These songs, like the greater number of the Gospel Hymns, do not possess high literary merit. The most that can be said for them is that they are imaginative and picturesque. They are usually strong in emotional appeal. The same is true of the tunes composed for them. They are usually very light in character, with a lilt and movement that make them easily singable, but lacking in the rich harmony found in the standard hymns and chorales. No doubt there will always be a certain demand for this type of religious song, and a few of the Gospel Hymns will probably live on, but the present trend in all of the principal Christian denominations is toward a higher standard of hymnody.
A terrible tragedy brought the life of the Gospel singer to a close in his thirty-eighth year. He had visited the old childhood home at Rome, Pa., at Christmas time in 1876, and was returning to Chicago in company with his wife when a railroad bridge near Ashtabula, Ohio, collapsed on the evening of December 29. Their train plunged into a ravine, sixty feet below, where it caught fire, and one hundred passengers perished miserably.
Bliss managed to escape from the wreckage, but crawled back into a window in search for his wife. That was the last seen of him.
The song-writer’s first name was originally “Philipp.” He disliked the unusual spelling, however, and in later years he used the extra “P” as a middle initial.
Chautauqua Vesper Hymn
Day is dying in the west;
Heaven is touching earth with rest:
Wait and worship while the night
Sets her evening lamps alight
Through all the sky.