Welcome the tribute of gladness we bring,
Loud-pealing organ and chorus of song.
While our high praises, Redeemer and King,
Blend with the notes of the angelic throng,
God of salvation, thy glory we sing.
—Theron Brown.
It is pathetic to know that the composer's one great success brought him only a barren renown. The prize committee, on the ground that none of the competing pieces reached the high standard of excellence contemplated, withheld the $500, and Keller's work received merely the compliment of being judged worth presentation. The artist had his copyright, but he remained a poor man.
Matthias Keller was born at Ulm, Wurtemberg, March 20, 1813. In his youth he was both a 399 / 347 musician and a painter. Coming to this country, he chose the calling that promised the better and quicker wages, playing in bands and theatre orchestras, but never accumulating money. He could make fine harmonies as well as play them, but English was not his mother-tongue, and though he wrote a hundred and fifty songs, only one made him well-known. When fame came to him it did not bring him wealth, and in his latter days, crippled by partial paralysis, he went back to his early art and earned a living by painting flowers and retouching portraits and landscapes. He died in 1875, only three years after his Coliseum triumph.
“GOD BLESS OUR NATIVE LAND.”
This familiar patriotic hymn is notable—though not entirely singular—for having two authors. The older singing-books signed the name of J.S. Dwight to it, until inquiring correspondence brought out the testimony and the joint claim of Dwight and C.T. Brooks, and it appeared that both these scholars and writers translated it from the German. Later hymnals attach both their names to the hymn.*