Can none but broken music make.
Thy ways to us seem often dark,
Thou crossest human wit and will:
We murmur; but Thou dost Thy work;
That’s wise and good, which we thought ill.
If Austin is the Faber of the seventeenth century, John Mason (d. 1694), whom Baxter called ‘the glory of the Church of England,’ is its Newton. There is in Mason the same childlike simplicity which is the charm of the Olney hymns, with an added quaintness which belongs to the earlier century. He is one of the minor poets of the sanctuary, but in his own time he was amongst the best of the evangelical hymn-writers. Mason was born a Dissenter, but entered the Anglican Church. His friend, Thomas Shepherd (1665-1739), who also wrote some noteworthy hymns, seceded from the Establishment, and was for a few years pastor of the church at Nottingham, where Doddridge subsequently ministered. Of the hymns of these good men, George Macdonald and Mr. Horder express a high opinion, comparing them favourably with those of Dr. Watts. Mr. Horder justly says that Mason would have reached a higher standard had his lot been cast in a ‘hymn-singing age.’
Some of Mason’s verses are too racy for congregational use, e.g. this from ‘A Song of Praise for Health’—
Their earnest cries do pierce the skies,
And shall I silent be?
Lord, were I sick as I am well,