Death, with thy weapons of war lay me low; Strike, king of terrors; I fear not the blow. Jesus has broken the bars of the tomb, Joyfully, joyfully haste to thy home.

"TIS THE OLD SHIP OF ZION, HALLELUJAH!"

This may be found, vocalized with full harmony, in the American Vocalist. With all the parts together (more or less) it must have made a vociferous song-service, but the hymn was oftener sung simply in soprano unison; and there was sound enough in the single melody to satisfy the most zealous.

All her passengers will land on the bright eternal shore, O, glory hallelujah! She has landed many thousands, and will land as many more, O, glory hallelujah!

Both hymn and tune have lost their creators' names, and, like many another "voice crying in the wilderness," they have left no record of their beginning of days.

"MY BROTHER, I WISH YOU WELL."

My brother, I wish you well, My brother, I wish you well; When my Lord calls I trust you will Be mentioned in the Promised Land.

Echoes that remain to us of those fervid and affectionate, as well as resolute and vehement, expressions of religious life as sung in the early revivals of New England, in parts of the South, and especially in the Middle West, are suggestive of spontaneous melody forest-born, and as unconscious of scale, clef or tempo as the song of a bird. The above "hand-shaking" ditty at the altar gatherings apparently took its tune self-made, inspired in its first singer's soul by the feeling of the moment—and the strain was so simple that the convert could join in at once and chant—

When my Lord comes I trust I shall

—through all the loving rotations of the crude hymn-tune. Such song-births of spiritual enthusiasm are beyond enumeration—and it is useless to hunt for author or composer. Under the momentum of a wrestling hour or a common rapture of experience, counterpoint was unthought of, and the same notes for every voice lifted pleading and praise in monophonic impromptu. The refrains—

O how I love Jesus,

O the Lamb, the Lamb, the loving Lamb,

I'm going home to die no more,

Pilgrims we are to Canaan's land,

O turn ye, O turn ye, for why will you die,

Come to Jesus, come to Jesus, just now,

—each at the sound of its first syllable brought its own music to every singer's tongue, and all—male and female—were sopranos together. This habit in singing those rude liturgies of faith and fellowship was recognized by the editors of the Revivalist, and to a multitude of them space was given only for the printed melody, and of this sometimes only the three or four initial bars. The tunes were the church's rural field-tones that everybody knew.

Culture smiles at this unclassic hymnody of long ago, but its history should disarm criticism. To wanderers its quaint music and "pedestrian" verse were threshold call and door-way welcome into the church of the living God. Even in the flaming days of the Second Advent following, in 1842-3, they awoke in many hardened hearts the spiritual glow that never dies. The delusion passed away, but the grace remained.

The church—and the world—owe a long debt to the old evangelistic refrains that rang through the sixty years before the Civil War, some of them flavored with tuneful piety of a remoter time. They preached righteousness, and won souls that sermons could not reach. They opened heaven to thousands who are now rejoicing there.



CHAPTER VIII.

SUNDAY-SCHOOL HYMNS.

SHEPHERD OF TENDER YOUTH.

[Greek: Stomion polon adaon]

We are assured by repeated references in the patristic writings that the primitive years of the Christian Church were not only years of suffering but years of song. That the despised and often persecuted "Nazarenes," scattered in little colonies throughout the Roman Empire, did not forget to mingle tones of praise and rejoicing with their prayers could readily be believed from the much-quoted letter of a pagan lawyer, written about as long after Jesus' death, as from now back to the death of John Quincy Adams—the letter of Pliny the younger to the Emperor Trajan, in which he reports the Christians at their meetings singing "hymns to Christ as to a god."

Those disciples who spoke Greek seem to have been especially tuneful, and their land of poets was doubtless the cradle of Christian hymnody. Believers taught their songs to their children, and it is as certain that the oldest Sunday-school hymn was written somewhere in the classic East as that the Book of Revelation was written on the Isle of Patmos. The one above indicated was found in an appendix to the Tutor, a book composed by Titus Flavius Clemens of Alexandria, a Christian philosopher and instructor whose active life began late in the second century. It follows a treatise on Jesus as the Great Teacher, and, though his own words elsewhere imply a more ancient origin of the poem, it is always called "Clement's Hymn." The line quoted above is the first of an English version by the late Rev. Henry Martyn Dexter, D.D. It does not profess to be a translation, but aims to transfer to our common tongue the spirit and leading thoughts of the original.

Shepherd of tender youth, Guiding in love and truth Through devious ways; Christ, our triumphant King, We come Thy name to sing, Hither our children bring To shout Thy praise.

The last stanza of Dr. Dexter's version represents the sacred song spirit of both the earliest and the latest Christian centuries:

So now, and till we die Sound we Thy praises high, And joyful sing; Infants, and the glad throng Who to Thy church belong Unite to swell the song To Christ our King.

While they give us the sentiment and the religious tone of the old hymn, these verses, however, recognize the extreme difficulty of anything like verbal fidelity in translating a Greek hymn, and in this instance there are metaphors to avoid as being strange to modern taste. The first stanza, literally rendered and construed, is as follows:

Bridle of untaught foals, Wing of unwandering birds, Helm and Girdle of babes, Shepherd of royal lambs! Assemble Thy simple children To praise holily, To hymn guilelessly With innocent mouths Christ, the Guide of children.

Figures like—

Catching the chaste fishes,

Heavenly milk, etc.

—are necessarily avoided in making good English of the lines, and the profusion of adoring epithets in the ancient poem (no less than twenty-one different titles of Christ) would embarrass a modern song.

Dr. Dexter might have chosen an easier metre for his version, if (which is improbable) he intended it to be sung, since a tune written to sixes and fours takes naturally a more decided lyrical movement and emphasis than the hymn reveals in his stanzas, though the second and fifth possess much of the hymn quality and would sound well in Giardini's "Italian Hymn."

More nearly a translation, and more in the cantabile style, is the version of a Scotch Presbyterian minister, Rev. Hamilton M. Macgill, D.D., two of whose stanzas are these:

Thyself, Lord, be the Bridle These wayward wills to stay; Be Thine the Wing unwand'ring, To speed their upward way.

* * * * *

Let them with songs adoring Their artless homage bring To Christ the Lord, and crown Him The children's Guide and King.

The Dexter version is set to Monk's slow harmony of "St. Ambrose" in the Plymouth Hymnal (Ed. Dr. Lyman Abbott, 1894) without the writer's name—which is curious, inasmuch as the hymn was published in the Congregationalist in 1849, in Hedge and Huntington's (Unitarian) Hymn-book in 1853, in the Hymnal of the Presbyterian Church in 1866, and in Dr. Schaff's Christ in Song in 1869.

Clement died about A.D. 220.

Rev. Henry Martyn Dexter, D.D., for twenty-three years the editor of the Congregationalist, was born in Plymouth, Mass., Aug. 13, 1821. He was a graduate of Yale (1840) and Andover Divinity School (1844), a well-known antiquarian writer and church historian. Died Nov. 13, 1890.

"HOW HAPPY IS THE CHILD WHO HEARS."

This hymn was quite commonly heard in Sunday-schools during the eighteen-thirties and forties, and, though retained in few modern collections, its Sabbath echo lingers in the memory of the living generation. It was written by Michael Bruce, born at Kinneswood, Kinross-shire, Scotland, March 27, 1746. He was the son of a weaver, but obtained a good education, taught school, and studied for the ministry. He died, however, while in preparation for his expected work, July 5, 1767, at the age of twenty-one years, three months and eight days.

Young Bruce wrote hymns, and several poems, but another person wore the honors of his work. John Logan, who was his literary executor, appropriated the youthful poet's Mss. verses, and the hymn above indicated—as well as the beautiful poem, "To the Cuckoo,"[27] still a classic in English literature,—bore the name of Logan for more than a hundred years. In Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology is told at length the story of the inquiry and discussion which finally exposed the long fraud upon the fame of the rising genius who sank, like Henry Kirke White, in his morning of promise.

[Footnote 27: Hail, beauteous stranger of the wood, Attendant on the Spring; Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat, And woods thy welcome ring.]

THE TUNE.

Old "Balerma" was so long the musical mouth-piece of the pious boy-schoolmaster's verses that the two became one expression, and one could not be named without suggesting the other.

"Balerma" (Palermo) was ages away in style and sound from the later type of Sunday-school tunes, resembling rather one of Palestrina's chorals than the tripping melodies that took its place; but in its day juvenile voices enjoyed it, and it suited very well the grave but winning words.

How happy is the child who hears Instruction's warning voice, And who celestial Wisdom makes His early, only choice!

For she hath treasures greater far Than East and West unfold, And her rewards more precious are Than all their stores of gold.

She guides the young with innocence In pleasure's path to tread, A crown of glory she bestows Upon the hoary head.

Robert Simpson, author of the old tune,[28] was a Scottish composer of psalmody; born, about 1722, in Glasgow; and died, in Greenock, June, 1838.

[Footnote 28: The tune was evidently reduced from the still older "Sardius" (or "Autumn")—Hubert P. Main.]

"O DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED."

Written about 1803, by the Rev. John A. Grenade, born in 1770; died 1806.

O do not be discouraged, } For Jesus is your Friend; } bis He will give you grace to conquer, And keep you to the end.

Fight on, ye little soldiers, } The battle you shall win, } bis For the Saviour is your Captain, And He has vanquished sin.

And when the conflict's over, } Before Him you shall stand, } bis You shall sing His praise forever In Canaan's happy land.

THE TUNE.

The hymn was made popular thirty or more years ago in a musical arrangement by Hubert P. Main, with a chorus,—

I'm glad I'm in this army, And I'll battle for the school.

Children took to the little song with a keen relish, and put their whole souls—and bodies—into it.

"LITTLE TRAVELLERS ZIONWARD"

Belongs to a generation long past. Its writer was an architect by occupation, and a man whose piety equalled his industry. He was born in London 1791, and his name was James Edmeston. He loved to compose religious verses—so well, in fact, that he is said to have prepared a new piece every week for Sunday morning devotions in his family and in this way accumulated a collection which he published and called Cottager's Hymns. Besides these he is credited with a hundred Sunday-school hymns.

Little travellers Zionward, Each one entering into rest In the Kingdom of your Lord, In the mansions of the blest,

There to welcome Jesus waits, Gives the crown His followers win, Lift your heads, ye golden gates, Let the little travellers in.

The original tune is lost—and the hymn is vanishing with it; but the felicity of its rhyme and rhythm show how easily it adapted itself to music.

"I'M BUT A STRANGER HERE."

The simple beauty of this hymn, and the sympathetic sweetness of its tune made children love to sing it, and it found its way into a few Sunday-school collections, though not composed for such use.

A young Congregational minister. Rev. Thomas Rawson Taylor, wrote it on the approach of his early end. He was born at Osset, near Wakefield, Yorkshire, Eng., May 9, 1807, and studied in Bradford, where his father had taken charge of a large church, and at Manchester Academy and Airesdale College. Sensible of a growing ailment that might shorten his days, he hastened to the work on which his heart was set, preaching in surrounding towns and villages while a student, and finally quitting college to be ordained to his sacred profession. He was installed as pastor of Howard St. Chapel, Sheffield, July, 1830, when only twenty-three. But in less than three years his strength failed, and he went back to Bradford, where he occasionally preached for his father, when able to do so, during his last days. He died there March 15, 1835. Taylor was a brave and lovely Christian—and his hymn is as sweet as his life.

I'm but a stranger here, Heaven is my home; Earth is a desert drear, Heaven is my home.

Dangers and sorrows stand Round me on every hand; Heaven is my Fatherland— Heaven is my home.

What though the tempest rage, Heaven is my home; Short is my pilgrimage, Heaven is my home.

And time's wild, wintry blast Soon will be overpast; I shall reach home at last— Heaven is my home.

In his last attempt to preach, young Taylor uttered the words, "I want to die like a soldier, sword in hand." On the evening of the same Sabbath day he breathed his last. His words were memorable, and Montgomery, who loved and admired the man, made them the text of a poem, part of which is the familiar hymn "Servant of God, well done."[29]

[Footnote 29: See page 498]

THE TUNE.

Sir Arthur Sullivan put the words into classic expression, but, to American ears at least, the tune of "Oak," by Lowell Mason, is the hymn's true sister. It was composed in 1854.

"DEAR JESUS, EVER AT MY SIDE."

One of Frederick William Faber's sweet and simple lyrics. It voices that temper and spirit in the human heart which the Saviour first looks for and loves best. None better than Faber could feel and utter the real artlessness of Christian love and faith.

Dear Jesus, ever at my side, How loving must Thou be To leave Thy home in heaven to guard A sinful child like me. Thy beautiful and shining face I see not, tho' so near; The sweetness of Thy soft low voice I am too deaf to hear.

I cannot feel Thee touch my hand With pressure light and mild, To check me as my mother did When I was but a child; But I have felt Thee in my thoughts Fighting with sin for me, And when my heart loves God I know The sweetness is from Thee.



THE TUNE.

"Audientes" by Sir Arthur Sullivan is a gentle, emotional piece, rendering the first quatrain of each stanza in E flat unison, and the second in C harmony.

"TIS RELIGION THAT CAN GIVE."

This simple rhyme, which has been sung perhaps in every Sunday-school in England and the United States, is from a small English book by Mary Masters. In the preface to the work, we read, "The author of the following poems never read a treatise of rhetoric or an art of poetry, nor was ever taught her English grammar. Her education rose no higher than the spelling-book or her writing-master,"

'Tis religion that can give Sweetest pleasure while we live; 'Tis religion can supply Solid comfort when we die. After death its joys shall be Lasting as eternity.

Save the two sentences about herself, quoted above, there is no biography of the writer. That she was good is taken for granted.

The tune-sister of the little hymn is as scant of date or history as itself. No. 422 points it out in The Revivalist, where the name and initial seem to ascribe the authorship to Horace Waters.[30]

[Footnote 30: From his Sabbath Bell. Horace Waters, a prominent Baptist layman, was born in Jefferson, Lincoln Co., Me., Nov. 1, 1812, and died in New York City, April 22, 1893. He was a piano-dealer and publisher.]

"THERE IS A HAPPY LAND FAR, FAR AWAY"

This child's hymn was written by a lover of children, Mr. Andrew Young, head master of Niddrey St. School, Edinburgh, and subsequently English instructor at Madras College, E.I. He was born April 23, 1807, and died Nov. 30, 1899, and long before the end of the century which his life-time so nearly covered his little carol had become one of the universal hymns.

THE TUNE.

A Hindoo air or natural chanson, that may have been hummed in a pagan temple in the hearing of Mr. Young, was the basis of the little melody since made familiar to millions of prattling tongues.

Such running tone-rhythms create themselves in the instinct of the ruder nations and tribes, and even the South African savages have their incantations with the provincial "clicks" that mark the singers' time. With an ear for native chirrups and trills, the author of our pretty infant-school song succeeded in capturing one, and making a Christian tune of it.

The musician, Samuel Sebastian Wesley, sometime in the eighteen-forties, tried to substitute another melody for the lines, but "There is a happy land" needs its own birth-music.

"I HAVE A FATHER IN THE PROMISED LAND."

Another cazonet for the infant class. Instead of a hymn, however, it is only a refrain, and—like the ring-chant of the "Hebrew Children," and even more simple—owes its only variety to the change of one word. The third and fourth lines,—

My father calls me, I must go To meet Him in the Promised Land,

—take their cue from the first, which may sing,—

I have a Saviour—— I have a mother—— I have a brother——

—and so on ad libitum. But the little ones love every sound and syllable of the lisping song, for it is plain and pleasing, and when a pinafore school grows restless nothing will sooner charm them into quiet than to chime its innocent unison.

Both words and tune are nameless and storyless.

"I THINK WHEN I READ THAT SWEET STORY"

While riding in a stage-coach, after a visit to a mission school for poor children, this hymn came to the mind of Mrs. Jemima Thompson Luke, of Islington, England. It speaks its own purpose plainly enough, to awaken religious feeling in young hearts, and guide and sanctify the natural childlike interest in the sweetest incident of the Saviour's life.

I think when I read that sweet story of old When Jesus was here among men, How He called little children as lambs to His fold, I should like to have been with them then.

I wish that His hands had been laid on my head, And I had been placed on His knee, And that I might have seen His kind look when He said, "Let the little ones come unto me."

This is not poetry, but it phrases a wish in a child's own way, to be melodized and fixed in a child's reverent and sensitive memory.

Mrs. Luke was born at Colebrook Terrace, near London, Aug. 19, 1813. She was an accomplished and benevolent lady who did much for the education and welfare of the poor. Her hymn—of five stanzas—was first sung in a village school at Poundford Park, and was not published until 1841.

THE TUNE.

It is interesting, not to say curious, testimony to the vital quality of this meek production that so many composers have set it to music, or that successive hymn-book editors have kept it, and printed it to so many different harmonies. All the chorals that carry it have substantially the same movement—for the spondaic accent of the long lines is compulsory—but their offerings sing "to one clear harp in divers tones."

The appearance of the words in one hymnal with Sir William Davenant's air (full scored) to Moore's love-song, "Believe me, if all those endearing young charms," now known as the tune of "Fair Harvard," is rather startling at first, but the adoption is quite in keeping with the policy of Luther and Wesley.

"St. Kevin" written to it forty years ago by John Henry Cornell, organist of St. Paul's, New York City, is sweet and sympathetic.

The newest church collection (1905) gives the beautiful air and harmony of "Athens" to the hymn, and notes the music as a "Greek Melody."

But the nameless English tune, of uncertain authorship[31] that accompanies the words in the smaller old manuals, and which delighted Sunday-schools for a generation, is still the favorite in the memory of thousands, and may be the very music first written.

[Footnote 31: Harmonized by Hubert P. Main.]

"WE SPEAK OF THE REALMS OF THE BLEST."

Mrs. Elizabeth Mills, wife of the Hon. Thomas Mills, M.P., was born at Stoke Newington, Eng., 1805. She was one of the brief voices that sing one song and die. This hymn was the only note of her minstrelsy, and it has outlived her by more than three-quarters of a century. She wrote it about three weeks before her decease in Finsbury Place, London, April 21, 1839, at the age of twenty-four.

We speak of the land of the blest, A country so bright and so fair, And oft are its glories confest, But what must it be to be there!

* * * * *

We speak of its freedom from sin, From sorrow, temptation and care, From trials without and within, But what must it be to be there!

THE TUNE.

The hymn, like several of the Gospel hymns besides, was carried into the Sunday-schools by its music. Mr. Stebbins' popular duet-and-chorus is fluent and easily learned and rendered by rote; and while it captures the ear and compels the voice of the youngest, it expresses both the pathos and the exaltation of the words.

George Coles Stebbins was born in East Carleton, Orleans Co., N.Y., Feb. 26, 1846. Educated at common school, and an academy in Albany, he turned his attention to music and studied in Rochester, Chicago, and Boston. It was in Chicago that his musical career began, while chorister at the First Baptist Church; and while holding the same position at Clarendon St. Church, Boston, (1874-6), he entered on a course of evangelistic work with D.L. Moody as gospel singer and composer. He was co-editor with Sankey and McGranahan of Gospel Hymns.

"ONLY REMEMBERED."

This hymn, beginning originally with the lines,—

Up and away like the dew of the morning, Soaring from earth to its home in the sun,

—has been repeatedly altered since it left Dr. Bonar's hands. Besides the change of metaphors, the first personal pronoun singular is changed to the plural. There was strength, and a natural vivacity in—

So let me steal away gently and lovingly, Only remembered for what I have done.

As at present sung the first stanza reads—,

Fading away like the stars of the morning Losing their light in the glorious sun, Thus would we pass from the earth and its toiling Only remembered for what we have done.

The idea voiced in the refrain is true and beautiful, and the very euphony of its words helps to enforce its meaning and make the song pleasant and suggestive for young and old. It has passed into popular quotation, and become almost a proverb.

THE TUNE.

The tune (in Gospel Hymns No. 6) is Mr. Sankey's.

Ira David Sankey was born in Edinburgh, Lawrence Co., Pa., Aug. 28, 1840. He united with the Methodist Church at the age of fifteen, and became choir leader, Sunday-school superintendent and president of the Y.M.C.A., all in his native town. Hearing Philip Phillips sing impressed him deeply, when a young man, with the power of a gifted solo vocalist over assembled multitudes, but he did not fully realize his own capability till Dwight L. Moody heard his remarkable voice and convinced him of his divine mission to be a gospel singer.

The success of his revival tours with Mr. Moody in America and England is history.

Mr. Sankey has compiled at least five singing books, and has written the Story of the Gospel Hymns. Until overtaken by blindness, in his later years he frequently appeared as a lecturer on sacred music. The manuscript of his story of the Gospel Hymns was destroyed by accident, but, undismayed by the ruin of his work, and the loss of his eye-sight, like Sir Isaac Newton and Thomas Carlyle, he began his task again. With the help of an amanuensis the book was restored and, in 1905, given to the public. (See page 258.)

"SAVIOUR, LIKE A SHEPHERD LEAD US."

Mrs. Dorothy Ann Thrupp, of Paddington Green, London, the author of this hymn, was born June 20, 1799, and died, in London, Dec. 14, 1847. Her hymns first appeared in Mrs. Herbert Mayo's Selection of Poetry and Hymns for the Use of Infant and Juvenile Schools, (1838).

We are Thine, do Thou befriend us, Be the Guardian of our way: Keep Thy flock, from sin defend us, Seek us when we go astray; Blessed Jesus, Hear, O hear us when we pray.

The tune everywhere accepted and loved is W.B. Bradbury's; written in 1856.

"YIELD NOT TO TEMPTATION"

A much used and valued hymn, with a captivating tune and chorus for young assemblies. Both words and music are by H.R. Palmer, composed in 1868.

Yield not to temptation, For yielding is sin; Each vict'ry will help you Some other to win.

Fight manfully onward, Dark passions subdue; Look ever to Jesus, He will carry you through.

Horatio Richmond Palmer was born in Sherburne, N.Y., April 26. 1834, of a musical family, and sang alto in his father's choir when only nine. He studied music unremittingly, and taught music at fifteen. Brought up in a Christian home, his religious life began in his youth, and he consecrated his art to the good of man and the glory of God.

He became well-known as a composer of sacred music, and as a publisher—the sales of his Song Queen amounting to 200,000 copies. As a leader of musical conventions and in the Church Choral Union, his influence in elevating the standard of song-worship has been widely felt.

"THERE ARE LONELY HEARTS TO CHERISH."

"While the days are going by" is the refrain of the song, and the line by which it is recognized. The hymn or poem was written by George Cooper. He was born in New York City, May 14, 1840—a writer of poems and magazine articles,—composed "While the days are going by" in 1870.

There are lonely hearts to cherish While the days are going by. There are weary souls who perish While the days are going by. Up! then, trusty hearts and true, Though the day comes, night comes, too: Oh, the good we all may do While the days are going by!

There are few more practical and always-timely verses than this three-stanza poem.

THE TUNE.

A very musical tune, with spirited chorus, (in Gospel Hymns) bears the name of the refrain, and was composed by Mr. Sankey.

A sweet and quieter harmony (uncredited) is mated with the hymn in the old Baptist Praise Book (p. 507) and this was long the fixture to the words, in both Sunday-school and week-day school song-books.

"JESUS THE WATER OF LIFE WILL GIVE."

This Sunday-school lyric is the work of Fanny J. Crosby (Mrs. Van Alstyne). Like her other and greater hymn, "Jesus keep me near the Cross," (noted on p. 156,) it reveals the habitual attitude of the pious author's mind, and the simple earnestness of her own faith as well as her desire to win others.

Jesus the water of life will give Freely, freely, freely; Jesus the water of life will give Freely to those who love Him.

The Spirit and the Bride say "Come Freely, freely, freely. And he that is thirsty let him come And drink the water of life."

Full chorus,—

The Fountain of life is flowing, Flowing, freely flowing; The Fountain of life is flowing, Is flowing for you and for me.

THE TUNE.

The hymn must be sung as it was made to be sung, and the composer being many years en rapport with the writer, knew how to put all her metrical rhythms into sweet sound. The tune—in Mr. Bradbury's Fresh Laurels (1867)—is one of his sympathetic interpretations, and, with the duet sung by two of the best singers of the middle class Sunday-school girls, is a melodious and impressive piece.

"WHEN HE COMETH, WHEN HE COMETH."

The Rev. W.O. Cushing, with the beautiful thought in Malachi 3:17 singing in his soul, composed this favorite Sunday-school hymn, which has gone round the world.

When He cometh, when He cometh To make up His jewels, All the jewels, precious jewels, His loved and His own. Like the stars of the morning, His bright brow adorning They shall shine in their beauty Bright gems for His crown.

He will gather, He will gather The gems for His Kingdom, All the pure ones, all the bright ones, His loved and His own. Like the stars, etc.

Little children, little children Who love their Redeemer, Are the jewels, precious jewels His loved and His own, Like the stars, etc.

Rev. William Orcutt Cushing of Hingham, Mass., born Dec. 31, 1823, wrote this little hymn when a young man (1856), probably with no idea of achieving a literary performance. But it rings; and even if it is a "ringing of changes" on pretty syllables, that is not all. There is a thought in it that sings. Its glory came to it, however, when it got its tune—and he must have had a subconsciousness of the tune he wanted when he made the lines for his Sunday-school. He died Oct. 19, 1902.

THE TUNE.

The composer of the music for the "Jewel Hymn"[32] was George F. Root, then living in Reading, Mass.

[Footnote 32: Comparison of the "Jewel Hymn" tune with the old glee of "Johnny Schmoker" gives color to the assertion that Mr. Root caught up and adapted a popular ditty for his Christian melody—as was so often done in Wales, and in the Lutheran and Wesleyan reformations. He baptized the comic fugue, and promoted it from the vaudeville stage to the Sunday School.]

A minister returning from Europe on an English steamer visited the steerage, and after some friendly talk proposed a singing service—it something could be started that "everybody" knew—for there were hundreds of emigrants there from nearly every part of Europe.

"It will have to be an American tune, then," said the steerage-master; "try 'His jewels.'"

The minister struck out at once with the melody and words,—

When He cometh, when He cometh,

—and scores of the poor half-fare multitude joined voices with him. Many probably recognized the music of the old glee, and some had heard the sweet air played in the church-steeples at home. Other voices chimed in, male and female, catching the air, and sometimes the words—they were so easy and so many times repeated—and the volume of song increased, till the singing minister stood in the midst of an international concert, the most novel that he ever led.

He tried other songs in similar visits during the rest of the voyage with some success, but the "Jewel Hymn" was the favorite; and by the time port was in sight the whole crowd of emigrants had it by heart.

The steamer landed at Quebec, and when the trains, filled with the new arrivals, rolled away, the song was swelling from nearly every car,—

When He cometh, when He cometh, To make up His jewels.

The composer of the tune—with all the patriotic and sacred master-pieces standing to his credit—never reaped a richer triumph than he shared with his poet-partner that day, when "Precious Jewels" came back to them from over the sea. More than this, there was missionary joy for them both that their tuneful work had done something to hallow the homes of alien settlers with an American Christian psalm.

George Frederick Root, Doctor of Music, was born in Sheffield, Mass., 1820, eldest of a family of eight children, and spent his youth on a farm. His genius for music drew him to Boston, where he became a pupil of Lowell Mason, and soon advanced so far as to teach music himself and lead the choir in Park St. church. Afterwards he went to New York as director of music in Dr. Deems's Church of the Strangers. In 1852, after a year's absence and study in Europe, he returned to New York, and founded the Normal Musical Institute. In 1860, he removed to Chicago where he spent the remainder of his life writing and publishing music. He died Aug. 6, 1895, in Maine.

In the truly popular sense Dr. Root was the best-known American composer; not excepting Stephen C. Foster. Root's "Hazel Dell," "There's Music in the Air," and "Rosalie the Prairie Flower" were universal tunes—(words by Fanny Crosby,)—as also his music to Henry Washburn's "Vacant Chair." The songs in his cantata, "The Haymakers," were sung in the shops and factories everywhere, and his war-time music, in such melodies as "Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom" and "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching" took the country by storm.

"SCATTER SEEDS OF KINDNESS."

This amiable and tuneful poem, suggested by Rom. 12:10, is from the pen of Mary Louise Riley (Mrs. Albert Smith) of New York City. She was born in Brighton, Monroe Co., N.Y. May 27, 1843.

Let us gather up the sunbeams Lying all along our path; Let us keep the wheat and roses Casting out the thorns and chaff.

CHORUS. Then scatter seeds of kindness (ter) For our reaping by and by.

Silas Jones Vail, the tune-writer, for this hymn, was born Oct. 1818, and died May 20, 1883. For years he worked at the hatter's trade, with Beebe on Broadway, N.Y. and afterwards in an establishment of his own. His taste and talent led him into musical connections, and from time to time, after relinquishing his trade, he was with Horace Waters, Philip Phillips, W.B. Bradbury, and F.J. Smith, the piano dealer. He was a choir leader and a good composer.

"BY COOL SILOAM'S SHADY RILL."

This hymn of Bp. Heber inculcates the same lesson as that in the stanzas of Michael Bruce before noted, with added emphasis for the young on the briefness of time and opportunity even for them.

How fair the lily grows,

—is answered by—

The lily must decay,

—but, owing to the sweetness of the favorite melody, it was never a saddening hymn for children.

THE TUNE.

Though George Kingsley's "Heber" has in some books done service for the Bishop's lines, "Siloam," easy-flowing and finely harmonized, is knit to the words as no other tune can be. It was composed by Isaac Baker Woodbury on shipboard during a storm at sea. A stronger illustration of tranquil thought in terrible tumult was never drawn.

"O Galilee, Sweet Galilee," whose history has been given at the end of chapter six, was not only often sung in Sunday-schools, but chimed (in the cities) on steeple-bells—nor is it by any means forgotten today—on the Sabbath and in social singing assemblies. Like "Precious Jewels," it has been, in many places, taken up by street boys with a relish, and often displaced the play-house ditties in the lips of little newsboys and bootblacks during a leisure hour or a happy mood.

"I AM SO GLAD"

This lively little melody is still a welcome choice to many a lady teacher of fluttering five-year-olds, when both vocal indulgence and good gospel are needed for the prattlers in her class. It has been as widely sung in Scotland as in America. Mr. Philip P. Bliss, hearing one day the words of the familiar chorus—

O, how I love Jesus,

—suddenly thought to himself,—

"I have sung long enough of my poor love to Christ, and now I will sing of His love for me." Under the inspiration of this thought, he wrote—

I am so glad that our Father in heaven Tells of His love in the book He has given Wonderful things in the Bible I see, This is the dearest—that Jesus loves me.

Both words and music are by Mr. Bliss.

The history of modern Sunday-school hymnody—or much of it—is so nearly identified with that of the Gospel Hymns that other selections like the last, which might be appropriate here, may be considered in a later chapter, where that eventful series of sacred songs receives special notice.



CHAPTER IX.

PATRIOTIC HYMNS.

The ethnic anthologies growing out of love of country are a mingled literature of filial and religious piety, ranging from war-like paeans to lyric prayers. They become the cherished inheritance of a nation, and, once fixed in the common memory and common heart, the people rarely let them die. The "Songs of the Fathers" have perennial breath, and in every generation—

The green woods of their native land Shall whisper in the strain; The voices of their household band Shall sweetly speak again. —Felicia Hemans.

ULTIMA THULE.

American pride has often gloried in Seneca's "Vision of the West," more than eighteen hundred years ago.

Venient annis Saecula seris, quibus Oceanus Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens Pateat tellus, Typhisque novos Detegat orbes, nec sit terris Ultima Thule.

A time will come in future ages far When Ocean will his circling bounds unbar. And, opening vaster to the Pilot's hand, New worlds shall rise, where mightier kingdoms are, Nor Thule longer be the utmost land.

This poetic forecast, of which Washington Irving wrote "the predictions of the ancient oracles were rarely so unequivocal," is part of the "chorus" at the end of the second act of Seneca's "Medea," written near the date of St. Paul's first Epistle to the Thessalonians.

Seneca, the celebrated Roman (Stoic) philosopher, was born at or very near the time of our Saviour's birth. There are legends of his acquaintance with Paul, at Rome, but though he wrote able and quotable treatises On Consolation, On Providence, On Calmness of Soul, and On the Blessed Life, there is no direct evidence that the savor of Christian faith ever qualified his works or his personal principles. He was a man of grand ideas and inspirations, but he was a time server and a flatterer of the Emperor Nero, who, nevertheless, caused his death when he had no further use for him.

His compulsory suicide occurred A.D. 65, the year in which St. Paul is supposed to have suffered martyrdom.

"THE BREAKING WAVES DASHED HIGH."

Sitting at the tea-table one evening, near a century ago, Mrs. Hemans read an old account of the "Landing of the Pilgrims," and was inspired to write this poem, which became a favorite in America—like herself, and all her other works.

The ballad is inaccurate in details, but presents the spirit of the scene with true poet insight. Mr. James T. Fields, the noted Boston publisher, visited the lady in her old age, and received an autograph copy of the poem, which is seen in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Mass.

The breaking waves dashed high, on a stern and rock-bound coast, And the woods against a stormy sky, their giant branches tossed, And the heavy night hung dark, the hills and waters o'er, When a band of exiles moored their bark on the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes, they, the true-hearted, came; Not with the roll of stirring drums, and the trumpet that sings of fame; Not as the flying come, in silence and in fear,— They shook the depths of the desert's gloom with their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang, and the stars heard, and the sea! And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang to the anthem of the free! The ocean eagle soared from his nest by the white waves' foam, And the rocking pines of the forest roared,—this was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair amidst that pilgrim band,— Why had they come to wither there, away from their childhood's land? There was woman's fearless eye, lit by her deep love's truth; There was manhood's brow, serenely high, and the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar? bright jewels of the mine? The wealth of seas? the spoils of war?—They sought a faith's pure shrine! Ay, call it holy ground, the soil where first they trod; They left unstained what there they found,—freedom to worship God!

Felicia Dorothea Browne (Mrs. Hemans) was born in Liverpool, Eng., 1766, and died 1845.

THE TUNE.

The original tune is not now accessible. It was composed by Mrs. Mary E. (Browne) Arkwright, Mrs. Hemans' sister, and published in England about 1835. But the words have been sung in this country to "Silver St.," a choral not entirely forgotten, credited to an English composer, Isaac Smith, born, in London, about 1735, and died there in 1800.

"WESTWARD THE COURSE OF EMPIRE."

Usually misquoted "Westward the Star of Empire," etc. This poem of Bishop Berkeley possesses no lyrical quality but, like the ancient Roman's words, partakes of the prophetic spirit, and has always been dear to the American heart by reason of the above line. It seems to formulate the "manifest destiny" of a great colonizing race that has already absorbed a continent, and extended its sway across the Pacific ocean.

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay; Such as she bred when fresh and young, When heavenly flame did animate her clay, By future poets shall be sung.

Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, The fifth shall close the drama of the day: Time's noblest offspring is the last.

George Berkeley was born March 12, 1684, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. A remarkable student, he became a remarkable man, as priest, prelate, and philosopher. High honors awaited him at home, but the missionary passion seized him. Inheriting a small fortune, he sailed to the West, intending to evangelize and educate the Indians of the "Summer Islands," but the ship lost her course, and landed him at Newport, R.I., instead of the Bermudas. Here he was warmly welcomed, but was disappointed in his plans and hopes of founding a native college by the failure of friends in England to forward funds, and after a residence of six years he returned home. He died at Cloyne, Ireland, 1753.

The house which Bishop Berkeley built is still shown (or was until very recently) at Newport after one hundred and seventy-eight years. He wrote the Principles of Human Knowledge, the Minute Philosopher, and many other works of celebrity in their time, and a scholarship in Yale bears his name; but he is best loved in this country for his Ode to America.

Pope in his list of great men ascribes—

To Berkeley every virtue under heaven.

"SOUND THE LOUD TIMBREL."

One would scarcely guess that this bravura hymn of victory and "Come, ye disconsolate," were written by the same person, but both are by Thomas Moore. The song has all the vigor and vivacity of his "Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls," without its pathos. The Irish poet chose the song of Miriam instead of the song of Deborah doubtless because the sentiment and strain of the first of these two great female patriots lent themselves more musically to his lyric verse—and his poem is certainly martial enough to convey the spirit of both.

Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! Jehovah hath triumphed, His people are free! Sing, for the pride of the tyrant is broken; His chariots, his horsemen, all splendid and brave— How vain was their boasting, the Lord hath but spoken, And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the wave.

THE TUNE.

Of all the different composers to whose music Moore's "sacred songs" were sung—Beethoven, Mozart, Stevenson, and the rest—Avison seems to be the only one whose name and tune have clung to the poet's words; and we have the man and the melody sent to us, as it were, by the lyrist himself. The tune is now rarely sung except at church festivals and village entertainments, but the life and clamor of the scene at the Red Sea are in it, and it is something more than a mere musical curiosity. Its style, however, is antiquated—with its timbrel beat and its canorous harmony and "coda fortis"—and modern choirs have little use in religious service for the sonata written for viols and horns.

It was Moore's splendid hymn that gave it vogue in England and Ireland, and sent it across the sea to find itself in the house of its friends with the psalmody of Billings and Swan. Moore was the man of all men to take a fancy to it and make language to its string-and-trumpet concert. He was a musician himself, and equally able to adapt a tune and to create one. As a festival performance, replete with patriotic noise, let Avison's old "Sound the Timbrel" live.

Charles Avison was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1710. He studied in Italy, wrote works on music, and composed sonatas and concertos for stringed orchestras. For many years he was organist of St. Nicholas' Kirk in his native town.

The tune to "Sound the Loud Timbrel" is a chorus from one of his longer compositions. He died in 1770.

"THE HARP THAT ONCE THROUGH TARA'S HALLS."

This is the only one of Moore's patriotic "Irish Melodies" that lives wherever sweet tones are loved and poetic feeling finds answering hearts. The exquisite sadness of its music and its text is strangely captivating, and its untold story beckons from its lines.

Tara was the ancient home of the Irish kings. King Dermid, who had apostatized from the faith of St. Patrick and his followers, in A.D., 554, violated the Christian right of sanctuary by taking an escaped prisoner from the altar of refuge in Temple Ruadan (Tipperary) and putting him to death. The patron priest and his clergy marched to Tara and solemnly pronounced a curse upon the King. Not long afterwards Dermid was assassinated, and superstition shunned the place "as a castle under ban." The last human resident of "Tara's Hall" was the King's bard, who lingered there, forsaken and ostracized, till he starved to death. Years later one daring visitor found his skeleton and his broken harp.

Moore utilized this story of tragic pathos as a figure in his song for "fallen Erin" lamenting her lost royalty—under a curse that had lasted thirteen hundred years.

The harp that once through Tara's halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls As if that soul were fled.

So sleeps the pride of former days, So glory's thrill is o'er, And hearts that once beat high for praise Now feel that pulse no more.

No one can read the words without "thinking" the tune. It is supposed that Moore composed them both.

THE MARSEILLAISE HYMN.

Ye sons of France, awake to glory! Hark! hark! what millions bid you rise!

The "Marseillaise Hymn" so long supposed to be the musical as well as verbal composition of Roget de Lisle, an army engineer, was proved to be only his words set to an air in the "Credo" of a German mass, which was the work of one Holzman in 1726. De Lisle was known to be a poet and musician as well as a soldier, and, as he is said to have played or sung at times in the churches and convents, it is probable that he found and copied the manuscript of Holzman's melody. His haste to rush his fiery "Hymn" before the public in the fever of the Revolution allowed him no time to make his own music, and he adapted the German's notes to his words and launched the song in the streets of Strasburg. It was first sung in Paris by a band of chanters from Marseilles, and, like the trumpets blown around Jericho, it shattered the walls of the French monarchy to their foundations.

The "Marseillaise Hymn" is mentioned here for its patriotic birth and associations. An attempt to make a religious use of it is recorded in the Fourth Chapter.

ODE ON SCIENCE.

This is a "patriotic hymn," though a queer production with a queer name, considering its contents; and its author was no intimate of the Muses. Liberty is supposed to be somehow the corollary of learning, or vice versa—whichever the reader thinks.

The morning sun shines from the East And spreads his glories to the West.

* * * * *

So Science spreads her lucid ray O'er lands that long in darkness lay; She visits fair Columbia, And sets her sons among the stars. Fair Freedom, her attendant, waits, etc.

THE TUNE

Was the really notable part of this old-time "Ode," the favorite of village assemblies, and the inevitable practice-piece for amateur violinists. The author of the crude symphony was Deacon Janaziah (or Jazariah) Summer, of Taunton, Mass., who prepared it—music and probably words—for the semi-centennial of Simeon Dagget's Academy in 1798. The "Ode" was subsequently published in Philadelphia, and also in Albany. It was a song of the people, and sang itself through the country for fifty or sixty years, always culminating in the swift crescendo chorus and repeat—

The British yoke and Gallic chain Were urged upon our necks in vain; All haughty tyrants we disdain, And shout "Long live America!"

The average patriot did not mind it if "Columbi-ay" and "Ameri-kay" were not exactly classic orthoepy.

"HAIL COLUMBIA."

This was written (1798) by Judge Joseph Hopkinson, born, in Philadelphia, 1770, and died there, 1843. He wrote it for a friend in that city who was a theatre singer, and wanted a song for Independence Day. The music (to which it is still sung) was "The President's March," by a composer named Fyles, near the end of the 18th century.

There is nothing hymn-like in the words, which are largely a glorification of Gen. Washington, but the tune, a concerted piece better for band than voices, has the drum-and-anvil chorus quality suitable for vociferous mass singing—and a zealous Salvation Army corps on field nights could even fit a processional song to it with gospel words.

OLD "CHESTER."

Let tyrants shake their iron rod, And slavery clank her galling chains: We'll fear them not; we trust in God; New England's God forever reigns.

Old "Chester," both words and tune the work of William Billings, is another of the provincial freedom songs of the Revolutionary period, and of the days when the Republic was young. Billings was a zealous patriot, and (says a writer in Moore's Cyclopedia of Music) "one secret, no doubt, of the vast popularity his works obtained was the patriotic ardor they breathed. The words above quoted are an example, and 'Chester,' it is said, was frequently heard from every fife in the New England ranks. The spirit of the Revolution was also manifest in his 'Lamentation over Boston,' his 'Retrospect,' his 'Independence,' his 'Columbia,' and many other pieces."

William Billings was born, in Boston, Oct. 7, 1746. He was a man of little education, but his genius for music spurred him to study the tuneful art, and enabled him to learn all that could be learned without a master. He began to make tunes and publish them, and his first book, the New England Psalm-singer was a curiosity of youthful crudity and confidence, but in considerable numbers it was sold, and sung—and laughed at. He went on studying and composing, and compiled another work, which was so much of an improvement that it got the name of Billings' Best. A third singing-book followed, and finally a fourth entitled the Psalm Singer's Amusement, both of which were popular in their day. His "Majesty" has tremendous capabilities of sound, and its movement is fully up to the requirements of Nahum Tate's verses,—

And on the wings of mighty winds Came flying all abroad.

William Billings died in 1800, and his remains lie in an unmarked grave in the old "Granary" Burying Ground in the city of his birth.

National feeling has taken maturer speech and finer melody, but it was these ruder voices that set the pitch. They were sung with native pride and affection at fireside vespers and rural feasts with the adopted songs of Burns and Moore and Mrs. Hemans, and, like the lays of Scotland and Provence, they breathed the flavor of the country air and soil, and taught the generation of home-born minstrelsy that gave us the Hutchinson family, Ossian E. Dodge, Covert with his "Sword of Bunker Hill," and Philip Phillips, the "Singing Pilgrim."

THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER.

Near the close of the last war with England, Francis Scott Key, of Baltimore, the author of this splendid national hymn, was detained under guard on the British flag-ship at the mouth of the Petapsco, where he had gone under a flag of truce to procure the release of a captured friend, Dr. William Beanes of Upper Marlboro, Md.

The enemy's fleet was preparing to bombard Fort McHenry, and Mr. Key's return with his friend was forbidden lest their plans should be disclosed. Forced to stay and witness the attack on his country's flag, he walked the deck through the whole night of the bombardment until the break of day showed the brave standard still flying at full mast over the fort. Relieved of his patriotic anxiety, he pencilled the exultant lines and chorus of his song on the back of a letter, and, as soon as he was released, carried it to the city, where within twenty-four hours it was printed on flyers, circulated and sung in the streets to the air of "Anacreon in Heaven"—which has been the "Star Spangled Banner" tune ever since.

O say, can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming, And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air Gave proof through the night that the flag was still there: O say, does the star-spangled banner yet wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

* * * * *

O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand, Between their loved homes and the war's desolation; Blessed with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto, "In God is our trust." And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The original star-spangled banner that waved over Fort McHenry in sight of the poet when he wrote the famous hymn was made and presented to the garrison by a girl of fifteen, afterwards Mrs. Sanderson, and is still preserved in the Sanderson family at Baltimore.



The additional stanza to the "Star-Spangled Banner"—

When our land is illumined with Liberty's smile, etc.,

—was composed by Dr. O.W. Holmes, in 1861.

The tune "Anacreon in Heaven" was an old English hunting air composed by John Stafford Smith, born at Gloucester, Eng. 1750. He was composer for Covent Garden Theater, and conductor of the Academy of Ancient Music. Died Sep. 20, 1836. The melody was first used in America to Robert Treat Paine's song, "Adams and Liberty." Paine, born 1778—died 1811, was the son of Robert Treat Paine, signer of the Declaration of Independence.

"STAND! THE GROUND'S YOUR OWN, MY BRAVES."

Sympathetic admiration for the air, "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," (or "Bruce's address," as it was commonly called), with the syllables of Robert Burns' silvery verse, lingered long in the land after the wars were ended. It spoke in the poem of John Pierpont, who caught its pibroch thrill, and built the metre of "Warren's Address at the Battle of Bunker Hill" on the model of "Scots wha hae."

Stand! the ground's your own, my braves; Will ye give it up to slaves? Will ye look for greener graves?

* * * * *

In the God of battles trust: Die we may, or die we must, But O where can dust to dust Be consigned so well,

As where Heaven its dews shall shed, On the martyred patriot's bed, And the rocks shall raise their head Of his deeds to tell?

This poem, written about 1823, held a place many years in school-books, and was one of the favorite school-boy declamations. Whenever sung on patriotic occasions, the music was sure to be "Bruce's Address." That typical Scotch tune was played on the Highland bag-pipes long before Burns was born, and known as "Hey tuttie taite." "Heard on Fraser's hautboy, it used to fill my eyes with tears," Burns himself once wrote.

Rev. John Pierpont was born in Litchfield, Ct., April 6, 1785. He was graduated at Yale, 1804, taught school, studied law, engaged in trade, and finally took a course in theology and became a Unitarian minister, holding the pastorate of Hollis St. Church, Boston, thirty-six years. He travelled in the East, and wrote "Airs of Palestine." His poem, "The Yankee Boy," has been much quoted. Died in Medford, Mass., Aug. 26, 1866.

"MY COUNTRY, 'TIS OF THEE."

This simple lyric, honored so long with the name "America," and the title "Our National Hymn," was written by Samuel Francis Smith, while a theological student at Andover, Feb. 2, 1832. He had before him several hymn and song tunes which Lowell Mason had received from Germany, and, knowing young Smith to be a good linguist, had sent to him for translation. One of the songs, of national character, struck Smith as adaptable to home use if turned into American words, and he wrote four stanzas of his own to fit the tune.

Mason printed them with the music, and under his magical management the hymn made its debut on a public occasion in Park St. Church, Boston, July 4, 1832. Its very simplicity, with its reverent spirit and easy-flowing language, was sure to catch the ear of the multitude and grow into familiar use with any suitable music, but it was the foreign tune that, under Mason's happy pilotage, winged it for the western world and launched it on its long flight.

My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing; Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims' pride, From every mountain-side Let freedom ring.

* * * * *

Let music swell the breeze, And ring from all the trees Sweet Freedom's song; Let mortal tongues awake, Let all that breathe partake, Let rocks their silence break, The sound prolong.

Our fathers' God, to Thee, Author of liberty, To Thee we sing; Long may our land be bright With Freedom's holy light; Protect us by Thy might, Great God, our King.

THE TUNE.

Pages, and at least two volumes, have been written to prove the origin of that cosmopolitan, half-Gregorian descant known here as "America," and in England as "God Save the King." William C. Woodbridge of Boston brought it home with him from Germany. The Germans had been singing it for years (and are singing it now, more or less) to the words, "Heil Dir Im Siegel Kranz," and the Swiss to "Rufst Du mein Vaterland." It was sung in Sweden, also, and till 1833 it was in public use in Russia commonly enough to give it a national character. Von Weber introduced it in his "Jubel" overture, and Beethoven, in 1814, copied it in C Major and wrote piano variations on it. It has been ascribed to Henry Purcell (1696), to Lulli, a French composer (1670), to Dr. John Bull (1619), and to Thomas Ravenscroft and an old Scotch carol as old as 1609. One might fancy that the biography of the famous air resembled Melchizedek's.

The truth appears to be that certain bars of music which might easily happen to be similar, or even identical, when plain-song was the common style, were produced at different times and places, and one man finally harmonized the wandering strains into a complete tune. It is now generally conceded that the man was Henry Carey, a popular English composer and dramatist of the first half of the 18th century, who sang the melody as it now is, in 1740, at a public dinner given in honor of Admiral Vernon after his capture of Porto Bello (Brazil). This antedates any authenticated use of the tune ipsissima forma in England or continental Europe.

The American history of it simply is that Woodbridge gave it to Mason and Mason gave it to Smith—and Smith gave it "My Country 'Tis of Thee."

"BY THE RUDE BRIDGE."

This genuinely American poem, written by Ralph Waldo Emerson and called usually the "Concord Hymn," was prepared for the dedication of the Battle-monument in Concord, April 19, 1836, and sung there to the tune of "Old Hundred." Apparently no change has been made in the original except of a single word in the first line.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept; Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; And Time the ruined bridge has swept Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream, We set today a votive stone; That memory may their deed redeem, When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and Thee.

This does not appear in the hymnals and owns no special tune. Its niche of honor is in the temple of anthology, but it will always be called the "Concord Hymn"—and the fourth line of its first stanza is a perennial quotation.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, LL.D., the renowned American essayist and poet, was born in Boston, 1803. He graduated at Harvard in 1821, and was ordained to the Unitarian ministry, but turned his attention to literature, writing and lecturing on ethical and philosophical themes, and winning universal fame by his original and suggestive prose and verse. He died April 27, 1882.

BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.

After a visit to the Federal camps on the Potomac in 1861, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe returned to her lodgings in Washington, fatigued, as she says, by her "long, cold drive," and slept soundly. Awakening at early daybreak, she began "to twine the long lines of a hymn which promised to suit the measure of the 'John Brown' melody."

This hymn was written out after a fashion in the dark, by Mrs. Howe, and she then went back to sleep.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps, They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps; His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel; "As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;" Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel, Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat; Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant my feet! Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me; As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free. While God is marching on.

THE TUNE.

The music of the old camp-meeting refrain,—

Say, brothers will you meet us?

—or,—

O brother, will you meet me,

(No. 173 in the Revivalist,) was written in 1855, by John William Steffe, of Richmond, Va., for a fire company, and was afterwards arranged by Franklin H. Lummis. The air of the "John Brown Song" was caught from this religious melody. The old hymn-tune had the "Glory, Hallelujah" coda, cadenced off with, "For ever, ever more."

In 1860-61 the garrison of soldiers at work on the half-dismantled defenses of Fort Warren in Boston Harbor, were fain to lighten labor and mock fatigue with any species of fun suggested by circumstances or accident, and, as for music, they sang everything they could remember or make up. John Brown's memory and fate were fresh in the Northern mind, and the jollity of the not very reverent army men did not exclude frequent allusions to the rash old Harper's Ferry hero.

A wag conjured his spirit into the camp with a witticism as to what he was doing, and a comrade retorted,

"Marchin' on, of course."

A third cried, "Pooh, John Brown's underground."

A serio-comic debate added more words, and in the midst of the banter, a musical fellow strung a rhythmic sentence and trolled it to the Methodist tune. "John Brown's body lies a mould'rin' in the ground" was taken up by others who knew the air, the following line was improvised almost instantly, and soon, to the accompaniment of pick, shovel and crowbar,—

His soul goes marching on,

—rounded the couplet with full lung power through all the repetitions, till the inevitable "glory, glory hallelujah" had the voice of every soldier in the fort. The song "took," and the marching chorus of the Federal armies of the Civil War was started on its way. Mrs. Howe gave it a poem that made its rusticity sublime, and the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" began a career that promises to run till battle hymns cease to be sung.

Julia Ward was born in New York city, May 27, 1819. In 1843 she became the wife of Samuel Gridley Howe, the far-famed philanthropist and champion of liberty, and with him edited an anti-slavery paper, the Boston Commonwealth, until the Civil War closed its mission. During the war she was active and influential—and has never ceased to be so—in the cause of peace and justice, and in every philanthropic movement. Her great hymn first brought her prominently before the public, but her many other writings would have made a literary reputation. Her four surviving children are all eminent in the scientific and literary world.

KELLER'S AMERICAN HYMN.

Naturally the title suggests the authorship of the ode, but fate made Keller a musician rather than a poet and hymnist, and the honors of the fine anthem are divided. At the grand performance which created its reputation, the hymn of Dr. O.W. Holmes was substituted for the composer's words. This is Keller's first stanza:

Speed our republic, O Father on high! Lead us in pathways of justice and right, Rulers, as well as the ruled, one and all, Girdle with virtue the armor of might. Hail! three times hail, to our country and flag! Rulers, as well as the ruled, one and all, Girdle with virtue the armor of might; Hail! three times hail, to our country and flag!

"Flag" was the unhappy word at the end of every one of the four stanzas. To match a short vowel to an orotund concert note for two beats and a "hold" was impossible. When the great Peace Jubilee of 1872, in Boston, was projected, Dr. Holmes was applied to, and responded with a lyric that gave each stanza the rondeau effect designed by the composer, but replaced the flat final with a climax syllable of breadth and music:

Angel of Peace, thou hast wandered too long! Spread thy white wings to the sunshine of love! Come while our voices are blended in song, Fly to our ark like the storm-beaten dove! Fly to our ark on the wings of the dove, Speed o'er the far-sounding billows of song, Crown'd with thine olive-leaf garland of love, Angel of Peace, thou hast waited too long!

* * * * *

Angels of Bethlehem, answer the strain! Hark! a new birth-song is filling the sky! Loud as the storm-wind that tumbles the main, Bid the full breath of the organ reply, Let the loud tempest of voices reply, Roll its long surge like the earth-shaking main! Swell the vast song till it mounts to the sky! Angels of Bethlehem, echo the strain!

But the glory of the tune was Keller's own.

Soon after the close of the war a prize of $500 had been offered by a committee of American gentlemen for the best "national hymn" (meaning words and music). Mr. Keller, though a foreigner, was a naturalized citizen and patriot and entered the lists as a competitor with the zeal of a native and the ambition of an artist. Sometime in 1866 he finished and copyrighted the noble anthem that bears his name, and then began the struggle to get it before the public and test its merit. To enable him to bring it out before the New York Academy of Music, where (unfortunately) he determined to make his first trial, his brother kindly lent him four hundred dollars (which he had laid by to purchase a little home), and he borrowed two hundred more elsewhere.

The performance proved a failure, the total receipts being only forty-two dollars, Keller was $500 in debt, and his brother's house-money was gone. But he refused to accept his failure as final. Boston (where he should have begun) was introduced to his masterpiece at every opportunity, and gradually, with the help of the city bands and a few public concerts, a decided liking for it was worked up. It was entered on the program of the Peace Jubilee and sung by a chorus of ten thousand voices. The effect was magnificent. "Keller's American Hymn" became a recognized star number in the repertoire of "best" national tunes; and now few public occasions where patriotic music is demanded omit it in their menu of song.[33]

[Footnote 33: In Butterworth's "Story of the Tunes," under the account of Keller's grand motet, the following sacred hymn is inserted as "often sung to it:"—

Father Almighty, we bow at thy feet; Humbly thy grace and thy goodness we own. Answer in love when thy children entreat, Hear our thanksgiving ascend to thy throne. Seeking thy blessing, in worship we meet, Trusting our souls on thy mercy alone; Father Almighty, we bow at thy feet.

Breathe, Holy Spirit, thy comfort divine, Tune every voice to thy music of peace; Hushed in our hearts, with one whisper of thine, Pride and the tumult of passion will cease. Joy of the watchful, who wait for thy sign, Hope of the sinful, who long for release, Breathe, Holy Spirit, thy comfort divine.

God of salvation, thy glory we sing, Honors to thee in thy temple belong; Welcome the tribute of gladness we bring, Loud-pealing organ and chorus of song. While our high praises, Redeemer and King, Blend with the notes of the angelic throng, God of salvation, thy glory we sing. —Theron Brown.]

It is pathetic to know that the composer's one great success brought him only a barren renown. The prize committee, on the ground that none of the competing pieces reached the high standard of excellence contemplated, withheld the $500, and Keller's work received merely the compliment of being judged worth presentation. The artist had his copyright, but he remained a poor man.

Matthias Keller was born at Ulm, Wurtemberg, March 20, 1813. In his youth he was both a musician and a painter. Coming to this country, he chose the calling that promised the better and quicker wages, playing in bands and theatre orchestras, but never accumulating money. He could make fine harmonies as well as play them, but English was not his mother-tongue, and though he wrote a hundred and fifty songs, only one made him well-known. When fame came to him it did not bring him wealth, and in his latter days, crippled by partial paralysis, he went back to his early art and earned a living by painting flowers and retouching portraits and landscapes. He died in 1875, only three years after his Coliseum triumph.

"GOD BLESS OUR NATIVE LAND."

This familiar patriotic hymn is notable—though not entirely singular—for having two authors. The older singing-books signed the name of J.S. Dwight to it, until inquiring correspondence brought out the testimony and the joint claim of Dwight and C.T. Brooks, and it appeared that both these scholars and writers translated it from the German. Later hymnals attach both their names to the hymn.[34]

[Footnote 34: For a full account of this disputed hymn, and the curious trick of memory which confused four names in the question of its authorship, see Dr. Benson's Studies of Familiar Hymns, pp. 179-190]

John Sullivan Dwight, born, in Boston, May 13, 1813, was a virtuoso in music, and an enthusiastic student of the art and science of tonal harmony. He joined a Harvard musical club known as "The Pierian Sodality" while a student at the University, and after his graduation became a prolific writer on musical subjects. Six years of his life were passed in the "Brook Farm Community." He was best known by his serial magazine, Dwight's Journal of Music, which was continued from 1852 to 1881. His death occurred in 1893.

Rev. Charles Timothy Brooks, the translator of Faust, was born, in Salem, Mass., June 20, 1813, being only about a month younger than his friend Dwight. Was a student at Harvard University and Divinity School 1829-1835, and was ordained to the Unitarian ministry and settled at Newport, R.I. He resigned his charge there (1871) on account of ill health, and occupied himself with literary work until his death, Jan. 14, 1883.

God bless our native land! Firm may she ever stand Through storm and night! When the wild tempests rave. Ruler of wind and wave, Do Thou our country save By Thy great might!

For her our prayer shall rise To God above the skies; On Him we wait. Thou who art ever nigh, Guarding with watchful eye; To Thee aloud we cry, God save the State!

The tune of "Dort," by Lowell Mason, has long been the popular melody for this hymn. Indeed the two were united by Mason himself. It is braver music than "America," and would have carried Dr. Smith's hymn nobly, but the borrowed tune, on the whole, better suits "My Country 'tis of thee,"—and besides, it has the advantage of a middle-register harmony easy for a multitude of voices.

"THOU, TOO, SAIL ON, O SHIP OF STATE,"

The closing canto of Longfellow's "Launching of the Ship," almost deserves a patriotic hymn-tune, though its place and use are commonly with school recitations.

"GOD OF OUR FATHERS, KNOWN OF OLD."

Rudyard Kipling, in a moment of serious reflection on the flamboyant militarism of British sentiment during the South African War, wrote this remarkable "Recessional," so strikingly unlike his other war-time poems. It is to be hoped he did not suddenly repent his Christian impulse, but with the chauvinistic cry around him, "Our Country, right or wrong!" he seems to have felt the contrast of his prayer—and flung it into the waste-basket. His watchful wife rescued it (the story says) and bravely sent it to the London Times. The world owes her a debt. The hymn is not only an anthem for Peace Societies, but a tonic for true patriotism. When Freedom fights in self-defense, she need not force herself to "forget" the Lord of Hosts.

God of our fathers, known of old, Lord of our far-flung battle-line, Beneath whose awful hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine; Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget, lest we forget.

The tumult and the shouting dies, The captains and the kings depart, Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget, lest we forget.

Far-called, our navies melt away, On dune and headland sinks the fire; Lo all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre. Judge of the nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget, lest we forget.

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe, Such boasting as the Gentiles use Or lesser breeds without the law, Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget, lest we forget.

For heathen heart that puts her trust, In recking tube and iron shard, All valiant dust that builds on dust And guarding, calls not Thee to guard, For frantic boast and foolish word Thy mercy on thy people, Lord!

Had Kipling cared more for his poem, and kept it longer in hand, he might have revised a line or two that would possibly seem commonplace to him—and corrected the grammar in the first line of the second stanza. But of so fine a composition there is no call for finical criticism. The "Recessional" is a product of the poet's holiest mood. "The Spirit of the Lord came upon him"—as the old Hebrew phrase is, and for the time he was a rapt prophet, with a backward and a forward vision. Providence saved the hymn, and it touched and sank into the better mind of the nation. It is already learned by heart—and sung—wherever English is the common speech, and will be heard in numerous translations, with the wish that there were more patriotic hymns of the same Christian temper and strength.

Rudyard Kipling was born in Hindostan in 1865. Even with his first youthful experiments in the field of literature he was hailed as the coming apostle of muscular poetry and prose. For a time he made America his home, and it was while here that he faced death through a fearful and protracted sickness that brought him very near to God. He has visited many countries and described them all, and, though sometimes his imagination drives a reckless pen, the Christian world hopes much from a man whose genius can make the dullest souls listen.

THE TUNE.

The music set to Kipling's hymn is Stainer's "Magdalen"—(not his "Magdalina," which is a common-metre tune)—and wonderfully fits the words and enhances their dignity. It is a grave and earnest melody in D flat, with two bars in unison at "Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet," making the utterance of the prayer a deep and powerful finale.

John Stainer, Doctor of Music, born June 6, 1840, was nine years the chorister of St. Paul's, London, and afterwards organist to the University of Oxford. He is a member of the various musical societies of the Kingdom, and a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. His talent for sacred music is rare and versatile, and he seems to have consecrated himself as a musician and composer to the service of the church.

* * * * *

Every civilized nation has its patriotic hymns. In fact what makes a nation a nation is largely the unifying influences of its common song. Even the homeless Hebrew nation is kept together by its patriotic Psalms. The ethnic melodies would fill a volume with their story. The few presented in this chapter represent their range of quality and character—defiant as the Marseillaise, thrilling as "Scots' wha hae," joyful as "The Star-spangled Banner," breezy and bold as the "Ranz de Vaches," or sweet as the "Switzers' Song of Home."



CHAPTER X.

SAILORS' HYMNS.

The oldest sailors' hymn is found in the 107th Psalm, vss. 23-30:

They that go down to the sea in ships, To do business in great waters, These see the works of the Lord, And His wonders in the deep, etc.

Montgomery has made this metrical rendering of these verses:

They that toil upon the deep, And in vessels light and frail O'er the mighty waters sweep With the billows and the gale,

Mark what wonders God performs When He speaks, and, unconfined, Rush to battle all His storms In the chariots of the wind.

The hymn is not in the collections, and has no tune. Addison paraphrased the succeeding verses of the Psalm in his hymn, "How are thy servants blessed O Lord," sung to Hugh Wilson's[35] tune of "Avon":

When by the dreadful tempest borne High on the broken wave, They know Thou art not slow to hear, Nor impotent to save.

The storm is laid, the winds retire, Obedient to Thy will; The sea that roars at Thy command, At Thy command is still.

[Footnote 35: Hugh Wilson was a Scotch weaver of Kilmarnock, born 1764; died 1824.]

"FIERCE WAS THE WILD BILLOW."

([Greek: Zopheras trikumias])

The ancient writer, Anatolius, who composed this hymn has for centuries been confounded with "St" Anatolius, patriarch of Constantinople, who died A.D. 458. The author of the hymn lived in the seventh century, and except that he wrote several hymns, and also poems in praise of the martyrs, nothing or next to nothing, is known of him. The "Wild Billow" song was the principle seaman's hymn of the early church. It is being introduced into modern psalmody, the translation in use ranking among the most successful of Dr. John Mason Neale's renderings from the Greek.

Fierce was the wild billow, Dark was the night; Oars labored heavily, Foam glimmered white; Trembled the mariners; Peril was nigh; Then said the God of God, "Peace! It is I!"

Ridge of the mountain wave, Lower thy crest! Wall of Euroclydon, Be thou at rest! Sorrow can never be, Darkness must fly, When saith the Light of Light, "Peace! It is I!"

THE TUNE.

The desire to represent the antiquity of the hymn and the musical style of Its age, and on the other hand the wish to utilize it in the tune-manuals for Manners' Homes and Seamen's Bethels, makes a difficulty for composers to study—and the task is still open to competition. Considering the peculiar tone that sailors' singing instinctively takes—and has taken doubtless from time immemorial perhaps the plaintive melody of "Neale," by J.H. Cornell, comes as near to a vocal success as could be hoped. The music is of middle register and less than octave range, natural scale, minor, and the triple time lightens a little the dirge-like harmony while the weird sea-song effect is kept. A chorus of singing tars must create uncommon emotion, chanting this coronach of the storm.

John Henry Cornell was born in New York city, May 8, 1838, and was for many years organist at St. Paul's Chapel, Trinity Church. He is the author of numerous educational works on the theory and practice of music. He composed the above tune in 1872. Died March 1, 1894.

"AVE, MARIS STELLA."

One of the titles which the Roman Catholic world applied to the Mother of Jesus, in the Middle Ages, was "Stella Maris," "Star of the Sea." Columbus, being a Catholic, sang this hymn, or caused it to be sung, every evening, it is said, during his perilous voyage to an unknown land. The marine epithet by which the Virgin Mary is addressed is admirable as a stroke of poetry, and the hymn—of six stanzas—is a prayer which, though offered to her as to a divine being, was no doubt sincere in the simple sailor hearts of 1492.

The two following quatrains finish the voyagers' petition, and point it with a doxology—

Vitam praesta puram, Iter para tutum, Ut videntes Jesum Semper collaetemur.

Sit laus Deo Patri, Summo Christo decus, Spiritui Sancto, Tribus honor unus!

A free translation is—

Guide us safe, unspotted Through life's long endeavor Till with Thee and Jesus We rejoice forever.

Praise to God the Father, Son and Spirit be; One and equal honor To the Holy Three.

Inasmuch as this ancient hymn did not attain the height of its popularity and appear in all the breviaries until the 10th century, its assumed age has been doubted, but its reputed author, Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers, was born about 531, at Treviso, Italy, and died about 609. Though a religious teacher, he was a man of romantic and convivial instincts—a strange compound of priest, poet and beau chevalier. Duffield calls him "the last of the classics and first of the troubadours," and states that he was the "first of the Christian poets to begin that worship of the Virgin Mary which rose to a passion and sank to an idolatry."

TUNES

To this ancient rogation poem have been composed by Aiblinger (Johann Caspar), Bavarian, (1779-1867,) by Proch (Heinrich), Austrian, (1809-1878,) by Tadolini (Giovanni), Italian, (1803-1872,) and by many others. The "Ave, Maris Stella" is in constant use in the Romish church, and its English translation by Caswall is a favorite hymn in the Lyra Catholica.

"AVE, SANCTISSIMA!"

This beautiful hymn is not introduced here in order of time, but because it seems akin to the foregoing, and born of its faith and traditions—though it sounds rather too fine for a sailor song, on ship or shore. Like the other, the tuneful prayer is the voice of ultramontane piety accustomed to deify Mary, and is entitled the "Evening Song to the Virgin."

Ave Sanctissima! we lift our souls to Thee Ora pro nobis! 'tis nightfall on the sea. Watch us while shadows lie Far o'er the waters spread; Hear the heart's lonely sigh; Thine, too, hath bled.

Thou that hast looked on death, Aid us when death is near; Whisper of heaven to faith; Sweet Mother, hear! Ora pro nobis! the wave must rock our sleep; Ora, Mater, ora! Star of the Deep!

This was first written in four separate quatrains, "'Tis nightfall on the sea" being part of the first instead of the second line, and "We lift our souls," etc., was "Our souls rise to Thee," while the apostrophe at the end read, "Thou Star of the Deep."

The fact of the modern origin of the hymn does not make it less probable that the earlier one of Fortunatus suggested it. It was written by Mrs. Hemans, and occurs between the forty-third and forty-fourth stanzas of her long poem, "The Forest Sanctuary."

A Spanish Christian who had embraced the Protestant faith fled to America (such is the story of the poem) to escape the cruelties of the Inquisition, and took with him his Catholic wife and his child. During the voyage the wife pined away and died, a martyr to her conjugal loyalty and love. The hymn to the Virgin purports to have been her daily evening song at sea, plaintively remembered by the broken-hearted husband and father in his forest retreat on the American shore with his motherless boy.

The music was composed by a sister of Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Hughes, who probably arranged the lines as they now stand in the tune.

The song, though its words appear in the Parochial Hymn-book, seems to be in use rather as parlor music than as a part of the liturgy.

"JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL."

The golden quality of this best-known and loved of Charles Wesley's hymns is attested by two indorsements that cannot be impeached; its perennial life, and the blessings of millions who needed it.

Jesus, Lover of my soul Let me to Thy bosom fly, While the billows near me 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!

Wesley is believed to have written it when a young man, and story and legend have been busy with the circumstances of its birth. The most poetical account alleges that a dove chased by a hawk dashed through his open window into his bosom, and the inspiration to write the line—

Let me to Thy bosom fly,

—was the genesis of the poem. Another report has it that one day Mr. Wesley, being pursued by infuriated persecutors at Killalee, County Down, Ireland, took refuge in a milk-house on the homestead of the Island Band Farm. When the mob came up the farmer's wife, Mrs. Jane Lowrie Moore, offered them refreshments and secretly let out the fugitive through a window to the back garden, where he concealed himself under a hedge till his enemies went away. When they had gone he had the hymn in his mind and partly jotted down. This tale is circumstantial, and came through Mrs. Mary E. Hoover, Jane Moore's granddaughter, who told it many years ago to her pastor, Dr. William Laurie of Bellefonte, Pa. So careful a narrative deserves all the respect due to a family tradition. Whether this or still another theory of the incidental cause of the wonderful hymn shall have the last word may never be decided nor is it important.

There is "antecedent probability," at least, in the statement that Wesley wrote the first two stanzas soon after his perilous experience in a storm at sea during his return voyage from America to England in 1736. In a letter dated Oct. 28 of that year, he describes the storm that washed away a large part of the ship's cargo, strained her seams so that the hardest pumping could not keep pace with the inrushing water, and finally forced the captain to cut the mizzen-mast away. Young Wesley was ill and sorely alarmed, but knew, he says, that he "abode under the shadow of the Almighty," and finally, "in this dreadful moment," he was able to encourage his fellow-passengers who were "in an agony of fear," and to pray with and for them.