Part 16

The following lines are evidently in part suggested by her own great hymn. The text is ‘Into Thine hand I commit my spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth’ (Ps. xxxi. 5)—

God of my life! Thy boundless grace Chose, pardoned, and adopted me; My rest, my home, my dwelling-place! Father! I come to Thee.

Jesus, my hope, my rock, my shield! Whose precious blood was shed for me, Into Thy hands my soul I yield; Saviour! I come to Thee.

Spirit of glory and of God! Long hast Thou deigned my Guide to be; Now be Thy comfort sweet bestowed! My God! I come to Thee.

I come to join that countless host Who praise Thy name unceasingly. Blest Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! My God! I come to Thee.

Frances Ridley Havergal (1836-79) was full of the gladness of God’s chosen, and her songs illustrate Faber’s verse—

If our love were but more simple, We should take Him at His word, And our lives would be all sunshine In the sweetness of our Lord.

After her conversion she knew nothing of Wesley’s experience of the ‘howling wilderness’; to her the night was never dark, as it was to Newman, and she was never far from home. Her hymns overflow with exultant faith.

Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, Thy sky is ever clear, Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, No winter in thy year.[183]

It would, perhaps, be unsafe to predict that any of Miss Havergal’s hymns will rank among the songs that cannot die, but they will certainly be long loved and sung. Her consecration hymns, especially ‘Lord, speak to me that I may speak,’ are solemn and impressive, and are, perhaps, her best. But her triumphant songs are often very fine, though they are not always well sustained. Her Advent hymn has the triumphant rapture of the soul that goes out to meet her Lord.

Thou art coming, O my Saviour, Thou art coming, O my King, In Thy beauty all-resplendent, In Thy glory all-transcendent; Well may we rejoice and sing; Coming! in the opening east Herald brightness slowly swells; Coming! O my glorious Priest, Hear we not Thy golden bells?

Thou art coming; at Thy table We are witnesses for this; While remembering hearts Thou meetest In communion clearest, sweetest, Earnest of our coming bliss, Showing not Thy death alone, And Thy love exceeding great, But Thy coming and Thy throne, All for which we long and wait.

Cecil Frances Alexander (1823-95) may almost be called the first writer of real children’s hymns. Dr. Watts was not happy in his _Divine and Moral Songs_, and some of Charles Wesley’s most horrible verses are to be found in his _Hymns for Children_. It is true that Watts wrote some simple lyrics which seem to have suited our prim little ancestors, and that Charles Wesley wrote ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,’ but even the manners and beliefs of the devout souls of that time cannot altogether excuse some of his hymns, which must have frightened many a poor little Methodist out of his wits.

Anne and Jane Taylor’s _Hymns for Infant Minds_ are _too_ infantile, though they served their generation well, and led on from Watts to Mrs. Alexander. The Taylors had a happy knack of conveying Scripture history and teaching in simple verse. I do not know a better definition of repentance than—

Repentance is to leave The sins I loved before, And show that I in earnest grieve By doing so no more.

But Mrs. Alexander combines with the winsome simplicity which charms and instructs a little child, the power to speak to the child in the heart of the man. Never has the gospel story been told to children and to child-like souls more attractively than in ‘Once in royal David’s city’ and ‘There is a green hill far away.’ Since our Church hymnals began to include a section for children, Mrs. Alexander has been a large contributor. Even yet, when we have a considerable number of good children’s hymns, there are none better than hers. Of course she wrote other hymns, but these are her glory, her most precious contribution to the hymn-book of the modern Church. ‘Her character,’ says Archbishop Alexander, ‘was based and moulded upon the best teaching of the original Oxford movement,’[184] but she had little sympathy with mere ritualism. Well known and loved as many of her hymns are, her collected _Poems_ include, among the less familiar pieces, much of value and interest. She made for the _Irish Church Hymnal_ a fine translation of the _Breastplate_ of St. Patrick, a hymn which belongs to the Celtic, not to the Roman Church.

I bind unto myself to-day The strong Name of the Trinity, By invocation of the same, The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind unto myself to-day The power of God to hold and lead, His eye to watch, His might to stay, His ear to hearken to my need. The wisdom of my God to teach, His hand to guide, His shield to ward, The word of God to give me speech, His heavenly host to be my guard.

Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.[185]

This hymn is extensively used in Ireland on St. Patrick’s day.

To these hymn-writers we may add the poetesses Christina G. Rossetti and Jean Ingelow. Miss Rossetti wrote very little that is really adapted for use in public worship. There is much, however, to justify the inclusion in a hymn-book of such verses as, ‘None other Lamb, none other Name,’[186] though they are more fitting for private prayer than for social worship. The same is not equally true of Miss Ingelow’s poem, ‘And didst Thou love the race that loved not Thee?’ for the verses usually selected form a true hymn. The last verse is—

Come, lest this heart should, cold and cast away, Die ere the Guest adored she entertain; Lest eyes which never saw Thine earthly day Should miss Thy heavenly reign.[187]

Of laymen I can mention only a few names here. Mr. W. Chatterton Dix has written more good hymns than those known to our hymn-books. Francis Turner Palgrave (1824-97), whose _Treasury of Sacred Song_ is our best anthology, also wrote hymns which, it seems to me, deserve a wider use than they have attained. His best-known hymn, without being of the popular type, is of the class which is appreciated by many in these days of perplexity and unrest.

Thou say’st, ‘Take up thy cross, O man, and follow Me’: The night is black, The feet are slack, Yet we would follow Thee.

But oh, dear Lord, we cry, That we Thy face could see! Thy blessèd face One moment’s space: Then might we follow Thee!

Dim tracts of time divide Those golden days from me; Thy voice comes strange O’er years of change: How can we follow Thee?

Comes faint and far Thy voice From vales of Galilee; The vision fades In ancient shades: How should we follow Thee?

Ah, sense-bound heart and blind! Is naught but what we see? Can time undo What once was true? Can we not follow Thee?

Within our heart of hearts In nearest nearness be: Give Thou the sign: Say, ‘Ye are Mine’; Lead, and we follow Thee.[188]

Other hymns by Professor Palgrave are, ‘O thou not made with hands,’ ‘Star of morn and even,’ ‘Thou that once on mother’s knee.’

I close this section of my lecture with a few verses which have, as far as I know, not yet found a place in any hymnal. They are from a Communion hymn by Mr. Gladstone. They may rightly be included in the hymns of the Anglican Revival.

‘Mr. Gladstone’s mind and heart,’ says Mr. G. W. E. Russell, ‘were already attuned to the new teaching, and prepared to receive it, even though he had not paid much attention to the controversy. It was in 1836 that he wrote his hymn on the Holy Communion.’ Mr. Russell gives the following verses—

Here, where Thine angels overhead Do warn the Tempter’s powers away, And where the bodies of the dead For life and resurrection stay; And many a generation’s prayer Hath perfumed and hath blest the air;

Oh, lead my blindness by the hand, Lead me to Thy familiar Feast, Not here or now to understand, Yet even here and now to taste, How the eternal Word of Heaven On earth in broken bread is given.

We, who this holy precinct round In one adoring circle kneel, May we in one intent be bound, And one serene devotion feel; And grow around Thy sacred shrine Like tendrils of the deathless Vine.

We, who with one blest Food are fed, Into one body may we grow, And one pure life from Thee, the Head, Informing all the members flow; One pulse be felt in every vein, One law of pleasure and of pain.

Oh, let the virtue all divine, The Gift of this true Sabbath morn, Stored in my spirit’s inner shrine, Be purely and be meekly borne; Be husbanded with thrifty care, And sweetened and refreshed with prayer.[189]

It is at once necessary and almost superfluous to say that I know how much has been left unsaid, how many names there are deserving mention, how many hymns that might be referred to, but in such a fruitful land the gleanings are richer than the vintage of former years.

V Nineteenth-century Hymns

II.—Free Church Hymns

The composing of hymns is one of the surest signs of spiritual life, and the use of hymns is a wonderful witness of Christian unity; and the Church of England has been fertile during the last half-century in the production of hymns which are used by all English Christians, whilst the confederate Churches of the same period can hardly point to any additions made by them to the hymns of the Christian world.[190]

As we have seen, the honours of hymn-writing during the period referred to are undoubtedly with the Anglicans, though Heber and Keble belong to an earlier time. But this sweeping assertion of Mr. Llewellyn Davis ought to have been impossible if he had remembered Horatius Bonar, certainly one of the greatest English hymn-writers. There are also George Rawson, T. T. Lynch, T. H. Gill, George Matheson, and, every Methodist would add, William M. Bunting.

It must be remembered also that the Free Churches were already rich in hymns when the nineteenth century dawned, whilst the Tractarians had to make, translate, or borrow from the Nonconformists, hymns for their special needs. Methodism had an ample supply of hymns for such Church festivals as it desired, and the observance of festivals and other ecclesiastical occasions was only gradually adopted in the older Nonconforming Churches. When at length they felt the need for such hymns as form the characteristic portions of Anglican hymnody they were already to hand; and after the first natural prejudice against everything that savoured of the ritualistic movement had passed away, they found hymns intended to be the exclusive property of the Anglicans admirably suited to their own newly awakened Church consciousness. There is something delightful and even amusing in the readiness with which such hymns as ‘The Church’s one Foundation’ and ‘Onward, Christian soldiers’ have been adopted by all the denominations. The Baptist and the Bible Christian sing with as simple confidence as the highest of Anglicans:

Like a mighty army Moves the Church of God; Brothers, we are treading Where the saints have trod; We are not divided, All one body we, One in hope, in doctrine, One in charity.

They may have different thoughts as to Apostolic Succession, but as long as we believe that where Christ is there is the Church such hymns belong to all.

But though Nonconformity was rich in hymns and could take without scruple many of the Anglican songs, the nineteenth century was very far from being altogether barren in regard to the Free Churches.

Two hymn-writers mark the transition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century—James Montgomery and Thomas Kelly. They lived, it is true, into the second half of the last century, but their hymns are an aftermath of the Evangelical Revival. The later Oxford Movement did not affect them, and their songs might all have belonged to the earlier period, save for the missionary enthusiasm which inspires some of their best efforts.

James Montgomery (1771-1854) was the son of a Moravian minister, who died in the West Indies whilst the poet was at school. He was born at Irvine, Ayrshire, lived for a time in Ireland, and having been educated at the Brethren’s school at Fulneck, after a few unsuccessful experiments, settled to work at Sheffield as assistant to the editor of a local newspaper. He was a man of strong convictions, and did not hide his light under a bushel. He was rewarded by two terms of imprisonment, which he turned to profitable account by writing poems. His was the usual fate of honest men persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Montgomery’s name is one of the chief glories of this city,[191] where he wrought with head and heart and hand for freedom and for righteousness. ‘The Climbing Boy’ is a memorial of his part in the great philanthropic movements of which Lord Shaftesbury was the leader. ‘The West Indies’—a poem which has lines here and there which Cowper or even William Watson might have written—celebrates the time

When Wilberforce, the minister of grace, The new Las Casas of a ruined race, With angel-might opposed the rage of hell, And fought like Michael, till the dragon fell.

‘Greenland’ commemorates his inherited love of missions, and the curious ‘Thoughts on Wheels’—a satire upon State lotteries—reminds us that Montgomery anticipated the _Daily News_ in refusing to insert advertisements of a ‘national nuisance.’ We are accustomed to think of Montgomery as a gracious Moravian poet, whose most appropriate place was the platform of a Methodist missionary meeting, but he passed through storm and tempest, through privation and struggle, to the peaceful haven of his later years. Montgomery was a Moravian all his life, a Methodist the greater part of it, and a Churchman toward the end. Once again, we may say, ‘Such he was as every Christian Church would rejoice to have adopted.’ Indeed, through its hymn-book, every Church has adopted him, and in some of the best modern collections Montgomery is more often heard than Watts.[192]

Montgomery cherished no illusion as to his poetic powers. He hoped that his _Poems_ might be read for a generation, but that his _Hymns_ would be his lasting memorial. ‘The World before the Flood’ and ‘The Wanderer in Switzerland’ are forgotten, and little likely to be revived; but such hymns as ‘Hail to the Lord’s Anointed’ and ‘For ever with the Lord’ will be sung through the centuries.

The first of these is not only Montgomery’s finest psalm-version, but an unsurpassed rendering of a triumphant Messianic psalm. It owes something to the instinctive wisdom with which the best verses have been selected, and to a few editorial touches.[193] One can well imagine the thrill with which it was heard in Pitt Street Chapel, Liverpool, when the author recited the hymn at the close of a missionary speech, and how Adam Clarke rejoiced to add this magnificent rendering of the 72nd Psalm to his _Commentary_. It is, I think, a finer and a much closer rendering of the ‘Psalm for Solomon’ than Watts’s great version. When urged by Dr. Clarke to attempt a complete version of the Psalms, Montgomery said that he feared to touch the harp of Zion. He did, however, paraphrase about fifty or sixty psalms with more than average success.

It is sometimes said that ‘Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire’ is not ‘in the true sense’ a hymn, but this is to take too narrow a view of the term. It excellently illustrates the way in which devout meditation ends in prayer. Had the last verse been omitted, it would have been a religious poem, not a hymn, but this throws upon all that precedes it the light of devotion. Each verse looks forward to the last—

O Thou by whom we come to God, The Life, the Truth, the Way! The path of prayer Thyself hast trod: Lord! teach us how to pray.

It is superfluous to refer to all Montgomery’s contributions to our hymn-books, but we must ever gratefully remember such pieces as his Communion hymn

According to Thy gracious word,

and the solemn prayer

In the hour of trial, Jesus, pray for me, Lest by base denial I depart from Thee.

It is remarkable that editors should have thought it necessary to meddle (as indeed Montgomery himself did) with the second line of this verse, thinking it ‘unscriptural,’ although the very word ‘pray’ is taken from the lips of our Lord.

Montgomery has also given us a fine Christmas carol—

Angels, from the realms of glory;

and a solemn meditation on the Passion, Death, and Resurrection, rising at the last into actual prayer—

Early hasten to the tomb Where they laid His breathless clay: All is solitude and gloom; Who hath taken Him away? Christ is risen! He seeks the skies: Saviour, teach us so to rise.

In Montgomery, as in all great hymn-writers, the word of Christ dwelt richly, and his songs are full of the thoughts and phrases of the Psalter and the New Testament. Some of his sacred poems, though unsuitable for congregational singing, are good devotional reading. I quote one such, which seems to me to deserve something better than the place he gave it in the Appendix to his _Poetical Works_.

CHRIST THE PURIFIER

(Mal. iii. 2, 3.)

He that from dross would win the precious ore Bends o’er the crucible an earnest eye, The subtle, searching process to explore, Lest the _one_ brilliant moment should pass by When in the molten silver’s virgin mass He meets his pictured face as in a glass.

Thus in God’s furnace are His children tried; Thrice happy they who to the end endure! But who the fiery trial may abide? Who from the crucible come forth so pure, That He, whose eyes of flame look through the whole, May see His image perfect in the soul?

Not with an evanescent glimpse alone, As in that mirror the refiner’s face, But, stampt with heaven’s broad signet, there be shown Immanuel’s features, full of truth and grace— And round that seal of love this motto be, ‘Not for a moment, but eternity!’

Thomas Kelly (1769-1854), who was in Ireland what Williams of Pantycelyn was in Wales, wrote nearly 800 hymns, the vast majority of which belong to the same class as the masses of the forgotten hymns of pious Dissenting pastors in the eighteenth century. They are often redeemed from absolute dullness only by his love for curious rhymes, e.g. ‘hers is’ and ‘mercies.’ He illustrates abundantly how easy it is to have rhyme and rhythm without a suggestion of poetry, as in this verse—

Spread abroad the joyful sound, Fly in all directions; Speak to all the world around, Men of all complexions.

It is amazing that a man who could at times write so well should, as a rule, write so feebly. Yet Kelly’s hymns have had a great popularity, and a few are firmly fixed in all our hymn-books. His best are—‘Look, ye saints, the sight is glorious,’ ‘Through the day Thy love hath spared us,’ ‘We sing the praise of Him who died,’ ‘The Head that once was crowned with thorns,’ and that most inspiring and comforting missionary valediction, ‘Speed Thy servants, Saviour, speed them.’

Josiah Conder (1789-1855) was a poet and an expert editor. His _Congregational Hymn-book_ (1836) marks a new era in the devotional service of Nonconformity. He was in some cases a grievous sinner in regard to alterations, and was often very unhappy in his emendations.[194] Some of his original poems are very beautiful, especially his short hymns and his versions of Prayer-book collects, e.g. ‘Bread of heaven on Thee I feed,’ and the beautiful paraphrase of the Collect for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity, with which the _Methodist Hymn-book_ closes. Conder belongs to both centuries. His hymns are often of the dull didactic type of the earlier time, but he caught something of the spirit of the later day. Of his longer hymns the following is a good specimen. It is found in many hymnals.

How shall I follow Him I serve? How shall I copy Him I love? Nor from those blessèd footsteps swerve, Which lead me to His seat above?

Privations, sorrows, bitter scorn, The life of toil, the mean abode, The faithless kiss, the crown of thorn,— Are these the consecrated road?

’Twas thus He suffered, though a Son, Foreknowing, choosing, feeling all; Until the perfect work was done, And drunk the bitter cup of gall.

Lord! should my path through suffering lie, Forbid it I should e’er repine; Still let me turn to Calvary, Nor heed my griefs, remembering Thine.

Oh, let me think how Thou didst leave Untasted every pure delight, To fast, to faint, to watch, to grieve, The toilsome day, the homeless night:—

To faint, to grieve, to die for me! Thou camest not Thyself to please: And, dear as earthly comforts be, Shall I not love Thee more than these?

Yes! I would count them all but loss, To gain the notice of Thine eye: Flesh shrinks and trembles at the cross, But Thou canst give the victory.

Thomas Toke Lynch (1818-71), an Independent minister, whose delicate health often interrupted his labours, published in 1855 a little book of poems which roused an extraordinary storm. It is difficult to understand how such an inoffensive book as _The Rivulet_ could make any great sensation, but the theological mind was more sensitive, if not more restless, than it is to-day. The ‘Rivulet Controversy,’ in which the redoubtable Dr. John Campbell was the prime mover, is long forgotten, but a few of the hymns survive. The best known is, ‘Gracious Spirit, dwell with me.’[195] Lynch is an important contributor to Congregational and Baptist hymnals, but he is practically unknown to Anglican books, and is not represented in the _Presbyterian Church Hymnary_.

Lynch was of the new and broader school of thought, and his hymns, which he is said to have designed as a supplement to Watts, are of an entirely different cast from those of the earlier day, though their teaching is familiar enough in our time. I make a brief quotation, which is more likely to be welcome to-day than it was half a century ago.

If love in any heart arise, And stir the tongue, and light the eyes, And speed the foot, and fill the hand; Then, Christian, thou must understand That, though unthought of, God is there; So of denying Him beware.

If Little-more makes haste to bless His troubled neighbour Little-less, And poor men to the poorer give, Weak ones the weaker help to live, The sad those sadder still console; Then God is working in the soul.

If the grown man forgoes his bread That little mouths may first be fed; And patient women serve the men Who care for them but now and then, And love keeps warm without a fire; O, then, the grace of God admire.

Two strangers ocean may divide Who yet shall bridegroom be and bride, And God unknown to souls may be Who love Him will eternally; But all true hearts our Father knows, And will to them His truth disclose.