* Holbrook has also an arrangement of Franz Abt's, “When the Swallows Homeward Fly” written to “Jesus, Lover of my Soul,” but with Wesley's words it is far less effective than his original work. “Refuge” is not a manufacture but an inspiration.
For general congregational use, Mason's “Whitman” has wedded itself to the hymn perhaps closer than any other. It has revival associations reaching back more than sixty years.
“WHEN MARSHALLED ON THE NIGHTLY PLAIN.”
Perhaps no line in all familiar hymnology more readily suggests the name of its author than this. In the galaxy of poets Henry Kirke White was a brief luminary whose brilliancy and whose early end have appealed to the hearts of three generations. He was born at Nottingham, Eng., in the year 1795. His father was a butcher, but the son, disliking the trade, was apprenticed to a weaver at the age of fourteen. Two years later he entered an attorney's office as copyist and student.
The boy imbibed sceptical notions from some source, and might have continued to scoff at religion to the last but for the experience of his intimate friend, a youth named Almond, whose life was changed by witnessing one day the happy death of a Christian believer. Decided to be a 417 / 365 Christian himself, it was some time before he mustered courage to face White's ridicule and resentment. He simply drew away from him. When White demanded the reason he was obliged to tell him that they two must henceforth walk different paths.
“Good God!” exclaimed White, “you surely think worse of me than I deserve!”
The separation was a severe shock to Henry, and the real grief of it sobered his anger to reflection and remorse. The light of a better life came to him when his heart melted—and from that time he and Almond were fellows in faith as well as friendship.
In his hymn the young poet tells the stormy experience of his soul, and the vision that guided him to peace.
When, marshalled on the nightly plain,
The glittering host bestud the sky,