Unburden here thy weighty load;
Here find thy refuge and thy rest,
And trust the mercy of thy God.
Thy God's thy Saviour—glorious word!
For ever love and praise the Lord.
As now sung the word “scenes” is substituted for “rocks” in the second line, eliminating the poetry. Rocks give an echo; and the vivid thought in the author's mind is flattened to an unmeaning generality.
Count Joseph Mazzinghi, son of Tommasso Mazzinghi, a Corsican musician, was born in London, 1765. He was a boy of precocious talent. When only ten years of age he was appointed organist of the Portuguese Chapel, and when nineteen years old was made musical director and composer at the King's Theatre. For many years he held the honor of Music Master to the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline, and his compositions were almost numberless. Some of his songs and glees that caught the popular fancy are still remembered in England, as “The Turnpike Gate,” “The Exile,” and the rustic duet, “When a Little Farm We Keep.”
Of sacred music he composed only one mass and six hymn-tunes, of which latter “Palestine” is one. Mazzinghi died in 1844, in his eightieth year.
“BEGONE UNBELIEF, MY SAVIOUR IS NEAR.”
The Rev. John Newton, author of this hymn, was born in London, July 24, 1725. The son of a sea-captain, he became a sailor, and for several years led a reckless life. Converted, he took holy orders and was settled as curate of Olney, Buckinghamshire, and afterwards Rector of St. Mary of 244 / 204 Woolnoth, London, where he died, Dec. 21, 1807. It was while living at Olney that he and Cowper wrote and published the Olney Hymns. His defiance to doubt in these lines is the blunt utterance of a sailor rather than the song of a poet: