In this same volume of Spiritual Songs first appeared Rev. Samuel F. Smith’s two great hymns, “The morning light is breaking” and “My country, ’tis of thee.” He was still a theological student, twenty-four years of age, when these were written. The theme of the latter was suggested in a general way by Lowell Mason, who needed a patriotic song for his children’s singing schools, and who supplied him with some music he had recently received from Germany. During a leisure moment his eye fell on “Heil dir im Sieger-Kranz,” the German “God Save the King,” written to the English tune, “God Save the King.” This latter fact he did not know, but liked the tune and was moved to write unknowingly our National Hymn. Sung by Lowell Mason’s children’s chorus, it was rapidly introduced and was presently viva voce accepted as the long-desired National Anthem. Practically an improvisation, not intended for wide use, it is open to criticism; but it is greatly superior to its only competitor for national honors, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” because of its practicability in singing, its dignity, and its noble expression of the American spirit. That it refers to hills and not to prairies, and speaks of “pilgrim’s pride” (without the capital) is open only to captious criticism.
His “The morning light is breaking” was due to the missionary spirit that was prevalent in the theological seminaries during that period. It is the peer of Heber’s “From Greenland’s icy mountains” as a missionary hymn; many recent critics greatly prefer it.
Another great hymn that made its premier appearance in Spiritual Songs was “My faith looks up to Thee,” by Dr. Ray Palmer (1808-1887), set to one of Lowell Mason’s best tunes, “Olivet.” Meeting Dr. Palmer on the street, Mason asked him whether he had not an appropriate hymn for his forthcoming book; young Palmer remembered he had some verses in his pocketbook and handed them to Mason. Meeting Palmer a few days afterwards on the street, Mason with great earnestness exclaimed: “Mr. Palmer, you may live many years and do many good things, but I think you will be best known to posterity as the author of ‘My faith looks up to Thee!’” The prophecy, so literally fulfilled, speaks well for Mason’s critical acumen. Ray Palmer, despite Bishop Wordsworth’s objection to the pronouns of the first person, wrote “My faith,” “I pray,” “my guilt,” for his hymn was not intended to be sung, but simply to express his own spiritual experience. It was a personal prayer none the less that it took a metrical form. It is one of the great factors in its world-wide appeal that it becomes the personal expression of every individual who sings it.
But Dr. Palmer was not the author of only a single song: he wrote many others of almost equal value. Writing a sermon on the words of Peter, “Jesus Christ, whom having not seen ye love,” he was suddenly overwhelmed by his rapture of love for the Christ, and, the sermon forgotten, he wrote down the hymn the church will never allow to die:
“Jesus, these eyes have never seen
That radiant form of thine;
The veil of sense hangs dark between
Thy blessed face and mine.
I see thee not, I hear thee not,
Yet art thou oft with me;