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Title: The Hymn-Book of the Modern Church
       Brief studies of hymns and hymn-writers

Author: Arthur E. Gregory

Release Date: January 5, 2019 [EBook #58619]

Language: English

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                                 THE
                           HYMN-BOOK OF THE
                            MODERN CHURCH


               BRIEF STUDIES OF HYMNS AND HYMN-WRITERS

                  THE THIRTY-FOURTH FERNLEY LECTURE


                                  BY
                       ARTHUR E. GREGORY, D.D.
 PRINCIPAL OF THE CHILDREN’S HOME AND ORPHANAGE EDITOR OF ‘BOOKS FOR
                        BIBLE STUDENTS,’ ETC.


                               _London_
                           CHARLES H. KELLY
       2, CASTLE ST., CITY ROAD; AND 26, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
                                 1904

                              PRINTED BY
                  WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
                         LONDON AND BECCLES.


                                 _To
                             My Children_

  ‘Better than all the ballads
    That ever were sung or said.’




                               PREFACE


This lecture consists of a series of essays introductory to the study
of English hymns, in which I have tried to give some account of the
sources from which the Church gathers its sacred songs, and to sketch
briefly the growth of the modern hymn-book. It has been necessary to
omit several sections which I had intended to include, and this volume
covers a portion only of the ground indicated by the title. I may,
perhaps, some day be able to carry the work a stage nearer
completeness.

It may be thought that I have given disproportionate space to certain
periods and to certain hymn-writers. If so, I can only say that they
seemed to me specially interesting or important. In quotations,
especially from less-known writers, I have taken as much liberty as
possible, and I think this is the redeeming feature of the lecture. In
extended quotations I have usually given the preference to hymns not
readily accessible to the general reader, and have only occasionally
quoted hymns to be found in the _Methodist Hymn-book_.

To the hymns of the Wesleys I have given considerable space. The
subject was chosen for me in view of the publication of the new
Methodist Hymn-book, and the occasion seemed to require a somewhat
detailed survey of the early Methodist hymns. Nor do I think that many
will consider the attention given to them more than their intrinsic
value justifies. ‘After the Scriptures,’ wrote Dr. James Martineau,
‘the Wesley Hymn-book appears to me the grandest instrument of popular
religious culture that Christendom has ever produced.’[1]

Delightful as this work has been to me, the book has been written
under great pressure and amid countless interruptions. I have had to
redeem odd minutes and the evening hours when a long day’s work had
already been done.

I have to acknowledge constant obligation—much more extensive than is
indicated by frequent reference—to Dr. Julian’s monumental _Dictionary
of Hymnology_, which has lightened the labour of research for all
students of hymns.

To my friend, Dr. J. T. L. Maggs, I am under manifold obligations
which I most gratefully record. Dr. Maggs read a great part of the
book in MS, and the whole in proof; and I am also indebted to him for
calling my attention to, or procuring for me, some important books of
reference. Mr. W. Garrett Horder has also given me the benefit of his
advice and criticism—all the more valuable because his judgement has
often differed from my own.

It is a pleasure to mention the valuable help rendered me by some of
my friends connected with The Children’s Home, and especially by Miss
F. L. Moon (now Mrs. Carey), who most kindly relieved me of the
greater part of the burden of the actual preparation of the MS. for
the press. My son, Benjamin A. Gregory, has prepared the Index,
verified quotations, and helped me in many other ways.

No Fernley Lecturer has had a more attractive theme. I wish its
treatment had been more worthy. But with all its imperfections I trust
that He who inhabiteth the praises of Israel may deign to bless my
little book to the edification and comfort of some who read it.




                               CONTENTS


  Introduction                                                   1
  I. A True Hymn                                                 6
  II. Hymns of the Bible and the Early Church                   29
  III. Early Modern Hymns                                       62
      I.—Sixteenth Century                                      62
      II.—Seventeenth Century                                   80
  IV. Eighteenth-century Hymns                                 122
      I.—The School of Watts                                   122
      II.—Hymns of the Methodist Revival                       155
      III.—The Olney Hymns                                     224
      IV.—Addison, Toplady, and Others                         243
  V. Nineteenth-century Hymns                                  254
      I.—Anglican Hymns                                        254
      II.—Free Church Hymns                                    285
      III.—Roman Catholic Hymns                                315
   Conclusion                                                  323
   Appendix                                                    333
   General Index                                               339
   Index of Hymns and Verses                                   343




                     THE HYMN-BOOK OF THE MODERN CHURCH




                             INTRODUCTION


The source and inspiration of Christian song is the word of Christ.
‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom.’ The common
phrases of common life cannot satisfy the soul filled with the Spirit
and rich with the wealth of Christ’s indwelling word. Religious
emotion finds truer and more fitting expression in poetry than in
prose. If God had not given to His Church poets, as well as apostles,
evangelists, pastors, and teachers, the best that is in us could never
have been uttered. Words and phrases that are large enough for
intercourse with our fellows become cramped and inexpressive when we
speak to God. Praise and penitence alike would often be silent in the
congregation of the saints if they could not at once veil and reveal
their profoundest feelings in psalms and hymns. Poetry gives to
devotion those robes of glory and beauty without which it would, at
times, be almost unseemly to join in the public worship of God or to
disclose the heart’s secrets in the presence of fellow-worshippers.

Our theme, then, is peculiarly sacred, since it deals with the
spiritual songs in which earnest and sincere men have uttered, in the
very presence of God, their most secret thoughts, confessions, and
aspirations. Every true hymn was first spoken by one man to God alone,
was prayed before it was sung, though now it may be heard daily from
ten thousand voices. Harsh or flippant criticism is out of place here,
an irreverent impertinence, like the interruption of private prayer.
In the study of hymns

  Put off thy shoes from off thy feet;
  The place where man his God shall meet
    Be sure is holy ground.[2]

Yet St. Paul himself reminds us that the word of Christ is to dwell
wisely as well as richly in our hearts. ‘Let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly in all wisdom.’ ‘Next to a sound rule of faith, there is
nothing of so much consequence as a sober standard of feeling in
matters of religion.’[3] Morbid, insincere, fanatical, or exaggerated
emotion is as much to be deprecated as doctrinal error, and its evils
are at least as disastrous. The diffusion of false or superficial
sentiment in the household of the faith is like the spreading of a
subtle disease which saps the strength and mars the beauty of
devotion, while error bears a charmed life if it comes in the words of
a familiar and attractive hymn. Moreover, it is in the hymns of the
Church rather than in its formal declarations of faith and doctrine
that we find the truest and generally the most favourable revelation
of its character. Hymnology is a more important element in the history
of religion than most Church historians and theological writers have
recognized.[4]

The present time is in many respects peculiarly appropriate for a
consideration of the growth and development of the hymns of the modern
Church. We are in a state of rest or pause after tumult. The great
religious ‘movements’ of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are
matters of history, and we can regard even the most recent of them
calmly and without the prejudice which while conflict rages may, not
altogether unfairly, be regarded as patriotism. The Methodist Revival,
the Evangelical Awakening, the Oxford Movement, the Salvation Army
Campaign, the Undenominational Evangelism of Messrs. Moody and Sankey,
may all be taken into account in considering the material and
character of the hymn-book of the modern Church.

Again, it is interesting to remember that of the hymn-writers of the
nineteenth century few survive. For the moment there is neither
evangelist nor poet to give us new songs. Our fathers made hymn-books;
we re-edit them. Within the last few years the standard Presbyterian,
Baptist, Anglican,[5] and Methodist hymn-books have appeared in new
and revised editions, whilst in the _Arundel Hymns_ we have the most
recent Roman Catholic hymnal. Dr. Barrett’s _Congregational Church
Hymnal_, issued in 1887, is of the modern type, though it preserves
many of the features of the older Nonconformist books. Mr. Garrett
Horder’s _Worship-Song_ represents the taste of an individual, not of
a committee or community; but it is in many respects the best and most
complete collection of the hymns of the modern Church. These books
enable us to discover current opinion and taste in regard to hymns
which are worthy to take their place in the service of the Christian
sanctuary, and both in their unity and diversity are of great value as
indicating the life and thought of the Churches they represent.

In this lecture I shall attempt—

1. A brief preliminary inquiry into what constitutes a true hymn,
suited for use in Christian worship.

2. A very brief review of the relation of the Hebrew Psalter to the
Christian Hymnal, and a passing glance at the hymns of the New
Testament and of the early Church.

3. A more detailed survey of the rise and development of modern
English hymns and their use in the Church since the Reformation.

Such a study, however unskilfully guided, cannot, I hope, be
altogether without interest or edification, since it brings the
student into fellowship with the sweetest and the saintliest souls,
and bids him join in spirit the choir invisible who praise God day and
night in His temple.


I regret that the limits assigned to my lecture make it impossible to
refer to translations from the Greek, Latin, German, and other
languages. These form a most valuable and an increasing portion of all
modern hymnals. They furnish abundant material for a separate volume.




                                  I
                             A True Hymn


When my revered father, more than thirty years ago, delivered the
fourth Fernley Lecture, he laid this down as the first scriptural
Church principle—‘The Church is not a thing of rigid definition.’ I
may adapt that phrase to my own subject, and say, _A hymn is not a
thing of rigid definition_.

Commenting on the note which closes the second book of Psalms, ‘The
prayers [LXX. _hymns_] of David the son of Jesse are ended,’ St.
Augustine gives this definition:

  Hymns are praises of God with singing, hymns are songs containing
  praises of God. If there be praise, and not praise of God, it is not
  a hymn. If there be praise, and praise of God, and it is not sung,
  it is not a hymn. It is necessary, therefore, if it be a hymn, that
  it have these three things: both praise, and praise of God, and that
  it be sung.

In commenting on Ps. cxlviii. he repeats this rule in almost the same
words. The definition commends itself at once as excellent, and in
regard to a large number of hymns adequate; but even when the widest
sense is given to the words it is much too narrow and would exclude
many of the truest hymns. Indeed, it is impossible to deny the title
to innumerable compositions which do not fulfil these conditions. Many
a verse of which it may be said, This is not a hymn, demonstrates its
right by the fact that it is hymned by the Church from age to age.

St. Augustine’s third canon may be accepted without hesitation. A poem
that cannot be sung may speak in the sublimest accents of devotion,
yet it is of necessity unsuited to the service of the Christian choir.
Spenser’s ‘Hymn of Heavenly Love’ is a glorious example of this form
of praise. Indeed, there are some stanzas which a skilful hand might
make available for use in the congregation.

  O blessèd Well of Love, O Flower of Grace,
  O glorious Morning Star, O Lamp of Light!
  Most lively image of Thy Father’s face,
  Eternal King of Glory, Lord of Might,
  Meek Lamb of God, before all worlds behight,[6]
  How can we Thee requite for all this good?
  Or what can prize that Thy most precious blood?

  Yet nought Thou ask’st in lieu of all this love,
  But love of us for guerdon of Thy pain:
  Ay me! What can us less than that behove?
  Had He requirèd life of us again,
  Had it been wrong to ask His own with gain?
  He gave us life, He it restorèd lost;
  Then life were least, that us so little cost.

  But He our life hath left unto us free,
  Free that was thrall, and blessèd that was banned;
  Nor ought demands but that we loving be,
  As He Himself hath loved us afore-hand;
  And bound thereto with an eternal band,
  Him first to love that us so dearly bought,
  And next our brethren to His image wrought.

Many of Herbert’s and of Miss Rossetti’s poems are of the same type.
We would give much to add them to our hymnals, but they would be out
of place there. They belong to the manual of devotion.

That the primary idea of a hymn is praise may also be granted, but
even so ‘praise’ must be given an extensive connotation, that it may
include whatever directly or indirectly glorifies God. St. Paul’s
exhortations show how much more than the offering of adoration is
included in the province of Christian song. Our hymn-book, like the
Hebrew Psalter, must have not only its songs of high thanksgiving, its
sacrifice of praise, but also its prayer of the penitent as he poureth
out his soul unto God, its sin-offering as well as its thank-offering,
its intercessions and meditations, its instructions and exhortations,
its lighter songs and melodies. ‘Every feeling which enters into any
act of true worship may fitly find expression in a hymn.’[7]

Dr. Johnson declared that sacred poetry must always be poor because
‘the topics of devotion are few, and being few are universally known;
but few as they are can be made no more.’ To this criticism Keble
replied in his essay on Sacred Poetry—

  How can the topics of devotion be few, when we are taught to make
  every part of life, every scene in nature, an occasion—in other
  words, a topic—of devotion? It might as well be said that connubial
  love is an unfit subject for poetry, as being incapable of novelty,
  because, after all, it is only ringing the changes upon one simple
  affection, which every one understands. The novelty there consists,
  not in the original topic, but in continually bringing ordinary
  things, by happy strokes of natural ingenuity, into new associations
  with the ruling passion.

  There’s not a bonnie flower that springs
    By fountain, shaw, or green;
  There’s not a bonnie bird that sings
    But minds me of my Jean.

  Why need we fear to extend this most beautiful and natural sentiment
  to ‘the intercourse between the human soul and its Maker’?[8]

If, on its subjective side, sacred poetry has a wide range of topics,
how manifold and how magnificent are the themes presented by the
historic facts upon which faith rests, and by the great truths of the
gospel! In Johnson’s day no one understood how large a realm belonged
to the Christian singer, but we have no cause to complain of sameness
or dullness in the songs of the Christian choir.

St. Augustine’s second canon need not be regarded as implying that
every hymn must be formally addressed to God. The very hymns (the
psalms) upon which he was commenting abundantly justify our use of
hymns which are rather uttered in the divine presence than actually
spoken to God. The 103rd Psalm is as truly a hymn of praise, and that
of God, as the 104th. After the same self-exhortation, ‘Bless the
Lord, O my soul,’ the one continues in the form of a devout
meditation, in which the consciousness that God hears is never for a
moment absent; while the other at once addresses ‘the Majesty on
high.’

  O Lord my God, Thou art very great;
  Thou art clothed with honour and majesty.

Both might have ended with

  Let my meditation[9] be sweet unto Him;
                                                              civ. 34.

or, in the words of another psalm—

  Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation[9] of my heart, be
              acceptable in Thy sight,
  O Lord, my Strength, and my Redeemer.
                                                              xix. 14.

Devout meditations which do not actually speak to God are amongst the
best and most truly devotional hymns. Watts’s spiritual song,

  There is a land of pure delight,

is an example of the hymn which is only indirectly a prayer; whilst

  When I survey the wondrous Cross

illustrates the meditation which is partly the communing of the soul
with itself, and partly (perhaps in this case only in the second
verse) a direct address to God. Yet each is a true hymn. The ideal
exercise of the Christian hymn-writer is the practice of the presence
of God.

Not only, then, are the subjects of sacred song infinitely varied, but
the forms it may assume are many. In the poet, as well as in the
prophet, God speaks ‘in divers manners.’ This is seen in St. Paul’s
twice repeated classification, ‘psalms, hymns, spiritual songs,’ and
by the directions he gives for the use of song in the Church.

In the Epistle to the Ephesians he writes:

  And be not drunken with wine, wherein is riot, but be filled with
  the Spirit; speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and
  spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the
  Lord; giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord
  Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.

In the Epistle to the Colossians:

  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching
  and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual
  songs, singing with grace in your hearts unto God. And whatsoever ye
  do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving
  thanks to God the Father through Him.

_Psalms_ are, no doubt, primarily, if not exclusively, those of the
Old Testament, which would naturally form the basis of the hymn-book
of the Christian Church. It would have been the worst ingratitude, the
most crass stupidity, if such a treasure actually in their hands and
in their hearts had not been adopted in the services of the first
Christian worshippers, even though it must soon have been felt that
some psalms were as little in harmony with the spirit of the new
dispensation as the law which Christ Himself enlarged and enlightened.

_Hymns_ ‘would more appropriately designate those hymns of praise
which were composed by the Christians themselves.’[10] Of these, as we
shall note in the next chapter, some fragments remain, and they are
specially characteristic of Christian worship. ‘It was of the essence
of the Greek ὕµνος (hymn) that it should be ... addressed to a god or
hero, that is, a deified man.’[11] Christianity inherited the Hebrew
psalm, it adopted and consecrated the Greek hymn.

_Ode_, or song, is a more general term, qualified and limited by the
epithet ‘spiritual,’ and may be regarded as justifying our use of many
modern hymns which a severe or narrow taste would reject. Bishop
Beveridge understood it to include ‘all sorts of songs upon any
spiritual subject.’

Probably the three terms were not very rigidly distinguished, though
they are convenient for describing various classes of devotional
poetry. In the title of Ps. lxxv. the LXX. gives the three words:
‘among hymns, a psalm for Asaph, an ode concerning the Assyrian.’[12]

The variety of form which the songs of the Christian temple may assume
is seen to be of the utmost value when we consider how large a part
the ministry of song has in Christian life and worship. Although
Jehovah is ‘exalted above all blessing and praise,’[13] yet does He
sit ‘enthroned upon the praises of Israel.’[14] ‘Praise waiteth for
God in Zion.’ The ancient summons to worship is—

  Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
  And into His courts with praise.
                                                                 c. 4.

The walls of the city of God are called Salvation, and her gates
Praise.[15] The mystic Jerusalem is the true ‘city of praise.’[16] The
one offering of the Christian temple is its perpetual eucharist,[17]
‘the sacrifice of praise.’[18] The high praises of God are in the
mouth of His saints because His love is shed abroad in their hearts,
and they ‘cannot from His praise forbear.’

  Jerusalem makes melody
    For simple joy of heart,
  An organ of full compass she,
    One tuned through every part;
  While not to day or night belong
  Her matins and her evensong,
  The one thanksgiving of her song.[19]

Whatever the form of the song, its music is for the ear of God, its
melody is that of the heart.

In the Christian Church, as in the Jewish Temple, we may call
instrumental music to our aid, and count its offering not unacceptable
to God.

  Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet:
  Praise Him with the psaltery and harp.
  Praise Him with the timbrel and dance:
  Praise Him with stringed instruments and the pipe.
  Praise Him upon the loud cymbals:
  Praise Him upon the high-sounding cymbals.

Yet all this pomp and circumstance of worship are but sounding brass
and clanging cymbal unless there be the accompaniment of ‘grace in the
heart.’

  Praise Him every tuneful string;
    All the reach of heavenly art,
  All the powers of music bring,
    The music of the heart.[20]

Praise needs ‘a thousand tongues,’ and even so would find ‘eternity
too short’ for its service.


Though St. Paul associates praise—thanksgiving—with singing in both
the passages referred to, it is instructive to note how clearly he
asserts the teaching function of the songs of the Church: ‘Speaking
one to another,’ ‘teaching and admonishing one another.’ Bishop
Christopher Wordsworth said, as I think, truly:

  Christian poetry ought to be a medium for the conveyance of
  Christian doctrine.... A Church which forgoes the use of hymns in
  her office of teaching neglects one of the most efficacious
  instruments for correcting error, and for disseminating truth, as
  well as for ministering comfort and edification.[21]

An entirely opposite view is often taken, especially by Dissenting
writers. Mr. Horder even regards the definite assertion of the
doctrine of the Trinity in Heber’s greatest hymn as ‘its only
fault.’[22] Dr. Martineau argued that to eliminate from a hymn its
distinctive doctrinal teaching, and to ‘translate’ it into broader
theological language, was ‘simply to remove an obstruction,’ and to
introduce the author ‘to the veneration of thousands, to whom
otherwise he must appear as a repulsive stranger.’[23] The general
question of alterations in the text of hymns may be considered later.
At the moment I need only point out that the apostolic ideal of a hymn
includes both ethical and doctrinal teaching. John Wesley prided
himself upon having given in his hymn-book ‘a little body of
experimental and practical divinity.’

The same principle may be applied to hymns of invitation, of which
there are so many in the Methodist collection, and of which Faber’s
‘Souls of men, why will ye scatter?’ is the best modern example. An
off-hand criticism may condemn hymns addressed to our own souls, to
‘souls of men,’ to ‘neighbours and friends,’ to ‘sinners poor and
wretched;’ but they have ample warrant both in precept and precedent.

  God sent His singers upon earth
  With songs of sadness and of mirth,
  That they might touch the hearts of men,
  And bring them back to heaven again.[24]

The Christian poet is a teacher and an evangelist.


Passing from the form to the character of the hymn, there are certain
great principles concerning which there will, I imagine, be little
difference of opinion. The first essential in every hymn is surely
that it be not unworthy of use in the service of God, who is of purer
eyes than to behold iniquity, and is to be worshipped in the beauty of
holiness. There must be—

1. _Sincerity._—Fitness for divine service depends not upon beauty of
form or expression, but upon sincerity of thought.

  The fineness which a hymn or psalm affords,
  Is when the soul unto the lines accords.[25]

‘The garment of praise’ is the white robe of the pure in heart, and,
lacking this, the stately anthem has less of heaven’s music than the
discordant voices of the village choir.

So Cowper prays—

  Forgive the praise that falls so low
  Beneath the gratitude I owe:
  It means Thy praise, however poor;
  An angel’s song could do no more.

So Keble sings—

  Childlike though the voices be,
    And untunable the parts,
  Thou wilt own the minstrelsy
    If it flows from childlike hearts.

Sincerity requires that the thoughts expressed should be real to the
singer as well as to the poet. They may not be such as would have
occurred to him, and the expression may be altogether beyond his
powers of origination, but they must be such as he can think in his
best moments or may be helped to enter into at the hour of prayer.
Sincerity does not require that all our hymns should be on the lowest
level common to a general congregation, but that the sentiment
expressed, the emotion presupposed or to be excited, be suited to the
heart of man in the presence of his Father in heaven. In the
compilation of a hymn-book something must be left to the good sense
and judgement of those who are to use it; and there is no part of
public worship which calls for more serious and intelligent
consideration than the selection of hymns suited to the occasion and
to the congregation.

It is perhaps too much to say that sincerity also requires that the
writer of a hymn should be not unworthy of a place in the Christian
choir. Happily this question rarely arises. The author’s name is often
an aid to devotion, and in most hymn-books there is hardly a
name—except Dryden’s—that seems wholly unfitted to this sacred
service.

2. _Reverence._—‘God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let
thy words be few,’ restrained, seemly. The profoundest reverence, the
lowliest adoration, shrinks from utterance when it hears and sees
unspeakable things. This is sublimely taught in those great lines of
Dante:

  Here memory mocks the toil of genius. Christ
  Beamed on that cross; and pattern fails me now.
  But whoso takes his cross, and follows Christ,
  Will pardon me for that I leave untold,
  When in the fleckered dawning he shall spy
  The glitterance of Christ.[26]

Even so profuse a hymn-writer as Watts feels that there are times when
it is best to ‘leave untold’ what the heart most desires to tell:

  A solemn reverence checks our songs,
  And praise sits silent on our tongues.

It is a less sublime, but not less acceptable, form of worship which
attempts that which yet it knows to be impossible. Praise must be
heard in Zion lest if men hold their peace the very stones should cry
out. Nor is it right that awe should silence love. We worship the
King, eternal, immortal, invisible, yet even so we praise Him who
‘like as a Father pitieth His children’; and when we sing praise to
Christ as God, we remember that He called His disciples not servants,
but friends.

Dr. Watts utters the thought of many hearts in one of his finest
hymns—

    Join all the glorious names
      Of wisdom, love, and power,
    That ever mortals knew,
      That angels ever bore;
  All are too mean to speak His worth,
  Too mean to set my Saviour forth.

    But O what gentle terms,
      What condescending ways,
    Doth our Redeemer use,
      To teach His heavenly grace;
  Mine eyes with joy and wonder see
  What forms of love He bears for me!

It would be easy to give illustrations of offences against the spirit
of reverence, especially in hymns of the eighteenth century and the
earlier part of the nineteenth. The Moravian hymns in particular were
often disfigured by the most revolting phrases, so had indeed that one
does not care to give them even the notoriety of emphatic
condemnation.[27] But such gross offences are rare in our time, and
are practically unknown to Protestant hymnals. Some of the Romish
hymns, and a few in Anglican books, refer to the details of our Lord’s
Incarnation and Passion with irreverent and even indecent realism, and
those addressed to the Virgin Mary are often as bad as any found in
the older Moravian books.

We are, on the other hand, in some danger of carrying our sense of
what is reverent too far, and of altering without reason the glowing
words of devout Christian affection. John Wesley shrank from including

  Jesu, Lover of my soul

in his _Collection_. The expression is quoted from Wisd. xi. 26: ‘But
Thou sparest all; for they are Thine, O Lord, Thou Lover of souls’;
and he saw no objection to its general application as in the lines—

  Lover of souls, to rescue mine
  Reveal the charity divine
    That suffered in my stead.

Canon Ellerton hesitated as to the propriety of the inclusion of this
great hymn in a Church hymnal, and spoke of it as standing ‘absolutely
_upon_ the line’ which separates hymns for public worship from those
of private devotion. But the Church in all its borders has decided the
question, and our heart tells us that the decision is right. Nor is
it, indeed, a hymn solely for the sanctuary and the saint; it is a
hymn for the street and for the sinner.[28]

The epithet ‘dear’ is not one to be scattered thoughtlessly through
hymns and prayers. Yet there are lines from which it is almost an
impiety to remove it. There is a language of reverent affection which
has in it nothing of the earth.

  Come then, and to my soul reveal
    The heights and depths of grace,
  The wounds which all my sorrows heal,
    That dear disfigured face.

Personally I should not touch even Faber’s

  Sweet Saviour, bless us e’er we go,

though I wish he had used another epithet; and I certainly could not
draw a rough pen through Cowper’s tender line

  Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
    Shall never lose its power.

There is something due to the men who wrote thus. If they loved much,
we should let them speak their love to all the ages in terms of strong
affection, and our colder hearts may learn to burn within us as we
draw near with them to Him who ‘sought us Himself with such longing
and love.’

Bad taste is an error of judgement, not irreverence, but it has very
much the same effect upon the worshipper, and it is to be regretted
that some very great hymns, consecrated by ten thousand sacred
memories, are marred by phrases which will not bear comment or
meditation. If the hymn were new, not many modern books would include
Cowper’s lines

  There is a fountain filled with blood,
    Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;

but nothing could long preserve in common use Watts’s verse—

  His dying crimson like a robe
    Spreads o’er His body on the tree;
  Then am I dead to all the globe,
    And all the globe is dead to me.

3. Closely allied to reverence is _Dignity_, the elevation and
refinement of thought and language which beseem the worship of God.
Nor is it any disadvantage to the less enlightened or less educated in
the Christian assembly that they should learn to speak the language of
the family of God. Dignity is not necessarily obscure or pompous. It
represents what is worthy of man’s thought when it is engaged on the
highest of all themes. The intrusion into the most sacred moments of
what is mean or vulgar in sound or association is a grievous offence.
Hymns belong to the _belles lettres_ of the literature of devotion; to
be familiar with them should be in itself a liberal education.

4. _Beauty._—‘Intercourse between God and the human soul,’ said Dr.
Johnson, ‘cannot be poetical’—a characteristically dogmatic assertion
for which there might be some excuse in his day, but which succeeding
years have overwhelmingly disproved. A hundred years ago it was
necessary to include in a hymn-book compositions that compensated for
their lack of poetry by their undoubted piety, but we have such a
wealth of song at our disposal that there need be nothing poor,
prosaic, commonplace in our hymnals. Watts’s greatest error was his
excessive tenderness for ‘vulgar capacities.’

5. _Simplicity._—We may say of great hymns what Tennyson said of great
men—they are

  In their simplicity sublime.

Heavy words are rightly to be regarded as fatal to a good hymn.
Charles Wesley was peculiarly prone to use words which make hymns
impossible in public worship. Who desires in prayer or praise to use
such words as ‘consentaneous,’ ‘implunged,’ ‘choral symphonies’?

The best hymns are made up of short words, and have a large
preponderance of monosyllables. The words, too, should be such as men
use in the more serious intercourse of daily life. It goes without
saying that colloquialisms and words with mean associations are not
fit for the sanctuary, but the finest hymns are often those which the
plain man recognizes as written in his own tongue.

Bishop Ken’s great hymns are models of simple directness of thought
and expression, and so are some verses of Pope’s _Universal Prayer_.

  What conscience dictates to be done,
    Or warns me not to do;
  This, teach me more than hell to shun,
    That, more than heaven pursue.

  If I am right, Thy grace impart,
    Still in the right to stay;
  If I am wrong, oh teach my heart
    To find that better way!

  Teach me to feel another’s woe,
    To hide the fault I see;
  That mercy I to others show,
    That mercy show to me.

6. _Fervour._—If there is no fire or glow in a hymn, it might as well
be prose as poetry. Indeed, many hymns are so prosaic, so _wooden_,
that it is difficult to see how they can ever

  Teach our faint desires to rise

above the dullest levels of devotion. There should be in a hymn a
restrained fervour, a reverent rapture of poetic inspiration free from
all admixture of the sensuous and morbidly emotional. ‘Be not drunken
with wine ... but be filled with the Spirit.’

  Quench then the altar-fires of your old gods,
    Quench not the fire within.[29]

Nay, rather, if we find no ‘minstrel rapture’ for the praise of the
Most High, may we not ask with Charles Wesley—

  Why breaks not out the fire within,
    In flames of joy, and praise, and love?

As might be expected, it is among the Anglican and the rationalistic
communities that there is the greatest dread of the emotional in
worship. Yet Dr. Martineau is the ablest apologist for fervour in
religious poetry.

  The editor of a hymn-book will not think it necessary to graduate
  the fervour, the imaginativeness, the grandeur of the compositions
  admitted into his volume, by the cold, level, and prosaic condition
  of mind which may possibly prevail among some who use it. Thus, to
  damp the fire down to the temperature of the fuel, seems to offer
  but a small prospect of kindling anything. We must not thus forgo
  the glorious power which art exercises in worship. Its peculiar
  function in connexion with religion is to substitute for the poor
  and low thoughts of ordinary men, the solemn and vivid images of
  things invisible that have revealed themselves to loftier souls, and
  to present the objects of faith before the general mind in something
  of that aspect under which they rise up before the great artists of
  poetry and of sound. These gifted men are to lift us; we are not to
  depress them. In sacred music we acknowledge this principle at once;
  we confess that it is a noble thing, when we think of the origin of
  things, and call God the Creator, to have within us the mighty
  transitions of Haydn’s genius instead of our own puny dreams; to
  have the incidents of sacred story glow and live before us at the
  touch of a power like that of Handel or of Spohr; to find ourselves,
  at such bidding, with the ‘Shepherds abiding in the field,’ not far
  from the holy chant falling on the midnight air; or to hear in a
  voice, melting as Christ’s, ‘Come unto Me, ye weary’; or, as we pass
  from bereavement to bereavement of this world, to be haunted, as
  with a sudden peace, by the echo of that unearthly strain, ‘Blest
  are the departed.’ Not less elevating is the poetry than the melody
  of faith, when it is equally left alone with its first fresh power,
  and not reduced halfway to prose as a condition of its entrance into
  worship.[30]

We should, perhaps, hesitate to say that a Christian hymn may have the
‘fine, careless rapture’ which is the glory of Browning’s thrush, but
we must not deny to it the ‘inward glee’ as well as the ‘serious
faith’ of Wordsworth’s stock-dove. The fervour of Christian song is
the bright expression of our glorying in the Lord.

  Sing we merrily unto God our Strength.[31]

7. _Truth_ of doctrine.—If it be allowed that hymns play an important
part in the teaching of the Church, it is hardly necessary to press
this point. Indeed, there is often more to be feared from theological
pedantry than from doctrinal sensitiveness. The essential unity of the
faith of Christendom is nowhere better illustrated than in the number
of hymns which belong to the common treasure of the Church. There is
already a union of hearts in the language of devotion which is the
surest promise of the reunion of Christendom. At the same time, there
are not a few hymns which must either be excluded from denominational
hymn-books, or be revised into accord with the faith of the
congregations that are to use them.

I well remember the distress of a distinguished Independent minister
when I quoted to him Wesley’s verse—

  Ah! Lord, with trembling I confess,
  A gracious soul may fall from grace;
  The salt may lose its seasoning power,
  And never, never find it more—

and the pained incredulity with which he deprecated my assurance that
the hymn was still in use in our congregations. I remember, too, how
abruptly an eminent Methodist minister closed his hymn-book and
directed the congregation to cease singing when he found them
approaching the last verse of one of Toplady’s hymns—

  Yes, I to the end shall endure,
    As sure as the earnest is given,
  More happy but not more secure
    The glorified spirits in heaven.

The verses set forth accurately and appropriately the teaching of the
Churches to which the hymns respectively belong, but they are
impossible in other theological regions. A very wide range should be
allowed to religious thought as expressed in hymns, but those which
contradict the things most surely believed in a Church are rightly
excluded from its hymnal.

8. We should add, I think, if not to the essentials, yet certainly to
the virtues of a good hymn, _Scriptural language_. Our greatest prose
writers have found in the English Bible the most effective, forceful,
impressive words; and the hymn-writer has the advantage not only of
its pure, strong diction, but also of the hallowed associations which
the words of Holy Scripture preserve for all Englishmen.




                                  II
               Hymns of the Bible and the Early Church


The hymn-book of the modern Church is the direct descendant of the
Hebrew Psalter. Had David and Asaph never sung, the hymns of Watts and
Wesley, of Keble and Montgomery, could hardly have been written. If
the praises of Israel had not rung through the courts of the Temple,
the choir of the Christian Church would have been silent. Primitive
Christianity struggled hard to free itself from the swathing-bands of
Jewish ritual; but it recognized from the first the riches of its
inheritance in the Book of Psalms. There, more than in any other
Scripture, the first Christians heard ‘the voice of Christ and His
Church.’[32] Our Lord Himself joined in singing these ancient hymns,
and bade His disciples understand that all things must needs be
fulfilled which ‘were written in the ... psalms’ concerning Him. St.
Paul and St. James alike commend the singing of psalms, and thus,
without controversy, the Psalter was claimed by the Church as her own.
The determination to hear the voice of Christ everywhere, led to
extravagances of exposition which a more critical age cannot tolerate,
but it gave the psalms a firm hold upon the heart of Christendom. The
ancient Scriptures would have passed away with the ‘worldly sanctuary’
had it not been for the witness of the priest, the prophet, and the
psalmist to Christ.

Religious poetry and song must long have preceded any collection of
psalms or hymns. One would like to know who first, in the far-off
days, said to his brother, ‘O come, let us sing unto the Lord’; but
that unknown poet or musician had been famous and forgotten before
history was born. The first Hebrew psalm is the Song of Moses at the
Red Sea, the earliest of the triumph songs of the people of God, the
hymns which celebrate Jehovah, who ever showeth Himself ‘a God of
deliverances.’[33] Sung first to ‘the loud timbrel by Egypt’s dark
sea,’ it becomes in the Apocalypse the Song of Moses and of the Lamb,
chanted to the harps of God by the glassy sea mingled with fire. At
the first the singers are the congregation, not yet a people, whom
Moses brought out of Egypt in haste; at the last they are the
white-robed army of them that have gotten the victory through the
blood of the Lamb.

  I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously:
  The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea.
  The Lord is my strength and song,
  And He is become my salvation:
  This is my God, and I will praise Him;
  My father’s God, and I will exalt Him.

  Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods?
  Who is like Thee, glorious in holiness,
  Fearful in praises, doing wonders?

  Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of Thine
              inheritance,
  The place, O Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in,
  The sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established.
  The Lord shall reign for ever and ever.[34]

Moses, then, is the first singer in the Christian choir; and if to
this song of triumph we can add the 90th Psalm, we may well place
Moses amongst the sweetest and the sublimest of hymn-writers.

  Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
  The Godhead’s most benignant grace.[35]

But Moses is not the founder of Hebrew psalmody. The fact that he and
others may have written psalms does not detract from the fame of
David, ‘the sweet psalmist of Israel.’ It was he who won for the psalm
a permanent place in the worship of God. It is not for me to discuss
here critical questions in regard to the Davidic authorship of
particular psalms; but I venture to deprecate a too ready or complete
acceptance of Wellhausen’s phrase that the Psalter was ‘the hymn-book
of the second temple,’ as though it settled the question of the
existence of previous Psalters used in the days before the Exile.
Unless we are prepared to reject history and tradition alike, David
must still hold his place amongst the singers of the Church of God.

  There David stands, with harp in hand,
  As master of the choir.

The builders of the great vanished cities of the olden time, of its
palaces and pyramids; the founders of its monarchies, empires, and
republics, pass into oblivion or preserve at best the dull memorial of
a name in history; but ‘he who sang the Holy Spirit’s song’ has an
audience that never wearies, though the individual listeners pass in
solemn and ceaseless order to the silent land. For man is one
everywhere and in all ages. The accidents of life vary, but its
essence abides. ‘The universal Church of Christ hath given its witness
that these psalms are not made for one age, but for all ages; not for
one place, but for all places; not for one soul, but for all
souls.’[36]

The contention that David’s history is not consistent with the high
religious tone of the poems ascribed to him need not disturb us. The
man who wrote the _Lament_ for Saul and Jonathan was no mere brigand
chief, but one who wore ‘the graces that adorn a king,’ and as a poet
and a friend deserves to rank with Milton and with Tennyson.

  How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!
  Jonathan is slain upon thy high places.
  I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan:
  Very pleasant hast thou been unto me:
  Thy love to me was wonderful,
  Passing the love of women.
  How are the mighty fallen,
  And the weapons of war perished!
                                                      2 Sam. i. 25-27.

Is there not the same note in David as in Milton, the same lingering
on the loved name, the same reiteration of the words of sorrow?

  For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
  Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
  Who would not sing for Lycidas?

    But, O the heavy change, now thou art gone,
  Now thou art gone, and never must return!

Jonathan is shrined as richly and as unfadingly as Edward King or
Arthur Hallam, and we may well believe that the man whom Jonathan
loved as his own soul loved God from his inmost heart—that the author
of the _Lament_ was the singer of the 18th Psalm. And if it be allowed
that David wrote that song—‘the Psalm of Clovis and John
Wesley’[37]—it is difficult, merely on the ground of personal
character, to deny him any psalm in the whole book.

  I love Thee, O Lord, my strength.
  The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;
  My God, my strong rock, in Him will I trust;
  My shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower.
  I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised:
  So shall I be saved from mine enemies.
  In my distress I called upon the Lord,
  And cried unto my God:
  He heard my voice out of His temple,
  And my cry before Him came into His ears.
  Then the earth shook and trembled,
  The foundations also of the mountains moved
  And were shaken, because He was wroth.

  He bowed the heavens also, and came down;
  And thick darkness was under His feet.
  And He rode upon a cherub, and did fly:
  Yea, He flew swiftly upon the wings of the wind.

  He sent from on high, He took me;
  He drew me out of many waters.
  He delivered me from my strong enemy,
  And from them that hated me, for they were too mighty for me.
  They came upon me in the day of my calamity:
  But the Lord was my stay.
  He brought me forth also into a large place;
  He delivered me, because He delighted in me.

It may be true that the value of the psalms to the Church does not
depend upon the settlement, one way or another, of the rival claims of
singers before and after the Exile, yet the question is of vastly more
than mere literary or historic interest. We lose much if we lose David
and the psalmists of the kingdom from ‘the glorious choir’ which sings
for ever the praises of Israel’s God and David’s Son. And we are all
the poorer if the sources of Christian song are to be sought, not by

          Siloa’s brook that flowed
  Fast by the oracles of God,

but by the dull canals of Babylon, where the exiled people wept when
they remembered Zion. Even the most extreme of modern English critics
tells us that, ‘As mere academical exercises, by not merely unnamed
but unknown individuals, the psalms will neither edify the Church nor
charm the literary student.’[38] But, after all, we have not yet lost
our fellowship with the men of David’s time. The psalms are to us a
memorial of the golden days of Israel’s history. They are still to us,
as to Francis Davison,

  Hymns which in the Hebrew tongue
      First were sung
  By Israel’s sweet and royal singer.

Or, to put the case in prose:

  Both poetry and music existed before David’s time, and poetry had
  been carried to a high development in such compositions as Exod. xv.
  and Judges v. But with David a new era of religious poetry
  commenced. The personal element entered into it. It became the
  instrument of the soul’s communion with God.[39]

It is this ‘personal element’ which makes the Psalter a living book in
every age.

The earlier Hebrew psalmists, even when they wrote in view of the
imposing ritual of the temple service with its crowded choir, its
thousand white-robed priests sounding their silver trumpets, were
never bound by a narrow conventional opinion as to what beseemed the
order of public worship. Fettered by rule and rubric as the later
Jewish Church was, the psalmist as well as the prophet stands for the
right of the individual soul to enter alone into the presence of God.

  Speak to Him, thou, for He hears,
  And spirit with Spirit can meet.

The personal element is, in some respects, the most precious gift of
the Psalter to Christianity. Had the hymns of the mediaeval Church,
instead of the Hebrew Psalter, been the pattern for modern
hymn-writers, we should have lost the best, the grandest, the most
abiding of modern hymns. But the revival of hymn-writing, alike in
Germany and in England, was a result of the Protestant Reformation,
which set aside ecclesiastical in favour of Biblical precedents; so
our hymn-books are inspired by the Psalter, not the Breviary. And this
vindication of the rights of the individual soul we owe in the first
instance to David, or to the men who wrote the psalms ascribed to him.
As Edward Irving has said, with his majestic and unrestrained
eloquence:

  The force of his character was vast, and the scope of his life was
  immense. His harp was full-stringed, and every angel of joy and of
  sorrow swept over the chords as he passed. Such oceans of affection
  lay within his breast as could not always slumber in their calmness.
  For the hearts of a hundred men strove and struggled together within
  the narrow continent of his single heart.[40]

Bishop Christopher Wordsworth, in the elaborate preface to his _Holy
Year_, says:

  The pronouns _I_ and _my_ are rarely found in any ancient Church
  hymn. But in modern hymns the individual often detaches and isolates
  himself from the body of the faithful, and in a spirit of
  sentimental selfishness obtrudes his own feelings concerning
  himself.[41]

This is an entirely superficial criticism, though, in greater or less
degree, it has been accepted in many modern hymn-books. It is unsound
in principle, and contrary to the highest precedents, ancient and
modern. It is the personal element that makes a hymn dear to the
congregation of Christ’s flock. It is the fit expression of profound
individual experience that gives a hymn its charm for the multitude,
who can think poetry, but cannot write it. Perhaps no hymn of the last
century has touched more hearts than Newman’s ‘Lead, kindly Light’;
yet it was written as a personal prayer, giving expression to a
special and temporary experience. Few hymns better illustrate the
appropriateness to others of the experience of one. In his later
years, Newman declined, almost querulously, to be ‘examined’ as to
what he meant exactly by the closing lines of his famous hymn, written
in a ‘transient’ state of mind, ‘when home-sick or sea-sick’; but to
Mrs. Tait, who inscribed the lines

  And with the morn those angel faces smile
  Which I have loved long since and lost awhile

beneath the portrait of the children taken so suddenly from the
desolated Deanery at Carlisle, no lapse of years could ever dull their
meaning. The poet often speaks ‘not of himself,’ and his words may be
truer as well as richer to the man who repeats than to the man who
wrote them. A formal service, performed by professionals or by the
technically ‘religious,’ may find suitable expression in general
terms; but the Christian congregation

  Learns the use of _I_ and _me_.

The grandest of all hymns, ancient and modern, throb with individual
life, whether they soar to heaven on the wings of ecstasy, or bow to
earth beneath an overwhelming sense of sinfulness.

  Bless the Lord, O my soul,
  And all that is within me bless His holy name.

  Have mercy upon me, O God ...
  Blot out my transgression.

  Create in me a clean heart, O God;
  And renew a right spirit within me.
  Cast me not away from Thy presence,
  And take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.

  The Lord is my Shepherd,
    I shall not want.

  O happy day that fixed my choice
  On Thee, my Saviour and my God!

  Abide with me! fast falls the eventide;
  The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.

  Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear,
  It is not night if Thou be near.

  Thou, O Christ, art all I want,
  More than all in Thee I find.

Some of the most sublime passages in ancient chant and modern hymn are
those in which the singer turns from the confession of a common sin or
the expression of a common gratitude to claim a personal share in it.
Even that greatest hymn of the Church’s public worship, the ‘Te Deum
Laudamus,’ voices at last the cry of the individual believer—

  In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped; let me not be ashamed for ever.

So Charles Wesley, celebrating the first anniversary of his
conversion, sings—

  He breaks the power of cancelled sin,
    He sets the prisoner free;
  His blood can make the foulest clean,
    His blood availed for me.

So Thomas Olivers at the end of his great anthem to the God of Abraham
adds his own voice to the voices of the celestial choir—

    The whole triumphant host
    Give thanks to God most high:
  ‘Hail, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,’
        They ever cry:
    Hail, Abraham’s God and _mine_!
    I join the heavenly lays.

The contrast between the liturgical hymn written for others to sing
and the hymn of personal experience, the pouring out of the soul
before God, is well illustrated in the Psalter; e.g. compare Ps. cxv.—

  Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory,
  For Thy mercy, and for Thy truth’s sake.

with Ps. cxvi.—

  I love the Lord, because He hath heard
  My voice and my supplications.

It is in the earlier psalms, though not in them exclusively, that we
find the personal element conspicuous, and it is those psalms which
have inspired the highest forms of Christian song.

Even in psalms written for the congregation and with direct liturgical
intent there is often the introduction of the personal element, as in
Ps. cvi.

In the Book of Psalms we have not only the cry of the seeker after
God, but the voice of the Church in its common prayer and praise. We
find here, too, hymns for the Sabbath day and other festivals, hymns
in commemoration of the older saints, national prayers and anthems,
which confess the sin of the people or record the mighty works of God,
setting the nation’s history to music. Indeed, it is difficult to
discover in modern hymn-books any hymn which has not its prototype in
the Psalter, though the Incarnation and its manifold revelation
brought into Christian life and thought a light that far outshines the
brightest stars of the earlier dispensation.

Like other great hymn-books, the Hebrew Psalter grew by stages and
gathered into its treasury things new and old. In its final form it is
a collection of hymns ancient and modern—a fusion of various
hymn-books, in which, as in other collections, there is occasional
repetition, free quotation of one writer from another, reminiscences
of familiar psalms of earlier psalmists, and evidences of the exercise
of a wide editorial discretion in revision and emendation.

We should like to know something of the man who edited the final
_Collection of Hymns for the use of the people called Jews_. If he had
written a preface, or even a title-page, he would have solved for us
many interesting literary questions—though he would have added little
to the spiritual or liturgical value of the Psalter. It is enough for
us to know that the psalms as we sing them to-day are the Psalms of
which our Lord spoke, when He appealed to them as witnesses with Moses
and the prophets to His mission. It was a hymn-book ready for use in
the Church of Pentecost, and was adopted in its worship from the
beginning.


The influence of the Psalter upon Christian hymnody extends far beyond
the use of the rhythmic psalms. The metrical versions, which long
supplied the place of hymn-books, gave to the Psalms a double share in
Christian worship. Even to-day, when the metrical Psalter has lost its
hold upon the Christian congregation, many of our greatest hymns are
versions of Hebrew psalms. Nor is the rhythmic version outworn. No
complete order of Christian worship is possible which does not include
at least some portion of the Psalter in one or other of our three
grand English renderings.[42]

The birth of the Lord Jesus was marked, as so many critical periods
have been, by a ‘sudden blaze of song.’ The choir of heaven itself
sang the ‘Gloria in Excelsis’; Mary chanted the ‘Magnificat’;
Zacharias, the ‘Benedictus’; whilst Simeon’s swan-song, the ‘Nunc
Dimittis,’ closed the rich though scanty hymnody of that great
transition time.

The apostolic Church had no David. The Epistles preserve for us some
few lines of early Christian hymns; but it was left to later times to
give its sublimest songs to the Christian choir. Yet, if for a moment
we think of what might have been, surely St. Paul could have written
battle-songs grand as Luther’s; St. Luke, an earlier _Christian Year_;
and St. Peter might have sung with the simple pathos of John Newton.
But though other gifts were theirs in abundance, the gift of song was
not bestowed upon them; and since the apostolic Church had no poet,
the New Testament has no Psalter. Nor, indeed, does it need one; for
God’s great poem, His sublimest work, is the Man Christ Jesus.

  And so the Word had breath, and wrought
    With human hands the creed of creeds
    In loveliness of perfect deeds
  More strong than all poetic thought.

But though the primitive Church had no great hymn-book, it had its
ephemeral ‘songs and solos,’ its minor poets who helped many an
earnest worshipper to draw nigh to God with the voice of a psalm.
Indeed, there is some reason to think that the Corinthian Church
suffered from too great a number of would-be poets, for there ‘every
one’ had ‘a psalm,’ and St. Paul would obviously have liked to issue,
as John Wesley actually did, a rule against the giving out of hymns of
the preacher’s own composing.

The fragments that remain of the hymns of the apostolic age are few
and uncertain. The most distinctly rhythmic is the short creed, which
may have been said or sung, found in 1 Tim. iii. 16—

  Ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί,
  ἐδικαιώθη ἐν πνεύµατι,
          ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις,
  ἐκηρυχθη ἐν ἔθνεσιν,
  ἐπιστεύθη ἐν κόσµῳ,
          ἀνελήµφθη ἐν δόξῃ.

  Manifested in the flesh,
  Justified in the spirit,
      Seen of angels,
  Preached among the nations,
  Believed on in the world,
      Received up in glory.

In Eph. v. 14 there are three lines which may have been taken from an
ancient baptismal hymn.

  Ἔγειρε, ὁ καθεύδων,
  καὶ ἀνάστα ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν
    καὶ ἐπιφαύσει σοι ὁ Χριστός.

  Up! O sleeper,
  And arise from the dead,
    And Christ shall shine on thee!

Westcott and Hort print in metrical form not only these passages, but
St. Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, which thus takes its place
among the earliest Christian hymns.

    Πάτερ ἡµῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς·
  Ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνοµά σου,
  ἐλθάτω ἡ βασιλεία σου,
  γενηθήτω τὸ θέληµά σου,
    ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς·
  Τὸν ἄρτὸν ἡµῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον
    δὸς ἡµῖν σήµερον·
  καὶ ἄφες ἡµῖν τὰ ὀφειλήµατα ἡµῶν,
    ὡς καὶ ἡµεῖς ἀφήκαµεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡµῶν·
  καὶ µὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡµᾶς εἰς πειρασµόν,
    ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡµᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ.[43]

    Our Father which art in heaven;
  Hallowed Thy name,
  Come Thy kingdom,
  Be done Thy will
    Alike in heaven and on earth;
  The bread we need
    Give us to-day;
  And forgive us our debts,
    As we forgive our debtors;
  And lead us not into temptation,
    But deliver us from evil.

It is very possible that the metrical structure of St. Matthew’s
version may to some extent explain its variations from St. Luke.

‘The hymns of the Apocalypse show, strange to say, no metrical
arrangement of diction,’[44] but their influence upon Christian song
has been great. Thus the New Testament makes a most important, though
chiefly indirect, contribution to the hymnal of the Church.


St. Paul’s division of religious poetry into ‘psalms, hymns, and
spiritual songs’ indicates the character and variety of the songs of
the apostolic Church, but gives little information concerning its
hymnals. We may assume, however, that whilst the Hebrew Psalter formed
the first and greatest section of the songs of the Church, there were
also a number of recognized ‘hymns’ and ‘odes,’ to which additions
might at any time be made. By the law of spiritual selection these
ancient hymns have passed out of the literature of the Church; they
perished in the using, and having served their own generation
according to the will of God fell on sleep.

The Church universal is indebted to the liturgical Churches for the
inclusion in their Books of Common Prayer of the psalms which heralded
the dawn of the day of the Son of Man. It is surely a narrow and
superficial notion of divine worship which would exclude such
canticles from our services as archaic or artificial.

How beautiful, for example, is the ‘Nunc Dimittis’ whether sung daily
at eventide, or when the day of life is ended and the Lord now letteth
His servant depart in peace! It is in Christian usage what the
sounding of ‘The Last Post’ is to the British soldier, marking the
close of the common day or sounding the last farewell to a comrade
whose warfare is accomplished. A petty and prosaic criticism may
regard as unreal such adaptations of ancient hymns, though consecrated
by many centuries’ use, but there is as legitimate a poet’s licence in
devotion as in literature.

The Old and New Testament alike, though the former more directly than
the latter, gave to hymns a place in the worship of God. But the new
wine of the gospel, which burst the wine-skins of out-worn ritual,
could not be contained even in the golden chalice of the Psalter or
the canticles written on its models.

Distinctively Christian hymns which, as we have seen, are occasionally
quoted in the Epistles, and are referred to as a recognized part of
public and social worship, date from the earliest times. The famous
letter of the younger Pliny to Trajan tells how those who were
terrified into the denial of their Lord, confessed no worse crime than
that of meeting on an appointed day before the dawn to sing antiphonal
hymns to Christ as to a god.[45] Judaism had its Messianic psalms, but
the hymns which give praise to Christ as

  God made Man for man to die

are the glory of the new dispensation. The early defenders of catholic
doctrine appealed without hesitation to the fact that ‘whatever psalms
and hymns were written by the brethren from the beginning, celebrate
Christ the Word of God by asserting His divinity.’[46]

Orthodox and heretic alike—perhaps the heretic especially—sought to
win acceptance for his teaching, to fix it in the memory of the
congregation by setting it to music. The famous heretic Arius (d. 336)
disseminated his doctrine in hymns which are said to have been written
in metres associated with the most licentious songs. They were
answered by the orthodox hymns of Ambrose. Later heretics, like
Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea (d. 390), followed his example; whilst
St. Augustine himself wrote an acrostic hymn or psalm against Donatist
error. But it was in the beginning as it is in our own day, a man’s
doctrinal aberrations were forgotten, at least for the moment, if he
could write good hymns. So Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, writing
against Nepos, ‘a bishop in Egypt,’ protests that he ‘greatly loves’
Nepos for his skill in psalmody, ‘by which many are still
delighted.’[47]

In an often quoted passage in the _Confessions_, St. Augustine tells
how he was affected to tears by the singing of ‘hymns and canticles,’
and records the introduction at Milan of antiphonal singing ‘according
to the custom of the Eastern regions,’[48] whilst the people watched
in the church ready, if need were, to die with their beloved bishop,
St. Ambrose.

Ambrose of Milan and Hilary of Poictiers divide the glory of
introducing the singing of hymns into the Church of the West. Hilary
compiled a hymn-book—_Liber Hymnorum_—which is only known to us by a
few hymns more or less doubtfully ascribed to him. Ambrose is the
first great Latin hymn-writer who still lives in the songs of the
sanctuary. His hymns are unrhymed, and, as Trench says, of ‘almost
austere simplicity.’

  It is as though, building an altar to the living God, he would
  observe the Levitical precept, and rear it of unhewn stones, upon
  which no tool had been lifted. The great objects of faith in their
  simplest expression are felt by him so sufficient to stir all the
  deepest affections of the heart, that any attempt to dress them up,
  to array them in moving language, were merely superfluous. The
  passion is there, but it is latent and represt, a fire burning
  inwardly, the glow of an austere enthusiasm, which reveals itself
  indeed, but not to every careless beholder. Nor do we presently fail
  to observe how truly these poems belonged to their time and to the
  circumstances under which they were produced—how suitably the faith
  which was in actual conflict with and was just triumphing over, the
  powers of this world, found its utterance in hymns such as these,
  wherein is no softness, perhaps little tenderness; but a rock-like
  firmness, the old Roman stoicism transmuted and glorified into that
  nobler Christian courage, which encountered and at length overcame
  the world.[49]

To St. Ambrose many of the earlier Latin hymns are attributed, and the
‘Te Deum’ is known in the Breviaries as ‘The Song of St. Ambrose and
St. Austin,’ according to the tradition that it was composed and sung
by them in alternate verses when the latter was baptized at Milan.

The familiar English translation is by an unknown hand. Grand as it
is, there are some verses in which a more literal rendering would have
been still grander. As the Latin text may not be known by some
readers, I give what may be called the received text—

  Te Deum laudamus Te Dominum confitemur
  Te aeternum Patrem omnis terra veneratur
  Tibi omnes Angeli Tibi coeli et universae potestates
  Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim incessabili voce proclamant
  Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth
  Pleni sunt coeli et terra majestatis gloriae Tuae
  Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus
  Te Prophetarum laudabilis numerus
  Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus
  Te per orbem terrarum sancta confitetur Ecclesia
  Patrem immensae majestatis
  Venerandum Tuum verum et unicum Filium
  Sanctum quoque Paracletum Spiritum
  Tu Rex gloriae Christe
  Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius
  Tu ad liberandum suscepisti hominem non horruisti Virginis uterum
  Tu devicto mortis aculeo aperuisti credentibus regna coelorum
  Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes in gloria Patris
  Judex crederis esse venturus
  Te ergo quaesumus Tuis famulis subveni quos pretioso sanguine
              redemisti
  Aeterna fac cum Sanctis Tuis gloria numerari[50]
  Salvum fac populum Tuum Domine et benedic haereditati Tuae
  Et rege eos et extolle illos usque in aeternum
  Per singulos dies benedicimus Te
  Et laudamus nomen Tuum in saeculum et in saeculum saeculi
  Dignare Domine die isto sine peccato nos custodire
  Miserere nostri Domine miserere nostri
  Fiat misericordia Tua Domine super nos quemadmodum speravimus in Te
  In Te Domine speravi non confundar in aeternum.

In the Prayer-book version we miss the apostles’ ‘glorious choir,’ the
martyrs’ ‘white-robed’ army; and the close would, I think, have been
even more impressive as well as more literal had the last lines read—

  O Lord, let Thy mercy be showed upon us, even as we have hoped in
              Thee.
  O Lord, in Thee have I hoped; let me not be ashamed for ever.[51]

In the primitive days, before the rise of the mediæval Papacy, before
the time of Breviary and Mass-book, the singing of hymns was well
established alike in the East and West. In almost every language in
which the gospel was preached, hymns were written, and were used not
only to aid the devotion of the devout worshipper in the services of
the Church, but to arrest and teach the careless wayfarer. Thus Bishop
Aldhelm of Sherborne ‘would sit on the bridge, as the people came out
from Mass to loiter gossiping on their way home, and sing them sacred
lays, teaching them their faith, as it were, in chance verses, and
enlisting in God’s service the national love of music and song. It was
Alfred, himself a singer, who preserved this tale.’[52]

In later days, when the Romish worship had become more elaborate and
formal, it is chiefly in the Breviaries that we find the hymns of the
Church, in Latin, of course, and as little understanded of the people
as the rest of the service. A large number of these hymns are in
existence, and whilst many are disfigured by the idolatrous and often
coarse adoration offered to the Virgin Mary and the saints, and others
dwell with dreadful particularity upon the details of the Passion,
many give worthy and sincere expression to the profoundest experiences
of the devout soul. Some of the best and sweetest of these songs,
which are often reckoned amongst ‘ancient’ hymns, belong to the
degenerate days of the Papacy. They are not only intrinsically
precious, but are gracious evidence that the genuine spirit of
devotion was found, and the voice of praise and prayer and penitence
heard, in quiet places and pure hearts, even in a time of general
apostasy. Any detailed reference to pre-Reformation hymns would be
outside the limits of this lecture, but the translations of Greek and
Latin hymns which are to be found in our modern hymnals will naturally
claim attention at a later stage.

In concluding this brief and necessarily superficial preliminary
sketch, I may refer to a few of the ancient hymns which are probably
little known to the ordinary worshipper.

1. _Syriac._—These are chiefly known to us through the great teacher
and writer, Ephraem Syrus, who died at Edessa in 373. His hymns were
written to counteract the influence of the popular songs of the
heretic Bardesanes, and his son Harmonius. Dr. Bonar, Mrs. Charles,
Mr. Moorsom, and others have translated several of these Syriac hymns;
but they are not likely ever to win such wide acceptance as the Latin
or the Greek hymns, though a few are to be found in modern
collections. Several of the most touching of St. Ephraem’s hymns are
on the death of children, whilst others celebrate the hosannas of the
children at the Triumphal Entry. I give a translation, or ‘imitation,’
by Dr. Bonar of a hymn for the Lord’s Day.


                             SABBATH HYMN

  Glory to the glorious One!
  Good and great our God alone,
  Who this day hath glorified
  First and best of all beside,
  Making it for every clime
  Of all times the sweetest time.

  From the beginning, day of days,
  Set apart for holy praise,
  When He bade the willing earth
  All its hidden stores bring forth,
  When He made the shining heaven,
  Then to man this day was given.

  On this day the Son of God
  Left His three days’ dark abode,
  In the greatness of His might
  Rising to the upper light.
  On this day the Church puts on
  Glory, beauty, robe, and crown.

  On this day of days, the Lord,
  Faithful to His ancient word,
  On His burning chariot borne,
  Shall in majesty return.
  King of kings, He comes in might,
  From His heavenly home of light,

  To His own Jerusalem,
  Old Judea’s brightest gem;
  To the hill of Jebus, see,
  King Messiah, cometh He;
  With His cross to bless and save,
  With His cross to spoil the grave.

  Earth is fleeing, fleeing fast,
  And its beauty fades at last;
  O belovèd, then, awake,
  Bonds of carnal slumber break;
  Wake, belovèd, watch and pray
  While remains one hour of day!

  Death, it cometh; oh beware!
  Judgement cometh; oh prepare!
  Steadfast, steadfast let us stand,
  For the Judge is nigh at hand:
  Steadfast let us rest each night,
  Steadfast wake at morning light.

  Glory, glory, glory be,
  Gracious God and Lord, to Thee!
  To the Father and the Son,
  To the Spirit, Three in One:
  Thus we now Thy mercy praise,
  Thus through everlasting days.

In the new and revised edition of _Church Hymns_, there is a
translation by the Rev. R. M. Moorsom of an anonymous Syriac hymn,
which is one of two placed under the heading, ‘The National Church.’

  His the glory, His the honour,
    High and low, recount His praise;
  Tell it out among the nations,
    How the Christ in ancient days
  Left His home, His Father’s side,
  Sought, and found, and won His Bride.

  In the far-off land He found her,
    And she gave to Him her heart,
  For His love is everlasting,
    That nor life nor death can part;
  There, to win her troth, He died,
  There, for her, was crucified.

  Oh, our King! fulfil Thy promise,
    Bring her where no taint of sin,
  Where no sadness and no blemish,
    Where no stain can enter in;
  Keep her ever at Thy side,
  Bring her home, Thy faithful Bride.

  Perfect then, Thy new creation,
    With the grace that shall endure,
  E’en amid temptation growing
    Still more stately and more pure;
  Till by sorrow sanctified,
  She becomes Thy holy Bride.

  Peace be hers within her temples;
    Strength be hers, her walls to guard;
  May her holiness and beauty
    By no evil thing be marred;
  Through all peril, Saviour, guide
  To Thy heaven Thy crownèd Bride.

2. _Greek._—What is often called the first Christian hymn is found in
the _Paedagogus_, or _Tutor_, of St. Clement of Alexandria (d. _cir._
212). It has been translated into English by many writers. Dean
Plumptre’s version is the best known. At the end of his treatise
Clement ‘burst out into a kind of choral, dithyrambic ode, in
anapæstic metre, the lines very short and abrupt, and the whole being
more exclamatory and fervid than most later hymns.’

  Curb for the stubborn steed,
  Making its will give heed;
  Wing that directest right
  The wild bird’s wandering flight;
  Helm for the ships that keep
  Their pathway o’er the deep;
  Shepherd of sheep that own
  Their Master on the throne,
  Stir up Thy children meek,
  With guileless lips to speak,
  In hymn and song, Thy praise,
  Guide of their infant ways.
  O King of saints, O Lord,
  Mighty all-conquering Word;
  Son of the Highest God,
  Wielding His wisdom’s rod;
  Our stay when cares annoy,
  Giver of endless joy;
  Of all our mortal race,
  Saviour, of boundless grace,
            O Jesus, hear!

  Shepherd and Sower Thou,
  Now helm, and bridle now,
  Wing for the heavenward flight
  Of flock all pure and bright,
  Fisher of men, the blest
  Out of the world’s unrest,
  Out of sin’s troubled sea,
  Taking us, Lord, to Thee;
  Out of the waves of strife,
  With bait of blissful life,
  With choicest fish, good store,
  Drawing Thy nets to shore.
  Lead us, O Shepherd true,
  Thy mystic sheep, we sue,
  Lead us, O holy Lord,
  Who from Thy sons dost ward,
  With all prevailing charm,
  Peril, and curse, and harm;
  O path where Christ hath trod,
  O way that leads to God!
  O Word, abiding aye,
  O endless Light on high,
  Mercy’s fresh-springing flood,
  Worker of all things good,
  O glorious Life of all
  That on their Maker call,
            Christ Jesus, hear!

                              . . . . .

  Our holy tribute this,
  For wisdom, life, and bliss,
  Singing in chorus meet,
  Singing in concert sweet,
            The Almighty’s Son.
  We, heirs of peace unpriced,
  We, who are born in Christ,
  A people pure from stain,
  Praise we our God again,
            Lord of our Peace!

I must add one other hymn, though it has been often translated, and is
found in several modern hymn-books. There is a pretty little version
in Longfellow’s _Golden Legend_, but the best is Keble’s fine
rendering published in the _Lyra Apostolica_. It is a hymn for
eventide, and was sung at ‘The Lighting of the Lamps.’ It has been
sung at vespers in the Greek Church for many centuries, and is still
in daily use.

  Φῶς ἱλαρὸν ἁγίας δόξης ἀθανάτου Πατρός
      οὐρανίου, ἁγίου, µάκαρος,
        Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ,
      ἐλθόντες ἐπὶ τοῦ ἡλίου δύσιν,
      ἰδόντες φῶς ἑσπερινόν,
    ὑµνοῦµεν Πατέρα, καὶ Υἱόν, καὶ Ἅγιον Πνεῦµα Θεοῦ,
  ἄξιος εἶ ’ν πᾶσι καιροῖς ὑµνεῖσθαι φωναῖς ὁσίαις
      Υἱὲ Θεοῦ, ζωὴν ὁ διδούς·
        διὸ ὁ κοσµός σε δοξάζει.

    Hail! gladdening Light of His pure glory poured,
      Who is the immortal Father, heavenly, blest,
    Holiest of Holies—Jesus Christ our Lord!
      Now we are come to the sun’s hour of rest,
        The lights of evening round us shine,
  We hymn the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit divine!
      Worthiest art Thou at all times to be sung
        With undefiled tongue,
      Son of our God, Giver of Life, alone!
  Therefore in all the world, Thy glories, Lord, they own.

3. _Latin._—The following hymn has not only intrinsic value, but
peculiar interest on account of St. Augustine’s reference to it as
having brought to his eyes the kindly relief of tears, as he thought
of his mother laid that day in her grave.

  Then I slept and rose up again, and found my sorrow diminished not a
  little and as I lay lonely on my bed I recalled the truthful verses
  of Thy Ambrose ... and I gave my tears, which I had restrained till
  now, leave to flow as they would.

It is found in the Breviaries as a Saturday vesper hymn, and is a good
example of the hymns of St. Ambrose. It has much of the strength and
simplicity of Ken’s hymns.

  Deus, creator omnium!
  Polique Rector! vestiens
  Diem decoro lumine,
  Noctem soporis gratiâ,

  Artus solutos ut quies
  Reddat laboris usui:
  Mentesque fessas allevet
  Luctusque solvat anxios.

  Grates peracto jam die
  Et noctis exortu preces,
  Voti reos ut adjuves,
  Hymnum canentes solvimus.

  Te cordis ima concinant,
  Te vox canora concrepet,
  Te diligat castus amor,
  Te mens adoret sobria;

  Ut, cum profunda clauserit
  Diem caligo noctium,
  Fides tenebras nesciat,
  Et nox fide reluceat.[53]

  Dormire mentem ne sinas,
  Dormire culpa noverit;
  Castis fides refrigerans
  Somni vaporem temperet.

  Exuta sensu lubrico
  Te cordis alta somnient,
  Nec hostis invidi dolo
  Pavor quietos suscitet.

  Christum rogemus et Patrem,
  Christi Patrisque Spiritum,
  Unum potens per omnia
  Fove precantes Trinitas.[54]

The best English translation is by Mr. J. D. Chambers, late Recorder
of New Sarum. I take it from his beautiful _Psalter; or, Seven Hours
of Prayer of the Church of Sarum_.[55]

  Maker of all things! God Most High!
  Great Ruler of the starry sky!
  Robing the day in beauteous light,
  In sweet repose the quiet night;

  That sleep may our tired limbs restore,
  And fit for toil and use once more;
  May gently soothe the careworn breast,
  And lull our anxious griefs to rest.

  We thank Thee for the day that’s gone,
  We pray Thee now the night comes on:
  O help us sinners as we raise
  To Thee our votive hymn of praise.

  To Thee our hearts their music bring,
  Thee our united voices sing:
  To Thee our pure affections soar,
  Thee may our chastened souls adore.

  So when the deepening shades prevail,
  And night o’er day hath dropped her veil:
  Faith may no wildering darkness know,
  But night with Faith’s own splendour glow.

  O sleepless ever keep the mind!
  Our guilt in lasting slumbers bind;
  Let Faith pure Chastity renew,
  And freshen sleep’s lethargic dew.

  From every wrongful passion free,
  O may our hearts repose in Thee;
  Nor envious fiend with harmful snare,
  Our rest with sinful terrors scare.

  Christ, with the Father ever One!
  Spirit of Father and of Son!
  God over all of mighty sway,
  Shield us, great Trinity, we pray!

I would gladly linger awhile longer among these ancient hymns; but
except as they have passed into our hymnals in the last two centuries,
they hardly belong to my subject.


                              LITERATURE

  The following notes may be useful to some readers:—Daniel’s
  _Thesaurus Hymnologicus_ (Leipsic, 1841-55); Mone’s _Hymni Latini
  Medii Aevi_ (Freiburg, 1853-4-5), Christ’s _Anthologia Graeca
  Carminum Christianorum_; Trench’s _Sacred Latin Poetry_ (1849):
  Duffield’s _Latin Hymns_ (1889); Macdonald’s _Latin Hymns of the
  Wesleyan Methodist Hymn-book_ (1899).

  Neale’s _Mediaeval Hymns_, _Hymns of the Eastern Church_, _&c._;
  Chandler’s _Hymns of the Primitive Church_; William’s _Hymns from
  the Parisian Breviary_ (1839); Chambers’s _Lauda Syon_; Mant’s
  _Ancient Hymns from the Roman Breviary_; Chatfield’s _Songs and
  Hymns of the Greek Christian Poets_; Mrs. Charles’s _Christian Life
  in Song_; Moorsom’s _Renderings of Church Hymns_. See also articles
  in _Dictionary of Hymnology_, on ‘Greek,’ ‘Latin,’ and ‘Syriac,’
  ‘Hymnody,’ ‘Te Deum,’ &c.

  It should be remembered that many of the Breviary hymns are not
  ancient, but belong to the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
  centuries.




                                 III
                          Early Modern Hymns


                         I.—Sixteenth Century

Before the Reformation England was rich in ballads, but had
practically no hymns. Yet there are in that earlier period a few great
names—Cædmon, Aldhelm, Bede, Alfred—which are beginning to appear in
some modern hymnals.[56]

It is usual to date English hymnody from the days of Dr. Watts. Before
his time, however, a considerable number of hymns had been written in
English, a fair proportion of which were of high poetic character, and
not unsuitable for public worship. But the idea of a hymn-book had
hardly entered the mind of the Church. Many longed for ‘godly ballads’
to supplant the vain songs of the Court, the camp, and the street, but
for the most part they longed in vain. We must not, however, overlook
the preparation made during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The English Reformation had no poet, no one who could give the common
people songs such as Luther had provided for the Germans. Myles
Coverdale (1487-1569), Bishop of Exeter, saw how great the need was;
but he could not supply it, though he did his best. His ‘Ghostly
Psalms and Spiritual Songs, drawn out of the Holy Scripture for the
comfort and consolation of such as love to rejoice in God and His
Word,’ is an unsuccessful attempt to render into English some of the
German hymns. He confesses that the verses are ‘rude in song and
rhyme.’ Yet there is not wanting that yearning after God, that quiet
trust in Christ, that turning to Him with hope and penitence and love
which is the note of all Christian psalmody. I quote a few
verses—modernizing the spelling—from what is, I think, his best
effort.

  I call on Thee, Lord Jesu Christ,
  I have none other help but Thee:
  My heart is never set at rest,
  Till Thy sweet word have comforted me.
  And steadfast faith grant me therefore,
  To hold by Thy word evermore.
      Above all thing
      Never resisting
  But to increase in faith more and more.

  Lord, print into my heart and mind
  Thy Holy Spirit with ferventness;
  That I to Thee be not unkind,
  But love Thee without feignedness.
  Let nothing draw my mind from Thee,
  But ever to love Thee earnestly:
      Let not my heart
      Unthankfully depart
  From the right love of Thy mercy.

  Give me Thy grace, Lord, I Thee pray,
  To love mine enemies heartily:
  Howbeit they trouble me alway,
  And for Thy cause do slander me,
  Yet, Jesu Christ, for Thy goodness,
  Fill my heart with forgiveness,
      That while I live
      I may them forgive
  That do offend me more or less.[57]

Coverdale’s hymns prepared the way for more successful efforts in the
same direction. And it is pleasant to remember that the brave old
reformer, who stood by his friend and tutor, Robert Barnes, the
martyr, when he was summoned to appear before Wolsey as a heretic, and
who devoted so many years to the translation of the Holy Scriptures,
was one of the first who desired to make the English folk love godly
hymns.

It is an ancient fashion to disparage Sternhold and Hopkins’s version
of the Psalms, but it was a great advance upon Coverdale, and ‘marks
an era in the history of sacred song.’[58] Sternhold died in 1549, and
Coverdale survived him for twenty years. He was Groom of the Robes to
both Henry VIII and Edward VI. Probably the popularity of Clement
Marot’s[59] French version may have suggested to Sternhold the attempt
to provide the English Court with similar sacred songs instead of the
profane ballads which pleased both French and English courtiers. Henry
had a sincere regard for him, and remembered him in his will. Edward
loved to hear these metrical psalms sung by their author, and caused
them to be ‘sung openly,’ so that others might learn to love them as
he did. Sternhold was a modest man, and did not claim any great merit
for his songs.

  ‘Albeit,’ he says, in his dedication to Edward VI, ‘I cannot give to
  your Majesty great loaves, or bring into the Lord’s barn full
  handfuls ... I am bold to present unto your Majesty a few crumbs
  which I have picked up from under the Lord’s board.’

Part of his version of Ps. xviii. is usually given as the best example
of his work.

  O God, my strength and fortitude,
    Of force I must love Thee.

There are some good verses in Ps. ix., which are of the same type.

  O Lord, with all my heart and mind
    I will give thanks to Thee;
  And speak of all Thy wondrous works
    Unsearchable of me.

  I will be glad and much rejoice
    In Thee, O God, most high;
  And make my songs extol Thy name
    Above the starry sky.

  For evermore in dignity
    The Lord doth rule and reign;
  And in the seat of equity
    True judgement doth maintain.

  With justice He doth keep and guide
    The world and every wight,
  With conscience and with equity
    He yieldeth folk their right.

  He is Protector of the poor,
    What time they be opprest;
  He is in all adversity
    Their refuge and their rest.

  All they that know Thy holy name,
    Therefore do trust in Thee;
  For Thou forsakest not their suit,
    In their necessity.

  But sure the Lord will not forget
    The poor man’s grief and pain;
  The patient people never look
    For help of God in vain.

The Old Version, which bears the name of Sternhold and Hopkins, was
the work of several hands. John Hopkins was the largest contributor.
Of his life little is known. Warton called him not the least of the
British poets of his day, and his versions are generally considered
superior to Sternhold’s. They are no doubt smoother, but I cannot see
that they have more poetry in them. Sometimes his lines are
ridiculously divided, and it is difficult to imagine that at any
period they could have been regarded as tolerable.

It was, however, a psalm of Hopkins’s which comforted John Wesley
after hearing a sermon, of which he disapproved, at Bow, in 1738. ‘God
answered the thoughts of my heart, and took away my fear, in a manner
I did not expect, even by the words of Thomas Sternhold. They were
these (sung immediately after the sermon)’—

  Thy mercy is above all things,
    O God; it doth excel;
  In trust whereof, as in Thy wings,
    The sons of men shall dwell.

  Within Thy house they shall be fed
    With plenty at their will;
  Of all delights they shall be sped,
    And take thereof their fill.

  Because the well of life most pure,
    Doth ever flow from Thee;
  And in Thy light we are most sure,
    Eternal light to see.

  From such as Thee desire to know,
    Let not Thy grace depart;
  Thy righteousness declare and show
    To men of upright heart.

William Whittingham, Calvin’s brother-in-law, and Knox’s successor as
pastor of the English congregation at Geneva, contributed about twelve
psalms, including the cxix., which runs to over 700 lines. In 1563 he
became Dean of Durham, and was excommunicated by the Archbishop of
York (father of George Sandys). He died in 1579, and was buried in the
cathedral in which he is said to have destroyed the image of St.
Cuthbert and other ancient monuments which were obnoxious to his
Puritan taste. Other writers were John Pullain, another Genevan exile;
Robert Wisdome, who was frightened into a recantation of his ‘errors’
by Bishop Bonner, but shortly after recanted again; Thomas Norton, who
wrote the version of Ps. cxlvii., beginning—

  Praise ye the Lord, for it is good
    Unto our God to sing;
  For it is pleasant, and to praise
    It is a comely thing.

William Kethe, author of ‘All people that on earth do dwell;’ John
Marckant, and John Craig.[60] John Marckant, vicar in 1559 of Great
Clacton, and of Shopland 1563-8, was the author of four psalms in the
Old Version. But he is remembered by ‘The Lamentation of a Sinner,’
which is one of the redeeming features of the book. It is known in
modern times almost exclusively in Heber’s revision. The original is
admirable in its pathos and simplicity.


                     THE LAMENTATION OF A SINNER

  O Lord, turn not Thy face away
    From him that lies prostrate,
  Lamenting sore his sinful life,
    Before Thy mercy-gate.
  Which gate Thou openest wide to those
    That do lament their sin,
  Shut not that gate against me, Lord,
    But let me enter in.

  And call me not to mine account,
    How I have livèd here;
  For then I know right well, O Lord,
    How vile I shall appear.
  I need not to confess my life,
    I am sure Thou canst tell,
  What I have been, and what I am,
    I know Thou knowest it well.

  O Lord, Thou knowest what things be past,
    And eke the things that be;
  Thou knowest also what is to come,
    Nothing is hid from Thee.
  Before the heavens and earth were made,
    Thou knowest what things were then,
  As all things else that have been since
    Among the sons of men.

  And can the things that I have done,
    Be hidden from Thee then?
  Nay, nay, Thou knowest them all, O Lord,
    Where they were done and when.
  Wherefore with tears I come to Thee,
    To beg and to entreat,
  Even as the child that hath done ill,
    And feareth to be beat.

  So come I to Thy mercy-gate,
    Where mercy doth abound,
  Requiring mercy for my sin,
    To heal my deadly wound.
  O Lord, I need not to repeat,
    What I do beg or crave:
  Thou knowest, O Lord, before I ask,
    The thing that I would have.

  Mercy, good Lord, mercy I ask,
    This is the total sum,
  For mercy, Lord, is all my suit,
    Lord, let Thy mercy come.

With Sternhold and Hopkins began the reign of the metrical Psalter.
The attempt to turn the whole book of Psalms into verse for
congregational use has had a curious fascination. No one has attained
more than very partial success, not even Watts or Keble. In Julian’s
long list of those who have essayed to render the Psalms into English
verse, are many names upon which one lingers with interest. Queen
Elizabeth, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Archbishop Parker, Sir Philip Sidney and
his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, Bishop Hall, George Wither,
George Herbert, George Sandys, John Milton, General Fairfax, Richard
Baxter, Joseph Addison, Cotton Mather, Christopher Smart, and great
numbers in more recent times.

Of the multitude of these forgotten psalms the majority, even of the
best, are but literary curiosities, myriads are not even curious, they
are simply dull. A few little-known psalms of these early days I quote
either for their own or their authors’ sake. The following by Queen
Elizabeth is characteristically vigorous in expression. I have
modernized the spelling—


                              PSALM XIV

  Fools, that true faith yet never had,
  Say in their hearts there is no God!
  Filthy they are in their practice,
  Of them not one is godly wise.

  From heaven the Lord on man did look
  To know what ways he undertook;
  All they were vague and went astray,
  Not one He found in the right way.

  In heart and tongue have they deceit,
  Their lips throw forth a poisoned bait;
  Their minds are mad, their mouths are wode,[61]
  And swift they be in shedding blood.

  So blind they are no truth they know,
  No fear of God in them will grow.
  How can that cruel sort be good
  Of God’s dear folk which suck the blood?

  On Him rightly shall they not call,
  Despair will so their hearts appall.
  At all times God is with the just,
  Because they put in Him their trust.

  Who shall therefore from Sion give
  That health which hangeth on our belief.
  When God shall take from His the smart,
  Then will Jacob rejoice in heart.
                      Praise to God![62]

In the sandy desert of the metrical Psalters there are, however, some
wells of living water. Such are the psalms of Sir Philip Sidney and
his sister, and those of George Sandys. The metre, for the most part,
as well as the language, makes them unsuitable for use in the
congregation; but I think many readers will be glad to see the
following verses. The verses from Ps. xix. are by Sir Philip, and the
version of Ps. xciii. is by the Countess of Pembroke.


                              PSALM XIX

  The heavenly frame sets forth the fame
    Of Him that only thunders;
  The firmament, so strangely bent,
    Shows His hand working wonders.

  Day unto day doth it display,
    Their course doth it acknowledge:
  And night to night succeeding right
    In darkness teach clear knowledge.

  There is no speech, nor language, which
    Is so of skill bereavèd,
  But of the skies the teaching cries
    They have heard and conceivèd.

  There he no eyne, but read the line
    From so fair book proceeding;
  Their words be set in letters great
    For everybody’s reading.


                             PSALM XCIII

  Clothed with state and girt with might,
    Monarch-like Jehovah reigns:
  He who earth’s foundation pight,[63]
    Pight at first, and yet sustains:
    He whose stable throne disdains
  Motion’s shock, and ages’ flight:
    He who endless One remains,
  One the same in changeless plight.

  Rivers, yea, though rivers roar,
    Roaring though sea-billows rise;
  Vex the deep, and break the shore,
    Stronger art Thou, Lord of skies.
    Firm and true Thy promise lies
  Now and still as heretofore:
    Holy worship never dies
  In Thy house where we adore.

George Sandys (1577-1643) was a true poet. Dryden called him ‘the best
versifier of the former age,’ and Richard Baxter said, ‘I must confess
after all that, next the Scripture poems, there are none so savoury to
me as Mr. George Herbert’s and Mr. George Sandys’s.’ Charles the First
comforted himself with Sandys’s psalms during his imprisonment at
Carisbrooke.

He is even yet little known to our hymn-books, though a few of his
psalms make, with a little adaptation, good hymns. The _Methodist
Hymn-book_ contains two—

  Thou who art enthroned above[64] (Ps. xcii.).

  Ye who dwell above the skies (Ps. cxlviii.).

His version of Ps. lxvi. also has some good lines. It begins—

  Happy sons of Israel,
  Who in pleasant Canaan dwell:
  Fill the air with shouts of joy,
  Shouts redoubled from the sky.
  Sing the great Jehovah’s praise,
  Trophies to His glory raise.

These quotations must suffice for the psalms of the period between the
Old and New Versions. Those who are interested in this not very
attractive literature will find specimens of the principal British and
American writers in Holland’s _Psalmists of Britain_ (1843), and
Glass’s _Story of the Psalters_ (1888). When one looks at the two
authorized metrical versions, and the many attempts made to supplant
them, it is difficult to understand how the Church could so long have
clung to the metrical Psalter, and could be so slow to use a
hymn-book. Keble says of his own version—‘It was undertaken, in the
first instance, with a serious apprehension, which has since grown
into a full conviction, that the thing attempted is, strictly
speaking, _impossible_.’ Yet scores have made the same fruitless
effort since Keble failed.

Apart from the psalm-versions there are few hymns of the sixteenth
century. George Gascoigne (d. 1577), a lawyer, poet, and courtier of
Elizabeth’s day, and a descendant of Sir William Gascoigne, the judge
who committed Henry V, when Prince of Wales, to prison, wrote a poem
entitled ‘Good Morrow,’ from which a good hymn has been made, which is
in many of the better school hymnals.

  You that have spent the silent night
    In sleep and quiet rest,
  And joy to see the cheerful light
    That riseth in the East;
  Now clear your voice, now cheer your heart,
    Come help me now to sing;
  Each willing wight come bear a part,
    To praise the heavenly King.

  Yet as this deadly night did last
    But for a little space,
  And heavenly day, now night is past,
    Doth show his pleasant face:
  So must we hope to see God’s face
    At last in heaven on high,
  When we have changed this mortal place
    For Immortality.

  Unto which joys for to attain,
    God grant us all His grace,
  And send us, after worldly pain,
    In heaven to have a place:
  Where we may still enjoy that light,
    Which never shall decay:
  Lord, for Thy mercy lend us might
    To see that joyful day.[65]

Thomas Campion (1567-1619), a doctor of medicine, wrote some lovely
hymns, ‘admirable for their union of melodious simplicity, beauty, and
strong common sense.’[66] Josiah Conder included one in the section
for Private Worship of the Congregational hymn-book, 1836.[67]

  Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore,
  Never tired pilgrim’s limbs affected slumber more,
  Than my wearied sprite now longs to fly out of my troubled breast.
  O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest!

  Ever blooming are the joys of heaven’s high Paradise,
  Cold age deafs not there our ears nor vapour dims our eyes:
  Glory there the sun outshines, whose beams the Blessed only see.
  O come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my sprite to Thee!

Here is another of Campion’s hymns.

  View me, Lord, a work of Thine!
    Shall I then lie drowned in night?
  Might Thy grace in me but shine,
    I should seem made all of light.

  Cleanse me, Lord, that I may kneel
    At Thine altar, pure and white:
  They that once Thy mercies feel,
    Gaze no more on earth’s delight.

  Worldly joys, like shadows, fade,
    When the heavenly light appears:
  But the covenants Thou hast made,
    Endless, know nor days nor years.

  In Thy Word, Lord, is my trust,
    To Thy mercies fast I fly;
  Though I am but clay and dust,
    Yet Thy grace can lift me high.

Campion is not mentioned in the _Dictionary of Hymnology_, but he
deserves a place there.

One other hymn must be mentioned, ‘Jerusalem, my happy home.’ It is
found in a MS. preserved in the British Museum, with the title ‘A Song
Mad, by F. B. P. To the tune of Diana.’ Who the author was no one
knows, but internal evidence indicates that he was a devout Roman
Catholic. In the _Arundel Hymns_ it is attributed to Father Laurence
Anderton, _alias_ John Beverley, S.J. The MS. has twenty-six verses,
of which nineteen were printed in London in 1601. The hymn is probably
based upon a passage in the _Meditations of St. Augustine_. The
popular modern hymn, ‘Jerusalem, my happy home,’ which is now believed
to have been written by Joseph Bromehead, Vicar of Eckington, near
Sheffield, was no doubt suggested by this hymn, or one of the various
versions of it, but has little verbal agreement except in the first
and last verses. I give a portion of the original poem.

  Hierusalem, my happie home,
    When shall I come to thee,
  When shall my sorrowes haue an end,
    Thy ioyes when shall I see.

  O happie harbour of the saints,
    O sweete and pleasant soyle,
  In thee noe sorrow may be founde,
    Noe greefe, noe care, noe toyle.

  Hierusalem, Hierusalem,
    God grant I once may see
  Thy endless ioyes, and of the same
    Partaker aye to bee.

  Thy wales are made of precious stones,
    Thy bulwarkes diamondes square,
  Thy gates are of right orient pearle,
    Exceeding riche and rare.

  Thy terrettes and thy pinnacles
    With carbuncles doe shine,
  Thy verie streetes are paued with gould,
    Surpassinge cleare and fine.

  Thy houses are of ivorie,
    Thy windoes cristale cleare,
  Thy tyles are mad of beaten gould,
    O God that I were there.

  There David standes with harpe in hand,
    As maister of the queere,
  Tenne thousand times that man were blest
  That might this musicke hear.

  Our Ladie singes magnificat
    With tune surpassinge sweete,
  And all the virgins beare their parts
    Sitinge aboue her feete.

  Te Deum doth Sant Ambrose singe,
    Sant Augustine dothe the like;
  Ould Simeon and Zacharie
    Haue not their songes to seeke.

  There Magdalene hath left her mone,
    And cheerefullie doth singe,
  With blessed Saints whose harmonie
    In everie streete doth ringe.

  Hierusalem, my happie home,
    Would God I were in thee,
  Would God my woes were at an end,
    Thy ioyes that I might see.

                         Finis.    Finis.[68]




                                 III
                          Early Modern Hymns


                       II.—Seventeenth Century

When the seventeenth century opened there were, as we have seen,
hardly any English hymns except such as may be taken from metrical
versions of the Psalms. With the new century a new era begins; and
though we are not yet in what George Macdonald calls ‘the zone of
hymn-writing,’ we are soon able to gather the materials of a hymn-book
of the modern type. It would be quite possible to compile a very good
hymnal from writers who preceded Dr. Watts, if a wise editorial
discretion were exercised in the omission of unsuitable verses and the
revision of phrases offensive to modern taste.

Amongst the hymn-writers of the seventeenth century one name is
pre-eminent—Thomas Ken (1637-1711), Bishop of Bath and Wells. His fame
rests upon his three great hymns—Morning, Evening, and Midnight—for
little else in his voluminous poetical works is suited to the worship
of the sanctuary. In all the Christian choir there is no worthier name
than that of Thomas Ken, whom neither fear nor flattery could move
from the strait path of duty. He lived in the spirit of his own lines—

  Let all thy converse be sincere,
  Thy conscience as the noonday clear;
  Think how all-seeing God thy ways,
  And all thy secret thoughts surveys.

He spent his earlier years of ministry in quiet places, amongst those
who honoured and loved him, but later had some curious experiences as
Lord Dartmouth’s chaplain at Tangier, where he testified with his
accustomed resolution against evil-doers and evil-speakers, coming, as
Samuel Pepys records, into collision with the afterwards infamous
Colonel Kirke, because he preached against ‘the excessive liberty of
swearing which we observe here.’

Amongst all the heroes of his day there was none with a more serene
courage than ‘little Ken,’ who would not receive Charles’s mistress at
his house—‘No, not for his kingdom’—and thus won his bishopric in as
unlikely and as creditable a fashion as ever bishopric was earned.
After that one is not surprised to find him, as one of the seven
bishops, saying to James II, ‘We have two duties to perform, our duty
to God and our duty to your Majesty. We honour you, but we fear God.’
Nor need we wonder that, notwithstanding his resistance of James’s
illegal demands, he could not bring himself to take the oath of
allegiance to William of Orange. Ken always had that infirmity of
noble souls, ‘a weakness for the weaker side.’ As Dean Plumptre well
says, ‘If he was in doubt it was safer, in quite another sense than
that in which others counted safety, to take the losing and not the
winning side.’

Ken was deprived in 1791, and the bishopric was offered to Beveridge,
then Archdeacon of Colchestor. Had Ken been translated to heaven, or
to Canterbury, Beveridge would have accepted the preferment with
delight, for he had no nonjuring scruples and wished to be a bishop.
But he too was a saint, and not unworthy to be Ken’s successor; so he
would not take the place from which Ken had been thrust out, and
waited thirteen years for ‘preferment,’ becoming Bishop of St. Asaph
in 1704.

When Ken left the episcopal palace, Lord Weymouth honoured his own
magnificent mansion of Longleat by welcoming Ken to its hospitable
shelter, as Sir Thomas Abney, in widely different circumstances, made
the great Nonconformist hymn-writer his guest twenty-five years later.
Longleat was Ken’s home for twenty years. There he died, after long
and acute suffering, soothed by the writing of hymns, and by the
thought that they would be sung on earth while he praised God in
heaven.

  ’Twill heighten even the joys of heaven to know
  That in my verse the saints hymn God below.[69]

Ken’s hymns, as we now sing them, are selected from the thirty-seven
verses of the originals, which were intended in the first place for
the scholars of his old school—Winchester. As in most other cases, the
popular selection is amply justified. The hymns abbreviated are much
more serviceable alike for public and private devotion than if they
were transferred _in extenso_ to our hymn-books. Like Sternhold,
Herbert, and Watts, Ken was a musician, and loved to accompany himself
on the lute or organ.

The morning hymn, which consists of fourteen verses, falls into three
sections, addressed (1) to the soul, (2) to the angels, (3) to God. In
the evening hymn two verses are addressed to the guardian angel. The
following verses from the morning hymn are not usually found in modern
hymnals—

  Influenced by the Light Divine,
  Let thy own light in good works shine:
  Reflect all Heaven’s propitious ways,
  In ardent love, and cheerful praise.

  Awake, awake,[70] ye heavenly choir,
  May your devotion me inspire,
  That I, like you, my age may spend,
  Like you, may on my God attend.

  May I, like you, in God delight,
  Have all day long my God in sight,
  Perform, like you, my Maker’s will;
  O may I never more do ill!

  Had I your wings, to heaven I’d fly,
  But God shall that defect supply,
  And my soul winged with warm desire,
  Shall all day long to heaven aspire.

  I would not wake, nor rise again,
  Even heaven itself I would disdain;
  Wert not Thou there to be enjoyed,
  And I in hymns to be employed.

  Heaven is, dear Lord, where’er Thou art,
  O never then from me depart;
  For to my soul ’tis hell to be
  But for one moment without[71] Thee.

The special charm of Ken’s hymns lies in their simplicity and
suitability. In the plainest words he asks for just what every
Christian feels that he needs, morning and evening, his whole life
through. They are the first great English hymns, and are worthy to
lead the devotions of the Church.

Ken’s influence upon later poets has been great. Charles Wesley,
Keble, and Christopher Wordsworth were, to some extent, inspired by
his hymns on the Festivals, whilst Newman desired to add Ken to the
Calendar of English saints, and actually prepared a service for use on
‘Ken’s day.’[72]

Archbishop Alexander, himself a poet, preaching in Wells Cathedral at
the festival commemorative of the bicentenary of Ken’s consecration,
said—

  Outside the Psalter, no lines have ever been so familiar to English
  Christians as Ken’s Morning and Evening Hymn. Other hymns have been
  more mystical, more impassioned, more imaginative—have perhaps
  contained profounder thoughts in their depth, have certainly
  exhibited richer colouring upon their surface. But none are so
  suitable to the homely pathos and majesty of the English Liturgy;
  none are so adapted to the character which the English Church has
  aimed at forming, the sweet reserve, the quiet thoroughness, the
  penitence which is continuous without being unhopeful. They are
  lines which the child may repeat without the painful sense that they
  are beyond him, and the man without the contemptuous sense that they
  are below him. They appeal to the man in the child, and the child in
  the man. They are at once a form of devotion, a rule of life, a
  breath of prayer, a sigh of aspiration. They are the utterances of a
  heart which had no contempt for earth, but which is at home among
  the angels. When we listen to them, or repeat them with congenial
  spirit, in whatever climate we may be, the roses of the English dawn
  and the gold of the English sunset are in our sky.[73]

Montgomery wrote of Ken’s three hymns that, ‘had he endowed three
hospitals, he might have been less a benefactor to posterity.’[74] The
importance of his hymns as setting a standard of simplicity and
directness can hardly be overstated. Yet it is curious how slowly they
won general acceptance. They were not printed in the supplement to the
Book of Common Prayer till 1801, and though John Wesley included them
in his _Psalms and Hymns_, 1738, he omitted them from his later
publications and from his hymn-book. Dean Plumptre, however, says that
both the hymns had appeared in some of the earlier collections of
hymns for congregational use by English clergymen between 1750 and
1760. The three hymns are given in the _Moravian Hymn-book_ of 1754.

After Ken the seventeenth century had no sweeter hymn-writer than John
Austin (1613-69), who left St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1640, on
becoming a Romanist. He wrote two volumes of _Devotions in the Ancient
Way of Offices_. These were ‘a family piece among Catholics,’ and were
much used by devout Protestants. The nonjuring Bishop Hickes edited
them for Protestant use, and John Wesley included seven of the hymns
in his Charlestown hymn-book—a larger number than by any other author
except Watts. Austin did not complete his work. ‘Death, for which he
had fitted his soul by a well-spent life, interrupted his labours....
When he perceived death immediately seizing its prey, he gave up the
ghost with these remarkable words: ... “Now, heartily for heaven,
through Jesus Christ!”’[75]

Austin’s hymns are used chiefly outside his own communion,[76] though
Romanism has no English hymn-writer to compare with him till the time
of Faber. In the _Arundel Hymns_ his verses are attributed to W.
Austin (a Protestant contemporary). The following hymn illustrates the
similarity of Austin and Faber’s writing. Few readers would guess that
one of these four verses was written two centuries after the others.


                          FROM DEATH TO LIFE

  Jesu! all hail. Who for my sin
  Didst die, and by that death didst win
      Eternal life for me;
  Send me Thy grace, good Lord! that I
  Unto the world and flesh may die,
      And hide my life with Thee.

  Jesu! who on that fatal wood
  Poured forth Thy life’s last drop of blood,
      Nailed to a shameful cross;
  O may we bless Thy love, and be
  Ready, dear Lord, to bear for Thee
      All grief, all pain, all loss.

  Jesu! who by Thine own love slain,
  By Thine own power took’st life again,
      And from the grave didst rise;
  O may Thy death our souls revive,
  And at our death a new life give,
      The life that never dies.

  Jesu! who to Thy heaven again
  Returned in triumph, there to reign
      Of men and angels King;
  O may our parting souls take flight
  Up to that land of joy and light,
      And there for ever sing.[77]

In this hymn the first verse is from Faber’s series on ‘The Life of
our Lord,’[78] and the rest from Austin’s ‘Vespers for our Blessed
Saviour.’ Wesley’s selection from the same hymn began with the verse—

  Jesu! behold three kings from far,
  Led to Thy cradle by a star,
      Bring gifts to Thee their King:
  O guide us by Thy light, that we
  May find Thy favour and to Thee
      Ourselves for tribute bring.[79]

Of another hymn which Faber might have written, I give the first two
verses—

  Sweet Jesu! why, why dost Thou love
    Such worthless things as we?
  Why is Thy heart still towards us
    Who seldom think on Thee?

  Thy bounty gives us all we have,
    And we Thy gifts abuse:
  Thy bounty gives us even Thyself,
    And we Thyself refuse.

Austin’s best hymns, however, are, I think, one for Monday morning,
which Wesley entitled ‘Universal Praise,’ and the evening hymn, of
which some verses will be familiar to most readers.


                               MORNING

  Hark, my soul! how every thing
  Strives to serve our bounteous King:
  Each a double tribute pays;
  Sings its part, and then obeys.

  Nature’s chief and sweetest choir
  Him with cheerful notes admire;
  Chanting every day their lauds,[80]
  While the grove their song applauds.

  Though their voices lower be,
  Streams have too their melody;
  Night and day their warbling run:
  Never pause, but still sing on.

  All the flowers that gild the spring,
  Hither their still music bring:
  If Heaven bless them, thankful they,
  Smell more sweet, and look more gay.

  Only we can scarce afford,
  This short office to our Lord:
  We, on whom His bounty flows,
  All things gives, and nothing owes.

  Wake! for shame my sluggish heart;
  Wake! and gladly sing thy part:
  Learn of birds, and springs, and flowers,
  How to use thy nobler powers.

  Call whole nature to thy aid,
  Since ’twas He whole nature made:
  Join in one eternal song,
  Who to one God all belong.

  Live for ever, glorious Lord!
  Live by all Thy works adored:
  One in Three, and Three in One,
  Thrice we bow to Thee alone.


                               EVENING

    Lord! now the time returns,
    For weary man to rest,
  And lay aside those pains and cares
    With which our day’s opprest.

    Or, rather, change our thoughts
    To more concerning cares;
  How to redeem our misspent time,
    With sighs, and tears, and prayers.

    How to provide for heaven,
    That place of rest and peace,
  Where our full joys shall never fade,
    Our pleasures never cease.

    Blest be Thy love, dear Lord!
    That taught us this sweet way,
  Only to love Thee for Thyself,
    And for that love obey.

    O Thou, our soul’s chief hope!
    We to Thy mercy fly,
  Where’er we are, Thou canst protect;
    Whate’er we need, supply.

    Whether we sleep or wake,
    To Thee we both resign;
  By night we see as well as day,
    If Thy light on us shine.

    Whether we live or die,
    Both we submit to Thee:
  In death we live as well as life,
    If Thine in death we be.

William Austin (d. 1633) had not the devotional fervour of his younger
namesake (he does not seem to have been a relative, though both were
of Lincoln’s Inn), but he is among the noteworthy hymn-writers of a
time when hymns were few. As his poems are little known, I give a
charming little hymn and two verses of a bright Christmas carol—

  What a gracious God have we,
  In His gifts of grace how free!
  How intent our prayers to hear,
  And to them that pray how near.

  How to balmy mercy prone,
  And to kind compassion.
  How regardfully He wakes,
  For His chosen servants’ sakes.

  How He gives them grace to pray,
  And then to their suits gives way.
  How He prompts each good desire,
  And blows up that spark to fire.

  He hath set no greater task,
  To obtain of Him but ‘Ask!’
  No exacter search to find,
  But to seek with humble mind.

  No more pains heaven to unlock,
  But with spotless hands to knock.
  Yet He joys to see man press Him,
  And to wrestle till He bless him![81]

                              . . . . .

  All this night bright angels sing;
  Never was such carolling.
  Hark! a voice which loudly cries,
  ‘Mortals, mortals, wake and rise;
      Lo! to gladness,
      Turns your sadness;
  From the earth is risen a Sun,
  Shines all night, though day be done.’

  Hail, O Sun! O blessèd Light,
  Sent into this world by night;
  Let Thy rays and heavenly powers
  Shine in these dark souls of ours;
      For, most duly,
      Thou art truly
  God and Man, we do confess;
  Hail, O Sun of Righteousness![82]

George Wither (1588-1667), lawyer, soldier, poet, Cavalier, Roundhead,
Puritan, Anglican, was a writer of many hymns. He finds a secluded
corner in a few modern hymnals; but had there been what we call
hymn-books in his day, he would have been a considerable contributor.
His hymns are more of the Evangelical than the Puritan type. His songs
of the Church form a ‘Christian Year,’ and some of the hymns for
Saints’ days are much more original and poetic than those commonly in
use. Here are three verses for—


                          ST. MATTHEW’S DAY

  For God doth not a whit respect
    Profession, person, or degree;
  But maketh choice of His elect
    From every sort of men that be,
  That none might of His love despair,
  But all men unto Him repair.

  For those, oh let us therefore pray,
    Who seem uncallèd to remain;
  Not shunning them, as cast away,
    God’s favour never to obtain:
  For some awhile neglected are,
  To stir in us more loving care.

  And for ourselves, let us desire,
    That we our avarice may shun;
  When God our service shall require,
    As this Evangelist hath done,
  And spend the remnant of our days
  In setting forth our Maker’s praise.

There is nothing in these simple lines of the exquisite beauty of
Keble’s poem on St. Matthew’s Day, one verse of which would reconcile
the least ecclesiastical of us to the observance of saints’ days—

      There are in this loud stunning tide
        Of human care and crime,
      With whom the melodies abide
        Of the everlasting chime;
      Who carry music in their heart,
      Through dusky lane and wrangling mart;
    Plying their daily task with busier feet,
  Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.

But as a hymn to be sung in church or to be read in the hour of
private devotion, Wither’s lines compare very favourably with those of
Bishop Ken,[83] Bishop Wordsworth, and even Dr. Monsell.

Wither’s hymn for Whit Sunday is a very appropriate ‘devotion’ for
that festival. Here are four of its six verses—

  Exceeding faithful in Thy word,
    And just in all Thy ways,
  We do acknowledge Thee, O Lord,
    And therefore give Thee praise:
  For as Thy promise Thou didst pass,
    Before Thou went’st away,
  Sent down Thy Holy Spirit was,
    At His appointed day.

  Now, also, Blessed Spirit, come,
    Unto our souls appear;
  And of Thy graces shower Thou some
    On this assembly here:
  To us Thy dove-like meekness lend,
    That humble we may be,
  And on Thy silver wings ascend,
    Our Saviour Christ to see.

  O let Thy cloven tongues, we pray,
    So rest on us again,
  That both the truth confess we may
    And teach it other men.
  Moreover, let Thy heavenly fire,
    Inflamèd from above,
  Burn up in us each vain desire,
    And warm our hearts with love.

  Vouchsafe Thou likewise to bestow
    On us Thy sacred peace;
  We stronger may in union grow,
    And in debates decrease;
  Which peace, though many yet contemn,
    Reformèd let them be;
  That we may, Lord, have part in them,
    And they have part in Thee.

Other poems in this series are well worth preserving, though perhaps
few would find favour with the average congregation. For the most part
they run smoothly; the language is that of plain men, and the spirit
of the festival finds happy expression in praise or prayer. His
Communion hymn is intended to be sung during the administration. It is
interesting to find that those who are now adopting this custom are
but reviving an ancient order. ‘We have a custom among us,’ he says,
‘that during the time of administering the blessed Sacrament of the
Lord’s Supper there is some psalm or hymn sung, the better to keep the
thoughts of the communicants from wandering after vain objects.’

But the piece which is most easily adapted to modern use is the poem,
a paraphrase of Ps. cxlvii., which he prefixed to his _Preparation for
the Psalter_. I give the poem as Wither published it. Mr. Horder and
Miss Wood[84] have shown how well it may be adapted to public worship.

  Come, O come! in pious lays
  Sound we God Almighty’s praise;
  Hither bring in one consent,
  Heart, and voice, and instrument.
  Music add of every kind;
  Sound the trump, the cornet wind;
  Strike the viol, touch the lute;
  Let no tongue nor string be mute;
    Nor a creature dumb be found,
    That hath either voice or sound.

  Come, ye sons of human race,
  In this chorus take a place;
  And amid the mortal throng,
  Be you masters of the song.
  Angels, and supernal powers,
  Be the noblest tenor yours;
  Let in praise of God the sound
  Run a never-ending round;
    That our song of praise may be
    Everlasting as is He.

  From earth’s vast and hollow womb,
  Music’s deepest bass may come;
  Seas and floods, from shore to shore,
  Shall their countertenors roar,
  To this concert, when we sing,
  Whistling winds your descants bring;
  That our song may over-climb
  All the bounds of place and time,
    And ascend from sphere to sphere,
    To the great Almighty’s ear.

  So, from heaven, on earth He shall
  Let His gracious blessings fall:
  And this huge wide orb we see,
  Shall one choir, one temple be;
  Where, in such a praise-full tone
  We will sing what He hath done,
  That the cursèd fiends below
  Shall thereat impatient grow.
    Then, O come! in pious lays
    Sound we God Almighty’s praise.

Wither has been slow in winning his place among our sacred poets. He
was a man of war from his youth, had a perilous gift of sarcasm, and
lacked the caution and good sense which were so much needed in his
troublous times. He was boycotted by the booksellers, satirized by
Butler in _Hudibras_, by Pope, Dryden, and Swift, and seemed likely to
be forgotten, save as the butt of a former age. But Southey, Charles
Lamb, Montgomery, Edward Farr, George Macdonald, F. T. Palgrave, Dr.
Grosart, among others have recognized his merits. He was a devout man
and courageous, for he not only fought on both sides in the Civil War,
but with rarer bravery chose to remain in London during the Great
Plague, and to render what little help he could to the sufferers in
that awful visitation. The king is said to have spared his life at Sir
John Denham’s good-naturedly contemptuous entreaty that he (Denham)
might not be ‘the worst poet in England’; his contemporaries thought
the prison cell a fit cage for the poet, but somehow he joined the
lark, and sang at heaven’s gate.[85]

Samuel Crossman, who died in 1683, within a few weeks of his
appointment to the Deanery of Bristol, makes up in quality what he
lacks in quantity. Of his nine hymns—published in 1660—two or three
have won an assured place in the hymn-book of the Church.

  My life’s a shade, my days
    Apace to death decline.

and

  Sweet place, sweet place alone
    The home of God most high.

They are in a minor key, but they speak to the heart of the Christian
pilgrim who seeks another country—his true fatherland. His other hymns
are seldom met with. I quote one, omitting a verse.


                               THE GIFT

           ‘If thou knewest the gift of God’ (John iv. 10).

  This is the Gift, Thy Gift, O Lord!
    The token of Thy dearest love:
  The orient jewel of Thy Word;
    Sent down my thankfulness to prove.

  Great is his gift in all men’s eyes,
    Who gives himself, his friend to save:
  My Lord does more, for foes He dies,
    This Gift no parallel may have.

  But Lord! whil’st Thou thus gav’st to Thine
    Others arose to vie with Thee:
  The world and Satan did combine,
    And they would needs a giving be.

  Satan, sin’s pleasures offerèd,
    And almost forced them upon me:
  But while they bloomed, they witherèd,
    And Lord! Thy Gift my choice shall be.

  Then did the World its gayes present,
    And still alluring cried, See, See!
  Here’s that may rather give content;
    But Lord! Thy Gift my choice shall be.

  These cannot give, they’d steal away
    From me my heaven, my heart from Thee:
  Whate’er they offer, I’ll say nay,
    Still Lord! Thy Gift my choice shall be.

Richard Baxter (1615-91) is to Nonconformity what Ken is to
Anglicanism. He might have been a bishop if he would, but preferred
the rough ways of persecution for conscience’ sake to the pleasant
paths of ecclesiastical preferment. He wrote many hymns, and
attempted, with as little success as others, a metrical version of the
psalms. He is, and will be, known to our hymn-books by the exquisite
verses taken from his long poem on the ‘Covenant and Confidence of
Faith.’ These verses, beginning

  Now it belongs not to my care
    Whether I die or live.

are in almost every hymn-book. Another of his hymns, in a brighter
tone, is in many collections—

  Ye holy angels bright.

The two following are not so well known. They are good in themselves,
and very characteristic of their author.

  As for my friends, they are not lost:
    The several vessels of Thy fleet,
  Though parted now, by tempests tost,
    Shall safely in the haven meet.

  Still we are centred all in Thee;
    Members, though distant, of one Head,
  In the same family we be,
    By the same faith and Spirit led.

  Before the throne we daily meet,
    As joint petitioners to Thee;
  In spirit we each other greet,
    And shall again each other see.

  The heavenly hosts, world without end,
    Shall be my company above;
  And Thou, my best, my surest Friend,
    Who shall divide me from Thy love?

The three following verses are in Miss Wood’s _Hymns for School
Worship_—a very striking selection of hymns suitable for intelligent
young people.

  Lord, though Thy Church in this dark world
    Do but begin and learn Thy praise,
  Accept both it and us through Christ,
    Till it and us Thy glory raise.

  Here trembling sin resists Thy grace;
    Of joy and sorrow we partake:
  Our broken hearts and broken peace
    Can none but broken music make.

  Thy ways to us seem often dark,
    Thou crossest human wit and will:
  We murmur; but Thou dost Thy work;
    That’s wise and good, which we thought ill.

If Austin is the Faber of the seventeenth century, John Mason (d.
1694), whom Baxter called ‘the glory of the Church of England,’ is its
Newton. There is in Mason the same childlike simplicity which is the
charm of the Olney hymns, with an added quaintness which belongs to
the earlier century. He is one of the minor poets of the sanctuary,
but in his own time he was amongst the best of the evangelical
hymn-writers. Mason was born a Dissenter, but entered the Anglican
Church. His friend, Thomas Shepherd (1665-1739), who also wrote some
noteworthy hymns, seceded from the Establishment, and was for a few
years pastor of the church at Nottingham, where Doddridge subsequently
ministered. Of the hymns of these good men, George Macdonald and Mr.
Horder express a high opinion, comparing them favourably with those of
Dr. Watts. Mr. Horder justly says that Mason would have reached a
higher standard had his lot been cast in a ‘hymn-singing age.’

Some of Mason’s verses are too racy for congregational use, e.g. this
from ‘A Song of Praise for Health’—

  Their earnest cries do pierce the skies,
    And shall I silent be?
  Lord, were I sick as I am well,
    Thou shouldst have heard from me.
  The sick have not more cause to pray
    Than I to praise my King;
  Since nature teaches them to groan
    Let grace teach me to sing.

Here is a verse from his ‘Song of Praise for the Birth of Christ’—

  The wakeful shepherds near their flocks
    Were watching for the morn;
  But better news from heaven was brought—
    Your Saviour Christ is born.
  In Bethlehem the Infant lies,
    Within a place obscure;
  O little Bethlehem, poor in walls
    But rich in furniture!

One of his best hymns, perhaps the very best, is


               A GENERAL SONG OF PRAISE TO ALMIGHTY GOD

  How shall I sing that Majesty
    Which angels do admire?
  Let dust in dust and silence lie:
    Sing, sing, ye heavenly choir.
  Thousands of thousands stand around
    Thy throne, O God, most high:
  Ten thousand times ten thousand sound
    Thy praise; but who am I?

  Thy brightness unto them appears,
    Whilst I Thy footsteps trace:
  A sound of God comes to my ears,
    But they behold Thy face:
  They sing because Thou art their Sun,
    Lord, send a beam on me:
  For where heaven is but once begun,
    There Hallelujahs be.

  Enlighten with faith’s light my heart,
    Inflame it with love’s fire,
  Then shall I sing and bear a part
    With that celestial choir.
  I shall, I fear, be dark and cold
    With all my fire and light,
  Yet when Thou dost accept their gold,
    Lord, treasure up my mite.

  How good art Thou whose goodness is
    Our parent, nurse, and guide:
  Whose streams do water Paradise
    And all the earth beside!
  Thine upper and Thy nether springs
    Make both Thy worlds to thrive:
  Under Thy warm and sheltering wings
    Thou keep’st two broods alive.

  Thy arm of might, most Mighty King,
    Both rocks and hearts doth break;
  My God, Thou canst do everything
    But what would shew Thee weak.
  Thou canst not cross Thyself, or be
    Less than Thyself, or poor;
  But whatsoever pleaseth Thee,
    That canst Thou do, and more.

  Who would not fear Thy searching eye,
    Witness to all that’s true?
  Dark hell and deep hypocrisy
    Lie plain before its view.
  Motions and thoughts, before they grow,
    Thy knowledge doth espy;
  What unborn ages are to do
    Is done before Thine eye.

  Thy wisdom which both makes and mends
    We ever much admire;
  Creation all our wit transcends,
    Redemption rises higher.
  Thy wisdom guides strayed sinners home,
    ’Twill make the dead world rise,
  And bring those prisoners to their doom,
    Its paths are mysteries.

Shepherd’s poems were called ‘Penitential Cries,’ and were published
with Mason’s Songs of Praise in 1693. His best-known hymn begins

  Alas, my God, that we should be
    Such strangers to each other!
  O that as friends we might agree,
    And walk, and talk together!

Most of his hymns have vigour and freshness, but there is generally
something which hinders them from becoming hymns of the first class.
The following verses are taken from a hymn entitled, ‘Lamenting the
Loss of First Love,’ and were probably known to Cowper—

  O that my soul was now as fair
    As it has sometimes been,
  Devoid of that distracting care
    Without, and guilt within.

  There was a time when I could tread
    No circle but of love;
  That joyous morning now is fled,
    How heavily I move!

  Unhappy soul, that thou should’st force
    Thy Saviour to depart,
  When He was pleasèd with so coarse
    A lodging in thy heart!

  How sweetly I enjoyed my God!
    With how divine a frame!
  I thought, on every plant I trod
    I read my Saviour’s name.

  O might those days return again,
    How welcome they should be!
  Shall my petition be in vain,
    Since grace is ever free?

  Lord of my soul, return, return,
    To chase away this night;
  Let not Thine anger ever burn;
    God once was my delight.

Other hymn-writers of this period are almost or entirely unknown to
modern hymnals. One or two names may, however, be mentioned. Matthew
Henry wrote a number of ‘family hymns’; Benjamin Keach (1640-1704) not
only wrote hymns by the hundred, but published a defence of
congregational singing under the title—_The Breach repaired in God’s
Worship_.

William Barton may be taken as a fair example of the poorer
hymn-writers of the time. There is little to choose between the best
and the worst of his _Six Centuries of Hymns_. The work was dedicated
to Sir Matthew Hale, who had spoken a good word for the hymns to the
Mayor and Aldermen of Leicester, in which town Barton had been
minister of St. Martin’s Church. Led by Dr. Julian’s statement that
these hymns ‘deserve more attention from compilers than they have
hitherto received,’ I have searched them diligently, but in vain. I am
most impressed that such dull productions could ever have been
popular.

There is, indeed, something very pathetic in the author’s evident
satisfaction with his work and in his son’s pride in his father’s
‘pious and laborious undertaking,’ which he was led to attempt,
‘finding that the ancient usage of our speech in Sternhold and
Hopkins’s translation was become obsoletely contemptuous to many
people of this age.’ This filial editor believed that the hymn-book
‘would sufficiently manifest its excellency in the perusal,’ a belief
which the extensive circulation of its many editions may be taken to
justify. Barton’s first book, his version of the Psalms, was published
in 1644, and the last edition was printed in 1768. During a great part
of that period it was probably the standard psalter of the
Nonconformist congregations. His hymns are usually brief, and he was
careful to use familiar metres, having a special weakness for
‘delicate and expeditious tunes.’ His psalms and hymns owed their long
life to the poverty of rivals, but one cannot be surprised that Enoch
Watts, in urging his brother ‘to oblige the world by showing it your
hymns in print,’ should say that ‘honest Barton chimes us asleep.’

The following verses are a fair specimen—

  My Saviour, my Beloved One,
    Is mine and I am His;
  Chief of ten thousand He alone,
    Pure red and white He is.
  Made sin for us that knew no sin,
    That so we might be made
  The righteousness of God in Him,
    By whom the price was paid.

  Stronger than death His love is found.
    Not to be bought with goods:
  Nor quenched with waters, nor be drowned
    With whatsoever floods.
  O draw me, my dear Saviour,
    With these strong cords of love,
  And then will we go after Thee
    As fast as we can move.[86]

Although the seventeenth century is poor in hymn-writers, we find some
grand and beautiful hymns written by poets and men of letters. There
is, for instance, Sir Thomas Browne’s evening hymn, of which he says,
‘This is the dormitive I take to bedward: I need no other _laudanum_
than this to make me sleep; after which I close mine eyes in security,
content to take my leave of the sun, and sleep unto the
resurrection.’[87]

  The night is come, like to the day;
  Depart not Thou, great God away.
  Let not my sins, black as the night,
  Eclipse the lustre of Thy light.
  Keep still in my horizon; for to me
  The sun makes not the day, but Thee.

  Thou whose nature cannot sleep,
  On my temples sentry keep;
  Guard me ’gainst those watchful foes,
  Whose eyes are open while mine close.
  Let no dreams my head infest,
  But such as Jacob’s temples blest.

  While I do rest, my soul advance:
  Make my sleep a holy trance;
  That I may, my rest being wrought,
  Awake into some holy thought,
  And with as active vigour run
  My course as doth the nimble sun.

  Sleep is a death—O make me try
  By sleeping, what it is to die!
  And as gently lay my head
  On my grave, as now my bed.
  Howe’er I rest, great God, let me
  Awake again at last with Thee.

  And thus assured, behold I lie
  Securely, or to wake or die.
  These are my drowsy days; in vain
  I do not wake to sleep again:
  O come that hour, when I shall never
  Sleep again, but wake for ever!

Another great name is that of John Donne, Dean of St. Paul’s, and
friend of James I, who wrote one of the truest and most affecting
hymns of that or any other century. If its form prevents its being
sung in modern congregations, it is at least one of those spiritual
songs which we should preserve for the hour of private devotion.


                       A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER

  Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
    Which was my sin, though it were done before?
  Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
    And do run still, though still I do deplore?
      When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
            For I have more.

  Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
    Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
  Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
    A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
      When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
            For I have more.

  I have a sin of fear, that when I’ve spun
    My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
  But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
    Shall shine as He shines now, and heretofore;
      And, having done that, Thou hast done;
            I fear no more.

  ‘I have the rather mentioned this hymn,’ says Izaak Walton, ‘for
  that he caused it to be set to a most grave and solemn tune, and to
  be often sung to the organ by the choristers of St. Paul’s Church in
  his own hearing; especially at the evening service, and at his
  return from his customary devotions in that place, did occasionally
  say to a friend: “The words of this hymn have restored to me the
  same thoughts of joy that possessed my soul in my sickness when I
  composed it. And, O, the power of Church music! that harmony added
  to this hymn has raised the affections of my heart and quickened my
  graces of zeal and gratitude; and I observe that I always return
  from paying this public duty of prayer and praise to God, with an
  unexpressible tranquillity of mind, and a willingness to leave the
  world.”’

Ben Jonson’s lovely Christmas hymn is to be found in a few hymn-books
to-day. Is it too much to hope that it may yet become a familiar carol
of the Nativity?

  I sing the Birth was born to-night,
  The Author both of life and light;
    The angels so did sound it:—
  And like the ravished shepherds said,
  Who saw the light, and were afraid,
    Yet searched, and true they found it.

  The Son of God, the eternal King,
  That did us all salvation bring,
    And freed the soul from danger;
  He whom the whole world could not take,
  The Word, which heaven and earth did make,
    Was now laid in a manger.

  What comfort by Him do we win,
  Who made Himself the price of sin,
    To make us heirs of glory!
  To see this Babe, all innocence,
  A martyr born in our defence!—
    Can man forget this story?

Robert Herrick’s (1591-1674) quaint ‘Litany to the Holy Spirit’ yields
a few verses to some of our best modern collections, but his
irrepressible humour makes several verses impossible, and his
references to ‘furies in a shole,’ to ‘flames and hellish cares,’ shut
out others. In his _Noble Numbers_ are many fine verses and epigrams,
but he is not a hymn-writer.

George Herbert (1593-1632) did not write hymns to be sung in church,
though his ‘Antiphon’ and ‘The Elixir’ are, for love of their author,
found in many modern hymn-books, and ‘Praise’ is also beautifully
possible as a hymn. Yet his loveliest poems cannot be adapted to
congregational use. He is the greatest of the poets of the sanctuary,
but he is not a chorister. John Wesley and George Rawson tried to make
Herbert’s poems into hymns, but with no great success—though in one or
two instances Wesley came near it.[88] In any collection of religious
poetry for use in the hour of private devotion, Herbert would rank
among the chief contributors, and it is well that he should be
represented in our hymn-books, if only that he may be remembered and
honoured by our children.[89] He is the chief singer of a school of
poets in which Henry Vaughan and Christina Rossetti are distinguished
and worthy disciples.

I give three of Herbert’s poems. The first because it is an ideal
example of his quaint but exquisite pathos, and of his gracious,
humble, affectionate devotion to his Lord; the others because they are
the most hymn-like of his poems.


                                 LOVE

  Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
        Guilty of dust and sin.
  But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
        From my first entrance in,
  Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
        If I lacked any thing.

  A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
        Love said, You shall be he.
  I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my Dear,
        I cannot look on Thee.
  Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
        Who made the eyes, but I?

  Truth, Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
        Go where it doth deserve.
  And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
        My Dear, then I will serve.
  You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
        So I did sit and eat.


                                PRAISE

  King of Glory, King of Peace,
      I will love Thee:
  And that love may never cease,
      I will move Thee.

  Thou hast granted my request,
      Thou hast heard me:
  Thou didst note my working breast,
      Thou hast spared me.

  Wherefore with my utmost art
      I will sing Thee,
  And the cream of all my heart
      I will bring Thee.

  Though my sins against me cried,
      Thou didst clear me;
  And alone, when they replied,
      Thou didst hear me.

  Seven whole days, not one in seven,
      I will praise Thee.
  In my heart, though not in heaven,
      I can raise Thee.

  Thou grew’st soft and moist with tears,
      Thou relentedst:
  And when Justice called for fears,
      Thou dissentedst.

  Small it is, in this poor sort
      To enrol Thee:
  Even eternity’s too short
      To extol Thee.


                               THE CALL

  Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
  Such a Way, as gives us breath:
  Such a Truth, as ends all strife:
  Such a Life, as killeth death.

  Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:
  Such a Light, as shows a feast:
  Such a Feast, as mends in length:
  Such a Strength, as makes His guest.

  Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
  Such a Joy, as none can move:
  Such a Love, as none can part:
  Such a Heart, as joys in love.

After Herbert comes Henry Vaughan (1621-95), ‘the Silurist,’ or South
Wales man, who says that his master was ‘the blessed man, Mr. George
Herbert, whose holy life and verse gained many pious converts, of whom
I am the least.’ Vaughan had his devoted admirers, but his verse never
attained anything approaching to the popularity of Herbert’s. It was
long the fashion to ignore or disparage him, and it was not till Henry
Francis Lyte republished his _Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations_,
with a brief memoir, that he came to his rightful place amongst the
minor, but not to be forgotten, poets of the seventeenth century. He
was a mystic, and had visions Blake might have envied.

  I saw Eternity the other night,
  Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
      All calm as it was bright:
  And round beneath it, Time, in hours, days, years,
      Driven by the spheres,
  Like a vast shadow moved, in which the world
      And all her train were hurled.

Vaughan’s songs have the marks of the true Christian poet—intense
devotion to Christ, humility, ecstasy. His best-known hymns are—‘My
soul, there is a country,’ and ‘Up to those bright and gladsome hills’
(Ps. cxxi.). I give one less often quoted. Vaughan’s title is


                               BEGGING

  King of Mercy, King of Love,
  In whom I live, in whom I move,
  Perfect what Thou has begun,
  Let no night put out this Sun.

  Grant I may, my chief desire,
  Long for Thee, to Thee aspire.
  Let my youth, my bloom of days,
  Be my comfort, and Thy praise;

  That hereafter, when I look
  O’er the sullied, sinful book,
  I may find Thy hand therein
  Wiping out my shame and sin.

  O! it is Thy only art
  To reduce a stubborn heart:
  And since Thine is victory,
  Strongholds should belong to Thee.

  Lord, then take it, leave it not
  Unto my dispose or lot;
  But since I would not have it mine,
  O my God, let it be Thine.

The following for Trinity Sunday is very bold—

  O holy, blessed, glorious Three,
  Eternal witnesses that be
  In heaven, One God in Trinity!

  As here on earth, when men withstood,
  The Spirit, Water, and the Blood,
  Made my Lord’s Incarnation good:

  So let the antitypes in me
  Elected, bought, and sealed for free,
  Be owned, saved, sainted by You Three!

Herbert and Vaughan were in the seventeenth century what Heber and
Keble were in the nineteenth.

  They set the tone of the Church of England, and they revealed with
  no inefficient or temporary effect to the uncultured and the
  unlearned the true refinement of worship. They united delicacy of
  taste in the choice of ornament and of music with culture of
  expression and of reserve, and they showed that this was not
  incompatible with devoted work and life.[90]

Henry More (1614-87) ‘the Platonist,’ whom Professor Palgrave calls
‘the most interesting figure among our poetical mystics,’ owes his
place in our hymn-books to John Wesley, who made from one of More’s
‘Divine Hymns’ two numbers in his _Collection_

  Father, if justly still we claim,

and a fine missionary hymn

  On all the earth Thy Spirit shower,
    The earth in righteousness renew,
  Thy kingdom come and hell’s o’erpower,
    And to Thy sceptre all subdue.

John Norris (1657-1711), who succeeded—sixty years intervening—George
Herbert as Parson of Bemerton, was a Platonist of the school of More,
for whom he had unbounded admiration, saying

  Others in learning’s chorus bear their part,
    And the great work distinctly share:
  Thou our great catholic professor art,
    All science is annexed to thy unerring chair.

John Wesley and Dr. Martineau tried to make Norris’s poems available
for congregational use, and his name is linked with those of Ken and
Mason in the preface to the Moravian book of 1754, but he can never
take a place among hymn-writers.

Bishop Jeremy Taylor (1613-67) wrote a number of hymns, most of them
being published in his _Golden Grove_, but they are unsuited for
congregational use. His ‘Advent Hymn’ has, however, been adapted with
admirable skill, and has a place in many hymnals. It is perhaps as
good a specimen of this kind of ‘translation’ as can be found. I give
Taylor’s original first, and afterwards the version of the _Sarum
Hymnal_, which is said to have been made by Earl Nelson. There is
another good version in the _Leeds Hymn-book_, which has been adopted
by Mr. Horder and others.


     HYMN FOR ADVENT; OR CHRIST’S COMING TO JERUSALEM IN TRIUMPH

          Lord, come away,
          Why dost Thou stay?
  Thy road is ready: and Thy paths, made strait,
          With longing expectation wait
      The consecration of Thy beauteous feet.
  Ride on triumphantly; behold we lay
  Our lusts and proud wills in Thy way.
  Hosanna! welcome to our hearts. Lord, here
  Thou hast a temple too, and full as dear
  As that of Sion; and as full of sin;
  Nothing but thieves and robbers dwell therein,
  Enter, and chase them forth, and cleanse the floor;
  Crucify them, that they may never more
          Profane that holy place,
      Where Thou hast chose to set Thy face.
  And then if our stiff tongues shall be
  Mute in the praises of Thy Deity,
      The stones out of the temple wall
          Shall cry aloud, and call
  Hosanna! and Thy glorious footsteps greet.

                              . . . . .

  Draw nigh to Thy Jerusalem, O Lord,
  Thy faithful people cry with one accord:
  Ride on triumphantly! Behold we lay
  Our passions, lusts, and proud wills in Thy way!

  Thy road is ready; and Thy paths, made straight,
  With longing expectation seem to wait
  The consecration of Thy beauteous feet,
  And silently Thy promised advent greet!

  Hosanna! Welcome to our hearts! for here
  Thou hast a temple too, as Sion dear;
  Yes, dear as Sion, and as full of sin:
  Nothing but thieves and robbers dwell therein.

  Enter and chase them forth, and cleanse the floor!
  O’erthrow them all, that they may never more
  Profane, with traffic vile, that holy place,
  Where Thou hast chosen, Lord, to set Thy face.

  And then, if our stiff tongues shall faithlessly
  Be mute in praises of Thy Deity,
  The very temple stones shall loud repeat
  Hosanna! and Thy glorious footsteps greet!

Near the end of the seventeenth century the New Version of the Psalms
appeared, under royal and episcopal sanction, and began at once to
supplant the Old Version. The authors were both Irishmen. Nahum Tate
(1652-1715) was a very minor poet, who became Laureate in 1690.
Nicholas Brady (1659-1726) was, like Charles Wesley, a scholar of
Westminster and student of Christ Church. He entered the Church in
Ireland, but in later life held various livings in England, being at
one time Vicar of Stratford-on-Avon. The New Version was published in
1696.

Many attempts had been made to depose the Old Version from its supreme
position as the hymn-book of the English Church, and some by men of
much greater gifts than Sternhold, Hopkins, or any of their fellows.
But the innate conservatism of Englishmen, and especially of English
Churchmen, gave the Old Version a long life. Moreover, no version was
sufficiently superior to it to win wide approval until Tate and Brady
produced the New Version and secured royal ‘permission’ for its use in
churches. Without this ‘permission’ it would probably never have
dislodged the Old Version, though it owes something to intrinsic
merit. Compared with the great hymn-writers of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, Tate and Brady are, as a rule, dull,
pretentious, diffuse; but as compared with their predecessors and the
vast majority of their successors, their version deserves more
consideration than it usually receives. Even in our own day there are
more of their psalms in our best hymn-books than there are of Keble’s.
It is unfortunate that neither of the authors was a man for whom it is
possible to feel any great regard, or in whom one can take an
interest.

To say nothing of

  While shepherds watched their flocks by night,

what Church would willingly give up

  As pants the hart for cooling streams,

or—

  Through all the changing scenes of life?

There is about such songs a gracious simplicity worthy of John Newton,
who might well have written—

  O make but trial of His love,
    Experience will decide.
  How blessed they are, and only they,
    Who in His truth confide.

or—

  Extend to me that favour, Lord,
  Thou to Thy chosen dost afford:
  When Thou return’st to set them free,
  Let Thy salvation visit me.

  O may I worthy prove to see
  Thy saints in full prosperity;
  That I the joyful choir may join,
  And count Thy people’s triumph mine.

Dr. Watts and the Wesleys did not scruple to borrow from the New
Version, and Watts, with characteristic modesty, is content to yield
them ‘the preference of’ their ‘poesy’ in some of their compositions.

Whatever its intrinsic merit or demerit, the New Version rendered an
important service in breaking the monopoly enjoyed by the Old Version,
and thus preparing the way for a larger view of Christian psalmody.

  One condemned to tread the waste of metrical Psalters will consider
  it an advance on its predecessors, suffering more from its own
  success than comparison with them.... They asserted successfully,
  and with an emphasis scarcely known before, literary and poetical
  excellence (according to their light) as a principle of translation,
  and the precedent thus set was seldom ignored afterwards.[91]

Tate, being Laureate, naturally considered the state occasions on
which psalms were to be used. The sentiments, at least, of his version
of Ps. cl., which is appointed for the day of the Sovereign’s
accession, are excellent.

  The private slanderer shall be
  In public justice doomed by me.
  From haughty looks I’ll turn aside,
  And mortify the heart of pride.

  But honesty, called from her cell
  In splendour at my court shall dwell.
  Who virtue’s practice make their care,
  Shall have the first preferments there.

  No politics shall recommend
  His country’s foe to be my friend:
  None e’er shall to my favour rise
  By flattering or malicious lies.

  All those who wicked courses take,
  An early sacrifice I’ll make;
  Cut off, destroy, till none remain
  God’s holy city to profane.

With the publication of the New Version a new era began. It was to be
the last ‘authorized’ metrical version. Hymns of the modern type were
beginning to be known, and soon there would be hymns in abundance.[92]




                                  IV
                       Eighteenth-century Hymns


                        I.—The School of Watts

The greater sacred poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
spoke, for the most part, to themselves and to God; their hymns are of
the study and the oratory. But with the eighteenth century a new era
began. Its chief hymn-writers were ministers of religion, accustomed
to offer prayer and praise, not only for themselves, but for the
people. Their hymns were for the congregation and the religious
society. They were written with the distinct intention of providing
for common need; and in the Nonconformist Churches hymns supplied the
place of the rejected liturgy, enabling the congregation to unite in
praise and prayer.

The earlier centuries give us many rich devotional poems, few of which
are entirely suited to the public worship of our time. But we now
reach, what George Macdonald calls, ‘the zone of hymn-writing,’ and
are embarrassed by the plenteousness of the stores available for use
in the service of the sanctuary. Moreover, by this time modern English
has become fairly established, and there are few archaic expressions
to distract the unlearned.

Whatever may be said of the metrical Psalters, no one can doubt that
we are in an ampler, purer air when we listen to Isaac Watts
(1674-1748). Brighter days were dawning for the religious life of
England, and especially for the Nonconformists. Yet as a babe Isaac
Watts was nursed by his mother as she sat on a stone near the door of
the prison where his father was confined for conscience’ sake. But by
the time he was a man the sky had cleared, and there is little in his
hymns to recall the times of trouble except the version of Ps. lxxv.,
‘applied to the glorious revolution by King William or the happy
accession of King George to the throne,’ in which these verses occur—

  Britain was doomed to be a slave;
    Her frame dissolved, her fears were great,
  When God a new supporter gave,
    To hear the pillars of the State.

  No vain pretence to royal birth,
    Shall fix a tyrant on the throne;
  God, the great Sovereign of the earth,
    Will rise and make His justice known.

His own life was happy, and its story is singularly attractive. His
feeble health saved him from many a rough conflict, and called forth
the affectionate hospitality of Sir Thomas and Lady Abney. It was
seemly that the non-juring Bishop Ken should find a home with a peer
of the realm at Longleat, but Dr. Watts found an even more congenial
refuge at Theobalds and at Abney Park. There are few pleasanter
stories than that of Lady Huntingdon’s calling upon Dr. Watts, when he
said to her, ‘Madam, you have come to see me on a very remarkable day.
This day thirty years I came hither to the house of my good friend,
Sir Thomas, intending to spend but a week under his hospitable roof,
and I have extended my visit to thirty long years.’ ‘Sir,’ said his
gracious hostess, Lady Abney, ‘what you term a long thirty years’
visit, I consider as the shortest visit my family ever received.’

If the world had dealt a little less kindly with the poet, it might
have been all the better for his poetry, which lacks the vigour, the
martial music, the glorious enthusiasm of Luther and of Charles
Wesley. He was, it is true, not without at least one coarse and bitter
adversary—Thomas Bradbury, a Nonconformist minister of some fame and
more notoriety; who seems, without any special reason, to have
regarded Dr. Watts as a suitable mark for his vehement and vulgar
abuse. He sneeringly forbade ‘Watts’s _whims_’[93] to be sung in his
congregation, and charged the saintly poet with ‘burlesquing’ the
poetry of the most High God. He led, if he did not initiate, the
charge of Arianism. Had Watts been as ready for a theological fray as
John Wesley, or even John Fletcher, Bradbury would have had judgement
without mercy. But Watts’s letters in reply to these reiterated
accusations are models of Christian controversy, or rather of
Christian remonstrance. Their last encounter was at a meeting where
Watts’s feebleness made it difficult for him to make himself heard.
‘Shall I speak for you, Brother Watts?’ asked Bradbury. ‘Well, you
have often spoken _against_ me,’ was the gently sarcastic reply.

Bradbury’s malice can have done Watts little real harm, except that of
establishing the suspicion in a good many minds that he leaned to
Unitarianism—a charge which has been repeated to our own day. The mild
and colourless character of many of Watts’s hymns made them favourites
with Unitarian editors of a former time; but the author of

  Not all the blood of beasts
  On Jewish altars slain,

and of

  When I survey the wondrous Cross,

is not to be claimed as Arian, Unitarian, or anything other than an
evangelical believer.

Our concern is with Watts as a hymn-writer rather than as a
theologian. He was the first man, able to write good hymns, who set
himself seriously to secure freedom in worship. In the meeting-house
at Southampton he wearied of the dull and halting verse of Barton, and
was not slow to accept his father’s challenge to write something
better. If tradition may be relied on, his first hymn, written during
the week and sung on the following Sunday, was that which he placed
first in his _Hymns and Spiritual Songs_, with the title:


                A NEW SONG TO THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN

                        (Rev. v. 6, 8, 9-12.)

  Behold the glories of the Lamb,
    Amidst His Father’s throne:
  Prepare new honours for His Name,
    And songs before unknown.

  Let elders worship at His feet,
    The Church adore around,
  With vials full of odours sweet,
    And harps of sweeter sound.

  Those are the prayers of the saints,
    And these the hymns they raise:
  Jesus is kind to our complaints,
    He loves to hear our praise.

  Eternal Father, who shall look
    Into Thy secret will?
  Who but the Son shall take that book
    And open every seal?

  He shall fulfil Thy great decrees,
    The Son deserves it well;
  Lo, in His hand the sovereign keys
    Of heaven, and death, and hell.

  Now to the Lamb that once was slain,
    Be endless blessings paid;
  Salvation, glory, joy remain
    For ever on Thy head.

This is far from being one of Watts’s best hymns, but it is vastly
better than Barton’s best.

It is characteristic of Dr. Watts that in the preface to his _Psalms_
he speaks courteously of his predecessors in the attempt to adapt the
Psalms to modern use. He praises Sir John Denham, Luke Milbourne, Tate
and Brady, and, most of all, Dr. Patrick, whose ‘chief excellency,’ he
thought, was that ‘he departed further from the inspired words of
Scripture’ than others had done. Watts’s hymns were published ten or
twelve years before the _Psalms_, and in his preface he delivers a
vigorous apology for what he felt to be a bold venture, but pays no
compliment to predecessors. He could not say, like John Wesley, that
but a small part were of his own composing, yet even his extreme
modesty does not prevent his showing a quiet and most just confidence
in his work as compared with what had been hitherto available. His
picture of the public worship of his day may comfort us in regard to
the attractiveness of modern services. He says—

  While we sing the praises of our God in His Church, we are employed
  in that part of worship which of all others is the nearest akin to
  heaven, and it is pity that this, of all others, should be performed
  the worst upon earth. The gospel brings us nearer to the heavenly
  state than all the former dispensations of God amongst men. And in
  these last days of the gospel we are brought almost within sight of
  the kingdom of our Lord; yet we are very much unacquainted with the
  songs of the New Jerusalem, and unpractised in the work of praise.
  To see the dull indifference, the negligent and the thoughtless air,
  that sits upon the faces of a whole assembly, while the psalm is on
  their lips, might tempt even a charitable observer to suspect the
  fervency of inward religion; and it is much to be feared that the
  minds of most of the worshippers are absent or unconcerned. Perhaps
  the modes of preaching, in the best churches, still want some
  degrees of reformation; nor are the methods of prayer so perfect as
  to stand in need of no correction or improvement. But of all our
  religious solemnities, psalmody is the most unhappily managed. That
  very action which should elevate us to the most delightful and
  divine sensations, doth not only flatten our devotion, but too often
  awakes our regret, and touches all the springs of uneasiness within
  us.

He goes on to protest that it was ‘far from’ his ‘thoughts to lay
aside the book of Psalms in public worship,’ which ‘is the most noble,
most devotional and divine collection of poesy.’ At the same time he
says—

  It must be acknowledged still that there are a thousand lines in it
  which were not made for a Church in our days to assume as its own.
  There are also many deficiencies of light and glory which our Lord
  Jesus and His apostles have supplied in the writings of the New
  Testament. And with this advantage I have composed these spiritual
  songs, which are now presented to the world. Nor is the attempt
  vain-glorious or presuming, for, in respect of clear evangelical
  knowledge, _The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than all
  the Jewish prophets_.

Such a defence of Christian hymns is superfluous to-day, but it took
many long years to convince the Churches that ‘When I survey the
wondrous Cross’ was more suitable for use in Christian worship than
Ps. cix.

When Watts’s victory was achieved it was only too complete. In the
congregations of his own denomination it was counted almost an impiety
to sing anything but his psalms and hymns. This extravagant and narrow
loyalty to Watts naturally placed the Dissenting congregations at a
great disadvantage—far greater than that which the Methodist societies
suffered through the too exclusive use of Wesley’s hymns. The idea
that one man can write the hymns of any Church or congregation is long
since exploded; indeed, we go further, claiming that a good hymn
belongs to Christendom. We do not ask what a man’s ‘denomination’ is
before giving him a place in our hymn-books. Only the Romanists, and
some of them faint-heartedly, now demand that the writer and the
singer must belong to the same communion.

Watts has been at once unduly lauded and unduly depreciated. Keble
spoke of him as ‘no poet,’ and this may be true of his ‘poems,’ but
his greater hymns could only have been written by a poet of no mean
order. Montgomery puts the case more justly when he calls Watts ‘one
of the least of the poets of his country,’ but ‘the greatest name
among hymn-writers.’[94] Professor Palgrave does Watts full justice—

  His views as an Independent were modified and enlarged by his sweet,
  devout temper—may we not add, by his gift in poetry? And ‘every
  Christian Church,’ as Dr. Johnson finely remarked, ‘would rejoice to
  have adopted’ one so fervently devout, so faithful to his duty—we
  may add, so much more truly gifted by nature as a poet than common
  Fame has recognized. As with C. Wesley and other good men, fluency,
  want of taste and finish, the sacrifice, in a word, of art to direct
  usefulness, have probably lost them those honours in literature to
  which they were born. But they have their reward.[95]

The sacrifice of art to usefulness was much more deliberate in the
case of Watts than of Wesley. Charles Wesley often wrote in haste,
with the rush and glow of a present inspiration, with thoughts that
must find expression, and which it was easier to utter in poetry than
in prose. Watts designed his hymns for the service of the house of
God, and had ever before him the dull man in the pew and the tiresome
man in the singing gallery. ‘I have seldom,’ he explained, ‘permitted
a stop in the middle of a line, and seldom left the end of a line
without one; to comport with the unhappy mixture of reading and
singing, which cannot presently be reformed.’ ‘The metaphors,’ he
continues, ‘are generally sunk to the level of vulgar capacities. If
the verse appears so gentle and flowing as to incur the censure of
feebleness, I may honestly affirm that sometimes it cost me labour to
make it so. Some of the beauties of poesy are neglected, and some
wilfully defaced.’ Finally, he describes his work as ‘an attempt for
the reformation of psalmody amongst the Churches.’ In estimating
Watts’s contribution to the hymn-book of the modern Church, this
service must be gratefully recognized. It may seem to us that he
stooped too much ‘to the level of vulgar capacities,’ but in this he
had to consider what men were able to bear; and we must remember that
even those of his hymns which were to perish in the using had their
share in preparing the way for the ‘nobler, sweeter song’ in which the
Church praises her Lord to-day.

When the Independent Churches began to seek a wider range of choice
than Watts could afford, they proceeded by way of supplement, as the
Methodists did until 1903. Dr. Thomas Gibbons, Watts’s affectionate
but ponderous biographer,[96] issued one in 1769, and others followed
in fairly rapid succession, amongst their editors being George Burder,
Dr. Bengo Collyer, and finally Josiah Conder, whose book was prepared
in 1833 under the direction of the Congregational Union.[97] When at
length the Congregationalists began to compile completely new books,
Watts naturally still exercised a preponderating influence—as in the
excellent _Leeds Hymn-book_ of 1853. But each successive official or
unofficial publication emanating from the Congregational Churches has
been marked by a great reduction in the number of Watts’s hymns, so
that the present _Congregational Church Hymnal_ contains fewer hymns
by Watts than were included by Dr. Martineau in his _Hymns for the
Church and Home_. If we turn to the hymn-books of other Churches, the
reduction in the number of hymns by Dr. Watts is even more striking;
e.g. the _Church Hymnary_ (Presbyterian) gives only nine, and _Church
Hymns_ only fourteen.

At present it would seem as though Dr. Watts were more honoured in the
Methodist Churches than among his own people, the Methodist and the
Primitive Methodist each giving a larger number of his pieces than
either the Congregational or Baptist hymn-books. Probably the number
of Watts’s hymns in common use will be further reduced. Some inferior
compositions still hold their place. They are survivals of a time when
the Church’s hymn-book was vastly poorer than it is to-day. But when
the lowest point is touched, there must ever remain a number of
imperishable hymns which will be sung in the Church of Christ as long
as it is militant here on earth.

Watts’s hymns were greatly helped in public favour by the publication
of his _Psalms_ in 1719. The Dissenting Churches, for the most part,
soon agreed with his own judgement that the two books were ‘such a
sufficient provision for psalmody as to answer most occasions of the
Christian’s life.’ Long use had made psalm-singing as a distinct part
of the service essential, and it was many years before the Dissenting
Churches cared for a hymn-book which did not make the distinction
between psalms and hymns. The place of honour, or at least of
precedence, was given to the Psalms, and as far as possible every
psalm was paraphrased.

Watts’s preface to _The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of
the New Testament and Applied to the Christian State and Worship_ is a
vigorous manifesto, and it may well have seemed to some men as
audacious as many readers find Wesley’s famous preface. His chief
contention was that Jewish psalms must be translated, paraphrased, or,
to use his own word, ‘imitated’ in Christian language before they are
fit for use in Christian worship. He specially emphasizes the small
number of psalms sung at the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, and,
gaining courage as he writes, adds, ‘Though, to speak my own sense
freely, I do not think David ever wrote a psalm of sufficient glory
and sweetness to represent the blessings of this holy institution.’

Acting upon this conviction Watts boldly departed from the ideal of
most of those who have paraphrased the Psalter.

  In all places I have kept my grand design in view, and that is, to
  teach my author to speak like a Christian.... I have chosen rather
  to imitate than translate, and thus to compose a psalm-book for
  Christians, after the manner of the Jewish Psalter.... I have not
  been so curious and exact in striving everywhere to express the
  ancient sense and meaning of David, but have rather expressed myself
  as I may suppose David would have done, had he lived in the days of
  Christianity.[98]

Not only does common sense confirm Watts’s general principle; his own
success, partial though it was, justified the new departure, and from
his day to ours the most useful and the most poetic versions of Psalms
are those which ‘teach the author to speak like a Christian.’ Yet, if
a psalm could be dealt with from the Old Testament standpoint without
inappropriateness to Christian worship, Watts preferred to retain the
original idea. Thus in all his versions of the 23rd Psalm he makes no
reference to the Good Shepherd of the New Testament. His best
version—and it is very good—is as suitable for the synagogue as the
meeting-house.

  My Shepherd will supply my need;
    Jehovah is His Name;
  In pastures fresh He makes me feed,
    Beside the living stream.

The _Methodist Hymn-book_ omits the last verse, which is given in most
other collections—

  There would I find a settled rest,
    While others go and come;
  No more a stranger or a guest,
    But like a child at home.

It is a beautiful paraphrase of ‘Thy house for ever.’ He felt,
however, that his experiment was so novel and so likely to provoke
adverse criticism, that he continually explained or defended his
versions in notes appended to the psalms, which form a sort of running
commentary.

Watts’s _Psalms_ mark the passage from psalm-singing to hymn-singing.
Slowly but surely the distinction disappears from modern hymn-books,
and psalm-versions take their place amongst ‘hymns.’ This was not
Watts’s design, but it is a part of the success of his enterprise. If
to-day we had to make choice of any one metrical version of the
Psalter for use in Christian worship, it would be impossible to find
anything better than Watts’s. Indeed, if feeble ‘aliters’ (to use
Barton’s phrase) and poor verses were omitted, the result would show
how near he came to achieving success.

It is difficult to overstate the service rendered to the worship of
the Christian Church by Dr. Watts. As Lord Selborne says, ‘He was the
first to understand the nature of the want,’ and he ‘led the way in
providing for it.’ Yet it is easy to quote poor verses, to find lines
that are intolerably flat. His rhymes are often either discordant in
the extreme or lacking altogether. Sometimes he is too colloquial, as
in

  Well, the Redeemer’s gone
  To appear before our God.

Perhaps no hymn-writer needs editing so much as Watts, and certainly
none has been edited more skilfully. Not a few of his hymns owe their
place in our hymnals to the judicious way in which they have been
‘improved.’ We cannot dispute Dr. Johnson’s criticism

  The rhymes are not always sufficiently correspondent.... His lines
  are commonly smooth and easy, and his thoughts always religiously
  pure; but who is there that, to so much piety and innocence, does
  not wish for a greater measure of sprightliness and vigour?[99]

Hymn-writers are in a special degree affected by their surroundings.
There is an open-air life in many of the psalms attributed to David
which is lacking in those—e.g. the cxix.—which belong to a more formal
age. Watts was a student, a scholar, a recluse, an invalid, who yet
came into frequent contact with the Church life of the Independents.
He could not be coarse or fantastic, and he both consciously and
conscientiously condescended to men of low estate. The sacrifice of
his own taste to that of the unlearned reader was part of his offering
to the Lord, and it did not cost him nothing. The pity of it is that
he misjudged and under-estimated the intelligence of those who would
use his hymns. It is but just to bear his self-imposed limitation in
mind, yet it must also be allowed that, like many a far greater
poet—Wordsworth, for example—he did not know which were the superior
and which the inferior pieces. He believed his _Lyrics_ to be his best
poetical work, and possibly this may have been the judgement of his
friendly contemporaries; but the severer taste of later times has
forgotten the _Lyrics_ while treasuring the hymns.

Watts seldom writes without a consciousness of the congregation for
whose use he intended his hymns. The story—probably true—that he
undertook to write one every week for the Independent Chapel at
Southampton explains the character of very many of them, and accounts
at once for their strength and weakness. On the one hand, he avoided
the tiresome verbosity of Tate and Brady and the halting rhythm of
Barton and, on the other, he abstained from the ‘conceits’ which are
the charm of Herbert and Vaughan, but which make many a lovely poem
impossible as a hymn. The ease and simplicity of his best hymns, which
no hymn-writer surpasses and few have attained, endeared them to ‘men
of heart sincere,’ alike among the unlearned and ignorant and among
men of culture. He has that sweet, plaintive undertone of perplexity
concerning the mysteries of life and death which touches all
thoughtful souls, and is so true to the inner life of one whose many
infirmities made him die daily. He had in large measure the rich
indwelling of the word of God without which a man may write hymns, but
can never be one of God’s great singers. His hymns are full of
scriptural phrases, though less so than those of Charles Wesley, and
he has many happy and instructive applications of passages both from
the Old and New Testament. Take, for instance, one of his sacramental
hymns, in which he uses the parable of the Great Supper as a type of
the Supper of the Lord—an application singularly appropriate, though
not often made.[100]

  How rich are Thy provisions, Lord,
    Thy table furnished from above;
  The fruits of life o’erspread the board,
    The cup o’erflows with heavenly love.

  We are the poor, the blind, the lame,
    And help was far and death was nigh;
  But at the gospel-call we came,
    And every want received supply.

  From the highway that leads to hell,
    From paths of darkness and despair,
  Lord, we are come with Thee to dwell,
    Glad to enjoy Thy presence here.

  It cost Him death to save our lives,
    To buy our souls it cost His own,
  And all the unknown joys He gives,
    Were bought with agonies unknown.[101]

The ‘sacramentarian’ element is naturally absent from Watts’s
twenty-five hymns ‘prepared for the holy ordinance of the Lord’s
Supper,’ which are, with a few exceptions, much less solemn and
impressive than those of Wesley. Two have, however, a permanent place
among our Communion hymns. The seventh of the series, ‘Crucifixion to
the World by the Cross of Christ’—

  When I survey the wondrous Cross

is so great a hymn, and consecrated by so many hallowed associations,
that comment is superfluous and criticism impertinent. The third, ‘The
New Testament in the Blood of Christ, or The New Covenant Sealed,’ is
absent from the chief hymnals to-day with the exception of the
Methodist, to which it was added in 1830. It begins—

  ‘The promise of my Father’s love
    Shall stand for ever good,’
  He said; and gave His soul to death,
    And sealed the grace with blood.

Watts wrote no great festival hymns to be compared with ‘Hark! how all
the welkin rings,’ or ‘Hail the day that sees Him rise.’ His best work
is found in his hymns and spiritual songs, some of which are among the
most spiritual and most scriptural ever written. The tone of triumph
is comparatively rare, though now and again, as in ‘Join all the
glorious names,’ he rises as high as ever Charles Wesley rose in his
hymns for ‘Believers rejoicing.’ Such are, ‘My God, the spring of all
my joys’; ‘Come, we that love the Lord’; ‘Jesus shall reign where’er
the sun’; ‘Come, let us join our cheerful songs.’

To Dr. Watts, with his delicate health and protracted sicknesses,
songs in a minor key were peculiarly suitable, and some of his most
precious hymns are those which speak of the life to come. He seldom
writes of death as Wesley does, and such a line as

  Ah, lovely appearance of death

would have been impossible to him; but no Christian poet has touched
the sorrows of our hearts more tenderly or comforted the bereaved more
wisely than he has done in such a hymn as

  Give me the wings of faith to rise;

while

  There is a land of pure delight

has voiced the thoughts of myriads of anxious souls, to whom only ‘a
prospect of heaven’ could make ‘death easy.’ Watts seldom, if ever,
showed the ecstasy of Charles Wesley. He never sang

  The promised land, from Pisgah’s top,
    I now exult to see;

but he knew that

  Could we but climb where Moses stood,
    And view the landscape o’er,
  Not Jordan’s stream nor death’s cold flood
    Should fright us from the shore.

There are few more tender lines than the verse in his hymn for ‘The
Death and Burial of a Saint’—

  The graves of all His saints He blessed,
    And softened every bed:
  Where should the dying members rest,
    But with their dying Head?

But Dr. Watts was not a man whose whole thought was centred on the
world to come. After the fashion not only of his own time, but of the
religious men of most times, he speaks slightingly of earth and its
charms; but when he allows himself to dwell on its beauty and glory he
writes, I think, with a clearer and more poetic vision than Wesley, as
in his ‘Song to Creating Wisdom’—

  Eternal Wisdom, Thee we praise.

The hymns of Dr. Watts are so well known that it is difficult to
select any that would worthily represent him without repeating what is
already familiar to every reader. ‘The Cradle Song’ is one of the most
delightful lullabies ever written, and shows Watts in a charming and
unexpected light.

  Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber;
    Holy angels guard thy bed!
  Heavenly blessings without number
    Gently falling on thy head.

  Sleep, my babe; thy food and raiment,
    House and home, thy friends provide;
  All without thy care or payment,
    All thy wants are well supplied.

  How much better thou’rt attended
    Than the Son of God could be,
  When from heaven He descended,
    And became a child like thee!

  Soft and easy is thy cradle:
    Coarse and hard thy Saviour lay:
  When His birthplace was a stable,
    And His softest bed was hay.

  Blessèd Babe, what glorious features,
    Spotless, fair, divinely bright!
  Must He dwell with brutal creatures?—
    How could angels bear the sight!

  Was there nothing but a manger
    Cursèd sinners could afford
  To receive the heavenly Stranger?
    Did they thus affront their Lord?

  Soft, my child—I did not chide thee,
    Though my song might sound too hard;
  ’Tis thy mother sits beside thee,
    And her arm shall be thy guard.

  Yet to read the shameful story,
    How the Jews abused their King;
  How they served the Lord of Glory,
    Makes me angry while I sing.

  See the kinder shepherds round Him,
    Telling wonders from the sky!
  There they sought Him, there they found Him,
    With His Virgin Mother by.

  See the lovely Babe a-dressing;
    Lovely Infant, how He smiled!
  When He wept, the Mother’s blessing
    Soothed and hushed the holy Child.

  Lo, He slumbers in His manger,
    Where the hornèd oxen fed;
  Peace, my darling, here’s no danger;
    Here’s no ox a-near thy bed!

  ’Twas to save thee, child, from dying,
    Save my dear from burning flame,
  Bitter groans, and endless crying,
    That thy blest Redeemer came.

  May’st thou live to know and fear Him,
    Trust and love Him all thy days;
  Then go dwell for ever near Him,
    See His face, and sing His praise!

  I could give thee thousand kisses,
    Hoping what I most desire;
  Not a mother’s fondest wishes
    Can to greater joys aspire.[102]

From Isaac Watts we turn naturally to Philip Doddridge (1702-51),
another name which is amongst the glories of the Nonconforming
Churches, and of him also it may be said that every Christian Church
would rejoice to have adopted him. He was the twentieth child of his
parents, was all his life in delicate health, and died of consumption
at Lisbon, where he was buried in the English cemetery. His life was
happy and devout from the earliest days, when he learnt from his
mother’s lips the Bible stories which were illustrated by the Dutch
tiles in the fireplace in his childhood’s home in London—‘London! dear
city of my youth!’ On his father’s side he was descended from a good
stock of English gentlemen, some of whom were men of renown in their
own generation. His father was a tradesmen, but his grandfather was
Rector of Shepperton until the Act of Uniformity made him a
Nonconformist. His mother was the daughter of a Protestant refugee
from Bohemia, whose Bible (Luther’s version) he kept as his most
cherished possession. As a child he attracted the notice of the
Duchess of Bedford, who offered to send him to Oxford or Cambridge,
and to provide a living for him if he took orders in the Church of
England. He declined the offer, though discouraged by the great
Dissenter, Calamy, in his purpose of entering the Independent
ministry. But his old friend and pastor, Samuel Clark, of St. Albans
(author of _Scripture Promises_), encouraged him, bidding him come to
his house and make it his home during his preliminary studies.

Like Watts, he was a scholar and a gentleman, and was revered and
loved in all Churches. Doddridge was a man of broad views and wide
sympathies, and was honoured by the enmity of Watts’s old adversary,
Thomas Bradbury, whose ‘zeal and fury’ in opposing ‘Moravians and
Methodists and all who will not go his length in putting them down’ he
deprecated. Indeed, his sympathy with Methodism led less vehement
Dissenters than Bradbury to remonstrate with him, and when he not only
preached at Whitefield’s Tabernacle, but invited that great evangelist
to preach in his chapel at Northampton, even moderate men in his own
communion thought he had given just offence to the Nonconformist
conscience of the day. He found it necessary to explain and apologize
for his patronage of the enthusiasm which sober Churchmen and
Dissenters alike abhorred.

His hymns were often written to be sung in his own chapel at the
Castle Hill, Northampton, and were upon the subjects of his sermons.
Written on the same principle as Watts’s hymns, they belong to the
same class; and while they are on the whole inferior to those of
Watts, they make a distinct and very precious addition to our hymnals.
There is less variety of theme, metre, and expression in Doddridge
than in Watts, but he is rarely so completely on the level of the
‘vulgar capacities’ for whom his great predecessor had such a tender
regard. His hymns are the prayers and praises of a saint, ‘they
shine,’ as Montgomery said, ‘in the beauty of holiness,’ and some must
live while Christianity endures.

He is like Watts also in his indebtedness to editors. The best known
of the hymns that bear his name, ‘O God of Bethel,’ would make a fine
specimen for a polychrome hymn-book, though I venture to suggest that
no ‘higher critic’ could pick out the portions supplied by the various
revisers if he were left solely to subjective considerations. Dr.
Julian says that its authorship should be thus described—‘P.
Doddridge, Jan. 173⁶/₇ Scottish Trs. and Paraphs., 1745; J. Logan,
1781; and Scottish Paraphs., 1781.’

The earliest form is still extant in Doddridge’s own handwriting.


                      No. XXXII    JACOB’S VOW.

                      From Gen. xxxiii. 20, 22.

                                  1

  O God of Bethel, by whose Hand
    Thine Israel still is fed
  Who thro’ this weary Pilgrimage
    Hast all our Fathers led

                                  2

  To thee our humble Vows we raise
    To thee address our Prayer,
  And in thy kind and faithful Breast
    Deposite all our Care

                                  3

  If thou thro’ each perplexing Path
    Wilt be our constant Guide
  If thou wilt daily Bread supply
    And Raiment wilt provide

                                  4

  If thou wilt spread thy Shield around
    Till these our wand’rings cease
  And at our Father’s loved Abode
    Our Souls arrive in Peace

                                  5

  To thee as to our Covenant God
    We’ll our whole selves resign
  And count that not our tenth alone
    But all we have is Thine.
                                              January 16, 173⁶/₇.[103]

Another hymn, even better known and loved than this, at least amongst
Methodist congregations, is—

  O happy day that fixed my choice.

This also has been edited to its advantage. It has been the birthday
song of countless redeemed souls. Dr. A. B. Bruce says that St.
Matthew’s feast, at which ‘a great company of publicans and of others
sat down,’ ‘was a kind of poem, saying for Matthew what Doddridge’s
familiar lines say for many another.’[104]

Contemporary with Watts and Doddridge, but having closer spiritual
affinity with John Bunyan, was Joseph Hart (1712-68), whose hymns,
with two or three exceptions, have almost disappeared from our
hymnals, though in older books, and in Spurgeon’s _Our Own Hymn-book_,
they are fairly numerous. To the first edition of his hymns he
prefixed ‘a brief summary account of the great things’ God had ‘done
for’ his ‘soul,’ which, but for its Calvinism, might have been written
by one of the early Methodist preachers. Again and again this
narrative recalls _Grace Abounding_, though Hart has little of the
vigour, and none of the humour, of Bunyan. He was ‘born of believing
parents,’ but after his conversion he ‘hasted to make myself a
Christian by mere doctrine, adopting other men’s opinions before I had
tried them.’ The result was, according to his own account, a
deplorable fall into the prevalent Antinomianism, against which
Fletcher and Wesley wrote so energetically. After seven or eight years
‘in this abominable state’ he ‘began by degrees to reform a little,’
and in the week before Easter, 1757, he had ‘an amazing view of the
agony of Christ in the garden,’ which affected all his after life.
‘While these horrors remained’ he found occasional comfort at
Whitefield’s Tabernacle in Moorfields, or his chapel in Tottenham
Court Road, but on Whit Sunday (which was also Charles Wesley’s Day of
Pentecost), at the Moravian chapel in Fetter Lane, under a sermon on
Rev. iii. 10, he felt ‘deeply impressed,’ and hastening home found
himself ‘melting away with a strange softness of affection.’ His
experience was that of Christian at the Cross, his ‘burden’ under
which he was ‘almost sinking’ was immediately taken from his
shoulders. ‘Tears ran in streams from my eyes, and I was so swallowed
up in joy and thankfulness that I hardly knew where I was.’ After this
‘reconversion’ he had many Bunyan-like temptations, but walked humbly
with God, and ministered till his death to the Independent church in
Jewin Street.

His hymns are said, in the ‘advertisement’ to the edition published
after his death, to describe his preaching exactly, and they are
evidently the fruit of his own experience.

  The vicissitudes of a trembling faith, the alternations of comfort
  and depression, the ever-recurring conflict between grace and sin,
  and all the emotions of a soul ‘ready to halt,’ but knowing where to
  look for strength, are plentifully and feelingly represented. But he
  has little acquaintance either with the joyful hope and buoyant
  cheerfulness of Wesley or with the ‘quietness and confidence’ of
  Keble.[105]

He had a small poetic gift, and some of his hymns, with their happy
alliterations, quaint phrases, easy rhythm, and, above all, their
simple piety, have charm and power. Dr. Johnson’s estimate of Hart may
be inferred from a curious incident. ‘I went to church. I gave a
shilling; and, seeing a poor girl at the sacrament in a bed-gown, I
gave her privately half a crown, though I saw Hart’s hymns in her
hand.’

The hymns by which he is, and will be, known, are—

  Come, Holy Spirit, come,
    Let Thy bright beams arise.

  Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched,

And

  This God is the God we adore.

Some of his forgotten verses have real epigrammatic force, e.g.—

  If profit be thy scope,
    Diffuse thy alms about.
  The worldling prospers laying up,
    The Christian laying out.

A few other hymn-writers belong to the Dissenting Church of the
eighteenth century, but they have passed or are passing from our
modern hymn-books. Simon Browne (1680-1732), pastor of an Independent
church in Old Jewry, published in 1720 a supplement to Watts, which
shows how early Watts began to be regarded as the standard hymn-book
in Congregational Churches. There is a pathetic interest in the
strange affliction from which he suffered. In 1723 he was attacked by
highwaymen, and defended himself with such vigour that his adversary,
when he released him, was found to be dead. Browne was overwhelmed
with grief, and sank into a state of melancholy which was deepened by
family bereavement. ‘He imagined that God had in a gradual manner
annihilated in him the thinking substance,’ yet he continued his
ministry, and wrote many books, including an exposition of the First
Epistle to the Corinthians in Matthew Henry’s _Commentary_. His
best-known hymn is still to be found in many hymn-books.

  Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,
    My sinful maladies remove.

Its form is altered and improved, having passed through the hands of
many editors.

He was also the author of a penitential hymn, which is much more
impressive when given as Browne wrote it in the first person singular.
In other respects editors have improved it by slight alterations.

  Lord, at Thy feet a sinner lies,
    And knocks at mercy’s door;
  With heavy heart and downcast eyes
    Thy favour I implore.

  On me the vast extent display
    Of Thy forgiving love;
  Take all my heinous guilt away,
    This heavy load remove.

  Without Thy grace I sink opprest,
    Down to the gates of hell:
  O give my troubled spirit rest,
    And all my fears dispel.

  ’Tis mercy, mercy, I implore,
    I would Thy pity move,
  Thy grace is an exhaustless store
    And Thou Thyself art love.

Benjamin Beddome (1717-95) was for more than half a century a Baptist
minister at Bourton-on-the-Water, refusing for the sake of his rustic
flock the attractions of a call to more conspicuous pastorates. ‘I
would rather honour God,’ he said, ‘in a station even much inferior to
that in which He has placed me, than intrude myself into a higher
without His direction.’ His hymns were written for his own
congregation, and usually to suit his sermon for the day.

There is not much to choose amongst Beddome’s pious verses. The
following lines are interesting since they may, perhaps, have
suggested Montgomery’s well-known hymn:

  Prayer is the breath of God in man,
    Returning whence it came;
  Love is the sacred fire within,
    And prayer the rising flame.

  It gives the burdened spirit ease,
    And soothes the troubled breast;
  Yields comfort to the mourning soul,
    And to the weary rest.

  When God inclines the heart to pray,
    He hath an ear to hear;
  To Him there’s music in a sigh,
    And beauty in a tear.

To these clerical hymn-writers of the school of Watts must be added
the name of Anne Steele (1716-78), daughter of William Steele,
timber-merchant and Baptist minister at Broughton, Hants. Miss Steele
is the first Englishwoman who takes a permanent place amongst
hymn-writers. She has been called the Miss Havergal of the eighteenth
century, and so far as popularity and piety are concerned the
comparison is fair. She wrote under the name of ‘Theodosia,’ and her
hymns were for a hundred years extensively used in Nonconformist
worship, and several are to be found in Anglican hymnals.

Dr. Watts was her acknowledged model. She cries—

  O for the animating fire
  That tuned harmonious Watts’s lyre,
      To sweet seraphic strains![106]

She was so modest and devout, suffered and sorrowed so much, that one
is glad to know that some at least of her songs will take their place
among the permanent treasures of Christian song. Her hymns are
generally improved by the omission of some verses, and by slight
changes; but Miss Steele is never guilty of the clumsy and offensive
phrases which mar so many contemporary hymns. Her best-known hymns are
‘When I survey life’s varied scene,[107] and ‘Father of mercies, in
Thy word.’

Here are a few verses from a hymn on the text, ‘Because I live, ye
shall live also’ (John xiv. 19)—

  If my immortal Saviour lives,
    Then my immortal life is sure;
  His word a firm foundation gives:
    Here let me build and rest secure.

  Here let my faith unshaken dwell:
    Immovable the promise stands;
  Not all the powers of earth or hell
    Can e’er dissolve the sacred bands.

  Here, O my soul, thy trust repose!
    If Jesus is for ever mine.
  Not death itself, that last of foes,
    Shall break a union so divine.

Dr. John Ryland (1753-1825), one of the pioneers of the modern
missionary revival, and a few others are still remembered as
hymn-writers, but there is little distinctive about their poetry.
Indeed one is compelled to admit that a very large portion of the
hymns of the school of Watts are dull, formal, and prosaic. For the
most part they were written to suit particular sermons, and the shades
of the meeting-house are about them still. To many of them
Montgomery’s criticism of Beddome applies: ‘His compositions are
calculated to be far more useful than attractive.’

The ‘atmosphere’ was hardly likely to inspire enthusiasm. The long
struggle between King and Parliament, Catholic and Protestant was
stilled, the Toleration Act (1689) had given to orthodox
Nonconformists a religious liberty unknown before, and, though there
were occasional fears lest the old, bad conditions should be revived,
their freedom became gradually larger and more thoroughly established.
Watts and Doddridge represent the best side of the Nonconformity which
settled down after ‘the glorious Revolution’ into sedate, intelligent,
unaggressive, and highly respectable Churches, rejoicing devoutly, but
without enthusiasm, in the right to worship God in their own
sanctuaries, and to ‘sit under’ the ministry of their own pastors.
‘Then had the Churches rest, and walking in the comfort of the Holy
Ghost were multiplied.’ The high character and sound scholarship of
the leading Nonconformist ministers compelled the respect and won the
esteem of their episcopalian neighbours, with whom they lived in
pleasant relationships. It was just the time for a quiet reform in
modes of worship, and it was in the years between the Toleration Act
and the Methodist Revival that the hymn, already known but not yet
loved, won its way to a sure and increasingly honourable place in the
service of the sanctuary. Had the hymns been more original and
aggressive in tone, they would not so readily have won the ear and
heart of Independent congregations at the beginning of the eighteenth
century.




                                  IV
                       Eighteenth-century Hymns


                  II.—Hymns of the Methodist Revival

The first Wesleyan hymn-book is earlier than the Evangelical Revival.
When John Wesley sailed for Georgia, he took with him Herbert’s
_Poems_, Watts’s _Psalms and Hymns_, and John Austin’s _Offices_. From
these and some other books he prepared ‘the first hymn-book compiled
for use in the Church of England.’[108] It was published at
Charlestown in 1737, and is entitled, _A Collection of Psalms and
Hymns_. The book is a ‘Christian week’ rather than a Christian year,
being divided into three sections—for Sunday; for Wednesday and
Friday; for Saturday. It is in many respects a most interesting
volume. There is little trace of ‘catholic’ doctrine, unless it be in
the verses taken from Austin’s _Office of the Saints_, and there is
less of sacramental teaching than in the present _Methodist
Hymn-book_.

Of the seventy hymns half are by Dr. Watts, and amongst these are his
version of Ps. c, with Wesley’s famous first lines—

  Before Jehovah’s awful throne,
    Ye nations, bow with sacred joy;

and the cxlvi., which Wesley repeated with his dying breath. Seven
hymns are by John Austin; six are moderately successful attempts to
make some of Herbert’s matchless poems available for use in public
worship. The Wesleyan portion of the book consists of five hymns by
Samuel Wesley, senior; five by Samuel Wesley, junior; and five
translations from the German by John Wesley himself. Charles Wesley’s
hymns are conspicuous by their absence. Probably the explanation is
that, as he had already sailed for England, his MSS. were not at his
brother’s disposal.

In 1738, on his return to England, John Wesley published another small
hymn-book, with the same title and a similar arrangement, though the
contents are different. This is, I think, the only one of his many
hymn-books in which Ken’s hymns are included. In 1739 the brothers
issued their first joint publication, ‘_Hymns and Sacred Poems_,
published by John Wesley, M.A., Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, and
Charles Wesley, M.A., Student of Christ Church, Oxford. London.
Printed by William Strahan, and sold by James Hutton, bookseller, at
the Bible and Sun without Temple Bar; Mr. Bray’s, a brazier, in Little
Britain, M DCC XXXIX.’ In this volume Charles Wesley’s first published
poems appeared, and from this time he is the recognized poet of the
Revival.

Charles Wesley was born at Epworth Rectory on December 18, 1707.
Notwithstanding poverty, debt, difficulty, and persecution, there was
probably no more truly Christian home in England. The cultivation of
personal religion and simple faith in God found congenial soil here,
and doubtless in other obscure country parsonages. The Rector of
Epworth was a poet of some gifts, which the whole family inherited in
greater or less degree. His eldest son—sixteen years older than
Charles—was a minor poet and hymn-writer, and the younger members of
the family grew up in an atmosphere which must have made it natural
for them to write verses.

We have, however, no indication of precocious hymn-writing on the part
of Charles Wesley, nor, indeed, of any poetic composition till he was
seven-and-twenty, when he writes to convey a protest against his
sister’s marriage. Probably he did not discover his special talent
till he was in Georgia, where the Governor’s wife wrote, ‘Mr. Wesley
has the gift of verse, and has written many sweet hymns, which we
sing.’[109]

But if Charles Wesley wrote little poetry before his American mission,
he had received much of the training which was in due season to yield
such abundant fruit. The gracious influences of the Lincolnshire
rectory, of the Oxford Methodists, of his Moravian fellow passengers,
all helped to mould his fervent spirit. The poet within him could not
long be silent, and had already awoke when he received the baptism of
the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, 1738. This was the time of
his evangelical conversion, when he passed out of the state of the
anxious and conscientious servant into the glorious liberty of the
child of God. From that time the word of Christ dwelt in him richly.
‘The wealth of God’[110] was bestowed upon him, and out of the
abundance of a heart enriched by the indwelling word he poured forth
psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs in an almost ceaseless stream. Had
Charles Wesley never passed through this experience he would have been
one of our greatest ecclesiastical hymn-writers, and would have ranked
with Heber and Keble, but there would have been no distinctively
Methodist hymnody, and the Evangelical Revival would have been
immeasurably poorer. Moreover, he did very much to preserve the
standard of good taste, as well as the fervour of religious feeling,
in primitive Methodism.

  Charles Wesley, a Christ Church student, came to add sweetness to
  this sudden and startling light. He was the ‘sweet singer’ of the
  movement. His hymns expressed the fiery conviction of its converts
  in lines so chaste and beautiful, that its more extravagant features
  disappeared. The wild throes of hysteric enthusiasm passed into a
  passion for hymn-singing, and a new musical impulse was aroused in
  the people which gradually changed the face of public devotion
  throughout England.[111]

Charles Wesley would probably have accepted Keble’s judgement as to
the value of ‘a sober standard of feeling in matters of practical
religion,’ but his standard allowed a much wider range and warmer glow
to feeling than was possible to the poet of the later Oxford Movement.
Both the Wesleys shrank with the instinct of the scholar and the
gentleman from extravagance and vulgarity. Their energies were often
devoted to restraining the exuberant manifestations of the fervour of
their converts; and though they dared not deal too strictly with what
they believed to be indications of genuine spiritual emotion, they
deprecated undue excitement, and regarded hysterical testimonies in a
very different light from that in which Edward Irving viewed the
speaking with tongues.

  Saved from the fear of hell and death,
    With joy we seek the things above;
  And all Thy saints the spirit breathe
    Of power, sobriety, and love.

  Pure love to God Thy members find,
    Pure love to every soul of man;
  And in Thy sober, spotless mind,
    Saviour, our heaven on earth we gain.[112]

If Charles Wesley impressed himself upon the Methodist Revival to its
great benefit, the Revival in its turn most advantageously affected
his hymn-writing. In many of his poems it is easy to trace the
influence of the Anglican Prayer-book or the Moravian prayer-meeting,
but the typically Methodist hymns show little trace of either; they
are songs of the open-air service or of the class-room. Beecher’s
statement that Charles Wesley’s ‘hymns are only Moravian hymns
re-sung’ is more than a gross exaggeration.

In the early days of Methodism, Charles Wesley was as energetic and as
successful an evangelist as John. He loved the stir, the tumult, the
triumph of those great outdoor gatherings, where testimony must be
borne before mobs who might at any time endanger the property and even
the lives of preacher and hearers. In this regard the poet of the
Evangelical Revival had a great advantage over the poet of the
Tractarian Movement. Keble is one of the singers of the country
parsonage. At Fairford and Hursley he found, as Cowper at Olney,

  The calm retreat, the silent shade,
  With prayer and praise agree;

but Charles Wesley was moved to his highest flights of praise by
hard-won victories amongst his wild hearers in Cornwall, or
Moorfields, at Kingswood, or Walsall. The depths of his soul were
moved when he saw the first signs of penitence in the unwonted tears
which cut white channels in the begrimed faces of the colliers, whom
he taught to sing

  But O the power of grace Divine!
    In hymns we now our voices raise,
  Loudly in strange hosannas join,
    And blasphemies are turned to praise!

Nor must we overlook the influence of the Methodist class-meeting upon
Charles Wesley’s hymns. That institution was of the essence of
Methodism. It provided a ‘Holy Club,’ or a number of holy clubs, in
every place where converts had been gathered. True to his mission as
the poet of Methodism, he provided hymns for the Societies in their
private meetings as well as in their vast evangelistic gatherings. The
hymn-book naturally begins with the section headed ‘Exhorting and
Beseeching to Return to God,’ but the majority of the hymns are for
the penitent, the mourner, the believer, and for the backslider—the
man in whom old habits have proved too strong, who has wandered back
to sin, but longs to turn to God again. Charles Wesley shared with
John the pastoral oversight of the converts, often spending many weeks
in Dublin, Newcastle, or Bristol, or passing rapidly through Cornwall
or the Black Country, not only preaching the gospel, but carefully
examining, encouraging, and sifting the societies. The class-meeting
gave the distinctive tone to Methodist devotion, and Charles Wesley
was quick to sympathize with the varying moods of religious experience
related by the members. His hymns were often written for use by the
Society in its stated gatherings or by Christian friends meeting
socially in each other’s houses. In every revision of the _Methodist
Hymn-book_ it has been recognized that ample provision must be made
for such occasions, and that hymns might be very useful and, in fact,
extensively used though never heard in public worship.

The Wesleys were singularly open to impressions from those whom they
met, or whose books they read. Anglican, Moravian, Mystic by turns,
they only gradually developed into Methodists. In their first joint
publication they note that ‘some verses ... were wrote upon the scheme
of the Mystic divines’ whom they ‘had once in great veneration, as the
best explainers of the gospel of Christ.’[113] George Herbert, John
Norris (that other less famous parson of Bemerton), Henry More, and
such German hymn-writers as Freylinghausen, Christian Friedrich
Richter, and W. C. Dessler, were their first masters of Christian
song; but Charles Wesley soon found his own wings, and ceased to
belong to any school of poets, though to the end traces of other men’s
writings are to be found—amounting occasionally to actual verbal
quotation, e.g. from Milton, Young, Tate and Brady.

It is not possible to assign dates for the composition of many of
Charles Wesley’s hymns after the early years of the Revival, except
those called forth by some special occasion, such as the ‘Earthquake
Hymns,’ and those for the troubled days of the Insurrection of 1745.
At such times the hymns must have been written as a kind of task-work,
and the result is rarely more than commonplace. The poet seemed to
think it his duty, as the laureate of Methodism, to provide suitable
hymns for the special services rendered necessary by stirring events,
and usually wrote one or two in each of the favourite metres. These
were issued in small pamphlets at a few pence, and no doubt sold very
extensively, as did John Wesley’s prose tracts, through which he
‘unawares became rich.’

It is difficult for a Methodist preacher of the fourth generation,
whose earliest and most sacred associations are hallowed by memories
of Wesley’s hymns, to attempt an impartial, not to say a critical,
survey of them. If, then, I seem to place too high an estimate on the
Wesley poetry as compared with the hymns of others, I trust it may be
credited rather to early training and inherited affection than to
denominational partiality.

It may at once be granted that Charles Wesley wrote far too easily and
too diffusely to secure permanent remembrance for the majority of his
hymns. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, might disappear without serious
loss to the spiritual and devotional life of the Church. It may be
admitted, further, that he did not know which were his best and which
his worst productions, and that John Wesley’s editing might with
advantage have been more severe. The printing-press was dangerously
convenient to Charles Wesley, and the certainty of extensive sale for
everything he published, combined with the enthusiasm with which their
people received what the brothers wrote, either in prose or verse,
presented a temptation to rapid and frequent publication which few
poets could resist. Moreover, much that he wrote was designed for
immediate use, and had to be written, printed, published ere the
occasion passed. Yet it is probable that not much would have been
gained by elaborate revision. Charles Wesley was too tender-hearted to
treat his literary offspring as David treated the Moabites, measuring
two lines to put to death and one full line to keep alive, though both
he and Dr. Watts might not unwisely have adopted some such heroic
measure.

His hymns were often written at white heat, but they underwent
constant revision by their author, and generally they had a further
revision by his brother. The poet himself records eight revisions of
his Short Hymns on the Gospels and Acts, which he noted were ‘finished
April 24, 1765,’ and revised for the last time May 11, 1787.

In his _Journal_, John Wesley records, under date December 15, 1788—

  This week I dedicated to the reading over my brother’s works. They
  are short poems on the Psalms, the four Gospels, and the Acts of the
  Apostles. Some are bad; some mean; some most excellently good; they
  give the true sense of Scripture, always in good English, generally
  in good verse; many of them are equal to most, if not to any, he
  ever wrote; but some still savour of that poisonous mysticism with
  which we were both not a little tainted before we went to America.

‘Some bad, some mean, some most excellently good.’ The judgement is
just, though we who are accustomed to our richer and more varied
hymn-books should probably place not a few in a fourth class—certainly
not ‘bad’ or ‘mean,’ yet hardly ‘excellently good.’

In the _Methodist Hymn-book_ 429 hymns are attributed to Charles
Wesley; in the hymnals of other Churches there are to be found a
number which are unknown in Methodism. It is safe to say that of
Charles Wesley’s hymns about 500 are living still.

The first great service Wesley’s hymns rendered to Christian song was
to raise the standard of feeling in matters of practical religion.
John Wesley’s emendation of a line of Doddridge’s may illustrate the
influence of Methodist hymns upon religious emotion. Doddridge wrote—

  Ye humble souls, that seek the Lord,
    Chase all your fears away;
  And bow with pleasure down to see
    The place where Jesus lay.

Wesley changed ‘pleasure’ into ‘rapture’ in the hymn, and Methodism
raised Christian emotion from the quiet satisfaction of Watts,
Doddridge, and the elect souls who kept alive the faith during the
drab years which preceded the Revival, to the ecstatic gladness of
those to whom that great movement brought the brightness of a morning
without clouds. The largest section of the hymn-book was headed ‘For
Believers Rejoicing.’ No other Christian poet ever sang such songs,
for no other has ever known the joy of the evangelist as Charles
Wesley knew it.

    In a rapture of joy
    My life I employ,
  The God of my life to proclaim;
    ’Tis worth living for this,
    To administer bliss
  And salvation in Jesus’s name.

Joyousness was the natural result of the gospel he preached. It was
the good news of the assurance of personal salvation. Here John
Wesley’s emendation of one of Watts’s famous hymns may serve as an
illustration. Watts wrote—

    My soul looks back to see
    The burdens Thou didst bear
  When hanging on the cursèd tree,
    And _hopes_ her guilt was there.

Wesley shows the difference between Methodism and Calvinism by the
change of a word—

  And _knows_ her guilt was there.

The Methodist doctrine of Assurance, the revival or rediscovery of the
doctrine of the Witness of the Spirit, gave to Christian experience a
confidence which was more joyous than that of the ‘elect.’ The Wesleys
never slurred the need of repentance—deep, poignant, practical; but
there is a great gulf between the comparatively brief pangs of the
Methodist penitent and the habitual depression of the devout Romanist
ever searching through the dark places of the heart to find matter for
confession. The shades of the prison-house did not linger long around
the emancipated soul. Coming out of the gloom into the sunshine the
road wound

      Uphill all the way,
  Yes, to the very end.

The redeemed of the Lord returned to Zion with singing, with
everlasting joy upon their heads. Notwithstanding all that may be
said, and, to some extent, with justice, of the terrors, even the
horrors, of early evangelical preaching concerning death, hell, and
judgement, the Methodist hymns brought into Christian worship a
brighter and more trustful tone than it had known for many
generations. The Revival brought back the golden days, the joy of
heart, which characterized the Apostolic Church, and the German
Protestants at the Reformation. At the time of the Revival the Church
of England, though largely Arminian in doctrine, was so incapable of
fervour, so afraid of zeal, that it had practically no power over the
masses, whilst by the classes Christianity was, as Bishop Butler said,
regarded ‘not so much as a subject of inquiry,’ but ‘now at length
discovered to be fictitious.’

In the Establishment there was hardly spiritual life enough to put
real vigour even into religious controversy. Butler’s _Analogy_ is
typical of the position of the ecclesiastical leaders of that day.
They were content if they could demonstrate that the balance of
probabilities was in favour of Christianity, and did not even desire
to be anointed with the oil of gladness above their fellows.

The most earnest and aggressive of the Nonconformists were stanchly
Calvinistic, and, by their most cherished beliefs, were precluded from
the magnificent visions of a redeemed world, which were at once the
inspiration and the attraction of Methodist preaching.

Altogether outside theological controversy, and, for the most part,
uncared for by the religious people of the day, lay the masses,
ignorant, degraded, despised, who neither gave, nor were expected to
give, heed to things higher than the needs of the ‘mere animal.’ Of
them Charles Wesley only too truly said—

  Wild as the untaught Indian’s brood
    The Christian savages remain.

The hymns ‘Exhorting and Beseeching to Return to God’ at once
attracted the

  Poor outcasts of men, whose souls were despised
  And left with disdain.

Very surely, though very slowly, the glad evangel of the hymns which
offer pardon and holiness and heaven to all won its way in the
Churches. It is one of the most precious fruits of the Revival that
now hardly any Church can forbear to sing them. Nor is it too much to
say that Methodist hymns, even more than Methodist teaching, broke
down the Calvinistic idea of the Church—

  We are a garden walled around,
  Chosen and made peculiar ground;
  A little spot enclosed by grace
  Out of the world’s wide wilderness.

Again, John Wesley’s hymns gave a great impulse, and added a great
sanction, to the expression of personal experience in hymns. They were
unfettered by what has been well described as the ‘old traditions of
reserved and reticent worship.’[114] For good or ill, there is little
of reserve or reticence in Charles Wesley’s hymns.

  What we have felt and seen
    With confidence we tell.

Many poets of the sanctuary have felt that the most sacred experiences
of the penitent sinner and of the sanctified believer were not to be
put into words, that to utter them was to expose to the coarse breath
of the world what must perish in the very act of expression. It was
not without an effort that Charles Wesley broke through this
‘reserve;’ yet he did, and that not only from a sense of duty, but
from a conviction that to be silent would be a cowardly yielding to
the temptation to shun the reproach of Christ.

  And shall I slight my Father’s love?
    Or basely fear His gifts to own?
  Unmindful of His favours prove?
    Shall I, the hallowed cross to shun,
  Refuse His righteousness to impart,
  By hiding it within my heart?[115]

Moreover, many of Charles Wesley’s hymns—especially the more
personal—were intended to be sung ‘secretly among the faithful,’
rather than in the congregation. They were written for the family
gatherings of ‘the household of the faith,’ and thus were free from
the restraints which might be necessary in compositions intended for
larger and less sympathetic assemblies.

Wesley’s hymns represented and, to a considerable extent, created the
specific Methodist type of religious thought, emotion, and expression.
They were, also, the vehicle by which doctrine was conveyed to the
minds of the uneducated masses. The great truths which it was the
mission of Methodism to teach are conspicuous in the Methodist hymns.
Justification by Faith, the Witness of the Spirit, Universal
Redemption, Entire Sanctification, are all taught in Charles Wesley’s
remembered hymns as they are in John Wesley’s forgotten tracts. If the
hymns have ceased to be peculiarly Methodist, it is because Christian
experience and teaching have been so largely influenced by them.

It is impossible not to compare Charles Wesley with his great
predecessor, Isaac Watts. The day has gone by in which rival camps or
choirs seek to exalt the one by disparaging the other. As we have
seen, Watts’s _Psalms and Hymns_ were taken by the Wesleys on their
mission to Georgia, and it can never be forgotten that, with his dying
breath, John Wesley quoted the hymn which, from those early days, had
been included in the hymn-books prepared by him for congregational
use.

Watts was less careful of the technique of his poetry than Charles
Wesley. His rhymes are often very bad, and occasionally are altogether
forgotten, and this is true of hymns whose intrinsic value is such
that they retain, and are likely to retain, their place in our
hymn-books. Charles Wesley is not without sin in this regard, but a
really bad rhyme is comparatively rare in his best compositions. He
has less of poetic imagery than Watts, and has not so keen an eye for
the beauties of the natural world. Charles Wesley never wrote a hymn
that, in its own way, compares with

  Eternal Wisdom! Thee we praise;

nor do I know any verse of his which equals in its rich, strong
monosyllables, Watts’s

  His every[116] word of grace is strong
    As that which built the skies;
  The voice that rolls the stars along
    Speaks all the promises.

Wesley was apt to use long and awkward words, sometimes of his own
coining, rarely adding to the force, and always detracting from the
practical value of the hymn.

It must also be admitted that Charles Wesley wrote some verses the
taste of which is dreadful, though he never approaches the execrable
coarseness of some Moravian hymns, or of the lines which Walter
Shirley transfigured into ‘Sweet the moments rich in blessing.’ Both
Watts and Wesley had a quiet rather than a keen sense of humour, but
they had little of that appreciation of the comic which is so acute in
our own time.[117]

Charles Wesley rarely, if ever, reaches the depth of prosaic
commonplace which marks many of Watts’s hymns. He had a more sensitive
ear and a more cultivated taste, and, what is perhaps more to the
point, he had a faithful, though affectionate and admiring, critic in
his brother. When John Wesley said of Charles that his least praise
was his talent for poetry, he meant, not to disparage his hymns, but
to bear the highest testimony possible to the gifts and graces of his
mind and character.

In considering somewhat in detail the hymns of Charles Wesley, it is
convenient to treat of them in the classes into which they may be
broadly divided. But even so it is obviously impossible to glance at
more than a small number of his poems.


                    1.—Hymns of the Christian Year

The idea of an elaborate classification according to the Church
seasons, so usual in modern Anglican hymnals, had not yet become
popular. Bishop Ken’s _Hymns for all the Festivals of the Year_[118]
(published in 1721, ten years after his death), the precursor and, to
some extent, the inspiration of the _Christian Year_, was not intended
for use as a hymn-book. Wither’s _Hymns and Songs of the Church_
(1623) provided for all the chief festivals, saints’ days, and other
occasional services. About forty years later (1661) Dr. Eaton, Vicar
of Bishop’s Castle, Salop, published _The Holy Calendar_, but his
poems were not intended to be sung. The Wesleys issued a number of
pamphlets containing hymns for the great festivals, and it would not
be difficult to select from their various publications a ‘Christian
year,’ in which every hymn was suitable for public worship. But the
pieces would need to be gathered, for the brothers did not contemplate
the use of their hymn-books in Church services; they were designed for
the preaching-house, the open-air service, and the class-meeting. The
Nonconformist Churches had adopted the custom early in the century,
but in the Church of England hymn-singing was still, and for many
years after, an irregularity, if not an offence.

First and greatest of Charles Wesley’s festival hymns is the Christmas
carol

  Hark! how all the welkin rings,
  ‘Glory to the King of kings.’

It was published in 1739, and is not impossibly one of the ‘many sweet
hymns’ which were sung in the household of General Oglethorpe.
Whitefield made some popular alterations, and included it in his
_Collection_, in 1753. In 1782 it found a place in the Prayer-book,
after the new version of the Psalms. It was omitted from Wesley’s
_Collection_, but was inserted in the supplement of 1830—nearly a
century after its composition.

In the same metre, and not inferior, are the hymns for Easter—

  ‘Christ, the Lord, is risen to-day,’
  Sons of men and angels say!

and for Ascension Day—

  Hail the day that sees Him rise,
  Ravished from our wishful eyes.

There are some good verses in the Whit Sunday hymn—

  Granted is the Saviour’s prayer,
  Sent the gracious Comforter;

and in the little-known hymn for the Epiphany—

  Sons of men, behold from far,
  Hail the long-expected Star![119]

but they are not equal to the others.

Of Charles Wesley’s hymns on our Lord’s Passion, the finest are those
beginning

  With glorious clouds encompassed round,
    Whom angels dimly see,
  Will the Unsearchable be found,
    Or God appear to me?

                              . . . . .

  O Love divine! what hast thou done!
    The immortal God hath died for me
  The Father’s co-eternal Son
    Bore all my sins upon the tree;
  The immortal God for me hath died!
  My Lord, my Love is crucified.

                              . . . . .

  O Thou who hast our sorrows borne,
  Help us to look on Thee and mourn,
    On Thee Whom we have slain,
  Have pierced a thousand thousand times,
  And by reiterated crimes
    Renewed Thy mortal pain.[120]

The popular hymn beginning

        All ye that pass by,
        To Jesus draw nigh:
  To you is it nothing that Jesus should die?

is, owing to its cheerful metre, hardly suited to the solemn services
of Good Friday, and was intended for the open air. It was headed
‘Invitation to Sinners,’ and was used by Whitefield with great effect
when preaching at the Market Cross, Nottingham, and elsewhere.

John Wesley appointed many fast days, and was careful to fix them on
Friday, but the observance of Lent does not seem to have been
enforced, or even strongly recommended, in the Methodist Society.
Hymns for saints’ days and for the minor festivals are unknown to the
Wesley poetry.


                 2. Hymns on the Lord’s Supper.[121]

This pamphlet contains 166 hymns, many of which are admirable and very
close paraphrases of passages in Brevint’s _Christian Sacrifice_, but
others are independent of that devout treatise. Many lend themselves
readily to use in ‘catholic’ services, and have often been quoted as
indicating high sacramentarian views.[122]

On the other hand, such verses as the following must be taken in an
entirely evangelical sense—

  The cup of blessing, blessed by Thee,
    Let it Thy blood impart:
  The bread Thy mystic body be,
    And cheer each languid heart.

                              . . . . .

  With solemn faith we offer up,
    And spread before Thy glorious eyes,
  That only ground of all our hope,
    That precious, bleeding Sacrifice,
  Which brings Thy grace on sinners down,
  And perfects all our souls in one.

                              . . . . .

  By faith we see Thy sufferings past
    In this mysterious rite brought back:
  And on Thy grand oblation cast,
    Its saving benefits partake.

In these paraphrases there are naturally expressions which represent
Brevint and not the Wesleys, except in so far as they indicate a
general approval of his teaching. The hymns which most closely follow
the treatise are often the least happy. Yet, when every deduction is
made, this little book is one of the most edifying of devotional
preparations for the Communion.

These hymns have had a permanent influence upon Methodist worship.
Many of them were probably suggested by the Order of Administration in
the Book of Common Prayer, the most beautiful of all the Anglican
services. Both the brothers had a profound reverence for the Holy
Communion, as the supreme act of Christian worship, and constantly
impressed upon Methodists the duty of its regular observance. Never at
any time was there a danger of the Methodist Societies cutting
themselves off from the Catholic Church by neglect of the Sacraments,
or of their becoming an exclusively evangelistic organization on the
plan of the Salvation Army. This pamphlet, of which many editions were
issued during the lifetime of John Wesley, shows how serious a view
they desired their people to take of the value of this sacrament,
whilst its great popularity suggests that the intelligence of the
Methodists of a hundred and fifty years ago was very much above that
with which we are accustomed to credit them. The republication of
Brevint’s _Treatise_, in a small series of devotional manuals, edited
by Dr. George Osborn, did not revive interest in it, as it might have
done had a judicious selection from the hymns been included.[123]

Several hymns familiar to us in other sections of our hymn-books were
written for, or included in, this series. The prayer for the Church
militant, with its remembrance of and thanksgiving for those in
trouble and for those who have ‘departed this life in Thy faith and
fear,’ probably suggested the hymn—

  What are these arrayed in white?

whilst the _Ter-Sanctus_ is the inspiration of—

  Lift your eyes of faith and see
  Saints and angels joined in one.

The thought of communion with the Church triumphant was very precious
to Charles Wesley, and there is a most beautiful and solemn
appropriateness in the lifting of the eyes as well as of the heart,
when, having claimed in faith the forgiveness of sins, we take our
unchallenged place at the table of the Lord. The Holy Communion
includes fellowship with those who have ‘crossed the flood’ and are
for ever with the Lord.

Nor is the other aspect of the communion of saints forgotten. It is
often easier for earnest souls to claim fellowship with the
white-robed company of heaven than with those on earth who are divided
from them by divergencies of doctrine and practice. But if, on the one
hand, the Eucharist has been a stone of stumbling and a rock of
offence to theologians and ecclesiastics, on the other it is the bond
of union between all ‘holding fast the Head.’[124] The true evangelic
and the typically Wesleyan position is well stated in the verse—

  Part of His Church below,
    We thus our right maintain;
  Our living membership we show,
    And in the fold remain,—
  The sheep of Israel’s fold,
    In England’s pastures fed;
  And fellowship with all we hold,
    Who hold it with our Head.[125]

This is the attitude our Church has consistently adopted. We do not
claim exclusive privileges or profess that our boundaries are the
walls of that city of God which lieth four square. We are but ‘part of
His Church below,’ but we _are_ a part, and in obedience to our dying
Lord’s command ‘we thus our right maintain.’ What matter though some
deny the validity of our ‘orders,’ the efficacy of our sacraments, our
title to a place in the Holy Catholic Church? They may drive us from
their local altars, but they cannot exclude us from the Lord’s table.
They may deny us a place in that family for which our blessed Lord was
content to be betrayed into the hands of sinful men. What then? We do
not deny theirs.

  Fellowship with all we hold,
  Who hold it with our Head.

This is a note too seldom heard in Communion hymns. I do not remember
to have found it so clearly put anywhere else, though Major Turton’s
prayer for unity comes graciously near to it.

  For all Thy Church, O Lord, we intercede;
    Make Thou our sad divisions soon to cease;
  Draw us the nearer each to each, we plead,
    By drawing all to Thee, O Prince of Peace;
  Thus may we all one Bread, one Body be,
  Through this blest Sacrament of Unity.[126]

The _sacramental_ character of the Lord’s Supper as the sign and
pledge of the believer’s consecration to the service of Christ is
represented in the hymn beginning—

  Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
    One in Three, and Three in One,
  As by the celestial host,
    Let Thy will on earth be done;
  Praise by all to Thee be given,
  Glorious Lord of earth and heaven.

which in some of its verses suggests the prayer known as the First
Thanksgiving,[127] though it is based upon a beautiful paragraph of
Brevint’s.

A few hymns under the heading ‘After the Sacrament’ form an
unimportant supplement, but the long series really ends with a joyous
song well-suited to be the happy close of the solemn commemoration of
the sacrifice of Calvary and the renewal of the Christian’s oath of
allegiance

  Let Him to whom we now belong
    His sovereign right assert,
  And take up every thankful song
    And every loving heart.

This final note of glad thanksgiving reminds us that in our Communion
Service the ‘Gloria in Excelsis’ immediately precedes the
Benediction.[128]


               3. Hymns of the Calvinistic Controversy.

From these Communion hymns we pass to a series of a very different
type. The story of the Calvinistic controversy—which seemed to show
that a theological fountain could at the same time send forth sweet
water and bitter—belongs to Church history, not to hymnology. Yet we
cannot pass it over, for none of the hymns of the Wesleys _meant_ so
much as those which proclaimed the glad tidings of a free and full
salvation. The controversy was civil war, a strife among brethren, and
it is good to know that the love of Whitefield and the Wesleys was
able to bear, though not without terrible strain, even this sore
trial. From that great controversy we inherit the true eirenicon, the
agreeing to differ, which is the best possible solution of many
religious disputes. Whitefield and the Wesleys finally agreed to
differ and continued to love. But for a time there was ‘a sharp
contention so that they parted asunder one from the other.’

In 1740 John Wesley published, after some hesitation, his sermon on
‘Free Grace,’ and added a long, dull hymn by his brother on ‘Universal
Redemption.’ In the same year the brothers issued a second series of
_Hymns and Sacred Poems_, which contained this and other pieces,
setting forth in the most emphatic terms the Arminian doctrine, and
condemning in even more emphatic terms all who believed in what Calvin
had called ‘_decretum horribile_.’ Whitefield was shocked by the
Wesleyan doctrine itself, and was beyond measure distressed by what he
saw must lead to a breach between himself and his dearest friends. His
love and sorrow come out most attractively in his letters.

  ‘My dear, dear Brethren,’ he wrote, ‘why did you throw out the bone
  of contention? Why did you print that sermon against predestination?
  Why did you, in particular, my dear brother Charles, affix your hymn
  and join in putting out your late hymn-book?’[129]

John Wesley’s sermon carefully avoided reference to his friend.
Whitefield, however, felt in honour bound to state his own views and
to ‘answer’ Wesley’s sermon. To this reply he added a poor poem by Dr.
Watts, which was intended to balance Charles Wesley’s hymn. Here are
two of Watts’s verses—

  Behold the potter and the clay,
    He forms His vessels as he please;
  Such is our God, and such are we,
    The subjects of His high decrees.

  May not the sovereign Lord on high,
    Dispense His favours as He will;
  Choose some to life while others die,
    And yet be just and gracious still?

After this the battle became fast and furious. The two pamphlets of
_Hymns on God’s Everlasting Love_[130] were issued in 1741, and
Whitefield was in despair. He writes: ‘Dear brother Charles is more
and more rash. He has lately printed some very bad hymns.’[131] From
Whitefield’s point of view they were undoubtedly very bad, and even
justify his charge that the Wesleys ‘dressed up’ the doctrine of
election in ‘horrible colours.’ On the other hand, these hymns contain
some of the finest specimens of evangelic hymn-writing to be found in
the Wesley poetry.

They may be readily divided into two classes, the one vigorous and
often bitterly satirical onslaughts upon the Calvinistic position,
which are more in the style of ‘Holy Willie’s Prayer’ than in that of
‘Jesu, Lover of my soul,’ the other containing the proclamation of the
glad tidings of universal redemption. Both elements are often found in
the same composition. This is true of the first of the hymns, a
portion of which has been used in Methodist congregations for more
than a century and a half, and retains its place in the new hymn-book.
I print some verses with the original italics, indicating its polemic
purpose.

  Father, _whose everlasting love_
    Thy only Son for sinners gave;
  Whose grace to _all_ did _freely_ move,
    And sent Him down a _world to save_.

  Help us Thy mercy to extol
    Immense, unfathomed, unconfined;
  To praise the Lamb who _died for all_,
    The _general Saviour of mankind_.

  Thy _undistinguishing regard_
    Was cast on _Adam’s_ fallen race:
  For all Thou hast in Christ prepared,
    _Sufficient, sovereign, saving_ grace.

  Jesus hath said, we _all_ shall hope,
    Preventing grace for all is free:
  And I, if I be lifted up,
    I will _draw all men_ unto Me.

  Arise, O God, maintain Thy cause!
    The fulness of the _Gentiles_ call:
  Lift up the standard of Thy cross
    And _all_ shall own Thou diedst for all.[132]

In other hymns he employs the most biting, taunting sarcasm. It is
difficult to suppose that these were ever sung even in the thickest of
the fight; but they were sown broadcast (price fourpence), and were,
no doubt, read with ecstatic delight by those who were on the Wesleys’
side in the great controversy. It is easy at this distance of time and
circumstance to condemn the vehemence of the language used on both
sides, especially in the later and more acrimonious stages of the
controversy. But this was one of ‘freedom’s battles.’ It was
magnificent, and it was war. To the Wesleys the doctrine that by the
arbitrary decree of God—the God of love!—children were born to a doom
which they could neither escape nor deserve was hateful, blasphemous,
impossible. If _this_ were indeed the truth of God, what gospel was
there to preach? Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die and meet
the inevitable doom. Nor could they tolerate what seemed to them the
smug satisfaction of ‘the elect,’ to whose certainty of salvation the
equal certainty of the damnation of the reprobate added a pleasing
flavour. They would not accept salvation on such terms. ‘Take back,’
Charles Wesley cries indignantly,

  Take back my interest in Thy blood,
  Unless it streamed for all the race.

With a true controversial instinct, the Wesleys fastened upon Calvin’s
phrase ‘_decretum horribile_,’ and, preferring to transliterate rather
than to translate, turned again and again to rend it.

A poem describing the possibilities of evil in the human heart and
mind comes to a climax thus—

  I could the devil’s law receive,
    Unless restrained by Thee;
  I could (good God!) I could believe
    The Horrible Decree.

  I could believe that God is hate—
    The God of love and grace
  Did damn, pass by, and reprobate
    The most of human race.

  Farther than this I cannot go,
    Till Tophet take me in.
  But, O, forbid that I should know
    This mystery of sin.[133]

Such were the amenities of religious controversy in the eighteenth
century!

Again, in a lighter but still intensely earnest vein, he caricatures
his adversaries’ teaching—

  The righteous God consigned
    Them over to their doom,
  And sent the Saviour of mankind
    To damn them from the womb:
  To damn for falling short
    Of what they could not do,
  For not believing the report
    Of that which was not true.

  He did not do the deed—
    (Some have more mildly raved),
  He did not damn them, but decreed
    They never should be saved.

This effusion ends in a higher strain, with a dedication of his own
life to the proclamation of universal redemption—

  My life I here present,
    My heart’s last drop of blood;
  O let it all be freely spent
    In proof that Thou art good:
  Art good to all that breathe,
    Who all may pardon have:
  Thou willest not the sinner’s death,
    But all the world _wouldst_ save.

John Wesley tried in his brief tract on the _Calvinistic
Controversy_[134] (1743) to make peace with Whitefield, and some of
his concessions are surprising—indeed, he afterwards retracted them.
But Charles, who at this time was in the full glow of his early
evangelistic triumphs, and who was much less of a theologian than his
brother, felt that he was engaged in a holy crusade. He tried to write
calmly, he prayed for grace to speak tenderly of those who were erring
from the truth he held so dear, but—well, he could not keep silence.

In one of these hymns—a portion of which remains in the _Methodist
Hymn-book_—he prays—

  O arm me with the mind,
    Meek Lamb! that was in Thee,
  And let my knowing zeal be joined
    To fervent charity.

  With calm and tempered zeal
    Let me enforce Thy call,
  And vindicate Thy gracious will,
    Which offers life to all.

  Thou dost not stand in need
    Of me to prop Thy cause,
  To assert Thy general grace, or spread
    The victory of Thy cross.

  O may I love like Thee!
    And in Thy footsteps tread!
  Thou hatest all iniquity,
    But nothing Thou hast made.

  O may I learn Thy art,
    With meekness to reprove;
  To hate the sin with all my heart,
    But still the sinner love.[135]

These verses might be headed ‘A Prayer before Controversy,’ but it is
a shock to the reader on turning the page to find that the next verse
shows how soon he descended from this high level.

The controversy was renewed thirty years later with vastly greater
bitterness, and with much more personal feeling.

John Fletcher parted in 1771 from his Trevecca students like the saint
he was, for he could no longer hold his place when other Arminians
were discharged. ‘I cannot give up the possibility of the salvation of
all any more than I can give up the truth and love of God.... I left
them all in peace, the servant, but no more the president of the
college.’[136]

The love of Whitefield and the Wesleys was of the kind which many
waters cannot quench; but when Madan, Romaine, Hervey, and Rowland
Hill heaped upon John Wesley’s venerable head torrents of vulgar
abuse—abuse absolutely impossible, inconceivable in our milder
mannered age[137]—Charles felt that there was a point beyond which
even Christian charity could not decently go. His refusal to write
Hervey’s epitaph is worthy of a Christian gentleman:

  Let Madan or Romaine record his praise,
  Enough that Wesley’s brother can forgive.

The flowing tide, however, was with the Methodists, and though the
fight was long, and the victory was not wholly won in their day, these
hymns rendered an inestimable service to the cause of religious
freedom. It may be true that they represented Calvin’s teaching
one-sidedly, and at times misrepresented it, but it cannot be denied
that they pictured current Calvinistic teaching accurately enough. The
Wesleys saw clearly that, should belief in a limited redemption spread
in their Society, they would but labour in vain and spend their
strength for nought. They might have gathered little coteries of
devout folk, strongly tinctured with what we now call Plymouth
Brethrenism, but they could never have founded a great Church, whose
chiefest glory should be its missionary enterprise both at home and in
the ends of the earth. The mission of Thomas Coke more than a hundred
years ago, the great city missions of our own time, the work of
William Booth, of Hugh Price Hughes, and Samuel F. Collier, would have
been impossible had they not been able to say anywhere and to all—

  Sent by my Lord, on you I call;
  The invitation is to all:
  Come, all the world; come, sinner, thou;
  All things in Christ are ready now!

The Wesleys reached their doctrine of general redemption by two paths.
In the first place, they had been trained in the school of Arminius
and of Laud, and had been confirmed in the faith by their own careful
study of God’s word. But it is abundantly evident that their own
experience had led them to believe in the infinite mercy of God.
Charles Wesley, especially, argued with the profound humility of the
sincere penitent, that his own salvation, of which he had received the
undeniable assurance, ‘the indubitable seal,’ on Whit-Sunday, 1738,
was itself convincing evidence of the good tidings he proclaimed.

  Thy sovereign grace to all extends,
    Immense and unconfined:
  From age to age it never ends;
    It reaches all mankind.

  Throughout the world its breadth is known,
    Wide as infinity;
  So wide, it never passed by one,
    Or it had passed by me.[138]

This is a note which constantly recurs in the _Hymns on God’s
Everlasting Love_—sometimes expressed quaintly and unpoetically,
sometimes with a pathos truly sublime, as in these verses—

  O let me kiss Thy bleeding feet,
    And bathe and wash them with my tears;
  The story of Thy love repeat
    In every drooping sinner’s ears,
  That all may hear the quickening sound,
  Since I, even I, have mercy found.

  O let Thy love my heart constrain,
    Thy love for every sinner free;
  That every fallen soul of man
    May taste the grace that found out me;
  That all mankind, with me, may prove
  Thy sovereign, everlasting love.[139]

In this, as in other respects, the Wesleyan theology was
characteristically Pauline. ‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of
all men to be received that Jesus Christ came into the world to save
sinners, of whom I am the chief.’

Hymns of this class have an important place in the story of the
Methodist Revival, as well as in the Calvinistic controversy. The
vehemence, the violence, with which the Wesleys asserted their
doctrine was largely, if not entirely, due to their sense of what it
meant to the vast crowds of neglected, ignorant, savage folk who
listened with amazement to the messengers who proclaimed God’s love to
them.

  Sinners, believe the gospel word,
    Jesus is come your souls to save!
  Jesus is come, your common Lord;
    Pardon ye all in Him may have,
  May now be saved, whoever will;
  This Man receiveth sinners still.

  See where the lame, the halt, the blind.
    The deaf, the dumb, the sick, the poor,
  Flock to the Friend of human kind,
    And freely all accept their cure;
  To whom doth He His help deny?
  Whom in His days of flesh pass by?[140]

And again—

  O unexampled Love,
    O all-redeeming Grace!
  How freely didst Thou move
    To save a fallen race!
  What shall I do to make it known
  What Thou for all mankind hast done?

  O for a trumpet voice,
    On all the world to call!
  To bid their hearts rejoice
    In Him who died for all;
  For all my Lord was crucified,
  For all, for all my Saviour died![141]

This was a new voice crying in the wilderness of dull religious
mediocrity or of self-satisfied religious devotion, it was the
clarion-cry of one that brought good tidings to the outcasts of
Israel.


                  4. Hymns of the Methodist Evangel

From the first the Methodists made their own experience the
starting-point of their preaching. John Wesley desired no help from
any who had not ‘the witness in himself.’ His itinerants must set to
their seal that God is true. ‘We are witnesses of these things, and so
is also the Holy Ghost.’ This personal element, the testimony of the
man who believed and therefore spoke, differentiated at once Methodist
preaching from the cold impersonal moral essays of the parish church.
But Methodist preaching would not have been what it was had John
Wesley’s sermons rather than Charles Wesley’s hymns represented
Methodism to the masses. John Wesley’s keen intellect held his deep
religious fervour in check, but Charles took full advantage of the
poet’s licence to say what was in his heart without reserve and
without modifying explanations.

His hymns of invitation strike a new note. There is nothing to compare
with them in earlier hymn-writers, and comparatively little in later.
They are the battle-songs of an open-air preacher, and are borne on
the wings of the tempest that raged around the heroic little poet as
he faced cheerily the rage or ridicule of the mob. His metres are
bright and lilting, winning the ear of the simple and arresting the
casual passer-by.

  The mercy I feel To others I show,
  I set to my seal That Jesus is true:
  Ye all may find favour Who come at His call,
  O come to my Saviour, His grace is for all!

  O let me commend My Saviour to you,
  The publican’s Friend And Advocate too,
  For you He is pleading His merits and death,
  With God interceding For sinners beneath.

And again—

  O all that pass by, To Jesus draw near;
  He utters a cry, Ye sinners, give ear!
  From hell to retrieve you, He spreads out His hands;
  Now, now to receive you, He graciously stands.

Only a preacher, perhaps only an open-air preacher, could have written
such hymns. They are not hymns of the oratory, of the class-room, or
the village church; but of that vast cathedral whose roof is the blue
vault of heaven; they are songs of Moorfields, of Kingswood, of
Newcastle, and of Gwennap. Perhaps of all Wesley’s hymns these are the
most characteristically Methodist. Comparatively few are to be found
even yet in any but Methodist books, but in them they hold an
unchallenged place, and belong to the whole Methodist family, which
has had many a quarrel in Conference, has been many a time by schisms
rent asunder, but has never faltered in its loyal and steadfast
proclamation of the message of God’s everlasting love.

As a general rule each revision of a Nonconformist hymn-book renders
it less distinctive of the denomination it represents, and this is, to
some extent, true of the new Methodist hymn-book. It has lost the
section with which Wesley’s book opened, ‘Exhorting and Entreating to
Return to God,’ but it retains almost all the hymns. Modern writers
have seldom succeeded in hymns of this type. A few, however, rank with
the best of Charles Wesley’s, who himself never struck a note of
yearning sympathy for the erring more true and tender than Faber in
his ‘Come to Jesus.’

  Souls of men! why will ye scatter
    Like a crowd of frightened sheep?
  Foolish hearts! why will ye wander
    From a love so true and deep?

It is not one of the best signs of the times that hymns of invitation
are now for the most part provided by American singers and are of the
ephemeral class.

Faber’s exquisite lines, set side by side with such a hymn as Wesley’s

  Ye neighbours and friends Of Jesus, draw near,

well illustrate the difference between the cheery, hopeful, out-door
evangel of the Wesleys and the subdued earnestness of the pleading of
the modern Catholic or Anglo-Catholic missioner. I do not suggest that
the comparison is to the advantage or disadvantage of either, but only
indicate the difference of the tone of the mid-eighteenth and
mid-nineteenth century mission hymns. In our day evangelism has lost
much of its novelty, and men are less hopeful than they were of the
world’s conversion. To the first Methodists it seemed as though any
triumph was possible to such a gospel as theirs, and their
battle-songs were all songs of victory.

Wesley’s hymns enshrine the history as well as the doctrines of
Methodism, and few studies in Methodist hymnology are more interesting
than that of the geography of the hymn-book. As to the local setting
of ‘Lo! on a narrow neck of land’ there has been much controversy, but
it undoubtedly belongs to Jekyl Island, and not to the Land’s End.
Charles Wesley wrote to Lady Oglethorpe from Jekyl Island in 1736—

  ‘Last evening I wandered to the north end of the island, and stood
  upon the narrow point which your ladyship will recall as there
  projecting into the ocean. The vastness of the watery waste, as
  compared with my standing place, called to mind the briefness of
  human life and the immensity of its consequences, and my
  surroundings inspired me to write the enclosed hymn, beginning

  Lo! on a narrow neck of land,
  ’Twixt two unbounded seas I stand—

  which, I trust, may pleasure your ladyship, weak and feeble as it is
  when compared with the songs of the sweet psalmist of Israel.’[142]

He did write a hymn at the Land’s End, but it is of quite a different
type. It might have been written for St. Augustine of Canterbury on
his landing at Ebbsfleet.

  Come, Divine Immanuel, come,
  Take possession of Thy home,
  Now Thy mercy’s wings expand,
  Stretch throughout the happy land.[143]

The popular hymn

  See how great a flame aspires,
    Kindled by a spark of grace!
  Jesu’s love the nations fires,
    Sets the kingdoms on a blaze—

tells of victory at Newcastle-on-Tyne.

  Glory to God, whose sovereign grace
  Hath animated senseless stones;[144]

tells of triumph at Kingswood, whilst—

  Worship, and thanks, and blessing,
    And strength ascribe to Jesus!

is reminiscent of mobs at Walsall and Devizes.


                  5. Hymns of the Methodist Society

The duty of a Methodist preacher was not simply to sow good seed
broadcast, but to gather those who received the word into Societies,
where they could be taught, trained, watched over. A large part of
John Wesley’s itinerations were for the purpose of confirming and
sifting the Societies. In many cases they might be described as
Charles Wesley, who had an eye for the humorous side of people and
things, describes the Newcastle converts, ‘a wild, loving, staring
Society.’ But the converts who remained steadfast were soon led to an
intelligent faith and a life of devotion such as is possible only to
those who are taught by educated men or their pupils. The debt
Methodism owes to Oxford culture is inestimable. The Wesleys were
never discouraged by the ignorance of their hearers, but they were
never content with it. They had profound faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ as a teacher, and prayed, like St. Paul for his simple-minded
converts at Philippi, that love might abound in good sense and good
taste.[145]

  Him Prophet, and King, And Priest we proclaim,
  We triumph and sing Of Jesus’s name;
  Poor idiots[146] He teaches To show forth His praise,
  And tell of the riches Of Jesus’s grace.

  No matter how dull The scholar whom He
  Takes into His school, And gives him to see;
  A wonderful fashion Of teaching He hath,
  And wise to salvation He makes us through faith.

To a generation brought up to regard Sankey’s _Songs and Solos_ as the
best possible hymns for mission-halls and open-air services, a study
of Wesley’s hymns is a liberal education. For the most ignorant of the
converts the hymns were the one and only means of culture. They could
not read, much of the preaching must have been beyond their
comprehension, but the hymns, read slowly, a line at a time, soon
became familiar, and the favourite hymns sung over and over again in
the house, the class-room, and the family circle, became a part of
their very life. Methodist biography shows how the life and death of
the saints has been cheered and sanctified by these spiritual songs.

The most important, and by far the largest, part of Wesley’s
_Collection_ was devoted to hymns of the Christian life.

It is divided into sections: For Believers Rejoicing, Fighting,
Praying, Watching, Working, Suffering, Seeking for Full Redemption,
Saved, Interceding for the World. It begins with his own translation
of Johann Andreas Rothe’s great hymn

  Now I have found the ground wherein
    Sure my soul’s anchor may remain,
  The wounds of Jesus, for my sin,
    Before the world’s foundation slain;
  Whose mercy shall unshaken stay,
  When heaven and earth are fled away

This is followed by his version of Zinzendorf’s hymn

  Jesu, Thy blood and righteousness
  My beauty are, my glorious dress.

After these Moravian hymns are a number of Charles Wesley’s, which
celebrate the joys of believers, for ‘How should not he be glad, whom
the glad tidings have reached?’[147] It is often difficult to
understand John Wesley’s principle of classification, but in this
section almost every hymn of the seventy-five is obviously well placed
under the title ‘For Believers Rejoicing.’ The notes of thanksgiving
are very varied, from the calm confidence of ‘Now I have found the
ground’ to the simple songs written for him ‘that in God is merry,’
such as

  O what shall I do My Saviour to praise,
  So faithful and true, So plenteous in grace,
  So strong to deliver, So good to redeem
  The weakest believer That hangs upon Him!

and

  My God, I am Thine, What a comfort divine,
  What a blessing to know That my Jesus is mine!

We cannot claim for these hymns that they introduce new songs to the
Christian choir. Joy and gladness are common to all who have found
salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Isaac Watts, Philip
Doddridge, F. W. Faber, Frances Ridley Havergal, and many more have
had ‘the high praises of God in their mouth.’ From the days of the
Hebrew psalmists until now the sense of infinite content which comes
with the peace which passeth all understanding has been the theme of
God’s singers. ‘He satisfieth the longing soul and filleth the hungry
soul with goodness.’ Yet joyousness is a special characteristic of
Methodist hymns, and especially of those which were written in the
early days of the triumphs of the itinerant preachers. No hymns rise
higher in their exultant rapture, none are more tenderly triumphant
than the songs of Charles Wesley.

His Birthday hymn exhibits the happy enthusiasm of his evangelism.

      My remnant of days
      I spend in His praise,
  Who died the whole world to redeem;
      Be they many or few,
      My days are His due,
  And they all are devoted to Him.

In other hymns he expresses the same joy in living in calmer tones.

  The winter’s night and summer’s day
  Glide imperceptibly away,
      Too short to sing Thy praise;
  Too few we find the happy hours,
  And haste to join those heavenly powers,
      In everlasting lays.

Bright and inspiring as these pieces are, they are in striking
contrast with the hymns characteristic of minor religious movements,
and justify John Wesley’s claim that ‘in these hymns is no doggerel.’
That they are of unequal merit goes without saying, but it is
remarkable how many of them are living hymns to-day. Religious feeling
is no more healthy because it loves to pray for guidance ‘amid the
encircling gloom,’ or to describe the hosts of the Church militant as
‘pilgrims of the night.’ A ‘sober standard of feeling’ must take into
account that the darkness has passed and the true light now shineth.

Yet one who knows little of early Methodism would be surprised to find
how ‘sober’ is the tone of most of the hymns provided for the people
called Methodists. They are songs in which ‘calmly reverential joy’ is
more often heard than ecstasy. It is instructive to turn from Mr.
Lecky’s chapter on ‘The Religious Revival,’ in his _History of England
in the Eighteenth Century_ to Wesley’s hymns. The uninstructed reader
of Mr. Lecky would expect to find here the turbid, involved,
hysterical expression of a morbid fanaticism, but he would search
almost in vain for illustrations of that side of the Methodist
Movement. It is true that both the Wesleys were perplexed by the
physical effects of their preaching, and were afraid to treat them as
mere manifestations of hysterical excitement. But they dealt with them
as St. Paul dealt with somewhat similar phenomena at Corinth, and
carefully avoided encouraging such painful and inconvenient
interruptions of their services. The hymn-book makes no provision for
the nervously excited, and has no compositions of the class
characteristic of many ‘revivals’—such, for instance, as are found in
Hugh Bourne’s _Hymns for Camp Meetings, Revivals, etc._ The novelty,
the directness of the preaching, and, no doubt, the lack of education
of many of the preachers naturally led to indiscretion in many places,
especially in the early days of the Revival; but it is fair to judge
the Wesleys’ own standard of religious emotion by their hymns rather
than by the extravagances of their least intelligent helpers.

Charles Wesley’s hymn, ‘For the Fear of God,’ is a good example of the
attitude of soul he desired for himself and for Methodists generally.

  God of all grace and majesty,
    Supremely great and good!
  If I have mercy[148] found with Thee,
    Through the atoning blood,
  The guard of all Thy mercies give,
    And to my pardon join
  A fear lest I should ever grieve
    The gracious Spirit divine.

  Rather I would in darkness mourn
    The absence of Thy peace,
  Than e’er by light irreverence turn
    Thy grace to wantonness:
  Rather I would in painful awe
    Beneath Thine anger move,
  Than sin against the gospel law
    Of liberty and love.

  But O! Thou wouldst not have me live
    In bondage, grief, or pain,
  Thou dost not take delight to grieve
    The helpless sons of men;
  Thy will is my salvation, Lord;
    And let it now take place,
  And let me tremble at the word
    Of reconciling grace.

  Still may I walk as in Thy sight,
    My strict observer see;
  And Thou by reverent love unite
    My child-like heart to Thee;
  Still let me, till my days are past,
    At Jesu’s feet abide,
  So shall He lift me up at last,
    And seat me by His side.

Perhaps there are few hymns quite of this type, but the subdued and
subduing sense of the fear of God pervades many of Charles Wesley’s
poems. He dwells much on ‘the mystic joys of penitence,’ as in his
brief meditation on Ezek. xxxvi. 26, ‘I will give you an heart of
flesh.’

  Let me, according to Thy word,
    A tender, contrite heart receive,
  Which grieves[149] for having grieved its Lord
    And never can itself forgive;

a verse which reminds one of Cardinal Newman’s saying that true
penitence never forgives itself. This, however, is not what Charles
Wesley meant, for he of all Christian poets best understood how truly
the pardoned prodigal might make merry and be glad when he was safe in
his Father’s house once more.

  Lift up Thy countenance serene,
    And let Thy happy child
  Behold, without a cloud between,
    The Godhead reconciled.

An important series of hymns—so important that it demands separate
consideration—is that which is found in Sections vii.-ix. of the
original hymn-book. They include nearly one hundred pieces, and from
the days of John Wesley until the latest revision the section began
with a hymn which is the most fitting introduction to the series,
since it sets forth with great simplicity the Wesleyan doctrine of
Christian perfection. Familiar as this hymn is to Methodists, it is
worth while to quote it in full here—

      The thing my God doth hate,
      That I no more may do,
  Thy creature, Lord, again create,
      And all my soul renew;
      My soul shall then, like Thine,
      Abhor the thing unclean,
  And, sanctified by love divine,
      For ever cease from sin.

      That blessed law of Thine,
      Jesus, to me impart;
  The Spirit’s law of life divine,
      O write it in my heart!
      Implant it deep within,
      Whence it may ne’er remove,
  The law of liberty from sin,
      The perfect law of love.

      Thy nature be my law,
      Thy spotless sanctity,
  And sweetly every moment draw
      My happy soul to Thee.
      Soul of my soul remain!
      Who didst for all fulfil,
  In me, O Lord, fulfil again
      Thy heavenly Father’s will!

This hymn is made up, as are many others, by joining together verses
from the _Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures_. The
first verse is suggested by Jer. xliv. 4: ‘Oh, do not this abominable
thing that I hate.’ The second and third by Jer. xxxi. 33: ‘I will put
My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will
be their God, and they shall be My people.’

Another peaceful and attractive hymn on the same subject is based on
Heb. iv. 9: ‘There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.’
Charles Wesley wrote twenty-seven verses; John Wesley selected eight,
these are reduced to six in the _Methodist Hymn-book_. I am inclined
to think that a further abridgement would have been still wiser. The
four verses which follow are a beautiful meditation on the text—

  Lord, I believe a rest remains
    To all Thy people known,
  A rest where pure enjoyment reigns,
    And Thou art loved alone:

  A rest, where all our soul’s desire
    Is fixed on things above;
  Where fear, and sin, and grief expire,
    Cast out by perfect love.

  O that I now the rest might know,
    Believe, and enter in!
  Now, Saviour, now the power bestow,
    And let me cease from sin.

  Remove this hardness from my heart,
    This unbelief remove:
  To me the rest of faith impart,
    The Sabbath of Thy love.

The doctrine of Entire Sanctification, as it was believed and taught
by the Wesleys, is set forth in the hymn-book with emphasis, but the
expressions are rarely open to serious objection, nearly every phrase
having Scriptural precedent. In early days Charles Wesley had often
prayed for death, believing that through its gate alone could he find
entrance into ‘the land of rest from inbred sin.’ In one of his first
hymns, published in 1739, he had written—

  Fain would I leave this world below,
    Of pain and sin the dark abode,
  Where shadowy joy or solid woe
    Allures or tears me from my God;
  Doubtful and insecure of bliss,
  Since death alone confirms me His.[150]

But in later years he had outgrown this mood. John Wesley wrote _No_
against the last line of the stanza, and in his hymn-book gave—

  Since _faith_ alone confirms me His.

The brothers taught that sanctification was progressive, yet might be
‘cut short in righteousness,’ a phrase which they often quoted. In one
of the hymns for those that wait for ‘full redemption,’[151] Charles
Wesley writes—

  Surely I have pardon found,
  Grace doth more than sin abound,
  God, I know, is pacified;
  Thou for me, for me hast died;
  But I cannot rest herein,
  All my nature still is sin,
  Comforted I will not be
  Till my soul is all like Thee.

  See my burdened, sin-sick soul,
  Give me faith, and make me whole!
  Finish Thy great work of grace,
  Cut it short in righteousness.
  Speak the second time, ‘Be clean!’
  Take away my inbred sin;
  Now the stumbling-block remove,
  Cast it out by perfect love.

This doctrine of what has been called ‘the second blessing’ is often
met with in Charles Wesley, but he used expressions which John
disapproved, and would not repeat in his _Collection_, as in the
second verse of the great hymn, ‘Love divine, all loves excelling,’
which reads—

  Breathe, O breathe Thy loving Spirit,
    Into every troubled breast;
  Let us all in Thee inherit,
    Let us find that second rest;
  Take away the power of sinning,
    Alpha and Omega be;
  End of faith as its beginning,
    Set our hearts at liberty.

John Fletcher suggested that ‘power’ should be altered to ‘love.’

The Wesleys’ teaching concerning sanctification had an immense
influence upon Methodist life and thought. ‘The pursuit of holiness,’
to use Dean Goulburn’s phrase, was the daily interest and delight of
multitudes of devout souls. No doubt in many cases there was more or
less of morbid introspection, but the rich treasury of Methodist
biography witnesses to the saintliness of those who made the search
for ‘full redemption,’ or, as they delighted to say, ‘perfect love,’
the one serious business of life.

Important and influential as this section of Wesley’s _Hymns_ is, not
many of the best are found here.[152] The finest are John Wesley’s
translations from the German but only a few original compositions are
of marked value. Some exceptions, indeed, must be made, notably—

  Love divine, all loves excelling;

and there are many verses inspired by that thirst of the soul ‘for
God, yea, even for the living God,’ which is characteristic of no one
Church or age, but of all elect souls restless till they find rest in
Him. The varying moods of the seeker after God are impressively
illustrated. Some of the hymns are of a solemn and even sombre type,
while others are bright with assurance of the favour of God and the
gladness of the redeemed. Here are a few verses from a


                      HYMN TO GOD THE SANCTIFIER

  Come, Holy Ghost, all quickening fire!
  Come, and my hallowed heart inspire,
    Sprinkled with the atoning blood;
  Now to my soul Thyself reveal,
  Thy mighty working let me feel,
    And know that I am born of God.

  Thy witness with my spirit bear,
  That God, my God, inhabits there;
    Thou, with the Father, and the Son,
  Eternal Light’s co-eval Beam;
  Be Christ in me, and I in Him,
    Till perfect we are made in one.

  Let earth no more my heart divide,
  With Christ may I be crucified,
    To Thee with my whole soul aspire;
  Dead to the world and all its toys,
  Its idle pomp, and fading joys,
    Be thou alone my one desire!

  Be Thou my joy, be Thou my dread;
  In battle cover Thou my head,
    Nor earth nor hell I then shall fear;
  I then shall turn my steady face,
  Want, pain, defy, enjoy disgrace,
    Glory in dissolution near.

  My will be swallowed up in Thee;
  Light in Thy light still may I see,
    Beholding Thee with open face;
  Called the full power of faith to prove,
  Let all my hallowed heart be love,
    And all my spotless life be praise.

  Come, Holy Ghost, all-quickening fire,
  My consecrated heart inspire,
    Sprinkled with the atoning blood;
  Still to my soul Thyself reveal,
  Thy mighty working may I feel,
    And know that I am one with God!

Of the other type two bright verses on 1 Chron. xxix. 5 are a good
example—

    Lord, in the strength of grace,
    With a glad heart and free,
  Myself, my residue of days
    I consecrate to Thee.

    Thy ransomed servant, I
    Restore to Thee Thine own,
  And, from this moment, live or die
    To serve my God alone.

These two verses belong to the very extensive series of


                6. Hymns on Passages of Holy Scripture

Charles Wesley’s poetry is always sanctified by the word of God. In
this regard he is unsurpassed, and I think unequalled, by any other
writer. He thought and wrote in the language of the Bible, and
constantly weaves into his hymns the words, phrases, incidents of Holy
Scripture. No one ‘spiritualized’ more boldly than he. Of this his
most famous poem, ‘Wrestling Jacob,’ is the great example. Many other
hymns illustrate the same power, e.g. this verse, which
‘spiritualizes’ Peter’s deliverance from prison—

  Long my imprisoned spirit lay
    Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
  Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
    I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
  My chains fell off, my heart was free,
  I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

and this, which refers in the same fashion to the resurrection of
Lazarus—

  Buried in sin, Thy voice I hear,
    And burst the barriers of my tomb,
  In all the marks of death appear,
    Forth at Thy call, though bound, I come.

His more formal paraphrases are often very fine, and are hymns of
permanent worth. Such are—

  None is like Jeshurun’s God (Deut. xxxiii. 26-29).

  Wherewith, O God, shall I draw near (Mic. vi. 6-8).

  Away my unbelieving fear (Hab. iii. 17, 18).

Of course Charles Wesley wrote many Psalm-versions. Comparatively few
are above the average, but there are some exceptions. Among these are
the 48th—

  Great is our redeeming Lord,
  In power, and truth, and grace.

the 84th—

  How lovely are Thy tents, O Lord!
  Where’er Thou choosest to record
    Thy name, or place Thy house of prayer,
  My soul outflies the angel-choir,
  And faints, o’erpowered with strong desire,
    To meet Thy special presence there.

the 121st—

  To the hills I lift mine eyes,
    The everlasting hills.

the 125th—

    Who in the Lord confide
    And feel His sprinkled blood,
  In storms and hurricanes abide,
    Firm as the mount of God.

Often only two or three verses can be taken from a long poem, as in
Ps. iii.—

  Thou, Lord, art a shield for me.[153]

and Ps. ix.—

  Thee will I praise with all my heart.

Here the whole psalm, as it appears in the _Poetical Works_, consists
of fourteen verses, most of them impossible for singing in a Christian
Church, but there are four good verses, especially this, with its
tender trustfulness that the humble seeker must at length find his
Saviour—

  A helpless soul that looks to Thee
  Is sure at last Thy face to see,
    And all Thy goodness to partake;
  The sinner who for Thee doth grieve,
  And longs, and labours to believe,
    Thou never, never wilt forsake.[154]

The 23rd Psalm is also very beautiful, and is worthy to take its place
amongst the many lovely renderings of this sweetest of the praises of
Israel. I venture to quote the whole, as it is little known outside
Wesleyan Methodism, and not too well known in our own Church. It is
the 23rd Psalm read in the light of the tenth chapter of St. John’s
Gospel.

  Jesus the good Shepherd is;
    Jesus died the sheep to save;
  He is mine, and I am His;
    All I want in Him I have,
  Life, and health, and rest, and food,
  All the plenitude of God.

  Jesus loves and guards His own;
    Me in verdant pastures feeds;
  Makes me quietly lie down,
    By the streams of comfort leads:
  Following Him where’er He goes,
  Silent joy my heart o’erflows.

  He in sickness makes me whole,
    Guides into the paths of peace;
  He revives my fainting soul,
    Stablishes in righteousness;
  Who for me vouchsafed to die,
  Loves me still,—I know not why!

  Unappalled by guilty fear,
    Through the mortal vale I go;
  My eternal Life is near;
    Thee my Life, in death I know;
  Bless Thy chastening, cheering rod
  Die into the arms of God!

  Till that welcome hour I see,
    Thou before my foes dost feed;
  Bidd’st me sit and feast with Thee,
    Pour’st Thy oil upon my head;
  Giv’st me all I ask, and more,
  Mak’st my cup of joy run o’er.

  Love divine shall still embrace,
    Love shall keep me to the end;
  Surely all my happy days
    I shall in Thy temple spend,
  Till I to Thy house remove,
  Thy eternal house above!

Dr. Watts’s ‘grand design’ in his version of the Psalter was ‘to
teach’ the ‘author to speak like a Christian.’ Charles Wesley took St.
Augustine’s view, that we ought to hear the voice of Christ in all the
psalms. His version of Ps. xlv. is typical of his attitude toward the
Psalter as a whole.

  My heart is full of Christ, and longs
    Its glorious matter to declare!
  Of Him I make my loftier songs,
    I cannot from His praise forbear;
  My ready tongue makes haste to sing
  The beauties of my heavenly King.

In 1762 Charles Wesley took advantage of a time of physical weakness
to write a large number of verses, forming a kind of running
commentary on the Holy Scriptures. They are, for the most part, purely
devotional; but the events of the time and, perhaps, of the day on
which a poem was written are mirrored in some of the verses. In the
preface he says—

  Many of the thoughts are borrowed from Mr. Henry’s _Commentary_, Dr.
  Gell on the _Pentateuch_, and Bengelius on the _New Testament_.
  Several of the hymns are intended to prove, and several to guard,
  the doctrine of Christian Perfection. I durst not publish one
  without the other. In the latter sort I use some severity.

On this point the brothers differed, and especially as to the method
of treating those who discredited the doctrine by extravagance in
teaching or by inconsistency of life.

The _Short Poems_ account for the enormous number of Charles Wesley’s
hymns. On the Old Testament he wrote 1,609, on the New Testament
3,491, a total of 5,100 poetical notes on the Holy Scripture. But very
many consist of only one verse.[155] By skilful combination some very
good hymns have been made, and in a few instances we come upon a
complete hymn of great strength or beauty. Many of these are familiar
in Methodist congregations, though probably few worshippers recognize
the passages of Scripture which suggested the verses. The well-known
hymn

  A charge to keep I have,

is the poet’s meditation and prayer after reading Lev. viii. 35:
‘Therefore shall ye abide at the door of the tabernacle of the
congregation day and night seven days, and keep the charge of the
Lord, that ye die not.’ After reading Lev. vi. 13: ‘The fire shall
ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out,’ he prays

  O Thou who camest from above
    The pure celestial fire to impart,
  Kindle a flame of sacred love
    On the mean altar of my heart!

  There let it for Thy glory burn
    With inextinguishable blaze;
  And trembling to its source return,
    In humble prayer and fervent praise.

On the words ‘merciful and gracious’ in Exod. xxxiv. 6 he comments

  Mercy is Thy distinguished Name,
    And suits the sinner best.

On the twenty-ninth verse of the same chapter, ‘Moses wist not that
his face shone,’ he writes

  Thine image if Thou stamp on me,
  Let others, Lord, the brightness see,
    By me unseen, unknown.

As these verses are buried in the last four volumes of the _Poetical
Works_, I venture to quote a few others which have, I think, some
special value, reminding one at times of Herbert or Crashaw.

              ‘The Lord went His way’ (Gen. xviii. 33).

  Unwearied let us still request
    By instant prayer whate’er we want:
  The patriarch from asking ceased,
    Before the Almighty ceased to grant.

            ‘O my Lord, I am not eloquent’ (Exod. iv. 10).

  How ready is the man to go
    Whom God hath never sent!
  How timorous, diffident, and slow
    God’s chosen instrument!
  Lord, if from Thee this mark I have
    Of a true Messenger,
  By whom Thou wilt Thy people save,
    And let me always fear.

  Slow of speech and slower still
    Of heart, alas! am I,
  Cannot utter what I feel,
    Or speak to the Most High:
  But I to my Brother look,
    Mighty both in word and deed:
  He my cause hath undertook
    And lives for me to plead.

           ‘Where hast thou gleaned to-day?’ (Ruth ii. 19).

  At evening to myself I say,
  My soul, where hast thou gleaned to-day,
      Thy labours how bestowed?
  What hast thou rightly said or done?
  What grace attained or knowledge won,
      In following after God?

       ‘Oh that I knew where I might find Him’ (Job xxxiii. 3).

  Where but on yonder tree?
  Or if too rich thou art,
  Sink into poverty,
  And find Him in thine heart.

              ‘Israel served for a wife’ (Hos. xii. 12).

  While Jacob for a wife doth wait,
    A length of servile years
  (His love to Rachel is so great)
    As a few days appears:
  And shall I think it long to stay
    Or wish my labours passed?
  A thousand years are but a day
    If Christ be mine at last.

These verses on Num. xi. 27, 28 are in a different strain.

  Eldad, they said, and Medad there,
    Irregularly bold,
  By Moses uncommissioned dare
    A separate meeting hold!
  And still whom none, but Heaven, will own,
    Men whom the world decry,
  Men authorized by God alone
    Presume to prophesy!

  How often have I blindly done
    What zealous Joshua did,
  Impatient to the rulers run
    And cried, ‘My lords, forbid!’
  Silence the schismatics; constrain
    Their _thoughts_ with ours to agree;
  And sacrifice the souls of men
    To idol unity!

John Wesley lets this pass without note or comment, but when, on Num.
xvi. 10, Charles wrote

  Raised from the people’s lowest lees,
  Guard, Lord, Thy preaching witnesses,
  Nor let their pride the honour claim
  Of sealing covenants in Thy name.

he notes on the first line, ‘Query? J. W.’

Here our detailed consideration of Charles Wesley’s hymns must end,
though there are many others over which one would be glad to linger.
Some of the hymns on Death and the Future Life are of great power,
though some have lost and others are losing their hold upon Methodist
worshippers. Charles Wesley’s view of death is well illustrated in
these verses, which I quote the more readily because, to my regret,
they are not found in the _Methodist Hymn-book_. If they could not
often be sung in the congregation, there are times when they would
speak the inmost feeling of the devout disciple.

  O when shall we sweetly remove,
    O when shall we enter our rest,
  Return to the Sion above,
    The mother of spirits distressed!

  Not all the archangels can tell
    The joys of that holiest place,
  When Jesus is pleased to reveal
    The light of His heavenly face.

  ’Tis good at Thy word to be here,
    ’Tis better in Thee to be gone,
  And see Thee in glory appear,
    And rise to a share of Thy throne.

  To mourn for Thy coming is sweet,
    To weep at Thy longer delay;
  But Thou, whom we hasten to meet,
    Shalt chase all our sorrows away.

This is not the tone of modern worship. It is open to the charge of
that ‘other-worldliness’ of which our time is so impatient and knows
so little, but it is the language of the disciples whom Jesus loves.
‘Having the desire to depart and be with Christ: for it is very far
better.’ ‘He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come
quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!’


After Charles Wesley, Methodism had no great hymn-writer, though
Thomas Olivers (1725-99), one of the early preachers, wrote one of the
finest of our hymns of adoration.

He was a man of considerable ability, but Wesley had more confidence
in him as a corrector of errors of doctrine than of errors of the
press. He left Toplady to be ‘corrected by one that is full his match,
Mr. Thomas Olivers,’ but he rejected Olivers as assistant-editor of
the _Arminian Magazine_, because ‘the errata are insufferable.’

‘The God of Abraham praise’ was published at Nottingham in a pamphlet
of eight pages, with the title, ‘A Hymn to the God of Abraham. In
three parts, adapted to a celebrated air, sung by the priest, Signior
Leoni, &c., at the Jews’ Synagogue in London.’ There is only slight
verbal resemblance between Olivers’ version and the Hebrew
original.[156] He wrote a few other hymns, not to be compared with
this, yet indicating considerable poetic power. One of them, ‘On the
Last Judgement,’ was published at ‘Leedes.’ It contained twenty
verses, and was afterwards altered, and enlarged to thirty-six verses,
Scripture references being given in the margin of almost every line.
Some verses of this poem have been occasionally used in hymn-books,
and Lord Selborne gave twelve verses in his _Book of Praise_. It is,
however, little known. The following are among the best verses.

  Come, immortal King of Glory!
    Now with all Thy saints appear;
  While astonished worlds adore Thee,
    And the dead Thy clarions hear,
        Shine refulgent,
    And Thy Deity maintain.

  Lo! He comes with clouds descending:
    Hark! the trump of God is blown:
  And the archangel’s voice attending,
    Makes the high procession known.
        Sons of Adam,
    Rise and stand before your God!

  ‘Come, Lord Jesus, O come quickly,’
    Oft has prayed the mourning Bride.
  Lo! He answers, ‘I come quickly’;
    Who Thy coming may abide?
        All who loved Him,
    All who longed to see His day.

  Come, He saith, ye heirs of glory,
    Come, ye purchase of My blood,
  Claim the kingdom now before you,
    Rise and fill the mount of God:
        Fixed for ever,
    Where the Lamb on Sion stands.

  Now their trials all are ended,
    Now the dubious warfare’s o’er,
  Joy no more with sorrow blended,
    They shall sigh and weep no more:
        God for ever
    Wipes the tear from every eye.

  Hail! Thou Alpha and Omega!
    First and last of all alone.
  He that is, and was, and shall be,
    And beside whom there is none.
        Take the glory,
    Great Eternal Three in One!

  Praise be to the Father given:
    Praise to the co-eval Son:
  Praise the Spirit, One and Seven;
    Praise the mystic Three in One.
        Hallelujah!
    Everlasting praise be Thine.

John Bakewell (1721-1819), a Methodist schoolmaster, wrote several
hymns, and is widely known as the author of ‘Hail, Thou once despisèd
Jesus.’[157] Benjamin Rhodes (1743-1815), converted under the
preaching of Whitefield, and for many years a Methodist preacher,
wrote one really fine hymn, ‘My heart and voice I raise.’ Another of
the early Methodist preachers, John Murlin, ‘the weeping prophet,’
published a small volume of hymns, some of which are quite as good as
most of the eighteenth-century songs.




                                  IV
                       Eighteenth-century Hymns


                         III.—The Olney Hymns

The contribution of evangelical Churchmen, apart from the Wesleys, to
the hymnody of the eighteenth century, is slight, with the important
exception of the remarkable collection of hymns issued by William
Cowper and John Newton, which takes its title from the little
Buckinghamshire town in which Newton was for years curate for an
absentee vicar.

Our little England has been the mother of so many famous sons that it
often happens that some out-of-the-way village or obscure country town
is rich in memories of the great and good, for

  Half of her dust has walked the rest
  In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages.

Such a spot is Olney, the town of Cowper and of Cowper’s Mary, of John
Newton, and for a time of Thomas Scott, of whom Newman speaks as ‘the
writer who made a deeper impression on my mind than any other, and to
whom (humanly speaking) I almost owe my soul.’[158] Where William
Carey, after some hesitation on the ground of his slight abilities,
was ‘allowed to go on preaching,’ and finally sent forth to the
ministry by the unanimous vote of the Baptist Church, over which John
Sutcliff presided. Where also Dr. H. J. Gauntlett, when a boy of ten,
was organist at the parish church.[159]

The Olney hymns are at once the ‘monument’ of ‘an intimate and
endeared friendship’ and of a memorable literary partnership. ‘The old
African blasphemer’ must have felt it even more a matter of
thankfulness that he found himself collaborating with William Cowper
than that he should become minister of the nearest church to the
Mansion House. John Newton’s romantic story is too well known to be
repeated here. He is a unique figure in the Christian choir, and the
story of our hymn-writers would be vastly poorer if his life were
omitted.

Influenced, as he gladly recognized, by the mother who died when he
was a boy of seven, his soul lay open to intellectual and spiritual
impressions, even in the midst of his wanderings and sins. Euclid, as
well as Thomas à Kempis, shared in the saving of his soul and kept him
from sinking to the level of his companions and oppressors. His
hair-breadth escapes were so many and so remarkable that he might well
regard them as interpositions of Providence, indicating that he was ‘a
chosen vessel’ whom God had designated to special work when his hour
should come.

Among the many interesting men who occupy secondary places in the
religious life of the eighteenth century, he is one of the most
interesting and attractive. The promise of his childhood blighted by
the death of his mother, his restless, roving, adventurous manhood,
his pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, his seven years’ faithful
love for Mary Catlett, thoughts of whom were never absent from his
mind for an hour amidst all his ‘misery and wretchedness,’ the
unegotistic frankness of his _Authentic Narrative_, his profound and
thankful modesty,

  The genuine meek humility,
  The wonder why such love to me,

his genius for friendship, his good-humoured perplexity as to his
proper theological and ecclesiastical affinities, his ready wit and
manly tenderness, unite to make John Newton’s a name over which one
may well linger.

He was a Calvinist for the same reason that the Wesleys were
Arminians. They were convinced that only a love divine which included
every soul of man could have stooped to them. Newton believed that
only God’s determinate counsel could have set such wandering feet as
his upon the rock and established his goings. To such elect souls the
divers ways of contradictory theologies blend in the one path which
leads the sinner to the Saviour. ‘The views,’ he says, ‘I have
received of the doctrines of grace, are essential to my peace, and I
could not live a day or an hour without them.’ He found them ‘friendly
to holiness,’ and it was not in him to be ‘ashamed of them.’ One of
his favourite stories was of an old woman near Olney, whose views on
predestination suited him exactly. ‘Ah! I have long settled that
point; for if God had not chosen me before I was born, I am sure He
would have seen nothing in me to have chosen me for afterwards.’ But
we can well believe that he was not a satisfactory Calvinist from the
‘highest’ point of view. ‘There were two sorts of Calvinists at
Olney,’ he said, ‘and they always reminded me of the two baskets of
Jeremiah’s figs.’

His Churchmanship was like his Calvinism, convinced but liberal,
almost easy-going. He writes to his friend, William Bull—

  I know not how it is. I think my sentiments and experience are as
  orthodox and Calvinistical as need be; and yet I am a sort of
  speckled bird among my Calvinist brethren. I am a mighty good
  Churchman, but pass amongst such as a Dissenter in prunello. On the
  other hand, the Dissenters (many of them, I mean) think me
  defective, either in understanding or in conscience, for staying
  where I am. Well, there is a middle party called Methodists, but
  neither do my dimensions exactly fit with them.... But there are a
  few among all parties who bear with me and love me, and with this I
  must be content at present.... Party walls, though stronger than the
  walls of Babylon, must come down in the general ruin when the earth
  and all its works shall be burned up, if not sooner.

In truth, he also was one of those whom any Church might gladly have
adopted. He would have been thoroughly happy and at home amongst the
best of the Dissenters, he would have been an ideal Methodist, and his
_Narrative_ would have given an added glory to the _Lives of Early
Methodist Preachers_; but, notwithstanding the difficulties which
delayed his taking orders, he was in his right place as a parish
clergyman, and had no reason to complain that he was not appreciated
in the Establishment. His _Apologia_ shows that when he desired to
enter the ministry, Dissenters were quite as much afraid of him as
Churchmen, and were as unwilling to ordain him as the archbishop
himself.[160]

He entered the Church without any special prejudice in its favour, but
his conviction that he had taken the right step grew stronger year by
year. His defence of the Prayer-book against the criticism of the
Dissenter who availed himself of Watts’s _Psalms and Hymns_ is as
effective as it is witty, and is enforced by a characteristic anecdote
of a preacher who used to compose hymns line by line as he announced
them from the pulpit.

  Crito freely will rehearse
  Forms of praise and prayer in verse;
  Why should Crito then suppose
  Forms are sinful when in prose?
  Must my form be deemed a crime
  Merely for the want of rhyme?

Newton’s charity went a good deal beyond that of the ordinary
evangelical of his own and of many a later day. In the _Apologia_ he
expresses with vigour his conviction that ‘the Lord has a people’
among the members of the Roman and Greek Churches.

  I should hope that they who, having themselves tasted that the Lord
  is gracious, know the language of a heart under the influence of His
  Spirit, would, in defiance of Protestant prejudices, be of my mind
  if they had opportunity of perusing the writings of some Papists.

Newton was not one of the great men of his age, but he is remarkable,
if not pre-eminent, for the naturalness with which he speaks the
common tongue of the children of God. Father Faber, in the preface to
his _Hymns_, bears a somewhat reluctant witness to this.

  Catholics even are said to be sometimes found poring with a devout
  and unsuspecting delight over the verses of the Olney hymns, which
  the author (Faber) himself can remember acting like a spell upon him
  for years, strong enough to be for long a counter influence to very
  grave convictions, and even now to come back from time to time
  unbidden into the mind.

If Faber deprecated the ‘spell’ of the Olney hymns, it is fair to
remember that Newton concludes his defence of devout Catholics by
saying, ‘However, I desire to be thankful that I am not a Papist.’

In 1764 the difficulties which beset his entrance to the ministry
ended, and he was ordained by the Bishop of Lincoln to the curacy of
Olney, which had been secured for him by the Earl of Dartmouth,[161] a
devout and liberal Churchman, commemorated in Cowper’s lines—

  We boast some rich ones whom the gospel sways,
  And one who wears a coronet and prays.

Newton was nearly forty when he entered upon his first clerical
employment. A few months after his coming to Olney, Cowper and Mrs.
Unwin stayed with him at the vicarage for about six weeks, and from
that time they were bound together by the ties of a deep affection.
Newton recognized with his usual shrewdness how much he was inferior
to his friend in intellectual capacity, but he was able to give to the
sorely tried poet, in his fits of depression, much comfort and a very
patient friendship. When in 1773 one of Cowper’s worst attacks came
on, he went to the vicarage and remained there for more than twelve
months. It was no light trial to Newton, but he said, ‘I think I can
hardly do or suffer too much for such a friend,’ and ‘upon the whole’
he was not weary of his ‘cross.’ It has sometimes, most ungenerously,
been charged against Newton that his influence tended to produce, or
to aggravate, the religious melancholy of the poet, but Cowper’s
malady had been very pronounced long before Newton met him. Richard
Cecil, and more recently Canon Overton, have defended Newton against
this accusation. Cowper’s morbid depression must have been much more
trying to Newton than Newton’s humble, cheerful faith could have been
to Cowper. Indeed, his playful poems addressed to John Newton and his
wife and to their common friend, ‘the smoke-inhaling Bull’—the
Independent minister of Newport Pagnell, whom Cowper calls ‘a man of
letters and of genius.... but he smokes tobacco—nothing is
perfect’—sufficiently show how genial and even jovial was their
friendship. The fable that Nonconformist ministers and Evangelical
clergymen are either rank hypocrites or intolerable dullards, though
it had, and perhaps still has, the support of many great authorities,
is only believed in circles profoundly ignorant of them.

Yet Newton must have been greatly indebted, especially as a
hymn-writer, to Cowper. His hymns were all written during his
residence at Olney, and he had intended that his share in the volume
should have been much less than Cowper’s. Indeed, when his friend’s
‘long and affecting indisposition’ occurred, he laid the project aside
for some time. In the end the collection appeared with sixty-eight of
Cowper’s and two hundred and eighty of Newton’s. Of Cowper’s hymns,
some few had been written before he went to Olney, e.g. ‘The Happy
Change’ and ‘Retirement.’

Cowper is the one great hymn-writer who ranks with the greater poets.
Montgomery, Heber, Milman, all wrote ‘poems,’ but their enduring
poetic monument is in their hymns. Had Cowper never written a hymn, he
would have had fame sufficient as a poet; had he never written a
‘poem,’ he would still have lived through the ages as the writer of
immortal hymns. Lord Selborne says that Cowper’s contributions to the
Olney collection ‘are, almost without exception, worthy of his name’;
but, as a fact, many of them are prosaic and feeble, apparently
written as task work, perhaps to meet a challenge of Newton’s, or to
follow a particular sermon. Cowper’s choicest hymns are too well known
for quotation—

  O for a closer walk with God.
  Hark, my soul, it is the Lord.
  Sometimes a light surprises.
  God moves in a mysterious way.
  Jesus, where’er Thy people meet.

Newton’s best are—

  Glorious things of thee are spoken.
  How sweet the name of Jesus sounds.
  Quiet, Lord, my froward heart.
  Come, my soul, thy suit prepare.

And the simple Spiritual songs—

  Begone, unbelief, my Saviour is near.
  Though troubles assail and dangers affright.

Like Watts, Doddridge, Beddome, and many others, Newton wrote his
hymns for use after preaching or for some special occasion, such as
the opening of a room at the Great House for prayer-meetings and
children’s services. It was for this event that Cowper wrote

  Jesus, where’er Thy people meet,

and Newton a less effective hymn—

  Dear Shepherd of Thy people, hear,
    Thy presence now display;
  As Thou hast given a place for prayer,
    So give us hearts to pray.

I do not suppose that the Olney hymns were often selected as a
hymn-book for congregational use. The range of subjects is too narrow,
and is so largely affected by the circumstances of composition, the
sadness of Cowper’s prolonged illness, and the needs of the rustic
worshippers, that it is, as a whole, more suited to private devotion
than public worship, though from it may be gathered some of the most
beautiful of the songs of Zion.

From twelve to twenty of the Olney hymns have won a permanent place in
our hymn-books, but what is left is very far from being ‘empty chaff
well meant for grain.’ Indeed, there are very few hymn-books of the
eighteenth century so _interesting_ as this. When you have picked out
of Watts or Doddridge their best hymns, you find it a wearisome and
profitless task to plod through the remainder. An outrageous rhyme is
a pleasing break in the dull monotony of the sentiment, but the Olney
hymns, even at their feeblest, have life and vigour, and are often
provokingly easy to remember. Their influence on modern hymnody has
been all in favour of the expression of personal, individual
experience, in which regard they may not unfairly be compared with
many of the sublimest Psalms.

In Cowper’s verses there are often references to his own depressed and
anxious state of mind, and pathetic prayers for deliverance or
suggestions of comfortable thoughts.

  She, too, who touched Thee in the press,
    And healing virtue stole,
  Was answered, ‘Daughter, go in peace,
    Thy faith hath made thee whole.’

  Concealed amid the gathering throng,
    She would have shunned Thy view;
  And if her faith was firm and strong,
    Had strong misgivings too.

  Like her with hopes and fears we come,
    To touch Thee, if we may:
  Oh! send us not despairing home,
    Send none unhealed away.


                          THE CONTRITE HEART

  The Lord will happiness divine
    On contrite hearts bestow;
  Then tell me, gracious God, is mine
    A contrite heart, or no?

  I hear, but seem to hear in vain,
    Insensible as steel;
  If ought is felt, ’tis only pain,
    To find I cannot feel.

  I sometimes think myself inclined
    To love Thee, if I could;
  But often feel another mind,
    Averse to all that’s good.

  Thy saints are comforted, I know,
    And love Thy house of prayer;
  I therefore go where others go,
    But find no comfort there.

  Oh, make this heart rejoice or ache,
    Decide this doubt for me;
  And if it be not broken, break—
    And heal it, if it be!


                           THE WAITING SOUL

  Breathe from the gentle south, O Lord,
    And cheer me from the north;
  Blow on the treasures of Thy word,
    And call the spices forth!

  Help me to reach the distant goal;
    Confirm my feeble knee;
  Pity the sickness of a soul
    That faints for love of Thee!

  I seem forsaken and alone,
    I hear the lion roar;
  And every door is shut but one,
    And that is Mercy’s door.

  There, till the dear Deliverer come,
    I’ll wait with humble prayer;
  And when He calls His exile home,
    The Lord shall find him there.


                         PRAYER FOR PATIENCE

  Lord, who hast suffered all for me,
    My peace and pardon to procure,
  The lighter cross I bear for Thee,
    Help me with patience to endure.

  The storm of loud repining hush,
    I would in humble silence mourn;
  Why should the unburnt, though burning bush,
    Be angry as the crackling thorn?

  Ah! were I buffeted all day,
    Mocked, crowned with thorns, and spit upon,
  I yet should have no right to say,
    My great distress is mine alone.

  Let me not angrily declare
    No pain was ever sharp like mine,
  Nor murmur at the cross I bear,
    But rather weep, remembering Thine.

Cowper’s hymns are not all the voice of the penitent or of the anxious
believer. He shared Newton’s opinion as to the classification of
Calvinists, and two of his compositions evidently refer to the second
basket of figs. They illustrate Hazlitt’s criticism, ‘His satire is
excellent. It is pointed and forcible, with the polished manners of
the gentleman and the honest indignation of the virtuous man.’[162]
The following verses are a good example of his satire.


                      A LIVING AND A DEAD FAITH

  With golden bells, the priestly vest,
    And rich pomegranates bordered round,
  The need of holiness expressed,
    And called for fruit as well as sound.

  Easy indeed it were to reach
    A mansion in the courts above,
  If swelling words and fluent speech
    Might serve instead of faith and love.

  But none shall gain the blissful place,
    Or God’s unclouded glory see,
  Who talks of free and sovereign grace,
    Unless that grace has made him free!

This is not a favourite strain of Cowper’s. His hymns are nearly
always the expression of personal emotion or experience. We may close
our quotations from his Olney hymns with one which expresses, in his
own way, the common yearning of all who love our Lord Jesus Christ.


                      LONGING TO BE WITH CHRIST

  My Saviour, whom absent I love,
    Whom, not having seen, I adore;
  Whose name is exalted above
    All glory, dominion, and power;

  Dissolve Thou these bonds that detain
    My soul from her portion in Thee,
  Ah! strike off this adamant chain,
    And make me eternally free.

  Oh then shall the veil be removed,
    And round me Thy brightness be poured,
  I shall meet Him whom absent I loved,
    I shall see Him whom unseen I adored.

Newton’s contribution to the Olney hymns is considerable both in
quality and quantity. His preface disarms criticism.

  Dr. Watts might, as a poet, have a right to say, ‘That it cost him
  some labour to restrain his fire, and to accommodate himself to the
  capacities of common readers.’ But it would not become me to make
  such a declaration. It behoved me to do my best.... If the Lord,
  whom I serve, has been pleased to favour me with that mediocrity of
  talent, which may qualify me for usefulness to the weak and the poor
  of His flock, without quite disgusting persons of superior
  discernment, I have reason to be satisfied.

It is quite refreshing to find a hymn-writer who describes himself
thus. They have often been modest men and women, but have had a fairly
good idea of the value of their own compositions.

Newton’s hymns are, even more than those of Watts or Doddridge,
pastoral hymns. Other men wrote for the congregation, he wrote for his
own particular congregation, and very often with a special reference
to one member of it. We know that his sermons were suggested in this
way. If ‘Sir Cowper’ had a bad fit, or the Vicarage maid, Molly, was
‘perplexed and tempted on the point of election,’ the kind-hearted
pastor had a sermon and a hymn, suited to their ‘state,’ ready on
Sunday.

Many of Newton’s pieces express much more of Cowper’s experience than
of his own. In such lines as the following is not his eye upon the sad
figure in ‘the poet’s corner’ in the Great House?

  Sure the Lord thus far has brought me
    By His watchful tender care,
  Sure ’tis He Himself has taught me
    How to seek His face by prayer:
      After so much mercy past,
      Will He give me up at last?

  In my Saviour’s intercession
    Therefore I will still confide!
  Lord, accept my free confession,
    I have sinned, but Thou hast died:
      This is all I have to plead,
      This is all the plea I need.

That is what he has to say of ‘Confidence’ from Cowper’s point of
view. When he speaks for himself he adopts a different tone.

  Oh! I tremble still to think
    How secure I lived in sin;
  Sporting on destruction’s brink,
    Yet preserved from falling in.

  Come, my fellow-sinners, try,
    Jesu’s heart is full of love!
  Oh that you, as well as I,
    May His wondrous mercy prove.

  He has sent me to declare,
    All is ready, all is free:
  Why should any soul despair
    When He saved a wretch like me?

Perhaps it was with Cowper in his mind he wrote that beautiful and
touching hymn for private devotion, which has been often most unjustly
censured—‘’Tis a point I long to know.’ Newton, like Bunyan, knew how
sincere a pilgrim Mr. Little Faith was, and each in his own way sought
to comfort him. There is good robust common sense in the prayer of the
last two verses. In strength and beauty it does not compare with
Cowper’s hymn on the same text, ‘Lovest thou Me?’ which Mr. Gladstone
reckoned one of the three greatest English hymns; but it belongs to
the Christian treasury, and has brought help to many.

  Lord, decide the doubtful case,
    Thou who art Thy people’s sun,
  Shine upon the work of grace,
    If it be indeed begun.

  Let me love Thee more and more,
    If I love at all, I pray;
  If I have not loved before,
    Help me to begin to-day.

The tenderness of ‘the old African blasphemer’s’ heart is nowhere more
touchingly illustrated than in his version of Isa. liv. 5-11, which
must surely have been written for Cowper, since it quotes and
emphasizes the words of his own great hymn. It has five eight-line
verses, and is headed ‘To the Afflicted, Tossed with Tempest, and not
Comforted.’

  Pensive, doubting, fearful heart,
    Hear what Christ the Saviour says;
  Every word should joy impart,
    Change thy mourning into praise.
  Yes, He speaks, and speaks to thee.
    May He help thee to believe!
  Then thou presently wilt see
    Thou hast little cause to grieve.

  Though afflicted, tempest-tossed,
    Comfortless awhile thou art,
  Do not think thou canst be lost,
    Thou art graven on My heart.
  All thy wastes I will repair,
    Thou shalt be rebuilt anew;
  And in thee it shall appear
    What a God of love can do.

It is the pastor’s heart which takes up the very words of his friend—

  Yes, He _speaks and speaks to thee_,
  May He help thee to believe!

Richard Cecil says that Herbert was a ‘favourite’ of Newton’s, and
there are not wanting reminiscences of Herbert in the Olney hymns,
though Newton had little of Herbert’s ingenuity or power, and he says
in a few plain words what Herbert weaves into a quaint poem, bright
and ever-memorable with some ‘conceit’ such as he only conceived. If
we set Newton and Herbert side by side, the comparison is, of course,
all in favour of Herbert. Herbert speaks to himself and to God in what
is an unknown tongue to many a good plain Christian. Newton wrote for
his simple labouring folk at Olney; he is the poet of the rustic
prayer-meeting. Bemerton and Olney were both villages in the land of
Beulah, but there is a difference in the dialect, which is easily
accounted for when we remember the contrast between the life of
Herbert and of Newton. When they passed through a similar spiritual
experience they described it in very different fashion, but, though
there are diversities of gifts, there is the same Spirit; there is the
same self-distrust, self-abhorrence; and there is the same calm
acceptance of the great salvation and its joys. George Herbert tells
his deepest, sweetest experience in the final poem of _The
Temple_.[163] Newton tells his story in simple, homely verse that is
not poetry, but is prayer and praise expressed in natural rhythm.

  Dost Thou ask me who I am?
  Ah, my Lord, Thou know’st my name:
  Yet the question gives a plea
  To support my suit with Thee.

  Thou didst once a wretch behold,
  In rebellion blindly bold,
  Scorn Thy grace, Thy power defy:
  That poor rebel, Lord, was I.

  Once a sinner near despair,
  Sought Thy mercy-seat by prayer;
  Mercy heard and set him free:
  Lord, that mercy came to me.

  Many years have passed since then,
  Many changes I have seen,
  Yet have been upheld till now;
  Who could hold me up but Thou?




                                  IV
                       Eighteenth-century Hymns


                   IV.—Addison, Toplady, and Others

A few other hymn-writers of the eighteenth century remain to be
mentioned. The first writer is of a very different class from those of
the later years. In 1712 Joseph Addison published six hymns in
successive numbers of the _Spectator_. One was by Dr. Watts; the
others were undoubtedly his own, though the authorship has been
claimed for others. The hymns themselves are the work of a devout man
of letters, and, without being exactly ‘popular,’ have been and still
are extensively used. They have the easy grace of Addison’s
prose-writings, and his name made them at once acceptable to all
classes. They belong to no school, and are used by all the Churches.

The six hymns are—‘The Lord my pasture shall prepare’; ‘When all Thy
mercies, O my God’; ‘When Israel, freed from Pharaoh’s hand’ (Watts);
‘The spacious firmament on high’; ‘How are Thy servants blest, O
Lord’; ‘When rising from the bed of death.’

John Cennick (1718-55) had much of Newton’s simplicity and sincerity,
though he had not his touches of genius or any trace of the old
sea-farer’s raciness. Cennick was ‘found’ by John Wesley at Reading,
in 1739, and was one of his earliest lay-preachers. But he adopted
Calvinistic views, and soon left the Methodists and attached himself
to Whitefield, whom he served as a brother beloved for several years.
He bore reproach, violence, hardship, with the courage which
characterized the itinerants of that day of either school of theology.
He separated from Wesley in 1741, from Whitefield in 1745, and found a
more congenial home among the Moravians. He was ordained a deacon, and
ministered in London and Dublin. He it was who earned for Protestants
of the Methodist type the nickname of ‘swaddlers,’ so long common in
Ireland. ‘A name given to Mr. Cennick, first by a Popish priest, who
heard him speak of a Child wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and probably
did not know the expression was in the Bible, a book he was not much
acquainted with.’[164]

Cennick was vacillating, and apparently easily influenced by stronger
minds than his own, but he was not able to keep up a quarrel, and, ten
years after his defection from Wesley, wrote him an affectionate
letter, in which he wishes ‘heartily that Christians conferring
together had hindered the making that wide space between us and you.’
Whitefield, though he had suffered a larger defection from his Society
than Wesley, bore Cennick no ill will, but kept up an affectionate
correspondence with him to the end. ‘My dear John,’ he wrote in 1747,
‘I wish thee much success, and shall always pray that the work of the
Lord may prosper in thy hands.’[165] Cennick continued his abundant
labours till 1755, when he died in London in his thirty-seventh year.

His best-known hymn is in every collection—

  Children of the heavenly King,
  As ye journey, sweetly sing;

and notwithstanding the dreadful rhyme of its second verse—

  Thou dear Redeemer, dying Lamb

still finds a place in many hymn-books.

Cennick is often spoken of as the author of

  Lo! He comes with clouds descending;

but there is very little trace of Cennick’s hymn in Charles Wesley’s.
Canon Ellerton calls the hymn ‘a recast by Charles Wesley,’ and adds,
‘Cennick’s hymn is poor stuff compared to that into which Wesley
recast it, putting into it at once fire and tunefulness.’ This,
however, is an inaccurate statement of the facts. Probably Cennick’s
hymn suggested Wesley’s, but this is the only share Cennick had in it.

Cennick’s hymn was published in 1752, Wesley’s in 1758. In 1760 Martin
Madan pieced together six verses, five (with some alterations) from
these two hymns, and one from another of Wesley’s. Neither Cennick’s
original nor Madan’s can be compared with Wesley’s fine verses, which
are best left as he wrote them.[166] The following is Cennick’s
original—

  Lo! He cometh, countless trumpets
    Blow before His bloody sign!
  ’Midst ten thousand saints and angels,
    See the Crucifièd shine.
        Allelujah!
  Welcome, welcome, bleeding Lamb!

  Now His merits by the harpers,
    Through the eternal deeps resounds!
  Now resplendent shine His nail-prints,
    Every eye shall see His wounds!
        They who pierced Him
  Shall at His appearing wail.

  Every island, sea, and mountain,
    Heaven and earth shall flee away!
  All who hate Him must, ashamèd,
    Hear the trump proclaim His day:
        Come to judgement!
  Stand before the Son of Man!

  All who love Him view His glory,
    Shining in His bruisèd Face:
  His dear Person on the rainbow,
    Now His people’s heads shall raise:
        Happy mourners!
  Now on clouds He comes! He comes!

  Now redemption, long expected,
    See, in solemn pomp appear:
  All His people, once despisèd,
    Now shall meet Him in the air:
        Allelujah!
  Now the promised kingdom’s come!

  View Him smiling, now determined
    Every evil to destroy!
  All the nations now shall sing Him
    Songs of everlasting joy!
        O come quickly!
    Allelujah! come, Lord, come!

Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-78) was a devout clergyman, converted
through the preaching of a Methodist in Ireland. His ‘Arminian
prejudices’ received an ‘effectual shock’ in 1758. His ministry at
Broad Hembury, and in the French Reformed Church, Leicester Fields,
was greatly valued, and his sincere piety impressed all who knew him.

He was one of the most violent opponents of Wesley and Fletcher in the
Calvinistic controversy, and expressed himself in unmeasured terms. He
was a good man, with deep convictions and narrow views. Yet he touched
human hearts as few other hymn-writers have ever done. To have written
‘Rock of Ages’ would have been fame enough for a much greater man than
Toplady. It appeared in a curious and unpromising setting. Toplady was
editing the _Gospel Magazine_, and in 1776 published a _Spiritual
Improvement_ of a Catechism on the National Debt, in which he strives
to estimate the number of individual sins a man may be expected to
commit in the course of his earthly life.

  As we never, in the present life, rise to the mark of legal
  sanctity, is it not fairly inferrible that our sins multiply with
  every second of our sublunary durations?

  ’Tis too true. And in this view of the matter, our dreadful account
  stands as follows:—At ten years old, each of us is chargeable with
  315 millions and 36 thousand sins. At twenty, with 630 millions and
  720 thousand. At thirty, with 946 millions and 80 thousand. At
  forty, with 1,261 millions and 440 thousand. At fifty, with 1,576
  millions and 800 thousand. At sixty, with 1,892 millions and 160
  thousand. At seventy, with 2,207 millions and 520 thousand. At
  eighty, with 2,522 millions and 880 thousand.

  We can only admire and bless the Father for electing us in Christ,
  and for laying on Him the iniquities of us all; the Son for taking
  our nature and our debts upon Himself, and for that complete
  righteousness and sacrifice whereby He redeemed His mystical Israel
  from all their sins; and the co-æqual Spirit for causing us (in
  conversion) to feel our need of Christ, for inspiring us with faith
  to embrace Him, for visiting us with His sweet consolations by
  shedding abroad His love in our hearts, for sealing us to the day of
  Christ, and for making us to walk in the path of His commandments.

  _A living and dying_ Prayer _for the_ Holiest Believer _in the
  world_.

  Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
  Let me hide myself in Thee!
  Let the Water and the Blood
  From Thy riven Side which flowed,
  Be of Sin the double Cure,
  Cleanse me from its Guilt and Power.[167]

Toplady wrote a good many hymns, but no other compares with this great
universal prayer, probably the best-known and best-loved hymn in the
language. He was essentially a Methodist, his Calvinism being, one
might almost say, accidental. His hymns have the tone and even the
mannerisms of Charles Wesley.[168] Many of them are good devotional
reading. The following verses will remind many readers of some
well-known lines of Charles Wesley—

  O when wilt Thou my Saviour be?
    O when shall I be clean,
  The true, eternal Sabbath see,
    A perfect rest from sin?

  The consolations of Thy word
    My soul have long upheld;
  The faithful promise of the Lord
    Shall surely be fulfilled.

  I look to my Incarnate God,
    ’Till He His work begin,
  And wait ’till His redeeming blood
    Shall cleanse me from all sin.

  His great salvation I shall know,
    And perfect liberty;
  Onward to sin he cannot go,
    Whoe’er abides in Thee:

  Added to the Redeemer’s fold,
    I shall in Him rejoice,
  I all His glory shall behold,
    And hear my Shepherd’s voice.

  O that I now the voice might hear
    That speaks my sins forgiven!
  His word is past to give me _here_
    The inward pledge of heaven.

  His blood shall over all prevail
    And sanctify the unclean;
  The grace that saves from future hell
    Shall save from present sin.

In no part of the kingdom was the Evangelical Revival more influential
than in Wales. Whitefield, Howell Harris, and, perhaps more than all,
Lady Huntingdon, were the controlling minds, and they led the people
of the Principality to the Calvinistic rather than to the Wesleyan
Methodists. The quaint poetry of Vicar Rees Prichard’s _Welshman’s
Candle_ and the Psalms of Archdeacon Prys seem to have been the songs
of the Welsh Church until William Williams of Pantycelyn arose—a great
light, well worthy to be called the Watts of Wales. His father was
deacon of an Independent Church, which at one time met ‘in a cave
during the hours of twilight,’ for fear of their enemies. Williams
himself was studying medicine, and had no thought of the ministry. One
Sunday morning, as he passed through Talgarth in Breconshire, he went
into the parish church. After the service the congregation gathered in
the churchyard, and Howell Harris, standing on a tomb-stone, preached
with the Holy Ghost and with power. That was the hour of Williams’s
conversion. He prepared for the ministry of the Established Church,
and was ordained deacon in 1740. He acted as curate of two small
parishes for three years, and then, drawn into the current of the
Revival under the influence of Whitefield, David Rowlands, and Howell
Harris, he became an earnest evangelist, travelling throughout the
Principality. His hymn-writing is said to have been occasioned by a
challenge of Howell Harris to the Welsh Calvinistic preachers to write
better hymns than their congregations then possessed. He wrote hymns
by the hundred, and they won an immediate and enduring popularity in
Wales. ‘What Paul Gerhardt has been to Germany, what Isaac Watts has
been to England, that and more has William Williams of Pantycelyn been
to Wales.’[169] He was a great favourite with Lady Huntingdon, at
whose suggestion he prepared a volume of hymns for Whitefield’s Orphan
House. In this work, entitled _Gloria in Excelsis_, some of his best
hymns appeared. In modern hymn-books he is known by two hymns—

  Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah!

and

  O’er those gloomy hills of darkness.

It is probable that the English version of his greatest hymn was
written by himself, and this seems to indicate that he suffers in
translation, for none of the English versions of his other poems is to
be compared with this. Mr. Garrett Horder thinks that ‘Guide me, O
Thou great Jehovah’ has been largely supplanted by ‘Lead, kindly
Light,’ though the most recent hymn-books do not sustain this
criticism. Keble re-wrote, but failed to improve it; and the same may
be said of those who have made minor alterations. It is, and is likely
to remain, one of the great songs of the Christian pilgrim in his
progress from this world unto that which is to come.

Mr. Elvet Lewis has given several translations of hymns hitherto
unknown to English people, which are good reading, though perhaps none
are likely to attain extensive use. Here are two verses in Williams’s
favourite metre—

  Much I love the faithful pilgrims,
    Who the rugged steeps ascend;
  On their hands and knees they labour
    To attain the heavenly end;
      To the summit
  On my knees shall I come too.

  Bruisèd hands, oh! stretch ye upward,
    Tired feet, walk ye with care;
  The reward, the crown is yonder,
    My Belovèd—He is there!
      Earth forsaking
  Now the journey’s end is all.

Here are two more in another metre, and with the cheery rhythm of John
Newton—

  Here I know myself a stranger,
    And my native country lies
  Far beyond the ocean’s danger
    In the lands of Paradise:
  Storms of trial blowing keenly
    Drive me on this foreign strand;
  Come, O South wind, blow serenely,
    Speed me to my Fatherland.

  Now the air is full of balm
    With the fragrance of the land;
  And the breezes clear and calm
    Tell of Paradise at hand:
  Come, ye much-desired regions,
    With the best of joy in store;
  Country of the singing legions,
    Let me reach thy restful shore!

Williams had the spirit of devout enthusiasm which characterized the
Revival; his missionary hymns, though not among the best, are among
the earliest of that class, and he had the rapt devotion to his Lord
which is ever the inspiration of the true hymn-writer.

  To Thee, my God, my Saviour,
    Praise be for ever new;
  Let people come to praise Thee
    In numbers like the dew;
  O! that in every meadow
    The grass were harps of gold,
  To sing to Him for coming
    To ransom hosts untold![170]




                                  V
                       Nineteenth-century Hymns


                          I.—Anglican Hymns

The hymns of the eighteenth century are almost without exception by
writers of the Dissenting, Methodist, or Evangelical schools. In the
nineteenth century the tide turns, and though the Nonconformists are
not without hymn-writers of distinction, the great hymns are by
Anglicans. Henry Francis Lyte in the first half of the century, Bishop
Bickersteth, Charlotte Elliott, and Miss Havergal in the second,
represent the Evangelical school. Heber was a typical Anglican, but he
was not of the Tractarian type, and died before the publication of the
_Christian Year_. Keble and Newman were the poets of the Oxford
Movement, and gave a distinctive tone to much of the later Church
hymn-writing; but Heber, more than any other man, did for the Church
of England what Watts had done for the Nonconformists.

Reginald Heber (1783-1826) was a scholar and a gentleman, his
churchmanship was unimpeachable, and his life and death alike served
to win acceptance for hymns whose intrinsic worth must have secured
the widest recognition. His hymns, like those of Herbert, Keble, and
many of our sweetest singers, are hymns of the country parsonage, and
seem all to have been written whilst he held the family living of
Hodnet, to which he was welcomed by the people as ‘Master Reginald.’
He was little better satisfied with Tate and Brady than Watts had been
with Barton, and at one time contemplated using the Olney hymns in his
church. Then he projected a more ambitious scheme, and hoped, with the
help of Milman, Southey, and Walter Scott, to provide a book which
might, perhaps under episcopal sanction, become the authorized hymnal
of the Church. But he felt the proposal a bold one, and tried to
prepare the way by the publication in the _Christian Observer_ of a
few hymns which he described as ‘part of an intended series
appropriate to the Sundays and principal holy days of the year,
connected in some degree with their particular collects and gospels,
and designed to be sung between the Nicene Creed and the sermon.’ Like
other reformers, he indulges in criticisms of the hymns then in use,
and is especially severe in censuring those which address our Lord
‘with ditties of embraces of passion.’ The hymn-book was duly
compiled, and specimens were submitted to Bishop Howley in the hope
that he might give it an episcopal benediction. It is curious to note
the apologetic tone in which Heber writes.

  The evil, indeed, if it be one, of the admission of hymns into our
  Churches has, by this time, spread so widely, and any attempt to
  suppress it entirely would be so unpopular, and attended with so
  much difficulty, that I cannot help thinking it would be wiser, as
  well as more practicable, to _regulate_ the liberty thus assumed,
  instead of authoritatively taking it away. Nor can I conceive any
  method by which this object might be better obtained than by the
  publication of a selection which should, at least, have the praise
  of excluding whatever was improper in diction or sentiment; and
  might be on this, if on no other ground, thought not unworthy a
  licence of the same kind as that which was given to the psalms of
  Tate and Brady. I have the vanity to think that even my own
  compositions are not inferior in poetical merit to those of Tate;
  and my collection will contain some from our older poets, which it
  would be mockery to speak of in the same breath with his. There are
  a few also which I have extracted from the popular collections
  usually circulated, which, though I have not been able to learn
  their authors, possess considerable merit and much popularity, and
  are entirely free from objectionable expressions.[171]

The Bishop criticized freely, generally approved and advised the
completion of the project; but Heber was called to Calcutta, and the
collection was not published until after his death. It contained
fifty-seven hymns of his own, twelve of Milman’s, and twenty-nine
others. His object had been to obtain ‘a well-selected and sanctioned
book of hymns for the Church of England, to supersede the unauthorized
and often very improper compositions now in use.’ He did not secure
this, but he prepared the way for something better, and may justly be
regarded as the first of the modern Anglican hymn-writers. His best
hymns are too well known to need comment, and of the rest
comparatively few are of special value in public worship. His hymns
owe more to the inspiration of the Gospels than the Psalms. The
collect or gospel for the day often explains and throws new light upon
a hymn, as in this for the Second Sunday after Trinity, the gospel
being the Parable of the Great Supper. It is usually regarded as a
Communion hymn.

  Forth from the dark and stormy sky,
  Lord, to Thine altar’s shade we fly;
  Forth from the world, its hope and fear,
  Saviour, we seek Thy shelter here:
  Weary and weak, Thy grace we pray;
  Turn not, O Lord, Thy guests away!

  Long have we roamed in want and pain,
  Long have we sought Thy rest in vain;
  ’Wildered in doubt, in darkness lost,
  Long have our souls been tempest-tost;
  Low at Thy feet our sins we lay,
  Turn not, O Lord, Thy guests away!

Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868), who died Dean of St. Paul’s, is famous
as an historian rather than a hymn-writer, but his few hymns have a
wide popularity. In

  Ride on, ride on in majesty!

he has shown how fine and true a hymn may be, though it departs from
recognized devotional form. It is a meditation of a highly rhetorical
kind, and apostrophizes but does not address our Lord. By some editors
this is regarded as fatal to its inclusion in a collection of hymns,
but the common judgement of Christian congregations is right. It has
proved itself a hymn in spite of all rules, and is an excellent
spiritual song for Palm Sunday.

In the year (1827) of the publication of Heber’s _Hymns, written and
adapted to the Weekly Church Services of the Year_, Keble issued
anonymously the most influential devotional work of the nineteenth
century, _The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and
Holy Days throughout the Year_. Like Ken’s festival hymns, it was not
a hymn-book, and was not meant for use in Church services, though from
a few of the poems verses may be taken which make hymns of the very
best type. Pusey regarded it as ‘the real source of the Oxford
Movement,’ of which Newman also thought Keble ‘the true and primary
author,’ though he ‘ever considered and kept’ July 14, 1832, the day
when Keble preached his sermon on ‘National Apostasy,’ ‘as the start
of the religious movement.’ Of the _Christian Year_ Newman says,
‘Keble struck an original note, and woke up in the hearts of thousands
a new music, the music of a school long unknown in England.’ But the
teaching of the Oxford Movement was rather latent than patent in the
_Christian Year_, and it would be a great mistake to regard it as
influencing that religious revival or even the English Church alone.
On the other hand, Hurrell Froude feared that the authorship of the
_Christian Year_ would be attributed to a Methodist.[172] It was as
important an element in the Movement as Charles Wesley’s hymns were in
the Evangelical Revival. In each case the influence extended far
beyond those who claim the poems as their special heritage.

Keble regarded the Church as in a state of desolation, decay, and
apostasy. He knew nothing of the glorious optimism of the Wesleys, who
saw everywhere signs of the speedy triumph of the gospel and the
coming of Christ’s kingdom. They sang

  Plague, earthquake, and famine, and tumult and war,
  The wonderful coming of Jesus declare.

Keble’s vision was

  So Famine waits, and War with greedy eyes,
  Till some repenting heart be ready for the skies.

They saw in the ingatherings to their scattered Societies the
assurance of abounding blessing

  Lo, the promise of a shower
    Drops already from above;
  But the Lord will shortly pour
    All the spirit of His love.

Keble saw no such visions, dreamed no such dreams. All he dares to ask
is

  Lord, ere our trembling lamps sink down and die,
  Touch us with chastening hand, and make us feel Thee nigh.[173]

Yet, when he forgets the depression of the time, and turns to the
consolations of eternity, he shows how firmly he believed his own
motto, ‘In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.’ He has
the sure trust and confidence of all God’s chosen, and at times
kindles into holy rapture. The prevailing tone, however, is of
sadness—the depression of the saint, not the perplexity of the
doubter.

In 1839 Keble published, also anonymously, his metrical version of the
Psalms. He had intended it to be a substitute for Tate and Brady, and
had hoped to secure episcopal sanction for its use in the dioceses of
Oxford and Winchester. It is, however, more interesting from the
standpoint of the expositor than the hymnologist, very few of its
versions being adapted to congregational use. The _Lyra Innocentium_,
published anonymously in 1846, is vastly inferior to his great work,
and has little to recommend it to those who are not in sympathy with
the High Church Movement.

After Heber and Keble all that there was of justice in Montgomery’s
sarcastic complaint, that hymns had been written by ‘all sorts of
persons except poets’[174] is gone. They were poets first,
hymn-writers afterwards. Keble’s greatest hymn is taken from his
‘Verses for Evening,’ which begins as a poem, and rises from
meditation to praise and prayer. The earlier verses are not suitable
for a hymn-book, but the beauty of the later lines is only fully
realized when they are remembered.

  ’Tis gone, that bright and orbèd blaze,
  Fast fading from our wistful gaze;
  Yon mantling cloud has hid from sight
  The last faint pulse of quivering light.

  In darkness and in weariness
  The traveller on his way must press,
  No gleam to watch on tree or tower,
  Whiling away the lonesome hour.

  Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear,
  It is not night if Thou be near:
  O may no earth-born cloud arise
  To hide Thee from Thy servant’s eyes.

There is surely no more beautiful illustration of the way in which the
Christian rises from Nature up to Nature’s God.

As in the case of so many hymns, the part is greater than the whole.
The six verses universally selected are not improved by the addition
of others—though they have much to commend them.

John Henry Newman (1801-90) belongs to Anglican hymn-writers in virtue
of his ‘Lead, kindly Light,’ though it may almost be described as his
farewell to the Church of England. It marks at least the beginning of
his long-drawn-out parting from the Establishment. Few hymns have won
a wider popularity, and no doubt it has done much to accustom
Nonconformist Churches to sympathize with the poetic and emotional
side of the Oxford Movement. This hymn and the _Christian Year_ made
absolute want of sympathy with the new devotion impossible. Moreover,
the tone of perplexity, the confession of bewilderment, the sense of
‘encircling gloom,’ fell in with the prevailing spirit of religious
emotion. To many men of his own school the hymn meant something very
different from what it means to the average worshipper, who finds in
it a comfortable sedative for vague religious depression. I confess
that personally the hymn does not seem to me as great as its
reputation, but it has brought help and comfort to myriads. Dr. Wm.
Barry says—

  This most tender of pilgrim songs may be termed the March of the
  Tractarian Movement. It is pure melody, austere yet hopeful,
  strangely not unlike the stanzas which Carlyle has made familiar to
  the whole English race, the Mason-Song of Goethe, in its sublime
  sadness and invincible trust. Both are psalms of life, Hebrew or
  Northern, chanted in a clear-obscure where faith moves onward
  heroically to the day beyond.[175]

Newman’s other great hymn, ‘Praise to the Holiest in the height,’
which owes its popularity largely to Mr. Gladstone’s affection for
it—though it is in itself a fine hymn—belongs to his Romanist days.

There was room for the new teaching. Perhaps Methodism was a little
too buoyant, Evangelicalism too contented, and the Church was ready
for a fresh upheaval.

Coincidently with the rise of the Oxford Movement came, as we have
seen, the rolling away of the reproach of hymn-singing. Even the
strongholds of the Establishment capitulated, and hymns formed an
important part in the new propaganda. Stanch Churchmen had disliked
hymn-singing. To quote Canon Ellerton—

  It came to us from an unwelcome source—from the Dissenters,
  eminently from the Methodists. It was first adopted by those of the
  clergy who sympathized most with them; for many long years it was
  that dreaded thing, a party badge.[176]

The Evangelicals adopted the custom easily, and with delight. Cowper,
Newton, Toplady, Hervey, Watts, Doddridge, and even Wesley, were no
strangers to them. But for the Calvinistic trouble, they all minded
the same things. They had no difficulty in regard to fellowship with
Nonconformists in worship or in work. It has been the fashion to
disparage the Evangelicals, and to regard the ‘Clapham Sect’ as a
coterie of ill-informed, self-satisfied Pharisees; but for solid,
practical Christianity it would be difficult to find any ‘school’ that
outrivals them. The ‘Clapham Sect’ knew little and cared less for
priestly rights or the niceties of ritual. They may have been slack in
the observance of fast and vigil, but they kept the fast of God,
breaking the bonds of wickedness and letting the oppressed go free.
The men who were the backbone of the anti-slavery movement, who were
nursing fathers to the Bible Society, and established the Church
Missionary Society, were not narrow-minded bigots, but held the true
Catholic Faith concerning the kingdom of God.

Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847), whose highest preferment was the
Perpetual Curacy of Lower Brixham, ranks, as a hymn-writer, with Ken
and Keble. While ministering to his ‘dear fishermen,’ he wrote many a
lovely hymn, and one of unsurpassed beauty. ‘Abide with me’ was his
swan-song. He died, like Toplady, of consumption, and felt the pain
and pathos of death in the prime of life. In a most tender poem he has
recorded that common but infinitely pathetic grief. It is interesting
to contrast the subdued sadness, the patient submission of Lyte with
the triumphant ecstasy of Toplady’s ‘Deathless principle, arise.’

  Shudder not to pass the stream,
  Venture all thy care on Him.
  Not one object of His care
  Ever suffered shipwreck there.

  Saints in glory perfect made
  Wait thy passage through the shade;
  Ardent for thy coming o’er,
  See they throng the blissful shore.

  Such the prospects that arise
  To the dying Christian’s eyes.
  Such the glorious vista, Faith
  Opens through the shades of death.[177]

This was the view of death taken by the Evangelicals in the eighteenth
century. The gospel of the great Revival brought life and immortality
to light, robbed death of all its terrors, and made heaven seem, even
to young men, far better than earth. The nineteenth century had not
the glowing rapture of the earlier time. Moreover, its interest in
works of Christian philanthropy, its awakening to the great missionary
call, made the life and work of the day infinitely important and
interesting. Christian men began to realize that heaven lay beyond the
golden glory of the sunset sky, and felt, with those of the older
dispensation, that it was a calamity for the sun to go down while it
was yet day. Lyte felt with Anne Brontë—

  I hoped that with the brave and strong
  My portioned task might lie.

Lyte’s sorrow was not that he feared to change the earthly for the
heavenly, but that he longed to have done enduring work e’er the night
fell.

      Why do I sigh to find
  Life’s evening shadows gathering round my way,
  The keen eye dimming, and the buoyant mind
      Unhinging day by day?

      Is it the natural dread
  Of that stern lot, which all who live must see?
  The worm, the clay, the dark and narrow bed,—
      Have these such awe for me?

      Can I not summon pride
  To fold my decent mantle round my breast,
  And lay me down at Nature’s Eventide,
      Calm to my dreamless rest?

      As nears my soul the verge
  Of this dim continent of woe and crime,
  Shrinks she to hear Eternity’s long surge
      Break on the shores of Time?

      I want not vulgar fame—
  I seek not to survive in brass or stone;
  Hearts may not kindle when they hear my name,
      Nor tears my value own;

      But might I leave behind
  Some blessing for my fellows, some fair trust
  To guide, to cheer, to elevate my kind,
      When I was in the dust;

      Within my narrow bed
  Might I not wholly mute or useless be;
  But hope that they, who trampled o’er my head,
      Drew still some good from me;

      Might verse of mine inspire
  One virtuous aim, one high resolve impart;
  Light in one drooping soul a hallowed fire,
      Or bind one broken heart;—

      Death would be sweeter then,
  More calm my slumber ’neath the silent sod,—
  Might I thus live to bless my fellow-men,
      Or glorify my God!

      O Thou! whose touch can lend
  Life to the dead, Thy quickening grace supply,
  And grant me, swanlike, my last breath to spend
      In song that may not die!

Was ever faithful prayer more abundantly answered? ‘He asked life of
Thee, and Thou gavest it, even length of days for ever and ever.’

Christopher Wordsworth (1807-85), Bishop of Lincoln, nephew of the
poet, was of set purpose a writer of hymns for congregational use. He
taught that hymns should express the feeling of the Church, and not of
the individual worshipper. He thought it ‘inexpressibly shocking’ that
‘Jesu, Lover of my soul’ should be sung in Westminster Abbey, at
least, so I understand his reference to ‘a large, mixed congregation
in a dissolute part of a populous and irreligious city.’[178] His
hymns are objective, and the best—e.g. ‘O day of rest and gladness,’
‘See the Conqueror mounts in triumph’—are very fine. Bishop Wordsworth
did not ‘translate any ancient hymns, but attempted to infuse
something of their spirit into’ his own.

The _Holy Year_ was a distinct contribution to the literature of the
Anglican Revival. Very inferior in strength and beauty to the
_Christian Year_, it was more useful to editors of hymn-books, and it
helped to concentrate interest upon the selection of hymns suited to
the Church year. Bishop Wordsworth kept closely to the Prayer-book
ideal of devotion, and some of his less-known poems are illustrative
of its special teaching. A good example is the hymn for the Second
Sunday in Advent, which he inscribed, ‘Christ ever coming in Holy
Scripture.’

  Lord, who didst the Prophets teach
    To prepare Thy way of old;
  And by Thine Apostles preach
    Truths of wisdom manifold;

  Teach us to behold Thee, Lord,
    Present in the sacred page,
  Living Word in written word
    Coming thus to every age.

  Coming in King David’s Psalms,
    In Isaiah’s trumpet-call,
  Coming in St. John’s deep calms,
    Coming in the fires of Paul.

  Coming brightly from afar
    To the lands with darkness dim,
  On the Evangelic car
    Of Thy fourfold cherubim.

  Thus, O blessèd Lord, when we
    On Thy Holy Scriptures look,
  May we ever worship Thee,
    Coming in Thy sacred Book.

  So, when as a scroll is past
    Heaven, and earth with all its strife,
  We may see our names at last
    Written in the Book of Life.

But the Anglican hymn-writers of the nineteenth century are too many
for detailed comment in my fast-failing space. It is a glorious choir,
including Joseph Anstice, who had so powerful an influence over Mr.
Gladstone in his Oxford days;[179] Dean Alford, Dr. Monsell, Sir H. W.
Baker, Dean Stanley, Bishops Mant, How, and Bickersteth, Canon Bright,
Godfrey Thring, Canon Ellerton, S. J. Stone, Canon Twells, Laurence
Tuttiett, S. Baring-Gould, among the clergy; Mrs. Alexander, Charlotte
Elliott, Frances Ridley Havergal, Sir R. Grant, W. Chatterton Dix,
among the laity.

Sir Henry Williams Baker (1821-77) wrote the lovely sacramental
version of Ps. xxiii.: ‘The King of love my Shepherd is.’ One verse he
repeated with his dying breath—

  Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
    But yet in love He sought me,
  And on His shoulder gently laid,
    And home, rejoicing, brought me.

He is one of the simplest and most attractive of hymn-writers, and the
inclusion of his hymns in Nonconformist hymnals is a great gain. His
greatest service to Anglican hymnody was the editing of _Hymns Ancient
and Modern_—a truly epoch-making (or perhaps epoch-marking) book.

While Baker was at work in his Herefordshire vicarage, John Ellerton
(1826-93) was writing hymns and essays on hymns in his rural or
semi-rural parsonages. Ellerton had a rare gift in writing for special
occasions. His great funeral hymn, ‘Now the labourer’s task is o’er,’
has a sombre strength which is full of comfort and trust. ‘Behold us,
Lord, a little space’ is an ideal hymn for a week-day service, and ‘In
the Name which earth and heaven’ is the grandest of all hymns for the
laying of the foundation-stone of a church.[180] Without being a
High-Churchman, Ellerton was a thorough-going Anglican, and his poetry
has the restraint, the good taste, and the dignity which beseem a
great Church.

S. J. Stone (1839-1900), unlike most clerical hymn-writers, was not a
country parson, though his best hymns were written before he began his
work in East London. But even in its dreary wastes he found the true
poetry of life, and some of his obscure parishioners at Haggerston are
richly shrined in his memorial verses. I feel all the more moved by
the triumphant tones of ‘The Church’s one foundation,’ all the more
tenderly impressed by ‘Weary of earth, and laden with my sin,’ when I
remember how dear to his heart were the struggling, toiling masses of
his dull East London parish. His best hymns are well known, so I quote
a sonnet which expresses his love for those who live in the crowded
city.


  _From Windermere, To the Congregation and Children of St. Paul’s,
                             Haggerston._

  Moored by a green isle of Winandermere—
    Listening the gentlest lapping of the wave
    On the rock margin, and the blackbirds’ brave
  Soldierly antiphons, afar and near,
  And the wind’s whispered evensong—I hear
    A sound beyond, and sweeter as more grave
    Than ever paradise of nature gave,
  Dear to my heart of old, and now more dear:
  _The roar of London_—the deep undersong,
    The myriad music of immortal souls
  High-couraged, much-enduring, midst the long
    Drear toil and gloom and weariness. It rolls
  Over me with all power, for in its tone
  The hearts I love in Christ beat with my own.

Bishop Bickersteth demands mention, not only for his own beautiful
hymns, but for his successful editing of the _Hymnal Companion to the
Book of Common Prayer_. Edward Bickersteth’s _Christian Psalmody_ was,
in its day, one of the best and most catholic hymnals. In the _Hymnal
Companion_, his son provided for a later generation the more complete
and worthy hymn-book which the growth of hymnody made possible. Of
Bishop Bickersteth’s own hymns, a few are amongst those universally
accepted. His Communion Hymn, to the regret of many, is absent from
the _Methodist Hymn-book_.

  ’Till He come!’ O let the words
  Linger on the trembling chords;
  Let the ‘little while’ between
  In their golden light be seen;
  Let us think how heaven and home
  Lie beyond that ’Till He come.’

  When the weary ones we love
  Enter on their rest above,
  Seems the earth so poor and vast,
  All our life joy overcast?
  Hush, be every murmur dumb;
  It is only till He come.

  Clouds and conflicts round us press;
  Would we have one sorrow less?
  All the sharpness of the cross,
  All that tells the world is loss,
  Death, and darkness, and the tomb
  Only whisper, ’Till He come.’

  See! the feast of love is spread;
  Drink the wine, and break the bread:
  Sweet memorials, till the Lord
  Call us round His heavenly board,
  Some from earth, from glory some,
  Severed only till He come.[181]

This aspect of the Lord’s Supper, the proclamation of the Lord’s death
’till He come,’ must ever be present to the mind of the devout
communicant. The hymn—especially in its last verse—is full of the
gracious, subdued trustfulness which befits the Christian as he
commemorates the Atoning Sacrifice and looks forward to glad, eternal
communion with those who have gone before, when once again our Lord
Himself shall break the bread and drink the wine with His disciples in
the Father’s kingdom.

Dean Stanley (1815-81) was not a poet, though he wrote the best
English hymn on the Transfiguration. I mention him here, however, to
quote some verses of his stirring national hymn, worthy of a Dean of
Westminster. It is of a type that, I think, ought to be represented in
our hymnals, and especially those intended for school use. Why should
not such hymns as this and Mr. Gill’s ‘Lift thy song among the
nations’ stir and consecrate the patriotism of our up-growing girls
and boys? Dean Stanley’s hymn is very long. I quote less than half. In
the _Westminster Abbey Hymn-book_ it is assigned to the Accession.

  Let us with a gladsome mind
  Praise the Lord, for He is kind!
  Long our island throne has stood,
  Planted on the ocean flood;
  Crowned with rock, and girt with sea,
  Home and refuge of the free:
  For His mercies aye endure,
  Ever faithful, ever sure.

  On that island throne have sate
  Alfred’s goodness, Edward’s state;
  Princely strength and queenly grace,
  Lengthened line of royal race:
  Round that throne have stood of old
  Seers and statesmen, firm and bold;
  Burleigh’s wisdom, Hampden’s fire,
  Chatham’s force in son and sire.

  Let us with a gladsome mind
  Praise the Lord, for He is kind:
  Him, in homely English tongue,
  Epic lay and lyric song,
  Shakespeare’s myriad-minded verse,
  Milton’s heavenward strains, rehearse:
  For His mercies aye endure,
  Ever faithful, ever sure.

  Hither in our heathen night
  Came of yore the gospel light;
  By the Saviour’s sacred story,
  ‘Angles’ turned to angels’ glory.
  Breaking with a gracious hand
  Ancient error’s subtle band;
  Opening wide the sacred page,
  Kindling hope in saint and sage.

  Give us homes serene and pure,
  Settled freedom, laws secure;
  Truthful lips and minds sincere;
  Faith and love that cast out fear.
  Grant that light and life divine
  Long on England’s shores may shine;
  Grant that people, Church, and throne
  May in all good deeds be one.[182]

Of the eighteenth century, Miss Steele and Mrs. Barbauld are almost
the only women whose hymns survive to-day. In the nineteenth century,
however, there are not a few women whose songs are likely to endure.
Charlotte Elliott, Cecil Frances Alexander, Anna Lætitia Waring, have
written immortal hymns, and it will be long ere Frances Ridley
Havergal is absent from the songs of the Church. It is safe to
prophesy that ‘Just as I am,’ ‘There is a green hill far away,’ and
‘Father, I know that all my life,’ will be sung through many
generations—as long, indeed, as English Christianity endures.

Charlotte Elliott (1791-1871), who belonged to a famous evangelical
Church family, is one of many who learnt in suffering what she taught
in song. Her greatest hymn, ‘Just as I am,’ was first published in the
_Invalid’s Hymn-book_ (1836), and, without her knowledge, was
reprinted and widely circulated. In no other hymn has the sinner’s way
to the Saviour been made more plain. Through the penitential
self-despair of its earlier verses countless numbers of the weary and
heavy-laden have found rest unto their souls, and entered into the
joyous confidence of its closing lines. Wordsworth’s daughter, Dora,
received the hymn in her last illness, and her husband wrote to the
authoress, ‘At least ten times that day she asked me to repeat it to
her,’ and every morning she asked for it again till the end came.
After her death it formed part of her mother’s ‘daily solitary
prayer.’

Miss Elliott is the truest and the best representative of the early
evangelical Church hymn-writers. Many of her little-known hymns are
very beautiful. I quote two pieces, notwithstanding a breath of
Calvinism in them both, for it is a Calvinism that has good Scripture
warrant.

         ‘My soul followeth hard after Thee’ (Ps. lxiii. 8).

  I look to Thee, I hope in Thee,
    I glory in Thy name!
  I make Thy righteousness my plea,
    Thou all-atoning Lamb!
  Methinks even death will welcome be,
  That I, through death, may pass to Thee.

  Thou art my portion, saith my soul,
    My all in earth or heaven;
  None but Thyself can make me whole,
    No name but Thine is given
  At which the gates of pearl fly wide—
  The passport of the justified.

  I know Thy voice—I strive to keep
    Thy word within my heart;
  Though the most worthless of Thy sheep,
    Still Thou my Shepherd art;
  Firm as a rock that word shall stand,
  None, none shall pluck me from Thy hand.

  Without repentance are Thy gifts;
    This thought my hope sustains,
  In deep distress my soul uplifts,
    When sin the victory gains;
  My faith, though weak, shall never fail,
  Thy prayer shall even for me prevail.

  When I Thy glory shall behold,
    And see Thee face to face,
  Sheltered in Thy celestial fold,
    A sinner saved by grace.
  What will it be Thy love to adore,
  Assured I shall go out no more?

The following lines are evidently in part suggested by her own great
hymn. The text is ‘Into Thine hand I commit my spirit: Thou hast
redeemed me, O Lord God of truth’ (Ps. xxxi. 5)—

  God of my life! Thy boundless grace
    Chose, pardoned, and adopted me;
  My rest, my home, my dwelling-place!
    Father! I come to Thee.

  Jesus, my hope, my rock, my shield!
    Whose precious blood was shed for me,
  Into Thy hands my soul I yield;
    Saviour! I come to Thee.

  Spirit of glory and of God!
    Long hast Thou deigned my Guide to be;
  Now be Thy comfort sweet bestowed!
    My God! I come to Thee.

  I come to join that countless host
    Who praise Thy name unceasingly.
  Blest Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!
    My God! I come to Thee.

Frances Ridley Havergal (1836-79) was full of the gladness of God’s
chosen, and her songs illustrate Faber’s verse—

  If our love were but more simple,
    We should take Him at His word,
  And our lives would be all sunshine
    In the sweetness of our Lord.

After her conversion she knew nothing of Wesley’s experience of the
‘howling wilderness’; to her the night was never dark, as it was to
Newman, and she was never far from home. Her hymns overflow with
exultant faith.

  Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,
    Thy sky is ever clear,
  Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
    No winter in thy year.[183]

It would, perhaps, be unsafe to predict that any of Miss Havergal’s
hymns will rank among the songs that cannot die, but they will
certainly be long loved and sung. Her consecration hymns, especially
‘Lord, speak to me that I may speak,’ are solemn and impressive, and
are, perhaps, her best. But her triumphant songs are often very fine,
though they are not always well sustained. Her Advent hymn has the
triumphant rapture of the soul that goes out to meet her Lord.

  Thou art coming, O my Saviour,
    Thou art coming, O my King,
  In Thy beauty all-resplendent,
  In Thy glory all-transcendent;
    Well may we rejoice and sing;
  Coming! in the opening east
    Herald brightness slowly swells;
  Coming! O my glorious Priest,
    Hear we not Thy golden bells?

  Thou art coming; at Thy table
    We are witnesses for this;
  While remembering hearts Thou meetest
  In communion clearest, sweetest,
    Earnest of our coming bliss,
  Showing not Thy death alone,
    And Thy love exceeding great,
  But Thy coming and Thy throne,
    All for which we long and wait.

Cecil Frances Alexander (1823-95) may almost be called the first
writer of real children’s hymns. Dr. Watts was not happy in his
_Divine and Moral Songs_, and some of Charles Wesley’s most horrible
verses are to be found in his _Hymns for Children_. It is true that
Watts wrote some simple lyrics which seem to have suited our prim
little ancestors, and that Charles Wesley wrote ‘Gentle Jesus, meek
and mild,’ but even the manners and beliefs of the devout souls of
that time cannot altogether excuse some of his hymns, which must have
frightened many a poor little Methodist out of his wits.

Anne and Jane Taylor’s _Hymns for Infant Minds_ are _too_ infantile,
though they served their generation well, and led on from Watts to
Mrs. Alexander. The Taylors had a happy knack of conveying Scripture
history and teaching in simple verse. I do not know a better
definition of repentance than—

  Repentance is to leave
    The sins I loved before,
  And show that I in earnest grieve
    By doing so no more.

But Mrs. Alexander combines with the winsome simplicity which charms
and instructs a little child, the power to speak to the child in the
heart of the man. Never has the gospel story been told to children and
to child-like souls more attractively than in ‘Once in royal David’s
city’ and ‘There is a green hill far away.’ Since our Church hymnals
began to include a section for children, Mrs. Alexander has been a
large contributor. Even yet, when we have a considerable number of
good children’s hymns, there are none better than hers. Of course she
wrote other hymns, but these are her glory, her most precious
contribution to the hymn-book of the modern Church. ‘Her character,’
says Archbishop Alexander, ‘was based and moulded upon the best
teaching of the original Oxford movement,’[184] but she had little
sympathy with mere ritualism. Well known and loved as many of her
hymns are, her collected _Poems_ include, among the less familiar
pieces, much of value and interest. She made for the _Irish Church
Hymnal_ a fine translation of the _Breastplate_ of St. Patrick, a hymn
which belongs to the Celtic, not to the Roman Church.

  I bind unto myself to-day
    The strong Name of the Trinity,
  By invocation of the same,
    The Three in One and One in Three.

  I bind unto myself to-day
    The power of God to hold and lead,
  His eye to watch, His might to stay,
    His ear to hearken to my need.
  The wisdom of my God to teach,
    His hand to guide, His shield to ward,
  The word of God to give me speech,
    His heavenly host to be my guard.

  Christ be with me, Christ within me,
    Christ behind me, Christ before me,
  Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
    Christ to comfort and restore me,
  Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
    Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
  Christ in hearts of all that love me,
    Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.[185]

This hymn is extensively used in Ireland on St. Patrick’s day.

To these hymn-writers we may add the poetesses Christina G. Rossetti
and Jean Ingelow. Miss Rossetti wrote very little that is really
adapted for use in public worship. There is much, however, to justify
the inclusion in a hymn-book of such verses as, ‘None other Lamb, none
other Name,’[186] though they are more fitting for private prayer than
for social worship. The same is not equally true of Miss Ingelow’s
poem, ‘And didst Thou love the race that loved not Thee?’ for the
verses usually selected form a true hymn. The last verse is—

  Come, lest this heart should, cold and cast away,
    Die ere the Guest adored she entertain;
  Lest eyes which never saw Thine earthly day
    Should miss Thy heavenly reign.[187]

Of laymen I can mention only a few names here. Mr. W. Chatterton Dix
has written more good hymns than those known to our hymn-books.
Francis Turner Palgrave (1824-97), whose _Treasury of Sacred Song_ is
our best anthology, also wrote hymns which, it seems to me, deserve a
wider use than they have attained. His best-known hymn, without being
of the popular type, is of the class which is appreciated by many in
these days of perplexity and unrest.

  Thou say’st, ‘Take up thy cross,
  O man, and follow Me’:
      The night is black,
      The feet are slack,
  Yet we would follow Thee.

  But oh, dear Lord, we cry,
  That we Thy face could see!
      Thy blessèd face
      One moment’s space:
  Then might we follow Thee!

  Dim tracts of time divide
  Those golden days from me;
      Thy voice comes strange
      O’er years of change:
  How can we follow Thee?

  Comes faint and far Thy voice
  From vales of Galilee;
      The vision fades
      In ancient shades:
  How should we follow Thee?

  Ah, sense-bound heart and blind!
  Is naught but what we see?
      Can time undo
      What once was true?
  Can we not follow Thee?

  Within our heart of hearts
  In nearest nearness be:
      Give Thou the sign:
      Say, ‘Ye are Mine’;
  Lead, and we follow Thee.[188]

Other hymns by Professor Palgrave are, ‘O thou not made with hands,’
‘Star of morn and even,’ ‘Thou that once on mother’s knee.’

I close this section of my lecture with a few verses which have, as
far as I know, not yet found a place in any hymnal. They are from a
Communion hymn by Mr. Gladstone. They may rightly be included in the
hymns of the Anglican Revival.

‘Mr. Gladstone’s mind and heart,’ says Mr. G. W. E. Russell, ‘were
already attuned to the new teaching, and prepared to receive it, even
though he had not paid much attention to the controversy. It was in
1836 that he wrote his hymn on the Holy Communion.’ Mr. Russell gives
the following verses—

  Here, where Thine angels overhead
    Do warn the Tempter’s powers away,
  And where the bodies of the dead
    For life and resurrection stay;
  And many a generation’s prayer
  Hath perfumed and hath blest the air;

  Oh, lead my blindness by the hand,
    Lead me to Thy familiar Feast,
  Not here or now to understand,
    Yet even here and now to taste,
  How the eternal Word of Heaven
  On earth in broken bread is given.

  We, who this holy precinct round
    In one adoring circle kneel,
  May we in one intent be bound,
    And one serene devotion feel;
  And grow around Thy sacred shrine
  Like tendrils of the deathless Vine.

  We, who with one blest Food are fed,
    Into one body may we grow,
  And one pure life from Thee, the Head,
    Informing all the members flow;
  One pulse be felt in every vein,
  One law of pleasure and of pain.

  Oh, let the virtue all divine,
    The Gift of this true Sabbath morn,
  Stored in my spirit’s inner shrine,
    Be purely and be meekly borne;
  Be husbanded with thrifty care,
  And sweetened and refreshed with prayer.[189]

It is at once necessary and almost superfluous to say that I know how
much has been left unsaid, how many names there are deserving mention,
how many hymns that might be referred to, but in such a fruitful land
the gleanings are richer than the vintage of former years.




                                  V
                       Nineteenth-century Hymns


                        II.—Free Church Hymns

  The composing of hymns is one of the surest signs of spiritual life,
  and the use of hymns is a wonderful witness of Christian unity; and
  the Church of England has been fertile during the last half-century
  in the production of hymns which are used by all English Christians,
  whilst the confederate Churches of the same period can hardly point
  to any additions made by them to the hymns of the Christian
  world.[190]

As we have seen, the honours of hymn-writing during the period
referred to are undoubtedly with the Anglicans, though Heber and Keble
belong to an earlier time. But this sweeping assertion of Mr.
Llewellyn Davis ought to have been impossible if he had remembered
Horatius Bonar, certainly one of the greatest English hymn-writers.
There are also George Rawson, T. T. Lynch, T. H. Gill, George
Matheson, and, every Methodist would add, William M. Bunting.

It must be remembered also that the Free Churches were already rich in
hymns when the nineteenth century dawned, whilst the Tractarians had
to make, translate, or borrow from the Nonconformists, hymns for their
special needs. Methodism had an ample supply of hymns for such Church
festivals as it desired, and the observance of festivals and other
ecclesiastical occasions was only gradually adopted in the older
Nonconforming Churches. When at length they felt the need for such
hymns as form the characteristic portions of Anglican hymnody they
were already to hand; and after the first natural prejudice against
everything that savoured of the ritualistic movement had passed away,
they found hymns intended to be the exclusive property of the
Anglicans admirably suited to their own newly awakened Church
consciousness. There is something delightful and even amusing in the
readiness with which such hymns as ‘The Church’s one Foundation’ and
‘Onward, Christian soldiers’ have been adopted by all the
denominations. The Baptist and the Bible Christian sing with as simple
confidence as the highest of Anglicans:

  Like a mighty army
    Moves the Church of God;
  Brothers, we are treading
    Where the saints have trod;
  We are not divided,
    All one body we,
  One in hope, in doctrine,
    One in charity.

They may have different thoughts as to Apostolic Succession, but as
long as we believe that where Christ is there is the Church such hymns
belong to all.

But though Nonconformity was rich in hymns and could take without
scruple many of the Anglican songs, the nineteenth century was very
far from being altogether barren in regard to the Free Churches.

Two hymn-writers mark the transition from the eighteenth to the
nineteenth century—James Montgomery and Thomas Kelly. They lived, it
is true, into the second half of the last century, but their hymns are
an aftermath of the Evangelical Revival. The later Oxford Movement did
not affect them, and their songs might all have belonged to the
earlier period, save for the missionary enthusiasm which inspires some
of their best efforts.

James Montgomery (1771-1854) was the son of a Moravian minister, who
died in the West Indies whilst the poet was at school. He was born at
Irvine, Ayrshire, lived for a time in Ireland, and having been
educated at the Brethren’s school at Fulneck, after a few unsuccessful
experiments, settled to work at Sheffield as assistant to the editor
of a local newspaper. He was a man of strong convictions, and did not
hide his light under a bushel. He was rewarded by two terms of
imprisonment, which he turned to profitable account by writing poems.
His was the usual fate of honest men persecuted for righteousness’
sake. Montgomery’s name is one of the chief glories of this city,[191]
where he wrought with head and heart and hand for freedom and for
righteousness. ‘The Climbing Boy’ is a memorial of his part in the
great philanthropic movements of which Lord Shaftesbury was the
leader. ‘The West Indies’—a poem which has lines here and there which
Cowper or even William Watson might have written—celebrates the time

  When Wilberforce, the minister of grace,
  The new Las Casas of a ruined race,
  With angel-might opposed the rage of hell,
  And fought like Michael, till the dragon fell.

‘Greenland’ commemorates his inherited love of missions, and the
curious ‘Thoughts on Wheels’—a satire upon State lotteries—reminds us
that Montgomery anticipated the _Daily News_ in refusing to insert
advertisements of a ‘national nuisance.’ We are accustomed to think of
Montgomery as a gracious Moravian poet, whose most appropriate place
was the platform of a Methodist missionary meeting, but he passed
through storm and tempest, through privation and struggle, to the
peaceful haven of his later years. Montgomery was a Moravian all his
life, a Methodist the greater part of it, and a Churchman toward the
end. Once again, we may say, ‘Such he was as every Christian Church
would rejoice to have adopted.’ Indeed, through its hymn-book, every
Church has adopted him, and in some of the best modern collections
Montgomery is more often heard than Watts.[192]

Montgomery cherished no illusion as to his poetic powers. He hoped
that his _Poems_ might be read for a generation, but that his _Hymns_
would be his lasting memorial. ‘The World before the Flood’ and ‘The
Wanderer in Switzerland’ are forgotten, and little likely to be
revived; but such hymns as ‘Hail to the Lord’s Anointed’ and ‘For ever
with the Lord’ will be sung through the centuries.

The first of these is not only Montgomery’s finest psalm-version, but
an unsurpassed rendering of a triumphant Messianic psalm. It owes
something to the instinctive wisdom with which the best verses have
been selected, and to a few editorial touches.[193] One can well
imagine the thrill with which it was heard in Pitt Street Chapel,
Liverpool, when the author recited the hymn at the close of a
missionary speech, and how Adam Clarke rejoiced to add this
magnificent rendering of the 72nd Psalm to his _Commentary_. It is, I
think, a finer and a much closer rendering of the ‘Psalm for Solomon’
than Watts’s great version. When urged by Dr. Clarke to attempt a
complete version of the Psalms, Montgomery said that he feared to
touch the harp of Zion. He did, however, paraphrase about fifty or
sixty psalms with more than average success.

It is sometimes said that ‘Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire’ is not
‘in the true sense’ a hymn, but this is to take too narrow a view of
the term. It excellently illustrates the way in which devout
meditation ends in prayer. Had the last verse been omitted, it would
have been a religious poem, not a hymn, but this throws upon all that
precedes it the light of devotion. Each verse looks forward to the
last—

  O Thou by whom we come to God,
    The Life, the Truth, the Way!
  The path of prayer Thyself hast trod:
    Lord! teach us how to pray.

It is superfluous to refer to all Montgomery’s contributions to our
hymn-books, but we must ever gratefully remember such pieces as his
Communion hymn

  According to Thy gracious word,

and the solemn prayer

  In the hour of trial,
    Jesus, pray for me,
  Lest by base denial
    I depart from Thee.

It is remarkable that editors should have thought it necessary to
meddle (as indeed Montgomery himself did) with the second line of this
verse, thinking it ‘unscriptural,’ although the very word ‘pray’ is
taken from the lips of our Lord.

Montgomery has also given us a fine Christmas carol—

  Angels, from the realms of glory;

and a solemn meditation on the Passion, Death, and Resurrection,
rising at the last into actual prayer—

  Early hasten to the tomb
    Where they laid His breathless clay:
  All is solitude and gloom;
    Who hath taken Him away?
  Christ is risen! He seeks the skies:
  Saviour, teach us so to rise.

In Montgomery, as in all great hymn-writers, the word of Christ dwelt
richly, and his songs are full of the thoughts and phrases of the
Psalter and the New Testament. Some of his sacred poems, though
unsuitable for congregational singing, are good devotional reading. I
quote one such, which seems to me to deserve something better than the
place he gave it in the Appendix to his _Poetical Works_.


                         CHRIST THE PURIFIER

                          (Mal. iii. 2, 3.)

  He that from dross would win the precious ore
    Bends o’er the crucible an earnest eye,
  The subtle, searching process to explore,
    Lest the _one_ brilliant moment should pass by
  When in the molten silver’s virgin mass
  He meets his pictured face as in a glass.

  Thus in God’s furnace are His children tried;
    Thrice happy they who to the end endure!
  But who the fiery trial may abide?
    Who from the crucible come forth so pure,
  That He, whose eyes of flame look through the whole,
  May see His image perfect in the soul?

  Not with an evanescent glimpse alone,
    As in that mirror the refiner’s face,
  But, stampt with heaven’s broad signet, there be shown
    Immanuel’s features, full of truth and grace—
  And round that seal of love this motto be,
  ‘Not for a moment, but eternity!’

Thomas Kelly (1769-1854), who was in Ireland what Williams of
Pantycelyn was in Wales, wrote nearly 800 hymns, the vast majority of
which belong to the same class as the masses of the forgotten hymns of
pious Dissenting pastors in the eighteenth century. They are often
redeemed from absolute dullness only by his love for curious rhymes,
e.g. ‘hers is’ and ‘mercies.’ He illustrates abundantly how easy it is
to have rhyme and rhythm without a suggestion of poetry, as in this
verse—

  Spread abroad the joyful sound,
    Fly in all directions;
  Speak to all the world around,
    Men of all complexions.

It is amazing that a man who could at times write so well should, as a
rule, write so feebly. Yet Kelly’s hymns have had a great popularity,
and a few are firmly fixed in all our hymn-books. His best are—‘Look,
ye saints, the sight is glorious,’ ‘Through the day Thy love hath
spared us,’ ‘We sing the praise of Him who died,’ ‘The Head that once
was crowned with thorns,’ and that most inspiring and comforting
missionary valediction, ‘Speed Thy servants, Saviour, speed them.’

Josiah Conder (1789-1855) was a poet and an expert editor. His
_Congregational Hymn-book_ (1836) marks a new era in the devotional
service of Nonconformity. He was in some cases a grievous sinner in
regard to alterations, and was often very unhappy in his
emendations.[194] Some of his original poems are very beautiful,
especially his short hymns and his versions of Prayer-book collects,
e.g. ‘Bread of heaven on Thee I feed,’ and the beautiful paraphrase of
the Collect for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity, with which the
_Methodist Hymn-book_ closes. Conder belongs to both centuries. His
hymns are often of the dull didactic type of the earlier time, but he
caught something of the spirit of the later day. Of his longer hymns
the following is a good specimen. It is found in many hymnals.

  How shall I follow Him I serve?
    How shall I copy Him I love?
  Nor from those blessèd footsteps swerve,
    Which lead me to His seat above?

  Privations, sorrows, bitter scorn,
    The life of toil, the mean abode,
  The faithless kiss, the crown of thorn,—
    Are these the consecrated road?

  ’Twas thus He suffered, though a Son,
    Foreknowing, choosing, feeling all;
  Until the perfect work was done,
    And drunk the bitter cup of gall.

  Lord! should my path through suffering lie,
    Forbid it I should e’er repine;
  Still let me turn to Calvary,
    Nor heed my griefs, remembering Thine.

  Oh, let me think how Thou didst leave
    Untasted every pure delight,
  To fast, to faint, to watch, to grieve,
    The toilsome day, the homeless night:—

  To faint, to grieve, to die for me!
    Thou camest not Thyself to please:
  And, dear as earthly comforts be,
    Shall I not love Thee more than these?

  Yes! I would count them all but loss,
    To gain the notice of Thine eye:
  Flesh shrinks and trembles at the cross,
    But Thou canst give the victory.

Thomas Toke Lynch (1818-71), an Independent minister, whose delicate
health often interrupted his labours, published in 1855 a little book
of poems which roused an extraordinary storm. It is difficult to
understand how such an inoffensive book as _The Rivulet_ could make
any great sensation, but the theological mind was more sensitive, if
not more restless, than it is to-day. The ‘Rivulet Controversy,’ in
which the redoubtable Dr. John Campbell was the prime mover, is long
forgotten, but a few of the hymns survive. The best known is,
‘Gracious Spirit, dwell with me.’[195] Lynch is an important
contributor to Congregational and Baptist hymnals, but he is
practically unknown to Anglican books, and is not represented in the
_Presbyterian Church Hymnary_.

Lynch was of the new and broader school of thought, and his hymns,
which he is said to have designed as a supplement to Watts, are of an
entirely different cast from those of the earlier day, though their
teaching is familiar enough in our time. I make a brief quotation,
which is more likely to be welcome to-day than it was half a century
ago.

  If love in any heart arise,
  And stir the tongue, and light the eyes,
  And speed the foot, and fill the hand;
  Then, Christian, thou must understand
  That, though unthought of, God is there;
  So of denying Him beware.

  If Little-more makes haste to bless
  His troubled neighbour Little-less,
  And poor men to the poorer give,
  Weak ones the weaker help to live,
  The sad those sadder still console;
  Then God is working in the soul.

  If the grown man forgoes his bread
  That little mouths may first be fed;
  And patient women serve the men
  Who care for them but now and then,
  And love keeps warm without a fire;
  O, then, the grace of God admire.

  Two strangers ocean may divide
  Who yet shall bridegroom be and bride,
  And God unknown to souls may be
  Who love Him will eternally;
  But all true hearts our Father knows,
  And will to them His truth disclose.

George Rawson (1807-89) has won a wider recognition than any other
English Nonconformist hymn-writer of the century, except Montgomery.
He was a solicitor in Leeds, and took part in the preparation of the
_Leeds Hymn-book_. His Communion hymn, ‘By Christ redeemed, in Christ
restored,’ his Evening hymn, ‘God the Father, be Thou near,’ and his
Litany of the Holy Spirit, ‘Come to our poor nature’s night,’ are his
most beautiful contributions to our hymnals, but several of his
less-known poems are bright, simple, and melodious. His version of Ps.
lxxxiv. would have been better known if Lyte’s had not been written.

Thomas Hornblower Gill’s (b. 1819) is a very distinct voice in the
choir. He will, I fear, have but a small place in the hymn-books of
the future, though there is an individuality and force in many of his
hymns which make them singularly attractive. Unfortunately, he often
uses an unusual word or phrase which diverts the worshipper’s mind
from what is said to the form in which it is expressed. Again, he is
too fond of the epithets ‘dear’ and ‘sweet,’ which is the more to be
regretted, as his hymns are never what Wesley called ‘namby-pambycal,’
but have a fine, robust tone, and often a stirring rhythm. He has much
of the Puritan spirit. One of his best hymns, ‘Lord, in the fulness of
my might,’[196] has for its text Cromwell’s saying, ‘How good it is to
close with Christ betimes.’ In the Congregational and Baptist books
Mr. Gill is largely represented. I hope the inclusion of a few of his
hymns in the _Methodist Hymn-book_ will make him known to a still
wider circle. I have marked many of his hymns for quotation, for they
have been dear to me from my boyhood, when I made acquaintance with
them through George Dawson’s hymn-book. Those I quote are chosen, not
because they are specially suitable for use in public worship, but
because there is so much of force and freshness in both thought and
expression. The hymn on ‘Free Grace’ has also a motto from Cromwell—‘I
have had plentiful wages beforehand, and I am sure I shall never earn
the least mite.’

  Lord! dost Thou ne’er Thy servants bless
    Until their work is done?
  Dost Thou withhold Thy tenderness
    Till they the meed have won?

  Lord! dost Thou reckon with Thine own
    Like taskmasters below?
  First must the handiwork be shown?
    Wilt Thou the wages owe?

  Nay, Lord! to Thy dear servants fall
    The wages long before;
  The Taskmaster Celestial
    Hath paid them o’er and o’er.

  How can they reckon up the grace
    Each hour, each minute brings?
  How store Thy gifts? how find a place
    For all their precious things?

  Hath not the Son their ransom paid,
    And brought them near to God?
  Yes! hath not the sweet Spirit made
    Their souls His dear abode?

  O boundless treasure all unearned!
    O wages given for nought!
  Bestowed ere once their hearts have yearned,
    Ere once their hands have wrought.

  With eager love these souls may burn,
    These hands their utmost strain;
  Still, Lord, one mite they cannot earn;
    Thy love doth grace remain.

  O! mourn Thy servants that there fall
    No earnings to their lot?
  Because Thy grace hath given them all,
    Lord, can they give Thee nought?

  Thine own no heavenly burden spare!
    Withhold no task divine,
  And let our eager love declare
    The unbought grace of Thine.

My last quotation is made for the sake of its quaint, sturdy,
half-humorous Independency. The text is, ‘Render unto Caesar the
things that are Caesar’s.’

  Lord! Thy gracious voice hath spoken,
    Lord! Thy faithful ones obey;
  Not by us be rudely broken
    Christ’s command or Caesar’s sway!
  God too greatly cannot task us,
    Tribute glad we bring the Lord;
  Service slight must Caesar ask us,
    Tribute small can we afford.

  Yet each holier soul desireth
    Nobler Caesars to appear;
  Each diviner hour requireth
    Powers and thrones more glorious here.
  All our tribute, all our treasure,
    We would spend where we can love;
  Jesus! come and be our Caesar!
    Sovereign here as Lord above.

  Low before Thy kingdom’s splendour
    Make the world’s poor kingdoms bow!
  Lord, to Thee our all we render—
    Thou our gracious Caesar, Thou!
  Thy mild monarchy victorious
    Half Thy word shall needless make,
  Our least service shall be glorious—
    All our tribute God shall take.

I have already referred to Mr. Gill’s national hymn

  Lift thy song among the nations,
    England of the Lord beloved,

which is based on the text, ‘He hath not dealt so with any nation.
Praise ye the Lord.’[197]

A few other hymns by English Nonconformist writers may be found, some,
e.g. Thomas Binney’s ‘Eternal Light,’ being of a very high order. Mr.
Spurgeon wrote a good many hymns and psalm-versions, but they are not
likely to be widely used. One, intended as a paraphrase of Ps. xli.,
might, perhaps, find a place among hymns of Philanthropy, where our
hymnals are still weak.

  Jesus, poorest of the poor,
    Man of sorrows, Child of grief!
  Happy they whose bounteous store
    Ministered to Thy relief.

  Jesus, though Thy head is crowned,
    Crowned with loftiest majesty,
  In Thy members Thou art found
    Plunged in deepest poverty.

  Happy they who wash Thy feet,
    Visit Thee in Thy distress;
  Honour great and labour sweet,
    For Thy sake the saints to bless.

  Thou wilt deeds of love repay;
    Grace shall generous hearts reward
  Here on earth, and in the day
    When they meet their reigning Lord.[198]

Bernard Barton (1784-1849), the Quaker poet, is best known by his hymn
on the Holy Scriptures—‘Lamp of our feet, whereby we trace.’ To my
mind his best hymn is the bright song of the Christian soldier.

  He who would win a warrior’s fame
  Must shun, with ever-watchful aim,
      Entangling things of life;
  His couch the earth, heaven’s arching dome
  His airy tent, his only home
      The field of martial strife.

  Unwearied by the battle’s toil,
  Uncumbered by the battle’s spoil,
      No dangers must affright;
  Nor rest seduce to slothful ease,
  Intent alone his chief to please,
      Who called him forth to fight.

  Soldier of Christ, if thou wouldst be
  Worthy that epithet, stand free
      From time’s encumbering things;
  Be earth’s enthralments feared, abhorred,
  Knowing thy leader is the Lord,
      Thy chief the King of kings.

Methodism has not in later days been rich in hymn-writers. After
Thomas Olivers there is but one great name, that of William M. Bunting
(1805-66). Little as he is known outside his own Church, his hymns are
amongst the best loved and best used in Wesleyan Methodism. I cannot
but think that some day he will be recognized as one of the glorious
choir of the universal Church. He was an extremely delicate man, and
his natural bent was pensive and self-depreciatory. He once said to a
friend, ‘There is one thing I shall miss in heaven, the mystic joys of
penitence.’ His great penitential hymn,

  Holy Spirit! pity me,
  Pierced with grief for grieving Thee,

even if it be thought too personal for use in public worship—I do not
think it is—might well be placed among hymns for private devotion. In
the services of a minister’s ‘quiet day’ it would be most impressive.

  Blessèd are the pure in heart,
  They have learned the angel art,
  While on earth in heaven to be,
  God, by sense unseen, to see,

though not a direct prayer, is a long meditation, the kind of
spiritual song which ought to be in all our hymn-books. His Baptismal
hymn is very fine.

  O crucified, triumphant Lord!
    Thy sceptre and Thy cross we own;
  And, taught by Thine apostle’s word,
    Repose our faith on Thee alone.

  The sign of faith ordained by Thee
    We Thy confessors scorn to shun;
  All men our fellowship shall see,
    Our Lord, our faith, our symbol, one.

It is one of the strongest if not the tenderest of hymns for infant
baptism, and will bear comparison with Dean Alford’s, ‘In token that
thou shalt not fear,’ with this advantage, that it is not addressed to
the infant, but to Him whose Name is named upon it.

William Morley Punshon’s (1824-81) _Sabbath Chimes_ suffered from
comparison with the _Christian Year_, but his hymns for Sunday morning
and evening—especially the latter—are not unworthy of a place amongst
the many good hymns we include under this heading. Both are wisely
shortened in hymn-books. Some readers will be glad to see the
following verses from the Sabbath Evening hymn as they were originally
published, though I do not suggest that the familiar cento is not
better for use in the congregation.

  We woke to-day with anthems sweet
  To sing before the mercy-seat,
  And, ere the darkness round us fell,
  We bade the grateful vespers swell.

  Whate’er has risen from heart sincere,
  Each upward glance of filial fear,
  Each litany, devoutly prayed,
  Each gift upon Thine altar laid;

  Each tear, regretful of the past,
  Each longing o’er the future cast,
  Each brave resolve,—each spoken vow,—
  Jesus, our Lord! accept them now.

  Whate’er beneath Thy searching eyes
  Has wrought to spoil our sacrifice;
  Aught of presumption, over bold,
  The dross we vainly brought for gold;

  If we have knelt at alien shrine,
  Or insincerely bowed at Thine,
  Or basely offered blind and lame,
  Or blushed beneath unholy shame;

  Or,—craven prophets,—turned to flee
  When duty bade us speak for Thee;—
  ’Mid this sweet stillness, while we bow,
  Jesus, our Lord! forgive us now.

  Oh, let each following Sabbath yield
  For our loved work an ampler field,
  A sturdier hatred of the wrong,
  A stronger purpose to grow strong.[199]

The _Methodist Hymn-book_ contains contributions from several
Methodist writers new to our authorized hymnal. Of those still living
I will say nothing, but I cannot pass over the name of James Smetham
(1821-89), whose tender, solemn lines, ‘While ebbing nature grieves,’
though they may rarely be sung in public, will be prized by many.
Another of his hymns is in a different key. It is, perhaps, more
suitable for congregational use—

  Show me, Lord, that Thou art love
    In confirmed tranquillity,
  Like the silent sky above,
    Let my craving spirit be;
  Dwell in life as vast and still,
  In the sunlight of Thy will.

  Thou who fillest all in all,
    Knowing that I wander here,
  Thou wilt hearken when I call,
    I will wait till Thou appear.
  Angels in Thy smile are blest;
  Smile, and Thou wilt give me rest.

  See the lilies of the field!
    They are all endued by Thee:
  Thou their innocence wilt shield;
    But Thou carest more for me:
  For like summer verdure, I
  Live and grow, but cannot die.

  Since on me Thou hast conferred
    This dread gift of endless life,
  Let my spirit walk prepared
    For its brief and mortal strife;
  Rushing then into Thy breast,
  Thou wilt smile, and I shall rest.

The weakness of this hymn lies in the word ‘rushing’ in the fourth
verse, which breaks in upon the quietness and confidence of the poem.

Mark Guy Pearse has written several good hymns for children. They are,
as Dr. Julian says, ‘of exceptional merit.’ Four are in the _Methodist
Sunday School Book_. His Christmas carol, ‘The fierce wind howls about
the hills,’ has a quaint, old-world simplicity and ruggedness that is
both picturesque and affecting. His most carefully wrought hymn is a
beautiful song of praise. The first two lines in each verse are its
special charm. Many readers will be glad to see it here, though it is
well known in Methodist Sunday schools.

  Saviour, for Thy love we praise Thee,
    Love that brought Thee down to earth;
  Like the angels we would praise Thee,
    Singing welcome at Thy birth;
      Let Thy star, through all our gloom,
      Guide us to Thy manger home.

  Saviour, for Thy life we praise Thee,
    Life that brings us from the dead;
  Like the children we would praise Thee:
    Lay Thine hands upon our head.
      Call us, as Thou didst of old,
      Little lambs into Thy fold.

  Saviour, for Thy death we praise Thee,
    Death that is our hope of life;
  Like the ransomed we would praise Thee,
    Who have passed beyond the strife.
      Wash us in Thy cleansing blood,
      Make us kings and priests to God.

  Saviour, for Thy love we praise Thee,
    Love that lifts us up to Thee;
  With the angels let us praise Thee,
    Joining in their minstrelsy;
      All our love for ever telling,
      And the mighty chorus swelling,
              Praise the Lord!

Benjamin Gough (1805-77) was a local preacher and a very minor poet,
yet he is not the least of Methodist hymn-writers. He was an echo, not
a voice, but won much wider acceptance than most of the later
Methodist poets. Dr. Littledale included a number of his hymns in the
_People’s Hymnal_, and he is represented in several good hymn-books
both in this country and America. His best hymns are ‘Awake, awake, O
Zion’ and ‘Uplift the blood-stained banner.’

Though the English Free Churches are poor in hymn-writers, the balance
is amply redressed in Scotland. Horatius Bonar (1801-89) is one of the
great singers of the century, and some of his hymns, e.g. ‘I heard the
voice of Jesus say,’ are surely immortal. He rightly named his poems
‘hymns of faith and hope’; they look for and haste unto the coming of
the Day of Christ. His Communion hymn, ‘Here, O my Lord, I see Thee
face to face,’ and ‘A few more years shall roll,’ with some others,
are in all great collections. Few modern books have less than ten of
his hymns, and many have from twelve to twenty. He was also a
successful translator, though his fame rests on his original hymns. If
I quote few of his verses, it is only because they are so well known.
The Second Advent filled a large place in his thought and teaching.
The following lines, to which he prefixed a quotation from St.
Augustine, ‘The world has grown old,’ are very characteristic—

  Come, Lord, and tarry not,
    Bring the long-looked-for day;
  Oh, why these years of waiting here,
    These ages of delay?

  Come, for Thy saints still wait,
    Daily ascends their sigh;
  The Spirit and the Bride say, Come:
    Dost Thou not hear the cry?

  Come, for creation groans,
    Impatient of Thy stay,
  Worn out with these long years of ill,
    These ages of delay.

  Come, for Thy foes are strong;
    With taunting lip they say,
  ‘Where is the promised advent now,
    And where the dreaded day?’

  Come, for love waxes cold,
    Its steps are faint and slow;
  Faith now is lost in unbelief,
    Hope’s lamp burns dim and low.

  Come, for the corn is ripe;
    Put in Thy sickle now,
  Reap the great harvest of the earth,
    Sower and reaper Thou!

  Come, and make all things new,
    Build up this ruined earth;
  Restore our faded Paradise,
    Creation’s second birth.

  Come, and begin Thy reign
    Of everlasting peace;
  Come, take the kingdom to Thyself,
    Great King of righteousness.[200]

Fewer and less easily adapted to congregational use are the sacred
songs of Dr. George Matheson, whose best-known hymn is probably the
most widely appreciated of any written in the last quarter of a
century. It must be familiar to most readers, but as it is not found
in the _Methodist Hymn-book_, I give it here—

  O Love that wilt not let me go,
    I rest my weary soul on Thee;
  I give Thee back the life I owe,
  That in Thine ocean depths its flow
    May richer, fuller be.

  O Light that followest all my way,
    I yield my flickering torch to Thee;
  My heart restores its borrowed ray,
  That in Thy sunshine’s blaze its day
    May brighter, fairer be.

  O Joy that seekest me through pain,
    I cannot close my heart to Thee;
  I trace the rainbow through the rain,
  And feel the promise is not vain
    That morn shall tearless be.

  O Cross that liftest up my head,
    I dare not ask to fly from Thee;
  I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
  And from the ground there blossoms red
    Life that shall endless be.

Very different are his verses on Brotherhood, which are not on the
ordinary lines of a hymn, but make an excellent song for a gathering
of working-men, for a temperance meeting, or for ‘united’ gatherings
of many kinds. It is at least thoroughly modern.

  Come, let us raise the common song—
    Day’s beams are breaking;
  Shadows have parted hearts too long,
    Light in the east is waking.

  Come, let us clasp united hands—
    Love’s rays are falling;
  Sea too long divides the lands,
    Kindred claims are calling.

  Come, let us lift a common prayer—
    One hope combines us;
  We are made hard by selfish care,
    Mutual grief refines us.

  Come, let us lift our brother’s load—
    Christ’s cross is o’er us;
  Ours shall fall upon the road
    When Heaven’s is seen before us.

  Come, let us win our brother’s love;
    Love’s warm revealing
  Melts the ice that will not move
    By the frost’s congealing.

  Come, let us lift our brother’s stain;
    Hope’s power shall cherish
  Dreams of daysprings not in vain
    Wherein the spot shall perish.

Dr. Walter C. Smith’s is not a familiar name in our hymn-books. Only
editors who are willing to leave the beaten track will find his poems
‘true hymns.’ The _Baptist Church Hymnal_, which is perhaps the most
catholic and the most literary of our modern books, gives six of his
hymns, while the Presbyterian and the Methodist have none. But many of
his poems are good hymns, though perhaps they appeal to a limited
circle. His _Thoughts and Fancies for Sunday Evenings_ has long stood
close to my study chair, and I do not think there is any book (except
George Herbert) I have so often read after the day’s work is done. His
hymns have the true patience and the happy trustfulness which are the
strength and inspiration of Christian service. Here are three verses
from the poem on Ps. cxviii. 1—

  Why should I always pray,
    Although I always lack?
  Were ’t not a better way
    Some praise to render back?
  The earth that drinks the plenteous rain
  Returns the grateful cloud again.

  We should not get the less
    That we remembered more
  The truth and righteousness
    Thou keep’st for us in store:
  In heaven they do not pray—they sing,
  And they have wealth of everything.

  And it would be more meet
    To compass Thee with song,
  Than to have at Thy feet
    Only a begging throng,
  Who take Thy gifts and then forget
  Alike Thy goodness and their debt.

My next quotation is well worthy of a place beside Bishop
Bickersteth’s ‘Come ye yourselves apart,’ and with the most impressive
and consoling of hymns for Christian workers.

  Oft, Lord, I weary in Thy work,
    But of Thy work I do not tire,
  Although I toil from dawn till dark,
  From matins of the early lark
    Until his even-song expire.

  Ah! who that tends the altar fire,
    Or ministers the incense due,
  Or sings Thy praises in the choir,
  Or publishes good news, could tire
    Of that he loves so well to do?

  Sweet is the recompense it brings—
    The work that with good-will is done;
  For all the heart with gladness sings,
  And all the fleeting hours have wings,
    And all the day is full of sun.

  And if he labour not in vain,
    If souls are by his message stirred,
  If he can comfort grief and pain,
  Or bring repentant tears like rain
    By force of his entreating word,

  The hand may weary at its task,
    And weary he may drag his feet;
  The weary frame may long to bask
  In needful rest; but do not ask
    The heart to weary of its beat.

To these quotations—and they are few compared with those I would like
to make—I must add Dr. Smith’s singularly solemn and beautiful prayer,
which in the _Baptist Church Hymnal_ is appointed for the close of the
Communion Service. It is unique among sacramental hymns.

  If any to the feast have come
    Who were not bidden, Lord, forgive;
  They were not of our Father’s home,
    Yet in Thy mercy let them live.

  If any came in doubt or fear,
    O may they carry peace away;
  Let heaven to them be calm and clear,
    Still brightening to the perfect day.

  And who in Zion mourning were,
    O give them songs of praise to Thee;
  And who were full of anxious care,
    O set them from their burden free.

  All those who never sat before
    At this dear table of Thy grace,
  O may they love Thee more and more,
    And serve Thee in Thy Holy Place.

  And they who ne’er again shall see
    The day of our communion dawn,
  Prepare them, Lord, to feast with Thee
    At tables which are never drawn.

  Forgive us all our wandering thought,
    Our little love, our feeble faith;
  And may we meet, our battle fought,
    Beyond the realms of sin and death.

From these great Scotch hymn-writers I turn for a moment to the
Unitarian contribution to the Church’s hymn-book. Here it must be said
that the best comes to us from America, where the Unitarians claim
Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, Samuel Longfellow, and
Samuel Johnson. In England we have Sir John Bowring (1792-1872); and
Sarah Flower Adams (1805-48), whose ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee’ has a
sure place among the best-loved hymns. Mrs. Adams also wrote two
beautiful little hymns suited for the close of service, each
beginning, ‘Part in peace,’ and was an important contributor to W. J.
Fox’s _Hymns and Anthems_ for the use of the South Place Religious
Society, one of the most curious of modern hymnals. Mr. Page Hopps has
written some good hymns, which are widely used. His child’s prayer,
‘Father, lead me day by day,’ is beautiful in its strong simplicity.
Dr. James Martineau wrote a few hymns which I cannot but think are
included in evangelical hymn-books more out of respect for their
author than for their actual devotional or poetic value. The best
known is ‘Thy way is in the deep, O Lord.’ I quote one less often
found—

  ‘Where is your God?’ they say:
    Answer them, Lord most holy!
  Reveal Thy secret way
    Of visiting the lowly:
      Not wrapped in moving cloud,
        Or nightly-resting fire;
      But veiled within the shroud
        Of silent high desire.

  Come not in flashing storm,
    Or bursting frown of thunder:
  Come in the viewless form
    Of wakening love and wonder;—
      Of duty grown divine,
        The restless spirit, still;
      Of sorrows taught to shine
        As shadows of Thy will.

  O God! the pure alone,—
    E’en in their deep confessing,—
  Can see Thee as their own,
    And find the perfect blessing:
      Yet to each waiting soul
        Speak in Thy still small voice,
      Till broken love’s made whole,
        And saddened hearts rejoice.




                                  V
                       Nineteenth-century Hymns


                      III.—Roman Catholic Hymns

English Romanism has shared in the revival of hymnody, and has been
greatly enriched by the men who, to quote Mr. Moorsom’s delightful
record of Faber, ‘left the Church of England for the Roman schism in
England.’ From Austin to Faber, Romanism has hardly any English
hymn-writers. Some of the Latin hymns by English writers have an
alluring rhythm, the ideal tone of a Christmas carol. It is easy to
understand how popular they might be in the vernacular. Here is a
bright lilting verse from a thirteenth-century hymn:

  Gabriel to Mary went,
    A mighty message bare he;
  Deep in awe the maiden bent
    To hear the first Hail Mary![201]

Richard Crashaw (d. 1650) was a poet, but scarcely a hymn-writer,
though from his ‘Hymn of St. Thomas’ a good cento may be made.

  With all the powers my poor heart hath
  Of humble love and loyal faith,
  Thus low, my hidden Life, I bow to Thee,
  Whom too much love hath bowed more low for me.

  Faith is my force: Faith strength affords
  To keep pace with Thy powerful words,
  And words more sure, more sweet than they,
  Love could not think, Truth could not say.

  Help, Lord, my faith, my hope increase,
  And fill my portion in Thy peace:
  Give love for life; nor let my days
  Grow but in new powers to Thy praise.

  O dear memorial of that Death,
  Which lives still and allows us breath!
  Rich, royal food! Bountiful bread!
  Whose use denies us to the dead.

  Come, Love! come, Lord! and that long day
  For which I languish, come away!
  When glory’s sun faith’s shades shall chase,
  And for Thy veil give me Thy face.[202]

Robert Southwell (d. 1595) did not write so good a hymn as this, but
several of his very striking poems are included in the Arundel
book—‘The Burning Babe,’ ‘New Prince, new Pomp,’ ‘A Child my choice.’

Early in the nineteenth century efforts were made to provide English
hymn-books for Romanists. Father Haydock (1823) even adapted some of
the hymns of Wesley, Watts, Montgomery, and other Protestants, but the
effort does not seem to have been appreciated.[203]

Frederick William Faber (1814-63) did for English Romanists what Watts
had done for Nonconformists more than a hundred years earlier. He is
the Watts and Wesley of Romanism. Faber ‘went over’ in 1846, after a
brief ministry in the Anglican Church. He lamented that Catholics had
not ‘the means of influence which one school of Protestantism has in
Wesley’s, Newton’s, and Cowper’s hymns, and another in the more
refined and engaging works of Oxford writers.’ As ‘an English son of
St. Philip’ Neri, he claimed to be following in the steps of that
‘right merry saint’ in his attempt to provide ‘English Catholic hymns
fitted for singing.’ ‘St. Philip devised a changeful variety of
spiritual exercises and recreations, which gathered round him the art
and literature, as well as the piety of Rome, and was eminently
qualified to meet the increased appetite for the word of God, for
services in the vernacular, for hymn-singing and prayer-meetings.’
These last words have a fine Methodist flavour, and increase one’s
sympathy with their writer. But it must be admitted that Faber was a
thorough-going Romanist. He believed that ‘God raised up our dear and
blessed Father, St. Philip ... just as the heresy of Protestantism was
beginning to devastate the world.’[204] Faber’s hymns must not be
judged simply by our Protestant versions, but we may be thankful that
he gave a new and better tone to the hymn-singing of the Roman Church.
His best hymns, with their exquisite yearning tenderness, are so dear
to us that there is no need to speak of them; they speak the language
of the Christian heart, and he who sings thus sings the Holy Spirit’s
song.

It must be admitted, however, that we have taken the best of Faber
into our hymnals, and the residue is not—from the Protestant
standpoint—of great value. What one may call the lighter songs of
Roman Catholic psalmody are so little known to us that I quote, as a
favourable illustration of a class of hymn that bulks largely in
Romanist books, two verses of Faber’s song for St. Patrick’s Day. One
can readily imagine that such a hymn would be popular in Ireland, and
serve to keep alive the legend of St. Patrick.

  All praise to Saint Patrick who brought to our mountains
    The gift of God’s faith, the sweet light of His love!
  All praise to the shepherd who showed us the fountains
    That rise in the heart of the Saviour above!
            For hundreds of years,
            In smiles and in tears,
  Our saint hath been with us, our shield and our stay;
            All else may have gone,
            Saint Patrick alone,
  He hath been to us light when earth’s lights were all set,
    For the glories of faith they can never decay;
  And the best of our glories is bright with us yet,
    In the faith and the feast of Saint Patrick’s Day.

  There is not a saint in the bright courts of Heaven
    More faithful than he to the land of his choice;
  Oh, well may the nation to whom he was given,
    In the feast of their sire and apostle rejoice!
            In glory above,
            True to his love,
  He keeps the false faith from his children away:
            The dark false faith,
            That is worse than death,
  Oh, he drives it far off from the green sunny shore,
    Like the reptiles which fled from his curse in dismay;
  And Erin, when error’s proud triumph is o’er,
    Will still be found keeping Saint Patrick’s Day.

Edward Caswall (1814-78), who resigned his Anglican living in 1847,
was received into the Roman Church in 1850. He is a more successful
translator than composer, his best original hymn being ‘Days and
moments quickly flying.’ His translations from the Latin and German
are in all our hymnals.

Romish hymnals contain many prayers for the reconversion of England.
There is something pathetic in such lines as these in a hymn of Father
Potter’s—

  Oh! yet once more, o’er English fields,
    The glorious Cross shall wave;
  The solace of the broken heart,
    The standard of the brave.

  Oh, isle of Saints! oh, Mary’s dower!
    How long ere this shall be?
  When wilt thou rise, throw off thy chains,
    And once again be free?

But if our Romish brethren sing thus, why should not we teach our
children Mr. Gill’s stirring hymn, which includes the lines

  Sing how He His England crownèd,
    When He loosed the yoke of Rome?

Have we not as good cause for praise as they for prayer?

One turns from the study of Romish hymn-books with a sense of having
travelled in a far country, where yet there is much to remind one of
the home-land. There is a great gulf, as we thankfully acknowledge,
between even the High Anglican and the Romanist—a considerable portion
of the Romish hymn-book is, and we trust ever will be, impossible to
the bulk of English Christians. On the other hand, one can neglect the
chaff and gather golden grain, for saintly Romanists have a genius for
devotion. It is much to be wished that the readiness with which we
have adopted hymns from Roman Catholic sources had been reciprocated.
But almost all the great English hymns are missing from Catholic
hymnals. The Arundel editors admit translations by Dr. Neale, and even
Miss Winkworth, but no original hymns save those by writers of their
own faith. Mr. Tozer, in his _Catholic Hymns_, includes Charlotte
Elliott’s ‘Thy Will be done,’ and gives the author’s name, but I am
afraid he did not know she was a Protestant—though I hope he did.

Naturally, Faber and Caswall are the chief contributors; and books
that contain their hymns and those of Matthew Bridges, Adelaide Anne
Procter, and J. H. Newman, cannot be without much spiritual wealth.
The two collections I have named give a very hopeful impression
concerning the future of Roman Catholic hymnody; though they are
practically innocent of Protestant hymns, they contain many which are
Catholic, and not Roman. Indirectly, the use of such books must
prepare the way for a greater freedom in worship and a nearer
approximation to the general company of believers.

I will close this slight sketch with two verses by Cardinal Manning:

  Death has for me no fears; its bitter pains
    Shall never from my King my heart divide:
  Faithful to Him till death my will remains;
    I nothing fear, with Jesus at my side.

  Jesus, my Lord! my only hope and shield;
    No powers of ill before Thee can abide;
  I trust in Thee upon the battlefield;
    I nothing fear, with Jesus at my side![205]

Here our study must perforce break off, for the limits assigned to my
lecture have been already exceeded. Several important subjects must be
omitted. American hymns take a comparatively inconspicuous place in
our Church hymnals, but have a large space in collections of songs for
mission services and undenominational gatherings.

Translations from the Greek, Latin, and German furnish many of our
finest and most popular hymns. In regard to modern hymn-books, the
German are the older, and indeed many of the Latin hymns are actually
of a later date than those of Luther and even Paul Gerhardt. John
Wesley’s intercourse with the Moravians introduced him to the German
hymns, and his translations are almost as important a feature in our
hymn-books as Charles Wesley’s original compositions. Miss Winkworth’s
_Lyra Germanica_ is one of the great devotional works of the
nineteenth century.

The Oxford Movement drew attention to the hymns of the Greek and Roman
Churches, and _Hymns Ancient and Modern_ popularized many hymns
suitable to the worship of all the Churches. Bishop Mant, Isaac
Williams, Edward Caswall, and Dr. Neale led the way in translating
these hymns into English verse, and they quickly secured a large place
in hymn-books. Not only have they great historic interest, but they
give us some of the sublimest and the sweetest of our hymns of
penitence and praise, ranging from the solemn tones of the ‘Dies irae’
to the lovely lyrics of Bernard of Clairvaux, ‘Jesu, the very thought
of Thee.’ No survey of the hymn-book of the modern Church can be
complete without reference to them, but I am compelled to pass them by
with only this brief mention.




                              CONCLUSION


Our study of English hymns has carried us through three centuries and
a half—from the rough, halting lines of Coverdale to the smooth and
easy rhythm of the hymn-writers of to-day.

From Sternhold and Hopkins to the modern hymn-book is a long and
delightful journey. ‘I envy not in any mood’ the man who finds in
devotional poetry only matter for criticism. If it be true that the
heart makes the theologian, it is more true that the heart makes the
hymnologist.

The earlier stages of our study may yield little actual fruit in the
shape of hymns which a modern editor would delight to add to his
hymn-book. But it yields much in the way of inspiration, bringing us
into communion with men like Herbert, Donne, Sandys, Vaughan, and, in
his measure, Wither—men who might have lived the courtier’s life had
they not chosen to serve the King of kings. So far as their poems are
concerned, it is a mere accident that Herbert and Donne were in
orders. They are not clerical hymn-writers, but, like others of their
school, are poets of the inner and individual life. They touch our
hearts, not because they have written what expresses the common need
of a congregation, but because they speak in graceful form what most
of us can feel but could never put into words. Campion and the two
Austins represent the devout laymen of the professional class—men who
might, if they pleased, have been mere men of the world. It would be
quite possible to discuss English hymns with scarce a mention of such
names, but, it seems to me, that in losing them our study would lose
its richest charm.

Ken may be considered the first of the Anglican, Mason of the
Evangelical, and Watts of the Dissenting hymn-writers. They wrote, not
simply for their own delight or relief, but for the sake of others.
Ken had no immediate successors, though he is the founder of the
school of Heber, Lyte, Keble, and Ellerton. Mason’s immediate
successors were Shepherd, Newton, and Cowper; Watts was the first of a
long succession of the later Puritans.

It is usual to call the eighteenth century the golden age of
hymn-writing; but I am not sure that this will be the final verdict. I
confess that in many respects I find both the earlier and the later
period more attractive. If we leave out of the account Wesley’s hymns,
many of which owe their long use in the Methodist Churches to other
than poetic considerations, the vast majority of the
eighteenth-century hymns have disappeared from modern use. It is
interesting to compare the hymn-books of 1750-1850 with those issued
within the last twenty years. Rippon’s _Selection_, in its various
editions; Collyer’s _Hymns_; Dobell’s _New Selection of Nearly Eight
Hundred Evangelical Hymns_; Bickersteth’s _Christian Psalmody_; and
Snepp’s _Songs of Grace and Glory_, compared with the most recent
hymn-books, show not only what great additions have been made to the
treasury of Christian song, but how many hymns once regarded as almost
indispensable are now forgotten, and are never likely to be revived.
The formal, didactic, preaching hymns, so popular a hundred years ago,
have been steadily losing ground. They not only fail to touch the
heart of present-day worshippers, they have no element of distinction,
nothing that could or should give them a permanent place in the songs
of the Church of Christ. Hymns of the period before Watts are much
more common in twentieth-century hymn-books than in those of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but the hymns characteristic of
the eighteenth century are rapidly disappearing. They were written to
meet the needs of the Dissenting meeting-house and the Evangelical
Revival. But among them are many which voice the experience, ‘not of
an age, but of all time’; they speak the language of the soul that
seeks and finds and follows the Saviour.

Nineteenth-century hymns were largely affected by the great Anglican
Revival—a much wider term than ‘the Oxford Movement.’ The best known
and loved of the hymns of the last eighty years are those which, in
one way or other, emphasize the idea of the Church, which help the
worshipper to realize that he belongs to that Holy Church which,
throughout all the ages and in all lands, acknowledges God to be the
Lord. It is one of the unexpected and undesired fruits of the Anglican
Revival that every denomination now claims its place in an undivided
Church. The longing for unity which led the Tractarians first to look
and then to move toward Rome, led the Free Churches to reconsider
their own position, and to seek for a larger and more scriptural
conception of the Church. A narrow Calvinism had, on the one hand,
kept many coldly isolated from their brethren; and, on the other, a
narrow fervour, a too literal belief that Methodism, and Methodism
alone, was Christianity in earnest, made others keep themselves warm
by their own firesides, under the impression that their neighbours sat
by cold hearths or crouched over smouldering embers. For this
estrangement of brethren, the earlier hymn-books are to some extent
responsible. The spirit of Christian charity, of genial mutual
appreciation, has wonderfully developed since denominational
hymn-books became shining evidences of unity in diversity. Some of
Wesley’s earlier hymn-books illustrate this, and it is to be regretted
that he did not make a more liberal use of the work of other men when
he issued his final hymn-book for the people called Methodists. The
earliest great catholic Collection with which I am acquainted is the
Moravian book of 1754.[206] Disfigured as it is by a number of the bad
Moravian hymns, it yet deserves a place—considering the time at which
it was issued—beside Palgrave’s _Treasury of Sacred Song_. It was a by
no means unsuccessful effort to do for the Moravians of the
mid-eighteenth century what the _Methodist Hymn-book_ has done for our
own Church at the beginning of the twentieth century. It gathers into
one volume most of the best hymns of other Churches, while preserving
those peculiarly suited to the needs and tastes of its own members.

In this regard the hymn-books of the Methodist and of the Anglican
Church represent a different type from those of the principal
Nonconformist Churches. The latter include very little that is
distinctive of the Churches for whose use they are prepared. Where
they differ it is usually a matter of taste, not of doctrine. The
Presbyterian, Baptist, and Congregational books might be used by any
or all of these Churches. And there is much to be said in defence of
the elimination of denominational characteristics.

On the other hand, there is, I believe, more to be said in favour of
the hymn-book which is designed to aid the Church in its specific work
and teaching. It would be impossible to exaggerate the influence of
Wesley’s _Hymns_ upon the Methodist Churches. And there can be no
question that _Hymns Ancient and Modern_ has had an immense influence,
both for good and ill, upon the Anglican Revival. It was originally
issued in 1861, when the Movement was taking firm hold of the clergy,
and beginning to change the whole tone of the teaching and the whole
spirit of public worship in hundreds of parishes. Its success was
enormous, only paralleled by that of Watts and Wesley. The title was
in itself a confession of faith in the new Movement. The first edition
was, in comparison with the popular hymnals of the Evangelicals, a
marked advance toward High Church worship; but it is very modest and
tentative when compared with its latest edition. I say nothing of its
doctrine, for I have no space for criticism. I commend the principle
upon which the work was done—the education of the worshipper in the
faith and practice which the compilers believed to be most truly in
accordance with the Divine ideal of the Church.

On the same general principle the _Methodist Hymn-book_ has been
compiled. It is made, not for other people, but for ourselves. Some
friendly critics see, ‘with a scornful wonder,’ the number of Charles
Wesley’s hymns which still survive, and talk of superstitious
reverence for a name. But they do not understand that these hymns,
perhaps especially those which are unknown to other Churches, enshrine
what we regard as most precious in Methodist life and teaching. From a
literary or poetic point of view, it may be that our hymn-book is
inferior to the Baptist, the Presbyterian, and the Congregational, and
perhaps especially to such a book as Mr. Horder’s _Worship-Song_. But
the hymn-book of a living, working Church should not be constructed on
purely literary lines. It is not a treasury of religious poetry, not a
sacred anthology, but a book of common prayer and praise, for use in
particular congregations.

Next to _Hymns Ancient and Modern_ the most influential of
nineteenth-century hymn-books is _Sacred Songs and Solos_, the chief
memorial of the mission of Moody and Sankey. They introduced the
lighter ephemeral songs which suited large undenominational
gatherings, and caught the ear and reached the heart of the man and
the child in the street. I cannot regret that few of these ditties
find their way into Church hymnals; yet I am not ashamed to admit that
in many an East End meeting I have been thankful for ‘Sankey’s Hymns.’
In any review of English hymns this popular collection cannot be
overlooked.


I have spoken of the advantage of diversity in Church hymnals, but
there remains a further and very interesting question. How far does
the study of hymns and hymn-books encourage the hope of a reunion of
hearts in the Church of God, rent, as it now is, by many unhappy
divisions?

In an Appendix I give a list of nearly a hundred and sixty hymns,
which are found in the four representative Non-episcopal hymnals and
in one or both of two representative Anglican books. These hymns are
the foundation material of what may be called the hymn-book of the
modern Church. Canon Ellerton said, ‘The study of Nonconformist
hymn-books does not encourage me in any hopes of what is sometimes
called Home Reunion.’ My own study of modern hymn-books leads to an
opposite conclusion. It is a commonplace of hymnology that in all good
hymn-books you find contributions from men of widely different
theological schools. But it is not in the fact that the choir of the
Church includes Watts, Wesley, Heber, Montgomery, Newman, Keble, Lyte,
Charlotte Elliott, Mrs. Alexander, Faber, S. J. Stone, Caswall, Bonar,
Rawson, Neale, and others, that I see the most hopeful sign. A still
more notable and instructive sign of the times is that alike in the
most familiar and in the most solemn moments of life we draw nigh to
God with the same words. Our morning and our evening hymns, our
Christmas carols and our Easter anthems, are one. In the time of
utmost need we turn to the Saviour with the same cry—

  Just as I am, without one plea
  But that Thy blood was shed for me,
  And that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee,
      O Lamb of God, I come.

Our battle-songs, our penitential prayers, our hymns of adoration, are
the same. We even tell the story of our conversion in the same words—

  I heard the voice of Jesus say,
    Come unto Me and rest.

We teach our children to sing the same songs in school and in the
family.

Even more impressive is the fact that in the Holy Communion the same
hymns are sung in the great cathedral, where men kneel before the high
altar, and in the homely village chapel, where simple folk sit down at
the Lord’s Table. Charles Wesley the poet of Methodism, Doddridge the
Nonconformist pastor, Montgomery the Moravian bookseller, Rawson the
Congregational lawyer, Bonar the Scotch Presbyterian, Bickersteth the
Anglican bishop, are the writers whose hymns are common to all
Englishmen as they break the bread and drink the wine in memory of
their Redeemer’s death.

We know no distinction of creed or Church when we sing—

  Come, let us join our friends above,
    That have obtained the prize;

and we are all one as we entrust our dead to the Lord of Life—

  Father, in Thy gracious keeping,
  Leave we now Thy servant sleeping.

And when, wearied of earth and longing to depart and be with Christ,
we lift our eyes to the eternal city, our Father’s house on high, the
hymns of St. Bernard of Cluny or of Samuel Crossman are on the lips of
all—

  O happy place, when shall I be,
  My God, with Thee to see Thy face?

There are many times when, amid the strife of tongues, we feel that
reunion is a dream never to be fulfilled; but already we have found
common ground in lowly ministries to the poor and the distressed. And
they who are labourers together in the humblest and divinest tasks,
also join in the songs which, even on earth, none but the redeemed can
sing. In the service of love, in the prayer of penitence, and in the
sacrifice of praise, we are already one in Christ Jesus.

Our goal, too, is the same, our diverse ways converge as we draw
nearer to God and Heaven. ‘Many ways have one end.’

    Jerusalem, where song nor gem
      Nor fruit nor waters cease,
    God bring us to Jerusalem,
      God bring us home in peace;
  The strong who stand, the weak who fall,
  The first and last, the great and small,
  Home one by one, home one and all!




                               APPENDIX


The following hymns are in the _Baptist_, _Congregational_,
_Methodist_, and _Presbyterian_ Hymn-books. They are also in _Hymns
Ancient and Modern_, or _Church Hymns_. Hymns which are in _Hymns
Ancient and Modern_, but not in _Church Hymns_, are marked *; those in
_Church Hymns_, but not in _Hymns Ancient and Modern_, are marked †.

                                  A
  A few more years shall roll                                  _Bonar_
  Abide with me: fast falls the eventide                        _Lyte_
  †According to Thy gracious word                         _Montgomery_
  All glory, laud, and honour                   _Theodulph of Orleans_
  All hail, the power of Jesus’ name                        _Perronet_
  All praise [Glory] to Thee, my God, this night                 _Ken_
  †Around the throne of God in heaven                  _Anne Shepherd_
  Art thou weary, art thou languid                             _Neale_
  As with gladness men of old                                    _Dix_
  At even, ere the sun was set                                _Twells_
  Awake, my soul, and with the sun                               _Ken_

                                  B
  Before Jehovah’s awful throne                                _Watts_
  *Behold us, Lord, a little space                          _Ellerton_
  †Bread of the world, in mercy broken                         _Heber_
  Brief life is here our portion                    _Bernard of Cluny_
  †Brightest and best of the sons of the morning               _Heber_
  Brightly gleams our banner                       _Potter and others_
  †By Christ redeemed, in Christ restored                     _Rawson_

                                  C
  Children of the heavenly King                              _Cennick_
  Christ the Lord is risen to-day                             _Wesley_
  Christ, whose glory fills the sky                           _Wesley_
  Christian, seek not yet repose                          _C. Elliott_
  Come, Holy Ghost, our hearts inspire                        _Wesley_
  †Come, let us join our friends above                        _Wesley_
  Come, my soul, thy suit prepare                             _Newton_
  Come to our poor nature’s night                             _Rawson_
  Come unto Me, ye weary                                         _Dix_
  Come, ye thankful people, come                              _Alford_
  †Commit thou all thy griefs                          _Paul Gerhardt_
  †Creator Spirit! by whose aid                      _Tr. John Dryden_

                                  D
  Days and moments quickly flying                 _Caswall and others_

                                  E
  Eternal Father, strong to save                             _Whiting_

                                  F
  For ever with the Lord                                  _Montgomery_
  †For the beauty of the earth                             _Pierpoint_
  Forth in Thy name, O Lord, I go                             _Wesley_
  Forward! be our watchword                                   _Alford_
  †From all that dwell below the skies                         _Watts_
  From Greenland’s icy mountains                               _Heber_

                                  G
  †Gentle Jesus, meek and mild                                _Wesley_
  Go to dark Gethsemane                                   _Montgomery_
  God moves in a mysterious way                               _Cowper_
  †God save our Gracious King                                  _Anon._
  †God, that madest earth and heaven               _Heber and Whately_
  Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost                          _C. Wordsworth_
  Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah                         _W. Williams_

                                  H
  †Hail, Thou once despised Jesus                           _Bakewell_
  Hail to the Lord’s Anointed                             _Montgomery_
  *Hark! hark, my soul! angelic songs are swelling             _Faber_
  Hark, my soul! it is the Lord                               _Cowper_
  Hark! the herald angels sing                                _Wesley_
  †Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face                    _Bonar_
  Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty                          _Heber_
  How sweet the name of Jesus sounds                          _Newton_

                                  I
  I heard the voice of Jesus say                               _Bonar_
  †I think, when I read that sweet story of old              _J. Luke_
  †It came upon the midnight clear                             _Sears_

                                  J
  Jerusalem, my happy home                              _J. Bromehead_
  Jerusalem the golden                              _Bernard of Cluny_
  Jesus calls us: o’er the tumult                    _C. F. Alexander_
  †Jesus, I my cross have taken                                 _Lyte_
  Jesus lives! no longer now                                 _Gellert_
  Jesu, Lover of my soul                                      _Wesley_
  Jesus shall reign where’er the sun                           _Watts_
  Jesus, the very thought of Thee               _Bernard of Clairvaux_
  Jesus, where’er Thy people meet                             _Cowper_
  Just as I am, without one plea                          _C. Elliott_

                                  L
  Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom               _Newman_
  Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us                      _J. Edmeston_
  †Let us with a gladsome mind                                _Milton_
  Lo! He comes with clouds descending                         _Wesley_
  Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing                      _J. Fawcett_
  Lord, I hear of showers of blessing                         _Codner_
  Lord, it belongs not to my care                             _Baxter_
  Lord of our life, and God of our salvation              _Löwenstern_
  †Lord of the worlds above                                    _Watts_
  Lord, speak to me, that I may speak                       _Havergal_
  Lord, Thy word abideth                                       _Baker_
  Love Divine, all loves excelling                            _Wesley_

                                  M
  My God and Father, while I stray                        _C. Elliott_
  My God, how wonderful Thou art                               _Faber_

                                  N
  Nearer, my God, to Thee                                _S. F. Adams_
  Now thank we all our God                           _Martin Rinckart_
  Now the day is over                                _S. Baring-Gould_
  Now the labourer’s task is o’er                           _Ellerton_

                                  O
  O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant      _Tr. F. Oakeley_
  *O come and mourn with me awhile                             _Faber_
  O come, O come, Immanuel                                 _Tr. Neale_
  O day of rest and gladness                           _C. Wordsworth_
  O for a closer walk with God                                _Cowper_
  *O for a heart to praise my God                             _Wesley_
  *O for a thousand tongues to sing                           _Wesley_
  O God of Bethel, by whose hand                           _Doddridge_
  *O help us, Lord! each hour of need                         _Milman_
  O Jesus, I have promised                                      _Bode_
  *O Lord, be with us when we sail                            _Dayman_
  O Lord of heaven and earth and sea                   _C. Wordsworth_
  O love Divine, how sweet thou art                           _Wesley_
  †O sacred Head once wounded                          _Paul Gerhardt_
  O timely happy, timely wise                                  _Keble_
  † O Word of God incarnate                              _Walsham How_
  *O worship the King all-glorious above                    _R. Grant_
  Oft in danger, oft in woe                       _White and Maitland_
  Once in royal David’s city                         _C. F. Alexander_
  Onward! Christian soldiers                         _S. Baring-Gould_
  Our blest Redeemer, ere He breathed                       _H. Auber_
  Our day of praise is done                                 _Ellerton_
  Our God, our help in ages past                               _Watts_

                                  P
  Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin?       _Bickersteth_
  Pleasant are Thy courts above                                 _Lyte_
  Praise, my soul, the King of heaven                           _Lyte_
  †Praise to our God, whose bounteous hand                  _Ellerton_
  Praise to the Holiest in the height                         _Newman_

                                  R
  Rejoice, the Lord is King                                   _Wesley_
  Rock of Ages, cleft for me                                 _Toplady_

                                  S
  *Safely, safely gathered in                                 _Dobree_
  Saviour, again to Thy dear name we raise                  _Ellerton_
  Saviour, blessed Saviour                                    _Thring_
  †Saviour, breathe an evening blessing                     _Edmeston_
  Saviour, sprinkle many nations                          _A. C. Coxe_
  Saviour, when in dust to Thee                             _R. Grant_
  Soldiers of Christ, arise                                   _Wesley_
  *Souls of men, why will ye scatter                           _Faber_
  *Stand up! stand up for Jesus                             _Duffield_
  Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear                            _Keble_
  Sweet Saviour, bless us ere we go                            _Faber_

                                  T
  The Church’s one foundation                                  _Stone_
  The day is past and over                                 _Anatolius_
  The God of Abraham praise                                  _Olivers_
  The Head that once was crowned with thorns                   _Kelly_
  The King of Love my Shepherd is                              _Baker_
  The radiant morn hath passed away                           _Thring_
  The roseate hues of early dawn                     _C. F. Alexander_
  The Son of God goes forth to war                             _Heber_
  There is a book who runs may read                            _Keble_
  *There is a fountain filled with blood                      _Cowper_
  There is a green hill far away                     _C. F. Alexander_
  There is a land of pure delight                              _Watts_
  †There is no sorrow, Lord, too light                      _Crewdson_
  There’s a Friend for little children                       _Midlane_
  Thine arm, O Lord, in days of old                         _Plumptre_
  This is the day of light                                  _Ellerton_
  Thou art gone up on high                                      _Toke_
  †Thou didst leave Thy throne                      _E. E. S. Elliott_
  Thou hidden Love of God, whose height                   _Tersteegen_
  Thou to whom the sick and dying                             _Thring_
  Thou whose almighty word                                  _Marriott_
  Through the day Thy love has spared us                       _Kelly_
  Through the night of doubt and sorrow                     _Ingemann_
  Thy way, not mine, O Lord                                    _Bonar_
  †To Thee, O Lord, our hearts we raise                          _Dix_

                                  W
  We give Thee but Thine own                             _Walsham How_
  We plough the fields and scatter                 _Matthias Claudius_
  We saw Thee not when Thou didst come                        _Gurney_
  Weary of earth and laden with my sin                         _Stone_
  When God of old came down from heaven                        _Keble_
  When I survey the wondrous cross                             _Watts_
  *When morning gilds the skies                       _Tr. E. Caswall_
  †When the weary, seeking rest                                _Bonar_




                              FOOTNOTES


[1]James Martineau, vol. ii. p. 99.

[2]_Christian Year_ (Fifth Sunday in Lent).

[3]Ibid. (Preface).

[4]‘The general Church histories mostly neglect or ignore hymnology,
    which is the best reflection of Christian life and
    worship.’—Schaff: _Mediaeval Christianity_, ii. 403. See also
    Lilly’s _Christianity and Modern Civilization_, ch. v., ‘The Age
    of Faith.’

[5]_Church Hymns_ (revised edition, 1903). A new edition of _Hymns
    Ancient and Modern_ is being prepared.

[6]Ordained.

[7]John Ellerton: _Principles of Hymn-book Construction_, p. 228.

[8]Keble’s _Occasional Papers and Reviews_, 1877, p. 92. This essay, a
    review of Josiah Conder’s _Star in the East_, was published in the
    _Quarterly Review_, 1825. The quotation from Burns will remind
    many readers of Keble’s own lines (Third Sunday in Lent)—

    There’s not a strain to Memory dear,
      Nor flower in classic grove,
    There’s not a sweet note warbled here,
      But minds us of Thy love.

[9]The words rendered ‘meditation’ in these verses are not the same.
    The one perhaps suggests the devout meditation which is murmured
    half aloud, the other silent converse or communing with oneself.

[10]Lightfoot’s _Colossians_.

[11]Trench’s _Synonyms of New Testament_.

[12]Εἰς τὸ τέλος ἐν ὕµνοις, ψαλµὸς τῷ ’Ασάφ, ᾠδὴ πρὸς τὸν ’Ασσύριον.

[13]Neh. ix. 5.

[14]Ps. xxii. 3 (R.V.), margin.

[15]Isa. lx. 18.

[16]Cf. Jer. xlix. 25.

[17]Cf. Eph. v. 20: εὐχαριστοῦντες πάντοτε.

[18]Heb. xiii. 15.

[19]C. G. Rossetti.

[20]C. Wesley.

[21]_The Holy Year_, pp. xxxii., xxxiii.

[22]_The Hymn Lover_, p. 146.

[23]_Hymns of the Christian Church and Home_ (Preface).

[24]Longfellow’s _The Singers_.

[25]Herbert’s _A True Hymn_.

[26]Cary’s _Dante_, Par. xiv.

[27]There is an article in the _Journal of Sacred Literature_ for July
    1864, on ‘Eccentricities of Hymnology: Early Moravian Hymn-books,’
    which gives abundant illustrations to justify Southey’s statement
    that ‘the most characteristic parts of the Moravian hymns are too
    shocking to be inserted here’ (_Life of Wesley_).

[28]‘Viatrix,’ in an article on ‘The Tramp Ward,’ in the
    _Contemporary_ for May 1904, says, ‘I have discovered that this
    (“Lead, kindly Light”) and “Abide with me,” with “Jesu, Lover of
    my soul:” are tramps’ favourites.’

[29]Matthew Arnold’s _Progress_. These lines were altered, much for
    the worse, in later editions.

[30]Martineau’s _Hymns for Church and Home_ (Preface).

[31]Ps. lxxxi. 1 (P.B.V.).

[32]St. Augustine on Ps. lviii.

[33]Ps. lxviii. 20 (R.V.), ‘God is unto us a God of deliverances.’

[34]Exod. xv. ‘The song is, of course, incorporated by E from an
    earlier source, perhaps from a collection of national poems....
    Probably, however, the greater part of the song is Mosaic, and the
    modification or expansion is limited to the closing verses; for
    the triumphant tone which pervades it is just such as might
    naturally have been inspired by the event which it
    celebrates.’—Driver’s _Literature of the Old Testament_.

[35]Wordsworth’s _Ode to Duty_.

[36]Edward Irving’s _The Book of Psalms_, Works, i. p. 410.

[37]Cheyne.

[38]Cheyne.

[39]Kirkpatrick’s _Psalms_ (Cambridge Bible).

[40]Irving’s Introduction to Horne’s _Psalms_, Works, vol. i. p. 416
    (slightly abridged).

[41]The _Holy Year_, p. xxxviii. The Bishop refers in a note to ‘one
    modern hymn, beginning, “My God, the spring of all my joys,” and
    consisting only of twelve (_sic_) lines, in which the pronouns _I_
    and _my_ occur no less than eleven times.’ He might have added
    that in the twelve lines of Ps. xxiii. personal pronouns occur
    seventeen times, and that ‘My God’ occurs fifty-eight times in the
    Psalter.

[42]There are, of course, Psalms of the Old Testament not included in
    the Psalter admirably adapted for Christian worship. See Part II.
    of Dr. Barrett’s _Congregational Church Hymnal_.

[43]‘We have been especially glad to mark the essentially metrical
    structure of the Lord’s Prayer in St. Matthew’s Gospel, with its
    invocation, its first triplet of single clauses, with one common
    burden, expressed after the third but implied after all, and its
    second triplet of double clauses, variously antithetical in form
    and sense.’—Westcott and Hort, Introduction, p. 320.

[44]W.H., Introduction, p. 320.

[45]‘_Adfirmabant autem, hanc fuisse summam vel culpae suae vel
    erroris, quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire,
    carmenque Christo, quasi deo, dicere secum invicem._’—Pliny, _Ep._
    x. 97.

[46]Eusebius: _Ecclesiastical History_, x. 28 (Bohn’s translation).

[47]Eusebius, vii. 24.

[48]_Confessions_, ii. pp. vi., vii.

[49]Trench’s _Sacred Latin Poetry_, pp. 81, 82.

[50]‘Most old MSS. read _munerari_. The common reading, “_in gloria
    numerari_,” does not appear to be found in any MSS., but is in
    many (not all) printed editions of the Breviary from about 1491
    onwards. Mr. Gibson suggests that it is not so much due to the
    natural confusion of letters as to the well-known words added by
    Gregory the Great to the canon of the Mass _in electorum tuorum
    jubeas grege numerari_.’—_Dictionary of Hymnology_, p. 1121.

[51]Cf. Pss. xxxiii. 22; xxxi. 1; lxxi. 1 (P.B.V. & R.V.).

[52]Hutton’s _English Saints_, p. 208.

[53]The Sarum Breviary reads, _Et nox fidei luceat_.

[54]Mone’s _Hymni Latini_, i. 381.

[55]Masters, 1852.

[56]_Church Hymns_, 586, Cædmon, Tr. R. M. Moorsom; 212, Bede, Tr. C.
    S. Calverly.

[57]Coverdale’s _Remains_ (Parker Society, 1846). The original is a
    German hymn beginning _Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ_. Miss
    Winkworth, in her _Chorale Book_, described it as anonymous, but
    Julian ascribes it to Johannes Agricola (1492-1566). Miss
    Winkworth’s translation begins, ‘Lord, hear the voice of my
    complaint,’ Rev. A. Tozer-Russell’s, ‘Lord, Jesus Christ, I cry to
    Thee.’

[58]Miller’s _Singers and Songs of the Church_.

[59]‘We mention the name of Clement Marot, important here chiefly for
    the influence he might have had. For he translated the Psalms into
    French verse, put them to tunes, and set the Court singing them.
    Let us think for a moment what England owes to those sweet and
    simple hymns which it is our godly fashion to sing in the churches
    and in the homes from earliest childhood, and which form a link to
    connect our religion with our daily life. Let us only try to think
    what we should be without these. And then give praise to Marot,
    for it was he who gave to France what should have been the
    foundation and beginning of a national book of praise and service
    of song, had not the bigots, the stupid mischievous bigots,
    stopped the singing because they pretended to see heresy in the
    words—David’s words. And France is without hymns to this
    day.’—Besant’s _Essays and Historiettes_, ‘The Failure of the
    French Reformation,’ p. 78.

[60]A full and interesting account of the Old Version is given in
    Julian. Holland’s notices of these writers are also good.

[61]_Wode_ or _wood_, Anglo-Saxon = mad, violent.

[62]‘This literary curiosity occurs at the end of a book entitled, _A
    godly Medytacion of the Christian Soule_, &c., compyled in
    Frenche, by Lady Margarite, Quene of Naverre. This psalm is
    reprinted in Park’s edition of _The Royal and Noble Authors of
    Great Britain_.’—Farr’s _Select Poetry of the Reign of Queen
    Elizabeth_ (Parker Society), 1835.

[63]Pight = pitched, laid.

[64]This hymn appeared in Bickersteth’s _Christian Psalmody_ in three
    verses, of which Miller says, ‘two stanzas bear no resemblance’ to
    Sandys’s original. The _Methodist Hymn-book_ cento is much nearer
    to Sandys, though it has many variations.

[65]Farr’s _Select Poetry of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth_. The poem
    has ten verses. Most are unsuited for congregational use, as may
    be judged from the following lines:—

    The carrion crow, that loathsome beast,
      Which cries against the rain,
    Both for her hue and for the rest
      The devil resembleth plain:
    And as with guns we kill the crow,
      For spoiling our relief,
    The devil so must we o’erthrow
      With gunshot of belief.

[66]Palgrave’s _Treasury of Sacred Song_, p. 333. Palgrave gives five
    of his poems.

[67]Condor gives three verses, but the third is very inferior to
    these. The two I quote are included by Professor Palgrave and Mr.
    Quiller-Couch in their anthologies. Conder apparently did not know
    the author’s name. He took the verses from an ‘old collection.’

[68]From a MS. in the British Museum. Cf. the very full and
    interesting article in Julian, p. 580.

[69]_Life of Ken_, ii. p. 201.

[70]Altered later to ‘I wake, I wake.’

[71]Altered to ‘void of.’

[72]Plumptre’s _Life of Ken_, vol. ii. p. 268.

[73]Plumptre’s _Life of Ken_, vol. ii. p. 288.

[74]_Christian Psalmist_, Preface, xviii.

[75]Preface to Austin’s _Devotions_, Edinburgh, 1789.

[76]_Dictionary of Hymnology_, Article: ‘Roman Catholic Hymnody.’

[77]_Arundel Hymns_, 77.

[78]_Poems_ (1872), p. 62.

[79]I quote Austin’s text. Wesley’s changes do not improve it.

[80]This hymn is from the _Office for Monday Lauds_.

[81]From Farr’s _Select Poetry of the Reign of James I._

[82]_Presbyterian Hymnal_, 531.

[83]Ken’s hymn for St. Matthew’s Day was edited by Bishop Walsham How,
    and in that form appears in _Hymns Ancient and Modern_, and in
    _Church Hymns_.

[84]_Worship Song_, 15; _School Hymns_, 6.

[85]There is a good sketch of Wither in Willmott’s _Lives of the
    Sacred Poets_, and an excellent biographical introduction by Mr.
    Edward Farr in _The Hymns and Songs of the Church_ (Library of Old
    Authors). Both these volumes give striking portraits, the latter
    one of the poet in his twenty-first year, surrounded by the
    punning motto, ‘I grow and wither both together.’

[86]Barton did not always reach so high a level. One of his versions
    of the ‘Te Deum’ is in this fashion—

    The blest Apo-
      stles glorious company,
    Do praise Thy ho-
      ly Name continually.

[87]_Religio Medici._

[88]The best illustration is the hymn beginning

    Saviour, if Thy precious love,
    Could be merited by mine.

    No. 37 in the first edition of Wesley’s _Hymns_, No. 24 in the
    last. I am sorry it was omitted from the _Methodist Hymn-book_.

[89]There is a delightful chapter on George Herbert in Lady
    McDougall’s _Songs of the Church_.

[90]_Introductory Essay_, by J. H. Shorthouse, to Unwin’s facsimile
    reprint of _The Temple_.

[91]Julian, ‘Psalters, English,’ p. 919.

[92]The story of the Scotch psalms and paraphrases I must leave. It is
    well told in outline in Julian. The Scotch version has few
    literary or poetic graces, but it has held the heart and guided
    the mind of many generations, to whom it has been infinitely more
    precious than the smoother and more poetic verses of Addison,
    Heber, and Keble could ever be.

[93]This small witticism was repeated by Romaine in the preface to his
    _Treatise on Psalmody_, though he had the good sense to strike it
    out of his second edition, at the request, it is said, of Lady
    Huntingdon.

[94]Preface to _Christian Psalmist_.

[95]_Treasury of Sacred Song_, p. 349.

[96]Watts has been unfortunate in his biographers. Mr. Paxton Hood’s
    book is lively and interesting, but its style is amazingly
    slovenly. Here is a curious sentence: ‘His daughter and sole
    heiress, Margaret, married Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, so the estate
    descended to the Howard family, and became the Duke’s place; he
    lost his head; passing to his eldest son, he sold it in 1592 to
    the mayor, corporation, and citizens of London.’ The writer adds,
    naïvely, ‘This is a singular piece of history’ (p. 55).

[97]Julian, Article: ‘Congregational Hymnody.’

[98]Preface to _Psalms_. Dr. Martineau justified his own editing of
    Watts’s hymns by this sentence. ‘Every adaptation of a Jewish
    psalm to Christian worship affords an instance of theological
    adaptation; and the same rule which is applied to Dr. Watts’s
    hymns when their Trinitarianism is expelled, Watts himself has
    systematically applied to David’s writings, in reforming and
    spiritualizing their Judaism.’—Preface to _Hymns for the Christian
    Church and Home_.

[99]_Lives of the Poets._

[100]One of Wesley’s Communion hymns begins—

    Come to the supper, come,
    Sinners, there still is room.

[101]The hymn has seven verses. It is given with slight alterations,
    and the omission of one verse in Barrett’s _Congregational Church
    Hymnal_, 497.

[102]Henry Ward Beecher included this song in his _Plymouth
    Collection_.

[103]Julian, p. 831.

[104]_The Training of the Twelve_, p. 24.

[105]‘Joseph Hart,’ by the late Rev. B. A. Gregory, M.A., _City Road
    Magazine_, December 1876.

[106]_Poems_ by Theodosia, vol. ii. (1780).

[107]Often begins in hymn-books with the third verse, ‘And O [Father]
    whate’er of earthly bliss.’

[108]Julian, p. 332.

[109]Telford’s _Charles Wesley_, p. 245.

[110]Cf. Lightfoot’s _Colossians_, i. 27, iii. 16.

[111]Green’s _History of the English People_.

[112]_Short Hymns_, 2 Tim. i. 7.

[113]_Hymns and Sacred Poems_ (1739).

[114]_Church Hymns_ (1903), Preface.

[115]This verse is from the ‘hymn on my conversion,’ mentioned by C.
    Wesley in his _Journal_, May 23, 1738. It was written at Mr.
    Bray’s, Little Britain. Five verses are in the _Methodist
    Hymn-book_, 358.

[116]Watts wrote ‘very.’ ‘Every’ is Wesley’s emendation.

[117]I quote the following verse as an illustration: in doing so there
    is no risk of spoiling a hymn dear to anybody:—

    Exempted from the general doom,
      The death which all are born to know;
    Enoch obtained his heavenly home
      By faith, and disappeared below.

[118]Reprinted by Pickering in 1868 as ‘Bishop Ken’s _Christian
    Year_.’

[119]These hymns are in _Hymns and Sacred Poems_ (1739). The Epiphany
    hymn is in _Church Hymns_, 115, with alterations.

[120]Cf. _Paradise Lost_, bk. 1.

    That with reiterated crimes, he might
    Heap on himself damnation.

    I cannot refrain from saying how much I regret the omission of
    this hymn from the _Methodist Hymn-book_. It is retained by the
    American Methodist Episcopal, Primitive Methodist, and others,
    though the Primitive Methodist most unfortunately changes
    ‘flaming’ into ‘loving’ eyes in verse 3, apparently overlooking
    the reference to ‘His eyes were as a flame of fire.’

[121]_Hymns on the Lord’s Supper_, by John and Charles Wesley,
    presbyters of the Church of England. With a preface concerning the
    Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice, extracted from Dr. Brevint,
    Bristol. Printed by Felix Farley, M DCC XLV.

[122]Canon Carter’s _Altar Hymnal_ has eight of Wesley’s hymns. He
    also ascribes to C. Wesley Miss Leeson’s translation of _Victimae
    Paschali_.

    ‘Christ, the Lord, is risen to-day,’
    Christians, haste your vows to pay.

[123]The whole book was reprinted, in 1871, with Wesley’s _Companion
    for the Altar_ (extracted from _Thomas à Kempis_), and an
    Introduction by Mr. W. E. Dutton, under the title, _The
    Eucharistic Manuals of John and Charles Wesley_. Mr. Dutton’s
    design was to show that ‘the Wesleys held opinions and taught
    doctrines now known as Catholic, yet far in advance of the times
    in which they lived, and very different from the doctrines taught
    by that body of men now called by their name.’ I may also mention
    another interesting book, now out of print, Mr. Warrington’s
    _Echoes of the Prayer-book in Wesley’s Hymns_.

[124]Col. ii. 19.

[125]_Methodist Hymn-book_, 729.

[126]_Hymns Ancient and Modern_, 553. _Altar Hymnal_, 151.

[127]Cf. ‘And here we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves,
    our souls and bodies;’ with verse iv., ‘Take my soul and body’s
    powers,’ _Methodist Hymn-book_, 562.

[128]‘The ordinary position of the ‘Gloria in Excelsis’ in ancient
    liturgies was at the beginning, not at the end of the office. It
    so stood in our own Liturgy down to 1552, when it was placed at
    the end of the service.... It may be truly said that there is no
    Liturgy in the world which has so solemn and yet so magnificent a
    conclusion as our own.’—Proctor and Maclear’s _Introduction to the
    Book of Common Prayer_.

[129]Tyerman’s _Whitefield_, vol. i. p. 465.

[130]_Poetical Works_, vol. iii.

[131]Tyerman’s _Whitefield_, vol. i. p. 478.

[132]The hymn has seventeen verses, some of which are, as Whitefield
    says, ‘very bad.’ _Methodist Hymn-book_, 65.

[133]_Wesley Poetry_, vol. iii. p. 60.

[134]_Works_, vol. xiii.

[135]_Poetical Works_, vol. iii. p. 78; _Methodist Hymn-book_, 435.

[136]Tyerman’s _Wesley’s Designated Succession_, vol. i. p. 88, 89.

[137]Cf. Tyerman’s _Wesley_ and Horne’s _History of the Free
    Churches_.

[138]_Poetical Works_, vol. iv. p. 446.

[139]Ibid., vol. iii. p. 23.

[140]_Poetical Works_, vol. iii. p. 21.

[141]Ibid., vol. iii. p. 73.

[142]Telford’s _Charles Wesley_, p. 245.

[143]_Poetical Works_, vol. v. p. 133.

[144]_Methodist Hymn-book_, 366. Wesley himself closed this hymn with
    Ken’s doxology.

[145]Cf. Phil. i. 9.

[146]I am inclined to think there is a reference here to the
    ἀγρἁµµατοί καὶ ἰδιῶται of Acts iv. 13.

[147]Trench’s _Notes on the Parables_.

[148]Charles Wesley wrote _favour_. John Wesley improved both the
    sense and sound by changing the word to _mercy_.

[149]_Poetical Works_, vol. x. p. 57. Charles Wesley wrote _bleeds_;
    the change to _grieves_ was made in John Wesley’s hymn-book.

[150]_Poetical Works_, vol. i. p. 50.

[151]_Hymns and Sacred Poems_ (1749); _Poetical Works_, vol. v. p.
    306.

[152]Wesley included forty-nine hymns under the heading, ‘For
    Believers Groaning for Full Redemption,’ and twenty-six under the
    heading, ‘Believers Brought to the Birth.’ These sections were,
    later, united under the title, ‘Seeking for Full Redemption.’ The
    _Methodist Hymn-book_ has forty-four, of which thirty-seven are
    Charles Wesley’s, three translations by John Wesley, two by Miss
    Havergal, one by Dr. Bonar, and one by T. Monod.

[153]_Methodist Hymn-book_, 905.

[154]Ibid., 88.

[155]The hymn, ‘When quiet in my house I sit,’ _Methodist Hymn-book_,
    264, is made up of Nos. 300-303 in the _Short Poems_.

[156]Julian, p. 1149.

[157]Julian, p. 478, thinks that Bakewell wrote a very small portion
    of this hymn. Some readers will be interested to know that more
    than thirty years ago a great-grandson of John Bakewell’s was
    selling newspapers in the streets of a town in the North of
    England—friendless, homeless, ragged, and in delicate health. He
    came to The Children’s Home, and grew up worthy of his remote
    ancestors. He became an architect, and did some excellent work,
    but died in early manhood of consumption.

[158]_Apologia._

[159]See Wright’s _Town of Cowper_.

[160]John Wesley was very indignant at the refusal of ordination to
    John Newton, but was probably too loyal to the Church to suggest
    his becoming a Methodist preacher.—_Journal_, March 20, 1760.

[161]It was to the first Lord Dartmouth that Ken, on the
    recommendation of Pepys, became chaplain in the Tangier Expedition
    of 1683. His character may be judged from a letter, in which he
    writes that he has ‘to answer to God for the preservation of so
    many souls He hath been pleased to place under my
    care.’—Plumptre’s _Life of Ken_.

[162]Hazlitt’s _English Poets_, p. 123.

[163]_Supra_, p. 111.

[164]Wesley’s _Journal_, May 25, 1750.

[165]Tyerman’s _Whitefield_, ii. 174.

[166]Julian, p. 681, gives the three versions.

[167]Julian, p. 971. The three-verse cento, dear to Methodists, is
    slightly varied from that of Thomas Cotterill, of Sheffield.

[168]In early hymn-books there is often confusion between Wesley and
    Toplady. At the end of his reprint of Toplady’s _Poetical
    Remains_, Sedgwick gives a list of seventeen hymns of Charles
    Wesley’s, attributed to Toplady.

[169]Elvet Lewis’s _Sweet Singers of Wales_, p. 29.

[170]Lewis’s _Sweet Singers_, ch. iii. There are other Welsh singers
    included in this little book who deserve to be more widely known,
    but my limited space does not allow further quotation.

[171]Smith’s _Heber_, p. 84.

[172]It is curious how widespread the fear of Methodism was. Crabbe
    added to his beautiful and touching lines, beginning

    Pilgrim, burthened with thy sin,
    Come the way to Zion’s gate,

    a note explaining that it had been suggested to him that ‘this
    change from restlessness to repose in the mind of Sir Eustace is
    wrought by a Methodistic call.’ He protests, however, that ‘though
    evidently enthusiastic in respect to language,’ they ‘are not
    meant to convey any impropriety of sentiment.’

[173]Advent Sunday.

[174]This was written in 1825, two years before the publication of
    Heber’s _Hymns_ and of the _Christian Year_.

[175]Barry’s _Newman_, pp. 51, 52.

[176]John Ellerton, p. 185.

[177]Lyte wrote some verses, ‘The Dying Christian to his Soul,’ which
    are in a much more triumphant strain, but they are not equal to
    Toplady’s poem.

[178]_Holy Year_, xi. Dr. Wordsworth was then (1862) Canon of
    Westminster.

[179]‘Conversation of an hour and a half with Anstice on practical
    religion, particularly as regards our own situation. I bless and
    praise God for his presence here.’—Morley’s _Gladstone_, vol. i.
    pp. 55, 56.

[180]It is omitted from the _Methodist Hymn-book_. It was No. 990 in
    the former book, and is in the Presbyterian (469) and Baptist
    (641).

[181]This hymn is not in _Hymns Ancient and Modern_, but it is in
    _Church Hymns_, Presbyterian, Baptist, Congregational, Horder’s,
    Primitive Methodist, and many other hymn-books.

[182]_Westminster Abbey Hymn-book_, 288; _Young People’s Hymnal_, 161.

[183]Michael Bruce’s ‘Ode to the Cuckoo.’

[184]Preface to _Poems_, p. xviii.

[185]The hymn has seven verses, _Poems_, p. 59.

[186]_Methodist Hymn-book_, 520.

[187]_Congregational Hymnal_, 127; _Baptist Hymnal_, 128.

[188]The last lines differ from the usual version. The change was made
    by Professor Palgrave himself, and, at his wish, the verse was
    given in this form in the _Young People’s Hymnal_.

[189]_The Household of Faith_, p. 8.

[190]‘The Church, Dissent, and Nation,’ _National Review_, July 1903.

[191]This lecture was delivered in Sheffield.

[192]Cf. _Church Hymnary_ (Presbyterian), _Church Hymns_ (S.P.C.K.),
    _Westminster Abbey Hymn-book_.

[193]The most important of these is in the last line. Montgomery wrote
    first, ‘His name—what is it? Love.’ He was, of course,
    dissatisfied with this anti-climax, and altered the line to ‘That
    name to us is Love.’ But the change in _Hymns Ancient and Modern_
    (said to be Keble’s) is a great improvement, ‘His changeless name
    of Love.’ It is remarkable that Montgomery did not include this
    hymn in his _Christian Psalmist_.

[194]He made a most unpoetic recast of Wesley’s ‘All ye that pass by’;
    but in the Index he is too honest to give Wesley’s name, and (I
    presume) had too much self-respect to give his own. Many
    alterations in hymns make one sympathize with Miss Ailie’s notice,
    ‘Persons who come to steal the fruit are requested not to walk on
    the flower-beds’ (Barrie’s _Sentimental Tommy_).

[195]A verse of this hymn is omitted in the _Methodist Hymn-book_. The
    hymn is, I think, improved by the omission.

    Silent Spirit, dwell with me,
    I myself would quiet be;
    Quiet as the growing blade
    Which through earth its way has made;
    Silently, like morning light,
    Putting mists and chills to flight.

[196]This hymn is usually rearranged in our hymn-books. Our first
    verse is sixth in the original.

[197]The only collection in which, so far as I know, this hymn has
    been included, is the _Young People’s Hymnal_. It is an excellent
    school-hymn.

[198]_Our Own Hymn-book_, 41. The hymn has six verses. The _Baptist
    Hymnal_ gives a hymn of Spurgeon’s for an early morning
    prayer-meeting (633).

[199]This verse is given in Horder’s _Worship-Song_ ad in the
    _Primitive Methodist Hymn-book_.

[200]_Hymns of Faith and Hope._ First Series.

[201]_Arundel Hymns._ Tr. Father O’Connor from the Latin—

    Angelus ad Virginem
    Subintrans in conclave
    Virginis formidinem
    Demulcens inquit, Ave!

[202]Crashaw’s _English Poems_ (Tutin’s edition), vol. ii. 60. I have
    made two slight changes to suit the metre or indicate the
    connexion of thought. The poem has fifty-six lines.

[203]Julian, p. 975 (‘R. C. Hymnody’).

[204]Faber’s _Hymns_, Preface.

[205]_Arundel Hymns_, 145.

[206]_A Collection of Hymns of the Children of God in all Ages, From
    the Beginning till Now. In Two Parts. Designed chiefly for the Use
    of the Congregations in union with the Brethren’s Church._ London.
    Printed, and to be had at all the Brethren’s Chapels. M DCC LIV.




                            GENERAL INDEX


                                  A
  Abney, Sir Thomas and Lady, 82, 123
  Adams, S. F., 313
  Addison, Joseph, 243
  Aldhelm, 51, 62
  Alexander, Archbishop, quoted, 85
  Alexander, C. F., 279
  Alfred, 62
  Ambrose, St., 49
  American hymns, 321
  Anderton, Laurence, 77
  Anstice, Joseph, 269
  Arnold, Matthew, quoted, 24
  _Arundel Hymns_, 4, 77, 86, 316
  Augustine, St., 6 ff., 10, 29, 47, 48
  Austin, John, 86 ff., 155, 156, 315
  ——, William, 86, 90

                                  B
  Baker, Sir H. W., 269
  Bakewell, John, 223
  _Baptist Church Hymnal_, 310, 312, 329
  Barbauld, Mrs., 274
  Barry, Dr. Wm., quoted, 262
  Barton, B., 300
  ——, Wm., 104 ff.
  Baxter, Richard, 98 ff.
  Beddome, Benjamin, 151
  Bede, 62
  Beecher, H. W., 160
  Beveridge, Bishop, 13, 82
  Bickersteth, Bishop, 271
  Binney, Thomas, 300
  Bowring, Sir J., 313
  Bradbury, Thomas, 124, 144
  Brady, Nicholas, 118
  Brevint’s _Christian Sacrifice_, 176
  Bromehead, John, 77
  Brown, Simon, 149
  Browne, Sir Thomas, 106
  Bruce, Dr. A. B., 147
  Bruce’s _Ode to the Cuckoo_, 278
  Bull, Wm., 227, 231
  Bunting, W. M., 301
  Butler, Bishop, 167

                                  C
  Cædmon, 62
  Calvinistic Controversy, 182 ff.
  Campion, Thomas, 76
  Carey, Wm., 225
  Carter’s _Altar Hymnal_, 176
  Caswall, E., 319
  Cennick, John, 244
  Chambers’s _Psalter of Sarum_, 59
  Cheyne, Canon, 33, 35
  Children’s hymns, 279
  _Christian Year_, 254, 258
  _Church Hymns_, 4 n., 54, 132
  Clapham Sect, 263
  Clarke, Adam, 289
  Class-meeting, Methodist, 161
  Clement’s _Paedagogus_, 55
  Condor, Josiah, 9, 76 n., 131, 293
  _Congregational Church Hymnal_, 4, 76, 132, 329
  _Contemporary Review_, 21 n.
  Coverdale, Myles, 63 ff.
  Cowper, Wm., 17, 21, 224 ff., 227
  Crabbe, George, 259 n.
  Craig, John, 68
  Crashaw, Richard, 315
  Crossman, Samuel, 97

                                  D
  Dante, quoted, 18
  Dartmouth, Earl of, 230
  ——, Lord, 81, 230
  David, 32 ff.
  David’s _Lament_, 33
  Davison, Francis, 35
  Davis, Rev. L., quoted, 285
  Denham, Sir John, 97
  Dix, W. C., 281
  Doddridge, Philip, 143 ff.
  Donne, John, 107, 323
  Driver’s _Literature of the Old Testament_, 31 n.
  Dutton’s _Eucharistic Manuals_, 178 n.
  Dionysius, Bishop, 47

                                  E
  Eaton’s _Holy Calendar_, 173
  Elizabeth, Queen, 71
  Ellerton, John, 8, 20, 245, 263, 269, 324
  Elliott, C., 275
  Ephesians v. 14., 44
  Ephraem Syrus, 52

                                  F
  Faber, F. W., 16, 21, 195, 229, 317 ff.
  Farr’s _Select Poetry_, 72, 75
  Fletcher, John, 189, 209
  Fox’s _Hymns and Anthems_, 313
  F. B. P., 77

                                  G
  Gascoigne, George, 74
  Gauntlett, Dr. H. J., 225
  Gibbons, Dr. T., 131
  Gill, T. H., 273, 296 ff.
  Gladstone, W. E., 283
  Glass’s _Story of the Psalters_, 74
  ‘Gloria in Excelsis,’ 181
  Gough, Benjamin, 306
  _Grace Abounding_, 147
  Greek hymns, 55
  Green, J. R., quoted, 158
  Gregory, B. A., quoted, 149

                                  H
  Harris, Howell, 251
  Hart, John, 147 ff.
  Havergal, F. R., 277
  Haydock, Father, 316
  Hazlitt’s _English Poets_, 236
  Heber, Bishop, 15, 254 ff., 256
  Henry, Matthew, 104
  Herbert, George, 110, 242, 323
  Herrick, Robert, 109
  Hervey, James, 189
  Hilary of Poictiers, 48
  Holland’s _Psalmists of Britain_, 74
  Hood’s _Life of Watts_, 131 n.
  Hopkins, John, 64
  Hopps, Page, 313
  Horder, W. Garrett, 4, 15, 95, 329
  Hutton’s _English Saints_, 50
  Hymns, 12
  _Hymns A. & M._, 4 n., 329

                                  I
  Ingelow, Jean, 281
  Irving, Edward, 31, 36, 159

                                  J
  Johnson, Dr., 8, 9, 23, 136, 149
  Jonson, Ben, 109
  Julian, Dr., 50, 120, 145, 223 n.

                                  K
  Keach, Benjamin, 104
  Keble, John, 2, 9, 17, 129, 160, 173, 258 ff.
  Kelly, Thomas, 292
  Ken, Thomas, 24, 80 ff., 93, 173
  Kethe, William, 68
  Kirkpatrick’s _Psalms_, 35

                                  L
  Latin Hymns, 58
  Lecky’s _History of England_, 202
  _Leeds Hymn-book_, 131, 296
  Lewis’s _Sweet Singers of Wales_, 251 ff.
  Longfellow’s _Golden Legend_, 57
  Lord’s Prayer, The, 44
  Lynch, T. T., 294 ff.
  _Lyra Apostolica_, 57
  Lyte, H. F., 113, 264 ff., 324

                                  M
  Madan, Martin, 246
  Manning, Cardinal, 321
  Marckant, John, 68
  Marot, Clement, 65
  Martineau, Dr. James, 15, 25, 132, 134, 313
  Mason, John, 100 ff.
  Matheson, Dr. George, 308 ff.
  _Methodist Hymn-book_, 4, 73, 134, 161, 165, 188, 327, 328
  Milman, H. H., 257
  Milton’s _Lycidas_, 33
  Montgomery, James, 85, 129, 287 ff.
  Moorsom, R. M., 54, 62 n., 315
  _Moravian Hymn-book_, 19 n., 86, 327
  More, Henry, 115
  Morley’s _Gladstone_, 269
  Moses, Song of, 30, 35
  Murlin, John, 223

                                  N
  Nelson, Earl, 116
  Nepos, 47
  Newman, J. H., 37, 84, 258, 261
  Newton, John, 224 ff., 229, 238
  New Version, 117 ff.
  Norris, John, 115, 162
  Norton, Thomas, 68
  ‘Nunc Dimittis,’ 46

                                  O
  Ode, 12
  Old Version, 64 ff.
  Olivers, Thomas, 39, 221
  Olney Hymns, 224 ff., 255

                                  P
  Palgrave, F. T., 76 n., 115, 129, 281, 327
  _Paradise Lost_, 175 n.
  Patrick’s St., _Breastplate_, 280
  Pearse, M. G., 305
  Pembroke, Countess of, 72
  φῶς ἱλαρὸν, 57
  Pliny, 46, 47
  Plumptre, Dean 82
  Pope’s _Universal Prayer_, 24
  Potter, Father, 319
  _Presbyterian Church Hymnary_, 132, 310, 329
  Prichard, Rees, 250
  Prys, Archdeacon, 250
  Psalms, 12
  ——, Book of, 31 ff.
  Psalm xviii., 33
  —— cl., 14
  Pullain, John, 68
  Punshon, W. M., 302

                                  R
  Rawson, Geo., 296
  ‘Rivulet Controversy,’ 294
  Romaine, 124 n., 189
  Rossetti, C. G., 14, 281, 332
  Russell’s _Household of Faith_, 283
  Ryland, Dr. John, 153

                                  S
  Sandys, George, 73, 323
  Sankey, I. D., 3, 329
  Schaff’s _Mediaeval Christianity_, 3 n.
  Selborne, Lord, 135, 232
  Shepherd, Thomas, 103, 324
  Shirley, Walter, 171
  Shorthouse, J. H., 114
  Sidney, Sir Philip, 72
  Smetham, James, 304
  Smith, Dr. W. C., 310 ff.
  Southwell, Robert, 316
  Spenser, Edmund, 7
  Spurgeon, C. H., 147, 300
  Stanley, Dean, 273
  Steele, Anne, 152, 274
  Sternhold, Thomas, 64 ff.
  Stone, S. J., 270
  Syriac hymns, 52

                                  T
  Tait, Mrs., 38
  Tate, Nahum, 117
  Taylor, A. and J., 279
  ——, Jeremy, 116
  ‘Te Deum,’ 39, 49
  Telford’s _Charles Wesley_, 157, 196
  Tennyson, quoted, 23, 43
  1 Timothy iii. 16., 43
  Toplady, A. M., 27, 221, 247 ff., 264
  Tozer’s _Catholic Hymns_, 320
  Trench’s _Sacred Latin Poetry_, 48
  Turton, Major, 180

                                  V
  Vaughan, Henry, 112, 323

                                  W
  Watts, Isaac, 11, 18, 19, 22, 27, 123 ff., 127, 128, 133, 135, 170
  Walton, Izaak, quoted, 108
  Wellhausen, 31
  Wesley, Charles, 20, 23, 25, 27, 39, 157 ff., 196
  Wesley’s _Charlestown Hymn-book_, 155
  Wesley’s _Hymns on God’s Everlasting Love_, 183, 191
  Wesley’s _Hymns of the Calvinistic Controversy_, 182
  Wesley’s _Hymns of the Christian Year_, 172
  Wesley’s _Hymns on the Lord’s Supper_, 176
  Wesley’s _Hymns of the Methodist Evangel_, 193
  Wesley’s _Hymns of the Methodist Society_, 198
  Wesley’s _Hymns on our Lord’s Passion_, 174
  Wesley’s _Hymns on Passages of Holy Scripture_, 211
  Wesley, John, 15, 155 ff.
  Wesley’s _Journal_, 67, 164, 228, 244
  Westcott and Hort, 44, 45
  Weymouth, Lord, 82
  Whitfield, George, 174, 175, 182 ff., 245
  Whittingham, Wm., 68
  Williams, Wm., 250
  Wisdome, Robert, 68
  Wither, George, 92 ff., 173, 323
  Wood’s _School Hymns_, 82
  Wordsworth, Bishop C., 15, 37, 267
  Wordsworth’s _Ode to Duty_, 31




                      INDEX OF HYMNS AND VERSES


                                  A
  PAGE
  Abide with me                                                     21
  According to Thy gracious word                                   290
  A charge to keep I have                                          216
  A helpless soul that looks to Thee                               213
  Ah! Lord, with trembling I confess                                27
  Alas, my God, that we should be                                  103
  All praise to St. Patrick                                        318
  All ye that pass by                                              175
  And didst Thou love                                              281
  And shall I slight my Father’s love?                             169
  Angels from the realms of glory                                  291
  _Angelus ad Virginem_                                            315
  As for my friends, they are not lost                              99
  As pants the hart for cooling streams                            119
  At evening to myself I say                                       218
  Away, my unbelieving fear                                        212

                                  B
  Before Jehovah’s awful throne                                    156
  Begone, unbelief, my Saviour is near                             232
  Behold the glories of the Lamb                                   126
  Behold the potter and the clay                                   183
  Behold us, Lord, a little space                                  270
  Blessèd are the pure in heart                                    302
  Breathe from the gentle south, O Lord                            235
  Breathe, O breathe Thy loving Spirit                             208
  Britain was doomed to be a slave                                 123
  Buried in sin, Thy voice I hear                                  212
  But O the power of grace Divine                                  160
  By faith we see Thy sufferings past                              177

                                  C
  Children of the heavenly King                                    245
  Christ, the Lord, is risen to-day                                174
  Christ the Lord is risen to-day, Christians haste                176
  Clothed with state and girt with might                            73
  Come, Divine Immanuel, come                                      197
  Come, Holy Ghost, all quickening fire                            210
  Come, Holy Spirit, come                                          149
  Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove                                 150
  Come, immortal King of glory                                     222
  Come, let us join our cheerful songs                             140
  Come, let us raise the common song                               309
  Come, Lord, and tarry not                                        307
  Come, my soul, thy suit prepare                                  232
  Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life                                  112
  Come, O come, in pious lays                                       95
  Come then, and to my soul reveal                                  21
  Come to the supper, come                                         138
  Come, we that love the Lord                                      140
  Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched                              149
  Curb for the stubborn steed                                       55

                                  D
  Days and moments quickly flying                                  318
  Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood                               21
  Dear Shepherd of Thy people, hear                                233
  Death has for me no fears                                        321
  _Deus, Creator omnium_                                            58
  Dost Thou ask me who I am?                                       242
  Draw near to Thy Jerusalem, O Lord                               117

                                  E
  Early hasten to the tomb                                         291
  Eldad, they said, and Medad there                                219
  Eternal Wisdom! Thee we praise                              141, 171
  Exceeding faithful in Thy word                                    93
  Exempted from the general doom                                   172
  Extend to me that favour, Lord                                   119

                                  F
  Fain would I leave this world below                              207
  Father, if justly still we claim                                 115
  Father of mercies, in Thy word                                   153
  Father, whose everlasting love                                   184
  Fools that true faith yet never had                              171
  For all Thy Church, O Lord, we intercede                         180
  For ever with the Lord                                           289
  For God doth not a whit respect                                   92
  Forth from the dark and stormy sea                               257

                                  G
  Gabriel to Mary went                                             315
  Give me the wings of faith to rise                               140
  Glorious things of Thee are spoken                               232
  Glory to God, whose sovereign grace                              197
  Glory to the glorious One                                         53
  God moves in a mysterious way                                    232
  God of all grace and majesty                                     203
  God of my life, Thy boundless grace                              277
  Gracious Spirit, dwell with me                                   295
  Granted is the Saviour’s prayer                                  174
  Great is our redeeming Lord                                      212
  Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah                                   251

                                  H
  Hail! gladdening Light                                            58
  Hail the day that sees Him rise                                  174
  Hail to the Lord’s Anointed                                      289
  Happy sons of Israel                                              74
  Hark! how all the welkin rings                                   173
  Hark, my soul! how every thing                                    88
  Hark, my soul, it is the Lord                                    232
  He that from dross would win the precious ore                    291
  He who would win a warrior’s fame                                301
  Here I know myself a stranger                                    252
  Here, where Thine angels overhead                                283
  Hierusalem, my happie home                                        77
  Him Prophet, and King                                            198
  His every word of grace is strong                                171
  His the glory, His the honour                                     54
  Holy Spirit, pity me                                             302
  How are Thy servants blest, O Lord                               242
  How lovely are Thy tents, O Lord                                 213
  How ready is the man to go                                       218
  How rich are Thy provisions, Lord                                138
  How shall I copy Him I serve                                     293
  How shall I sing that Majesty                                    101
  How sweet the name of Jesus sounds                               232
  Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber                             141

                                  I
  I bind unto myself to-day                                        280
  I call on Thee, Lord Jesu Christ                                  63
  I could the devil’s law receive                                  186
  I hoped that with the brave and strong                           265
  I look to thee, I hope in Thee                                   276
  If any to the feast have come                                    312
  If love in any heart arise                                       295
  If my immortal Saviour lives                                     153
  If profit be thy scope                                           149
  In a rapture of joy                                              166
  In the hour of trial                                             291
  In the Name which earth and heaven                               270
  Influenced by the Light Divine                                    83

                                  J
  Jerusalem makes melody                                            14
  Jerusalem, where song nor gem                                    332
  Jerusalem, my happy home                                         177
  Jesu, all hail, Who for my sin                                    87
  Jesu, Lover of my soul                              20, 39, 184, 267
  Jesu, Thy blood and righteousness                                200
  Jesus, poorest of the poor                                       300
  Jesus shall reign where’er the sun                               140
  Jesus the good Shepherd is                                       214
  Jesus, where’er Thy people meet                             232, 233
  Join all the glorious names                                  19, 139

                                  K
  King of Glory, King of Peace                                     111
  King of Mercy, King of Love                                      113

                                  L
  Lead, kindly light                                    21 n., 37, 261
  Let Him to whom we now belong                                    181
  Let me, according to Thy word                                    204
  Let us with a gladsome mind                                      273
  Lift thy song among the nations                                  299
  Lift up Thy countenance serene                                   205
  Lift your eyes of faith, and see                                 178
  Lo! He comes with clouds descending                              245
  Lo! He cometh, countless trumpets                                246
  Lo! on a narrow neck of land                                     196
  Long my imprisoned spirit lay                                    212
  Lord, at Thy feet a sinner lies                                  180
  Lord, come away                                                  116
  Lord, dost Thou ne’er Thy servants bless                         297
  Lord, I believe a rest remains                                   206
  Lord, in the strength of grace                                   211
  Lord, now the time returns                                        90
  Lord, Thou hast suffered all for me                              236
  Lord, though Thy Church in this dark world                       100
  Lord, Thy gracious voice hath spoken                             299
  Lord, who didst the Prophets teach                               268
  Love bade me welcome                                             111
  Love divine, all loves excelling                            208, 209

                                  M
  Maker of all things! God most high                                60
  Moored by a green isle of Winandermere                           271
  Much I love the faithful pilgrims                                252
  My God, I am Thine                                               200
  My God, the spring of all my joys                                140
  My heart is full of Christ, and longs                            215
  My life’s a shade, my days                                        97
  My Saviour, my Beloved One                                       106
  My Saviour, whom absent I love                                   237
  My Shepherd will supply my need                                  134
  My soul looks back to see                                        166

                                  N
  Nearer, my God, to Thee                                          313
  Never weather-beaten sail                                         76
  None is like Jeshurun’s God                                      212
  Not all the blood of beasts                                 125, 166
  Now I have found the ground wherein                              199
  Now it belongs not to my care                                     99
  Now the labourer’s task is o’er                             270, 331

                                  O
  O all that pass by                                               194
  O arm me with the mind                                           188
  O blessed well of love                                             7
  O crucified, triumphant Lord                                     302
  O’er those gloomy hills of darkness                              251
  O for a closer walk with God                                     232
  Oft, Lord, I weary in Thy work                                   311
  O God, my strength and fortitude                                  65
  O God of Bethel, by whose hand                                   146
  O happy day that fixed my choice                             39, 147
  O, I tremble still to think                                      239
  O holy, blessed, glorious Three                                  114
  O let me kiss Thy bleeding feet                                  191
  O Lord, turn not Thy face away                                    69
  O Lord, with all my heart and mind                                66
  O Love divine! what hast Thou done!                              175
  O make but trial of His love                                     119
  O that my soul were now as fair                                  103
  O Thou not made with hands                                       282
  O Thou who camest from above                                     217
  O Thou who hast our sorrows borne                                175
  O unexampled Love                                                192
  O what shall I do My Savour to praise                            200
  O when shall we sweetly remove                                   220
  O when wilt Thou my Saviour be                                   249
  O yet once more o’er English fields                              319
  On all the earth Thy Spirit shower                               115
  Onward Christian soldiers                                        286

                                  P
  Part of His Church below                                         179
  Pensive, doubting, fearful heart                                 240
  Perverse and foolish oft I strayed                               269
  Pilgrim, burthened with thy sin                                  259
  Praise ye the Lord, for it is good                                68
  Prayer is the breath of God in man                               151
  Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire                              290

                                  Q
  Quiet, Lord, my froward heart                                    232

                                  R
  Raised from the people’s lowest lees                             219
  Repentance is to leave                                           279
  Ride on, ride on in majesty                                      257
  Rock of Ages, cleft for me                                       248

                                  S
  Saved from the fear of hell and death                            159
  Saviour, for Thy love we praise Thee                             305
  See how great a flame aspires                               197, 259
  Sent by my Lord, on you I call                                   190
  She, too, who touched Thee in the press                          234
  Show me, Lord, that Thou art love                                304
  Shudder not to pass the stream                                   264
  Sinners, believe the gospel word                                 192
  Sometimes a light surprises                                      232
  Sons of men, behold from far                                     174
  Souls of men, why will ye scatter?                           16, 195
  Star of morn and even                                            282
  Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear                                 39
  Sure the Lord thus far has brought me                            239
  Surely I have pardon found                                       208
  Sweet Jesu! why, why dost Thou love                               88
  Sweet place, sweet place alone                                    97
  Sweet Saviour, bless us ere we go                                 21

                                  T
  The Church’s one foundation                                 270, 286
  The cup of blessing blessed by Thee                              176
  The graves of all His saints He blessed                          141
  The heavenly frame sets forth the fame                            72
  The Lord my pasture shall prepare                                143
  The Lord will happiness divine                                   234
  The mercy I feel to others I show                                194
  The night is come like to the day                                107
  The private slanderer shall be                                   120
  The promise of my Father’s love                                  139
  The promised land from Pisgah’s top                              140
  The righteous God consigned                                      187
  The spacious firmament on high                                   234
  The thing my God doth hate                                       205
  The wakeful shepherds near their flocks                          101
  The whole triumphant host                                         39
  The winter’s night and summer’s day                              201
  Thee will I praise with all my heart                             213
  Their earnest cries do pierce the skies                          101
  There are in this loud stunning tide                              93
  There is a fountain filled with blood                             22
  There is a land of pure delight                              11, 140
  Thine image, if Thou stamp on me                                 217
  This God is the God we adore                                     149
  This is the gift, Thy gift, O Lord                                98
  Thou art coming, O my Saviour                                    278
  Thou dear Redeemer, dying Lamb                                   245
  Thou, Lord, art a shield for me                                  213
  Thou say’st, ‘Take up thy cross’                                 282
  Thou that once on mother’s knee                                  282
  Though troubles assail, and dangers affright                     232
  Through all the changing scenes of life                          119
  Thy mercy is above all things                                     67
  Thy sovereign grace to all extends                               191
  Thy way is in the deep, O Lord                                   314
  Till He come, O let the words                                    272
  ’Tis gone, that bright and orbed blaze                            61
  To the hills I lift mine eyes                                    213
  To Thee, my God, my Saviour                                      253

                                  U
  Unwearied, let us still request                                  217

                                  V
  View me, Lord, a work of Thine                                    76

                                  W
  We are a garden walled around                                    168
  We woke to-day with anthems sweet                                303
  Weary of earth, and laden with my sin                            270
  What a gracious God have we                                       91
  What are these arrayed in white                                  178
  What conscience dictates to be done                               24
  When all Thy mercies, O my God                                   243
  When I survey life’s varied scene                                153
  When I survey the wondrous Cross                        11, 125, 139
  When Israel, freed from Pharaoh’s hand                           243
  When rising from the bed of death                                243
  Where but on yonder tree                                         218
  ‘Where is your God?’ they say                                    314
  Wherewith, O God, shall I draw near                              212
  While Jacob for a wife doth wait                                 218
  While shepherds watched their flocks                             219
  Who in the Lord confide                                          213
  Why do I sigh to find                                            265
  Why should I always pray                                         310
  Wilt thou forgive that sin                                       108
  With all the powers my poor heart hath                           315
  With glorious clouds encompassed round                           174
  With golden bells the priestly vest                              237
  With solemn faith we offer up                                    177
  Worship and thanks and blessing                                  196

                                  Y
  Ye holy angels bright                                             99
  Ye humble souls that seek the Lord                               165
  Ye neighbours and friends of Jesus                               195
  Yes, I to the end shall endure                                    27
  You that have spent the silent night                              75


                               THE END

                              PRINTED BY
                  WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
                         LONDON AND BECCLES.




                         Transcriber’s Notes


--Retained publication information from the printed edition: this
  eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.

--Silently corrected a few palpable typos.

--In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
  _underscores_.







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