tionized England did better days for him commence. He continued his studies in London, but passed many of his intervening years in the old parish at Southampton. He wrote rhymes for his mother's delectation when he was seven, but not until he reached a promising precocity of eighteen did he display his power. Whether the congregation used the rough verses of Sternhold and Hopkins, or whether they were afflicted by those (no better) of Barton, it cannot be settled now but one time he startled the grave officers of the parish by expressing his disgust with the performance. Give us something which will be better, young man!" they replied. He took up the challenge at once, and offered his first hymn; this the people sang at the close of the evening service. It was the one beginning, "Behold the glories of the Lamb." In most of the collections of his poems this can be found; but when a choice had to be made for modern uses, the preference soon was given to those which were the fruit of his maturer experience.

46

However, his work was cordially accepted; and each evening for a long time he presented a fresh composition, until he had given them at last two hundred and twenty-two in all; these they printed in a portable form for local

use.

It is admitted now that this one writer has done more for the Church in this line of Christian usefulness than any other. He gave a new impulse to the service of God's praise, and worthily bears the name of the "Father of English Hymnody."

Dr. Watts' hymns were gathered, in 1707, into a volume divided into three books ac

cording to subject. The one now before us is No. 135 of Book I.: "Come, dearest Lord, descend and dwell." He entitled it, "The love of Christ shed abroad in the heart. Eph. 3:16."

REV. PHILIP DODDRIDGE, D. D.

Any good encyclopedia would tell us that Rev. Philip Doddridge, D. D., was an English clergyman belonging to the Independent or Congregational branch of the Church. He was the son of a merchant, and the last one of a large family of twenty children. He was tion was feeble from his infancy. His paborn in London, June 26, 1702; his constituthe lad's attention to an education for the rents were religious people, and early turned ministry. But they both died while yet he was young, and his care devolved upon friends, who showed much kindness to the afflicted

orphan. At twenty years of age he was ordained, and became the pastor of the small parish of Kibworth. In 1729 he was called to open an academy at Northampton for the purpose of training young men for the ministry. He remained at this work for some twenty years. He was one of the most voluminous writers of religious literature in that period. His Family Expositor, a commentary upon the New Testament, his Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, and his Life of Colonel Gardiner, are still popular, and famous as books of the highest worth. But the rapid development of consumptive tendencies in his constitution rendered it necessary for him to seek health in a milder climate. He started for Portugal, and died at Lisbon, October 26, 1751; he now lies buried in the English graveyard in that foreign city by the sea.

This hymn, written by Dr. Philip Doddridge to be sung at the close of a sermon he

preached June 2, 1736, from the text, Heb. 4:9," There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God," is given in Hymns Founded on various Texts in the Holy Scriptures, 1755. As it was first sent to the public the opening stanza, which, indeed, is very tame comparatively, commenced, "Lord of the Sabbath, hear our vows." This has been dropped in most of the modern collections. A zeal or a freak of restoration, however, bids fair to spoil the favorite lyric, which owes much of its excellence to the wise pruning it has had from editors along the years. Admitting and enduring all this talk just at the present so popular about "the tinkering of hymns," we still would like to ask whether people do actually prefer in the first stanza to say, “The songs which from the Desert rise ": and in the second stanza to say, With ardent Pangs of strong desire": and in the third stanza to say, "No Groans to mingle with the songs." These can all be found, and other felicities like them, in the original draft as printed in Sir Roundell Palmer's Book of Praise, page 335. A very pathetic entry is to be seen in the Diary of Rev. Dr. Gardiner Spring. He had been in some heavy trouble for a long time, and had not kept up his music in the household; and now, recording how he had opened his piano for the first time in some weeks, he writes: "I felt that, while all God's works praise him, my tongue also should be vocal with his praise. How beautiful is this green earth on a Sabbath day! I could only give utterance to the words:

"Thine earthly Sabbaths, Lord, we love: But there's a nobler rest above.'"

Sabbath Eve.

SWEET is the light of Sabbath eve,
And soft the sunbeams lingering there;
For these blest hours the world I leave,
Wafted on wings of faith and prayer.

2 The time how lovely and how still!
Peace shines and smiles on all below:
The plain, the stream, the wood, the hill,
All fair with evening's setting glow.

3 Season of rest! the tranquil soul

Feels the sweet calm and melts to love, And while these sacred moments roll,

Faith sees the smiling heaven above. 4 Nor will our days of toil be long; Our pilgrimage will soon be trod; And we shall join the ceaseless song, The endless Sabbath of our God.

L. M.

James Edmeston was born at Wapping, in London, September 10, 1791. He was educated at Hackney, where his parents resided. He was the grandson of Rev. Samuel Brewer, an Independent minister in Stepney for fifty years, and the young poet was brought up in that connection. In his sixteenth year he was

articled to an architect, and chose this for his profession. He afterwards joined the Established Church; in a letter, written shortly before his death, he says: "From early years I had a strong leaning towards the Church of England, the services of which I always found more congenial to my own feelings.'

He was singularly happy and voluminous in his production of religious poetry. He is said to have composed more than two thousand hymns. Of these, many have been perpetuated in the modern collections. This one is to be found in the Cottage Minstrel, 1821, and is there entitled, "The Cottager's Reflections upon the Sabbath Evening." He issued his first volume in 1817. Others followed; the Sacred Lyrics appeared in 1821; this contained most of his best known productions. He died in Homerton, a suburb of London, January 7, 1867, being then seventysix years of age.

The evening of the Lord's Day must have been a favorite part of his life, for many of his poems refer to it. He seemed to feel the glory of it, the rest of it, the prophecy of it. He never shows his religious experience more delightfully or more helpfully than when he is singing of Sabbath night and "the morrow's quick returning light," which "must call us to the world again." Yet his whole heart is filled with the dear hope of a dawn where “a sun that never sets shall rise."

Even

Rev. Thomas Kelly was the son of Right Honorable Baron Kelly, and was born near Athoy, in Queens County, Ireland, July 13, 1769. He graduated at Dublin University, and at first took up the study of law. tually he changed the plan of his professional life, and in 1792 he was ordained a clergyman in the Established Church. But he was too zealous for anything like tame routine, and some considered him almost a fanatic. Rowland Hill made his acquaintance and before long they were both silenced because their preaching was too direct and spiritual for those times. The Archbishop of Dublin closed all the pulpits of his diocese to these two men. That made Thomas Kelly an Independent.

He set up chapels as he pleased. He was a musician and a poet, and he consecrated all his gifts to his divine Lord.

He married at thirty years of age a lady of like heart, views and purpose. He became very wealthy and grew to be exceedingly popular and greatly useful. So he labored in Dublin more than sixty years. He died of a stroke of paralysis in 1855, May 14. His last words were, "The Lord is my everything;" for he heard some one repeating to him, " The Lord is my shepherd," and his strength was sufficient for the full response.

In 1804 he published a volume of ninetysix Hymns on Various Passages of Scripture, afterwards enlarged. The hymn before us appeared in 1815. It had six stanzas. The author evidently wrote it with Jacob's vision at Bethel in his mind, Gen. 28:17; but he affixed to it as his title, Matt. 18:20.

It is somewhat singular that no one has been able to obtain even the slightest authentic information concerning the author of this very acceptable hymn, which has been included in almost all the prominent denominational collections for many years. It has been traced back to a Collection of Psalms and Hymns for the use of the Lock Chapel, London. Everything comes on hearsay, and all there is of it is this: he was probably an English layman, his whole name was John Stewart, and he made the hymn, or lived, in 1803.

Far from my thoughts, vain world, begone!
Let my religious hours alone:

Fain would mine eyes my Saviour see:
I wait a visit, Lord, from thee.

2 My heart grows warm with holy fire,
And kindles with a pure desire:
Come, my dear Jesus! from above,
And feed my soul with heavenly love.

3 Blest Saviour! what delicious fare,
How sweet thine entertainments are!
Never did angels taste, above,
Redeeming grace and dying love.

4 Hail, great Immanuel, all-divine!
In thee thy Father's glories shine:
Thou brightest, sweetest, fairest One
That eyes have seen, or angels known!

In Book II. of Dr. Isaac Watts' Hymns this will be found as No. 15. It consists of six stanzas, and is entitled, "The Enioyment of Christ; or Delight in Worship." In many parts of Switzerland a bell from the principal tower tolls daily a few minutes before noon; ere the hour strikes it ceases. It peals over the plain and over the green valleys, and echoes in the recesses of the surrounding mountains. Men leave their labor as they listen. The stillness that follows is most suggestive. As its call sweeps over the busy harvest field the reaper drops his sickle, though half full of golden grain, and throws himself down to rest beneath the shade; the hand that held the trowel leaves it where it lies. All seem glad of the cessation of toil, thankful for the rest and shade and refreshment offered them in the heat and hurry of the day. Such is the office and such the same sweet invitation of the Sabbath-bell in this land of light and peace. With its clear ringing voice it speaks in the name of the Lord of the Sabbath, “Come unto me, and I will give you rest."

5 Cheerful they walk with growing strength,
Till all shall meet in heaven at length;
Till all before thy face appear,

And join in nobler worship there.

In the original form this hymn of Dr. Watts appears with seven stanzas, and is entitled The Pleasure of Public Worship." It is the first part of Psalm 84, L. M. "The more entirely I can give my Sabbaths to God," once said the sainted Robert Murray McCheyne, "and half forget that I am not before the throne of the Lamb, with my harp of gold, the happier am I, and I feel it my duty to be as happy as God intended me to be."

be as pure as the whitest marble but for the black dust which rises from the coal while the miners are at work; that dust is mixed with the soft mass and discolors its whole substance. On Sunday no work is done; of course no dust is raised. So there is one layer of pure white among the seven. And that is the result all over the mine in each of the extensive galleries. The miners have given a name of their own to this peculiar conformation; they call it the " Sunday-stone." For it has six black streaks in it, separated by thin white lines to mark the short rests of the nights; and then it has one large white streak in it brighter and cleaner than ail the rest. It seems like a constant tally of the days. Is there an eternal tally of God's Sabbaths, autonomical, self-reckoning, which we all are at one time to meet?

BLESS, O my soul! the living God,

Call home thy thoughts that roam abroad; Let all the powers within me join

In work and worship so divine.

2 Bless, O my soul! the God of grace;
His favors claim thy highest praise;
Why should the wonders he hath wrought
Be lost in silence and forgot?

3 'Tis he, my soul! who sent his Son

To die for crimes which thou hast done;
He owns the ransom, and forgives
The hourly follies of our lives.

4 Let the whole earth his power confess,
Let the whole earth adore his grace;
The Gentile with the Jew shall join
In work and worship so divine.

L. M.

This is the First Part, L. M., of Psalm 103, in Dr. Isaac Watts' collection, where it is entitled: "Blessing God for his goodness to Soul and Body." This must have been a favorite theme with the poet, for he made one version in this meter consisting of eight verses, then another in the same consisting of six more, to which after a Pause" he added still three; and then taking up short meter he made one version of six verses, and another of eight more, to which he added still a third of four verses-thirty-five stanzas given to this one psalm.

64

So at last we learn the secret of this man's power: it lay mostly in the wonderful grace of gratitude in his heart. He had lost his health; he was an invalid nearly all of his life. He had passed away from his youth; many of his old friends were gone. He had no home of his own in the world; he lived for thirty years the guest of a generous nobleman. He had no children; yet he wrote Divine and Moral Songs for Infant Minds, one of the best books ever made for little ones to learn and sing. He never married. The only wo

man he ever loved and expected to wed jilted him cruelly; yet he uttered but one cry of his soul voiced in the hymn, "How vain are all things here below," one pardonable pang of self-pity as he surrendered his life. He was small in figure and insignificant in personless than five feet in height; the woman said she "loved the jewel, but could not admire the casket that contained it." And still this great and good man was as happy as a bird; he called upon "all the powers within" him to keep on singing till he went home to "the land of pure delight."

THE day of rest once more comes round,
A day to all believers dear;
The silver trumpets seem to sound
That call the tribes of Israel near;
Ye people all, obey the call,
And in Jehovah's courts appear.

2 Obedient to thy summons, Lord,
We to thy sanctuary come;
Thy gracious presence here afford,
And send thy people joyful home;
Of thee, our King, oh, may we sing,
And none with such a theme be dumb.

3 Oh, hasten, Lord, the day when those
Who know thee here shall see thy face:
When suffering shall for ever close,

And they shall reach their destined place;
Then shall they rest, supremely blest,
Eternal debtors to thy grace.

This is No. 148 of Thomas Kelly's third edition, 1809, though it is likely the composition of the hymn dates three years earlier. Some double rhymes make it seem a little odd, but it is only a plain long meter of six lines. The author has attached to it the text, Num. 10:2, and has evidently meant it for a call to worship: "Make thee two trumpets of silver; of a whole piece shalt thou make them: that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps."

Rabbi Jehudah, one of the celebrated doctors of the Jewish law, was wont to call the attention of his pupils to the fact that the Israelites broke the first Sabbath, and therefore God let them go into captivity. He would point, in proof of this, to the statement that the children of Israel went out to gather manna on the holy day, and that the very next chapter says," Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim." There can be no doubt that the sober and reverent setting apart of one day in the seven is obligatory for all time. And it might well be expected that, whenever a duty so plain as this is denied by any believer, there will be an incursion of