AUGUSTUS TOPLADY.
Toplady we should regard as the chief singer of the Revival, after Charles Wesley, although entirely of another order; not so social as meditative, and reminding us, in many of his pieces, of the characteristics we have attributed to Watts. His midnight hymn is a piece of uncommon sublimity; portions of it seem almost unfit for congregational singing; but for inward plaintive meditation, for reading in the evening family prayer, when the hushed stillness of night is over the household, and the pilgrim of life is about to commit himself to the unconsciousness of sleep, the verses seem tenderly suggestive:
“Thy ministering spirits descend,
And watch while Thy saints are asleep;
By day and by night they attend,
The heirs of salvation to keep.
Bright seraphs despatched from the throne,
Fly swift to their stations assigned;
And angels elect are sent down