6 Oh then this worse than worthless heart In pity deign to take, And make it love Thee, for Thyself And for Thy glory's sake. 8 Only to sit and think of God, Oh what a joy it is! Title, "My Father," from Faber's Hymns, 1861, where it contains thirteen stanzas. These are one, five, six, seven, eight, and thirteen, unaltered. This is the author's favorite theme To think the thought, to breathe the Name, God. He had a heart on fire with love Earth has no higher bliss! and a genius for adequate and poetic expression. 88 When Faber became a Roman Catholic, in 1846, he realized the need, he tells us, of intensely ardent and spiritual hymns 8s, 7s. which would be to Catholics what the GOD is love; his mercy brightens hymns of Cowper, Newton, and Wesley were to evangelical Protestants. He there All the path in which we rove; God is wisdom, God is love. Man decays, and ages move; God is wisdom, God is love. E'en the hour that darkest seemeth, fore, making the hymns of these authors 2 Chance and change are busy ever; 87 0 C. M. GOD, thy power is wonderful, Thy wisdom, with its deep on deep, 2 I see thee in the eternal years Ere round thine uncreated fires 3 I see thee walk in Eden's shade, 4 I see thee when the doom is o'er, 5 Angelic spirits, countless souls, Thy joy and glory still. 6 O little heart of mine! shall pain Frederick W. Faber. Hope and comfort from above; John Bowring. From the author's Hymns, London, 1825, where it bears the title "God Is Love" and repeats the first stanza in closing. In the third line of the third stanza the author wrote "mist" instead of "gloom." Few hymns sing of God's wisdom and love so beautifully as this. We wonder how a Unitarian could sing so nobly of the wisdom and love of God, and yet fail to see that it took a divine-human Christ adequately to reveal this wisdom and love of the Heavenly Father. HE Lord is King! lift up thy voice, To earth, and all ye heavens, rejoice: From world to world the joy shall ring, 2 The Lord is King! child of the dust, 3 He reigns! ye saints, exalt your strains; 4 Come, make your wants, known; your burdens He will present them at the throne; 5 O when his wisdom can mistake, Josiah Conder. From the author's The Star in the East; with Other Poems, London, 1824. It is based on Revelation xix. 6: "Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." The second, seventh, and eighth stanzas, omitted above, are: 2 The Lord is King! who then shall dare 7 Alike pervaded by His eye, All parts of His dominion lie: This world of ours, and worlds unseen; The title of this hymn in George Whitefield's Collection, 1774, is: "Christ a Sure Guide." One line, the third in verse three, has been changed. In the original it is: "Death of Deaths, and Hell's Destruction." Few persons are aware that there ever was a fourth stanza; the hymn is perfect without it: 4 Musing on my Habitation, Musing on my heav'nly Home, Lord I long to be with Thee! Williams composed the hymn in the Welsh language. Rev. James King in Anglican Hymnology says: "In 1771 it was translated into English by the Rev. Peter Williams." It is a genuine heart song, and has been sung by unnumbered saints who now sing the "new song" above. In this hymn the analogies to the history of Israel in the wilderness are very wonderful. They appear in each stanza and in almost every line. He cannot take from us, though oft he has tried, The heart-chee ring promise, "The Lord will He tells us we'.e weak, our hope is in vain; This answers all questions, "The Lord will This hymn was a great favorite with Methodists a generation ago, but it is now rarely sung. 93 8, 7, 8, 7, 8, 8, 7. To God on be the new a God on high be thanks and praise Whereby no foe a hand can raise, 2 The honors paid thy holy name Nicolaus Decius. Tr. by Robert C. Singleton. "Gloria in Excelsis." It is based upon Written in February, 1775, and published in the Gospel Magazine for January, 1777. Found also in the Olney Hymns, 1779. Genesis xxii. 14 furnishes the song of the angels (Luke ii. 14): the title and the refrain for this hymn-"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth "The Lord Will Provide." In the fourth peace, good will toward men." It was aftline of the first stanza the author wrote erwards expanded into an elaborate chant "Scripture" instead of "promise;" and in- of praise. It is found in the Greek as stead of the second line of the third stan- early as the fifth century, and in the Latza as given above he wrote: "Yet since we in in the eighth. have known the Saviour's great name." Four stanzas have been omitted: We all may, like ships, By tempest be tossed His call we obey, Like Abrah'm of old: We know not the way, But faith makes us bold; For though we are strangers, We have a sure guide, And trust in all dangers, The Lord will provide. When Satan appears to stop up our path, And fills us with fears, we triumph by faith; The translation of Nicolaus Decius into German consists of four seven-lined stanzas. Several translations have been made from German into English. One by Miss Winkworth begins: All glory be to God on high Who hath our race befriended. In the earlier editions of the Hymnal this translation was attributed to Miss Winkworth in error. It is a part of a translation made by Robert C. Singleton, and was first published in the Anglican Hymn Book, 1868, This hymn on the "Abounding Compassion of God; or, Mercy in the Midst of Judgment," is based on Psalm ciii. 8-18: The Scripture reference in the first The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to part of the hymn is to Exodus xiii. 21: anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not "And the Lord went before them by day always chide: neither will he keep his anger in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the forever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our in-way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to iquities. For as the heaven is high above the give them light; to go by day and night." earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgression from us. From the author's Psalms of David, 1719. Two stanzas, the second and sixth, are omitted: 2 God will not always chide. And when his strokes are felt, His strokes are fewer than our crimes 6 He knows we are but dust Can send us swift to death. 96 C. M. OD moves in a mysterious way GOD His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, 2 Deep in unfathomable mines He treasures up his bright designs, 3 Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; 4 Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, 5 His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour: The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower. 6 Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain: God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain. William Cowper. This hymn was first published in John Newton's Twenty Six Letters on Religious Subjects; to which are added Hymns, &c., by Omicron, London, 1774. "Light Shining Out of Darkness" is the title which it bears. It was also published the same year in the Gospel Magazine for July, 1774. It is found in the Olney Collection, 1779, which is composed entirely of the hymns of Newton and Cowper. In the earliest form of this hymn, found in a recently discovered Cowper manuscript, the last line of verse five reads: "But wait to smell the flower." Cowper's hymns are best understood when studied in the light of his peculiar life experiences. He suffered with occasional attacks of insanity which kept him in a state of mental and moral despondency and sometimes necessitated his being confined in an asylum. He was a deeply religious soul. He lived for several years at Olney, during which time he was a constant attendant upon the services of the Church of which John Newton was pastor and for which, at Newton's request, most of his hymns were written. Writing of his friend and coworker, Newton tells us, "it was impressed upon his disturbed imagination that it was the will of God that he should, after the example of Abraham, perform an expensive act of obedience and offer not a son, but himself." He attempted suicide several times, the most notable instance being in October, 1773. There has long existed a widely accepted tradition that this hymn was written at this juncture in his life. In July-September, 1905, an English periodical titled Notes and Queries printed some hitherto unpublished letters from Cowper and Newton contained in a recently discovered manuscript of great value to hymnologists because of the light it throws upon the date of this and three other hymns by Cowper. The dates given in this manuscript seem to furnish conclusive evidence that this hymn was written not later than August, 1773. We must give up, therefore, the popular and frequently published tradition which states that it was written in October, 1773, immediately after an attempt to drown himself in the river Ouse had been frustrated. However, the fact that the hymn was written in. the twilight of departing reason still renders it, as James Montgomery has said, "awfully interesting." Greatheed, in his Memoirs of the poet, says that Cowper "conceived some presentiment of the attack of 1773 as it drew near, and during a solitary walk in the fields composed that hymn of the Olney collection beginning, 'God moves in a mysterious way.'" About this time Cowper wrote of himself: "I have never met, either in books or in conversation, with an experience at all similar to mine. More than a twelvemonth has passed since I began to hope that, having walked the whole breadth of the bottom of the Red Sea, I was beginning to climb the opposite shore, and I proposed to sing the Song of Moses. But I have been disappointed." Yet he can still add, speaking to the Saviour: "I love thee, even now, more than many who see thee daily." "It was such agonies as these," observes Duffield, "which have given Cowper's hymns their marvelous hold upon the heart." James T. Fields has said that to be the author of such a hymn as this is an achievement that angels themselves might envy. The objections of some critics to the rhyme and the figure contained in the fifth stanza are hypercritical. The rhyme is allowable, and the figure of the bittertasting bud and the sweet-smelling flower |