's the matter?" 
 
 inquired Mrs. A . "My sins," she answ-ered. "What's the hymn 
 
 you have brought fromi the East End?" It was read again. On Sunday 
 
 morning Mrs. A was surprised to find that the old lady of ninety-six 
 
 had called on her. "I have come to tell Mrs. S that if she knows the 
 
 hymn she will soon get well again." She had found the "peace that 
 passeth all understanding." She talked to the invalid policeman's wife 
 of her new-found peace, then her daughter of seventy-six found the same 
 peace, and then the policeman himself. And soon they were all able to 
 gather in the parlor and every night they were accustomed to sing the 
 hymn. The neighbors inquired what new song it was. The time came 
 
 when Mrs. A was to go to court in litigation with her tenant and her 
 
 patient was convalescent enough to accompany her. "Be sure," said 
 
 Mrs. A , "that you read me my verse just before I am called into the 
 
 witness box." And her favorite verse was read. Her presence in court 
 was short, and her tenant was dispossessed, and thus she proved the real- 
 ity of the blessing of God bestowed "Moment bv Moment." The hymn 
 is in the latest edition of "Church Hvmns and Gospel Songs." 
 
HVMXS AXD SIXGERS OF THE V. J/. C. A. 07 
 
 ^Ir. Sankey is the chief singer and survivor of the evaiigehstic school 
 of authors and composers, whose work is included in the popular title 
 of this class of hymns, viz, "Gospel Hymns." 
 
 The junior members of this school are well-known and tiieir reputations 
 and usefulness are secondary only to the career and record of ]\Ir. Bliss 
 and ]\Ir. Sankey. ]Mr. Bliss wrote many hymns; ]\Ir. Sankey has written 
 but few. He has composed numerous tunes, from choice and from neces- 
 sity. He realizes fully that a hymn needs wings; that poetry and music 
 must be happily combined in order to circulate a hymn among the plain 
 people and around the world. The Rev. Elias Xason, an authority on 
 hymnology, wrote that never, perhaps, in the whole course of Christiati- 
 ity have any songs turned, in so brief a period, so man;,' hearts to seek 
 the Lord, as those of ^Ir. Bliss; never, perhaps, has any voice ever 
 preached the gospel so efifectively in song as that of ^Ir. Sankey. 
 
 James AIcGranahan, teacher, leader, composer, evangelist, is descended 
 from Scotch-Irish ancestry, whose religious life was drawn in large part 
 from the psalms (in meter.) He is a Pennsylvanian, a native of Crawford 
 County, and Pennsylvania has given the United States and the world 
 four of its most noted gospel singers, — Sankey, Bliss. Towner and 'Mc- 
 Granahan. He was one of a rather large family of children, all of whom 
 were lovers of music, and most of whom were good singers. His earlv mu- 
 sical education was obtained in company with the lads and lasses of the 
 neighborhood, at the old-fashioned singing-school where he sometimes 
 assisted by playing the bassviol. At nineteen he was himself the teacher, 
 and in this way obtained the means to attend the Xormal ]\Iusic School, 
 founded at Geneseo. X. Y.. by William B. Bradbury. There he had the 
 opportunity of pursuing his studies under the foremost teacher of the 
 day — Carlo Bassini. The first term at this school was a \ eritable revela- 
 tion to the young singer, unfolding to his vision the boundless wealth and 
 beauty of singing, at which he had but dimly guessed. Henceforth 
 his life was given to music and song. There he met the young lady who 
 afterward became his wife, :\Iiss Addie \'ickery, the principal of Rush- 
 ford Academy of Music, herself an accomplished musician and in- 
 structor of piano in Belfast Seminary, and an accompanist who became 
 an efficient helper in his later institutes, conventions and evangelistic 
 work. 
 
 In 1862 he became associated with the late J. G. Towner, and for two 
 years they held conventions and made concert tours in Pennsvlvania and 
 New^ York. Mr. :McGranahan continued his musical studies under Bas • 
 sini, Webb, O'Neill and others, studying the art of teaching with that 
 prince of teachers. Dr. George F. Root, the art of conducting with Carl 
 
68 HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 
 
 Zerrahn, harmony under Dr. Mason, J. C. D. Parker, F. W. Root and 
 others, and in 1875 he accepted a position in the management of the 
 National Normal Institute. He served as director and teacher for three 
 years. Dr. George F. Root continuing as principal. He won an enviable 
 reputation in his convention work, and by his glees, chorus and class 
 music and Sabbath-school songs published from time to time. He be- 
 came a cultured musician with a wide and growing reputation, his solo 
 work attracting much attention. 
 
 From his earliest years his tenor voice had been a delight to his 
 auditors, and from some of his most eminent teachers came the proposal 
 that he should enter upon a course of special training for the operatic 
 stage. But P. P. Bliss, who had given his own wondrous voice to the serv- 
 ice of song for Christ, was urging Mr. McGranahan to do likewise. Com- 
 paring his long course of study and training to a man "whetting his 
 scythe," he insisted that his friend should "stop whetting his scythe, and 
 strike into the grain to reap for the Master." Mr. McGranahan, how- 
 ever, felt distrustful both of his adaptation to such work and of his call 
 to enter upon it. Then came the dreadful catastrophe at Ashtabula, in 
 which Bliss was swept away. Major Whittle felt and said that Mr. Mc- 
 Granahan was commissioned to take up the work of the lost singer. 
 When he became willing that God should decide for him, the decision 
 came at once. Responding to his request, letters came from various 
 places where he had engagements for musical work, releasing him, and 
 within three months he was free. 
 
 From that time his life has been given to the cause of sacred song. 
 Associated with Major Whittle, his labors were incessant, for about 
 eleven years. After several years spent in the United States they were 
 called in 1880 to Great Britain, where they held large meetings in various 
 parts of London, in cooperation with leading ministers of the city, and 
 afterward spent some time in Perth, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen, Bel- 
 fast, Edinburgh and other places. Three years later they again visited 
 Great Britain, this time in company with Moody and Sankey, cooperating 
 with- them in their work in a six months' campaign in London and also 
 in the south of Ireland. About six years later his health became im- 
 paired, and lie has been compelled to be less of a singer and more of a 
 composer, and the world is still enriched by his new songs or hymns. 
 
 He has 1)een deeply interested in the various forms of religious work 
 instituted by Mr. Moody, and especially in the schools which he estab- 
 lished at Northfield and Mt. Hermon, Mass. A very considerable part 
 of the expenses of these schools has been met by the proceeds of the 
 sale of hynm-books com])osed or comjMlcd in part by ^Ir. ^McGranahan. 
 
HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 69 
 
 With his friend, C. C. Case, he has been instrumental in the formation 
 and management of the Kinsman Moody Association which provides for 
 an annual two-day open air gospel meeting, in a natural amphitheatre 
 fitted up for the purpose. At the sessions of this meeting audiences of 
 ten thousand people have listened with deep attention to the words of I). 
 L. Moody, R. A. Torrey, J. Wilbur Chapman, A. C. Dixon, O. O. How- 
 ard, F. C. Ottman and other noted ministers and teachers. 
 
 Mr. McGranahan's compositions are deeply imbued with Biblical 
 thought. They take hold of the heart. Such songs as "Showers of 
 blessing, "The crowning day," "My Redeemer," "I shall be satisfied," 
 "They that wait upon the Lord," "Come unto me," "Sometime we '11 
 understand," "That will be heaven for me," have become classics of 
 their kind. 
 
 To Mr. McGranahan is due the inception of the male choir in gospel 
 singing. It was first employed by him at Worcester, Massachusetts. It 
 was the force of circumstances that led him to become the pioneer in 
 what has since been so useful a department of the Song Service, but its 
 advantages were soon evident and the "Gospel Male Choir'^' Nos. i and 
 2, written for the use of such choirs, was one result. Another is that the 
 male choir or quartette has become a recognized factor in gospel work. 
 
 Some of Mr. McGranahan's publications are "The Choice" and "The 
 Harvest of Song," glee and chorus books with C. C. Case, "The Gospel 
 Male Choir," Nos. i and 2, "The Gospel Choir" with Sankey, "Gospel 
 Hymns," Nos. 3, 4, 5 and 6 with Sankey and Stebbins, "Songs of the Gos- 
 pel," "The Christian Choir" and "The Male Chorus Book," published m 
 England, "Sacred Songs," Nos. i and 2 with Sankey and Stebbins. 
 
 Mr. McGranahan's home is in Kinsman, O. 
 
 The father of D. B. Towner (1850 ), was a music teacher and a fine 
 
 singer. At the age of nineteen, the son was teaching vocal music classes 
 in connection with his father's conventions and musical mstitutes. Mr. 
 Towner continued teaching in northeastern Pennsylvania and southern 
 central New York for several years, making his home at Binghamton, 
 where he w^as in charge of the music in the Centenary Methodist Episco- 
 pal Church. From there he went to Cincinnati and had charge of the 
 music in the York Street Methodist Episcopal Church. There he be- 
 came interested in evangelistic singing. He has led the singing at the 
 New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois and Kansas state conventions. 
 For the last sixteen years he has been connected with Mr. Moody's work 
 and has had charge of the singing at all of the student conferences at 
 Northfield and Mount Hermon. He is the author of several gospel hymn 
 
70 
 
 HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 
 
 books cind has contributed to the leading gospel song books for the last 
 fifteen or twenty years. 
 
 George C. Stebbins (1846- ) holds high rank in this grou]) of 
 
 singers and composers. In 1874 he settled in Boston and assumed the 
 directorship of music in the Clarendon Street Baptist Church, of which 
 Rev. A. J. Gordon, D.D., was pastor, and afterward was appointed to 
 the same position in Tremont Temple. During the summer of 1876 he 
 w^ent to North field to spend a few days with Mr. Moody. It was during 
 his visit there that his connection with Moody and Sankey began, and 
 his entrance into evangelistic work. In 1877 he became one of the 
 authors of the series of "Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs/' Mr. Sankey 
 and Mr. James McGranahan being the other authors and compilers. Air. 
 Stebbins spent the winter of 1880 and 1881 in San Francisco, associated 
 with Moody and Sankey, and in the spring of 1882 went to assist them 
 in the close of their work in Scotland. In the winter of 1888 and 1889 he 
 assisted Mr. Moody on the Pacific coast. In 1890 he w-ent with Dr. 
 
 George F. Pentecost to India. 
 ■^^ ^U' (^^^WWMmma/.^ They visited Egypt and Pales- 
 
 tine, where Dr. Pentecost 
 preached and Mr. Stebbins sang 
 in the principal cities. ]\Ir. Steb- 
 bins has been for thirty years an 
 evangelistic and Association 
 singer and his services are still in 
 demand for evangelistic services, 
 conventions of Young ]\Ien's 
 Christian Associations a n d 
 Young Peoples' Societies of 
 Christian Endeavor. He was a 
 leader of the music at the Jubi- 
 lee Y. M. C. A. convention, in 
 Boston, June nth to i6th, 1901. 
 He is the author of many well- 
 known tunes, among them being 
 those accompanying the follow- 
 ing hynms : ''Saviour, breathe an 
 evening blessing," *'The Home- 
 land," "Take time to 1)e holy," 
 There is a ereen hill far awav." 
 
 ROBERT WEIDENSALL, 
 
 Association Ilymnist. 
 
 "True-hearted, wdiole-hearted, 
 
 Robert Weidensall, the first secretary of the International Y. M. C. A 
 Connnittee, whose versatilitv in Association work and historic connec 
 
HYMXS AXD SIXGERS OF THE Y. AL C. A. 71 
 
 tion with all its phases place him in the front rank of secretaries, wrote 
 the "Rallying Song" of the Y. ^I. C. A. in 1872. The tune for it was com- 
 posed bv \Mlliam H. Doane. It was sung in the International Conven- 
 tion at Lowell, Massachusetts, 1872. 
 
 He wrote a second hymn about 1890, which was set to music by Air. 
 Stebbins, and published by the Bigelow & Main Co. It has been sung 
 in many Y. M. C. A. conventions, and at one time in the Xew York con- 
 vention the singing was led by the composer of the tune, Mr. Stebbins. 
 It was published in the "Young Men's Era," November r3th, 1890. The 
 title was "Young Men in Christ, the Lord." It was dedicated to the 
 Young Men's Christian Associations of the world. Its first couplet was: 
 
 "Young men in Christ, the Lord. 
 Own Him your Saviour, God." 
 
 It consisted of six seven-line stanzas. It gave expression to the prin- 
 ciples upon which the Young Men's Christian Association is founded and 
 according to which its work is conducted. It has been tried and found 
 very effective when sung by a male choir. The first three verses em- 
 phasize the strong points in the declaration of faith of the first world's 
 conference of the Young Men's Christian Association at Paris in 1855, 
 and in the Portland EvangeHcal test adopted in 1869. It can be sung 
 to the tune "America." It was published in "Gospel Hymns" Xo. 6, 
 compiled by Messrs. Sankey, Stebbins and McGranahan. 
 
 General Secretary George A. Warburton, of the Railroad Associations 
 of New^ York city, and of the Association having its quarters in the Xew 
 York Railroad Men's building, and also editor of "New York Railroad 
 Men," was led to realize that he had the hymnal gift by writing ''The 
 Hymn of Praise." He gave it to a musical friend, who in turn handed it 
 to Mr. C. B. Rutenber, a composer, who set it to music for a quartette. 
 This setting has been used frequently in New York City, especially in the 
 services of the Marble Collegiate Church, Fifth Avenue and Twenty- 
 Ninth Street. Messrs. Sankey and Stebbins and Mrs. Van Alstyne have 
 encouraged Air. Warburton to realize that he can write acceptable hymns 
 Mr. Stebbins set to music the verses, beginning "Impatient heart, be 
 still." When he wrote them, his mother was very ill, and, having been an 
 invalid for several years, was longing for deliverance by death. He wrote 
 the hymn in the little cottage where she lived, and chiefly for her comfort. 
 He was surprised when it was set to music, and more surprised when he 
 found it coming into common use. It is No. 56 in "Sacred Songs," No. I. 
 
72 HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE V. M. C. A. 
 
 "God of our fathers, who didst guide." 
 
 is a patriotic hymn, somewhat similar in sentiment to Leonard Bacon's 
 
 "O God, beneath thy guiding hand, 
 Our exiled fathers crossed the sea." 
 
 w 
 
 It was written in Bangor, Maine, where Mr. Warburton spent July 4th, 
 on his way into the Maine woods for his summei vacation. It appears in 
 the "Young Men's Christian Association Supplement" to "Church 
 Hymns and Gospel Songs." It is No. 267 in "Praise Songs," compiled 
 by Arthur H. Dadmun, secretary of the Association in Auburn, New 
 York, who assigns the authorship to the year 1896. Mr. \\^arburton has 
 been accustomed to write anniversary hymns for the Railroad Associa- 
 tions in New Y^ork. 
 
 "Jesus, the children's friend, to Thee," 
 
 was written for one of his own children. 
 
 "Lord, make my troubled soul to be." 
 
 was written on the train between Tarrytown and New Y'ork. He noticed 
 that the Hudson river was beautifully calm and reflected not only the 
 sunshine, but all objects, w^ith the utmost clearness. This thought was 
 carried along through the stanzas. The hymn is held in manuscript, not 
 yet published. 
 
 C. B. Willis (1849- )' ^t the age of eighteen became active in the 
 New Haven, Conn., Association. For eleven years he served on the 
 various committees and during that time his al)ility as a leader of song 
 was developed. He was one of the leaders of the singing during the 
 Tenth International Conference of the Railroad Department in Phila- 
 delphia in the Fall of 1900, and of the Jubilee Convention in Boston, in 
 the summer of 1901. 
 
 There is a well-known and useful Association Quartette, E. \V. Peck, 
 Paul Gilbert. C. M. Keeler and P. H. Metcalf, that also sang in the Rail- 
 road Conference and in the Jubilee Convention. 
 
 Inasmuch as the Y. M. C. A. has been the subject of discussion more 
 or less constantly with reference to its relationship to the churches, it 
 seems a])propriate to quote the hymn of George F. Root, which had its 
 origin in the cantata ''Under the Palms." The cantata was written for 
 the service of choirs and Sunday-schools and was published by John 
 Church & Co., Cincinnati. It was very popular in England and was 
 
GEORGE WARBURTON, 
 Railroad Secretary and Hymnist. 
 
HYMNS AND SINGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 
 
 I 
 
 adopted in Mr. Spurgeon's hymn-book, entitled "Our Own Hymn-Book," 
 and in British and American Hymnals. It is similar to President 
 Dwight's 
 
 "I love Thy Kingdom Lord, 
 The house of Thine abode." 
 
 The officials and members of the Y. M. C. A. would subscribe to both 
 hymns with the utmost sincerity. 
 
 O CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
 
 G. F. Root. 1820. 
 
 "O Church of Christ, our blest abode, 
 
 Celestial grace is thine ; 
 Thou art the dwelling-place of God, 
 
 the gate of joys divine. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Where'er for me the sun may set. 
 
 Wherever I may dwell. 
 My heart shall nevermore forget 
 
 Thy courts, Immanuel. 
 
 O Church of Christ, O Church of Christ, 
 
 I came to thee for rest, 
 And found it more than earthly peace 
 
 To be Immanuel's guest. 
 
 Whene'er I come to thee in joy. 
 
 Whene'er I come in tears. 
 Still at the gate called Beautiful 
 
 My risen Lord appears." 
 
CHAPTER \'ll 
 
 THE FUTURE OF HYMNS AND SINGERS 
 
 There are diversities of gifts but the same spirit. This is as true in 
 hymnology, in the authorship of hymns and the composition of tunes, 
 as in any other sphere of literary hfe, or range of musical expression. 
 Neither class of hymnists or composers has the right to ignore or de- 
 preciate the other class. Each is under moral obligation to appreciate 
 the other. Providence has honored and will honor both classes. The 
 desire for progress, for an advance in popular taste and preferences is 
 legitimate. High art is needed. But hymns and tunes are like authors 
 and composers. They have their day and cease to be. It is no more 
 true of Gospel Hymns than it is of literary hymns and the upper grade of 
 tunes. Men and institutions die. Customs and habits cliange. Tastes 
 differ. It is superciliousness for one class of hymnists or musicians to 
 say to the other: 'T have no need of thee," especially after a career of 
 usefulness extending over a generation and circling around the world in 
 many or all of earth's varied languages. ''Gospel Hymns" can safely 
 
 challenge any other class of hymns 
 to produce equal or superior cre- 
 dentials of favor with God and man. 
 They have been generated by those 
 who have had a consuming Chris- 
 tian zeal and a preeminent wisdom 
 and success in the history of evan- 
 gelism. They have survived much 
 longer than numerous popular bal- 
 lads and especially the war songs of 
 1861-5. Another revival of spirit- 
 ual life would generate, without 
 doubt, its own class and grade of 
 hymns, precisely as the Lutheran 
 Reformation did, and the \\>s- 
 leyan movement, and the Sabbath- 
 schools and even the Negro illiter- 
 ates and the Salvation Army. 
 Mr. Sankey is delivering addresses in various parts of the country on 
 lis trip through Egypt and Palestine, and is also giving his popular 
 
 IRA D. SAN KEY, 
 The sweetest singer. 
 
HYMXS AXD SIXGERS OF THE Y. M. C. A. 77 
 
 "Service of Song and Story." He is constantly on the lookout for young 
 men of like spirit whom he can train as gospel singers to take up his 
 special line of work when he has ceased to sing. He has received great 
 encouragement in the undertaking, both in Great Britain and America. 
 
 ^Meanwhile, the love of the old and standard and more permanent 
 hymns, and of the great historic tunes, is perfectly proper and natural. 
 It is recognized in the very title of "Church Hymns and Caospel Songs." 
 It is represented by such Association secretaries as G. K. ShurtlefTf, of 
 Cleveland, Ohio, and Arthur H. Dadmun, of Auburn, Xew York. 
 
 It has been pleaded for and put into operation by such a typical com- 
 piler and leader in Association Conventions as President Charles Cuth- 
 bert Hall, D.D., of Union Theological Seminary, Xew York. In his 
 introduction to Secretary Dadmun's "Praise Songs," published by May- 
 nard, [Merrill & Co., in 1898, President Hall wrote as follows: 
 
 "\Miile conscious of the great good accomplished by the popular 
 Gospel Hymns, and while unwilling to lay aside some of those hymns, 
 so closely associated with modern evangelistic movements, many per- 
 sons engaged in Association work believe that the time has come for a 
 new hymnal, drawing its material from a broader region of supply. 
 
 The last ten or fifteen years have been marked by great advancement 
 of knowledge and great education of taste in matters relating to public 
 worship. ... It is now thought to be desirable that provision be made 
 for a corresponding advance in the religious music of the Christian As- 
 sociation." 
 
 No effort was made to incorporate into the Hymnal prepared by Pres- 
 ident Hall for the Jt^bilee Convention in Boston a large niuiiber of hymns 
 having special connection with the traditions of the Association. It was 
 a small group of the greatest and noblest hymns, appropriate for so great 
 and noble an occasion. 
 
 There should be union and cooperation between varying believers in 
 the old and new hymns and tunes: in popular and select hymns and 
 tunes: in Church Hymns and Gospel Songs; in hymns and tunes that 
 appeal to the head chiefly and in other hymns and times that appeal to 
 the heart chiefly: in hymns and tunes that are long-lived and that are 
 short-lived; in those which awaken emotions and those that awaken veri- 
 table saints and sinners; in those which are for to-dav and the remnant, 
 which are for to-day and to-morrow, and the very few that will outlive 
 the Twentieth Centurv.