CHAPTER I.

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THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND TUNES

by

THERON BROWN and HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH

_Multae terricolis linguae, coelestibus una._

_Ten thousand, thousand are their tongues,

But all their joys are one._

New York, 1906

[Frontispiece: Thomas Ken]

CONTENTS.

PREFACE, v

INTRODUCTION, ix

1. HYMNS OF PRAISE AND WORSHIP, 1

2. SOME HYMNS OF GREAT WITNESSES, 53

3. HYMNS OF CHRISTIAN DEVOTION AND EXPERIENCE, 100

4. MISSIONARY HYMNS, 165

5. HYMNS OF SUFFERING AND TRUST, 190

6. CHRISTIAN BALLADS, 237

7. OLD REVIVAL HYMNS, 262

8. SUNDAY SCHOOL HYMNS, 293

9. PATRIOTIC HYMNS, 321

10. SAILOR'S HYMNS, 353

11. HYMNS OF WALES, 378

12. FIELD HYMNS, 409

13. HYMNS, FESTIVAL AND OCCASIONAL, 458

14. HYMNS OF HOPE AND CONSOLATION, 509

INDEXES OF NAMES, TUNES, AND HYMNS, 543

LIST OF PORTRAITS.

THOMAS KEN, Frontispiece

OLIVER HOLDEN, Opp. page 14

JOSEPH HAYDN, " 30

CHARLES WESLEY, " 46

MARTIN LUTHER, " 62

LADY HUNTINGDON, " 94

AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE TOPLADY, " 126

THOMAS HASTINGS, " 142

FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL, " 158

REGINALD HEBER, " 174

GEORGE JAMES WEBB, " 190

JOHN WESLEY, " 206

JOHN B. DYKES, " 222

ELLEN M.H. GATES, " 254

JAMES MONTGOMERY, " 286

FANNY J. CROSBY, " 302

SAMUEL F. SMITH, " 334

WILLIAM B. BRADBURY, " 366

ISAAC WATTS, " 398

GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL, " 414

PHILIP DODDRIDGE, " 446

LOWELL MASON, " 478

CARL VON WEBER, " 494

HORATIUS BONAR, " 526

PREFACE.

When the lapse of time and accumulation of fresh material suggested the

need of a new and revised edition of Mr. Hezekiah Butterworth's _Story

of the Hymns_, which had been a popular text book on that subject for

nearly a generation, the publishers requested him to prepare such a

work, reviewing the whole field of hymnology and its literature down to

date. He undertook the task, but left it unfinished at his lamented

death, committing the manuscript to me in his last hours to arrange and

complete.

To do this proved a labor of considerable magnitude, since what had been

done showed evidence of the late author's failing strength, and when, in

a conference with the publishers, it was proposed to combine the two

books of Mr. Butterworth, the _Story of the Hymns_ and the _Story of the

Tunes_, in one volume, the task was doubled.

The charming popular style and story-telling gift of the well-known

compiler of these books had kept them in demand, the one for thirty and

the other for fifteen years, but later information had discounted some

of their historic and biographical matter, and, while many of the

monographs were too meagre, others were unduly long. Besides, the _Story

of the Tunes_, so far from being the counterpart of the _Story of the

Hymns_, bore no special relationship to it, only a small portion of its

selections answering to any in the hymn-list of the latter book. For a

personal friend and practically unknown writer, to follow Mr.

Butterworth, and "improve" his earlier work to the more modern

conditions, was a venture of no little difficulty and delicacy. The

result is submitted as simply a conscientious effort to give the best of

the old with the new.

So far as was possible, matter from the two previous books, and from the

crude manuscript, has been used, and passages here and there

transcribed, but so much of independent plan and original research has

been necessary in arranging and verifying the substance of the chapters

that the _Story of the Hymns and Tunes_ is in fact a new volume rather

than a continuation. The chapter containing the account of the _Gospel

Hymns_ is recent work with scarcely an exception, and the one on the

_Hymns of Wales_ is entirely new.

Without increasing the size of this volume beyond easy purchase and

convenient use, it was impossible to discuss the great oratorios and

dramatic set-pieces, festival and occasional, and only passing

references are made to them or their authors.

Among those who have helped me in my work special acknowledgements are

due to Mr. Hubert P. Main of Newark, N.J.; Messrs. Hughes & Son of

Wrexham, Wales; the American Tract Society, New York; Mr. William T.

Meek, Mrs. A.J. Gordon, Mr. Paul Foster, Mr. George Douglas, and Revs.

John R. Hague and Edmund F. Merriam of Boston; Professor William L.

Phelps of New Haven, Conn.; Mrs. Ellen M.H. Gates of New York; Rev.

Franklin G. McKeever of New London, Conn.; and Rev. Arthur S. Phelps of

Greeley, Colorado. Further obligations are gratefully remembered to

Oliver Ditson & Co. for answers to queries and access to publications,

to the Historic-and-Geneological Society and the custodians and

attendants of the Boston Public Library (notably in the Music

Department) for their uniform courtesy and pains in placing every

resource within my reach.

THERON BROWN.

Boston, May 15th, 1906.

INTRODUCTION.

Augustine defines a hymn as "praise to God with song," and another

writer calls hymn-singing "a devotional approach to God in our

emotions,"--which of course applies to both the words and the music.

This religious emotion, reverently acknowledging the Divine Being in

song, is a constant element, and wherever felt it makes the song a

worship, irrespective of sect or creed. An eminent Episcopal divine,

(says the _Christian Register_,) one Trinity Sunday, at the close of his

sermon, read three hymns by Unitarian authors: one to God the Father, by

Samuel Longfellow, one to Jesus, by Theodore Parker, and one to the Holy

Spirit, by N.L. Frothingham. "There," he said, "you have the

Trinity--Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."

It is natural to speak of hymns as "poems," indiscriminately, for they

have the same structure. But a hymn is not necessarily a poem, while a

poem that can be sung as a hymn is something more than a poem.

Imagination makes poems; devotion makes hymns. There can be poetry

without emotion, but a hymn never. A poem may argue; a hymn must not.

In short to be a hymn, what is written must express spiritual feelings

and desires. The music of faith, hope and charity will be somewhere in

its strain.

Philosophy composes poems, but not hymns. "It is no love-symphony we

hear when the lion thinkers roar," some blunt writer has said. "The

moles of Science have never found the heavenly dove's nest, and the Sea

of Reason touches no shore where balm for sorrow grows."

On the contrary there are thousands of true hymns that have no standing

at the court of the muses. Even Cowper's Olney hymns, as Goldwin Smith

has said, "have not any serious value as poetry. Hymns rarely have," he

continues. "There is nothing in them on which the creative imagination

can be exercised. Hymns can be little more than the incense of a

worshipping soul."

A fellow-student of Phillips Brooks tells us that "most of his verse he

wrote rapidly without revising, not putting much thought into it but

using it as the vehicle and outlet of his feelings. It was the sign of

responding love or gratitude and joy."

To produce a hymn one needs something more exalting than poetic fancy;

an influence

"--subtler than the sun-light in the leaf-bud

That thrills thro' all the forest, making May."

It is the Divine Spirit wakening the human heart to lyric language.

Religion sings; that is true, though all "religions" do not sing. There

is no voice of sacred song in Islamism. The muezzin call from the

minarets is not music. One listens in vain for melody among the

worshippers of the "Light of Asia." The hum of pagoda litanies, and the

shouts and gongs of idol processions are not psalms. But many historic

faiths have lost their melody, and we must go far back in the annals of

ethnic life to find the songs they sung.

Worship appears to have been a primitive human instinct; and even when

many gods took the place of One in the blinder faith of men it was

nature worship making deities of the elements and addressing them with

supplication and praise. Ancient hymns have been found on the monumental

tablets of the cities of Nimrod; fragments of the Orphic and Homeric

hymns are preserved in Greek anthology; many of the Vedic hymns are

extant in India; and the exhumed stones of Egypt have revealed segments

of psalm-prayers and liturgies that antedate history. Dr. Wallis Budge,

the English Orientalist, notes the discovery of a priestly hymn two

thousand years older than the time of Moses, which invokes One Supreme

Being who "cannot be figured in stone."

So far as we have any real evidence, however, the Hebrew people

surpassed all others in both the custom and the spirit of devout song.

We get snatches of their inspired lyrics in the song of Moses and

Miriam, the song of Deborah and Barak, and the song of Hannah (sometimes

called "the Old Testament Magnificat"), in the hymns of David and

Solomon and all the Temple Psalms, and later where the New Testament

gives us the "Gloria" of the Christmas angels, the thanksgiving of

Elizabeth (benedictus minor), Mary's Magnificat, the song of Zacharias

(benedictus major), the "nunc dimittis" of Simeon, and the celestial

ascriptions and hallelujahs heard by St. John in his Patmos dream. For

what we know of the first _formulated_ human prayer and praise we are

mostly indebted to the Hebrew race. They seem to have been at least the

only ancient nation that had a complete psalter--and their collection is

the mother hymn-book of the world.

Probably the first form of hymn-worship was the plain-song--a

declamatory unison of assembled singers, every voice on the same pitch,

and within the compass of five notes--and so continued, from whatever

may have stood for plain-song in Tabernacle and Temple days down to the

earliest centuries of the Christian church. It was mere melodic

progression and volume of tone, and there were no instruments--after the

captivity. Possibly it was the memory of the harps hung silent by the

rivers of Babylon that banished the timbrel from the sacred march and

the ancient lyre from the post-exilic synagogues. Only the Feast trumpet

was left. But the Jews sang. Jesus and his disciples sang. Paul and

Silas sang; and so did the post-apostolic Christians; but until towards

the close of the 16th century there were no instruments allowed in

religious worship.

St. Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers has been called "the father of Christian

hymnology." About the middle of the 4th century he regulated the

ecclesiastical song-service, wrote chant music (to Scripture words or

his own) and prescribed its place and use in his choirs. He died A.D.

368. In the Church calendars, Jan. 13th (following "Twelfth Night"), is

still kept as "St. Hilary's Day" in the Church of England, and Jan. 14th

in the Church of Rome.

St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, a few years later, improved the work of

his predecessor, adding words and music of his own. The "Ambrosian

Chant" was the antiphonal plain-song arranged and systematized to

statelier effect in choral symphony. Ambrose died A.D. 397.

Toward the end of the 6th century Christian music showed a decline in

consequence of impatient meddling with the slow canonical psalmody, and

"reformers" had impaired its solemnity by introducing fanciful

embellishments. Gregory the Great (Pope of Rome, 590-604) banished these

from the song service, founded a school of sacred melody, composed new

chants and established the distinctive character of ecclesiastical hymn

worship. The Gregorian chant--on the diatonic eight sounds and seven

syllables of equal length--continued, with its majestic choral step, to

be the basis of cathedral music for a thousand years. In the meantime

(930) Hucbald, the Flanders monk, invented _sight_ music, or written

notes--happily called the art of "hearing with the eyes and seeing with

the ears"; and Guido Arentino (1024) contrived the present scale, or the

"hexachord" on which the present scale was perfected.

In this long interval, however, the "established" system of hymn service

did not escape the intrusion of inevitable novelties that crept in with

the change of popular taste. Unrhythmical singing could not always hold

its own; and when polyphonic music came into public favor, secular airs

gradually found their way into the choirs. Legatos, with their pleasing

turn and glide, caught the ear of the multitude. Tripping allegrettos

sounded sweeter to the vulgar sense than the old largos of Pope Gregory

the Great.

The guardians of the ancient order took alarm. One can imagine the

pained amazement of conservative souls today on hearing "Ring the Bells

of Heaven" substituted in church for "Mear" or the long-metre Doxology,

and can understand the extreme distaste of the ecclesiastical

reactionaries for the worldly frivolities of an A.D. 1550 choir.

Presumably that modern abomination, the _vibrato_, with its shake of

artificial fright, had not been invented then, and sanctuary form was

saved one indignity. But the innovations became an abuse so general that

the Council of Trent commissioned a select board of cardinals and

musicians to arrest the degeneration of church song-worship.

One of the experts consulted in this movement was an eminent Italian

composer born twenty miles from Rome. His full name was Giovanni Pietro

Aloysio da Palestrina, and at that time he was in the prime of his

powers. He was master of polyphonic music as well as plain-song, and he

proposed applying it to grace the older mode, preserving the solemn

beauty of the chant but adding the charming chords of counterpoint. He

wrote three "masses," one of them being his famous "Requiem." These were

sung under his direction before the Commission. Their magnificence and

purity revealed to the censors the possibilities of contrapuntal music

in sanctuary devotion and praise. The sanction of the cardinals was

given--and part-song harmony became permanently one of the angel voices

of the Christian church.

Palestrina died in 1594, but hymn-tunes adapted from his motets and

masses are sung today. He was the father of the choral tune. He lived to

see musical instruments and congregational singing introduced[1] in

public worship, and to know (possibly with secret pleasure, though he

was a Romanist) how richly in popular assemblies, during the Protestant

Reformation, the new freedom of his helpful art had multiplied the

creation of spiritual hymns.

[Footnote 1: But not fully established in use till about 1625.]

Contemporary in England with Palestrina in Italy was Thomas Tallis who

developed the Anglican school of church music, which differed less from

the Italian (or Catholic) psalmody than that of the Continental

churches, where the revolt of the Reformation extended to the

tune-worship as notably as to the sacraments and sermons. This

difference created a division of method and practice even in England,

and extreme Protestants who repudiated everything artistic or ornate

formed the Puritan or Genevan School. Their style is represented among

our hymn-tunes by "Old Hundred," while the representative of the

Anglican is "Tallis' Evening Hymn." The division was only temporary. The

two schools were gradually reconciled, and together made the model after

which the best sacred tunes are built. It is Tallis who is called "The

father of English Cathedral music."

In Germany, after the invention of harmony, church music was still felt

to be too formal for a working force, and there was a reaction against

the motets and masses of Palestrina as being too stately and difficult.

Lighter airs of the popular sort, such as were sung between the acts of

the "mystery plays," were subsidized by Luther, who wrote compositions

and translations to their measure. Part-song was simplified, and Johan

Walther compiled a hymnal of religious songs in the vernacular for from

four to six voices. The reign of rhythmic hymn music soon extended

through Europe.

Necessarily--except in ultra-conservative localities like Scotland--the

exclusive use of the Psalms (metrical or unmetrical) gave way to

religious lyrics inspired by occasion. Clement Marot and Theodore Beza

wrote hymns to the music of various composers, and Caesar Malan composed

both hymns and their melodies. By the beginning of the 18th century the

triumph of the hymn-tune and the hymnal for lay voices was established

for all time.

* * * * *

In the following pages no pretence is made of selecting _all_ the best

and most-used hymns, but the purpose has been to notice as many as

possible of the standard pieces--and a few others which seem to add or

re-shape a useful thought or introduce a new strain.

To present each hymn _with its tune_ appeared the natural and most

satisfactory way, as in most cases it is impossible to dissociate the

two. The melody is the psychological coëfficient of the metrical text.

Without it the verse of a seraph would be smothered praise. Like a

flower and its fragrance, hymn and tune are one creature, and stand for

a whole value and a full effect. With this normal combination a

_complete_ descriptive list of the hymns and tunes would be a historic

dictionary. Such a book may one day be made, but the present volume is

an attempt to the same end within easier limits.

CHAPTER I.

HYMNS OF PRAISE AND WORSHIP.

"TE DEUM LAUDAMUS."

This famous church confession in song was composed A.D. 387 by Ambrose,

Bishop of Milan, probably both words and music.

Te Deum laudamus, Te Dominum confitemur

Te aeternum Patrem omnis terra veneratur

Tibi omnes angeli, tibi coeli et universae potestates,

Tibi cherubim et seraphim inaccessibili voce proclamant

Sanctus, sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth.

In the whole hymn there are thirty lines. The saying that the early

Roman hymns were echoes of Christian Greece, as the Greek hymns were

echoes of Jerusalem, is probably true, but they were only echoes. In

A.D. 252, St. Cyprian, writing his consolatory epistle[2] during the

plague in Carthage, when hundreds were dying every day, says, "Ah,

perfect and perpetual bliss! [in heaven.] There is the glorious company

of the apostles; there is the fellowship of the prophets rejoicing;

there is the innumerable multitude of martyrs crowned." Which would

suggest that lines or fragments of what afterwards crystalized into the

formula of the "Te Deum" were already familiar in the Christian church.

But it is generally believed that the tongue of Ambrose gave the anthem

its final form.

[Footnote 2: [Greek: Peri tou thnêtou], "On the Mortality."]

Ambrose was born in Gaul about the middle of the fourth century and

raised to his bishopric in A.D. 374. Very early he saw and appreciated

the popular effect of musical sounds, and what an evangelical instrument

a chorus of chanting voices could be in preaching the Christian faith;

and he introduced the responsive singing of psalms and sacred cantos in

the worship of the church. "A grand thing is that singing, and nothing

can stand before it," he said, when the critics of his time complained

that his innovation was sensational. That such a charge could be made

against the Ambrosian mode of music, with its slow movement and

unmetrical lines, seems strange to us, but it was _new_--and

conservatism is the same in all ages.

The great bishop carried all before him. His school of song-worship

prevailed in Christian Europe more than two hundred years. Most of his

hymns are lost, (the Benedictine writers credit him with twelve), but,

judging by their effect on the powerful mind of Augustine, their

influence among the common people must have been profound, and far more

lasting than the author's life. "Their voices sank into mine ears, and

their truths distilled into my heart," wrote Augustine, long afterwards,

of these hymns; "tears ran down, and I rejoiced in them."

Poetic tradition has dramatized the story of the birth of the "Te Deum,"

dating it on an Easter Sunday, and dividing the honor of its composition

between Ambrose and his most eminent convert. It was the day when the

bishop baptized Augustine, in the presence of a vast throng that crowded

the Basilica of Milan. As if foreseeing with a prophet's eye that his

brilliant candidate would become one of the ruling stars of Christendom,

Ambrose lifted his hands to heaven and chanted in a holy rapture,--

We praise Thee, O God! We acknowledge Thee to be the Lord;

All the Earth doth worship Thee, the Father Everlasting.

He paused, and from the lips of the baptized disciple came the

response,--

To Thee all the angels cry aloud: the heavens and all the powers

therein.

To Thee cherubim and seraphim continually do cry,

"Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Sabaoth;

Heaven and Earth are full of the majesty of Thy glory!"

and so, stave by stave, in alternating strains, sprang that day from the

inspired lips of Ambrose and Augustine the "Te Deum Laudamus," which has

ever since been the standard anthem of Christian praise.

Whatever the foundation of the story, we may at least suppose the first

public singing[3] of the great chant to have been associated with that

eventful baptism.

[Footnote 3: The "Te Deum" was first sung _in English_ by the martyr,

Bishop Ridley, at Hearne Church, where he was at one time vicar.]

The various anthems, sentences and motets in all Christian languages

bearing the titles "Trisagion" or "Tersanctus," and "Te Deum" are taken

from portions of this royal hymn. The sublime and beautiful "Holy, Holy,

Holy" of Bishop Heber was suggested by it.

_THE TUNE._

No echo remains, so far as is known, of the responsive chant actually

sung by Ambrose, but one of the best modern choral renderings of the "Te

Deum" is the one by Henry Smart in his _Morning and Evening Service_. In

an ordinary church hymnal it occupies seven pages. The staff-directions

with the music indicate the part or cue of the antiphonal singers by the

words Decani (Dec.) and Cantor (Can.), meaning first the division of the

choir on the Dean's side, and second the division on the Cantor's or

Precentor's side.

Henry Smart was one of the five great English composers that followed

our American Mason. He was born in London, Oct. 25, 1812, and chose

music for a profession in preference to an offered commission in the

East Indian army. His talent as a composer, especially of sacred music,

was marvellous, and, though he became blind, his loss of sight was no

more hindrance to his genius than loss of hearing to Beethoven.

No composer of his time equalled Henry Smart as a writer of music for

female voices. His cantatas have been greatly admired, and his hymn

tunes are unsurpassed for their purity and sweetness, while his anthems,

his oratorio of "Jacob," and indeed all that he wrote, show the hand and

the inventive gift of a great musical artist.

He died July 10, 1879, universally mourned for his inspired work, and

his amiable character.

"ALL GLORY, LAUD AND HONOR."

_Gloria, Laus et Honor._

This stately Latin hymn of the early part of the 9th century was

composed in A.D. 820, by Theodulph, Bishop of Orleans, while a captive

in the cloister of Anjou. King Louis (le Debonnaire) son of Charlemagne,

had trouble with his royal relatives, and suspecting Theodulph to be in

sympathy with them, shut him up in prison. A pretty story told by

Clichtovius, an old church writer of A.D. 1518, relates how on Palm

Sunday the king, celebrating the feast with his people, passed in

procession before the cloister, where the face of the venerable prisoner

at his cell window caused an involuntary halt, and, in the moment of

silence, the bishop raised his voice and sang this hymn; and how the

delighted king released the singer, and restored him to his bishopric.

This tale, told after seven hundred years, is not the only legend that

grew around the hymn and its author, but the fact that he composed it in

the cloister of Anjou while confined there is not seriously disputed.

Gloria, laus et honor Tibi sit, Rex Christe Redemptor,

Cui puerile decus prompsit Hosanna pium.

Israel Tu Rex, Davidis et inclyta proles,

Nomine qui in Domini Rex benedicte venis

Gloria, laus et honor.

Theodulph was born in Spain, but of Gothic pedigree, a child of the race

of conquerors who, in the 5th century, overran Southern Europe. He died

in 821, but whether a free man or still a prisoner at the time of his

death is uncertain. Some accounts allege that he was poisoned in the

cloister. The Roman church canonized him, and his hymn is still sung as

a processional in Protestant as well as Catholic churches. The above

Latin lines are the first four of the original seventy-eight. The

following is J.M. Neale's translation of the portion now in use:

All glory, laud, and honor,

To Thee, Redeemer, King:

To whom the lips of children

Made sweet Hosannas ring.

Thou are the King of Israel,

Thou David's royal Son,

Who in the Lord's name comest,

The King and Blessed One. All glory, etc.

The company of angels

Are praising Thee on high;

And mortal men, and all things

Created, make reply. All glory, etc.

The people of the Hebrews

With palms before Thee went;

Our praise and prayer and anthems

Before Thee we present. All glory, etc.

To Thee before Thy Passion

They sang their hymns of praise;

To Thee, now high exalted

Our melody we raise. All glory, etc.

Thou didst accept their praises;

Accept the prayers we bring,

Who in all good delightest,

Thou good and gracious King. All glory, etc.

The translator, Rev. John Mason Neale, D.D., was born in London, Jan.

24, 1818, and graduated at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1840. He was a

prolific writer, and after taking holy orders he held the office of

Warden of Sackville College, East Grimstead, Sussex. Best known among

his published works are _Mediæval Hymns and Sequences_, _Hymns for

Children_, _Hymns of the Eastern Church_ and _The Rhythms of Morlaix_.

He died Aug. 6, 1866.

_THE TUNE._

There is no certainty as to the original tune of Theodulph's Hymn, or

how long it survived, but various modern composers have given it music

in more or less keeping with its character, notably Melchior Teschner,

whose harmony, "St. Theodulph," appears in the new _Methodist Hymnal_.

It well represents the march of the bishop's Latin.

Melchior Teschner, a Prussian musician, was Precentor at Frauenstadt,

Silesia, about 1613.

"ALL PRAISE TO THEE, ETERNAL LORD."

_Gelobet Seist du Jesu Christ._

This introductory hymn of worship, a favorite Christmas hymn in Germany,

is ancient, and appears to be a versification of a Latin prose

"Sequence" variously ascribed to a 9th century author, and to Gregory

the Great in the 6th century. Its German form is still credited to

Luther in most hymnals. Julian gives an earlier German form (1370) of

the "Gelobet," but attributes all but the first stanza to Luther, as the

hymn now stands. The following translation, printed first in the

_Sabbath Hymn Book_, Andover, 1858, is the one adopted by Schaff in his

_Christ in Song_:

All praise to Thee, eternal Lord,

Clothed in the garb of flesh and blood;

Choosing a manger for Thy throne,

While worlds on worlds are Thine alone!

Once did the skies before Thee bow;

A virgin's arms contain Thee now;

Angels, who did in Thee rejoice,

Now listen for Thine infant voice.

A little child, Thou art our guest,

That weary ones in Thee may rest;

Forlorn and lowly in Thy birth,

That we may rise to heaven from earth.

Thou comest in the darksome night,

To make us children of the light;

To make us, in the realms divine,

Like Thine own angels round Thee shine.

All this for us Thy love hath done:

By this to Thee our love is won;

For this we tune our cheerful lays,

And shout our thanks in endless praise.

_THE TUNE._

The 18th century tune of "Weimar" (_Evangelical Hymnal_), by Emanuel

Bach, suits the spiritual tone of the hymn, and suggests the Gregorian

dignity of its origin.

Karl Philip Emanuel Bach, called "the Berlin Bach" to distinguish him

from his father, the great Sebastian Bach of Saxe Weimar, was born in

Weimar, March 14, 1714. He early devoted himself to music, and coming to

Berlin when twenty-four years old was appointed Chamber musician (Kammer

Musicus) in the Royal Chapel, where he often accompanied Frederick the

Great (who was an accomplished flutist) on the harpsichord. His most

numerous compositions were piano music but he wrote a celebrated

"Sanctus," and two oratorios, besides a number of chorals, of which

"Weimar" is one. He died in Hamburg, Dec. 14, 1788.

THE MAGNIFICAT.

[Greek: Megalunei hê psuchê mou ton Kurion.]

Magnificat anima mea Dominum,

Et exultavit Spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo.

Luke 1:46-55.

We can date with some certainty the hymn itself composed by the Virgin

Mary, but when it first became a song of the Christian Church no one can

tell. Its thanksgiving may have found tone among the earliest martyrs,

who, as Pliny tells us, sang hymns in their secret worship. We can only

trace it back to the oldest chant music, when it was doubtless sung by

both the Eastern and Western Churches. In the rude liturgies of the 4th

and 5th centuries it must have begun to assume ritual form; but it

remained for the more modern school of composers hundreds of years later

to illustrate the "Magnificat" with the melody of art and genius.

Superseding the primitive unisonous plain-song, the old parallel

concords, and the simple faburden (faux bourdon) counterpoint that

succeeded Gregory, they taught how musical tones can better assist

worship with the beauty of harmony and the precision of scientific

taste. Musicians in Italy, France, Germany and England have contributed

their scores to this inspired hymn. Some of them still have place in the

hymnals, a noble one especially by the blind English tone-master, Henry

Smart, author of the oratorio of "Jacob." None, however, have equaled

the work of Handel. His "Magnificat" was one of his favorite

productions, and he borrowed strains from it in several of his later and

lesser productions.

George Frederic Handel, author of the immortal "Messiah," was born at

Halle, Saxony, in 1685, and died in London in 1759. The musical bent of

his genius was apparent almost from his infancy. At the age of eighteen

he was earning his living with his violin, and writing his first opera.

After a sojourn in Italy, he settled in Hanover as Chapel Master to the

Elector, who afterwards became the English king, George I. The

friendship of the king and several of his noblemen drew him to England,

where he spent forty-seven years and composed his greatest works.

He wrote three hymn-tunes (it is said at the request of a converted

actress), "Canons," "Fitzwilliam," and "Gopsall," the first an

invitation, "Sinners, Obey the Gospel Word," the second a meditation, "O

Love Divine, How Sweet Thou Art," and the third a resurrection song to

Welsey's words "Rejoice, the Lord is King." This last still survives in

some hymnals.

THE DOXOLOGIES.

Be Thou, O God, exalted high,

And as Thy glory fills the sky

So let it be on earth displayed

Till Thou art here as there obeyed.

This sublime quatrain, attributed to Nahum Tate, like the Lord's Prayer,

is suited to all occasions, to all Christian denominations, and to all

places and conditions of men. It has been translated into all civilized

languages, and has been rising to heaven for many generations from

congregations round the globe wherever the faith of Christendom has

built its altars. This doxology is the first stanza of a sixteen line

hymn (possibly longer originally), the rest of which is forgotten.

Nahum Tate was born in Dublin, in 1652, and educated there at Trinity

College. He was appointed poet-laureate by King William III. in 1690,

and it was in conjunction with Dr. Nicholas Brady that he executed his

"New" metrical version of the Psalms. The entire Psalter, with an

appendix of Hymns, was licensed by William and Mary and published in

1703. The _hymns_ in the volume are all by Tate. He died in London, Aug.

12, 1717.

Rev. Nicholas Brady, D.D., was an Irishman, son of an officer in the

royal army, and was born at Bandon, County of Cork, Oct. 28, 1659. He

studied in the Westminster School at Oxford, but afterwards entered

Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1685. William made him

Queen Mary's Chaplain. He died May 20, 1726.

The other nearly contemporary form of doxology is in common use, but

though elevated and devotional in spirit, it cannot be universal, owing

to its credal line being objectionable to non-Trinitarian Protestants:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,

Praise Him all creatures here below,

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host,

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

The author, the Rev. Thomas Ken, was born in Berkhampstead,

Hertfordshire, Eng., July, 1637, and was educated at Winchester School,

Hertford College, and New College, Oxford. In 1662 he took holy orders,

and seventeen years later the king (Charles II.) appointed him chaplain

to his sister Mary, Princess of Orange. Later the king, just before his

death, made him Bishop of Bath and Wells.

Like John the Baptist, and Bourdaloue, and Knox, he was a faithful

spiritual monitor and adviser during all his days at court. "I must go

in and hear Ken tell me my faults," the king used to say at chapel time.

The "good little man" (as he called the bishop) never lost the favor of

the dissipated monarch. As Macaulay says, "Of all the prelates, he liked

Ken the best."

Under James, the Papist, Ken was a loyal subject, though once arrested

as one of the "seven bishops" for his opposition to the king's religion,

and he kept his oath of allegiance so firmly that it cost him his place.

William III. deprived him of his bishopric, and he retired in poverty to

a home kindly offered him by Lord Viscount Weymouth in Longleat, near

Frome, in Somersetshire, where he spent a serene and beloved old age. He

died æt. seventy-four, March 17, 1711 (N.S.), and was carried to his

grave, according to his request, by "six of the poorest men in the

parish."

His great doxology is the refrain or final stanza of each of his three

long hymns, "Morning," "Evening" and "Midnight," printed in a _Prayer

Manual_ for the use of the students of Winchester College. The "Evening

Hymn" drew scenic inspiration, it is told, from the lovely view in

Horningsham Park at "Heaven's Gate Hill," while walking to and from

church.

Another four-line doxology, adopted probably from Dr. Hatfield

(1807-1883), is almost entirely superseded by Ken's stanza, being of

even more pronounced credal character.

To God the Father, God the Son,

And God the Spirit, Three in One.

Be honor, praise and glory given

By all on earth and all in heaven.

The _Methodist Hymnal_ prints a collection of ten doxologies, two by

Watts, one by Charles Wesley, one by John Wesley, one by William Goode,

one by Edwin F. Hatfield, one attributed to "Tate and Brady," one by

Robert Hawkes, and the one by Ken above noted. These are all technically

and intentionally doxologies. To give a history of doxologies in the

general sense of the word would carry one through every Christian age

and language and end with a concordance of the Book of Psalms.

[Illustration: Oliver Holden]

_THE TUNE._

Few would think of any music more appropriate to a standard doxology

than "Old Hundred." This grand Gregorian harmony has been claimed to be

Luther's production, while some have believed that Louis Bourgeois,

editor of the French _Genevan Psalter_, composed the tune, but the

weight of evidence seems to indicate that it was the work of Guillaume

le Franc, (William Franck or William the Frenchman,) of Rouen, in

France, who founded a music school in Geneva, 1541. He was Chapel Master

there, but removed to Lausanne, where he played in the Catholic choir

and wrote the tunes for an Edition of Marot's and Beza's Psalms. Died in

Lausanne, 1570.

"THE LORD DESCENDED FROM ABOVE."

A flash of genuine inspiration was vouchsafed to Thomas Sternhold when

engaged with Rev. John Hopkins in versifying the Eighteenth Psalm. The

ridicule heaped upon Sternhold and Hopkins's psalmbook has always

stopped, and sobered into admiration and even reverence at the two

stanzas beginning with this leading line--

The Lord descended from above

And bowed the heavens most high,

And underneath His feet He cast

The darkness of the sky.

On cherub and on cherubim

Full royally He rode,

And on the wings of mighty winds

Came flying all abroad.

Thomas Sternhold was born in Gloucestershire, Eng. He was Groom of the

Robes to Henry VIII, and Edward VI., but is only remembered for his

_Psalter_ published in 1562, thirteen years after his death in 1549.

_THE TUNE._

"Nottingham" (now sometimes entitled "St. Magnus") is a fairly good echo

of the grand verses, a dignified but spirited choral in A flat. Jeremiah

Clark, the composer, was born in London, 1670. Educated at the Chapel

Royal, he became organist of Winchester College and finally to St.

Paul's Cathedral where he was appointed Gentleman of the Chapel. He died

July, 1707.

The tune of "Majesty" by William Billings will be noticed in a later

chapter.

TALLIS' EVENING HYMN.

Glory to Thee, my God, this night

For all the blessings of the light,

Keep me, O keep me, King of kings,

Under Thine own Almighty wings.

This stanza begins the second of Bp. Ken's three beautiful hymn-prayers

in his _Manual_ mentioned on a previous page.

_THE TUNE._

For more than three hundred and fifty years devout people have enjoyed

that melody of mingled dignity and sweetness known as "Tallis' Evening

Hymn."

Thomas Tallis was an Englishman, born about 1520, and at an early age

was a boy chorister at St. Paul's. After his voice changed, he played

the organ at Waltham Abbey, and some time later was chosen organist

royal to Queen Elizabeth. His pecuniary returns for his talent did not

make him rich, though he bore the title after 1542 of Gentleman of the

Chapel Royal, for his stipend was sevenpence a day. Some gain may

possibly have come to him, however, from his publication, late in life,

under the queen's special patent, of a collection of hymns and tunes.

He wrote much and was the real founder of the English Church school of

composers, but though St. Paul's was at one time well supplied with his

motets and anthems, it is impossible now to give a list of Tallis'

compositions for the Church. His music was written originally to Latin

words, but when, after the Reformation, the use of vernacular hymns, was

introduced he probably adapted his scores to either language.

It is inferred that he was in attendance on Queen Elizabeth at her

palace in Greenwich when he died, for he was buried in the old parish

church there in November, 1585. The rustic rhymer who indited his

epitaph evidently did the best he could to embalm the virtues of the

great musician as a man, a citizen, and a husband:

Enterred here doth ly a worthy wyght,

Who for long time in musick bore the bell:

His name to shew was Thomas Tallis hyght;

In honest vertuous lyff he dyd excell.

He served long tyme in chappel with grete prayse,

Fower sovereygnes reignes, (a thing not often seene);

I mean King Henry and Prince Edward's dayes,

Quene Marie, and Elizabeth our quene.

He maryed was, though children he had none,

And lyv'd in love full three and thirty yeres

With loyal spowse, whose name yclept was Jone,

Who, here entombed, him company now bears.

As he dyd lyve, so also dyd he dy,

In myld and quyet sort, O happy man!

To God ful oft for mercy did he cry;

Wherefore he lyves, let Deth do what he can.

"THE GOD OF ABRAHAM PRAISE."

This is one of the thanksgivings of the ages.

The God of Abraham praise,

Who reigns enthroned above;

Ancient of everlasting days,

And God of love.

Jehovah, Great I AM!

By earth and heaven confessed,

I bow and bless the sacred Name,

Forever blest.

The hymn, of twelve eight-line stanzas, is too long to quote entire,

but is found in both the _Plymouth_ and _Methodist Hymnals_.

Thomas Olivers, born in Tregynon, near Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Wales,

1725, was, according to local testimony, "the worst boy known in all

that country, for thirty years." It is more charitable to say that he

was a poor fellow who had no friends. Left an orphan at five years of

age, he was passed from one relative to another until all were tired of

him, and he was "bound out" to a shoemaker. Almost inevitably the

neglected lad grew up wicked, for no one appeared to care for his habits

and morals, and as he sank lower in the various vices encouraged by bad

company, there were more kicks for him than helping hands. At the age of

eighteen his reputation in the town had become so unsavory that he was

forced to shift for himself elsewhere.

Providence led him, when shabby and penniless, to the old seaport town

of Bristol, where Whitefield was at that time preaching,[4] and there

the young sinner heard the divine message that lifted him to his feet.

[Footnote 4: Whitefield's text was, "Is not this a brand plucked out of

the fire?" Zach. 3:2.]

"When that sermon began," he said, "I was one of the most abandoned and

profligate young men living; before it ended I was a new creature. The

world was all changed for Tom Olivers."

His new life, thus begun, lasted on earth more than sixty useful years.

He left a shining record as a preacher of righteousness, and died in the

triumphs of faith, November, 1799. Before he passed away he saw at least

thirty editions of his hymn published, but the soul-music it has

awakened among the spiritual children of Abraham can only reach him in

heaven. Some of its words have been the last earthly song of many, as

they were of the eminent Methodist theologian, Richard Watson--

I shall behold His face,

I shall His power adore,

And sing the wonders of His grace

Forevermore.

_THE TUNE._

The precise date of the tune "Leoni" is unknown, as also the precise

date of the hymn. The story is that Olivers visited the great "Duke's

Place" Synagogue, Aldgate, London, and heard Meyer Lyon (Leoni) sing the

Yigdal or long doxology to an air so noble and impressive that it

haunted him till he learned it and fitted to it the sublime stanzas of

his song. Lyon, a noted Jewish musician and vocalist, was chorister of

this London Synagogue during the latter part of the 18th century and the

Yigdal was a portion of the Hebrew Liturgy composed in medieval times,

it is said, by Daniel Ben Judah. The fact that the Methodist leaders

took Olivers from his bench to be one of their preachers answers any

suggestion that the converted shoemaker _copied_ the Jewish hymn and put

Christian phrases in it. He knew nothing of Hebrew, and had he known

it, a literal translation of the Yigdal will show hardly a similarity to

his evangelical lines. Only the music as Leoni sang it prompted his own

song, and he gratefully put the singer's name to it. Montgomery, who

admired the majestic style of the hymn, and its glorious imagery, said

of its author, "The man who wrote that hymn must have had the finest ear

imaginable, for on account of the peculiar measure, none but a person of

equal musical and poetic taste could have produced the harmony

perceptible in the verse."

Whether the hymnist or some one else fitted the hymn to the tune, the

"fine ear" and "poetic taste" that Montgomery applauded are evident

enough in the union.

"O WORSHIP THE KING ALL GLORIOUS ABOVE."

This hymn of Sir Robert Grant has become almost universally known, and

is often used as a morning or opening service song by choirs and

congregations of all creeds. The favorite stanzas are the first four--

O worship the King all-glorious above,

And gratefully sing His wonderful love--

Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,

Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.

O tell of His might, and sing of His grace,

Whose robe is the light, whose canopy, space;

His chariots of wrath the deep thunder-clouds form,

And dark is His path on the wings of the storm.

Thy bountiful care what tongue can recite?

It breathes in the air, it shines in the light,

It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,

And sweetly distils in the dew and the rain.

Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,

In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail.

Thy mercies how tender! how firm to the end!

Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend!

This is a model hymn of worship. Like the previous one by Thomas

Olivers, it is strongly Hebrew in its tone and diction, and drew its

inspiration from the Old Testament Psalter, the text-book of all true

praise-song.

Sir Robert Grant was born in the county of Inverness, Scotland, in 1785,

and educated at Cambridge. He was many years member of Parliament for

Inverness and a director in the East India Company, and 1834 was

appointed Governor of Bombay. He died at Dapoorie, Western India, July

9, 1838.

Sir Robert was a man of deep Christian feeling and a poetic mind. His

writings were not numerous, but their thoughtful beauty endeared him to

a wide circle of readers. In 1839 his brother, Lord Glenelg, published

twelve of his poetical pieces, and a new edition in 1868. The volume

contains the more or less well-known hymns--

The starry firmament on high.

Saviour, when in dust to Thee,

and--

When gathering clouds around I view.

Sir Robert's death, when scarcely past his prime, would indicate a

decline by reason of illness, and perhaps other serious affliction, that

justified the poetic license in the submissive verses beginning--

Thy mercy heard my infant prayer.

* * * * *

And now _in age_ and grief Thy name

Does still my languid heart inflame,

And bow my faltering knee.

Oh, yet this bosom feels the fire,

This trembling hand and drooping lyre

Have yet a strain for Thee.

_THE TUNE._

Several musical pieces written to the hymn, "O, Worship the King," have

appeared in church psalm-books, and others have been borrowed for it,

but the one oftenest sung to its words is Haydn's "Lyons." Its vigor and

spirit best fit it for Grant's noble lyric.

"MAJESTIC SWEETNESS SITS ENTHRONED."

Rev. Samuel Stennett D.D., the author of this hymn, was the son of Rev.

Joseph Stennett, and grandson of Rev. Joseph Stennett D.D., who wrote--

Another six days' work is done,

Another Sabbath is begun.

All were Baptist ministers. Samuel was born in 1727, at Exeter, Eng.,

and at the age of twenty-one became his father's assistant, and

subsequently his successor over the church in Little Wild Street,

Lincoln's Inn Fields, London.

Majestic sweetness sits enthroned

Upon the Saviour's brow;

His head with radiant glories crowned,

His lips with grace o'erflow.

* * * * *

To Him I owe my life and breath

And all the joys I have;

He makes me triumph over death,

He saves me from the grave.

* * * * *

Since from His bounty I receive

Such proofs of love divine,

Had I a thousand hearts to give,

Lord, they should all be Thine.

Samuel Stennett was one of the most respected and influential ministers

of the Dissenting persuasion, and a confidant of many of the most

distinguished statesmen of his time. The celebrated John Howard was his

parishoner and intimate friend. His degree of Doctor of Divinity was

bestowed upon him by Aberdeen University. Besides his theological

writings he composed and published thirty-eight hymns, among them--

On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,

When two or three with sweet accord,

Here at Thy table, Lord, we meet,

and--

"'Tis finished," so the Saviour cried.

"Majestic Sweetness" began the third stanza of his longer hymn--

To Christ the Lord let every tongue.

Dr. Stennett died in London, Aug. 24, 1795.

_THE TUNE._

For fifty or sixty years "Ortonville" has been linked with this devout

hymn, and still maintains its fitting fellowship. The tune, composed in

1830, was the work of Thomas Hastings, and is almost as well-known and

as often sung as his immortal "Toplady." (See chap. 3, "Rock of Ages.")

"ALL HAIL THE POWER OF JESUS' NAME."

This inspiring lyric of praise appears to have been written about the

middle of the eighteenth century. Its author, the Rev. Edward Perronet,

son of Rev. Vincent Perronet, Vicar of Shoreham, Eng., was a man of

great faith and humility but zealous in his convictions, sometimes to

his serious expense. He was born in 1721, and, though eighteen years

younger than Charles Wesley, the two became bosom friends, and it was

under the direction of the Wesleys that Perronet became a preacher in

the evangelical movement. Lady Huntingdon later became his patroness,

but some needless and imprudent expressions in a satirical poem, "The

Mitre," revealing his hostility to the union of church and state, cost

him her favor, and his contention against John Wesley's law that none

but the regular parish ministers had the right to administer the

sacraments, led to his complete separation from both the Wesleys. He

subsequently became the pastor of a small church of Dissenters in

Canterbury, where he died, in January, 1792. His piety uttered itself

when near his happy death, and his last words were a Gloria.

All hail the power of Jesus' name!

Let angels prostrate fall;

Bring forth the royal diadem,

To crown Him Lord of all.

Ye seed of Israel's chosen race,

Ye ransomed of the fall,

Hail Him Who saves you by His grace,

And crown Him Lord of all.

Sinners, whose love can ne'er forget

The wormwood and the gall,

Go, spread your trophies at His feet,

And crown Him Lord of all.

Let every tribe and every tongue

That bound creation's call,

Now shout the universal song,

The crownéd Lord of all.

With two disused stanzas omitted, the hymn as it stands differs from the

original chiefly in the last stanza, though in the second the initial

line is now transposed to read--

Ye chosen seed of Israel's race.

The fourth stanza now reads--

Let every kindred, every tribe

On this terrestrial ball

To Him all majesty ascribe,

And crown Him Lord of all.

And what is now the favorite last stanza is the one added by Dr.

Rippon--

O that with yonder sacred throng

We at His feet may fall,

And join the everlasting song,

And crown Him Lord of all.

_THE TUNE._

Everyone now calls it "Old Coronation," and it is entitled to the

adjective by this time, being considerably more than a hundred years

of age. It was composed in the very year of Perronet's death and one

wonders just how long the hymn and tune waited before they came

together; for Heaven evidently meant them to be wedded for all time.

This is an American opinion, and no reflection on the earlier English

melody of "Miles Lane," composed during Perronet's lifetime by William

Shrubsole and published with the words in 1780 in the _Gospel Magazine_.

There is also a fine processional tune sung in the English Church to

Perronet's hymn.

The author of "Coronation" was Oliver Holden, a self-taught musician,

born in Shirley, Mass., 1765, and bred to the carpenter's trade. The

little pipe organ on which tradition says he struck the first notes of

the famous tune is now in the Historical rooms of the Old State House,

Boston, placed there by its late owner, Mrs. Fanny Tyler, the old

musician's granddaughter. Its tones are as mellow as ever, and the times

that "Coronation" has been played upon it by admiring visitors would far

outnumber the notes of its score.

Holden wrote a number of other hymn-tunes, among which "Cowper,"

"Confidence," and "Concord" are remembered, but none of them had the

wings of "Coronation," his American "Te Deum." His first published

collection was entitled _The American Harmony_, and this was followed by

the _Union Harmony_, and the _Worcester Collection_. He also wrote and

published "Mt. Vernon," and several other patriotic anthems, mainly for

special occasions, to some of which he supplied the words. He was no

hymnist, though he did now and then venture into sacred metre. The new

_Methodist Hymnal_ preserves a simple four-stanza specimen of his

experiments in verse:

They who seek the throne of grace

Find that throne in every place:

If we lead a life of prayer

God is present everywhere.

Sacred music, however, was the good man's passion to the last. He died

in 1844.

"Such beautiful themes!" he whispered on his death bed, "Such beautiful

themes! But I can write no more."

The enthusiasm always and everywhere aroused by the singing of

"Coronation," dates from the time it first went abroad in America in

its new wedlock of music and words. "This tune," says an accompanying

note over the score in the old _Carmina Sacra_, "was a great favorite

with the late Dr. Dwight of Yale College (1798). It was often sung by

the college choir, while he, catching, as it were, the music of the

heavenly world, would join them, and lead with the most ardent

devotion."

"AWAKE AND SING THE SONG."

This hymn of six stanzas is abridged from a longer one indited by the

Rev. William Hammond, and published in _Lady Huntingdon's Hymn-book_. It

was much in use in early Methodist revivals. It appears now as it was

slightly altered by Rev. Martin Madan--

Awake and sing the song

Of Moses and the Lamb;

Join every heart and every tongue

To praise the Savior's name.

* * * * *

The sixth verse is a variation of one of Watts' hymns, and was added in

the _Brethren's Hymn-book_, 1801--

There shall each heart and tongue

His endless praise proclaim,

And sweeter voices join the song

Of Moses and the Lamb.

The Rev. William Hammond was born Jan. 6, 1719, at Battle, Sussex, Eng.,

and educated at St. John's College, Cambridge. Early in his ministerial

life he was a Calvinistic Methodist, but ultimately joined the

Moravians. Died in London, Aug. 19, 1793. His collection of _Psalms and

Hymns and Spiritual Songs_ was published in 1745.

The Rev. Martin Madan, son of Col. Madan, was born 1726. He founded Lock

Hospital, Hyde Park, and long officiated as its chaplain. As a preacher

he was popular, and his reputation as a composer of music was

considerable. There is no proof that he wrote any original hymns, but he

amended, pieced and expanded the work of others. Died in 1770.

_THE TUNE._

The hymn has had a variety of musical interpretations. The more modern

piece is "St. Philip," by Edward John Hopkins, Doctor of Music, born at

Westminster, London, June 30, 1818. From a member of the Chapel Royal

boy choir he became organist of the Michtam Church, Surrey, and

afterwards of the Temple Church, London. Received his Doctor's degree

from the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1882.

[Illustration: Joseph Haydn]

"CROWN HIS HEAD WITH ENDLESS BLESSING."

The writer of this hymn was William Goode, who helped to found the

English Church Missionary Society, and was for twenty years the

Secretary of the "Society for the Relief of Poor Pious Clergymen." For

celebrating the praise of the Saviour, he seems to have been of like

spirit and genius with Perronet. He was born in Buckingham, Eng., April

2, 1762; studied for the ministry and became a curate, successor of

William Romaine. His spiritual maturity was early, and his habits of

thought were formed amid associations such as the young Wesleys and

Whitefield sought. Like them, even in his student days he proved his

aspiration for purer religious life by an evangelical zeal that cost him

the ridicule of many of his school-fellows, but the meetings for

conference and prayer which he organized among them were not unattended,

and were lasting and salutary in their effect.

Jesus was the theme of his life and song, and was his last word. He died

in 1816.

Crown His head with endless blessing

Who in God the Father's name

With compassion never ceasing

Comes salvation to proclaim.

Hail, ye saints who know His favor,

Who within His gates are found.

Hail, ye saints, th' exalted Saviour,

Let His courts with praise resound.

_THE TUNE._

"Haydn," bearing the name of its great composer, is in several important

hymnals the chosen music for William Goode's devout words. Its strain

and spirit are lofty and melodious and in entire accord with the pious

poet's praise.

Joseph Haydn, son of a poor wheelwright, was born 1732, in Rohron, a

village on the borders of Hungary and Austria. His precocity of musical

talent was such that he began composing at the age of ten years. Prince

Esterhazy discovered his genius when he was poor and friendless, and his

fortune was made. While Music Master for the Prince's Private Chapel

(twenty years) he wrote many of his beautiful symphonies which placed

him among the foremost in that class of music. Invited to England, he

received the Doctor's degree at Oxford, and composed his great oratorio

of "The Creation," besides his "Twelve Grand Symphonies," and a long

list of minor musical works secular and sacred. His invention was

inexhaustible.

Haydn seems to have been a sincerely pious man. When writing his great

oratorio of "The Creation" at sixty-seven years of age, "I knelt down

every day," he says, "and prayed God to strengthen me for my work." This

daily spiritual preparation was similar to Handel's when he was creating

his "Messiah." Change one word and it may be said of sacred music as

truly as of astronomy, "The undevout composer is mad."

Near Haydn's death, in Vienna, 1809, when he heard for the last time his

magnificent chorus, "Let there be Light!" he exclaimed, "Not mine, not

mine. It all came to me from above."

"NOW TO THE LORD A NOBLE SONG."

When Watts finished this hymn he had achieved a "noble song," whether he

was conscious of it or not; and it deserves a foremost place, where it

can help future worshippers in their praise as it has the past. It is

not so common in the later hymnals, but it is imperishable, and still

later collections will not forget it.

Now to the Lord a noble song,

Awake my soul, awake my tongue!

Hosanna to the Eternal Name,

And all His boundless love proclaim.

See where it shines in Jesus' face,

The brightest image of His grace!

God in the person of His Son

Has all His mightiest works outdone.

A rather finical question has occurred to some minds as to the theology

of the word "works" in the last line, making the second person in the

Godhead apparently a creature; and in a few hymn-books the previous line

has been made to read--

God in the _Gospel_ of His Son.

But the question is a rhetorical one, and the poet's free

expression--here as in hundreds of other cases--has never disturbed the

general confidence in his orthodoxy.

Montgomery called Watts "the inventor of hymns in our language," and the

credit stands practically undisputed, for Watts made a hymn style that

no human master taught him, and his model has been the ideal one for

song worship ever since; and we can pardon the climax when Professor

Charles M. Stuart speaks of him as "writer, scholar, thinker and saint,"

for in addition to all the rest he was a very good man.

_THE TUNE._

Old "Ames" was for many years the choir favorite, and the words of the

hymn printed with it in the note-book made the association familiar. It

was, and _is_, an appropriate selection, though in later manuals George

Kingsley's "Ware" is evidently thought to be better suited to the

high-toned verse. Good old tunes never "wear out," but they do go out of

fashion.

The composer of "Ames," Sigismund Neukomm, Chevalier, was born in

Salzburg, Austria, July 10, 1778, and was a pupil of Haydn. Though not a

great genius, his talents procured him access and even intimacy in the

courts of Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and England, and for thirty

years he composed church anthems and oratorios with prodigious industry.

Neukomm's musical productions, numbering no less than one thousand, and

popular in their day, are, however, mostly forgotten, excepting his

oratorio of "David" and one or two hymn-tunes.

George Kingsley, author of "Ware," was born in Northampton, Mass., July

7, 1811. Died in the Hospital, in the same city, March 14, 1884. He

compiled eight books of music for young people and several manuals of

church psalmody, and was for some time a music teacher in Boston, where

he played the organ at the Hollis St. church. Subsequently he became

professor of music in Girard College, Philadelphia, and music instructor

in the public schools, being employed successively as organist (on

Lord's Day) at Dr. Albert Barnes' and Arch St. churches, and finally in

Brooklyn at Dr. Storrs' Church of the Pilgrims. Returned to Northampton,

1853.

"EARLY, MY GOD, WITHOUT DELAY."

This and the five following hymns, all by Watts, are placed in immediate

succession, for unity's sake--with a fuller notice of the greatest of

hymn-writers at the end of the series.

Early, my God, without delay

I haste to seek Thy face,

My thirsty spirit faints away

Without Thy cheering grace.

In the memories of very old men and women, who sang the fugue music of

Morgan's "Montgomery," still lingers the second stanza and some of the

"spirit and understanding" with which it used to be rendered in meeting

on Sunday mornings.

So pilgrims on the scorching sand,

Beneath a burning sky,

Long for a cooling stream at hand

And they must drink or die.

_THE TUNE._

Many of the earlier pieces assigned to this hymn were either too noisy

or too tame. The best and longest-serving is "Lanesboro," which, with

its expressive duet in the middle and its soaring final strain of

harmony, never fails to carry the meaning of the words. It was composed

by William Dixon, and arranged and adapted by Lowell Mason.

William Dixon, an English composer, was a music engraver and publisher,

and author also of several glees and anthems. He was born 1750, and died

about 1825.

Lowell Mason, born in Medfield, Mass., 1792, has been called, not

without reason, "the father of American choir singing." Returning from

Savannah, Ga., where he spent sixteen years of his younger life as clerk

in a bank, he located in Boston (1827), being already known there as the

composer of "The Missionary Hymn." He had not neglected his musical

studies while living in the South, and it was in Savannah that he made

the glorious harmony of that tune.

He became president of the Handel and Haydn Society, went abroad for

special study, was made Doctor of Music, and collected a store of themes

among the great models of song to bring home for his future work.

The Boston Academy of Music was founded by him and what he did for the

song-service of the Church in America by his singing schools, and

musical conventions, and published manuals, to form and organize the

choral branch of divine worship, has no parallel, unless it is Noah

Webster's service to the English language.

Dr. Mason died in Orange, N.J., in 1872.

"SWEET IS THE WORK, MY GOD, MY KING."

This is one of the hymns that helped to give its author the title of

"The Seraphic Watts."

Sweet is the work, my God, my King

To praise Thy name, give thanks and sing

To show Thy love by morning light,

And talk of all Thy truth at night.

_THE TUNE._

No nobler one, and more akin in spirit to the hymn, can be found than

"Duke Street," Hatton's imperishable choral.

Little is known of the John Hatton who wrote "Duke St." He was earlier

by nearly a century than John Liphot Hatton of Liverpool (born in 1809),

who wrote the opera of "Pascal Bruno," the cantata of "Robin Hood" and

the sacred drama of "Hezekiah." The biographical index of the

_Evangelical Hymnal_ says of John Hatton, the author of "Duke St.":

"John, of Warrington; afterwards of St. Helens, then resident in Duke

St. in the township of Windle; composed several hymn-tunes; died in

1793.[5] His funeral sermon was preached at the Presbyterian Chapel, St.

Helens, Dec. 13."

[Footnote 5: Tradition says he was killed by being thrown from a

stage-coach.]

"COME, WE THAT LOVE THE LORD."

Watts entitled this hymn "Heavenly Joy on Earth." He could possibly,

like Madame Guyon, have written such a hymn in a dungeon, but it is no

less spiritual for its birth (as tradition will have it) amid the lovely

scenery of Southampton where he could find in nature "glory begun

below."

Come, we that love the Lord,

And let our joys be known;

Join in a song with sweet accord,

And thus surround the throne.

There shall we see His face,

And never, never sin;

There, from the rivers of His grace,

Drink endless pleasures in.

Children of grace have found

Glory begun below:

Celestial fruits on earthly ground

From faith and hope may grow.

Mortality and immortality blend their charms in the next stanza. The

unfailing beauty of the vision will be dwelt upon with delight so long

as Christians sing on earth.

The hill of Sion yields

A thousand sacred sweets,

Before we reach the heavenly fields,

Or walk the golden streets.

_THE TUNE._

"St. Thomas" has often been the interpreter of the hymn, and still

clings to the words in the memory of thousands.

The Italian tune of "Ain" has more music. It is a fugue piece

(simplified in some tune-books), and the joyful traverse of its notes

along the staff in four-four time, with the momentum of a good choir, is

exhilarating in the extreme.

Corelli, the composer, was a master violinist, the greatest of his day,

and wrote a great deal of violin music; and the thought of his glad

instrument may have influenced his work when harmonizing the four voices

of "Ain."

Arcangelo Corelli was born at Fusignano, in 1653. He was a sensitive

artist, and although faultless in Italian music, he was not sure of

himself in playing French scores, and once while performing with Handel

(who resented the slightest error), and once again with Scarlatti,

leading an orchestra in Naples when the king was present, he made a

mortifying mistake. He took the humiliation so much to heart that he

brooded over it till he died, in Rome, Jan. 18, 1717.

For revival meetings the modern tune set to "Come we that love the

Lord," by Robert Lowry, should be mentioned. A shouting chorus is

appended to it, but it has melody and plenty of stimulating motion.

The Rev. Robert Lowry was born in Philadelphia, March 12, 1826, and

educated at Lewisburg, Pa. From his 28th year till his death, 1899, he

was a faithful and successful minister of Christ, but is more widely

known as a composer of sacred music.

"BE THOU EXALTED, O MY GOD."

In this hymn the thought of Watts touches the eternal summits. Taken

from the 57th and 108th Psalms--

Be Thou exalted, O my God,

Above the heavens where angels dwell;

Thy power on earth be known abroad

And land to land Thy wonders tell.

* * * * *

High o'er the earth His mercy reigns,

And reaches to the utmost sky;

His truth to endless years remains

When lower worlds dissolve and die.

_THE TUNE._

Haydn furnished it out of his chorus of morning stars, and it was

christened "Creation," after the name of his great oratorio. It is a

march of trumpets.

"BEFORE JEHOVAH'S AWFUL THRONE."

No one could mistake the style of Watts in this sublime ode. He begins

with his foot on Sinai, but flies to Calvary with the angel preacher

whom St. John saw in his Patmos vision:

Before Jehovah's awful throne

Ye nations bow with sacred joy;

Know that the Lord is God alone;

He can create and He destroy.

His sovereign power without our aid

Made us of clay and formed us men,

And when like wandering sheep we stray,

He brought us to His fold again.

* * * * *

We'll crowd Thy gates with thankful songs,

High as the heaven our voices raise,

And earth with her ten thousand tongues

Shall fill Thy courts with sounding praise.

_TUNE--OLD HUNDRED._

Martin Madan's four-page anthem, "Denmark," has some grand strains in

it, but it is a tune of florid and difficult vocalization, and is now

heard only in Old Folks' Concerts.

* * * * *

The Rev. Isaac Watts, D.D., was born at Southampton, Eng., in 1674. His

father was a deacon of the Independent Church there, and though not an

uncultured man himself, he is said to have had little patience with the

incurable penchant of his boy for making rhymes and verses. We hear

nothing of the lad's mother, but we can fancy her hand and spirit in the

indulgence of his poetic tastes as well as in his religious training.

The tradition handed down from Dr. Price, a colleague of Watts, relates

that at the age of eighteen Isaac became so irritated at the crabbed and

untuneful hymns sung at the Nonconformist meetings that he complained

bitterly of them to his father. The deacon may have felt something as

Dr. Wayland did when a rather "fresh" student criticised the Proverbs,

and hinted that making such things could not be "much of a job," and the

Doctor remarked, "Suppose _you_ make a few." Possibly there was the same

gentle sarcasm in the reply of Deacon Watts to his son, "Make some

yourself, then."

Isaac was in just the mood to take his father at his word, and he

retired and wrote the hymn--

Behold the glories of the Lamb.

There must have been a decent tune to carry it, for it pleased the

worshippers greatly, when it was sung in meeting--and that was the

beginning of Isaac Watts' career as a hymnist.

So far as scholarship was an advantage, the young writer must have been

well equipped already, for as early as the entering of his fifth year he

was learning Latin, and at nine learning Greek; at eleven, French; and

at thirteen, Hebrew. From the day of his first success he continued to

indite hymns for the home church, until by the end of his twenty-second

year he had written one hundred and ten, and in the two following years

a hundred and forty-four more, besides preparing himself for the

ministry. No. 7 in the edition of the first one hundred and ten, was

that royal jewel of all his lyric work--

When I survey the wondrous cross.

Isaac Watts was ordained pastor of an Independent Church in Mark Lane,

London, 1702, but repeated illness finally broke up his ministry, and

he retired, an invalid, to the beautiful home of Sir Thomas Abney at

Theobaldo, invited, as he supposed, to spend a week, but it was really

to spend the rest of his life--thirty-six years.

Numbers of his hymns are cited as having biographical or reminiscent

color. The stanza in--

When I can read my title clear,

--which reads in the original copy,--

Should earth against my soul engage

And _hellish darts be hurled_,

Then I can smile at _Satan's rage_

And face a frowning world,

--is said to have been an allusion to Voltaire and his attack upon the

church, while the calm beauty of the harbor within view of his home is

supposed to have been in his eye when he composed the last stanza,--

There shall I bathe my weary soul

In seas of heavenly rest,

And not a wave of trouble roll

Across my peaceful breast.

According to the record,--

What shall the dying sinner do?

--was one of his "pulpit hymns," and followed a sermon preached from

Rom. 1:16. Another,--

And is this life prolonged to you?

--after a sermon from 1 Cor. 3:22; and another,--

How vast a treasure we possess,

--enforced his text, "All things are yours." The hymn,--

Not all the blood of beasts

On Jewish altars slain,

--was, as some say, suggested to the writer by a visit to the abattoir

in Smithfield Market. The same hymn years afterwards, discovered, we are

told, in a printed paper wrapped around a shop bundle, converted a

Jewess, and influenced her to a life of Christian faith and sacrifice.

A young man, hardened by austere and minatory sermons, was melted, says

Dr. Belcher, by simply reading,--

Show pity Lord, O Lord, forgive,

Let a repenting sinner live.

--and became partaker of a rich religious experience.

The summer scenery of Southampton, with its distant view of the Isle of

Wight, was believed to have inspired the hymnist sitting at a parlor

window and gazing across the river Itchen, to write the stanza--

Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood

Stand drest in living green;

So to the Jews old Canaan stood

While Jordan rolled between.

The hymn, "Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb," was personal, addressed by

Watts "to Lucius on the death of Seneca."

A severe heart-trial was the occasion of another hymn. When a young man

he proposed marriage to Miss Elizabeth Singer, a much-admired young

lady, talented, beautiful, and good. She rejected him--kindly but

finally. The disappointment was bitter, and in the first shadow of it he

wrote,--

How vain are all things here below,

How false and yet how fair.

Miss Singer became the celebrated Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe, the spiritual and

poetic beauty of whose _Meditations_ once made a devotional text-book

for pious souls. Of Dr. Watts and his offer of his hand and heart, she

always said, "I loved the jewel, but I did not admire the casket." The

poet suitor was undersized, in habitually delicate health--and not

handsome.

But the good minister and scholar found noble employment to keep his

mind from preying upon itself and shortening his days. During his long

though afflicted leisure he versified the Psalms, wrote a treatise on

_Logic_, an _Introduction to the Study of Astronomy and Geography_, and

a work _On the Improvement of the Mind_; and died in 1748, at the age of

seventy-four.

"O FOR A THOUSAND TONGUES TO SING."

Charles Wesley, the author of this hymn, took up the harp of Watts when

the older poet laid it down. He was born at Epworth, Eng., in 1708, the

third son of Rev. Samuel Wesley, and died in London, March 29, 1788. The

hymn is believed to have been written May 17, 1739, for the anniversary

of his own conversion:

O for a thousand tongues to sing

My great Redeemer's praise,

The glories of my God and King,

And triumphs of His grace.

The remark of a fervent Christian friend, Peter Bohler, "Had I a

thousand tongues I would praise Christ Jesus with them all," struck an

answering chord in Wesley's heart, and he embalmed the wish in his

fluent verse. The third stanza (printed as second in some hymnals), has

made language for pardoned souls for at least four generations:

Jesus! the name that calms our fears

And bids our sorrows cease;

'Tis music in the sinner's ears,

'Tis life and health and peace.

Charles Wesley was the poet of the soul, and knew every mood. In the

words of Isaac Taylor, "There is no main article of belief ... no moral

sentiment peculiarly characteristic of the gospel that does not find

itself ... pointedly and clearly conveyed in some stanza of Charles

Wesley's poetry." And it does not dim the lustre of Watts, considering

the marvellous brightness, versatility and felicity of his greatest

successor, to say of the latter, with the _London Quarterly_, that he

"was, perhaps, the most gifted minstrel of the modern Church."

[Illustration: Charles Wesley]

Most of the hymns of this good man were hymns of experience--and this is

why they are so dear to the Christian heart. The music of eternal life

is in them. The happy glow of a single line in one of them--

Love Divine, all loves excelling,

--thrills through them all. He led a spotless life from youth to old

age, and grew unceasingly in spiritual knowledge and sweetness. His

piety and purity were the weapons that alike humbled his scoffing fellow

scholars at Oxford, and conquered the wild colliers of Kingwood. With

his brother John, through persecution and ridicule, he preached and sang

that Divine Love to his countrymen and in the wilds of America, and on

their return to England his quenchless melodies multiplied till they

made an Evangelical literature around his name. His hymns--he wrote no

less than six thousand--are a liturgy not only for the Methodist Church

but for English-speaking Christendom.

The voices of Wesley and Watts cannot be hidden, whatever province of

Christian life and service is traversed in themes of song, and in these

chapters they will be heard again and again.

A Watts-and-Wesley Scholarship would grace any Theological Seminary, to

encourage the study and discussion of the best lyrics of the two great

Gospel bards.

_THE TUNES._

The musical mouth-piece of "O for a thousand tongues," nearest to its

own date, is old "Azmon" by Carl Glaser (1734-1829), appearing as No. 1

in the _New Methodist Hymnal_. Arranged by Lowell Mason, 1830, it is

still comparatively familiar, and the flavor of devotion is in its tone

and style.

Henry John Gauntlett, an English lawyer and composer, wrote a tune for

it in 1872, noble in its uniform step and time, but scarcely uttering

the hymnist's characteristic ardor.

The tune of "Dedham," by William Gardiner, now venerable but surviving

by true merit, is not unlike "Azmon" in movement and character. Though

less closely associated with the hymn, as a companion melody it is not

inappropriate. But whatever the range of vocalization or the dignity of

swells and cadences, a slow pace of single semibreves or quarters is not

suited to Wesley's hymns. They are flights.

Professor William Gardiner wrote many works on musical subjects early in

the last century, and composed vocal harmonies, secular and sacred. He

was born in Leicester, Eng., March 5, 1770, and died there Nov. 16,

1853.

There is an old-fashioned unction and vigor in the style of

"Peterborough" by Rev. Ralph Harrison (1748-1810) that after all best

satisfies the singer who enters heart and soul into the spirit of the

hymn. _Old Peterborough_ was composed in 1786.

"LORD WITH GLOWING HEART I'D PRAISE THEE."

This was written in 1817 by the author of the "Star Spangled Banner,"

and is a noble American hymn of which the country may well be proud,

both because of its merit and for its birth in the heart of a national

poet who was no less a Christian than a patriot.

Francis Scott Key, lawyer, was born on the estate of his father, John

Ross Key, in Frederick, Md., Aug. 1st, 1779; and died in Baltimore, Jan.

11, 1843. A bronze statue of him over his grave, and another in Golden

Gate Park, San Francisco, represent the nationality of his fame and the

gratitude of a whole land.

Though a slaveholder by inheritance, Mr. Key deplored the existence of

human slavery, and not only originated a scheme of African colonization,

but did all that a model master could do for the chattels on his

plantation, in compliance with the Scripture command,[6] to lighten

their burdens. He helped them in their family troubles, defended them

gratuitously in the courts, and held regular Sunday-school services for

them.

[Footnote 6: Eph. 6:9, Coloss. 4:1.]

Educated at St. John's College, an active member of the Episcopal

Church, he was not only a scholar but a devout and exemplary man.

Lord, with glowing heart I'd praise Thee

For the bliss Thy love bestows,

For the pardoning grace that saves me,

And the peace that from it flows.

Help, O Lord, my weak endeavor;

This dull soul to rapture raise;

Thou must light the flame or never

Can my love be warmed to praise.

Lord, this bosom's ardent feeling

Vainly would my life express;

Low before Thy footstool kneeling,

Deign Thy suppliant's prayer to bless.

Let Thy grace, my soul's chief treasure,

Love's pure flame within me raise,

And, since words can never measure,

Let my life show forth Thy praise.

_THE TUNE._

"St. Chad," a choral in D, with a four-bar unison, in the _Evangelical

Hymnal_, is worthy of the hymn. Richard Redhead, the composer, organist

of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Paddington, Eng., was born at

Harrow, Middlesex, March 1, 1820, and educated at Magdalene College,

Oxford. Graduated Bachelor of Music at Oxford, 1871. He published

_Laudes Dominæ_, a Gregorian Psalter, 1843, a Book of Tunes for the

_Christian Year_, and is the author of much ritual music.

"HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, LORD GOD ALMIGHTY."

There is nothing so majestic in Protestant hymnology as this Tersanctus

of Bishop Heber.

The Rt. Rev. Reginald Heber, son of a clergyman of the same name, was

born in Malpas, Cheshire, Eng., April 21st, 1783, and educated at

Oxford. He served the church in Hodnet, Shropshire, for about twenty

years, and was then appointed Bishop of Calcutta, E.I. His labors there

were cut short in the prime of his life, his death occurring in 1826, at

Trichinopoly on the 3d of April, his natal month.

His hymns, numbering fifty-seven, were collected by his widow, and

published with his poetical works in 1842.

Holy! holy! holy! Lord God Almighty!

Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee.

Holy! holy! holy! merciful and mighty,

God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity.

Holy! holy! holy! all the saints adore Thee,

Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;

Cherubim and seraphim, falling down before Thee,

Which wert, and art, and evermore shall be.

_THE TUNE._

Grand as the hymn is, it did not come to its full grandeur of sentiment

and sound in song-worship till the remarkable music of Dr. John B. Dykes

was joined to it. None was ever written that in performance illustrates

more admirably the solemn beauty of congregational praise. The name

"Nicæa" attached to the tune means nothing to the popular ear and mind,

and it is known everywhere by the initial words of the first line.

Rev. John Bacchus Dykes, Doctor of Music, was born at

Kingston-upon-Hull, in 1823; and graduated at Cambridge, in 1847. He

became a master of tone and choral harmony, and did much to reform and

elevate congregational psalmody in England. He was perhaps the first to

demonstrate that hymn-tune making can be reduced to a science without

impairing its spiritual purpose. Died Jan. 22, 1876.

"LORD OF ALL BEING, THRONED AFAR."

This noble hymn was composed by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, born in

Cambridge, Mass., 1809, and graduated at Harvard University. A physician

by profession, he was known as a practitioner chiefly in literature,

being a brilliant writer and long the leading poetical wit of America.

He was, however, a man of deep religious feeling, and a devout attendant

at King's Chapel, Unitarian, in Boston where he spent his life. He held

the Harvard Professorship of Anatomy and Physiology more than fifty

years, but his enduring work is in his poems, and his charming volume,

_The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_. Died Jan. 22, 1896.

_THE TUNE._

Holmes' hymn is sung in some churches to "Louvan," V.C. Taylor's

admirable praise tune. Other hymnals prefer with it the music of

"Keble," one of Dr. Dykes' appropriate and finished melodies.

Virgil Corydon Taylor, an American vocal composer, was born in

Barkhamstead, Conn., April 2, 1817, died 1891.