I.—Anglican Hymns
The hymns of the eighteenth century are almost without exception by writers of the Dissenting, Methodist, or Evangelical schools. In the nineteenth century the tide turns, and though the Nonconformists are not without hymn-writers of distinction, the great hymns are by Anglicans. Henry Francis Lyte in the first half of the century, Bishop Bickersteth, Charlotte Elliott, and Miss Havergal in the second, represent the Evangelical school. Heber was a typical Anglican, but he was not of the Tractarian type, and died before the publication of the Christian Year. Keble and Newman were the poets of the Oxford Movement, and gave a distinctive tone to much of the later Church hymn-writing; but Heber, more than any other man, did for the Church of England what Watts had done for the Nonconformists.
Reginald Heber (1783-1826) was a scholar and a gentleman, his churchmanship was unimpeachable, and his life and death alike served to win acceptance for hymns whose intrinsic worth must have secured the widest recognition. His hymns, like those of Herbert, Keble, and many of our sweetest singers, are hymns of the country parsonage, and seem all to have been written whilst he held the family living of Hodnet, to which he was welcomed by the people as ‘Master Reginald.’ He was little better satisfied with Tate and Brady than Watts had been with Barton, and at one time contemplated using the Olney hymns in his church. Then he projected a more ambitious scheme, and hoped, with the help of Milman, Southey, and Walter Scott, to provide a book which might, perhaps under episcopal sanction, become the authorized hymnal of the Church. But he felt the proposal a bold one, and tried to prepare the way by the publication in the Christian Observer of a few hymns which he described as ‘part of an intended series appropriate to the Sundays and principal holy days of the year, connected in some degree with their particular collects and gospels, and designed to be sung between the Nicene Creed and the sermon.’ Like other reformers, he indulges in criticisms of the hymns then in use, and is especially severe in censuring those which address our Lord ‘with ditties of embraces of passion.’ The hymn-book was duly compiled, and specimens were submitted to Bishop Howley in the hope that he might give it an episcopal benediction. It is curious to note the apologetic tone in which Heber writes.
The evil, indeed, if it be one, of the admission of hymns into our Churches has, by this time, spread so widely, and any attempt to suppress it entirely would be so unpopular, and attended with so much difficulty, that I cannot help thinking it would be wiser, as well as more practicable, to regulate the liberty thus assumed, instead of authoritatively taking it away. Nor can I conceive any method by which this object might be better obtained than by the publication of a selection which should, at least, have the praise of excluding whatever was improper in diction or sentiment; and might be on this, if on no other ground, thought not unworthy a licence of the same kind as that which was given to the psalms of Tate and Brady. I have the vanity to think that even my own compositions are not inferior in poetical merit to those of Tate; and my collection will contain some from our older poets, which it would be mockery to speak of in the same breath with his. There are a few also which I have extracted from the popular collections usually circulated, which, though I have not been able to learn their authors, possess considerable merit and much popularity, and are entirely free from objectionable expressions.[171]
The Bishop criticized freely, generally approved and advised the completion of the project; but Heber was called to Calcutta, and the collection was not published until after his death. It contained fifty-seven hymns of his own, twelve of Milman’s, and twenty-nine others. His object had been to obtain ‘a well-selected and sanctioned book of hymns for the Church of England, to supersede the unauthorized and often very improper compositions now in use.’ He did not secure this, but he prepared the way for something better, and may justly be regarded as the first of the modern Anglican hymn-writers. His best hymns are too well known to need comment, and of the rest comparatively few are of special value in public worship. His hymns owe more to the inspiration of the Gospels than the Psalms. The collect or gospel for the day often explains and throws new light upon a hymn, as in this for the Second Sunday after Trinity, the gospel being the Parable of the Great Supper. It is usually regarded as a Communion hymn.
Forth from the dark and stormy sky,
Lord, to Thine altar’s shade we fly;
Forth from the world, its hope and fear,
Saviour, we seek Thy shelter here:
Weary and weak, Thy grace we pray;
Turn not, O Lord, Thy guests away!
Long have we roamed in want and pain,
Long have we sought Thy rest in vain;
’Wildered in doubt, in darkness lost,
Long have our souls been tempest-tost;
Low at Thy feet our sins we lay,
Turn not, O Lord, Thy guests away!
Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868), who died Dean of St. Paul’s, is famous as an historian rather than a hymn-writer, but his few hymns have a wide popularity. In
Ride on, ride on in majesty!
he has shown how fine and true a hymn may be, though it departs from recognized devotional form. It is a meditation of a highly rhetorical kind, and apostrophizes but does not address our Lord. By some editors this is regarded as fatal to its inclusion in a collection of hymns, but the common judgement of Christian congregations is right. It has proved itself a hymn in spite of all rules, and is an excellent spiritual song for Palm Sunday.
In the year (1827) of the publication of Heber’s Hymns, written and adapted to the Weekly Church Services of the Year, Keble issued anonymously the most influential devotional work of the nineteenth century, The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holy Days throughout the Year. Like Ken’s festival hymns, it was not a hymn-book, and was not meant for use in Church services, though from a few of the poems verses may be taken which make hymns of the very best type. Pusey regarded it as ‘the real source of the Oxford Movement,’ of which Newman also thought Keble ‘the true and primary author,’ though he ‘ever considered and kept’ July 14, 1832, the day when Keble preached his sermon on ‘National Apostasy,’ ‘as the start of the religious movement.’ Of the Christian Year Newman says, ‘Keble struck an original note, and woke up in the hearts of thousands a new music, the music of a school long unknown in England.’ But the teaching of the Oxford Movement was rather latent than patent in the Christian Year, and it would be a great mistake to regard it as influencing that religious revival or even the English Church alone. On the other hand, Hurrell Froude feared that the authorship of the Christian Year would be attributed to a Methodist.[172] It was as important an element in the Movement as Charles Wesley’s hymns were in the Evangelical Revival. In each case the influence extended far beyond those who claim the poems as their special heritage.
Keble regarded the Church as in a state of desolation, decay, and apostasy. He knew nothing of the glorious optimism of the Wesleys, who saw everywhere signs of the speedy triumph of the gospel and the coming of Christ’s kingdom. They sang
Plague, earthquake, and famine, and tumult and war,
The wonderful coming of Jesus declare.
Keble’s vision was
So Famine waits, and War with greedy eyes,
Till some repenting heart be ready for the skies.
They saw in the ingatherings to their scattered Societies the assurance of abounding blessing
Lo, the promise of a shower
Drops already from above;
But the Lord will shortly pour
All the spirit of His love.
Keble saw no such visions, dreamed no such dreams. All he dares to ask is
Lord, ere our trembling lamps sink down and die,
Touch us with chastening hand, and make us feel Thee nigh.[173]
Yet, when he forgets the depression of the time, and turns to the consolations of eternity, he shows how firmly he believed his own motto, ‘In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.’ He has the sure trust and confidence of all God’s chosen, and at times kindles into holy rapture. The prevailing tone, however, is of sadness—the depression of the saint, not the perplexity of the doubter.
In 1839 Keble published, also anonymously, his metrical version of the Psalms. He had intended it to be a substitute for Tate and Brady, and had hoped to secure episcopal sanction for its use in the dioceses of Oxford and Winchester. It is, however, more interesting from the standpoint of the expositor than the hymnologist, very few of its versions being adapted to congregational use. The Lyra Innocentium, published anonymously in 1846, is vastly inferior to his great work, and has little to recommend it to those who are not in sympathy with the High Church Movement.
After Heber and Keble all that there was of justice in Montgomery’s sarcastic complaint, that hymns had been written by ‘all sorts of persons except poets’[174] is gone. They were poets first, hymn-writers afterwards. Keble’s greatest hymn is taken from his ‘Verses for Evening,’ which begins as a poem, and rises from meditation to praise and prayer. The earlier verses are not suitable for a hymn-book, but the beauty of the later lines is only fully realized when they are remembered.
’Tis gone, that bright and orbèd blaze,
Fast fading from our wistful gaze;
Yon mantling cloud has hid from sight
The last faint pulse of quivering light.
In darkness and in weariness
The traveller on his way must press,
No gleam to watch on tree or tower,
Whiling away the lonesome hour.
Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear,
It is not night if Thou be near:
O may no earth-born cloud arise
To hide Thee from Thy servant’s eyes.
There is surely no more beautiful illustration of the way in which the Christian rises from Nature up to Nature’s God.
As in the case of so many hymns, the part is greater than the whole. The six verses universally selected are not improved by the addition of others—though they have much to commend them.
John Henry Newman (1801-90) belongs to Anglican hymn-writers in virtue of his ‘Lead, kindly Light,’ though it may almost be described as his farewell to the Church of England. It marks at least the beginning of his long-drawn-out parting from the Establishment. Few hymns have won a wider popularity, and no doubt it has done much to accustom Nonconformist Churches to sympathize with the poetic and emotional side of the Oxford Movement. This hymn and the Christian Year made absolute want of sympathy with the new devotion impossible. Moreover, the tone of perplexity, the confession of bewilderment, the sense of ‘encircling gloom,’ fell in with the prevailing spirit of religious emotion. To many men of his own school the hymn meant something very different from what it means to the average worshipper, who finds in it a comfortable sedative for vague religious depression. I confess that personally the hymn does not seem to me as great as its reputation, but it has brought help and comfort to myriads. Dr. Wm. Barry says—
This most tender of pilgrim songs may be termed the March of the Tractarian Movement. It is pure melody, austere yet hopeful, strangely not unlike the stanzas which Carlyle has made familiar to the whole English race, the Mason-Song of Goethe, in its sublime sadness and invincible trust. Both are psalms of life, Hebrew or Northern, chanted in a clear-obscure where faith moves onward heroically to the day beyond.[175]
Newman’s other great hymn, ‘Praise to the Holiest in the height,’ which owes its popularity largely to Mr. Gladstone’s affection for it—though it is in itself a fine hymn—belongs to his Romanist days.
There was room for the new teaching. Perhaps Methodism was a little too buoyant, Evangelicalism too contented, and the Church was ready for a fresh upheaval.
Coincidently with the rise of the Oxford Movement came, as we have seen, the rolling away of the reproach of hymn-singing. Even the strongholds of the Establishment capitulated, and hymns formed an important part in the new propaganda. Stanch Churchmen had disliked hymn-singing. To quote Canon Ellerton—
It came to us from an unwelcome source—from the Dissenters, eminently from the Methodists. It was first adopted by those of the clergy who sympathized most with them; for many long years it was that dreaded thing, a party badge.[176]
The Evangelicals adopted the custom easily, and with delight. Cowper, Newton, Toplady, Hervey, Watts, Doddridge, and even Wesley, were no strangers to them. But for the Calvinistic trouble, they all minded the same things. They had no difficulty in regard to fellowship with Nonconformists in worship or in work. It has been the fashion to disparage the Evangelicals, and to regard the ‘Clapham Sect’ as a coterie of ill-informed, self-satisfied Pharisees; but for solid, practical Christianity it would be difficult to find any ‘school’ that outrivals them. The ‘Clapham Sect’ knew little and cared less for priestly rights or the niceties of ritual. They may have been slack in the observance of fast and vigil, but they kept the fast of God, breaking the bonds of wickedness and letting the oppressed go free. The men who were the backbone of the anti-slavery movement, who were nursing fathers to the Bible Society, and established the Church Missionary Society, were not narrow-minded bigots, but held the true Catholic Faith concerning the kingdom of God.
Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847), whose highest preferment was the Perpetual Curacy of Lower Brixham, ranks, as a hymn-writer, with Ken and Keble. While ministering to his ‘dear fishermen,’ he wrote many a lovely hymn, and one of unsurpassed beauty. ‘Abide with me’ was his swan-song. He died, like Toplady, of consumption, and felt the pain and pathos of death in the prime of life. In a most tender poem he has recorded that common but infinitely pathetic grief. It is interesting to contrast the subdued sadness, the patient submission of Lyte with the triumphant ecstasy of Toplady’s ‘Deathless principle, arise.’
Shudder not to pass the stream,
Venture all thy care on Him.
Not one object of His care
Ever suffered shipwreck there.
Saints in glory perfect made
Wait thy passage through the shade;
Ardent for thy coming o’er,
See they throng the blissful shore.
Such the prospects that arise
To the dying Christian’s eyes.
Such the glorious vista, Faith
Opens through the shades of death.[177]
This was the view of death taken by the Evangelicals in the eighteenth century. The gospel of the great Revival brought life and immortality to light, robbed death of all its terrors, and made heaven seem, even to young men, far better than earth. The nineteenth century had not the glowing rapture of the earlier time. Moreover, its interest in works of Christian philanthropy, its awakening to the great missionary call, made the life and work of the day infinitely important and interesting. Christian men began to realize that heaven lay beyond the golden glory of the sunset sky, and felt, with those of the older dispensation, that it was a calamity for the sun to go down while it was yet day. Lyte felt with Anne Brontë—
I hoped that with the brave and strong
My portioned task might lie.
Lyte’s sorrow was not that he feared to change the earthly for the heavenly, but that he longed to have done enduring work e’er the night fell.
Why do I sigh to find
Life’s evening shadows gathering round my way,
The keen eye dimming, and the buoyant mind
Unhinging day by day?
Is it the natural dread
Of that stern lot, which all who live must see?
The worm, the clay, the dark and narrow bed,—
Have these such awe for me?
Can I not summon pride
To fold my decent mantle round my breast,
And lay me down at Nature’s Eventide,
Calm to my dreamless rest?
As nears my soul the verge
Of this dim continent of woe and crime,
Shrinks she to hear Eternity’s long surge
Break on the shores of Time?
I want not vulgar fame—
I seek not to survive in brass or stone;
Hearts may not kindle when they hear my name,
Nor tears my value own;
But might I leave behind
Some blessing for my fellows, some fair trust
To guide, to cheer, to elevate my kind,
When I was in the dust;
Within my narrow bed
Might I not wholly mute or useless be;
But hope that they, who trampled o’er my head,
Drew still some good from me;
Might verse of mine inspire
One virtuous aim, one high resolve impart;
Light in one drooping soul a hallowed fire,
Or bind one broken heart;—
Death would be sweeter then,
More calm my slumber ’neath the silent sod,—
Might I thus live to bless my fellow-men,
Or glorify my God!
O Thou! whose touch can lend
Life to the dead, Thy quickening grace supply,
And grant me, swanlike, my last breath to spend
In song that may not die!
Was ever faithful prayer more abundantly answered? ‘He asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest it, even length of days for ever and ever.’
Christopher Wordsworth (1807-85), Bishop of Lincoln, nephew of the poet, was of set purpose a writer of hymns for congregational use. He taught that hymns should express the feeling of the Church, and not of the individual worshipper. He thought it ‘inexpressibly shocking’ that ‘Jesu, Lover of my soul’ should be sung in Westminster Abbey, at least, so I understand his reference to ‘a large, mixed congregation in a dissolute part of a populous and irreligious city.’[178] His hymns are objective, and the best—e.g. ‘O day of rest and gladness,’ ‘See the Conqueror mounts in triumph’—are very fine. Bishop Wordsworth did not ‘translate any ancient hymns, but attempted to infuse something of their spirit into’ his own.
The Holy Year was a distinct contribution to the literature of the Anglican Revival. Very inferior in strength and beauty to the Christian Year, it was more useful to editors of hymn-books, and it helped to concentrate interest upon the selection of hymns suited to the Church year. Bishop Wordsworth kept closely to the Prayer-book ideal of devotion, and some of his less-known poems are illustrative of its special teaching. A good example is the hymn for the Second Sunday in Advent, which he inscribed, ‘Christ ever coming in Holy Scripture.’
Lord, who didst the Prophets teach
To prepare Thy way of old;
And by Thine Apostles preach
Truths of wisdom manifold;
Teach us to behold Thee, Lord,
Present in the sacred page,
Living Word in written word
Coming thus to every age.
Coming in King David’s Psalms,
In Isaiah’s trumpet-call,
Coming in St. John’s deep calms,
Coming in the fires of Paul.
Coming brightly from afar
To the lands with darkness dim,
On the Evangelic car
Of Thy fourfold cherubim.
Thus, O blessèd Lord, when we
On Thy Holy Scriptures look,
May we ever worship Thee,
Coming in Thy sacred Book.
So, when as a scroll is past
Heaven, and earth with all its strife,
We may see our names at last
Written in the Book of Life.
But the Anglican hymn-writers of the nineteenth century are too many for detailed comment in my fast-failing space. It is a glorious choir, including Joseph Anstice, who had so powerful an influence over Mr. Gladstone in his Oxford days;[179] Dean Alford, Dr. Monsell, Sir H. W. Baker, Dean Stanley, Bishops Mant, How, and Bickersteth, Canon Bright, Godfrey Thring, Canon Ellerton, S. J. Stone, Canon Twells, Laurence Tuttiett, S. Baring-Gould, among the clergy; Mrs. Alexander, Charlotte Elliott, Frances Ridley Havergal, Sir R. Grant, W. Chatterton Dix, among the laity.
Sir Henry Williams Baker (1821-77) wrote the lovely sacramental version of Ps. xxiii.: ‘The King of love my Shepherd is.’ One verse he repeated with his dying breath—
Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love He sought me,
And on His shoulder gently laid,
And home, rejoicing, brought me.
He is one of the simplest and most attractive of hymn-writers, and the inclusion of his hymns in Nonconformist hymnals is a great gain. His greatest service to Anglican hymnody was the editing of Hymns Ancient and Modern—a truly epoch-making (or perhaps epoch-marking) book.
While Baker was at work in his Herefordshire vicarage, John Ellerton (1826-93) was writing hymns and essays on hymns in his rural or semi-rural parsonages. Ellerton had a rare gift in writing for special occasions. His great funeral hymn, ‘Now the labourer’s task is o’er,’ has a sombre strength which is full of comfort and trust. ‘Behold us, Lord, a little space’ is an ideal hymn for a week-day service, and ‘In the Name which earth and heaven’ is the grandest of all hymns for the laying of the foundation-stone of a church.[180] Without being a High-Churchman, Ellerton was a thorough-going Anglican, and his poetry has the restraint, the good taste, and the dignity which beseem a great Church.
S. J. Stone (1839-1900), unlike most clerical hymn-writers, was not a country parson, though his best hymns were written before he began his work in East London. But even in its dreary wastes he found the true poetry of life, and some of his obscure parishioners at Haggerston are richly shrined in his memorial verses. I feel all the more moved by the triumphant tones of ‘The Church’s one foundation,’ all the more tenderly impressed by ‘Weary of earth, and laden with my sin,’ when I remember how dear to his heart were the struggling, toiling masses of his dull East London parish. His best hymns are well known, so I quote a sonnet which expresses his love for those who live in the crowded city.
From Windermere, To the Congregation and Children of St. Paul’s, Haggerston.
Moored by a green isle of Winandermere—
Listening the gentlest lapping of the wave
On the rock margin, and the blackbirds’ brave
Soldierly antiphons, afar and near,
And the wind’s whispered evensong—I hear
A sound beyond, and sweeter as more grave
Than ever paradise of nature gave,
Dear to my heart of old, and now more dear:
The roar of London—the deep undersong,
The myriad music of immortal souls
High-couraged, much-enduring, midst the long
Drear toil and gloom and weariness. It rolls
Over me with all power, for in its tone
The hearts I love in Christ beat with my own.
Bishop Bickersteth demands mention, not only for his own beautiful hymns, but for his successful editing of the Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer. Edward Bickersteth’s Christian Psalmody was, in its day, one of the best and most catholic hymnals. In the Hymnal Companion, his son provided for a later generation the more complete and worthy hymn-book which the growth of hymnody made possible. Of Bishop Bickersteth’s own hymns, a few are amongst those universally accepted. His Communion Hymn, to the regret of many, is absent from the Methodist Hymn-book.
’Till He come!’ O let the words
Linger on the trembling chords;
Let the ‘little while’ between
In their golden light be seen;
Let us think how heaven and home
Lie beyond that ’Till He come.’
When the weary ones we love
Enter on their rest above,
Seems the earth so poor and vast,
All our life joy overcast?
Hush, be every murmur dumb;
It is only till He come.
Clouds and conflicts round us press;
Would we have one sorrow less?
All the sharpness of the cross,
All that tells the world is loss,
Death, and darkness, and the tomb
Only whisper, ’Till He come.’
See! the feast of love is spread;
Drink the wine, and break the bread:
Sweet memorials, till the Lord
Call us round His heavenly board,
Some from earth, from glory some,
Severed only till He come.[181]
This aspect of the Lord’s Supper, the proclamation of the Lord’s death ’till He come,’ must ever be present to the mind of the devout communicant. The hymn—especially in its last verse—is full of the gracious, subdued trustfulness which befits the Christian as he commemorates the Atoning Sacrifice and looks forward to glad, eternal communion with those who have gone before, when once again our Lord Himself shall break the bread and drink the wine with His disciples in the Father’s kingdom.
Dean Stanley (1815-81) was not a poet, though he wrote the best English hymn on the Transfiguration. I mention him here, however, to quote some verses of his stirring national hymn, worthy of a Dean of Westminster. It is of a type that, I think, ought to be represented in our hymnals, and especially those intended for school use. Why should not such hymns as this and Mr. Gill’s ‘Lift thy song among the nations’ stir and consecrate the patriotism of our up-growing girls and boys? Dean Stanley’s hymn is very long. I quote less than half. In the Westminster Abbey Hymn-book it is assigned to the Accession.
Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord, for He is kind!
Long our island throne has stood,
Planted on the ocean flood;
Crowned with rock, and girt with sea,
Home and refuge of the free:
For His mercies aye endure,
Ever faithful, ever sure.
On that island throne have sate
Alfred’s goodness, Edward’s state;
Princely strength and queenly grace,
Lengthened line of royal race:
Round that throne have stood of old
Seers and statesmen, firm and bold;
Burleigh’s wisdom, Hampden’s fire,
Chatham’s force in son and sire.
Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord, for He is kind:
Him, in homely English tongue,
Epic lay and lyric song,
Shakespeare’s myriad-minded verse,
Milton’s heavenward strains, rehearse:
For His mercies aye endure,
Ever faithful, ever sure.
Hither in our heathen night
Came of yore the gospel light;
By the Saviour’s sacred story,
‘Angles’ turned to angels’ glory.
Breaking with a gracious hand
Ancient error’s subtle band;
Opening wide the sacred page,
Kindling hope in saint and sage.
Give us homes serene and pure,
Settled freedom, laws secure;
Truthful lips and minds sincere;
Faith and love that cast out fear.
Grant that light and life divine
Long on England’s shores may shine;
Grant that people, Church, and throne
May in all good deeds be one.[182]
Of the eighteenth century, Miss Steele and Mrs. Barbauld are almost the only women whose hymns survive to-day. In the nineteenth century, however, there are not a few women whose songs are likely to endure. Charlotte Elliott, Cecil Frances Alexander, Anna Lætitia Waring, have written immortal hymns, and it will be long ere Frances Ridley Havergal is absent from the songs of the Church. It is safe to prophesy that ‘Just as I am,’ ‘There is a green hill far away,’ and ‘Father, I know that all my life,’ will be sung through many generations—as long, indeed, as English Christianity endures.
Charlotte Elliott (1791-1871), who belonged to a famous evangelical Church family, is one of many who learnt in suffering what she taught in song. Her greatest hymn, ‘Just as I am,’ was first published in the Invalid’s Hymn-book (1836), and, without her knowledge, was reprinted and widely circulated. In no other hymn has the sinner’s way to the Saviour been made more plain. Through the penitential self-despair of its earlier verses countless numbers of the weary and heavy-laden have found rest unto their souls, and entered into the joyous confidence of its closing lines. Wordsworth’s daughter, Dora, received the hymn in her last illness, and her husband wrote to the authoress, ‘At least ten times that day she asked me to repeat it to her,’ and every morning she asked for it again till the end came. After her death it formed part of her mother’s ‘daily solitary prayer.’
Miss Elliott is the truest and the best representative of the early evangelical Church hymn-writers. Many of her little-known hymns are very beautiful. I quote two pieces, notwithstanding a breath of Calvinism in them both, for it is a Calvinism that has good Scripture warrant.
‘My soul followeth hard after Thee’ (Ps. lxiii. 8).
I look to Thee, I hope in Thee,
I glory in Thy name!
I make Thy righteousness my plea,
Thou all-atoning Lamb!
Methinks even death will welcome be,
That I, through death, may pass to Thee.
Thou art my portion, saith my soul,
My all in earth or heaven;
None but Thyself can make me whole,
No name but Thine is given
At which the gates of pearl fly wide—
The passport of the justified.
I know Thy voice—I strive to keep
Thy word within my heart;
Though the most worthless of Thy sheep,
Still Thou my Shepherd art;
Firm as a rock that word shall stand,
None, none shall pluck me from Thy hand.
Without repentance are Thy gifts;
This thought my hope sustains,
In deep distress my soul uplifts,
When sin the victory gains;
My faith, though weak, shall never fail,
Thy prayer shall even for me prevail.
When I Thy glory shall behold,
And see Thee face to face,
Sheltered in Thy celestial fold,
A sinner saved by grace.
What will it be Thy love to adore,
Assured I shall go out no more?
The following lines are evidently in part suggested by her own great hymn. The text is ‘Into Thine hand I commit my spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth’ (Ps. xxxi. 5)—
God of my life! Thy boundless grace
Chose, pardoned, and adopted me;
My rest, my home, my dwelling-place!
Father! I come to Thee.
Jesus, my hope, my rock, my shield!
Whose precious blood was shed for me,
Into Thy hands my soul I yield;
Saviour! I come to Thee.
Spirit of glory and of God!
Long hast Thou deigned my Guide to be;
Now be Thy comfort sweet bestowed!
My God! I come to Thee.
I come to join that countless host
Who praise Thy name unceasingly.
Blest Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!
My God! I come to Thee.
Frances Ridley Havergal (1836-79) was full of the gladness of God’s chosen, and her songs illustrate Faber’s verse—
If our love were but more simple,
We should take Him at His word,
And our lives would be all sunshine
In the sweetness of our Lord.
After her conversion she knew nothing of Wesley’s experience of the ‘howling wilderness’; to her the night was never dark, as it was to Newman, and she was never far from home. Her hymns overflow with exultant faith.
Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear,
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year.[183]
It would, perhaps, be unsafe to predict that any of Miss Havergal’s hymns will rank among the songs that cannot die, but they will certainly be long loved and sung. Her consecration hymns, especially ‘Lord, speak to me that I may speak,’ are solemn and impressive, and are, perhaps, her best. But her triumphant songs are often very fine, though they are not always well sustained. Her Advent hymn has the triumphant rapture of the soul that goes out to meet her Lord.
Thou art coming, O my Saviour,
Thou art coming, O my King,
In Thy beauty all-resplendent,
In Thy glory all-transcendent;
Well may we rejoice and sing;
Coming! in the opening east
Herald brightness slowly swells;
Coming! O my glorious Priest,
Hear we not Thy golden bells?
Thou art coming; at Thy table
We are witnesses for this;
While remembering hearts Thou meetest
In communion clearest, sweetest,
Earnest of our coming bliss,
Showing not Thy death alone,
And Thy love exceeding great,
But Thy coming and Thy throne,
All for which we long and wait.
Cecil Frances Alexander (1823-95) may almost be called the first writer of real children’s hymns. Dr. Watts was not happy in his Divine and Moral Songs, and some of Charles Wesley’s most horrible verses are to be found in his Hymns for Children. It is true that Watts wrote some simple lyrics which seem to have suited our prim little ancestors, and that Charles Wesley wrote ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,’ but even the manners and beliefs of the devout souls of that time cannot altogether excuse some of his hymns, which must have frightened many a poor little Methodist out of his wits.
Anne and Jane Taylor’s Hymns for Infant Minds are too infantile, though they served their generation well, and led on from Watts to Mrs. Alexander. The Taylors had a happy knack of conveying Scripture history and teaching in simple verse. I do not know a better definition of repentance than—
Repentance is to leave
The sins I loved before,
And show that I in earnest grieve
By doing so no more.
But Mrs. Alexander combines with the winsome simplicity which charms and instructs a little child, the power to speak to the child in the heart of the man. Never has the gospel story been told to children and to child-like souls more attractively than in ‘Once in royal David’s city’ and ‘There is a green hill far away.’ Since our Church hymnals began to include a section for children, Mrs. Alexander has been a large contributor. Even yet, when we have a considerable number of good children’s hymns, there are none better than hers. Of course she wrote other hymns, but these are her glory, her most precious contribution to the hymn-book of the modern Church. ‘Her character,’ says Archbishop Alexander, ‘was based and moulded upon the best teaching of the original Oxford movement,’[184] but she had little sympathy with mere ritualism. Well known and loved as many of her hymns are, her collected Poems include, among the less familiar pieces, much of value and interest. She made for the Irish Church Hymnal a fine translation of the Breastplate of St. Patrick, a hymn which belongs to the Celtic, not to the Roman Church.
I bind unto myself to-day
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.
I bind unto myself to-day
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, His shield to ward,
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.[185]
This hymn is extensively used in Ireland on St. Patrick’s day.
To these hymn-writers we may add the poetesses Christina G. Rossetti and Jean Ingelow. Miss Rossetti wrote very little that is really adapted for use in public worship. There is much, however, to justify the inclusion in a hymn-book of such verses as, ‘None other Lamb, none other Name,’[186] though they are more fitting for private prayer than for social worship. The same is not equally true of Miss Ingelow’s poem, ‘And didst Thou love the race that loved not Thee?’ for the verses usually selected form a true hymn. The last verse is—
Come, lest this heart should, cold and cast away,
Die ere the Guest adored she entertain;
Lest eyes which never saw Thine earthly day
Should miss Thy heavenly reign.[187]
Of laymen I can mention only a few names here. Mr. W. Chatterton Dix has written more good hymns than those known to our hymn-books. Francis Turner Palgrave (1824-97), whose Treasury of Sacred Song is our best anthology, also wrote hymns which, it seems to me, deserve a wider use than they have attained. His best-known hymn, without being of the popular type, is of the class which is appreciated by many in these days of perplexity and unrest.
Thou say’st, ‘Take up thy cross,
O man, and follow Me’:
The night is black,
The feet are slack,
Yet we would follow Thee.
But oh, dear Lord, we cry,
That we Thy face could see!
Thy blessèd face
One moment’s space:
Then might we follow Thee!
Dim tracts of time divide
Those golden days from me;
Thy voice comes strange
O’er years of change:
How can we follow Thee?
Comes faint and far Thy voice
From vales of Galilee;
The vision fades
In ancient shades:
How should we follow Thee?
Ah, sense-bound heart and blind!
Is naught but what we see?
Can time undo
What once was true?
Can we not follow Thee?
Within our heart of hearts
In nearest nearness be:
Give Thou the sign:
Say, ‘Ye are Mine’;
Lead, and we follow Thee.[188]
Other hymns by Professor Palgrave are, ‘O thou not made with hands,’ ‘Star of morn and even,’ ‘Thou that once on mother’s knee.’
I close this section of my lecture with a few verses which have, as far as I know, not yet found a place in any hymnal. They are from a Communion hymn by Mr. Gladstone. They may rightly be included in the hymns of the Anglican Revival.
‘Mr. Gladstone’s mind and heart,’ says Mr. G. W. E. Russell, ‘were already attuned to the new teaching, and prepared to receive it, even though he had not paid much attention to the controversy. It was in 1836 that he wrote his hymn on the Holy Communion.’ Mr. Russell gives the following verses—
Here, where Thine angels overhead
Do warn the Tempter’s powers away,
And where the bodies of the dead
For life and resurrection stay;
And many a generation’s prayer
Hath perfumed and hath blest the air;
Oh, lead my blindness by the hand,
Lead me to Thy familiar Feast,
Not here or now to understand,
Yet even here and now to taste,
How the eternal Word of Heaven
On earth in broken bread is given.
We, who this holy precinct round
In one adoring circle kneel,
May we in one intent be bound,
And one serene devotion feel;
And grow around Thy sacred shrine
Like tendrils of the deathless Vine.
We, who with one blest Food are fed,
Into one body may we grow,
And one pure life from Thee, the Head,
Informing all the members flow;
One pulse be felt in every vein,
One law of pleasure and of pain.
Oh, let the virtue all divine,
The Gift of this true Sabbath morn,
Stored in my spirit’s inner shrine,
Be purely and be meekly borne;
Be husbanded with thrifty care,
And sweetened and refreshed with prayer.[189]
It is at once necessary and almost superfluous to say that I know how much has been left unsaid, how many names there are deserving mention, how many hymns that might be referred to, but in such a fruitful land the gleanings are richer than the vintage of former years.