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 THEIR ORIGIN AND THEIR 
 ROMANCE 
 
 BY . 
 
 ALLAN SUTHERLAND 
 
 WITH 'AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 The Rev. HENRY C. McCOOK, D.D., LL.D., Sc.D. 
 
 XUttstratrtr 
 
 NEW YORK 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 NOV 21 1906 
 
 Copyright Entry 
 
 cures CC XXc, No. 
 / <T6~7 XI 
 
 COPY B. 
 
 
 Copyright, 1905 
 By The Butterick Publishing Co., Ltd. 
 
 Copyright, 1906 
 By Frederick A. Stokes Company 
 
 This edition published in October, 1906 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A, 
 
TO 
 
 THE MEMORY 
 
 OF THOSE WHO HAVE LEFT TO US THE PRICELESS 
 
 LEGACY OF THESE IMMORTAL 
 
 HYMNS 
 
 AND TO ALL THOSE TO WHOM THESE HYMNS 
 ARE DEAR 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 BY THE AUTHOR 
 
Blessed be God for these hymns of penitence and faith and love ! 
 They renew within us the fervor of the days when at the Gross we 
 first saw the light, and the burdens of our hearts rolled away ; and 
 they bring us as penitents anew to the pierced feet of Him Who died 
 to wash away our sins. — Rev. Floyd W. Tomkins, S.T.D. 
 
 Hymns are the exponent of the innermost piety of the Church. 
 They are the jewels which the Church has worn, the pearls, the dia- 
 monds, the precious stones formed into amulets more potent against 
 sorrow and sadness than the most famous charm of the wizard or 
 magician. And he who knows the way that hymns flowed, knows 
 where the blood of true piety ran, and can trace its veins and arteries 
 to the very heart. — Hknby Wabo Beeches. 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 URING the year 1905 a 
 series of articles on twelve 
 of our most popular 
 hymns appeared in The 
 Delineator and attracted 
 far-reaching attention. In accordance 
 with a very generally expressed desire, 
 they are now presented in an enlarged 
 and more permanent form. 
 
 In the course of preparing these arti- 
 cles for publication, the author wrote to 
 a number of prominent persons, minis- 
 ters for the most part, submitting a list 
 of hymns, which had been carefully 
 selected, and asking them for incidents 
 or for any personal experiences which 
 they themselves or their friends had had 
 in connection with these favourite "songs 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 of the heart," the desire being to intro- 
 duce as much original and helpful matter 
 as possible. 
 
 The interest manifested in the re- 
 sponses was very gratifying and encour- 
 aging ; but while many kindly sent 
 contributions, by far the larger number 
 replied, in substance : " I regret to state 
 that I have had no personal experiences 
 in connection with these hymns." 
 
 A distinguished minister doubtless 
 gives the true explanation. He writes: 
 " I can heartily sympathise with you in 
 your efforts to secure fresh and original 
 matter. The fact is, our ministers, as 
 a rule, usually sing the hymns so per- 
 functorily, and so utterly thoughtless of 
 practical results, that there are really 
 few known incidents occurring outside 
 of the special meetings held by evan- 
 gelists in which songs play so prominent 
 and valuable a part." 
 
 The incidents are given as they were 
 received, although, as with those relative 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 to •* Jesus, Lover of my Soul," there is, 
 at times, lack of agreement. Apart from 
 these incidents, for which, of course, the 
 author cannot claim responsibility, a 
 painstaking effort has been made at 
 accuracy of statement. For the most 
 part, the incidents are new, the usual 
 stock stories which appear in books of a 
 similar character having been, to a large 
 extent, excluded. 
 
 Each article has its own peculiar in- 
 terest. In some cases it seemed best to 
 make much of the life of the composer 
 of the hymn ; in others, the hymn it- 
 self and its incidents received the most 
 attention. 
 
 The matter given contains material 
 enough for a sermon on each hymn ; 
 and the hope is expressed that the read- 
 ing of this volume will suggest to many 
 ministers a series of sermons on this 
 most interesting subject. 
 
 In preparing the articles which ap- 
 peared in The Delineator for this more 
 
 vii 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 durable form, much valuable matter has 
 been inserted, and several popular hymns 
 have been added. 
 
 The author is indebted to all those 
 who have contributed to these pages ; 
 to Mr. Charles M. Alexander, Mr. W. 
 H. Doane, and Mr. E. O. Excell for 
 copyright privileges ; to Dr. McCook 
 for his excellent Introductory, and to 
 Mr. Harry Pringle Ford for valuable 
 literary assistance, — to all of whom he 
 publicly returns his grateful thanks. 
 
 This volume goes forth on its mission 
 of love and service with the hope that 
 it may develop a greater affection for 
 and interest in our familiar hymns and 
 their authors; and, above all, it goes 
 with the earnest prayer that it may be 
 instrumental in leading immortal souls 
 to a saving knowledge of the Master. 
 
 ALLAN SUTHERLAND. 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa., 1906. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introductory xiii 
 
 I Jesus, Lover of my Soul ... 1 
 
 II Abide with Me 27 
 
 III Just as I Am 47 
 
 IV My Faith looks up to Thee . . 71 
 V Sun of my Soul 95 
 
 VI Lead, Kindly Light . . . • 115 
 
 VII Rock of Ages 133 
 
 VIII A Mighty Fortress is our God 155 
 
 IX Nearer, my God, to Thee . . 179 
 
 X Onward, Christian Soldiers . . 203 
 XI Come, Thou Fount of Every 
 
 Blessing 225 
 
 XII Stand up, Stand up for Jesus . 245 
 ix 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 XIII There is a Fountain filled 
 
 with Blood 267 
 
 XIV From Greenland's Icy Moun- 
 
 tains ... 297 
 
 XV Safe in the Arms of Jesus . 319 
 
 XVI My Country, 'tis of Thee . . 339 
 
 XVII The Glory Song 367 
 
 XVIII Sunset and Evening Star . . 391 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "'Yes,' said the dying soldier, 'please sing to 
 
 me "Jesus, Lover of My Soul " tn Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Rev. Henry C. McCook, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 Sc.D xiii 
 
 "The great hymn, c Abide with Me/ doubt- 
 less conceived in the walk by the sea" 38 
 
 "Come to Him just as you are" .... 54 
 
 "With a deep consciousness of his own needs, 
 he transferred to paper, as faithfully as 
 he could, what was passing within him" 90 
 
 "And in quiet country places, we turn in- 
 stinctively to the one hymn that fits 
 into our mood and need" . . . . 112 
 
 John Henry Newman, author of "Lead, 
 
 Kindly Light" 118 
 
 " Then it was that I wrote the lines, c Lead, 
 
 Kindly Light ' " 122 
 
 "In like manner, Toplady, exultant in his 
 view, wrote * Rock of Ages ' before he 
 sought rest" 142 
 
 " Luther would say to Melancthon : ' Come, 
 
 Philip, let us sing the 46th Psalm ' " . 164 
 xi 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " Or if on joyful wing cleaving the sky, sun, 
 
 moon, and stars forgot, upwards I fly " . 180 
 
 "Sang most heartily 'Onward, Christian 
 Soldiers/ to cheer the Christian Japan- 
 ese in the ranks " 220 
 
 u Came to him now with a new and a power- 
 ful personal appeal " 242 
 
 te Now, father, I am ready. Tell them, ' Let 
 
 us all stand up for Jesus ' " .... 258 
 
 William Cowper, author of " There Is a Foun- 
 tain Filled with Blood " ..... 270 
 
 "He retired for that purpose to a distant 
 
 part of the room" 304? 
 
 " Fanny, I have just forty minutes ; during 
 
 that time you must write me a hymn " 332 
 
 The Rev. Samuel Francis Smith, D.D., 
 
 author of « My Country, Tis of Thee " 342 
 
 " < I've got a song that is going to live ! ' " . 372 
 Charles M. Alexander 374 
 
 Lord Tennyson, author of "Sunset and 
 
 Evening Star" 394 
 
 " My eye caught in the cloudless atmosphere 
 the gleam of a star, resplendent in its 
 beauty" 406 
 
 XII 
 
Photo by Gutekunst, Philadelphia, 
 
 THE REV'D HENRY C. McCOOK, D.D., LL.D., Sc.D. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. HENRY C. McCOOK, D.D.,LL.D., Sc.D.* 
 
 ROM the earliest eras of 
 history, religion has been 
 wedded to song. In every 
 stage of civilisation and in 
 well-nigh every form of 
 worship this has been true. From the 
 rude ululations of savage medicine-men, 
 with the monotonous beat of tum-tums, 
 to the splendid Levitical choir of the 
 Hebrew temple that rendered the psalms 
 to the accompaniment of stringed and 
 
 * President of the Presbyterian Historical Society ; Chaplain of the 
 Forty-first Regiment, Illinois Volunteers, 1861-62 ; Chaplain of the Sec- 
 ond Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, during the Spanish-American 
 War ; Founder of the National Relief Commission, in Spanish- American 
 War ; Author of " The Latimers : A Scotch-Irish Historic Romance of 
 the Western Insurrection," "Women Friends of Jesus," "The Last 
 Days of Jesus," " The Gospel of Nature," " Tenants of an Old Farm," 
 "American Spiders and their Spinning-work," "Old Farm Fairies," 
 "The Agricultural Ant of Texas," "The Honey and Occident Ants," 
 and "Martial Graves of our Fallen Heroes in Santiago de Cuba: A 
 Record of the Spanish- American War." 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 brazen instruments, the record does not 
 vary. 
 
 How rhythm and melody react upon 
 the religious sentiment, and why religious 
 experience naturally flows in rhythmic 
 utterance, one need not here inquire. 
 Such inquiries belong to the natural his- 
 tory of sacred psalmody. But there are 
 our sacred books to attest the facts. A 
 large part of them are poems. The 
 poets of ancient Israel were true prophets. 
 The core of the Hebrew religion and 
 worship lay within its religious songs ; 
 and these are the portions of its ritual 
 that have lived ; and one may safely 
 predict that they shall run the whole 
 cycle of being with our race. 
 
 As far back as the days of Moses, we 
 read of Miriam under a prophetic im- 
 pulse breaking forth into song to com- 
 memorate the deliverance of Israel from 
 the Egyptians on the peninsular shore of 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 the Red Sea. A refrain of that hymn 
 has come down to us : 
 
 " Sing unto the Lord for He hath triumphed gloriously ; 
 The horse and his rider He hath whelmed within the 
 sea." 
 
 That such religious songs were not 
 rare and that their musical utterance 
 was even then organized as a part of 
 worship, appears from the fact that 
 Miriam's countrywomen accompanied 
 her with their guitars, and joined in the 
 chorus. 
 
 The Songs of Deborah illumined the 
 period of the Judges. They have been 
 given a place by competent critics 
 among the noblest lyrics of antiquity. 
 One of these, Heinrich Ewald, speaks 
 of them as so artistic, with all their an- 
 tique simplicity, that they show to what 
 "refined art poetry early aspired, and 
 what a delicate perception of beauty 
 breathed already beneath its stiff and 
 cumbrous soul." 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 The Gospel era dawned in the midst 
 of holy songs, hymned by angels, by 
 holy men and women, and by the Mother 
 of our Lord. From that day on the 
 Church of Jesus has been vocal with 
 psalmody. The primitive Church had 
 her spiritual songs. The saintliness of 
 the early Christian ages survives in the 
 Greek and Latin hymns, and the pleas- 
 ant task of translating and assembling 
 the choicest of these has occupied many 
 gifted minds. 
 
 The Protestant Reformation of the 
 sixteenth century was borne forward on 
 waves of sacred song. The sweet voice 
 of the student lad that appealed from 
 the snowy street to the heart of Dame 
 Ursula Cotta, and opened her doors to 
 Martin Luther, was a type of the new 
 time. The new songs of the Reforma- 
 tion and the old psalms renewed in the 
 vernacular and in popular musical forms, 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 prepared the way of multitudes for the 
 revived truths of the Gospel. 
 
 Luther's musical taste and talent im- 
 pressed itself upon Germany, and thence 
 upon Europe. His free spirit found 
 utterance outside of the Biblical forms 
 of praise in metrical renderings of his 
 own and other religious experiences. 
 Calvin saw the value and authority of 
 popular praises, and encouraged and pro- 
 cured their use in the new organisation 
 of reformed worship of which he was 
 the chief agent. But his more conserv- 
 ative spirit in such matters held to the 
 ancient psalms ; and this influenced 
 all Europe outside of Germany. The 
 Church of England used the version of 
 Sternhold and Hopkins, and these will 
 be found appended to the early prayer- 
 books. Rous's version was substantially 
 that best liked and approved by the 
 Church of Scotland. 
 
 xvii 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 The historic "Huguenot Psalter" was 
 the joint work of Clement Marot and 
 Theodore Beza, the former having ren- 
 dered into French metre the first fifty 
 psalms, and the latter the remaining one 
 hundred. These, set to popular music, 
 caught the ear and heart of the people 
 of all ranks. They ran rapidly through- 
 out French-speaking nations, and be- 
 came as well known as the "Gospel 
 Hymns " in the palmy days of Moody 
 and Sankey. 
 
 The Hebrew Psalter embodies the re- 
 ligious experiences of the chosen people, 
 whose faith, more spiritual than that of 
 any other nation of antiquity, was in- 
 breathed and nurtured by the Holy 
 Spirit. It is not to be supposed that 
 the one hundred and fifty psalms in- 
 cluded within the canonical psalter were 
 the only ones that the poets of Israel 
 hymned. But these, in the process of 
 
 xviii 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 an inspired selection and a devotional 
 development, were the ones that filled 
 and satisfied the religious consciousness 
 of that most spiritual people, and be- 
 came the vehicle of not only a national 
 but of an international praise. 
 
 For the Book of Psalms is a book for 
 all nations. The very divinity of its 
 origin insures its catholic humanity. 
 It has proved its high ethnic qualities 
 by ages of world-wide usage. A cloud 
 of witnessing praises, rising from the 
 Church of every age and name through- 
 out centuries of testing, testifies to its 
 fitness. If the taste of this era — much 
 to the regret of some of us — has largely 
 rejected metrical versions in the vernac- 
 ular, yet their use, after the manner of 
 the ancients, in chants, still holds and 
 even widens in the Church's service of 
 praise. 
 
 At all events, enough has been writ- 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 ten to show that the selective work of 
 Mr. Allan Sutherland, in collecting some 
 of the hymns that have most approved 
 themselves to the religious experiences 
 of Christians of recent times, is quite in 
 line with the devotional spirit and acts 
 of past generations. Certainly such a 
 collection can make no claim to inspira- 
 tion in the highest sense. But believing, 
 as we all must do, that God, the Holy 
 Ghost, still speaks to and through the 
 spirits and lives of pious men and 
 women, there is surely no small degree 
 of authority and interest in those hymns 
 that have voiced the spiritual life of a 
 great multitude, and of which fact illus- 
 trations are here presented. 
 
 Moreover, it is most fitting that such 
 hymns and psalms should be prepared 
 for a truly catholic constituency. It is 
 significant that the hymns which have 
 fastened themselves upon the hearts of 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 the devout in any one branch of the 
 Church are those which are loved and 
 used by all who honour and love the 
 name of Christ. In all ages the truly 
 devout are one in spiritual sympathy, and 
 therefore the forms of praise which utter 
 the devotions of one heart bear alike to 
 God the aspirations of another. The 
 Calvinistic Toplady, Watts, and Bonar ; 
 the Methodist Wesleys ; the Anglican 
 Heber, Ken, and Keble ; the Romanist 
 Faber and Newman, and all the goodly 
 company of the sons and daughters of 
 Asaph, when uttering the devotions of 
 their souls, speak in one tongue. 
 
 There is something divine in the flame 
 of sacred poesy that burns out there- 
 from the dross of sect. The hymns of 
 the most rigid denominations are rarely 
 sectarian. There is not a presbyter or 
 priest in this whole land, who, with 
 due tact and good faith, could not con- 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 duct a mission or service of song as 
 chaplain of a congregation of soldiers 
 or sailors made up of Protestants and 
 Roman Catholics, of all phases of eccle- 
 siastical opinions, without one discordant 
 note and with perfect approval and en- 
 joyment of all. This the writer, as a 
 Government chaplain in two wars and 
 for a quarter of a century in the Na- 
 tional Guard, has repeatedly done and 
 seen done. 
 
 Such great catholic missions as those 
 of Moody and Sankey, Whittle and 
 Bliss, Torrey and Alexander, which 
 have appealed to all classes, conditions, 
 and creeds, and have made their services 
 so largely a service of song, have been 
 and remain impressive witnesses of the 
 substantial unity of the devout when 
 they engage in the worship of praise. 
 
 xxii 
 
I 
 
 JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL 
 
STesus, Hober of mp soul, 
 
 Het me to Cftp ftosom flp, 
 ®2Uftile tfte nearer toaters roll, 
 
 WiW tfte tempest still is ftigft : 
 J^tbe me, © mp g>abiour, fttire, 
 
 Ctll tfte storm of life is past ; 
 &afe into tfte ftaben guttie, 
 
 © receibe mp soul at last 
 
 ©tfter refuge ftabe 3 none ; 
 
 %angs mp ftelpless soul on Cftee ; 
 Heabe, aft ! leabe me not alone, 
 
 £s>till support anb comfort me* 
 ail mp trust on QTftee ts stapeb, 
 
 Sill mp ftelp from GCftee 3 bring ; 
 Cober mp defenceless fteab 
 
 ©SJitft tfte sftaboto of Gtftp toing, 
 
 Saiilt tEftou not regarb mp call? 
 
 3KKilt Cftou not accept mp praper ? 
 £o, 3 sink, 3 faint, 3 fall! 
 
 Ho, on 3£ftee 3 cast mp care ; 
 &eacft me out Cftp gracious ftanb ! 
 
 GSSftile 3 of GCftp strengtft receibe, 
 Roping against ftope 3 stanb, 
 
 Bping, anb beftolb 3 libe ! 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Cftou, © Cfcrist, art all 3 toant; 
 
 JWore tfcan all in Wbtt 3 f inb ; 
 &aise tfje fallen, cfjeer tfje faint, 
 
 Jleal ti)e sficfe, anb leab tte Minb* 
 3Tust anb Jjalp is; tCfjp iSame ; 
 
 3f am all unrighteousness ; 
 ;lf alse anb full of &in 35 am, 
 
 Wbou art full of trutf) anb grace. 
 
 plenteous grace tottfj Cfjee id founb, 
 
 #rate to cober all mp din ; 
 Het tije dealing streams abounb ; 
 
 JWafee anb beep me pure tottfnn. 
 Wifon of life tfje ^Fountain art, 
 
 Jf reel? let me tafee of Wttt ; 
 Spring Cfjou up tottfnn mp fjeart, 
 
 3&tSe to all etemitp. 
 
JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL 
 
 ORDSWORTH, who 
 
 himself was one of the 
 world's sweetest com- 
 posers of immortal verse, 
 thus writes: 
 
 u Blessing be with them, and eternal praise, 
 Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler 
 
 cares 
 
 The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs 
 Of truth and pure delight by heavenly 
 lays." 
 
 In the front ranks of those who 
 might hope to attain a portion of 
 the blessings thus invoked upon poets 
 stands Charles Wesley, who shares with 
 David, the great psalmist of Israel, the 
 honour of being among earth's noblest 
 and most gifted writers of song. 
 
 There is little doubt, perhaps, that 
 the greatest song of all the ages — the 
 one which, above all others, has brought 
 peace and comfort to vast multitudes; 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 the one which, in countless instances, 
 has been earliest lisped in childhood, 
 and the last to linger on the tongue 
 when Death's summons came — is the 
 Twenty-third Psalm. For nearly three 
 thousand years it has occupied a fore- 
 most place in all God-loving hearts, 
 and its beauty and strength have been 
 recognised and acknowledged by all 
 the world. 
 
 More than a century and a half ago, 
 another perfect heart-song, Charles 
 Wesley's " Jesus, Lover of My Soul," 
 was given to the world, and it has long 
 since become recognised as one of the 
 noblest expressions of Christian faith 
 and hope in all literature; and while it 
 can never diminish the glory of David's 
 matchless verse, yet it shares with it the 
 first place in the hearts of countless 
 thousands; and the two together voice 
 the creed, the hope, and the prayer of 
 Christendom. 
 
 Wesley wrote this hymn at the age 
 
JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL 
 
 of thirty-two, when he was at the 
 height of his mental powers. Several 
 incidents have been narrated as having 
 suggested to him its composition, two 
 or three of which are here given: One 
 is, that his narrow escape from death 
 in a severe storm on the Atlantic in- 
 spired him to portray in verse the 
 thoughts and sensations of a Christian 
 in deadly peril. Another, that, as he 
 stood by an open window on a sum- 
 mer day, a little bird, sorely pressed by 
 a hawk, sought refuge in his bosom, 
 and that then and there he conceived 
 the idea of pointing out the soul's one 
 sure place of safety in time of immi- 
 nent need. 
 
 The Rev. William Laurie, D.D., 
 LL.D., states that Mrs. Mary E. 
 Hoover, long a member of his church 
 in Bellefonte, Pa., and whose own 
 grandmother was the heroine of the 
 story, informed him of the following 
 family tradition: " Charles Wesley was 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WOULD 
 
 preaching in the fields of the parish 
 of Killielee, County Down, Ireland, 
 when he was attacked by a number of 
 men who did not approve of his doc- 
 trines. He sought safety in a house 
 located on what was known as the 
 Island Band farm. The farmer's wife, 
 Jane Lowrie Moore, told him to hide 
 in the milk house down in the garden. 
 Soon the mob came, demanding the 
 fugitive. She sought to quiet them 
 by offering to get them refreshments. 
 Going down to the milk house, she 
 directed Mr. Wesley to get through a 
 rear window and hide under the hedge, 
 by which ran a little brook. This he 
 did,, and it was while here, with the 
 cries of his pursuers all about him, that 
 he wrote his immortal hymn. Descend- 
 ants of Mrs. Moore still live in the 
 house, which is much the same as it was 
 in Wesley's time." 
 
 Whatever may have been the incit- 
 ing cause, it resulted in inspiring one 
 
JESUS, LOYEE OF MY SOUL 
 
 of the noblest songs of modern times, 
 and in making the whole world debtor 
 to the author's divine gift of poesy. 
 We are inclined to believe that the 
 same thing might be said of Wesley 
 in this connection as was said of Sid- 
 ney Lanier, the gifted Southern poet. 
 Some one asked a weeping old man 
 who stood by Lanier's death-bed, from 
 whence he drew the power to write such 
 beautiful verse, and the simple and 
 touching response was, " God taught 
 him." Surely Charles Wesley was 
 " taught of God " when he composed 
 the lines which have so often come as 
 a benediction to human souls in their 
 night-time of sorrow. 
 
 What volumes of incidents connected 
 with this hymn might be written! Per- 
 haps there is scarcely a preacher who 
 has had any extended experience with 
 death-bed scenes, who could not tell 
 one or more interesting stories asso- 
 ciated with it. Only a short time 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 ago, a sainted minister, far past the 
 allotted " threescore years and ten," 
 and whose strong, peaceful face has 
 already caught something of the glow 
 of the eternal morning, said: "The 
 hymn has always been inexpressibly 
 dear to me; but it took on a new and 
 deeper meaning when, years ago, I 
 leaned over the dying form of one of 
 the truest women my life has ever 
 known, and heard her whisper with 
 her latest breath, in broken, pleading 
 tones : 
 
 "'Hide . . me, . . O my Saviour, . . hide.' 
 
 Few words, it is true, but enough to 
 indicate in whom she trusted as her 
 hold on earth weakened, and she groped 
 through the shadow that veiled her dim 
 eyes for a space from the glories of 
 Heaven." 
 
 The Rev. A. S. Fiske, D.D., of 
 Washington, D. C, furnishes this ten- 
 der incident: "A lovely young mother 
 10 
 
JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL 
 
 and her husband were the leaders of 
 our music in the first church of which 
 I was the pastor. Their baby, Mary, 
 died. The mother, frail in form and 
 of delicate beauty, could not recover 
 from the blow, and slowly faded into 
 consumption. One day I was called 
 to her bedside. There I found her hus- 
 band, struggling to repress his anguish, 
 waiting for the end. She was serene, 
 and more exquisitely beautiful than 
 ever — the hectic colour flushing her 
 cheeks and her great, dark eyes aglow. 
 She, too, knew that the end was ap- 
 proaching. I shall never forget the 
 indescribable tenderness of her eyes 
 and the comfort in her voice, as she 
 said to her husband, ' Dearest, now 
 sing " Jesus, Lover of My Soul." 
 As we sang she would now and then 
 attempt to join us, but her voice would 
 fail, while we faltered on. When the 
 hymn was ended, she murmured : ' Oh, 
 
 how sweet!' Her eyes closed for a 
 11 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 little and then they flashed wide open 
 and her cheeks seemed to take on an 
 added flush. A look of wonder and 
 delight came into her face, and she 
 raised a thin, pale hand with a caress- 
 ing motion, as if gently stroking a 
 dear face bent above; her lips moved; 
 her husband bent to catch her words, 
 and she was murmuring with all the in- 
 finite eagerness of mother-love, ' Mary ! 
 Baby Mary! ' Then her hand fell back 
 and her eyes closed contentedly. We 
 thought that she had gone to join her 
 lost darling; but once more, and for 
 the last time, her eyes flashed open, and 
 while her face shone with ' a light that 
 never was on sea or land,' she stretched 
 up both hands with an adoring move- 
 ment, and her husband caught the words, 
 c Jesus ! Blessed, blessed Jesus ! ' The 
 c Lover of her soul ' had come, according 
 to His precious promise, and brought 
 Baby Mary with Him to receive her 
 to Himself and to bear her away to 
 
 12 
 
JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL 
 
 the blessed home in which her husband 
 has long since joined his loved ones." 
 
 " This hymn has special interest for 
 me," writes the Rev. William R. Kirk- 
 wood, D.D., " from the fact that the 
 last intelligible utterance of my father 
 was from it. He was an old man, and 
 evidently near the end. I asked him 
 if he found his faith hold and Jesus 
 precious. Rousing his failing forces, 
 he answered: 
 
 " ' Other refuge have I none ; 
 
 Hangs my helpless soul on Thee.' 
 
 He faltered on until he uttered the 
 last words of the stanza, when his voice 
 failed and he was not able to speak 
 again. You will readily believe that 
 the hymn is dear to me because of this, 
 but you have doubtless noticed its won- 
 derfully direct personality in its appeal 
 to the Lord — not to an ' inanimate 
 God ' who is ' the principle of our life,' 
 but to a living, personal being, the 
 
 13 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Divine Man. This runs all through it, 
 and I venture to think that this is one 
 of its chief charms, one of the qualities 
 that make it especially dear to the heart 
 in the hours of ' storm and stress.' ' 
 
 This hymn was a special favourite 
 of Dr. Lyman Beecher. His famous 
 son, Henry Ward Beecher, said of it: 
 " I would rather have written that 
 hymn than to have the fame of all the 
 kings that ever sat on the earth. It is 
 more glorious; it has more power in it. 
 It will go singing until the last trump 
 brings forth the angel band; and then, 
 I think, it will mount up on some lips 
 to the very presence of God." 
 
 " On an intensely warm day," Mr. 
 H. P. Ford relates, " as I stood on the 
 corner of a sun-baked street in Phila- 
 delphia, waiting for a car to take me 
 to the cool retreats of Fairmount Park, 
 I heard a low, quavering voice singing, 
 with inexpressible sweetness, * Jesus, 
 Lover of My Soul.' Looking up to an 
 
 14 
 
JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL 
 
 open window whence the sound came, 
 I saw on the sill a half -withered plant 
 — a pathetic oasis of green in a desert 
 of brick and mortar — and resting ten- 
 derly and caressingly upon it was an 
 emaciated hand. I could not see the 
 person to whom the voice and hand 
 belonged, but that was unnecessary — 
 the story was all too clearly revealed: 
 I knew that within that close, uncom- 
 fortable room a human soul was strug- 
 gling with the great problem of life 
 and death, and was slowly but surely 
 reaching its solution; I knew that in 
 spite of her lowly surroundings her 
 life was going out serenely and trium- 
 phantly. I shall never quite forget the 
 grave, pathetic pleading in the frail 
 young voice as these words were borne 
 to me on the oppressive air: 
 
 " ' Other refuge have I none ; 
 
 Hangs my helpless soul on Thee ; 
 Leave, ah! leave me not alone, 
 Still support and comfort me!'" 
 15 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 This incident comes from the Rev, 
 Stephen A. Hunter, Ph.D., LL.D., 
 whose friend, the Rev. James Rankin, 
 of the United Presbyterian Church, 
 was one of the chief actors: "During 
 the Civil War, the Rev. Mr. Rankin 
 was serving under the Christian Com- 
 mission and was often called to min- 
 ister to the wounded and dying. After 
 one of the battles he was bending over 
 a dying soldier. He had ministered to 
 the physical wants of the brave sufferer 
 as best he could, and then offered a 
 brief prayer commending him to a 
 merciful Saviour. ' Is there anything 
 more I can do for you? * said the min- 
 ister, as he was about to go to the help 
 of others. * Yes/ said the dying sol- 
 dier, ' please sing to me " Jesus, Lover 
 of My Soul." ' The minister hesitated. 
 He came from a church in which hymns 
 were never sung in the worship of 
 God, and he had been taught to look 
 askance upon them as a means of 
 
 16 
 
JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL 
 
 spiritual help; but there was no deny- 
 ing this dying plea, and, besides, the 
 hymn had a warm place in his heart in 
 spite of his training. Softly and ten- 
 derly he sang, as never before, with 
 the thought that it was comforting a 
 human soul in its extremity. As the 
 words floated out in the darkness, 
 where the dead and the wounded lay, 
 a strange quiet, like that of a great 
 benediction, fell upon all, and the 
 dying man clasped the hand of the 
 singer with a heart full of gratitude, 
 while he sang on: 
 
 " ' Hide me, O my Saviour, hide, 
 
 Till the storm of life is past; 
 Safe into the haven guide, 
 O receive my soul at last. 5 
 
 " With the closing strains there 
 seemed to come a sweet peace over 
 the dread battle plain. The soldier 
 relaxed his grasp; the prayer was 
 heard; the song had ushered him 
 within the gates. 
 
 2 17 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 " And the minister went on in his 
 ministry of helpfulness, with a new 
 thought in his heart: If this hymn 
 will do to die by, it will do to live 
 by. And in after days he comforted 
 many dying souls with its beautiful 
 words." 
 
 Some years ago a ship was being 
 dashed to pieces on a lee shore. As 
 she drew nearer in the thralldom of 
 relentless breakers, and as the brief 
 winter twilight faded into night, a few 
 men could be dimly seen desperately 
 clinging to the rigging. It was im- 
 possible for a small boat to live in such 
 a sea, and there was no other human 
 means of rendering aid. One by one 
 the sailors hopelessly gave up the 
 struggle that was beyond mortal en- 
 durance, and their bodies were cast 
 upon the beach. It was thought that 
 all had perished, when, in a momentary 
 lull in the roar of the wind and the 
 booming of the waters, a man's voice 
 
 18 
 
JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL 
 
 was heard, full of pleading, away off 
 in the blackness, singing: 
 
 " Hide me, O my Saviour, hide, 
 Till the storm of life is past ; 
 Safe into the haven guide, 
 O receive my soul at last." 
 
 The watchers heard no more. The 
 brave voice was stilled forever; the 
 sailor had reached " his desired haven." 
 Soon tender hands drew his storm- 
 tossed body from the surf, and the 
 next day it was gently laid away under 
 the trees in the nearby churchyard. 
 On quiet Sabbath mornings, when the 
 fisherfolk gather for their spiritual 
 devotions, the story of the storm and 
 the song is often repeated. 
 
 The cheering words of this match- 
 less hymn, wedded to deathless music, 
 will continue to sound along the years, 
 making the world better, faith stronger, 
 and God more real, until time shall be 
 no more. 
 
 19 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 No history of the hymn would be 
 complete without the story of the beau- 
 tiful tune to which it is inseparably 
 wedded, and this has been admirably 
 told by Dr. Henry T. McEwen, of 
 Amsterdam, New York: 
 
 " By an overwhelming vote, ' Rock 
 of Ages ' and ' Jesus, Lover of My 
 Soul ' have been placed in the very 
 front rank of hymns. Their almost 
 identical experience furnishes a coin- 
 cidence as interesting as it is striking. 
 Both were written in Great Britain, 
 contiguous in place and contempora- 
 neous in time. Both waited about a 
 century, and, both crossed the ocean to 
 find in America the tunes with which 
 they have been most blessedly and in- 
 timately associated. ' Rock of Ages * 
 found its appropriate musical setting 
 in the tune ' Toplady,' by Dr. Thomas 
 Hastings; and Charles Wesley's great 
 hymn, ' Jesus, Lover of My Soul,' 
 found the tune ' Martyn,' on which it 
 
 20 
 
JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL 
 
 has been borne to every land, and to 
 which it is sung in every tongue. 
 Myriads of Christians, toiling on in 
 faith and hope, who now and then 
 gladden their hearts with song, give 
 this hymn and tune first place in their 
 innermost affections. 
 
 " Simeon B. Marsh was born in the 
 State of New York in 1798. His 
 opportunities were limited; his pas- 
 sion for music unbounded. With Dr. 
 Thomas Hastings, who lived but a few 
 miles away, he formed a lasting friend- 
 ship. Dr. Hastings was then a great 
 leader in the composition and teaching 
 of sacred music. 
 
 " Early in life Mr. Marsh, during 
 the winter months, taught singing 
 schools in the villages and hamlets near 
 his home. In his leisure hours he built 
 several organs of limited size. In 1832 
 he removed to Amsterdam, New York, 
 where he became the leader of the choir 
 of the Presbyterian Church, and during 
 21 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 the autumn and winter continued to 
 teach in adjacent villages. 
 
 " One morning in the autumn of 
 1834 he had started from Amsterdam 
 to Johnstown on his weekly circuit of 
 singing schools. The beautiful scenery, 
 because familiar, had nothing new to 
 attract him. While he mused, the fire 
 of inspiration burned within him. At 
 the foot of Tribes Hill, a few miles 
 west of Amsterdam, he dismounted, 
 and leaving his horse to graze nearby, 
 seated himself beneath a noble elm, 
 which then stood with others where 
 now the four tracks of the New 
 York Central Railway bear a mighty 
 commerce to the sea, and jotted 
 down on such paper as he chanced 
 to have, the tune ' Martyn ' to the 
 words : 
 
 " ' Mary, to her Saviour's tomb, 
 Hasted at the early dawn; 
 Spice she brought and sweet perfume, 
 But the Lord she loved was gone/ 
 
JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL 
 
 " Arriving in Johnstown, he wrote 
 the new tune on the blackboard for 
 the children's class that afternoon. 
 Our hearts are stirred with a new 
 tenderness and gratitude as we re- 
 member that children's voices were the 
 first to sing the melody. Encouraged 
 by the welcome the simple composition 
 received from his singing classes, Mr. 
 Marsh taught it to his choir. The Sab- 
 bath dawned; the time for the church 
 service arrived. What a moment it 
 was! Seated at the organ which his 
 own hands had built, and which they 
 now played, Mr. Marsh led the choir, 
 which he had trained, in singing for 
 the first time, as a part of divine wor- 
 ship, the tune which he himself had 
 composed. The appreciation of the 
 music-loving congregation was instant, 
 but they little dreamed that the fame 
 of the tune which they had just heard 
 would be more widespread and endur- 
 ing than the hills encircling their classic 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 valley, that its ministry of service would 
 extend through time and eternity. 
 
 " Some years later Dr. Hastings 
 discovered that the tune was better 
 adapted to ' Jesus, Lover of My Soul ' 
 than to the hymn selected by Mr. 
 Marsh. He sought and secured from 
 his friend the privilege of making the 
 change. In 1870, not long before his 
 death, Dr. Hastings, in making his 
 famous collection, secured from Mr. 
 Marsh a facsimile of the original score, 
 using, of course, the words * Jesus, 
 Lover of My Soul/ and giving the 
 date of composition, and adding the 
 composer's autograph. 
 
 " When Gilmore was preparing for 
 the c World's Jubilee ' in Boston, in 
 1872, he selected ' Martyn ' as a repre- 
 sentative American tune, and invited 
 Mr. Marsh to hear it rendered on that 
 occasion by his famous band. Mr. 
 Marsh died in 1877. 
 
 " Sunday morning, November 11, 
 
JESUS, LOVEE OF MY SOUL 
 
 1900, the Presbyterian Church at Am- 
 sterdam began its centennial celebra- 
 tion. After the historical sermon, and 
 just before the congregation rose to 
 sing the closing hymn, ' Jesus, Lover 
 of My Soul,' to the tune ' Martyn,' 
 the pastor told the story of its com- 
 position. In the crowded house there 
 were many who remembered the old 
 church edifice from which the tune had 
 gone forth on its matchless ministry. 
 There were a few present who had 
 received their first lessons in singing 
 from Mr. Marsh. Tears of joy, grati- 
 tude, and appreciation rolled down the 
 cheeks of stalwart men as well as of 
 gracious women. Led by organ and 
 chorus, the congregation joined in an 
 outpouring of praise such as is never 
 heard save when human hearts are 
 deeply stirred." 
 
 25 
 
II 
 
 ABIDE WITH ME 
 
&bibe toitb me : f as;t falls; ttje ebentibe ; 
 
 £fje barkness beepens ; Horb, tottf) me abibe : 
 S23})en otljer belper* fail, anb comforts; flee, 
 Jfytlp of tfje fjelpless, abibe trntfj me. 
 
 g>toift to its; closie ebbs; out life's; little bap; 
 Cartb's jops; groto bim, its; glories; pas;s; atoap ; 
 Cbange anb becap in all arounb 3 s;ee ; 
 © Cbou tuijo cfjangest not, abibe toitb me. 
 
 3 neeb Wyp presence eberp passing bour ; 
 GKHbat but tlbp grace can foil tfje tempter'* 
 
 potoer ? 
 OTbo like QPbpgeK mp guibe anb s;tap can be ? 
 Cfjrougfj cloub anb sunsfjme, (9 abibe tottfj me. 
 
 3 fear no foe, toitb tEbee at fjanb to bless : 
 311s; babe no toeigbt, anb tear* no bitterness. 
 Wfytxt i* beatb'S sting? tobere, grabe, tbp 
 
 bictorp ? 
 3 trtumpb still, if Sftou abibe toitb me. 
 
 ?|olb GTbou XKfjp cross before mp closing epes; ; 
 £>bine tbrougb tfje gloom, anb potnt me to tfje 
 
 s;feie* : 
 Jleaben's; morning breaks;, anb eartb's; bain 
 
 stfjabotos; flee: 
 3n life, in beatb, © Xorb, abibe toitb me. 
 
ABIDE WITH ME 
 
 OT often does Shelley's 
 declaration of poets, 
 " They learn in suffer- 
 ing what they teach in 
 song," find such com- 
 plete verification as in the case of 
 Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847) and 
 his matchless composition, " Abide with 
 Me." 
 
 On the eastern coast of Devonshire, 
 England, is the ancient little seaport 
 town of Brixham, built on the sunny 
 cliffs of Torbay, with magnificent vis- 
 tas of the English Channel widening 
 to the Atlantic. Of its surroundings, 
 the Rev. S. W. Christophers has the 
 following description: 
 
 " One finds here, within the limits of 
 a few days' ramble, the richest inter- 
 minglings of balmy air and bright blue 
 sea, of hill and dale, copsy knoll and 
 ferny hollow, villa-crowned heights and 
 
 31 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 cottages in dells, noble cliffs and ter- 
 raced gardens, mountain paths and 
 quiet sparkling beaches, weedy rocks 
 and whispering caverns, ever-varying, 
 ever-harmonising scenes, amid which, 
 above, beneath, around, and everywhere, 
 grandeur is melting into beauty." 
 
 It was amid such scenes as these that 
 "Abide with Me" was written; and 
 one will not be surprised to learn that 
 only a few miles away, in the town of 
 Torquay, where the country and coast 
 are almost identical, Charlotte Elliott 
 gave to humanity another great hymn, 
 " Just As I Am." 
 
 The town of Brixham, though carry- 
 ing on an extensive fishing and coast- 
 ing trade, grows but little, and is much 
 as it was in 1688, when William of 
 Orange landed there on his first mem- 
 orable visit to England. The stone on 
 which he stepped is still preserved as 
 a relic in an obelisk at the head of the 
 quaint little pier; and it was on this 
 
ABIDE WITH ME 
 
 same stone that William IV, a cen- 
 tury and a half later, also stepped when 
 paying a visit to Brixham, where, in 
 connection with other ceremonies, he 
 was met by Mr. Lyte with a surpliced 
 choir. It is not, however, the visits of 
 these monarchs of the realm that have 
 made Brixham famous. 
 
 It seemed a singular chance that 
 placed this frail, sensitive minister over 
 a parish composed largely of hardy 
 fisherf oik, with here and there a sprink- 
 ling of more refined and cultured peo- 
 ple. There were also soldiers in the 
 barracks, and visitors who came to 
 enjoy the salt-water bathing. It was 
 evidently a place for a great soul to 
 do a noble mission, and Mr. Lyte was 
 the Heaven-sent messenger who for 
 twenty-five long years knew 
 
 " Their lives, their hearts, 
 Their thoughts, their feelings, and their 
 
 dreams, 
 Their joys and sorrows, and their smiles and 
 
 tears." 
 
 3 33 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 All the while he himself was suf- 
 fering from consumption, which was 
 destined at last to remove him from 
 these scenes in which he so faithfully 
 laboured for his beloved people. The 
 time came, while he was still in the 
 prime of life, when he felt that his 
 work would soon be over, and with the 
 deepest longings he desired that he 
 might be permitted to do something 
 which would have its influence for good 
 upon humanity after he had gone to 
 his rest. This longing found expres- 
 sion in the following language: 
 
 " Might verse of mine inspire 
 One virtuous aim, one high resolve impart — 
 Light in one drooping soul a hallowed fire, 
 Or bind one broken heart — 
 
 " Death would be sweeter then." 
 
 Fortunately, the story of how this 
 desire found such signal fulfilment in 
 the production of "Abide with Me," 
 has been preserved. Mr. Lyte was 
 living at the time in his beautiful home 
 
 34 
 
ABIDE WITH ME 
 
 in the Berry Head House, a gift from 
 William IV, who remembered with 
 pleasure the kindly attention of Mr. 
 Lyte during his visit to Brixham. In 
 the autumn of 1847 his physicians in- 
 formed Mr. Lyte that it would be 
 necessary for him to relinquish his work 
 and spend the winter in Italy. He 
 wrote to a friend: 
 
 " They tell me that the sea is in- 
 jurious to me. I hope not, for I know 
 of no divorce I should more deprecate 
 than from the lordly ocean. From 
 childhood it has been my friend and 
 playmate, and never have I been weary 
 of gazing on its glorious face. Be- 
 sides, if I cannot live by the sea, adieu 
 to poor Berry Head — adieu to the 
 wild birds, and wild flowers, and all the 
 objects that have made my old resi- 
 dence attractive." 
 
 To another friend he wrote: " I am 
 meditating flight again to the south. 
 The little familiar robin is every morn- 
 
 35 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 ing at my window, sweetly warning me 
 that autumnal hours are at hand. The 
 swallows are preparing for flight, and 
 inviting me to accompany them; and 
 yet, alas! while I talk of flying, I 
 can scarcely crawl, and I ask myself 
 whether I shall be able to leave Eng- 
 land at all." 
 
 When the last Sabbath of his stay in 
 England (September 5, 1847) arrived, 
 he determined to preach once more to 
 his little flock and to celebrate with 
 them the Lord's Supper. In spite of 
 the protest of friends, he carried out 
 his intentions, although scarcely able to 
 stand in the chancel. In words of 
 melting tenderness he pleaded with his 
 people to live holy lives; and when he 
 took his leave of them there was scarcely 
 a dry eye in the church. 
 
 The day had been well-nigh perfect, 
 and in the late afternoon, recovering 
 somewhat from the strain of the ser- 
 vice in the church, he walked slowly 
 
 36 
 
ABIDE WITH ME 
 
 and feebly down the terraced walk to 
 the water he loved so well and which 
 he was about to leave forever. The 
 benediction of autumn rested upon 
 land and sea, and God's smile was 
 over all. 
 
 Above his head the sun had wooed 
 the leaves into blushing splendour, and 
 in the darkening branches of the trees 
 song birds were pouring out a perfect 
 melody of music. The great breast of 
 Torbay, with scarcely a ripple to mar 
 its surface, thrilled and glowed in the 
 waning light of the slowly westering 
 sun, while Berry Head promontory 
 cast a giant shadow over the nearby 
 waters. Sea and sky were so intimately 
 blended that no horizon line indicated 
 where the one began or the other ended. 
 The spell of the hour was upon the 
 saintly minister. What he felt, what 
 he suffered, in that memorable walk 
 alone beside the waters will never be 
 known, but we may be sure that <c com- 
 
 37 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 ing events " had " cast their shadows 
 before " and that he well knew what 
 the end was to be. As the freshening 
 breeze tossed the leaves about his feet 
 and gently kissed his bared head, and 
 as the mists came up out of the sea 
 and the bright sunset colours faded into 
 the sober grays of twilight, he slowly 
 made his way back to the house, in 
 prayerful silence, and went immedi- 
 ately to his room. It was in that hour 
 that the great hymn, " Abide with Me," 
 doubtless conceived in the walk by the 
 sea, had its birth. When he joined his 
 family a little later, he bore in his hand 
 the words that were destined to be an 
 inspiration to thousands. His prayer 
 had been answered. His last evening 
 in his old home had produced that which 
 will be a blessing so long as the heart 
 turns to its Maker for help in times 
 of need. 
 
 The next day Mr. Lyte started for 
 the Riviera, but he was not permitted 
 
 38 
 
« as 
 
ABIDE WITH ME 
 
 to reach it. When near Nice, France, 
 the frail sufferer could no longer with- 
 stand the strain of travel; and here, 
 with the Maritime Alps towering above 
 him, and the Mediterranean stretching 
 away before him, bathed in all the 
 glories of perpetual summer, the golden 
 bowl was broken and the spirit of the 
 gentle invalid returned unto God who 
 gave it. His last words were, " Peace! 
 Joy!" He died on the 20th of No- 
 vember, 1847, at the age of fifty-four, 
 less than three months after leaving 
 England. His remains are buried be- 
 neath a simple cross in the English 
 cemetery in Nice, and his grave is the 
 Mecca of many pilgrims. 
 
 " Abide with Me " was the favourite 
 hymn of the Christian soldier and hero, 
 Charles George Gordon, better known 
 as " Chinese Gordon," one of Eng- 
 land's best and bravest generals, — a 
 man " who could find the good in all, 
 and was ever ready to help all to the 
 
 39 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 best of his power." Doubtless this 
 hymn was to him a source of comfort 
 and consolation in the many hours of 
 sore trial he was called upon so often 
 to face. 
 
 Incidents of how this hymn has been 
 helpful might be multiplied, but a few 
 must serve as illustrations. Dr. Theo- 
 dore L. Cuyler writes: 
 
 " During my active pastorate I often 
 got better sermons from my people 
 than I ever gave them. I recall now a 
 most touching and sublime scene that I 
 once witnessed in the death-chamber of 
 a noble woman who had suffered for 
 many months from an excruciating mal- 
 ady. The end was drawing near. She 
 seemed to be catching a foregleam of 
 the glory that awaited her. With trem- 
 ulous tones she began to recite Henry 
 Lyte's matchless hymn, ' Abide with me : 
 fast falls the eventide.' One line after 
 another was feebly repeated, until, with 
 a rapturous sweetness, she exclaimed: 
 
 40 
 
ABIDE WITH ME 
 
 " ' Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing 
 
 eyes; 
 Shine through the gloom and point me to 
 
 the skies: 
 Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain 
 
 shadows flee: 
 In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.' 
 
 " As I came away from that room 
 which had been as the vestibule of 
 Heaven, I understood how the ' light of 
 eventide ' could be only a flashing forth 
 of the overwhelming glory that plays 
 forever around the throne of God." 
 
 " At the Naval Hospital at Norfolk," 
 writes Chaplain C. Q. Wright, " dur- 
 ing the war with Spain, when I con- 
 ducted the funeral of a poor lad who 
 died there, his shipmates stood round 
 the coffin and joined tearfully in the 
 hymn, ' Abide With Me.' " 
 
 Mr. Charles M. Alexander, the fa- 
 mous singer who accompanies the Rev. 
 Dr. Reuben A. Torrey on his great 
 evangelistic tours, writes thus of his 
 farewell to Belfast: "When we came 
 
 41 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 to the docks, we found a great multi- 
 tude lined up across the custom house. 
 ... As we pulled out, we saw that the 
 whole dock, which is circular and a mile 
 in length, was crowded with people who 
 waved their handkerchiefs and sang 
 with earnest enthusiasm, 'Abide With 
 Me.' " 
 
 The Rev. William J. Hart writes: 
 " Seven men were buried beneath thou- 
 sands of tons of rock which fell with- 
 out a moment's warning in a Cornish 
 tin-mine. 
 
 " Willing hands soon began the work 
 of rescue, though all despaired of find- 
 ing any one alive. Their worst fears 
 were not quite realized. One man was 
 discovered, and was removed uninjured, 
 the rocks having formed an arch over 
 him. 
 
 " After a time the men who were at 
 work, having been greatly encouraged 
 by finding one man alive, called loudly 
 to ascertain whether others were able 
 
 42 
 
ABIDE WITH ME 
 
 to speak. One man answered the call. 
 He was an active Christian and a 
 Sunday-school superintendent. 
 
 " ' Are you alone? ' asked some one. 
 ' No ; Christ is with me/ was the 
 answer. 
 
 " ' Are you injured? ' ' Yes ' ; replied 
 the imprisoned man, ' my legs are held 
 fast by something.' 
 
 " Then they could hear him singing 
 in a feeble voice: 
 
 " c Abide with me ! Fast falls the eventide : 
 The darkness deepens ; Lord, with me abide ! 
 When other helpers fail and comforts flee, 
 Help of the helpless, O abide with me ! ' 
 
 " They could hear no more. Two 
 days later they found him with his legs 
 crushed by a huge rock which rested 
 upon them; but it was known from his 
 life and last words that he had gone to 
 be ' forever with the Lord.' 
 
 " When he was buried his funeral 
 was attended by hundreds of people. 
 According to the local custom, they 
 
 43 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 carried the casket through the streets 
 with their hands, and on the way to the 
 cemetery and also at the graveside his 
 favourite hymns were sung. All were 
 weeping as they finally sang ' Abide 
 With Me/ the hymn which was last 
 upon his lips; and doubtless many of 
 those present felt the desire of their 
 own hearts expressed, in the words: 
 
 " ' In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.' " 
 
 Dr. Louis F. Benson, in his " Studies 
 of Familiar Hymns," makes this in- 
 teresting statement: "It would seem 
 strange to us if ' Abide With Me 9 were 
 omitted from the hymn books. But its 
 present position was not attained im- 
 mediately, either in England or in this 
 country. In 1855 Mr. Beecher, in his 
 Plymouth Collection, put three verses 
 at the service of American Congrega- 
 tionalists. In 1861 Dr. Henry A. 
 Boardman, of Philadelphia, in his Selec- 
 tion, introduced the entire hymn to 
 
 44 
 
ABIDE WITH ME 
 
 Presbyterians, especially of his own 
 congregation. But he preceded it by 
 the notice: '[For reading only].' That 
 notice reads curiously now. But he 
 may have considered, as some still con- 
 sider, the hymn too personal and in- 
 tense for congregational use; or more 
 likely, he knew of no tune that would 
 carry the long lines. Indeed, the actual 
 use of the hymn dates from the pub- 
 lication, that same year, of the now 
 familiar tune in Hymns Ancient and 
 Modern. After one of the meetings 
 of the committee which compiled that 
 book, it was suddenly remembered that 
 there was no tune for Hymn 27, 
 ' Abide With Me ' ; whereupon Dr. 
 Monk, the musical editor (so he told 
 a friend) sat down and composed in 
 ten minutes the tune that has carried 
 Hymn 27 to the ends of the earth/' 
 
 It is interesting to know that an 
 effort is being made to rebuild the 
 church at Lower Brixham as a memo- 
 
 45 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 rial to Mr. Lyte. The present build- 
 ing, which is most unsightly and 
 dilapidated, was erected early in the 
 last century, and is utterly unsuited 
 for its present uses, " the pews being 
 so narrow that it is, in the greater part 
 of the church, inconvenient to sit, diffi- 
 cult to stand, and impossible to kneel." 
 
 46 
 
Ill 
 
 JUST AS I AM 
 
STust ag 3 am, tottfjout one plea 
 Jgut tftat Cbp bioob teas *beb for me, 
 anb tftat tEbou btb'st me come to GCbee, 
 © Hamb of (gob, 3 come* 
 
 3f ust as 3 am, anb toaiting not 
 ®o rib mp soul of one bark blot, 
 Co Gtfjee, toftose bloob can cleanse eacf) Spot, 
 © Hamb of (gob, 3 come. 
 
 3Tu£t as; 3 am, tfjougfj tos'*eb about 
 WSiiti) man? a conflict, man? a boubt, 
 Jf igftttnga anb fears, tottfjin, tottfjout, 
 © Hamb of (gob, 3 come* 
 
 STusit as 3 am, poor, toretcbeb, bltnb; 
 gsugfjt, rtcijes, fcealtng of tfte minb, 
 §?ea, all 3 neeb, tn Cfjee to f tnb, 
 © Hamb of (gob, 3 come. 
 
 STust a* 3 am ! Gtfjou totlt recetbe, 
 ^ilt toelcome, parbon, cleanse, reltebe ; 
 Jgecause W&y promise 3 beliebe, 
 © Hamb of (gob, 3 come. 
 
 STust as 3 am ! Cbp lobe unlmoton 
 Has; broken eberp barrier boton ; 
 J^oto, to be Cbtne, pea, 3Cbtne alone, 
 © Eamb of (gob, 3 come* 
 
 4 
 
JUST AS I AM 
 
 EAN SWIFT writes in 
 his Voyage to Brobdig- 
 nag: " He gave it for 
 his opinion that whoever 
 could make two ears of 
 corn or two blades of grass to grow 
 upon a spot of ground where only one 
 grew before would deserve better of 
 mankind, and dp. more essential service 
 to his country, than the whole race of 
 politicians put together." 
 
 Whether this be true or not of the 
 vegetable and political world, no one 
 will question the value of the service 
 rendered to the moral and social world 
 by him who implants in human hearts 
 aspirations and longings that lead to 
 genuine reformation of character. Such 
 service is sure of a blessing here, and 
 is promised a glorious reward here- 
 after, for the Bible assures us that, 
 " They that turn many to righteous- 
 
 51 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 ness shall shine as the stars for ever 
 and ever." 
 
 Evangelistic hymns are important 
 factors in helping men to realize their 
 sinful condition. It was the privilege 
 of Charlotte Elliott to write " Just As 
 I Am," the greatest of evangelistic 
 compositions, and one which, above all 
 others, has been successful in convict- 
 ing men of sin and giving them a sense 
 of their need of Christ. The opinion 
 of Dwight L. Moody is shared by thou- 
 sands: " It has done the most good to 
 the greatest number, and has touched 
 more lives helpfully than any other 
 hymn." The Rev. David R. Breed, 
 D.D., says of this composition: "The 
 rhythm is perfect, the poetical elements 
 genuine, and the lyrical qualities un- 
 surpassed;" while a brother of Miss 
 Elliott, a minister, modestly, but doubt- 
 less truthfully, stated: "In the course 
 of a long ministry I hope I have been 
 permitted to see some fruit of my 
 
 52 
 
JUST AS I AM 
 
 labours, but I feel that far more has 
 been done by this single hymn of my 
 sister." 
 
 Charlotte Elliott was born in Brigh- 
 ton, England, March 18, 1789, and 
 died September 22, 1871, at the age of 
 eighty-two. She came of a cultured 
 family and was herself highly edu- 
 cated. Two of her brothers were min- 
 isters. At the age of thirty-two she 
 became a confirmed invalid, the result 
 of a severe illness, yet she lived a half 
 century longer, and saw all the com- 
 panions of her youth pass to the grave* 
 In the earlier stages of her invalidism 
 it was her good fortune to meet the 
 Rev. Dr. Caesar Malan, the gifted 
 Swiss preacher, who was two years her 
 senior. He was a man of striking 
 appearance and of many accomplish- 
 ments. He was converted in 1817, at 
 the age of thirty-two, and five years 
 later made a brief visit to the home 
 of Miss Elliott. Dr. C. S. Robinson 
 
 53 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 tells a very important incident of this 
 visit : 
 
 " One evening, as they sat convers- 
 ing, he asked her if she thought herself 
 to be an experimental Christian. Her 
 health was then failing rapidly, and she 
 was harassed often with pain. The 
 question made her petulant for a mo- 
 ment. She resented his searching ques- 
 tion, and told him that religion was a 
 matter which she did not wish to dis- 
 cuss. Dr. Malan replied, with his 
 usual sweetness of manner, that he 
 would not pursue the subject if it 
 displeased her, but he would pray that 
 she might give her heart to Christ, 
 and become a useful worker for Him. 
 Several days afterward the young lady 
 apologised for her abrupt treatment of 
 the minister, and confessed that his 
 question and his parting remark had 
 troubled her. ' But I do not know how 
 to find Christ,' she said; ' I want you 
 to help me/ 
 
 54 
 
come to him jusi as you ARE."" — Page 55. 
 
JUST AS I AM 
 
 " ' Come to Him just as you are' said 
 Dr. Malan. He little thought that one 
 day that simple reply would be repeated 
 in song by the whole Christian world." 
 
 Just when the hymn was written 
 is not known, but it first appeared 
 anonymously in The Yearly Remem- 
 brancer, in 1836. Dr. Robinson states: 
 " Beginning thus its public history in 
 the columns of an unpretending mag- 
 azine, the little anonymous hymn, with 
 its sweet counsel to troubled minds, 
 found its way into scrap-books, then 
 into religious circles and chapel assem- 
 blies, and finally into the hymnals of 
 the ' Church Universal/ Some time 
 after its publication a philanthropic 
 lady, impressed by its beauty and spir- 
 itual value, had it printed on a leaflet 
 and sent for circulation through the 
 cities and towns of the kingdom; and, 
 in connection with this, an incident at 
 an English watering-place seems to 
 have first revealed its authorship to the 
 
 55 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 world. Miss Elliott, being in feeble 
 health, was staying in Torquay, in 
 Devonshire, under the care of an emi- 
 nent physician. One day the doctor, 
 an earnest, Christian man, placed one 
 of those floating leaflets in his patient's 
 hands, saying he felt sure she would 
 like it. The surprise and pleasure were 
 mutual when she recognised her own 
 hymn, and he discovered that she was 
 its author." 
 
 Francis A. Jones gives another ver- 
 sion of the origin of the hymn, which 
 was furnished to him by a niece of the 
 author: " In 1834 Miss Elliott was 
 residing at Brighton, in a house long 
 since pulled down, called Westfield 
 Lodge. Her brother, the Rev. H. V. 
 Elliott, having conceived the plan of 
 erecting a college at Brighton for the 
 education of the daughters of the poorer 
 clergy, a bazaar was held in order to 
 assist in raising the necessary money. 
 All the members of Westfield Lodge 
 
 56 
 
JUST AS I AM 
 
 were busy — all except Charlotte, who 
 was weak and ill. The night before 
 the bazaar she lay tossing on her bed, 
 consumed with the thought of her ap- 
 parent uselessness. The day of the 
 bazaar came, and Charlotte continued 
 in deep thought long after every one 
 had gone ; then came a feeling of peace 
 and contentment. Taking a sheet of 
 paper from the table beside her, she 
 wrote, without any apparent effort, the 
 verses by which her name is now held 
 most dear." 
 
 Many tender stories have been nar- 
 rated in connection with the power of 
 this remarkable hymn in the sick-room, 
 in evangelistic services, and on the bat- 
 tle plain. The Rev. Dr. Henry A. 
 Nelson has contributed the two follow- 
 ing incidents: 
 
 " I was once requested to call upon 
 a man who was in an advanced stage 
 of pulmonary consumption. He had 
 had a wild career, and now he was 
 
 57 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 paying the penalty by giving up his 
 life when it should have been at the 
 flood-tide of its power. At first, he 
 was indifferent to spiritual matters, but 
 subsequently he became a sincere and 
 anxious seeker after salvation. Calling 
 on him one morning I gave him a copy 
 of 'Just As I Am/ and asked him to 
 give that day to its study in just the 
 same way that he would study a con- 
 tract or bond involving important busi- 
 ness, and then to make up his mind 
 whether he would assent to its declara- 
 tions; if so, to write his name at the 
 bottom. I promised that I would call 
 again in the evening to learn his deci- 
 sion. I did so, and as I stood by his 
 bedside he handed to me, with a smile 
 of rare winsomeness and peace, the 
 paper on which the hymn was printed, 
 and there, with great joy, I read his 
 name. The few weeks that remained 
 to him gave many beautiful and touch- 
 ing evidences that on that day he had 
 
 58 
 
JUST AS I AM 
 
 found, through the study of a hymn, 
 * the peace that passeth understanding/ 
 " A respected merchant was a regu- 
 lar attendant upon our church services, 
 although not a member. At an evening 
 meeting, when he was present, I made 
 an affectionate plea for better and 
 truer living on the part of the congre- 
 gation, and then announced that we 
 would sing ' Just As I Am/ I asked 
 that as we sang we should consider 
 carefully what each verse really meant, 
 and whether we could sing it as repre- 
 senting the sincere expression of our 
 hearts. When we reached the last 
 stanza, I said : ' Let all of us who really 
 and honestly feel that this hymn ex- 
 presses our own heart longings sing the 
 last verse standing.' To my unspeaka- 
 ble joy, the merchant arose with the 
 others. He left the room at the close 
 before I could speak to him. In my 
 waking moments that night I feared 
 that my friend had risen under the 
 
 59 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 pressure of the thought that remaining 
 seated while all about him stood would 
 have made him uncomfortably conspic- 
 uous, and that he might possibly feel 
 that he had been improperly placed in 
 a false position. I went to his home 
 early the next morning, in order to 
 learn from his wife, who was not at 
 the meeting the night before, what he 
 might have told her. I found her very 
 happy, and she said : ' I was sitting 
 alone when my husband entered. He 
 was singing "Just As I Am," and when 
 he reached my side, he said, with deep 
 emotion, " That hymn brought me to 
 Christ to-night." ' " 
 
 The Rev. W. P. Miller, D.D., in a 
 letter narrates the following: "One 
 night, in a mission in the lowest portion 
 of the city, I was pleading with a poor 
 fellow whose presence for two or three 
 nights in succession indicated that he 
 was spiritually interested. I soon dis- 
 covered that he was under deep con- 
 
 60 
 
JUST AS I AM 
 
 viction of sin, but I exhausted my 
 resources in a vain effort to bring him 
 to a decision, and was on the point of 
 giving up in despair when the singers 
 began the grand old hymn, ' Just As 
 I Am.' I sat with my hand on his 
 shoulder, and as they sang I just re- 
 peated the words with the singers, look- 
 ing him in the face and at every pause 
 in the music interjecting a petition for 
 his salvation. The hymn was not fin- 
 ished before the light came, and he 
 cried out, with a voice full of joy: 
 
 « < rp Q Thee, whose blood can cleanse each 
 spot, 
 O Lamb of God, I come.' " 
 
 " That hymn," said Bishop Charles 
 P. Mcllvaine, of Ohio, who died in 
 Florence, Italy, in 1873, " contains my 
 religion, my theology, my hope. When 
 I am gone, I wish to be remembered in 
 association with it." 
 
 When the Rev. Joseph Peat, of 
 England, a faithful missionary who had 
 
 61 
 
 / 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 given thirty years to the work in India, 
 was dying, representatives from many 
 congregations gathered about his bed- 
 side to express their gratitude for his 
 devotion to their spiritual interests. 
 After giving loving admonitions to 
 eight native ministers who had been 
 trained for their work almost altogether 
 by him, he quietly said, " Now repeat 
 my favourite hymn, c Just As I Am/ " 
 and soon after he was gone to hear the 
 " Well done " of the Master. 
 
 " I well remember a revival meeting 
 in Kilmarnock forty years ago," says 
 the Rev. Dr. Robert Craig, of Edin- 
 burgh, Scotland, " in which there was 
 deep feeling manifested. A young 
 man, whom I had tried to lead to the 
 knowledge of the truth, was sitting 
 behind me, and when he smilingly 
 handed to me his hymn-book, with his 
 finger pointing to the words ' Just as 
 I am, and waiting not, . . . O Lamb 
 of God, I come/ I shared with him 
 
 62 
 
JUST AS I AM 
 
 the joy of his decision for Christ, with- 
 out a word being spoken between us. 
 He continues faithful to this day." 
 
 Dr. Samuel W. Boardman, Presi- 
 dent of Maryville College, Tennessee, 
 writes: "A student of Maryville, the 
 son of a prominent minister, a descend- 
 ant of John Alden, of Plymouth Rock 
 memory, had long been wayward. At 
 length, he came under the most power- 
 ful conviction of sin, and his soul found 
 peace in Christ. He was a superb 
 singer and had an admirably trained 
 voice. Not long after his conversion, 
 he stood before a large audience, and 
 many were moved to tears to hear him 
 sing softly, in the most heartfelt and 
 touching way, ' Just As I Am.' ' 
 
 " Just As I Am " was used fre- 
 quently by a prominent singer in the 
 Bowery Mission, New York. A well- 
 known Bowery man, who often at- 
 tended the meetings, presented the 
 singer with a cane one morning, and 
 
 63 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 said, with tears in his eyes and with 
 the deepest emotion, " Keep on singing 
 that hymn; I believe that it will yet 
 prove my salvation." 
 
 " Some years ago," writes the Rev. 
 William N. Yates, D.D., " at the close 
 of an evangelistic service, I was called 
 into the inquiry room, to find several 
 persons very anxious about their spirit- 
 ual condition. Many pastors will un- 
 derstand me when I say that two of 
 these were in that condition when they 
 simply needed guidance in expression. 
 I took these two aside and began slowly 
 and softly to sing ■ Just As I Am.' I 
 saw by their faces that the hymn per- 
 fectly expressed their burden and their 
 desire; and when I sang the stanza, 
 
 " ' Just as I am, Thou wilt receive, 
 
 Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve; 
 Because Thy promise I believe, 
 O Lamb of God, I come.' 
 
 a change came over their troubled 
 spirit as great as was experienced by 
 
 64 
 
JUST AS I AM 
 
 the Sea of Galilee when the Master 
 said, 'Peace, be still!' They had 
 found their Saviour." 
 
 The Rev. Dr. E. Milton Page says: 
 " In my ministry of eleven years I have 
 received into the church membership 
 about twelve hundred people. It has 
 been a rule with me to have the con- 
 gregation sing ' Just As I Am ' just 
 before I ask those who would accept 
 Christ publicly to acknowledge Him. 
 I think I am safe in saying that more 
 than half of the twelve hundred took 
 the decisive step under the spiritual 
 influence of this hymn." 
 
 " I have been in the ministry for 
 twenty-four years," writes the Rev. 
 Dr. Charles M. Boswell, " and during 
 that time have seen hundreds converted, 
 but the hymn which has been the most 
 useful in enabling men to reach a de- 
 cision has been ' Just As I Am.' I 
 consider it invaluable in persuading 
 men to yield to God." 
 
 5 65 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 S. H. Hadley, Superintendent of the 
 McAuley Mission, New York, where 
 such blessed work has been done for the 
 reformation of all classes of men, says : 
 
 ' Just As I Am ' has been sung as an 
 invitation call in the old Jerry Mc- 
 Auley Water Street Mission almost 
 every night for years. How many 
 times I have seen from twenty-five to 
 forty-five outcasts make their way to 
 the mercy-seat under the spiritual im- 
 pulse awakened by that blessed hymn. 
 How I wish I could describe the scene 
 when men of^every description, cleansed 
 by the blood of the Lamb, have gone 
 forth to become splendid and useful 
 men of God — and all because they 
 were willing to come to Him ' just as 
 they were.' " 
 
 Dr. H. Clay Trumbull, in his book 
 on Individual Work for Individuals, 
 tells this interesting incident: 
 
 " I was in the habit of inviting sol- 
 diers to come to my tent, or other quar- 
 
 66 
 
JUST AS I AM 
 
 ters, to talk with me of personal reli- 
 gion. Sometimes they seemed to gain 
 a little help by such conversation. At 
 other times a few words were evidently 
 sufficient for their needs. One young 
 soldier from an adjoining regiment 
 came in anxiety as to his spiritual con- 
 dition. I tried to make his duty and 
 his privilege plain, but I did not seem 
 to succeed. I prayed with and for him, 
 but he did not find peace. He said 
 that he must now return to his regi- 
 ment, but he would come to see me 
 again. 
 
 " As he went out, I handed him a 
 copy of a little Soldier's Hymn-book, 
 which was the only reading matter I 
 had for distribution. When I met him 
 again, his face was bright with the 
 cheerfulness of a glad hope. As I 
 asked him about himself, he replied: 
 
 " ' You tried to make it plain to me, 
 Chaplain, but I did n't get any help. 
 But, as I came away from your quar- 
 
 67 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 ters, I opened that little hymn-book, 
 and I read: 
 
 " ' " Just as I am, and waiting not 
 To rid myself of one dark blot, 
 To Thee, whose blood can cleanse each 
 spot, 
 O Lamb of God, I come!" 5 
 
 and then it was all clear to me." 
 
 " During the twenty-five years I was 
 a pastor," says the Rev. Wilbur F. 
 Crafts, Ph.D., " I found nothing so 
 effective in bringing thoughtful people 
 to the act of decision as the hymn ' Just 
 As I Am ' sung softly when the invi- 
 tation to begin a Christian life had been 
 given at the close of an earnest sermon. 
 This direct and open confession seems 
 to be the very thing to sweep away all 
 excuses. Thousands of people have 
 opened their hearts to welcome the 
 Christian life during the singing of 
 this soul-stirring hymn." 
 
 Amos R. Wells relates this interest- 
 ing incident: "Once John B. Gough, 
 
 68 
 
JUST AS I AM 
 
 the famous temperance lecturer, found 
 himself in a pew with a man who 
 seemed so repulsive that he moved to 
 the farther end of the seat. The con- 
 gregation began to sing ' Just As I 
 Am,' and the man joined in so heartily 
 Mr. Gough decided that perhaps he 
 was not so disagreeable after all, and 
 moved up nearer. At the end of the 
 third stanza, while the organist was 
 playing the interlude, the man leaned 
 toward Mr. Gough and whispered, 
 c Will you please give me the first line 
 of the next verse? ' And when he heard 
 the words, 
 
 " ' Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind,' 
 
 the man exclaimed, * That 's it, and I 
 am blind — God help me, and I am a 
 paralytic/ Then as he tried with his 
 poor, twitching lips to make music of 
 the glorious words, Mr. Gough thought 
 that never in his life had he heard a 
 Beethoven symphony with as much 
 
 69 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 music in it as the blundering singing 
 of that hymn by the poor paralytic." 
 
 After the death of Miss Elliott, above 
 a thousand letters were found among 
 her papers thanking her personally for 
 the great blessings which had come to 
 the lives of the writers through the 
 instrumentality of " Just As I Am." 
 
 70 
 
IV 
 
 MY FAITH LOOKS UP TO 
 THEE 
 
fflp fcritf) looks? up to Wytt* 
 tEfjou Hamb of Calbarp, 
 
 £s>abiour SJibine : 
 Jloto bear me tofnle 3f prap, 
 tEafee all mp guilt atoap, 
 © let me from tin* bap 
 
 ?Se tofjoUp QTfjiue* 
 
 JWap Cbp rtcf) grace impart 
 Stfrengtb to mp fainting beart, 
 
 JWp ?eal inspire ; 
 9s Cfjou fjast bteb for me, 
 © map mp lobe to Cfjee 
 iPure, toarm, anb changeless be, 
 
 & libing fire* 
 
 OTfjile life's barfe maje 3 treab, 
 &nb griefs arounb me spreab, 
 
 JSe Cfjou mp <@uibe; 
 Ptb barfeness turn to bap, 
 Wiipt sorroto'S tears atoap, 
 Jlor let me eber Strap 
 
 Jf rom Gflbee asibe, 
 
 WBfytn enbs life's transient bream, 
 W&fym beatfTS colb, sullen stream 
 
 g>baU o'er me roll, 
 PJlest ££>abiour, tfjen, in lobe, 
 Jf ear anb bistrust remobe ; 
 bear me safe abobe, 
 
 & ransomeb souL 
 
MY FAITH LOOKS UP 
 TO THEE 
 
 HEN Dr. and Mrs. Ray 
 
 Palmer celebrated their 
 golden wedding anniver- 
 sary, in 1882, one of the 
 speakers, the gifted Dr. 
 Richard S. Storrs, paid this tribute to 
 Dr. Palmer, the author of " My Faith 
 Looks Up to Thee": 
 
 " The grandest privilege which God 
 ever gives to His children upon earth, 
 and which He gives to comparatively 
 few, is to write a noble Christian hymn, 
 to be accepted by the churches, to be 
 sung by reverent and loving hearts in 
 different lands and different tongues, 
 and which still shall be sung as the 
 future opens its brightening centuries. 
 Such a hymn brings him to whom it 
 is given into most intimate sympathy 
 with the Master, and with the most 
 devout spirits of every time." 
 
 75 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WOELD 
 
 Dr. Palmer was born in Little Comp- 
 ton, Rhode Island, November 12, 1808, 
 of Pilgrim stock. He was licensed to 
 preach in 1832, and in 1835 became 
 pastor of a Congregational church in 
 Bath, Maine, where he remained for 
 fifteen years. In 1847 he spent some 
 time in foreign travel. Soon after his 
 return, in 1850, he became pastor of 
 the First Congregational Church, in 
 Albany, New York. He left this 
 charge in 1866 to become Correspond- 
 ing Secretary of the American Con- 
 gregational Union, New York City, 
 where he remained until 1878, when 
 failing health compelled him to resign. 
 His latter years were spent in literary 
 and general pastoral work in and about 
 Newark, New Jersey, where he died 
 March 29, 1887. 
 
 He was an able preacher, a volumin- 
 ous writer, and a graceful poet; and 
 Mark Hopkins pronounced him one of 
 the best-read men of his time in philos- 
 
 76 
 
MY FAITH LOOKS UP TO THEE 
 
 ophy and moral science. The hymn 
 which made him famous, " My Faith 
 Looks Up to Thee," has had a wonder- 
 ful history. Dr. Charles Ray Palmer, 
 of New Haven, Connecticut, son of Dr. 
 Palmer, writes: " Hardly a hymnal of 
 the English-speaking people — except 
 one or two recent extremely sectarian 
 ones — is without it. It has been 
 translated into Latin, Greek, Hebrew, 
 Arabic, Chinese, several languages of 
 the Turkish Empire, several of India, 
 of Africa, and of the islands of the 
 Pacific, and into some of those of mod- 
 ern Europe." 
 
 The following very interesting story 
 is told in connection with one of these 
 translations : 
 
 " Mrs. Layyah Barakat, a native of 
 Syria, was educated in Beirut and then 
 taught for a time in Egypt. Driven 
 out in 1882 by the insurrection of 
 Arabi Pasha, she, with her husband and 
 child, came to America by way of 
 
 77 
 
, FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Malta and Marseilles. Her history is 
 a strange illustration of God's provi- 
 dential care, as they were without any 
 direction or friends in Philadelphia 
 when they landed. But the Lord took 
 them into His own keeping, and 
 brought them to those who had known 
 of her in Syria. While in this country 
 she frequently addressed large audi- 
 ences, to whom her deep earnestness 
 and broken but piquant English proved 
 unusually attractive. Among other in- 
 cidents she related that she had been 
 permitted to see the conversion of her 
 whole family, who were Maronites of 
 Mount Lebanon. Her mother, sixty- 
 two years of age, had been taught ' My 
 Faith Looks Up to Thee' in Arabic. 
 They would sit on the house roof and 
 repeat it together; and when the news 
 came back to Syria that the daughter 
 was safe in America, the mother could 
 send her no better proof of her faith 
 and love than in the beautiful words 
 
 78 
 
MY FAITH LOOKS UP TO THEE 
 
 of this hymn, assuring her that her 
 faith still looked up to Christ." 
 
 In one of the letters published in 
 the Life of Henry Martyn, that de- 
 voted missionary said that to him " the 
 conversion of a Mahommedan to Chris- 
 tianity would be as great a miracle as 
 any one ever recorded." A number of 
 years ago Dr. Henry Jessup, writing 
 from Syria, said, " Tell Dr. Palmer 
 that as I write, I hear a hundred and 
 twenty Mahommedan girls singing in 
 their own language, * My Faith Looks 
 Up to Thee. 5 " 
 
 " All the hymns on your list," writes 
 Dr. Sheldon Jackson, General Agent 
 of Education in Alaska, "are choice 
 ones, and have accomplished a great 
 work in this and other lands in estab- 
 lishing and building up Christian char- 
 acter. For my own personal comfort, 
 I have found that ' My Faith Looks 
 Up to Thee ' has given me the most of 
 spiritual help and strength." Doubtless 
 
 79 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 this voices the sentiment of thousands 
 of hearts which have been lifted up 
 and made better by means of the splen- 
 did declaration of trust and confidence 
 in God as expressed in the words of 
 this immortal hymn. 
 
 " ' My Faith Looks Up to Thee/ " 
 says the Rev. Albert B. Marshall, D.D., 
 " is my favourite among all hymns. It 
 is, I am sure, the hymn which most 
 accurately expresses the aspirations of 
 many trusting hearts. I have fre- 
 quently noticed how eagerly a company 
 of worshippers will join in the sing- 
 ing if some one will begin." And Dr. 
 E. O. Sutherland bears the same testi- 
 mony: " I find," he says, " ' My Faith 
 Looks Up to Thee ' one of the most 
 useful hymns for impromptu singing 
 in all kinds of prayer-meetings; espe- 
 cially, however, where there is sorrow 
 or trouble." 
 
 " While spending a few days in the 
 Grand Hotel Magenta, Paris, France," 
 
 80 
 
MY FAITH LOOKS UP TO THEE 
 
 writes the Rev. Curtis Edward Long, 
 
 " I became quite ill, and being among 
 
 strangers and in the solitude of my own 
 
 room, I was much depressed in spirit. 
 
 I sought comfort on my knees in 
 
 prayer, and found myself repeating 
 
 the second verse of ' My Faith Looks 
 
 Up to Thee': 
 
 " * May Thy rich grace impart 
 Strength to my fainting heart.' 
 
 My prayer was answered, I was re- 
 stored in body and spirit, and on the 
 following day took the train for 
 Rome." 
 
 Evangelist C. T. Shaeffer relates 
 this interesting incident: " Some years 
 ago there came to this country a little 
 clog dancer, widely known as Mike 
 Riley, the champion of the world. Al- 
 though educated only in his heels, yet 
 he was able to command a large salary, 
 but finally drink took possession of him 
 and he became an outcast and a vaga- 
 bond along the Bowery. 
 
 6 81 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 " One cold winter's night, homeless, 
 hungry, and forsaken, he determined to 
 end his miserable life in the river. On 
 his way down, he passed the Bowery 
 Mission. The door happened to stand 
 open for a moment, and the light and 
 cheer had their powerful appeal for the 
 desolate little dancer. He was drawn 
 inside, ' just to get warm once more 
 before ending it all in the river/ he 
 afterward said. ' My Faith Looks Up 
 to Thee * was being sung by scores of 
 redeemed men, and by others who were 
 seeking salvation, and the words had 
 their special message of hope for the 
 wanderer. When the usual invitation 
 was given, he went forward and sur- 
 rendered himself to his Master. He 
 immediately started out to win fallen 
 men from their sin, and so continued 
 heroically until his death." 
 
 "On one occasion," says Rev. Charles 
 Eugene Dunn, " the senior class of 
 Union Theological Seminary spent the 
 
 82 
 
MY FAITH LOOKS UP TO THEE 
 
 afternoon as the invited guests of Mr. 
 John Crosby Brown, Orange Moun- 
 tain, New Jersey. Dr. Palmer was 
 also a guest, and while we stood in the 
 parlor, a sudden inspiration moved us 
 to sing his great hymn, ' My Faith 
 Looks Up to Thee.' When we began, 
 the president of our seminary, Dr. 
 Roswell D. Hitchcock, advanced to 
 Dr. Palmer, and the two stood, with 
 arms interlocked, while this greatest of 
 American hymns was being sung in the 
 presence of its author. It meant but 
 little to the outside world, perhaps, but 
 to us it was a deeply affecting sight 
 to see these two noble men — the great 
 author and the great historian, both so 
 soon to behold the Lamb of Calvary 
 in His beauty r— thus standing clasped 
 in brotherly embrace." 
 
 Many will recall the thrilling experi- 
 ence of the passengers on the German 
 steamship " Spree," in December, 1882. 
 During a fearful storm the propeller 
 
 83 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 broke, knocking a large hole through 
 her bottom and leaving her helpless. 
 She was not only in danger of sinking, 
 but she was also rapidly driven out of 
 her course. The passengers were in a 
 panic, and one leaped overboard to his 
 death. Dwight L. Moody, who was on 
 the vessel, inspired all with courage by 
 his splendid composure and by his oft- 
 repeated assurance that God would 
 answer their prayers and bring them 
 safely to land. He frequently said 
 afterward, that nothing short of the 
 direct interposition of Providence in 
 answer to prayer saved the ship. 
 " There never was," he said, " a more 
 earnest prayer than that of those seven 
 hundred souls on their helpless, almost 
 sinking ship in mid-ocean on that 
 Sunday, when we met in the saloon to 
 implore God's help ; and God answered 
 us, as I knew He would. He sent the 
 5 Lake Huron ' to our rescue and made 
 the storm a calm." " At this meeting," 
 
 84 
 
MY FAITH LOOKS UP TO THEE 
 
 wrote General O.O. Howard, who was 
 a fellow passenger with Moody, " we 
 sang a number of hymns, among them 
 being ' My Faith Looks Up to Thee.' 
 The singing was led by a Catholic lady, 
 who was returning to the United States 
 from South America by way of Eng- 
 land. We were a united band of God's 
 children, praying for deliverance." 
 
 A war incident in connection with 
 this hymn is worthy of being repeated: 
 Some six or eight Christian officers of 
 a New York regiment, whose time had 
 expired, were eagerly expecting to be 
 mustered out when the forward move- 
 ment was ordered, which resulted in the 
 battle of Fredericksburg. They spent 
 the evening preceding the battle in se- 
 rious talk which ended in hymn-singing 
 and prayer. They believed that this 
 would be their last night together; and 
 they knew that it would be a source of 
 joy and comfort to their loved ones at 
 home to learn that their trust in God 
 
 85 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 faltered not, so they wrote on a sheet 
 of paper the hymn " My Faith Looks 
 Up to Thee," and signed their names 
 at the bottom. The next evening found 
 several of these brave young fellows 
 lying cold and still beneath the stars. 
 The prayer of each now silent voice: 
 
 " O bear me safe above, 
 A ransomed soul," 
 
 had been answered. One of the sur- 
 vivors told Dr. Palmer this beautiful 
 story of devotion and faith. 
 
 Dr. Charles Ray Palmer gives us 
 this pleasant personal glimpse of his 
 father: " If I were to speak of him as 
 he was in his later years, I should men- 
 tion as eminently characteristic of him 
 a thorough conscientiousness and hon- 
 esty; and add, that he always seemed 
 to have himself well in hand. He had 
 a sensitive nature, but it was under 
 control. He was a loyal friend and a 
 generous opponent. Of guile, or of 
 
 86 
 
MY FAITH LOOKS UP TO THEE 
 
 enmity, he was wholly incapable. Firm 
 and intelligent in his convictions, and 
 having the courage and the skill to de- 
 fend them, he was without a trace of big- 
 otry or narrowness. He was judicious 
 in counsel, and often a peacemaker. 
 Rich and quick in his sympathies, he 
 never let them lead him astray. 
 
 " Poetry was at first a spontaneous 
 outcome of his highly susceptible na- 
 ture — the overflow of abundant feel- 
 ing; then something to which he turned 
 aside from sterner pursuits for relief 
 and recreation — half jealous lest it ab- 
 sorb too much of the time and strength 
 that his vocation demanded; then, as 
 a means of self -culture, and especially 
 of spiritual self -culture ; and, finally, 
 a high and holy service to which he felt 
 called of God and of his age. 
 
 " Nothing could have surprised him 
 more than did the wide acceptance of 
 ' My Faith Looks Up to Thee,' to him 
 only the outcome in a still hour of a 
 
 8T 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 surcharged heart. If the writing of it 
 were a service to the Church, never was 
 service more unwittingly rendered; if 
 it were a work of art, never was art 
 more unconscious. I consider it a beau- 
 tiful illustration of the truth that, as 
 a rule, the best work we do, we do 
 without knowing it." 
 
 " My Faith Looks Up to Thee " was 
 written when Dr. Palmer was twenty- 
 two. In an appendix to his " Poetical 
 Works," published in 1876, he has 
 given this interesting description of his 
 life at this period and of the origin of 
 the hymn : 
 
 " Immediately after graduating at 
 Yale College, in September, 1830, the 
 writer went to the city of New York 
 to spend a year in teaching in a select 
 school for young ladies. This private 
 institution, which was patronised by the 
 best class of families, was under the 
 direction of an excellent Christian lady 
 connected with St. George's Church, 
 
 88 
 
MY FAITH LOOKS UP TO THEE 
 
 the rector of which was then the good 
 Dr. James Milnor. It was in Fulton 
 Street, west of Broadway, and a little 
 below Church Street, on the south side 
 of the way. That whole section of the 
 city, now covered with immense stores 
 and crowded with business, was then 
 occupied by genteel residences. The 
 writer resided in the family of the lady 
 who kept the school, and it was there 
 that the hymn was written. 
 
 " It had no external occasion what- 
 ever. Having been accustomed from 
 childhood, through an inherited pro- 
 pensity perhaps, to the occasional ex- 
 pression of what his heart felt, in the 
 form of verse, it was in accordance 
 with this habit, and in an hour when 
 Christ, in the riches of His grace and 
 love, was so vividly apprehended as 
 to fill the soul with deep emotion, that 
 the lines were composed. There was 
 not the slightest thought of writing 
 for another eye, least of all writing a 
 
 89 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 hymn for Christian worship. Away 
 from outward excitement, in the quiet 
 of his chamber, and with a deep con- 
 sciousness of his own needs, the writer 
 transferred as faithfully as he could to 
 paper what at the time was passing 
 within him. Six stanzas were com- 
 posed and imperfectly written, first on 
 a loose sheet, and then accurately 
 copied into a small morocco-covered 
 book, which for such purposes the 
 author was accustomed to carry in his 
 pocket. This first complete copy is 
 still [1875] preserved. It is well re- 
 membered that when writing the last 
 line, 'A ransomed soul/ the thought 
 that the whole work of redemption and 
 salvation was involved in those words, 
 and suggested the theme of eternal 
 praises, moved the writer to a degree 
 of emotion that brought abundant tears. 
 " A year or two after the hymn was 
 written, and when no one, so far as 
 can be recollected, had ever seen it, 
 
 90 
 
WITH A DEEP CONSCIOUSNESS OF HIS OWN NEEDS, HE TRANS- 
 FERRED TO PAPER, AS FAITHFULLY AS HE COULD, 
 WHAT WAS PASSING WITHIN HIM." Page 90. 
 
MY FAITH LOOKS UP TO THEE 
 
 Dr. Lowell Mason met the author in 
 the street in Boston, and requested him 
 to furnish some hymns for a Hymn 
 and Tune Book, which, in connection 
 with Dr. Hastings of New York, he 
 was about to publish. The little book 
 containing the hymn was shown him, 
 and he asked for a copy. We stepped 
 into a store together, and a copy was 
 made and given to him, which, without 
 much notice, he put in his pocket. On 
 sitting down at home and looking it 
 over, he became so much interested in 
 it that he wrote for it the tune * Olivet/ 
 in which it has almost universally been 
 sung. Two or three days afterward 
 we met again in the street, when, 
 scarcely waiting to salute the writer, 
 he earnestly exclaimed: 'Mr. Palmer, 
 you may live many years and do many 
 good things, but I think you will be 
 best known to posterity as the author 
 of ' My Faith Looks Up to Thee! ' " 
 Dr, C. R. Palmer thus writes of his 
 
 .91 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 father's closing hours : " His love for 
 hymns grew upon him in his declin- 
 ing years. They became not only his 
 psalms of adoration, but his songs of 
 hope and gladness, his voices of sorrow 
 and comfort, his petitions, his litanies, 
 and his intercessions. They were the 
 occupation of his latest hours. As I 
 watched by his bedside when, through 
 the paralysis of his throat, he was 
 slowly starving to death, and mortal 
 weakness was limiting more and more 
 his consciousness of his environment, I 
 discerned that they were still in his 
 thoughts. Toward the very last I de- 
 tected in his laborious effort at utter- 
 ance, first the rhythm, and then a 
 syllable or two — scarcely articulated 
 — of a familiar stanza. It was one of 
 his own: 
 
 " ' When death these mortal eyes shall seal 
 And still this throbbing heart; 
 The rending veil shall Thee reveal, 
 All glorious as Thou art ! ' 
 
MY FAITH LOOKS UP TO THEE 
 
 " After this he went on his way, and 
 I heard him no more. But for us who 
 are left behind, it is pleasant to think 
 that, while joining in the praises of 
 Heaven, he is not without his continued 
 participation in the worship on earth. 
 This is the abiding recompense of the 
 hymn-writer." 
 
 93 
 
V 
 
 SUN OF MY SOUL 
 
&tm of mv soul, Cfjou g>abiour bear, 
 3ft is not mgt)t if Ctou be near ; 
 <© map no eartf)=born cloub arise 
 Co ijtbe Cfjee from Cfjp serbaut'S epe«. 
 
 &fjen tije Soft betos of feinblp Sleep 
 Mv toearieb epelibs; gentlp steep, 
 l&t mp last tfjougfjt, tjoto stoeet to rest 
 Jf oreber on mp Sbabiour'S breast 
 
 iSlbibe toitb me from mom tttt ebe, 
 Jf or toitbout Wfyn 3f cannot Itbe ; 
 Slbtbe tottfj me toben ntgbt is ntgf), 
 Jf or toitbout Cbee 3 bare not bie. 
 
 3Jf some poor toanbering cbilb of ®bine 
 J|as spurneb to=bap tbe boice bibtne, 
 jjoto, £orb, tbe gracious toork begin; 
 Het bun no more lie boton in sin. 
 
 Wattt) bp tbe sicfe ; enricb tbe poor 
 &ttb blessings from Wty bounbless Store ; 
 JSe eberp mourner's sleep tonigbt, 
 Hifee infants' slumbers, pure anb ligbt. 
 
 Come near anb bless us tofjen toe toafee, 
 €re tbrougb tbe toorlb our toap toe take ; 
 Will in tbe ocean of Cf)p lobe 
 Wt lose ourselbes in Jleafaen abobe. 
 
 7 
 
SUN OF MY SOUL 
 
 ERHAPS to few men, if 
 any, could Fitz-Greene 
 Halleck's tender lines on 
 the death of Joseph Rod- 
 man Drake, 
 
 " None knew thee but to love thee, 
 Nor named thee but to praise," 
 
 be more truthfully applied than to 
 " dear John Keble," as his friends and 
 intimate associates loved to call him, 
 the author of that most exquisite of 
 evening hymns, " Sun of My Soul." 
 
 " I suppose," wrote a friend, " that 
 no one has died in England within our 
 time who has been so dearly beloved, 
 and whose memory will be held in such 
 tender reverence. What I think re- 
 markable was not how many people 
 loved him, or how much they loved 
 him, but that everybody seemed to love 
 him with the very best love of which 
 
 90 
 
 LOFC. 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 they were capable. It was like loving 
 goodness itself; you felt that what was 
 good in him was bringing into life all 
 that was best in you." 
 
 Another friend declared that " there 
 is something of the mellow brightness 
 of a summer Sunday about his life 
 and work " ; and although he obtained 
 the highest honours of his university, it 
 is far more to his credit to be informed 
 that " he was more remarkable for his 
 rare beauty of character than even 
 for his academic distinctions." An old 
 schoolmate, looking back through the 
 misty distance of more than a half 
 century, wrote: "It was the singular 
 happiness of his nature, even in his 
 undergraduate days, that love for him 
 was always sanctified by reverence — 
 reverence that did not make the love 
 less tender, and love that did but add 
 to the intensity of the reverence." 
 
 He was passionately fond of chil- 
 dren, the more so, perhaps, because of 
 100 
 
SUN OF MY SOUL 
 
 the great heart-hunger occasioned by 
 having none of his own. He once said 
 to a number of little scholars who had 
 been singing for him: " My dear chil- 
 dren, you sang most beautifully in tune. 
 May your whole lives be equally in 
 tune, and then you will sing with the 
 angels in Heaven." 
 
 John Keble was born in Fairford, 
 England, April 25, 1792. His father, 
 a clergyman of the Church of Eng- 
 land, is described as being " a sweet- 
 natured man and a fine classical scholar, 
 who took charge of his son's education; 
 and so successfully, that at fifteen he 
 was admitted to Corpus Christi Col- 
 lege, Oxford." He was a brilliant stu- 
 dent, and was graduated in 1810 with 
 double first-class honours, a distinction 
 which up to that time had been gained 
 alone by Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 In 1816, at the age of twenty- four, 
 he was ordained to the ministry, and 
 had charge of two small hamlets near 
 
 101 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Fairford. From 1818 to 1823 he was 
 a tutor in Oxford. He then resumed 
 the ministerial duties of his former 
 parishes, although the remuneration was 
 only about one hundred pounds. The 
 following year he was offered an ap- 
 pointment as archdeacon, which carried 
 with it a salary of two thousand pounds, 
 but this he declined. In 1826 he be- 
 came his father's curate, and in 1831 
 accepted the professorship of poetry in 
 Oxford. 
 
 He was an attractive preacher. " I 
 recollect," says one, " what music there 
 was in the simple earnestness and sweet 
 gravity with which he spoke." " He 
 was eminently winning," wrote Dr. 
 Pusey; "he let himself down to the 
 most uneducated in his audience. He 
 seemed always to count himself as one 
 of the sinners, one of the penitents." 
 John Henry Newman, afterward Car- 
 dinal Newman, who was a very dear 
 friend of Keble, says : " On one occa- 
 
 102 
 
SUN OF MY SOUL 
 
 sion he preached a sermon in the Uni- 
 versity which made a great impression. 
 Froude and I left St. Mary's so much 
 touched by it that we did not speak to 
 each other all the way down to Oriel." 
 It was while Keble was filling the 
 chair of poetry in Oxford that he 
 entered upon a movement which was 
 destined to be far-reaching in its influ- 
 ence upon his own and subsequent 
 times. Cardinal Newman writes: " On 
 Sunday, July 14, 1833, Mr. Keble 
 preached the assise sermon in the Uni- 
 versity. It was published under the 
 title of ' National Apostasy.' I have 
 ever considered and kept the day as 
 the start of the religious movement of 
 1833." One of the chief objects of 
 this movement, the " Oxford Move- 
 ment," as it is frequently called, was 
 to raise to a higher standard the spirit- 
 ual condition of the Church of Eng- 
 land; and one of the results was, that 
 John Henry Newman, a leader with 
 
 103 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Keble and Pusey in the movement, left 
 the Episcopal Church, after a long 
 struggle for light, and united with 
 the Roman Catholic Church, in which 
 Church he afterward became a Cardi- 
 nal. ; This action of Newman was to 
 his friend Keble and others a source of 
 lifelong sorrow, i^- 
 
 In 1835 Keble's father died, in the 
 ninetieth year of his age, and his son 
 succeeded him as vicar of Hursley, 
 which position he held for thirty years, 
 and in which he died in 1866, in his 
 seventy-fourth year. His wife, whom 
 he married shortly after his father's 
 death, and to whom he was devotedly 
 attached, lived less than two months 
 longer. 
 
 It is, however, through his famous 
 collection of poems, The Christian 
 Year, that Keble is best known and 
 will be longest remembered. These 
 poems were written between 1819 and 
 1827. The early attempts were in- 
 
 104 
 
SUN OF MY SOUL 
 
 tended for his own church people to 
 use on red-letter days in the Church 
 calendar, but the scope of the work was 
 afterward enlarged so as to complete 
 the entire calendar, thus making it a 
 poetical summary of the Christian year, 
 and a companion to the Book of Com- 
 mon Prayer. 
 
 He himself placed but little value on 
 his poems, and it was only at the re- 
 peated solicitations of his father and 
 friends that he finally permitted them 
 to be published, anonymously, in 1827. 
 They at once leaped into almost phe- 
 nomenal popularity. " It was," wrote 
 Cardinal Newman, " the most soothing, 
 tranquilising, subduing work of the 
 day; if poems can be found to enliven 
 in dejection and to comfort in anxiety, 
 to cool the over-sanguine and to refresh 
 the weary, to awe the worldly, to instil 
 resignation into the impatient, and 
 calmness into the fearful and agitated, 
 they are these." 
 
 105 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 The work has become a Christian 
 classic. Archdeacon Prescott writes: 
 " I myself know of no body of unin- 
 spired poetry where purity and power, 
 where knowledge of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures and knowledge of the human 
 heart, where the love of nature and the 
 love of Christ are so wonderfully com- 
 bined." While Canon Barry says, 
 "It is a book which leads the soul up 
 to God"; and Dr. Arnold declares, 
 " Nothing equal to the poems exists in 
 our language/ ' 
 
 John Mason Neale, a man to whom 
 English hymnology owes much because 
 of his matchless translations of the 
 early Latin and Greek hymns into 
 English, was a close friend of Keble. 
 One day Keble, whom he was visiting, 
 had to leave the room for a time, and 
 when he returned, Neale said, " Why, 
 Keble, I thought you always told me 
 that The Christian Year was original." 
 " Yes," he said, " it certainly is." " Then 
 
 106 
 
SUN OF MY SOUL 
 
 how comes this? " and Neale placed be- 
 fore him the Latin of one of Keble's 
 poems. Keble was amazed, but pro- 
 tested that he had never seen it before. 
 After enjoying his friend's evident dis- 
 comfiture for a moment, Dr. Neale in- 
 formed him that it was one of his own 
 and that he had made the Latin trans- 
 lation during his absence. 
 
 Before Keble's death, ninety-five edi- 
 tions of the book had been sold; and 
 this number had increased to one hun- 
 dred and nine editions the year after 
 his death. Between the time of publi- 
 cation, in 1827, and 1873, three hundred 
 and five thousand copies of the book 
 had been printed, and the number is 
 now above a half million. Nothing, 
 perhaps, could better illustrate its wide 
 circulation than to state that on one 
 occasion four strangers met on Mt. 
 Sinai, and it was discovered that three 
 of them were in possession of The 
 Christian Year. 
 
 107 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 It was from the proceeds of the sale 
 of the book that the author largely re- 
 built his parish church. 
 
 It was in the second poem printed in 
 The Christian Year that Keble's fa- 
 mous evening hymn, " Sun of My 
 Soul," first appeared — a hymn which 
 voices the sentiments and the prayers 
 of countless Christian hearts as the 
 twilight fades into night and they yield 
 themselves to sleep and helplessness. 
 
 In a wild night a gallant ship went 
 to her doom. A few women and chil- 
 dren were placed in a boat, without oars 
 or sails, and drifted away at the mercy 
 of the waves. Earlier in the evening, 
 before the darkness had quite settled 
 down, brave men on the shore had seen 
 the peril of the vessel and had put out 
 in the face of the tempest, hoping to 
 save human life, but even the ship could 
 not be found. After fruitless search, 
 they were about returning to the shore, 
 when out on the water, and above the 
 
 108 
 
SUN OF MY SOUL 
 
 wail of the storm, they heard a woman's 
 clear voice singing: 
 
 " Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear, 
 It is not night, if Thou be near." 
 
 The work of rescue was quickly accom- 
 plished. But for the singing, in all 
 probability, this boat-load of lives would 
 have drifted beyond human help or 
 been dashed to pieces before morning. 
 
 Chaplain Wright, after an experi- 
 ence of twenty years in the United 
 States Navy, declares that he finds no 
 hymn with a more permanent hold on 
 the affection of marines and sailors than 
 " Sun of My Soul." 
 
 The Cree Indians of the Northwest 
 Territory sing this hymn in their own 
 language and prize it very highly. " In 
 1886, a deputation of that portion of 
 the tribe under the instruction of the 
 Presbyterian Church waited upon one 
 of the Synods to press their claims. 
 There were no orators in the delegation, 
 
 109 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 but there were some good voices that 
 sweetly melted into the tender melody 
 of Keble's ' Sun of My Soul'; and the 
 hymn, though sung in the language of 
 the Crees, made a deeper impression 
 upon the Synod than any other words 
 they could use." 
 
 A visitor once asked Alfred Tenny- 
 son what his thoughts were of Christ. 
 They were walking in a garden, and, 
 for a moment, the great poet was si- 
 lent, then, bending over some beautiful 
 flowers, he said: "What the sun is 
 to these flowers Jesus Christ is to my 
 soul. He is the sun of my soul." Con- 
 sciously or unconsciously he was ex- 
 pressing the same thought in the same 
 language used by good John Keble 
 years before when he gave to the world 
 his great heart hymn, " Sun of My 
 Soul." 
 
 Much of the usefulness of a hymn is 
 lost because many persons fail to study 
 its words carefully and make its senti- 
 110 
 
SUN OF MY SOUL 
 
 merits voice their own deeper feelings 
 and spiritual aspirations. " Sun of My 
 Soul " is one of the finest examples in 
 our language of what a true prayer 
 hymn should be. Beginning with a 
 beautiful acknowledgment of what God 
 is to us, there follows an earnest suppli- 
 cation that debasing thoughts may 
 be driven away, that " no earth-born 
 cloud " may arise to hide us from our 
 Saviour; indeed, the first three stanzas 
 are devoted to an earnest plea for the 
 right relation of our own hearts to God. 
 From that point it is easy and natural 
 to think of and pray for others. How 
 inclusive are the next two stanzas! — 
 the wanderer, the sick, the poor, the 
 mourner, are all sympathetically re- 
 membered; and then follow the tender 
 and comforting appeal for divine guid- 
 ance throughout our earthly life and 
 the exquisitely expressed belief in an 
 eternity of joy with which the hymn 
 ends: 
 
 in 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 " Come near and bless us when we wake, 
 Ere through the world our way we take, 
 Till in the ocean of Thy love 
 We lose ourselves in Heaven above." 
 
 Keble himself admirably illustrated 
 in his own life the trustful spirit he so 
 perfectly portrays in his hymn; he let 
 no cares make him over-anxious. He 
 enjoyed at all times the blessed privi- 
 lege of being able to sleep soundly — 
 " Because he had no feeling," he would 
 laughingly explain; but his wife, with 
 intimate knowledge of his fine spiritual 
 trustfulness, said: "He lays aside his 
 anxieties with his prayers. He does 
 the best he can, the issue is with God, 
 with whom he is content to leave it, 
 therefore he sleeps like a little child." 
 
 When the sun slips down the western 
 sky and twilight deepens and darkens 
 into night, out on the vast stretches of 
 water, in lonely forest cabins, on far- 
 reaching prairies, in stately churches, 
 on rugged mountain slopes, in crowded 
 112 
 
t 
 
 AND IN QUIET COUNTRY PLACES,, WE TURN INSTINCTIVELY 
 
 TO THE ONE HYMN THAT FITS INTO OUR MOOD 
 
 axd need/'' — Pa ere 113. 
 
SUN OF MY SOUL 
 
 cities, and in quiet country places, — 
 indeed, wherever Christians are found, 
 human hearts grow tender with a name- 
 less longing which often demands ex- 
 pression in words, and instinctively they 
 turn to the one hymn that fits most per- 
 fectly into their mood and need; they 
 feel God's presence and something of 
 " the peace that passeth understand- 
 ing, " as they sing: 
 
 " Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear, 
 It is not night, if Thou be near." 
 
 lis 
 
VI 
 
 LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT 
 
3Uab, feinblp HigJjt, amib tfje encircling gloom, 
 
 Utah Cf)ou me on ; 
 &f)e nigfjt is? barfe, anb 3 am far from tome ; 
 
 Heab Cftou me on : 
 Sleep Cfjou m;> feet ; 3 bo not aak to dee 
 Cfje bidtant dcene, — one dtep enougf) for me* 
 
 31 toad not eber tfmd, nor prapeb tfjat {Efjou 
 
 fefioulbdt leabmeon; 
 3 lobeb to cfjoode anb dee mp patf) ; but noto 
 
 Heab Cbou me on. 
 3 lobeb tfje garidfj bap, anb, spite of f eard, 
 $rtbe ruleb mp totil : remember not padt peard. 
 
 &o long Wbv potoer ftatfj blest me, dure it dtill 
 
 Mill Ieab me on 
 ©'er moor anb fen, o'er crag anb torrent, till 
 
 Wi)t mgfjt i^ gone ; 
 &nb toitfj tfje morn tljode angel fated dmile, 
 WiWb 3 fjabe lobeb long dince, anb lodt atofitle. 
 
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, AUTHOR OP LEAD, KINDLY 
 LIGHT." 
 
LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT 
 
 msm 
 
 EZEKIAH BUTTER- 
 WORTH, an authority 
 on hymnology, pro- 
 nounces this to be "the 
 sweetest and most trust- 
 ful of modern hymns "; while Colonel 
 Nicholas Smith says, " Christians of all 
 denominations and of every grade of 
 culture feel its charm and find in it 'a 
 language for some of the deepest yearn- 
 ings of the soul/ The hymn-books do 
 not contain a more exquisite lyric. As 
 a prayer for a troubled soul for guid- 
 ance, it ranks with the most deservedly 
 famous church songs in the English 
 language/' 
 
 Its distinguished author, John Henry 
 Newman, was born February 21, 1801, 
 the son of a London banker, and 
 seventy-eight years later became a Car- 
 dinal of the Roman Catholic Church. 
 At the early age of nineteen he was 
 
 119 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 graduated from Trinity College, Ox- 
 ford, and became a tutor in Oriel Col- 
 lege. He was ordained in 1824, and 
 in 1828 was made vicar of St. Mary's 
 Protestant Episcopal Church, Oxford. 
 
 He was a popular, forceful preacher, 
 with fluent speech, perfect diction, and 
 a splendid fund of illustration which he 
 always used with telling effect. He 
 was deeply interested in the heart-life 
 of men, and was ever ready to en- 
 courage them to speak to him freely 
 of their experiences and temptations. 
 He exercised a strong influence over 
 the students who thronged his church. 
 
 In December, 1832, because of im- 
 paired health, he went with friends to 
 southern Europe. The spiritual unrest, 
 kindled by the " Oxford Movement," 
 which finally led him to unite with the 
 Roman Catholic Church, in 1845, was 
 already upon him; he sought eagerly 
 and conscientiously for divine guidance 
 in solving the great doctrinal problems 
 
 120 
 
LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT 
 
 that vexed his soul. It was during this 
 period of inner disquietude and of 
 anxious thought for the future of the 
 Established Church, of which he was 
 still a member, that his noble hymn, 
 "Lead, Kindly Light," had birth — 
 a hymn which has voiced the heart- 
 felt prayers of thousands for spiritual 
 guidance. 
 
 In the minds of many there is inti- 
 mate association of thought between 
 Newman's supplication: 
 
 " Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling 
 gloom, 
 
 Lead Thou me on ! " 
 
 and another intensely human heart-cry 
 for direction and companionship in the 
 hour of need — Henry Francis Lyte's 
 
 " Abide with me, fast falls the eventide : 
 The darkness deepens: Lord, with me 
 abide." 
 
 It is interesting to know that both of 
 these hymns were composed on the 
 
 121 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WOELD 
 
 sacred day of rest : Newman's, on Sun- 
 day, June 16, 1833; and Lyte's, on 
 Sunday, September 5, 1847. 
 
 Newman has left us this very enter- 
 taining description of the circumstances 
 under which his hymn was written : 
 
 " I went to the various coasts of the 
 Mediterranean ; parted with my friends 
 at Rome; went down for the second 
 time to Sicily, without companion, at 
 the end of April. I struck into the 
 middle of the Island, and fell ill of 
 a fever at Leonforte. My servant 
 thought I was dying, and begged for 
 my last directions. I gave them, as he 
 wished, but I said, ' I shall not die/ I 
 repeated * I shall not die, for I have 
 not sinned against the Light; I have 
 not sinned against the Light.' I 
 have never been able quite to make 
 out what I meant. 
 
 " I got to Castro-Giovanni, and was 
 laid up there for nearly three weeks. 
 Toward the end of May I left for 
 
 122 
 
03 
 
 to 
 
 2 
 
 Q 
 
 < 
 
 
 O 
 
 < 
 > 
 
 
LEAD,, KINDLY LIGHT 
 
 Palermo, taking three days for the 
 journey. Before starting from my inn, 
 on the morning of May 26 or 27, I sat 
 down on my bed and began to sob vio- 
 lently. My servant, who had acted as 
 my nurse, asked what ailed me. I could 
 only answer him, ' I have a work to do 
 in England/ 
 
 " I was aching to get home; yet, for 
 want of a vessel, I was kept at Palermo 
 for three weeks. I began to visit the 
 churches, and they calmed my impa- 
 tience, though I did not attend any of 
 the services. At last I got off in an 
 orange boat, bound for Marseilles. 
 Then it was that I wrote the lines, 
 1 Lead, Kindly Light/ We were be- 
 calmed a whole week in the Straits of 
 Bonifacio. I was writing the whole of 
 my passage/' Elsewhere he informs 
 us that the exact date on which the 
 hymn was written was June 16. 
 
 It is pleasant to think that this much- 
 loved hymn, the fervent prayer of a 
 
 123 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 doubt-tossed soul, was written in one 
 of the majestic calms that sometimes 
 lull to sleep the sunny waters of the 
 Mediterranean; and that it caught 
 some of its delicious fragrance from 
 the perfume that was wafted over the 
 waters from the golden cargo with 
 which the vessel was freighted. It 
 would require but little imagination to 
 picture the scene: the clumsy boat, the 
 idly-hanging sails, the listless, swarthy 
 crew, the brilliant young minister ema- 
 ciated by mental and physical suffering, 
 the solemn sea, and over all the match- 
 less Italian sky and the tender twilight 
 calm. Fit hour and surroundings for 
 such a hymn to have its being. 
 
 In striking contrast, the music to 
 which the words are inseparably wedded, 
 was composed by Dr. John B. Dykes 
 as he walked through the Strand, one 
 of the busiest thoroughfares of London. 
 It may be that the tumultuous street 
 was typical of the wild unrest in New- 
 
 124 
 
LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT 
 
 man's heart when he began his hymn; 
 if so, surely the quiet waters of the 
 Mediterranean on that holy Sabbath 
 evening might well represent his spir- 
 itual calm when it was ended — even 
 though subsequent controversial storms 
 were destined to beat fiercely upon his 
 soul. 
 
 In this connection it may prove inter- 
 esting to read the following from 
 the Random Recollections of the Rev. 
 George Huntington: 
 
 " I had been paying Cardinal New- 
 man a visit. For some reason I hap- 
 pened to mention his well-known hymn, 
 ' Lead, Kindly Light,' which he said he 
 wrote when a very young man. I ven- 
 tured to say, ' It must be a great pleasure 
 to you to know that you have written 
 a hymn treasured wherever English- 
 speaking Christians are to be found; 
 and where are they not to be found? ' 
 He was silent for some moments, and 
 then said with emotion, ' Yes, deeply 
 
 125 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 thankful, and more than thankful!' 
 Then, after another pause, ' But, you 
 see, it is not the hymn, but the tune, that 
 has gained the popularity! The tune 
 is by Dykes, and Dr. Dykes was a great 
 master.' " 
 
 Perhaps nothing more fully illus- 
 trates the general acceptability of this 
 beautiful hymn than the fact that 
 " when the Parliament of Religion met 
 in Chicago during the Columbian Ex- 
 position, the representatives of almost 
 every creed known to man found two 
 things on which they were agreed : They 
 could all join in the Lord's Prayer, and 
 all could sing ' Lead, Kindly Light.' ' 
 
 When some one, a few years ago, 
 asked William E. Gladstone to give the 
 names of the hymns of which he was 
 most fond, he replied that he was not 
 quite sure that he had any favourites; 
 and then, after a moment's thought, 
 he said: "Lead, Kindly Light," and 
 " Rock of Ages." 
 
 126 
 
LEAD,, KINDLY LIGHT 
 
 " I know no song, ancient or 
 modern," writes the Rev. L. A. Banks, 
 D.D., " that with such combined ten- 
 derness, pathos, and faith, tells the story 
 of the Christian pilgrim who walks by- 
 faith and not by sight. No doubt it is 
 this fidelity to heart experience, com- 
 mon to us all, that makes the hymn such 
 a universal favourite. There are dark 
 nights, and homesick hours, and be- 
 calmed seas for each of us, in which it 
 is natural for man to cry out in New- 
 man's words : 
 
 " ' The night is dark, and I am far from 
 home, 
 
 Lead Thou me on. 5 " 
 
 The Rev. James B. Ely, D.D., writes 
 as follows : " It is my desire to relate 
 one interesting incident in connection 
 with ' Lead, Kindly Light.' This hymn 
 was sung in the Lemon Hill Pavilion, 
 Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, on a 
 recent Sabbath morning, at a time when 
 
 127 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 the very atmosphere, the beautiful trees 
 and the glowing sun seemed to empha- 
 sise and make very real the sentiments 
 expressed. A young man in the audi- 
 ence, who was a Christian, but greatly 
 burdened with many anxieties, felt while 
 this hymn was being sung and the music 
 repeated by the cornet, that God was 
 preparing him for some special trial 
 through which he must pass. During 
 the day and all through the week the 
 melody and the words haunted him; 
 and there was also a growing feeling 
 in his heart that he ought to go to his 
 old home and visit his mother. Finally, 
 on Friday noon, he determined that he 
 would start that very evening, and 
 made his plans to do so. Just before 
 leaving his place of business, a telegram 
 came informing him of his mother's 
 sudden death. While the news was a 
 great shock to him, yet the singing of 
 the hymn and its constant reiteration 
 in his thoughts during the week had, 
 
 188 
 
LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT 
 
 in a measure, prepared him for his sore 
 bereavement. The hymn has since be- 
 come one of his most sacred possessions. 
 I have written regarding this unusual 
 incident because the experience is so 
 fresh in my mind and so real. I may 
 add that this hymn has again and again 
 been sung by large audiences, and al- 
 ways with telling spiritual effect." 
 
 Many will recall that this hymn was 
 a special favourite of the late President 
 McKinley, and that it was sung far 
 and wide in the churches on the first 
 anniversary of his death and burial. 
 
 The last stanza of the hymn rings 
 out with a grand declaration of trium- 
 phant, child-like faith and assurance: 
 
 " So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it 
 still 
 
 Will lead me on 
 O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till 
 
 The night is gone; 
 And with the morn those angel faces smile, 
 Which I have loved long since, and lost 
 awhile." 
 9 129 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 There has been some controversy as 
 to the author's meaning in the last two 
 lines. Nearly a half century after they 
 were written some one asked the Car- 
 dinal to give an explanation, and in a 
 letter dated January 18, 1879, he thus 
 wisely replied: 
 
 "You flatter me by your question; 
 but I think it was Keble who, when 
 asked it in his own case, answered that 
 poets were not bound to be critics, or to 
 give a sense to what they had written; 
 and though I am not, like him, a poet, 
 at least I may plead that I am not 
 bound to remember my own meaning, 
 whatever it was, at the end of almost 
 fifty years. Anyhow, there must be a 
 statute of limitation for writers of 
 verse, or it would be quite tyranny if, 
 in an art which is the expression, not of 
 truth, but of imagination and senti- 
 ment, one were obliged to be ready for 
 examination on the transient state of 
 mind which came upon one when home- 
 
 130 
 
LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT 
 
 sick, or seasick, or in any other way 
 sensitive or excited." 
 
 Cardinal Newman died August 11, 
 1890, fifty-seven years after his hymn 
 had made his name immortal. 
 
 In addition to the quotations from 
 Hezekiah Butterworth and Colonel 
 Nicholas Smith, with which the study 
 of this hymr begins, it will doubtless 
 prove interesting to read what other 
 men of prominence have said in this 
 connection: 
 
 " This much-laved hymn." — Dr. Louis F. 
 Benson, author of " Studies of Familiar 
 Hymns." 
 
 " Its sincerity of feeling and purity of 
 expression have made it universally accept- 
 able." — Samuel Willoughby Duffield, author 
 of " English Hymns." 
 
 " This is truer to the life of thoughtful 
 men than almost any other hymn, but it is 
 so subjective and personal that it is more 
 for the closet than for the Church. It is 
 the favourite hymn of our students." — The 
 President of a prominent University. 
 
 " It can scarcely be called either a great 
 131 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 poem or a great hymn, and certainly it is 
 not a lyric. Yet it has certain striking pas- 
 sages, and appeals to those who for any 
 reason are beset by darkness." — Rev. David 
 R. Breed, D.D., author of "The History 
 and Use of Hymns and Hymn-Tunes." 
 
 " The beautiful hymn, ' Lead, Kindly 
 Light,' is of value to the Church for its 
 poetry and its pathos. For times of depres- 
 sion and darkness come to nearly all of us, 
 and this is just the cry which the heart 
 bowed down would use at such times of 
 anxious and sacred communion." — Rev. G. 
 L. Stevens, editor of " Hymns and Carols." 
 
 " The most stirring thing I know is that 
 struggling cry of the wanderer for light, 
 ' For I am far from home.' The writer's 
 personality adds pathos to his tender song. 
 Out of this song, appropriated by a strug- 
 gling soul to himself, one is prepared for the 
 sublime and recovering thought in the dream 
 of the wanderer, 'with sun gone down, 5 and 
 the way appearing ' steps up to heaven.' " — 
 Rev. William V. Milligan, D.D., Cambridge, 
 Ohio. 
 
 132 
 
VII 
 
 ROCK OF AGES 
 
3Rock of ages;, cleft for me, 
 
 ILtt me fjibe mpself in tEfjee ; 
 
 Het tfie toater anb tfje bloob, 
 
 Jf rom WdV ttben s;tbe toijtcfj flotoeb, 
 
 Pe of sin tfje bouble cure, 
 
 Cleanse me from it* guilt anb patoer- 
 
 JSot tfte labours; of mp fjanbs 
 Can fulfil Cfjp lato's bemanbs; 
 Coulb mp ?eal no respite fmoto, 
 Coulb mp tears? for eber f loto, 
 Sill for sin coulb not atone ; 
 Cfjou must sabe, anb tEfjou alone. 
 
 JSotfjing in mp fjanb 3 firing, 
 gnmplp to Ww cross 3f cling ; 
 Jlafeeb, come to ®bee for brew, 
 helpless, look to Wtttt for grace ; 
 Jfoul, 3 to tfje fountain flp ; 
 la^asi) me, £§>abiour, or 3 bte, 
 
 <SKifnle 3 brato tfjis fleeting breatfi, 
 Wfyzn mp epelibs close in beatf), 
 OTfcen 3 soar to toorlbs unfenofam, 
 S>ee W$tt on Cftp jubgment tfjrone, 
 &ocfe of &ges, cleft for me, 
 Het me fjibe mpself in Wm. 
 
ROCK OF AGES 
 
 EVONSHIRE, the beau- 
 tiful, has inspired at 
 least three hymns that 
 will always be treas- 
 ured by spiritually 
 minded people: "Just As I Am," by 
 Charlotte Elliott; "Abide with Me," 
 by Henry Francis Lyte; and "Rock 
 of Ages," by Augustus Montague Top- 
 lady. The last of these Dr. Charles 
 S. Robinson declares to be " the su- 
 preme hymn of the language"; and 
 Colonel Nicholas Smith says, " No 
 other hymn has swept the chords of 
 the human heart with a more hallowed 
 touch." 
 
 In August, 1756, in a barn in a rural 
 district of Ireland, an English youth of 
 sixteen, who had been carefully reared 
 by a widowed and cultured mother, lis- 
 tened with rapt attention to an impas- 
 sioned sermon from the text, " But now 
 
 137 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were 
 far off are made nigh by the blood 
 of Christ." — EphesiQns 2 : 13. The 
 speaker was James Morris, an illiterate 
 layman, a disciple of the Wesleys; the 
 boy was the future author of " Rock of 
 Ages." 
 
 Toplady writes as follows of this in- 
 cident in his career: " St^hge that I, 
 who had so long sat under the means 
 of grace in England, should be brought 
 nigh unto God in an obscure part of 
 Ireland, amidst a handful of God's peo- 
 ple, met together in a barn, and under 
 the ministry of one who could hardly 
 spell his name. Surely, it is the Lord's 
 doing, and it is marvellous. The excel- 
 lency of such power must be of God, 
 and cannot be of man." 
 
 In thus blessing the work of Mr. 
 Morris by the conversion of the gifted 
 boy we have an admirable illustration of 
 how the Master can use the humblest of 
 men in the salvation of others. 
 
 138 
 
ROCK OF AGES 
 
 Shortly after, Toplady became a 
 student in Trinity College, Dublin, 
 from which institution he was in due 
 course gradu@ted. At the age of 
 twenty-two he was made a priest, and 
 became curate of Farleigh, and in 1768 
 he was appointed to Broad Hembury, 
 in Devonshire. Here the first signs of 
 the dread disease, consumption, mani- 
 fested themselves. In 1775 he went to 
 London, hoping that a drier atmosphere 
 would prove beneficial, and while there 
 he preached for a time in a French Cal- 
 vinistic church; but his health con- 
 tinued to fail, and he died on the 11th 
 of August, 1778, at the age of thirty- 
 eight. He had lived long enough, how- 
 ever, to give to the world one of its most 
 highly treasured heart-songs. 
 
 When " Rock of Ages " was writ- 
 ten is not known, but we may be sure 
 that it was nothing less than the voice 
 of the Almighty that inspired the au- 
 thor to write words of such soul-stirring 
 
 139 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 power. The hymn first appeared, in an 
 unfinished form, in the Gospel Maga- 
 zine of October, 1775, and more fully 
 the succeeding year in the March num- 
 ber of the same periodical. 
 
 The Rev. William Reeside Kirk- 
 wood, D.D., LL.D., writes: 
 
 " This hymn has been very dear to 
 me from my childhood. It was a great 
 help to me in the days when I sought 
 rest and found none, while seeking par- 
 don for sin. It, like Wesley's ' Jesus, 
 Lover of My Soul/ is a very direct and 
 personal appeal to God, but it has a 
 statelier flow. It recognises the chasm 
 and the cause of it — not so much in 
 words as by implication. It is personal, 
 but it notes the Rock of Eternity, and 
 the Cleft in the Rock. It suggests 
 Moses at Sinai. It does not lose sight 
 of the Law, the Lightning, the Judg- 
 ment; yet, when its spirit is appre- 
 hended and entered into, how secure one 
 feels! For it is not merely the loving 
 
 140 
 
ROCK OF AGES 
 
 man Jesus who appears alone, but 
 ' Jesus, in whom dwelleth all the fulness 
 of the Godhead bodily,' so that seeing 
 Him we see the Father, and realise the 
 whole glory of the present Godhead as 
 our security. At least, this is the way it 
 appeals to me. 
 
 " In this connection let me tell you of 
 a version I had in my boyhood of the 
 circumstances under which these two 
 hymns were written. I have never seen 
 it in print. It was told me by a man 
 many years my senior, and a close and 
 careful student: Wesley and Toplady 
 met under circumstances which led to 
 heated theological and doctrinal contro- 
 versy; and, of course, the debate was 
 on one or more of the ' Five Points.' 
 They argued until after midnight, but 
 neither could convince the other. They 
 separated, each filled with spiritual ex- 
 altation. Full of joy and comfort from 
 his view, Wesley wrote ' Jesus, Lover 
 of My Soul/ before he slept In like 
 ui 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 manner, Toplady, exultant in his view, 
 wrote ' Rock of Ages ' before he sought 
 rest. Thus out of hours of spirited 
 controversy on the ' Five Points ' grew 
 two of the noblest hymns of our 
 language." 
 
 Mr. W. T. Stead makes the follow- 
 ing interesting reference to this theo- 
 logical controversy: "Toplady was a 
 sad polemist whose orthodox soul was 
 outraged by the Arminianism of the 
 Wesleys, and he put much of his time 
 and energy into the composition of con- 
 troversial pamphlets, on which the good 
 man prided himself not a little. The 
 dust lies thick upon these his works, nor 
 is it likely to be disturbed now or in the 
 future. But in a pause in the fray, just 
 by way of filling up an interval in the 
 firing of the polemical broadsides, Top- 
 lady thought he saw a way of launching 
 an airy dart at a joint in Wesley's ar- 
 mour; so, without much ado, and with- 
 out any knowledge that it was by this 
 
 U2 
 
< 
 
 O 
 
 M 
 
 u 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 CO 
 
 * H 
 
 
 
 
ROCK OF AGES 
 
 alone he was to render permanent ser- 
 vice to mankind, he sent off to the 
 Gospel Magazine the hymn ' Rock of 
 Ages/ When it appeared, he had, no 
 doubt, considerable complacency in re- 
 flecting how he had winged his oppon- 
 ent for his insolent doctrine of entire 
 sanctification, and it is probable that be- 
 fore he died — for he only survived its 
 publication by two years — he had still 
 no conception of the relative impor- 
 tance of his own work. But to-day the 
 world knows Toplady only as the writer 
 of these four verses. All else that he 
 laboured over it has forgotten ; and, in- 
 deed, does well to forget." 
 
 The Rev. Edward Milton Page, 
 D.D., says: "'Rock of Ages' was 
 taught me by my mother when a child 
 upon her knee. It is the first hymn or 
 song of any kind my heart ever knew 
 or my lips ever tried to lisp. My Chris- 
 tian life began with ' Rock of Ages,' 
 and may it end in being hid in Him." 
 
 143 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 An English friend has kindly fur- 
 nished the following interesting inci- 
 dent: "Many years ago, during a 
 heated discussion in the House of Com- 
 mons, an opponent of William E. Glad- 
 stone was attacking him with words of 
 unusual severity, and he was observed 
 to be writing diligently, apparently 
 framing a reply. A friend, seated 
 near him, was curious to learn how it was 
 that his leader so successfully preserved 
 his calm repose under such a torrent of 
 invective. Looking over Mr. Glad- 
 stone's shoulder, he found him busily 
 engaged in translating into Latin 
 ' Rock of Ages,' his favourite hymn. 
 Fortunately, this translation has been 
 preserved. 
 
 " ' lesus, pro me perforatus, 
 Condar intra tuum latus, 
 Tu per lympham profluentem, 
 Tu per sanguvnem tepentem, 
 In peccata mi redunda, 
 Tolle culpam, sordes munda. 
 
 144 
 
ROCK OF AGES 
 
 " ' Coram te nee iustus forem, 
 Quamvis tota vi laborem, 
 Nee si fide nunquam cesso, 
 Fletu stillans indefesso; 
 Tibi soli tantum munus; 
 Salva me, Salvator unus! 
 
 " * Nil in manu mecum fero, 
 Sed me versus crucem gero; 
 Yestvmenta nudus oro 9 
 Opem debilis imploro; 
 Fontem Christi qucero immundiis, 
 Nisi laves, moribundus. 
 
 " 6 Dum hos artus vita regit; 
 Quando nox sepulchro tegit; 
 Mortuos cum stare tubes, 
 Sedens index inter nubes; 
 Icsus, pro me perforatus, 
 Condar mtra tuum latus. 9 " 
 
 Gladstone also translated this hymn 
 into Greek and Italian. At the end of 
 a noble life, which had been devoted to 
 the best interests of his fellowmen, he 
 had this hymn sung to him, and found 
 his most comforting hope in the lines : 
 
 " Nothing in my hand I bring, 
 Simply to Thy cross I cling." 
 10 145 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 All who attempt to translate this 
 beautiful hymn into other languages are 
 not so happy in their effort as was Mr. 
 Gladstone. A missionary in India 
 writes that he employed a Hindoo 
 scholar to assist him in translating 
 " Rock of Ages " into the vernacular. 
 His surprise may be imagined when he 
 read, as the result of the eff ort of the 
 learned Oriental, the first two lines: 
 
 " Very old stone, split for my benefit, 
 Let me get under one of your fragments." 
 
 This hymn was a favourite with 
 Prince Albert, the husband of Queen 
 Victoria, and when he lay dying in 
 Windsor Castle in 1861, almost his last 
 words were : " I have had wealth, power, 
 and fame, but if these were all that I 
 had had, what would I have now?" 
 And then he was heard repeating softly 
 and reverently, 
 
 " Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in Thee." 
 
 146 
 
ROCK OF AGES 
 
 When the steamship " London " went 
 to her doom in the Bay of Biscay in 
 1866, the last sounds borne over the 
 waters to those who succeeded in mak- 
 ing their escape were not wails of de- 
 spair, but the brave, hopeful prayer 
 voiced in the words of this immortal 
 hymn. 
 
 Dr. S. S. Pomeroy states that in an 
 Armenian church in Constantinople he 
 was deeply moved by hearing a Turk- 
 ish translation of this hymn sung, and 
 by seeing many of the worshippers 
 singing with eyes filled with tears. 
 
 An incident somewhat similar is re- 
 lated of the celebration of the golden 
 jubilee of Queen Victoria, when rep- 
 resentatives from every land came to 
 congratulate her on her long and pros- 
 perous reign. Among these was a native 
 of Madagascar. After conveying his 
 good wishes to the Queen, he suggested 
 that, if agreeable, he would like to sing 
 to her. Naturally, it was expected that 
 
 147 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 he would sing one of his native songs, 
 but, to the surprise of all, he sang 
 " Rock of Ages." The Rev. Duncan 
 Morrison, of Owen Sound, Canada, 
 who was present, writes: 
 
 " There was profound and awkward 
 silence which was difficult to break, for 
 many were affected to tears in seeing 
 the coming back of seed sown on the 
 waters in missionary faith and zeal. All 
 were taken by surprise, little expecting 
 to hear from the lips of the Hova on 
 this grand occasion the sweetest of all 
 the songs of Zion. The venerable man 
 took delight in telling his hearers that 
 this one song had been very close to his 
 heart and had enabled him to while 
 away many a weary hour in his pilgrim- 
 age through life." 
 
 General J. E. B. Stuart, the famous 
 Confederate cavalry leader, received a 
 mortal wound at Yellow Tavern, Vir- 
 ginia, and died in a hospital in Rich- 
 mond on the 12th of May, 1864, at 
 
 148 
 
ROCK OF AGES 
 
 the age of thirty-one. When his old 
 minister, to whom he was devotedly 
 attached, came to see him, he requested 
 that " Rock of Ages " be sung. The 
 young General joined in the hymn, 
 but soon his voice faltered and failed. 
 " I feel," he whispered, " that I am 
 going fast. I am ready. God's will 
 be done." And with the words of the 
 precious hymn still ringing in his ears, 
 he passed on to join the heavenly com- 
 pany who have " washed their robes 
 and made them white in the blood of 
 the Lamb." 
 
 The following incident admirably 
 illustrates the spirit of the hymn: " The 
 noble old song has had a new meaning 
 to me since an experience a friend and I 
 had one summer evening going from 
 Grand Portage, Lake Superior, to Isle 
 Royal, twenty miles out in the lake. 
 We started with a fair breeze, and our 
 two boatmen assured us that we would 
 have a short and pleasant run to the 
 
 149 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 island. But when about half way over, 
 the wind failed ; and calm, like the peace 
 of God, was in the air and on the lake. 
 Evening was coming on, and the only 
 thing to do was to take the oars, if 
 we did not wish to spend the night on 
 the water. But it was slow work, even 
 for the four of us, to row that heavy 
 sailboat. The sun went down, leaving a 
 great glory of red and gold on lake and 
 sky that presently faded away, and 
 darkness came on. Far away to the 
 northeast a light gleamed in the dark- 
 ness like a star; it was the light at 
 Thunder Bay. 
 
 " The boatmen began to worry. 
 * We are right in the track of the big 
 boats to and from Port Arthur/ they 
 said, ' and we have no lights and may 
 be run down at any time/ Here was 
 cause to be anxious, indeed. Presently, 
 one of the men said, ' If we can only 
 get inside the Rock of Ages, we '11 be 
 all right/ 
 
 150 
 
ROCK OF AGES 
 
 " ' Rock of Ages? ' my friend and I 
 both asked; 'what is it and where is 
 it?' 
 
 " ' It is a big rock three miles west of 
 Washington Harbour, on the island. 
 The big boats all keep outside of it/ 
 
 " We were silent for a time, the only 
 sound being the noise of the oars in the 
 rowlocks and in the water. And then 
 my friend began to sing softly: 
 
 " ' Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in Thee.' 
 
 " Suddenly one of the men said: 
 ' There it is; we 're all right now! ' By 
 looking closely, I could make out in the 
 darkness, on the right, a darker spot. 
 The boatmen said it was the rock, and 
 that we were now safe. 
 
 " ' What is that verse/ said my 
 friend, * in Isaiah about the Rock of 
 Ages? Trust ye in Jehovah forever: 
 for in Jehovah, even Jehovah, is a Rock 
 of Ages. We have had a fine illustra- 
 
 151 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 tion of that text. Outside that rock 
 yonder we were in constant danger; in 
 here, we are in perfect safety, and get- 
 ting nearer the harbour every moment. 
 So we are safe or unsafe as we trust or 
 distrust our Rock of Ages.' " 
 
 The Rev. Edwin M. Rice, D.D., 
 Editor of the American Sunday-school 
 Union, has this interesting statement 
 to make concerning the school attended 
 by Toplady: " Several of the hymn- 
 writers of the widest fame and popu- 
 larity in the past century or two have 
 been educated at one institution — the 
 Westminster School, England, chiefly 
 St. Peter's College, Westminster. That 
 sweet singer, George Herbert, entered 
 the school as a ' King's scholar ' in 1604. 
 The famous author of ' Jesus, Lover of 
 My Soul,' Charles Wesley, entered the 
 school in 1721, as a ' Town boy/ and 
 became captain of the school in 1725. 
 The author of ' Rock of Ages/ A. M. 
 Toplady, was a scholar there in 1756. 
 
 152 
 
BOCK OF AGES 
 
 John Austin, who in his youth wrote 
 ' Hark, My Soul/ was in the same 
 school in 1640. The great poet laure- 
 ate, John Dryden, carved his name on 
 a form there when a lad, the name and 
 form being still carefully preserved. 
 But the more durable impression was 
 made when he wrote, c Creator, Spirit 
 By Whose Aid/ The author of ' God 
 moves in a mysterious way, 5 William 
 Cowper, was also a student here. Bap- 
 tist W. Noel, Joseph Anstice, G. E. 
 Cotton, Gerald Phillimore, William 
 Waterfield, and others, who have made 
 helpful contributions to hymnology, 
 have attended this school; indeed, so 
 many writers of hymns have attended 
 St. Peter's College that it has been 
 called a ' School of Hymn-writers/ and 
 it well deserves the name." 
 
 153 
 
VIII 
 
 A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS 
 OUR GOD 
 
3 migbtp fortress te our (Sob, 
 
 & bultoarfe nebcr failing ; 
 ®uv belper J|e amib tfje f loob 
 
 ©f mortal ills prevailing : 
 Jf or still our ancient foe 
 3Botb Seek to toork us tooe ; 
 J^iflS craft anb potoer are great, 
 3nb, armeb toitb cruel bate, 
 
 ®n eartb is not Ijis equal 
 
 3&ib toe in our oton strength conf ibe, 
 ©ur striding tooulb be losing ; 
 
 UHere not tfje rigfjt iWan on our iibt f 
 Wot iWan of (gob's oton choosing ; 
 
 Bost asfe tofjo tijat map be ? 
 
 Cfjrist HTesus, it is He! 
 
 Horb £>abaotb W* name, 
 
 Jfrom age to age tlje same ; 
 anb He must \mn tfje battle. 
 
 Snb tijougb tbis toorlb, toitb bebils filleb, 
 g>boulb tbreaten to unbo us ; 
 
 Wit toill not fear, for <§ob fjati) toilleb 
 Hi* trutb to triumpb tbrougb us ; 
 
 Cbe prince of barfeness grim, — 
 
 Wit tremble not for bim; 
 
 Hi* rage toe can enbure, 
 
 Jf or lo ! bis boom i^ Sure, 
 ®nt little toorb sball fell bim. 
 
 157 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 tTOfjat toorb abobe all eartfjlp potoers, 
 35o tbanfes to tfjem, abibetf) ; 
 
 Cbe Spirit anb tfte gifts; are ours, 
 Sijrougfj ©tm tofjo toitl) us Sibetf) ; 
 
 Het goobs anb feinbreb go, 
 
 ®fris mortal life also ; 
 
 W&t bob? tbep map bill: 
 
 <©ob'S trutb attbetlj Still, 
 His feingbom ii f oreber. 
 
 158 
 
A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS 
 OUR GOD 
 
 HE world knows Martin 
 Luther as a reformer; 
 comparatively few know 
 him as a musician and 
 hymnologist. 
 Destined to give to the German 
 people, in their own tongue, the Bible, 
 the Catechism, and the hymn-book, he 
 was born of peasant parents in Eis- 
 leben, at the foot of the Hartz Moun- 
 tains, Saxony, November 10, 1483, and 
 died in the same town February 18, 
 1546, in the sixty-third year of his age. 
 He was possessed of a sweet voice of 
 much compass and power, and in his 
 youth followed, through necessity, a 
 well-known German custom of singing 
 songs and carols from door to door. 
 " I used to beg," he writes, " with my 
 companions, for a little food, that we 
 might have the means of providing for 
 
 159 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 our wants. At the time the Church cele- 
 brates the festival of Christ's nativity, 
 we went wandering through the neigh- 
 bouring villages, going from house to 
 house, and singing, in four parts, the 
 carols of the infant Jesus." 
 
 He was a lover of birds and flowers, 
 and was passionately fond of music, 
 folklore, and song. He was fortunate 
 enough to become a member of the 
 church choir and thereby gained tui- 
 tion in music free. Years afterward, 
 he wrote: " I place music next to the- 
 ology. I can see why David and all 
 the saints put their diviner thoughts in 
 song." 
 
 A woman of some means, hearing 
 him sing, gave him a home and finally 
 made it possible for him, in 1501, to 
 enter the University of Erfurt, where 
 he excelled in Latin, eloquence, and 
 poetry. At the age of twenty-two he 
 was made doctor of philosophy, much 
 to the gratification of his fellow stu- 
 
 160 
 
A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD 
 
 dents, who celebrated the event by a 
 great torchlight procession. 
 
 He became an Augustinian monk 
 in 1505, and a priest in 1507. The 
 following year he was appointed a 
 professor in the University of Witten- 
 berg. He was a preacher of rare power 
 and eloquence, and many were attracted 
 to him. He became deeply interested 
 in congregational singing. " I wish," 
 he said, " after the example of the 
 prophets and the ancient fathers of the 
 Church, to compose German Psalms for 
 the people. I mean sacred hymns, so 
 that the Word of God may dwell 
 among the people also by means of 
 song." Of the hymns that then existed, 
 nearly all were in Latin. Some of these 
 he translated and altered. He also 
 wrote original ones. 
 
 Philip Schaff says: "The Psalter 
 was the first and for many centuries 
 the only hymn-book of the Church. It 
 is the most fruitful source of Christian 
 
 11 161 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 hymnology." As is well known, the 
 46th Psalm furnished Luther with the 
 keynote of his matchless hymn, " A 
 Mighty Fortress Is Our God." He 
 published his first hymn-book in 1524. 
 It contained but eight compositions, 
 four of which were his own. From this 
 humble source have flowed the thousands 
 of song books which since have been 
 published throughout the world. With- 
 in twenty years after the first edition 
 was issued, at least one hundred and 
 seventeen collections by him and his 
 associates had been printed. 
 
 One writes: " Luther was what to- 
 day would be described as a profound 
 connoisseur in music, and at the same 
 time a practical musician. To his nat- 
 ural musical gifts, and these were of a 
 rich order, we must add an erudite 
 and philosophical culture, an extensive 
 knowledge of men and things, and 
 above all a large heart and the inventive 
 perception of a genius. It was this 
 
 162 
 
A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD 
 
 universal knowledge that enabled Lu- 
 ther to enter into the high mission of 
 art more thoroughly than the average 
 musician." 
 
 Heinrich Heine says : " Not less re- 
 markable, not less significant than his 
 prose writings, are Luther's poems, 
 those stirring songs which escaped from 
 him in the very midst of his combats and 
 his necessities, like a flower making its 
 way from between rough stones, or a 
 sunbeam gleaming mid dark clouds." 
 While Samuel Taylor Coleridge writes : 
 " In Germany the hymns are known by 
 heart by every peasant; they advise, 
 they argue from the hymns, and every 
 soul in the Church praises God like a 
 Christian, with words which are natural 
 and yet sacred to his mind." 
 
 Along the same line, Cardinal 
 Thomas-a-Jesu wrote in the sixteenth 
 century: " The interests of Luther are 
 furthered, in an extraordinary degree, 
 by the singing of his hymns by people 
 
 163 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 of every class, not only in the schools 
 and churches, but in dwellings and 
 shops, in markets, streets and fields." 
 
 As an illustration of the wonderful 
 power of Luther's hymns over the 
 German mind, a writer gives this inci- 
 dent in connection with the city of Han- 
 over: " It appears," he says, " that the 
 Reformaton was first introduced there, 
 not by the voice of the preacher, nor by 
 the reading of religious treatises, but 
 by the hymns of Martin Luther. These 
 the people sang with delight, and the 
 saving truths they taught touched their 
 hearts." 
 
 By means of wandering school- 
 masters, mechanics, and the students 
 who attended Wittenberg, these hymns 
 became widely scattered and were en- 
 thusiastically received. Spangenberg, 
 who was living at this time, says: 
 " One must certainly let this be true 
 and remain true, that among all the 
 master singers, from the days of the 
 
 164 
 
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A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD 
 
 apostles until now, Luther is and always 
 will be the best and most accomplished." 
 
 Luther wrote some thirty-seven 
 hymns and Psalm revisions, and these 
 have been translated into many lan- 
 guages. His masterpiece, however, was 
 " A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," the 
 great battle-hymn of the Reforma- 
 tion, which is as dear to the German 
 heart as the Fatherland itself, each 
 being inseparably associated with the 
 other. 
 
 In times of special trial, Luther 
 would say to Melancthon: "Come, 
 Philip, let us sing the 46th Psalm," and 
 they would sing it from his version. 
 After Luther's death, Melancthon 
 heard a little girl singing the hymn in 
 a street of Weimar, and said to her: 
 " Sing on, dear child; you do little know r 
 whom you comfort." 
 
 It is said that this hymn accomplished 
 as much for the Reformation as did the 
 translation of the Bible. D'Aubigne 
 
 165 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 says that during these fateful and for- 
 mative days, " it was sung in all the 
 churches of Saxony, and its energetic 
 strains often revived and inspirited the 
 most dejected hearts." It was sung at 
 Luther's funeral, and its first line is 
 carved on his tomb. 
 
 In 1720, a remarkable revival was 
 being held in a Moravian town, in which 
 David Nitschman, who was afterward 
 the founder of Bethlehem, Pennsyl- 
 vania, lived. A large company was 
 gathered at his house when the officers 
 of the law broke in to disperse the 
 meeting. Nothing daunted, the congre- 
 gation began singing " A Mighty Fort- 
 ress." Many, including Nitschman, 
 were arrested and placed in jail. He 
 made his escape, became a bishop, and 
 sailed with the Wesleys on their famous 
 voyage to Savannah, Georgia. He of- 
 ficiated, in 1736, at what was the first 
 ordination of a Protestant bishop in 
 America. He visited America three 
 
 166 
 
A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD 
 
 times, and finally died here after years 
 of splendid service for others. 
 
 The hymn was a source of much 
 comfort to the Huguenots of France 
 between 1560 and 1572, and was fre- 
 quently sung by them to inspire their 
 zeal and courage. It was first pub- 
 lished about 1527, and has been trans- 
 lated at least eighty times, doubtless 
 the most accurate being the version of 
 Thomas Carlisle, in 1831. That of Dr. 
 Frederick Henry Hedge, of Harvard 
 University, in 1853, beginning, 
 
 " A mighty fortress is our God," 
 
 is the most popular in use in this 
 country. 
 
 Dr. Louis F. Benson, in his " Studies 
 of Familiar Hymns," has this excellent 
 summing up of the widespread use and 
 influence of this immortal composition: 
 
 " Such a hymn, with such a tune, 
 spread quickly, as may well be believed; 
 ' quickly, as if the angels had been the 
 
 167 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 carriers,' one enthusiastic writer has 
 said. But they were men and not angels 
 who spread Luther's hymn of faith 
 and courage from heart to heart and 
 from lip to lip. It thrilled them like a 
 trumpet blast, encouraging the faint- 
 hearted and nerving the brave to fight 
 the battle of the Lord. It was, as Heine 
 said, the Marseillaise of the Reforma- 
 tion. It was sung at Augsburg during 
 the Diet, and in all the churches of Sax- 
 ony, often against the protest of the 
 priest. It was sung in the streets ; and, 
 so heard, comforted the hearts of Me- 
 lancthon, Jonas, and Cruciger, as they 
 entered Weimar, when banished from 
 Wittenberg in 1547. It was sung by 
 poor Protestant emigrants on their way 
 into exile, and by martyrs at their death. 
 It is woven into the web of the history 
 of Reformation times, and it became 
 the true national hymn of Protestant 
 Germany. Gustavus Adolphus ordered 
 it sung by his army before the battle of 
 
 168 
 
A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD 
 
 Leipzig, in 1631, and on the field of that 
 battle it was repeated, more than two 
 centuries afterwards, by the throng as- 
 sembled at the jubilee of the Gustavus 
 Adolphus Association. Again, it was 
 the battle hymn of his army at Liitzen, 
 in 1632, in which the King was slain, 
 but his army won the victory. It has 
 had a part in countless celebrations com- 
 memorating the men and events of the 
 Reformation; and its first line is en- 
 graved on the base of Luther's monu- 
 ment at Wittenberg. And it is still 
 dear to the German people, one of the 
 hymns lodged in their memories and 
 hearts, ready for the occasion. An im- 
 perishable hymn! not polished and ar- 
 tistically wrought, but rugged and 
 strong like Luther himself, whose very 
 words seem like deeds." 
 
 Percy S. Foster writes : " One of the 
 most inspiring sights I ever witnessed 
 was at the Christian Endeavor Con- 
 vention in Cincinnati, Ohio, July, 1901, 
 
 169 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 when the German societies sang, in their 
 own language, as their consecration 
 hymn, ' A Mighty Fortress Is Our 
 God.' It thrilled the entire assem- 
 blage as nothing else did." 
 
 " Whenever I hear Luther's great 
 hymn," said the Rev. Wallace Howe 
 Lee, LL.D., of Seattle, Washington, 
 " I always think of a soldier armed for 
 the fray, riding on a fiery horse in tri- 
 umph." And in much the same spirit 
 another writes : " I learned this hymn 
 while in the seminary, and liked it from 
 the first. It stirs me like a drum stirs 
 an old soldier. It is a hymn of trium- 
 phant faith and should be sung 
 oftener." 
 
 W. T. Stead gives this interesting 
 incident: " CasselTs History of the 
 Franco-German war describes how, the 
 day after the battle of Sedan, a multi- 
 tude of German troops, who were on 
 the march for Paris, found it impossible 
 to sleep, wearied though they were. 
 
 170 
 
A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD 
 
 They were billeted in the parish church 
 of Augecourt. The excitement of the 
 day had been too great ; the memory of 
 the bloody fight and their fallen com- 
 rades mingled strangely with pride of 
 victory and the knowledge that they had 
 rescued their country from the foe. 
 Suddenly in the twilight and the still- 
 ness a strain of melody proceeded from 
 the organ — at first softly, very softly, 
 and then with ever-increasing force — 
 the grand old hymn-tune, familiar to 
 every German ear, ' Nun danket alle 
 Gott/ swelled along the vaulted aisles. 
 With one voice officers and men joined 
 in the holy strains ; and when the hymn 
 was ended, the performer, a simple 
 villager, came forward and delivered 
 a short, simple, heartfelt speech. Then 
 turning again to the organ, he struck 
 up Luther's old hymn, * Ein f este 
 Burg ist unser Gott/ and again all 
 joined with heart and voice. The ter- 
 rible strain on their systems, which had 
 
 171 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 tried their weary souls and had ban- 
 ished slumber from their eyes, was now 
 removed, and they laid themselves down 
 with thankful hearts and sought and 
 found the rest they so much needed." 
 
 " In connection with Luther's great 
 hymn," remarked Professor Charles It. 
 Erdman, D.D., of Princeton Theo- 
 logical Seminary, " I cannot forget 
 the inspiring effect with which it was 
 rendered by a great chorus of male 
 voices at Princeton University on the 
 occasion of the four hundredth anniver- 
 sary of Luther's birth. Ever since then 
 it has been increasingly popular with 
 Princeton students, and I think I can 
 safely say that it is the favourite hymn 
 in that University." 
 
 /The following interesting story is 
 copied from the Youth's Companion: 
 " At a terrible accident in the coal mines 
 near Scranton, Pennsylvania, several 
 men were buried for three days and all 
 efforts to rescue them had proved un- 
 m 
 
A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD 
 
 successful. The majority of the miners 
 were Germans. They were in a state of 
 intense excitement, caused by sympathy 
 for the wives and children of the buried 
 men and, despair at their own balked 
 efforts. 
 
 " A great mob of ignorant men and 
 women assembled at the mouth of the 
 mine on the evening of the third day, 
 in a condition of high nervous tension 
 which fitted them for any mad act. A 
 sullen murmur arose that it was folly to 
 dig farther, that the men were dead; 
 and this was followed by cries of rage 
 at the rich mine owners, who were in no 
 way responsible for the accident. 
 
 " A hasty word or gesture might have 
 produced an outbreak of fury. Stand- 
 ing near was a little German girl, per- 
 haps eleven years old. Her pale face 
 and frightened glances from side to side 
 showed that she fully understood the 
 danger of the moment. Suddenly, with 
 a great effort, she began to sing in a 
 
 173 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 hoarse whisper which could not be 
 heard. Then she gained courage, and 
 her sweet, childish voice rang out in 
 Luther's grand old hymn, familiar to 
 every German from his cradle: 
 
 " 6 A mighty fortress is our God.' 
 
 " There was a silence like death. 
 Then one voice joined the girl's, and 
 presently another and another, until 
 from the whole great multitude rose the 
 solemn words of the hymn. A great 
 quiet seemed to fall upon the hearts of 
 all. They resumed their work with 
 fresh zeal, and before morning the joy- 
 ful cry came up from the pit that the 
 men were found — alive." 
 
 When the four hundredth anniver- 
 sary of the birth of Luther was cele- 
 brated in the Philadelphia Academy of 
 Music, the great building was thronged, 
 and "A Mighty Fortress," led by an 
 immense band, was sung in seven dif- 
 ferent languages at the same time. It 
 
 174 
 
A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD 
 
 was, of course, a perfect babel of sound, 
 but the effect was wonderful. So 
 grandly was it sung, with such match- 
 less harmony, unity, and solemnity, that 
 it stirred the vast audience to tears and 
 to the utmost pitch of enthusiasm. To 
 those who were present it is little wonder 
 that the hymn bore an important part in 
 nerving the German soldiers to deeds of 
 desperate daring, when sung on the eve 
 of battle ; or that it should be used as a 
 great thanksgiving psalm when the 
 victory was won. 
 
 " A little company of missionaries," 
 writes the Reverend Charles G. Lewis, 
 of the China Inland Mission, " in south- 
 west China during the Boxer outrages 
 of the summer of 1900, found them- 
 selves in circumstances which led to a 
 fuller and deeper appreciation of Lu- 
 ther's noble hymn than they had ever 
 had before. Situated two thousand 
 miles inland, and seven days' journey 
 from our nearest neighbours, we found 
 
 175 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 ourselves cut off from all communica- 
 tion. After waiting for light and guid- 
 ance, we attempted flight through the 
 southern provinces, but only to discover, 
 after journeying several days, that all 
 roads in that direction were closed. Re- 
 turning to our station, we determined 
 to await the uncertainties of the 
 situation rather than attempt further 
 travelling. Knowing something of the 
 fate of many of our brethren else- 
 where, we realised full well what might 
 be ours also. To flee seemed to run 
 into certain danger; to sit still seemed 
 as certainly to invite it. What to do 
 was no easy thing to settle. It was 
 during these days that Luther's hymn, 
 'A Mighty Fortress Is Our God/ 
 took on new meaning to us, and 
 our hearts received fresh strength and 
 courage as we realised, as never before, 
 how the Lord's people in other days 
 found in our God ' a mighty fortress * 
 from every danger." 
 
 176 
 
A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD 
 
 It will be remembered that the mis- 
 sionaries in Paoutingfu, China, were 
 not so fortunate as those of the Inland 
 Mission, all of them being killed at their 
 post. An impressive memorial service 
 was held on the 23d of March, 1901, on 
 the very spot in Paoutingfu where the 
 tragedies of the preceding June had 
 occurred. Among those present were 
 German, French, and Chinese officials, 
 and a fine German band belonging to 
 the brigade. The services were of the 
 most solemn and tender character, and 
 nothing could have been more grandly 
 impressive than the rendering of " A 
 Mighty Fortress Is Our God." 
 
 Kostlin has well written: " This 
 hymn is Luther in song. It is pitched in 
 the very key of the man. Rugged and 
 majestic, trustful in God, and confi- 
 dent, it was the defiant trumpet-blast of 
 the Reformation, speaking out to the 
 powers of the earth and under the earth, 
 an all-conquering conviction of divine 
 
 12 177 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 vocation and empowerment. The world 
 has many sacred songs of exquisite ten- 
 derness and unalterable trust, but this 
 one of Luther's is matchless in its war- 
 like tone, its rugged strength, and its 
 inspiring ring." 
 
 There is need of more of such inspir- 
 ing productions, full-voiced with faith, 
 devotion, and courage, to help us in our 
 efforts to " make our manhood mightier 
 day by day." 
 
 178 
 
IX 
 
 NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE 
 
SliiliiS 
 
 OR IF ON JOYFUL WING CLEAVING THE SKY, 
 SUN, MOON AND STARS FORGOT, UPWARDS I FLY. 
 
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 Jlearer to tEtyee ! 
 €'en tfjougb it be a crostf 
 
 Cfjat ratsfetfj me ; 
 &till all mp song gfjall be, 
 Jlearer, mp (gob, to Cfjee, 
 
 Jlearer to Wfjtt I 
 
 tCfjougt like tfje toanberer, 
 tEf)e sun gone boton, 
 
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 iltp resit a stone ; 
 
 get m mp breams 3f 'b be 
 
 fearer, mp <£ob, to Cfjee, 
 i^earer to tEfjee I 
 
 Cfjere let tfte toap appear, 
 S>teps unto Jleaben ; 
 
 ail tbat Cbou senb'st to me 
 2to mercp giben : 
 
 9ngels to becfeon me 
 
 Jlearer, mp (Sob, to W&tt, 
 Jlearer to ®bee! 
 
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 JSrtgbt tottfj ®bp praise, 
 
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 Petbelini raise; 
 
 181 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
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 Jlearer, mp <©ob, to Cfjee, 
 fearer to Cfjee ! 
 
 0v it on jopful taring 
 
 Cleaning tfje *fep, 
 gmn, moon, anb £tar$ forgot, 
 
 flSpfarcrte 3 tip, 
 &ttll all mp song sfjall bt, 
 fearer, mp (Sob, to Wt}tt, 
 
 Jtearer to Cfjee ! 
 
 182 
 
NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE 
 
 flLIZA and Sarah Flower 
 were gifted English sis- 
 ters, whose early lives 
 began and ended between 
 the opening and the close 
 of the first half of the last century; and 
 yet in that brief period both left their 
 impress on their generation; and the 
 younger, Sarah, achieved undying 
 fame by composing the beautiful hymn, 
 " Nearer, my God, to Thee." 
 
 The meeting and courtship of their 
 parents were romantic. Benjamin 
 Flower was a bright young fellow 
 whose business frequently called him 
 to France, and he became early imbued 
 with the spirit of the French Revolu- 
 tion. Afterward he became the Editor 
 of the Cambridge Intelligencer, and 
 for defending in its columns the French 
 Revolution, and for real or imaginary 
 reflections on the English constitution, 
 
 183 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 he was brought to trial in 1799, and 
 was sentenced to pay a fine and to spend 
 six months in the famous or infamous 
 Newgate Prison. 
 
 During his imprisonment Miss Eliza 
 Gould, an enthusiastic young woman 
 of culture, whose soul was fired with 
 indignation at the injustice of his pun- 
 ishment, called upon him to express 
 sympathy. They proved to be con- 
 genial spirits; the strangers became 
 friends, the friends lovers, and soon 
 after his release they were married. 
 Two daughters were born to them, and 
 in 1810 the mother, never strong, went 
 to her reward. The training and edu- 
 cation of the children devolved upon 
 the father, and right nobly did he meet 
 this added responsibility. Both girls 
 were unusually talented — Eliza as a 
 composer of music, and Sarah as a 
 composer of verse. 
 
 In 1834, Sarah married William 
 Bridges Adams, a civil engineer. In 
 
 184 
 
NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE 
 
 person she was tall and remarkably 
 beautiful, and her manners were charm- 
 ing. Believing that the stage might be 
 made to perform an important service, 
 in connection with the pulpit, in elevat- 
 ing mankind, she essayed to act, with 
 the approval of her husband, the char- 
 acter of Lady Macbeth. Although 
 she met with considerable success, she 
 soon learned that the demands were far 
 too severe for her physical powers, so 
 she turned her attention to literature. 
 She wrote a number of poems of rare 
 sweetness and power. " Nearer, my 
 God, to Thee," suggested by the story 
 of Jacob's vision at Bethel, as found 
 in Genesis 28 : 10-22, was first pub- 
 lished in 1841; and although it met 
 with some favour, it was not until 1860 
 that Dr. Lowell Mason's beautiful and 
 sympathetic music " quickened it into 
 glorious life " and gave it a perma- 
 nent abiding-place in the hearts of the 
 people. In the great Peace Jubilee, 
 
 185 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 held in Boston in 1872, this hymn was 
 sung by nearly fifty thousand voices. 
 Dr. Mason, then in his eighty-first year, 
 was present, and was delighted with 
 the matchless melody. He died the 
 following August. 
 
 Mrs. Adams died in 1848, at the age 
 of forty-three, two years after the 
 death of her sister Eliza, who died 
 unmarried, at the same age. 
 
 Many and interesting are the stories 
 told in connection with the usefulness 
 of this hymn, which has been an inspira- 
 tion wherever the Christian religion has 
 gone. It is a special favourite of Miss 
 Helen Gould, whose sweet winsome- 
 ness and noble charity have made her 
 one of the best loved women of our 
 land,. 
 
 It was sung at the great Christian 
 Endeavor Convention held in Phila- 
 delphia in December, 1900, a choir of 
 fifteen hundred trained voices, under 
 the magnetic direction of H, C. Lin- 
 
 186 
 
NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE 
 
 coin, leading the vast multitude. At its 
 close President Eberman said, thought- 
 fully, " I wonder if we shall ever listen 
 to such singing on earth again! " 
 
 " When the officers and men of the 
 North Atlantic Squadron," writes 
 Chaplain Wright, " assembled on the 
 quarter deck of the battleship ' Massa- 
 chusetts,' at the memorial service for 
 the gun's crew killed in the eight-inch 
 turret, the most touching incident was 
 the singing, softly and reverently, of 
 1 Nearer, my God, to Thee.' It had 
 been the favourite hymn of several of 
 the dead men, and the last one they had 
 sung, for we had closed the service with 
 it two nights before the disaster. Dur- 
 ing an experience of nearly twenty 
 years in the Navy I have found the 
 songs that last the best with the men S 
 are such as ' Just As I Am,' c Abide 
 With Me,' ' Nearer, my God, to Thee,' 
 and ' Sun of My Soul.' " 
 
 " I have heard," writes Dr. Floyd 
 
 187 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Tomkins, " ' Nearer, my God, to Thee ' 
 sung in camp with a brass band, and 
 I have sung it alone with trembling 
 voice when kneeling by the bedside of 
 the dying, and it has ever the same 
 message of peace." 
 
 The Rev. Millard F. Troxell, D.D., 
 relates this experience: "The beau- 
 tiful August day was warm with sun- 
 shine along the lower levels, but the 
 three train-loads of tourists found the 
 summit of Pike's Peak enveloped in 
 mist and cloud too heavy to peer 
 through, so that for an hour or more 
 we gathered about the fire of the block- 
 house and tried to become better ac- 
 quainted. It was suggested that we 
 sing some popular melody. A voice 
 bravely began one of the many senti- 
 mental songs of the day, but few knew 
 enough of it to join in, so the singer 
 was left to finish it alone. Then some 
 one began to sing softly ' Nearer, my 
 God, to Thee,' and before the second 
 
 188 
 
NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE 
 
 line was ended it seemed as if all who 
 had been strangers now felt at home; 
 and, for the time being, the place 
 seemed like a very Bethel. It seemed, 
 too, as if the clouds were parted and 
 lifted by the singing, for when a little 
 time had quickly passed, some one ex- 
 claimed, ' Oh, there 's the sunshine ! ' 
 and out we rushed to find that the 
 mists were rolled away, and before us 
 stretched the most wonderful of views." 
 On one occasion three distinguished 
 travellers in Palestine heard in the dis- 
 tance faint snatches of a familiar tune, 
 and were deeply touched, on drawing 
 nearer, to find a group of Syrian stu- 
 dents reverently singing, in Arabic, 
 " Nearer, my God, to Thee." One of 
 the hearers, in relating the story, said 
 that the singing of the hymn by these 
 youthful natives moved him to tears 
 and affected him more deeply than any- 
 thing of the kind to which he had ever 
 listened. 
 
 189 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 The Rev. G. B. F. Hallock, D.D., 
 thus writes of his visit to Bethel on 
 March 12, 1902: "As we stood there, 
 where heaven had once come so near to 
 earth, I am sure that there was not one 
 in all our large party who did not share, 
 in some degree, in that ladder vision 
 which Jacob had; and you will not be 
 surprised to know that we fell into the 
 mood of Mrs. Sarah Flower Adams' 
 ever-precious hymn, and, without a 
 word of suggestion, sang together, with 
 deepest feeling, c Nearer, my God, to 
 Thee ! ' Who can say that Jacob's 
 vision did not become ours as we softly 
 chanted the trustful, prayerful words! 
 
 "Is it not a sweet immortality for 
 this Christian poetess that her song 
 should thus linger about the Holy 
 Land, the stories of which were so dear 
 to her, and continue to interpret the 
 worshipful thoughts of Christian trav- 
 ellers long after she herself ceased to 
 sing on earth? We do not wonder that 
 
 190 
 
NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE 
 
 our martyred President [McKinley] 
 and so many before him and since, loved 
 and do love this beautiful hymn. We 
 shall ever count it a rare privilege that 
 so many of us were permitted to sing 
 it together on the sacred site of Bethel 
 itself." 
 
 A pathetic story in connection with 
 this hymn is told of an heroic woman 
 whose train was caught in the great 
 Johnstown flood of 1889. Hopelessly 
 imprisoned by the rising waters, and 
 with death surely approaching, she 
 breathed a prayer to her Maker, and 
 then, with a voice of marvellous trust- 
 fulness, began singing " Nearer, my 
 God, to Thee," while hundreds, unable 
 to help her, listened breathlessly. Be- 
 fore the last words of the hymn were 
 reached the brave voice was still and 
 the singer had gone to be with " those 
 who had come out of great tribulation 
 and had washed their robes and made 
 them white in the blood of the Lamb." 
 
 191 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Dr. William H. Clagett, President 
 of the Board of Trustees of the Texas 
 Presbyterian University, kindly con- 
 tributes the following: "On a New 
 Year's Day the late Rev. James H. 
 Brookes, D.D., of St. Louis, was ear- 
 nestly praying for a deeper work of 
 grace in his own heart, and during his 
 prayer quoted the lines: 
 
 " ' Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee, 
 E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me.' 
 
 " As he uttered the words, the spirit 
 of God brought the meaning of the 
 last line to his mind as never before; 
 so much so, indeed, that he stopped in 
 his praying and asked, ' Do I so deeply 
 desire a greater consecration that I am 
 willing for God to send a cross, if it be 
 necessary, for me to receive it? ' 
 
 " After an inner struggle of some 
 minutes he again bowed down, and, 
 with a full sense of the meaning of 
 the words he uttered, made use of the 
 
 193 
 
NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE 
 
 same quotation as expressing the inner- 
 most desire of his heart. 
 
 " That year there came to him one 
 of the greatest sorrows of his life 
 through the death of a daughter, a 
 bright and beautiful girl just about to 
 graduate from college; but he after- 
 wards testified that through this great 
 loss God had answered his prayer 
 and had brought him into closer com- 
 munion with Him than he had ever 
 been before/' 
 
 Chaplain Henry C. McCook, who 
 was with our soldiers in Cuba, says: 
 " It would seem strange that such a 
 hymn as ' Nearer, my God, to Thee ' 
 should be the most popular and appar- 
 ently the most widely known among all 
 classes of soldiers. Yet it is so. When 
 conducting services as Chaplain in the 
 camps and hospitals of the Fifth Army 
 Corps, and upon ships of war and trans- 
 ports, as well as in the camps of the 
 States, I found that when this hymn 
 
 13 196 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 was announced all the soldiers took 
 hearty part in the singing. One would 
 hardly think that the high spiritual note 
 touched in this familiar hymn, which 
 breathes longings for a nearer spiritual 
 communion with God, even at the cost 
 of human sacrifice, would truly voice 
 the sentiment of the rough-and-ready, 
 ofttime coarse and profane men who 
 joined with their more religious com- 
 rades in singing. Yet such was the 
 case. It was the favourite hymn at 
 funerals, a fact that can be understood 
 more easily. All soldiers are more or 
 less affected by the sense of the near 
 presence of death. The loss of their 
 comrades is indeed ' a cross ' ; and in the 
 true spirit of camaraderie they feel a 
 touch of woe that the companions of 
 the tent and of the march, who shared 
 with them the toils and perils of battle, 
 have passed away." 
 
 He also gives this interesting descrip- 
 tion of the closing scene on the battle-^ 
 
 194 
 
NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE 
 
 field of Las Guasimas, June, 1898: 
 " Farther on lay a dead Spaniard with 
 covered face. A buzzard flapped from 
 the tree above him. Bevond was the 
 open-air hospital, where were two more 
 rigid human figures, and where the 
 wounded lay. That night there was a 
 clear sky, a quarter-moon, and an en- 
 veloping mist of stars, but little sleep 
 for any, and restless, battle-haunted 
 sleep for all. Next morning followed 
 the burial. Captain Capron was car- 
 ried back to the coast and buried at 
 Siboney. The other heroes were placed 
 side by side in one broad trench with 
 their feet to the east. In the bottom 
 of the grave was laid a layer of long, 
 thick, green leaves of guinea grass, and 
 over the brave fellows were piled plumes 
 of the royal palm as long as the grave. 
 At the head of the trench stood Chap- 
 lain Brown; around it were the com- 
 rades of the dead; along the road 
 struggled a band of patient, ragged 
 
 195 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Cubans; and approaching from San- 
 tiago a band of starving women and 
 children for whom the soldiers gave 
 their lives. ' Nearer, my God, to Thee/ 
 sang the soldiers; and the tragedy of 
 Las Guasimas was done." 
 
 This noble hymn gained additional 
 popularity through the tragic death 
 of President William McKinley. His 
 last intelligible words, spoken just 
 before his soul took its flight, were: 
 " Nearer, my God, to Thee, e'en though 
 it be a cross, has been my constant 
 prayer." His prayer was answered. It 
 was a cross — one of the greatest that 
 could come to him and to the beloved 
 nation which he had served so faith- 
 fully — that led him through a martyr's 
 suffering and death to claim a martyr's 
 reward, that of being ever near the 
 blessed Saviour. In a different way, 
 the prayers of his countrymen were also 
 answered, for although his life was 
 not spared, there was infused into the 
 
 196 
 
NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE 
 
 hearts of all a profounder reverence 
 for the head of the nation, a greater 
 horror of assassination, a stronger love 
 for our country, a deeper devotion to 
 our political institutions, and a more 
 abiding faith in God. 
 
 The day of his burial at Canton, Sep- 
 tember 19, 1901, witnessed the most 
 singular and unanimous tributes of re- 
 spect and affection ever paid to the 
 memory of a human being. Seldom, if 
 ever, has a common sorrow found out- 
 ward expression in so many lands and in 
 so many ways; and never was there so 
 close an approach to church and inter- 
 national unity. Memorial services were 
 held in innumerable churches in our own 
 and other countries; and at half -past 
 three o'clock, through arrangements 
 previously made, all the material ac- 
 tivities of the country ceased, so far as 
 possible, for five minutes. Trolley cars 
 were motionless, the hum of machinery 
 died away, horses were stopped, not a 
 
 197 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 telegraph instrument clicked, and the 
 great ocean cable no longer pulsed its 
 messages. A Sabbath stillness was 
 over all. Everywhere, as clocks and 
 watches indicated the hour, men stood 
 with uncovered and bowed heads asking 
 God's blessing upon the stricken widow 
 and upon their bereaved country. 
 
 Before us as we write is a great met- 
 ropolitan newspaper of the following 
 day, its pages full of graphic descrip- 
 tions of the funeral service at Canton, 
 where the vast audience stood at the 
 close, with tear-dimmed eyes, while 
 " Nearer, my God, to Thee," was being 
 sung; and of telegraphic despatches 
 from the leading centres of the world, 
 in almost all of which reference is made 
 to the singing of this hymn in connec- 
 tion with memorial services. 
 
 Two of the despatches are of special 
 interest: The first, from New York, 
 dated September 19, is: " The 250 
 passengers of the American Hamburg- 
 
 198 
 
NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE 
 
 American liner ' Belgravia,' from Ham- 
 burg, which arrived this afternoon at 
 Hoboken, as the clock struck 3 : 30, re- 
 ceived the sorrowful intelligence of the 
 President's death and funeral services. 
 Instantly every one stopped and stood 
 for five minutes with uncovered head. 
 While the people waited, the band 
 on the steamer ' Pennsylvania,' lying 
 alongside, played Chopin's funeral 
 march, and a quartet sang ' Nearer, 
 my God, to Thee.' " 
 
 The second despatch is from Kansas 
 City, Mo. : " Twenty-five thousand peo- 
 ple in the great auditorium this after- 
 noon paid loving tribute to the memory 
 of President McKinley. As many 
 more were turned away. A chorus of 
 seven hundred voices and a band of one 
 hundred pieces furnished the music. 
 The entire audience joined in the 
 singing of * Lead, Kindly Light ' and 
 ' Nearer, my God, to Thee.' " 
 
 In Philadelphia, the Academy of 
 
 199 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Music was packed to its utmost capac- 
 ity, and this hymn was sung with mar- 
 vellous effect by the standing, weeping 
 audience. At League Island, at Girard 
 College, in Catholic and Protestant 
 churches, in Jewish synagogues and 
 Christian temples, the people were 
 drawn together by a great heart sorrow, 
 and gave expression to it by singing the 
 hymn which so appropriately and fit- 
 tingly set forth their feelings. On the 
 still autumn air the beautiful notes of 
 " Nearer, my God, to Thee " rang out 
 with singular sweetness and distinct- 
 ness from the chimes of the belfry of 
 the historic Christ Church — the same 
 bells which had sounded a muffled peal 
 at the reception of the news of the 
 British blockade of Boston; which had 
 joyously echoed the brave full tones of 
 the Liberty Bell when it proclaimed 
 its story of liberty to the world; which 
 had summoned Washington to worship 
 when he was our first President; and 
 
 V 200 
 
NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE 
 
 which had rung out their tribute of love 
 and sorrow when Washington, Lincoln, 
 and Garfield passed on to join the im- 
 mortals — these chimes now made the 
 air melodious with the tender notes of 
 the deathless hymn ; and men, stopping 
 to listen, went on their way with up- 
 lifted looks, and with a fuller, deeper 
 understanding of the inner spiritual 
 teachings of the solemn words. 
 
 In every civilised country memorial 
 services were held, the most interesting, 
 perhaps, being in Westminster Abbey, 
 by order of the King. The burial ser- 
 vice was read with touching simplicity 
 in the presence of royalty, the full dip- 
 lomatic corps, distinguished men and 
 women, and a vast concourse of sor- 
 rowing people. Here, as elsewhere, 
 the greatest interest centred about the 
 singing of the hymn which was in the 
 heart and on the lips of our heroic 
 President as he went to meet his God. 
 
 901 
 
X 
 
 ONWARD, CHRISTIAN 
 SOLDIERS 
 
©ntoarb, Cbristian solbiers, 
 
 illarcbing as to toar, 
 Wliti) ttie cross of STesus 
 
 (Soing on before : 
 Cbrist, tbe ropal JWaster, 
 
 Xeabs against tfje foe ; 
 Jf ortoarb into battle, 
 
 S>ee, W* banner* go, 
 
 3tt tfje sign of triumph 
 
 Satan's bost botb f lee ; 
 ®n tben, Cbristian solbiers, 
 
 ©n to bictorp : 
 Hell'* founbations quiber 
 
 St tfje Sbout of praise ; 
 SSrotbers, lift pour boites, 
 
 Houb pour antbems raise. 
 
 Hike a migbtp arm? 
 
 iflobes tbe Cburcb of <£ob ; 
 Urotbers, toe are treabing 
 
 Wiiftvt tbe saints babe trob ; 
 ©Be are not bibibeb, 
 
 Sill one bobp toe, 
 <&nt in bope anb boctrine, 
 
 0nt in cbaritp. 
 
 205 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Croton* anb tfjrone* map pertef), 
 
 Irtngbom* visit anb toane, 
 JSut tfje Cfmrcb of Sfesus 
 
 Constant toil! remain ; 
 <©ate* of fjell can neber 
 
 Gainst tfjat Cfmrcb prebail ; 
 We babe Cbrfet'S ohm promise, 
 
 !3nb ttiat cannot fail 
 
 ©ntoarb, tfjen, pe people, 
 
 SToin our bappp tbrong, 
 JSlenb tottb ours; pour botce* 
 
 3fn tbe triumpb=*ons ; 
 <©lorp, laub anb bonour 
 
 ®nto Cfjrtet tbe Htng ; 
 GH)te tfjrougb counties* age*, 
 
 iflen anb angel* sing. 
 
 906 
 
ONWARD, CHRISTIAN 
 SOLDIERS 
 
 NWARD, Christian Sol- 
 diers " is without a peer 
 as a processional hymn: 
 and although originally 
 written for children, it is 
 none the less inspiring to " children of 
 a larger growth." It easily ranks as 
 one of the most popular of our modern 
 hymns. " At meetings for general 
 work," writes the Rev. Charles M. Bos- 
 well, D.D., " like church extension, 
 city mission movements, and similar 
 enterprises, I know of no hymn that 
 can approach it in arousing the ag- 
 gressive and enthusiastic spirit of an 
 audience." 
 
 Fortunately, we have the author's 
 own statement as to the origin of the 
 hymn. A great school festival was to 
 be held in a Yorkshire village on Whit- 
 Monday, 1865, and the scholars of 
 
 207 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Horbury Bridge school, over which the 
 Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould was Curate, 
 were invited to attend. As the place 
 of the celebration was some distance 
 away, the minister thought it would be 
 an excellent plan to have his scholars 
 march to the singing of an appropriate 
 and stirring hymn. Fortunately for 
 our hymnology, he could find nothing 
 in his song books suitable for such an 
 occasion, so from sheer necessity he sat 
 down on the Saturday evening preced- 
 ing the celebration and composed this 
 great processional hymn, little dream- 
 ing that he had produced that which 
 would be world-wide in its usefulness 
 and make his name a household word. 
 " It was written," he modestly says, 
 "in a very simple fashion, without a 
 thought of publication. I wanted the 
 children to sing when marching from 
 one village to the other, but could not 
 think of anything quite suitable, so I 
 sat up at night resolved to write some- 
 
 208 
 
ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS 
 
 thing myself. ' Onward, Christian 
 Soldiers ' was the result. It was written 
 in great haste, and I am afraid that 
 some of the lines are faulty. Certainly 
 nothing has surprised me more than its 
 great popularity." 
 
 The spirited music written for it by 
 Arthur S. Sullivan has doubtless added 
 to the enthusiasm and heartiness with 
 which it is always sung. 
 
 While preparing this article, it was 
 our good fortune to learn that a Mr. 
 Thomas Taylor, a brother-in-law of 
 Baring-Gould and a member of the 
 choir which first sang the hymn, was 
 living in Germantown, Pennsylvania. 
 We had a pleasant interview with him, 
 and found him to be a sympathetic, 
 genial, middle-aged man, with quite 
 a local reputation as a poet. He kindly 
 gave the following interesting rem- 
 iniscences of the first time the hymn 
 was sung: 
 
 "As I look back through the mists 
 
 H 209 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 of more than forty long years, I see 
 a little cottage church close by the banks 
 of the Calder, a branch of the Hum- 
 ber, in Yorkshire. It was here, in an 
 upper room, in the early sixties, that 
 Mr. Baring-Gould, a Curate from St. 
 Peter's Church, used to hold services. 
 
 " The cottage church soon became 
 too small for the rapidly increasing 
 congregation. In course of time a 
 large mission church was built, and I, 
 with two elder brothers, had the su- 
 preme delight of being enrolled as 
 members of the first surpliced choir. 
 
 " I remember well how eagerly we 
 boys looked forward to the great Whit- 
 suntide festivals religiously kept in the 
 Yorkshire parishes, and which were 
 welcomed by all. 
 
 "Whit-Monday, 1865, dawned bright 
 and beautiful. Mr. Baring-Gould had 
 arranged that we should march to the 
 parent church, St. Peter's, about one 
 and a half miles distant from Horbury 
 no 
 
ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS 
 
 Bridge, to celebrate the day. The road 
 led up a very steep incline, known as 
 Quarry Hill. With lusty voices and 
 with banners floating in the breeze, we 
 marched forward, a little army some 
 one hundred strong, singing Mr. 
 Baring-Gould's new hymn, ' Onward, 
 Christian Soldiers.' It was on that 
 country road and along the main street 
 of Horbury village that the hymn was 
 first sung in public. 
 
 " Near the parish church we were 
 met by the Horbury brass band and 
 the scholars and choristers of St. 
 Peter's, who joined in the singing as 
 we filed into the church. After the 
 service we all entered the vicarage gar- 
 den, and there again the hymn was 
 sung, under the leadership of Mr. 
 Henry Wilson, then choirmaster at St. 
 Peter's. 
 
 " Soon after this event I joined the 
 choir of St. Peter's. Years after, I 
 married the daughter of my old choir- 
 
 211 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 master, Mr. Wilson, and subsequently 
 came across the great Atlantic to seek 
 a home in the United States." 
 
 Mr. Taylor added this interesting bit 
 of family history: " I often wondered 
 why it was that I was such a favourite 
 of Mr. Baring-Gould; nor could I 
 understand why it was that whenever 
 he came to the house I was sent by my 
 mother into the garden, or elsewhere, 
 to play. But when my sister became 
 Mrs. Baring-Gould a flood of light 
 broke in upon my youthful mind, and 
 I was able to comprehend why my 
 absence had been so frequently desired; 
 and I was also reluctantly led to believe 
 that the Curate's affection for the little 
 choir boy was not quite so disinter- 
 ested as his personal vanity might have 
 wished." 
 
 Baring-Gould, a minister of the 
 Church of England, was born in Ex- 
 eter, Devonshire, January 28, 1834, 
 and was graduated from Clare College, 
 
 212 
 
ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS 
 
 Cambridge, twenty years later. He 
 was Curate of Horbury, where the 
 hymn was written, from 1864 to 1867, 
 and since 1881 has been Rector of Lew 
 Trenchard, where he holds estates and 
 privileges which have descended to him 
 through his family. 
 
 He is an authority on many subjects, 
 and is a voluminous writer, having pub- 
 lished nearly one hundred volumes. In 
 twenty years, between 1870 and 1890, 
 he issued no less than forty-three books, 
 sixteen of which were novels. During 
 the next six years he published seven- 
 teen novels. A number of his works 
 have passed through several editions. 
 To show the extent and variety of his 
 writings, it is only necessary to mention 
 a few of the titles: The Lives of the 
 Saints, in fifteen volumes ; Legends of 
 the Old Testament; Curious Myths of 
 the Middle Ages; Iceland: Its Scenes 
 and Its Sagas; and The Vicar of Mor- 
 wenstow. Among his novels are Meha- 
 
 213 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 lahj In the Roar of the Sea, and Noemi. 
 " He has," says J. M. Barrie, " power- 
 ful imagination, and is quaintly fanci- 
 ful. When he describes a storm, we can 
 see his trees breaking in the gale. So 
 enormous and accurate is his informa- 
 tion that there is no trade or profession 
 with which he does not seem familiar." 
 This suggests to us the poet Thomas 
 Gray, who was also a man of vast 
 learning, not only in literature but 
 in all the arts and sciences of his day; 
 and although he left writings enough 
 to form, with his life, a book of four 
 volumes, edited by Edmund Gosse, 
 it is by his one poem, " Elegy Writ- 
 ten in a Country Churchyard," that 
 he will be ever remembered. This 
 may also prove true of Baring-Gould. 
 The few lines hurriedly composed on 
 a Saturday evening as a marching 
 song for a band of little children, will 
 doubtless give to his name greater fame 
 than all the books he has ever written. 
 
 214 
 
ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS 
 
 " At morning prayers," writes Presi- 
 dent S. W. Boardman, of Maryville 
 College, Tennessee, " after the faculty 
 and the more advanced classes are in 
 their seats, from one to two hundred 
 preparatory students march in, two 
 abreast, from the south entry, and pass 
 before the platform to their places. 
 Most of them are from fifteen to 
 twenty years old, and the majority are 
 professed Christians. The stirring 
 hymn, ' Onward, Christian Soldiers/ 
 is frequently sung, but even when it is 
 not, I never see the youthful, hurrying 
 throng pressing forward to prepare for 
 the future work of the Church and of 
 the world, without feeling in my own 
 heart the thrill and impulse of the 
 words : 
 
 " ' Onward, Christian soldiers. 
 Marching as to war ! 9 
 
 An unusual event, with which this 
 hymn was associated, happened at the 
 
 215 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 November, 1905, election in Philadel- 
 phia. A desperate effort had been 
 made during the preceding weeks by 
 the citizens to free themselves from 
 corrupt political methods and office 
 holders. Excitement ran high, and on 
 the night of the election the deepest 
 concern was felt as to the issue. One 
 of the papers the next morning gave 
 this vivid picture of the happenings: 
 
 " From this time forward, ' Onward, 
 Christian Soldiers ' is the cheering song 
 from which a redeemed city will draw 
 its inspiration and continue the good 
 work so well begun. 
 
 " It was midnight last night when 
 the new battle hymn was borne on a 
 triumphant wave to the thousands of 
 exulting citizens. Broad and Chestnut 
 Streets were packed almost to suffo- 
 cation. The crowds were delirious with 
 joy when they heard the news of the 
 Organisation's defeat. As soon as the 
 Chairman of the City Party Campaign 
 
 216 
 
ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS 
 
 Committee was satisfied that the results 
 were no longer in doubt, and when 
 the returns showed a decided victory 
 for the people, he hurriedly formed 
 a procession, and, headed by a band, 
 began a parade through Broad and 
 Chestnut Streets. The first piece 
 played by the band was ' Onward, 
 Christian Soldiers,' and thereafter only 
 one other song was permitted, ' My 
 Country, 'T is of Thee/ 
 
 " When the crowds heard Baring- 
 Gould's stirring melody many of them 
 fell in line, and soon thousands were 
 singing the words of the inspiring 
 chorus. On Broad Street thousands of 
 others joined in the singing; and for 
 the first time in many years an election 
 crowd knew what it was to be inspired 
 by the true spirit of victory." 
 
 A certain Low Church Vicar, we are 
 told, was thoroughly opposed to all 
 outward symbolisms. On one occa- 
 sion, the children of his school were to 
 
 217 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 march in procession, and " Onward, 
 Christian Soldiers " was the hymn 
 selected to be sung. To add to the 
 realism, the choirmaster desired to have 
 a cross carried in front of the little 
 company, but this the good Vicar pos- 
 itively refused to permit. Wishing to 
 have the hymn as literally true as pos- 
 sible, and possibly to " get even " with 
 the Vicar, the choirmaster changed the 
 last line of the first stanza, and the chil- 
 dren started off, lustily singing, 
 
 " Onward, Christian soldiers, 
 Marching as to war, 
 With the cross of Jesus 
 Left behind the door." 
 
 Another amusing story is told in a 
 letter received from the Rev. Robert J. 
 Drummond, of Edinburgh, Scotland: 
 "A little boy I know, three years of 
 age, was marching around the table, 
 singing this hymn at the top of his 
 voice. His father said to him, ' Are 
 you a Christian soldier?' 'No, Brit- 
 
 218 
 
ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS 
 
 ish!' was the unexpected and senten- 
 tious reply, as the little chap continued 
 his march, singing more lustily than 
 ever. This was when the Boer war was 
 at its height, and loyalty and patriot- 
 ism among the children were running 
 high." 
 
 When peace was expected to be de- 
 clared between the British and the 
 Boers, a Chaplain telegraphed to Lord 
 Kitchener from the Orange River Col- 
 ony, stating, " I am the acting Chap- 
 lain, and shall conduct divine service 
 in several camps to-morrow. May I 
 ask if the hymn, ' Peace, Perfect 
 Peace/ would not be a most appro- 
 priate one to sing?" "Please your- 
 self," telegraphed Kitchener; "but I 
 think ' Onward, Christian Soldiers ' 
 quite as good at this time and perhaps 
 more appropriate." 
 
 Miss Anna Woodruff Jones, a 
 youthful and enthusiastic missionary, 
 thus writes from Osaka, Japan, in 
 
 219 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 April, 1904: "I spent last Saturday- 
 down at the harbour watching hun- 
 dreds of Japanese soldiers embarking 
 on several large transports to go to the 
 seat of war. We occupied the place 
 allotted to Christians on the wide har- 
 bour road down which marched the 
 soldiers, healthy, strong, and deter- 
 mined-looking. I took my two silk 
 United States flags, and I waved one 
 and a friend the other. The Japanese 
 flag has no blue in it, and as we held 
 ours high up they were very conspic- 
 uous. The soldiers were evidently 
 pleased, and many of the officers 
 saluted. One of our missionaries had 
 brought his cornet, and with its help we 
 sang most heartily ' Onward, Christian 
 Soldiers,' the object being to cheer the 
 Christian Japanese whom we knew to 
 be in the ranks. Tears came to our eyes 
 as we saw one Christian after another 
 raise his hand or give some other sign 
 to let us know that he appreciated our 
 
 220 
 
SANG MOST HEARTILY ONWARD,, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS, 
 TO CHEER THE CHRISTIAN JAPANESE IN THE 
 
 ranks."- Page 220. 
 
ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS 
 
 being there and singing for him our 
 song of encouragement; and with 
 grateful looks he passed on." 
 
 Above 300,000 people witnessed the 
 great march of the Knights Templars 
 of the Grand Commandery of Penn- 
 sylvania on Broad Street, Philadelphia, 
 May 26, 1903. The late Dr. Willard 
 M. Rice gave the following vivid pen- 
 picture of the inspiring event: 
 
 " On the way down, it seemed only 
 an ordinary parade, composed of alter- 
 nate brass bands and commanderies ; 
 and many, perhaps, of those who looked 
 on were not a little disappointed. It 
 remained, however, for the counter- 
 march to eclipse anything of the kind 
 ever seen in this or possibly any other 
 city. Reaching Reed Street, the entire 
 line was reformed for the return march. 
 The forty bands, aggregating 1,500 
 musicians, were massed together in the 
 lead, the hundreds of flags and their 
 bearers being grouped immediately 
 
 221 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 behind; and then, shoulder to shoulder, 
 with locked step and stretching from 
 curb to curb, with all the pride of the 
 old crusaders and conscious of the 
 centuries they represented, followed 
 the five thousand splendidly attired 
 knights, their waving plumes gleaming 
 white in the sunlight, giving them the 
 novel appearance of a moving snow- 
 drift. It was a thrilling scene as 
 the magnificent pageant swept tri- 
 umphantly onward: the great band, 
 with its resplendent and multicoloured 
 uniforms; the glorious Stars and 
 Stripes intermingled with the brilliant 
 banners of the several commanderies ; 
 the white-plumed knights with gold 
 and silver sashes — all these united in 
 forming a colour effect never to be 
 forgotten. 
 
 " But the best was yet to come: When 
 the great band swept past the review- 
 ing stands, the majestic strains of 
 Baring-Gould's inspiring hymn, c On- 
 
ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS 
 
 ward, Christian Soldiers,' rang out as 
 though played by one man, yet with 
 a volume of sound that could be heard 
 for squares. Confined within the nar- 
 row channel formed by the tall build- 
 ings at Broad and Chestnut Streets, 
 the matchless music, reflecting against 
 the vaulted sky, reverberated again and 
 again in the most exquisite harmony — 
 a diapason of sweetest melody, a paean 
 of praise to the Master, a direct and 
 mighty call to all to engage in the great 
 conflict between God and Satan, right- 
 eousness and sin. 
 
 " The effect on the vast multitude 
 of onlookers was electrical. While some 
 applauded in a delirium of joy, others, 
 with deeper spiritual insight, and with 
 tear-stained faces, caught the promise 
 and the inspiration of the moment and 
 sang the words of the glorious hymn 
 with an intensity of feeling which the 
 grandest of organs in the stateliest of 
 churches could never call forth. It was 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 all over in less time than it takes to 
 write about it, but the blessed benedic- 
 tion will long remain, and men, women, 
 and children will be the better because 
 of those few moments of nearer ap- 
 proach to the great All-Father through 
 the inspiration of ' Onward, Christian 
 Soldiers/ " 
 
 m 
 
XI 
 
 COME, THOU FOUNT OF 
 EVERY BLESSING 
 
Come, Wfjau Jf ount of eberp blessing, 
 Cune mp b*art to sing CbP grace ; 
 
 Stream* of mercp, neber ceasing, 
 Call for songs of loubest praise* 
 
 Ceacf) me dome melobious sonnet, 
 Smng bp flaming tongues abobe ; 
 
 praise tfje mount ! 3 'm f ixeb upon it, 
 jftlount of (gob's unchanging lobe ! 
 
 Jlere 3 raise mp Cbenejer ; 
 
 Jlitfjer bp <EbP fjelp 3 'm come ; 
 &nb 3 bope, bp TO)? goob pleasure, 
 
 £s>af elp to arribe at borne, 
 
 STesus sought me toben a stranger, 
 aSHanbering from tije f olb of <£ob ; 
 
 J|e, to rescue me from banger, 
 3nterposeb 7fa\& precious bloob. 
 
 to grace fjoto great a bebtor 
 ©ail? 3 'm constraineb to be ! 
 
 Het tbat grace noto, lifee a fetter, 
 Jginb mp toanbering beart to tEbee. 
 
 ffrone to toanber, Horb, 3 feel it; 
 
 $rone to leabe tbe <§ob 3 lobe ; 
 Jlere 's mp beart ; ® take anb seal iU 
 
 S>eal it from Cbp courts abobe. 
 
COME, THOU FOUNT OF 
 EVERY BLESSING 
 
 HE career of the Rev. 
 Robert Robinson, the 
 author of this great re- 
 vival hymn, was a re- 
 markable one, and his 
 character seems to be perfectly summed 
 up in one of its phrases: "Prone to 
 wander." He was a precocious boy, a 
 barber's apprentice, a diligent student, 
 a convert to Methodism, a farmer, an 
 author, and a preacher. At different 
 periods of his life he was connected 
 with no less than four religious de- 
 nominations, yet wandered in spirit- 
 ual darkness at times, if we are to 
 believe a story told by the Rev. S. W. 
 Christophers : 
 
 " One day, on one of the well-known 
 roads, a lady had been for some time 
 engaged over one page of a little book, 
 which, in the course of the journey, she 
 
 229 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 had occasionally consulted. Turning, 
 at length, to her companion in travel, 
 a gentleman from whose appearance 
 she gathered that an appeal on such a 
 question would not be disagreeable, she 
 held the open page toward him, and 
 said, ' May I ask your attention to this 
 hymn, and ask you to favour me with 
 your opinion of it? ' 
 
 " Her companion glanced down the 
 page, and seeing that the hymn was 
 ' Come, Thou Fount of Every Bless- 
 ing,' made an attempt to excuse him- 
 self from conversation on its merits; 
 but the lady ventured on another 
 appeal. 
 
 " ' That hymn has given me so much 
 pleasure,' she said; 'its sentiments so 
 touch me; indeed, I cannot tell you 
 how much good it has done me. Don't 
 you think it very good? ' " 
 
 " ' Madam,' said the stranger, burst- 
 ing into tears, ' I am the poor, unhappy 
 man who wrote that hymn many years 
 
 230 
 
COME, THOU FOUNT OF EVERY BLESSING 
 
 ago, and I would give a thousand 
 worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the 
 feelings I then had.' " 
 
 The inscription on his tombstone, 
 however, prepared by his distinguished 
 successor, Robert Hall, fittingly sets 
 forth the esteem in which he was held, 
 and encourages the thought that he was 
 again brought into right relations with 
 Christ before his death : 
 
 M Sacred to the memory of the Rev. 
 Robert Robinson, of Cambridge, the 
 intrepid champion of Liberty, civil and 
 religious; endowed with a genius bril- 
 liant and penetrating, united with an 
 indefatigable industry; his mind was 
 richly furnished with an exhaustive 
 variety of knowledge. His eloquence 
 was the delight of every public as- 
 sembly, and his conversation the charm 
 of every private circle. In him the 
 erudition of the scholar, the discrimi- 
 nation of the historian, and the bold- 
 ness of the reformer were united, 
 
 931 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 in an eminent degree, with the vir- 
 tues which adorn the man and the 
 Christian." 
 
 Robert Robinson, the son of a Scotch 
 father and an English mother, both 
 members of the Established Church, 
 was born September 27, 1735, in Swaff- 
 ham, Norfolkshire, England. He was 
 a remarkably bright boy, and at the age 
 of six was attending a Latin school. 
 His father died when he was quite 
 young, and his mother, left in almost 
 destitute circumstances, was compelled 
 to take boarders to keep her family 
 together. After a time, the needs of 
 the home made it imperative that the 
 boy should seek employment, and at 
 the age of fourteen he was apprenticed 
 to a barber in London. This, however, 
 did not dampen his desire for knowl- 
 edge, and by rising early he was en- 
 abled to devote a part of each day to 
 self -improvement. 
 
 His thoughts were first turned seri- 
 
COME, THOU FOUNT OF EVERY BLESSING 
 
 ously to spiritual matters by a singular 
 incident. He was now seventeen, 
 and was beginning to associate with 
 dissolute young men. On one occa- 
 sion he, with several of these com- 
 panions, succeeded in loosening the 
 tongue of a gypsy fortune-teller with 
 drink, and she prophesied, among other 
 things, that he would live to see his 
 children and grandchildren. To his 
 credit, be it said, this statement filled 
 him with a desire to be, in a measure, at 
 least, worthy of these prospective de- 
 scendants ; and that very night he went 
 to hear the famous George Whitefield 
 preach, although evidently with not 
 much hopes of good results, if we are 
 to believe his confession made to White- 
 field some time later, in which he said 
 that he went disposed to " pity the poor, 
 deluded Methodists; but had come 
 away envious of their happiness." 
 Whitefield was a powerful preacher, 
 and in this instance, as frequently, his 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 experience was similar to that of the 
 saintly parson described in Goldsmith's 
 "Deserted Village": 
 
 " Truth from his lips prevaiPd with double 
 sway, 
 And fools who came to scoff, remained to 
 pray." 
 
 Whitefield's sermon made a deep 
 impression on young Robinson, and he 
 became a constant attendant at these 
 Methodist meetings; but it was not 
 until " two years and seven months " 
 afterward that he professed to being 
 soundly converted. He kept a journal, 
 and the entry describing this experience 
 is, to say the least, both quaint and 
 expressive. It gives the names of his 
 parents, when and where he was born, 
 when and under whom his spiritual 
 birth began, and the length of time that 
 elapsed before he was altogether con- 
 verted. The entry is in Latin and 
 makes interesting reading : 
 
 " Robertus, Michaelis Mariaeque 
 
 234 
 
COME, THOU FOUNT OF EVERY BLESSING 
 
 Robinson filius, Natus SwafFhami, 
 comitatu Norfolcise, Saturni die, Sept. 
 27, 1735. Renatus Sabbati die, Maii 
 24, 1752, per predicationem Georgii 
 Whitefield. Et gustatis doloribus reno- 
 vationis duos annos mensesque septem, 
 absolutionem plenam gratuitamque, 
 per sanguinem pretiosum Jesu Christi, 
 inveni (Tuesday, December 10th, 
 1755), cui sit honor et gloria in secula 
 secularum." 
 
 He served as a barber until he was 
 nineteen, and then went to Mildenhall 
 with the intention of devoting himself 
 to farming. Soon after he began to 
 preach, and this he did with such vigour 
 and acceptability that many were drawn 
 to hear him from his own and other 
 neighbourhoods. He married, and be- 
 came the father of nine children. 
 
 In 1758 he preached in Norfolk, but 
 soon after he left the Methodist and 
 formed an independent church. Then 
 he became a Baptist, was ordained by 
 
 235 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 that body in 1761, and accepted the 
 charge of a church in Cambridge. The 
 congregation to which he ministered 
 was small, and at no time did he receive 
 a salary greater than $450 per annum. 
 His work here was very successful, and 
 he gathered about him a flourishing 
 congregation. He was an indefati- 
 gable worker and an able preacher, and 
 became very popular with the students 
 of the University. In 1790 he made 
 a visit to Birmingham, and one morn- 
 ing — June 9th — was found dead in 
 bed, at the age of fifty-five. 
 
 Goodness as well as evil is conta- 
 gious and far-reaching. Whitefield 
 was the human means of Robinson's 
 conversion; Robinson was the inspirer 
 of Robert Hall's vast influence for 
 good, and it was through Robert Hall 
 that Charles H. Spurgeon was led to 
 enter upon his career of splendid use- 
 fulness. Through these men thousands 
 have been led to a saving knowledge 
 
 236 
 
COME, THOU FOUNT OF EVERY BLESSING 
 
 of the Master. We little realise the 
 possibilities of a human life for help or 
 for hindrance. 
 
 Although fully engaged in his pas- 
 toral duties, Robinson found time to 
 accomplish much in a literary line, and 
 prepared several volumes for publica- 
 tion. His works were characterised by 
 freshness and originality, and were 
 widely circulated. He was an eloquent 
 speaker, and Robert Hall said of him, 
 " He could say what he pleased, when 
 he pleased, and how he pleased." And 
 another wrote, " For disentangling a 
 subject from confusion, for the power 
 of development, for genuine simplifi- 
 cation, for invention — who ever sur- 
 passed Robinson of Cambridge?" 
 
 So far as known, he wrote only two 
 or three hymns, and he is now chiefly 
 remembered through being the author 
 of "Come, Thou Fount of Every 
 Blessing," a hymn which is a universal 
 favourite and very popular and helpful 
 
 237 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 in revival services, where it is frequently 
 sung, and always with vigour and 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 Dr. A. H. Harshaw writes: "This 
 is my favourite hymn. Of course, there 
 are more perfect songs of worship, but 
 the spirit of this one is very cheering to 
 me. The mixture of thanksgiving and 
 petition, and the revelation of the very 
 heart of the gospel, endear it to all 
 devout Christian souls." 
 
 It is believed that " Come, Thou 
 Fount of Every Blessing " was written 
 in 1757, when the author was but 
 twenty-two years of age, and shortly 
 after the time of his full surrender to 
 Christ, when he was able gratefully and 
 prayerfully to exclaim: 
 
 " Oh, to grace how great a debtor 
 Daily I 'm constrained to be ! 
 Let that grace now, like a fetter, 
 
 Bind my wandering heart to Thee ! H 
 
 The Rev. C. T. Schaeffer writes: 
 " It was after eleven o'clock on an 
 
 238 
 
COME, THOU FOUNT OF EVERY BLESSING 
 
 October night in 1902, that a father 
 and son, who had been separated 
 through some misunderstanding, met 
 in the Chinese Mission, New York 
 City. The place was crowded with the 
 residents of the Chinese quarter and a 
 few faithful Christian workers. As 
 soon as the son recognised his father 
 he angrily picked up a chair and at- 
 tempted to strike him. Fortunately, 
 the Superintendent was near, and 
 springing in between held them apart 
 while he gave out the hymn, ' Come, 
 Thou Fount of Every Blessing.' 
 
 " The prompt action of the Superin- 
 tendent and the quieting effect of the 
 sacred song had their helpful influence 
 over the two men, who sat with bowed 
 heads until the singing was ended and 
 the meeting was over; and then, with 
 one accord, they clasped hands and were 
 reconciled. The anger and bitterness 
 of years were blotted out and forgiven, 
 and they went out into the darkness 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 together, rejoicing in their God- given 
 happiness." 
 
 A writer in The Boston Journal thus 
 describes a visit he made during the 
 Civil War to the rooms of the Chris- 
 tian Commission in Fredericksburg: 
 
 " Passing through the rooms," he 
 says, " I gained the grounds in the 
 rear — a beautiful garden once, not 
 unattractive now. The air was redo- 
 lent with roses and locust-blossoms. 
 Fifty men were gathered round a sum- 
 mer house — sympathetic men, who 
 had been all day in the hospital. Their 
 hearts had been wrung by scenes of 
 suffering. They had given out food 
 for body and soul, and cups of water 
 in the name of Christ. They were tired 
 now, and thinking of home and quiet 
 scenes. They were of different faiths 
 and from widely separated States. One 
 man, who knew how to strike a har- 
 monious chord, broke into singing, — 
 
 " ' Come, Thou Fount of every blessing. 5 
 
 240 
 
COME, THOU FOUNT OF EVERY BLESSING 
 
 " Everywhere from the shadows and 
 the shrubbery rose the music of that 
 hymn from men who were in memory 
 in the home church or at the home fire- 
 side, and who joined in this familiar 
 hymn and were one in Christ Jesus. It 
 was a night scene to be remembered. 
 And then one led in prayer and alluded 
 to the garden scene in Gethsemane. 
 The angel sent to strengthen these 
 brave men in their dark hour was the 
 angel of song, and it floated in on the 
 wings of this hymn, which was asso- 
 ciated with every man's home life and 
 religious experience/ ' 
 
 On a warm night of summer, a 
 young man, with his face betraying 
 marks of dissipation and with the un- 
 comfortable feeling that his present 
 course was making a wreck of his life, 
 passed slowly and thoughtfully down 
 a quiet village street. He was in a 
 receptive mood, and impressions made 
 now would be lasting. The pleasant 
 
 16 241 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 breeze, the flood of glorious moonlight, 
 and the solemn stars were making their 
 strong demand on his manhood to assert 
 itself. Their silent appeal might have 
 been in vain, but at that fitting moment 
 there fell on his ear from a neighbour- 
 ing balcony, embowered in leaves, the 
 full, rich voice of a young girl singing; 
 and as he passed the house he could dis- 
 tinctly hear the words: 
 
 " Jesus sought me when a stranger, 
 Wandering from the fold of God; 
 He, to rescue me from danger, 
 Interposed His precious blood." 
 
 He had heard the hymn often before, 
 and was perfectly familiar with these 
 lines; but they came to him now with 
 a new and a powerful personal appeal. 
 Try as he would to prevent it, the sweet, 
 song-laden voice haunted him, and the 
 words kept repeating themselves again 
 and again in his memory. Before he 
 slept he manfully faced, in the presence 
 of his Saviour, the great question of 
 
 242 
 
ft ^ 
 ft feX) 
 
 o 
 
 a 
 ft 
 
 A 
 p 
 
 a 
 
 o 
 ft 
 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 S 
 
COME, THOU FOUNT OF EVERY BLESSING 
 
 his soul's salvation, and won the vic- 
 tory. " The peace that passeth under- 
 standing " came to him, and he nobly- 
 resolved that henceforward his life 
 should be devoted to higher aims and 
 to holier purposes. Filled with happi- 
 ness and sweet content he went to rest, 
 his last waking thought being 
 
 " Here 5 s my heart : O take and seal it, 
 Seal it from Thy courts above." 
 
 243 
 
XII 
 
 STAND UP, STAND UP FOR 
 JESUS 
 
&tanb up, gtanb up for Sfz&u&l 
 
 ge couriers; of tfje cro&S; 
 3Uft fngi) ©t* ropal banner, 
 
 3ft mu*t not buffer lo#s. 
 Jf rom bictorp unto fatctorp 
 
 J|ia arm? %e sfjall leab 
 QKll eberp foe ts banqutefj'b, 
 
 &nb Christ id Horb inbeeb. 
 
 £>tanb up, stanb up for STesuai 
 
 Cfje solemn toatcfctoorb tear ; 
 M tofrile pe gleep J|e buffer*, 
 
 &toap tottf) stfjame aub fear ; 
 ^Jjere'er pe meet toitf) etoil, 
 
 ^ttfjtn pou or tottfjout, 
 Cfjarge for tfje <@ob of Settles, 
 
 8nbput tfje foe to rout! 
 
 fetanb up, *tanb up for 3t&ui I 
 
 W$t trumpet call obep ; 
 Jf ortf) to tfje migfjtp conflict, 
 
 3fo tfjte W* glorious bap* 
 " §?e tfjat are men noto aerbe JHm," 
 
 Sgatugt unnumber'b foe* ; 
 Het courage rtee tottfj banger, 
 
 &nb gtrengtfj to strengtfj oppose, 
 
 24.7 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 g>tanb up, stanb up for 3esus ! 
 
 g>tanb in W* Strengtfj alone ; 
 ®fje arm of f lesb toill fail pou, 
 
 §?e bare not trust pour ohm, 
 JJut on tije (gospel armour, 
 
 Cat?) piece put on tottf) praper; 
 &bere but? calls, or banger, 
 
 Jgt neber touting tijere t 
 
 &tanb up, stanb up for 3esus ! 
 
 €acb solbier to ftis; post ; 
 Close up tfte broken column, 
 
 &nb sbout tfjrougb all tfje bost ! 
 itlafee goob tfje loss so beabp, 
 
 3Jn tljose tftat still remain, 
 &nb probe to all arounb pou 
 
 ©bat beat!) itself is gaint 
 
 &tanb up, stanb up for STesust 
 
 Wyt strife toill not be long ; 
 TEijiS bap tfje noise of battle, 
 
 Wf)t next tbe bictor'S song* 
 ®o bim tbat obercometb, 
 
 & croton of life sball be ; 
 5|e toitb tbe &ing of <£lorp 
 
 febaU reign eternaUp ! 
 
STAND UP, STAND UP FOR 
 JESUS 
 
 OD, who, to save a lost 
 world, spared not His 
 own beloved Son, some- 
 times leads His earthly 
 children through deep 
 waters in order that others, through 
 their sufferings, may be brought to a 
 saving knowledge of Him. Blessed 
 are we if we have the spiritual insight 
 to discern the Father love hidden be- 
 hind the hand that chastens ; and thrice 
 blessed are we if we can, at such times, 
 imitate the disciples of old, who went 
 on their way " rejoicing that they were 
 counted worthy to suffer shame for His 
 name." 
 
 Cowper's oft-quoted lines, 
 
 " God moves in a mysterious way, 
 His wonders to perform," 
 
 never had more singular verification 
 than in the pathetic chain of circum- 
 
 249 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 stances which gave to America one 
 of its most popular and soul-stirring 
 hymns, " Stand up, Stand up for 
 Jesus." In its martial and inspirational 
 character it strikingly suggests the 
 great English processional hymn, " On- 
 ward, Christian Soldiers." The two are 
 also similar in that both were composed 
 at a single sitting to fill a temporary 
 need — one, as a marching song to 
 grace a holiday for a group of English 
 school children; the other, to give em- 
 phasis, at the close of a sermon, to the 
 dying word$ of a brilliant young Ameri- 
 can minister, who passed from earth in 
 the flood-tide of his fame and useful- 
 ness. The Church at large was in need 
 of, and had waited long for, just such 
 inspiring battle calls to kindle the mar- 
 tial spirit in loyal Christian hearts ; and 
 both hymns are destined to abide for- 
 ever in our books of spiritual song. 
 Although each was born in a night, and 
 in the closing half of the nineteenth 
 
 250 
 
STAND UP, STAND UP FOR JESUS 
 
 century, yet each has happily caught 
 and expressed the indomitable spirit 
 which has made our Church militant 
 the great power it has been throughout 
 the ages. It is eminently fitting that 
 these important additions to hymnol- 
 ogy should be contributed by two of 
 the greatest Christian nations of the 
 world. 
 
 A pathetic and abiding interest at- 
 taches to the origin of the American 
 hymn. The Rev. Dudley A. Tyng was 
 a bright young Episcopalian rector, 
 who had been obliged to sever his pas- 
 toral relations with the Church of the 
 Epiphany, Philadelphia, on account of 
 his outspoken views on the curse of 
 slavery; and had, in 1857, organised 
 the Church of the Covenant. 
 
 He was singularly gifted, even as a 
 boy. At the age of six he was able to 
 read intelligently Latin authors, and 
 about this time was given a hand- 
 some copy of Virgil because of his 
 
 251 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WOULD 
 
 ability to read the Mantuan bard. At 
 fourteen he entered the University of 
 Pennsylvania, from which institution 
 he was graduated at eighteen with 
 distinguished honours. 
 
 As a minister, he early attracted at- 
 tention by his eloquence, his deep spir- 
 ituality, and his beautiful simplicity of 
 character. " His spirit of Christian 
 liberality shone out in all his sermons 
 and public addresses; and it was not 
 difficult to discover that the subject held 
 dearest to his heart — save only the 
 conversion of souls — was to see a more 
 fraternal spirit cultivated among all 
 denominations of Christians. Deep in 
 his convictions of the truth and fulness 
 of the Gospel of the Saviour; honest 
 and steadfast in their profession; elo- 
 quent and earnest in their avowal; it 
 was his delight and glory to preach 
 them everywhere, and always in their 
 simplicity and power. Gentle in feel- 
 ing, calm in temper, patient under op- 
 
 252 
 
STAND UP, STAND UP FOR JESUS 
 
 position, he preserved an equanimity of 
 manner which won for him the admira- 
 tion and love of thousands. Honouring 
 his Master in life, he glorified Him in 
 death by testifying to the power of 
 grace in giving him perfect peace, a 
 certainty of immortality, and of eternal 
 life." 
 
 Such was Dudley Tyng, the beloved 
 of all who knew him. Dr. Robert Ellis 
 Thompson writes : " The first Sunday 
 I was in America, April, 1857, my old- 
 est brother took me to the National 
 Hall on Market Street, to hear a gifted 
 young clergyman, who had been driven 
 from his church (Epiphany) for speak- 
 ing out against slavery. Although 
 only a boy at the time, I was impressed 
 by the earnestness and simplicity of 
 Dudley Tyng. I afterwards heard 
 him described as one of the saintliest 
 men in our city's ministry/' 
 
 Mr. Tyng was prominently identi- 
 fied with the Young Men's Christian 
 
 253 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Association, and was one of the leaders 
 in the great revival of 1857-58, known 
 far and wide as " The Work of God in 
 Philadelphia." 
 
 On the 30th of March, 1858, at the 
 noonday meeting in Jayne's Hall, he 
 preached a powerful sermon from the 
 text, " Go now, ye that are men, and 
 serve the Lord." The sermon was Pen- 
 tecostal in its effects upon the five 
 thousand men who listened to it, and at 
 least one-fifth of them, it is said, de- 
 clared their intention to lead a Christian 
 life. Perhaps no discourse of modern 
 times was ever followed by so many 
 conversions. 
 
 Two weeks later, Tuesday, April 
 13th, he was in his country home, 
 " Brookfield," near Conshohocken, 
 Pennsylvania, and left his study to 
 pay a brief visit to the barn to inspect 
 a corn-shelling machine that was being 
 operated by mule power. He paused 
 to say a kindly word to the animal 
 
 254 
 
STAND UP, STAND UP FOR JESUS 
 
 and to pat him on the head; as he 
 did so, the sleeve of his gown became 
 caught in the machinery, and before he 
 could be released his right arm was fear- 
 fully lacerated; indeed, it was almost 
 torn from his body. 
 
 As an illustration of how little atten- 
 tion was given in those days by the 
 papers to gathering important news 
 items, it is only necessary to state that 
 although the distinguished preacher was 
 injured on Tuesday, April 13th, the 
 first mention of it in the daily Ledger 
 was on Friday, the 16th, and then the 
 entire incident was passed over in eight 
 brief lines. On the following Monday, 
 the 19th, a seven-line paragraph in the 
 same paper stated that Mr. Tyng's arm 
 had been amputated on the previous 
 Saturday, close to the shoulder; and 
 that during the operation the patient 
 had been placed under the influence of 
 chloroform. On Tuesday, the 20th, 
 there appeared a fourteen-line state- 
 
 966 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 ment of his death, which had occurred 
 on the previous afternoon; and a short 
 review of the dreadful accident. 
 
 The news of Mr. Tyng's death was 
 received with many manifestations of 
 grief; and long before three o'clock on 
 the afternoon of April 22d, the time 
 fixed for his funeral, the building on 
 Chestnut Street in which the service 
 was to be held was crowded, " while 
 around the doors were thousands 
 anxious but unable to obtain a place 
 within." 
 
 Ministers representing every evan- 
 gelical denomination were seated on 
 the platform, and several of them made 
 brief addresses. The entire service was 
 unusually impressive and tender, and 
 was a splendid tribute to the worth of 
 the saintly young minister. On his 
 coffin plate were the dates : 
 
 " Born, January 12th, 1825. 
 Died, April 19th, 1858." 
 
 156 
 
STAND UP, STAND UP FOE JESUS 
 
 We have gone into details thus par- 
 ticularly in order to correct a number 
 of errors which we have seen in print 
 concerning 1 the events here narrated. 1 
 
 The last hours of Mr. Tyng were 
 touching in the extreme. On the morn- 
 ing of his death, after a long night of 
 exhaustive suffering, he said, " Sing! 
 sing! Can you not sing!" Then he 
 himself began " Rock of Ages." His 
 father, the Rev. Stephen H. Tyng, 
 D.D., writes: "We followed him, and 
 we sang together the first two verses, 
 
 1 The following are some of the errors of statement 
 made in connection with the death of Mr. Tyng : 
 
 " Though not yet thirty years old." 
 
 "On Sunday, April 16th, he preached at a union 
 service held in Jayne's Hall, at which five thousand 
 people were present." The 16th of April, 1858, came 
 on Friday, and on that day Mr. Tyng was slowly dying 
 of his wound. 
 
 " In the hope of saving his life, three amputations 
 were made." 
 
 " Dr. Duffield composed the following popular hymn 
 to be sung after his sermon." 
 
 And even Dr. Duffield himself, writing in 1883, with 
 a quarter of a century separating him from the tragic 
 death of his friend, states : " His arm was torn out by 
 th$ roots. His death occurred in a few hours." 
 17 957 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 but he could sing no more, no more 
 could we — sorrow silenced us all." 
 
 Among his last intelligible words 
 were, " Now, father dear, kiss me once 
 more." And as his father bent with 
 a breaking heart over his boy and 
 kissed him, he said, " Good night, dear 
 father-" 
 
 Just a little while before he passed 
 into the shadow that opens on the eter- 
 nal dawn, his father asked him if he had 
 any word for the young men, and for 
 the ministers who had been so closely 
 associated with him in the great revival 
 work. " Not now," he said; " I am too 
 much exhausted"; but after a little 
 while he continued, " Now, father, I 
 am ready. Tell them, ' Let us all stand 
 up for Jesus.' " 
 
 This was the dying message of one 
 of the truest souls that ever throbbed 
 responsive to the love of the Master; 
 and it was this dying message which on 
 the inspired wings of poesy has been 
 
 9& 
 
"NOW, FATHER, I AM READY, TELL THEM, *LET US ALL 
 
 stand up for jesus/ " — Page 258. 
 
STAND UP, STAND UP FOR JESUS 
 
 a clarion call to duty and faithfulness 
 wherever Christianity is known. Dud- 
 ley Tyng's last exhortation was caught 
 up by his friend, Dr. George Duffield, 
 and immortalised in his fine hymn, 
 " Stand up, Stand up for Jesus." On 
 the Sunday succeeding Mr. Tyng's 
 death, Dr. Duffield preached a ser- 
 mon from Ephesians 6 : 14, — " Stand, 
 therefore, having your loins girt about 
 with truth, and having on the breast- 
 plate of righteousness." He composed 
 the words of the now famous hymn as 
 a closing and effective plea to this dis- 
 course, little dreaming that these verses 
 would make his name better known and 
 longer remembered than all his other 
 works. 
 
 Dr. Duffield speaks of Mr. Tyng as 
 " one of the noblest, bravest, manliest 
 men I ever met." 
 
 " The Superintendent of the Sunday- 
 school," wrote Dr. Duffield, "had a 
 fly leaf of the hymn printed for the 
 
 969 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 children. A stray copy found its way 
 into a Baptist paper, and from that 
 paper it has gone in English, and in 
 German and Latin translations, all over 
 the world. The first time the author 
 heard it sung outside of his own denom- 
 ination was in 1864, as the favourite 
 song of the Christian soldiers of the 
 Army of the James. . . . Notwith- 
 standing the many mutilations and 
 alterations and perversions to which 
 this hymn has been subjected, it is but 
 proper to say that since the night it was 
 written, it has never been altered by the 
 author in a single verse, a single line, 
 or a single word; and it is his earnest 
 wish that it shall continue unaltered 
 until the Soldiers of the Cross shall re- 
 place it by something better." The 
 copy of the hymn accompanying this 
 chapter is as Dr. Duffield originally 
 composed it. 
 
 Again Dr. Duffield writes : " There 
 is one pleasure I have enjoyed in hymns 
 
 960 
 
STAND UP, STAND UP FOR JESUS 
 
 which is somewhat personal and of its 
 own kind. On three different occasions 
 — once in the General Assembly at 
 Brooklyn, once at a meeting of the 
 A. B. C. F. M., and once at a mass- 
 meeting of Sunday-schools in Illinois, 
 when outward and inward troubles met, 
 and I was in great and sore affliction — 
 I have entered the church and found 
 that the great congregation was sing- 
 ing ' Stand up, Stand up for Jesus.' 
 
 " The feeling of comfort was inex- 
 pressible, to have my own hymn thus 
 sung to me by those unaware of my 
 presence. It was as though an angel 
 strengthened me." 
 
 It is interesting to know that Dr. 
 Duffield long kept on the wall of his 
 study a cob of corn from the barn floor 
 where Mr. Tyng received his mortal 
 wound. 
 
 Some one has written: " Strange that 
 a short hymn, struck off in an hour or 
 two as a fitting peroration to a funeral 
 
 261 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 sermon on a young minister who had 
 come to a tragic end, should be so hon- 
 oured as to cast all the other works of 
 the author into the shade. What are 
 all his efforts compared to this martial 
 song so hastily written, so strangely 
 born? When all his sermons shall have 
 been forgotten and the walls of the 
 churches to which he so faithfully min- 
 istered shall have fallen, this noble lyric, 
 written in the white heat of a grand 
 elate hour, will still be a power in the 
 land, because fragrant with the name 
 of Dudley Tyng, and still more with 
 that Name which is above every name 
 in Heaven or on earth." 
 
 Dr. George Duffield was born of dis- 
 tinguished ancestry. His great-grand- 
 father, Dr. George Duffield, was the 
 pastor of the historic Third Presby- 
 terian Church, Philadelphia, during the 
 Revolution, and his patriotism was so 
 pronounced that a price was set upon 
 his head by the British. One of his first 
 
STAND UP, STAND UP FOR JESUS 
 
 churches was protected on all sides by 
 fortifications, and during divine service 
 sentinels kept watch against hostile 
 Indians. " He was literally a man 
 of war from his youth. He was 
 quite as much at home at the head 
 of a company of riflemen, protect- 
 ing the homes of the settlers, as he 
 was in drawing his apt and vivid 
 illustrations in the pulpit." Of the 
 one hundred and ten signers to his 
 call to the Third Church, Philadelphia, 
 sixty-seven served in the Revolutionary 
 War. Upon a certain Sabbath, it is 
 said, he ascended his pulpit, and look- 
 ing over the congregation, exclaimed: 
 " There are too many men here this 
 morning; I am going to the front!" 
 His splendid service to the cause of 
 patriotism is a matter of history, and 
 is too well known to need repetition 
 here. 
 
 It will thus be seen that George 
 Duffield, the author of our hymn, had 
 
 263 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 martial blood in his veins, which well 
 fitted him to write a stirring battle call. 
 He was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 
 in 1818; was graduated from Yale Col- 
 lege in 1837, and from Union Theologi- 
 cal Seminary three years later. His 
 first pastorate was over the Fifth Pres- 
 byterian Church, Brooklyn, where he 
 remained seven years, after which he 
 spent four years in charge of the First 
 Church, Bloomfield, New Jersey. In 
 1851 he assumed pastoral care over the 
 Northern Liberties Central Church, 
 Philadelphia, where he remained until 
 1861, when he resigned and subse- 
 quently had successive pastorates in 
 Adrian, Michigan, Galesburg, Illinois, 
 and Saginaw, Michigan. He died in 
 Bloomfield, New Jersey, July 16th, 
 1888. 
 
 Dr. Charles E. Bronson, of Phila- 
 delphia, thus writes of him: "Dr. 
 Duffield was a predecessor of mine in 
 Saginaw. He was a man solid in char- 
 
 264 
 
STAND UP, STAND UP FOR JESUS 
 
 acter, learned, and held in profound 
 respect by the entire community. He 
 left an abiding mark on the ideals and 
 life of the whole vicinity. He was a 
 man of fervent piety. His whole fam- 
 ily were highly gifted, and have left 
 their mark on every department of life 
 in which they have toiled." 
 
 The loyal devotion, dauntless cour- 
 age, and sublime optimism of Dr. 
 Duffield's great hymn find their fitting 
 culmination in the inspiring declaration 
 of faith with which it ends : 
 
 " To him that overcometh, 
 A crown of life shall be ; 
 He with the King of Glory 
 Shall reign eternally ! " 
 
XIII 
 
 THERE IS A FOUNTAIN 
 FILLED WITH BLOOD 
 
Z\)tvt fe a fountain I iUeb tottf) bloob 
 33raton from (Emmanuel's being ; 
 
 9nb sinners, plungeb beneatf) tftat floob, 
 Hose aU tfjeir guiltp stains, 
 
 C&e bping tfnef rejoiceb to gee 
 
 {TOfjat fountain in fris bap ; 
 &nb tfjere fjabe 3, a* bile a* fje, 
 
 ^asfjeb all mp sins atoap. 
 
 ©ear byins Hamb, Cijp precious bloob 
 
 g>fjall neber lose its potoer 
 QKU aU tlje ransomeb Cfjurtfj of <©ob 
 
 ?@e sabeb, to xin no more. 
 
 C'er since, bp faitfj, 3 Sato tfje stream 
 
 tCijp f lotoing toounbs supplp, 
 3Rebeeming lobe fja£ been mp tijeme, 
 
 &nb sfjall be ttU 3 bie» 
 
 tEfjen in a nobler, stoeeter song, 
 
 3 'U sing ®fjp potoer to sabe, 
 Wfytn tfjts poor limping, stammering tongue 
 
 Uteg silent in tfie grabe. 
 
WILLIAM COWPER, AUTHOR OF THERE IS A FOUNTAIN 
 
 filled with blood. " — Page 270. 
 
THERE IS A FOUNTAIN 
 FILLED WITH BLOOD 
 
 ITERATURE fur- 
 nishes few stories more 
 pathetic than that of 
 William Cowper, whose 
 great revival hymn, 
 "There Is a Fountain Filled with 
 Blood," has led many immortal souls 
 to a saving knowledge of the Master, 
 and has been world-wide in its hallowed 
 and blessed influences. 
 
 The Rev. S. W. Christophers thus 
 writes: "Unhappy, and yet happy 
 Cowper! Who does not weep over his 
 sorrows? Who does not bless Heaven 
 for his genius, his devotion, and his 
 works? . . . With a fancy ever fresh, 
 a poetic genius as pure and clear as the 
 morning, and amidst all his fears, with 
 a heart most tenderly alive to good, and 
 most warmly devoted to his Redeemer, 
 he graced his friend Newton's Olney 
 
 271 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OP THE WORLD 
 
 Hymn-book with many a precious 
 gem." 
 
 William Cowper was the son of the 
 Rev. John Cowper, D.D., Rector of 
 the Parish of Great Berkhampstead in 
 Hertfordshire, England, where the 
 poet was born November 26, 1731. 
 
 His mother, to whom he was singu- 
 larly devoted, was a beautiful Christian 
 character. She held her boy the dearer 
 because he was her only surviving child. 
 Marion Harland gives us this tender 
 glimpse of mother and son: " Her own 
 hands would wrap him in his scarlet 
 cloak, and settle upon his sunny head 
 the velvet cap that arrayed him for his 
 first day at school. Other mothers' eyes 
 moisten in contemplating the group at 
 the Rectory door. The small delicately 
 featured face of the child alight with 
 gleeful pride in the ' bauble coach * 
 built for his express use; the yearning 
 smile, more sad than tears, in the sweet 
 eyes bent downward upon her boy, as 
 
 272 
 
THERE IS A FOUNTAIN 
 
 both bade farewell to the babyhood he 
 left behind in his trial-trip into the wide, 
 cold world ; the ' Gardener Robin/ dele- 
 gated to draw the young master to the 
 1 dame-school/ consequential in the 
 sense of the trust reposed in him. 
 There is nothing more common than 
 the scene in our changeful, working- 
 day world, and not many things more 
 beautiful." 
 
 This ideal relation was destined to be 
 all too short. Two days before the 
 petted child reached the close of his 
 sixth year his mother died. His grief 
 over his irreparable loss was almost 
 boundless. When he was fifty-six years 
 old, and his mother had been in her 
 grave for half a century, a cousin sent 
 him her miniature. He wrote this 
 touching acknowledgment: "I had 
 rather possess my mother's picture than 
 the richest jewel in the British crown; 
 for I loved her with an affection that 
 her death, fifty years since, has not in 
 
 18 273 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 the least abated." Again he writes: 
 " I can truly say that not a week passes 
 (perhaps I might with equal veracity 
 say a day) in which I do not think of 
 her." 
 
 We read with intense indignation 
 that " At six years of age this little 
 mass of timid and quivering sensibil- 
 ity was, in accordance with the cruel 
 custom of the time, sent to a large 
 boarding-school," where the boys of the 
 advanced classes tyrannised over the 
 younger scholars, and " whipped the 
 little fellows into the most servile fags." 
 The heart-broken and motherless boy, 
 because of his extreme sensitiveness and 
 the loving care which had crowned his 
 earlier years, underwent mental and 
 physical suffering such as rarely comes 
 to a life so young. 
 
 Of this period he afterwards wrote: 
 "My chief affliction consisted in my 
 being singled out from all the other 
 boys, by a lad of almost fifteen years, 
 
 274 
 
THERE IS A FOUNTAIN 
 
 as a proper object upon whom he might 
 loose the cruelty of his temper. . . . 
 His savage treatment of me impressed 
 me with such dread of his figure upon 
 my mind, that I now remember of be- 
 ing afraid to lift my eyes upon him 
 higher than to his knees, and that I 
 knew him better by his shoe-buckles 
 than by any other part of his dress." 
 
 He was, at the age of ten, sent to 
 Westminster School, where the condi- 
 tions were scarcely better than at Dr. 
 Pitman's. Doubtless his wretched ex- 
 periences at school, together with his 
 grief over his mother's death, were the 
 foundation of the melancholy and de- 
 pression of spirit which clouded so 
 much of his after life. 
 
 On leaving school he studied law, 
 and while thus engaged fell deeply in 
 love with his cousin, who returned his 
 affection; but they were not permitted 
 to wed, the father objecting on account 
 of the close relationship. Both re- 
 
 275 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 mained true to their early dream of 
 happiness and never married. This 
 great heart disappointment also had its 
 disquieting effect upon Cowper's mind. 
 The dread shadows of insanity, which 
 on more than one occasion prompted 
 him to suicide, began to envelop him; 
 and although they lifted now and then, 
 and reason was temporarily enthroned, 
 yet 
 
 " Melancholy marked him for her own." 
 
 In 1763 he was placed in a private 
 asylum, from which, after a stay of 
 eighteen months, he was discharged 
 and pronounced to be restored. 
 
 Soon after leaving the asylum he met 
 Mrs. Unwin, the " Mary " of his poems, 
 who became his most devoted friend 
 and comforter. We are told that " she 
 watched over the mad poet with the 
 utmost care and tenderness; dispelled 
 the gloom of oft-recurring madness, 
 cheered him in moments of melancholy 
 
 276 
 
THERE IS A FOUNTAIN 
 
 despair, guarded his health, and di- 
 rected his tremulous thoughts in the 
 paths of literature. It is to her strong 
 affection and untiring care that we owe 
 the works of Cowper." 
 
 After the death of the Rev. Mr. 
 Unwin, who was killed by a fall from 
 his horse in 1767, Mrs. Unwin, with her 
 son and daughter, and Cowper, on the 
 advice of the Rev. John Newton, re- 
 moved to Olney, on the Ouse, where 
 Newton was Curate. 
 
 The poet became deeply interested 
 in religious work. " Acting as a sub- 
 curate to Newton, he spent much of 
 the day in attendance upon sick cot- 
 tagers. . . . He, whom the presence 
 of strangers silenced and made awk- 
 ward, trampled diffidence under his 
 feet, and led prayer-meetings, exhort- 
 ing and engaging in audible petitions 
 in the name of his hearers." 
 
 Newton thus writes of him: "In 
 humility, simplicity, and devotedness 
 
 277 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 to God, in the clearness of his views of 
 evangelical truth, the strength and 
 comfort he obtained from them, and 
 the uniform and beautiful example by 
 which he adorned them, I thought he 
 had but few equals. He was eminently 
 a blessing, both to me and to my people, 
 by his advice, his conduct, and his 
 prayers. The Lord, who had brought 
 us together, so knit our hearts and 
 affections that for nearly twelve years 
 we were seldom separated for twelve 
 hours at a time, when we were awake 
 and at home. The first six I passed in 
 daily admiring and trying to imitate 
 him; during the second six, I walked 
 pensively with him in the valley of the 
 shadow of death." 
 
 Taking such active part in public 
 religious services proved too much for 
 Cowper's overwrought temperament, 
 and he had a return of insanity. Re- 
 covering, "he turned his attention to 
 gardening, carpentering, and taming 
 
 278 
 
THERE IS A FOUNTAIN 
 
 hares. He constructed a tiny summer 
 house on the lawn in the garden, and at 
 six o'clock on summer mornings he 
 would be found busily writing there, 
 stopping now and then to listen to the 
 feathered songsters or to smell a fra- 
 grant flower near by," 
 
 He now turned his thoughts more 
 seriously to literature, and was privi- 
 leged to enjoy a few years of sweet 
 content, clouded now and then by a 
 return of his dreadful malady, which 
 was slowly but surely throwing its pall 
 over him. It was a sad time in the dis- 
 tressed household when Mrs. Unwin 
 was stricken with paralysis, which af- 
 fected her mind. Cowper sank into one 
 of his most despondent moods, and paid 
 no attention to anything. Could any 
 picture be more touching than this: 
 " One morning Mrs. Unwin was made 
 to understand that her friend needed 
 rousing, and was told by the attending 
 physician to ask him to walk with her. 
 
 279 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 True to the habit of attendance prac- 
 tised for years, she beckoned him to 
 lead her to the door. Immediately he 
 rose, placed her arm in his, and walked 
 out. Thus, for the last time, she had 
 unconsciously rescued him from the 
 brink of insanity." 
 
 He survived his friend only a few 
 years, during which time he had occa- 
 sional gleams of sanity. He died 
 quietly on the 25th of April, 1800, in 
 the sixty-ninth year of his age, and was 
 buried in St. Edmund's Chapel, St. 
 Nicholas Church, East Dereham. 
 
 Marion Harland writes : " Mr. John- 
 son has left on record a sentence that 
 falls upon our hearts like the calm of a 
 summer sunset after a day of hurrying 
 clouds, sobbing gusts, and wild rains: 
 ' From that moment, till the coffin was 
 closed, the expression into which his 
 countenance had settled was that of 
 calmness and composure, mingled, as it 
 were, with holy surprise/ 
 
 280 
 
THERE IS A FOUNTAIN 
 
 " May we not believe, and thank God 
 for the fancy, that the sweet mother 
 who had so long had all her other 
 children with her in Heaven was gra- 
 ciously permitted to bear this ' afflicted 
 soul, tossed with tempest, and not com- 
 forted,' the tidings that he was a par- 
 taker in the ' unspeakable happiness ' 
 he had despaired of attaining. Did the 
 welcome to the joy of the Lord he had 
 never ceased to love while he believed 
 himself shut out forever from His pres- 
 ence, awaken the • holy surprise ' which 
 brought back youth and comeliness to 
 the face marred by the awful and mys- 
 terious sorrow, as fearsome as it is in- 
 comprehensible to us? " 
 
 Strange as it may seem, in view of 
 his mental disorder, " Cowper's poetry 
 is eminently healthy, natural, and un- 
 affected. He and Burns brought back 
 nature to English poetry. Besides 
 being a poet, he was, perhaps, the most 
 delightful letter-writer in the English 
 
 281 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 language. Nothing could surpass the 
 charm of his epistles — full of humour, 
 gentle sarcasm, anecdote, acute re- 
 mark, and a tender shadow of melan- 
 choly thrown over and toning down the 
 whole." 
 
 He is described as being " one of the 
 loveliest and most accomplished Chris- 
 tian gentlemen of his age." Southey 
 speaks of his being " the most popular 
 poet of his generation " ; and Stopf ord 
 Brooke writes of him as the poet " who 
 has written, to my mind, the noblest 
 hymns for depth of religious feeling 
 and for loveliness of quiet style ; whose 
 life was as blameless as the water lilies 
 which he loved." " The perfect struc- 
 ture of his sentences," writes Marion 
 Harland, " the aptness of his imagery, 
 the simplicity and force of his diction, 
 have made him a classic, and a model 
 to students who would also be scholars." 
 
 Mrs. Browning's beautiful poem, en- 
 titled " Cowper's Grave," is known to 
 
THERE IS A FOUNTAIN 
 
 all lovers of verse. We give a portion 
 of it: 
 
 " It is a place where poets crowned may feel 
 
 the heart's decaying; 
 It is a place where happy saints may weep 
 
 amid their praying ; 
 Yet let the grief and humbleness as low as 
 
 silence languish: 
 Earth surely now may give her calm to 
 
 whom she gave her anguish. 
 
 " O poets, from a maniac's tongue was poured 
 the deathless singing! 
 
 O Christians, at your cross of hope a hope- 
 less hand was clinging ! 
 
 O men, this man in brotherhood your weary 
 paths beguiling, 
 
 Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and 
 died while ye were smiling! 
 
 " And now, what time ye all may read through 
 dimming tears his story, 
 How discord on the music fell and darkness 
 
 on the glory, 
 And how when, one by one, sweet sounds 
 
 and wandering lights departed, 
 He wore no less a loving face because so 
 broken-hearted. 
 283 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 " With quiet sadness and no gloom, I learn 
 to think upon him, 
 With meekness that is gratefulness to God 
 
 whose Heaven hath won him, 
 Who suffered once the madness-cloud to 
 
 His own love to blind him, 
 But gently led the blind along where breath 
 and bird could find him ; 
 
 " And wrought within his shattered brain 
 such quick poetic senses 
 
 As hills have language for, and stars, har- 
 monious influences: 
 
 The pulse of dew upon the grass kept his 
 within its number, 
 
 And silent shadows from the trees refreshed 
 him like a slumber. 
 
 "Wild timid hares were drawn from woods 
 
 to share his home-caresses, 
 Uplooking to his human eyes with sylvan 
 
 tendernesses : 
 The very world, by God's constraint, from 
 
 falsehood's ways removing, 
 Its women and its men became, beside him, 
 
 true and loving. 
 
 " And though, in blindness, he remained un- 
 conscious of that guiding, 
 And things provided came without the sweet 
 sense of providing, 
 
 284 
 
THERE IS A FOUNTAIN 
 
 He testified this solemn truth, while phrensy 
 
 desolated, — 
 Nor man nor nature satisfies whom only 
 God created." 
 
 While living at Olney, Mr. Newton 
 proposed to Cowper that he should join 
 him in the preparation of a book of 
 evangelical hymns. The poet was 
 pleased to be of this help to his friend, 
 and contributed sixty-seven of the 
 famous " Olney Hymns," as they are 
 called. These have since been trans- 
 lated into many languages. 
 
 " God Moves in a Mysterious Way " 
 was one of these hymns, and was writ- 
 ten at the close of 1772, "in the 
 twilight of departing reason/' almost 
 immediately after Cowper had made 
 an effort to end his life. 
 
 " There Is a Fountain Filled with 
 Blood," written about the same time, 
 is a hymn which is endeared to thou- 
 sands. There are many, and there will 
 be many more, who through its im- 
 
 285 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 pelling influence " have washed their 
 robes, and made them white in the 
 blood of the Lamb." 
 
 Dr. Charles S. Robinson thus writes: 
 " The incidents which might be related 
 concerning the usefulness of these five 
 simple stanzas would make us think of 
 the Evangelist's affectionate extrava- 
 gance : ' And there are also many other 
 things which Jesus did, the which, if 
 they should be written every one, I sup- 
 pose that even the world itself could 
 not contain the books that should be 
 written * [John 21 : 25]. Biographies 
 are full of them; tracts are made out 
 of them; every minister of the gospel 
 has his memory crowded with them. 
 Literary critics find great fault with 
 some of the expressions, and declare 
 that people of taste do not know what 
 they are singing about when they speak 
 of a ' fountain filled/ and filled with 
 ' blood/ the blood drawn from the veins 
 of one man that another might be 
 
THERE IS A FOUNTAIN 
 
 < washed ' in it. Still the spiritually- 
 taught children of God go on singing 
 the lines undisturbed. They know what 
 the hymn means ; they may not be able 
 to tell others exactly, but they go on 
 singing this, and ' Rock of Ages ' with 
 it, till their tongues lie silent in the 
 grave." 
 
 W. T. Stead writes: "All the ani- 
 madversions are as the lightest dust in 
 the balance compared with the fact of 
 the marvellous influence which the sing- 
 ing of this hymn has had in softening 
 the hearts of men upon such occasions 
 of spiritual quickening as are known as 
 the great Irish Revivals. It has been 
 the means of changing the lives of 
 more men than all those who have ever 
 heard the name of most of its critics." 
 
 If the hymn had rendered no other 
 service to humanity than leading Sam- 
 uel H. Hadley, the late Superintendent 
 of the old McAuley Water Street 
 Mission, New York City, to Christ, it 
 
 987 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 would have been abundantly worth 
 while. On January 29, 1906, a short 
 time before he went to his heavenly 
 reward, he thus wrote: 
 
 " Many of the hymns which are to 
 appear in your book have long been 
 familiar to me, but I will speak of only 
 one : ' There Is a Fountain Filled with 
 Blood.' That is my baptismal hymn. 
 When I was a poor, helpless, dying 
 drunkard in the old Jerry McAuley 
 Mission, twenty-three years, nine 
 months, and six nights ago to-night, 
 after I had made some feeble prayer, 
 Jerry sang that hymn in that peculiar 
 voice of his: 
 
 " * There is a fountain filled with blood 
 Drawn from Emmanuel's veins; 
 And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, 
 Lose all their guilty stains. 5 
 
 " I had heard this dear old hymn 
 many times around my father's fireside 
 when a boy, and it brought back mem- 
 
THERE IS A FOUNTAIN 
 
 ories of happy days departed. When 
 Jerry asked me to pray, I did pray, and 
 Jesus, the loving Saviour, came into 
 my heart and has been there ever since. 
 I am so glad that you are going to use 
 this hymn in your collection." 
 
 Mr. Hadley tells of John M. Wood, 
 a drunken sailor, who had been dis- 
 charged from the United States Navy 
 for chronic alcoholism, after a sendee 
 of thirteen years, and who was on the 
 way to the river, determined to end his 
 wretched earthly life, when he heard the 
 singing of " There Is a Fountain Filled 
 with Blood," a hymn which had been 
 familiar to him in his innocent child- 
 hood. The singing was coming from 
 the old McAuley Mission. He could 
 not resist the temptation to enter. He 
 w T as converted, and never after tasted 
 whiskey. He longed to return to the 
 Navy Yard and tell his former asso- 
 ciates of the great blessing which had 
 come to him, and finally obtained per- 
 
 19 289 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 mission to hold service on the " Chi- 
 cago." So effective was his plea that 
 when he asked those who desired to 
 lead a better life to signify their in- 
 tention by rising, nearly two hundred 
 men stood up. Officers of the Ameri- 
 can Seaman's Friend Society were 
 present, and they instinctively felt that 
 this was the man to be made Chaplain 
 of the Navy Yard. His power over 
 seamen was remarkable, and he suc- 
 ceeded in starting a Christian Endeavor 
 Society on every one of the six war- 
 ships of the White Squadron. 
 
 It was through the singing of this 
 hymn by Ira D. Sankey at a meeting 
 conducted by Dwight L. Moody in 
 1870, that these two blessed servants of 
 God were brought together and were 
 led to enter upon the great evangelistic 
 efforts which resulted in the conversion 
 of many immortal souls, and which 
 continued for nearly thirty years. 
 
 The Rev. T. B. Anderson writes of 
 
 290 
 
THERE IS A FOUNTAIN 
 
 a great religious service once held in a 
 city of Texas by a prominent evan- 
 gelist. " The minister had been preach- 
 ing two and three times a day for nearly 
 two weeks, and great crowds had lis- 
 tened to his eloquent sermons. The last 
 Sabbath afternoon came, and the build- 
 ing was crowded. The preacher an- 
 nounced that in view of the long strain 
 to which he had been subjected he was 
 physically unable to deliver a sermon, 
 but that he would try to make a brief 
 farewell address. After the usual 
 opening exercises, he spoke for a few 
 moments and then began repeating 
 ' There Is a Fountain Filled with 
 Blood.' As he proceeded the effect was 
 electrical. The Spirit took hold of first 
 the preacher and then the people, and 
 all were greatly moved. When he 
 reached the last line he invited all who 
 would accept Christ to come to the 
 altar, and many pressed forward. 
 It seemed that the Spirit came like 
 
 291 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 an avalanche through this hymn that 
 afternoon to almost as many as were 
 present." 
 
 At a meeting held by Torrey and 
 Alexander, in Philadelphia, in 1906, 
 Mr. Alexander asked those present to 
 mention the hymns that had the most 
 to do with their conversion, and it was 
 clearly evident from the responses that 
 " There Is a Fountain Filled with 
 Blood " led all the others. Mr. Alex- 
 ander said: " I first heard that blessed 
 hymn in a little log meeting-house in 
 Tennessee, and I got some touches of 
 religion down there that I have never 
 been able to get anywhere else." 
 
 The Rev. G. P. Rutledge, of Phila- 
 delphia, contributes this incident out of 
 his own personal experience: "In the 
 early part of my ministry I held a short 
 series of meetings in the country. It 
 was summer, and the services were con- 
 ducted in a grove, the pulpit being a 
 small cliff . 
 
THERE IS A FOUNTAIN 
 
 " A middle-aged man had been 
 pointed out to me as the leading sinner 
 of the community. I immediately 
 sought to interest him in spiritual mat- 
 ters, but he refused to converse with 
 me on the subject. At the close of the 
 last service I announced that we would 
 sing ' There Is a Fountain Filled with 
 Blood/ and then added, solemnly, ' This 
 will be the last of these precious invita- 
 tions. In a few moments we will dis- 
 perse, and I will be driven to the train. 
 I doubt if I shall ever see you again in 
 this world. Many of you have accepted 
 Christ, but there is one man among you 
 in whom I am deeply interested and 
 with whom I have tried to talk. I feel 
 that unless he finds Christ now he may 
 be forever lost. I pray that while we 
 sing this hymn he may give his heart 
 to his Saviour. 
 
 "When the last stanza was being 
 sung he walked slowly through the 
 crowd and came to me, with tears f all- 
 
 293 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 ing down his cheeks, and said, ' I want 
 to confess Jesus before this stammer- 
 ing tongue lies silent in the grave.' ' 
 
 One more incident must suffice. It 
 was written by the Rev. Frank B. 
 Lynch, of St. Luke's Methodist 
 Church, Philadelphia: 
 
 " Many years ago a theatrical com- 
 pany was billed to play a series of 
 Shakespearian plays in St. Louis, Mis- 
 souri. The leading actor was a man 
 of great ability but very irreligious. 
 As the engagement lasted over one 
 Sunday, and as the time on that day 
 hung somewhat heavily, it was pro- 
 posed that some of them attend a re- 
 vival service that was being held in a 
 Methodist Episcopal church, under the 
 direction of the Pastor, who was a noted 
 evangelist. 
 
 " The actors went more through curi- 
 osity than from any other considera- 
 tion, and the leader especially boasted 
 of the amusement he expected to have 
 
 294 
 
THERE IS A FOUNTAIN 
 
 at the evening's ' performance,' as he 
 termed it. The sermon was a powerful 
 presentation of the scene of the great 
 day of judgment. It deeply affected 
 the audience and suppressed the amuse- 
 ment of the actors. The leader was 
 the most indifferent of them all; but 
 during the singing of the hymn, ' There 
 Is a Fountain Filled with Blood,' he 
 suddenly leaned forward in the pew and 
 burst into tears. The minister came 
 down to him and appealed to him to 
 come forward for prayers. To the 
 surprise of all, he at once complied, 
 bowed at the altar, and was happily 
 converted. He at once severed his con- 
 nection with the stage, and after proper 
 preparation was admitted to the min- 
 istry, where he became a most effective 
 preacher and evangelist. He used to 
 say that he had successfully resisted the 
 appeal of the minister, but that the 
 hymn sung at the close of the sermon 
 so vividly set forth his own personal 
 
 296 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 relation to the death of Christ and the 
 possibilities of instant pardon, that he 
 was overwhelmed with grief for his 
 sins and with a desire for a better life." 
 A source of great grief to Cowper, 
 when his mind was overcast, was the 
 fear that God had deserted him. How 
 he would have rejoiced could he have 
 known how signally God would honour 
 him through the ages by turning many 
 to righteousness through the use of his 
 hymns! 
 
 296 
 
XIV 
 
 FROM GREENLAND'S ICY 
 MOUNTAINS 
 
Jf torn dlreenlanb's tcp mountain*, 
 
 Jf rom Snbia's coral stranb, 
 flKHljere &fric's sunnp fountain* 
 
 BjdII boton tijeir golben sanb, 
 Jfrom man? an ancient riber, 
 
 Jf rom man? a palmp plain, 
 Stye? call us to beliber 
 
 {TO&eir lanb from error's cfjain. 
 
 Wlfat tfjougfj tfje sptcp breeze* 
 
 Ploto soft o'er Ceplon's isle; 
 QKjougf) eberp prospect pleases, 
 
 Slnb onlp man in bile ; 
 3fn bain tuitlj labisf) kindness 
 
 ®fte gifts of (gob are stroton ; 
 W&t fjeatfjen, in fjis blinbness, 
 
 3BotoS boton to tooob anb stone. 
 
 Can toe, tofjose souls are ligfjteb 
 
 ®Hitf) toisbom from on f)igfj, 
 Can toe, to men bcnigfjteb, 
 
 Wyt lamp of life benp ? 
 fealbation! ©saltation! 
 
 tEfje jopf ul sounb proclaim, 
 WU cacf) remotest nation 
 
 J|as learneb JWessiafj's Jlame, 
 
 299 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 3KBaft, toaft, pe toinbs, W* storp, 
 
 &nb pou, pe toaters, roll, 
 flKtt, like a sea of gtorp, 
 
 3 1 spreabs from pole to pole ; 
 Will o'er our ransomeb nature 
 
 W$t Hamb for sinner* slain, 
 3Rebeemer, lling, Creator, 
 
 3fn bliss returns to reign. 
 
 300 
 
FROM GREENLAND'S ICY 
 MOUNTAINS 
 
 E regret that we are able 
 to add but little to 
 the well-known story of 
 this matchless mission- 
 ary hymn, yet we gladly 
 include it, as no collection of this kind, 
 however limited in its selection, would 
 be worthy of the name unless it con- 
 tained this splendid appeal for the 
 quickening of spiritual zeal, 
 
 " Till each remotest nation 
 
 Has learned Messiah's Name." 
 
 Its poetic excellence, its spiritual 
 fervour, its fine optimism, and its thrill- 
 ing music insure it an abiding place 
 in our song-books and in our hearts. 
 
 The Rev. David It. Breed, D.D., 
 speaks of it in the most appreciative 
 terms. " In this particular class of 
 sacred literature," he says, " we rise 
 
 301 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 with Heber to the very crest of the 
 wave; his work is the climax. ... It 
 is expressed in the choicest poetic terms. 
 . . . The diction is incomparably beau- 
 tiful. . . . Every line, indeed, is as pol- 
 ished and refined as it can be. It is the 
 art of the jeweller in the precious gems 
 of language." 
 
 How singularly inclusive, from a 
 missionary view-point, are the opening 
 lines: 
 
 " From Greenland's icy mountains, 
 
 From India's coral strand, 
 Where Afric's sunny fountains 
 
 Roll down their golden sand, 
 From many an ancient river, 
 
 From many a palmy plain, 
 They call us to deliver 
 
 Their land from error's chain." 
 
 And what could be more appealing 
 and suggestive than, 
 
 " Can we, whose souls are lighted 
 With wisdom from on high, 
 Can we, to men benighted, 
 The lamp of life deny? " 
 302 
 
GREENLAND S ICY MOUNTAINS 
 
 Some one has well written: " It does 
 not necessarily take a lifetime to ac- 
 complish immortality. A brave act 
 done in a moment, a courageous word 
 spoken at the fitting time, a few lines 
 which can be written on a sheet of 
 paper, may give one a deathless name. 
 Such was the case with Reginald Heber, 
 known far and wide, wherever the 
 Christian religion has penetrated, by his 
 unequalled missionary hymn, ' From 
 Greenland's Icy Mountains.' " 
 
 Like such well-known hymns as 
 " Abide With Me," " Stand Up, Stand 
 Up for Jesus," " Onward, Christian 
 Soldiers," and others, it was written at 
 a sitting and for temporary need, with 
 no thought of its world-wide usefulness 
 in the coming years. 
 
 Fortunately, the story of the origin 
 of the hymn has been authentically 
 preserved, and is as follows: 
 
 "On Whitsunday, 1819, the late 
 Dr. Shipley, Dean of St. Asaph and 
 
 303 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Vicar of Wrexham, preached a sermon 
 in Wrexham Church in aid of the 
 Society for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel in Foreign Parts. That day- 
 was also fixed upon for the commence- 
 ment of the Sunday evening lectures 
 intended to be established in the church, 
 and the late Bishop of Calcutta 
 [Heber], then Rector at Hodnet, the 
 Dean's son-in-law, undertook to deliver 
 the first lecture. In the course of the 
 Saturday previous, the Dean and his 
 son-in-law being together in the vicar- 
 age, the former requested Heber to 
 write something for them to sing in the 
 morning, and he retired for that pur- 
 pose from the table, where the Dean and 
 a few friends were sitting, to a distant 
 part of the room. In a short time the 
 Dean inquired, ' What have you writ- 
 ten?' Heber, having then composed 
 the first three verses, read them over. 
 c There, there, that will do very well/ 
 said the Dean. ' No, no ; the sense is 
 
 304 
 
Ctf#* **?**•' 
 
 HE RETIRED FOR THAT PURPOSE TO A DISTANT PART OF 
 
 the room." — Page SOJf, 
 
GREENLAND S ICY MOUNTAINS 
 
 not complete/ replied Heber. Accord- 
 ingly, he added the fourth verse, and the 
 Dean being inexorable to his repeated 
 request of ' Let me add another, oh, let 
 me add another/ thus completed the 
 hymn . . . which has since become so 
 celebrated. It was sung the next morn- 
 ing in Wrexham Church for the first 
 time." 
 
 The original manuscript, bearing the 
 scar of the hook on which it was hung 
 by the printer who put it into type the 
 Saturday it was composed, is still pre- 
 served. It was exhibited at the World's 
 Exhibition in London in 1851. It be- 
 came the property of Dr. Thomas 
 Raffles, of Liverpool, himself a hym- 
 nologist of some note, and when his col- 
 lection was sold this manuscript brought 
 forty-two pounds. It is said that the 
 collection on the occasion when the 
 hymn was first sung amounted to 
 thirty- four pounds. 
 
 So perfect was the hymn in its origi- 
 
 20 305 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 nal conception that it remained un- 
 changed by its author save in a single 
 instance — the word heathen, in the sec- 
 ond verse, being substituted for savage. 
 
 It would be an interesting exercise 
 for the poetically inclined to attempt 
 to suggest the verse that Heber would 
 have added to the hymn had his father- 
 in-law consented; and yet, in view of 
 the completeness of the lines, such a 
 task would be exceedingly difficult. 
 
 When Heber was appointed Bishop 
 of Calcutta, a correspondent sent a copy 
 of his hymn, accompanied by a letter, 
 to The Christian Observer, and both 
 letter and hymn were published in that 
 paper in February, 1823. The letter 
 is as follows : 
 
 "The accompanying missionary hymn 
 is so beautiful, considered as poetry, 
 and so honourable as the effusion of a 
 Christian mind, that I should request 
 its insertion in your pages, even if it 
 were not the production of a writer 
 
 306 
 
GREENLAND S ICY MOUNTAINS 
 
 whose devout and elevated muse justly 
 obtained your labours [a review of 
 Heber's " Palestine/' which appeared 
 in The Observer] ; whose name has 
 since been often mentioned in your 
 pages with high respect; and whose ap- 
 pointment to a most important station 
 in the church of Christ [to be Bishop 
 of Calcutta] you have recently an- 
 nounced with a pleasure which is shared 
 bv all who have at heart the moral 
 and spiritual welfare of our numerous 
 fellow-subjects, native and European, 
 in the East. The hymn having ap- 
 peared some time since in print, with 
 the name of Reginald Heber annexed, 
 I can feel no scruple in annexing that 
 name to it on the present occasion. 
 There is nothing, either in the sentiment 
 or the poetry, but what does honour to 
 the now Right Reverend Prelate, while 
 it must delight every Christian mind to 
 witness such devout ardour for the ex- 
 tension of ' Messiah's Name,' in a sta- 
 
 307 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WOULD 
 
 tion so eminently important for giving 
 effect to that desire in all those measures 
 which Christian piety, meekness, and 
 prudence may suggest." 
 
 A copy of The Observer containing 
 the letter and hymn found its way 
 across the Atlantic and was read by a 
 lady in Savannah, Georgia; and it was 
 through this means that the words were 
 destined to be associated with the beau- 
 tiful music to which they are now sung. 
 Robinson thus tells the story in his 
 Annotations: 
 
 " The tune, ' Missionary Hymn,' to 
 which this piece is universally sung in 
 America, was composed by Dr. Lowell 
 Mason. The history of its composi- 
 tion is in like measure romantic; the 
 family of the now deceased musician 
 has very kindly supplied the facts: 
 
 " It seems that a lady residing in 
 Savannah, Georgia, had in some way 
 become possessed of a copy of the 
 words sent to this country from Eng- 
 
GREENLAND S ICY MOUNTAINS 
 
 land. This was in 1823. She was 
 arrested by the beauty of the poetry 
 and its possibilities as a hymn. But the 
 meter of 7s, 6s, D. was almost new in 
 this period; there was no tune that 
 would fit the measure. She had been 
 told of a young clerk in a bank, Lowell 
 Mason by name, just a few doors away 
 down the street. It was said that he had 
 the gift for making beautiful songs. 
 She sent a boy to this genius in music, 
 and in a half hour's time he returned 
 with this composition. Like the hymn it 
 voices, it was done at a stroke, but it will 
 last through the ages." 
 
 In the great revival in Philadelphia 
 in 1858, fuller mention of which is made 
 in the chapter on " Stand Up, Stand 
 Up for Jesus," the United States war- 
 ship " North Carolina " was lying at 
 the old navy yard, near the foot of 
 Washington Avenue, on the Delaware 
 River. Many of the sailors attended 
 the services and a number professed 
 
 309 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 conversion. Getting into this closer 
 spiritual relationship, they began talk- 
 ing to each other more freely of their 
 homes, and it was found that they rep- 
 resented several nationalities. When 
 one stated that he was from Greenland, 
 they instinctively and spontaneously 
 began singing Heber's great missionary 
 hymn. 
 
 Reginald Heber was born in Malpas, 
 Chester County, England, on the 21st 
 of April, 1783. His father was an 
 Episcopalian clergyman, his mother 
 the daughter of a clergyman. " His 
 early childhood was distinguished by 
 mildness of disposition, obedience to 
 parents, consideration for the feelings 
 of those around him, and trust in the 
 providence of God, which formed, 
 through life, so prominent a part of 
 his character." 
 
 He could read the Bible with ease 
 when he was five years of age, and 
 " even then was remarkable for the 
 
 310 
 
GREENLAND S ICY MOUNTAINS 
 
 avidity with which he studied it, and for 
 his accurate knowledge of its contents." 
 He also wrote very commendable verses 
 at an early age. 
 
 At the age of seventeen he entered 
 Brazenose College, Oxford, November, 
 1800, and soon after won the Chan- 
 cellor's medal for the best Latin verse. 
 In the spring of 1803 he wrote his cele- 
 brated poem " Palestine." Sir Walter 
 Scott, who was twelve years his senior, 
 thus writes of him at this time: " I spent 
 some merry days with Heber at Oxford, 
 when he was writing his prize poem 
 ['Palestine']. He was then a gay 
 young fellow, a wit and a satirist, and 
 burning for literary fame. My laurels 
 were beginning to bloom, and we were 
 both madcaps." One morning when 
 they were breakfasting together, a por- 
 tion of " Palestine " was read. ' You 
 have omitted one striking circumstance 
 in your account of the building of the 
 temple," said Sir Walter, "that no 
 
 311 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 tools were used in its erection." Before 
 the party separated, Heber had added 
 the lines which afterwards became the 
 best-known of the poem: 
 
 " No hammer fell, no ponderous axes swung ; 
 Like some majestic palm the mystic fabric 
 sprung, 
 
 Majestic silence!" 
 
 " The success which attended this 
 prize poem has been unparalleled in its 
 class; universally read at the time, by 
 many committed to memory, it has re- 
 tained its place among the higher poetic 
 compositions of the age." Seventeen 
 years later the author heard it sung at 
 Oxford as an oratorio. 
 
 He spent 1805-06 in a Continental 
 tour. In 1807 he was ordained and 
 became the Rector of Hodnet. Two 
 years later he married the youngest 
 daughter of Dean William D. Ship- 
 ley, and one child came to brighten 
 their lives. It was the death of this 
 
 312 
 
GREENLAND S ICY MOUNTAINS 
 
 child, in early infancy, that prompted 
 his beautiful hymn of submission, 
 commencing, 
 
 " Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not 
 deplore thee." 
 
 In 1820, an infectious disease ap- 
 peared in the town and neighbourhood 
 of Hodnet. Mr. Heber heroically gave 
 himself to ministering to the sick, and 
 when remonstrated with, said: "I am 
 as much in God's keeping in the sick 
 man's chamber as in my own room." 
 He caught the disease from the poor 
 people of the workhouse, and was, for 
 a time, in grave danger of losing his 
 life. 
 
 He was Rector of Hodnet for six- 
 teen years, and greatly endeared himself 
 to his people. 
 
 In January, 1823, he was appointed 
 Bishop of Calcutta. The following 
 month the honourary degree of Doctor 
 of Divinity was conferred upon him by 
 
 313 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Oxford. He sailed for India in June 
 of that year, and reached his destination 
 in October. 
 
 Under date of September there is this 
 interesting reference in his diary: 
 " Though we are now too far off Cey- 
 lon to catch the odours of the land, yet 
 it is, we are assured, perfectly true that 
 such odours are perceptible to a very 
 considerable distance. In the Straits of 
 Malacca a smell like that of a haw- 
 thorne hedge is commonly experienced; 
 and from Ceylon, at thirty or forty 
 miles, under certain circumstances, a yet 
 more agreeable scent is inhaled." 
 
 He became very popular in India, 
 and did excellent work for the Master; 
 but he was called to his heavenly reward 
 " in the meridian of his reputation and 
 Christian utility, leaving behind him no 
 recollection but of his amiable manner, 
 his sweetness of temper, his goodness 
 of heart, his universal charity, his splen- 
 did and various talents, and all his deep 
 
 314 
 
GREENLAND S ICY MOUNTAINS 
 
 devotion to the duties of his sacred 
 calling." 
 
 He had preached on the 2d of April, 
 1826, and on the following morning had 
 attended to a number of parochial du- 
 ties, among them being the confirmation 
 of a class of forty-two members and 
 delivering to them a stirring call to 
 faithfulness. Returning home, thor- 
 oughly exhausted, he retired to his room 
 for a bath. Shortly after, a servant, on 
 going to the room, found him dead in 
 the water, his death having been caused 
 by apoplexy. This untimely end of his 
 earthly career, at the early age of forty- 
 three, caused sincere grief in India, 
 England, and elsewhere. 
 
 " How often," exclaimed a young 
 sufferer, " do some of Bishop Heber's 
 hymns rise within my soul, as if the 
 hand of my Redeemer had touched all 
 the musical chords within me ! I sing to 
 myself, while the sea is whispering and 
 roaring by turns on the beach; and 
 
 315 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 then I look out on the waters as I lie 
 here, and love to think of that cultivated 
 and gifted man crossing the deep 
 under the constraining power of his Re- 
 deemer's love, and gladly sacrificing all 
 the comforts and honours of his native 
 land for the joy of proclaiming peace to 
 the multitudes of India. . . . How I 
 love to watch him as the tear trembles 
 in his eyes at hearing one of his own 
 blessed hymns sung far up in India, at 
 Meerut, and sung, as he says, ' better 
 than he had ever heard it sung before/ 
 Oh, that last kind address of his to the 
 class he confirmed on the day of his 
 death. How often I have read it! 
 * And now/ he said, ' depart in the faith 
 and favour of the Lord; and if what you 
 have learned and heard this day has been 
 so far blessed as to produce a serious 
 and lasting effect on you, let me en- 
 treat vou to remember sometimes in 
 your prayers those ministers of Christ 
 who have laboured for your instruction, 
 
 316 
 
GREENLAND S ICY MOUNTAINS 
 
 that we who have preached to you may 
 not ourselves be cast away, but that it 
 may be given to us also to walk in this 
 present life according to the words of 
 the gospel which we have received of 
 the Lord, and to rejoice hereafter with 
 you, the children of our care, in that 
 land where the weary shall find repose 
 and the wicked cease from troubling; 
 where we shall behold God as He is, 
 and be ourselves made like unto Him in 
 innocence and happiness and immor- 
 tality. ' Blessed man! he soon found 
 his rest after uttering these words. 
 How touching it is, that story of his 
 end! Alone in his last moments, and 
 his happy spirit suddenly departing, 
 and leaving his body in the waters of 
 the bath in which he had sought refresh- 
 ment after his toils." 
 
 It is no small honour to have been the 
 author of several hymns which are, with- 
 out doubt, among the very best of their 
 kind: "From Greenland's Icy Moun- 
 
 31T 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 tains," as a missionary hymn; " Holy, 
 Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty," as a 
 hymn of adoration; " The Son of God 
 Goes Forth to War," as a martial hymn; 
 " By Cool Siloam's Shady Rill," as a 
 child's hymn; " Thou Art Gone to the 
 Grave, But We Will Not Deplore Thee," 
 as a hymn of resignation; "Bread of 
 the World in Mercy Broken," as a com- 
 munion hymn; " When Through the 
 Torn Sail the Wild Tempest is Stream- 
 ing," as a sailor's hymn; and " Brightest 
 and Best of the Sons of the Morning," 
 as a hymn to the infant Jesus — these 
 and others will make the name of Heber 
 familiar as long as English-speaking 
 people lift up their hearts in praise to 
 their Creator. 
 
 sis 
 
XV 
 
 SAFE IN THE ARMS OF 
 JESUS 
 
&>al t in tfje arms of 3Tesus, 
 
 B>att on %ts gentle breast, 
 GTfjere bp J|ts lobe o'ersfjabeb, 
 fetoeetlp mp soul sfjaU rest 
 Jlarfe ! 't is tfje boice of angels 
 
 Jiorne in a song to me, 
 <©ber tfje f ielbs of glorp, 
 ©ber tfje jasper sea. 
 
 £>afe in tfje arms of STesus, 
 
 &afe on jfyis gentle breast; 
 
 tEfjere bp J|ts lobe o'ersfjabeb, 
 
 fetoeetlp mp soul sfjaU rest 
 
 &>af e tn tfje arms of Sfesus, 
 
 S>af e from corrobing care, 
 g>afe from tfte toorlb's temptations 
 
 §>in tannot fjarm me tfjere. 
 Jf ree from tfje bligfjt of sorroto, 
 
 Jfree from mp boubts anb fears; 
 ©nip a f eto more trials, — 
 
 ©nip a feto more tears! 
 
 3Tesus, mp fjeart's bear &efuge, 
 
 STesus fjas bieb for me ; 
 Jf irm on tfje &ocfe of &ges 
 
 €ber mp trust sfjaU be* 
 
 21 321 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 jfyttt let me toatt toitf) patience, 
 Wait ttU tfje mgfjt t* o'er ; 
 
 Watt ttU 3 gee tfje morning 
 JBvtak on tfje gotten srtjore. 
 
 By permission of W. H. Doane, Esq., owner of the 
 copyright 
 
SAFE IN THE ARMS OF 
 JESUS 
 
 ILL CARLETON, him- 
 self a writer of popular 
 verse, truthfully says : 
 " All over this country 
 and, one might say, the 
 world, Fanny Crosby's hymns are sing- 
 ing themselves into the hearts and souls 
 of the people. They have been doing 
 this for many years, and will do so as 
 long as our civilisation lasts. There are 
 to-day used in religious meetings more 
 of her inspired lines than of any other 
 poet, living or dead. . . . Her sacred 
 lyrics have been translated into several 
 languages. She is easily the greatest 
 living writer of hymns, and will always 
 occupy a high place among authors." 
 
 Some years ago the Sunday at 
 Home invited its readers to send lists 
 of the one hundred English hymns 
 which stood highest in their esteem. 
 
 323 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Nearly three thousand five hundred 
 responses were received. A list of the 
 most popular one hundred hymns, ac- 
 cording to this selection, was compiled. 
 " Rock of Ages " received the highest 
 number of votes, 3215; and the one 
 hundredth, " Sometimes a Light Sur- 
 prises/' 866. Fanny Crosby's hymn, 
 " Safe in the Arms of Jesus,'' ranked 
 sixty-fifth. 
 
 The gifted authoress of this comfort- 
 ing hymn had the seeming misfortune 
 to lose her sight when only six weeks of 
 age, apparently through the incompe- 
 tency of a physician who treated her 
 for what appeared to be at the time 
 only a slight inflammation of the eyes. 
 Throughout the years she has borne her 
 affliction bravely, and declares it to be 
 her belief that an all-wise Father in- 
 tended that she should pass her days in 
 darkness in order that she might the 
 better sing His praises. 
 
 She was born in Putnam County, 
 
 324 
 
SAFE IN THE ARMS OF JESUS 
 
 New York, on the 24th of March, 1820, 
 of good Revolutionary stock. She 
 grew into a happy, fun-loving girl, and 
 her blindness did not prevent her from 
 sharing in many of the joys of child- 
 hood. She writes, in her very interest- 
 ing autobiography, which all should 
 read, that she could climb a tree or ride a 
 horse as well as any of her playmates. 
 " Gradually," she says, " I began to 
 lose my regret and sorrow at having 
 been robbed of sight: little by little 
 God's promises and consolations came 
 throbbing into my mind. Not only the 
 Scriptures, but the hymns that I had 
 heard sung Sabbath after Sabbath, 
 made deep impressions upon me." 
 
 When nine years of age she moved 
 to Ridgefield, Connecticut, and there 
 lived with a Mrs. Hawley, who fre- 
 quently read to her from the Bible and 
 from books of verse. Fanny must have 
 been a remarkably precocious child for 
 within a year she had committed to 
 
 325 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 memory the first four books of the Old 
 Testament and the four Gospels; she 
 could also recite many poems. 
 
 Her first verses were written when 
 she was eight years old, and were very 
 creditable for one so young; and they 
 were no less commendable because of 
 their fine optimism — a characteristic 
 which has always been prominent in 
 Fanny Crosby's nature. 
 
 As she grew older she developed a 
 keen desire for knowledge — a desire 
 which, by reason of her physical infirm- 
 ity, seemed, for a long time, to have 
 no possibility of realisation; but in 
 1835, when she had reached the age of 
 fifteen, she had the good fortune to be 
 sent to a school for the blind in New 
 York City. This opportunity to im- 
 prove her mental faculties filled her 
 with inexpressible happiness. Her first 
 teacher in this institution was Dr. John 
 D. Russ, who had been associated with 
 Lord Byron in his romantic efforts to 
 
 326 
 
SAFE IN THE ARMS OF JESUS 
 
 assist the Greeks to gain their independ- 
 ence. It was an inspiration to her to 
 come into this close relation with one 
 who had known the brilliant English 
 poet. She was also greatly encour- 
 aged on learning that Homer, Ossian, 
 Milton, and others, although blind, had 
 become famous authors. 
 
 Her mental development was rapid, 
 and at the age of twenty-two she be- 
 came a teacher in the school in which 
 for seven years she had been a pupil. 
 Soon after, William Cullen Bryant, 
 who was then at the height of his fame, 
 visited the institution and spoke en- 
 couragingly to the young teacher of 
 some verses of hers which he had 
 chanced to read. " He never knew," 
 she said, " how much good he did by 
 those few words to the young girl who 
 had hardly hoped to touch the hem of 
 his proud robe of poetic genius." 
 
 During these years she had written 
 much poetry, and was specially pleased 
 
 327 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 when the distinguished Scotch phrenol- 
 ogist, Dr. George Combe, visiting the 
 school, examined her head and ex- 
 claimed: "Why, here is a poet! Give 
 her every advantage that she can have; 
 let her hear the best books and converse 
 with the best writers, and she will make 
 her mark in the world." 
 
 In 1844 a number of the blind stu- 
 dents appeared before the United States 
 Senate and the House of Representa- 
 tives in an effort to interest the mem- 
 bers in the school and secure an 
 appropriation. Fanny Crosby gave a 
 poetical address. " I have been told," 
 she says, " that I was the first and last 
 poet ever invited to speak or recite his or 
 her own productions before the great 
 National Assembly." 
 
 It is interesting to note the names of 
 some of the representative men who 
 were among her audience: John 
 Quincy Adams, James Buchanan, 
 Andrew Johnson, Hannibal Hamlin, 
 
 328 
 
SAFE IN THE ARMS OF JESUS 
 
 Stephen A. Douglas, Rufus Choate, 
 Thomas H. Benton, Hamilton Fish, 
 Henry A. Wise, Alexander Stephens, 
 Jefferson Davis, and Robert Toombs, 
 all of whom had already, or subse- 
 quently, achieved national distinction. 
 
 When Henry Clay's son was killed 
 at the battle of Buena Vista, in 1847, 
 Miss Crosby composed and sent to the 
 grief-stricken father a poem of sym- 
 pathy. Some time after, Mr. Clay 
 made an address before the school; at 
 its close he sought out the blind girl 
 and, leading her to the front of the 
 platform, said: "This is not the first 
 time I have felt the comforting pres- 
 ence of this young friend, although I 
 never saw her before. Into the deep 
 wounds of my sorrow she has poured 
 the balm of consolation." 
 
 In 1848 General Winfield Scott vis- 
 ited the school, only a few months 
 after his great triumph in Mexico ; and 
 shortly after, General Bertrand, one 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 of Napoleon's most brilliant officers, 
 who was with him when he died an exile 
 at St. Helena, was a guest of the 
 school. Two years later, Jenny Lind 
 came, and entranced the teachers and 
 scholars by her marvellous singing. 
 
 With Grover Cleveland, who fre- 
 quently copied her poems for her when 
 he was a youth of sixteen, she has en- 
 joyed a long and highly prized friend- 
 ship. His brother was head teacher in 
 the school, and young Grover spent 
 some time there, immediately after his 
 father's death in 1853, as a clerk. 
 
 In 1844 Fanny Crosby published 
 her first volume of verse, The Blind 
 Girl, and Other Poems. Since that 
 time a number of volumes have 
 appeared from her pen. 
 
 It will doubtless be a surprise to 
 many to be informed that Fanny 
 Crosby's real name is Frances Van 
 Alstyne. In 1858 she married Alexan- 
 der Van Alstyne, a blind teacher of the 
 
 330 
 
SAFE IN THE ARMS OF JESUS 
 
 school in which she herself taught. He 
 had been a pupil in several of her classes* 
 He was a brilliant musician and a fine 
 classical scholar. They lived happily 
 together until his death, June 18, 
 1902. It was at her husband's special 
 request that she continued, after her 
 marriage, to sign her maiden name to 
 her writings. 
 
 She is a voluminous writer of hymns, 
 and has composed over five thousand. 
 She has written as many as seven in 
 one day. She never enters upon com- 
 positions of this nature without an 
 earnest prayer that her efforts may 
 be used to the glory of God and the 
 uplift of humanity. Among her best- 
 known hymns are " Only a Step to 
 Jesus"; "Pass Me Not, O Gentle 
 Saviour " ; " Jesus, Keep Me Near the 
 Cross"; " To the Work " ; "Blessed 
 Assurance "; " I Am Thine, O Lord "; 
 " Only a Beam of Sunshine " ; " Rescue 
 the Perishing "; " There 's a Cry from 
 
 331 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Macedonia"; "We Shall Know Each 
 Other There"; "Just a Word for 
 Jesus " ; " Saviour, More than Life to 
 Me"; and " Saved by Grace." 
 
 Perhaps, however, the hymn of her 
 composing which is destined to have the 
 most widespread popularity is " Safe 
 in the Arms of Jesus." It has already 
 brought peace and comfort to number- 
 less lives, and will continue its heaven- 
 sent mission for years to come. It 
 seems to have a special place in the 
 hearts of mothers whose lost darlings 
 are forever " safe from the world's 
 temptations." 
 
 On the 8th of August, 1885, when 
 General U. S. Grant was laid to rest 
 in Riverside Park, on the banks of the 
 beautiful Hudson, with all the civic 
 devotion and martial pride befitting the 
 foremost soldier of his time, from band 
 after band there came on the solemn 
 summer air the comforting and sym- 
 pathetic music of " Safe in the Arms 
 
 332 
 
FANNY, I HAVE JUST FORTY MINUTES; DURING THAT 
 TIME YOU MUST WRITE ME A HYMN." Page « 
 
SAFE IN THE ARMS OF JESUS 
 
 of Jesus," intermingled in tender and 
 touching harmony with the hushed 
 notes of funeral bells, the muffled boom 
 of minute guns from the fleet in the 
 river, the subdued footfall of marching 
 thousands, and the suppressed hum of 
 human voices which is heard only when 
 vast crowds are brought together by a 
 common sorrow. 
 
 Miss Crosby gives us this interesting 
 account of the origin of the hymn: 
 " One day Mr. W. H. Doane, who 
 composed much beautiful music, came to 
 me hurriedly and exclaimed : ' Fanny, 
 I have just forty minutes to catch the 
 train for Cincinnati; during that time 
 you must write me a hymn, and give 
 me a few minutes to catch the train/ 
 
 " I happened to be in a good mood 
 for writing. He hummed the melody 
 to which he wanted the words written, 
 and in fifteen minutes I gave them to 
 him and he started away. Upon his 
 arrival home he published them, and I 
 
 333 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 have been told upon good authority 
 that the hymn is now sung wherever 
 Christian music is known." 
 
 She also gives this interesting inci- 
 dent in connection with this beautiful 
 hymn: "When Mr. Sankey was in 
 Edinburgh, an old Scotch woman came 
 to him and said she wanted to thank him 
 for writing ' Safe in the Arms of Jesus.' 
 'But I didn't write it,' replied Mr. 
 Sankey; ' that was Fanny Crosby,' and 
 he sat down and told her about me. 
 
 " ' Well,' said the old lady, when he 
 was through, ' when ye gang back to 
 America, gie her my love, and tell her 
 an auld Scotch woman sends her bless- 
 ings. The last hymn my daughter sang 
 before she died was that one.' ' 
 
 A mother was very much interested 
 in a conversation carried on by her two 
 little girls. One of them had been sing- 
 ing " Safe in the Arms of Jesus," and 
 the other had interrupted her with the 
 question: " How do you know that you 
 
 334 
 
SAFE IN THE ARMS OF JESUS 
 
 are safe?" " Because," was the response, 
 " I am holding on to Jesus with both 
 hands." " But that does not make you 
 safe," persisted the other; "suppose 
 Satan should cut off your hands." 
 For a moment a troubled expression 
 came into the trustful little face, but it 
 almost instantly cleared and she joy- 
 ously exclaimed, "Oh, I made a mistake! 
 Jesus is holding me with His hands, and 
 Satan can't cut His hands off. I am 
 perfectly safe in His arms." Could any 
 answer have been more beautiful! 
 
 On the 24th of March, 1906, two col- 
 ored men were hanged in the jail yard 
 at Mt. Holly, New Jersey. At the 
 moment when they were about to pay 
 the extreme penalty for their awful 
 crime, after expressing their belief in 
 their salvation, some one was heard 
 singing " Safe in the Arms of Jesus." 
 It proved to be a prisoner, with a tenor 
 voice of rare sweetness, who occupied a 
 cell overlooking the scaffold. It is not 
 
 335 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 too great a stretch of faith to believe 
 that even these two misguided souls, 
 who atoned for their crime with their 
 lives, and confessed their contrition, 
 may have been saved, even as was the 
 sinner on the cross at Calvary. " If we 
 confess our sins, He is faithful and just 
 to forgive us our sins." 
 
 More than ever, as the years go by, 
 the popularity of Fanny Crosby's 
 hymns increases. In almost every 
 gathering where the salvation of souls 
 is the chief object of concern, one or 
 more of her compositions are sung. 
 There are many to-day who can say 
 with grateful, whole-hearted sincerity, 
 Thank God for Fanny Crosby, and for 
 all her labours of love and usefulness ! 
 
 " Rich in experience that angels might covet ; 
 Rich in a faith that has grown with the 
 years," 
 
 she waits serenely in the mellow glow of 
 life's golden sunset with little to regret 
 
 336 
 
SAFE IN THE ARMS OF JESUS 
 
 and with much for which to be grateful. 
 She knows in whom she has believed, 
 and as she bides His time she labours 
 on, sending forth hymns of hope and 
 love; and praying still, as she has 
 prayed along the years, that her mes- 
 sages of cheer may reach sin-stained 
 souls, and that through their blessed 
 ministry many, at the last great day, 
 may be found sharing with herself the 
 supreme spiritual joy and privilege of 
 being 
 
 " Safe in the arms of Jesus." 
 
 29 S37 
 
XVI 
 
 MY COUNTRY, 'TIS OF THEE 
 
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 342 
 
THE REV D SAMUEL FRANCIS SMITH, D.D., AUTHOR OF 
 "MY COUNTRY, 'TIS OF THEE." 
 
MY COUNTRY, 'T IS OF THEE 
 
 HE Rev, Samuel Francis 
 Smith, D.D., author of 
 " America," which is 
 better known as " My 
 Country, 'T is of Thee," 
 attended a patriotic gathering in the Old 
 South Church, Boston, Massachusetts, 
 in February, 1895, in commemoration 
 of Washington's birthday. During the 
 exercises Dr. Edward Everett Hale, 
 who presided, recited Dr. Smith's popu- 
 lar hymn, and repeated the comment of 
 Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes in regard 
 to it: "What is fame? To write a 
 hymn which sixty millions of people 
 sing; that is fame." Judged by this 
 standard, there is no doubt of Dr. 
 Smith having attained fame, for his 
 hymn is a universal favourite and is 
 sung with patriotic fervour the land 
 over. The custom is becoming general 
 for American audiences to sing it with 
 
 343 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 bared heads and standing, — a beautiful 
 and fitting recognition of the honour 
 due our beloved land, and the reverence 
 due to God, who has so signally show- 
 ered upon it His choicest blessings. 
 
 In a letter dated " Newton Centre, 
 Mass., November 7th, 1894," Dr. Smith 
 sent to a friend a sketch of his life 
 and an autograph copy of his hymn, 
 both of which are here given. The 
 biographical sketch is as follows : 
 
 " S. F. Smith was born in Boston, 
 October 21st, 1808. He studied at the 
 Boston Latin School; graduated at 
 Harvard College in 1829 and at An- 
 dover Theological Seminary in 1832. 
 He spent a year in editorial labours in 
 Boston. In 1834 he was ordained in 
 Waterville, Maine, pastor of the First 
 Baptist Church. At the same time he 
 commenced as professor of Modern 
 Languages in Waterville College, now 
 Colby University. He held this double 
 office eight years. 
 
 344 
 
MY COUNTRY, 't IS OF THEE 
 
 " In January, 1842, he removed to 
 Newton, Mass., and became pastor of 
 the First Baptist Church. He held 
 that office for twelve and a half years. 
 Also, in January, 1842, he became 
 editor of the Christian Review, a quar- 
 terly published in Boston, and continued 
 in this position seven years. He then 
 became editorial secretary of the Amer- 
 ican Baptist Missionary Union for fif- 
 teen years, and also the permanent 
 supply of two feeble churches. In 
 1875 he visited Europe and travelled 
 a year. Again, in 1880-1882, he visited 
 Europe and Asia for a little over two 
 years, surveying missions of all denomi- 
 nations in Asia and Europe. Since his 
 return he has been occupied with his 
 literary pursuits and correspondence. 
 
 " Have written poetry from my 
 childhood. I have on hand now more 
 than a hundred hymns, besides numer- 
 ous other compositions, many of them 
 occasional. 
 
 345 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 " Wrote ' My Country, 'T is of Thee/ 
 in February, 1832. I was impressed 
 with the tune, which I saw in a Ger- 
 man music book, and I wrote the 
 hymn to suit the metre. It is not a 
 translation of the German words. The 
 hymn was first sung in Park Street 
 Church, Boston, at a children's cele- 
 bration, July 4th, 1832, being intro- 
 duced, without my knowledge, by 
 Lowell Mason, Esq. [Dr. Edward 
 Everett Hale, at that time ten years 
 of age, was one of the children who 
 sang on this occasion.] 
 
 " I have always been interested in 
 the acquisition of languages, and had 
 facility in learning them. I have read 
 books in fifteen different languages; 
 and since my eighty-fifth birthday have 
 undertaken the Russian/' 
 
 Dr. Smith died on Saturday after- 
 noon, November 16, 1895. He had 
 just entered the 5.40 train for Read- 
 ville, a suburb of Boston, where he had 
 
 346 
 
MY COUNTRY, T IS OF THEE 
 
 an engagement to preach on the follow- 
 ing day. Turning to speak to a friend, 
 he gasped for breath, threw up his 
 hands, and fell backwards. He died 
 almost instantly. 
 
 On the morning of that day he had 
 entertained at his home in Newton 
 Centre, where he had lived in the one 
 house for more than half a century, his 
 old friend and Harvard classmate, the 
 Rev. Samuel M. May. Apparently in 
 the best of health, he told his friend of 
 the great pleasure he had experienced 
 in receiving so many tokens of respect 
 from all over the country ; and also ex- 
 pressed his gratification at being able 
 to start in a short time to visit his son in 
 Davenport, Iowa, with whom he ex- 
 pected to spend the winter. He bade 
 Mr. May good-bye within less than an 
 hour of his death. 
 
 A little while before this visit, Mr. 
 May had written to Dr. Smith, congrat- 
 ulating him on having the best health 
 
 347 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 and the greatest ability to work of any 
 of the four surviving members of their 
 class of 1829 in Harvard, and Dr. Smith 
 had answered in these words: " Yes, I 
 am, perhaps, the best in health of the 
 four remnants; I am grateful. Did I 
 ever tell you that I was wee and weakly 
 in my early days ? But the beginning of 
 the study of Latin was the signal of my 
 improvement, — a queer specific for 
 feeble childhood, not set down in the 
 medical books. I never found a Latin 
 lesson a task." 
 
 On the day of Dr. Smith's funeral 
 all the business places of Newton 
 Centre were closed, while the stars 
 and stripes were at half mast on the 
 common, the school building, and many 
 private residences. 
 
 As is well known, Dr. Oliver Wen- 
 dell Holmes, another classmate of Dr. 
 Smith at Harvard, in his celebrated 
 class reunion poem entitled " The 
 Boys," thus refers to him: 
 
MY COUNTRY, T IS OF THEE 
 
 " And there 's a nice youngster of excellent 
 pith, — 
 Fate thought to conceal him by naming him 
 
 Smith; 
 But he shouted a song for the brave and 
 
 the free, — 
 Just read on his medal, ' My country,' ' of 
 thee ' ! " 
 
 Herbert D. Ward writes: "Dr. 
 Holmes once said, ' Now, there 's 
 Smith. His name will be honoured by 
 every school child in the land when I 
 have been forgotten for a hundred 
 years. He wrote " My Country, 'T is of 
 Thee." If he had said " Our country " 
 the hymn would not have been immor- 
 tal, but that " my " was a master stroke. 
 Every one who sings the hymn at once 
 feels a personal ownership in his native 
 land. The hymn will last as long as 
 the country/ " 
 
 Continuing, Mr. Ward, writing in 
 April, 1895 (seven months before the 
 death of the venerable author) , gives us 
 this interesting glimpse : " Dear old 
 
 349 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Dr, Smith and I happen to live in the 
 same town, and I can speak of him with 
 the freedom of a neighbour and the 
 reserve of an acquaintance. He is 
 only eighty-six years old, and he gives 
 the impression of being about seventy. 
 With the exception of his deafness, 
 which necessitates thoughtful articula- 
 tion in talking to him, he is as hearty as 
 he was forty years ago. The simpli- 
 city of his life is one secret of its 
 strength and beauty. He lives in a 
 modest gabled brown house opposite 
 the common. There seems to be a sort 
 of poetic justice in the fact that on 
 every school day the stars and stripes 
 wave to the breeze from the tall pole in 
 front of his house, and that the words 
 of his own immortal song easily and 
 often find their way, in children's voices, 
 across the common, the street, the little 
 front yard, to the heart of their birth. 
 He is wide-awake to every phase of 
 modern life, a profound student of 
 
 350 
 
MY COUNTRY, 't IS OF THEE 
 
 language, a courteous citizen, and a 
 Christian neighbour and friend. He is 
 always happy, and he has conferred 
 happiness upon millions." 
 
 On the 3d of April, 1895, a great 
 celebration was held in Music Hall, 
 Boston, in honour of Dr. Smith, and 
 above five thousand people attended the 
 afternoon and evening exercises, the 
 afternoon service being especially for 
 children. Dr. Smith was the central 
 figure at each meeting. The decora- 
 tions were in keeping with the patriotic 
 nature of the occasion; flags and 
 streamers were displayed, together with 
 mottoes, emblems, and banners. In the 
 rear of the hall, on a black background, 
 and printed in gold letters, was the first 
 line of " America," " My country, 't is 
 of thee," also draped with the national 
 colours. Both balconies were draped 
 with bunting, caught up here and there 
 with appropriate emblems and flags. 
 The seals of the several States of the 
 
 351 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Union were represented on the walls 
 above. It was a picturesque scene and 
 one well calculated to stir the hearts 
 of the thousands who beheld it. 
 
 In response to an address by Gover- 
 nor F. T. Greenhalge, Dr. Smith said: 
 " I have no words to express the gratifi- 
 cation given me by the fact that you 
 have taken my poor little waif — of 
 which I thought so little — and made 
 of it a national hymn. When I think 
 of the circumstances under which it has 
 been sung — in children's schools, in 
 war meetings, on battlefields, in camp 
 grounds, and in hospitals — when I 
 think of the spirit of patriotism which 
 I hope has been nurtured by means of 
 it, I feel that you have done a wonder- 
 ful work. I feel that you have done me 
 and yourselves a service in thus teach- 
 ing patriotism to the children and to the 
 men and women of the country." 
 
 " It was an inspiration," says a 
 writer, " to be present and to have the 
 
 352 
 
MY COUNTRY, T IS OF THEE 
 
 honour of listening to the laureate of 
 American patriotism. 55 And another 
 writes of him at this time : " It is doubt- 
 ful if Dr. Smith has an enemy, an 
 opponent, a critic. He is a splendid 
 example of true Christian character. 
 He and his poem have gone round the 
 world as promoters of love of country 
 and of the universal kingdom of God." 
 It is pleasant to know that our great 
 patriotic hymn had its inspiration in so 
 pure a heart. 
 
 A handsome souvenir of the occa- 
 sion contained the following statement 
 by Dr. Smith of the origin of the 
 hymn: 
 
 "In the year 1831 William C. 
 Woodbridge, of New York, a noted 
 educator, was deputed to visit Germany 
 and inspect the system of the public 
 schools, that if he should find in them 
 any features of interest unknown to 
 our public schools here, they might be 
 adopted in the schools of the United 
 
 33 353 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 States. He found that in the German 
 schools much attention was given to 
 music; he also found many books con- 
 taining music and songs for children. 
 Returning home, he brought several of 
 these music books, and placed them in 
 the hands of Mr. Lowell Mason, then a 
 noted composer, organist, and choir 
 leader. Having himself no knowledge 
 of the German language, Mr. Mason 
 brought them to me at Andover, where I 
 was then studying theology, requesting 
 me, as I should find time, to furnish him 
 translations of the German words, or 
 to write new hymns and songs adapted 
 to the German music. 
 
 " On a dismal day in February, 1832, 
 looking over one of these books, my 
 attention was drawn to a tune which 
 attracted me by its simple and natural 
 movement and its fitness for children's 
 choirs. Glancing at the German words 
 at the foot of the page, I saw that they 
 were patriotic, and I was instantly iri- 
 
 354 
 
MY COUNTRY, T IS OF THEE 
 
 spired to write a patriotic hymn of my 
 own. 
 
 " Seizing a scrap of waste paper, 
 I began to write, and in half an hour, 
 I think, the words stood upon it sub- 
 stantially as they are sung to-day. I 
 did not know at the time that the tune 
 was the British ' God Save the King/ 
 I do not share the regret of those who 
 deem it an evil that the national tune 
 of Britain and America is the same. 
 On the contrary, I deem it a new 
 and beautiful tie of union between 
 the mother and the daughter, one 
 furnishing the music (if, indeed, it 
 is really English) and the other the 
 words. 
 
 " I did not propose to write a national 
 hymn. I did not think that I had done 
 so. I laid the song aside, and nearly 
 forgot that I had made it. Some weeks 
 later I sent it to Mr. Mason, and on 
 the following 4th of July, much to 
 my surprise, he brought it out at a chil- 
 
 355 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 dren's celebration, where it was first 
 sung in public." 
 
 In an article written for The Out- 
 look, Dr. Smith added the following: 
 
 " I began very soon to hear of the 
 hymn as being sung in numerous 
 schools, at patriotic gatherings, at pic- 
 nics, from Maine to Texas. The people 
 took it into their hearts. It found a 
 place in the hymn books of the various 
 denominations. It came back to me 
 with variations in Latin, in Italian, in 
 German, and in Swedish. The scenes 
 connected with the Civil War called it 
 into universal requisition. The chil- 
 dren had learned it at school, and now 
 it nerved them as stalwart men. It was 
 sung at meetings held to encourage vol- 
 unteering into the army, to celebrate 
 victories, to fast and pray after defeats, 
 at soldiers' funerals, when the women 
 met to pick lint and prepare bandages 
 for the wounded, or to forward supplies 
 to the front, in all schools and in all 
 
 356 
 
MY COUNTRY, T IS OF THEE 
 
 congregations. At a reception which 
 I attended once in San Francisco I 
 heard General Howard, whose empty 
 sleeve spoke volumes, tell, with a tremor 
 in his voice and tears on his cheeks, how 
 he had heard it on the battlefields and 
 in hospitals, by day and by night; the 
 poor mutilated soldiers, as soon as their 
 wounds were dressed, lifting up their 
 voices in harmony, and singing yet an- 
 other psean for their country, for which 
 they were proud to suffer and to die; 
 and the words seemed even to recall the 
 dying to life. Not a dry eye was in the 
 assembly as he reviewed the experiences 
 of that period of the Nation's peril. 
 And I have heard the hymn myself 
 sung half round the world, wherever 
 there are English tongues to speak or 
 American hearts to pulsate." 
 
 The Outlook adds: 
 
 " The great celebration of Colum- 
 bus Day, at the World Exposition, 
 Chicago, which happened to fall on the 
 
 357 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 birthday of the author of ' America/ 
 was the occasion of another glorious 
 utterance of the song. The public 
 authorities determined to make the day 
 not only memorable in honour of Co- 
 lumbus and the discovery of America, 
 but also contributory to the patriotism 
 of the country, and especially a lesson 
 for the children. And thus from East 
 to West, from sea to sea, from the ris- 
 ing of the sun to the going down of the 
 same, the hymn of patriotism rolled in 
 tides across the land from the Atlantic 
 to the Pacific, — a joyful paean of 
 thanksgiving and a pledge of infinite 
 promise/' 
 
 On the Sunday preceding the Boston 
 celebration, Dr. Smith preached for the 
 last time in Newton Centre. The clos- 
 ing words of his final prayer had an 
 almost pathetic significance in the light 
 of the manner of his death, which was 
 soon to come: " So let our lives pass 
 sweetly onward from Sabbath to Sab- 
 
 358 
 
MY COUNTRY, *T IS OF THEE 
 
 bath, and from year to year, until sud- 
 denly, at some appointed time, we shall 
 be permitted to change the earthly for 
 the heavenly temple; the music of 
 earth fading from our ears only to be 
 exchanged for the music of heaven, 
 whose sweetness shall never end." 
 
 Dr. Smith relates that when travel- 
 ling in Italy, with a company of Amer- 
 icans, he spent a few days in Pompeii. 
 It was suggested that it would be very 
 appropriate in that dead and buried 
 city to sing a live hymn, and " My 
 Country, 'T is of Thee " was sung. A 
 company of Scotchmen, not far away, 
 then sang " Auld Lang Syne," and soon 
 another group was heard singing a 
 third national favourite. 
 
 In Boston, in July, 1895, eleven 
 thousand Christian Endeavorers gave 
 Dr. Smith a royal ovation when he 
 appeared before them. 
 
 General James Grant Wilson tells 
 this interesting incident: 
 
 359 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 " At the Hampton Institute, near 
 Fort Monroe, Va., they have a peculiar 
 but most interesting and effective man- 
 ner of rendering ' America.' A trio, 
 representing the white, negro, and In- 
 dian races, sing together, 
 
 " 4 My country, 't is of thee, 
 Sweet land of liberty, 
 Of thee I sing.' 
 
 The Indian alone sings, 
 
 " ' Land where my fathers died ' ; 
 
 the white man, 
 
 " ' Land of the pilgrims' pride,' 
 
 and the negro, 
 
 " c From every mountain side 
 Let freedom ring.' 
 
 The Indians, in chorus, then sing the 
 second stanza, beginning, 
 
 " ' My native country, thee ' ; 
 
 360 
 
MY COUNTRY, T IS OF THEE 
 
 the negroes the third, 
 
 " ' Let music swell the breeze,* 
 
 and then all join in the last — 
 
 * ' Our fathers' God, to Thee, 
 Author of liberty, 
 
 To Thee we sing: 
 Long may our land be bright 
 With freedom's holy light: 
 Protect us by Thy might, 
 Great God, our King.' " 
 
 Edward Marshall, the talented young 
 newspaper correspondent, was among 
 the Americans seriously wounded dur- 
 ing our war with Spain. While in a 
 New York hospital, receiving treat- 
 ment for his wounds, he dictated for 
 one of our leading magazines the fol- 
 lowing pen-picture of the field at 
 Guasimas : 
 
 " There is one incident which shines 
 out in my memory above all others as 
 I lie in a New York hospital writing. 
 It was just after the battle near Santi- 
 
 361 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 ago, on the 24th of June. It was in the 
 field hospital^ and a continual chorus of 
 moans rose through the tree branches 
 overhead. Amputation and death 
 stared its members in their gloomy 
 faces. Suddenly a voice started softly : 
 
 " ' My country, 't is of thee, 
 Sweet land of liberty, 
 Of thee I sing/ 
 
 Others then took up the lines : 
 
 " c Land where my fathers died, 
 Land of the pilgrims' pride — ' 
 
 " The quivering chorus, punctuated 
 by groans and made spasmodic by pain, 
 trembled up from that little group of 
 wounded Americans in the midst of the 
 Cuban solitude, — the pluckiest, most 
 heartfelt song that human beings ever 
 sang. 
 
 " But there was one voice that did 
 not quite keep up with the others. It 
 was so weak that it hardly could be 
 
 362 
 
MY COUNTRY, T IS OF THEE 
 
 heard until all the rest had finished with 
 the line : 
 
 " * Let freedom ring. 5 
 
 Then halting, struggling, faint, it 
 repeated, slowly: 
 
 " 4 Land-of-the-pilgrims'-pride, 
 Let freedom — ' 
 
 The last word was a woful cry. 
 One more son had died as died the 
 fathers." 
 
 At the meeting of the General As- 
 sembly of the Presbyterian Church in 
 Des Moines, Iowa, in May, 1906, the 
 Rev. Henry van Dyke, D.D., made a 
 strong plea in behalf of the churches 
 which had been destroyed a short time 
 before by the disastrous California 
 earthquake. During this address he 
 recited two additional stanzas for 
 " America," which have excited deep 
 and far-reaching interest. Dr. van 
 Dyke has kindly furnished the fol- 
 
 363 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 lowing information relative to their 
 composition : 
 
 " They were suggested to me in con- 
 nection with the wonderful expression 
 of sympathy, from all parts of the 
 United States, with the sufferings 
 caused by the San Francisco earth- 
 quake. I remembered my journeys in 
 California, and with that remembrance 
 came up to me the vision of the many 
 sublime and beautiful scenes which I 
 had looked upon in the course of my 
 wanderings through this great land. 
 I felt sure that the patriotic feeling of 
 every true American must have within 
 itself the recollection of such visions as 
 these; and that love of the land itself 
 — so vast, so varied, so rich, so beauti- 
 ful — must be an essential element in 
 the love of country. 
 
 "Who that has ever lived in New 
 England can fail to remember and feel 
 the charm of that landscape, with its 
 gentle wildness, its cool, friendly wood- 
 
 v 364 
 
MY COUNTRY, 't IS OF THEE 
 
 lands, its bright little rivers, its white 
 churches crowning the hilltops? 
 
 " But Dr. Smith's poem needs other 
 stanzas to express the inexhaustible 
 riches of the sublime and beautiful, the 
 broad and varied natural enchantments 
 of all America. Let us sing the famil- 
 iar and w T ell-loved verses which come 
 from the East; but let us sing also 
 of the North and the West and the 
 South, the Great Lakes, the wide for- 
 ests, the vast prairies and the blooming 
 savannahs." 
 
 The lines have already been widely 
 printed and almost as widely mis- 
 printed. The following version was 
 furnished by Dr. van Dyke himself: 
 
 " I love thine inland seas, 
 Thy groves of giant trees, 
 
 Thy rolling plains; 
 Thy rivers' mighty sweep, 
 Thy mystic canyons deep, 
 Thy mountains wild and steep, 
 
 All thy domains: 
 
 365 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 " Thy silver Eastern strands, 
 Thy Golden Gate that stands 
 
 Fronting the West ; 
 Thy flowery Southland fair, 
 Thy sweet and crystal air, — 
 O Land beyond compare, 
 
 Thee I love best!" 
 
 366 
 
XVII 
 
 THE GLORY SONG 
 
That Will Be Glory. 
 
 Cbas. H. Qabrtol. 
 
 1. When alt my la-borsand tri-als are' o'er, And I am safe on that 
 
 2. When, by the gift of His in - fin - ite grace, I am ac-cord-ed in 
 
 3. Friends will be; there I have loved long a - go; Joy like a riv-er a- 
 
 -J- 
 
 beau - ti - fnl shore, Jn3t to be near the dear Lord I a - dore, 
 heav -en a place, Just to be there and to look on His face, 
 round me will flow; Yet, just a smile from my Sav-ior, I know, 
 
 Will thro' the a-ges be glo-ry forme. that will be 
 
 >. — ., O tlutwill 
 
 glo-ry for me, Glo-ry for me, glo-ry for me; When by His grace 
 be glo-ry for me, Glo-ry for me, glo-ry for me; 
 
 tr — * 
 
 I shall look on His face, That will be glo - ry, be glo-ry for me. 
 
 
THE GLORY SONG 
 
 HE Rev. George T. B. 
 Davis thus refers, in 1905, 
 to the great Torrey- 
 Alexander Mission: 
 " Such a revival jour- 
 ney, which has completely circled the 
 earth, is entirely unprecedented in the 
 history of the Christian Church. Other 
 evangelists — such as Wesley, White- 
 field, Finney, Moody and Sankey — 
 have been mightily used of God on the 
 two continents of America and Europe, 
 but never has a great revivalist gone 
 completely around the world preaching 
 the same gospel to the yellow races of 
 Japan and China, the mixed popula- 
 tions of Australia, and the dark-skinned 
 natives of India. ... A significant 
 feature of this world-wide awakening 
 has been the prominent place occupied 
 in it by gospel songs. Everywhere the 
 
 371 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 people have caught up these revival 
 hymns with boundless enthusiasm, and 
 God has wonderfully used them in 
 the conversion of thousands of the 
 unsaved/' 
 
 Among these great revival melodies 
 not one has so thrilled the hearts of 
 men and been so blessed of God in the 
 salvation of immortal souls as the 
 famous " Glory Song," which, though 
 written so recently as 1900, is already 
 known the world over, and has at- 
 tained unprecedented popularity and 
 usefulness. 
 
 The gifted author of this stirring 
 hymn, Mr. Charles H. Gabriel, was 
 born in the late fifties of the last cen- 
 tury, in Iowa, and spent his earlier 
 years on a farm in that State. At the 
 age of seventeen he left his home and 
 started out into the world, alone and 
 unaided, to attempt the realisation of 
 his boyhood's dreams. In this he has 
 been eminently successful, in spite of 
 
 372 
 
f VvE GOT A SOXG THAT IS GOING TO LIVE \" Page 372. 
 
THE GLORY SONG 
 
 many difficulties. He is, in the fullest 
 sense of the word, " a self-made man," 
 and deserves full praise for all that his 
 indomitable perseverance and splendid 
 energy have enabled him to accomplish. 
 Personally, he is genial and sympa- 
 thetic; he is a lover of little children 
 and a helper of men in their times of 
 need. His melodies are universally 
 popular, and have received the highest 
 commendation. 
 
 During the early summer of 1900, 
 while bicycle riding with a Chicago 
 publisher, for whom he was at the time 
 preparing manuscript, he said to his 
 friend : " I Ve got a song that is going 
 to live!" He then gave the title of, 
 and made brief quotations from, " O 
 that will be glory." 
 
 In view of the fact that this famous 
 composition has been restricted to spe- 
 cial publications, its phenomenal popu- 
 larity is the more remarkable. It will 
 doubtless be of interest to state that 
 
 373 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 its author received only ten dollars for 
 the copyright and sole use of it; and 
 this admirably illustrates the fact that 
 gospel songs are not always written 
 merely for gain. 
 
 Charles M. Alexander, the magnetic 
 gospel singer, has made the " Glory 
 Song " famous wherever the English 
 language is spoken. He was born on 
 a farm in Tennessee thirty-eight years 
 ago. His parents were earnest Chris- 
 tians, and both were excellent singers. 
 On Sunday afternoons people would 
 drive from far and near over the hills 
 and gather on the pleasant verandah to 
 enjoy the singing of sacred hymns, led 
 by the father. The boy early devel- 
 oped ability of a musical nature, and 
 his parents did all that they could to 
 encourage him. His own story of how 
 he received the special inspiration to 
 make the most of his life is very 
 interesting. 
 
 " I read in some magazine," he says, 
 
 374 
 
Photo by Gutekunst, Philadelphia* 
 
 (Mm^M MmnA 
 
 jt&wmuhi 4-/6: 
 
THE GLORY SONG 
 
 " about Gilmore, the famous band 
 leader, in which it was told how, from a 
 poor Irish boy coming over to America, 
 he had gradually perfected himself in 
 music until he had brought together 
 one of the largest bands in America; 
 and how, eventually, he had organised 
 a great choir of singers in New Orleans. 
 I thought that if that little lone Irish 
 boy could do that, there might be some 
 chance for me. I never quite got that 
 magazine article out of my mind. I 
 went to studying band instruments 
 from a scientific standpoint, — what 
 combinations of strings, brass or reed 
 instruments, would produce certain 
 effects. People said I was wasting my 
 time, but I kept right on. I was simply 
 studying to perfect myself in accord- 
 ance with my dreams of the future; 
 and I did not stop with singing or play- 
 ing. I would go and listen to orators 
 to see how they controlled their listen- 
 ers, because I knew that if I was going 
 
 375 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 to handle big crowds successfully I 'd 
 have to learn how to get and keep their 
 attention. At that time I was between 
 fifteen and sixteen years of age. I read 
 a good deal of religious literature, and 
 also the biographies of many great men 
 both of England and America, and I 
 found that reading them gave me an 
 insight into the work for which I was 
 preparing." 
 
 He finally became an instructor of 
 music in Maryville College, Tennessee, 
 where he remained until his twenty- 
 fourth year, when he entered the Moody 
 Bible Institute, Chicago, and took a 
 full course in gospel hymnology and in 
 Bible study in order to prepare himself 
 thoroughly for what he had determined 
 should be the great ambition and aim 
 of his lif e, — the reaching of the un- 
 saved through the singing of the gos- 
 pel. For eight years after graduation 
 he visited a number of towns in the 
 middle West with the Rev. M. B, Wil- 
 
 376 
 
THE GLORY SONG 
 
 liams, assisting him in successful evan- 
 gelistic services. 
 
 In the spring of 1902 he went to 
 Australia at the urgent invitation of 
 Dr. R. A. Torrey, and united with him 
 in the great revival services which have 
 since that time been extended by these 
 two consecrated Christian workers al- 
 most over the world. 
 
 Mr. Alexander is a matchless leader, 
 and has a charming, winsome person- 
 ality. He is a prime favourite wher- 
 ever he goes; and all who know him 
 love him for his sterling worth and 
 genuine manhood. 
 
 We will let him tell, in his own words, 
 how the " Glory Song " became world- 
 famous : 
 
 " The ' Glory Song/ words and 
 music, was written in Chicago, by 
 Charles H. Gabriel, who is probably 
 the most popular gospel song-writer in 
 America to-day. I remember quite 
 well the first time I saw it in looking 
 
 377 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 over a new song-book. I just glanced 
 at it, and then said to myself, ' That 
 man has wasted a page, for I do not 
 believe that song will be sung much.' 
 
 " Some months later I stepped into 
 a large Sunday-school convention and 
 heard an audience singing it. It took 
 such a hold, of me that I could think of 
 nothing else for days thereafter. I got 
 my friends to sing it. I dreamed about 
 it, and woke to the rhythm of it. Then 
 I began to teach it to large audiences, 
 and soon whole towns were ringing with 
 the melody. 
 
 " I remember one little town in Kan- 
 sas, called Wellington, where the Uni- 
 versity students turned out in a body, 
 young men and women, and marched 
 through the streets, four abreast, sing- 
 ing with fervour: 
 
 " ' Oh, that will be glory for me, 
 Glory for me, glory for me; 
 When by His grace I shall look on His face, 
 That will be glory for me.' 
 378 
 
THE GLORY SONG 
 
 " Later, I was in a neighbouring 
 town conducting a mission, and the 
 largest revival excursion I ever heard 
 of came to visit us. They had chartered 
 a special train of fourteen cars and 
 two engines, and brought over eight 
 hundred people, — many of them 
 prominent merchants, bankers, society 
 leaders, and people of all grades and 
 classes. When they alighted from the 
 train, they formed in long lines, four 
 deep, and inarched through the streets, 
 each one wearing a ribbon on which 
 was printed in large letters, ' Glory for 
 me/ They set the entire town ringing 
 with the inspiring song. 
 
 " This was a little while before I 
 went to Melbourne. When I started 
 for Australia, I made up my mind 
 that the ' Glory Song' should be the 
 popular song of the campaign. I 
 felt that it would stand any pressure 
 that might be brought to bear upon 
 it. I had the music plate in my box 
 
 379 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 and determined to make good use 
 of it. 
 
 "Dr. Torrey had requested me to 
 go ahead of him, and when I reached 
 Australia, a week before he did, I 
 didn't know a single person there. I 
 was at once elected Musical Superin- 
 tendent of the fifty different centres 
 of the Melbourne Simultaneous Mis- 
 sion. I had several thousand copies of 
 the ' Glory Song ' printed so as to be 
 ready for the great welcome meeting 
 in Melbourne Town Hall. 
 
 " I remember with what anxiety I 
 approached that meeting. I felt that 
 the success of the musical part of the 
 mission depended upon some one song 
 catching the brains and hearts of the 
 people. After we had sung a few 
 songs, I announced that the next would 
 be the ' Glory Song,' which was to be 
 the revival song. They picked it up 
 with the regular Australian enthusiasm 
 and it was an instant success. 
 
 380 
 
THE GLORY SONG 
 
 " The next day all over the city in- 
 quiries were made for the 'Glory Song/ 
 It was printed in all kinds of papers 
 and magazines, hummed in street-cars, 
 in shops, and in factories, and ground 
 out from hand organs. Within a month 
 it was being sung all over Australia; 
 and a popular writer declared that it 
 had ' set Australia on fire.' 
 
 " When we were conducting our cam- 
 paign in the great Town Hall, Sydney, 
 we had leaflets with the ' Glory Song ' 
 printed on them, and an invitation to 
 the meetings printed at the bottom. 
 We distributed these by thousands, 
 handing them to each person as he 
 came in. We would ask them, if they 
 already had a copy of the song in their 
 song books, to mail the leaflets to 
 friends in the country who never got 
 new songs, or put them in parcels as 
 they sent them away. 
 
 " One day I had asked them to do 
 this. A lady, when she returned home 
 
 381 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 from the service, had occasion to send 
 a pair of shoes to be mended. She 
 happened to think about the ' Glory- 
 Song ' and put the leaflet into the 
 bundle. The next day she went down 
 to the shoemaker's, and found the old 
 fellow pegging away with tears rolling 
 down his cheeks. She asked, ' What 
 is the matter? ' He replied, ' Do you 
 remember that " Glory Song " you put 
 into the bundle? Last night I got my 
 little family around the organ and we 
 sang it. I noticed the invitation to 
 come to the Town Hall and hear Torrey 
 and Alexander, so I went up last night. 
 I heard Dr. Torrey preach, and I gave 
 my heart to God. I have sent my wife 
 and children up this afternoon to the 
 meeting, and I am just praying that 
 God will save them/ 
 
 "And He did. The next night the 
 whole family came forward and pub- 
 licly confessed their acceptance of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 383 
 
THE GLORY SONG 
 
 ' Wherever we went in Australia, 
 Tasmania, and New Zealand, they 
 would immediately send a request for 
 the ' Glory Song. 5 We would often 
 stop at stations for a few minutes, when 
 we were on long railway journeys, and 
 people would get to know when we 
 would be passing through their town. 
 They would often telegraph us that if 
 we would get out for the few minutes 
 our train stopped at the station they 
 would have a lorry, with a piano in it, 
 and a crowd to listen to me sing a 
 verse and to Dr. Torrey while he 
 spoke for two or three minutes. I re- 
 member quite well one place where we 
 stopped for ten minutes they had a 
 brass band playing the c Glory Song ' 
 as we steamed in, and fifteen hundred 
 people had gathered there for that brief 
 service. One man came over a hundred 
 miles to be present at a five minutes' 
 meeting at a station. 
 
 "When we reached Great Britain, 
 
 383 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 everywhere we went throughout the 
 Kingdom the ' Glory Song ' was the 
 prime favourite. In Birmingham 
 the streets fairly rang with it. A musi- 
 cal expert in London, who watches the 
 songs of the nation, told me that he 
 had never known any song, sacred or 
 secular, to captivate Great Britain and 
 the Colonies as quickly and completely 
 as did the t Glory Song.' I have had 
 letters from Germany, France, Den- 
 mark, China, New Guinea, India, Zulu- 
 land, and other countries, saying that 
 the song had been translated into their 
 native languages and was a prime fa- 
 vourite with the people. 
 
 " It is a song that takes with society 
 people and musical people as well as 
 with the man on the street. The name 
 of the song at once interests everybody. 
 Millions of people have been reached 
 through its publication in the daily 
 papers. I was in a great many parts 
 of London, and asked all classes and 
 
 384 
 
THE GLORY SONG 
 
 all grades of people if they had ever 
 heard this song, and I did not receive 
 a single negative answer. 
 
 "A friend of mine made a bicycle 
 tour through western England, and he 
 said that people were whistling or sing- 
 ing the melody on the streets of almost 
 every village and city through which 
 he passed. 
 
 " In the Welsh revival the ' Glory 
 Song ' was in constant use, and was 
 one of the first songs to be used. It 
 was called for at almost every service 
 we held in the Royal Albert Hall, 
 London. One afternoon I did not have 
 it, and at the close of the meeting I 
 had pitiful and indignant appeals for 
 it. One clergyman said that he had 
 come two hundred miles and ought to 
 return that afternoon, but that he would 
 remain for the night meeting if we 
 would sing this song. 
 
 " Before each service requests would 
 be handed up to me from people from 
 
 96 385 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 different parts of the country who said 
 they had come long distances to hear 
 this song. I have also found that the 
 longer people sing it the better they 
 like it; and the greater volume that 
 can be secured in rendering it the bet- 
 ter it is. 
 
 " One afternoon a worker came to 
 me in the Royal Albert Hall, London, 
 and said that a Jew had been present 
 at the service and had heard the audi- 
 ence sing the ' Glory Song/ When 
 they came to the words 
 
 " * When by His grace I shall look on Hif 
 face,* 
 
 the thought came to him, € These thou- 
 sands of people seem sincere; they 
 may be right, and Jesus may be the 
 Messiah. If that be true, I shall never 
 look on His face unless I accept Him/ 
 And that train of thought led to his 
 taking Christ as his Saviour. , 
 
 "An interesting incident in refer- 
 
 386 
 
THE GLORY SONG 
 
 ence to the song was contained in a 
 letter I recently received from Eng- 
 land. The writer said that the song 
 was sung at the launching of H. M. S. 
 ' Dreadnaught,' the largest battleship 
 in the world, one of whose guns is said 
 to shoot twenty-seven miles. King 
 Edward was present and had given 
 orders that there be no band music, in 
 view of the recent death of his father- 
 in-law, the King of Denmark. His 
 command was complied with, but no or- 
 ders had been given prohibiting singing, 
 hence the blue- jackets on the warship 
 sang several hymns as the vessel was 
 launched, and the first number on the 
 program was the l Glory Song/ It 
 was simply another proof of the popu- 
 larity of the hymn." 
 
 At one of the meetings Mr. Alex- 
 ander made this statement: "Just as 
 I came in the door I was handed the 
 1 Glory Song ' in three Indian lan- 
 guages. That makes at least fifteen 
 
 887 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 languages into which the song has 
 been translated. There was a gentle- 
 man in the Bible Institute in Glasgow, 
 Scotland, when we held our meetings 
 there, who afterwards went out as 
 a missionary to China. He wrote me 
 a letter saying that as soon as he 
 got to the mission station what was 
 his surprise to hear the native Chris- 
 tians start up the ' Glory Song.' So 
 he translated it into Chinese and sent 
 it to me." 
 
 Mr. Alexander then asked the audi- 
 ence to tell where they had heard the 
 " Glory Song." A man rose and said, 
 " I heard it in Florida, and was de- 
 lighted with it." " I heard it in New 
 York," said another. One had heard 
 it in Glasgow, Scotland; another in 
 Belfast, Ireland; a third in Melbourne; 
 a fourth in Cardiff, Wales; and others 
 in Albert Hall, London, Johannesburg, 
 South Africa, Brighton, England, until 
 it seemed that almost every well-known 
 
 388" - 
 
THE GLORY SONG 
 
 place on the globe was represented in 
 the audience. 
 
 " Three years ago," said a Danish 
 pastor, " I was sick for a fortnight, and 
 while lying on my bed I received from 
 London a copy of a religious paper in 
 which there was a report of the Torrey- 
 Alexander revival and a reprint of the 
 1 Glory Song,' w r ords and music. In 
 that fortnight God came to my heart in 
 a w r onderful way, and as I lay in my 
 bed I translated the ' Glory Song ' into 
 Danish. When I was strong enough 
 I held revival meetings, and for four 
 weeks we sang the ' Glory Song,' and 
 I suppose God used it to save many 
 people. This autumn we had four 
 meetings, at which twenty-seven hun- 
 dred people were present — more than 
 half of them men — and we sang the 
 1 Glory Song ' evening by evening until 
 their hearts were glowing. When I re- 
 turn to Denmark I am going from city 
 to city and from town to town conduct- 
 
 389 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 ing revival meetings and teaching the 
 people to sing the ' Glory Song/ " 
 
 To hear a great congregation, led by- 
 Alexander, sing the " Glory Song " is 
 one of the rich spiritual privileges of 
 a lif etime. 
 
 590 
 
XVIII 
 
 SUNSET AND EVENING 
 STAR 
 
gmnset anb ebening star, 
 
 &nb one clear tall for me I 
 &nb map tfjere be no moaning of tfje bar, 
 
 Wfytu 3 put out to sea, 
 
 Put sucf) a titie as mobing seems asleep, 
 
 Coo full for sounb anb foam, 
 ©Hfjen tfjat tofticf) breto from out ttie bounbless 
 beep 
 
 £utns again fjome. 
 
 Ctotltgfjt anb ebening bell, 
 
 2tab after tfiat tfje bark t 
 JUnb map tfjere be no sabnes* of faretoell 
 
 '4Mi)tn 3 embark ; 
 
 jFor tfjougfj from out our bourne of QKme anb 
 $lace 
 
 Wfyt floob map bear me far, 
 3 Jjope to see mp $tlot face to face 
 
 TOen 3f babe crost tfje bar. 
 
LORD TENNYSON, AUTHOR OF SUNSET AND EVENING 
 
 STAR." 
 
SUNSET AND EVENING 
 STAR 
 
 OTHING that Tenny- 
 son has ever written," 
 declares Dr. Henry van 
 Dyke, " is more beauti- 
 ful in body and soul 
 than ' Crossing the Bar.' It is perfect 
 poetry — simple even to the verge of 
 austerity, yet rich with all the sugges- 
 tions of wide ocean and waning light and 
 vesper bells; easy to understand and 
 full of music, yet opening inward to a 
 truth which has no words, and pointing 
 onward to a vision which transcends all 
 forms ; it is a delight and a consolation, 
 a song for mortal ears, and a prelude 
 to the larger music of immortality.' ' 
 
 As a poem, this exquisite lyric has 
 already won a foremost place in our 
 language; and as a hymn it is steadily 
 increasing in popularity. 
 
 The present Lord Tennyson writes: 
 
 395 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 " ' Crossing the Bar ' was written in 
 my father's eighty-first year, on a day 
 in October, when we came from Aid- 
 worth to Farringford. Before reach- 
 ing Farringf ord he had the ' Moaning 
 of the Bar ' in his mind, and after din- 
 ner he showed me the poem written out. 
 I said, ' That is the crown of your life's 
 work.' He answered, ' It came in a 
 moment.' " 
 
 Jowett, Master of Balliol, said to the 
 beloved poet, when visiting him less 
 than a month previous to his death, " I 
 believe that your ' In Memoriam ' and 
 1 Crossing the Bar ' will live forever in 
 men's hearts." 
 
 " The student of poetry," says Dr. 
 Louis F. Benson, " was glad that the 
 old tree should bear so perfect a flower, 
 and the religious public was touched by 
 the venerable poet's avowal of his per- 
 sonal faith." 
 
 Space forbids that we give even a 
 brief review of the life-work of the 
 
 396 
 
SUNSET AND EVENING STAR 
 
 great poet who wrote these tender lines 
 " in the white winter of his age," but 
 since it is so intimately associated with 
 his last days, and was sung for the first 
 time, as an anthem, at his funeral, there 
 is peculiar fitness in recalling just here 
 some of the very interesting events 
 connected with his death and burial. 
 
 On the morning of Thursday, Octo- 
 ber 6, 1892, at half -past one o'clock, 
 Alfred Tennyson " passed to where 
 beyond these voices there is peace/' 
 One of his physicians, Sir Andrew 
 Clark, said that it was the most glorious 
 death he ever witnessed. There was 
 no artificial light, the room being 
 " flooded and bathed in the light of the 
 full moon streaming through the oriel 
 window." The midnight silence was 
 unbroken save by the autumn wind as 
 it gently played through the trees sur- 
 rounding the house, a fitting requiem 
 for him who had so often wandered 
 beneath their sheltering branches. 
 
 397 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 The tide of his life ebbed peacefully 
 out into the great ocean of eternity, and 
 so calmly did he respond to the beckon- 
 ing hand of the death angel that those 
 who stood about his bed scarcely knew 
 when the end came. It was much like 
 what he himself had written in " The 
 Passing of Arthur " : 
 
 " Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, 
 but faint 
 As from beyond the limit of the world, 
 Like the last echo born of a great cry, 
 Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice 
 Around a king returning from his wars." 
 
 During a wakeful interval on the 
 afternoon preceding his death, he had 
 asked for a copy of Shakespeare, and, 
 with his own hands turned to his favour- 
 ite lines in Cymbeline: 
 
 " Hang there, like fruit, my soul, 
 Till the tree die." 
 
 These, he frequently declared, were 
 among Shakespeare's tenderest words. 
 
 398 
 
SUNSET AND EVENING STAR 
 
 He fixed his eyes on the page, but did 
 not speak. He may or may not have 
 read the lines. He soon fell into slum- 
 ber, and with his hand resting on the 
 open book, the world-loved poet, weary 
 with the burdens of many years, entered 
 into his longed-for rest. There could 
 not have been a gentler passing of a 
 soul to its Creator. 
 
 Emily Gillmore Alden has happily 
 caught the spirit of the solemn hour in 
 her fine poem, " A Meet of Kings," 
 two stanzas of which are here given: 
 
 " It was ideal dying, as the moonlight touched 
 
 the face 
 Of English King of Letters, with its weird 
 
 and solemn grace; 
 It silvered all the iron greys that spread 
 
 the pillow white, 
 And made that room the vestibule of 
 
 heaven's celestial light. 
 
 " It was ideal dying ; the shallop crossed the 
 bar, 
 No pennon at the mast-head, but 't was 
 gemmed with evening star. 
 399 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Such Laureate needs no Union Jack to be 
 
 for him unfurled — 
 He was beloved of nations, and his Abbey 
 
 is the world ! " 
 
 With true poetic instinct, and with 
 a pen inspired by love for the great 
 poet, Dr. Henry van Dyke has en- 
 riched our literature with these charm- 
 ing verses : 
 
 " From the misty shores of midnight, touched 
 with splendours of the moon, 
 
 To the singing tides of heaven, and the light 
 more clear than noon, 
 
 Passed a soul that grew to music till it was 
 with God in tune. 
 
 " Brother of the greatest poets, true to 
 
 nature, true to art; 
 Lover of Immortal Love, uplifter of the 
 
 human heart, 
 Who shall cheer us with high music, who 
 
 shall sing, if thou depart? 
 
 " Silence here, — for love is silent, gazing 
 
 on the lessening sail; 
 Silence here, — for grief is voiceless when 
 
 the mighty poets fail; 
 Silence here, — but far beyond us, many 
 
 voices crying, Hail ! " 
 
 400 
 
SUNSET AND EVENING STAR 
 
 Hallam Tennyson, in his fine Memoir 
 of his father, thus describes love's last 
 tender ministries : 
 
 " For the next hours the full moon 
 flooded the room and the great land- 
 scape outside with light; and we 
 watched in solemn stillness. His pa- 
 tience and quiet strength had power 
 upon those who were nearest and dear- 
 est to him; we felt thankful for the 
 love and the utter peace of it all. . . . 
 As he was passing away, I spoke over 
 him his own prayer, ' God accept him! 
 Christ receive him!' because I knew 
 that he would have wished it. . . . He 
 looked very grand and peaceful with 
 the deep furrows of thought almost 
 smoothed away, and the old clergyman 
 of Lurgashall stood by the bed with 
 his hands raised, and said, ' Lord Ten- 
 nyson, God has taken you, who made 
 you a prince of men! Farewell! ' We 
 placed Cymbeline with him, and a laurel 
 wreath from Virgil's tomb, and wreaths 
 
 401 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 of roses, the flower he loved above all 
 flowers, and some of his Alexandrian 
 laurel — the poet's laurel. On the 
 evening of the 11th the coffin was set 
 upon our wagonette, and made beau- 
 tiful with stag's-horn moss and the 
 scarlet lobelia cardinalis; and draped 
 with the pall, woven by working men 
 and women of the North, and em- 
 broidered by the cottagers of Keswick; 
 and then we covered him with the 
 wreaths and crosses of flowers sent 
 from all parts of Great Britain. The 
 coachman, who had been for more than 
 thirty years my father's faithful ser- 
 vant, led the horse. 
 
 " Ourselves, the villagers, and the 
 school children followed over the moor 
 through our lane towards a glorious 
 sunset, and later through Haslemere 
 under brilliant starlight." 
 
 The next day, Wednesday, the 12th, 
 he was buried in Westminster Abbey, 
 his coffin being covered, at the request 
 
 402 
 
SUNSET AND EVENING STAR 
 
 of the Prince of Wales, with the Union 
 Jack. Vast multitudes thronged the 
 storied building. The nave was lined 
 by members of the famous Light Bri- 
 gade, successors of the noble men whose 
 distinguished bravery Tennyson im- 
 mortalised in one of his most spirited 
 poems — " The Charge of the Light 
 Brigade." 
 
 " Sunset and Evening Star," set to 
 music by Dr. Bridge, was sung. It is 
 pleasant to have the following graphic 
 picture of the scene at the grave pre- 
 served to us by the pen of the daugh- 
 ter of the Dean: "As the procession 
 slowly passed up the nave and paused 
 beneath the lantern, where the coffin 
 was placed during the first part of the 
 burial service, the sun lit up the dark 
 scene, and touched the red-and-blue 
 Union Jack upon the coffin with bril- 
 liant light, filtered through the painted 
 panes of Chaucer's window on the 
 cleared purple space by the open grave, 
 
 403 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 and lighting up the beautiful bust of 
 Dryden, the massive head of Long- 
 fellow, the gray tomb of Chaucer, and 
 the innumerable wreaths heaped upon 
 it. In the intense and solemn silence 
 which followed the reading of the les- 
 son were heard the voices of the choir 
 singing in subdued and tender tones 
 Tennyson's ' Crossing the Bar ' — those 
 beautiful words in which the poet, as 
 it were, foretold his calm and peaceful 
 deathbed,. In the second line, the clear, 
 thrilling notes of a boy's voice sounded 
 like a silver trumpet call amongst the 
 arches, and it was only at intervals that 
 one distinguished Dr. Bridge's beau- 
 tiful organ accompaniment, which 
 swelled gradually from a subdued mur- 
 mur, as of the moaning tide, into a 
 triumphant burst from the voices, so 
 blended together were words and 
 music.'' 
 
 " Tennyson retained," writes Dr. 
 Sutherland, "his power of vision and 
 
 404 
 
SUNSET AND EVENING STAR 
 
 expression to the last. He never wrote 
 anything more exquisite or enduring 
 than ' Sunset and Evening Star.' He 
 had all that makes life sweet and val- 
 uable, — ' love, obedience, troops of 
 friends/ — yet when death came there 
 was ' no moaning of the bar ' as he 
 crossed into the haven of eternal peace, 
 for his intellect was unclouded and his 
 faith firm. His life was a long and 
 golden day with a magnificent sunset." 
 
 The President of Lafayette College, 
 Dr. Ethelbert D. Warfield, writes: 
 " His after verse lost the early force, 
 but rallied in one last lyric to give 
 expression to the brave and hopeful 
 soul which made the man a poet; and 
 to reveal, like a ray of the setting sun, 
 the serene beauty of his evening sky. 
 The world was thrilled and gladdened 
 by that little song, and now that he has 
 c crossed the bar/ we do not need to 
 ask if he sleeps well beyond the sunset." 
 
 An interesting incident in connection 
 
 405 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OF THE WORLD 
 
 with the hymn is given by Mr. Harry 
 Pringle Ford: " Some years ago, on 
 a beautiful afternoon in the early 
 autumn, I went for the first time along 
 the famous Cliff Walk of Newport, 
 Rhode Island. To a lover of art and 
 nature the scene was one of rare beauty. 
 On my right were the palatial homes 
 of wealthy men ; while at some distance 
 below, and stretching far away to the 
 left, was the great pulsing Atlantic, 
 making its ceaseless plaint to the lofty 
 cliffs. As I neared the end of the walk 
 the ocean was beginning to reflect the 
 crimson of the setting sun. Soon the 
 great orb sank in splendour beneath 
 the waters, leaving on the surface a 
 pathway of burnished gold and a sky 
 aglow with colour. Near-by yachts, be- 
 lated by the calm, caught the freshen- 
 ing evening breeze and sped for the 
 harbour, while far-away ships gave an 
 added touch to the picturesqueness of 
 the well-nigh perfect scenes As I 
 
 406 
 
SUNSET AND EVENING STAR 
 
 looked out over the limpid waters, and 
 then up to the magnificent afterglow in 
 the western sky, my eye caught, in the 
 cloudless atmosphere, the gleam of a 
 star, resplendent in its beauty. In- 
 stantly there flashed upon my mind the 
 words : 
 
 " 4 Sunset and evening star, 
 And one clear call for me/ 
 
 " I was younger then; and to me the 
 ' one clear call ' was not to face death 
 but life ; to take my Pilot on board for 
 time as well as for eternity; to feel the 
 need of Him as much on the open main 
 as when making for the harbour. The 
 1 one clear call ' should be a trumpet 
 sound to present duty, and a splendid 
 stimulus to all to ' follow the Gleam/ 
 as did Merlin. I have always been 
 grateful for the sunset and evening 
 star at Newport, and to Tennyson for 
 helping me, by his tender lines, to make 
 the experience an incentive to nobler 
 endeavour" 
 
 40T 
 
FAMOUS HYMNS OT THE WORLD 
 
 " Sunset and Evening Star " was a 
 favourite of Dr. George Yardley Tay- 
 lor, the brilliant young physician who 
 gave up his life so heroically at Paou- 
 tingfu, China, in the massacre of June, 
 1900. During the days preceding the 
 tragedy the little circle of men, women, 
 and children, who were so soon to seal 
 their faith with their blood, frequently 
 gathered about the organ in the Com- 
 pound and sang the songs of the home- 
 land, now doubly dear and consoling to 
 them because of their helplessness and 
 need; and with pathetic prescience 
 Tennyson's beautiful sunset hymn was 
 always included. It would be difficult 
 to imagine a greater contrast than that 
 which existed between the peaceful sur- 
 roundings of the gifted author when 
 he " crossed the bar " in the early 
 autumn morning, and the wild tumult 
 through which these brave young mis- 
 sionaries went to their martyrdom; but 
 we doubt not that the same gentle Pilot 
 
 408 
 
SUNSET AND EVENING STAR 
 
 who stood in the quiet moonlit chamber, 
 while 
 
 " The casement slowly grew a glimmering 
 square," 
 
 was also " keeping watch above His 
 own" at the awful carnage; and that 
 after the " sunset and evening bells," 
 He tenderly guided them all — poet 
 and martyrs — to their desired haven, 
 to be with Him forever in " a house 
 not made with hands, eternal in the 
 heavens." 
 
 409 
 
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