Jesus Christ his own words in so unseemly a way as that. The author was at school in Dusseldorf; she must have often seen the Ecce Homo picture in the famous gallery. Count von Zinzendorf, the Moravian, saw it there, read its motto, and was converted by the sight. It was a Christ crowned with thorns, and the words were set above it, "All this have I done for thee. What doest thou for me?" Miss Havergal surely would hear the story. Indeed, she records that she was moved by such a painting with such a legend. The poem represents a fresh phase of her experience, therefore. She becomes a true child of God under the vivid conception of Jesus dying on the cross for her. In 1873 a little book, entitled All for Jesus, by Rev. J. T. Renford, Newport, Mon., came under Miss Havergal's notice, telling of a fullness of blessing beyond anything she had yet attained. It met a felt need, and soon she herself could say, "I have the blessing," the Spirit powerfully applying this word to her soul: "The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin." From this time her life was full of sunshine; some expression of it is found in the beautiful hymns, "Without Carefulness," and "From Glory unto Glory." Rev. Godfrey Thring published this in his Hymns Congregational and Others, 1866. It is a tender and useful hymn in times of sickness or debility. It fits discourses upon Christ as a Physician of Souls: Jeremiah 8:22: Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?"’ One of the brightest predictions of the Lord Jesus Christ is found in the promise that "the Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings." Malachi 4:2. Israelites have a saying which has almost become a proverb: As the sun arises, infirmities decrease." One of the most ancient names of God recorded in the Bible is Jeho The vah-rophi; and this is said to mean in English words, "I am the Lord that healeth thee." Exodus 15:26. The best things in all this world for health and vigor, for exhilaration and comfort, are plenty of warm bright sunshine and the refreshment of clear pure air driving away fog. Flowers open when the daystar comes up over the hills. Invalids wake with new hope when the night is gone and the birds begin their matins. It was Simon Peter, an old fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, who understood very well what he was talking about when he said: We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts." Every morning, all over Judæa, even to this time, there blows a sweet fresh wind at sunrise, which the natives call "the doctor;" for it purifies the infected air and clears away the mists; and then from the tops of the hills, oh, how far away one sees! It makes one think of the prophet's promise: "Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off." 632 "Come and welcome." FROM the cross uplifted high, Where the Saviour deigns to die, What melodious sounds we hear, Bursting on the ravished ear!"Love's redeeming work is doneCome and welcome, sinner, come! 2 "Spread for thee, the festal board 3 "Soon the days of life shall endLo, I come-your Saviour, Friend! Safe your spirit to convey To the realms of endless day, Come and welcome, sinner, come!" 78, 61. This hymn by Rev. Thomas Haweis was first published in his Carmina Christo, 1792, and contained an additional stanza. Its refrain suggests the fullness of Christ's atoning sacrifice, which was great enough to include all mankind, although it was the death of only one person. It is a significant fact that none among all the disciples of our Lord, not one of all the adherents who followed him, was permitted to die with him. He was condemned as a rebel; yet not a single man or woman who succored him or sustained him in that so-called insurrection suffered for A few of his friends talked about it; one of them said outright on a conspicuous occasion, "Let us go and die with him ;" but none it. BLESSED Saviour! thee I love All my other joys above; All my hopes in thee abide, Thou my hope, and naught beside; Ever let my glory be, Only, only, only thee. 2 Once again beside the cross, 3 Blessed Saviour, thine am I, 78, 61. This hymn was written by Rev. George Duffield, Jr., D. D., the son of Rev. George Duffield, D. D., for so many useful years a pastor in Detroit, Mich., and the father of Rev. Samuel W. Duffield, author of English Hymns. This family seems likely to become as famous in hymnology as the Stennett family of old. The hymn now before us was contributed to the Temple Melodies, issued by Rev. D. E. Jones in 1851. Dr. Duffield, the author of it, lived a varied, forceful, and useful life. He was born at Carlisle, Pa., September 12, 1818, graduated at Yale College, and studied for the ministry in Union Theological Seminary, New York. He began his ministrations as a pastor in Brooklyn, N. Y., 1840, and was there for seven years; then he removed to the village of Bloomfield, N. J., and at that point the history of the family connection with that town commences. Three generations in turn have aided in making the parishes conspicuous. After a while, Dr. Duffield took up other work elsewhere, at Philadelphia, Adrian, Mich., Galesburg, Ill., and in 1869 was pastor at Ann Arbor, Mich. There he remained till the infirmities of age warned him to retire from so serious a field of labor. While his son, Samuel W. Duffield, was in the pastorate in Bloomfield, the father returned to his old home, and the beautiful years began in which the father and son walked together in Christian faith and love and hope. The reverence on the one side and the pride upon the other were worthy of the Land of Beulah in which the old man waited for his summons to go over the river. As a matter of fact, the son went swiftly across first; the father followed him fourteen months after. He died in Bloomfield, July 6, 1888, and was borne away to be buried in Detroit in the family cemetery. JESUS, Master, whose I am, 2 Other lords have long held sway; Now thy name alone to bear, Thy dear voice alone obey, Is my daily, hourly prayer. Whom have I in heaven but thee? Nothing else my joy can be. 3 Jesus, Master, I am thine; Keep me faithful, keep me near; Let thy presence in me shine All my homeward way to cheer, Jesus, at thy feet I fall, Oh, be thou my All in all. 7S, 61. Miss Frances Ridley Havergal wrote this hymn for her nephew, J. H. Shaw, in December, 1865, and it was printed as a leaflet for distribution. She never included it in her 2 Leave me not, my strength, my trust; Leave me not again to stray; Leave me not the tempter's prey: 3 Hear and save me, gracious Lord! We have to thank what men would call an accident for this hymn, dated 1820, and printed in the Star in the East, 1824. Josiah Conder fell from his horse in riding, and was compelled to take his bed for a serious season. He was not only suffering from pain, but there was peril in his prospect. He feared becoming a permanent cripple. And just then his affairs were in a condition that required his utmost activity of effort and vigilance in watching. The confinement summoned all his fortitude and led him to constant supplication. One who reads the wrestling and plaintive lines now seems to see the brave-hearted preacher at his best, bold, earnest, importunate. And yet Conder is the man who has been quoted as insisting that histories of sacred songs have little or no value in awaking interest: "On reading a hymn nobody inquires why it was written, or attributes the feelings it depicts to the poet's actual, or, at any rate, present, experience." His own hymn proves how much he was mis taken. Everything that was ever written by the man who composed what is now admitted to be the first hymn of the first rank in our language is of serious interest. Rev. Augustus Montague Toplady wrote "Rock of Ages," and he also wrote the excellent hymn in the same meter now before us. He was born at Farnham, in Surrey, England, November 4, 1740. His father, Major Richard Toplady, died at the siege of Carthagena, while the child was yet an infant. But his mother seems to have been a good and thrifty woman of character and force. The young lad grew up bright and promising, and we soon hear of his conversion. He attended a meeting at Codymain, Ireland, an assemblage held in a barn; a layman named James Morris preached the sermon from the text he found in Ephesians 2:13. Toplady, some years subsequent to this, wrote an account of the incident. "By the grace of God," says he, "under the ministry of that dear messenger and under that sermon, I was, I trust, brought nigh by the blood of Christ, in August, 1756. Strange that I, who had so long sat under the means of grace in England, should be brought near to God in an obscure part of Ireland, amidst a handful of God's people, met together in a barn, and under the ministry of one who could hardly spell his name. The excellency of such power must be of God, and cannot be of man. The youth of the poet passed tamely. He is reported to have composed some fugitive poems when he was still in his teens, and these were printed at Dublin in Poems on Sacred Subjects, 1759. Among them the one here given is found. Deciding to enter the ministry, he received orders in the Church of England, June 6, 1762. Soon after this he became vicar of Broadhembury, Devonshire. There are different accounts of his work as a preacher of the gospel. Some say he was harsh and bigoted, and even rough to scurrility in his attacks upon the Wesleys. Others insist that his heart was warm and his zeal was unquenchable. His health was never robust; he died in London, August 11, 1778, and was buried beneath the gallery opposite the pulpit in Tottenham Court Chapel. 66 Alas, through this, how many gems 3 Yet though the time be past and gone; Though naught is all that can be done, This hymn is found in the volume of Hymns and Poems published in 1873 by Rev. Edward Caswall. It bears the title 'Ingratitude," and has six four-line stanzas. It had been published before in his Masque of Mary, 1851. It would be easy to say the author succeeds better as a translator than as a composer of original lyrics for singing. But we venture to raise the question whether any one can ever hope to be supremely poetical when he is unfortunate enough to select a special sin, or possibly a notable immorality, for his theme. There is likewise something of mysticism in the manner of this author. perceptible particularly in his work done after the death of his amiable wife by cholera in 1849. She had been received with him into the Roman Church, and he fell, after his irreparable loss into deep despondency; as was natural in the circumstances, he became more and more intensely a devotee under the priestly system to which he had committed himself. The hymn and tune (the latter bearing his name) are quite popular in Great Britain; but some would be likely to think he did better work elsewhere. 639 Prayer for mercy. O LORD, turn not thy face away To them that mourn their sin; 2 We need not to confess our fault, For surely thou canst tell; C. M. D. What we have done, and what we are, 3 And need we then, O Lord, repeat The blessing which we crave, When thou dost know, before we speak, The thing that we would have? Mercy, O Lord, mercy we ask; This is the total sum; For mercy, Lord, is all our prayer; Oh, let thy mercy come! This hymn, which is known as “ The Lam entation of a Sinner," appeared first in Stern O THOU, whose tender mercy hears 2 See, Lord, before thy throne of grace, 3 And shall my guilty fears prevail 4 Oh, shine on this benighted heart, C. M. O THOU, from whom all goodness flows, In all my sorrows, conflicts, woes, 2 When on my aching, burdened heart My sins lie heavily, Thy pardon grant, new peace impart ; Thus, Lord, remember me! 3 When trials sore obstruct my way, Oh, let my strength be as my day- 4 When in the solemn hour of death Be this the prayer of my last breath: C. M. Rev. Thomas Haweis, the preacher and physician, published in 1792 his Carmina Christo; or, Hymns to the Saviour; designed for the Use and Comfort of Those who worship the Lamb that was slain. In this small volume, containing only a hundred and thirty-nine pieces, this one is found. It has six stanzas, and with it has been associ Tears should, from both my weeping eyes, In ceaseless currents flow. 4 But no such sacrifice I plead To expiate my guilt; No tears, but those which thou hast shed No blood, but thou hast spilt. 5 Think of thy sorrows, dearest Lord! And all my sins forgive, Then justice will approve the word This hymn by Rev. Dr. Samuel Stennett was first published in the Baptist Selection, 1787, which was compiled by Dr. Rippon, a friend of the author. The spirit of the poem is one of humble penitence and avowal of guilt towards God. Sometimes in their confession men are not sincere. We profess all horror at wickedness; but we seem to mean wickedness in general, not anything we have really done in particular or in person. It is sin we deplore, not sins. Our words of self-abasement must not be pressed nor misunderstood. In the old legend it was no less than a cardinal that once went to confession. “Oh, I am the very chief of sinners," he murmured in the ear of the priest. "Too true, too true; God have mercy," were the words that came back through the grating. Surely I have been guilty of every kind of wrong," he continued. "Alas, my son, it is a solemn fact-have mercy upon him, O Lord." Thinking that great enormities admitted would force at least a deprecation, he went on: "I have indulged in pride, malice, revenge, and ambition." This he sighed in mournful tones; and in tones as mournful the honest monk answered: "Yes, alas, some of this I had heard of before; the Lord have mercy." The exasperated cardinal could stand it no longer. "Why, you fool," he burst out sharply, “do you imagine I mean all this to the letter?" "Alas, alas, the good Lord have mercy," said the pitiful priest; "for it seems his eminence is a hypocrite likewise !" |