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He calls a worm his friend!

He calls himself my God! And he shall save me to the end, Through Jesus' blood!

5 Though nature's strength decay, And earth and hell withstand,

To Canaan's bounds I urge my way, At his command.

The wat'ry deep I pass,

With Jesus in my view;

And through the howling wilderness
My way pursue.

7 There dwells the Lord our King, The Lord our Righteousness, Triumphant o'er the world and sin, The Prince of Peace;

On Zion's sacred height

His kingdom still maintains; And, glorious with his saints in light, Forever reigns.

8 He keeps his own secure,

He guards them by his side, Arrays in garments white and pure His spotless bride:

With streams of sacred bliss,

With groves of living joys, With all the fruits of paradise He still supplies.

10 The God who reigns on high The great archangels sing, And "Holy, holy, holy," cry, "Almighty King!

Who was and is the same,

And evermore shall be: Jehovah, Father, great I AM, We worship thee."

11 Before the Saviour's face

The ransomed nations bow:
O'erwhelmed at his almighty grace,
Forever new:

He shows his prints of love-
They kindle to a flame!

And sound through all the worlds above,
The slaughtered Lamb.

Very few hymns ever written have received higher praise from poets and students of hymnology than this superb Christian lyric. "There is not in our language," says James Montgomery, the poet, "a lyric of more majestic style, more elevated thought, or more glorious imagery. Its structure, indeed, is unattractive on account of the short lines; but, like a

stately pile of architecture, severe and simple in design, it strikes less on the first view than after deliberate examination." "This is probably," says the author of "Hymn Studies," "the finest ode in the English language; the theme is the grandest possible, and the execution in keeping with it." Thomas Jackson refers to it as "one of the noblest hymns in existence. It will doubtless be sung by spiritual worshipers of every denomination with profit and delight as long as the English language is understood." It is referred to by Earl Selborne as "an ode of singular power and beauty." The hymn was written while the author (who was one of Mr. Wesley's preachers) was on a visit to John Bakewell, author of "Hail, thou once despised Jesus." At a service in the Jewish Synagogue at Westminster, London, he had heard Signior Leoni sing an old Hebrew melody, and was so delighted with it that he determined to write a Christian hymn that should be adapted to the tune. Upon returning to the house of his friend, he immediately wrote out this magnificent hymn. It is something of a paraphrase on the Hebrew doxology, which rehearses in poetic form the thirteen articles of the Jewish creed. Joseph Rhodes, the precentor at the Foundry, helped the author to adapt the music which he got from Leoni to his needs and to arrange it in the form which it now bears in the tune which is very appropriately named "Leoni."

Some facts in the author's life add to the value and interest of this hymn. He was left an orphan by the death of both parents when he was only four years of age. He fell as a waif into wicked hands, and by the time he was fifteen years old it was said that he was the worst boy that had lived in Montgomeryshire for thirty years. He was apprenticed to a shoemak er, but was compelled because of his excessive wickedness to leave the town. In a certain town he chanced to hear White

field preach on the text, "Is not this a soul. But drawing near, unobserved, he brand plucked out of the fire?" He was heard the old man singing softly but feeldeeply convicted and profoundly convert-ingly:

ed. He is said to have fasted and prayed until his knees grew stiff. One of his first acts after his conversion was to return to Montgomeryshire and pay all his debts. He traveled from Shrewsbury to Whitechurch, a distance of many miles, to pay a single sixpence. This done, he set out on foot (October 24, 1753) to join John Wesley in Cornwall. He bought a colt at Tiverton for five pounds, on the back of which he is said to have ridden a hundred thousand miles in his work as an itinerant preacher. He was associated with John Wesley for many years in more than ordinarily intimate relations; and when he died, eight years after the death of Wesley, he was buried in Wesley's grave at City Road Chapel.

This hymn is associated with the name of Henry Martyn, the heroic missionary of sainted memory. On July 25, 1805, just as he was about to sail for India, he wrote as follows:

The God of Abraham praise,

Whose all-sufficient grace
Shall guide me all my happy days
In all his ways:

He calls a worm his friend!

He calls himself my God!
And he shall save me to the end,
Through Jesus' blood!

The Doctor passed on without interrupting him, saying: "He is rich; he is safe; he has a better Friend than I could be. He needs not my comfort. I am the one that has received the needed encouragement."

Richard Watson, the Methodist theologian, found great comfort in this hymn during his last illness. One day, as the end drew near, he said he longed "to quit this little abode, gain the wide expanse of the skies, rise to nobler joys, and see God;" and then repeated the last four lines of this hymn:

I was much engaged at intervals in learning the hymn, "The God of Abraham praise." As often as I could use the language of it with any truth, my heart was a little at ease. 5 There was something peculiarly solemn and

affecting to me in this hymn, and particularly F

at this time. The truth of the sentiments I knew well enough. But, alas! I felt that the state of mind expressed in it was above mine at the time, and I felt loath to forsake all on earth.

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I shall behold his face,

I shall his power adore, And sing the wonders of his grace For evermore.

L. M.

ROM all that dwell below the skies,
Let the Creator's praise arise;
Let the Redeemer's name be sung,
Through every land, by every tongue.

Eternal are thy mercies, Lord;

Eternal truth attends thy word:

Thy praise shall sound from shore to shore,

Till suns shall rise and set no more.

Your lofty themes, ye mortals, bring;
In songs of praise divinely sing;
The great salvation loud proclaim,
And shout for joy the Saviour's name.

The late Rev. T. M. Eddy, D.D., passing on one occasion through the streets of Baltimore, saw an aged and feeble colored man sawing some hard wood by the side of the road. Feeling that the colored man's lot was a hard one, as he contrasted his age and feebleness with the hardness of the work to be done, he turned and began to approach him, intending to speak a few kind and encouraging words of sympathy and of admonition concerning the state of his, perhaps, benighted | 1719.

4 In every land begin the song;
To every land the strains belong:
In cheerful sounds all voices raise,
And fill the world with loudest praise.
Isaac Watts (in part).
Unaltered, from The Psalms of David,

Dr. Watts wrote the first two stanzas David Imitated in the Language of the of this hymn from verses one and two of New Testament, 1719. It is based on the Psalm cxvii.: hundredth Psalm:

O praise the Lord, all ye nations: praise him, all ye people.

For his merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the Lord endureth forever. Praise ye the Lord.

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.

Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.

Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he

Wesley reprinted this hymn entire from that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we

the "York" Pocket Hymn Book. The author of the last two stanzas is unknown. He has, however, succeeded wonderfully in imitating Watts's style and so completed one of the finest hymns in the lan

guage.

are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlast

ing: and his truth endureth to all generations. As first published it was titled "Praise to the Lord from All Nations." The last stanza has remained unaltered from the beginning except that "must" in the third line has been changed to "shall." The first four stanzas were originally as follows:

The "York" Pocket Hymn Book was edited and published by Robert Spence, a Methodist class leader and bookseller residing in York, England. So far as is known, the last two stanzas of this hymn first appeared in his book about 1781. Spence may have written these stanzas. John Wesley published this hymn in 1786 as Spence printed it in 1781. This "York" book was very popular in its day, and was adopted by Bishops Coke and Asbury as 2 the official hymn book of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America.

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2 His sovereign power, without our aid,
Made us of clay, and formed us men;
And when like wandering sheep we strayed,
He brought us to his fold again.

3 We'll crowd thy gates with thankful songs,
High as the heavens our voices raise;
And earth, with her ten thousand tongues,
Shall fill thy courts with sounding praise.

4 Wide as the world is thy command;
Vast as eternity thy love;

Firm as a rock thy truth shall stand
When rolling years shall cease to move.

1 Sing to the Lord with joyful voice;

Let every land his name adore;
The British isles shall send the noise
Across the ocean to the shore.

With gladness bow before his throne,
And let his presence raise your joys;
Know that the Lord is God alone,

And formed our souls, and framed our
voice.

3 Infinite Power without our aid
Figured our clay to human mould;
And when our wandering feet had strayed,
He brought us to his sacred fold.

4 Enter his gates with thankful songs, Through his wide courts your voices raise;

Almighty God, our joyful tongues

Shall fill thine house with sounding praise.

When Watts republished this hymn in 1719, the first two lines of verse two had been changed to read as follows:

Nations attend before his throne

With solemn fear, with sacred joy.

In verse three "Infinite Power" had been changed to "His sovereign power," and verse four had been substituted by the

Isaac Watts. Alt. by John Wesley. This hymn first appeared in the author's Hora Lyricæ, 1706, and again, in somewhat altered form, in his Psalms of following:

4 We are his people, we his care,

Our souls and all our mortal frame: What lasting honors shall we rear, Almighty Maker, to thy name?

The form of the hymn given in our Hymnal and now found in all hymnals is John Wesley's improvement upon Watts. By discarding the first verse and changing entirely the first two lines of the second verse and improving the fourth stanza as Watts first wrote it, John Wesley succeeded in making a useful and popular hymn of it.

sued for three days by a pirate vessel, and it seemed that they would have to surrender. They spent no little time in prayer to the "wondrous Sovereign of the sea" to rescue them from the hands of their pursuers. On the third day, just after they had joined in prayer and in singing this hymn, the pirate ship was seen to change its course, thus leaving them to pursue undisturbed their errand of mercy to the Dark Continent. It is not strange that this hymn should have remained ever thereafter associated in grateful remembrance with their providential escape from robbery and possibly from death.

If any one desires to prove by example as well as by argument the wisdom of allowing judicious editors to alter and improve the original words of the authors 7 when this is called for, hereby rendering a real service to the authors themselves, let him make use of this hymn, which would never have found a place, and, least of all, a place of high esteem, in the great hymnals of the Church but for the fact that the original was abridged and otherwise altered by John Wesley.

The hymn as thus altered by Wesley appeared in his first Collection of Psalms and Hymns, published in 1737 at Charleston, S. C., while he was a missionary in America.

The moral significance and far-reaching importance of the visit of Commodore Perry to Japan in 1853-54 is well known. It is said that while his flagship lay anchored off the coast of Japan, in close proximity to the shore, on a certain Sabbath religious services were held on board the steamer, and this hymn was used in the worship, the naval band playing as an accompaniment the tune of "Old Hundred," while thousands who lined the shore listened in impressive silence to what was to them new and strange music. It is narrated that when Dr. Dempster, of Garrett Biblical Institute, was on his way, with his wife and two brother missionaries, to South Africa, they were pur

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Author's title: "The Coronation of Christ and Espousals of the Church." The Scripture basis is Song of Solomon iii. 2: "I will seek him whom my soul loveth."

This hymn has been altered in several

lines and doubtless improved, yet the
merits of the piece belong to Dr. Watts.
Like several of this author's best hymns,
it is a prayer-song directly addressed to
It has had a long career of use-
Jesus.
fulness. The first and last stanzas of the
original are here omitted. From Hymns
and Spiritual Songs, Book I., 1709.

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"The Wonders of Redemption" is the title which this hymn bears in the author's Hymns Adapted to Public Worship or Family Devotion, 1817. It is regarded by many as Beddome's finest hymn. It is based on Hebrews i. 6: "Again when he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him."

The author wrote in verse one, line three, "Angels and men with joy confess;" verse two, line one, "Beneath his feet they cast their crowns;" verse four, lines one and two:

O let them still their voices raise
And still their song renew.

Two inferior stanzas, the second and third, are omitted.

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3 Come the great day, the glorious hour, When earth shall feel his saving power,

All nations fear his name:

Then shall the race of men confess

The beauty of his holiness,

His saving grace proclaim.

Isaac Watts.

This grand old hymn of praise is a metrical version of Psalm xcvi., “O sing unto the Lord a new song: sing unto the Lord all the earth," etc. It has been altered to change the meter, and one stanza omitted. We give the hymn as the author published it in 1719, with the title, "The God of the Gentiles."

1 Let all the earth their voices raise
To sing the choicest psalm of praise,
To sing and bless Jehovah's name:
His glory let the heathens know,
His wonders to the nations show,

And all his saving works proclaim.

2 The heathens know thy glory, Lord;
The wond'ring nations read thy Word,
In Britain is Jehovah known:
Our worship shall no more be paid
To gods which mortal hands have made;
Our Maker is our God alone.

3 He framed the globe, he built the sky;
He made the shining worlds on high,
And reigns compleat in glory there:
His beams are majesty and light;
His beauties, how divinely bright!
His temple, how divinely fair!

4 Come the great day, the glorious hour,
When earth shall feel his saving power,
And barbarous nations fear his name;
Then shall the race of man confess
The beauty of his holiness,

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And in his courts his grace proclaim. L. M. 61.

NFINITE God, to thee we raise

songs of praise;

By all thy works on earth adored, We worship thee, the common Lord; The everlasting Father own,

And bow our souls before thy throne.

2 Thee all the choir of angels sings, The Lord of hosts, the King of kings; Cherubs proclaim thy praise aloud, And seraphs shout the Triune God; And "Holy, holy, holy," cry, "Thy glory fills both earth and sky."

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