Dr. Smith wrote twenty-six hymns now more or 220 / 182 less in use in church worship, and eight for Sabbath school collections.
THE TUNE.
“Millennial Dawn” is the title given it by a Boston compiler, about 1844, but since the music and hymn became “one and indivisable” it has been named “Webb,” and popularly known as “Morning Light” or oftener still by its first hymn-line, “The morning light is breaking.”
George James Webb was born near Salisbury, Wiltshire, Eng., June 24, 1803. He studied music in Salisbury and for several years played the organ at Falmouth Church. When still a young man (1830), he came to the United States, and settled in Boston where he was long the leading organist and music teacher of the city. He was associate director of the Boston Academy of Music with Lowell Mason, and joint author and editor with him of several church-music collections. Died in Orange, N.J., Nov. 7, 1887.
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Dr. Webb's own account of the tune “Millennial Dawn” states that he wrote it at sea while on his way to America—and to secular words and that he had no idea who first adapted it to the hymn, nor when.
“IF I WERE A VOICE, A PERSUASIVE VOICE.”
This animating lyric was written by Charles Mackay. Sung by a good vocalist, the fine solo air composed (with its organ chords) by I.B. Woodbury, is still a feature in some missionary meetings, especially the fourth stanza—
If I were a voice, an immortal voice,
I would fly the earth around: