STUDIES
FAMILIAR
HYMNS
LOUIS
SECOND SERIES
THE REV. GEORGE WHITEFIELD
STUDIES
OF
FAMILIAR HYMNS
SECOND SERIES
BY
LOUIS F. BENS'ON, D.D.
EDITOR OF "THE HYMNAL PUBLISHED IN 1895 AND REVISED IN
ign BY AUTHORITY OE THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.," AND
AUTHOR OP "THE ENGLISH HYMN"
PHILADELPHIA
THE WESTMINSTER PRESS
1923
1923, BY xms
23OAJEUD OF CH^RXSTIAJST EX>TJCAXrO3ST O^* XTTTS
CHTJE-CH UST XBCE TJ. S. A.
November, 1923
PEXN"TEI> I2-T TPi: B rOSriTED STATES OF
2
PREFACE
Twenty years have passed since the appearance of
an earlier series of Studies of Familiar Hymns. They
had been running through the numbers of " Forward,"
the young people's paper of the Presbyterian Church,
and in 1903 were gathered into a volume. The recep-
tion of the book was kindly kindly enough at least
to make plain that a considerable number of people,
who wished information concerning the hymns they
loved, were willing to forego the primrose paths of
dalliance with myths and rnisstatements, anecdotage and
sentimentalism, and to be personally conducted along
the straiter and less flowery paths of truth.
The number of these stout hearts does not appear to
diminish. It was indeed the author's discovery that
after so many years the demand for his little book con-
tinues, and is indeed larger now than at first, which
has encouraged him to invite his readers, old and new,
to accompany him a little farther afield.
In motive and in method the new Studies are very
like the old, even to the appending to each of " Some
Points for Discussion " in " the hope (now renewed)
that groups or societies of young people might be led
to think over and discuss the message of the hymns
they so often sing, sometimes, it may be, too thought-
lessly."
There are, however, between the earlier Studies and
these two points of difference to which an old reader's
attention may well be called.
Vlll
PREFACE
First. In making such studies it is necessary (now
as then) to have some standard, common to author and
reader, not only for the text of the hymns dealt with
but also in allusions to other hymns. In the earlier
book the standard was The Hymnal published by
authority of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church in the U. S. A. in 1895. Since then it has been
followed by The Hymnal . . . revised in ipu. In the
present volume accordingly the Revision of 1911 be-
comes the standard. The author wishes he could alter
the plates of the earlier Studies so as to make all
references to hymns there conform with those in this
book. But in view of the great number of copies of
The Hymnal of 1895 still in actual use in the churches,
and for other reasons, this change is not now practicable.
Second. In the earlier series there was no intended
connection between the hymns studied no continued
story: each of them being chosen for its own sake and
with an eye upon the author's ability to furnish an
autographed copy of the hymn by way of illustration.
The plan of the present series is more ambitious there
is a continued story. The hymns, with one exception
that will explain itself, are arranged in chronological
order, and were chosen as representative of the histori-
cal development of hymnody and of hymn singing
among the peoples of England, Scotland, and America.
The story begins with the joy and pride of English-
speaking Christians in their new-found privilege of sing-
ing God's praise in their own tongue, although with the
restriction (suggested by John Calvin) that they should
confine their praises to the very words of Scripture.
It recounts the fading of the joy out of the Psalmody,
and the growth of dissatisfaction with the restriction.
PREFACE
IX
It celebrates the advance of a young champion (Isaac
Watts) to attack single-handed the authority and tra-
dition of " Bible-Songs/' and tells how the great
eighteenth century revival brought about the final vin-
dication of the people's right to express their praises in
terms of their own experience rather than that of
" David." It goes forward to narrate how the spiritual
forces of the nineteenth century dealt with " the hymn
of human composure " it had inherited from the great
revival ; and attempts to set some of our modern hymns,
one by one, against the background of that particular
epoch or phase of religious history out of which each
hymn came in its turn, and which so often explains the
content and even the form of the hymn.
In the preparation of these Studies the great aim of
the author has been the attainment of a scrupulous ac-
curacy in smaller as in larger things; his great pleasure
has been in the atmosphere of friendship with which
that preparation was surrounded. His outspoken thanks
are due to the Reverend Doctor John T. Paris, who en-
larged his editorial heart to make room in " Forward "
for so long a series of long papers ; to his associate, the
Reverend Park Hays Miller, for that sympathetic en-
couragement which makes the sunny side of honest work ;
to Miss Anne Henderson, who read all these Studies
in manuscript more than once (could kindness farther
go?) to their advantage; and to Mr. Henry F. Scheetz,
for his zeal " to make this book [outwardly] better than
the last."
NORTHEAST HARBOR, MAINE
September 22, 1923.
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
[THE SPREAD OP THE CALVINISTIC ORDINANCE OF
PSALM SINGING]
1. ALL PEOPLE THAT ON EARTH DO DWELL. Wil-
liam Kethe, 1561 i
(one of the original Psalms of the
English Reformation]
2. THE LORD'S MY SHEPHERD, FLL NOT WANT.
Rous 7 s Version, 1650 12
(representing the 17 th century effort to
improve the Psalmody in Scotland)
[THE INTRODUCTION OF EVANGELICAL HYMNS
INTO ENGLAND ]
3. THERE is A LAND OF PURE DELIGHT. Isaac
Watts, 1707 22
(one of the new hymns he proposed to
the Independents)
[THE SPREAD OF EVANGELICAL HYMN SINGING
UNDER THE IMPULSE OE THE ISTH CENTURY
REVIVAL]
4. JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL. Charles Wesley,
1740. 33
(the great hymn of the Methodist
Movement)
5. CHILDREN OF THE HEAVENLY KING. John Cen-
nick, 1742 45
(at the parting of the ways between
Methodists and "Evangelicals"; il-
lustrating the type of Christian ex-
perience developed by the Revival)
xi
xii ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
6. CHRISTIANS, AWAKE! SALUTE THE HAPPY MORN.
John Byrom, 1750 5&
(a Christmas hymn from the Wesley
circle)
7. GUIDE ME, O THOU GREAT JEHOVAH. William
Williams, 1745 68
(a Lymn of the Evangelical Revival in
Wales)
8. LORD, I AM THINE, ENTIRELY THINE. Samuel
Davies, c. 1759 So
(illustrating the new hymn singing in-
spired by the Evangelical Revival
in America]
9. SWEET THE MOMENTS, RICH IN BLESSING. Wal-
ter Shirley, 1770 93
10. ROCK OF AGES, CLEFT FOR ME. Augustus M.
Toplady, 1776 104
(illustrating the hymn singing " Evan-
gelicals " introduced into the
Church of England)
11. GOD OF OUR FATHERS, WHOSE ALMIGHTY HAND.
Daniel C. Roberts, 1876 119
(a Centennial hymn, suggesting the con-
nection of the Revival with Ameri-
can Independence}
12. How SWEET THE NAME OF JESUS SOUNDS. John
Newton, 1779 130
13. GOD MOVES IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY. William
Cowper, 1774 142
(hymns of Church of England Evangeli-
cals carrying on the Revival in a
country parish}
ANALYTICAL TABLE OP CONTENTS ziii
PAGE
14. ALL HAIL THE POWER OF JESUS' NAME. Edward
Perronet, 1780 154
(the hymn of a very independent
Evangelical, who had worked at
first with the Methodist and then
with the Calvinistic side of the
Revival, but preferred a little
flock all his own}
[THE INTRODUCTION OF HYMNS INTO SCOTLAND]
15. GOD OF BETHEL, BY WHOSE HAND. The Scot-
tish Paraphrases, 1781 167
(one of the original " Translations and
Paraphrases of Scripture" added to
the Psalm Book of the Church of
Scotland}
[THE EARLIER NINETEENTH CENTURY HYMNS]
1 6. HAIL TO THE LORD'S ANOINTED. James Mont-
gomery, 1821 181
(a new voice of the new century: a
hymn inspired by the awakened in-
terest in Foreign Missions}
17. JUST AS I AM, WITHOUT ONE PLEA. Charlotte
Elliott, 1836 194
(a hymn- of the Evangelical Party in
the Church of England, carrying
on the traditions of the Evangelical
Revival}
1 8. I HEARD THE VOICE OF JESUS SAY. Horatius
Bonar, 1846 207
(by a Scottish Evangelical, breaking
forth into hymns that cannot at
the time be sung in his own
church}
xiv ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
[THE HYMNS OP THE OXFORD MOVEMENT]
19. THERE is A GREEN HILL FAR AWAY. Cecil F.
Alexander, 1848 220
20. ART THOU WEARY, ART THOU LANGUID. John
Mason Neale, 1862 232
21. SAVIOUR, AGAIN TO THY DEAR NAME WE RAISE.
John Ellerton, 1866 245
22. THE CHURCH'S ONE FOUNDATION. Samuel J.
Stone, 1866 255
(hymns of the High Church Party
who in the middle of the century
take the place of the Evangelicals
as leaders of the Church of England
hymnody and modify the hymnody
of all Churches]
[THE NEW SCOTTISH HYMNODY]
23. LOVE THAT WILT NOT LET ME Go. George
Matheson, 1882 268
(one of the later hymns of the Church
of Scotland, whose hymnody is at
length fully established on the same
lines as in the Church oj England}
[THE " GOSPEL HYMNS "]
24. GOD BE WITH You TILL WE MEET AGAIN. Jere-
miah E. Rankin, 1880 279
(illustrating the lighter type of hymn
and tune introduced under Evangel-
istic auspices}
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
GEORGE WHITEFIELD Frontispiece
(From the mezzotint by Illman Brothers}
JOHN CALVIN 3
(After the portrait in the Museum Boijmans, Rotter-
dam}
THE OLD HUNDREDTH PSALM TUNE 7
(From a copy of the Genevan Psalter of 1562 in the
author's collection}
TITLE-PAGE OF " THE PSALMS OF DAVID IN MEETER," 1650 ... 15
(From a copy in the author's collection}
FRANCIS Rous 19
(From an old print in The Presbyterian Historical
Society's collection}
TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF WATTS 's " HYMNS AND
SPIRITUAL SONGS," 1707 26
(From a copy in the author's collection}
ISAAC WATTS 29
(From a photograph of the portrait by Sir Godfrey
Kneller in the National Portrait Gallery, London)
CHARLES WESLEY 35
(From an engraving of the portrait by Gush}
A PAGE OF THE WESLEYS' "HYMNS AND SACRED POEMS," 1740 41
(From a copy in the author's collection}
JOHN CENNICK 48
(From an old print}
JOHN BYROM 59
(From an engraving of the original drawing by G. Clint)
THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF " CHRISTIANS, AWAKE! "... 63
(Reproduced from Curnock's edition of John Wesley's
"Journal"}
xv
xvl LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
WILLIAM WILLIAMS 70
(From an old print in The Presbyterian Historical
Society's Collection]
THE TUNE " CAERSALEM " 77
(From the Hymnal of the Calvinislic Methodist Church)
SAMUEL DAVIES 85
(From the poiliail at Princeton University)
AUTOGRAPH PREFACE OF SAMUEL DAVIES 89
(From the original MS, in The Presbyterian Historical
Society's collection)
WHITEFIELD'S MONUMENT AT NEWBURYPORT 92
WALTER SHIRLEY 95
(Reproduced from " The Gospel Magazine " for Novem-
ber, 1774)
Two PAGES OF THE INGHAMTTE HYMN BOOK OF 1757 99
(From a copy in the author's collection)
AUTOGRAPH LINES FROM A SERMON OF TOPLADY 107
(Reproduced from Wright's " Life of Toplady ")
AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE TOPLADY 109
(From an engraving of the portrait by L. G. Garbrand)
THE CRAG AT BURRINGTON COMBE 114
(From a photograph)
AUTOGRAPH OF " GOD OF OUR FATHERS " 123
(From the original in the author's collection)
DANIEL C. ROBERTS 127
(From a photograph)
JOHN NEWTON 132
(From an engraving of the portrait by Russell)
AUTOGRAPH LINES FROM A LETTER OF JOHN NEWTON 138
(From the original in the author's collection)
WILLIAM COWPER 145
(From an engraving of the portrait by Romney)
THE COWPER AND NEWTON MUSEUM, OLNEY 147
(From a photograph)
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS X vii
THE ORGAN AT WHICH " CORONATION " WAS COMPOSED .... 160
(Reproduced from " The New England Magazine ")
A PAGE FROM PERRONET'S "OCCASIONAL VERSES," 1785 .... 162
(From a copy in the author's collection)
PHILIP DODDRIDGE ..................... !y
(From an engia-ui^g oj t,*e po, trait made i,i 1750)
TITLE-PAGE OF SCOTTISH " TRANSLATIONS AND PARAPHRASES,"
1781 ...... f ................... 175
(From a copy in the author's collection}
JAMES MONTGOMERY'S BIRTH-PLACE ............ 183
(Reproduced from the "Memoir" by Holland and
Everett}
JAMES MONTGOMERY ................. . . 185
(From an engraving of the portrait by Chantrey)
AUTOGRAPH OF A HYMN BY MONTGOMERY .......... igi
(From the original in the author's collection)
CHARLOTTE ELLIOTT .................... 197
(Reproduced fiom the "Selections" from her Poems
made by her Sister)
AUTOGRAPH NOTE OF Miss ELLIOTT ............ 199
(From the fly leaf of a copy of the " Hours of Sorrow "
in the author's collection)
HORATIUS BONAR ..................... 2O8
(From a photograph)
ROUGH DRAFT OF "I HEARD THE VOICE OF JESUS SAY" ... 214
(Reproduced from "Hymns of Horatius Bonar," edited
by his Son)
CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER ................. 222
(From a photograph)
AUTOGRAPH VERSE OF MRS. ALEXANDER ........... 225
(From the original in the author's collection)
JOHN MASON NEALE ................... 237
(Reproduced from "Letters of John Mason Neale")
AUTOGRAPH HYMN or DR. NEALE ............. 239
(Reproduced from his " Collected Hymns ")
xviii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
JOHN ELLERTON ......... 249
(From a photograph)
AUTOGRAPH OF " SAVIOUR, AGAIN TO THY DEAR NAME WE
RAISE " 251
(Reproduced from the Historical Edition of "Hymns
ancient and modern } )
AUTOGRAPH LINES OF "THE CHURCH'S ONE FOUNDATION" . . 259
(Reproduced from F. A. Jones's "Familiar Hymns and
Their Authors ")
SAMUEL J. STONE 261
(From a photograph)
GEORGE MATHESON 275
(Reproduced from "Ike British Monthly")
AUTOGRAPH OF " GOD BE WITH You TILL WE MEET AGAIN " . 281
(Reproduced from a facsimile)
JEREMIAH E. RANKIN 283
(From a photograph)
STUDIES OF FAMILIAR
HYMNS
I
ALL PEOPLE THAT ON EARTH DO DWELL
THE TEXT OF THE "PSALM"
1 All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice,
Him serve with fear, His praise forth tell,
Come ye before Him and rejoice.
2 The Lord ye know is God indeed;
Without our aid He did us make ;
We are His folk, He doth us feed;
And for His sheep He doth us take.
3 O enter then His gates with praise,
Approach with joy His courts unto;
Praise, laud, and bless His Name always,
For it is seemly so to do.
4 For why? the Lord our God is good,
His mercy is for ever sure;
His truth at all times firmly stood,
And shall from age to age endure.
The Hundredth Psalm. Translated into English me-
ter by the Rev. William Kethe, while an Exile at
Geneva, Switzerland.
NOTE. The text is that printed in the incomplete Metrical Psalter
published in London by John Day, 1561 ; without any changes
except for the modernizing of the punctuation and of some old-
time spellings.
2 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
This version of the Hundredth Psalm, with "The
Old Hundredth " Psalm tune that belongs to it, is a real
antique. It is like a piece of old English silver plate,
more stately and massive than our modern make. The
Psalm and tune have been sung together, in England
and Scotland and America, for more than three cen-
turies and a half, and would be worth keeping in our
hymnals, if only for their associations. For they take
us back to the time when our forefathers first began
to praise God in His sanctuary in their own English
tongue. But in fact they still make a noble hymn of
praise. To hear it sung solidly and reverently by a
great congregation, with the support of the full organ, is
a religious experience. It gives one's faith a fresh grip
on the big and holy things that " shall from age to age
indure."
THE STORY OF " OLD HUNDRED "
It begins In Geneva. The city of Geneva lies within
that part of Switzerland where the people speak French
and not German. John Calvin went there in 1536 to
help on the Reformation. He was a very shrewd French-
man, and knew as well as Luther did that the best way
to arouse the hearts of the people was to get them to
singing religious songs. He asked to be allowed to make
a start by having the children taught to sing Psalms in
church, till the congregation should get familiar with
them and feel moved to join in. But Calvin's rather
severe way of looking at things, together no doubt with
the uncompromising vigor of his character,, very quickly
got him disliked both by the rulers and the people. Be-
fore any of his plans could be tried out, he was banished.
JOHN CALVIN
4 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Calvin found himself the pastor of a little flock
of French Protestant refugees in Strasburg, where all
the German Protestants around them were singing the
new hymns Luther and his friends had written for
them. Calvin took some of the German tunes, set them
to a few Bible Psalms and canticles translated into
French verse, and printed them in a thin Psalm book
for his congregation. But he took none of the German
hymns. He was a bit suspicious of hymns. It is so
easy, he thought, to slip false doctrines beneath the
pretty phrases of poetry, and to lodge them in the
singers' hearts. Why not sing the songs God has given
us in the Bible, the Psalms, especially? Surely they
are the best, true because inspired, and quite as beauti-
ful as any man-made hymns.
When they recalled? Calvin to Geneva, one of the
conditions of his return was that he should have his
own way about singing Psalms in church. And his
own way took shape in a somewhat larger Psalm book,
with some new versifyings of Psalms by the popular
poet, Clement Marot, and some fresh tunes by an
excellent French musician whom Calvin got to help him.
Our familiar "Old Hundred" is the tune composed
by Louis Bourgeois to fit the meter of the One Hundred
and Thirty-fourth Psalm, in an enlarged edition of this
Genevan Psalm Book printed in 1551. How it became
the One Hundredth and not the One Hundredth and
Thirty-fourth Psalm tune, we are now to see.
THE STORY OF THE "PSALM"
Switzerland and England were far apart in those
days. But Calvin's doctrines and his doings at Geneva
ALL PEOPLE THAT ON EARTH DO DWELL 5
were well known in London. The English Protestants
had come to take Calvin rather than Luther as their
model and leader. When they put together their first
English Prayer Book, their thought had been to depart
as little as might be from the structure and ceremonies
of the Latin Mass Book and Breviary of the old Church.
But the Prayer Book of 1549 was hardly printed before
Cranmer began to make changes of a kind that Calvin
would approve of. And the second Prayer Book of 1552
was a very different book, more Protestant, more Cal-
vinistic even. By that time many were hoping to drop
the Prayer Book altogether, and use the simpler services
Calvin had prepared for Geneva. They had already
begun to sing metrical Psalms in church after Calvin's
model an innovation in which the Chapel Royal itself
took the lead. Just then the boy king, Edward VI, died.
The Roman Catholic Queen Mary came to the throne,
and many of the Protestants fled the country.
A little company of these exiles, of the sort soon to
be called Puritans,, settled at Frankfort. There they
felt free to simplify their worship. But they were soon
joined by another party of more churchly proclivities,
who insisted that the full Prayer Book services be
reinstated. That led to the historic "Troubles at
Frankfort." The Puritan party left, and went to Ge-
neva to be under the wing of Calvin. There they formed
an English church, with the Scotchman, John Knox,
as one of its pastors.
The Englishmen were deeply moved by the sight of
Calvin's great congregation in the old cathedral, with
their little Psalm books in their own hands, by the
great volume of voices praising God in their own French
tongue, and by the beautiful melodies carrying the words,
6 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
by the fervor of the singing and the spiritual uplift of the
singers. The English exiles felt that their ideals of
pure worship were realized, and had a vision of the
cathedrals and parish churches at home, freed of " the
last dregs of popery" and filled with the sound of
many voices praising God in the holy songs He had
put into their mouths.
They had with them a few Psalms that had been versi-
fied at home, and now they proceeded to prepare an
English Psalm Book with tunes in it, just like Calvin's.
There were scholars among them who could translate
Psalms from the original Hebrew and several who could
turn the translations into respectable English verse.
The tunes were their greatest bother, because the meters
of the tunes the Genevans were singing would be awk-
ward to Englishmen. There was one tune, however,
that to the One Hundred and Thirty-fourth Psalm, in
what we call " long meter," that seemed available and
was certainly beautiful. And for its sake one of the
exiles, William Kethe, chose the Hundredth Psalm to
translate into that meter. And the words of his
Psalm, " All people that on earth do dwell," were then
and there married to Bourgeois' tune in a union so close
and so lasting that it is hard to say which is "The
Old Hundredth."
Queen Mary's reign was happily as short as Edward's,
and the exiles did not stay at Geneva long enough to
complete their Psalm Book. Kethe's Psalm appeared
in their last edition, containing eighty-seven Psalms.
That was printed in 1561, and by that time most of the
exiles had come home. The complete edition of the
English Psalter was prepared at London, printed there
in 1562. It was called The whole Booke of Psalms, col-
f A Y..MJ-n,-- c -LSi-SLJ, J t X. _
Aaron Ie Preiire dc la LoyT
- a Etqmdepjiislaccfttevientdefcendre
; lufqu'a fa barbe>& en fm fe vient readrc
Aux bordsdu faced vcftcincnt:
Comnic rhumcur fc volt iournellemen t>
Du nionc Hermon^ Sion decourir
iErlc paysd'cmbasnoiimr:^ -
: 5 Ainfi pour vray 'ccfce aflcmblee lieurcufe
iVoirepouriamaisrse mourir* ^
JiCf 5 'U*w bencJivift* I? S E. C X X X U I'X. T. t> S B E.
5 J
72 *
I fus > rcmitcursduSeignur* 4 Vaus .
"qui dc nuit en fon honncwc Dedaas '& maifoa /;
I a Lcuezles mains an phis iaint lieu
h:>c ce reef-faint tern pie dc Die'u* -
JEtle tosqulla mcricc , _.
iSoic par vos benches recit ^
j 3 Dieuquiafait&entretient,
j Et tcrre 8: ckl par fosn poavioir,
THE ORIGINAL OF " OLD HUNDRED." FROM CALVIN'S
PSALM BOOK, 1562
8 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
lected into English metre, but is familiarly known as
" Sternhold and Hopkins.' 7
A strange thing is that Kethe's Hundredth Psalm
was not in it. A less attractive version took its place.
Kethe's first appeared again in an appendix of 1564 and
in its proper place the following year. How that hap-
pened we shall never know.
The Puritan exiles' dream of a Church of England in
which Calvin's Genevan order of worship should re-
place the Prayer Book, was never to be realized. But
they did succeed in rooting firmly on English soil the
Calvinistic ideal and practice of having the congrega-
tion's praise confined to the songs of Scripture. The
Prayer Book and the Psalm Book flourished side by
side. The curious result of this arrangement was to
provide the Church of England with a double system
of Psalmody, the prose Psalms already in the Prayer
Book, and now its metrical Psalms in the Psalm Book.
But there were no hymn books in the pews till after
the Evangelical Revival of the eighteenth century.
THE AUTHOR OF THE " PSALM "
As to the author of the Hundredth Psalm itself,
the Bible gives us no information. As to William
Kethe, who made this English version, we know very
little. We do not know what he did in Edward VFs
time. The old authorities call him a Scotchman. We
know he was one of those who exiled themselves to
escape the attentions of bloody Mary. He was one
of the English congregation of rather radical Protestants
at Frankfort, and left there to go with them to
Geneva, where he became prominent in the English
ALL PEOPLE THAT ON EARTH DO DWELL g
Church. He was nearer to being a poet than were any
of his colleagues, and contributed twenty-four ver-
sions to the exiles' Psalm Book. Besides his Psalms he
wrote poems and religious ballads: Ms " Tye thy mare,
Tom boye " becoming quite noted. He helped also in the
translation of the Bible, which was another achieve-
ment of the English exiles at Geneva. When he went
home he was made rector of a church in Dorset, and
was chaplain to the English troops in an expedition to
Havre and in a later campaign against Popish rebels in
the north. The preaching of a sermon in 1571 is the
latest record we have of Kethe's life, though it may have
continued till the appointment in 1608 of a successor
in his Dorset rectorate.
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
i. The English Metrical Psalms were printed com-
plete about two years before Shakespeare was born,
in April, 1564. The Psalm Book seems to have been used
in the homes as a religious primer as well as at church.
At any rate, the people in Shakespeare's time were re-
quired by law to go to church regularly, and he became
very familiar with the Metrical Psalms. He quotes
from the Psalm Book several times. Indeed if we
are to follow the modern text of his plays, he singles out
this Hundredth Psalm for mention in The Merry Wives
of Windsor (Act II, scene i), speaking of the awkward-
ness of singing "The Hundredth Psalm to the tune of
' Green Sleeves/ " And we are at liberty to conclude
that Shakespeare was especially impressed by the sing-
ing of the Hundredth Psalm to the familiar tune.
But the old texts of the play do not read " the Hun-
JO STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
dredth Psalm," but " the hundred psalms." The present
writer has given elsewhere * his reasons for thinking the
old text correct, and that it refers to the title of a book
printed at London in 1561 for the Dutch and Flemish
refugees in England, and called Hondert Psalmen
Dauids. The predilection of these foreigners for Psalm
singing is noticed by Shakespeare more than once.
In Longfellow's.TAe Courtship of Miles Standish there
is also a reference to the Hundredth Psalm in metre,
when John Alden heard
" the musical voice of Priscilla
Singing the hundredth Psalm, the grand old Puritan anthem,
Music that Luther sang to the sacred words of the Psalmist."
The reference here is to the tune " Old Hundred," under
the supposition that it was one of the Lutheran chorales.
But the words Priscilla sang were from Henry Ains-
worth's version of the Psalm in his The Book of Psalms:
Englished both in prose and metre. This was printed
in Amsterdam in 1612, and was the Psalm Book the
Pilgrim fathers brought to Plymouth.
2. Like the lettering on an ancient stone, the text of
Kethe's Psalm is read differently by different people.
The first to give a new reading was an early printer
of the Metrical Psalms who mistook the word " folck "
(folk, people) in line seven. He printed it " flock " and
was followed by later printers of the Psalm Book and
by most modern hymn books. In the Scottish Psalm
Book " Him serve with fear " is changed to " Him
serve with mirth," and " The Lord ye know " to " Know
that the Lord." Are such changes worth while? The
Hymnal text is an attempt to print the original without
* In the Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society for
June, 1918.
ALL PEOPLE THAT ON EARTH DO DWELL n
change except for the ancient spellings such as "yt"
for "that," "ye" for "the," " shep " for "sheep,"
" indure " for " endure. 77 It is a puzzle whether we
should retain the question mark after "For why?" as
it means simply " because. 77 But why not? We like an
antique for its very quaintness.
3. The melodies Calvin had prepared for his Psalm
Book are very lovely. But It has not proved easy to
bring them back into use. " St. Michael " and " Au-
tumn " in The Hymnal are arranged from Genevan
melodies, but these have been subjected to rough treat-
ment. The facsimile will show how we have changed
the rhythm and movement even of " Old Hundred 7?
by making all the notes of equal length. We have done
it to our loss, many musicians think, and they are anx-
ious to have the tune restored to its original beauty.
II
THE LORD'S MY SHEPHERD, I'LL, NOT
WANT
THE TEXT OF THE "PSALM."
1 The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want;
He makes me down to He
In pastures green, He leadeth me
The quiet waters by.
2 My soul He doth restore again;
And me to walk doth make
Within the paths of righteousness,
Ev'n for His own Name's sake.
3 Yea, though I walk in death's dark vale,
Yet will I fear none ill;
For thou art with me, and Thy rod
And staff me comfort still.
4 My table Thou hast furnished
In presence of my foes;
My head Thou dost with oil anoint,
And my cup overflows.
5 Goodness and mercy all my life
Shall surely follow me;
And in God's house for evermore
My dwelling-place shall be.
The Twenty-third Psalm in meter, as approved by the
General Assembly of the 1 Church of Scotland in 1649:
based on versions by Francis Rous, Sir William
Mure, and others.
THE LORD'S MY SHEPHERD, I'LL NOT WANT 13
NOTE. The text (apart from, a few spellings) is the original text
of The Psalms of David in meeter, 1650, with the exception
of the seventh line. In the writer's copy that line begins with
" Into " and not " Within." The alteration was made at an early
date, perhaps for euphony's sake, and " Within " became the ac-
cepted reading of the authorized editions of The Psalms in meeter.
THE PSALM THAT "NEVER RUNS DRY"
The Hundredth Psalm, treated in our first study, was
one of the songs of the English Reformation. This ver-
sion of the Twenty-third is of Oliver Cromwell's time,
land is altogether Scottish and Presbyterian in its origin,
its use, and its associations. It is one of The Psalms of
^David in meeter adopted by the Church of Scotland in
1649, commonly called " Rous's Version " or " Rous "
for short. Its real story can never be written. It was
spelled out in the religious experiences of the most self-
contained people on earth, the Scots."
The story begins with the printing of the Psalms in
meter at the end of the Scottish Bibles, in a day when
there were very few books in the cottages, and the sing-
ing of them twice a day at family worship as well as at
church. Gradually the Psalms in meter became, even
more than the prose Bible Psalms, the special word of
God to His people in Scotland on every occasion of
their lives, and especially in their times of trouble.
There were Psalms that appealed to the dour side of
the Scot and roused and sustained his combative in-
stincts. But there was also a side of real tenderness
in the Scottish heart; and this Twenty-third Psalm in
fneter, most of all, touched it and brought it peace.
Word by word, every line of this Psalm was engraved
on the memory and clasped to the heart of generation
I4 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
after generation of loyal Scots. It was a home song,
first of all, learned at the mother's knee, a household
word; and then, as the children grew up and went out
of the old home, a possession, or rather a part of their
inmost selves, that went with them wherever they trav-
eled or found new homes ; an inward vision of pastures
green, a rod and staff of comfort on the way, and at the
end a light in death's dark vale.
It would not be difficult to collect incidents testify-
ing to the intense feeling of the Scots for their Psalms
in meeter, and for this Twenty-third Psalm in particular.
Better still for such a purpose is a story of Ian Mac-
laren, who understood so well the heart of his country-
men. It is the story of an old Scot, hard and rugged, but
laid low at last on one of the beds of an English hospital
ward. He had just been told that he would die at break
of day, but he had declined the ministrations of the
chaplain, an Episcopalian. " He micht want to read a
prayer, and a' cudna abide that."
In the afternoon a good lady who had heard of the old
man's loneliness came to Ms bedside and asked if she
might not sing some comforting hymn, opening the book
to find " Rock of Ages." He shook his head.
" Ye're verra kind, mem, and a'm muckle obleeged to
ye, but a'm a Scot and ye're English, and ye dinna under-
stand. A ? my days hev I been protestin' against the use
o' human hymns in the praise o' God; a've left three
kirks on that account, and raised my testimony in pub-
lic places, and noo wud ye send me into eternity wf the
sough o' hymn in my ears ?
"Yell excuse me, mem, for a'm no ungratefu'," he
continued, " and I wud like to meet yir wishes when
yeVe been so kind to me. The doctor says I canna live
P S A" K M S
F
A V
TITLE-PAGE OE THE SCOTTISH PSALM:S OF 1650
16 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
long, and it's possible that my strength may sune give
way, but all tell ye what a'm willin' to do.
" Sae lang as aVe got strength and my reason continues
clear, a'm prepared to argue with you concerning the
lawfulness of using onything except the Psalms o' David
in the praise o' God either in public or in private."
" No, no," the lady said, " I did not know the feeling
of the Scots about hymns. But I have been in the High-
lands, and learned to love your Psalms. I have some in
my book here."
" Div ye think that ye cud sing the Twenty-third
Psalm
" ' The Lord's my Shepherd, a'll not want ' ?
for I wud count it verra comfortin.' "
"Yes," she said, "I can, and I think I love that
Psalm more than any hymn."
" It never runs dry," murmured the Scot.
So she sang it from beginning to end slowly and rever-
ently, as she had heard it in Scotland. He joined in no
word, but ever he kept time with his hand; and, after
she ceased, " Thank ye, thank ye," he said, and then
both were silent for a few minutes, because she saw that
he was in his own country, and did not wish to bring him
back.
"Mem, ye've dune me the greatest kindness ony
Christian cud do for anither as he stands on the banks
of the Jordan."
For a minute he was silent again, and then he said:
"A'm gaein' to tell ye something and I think yell
understand. Ma wife and me wes married thirty-five
years, and Ilka nicht of oor married life we sang a Psalm
afore we gaed to rest. She took the air and a' took the
bass, and we sang the Psalms through frae beginning to
THE LORD'S MY SHEPHERD, I'LL NOT WANT 17
end twal times. She was taken frae me ten year ago,
and the nicht afore she dee'd we sang the Twenty-third
Psalm. AVe never sung the Psalm since, and a' didna
join wi' ye when ye sang it, for a'm waitin 3 to sing it
wi' her noo in oor Father's hoose the mornin's mornin',
where there'll be nae nicht nor partin' evermore.' 3
THE STORY OF ROUS'S VERSION
We spoke in the first study of the little church of
English exiles in Queen Mary's time at Geneva, with
John Knox as pastor, and of the English Psalm Book
which they worked at and carried home to England,
where it was completed in 1562. When Knox went home
to Scotland he also took that Psalm Book, and there it
was completed in much the same way, and printed in
1564. And so the Episcopalians in England and the Pres-
byterians in Scotland became Psalm singers in Calvin's
fashion.
The Scots kept on using the old Psalm Book for nearly
a century. That brings us down to the effort of Charles
I to turn the Church of Scotland into an episcopal
Church, and the outbreak of the Civil War in 1639.
Charles needed money to suppress the Scots, and had
to call a Parliament to provide it. But the Parliament,
mostly Puritans, declared war on Charles himself; and
to secure the aid of the Scots, united with them in the
Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, to preserve the
Presbyterian Church in Scotland and to set it up in
England and Ireland. Then it was that the famous
Westminster Assembly was called, to prepare common
standards of faith and worship for the three kingdoms.
It was agreed on all hands that the churches should sing
l8 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Psalms and not hymns. But what version of the
Psalms? The Assembly recommended the Parliament
to adopt a new version made by one of its own members,
Francis Rous.
He was an English gentleman of much distinction,
a Calvinist by conviction, a believer in the Presbyte-
rian system, and several times a member of Parliament.
He was sent to the Westminster Assembly as a lay com-
missioner, and was afterward Provost of Eton College.
He made his metrical version of the Psalms in hope of
meeting the widespread demand among the Puritans of
the time for a more exact and literal rendering than that
contained in the old Psalm Books of England and
Scotland.
It seems a bit odd to us, who take such things lightly
enough, that Parliament should wrangle over the par-
ticular version of the Psalms to be used in church. It
did not seem so then. The House of Commons agreed
to adopt Rous's Version and ordered that it and none
other be sung in all the churches of the Kingdom. But
a rival of Rous, one William Barton, had many friends
in the House of Lords, who put up a stiff fight for his
version, and when the Commons 3 adoption of Rous
came there for concurrent action, they succeeded in
shelving it by having it referred to a committee.
It did not matter much, for this first " Presbyterian
Alliance " was soon to be broken up. The Church of
Scotland, left alone again, adopted the standards of the
Westminster Assembly, but hesitated about the Psalm
Book. Finally, after three years of debating and tinker-
ing, they adopted Rous's Version, though it had been so
much altered and added to that it hardly deserved to
bear his name. Such as it was, it continued to be the
PRANCIS ROUS, 1656
20 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
only praise book of the Church of Scotland until recent
times, when the right to sing " hymns of human com-
posure " has been won after bitter struggles. " Rous "
was brought to this country also by the Scotch and Irish
Immigrants, and was the chief Psalm Book of the Pres-
byterian Churches in America.
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Seventeen Presbyterian or Reformed denomina-
tions in various countries, some of them very small, still
confine their praise to Bible Psalms and reject human
hymns. So " the subject matter of praise " must still
be a topic for discussion. These denominations seem to
agree that God intended the Book of Psalms to be
the only praise book of His Church until the end of time.
As lately as 1905, two conventions were held under the
direction of the General Assembly of the United Pres-
byterian Church of North America, " to promote the
claims of the Psalms in the field of worship." And the
papers at these gatherings have been printed in an im-
posing volume. It is doubtful, however, whether the
cause was materially advanced by these means, or
whether in the minds of the great majority of Chris-
tians the old issue of Psalm versus Hymn is either alive
or capable of revival.
2. There are four versions of the Twenty- third
Psalm in The Hymnal revised.
The first is the one we are now discussing. Those who
have inherited Scottish blood and traditions very likely
feel that it has passed beyond the pale of criticism.
The second, " The Lord my pasture shall prepare/'
was contributed to the famous weekly, The Spectator,
by the Right Honorable Joseph Addison. He was a de-
THE LORD'S MY SHEPHERD, I'LL NOT WANT 2I
lightful writer, and a gentle wind still blows over the
" verdant landscape " of Ms Psalm. It is quite true,
however, as Canon Douglass has said, that Addison was
a great deal more fond of adjectives than David was.
The third, " The Lord my Shepherd is," one of Dr.
Isaac Watts's versifications, is hardly one of his suc-
cesses. It is so hard and jerky. It was put in The
Hymnal to gratify a prominent elder and warm friend
of that book, who had associations with it. But he does
not need it any longer, and the Watts version might
well be allowed to drop out.
The fourth, "The King of love my Shepherd is,"
represents the perfection of what we may call the
modern " art and craft " of hymn-making. " How
beautiful are Thy thoughts unto me, O God ! " the writer
seems to be saying, as his pen flows on from verse to
verse of the old Psalm. It is a gospel Psalm to him, with
Christ, the Good Shepherd, holding the cross to guide
him. The Rev. Sir Henry Williams Baker wrote it for
the appendix to his Hymns ancient and modern, the
most famous hymnal of recent times. And when he came
to die, the last words that could be distinguished were :
"And on His shoulder gently laid,
And home, rejoicing, brought me."
3. In the old days " The Lord's my Shepherd, 111 not
want " was sung to one of the still older Scottish Psalm
tunes, often perhaps to the one they called " French "
and we call "Dundee." In modern days it is set to
" Balerma " as often as to any other ; also a Scottish
tune. "Walden," No. 577 in The Hymnal revised, was
composed for this Psalm by a Canadian lawyer, and is
well worth trying.
Ill
THERE IS A LAND OF PURE DELIGHT
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
1 There is a land o pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign;
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.
2 There everlasting spring abides,
And never-withering flowers;
Death, like a narrow sea, divides
This heavenly land from ours.
3 Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green;
So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
While Jordan rolled between.
4 But timorous mortals start and shrink
To cross this narrow sea;
And linger, shivering, on the brink,
And fear to launch away.
5 O could we make our doubts remove,
Those gloomy doubts that rise,
And see the Canaan that we love
With unbeclouded eyes;
6 Could we but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o'er,
Not Jordan's stream, nor death's cold flood,
Should fright us from the shore.
Rev. Isaac Watts, 1707
NOTE. The text is taken from the first edition of Dr. Watts's
Hymns and Spiritual Songs, London, 1707, without any change.
THERE IS A LAND OF PURE DELIGHT 23
^ Isaac Watts was born on July 17, 1674, in that Eng-
lish town of Southampton which many Americans
know best as a port for steamships to Europe. If we
went ashore we should find a " Watts Memorial Hall "
and a statue of him in his gown and bands as a preacher.
But it is his sacred songs and not his sermons that have
given him his fame. In Southampton he passed his
childhood, and there he spent some six weeks of the
year before this hymn appeared In his volume of
Hymns and Spiritual Songs in 1707. He had come back
to the old home, weak from sickness and discouraged
no doubt, and very likely these verses reveal the turn
his thoughts took just then.
The town lies on a swell of land within the fork of
the Test and the Itchen rivers. It may well be that
the view across the water of the pleasant meadows of
Marchwood on the one side, or, on the other, of the
lawns of Weston, glowing in the evening sunlight, sug-
gested the lines:
" Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green."
Our poet Longfellow said that until he saw the first
verdure of spring on the meadows of southern England,
he did not quite appreciate the meaning of " dressed
in living green." "There are some of us," said the
Rev. J. Brierly, "who can never look upon a green field
with the spring sun on it without this hymn coming
to us as a whisper from heaven."
"HYMNS AND SPIRITUAL SONGS "
The subjects of our first two studies were versions
of Psalms taken directly from the Bible. The subject
24 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
of this is " a hymn of human composure " taken out of
the writer's own heart. And he did more than other
men to break down the custom of Psalm singing and to
conquer the English prejudice against uninspired hymns.
Tennyson says in one of his poems that
The old order changeth, yielding place to new;
And God fulfills himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Now we saw in our first study how Calvin, in his zeal
for " the Bible only," determined that even the songs of
his congregation in Geneva should be taken from inspired
Scripture, and so started the custom of Psalm singing.
It was a " good custom " for the time. In France and
Scotland Psalm singing became the very life of the
Reformation. In England there was some opposition
to introducing it, but the plain people took it up vigor-
ously, and it soon became an established feature of the
church services. So the Psalm Books were bound up
with the Prayer Books.
The singing of Psalms went on without change
through the whole of Elizabeth's reign, and as long
as the Church of England held together. In the great
break-up of the Puritan Revolution some of the new
sects then formed the Quakers, for instance gave
up singing altogether. The large body of Independents,
or Congregationalists as we should call them, gave up
the Prayer Book but hung on to the old Psalm Book.
They kept up the custom, but the life had gone out
of the Psalmody. One of their young ministers,' Isaac
Watts, said that the singing of God's praise is the part
of worship nighest heaven, and its performance among
themselves the worst on earth. The Psalms were read
THERE IS A LAND OF PURE DELIGHT 35
out, one line at a time, by a " clerk," and then the con-
gregation sang that line and waited for the next. Very
few tunes were used, and these were drawled out in pro-
longed notes. " To see the dull indifference, the negligent
and thoughtless air that sits upon the faces of a whole
assembly while the Psalm is on their lips, might tempt
even a charitable observer," Watts wrote, " to suspect
the fervency of inward religion."
By the beginning of the eighteenth century the Psalm
singing in the Independent meeting-houses was so dis-
tressing that many of the pastors were in consultation
upon the situation. Watts, the youngest and bravest
of them, had his own view of the root of the trouble
and the remedy. The trouble, he thought, grew out
of confining the praise to Psalms, many of which were
inappropriate to our circumstances, and all were on a
lower plane of revelation than the gospel. " We preach
the gospel and pray in Christ's name, and then check
the aroused devotions of Christians by giving out a song
of the old dispensation."
The remedy he proposed was twofold. First, a new
and free translation of the Psalms written in the way
David would have written them if he had been a fully
instructed Christian living in the eighteenth century.
And this scheme Dr. Watts ultimately carried out in 1719
by publishing his The Psalms of David imitated in the
language of the New Testament, and apply 'd to the Chris-
tian state and worship. This book served as a bridge
over the chasm between the Old Testament Psalms and
the evangelical hymns, by which many congregations
passed over without fully perceiving just where they
were going.
The other feature of Watts's proposed remedy was
1
HYMNS
AND
Spiritual Songs*
Io Three BOOKS,
I. Collected from the Scriptures.
II. Compos'd on Divine Subje&s-
III. Prepared for the Lord's Supper.
With an ESSAY
Towards the Improvement of Ghri-
ftian Pialmody, by rhe Ufe of E-
vangelic-al Hymns in Worfliip, us
well as the Pisirns of Z>/w/V.
By 7. WATTS.
d*d they fwg a nnw Sang* *}***& Thou art
verity* & c - /<' ttwi vjfl jhiht and bajt re-
deemed *> &c. R-sv. 5, p^
'Soliti etftint (/, e, C'^iff'.mi) convenire, cajr-
menqu-2 ChrHlu quad Deo 4icere Pliniw
*\n FfUt.
LONDON,
tfrimed by jf. ffuetfre^ foe 3"afej Lawrence,,
at the Angei in the Ifctr.'/try. 1707.
-*-i-JL__.
TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF \VATTS ? S HYMNS
THERE IS A LAND OF PURE DELIGHT 27
the introduction of evangelical hymns, freely written
under the inspirations of the gospel and expressing all
the riches that are in Christ. And this he was prepared
to apply at once. He had ready, and printed in 1707,
more than two hundred of his own in a volume whose
full title can be read in the facsimile here given. The
essay to which it refers was a rather cruel attack on the
principles and prejudices of the Psalm singers, and a
vindication of hymns. We have just the same right,
he asserted, to compose and sing spiritual songs as to
compose and utter original prayers. The Bible is God's
word to us. Our songs ought to be our word to God.
Whoever attacks an old religious custom or prejudice
must expect to make enemies. And Watts made many.
They spoke of his hymns as " Watts's whims." But he
touched the hearts of the people, and one by one the
Independent congregations came under the spell of the
new hymns. We can scarcely appreciate all they
meant to people who had never been allowed to utter
the name of their Saviour in praise. Dr. Doddridge
tells of giving out " Give me the wings of faith to rise "
to a village congregation. Tears came to many eyes;
some were quite unable to sing at all, and the clerk said
he could hardly speak the words, as he lined them
out. When something was said after service as to a
possible visit from Dr. Watts, one of the company ex-
claimed, " The very sight of him would be as good as
an ordinance to me! "
This popularity of the hymns is said to explain why
so few copies of the earlier editions of Hymns and
Spiritual Songs have survived to our time: the theory
being that the great majority of copies were actually
thumbed out of existence by rude but affectionate
hands.
2 g STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
THE AUTHOR OF THE HYMN
" Before her stood not an Antinous or an Adonis,
not even a moderately presentable Englishman, but a
minute, sallow-faced anatomy with hook nose, promi-
nent cheek bones, heavy countenance, cadaverous com-
plexion and small eyes." So it is that the latest
biographer of Watts describes him in the act of pro-
posing to the beautiful Elizabeth Singer somewhere
about 1706. That Miss Singer had formed a high con-
ception of Watts from his poems we know, and that
his appearance disappointed her we may assume. But
how does the biographer know that Miss Singer in re-
jecting him said, " Mr. Watts, I only wish I could say
that I admire the casket as much as I admire the jewel " ?
It Is more to the point to remember that the aging
face, beneath its monstrous wig, that has come down to
us in the portraits may truly represent the famous and
venerated Dr. Watts, but not the somewhat headstrong
young man who wrote the hymns with the ardor of
youth, and gave battle to the Psalm singers with that
self-confidence and disregard of other people's opin-
ions of which perhaps only youth is capable.
The household at Southampton was religious, and the
boy's thoughts were serious. " Fell under considerable
conviction of sin, 1688, and was taught to trust in Christ,
I hope, 1689; " so his diary reads. He inherited from
his father a love of learning and a gift for poetry. It
was like the plucky, undersized lad to stand up for the
principles of his father, twice jailed for the crime of
being a dissenter, and to refuse an offer to pay his ex-
penses at the university, since admittance there involved
a profession of membership in the Church of England.
IXR. ISAAC "WATTS
30 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Watts prepared for the ministry deliberately, and
became pastor of an Independent meeting in Mark Lane,
London. Almost at once his health broke, and the rest
of his life was a struggle between duty and weakness.
Invited by Sir Thomas Abney, a distinguished dissenter,
to spend a week in his magnificent house at Theobalds
in Hertfordshire, Watts remained as an honored guest
of the family for the rest of his life, some thirty-six
years. He gave such service as he could to his long-
suffering congregation in London, and managed to write
many books, useful in their day, which gave him high
reputation in university circles. He was probably the
most widely esteemed dissenter of his time; but he
himself regarded his " Psalms and Hymns " as incom-
parably the greatest work he did for the Church.
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
r. In looking over a line of old Sunday school hymn
books, say from 1835 forward, one is struck with the
considerable proportion of children's songs dealing with
dying and the life after death. These songs reflect the
tone of evangelical piety that prevailed among their
elders: what the great novelist, George Eliot, described
sarcastically as " otherworldliness." It was a time
when Dr. Miihlenberg's " I would not live alway " was
a favorite for church use.
Then, gradually, the tone of piety began to change.
" One world at a time," people began to say, " and now
for this world, where our duty lies. It is more pious to
rectify a foul drain, to minister to bodily suffering, to
show the way to self-help, and to equalize the distribu-
tion of the good things of life, than it is to sit and
THERE IS A LAND OF PURE DELIGHT 3I
dream of heaven." In our day the reaction from " other-
worldliness " is pretty complete. The heaven that lay
about us once and then got far enough away to seem
like a foreign country, has now to very many lost all
reality whatever. How seldom now are these old-time
hymns of heaven given out in our churches!
This present situation suggests certain questions.
Has the hope of heaven any proper place in Christian
experience or in our gospel message to others? Is it
right to teach children to sing of heaven; and if not,
what is a suitable age at which those who love them
might begin to make " mention of her glory " ? Or are
there good reasons for thinking the time has arrived for
expunging the songs of the heavenly home from our
church hymnals?
2. There are, no doubt, different types of hymns of
heaven and room for a choice. In one familiar type the
singer finds the body vile and the world evil. He turns
to the inward vision of a risen body and a dwelling
place free from temptations, and passionately longs for
the deliverance of death. This type came originally
from the monks, " in retreat " from the world, and
their rhapsodies are not for everyone. St. Paul would
have understood them and loved them, but for most
people hymns of this type need watching in the interests
of sincerity.
This hymn of Watts is of a very different type. It
is less ecstatic. And it breathes no desire to depart. It
is the song of a young man who is at work and at play
in the open fields of life where God put him, and likes it.
He does not want to go home till after sunset. He
loves life. He loves the vision of heaven, too, at twi-
light or when things go wrong, though he does not
32 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
cherish the thought of coining to the brink of the nar-
row sea. But " A Prospect of Heaven makes Death
easy " : so Dr. Watts entitled his verses. He meant that
such a prospect helps to overcome the perfectly natural
shrinking youth feels at the thought of death. And one
sometimes wonders if for many of us, for most perhaps,
this is not the most sincere and helpful song of heaven
ever written.
3. A recent writer in The Harvard Theological
Review, commenting on the loveliness of this hymn,
complains that Watts is as confident in regard to
heaven's features and geography as of the country
around Theobald's, and he is tempted to exclaim, " No
such topography for me! " Is that attitude just?
At the farewell dinner in New York to Charles
Dickens, at the end of his last visit to this country, the
brilliant George William Curtis, in closing his speech,
turned to the guest and, bending toward him, said:
" Old ocean bear him safely over ! England welcome
him with the blossoms of May! " Is not that the
thought running through the words before us? Not
the topography of heaven, not the landscape of the un-
discovered country only the thought of crossing the
narrow sea to find those things of which spring and
May blossoms are the symbol : green pastures of peace,
the pleasant company of the pure-hearted, the sunlight
of God's Presence over all.
IV
JESUS, LOVER OK MY SOUL
THE TEXT OK THK HYMN
c Jesus, Lover of tray soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly,
^Afhile the nearer waters roll,
While the tempest still is high:
Hide me, O my Saviour, hide,
Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide,
O receive my soul at last.
2 Other refuge have I none ;
Hangs nay helpless soul on Thee ;
Leave, ah! leave me not alone,
Still support and comfort me.
All my trust on Thee is stayed,
All my help from Thee I bring;
Cover my defenceless head
With the shadow of Thy wing.
3 AAfilt Thou not regard my call?
W'ilt Thou not accept my prayer?
Lo, I sink, I faint, I fall!
Lo, on Thee 1 cast my care;
Reach me out Thy gracious hand!
"While I of Thy strength receive,
Hoping against hope I stand,
X>ying, and behold I live !
33
34 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
4 Thou, O Christ, art all I want;
More than all in Thee I find:
Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
Heal the sick, and lead the blind.
Just and holy is Thy Name;
I am all unrighteousness;
False and full of sin I am,
Thou art full of truth and grace.
5 Plenteous grace with Thee is found,
Grace to cover all my sin;
Let the healing streams abound;
Make and keep me pure within.
Thou of life the Fountain art,
Freely let me take of Thee;
Spring Thou up within my heart,
Rise to all eternity.
Rev. Charles Wesley, 1740
NOTE. The text is taken from John and Charles Wesley's Hymns
and Sacred Poems of 1740, with no change except for the printing
of the first word in the English rather than the Latin form.
This, perhaps the best loved of all English hymns,
is associated with the beginnings of the wonderful
Methodist Movement in the eighteenth century, of
which John Wesley was the leader and his brother
Charles the poet laureate.
THE WESLEYS AND THEIR HYMNS
About the time when Isaac Watts was writing and
publishing his sacred songs, two sons were born in the
parsonage of the village of Epworth to the Rev. Samuel
Wesley and his noble wife Susannah, " Mother of the
Wesleys." She was, in fact, the mother of nineteen
of them. John was born in 1703, and Charles on Decem-
CECARXJES "WESLEY
36 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
her 18 of the very year 1707 in which Watts pub-
lished those Hymns and Spiritual Songs that changed
the worship of the Independent meeting-houses. The
two brothers were destined to carry on Watts's work,
and to win new triumphs for hymn singing in England.
So it is worth while to note that the atmosphere of the
parsonage was decidedly contemptuous of the old Psalm
singing, as it was then carried on in village churches.
As rector of one of them the father had to endure it.
But he did not suffer it gladly, and said some very harsh
things about it. He was himself a poet ? and his sons
inherited not only their poetic gifts but their purpose to
write something to take the place of what John called the
" scandalous doggerel " of the old metrical Psalms.
The two boys grew up together in the Epworth par-
sonage, were at Oxford University together, were both
ordained as clergymen of the Church of England, and
in October, 1735, sailed together for the new colony of
Georgia. John went as a missionary; Charles nomi-
nally, at least, as secretary to General Oglethorpe, Gov-
ernor of the colony. In John's kit there was a copy of
Watts's Psalms and Hymns. And he was especially
impressed by the constant singing of a group of German
Moravian colonists on board. He learned from them
what spiritual songs can do for the spiritual life. He
studied German so as to translate some of those so dear
to his fellow voyagers. In Charleston he published
his first collection, and in Savannah was brought be-
fore the grand jury, charged with introducing unauthor-
ized hymns into church worship.
Neither brother was successful as a missionary, per-
haps because at that time their religion was of a rather
severe and formal type. It was the remarkable spiritual
JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL 37
experiences they passed through among the Moravians
in London, after their return from America, that first
gave to both brothers the peace and joy of a confident
faith. These experiences changed their lives and de-
termined their future careers. Charles started out as
an itinerant preacher. John established the first of
those meetings, called "societies," that were the germ
of the Methodist Church. He went on translating and
writing hymns until organizing and preaching absorbed
all his energies.
But in Charles's heart the new happiness seemed to
open a fountain of spiritual song that never ceased to
flow. He was naturally a poet, and now the writing of
religious verse became to him nothing less than a pas-
'sion. In recording a horseback accident on one of his
preaching tours, he notes that his sprains and bruises
and stunned head " spoiled my making hymns until
next day." Every experience of his own, every scene
and occasion of the Methodist revival, became the in-
spiration of a new hymn. He wrote his first within a
day or two of his conversion. He dictated his last to
his wife from his deathbed, " in age and feebleness ex-
treme." The whole number is little if at all short of
seven thousand. The best of them are perhaps as
good as ever were written. Most of them have some
touch of hand or flash of thought that suggests a poet
rather than a manufacturer.
The unchurched masses among whom the Wesleys
worked had of course no preference in favor of Psalms.
They quickly caught up the new songs, and the singing
became a characteristic feature of the field meetings.
As the work went on, the hymns served as an outlet
for the extravagant enthusiasm of the converts, and at
38 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
the same time kept its expression within limits of reality
and refinement. They were printed in cheap tracts and
booklets for distribution among the people. As "so-
cieties " were formed, new hymns were provided for
the class meeting, the children, and the occasions of wor-
ship, until finally, in 1780, John Wesley gathered up
four hundred and eighty-six of Charles's compositions,
with some others, into a permanent Collection of Hymns
for the use of the people called Methodists.
Charles Wesley was a different type of man from his
great brother : not so commanding a personality, a helper
rather than a leader, a poet with all a poet's moods,
even moods of deep depression, emotional and impetuous,
But probably he was the more lovable of the two men,
with a great gift of winning hearts. The future of the
Methodist Movement lay very heavy on his own heart.
He saw it drifting away from its moorings within the
established Church. He loved his Church with all his
heart and felt no sympathy whatever with his brother's
arrangements for establishing a separate denomination
of Methodists in England and America. He wished
the Methodist societies to remain as a part of the
Church of England. This end he was unable to accom-
plish against his brother's purpose, but as still a clergy-
man of that Church, he died on March 29, 1788, and
was buried in the yard of his parish church, Marylebone.
" His least praise," his brother said, " was his talent
for poetry."
THE HYMN AND ITS AUTHORSHIP
There are several differing stories of the romantic
origin of " Jesus, Lover of my soul." The most familiar
JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL 39
represents Charles Wesley seated at an open window
during a storm, or sometimes on the deck of a vessel
laboring under a gale. Then a dove (or sea bird), with
its strength all spent, flies to his bosom to find a refuge
from the elements. And that inspired the hymn. All
these stories cannot be true, and there is no reason to
believe that there is a word of truth in any of them. It
remains a mystery that worthy people should care to
circulate these apocryphal " incidents " of which the
popular books are so full.
We do not, in fact, know anything of the occasion of
this lyric, except that it is entitled " In Temptation,"
and sounds like a real cry for help out of such an ex-
perience. And there is no absolute assurance that Charles
Wesley wrote it. It may have been written by John.
The editors of the English Wesley an Methodist Hymn
Book of 1875 went so far as to affix simply the letter
W to this %mn, as a token that they did not know
to which of the brothers it should be ascribed.
The matter stands in this way. The brothers printed
jointly three volumes of their earlier verses in 1739,
1740, and 1742, with pretty much the same title
Hymns and Sacred Poems. Published by John Wesley,
M.A., and Charles Wesley, MA. This one appeared at
page 67 of the 1740 volume. There is nothing in this or
the other volumes to show which brother wrote any
particular poem. Evidently the Wesleys wished it so.
In course of time a tradition grew up that only the
translations were John's and all the original verse was
Charles's. This, we now know, is a mistake, and John's
share is much greater than was supposed.
What, then, is to be said of " Jesus, Lover of my soul "?
Which brother wrote it?
40 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Anyone familiar with the Wesleyan poems will say
that this one is more in the style and manner of those
we know to be Charles's than of those we know to be
John's. We can go further. John showed later a dis-
like of anything approaching familiarity in intercourse
with God, and especially of the use of terms of human
endearment. He turned bitterly against the London
Moravians he had loved so well, when they printed
hymns with offensive amatory and fleshly images. In
a sermon of 1789 he said that familiarity does not so
well suit sthe mouth of a worm of the earth when ad-
dressing himself to the God of heaven, and went on,
" I have indeed particularly endeavored in all the hymns
which are addressed to our blessed Lord, to avoid every
fondling expression, and to speak as to the most-high
God ; to Him that is ' in glory equal with the Father,
in majesty co-eternal.' "
Now if John's feeling about such matters was the
same in 1740 as in 1789, and there are good reasons for
thinking it was, then it is practically certain that he
would not have written the lines,
"Jesu, Lover of my Soul,
Let me to Thy Bosom, fly."
John, as the elder brother, took the privilege of criti-
cizing his brother's poems very freely. There were
many expressions in them which he did not like, and he
often altered them before printing. That he did not
quite approve the expressions in this hymn is shown
by the fact that in selecting Charles's contributions to
the large permanent hymn book of 1780, he left it out
altogether. It was not inserted until after his death.
On the whole, it seems that we may ascribe "Jesus,
THE FIKSX rRI3SrXX3SrG OF THE
42 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Lover of my soul " to Charles Wesley with a fair degree
of assurance. The only absolute proof would be the
finding of an autograph draft of it in the masses of
Wesleyan manuscripts in the London Conference Office.
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
i. Many people have claimed John Wesley's privilege
of criticizing this lyric, notably that great lover of
sacred song, the late William E. Gladstone. A friend had
expressed in his hearing a warm admiration for it, and he
had emphatically dissented. And his feelings on the
subject were so strong that he was moved to write out
his objections, even though immediately about to un-
dergo an operation for cataract.
Criticisms of things we love are not very welcome.
But it might be worth while to examine the hymn
anew in the light of Gladstone's objections: (i) That
it has no unity. A number of ideas are jumbled to-
gether rather than interwoven. " This is not a whole,
for the parts seem to have no relation to one another."
The theme clearly is that of a soul under stress of a
great temptation calling upon Christ for help. Is that
theme carried through consistently enough to give unity?
(2) That the metaphors are constantly changing and
crossing each other in such a way as to cause confusion.
Thus Christ is at once a Refuge from a storm at sea,
a Pilot into port, an overshadowing Wing, a good
Physician, and finally a Fountain of life. What is to be
said in explanation or defense on this point? (3) That
" it has no procession. Every hymn should surely have
a movement calm, solemn, and continuous. These zig-
zags are out of keeping with the nature of the com-
JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL ^
position. They jar the mind of a reader and set him
questioning where he is and where he is going." Is
it true that there is no development of thought in the
hymn? Or is it just possible that there is really a con-
tinuous "procession" of thought in which for some
reason Mr. Gladstone's mind has failed to join and has
remained stationary?
2. Apart from criticism, the question has often been
raised whether a lyric so tender and so deeply felt should
be used in public worship or reserved for private devo-
tion. Mr. Ellerton, the hymn writer, confesses that to
him " Jesus, Lover of my soul " lies on the very border
line between the two. An English bishop thinks it " in-
expressibly shocking" to put such words into the
mouth of a large and mixed gathering of people.
Quaintly enough, actual investigation in the tramps'
ward proved this to be one of three hymns most popular
with English tramps. The other two are " Lead, kindly
Light " and " Abide with me."
3. John Wesley was surely right in objecting to fa-
miliarity and fondling expressions in our hymns. Might
it not be well if some of our modern gospel songs were
submitted to that test? It is, however, a question how
far these objections apply to the first two lines of this
hymn. Charles Wesley used "Lover" in the divine
and not our human sense, taking it from the apocryphal
book, The Wisdom of Solomon: " But thou sparest all,
because they are Thine, O Lord, Thou Lover of souls."
The imagery of the second line is that of St. John lying
on the bosom of his Lord. It is true, however, that we
are not all St. Johns. A host of editors have proposed
alterations of these lines, and have succeeded in com-
pletely spoiling the poetry of them.
44 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
4. The editors have also tried their hand on the third
line. Some of us remember when "While the billows
near me roll JJ was the familiar reading. Is there any
occasion for alteration? Dr. Julian says: "In life,
as in nature, storms are local. One ship may be dashed
hither and thither by the fury of the nearer waters,
whilst another is sleeping in the far distance on a throb-
less sea. Men cry for help, not against dangers which
are both distant and undefined, but out of the depths
of their immediate troubles."
5. The Hymnal revised is one of the very few books
that print the whole of these five verses just as " W "
wrote them. The custom is to omit the third verse.
But then the third verse is exceptionally good. And
if we wish a four-verse hymn, is it not worth while to
consider the dropping out of the fourth verse and the
retaining of this ?
CHILDREN OF THE HEAVENLY KING
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
1 Children o the heavenly King,
As ye journey, sweetly sing;
Sing your Saviour's -worthy praise,
Glorious in His works and ways*
2 We are traveling home to God
In the way the fathers trod;
They are happy now, and we
Soon their happiness shall see.
3 Shout, ye little flock and blest;
You on Jesus' throne shall rest;
There your seat is now prepared,
There your kingdom and reward.
4 Lift your eyes, ye sons of light,
Zion's city is in sight;
There our endless home shall be,
There our Lord we soon shall see.
5 Fear not, brethren; joyful stand
On the borders of your land;
Jesus Christ, your Father's Son,
Bids you undismayed go on.
6 Lord, obediently we go,
Gladly leaving all below;
Only Thou our Leader be,
And we still -will follow Thee.
Rev. John Cennick, 1742
45
4 6 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
NOTE: The text here given is abridged (to its great gain) from
the twelve verses of the original as printed by Cennick, in the
third part of his Sacred Hymns for the Children of God, in the
days of their pilgrimage, London, 1742. The verses selected are
the original first, second, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth, printed
without change, except of spelling and punctuation.
This is one of the earlier hymns of the great eighteenth
century revival, written by an eager young convert,
John Cennick. He became a Methodist lay preacher
first of all, but soon ranged himself with Whitefield as
opposed to Wesley's theology. In the end he found
his true home among the most simple-hearted of all
God's people, the Moravians.
CENNICK'S STRANGE EXPERIENCE
When Cennick printed his first little book of hymns
he prefixed a sort of confession or spiritual auto-
biography. It began, " Perhaps it may not be unuseful
for some of those, who may read the following Verses,
to know the Manner wherein GOD has dealt with the
Soul of him who wrote them!' That is still good advice
to us if we wish to study Cennick's, or indeed any of
'the hymns of the great Revival. Those eighteenth-
century hymns are different from most later hymns.
They are the outpourings of converts who have passed
through such struggles in finding peace that ever after-
wards spiritual experiences seemed to them the most
real thing in life, and the inward state of one's soul the
only thing that mattered much. The common feature
of these experiences, but the feature hardest for an easy-
going twentieth century Christian to understand, is the
dark despairs and acute agonies they had to endure
CHILDREN OF THE HEAVENLY KING 47
under the grip of "the conviction of sin." Some of
them were reduced to a disorder of mind and body close
to the borders of insanity ; but one and all of these con-
verts credited not only their deliverance but their suffer-
ings also to the hand of God. Cennick's case was
peculiar only in the degree of his sufferings and in his
ability to express the joy of his deliverance.
He was born in the English town of Reading on Decem-
ber 12, 1718, being eleven years younger than Charles
Wesley. His family was respectable but somewhat im-
poverished. His mother trained him carefully in the
ways of Church of England religion, and the child appears
to have been unusually assiduous in attending St.
Laurence's Church. What he and many like him seem
to have gained from the religious training of the time
was a conscience made sensitive by the fear of penalties,
and a constant dread of God that spoiled one's pleasures
but was not allayed by observing church ordinances.
When Cennick went up to London to learn a trade he
fell, no doubt, into more careless ways of living; until,
while walking in Cheapside one day in 1735, he was
suddenly stricken down with an overwhelming sense of
sin, as though felled by God's hand. He sank at once
into an abject fear and hopeless despondency, from
which through two bitter years he found no escape.
Within his conscience seared like a hot iron; without
" everything seemed strange and wild," and there was
no refuge in heaven or earth. He longed to hide himself
in some lonely cave and to sustain life on acorns and
leaves ; hoping indeed that he might not sustain it and
yet afraid of the death he craved. He tried fasting,
and in his weakened condition began to see apparitions
and to hear approaching footfalls of the Devil. He
48 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
shrank from the faces of men, and thought men shrank
from him and that friends grew cold.
Finally it was in August, 1737 he resolved in his
despair to cast himself on God's mercy and leave the
rest with Him. Still waiting on Him in dejection, at
home one day in September, he heard " the Saint's Bell
CHILDREN OF THE HEAVENLY KING 49
ring at St. Laurence's Church for Prayers." He felt
constrained to attend. " Near the end 0} the Psalms,
when these Words were read: Great are the Troubles
of the Righteous but the LORD delivereth him out of
them all ! And he that putteth his Trust in GOD shall
not be destitute: / had just Room to think, Who can
be more destitute than me? when I was overwhelmed
with Joy, I believed there was Mercy. My Heart
danced for Joy, and my dying Soul reviv'd! I heard
the Voice of JESUS saying, I am thy Salvation. / no
more groaned under the Weight of Sin. The Fear of
Hell was taken away, and being sensible that CHRIST
loved me, and died for me, I rejoiced in GOD, my
SAVIOUR."
So sudden a change brings its own perplexities.
Cennick found help in Whitefield's newly printed
Journal, and sought the counsel of both him and John
Wesley. They encouraged him and found a position
for him as a teacher in a school for coal miners' children
at Kingswood. There he at once began to preach to
the miners and attained what, historically speaking, is
his special distinction: he was in all probability the
first of the " lay preachers " of Methodism.
" HYMNS FOR THE CHILDREN OF GOD "
George Whitefield, and not Wesley, had been the
original field preacher, and in the early days of the
revival the two men had worked hand in hand. But
in 1739, after Whitefield had gone to America on his
revival tour, the Wesleys put out a pamphlet bitterly
attacking the Calvinistic doctrine of Predestination.
" My dear Brothers," Whitefield wrote, " why did you
50 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
throw out the bone of contention? " It was a bone of
contention indeed. Soon afterward John Wesley notes
a marked change in Cennick's manner toward him.
When Whitefield came home from America in 1741,
the rift widened into a permanent breach between the
Methodists and Calvinists, with Whitefield as the leader
of the Calvinists. Cennick broke with the Wesleys,
became a helper in Whitefield's revival work, and so
continued for four years.
He had begun to write hymns while a Methodist,
but it was during those four years that he printed all
of his hymns which are now remembered. In emulation
of the Wesleys on the Methodist side, it may have been ;
but whether so or not, he was for those years as indus-
trious a maker of hymns as was Charles Wesley himself,
printing very nearly five hundred.
Cennick began to print his hymns in 1741 as Sacred
Hymns for the Children of God, in the days of their
pilgrimage. So rapid was his production that a second
and a third part appeared in 1742. In the year following
he published in two parts Sacred Hymns for the use of
Religious Societies. Generally composed in DIA-
LOGUES. By societies he meant companies of people
who met together, apart from the church services, to
cultivate the religious life. By " dialogues " he meant
what we call singing antiphonally or responsively. He
had in mind the Moravian custom of arranging the
people in separate choirs, according to age or sex: one
choir singing the first line or lines of each verse, the
other responding with the line or lines following. And
in his little book he made this practicable by printing
some lines of the verses in roman type, and some in
italics; like this:
CHILDREN OF THE HEAVENLY KING Sl
"We sing to Thee, Thou Son of GOD!
Who Sav'd us by thy Grace:
We praise Thee, Son of Man! whose Blood
Redeem' d our fatten Race."
The Moravians already had formed societies in Lon-
don, and very evidently Cennick was being attracted
toward them, just as John Wesley was ; but in Cennick's
case it was the call of the blood inherited from a Mora-
vian ancestry and still at work through the quaint
compellings of heredity. Cennick did not resist the
call. He left Whitefield and joined the Moravians. His
later years were spent partly in the spread of
Moravianism in England and Ireland, and partly in
visiting Germany. He came back to London in great
feebleness in June of 1755, and on the fourth of July
died there.
He was a man " rather below the middle stature,"
Rev. Matthew Wilks says, " of a fair countenance, but
of a fairer mind. A good understanding, an open temper,
and a tender heart characterized the man." He was
distinguished by " unaffected humility, deadness to the
world, a life of communion with God, and a cheerful
reliance on a crucified Saviour." All of which is a good
hearing. If John Wesley dubbed Cennick " that weak
man," we can understand it. A follower who vacillates
is always weak to a great and single-hearted leader.
THE STORY OF THE HYMN
Of Cennick's familiar hymns, the one we are now
studying appeared in 1742 in the third part of the
Sacred Hymns for the Children of God. " We sing to
Thee, Thou Son of God " appeared a year later in Hymns
52 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
for the use of Religious Societies. Whitefield liked
Cennick's hymns, and liked his idea of singing in
" Dialogue." It was because Whitefield put these two
and others of Cennick's hymns into the hymn book
he made for his London Tabernacle in 1753 that they
became so widely known and sung.
Cennick was very modest about his hymns. " Of
either good poetry, or fine language therein, indeed there
is none. A Child wrote them, who is but a young Stu-
dent in CHRIST'S school! 3 But they were intended to
be songs and not tracts in verse. Cennick was a great
believer in " the ministry of song."
It would not be possible to connect our present hymn,
or any other of Cennick's hymns, with any particular
outward event or special experience of his life. Never-
theless we cannot catch the spiritual beauty of this
hymn of courage and good cheer until we connect it with
the life Cennick was leading. Truly these itinerant
preachers of Wesley and Whitefield had a hard time of it
in journeyings often, in weariness and painf ulness, in
hunger and thirst, and, most of all, in perils from their
own countrymen. Their own countrymen, even the best
of them, thought them disturbers of the settled order,
and the ruder, illiterate element of the people seems
to have hated them and their gospel instinctively.
Wherever these preachers went, they were met and sur-
rounded by a rough and often brutal hostility, some-
times egged on by the local authorities, including even
the clergy.
In June, 1741, Cennick went with some friends to
preach at Swindon. But before he could begin, he
writes, the mob "fired guns over our heads, holding
the muzzles so near our faces, that Howell Harris and
CHILDREN OF THE HEAVENLY KING 53
myself were both made as black as tinkers with the
powder. We were not affrighted, but opened our
breasts, telling them we were ready to lay down our
lives for our doctrine. Then they got dust out of the
highway, and covered us all over ; and then played an
engine upon us, which they filled out of the stinking
ditches. While they played upon brother Harris, I
preached; and, when they turned the engine upon me,
he preached. This continued till they spoiled the
engine; and then they threw whole buckets of water
and mud over us. Mr. Goddard, a leading gentleman
of the town, lent the mob his guns, halberd, and engine,
and bade them use us as badly as they could, only not
to kill us; and he himself sat on horseback the whole
time, laughing to see us thus treated."
It is such experiences as these, of the very time when
our hymn was written, that make its actual setting.
And out of them it shines in all of its spiritual beauty
the pluck of an unconquerable purpose, the serenity of
an untroubled faith, the good cheer of an incorruptible
hope.
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
i. The literary critics are not always very kind to
our hymns. But we must not hit back and say that
the critics themselves are not so spiritual-minded as
they ought to be. Sometimes they may be right. As
Mr. Toplady said, in the preface to his hymn book in
1776: " God is the God of Truth, of Holiness, and of
Elegance. Whoever, therefore, has the honor to com-
pose, or to compile, anything that may constitute a part
of His worship, should keep those three particulars, con-
stantly, in view." It may be that some of our hymns
are not worthy of the God of Elegance.
54 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
It is, then, cotnforting to know that Mr. Palgrave,
Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and editor of The Golden
Treasury still generally regarded as the standard of
our lyrical poetry did not hesitate to include these
six verses of Cennick's in his later Treasury of Sacred
Song. These six, it may be added, are only the half
of the original hymn. But they are the better half.
2. These studies are not intended to be "preachy."
(The writer once read a sermon on this hymn preached
by Canon Duncan at St. Stephen's, Newcastle-upon-
Tyne; and he still likes the hymn.) But with his
readers' consent he would venture to say that in his
opinion the injunction in the second line of this hymn
is as good advice as we are likely to get in this world.
The road to heaven is not so hard for most of us as
Cennick found it ; but it is never easy going. And he who
can meet the hard places with a song is the best traveler.
And that is the great argument in favor of committing
hymns to memory. You cannot always carry The
Hymnal in your grip " as ye journey."
3. May not Cennick's hymn be ranged with Watts's
" There is a land of pure delight," as one of the un-
doubtedly wholesome hymns dealing with the hope of
heaven? It is, at all events, one of the few hymns on
that subject which young people generally have liked to
sing. Of course the buoyant melody, arranged from a
movement in an instrumental quartet by Ignaz Joseph
Pleyel, helps to keep the hymn alive. Pleyel was an
Austrian, and it is odd that the tune was for a century
called "German Hymn " by most people.
Cennick's hymn may also be compared with Williams'
" Guide me, Thou Great Jehovah," as being a dif-
ferent treatment of the journey of the Children of Israel
CHILDREN OF THE HEAVENLY KING 55
to the promised country. Williams' hymn is a prayer
for help from the dangers and difficulties of the road.
Cennick pictures a sunny-hearted pilgrim, who thinks
nothing of the perils of the road in view of the glory
beyond that shines on them. But Watts, to get back to
" There is a land of pure delight/' leaves the Children
of Israel appraising the width of Jordan from its bank
where they are gathered, while he climbs the hill with
Moses to "view the landscape o'er."
VI
CHRISTIANS, AWAKE! SALUTE THE
HAPPY MORN
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
1 Christians, awake! salute the happy morn,
Whereon the Saviour of the world was born;
Rise to adore the mystery o love,
Which hosts of angels chanted from above;
With them the joyful tidings first begun
Of God Incarnate and the Virgin's Son.
2 Then to the watchful shepherds it was told,
Who heard the angelic herald's voice: " Behold,
I bring good tidings of a Saviour's birth
To you and all the nations upon earth:
This day hath God fulfilled His promised word;
This day is born a Saviour, Christ the I/ord."
3 He spake: and straightway the celestial choir
In hymns of joy, unknown before, conspire;
The praises of redeeming love they sang,
And heaven's whole orb with alleluias rang:
God's highest glory was their anthem still,
Peace upon earth, and mutual good wilL
4 O may we keep and ponder in our mind
God's wondrous love in saving lost mankind;
Trace we the Babe, who has retrieved our loss,
From His poor manger to His bitter cross;
Treading His steps, assisted by His grace,
Till man's first heavenly state again takes place.
56
CHRISTIANS, AWAKE! SALUTE THE HAPPY MORN 57
5 Then may we hope, the angelic thrones among,
To sing, redeemed, a glad triumphal song;
He that was born upon this joyful day
Around us all His glory shall display;
Saved by His love, incessant we shall sing
Eternal praise to heaven's Almighty King.
Arranged from a Christinas poem of John Byrom, 1750: verse 4,
line i; verse 5, line 6, altered
Two of our familiar Christmas hymns are associated
with the Methodist side of the eighteenth century re-
vival and with the Wesleys themselves. One of the
friends whose help they asked in preparing their first
hymn book after they had returned from Georgia was
Dr. John Byrom ; and he is the author of " Christians,
awake ! " The other Christmas hymn, " Hark ! the herald
angels sing," was printed by the Wesleys themselves,
in 1739, in the earliest of the three collections they named
Hymns and Sacred Poems.
JOHN BYROM AND HIS POEMS
There is no need of a lingering look at Dr. Byrom's
portrait to assure us that he was what is called a charac-
ter. From under the low slouched hat with its rim pro-
jecting like the prow of a racing, yacht, the bewigged
head bends forward in an inquisitive intentness; and
the face is as striking as the hat, with a ruminating
look in the eye and a very whimsical but not unkindly
mouth. One notes the crook-handled cane and wonders
what the color of the long coat may have been. It
must have been a very long coat, for Byrom was con-
spicuously tall. He speaks in his diary of taking walks
with John Wesley. Now Wesley was rather short and
S 8 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
slight, dressed in conventional clerical clothes, and a
model of neatness, so that the couple walking side by
side must have presented something of a spectacle.
Underneath these oddities Byrom was very much a
gentleman and something of a scholar, a devoted hus-
band and affectionate father, a loyal friend in fair
weather and foul; and in spite of a gift of bubbling
humor, he walked the earth in a sort of reverential
awe that made life very sacred and God very near.
He was the son of a linen merchant of Manchester,
England, near which city he was born in February,
1692 ; and was thus eighteen years younger than Isaac
Watts and eleven years older than John Wesley. The
biographical dictionaries sum him up as "poet and
stenographer," and he was already both of these while
still at college in Cambridge. While there he invented
a new system of shorthand, and also printed in The
Spectator for October 6, 1714, a playful pastoral poem
called " Colin and Phoebe," which attracted more atten-
tion and admiration than anything he wrote afterwards.
When through college he went to the continent to study
medicine, and though he never won Ms diploma he was
called " Doctor " for the rest of his life.
Byrom returned to England in 1718 and married a
cousin. His elder brother had inherited the family
property, and he started to earn a living by teaching
his shorthand. His pupils paid him five guineas and
swore an oath to keep the secret of his system. They
liked him and no doubt had their fun out of him, calling
Mm " the Grand Master " ; and among them were some
very distinguished men.
Between Byrom and the Wesleys were two bonds
a common love of shorthand and of religion. Charles
DH. JOHN BYROM
60 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Wesley adopted Byrom's system at a very early date,
and soon persuaded John to adopt it. Many of their
hymns, the diary of Charles, and the vast and invaluable
" Journal " of John Wesley, were all written in Byrom's
shorthand.
There was not only a warm friendship between the
men, but a religious sympathy deeper than the differ-
ences of their temperaments and theological views.
Byrom was known at Manchester as a High Churchman
and a Jacobite an adherent of the Pretender as
against the king. But he did not allow his church-
manship to interfere with his wide religious sympathies.
It is indeed probable that his deep spirituality alien-
ated him from the average clergy of that day and pre-
vented him from becoming a clergyman himself. He
was at heart a mystic, caring more about real personal
relations with God than about systems of theology or
church organizations. He never became a Methodist,
and probably never had the peculiar type of religious
experience that the great revival produced. But he was
sympathetic with the religious work of the Wesleys, at-
tended their services frequently, and was their warm
friend in days when so many despised and ridiculed
them.
The Wesleys consulted him about their first collection
of hymns of 1738 and asked him to contribute some.
He responded with excellent advice and with transla-
tions of two French mystical hymns. One of these
seems to have been the " Come, Saviour Jesus ! from
above," that became a well-known Methodist hymn and
is in use up to the present day. It may be that John
Wesley's hand touched it up here and there, as was
his way. It is not likely that Byrom helped the Wesleys
CHRISTIANS, AWAKE! SALUTE THE HAPPY MORN 6 1
in actual religious activities. Meditation and study and
debate were more to his taste than activity. He liked
to do his own thinking and to cultivate lettered ease;
to let the world wag while he contemplated it with what
he calls in one of his poems "calm content."
In 1740 Byrom's brother died and he inherited the
family property. Henceforward shorthand was rather
a hobby than a means of livelihood, and he had all the
more time for writing poetry. He had always had a
gift for meter and for rhyming, and it got so that he
seemed to think in verse, as Mr. Henley puts it. Every
subject he wanted to argue about or poke fun at seemed
to him a suitable subject for poetry. Descriptions, nar-
ratives, criticisms, speeches, essays, theological dis-
quisitions as well as hymns they were all in verse.
It is fair, however, to remember that he wrote for the
amusement of himself and friends and seldom printed
his verses. They were not collected and published until
after his death. His versifying, as he grew older, be-
came more and more religious in its character, and it
came to an end only with a long illness. He died on
September 26, 1763, and his poems were published in
two volumes at Manchester in 1773.
On July 12 of that year John Wesley read them on a
journey from Liverpool to Birmingham, and was de-
lighted with them. He said they showed all the wit of
Dean Swift, with more learning and piety, and expressed
some of the finest sentiments that ever appeared in
English arrayed in the strongest colors of poetry. The
present writer owns a copy of the same edition of the
poems that Mr. Wesley read, but has not found there all
that he did. The wit and learning and piety are all
there, and the charm of a quaint personality, but the
62 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
" colors of poetry " have faded out somewhat. Byrom's
verse will have few readers nowadays, but he will be
remembered by one of the wittiest of epigrams :
" God bless the King, I mean the Faith's Defender;
God bless no Harm in blessing the Pretender;
But who Pretender is, or who is King,
God bless us all that's quite another Thing."
He will be remembered also by this Christmas carol
that may very likely be sung as long as the celebration
of that day survives among English-speaking people.
"CHRISTMAS DAY FOR DOLLY"
On the walls of the librarian's room of the Chetham
Library at Manchester hangs the neatly framed original
manuscript of Byrom's Christmas poem, on a very
crowded sheet of note paper. It bears the title " Christ-
mas Day for Dolly." And from this poem, by omitting
some of the lines and arranging the remainder into
verses which can be sung, our Christmas hymn, " Chris-
tians, awake 1 " has been made.
Francis Arthur Jones, in his Famous Hymns and
their Authors, tells an attractive little story about the
poem. " It was written in 1745, and the story of its
composition is a pretty tale. John Byrom, the author,
had several children, but, like many another father,
he had his favorite. This child was a little girl named
Dolly, who afterwards became Mrs. * Dorothy Byrom.
A few days prior to Christmas, 1745, Mr. Byrom, after
having had a romp with the favored Dolly, promised
to write her something for Christmas Day. It was to
* Used, at that period, as a courtesy title.
M- A*Mt^&/W in lm<M/c> 1
jtfyii r fturi & JvMu far
fa$ %,/& c^MW^A
V r .-? . / -. . ;<' v * y;y
fytt ^Jri 'fycfy&[fM i f& H *
-fff &/njtw tW >t^v, tyve/ii {affaca &&
THE POEM AS BYROM WROTE IT
64 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
be written specially for herself, and no one else. The
child, highly honored and delighted, did not fail to re-
mind her father of his promise each day as Christmas
drew nearer. On the morning of the great day, when
she ran down to breakfast, she found several presents
waiting for her. Among these was an envelope addressed
to her in her father's handwriting. It was the first thing
she opened, and to her great delight, proved to be a
Christmas carol addressed to her, and to her alone."
Mr. Jones goes on to add that the present creased and
crumpled state of the original manuscript comes " prob-
ably from being carried about in Miss Dolly's pocket."
It makes a pretty story and one would like to believe
it. But how can we? The title of the manuscript does
show that Byrom gave it to his daughter. But that
he wrote it for her especially is less evident, because the
words " for Dolly " are added in pencil, as though they
were an afterthought. And there is no evidence what-
ever that Byrom wrote the poem during Dolly's child-
hood. She was born on April 26, 1730, and the earliest
date we have for the hymn is Christmas, 1750, at which
time Dolly was quite a grown-up young lady. In near-
by Manchester there was a young man, John Wain-
wright, who had some part in the music of the old
Church of St. Mary the Virgin, now the Cathedral. He,
too, had a copy of Byrom's poem and saw its possibilities
as a Christmas carol. He divided it into verses and
composed for it the delightful tune to which it is still
sung. And on "Xmas, 1750, the singing men and boys,
with Mr. Wainwright " (in other words, the choir of St.
Mary's) paid Dr. Byrom or was it Dolly? the
compliment of coming out to his home and singing
" Christians, awake ! " beneath his windows. This in
CHRISTIANS, AWAKE! SALUTE THE HAPPY MORN 65
Its way is as pleasing an incident as Mr. Jones's little
story, and it has the quite inestimable advantage of
being true.
The Wesleys did not put their friend's Christmas
hymn into any of their hymn books, and it was probably
unknown to Toplady and the others who soon began to
make Church of England hymn books. But in those
days of carol singing Wainwright's tune attracted atten-
tion. " It is instinct with the healthy frost and good
cheer of the old-fashioned English Christmas " ; and it
was as a Christmas carol rather than a church hymn
that the words and tune so happily mated began their
career, and became popular in northern England. The
Rev. Caleb Ashworth, a Lancashire man, heard and
liked the tune, and put it into his tune book printed
in 1760, but he divorced it from Byrom's words and
made it a setting for Dr. Watts's version of the Fiftieth
Psalm:
"The God of Glory sends his Summons forth,
Calls the South Nations, and awakes the North. 3 '
Ashworth's book had only a local circulation. But in
1784 the Rev. Ralph Harrison, another Lancashire man,
included the tune in his tune book. His book became
very popular and made the tune widely known. Har-
rison's book found its way into this country, and in
various American editions of " Watts's Psalms " in the
first half of the nineteenth century the Fiftieth Psalm
is marked to be sung to " Walworth " ; and on turning
to the tune books we find that Walworth was simply
Wainwright's tune under another name. It is unlikely
that it was much sung. Congregations of the time were
not musical and would shrink from six lines of ten
66 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
syllables. Perhaps sometimes the choirs attempted to
render it for them.
Over in England Byrom's hymn had never been lost
sight of. Every Christmas it was sung to Wainwright's
tune, but as an out-of-doors carol rather than in church.
It was the poet Montgomery who made a church hymn
out of it. He arranged it for the hymn book he com-
piled for his friend, the Rev. Thomas Cotterill, in 1819;
and from that book it has passed into most of the im-
portant church hymnals both in England and America.
The Presbyterians in Scotland and the Methodists in
America are exceptional, in that they have not yet
learned the pleasure of saluting the happy morn with
" Christians, awake I "
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What is the difference between a Christmas hymn
and a Christmas carol? A hymnologist would say that
"Hark! the herald angels sing" was a hymn, and
that " Christians, awake! " and " O little town of Beth-
lehem " were carols. Is it because a carol treats the sub-
ject with a child's simplemindedness and from a child's
point of view ? Or does the distinction refer only to the
character of the music used?
2. The reader has before him the full text of Byrom's
poem as first written, except the last six lines, which he
can supply from The Hymnal revised. He is in the
same position as the editor of a hymn book who wants
to use the poem, but is confronted with the problem
of arranging it so that it can be sung. Probably no
editor ever solved that problem to his complete satis-
faction, and the reader can if he pleases apply his own
CHRISTIANS, AWAKE! SALUTE THE HAPPY MORN 67
wits to it and try for a better arrangement. The con-
ditions are:
(1) Some lines must be omitted. The poem is too
long for a hymn.
(2) There should be the fewest possible alterations.
(3) The verses must be of six lines to fit Wain-
wright's tune. Nobody wants to sing it to anything
else.
(4) Montgomery made six verses, which are too
many. An arrangement in four that kept the train of
thought unbroken would be ideal.
3. There are two types of hymn tunes. There are
choir tunes, of delicate beauty, that one likes to listen
to rather than to sing. And there are people's tunes
that make one feel like joining in to swell the volume
of sound. " Stockport " is just such a tune. It repre-
sents a period when people were getting tired of the old
Psalm tunes sung in church, and church musicians
were seeking a somewhat lighter and more cheerful
type of tune. When one catches the spirit of its bluff
heartiness and the swing of its melody it is still quite
irresistible. If not sung in our churches as often as one
might wish, that may be because it makes no special
appeal to the choir, or because our congregations have
not become familiar with it.
VII
GUIDE ME, O THOU GREAT JEHOVAH
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
. i Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but Thou art mighty,
Hold me with Thy powerful hand:
Bread o heaven,
Feed me till I want no more.
2 Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing stream doth flow;
Let the nre and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through:
Strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.
3 When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of deaths and hell's Destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan's side:
Songs of praises
I will ever give to Thee.
Written in Welsh by the Rev. William Williams, 1745.
In making an English version, about 1772, he used a
translation of the first verse already (1771) made by the
Rev. Peter Williams, and himself translated the second
and third verses.
NOTE: The text of the three verses as here given is that of the
leaflet of 1772 prepared for Lady Huntingdon's College at Trevecca,
without change except the capitalizing of "Destruction" in verse
three. A fourth verse given there is omitted but is quoted in the
course of this chapter.
68
GUIDE ME, THOU GREAT JEHOVAH 69
This hymn takes us back to the great revival in the
old country and the stirring scenes of the seventeen-
forties amid which it was written. But it carries us for
the moment across the border into Wales ; for it was
written originally in the Welsh and not the English
language.
THE STORY OF THE HYMN
In our study of " Children of the heavenly King " we
left Cennick and Howell Harris at Swindon in 1741,
preaching antiphonally. As the mob squirted mud on
each in turn, the other preached. Harris was a young
Welsh layman of the robust and hearty type; he had
already lighted the flame of revival in Wales, while the
Wesleys were still in Georgia. He began first to visit
from house to house, and then to preach to the people
who thronged to hear him. He made many converts
and gathered them into cc societies "; and he drew to
his side many preachers, some of them from the estab-
lished Church itself. Among them, and the one who
most interests us, was William Williams, author of
" Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah."
When John Wesley went on a preaching tour in Wales,
he found this band of preachers already at work; and
with a great advantage over himself, who could speak
no Welsh. Howell Harris was a Calvinist, but he and
Wesley loved each other instinctively, and each re-
joiced in the other's success. But when the split in the
revival forces came in 1741, the Welsh preachers took
Whitefield's side. " The people are wounded by scores,
and flock under the Word by thousands/ 3 Harris wrote
him in 1742. And in the year following the Welsh
70 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Calvinistic Methodist Church was organized, with
Whitefield in the moderator's chair.
The revival preachers were much hindered by the
lack of spiritual and warm-hearted hymns in Welsh to
stir the people's hearts. In Wales, as in England, the
parish churches were still singing metrical Psalm ver-
sions, and spiritual songs were few. Soon after organiz-
ing the Calvinistic Methodists, Harris summoned a
THE REV. WILLIAM WILLIAMS
group of preachers to a contest, of a sort not unfamiliar
in fervid and musical Wales, at competitive hymn
writing. The prize fell easily to William Williams, who
had the poet's passion and a gift of verse-writing.
Therefore it was not very long before he was recognized
as poet laureate of the Welsh revival.
His hymns, with their passion and sweetness, and an
underlying tone of pathos, seemed at once to fly abroad
GUIDE ME, THOU GREAT JEHOVAH ?I
as if the winds carried them. He began to gather and
print them, under the title of Halleluiah in 1744; and
in a second part published in 1745 appeared the Welsh
original of "Guide me, Thou Great Jehovah." A
new series entitled Hosannah, began to appear in 1751,
and was complete in 1754. Other volumes followed at
later dates. Williams also wrote and published Eng-
lish hymns: fifty-one of them as Hosannah to the Son
of David in 1759, and seventy-one more as Gloria m
excelsis in 1772.
" Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah " had been put
into English by another Williams (the Rev. Peter) in
1771- William Williams adopted his colleague's first
verse, himself translated the second and third, added a
fourth, and printed the whole English version in a leaflet,
about 1772, with this heading:
A FAVOURITE HYMN,
sung by
Lady Huntingdon's Young Collegians.
Printed by the desire of many Christian friends.
Lord, give it Thy blessing!
Lady Huntingdon, of whom we shall hear again,
was a great lady, whose whole heart and soul were in
Whitefield's work. She had founded a college at
Trevecca in South Wales to educate young preachers,
and it was in the college chapel that the " many Chris-
tian friends " had heard the hymn. It plainly made a
great impression. Lady Huntingdon put it into the books
used in the chapels she had built. Whitefield added it
in 1774 to his popular hymn book used in the London
Tabernacle. Toplady put it into his collection of 1776,
72 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
dedicated to the God of Elegance. From these books
Its use spread far and wide. Few English hymns have
started so auspiciously and held the pace so long.
THE POET OF THE WELSH REVIVAL
William Williams was born at Cefn-y-Coed in 1717,
of parents who were active dissenters from the Church
of England system, which was established by law in
Wales also. His education was carried on with a view
to making him a physician; but Providence had other
uses for him.
On a Sunday morning in 1738 he happened to attend
a lifeless service in the parish church of the little
village of Talgarth. On leaving the church the con-
gregation, instead of scattering to their homes, gathered
about the short, sturdy figure of a man who began to
preach from one of the flat gravestones, exhorting the
people to repent and escape the wrath to come. The
preacher was Howell Harris, and his impassioned oratory
could sway such a Welsh crowd as the wind sways the
wheat. He reached the heart of young Williams, and
changed his life. The young man left the churchyard
with the purpose of devoting his life to the ministry.
In 1740, Williams was ordained deacon in the Church
of England, and was given a small curacy up in the
mountains. But Howell Harris was his real bishop;
his heart was with the revival movement and not with
the Establishment. With several other clergy of the
established Church, he gave up his curacy and joined
the dissenting revivalists, though still " in deacon's
orders."
He became an itinerant preacher, and never obtained
GUIDE ME, O THOU GREAT JEHOVAH 73
fuller orders in the ministry of the Church of England.
That his bishop refused them is often stated, but does
not seem to be clearly proved. Whatever the bishop
may have thought of his course, Williams made an
extraordinary record as an itinerant evangelist. He
took the whole of Wales for his parish. His travels for
forty-three years are said to make an average of 2230
miles a year, at a time when there were no railroads and
few stage-coaches. In this way the greater part of
Williams' life was spent, not in a preacher's study, but
in the great world of out of doors. The breaking of
dawn, the play of sunlight and shadow, the changing
cloud effects, the gathering storm, the approach of twi-
light, and the darkness of night these were the things
he lived with. The wonderful scenery of his native land,
with its visions of mountain and valley, brooks rushing
down the hills and placid rivers among the fields, the
seashore with its rocks and harbors all these he saw
every day with a poet's eye.
And just as the gospel story itself seems always to
have the landscape of Palestine for a setting and so
many of Christ's sayings reveal his observation of na-
ture, so Williams' poetry is set in the landscape of
Wales, and his hymns, the Welsh ones especially, are
full of allusions to the scenery amid which he lived.
The world of nature became to Mm a parable of the
world of grace. Even the unattractive opening of his
" O'er the gloomy hills of darkness " is said to reproduce
an early morning vision of the Prescelly hills looming
dark through the mist, while in the east the dawn was
breaking up the gloom with the promise of a new day.
It was a picturesque life, but it was not an easy one ;
for nature is not always kind. It involved much ex-
74 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
posure and constant fatigue. It incurred also that
menace of the mob of which all these revival preachers
were victims. There is still extant a letter of Howell
Harris to Whitefield describing an attack of ruffians
armed with guns and staves, made upon Williams while
preaching in Cardiganshire, in which he was beaten with-
out mercy. And Harris writes that the attack was in-
stigated by " a gentleman of the neighborhood." Such
self-sacrificing years of evangelism and those weary
thousands of miles sum up the remainder of Williams'
life: mot that many of the rich or great of the earth
were concerned to compute the sum. But his verse
must have made him a certain reputation outside of
Wales, for the eminently genteel Gentleman's Magazine
of 1791 gave him quite a nice obituary notice.
"After languishing some time, he finished his course
and life together, January nth, 1791, aged 74." That
sounds as if the last long mile had been the hardest of
all. He was buried in the churchyard of an obscure
Welsh village, and, as the inscription upon his grave-
stone reads, " He waits here the coming of the Morning
Star."
Williams was evidently one of those sweet and wist-
ful souls who cross this world as pilgrims and strangers,
with their eyes fixed on a better one. He endured and
magnified the rough lot of a revival preacher of those
days, abounded in labors, and suffered perils for his
Master's sake. His load was lightened a bit by a native
sense of humor, but he needed for himself and he
preached to others the consolations of the gospel. And
it is altogether pleasant to remember him as we sing
his pilgrim hymn.
But we should be doing a great injustice to Williams'
GUIDE ME, THOU GREAT JEHOVAH 75
memory if we were to think of him simply as the author
of one English hymn that perhaps we like to sing. His
great work as a religious poet was done in his own
Welsh tongue. We who, like John Wesley, cannot speak
Welsh and who know much less of Wales than he did,
can hardly understand how great a place the hymns of
Williams hold in Welsh religious history and Welsh
hearts. On this subject it is better to let one of his
countrymen speak out of his personal knowledge. The
Rev. H. Elvet Lewis, himself a poet, writes : " What Paul
Gerhardt has been to Germany, what Watts has been to
England, that and more has William Williams been to
the little principality of Wales. His hymns have both
stirred and soothed a whole nation for a hundred years ;
they have helped to fashion a nation's character and to
deepen a nation's piety." They have been sung, Mr.
Lewis goes on to say, by the shepherd on moor and
mountain, by the blacksmith at his anvil, by the miner
underground, by the milkmaid of an early morning, by
the mother beside the cradle, by the funeral procession
accompanying the dead to the long home, by the young
in their hour of temptation and the veteran in his failing
strength, and by the family of the Lord Christ at the
breaking of the bread in His house. " His hymns be-
came the sacred ballads of the nation. As Luther sang
Germany into Protestantism, so did Williams sing the
Wales of the eighteenth century into piety."
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION"
i. The writer of this study is quite out of sympathy
with any movement to revive the name " Jehovah " in
everyday use. And he hopes that the rendering "Je-
76 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
hovah is my shepherd " (Ps. 23 : i) in what is called the
" American Standard Bible " may never become the
standard of our nurseries and schools. As a title of God,
the Hebrew word rendered " Jehovah " seems to belong
exclusively to His people of an older time. It is archaic
and unfamiliar to our Christian habits of speech; and
to introduce it into the Twenty-third Psalm seems to
disconnect the Psalm from our present-day life. But
in this particular hymn the case is quite different. The
poet is trying to recreate the Old Testament atmosphere,
and is employing the journey of the Children of Israel
as a symbol of the Christian life. He almost makes us
feel ourselves a part of the marching host, and the
imagination without an effort thinks of God as Jehovah.
To the writer the phrase " Great Jehovah " here used
has also the surreptitious attraction of a patriotic sug-
gestion ; for he finds himself unable to read or sing the
first line without a momentary vision of Ethan Allen
knocking at the door of Fort Ticonderoga and demand-
ing its surrender " In the name of the Great Jehovah
and the Continental Congress."
2. Garrett Horder, the English hymnologist, twice
says in his Hymn Lover that Newman's " Lead, kindly
Light " has almost supplanted " Guide me, O Thou
Great Jehovah." Does this remark tally with our own
observation and experience?
If so, we may remember that Cardinal Newman was
well aware that Dykes's tune had carried his verses into
popularity. And we may well ask if Williams' hymn is
not in need of a deeply felt, elevated, and melodious
tune that will fitly mate with the words. If the hymn
is a little rough, it is not more so than a marching song
ought to be. It is strong and full of feeling and dra-
HYMNS
207 Srsist
Caersalem. M. 8.7.4.
Alaw Gymreig
m
=s
9=^
^=Jlt-gJ:.
=K=t
mf Guide me, Thou Great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land;
p I am weak (cm) but Thou art migbfcy.
Hold me with Thy powerful hand:
/ Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore.
THE HYMN AS SET IN THE HYMNAL OF THE CALVINISTIC
METHODIST CHURCH
' Arghvydd, arwain trwy T r anialwch
Fi, bercrin gwael ei wedd,
N'ad oes ynof nerth na bywyd,
Fel yh gorwedd yn y bedd:
HQllalluog
'
(Note that the fifth line is sung three times.)
78 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
matic force. It wants a tune with a thrill in it. Of
the tunes provided in The Hymnal revised, Lowell
Mason's " Oliphant " begins impressively, but soon goes
all to pieces; Viner's "Dismissal" is easy to sing, but
does not appeal to the imagination and the feelings as
the words do. It seems as if their true setting were yet
to seek. But might not our search end happily with
the tune " Caersalem," here printed ? It is the tune to
which the original hymn is sung in Wales itself. The
Welsh people have understood it better than we have.
We have thought of it as timid and pathetic ; they have
thought of it as resolute and confident. And in their
tune we hear the trumpeters at the head of the march-
ing host sounding forth the clear call of faith, and can
catch the response from every quickened heart,
"I am weak, but Thou are mighty,
Hold me with Thy powerful hand."
3. In translating his hymn for Lady Huntingdon's
college, Williams added a fourth verse, which reads:
"Musing on my habitation,
Musing on my heav'nly home,
Fills my soul with holy longings:
Come, my Jesus, quickly come;
Vanity is all I see;
Lord, I long to be with Thee ! "
That the addition spoils the hymn is perhaps hardly a
topic for discussion. It is as if the new verse said, " I
was not really marching in the open: only meditating
here in my study."
4. What is the meaning of " Death of deaths and hell's
Destruction " ? And should " Destruction " be capital-
ized? Was Mr. Horder, whom we have already referred
GUIDE ME, THOU GREAT JEHOVAH 79
to, justified in saying that the hymn is " disfigured by
the unpoetic line, c Death of deaths and hell's destruc-
tion ' " ? The phrase seems certainly to have worried
a good many people who either did not understand it
or else did not like it. The hymnal of the American
Methodists has cut the line out and substituted " Bear
me through the swelling current."
VIII
LORD, I AM THINE, ENTIRELY THINE
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
1 Lord, I am Thine, entirely Thine,
Purchased and saved by blood Divine;
With full consent Thine I would be,
And own Thy sovereign right in me.
2 Grant one poor sinner more a place
Among the children of Thy grace;
A wretched sinner lost to God,
But ransomed by Emmanuel's blood.
3 Thine would I live, Thine would I die,
Be Thine through all eternity:
The vow is past beyond repeal;
Now will I set the solemn seal.
4 Here, at that cross where flows the blood
That bought my guilty soul for God,
Thee my new Master now I call,
And consecrate to Thee my all.
Rev. Samuel Davies. Published 1769
NOTE: The hymn was written in Virginia before 1759, but first
printed in Dr. Gibbons' London hymn book after Davies* death
(1769). The four verses given above are taken from that book:
three other verses there found are quoted under " Some Points for
Discussion."
80
LORD, I AM THINE, ENTIRELY THINE gj-
THE BEGINNINGS OF HYMN SINGING AMONG
AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANS
Whitefield, in his zeal to spread the great revival,
made no more of the long voyage to the American
colonies than of crossing the border into Wales. Seven
times he came, and on his seventh missionary tour died
of exhaustion in the home of the Presbyterian pastor
at Newburyport, Massachusetts, and was buried be-
neath the Presbyterian church there. An elaborate
cenotaph stands foursquare beside the pulpit, and in the
crypt beneath they still show you Whitefield's skull and
bones within the glass lid of his coffin, shrined like " the
relics " of a saint.
Sitting in the church one Sunday of the summer of
1922 the writer tried to picture those wonderful evan-
gelistic tours of the great preacher: the posting from
town to town without rest ; the stir of arrival with the
eager greetings of his sympathizers pressing close, and
from the background cold looks, even occasionally a
stone; the quickly gathering throng so soon under the
spell of his oratory, sometimes so wrought upon that
their cries of distress almost drowned that marvelous
voice; the flames of religious excitement rising higher
and spreading from place to place into a conflagration
that seemed to cover the land. For his heart-searching
gospel was a sword rather than a message of peace. It
"set a man at variance against his father, and the
daughter against her mother " and disrupted the house-
holds of faith. Most of the edifices of his own Church
of England and many of other denominations shut their
doors against him; and the Presbyterian Church was
rent into two rival and contentious synods, the one of
82 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
his supporters, the other of his opponents. It mattered
little about the closing of the churches, for no building
could hold the throngs, no opposition could quench the
flames of the revival that spread into a " Great Awak-
ening " which changed the face of American religion ;
most of all, perhaps, the face of American Presbyterian-
ism. Presbyterians of our time seem hardly aware of
the influence of Whitefield in unmaking and remaking
their Church.
Sitting that day in the Newburyport church the writer
looked at Whitefield's monument, but it seemed to him
that the hymn books in every pew were an even greater
monument. For it was that " Great Awakening " which
turned the Presbyterian Church in America from a
Psalm singing into a hymn singing Church. They were
still conscientiously singing the old metrical Psalms
(" Rous's Version " mostly) when Whitefield came and
stirred men's hearts to the depths with his impassioned
gospel. To such overcharged feelings singing affords a
natural relief. But both preacher and hearers felt that
this new preaching and the old metrical Psalmody did
not fit. As Whitefield and his helpers made the cross to
shine before men's eyes, their hearts demanded songs
that caught and reflected the glory of that cross. Wher-
ever the revival spread, a spontaneous movement began
to substitute the evangelical Psalms and hymns of Dr.
Watts for the familiar Psalm versions. In the Presby-
terian churches that movement began early. It met vio-
lent opposition and roused that bitter " Psalmody Con-
troversy " which makes one of the epochs of that
Church's history. But it never halted until, after years
of strife and even disruption, it had borne down the
opposition of " the Psalm singers " and made that
LORD, I AM THINE, ENTIRELY THINE 83
Church the hymn singing body it is to-day. We who
love hymns as one of God's best gifts might well pause
to remember how hardly our fathers won for us the
right to sing them. For that is true of all denominations
that bear the impress of Calvin's hand.
THE FIRST HYMNS OF AMERICAN PRESBY-
TERIANISM
The hymn we are studying is one of the landmarks of
the movement just described. It was written by Samuel
Davies, the most brilliant of Presbyterian clergymen In
the colonies. He was among the first to chafe under
the yoke of the old Psalmody and on his own responsi-
bility to introduce human hymns into his services. He
was the earliest Presbyterian hymn writer in the col-
onies. More than that, he was the earliest American
hymn writer of any denomination who wrote hymns
still kept in our hymn books and sung by our congre-
gations.
The story of the hymn takes us into Virginia. And
we may think of Virginia as the colony most nearly a
reproduction of eighteenth century England in its
laws and institutions, its moral conditions and social
prejudices. Among other things the English Church
was Established and rigorously upheld both by law and
custom. It was bad form socially to be a dissenter, and
unlawful for dissenters to meet for worship. When
Whitefield came he was received as a minister of the
Church of England, but (perhaps for that reason) Ms
work there was less effective than elsewhere.
It seems to have been a "one-eyed Robinson" who
kindled the spark of revival. And a few of " the awak-
ened," who found no help in religion as established, be-
84 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
gan about 1743 to meet in the home of Samuel Morris
to listen to his reading of Whitefield's printed sermons.
Similar gatherings began in other houses, and it was
eventually determined to build meeting-houses in which
the gospel might be freely preached.
The " Newly awakened in Hanover County " put
themselves under the care of the " Newside Presby-
terians/' as Whitefield's supporters were called. But
Church and State took alarm. The court demanded the
reasons for absence from the church services, and the
Governor issued an order against the meetings of the
" New Lights." While their trials were still pending the
Presbytery of Newcastle, Delaware, ordained young
Samuel Davies with a view to shepherding these new
congregations. He succeeded in getting from the Gen-
eral Court of Virginia a special license to preach to
them, and was wonderfully successful with two extreme
classes, the gentlemen and the black slaves. He was so
touched by the singing of the latter that he sent to
England for supplies of Watts's " Psalms and Hymns,"
as he felt those warmer evangelical strains made more
appeal to the emotional blacks than the old metrical
Psalm versions. To Davies, as to most of the preachers
who favored " human hymns," the great office of the
hymn was to enforce the appeal of the sermon. When
he could not find a hymn in Watts suitable to the ser-
mon in hand, he wrote one of his own in Watts's style
and manner. His hymns were composed in the glow
of sermon-writing, and put into verse the points he most
wished to impress upon the heart and conscience. He
gave them out line by line to be sung after the sermon,
and sometimes when requested to print a particular
sermon, he printed the appropriate hymn also at the end.
SAMUEL DAVTES
86 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Most of his hymns, and of course most of his sermons
also, remained imprinted during his life. But Davies,
while in England on a mission to raise money for
Princeton College, had formed a warm friendship with
Dr. Thomas Gibbons, an influential pastor in London,
and a friend by the way both of Dr. Watts and Lady
Huntingdon. In 1757, Davies, getting up from a dan-
gerous illness, wrote Dr. Gibbons that he wanted to be
useful after he was dead, and had put in his will an
order to transmit all his sermon manuscripts to Dr.
Gibbons, to publish such as might promise to do good.
And so, after Davies' death in 1761, his manuscript ser-
mons (with the appended hymns) were boxed up in
Princeton and made the long voyage to England in
safety.
Dr. Gibbons got ready enough sermons to fill three
volumes, and printed them in 1765. They were so success-
ful that he published other volumes later, and all have
often been reprinted since. In his preface he spoke of
the hymns and expressed a purpose of printing them also
in the future. This he did in a hymn book of his own,
Hymns adapted to Divine Worship, published in 1769:
sixteen of them in all with this note, " The Pieces in the
following Miscellany ascribed to the Rev. Mr. DAVIES,
were found in his Manuscripts intrusted with the Editor."
So it was that eight years after Davies had been laid to
rest at Princeton his hymns were given to the world in
far-off London, as the last kindly office of the hand of
friendship.
Dr. Gibbons' hymn book reached a small circle, but
Dr. John Rippon gave a wider circulation to seven of
Davies' hymns he took from it into his popular Baptist
Selection of 1787. The particular hymn we are now
LORD, I AM THINE, ENTIRELY THINE 87
studying he spoiled by cutting it down to two verses and
changing the first line to a question, " Lord, am I Thine,
entirely Thine ? " Perhaps that is why it is so little
used in England. The one best known there is " Great
God of wonders ! all Thy ways," which has been found
in over a hundred English hymn books. Rippon's muti-
lated text of the present hymn was copied into several
early books in this country. But when the Presbyterian
Church in the U.S.A. ventured to make its own Psalms
and Hymns in 1830, " Lord, I am Thine " was included
as Dr. Gibbons had printed it. It has been a standard
hymn ever since and is familiarly used also by the Re-
formed, Baptist, Congregationalist, Methodist, and Luth-
eran Churches. In how many hearts is it tenderly as-
sociated with the hour of self-surrender and the scene
of the first Communion !
THE AUTHOR OF THE HYMN
Some twenty-three miles below Wilmington, in New-
castle County, Delaware, stands a colonial Presbyterian
church known as " Old Drawyer's," which is still the
shrine of a yearly pious pilgrimage. On a farm not more
than twelve miles away Samuel Davies was born,
November 3, 1723, of plain Welsh parents. He was
educated at the academy of Samuel Blair at Fagg's
Manor, who also prepared him for his ordination by the
Presbytery of Newcastle in February, 1747.
Davies' work in Virginia was made difficult at first
by a physical breakdown supposed to indicate a hopeless
stage of consumption, and to this was added the sorrow
of a young wife's death. But he went bravely on, often
preaching by day when so ill that attendants had to sit
88 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
up with him by night. He recovered his health, and it
was probably on account of his persuasive eloquence
that he was chosen to go abroad with Gilbert Tennent
on behalf of Princeton College.
Coming back in February, 1755, he found the Virginia
settlements greatly agitated at the aggressions of the
French and Indian alliance. The alarm spread when,
in July, the little army of General Braddock sent out to
capture Fort Duquesne was defeated, with only a rem-
nant saved by the courage of George Washington, then
a youth of twenty-three. The always fervid preacher
now became a passionate patriot, arousing Virginia by
his call to arms,
It was in printing a sermon preached to Captain Over-
ton's Company of Independent Volunteers in August of
the same year that Davies added the prophetic footnote
so often quoted, " I may point out to the public that
heroic youth, Col. Washington, whom I cannot but hope
Providence has hitherto preserved, in so signal a manner,
for some important service to his country."
Three years later Davies was called to succeed the
famous Jonathan Edwards as president of Princeton
College. He declined and only under the pressure of a re-
election consented to leave his beloved Virginia. He
took to Princeton great gifts and a great reputation, but
had filled the office hardly more than eighteen months
when he caught a cold to which he succumbed, dying on
February 4, 1761, at the age of thirty-six. His grave
now makes one of the famous Presidents' Row at Prince-
ton, where he lies next to Jonathan Edwards.
Davies was not only the most brilliant but quite the
most engaging figure of colonial Presbyterianism. Ma-
kemie may have been a greater administrator, but one
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90 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
imagines him a little rough. Gilbert Tennent in early
life was possibly an equally effective preacher, but he
had a vein of hardness and censoriousness. His later
preaching did not sustain his reputation, while even now
when we read Davies' printed sermons we catch the light
and feel the glow. They far surpass the printed sermons
of Whitefield himself, which indeed make poor reading.
Makemie, Tennent, Davies all three were God's am-
bassadors, but Davies had the gracious manners and
social accomplishments of the trained diplomat. He had
the inscrutable quality we call " charm," that wins the
admiration of strangers, and the deeper qualities of
mind and heart that won from his friends the fullness of
affection so frankly written in all their reminiscences
of him.
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
i. Dr. Gibbons did not tell us to which of the manu-
script sermons that came into his hands this hymn was
appended. It seems to fit the one he printed as " XXXI,
Dedication to God argued from Redeeming Mercy," from
I Cor. 6:19, 20. The preacher enters God's claim to
all his hearers have and are; their solemn business
at the Lord's Table is " to yield themselves to God, and
seal their indenture to be His." He asks them to follow
while he proposes the terms of the transaction, and, if
they consent, to " rise and crowd round the table of their
Lord, and there annex their solemn seals and acknowl-
edge it to be their act and deed." And this is the " con-
tract": "Lord, here is a poor sinner, thy creature re-
deemed by the blood of thy Son, that has long been a
slave to other masters, and withheld from thee thy just
LORD, I AM THINE, ENTIRELY THINE gi
and dear-bought property; here, Lord, I would now,
freely and without reserve, devote and surrender myself,
my soul and body, and my all to thee, to be universally
and for ever thine. And let the omnipotent God, let
angels and men, be witness to the engagement."
Does there seem much room to doubt that the hymn
was written to be used at the Communion service that
was to follow this particular sermon ?
2. But at what date? In The Hymnal revised the
footnote gives it as " published in 1769 "; and that is the
only date we have. The sermon was preached in Virginia
(before July, 1759, that is to say), is addressed to black
and white, freeman and slave, and refers to a possible
persecution even unto death. May not that suggest as
a date the time of the French and Indian aggressions and
the dread that the conquering French might establish the
Roman Catholic discipline in the colony ?
3. Dr. Gibbons printed this hymn in seven verses. The
familiar abridgment into four verses may perhaps be
of some practical advantage. But the whole hymn is
needed to show its full relation to Sermon XXXI. To
obtain this, insert after the first verse in The Hymnal
revised,
II Here, Lord, my Flesh, my Soul, my All
I yield to Thee beyond Recall;
Accept thine own so long withheld,
Accept what I so freely yield!
after the third verse,
V. Be thou the Witness of my Vow,
Angels and Men attest it too,
That to thy Board I now repair,
And seal the sacred Contract there.
92 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
and after the fourth verse,
VII. Do Thou assist a feeble Worm
The great Engagement to perform:
Thy Grace can full Assistance lend,
And on that Grace I dare depend.
4. Just what is the effect upon this hymn of the alter-
ation made by Dr. Rippon by which the affirmation of
its first line becomes the question, " Lord, am I Thine,
entirely Thine? "'
IX
SWEET THE MOMENTS, RICH IN
BLESSING
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
1 Sweet the moments, rich in blessing,
Which before the cross I spend;
Life and health and peace possessing
From the sinner's dying Friend.
2 Here I'll sit, for ever viewing
Mercy's streams in streams of blood;
Precious drops, my soul bedewing,
Plead and claim my peace with God.
3 Truly blessed is this station,
Low before His cross to lie,
"While I see Divine compassion
Pleading in His languid eye.
4 Love and grief my heart dividing,
With my tears His feet I'll bathe;
Constant still in faith abiding,
Life deriving from His death,
5 For Thy sorrows we adore Thee,
For the griefs that wrought our peace;
Gracious Saviour, we implore Thee,
In our hearts Thy love increase.
The Hon. and Rev. Walter Shirley, 1770: based upon
an earlier (1757) hymn by the Rev. James Allen.
93
94 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
NOTE: The first four verses as here given are taken from Shirley's
hymn book of 1770; with such changes as will appear by com-
parison with his text hereafter quoted in full. The fifth verse was
added to the hymn in the Rev. Messrs. Cooke and Denton's Church
Hymnal of 1853,
In our study of " Guide me, Thou Great Jehovah,"
we met, somewhat casually, the Lady Selina Shirley, by
marriage Countess of Huntingdon. And she, beyond a
doubt, is the proper person to introduce her first cousin,
the Honorable and Reverend Walter Shirley, whose skill-
ful hand gave to our present hymn its familiar shape.
Especially so, as it was written to be sung in her own
chapels.
"HER LADYSHIP'S CONNEXION"
After a dangerous illness and a deep experience Lady
Huntingdon " turned Methodist," as the phrase was, to
the dismay of her friends. " I thank your Ladyship,"
wrote the Duchess of Buckingham, " for the information
concerning the Methodist preachers; their doctrines are
most repulsive, and strongly tinctured with impertinence
and disrespect towards their superiors, in perpetually
endeavoring to level all ranks, and do away with all dis-
tinctions. It is monstrous to be told, that you have a
heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl on
the earth. This is highly offensive and insulting ; and I
cannot but wonder that your Ladyship should relish any
sentiments so much at variance with high rank and good
breeding." Her Ladyship, on the other hand, persuaded
many of her friends, even the Duchess sometimes, to go
with her to the Methodist meetings, and gathered more
of them to hear Methodist preachers in her own London
THE REV r> MR.
9 6 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
drawing-room. With her zeal and influence she gave a
new turn to the great revival. She introduced it into
aristocratic circles. " Methodism," the cynical Horace
Walpole used to complain, " is becoming quite fash-
ionable."
When the split came in 1741, Lady Huntingdon ad-
hered to Whitefield. Beginning as his commissary, she
soon took the field in person as commander in chief of
his forces. Whitefield needed such a patron. John Wes-
ley was a master hand at organizing; and a world-wide
Methodist Church is his monument. Whitefield was a
great preacher, and just that. He could make converts,
but for organizing and molding these same converts into
a permanent body of Christian workers he had no gifts.
Just here Lady Huntingdon took hold. By birth and
marriage she was a great lady ; with full sense of her high
social position. She was also a great woman, of the
" modern " type : a born executive, indifferent to conven-
tionalities, bent on getting results, deeply religious, with
an autocratic will. After her husband's death she had
houses and an ample income at her command, and was
generous to the point of stripping herself of all but bare
necessities. She paid for her first chapel by selling her
jewels.
She built many other chapels in different parts of
England, and joined them as a " connexion " of which
she was the head. She sought out Calvinistic clergymen
to preach from their pulpits the gospel as she believed it,
and when the supply failed, founded that theological
school at Trevecca whose " young collegians " we heard
singing " Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah." She re-
tained the Prayer Book services in her chapels, but the
bright and hearty hymn singing she set up in place of
SWEET THE MOMENTS, RICH IN BLESSING 97
the droning of metrical Psalms in parish churches, proved
a great attraction. She had learned from the Wesleys
and Whitefield what evangelical songs had done for the
revival. She loved them and sang them and became one
of the influences that were gradually spreading the singing
of " hymns of human composure." In the end her
chapels got her into trouble with the Church* authorities,
who liked neither her independence nor her gospel, and
in her old age she had to organize her forces as a dissent-
ing body outside the Church of England " Lady Hunt-
ingdon's Connexion."
THE STORY OF THE HYMN
The story circles about Lady Huntingdon, and involves
a number of people. There was first the Rev. Benjamin
Ingham, one of the original Methodists, who went to
Georgia with the Wesleys, and is said to have been too
handsome for a man. On his return he became a suc-
cessful evangelist, and formed many " societies " of his
converts in his native Yorkshire and thereabouts. In
1741 he married Lady Huntingdon's sister-in-law. " The
news I hear from London," wrote Lady Mary Wortley
Montague from Rome, " is that Lady Margaret Hastings
has disposed of herself to a poor, wandering Methodist
preacher." In the year following he deserted the Metho-
dists and joined the Moravian Brethren. After some
years he changed his views again, and left the Moravians.
But instead of joining Lady Huntingdon's Connexion, he
formed some thousands of his followers into a brand-new
denomination, the Inghamite Connexion.
Now it would never do for Inghamites to go on singing
Moravian hymns, or to fall back on those of the Meth-
pg STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
odists. And so some of Ingham's helpers tried their
hand at hymn writing. The chief of these was one James
Allen, a young Yorkshireman who had been intended for
the ministry of the established Church, but who was con-
verted under Ingham's preaching, and broke off a college
course at the University of Cambridge to become one of
his preachers. Allen wrote more than sixty hymns, and
these, with others by his colleagues, he printed in 1757
for the Inghamite Connexion. He called his book A
Collection of Hymns for the use of those that seek, and
those that have Redemption in the Blood of Christ; but
it is more generally referred to as " The Kendal Hymn
Book." Naturally enough, these new hymns retained a
good many of the Moravian peculiarities. Some that
dealt with the person of our Lord had the same un-
pleasant sensuous flavor that John Wesley protested
against.
The Inghamite collection is not attractive. If there
were no better "hymns of human composure" than
these, most people would gladly go back to metrical ver-
sions of the Psalms. But for a while they appealed to
the ecstatic feelings of the Inghamites. And only for a
while could Ingham hold his followers together. He
could not even hold James Allen. That good man at last
" saw the light " and became a " Glassite." " My eyes,"
he said, " were never fully opened till the latter end of
October, 1762. How am I now ashamed of my preaching,
and the hymn book I was concerned in printing ! Almost
every page puts me to the blush." In the end this honest
but erratic seeker for truth found such measure of
church unity as he was capable of by building a private
chapel on his Yorkshire estate, and ministering there un-
disturbed until his death in 1804.
"ITT HFLE my Juki I'm potliilim;,
> "A vy c;. t :t'* theKippuwts I know;
Sw twiir o
Hjppy I'tw in his tr.ibi.uci,
Pnr.bg -itt Hs, kuM;sf\vect;
Slft^iO 1 ', ncK.r<c;ji.'.T| pr-ifc;,
5. Oh! hsw Jwrrv itc the moments,
Here 111 >" lr v viavilu;
How she HooJ J!o'.i$ horn s3i vein;,
Ev'ry {Saatn, my fou! fefjn.iijg,
Moit;ta i!'.c cam?l rfaue.
|. Res!!? bklfol is riu 1 fiirtlon
Di-fco'4 rot by luvYajn gmcc;
In *cSavinw 'Vbnilftd'Le -
Tta my fivsi wlylutlrin.
Jefc ChrJil my Lord to love,
'At Jus ft to Jtis i> jtapon,
Koc from. tbUv r*. fair's breadth mo?e,
4. Hire h fe i find my feww,
Whilt: apoa my JLatrfc t gJW;
5x>vf I much, Fve jnore tqrgjvrn I
1 6I }
Fiil'd with Cmur-llke cootrWort,
With wy tctts hh feet I'll bah* ;
Happy in the fwut fruition
Oi'my Siviaur's paisful &b.
j. From his picrc'd and wouniJeJ body
From his hands and fart fa bloody
Fiow'J a med'Uae tW tach fore s
TMs to ate is raoft delicious,
dating ail within to ^Jow
<i. May I ftill enjoy ebb ftclUijj,
IR ail n4 to |ef us <& ;
Prove \&i wounds act^ day niorc tiealinr,
Anii from hncc fsjvation draw t
May I have the fpirk'6 vrnftiaa
Ft'Uasme^tbbolyjhsm*}
Sdt retain a cloieBeiiV>R
"With &c perfbix of tlie Lamb.
' 1 ESUS, bowgJwioaf was the Jiy,
J Wliitu Thou didft my rckall- praeliSp 1
SweeeJy I fuag tbe hours may -,
I Jung fiJvatbn hro* thy name.
s. I woadtrM ho\v tit? careld$ crowd
Sfenfrfek could tlrep away thtir diy >
So flrong ihy love in ray heart flow'JL
Such foJid peace it did convey ,
3, Clofe with thy Sock I ws combia'J,
Nought could my heart from their 1 * divide ;
gy Hood 1 , cftwntj,,., power join'd,
Wlm uifitn I could liavc I)>y *:. 1 tiy'd,
4 Benath shy worJ rctVeih'i! 1 ihod;
'ITijf word w we w'stii pow cuatf ;
THE HYMN AS JAMES ALLEN WROTE IT
loo STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Among Allen's contributions to the hymn book of 1757
was one of six double verses, beginning
"While my Jesus I'm possessing."
We know it is his because he marked it with his initials
in his own copy of the book. It was far from being
good ; and when the Inghamites were dispersed, and the
little book was disowned by its editor, that hymn would
seem to have been finally buried out of sight.
But now the Hon. and Rev. Walter Shirley comes on
to play his part. He was born in 1725 of noble blood:
a younger brother of the notorious Earl Ferrers, who
threatened his wife, murdered his steward, and was
hanged after a trial by the House of Lords. Shirley was
drawn into the revival movement through his connection
with Lady Huntingdon. He became one of her preachers,
although he remained in the Church of England all his
life, with a parish in Ireland. But his evangelical the-
ology and his revival preaching kept him in bad odor with
his bishop and fellow clergymen.
Lady Huntingdon trusted him, and seems to have
given him charge of the hymnological department of her
Connexion ; but it w^as under her own eye. She attached
great importance to the character of the hymns. If
she did not write any (this is uncertain), she saw to it
that none was sung in her chapels of which she did
not approve. For the editing of her special collections
she depended upon Mr. Shirley. It was in the 1770
edition of The Collection of Hymns sung in the Countess
of Huntingdon's Chapel [at Bath] that Shirley printed
the hyrnn we know so well as cc Sw^eet the moments, rich
in blessing." Like a careful editor he had gone over
other books to find available material, even the Inghamite
SWEET THE MOMENTS, RICH IN BLESSING IQI
book. By comparing Shirley's verses with the facsimile
of Allen's original as here given, we can see for our-
selves how he found the hymn embedded in Allen's mate-
rial, just as a sculptor sees a symmetrical figure embedded
in the rough and shapeless mass of marble. He had a
keen eye and a cunning hand, certainly. He made what
for all practical purposes is a new hymn.
As we have before us the full text as Allen wrote it,
it may be interesting to have also the full text as Shirley
rewrote it :
Sweet the Moments rich in Blessing
Which before the Cross I spend;
Life and Health, and Peace possessing,
From the Sinner's dying Friend.
Here I'll sit for ever viewing
Mercy's Streams in Streams of Blood;
Precious Drops my soul bedewing
Plead and claim my Peace with GOD.
Truly blessed is this Station
Low before his Cross to lye;
While I see divine Compassion
Floating in his languid Eye.
Here it is I find my Heaven,
While upon the Lamb I gaze;
Love I much, I've much forgiven,
I'm a Miracle of Grace.
Love and Grief my Heart dividing,
With my Tears his Feet I'll bathe;
Constant still in Faith abiding,
Life deriving from his Death.
May I still enjoy this Feeling,
In all Need to Jesus go;
Prove his Wounds each Day more healing,
And himself more deeply know.
102 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Comparison shows the weak parts of Shirley's compila-
tion to be just those that adhered most closely to Allen's
original: the second quatrain of verse two, culminating
in that smug line, " I'm a Miracle of Grace," and the last
four lines of all, which fail to reach a climax. It was
easy for later editors to drop these lines, but to arrange
a fitting climax for the whole hymn was another matter.
That indeed was wanting until two English clergymen,
Messrs. Cooke and Denton, in their Church Hymnal of
1853, added the fine lines :
For Thy Sorrows we adore Thee
For the Griefs that wrought our peace
Gracious Saviour! we implore Thee,
In our hearts Thy love increase.
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
i. This is called by hymnologists a Good Friday hymn.
Until recent years no notice was taken of that day in
Presbyterian and some other churches. The observance
of Good Friday came about as a consequence of the ob-
servance of Easter Day. The writer can remember when
Easter itself was ignored in Presbyterian churches. But
when the celebration of Easter became firmly established,
the question began to be asked : Is it not a strange thing
for an evangelical Church, that puts the emphasis upon
the cross, to celebrate the anniversary of the resurrection
and ignore the anniversary of the crucifixion? It was an
awkward question. And when once asked, there could
be only one logical answer. The recognition of Good
Friday has been to some extent forced upon the churches
in those states which had made it a legal holiday. It is
better certainly to keep the anniversary as a holy day,
SWEET THE MOMENTS, RICH IN BLESSING 103
with religious services, than as a Roman holiday given
over to public amusements. It is, however, likely that
the propriety of recognizing the day in Presbyterian
churches may be a topic for discussion for years to come.
It is also a subject for discussion, whether the present
hymn might not well be reserved for use on some such
special occasion, when our feelings are moved by the
pathos of the cross. Is it not perhaps too tender in
feeling to justify the familiar use it has had in everyday
social services?
2. In the text, as printed in The Hymnal revised, there
is a striking change when we pass from the " I " of the
four Shirley verses to the " we " of the Cooke and Den-
ton verse. Much has been written as to whether our
congregational songs should have the " I " and " my " of
an individual singer or the "we" and "our" of the
congregation as a common body. And this hymn suggests
an answer. It is as if each singer came alone to the cross,
and there laid low his heart, all alone with Christ. And
as if all the singers then arose and stood together at the
cross in one common outburst of praise and adoration.
3. There are few meaner things in this world than
plagiarism. Plagiarism is the stealing of the products of
another's brain, and giving them forth as our own. It
is good, therefore, in tracing these verses to the little
known original of the obscure James Allen, to remember
that Shirley was quite innocent of plagiarism. He
neither signed them nor claimed them as his own. His
only ambition was to furnish his cousin's chapels with
good hymns. It is not even possible to say how many of
these were written by himself.
X
ROCK OF AGES, CLEFT FOR ME
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
1 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.
2 Not the labors 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.
3 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.
4 While I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eyelids close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown,
See Thee on Thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.
Rev. Augustus M. Toplady, in The Gospel Magazine for March, 1776
NOTE: The text is that of Toplady 's own Psalms and Hymns of
1776, except in the second line of the last verse, whose alteration
is explained under " Some Points for Discussion."
104
ROCK Of AU^O, u^jQrT FO^ ME I0 e
" Rock of Ages " was written by Augustus Montague
Toplady, one of the converts of the same Methodist re-
vival that produced " Jesus, Lover of my soul." But
he had lost his sympathy with Wesley's doctrinal views,
turned his back on Methodism, and become a Church of
England clergyman. Two things, however, he had kept
in his heart the fervor of the Methodists and their
love for songs that had the glow of the gospel in them.
He not only wrote hymns of his own but he joined a
little group of men who were doing their best to win a
place for hymn singing in the Church of England itself.
A NEW ATTACK UPON THE OLD PSALM
SINGING
In our third study we saw how young Isaac Watts chal-
lenged the old custom of singing metrical Psalms, and
won the hearts of the Independent congregations with
his own very human hymns. In our fourth study we saw
how the Wesley brothers followed in the next generation
with their gospel songs, and made these a great power in
the Methodist Revival.
With the Independents singing Watts's hymns and the
Methodists singing the Wesleys', it might seem that the
" hymn of human composure " had come to its own in
England. But not yet. The great established Church
clung to the old Psalms. Most of its bishops and clergy
cared little for the Independents and despised the Meth-
odists as fanatics. The thing they most dreaded in re-
ligion was " enthusiasm," which they regarded as bad
form. As the Methodist singing became clamorous, they
felt the greater dislike for hymns as the particular
vehicle of this vulgar " enthusiasm." The good and
106 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
great Dr. Johnson, a churchman of the better sort, notes
in Ms diary that on Easter Day, 1764, he gave a crown
to a poor girl he met in church, although he saw a hymn
book in her hand. He was pluming himself on a char-
itable impulse that could even surmount the prejudice
against hymn singers.
But enthusiasm is a contagious thing, and even the
lethargic Church of England could not escape it alto-
gether. We have already seen how Lady Huntingdon
succumbed, and how, when the doctrinal split came in
1741, she took charge of Whitefield's forces, and began
to stir up a revival in the Church itself. The little group
of clergy who shared Whitefield's Calvinistic views and
sympathized with his revival measures, were content for
a wMIe to preach and work under the great lady's aus-
pices. But when she became a dissenter, most of them
kept their places in the established Church and gradu-
ally formed an Evangelical or Low Church Party to carry
on the revival within the bounds of the Church. They
protested against being called Methodists, but for a
good while they protested in vain. What seemed to
outsiders to give them away was their revival
preaching, and especially their addiction to the new and
strange practice of singing human hymns in place of the
long established Psalm singing. For with one exception,
these leaders were all agreed that evangelical religion has
the right to express itself in evangelical songs. In 1753,
Whitefield had made his own hymn book for use in the
revival services of his London Tabernacle. Seven years
later the Rev. Martin Madan followed with another for
use in his chapel at the Lock Hospital. It was a private
chapel and not a parish church, or else Mr. Madan would
have got into trouble, just as Mr. Wesley did at Savannah,
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108 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
for introducing unauthorized hymns into the Church
service.
To this Evangelical Party in the Church of England
Mr. Toplady attached himself as one of its younger
members. And in 1776 he, too, printed a collection of
Psalms and Hymns for his Orange Street Chapel in Lon-
don. It was his " Declaration of Independence " from
the fetters of the old Psalmody. It was even more mem-
orable as the first hymn book in which his own " Rock
of Ages " appeared and thus began its remarkable career.
Toplady wrote other hymns that have been widely sung.
But " Rock of Ages " is to-day in more church hymnals
than is any other English hymn. And in the opinion of
many judges it is the greatest hymn in the language.
Its warmth of feeling and fervor of devotion, with a cer-
tain note of solemnity like the rhythmic pealing of
deep-toned bells, have made an abiding impression upon
millions of human hearts.
THE AUTHOR OF THE HYMN
It is an odd coincidence that as Charles Wesley was
born in the year in which Watts printed " There is a land
of pure delight," so Toplady was born in the year in
which the Wesleys printed " Jesu, Lover of my soul."
He * was born in the English village of Farnham on
November 4, 1740. His father, a major in the army, died
in the field within a few months of the birth of the son,
who was left to the abundant love of the widow. He was
a white-faced, fragile, neurotic child, mentally and spir-
itually so precocious as to be abnormal. He remarked in
his diary: " I am now arrived at the age of eleven years.
I praise God I can remember no dreadful crime : and not
ROCK OF AGES, CLEFT FOR ME
109
to me but to the Lord be the glory. Amen. It is now
past eight o'clock, and now I think fit to withdraw, but
yet my heart is so full of divine and holy raptures, that
a sheet of paper could not contain my writings." Self-
conscious, proud, and passionate, he composes a daily
prayer to be kept from quarreling with his schoolmates.
AUGUSTUS M. TOPLADY
At twelve he is writing sermons and preaching to those
who will hear; and his mother embroiders for him a
pulpit fall. She dotes on him, and is bringing him up,
the grandmother thinks, to be a scourge to her. His
uncle and aunt cannot make him out and frankly detest
him. These critical relatives, one by one, the child pil-
lories in his diary. Aunt Betsy, for example, " is so
vastly quarrelsome; in short, she is so fractious, and
captious, and insolent, that she is unfit for human so-
HO STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
ciety." A boy who fails to appear at the hour appointed
becomes " the dishonourable Norreys." A woman who
" said I am a second Timothy " fared better, though " I
do not set this down from my vanity." At thirteen he
composes a farce, which he intends to show to the great
Mr. Garrick of Drury Lane. At fourteen he becomes a
writer of hymns, and at nineteen publishes a volume of
them.
After his school days in London, Toplady went with
his mother to Ireland, and entered Trinity College, Dub-
lin. One summer day in 1756, at a revival meeting in
an Irish barn, he " was brought nigh to God " under a
sermon by a Methodist preacher, James Morris. He de-
termined to prepare for the ministry. But he then held
to the Arminian theology of Methodism. When he came
to study the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of Eng-
land he was surprised to find them Calvinistic, and
thought he would have to seek a sphere in one of the
Arminian sects. Further study brought deep misgiv-
ings, and in great agitation of mind he completely
changed his views. He became an ardent Calvinist, and
as such entered the ministry of the Church of England.
His ministry was to be short. He was curate of Blag-
don, in Somerset, in 1762, and of Farley Hungerford two
years later ; then vicar of Harpf ord and Fen Ottery, and
later of Broad Hembury; three obscure villages of
Devon, not far from Exeter. He preached with great
nervous excitement, his flaming spirit set in the frail
candlestick of a diseased body. The seeds of consump-
tion developed in those days an inevitable doom. He
craved a larger opportunity for his last years. His
friends engaged the Huguenot Chapel in Orange Street,
London, where he preached to great congregations, until
ROCK OF AGES, CLEFT FOR ME IJ:I
no longer able to mount the pulpit steps. On August
n, 1778, that passionate heart ceased to beat. His body
was buried within the walls of Whitefield's Tabernacle in
Tottenham Court Road.
Toplady lived in a time of theological controversy.
And when he adopted Calvinistic views in his ardent way,
he felt that he had been delivered from a dark pit, in
which John Wesley dwelt as a sort of Jinnee. In a pam-
phlet of 1769, The Church of England vindicated from
the charge of Arminianism, he tried to prove that the
Church was Calvinistic. Henceforward in conversation,
letters, sermons, hymns, tracts, and treatises he spent
himself in setting forth and defending the Calvinistic
doctrine of Election.
The actual quarrel with John Wesley began after Top-
lady published later in the same year a translation of
Zanchius on Predestination. Wesley printed an abridg-
ment of it for his societies, with a stinging preface of his
own, and at the end an unfair summary professing to
be signed " A T ."
Toplady's feelings were outraged by what he called
" Mr. Wesley's lying abridgment " and " forging " of his
signature. He printed A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John
Wesley, which in the recklessness of its misjudgment of
a good man, the audacity of its unmerited charges, and
the offensiveness of its language, has never, one likes
to think, had a parallel in religious debate. It was in-
deed pitiful, if only a burst of sudden passion, or if it
stood alone. But it was followed by More work for Mr.
John Wesley, an old Fox tarred and feathered^ and by
a hounding of Wesley's name and reputation that ended
only with death.
In his last illness Toplady had himself taken to the
112 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Orange Street Chapel. Some one had started a rumor
that he had changed his views and wished to converse
with Mr. Wesley. At the end of the sermon preached by
another, Toplady's emaciated figure mounted the pulpit
steps. He hoped, he said, his last hours " would be
much better employed than in conversing with such a
man." Were he on his death-bed with a pen in his hand,
he " would not strike out a single line " he had written
relative to Wesley and Ms doctrines.
No wonder that Professor J. Ritchie Smith, of Prince-
ton Seminary, should exclaim in his The Wall and the
Gates, i( Is this the author of Rock of Ages ? " and should
cite Toplady as a historical illustration of the fact that
" orthodoxy covers a multitude of sins in our sight,
though it may be itself the worst of sins." The venera-
tion that surrounds Toplady's name in so many books is
due to some extent to party spirit. Though not a widely
read theologian, he was the clearest brain and the recog-
nized leader on the Calvinistic side in " a hot time," and
his followers inevitably glorified him. It is best to
say frankly that his combative side deserves the venera-
ation of no Christian. To seek some palliation of Top-
lady's offense in a morbid body and diseased nerves is
right enough. We may try to forgive it, but we cannot,
if we are to study " Rock of Ages," forget it, for he has
chosen to use the hymn as part of his " case " against
Wesley, just as a lawyer annexes an " exhibit " to Ms
brief.
In the meantime the pure and fervid hymn is none the
less the gift of God. He is pleased to store His gifts in
earthen vessels. Neither a holy sacrament nor a holy
hymn is spoiled by any lack of perfect whiteness in the
human hand through which it comes.
ROCK OF AGES, CLEFT FOR ME II3
THE STORY OF THE HYMN
Outside the village of Burrington Combe in Somerset,
England, a limestone crag rises some seventy or eighty
feet. Down the center is a deep fissure, in whose re-
cesses ferns grow. During July, 1921, some English
newspapers announced that a pilgrimage was being or-
ganized to visit the spot, as that in which Toplady com-
posed "Rock of Ages, cleft for me." On the Bank
Holiday of August following, a great company, estimated
at ten thousand, made the pilgrimage, and in the natural
amphitheater facing the crag joined in prayer, heard
addresses, and sang the hymn. It was a wonderful
testimonial to the power of the hymn after a hundred
and forty-five years.
The odd feature of the occasion is that no one present
could have known that Toplady wrote the hymn
there or even had the crag in mind when he did write it.
There is a local tradition, apparently not old but care-
fully fostered, that he was caught one day by a thunder-
storm in Burrington Combe, took refuge in the fissure,
and there wrote the hymn. No evidence of the truth of
the story has ever been produced. It seems more likely
that the story grew out of the fc cleft for me " in the
hymn, rather than that the hymn proceeded from the
fissure. Just as in the case of "Jesus, Lover of my
soul," the story of the dove taking refuge in Charles
Wesley's breast grew out of the line, " Let me to Thy
bosom fly."
It is true that the crag is within walking distance of
Blagdon Church, where Toplady was curate. But he
left there in 1764, and not a line of the hymn is known
to exist until October, 1775 eleven years afterwards.
THE ROCK WHICH LOCAL TRADITION NAMES AS THE INSPI-
RATION OF TOPLADY'S HYMN, "ROCK OF AGES,
CLEFT FOR ME"
ROCK OF AGES, CLEFT FOR ME II5
The present writer sees little room for doubt that what
Toplady actually had before him when he wrote the
hymn was a copy of the Wesleys 5 Hymns on the Lord's
Supper (1745), of which eleven editions had appeared
before the date of the hymn. It was a book Toplady
would be sure to examine. And on page eight of the
prefatory matter he would find the following passage:
" O Rock of Israel, Rock of Salvation, Rock struck and
cleft for me, let those two Streams of Blood and Water
which once gushed out of Thy side, bring down Pardon
and Holiness into my soul. And let me thirst after them
now, as if I stood upon the Mountain whence sprung this
Water ; and near the Cleft of that Rock, the Wounds of
my Lord, whence gushed this sacred Blood." If anyone
questions that we have here the source from which Top-
lady drew the theme and imagery of the hymn, he may
turn to Hymn XXVII of the same book, whose opening is,
"Rock of Israel, cleft for me."
It is not doubt one is likely to feel, but wonder ; wonder
that Toplady could appropriate these materials and yet
write of John Wesley, " I believe him to be the most ran-
corous hater of the gospel-system, that ever appeared in
this island."
We get our first glimpse of the hymn in The Gospel
Magazine for October, 1775, where, in an article on " Life
a Journey/' Toplady says: " Yet, if you fall, be humbled;
but do not despair. . . , Look to the blood of the
covenant ; and say to the Lord, from the depth of your
heart,
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee!
Foul, I to the fountain fly:
Wash me, Saviour, or I die."
n6 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Whether the hymn was completely written out then, we
shall never know.
After he became editor of the magazine, Toplady
printed in the number for March, 1776, a curious article
by " J. F." aiming to show that England could never
pay her national debt. Toplady appended a " spiritual
improvement," showing that sinners are in the same case
as regards their debt to the moral law. Reckoning one
sin to every second, " at ten years old, each of us is
chargeable with 315 millions and 36 thousand sins. At
twenty, with 630 millions, and 720 thousand," and so on,
by decades, till the end of life. " This debt we can
never pay. But Christ has redeemed us from the curse
of the Law and His Blood cleanseth from all sin. We
must bless God the Father for electing us, God the Son
for assuming our debts, God the Holy Spirit for His gift
of faith in Christ."
Then follow the four verses of the hymn. Unfortu-
nately, even in this mood of exaltation, Toplady cannot
overlook John Wesley. And he heads his hymn, " A liv-
ing and dying PRAYER for the HOLIEST BELIEVER
in the World!' Possibly that sarcastic phrase, " the
holiest believer in the world," did not refer to Wesley in
person, but to any follower who thought he exemplified
Wesley's doctrine that entire holiness is attainable while
in the flesh. Even a perfectionist, perhaps Toplady
means, is none too holy to use the words of this hymn.
Toplady, as has been said, included " Rock of Ages "
in his collection published that same year. It does not
seem to have attracted special attention, and during the
thirty years following it is not found in many hymn
books. But such postponement is a commonplace in the
history of hymns. The turn of this hymn came early
ROCK OF AGES, CLEFT FOR ME II?
in the nineteenth century, and it gradually advanced to
the first place as regards the proportion of church
hymnals that found room for it.
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
r. The Scriptures from which the imagery is taken, in
the passage of the Wesleys 7 Hymns on the Lord's Supper
and in the first verse of Toplady's hymn, seem to be the
cleft rock of Ex. 33 122 and the smitten rock of Ex. 17 :6,
and these as interpreted by I Cor. 10 14, " And that Rock
was Christ," and by the pierced side of Jesus, with the
outflow of water and blood. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes
said it was these material images that made the hymn so
impressive. Are the images confused in the hymn ? The
Rev. William Henry Havergal thought so, and tried to
make two hymns of it ; one on the Rock as the Shelter,
the other on the Rock as the Source of the water of life.
But no one seemed to care for his hymns.
The beautiful phrase, " Rock of Ages," is also Scrip-
tural. Toplady took it from the reading, in the margin
of the King James Version, of Isa. 26 '.4.
2. In printing the hymn in his Psalms and Hymns,
Toplady made some changes in it. The one for which
we are most grateful is in the new title of the hymn,
which leaves Mr. Wesley out. It reads " A Prayer, living
and dying." He now began the fourth verse with
" while " in place of the hissing " whilst." And he put
" When I soar to worlds unknown " for " When I soar
through tracts unknown." Is this change an improve-
ment?
The Hymnal revised follows this text, except in read-
ing " When my eylids close in death " in place of " When
STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
my eye-strings break In death." It was a mistaken
notion that in dying the muscles or tendons of the eye
snapped. Shakespeare uses the same phrase in his
Cymbeline. The new line has been substituted by gen-
eral consent. As actual fact is in question, would not
" When mine eyes are closed in death " be still nearer
the truth?
In 1815 the Rev. Thomas Cotterill of Sheffield con-
densed the four verses into three for a hymn book of his
own. For many years this three-verse form of the hymn
was the only one known in Episcopalian and Methodist
hymn books. But the full form of the hymn has now
prevailed.
3. Of the tunes for this hymn in The Hymnal revised,
that by Redhead, to which he gave no name, is most
popular in England. It was Number 76 in his book of
Church Hymn Tunes, 1853, and is generally known as
" Redhead Number 76." In this country Thomas Hast-
ings 7 " Toplady " is more popular. He wrote it for a
hymn book called Spiritual Songs that came out as a
series of little pamphlets, beginning in 1830, and was de-
signed to combat the introduction of revival and ballad
tunes into Presbyterian churches by offering some that
were more reverent and yet simple and easy to sing.
The tune " Reliance," Number 322 in The Hymnal re-
vised, was also composed for this hymn at the request
of the committee in charge of the original edition. In
revising the book it was thought best to set other words
to this tune. Its composer was an English musician,
then living in Denver*
XI
GOD OF OUR FATHERS, WHOSE
ALMIGHTY HAND
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
1 God of our fathers, whose almighty hand
Leads forth in beauty all the starry band
Of shining worlds in splendor through the skies,
Our grateful songs before Thy throne arise.
2 Thy love Divine hath led us in the past;
In this free land by Thee our lot is cast;
Be Thou our Ruler, Guardian, Guide, and Stay;
Thy word our law, Thy paths our chosen way.
3 From war's alarms, from deadly pestilence,
Be Thy strong arm our ever sure defence;
Thy true religion in our hearts increase,
Thy bounteous goodness nourish us in peace.
4 Refresh Thy people on their toilsome way,
Lead us from night to never-ending day;
Fill all our lives with love and grace Divine,
And glory, laud, and praise be ever Thine.
Rev. Daniel C. Roberts, 1876
NOTE: The text is that printed in the Report of the Protestant
Episcopal Hymnal Commission to the General Convention of 1892.
This Fourth of July hymn was written in 1876 by Dr.
Daniel C. Roberts, a New England clergyman, for the
centennial of the Declaration of Independence. It seems
119
120 STUDIES OP FAMILIAR HYMNS
at first a far cry from this hymn to those of the eight-
eenth century revival in old England which we have
been studying together ; but there is, after all, a real con-
nection between the political events the new hymn cele-
brates and the great revival out of which the old ones
came.
The fact is that in England, as the fourth day of July,
1776, approached, most of the people were a great deal
more excited about the prospect of war with the American
colonies than about the progress of the revival ; and none
more concerned than were the leaders of the revival,
which had made new bonds between the old country
and the colonies. Whitefield had gone over to them
again and again with his flaming gospel, and in one of
them his worn-out body had lain at rest since 1770; but
a host of his American converts remained. Both of the
Wesleys also had lived in the colonies, and the American
Methodists now numbered some thousands.
John Wesley's sympathies were with the Americans at
first. Then his sense of loyalty changed his mind, and he
printed A calm Address to our American Colonies. In
this he appropriated, with or without permission, the con-
tents of a pamphlet, Taxation no tyranny, by that same
Dr. Johnson who gave a coin to the girl with a hymn
book in her hand. It was then that the redoubtable Mr.
Toplady put forth his An old Fox tarr'd and feather'd.
Toplady was earnestly opposed to making war against
the Americans, but it was not in their behalf that he
published his pamphlet. His intention, as he said, was,
first, to show Wesley's dishonesty in stealing Dr. John-
son's materials, "and, second, to raise a little skin by
giving the Fox a gentle flogging as a turn-coat. 37 That
was in October, 1775. A few months later Mr. Toplady
GOD OF OUR FATHERS, WHOSE ALMIGHTY HAND 12 I
printed something pleasanter to remember his " Rock
of Ages, cleft for me." That was in March, 1776. It is,
of course, nothing more than an interesting coincidence
that the centennial year of the Declaration of Independ-
ence in which Dr. Roberts' hymn was written was also
the centennial year of " Rock of Ages." And in view of
its great influence in both England and America, Top-
lady's hymn might well have had a little centennial cele-
bration all its own.
A CENTENNIAL HYMN
When the present writer was gathering materials for
The Hymnal, published in 1895, he became familiar with
the hymn " God of our fathers," by the Rev. Daniel C
Roberts, set to George William Warren's music in that
musical edition of the Protestant Episcopal Hymnal
of 1892, commonly called "Tucker's Hymnal." Mr.
Warren was a warm personal friend. Dr. Roberts
showed himself friendly. Permission to use hymn and
tune was readily given. And so the hymn got into The
Hymnal.
An unfamiliar hymn in a church hymnal is always a
venture, especially one with long lines. Would this one
" take " ? It soon became plain that it was being used
in patriotic services ; and at the end of 1900 the present
writer, having in mind a study such as this, so long de-
ferred, asked the author for some account of the hymn!
and for a copy of it by his own hand.
Dr. Roberts very kindly furnished the requested auto-
graph, which is here reproduced in facsimile; and this
is what he wrote from Concord, New Hampshire, on
January 8, 1901 :
122 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
" The hymn was written in 1876 for a celebration of
the Centennial * Fourth ' of July, and sung at Brandon,
Vermont, to the tune called 'Russian Hymn/ set to
' Rise, crowned with light ' in our Hymnals. When our
General Convention appointed a Commission to revise the
Hymnal, I sent it, without my name, promising to send
the name if the hymn were accepted. It was accepted,
and printed anonymously in the report of the Commis-
sion. Before the Hymnal was printed, the Rev d Dr.
Tucker, late of Troy, editor of our best musical Hymnal,
and Mr. Geo. Wm. Warren, organist of S. Thomas 7
Church, New York, were appointed a committee to
choose a hymn for the centennial celebration of the
adoption of the Constitution. They selected this hymn,
then anonymous, and, wanting a tune, Mr. Warren com-
posed a tune to which it has since been set in the
1 Tucker ' Hymnal. Subsequently it was selected as the
' Recessional ' at the ' Bi-Centenary ' of Trinity Church,
New York City.
" My little hymn has thus had very flattering official
recognition. But that which would really gladden my
heart, popular recognition, it has not received. Mr. War-
ren's tune is majestic. Mr. Parker's in Hutchins'
Hymnal rather academic : the kind of tune appealing to
the c Demos ' has not appeared. I should be more than
gratified if the * people ' should take it up. In fact, I con-
fess, that after its favorable official reception, I had a
little hope which took the form of an ambition, that it
might be so. But that has not happened. Recognition
from you is very grateful to me. It had never occurred
to me to think of it as of value, until the incidents above
related befell, and then I allowed myself to dream a
little."
,
124
STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
MR. WARREN'S " NATIONAL HYMN "
Dr. Roberts' letter, with Its frank human touch, is
very engaging, but he did not understand how heavy the
odds are against any new hymn getting a real hearing,
even after it has edged its way into our over-full church
hymnals. If he were now alive he would see that this
hymn has won its present favor very largely through the
appeal of the music Mr. Warren composed for it. And
that makes it proper that we should also give Mr. Warren
his share of the credit.
George William Warren was born in the city of Albany
in 1828 and was educated at Racine College. Although
he became Professor of Music at Columbia University,
his musical education was due to his own indefatigable
efforts : he was self-taught. Early in life he composed a
number of piano pieces, and the royalties from one of
them, " Tarn o' Shanter," brought him quite a little in-
come every year to the end of his life. He was an organ-
ist and choirmaster from the age of eighteen, at Albany,
Brooklyn, and for more than thirty years at St. Thomas'
in New York. These were the years of his greatest
power and reputation; and the music of St. Thomas'
became a popular feature of New York life, drawing
crowds to the church. His tunes, mostly composed for
St. Thomas' choir, belonged rather to the older parlor-
music school than to the later u Anglican " school. They
were spontaneous and melodious, and were full of feel-
ing, as the composer himself was.
He was a man of high-strung temperament, of deep
affections, a sincere manner, and rather blunt speech.
He died of apoplexy on March 17, 1902, and was buried
from the church he loved with a solemn service in which
GOD OF OUR FATHERS, WHOSE ALMIGHTY HAND I2 e
there was not a note of music, even of the organ. It was
intended to suggest that there was no one any longer to
lead the music of St. Thomas'; and it was in contrast
with an earlier commemoration of Mr. Warren's twenty-
five years of service, at which all the music was of his
composition and his tune to Dr. Roberts' hymn was sung
as the processional.
Mr. Warren contributed two tunes to The Hymnal of
1895, one of which, " Log College," is retained in The
Hymnal revised. It was quite characteristic of him that
he refused to receive any compensation for this tune,
preferring that it should appear as a mark of friendship
for the writer of the words and the editor of the book.
THE AUTHOR OF THE CENTENNIAL HYMN
Dr. Roberts' letter of 1901 went on to say:
" My personal history is of little account. I was born
in Bridge Hampton, Long Island, N. Y., Nov. 5 th 1841.
Entered Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, in 1857. En-
listed as a private in 1862. Was ordained Deacon in
1865, Priest in 1866. Served as Rector of Christ Church,
Montpelier, Vermont; S. John's, Lowell, Mass.; S.
Thomas's, Brandon, Vermont, and for the last twenty-
three years have been Vicar of S. Paul's Church, Con-
cord, N. H., of which parish the Bishop of New Hamp-
shire is titular Rector. I remain a country Parson,
known only within my own small world."
This is the brief life record of a man efficient in his
parishes and trusted in the wider councils of his denom-
ination. He had more recognition than he has admitted :
as a Mason and a Civil War veteran; as President of
the State Historical Society while in New Hampshire,
126 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
and President of the State Normal School in Vermont.
He was apparently a good, manly, warm-hearted, clear-
headed, hard-working clergyman : one of a type of which
no Church can have too many examples. Some occa-
sional verses and carols reveal another turn of his mind
and hand. He would have been the last to claim that
they revealed him as a poet. Dr. Roberts died " on the
Vigil of All Saints Day " of 1907 : so the denominational
newspapers reported. Some of their readers might have
preferred a simpler record of the date.
The regiment in which Dr. Roberts enlisted in 1862
was the Eighty-fourth Regiment of Ohio Volunteers.
Like so many of those who survived the great adventure
of the Civil War, he was always afterward at heart a
veteran soldier. Indeed he reentered military service as
chaplain in the National Guard of New Hampshire. It
may therefore be fitting that this brief record of his life
should close with the last verse of his own word picture
of a soldier's day, which he printed as War Etchings:
Now silence broods with shadowy wings,
The watchful sentry's footfall rings,
'The soldier sleeps beneath the sky,
While night winds murmur lullaby.
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
i. When we attain the perfection to which Mr. Wesley
summoned us, to the great indignation of Mr. Toplady,
we shall no doubt be able to write perfect hymns. Dr.
Roberts had not yet attained perfection in the art of
writing verse, and his hymn is not free from faults.
That it begins with the same phrase as Kipling's " Re-
cessional " does, is a bit unfortunate, but no fault of
DR. DANIEL C. ROBERTS
I2 8 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMXS
Dr. Roberts, since Kipling's fine hymn was yet unwritten.
It is, however, a question whether the opening lines, with
their majestic figure of the Almighty leading forth the
processional of starry worlds, are quite lived up to In
the lines that follow. It may be Interesting to compare
the hymn in this respect with Mr. Chadwick's " Eternal
Ruler of the ceaseless round " (No. 351 in The Hymnal
revised), which opens with the same figure. And then, if
we are to sing a number of verses to the same tune, it is
plain that the accents or stresses of the voice should be
distributed uniformly, so that the emphasis In the music
and In the words should match throughout. Do any of
these lines fail in that respect, and. If so, which lines ?
The hymn is a metrical prayer, not very poetical and
hardly more eloquent than many an extemporized prayer
one might hear from the pulpit on patriotic occasions.
But it is devout and dignified and serviceable. It has
the heart of the matter In It. Mr. Warren's trumpets
call to the congregation, and the people respond gladly,
and not without a thrill " for God and country." Per-
haps we can hardly think of the hymn apart from Mr.
Warren's music. But then we do not have to.
2. Of all the hymns written for the centennial of
American Independence, this is the only one that appears
to have found a permanent place in our hymn books.
Attempts have been made to get a hearing for Whittier's
" Centennial Hymn," beginning,
Our fathers' God! from out whose hand
The centuries fall like grains of sand.
But his verses are so true to the particular occasion
for -which they were written that they are not easily
adapted to a more general use.
GOD OF OUR FATHERS, WHOSE ALMIGHTY HAND I2 g
3. The great World War made unexpected demands
upon our limited stock of patriotic songs. And it may
be a question still whether we have a full supply of good
hymns for the Fourth of July. If more are needed, it
might be worthwhile for anyone who has a copy of the
old Presbyterian Hymnal of 1874 to take a look at the
" Hymn for the Fourth of July, 1832," by the author of
" The Star-Spangled Banner," which begins,
Before the Lord we bow
The God who reigns above,
And rules the world below,
Boundless in power and love.
Meantime it is satisfactory to have Dr. Roberts' hymn to
commemorate the Centennial, alongside of Dr. Bacon's
" O God, beneath Thy guiding hand," commemorating
the Pilgrim Fathers, and Dr. Holmes' " Lord of hosts,
Almighty King! " commemorating the Civil War.
XII
HOW SWEET THE NAME OF JESUS SOUNDS
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
1 How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds
In a believer's ear!
It soothes Ms sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.
2 It makes the wounded spirit whole,
And calms the troubled breast;
J TIs Manna to the hungry soul,
And to the weary Rest.
3 Dear Name! the Rock on which I build,
My Shield and Hiding-place,
My never-failing Treasury, filled
With boundless stores of grace;
4 Jesus, my Shepherd, Brother, Friend,
My Prophet, Priest, and King,
My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End,
Accept the praise I bring.
5 Weak Is the effort of my heart,
And cold my warmest thought;
But when I see Thee as Thou art,
111 praise Thee as I ought.
6 Till then I would Thy love proclaim
With every fleeting breath;
And may the music of Thy Name
Refresh my soul in death.
Rev. John Newton, 1779
NOTE: The text is taken from the first edition of Newton's Olney
Hymns, 1779, with the omission of the original fourth verse and
the change of "Husband" to "Brother" in the fourth verse as
here numbered.
130
HOW SWEET THE NAME OF JESUS SOUNDS 131
When "good Lady Huntingdon" seceded from the
Church of England, a number of the clergy who had
helped her work felt it their duty to remain in the old
Church, although they knew very well that they were
not wanted. They formed themselves into that Evan-
gelical, or, as we usually call it, Low Church Party of
which we heard in connection with Mr. Toplady. These
men were Calvinistic in their theology, and claimed their
right to preach the gospel as they believed it, and also
to sing evangelical hymns in church as well as the met-
rical Psalms bound up with the prayer books. With not
much of a party organization, these Evangelicals tried
to carry on the revival, in London when they could, but
mostly in the isolation of their country parishes.
"OLNEY HYMNS"
The story of the hymn whose title heads this chapter
takes us into one of those country parishes, Olney, on the
bank of the river Ouse, in the county of Buckinghamshire.
The little town consisted mostly, and does yet, of one
street, widening into a market place; the most conspicu-
ous object being the parish church, with its ungraceful
spire. The town was not pretty, nor the people well-to-do
or well educated. Many pilgrims go to Olney nowadays
for the poet Cowper's sake. But what first carried its
name far and wide in England and America was nothing
other than a hymn book written there and called Olney
Hymns.
The pulpit of the parish church was filled by a bluff
and manly Evangelical, John Newton, whose looks and
ways brought a whiff of the sea. He had been a sailor,
and in 1764 was ordained and appointed a curate of the
parish, the vicar being of the absentee sort.
JOHN 3STEWTO3ST
SOW SWEET THE NAME OF JESUS SOUNDS 133
Newton's preaching began to fill the church, but he
gave special attention to young people's work and se-
cured permission to use Lord Dartmouth's empty man-
sion, the Great House. Here of a Thursday afternoon
he gathered the children, not for the usual catechism ex-
ercise, but to explain the Scriptures " in their own little
way." In the evenings he' had meetings for older people,
with extempore prayers and exhortation; and he intro-
duced the singing of hymns. All of which may seem
commonplace now; but it was quite enough then and
there to stamp the curate a " Methodist/' as the hard-
and-fast Churchman dubbed all Evangelicals. And one
at least of Newton's neighboring rectors refused to speak
to him when they passed.
It was for these revival meetings at the Great House
that Newton began to write hymns of his own, not ven-
turing as yet to displace the metrical Psalms from the
parish church services. And that is the reason most of
his hymns are so confined to personal spiritual experi-
ences. They have the anxious tone that a pastor's
preaching takes in time of revival. He wrote only one
great song of praise, the still familiar " Glorious things
of thee are spoken."
Newton was not a poet and did not pretend to be one.
" There is," he said, " a stile and manner suited to the
composition of hymns, which may be more successfully,
or at least more easily attained by a versifier, than by a
poet." He was writing for plain people, and made his
hymns so simple that these could follow and understand.
In all this he took his cue from Dr. Watts. Newton had
a ready pen, some imagination, deep feeling, a knowledge
of Scripture, and an urgent motive ; something else, also,
that we may best call the power of virility. And once
134 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
in a while, as in this hymn and in " Quiet, Lord, my fro-
ward heart/' he climbed nearer to the heights where poets
walk.
At one time Newton was writing a hymn every week
for his prayer meeting, where no doubt they were given
out verse by verse or even by couplets. By 1779 they
mounted up to two hundred and eighty, and that year he
gathered them with sixty-eight more by his friend and
neighbor, William Cowper, and published them at
London as
OLNEY HYMNS,
IN
THREE BOOKS.
Book I. On select Texts of SCRIPTURE.
Book II. On occasional SUBJECTS.
Book III. On the Progress and Changes
of the SPIRITUAL LIFE.
None of the hymns is dated. " How sweet the Name of
Jesus sounds " is No. 57 of " Book I. On select Texts of
Scripture." Its text is Solomon's Song, chapter 1 13 ; and
its title is The name of JESUS."
Olney Hymns is best understood as a revival hymn
book. In its day it had the same welcome and popularity
that Gospel Hymns of the Moody and Sankey revival had
in ours. But the books cannot be compared, since it was
the music of Gospel Hymns that won the day. Olney
Hymns had no tunes at all, but its hymns exactly met
the need of the Evangelical preachers and their converts.
It was the Evangelical theology put into rhyme for sing-
Ing, but even more for reading and remembering. It
became an Evangelical handbook, printed over and over
In England and America, and it exerted an immense in-
HOW SWEET THE NAME OP JESUS SOUNDS 135
fluence. The simple verses exercised over many minds
the fascination that nursery rhymes have for children.
The Roman Catholic hymn writer, Faber, speaks of their
acting like a spell upon him for many years in his Pro-
testant youth and coming back unbidden through Ms
Catholic years. And now that the career of Olney Hymns
is run, a few of its choicer strains survive among the
permanent treasures of the Church.
JOHN NEWTON'S ROMANTIC CAREER
The curate of Olney was a marked man ; not only be-
cause he was an Evangelical, but because he was " a man
with a past." He was one of those whom people point
to in the street with a nudge and a " Do you know about
him?" This was due to the startling disclosure of his
experiences he published just after coming to Olney as
" The authentic Narrative " of his life. It was a record
of debauchery, and it would be hard for one man to
paint an enemy as black as Newton painted himself
in that book.
He was born in London in July, 1725, of a godly
mother who lived long enough to make a religious im-
pression upon his childish heart. His father was captain
of a merchantman in the Mediterranean trade ; a severe,
silent man, of whom the boy was rather afraid. At the
age of eleven lie was taken from school, and went to sea
with his father on half a dozen voyages. The boy plainly
was hot-blooded, willful, and " irregular " in his conduct.
But he was far from passing these years without
" troublesome convictions " and religious experiences.
" I think I took up and laid aside a religious profession
three or four times before I was sixteen years of age; but
I 3 6 STUDIES OP FAMILIAR HYMNS
all this while my heart was insincere. I often saw a
necessity of religion as a means of escaping hell ; but I
loved sin, and was unwilling to forsake it." His " last
reform" was the most remarkable; a year or more of
prayer and Scripture-reading covering " the greatest part
of every day." As far as shipboard conditions would per-
mit, he became an ascetic, avoiding conversation, eating
no meat, and " bemoaning his former miscarriages."
It may all have been mistaken, but it does not sound
" insincere," as Newton called it. Surely to persevere
in such a course in face of a jeering crew and of the
temptations of southern ports shows a certain strength of
character. It left Newton dull and disheartened, and an
easy victim to some skeptical literature that fell in his
way. Before long he had lost all sense of religious real-
ity. He became an utter skeptic, " an infidel," as he
said ; and with " the way prepared for all that is to
follow."
Returning from a voyage to Venice in 1743, he was
impressed on board a warship, but through his father's
influence rated a midshipman. He deserted, was caught,
brought back to Plymouth in chains, publicly flogged, and
degraded to the rank of a common seaman. His disgrace,
which he thought undeserved, embittered and hardened
Mm. Quite reckless now, he plunged, according to his
own testimony, into a career of degrading debauchery and
moral shamelessness, and, "like one infected with a
pestilence, was capable of spreading a taint wherever I
went."
He effected an exchange from the warship, glad to be
rid of Mm, into a slave ship bound for the coast of
Africa: his thought being that there he could "be as
abandoned as I pleased, without any control." He en-
HOW SWEET THE NAME OF JESUS SOUNDS 137
tered the service of a slave trader in one of the Plantane
.Islands, was treated with abominable cruelty and neglect,
and went down into a depth of physical degradation
where even most of the Negro slaves refused any dealings
with him.
In the end he got word to his father, and was rescued
by a vessel commissioned to look out for him. On the
way home he encountered a violent storm and was almost
lost. In the stress a review of his past life brought him
to shame, and from shame to prayer. He started out
deliberately to rediscover the grounds of faith in the
Gospels he had become accustomed to laugh over; and
step by step he went forward toward the reality and as-
surance of faith. He reached England in May, 1748, a
Christian by conviction, though still feeling his way.
Through all these wander-years Newton carried two
talismans, a boy's memory of his mother and a man's
love for a young girl he had left behind him in England.
On his return the girl married Mm with a heroic trust,
one would think. In seeking a livelihood Newton's new
convictions did not prevent his entering the slave trade.
The moral standards of the time had not yet condemned
It. He made two voyages to Africa and the West Indies,
and only an attack of apoplexy prevented a third.
He was appointed tide surveyor at Liverpool in 1755,
and held the post several years. There he came under
the direct influence of Whitefield and the Evangelical
Revival. He carried on his studies (even at his lowest he
had never wholly foregone them), began to preach oc-
casionally as a lay evangelist, and felt the call to enter
the ministry. He wavered between the established and
dissenting churches, and chose the established. But he
could not find in all England a bishop willing to ordain
138 STUDIES OP FAMILIAR HYMNS
him, until Lord Dartmouth came to his rescue. Dart-
mouth was Secretary of State in charge of America,
friendly to the colonies, and after him our Dartmouth
College was named. He was at the same time an Evan-
gelical and a liberal helper of Lady Huntingdon. He
made new interest in high quarters and secured Newton's
ordination on agreeing to appoint him to the curacy of
Olney, Newton " was too much in earnest about religion
to be readily entrusted with a commission to teach it,
**v
^
Ij JU,
U@j
A PASSAGE FROM AN AUTOGRAPH LETTER
except as a matter of favour to a great man: " so Sir
George Otto Trevelyan remarks in his delightful book,
The American Revolution. It is possible also that
Newton's record seemed very " irregular " to the bishops.
In his own heart that record was indelible. He be-
came a faithful pastor, at Olney for nearly sixteen years,
and at St. Mary Woolnoth, London, for twenty-eight
more.* He became a leader of the Evangelical Party,
loved and trusted. But in his own heart, and on his own
* "My race at Olney is nearly finished; I am about to form a
connection for life with one Mary Woolnoth, a respected London
saint in Lombard Street." (Newton to Bull, Sept. 21, 1779.)
HOW SWEET THE NAME OF JESUS SOUNDS 139
tongue, to the end of his life, he was always " the old
African blasphemer." Was he really called upon, we
sometimes ask, to publish that Narrative and continually
to blacken a good name fairly won? He thought so.
He was the living proof that God could save even to the
uttermost. And he thought he was called upon to give
his testimony In plain terms and at any cost.
Into his hymns also Newton's experiences are written
deep. One day, when Ms memory was almost gone, he
said, " I can never forget two things : first, that I was a
great sinner, and, second, that Jesus is a great Saviour."
The first memory explains an undertone of sadness In the
hymns : the second explains why he wrote " How sweet
the Name of Jesus sounds."
Newton lived to be eighty-two, and died December
21, 1807. He was buried beneath his church of St. Mary
Woolnoth, and a tablet was placed on the church wall
with a touching Inscription prepared by himself:
JOHN NEWTON
CLERK,
ONCE AN INFIDEL AND LIBERTINE,
A SERVANT OF SLAVES IN AFRICA,
WAS,
BY THE RICH MERCY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR
JESUS CHRIST,
PRESERVED, RESTORED, PARDONED,
AND APPOINTED TO PREACH THE FAITH
HE HAD LONG LABOURED TO DESTROY.
HE MINISTERED
NEAR XVI. YEARS AS CURATE AND VICAR
OF OLNEY IN BUCKS,
AND XXVIII. AS RECTOR
OF THESE UNITED PARISHES.
140 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
In 1893 the excavations for the London underground
railway disturbed the church vaults; and Newton's re-
mains were removed and reburied in the churchyard at
Olney.
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
1. The Daily Service book of the Roman Catholic
Church has an office for the " Feast of the Most Holy
Name of Jesus." It includes two parts of one of the
most beautiful of Latin hymns, " Jesu, dulcis memoria."
The Rev. Samuel W. Duffield, a Presbyterian lover of
Latin hymns, thought it probable that these verses of
Newton on the Name of Jesus are " an echo or para-
phrase " of the Latin original. One wishes he had said
why he thought so. Eighteenth century Evangelicals
were not much interested in Latin hymns. But in this
matter we have the materials at hand on which to base
our own conclusion. Good translations of both parts of
the Latin hymn are in The Hymnal revised: " Jesus, the
very thought of Thee " (No. 545) and " O Jesus, King
most wonderful 3J (No. 144). Is there any similarity be-
tween these and Newton's hymn ?
2. As originally written, " How sweet the Name of
Jesus sounds " had seven verses. The weakest of these
is omitted from The Hymnal revised; the original fourth
verse. It ran,
"By thee my pray'rs acceptance gain,
Altho* with sin defii'd:
Satan accuses me in vain,
And I am own'd a child."
Is the hymn better without this verse, or should it be
restored ?
HOW SWEET THE NAME >OF JESUS SOUNDS 141
3. There is also a change of one word from the original
text of the first line of the present fourth verse, which
read,
" Jesus ! My Shepherd, Husband, Friend."
We all dislike such changes from what an author wrote.
But if men are to go to church at all, how can they ad-
dress Christ as their husband? Was it not the Church
rather than the individual Christian that was described
as the Bride of Christ?
4. In singing the first verse we have to pronounce
" wounds " in such a way that the rhyme with " sounds "
may be preserved. It is no great hardship, as Shakspeare,
Marlowe, and Pope did the same thing habitually. In
other connections it may be best to conform to recent
usage by pronouncing the word as woond.
XIII
GOD MOVES IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
i God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
a Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.
3 Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head*
4 Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.
5 His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.
6 Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own Interpreter,
And He will make it plain.
William Cowper, 1774
NOTE: The text is taken from John Newton's Twenty-six Letters
on religious subjects, London, 1774: from which book the hymn
passed into Olney Hymns of 1779 without change.
142
GOD MOVES IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY I43
The names of John Newton, curate of Olney, and his
neighbor, William Cowper, poet and author of this hymn,
join together as naturally as If they were partners in a
firm of " Newton and Cowper/ 7 Their lives were knit in
one of the historic friendships. And they were indeed
literary partners as joint authors of Olney Hymns, the
famous hymn book of the Evangelical Party in the
Church of England. Newton was the senior partner, and
it was only after the dissolution of the firm that the
junior partner became famous.
HOW THE POET CAME TO OLNEY
William Cowper (he pronounced it Cooper) was born
in the rectory of Berkhampstead in November, 1731.
Left motherless when only six, he was sent to boarding
school, and never forgot what he endured there from a
big bully. He was taken away on account of eye trouble,
and at the age of ten placed in the Westminster School
at London. He said afterwards that he left school as
ignorant of religion as the satchel at his back, but in that
he was very like many other boys. He was articled
to an attorney in whose office he idled away
" three misspent years. 5 ' At the age of twenty-one he
entered the Temple as a regular student of law ; not be-
cause he had any drawing to that profession, but to please
his father. He came of a legal family, his father being
brother of a judge and nephew of a lord chancellor. He
was admitted to the bar in 1754.
The young lawyer made no attempt to practice. He
made his office a gathering place of young wits. He
kept up his classics, began to write verse, and sought
gayety. He fell in love, first with his cousin Theodora,,
144 STUDIES OP FAMILIAR HYMNS
whose father interposed, and again with a girl of Green-
wich ; but his ardor cooled. If his life seems idle, it was
perhaps busy in trying to forget himself. For he was
already in the grip of the saddest of human ailments,
brain disease. As soon as he began to live alone in the
Temple, it showed itself. Gradually he lapsed into dread-
ful depression. " Bay and night I was upon the rack,
lying down in horror and rising up in despair."
After a year of it he taught himself to pray, and com-
posed a little liturgy. On recovering his spirits he threw
the liturgy into the fire and relapsed into careless ways.
Meantime he was using up the little money he had. His
prospects at the bar were so hopeless that in his thirty-
second year a relative got him an appointment to a clerk-
ship in the House of Lords. Some difficulties arose, and
the dread of having to stand a public examination so
wrought upon him that he lost his reason and made sev-
eral attempts to kill himself.
These left behind an unutterable anguish and the firm
conviction that he was sentenced already to eternal
damnation ; as he wrote,
Damned below Judas; more abhorred than lie was,
Who for a few pence sold his holy Master:
and so through those dreadful lines in which he envies
the fate of the dead consigned to perdition, while he,
fed with judgment, is buried above ground in a fleshly
tomb. Visions and voices haunted him ; an awful dark-
ness fell ; heavy blows of some great hammer beat upon
the brain ; body and soul writhed in pain. Cowper was
insane. There was nothing to do but to send him to an
asylum at St. Albans.
After eight months of despair the light began to glim-
146 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
mer during a visit of Ms brother. Deliriums and delu-
sions weakened, and he caught glimpses of God's mercy.
Opening the Bible at Rom. 3:25 one day, " Immediately
I received strength to believe, and the full beams of the
Sun of Righteousness shone upon me." In that inward
radiance he was content to spend a year of convalescence
at St. Albans. 9
When Cowper left the asylum and took the lodgings
at Huntingdon his brother had provided, he needed surely
the inward comfort of his new evangelical faith. For
outward things were pretty forlorn. He was thirty-three ;
he had failed in his profession, was dependent upon his
relatives, was separated from all his friendships, and
was, to put it gently, an invalid. Happily he found new
friends in the Rev. Mr. Unwin and his family. They
agreed to take Cowper into their cheerful home, where
he lived contentedly with them until Mr. Unwin's sudden
death in 1767. It is interesting to note in passing Cow-
pers references to the family custom of gathering to sing
cut of the new hymn book of the Rev. Martin
iladan, one of the Evangelical leaders; because they
show one of the ways in which the new Evangelical
hymns were insinuating themselves into Church of Eng-
land households to supplement the metrical Psalms they
were expected to use at church.
After Unwin's death there happened one of those seem-
ingly casual incidents that change the course of men's
lives. It was nothing more than a call of condolence
from the Rev. John Newton, curate of Olney. Cowper
had made up his mind to continue living with Mrs. Un-
win, ic whose behavior to me has been that of a mother
to a son." And now both were so much drawn to New-
ton that they decided to move to Olney for the sake of
GOD MOVES IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY I47
being under his ministry. At their request he engaged
for them a house in the market place of that town, then
called " Orchard Side " and now kept up as the Cowper
and Newton Museum.
THE POET'S SHARE IN " OLNEY HYMNS "
Only an orchard lay between the gardens of Newton's
vicarage and the house he chose for Cowper. They made
an opening in the vicarage wall ; they wore a path across
the orchard; and they joined their hearts and lives in
THE COWPER AND NEWTON MUSEUM, OLNEY
an inseparable friendship. Newton thoroughly appreci-
ated Cowper, loved him tenderly, and no doubt in his
own way tried to protect that sensitive nature against
its own infirmity. Naturally he saw the importance of
keeping Cowper's mind occupied, but he would not have
been the fervent Evangelical he was if he had not made
his friend's gift contribute to the work that absorbed his
own energies. He engaged Cowper in visiting the sick
and dying, persuaded him to lead the extempore prayers
at the evening meetings, and to write hymns to be sung
148 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
there after the sermon. It was for the occasion of re-
moving those meetings to the larger room of the Great
House that Cowper furnished his " Jesus, where'er Thy
people meet."
Other hymns express plainly Cowper's own experi-
ences ; now cheerful, as in " Sometimes a Light sur-
prises"; now retrospective, as he recalls that sudden
radiance upon the text in Romans,
The Spirit breathes upon the word,
And brings the truth to sight;
now regretful of the fading of the joy fulness of those
latter days at St. Albans,
Where Is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
and now in the depths of despondency,
My former hopes are dead,
My terror now begins;
I feel, alas! that I am dead
In trespasses and sins.
For again the shadows were closing in. It may be that
the revival atmosphere at Olney was too highly charged
for Cowper. It may be that Newton was unwise in
asking for those agitating public appearances at the
Great House. It may be merely that Cowper's disease
was approaching an inevitable outbreak. Whatever the
occasion may have been, the visions and voices came
back; black melancholy settled down. The voices told
Cowper that God demanded his life in sacrifice, and once
more he attempted suicide.
With that catastrophe the hymn we are now studying
is closely connected. It was the last, and has been gen-
GOD MOVES IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY I49
erally regarded as the outcome of the attempt at suicide.
That was in October, 1773. Since The Hymnal was
first printed, some new evidence as to its date has come
to light. The writer is at present disposed to think it
was written toward the end of 1772 or very early in 1773.
This date gives added probability to the substantial ac-
curacy of the statement in the Rev. Samuel Greatheed's
funeral sermon that Cowper " conceived some presenti-
ment " of the attack of insanity, and that " as it drew
near, during a solitary walk in the fields," he composed
this hymn " so expressive of that faith and hope which he
attained so long as he possessed himself." Newton tes-
tifies that even in the midst of his distress and fore-
boding, and up to the date of the " terrible dream " that
broke his heart early in 1773, Cowper often expressed
his submission to God's sovereignty, and said that God
was trying him only for the purpose of bringing about
some good thing.
Cowper's attack put an end to his hymn-writing. And
it is only with Cowper the hymn writer we have here to
deal. He was to recover from this attack and to spend
years of comparative peace of mind and of poetic achieve-
ment before the last onset of insanity ending only with
his death in 1800. Cowper was over fifty years of age
when he published his first volume of poems, and one
likes to think of the fame he won as some compensation
for the sorrows he endured. It was perhaps out of his
sorrows he wrought that tender grace of his verse which
keeps it still alive when the work of his contemporary
poets lies so dead and forgotten. In all his serious poetry
Cowper aimed to be the " poet of Christianity." And It
was the Christianity of the Evangelical Revival; Chris-
tianity as accepted and taught by the Evangelical Party
150 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
in the Church of England. His poems have Indeed (quite
recently) been described as " Methodism In verse."
Cowper's hymns, with very few exceptions, were first
put into print by John Newton. This particular one he
printed in Ms Twenty-six Letters on religious subjects
in 1774. It was copied Into The Gospel Magazine for
July of the same year. In that year also It began its
career in the hymn books, being included in the " Col-
lection " of the Rev. Mr. Conyers, another of the Evan-
gelical Party. Its place in the affections of the Church
it has never lost.
The hymn appeared again In Olney Hymns of 1779,
with all the others Cowper had written before the attack
of 1773. Newton explains the situation in a preface.
It is odd that so many readers of books always skip the
preface, generally the most human part of a book.
Newton's Is quite touching. "The whole number [of
hymns] were composed by two persons only. The orig-
inal design would not admit of any other association."
The book " was Intended as a monument, to perpetuate
the remembrance of an Intimate and endeared friendship.
With this pleasing view I entered upon my part, which
would have been much smaller than it is, and the book
would have appeared much sooner, and in a very different
form, If the wise, though mysterious providence of God,
had not seen fit to cross my wishes. We had not pro-
ceeded far upon our proposed plan, before my dear
friend was prevented, by a long and affecting indisposi-
tion, from affording me any further assistance. My grief
and disappointment were great ; I hung my harp upon the
willows, and for some time thought myself determined
to proceed no further without Mm. Yet my mind was
afterwards led to assume the service. My progress in
GOD MOVES IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY 153;
it, amidst a variety of other engagements, has been slow,
yet in a course of years the hymns amounted to a consid-
erable number. And my deference to the judgment and
desires of others, has at length overcome the reluctance
I long felt to see them in print, while I had so few of my
friend's hymns to insert in the collection."
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
i. When the earlier series of these studies was gathered
into a book, a reviewer of it began by saying, " No great
poet has ever written a hymn." His remark suggests
several interesting topics for discussion, (i) Is there
any more ground for expecting a great poet to write a
hymn, simply because poems and hymns are both in
verse, than there is for expecting a great novelist to write
a sermon, simply because novels and sermons are both
in prose? (2) Is it not probable that most great poets
would be glad to write a great hymn? Poets like recog-
nition and crave immortality. Is not the vision of multi-
tudes singing their words for years and perhaps for cen-
turies likely to appeal to them? (3) Are all great poets
able to write great hymns ? Some of them cannot even
write a good song. But to write a good hymn requires
much more than a lyrical gift. When Dr. Jowett appealed
to Lord Tennyson to write " a few hymns in a high
strain," that great poet replied by saying that " to write a
good hymn was the most difficult thing in the world."
(4) But when all is said, some great and many eminent
poets have in fact written hymns. Among English poets
the names of Ben Jonson, Milton, Wordsworth, Scott,
Tennyson, and Kipling, come to mind at once ; and on this
side of the water those of Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier,
152 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Lowell, and Holmes. Some have written whole books of
hymns: Bryant in this country, and in England not only
Cowper but the present poet laureate, Dr. Bridges, who
has even compiled a parish hymn book.
2. It would be a mistake to infer that because all of
Cowper's sixty-eight Olney hymns were written by a
poet they are all equally good. They are all spiritual
and refined, and quite a number have proved useful.
Some others seem like taskwork, and were perhaps writ-
ten at Newton's request, to follow particular sermons of
his in the Great House. The most famous of them is
" There is a fountain filled with blood," in great favor
among the older Evangelicals. Now it has become the
fashion to criticize the imagery of its first verse as dis-
tasteful and not correctly interpreting Scripture.
Many would select as Cowper's best hymns, besides the
one we are studying :
" Hark, my soul, it Is the Lord ! "
" O for a doser walk with God "
" Sometimes a Light surprises "'
" Jesus, where'er Thy people meet "
with (for private use)
"Far from the world, Lord, I flee."
3. In Olney Hymns, " God moves in a mysterious way "
is Number XV of the third " Book," Its title as there
given is,
" C. Light shining out of darkness."
The " C " stands for Cowper's authorship, and the rest
stands just as appropriately for his own experience. The
text in The Hymnal revised is printed without change.
Professor John E. B. Mayor lately found a commonplace
GOD MOVES IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY 153
book apparently in the handwriting of Cowper's first
cousin, Maria, who married another cousin. Major Wil-
liam Cowper. It contains copies of letters and verses of
Cowper and the fifth verse of this hymn ends :
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But wait to smell the flower.
Of the two readings, which is the better?
XIV
ALL HAIL THE POWER OF JESUS' NAME
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
1 All hail the power o Jesus' Name!
Let angels prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem,
And crown Him Lord of all.
2 Crown Him, ye morning stars of light,
Who fixed this floating ball;
Now hail the strength of Israel's might,
And crown Him Lord of all.
3 Crown Him, ye martyrs of your God
Who from His altar call;
Extol the Stem of Jesse's rod,
And crown Him Lord of all.
4 Ye seed of Israel's chosen race,
Ye ransomed of the fall,
Hail Him who saves you by His grace,
And crown Him Lord of all.
5 Sinners, whose love can ne'er forget
The wormwood and the gall,
Gp, spread your trophies at His feet,
And crown Him Lord of all.
6 Let every kindred, every tribe,
On this terrestrial ball,
To Him all majesty ascribe,
And crown Him Lord of all.
ALL HAIL THE POWER OF JESUS' NAME 15S
7 O that with yonder sacred throng
We at His feet may fall;
Well join the everlasting song,
And crown Him Lord o all.
Rev. Edward Perronet, 1779-80: verse i, line 4 altered, verse
6 recast, verse 7 added by Rev. John Rippon, 1787
NOTE: The text of the hymn found in modern hymnals is based
upon the altered form which Dr. John Rippon gave it in his Baptist
Selection of Hymns from the best Authors published in 1787. The
text from The Hymnal revised, as given above, is an attempt to
embody as much of the original text as seemed practicable without
causing confusion in congregations used to Rippon's arrangement.
As the original text is hard to come upon, it may be convenient
to have it here as printed by Perronet himself in Ms Occasional
Verses, moral and sacred, of 1785.
ON THE RESURRECTION.
i
ALL hail the power of JESU's name I
Let Angels prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem,
To crown Him LORD of All.
n
Let high-born Seraphs tune the lyre,
And, as they tune it, fall
Before His face who tunes their choir,
And crown Him LORD of All.
m
Crown Him, ye morning stars of light,
Who fix'd this floating ball;
Now haH the strength of ISRAEL'S might,
And crown Him LORD of All.
IV
Crown Him, ye martyrs of your GOD,
Who from His ALTAR call;
Extol the stem of JESSE's rod,
And crown Him LORD of All.
I S 6 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Ye seed of ISRAEL'S chosen race.
Ye ransom'd of the fall,
Hail Him who saves you by His grace,
And crown Him LORD of All
VI
Hail Him, ye heirs of DAVID's line,
Whom David LORD did call;
The GOD incarnate, man DIVINE;
And crown Him LORD of All
SINNERS! whose love can ne'er forget
The WORMWOOD and the GALL,
Go spread your trophies at His feet,
And crown Him LORD of All.
vm
Let every tribe, and every tongue,
That bound creation's call,
Now shout in universal song,
THE CROWNED LORD OF ALL!
If one had a hymn or even a tune to contribute to the
common stock In the later years of the Evangelical Re-
vival, he sent it in to The Gospel Magazine, which had
become the organ of the Calvinists. (It was there that
Toplady in 1776 printed his " Rock of Ages.") But it
was not quite the thing to sign your name to your hymn.
You gave a pen name, or perhaps none,
The Magazine for November, 1779, contained a tune
engraved in copperplate, to which was set a verse
beginning
"AH hail the Pow'r of Jesu's Name."
One verse and no more. And not a sign as to who com-
ALL HAIL THE POWER OF JESUS' NAME IS y
posed the tune or wrote the words. We know now that the
composer was William Shrubsole, a young man of nine-
teen who had been a choir boy at the cathedral at Can-
terbury, and at the time was in London as a chapel
organist. Shrubsole's tune at once attracted attention.
That would naturally lead to inquiries for the remainder
of the hymn. And in the April number of 1780 the whole
hymn appeared in eight verses, with a footnote referring
back to the tune, but without any clue as to the author.
WHO WROTE THE HYMN?
The editor of the Magazine must have been asked that
question. If he knew, he did not publish his knowledge,
and the authorship of the hymn remained a good deal of
a puzzle for more than sixty years. It may be interest-
ing now to arrange the pieces of the puzzle.
(i) In 1785 a little book appeared in London as Oc-
casional Verses, moral and sacred. Published for the
instruction and amusement of the candidly serious and
religious. These productions, the preface says, "were
not originally intended for public view, but occasionally
shewn to a handful of friends " : one of whom has per-
suaded the author " to admit of their being made public 7J
by his hands as " editor."
Among these verses, at page 22, is the hymn
"All hail the power of JESU's name!"
with the same text as in The Gospel Magazine five years
earlier. To know the author of the book, then, was to
find the writer of the hymn. But the book was not pub-
lished and circulated by the book trade. It was printed
privately " for the editor " ; and outside the circle of the
author's friends was very likely not even heard of.
158 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
(2) The hymn itself, however, had appeared In the
Magazine at a time when Independents and Baptists had
been singing Dr. Watts's hymns a long while, and were
looking out for fresh hymns to add to them. As early as
1784 George Burder had taken this hymn into his Col-
lection of Hymns intended as a Supplement to Dr.
Watts's Psalms and Hymns. But he did not give the
names of the authors of any of the hymns.
(3) In 1787 Dr. Rippon published his notable " Selec-
tion " as an Appendix to Dr. Watts. He included this
hymn, with some changes and a new verse. He was a
painstaking editor and sought to give the authors' names.
But in this hymn he left a blank for the author's name,
which evidently he did not know.
(4) In an edition of a hymn book called Select Hymns
and Anthems, printed at Tunbridge- Wells about 1790,
appeared a curious variation or revision of the hymn,
beginning
" All hail ! the powers of Jesus' grace.
Let angels prostrate fall:
Bring forth the royal diadem,
And crown him, Lord of all."
This was by " T. B." Now who was T. B.? Were these
the initials of the original author, now presenting a re-
vised version of his hymn? Or was T. B. a plagiarist,
appropriating for his own materials that no one else had
claimed? Neither the present writer nor his correspond-
ents in England have been able to identify " T. B."
(5) In 1801 two Independent clergymen, Messrs. Wil-
liams and Boden, published A Collection of Six Hundred
Hymns to supplement Watts. They copied this hymn
from Rippon's book, but they filled Rippon's blank with
" PERRONETT " as the author's name.
ALL HAIL THE POWER OF JESUS' NAME T $g
(6) John DobelFs New Selection of 1806 won a great
success. In it he printed " All hail " with some changes.
He gave the author's name as " Duncan." The Rev.
John Duncan was a Scottish Presbyterian and one of
four friends of Dobell who prefixed their " Recommenda-
tion " to his hymn book. Maybe Dr. Duncan had made
a revised text of the hymn for his own use, and gave a
manuscript copy to Dobell, who thought it Duncan's
own. For some reason Duncan never had his own name
erased in later editions of D obeli's book. And so a tradi-
tion arose that " All hail " was written by " Duncan."
Among Dr. Duncan's own descendants the tradition
merged into an established truth. On the strength of
DobelPs authority, even the enlarged edition of Rippon's
book, as late as 1844, inserted Duncan's name where
Rippon himself had left a blank.
(7) In 1808 Thomas Young published his Beauties of
Dr. Watts, &c. Young is said to have been the immedi-
ate successor of the Rev. Edward Perronet as pastor of
a small dissenting congregation at Canterbury. It is
further said that Young in his book attributes this
hymn to his predecessor and also quotes from Occasional
Verses of 1785 several pieces as Perronet's. The writer
has a copy of Beauties of Dr. Watts, but not apparently
the same book here referred to. He does not question
these facts, but they are not within his knowledge. They
seem to show that Young acted on personal or at least
local information in ascribing this poem to Edward Per-
ronet. His ascription certainly attracted little attention
at the time.
(8) The hymn "All hail " came over to this country
in copies of Dr. Rippon's hymn book of 1787, brought
or sent here ; the book itself being reprinted in New York
i6o
STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
as early as 1792. And thus the hymn came with a blank
space for the author's name. It caught the eye of Oliver
Holden, a business man of Charlestown, Massachusetts,
who was a self-taught musician and quite successful in
composing hymn tunes in the florid style then in vogue.
R"*
H'4
\m.
f'F'lf f-p H '" I'i'-^r^ ^T;
|/.|)/ f |ti:,f,w^$|^
|fi f ,v I- | r ;,^||;
hllf-1^::^"-!-
THE ORGAN AT WHICH " CORONATION " WAS COMPOSED
He composed his jubilant " Coronation " for this hymn,
and printed it in his Union Harmony, an oblong tune
book in two volumes, published at Boston in 1793. From
Holden's own copy, with the original copyright certificate
pasted in, the present writer quotes the heading of the
tune: "Coronation. C. M. Words by the Rev. Mr.
ALL HAIL THE POWER OF JESUS' NAME I 6 I
Medley." Samuel Medley was one of The Gospel Maga-
zine circle of hymn writers. But why Holden selected
him for this honor is not clear. Nor is it important, as
Holden did not start a Medley tradition.
(9) The hymn came anew to this country in Dobell's
hymn book, reprinted here in 1810. With it came Dun-
can's name as author ; and here the " Duncan " tradition
gained new currency. So that when the time came around
for American Presbyterians and Congregationalists to
make hymn books of their own, it was as the hymn of
" Duncan " that " All hail " went into them one by one.
Not that any of the editors had the least idea who or
what " Duncan " was.
(10) The Evangelical Magazine for December, 1858,
had a rather teasing communication from "J. K." of
Stepney, who seems to have met a son of one of Edward
Perronet's Canterbury friends. " We have before us,"
he says, " the hymn, All hail, &c./ on a card printed
about 50 years since, at Canterbury, for the use of a
Sunday-school in that city, to which is appended the
following notice of the author, ' The Rev. Edward Per-
ronet died at Canterbury, January 2, 1792.' " [His dying
words follow.]
" This is evidential," as the spiritualists say. But the
date is vague, and did the card say it was printed at
Canterbury, or did J. K's friend say that it was? J. K.
adds that " the copy of c Occasional Verses 7 " " now be-
fore us was presented by Mr. Perronet himself to the late
Mrs. Gellatly." But was the book so " autographed by
the author " ? Or was this only the remembered state-
ment of " the late Mrs. Gellatly " ?
(n) In 1892 Dr. Julian's great Dictionary of Hymnol-
ology appeared. The annotator of this hymn is assured of
C 39 3
O N
"L E E P.
EMBLtEM of death I as Is it? conch the ?s
D<wm'3 to contain the GwtrJ anJ tht -7/vsv
Where ilccp rcclin'd, the // '* sf:v / i/ **
Alike to*amVd<Jfyu9ffer'J en Ijecnr* ;
P.efcrTd alike m that <!rea! hour tn uske,
2>eftla*d to Hand and each their A'iive tftke.
Feace ta tlte A^f wblle Judgmens m.^ks the fijUr,
Ere yet arrai^a'il securing* and accurrt.
Rals'ii from *lwr bed, to wn,p In ikep o ii>ie,
Keviv'd sbef gaz-e, aatl errtt>ty a^nc.
Oh^ fata! ileep ! shat thus aw lt kM to wre,
"Ho longer afe no longer tft lhai' kuc-A !
E'en Arr# * fcretaile of that ktcr.es ;?<v ',
THE POWER OF DIVINE VENGEANCE,,
W
T'*ie p
Before
I.
for fia 0u!l death dcmtn.f,
Wfco cam before His jJf rnent ftand !
tsoaJ the mli^htj fall,
IL
THE SOLUTI02ST OF THE PUZZLE AS TO AUTHORSHIP
ALL HAIL THE POWER OF JESUS 3 NAME 163
Perronet's authorship. But apparently he had not heard
of J. K. The only actual proofs he offers are (a) that one
piece in Occasional Verses is dedicated to the memory
of Vincent Perronet, who was Edward's father, and others
" apparently to various members of his family, who are
indicated by their initials only "; and (b) that the copy
of Occasional Verses in the British Museum is bound up
with two poetical pamphlets, one of them bearing Per-
ronet's signature, while the other " may also be ascribed
to him with certainty,"
(12) When the writer began to prepare this study he
examined' the grounds of his own faith in Perronet's au-
thorship of " All hail." " Is the evidence of it complete
and satisfying? " he asked himself. He had to acknowl-
edge that it was not.
The writer made up his mind to examine his copy of
Occasional Verses minutely for some further clue of
authorship. This he did without result up to page 201.
There he found that the verses in memory of C. P. and
D. P. were acrostics. The first letter of each line of the
former, read downward, spelled Charles Perronet, and
those of the second spelled Damaris Perronet Edward's
brother and sister. Then the writer knew what further
to look for, and found it on page 39 ; an acrostic reveal-
ing Edward Perronet's own name.
This little discovery seems to settle the matter finally.
Perronet acknowledged his authorship of the book and
the hymn in his own way. Doubtless he did not expect
to wait one hundred and twenty-six years for his ac-
knowledgement to be discovered.
We can now see easily enough how things happened
as they did. Shrubsole was living in the same city of
Canterbury as Perronet, and was no doubt one of the
1 64 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
friends to whom Perronet showed or gave a manuscript
copy of his hymn. Shrubsole liked it and set it to music
which he sent to The Gospel Magazine for publication.
And when the remainder of the hymn was asked for he
turned In his own copy or got one from the author, .
THE AUTHOR OF THE HYMN
There was probably no Church of England clergyman
whom the Wesleys relied on so much as Vincent Perro-
net, Vicar of Shoreham, in Kent. He was a gentle and
studious saint, son of a French refugee and retaining the
French charm of manner. His son Edward, born in
1721, was brought up in the Church and fully intended
to enter Its ministry, but, under the influence of the
Wesleys, became a Methodist traveling preacher. He
started out at once to accompany Charles Wesley on a
preaching tour. " He got a deal of abuse thereby, and
not a little dirt," Charles said, " both which he took
very patiently."
Perronet seems to have been a bold and successful
preacher and a man of undoubted piety. But he was
Impulsive and restless under the control of the Wesleys,
and soon began to make trouble for them. Visiting from
house to house he would criticize them, especially their
refusal to allow their preachers to administer the sacra-
ments. He developed an acrid antipathy to the Church
of England, and in 1756 published a satire in verse, The
Mitre, ridiculing episcopal government and priestly pre-
tension. It was a grief to his father and a serious matter
for the Wesleys. And among them they persuaded Per-
ronet to suppress it. He must have given away some
copies, for a few still survive,
ALL SAIL TEE POWER OF JESUS 9 NAME j^
Later he left the Methodists and became a preacher
in the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion. But she,
too, remonstrated against Ms bitterness toward the
Church. He left her and became pastor of a small dis-
senting meeting in Canterbury, where he preached until
his death on January 8, 1792. He was buried in the
cloister of the famous cathedral.
And so closed obscurely just such a career as may be
worked out by a good man of no commanding gifts, with
an irascible temper, an impatience of authority, and a
touch of bitterness that grows with " not being under-
stood." His hymn is the one achievement of his life. It
breaks through the crusty manner of an unappreciated
and disappointed man, and reveals him as one that had
" such exalted views of the Lord Jesus, and so completely
enthroned Him in his thoughts and affections."
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
1. In The Gospel Magazine the hymn was entitled
" On the Resurrection. The Lord is King.' 7 Hence the
opening " All hail " : the risen Lord's salutation on the
resurrection morning according to Matt. 28:9. And
the angels were first to proclaim him. But is the hymn
really an appropriate Easter hymn?
2. This hymn is a religious song rather than a religious
poem. Its structure makes it very monotonous to read.
But its structure makes it also very effective for singing ;
each verse beginning afresh and mounting to the full-
chorded refrain. Perhaps no other hymn is quite so
jubilant and triumphant. It has become very dear to
the heart of the Church, and, if sung reverently, can
hardly fail to warm that heart. It is of course possible
1 66 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
to use it, like firecrackers, for the sake of making a noise
at a festival.
3. A strain from Shrubsole's tune (it has long been
called " Miles Lane 3J ) is carved on his tombstone at
Bunhill Fields, London. A verse of the hymn is engraved
on Oliver Holden's tomb in the old Burying Ground at
Charlestown. In England the hymn has been inseparable
from Shrubsole's tune. In this country it has been in-
separable from Holden's. Both tunes are printed in The
Hymnal revised. Both are a part of the history of the
hymn ; and having both we are at liberty to choose be-
tween them.
XV
O GOD OF BETHEL, BY WHOSE HAND
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
1 O God of Bethel, by whose hand
Thy people still are fed,
Who through this weary pilgrimage
Hast all our fathers led,
2 Our vows, our prayers, we now present
Before Thy throne of grace;
God o our fathers, be the God
Of their succeeding race.
3 Through each perplexing path of life
Our wandering footsteps guide
Give us each day our daily bread,
And raiment nt provide.
4 O spread Thy covering wings around
Till all our wanderings cease,
And at our Father's loved abode
Our souls arrive in peace.
5 Such blessings from Thy gracious hand
Our humble prayers implore;
And Thou shalt be our chosen God
And portion evermore.
Verses 1-4 by Rev. Philip Doddridge, 1737, recast by Rev.
John Logan, 1781: verse i, line i, altered, and verse 5 added
in Scottish Translations and Paraphrases, 1781
167
1 68 STUDIES OP FAMILIAR HYMNS
NOTE: There are three texts of this hymn:
1. Doddrldge's original text of 173*7 as hereinafter printed. From
this the hymn went into the Translations and Paraphrases of 1745,
with trifling changes. This is the first printed text.
2. The text given by Job Orton in his collection of Doddridge's
hymns (1755), opening with "O God of Jacob.' 1 The changes in
J. D. Humphrey's 1839 edition of the hymns may be passed over.
3. The recast made by the Rev. John Logan, printed (with some
variances) in his Poems and in the Translations and Paraphrases,
both of 1781. It is the latter text (given above) that has become
so familiar.
This and the other hymns of Dr. Doddridge belong to
the period of the eighteenth century revival but are
scarcely of it. They run rather with the stream of hymn
singing and hymn writing among English Independents,
of which Dr. Watts was the fountainhead. Hymnologists
say that Doddridge is one of " the school of Watts."
They mean that Watts 7 s hymns became so much the pat-
tern for other hymn writers that he was like a school-
master giving out specimens of penmanship to be imi-
tated ; and that Doddridge was one of the imitators. But
he was head boy in the school, and his hymns came to be
regarded as a desirable addition even to those of his
master.
The hymn we are now studying won by its own merits
a place in the wider spreading movement to allow the
singing of human hymns. For when that movement
reached even Psalm-loving Scotland, this was one of the
" Paraphrases " selected by the General Assembly in 1781
and recommended to the churches.
"THE GOOD DR. DODDHIDGE "
In some " unknown house in the labyrinth of London
streets " Philip Doddridge was born in the summer of
O GOD OF BETHEL, BY WHOSE HAND
1702. It was a humble home and a very sickly
baby. His earliest recollection was of his mother ex-
plaining the scenes of Bible history pictured on the blue-
and- white Dutch tiles lining the fireplace: Eve's apple
tree with the serpent, Noah at the window of the ark,
a very large Jonah coming forth from a very small whale,
Peter crossing the Sea of Galilee in a Dutch three-decker,
the prodigal son in a periwig, and the rest. She would
tell him of her father, driven from his Bohemian home
by religious persecution, and show him the Luther's Bible
in black stamped leather he brought away beneath the
peasant clothes he wore ; of his father's father also, one
of the Church of England clergy ejected in 1662 for con-
science' sake.
Both father and mother died while Philip was a child
at Kingston grammar school. Sent to another school at
St. Albans, he won the notice of Dr, Samuel Clark, the
Presbyterian pastor, who befriended him and admitted
him to the Communion at nineteen. He went up to
London to seek encouragement toward preparing for the
ministry. The Duchess of Bedford offered to finance
him, but only if he would conform to the established
Church. The dissenting leaders were cold. Dr. Clark
called him back, and sent him to be trained by John Jen-
nings, at Kibworth, where he was happy in his books
and content in his poverty. In 1723 he was qualified to
preach by the county meeting of ministers, and became
pastor at out-of-the-way Kibworth, where, he said, " I
have not so much as a tea table in my whole diocese and
but one hoop petticoat within the whole circuit " ; but
where he could spend twelve hours a day in his study.
Doddridge's chance came at Market Harbor ough ? to
which he had moved, when the Independents decided to
PHILIP DODDRIDGE
O GOD OF BETHEL, BY WHOSE HAND I y I
set up an academy there and selected him as principal.
Only twenty-six years old, he consulted Dr. Watts, then
fifty-four, and thus began a warm friendship with the
great man. Very shortly he was called to a larger church
at Northampton. He took his academy with him and
made it famous; spending the rest of his life there as
teacher, pastor, and author.
In Doddridge's time " the dissenting interest " was on
the down grade. Its heroic age was past: easy days
brought easy ways and spiritual indifference. Dr. Watts
and other Nonconformist leaders were as much opposed
to " enthusiasm " as were the bishops themselves. They
turned their backs on the revival and scorned the Wesleys
and Whitefield. The kindly Doddridge, when he got
to know them better, could not keep it up. In London,
one day in 1743, he even led in public prayer at White-
field's Tabernacle. Whereupon Dr. Watts wrote him
that many of his friends were asking an explanation of
his " sinking the character of a minister and especially
of a tutor among the dissenters, so low thereby," When
later he had Whitefield to preach from his Northampton
pulpit, a very storm of protest and reproach rained on
him: all of which only strengthened the stand he
had taken. He was the first Nonconformist leader to
hold out a brotherly hand to the great evangelists.
Doddridge's one aim in all his laborious ministry was
to deepen the spiritual life, not only among dissenters
but in general society. To this practical end his many
books were written. His Rise and Progress of Religion
in the Soul became something like a religious classic.
The Family Expositor, covering all the New Testament,
took twelve years of his life and was greatly esteemed in
its day. He disliked controversy and liked a theology
1 72 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
emphasizing the statements of Scripture rather than the
definitions of the schools. In a controversial age this
led some to question the straitness of his orthodoxy.
Nobody ever questioned Ms loving-kindness.
He was not a great writer and probably not a great
preacher. He could not stay the decline of dissent even
in his own parish. But he did good service In many
ways : the more easily because in spite of bodily weakness
and consumptive tendencies he had a healthy mind, a
heart full of God's sunshine, and pleasant ways. Perhaps
he helped the most simply by being so lovable, for to
love a good man is a big step in anybody's religious edu-
cation. Many hearts followed him on his voyage to
Lisbon in the autumn of 1751, made possible by the
bounty of Lady Huntingdon and other friends. " I can
as well go to Heaven from Lisbon as from my own
study at Northampton/' he told her at parting. The
study at Northampton is still kept just as he left it, and
at Lisbon Ms body still lies in the English cemetery, near
the grave of the great novelist, Henry Fielding.
THE STORY OF THE HYMN
Doddridge's " works " gather dust on the shelves ; some
of Ms hymns are in familiar use. Like those of Davies
and other eighteenth century preachers they were written
in the glow of sermon composition to be sung at the
sermon's close. " O God of Bethel " was to follow a ser-
mon on " Jacob's Vow," from Genesis 28 .-20-22. During
Ms life his hymns were more or less handed about in
manuscript. Four years after his death Ms friend Job
Orton copied three hundred and seventy of them from
Ms papers and published them as Hymns founded on
O GOD OF BETHEL, BY WHOSE HAND 3:73
various texts in the Holy Scriptures. By the late Philip
Doddridge, D.D. [1755.] Others have been published
since and some are yet imprinted. In Orton's book this
hymn begins, " O God of Jacob." The earliest form
known is that dated "Jan. 16, 1733." * n Doddridge's
own handwriting, which the present writer has not seen.
Dr. Julian, who has, gives it thus :
i
Oh God of Bethel, by whose Hand
Thine Israel still is fed
Who thro' this weary Pilgrimage
Hast all our Fathers led
2
To thee our humble Vows we raise
To thee address our Prayer
And in thy kind and faithful Breast
Deposite all our Care
3
If thou thro' each perplexing Path
Wilt be our constant Guide
If thou wilt daily Bread supply
And Raiment wilt provide
4
If thou wilt spread thy Shield around
Till these our wandrings cease
And at our Father's lov'd Abode
Our Souls arrive in Peace
5
To thee as to our Covenant God
We'll our whole selves resign
And count that not our tenth alone
But all we have is thine.
174 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
So much for Dr. .Doddridge and the hymn as he wrote
it. Its further study carries us over into Presbyterian
Scotland.
THE SCOTTISH "PARAPHRASES"
In our study of "The Lord's. my Shepherd, 111 not
want," we saw how Calvin's ideal of singing " the Bible
only 3> conquered Scotland at the Reformation, and made
Its Church a Psalm singing Church ; how at the time of
the Westminster Assembly a new version of " The Psalms
of David in meeter " was adopted ; and how fond Scottish
hearts became of that " Rous's Version." But as Dr.
Watts 7 s more evangelical renderings of Psalms and his
hymns came to be known they caused a certain restless-
ness and on the part of many ministers a desire for lib-
erty to sing them or something like them in church.
Nevertheless the men who made the first proposals to
change the established usage of the Scottish people must
have had hopeful temperaments. Time and again when
a movement " to enlarge the Psalmody " came to the
surface in the General Assembly it was quietly side-
tracked.
The Assembly of 1741 pigeonholed a petition that
other passages of Scripture in meter be added to the
Psalms. Next year a persistent presbytery called it up.
They succeeded In getting a committee appointed to
gather materials and in putting such pressure on the
committee that after four years It laid before the As-
sembly of 1745 a meager collection of forty-five Trans-
lations and Paraphrases of several passages of Sacred
Scripture, nineteen of them taken from Dr. Watts. This
had to go down to the presbyteries for their approval.
Then followed a contest in which the innovators kept
TranHations ana
I . ,f E, It
.Of fcveral
SACEEb SC-1I
THE FIRST HYMN BOOK OF PRESBYTERIAN SCOTLAND
176 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
the little book for ten years before the General Assembly,
where they always seemed to be winning, only to be
baffled by the lovers of the old Psalms in the presbyteries.
These standfasts saw to it that enough of the presby-
teries refrained year after year from taking any action,
until the patience of the innovators was w r orn out and
their project abandoned.
Twenty years passed before it was renewed, and six
more before a new collection of sixty-seven cc para-
phrases " and five " hymns " was ready to be sent down
for the presbyteries to report upon. That was in 1781,
and the Assembly gave the churches leave to sing them
while the matter was pending. The old tactics were re-
sumed, and so many presbyteries ignored the new book
also that no further action could be taken by the Assem-
bly. But perhaps the standfasts overreached themselves
this time, since the failure to take final action upon the
Paraphrases extended indefinitely the permission already
given to sing them pending such action. In this way the
little book, whose title page is before us, became the first
hymn book of Scottish Presbyterianism : it made the first
breach in the old Psalmody.
In some parishes bitter feeling and disturbances fol-
lowed when a minister attempted to have the new Par-
aphrases sung. There were, however, many ministers
who never gave them out until their life's end ; and the
outraged feelings of many plain people have a monument
in Scottish Bibles still preserved in which the leaves con-
taining the Paraphrases are carefully pasted down or
from which they are torn out. But in the end they fairly
won their place beside the Psalms and became almost
as dear to the people.
" God of Bethel ?? is the second of the Paraphrases
O GOD OF BETHEL, BY WHOSE HAND 177
of 1781, but holds the first place in Scottish hearts. In
illustration of this it is worth while to quote a charming
letter which Samuel R. Crockett, the novelist, sent in
response to Mr. W. T. Stead's inquiry for " the hymns
that have helped " him :
" One hymn I love, and that (to be Irish) is not a
hymn, but what in our country is mystically termed a
paraphrase.' It is that which, when sung to the tune
of St. Paul's, makes men and women square themselves
and stand erect to sing, like an army that goes gladly to
battle: O God of Bethel '
" I wish I could quote it all. Of course it is in vain
to try to tell what these songs of c Christ's ain Kirk and
Covenant ' are to us who sucked them in with our mother-
milk and heard them crooned for cradle songs to Coles-
hill ' and c Kilmarnock.' But be assured that whatever
new songs are written, noble and sincere, there will al-
ways be a number who will walk in the old paths, and,
by choice, seek for their ' helping ' (about which they
will mostly keep silence) from the songs their fathers
sang."
But the use of this paraphrase is not confined to Scot-
land. It has crossed the border and become as familiar
in England as in Scotland. It was sung in Westminster
Abbey in 1874 at the public funeral of David Livingstone,
the great African missionary and traveler, and again in
1879 at the funeral of Lord Lawrence, Governor-General
of India. And the biographers of both men refer to the
impressiveness of the simple words, as sung to the music
of Tallis. In this country and in Canada the Scottish
immigration would of itself insure a widespread use of
the paraphrase.
I y8 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
1. No doubt the quaint title, Translations and Para-
phrases, was originally intended to conciliate those still
holding to the Calvinistic position that the inspired words
of Scripture should furnish the only " subject-matter of
praise." And yet it is hard to believe that such camou-
flage could deceive a people so keen-eyed in searching
the Scripture. " God of Bethel," for instance. It cer-
tainly is not a " translation " of the passage in Genesis
on which it is based ; but could it in any sense be regarded
as a "paraphrase" of that passage, or is it simply a
free human hymn ?
2. The committee who prepared the Translations and
Paraphrases of 1745 procured a copy of Doddridge's
hymn in manuscript (it had not appeared in print as
yet), and they adopted it with very few alterations. The
committee of 1781, on the other hand, made a great
many, as may be seen by comparing their text (The
Hymnal revised, No. 533) with the original as quoted
above. These amendments were doubtless made by the
Rev. John Logan, a member of the committee with a deft
hand at verse-making but of questionable character, to
say the least. Let us hope it was only an exaggerated
sense of the value of his improvements of Doddridge's
hymn that led him to print this paraphrase as his own
among Ms Poems of that same year, 1781.
Modern feeling runs strongly against the practice of
" tinkering " hymns, as was done so freely by the com-
mittee of 1781, and in favor of singing them as their
authors wrote them. In the case of this paraphrase a
modern editor of a hymn book has to choose whether to
GOD OF BETHEL, BY WHOSE HAND I7 g
adopt the 1781 text or to go back to the original. If lie
is a good editor he will probably say (i) that Logan's
text is in many ways better than Doddridge's; (2) that
the hymn as Doddridge wrote it is practically unknown,
and, as Logan altered it, widely loved; and, if he is
editing a Presbyterian hymn book, he will probably add
(3) that the form in which the hymn appeared in the
Paraphrases of 1781 is the accepted text of what must
be recognized as one of the historic hymns of Presby-
terianism.
3. In Scotland, " O God of Bethel " is still sung to
" St. Paul," of which Mr. Crockett wrote, a tune that
dates from 1749; sometimes to the older tune known
there as " French " and here as " Dundee." In West-
minster Abbey it is still sung to the sixteenth century
tune known as " Tallis's Ordinal " or simply " Tallis."
" Balerma," to which the words are set in The Hymnal
revised, is also Scottish, an arrangement dating only from
1833, and is probably more acceptable to American con-
gregations than the older and graver tunes.
4. Of the thirteen hymns of Doddridge in The Hymnal
revised, " Hark the glad sound ! the Saviour comes " and
" Jesus, I love Thy charming Name " seem to have most
of his vitality ; " How gentle God's commands," and " See
Israel's gentle Shepherd stand " most of his tenderness.
Queen Victoria's husband thought so much of " happy
day that fixed my choice " that he had it sung at the
confirmations of their children. In this country it has
become associated (perhaps indissolubly) with an old-
time camp-meeting melody, carrying a jingle-like re-
frain, with which many good people would not care to
express their praise. Toward the close of the eighteenth
century, by some agency as yet undiscovered, <c My
180 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
God, and is Thy table spread " got itself bound up with
a few other hymns at the end of Church of England
prayer books, and it has been a favorite Communion
hymn ever since. To the writer it seems more appropri-
ate to those who stay away from the sacrament.
And there are a few more of the thirteen that raise
in his mind a question whether they may not have out-
lived their usefulness. Each generation develops its own
natural religious idiom, and it may be that Doddridge's
" Lord of the Sabbath, hear us pray " and " Grace I 'tis
a charming sound/' came more naturally from the lips
of his generation than they do from ours.
XVI
HAIL TO THE LORD'S ANOINTED
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
1 Hail to the Lord's Anointed,
Great David's greater Son!
Hail, in the time appointed,
His reign on earth begun!
He comes to break oppression
To set the captive free,
To take away transgression,
And rule in equity.
2 He shall come down like showers
Upon the fruitful earth;
And love, joy, hope, like flowers,
Spring in His path to birth;
Before Him on the mountains
Shall peace, the herald, go,
And righteousness, in fountains,
From hill to valley flow.
3 Kings shall fall down before Him,
And gold and incense bring;
All nations shall adore Him,
His praise all people sing;
For Him shall prayer unceasing
And daily vows ascend;
His kingdom still increasing,
A kingdom without end.
4 O*er every foe victorious,
He on His throne shall rest,
From age to age more glorious,
All blessing and all-blest:
181
182 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
The tide of time shall never
His covenant remove,
His name shall stand for ever,
That Name to us is Love.
James Montgomery's version ol the Seventy-second Psalm,
written in 1821
NOTE: The above test is an abridgment of the original, which was
in eight verses as printed in Songs of Zion, 1822.
In taking up this hymn of James Montgomery we pass
over into the nineteenth century. And so we leave behind
us the eighteenth century hymns of Watts and his
followers on the one side and of the Wesleys and other
singers of the great revival on the other.
It was of course from those eighteenth century stores
that our American Churches, whether Evangelical or Uni-
tarian, had to draw as they began to make hymn books
of their own. Now the dominant note of those hymns is
personal piety. It is interesting and in a way touching
to remember how the heart of our witty Boston poet,
Oliver Wendell Holmes, a rather radical Unitarian,
turned back in his old age to those eighteenth century
hymns. He perceived In them " the old ring of saintli-
ness " and a virility he missed in modern hymns. " When
I turn to the hymn book, and when one strikes my eye,
I cover the name at the bottom and guess. It is," he
said, "almost invariably by Watts or Wesley; after
them there are very few which are good for much."
Perhaps the Unitarian hymn book which the poet had
in his gallery pew at King's Chapel failed to do justice to
the later hymn writers, choosing those that gave out the
ring of modern liberalism rather than "the old ring
of saintliness." However that may be, most Christians
will not believe that deep and sincere piety passed away
HAIL TO THE LORD'S ANOINTED ^3
with the eighteenth century or that the true succession
of God's singing men has been broken off.
When the nineteenth century dawned, the voices of
all the great hymn writers had passed into silence. Watts
and Doddridge had been dead for the half, Toplady for
the quarter of a century. The Wesleys had been dead
for a decade; Cowper had just died; only Newton sur-
vived in the weakness of old age. But with the early
THE CHAPEL COTTAGE WHERE JAMES MONTGOMERY WAS
BORN, IN IRVINE, SCOTLAND
years of the new century a new hymn writer appeared,
worthy to take his place In the great succession. This
was James Montgomery, a Moravian layman; a poor
boy with nothing to depend on but his literary talent ; a
forward-looking man who kept abreast of the marked
religious progress of his time ; a poet who could not only
sing over the old songs of Zion with a fresh and clear
voice but could also furnish new songs for new occasions.
1 84 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
THE AUTHOR OF THE HYMN
Shortly after writing " Children of the heavenly King,"
John Cennick started a little Moravian settlement in the
county of Antrim, Ireland. Among the neighbors who
joined it was John Montgomery, apparently a laborer,
who for some gift or grace was made a Moravian
preacher and sent over to Irvine on the Scottish coast.
There, on November 4, 1771, in a cottage adjoining the
Moravian chapel, his son James was born ; "narrowly es-
caping," he used afterwards to say, " being an Irishman."
When the parents went as missionaries to the West
Indies they left the boy at the Moravian school at Ful-
neck, near Leeds, and took with them the hope that he
would prepare himself for the ministry.
It was a very severe school, as closely guarded against
the world as a convent, with most of the world's litera-
ture forbidden. Dr. Blair's poem, " The Grave," was an
exception, and hearing it read started Montgomery's po-
etic impulse, just as the quaint Moravian hymn book in
constant use started his lifelong interest in hymns. He
neglected the prescribed studies and spent his time in
composing epics in Milton's manner. The Brethren gave
Mm up as a candidate for the ministry and put him in a
baker's shop as shopboy.
The lad became very unhappy there and at the age of
sixteen ran away, to begin the world with three shillings
and six and a bundle of poems in his pocket. It was
characteristic of him that he went off in his old suit,
leaving behind him a new one which his master had given
him, and which he did not think he had earned. And it
was no doubt humiliating to him that he had to ask his
1 86 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
old teachers at Fulneck for a recommendation before he
could get even a situation in another shop in the village
of Wath. This also he left after a year and went up to
London with a larger bundle of poems in his pocket and
the vision of a publisher ready to print them. When that
hope failed, he went back to his situation at Wath.
One day in his twenty-second year he saw in a radical
newspaper, The Sheffield Register, its publisher's adver-
tisement for a clerk. He answered it in person and se-
cured the place. He began to exercise his literary talent
in the paper, and, when its proprietor and editor had to
flee from political prosecution, a fellow townsman found
the means of carrying it on, and put Montgomery in
charge. It was an exciting time in politics, and a critical
situation for the young editor of a suspected sheet. The
skies were lurid with reflections of the flames of the
French Revolution. Sheffield was in the thickest of the
conflict between the aristocrats and the Jacobins. And
amidst all the clamor for the rights of man, the govern-
ment was insistently trying to raise recruits for the ex-
pected war with France.
The ardent young editor's sympathies were with the
democrats, and he was eager for parliamentary reform,
to say the least. Almost at once he was arrested for
printing a seditious ballad and put in jail for three
months. A few months after his release he was charged
with seditious libel for an account he printed of the man-
ner in which the military commander had put down a
riot in the streets, was found guilty, and imprisoned once
more for six months. He spent his enforced leisure in
jail in composing poetry, afterwards printed as Prison
Amusements. On coming out he resumed his editorship
and kept it up until 1825. But at heart he was neither
HAIL TO THE LORD'S ANOINTED jgy
a politician nor a newspaper man, but a poet, and
through these years he gave more thought to poetry than
to making the most of his newspaper. It was his old Ful-
neck School scheme of life over again, and not the way
that leads to fortune; but Montgomery was unmarried
and free to follow the gleam.
As calmer times came, Montgomery's own opinions be-
came mellower, and his increasing poetic reputation re-
flected luster on Sheffield. The simple goodness of the
man and his unfailing helpfulness in every worthy cause
conquered all hearts. He became recognized as the first
citizen of the town, and the government that had twice
jailed him put him on its pension list. And so he spent
his last years contentedly and helpfully, esteemed by all
as the best of men and by many as a great poet. He had
not been without his struggles to gain a place, but he
bore no grudge against life, except perhaps at the persis-
tency with which many people confused his personality
with that of a namesake whose poetry he did not admire.
Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler, of Brooklyn, visited him in
1842. " A short, brisk, cheery old man, then seventy-one,
came into the room with a spry step. He wore a suit
of black, with old-fashioned dress ruffles, and a high
cravat that looked as if it choked him. His complexion
was fresh, and snowy hair crowned a noble forehead. We
chatted about America, and I told him that in all our
churches his hymns were great favorites. I unfortu-
nately happened to mention that when lately in Glasgow
I had gone to hear the Rev. Robert Montgomery, the au-
thor of ' Satan/ and other poems. It was this i Satan
Montgomery ' whom Macaulay had scalped with merci-
less criticism in the Edinburgh Review. The mention of
his name aroused the old poet's ire. ' Would you believe
1 88 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
it ? ' he exclaimed indignantly, * they attribute some of
that fellow's performances to rne, and lately a lady wrote
me in reference to one of his most pompous poems, and
said it was the best that I had ever written ! ' "
The poet (James, not Robert) had arranged to spend
the Easter of 1854 with his brethren at Fulneck, was un-
able to go, and on April 30 was dead. He was buried
with such a funeral as Sheffield had never seen, and in
the years following two of his friends with great de-
votion but less judgment published a biography extend-
ing to no less than seven volumes.
MONTGOMERY AS POET AND HYMN WRITER
It is just as well that a popular poet should die before
his reputation begins to fade, and Montgomery's had
lasted a good while. The first of his poems to catch the
public ear was his Wanderer in Switzerland of 1806, of
which three editions were called for. Volume after vol-
ume followed, the series closing with the long poem of
The Pelican Island of 1826 and the short pieces collected
in The Poet's Portfolio of 1835. They all appealed to a
large public, mostly the religious public who valued such
pure sentiments in the vesture of verse they could read
and understand. But the longer poems have found no
place in English literature, and the anthologies preserve
none of Ms lyrics except a few hymns. And this is just
as it ought to be. In his poetic work Montgomery mis-
took the easy flow of rhetorical or sentimental verse for
poetry. But his hymn writing was a thing apart, and in
the best of his hymns he made no mistake of any kind.
He understood exactly what to aim at, and he is one of
" the little masters " in the art of hymn writing.
SAIL TO TEE LORD'S ANOINTED jgg
As early as 1822 Montgomery gathered his versions of
Psalms, including the one now before us, in his Songs of
Zion. He printed many of his hymns in a collection
called The Christian Psalmist, in 1825; and at the last
gathered up the hymns of a lifetime in the Original
Hymns of 1853. He wrote four hundred in all, of which
not less than a hundred have had a part in the worship
of some branch of the Church.
THE STORY OF THE HYMN
Many have regarded this as the best of all, and at the
present time it is found in more hymn books than any-
thing else of Montgomery's. And It has something of a
story.
It was written to be sung at a Christmas festival of
1821, at one of the Moravian settlements in England,
Fulneck probably. Which reminds us that Montgomery
was a Moravian all his life, though he did not formally
resume his birthright membership until his forty-third
birthday. In January, 1822, he inclosed a copy of the
hymn in a letter to a South Sea missionary, suggesting
that the isles afar are to share the glories of the Messianic
reign. In April of that year it was recited by the author
at a great Methodist missionary meeting at Liverpool,
under rather striking circumstances. The lights went
out while he was speaking, a crash resounded from a seat
back broken by the crowd, and it was uncertain what
might happen. The chairman called out, " There is still
light within." The speaker took his cue, proceeded not
without agitation, " concluding with the full blaze of the
renovated illumination " by reciting his " Hail to the
Lord's Anointed." And we can imagine that it was not
190 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
spoken or heard without a perceptible thrill. Dr. Adam
Clarke, who presided at the meeting, was so impressed
that he secured a copy, and in 1822 appended the hymn
to his notes on the Seventy-second Psalm in his now
famous Commentary on the Bible, with a special note
calling attention to its excellence; which no doubt con-
tributed a good deal to the hymn's success.
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
i. In Montgomery's Original Hymns this bears the
title,
"The Reign of Christ on Earth. -Ps. Ixxii,"
and it is of course a free rendering of that Psalm. The
Seventy-second Psalm is the vision of a great king who
brings righteousness and peace, redresses human wrongs,
and extends his rule to the world's end. The Old Testa-
ment seems to apply the Psalm to Solomon's reign, and
the New Testament does not apply it to Christ as Mes-
sianic King. The Early Church did, and chose it as the
special Psalm for the Epiphany season. Now just what
did they mean by that ?
The Epiphany (January 6) follows so soon after
Christmas that many people think of them as one. It
really commemorates the visit of the Wise Men, and
when the Church put the Psalm in that connection it
meant to say that it foretells the homage of the nations
to Christ, of which the visit of the Wise Men was the
beginning. What the Church did then was to choose the
Seventy-second as its special foreign missionary Psalm.
The nineteenth century Churches have done just the
same thing with Montgomery's rendering of that Psalm.
AN AUTOGRAPH HYMN OF MONTGOMERY
IQ2 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
They have always regarded it as a foreign missionary
hymn, a trumpet call to advance toward the conquest of
the world, a blessed assurance of victory. We may be
quite sure that the author so intended it. He wrote in
the early glow of the new zeal for foreign missions that
dawned on England, and which so moved his heart. Is
the Church justified in making this hymn a song of the
final triumph of foreign missions ; and just what bearing
upon this question has the old saying, " My kingdom is
not of this w r orld? "
2. There are no differences of text in this hymn as
printed in Songs of Zion in 1822 and in Original Hymns,
thirty-one years later. The fact is worth noting, as a
number of editors have made changes, especially in the
last line. But as Montgomery printed the hymn, there
were eight verses of eight lines each ; not too many for a
proper presentation of the Psalm but too many for a con-
gregational hymn book; so that each editor has to de-
cide on his own abridgment. That in The Hymnal re-
vised is perhaps as effective as any; the best of the
omitted verses, the original second, is rather a loss :
He comes with succour speedy,
To those who suffer wrong;
To help the poor and needy,
And bid the weak be strong:
To give them songs for sighing,
Their darkness turn to light;
Whose souls, condemn'd and dying,
Were precious in His sight.
3. What is the meaning of " For Him shall prayer
unceasing," in the third verse, regarded by some as an
improper expression? Does the fact that the Seventy-
HAIL TO TEE LORD'S ANOINTED I93
second Psalm is itself a prayer for the king bear upon the
questioned propriety of the expression ?
4. Another and equally well-known missionary hymn,
" Jesus shall reign where'er the sun," is also a version of
the Seventy-second Psalm, written in Dr. Watts's very
best style. And it may be interesting to compare the
work of two excellent hymn writers dealing with the same
subject matter a century apart. Dr. Watts would prob-
ably have regarded Montgomery's meter and rhythm as
a bit jaunty for a hymn.
XVII
JUST AS I AM, WITHOUT ONE PLEA
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
1 Just as I am, without one plea
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come.
2 Just as I am, and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To Thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come.
3 Just as I am, though tossed about
With many a conflict, many a doubt,
Fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come.
4 Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind;
Sight, riches, healing of the mind,
Yea, all I need, in Thee to find,
O Lamb of God, I come.
5 Just as I am! Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;
Because Thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come.
6 Just as I am! Thy love unknown
Has broken every barrier down;
Now, to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come.
Charlotte Elliott, circa 1834
194
JUST AS I AM, WITHOUT ONE PLEA 195
NOTE: The text is taken from the 1841 edition of The Invalid's
Hymn Book. The only changes are (i) In punctuation: by elim-
inating an exclamation point at the end of each verse; and also
dashes, the position and number of which vary in Miss Elliott's
printings of her hymn. Her final use of them was to make a
light parenthesis of all between " Just as I am " and " O Lamb of
God " : in verse i for example, " Just as I am " . . . . " Come to
Thee ." (2) In text: In 1841 verse 3, 1. 3, reads, "Fightings
within, and fears without," within quotation marks. Quoting, no
doubt, John Newton (from memory) and discovering verbal in-
accuracy, she changed the line to read (as in Hours of Sorrow,
ed. 1849, ano ^ her collected poems) as given above.
In these studies we have had occasion more than once
to refer to the Evangelical Party in the Church of Eng-
land. It was the succession of clergy and laity who con-
tinued to believe the doctrines of the Evangelical or
Calvinistic side of the eighteenth century revival, and
who carried out its principles in their parish work, as
far as they could. That Evangelical succession in the
Church of England has never failed yet. Its character-
istic might be expressed broadly by saying that it puts
the gospel first and the Church second, so that it is gen-
erally called the Low Church Party.
There never was anybody more directly in the line
of that succession than Miss Charlotte Elliott, the
author of " Just as I am." It was her heritage from a
line of Evangelical clergymen ; she was born into a home
that was the center of a prominent Evangelical circle;
she was nurtured in the doctrines not only by her parents
but by an uncle and two brothers who were Evangelical
clergymen ; and when she began to write hymns she took
her place at once in the succession of Evangelical hymn
writers, after Toplady and Newton and Cowper. Her
hymn, " Just as I am," is a clear expression of what the
196 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Evangelical Party believed as to the doctrine of salva-
tion, and what It stood for as opposing High Church or
Broad Church doctrines. She thought of the Church
simply as "The Church of pardoned sinners/' and it
was a sorrow to her to see one and another friend or
relative turn to what we call High Church views but
which she used to characterize as " Puseyite errors."
THE AUTHOR OF "JUST AS I AM"
Charlotte Elliott's parents were gentlefolk in very
comfortable circumstances, who had homes at Clapham
and Brighton, and she was born at Brighton, March 17,
1789. From such memorials of her secluded life as have
been printed, one gathers that she had been more or less
of an invalid from quite early years, but that there was
a short period when she could take her part in such social
life as the Evangelical principles of that time allowed.
In 1821 she had a distressing illness from which there
seems to have been no real recovery, though for some
years at least the summers brought enough relief to per-
mit of easy traveling and visits to friends.
In 1822 she fell under the influence of Dr. Caesar
Malan, a pastor from Geneva, while her spirit was tossed
about with the "fightings and fears within, without"
so natural to her condition and prospects ; and under his
ministries of healing her faith took a firmer grip and her
heart found peace. It was well indeed : how else could
she have borne so nobly what was before her, fifty years
of invalidism, with much suffering and frequent periods
of utter prostration and helplessness ?
The printed memorials of Miss Elliott deal very
frankly with her spiritual secrets, but do not, so far as
CHARLOTTE ELLIOTT
198 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
the writer has observed, disclose the nature of the phys-
ical ailment from which she suffered. Hers was the day
when gentle womanhood was veiled in " delicacy/' and
doubtless any explanation of her bodily trouble would
have been regarded as indelicate. It does not matter now,
except to students of the reactions of body and spirit.
What matters are those fifty years of patience and even
of service.
It has been objected against Miss Elliott's familiar
hymn, " My God and Father, while I stray," with its re-
frain, " Thy will be done/' that its acceptance of God's
will for our lives is too passive, that it stops with resig-
nation and does not go forward to cooperation. If the
objection is just, and perhaps it is, then the hymn fails
to express her own ideal and practice. For the ideal of
life which this elect lady set up in her heart included
not only a purpose to glorify God by her patience and
pluck but also to make use of such gifts of service as
she had ; especially a literary gift which in girlhood had
expressed itself in humorous verse, but now in religious
poetry and hymns of a very tender and often beautiful
quality.
We do not know how soon she began to exercise her
talent, A number of her hymns appear in a collection
her brother printed In 1835. Her sister says it was a
correspondent, the Rev. Hugh White, who set her the
congenial task of rearranging a little collection of hymns
for the sick room made by a Miss Kiernan, of Dublin,
during her last illness in 1834. To this, published as The
Invalid's Hymn Book, Miss Elliott contributed in all
more than a hundred of her own composition. The little
book was warmly welcomed and often reprinted. It was
followed in 1836 by her Hours of Sorrow, from a presen-
:
A NOTE ON THE FLYLEAF OF A COPY OF HOURS OF SORROW
200 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
tation copy of which the autograph note here reproduced
is taken ; by Morning and Evening Hymns for a Week
in 1839; and after a long interval, by Thoughts in verse
on sacred Subjects in 1869. Her own hours of sorrow
ceased at Brighton on September 22, 1871.
She had indeed learned in suffering what she taught in
song. All the more welcome, therefore, are the glimpses
we catch in her letters of the compensations she herself
found in her hymn writing, the human pleasure of suc-
cess and the spiritual satisfaction of doing good : " It
will be a real delight to me to send you a copy of the
Invalid's Hymn Book. I have just had a copy bound for
dear Queen Adelaide, and shall be much pleased if I find
she likes it." And this, a year later : " I have now before
me a few supplemental hymns for the third edition of
the Invalid's Hymn Book, which I have just corrected,
and of which the last has sold so quickly. The fifth edi-
tion of the Week's Hymns is now all sold ; and Seeley tells
me the Hours of Sorrow sell well, so that I feel as if I
ought to strive to finish and continue these little works
L which are given me to do.' "
THE "TRUE HISTORY" OF THE HYMN
The annals of a sick room are obscure, and in Miss
Elliott's case it is not always easy to get the date of the
writing or even of the first publication of a given hymn.
It is so with the one before us, of which no manuscript
is known to exist. Most books that deal with it repeat
the story that connects it with the ministrations of Dr.
Malan to Miss Elliott in 1822. They even lay it out on
the precise lines of a responsive service. The pastor ex-
horts the invalid to come to Christ. She answers, " How
JUST AS I AM, WITHOUT ONE PLEA 2 OI
can I come? " He tells her, " Come just as you are ";
and she responds, " Just as I am, without one plea." For
the truth of all this there seems to be no evidence what-
ever, and no amount of repetition adds anything to its
veracity. Truth indeed is a shy bird, and many good
sportsmen fail to bag it.
The Rev. Handley C. G. Moule, afterwards Bishop of
Durham, printed in The Record of October 16, 1897, the
" true history " of the hymn, of which he said, " as Miss
Elliott's nephew by marriage I happen to know the pre-
cise circumstances of its composition." The bishop
stamps as " inaccurate " the stories that connect the
hymn in any way with her conversion and does not think
she could point to any early crisis of conversion. He al-
ludes to the spiritual comfort Dr. Malan brought her,
and goes on :
" But ill health still beset her ... it often caused
her the peculiar pain of a seeming uselessness in her life
while the circle round her was full of unresting service-
ableness for God. Such a time of trial marked the year
1834, when she was forty-five years old, and living in
Westfield Lodge, Brighton. . . . Her brother, the Rev.
H. V. Elliott, had not long before conceived the plan of
St. Mary's Hall, at Brighton a school designed to give,
at nominal cost, a high education to the daughters of
clergymen. ... In aid of St. Mary's Hall there was to
be held a bazaar. . . . Westfield Lodge was all astir;
every member of the large circle was occupied morning
and night in the preparations, with the one exception of
the ailing sister Charlotte as full of eager interest as
any of them, but physically fit for nothing. The night
before the bazaar she was kept wakeful by distressing
thoughts of her apparent uselessness ; and these thoughts
202 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
passed by a transition easy to imagine into a spir-
itual conflict, till she questioned the reality of her whole
spiritual life, and wondered whether it were anything
better than an illusion of the emotions, an illusion ready
to be sorrowfully dissolved.
" The next day, the busy day of the bazaar, she lay
upon her sofa. . . . The troubles of the night came back
upon her with such force that she felt they must be met
and conquered in the grace of God. She gathered up in
her soul the great certainties, not of her emotions, but
of her salvation : her Lord, his power, his promise. And
taking pen and paper from the table she deliberately set
down in writing, for her own comfort, < the formulae of
her faith. 3 Hers was a heart which always tended to
express its depths in verse. So in verse she restated to
herself the gospel of pardon, peace, and heaven. ' Prob-
ably without difficulty or long pause ' she wrote the
hymn. . 1 .
"As the day wore on, her sister-in-law, Mrs. H. V.
Elliott, came in to see her, and bring news of the
work. She read the hymn, and asked (she well might)
for a copy. So it first stole out from that quiet room
into the world."
With this story of the hymn agrees in all particulars
an account furnished about 1902 to Mr. Francis A. Jones
by " Mrs. Synge, a niece of the authoress." And it is
interesting to note that the title-pages of the various
editions of Miss Elliott's Hymns for a Week bear the
inscription: "Sold for the benefit of St. Mary's Hall,
Brighton."
Bishop Moule says the hymn was written in 1834,
and nobody is in a position to question that date. But
the time and place of its first printing are equally inter-
JUST AS I AM, WITHOUT ONE PLEA 2O3
esting, and on these points hie is not convincing. He
says it appeared in the 1834 edition of The Invalid's
Hymn Book; and that " in 1835 & was printed, unknown
to the writer and without her name, as a leaflet; one of
the first copies was given to her by a friend with the
words, c I am sure this will please you.' " Dr. Julian
a high authority, writing with the 1834 book before him,
says the hymn is not there, and was first printed in the
edition of 1836. Dr. Telford, a careful student of Wes-
leyan hymns, remarks that the hymn was printed a
second time in 1836 in Miss Elliott's Hours of Sorrow;
but it is not found in the writer's copy of that date.
Finally, the writer's Canadian friend, James Edmund
Jones, Esq., who published a carefully annotated edition
of The Book of Common Praise in 1909, says there that
" Just as I am " is not in The Invalid's Hymn Book of
1836, but in the edition of 1841 for the first time. All
that the present writer can contribute at first hand to
this hotchpotch is to say that the earliest printing of the
hymn he has seen with his own eyes is in the 1841 edition
of The Invalid's Hymn Book.
Whatever may be the exact date of publication, it
marks the beginning of a wide circulation, of a wonderful
career of usefulness. The Rev. Mr. Elliott (he who
founded St. Mary's Hall) thought his sister had done
more by a single hymn than he had accomplished " in
the course of a long ministry." There is hardly an
evangelist without some tale to tell illustrating the
power of this hymn. Some such testimonies reached the
authoress herself. Probably the one that pleased her
most was the grateful letter from the husband of Dora
Wordsworth, the " one and matchless daughter " of the
great poet. " Now my hymn," lie reports that sufferer
204 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
as saying every morning of the last two months of her
life ; " and she would often and often repeat it after me,
line for line, many times in the day and night. I do
not think Mr. Wordsworth could bear to have it repeated
in his presence, but he is not the less sensible of the
solace It gave Ms one and matchless daughter."
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
i. It Is interesting to find two evangelical-hearted
bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church praising this
hymn in practically identical terms as shrining the heart
of Christ's gospel. Bishop Stevens of Pennsylvania,
writing a preface for an American reprint of Hymns for
a Week, says of it: "That hymn is the metrical com-
pendium of the Gospel. It is so simple that a child can
understand it, so truthful that the heart taught of the
Spirit Instinctively approves it, so fervent that the soul
is warmed into glowing ardor by its burning words, so
grand and comprehensive that the departing saint de-
lights to use it as he commits his blood-washed soul into
the hands of his faithful Creator." Bishop Mcllvaine
of Ohio tells us that in 1860 he resumed a custom of
gathering the clergy around the chancel, at the close of
the annual Convention, for some parting words, a hymn
and extempore prayer. " I had chosen [ c Just as I am ']
to be sung and had it printed on cards; and I have
adopted it for all time to come, as long as I shall be here,
as my hymn, always to be sung on such occasions, and
always to the same tune. That hymn contains my relig-
ion, my theology, my hope. It has been my ministry
to preach just what it contains. In health it expresses
all my refuge ; in death I desire that I may know noth-
JUST AS I AM, WITHOUT ONE PLEA 205
ing else, for support and consolation, but what it con-
tains. When I am gone, I wish to be remembered in
association with that hymn. 7 '
In Miss Elliott's books the hymn was printed beneath
the text, " Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast
out/' and it is to be studied in relation to that text. It
may be worth while to make an analysis of the hymn, to
see just what is added verse by verse as to the terms of
the gospel. That done, one would be in a position to
estimate a seventh verse added afterwards by the author-
ess, as found in the writer's copy of the 1849 edition of
Hours of Sorrow:
Just as I am of that free love,
" The breadth, length, depth, and height " to prove,
Here for a season, then above
Lamb of God, I cornel
2. There are some striking phrases in the hymn. Prin-
cipal Alexander Whyte, who liked to lecture on it, used
to dwell on the opening " Just as I am," as a stroke of
evangelical genius. " A better selected word is not in
all the world." But why? He also contrasted the com-
ing for " healing of the mind " with Macbeth's " Canst
thou not minister to a mind diseas'd? " (Act v,
scene iii).
The line,
"Fightings and fears within, without,"
has a parallel in a good many other hymns. We have
noted :
Wars without, and Fights within. John. Cennick, 1741.
Fightings without, and fears within. John Newton, 1779,
By war without, and fears within. John Newton, 1770.
Foes without and fears within. J. D. Burns, 1857.
Fightings without, and fears each day within. H. Bonar, 1879.
206 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Are these writers quoting from one another, or is
there some text of Scripture appropriated by each in
turn?
3. Of the two tunes to these words in The Hymnal
revised, Bradbury's appeared in The Mendelssohn Col-
lection of tunes, edited by Thomas Hastings and himself
in 1849. Bradbury was a pupil of Lowell Mason, and
his tunes mark the transition from Mason's simple but
dignified music to the livelier " gospel hymns " that fol-
lowed. He " won boundless popularity for light tunes in
the Sunday schools." Few of his church tunes survive.
Familiar as is the association of his " Woodworth "
with " Just as I am/ 7 many will think such words worthy
of a better tune. Whether Sir Joseph Barnby has fur-
nished it in his setting is open to debate. He was a
much more accomplished musician than Bradbury , with
a lovely gift for melody, and greatly under the influence
of Gounod. Many of his tunes are in the four-part-song
style and seemed effeminate to lovers of solid old Psalm
tunes.
The number of good tunes adapted to the peculiar
meter of " Just as I am " is rather limited ; but a repe-
tition of the final " I come " transfers the hymn to the
long-meter class, and once there, the choice of tunes be-
comes almost boundless.
XVIII
I HEARD THE VOICE OF JESUS SAY
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
T I heard the voice o Jesus say,
" Come unto Me and rest;
Lay down, thou weary one, lay down
Thy head upon My breast."
I came to Jesus as I was,
Weary and worn and sad,
I found in Him a resting-place,
And He has made me glad.
2 I heard the voice of Jesus say,
" Behold, I freely give
The living water; thirsty one,
Stoop down and drink, and live."
I came to Jesus, and I drank
Of that life-giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
And now I live in Him.
3 I heard the voice of Jesus say,
" I am this dark world's Light ;
Look unto Me, thy morn shall rise,
And all thy day be bright."
I looked to Jesus, and I found
In Him my Star, my Sun;
And in that light of life I'll walk,
Till traveling days are done.
Rev. Horatius Bonar, 1846
NOTE: The text is taken from Hymns of Faith and Hope (the
first series), where it bears the title, " The Voice from Galilee." The
quotation marks indicating the words of Christ are not given there?
and for " quenched " the reading is " quench'd."
207
208 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
One sunny morning in the summer of 1887 the writer
was making a call upon the Rev. Dr. William G. Blaikie
at his home in the city of Edinburgh. In the course of
it Dr. Blaikie drew him to the front window, and, point-
HORATIUS BONAR
ing to a figure on the opposite pavement, said, " That
is Horatius Bonar " ; adding, " I thought you would like
to see him," or some words to that effect. It was indeed
a group rather than a figure to which Dr. Blaikie pointed.
In the center was a venerable man in clerical black,
/ HEARD THE VOICE OF JESUS SAY 2og
bowed down with years and tottering in infirmity, with an
arm thrown across the shoulders of an attendant on
either side, who had apparently no easy task to keep
him upon his feet. And this central figure, with the
large frame and head, and the white hair and whiskers
around the fresh skin of the face, having even in extreme
weakness that look of nobility which seems the peculiar
characteristic of the Scottish type of old age this
venerable figure was Horatius Bonar, the author of " I
heard the voice of Jesus say," and of many another hymn
familiar in our churches.
THE GREATEST OF SCOTTISH HYMN WRITERS
When one recalls the fact that his hymn, " I lay my
sins on Jesus," was written before 1837, what could be
less surprising than finding the Bonar of 1887 venerable
and broken? He was then in the last years of a long
life. His latest appearance in public was in the follow-
ing April, although he lingered here until the thirty-
first of July, 1889. Born December 19, 1808, in Edin-
burgh, where his father was second solicitor of Excise
and a ruling elder of the Church of Scotland, the out-
ward course of his life was peculiarly quiet and unevent-
ful. Its one striking event was his secession from the
established Church of Scotland. He had finished Ms
studies at the University of Edinburgh, had gone into
the ministry, and been ordained as minister of the North
Parish in the border town of Kelso. Just then there
was a good deal of unrest throughout the Church, caused
by the action of " patrons " who held as their property
the right of naming the parish minister, and only too
often put in their nominee against the vehement protest
210 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
of the congregation. This led to the great Disruption 'of
1843, & n d Bonar with many of his friends was among
the four hundred and fifty-one ministers who withdrew
from the Establishment and formed " the Free Church
of Scotland."
Most controversies are capable of being adjusted in
time and schism is never lovely. But these men were
conscientious and many of them were heroic in thus
renouncing their only means of support. Mr. Bonar
and his parish were exceptional in being able to retain
their property, and he continued at Kelso as the devoted
pastor of the church, now " Free," until 1866.
Some have wondered that one so gifted should spend
the greater part of his ministry in the obscure country-
side. Invitations to go elsewhere were not wanting. But
he was absorbed in his pastoral work and in evangelistic
labors which took in the whole Border country. " Here
I am, and here I must remain till my Lord come to me or
for me," he wrote to a church at Newcastle; and he
heard no clear call until, in 1866, the opportunity came
to found a new church in his native city. He was a man
set apart. He hated publicity and counted recognition
and honors from men's hands a very empty thing. He
was like a pilgrim and stranger on the earth, anxious
to make it better for his passing through, but homesick
for heaven. He lived with God, the humblest of His
children, and had only one great aim in his life to
bring men to Christ.
Those quiet years at Kelso no doubt made him what
he was intellectually and spiritually. There he carried
on his studies and attained the culture that is more than
scholarship. But, as in all he did, even his studies
centered in Christ. His attention was turned to the
I HEARD TEE VOICE OF JESUS SAY 2 ii
interpretation of prophecy and he became an ardent
" premillenarian." He believed that our Lord was to
return in person, soon, suddenly, and with power; to
destroy antichrist and restore Israel, and to inaugurate
an earthly kingdom of a thousand years. The Advent
hope became an absorbing passion. In its light he lived
and worked, and to spread it he wrote tracts and books,
and for twenty-five years edited The Quarterly Journal
of Prophecy.
This sense of detachment from the present world,
this homesickness for heaven, this hopeful but pensive
expectation of the Second Coming, are behind Ms hymns
and make them what they are. " There is nobody like
Bonar to sing about heaven," exclaims one of the char-
acters in Miss Phelps's Gates Ajar. And it is true:
nobody since the time of Bernard of Cluny. His hymns
are like those that came out of the seclusion and other-
worldliness of the medieval monasteries, where the
monks sang of the growing evil of the world outside, of
the absent Bridegroom, and of the glories of Jerusalem
the golden. "What! " said a High Church lady at
Torquay, on meeting a member of Bonar 's Edinburgh
congregation: "Is Bonar, the hymn writer, still alive?
I always understood he was a medieval saint."
He was in his fifty-seventh year when he went to Edin-
burgh to spend the remainder of life in upbuilding a new
parish. Largely under Dr. Thomas Chalmers' influ-
ence he had entered the ministry; under Chalmers'
leadership he had exchanged the established Church for
the Free ; and in his regard that leader persisted as " the
greatest man he had ever met." He found special pleas-
ure therefore in becoming first pastor of the Chalmers
Memorial Church. In Edinburgh, as in the Border, lie
212 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
was evangelist as well as pastor, and when Dwight
L. Moody came to Scotland, Bonar took an active part
In his mission and even wrote some hymns for Sankey.
Sankey had set to music Tennyson's song from " Guine-
vere," " Late, late, so late ! and dark the night and
chill! " And, when copyright difficulties prevented
its printing, Bonar furnished a substitute, " Yet there
is room 7 : the Lamb's bright hall of song."
In 1883 Dr. Bonar was made Moderator of the Free
Church Assembly. The photograph of him here repro-
duced showed (more clearly than a reproduction can) the
facings on the coat of the court dress prescribed by
custom for a moderator's wear. His last sermon in the
Chalmers Memorial was preached on September n, 1887.
At his funeral his assistant, the Rev. J. M. Sloan,
drove to the Canongate churchyard in the same car-
riage with Principal Cairns and Dr. Cuyler of Brook-
lyn. The three men fell to discussing their preferences
among Bonar's hymns. One spoke for " Here, O my
Lord, I see Thee face to face " ; another, for " When the
weary, seeking rest " ; the third, for " I heard the voice
of Jesus say. 77
THE STORY OF THE HYMN
It was the shortest of stories according to Dr. Bonar.
" I have nothing on record but a little scrap of paper
without a date and the hymn written in pencil." But,
thanks to Ms son, we can now do a little better than that.
For the year before his ordination Bonar was assistant
at St. John's, Leith, and superintended the Sunday
school. He worried because the children took no interest
in the singing. Nothing was provided for them except
/ HEARD THE VOICE OF JESUS SAY 213
the Scottish Psalms in meter and a few hymns set to
solemn tunes, and neither the words nor music appealed
to them. The young superintendent tried the experiment
of writing simpler hymns to melodies the scholars al-
ready knew. " I lay my sins on Jesus " set to " Heber "
and " The morning, the bright and the beautiful morn-
ing " set to " The Flowers of the Forest," were the first,
printed on little leaflets. The results were so happy
that he wrote a few more, including " I was a wandering
sheep," and printed them with a number of selected
hymns on new leaflets.
Evidently the ban against human hymns was not
strictly enforced in the home and Sunday school, but
there was as yet no movement to introduce them into
the church service. When the Free Church went out
in 1843 it kept on using the metrical Psalms as a matter
of course, and during the whole of Bonar's ministry at
Kelso, no hymns were sung in his church other than the
group of Paraphrases already in the Psalm books.
His first hymn for grown people, " Go, labor on,"
was written at Leith, to hearten his fellow workers in his
mission district. After he went to the quieter scenes
of Kelso, his hymn writing grew into a habit. He kept
a note book at his side or in his pocket, wherever he
went, in which he would jot down a thought or a line or
a verse, to be worked up at leisure, or even a hymn
hastily written in pencil, with contractions, elisions, and
sometimes a phrase in shorthand.
Dr. Bonar's son has had some pages from these note-
books reproduced, and we have before us a rough draft
of " I heard the voice of Jesus say." Here, indeed, is
the story of the hymn as we see it unfolding like a
flower from the first seed thought to the perfect form.
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THE ROUGH DRAFT OF THE
I HEARD THE VOICE OF JESUS SAY
We have even the quaint little designs in the margin
that the hand makes almost unconsciously while the
brain is shaping its thoughts. The reproduction is
somewhat faint, but the original was in pencil and is now
rubbed and faded. The photographer who copied it is
said to have required an exposure of three quarters of
an hour to get the result that we have before us.
In the notebook this hymn comes next to the well-
known Advent hymn, "The Church has waited long."
It is not printed among the seventeen of his own hymns
Dr. Bonar included in his The Bible Hymn Book of
1845, an d is said to have appeared first in another col-
lection, Hymns original and selected, 1846, which the
present writer has not seen. As one after another note-
book filled up during those quiet years at Kelso, Dr.
Bonar gathered and printed his hymns as Hymns of
Faith and Hope; a first volume in 1857, a second in
1861, a third in 1866. After going to Edinburgh he
brought out three more volumes : The Song of the new
Creation in 1872, Hymns of the Nativity in 1879, and
Communion Hymns in 1881.
When these " Hymns of Faith and Hope " were new
they took the religious world by storm. They were so
fresh and original, so beautiful in phrase and melodious,
so spiritual and tender, that people were disposed to
make a cult of them and to say, "There never were
such hymns as these." Canon Duncan, speaking no
doubt for England rather than for Sonar's Scotland, is
responsible for the statement that "they were at one
time found in almost every Christian home.' 7 And the
editors of hymn books vied with one another in put-
ting a representative selection of them before the con-
gregations.
2i6 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Well, novelty wears off and an Indiscriminate popular-
ity always brings about a reaction of criticism if not
Indifference. Moreover the atmosphere of the religious
-world changes, whether for better or worse, and at
present Bonar's thought of life as a pilgrimage and his
homesickness for heaven do not make the wide appeal
they once did. These changing conditions have affected
the popularity of his hymns. The critics say now that
some of them are careless and some repetitious and me-
chanical; and good people say that others of them are
somewhat morbid. And so it has come about that fewer
of Bonar's hymns are sung today than was the case a
generation ago. One can feel some sympathy, perhaps,
with a present-day bustling Christian who says that " A
few more years shall roll " gets on his nerves ; but it is
hard to belive that any changes of atmosphere will affect
" I heard the voice of Jesus say." It adds something
even to the beautiful words of Christ : it adds the human
response, without which Christ's words were quite in
vain.
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
i. This hymn captivates us by its lyrical beauty, but
it deserves careful study. Bishop Fraser, of Manchester,
England, regarded it as the best in the language. It
belongs to the class known as " subjective hymns " or
"hymns of inward experience. " Like so many of
Bonar's, it mirrors the life of Christ in the soul. If the
writer understands it, it pictures human life as a pil-
grimage (Bonar seems to have thought of life in no other
aspect). The pilgrim has sought far and wide for things
unattained. As night conies on he is weary of it all, he
hears " The Voice from Galilee," and heeding it finds
I HEARD THE VOICE OF JESUS SAY 217
rest. But the new peace in the heart must be sustained,
and the pilgrim reaches out his hand to take from Christ's
the offered water of life. And thus refreshed he rests in
the Lord. At dawn he awakes, at peace but a pilgrim
still. It is another day and he must go on but not to
resume the old quest. It is a new day of which Christ
is the Light, and a transfigured world through which
Christ is the Way. And in that Light and by that Way
he will walk " till traveling days are done."
Is this a fair interpretation of the hymn?
2. Some of us will recall a discussion of the compar-
ative merits of Dickens and Thackeray as novelists, in
which the after-dinner speaker, having laid out his ap-
proaches in cold blood, waxes warmer and warmer as he
proceeds, until he ends in a spluttering confusion of
cross currents through which all that the ear can catch
are excited references to Dackeray and Thickens or
Thickeray and Dackens.
The purpose of this little skit no doubt was to poke
fun at criticism by comparison, the method of appraising
one writer by contrasting him with another. But the
method has its use, if only for bringing out the distinc-
tive features of each writer. It is not unprofitable, for
instance, to ask how the hymns of Bonar stand compar-
ison with those of Watts and Charles Wesley. We
,might start by comparing what is regarded as the best
hymn of each writer: Watts's "When I survey the
wondrous cross," Wesley's " Jesus, Lover of my soul/ 7
and Bonar's " I heard the voice of Jesus say."
The comparison may well be confined to Bonar's
choicer hymns. As was the case both with Watts and
Wesley, he wrote far too much, and allowed facility to
usurp the place of inspiration. Like them he was at
2i8 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
times an extremely careless workman, and for some
reason never corrected infelicities that a little thought
might have remedied. In all the editions of his Hymns
of Faith and Hope, so far as the writer has collated them,
the plates remain unaltered, even as to a printer's slip.
Bonar had also a painful way of ringing the changes
on his thought to wearisome lengths, through a series of
lines and phrases repeated with modifications of some
of their words, after the manner of Southey in his
" Cataract of Lodore." " Beyond the smiling and the
weeping" is his best in this manner. But even the
poorest of the hymns are by Bonar: they share in an
individuality of thought and expression which is as
fresh and characteristic as Charles Wesley's was.
3. How are we to trace Bonar's lineage and assign
him his place in the development of hymn writing as we
have followed it in these studies? He was, to begin
with, a Scottish hymn writer with few predecessors.
And is there anything in Watts or Wesley to suggest
him as a pupil in the school of either? He was more
akin to the writers of the Evangelical Revival, but his
own Evangelical theology he took not from them but
directly from the stern Reformation standards of Scot-
land, and drew forth crystal streams from that massive
rock. He seems like a prophet, solitary and apart from
the line of priestly succession.
4, The correspondents' column in one of the literary
weeklies had a query, " Is it true that no Presbyterian
writers have contributed hymns of lasting position to
the general stores of the Church ? " There had been a
discussion on the subject perhaps, and some Presbyterian
was out looking for ammunition with which to defend
the claims of his own denomination.
I HEARD TEE VOICE OF JESUS SAY 2 ig
Most people would now agree that the question Is
not very important. We choose our hymns for what
they are, without anxiety as to the church connection
of their authors. The modern hymn book presents the
nearest approach to church unity so far achieved. If,
however, the question is raised, It is answered by saying
that Bonar's hymns are sung in all Churches and are the
chief Presbyterian contribution to the common stock.
Among other Presbyterian hymn writers appearing In
the index of authors In The Hymnal revised are:
(1) From Scotland: Bruce, Logan, Morison, J. D.
Burns, Norman MacLeod, Matheson, Miss Borthwick
and Mrs. Findlater, Brownlie, Mrs. Cousin, and the
Duke of Argyll.
(2) From Canada: Robert Murray.
(3) From the United States: Davies, J. W. Alexander,
Duffield, Dunn, Hastings, Mrs. Prentiss, Wolfe, Hopper,
March, Mrs. C. L. Smith, and van Dyke.
XIX
THERE IS A GREEN HILL FAR AWAY
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
1 There is a green hill far away,
Without a city wall,
Where the dear Lord was crucified,
Who died to save us all.
2 We may not know, we cannot tell,
What pains He had to bear;
But we believe it was for us
He hung and suffered there,
3 He died that we might be forgiven,
He died to make us good,
That we might go at last to heaven,
Saved by His precious blood.
4 There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin;
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven, and let us in.
5 O dearly, dearly has He loved,
And we must love Him too,
And trust in His redeeming blood,
And try His works to do.
Cecil Frances Humphreys (afterwards Mrs. Alexander)., 1848
NOTE: The test is taken from the third edition of Hymns for
little Children, in which the second line is relieved from what was
apparently a typographical error in the first edition.
THERE IS A GREEN HILL FAR AWAY 2 2I
HIGH CHURCH HYMNS
This hymn was written by a young Irish lady, Miss
Cecil Frances Humphreys, a little before 1848. If the
Evangelical authoress of " Just as I am, without one
plea " read it, as probably she did, she may have thought
it newfangled and queer, but she could not have found
anything in it contrary to the doctrines she loved. And
yet she must have disapproved very strongly of its
writer, for that lady was one of the young people brought
up on the Evangelical side of the Church who had come
under the influence of the new High Church Movement
and adopted the very " Puseyite errors " against which
Miss Elliott kept warning her friends.
To understand just what that means, we have to re-
call a bit of church history. Not long before, in the
early eighteen-thirties, the Church of England and of
Ireland (disposed at the time to be somewhat drowsy)
had been startled by strange goings-on at Oxford Uni-
versity, just where the Methodist Movement had started
a century before. It was the beginning of what is gen-
erally called the Oxford or High Church Movement, of
which Newman and Keble and Pusey were among the
leaders. To explain its purpose in a sentence is not
easy. It aimed to make the Church less Protestant,
to bring it closer to the principles of Catholicism
Apostolic Succession, the priesthood of ministers, " high "
doctrines of the validity of sacraments, and Catholic
ceremonial Newman and some of the other leaders were
to follow out these principles so far as to land themselves
in the Roman Catholic Church. But they left behind
them in the Church of England a powerful High Church
3V1 RS . ALEXAN BER
THERE IS A GREEN HILL PAR AWAY 223
Party which has grown until it is to-day stronger and
more " Catholic " than it ever was.
Now every deeply felt religious movement shows an
impulse to make its own songs. The Reformation
Movement under Luther filled Germany with hymn
singing, and under Calvin turned the Bible Psalms into
people's songs. The Methodist movement put its gospel
into revival hymns. The Evangelical Movement brought
out a wealth of hymns of personal experience. And the
High Church Movement has developed a whole com-
pany of writers of what we might call "churchly"
hymns. A feature of the new movement was its strict
observance of fasts, festivals and saints' days, and its
setting up of daily services and at least weekly com-
munions. Suitable hymns had to be provided for all
these occasions, so that many of the new hymns were
" churchly " in the narrower sense. Others are churchly
only in the broader sense in which all good Christians
love the Church and the sanctities of God's House. And
there are of course many more which deal with those
experiences of the gospel that lie deeper in the heart than
any theories of the Church that divide us.
To say that the High Church Movement has inspired
a large proportion of the best hymns of the nineteenth
century is simply to acknowledge the truth. And so it
happens that as we go forward in these studies we shall
have to follow, the footsteps of Miss Humphreys and
cross over from the Evangelical side to the High Church
side of the Church of England, if we are to find some
of the hymns most familiar and best loved. In making
the crossing it may be as well to acknowledge that a
disregard of the claims of aesthetic feeling has always
been a weaker side of the Evangelical Movement.
224
STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
WHY THE HYMN WAS WRITTEN
" There is a green hill far away " is not a High Church
hymn nor even a churchly hymn, so far as its contents
go. It might have been written by an Evangelical ; and
in fact Miss Humphreys never gave up her Evangelical
beliefs. Nevertheless the hymn was inspired by her
new churchly ideals and written as a part of a plan to ex-
tend them.
She felt that if the Catholic principles of the Oxford
Movement were to prevail, a beginning must be made
by instilling " sound Church principles " into the chil-
dren. And a first step was to provide them with at-
tractive hymns setting forth those principles. She wrote
some and tried them on her Sunday-school class. When
she had written forty she published them in 1848 as
Hymns for little Children, seventy-two pages in all.
There were two daily hymns, one on the Holy Trinity, a
group expounding the Order in the Prayer Book for a
child's baptism, and other groups on the Apostles' Creed,
the Commandments and the Lord's Prayer: her selec-
tion of topics being evidently intended to cover just
the things a child was expected to know at its con-
firmation.
"There is a green hill far away" was one of the
Apostles' Creed group, set beneath the article, " Suffered
under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried."
Now it is necessary to know this original setting of the
hymn, the where and the why of its printing, in order
to understand it. Some people have failed to under-
stand it and have misjudged it. Dr. Theodore L.
Cuyler, a great lover of hymns and not a bad judge of
them, wrote to The New York Evangelist in 1895 ; "I
AN AUTOGRAPHED VERSE FROM MRS. ALEXANDER S PEN
226 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
confess that this popular lyric has always seemed to me
more like a snatch of sacred geography and sound
theology than a burst of praise." Some theologians on
the other hand have objected that the " theology " was
too vague, and that " He died to make us good " is not
an intelligent statement of the atonement.
These objections are covered by knowing that it is
a child's hymn, picturesque because a child takes in a
picture more readily than a thought, and endeavoring
to state doctrine from a child's point of view and in a
child's language. Its whole beauty lies in its simplicity,
and if it should tempt the most systematic theologian
to share even for a moment the mind of a child that
would be an added grace.
A number of Miss Humphreys' hymns have taken
their place among the classics of Christian childhood.
But this hymn has gone further than that. It has firmly
established itself as a standard church hymn. There is
a type of children's literature, such as Alice in Wonder-
land and Kenneth Grahame's The Golden Age, that ap-
peals irresistibly to the child within us all ; and the best
of Miss Humphreys' children's hymns are of that type.
Her " There is a green hill far away," like Phillips
Brooks's " O little town of Bethlehem/ 5 cannot be hidden
in the nursery or confined within the Sunday schoolroom.
THE AUTHOR OF THE HYMN
It is usually spoken of as written by Mrs. Alexander,
wife of the Irish bishop or archbishop of that name,
just as " Lead, kindly Light " is spoken of as the work of
Cardinal Newman. But Newman was a Protestant
clergyman when he wrote his hymn, and Cecil Hum-
THERE IS A GREEN HILL FAR AWAY 227
phreys was not yet married when she wrote this one:
when she did marry, her husband was not a bishop but
rector of a remote parish, and did not become arch-
bishop until after her death.
Miss Humphreys was the daughter of a major In the
Royal Marines, a Norfolk gentleman who as a land
owner and land agent had come to reside in Wicklow
County, Ireland. She was born there in 1818 and spent
all her life in Ireland.
She wrote verses as a child, and it is not clear just how
she was turned from the Evangelical wing of the Church
to the High Church side. The romantic features of the
Oxford Movement would appeal to her, and no doubt the
beautiful poetry of John Keble's Christian Year helped.
Her first volume of poetry, Verses for holy Seasons, was
itself a " Christian Year " adapted to the capacities of
children. It had a hymn for every Sunday and every
other day provided for in the Prayer Book " in a kind
of sing-song style of versification " a child could easily
learn. That was in 1846. Her Hymns for little Children
followed two years later, and had a preface by John
Keble.
In October, 1850, she married the Rev. William Alex-
ander, a rector in Tyrone, and a very eloquent preacher,
who seventeen years later became Bishop of Derry
and Raphoe and ultimately "Primate of all Ireland. 35
She was admirably fitted to be a pastor's wife. She was
as far as possible from the dreamy, ineffectual type of
poet. She never posed, detested gush and sentimentality,
had a direct tongue and incisive speech, and she turned
a vigilant eye upon her husband's house, garden and
farm. She kept her devotional life largely hidden in her
heart, but was a strict " Prayer Book Christian/' going
228 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
to church every day and to communion every week.
Beyond that her days were largely given over to errands
of charity and helpfulness, from one poor Irish home to
another, from one sick-bed to another, from one house of
sorrow to another, no matter how remote. She knew
all her neighbors, and loved them, especially the Irish
Presbyterians. " Dear, good people ! " she would say ;
"how kind they are to me, how ready to give for
Christ's sake! I do like them/ 7
When her husband became bishop in 1867, she was
brought more into contact with society and large insti-
tutions. She became the hostess of many distinguished
people and shared the, publicity of a bishop's life. But
she was as much at home in the back streets of
Londonderry as in the Bishop's Palace. It was in the
palace she died on October 12, 1895, and to her funeral
a great throng gathered from England as well as from
Ireland, thus paying a spontaneous tribute to a noble life.
If some of them were paying tribute also to the very
real vein of poetry that was in her, she herself would
not have welcomed it. She was possibly the only poet
that ever lived who did not like to hear her poems
praised. " Again and again," her husband says, " I have
read to her words of lofty, of almost impassioned com-
mendation from men of genius or holiness, of rank and
position. She listened without a remark and lopked up
almost with a frown." The exception was his reading
a little tract by an English nonconformist minister. It
told the story (for whose truth the writer vouched) of
a great change in the heart and life of a very worldly
man. He happened to hear " There is a green hill far
away" exquisitely sung. It awakened feelings and
yearnings that proved to be the starting point of a new
THERE IS A GREEN HILL FAR AWAY 229
life. " Mrs. Alexander almost sprang from her chair,
looked me in the face, and said ; e Thank God 1 I do like
to hear that. 999
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
1. The second line of this hymn has an interesting
little history all its own.
When Hymns for little Children was printed in 1848
it read there :
" Beside a ruined city wall."
That must have been a blunder, one would think, because
the two extra syllables could not possibly be sung to a
common meter tune. In the third edition (1849), the
line reads,
" Without a city wall,"
and so it still stands in the 234th thousand issue of 1864.
But sometime later the authoress was asked by a
small child what was meant by a green hill not having a
city wall ; and so she changed the dubious " without " to
" outside," and in her latest text and in Hymns ancient
and modern the line reads,
"Outside a city wall."
And yet when Bishop Alexander published her Poems
after her death, he restored the "without," which cer-
tainly falls more pleasantly on the ear. Is there any
real necessity for resorting to " outside " ?
2. Nothing sounds more sweet to us than the hymns
we love sung by the lips of children. But when we ask
what impression the words they sing make upon the
230 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
children's own hearts and minds, we get a different point
of view altogether. The line we have just discussed il-
lustrates the difficulty of getting to a child's mind.
There are other illustrations in plenty. The child who
asked for the hymn about "the boy who stole the
watch " was referring to
"The old man, meek and mild,
The priest of Israel, slept;
His watch the temple-child,
The little Levite, kept."
Dr. Watts was the first Englishman to write hymns chil-
dren could understand: they could hardly mistake
"Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For God hath made them so ; "
and his Divine Songs for the use of Children monopo-
lized the field for a century. Charles Wesley tried to
improve upon them with his Hymns for Children. Of
these Dr. A. E. Gregory, not the less a good Wesleyan
for his sense of humor, remarks that some of them must
have frightened a poor little Methodist out of his wits.
And the Taylor sisters, Ann and Jane, followed in 1810
with their Hymns for infant minds, almost too infantile,
it seems now, but widely used in their day.
When the High Church Movement began there were
no children's hymns extant that fitted in with High
Church ideals. Miss Humphreys was only one of sev-
eral who tried to provide them, but she was the most
successful with her Hymns for little Children. And yet
even of these the proportion that won their way was
small, and of the children's hymns of her later life, which
were very many, scarcely any are even remembered.
THERE IS A GREEN HILL FAR AWAY 231
If then it is so extremely difficult to write good chil-
dren's hymns, and if children get the strangest notions
out of their hymns even when they are good, a question
opens out that is at least worthy of discussion. May it
not prove the wise course to encourage the children to
learn the great hymns of the Church while memory is
strong, with such explanations as we can give, trusting
that as they grow older the hymns securely lodged in
their memory will prove a life-long treasure? Is not
this the course we pursue in respect of the Bible, the
Creed, and the Commandments, much of which is be-
yond a child's understanding?
3. This hymn had the honor of being set to music, as
a solo, by one of the most distinguished of modern
French musicians, Charles Frangois Gounod, who is
said to have remarked that the words themselves were
so musical they hardly needed such setting. His music
to the minds of many is the most perfect interpretation
of the hymn. Mr. Gower's " Meditation," to which the
words are set in The Hymnal revised, was written for
" There is a land of pure delight," but is becoming more
and more closely, attached to the present hymn. Mr.
Gower was an Englishman who came early to this coun-
try, engaging himself with mining interests at Denver,
Colorado, where he died in 1922. The tune " Horsley,"
printed beneath the words, is the favorite in most English
churches, and one of solid worth, likely to grow in the
esteem of those who make use of it.
XX
ART THOU WEARY, ART THOU LANGUID
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
1 Art them weary, art thou languid,
Art thou sore distrest?
"Come to Me," saith One, "and, coming,
Be at rest."
2 Hath He marks to lead me to Him,
If He be my Guide?
"In His feet and hands are wound-prints,
And his side,"
3 Is there diadem, as Monarch,
That His brow adorns?
"Yea, a crown, in very surety,
But of thorns."
4 If I find Him, if I follow,
What His guerdon here?
" Many a sorrow, many a labor,
Many a tear."
5 If I still hold closely to Him,
What hath He at last?
"Sorrow vanquished, labor ended,
Jordan passed."
6 If I ask Him to receive me,
Will He say me nay?
" Not till earth and not till heaven
Pass away."
232
ART THOU WEARY, ART THOU LANGUID 233
7 Finding, following, keeping, struggling,
Is He sure to bless?
"Saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs,
Answer, 'Yes.'"
Rev. John Mason Neale, 1862
NOTE: The text is that of Dr. Neale's Hymns of the Eastern Church
translated, except in the third line of the last verse, which there
reads, "Angels, Martyrs, Prophets, Virgins,"
A HYMN IN DIALOGUE
The hymn takes the form of a dialogue between an
evangelist who offers Christ as the Way to rest and a
pilgrim who asks about the signposts and the road. The
form is striking but it is not strange. " Watchman, tell
us of the night " is also a dialogue, and those who have
followed these studies will recall John Cennick and his
Sacred Hymns " mostly composed in DIALOGUES."
The conversational form is older still. The Twenty-
fourth Psalm is a hymn in dialogue between two choirs,
one stationed within the holy walls, the other gathered
outside the gate and claiming the right to enter. But in
the present hymn the give-and-take between the speakers
is brisker, more dramatic.
Its dramatic quality is brought out in a passage to-
ward the close of Sally Pratt McLean's novel, Cape Cod
Folks. The young men of the village had stayed " down
to shore" in the late afternoon putting the finishing
touches on " mendin 5 up the old schooner." In the
evening a few sorrowing neighbors gathered at Grandma
Keeler's, where Captain Satchell * was telling how
George Olver and Lute Cradlebow had sung this hymn
together as they worked upon the schooner, just be-
* These names were changed in later editions of the novel.
234 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
fore the black squall came, in which Lute went down
to his heroic death.
" By and by, him and George Olver struck up a song.
I've heern 'em sing it before, them two. As nigh as I
calk'late, it's about findin' rest in Jesus, and one a askin'
questions, all fa'r and squar ', to know the way and
whether it's a goin' to lead thar' straight or not, and the
other answerin'. And he he was a tinkerin,' 'way up
on the foremast, George Olver and the rest on us was
astern, and I'll hear to my dyin' day how his voice
came a floatin' down to us thar', chantin'-like it
was cl'ar and fearless and slow. So he asks, for
findin' Jesus, ef thar's any marks to f oiler by ; and George
Olver, he answers about them bleedin' nail-prints, and
the great one in His side.
" So then that voice comes down ag'in, askin' if thar's
any crown, like other kings, to tell Him by ; and George
Olver, he answers straight about that crown o' thorns.
"Then says that other voice, floatin' so strong and
cl'ar, and if he gin up all and follered, what should he
have? what now? So George Olver, he sings deep o' the
trial and the sorrowin'. But that other voice never
shook, a askin', and what if he helt to Him to the end,
what then should it be, what then? George Olver an-
swers: * Forevermore, the sorrowin' ended Death
gone over.'
" Then he sings out, like his mind was all made up,
c And if he undertook it, would he likely be turned
away ? '
" * And it's likelier,' George Olver answers him, c that
heaven and earth shall pass.'
" So I'll hear it to my dyin' day his voice a floatin'
down to me from up above thar' somewhar', askin' them
ART THOU WEARY, ART THOU LANGUID 235
questions that nobody could ever answer like, so soon,
lie answered 3 em for himself."
THE AUTHOR OF THE HYMN
John Mason Neale was another young recruit of the
High Church Party in the Church of England who came
over from the Evangelical side. He was born in London
in January, 1818; the son of an Evangelical clergyman,
and at eighteen was sent up to Cambridge University.
The High Church Movement, begun at Oxford, was very
active there by this time, and Neale gave himself up to
it with his whole heart, becoming as much of a " Cath-
olic " as one can without submitting to the Pope's au-
thority. The spread of the Movement was creating gen-
eral alarm throughout the country, and Neale, who was
nothing if not outspoken, was already a marked man.
The Bishop of Winchester refused his license, but Bishop
Monk ordained him in 1842. He passed his whole min-
istry under the shadow of reproach and disfavor. The
only preferment in the Church that came to him was the
wardenship of Sackville College at East Grinstead,
some twenty-nine miles from London. With a high-
sounding name the college was merely an endowed alms-
house, and the wardenship carried a salary of less than
thirty pounds. This position Neale obtained in 1846 and
retained until his death there in August, 1866; a period
of twenty years, for sixteen of which he was prohibited
by his bishop from exercising any ministerial functions,
and during several of them was occasionally subject to
visitation by the " No-Popery " men.
When he founded at East Grinstead a nursing " Sister-
hood of S. Margaret " he was felt to have capped Ms
236 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
offenses by adding " a Romish convent " to the resources
of a Protestant Church. So intense were the feelings
aroused that, when Neale and the Sisters took the body
of one who had died to Lewes for burial, they were at-
tacked in the churchyard by a mob. Neale was knocked
down and maltreated, the Sisters were hustled along
the streets, and the whole party rescued with great diffi-
culty by the police and finally got on board the train
for East Grinstead. For such are the reversals of re-
ligious history. In one century a man is mobbed for
trying to stir up an " Evangelical Revival/ 3 in the next
for trying to stir up a " Catholic Revival.' 3
Such experiences did not suggest to Neale any compro-
mise of his church views. Those were fixed ideas, on
which his whole life was built. He believed that in
the " Catholic 3? system of religion he had found ulti-
mate truth and was incapable of "liberal " views in
theology or politics. The opposition or enmity he
aroused he met by ignoring it and turning his back upon
Ms accusers. With an elevation of mind that refused
to harbor resentment, he calmly pursued his own ideals
of life, in which scholarship and charity happily mingled.
In his study at East Grinstead or abroad he carried for-
ward Ms researches on the sources of early church his-
tory and worsMp, bringing forth work after work marked
by a learning that in his own lines had no equal and by
a productiveness almost without parallel. He gave
special attention to the hymns of the Latin Church, to
which the minds of High Churchmen had turned as more
ancient and seemly than the current hymns of the Evan-
gelicals. He explored their sources, gathered many
Mtherto unknown, wrote their history, and translated
some of them with brilliant success.
DR. JOHN MASON NEALE
238 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
But Neale was more than a scholar. He wrote many
books for the people, sermons, young people's stories,
" readings " to the aged and the sick. There are some
who regard him as a great master of English, and a
great teacher of that pure religion which lies deeper
than the clash of rival systems. That accomplished
bookman, Sir William Robertson Nicoll, himself a Con-
gregationalist and Evangelical, shortly before his death
confessed that "Neale's Readings to the Aged is my
favorite amongst all religious books, and many pages of
it I could almost repeat by heart." Good as these
books are, it is not by them that Neale's memory is
kept green so much as by such hymns as " Jerusalem the
golden " and " Art thou weary, art thou languid."
WHY THE HYMN IS CALLED A GREEK HYMN
The Eastern or Greek Church, as well as the Roman,
claims to be " Catholic." It claims also to be, like its
Lord, unchangeable. And while Newman and others
were turning toward the Church of Rome, Neale was
strongly disposed to seek a refuge from modern liberal-
ism in that immovable fortress of the faith, the Greek
Church. He devoted much time to studying its history
and liturgies. He was the first Englishman to tackle
what he called "the eighteen quarto books of Greek
Church poetry," and in 1862 he published a little volume
of Hymns of the Eastern Church translated.
It was a wonderful little book : as if he had discovered
a forgotten country, not in Arctic regions but in the fer-
tile East, which he had been cultivating alone for twelve
years, and now brought into our Western Churches
some of the flowers he had raised. Among them were
ART THOU WEARY, ART THOU LANGUID 239
such hymns as " The day is past and over," " Christian,
dost thou see them," "The day of resurrection/' and
" Art thou weary, art thou languid."
A HYMN IN DR. NEALE S AUTOGRAPH
The book found a ready welcome among those inter-
ested in the old church hymns. Only a year earlier a
group of clergymen had put forth a collection with the
taking title, Hymns ancient and modern. It was en-
thusiastically received by High Churchmen, resented by
240 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Evangelicals, and soon became (as it continues to be)
the chief hymnal of the Church of England. By 1868
the time had come to enlarge it, and an " Appendix " of
that year afforded the opportunity of adding eight of
Neale's hymns of the Eastern Church. Of the eight
" Art thou weary " made the quickest appeal to the pub-
lic: it was simple and touching, and the catchy tune,
" Stephanos," has carried it all over the English-speaking
world.
It must be acknowledged that the little voyager sailed
under false colors. Dr. Neale had launched it flying the
Greek flag, and everywhere it was welcomed as an an-
cient Greek hymn, while in fact it was not a Greek hymn
at all, but a modern English hymn composed by Dr.
Neale himself.
He had printed it in 1862 among his translations of
the Hymns of the Eastern Church, naming " S. Stephen
the Sabaite/ 7 an eighth century Syrian monk, as its
author, giving a sketch of his life, quoting the first line
of the hymn in Greek, even naming the particular service
book In which he had found it : " I copy/ 7 he said, " from
a dateless Constantinopolitan book." What could be
more explicit? And who was there in England to ques-
tion his facts?
And yet just before his last illness in 1866 Dr. Neale
brought out a third edition of his Hymns of the Eastern
Church with a new preface in which he said that " Art
thou weary " and two of the other hymns " contain so
little from the Greek, that they ought not to have been
included in this collection; in any future Edition they
shall appear as an Appendix."
We can imagine what had happened. He had been
anxious to make out the best case he could for the Greek
ART THOU WEARY, ART THOU LANGUID 241
hymns as a link between the Greek and English
Churches. But even to make them presentable he had
to change and omit and piece together, and to water
some doctrines too strong for English palates. In some
of his translations a searcher would find it hard to
identify his originals, and on reflection his conscience
compelled him to confess that " Art thou weary " had no
original at all. Possibly some phrase or mannerism of
St. Stephen moved him to write it, but it was all his own.
Dr. Neale had made what the French call a faux pas ;
an unfortunate one because when a mistake once gets
into circulation it is hard to correct. He did not live to
remove the three hymns from his translations, and after
his death his publishers did not help much. At least
one edition of Hymns of the Eastern Church was printed
just as he left it, and a fifth edition that did remove the
hymn to an appendix printed there with it all the data
about St. Stephen's authorship and even omitted Dr.
Neale's little confession from the preface.
This explains no doubt why Mr. King, dealing with this
hymn in his Anglican Hymnology of 1885, gives not only
a biography of the Syrian monk but an account of a visit
to the monastery of Mar Saba as " more endeared " to
him when he remembers that " there eleven centuries
ago St. Stephen wrote the touching hymn." All of which
in his turn Mr. Duffield has copied into his English
Hymns and Mr. Morrison in his turn into his Great
Hymns of the Church. And so it happens that our little
voyager still finds a harbor in many a Christian heart,
flying the Greek flag under which it was launched in
1862.
242 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
1. The Church Is a society of human beings, and al-
most as open to fluctuations of feeling and changes of
opinion and manners as worldly society is. The Word
of God does not change, but our response to it is always
changing. The Church's hymn book is a sort of regis-
tering thermometer that first feels and then records these
changes. And the hymn books of to-day show a very
different face from those, say, of 1840. These changes
are of course largely due to the Oxford Movement and
the new ideals of churchliness it spread abroad, but in
bringing them about Dr. Neale has had more influence
than any other man. He linked the Church's hymns with
the Church's history ; for which achievement he alone of
the men of his time had the requisite scholarship. He
invested our congregational praise with something like
an atmosphere of romance the light of other days and
glimpses of far-off things : he awakened the Church to a
sense of " her unending song." And his matchless trans-
lations have actually made some hymns of the Middle
Ages as familiar as household words.
When we remember how extreme and uncompromis-
ing Dr. Neale's High Church views were, it is amazing
to find that in some denominations which oncfe sang no
hymns but those of Dr. Watts and still adhere in the
main to Watts's theology, there are nearly as many of
Dr. Neale's hymns in actual use to-day as of Watts
himself. And the fact may properly raise the question
whether he was not only the greatest personal influence
in modifying our hymnody but also the greatest of the
nineteenth century hymn writers.
2. The Evangelical hymn writer, Miss Havergal, says
ART THOU WEARY, ART THOU LANGUID 243
in one of her letters that she " cannot understand how
any Christian can stand still and sing such a misrepre-
sentation of Christ's service as " are the words of the
fourth verse,
If I find Him, if I follow,
What His guerdon here?
" Many a sorrow, many a labor,
Many a tear."
"Is not that too bad? Do we not know it to be
unfair to our Lord and His happy service ? Where does
He say that is * His guerdon here ' ? Let us just think
for our service what He does say : < Work ; for I am
with you, saith the Lord of Hosts/ That alone is the
grandest, richest, sweetest ' guerdon here ' that any lov-
ing heart can ask."
Is there any actual difference between the "work"
which is a part of the guerdon here, according to Miss
Havergal, and the " many a labor/' which is a part of
it, according to Dr. Neale ? Is the saying " In this
world ye shall have tribulation " to be separated from the
" Work ; for I am with you," or is Dr. Neale right in
joining " many a labor " with " many a tear "? It may
be that if Miss Havergal had been less impulsive and
willing to " stand still " long enough to sing the hymn
through, she might have come to feel that in verse four
Dr. Neale was only laying the ground adroitly for the
" sorrow vanquished " of verse five.
3. Of the tunes to this hymn in The Hymnal revised
" Stephanos," the lower one, is that which first attracted
attention to the words in Hymns ancient and modern.
The melody was composed by the Rev. Sir Henry Wil-
liams Baker, editor-in-chief of that book, author also of
244 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
" The King of love my Shepherd is/ J and he asked Dr.
Monk, the musical editor, to manage the harmonies for
him. It is a good tune when sung deliberately and with
feeling. Rattled off without feeling, by American voices
especially, it becomes unpleasant and even acquires a
nasal twang. Perhaps the fact that it is so often rattled
off explains why many people have come to prefer the
more sentimental tune of Dr. Bullinger.
To which tune was it that George Olver and Lute
Cradlebow sang these words together? Having read
Cape Cod Folks, the writer is confident they sang the
tune provided in the Moody and Sankey Gospel Hymns
No. 2. But does not Captain SatchelPs description of
their singing afford in itself clues enough to identify
the tune ?
XXI
SAVIOUR, AGAIN TO THY DEAR NAME
WE RAISE
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
1 Saviour, again to Thy dear Name we raise
With one accord our parting hymn of praise;
We stand to bless Thee ere our worship cease;
Then, lowly kneeling, wait Thy word of peace.
2 Grant us Thy peace upon our homeward way;
With Thee began, with Thee shall end the day:
Guard Thou the lips from sin, the hearts from shame,
That in this house have called upon Thy Name.
3 Grant us Thy peace, Lord, through the coming night;
Turn Thou for us its darkness into light;
From harm and danger keep Thy children free,
For dark and light are both alike to Thee.
4 Grant us Thy peace throughout our earthly life,
Our balm in sorrow, and our stay in strife;
Then, when Thy voice shall bid our conflict cease,
Call us, O Lord, to Thine eternal peace.
Rev. John Ellerton, 1866
NOTE: The text here given is that which was prepared for the
Appendix to Hymns ancient and modem, 1868. Other forms of the
hymn are referred to under " Some Points for Discussion."
245
246 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
A CHURCHLY HYMN
This Is the third in our little group of High Church
hymns, and anyone familiar with the history of the Eng-
lish Church and English hymns would know at a glance
that it was inspired by the Oxford Movement. It is
" churchly."
There is nothing romantic or striking in the origin
of the hymn or in the life of the clergyman who wrote
it. The interest lies rather in discovering the hymn to
be so natural an expression of the author's personality
and his relation to the Movement that we feel the writ-
ing of it to have been almost inevitable.
Some strange tales, hard to credit nowadays, are told
of the neglected and sometimes disreputable conditions
of public worship in English parish churches in the
years before the Oxford Movement of the eighteen-
thirties : tales of ancient buildings falling into decay and
dirty, of furnishings shabby and unseemly, of sacra-
ments administered carelessly and uncouthly, of scanty
and irreverent congregations. With every allowance for
exaggeration it is plain that the ordinance of worship
was suffering from indifference.
To change all that was one of the very first tasks the
High Church Party set for itself: to make the worship
express visibly in dignity and even stateliness the high
doctrines it held of Church and Sacrament. The ex-
treme men aimed at more than this, at nothing less than
to restore the full Catholic ceremonial: but in an in-
sistence upon outward beauty and reverence and in giv-
ing more of a mystical tone to the celebration of Holy
Communion, all High Churchmen were agreed. The
brightening and embellishment of public worship be-
SAVIOUR, AGAIN TO THY DEAR NAME WE RAISE 347
came the visible sign and token of the Movement, as
year by year it widened its bounds and gradually, against
great opposition, changed the outward face of the Church
of England.
This enrichment of the church services was the feature
of the Movement that especially attracted the Rev.
John Ellerton, author of " Saviour, again to Thy dear
Name we raise." The hymn itself shows this. It could
have been written only by one to whom the reverent
conduct of public worship meant a great deal. Its very
atmosphere is churchly. The " we " of the opening line
makes us feel ourselves members of a church engaged in
an act of corporate worship, now closing with a parting
hymn of praise. Our very attitudes of body are por-
trayed. We stand to sing : we kneel for the benediction,
and go out in the hush that follows God's word of peace.
And the thought of the hymn is that lips and heart so
engaged in reverent offices should carry with them to
the life outside the peace of that benediction and the
purity of that worship.
THE AUTHOR OF THE HYMN
John Ellerton was born in a refined and religious home
in London nine days before the Christmas of 1826.
There had come to the city, shortly before a young Pres-
byterian minister from Scotland, Edward Irving. Tall,
white-faced, long-haired, an orator and enthusiast, his
preaching took the religious world by storm; a great
Presbyterian church was built for him at Regent Square,
and he became the fashionable preacher of London.
Feeling himself a prophet to Babylon the Great, his
message soon took the shape of heralding the imminent
248 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
return of the Messiah, and was accompanied by a revival
of the miraculous gifts of the Apostolic Church. As his
eloquence grew less coherent, and " the tongues " began
to make themselves heard in unearthly shrieks and unin-
telligible " prophecies," he lost his vogue, was deposed
by the Church of Scotland, and faded out of notice by
the general public.
The excited interest Irving had aroused in millenarian
speculations, and the expectation of the Second Advent,
still continued among the London Evangelicals. Mr.
Ellerton tells us that in the religious circle in which his
boyhood was spent, the favorite and inexhaustible sub-
ject of talk and reading was unfulfilled prophecy. The
chronology of the future was a chief concern: in what
year would the Jews be restored, Papacy be destroyed,
the Millenium begin ? The shy and sensitive boy drank
it all in and awaited with perfect faith some great crisis
predicted for 1844. He was shocked when in 1841 his
father executed a seven-year lease of some real estate.
These religious speculations he soon left behind, but a
deep love for the Evangelical type of piety he had wit-
nessed at home stayed with him all his life, and served
as a corrective of later High Church opinions.
At eighteen he was sent up to Cambridge University,
into a changed atmosphere, where the center of debate
was not the marks of the Beast but the marks of the
true church. Here he came under the influence of Fred-
erick Denison Maurice, a Broad rather than High Church
theologian. And so it happened that as Mr. Ellerton fell
in gradually with the views of the new High Church
Party, his Evangelical heritage and the liberal doctrines
of Maurice diluted them. He was never tempted to go
to such extremes as Dr. Neale.
SAVIOUR, AGAIN TO THY DEAR NAME WE RAISE 2 ^g
In these matters of opinion Mr. Ellerton, like most
of us, was a mirror rather than a shining light, reflecting
more or less of surrounding influences. So far as his
THE REV. JOHN ELLERTON
outward career is concerned he was simply a typical
English country parson, important in his parish, not
widely influential outside : but something more than we
250 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
mean when in this country we speak of a country
minister.
In England the Church is a part of the political sys-
tem. The whole surface is plotted into a network of
parishes, each with a parish church and a parish clergy-
man, supported by taxes levied on the products of soil
and industry. At its best the system secures to each
parish the residence of a refined and educated gentle-
man as a friend of the poor and a sort of spiritual squire ;
the parson has a social status and his lot often falls in
very pleasant places. There are hard places, too; par-
ishes remote, rude, or too poor to furnish even a decent
living, or where the only people who might make a con-
gregation in the parish church prefer to go to dissenting
chapels, or the man who owns perhaps the whole parish
is hostile to the church or parson.
Mr. Ellerton's lot lay largely in obscure but appar-
ently not hard places. He began in 1850 with three
years in a Sussex village, followed by an assistant min-
istry in one of the Brighton churches. From there he
passed on to one country parish and another, four in all.
He was stricken with paralysis at the end of 1891, re-
tired to Torquay and died there on June 15, 1893. When
lying disabled he was nominated to a prebendary's stall
of St. Alban's Cathedral, the only recognition that ever
came to him ; an honor empty enough, but entitling him
under some peculiar custom of that cathedral to be ad-
dressed during the last months of his illness as " Canon "
Ellerton.
SAVIOUR, AGAIN TO THY DEAR NAME WE RAISE
351
THE STORY OF THE HYMN
Always and everywhere Mr. Ellerton was first of all
the faithful parson, but he had also ample opportunity
to cultivate a hobby. And his hobby was hymns. From
being a hobby they grew into a controlling interest of
AUTOGRAPH OF THE HYMN
his life the study of hymns, the preparation of hymn
books, and most of all hymn writing. He had begun
writing them for his Sunday school while assistant at
Brighton, just as Dr. Bonar had done while assistant
at Leith; and, like Dr. Bonar again, he published a chil-
252 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
dren's hymn book. He went on writing hymns through-
out his life, and five years before his death gathered them
into a volume of Hymns original and translated. They
were not sudden inspirations or flashes of poetic fire.
They were planned and wrought as contributions to the
new hymnody of his Church; sometimes to fit an occa-
sion, sometimes to supply a gap in the provision for spe-
cial days of the Prayer Book.
" Saviour, again to Thy dear Name we raise " was
written at Crewe Green in 1866, to be sung at a festival
of parish choirs held in Nantwich. Like others of his
hymns it was composed to fit a particular tune that
took his fancy and ran in his head ; in this case a tune
called " St. Agnes " he found in a recently published col-
lection of Edward H. Thome. Mr. F. A. Jones, who
made a diligent search for the original manuscripts of
familiar hymns, tells us it was written on the reverse of
a leaf of the sermon preached the Sunday before, and
that in the first draft the opening line read:
" Father, once more before we part, we raise."
As Mr. Ellerton wrote it, there were six verses ; at one
time or another it has been revised, by his own hand
and the hands of other people also, so that several dif-
fering texts are current. When that 1868 Appendix to
Hymns ancient and modern was planned (the one that
took in some of Dr. Neale's hymns of the Greek Church),
Mr. Ellerton sent in this hymn to the editors, and either
he or they prepared the abridgment in four verses as
there printed, which is still the most familiar text. A
little later he became one of the editors of the rival
Church Hymns of 1871 and prepared for it a different
form of the hymn, a facsimile of which is here given.
SAVIOUR, AGAIN TO THY DEAR NAME WE RAISE 253
One wonders why lie wished the " approaching night "
verse to have precedence over the " homeward way "
verse, and why he preferred the harsh " through this ap-
proaching night " to " through the coming night." But
even hymn writers have their little obstinacies.
With the hymn thus lodged in both the important
hymnals, its future in the Church of England was secure.
When it was taken from Hymns ancient and modern
into the Presbyterian Hymnal published at Philadelphia
in 1874, many good Presbyterians, who knew very little
about the Oxford Movement and had supposed that
Watts, the Wesleys and the Evangelicals wrote all the
good hymns, must have wondered sometimes from what
source the editor of their new book drew such hymns as
this and "Jerusalem the golden" and "The Church's
one Foundation."
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
i. Mr. Ellerton was among the most accomplished of
the men who wrote churchly hymns in the latter half of
the nineteenth century. The whole number of his is
just short of a hundred, and many of them are in actual
use. All are marked by deep reverence and by feeling
carefully restrained within the limits of what may be
expected from average worshipers. They vary much in
quality, and some of those for saints' days and special
occasions carry marks of manufacture. Whence indeed
could one draw inspiration for the commemoration of
St. Bartholomew, of whom we do not know a thing, or
for " Catechising " or for " The Sunday after a funeral " ?
Of the thirteen of Ellerton's hymns (aside from the
two in which he had some part) in The Hymnal revised
254 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
which are the best? And are there any that could be
spared?
2. Anyone interested in the text of the hymn should
examine the form given in The New Hymnal of the
Protestant Episcopal Church (1916). It is in four verses
made up from the six as originally written, and the
third verse much extends the scope of the peace prayed
for, as follows:
Grant us Thy peace throughout our earthly life;
Peace to Thy Church from error and from strife;
Peace to our land, the fruit of truth and love;
Peace in each heart, Thy Spirit from above.
3. Of the tunes for this hymn in The Hymnal revised,
" Pax Dei " is the original setting composed by Dr.
Dykes for the Appendix of 1868; and Mr. F. A. Jones
quotes Mrs. Ellerton as saying that her husband was so
delighted with it that he sent the composer a letter of
thanks. It has been retained in all later issues of Hymns
ancient and modern, amounting now to many millions of
copies, and is sung the wide world over.
Dr. Hopkins' " Ellers," originally named " Benedic-
tion," and written in 1869 for unison singing with varied
harmonies, was chosen for Church Hymns, and is cer-
tainly an ideal tune for congregational use. Mr. Ellerton
told his biographer that he had come to prefer it (when
sung in unison) to Dr. Dykes's tune. Having both
before us we are as free as Mr. Ellerton was to make
our personal choice and to change it.
XXII
THE CHURCH'S ONE FOUNDATION
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
1 The Church's one Foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is His new creation
By water and the word:
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy Bride;
With His own blood He bought her,
And for her life He died.
2 Elect from every nation,
Yet one o'er all the earth,
Her charter of salvation
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.
3 Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
1 By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, " How long? "
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song.
4 *Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace for evermore;
255
256 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Till with the vision glorious
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.
5 Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won:
O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we,
Like them the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee.
Rev. Samuel John Stone, 1866
NOTE: As originally printed in the author's Lyra Fidelium the
hymn had seven verses. Of these the third (hereinafter quoted) is
here omitted as polemical, and the sixth and seventh are combined,
greatly to their advantage, in one verse. There is, however, no
change in the text itself.
Does it not seem quaint that a pronounced High
Churchman, wishing to teach his people what the Church
really is, should write for them a hymn embodying prac-
tically every doctrine concerning the Church he held
most dear (its divine origin, its unbroken continuity, Its
catholicity and essential unity, its orthodoxy, its sacra-
mental grace, its communion with God and with the
departed saints, its militancy and final triumph), and
then that his hymn should be welcomed not only by his
own party but by his Low Church opponents, and by
almost all communions or denominations or sects that be-
lieve in the Church at all, quite without regard to the
particular opinions they hold and promulgate as to
church history and doctrine, church authority, or church
organization ?
THE CHURCH'S ONE FOUNDATION 257
It is indeed a very extraordinary happening ; and the
writer has sometimes asked himself by what magic it
came about. Was the author " Catholic " in a larger
sense than he was aware of? It is possible. Or are all
the denominations of Christians becoming High Church?
No : that could not be claimed, though all or most have
felt the effects of the Oxford Movement. The writer
has concluded that the explanation of the hymn's gen-
eral acceptance lies in the fact that all its statements of
doctrine are made in the words and phrases of Scripture
itself, and thus every denomination is left free to in-
terpret the statements of the hymn in the same terms
in which it interprets the texts on which those statements
are based.
THE STORY OF THE HYMN
This hymn was written by the Rev. Samuel John
Stone, then beginning his ministry as assistant or curate
in the town of Windsor. Windsor in on the Thames,
twenty-one miles from London, with the royal castle
looking down upon it, and across the river, a bit to the
north, Eton College, the most famous boys' school in
England. Mr. Stone's work was largely among the
poorer people in the outskirts, where he had a mission
chapel of his own.
He has said that the hymn really grew out of the
state of feeling aroused by the cc Colenso Controversy."
Bishop Colenso, of South Africa, had published a book
denying the historical accuracy of the first five books
of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch. His metropoli-
tan bishop, Dr. Gray, deposed him from office, and
when an appeal to England was taken, Mr. Stone shared
258 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
the intense excitement of the controversy that followed.
He felt that Colenso was undermining " the Catholic
faith," approved of Bishop Gray's course, and deplored
the schism Colenso's followers made in the South Afri-
can Church,
That accounts for a heated verse in the hymn as first
printed, now happily dropped out:
"The Church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain, and cherish
Is with her to the end:
Though there be those who hate her,
And false sons in her pale,
Against or foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail: "
and also for the lines still retained:
"Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distrest: "
So much for the hymn's origin; and now for the use
which its author found for it. He noticed that the cot-
tagers at Windsor were given to saying the Apostles'
Creed as one of their private prayers, though without
clear ideas of what its various articles meant. This sug-
gested the writing of a series of hymns that would ex-
plain them, and could be used at home or in the chapel.
And he printed in 1866 Lyra Fidelium. Twelve Hymns
on the twelve articles of the Apostles' Creed. By S. J.
Stone, B. A., Curate oj Windsor. "The Church's one
Foundation " is headed :
THE CHURCH'S ONE FOUNDATION 359
ARTICLE IX.
"The Holy Catholic Church: the Communion of Saints."
"He is the Head of the Body, the Church."
and on the opposite page is a prose " Summary of Truths
confessed in Article IX," followed by what the West-
minster Catechism would call " the Scripture proofs."
*
AUTOGRAPH LINES OF THE HYMN
How far Mr. Stone's cottagers were edified we do not
know, but the hymn was taken into that same 1868
Appendix- to Hymns ancient and modern of which we
have already heard, and there set to the tune " Aurelia "
to which it has been sung ever since. The statement
that "Aurelia" was composed for these words is mis-
taken. It was written earlier as a setting for " Jerusa-
lem the golden." The conjunction of hymn and tune
was one of many happy things done by the editors of the
Appendix, and so joined they at once proceeded on their
triumphant way to become the marching song of the
Church. The only danger that threatens the continu-
ance of that career is the fatigue that waits on too con-
stant repetition. An English archbishop said that
260 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
wherever called to open or dedicate a church, he could
always count on two things cold chicken and " The
Church's one Foundation." To which the obvious retort
is, " There is nothing better."
"A VERAY PARFIT GENTIL KNIGHT"
We could wish for a portrait of the young curate who
wrote the hymn. Perhaps the one we have of his full
maturity is not less interesting. It is the photograph of
a sturdy, full-blooded, broad-shouldered and athletic
English gentleman (English all over). His clothes re-
veal the clergyman : we might have thought him an ad-
miral. A physiognomist could " deduce " a good deal
more from the leonine moulding of the head, the strong
straight nose, the piercing but kindly eye and general
air of command : more yet if the photographer had not
obliterated the lines of character and experience, and
the little crinkles of humor also that were surely there.
It is no surprise to learn that he had a quick temper,
and that like his " gentle " Master, who laid the whip
on the money changers, he was capable of a righteous
wrath that was serious. There was an occasion in a
lonely East End locality when he came upon three black-
guards attacking a poor unfriended girl. Stone heard
her cries, rushed to her help, knocked out the first
man with one blow, turned to the second and trounced
him until he cried for mercy, and ever after regretted
that the third got off before he could catch him. He told
a companion he thanked God he had learned to use his
fists at Charterhouse and would have given five pounds
to get at the third rascal's hide. Then, seeing a quiz-
zical look in his companion's eye and recalling clerical
THE KEV. SAMUEL JOHN STONE
262 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
proprieties, he burst into hearty laughter directed wholly
against himself. We all love Don Quixote.
And Mr. Stone was nearer the ideal of a knight, with
his innate purity of soul, his chivalry, his hatred of
wrong, his unselfishness, and his spotless life, than he
was to the type of the " muscular Christian." He had
a sensitive temperament, " the muscles of a prize-fighter
and the nerves of a violin," his doctor said: he was
emotional and excitable, with an active brain and a very
tender heart. It was his way to idealize his friends, his
country, his church, and all womankind; but especially
his Queen, the type to him of motherhood and sover-
eignty in one, whom he loved and extolled, and if need
be defended, with a boyish devotion and heat.
The boy that continued to live in him till pretty near
the end was born at Whitmore, Staffordshire, in April,
1839, an( * had the good fortune for the first thirteen years
of his life to be a country boy ; his father being parson
of one and another rural parish. Then his family moved
to London, and he was sent to the same Charterhouse
that Thackeray loved and made famous. From there
he went to Pembroke College, Oxford, and distinguished
himself in athletics at least, becoming captain of his
college boat, entered heartily into the Volunteer Move-
ment just beginning, and made a try for the poetry prize.
The boy's whole bent was toward soldiering, and it was
only the " one clear call for me " that turned the man's
face toward the ministry.
His began in 1862 with a curacy at Windsor of nearly
eight years. Then he went back to London to help his
father in an East End parish, St. Paul's, Haggerston. It
was a thickly populated parish without a well-to-do
person within its bounds, its worst street on the lowest
THE CHURCH'S ONE FOUNDATION 2 ^
stratum of London poverty. And in it Mr. Stone, first
as his father's assistant and then as his successor, spent
twenty years of pastoral life, unselfishly laboring from
early morning till late at night to meet the spiritual
needs of his parishioners, to educate their children in the
parish schools, and to get a bit of brightness into hard
lives. His combination of virility and sympathy gave
him real power over the people. He was a "churchman
rather than a missionary, a shepherd rather than an evan-
gelist; and St. Paul's, Haggerston, was the door of the
fold. But there was none of the ritualism there with
which many earnest workers appeal to the East End.
In a bit of garden back of the parsonage is a dog's
grave, and this epitaph:
In the centre of this lawn lies
SANCHO
a gentleman in all but humanity; thoroughbred,
single in mind, true of heart; for seventeen years
the faithful and affectionate friend of his master,
who loved him, and now for him. " faintly trusts
the larger Hope," contained, it may be, in Romans
viii. 19-21.
He died April 26, 1883.
It is a memorial of Mr. Stone as well as of Sancho. And
it reminds us of a similar but much statelier monument
to a dog in the garden of one of our Walnut Street man-
sions in Philadelphia, whose doors have never opened
since the dog's master passed through them, now many
years ago.
By 1890 Mr. Stone had worn himself out. An easier
post was found for him in one of the surviving churches
of old London "City," All Hallows, London Wall; a
quaint, musty little church, packed away amid great
264 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
blocks of offices and warehouses, which he first made
beautiful and then proceeded to make useful, in a parish
swarming with workers all day and at night populated
only by care-takers and their families. One use he
made of the building was criticized, but was much ap-
preciated by a great number of girls who for economy's
sake came up to Liverpool Street by the early workmen's
trains and had to wander about the streets till their
places of work were opened. He threw the church open
from 6:30 to 8:30 each morning as a haven in which
they could sit and wait. Reading of books (not news-
papers) and sewing were allowed but no talking or eat-
ing. And to many of the girls the house of rest became
a house of prayer.
For the last of his ten years at All Hallows Mr. Stone
endured the increasing agonies of cancer, and he died
on November 19, 1900. On the 23rd many of the throng-
ing business men who hurried by the little church must
have caught the strains of his funeral hymn, " The
Church's one Foundation."
Among his devoted friends Mr. Stone had one, an
accomplished man of letters, Mr. Coulson Kernahan.
Resolving to attempt some memorial of a man whom he
esteemed so great, Mr. Kernahan waited sixteen years,
for fear that his affection would tempt him to exag-
gerate, and then printed a graphic characterization of
Mr. Stone, which the present writer wishes could be
read by all young people who feel no impulse to follow
in the train of anaemic saints but can recognize a hero
even under a tall hat.
Mr. Kernahan, with a true artist's instinct, discloses
frankly those frailties or limitations that reveal his
friend as human, and, as an essential part of him, be-
THE CHURCH'S ONE FOUNDATION 265
come almost lovable : the fixedness of his ideas ; the per-
fect confidence in his own beliefs and opinions that made
him seem obstinate; the irascibility of overstrained
nerves ; an impatience of opposition that made him some-
times overbearing; a certain hot-headedness that inter-
fered with cool judgment; his unbending Toryism and
stiff churchmanship and incapacity of understanding
how an English gentleman could feel otherwise; and a
constitutional inability to see anything wrong in those
he loved and trusted that occasionally got him into
trouble.
And then, over these little shadows (how slight they
are made to seem) Mr. Kernahan throws the light of
his friend's moral splendor in a tribute as heartfelt and
as noble as was ever given to mortal man :
" So brave of heart was he as to make possible for us
the courage of a Coeur de Lion, so knightly of nature
as to make possible the honor of an Arthur or a Galahad,
so nearly stainless in the standard he set himself, in the
standard he attained, as to come, as near as human flesh
and blood can come, almost to making possible the
purity of the Christ."
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
i. There is a small group of familiar hymns that do
not take the form of praise or prayer or exhortation, but
the form of teaching. They are called didactic hymns,
and consist of a series of statements setting forth some
doctrine. This, setting forth the doctrine of the Church,
Bishop Wordsworth's "Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost,"
expounding the doctrine of Love, and his " O day of
rest and gladness/' setting forth the history and benefits
of the Christian Sunday, are examples.
2 66 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
The number of successful didactic hymns is small. It
takes a cunning hand and a warm glow to overcome our
instinct against going to school when we are asked to
sing praise. Of Mr. Stone's twelve hymns on the Creed,
only this and " Weary of earth and laden with my sin "
have come into use, and the latter is hardly didactic.
But " The Church's one Foundation " uses this form
and manner triumphantly. What other didactic hymns
are familiar?
2. When Mr. Stone printed Lyra Fidelium for his cot-
tagers, against each line or couplet of the hymns he set
on the opposite page the texts on which it was based.
Here are the four texts set opposite the four couplets of
the first verse of our hymn.
" Other foundation can no man lay than is laid, which is Jesus
Christ."
" Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God."
" Even as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for it,
that He might sanctify and cleanse it."
" The Church of God which He purchased with His own Blood."
Some readers might find an interest in supplying
equally suitable " proof texts " for the other verses.
3. The weaving of Scriptural truth and church doctrine
into strains of song was Mr. Stone's special gift in hymn
writing. His hymns, as gathered shortly before his
death, number fifty-five, many of which are in use in his
own communion, not many outside of it. He published
also three volumes of poetry, creditable to his head
and heart; but the writer would not care to have Mr.
Kernahan ask him how many of the leaves in his copies
THE CHURCH'S ONE FOUNDATION 267
have been cut open. He does not find Mr. Stone's poetry
at all convincing, and he thinks it would be a mistake to
regard " The Church's one Foundation " as a poem. It
is good verse and full of feeling, but of spiritual and not
poetic feeling. So the writer thinks, but the question is
open for discussion: remembering, however, that while
rhythm makes verse only imagination makes poetry.
XXIII
O LOVE THAT WILT NOT LET ME GO
THE TEXT OF THE HYMN
1 O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
2 O Light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to Thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in Thy sunshine's blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.
3 O Joy that seekest me through pain
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be.
4 O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from Thee;
I lay in dust life's glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.
Rev. George Matheson, 1882
NOTE: The text is taken from The Scottish Hymnal of 1885, with
the change in one line made for that book by the author.
268
LOVE THAT WILT NOT LET ME GO 269
One of ^ the effects of the High Church Movement in
Episcopalian England, whose hymns we have been study-
ing, was to make a considerable number of the clergy of
Presbyterian Scotland very much dissatisfied with the
architecture and worship of their parish churches and the
meager allowance of hymns which supplemented the
metrical Psalms. They formed a Church Service So-
ciety which brought about many changes, and they put
through The Scottish Hymnal, with Dr. Monk, who had
done such great things in Hymns ancient and modern,
in charge of its musical side. This book changed the
face of hymnody in the Church of Scotland to the
Anglican model. The enlarged edition of the book in
1885 gave to the Church for the first time the hymn
we are now studying with its " proper tune " ; the words
having appeared in a church periodical a year or so be-
fore. So there is just that much connection (and no
more) between the High Church Movement and the
present hymn.
THE STORY OF THE HYMN
The hymn was written by the Rev. George Matheson,
minister of the parish of Innellan in the Church of
Scotland.
Dr. Matheson was a large and many-sided personality,
of a powerful mind touched with genius, of great at-
tainments and with a distinguished career. It may
therefore seem far fetched to present him here as the
author of a single hymn, which in fact was thrown off in
a few minutes, as though the hymn was the center of his
career and his most characteristic performance. And
yet such is the simple truth.
270 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
Very much the same thing happened in the case of the
great poet, Tennyson, to whom " Sunset and Evening
Star " came without volition and was also thrown off in
a few minutes. The poet at once recognized it as the
crown of his art and the measure of his faith, and di-
rected that it be printed at the close of every edition of
his works, as their culmination.
Dr. Matheson's whole personality and deepest experi-
ences are Behind the hymn: it is the most perfect
expression of the man at his highest : and it is the high-
water mark in his career as a writer. He was constantly
printing religious verses, and yet he knew quite well
that this hymn was a thing apart. Its writing, he said,
was " to me a unique experience. I have no natural
gift of rhythm. All the other verses I have ever written
are manufactured articles; this came like a dayspring
from on high. I have never been able to gain once more
the same fervor in verse."
We have his own account of the circumstances:
" My hymn was composed in the manse of Innellan,
on the evening of 6th June, 1882. I was at that time
alone. It was the day of my sister's marriage, and the
rest of the family were staying over night in Glasgow.
Something had happened to me, which was known only
to myself, and which caused me the most severe mental
suffering. The hymn was the fruit of that suffering. It
was the quickest bit of work I ever did in my life. I
had the impression rather of having it dictated to me by
some inward voice than of working it out myself. I am
quite sure that the whole work was completed in five
minutes, and equally sure that it never received at my
hands any retouching or correction. The Hymnal Com-
mittee of the Church of Scotland desired the change of
O LOVE THAT WILT NOT LET ME GO 271
one word. I had written originally < I climbed the rain-
bow in the rain.' They objected to the word ' climb '
and I put in ' trace. 7 "
The nature of the personal sorrow behind the hymn
Dr. Matheson did not disclose, and we may respect his
reticence. The statement one has read that it was the
failure of the love of the woman to whom he was engaged
on learning the doctor's verdict of impending blindness,
her curt refusal " to go through life with a blind man,"
may be ignored, as he had been " a blind man " for
twenty-five years.
The success of the hymn was largely due to the
tune " St. Margaret," written for it by Dr. Albert L.
Peace, then organist of Glasgow Cathedral and musical
editor of The Scottish Hymnal of 1885. He did for
Matheson's words what Dr. Dykes's " Lux Benigna "
did for Cardinal Newman's " Lead, kindly Light." It
was his habit to carry about with him the words of the
hymns for which tunes were needed. Sitting on the
sands of Arran and reading these, he tells us, the tune
came upon him like a flash, and, taking out his pencil,
he wrote it off in a few minutes.
For a while the use of the hymn was confined to the
Church of Scotland and its preaching stations on the con-
tinent of Europe and elsewhere. From more than one
of these word came to the present writer, while prepar-
ing The Hymnal of 1895, f tne deep impression hymn
and music had made upon one or another American
tourist, with an earnest request that they might not fail
of a place in the new book. Such a letter from as far
as Cairo, dated in April of 1895, lies under the writer's
eye as he pens these words.
272 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
THE AUTHOR OF THE HYMN
George Matheson was born in Glasgow, March 27,
1842 ; the son of a prosperous merchant there. His was
not therefore the heritage of poverty out of which so
many eminent Scottish clergymen have won their way.
There are, however, far worse handicaps than poverty,
and one of them is blindness. Even as a child his sight
was impaired by inflammation back of his eyes. At school
he could still read by the aid of powerful glasses, but
from his entrance to the University of Glasgow in 1857,
his sight failed him altogether, and we have to think
of a buoyant and eager boy, the best student in his
school, with all a scholar's instincts and ambitions, fac-
ing a life fettered if not thwarted. He entered at once
the spiritual struggle his situation made inevitable, he
put to Heaven the old and unanswered question of why a
catastrophe so undeserved should befall him. Happily
he stood the test of his faith and won the Christian se-
cret of submission and something already of the self-
surrender of which his beautiful hymn was to sing,
Matheson's blindness has been regarded by some as
an endowment, a blessing in disguise, that made possible
all that he became and the real spiritual influence he
exerted. Others regard it as seriously affecting his full
development, and as the obstacle that prevented his
becoming the great Scottish churchman of his time, and
the spiritual leader of his generation. Who can say?
What we know is that he had a brave and useful life,
became a successful preacher of a very high order, and
by his devotional and other books influenced for good a
great number of people. Looking back upon his career,
LOVE THAT WILT NOT LET ME GO 273
he himself called it " an obstructed life, a circumscribed
life, but a life of boundless sanguineness, a life of quench-
less hopefulness, a life which has beaten persistently
against the cage of circumstance, and which even at the
time of abandoned work has said not ' Good night/ but
* Good morning.' "
Quite possibly, if he had had his sight, he would have
followed his inclination to study law. He would have
proved a great advocate surely, a great lawyer it may be,
though not so assuredly. As things were he entered the
ministry of the Church of Scotland, to which his family
had adhered at the Disruption, and was licensed by the
Presbytery of Glasgow in June, 1866.
His first parish was Innellan, then a small place and
something of a summer retreat, on the Firth of Clyde.
There was strong opposition to a blind minister; but
he soon won all hearts, proved a capable pastor, and re-
mained there for eighteen years, with ever-spreading
reputation as a preacher of very unusual power, even
for Scotland, the land of great preachers.
Dr. Matheson first came before the general public as
a scientific theologian, with his Aids to the study of Ger-
man Theology in 1874, and three years later with his
The 'Growth of the Spirit of Christianity, a brilliant
book with marked defects. Some of its mistakes were
pointed out by critics, and its author was charged with
being an inaccurate student. One of his friends has re-
ferred to the effect these criticisms had upon the author
himself. " When he saw that for the purposes of schol-
arship his blindness was a fatal hindrance, he withdrew
from the field not without pangs, but finally."
("Abandoned work" already; and now to "say Good
morning.")
274 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
He next undertook blithely the task of a reconciler
between the old faith and the new learning evolution
and the higher criticism of the Bible. But gradually
his own mind became tangled in the perplexities and con-
tradictions he sought to solve, and he could not see his
way. In the end he turned his back on these problems,
and apparently on the new learning itself, and retired
within his own soul to renew the fires of faith and deepen
the inner life of communion with God. ("Abandoned
work " again, and again " Good morning. 57 ) His later
books are expository and devotional; glowing, mystical
and deeply spiritual, as of a prophet seeing things in-
visible, and trying to narrate his vision.
Before leaving Innellan he had the honor, dear to the
hearts of the clergy of the established Church, of being
summoned to Balmoral to preach before Her Majesty,
Queen Victoria, a Presbyterian while residing in Scot-
land and a communicant in her parish church of Craigie.
She wrote afterwards that she was " immensely delighted
with the sermon and the prayers," and with her usual
thoughtfulness she substituted for the customary signed
photograph a little bust of herself that the preacher
could feel.
In the fulness of his powers Matheson accepted a call
to Edinburgh, and in March, 1886, was installed as min-
ister of St. Bernard's Parish Church, with some 1500
communicants. Here he repeated his earlier success on
a larger scale, and became a shining light, seen of all
men, waited upon by great congregations, honored by
the Scottish universities and esteemed in all the churches.
We have a description of him in the pulpit of St. Ber-
nard's, as observed by the Rev. Charles Parkhurst of
New York: c He enters the pulpit not larger than a
THE REV. GEORGE MATHESON
276 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
flour barrel. He has the face and form of General Grant,
when the hero of Vicksburg was most stout, but is taller.
With natural open eye you would not have thought he
was blind. Now he rises, swaying a little until he gets
his equilibrium. Announcing a Psalm for alternate
reading, he takes his verses without the mistake of a
word, and throughout the whole service, calling for sev-
eral hymns and Scripture references with chapter and
verse, he never made an error. Then he prays, and such
a prayer ! It seems profane to write about it. Though
his sight is eclipsed he does see God, he does see into the
hearts of his people. For forty minutes he preached on
the text, " Holy men of God spake as they were moved
by the Holy Ghost." We were instructed, refreshed,
inspired.*
Dr. Matheson continued at St. Bernard's for thirteen
years, when the burden became too heavy. His last
years were spent in preparing more books and in preach-
ing at large. He died during a summer holiday at North
Berwick on August 28, 1906. He had never married,
and was buried in his family's vault at Glasgow.
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
i. The hymn, let it be remembered, is autobiograph-
ical: the consecration of a great soul rising above the
despondency caused by a calamity. If sung at all by
the average Christian it should be sung very prayerfully.
To sing it flippantly would be an act of pure hypocrisy.
Even so its full meaning cannot be grasped without
study. It seems worth while, therefore, to print here an
analysis made by the Rev. Sydney Smith of Keith shortly
after Dr. Matheson's death:
O LOVE THAT WILT NOT LET ME GO 277
" The unceasing appeal which the love of God makes
to the soul, the truth that God loved us into being, that
as we owe our life to Him, so it is only in love of Him
that we find rest, only in service of Him that our life
attains fullness these are the thoughts with which
the singer starts on his flight:
" Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
" That whatever light we have is but a spark from the
central fire, that the divine Light ever shines and never
fades, that the unsteady little lights by which we grope
may sometimes dim its dawning glory, that by quench-
ing them so as to let the Eternal Light shine, it does
shine more and more unto the perfect day, that in God's
light we see light are some of the ideas to which the
poet next gives expression :
" Light that f ollowest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to Thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in Thy sunshine's blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.
" Then the poet, turning his eye inward, is conscious
of a mysterious joy mingling with and transfiguring his
grief, a joy which, however absorbed he is in sorrow,
will force itself upon him again and again, he sees a
shimmer of meaning and mercy in the darkness of his
lot, he beholds a bow in the cloud, giving assurance that
the destroying flood will cease.
278 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
" Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be.
" The poet is convinced that it is so. As in the Light
that 'followeth all his way,' he sees his cross to be
his crown, he must not impatiently ask deliverance from
the burden, he entreats power to make in the spirit of
trust the sacrifice to which God plainly calls him:
" I lay in dust life's glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be."
It was in allusion to these last lines that a group of
clergymen, who had sometime served as Dr. Matheson's
assistants, sent to his funeral a wreath of red roses.
2. When Dr. Matheson is made to state that he origi-
nally wrote " I climbed the rainbow in the rain," we
have perhaps an illustration of how hard it is for a blind
scholar to secure entire accuracy. He must have meant
" climb," one would think. Shall we agree with the
Scottish Hymnal Committee that " I trace the rainbow
through the rain " is the better line?
3. While speaking of accuracy it may be as well to
note that the fourth word of the hymn, so often printed
" will," is " wilt," and that it could not be anything else.
It is only a seasoned poet, such as Dr. Holmes was, who
would venture to print,
"0 Love Divine, that stooped to share."
A poet whose reputation was still in the making would
probably have heard and heeded the call to write
" stoopedest." But what a mouthful it is!
XXIV
GOD BE WITH YOU TILL WE MEET AGAIN
THE TEXT OP THE HYMN
1 God be with you till we meet again,
By His counsels guide, uphold you,
With His sheep securely fold you,
God be with you till we meet again.
Till we meet, till we meet,
Till we meet at Jesus' feet;
Till we meet, till we meet
God be with you till we meet again.
2 God be with you till we meet again,
'Neath His wings protecting hide you,
Daily manna still divide you,
God be with you till we meet again.
Till we meet, etc.
3 God be with you till we meet again,
When life's perils thick confound you,
Put His arms unfailing round you,
God be with you till we meet again.
Till we meet, etc.
4 Gpd be with you till we meet again,
Keep love's banner floating o'er you,
Smite death's threatening wave before you,
God be with you till we meet again.
Till we meet, etc.
Rev. Jeremiah Eames Rankin, 1880
279
2 8o STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
We have now completed the studies of what we may
call nineteenth century church hymns, and they have
shown a progressive movement to improve the literary
quality of the hymnody and to make it more " churchly."
But the tale is not yet told. The Church included a
goodly proportion of those plain people of whom " God
made so many " ; who are loyal, but without special ad-
diction to culture or churchliness. And among them
began the movement, with which we are all familiar, to
supplement the church hymns with popular religious
songs, of a lighter type of words and music. From the
evangelistic hymn book of Mr. Moody's campaign, the
new songs took the name of " Gospel Hymns," and in
course of time some of them have become very " Familiar
Hymns." With a representative of these our studies
may fitly close : most fitly perhaps with " God be with
you," because it is the most familiar and because it is
also a song at parting.
THE STORY OF THE HYMN
The hymn was written by a Congregationalist clergy-
man, Dr. Jeremiah Eames Rankin, while a pastor in
Washington, D. C. After it became popular he was often
asked about its origin. If his correspondents expected
to hear that it came forth from a fine frenzy of feeling
or under romantic circumstances, they must have been
disappointed with his reply. At all events we have the
actual facts from the author's own pen.
This is from a letter to Mr. H. Porter Smith, about
1890:
" God be With You, like most of my hymns and poems,
was the product of a cool purpose, and not the result of
>/(fe
4
(ftt,
AUTOGRAPH OF THE HYMN
282 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
any experience or feeling. The thought that that was
the meaning of our honest and hearty greeting, ' Good
by ' was the germ of it. I tried to put into a hymn that
thing, making it Christian instead of common. I was
at the time getting up a gospel hymn book for use in my
church in Washington, at the night service.
". Having written one stanza, I sent it to the author of
What a Friend We Have in Jesus, and also to another
man, some of whose melodies had pleased me. This
last gentleman, Mr. Tomer, sent me back the present
music of the hymn. It was put into shape a little
arranged, perhaps musicians would call it though very
little was done to it, by one of my co-editors, the accom-
plished blind organist, Dr. J. A. [It should be W.]
Bischoff, of my church in Washington. I then wrote
the other stanzas."
" I have been told/' Dr. Rankin said elsewhere, " that
it is publicly stated that this hymn was written on the
departure of a certain temperance evangelist to Europe.
This is wholly a mistake. The above is a complete
history of its origin."
And this is from an article Dr. Rankin sent to The
Christian Endeavor World, in 1894:
" The hymn never was so much used by the First Con-
gregational Church as by all the rest of the world. With
the exception of the Sunday night service, it was almost
never sung. I think the Methodists at Ocean Grove first
began to glorify it. This they carried to such an extent
that on the last day of one of their camp meetings a
member of my family heard it sung five successive times,
as the closing hymn of five different assemblies there."
He goes on to speak of his gratification at its adoption
by the Christian Endeavor Society.
DR. JEREMIAH EAMES RANKIN
284 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
THE AUTHOR OF "GOD BE WITH YOU"
Dr. Rankin did good service in his day, and was re-
garded by Ms friends as a man of unusual gifts. He
wrote a number of books and became a college president.
But to the general public his name survives simply as
associated with a single hymn.
The son of a Congregationalist clergyman, he was
born on January 2, 1828, in the hamlet of Thornton,
that lies by its little river in the hill country of New
Hampshire. At twenty he was graduated by Middlebury
College, in the neighbor state of Vermont, which after-
wards gave him its highest degrees, and chose him to
preside over its centennial as a distinguished son. Later
in life Dr. Rankin became president of the Howard
University in Washington, D. C, founded after the Civil
War to help in the higher education of the Negro. He
was interested all his life in the advancement of the
colored people, and here he spent his last years of active
service. Retiring in 1902 to the home of his daughter
in Cleveland, there he died on November 28, 1904.
Dr. Rankin had a Scotch pedigree, a great love of
Robert Burns, a ready pen of his own, and an early ambi-
tion to make his mark in poetry; all of which things
showed themselves in his first book, in the Scottish
dialect, Auld Scotch Mither. Throughout life the writ-
ing of verse continued to be his avocation. But his real
vocation was in preaching and pastoral work. He served
many Congregational churches in New England, New
York, and New Jersey. One can picture, above the pul-
pit, his square face topped with the luxuriant head of
dark brown hair, and the piercing eyes underneath the
heavy brows, giving it such an intense look. One can
GOD BE WITH YOU TILL WE MEET AGAIN 285
almost hear the deep voice speaking rapidly his char-
acteristic short, sharp sentences with all his Scottish
fervor and conviction.
The pastorate that concerns us most was at the First
Congregational Church of Washington. It was one of
those churches started under the conviction that one's
own denomination ought to have a representative at the
nation's capital; and General Oliver 0. Howard, of
Civil War fame, traveled all over the country raising
money to build it. Dr. Rankin came as pastor in 1869,
His fervid preaching at once drew a large congregation,
and the evenings gave Mm opportunity to conduct those
informal evangelistic services, for which, as we have seen,
his hymn was written.
THE COMPOSER OF THE TUNE
We might indeed say that the composer of the music
to " God be with you " was co-author of the hymn
itself, for one can hardly think of the words, much less
sing them, apart from Mr. Tomer's melody.
William Gould Tomer was not a trained musician.
His only education was had at the public school of a
hamlet, in Warren County, New Jersey (now known as
Finesville). There he was born on October 5, 1833, of
Methodist stock, German on his father's side. And
there, at the age of seventeen, he ceased to be a scholar
in the village school by becoming its teacher. He was
a country boy who loved music, who could carry his
part in the old-time singing school and lead the village
choir on a Sunday. He had taught himself to play the
bass viol and violin, and wrote musical sketches that
revealed a distinct gift for melody.
286 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
The Civil War interrupted Ms teaching. In 1862 he
enlisted as a private and was detailed as clerk to General
Howard. On his return home he taught school again,
until, in 1865, appointed a clerk in one of the depart-
ments at Washington, where he served for some seven-
teen years.
There Dr. Rankin met him, and formed a pleasant
impression of his musical gift. In Washington he did
some newspaper work, and in later years was editor of
one and another local newspaper in New Jersey towns.
At the time of his death, September 26, 1896, in Phil-
lipsburg, where his home was, he was editing The Hunter-
don Gazette, published in the neighboring High Bridge,
New Jersey. And it is a leading article in that news-
paper, for October i, 1896, that has made possible this
present sketch of Mr. Tomer's life.
He is described as a figure of five feet ten, of bulky
frame, with " a smooth Henry Ward Beecher face, large
head, gray eyes and a benign countenance "; an attrac-
tive personality, a general utility man with many bents
and capacities and a liking to spread his own sunny at-
mosphere: at his best in his home, where each child
could play some musical instrument. Very fitly the
choir of the Phillipsburg Methodist Church sang " God
be with you " at his funeral ; for that is his memorial,
SOME POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
i. Dr. Rankin's hymn does not belong to literature
but to the outlying realm of popular song, where the
standard is the simpler one of popular effectiveness. It
ranges with sentimental songs (most effective songs are
sentimental), boating songs, camp-meeting melodies and
GOD BE WITH YOU TILL WE MEET AGAIN 287
" gospel hymns." Dr. Rankin regarded it as a * gospel
hymn/ but In structure and effect it is more like the
old Negro ' spirituals ' (" Swing low, sweet chariot," for
instance), that take a melodious phrase for a theme,
repeat it, play around it, and come back to it with brief
intervals.
As sung there are thirty- two lines in all. Of these
just twelve are the first line over and over again, and in
twelve other lines " till we meet " is read twenty times
and sung forty times. Only eight lines are left in which
to add any thoughts to the original theme, and most of
these are turned from very familiar Scripture phrases.
So commonplace are they indeed that one might almost
say the hymn contains hardly more than the melodious
first line itself.
In song, as we all know, the recurrence of the main
theme as a refrain is an old and effective device. But
a case so extreme as this seems to invite criticism ; and
first, from the artistic point of view. Even the simplest
art should " hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature,"
and in our human intercourse such a prolongation and
repetition of " Good bye " would be as unnatural as un-
welcome. Secondly, it invites criticism from a spiritual
point of view, for the hymn is throughout a prayer ; and
in prayer we are forbidden to employ " vain repetitions."
Which probably means that we must not repeat phrases
mechanically without attending to what We say, or im-
agine that petitions, if repeated many times, are more
effective than if said only once.
The repetitions of the present hymn have not in actual
experience interfered with the powerful emotional ap-
peal it has made to a vast company of Christians : they
have probably consolidated it by diverting the singers
2 88 STUDIES OF FAMILIAR HYMNS
from the necessity of doing any thinking or even much
remembering. Wherein does the power of that emo-
tional appeal lie?
First 3 in the simple words " Good bye," which the
opening line draws out so melodiously and the added
lines perhaps amplify. As Mark Rutherford says in his
novel, Catharine Furze, " In all parting there is some-
thing infinite."
Second, in Mr. Tomer's music, which has the half-
pathetic strain loved by young people in their college
and other songs. In its way the music is quite remark-
able in suggesting the bright hopes and vague shadows
that lurk around " good-bye." Whether into the dark
or into the light, it's " God be with you " where we can-
not go ! And so the melody flows on and turns back ; now
loud and clear at the doorway where we separate, now
lessening with the lengthening roads that bear us apart,
now as a last refrain, so faint, so far, and, then, remem-
bered music.
2. Dr. Rankin was somewhat vehement in protesting
against any alteration of his hymn. One " tinker," he
said, printed " Pui^ His loving arms around you " in
place of " Put His arms unfailing round you " : " an idea
unpleasant and out of taste, besides being unscriptural :
as in the Bible the arms always signify strength, espe-
cially when applied to Jehovah." Is he right as to the
Biblical usage?
Another " tinker " printed " still provide you " in
place of " still divide you," intended to suggest Christ's
breaking and distribution of bread. This tinker, Dr.
Rankin said, might have served as a butler or com-
missary.
3. When in 1889 Dr. Rankin printed his Hymns pro
GOD BE WITH YOU TILL WE MEET AGAIN 289
Patria, he doubled the length of this, adding four verses.
Could there have been a call for forty additional repeats
of " Till we meet " ? And was there no kindly hand
raised to prevent the printing of this final verse?
" God be with you till we meet again,
Ended when for you earth's story,
Israel's chariot sweep to glory:
God be with you till we meet again."
4. In concluding these studies of hymn origins, the
writer wonders how many readers have come so far with
him, and if any has learned to turn a more interested
eye on his church hymnal ; and especially if he has yet
begun to notice the inconspicuous note to each hymn
and tune that discloses its authorship and date, and the
state of the hymn's text. The writer would like to tell
the story of all that was involved in preparing the notes
to this hymn and tune as one illustration of the pains-
taking that goes into a good hymnal. For the sake of
directness he will tell it in the first person.
When I wrote Dr. Rankin for permission to use words
and music in The Hymnal of 1895, I asked for the cor-
rect date of each. He replied that he could not tell
" without great inconvenience and loss of time.' 7 He
did not even know Mr. Tomer's full name or address.
So both hymn and tune went in without a date. Soon
after I secured for the tune a date I thought trustworthy
(as it was) ; and so in the second edition it was dated
1880. In correcting the plates for a fourth printing
this date was struck out through some misunderstanding,
and hymn and tune appeared once more without any
date. Then I came upon a quotation from a letter of
Dr. Rankin, saying that both were written in 1882. Sup-
290 STUDIES OP FAMILIAR HYMNS
posing he had looked up the matter at last, that date
was given to both words and music in the edition of
The Hymnal printed in 1899, an d was kept when The
Hymnal revised was published in 1911, and printed there
till now.
One day in May., 1921, I was looking over a poor lot
of old gospel ' song books in Highlands' second-hand
book store on Arch Street, Philadelphia, and came upon
one called Gospel Bells. Its editors were named as
" Prof. J. W. Bischoff, Otis F. Presbrey and Rev. J. E.
Rankin, D.D.," and it was published in Chicago, 1880.
Here plainly was the song book that Dr. Rankin and his
blind organist prepared for the evangelistic services at
Washington, and here, surely enough, was " God be with
you," on page 51, words and music, just as it is sung
now. Sometimes these books are dated ahead, for
reasons publishers know. But this particular copy has
a penciled note stating that it was bought " Nov. 1880."
So we have at last the correct date of the first printing
of our hymn and tune. And the Hymnal plates will
have to be altered once more.
GENERAL INDEX
[Titles of books, etc., in Italics.]
Abney, Sir Thomas, 30
Addison, Joseph, 20
Advent, Second, 211, 215, 248
Aids to the Study of German
Theology, 273
Ainsworth's Psalter, 10
Alden, John and Priscilla, 10
Alexander, Mrs. Cecil Frances:
her hymn, " There is a green
hill far away," 220-231
sketch of, 226,
portrait of, 222
autograph verse of, 225
Alexander, Rev. James W., 219
Alexander, Archbishop William,
226, 227, 229
Alice in Wonderland, 226
All Hallows, London Wall, 263,
264
Allen, Ethan, 76
Allen, James, 93, 98, 99, 101,
102, 103
Amatory hymns, 40, 08
American Colonies:
The Wesley s in, 36, 120
Whitefield in, 49, Si, 82, 120
Toplady and, 120
American Revolution, The, 138
Anglican Hymnology, 241
Apostles' Creed, The, 224, 258,
266
Argyll, the Duke of, 219
Arminianism, 46, 49, 50, no,
in
Ash worth, Caleb, 65
Auld Scotch Mither, 284
Aurelia (tune), 259
Autumn (tune), n
Bacon, Rev. Leonard W., 129
Baker, Rev. Sir Henry Williams,
21, 243
Balerma (tune), 21, 179
Balmoral, 274
Barnby, Sir Joseph, 206
Bartholomew, 253
Barton, William, 18
Bath, 100
Beauties of Dr. Watts, &c., 159
Bedford, Duchess of, 169
Benediction (tune), 254
Bernard of Cluny, 211
Bible:
Genevan, 9
language of, in hymns, 257,
266
"Bible only, The," 4, 24,
174
"Bible Songs," 4
Bible Hymn Book, The, 215
Bischoff, J. W., 282, 290
Blaikie, Rev. Wm, Garden, 208
291
GENERAL INDEX
Blair, Robert, 184
Blair, Samuel, 87 '
Bonar, Rev. Horatius:
his hymn, " I heard the
voice of Jesus say," 207-
219
his other hymns, 212, 213,
215, 251
sketch of, 209
portrait of, 208
autograph of his hymn, 214
his popularity, 215
criticisms of, 216
his place among hymn
writers, 218
Book of Common Praise, 203
Book of Common Prayer,
The:
of i$49> 5
of 1552, 5, 8
its prose system of Psalm-
ody, 8
Calvin's influence on, 5
hymns bound up with, 179
Borthwick, Jane, 219
Bourgeois, Louis, 4, 6
Bradbury, William B., 206
Braddock's defeat, 88
Brandon, Vt., 121
Breviary, The, 5, 140
Bridges, Robert, 152
Brierley, J., 23
Brighton, 196, 201, 250
Broad Church, 196
Brooks, Bishop Phillips, 226
Brownlie, Rev. John, 219
Bruce, Michael, 219
Bryant, William Cullen, 152
Buckingham, Duchess of, 94
Bullinger (tune), 244
Bunhill Fields, 166
Burder, George, 158
Burns, Rev. James Drummond,
205, 219
Burns, Robert, 284
Burrington Combe, 113, 114
Byrom, John:
his hymn " Christians,
awake ! ", 56-67
sketch of, 57-62
portrait of, 59
autograph of, 63
and the Wesleys, 57-60
his shorthand, 58, 60
his epigram, 62
his daughter Dolly, 62, 64
Caersalem (tune), 77, 78
Cairns, Principal, 212
Cairo, 271
Calm Address to the American
Colonies , 120
Calvin, John:
portrait of, 3
at Geneva, 2-5
inaugurates singing of metri-
cal Psalms, 4
provides the tunes, 4, 6
his Psalm Book, 4, 6, 7, 8,
ii
his prescription of "Bible
[songs] only," viii, 4, 14,
20, 83, 178
his distrust of human hymns,
4, 83
his influence on English
Reformation, 4, 5, 8
his influence on Scottish
Reformation, 17, 175, 178
Calvinistic Methodist Church, 70
Calvinism:
in English Reformation, 5
in Scottish Reformation, 17
of Francis Rous, 18
of Church of England, in
of Whitefield; and his
breach with the Wesleys,
46, 49, 50, 69, 106
GENERAL INDEX
293
of the Evangelicals, 106, 108,
131, 143, 195, 248
of Lady Huntingdon, 96,
106, 131
of the Welsh Revival, 69, 7
of The Gospel Magazine,
156
of Toplady, 110-112, 156
of Olney Hymns, 131, i34>
144, 149
of Bonar, 218
Cannongate, 212
Cape Cod Folks, 233, 244
Cataract of Lodore, 218
Catechizing, 132, 253
Catharine Furze, 288
Catholic Revival, The, 221, 223,
224, 235, 236, 246,
Cennick, John:
his hymn, " Children of the
Heavenly King," 45-55?
184
his strange experience, 46
his portrait and autograph,
48
his hymns, 50, 233,
his relations with the Wes-
leys, 46, 49, 50
Centennial of American Inde-
pendence, 119, 121, 129
of " Rock of Ages," 121
of the Constitution, 122
" Centennial Hymn " (Whit-
tier's), 128
Chadwick, Rev. John White, 128
Chalmers, Dr. Thomas, 211
Chalmers' Memorial, Edinburgh,
211
Charles I, 17
Charleston, Wesley at, 36
Charterhouse, The, 260, 262
Children's Hymns:
(otherworldly), 30
Watts's, 231
C. Wesley's, 231
Ann and Jane Taylor's, 231
Mrs. Alexander's (churchly),
224, 226, 230
Bonar's, 212, 213
The fault in, and the
remedy, 229-231
Choir tunes, 67
Christian Endeavor Society, 282
Christian Endeavor World, The,
282
Christian Year, The, 227
Christian Psalmist, The, 189
.Christmas:
(two) Christmas hymns as-
sociated with the Wes-
leys, 57
" Christmas Day for Dolly,"
62
hymns and carols, 66
English carol singing, 65
and Epiphany, 190
Church, The:
doctrine of, 256
its fluctuations, 242
Miss Elliott's conception of,
196
Church Hymns, 252, 254,
(Church of England, see England
Church of Scotland, see Scotland
Church Service Society, 269,
"Churchly" hymns, 223, 230,
239* 242, 247, 252,
Civil War, English, 17
American, 125, 126, 129, 286
Clark, Rev. Samuel, 169
Clarke, Rev. Adam, 190
Colenso controversy, 257, 258
'Coleshill (tune), 177
'Collection of Hymns for the
people called Methodists, 38,
40
Colin and Phoebe, 58
Communion, Holy, 246
294
GENERAL INDEX
Communion Hymns, 90, 91, 180,
215
Congregationahsts:
in England:
retain metrical Psalmody, 24
decay of the_ Psalmody, 24,
26
introduce hymns (Watts) ,
27, 36, 158
stay apart from the Revival,
171
Doddridge as their leader,
171
decline of, 171, 172
in America:
inherit metrical Psalmody,
10
introduce Watts's "Psalms
and Hymns " at the Great
Awakening, 82
in Washington, 28.5
Converse, Charles C. (com-
poser of "What a Friend"),
282
Conyers, Rev. Richard, 150
Cooke and Denton's Church
Hymnal, 94, 102, 103
Coronation (tune), 160, 166
Cotterill, Rev. Thomas, 66, 118
Courtship of Miles Standish,
The, 10
Cousin, Anne Ross, 219
Cowper, William:
his hymn, " God moves in a
mysterious way," 142-153
how he came to Olney, 143
and Newton, 134, 143, 146,
147
portrait of, 145
his part in Olney Hymns,
^147, 148, 152
his insanity, 144, 146, 148,
/49
his poems, 149
Cradlebow, Lute, 233, 244
Craigie Church, 274
Cranmer, Thomas, 5
Crewe Green, 252
Crockett, Samuel R., 177
Cromwell, Oliver, 13
Curtis, George William, 32
Cuyler, Rev: Theodore L., 187,
212, 224,
Cymbeline, 118
Dartmouth, Lord, 133, 138
Dartmouth College, 138
Davies, Rev. Samuel:
his hymn, " Lord I am
Thine," 80-92;
sketch of, 87-90
autograph of, 89
portrait of, 85
the first American Presby-
terian hymn writer, 83-87,
172
introduces hymn singing in
Virginia, 84
his Sermons, 86, 90
at Princeton, 88
his allusion to Washington,
88
Death in the older Evangelical
hymnody, 30
Declaration of Independence, 119,
121
Dialogue, Hymns in, 50, 51, 233
Dickens, Charles, 32, 217
Dictionary of Hymnology, Jul-
ian's, 161; (quoted), 44, 203
Didactic hymns, 265
Dismissal (tune), 78
Disruption of Church of Scot-
land, 271
"Dissenting interest," decline of,
171
Divine Songs for the use of
Children, 231
GENERAL INDEX
Dobell's New Selection of
Hymns, 159, 161
Doddridge, Rev. Philip:
his hymn, "O God of
Bethel, by whose hand,"
167-180
sketch of, 1 68
portrait of, 170
his Rise and Progress, 171
his Family Expositor, 171
his Hymns, 168, 172, 179
and Watts, 27, 168, 171
and the Revival, 171
and Whiteneld, 171
and Lady Huntingdon, 172
Dog's Monument The, in Lon-
don and in Philadelphia, 263
Douglass, Canon, 21
Drawyer's Church, 87
Duf&eld, Rev. George, 219
Duffield, Rev. Samuel W., 241
Duncan, Canon, 54, 215
Duncan, Rev. John, 159, 161
Dundee (tune), 21, 179
Dunn, Rev. Robinson P., 219
Duquesne, Fort, 88.
Dutch Psalmody in England,
10
Dykes, Rev. John Bacchus, 76,
254, 271
East Grinstead, 235, 236
Easter, 102, 165
Eastern Church, hymns of the,
236
Edinburgh:
Dr. Blaikie at, 208
Bonar at, 211
Matheson at, 274
Edinburgh Review, 187
Edward VI, 5, 8
Edwards, Rev. Jonathan, 88
Eighteenth century hymns, 40,
182
295
Election, Doctrine of, 49, in
Ellers (tune), 254
Ellerton, Rev. John:
his hymn, " Saviour again
to Thy dear Name we
raise," 245-254
sketch of, 247
portrait of, 249
autograph of, 251
reference to, 43
Eliot, George, 30
Elizabeth, Queen, 24
Elliott, Charlotte:
her hymn, "Just as I am,"
194-206, 221
sketch of, 196
portrait of, 197
autograph of, 199
Elliott, Rev. Henry V., 201, 203
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 151
England, Church of:
adopts Calvin's ideals of
Psalmody, 4-7
but retains its prose
Psalter also, 8
continues Psalm singing
through Elizabeth's reign,
24
also after the Puritan Revo-
lution, 17-18, 24
and John Wesley (he prints
its first hymn book) 36-
38, 105
and Lady Huntingdon (who
introduces hymns) 94-
97> i3i
and the Evangelicals (their
hymns and hymn books)
106, 108, 131, 143, 146,
195, 248
it clings to the metrical
Psalms, 105, 133
its Calvinism vindicated,
no, in
296
GENERAL INDEX
in Virginia, 83
its parish system, 250
and the High Church Move-
ment:
the effect on worship, 246
the Churchly hymns, 221-
223, 230, 239, 242, 247,
252
its Catholic Revival, and the
Old Church hymns, 235-
240
English Hymns (Duffield), 241
" Enthusiasm," 105, 106
Epiphany, 190
Epworth, 34, 36
Eton College, 18, 257
Evangelical Magazine, The, 161
Evangelical Revival:
the breach with Methodism,
49, 50, 69, 96
Whitefield's leadership of,
50, 52, 69, yo 5 7i 96
Lady Huntingdon's part, 96,
97,
its Calvinism, 46, 49, 50, 96,
106, 110-112, 131
its spiritual experiences, 46-
49
its hymns, 46
at OIney, 133
the Evangelical or Low
Church Party, 106, 108,
131, 143, 195, 248
the Evangelical Succession,
195
in Wales, 69, 70
in America, 81-84
and the Independents, 171
Evangelistic hymns, 280
Faber, Rev. Frederick W., 135
Familiarities in worship, 40
Family Expositor, The, 171
Famous Hymns and their Au-
thors (Jones), 62, 64, 65, 202,
252, 254
Ferrers, Earl, 100
Findlater, Mrs., 219
Finesville, N. J., 285
Flemish Psalmody, 10
Fleshly images in hymns, 40, 98
Flowers of the Forest (tune),
213
Foreign Missions, 189-193
Fourth of July, 119, 120, 124
Frankfort, Marian exiles at, 5, 8
Fraser, Bishop James, 216
Free Church of Scotland, 210,
213
French (tune), 21, 179
French and Indian War, 88, 91
French Psalmody, 2, 4, 24
French Revolution, 186
Fulneck School, 184, 186, 187,
188, 189
Garrick, David, no
Gates Ajar, 211
Geneva:
Calvin at, 2, 4, 5,
English exiles at, 5, 6, 8, 17
English church formed at, 5
English Bible translated at, 9
English Psalm Book begun
at, 6
Gentleman's Magazine, The, 74
Georgia, the Wesleys in, 36
German Hymn (tune), 54
German hymns, 4, 36, 223
Gibbons, Rev. Thomas, 80, 86,
87, 9 } 9i
Gladstone, William E., 42, 43
Glasgow: Cathedral, 271; Mathe-
son at, 272 ; Presbytery of, 273
Glassites, The, 98
Gloria in Excelsis, 71
Golden Age, The, 226
Golden Treasury, The, 54
GENERAL INDEX
297
Good bye, its meaning, 287, 288
Good Friday, 102
Gospel Bells, 290
Gospel Hymns, 134, 212, 244,
280, 287
Gospel Magazine, The, 104, 115',
116, 150, 156, 157, 161, 164,
165
Gounod, Charles Frangois, 206,
229,
Gower John H., (composer of
" Reliance "), 118, 231
Grahame, Kenneth, 226
Grant, Gen. U. S., 276
Grave, The, 184
Gray, Bishop, 257, 258
Great Awakening, The, 81, 82
Great House at Olney, 133, 148,
152
Great Hymns of the Church, 241
Greathced, Rev. Samuel, 149
Greek Church and its hymns,
238-241
Green Sleeves (tune), 9
Gregory, Rev. A. E., 231
Growth of the Spirit of Christi-
anity, 273
Halleluiah, 71
Harris, Howell, 52, 53, 69, 72,
74
Harrison, Rev. Ralph, 65
Harvard Theological Review, 32
Hastings, Lady Margaret, 97
Hastings, Thomas, 118, 219
Havergal, Frances R., 242, 243
Havergal, Rev. William H., 117
Heaven, Hymns of, 30, 31, 32,
211, 216
Heber (tune), 213
Henley, William E., 61
High Bridge, N. J., 286
High Church Movement, see
Oxford Movement
hymns, 221, 223, 224, 230,
239, 242, 246, 252, 253
Holden, Oliver, 160, 166
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 117,
129, 152, 182, 278
Hondert Psalmen Dauids, 10
Hopkins, Edward J., 254
Hopper, Rev. Edward, 219
Horder, Rev. W. Garrett, 76, 78
Horsley (tune), 231
Hosannah, 71
Hosannah to the Son of David,
7i
Hours of Sorrow, 195, 198, 199,
200, 203
Howard, Genl. Oliver 0., 285,
286
Howard University, 284
Humphrey, J. D., 168
Humphreys, Cecil Frances, see
Alexander
Hunterdon Gazette, 286
Huntingdon, Lady:
her college in Wales, 68, 71,
78, 96
her chapels, 71, 96, 97
and Gibbons, 86
and Shirley, 94, 100
and Methodism, 94
and Whiteneld, 71, 96, 106
her secession from the
Church of England, 97,
131
her u Connexion," 96, 97
her hymn singing, 96, 97,
100
her hymn books, 71, 100
and Doddridge, 172
and Perronet, 165
Hutchins' Hymnal, 122
" Hymn of human composure,
The ":
favored by Luther, 2, 4
distrusted by Calvin, 4, 83
298
GENERAL INDEX
defended by Watts, 26, 27
employed by Wesley, 36, 37,
105
vindicated by the Evangeli-
cal Revival, 82, 83
introduced into Church of
England by u Evangeli-
cals," 106, 131, 146
resisted by Presbyterians in
America, 82,
resisted by Presbyterians in
Scotland, 175, 176
repudiated by some Presby-
terian denominations, 20
Hymn Books:
Early American, Evangelical
and Unitarian, 182
Wesley an, 38
first, of the Church of Eng-
land, 1 06
first, of Scotland, 175, 176
high church, 239
Sunday school, 30
evangelistic, 280
as registering thermometers,
242
Hymnal, Presbyterian (of
1874):
its use of the new
" churchly " hymns, 253
Key's hymn in, 129
Hymnal, The (of 1895):
the standard for reference in
first series of these Studies,
viii
in the making, 21, 121, 125,
149, 271, 289,
its texts of the hymns, 10
its tunes 10, 125
its notes to hymns and
tunes, 289
Hymnal revised, The:
the standard for reference in
this book, viii
in the making, 121, 290
its texts of the hymns, 10,
20, 44, 66, 117, 140, 152,
155, 179, 192, 205, 252,
258
its tunes, 10, 21, 78, 118,
121, 166, 179, 206, 231,
243, 254
Doddridge's hymns in, 179
Ellerton's hymns in, 253'
Hymnal of the Calvinistic
Methodist Church of the
U. S. A., 77
Hymn Lover, The, 76
Hymn tinkering, 40, 178, 288
Hymns:
as our response to Scripture,
27
used to enforce the Sermon,
84, 172
of the 1 8th century, 46, 182
Dr. Holmes on, 182
the memorizing of, 54, 231
Hymns:
amatory, 40
Centennial, 119, 121, 128
Children's, see Children's
of Christian experience, 46
Churchly, 223, 230, 239, 242,
247, 252
Christmas, see Christmas
Communion, 90, 91, 180, 215
in dialogue, 50, 51, 233
didactic, 265
Easter, 165
Evangelical, 27, 82, 106, 175,
195, 204, 218
evangelistic, 280
Fourth of July, 119, 122,
129
German, 4, 36, 223
Good Friday, 102
" Gospel," 134, 212, 244, 280,
287
GENERAL INDEX
299
Greek, 238-241
of heaven, 30-32, 211, 216
high church, 221, 223, 224,
230, 239, 242, 246, 252,
253
"I and we," 103, 247
Latin, 140, 238
Missionary, 192
Moravian, 36, 40, 50, 97,
98, 184
otherworldly, 30, 211, 216
patriotic, 129
polemic, 112, 258
Preshyterian, 179, 218-219
Welsh, 69-75
Hymns ancient and modern, 21,
229, 239, 254, 269
its " Appendix " of 1868, 240,
243, 245, 252, 253, 254, 259
Hymns and Sacred Poems (the
Wesleys'), 34. 39, 57, 60
Hymns and Spiritual Songs
(Watts), 22, 23, 27, 36
Hymns for Children (C. Wes-
ley), 230
Hymns for infant minds, 230
Hymns for little Children, 220,
224, 227, 229, 230
Hymns of the Eastern Church
translated, 233, 238, 240,
241
Hymns of Faith and Hope, 207,
215, 218
Hymns of the Nativity, 215
Hymns on the Lord's Supper,
115, U7
Hymns original and translated
(Ellerton), 252
Hymns pro Patria, 288, 289
Hymns that have helped, 177
" I and we " hymns, 103, 247
Independents:
retain metrical Psalmody, 24
decay of their Psalmody, 24,
26
introduce Watts's " Psalms
and Hymns," 27, 36, 138
oppose the Great Revival,
171
decline of, 171, 172
Ingham, Rev. Benjamin, 97
Inghamite Hymnody, 97, 98
Innellan, 269, 270, 273
Invalid's Hymn Book, The, 19$,
198, 200, 203
Ireland: Church of, 221; Mrs.
Alexander in, 227
Irish Presbyterians, 228
Irving, Rev. Edward, 247, 248
Jehovah, 75, 76
Jennings, John, 169
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 106, 120
Jones, Francis Arthur, 62, 64,
65, 202, 252, 254
Jones, James Edmund (com-
poser of "Walden"), 21, 203
Jonson, Ben, 151
Journal of The Presbyterian His-
torical Society, ion
Jowett, Rev. Benjamin, 151
Julian, Rev. John, 44, 161, 203
Just as I am (tune), 206
Keble, Rev. John, 221, 227
Keeler, Grandma, 233
Kelso, 209, 210, 213, 215
Kernahan, Coulston, 264, 265,
266
Kethe, Rev. William:
his Psalm, " All people that
on earth do dwell," i-ii
sketch of, 8
Key, Francis S., 129 '
Kib worth, 169
Kiernan, Miss, 198
Kilmarnock (tune), 177
300
GENERAL INDEX
King, James, 241
King's Chapel, 182
Kipling, Rudyard, 126, 128, 151
Knox, John, 5, 17
Latin hymns, 140, 238
Lawrence, Lord, 177
Leith, 212, 213, 251
Lewis, Rev. H. Elvet, 75
Lining the Psalm, 26
Lisbon, 172
Liverpool: Newton at, 137;
Montgomery at, 189
Livingstone, David, 177
Lock Hospital, 106
Log College (tune), 125
Logan, Rev. John, 168, 178,
179
London:
The Moravians in, 37> 4
Cennick at, 47
Toplady at, no
Newton at, 138
Doddridge at, 168
Evangelicals, 248
Stone at, 138
East End, 262, 263
" City," 263, 264
Irving at, 247, 248
Londonderry, 228
Long Metre, 6
Longfellow, Henry W., 10, 23,
I5i
Lowell, James Russell, 152
Low Church Party, 106, 108,
131, 143, 195, 248
Luther and his hymns, 2, 5, 75,
223
Lux Benigna (tune), 76, 271
Lyra Fidelium, 256, 258, 266
Macaulay, Lord, 187
Macbeth, 205
Mcllvaine, Bishop Charles P.,
204
Maclaren, Ian, 14
McLean, Sally Pratt, 233
MacLeod, Rev. Norman, 219
Madan, Rev. Martin, 106, 146
Makemie, Rev. Francis, 88, 90
Malan, Rev. Caesar, 196, 200,
201
Mar Saba, 241
March, Rev. Daniel, 219
Market Harborough, 169
Marlowe, Christopher, 141
Marot, Clement, 4
Mary, Queen, 5, 6, 8, 17
Mason, Lowell, 78, 206
Matheson, Rev. George:
his hymn, " Love that
wilt not let me go," 268-
278
portrait of, 275
sketch of, 272
Maurice, Rev. Frederick D., 248
Mayor, J. E. B., 152
Merry Wives of Windsor, 9
Meditation (tune), 231
Medley, Rev. Samuel, 161
Memorizing of hymns, 54, 231
Mendelssohn Collection, 206
Methodist:
Movement, 34, 37, 38
Societies, 38
hymns, 37, 38, 39
hymn books, 36, 38, 39
Hymnal, 79
as a nickname for Evangeli-
cals, "106, 133
Lady Huntingdon and
Methodism, 94
Middlebury College, 284
Miles Lane (tune), 156, 157,
1 60, 1 66
Millenium, 211, 248
Milton, John, 151
GENERAL INDEX
301
Missal, The, 5
Missionary hymns, 190, 192, 193
Mitre, The, 164
Mob interference with The Great
Revival, 52, 53, 74
Mob interference with the
Catholic Revival, 236
Monastic hymns, 211
Monk, Bishop, 235
Monk, William Henry, 244, 269
Montague, Lady Mary, 97
Montgomery, James:
his hymn, " Hail to the
Lord's Anointed," 181-193
sketch of, 184
portrait of, 185
birthplace of, 183
autograph of, 191
as poet and hyrnn writer,
188
as hymn book editor, 66, 67
Montgomery, Robert, 187
Moody and Sankey Gospel
Hymns, 134, 212, 244, 280
Moravians:
and the Wesleys, 36, 37? 4,
$i
their hymns, 36, 40, 50, 97,
98, 184
and Cennick, 46, 51
and Ingham, 97
and Montgomery, 183, 184,
189
Morison, Rev. John, 219
Morning and Evening Hymns
for a week, 200, 202, 204
Morris, James, no
Morris, Samuel, 84
Morrison, Rev. John, 241
Moule, Bishop Handley C. G.,
201, 202
Muhlenberg, Rev. William A., 30
Mure, Sir William, 12
Murray, Rev. John, 219
National Hymn (tune), 121, 122,
124, 125, 128
Neale, Rev. John Mason:-
his hymn, "Art thou
weary, art thou languid,"
232-244
sketch of, 235
portrait of, 237
autograph of, 239
his work on Latin hymns,
236
his work on Greek hymns,
238, 252
his place in Hymnody,
242
Negro, The: his education, 284;
his " spirituals," 287
New Hymnal, The, 254
New Lights, 84
New side Presbyterians, 84
New York: Trinity Church,
122; St. Thomas', 124, 125
New York Evangelist, 224
Newburyport :
Geo. Whitefield at, 81
Old South Presbyterian
Church, 81
Whitefield's Monument, 81,
92
" Newly Awakened in Hanover
County," 84
Newman, Cardinal, 76, 221, 226
Newton, Rev. John:
his hymn, " How sweet the
Name of Jesus sounds,"
130-141
his career, 135
portrait of, 132
autograph of, 138
his Olney Hymns, 130, 131,
134, 142, 143, 147, 150
his Authentic Narrative,
135, 139
Twenty-six Letters, 142, 150
302
GENERAL INDEX
his friendship with Cowper,
143, 146, 147, 148, 149,
152
Nicoll, Rev. Sir Wm. Robertson,
238
No-Popery movement, 235
Occasional verses, moral and
sacred, 155, 157, 159, 161, 162,
163
Ocean Grove, Methodists at, 282
Oglethorpe, Governor, 36
Old Hundred, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10,
ii
Oliphant (tune), 78
Olney, 131, 132, 138, 140, 143,
147
Olney Hymns, 130, 131, 134, 147,
150, 152
Olver, George, 233, 244
Orange Street Chapel, 108, no,
112
Ordinal, Tallis', 177, 179
Orton, Job, 168, 172
Otherworldliness, 30, 211, 216
Oxford Movement:
its beginning at Oxford,
221, 235
at Cambridge, 235
its spread, 235, 247
its characteristic, 221
its hymnody, 221-223, 230,
239, 242, 247, 252
its extreme development,
235, 236, 246
and church worship, 223,
246, 247
outside the Church of Eng-
land, 257
in Scotland, 269
Oxford, University of, 221
Palgrave, Francis T., 54
Parish System, the English, 250
Parker, Horatio, 122
Parkhurst, Rev. Charles, 274
Parting, Mark Rutherford on,
288
Pax Dei (tune), 254
Peace, Dr. Albert L., 271
Pelican Island, 188
Perfectionism, 116, 126
Perronet, Rev. Edward:
his hymn, " All hail the
power of Jesus' Name,"
154-166
sketch of, 164
his Occasional Verses, 155,
i7> *59j 161, 162, 163
his Mitre, 164
and Wesley, 164
and Lady Huntingdon, 165
Perronet, Rev. Vincent, and
family, 163, 164
Phelps, Elizabeth S., 211
Philadelphia, The dog's grave at
the Lawrence Pepper house,
1219 Walnut St., 263
Highlands' Book Store, 290
Phillipsburg, 286
Pilgrim Fathers, 10, 129
Plagiarism, 103
Pleyel, Ignaz Joseph, 54
Poetry and hymns, 152, 267
Poets as hymn writers, 151
Poet's Portfolio, 188
Pope, Alexander, 141
Prayer Book, see Book of Com-
mon Prayer
Predestination, 49, in
Premillenarianism, 211, 248
Presbrey, Otis F., 290
Presbyterian Church:
in America:
inherits the ordinance of
Psalm Singing, 20, 82
Whitefield's influence on,
81, 82, 84
GENERAL INDEX
splits at " The Great Awak-
ening," 81, 82
begins to sing hymns, 81-84
its " Psalmody Contro-
versy," 82
" New side Presbyterians," 84
its first hymn writer
(Davies), 83-92
'its other hymn writers,
219
" Old South Church " (New-
buryport), 81, 82
" Old Drawyer's " (Dela-
ware), 87
Easter and Good Friday in,
102
its hymn books:
Psalms and Hymns
(1830), 87, 161; Presby-
terian Hymnal ( 1 8 74 ) ,
129, 253; The Hymnal
(1895) ; see Hymnal;
The Hymnal revised
(1911) ; see Hymnal re-
vised
in Scotland:
see Scotland, Church of
Free Church of
in Ireland, 221
Presbyterian Historical Society,
ion.
Presbytery of Newcastle, 84
"Presidents' Row" at Prince-
ton, 88
Princeton College and Davies, 86,
88
Prison Amusements, 186
Pro Patria (Parker's), 122
Protestant Episcopal Church:
its Hymnal Commission's
Report, 119, 122
its Hymnal of 1892, 121
Tucker's setting of, 121,
122
303
Hutchin's setting of,
122
its New Hymnal (1916),
254
Trinity Church, N. Y., 122
St. Thomas' Church, N. Y.,
122
Psalm (metrical) Singing as a
divine ordinance:
set up by Calvin, 2, 4, 24
adopted by English exiles
at Geneva, 4-6
in French Reformation, 2-
5, 24
in English Reformation, 5-
8, 9, 24
in Scottish Reformation, 17,
24, 171
in Dutch and Flemish Ref-
ormations, 10
in Wales, 70
in American Colonies, 20, 82
falls into decay, 24, 25, 36,
105
challenged by (i) Watts,
24-27, 105
(2) The Methodist Revi-
val, 36, 105
(3) The Evangelical Re-
vival, 70, 96, 105-109,
131, 133
(4) The Great Awaken-
ing, 82, 83
(5) In Scotland, 175, 176
lingers in Church of Eng-
land, 105
maintained by some Pres-
byterians, 20
referred to by Longfellow,
10
by Shakespeare, 9, 10
Psalm Books (Psalters):
of Calvin, 4, 6, 7, 8, n
of English exiles, 6, 9, 17
304
GENERAL INDEX
of Church of England
(" Sternhold and Hop-
kins,"), i, 6, 8, 9, 10, 24
of Church of Scotland
(1564), 10, 17
(1650 "Rous"), 13, i4 }
15, 18, 20, 82, 175
of the Pilgrim Fathers
( Ainsworth's) , 10
of American Presbyterian-
ism, 20, 82
of Watts (Psalms of David
imitated), 26, 36, 65
of Montgomery (Songs of
Zion), 182, 189, 192
of The Book of Common
Prayer (in prose), 8
of William Barton, 18
Psalm tunes, 4, 6, n, 67
" Psalmody Controversy " in
American Presbyterian Church,
82
in Scotland, 175, 176
Psalmody Convention, 20
Psalms:
23rd, I2-2I, 76
24th, 233
" 5oth, 65
72nd, 182-193
looth, i n, 13
i34th, 4, 6, 7
Psalms and Hymns (1830), 87,
161
Psalms of David imitated, The
(Watts), 26, 36, 65
Psalms of David in meeter,
(1650), 13, 14, iS (title page),
17-20, 175, 214
Puritans, 5, 17, 18
" Puseyite Errors," 221
Quakers, 24
Quarterly Journal of Prophecy,
Rankin, Rev. Jeremiah Earnest
His hymn, " God be with
you," 279-290
sketch of, 280
portrait of, 283
autograph of, 281
Readings to the Aged, 238
Recessional, Kipling's, 126, 128
Record, The, 201
Regent Square Church, 247
Redhead No. 76 (tune),
118
Reliance (tune), 118
Revival of the i8th century:
Methodist, see Methodist
Evangelical, see Evangeli-
cal
Great Awakening, Si, 82
its hymnody, 46, 182
Revival hymn books, 134
Revolution:
American, 120, 138
English, 17, 18, 24
French, 186
Rippon, Rev. John, 86, 87, 92,
155, 158, 159
Rise and Progress of Religion in
the Soul, 171
Roberts, Rev. Daniel C.:
his hymn, " God of our
fathers," 119-129
sketch of, 125
portrait of, 127
autograph of, 123
Robinson, One-eyed, 83
Roman Catholic Church, 221,
236, 238
Rous, Francis, 12, 18; portrait
of, 19
Rous's Version:
its adoption, 13, 18, 175
its popularity, 13, 14, 214
title page of, 15
in America, 20, 82
GENERAL INDEX
Russian Hymn (tune), 122
Rutherford, Mark, 288
Sacred Hymns for the Children
of God, 46, 49-51, 233
Sacred Hymns for the use of
Religious Societies, 50, 52
Sackville College, 235, 236
Saint Agnes (tune), 252
Alban's; Cowper at, 144,
146; Doddridge at, 169;
Cathedral, 250
Bartholomew, 253
Bernard's, Edinburgh, 274,
276
John's, Leith, 212
Laurence's, Reading, 47, 49
Margaret (tune), 271
Margaret, Sisterhood of,
23$, 236
Mary Woolnoth, 138, 139,
140
Mary's Hall, Brighton, 201,
202, 203
Michael (tune), n
Paul (tune), 177, 179
Paul's, Concord, 125
Paul's, Haggerston, 262, 263
Stephen the Sabaite, 240,
241
Thomas', New York, 122,
124
Sancho's grave, 263
Sankey, Ira D., 134, 212, 244,
280
Satan, 187
Satchell, Captain, 233, 244
Savannah, Wesley at, 36, 106
Scotland: Church of:
adopts Calvin's ideals of
Psalmody, 17, 174
its Reformation Psalm Book,
10, 17
in the Civil War, 17
305
at Westminster Assembly,
*7 3 18, 174
its new Psalm Book (Rous) ,
13, 18, 174
its people's devotion to the
Psalms, 13, 14-17, 1 68
proposal to "enlarge the
Psalmody," 174
the Psalmody Controversy,
174, 176
its first hymns (Para-
phrases), 168, 174-178
its disruption, 209-210
its new Hymnody, 269
its Scottish Hymnal, 268-
278
Free Church of, 210
continues the old Psalm-
ody, 213
Hymn writers of, 8, 215, 219
Oxford Movement in, 269
Scott, Sir Walter, 151
Scottish Hymnal, The, 268, 269,
270, 271, 278
Second Advent, 211, 215
Select Hymns and Anthems, 158
Shakespeare, 9, 10, 118, 141, 205
Sheffield, 186, 187
Sheffield Register, 186
Snirley, Hon. and Rev.
Walter:
his hymn, "Sweet the mo-
ments, rich in blessing,"
93-103
sketch of, 100
portrait of, 95
Shrubsole, William, 157, 163,
164, 166
Singer, Elizabeth, 28
Sisterhood of S. Margaret, 235,
236
Sloan, Rev. J. M., 212
Smith, H. Porter, 280
Smith, Rev. J. Ritchie, 112
GENERAL INDEX
Smith, Rev. Sydney, 276
Societies, 37, 50
Solemn League and Covenant, 17
Song of the New Creation, 215
Songs of Zion, 182, 189, 192
Southampton, 23, 28
Spectator, The, 20, 58
Spiritual Songs for social wor-
ship, 1 18
Spirituals, 287
Stead, W. T., 177
Stephanos (tune), 243
Sternhold and Hopkins, 8
Stevens, Bishop Wm. Bacon, 204
Stockport (tune), 64, 65, 66, 67
Stone, Rev. Samuel John:
his hymn, "The Church's
one Foundation," 255-267
sketch of, 260
portrait of, 261
autograph of, 259
his hymns and poems, 266
his dog's grave, 263
Strasburg, 4
" Subject-matter of Praise," 20,
178
Sunday school hymns: see
Children's
Synge, Mrs., 202
Tarn o' Shanter, 124
Tallis (tune), 179
Tallis' Canon (tune), 79
Taxation no Tyranny, 120
Taylor, Ann and Jane, 230
Tennent, Rev. Gilbert, 88, 90
Tennyson, Lord, 24, 151, 212,
270
Thackeray, Wm. M., 217, 262
Theobalds, 30, 32
Thome, Edward H., 252
Thoughts in verse on Sacred
Subjects, 200
Ticonderoga, 76
Tinkering of hymns, 40, 178, 288
Tomer, William G., 282, 285,
286, 288
Toplady, Rev. Augustus M.: -
on the " God of elegance,"
S3
his hymn, " Rock of Ages,"
104-118
his relation to Methodism,
105
his Church of England
hymn book, 71, 108
sketch of, 1 08
portrait of, 109
autograph of, 107
his controversy with Wes-
ley, in, 112, 116, 120
and the American colonies,
120
Toplady (tune), 118
Torquay, 250
Translations and Paraphrases of
Scripture:
of 1745, 175, i?8
of 1781, 176, 178, 179,
(title page), 175, 213
Treasury of sacred Song, 54
Trevecca, 68, 71, 78, 96
Trevelyan, Sir Geo. Otto, 138
Trinity Church, New York, 122
" Troubles at Frankfort, The,"
Tucker's Hymnal, 121, 122
Tunes:
Genevan, 4, n
old Psalm tunes, 67
florid, 67
parlor music school, 124
four-part-song style, 206
Anglican, 124
the two types: choir and
congregational, 67
Bradbury's, 206
Tunes referred to:
Aurelia, 259
GENERAL INDEX
Autumn, n
Balerma, 121, 179
Benediction, 254
Bullinger, 244
Caersalem, 77, 78
Coleshill, 177
Coronation, 160, 166
Dismissal, 78
Dundee, 21, 179
Ellers, 254
Flowers of the Forest, The,
213
French, 21, 179
German Hymn, 54
God be with you, 285
Green Sleeves, 9
Heber, 213
Horsley, 231
Just As I Am (Barnby), 206
Kilmarnock, 177
Log College, 125
Lux Benigna, 76, 271
Meditation, 231
Miles Lane, 156, 157, 160,
1 66
National Hymn, 121, 122,
124, 125, 128
Old Hundred, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9,
10, ii
Oliphant, 78
Ordinal (Tallis), 177, 179
Pax Dei, 254
Pro Patria (Parker), 122
Redhead No. 76, 118
Reliance, 118
Russian Hymn, 122
St. Agnes, 252
St. Margaret, 271
St. Michael, n
St. Paul, 177, 179
Stephanos, 243
Stockport, 64, 65, 66, 67
Tallis, 177, 179
Tallis' ordinal, 177, 179
307
There is a Green Hill
(Gounod), 231
Toplady, 118
Walden, 21
Walworth, 65
What a Friend we have in
Jesus, 284
Woodworth, 206
Twenty-six letters, 142, 150
" Tye thy mare, Tom boye," 9
Union Harmony, 160
Unitarian hymn books, 182
United Presbyterian Church, 20
Unwin, Rev. Morley, 146
Verses for Holy Seasons, 227
Victoria, Queen, 262, 274
Viner, Wm. L., 78
Virginia, in i8th century, 83;
Church of England in, 83;
Davies in, 80; Whitefield in,
83
Wainwright, John, 64, 65, 66, 67
Walden (tune), 21
Wales:-
and the Great Revival, 69-
TO, 74
Wesley in, 69, 75
Whitefield in, 69, 70
its Calvinistic Methodist
Church, 70
Lady Huntingdon's College
in, 68, 71, 78, 96
its hymns, 70, 73, 75
Watt and the Gates, The, 112
Walnut Street (1219), Philadel-
phia (The Lawrence Pepper
house), 263
Walpole, Horace, 96
Walworth (tune), 65
Wanderer in Switzerland r The,
188
308
War Etchings, 126
Warren, George William, 121,
124
Washington, D. C., 280, 282,
284, 285
Washington, George, 88
Watts, Rev. Isaac:
his hymn, "There is a land
of pure delight," 22-32
sketch of, 23, 28
portrait of, 29
his Hymns and Spiritual
Songs, 22, 23, 25, 27, 36,
242
his "Renovation of [Inde-
pendent] Psalmody," 24,
26, 27, 30
his Psalms of David im-
itated, 26, 36, 65
popularity of his hymns,
27
his "Psalms and Hymns"
in The Great Awakening,
82
in Virginia, 84
in Scotland, 175
his hymns the model of
hymn writing, 84, 133,
168
and Doddridge (" The
School of Watts"), 27,
168, 171
his hostility to the Revival,
171
"Watts's whims," 27
Beauties of Dr. Watts, &c.,
193
his hymns for children, 230
his missionary " Psalm,"
193
" We and I " hymns, 103, 247
Welsh Revival. See Wales
Wesley, Rev. Charles:
as poet laureate of the
GENERAL INDEX
Methodist movement, 34,
37
the hymn, " Jesus, Lover of
my soul," 33-44
his probable authorship of
it, 38-41
sketch of, 34-38
portrait of, 35
his attitude toward Method-
ism, 38
his seven thousand hymns,
37
his children's hymns, 230
Wesley, Rev. John:
as leader of the Methodist
movement, 34, 37, 38
sketch of, 34-38
his American mission, 36,
120
inaugurates hymn singing at
Savannah, 36
his first hymn book, 36
and the Moravians, 36, 37,
40, 51
his "Societies," 37
his Arminianism, 46* 49, 50,
no, in
his breach with Whitcfield,
49) 50? 69, 96
his controversy with Top-
lady, III, 112, Il6, 120
his Perfectionism, 116, 126
in Wales, 69, 75
his " Journal," 60
his Calm Address to the
American Colonies, 120
his Colin, of Hymns for . . .
Methodists, 38, 40
his criticisms of Charles's
hymns, 40, 42
his dislike of amatory
hymns, 40, 98
and Cennick, 46, 49, 50
and Watts, 36, 171
INDEX OF FIRST LINES OF HYMNS
IT hose which are the subjects of the Studies are printed in Italics.]
PAGE
A few more years shall roll 216
Abide with me: fast falls the eventide 43
All hail the power of Jesus' Name 154-166
All hail the power of Jesus' grace . , 158
All people that on earth do dwell i-n
Art thou weary, art thou languid 232-242
Before the Lord we bow 129
Beyond the smiling and the weeping 218
Children of the heavenly King . . 45-55? 69, 184
Christian, dost thou see them 239
Christians, awake! salute the happy morn 56-67
Come, Saviour Jesus, from above - - - 60
Eternal Ruler .of the ceaseless round *28
Far from the world, Lord, I flee 152
Give me the wings of faith to rise . .; 2 7
Glorious things of thee are spoken . *32
Go, labor on: spend, and be spent 214
God be with you till we meet again v . 279-290
God moves in a mysterious way 142-153
God of our fathers, known of old . . .... .......... 126
God of our fathers, whose almighty hand .110-129
Gracel 'tis a charming sound 180
312 INDEX OF FIRST LINES OF HYMNS
Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost , 267
Great God of wonders, all Thy ways 87
Guide me, Thou great Jehovah 54? 68-79, 94, 96
Hail to the Lord's Anointed 181-193
Hark! my soul, it is the Lord ' 152
Hark, the glad sound! the Saviour comes 179
Hark! the herald angels sing , . 57> 66
Here, my Lord, I see Thee face to face 212
How gentle God's commands 1 79
How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds 130-141
Hushed was the evening hymn 230
/ heard the voice of Jesus say 207-219
I lay my sins on Jesus 209, 213
I was a wandering sheep 213
I would not live alway, I ask not to stay 30
Jerusalem the golden 238, 253, 259
Jesu, dulcis memoria '. . . . 140
Jesus, I love Thy charming Name 179
Jesus, Lover of my soul 33~44? 105, 108, 113
Jesus shall reign where'er the sun 193
Jesus, the very thought of Thee 140
Jesus, where'er Thy people meet 148, 152
Just as I am, without one plea 194-206, 221
Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill! .... 212
Lead, kindly Light 43, 76, 226, 271
Lord, I am Thine , entirely Thine 80-92
Lord of the Sabbath, hear us pray 180
My former hopes are dead 148
My God, and Father, while I stray 198
My God, and is Thy table spread 179
INDEX OF FIRST LINES OF HYMNS ^3
Now from Bethlehem let us fare 239
day of rest and gladness 265
for a closer walk with God 152
God, beneath Thy guiding hand 129
God of Bethel, by whose hand 167-180
happy day that fixed my choice 179
Jesus, King most wonderful 140
little town of Bethlehem 66, 226
Lord of Hosts, almighty King 129
Lord Divine, that stooped to share 278
Love that wilt not let me go 268-278
O'er the gloomy hills of darkness 73
Our fathers' God, from out whose hand 128
Pour out the Spirit from on high 191
Quiet, Lord, my froward heart 134
Rock of Ages cleft for me . .. 14, 104-118, 121, 156
Rock of Israel, cleft for me 115
Saviour, again, to Thy dear Name we raise 245-254
See Israel's gentle Shepherd stand 179
Sometimes a Light surprises 148, 152
Sunset and evening star 270
Sweet the moments, rich in blessing 93-103
Swing low, sweet chariot 287
The Church has waited long 215
The Church's one Foundation 255-267
The day is past and over 239
The day of resurrection 239
The God of glory sends His summons forth 65
The King of love my Shepherd is 21, 241
The Lord my pasture shall prepare 20
3 1 4 INDEX OF FIRST LINES OF HYMNS
The Lord my Shepherd is 21
The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want 1221, 175
The morning, the bright and the beautiful morning . . 213
The Spirit breathes upon the word 148
There is a fountain filled with blood 152
There is a green hill far away 220-231
There is a land of pure delight 22-32, 54, 55, 108
Watchman, tell us of the night 233
We sing to Thee, Thou Son of God 51
Weary of earth and laden with my sin 266
What a Friend we have in Jesus 282
When I survey the wondrous cross 217
When the weary, seeking rest 212
Where is the blessedness I knew 148
While my Jesus I'm possessing gg, 100
Yet there is room: the Lamb's bright hall of song . . 212
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