“HAIL TO THE LORD'S ANOINTED.”
James Montgomery (says Dr. Breed) is “distinguished as the only layman besides Cowper 214 / 176 among hymn-writers of the front rank in the English language.” How many millions have recited and sung his fine and exhaustively descriptive poem,—
Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,
—selections from almost any part of which are perfect definitions, and have been standard hymns on prayer for three generations. English Hymnology would as unwillingly part with his missionary hymns,—
The king of glory we proclaim.
Hark, the song of jubilee!
—and, noblest of all, the lyric of prophecy and praise which heads this paragraph.
Hail to the Lord's anointed,
King David's greater Son!
Hail, in the time appointed
His reign on earth begun.
* * * * * *
Arabia's desert ranger
To Him shall bow the knee,
The Ethiopian stranger
His glory come to see.
* * * * * *
Kings shall fall down before Him
And gold and incense bring;
All nations shall adore Him,
His praise all people sing.
The hymn is really the seventy-second Psalm in metre, and as a version it suffers nothing by 215 / 177 comparison with that of Watts. Montgomery wrote it as a Christmas ode. It was sung Dec. 25, 1821, at a Moravian Convocation, but in 1822 he recited it at a great missionary meeting in Liverpool, and Dr. Adam Clarke was so charmed with it that he inserted it in his famous Commentary. In no long time afterwards it found its way into general use.
The spirit of his missionary parents was Montgomery's Christian legacy, and in exalted poetical moments it stirred him as the divine afflatus kindled the old prophets.