One day early in November Chaplain Donald M. Cobb, of the United States Army, appeared at the parsonage in the little railroad center at Richland, New York. What an unspeakably happy moment for him, his wife, and the three growing children! Thanksgiving and Christmas would both be spent at home. Now a manly voice could blend with the voices of his wife and the growing girls, as that night the family circle gathered around the piano and sang:
“Come! Blessed Peace, as when, in hush of eve,
God’s benediction falls on souls who grieve;
As shines a star when weary day departs,
Come! Peace of God, and rule within our hearts.”
Our Popular Processional Hymn
The annual picnic in many of our American Sunday Schools has some features in common with the annual tea treat in the program of the village Sunday Schools in England. The latter, however, has some more spectacular features, such as the procession through the village streets headed, most likely, by a band as well as the minister and the superintendent. Whit-Monday is a favored time in many sections of the country for this eagerly anticipated event.
For such a day as this a young curate in Horbury, a Yorkshire village, was asked to select a hymn to be sung for the Whit-Monday occasion. He thought of a good marching tune, but he did not like the words. So he sat up late one night, composed his own song, and it was sung the next day for the first time. That was in 1864; and it was published in The Church Times (October 15) that same year as a “Hymn for Procession with Cross and Banners”:
“Onward, Christian soldiers!
Marching as to war,