Comforted by His Own Hymn
An informed contributor to The Churchman writes as follows of this hymn’s vogue: “It has been sung at the obsequies of princes and statesmen as well as at the funerals of the poor. It has afforded consolation to the mourner in the palace as well as to the grief-stricken peasant in the cottage. It was a favorite hymn with the good old Queen of England, and it was sung in her death chamber at Osborne. It has sustained the lonely soul of Bishop Hannington when he was a caged prisoner in Central Africa awaiting execution from the hand of a heathen king. They were the sweet stanzas that bound up the broken heart of General Roberts when his only son was placed in a soldier’s grave in South Africa. It has been sung at the interment of authors, actors and statesmen in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s. When in the cemetery of the village of Chislebon, Wiltshire, England, the early harvest was being gathered and shepherds were folding their flocks, the venerable prelate stood at the head of his eldest son’s open grave as this hymn, so often quoted in the hour of death and sung on the day of burial, struck a note of Christian hope to the bereaved spirit of its author. On this side of the Atlantic the hymn is sung at almost every funeral service conducted in church, and Mr. Coldbeck’s appropriate tune, ‘Pax Tecum,’ is singularly adapted to its soothing and inspiring strains.”
“A good hymn is the most difficult thing to write,” said Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It was not until his eighty-first year that he succeeded in writing his single great hymn, “Crossing the Bar,” although stanzas from his In Memoriam are sung as hymns. It was, therefore, most fitting that its first public use was as an anthem at the poet’s funeral in Westminster Abbey on October 12, 1892. The description of the scene, written by the daughter of the Dean of Westminster, is here quoted in part of the singing of
Tennyson’s Hymn at His Funeral
“In the intense and solemn silence which followed the reading of the lesson were heard the voices of the choir singing in subdued and tender tones Tennyson’s ‘Crossing the Bar’—those beautiful words in which the poet, as it were, prophetically foretold his calm and peaceful deathbed. In the second line the clear, thrilling notes of a boy’s voice sounded like a silver trumpet call amongst the arches, and it was only at intervals that one distinguished Dr. Bridge’s beautiful organ accompaniment, which swelled gradually from a subdued murmur as of the morning tide into a triumphant burst from the voices, so blended together were words and music.”
One of the best hymns of fervent devotion is
“Take my life, and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.”
Illness and suffering had been the lot of its author. She worked under difficulties and might well have said with the Apostle Paul, “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” Her characteristic confidence was, however, expressed in the