For God doth not a whit respect
Profession, person, or degree;
But maketh choice of His elect
From every sort of men that be,
That none might of His love despair,
But all men unto Him repair.
For those, oh let us therefore pray,
Who seem uncallèd to remain;
Not shunning them, as cast away,
God’s favour never to obtain:
For some awhile neglected are,
To stir in us more loving care.
And for ourselves, let us desire,
That we our avarice may shun;
When God our service shall require,
As this Evangelist hath done,
And spend the remnant of our days
In setting forth our Maker’s praise.
There is nothing in these simple lines of the exquisite beauty of
Keble’s poem on St. Matthew’s Day, one verse of which would reconcile
the least ecclesiastical of us to the observance of saints’ days—
There are in this loud stunning tide
Of human care and crime,
With whom the melodies abide
Of the everlasting chime;
Who carry music in their heart,
Through dusky lane and wrangling mart;
Plying their daily task with busier feet,
Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.
But as a hymn to be sung in church or to be read in the hour of
private devotion, Wither’s lines compare very favourably with those of
Bishop Ken,[83] Bishop Wordsworth, and even Dr. Monsell.
Wither’s hymn for Whit Sunday is a very appropriate ‘devotion’ for
that festival. Here are four of its six verses—
Exceeding faithful in Thy word,
And just in all Thy ways,
We do acknowledge Thee, O Lord,
And therefore give Thee praise:
For as Thy promise Thou didst pass,
Before Thou went’st away,
Sent down Thy Holy Spirit was,
At His appointed day.
Now, also, Blessed Spirit, come,
Unto our souls appear;
And of Thy graces shower Thou some
On this assembly here:
To us Thy dove-like meekness lend,
That humble we may be,
And on Thy silver wings ascend,
Our Saviour Christ to see.
O let Thy cloven tongues, we pray,
So rest on us again,
That both the truth confess we may
And teach it other men.
Moreover, let Thy heavenly fire,
Inflamèd from above,
Burn up in us each vain desire,
And warm our hearts with love.
Vouchsafe Thou likewise to bestow
On us Thy sacred peace;
We stronger may in union grow,
And in debates decrease;
Which peace, though many yet contemn,
Reformèd let them be;
That we may, Lord, have part in them,
And they have part in Thee.
Other poems in this series are well worth preserving, though perhaps
few would find favour with the average congregation. For the most part
they run smoothly; the language is that of plain men, and the spirit
of the festival finds happy expression in praise or prayer. His
Communion hymn is intended to be sung during the administration. It is
interesting to find that those who are now adopting this custom are
but reviving an ancient order. ‘We have a custom among us,’ he says,
‘that during the time of administering the blessed Sacrament of the
Lord’s Supper there is some psalm or hymn sung, the better to keep the
thoughts of the communicants from wandering after vain objects.’
But the piece which is most easily adapted to modern use is the poem,
a paraphrase of Ps. cxlvii., which he prefixed to his _Preparation for
the Psalter_. I give the poem as Wither published it. Mr. Horder and
Miss Wood[84] have shown how well it may be adapted to public worship.
Come, O come! in pious lays
Sound we God Almighty’s praise;
Hither bring in one consent,
Heart, and voice, and instrument.
Music add of every kind;
Sound the trump, the cornet wind;
Strike the viol, touch the lute;
Let no tongue nor string be mute;
Nor a creature dumb be found,
That hath either voice or sound.
Come, ye sons of human race,
In this chorus take a place;
And amid the mortal throng,
Be you masters of the song.
Angels, and supernal powers,
Be the noblest tenor yours;
Let in praise of God the sound
Run a never-ending round;
That our song of praise may be
Everlasting as is He.
From earth’s vast and hollow womb,
Music’s deepest bass may come;
Seas and floods, from shore to shore,
Shall their countertenors roar,
To this concert, when we sing,
Whistling winds your descants bring;
That our song may over-climb
All the bounds of place and time,
And ascend from sphere to sphere,
To the great Almighty’s ear.
So, from heaven, on earth He shall
Let His gracious blessings fall:
And this huge wide orb we see,
Shall one choir, one temple be;
Where, in such a praise-full tone
We will sing what He hath done,
That the cursèd fiends below
Shall thereat impatient grow.
Then, O come! in pious lays
Sound we God Almighty’s praise.
Wither has been slow in winning his place among our sacred poets. He
was a man of war from his youth, had a perilous gift of sarcasm, and
lacked the caution and good sense which were so much needed in his
troublous times. He was boycotted by the booksellers, satirized by
Butler in _Hudibras_, by Pope, Dryden, and Swift, and seemed likely to
be forgotten, save as the butt of a former age. But Southey, Charles
Lamb, Montgomery, Edward Farr, George Macdonald, F. T. Palgrave, Dr.
Grosart, among others have recognized his merits. He was a devout man
and courageous, for he not only fought on both sides in the Civil War,
but with rarer bravery chose to remain in London during the Great
Plague, and to render what little help he could to the sufferers in
that awful visitation. The king is said to have spared his life at Sir
John Denham’s good-naturedly contemptuous entreaty that he (Denham)
might not be ‘the worst poet in England’; his contemporaries thought
the prison cell a fit cage for the poet, but somehow he joined the
lark, and sang at heaven’s gate.[85]
Samuel Crossman, who died in 1683, within a few weeks of his
appointment to the Deanery of Bristol, makes up in quality what he
lacks in quantity. Of his nine hymns—published in 1660—two or three
have won an assured place in the hymn-book of the Church.
My life’s a shade, my days
Apace to death decline.
and
Sweet place, sweet place alone
The home of God most high.
They are in a minor key, but they speak to the heart of the Christian
pilgrim who seeks another country—his true fatherland. His other hymns
are seldom met with. I quote one, omitting a verse.