was quite a favorite for many years, but was finally submerged in the larger tide of sacred song that sprang up through the years.
The scholarly and eloquent Nathan Strong in his Hartford Selection used several hymns of his own. His patriotic hymn, “Swell the anthem, raise the song,” has had a long life of wide usefulness.
While Watts still reigned supreme during the next quarter of a century, the impulse and the ability to write acceptable hymns was rapidly developing. Eccentric Elder John Leland (1754-1851) among a lot of almost amusing trash wrote an evening hymn that had very wide acceptance. Dr. Duffield characterizes it as a “classic in its unpretending beauty,” and Dr. Charles S. Robinson esteemed it so highly as to exclaim, “May it live forever and ever!” Unfortunately the supply of fine evening hymns is so great that in the competition Leland’s hymn has fallen by the way. The last verse will enable the reader to savor its quality:
“And when our days are past,
And we from time remove,
Oh, may we in Thy bosom rest,
The bosom of Thy love.”
How many ministers who sing “Coronation” so heartily are aware that the composer, Oliver Holden (1765-1844), was a hymn writer as well as a musician? Yet one of his hymns had a wide use in both America and England:
“They who seek the throne of grace
Find that throne in every place;