SOME HYMNS OF GREAT WITNESSES.
JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
[Greek: Erchesthe, ô pistoi,
Anastaseôs Hêmera.]
John of Damascus, called also St. John of Jerusalem, a theologian and
poet, was the last but one of the Christian Fathers of the Greek Church.
This eminent man was named by the Arabs "Ibn Mansur," Son (Servant?) of
a Conqueror, either in honor of his father Sergius or because it was a
Semitic translation of his family title. He was born in Damascus early
in the 8th century, and seems to have been in favor with the Caliph, and
served under him many years in some important civil capacity, until,
retiring to Palestine, he entered the monastic order, and late in life
was ordained a priest of the Jerusalem Church. He died in the Convent of
St. Sabas near that city about A.D. 780.
His lifetime appears to have been passed in comparative peace. Mohammed
having died before completing the conquest of Syria, the Moslem rule
before whose advance Oriental Christianity was to lose its first field
of triumph had not yet asserted its persecuting power in the north. This
devout monk, in his meditations at St. Sabas, dwelt much upon the birth
and the resurrection of Christ, and made hymns to celebrate them. It was
probably four hundred years before Bonaventura (?) wrote the Christmas
"Adeste Fideles" of the Latin West that John of Damascus composed his
Greek "Adeste Fideles" for a Resurrection song in Jerusalem.
Come ye faithful, raise the strain
Of triumphant gladness.
* * * * *
'Tis the spring of souls today
Christ hath burst His prison;
From the frost and gloom of death
Light and life have risen.
The nobler of the two hymns preserved to us, (or six stanzas of it)
through eleven centuries is entitled "The Day of Resurrection."
The day of resurrection,
Earth, tell its joys abroad:
The Passover of gladness,
The Passover of God.
From death to life eternal,
From earth unto the sky,
Our Christ hath brought us over,
With hymns of victory.
Our hearts be pure from evil,
That we may see aright
The Lord in rays eternal
Of resurrection light;
And, listening to His accents,
May hear, so calm and plain,
His own, "All hail!" and hearing,
May raise the victor-strain.
Now let the heavens be joyful,
Let earth her song begin,
Let all the world keep triumph,
All that dwell therein.
In grateful exultation,
Their notes let all things blend,
For Christ the Lord is risen,
O joy that hath no end!
Both these hymns of John of Damascus were translated by John Mason
Neale.
_THE TUNE._
"The Day of Resurrection" is sung in the modern hymnals to the tune of
"Rotterdam," composed by Berthold of Tours, born in that city of the
Netherlands, Dec. 17, 1838. He was educated at the conservatory in
Leipsic, and later made London his permanent residence, writing both
vocal and instrumental music. Died 1897. "Rotterdam" is a stately,
sonorous piece and conveys the flavor of the ancient hymn.
"Come ye faithful" has for its modern interpreter Sir Arthur Sullivan,
the celebrated composer of both secular and sacred works, but best
known in hymnody as author of the great Christian march, "Onward
Christian Soldiers."
Hymns are known to have been written by the earlier Greek Fathers,
Ephrem Syrus of Mesopotamia (A.D. 307-373), Basil the Great, Bishop of
Cappadocia (A.D. 329-379) Gregory Nazianzen, Bishop of Constantinople
(A.D. 335-390) and others, but their fragments of song which have come
down to us scarcely rank them among the great witnesses--with the
possible exception of the last name. An English scholar, Rev. Allen W.
Chatfield, has translated the hymns extant of Gregory Nazianzen. The
following stanzas give an idea of their quality. The lines are from an
address to the Deity:
How, Unapproached! shall mind of man
Descry Thy dazzling throne,
And pierce and find Thee out, and scan
Where Thou dost dwell alone?
Unuttered Thou! all uttered things
Have had their birth from Thee;
The One Unknown, from Thee the spring
Of all we know and see.
And lo! all things abide in Thee
And through the complex whole,
Thou spreadst Thine own divinity,
Thyself of all the Goal.
This is reverent, but rather philosophical than evangelical, and reminds
us of the Hymn of Aratus, more than two centuries before Christ was
born.
ST. STEPHEN, THE SABAITE.
This pious Greek monk, (734-794,) nephew of St. John of Damascus, spent
his life, from the age of ten, in the monastery of St. Sabas. His sweet
hymn, known in Neale's translation,--
Art thou weary, art thou languid,
Art thou sore distrest?
Come to Me, saith One, and coming
Be at rest,
--is still in the hymnals, with the tunes of Dykes, and Sir Henry W.
Baker (1821-1877), Vicar of Monkland, Herefordshire.
KING ROBERT II.
_Veni, Sancte Spiritus._
Robert the Second, surnamed "Robert the Sage" and "Robert the Devout,"
succeeded Hugh Capet, his father, upon the throne of France, about the
year 997. He has been called the gentlest monarch that ever sat upon a
throne, and his amiability of character poorly prepared him to cope with
his dangerous and wily adversaries. His last years were embittered by
the opposition of his own sons, and the political agitations of the
times. He died at Melun in 1031, and was buried at St. Denis.
Robert possessed a reflective mind, and was fond of learning and musical
art. He was both a poet and a musician. He was deeply religious, and,
from unselfish motives, was much devoted to the church.
Robert's hymn, "Veni, Sancte Spiritus," is given below. He himself was a
chorister; and there was no kingly service that he seemed to love so
well. We are told that it was his custom to go to the church of St.
Denis, and in his royal robes, with his crown upon his head, to direct
the choir at matins and vespers, and join in the singing. Few kings have
left a better legacy to the Christian church than his own hymn, which,
after nearly a thousand years, is still an influence in the world:
Come, Thou Holy Spirit, come,
And from Thine eternal home
Shed the ray of light divine;
Come, Thou Father of the poor,
Come, Thou Source of all our store,
Come, within our bosoms shine.
Thou of Comforters the best,
Thou the soul's most welcome Guest,
Sweet Refreshment here below!
In our labor Rest most sweet,
Grateful Shadow from the heat,
Solace in the midst of woe!
Oh, most blessed Light Divine,
Shine within these hearts of Thine,
And our inmost being fill;
If Thou take Thy grace away,
Nothing pure in man will stay,
All our good is turned to ill.
Heal our wounds; our strength renew
On our dryness pour Thy dew;
Wash the stains of guilt away!
Bend the stubborn heart and will,
Melt the frozen, warm the chill,
Guide the steps that go astray.
_Neale's Translation_.
_THE TUNE._
The metre and six-line stanza, being uniform with those of "Rock of
Ages," have tempted some to borrow "Toplady" for this ancient hymn, but
Hastings' tune would refuse to sing other words; and, besides, the
alternate rhymes would mar the euphony. Not unsuitable in spirit are
several existing tunes of the right measure--like "Nassau" or "St.
Athanasius"--but in truth the "Veni, Sancte Spiritus" in English waits
for its perfect setting. Dr. Ray Palmer's paraphrase of it in
sixes-and-fours, to fit "Olivet,"--
Come, Holy Ghost in love, etc.
--is objectionable both because the word Ghost is an archaism in
Christian worship and more especially because Dr. Palmer's altered
version usurps the place of his own hymn. "Olivet" with "My faith looks
up to Thee" makes as inviolable a case of psalmodic monogamy as
"Toplady" with "Rock of Ages."
ST. FULBERT.
"_Chori Cantores Hierusalem Novae._"
St. Fulbert's hymn is a worthy companion of Perronet's "Coronation"--if,
indeed, it was not its original prompter--as King Robert's great litany
was the mother song of Watts' "Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove;" and
the countless other sacred lyrics beginning with similar words. As the
translation stands in the Church of England, there are six stanzas now
sung, though in America but four appear, and not in the same sequence.
The first four of the six in their regular succession are as follows:
Ye choirs of New Jerusalem,
Your sweetest notes employ,
The Paschal victory to hymn
In strains of holy joy.
For Judah's Lion bursts His chains,
Crushing the serpent's head;
And cries aloud, through death's domains
To wake the imprisoned dead.
Devouring depths of hell their prey
At His command restore;
His ransomed hosts pursue their way
Where Jesus goes before.
Triumphant in His glory now,
To Him all power is given;
To Him in one communion bow
All saints in earth and heaven.
Bishop Fulbert, known in the Roman and in the Protestant ritualistic
churches as St. Fulbert of Chartres, was a man of brilliant and
versatile mind, and one of the most eminent prelates of his time. He was
a contemporary of Robert II, and his intimate friend, continuing so
after the Pope (Gregory V.) excommunicated the king for marrying a
cousin, which was forbidden by the canons of the church.
Fulbert was for some time head of the Theological College at Chartres, a
cathedral town of France, anciently the capital of Celtic Gaul, and
afterwards he was consecrated as Bishop of that diocese. He died about
1029.
_THE TUNE._
The modern tone-interpreter of Fulbert's hymn bears the name "La Spezia"
in some collections, and was composed by James Taylor about the time the
hymn was translated into English by Robert Campbell. Research might
discover the ancient tune--for the hymn is said to have been sung in the
English church during Fulbert's lifetime--but the older was little
likely to be the better music. "La Spezia" is a choral of enlivening but
easy chords, and a tread of triumph in its musical motion that suits the
march of "Judah's Lion":
His ransomed hosts pursue their way
Where Jesus goes before.
James Taylor, born 1833, is a Doctor of Music, organist of the
University of Oxford and Director of the Oxford Philharmonic Society.
Robert Campbell, the translator, was a Scotch lawyer, born in Edinburgh,
who besides his work as an advocate wrote original hymns, and in other
ways exercised a natural literary gift. He compiled the excellent
Hymnal of the diocese of St. Andrews, and this was his best work. The
date of his death is given as Dec. 29, 1868.
THOMAS OF CELANO.
Dies irae! dies illa,
Solvet saeclum in favilla,
Teste David cum Sybilla.
Day of wrath! that day of burning,
All the world to ashes turning,
Sung by prophets far discerning.
Latin ecclesiastical poetry reached its high water mark in that awful
hymn. The solitaire of its sphere and time in the novelty of its
rhythmic triplets, it stood a wonder to the church and hierarchy
accustomed to the slow spondees of the ancient chant. There could be
such a thing as a trochaic hymn!--and majestic, too!
It was a discovery that did not stale. The compelling grandeur of the
poem placed it distinct and alone, and the very difficulty of staffing
it for vocal and instrumental use gave it a zest, and helped to keep it
unique through the ages.
Latin hymnody and hymnography, appealing to the popular ear and heart,
had gradually substituted accent for quantity in verse; for the common
people could never be moved by a Christian song in the prosody of the
classics. The religion of the cross, with the song-preaching of its
propagandists, created medieval Latin and made it a secondary
classic--mother of four anthem languages of Western and Southern Europe.
Its golden age was the 12th and 13th centuries. The new and more
flexible school of speech and music in hymn and tune had perfected
rhythmic beauty and brought in the winsome assonance of rhyme.
[Illustration: Dr. Martin Luther]
The "Dies Irae" was born, it is believed, about the year 1255. Its
authorship has been debated, but competent testimony assures us that the
original draft of the great poem was found in a box among the effects of
Thomas di Celano after his death. Thomas--surnamed Thomas of Celano from
his birthplace, the town of Celano in the province of Aquila, Southern
Italy--was the pupil, friend and co-laborer of St. Francis of Assisi,
and wrote his memoirs. He is supposed to have died near the end of the
13th century. That he wrote the sublime judgment song there is now
practically no question.
The label on the discovered manuscript would suggest that the writer did
not consider it either a hymn or a poem. Like the inspired prophets he
had meditated--and while he was musing the fire burned. The only title
he wrote over it was "_Prosa de mortuis_," Prosa (or prosa oratio)--from
_prorsus_, "straight forward"--appears here in the truly conventional
sense it was beginning to bear, but not yet as the antipode of "poetry."
The modest author, unconscious of the magnitude of his work, called it
simply "Plain speech concerning the dead."[7]
[Footnote 7: "Proses" were original passages introduced into
ecclesiastical chants in the 10th century. During and after the 11th
century they were called "Sequences" (i.e. _following_ the "Gospel" in
the liturgy), and were in metrical form, having a prayerful tone.
"Sequentia pro defunctis" was the later title of the "Dies Irae."]
The hymn is much too long to quote entire, but can be found in _Daniel's
Thesaurus_ in any large public library. As to the translations of it,
they number hundreds--in English and German alone, and Italy, Spain and
Portugal have their vernacular versions--not to mention the Greek and
Russian and even the Hebrew. A few stanzas follow, with their renderings
into English (always imperfect) selected almost at random:
Quantus tremor est futurus
Quando Judex est venturus,
Cuncta stricte discussurus!
Tuba mirum spargens sonum
Per sepulcra regionum,
Coget omnes ante thronum!
O the dread, the contrite kneeling
When the Lord, in Judgment dealing,
Comes each hidden thing revealing!
When the trumpet's awful tone
Through the realms sepulchral blown,
Summons all before the Throne!
The solemn strength and vibration of these tremendous trilineals suffers
no general injury by the variant readings--and there are a good many. As
a sample, the first stanza was changed by some canonical redactor to get
rid of the heathen word Sybilla, and the second line was made the
third:
Dies Irae, dies illa
Crucis expandens vexilla,
Solvet saeclum in favilla.
Day of wrath! that day foretold,
With the cross-flag wide unrolled,
Shall the world in fire enfold!
In some readings the original "in favilla" is changed to "_cum_
favilla," "_with_ ashes" instead of "in ashes"; and "Teste Petro" is
substituted for "Teste David."
_THE TUNE._
The varieties of music set to the "Hymn of Judgment" in the different
sections and languages of Christendom during seven hundred years are
probably as numerous as the pictures of the Holy Family in Christian
art. It is enough to say that one of the best at hand, or, at least,
accessible, is the solemn minor melody of Dr. Dykes in William Henry
Monk's _Hymns Ancient and Modern_. It was composed about the middle of
the last century. Both the _Evangelical_ and _Methodist Hymnals_ have
Dean Stanley's translation of the hymn, the former with thirteen stanzas
(six-line) to a D minor of John Stainer, and the latter to a C major of
Timothy Matthews. The _Plymouth Hymnal_ has seventeen of the trilineal
stanzas, by an unknown translator, to Ferdinand Hiller's tune in F
minor, besides one verse to another F minor--hymn and tune both
nameless.
All the composers above named are musicians of fame. John Stainer,
organist of St. Paul's Cathedral, was a Doctor of Music and Chevalier of
the Legion of Honor, and celebrated for his works in sacred music, to
which he mainly devoted his time. He was born June 6, 1840. He died
March 31, 1901.
Rev. Timothy Richard Matthews, born at Colmworth, Eng., Nov. 20, 1826,
is a clergyman of the Church of England, incumbent of a Lancaster charge
to which he was appointed by Queen Alexandra.
Ferdinand Hiller, born 1811 at Frankfort-on-the-Main, of Hebrew
parentage, was one of Germany's most eminent musicians. For many years
he was Chapel Master at Cologne, and organized the Cologne Conservatory.
His compositions are mostly for instrumental performance, but he wrote
cantatas, motets, male choruses, and two oratorios, one on the
"Destruction of Jerusalem." Died May 10, 1855.
The Very Rev. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster, was an author
and scholar whom all sects of Christians delighted to honor. His
writings on the New Testament and his published researches in Palestine,
made him an authority in Biblical study, and his contributions to sacred
literature were looked for and welcomed as eagerly as a new hymn by
Bonar or a new poem by Tennyson. Dean Stanley was born in 1815, and died
July 18th, 1881.
THOMAS À KEMPIS.
Thomas à Kempis, sub-prior of the Convent of St. Agnes, was born at
Hamerkin, Holland, about the year 1380, and died at Zwoll, 1471. This
pious monk belonged to an order called the "Brethren of the Common Life"
founded by Gerard de Groote, and his fame rests entirely upon his one
book, the _Imitation of Christ_, which continues to be printed as a
religious classic, and is unsurpassed as a manual of private devotion.
His monastic life--as was true generally of the monastic life of the
middle ages--was not one of useless idleness. The Brethren taught school
and did mechanical work. Besides, before the invention of printing had
been perfected and brought into common service, the multiplication of
books was principally the work of monkish pens. Kempis spent his days
copying the Bible and good books--as well as in exercises of devotion
that promoted religious calm.
His idea of heaven, and the idea of his order, was expressed in that
clause of John's description of the City of God, Rev. 22:3, "_and His
servants shall serve Him_." Above all other heavenly joys that was his
favorite thought. We can well understand that the pious quietude wrought
in his mind and manners by his habit of life made him a saint in the
eyes of the people. The frontispiece of one edition of his _Imitatio
Christi_ pictures him as being addressed before the door of a convent
by a troubled pilgrim,--
"O where is peace?--for thou its paths hast trod,"
--and his answer completes the couplet,--
"In poverty, retirement, and with God."
Of all that is best in inward spiritual life, much can be learned from
this inspired Dutchman. He wrote no hymns, but in his old age he
composed a poem on "Heaven's Joys," which is sometimes called "Thomas à
Kempis' Hymn":
High the angel choirs are raising
Heart and voice in harmony;
The Creator King still praising
Whom in beauty there they see.
Sweetest strains from soft harps stealing,
Trumpets' notes of triumph pealing,
Radiant wings and white stoles gleaming
Up the steps of glory streaming;
Where the heavenly bells are ringing;
"Holy! holy! holy!" singing
To the mighty Trinity!
"Holy! holy! holy!" crying,
For all earthly care and sighing
In that city cease to be!
These lines are not in the hymnals of today--and whether they ever found
their way into choral use in ancient times we are not told. Worse poetry
has been sung--and more un-hymnlike. Some future composer will make a
tune to the words of a Christian who stood almost in sight of his
hundredth year--and of the eternal home he writes about.
MARTIN LUTHER.
"_Ein Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott._"
Of Martin Luther Coleridge said, "He did as much for the Reformation by
his hymns as he did by his translation of the Bible." The remark is so
true that it has become a commonplace.
The above line--which may be seen inscribed on Luther's tomb at
Wittenberg--is the opening sentence and key-note of the Reformer's
grandest hymn. The forty-sixth Psalm inspired it, and it is in harmony
with sublime historical periods from its very nature, boldness, and
sublimity. It was written, according to Welles, in the memorable year
when the evangelical princes delivered their protest at the Diet of
Spires, from which the word and the meaning of the word "Protestant" is
derived. "Luther used often to sing it in 1530, while the Diet of
Augsburg was sitting. It soon became the favorite psalm with the people.
It was one of the watchwords of the Reformation, cheering armies to
conflict, and sustaining believers in the hours of fiery trial."
"After Luther's death, Melancthon, his affectionate coadjutor, being one
day at Weimar with his banished friends, Jonas and Creuziger, heard a
little maid singing this psalm in the street, and said, 'Sing on, my
little girl, you little know whom you comfort:'"
A mighty fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great,
And, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
* * * * *
The Prince of Darkness grim--
We tremble not for him:
His rage we can endure,
For lo! his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.
That word above all earthly powers--
No thanks to them--abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours,
Through Him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also;
The body they may kill,
God's truth abideth still,
His kingdom is for ever.
Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, in Saxony, Nov. 10, 1483. He was
educated at the University of Erfurth, and became an Augustinian monk
and Professor of Philosophy and Divinity in the University of
Wittenberg. In 1517 he composed and placarded his ninety-five Theses
condemning certain practices of the Romish Church and three years later
the Pope published a bull excommunicating him, which he burnt openly
before a sympathetic multitude in Wittenberg. His life was a stormy one,
and he was more than once in mortal danger by reason of his antagonism
to the papal authority, but he found powerful patrons, and lived to see
the Reformation an organized fact. He died in his birthplace, Eisleben,
Feb. 18th, 1546.
The translation of the "Ein feste burg," given above, in part, is by
Rev. Frederick Henry Hedge, D.D., born in Cambridge, March 1805, a
graduate of Harvard, and formerly minister of the Unitarian Church in
Bangor, Me. Died, 1890.
Luther wrote thirty-six hymns, to some of which he fitted his own music,
for he was a musician and singer as well as an eloquent preacher. The
tune in which "Ein feste Burg" is sung in the hymnals, was composed by
himself. The hymn has also a noble rendering in the music of Sebastian
Bach, 8-4 time, found in _Hymns Ancient and Modern_.
BARTHOLOMEW RINGWALDT.
"Great God, What Do I See and Hear?"
The history of this hymn is somewhat indefinite, though common consent
now attributes to Ringwaldt the stanza beginning with the above line.
The imitation of the "Dies Irae" in German which was first in use was
printed in Jacob Klug's "_Gesangbuch_" in 1535. Ringwaldt's hymn of the
Last Day, also inspired from the ancient Latin original, appears in his
_Handbuchlin_ of 1586, but does not contain this stanza. The first line
is, "The awful Day will surely come," (Es ist gewisslich an der Zeit).
Nevertheless through the more than two hundred years that the hymn has
been translated and re-translated, and gone through inevitable
revisions, some vital identity in the spirit and tone of the one
seven-line stanza has steadily connected it with Ringwaldt's name.
Apparently it is the single survivor of a great lost hymn--edited and
altered out of recognition. But its power evidently inspired the added
verses, as we have them. Dr. Collyer found it, and, regretting that it
was too short to sing in public service, composed stanzas 2d, 3d and
4th. It is likely that Collyer first met with it in _Psalms and Hymns
for Public and Private Devotion_, Sheffield 1802, where it appeared
anonymously. So far as known this was its first publication in English.
Ringwaldt's stanza and two of Collyer's are here given:
Great God, what do I see and hear!
The end of things created!
The Judge of mankind doth appear
On clouds of glory seated.
The trumpet sounds, the graves restore
The dead which they contained before;
Prepare, my soul, to meet Him.
The dead in Christ shall first arise
At the last trumpet sounding,
Caught up to meet Him in the skies,
With joy their Lord surrounding.
No gloomy fears their souls dismay
His presence sheds eternal day
On those prepared to meet Him.
Far over space to distant spheres
The lightnings are prevailing
Th' ungodly rise, and all their tears
And sighs are unavailing.
The day of grace is past and gone;
They shake before the Judge's Throne
All unprepared to meet Him.
Bartholomew Ringwaldt, pastor of the Lutheran Church of Longfeld,
Prussia, was born in 1531, and died in 1599. His hymns appear in a
collection entitled _Hymns for the Sundays and Festivals of the Whole
Year_.
Rev. William Bengo Collyer D.D., was born at Blackheath near London,
April 14, 1782, educated at Homerton College and settled over a
Congregational Church in Peckham. In 1812 he published a book of hymns,
and in 1837 a _Service Book_ to which he contributed eighty-nine hymns.
He died Jan, 9, 1854.
_THE TUNE._
Probably it was the customary singing of Ringwaldt's hymn (in Germany)
to Luther's tune that gave it for some time the designation of "Luther's
Hymn," the title by which the music is still known--an air either
composed or adapted by Luther, and rendered perhaps unisonously or with
extempore chords. It was not until early in the last century that
Vincent Novello wrote to it the noble arrangement now in use. It is a
strong, even-time harmony with lofty tenor range, and very impressive
with full choir and organ or the vocal volume of a congregation. In
_Cheetham's Psalmody_ is it written with a trumpet obligato.
Vincent Novello, born in London, Sept. 6, 1781, the intimate friend of
Lamb, Shelley, Keats, Hunt and Hazlitt, was a professor of music who
attained great eminence as an organist and composer of hymn-tunes and
sacred pieces. He was the founder of the publishing house of Novello and
Ewer, and father of a famous musical family. Died at Nice, Aug. 9, 1861.
ST. FRANCIS XAVIER.
"_O Deus, Ego Amo Te._"
Francis Xavier, the celebrated Jesuit missionary, called "The Apostle of
the Indies," was a Spaniard, born in 1506. While a student in Paris he
met Ignatius Loyola, and joined him in the formation of the new "Society
for the Propagation of the Faith." He was sent out on a mission to the
East Indies and Japan, and gave himself to the work with a martyr's
devotion. The stations he established in Japan were maintained more than
a hundred years. He died in China, Dec. 1552.
His hymn, some time out of use, is being revived in later singing-books
as expressive of the purest and highest Christian sentiment:
O Deus, ego amo Te.
Nec amo Te, ut salves me,
Aut quia non amantes Te
Æterno punis igne.
My God, I love Thee--not because
I hope for heaven thereby;
Nor yet because who love Thee not
Must burn eternally.
After recounting Christ's vicarious sufferings as the chief claim to His
disciples' unselfish love, the hymn continues,--
Cur igitur non amem Te,
O Jesu amantissime!
Non, ut in coelo salves me,
Aut in æternum damnes me.
Then why, O blessed Jesus Christ,
Should I not love Thee well?
Not for the sake of winning heaven,
Nor of escaping hell;
Not with the hope of gaining aught,
Nor seeking a reward,
But as Thyself hast lovéd me,
Oh, ever-loving Lord!
E'en so I love Thee, and will love,
And in Thy praise will sing;
Solely because Thou art my God
And my eternal King.
The translation is by Rev. Edward Caswall, 1814-1878, a priest in the
Church of Rome. Besides his translations, he published the _Lyra
Catholica_, the _Masque of Mary_, and several other poetical works.
(Page 101.)
_THE TUNE._
"St. Bernard"--apparently so named because originally composed to
Caswall's translation of one of Bernard of Clairvaux's hymns--is by
John Richardson, born in Preston, Eng., Dec. 4, 1817, and died there
April 13, 1879. He was an organist in Liverpool, and noted as a composer
of glees, but was the author of several sacred tunes.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
"Give Me My Scallop-Shell of Quiet."
Few of the hymns of the Elizabethan era survive, though the Ambrosian
Midnight Hymn, "Hark, 'tis the Midnight Cry," and the hymns of St.
Bernard and Bernard of Cluny, are still tones in the church, and the
religious poetry of Sir Walter Raleigh comes down to us associated with
the history of his brilliant, though tragic career. The following poem
has some fine lines in the quaint English style of the period, and was
composed by Sir Walter during his first imprisonment:
Give me my scallop-shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy--immortal diet--
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope's true gage--
And thus I take my pilgrimage.
Blood must be my body's balmer,
While my soul, like faithful palmer,
Travelleth toward the land of heaven;
Other balm will not be given.
Over the silver mountains
Where spring the nectar fountains,
There will I kiss the bowl of bliss,
And drink my everlasting fill,
Upon every milken hill;
My soul will be a-dry before,
But after that will thirst no more.
The musings of the unfortunate but high-souled nobleman in expectation
of ignominious death are interesting and pathetic, but they have no
claim to a tune, even if they were less rugged and unmetrical. But the
poem stands notable among the pious witnesses.
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.
"_O Domine Deus, Speravi in Te._"
This last passionate prayer of the unhappy Mary Stuart just before her
execution--in a language which perhaps flowed from her pen more easily
than even her English or French--is another witness of supplicating
faith that struggles out of darkness with a song. In her extremity the
devoted Catholic forgets her petitions to the Virgin, and comes to
Christ:
O Domine Deus, Speravi in Te;
O care mi Jesu, nunc libera me!
In dura catena, in misera poena
Desidero Te!
Languendo, gemendo, et genuflectendo
Adoro, imploro ut liberes me!
My Lord and my God! I have trusted in Thee;
O Jesus, my Saviour belov'd, set me free:
In rigorous chains, in piteous pains,
I am longing for Thee!
In weakness appealing, in agony kneeling,
I pray, I beseech Thee, O Lord, set me free!
One would, at first thought, judge this simple but eloquent cry worthy
of an appropriate tone-expression--to be sung by prison evangelists like
the Volunteers of America, to convicts in the jails and penitentiaries.
But its special errand and burden are voiced so literally that hardened
hearers would probably misapply it--however sincerely the petitioner
herself meant to invoke spiritual rather than temporal deliverance. The
hymn, if we may call it so, is _too_ literal. Possibly at some time or
other it may have been set to music but not for ordinary choir service.
SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.
The sands of time are sinking,
* * * * *
But, glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's Land.
This hymn is biographical, but not autobiographical. Like the discourses
in Herodotus and Plutarch, it is the voice of the dead speaking through
the sympathetic genius of the living after long generations. The strong,
stern Calvinist of 1636 in Aberdeen was not a poet, but he bequeathed
his spirit and life to the verse of a poet of 1845 in Melrose. Anne Ross
Cousin read his two hundred and twenty letters written during a two
years' captivity for his fidelity to the purer faith, and studied his
whole history and experience till her soul took his soul's place and
felt what he felt. Her poem of nineteen stanzas (152 lines) is the voice
of Rutherford the Covenanter, with the prolixity of his manner and age
sweetened by his triumphant piety, and that is why it belongs with the
_Hymns of Great Witnesses_. The three or four stanzas still occasionally
printed and sung are only recalled to memory by the above three lines.
Samuel Rutherford was born in Nisbet Parish, Scotland, in 1600. His
settled ministry was at Anworth, in Galloway--1630-1651--with a break
between 1636 and 1638, when Charles I. angered by his anti-prelatical
writings, silenced and banished him. Shut up in Aberdeen, but allowed,
like Paul in Rome, to live "in his own hired house" and write letters,
he poured out his heart's love in Epistles to his Anworth flock and to
the Non-conformists of Scotland. When his countrymen rose against the
attempted imposition of a new holy Romish service-book on their
churches, he escaped to his people, and soon after appeared in Edinburgh
and signed the covenant with the assembled ministers. Thirteen years
later, after Cromwell's death and the accession of Charles II. the wrath
of the prelates fell on him at St. Andrews, where the Presbytery had
made him rector of the college. The King's decree indicted him for
treason, stripped him of all his offices, and would have forced him to
the block had he not been stricken with his last sickness. When the
officers came to take him he said, "I am summoned before a higher Judge
and Judicatory, and I am behooved to attend them." He died soon after,
in the year 1661.
The first, and a few other of the choicest stanzas of the hymn inspired
by his life and death are here given:
The sands of time are sinking,
The dawn of heaven breaks,
The summer morn I've sighed for--
The fair, sweet morn--awakes.
Dark, dark hath been the midnight,
But dayspring is at hand;
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.
* * * * *
Oh! well it is for ever--
Oh! well for evermore:
My nest hung in no forest
Of all this death-doomed shore;
Yea, let this vain world vanish,
As from the ship the strand,
While glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.
* * * * *
The little birds of Anworth--
I used to count them blest;
Now beside happier altars
I go to build my nest;
O'er these there broods no silence
No graves around them stand;
For glory deathless dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.
I have borne scorn and hatred,
I have borne wrong and shame,
Earth's proud ones have reproached me
For Christ's thrice blesséd name.
Where God's seals set the fairest,
They've stamped their foulest brand;
But judgment shines like noonday
In Immanuel's land.
They've summoned me before them,
But there I may not come;
My Lord says, "Come up hither;"
My Lord says, "Welcome home;"
My King at His white throne
My presence doth command,
Where glory, glory dwelleth,
In Immanuel's land.
A reminiscence of St. Paul in his second Epistle to Timothy (chap. 4)
comes with the last two stanzas.
_THE TUNE._
The tender and appropriate choral in B flat, named "Rutherford" was
composed by D'Urhan, a French musician, probably a hundred years ago. It
was doubtless named by those who long afterwards fitted it to the words,
and knew whose spiritual proxy the lady stood who indited the hymn. It
is reprinted in Peloubet's _Select Songs_, and in the _Coronation
Hymnal_. Naturally in the days of the hymn's more frequent use people
became accustomed to calling "The sands of time are sinking,"
"Rutherford's Hymn." Rutherford's own words certainly furnished the
memorable refrain with its immortal glow and gladness. One of his joyful
exclamations as he lay dying of his lingering disease was, "Glory
shineth in Immanuel's Land!"
Chretien (Christian) Urhan, or D'Urhan, was born at Montjoie, France,
about 1788, and died, in Paris, 1845. He was a noted violin-player, and
composer, also, of vocal and instrumental music.
Mrs. Anne Ross (Cundell) Cousin, daughter of David Ross Cundell, M.D.,
and widow of Rev. William Cousin of the Free church of Scotland, was
born in Melrose (?), 1824. She wrote many poems, most of which are
beautiful meditations rather than lyrics suitable for public song. Her
"Rutherford Hymn" was first published in the _Christian Treasury_, 1857.
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.
"_Verzage Nicht Du Hauflein Klein._"
The historian tells us that before the battle of Lutzen, during the
Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), King Gustavus of Sweden, in the thick fog
of an autumn morning, with the Bohemian and Austrian armies of Emperor
Ferdinand in front of him, knelt before his troops, and his whole army
knelt with him in prayer. Then ten thousand voices and the whole concert
of regimental bands burst forth in this brave song:
Fear not, O little flock, the foe
Who madly seeks your overthrow,
Dread not his rage and power:
What though your courage sometimes faints,
His seeming triumph o'er God's saints
Lasts but a little hour.
Be of good cheer, your cause belongs
To Him who can avenge your wrongs;
Leave it to Him, our Lord:
Though hidden yet from all our eyes,
He sees the Gideon who shall rise
To save us and His word.
As true as God's own word is true,
Nor earth nor hell with all their crew,
Against us shall prevail:
A jest and by-word they are grown;
God is with us, we are His own,
Our victory cannot fail.
Amen, Lord Jesus, grant our prayer!
Great Captain, now Thine arm make bare,
Fight for us once again:
So shall Thy saints and martyrs raise
A mighty chorus to Thy praise,
World without end. Amen.
The army of Gustavus moved forward to victory as the fog lifted; but at
the moment of triumph a riderless horse came galloping back to the camp.
It was the horse of the martyred King.
The battle song just quoted--next to Luther's "Ein feste Burg" the most
famous German hymn--has always since that day been called "Gustavus
Adolphus' Hymn"; and the mingled sorrow and joy of the event at Lutzen
named it also "King Gustavus' Swan Song." Gustavus Adolphus did not
write hymns. He could sing them, and he could make them historic--and it
was this connection that identified him with the famous battle song. Its
author was the Rev. Johan Michael Altenburg, a Lutheran clergyman, who
composed apparently both hymn and tune on receiving news of the king's
victory at Leipsic a year before.
Gustavus Adolphus was born in 1594. His death on the battlefield
occurred Nov. 5, 1632--when he was in the prime of his manhood. He was
one of the greatest military commanders in history, besides being a
great ruler and administrator, and a devout Christian. He was, during
the Thirty Years' War (until his untimely death), the leading champion
of Protestantism in Europe.
The English translator of the battle song was Miss Catherine Winkworth,
born in London, Sept. 13, 1827. She was an industrious and successful
translator of German hymns, contributing many results of her work to two
English editions of the _Lyra Germania_, to the _Church Book of
England_, and to _Christian Singers of Germany_. She died in 1878.
The tune of "Ravendale" by Walter Stokes (born 1847) is the best modern
rendering of the celebrated hymn.
PAUL GERHARDT.
"_Befiehl Du Deine Wege._"
Paul Gerhardt was one of those minstrels of experience who are--
"Cradled into poetry by wrong,
And learn in suffering what they teach in song."
He was a graduate of that school when he wrote his "Hymn of Trust:"
Commit thou all thy griefs
And ways into His hands;
To His sure trust and tender care
Who earth and heaven commands.
Thou on the Lord rely,
So, safe, shalt thou go on;
Fix on His work thy steadfast eye,
So shall thy work be done.
* * * * *
Give to the winds thy fears;
Hope, and be undismayed;
God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears,
He shall lift up thy head.
Through waves and clouds and storms
He gently clears thy way;
Wait thou His time, so shall this night
Soon end in joyous day.
Gerhardt was born at Grafenheinchen, Saxony, 1606. Through the first and
best years of manhood's strength (during the Thirty Years' War), a
wandering preacher tossed from place to place, he was without a parish
and without a home.
After the peace of Westphalia he settled in the little village of
Mittenwalde. He was then forty-four years old. Four years later he
married and removed to a Berlin church. During his residence there he
buried his wife, and four of his children, was deposed from the
ministry because his Lutheran doctrines offended the Elector Frederick,
and finally retired as a simple arch-deacon to a small parish in Lubben,
where he preached, toiled, and suffered amid a rough and uncongenial
people till he died, Jan. 16, 1676.
Few men have ever lived whose case more needed a "Hymn of Trust"--and
fewer still could have written it themselves. Through all those trial
years he was pouring forth his soul in devout verses, making in all no
less than a hundred and twenty-five hymns--every one of them a comfort
to others as well as to himself.
He became a favorite, and for a time _the_ favorite, hymn-writer of all
the German-speaking people. Among these tones of calm faith and joy we
recognize today (in the English tongue),--
Since Jesus is my Friend,
Thee, O Immanuel, we praise,
All my heart this night rejoices,
How shall I meet Thee,
--and the English translation of his "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,"
turned into German by himself from St. Bernard Clairvaux's "Salve caput
cruentatum," and made dear to us in Rev. James Alexander's beautiful
lines--
O sacred head now wounded,
With grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded
With thorns, Thine only crown.
_THE TUNE._
A plain-song by Alexander Reinagle is used by some congregations, but is
not remarkably expressive. Reinagle, Alexander Robert, (1799-1877) of
Kidlington, Eng., was organist to the church of St. Peter-in-the-East,
Oxford.
The great "Hymn of Trust" could have found no more sympathetic
interpreter than the musician of Gerhardt's own land and language,
Schumann, the gentle genius of Zwickau. It bears the name "Schumann,"
appropriately enough, and its elocution makes a volume of each quatrain,
notably the one--
Who points the clouds their course,
Whom wind and seas obey;
He shall direct thy wandering feet,
He shall prepare thy way.
Robert Schumann, Ph.D., was born in Zwickau, Saxony, June 8, 1810. He
was a music director and conservatory teacher, and the master-mind of
the pre-Wagnerian period. His compositions became popular, having a
character of their own, combining the intellectual and beautiful in art.
He published in Leipsic a journal promotive of his school of music, and
founded a choral society in Dresden. Happy in the coöperation of his
wife, herself a skilled musician, he extended his work to Vienna and the
Netherlands; but his zeal wore him out, and he died at the age of
forty-six, universally lamented as "the eminent man who had done so much
for the happiness of others."
Gerhardt's Hymn (ten quatrains) is rarely printed entire, and where six
are printed only four are usually sung. Different collections choose
portions according to the compiler's taste, the stanza beginning--
Give to the winds thy fears,
--being with some a favorite first verse.
The translation of the hymn from the German is John Wesley's.
Purely legendary is the beautiful story of the composition of the hymn,
"Commit thou all thy griefs"; how, after his exile from Berlin,
traveling on foot with his weeping wife, Gerhardt stopped at a wayside
inn and wrote the lines while he rested; and how a messenger from Duke
Christian found him there, and offered him a home in Meresburg. But the
most ordinary imagination can fill in the possible incidents in a life
of vicissitudes such as Gerhardt's was.
LADY HUNTINGDON.
"When Thou My Righteous Judge Shalt Come."
Selina Shirley, Countess of Huntingdon, born 1707, died 1791, is
familiarly known as the titled friend and patroness of Whitefield and
his fellow-preachers. She early consecrated herself to God, and in the
great spiritual awakening under Whitefield and the Wesleys she was a
punctual and sympathetic helper. Uniting with the Calvinistic
Methodists, she nevertheless stood aloof from none who preached a
personal Christ, and whose watchwords were the salvation of souls and
the purification of the Church. For more than fifty years she devoted
her wealth to benevolence and spiritual ministries, and died at the age
of eighty-four. "I have done my work," was her last testimony. "I have
nothing to do but to go to my Father."
At various times Lady Huntingdon expressed her religious experience in
verse, and the manful vigor of her school of faith recalls the unbending
confidence of Job, for she was not a stranger to affliction.
God's furnace doth in Zion stand,
But Zion's God sits by,
As the refiner views his gold,
With an observant eye.
His thoughts are high, His love is wise,
His wounds a cure intend;
And, though He does not always smile,
He loves unto the end.
Her great hymn, that keeps her memory green, has the old-fashioned
flavor. "Massa made God BIG!" was the comment on Dr. Bellany made by his
old negro servant after that noted minister's death. In Puritan piety
the sternest self-depreciation qualified every thought of the creature,
while every allusion to the Creator was a magnificat. Lady Huntingdon's
hymn has no flattering phrases for the human subject. "Worthless worm,"
and "vilest of them all" indicate the true Pauline or Oriental
prostration of self before a superior being; but there is grandeur in
the metre, the awful reverence, and the scene of judgment in the
stanzas--always remembering the mighty choral that has so long given the
lyric its voice in the church, and is ancillary to its fame:
When Thou, my righteous Judge, shalt come
To take Thy ransomed people home,
Shall I among them stand?
Shall such a worthless worm as I,
Who sometimes am afraid to die,
Be found at Thy right hand?
I love to meet Thy people now,
Before Thy feet with them to bow,
Though vilest of them all;
But can I bear the piercing thought,
What if my name should be left out,
When Thou for them shalt call?
O Lord, prevent it by Thy grace:
Be Thou my only hiding place,
In this th' accepted day;
Thy pardoning voice, oh let me hear,
To still my unbelieving fear,
Nor let me fall, I pray.
Among Thy saints let me be found,
Whene'er the archangel's trump shall sound,
To see Thy smiling face;
Then loudest of the throng I'll sing,
While heaven's resounding arches ring
With shouts of sovereign grace.
_THE TUNE._
The tune of "Meribah," in which this hymn has been sung for the last
sixty or more years, is one of Dr. Lowell Mason's masterpieces. An
earlier German harmony attributed to Heinrich Isaac and named
"Innsbruck" has in some few cases claimed association with the words,
though composed two hundred years before Lady Huntingdon was born. It is
strong and solemn, but its cold psalm-tune movement does not utter the
deep emotion of the author's lines. "Meribah" was inspired by the hymn
itself, and there is nothing invidious in saying it illustrates the
fact, memorable in all hymnology, of the natural obligation of a hymn to
its tune.
Apropos of both, it is related that Mason was once presiding at choir
service in a certain church where the minister gave out "When thou my
righteous Judge shalt come" and by mistake directed the singers to "omit
the second stanza." Mason sat at the organ, and while playing the last
strain, "Be found at thy right hand," glanced ahead in the hymnbook and
turned with a start just in time to command, "Sing the _next_ verse!"
The choir did so, and "O Lord, prevent it by Thy grace!" was saved from
being a horrible prayer to be kept out of heaven.
ZINZENDORF.
"Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness."
Nicolaus Ludwig, Count Von Zinzendorf, was born at Dresden, May 26,
1700, and educated at Halle and Wittenberg. From his youth he evinced
marked seriousness of mind, and deep religious sensibilities, and this
character appeared in his sympathy with the persecuted Moravians, to
whom he gave domicile and domain on his large estate. For eleven years
he was Councillor to the Elector of Saxony, but subsequently, uniting
with the Brethren's Church, he founded the settlement of Herrnhut, the
first home and refuge of the reorganized sect, and became a Moravian
minister and bishop.
Zinzendorf was a man of high culture, as well as profound and sincere
piety and in his hymns (of which he wrote more than two thousand) he
preached Christ as eloquently as with his voice. The real birth-moment
of his religious life is said to have been simultaneous with his study
of the "Ecce Homo" in the Dusseldorf Gallery, a wonderful painting of
Jesus crowned with thorns. Visiting the gallery one day when a young
man, he gazed on the sacred face and read the legend superscribed, "All
this I have done for thee; What doest thou for me?" Ever afterwards his
motto was "I have but one passion, and that is He, and only He"--a
version of Paul's "For me to live is Christ."
Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress:
'Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.
Bold shall I stand in Thy great day,
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
Fully absolved through these I am--
From sin and fear, from guilt and shame.
Lord, I believe were sinners more
Than sands upon the ocean shore,
Thou hast for all a ransom paid,
For all a full atonement made.
Nearly all the hymns of the great Moravian are now out of general use,
having accomplished their mission, like the forgotten ones of Gerhardt,
and been superseded by others. More sung in Europe, probably, now than
any of the survivors is, "Jesus, geh voran," ("Jesus, lead on,") which
has been translated into English by Jane Borthwick[8] (1854). Two
others, both translated by John Wesley, are with us, the one above
quoted, and "Glory to God, whose witness train." "Jesus, Thy blood,"
which is the best known, frequently appears with the alteration--
Jesus, Thy _robe_ of righteousness
My beauty _is_, my glorious dress.
[Footnote 8: Born in Edinburgh 1813.]
_THE TUNE._
"Malvern," and "Uxbridge" a pure Gregorian, both by Lowell Mason, are
common expressions of the hymn--the latter, perhaps, generally
preferred, being less plaintive and speaking with a surer and more
restful emphasis.
ROBERT SEAGRAVE.
"Rise, My Soul, and Stretch Thy Wings."
This hymn was written early in the 18th century, by the Rev. Robert
Seagrave, born at Twyford, Leicestershire, Eng., Nov. 22, 1693. Educated
at Cambridge, he took holy orders in the Established Church, but
espoused the cause of the great evangelistic movement, and became a
hearty co-worker with the Wesleys. Judging by the lyric fire he could
evidently put into his verses, one involuntarily asks if he would not
have written more, and been in fact the song-leader of the spiritual
reformation if there had been no Charles Wesley. There is not a hymn of
Wesley's in use on the same subject equal to the one immortal hymn of
Seagrave, and the only other near its time that approaches it in vigor
and appealing power is Doddridge's "Awake my soul, stretch every nerve."
But Providence gave Wesley the harp and appointed to the elder poet a
branch of possibly equal usefulness, where he was kept too busy to enter
the singers' ranks.
For eleven years he was the Sunday-evening lecturer at Lorimer's Hall,
London, and often preached in Whitefield's Tabernacle. His hymn is one
of the most soul-stirring in the English language:
[Illustration: S. Huntingdon]
Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings;
Thy better portion trace;
Rise from transitory things
Toward Heaven, thy native place;
Sun and moon and stars decay,
Time shall soon this earth remove;
Rise, my soul and haste away
To seats prepared above.
Rivers to the ocean run,
Nor stay in all their course;
Fire ascending seeks the sun;
Both speed them to their source:
So a soul that's born of God
Pants to view His glorious face,
Upward tends to His abode
To rest in His embrace.
* * * * *
Cease, ye pilgrims, cease to mourn,
Press onward to the prize;
Soon your Saviour will return
Triumphant in the skies.
Yet a season, and you know
Happy entrance will be given;
All our sorrows left below,
And earth exchanged for heaven.
This hymn must have found its predestinated organ when it found--
_THE TUNE._
"Amsterdam," the work of James Nares, had its birth and baptism soon
after the work of Seagrave; and they have been breath and bugle to the
church of God ever since they became one song. In _The Great Musicians_,
edited by Francis Huffer, is found this account of James Nares:
"He was born at Hanwell, Middlesex, in 1715; was admitted chorister at
the Chapel Royal, under Bernard Gates, and when he was able to play the
organ was appointed deputy for Pigott, of St. George's Chapel, Windsor,
and became organist at York Minster in 1734. He succeeded Greene as
organist and composer to the Chapel Royal in 1756, and in the same year
was made Doctor of Music at Cambridge. He was appointed master of the
children of the Chapel Royal in 1757, on the death of Gates. This post
he resigned in 1780, and he died in 1783, (February 10,) and was buried
in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster.
"He had the reputation of being an excellent trainer of boy's voices,
many of his anthems having been written to exhibit the accomplishments
of his young pupils. The degree of excellence the boys attained was not
won in those days without the infliction of much corporal punishment."
Judging from the high pulse and action in the music of "Amsterdam," one
would guess the energy of the man who made boy choirs--and made good
ones. In the old time the rule was, "Birds that can sing and won't sing,
must be made to sing"; and the rule was sometimes enforced with the
master's time-stick.
A tune entitled "Excelsius," written a hundred years later by John Henry
Cornell, so nearly resembles "Amsterdam" as to suggest an intention to
amend it. It changes the modal note from G to A, but while it marches
at the same pace it lacks the jubilant modulations and the choral glory
of the 18th-century piece.
SIR JOHN BOWRING.
"In the Cross of Christ I Glory."
In this hymn we see, sitting humbly at the feet of the great author of
our religion, a man who impressed himself perhaps more than any other
save Napoleon Bonaparte upon his own generation, and who was the wonder
of Europe for his immense attainments and the versatility of his powers.
Statesman, philanthropist, biographer, publicist, linguist, historian,
financier, naturalist, poet, political economist--there is hardly a
branch of knowledge or a field of research from which he did not enrich
himself and others, or a human condition that he did not study and
influence.
Sir John Bowring was born in 1792. When a youth he was Jeremy Bentham's
political pupil, but gained his first fame by his vast knowledge of
European literature, becoming acquainted with no less than thirteen[9]
continental languages and dialects. He served in consular appointments
at seven different capitals, carried important reform measures in
Parliament, was Minister Plenipotentiary to China and Governor of Hong
Kong, and concluded a commercial treaty with Siam, where every previous
commissioner had failed. But in all his crowded years the pen of this
tireless and successful man was busy. Besides his political, economic
and religious essays, which made him a member of nearly every learned
society in Europe, his translations were countless, and poems and hymns
of his own composing found their way to the public, among them the
tender spiritual song,--
How sweetly flowed the Gospel sound
From lips of gentleness and grace
When listening thousands gathered round,
And joy and gladness filled the place,
--and the more famous hymn indicated at the head of this sketch.
Knowledge of all religions only qualified him to worship the Crucified
with both faith and reason. Though nominally a Unitarian, to him, as to
Channing and Martineau and Edmund Sears, Christ was "all we know of
God."
[Footnote 9: Exaggerated in some accounts to _forty_.]
Bowring died Nov. 23, 1872. But his hymn to the Cross will never die:
In the cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o'er the wrecks of time;
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime.
When the woes of life o'ertake me
Hopes deceive, and fears annoy,
Never shall the cross forsake me;
Lo! it glows with peace and joy.
When the sun of bliss is beaming
Light and love upon my way,
From the cross the radiance streaming
Adds new lustre to the day.
Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure
By the cross are sanctified,
Peace is there that knows no measure,
Joys that through all time abide.
_THE TUNE._
Ithamar Conkey's "Rathbun" fits the adoring words as if they had waited
for it. Its air, swelling through diatonic fourth and third to the
supreme syllable, bears on its waves the homage of the lines from bar to
bar till the four voices come home to rest full and satisfied in the
final chord--
Gathers round its head sublime.
Ithamar Conkey, was born of Scotch ancestry, in Shutesbury, Mass., May
5th, 1815. He was a noted bass singer, and was for a long time connected
with the choir of the Calvary church, New York City, and sang the
oratorio solos. His tune of "Rathbun" was composed in 1847, and
published in Greatorex's collection in 1851. He died in Elizabeth, N.J.,
April 30, 1867.