mon v. 10-16. This is a hymn of more the twenty-third Psalm. The author edthan average merit. It was contrib- ited several collections of hymns, the most uted to Rippon's Selection, 1787. One line important of which was Hymns Ancient only has been changed; in verse one, line and Modern, 1860. To this volume he two, the author wrote: "Upon his awful published an Appendix in 1868, and it was brow." in this Appendix that the above hymn first appeared. The fifth stanza of the original, omitted above, is: This hymn has nine stanzas in the original. These are verses three, five, seven, eight, and nine. Four stanzas are omitted, which some will be glad to see: 1 To Christ, the Lord, let every tongue 2 Survey the beauties of his face, 4 No mortal can with him compare, That fill the heavenly train. 6 His hand a thousand blessings pours His presence gilds my darkest hours, 136 THE 8s, 7s. HE King of love my Shepherd is, I nothing lack if I am his, 2 Where streams of living water flow, 3 Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed; 4 In death's dark vale I fear no ill 5 And so through all the length of days, Henry W. Baker. This is considered by some as the most beautiful of all the metrical versions of Thou spread'st a table in my sight, Thy unction grace bestoweth, And Oh! what transport of delight From thy pure chalice floweth, The last audible words uttered by the author when he died, February 12, 1877, were the third stanza of this hymn: “Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed," etc. "This tender sadness, brightened by a soft, calm peace, was an epitome of his poetical life," says Julian. "In his simplicity of language, smoothness of rhythm, and earnestness of utterance, he reminds one forcibly of the saintly Lyte, author of 'Abide with Me.'" Dr. Dykes wrote for this hymn his lovely melody titled "Dominus Regit Me," and one of Gounod's most beautiful tunes was also written especially for it. Among the most beautiful and widely admired lines the author ever wrote are the following, being a morning meditation and prayer and all the more valuable because written to express his own feelings of devotion and gratitude rather than for others: My Father, for another night Now with the newborn day I give That as thou willest I may live, Whate'er I do, things great or small, Thy glory may I seek in all, Do all in Jesus' Name. My Father, for his sake, I pray, It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds, 2 It makes the wounded spirit whole, And to the weary, rest. 3 Dear name! the rock on which I build, 4 Weak is the effort of my heart, And cold my warmest thought; 5 Till then, I would thy love proclaim 4 Thy cross our creed! thy boundless love 5 Till then, to thee our souls aspire This was written in the parsonage study of the Frank Street Methodist Episcopal Church, Rochester, N. Y., in the early spring of 1900, and a week or two later it was published in the Northern Christian Advocate, Syracuse, N. Y., and also in the Daily Christian Advocate of the General Conference, in May, 1900. It is a useful hymn and growing in favor. The highest, holiest manhood, thou: Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them thine. 4 Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be: They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they. Alfred Tennyson. The prologue of Tennyson's great poem, "In Memoriam," 1850, contains eleven stanzas; these are one, three, four, and five, unaltered. Tennyson believed in God and in prayer. In Morte D'Arthur King Arthur says to Sir Bedivere: "If thou shouldst never see my face again, Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats That cherish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of 140 prayer Both for themselves and those who call them For so the whole round earth is every way Sub The story of "In Memoriam" is worth telling again. At Cambridge University Tennyson met Arthur Hallam, and they became great and intimate friends. sequently Hallam became engaged to one of the poet's sisters. After graduating, Hallam went traveling on the Continent. At Vienna he was taken sick and died. Tennyson very briefly but beautifully described his departure: In Vienna's fatal walls, God's finger touched him, and he slept. Hallam died in 1833. "In Memoriam" did not appear until 1850. Tennyson took time to build a monument to his friend, and it stands to-day not only a memorial to Hallam, but to himself as well. L. M. The process of studying the pattern, of transcribing the virtues, and of reproSo far as we are aware, this is the first ducing in one's self the image of the Lord American Church Hymnal that has made Jesus is here portrayed in poetry which is a hymn for religious worship out of at once simple, serviceable, and inspiring verses selected from this great poem, to every disciple who seeks daily to folwhich Frederick W. Robertson designated low the footsteps and example of his Lord. as "one of the most victorious songs that poet ever chanted." Many of its individual verses are among the immortelles of literature, such, for instance, as the familiar verses beginning, "Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky," and closing with the stanza: Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand: Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be. And the last stanza is indeed a fitting climax to this greatest of modern religious poems: That God which ever lives and loves, 141 WHEN L. M. HEN I survey the wondrous cross 2 Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, 3 See, from his head, his hands, his feet, 4 Were the whole realm of nature mine, The author's title was: "Crucifixion to The cred poets has given us lines more exquisite than these. the World by the Cross of Christ." world." One stanza, the fourth, is omitted: His dying crimson like a robe Spread o'er his body on the tree, Then I am dead to all the globe, And all the globe is dead to me. Among those who counted this "the greatest hymn in the English language" we may also name Matthew Arnold, the eminent English author and literary critic and he was especially severe in his criticism of many Church hymns. It so chanced that the very day he died he heard this hymn sung in Sefton Park Presbyterian Church, Liverpool, of which Dr. John Watson ("Ian Maclaren") was pastor. As he went to luncheon after the close of the service, in the home of his himself softly again and again the opening lines of the hymn; and it was only ten minutes before he died that he declared it was the greatest of all the English hymns. Dr. Breed, in his History and Use of Hymns and Hymn Tunes, seriously claims that this hymn outranks all others "the finest hymn in the English language." It brother-in-law, he was heard to repeat to is confessedly a great hymn, yet few hymnologists will place it ahead of all others. In the list of Best Church Hymns it is number two, but in Anglican Hymnol ogy it is number ten, and in Hymns that Have Helped number fourteen. In my opinion, Dr. Watts exceeded this himself in more than one instance. See in this book the hymn beginning, "Great God, at tend while Zion sings," No. 214; also No. 577, "O God, our help in ages past." It is taken unaltered from Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Book III., 1709. It is also found in the first edition of Dr. Watts's Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 1707, where it begins in this manner: When I survey the Wondrous Cross Where the young Prince of Glory dy'd. It was changed by the author for his second edition, 1709. That one who had defined God as "the Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, makes it possible for us to hope that this Rev. Duncan Campbell, of Edinburgh, may have been defined in his "Literature says: For tender, solemn beauty, for a reverent setting forth of what the inner vision discerns as it looks upon the Crucified, I know of no verse in our hymnology equal to the stanza beginning: "See, from his head, his hands, his feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled down!" There may have been singers with a finer sense of melody-Watts's metrical and musical range was limited; he had only six meters-but not the most tuneful of our sa and Dogma," while his heart hungered for a creed embodied in a hymn like this, and found joy in singing: Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all. This incident recalls John Wesley's earnest plea that hymns should have not only religious and devotional value, but also high literary merit, "such as would sooner provoke a critic to turn Christian than a Christian to turn critic." EHOLD the Saviour of mankind BEHOLD of How vast the love that him inclined To bleed and die for thee! 2 Hark, how he groans! while nature shakes, 3 'Tis done! the precious ransom's paid! 4 But soon he'll break death's envious chain, And in full glory shine: O Lamb of God, was ever pain, Was ever love, like thine? Samuel Wesley, Sr. We are fortunate in having our hymn tance of the event he so touchingly and effectively describes." John and Charles Wesley made frequent use of this hymn in their evangelistic services. On July 18, 1738, Charles Wesley and Mr. Bray were locked in a cell at Newgate prison with some condemned criminals who were to be executed the next day. After praying and talking with these men who sat in the very shadow of death, Charles Wesley sang this hymn. This is the entry he makes in his Journal of that service: "It was one of the most triumphant hours I have ever known." The penitents were brought to know Him in saving faith who had himself died between two condemned criminals and were thus made book to contain at least one hymn by the ready to face death and the issues of eter father of John and Charles Wesley. This hymn is eminently worthy of a place among the hymns of the two brothers, with both of whom it was a great favorite. John Wesley gave it an honored place in his first collection of Psalms and Hymns, which was published in 1737 at Charleston, S. C., where it bears the title, "On the Crucifixion." The brothers continued to publish it in subsequent editions of their hymns. There is good reason for thinking that this hymn was written in 1709, just before -perhaps the very day before the memorable fire that consumed the Epworth Rectory, and from which John, then a very small boy, was with much difficulty rescued one man standing on the shoulders of another and thus reaching up and lifting him out of the window of the burning building, in the second story of which he had been accidentally left. Immediately after the fire the manuscript of this hymn was found by the author in the garden, scorched and partly burned by the flames. The wind, it seems, blew it out of the window while the fire was raging. "The internal structure of the hymn," says Stevenson, "shows how fully the writer appeared to realize the infinite impor nity. Two inferior stanzas have been omitted here, as they were also when published by John and Charles Wesley: 2 Though far unequal our low praise 6 Thy loss our ruins did repair; 143 IN 8s, 7s. the cross of Christ I glory, Towering o'er the wrecks of time; All the light of sacred story Gathers round its head sublime. 2 When the woes of life o'ertake me, 3 When the sun of bliss is beaming 4 Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure, 5 In the cross of Christ I glory, |