The spirit of his missionary parents was Montgomery's Christian legacy, and in exalted poetical moments it stirred him as the divine afflatus kindled the old prophets.

THE TUNE.

The music editors in some hymnals have borrowed the favorite choral variously named “Webb” in honor of its author, and “The Morning Light is Breaking” from the first line of its hymn. Later hymnals have chosen Sebastian Wesley's “Aurelia” to fit the hymn, with a movement similar to that of “Webb”; also a German B flat melody “Ellacombe,” undated, with livelier step and a ringing chime of parts. No one of these is inappropriate.

Samuel Sebastian Wesley, grandson of Charles Wesley the great hymnist, was born in London, 1810. Like his father, Samuel, he became a distinguished musician, and was organist at Exeter, Winchester and Gloucester Cathedrals. Oxford gave him the degree of Doctor of Music. 216 / 178 He composed instrumental melodies besides many anthems, services, and other sacred pieces for choir and congregational singing. Died in Gloucester, April 19, 1876.

The Right Rev. Reginald Heber, D.D.

“FROM GREENLAND'S ICY MOUNTAINS.”

The familiar story of this hymn scarcely needs repeating; how one Saturday afternoon in the year 1819, young Reginald Heber, Rector of Hodnet, sitting with his father-in-law, Dean Shipley, and a few friends in the Wrexham Vicarage, was suddenly asked by the Dean to “write something to sing at the missionary meeting tomorrow,” and retired to another part of the room while the rest went on talking; how, very soon after, he returned with three stanzas, which were hailed with delighted approval; how he then insisted upon adding another octrain to the hymn and came back with—

Waft, waft, ye winds, His story,

And you, ye waters, roll;

—and how the great lyric was sung in Wrexham Church on Sunday morning for the first time in its life. The story is old but always fresh. Nothing could better have emphasized the good Dean's sermon that day in aid of “The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,” than that unexpected and glorious lyric of his poet son-in-law.