It was his awful hazard and bare escape in that tempest that prompted the following stanzas—

O Thou who didst prepare The ocean's caverned cell, And teach the gathering waters there To meet and dwell; Toss'd in our reeling bark Upon this briny sea, Thy wondrous ways, O Lord, we mark, And sing to Thee.

* * * * *

Borne on the dark'ning wave, In measured sweep we go, Nor dread th' unfathomable grave, Which yawns below; For He is nigh who trod Amid the foaming spray, Whose billows own'd th' Incarnate God, And died away.

And naturally the memory of his almost shipwreck on the wild Atlantic colored more or less the visions of his muse, and influenced the metaphors of his verse for years.

The popularity of "Jesus, Lover of my Soul" not only procured it, at home, the name of "England's song of the sea," but carried it with "the course of Empire" to the West, where it has reigned with "Rock of Ages," for more than a hundred and fifty years, joint primate of inspired human songs.

Compiled incidents of its heavenly service would fill a chapter. A venerable minister tells of the supernal comfort that lightened his after years of sorrow from the dying bed of his wife who whispered with her last breath, "Hide me, O my Saviour, hide."

A childless and widowed father in Washington remembers with a more than earthly peace, the wife and mother's last request for Wesley's hymn, and her departure to the sound of its music to join the spirit of her babe.

A summer visitor in Philadelphia, waiting on a hot street-corner for a car to Fairmount Park, overheard a quavering voice singing the same hymn and saw an emaciated hand caressing a little plant in an open window—and carried away the picture of a fading life, and the words—

Other refuge have I none, Hangs my helpless soul on Thee.

On one of the fields of the Civil War, just after a bloody battle, the Rev. James Rankin of the United Presbyterian Church bent over a dying soldier. Asked if he had any special request to make, the brave fellow replied, "Yes, sing 'Jesus, Lover of my Soul.'"

The clergyman belonged to a church that sang only Psalms. But what a tribute to that ubiquitous hymn that such a man knew it by heart! A moment's hesitation and he recalled the words, and, for the first time in his life, sang a sacred song that was not a Psalm. When he reached the lines,—

Safe into the haven guide, O receive my soul at last,

—his hand was in the frozen grip of a dead man, whose face wore "the light that never was on sea or land." The minister went away saying to himself, "If this hymn is good to die by, it is good to live by."

THE TUNE.

Of all the tone-masters who have studied and felt this matchless hymn, and given it vocal wings—Marsh, Zundel, Bradbury, Dykes, Mason—none has so exquisitely uttered its melting prayer, syllable by syllable, as Joseph P. Holbrook in his "Refuge." Unfortunately for congregational use, it is a duo and quartet score for select voices; but the four-voice portion can be a chorus, and is often so sung. Its form excludes it from some hymnals or places it as an optional beside a congregational tune. But when rendered by the choir on special occasions its success in conveying the feeling and soul of the words is complete. There is a prayer in the swell of every semitone and the touch of every accidental, and the sweet concord of the duet—soprano with tenor or bass—pleads on to the end of the fourth line, where the full harmony reinforces it like an organ with every stop in play. The tune is a rill of melody ending in a river of song.[36]

[Footnote 36: Holbrook has also an arrangement of Franz Abt's, "When the Swallows Homeward Fly" written to "Jesus, Lover of my Soul," but with Wesley's words it is far less effective than his original work. "Refuge" is not a manufacture but an inspiration.]

For general congregational use, Mason's "Whitman" has wedded itself to the hymn perhaps closer than any other. It has revival associations reaching back more than sixty years.

"WHEN MARSHALLED ON THE NIGHTLY PLAIN."

Perhaps no line in all familiar hymnology more readily suggests the name of its author than this. In the galaxy of poets Henry Kirke White was a brief luminary whose brilliancy and whose early end have appealed to the hearts of three generations. He was born at Nottingham, Eng., in the year 1795. His father was a butcher, but the son, disliking the trade, was apprenticed to a weaver at the age of fourteen. Two years later he entered an attorney's office as copyist and student.

The boy imbibed sceptical notions from some source, and might have continued to scoff at religion to the last but for the experience of his intimate friend, a youth named Almond, whose life was changed by witnessing one day the happy death of a Christian believer. Decided to be a Christian himself, it was some time before he mustered courage to face White's ridicule and resentment. He simply drew away from him. When White demanded the reason he was obliged to tell him that they two must henceforth walk different paths.

"Good God!" exclaimed White, "you surely think worse of me than I deserve!"

The separation was a severe shock to Henry, and the real grief of it sobered his anger to reflection and remorse. The light of a better life came to him when his heart melted—and from that time he and Almond were fellows in faith as well as friendship.

In his hymn the young poet tells the stormy experience of his soul, and the vision that guided him to peace.

When, marshalled on the nightly plain, The glittering host bestud the sky, One star alone of all the train Can fix the sinner's wandering eye. Hark, hark! to God the chorus breaks, From every host, from every gem, But one alone the Saviour speaks; It is the Star of Bethlehem.

Once on the raging seas I rode: The storm was loud, the night was dark; The ocean yawned, and rudely blowed The wind that tossed my foundering bark. Deep horror then my vitals froze, Death-struck, I ceased the tide to stem, When suddenly a star arose; It was the Star of Bethlehem.

It was my guide, my light, my all, It bade my dark forebodings cease; And through the storm and danger's thrall, It led me to the port of peace. Now, safely moored, my perils o'er, I'll sing, first in night's diadem, For ever and for evermore, The Star, the Star of Bethlehem!

Besides this delightful hymn, with its graphic sea-faring metaphors, two others, at least, of the same boy-poet hold their place in many of the church and chapel collections:

The Lord our God is clothed with might, The winds obey His will; He speaks, and in his heavenly height The rolling sun stands still.

And—

Oft in danger, oft in woe, Onward, Christians, onward go.

Henry Kirke White died in the autumn of 1806, when he was scarcely twenty years old. His "Ode to Disappointment," and the miscellaneous flowers and fragments of his genius, make up a touching volume. The fire of a pure, strong spirit burning through a consumptive frame is in them all.

THE TUNE.

"When, marshalled on the mighty plain" has a choral set to it in the Methodist Hymnal—credited to Thos. Harris, and entitled "Crimea"—which divides the three stanzas into six, and breaks the continuity of the hymn. Better sing it in its original form—long metre double—to the dear old melody of "Bonny Doon." The voices of Scotland, England and America are blended in it.



The origin of this Caledonian air, though sometimes fancifully traced to an Irish harper and sometimes to a wandering piper of the Isle of Man, is probably lost in antiquity. Burns, however, whose name is linked with it, tells this whimsical story of it, though giving no date save "a good many years ago,"—(apparently about 1753). A virtuoso, Mr. James Millar, he writes, wishing he were able to compose a Scottish tune, was told by a musical friend to sit down to his harpsichord and make a rhythm of some kind solely on the black keys, and he would surely turn out a Scotch tune. The musical friend, pleased at the result of his jest, caught the string of plaintive sounds made by Millar, and fashioned it into "Bonny Doon."

"LAND AHEAD!"

The burden of this hymn was suggested by the dying words of John Adams, one of the crew of the English ship Bounty who in 1789 mutinied, set the captain and officers adrift, and ran the vessel to a tropical island, where they burned her. In a few years vice and violence had decimated the wicked crew, who had exempted themselves from all divine and human restraint, until the last man alive was left with only native women and half-breed children for company. His true name was Alexander Smith, but he had changed it to John Adams.

The situation forced the lonely Englishman to a sense of solemn responsibility, and in bitter remorse, he sought to retrieve his wasted life, and spend the rest of his exile in repentance and repentant works. He found a Bible in one of the dead seamen's chests, studied it, and organized a community on the Christian plan. A new generation grew up around him, reverencing him as governor, teacher, preacher and judge, and speaking his language—and he was wise enough to exercise his authority for the common good, and never abuse it. Pitcairn's Island became "the Paradise of the Pacific." It has not yet belied its name. Besides its opulence of rural beauty and natural products, its inhabitants, now the third generation from the "mutineer missionary," are a civilized community without the vices of civilization. There is no licentiousness, no profanity, no Sabbath-breaking, no rum or tobacco—and no sickness.

John Adams died in 1829—after an island residence of forty years. In his extreme age, while he lay waiting for the end, he was asked how he felt in view of the final voyage.

"Land ahead!" murmured the old sailor—and his last words were, "Rounding the Cape—into the harbor."

That the veteran's death-song should be perpetuated in sacred music is not strange.

Land ahead! its fruits are waving O'er the hills of fadeless green; And the living waters laving Shores where heavenly forms are seen.

CHORUS. Rocks and storms I'll fear no more, When on that eternal shore; Drop the anchor! furl the sail! I am safe within the veil.

Onward, bark! the cape I'm rounding; See, the blessed wave their hands; Hear the harps of God resounding From the bright immortal bands.

The authorship of the hymn is credited to Rev. E. Adams—whether or not a descendent of the Island Patriarch we have no information. It was written about 1869.

The ringing melody that bears the words was composed by John Miller Evans, born Nov. 30, 1825; died Jan. 1, 1892. The original air—with a simple accompaniment—was harmonized by Hubert P. Main, and published in Winnowed Hymns in 1873.

"ETERNAL FATHER, STRONG TO SAVE."

This is sung almost universally on English ships. It is said to have been one of Sir Evelyn Wood's favorites. The late William Whiting wrote it in 1860, and it was incorporated with some alterations in the standard English Church collection entitled Hymns Ancient and Modern. It is a translation from a Latin hymn, a triune litany addressing a stanza each to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The whole four stanzas have the same refrain, and the appeal to the Father, who bids—

—the mighty ocean deep Its own appointed limits keep,

—varies in the appeal to Christ, who—

—walked upon the foaming deep.

The third and fourth stanzas are the following:

O Holy Spirit, Who didst brood Upon the waters dark and rude, And bid their angry tumult cease, And give, for wild confusion, peace; Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee For those in peril on the sea.

O Trinity of love and power, Our brethren shield in danger's hour; From rock and tempest, fire and foe, Protect them wheresoe'er they go: Thus evermore shall rise to Thee Glad hymns of praise from land to sea.

William Whiting was born at Kensington, London, Nov. 1, 1825. He was Master of Winchester College Chorister's School Died in 1878.

THE TUNE.

The choral named "Melita" (in memory of St. Paul's shipwreck) was composed by Dr. Dykes in 1861, and its strong and easy chords and moderate note range are nobly suited to the devout hymn.

"THE OCEAN HATH NO DANGER."

This charming sailors' lyric is the work of the Rev. Godfrey Thring. Its probable date is 1862, and it appeared in Morell and Howe's collection and in Hymns Congregational and Others, published in 1866, which contained a number from his pen. Rector Thring was born at Alford, Somersetshire, Eng., March 25, 1823, and educated at Shrewsbury School and Baliol College, Oxford. In 1858 he succeeded his father as Rector of Alford.

He compiled A Church of England Hymnbook in 1880.

The ocean hath no danger For those whose prayers are made To Him who in a manger A helpless Babe was laid, Who, born to tribulation And every human ill, The Lord of His creation, The wildest waves can still.

* * * * *

Though life itself be waning And waves shall o'er us sweep, The wild winds sad complaining Shall lull us still to sleep, For as a gentle slumber E'en death itself shall prove To those whom Christ doth number As worthy of His love.

The tune "Morlaix," given to the hymn by Dr. Dykes, is simple, but a very sweet and appropriate harmony.

"FIERCE RAGED THE TEMPEST ON THE DEEP."

This fine lyric, based on the incident in the storm on the Sea of Galilee, is the work of the same writer and owes its tune "St. Aelred" to the same composer.

The melody has an impressive rallentando of dotted semibreves to the refrain, "Peace, be still," after the more rapid notes of the three-line stanzas.

The wild winds hushed, the angry deep Sank like a little child to sleep, The sullen waters ceased to leap.

* * * * *

So when our life is clouded o'er And storm-winds drift us from the shore Say, lest we sink to rise no more, "Peace! be still."

"PULL FOR THE SHORE."

When a shipwrecked crew off a rocky coast were hurrying to the long-boat, a sailor begged leave to run back to the ship's forecastle and save some of his belongings.

"No sir," shouted the Captain, "she's sinking! There's nothing to do but to pull for the shore." Philip P. Bliss caught up the words, and wrought them into a hymn and tune.

Light in the darkness, sailor, day is at hand! See o'er the foaming billows fair Haven's land; Drear was the voyage, sailor, now almost o'er; Safe in the life-boat, sailor, pull for the shore!

CHORUS. Pull for the shore, sailor, pull for the shore! Heed not the rolling waves, but bend to the oar; Safe in the life-boat, sailor, cling to self no more; Leave the poor old stranded wreck and pull for the shore!

The hymn-tune is a buoyant allegro—solo and chorus—full of hope and courage, and both imagery and harmony appeal to the hearts of seamen. It is popular, and has long been one of the song numbers in demand at religious services both on sea and land.

"JESUS, SAVIOUR, PILOT ME."

The Rev. Edward Hopper, D.D. wrote this hymn while pastor of Mariner's Church at New York harbor, "The Church of the Sea and Land." He was born in 1818, and graduated at Union Theological Seminary in 1843.

Jesus, Saviour, pilot me Over life's tempestuous sea, Unknown waves before me roll, Hiding rock and treacherous shoal; Chart and compass come from Thee, Jesus, Saviour, pilot me!

Only three stanzas of this rather lengthy hymn are in common use.

THE TUNE.

Without title except "Savior, pilot me." A simple and pleasing melody composed by John Edgar Gould, late of the firm of Gould and Fischer, piano dealers, Phila., Pa. He was born in Bangor, Me., April 9, 1822. Conductor of music and composer of psalm and hymn tunes and glees, he also compiled and published no less than eight books of church, Sunday-school, and secular songs. Died in Algiers, Africa, Feb. 13, 1875.

"THROW OUT THE LIFE-LINE."

This is one of the popular refrains that need but a single hearing to fix themselves in common memory and insure their own currency and eclat.

The Rev. E.S. Ufford, well-known as a Baptist preacher, lecturer, and evangelist, was witnessing a drill at the life-saving station on Point Allerton, Nantasket Beach, when the order to "throw out the life-line" and the sight of the apparatus in action, combined with the story of a shipwreck on the spot, left an echo in his mind till it took the form of a song-sermon. Returning home, he pencilled the words of this rousing hymn, and, being himself a singer and player, sat down to his instrument to match the lines with a suitable air. It came to him almost as spontaneously as the music of "The Ninety and Nine" came to Mr. Sankey. In fifteen minutes the hymn-tune was made—so far as the melody went. It was published in sheet form in 1888, and afterwards purchased by Mr. Sankey, harmonized by Mr. Stebbins, and published in Winnowed Songs, 1890. Included in Gospel Hymns, Nov. 6, 1891.

Ever since it has been a favorite with singing seamen, and has done active service as one of our most stirring field-songs in revival work.

Throw out the Life-line across the dark wave, There is a brother whom some one should save; Somebody's brother! oh, who, then, will dare To throw out the Life-line, his peril to share?

Throw out the Life-line with hand quick and strong! Why do you tarry, why linger so long? See! he is sinking; oh, hasten today— And out with the Life-boat! away, then away!

CHORUS. Throw out the Life-line! Throw out the Life-line! Some one is drifting away; Throw out the Life-line! Throw out the Life-line! Some one is sinking today.

One evening, in the midst of their hilarity at their card-tables, a convivial club in one of the large Pennsylvania cities heard a sweet, clear female voice singing this solo hymn, followed by a chime of mingled voices in the chorus. A room in the building had been hired for religious meetings, and tonight was the first of the series. A strange coolness dampened the merriment in the club-room, as the singing went on, and the gradual silence became a hush, till finally one member threw down his cards and declared, "If what they're saying is right, then we're wrong."

Others followed his example, then another, and another.

There is a brother whom some one should save.

Quietly the revellers left their cards, cigars and half-emptied glasses and went home.

Said the ex-member who told the story years after to Mr. Ufford, "'Throw Out the Life-line' broke up that club."

He is today one of the responsible editors of a great city daily—and his old club-mates are all holding positions of trust.

A Christian man, a prosperous manufacturer in a city of Eastern Massachusetts, dates his first religious impressions from hearing this hymn when sung in public for the first time, twenty years ago.

Visiting California recently, Mr. Ufford sang his hymn at a watch-meeting and told the story of the loss of the Elsie Smith on Cape Cod in 1902, exhibiting also the very life-line that had saved sixteen lives from the wreck. By chance one of those sixteen was in the audience.

An English clergyman who was on duty at Gibraltar when an emigrant ship went on the rocks in a storm, tells with what pathetic power and effect "Throw out the Life-line" was sung at a special Sunday service for the survivors.

At one of Evan Roberts' meetings in Laughor, Wales, one speaker related the story of a "vision," when in his room alone, and a Voice that bade him pray, and when he knelt but could not pray, commanded him to "Throw out the Life-line." He had scarcely uttered these words in his story when the whole great congregation sprang to its feet and shouted the hymn together like the sound of many waters.

"There is more electricity in that song than in any other I ever heard," Dr. Cuyler said to Mr. Sankey when he heard him sing it. Its electricity has carried it nearly round the world.

The Rev. Edward Smith Ufford was born in Newark, N.J., 1851, and educated at Stratford Academy (Ct.) and Bates Theological Seminary, Me. He held several pastorates in Maine and Massachusetts, but a preference for evangelistic work led him to employ his talent for object-teaching in illustrated religious lectures through his own and foreign lands, singing his hymn and enforcing it with realistic representation. He is the author and compiler of several Sunday-school and chapel song-manuals, as Converts' Praise, Life-long Songs, Wonderful Love and Gathered Gems.



CHAPTER XI.

HYMNS OF WALES.

In writing this chapter the task of identifying the tune, and its author, in the case of every hymn, would have required more time and labor than, perhaps, the importance of the facts would justify.

Peculiar interest, however, attaches to Welsh hymns, even apart from the airs which accompany them, and a general idea of Welsh music may be gathered from the tone and metre of the lyrics introduced. More particular information would necessitate printing the music itself.

From the days of the Druids, Wales has been a land of song. From the later but yet ancient time when the people learned the Christian faith, it has had its Christian psalms. The "March of the White Monks of Bangor" (7th century) is an epic of bravery and death celebrating the advance of Christian martyrs to their bloody fate at the hands of the Saxon savages. "Its very rhythm pictures the long procession of white-cowled patriots bearing peaceful banners and in faith taking their way to Chester to stimulate the valor of their countrymen." And ever since the "Battle of the Hallelujahs"—near Chirk on the border, nine miles from Wrexham—when the invading Danes were driven from the field in fright by the rush of the Cymric army shouting that mighty cry, every Christian poet in Wales has had a hallelujah in his verse.

Through the centuries, while chased and hunted by their conquerors among the Cambrian hills, but clinging to their independent faith, or even when paralyzed into spiritual apathy under tribute to a foreign church, the heavenly song still murmured in a few true hearts amidst the vain and vicious lays of carnal mirth. It survived even when people and priest alike seemed utterly degenerate and godless. The voice of Walter Bute (1372) rang true for the religion of Jesus in its purity. Brave John Oldcastle, the martyr, (1417) clung to the gospel he learned at the foot of the cross. William Wroth, clergyman, saved from fiddling at a drunken dance by a disaster that turned a house of revelry into a house of death, confessed his sins to God and became the "Apostle of South Wales." The young vicar, Rhys Pritchard (1579) rose from the sunken level of his profession, rescued through an incident less tragic. Accustomed to drink himself to inebriety at a public-house—a socially winked-at indulgence then—he one day took his pet goat with him, and poured liquor down the creature's throat. The refusal of the poor goat to go there again forced the reckless priest to reflect on his own ways. He forsook the ale-house and became a changed man.

Among his writings—later than this—is found the following plain, blunt statement of what continued long to be true of Welsh society, as represented in the common use of Sunday time.

Of all the days throughout the rolling year There's not a day we pass so much amiss, There's not a day wherein we all appear So irreligious, so profaned as this.

A day for drunkenness, a day for sport, A day to dance, a day to lounge away, A day for riot and excess, too short Amongst the Welshmen is the Sabbath day.

A day to sit, a day to chat and spend, A day when fighting 'mongst us most prevails, A day to do the errands of the Fiend— Such is the Sabbath in most parts of Wales.

Meantime some who could read the language—and the better educated (like the author of the above rhymes) knew English as well as Welsh—had seen a rescued copy of Wycliffs New Testament, a precious publication seized and burnt (like the bones of its translator) by hostile ecclesiastics, and suppressed for nearly two hundred years. Walter Bute, like Obadiah who hid the hundred prophets, may well be credited with such secret salvage out of the general destruction. And there were doubtless others equally alert for the same quiet service. We can imagine how far the stealthy taste of that priceless book would help to strengthen a better religion than the one doled out professionally to the multitude by a Civil church; and how it kept the hallelujah alive in silent but constant souls; and in how many cases it awoke a conscience long hypnotized under corrupt custom, and showed a renegade Christian how morally untuned he was.

Daylight came slowly after the morning star, but when the dawn reddened it was in welcome to Pritchard's and Penry's gospel song; and sunrise hastened at the call of Caradoc, and Powell, and Erbury, and Maurice, the holy men who followed them, some with the trumpet of Sinai and some with the harp of Calvary.

Cambria was being prepared for its first great revival of religion.

There was no rich portfolio of Christian hymns such as exists to-day, but surely there were not wanting pious words to the old chants of Bangor and the airs of "Wild Wales." When time brought Howell Harris and Daniel Rowland, and the great "Reformation" of the eighteenth century, the renowned William Williams, "the Watts of Wales," appeared, and began his tuneful work. The province soon became a land of hymns. The candles lit and left burning here and there by Penry, Maurice, and the Owens, blazed up to beacon-fires through all the twelve counties when Harris, at the head of the mighty movement, carried with him the sacred songs of Williams, kindling more lights everywhere between the Dee and the British Channel.

William Williams of Pantycelyn was born in 1717, at Cefncoed Farm, near Llandovery. Three years younger than Harris, (an Oxford graduate,) and educated only at a village school and an academy at Llwynllwyd, he was the song protagonist of the holy campaign as the other was its champion preacher. From first to last Williams wrote nine hundred and sixteen hymns, some of which are still heard throughout the church militant, and others survive in local use and affection. He died Jan. 11, 1791, at Pantycelyn, where he had made his home after his marriage. One of the hymns in his Gloria, his second publication, may well have been his last. It was dear to him above others, and has been dear to devout souls in many lands.

My God, my portion and my love; My all on earth, my all above, My all within the tomb; The treasures of this world below Are but a vain, delusive show, Thy bosom is my home.

It was fitting that Williams should name the first collection of his hymns (all in his native Welsh) The Hallelujah. Its lyrics are full of adoration for the Redeemer, and thanksgivings for His work.

"ONWARD RIDE IN TRIUMPH, JESUS,"

Marchog, Jesu, yn llwyddiannus,

Has been sung in Wales for a century and a half, and is still a favorite.

Onward ride in triumph, Jesus, Gird thy sword upon thy thigh; Neither earth nor Hell's own vastness Can Thy mighty power defy. In Thy Name such glory dwelleth Every foe withdraws in fear, All the wide creation trembleth Whensoever Thou art near.[37]

The unusual militant strain in this paean of conquest soon disappears, and the gentler aspects of Christ's atoning sacrifice occupy the writer's mind and pen.

[Footnote 37: The following shows the style of Rev. Elvet Lewis' translation: Blessed Jesus, march victorious With Thy sword fixed at Thy side; Neither death nor hell can hinder The God-Warrior in His ride.]

"IN EDEN—O THE MEMORY!"

Yn Eden cofiaf hyny byth!

The text, "He was wounded for our transgressions," is amplified in this hymn, and the Saviour is shown bruising Himself while bruising the serpent.

The first stanza gives the key-note,—

In Eden—O the memory! What countless gifts were lost to me! My crown, my glory fell; But Calvary's great victory Restored that vanished crown to me; On this my songs shall dwell;

—and the multitude of Williams' succeeding "songs" that chant the same theme shows how well he kept his promise. The following hymn in Welsh (Cymmer, Jesu fi fel'r ydwyf) antedates the advice of Dr. Malan to Charlotte Elliott, "Come just as you are"—

Take me as I am, O Saviour, Better I can never be; Thou alone canst bring me nearer, Self but draws me far from Thee. I can never But within Thy wounds be saved;

—and another (Mi dafla maich oddi ar fy ngway) reminds us of Bunyan's Pilgrim in sight of the Cross:

I'll cast my heavy burden down, Remembering Jesus' pains; Guilt high as towering mountain tops Here turns to joyful strains.

* * * * *

He stretched His pure white hands abroad, A crown of thorns He wore, That so the vilest sinner might Be cleansed forevermore;

Williams was called "The Sweet Singer of Wales" and "The Watts of Wales" because he was the chief poet and hymn-writer of his time, but the lady he married, Miss Mary Francis, was literally a singer, with a voice so full and melodious that the people to whom he preached during his itineraries, which she sometimes shared with him, were often more moved by her sweet hymnody than by his exhortations. On one occasion the good man, accompanied by his wife, put up at Bridgend Tavern in Llangefin, Anglesea, and a mischievous crowd, wishing to plague the "Methodists," planned to make night hideous in the house with a boisterous merry-making. The fiddler, followed by a gang of roughs, pushed his way to the parlor, and mockingly asked the two guests if they would "have a tune."

"Yes," replied Williams, falling in with his banter, "anything you like, my lad; 'Nancy Jig' or anything else."

And at a sign from her husband, as soon as the fellow began the jig, Mrs. Williams struck in with one of the poet-minister's well-known Welsh hymns in the same metre,—

Gwaed Dy groes sy'n c' odi fyny

Calvary's blood the weak exalteth More than conquerors to be,[38]

—and followed the player note for note, singing the sacred words in her sweet, clear voice, till he stopped ashamed, and took himself off with all his gang.

[Footnote 38: A less literal but more hymn-like translation is: Jesu's blood can raise the feeble As a conqueror to stand; Jesu's blood is all-prevailing O'er the mighty of the land: Let the breezes Blow from Calvary on me.

Says the author of Sweet Singers of Wales, "This refrain has been the password of many powerful revivals."]

Another hymn—

O' Llefara! addfwyn Jesu,

Speak, O speak, thou gentle Jesus,

—recalls the well-known verse of Newton, "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds." Like many of Williams' hymns, it was prompted by occasion. Some converts suffered for lack of a "clear experience" and complained to him. They were like the disciples in the ship, "It was dark, and Jesus had not yet come unto them." The poet-preacher immediately made this hymn-prayer for all souls similarly tried. Edward Griffiths translates it thus:

Speak, I pray Thee, gentle Jesus, O how passing sweet Thy words, Breathing o'er my troubled spirit, Peace which never earth affords, All the world's distracting voices, All th' enticing tones of ill, At Thy accents, mild, melodious Are subdued, and all is still.

Tell me Thou art mine, O Saviour Grant me an assurance clear, Banish all my dark misgivings, Still my doubting, calm my fear.

Besides his Welsh hymns, published in the first and in the second and larger editions of his Hallelujah, and in two or three other collections, William Williams wrote and published two books of English hymns,[39] the Hosanna (1759) and the Gloria (1772). He fills so large a space in the hymnology and religious history of Wales that he will necessarily reappear in other pages of this chapter.

[Footnote 39: Possibly they were written in Welsh, and translated into English by his friend and neighbor, Peter Williams.]

From the days of the early religious awakenings under the 16th century preachers, and after the ecclesiastical dynasty of Rome had been replaced by that of the Church of England, there were periods when the independent conscience of a few pious Welshmen rose against religious formalism, and the credal constraints of "established" teaching—and suffered for it. Burning heretics at the stake had ceased to be a church practice before the 1740's, but Howell Harris, Daniel Rowlands, and the rest of the "Methodist Fathers," with their followers, were not only ostracised by society and haled before magistrates to be fined for preaching, and sometimes imprisoned, but they were chased and beaten by mobs, ducked in ponds and rivers, and pelted with mud and garbage when they tried to speak or sing. But they kept on talking and singing. Harris (who had joined the army in 1760) owned a commission, and once he saved himself from the fury of a mob while preaching—with cloak over his ordinary dress—by lifting his cape and showing the star on his breast. No one dared molest an officer of His Britannic Majesty. But all were not able to use St. Paul's expedient in critical moments.[40]

[Footnote 40: Acts 22:25.]

William Williams often found immunity in his hymns, for like Luther—and like Charles Wesley among the Cornwall sea-robbers—he caught up the popular glees and ballad-refrains of the street and market and his wife sang their music to his words. It is true many of these old Welsh airs were minors, like "Elvy" and "Babel" (a significant name in English) and would not be classed as "glees" in any other country—always excepting Scotland—but they had the swing, and their mode and style were catchy to a Welsh multitude. In fact many of these uncopyrighted bits of musical vernacular were appropriated by the hymnbook makers, and christened with such titles as "Pembroke," "Arabia," "Brymgfryd," "Cwyfan," "Thydian," and the two mentioned above.

It was the time when Whitefield and the Wesleys were sweeping the kingdom with their conquering eloquence, and Howell Harris (their fellow-student at Oxford) had sided with the conservative wing of the Gospel Reformation workers, and become a "Whitfield Methodist." The Welsh Methodists, ad exemplum, marched with this Calvinistic branch—as they do today. Each division had its Christian bard. Charles Wesley could put regenerating power into sweet, poetic hymns, and William Williams' lyrical preaching made the Bible a travelling pulpit. The great "Beibl Peter Williams" with its commentaries in Welsh, since so long reverenced and cherished in provincial families, was not published till 1770, and for many the printed Word was far to seek.[41] But the gospel minstrels carried the Word with them. Some of the long hymns contained nearly a whole body of divinity.

[Footnote 41: As an incident contributory to the formation of the British and Foreign Bible Society, the story has been often repeated of the little girl who wept when she missed her Catechism appointment, and told Thomas Charles of Bala that the bad weather was the cause of it, for she had to walk seven miles to find a Bible every time she prepared her lessons. See page 380.]

The Welsh learn their hymns by heart, as they do the Bible—a habit inherited from those old days of scarcity, when memory served pious people instead of print—so that a Welsh prayer-meeting is never embarrassed by a lack of books. An anecdote illustrates this characteristic readiness. In February, 1797, when Napoleon's name was a terror to England, the French landed some troops near Fishguard, Pembrokeshire. Mounted heralds spread the news through Wales, and in the village of Rhydybont, Cardiganshire, the fright nearly broke up a religious meeting; but one brave woman, Nancy Jones, stopped a panic by singing this stanza of one of Thomas Williams' hymns,—

Diuw os wyt am ddylenu'r bya

If Thou wouldst end the world, O Lord, Accomplish first Thy promised Word, And gather home with one accord From every part Thine own, Send out Thy Word from pole to pole, And with Thy blood make thousands whole, And, after that come down.

Nancy Jones would have been a useful member of the "Singing Sisters" band, so efficient a century or more afterwards.

The tunes of the Reformation under the "Methodist Fathers" continued far down the century to be the country airs of the nation, and reverberations of the great spiritual movement were heard in their rude music in the mountain-born revival led by Jack Edward Watkin in 1779 and in the local awakenings of 1791 and 1817. Later in the 19th century new hymns, and many of the old, found new tunes, made for their sake or imported from England and America.

The sanctified gift of song helped to make 1829 a year of jubilee in South Wales, nor was the same aid wanting during the plague in 1831, when the famous Presbyterian preacher, John Elias,[42] won nearly a whole county to Christ.

[Footnote 42: Those who read his biography will call him the "Seraphic John Elias."

His name was John Jones when he was admitted a member of the presbytery. What followed is a commentary on the embarrassing frequency of a common name, nowhere realized so universally as it is in Wales.

"What is his father's name?" asked the moderator when John Jones was announced.

"Elias Jones," was the answer.

"Then call the young man John Elias," said the speaker, "otherwise we shall by and by have nobody but John Joneses."

And "John Elias" it remained.]

An accession of temperance hymns in Wales followed the spread of the "Washingtonian" movement on the other side of the Atlantic in 1840, and began a moral reformation in the county of Merioneth that resulted in a spiritual one, and added to the churches several thousand converts, scarcely any of whom fell away.

The revival of 1851-2 was a local one, but was believed by many to have been inspired by a celestial antiphony. The remarkable sounds were either a miracle or a psychic wonder born of the intense imagination of a sensitive race. A few pious people in a small village of Montgomeryshire had been making special prayer for an outpouring of the spirit, but after a week of meetings with no sign of the result hoped for, they were returning to their homes, discouraged, when they heard strains of sweet music in the sky. They stopped in amazement, but the beautiful singing went on—voices as of a choir invisible, indistinct but melodious, in the air far above the roof of the chapel they had just left. Next day, when the astonished worshippers told the story, numbers in the district said they had heard the same sounds. Some had gone out at eleven o'clock to listen, and thought that angels must be singing. Whatever the music meant, the good brethren's and sisters' little meetings became crowded very soon after, and the longed-for out-pouring came mightily upon the neighborhood. Hundreds from all parts flocked to the churches, all ages joining in the prayers and hymns and testimonies, and a harvest of glad believers followed a series of meetings "led by the Holy Ghost."

The sounds in the sky were never explained; but the belief that God sent His angels to sing an answer to the anxious prayers of those pious brethren and sisters did no one any harm.

Whether this event in Montgomeryshire was a preparation for what took place six or seven years later is a suggestive question only, but when the wave of spiritual power from the great American revival of 1857-8 reached England, its first messenger to Wales, Rev. H.R. Jones, a Wesleyan, had only to drop the spark that "lit a prairie fire." The reformation, chiefly under the leadership of Mr. Jones and Rev. David Morgan, a Presbyterian, with their singing bands, was general and lasting, hundreds of still robust and active Christians today dating their new birth from the Pentecost of 1859 and its ingathering of eighty thousand souls.

A favorite hymn of that revival was the penitential cry,—

O'th flaem, O Dduw! 'r wy'n dyfod,

—in the seven-six metre so much loved in Wales.

Unto Thy presence coming, O God, far off I stand: "A sinner" is my title, No other I demand.

For mercy I am seeking For mercy still shall cry; Deny me not Thy mercy; O grant it or I die!

* * * * *

I heard of old that Jesus, Who still abides the same, To publicans gave welcome, And sinners deep in shame.

Oh God! receive me with them, Me also welcome in, And pardon my transgression, Forgetting all my sin.

The author of the hymn was Thomas Williams of Glamorganshire, born 1761; died 1844. He published a volume of hymns, Waters of Bethesda in 1823.

The Welsh minor tune of "Clwyd" may appropriately have been the music to express the contrite prayer of the words. The living composer, John Jones, has several tunes in the Welsh revival manual of melodies, Ail Attodiad.

The unparalleled religious movement of 1904-5 was a praying and singing revival. The apostle and spiritual prompter of that unbroken campaign of Christian victories—so far as any single human agency counted—was Evan Roberts, of Laughor, a humble young worker in the mines, who had prayed thirteen years for a mighty descent of the heavenly blessing on his country and for a clear indication of his own mission. His convictions naturally led him to the ministry, and he went to Newcastle Emlyn to study. Evangelical work had been done by two societies, made up of earnest Christians, and known as the "Forward Movement" and the "Simultaneous Mission." Beginnings of a special season of interest as a result of their efforts, appeared in the young people's prayer meetings in February, 1904, at New Quay, Cardiganshire. The interest increased, and when branch-work was organized a young praying and singing band visited Newcastle Emlyn in the course of one of their tours, and held a rally meeting. Evan Roberts went to the meeting and found his own mission. He left his studies and consecrated himself, soul and body, to revival work. In every spiritual and mental quality he was surpassingly well-equipped. To the quick sensibility of his poetic nature he added the inspiration of a seer and the zeal of a devotee. Like Moses, Elijah, and Paul in Arabian solitudes, and John in the Dead Sea wilds, he had prepared himself in silence and alone with God; and though, on occasion, he could use effectively his gift of words, he stood distinct in a land of matchless pulpit orators as "the silent leader." Without preaching he dominated the mood of his meetings, and without dictating he could change the trend of a service and shape the next song or prayer on the intuition of a moment. In fact, judged by its results, it was God Himself who directed the revival, only He endowed His minister with the power of divination to watch its progress and take the stumbling-blocks out of the way. By a kind of hallowed psychomancy, that humble man would detect a discordant presence, and hush the voices of a congregation till the stubborn soul felt God in the stillness, and penitently surrendered.

Many tones of the great awakening of 1859 heard again in 1904-5,—the harvest season without a precedent, when men, women and children numbering ten per cent of the whole population of a province were gathered into the membership of the church of Christ. But there were tones a century older heard in the devotions of that harvest-home in Wales. A New England Christian would have felt at home, with the tuneful assemblies at Laughor, Trencynon, Bangor, Bethesda, Wrexham, Cardiff, or Liverpool, singing Lowell Mason's "Meribah" or the clarion melody of Edson's "Lenox" to Wesley's—

Blow ye the trumpet, blow, The gladly solemn sound;

—or to his other well-known—

Arise my soul, arise, Shake off thy guilty fears, The bleeding Sacrifice In thy behalf appear.

In short, the flood tide of 1904 and 1905 brought in very little new music and very few new hymns. "Aberystwyth" and "Tanymarian," the minor harmonies of Joseph Party and Stephens; E.M. Price's "St. Garmon;" R.M. Pritchard's, "Hyfrydol," and a few others, were choral favorites, but their composers were all dead, and the congregations loved the still older singers who had found familiar welcome at their altars and firesides. The most cherished and oftenest chosen hymns were those of William Williams and Ann Griffiths, of Charles Wesley, of Isaac Watts—indeed the very tongues of fire that appeared at Jerusalem took on the Cymric speech, and sang the burning lyrics of the poet-saints. And in their revival joy Calvinistic Wales sang the New Testament with more of its Johannic than of its Pauline texts. The covenant of peace—Christ and His Cross—is the theme of all their hymns.

"HERE BEHOLD THE TENT OF MEETING."

Dyma Babell y cyfarfod.

This hymn, written by Ann Griffiths, is entitled "Love Eternal," and praises the Divine plan to satisfy the Law and at the same time save the sinner. The first stanza gives an idea of the thought:

Here behold the tent of meeting, In the blood a peace with heaven, Refuge from the blood-avengers, For the sick a Healer given. Here the sinner nestles safely At the very Throne divine, And Heaven's righteous law, all holy. Still on him shall smile and shine.

"HOW SWEET THE COVENANT TO REMEMBER."

Bydd melus gofio y cyfammod.

This, entitled "Mysteries of Grace," is also from the pen of Ann Griffiths. It has the literalness noticeable in much of the Welsh religious poetry, and there is a note of pietism in it. The two last stanzas are these:

He is the great Propitiation Who with the thieves that anguish bare; He nerved the arms of His tormentors To drive the nails that fixed Him there. While He discharged the sinner's ransom, And made the Law in honor be, Righteousness shone undimmed, resplendent, And me the Covenant set free.

My soul, behold Him laid so lowly, Of peace the Fount, of Kings the Head, The vast creation in Him moving And He low-lying with the dead! The Life and portion of lost sinners, The marvel of heaven's seraphim, To sea and land the God Incarnate The choir of heaven cries, "Unto Him!"

Ann Griffiths' earliest hymn will be called her sweetest. Fortunately, too, it is more poetically translated. It was before the vivid consciousness and intensity of her religious experience had given her spiritual writings a more involved and mystical expression.

My soul, behold the fitness Of this great Son of God, Trust Him for life eternal And cast on Him thy load, A man—touched with the pity Of every human woe, A God—to claim the kingdom And vanquish every foe.

This stanza, the last of her little poem on the "Eternal Fitness of Jesus," came to her when, returning from an exciting service, filled with thoughts of her unworthiness and of the glorious beauty of her Saviour, she had turned down a sheltered lane to pray alone. There on her knees in communion with God her soul felt the spirit of the sacred song. By the time she reached home she had formed it into words.

The first and second stanzas, written later, are these:

Great Author of salvation And providence for man, Thou rulest earth and heaven With Thy far-reaching plan. Today or on the morrow, Whatever woe betide, Grant us Thy strong assistance, Within Thy hand to hide.

What though the winds be angry, What though the waves be high While wisdom is the Ruler, The Lord of earth and sky? What though the flood of evil Rise stormily and dark? No soul can sink within it; God is Himself the ark.

Mrs. Ann Griffiths, of Dolwar Fechan, Montgomeryshire, was born in 1776, and died in 1805. "She remains," says Dr. Parry, her fellow-countryman, "a romantic figure in the religious history of Wales. Her hymns leave upon the reader an undefinable impression both of sublimity and mysticism. Her brief life-history is most worthy of study both from a literary and a religious point of view."



A suggestive chapter of her short earthly career is compressed in a sentence by the author of "Sweet Singers of Wales:"

"She had a Christian life of eight years and a married life of ten months."

She died at the age of twenty-nine. In 1904, near the centennial of her death, amid the echoes of her own hymns, and the rising waves of the great Refreshing over her native land, the people of Dolwar Fechan dedicated the new "Ann Griffiths Memorial Chapel" to her name and to the glory of God.

Although the Welsh were not slow to adopt the revival tones of other lands, it was the native, and what might be called the national, lyrics of that emotional race that were sung with the richest unction and hwyl (as the Cymric word is) during the recent reformation, and that evinced the strongest hold on the common heart. Needless to say that with them was the world-famous song of William Williams,—

Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah;

Arglwydd ar wain truy'r anialoch;

—and that of Dr. Heber Evans,—

Keep me very near to Jesus, Though beneath His Cross it be, In this world of evil-doing 'Tis the Cross that cleanseth me;

—and also that native hymn of expectation, high and sweet, whose writer we have been unable to identify—

The glory is coming! God said it on high, When light in the evening will break from the sky; The North and South and the East and the West, With joy of salvation and peace will be bless'd.

* * * * *

O summer of holiness, hasten along! The purpose of glory is constant and strong; The winter will vanish, the clouds pass away; O South wind of Heaven, breath softly today!

Of the almost countless hymns that voiced the spirit of the great revival, the nine following are selected because they are representative, and all favorites—and because there is no room for a larger number. The first line of each is given in the original Welsh:

"DWY ADEN COLOMEN PE CAWN."

O had I the wings of a dove How soon would I wander away To gaze from Mount Nebo I'd love On realms that are fairer than day. My vision, not clouded nor dim, Beyond the dark river should run; I'd sing, with my thoughts upon Him, The sinless, the crucified one.

This is another of Thomas Williams' hymns. One of the tunes suitable to its feeling and its measure was "Edom," by Thomas Evans. It was much sung in 1859, as well as in 1904.

"CAELBOD YN FORSEC DAN YR IAN."

Early to bear the yoke excels By far the joy in sin that dwells; The paths of wisdom still are found In peace and solace to abound.

The young who serve Him here below The wrath to come shall never know; Of such in heaven are pearls that shine Unnumbered in the crown divine.

Written for children and youth by Rev. Thomas Jones, of Denbigh, born 1756; died 1820,—a Calvinistic Methodist preacher, author of a biography of Thomas Charles of Bala, and various theological works.

"DYMA GARIAD FEL Y MOROEDD, TOSTURIASTHAN FEL Y LLI."

Love unfathomed as the ocean Mercies boundless as the wave! Lo the King of Life, the guiltless, Dies my guilty soul to save; Who can choose but think upon it, Who can choose but praise and sing? Here is love, while heaven endureth, Nought can to oblivion bring.

This is called "The great Welsh love-song." It was written by Rev. William Rees, D.D., eminent as a preacher, poet, politician and essayist. One of the greatest names of nineteenth century Wales. He died in 1883.

The tune, "Cwynfan Prydian," sung to this hymn is one of the old Welsh minors that would sound almost weird to our ears, but Welsh voices can sing with strange sweetness the Saviour's passion on which Christian hearts of that nation love so well to dwell, and the shadow of it, with His love shining through, creates the paradox of a joyful lament in many of their chorals. We cannot imitate it.

"RHYFEDDODAU DYDD YR ADGYFODIDD."

Unnumbered are the marvels The Last Great Day shall see, With earth's poor storm-tossed children From tribulation free, All in their shining raiment Transfigured, bright and brave, Like to their Lord ascending In triumph from the grave.

The author of this Easter hymn is unknown.

The most popular Welsh hymns would be named variously by different witnesses according to the breadth and length of their observation. Two of them, as a Wrexham music publisher testifies, are certainly the following; "Heaven and Home," and "Lo, a Saviour for the Fallen." The first of these was sung in the late revival with "stormy rapture."

"O FRYNAU CAERSALEM CEIR GIVELED."

The heights of fair Salem ascended, Each wilderness path we shall see; Now thoughts of each difficult journey A sweet meditation shall be. On death, on the grave and its terrors And storms we shall gaze from above And freed from all cares we shall revel (?) In transports of heavenly love.

According to the mood of the meeting this was pitched in three sharps to Evelyn Evans' tune of "Eirinwg" or with equal Welsh enthusiasm in the C minor of old "Darby."

The author of the hymn was the Rev. David Charles, of Carmarthen, born 1762; died 1834. He was a heavenly-minded man who loved to dwell on the divine and eternal wonders of redemption. A volume of his sermons was spoken of as "Apples of gold in pictures of silver," and the beautiful piety of all his writings made them strings of pearls. He understood English as well as Welsh, and enjoyed the hymns not only of William and Thomas Williams but of Watts, Wesley, Cowper, and Newton.[43]

[Footnote 43: The following verses were written by him in English: Spirit of grace and love divine, Help me to sing that Christ is mine; And while the theme my tongue employs Fill Thou my soul with living joys.

Jesus is mine—surpassing thought! Well may I set the world at nought; Jesus is mine, O can it be That Jesus lived and died for me?]

"DYMA GEIDWAD I R COLLEDIG."

Lo! a Saviour for the fallen, Healer of the sick and sore, One whose love the vilest sinners Seeks to pardon and restore. Praise Him, praise Him Who has loved us evermore!

The little now known of the Rev. Morgan Rhys, author of this hymn, is that he was a schoolmaster and preacher, and that he was a contemporary and friend of William Williams. Several of his hymns remain in use of which the oftenest sung is one cited above, and "O agor fy llygaid i weled:"

I open my eyes to this vision, The deeps of Thy purpose and word; The law of Thy lips is to thousands Of gold and of silver preferred; When earth is consumed, and its treasure, God's words will unchanging remain, And to know the God-man is my Saviour Is life everlasting to gain.

"Lo! a Saviour for the Fallen" finds an appropriate voice in W.M. Robert's tune of "Nesta," and also, like many others of the same measure, in the much-used minors "Llanietyn," "Catharine," and "Bryn Calfaria."

"O SANCTEIDDIA F'ENAID ARGLWYDD."

Sanctify, O Lord, my spirit, Every power and passion sway, Bid Thy holy law within me Dwell, my wearied soul to stay; Let me never Rove beyond Thy narrow way.

This one more hymn of William Williams is from his "Song of a Cleansed Heart" and is amply provided with tunes, popular ones like "Tyddyn Llwyn," "Y Delyn Aur," or "Capel-Y-Ddol" lending their deep minors to its lines with a thrilling effect realized, perhaps, only in the land of Taliessin and the Druids.

The singular history and inspiring cause of one old Welsh hymn which after various mutilations and vicissitudes survives as the key-note of a valued song of trust, seems to illustrate the Providence that will never let a good thing be lost. It is related of the Rev. David Williams, of Llandilo, an obscure but not entirely forgotten preacher, that he had a termagant wife, and one stormy night, when her bickerings became intolerable, he went out in the rain and standing by the river composed in his mind these lines of tender faith:

In the waves and mighty waters No one will support my head But my Saviour, my Beloved, Who was stricken in my stead. In the cold and mortal river He would hold my head above; I shall through the waves go singing For one look of Him I love.

Apparently the sentiment and substantially the expression of this humble hymn became the burden of more than one Christian lay. Altered and blended with a modern gospel hymn, it was sung at the crowded meetings of 1904 to Robert Lowry's air of "Jesus Only," and often rendered very impressively as a solo by a sweet female voice.

In the deep and mighty waters There is none to hold my head But my loving Bridegroom, Jesus, Who upon the cross hath bled.

If I've Jesus, Jesus only Then my sky will have a gem He's the Sun of brightest splendor, He's the Star of Bethlehem.

He's the Friend in Death's dark river, He will lift me o'er the waves, I will sing in the deep waters If I only see His face. If I've Jesus, Jesus only, etc.

A few of the revival tunes have living authors and are of recent date; and the minor harmony of "Ebenezer" (marked "Ton Y Botel"), which was copied in this country by the New York Examiner, with its hymn, is apparently a contemporary piece. It was first sung at Bethany Chapel, Cardiff, Jan, 8, 1905, the hymn bearing the name of Rev. W.E. Winks.

Send Thy Spirit, I beseech Thee, Gracious Lord, send while I pray; Send the Comforter to teach me, Guide me, help me in Thy way. Sinful, wretched, I have wandered Far from Thee in darkest night, Precious time and talents squandered, Lead, O lead me into light.

Thou hast heard me; light is breaking— Light I never saw before. Now, my soul with joy awaking, Gropes in fearful gloom no more: O the bliss! my soul, declare it; Say what God hath done for thee; Tell it out, let others share it— Christ's salvation, full and free.

One cannot help noticing the fondness of the Welsh for the 7-6, 8-7, and 8-7-4 metres. These are favorites since they lend themselves so naturally to the rhythms of their national music—though their newest hymnals by no means exclude exotic lyrics and melodies. Even "O mother dear, Jerusalem," one of the echoes of Bernard of Cluny's great hymn, is cherished in their tongue (O, Frynian Caerselem) among the favorites of song. Old "Truro" by Dr. Burney appears among their tunes, Mason's "Ernan," "Lowell" and "Shawmut," I.B. Woodbury's "Nearer Home" (to Phebe Cary's hymn), and even George Hews' gently-flowing "Holley." Most of these tunes retain their own hymns, but in Welsh translation. To find our Daniel Read's old "Windham" there is no surprise. The minor mode—a song-instinct of the Welsh, if not of the whole Celtic family of nations, is their rural inheritance. It is in the wind of their mountains and the semitones of their streams; and their nature can make it a gladness as the Anglo-Saxon cannot. So far from being a gloomy people, their capacity for joy in spiritual life is phenomenal. In psalmody their emotions mount on wings, and they find ecstacy in solemn sounds.

"A temporary excitement" is the verdict of skepticism on the Reformation wave that for a twelvemonth swept over Wales with its ringing symphonies of hymn and tune. But such excitements are the May-blossom seasons of God's eternal husbandry. They pass because human vigor cannot last at flood-tide, but in spiritual economy they will always have their place, "If the blossoms had not come and gone there would be no fruit."



CHAPTER XII.

FIELD HYMNS.

Hymns of the hortatory and persuasive tone are sufficiently numerous to make an "embarrassment of riches" in a compiler's hands. Not a few songs of invitation and awakening are either quoted or mentioned in the chapter on "Old Revival Hymns," and many appear among those in the last chapter, (on the Hymns of Wales;) but the working songs of Christian hymnology deserve a special space as such.

"COME HITHER ALL YE WEARY SOULS,"

Sung to "Federal St.," is one of the older soul-winning calls from the great hymn-treasury of Dr. Watts; and another note of the same sacred bard,—

Life is the time to serve the Lord,

—is always coupled with the venerable tune of "Wells."[44] Aged Christians are still remembered who were wont to repeat or sing with quavering voices the second stanza,—

The living know that they must die, But all the dead forgotten lie; Their memory and their sense are gone, Alike unknowing and unknown.

And likewise from the fourth stanza,—

There are no acts of pardon passed In the cold grave to which we haste.

[Footnote 44: One of Israel Holroyd's tunes. He was born in England, about 1690, and was both a composer and publisher of psalmody. His chief collection is dated 1746.]

"AND WILL THE JUDGE DESCEND?"

Is one of Doddridge's monitory hymns, once sung to J.C. Woodman's tune of "State St." with the voice of both the Old and New Testaments in the last verse:

Ye sinners, seek His grace Whose wrath ye cannot bear; Fly to the shelter of His Cross, And find Salvation there.

Jonathan Call Woodman was born in Newburyport, Mass., July 12, 1813, and was a teacher, composer, and compiler. Was organist of St. George's Chapel, in Flushing, L.I., and in 1858 published The Musical Casket. Died January, 1894. He wrote "State St." for William B. Bradbury, in August, 1844.

"HASTEN SINNER, TO BE WISE"

Is one of the few unforgotten hymns of Thomas Scott, every second line repeating the solemn caution,—

Stay not for tomorrow's sun,

—and every line enforcing its exhortation with a new word, "To be wise," "to implore," "to return," and "to be blest" were natural cumulatives that summoned and wooed the sinner careless and astray. It is a finished piece of work, but it owes its longevity less to its structural form than to its spirit. For generations it has been sung to "Pleyel's Hymn."

The Rev. Thomas Scott (not Rev. Thomas Scott the Commentator) was born in Norwich, Eng., in 1705, and died at Hupton, in Norfolk, 1776. He was a Dissenting minister, pastor for twenty-one years—until disabled by feeble health—at Lowestoft in Suffolk. He was the author of—

Angels roll the rock away.

"MUST JESUS BEAR THE CROSS ALONE?"

This emotional and appealing hymn still holds its own in the hearts of millions, though probably two hundred years old. It was written by a clergyman of the Church of England, the Rev. Thomas Shepherd, Vicar of Tilbrook, born in 1665. Joining the Nonconformists in 1694, he settled first in Castle Hill, Nottingham, and afterward in Bocking, Essex, where he remained until his death, January, 1739. He published a selection of his sermons, and Penitential Cries, a book of sacred lyrics, some of which still appear in collections.

The startling question in the above line is answered with emphasis in the third of the stanza,—

No! There's a cross for every one, And there's a cross for me,

—and this is followed by the song of resolve and triumph,—

The consecrated cross I'll bear, Till death shall set me free. And then go home my crown to wear, For there's a crown for me.

* * * * *

O precious cross! O glorious crown! O Resurrection Day! Ye angels from the stars flash down And bear my soul away!

The hymn is a personal New Testament. No one who analyzes it and feels its Christian vitality will wonder why it has lived so long.

THE TUNE.

For half a century George N. Allen, composer of "Maitland," the music inseparable from the hymn, was credited with the authorship of the words also, but his vocal aid to the heart-stirring poem earned him sufficient praise. The tune did not meet the hymn till the latter was so old that the real author was mostly forgotten, for Allen wrote the music in 1849; but if the fine stanzas needed any renewing it was his tune that made them new. Since it was published nobody has wanted another.

George Nelson Allen was born in Mansfield, Mass., Sept. 7, 1812, and lived at Oberlin, O. It was there that he composed "Maitland," and compiled the Social and Sabbath Hymn-book—besides songs for the Western Bell, published by Oliver Ditson and Co. He died in Cincinnati, Dec. 9, 1877.

"AWAKE MY SOUL, STRETCH EVERY NERVE!"

This most popular of Dr. Doddridge's hymns is also the richest one of all in lyrical and spiritual life. It is a stadium song that sounds the starting-note for every young Christian at the outset of his career, and the slogan for every faint Christian on the way.

A heavenly race demands thy zeal, And an immortal crown.

Like the "Coronation" hymn, it transports the devout singer till he feels only the momentum of the words and forgets whether it is common or hallelujah metre that carries him along.

A cloud of witnesses around Hold thee in full survey; Forget the steps already trod, And onward urge thy way!

'Tis God's all-animating voice That calls thee from on high, 'Tis His own hand presents the prize To thine aspiring eye.

In all persuasive hymnology there is no more kindling lyric that this. As a field-hymn it is indispensable.

THE TUNE.

Whenever and by whomsoever the brave processional known as "Christmas" was picked from among the great Handel's Songs and mated with Doddridge's lines, the act gave both hymn and tune new reason to endure, and all posterity rejoices in the blend. Old "Christmas" was originally one of the melodies in the great Composer's Opera of "Ciroe" (Cyrus) 1738. It was written to Latin words (Non vi piacque) and afterwards adapted to an English versification of Job 29:15, "I was eyes to the blind."

Handel himself became blind at the age of sixty eight (1753).

"THERE IS A GREEN HILL FAR AWAY."

Written in 1848 by Miss Cecil Frances Humphreys, an Irish lady, daughter of Major John Humphreys of Dublin. She was born in that city in 1823. Her best known name is Mrs. Cecil Frances Alexander, her husband being the Rt. Rev. William Alexander, Bishop of Derry. Among her works are Hymns for Little Children, Narrative Hymns, Hymns Descriptive and Devotional, and Moral Songs. Died 1895.

"There is a green hill" is poetic license, but the hymn is sweet and sympathetic, and almost childlike in its simplicity.

There is a green hill far away Without the city wall, Where our dear Lord was crucified Who died to save us all.

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.



THE TUNES.

There is no room here to describe them all. Airs and chorals by Berthold Tours, Pinsuti, John Henry Cornell, Richard Storrs Willis, George C. Stebbins and Hubert P. Main have been adapted to the words—one or two evidently composed for them. It is a hymn that attracts tune-makers—literally so commonplace and yet so quiet and tender, with such a theme and such natural melody of line—but most of the scores indicated are choir music rather than congregational. Mr. Stebbins' composition comes nearest to being the favorite, if one judges by the extent and frequency of its use. It can be either partly or wholly choral; and the third stanza makes the refrain—

O dearly, dearly has He loved And we must love Him too, And trust in His redeeming blood, And try His works to do.

"REJOICE AND BE GLAD!"

This musical shout of joy, written by Dr. Horatius Bonar, scarcely needs a new song helper, as did Bishop Heber's famous hymn—not because it is better than Heber's but because It was wedded at once to a tune worthy of it.

Rejoice and be glad! for our King is on high; He pleadeth for us on His throne in the sky. Rejoice and be glad! for He cometh again; He cometh in glory, the Lamb that was slain Hallelujah! Amen.

The hymn was composed in 1874.

THE TUNE.

The author of the "English Melody" (as ascribed in Gospel Hymns) is said to have been John Jenkins Husband, born in Plymouth, Eng., about 1760. He was clerk at Surrey Chapel and composed several anthems. Came to the United States In 1809. Settled in Philadelphia, where he taught music and was clerk of St. Paul's P.E. Church. Died there in 1825.

His tune, exactly suited to the hymn, is a true Christian paean. It has few equals as a rouser to a sluggish prayer-meeting—whether sung to Bonar's words or those of Rev. William Paton Mackay (1866)—

We praise Thee, O God, for the Son of Thy love,

—with the refrain of similar spirit in both hymns—

Hallelujah! Thine the glory, Hallelujah! Amen, Hallelujah! Thine the glory; revive us again;

—or,—

Sound His praises! tell the story of Him who was slain! Sound His praises! tell with gladness, "He liveth again."

Husband's tune is supposed to have been written very early in the last century. Another tune composed by him near the same date to the words—

"We are on our journey home To the New Jerusalem,"

—is equally musical and animating, and with a vocal range that brings out the full strength of choir and congregation.

"COME, SINNER, COME."

A singular case of the same tune originating in the brain of both author and composer is presented in the history of this hymn of Rev. William Ellsworth Witter, D.D., born in La Grange, N.Y., Dec. 9, 1854. He wrote the hymn in the autumn of 1878, while teaching a district school near his home. The first line—

While Jesus whispers to you,

—came to him during a brief turn of outdoor work by the roadside and presently grew to twenty-four lines. Soon after, Prof. Horatio Palmer, knowing Witter to be a verse writer, invited him to contribute a hymn to a book he had in preparation, and this hymn was sent. Dr. Palmer set it to music, it soon entered into several collections, and Mr. Sankey sang it in England at the Moody meetings.

Dr. Witter gives this curious testimony,

"While I cannot sing myself, though very fond of music, the hymn sang itself to me by the roadside in almost the exact tune given to it by Professor Palmer." Which proves that Professor Palmer had the feeling of the hymn—and that the maker of a true hymn has at least a sub-consciousness of its right tune, though he may be neither a musician nor a poet.

While Jesus whispers to you, Come, sinner, come! While we are praying for you, Come, sinner, come! Now is the time to own Him, Come, sinner, come! Now is the time to know Him, Come, sinner, come!

"ONE MORE DAY'S WORK FOR JESUS."

The writer of this hymn was Miss Anna Warner, one of the well-known "Wetherell Sisters," joint authors of The Wide World, Queechy, and a numerous succession of healthful romances very popular in the middle and later years of the last century. Her own pen name is "Amy Lothrop," under which she has published many religious poems, hymns and other varieties of literary work. She was born in 1820, at Martlaer, West Point, N.Y., where she still resides.

One more day's work for Jesus, One less of life for me: But heaven is nearer, And Christ is dearer Than yesterday to me. His love and light Fill all my soul tonight.

REFRAIN:— One more day's work for Jesus, (ter) One less of life for me.

The hymn has five stanzas all expressing the gentle fervor of an active piety loving service:

THE TUNE

was composed by the Rev. Robert Lowry, and first published in Bright Jewels.

THE GOSPEL HYMNS.

These popular religious songs have been criticised as "degenerate psalmody" but those who so style them do not seem to consider the need that made them.

The great majority of mankind can only be reached by missionary methods, and in these art and culture do not play a conspicuous part. The multitude could be supplied with technical preaching and technical music for their religious wants, but they would not rise to the bait, whereas nothing so soon kindles their better emotions or so surely appeals to their better nature as even the humblest sympathetic hymn sung to a simple and stirring tune. If the music is unclassical and the hymn crude there is no critical audience to be offended.

The artless, almost colloquial, words "of a happily rhymed camp-meeting lyric and the wood-notes wild" of a new melody meet a situation. Moral and spiritual lapse makes it necessary at times for religion to put on again her primitive raiment, and be "a voice crying in the wilderness."

Between the slums and the boulevards live the masses that shape the generations, and make the state. They are wage-earners who never hear the great composers nor have time to form fine musical and literary tastes. The spiritual influences that really reach them are of a very direct and simple kind; and for the good of the church—and the nation—it is important that at least this elementary education in the school of Christ should be supplied them.

It is the popular hymn tunes that speed a reformation. So say history and experience. Once in two hundred years a great revival movement may produce a Charles Wesley, but the humbler singers carry the divine fire that quickens religious life in the years between.

All this is not saying that the gospel hymns, as a whole, are or ever professed to be suitable for the stated service of the sanctuary. Their very style and movement show exactly what they were made for—to win the hearing of the multitude, and put the music of God's praise and Jesus' love into the mouths and hearts of thousands who had been strangers to both. They are the modern lay songs that go with the modern lay sermons. They give voice to the spirit and sentiment of the conference, prayer and inquiry meetings, the Epworth League and Christian Endeavor meetings, the temperance and other reform meetings, and of the mass-meetings in the cities or the seaside camps.

During their evangelistic mission in England and Scotland in 1873, Dwight L. Moody and Ira D. Sankey used the hymnbook of Philip Phillips, a compilation entitled Hallowed Songs, some of them his own. To these Mr. Sankey added others of his own composing from time to time which were so enthusiastically received that he published them in a pamphlet. This, with the simultaneous publication in America of the revival melodies of Philip P. Bliss, was the beginning of that series of popular hymn-and-tune books, which finally numbered six volumes. Sankey's Sacred Songs and Solos combined with Bliss's Gospel Songs were the foundation of the Gospel Hymns.

Subjectively their utterances are indicative of ardent piety and unquestioning faith, and on the other hand their direct and intimate appeal and dramatic address are calculated to affect a throng as if each individual in it was the person meant by the words. The refrain or chorus feature is notable in nearly all.

A selection of between thirty and forty of the most characteristic is here given.

"HALLELUJAH! 'TIS DONE."

This is named from its chorus. The song is one of the spontaneous thanksgivings in revival meetings that break out at the announcement of a new conversion.

'Tis the promise of God full salvation to give Unto him who on Jesus His Son will believe, Hallelujah! 'tis done; I believe on the Son; I am saved by the blood of the crucified One.

Though the pathway be lonely and dangerous too, Surely Jesus is able to carry me through— Hallelujah! etc.

The words and music are both by P.P. Bliss.

THE NINETY AND NINE.

The hymn was written by Mrs. Elizabeth Cecilia Clephane at Melrose, Scotland, early in 1868. She was born in Edinburgh, June 10, 1830, and died of consumption, Feb. 19, 1869. The little poem was seen by Mr. Sankey in the Christian Age, and thinking it might be useful, he cut it out. At an impressive moment in one of the great meetings in Edinburgh, Mr. Moody said to him in a quiet aside, "Sing something." Precisely what was wanted for the hour and theme, and for the thought in the general mind, was in Mr. Sankey's vest pocket. But how could it be sung without a tune? With a silent prayer for help, the musician took out the slip containing Mrs. Clephane's poem, laid it on the little reed-organ and began playing, and singing. He had to read the unfamiliar words and at the same time make up the music. The tune came—and grew as he went along till he finished the first verse. He remembered it well enough to repeat it with the second, and after that it was easy to finish the hymn. A new melody was born—in the presence of more than a thousand pairs of eyes and ears. It was a feat of invention, of memory, of concentration—and such was the elocution of the trained soloist that not a word was lost. He had a tearful audience at the close to reward him; but we can easily credit his testimony,

"It was the most intense moment of my life."

In a touching interview afterwards, a sister of Mrs. Clephane told Mr. Sankey the authoress had not lived to see her hymn in print and to know of its blessed mission.

The first six lines give the situation of the lost sheep in the parable of that name—

There were ninety and nine that safely lay In the shelter of the fold; But one was out on the hills away, Far off from the gates of gold. Away on the mountains wild and bare, Away from the tender Shepherd's care.

And, after describing the Shepherd's arduous search, the joy at his return is sketched and spiritualized in the concluding stanza—

But all through the mountains, thunder-riven, And up from the rocky steeps There arose a cry to the gate of heaven, "Rejoice! I have found my sheep." And the angels echoed around the Throne, "Rejoice! for the Lord brings back His own."

"HOLD THE FORT!"

This is named also from its chorus. The historic foundation of the hymn was the flag-signal waved to Gen. G.M. Corse by Gen. Sherman's order from Kenesaw Mountain to Altoona during the "March through Georgia," in October, 1863. The flag is still in the possession of A.D. Frankenberry, one of the Federal Signal-Corps whose message to the besieged General said, "Hold the fort! We are coming!" A visit to the scene of the incident inspired P.P. Bliss to write both the words and the music.

Ho! my comrades, see the signal Waving in the sky! Reinforcements now appearing, Victory is nigh. "Hold the fort, for I am coming!" Jesus signals still; Wave the answer back to heaven, "By Thy grace we will!"

The popularity of the song (it has been translated into several languages), made it the author's chief memento in many localities. On his monument in Rome, Pennsylvania, is inscribed "P.P. Bliss—author of 'Hold the Fort.'"

"RESCUE THE PERISHING."

Few hymns, ancient or modern, have been more useful, or more variously used, than this little sermon in song from Luke 14:23, by the blind poet, Fanny J. Crosby, (Mrs. Van Alstyne). It is sung not only in the church prayer-meetings with its spiritual meaning and application, but in Salvation Army camps and marches, in mission-school devotions, in social settlement services, in King's Daughters and Sons of Temperance Meetings, and in the rallies of every reform organization that seeks the lost and fallen.

Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave; Weep o'er the erring ones, lift up the fallen, Tell them of Jesus, the Mighty to Save.

* * * * *

Down in the human heart crushed by the Tempter, Feelings lie buried that grace can restore. Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness, Chords that were broken will vibrate once more.

The tune is by W.H. Doane, Mus.D., composed in 1870.

"WHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE IN JESUS."

The author was a pious gentleman of Dublin, Ireland, who came to Canada when he was twenty-five. His name was Joseph Scriven, born in Dublin, 1820, and graduated at Trinity College. The accidental death by drowning of his intended bride on the eve of their wedding day, led him to consecrate his life and fortune to the service of Christ. He died in Canada, Oct. 10, 1886, (Sankey's Story of the Gospel Hymns, pp. 245-6.)

THE TUNE.

The music was composed by Charles Crozat Converse, LL.D., musician, lawyer, and writer. He was born in Warren, Mass., 1832; a descendant of Edward Converse, the friend of Gov. Winthrop and founder of Woburn, Mass. He pursued musical and other studies in Leipsic and Berlin. His compositions are numerous including concert overtures, symphonies and many sacred and secular pieces. Residence at Highwood, Bergen Co., N.J.

The hymn is one of the most helpful of the Gospel Collections, and the words and music have strengthened many a weak and failing soul to "try again."

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged: Take it to the Lord in prayer.

"I HEAR THE SAVIOUR SAY."

This is classed with the Gospel Hymns, but it was a much-used and much-loved revival hymn—especially in the Methodist churches—several years before Mr. Moody's great evangelical movement. It was written by Mrs. Elvina M. Hall (since Mrs. Myers) who was born in Alexandria, Va., in 1818. She composed it in the spring of 1865, while sitting in the choir of the M.E. Church, Baltimore, and the first draft was pencilled on a fly-leaf of a singing book, The New Lute of Zion.

I hear the Saviour say, Thy strength indeed is small; Child of weakness, watch and pray, Find in me thine all in all.

The music of the chorus helped to fix its words in the common mind, and some idea of the Atonement acceptable, apparently, to both Arminians and Calvinists; for Sunday-school children in the families of both, hummed the tune or sang the refrain when alone—

Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe, Sin had left a crimson stain; He washed it white as snow.

THE TUNE.

John Thomas Grape, who wrote the music, was born in Baltimore, Md., May 6, 1833. His modest estimate of his work appears in his remark that he "dabbled" in music for his own amusement. Few composers have amused themselves with better results.

"TELL ME THE OLD, OLD STORY."

Miss Kate Hankey, born about 1846, the daughter of an English banker, is the author of this very devout and tender Christian poem, written apparently in the eighteen-sixties. At least it is said that her little volume, Heart to Heart, was published in 1865 or 1866, and this volume contains "Tell me the Old, Old Story," and its answer.

We have been told that Miss Hankey was recovering from a serious illness, and employed her days of convalescence in composing this song of devotion, beginning it in January and finishing it in the following November.

The poem is very long—a thesaurus of evangelical thoughts, attitudes, and moods of faith—and also a magazine of hymns. Four quatrains of it, or two eight-line stanzas, are the usual length of a hymnal selection, and editors can pick and choose anywhere among its expressive verses.

Tell me the old, old story Of unseen things above, Of Jesus and His glory, Of Jesus and His love.

Tell me the story simply As to a little child, For I am weak and weary, And helpless and defiled.

* * * * *

Tell me the story simply That I may take it in— That wonderful Redemption, God's remedy for sin.

THE TUNE.

Dr. W.H. Doane was present at the International Conference of the Y.M.C.A. at Montreal in 1867, and heard the poem read—with tears and in a broken voice—by the veteran Major-General Russell. It impressed him so much that he borrowed and copied it, and subsequently set it to music during a vacation in the White Mountains.

The poem of fifty stanzas was entitled "The Story Wanted;" the sequel or answer to it, by Miss Hankey, was named "The Story Told." This second hymn, of the same metre but different accent, was supplied with a tune by William Gustavus Fischer.

I love to tell the story Of unseen things above, Of Jesus and His glory, Of Jesus and His love.

* * * * *

I love to tell the story Because I know its true; It satisfies my longings As nothing else can do.

CHORUS. I love to tell the story; 'Twill be my theme in glory; To tell the old, old story Of Jesus and his love.

William Gustavus Fischer was born in Baltimore, Md., Oct. 14, 1835. He was a piano-dealer in the firm (formerly) of Gould and Fischer. His melody to the above hymn was written in 1869, and was harmonized the next year by Hubert P. Main.

THE PRODIGAL CHILD.

This is not only an impressive hymn as sung in sympathetic music, but a touching poem.

Come home! come home! You are weary at heart, For the way has been dark And so lonely and wild— O prodigal child, Come home!

Come home! Come home! For we watch and we wait, And we stand at the gate While the shadows are piled; O prodigal child, Come home!

The author is Mrs. Ellen M.H. Gates, known to the English speaking world by her famous poem, "Your Mission."

THE TUNE

To "The Prodigal Child" was composed by Dr. Doane in 1869 and no hymn ever had a fitter singing ally. All a mother's yearning is in the refrain and cadence.

Come home! Oh, come home!

"LET THE LOWER LIGHTS BE BURNING!"

An illustration, recited in Mr. Moody's graphic fashion in one of his discourses, suggested this hymn to P.P. Bliss.

"A stormy night on Lake Erie, and the sky pitch dark."

'Pilot, are you sure this is Cleveland? There's only one light.'

'Quite sure, Cap'n.'

'Where are the lower lights?'

'Gone out, sir.'

'Can you run in?'

'We've got to, Cap'n—or die.'

"The brave old pilot did his best, but, alas, he missed the channel. The boat was wrecked, with a loss of many lives. The lower lights had gone out.

"Brethren, the Master will take care of the great Lighthouse. It is our work to keep the lower lights burning!"

Brightly beams our Father's mercy From His lighthouse evermore; But to us He gives the keeping Of the lights along the shore.

CHORUS. Let the lower lights be burning! Send a gleam across the wave; Some poor fainting, struggling seaman You may rescue, you may save.

Both words and music—composed in 1871—are by Mr. Bliss. There are wakening chords in the tune—and especially the chorus—when the counterpoint is well vocalized; and the effect is more pronounced the greater the symphony of voices. Congregations find a zest in every note. "Hold the Fort" can be sung in the street. "Let the Lower Lights be Burning" is at home between echoing walls.

The use of the song in "Bethel" meetings classes it with sailors' hymns.

"SWEET HOUR OF PRAYER."

Included with the Gospel Hymns, but of older date. Rev. William W. Walford, a blind English minister, was the author, and it was probably written about the year 1842. It was recited to Rev. Thomas Salmon, Congregational pastor at Coleshill, Eng., who took it down and brought it to New York, where it was published in the New York Observer.

Little is known of Mr. Walford save that in his blindness, besides preaching occasionally, he employed his mechanical skill in making small useful articles of bone and ivory.

The tune was composed by W.B. Bradbury in 1859, and first appeared with the hymn in Cottage Melodies.

Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer That calls me from a world of care, And bids me at my Father's throne Make all my wants and wishes known. In seasons of distress and grief My soul has often found relief, And oft escaped the tempter's snare By thy return, sweet hour of prayer.

"O BLISS OF THE PURIFIED! BLISS OF THE FREE!"

Rev. Francis Bottome, D.D., born in Belper, Derbyshire, Eng., May 26, 1823, removed to the United States in 1850, and entered the Methodist ministry. A man of sterling character and exemplary piety. He received the degree of Doctor of Divinity at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa. Was assistant compiler of several singing books, and wrote original hymns. The above, entitled "O sing of His mighty love" was composed by him in 1869. The last stanza reads,—

O Jesus the Crucified! Thee will I sing, My blessed Redeemer, my God and my King! My soul, filled with rapture shall shout o'er the grave And triumph in death in the Mighty to save.

CHORUS. O sing of His mighty love (ter) Mighty to save!

Dr. Bottome returned to England, and died at Tavistock June 29, 1894.

THE TUNE.

Bradbury's "Songs of the Beautiful" (in Fresh Laurels). The hymn was set to this chorus in 1871.

"WHAT SHALL THE HARVEST BE?"

Very popular in England. Mr. Sankey in his Story of the Gospel Hymns relates at length the experience of Rev. W.O. Lattimore, pastor of a large church in Evanston, Ill., who was saved to Christian manhood and usefulness by this hymn. It has suffered some alterations, but its original composition was Mrs. Emily Oakey's work. The Parables of the Sower and of the Tares may have been in her mind when she wrote the lines in 1850, but more probably it was the text in Gal. 6:7—

Sowing the seed by the daylight fair, Sowing the seed by the noonday glare, Sowing the seed by the fading light, Sowing the seed in the solemn night. O, what shall the harvest be?

Lattimore, the man whose history was so strangely linked with this hymn, entered the army in 1861, a youth of eighteen with no vices, but when promoted to first lieutenant he learned to drink in the officers' mess. The habit so contracted grew upon him till when the war was over, though he married and tried to lead a sober life, he fell a victim to his appetite, and became a physical wreck. One day in the winter of 1876 he found himself in a half-drunken condition, in the gallery of Moody's Tabernacle, Chicago. Discovering presently that he had made a mistake, he rose to go out, but Mr. Sankey's voice chained him. He sat down and heard the whole of the thrilling hymn from beginning to end. Then he stumbled out with the words ringing in his ears.

Sowing the seed of a lingering pain, Sowing the seed of a maddened brain, Sowing the seed of a tarnished name, Sowing the seed of Eternal shame. O, what shall the harvest be?

In the saloon, where he went to drown the awakenings of remorse, those words stood in blazing letters on every bottle and glass. The voice of God in that terrible song of conviction forced him back to the Tabernacle, with his drink untasted. He went into the inquiry meeting where he found friends, and was led to Christ. His wife and child, from whom he had long been exiled, were sent for and work was found for him to do. A natural eloquence made him an attractive and efficient helper in the meetings, and he was finally persuaded to study for the ministry. His faithful pastorate of twenty years in Evanston ended with his death in 1899.

Mrs. Emily Sullivan Oakey was an author and linguist by profession, and though in her life of nearly fifty-four years she "never enjoyed a day of good health," she earned a grateful memory. Born in Albany, N.Y., Oct. 8, 1829, she was educated at the Albany Female Academy, and fitted herself for the position of teacher of languages and English literature in the same school, which she honored by her service while she lived. Her contributions to the daily press and to magazine literature were numerous, but she is best known by her remarkable hymn. Her death occurred on the 11th of May, 1883.

THE TUNE,

By P.P. Bliss, is one of that composer's tonal successes. The march of the verses with their recurrent words is so automatic that it would inevitably suggest to him the solo and its organ-chords; and the chorus with its sustained soprano note dominating the running concert adds the last emphasis to the solemn repetition. The song with its warning cry owes no little of its power to this choral appendix—

Gathered in time or eternity, Sure, ah sure will the harvest be.

"O THINK OF THE HOME OVER THERE."

A hymn of Rev. D.W.C. Huntington, suggested by Ps. 55:6. It was a favorite from the first.

Rev. DeWitt Clinton Huntington was born at Townshend, Vt., Apr. 27, 1830. He graduated at the Syracuse University, and received the degrees of D.D. and LL.D. from Genesee College. Preacher, instructor and author—Removed to Lincoln, Nebraska.

O think of the home over there, By the side of the river of light, Where the saints all immortal and fair Are robed in their garments of white. Over there, (rep)

O think of the friends over there, Who before us the journey have trod, Of the songs that they breathe on the air, In their home in the palace of God. Over there. (rep)

THE TUNE.

The melody was composed by Tullius Clinton O'Kane, born in Delaware, O., March 10, 1830, a hymnist and musician. It is a flowing tune, with sweet chords, and something of the fugue feature in the chorus as an accessory. The voices of a multitude in full concord make a building tremble with it.

"WHEN JESUS COMES."

Down life's dark vale we wander Till Jesus comes; We watch and wait and wonder Till Jesus comes.

Both words and music are by Mr. Bliss. A relative of his family, J.S. Ellsworth, says the song was written in Peoria, Illinois, in 1872, and was suggested by a conversation on the second coming of Christ, a subject very near his heart. The thought lingered in his mind, and as he came down from his room, soon after, the verses and notes came to him simultaneously on the stairs. Singing them over, he seized pencil and paper, and in a few minutes fixed hymn and tune in the familiar harmony so well known.

No more heart-pangs nor sadness When Jesus comes; All peace and joy and gladness When Jesus comes.

The choral abounds in repetition, and is half refrain, but among all Gospel Hymns remarkable for their tone-delivery this is unsurpassed in the swing of its rhythm.

All joy his loved ones bringing When Jesus comes. All praise thro' heaven ringing When Jesus comes. All beauty bright and vernal When Jesus comes. All glory grand, eternal When Jesus comes.

"TO THE WORK, TO THE WORK."

One of Fanny Crosby's most animating hymns—with Dr. W.H. Doane's full part harmony to re-enforce its musical accent. Mr. Sankey says, "I sang it for the first time in the home of Mr. and Mrs. J.B. Cornell at Long Branch. The servants gathered from all parts of the house while I was singing, and looked into the parlor where I was seated. When I was through one of them said, 'That is the finest hymn I have heard for a long time,' I felt that this was a test case, and if the hymn had such power over those servants it would be useful in reaching other people as well; so I published it in the Gospel Hymns in 1875, where it became one of the best work-songs for our meetings that we had." (Story of the Gospel Hymns.)

The hymn, written in 1870, was first published in 1871 in "Pure Gold"—a book that had a sale of one million two hundred thousand copies.

To the work! to the work! there is labor for all, For the Kingdom of darkness and error shall fall, And the name of Jehovah exalted shall be, In the loud-swelling chorus, "Salvation is free!"

CHORUS. Toiling on, toiling on, toiling on, toiling on! (rep) Let us hope and trust, let us watch and pray, And labor till the Master comes.

"O WHERE ARE THE REAPERS?"

Matt. 13:30 is the text of this lyric from the pen of Eben E. Rexford.

Go out in the by-ways, and search them all, The wheat may be there though the weeds are tall; Then search in the highway, and pass none by, But gather them all for the home on high.

CHORUS. Where are the reapers? O who will come, And share in the glory of the harvest home? O who will help us to garner in The sheaves of good from the fields of sin?

THE TUNE.

Hymn and tune are alike. The melody and harmony by Dr. George F. Root have all the eager trip and tread of so many of the gospel hymns, and of so much of his music, and the lines respond at every step. Any other composer could not have escaped the compulsion of the final spondees, and much less the author of "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp," and all the best martial song-tunes of the great war. In this case neither words nor notes can say to the other, "We have piped unto you and ye have not danced," but a little caution will guard too enthusiastic singing against falling into the drum-rhythm, and travestying a sacred piece.

Eben Eugene Rexford was born in Johnsburg, N.Y., July 16, 1841, and has been a writer since he was fourteen years old. He is the author of several popular songs, as "Silver Threads Among the Gold," "Only a Pansy Blossom" etc., and many essays and treatises on flowers, of which he is passionately fond.

"IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL."

Horatio Gates Spafford, the writer of this hymn, was a lawyer, a native of New York state, born Oct. 30, 1828. While connected with an institution in Chicago, as professor of medical jurisprudence, he lost a great part of his fortune by the great fire in that city. This disaster was followed by the loss of his children on the steamer, Ville de Havre, Nov. 22, 1873. He seems to have been a devout Christian, for he wrote his hymn of submissive faith towards the end of the same year—

When peace like a river attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea-billows roll— Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, "It is well, it is well with my soul."

A friend of Spafford who knew his history read this hymn while repining under an inferior affliction of his own. "If he can feel like that after suffering what he has suffered," he said, "I will cease my complaints."

It may not have been the weight of Mr. Spafford's sorrows wearing him down, but one would infer some mental disturbance in the man seven or eight years later. "In 1881" [writes Mr. Hubert P. Main] "he went to Jerusalem under the hallucination that he was a second Messiah—and died there on the seventh anniversary of his landing in Palestine, Sept. 5, 1888." The aberrations of an over-wrought mind are beckonings to God's compassion. When reason wanders He takes the soul of His helpless child into his own keeping—and "it is well."

The tune to Spafford's hymn is by P.P. Bliss; a gentle, gliding melody that suits the mood of the words.

"WAITING AND WATCHING FOR ME."

Written by Mrs. Marianne Farningham Hearn, born in Kent, Eng., Dec. 17, 1834. The hymn was first published in the fall of 1864 in the London Church World. Its unrhythmical first line—

When mysterious whispers are floating about,

—was replaced by the one now familiar—

When my final farewell to the world I have said, And gladly lain down to my rest, When softly the watchers shall say, "He is dead," And fold my pale hands on my breast, And when with my glorified vision at last The walls of that City I see, Will any one there at the Beautiful Gate Be waiting and watching for me?

Mrs. Hearn—a member of the Baptist denomination—has long been the editor of the (English) Sunday School Times, but her literary work has been more largely in connection with the Christian World newspaper of which she has been a staff-member since its foundation.