REV. PETER GRANT.
Next to Dugald Buchanan, the author whose hymns are best and most widely known, is the late Peter Grant, a Baptist minister in Strathspey, who published the first edition of his hymns as early as 1813. As he tells us in one of his poems, he was deeply impressed with the extent of practical heathenism among the Highlanders. He complains, as Bishop Carsuel in the sixteenth century did before him, that the Highlanders loved the tales of Fingal and Ossian more than the Gospel, and that they spent all their spare time in the recital of these vain heathen stories. Carsuel gave his own generation a liturgy, and Grant to his a series of Gospel hymns; and it need scarcely be asked which of them was the more successful. The hymns became immediately widely popular, and edition after edition was called forth, and they have maintained their popularity to the present day. Grant is not a powerful poet, but he is a very sweet singer. His hymns and poems have a holy fragrance about them that is quite captivating. The simplicity of the conception and the naturalness of the style at once affect and enchain the heart. Grant succeeds where a hymnist of more ambition and power would fail. The warmth of his earnest nature is felt in every stanza he has written. He died full of years and honours, beloved by all who knew him. A sweet poem of his begins with the experience of a child emerging in heaven:—
’S leanabh solasach mi
Gle og chaidh á tim;
Chaidh mo threorach o’n chich do’n uaigh;
’S ged bu ghoirid mo thim
Gabhail fradbarc do’n tir,
’S mor th’agam ri innse do’n t-sluagh.
English:
A child joyful, beloved,
Early from time removed,
From the breast to the grave they bore me;
Though brief was that state
I have much to relate
To the many I see before me.