HYMNS OF CHRISTIAN DEVOTION AND EXPERIENCE.
"JESU DULCIS MEMORIA."
"Jesus the Very Thought of Thee."
The original of this delightful hymn is one of the devout meditations of
Bernard of Clairvaux, a Cistercian monk (1091-1153). He was born of a
noble family in or near Dijon, Burgundy, and when only twenty-three
years old established a monastery at Clairvaux, France, over which he
presided as its first abbot. Educated in the University of Paris, and
possessing great natural abilities, he soon made himself felt in both
the religious and political affairs of Europe. For more than thirty
years he was the personal power that directed belief, quieted
turbulence, and arbitrated disputes, and kings and even popes sought his
counsel. It was his eloquent preaching that inspired the second crusade.
His fine poem of feeling, in fifty Latin stanzas, has been a source of
pious song in several languages:
Jesu, dulcis memoria
Dans vera cordi gaudia,
Sed super mel et omnium
Ejus dulcis presentia.
Literally--
Jesus! a sweet memory
Giving true joys to the heart,
But sweet above honey and all things
His _presence_ [is].
The five stanzas (of Caswall's free translation) now in use are familiar
and dear to all English-speaking believers:
Jesus, the very thought of Thee
With sweetness fills my breast,
But sweeter far Thy face to see,
And in Thy presence rest.
Nor voice can sing nor heart can frame
Nor can the memory find,
A sweeter sound than Thy blest name,
O Saviour of mankind.
The Rev. Edward Caswall was born in Hampshire, Eng., July 15, 1814, the
son of a clergyman. He graduated with honors at Brazenose College,
Oxford, and after ten years of service in the ministry of the Church of
England joined Henry Newman's Oratory at Birmingham, was confirmed in
the Church of Rome, and devoted the rest of his life to works of piety
and charity. He died Jan. 2, 1878.
_THE TUNE._
No single melody has attached itself to this hymn, the scope of
selection being as large as the supply of appropriate common-metre
tunes. Barnby's "Holy Trinity," Wade's "Holy Cross" and Griggs' tune (of
his own name) are all good, but many, on the giving out of the hymn,
would associate it at once with the more familiar "Heber" by George
Kingsley and expect to hear it sung. It has the uplift and unction of
John Newton's--
How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
In the believer's ear.
"GOD CALLING YET! SHALL I NOT HEAR?"
Gerhard Tersteegen, the original author of the hymn, and one of the most
eminent religious poets of the Reformed German church in its early days,
was born in 1697, in the town of Mors, in Westphalia. He was left an
orphan in boyhood by the death of his father, and as his mother's means
were limited, he was put to work as an apprentice when very young, at
Muhlheim on the Ruhr, and became a ribbon weaver. Here, when about
fifteen years of age, he became deeply concerned for his soul, and
experienced a deep and abiding spiritual work. As a Christian, his
religion partook of the ascetic type, but his mysticism did not make him
useless to his fellow-men.
At the age of twenty-seven, he dedicated all his resources and energies
to the cause of Christ, writing the dedication in his own blood. "God
graciously called me," he says, "out of the world, and granted me the
desire to belong to Him, and to be willing to follow Him." He gave up
secular employments altogether, and devoted his whole time to religious
instruction and to the poor. His house became famous as the "Pilgrims'
Cottage," and was visited by people high and humble from all parts of
Germany. In his lifetime he is said to have written one hundred and
eleven hymns. Died April 3, 1769.
God calling yet! shall I not hear?
Earth's pleasures shall I still hold dear?
Shall life's swift-passing years all fly,
And still my soul in slumber lie?
* * * * *
God calling yet! I cannot stay;
My heart I yield without delay.
Vain world, farewell; from thee I part;
The voice of God hath reached my heart.
The hymn was translated from the German by Miss Jane Borthwick, born in
Edinburgh, 1813. She and her younger sister, Mrs. Findlater, jointly
translated and published, in 1854, _Hymns From the Land of Luther_, and
contributed many poetical pieces to the _Family Treasury_. She died in
1897.
Another translation, imitating the German metre, is more euphonious,
though less literal and less easily fitted to music not specially
composed for it, on account of its "feminine" rhymes:
God calling yet! and shall I never hearken?
But still earth's witcheries my spirit darken;
This passing life, these passing joys all flying,
And still my soul in dreamy slumbers lying?
_THE TUNE._
Dr. Dykes' "Rivaulx" is a sober choral that articulates the
hymn-writer's sentiment with sincerity and with considerable
earnestness, but breathes too faintly the interrogative and expostulary
tone of the lines. To voice the devout solicitude and self-remonstrance
of the hymn there is no tune superior to "Federal St."
The Hon. Henry Kemble Oliver, author of "Federal St.," was born in
Salem, Mass., March, 1800, and was addicted to music from his childhood.
His father compelled him to relinquish it as a profession, but it
remained his favorite avocation, and after his graduation from Harvard
the cares of none of the various public positions he held, from
schoolmaster to treasurer of the state of Massachusetts, could ever wean
him from the study of music and its practice. At the age of thirty-one,
while sitting one day in his study, the last verse of Anne Steele's
hymn--
So fades the lovely blooming flower,
--floated into his mind, and an unbidden melody came with it. As he
hummed it to himself the words shaped the air, and the air shaped the
words.
Then gentle patience smiles on pain,
Then dying hope revives again,
--became--
See gentle patience smile on pain;
See dying hope revive again;
--and with the change of a word and a tense the hymn created the melody,
and soon afterward the complete tune was made. Two years later it was
published by Lowell Mason, and Oliver gave it the name of the street in
Salem on which his wife was born, wooed, won, and married. It adds a
pathos to its history that "Federal St." was sung at her burial.
This first of Oliver's tunes was followed by "Harmony Grove," "Morning,"
"Walnut Grove," "Merton," "Hudson," "Bosworth," "Salisbury Plain,"
several anthems and motets, and a "Te Deum."
In his old age, at the great Peace Jubilee in Boston, 1872, the baton
was put into his hands, and the gray-haired composer conducted the
chorus of ten thousand voices as they sang the words and music of his
noble harmony. The incident made "Federal St." more than ever a feature
of New England history. Oliver died in 1885.
"MY GOD, HOW ENDLESS IS THY LOVE."
The spirited tune to this hymn of Watts, by Frederick Lampe, variously
named "Kent" and "Devonshire," historically reaches back so near to the
poet's time that it must have been one of the earliest expressions of
his fervent words.
Johan Friedrich Lampe, born 1693, in Saxony, was educated in music at
Helmstadt, and came to England in 1725 as a band musician and composer
to Covent Garden Theater. His best-known secular piece is the music
written to Henry Carey's burlesque, "The Dragon of Wantley."
Mrs. Rich, wife of the lessee of the theater, was converted under the
preaching of the Methodists, and after her husband's death her house
became the home of Lampe and his wife, where Charles Wesley often met
him.
The influence of Wesley won him to more serious work, and he became one
of the evangelist's helpers, supplying tunes to his singing campaigns.
Wesley became attached to him, and after his death--in Edinburgh,
1752--commemorated the musician in a funeral hymn.
In popular favor Bradbury's tune of "Rolland" has now superseded the old
music sung to Watts' lines--
My God, how endless is Thy love,
Thy gifts are every evening new,
And morning mercies from above
Gently distil like early dew.
* * * * *
I yield my powers to Thy command;
To Thee I consecrate my days;
Perpetual blessings from Thy hand
Demand perpetual songs of praise.
William Batchelder Bradbury, a pupil of Dr. Lowell Mason, and the
pioneer in publishing Sunday-school music, was born 1816, in York, Me.
His father, a veteran of the Revolution, was a choir leader, and
William's love of music was inherited. He left his father's farm, and
came to Boston, where he first heard a church-organ. Encouraged by Mason
and others to follow music as a profession, he went abroad, studied at
Leipsic, and soon after his return became known as a composer of sacred
tunes. He died in Montclair, N.J., 1868.
"I'M NOT ASHAMED TO OWN MY LORD."
The favorite tune for this spiritual hymn, also by Watts, is old
"Arlington," one of the most useful church melodies in the whole realm
of English psalmody. Its name clings to a Boston street, and the
beautiful chimes of Arlington St. church (Unitarian) annually ring its
music on special occasions, as it has since the bells were tuned:
I'm not ashamed to own my Lord
Or to defend His cause,
Maintain the honor of His Word,
The glory of His cross.
Jesus, my God!--I know His Name;
His Name is all my trust,
Nor will He put my soul to shame
Nor let my hope be lost.
Dr. Thomas Augustine Arne, the creator of "Arlington," was born in
London, 1710, the son of a King St. upholsterer. He studied at Eton, and
though intended for the legal profession, gave his whole mind to music.
At twenty-three he began writing operas for his sister, Susanna (a
singer who afterwards became the famous tragic actress, Mrs. Cibber).
Arne's music to Milton's "Comus," and to "Rule Brittannia" established
his reputation. He was engaged as composer to Drury Lane Theater, and in
1759 received from Oxford his degree of Music Doctor. Later in life he
turned his attention to oratorios, and other forms of sacred music, and
was the first to introduce female voices in choir singing. He died March
5, 1778, chanting hallelujahs, it is said, with his last breath.
"IS THIS THE KIND RETURN?"
Dr. Watts in this hymn gave experimental piety its hour and language of
reflection and penitence:
Is this the kind return?
Are these the thanks we owe,
Thus to abuse Eternal Love
Whence all our blessings flow?
* * * * *
Let past ingratitude
Provoke our weeping eyes.
United in loving wedlock with these words in former years was "Golden
Hill," a chime of sweet counterpoint too rare to bury its authorship
under the vague phrase "A Western Melody." It was caught evidently from
a forest bird[10] that flutes its clear solo in the sunsets of May and
June. There can be no mistaking the imitation--the same compass, the
same upward thrill, the same fall and warbled turn. Old-time folk used
to call for it, "Sing, my Fairweather Bird." It lingers in a few of the
twenty- or thirty-years-ago collections, but stronger voices have
drowned it out of the new.
[Footnote 10: The wood thrush.]
"Thacher," (set to the same hymn,) faintly recalls its melody.
Nevertheless "Thacher" is a good tune. Though commonly written in
sharps, contrasting the B flat of its softer and more liquid rival of
other days, it is one of Handel's strains, and lends the meaning and
pathos of the lyric text to voice and instrument.
"WHEN I SURVEY THE WONDROUS CROSS."
This crown of all the sacred odes of Dr. Watts for the song-service of
the church of God was called by Matthew Arnold the "greatest hymn in the
English language." The day the eminent critic died he heard it sung in
the Sefton Park Presbyterian Church, and repeated the opening lines
softly to himself again and again after the services. The hymn is
certainly _one_ of the greatest in the language. It appeared as No. 7 in
Watts' third edition (about 1710) containing five stanzas. The second
line--
On which the Prince of Glory died,
--read originally--
Where the young Prince of Glory died.
Only four stanzas are now generally used. The omitted one--
His dying crimson like a robe
Spreads o'er His body on the tree;
Then am I dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.
--is a flash of tragic imagination, showing the sanguine intensity of
Christian vision in earlier time, when contemplating the Saviour's
passion; but it is too realistic for the spirit and genius of
song-worship. That the great hymn was designed by the writer for
communion seasons, and was inspired by Gal. 6:14, explains the two last
lines if not the whole of the highly colored verse.
_THE TUNE._
One has a wide field of choice in seeking the best musical
interpretation of this royal song of faith and self-effacement:
When I survey the wondrous Cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast
Save in the death of Christ my God;
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.
See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down;
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet;
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
Were the whole realm of Nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
To match the height and depth of these words with fitting glory of sound
might well have been an ambition of devout composers. Rev. G.C. Wells'
tune in the _Revivalist_, with its emotional chorus, I.B. Woodbury's
"Eucharist" in the _Methodist Hymnal_, Henry Smart's effective choral in
Barnby's _Hymnary_ (No. 170), and a score of others, have woven the
feeling lines into melody with varying success. Worshippers in spiritual
sympathy with the words may question if, after all, old "Hamburg," the
best of Mason's loved Gregorians, does not, alone, in tone and
elocution, rise to the level of the hymn.
"LOVE DIVINE, ALL LOVES EXCELLING."
This evergreen song-wreath to the Crucified, was contributed by Charles
Wesley, in 1746. It is found in his collection of 1756, _Hymns for Those
That Seek and Those That Have Redemption in the Blood of Jesus Christ_.
Love Divine all loves excelling,
Joy of Heaven to earth come down,
Fix in us Thy humble dwelling,
All Thy faithful mercies crown.
* * * * *
Come Almighty to deliver,
Let us all Thy life receive,
Suddenly return, and never,
Nevermore Thy temples leave.
* * * * *
Finish then Thy new creation;
Pure and spotless let us be;
Let us see our whole salvation
Perfectly secured by Thee.
Changed from glory into glory
Till in Heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before Thee
Lost in wonder, love and praise!
The hymn has been set to H. Isaac's ancient tune (1490), to Wyeth's
"Nettleton" (1810), to Thos. H. Bailey's (1777-1839) "Isle of Beauty,
fare thee well" (named from Thomas Moore's song), to Edward Hopkins'
"St. Joseph," and to a multitude of others more or less familiar.
Most familiar of all perhaps, (as in the instance of "Far from mortal
cares retreating,") is its association with "Greenville," the production
of that brilliant but erratic genius and freethinker, Jean Jacques
Rousseau. It was originally a love serenade, ("Days of absence, sad and
dreary") from the opera of _Le Devin du Village_, written about 1752.
The song was commonly known years afterwards as "Rousseau's Dream." But
the unbelieving philosopher, musician, and misguided moralist builded
better than he knew, and probably better than he meant when he wrote his
immortal choral. Whatever he heard in his "dream" (and one legend says
it was a "song of angels") he created a harmony dear to the church he
despised, and softened the hearts of the Christian world towards an evil
teacher who was inspired, like Balaam, to utter one sacred strain.
Rousseau was born in Geneva, 1712, but he never knew his mother, and
neither the affection or interest of his father or of his other
relatives was of the quality to insure the best bringing up of a child.
He died July, 1778. But his song survives, while the world gladly
forgets everything else he wrote. It is almost a pardonable exaggeration
to say that every child in Christendom knows "Greenville."
"WHEN ALL THY MERCIES, O MY GOD."
This charming hymn was written by Addison, the celebrated English poet
and essayist, about 1701, in grateful commemoration of his delivery from
shipwreck in a storm off the coast of Genoa, Italy. It originally
contained thirteen stanzas, but no more than four or six are commonly
sung. It has put the language of devotional gratitude into the mouths of
thousands of humble disciples who could but feebly frame their own:
When all Thy mercies, O my God
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view I'm lost
In wonder, love and praise.
Unnumbered comforts on my soul
Thy tender care bestowed
Before my infant heart conceived
From whom those comforts flowed.
When in the slippery paths of youth
With heedless steps I ran,
Thine arm unseen conveyed me safe,
And led me up to man.
Another hymn of Addison--
How are Thy servants bless'd, O Lord,
--was probably composed after the same return from a foreign voyage. It
has been called his "Traveller's Hymn."
Joseph Addison, the best English writer of his time, was the son of
Lancelot Addison, rector of Milston, Wiltshire, and afterwards Dean of
Litchfield. The distinguished author was born in Milston Rectory, May 1,
1672, and was educated at Oxford. His excellence in poetry, both English
and Latin, gave him early reputation, and a patriotic ode obtained for
him the patronage of Lord Somers. A pension from King William III.
assured him a comfortable income, which was increased by further honors,
for in 1704 he was appointed Commissioner of Appeals, then secretary of
the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and in 1717 Secretary of State. He died
in Holland House, Kensington, near London, June 17, 1719.
His hymns are not numerous, (said to be only five), but they are
remarkable for the simple beauty of their style, as well as for their
Christian spirit. Of his fine metrical version of the 23rd Psalm,--
The Lord my pasture shall prepare,
And feed me with a shepherd's care,
--one of his earliest productions, the tradition is that he gathered its
imagery when a boy living at Netheravon, near Salisbury Plain, during
his lonely two-mile walks to school at Amesbury and back again. All his
hymns appeared first in the _Spectator_, to which he was a prolific
contributor.
_THE TUNE._
The hymn "When all Thy mercies" still has "Geneva" for its vocal mate in
some congregational manuals. The tune is one of the rare survivals of
the old "canon" musical method, the parts coming in one after another
with identical notes. It is always delightful as a performance with its
glory of harmony and its sweet duet, and for generations it had no other
words than Addison's hymn.
John Cole, author of "Geneva," was born in Tewksbury, Eng., 1774, and
came to the United States in his boyhood (1785). Baltimore, Md. became
his American home, and he was educated there. Early in life he became a
musician and music publisher. At least twelve of his principal song
collections from 1800 to 1832 are mentioned by Mr. Hubert P. Main, most
of them sacred and containing many of his own tunes.
He continued to compose music till his death, Aug. 17, 1855. Mr. Cole
was leader of the regimental band known as "The Independent Blues,"
which played in the war of 1812, and was present at the "North Point"
fight, and other battles.
Besides "Geneva," for real feeling and harmonic beauty "Manoah," adapted
from Haydn's Creation, deserves mention as admirably suited to
"Addison's" hymn, and also "Belmont," by Samuel Webbe, which resembles
it in style and sentiment.
Samuel Webbe, composer of "Belmont," was of English parentage but was
born in Minorca, Balearic Islands, in 1740, where his father at that
time held a government appointment; but his father, dying suddenly, left
his family poor, and Samuel was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker. He
served his apprenticeship, and immediately repaired to a London teacher
and began the study of music and languages. Surmounting great
difficulties, he became a competent musician, and made himself popular
as a composer of glees. He was also the author of several masses,
anthems, and hymn-tunes, the best of which are still in occasional use.
Died in London, 1816.
"JESUS, I LOVE THY CHARMING NAME."
When Dr. Doddridge, the author of this hymn, during his useful ministry,
had finished the preparation of a pulpit discourse that strongly
impressed him, he was accustomed, while his heart was yet glowing with
the sentiment that had inspired him, to put the principal thoughts into
metre, and use the hymn thus written at the conclusion of the preaching
of the sermon. This hymn of Christian ardor was written to be sung after
a sermon from Romans 8:35, "Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ?"
Jesus, I love Thy charming name,
'Tis music to mine ear:
Fain would I sound it out so loud
That earth and heaven should hear.
* * * * *
I'll speak the honors of Thy name
With my last laboring breath,
Then speechless, clasp Thee in my arms,
The conqueror of death.
Earlier copies have--
The _antidote_ of death.
Philip Doddridge, D.D., was born in London, June 26, 1702. Educated at
Kingston Grammar School and Kibworth Academy, he became a scholar of
respectable attainments, and was ordained to the Non-conformist
ministry. He was pastor of the Congregational church at Northampton,
from 1729 until his death, acting meanwhile as principal of the
Theological School in that place. In 1749 he ceased to preach and went
to Lisbon for his health, but died there about two years later, of
consumption, Oct. 26, 1752.
_THE TUNE._
The hymn has been sometimes sung to "Pisgah," an old revival piece by
J.C. Lowry (1820) once much heard in camp-meetings, but it is a
pedestrian tune with too many quavers, and a headlong tempo.
Bradbury's "Jazer," in three-four time, is a melody with modulations,
though more sympathetic, but it is hard to divorce the hymn from its
long-time consort, old "Arlington." It has the accent of its sincerity,
and the breath of its devotion.
"LO, ON A NARROW NECK OF LAND."
This hymn of Charles Wesley is always designated now by the above line,
the first of the _second_ stanza as originally written. It is said to
have been composed at Land's End, in Cornwall, with the British Channel
and the broad Atlantic in view and surging on both sides around a
"narrow neck of land."
Lo! on a narrow neck of land,
Twixt two unbounded seas, I stand,
Secure, insensible:
A point of time, a moment's space,
Removes me to that heavenly place,
Or shuts me up in hell.
O God, mine inmost soul convert,
And deeply on my thoughtful heart
Eternal things impress:
Give me to feel their solemn weight,
And tremble on the brink of fate,
And wake to righteousness.
The preachers and poets of the great spiritual movement of the
eighteenth century in England abated nothing in the candor of their
words. The terrible earnestness of conviction tipped their tongues and
pens with fire.
_THE TUNE._
Lady Huntingdon would have lent "Meribah" gladly to this hymn, but Mason
was not yet born. Many times it has been borrowed for Wesley's words
since it came to its own, and the spirit of the pious Countess has
doubtless approved the loan. It is rich enough to furnish forth her own
lyric and more than one other of like matter and metre.
The muscular music of "Ganges" has sometimes carried the hymn, and there
are those who think its thunder is not a whit more Hebraic than the
words require.
"COME YE SINNERS POOR AND NEEDY."
Few hymns have been more frequently sung in prayer-meetings and
religious assemblies during the last hundred and fifty years. Its
author, Joseph Hart, spoke what he knew and testified what he felt. Born
in London, 1712, and liberally educated, he was in his young manhood
very religious, but he went so far astray as to indulge in evil
practices, and even published writings, both original and translated,
against Christianity and religion of any kind. But he could not drink at
the Dead Sea and live. The apples of Sodom sickened him. Conscience
asserted itself, and the pangs of remorse nearly drove him to despair
till he turned back to the source he had forsaken. He alludes to this
experience in the lines--
Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him.
During Passion Week, 1767, he had an amazing view of the sufferings of
Christ, under the stress of which his heart was changed. In the joy of
this experience he wrote--
Come ye sinners poor and needy,
--and--
Come all ye chosen saints of God.
Probably no two hymn-lines have been oftener repeated than--
If you tarry till you're better
You will never come at all.
The complete form of the original stanzas is:
Come ye sinners poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love and power.
He is able,
He is willing; doubt no more.
The whole hymn--ten stanzas--is not sung now as one, but two, the second
division beginning with the line--
Come ye weary, heavy laden.
Rev. Joseph Hart became minister of Jewin St. Congregational Chapel,
London, about 1760, where he labored till his death, May 24, 1768.
_THE TUNE._
A revival song by Jeremiah Ingalls (1764-1828), written about 1804, with
an easy, popular swing and a _sforzando_ chorus--
Turn to the Lord and seek salvation,
--monopolized this hymn for a good many years. The tunes commonly
assigned to it have since been "Greenville" and Von Weber's "Wilmot," in
which last it is now more generally sung--dropping the echo lines at the
end of each stanza.
Carl Maria Von Weber, son of a roving musician, was born in Eutin,
Germany, 1786. He developed no remarkable genius till he was about
twenty years old, though being a fine vocalist, his singing brought him
popularity and gain; but in 1806 he nearly lost his voice by accidently
drinking nitric acid. He was for several years private secretary to Duke
Ludwig at Stuttgart, and in 1813 Chapel-Master at Prague, from which
place he went to Dresden in 1817 as Musik-Director.
Von Weber's Korner songs won the hearts of all Germany; and his immortal
"Der Freischutz" (the Free Archer), and numerous tender melodies like
the airs to "John Anderson, my Jo" and "O Poortith Cauld" have gone to
all civilized nations. No other composer had such feeling for beauty of
sound.
This beloved musician was physically frail and delicate, and died of
untimely decline, during a visit to London in 1826.
"O HAPPY SAINTS WHO DWELL IN LIGHT."
Sometimes printed "O happy _souls_." This poetical and flowing hymn
seems to have been forgotten in the making up of most modern church
hymnals. Hymns on heaven and heavenly joys abound in embarrassing
numbers, but it is difficult to understand why this beautiful lyric
should be _universally_ neglected. It was written probably about 1760,
by Rev. John Berridge, from the text, "Blessed are the dead who die in
the Lord,"
The first line of the second stanza--
Released from sorrow, toil and strife,
--has been tinkered in some of the older hymn-books, where it is found
to read--,
Released from sorrows toil and _grief_,
--not only committing a tautology, but destroying the perfect rhyme with
"life" in the next line. The whole hymn, too, has been much altered by
substituted words and shifted lines, though not generally to the serious
detriment of its meaning and music.
The Rev. John Berridge--friend of the Wesleys, Whitefield, and Lady
Huntingdon--was an eccentric but very worthy and spiritual minister,
born the son of a farmer, in Kingston, Nottinghamshire, Eng., Mar. 1,
1716. He studied at Cambridge, and was ordained curate of Stapleford and
subsequently located as vicar of Everton, 1775. He died Jan. 22, 1793.
He loved to preach, and he was determined that his tombstone should
preach after his voice was still. His epitaph, composed by himself, is
both a testimony and a memoir:
"Here lie the earthly remains of John Berridge, late vicar of
Everton, and an itinerant servant of Jesus Christ, who loved his
Master and His work, and after running His errands many years, was
called up to wait on Him above.
"Reader, art thou born again?
"No salvation without the new birth.
"I was born in sin, February, 1716.
"Remained ignorant of my fallen state till 1730.
"Lived proudly on faith and works for salvation till 1751.
"Admitted to Everton vicarage, 1755.
"Fled to Jesus alone for refuge, 1756.
"Fell asleep in Jesus Christ,--" (1793.)
_THE TUNE._
The once popular score that easily made the hymn a favorite, was
"Salem," in the old _Psalmodist_. It still appears in some note-books,
though the name of its composer is uncertain. Its notes (in 6-8 time)
succeed each other in syllabic modulations that give a soft dactylic
accent to the measure and a wavy current to the lines:
O happy saints that dwell in light,
And walk with Jesus clothed in white,
Safe landed on that peaceful shore,
Where pilgrims meet to part no more:
Released from sorrow, toil and strife,
Death was the gate to endless life,
And now they range the heavenly plains
And sing His love in melting strains.
Another version reads:
----and welcome to an endless life,
Their souls have now begun to prove
The height and depth of Jesus' love.
"THOU DEAR REDEEMER, DYING LAMB."
The author, John Cennick, like Joseph Hart, was led to Christ after a
reckless boyhood and youth, by the work of the Divine Spirit in his
soul, independent of any direct outward influence. Sickened of his
cards, novels, and playhouse pleasures, he had begun a sort of
mechanical reform, when one day, walking in the streets of London, he
suddenly seemed to hear the text spoken "I am thy salvation!" His
consecration began at that moment.
He studied for the ministry, and became a preacher, first under
direction of the Wesleys, then under Whitefield, but afterwards joined
the Moravians, or "Brethren." He was born at Reading, Derbyshire, Eng.,
Dec. 12, 1718, and died in London, July 4, 1755.
_THE TUNE._
The word "Rhine" (in some collections--in others "Emmons") names a
revival tune once so linked with this hymn and so well known that few
religious people now past middle life could enjoy singing it to any
other. With a compass one note beyond an octave and a third, it utters
every line with a clear, bold gladness sure to infect a meeting with its
own spiritual fervor.
Thou dear Redeemer, dying Lamb,
I love to hear of Thee;
No music like Thy charming name,
Nor half so sweet can be.
The composer of the bright legato melody just described was Frederick
Burgmüller, a young German musician, born in 1804. He was a remarkable
genius, both in composition and execution, but his health was frail, and
he did not live to fulfil the rich possibilities that lay within him. He
died in 1824--only twenty years old. The tune "Rhine" ("Emmons") is from
one of his marches.
"WHILE THEE I SEEK, PROTECTING POWER."
Helen Maria Williams wrote this sweet hymn, probably about the year
1800. She was a brilliant woman, better known in literary society for
her political verses and essays than by her hymns; but the hymn here
noted bears sufficient witness to her deep religious feeling:
While Thee I seek, Protecting Power,
Be my vain wishes stilled,
And may this consecrated hour
With better hopes be filled.
Thy love the power of thought bestowed;
To Thee my thoughts would soar,
Thy mercy o'er my life has flowed,
That mercy I adore.
Miss Williams was born in the north of England, Nov. 30, 1762, but spent
much of her life in London, and in Paris, where she died, Dec. 14, 1827.
_THE TUNE._
Wedded so many years to the gentle, flowing music of Pleyel's "Brattle
Street," few lovers of the hymn recall its words without the melody of
that emotional choral.
The plain psalm-tune, "Simpson," by Louis Spohr, divides the stanzas
into quatrains.
"JESUS MY ALL TO HEAVEN IS GONE."
This hymn, by Cennick, was familiarized to the public more than two
generations ago by its revival tune, sometimes called "Duane Street,"
long-metre double. It is staffed in various keys, but its movement is
full of life and emphasis, and its melody is contagious. The piece was
composed by Rev. George Coles, in 1835.
The fact that this hymn of Cennick with Coles's tune appears in the _New
Methodist Hymnal_ indicates the survival of both in modern favor.
[Illustration: Augustus Montague Toplady]
Jesus my all to heaven is gone,
He whom I fixed my hopes upon;
His track I see, and I'll pursue
The narrow way till Him I view.
The way the holy prophets went,
The road that leads from banishment,
The King's highway of holiness
I'll go for all Thy paths are peace.
The memory has not passed away of the hearty unison with which
prayer-meeting and camp-meeting assemblies used to "crescendo" the last
stanza--
Then will I tell to sinners round
What a dear Saviour I have found;
I'll point to His redeeming blood,
And say "Behold the way to God."
The Rev. George Coles was born in Stewkley, Eng., Jan. 2, 1792, and died
in New York City, May 1, 1858. He was editor of the _N.Y. Christian
Advocate_, and _Sunday School Advocate_, for several years, and was a
musician of some ability, besides being a good singer.
"SWEET THE MOMENTS, RICH IN BLESSING."
The Hon. and Rev. Walter Shirley, Rector of Loughgree, county of Galway,
Ireland, revised this hymn under the chastening discipline of a most
trying experience. His brother, the Earl of Ferrars, a licentious man,
murdered an old and faithful servant in a fit of rage, and was executed
at Tyburn for the crime. Sir Walter, after the disgrace and long
distress of the imprisonment, trial, and final tragedy, returned to his
little parish in Ireland, humbled but driven nearer to the Cross.
Sweet the moments, rich in blessing
Which before the Cross I spend;
Life and health and peace possessing
From the sinner's dying Friend.
All the emotion of one who buries a mortifying sorrow in the heart of
Christ, and tries to forget, trembles in the lines of the above hymn as
he changed and adapted it in his saddest but devoutest hours. Its
original writer was the Rev. James Allen, nearly twenty years younger
than himself, a man of culture and piety, but a Christian of shifting
creeds. It is not impossible that he sent his hymn to Shirley to revise.
At all events it owes its present form to Shirley's hand.
Truly blesséd is the station
Low before His cross to lie,
While I see Divine Compassion
Beaming in His gracious eye.[11]
[Footnote 11: "Floating in His languid eye" seems to have been the
earlier version.]
The influence of Sir Walter's family misfortune is evident also in the
mood out of which breathed his other trustful lines--
Peace, troubled soul, whose plaintive moan
Hath taught these rocks the notes of woe,
(changed now to "hath taught _these scenes_" etc).
Sir Walter Shirley, cousin of the Countess of Huntingdon, was born 1725,
and died in 1786. Even in his last sickness he continued to preach to
his people in his house, seated in his chair.
Rev. James Oswald Allen was born at Gayle, Yorkshire, Eng., June 24,
1743. He left the University of Cambridge after a year's study, and
became an itinerant preacher, but seems to have been a man of unstable
religious views. After roving from one Christian denomination to another
several times, he built a Chapel, and for forty years ministered there
to a small Independent congregation. He died in Gayle, Oct. 31, 1804.
The tune long and happily associated with "Sweet the Moments" is
"Sicily," or the "Sicilian Hymn"--from an old Latin hymn-tune, "O
Sanctissima."
"O FOR A CLOSER WALK WITH GOD."
The author, William Cowper, son of a clergyman, was born at
Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire, Eng., Nov. 15, 1731, and died at Dereham,
Norfolk, April 25, 1800. Through much of his adult life he was afflicted
with a mental ailment inducing melancholia and at times partial
insanity, during which he once attempted suicide. He sought literary
occupation as an antidote to his disorder of mind, and besides a great
number of lighter pieces which diverted him and his friends, composed
"The Task," an able and delightful moral and domestic poetic treatise in
blank verse, and in the same style of verse translated Homer's _Odyssey_
and _Iliad_.
One of the most beloved of English poets, this suffering man was also a
true Christian, and wrote some of our sweetest and most spiritual hymns.
Most of these were composed at Olney, where he resided for a time with
John Newton, his fellow hymnist, and jointly with him issued the volume
known as the _Olney Hymns_.
_THE TUNE._
Music more or less closely identified with this familiar hymn is
Gardiner's "Dedham," and also "Mear," often attributed to Aaron
Williams. Both, about equally with the hymn, are seasoned by time, but
have not worn out their harmony--or their fitness to Cowper's prayer.
William Gardiner was born in Leicester, Eng., March 15, 1770, and died
there Nov. 11, 1853. He was a vocal composer and a "musicographer" or
writer on musical subjects.
One Aaron Williams, to whom "Mear" has by some been credited, was of
Welsh descent, a composer of psalmody and clerk of the Scotch church in
London. He was born in 1734, and died in 1776. Another account, and the
more probable one, names a minister of Boston of still earlier date as
the author of the noble old harmony. It is found in a small New England
collection of 1726, but not in any English or Scotch collection. "Mear"
is presumably an American tune.
"WHAT VARIOUS HINDRANCES WE MEET."
Another hymn of Cowper's; and no one ever suffered more deeply the
plaintive regret in the opening lines, or better wrought into poetic
expression an argument for prayer.
What various hindrances we meet
In coming to a mercy-seat!
Yet who that knows the worth of prayer
But wishes to be often there?
Prayer makes the darkest clouds withdraw,
Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw.
The whole hymn is (or once was) so thoroughly learned by heart as to be
fixed in the church among its household words. Preachers to the
diffident do not forget to quote--
Have you no words? ah, think again;
Words flow apace when you _complain_.
* * * * *
Were half the breath thus vainly spent
To Heaven in supplication sent,
Our cheerful song would oftener be,
"Hear what the Lord hath done for me!"
And there is all the lifetime of a proverb in the couplet--
Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees.
Tune, Lowell Mason's "Rockingham."
"MY GRACIOUS REDEEMER I LOVE."
This is one of Benjamin Francis's lays of devotion. The Christian
Welshman who bore that name was a Gospel minister full of Evangelical
zeal, who preached in many places, though his pastoral home was with the
Baptist church in Shortwood, Wales. Flattering calls to London could not
tempt him away from his first and only parish, and he remained there
till his triumphant death. He was born in 1734, and died in 1799.
My gracious Redeemer I love,
His praises aloud I'll proclaim,
And join with the armies above,
To shout His adorable name.
To gaze on His glories divine
Shall be my eternal employ;
To see them incessantly shine,
My boundless, ineffable joy.
Tune, "Birmingham"--an English melody. Anonymous.
"BLEST BE THE TIE THAT BINDS."
Perhaps the best hymn-expression of sacred brotherhood, at least it has
had, and still has the indorsement of constant use. The author, John
Fawcett, D.D., is always quoted as the example of his own words, since
he sacrificed ambition and personal interest to Christian affection.
Born near Bradford, Yorkshire, Jan. 6, 1739, and converted under the
preaching of Whitefield, he joined the Methodists, but afterwards
became a member of the new Baptist church in Bradford. Seven years later
he was ordained over the Baptist Society at Wainsgate. In 1772 he
received a call to succeed the celebrated Dr. Gill, in London, and
accepted. But at the last moment, when his goods were packed for
removal, the clinging love of his people, weeping their farewells around
him, melted his heart. Their passionate regrets were more than either he
or his good wife could withstand.
"I will _stay_," he said; "you may unpack my goods, and we will live for
the Lord lovingly together."
It was out of this heart experience that the tender hymn was born.
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one,
Our comforts and our cares.
Dr. Fawcett died July 25, 1817.
Tune, "Boylston," L. Mason; or "Dennis," H.G. Nägeli.
"I LOVE THY KINGDOM, LORD."
"Dr. Dwight's Hymn," as this is known _par eminence_ among many others
from his pen, is one of the imperishable lyrics of the Christian Church.
The real spirit of the hundred and twenty-second Psalm is in it, and it
is worthy of Watts in his best moments.
Timothy Dwight was born at Northampton, Mass, May 14, 1752, and
graduated at Yale College at the age of thirteen. He wrote several
religious poems of considerable length. In 1795 he was elected President
of Yale College, and in 1800 he revised Watts' Psalms, at the request of
the General Association of Connecticut, adding a number of translations
of his own.
I love Thy kingdom, Lord,
The house of Thine abode,
The Church our blest Redeemer saved
With His own precious blood.
I love Thy Church, O God;
Her walls before Thee stand,
Dear as the apple of Thine eye,
And graven on Thy hand.
Dr. Dwight died Jan. 11, 1817.
Tune, "St. Thomas," Aaron Williams, (1734-1776.)
Mr. Hubert P. Main, however, believes the author to be Handel. It
appeared as the second movement of a four-movement tune in Williams's
1762 collection, which contained pieces by the great masters, with his
own; but while not credited to Handel, Williams did not claim it
himself.
"MID SCENES OF CONFUSION."
This hymn, common in chapel hymnbooks half a century and more ago, is
said to have been written by the Rev. David Denham, about 1826.
_THE TUNE._
"Home, Sweet Home" was composed, according to the old account, by John
Howard Payne as one of the airs in his opera of "Clari, the Maid of
Milan," which was brought out in London at Drury Lane in 1823. But
Charles Mackay, the English poet, in the London Telegraph, asserts that
Sir Henry Bishop, an eminent musician, in his vain search for a Sicilian
national air, _invented_ one, and that it was the melody of "Home, sweet
Home," which he afterwards set to Howard Payne's words. Mr. Mackay had
this story from Sir Henry himself.
Mid scenes of confusion and creature complaints
How sweet to my soul is communion with saints,
To find at the banquet of mercy there's room
And feel in the presence of Jesus at home.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
Prepare me, dear Savior for glory, my home.
John Howard Payne, author at least, of the original _words_ of "Home,
Sweet Home," was born in New York City June 9, 1791. He was a singer,
and became an actor and theatrical writer. He composed the words of his
immortal song in the year 1823, when he was himself homeless and hungry
and sheltered temporarily in an attic in Paris.
His fortunes improved at last, and he was appointed to represent his
native country as consul in Tunis, where he died, Apr. 9, 1852.
"O, COULD I SPEAK THE MATCHLESS WORTH."
The writer of this hymn of worshiping ardor and exalted Christian love
was an English Baptist minister, the Rev. Samuel Medley. He was born at
Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, June 23, 1738, and at eighteen years of age
entered the Royal Navy, where, though he had been piously educated, he
became dissipated and morally reckless. Wounded in a sea fight off Cape
Lagos, and in dread of amputation he prayed penitently through nearly a
whole night, and in the morning the surprised surgeon told him his limb
could be saved.
The voice of his awakened conscience was not wholly disregarded, though
it was not till some time after he left the navy that his vow to begin a
religious life was sincerely kept. After teaching school for four years,
he began to preach in 1766, Wartford in Hertfordshire being the first
scene of his godly labors. He died in Liverpool July 17, 1799, at the
end of a faithful ministry there of twenty-seven years. A small edition
of his hymns was published during his lifetime, in 1789.
O could I speak the matchless worth,
O could I sound the glories forth
Which in my Saviour shine,
I'd soar and touch the heavenly strings
And vie with Gabriel while he sings,
In notes almost divine!
_THE TUNE._
"Colebrook," a plain choral; but with a noble movement, by Henry Smart,
is the English music to this fine lyric, but Dr. Mason's "Ariel" is the
American favorite. It justifies its name, for it has wings--in both full
harmony and duet--and its melody feels the glory of the hymn at every
bar.
"ROCK OF AGES CLEFT FOR ME."
Augustus Montagu Toplady, author of this almost universal hymn, was born
at Farnham, Surrey, Eng., Nov. 4, 1740. Educated at Westminster School,
and Trinity College, Dublin, he took orders in the Established Church.
In his doctrinal debates with the Wesleys he was a harsh
controversialist; but his piety was sincere, and marked late in life by
exalted moods. Physically he was frail, and his fiery zeal wore out his
body. Transferred from his vicarage at Broad Hembury, Devonshire, to
Knightsbridge, London, at twenty-eight years of age, his health began to
fail before he was thirty-five, and in one of his periods of illness he
wrote--
When languor and disease invade
This trembling house of clay,
'Tis sweet to look beyond my pains
And long to fly away.
And the same homesickness for heaven appears under a different figure in
another hymn--
At anchor laid remote from home,
Toiling I cry, "Sweet Spirit, come!
Celestial breeze, no longer stay,
But swell my sails, and speed my way!"
Possessed of an ardent religious nature, his spiritual frames
exemplified in a notable degree the emotional side of Calvinistic piety.
Edward Payson himself, was not more enraptured in immediate view of
death than was this young London priest and poet. Unquestioning faith
became perfect certainty. As in the bold metaphor of "Rock of Ages," the
faith finds voice in--
A debtor to mercy alone,
--and other hymns in his collection of 1776, two years before the end
came. Most of this devout writing was done in his last days, and he
continued it as long as strength was left, until, on the 11th of August,
1778, he joyfully passed away.
Somehow there was always something peculiarly heartsome and "filling" to
pious minds in the lines of Toplady in days when his minor hymns were
more in vogue than now, and they were often quoted, without any idea
whose making they were. "At anchor laid" was crooned by good old ladies
at their spinning-wheels, and godly invalids found "When languor and
disease invade" a comfort next to their Bibles.
"Rock of Ages" is said to have been written after the author, during a
suburban walk, had been forced to shelter himself from a thunder
shower, under a cliff. This is, however, but one of several stories
about the birth-occasion of the hymn.
It has been translated into many languages. One of the foreign
dignitaries visiting Queen Victoria at her "Golden Jubilee" was a native
of Madagascar, who surprised her by asking leave to sing, but delighted
her, when leave was given, by singing "Rock of Ages." It was a favorite
of hers--and of Prince Albert, who whispered it when he was dying.
People who were school-children when Rev. Justus Vinton came home to
Willington, Ct., with two Karen pupils, repeat to-day the "la-pa-ta,
i-oo-i-oo" caught by sound from the brown-faced boys as they sang their
native version of "Rock of Ages."
Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, the famous Confederate Cavalry leader, mortally
wounded at Yellow Tavern, Va., and borne to a Richmond hospital, called
for his minister and requested that "Rock of Ages" be sung to him.
The last sounds heard by the few saved from the wreck of the steamer
"London" in the Bay of Biscay, 1866, were the voices of the helpless
passengers singing "Rock of Ages" as the ship went down.
A company of Armenian Christians sang "Rock of Ages" in their native
tongue while they were being massacred in Constantinople.
No history of this grand hymn of faith forgets the incident of Gladstone
writing a Latin translation of it while sitting in the House of
Commons. That remarkable man was as masterly in his scholarly
recreations as in his statesmanship. The supreme Christian sentiment of
the hymn had permeated his soul till it spoke to him in a dead language
as eloquently as in the living one; and this is what he made of it:
_TOPLADY._
Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.
Not the labor of my hands
Can fulfil Thy law's demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears for ever flow,
All for sin could not atone,
Thou must save, and Thou alone.
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress,
Helpless, look to Thee for grace:
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash, me, Saviour, or I die.
Whilst I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eyestrings break in death;
When I soar through tracts unknown,
See Thee on Thy judgment throne,
Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.
_GLADSTONE._
Jesus, pro me perforatus,
Condar intra tuum latus;
Tu per lympham profluentem,
Tu per sanguinem tepentem,
In peccata mi redunda,
Tolle culpam, sordes munda!
Coram Te nec justus forem
Quamvis tota vi laborem,
Nec si fide nunquam cesso,
Fletu stillans indefesso;
Tibi soli tantum munus--
Salva me, Salvator Unus!
Nil in manu mecum fero,
Sed me versus crucem gero:
Vestimenta nudus oro,
Opem debilis imploro,
Fontem Christi quæro immundus,
Nisi laves, moribundus.
Dum hos artus vita regit,
Quando nox sepulcro legit;
Mortuos quum stare jubes,
Sedens Judex inter nubes;--
Jesus, pro me perforatus,
Condar intra tuum latus!
The wonderful hymn has suffered the mutations common to time and taste.
When I soar thro' tracts unknown
--becomes--
When I soar to worlds unknown,
--getting rid of the unpoetic word, and bettering the elocution, but
missing the writer's thought (of the unknown _path_,--instead of going
to many "worlds"). The Unitarians have their version, with substitutes
for the "atonement lines."
But the Christian lyric maintains its life and inspiration through the
vicissitudes of age and use, as all intrinsically superior things can
and will,--and as in the twentieth line,--
When my eyestrings break in death;
--modernized to--
When my eyelids close in death,
--the hymn will ever adapt itself to the new exigencies of common
speech, without losing its vitality and power.
_THE TUNE._
A happy inspiration of Dr. Thomas Hastings made the hymn and music
inevitably one. Almost anywhere to call for the tune of "Toplady"
(namesake of the pious poet) is as unintelligible to the multitude as
"Key" would be to designate the "Star-spangled Banner." The common
people--thanks to Dr. Hastings--have learned "Rock of Ages" by _sound_.
Thomas Hastings was born in Washington, Ct., 1784. For eight years he
was editor of the _Western Recorder_, but he gave his life to church
music, and besides being a talented tone-poet he wrote as many as six
hundred hymns. In 1832, by invitation from twelve New York churches, he
went to that city, and did the main work of his life there, dying, in
1872, at the good old age of eighty-nine. His musical collections number
fifty-three. He wrote his famous tune in 1830.
[Illustration: Thomas Hastings]
"MY SOUL BE ON THY GUARD"
Strangely enough, this hymn, a trumpet note of Christian warning and
resolution, was written by one who himself fell into unworthy ways.[12]
But the one strong and spiritual watch-song by which he is remembered
appeals for him, and lets us know possibly, something of his own
conflicts. We can be thankful for the struggle he once made, and for the
hymn it inspired. It is a voice of caution to others.
[Footnote 12: I have been unable to verify this statement found in Mr.
Butterworth's "Story of the Hymns."--T.B.]
George Heath, the author, was an English minister, born in 1781; died
1822. For a time he was pastor of a Presbyterian Church at Honiton,
Devonshire, and was evidently a prolific writer, having composed a
hundred and forty-four hymns, an edition of which was printed.
_THE TUNE._
No other has been so familiarly linked with the words as Lowell Mason's
"Laban" (1830). It has dash and animation enough to reënforce the hymn,
and give it popular life, even if the hymn had less earnestness and
vigor of its own.
Ne'er think the vict'ry won
Nor lay thine armor down:
Thy arduous work will not be done
Till thou hast gained thy crown.
Fight on, my soul till death
Shall bring thee to thy God;
He'll take thee at thy parting breath
To His divine abode.
"PEOPLE OF THE LIVING GOD."
Montgomery _felt_ every line of this hymn as he committed it to paper.
He wrote it when, after years in the "swim" of social excitements and
ambitions, where his young independence swept him on, he came back to
the little church of his boyhood. His father and mother had gone to the
West Indies as missionaries, and died there. He was forty-three years
old when, led by divine light, he sought readmission to the Moravian
"meeting" at Fulneck, and anchored happily in a haven of peace.
People of the living God
I have sought the world around,
Paths of sin and sorrow trod,
Peace and comfort nowhere found:
Now to you my spirit turns--
Turns a fugitive unblest;
Brethren, where your altar burns,
Oh, receive me into rest.
James Montgomery, son of Rev. John Montgomery, was born at Irvine,
Ayrshire, Scotland, Nov. 4, 1771, and educated at the Moravian Seminary
at Fulneck, Yorkshire, Eng. He became the editor of the _Sheffield
Iris_, and his pen was busy in non-professional as well as professional
work until old age. He died in Sheffield, April 30, 1854.
His literary career was singularly successful; and a glance through any
complete edition of his poems will tell us why. His hymns were all
published during his lifetime, and all, as well as his longer pieces,
have the purity and polished beauty, if not the strength, of Addison's
work. Like Addison, too, he could say that he had written no line which,
dying, he would wish to blot.
The best of Montgomery was in his hymns. These were too many to
enumerate here, and the more enduring ones too familiar to need
enumeration. The church and the world will not soon forget "The Home in
Heaven,"--
Forever with the Lord,
Amen, so let it be.
Life from the dead is in that word;
'Tis immortality.
Nor--
O where shall rest be found,
--with its impressive couplet--
'Tis not the whole of life to live
Nor all of death to die.
Nor the haunting sweetness of--
There is a calm for those who weep.
Nor, indeed, the hymn of Christian love just now before us.
_THE TUNE._
The melody exactly suited to the gentle trochaic step of the home-song,
"People of the living God," is "Whitman," composed for it by Lowell
Mason. Few Christians, in America, we venture to say, could hear an
instrument play "Whitman" without mentally repeating Montgomery's words.
"TO LEAVE MY DEAR FRIENDS."
This hymn, called "The Bower of Prayer," was dear to Christian hearts in
many homes and especially in rural chapel worship half a century ago and
earlier, and its sweet legato melody still lingers in the memories of
aged men and women.
Elder John Osborne, a New Hampshire preacher of the "Christian"
(_Christ-ian_) denomination, is said to have composed the tune (and
possibly the words) about 1815--though apparently the music was arranged
from a flute interlude in one of Haydn's themes. The warbling notes of
the air are full of heart-feeling, and usually the best available treble
voice sang it as a solo.
To leave my dear friends and from neighbors to part,
And go from my home, it affects not my heart
Like the thought of absenting myself for a day
From that blest retreat I have chosen to pray,
I have chosen to pray.
The early shrill notes of the loved nightingale
That dwelt in the bower, I observed as my bell:
It called me to duty, while birds in the air
Sang anthems of praises as I went to prayer,
As I went to prayer.[13]
How sweet were the zephyrs perfumed by the pine,
The ivy, the balsam, the wild eglantine,
But sweeter, O, sweeter superlative were
The joys that I tasted in answer to prayer,
In answer to prayer.
[Footnote 13: The _American Vocalist_ omits this stanza as too fanciful
as well as too crude]
"SAVIOUR, THY DYING LOVE."
This hymn of grateful piety was written in 1862, by Rev. S. Dryden
Phelps, D.D., of New Haven, and first published in _Pure Gold_, 1871;
afterwards in the (earlier) _Baptist Hymn and Tune Book_.
Saviour, Thy dying love
Thou gavest me,
Nor should I aught withhold
Dear Lord, from Thee.
* * * * *
Give me a faithful heart,
Likeness to Thee,
That each departing day
Henceforth may see
Some work of love begun,
Some deed of kindness done,
Some wand'rer sought and won,
Something for Thee.
The penultimate line, originally "Some sinful wanderer won," was altered
by the author himself. The hymn is found in most Baptist hymnals, and
was inserted by Mr. Sankey in _Gospel Hymns No. 1_. It has since won its
way into several revival collections and undenominational manuals.
Rev. Sylvester Dryden Phelps, D.D., was born in Suffield, Ct., May 15,
1816, and studied at the Connecticut Literary Institution in that town.
An early call to the ministry turned his talents to the service of the
church, and his long settlement--comprising what might be called his
principal life work--was in New Haven, where he was pastor of the First
Baptist church twenty-nine years. He died there Nov. 23, 1895.
_THE TUNE._
The Rev. Robert Lowry admired the hymn, and gave it a tune perfectly
suited to its metre and spirit. It has never been sung in any other. The
usual title of it is "Something for Jesus." The meaning and sentiment of
both words and music are not unlike Miss Havergal's--
I gave my life for thee.
"IN SOME WAY OR OTHER."
This song of Christian confidence was written by Mrs. Martha A.W. Cook,
wife of the Rev. Parsons Cook, editor of the _Puritan Recorder_, Boston.
It was published in the _American Messenger_ in 1870, and is still in
use here, as a German version of it is in Germany. The first stanza
follows, in the two languages:
In some way or other the Lord will provide.
It may not be my way,
It may not be thy way,
And yet in His own way
The Lord will provide.
Sei's so oder anders, der Herr wird's versehn;
Mag's nicht sein, wie ich will,
Mag's nicht sein, wie du willst,
Doch wird's sein, wie Er will:
Der Herr wird's versehn.
In the English version the easy flow of the two last lines into one
sentence is an example of rhythmic advantage over the foreign syntax.
Mrs. Cook was married to the well-known clergyman and editor, Parsons
Cook, (1800-1865) in Bridgeport, Ct., and survived him at his death in
Lynn, Mass. She was Miss Martha Ann Woodbridge, afterwards Mrs. Hawley,
and a widow at the time of her re-marriage as Mr. Cook's second wife.
_THE TUNE._
Professor Calvin S. Harrington, of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Ct.,
set music to the words as printed in _Winnowed Hymns_ (1873) and
arranged by Dr. Eben Tourjee, organizer of the great American Peace
Jubilee in Boston. In the _Gospel Hymns_ it is, however, superseded by
the more popular composition of Philip Phillips.
Dr. Eben Tourjee, late Dean of the College of Music in Boston
University, and founder and head of the New England Conservatory, was
born in Warwick, R.I., June 1, 1834. With only an academy education he
rose by native genius, from a hard-working boyhood to be a teacher of
music and a master of its science. From a course of study in Europe he
returned and soon made his reputation as an organizer of musical schools
and sangerfests. The New England Conservatory of Music was first
established by him in Providence, but removed in 1870 to Boston, its
permanent home. His doctorate of music was conferred upon him by
Wesleyan University. Died in Boston, April 12, 1891.
Philip Phillips, known as "the singing Pilgrim," was born in Jamestown,
Chautauqua, Co., N.Y., Aug. 13, 1834. He compiled twenty-nine
collections of sacred music for Sunday schools, gospel meetings, etc.;
also a _Methodist Hymn and Tune Book_, 1866. He composed a great number
of tunes, but wrote no hymns. Some of his books were published in
London, for he was a cosmopolitan singer, and traveled through Europe
and Australia as well as America. Died in Delaware, O., June 25, 1875.
"NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE."
Mr. William Stead, fond of noting what is often believed to be the
"providential chain of causes" in everything that happens, recalls the
fact that Benjamin Flower, editor of the _Cambridge Intelligencer_,
while in jail (1798) at the instigation of Bp. Watson for an article
defending the French Revolution, and criticising the Bishop's political
course, was visited by several sympathizing ladies, one of whom was Miss
Eliza Gould. The young lady's first acquaintance with him there in his
cell led to an attachment which eventuated in marriage. Of that marriage
Sarah Flower was born. By the theory of providential sequences Mr. Stead
makes it appear that the forgotten vindictiveness of a British prelate
"was the _causa causans_ of one of the most spiritual and aspiring hymns
in the Christian Hymnary."
"Nearer, My God, to Thee" was on the lips of President McKinley as he
lay dying by a murderer's wicked shot. It is dear to President Roosevelt
for its memories of the battle of Las Quasimas, where the Rough Riders
sang it at the burial of their slain comrades. Bishop Marvin was saved
by it from hopeless dejection, while practically an exile during the
Civil War, by hearing it sung in the wilds of Arkansas, by an old woman
in a log hut.
A letter from Pittsburg, Pa., to a leading Boston paper relates the name
and experience of a forger who had left the latter city and wandered
eight years a fugitive from justice. On the 5th of November, (Sunday,)
1905, he found himself in Pittsburg, and ventured into the Dixon
Theatre, where a religious service was being held, to hear the music.
The hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee" so overcame him that he went out
weeping bitterly. He walked the floor of his room all night, and in the
morning telephoned for the police, confessed his name and crime, and
surrendered himself to be taken back to the Boston authorities.
Mrs. Sarah Flower Adams, author of the noble hymn (supposed to have been
written in 1840), was born at Harlow, Eng., Feb. 22, 1805, and died
there in 1848. At her funeral another of her hymns was sung, ending--
When falls the shadow, cold in death
I yet will sing with fearless breath,
As comes to me in shade or sun,
"Father, Thy will, not mine, be done."
The attempts to _evangelize_ "Nearer, My God, to Thee" by those who
cannot forget that Mrs. Adams was a Unitarian, are to be deplored. Such
zeal is as needless as trying to sectarianize an Old Testament Psalm.
The poem is a perfect religious piece--to be sung as it stands, with
thanks that it was ever created.
_THE TUNE._
In English churches (since 1861) the hymn was and may still be sung to
"Horbury," composed by Rev. John B. Dykes, and "St. Edmund," by Sir
Arthur Sullivan. Both tunes are simple and appropriate, but such a hymn
earns and inevitably acquires a single tune-voice, so that its music
instantly names it by its words when played on instruments. Such a voice
was given it by Lowell Mason's "Bethany," (1856). (Why not "Bethel,"
instead, every one who notes the imagery of the words must wonder.)
"Bethany" appealed to the popular heart, and long ago (in America) hymn
and tune became each other's property. It is even simpler than the
English tunes, and a single hearing fixes it in memory.
"I NEED THEE EVERY HOUR."
Mrs. Annie Sherwood Hawks, who wrote this hymn in 1872, was born in
Hoosick, N.Y., in 1835.
She sent the hymn (five stanzas) to Dr. Lowry, who composed its tune,
adding a chorus, to make it more effective. It first appeared in a small
collection of original songs prepared by Lowry and Doane for the
National Baptist Sunday School Association, which met at Cincinnati, O.,
November, 1872, and was sung there.
I need Thee every hour,
Most gracious Lord,
No tender voice like Thine
Can peace afford.
CHORUS.
I need Thee, Oh, I need Thee,
Every hour I need Thee;
Oh, bless me now, my Saviour,
I come to Thee!
One instance, at least, of a hymn made doubly impressive by its chorus
will be attested by all who have sung or heard the pleading words and
music of Mrs. Hawks' and Dr. Lowry's "I need Thee, Oh, I need Thee."
"I GAVE MY LIFE FOR THEE."
This was written in her youth by Frances Ridley Havergal, and was
suggested by the motto over the head of Christ in the great picture,
"Ecce Homo," in the Art Gallery of Dusseldorf, Prussia, where she was at
school. The sight--as was the case with young Count Zinzendorf--seems to
have had much to do with the gifted girl's early religious experience,
and indeed exerted its influence on her whole life. The motto read "I
did this for thee; what doest thou for me?" and the generative effect of
the solemn picture and its question soon appeared in the hymn that
flowed from Miss Havergal's heart and pen.
I gave my life for thee,
My precious blood I shed,
That thou might'st ransomed be
And quickened from the dead.
I gave my life for thee:
What hast thou given for me?
Miss Frances Ridley Havergal, sometimes called "The Theodosia of the
19th century," was born at Astley, Worcestershire, Eng., Dec. 14, 1836.
Her father, Rev. William Henry Havergal, a clergyman of the Church of
England, was himself a poet and a skilled musician, and much of the
daughter's ability came to her by natural bequest as well as by
education. Born a poet, she became a fine instrumentalist, a composer
and an accomplished linguist. Her health was frail, but her life was a
devoted one, and full of good works. Her consecrated _words_ were
destined to outlast her by many generations.
"Writing is _praying_ with me," she said. Death met her in 1879, when
still in the prime of womanhood.
_THE TUNE._
The music that has made this hymn of Miss Havergal familiar in America
is named from its first line, and was composed by the lamented Philip P.
Bliss (christened Philipp Bliss[14]), a pupil of Dr. George F. Root.
[Footnote 14: Mr. Bliss himself changed the spelling of his name,
preferring to let the third P. do duty alone, as a middle initial.]
He was born in Rome, Pa., Jan. 9, 1838, and less than thirty-nine years
later suddenly ended his life, a victim of the awful railroad disaster
at Ashtabula O., Dec. 29, 1876, while returning from a visit to his aged
mother. His wife, Lucy Young Bliss, perished with him there, in the
swift flames that enveloped the wreck of the train.
The name of Mr. Bliss had become almost a household word through his
numerous popular Christian melodies, which were the American beginning
of the series of _Gospel Hymns_. Many of these are still favorite
prayer-meeting tunes throughout the country and are heard in
song-service at Sunday-school and city mission meetings.
"JESUS KEEP ME NEAR THE CROSS."
This hymn, one of the best and probably most enduring of Fanny J.
Crosby's sacred lyrics, was inspired by Col. 1:29.
Frances Jane Crosby (Mrs. Van Alstyne) the blind poet and hymnist, was
born in Southeast, N.Y., March 24, 1820. She lost her eyesight at the
age of six. Twelve years of her younger life were spent in the New York
Institution for the Blind, where she became a teacher, and in 1858 was
happily married to a fellow inmate, Mr. Alexander Van Alstyne, a
musician.
George F. Root was for a time musical instructor at the Institution, and
she began early to write words to his popular song-tunes. "Rosalie, the
Prairie Flower," and the long favorite melody, "There's Music in the
Air" are among the many to which she supplied the text and the song
name.
She resides in Bridgeport, Ct., where she enjoys a serene and happy old
age. She has written over six thousand hymns, and possibly will add
other pearls to the cluster before she goes up to join the singing
saints.
Jesus, keep me near the Cross,
There a precious Fountain
Free to all, a healing stream,
Flows from Calv'ry's mountain.
CHORUS.
In the Cross, in the Cross
Be my glory ever,
Till my raptured soul shall find
Rest beyond the river.
* * * * *
Near the Cross! O Lamb of God,
Bring its scenes before me;
Help me walk from day to day
With its shadows o'er me.
CHORUS.
William Howard Doane, writer of the music to this hymn, was born in
Preston, Ct., Feb. 3, 1831. He studied at Woodstock Academy, and
subsequently acquired a musical education which earned him the degree of
Doctor of Music conferred upon him by Denison University in 1875. Having
a mechanical as well as musical gift, he patented more than seventy
inventions, and was for some years engaged with manufacturing concerns,
both as employee and manager, but his interest in song-worship and in
Sunday-school and church work never abated, and he is well known as a
trainer of choirs and composer of some of the best modern devotional
tunes. His home is in Cincinnati, O.
"I WOULD NOT LIVE ALWAY."
This threnody (we may almost call it) of W.A. Muhlenberg, illustrating
one phase of Christian experience, was the outpouring of a poetic
melancholy not uncommon to young and finely strung souls. He composed it
in his twenties,--long before he became "Doctor" Muhlenberg,--and for
years afterwards tried repeatedly to alter it to a more cheerful tone.
But the poem had its mission, and it had fastened itself in the public
imagination, either by its contagious sentiment or the felicity of its
tune, and the author was obliged to accept the fame of it as it
originally stood.
William Augustus Muhlenberg D.D. was born in Philadelphia, Sept. 16,
1796, the great-grandson of Dr. Henry M. Muhlenberg, founder of the
Lutheran church in America. In 1817 he left his ancestral communion, and
became an Episcopal priest.
As Rector of St. James church, Lancaster, Pa., he interested himself in
the improvement of ecclesiastical hymnody, and did much good reforming
work. After a noble and very active life as promoter of religious
education and Christian union, and as a friend and benefactor of the
poor, he died April, 8, 1877, in St. Luke's Hospital, N.Y.
_THE TUNE._
This was composed by Mr. George Kingsley in 1833, and entitled
"Frederick" (dedicated to the Rev. Frederick T. Gray). Issued first as
sheet music, it became popular, and soon found a place in the hymnals.
Dr. Louis Benson says of the conditions and the fancy of the time, "The
standard of church music did not differ materially from that of parlor
music.... Several editors have attempted to put a newer tune in the
place of Mr. Kingsley's. It was in vain, simply because words and melody
both appeal to the same taste."
[Illustration: Frances Ridley Havergal]
"SUN OF MY SOUL, MY SAVIOUR DEAR."
This gem from Keble's _Christian Year_ illustrates the life and
character of its pious author, and, like all the hymns of that
celebrated collection, is an incitive to spiritual thought for the
thoughtless, as well as a language for those who stand in the Holy of
Holies.
The Rev. John Keble was born in Caln, St. Aldwyn, April 25, 1792. He
took his degree of A.M. and was ordained and settled at Fairford, where
he began the parochial work that ceased only with his life. He died at
Bournmouth, March 29, 1866.
His settlement at Fairford, in charge of three small curacies, satisfied
his modest ambition, though altogether they brought him only about £100
per year. Here he preached, wrote his hymns and translations, performed
his pastoral work, and was happy. Temptation to wider fields and larger
salary never moved him.
_THE TUNE._
The music to this hymn of almost unparalleled poetic and spiritual
beauty was arranged from a German Choral of Peter Ritter (1760-1846) by
William Henry Monk, Mus. Doc., born London, 1823. Dr. Monk was a
lecturer, composer, editor, and professor of vocal music at King's
College. This noble tune appears sometimes under the name "Hursley" and
supersedes an earlier one ("Halle") by Thomas Hastings.
Sun of my soul, my Saviour dear,
It is not night if Thou be near.
O may no earth-born cloud arise
To hide Thee from Thy servants' eyes.
* * * * *
Abide with me from morn till eve,
For without Thee I cannot live
Abide with me when night is nigh,
For without Thee I cannot die.
The tune "Hursley" is a choice example of polyphonal sweetness in
uniform long notes of perfect chord.
The tune of "Canonbury," by Robert Schumann, set to Keble's hymn, "New
every morning is the love," is deservedly a favorite for flowing long
metres, but it could never replace "Hursley" with "Sun of my soul."
"DID CHRIST O'ER SINNERS WEEP?"
The Rev. Benjamin Beddome wrote this tender hymn-poem while pastor of
the Baptist Congregation at Bourton-on-the-water, Gloucestershire, Eng.
He was born at Henley, Chatwickshire, Jan. 23, 1717. Settled in 1743,
he remained with the same church till his death, Sept. 3, 1795. His
hymns were not collected and published till 1818.
_THE TUNE._
"Dennis," a soft and smoothly modulated harmony, is oftenest sung to the
words, and has no note out of sympathy with their deep feeling.
Did Christ o'er sinners weep,
And shall our cheeks be dry?
Let floods of penitential grief
Burst forth from every eye.
The Son of God in tears
Admiring angels see!
Be thou astonished, O my soul;
He shed those tears for thee.
He wept that we might weep;
Each sin demands a tear:
In heaven alone no sin is found,
And there's no weeping there.
The tune of "Dennis" was adapted by Lowell Mason from Johann Georg
Nägeli, a Swiss music publisher, composer and poet. He was born in
Zurich, 1768. It is told of him that his irrepressible genius once
tempted him to violate the ethics of authorship. While publishing
Beethoven's three great solo sonatas (Opus 31) he interpolated two bars
of his own, an act much commented upon in musical circles, but which
does not seem to have cost him Beethoven's friendship. Possibly, like
Murillo to the servant who meddled with his paintings, the great master
forgave the liberty, because the work was so good.
Nägeli's compositions are mostly vocal, for school and church use,
though some are of a gay and playful nature. The best remembered of his
secular and sacred styles are his blithe aria to the song of Moore,
"Life let us cherish, while yet the taper glows" and the sweet choral
that voices Beddome's hymn.
"MY JESUS, I LOVE THEE."
The real originator of the _Coronation Hymnal_, a book into whose making
went five years of prayer, was Dr. A.J. Gordon, late Pastor of the
Clarendon St. Baptist church, Boston. While the volume was slowly taking
form and plan he was wont to hum to himself, or cause to be played by
one of his family, snatches and suggestions of new airs that came to him
in connection with his own hymns, and others which seemed to have no
suitable music. The anonymous hymn, "My Jesus, I Love Thee," he found in
a London hymn-book, and though the tune to which it had been sung in
England was sent to him some time later, it did not sound sympathetic.
Dissatisfied, and with the ideal in his mind of what the feeling should
be in the melody to such a hymn, he meditated and prayed over the words
till in a moment of inspiration the beautiful air sang itself to him[15]
which with its simple concords has carried the hymn into the chapels of
every denomination.
[Footnote 15: The fact that this sweet melody recalls to some a similar
tune sung sixty years ago reminds us again of the story of the tune
"America." It is not impossible that an unconscious _memory_ helped to
shape the air that came to Dr. Gordon's mind; though unborrowed
similarities have been inevitable in the whole history of music.]
My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine,
For Thee all the pleasures of sin I resign;
My gracious Redeemer, my Saviour art Thou,
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.
* * * * *
I will love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,
And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath,
And say when the death-dew lies cold on my brow,
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.
In mansions of glory and endless delight
I'll ever adore Thee, unveiled to my sight,
And sing, with the glittering crown on my brow,
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.
The memory of the writer returns to a day in a railway-car en route to
the great Columbian Fair in Chicago when the tired passengers were
suddenly surprised and charmed by the music of this melody. A young
Christian man and woman, husband and wife, had begun to sing "My Jesus,
I love Thee." Their voices (a tenor and soprano) were clear and sweet,
and every one of the company sat up to listen with a look of mingled
admiration and relief. Here was something, after all, to make a long
journey less tedious. They sang all the four verses and paused. There
was no clapping of hands, for a reverential hush had been cast over the
audience by the sacred music. Instead of the inevitable applause that
follows mere entertainment, a gentle but eager request for more secured
the repetition of the delightful duet. This occurred again and again,
till every one in the car--and some had never heard the tune or words
before--must have learned them by heart. Fatigue was forgotten, miles
had been reduced to furlongs in a weary trip, and a company of strangers
had been lifted to a holier plane of thought.
Besides this melody there are four tunes by Dr. Gordon in his
collection, three of them with his own words. In all there are eleven of
his hymns. Of these the "Good morning in Glory," set to his music, is an
emotional lyric admirable in revival meetings, and the one beginning "O
Holy Ghost, Arise" is still sung, and called for affectionately as
"Gordon's Hymn."
Rev. Adoniram Judson Gordon D.D. was born in New Hampton, N.H., April
19, 1836, and died in Boston, Feb. 2d, 1895, after a life of unsurpassed
usefulness to his fellowmen and devotion to his Divine Master. Like
Phillips Brooks he went to his grave "in all his glorious prime," and
his loss is equally lamented. He was a descendant of John Robinson of
Leyden.