—and Charles Wesley's—
the one a voice at the next year's threshold, the other a song at the open door.
A grave occasion, whether unexpected or periodical, will force reflection, and so will a grave 556 / 494 truth; and when both present themselves at once, the truth needs only commonplace statement. If the statement is in rhyme and measure more attention is secured. Add a tune to it, and the most frivolous will take notice. Newton's hymn sung on the last evening of the year has its opportunity—and never fails to produce a solemn effect; but it is to the immortal music given to it in Samuel Webbe's “Benevento” that it owes its unique and permanent place. Dykes' “St. Edmund” may be sung in England, but in America it will never replace Webbe's simple and wonderfully impressive choral.
Charles Wesley's hymn is the antipode of Newton's in metre and movement.
One could scarcely imagine a greater contrast than between this hymn and Newton's. In spite of its eccentric metre one cannot dismiss it as rhythmical jingle, for it is really a sermon shaped into a popular canticle, and the surmise is not a 559 / 495 difficult one that he had in mind a secular air that was familiar to the crowd. But the hymn is not one of Wesley's poems. Compilers who object to its lilting measure omit it from their books, but it holds its place in public use, for it carries weighty thoughts in swift sentences.
For a hundred and fifty years this has been sung in the Methodist watch-meetings, and it will be long before it ceases to be sung—and reprinted in Methodist, and some Baptist hymnals.
The tune of “Lucas,” named after James Lucas, its composer, is the favorite vehicle of song for the “Watch-hymn.” Like the tune to “O How Happy Are They,” it has the movement of the words and the emphasis of their meaning.
No knowledge of James Lucas is at hand except that he lived in England, where one brief reference gives his birth-date as 1762 and “about 1805” as the birth-date of the tune.
“GREAT GOD, WE SING THAT MIGHTY HAND.”
The admirable hymn of Dr. Doddridge may be noted in this division with its equally admirable 560 / 496 tune of “Melancthon,” one of the old Lutheran chorals of Germany.
As this last couplet stood—and ought now to stand—pious parents teaching the hymn to their children heard them repeat—
Many are now living whose first impressive sense of the Divine Omnipresence came with that line.
PARTING.
“GOD BE WITH YOU TILL WE MEET AGAIN.”
A lyric of benediction, born, apparently, at the divine moment for the need of the great “Society of Christian Endeavor,” and now adopted into the Christian song-service of all lands. The author, Rev. Jeremiah Eames Rankin, D.D., LL.D., was born in Thornton, N.H., Jan. 2, 1828. He was graduated at Middlebury College, Vt., in 1848, and labored as a Congregational pastor more 561 / 497 than thirty years. For thirteen years he was President of Howard University, Washington, D.C. Besides the “Parting Hymn” he wrote The Auld Scotch Mither, Ingleside Rhymes, Hymns pro Patria, and various practical works and religious essays. Died 1904.
THE TUNE.
As in a thousand other partnerships of hymnist and musician, Dr. Rankin was fortunate in his composer. The tune is a symphony of hearts—subdued at first, but breaking into a chorus strong with the uplift of hope. It is a farewell with a spiritual thrill in it.
Its author, William Gould Tomer, was born in Finesville, Warren Co., N.J., October 5, 1832; died in Phillipsburg, N.J., Sept. 26, 1896. He was a soldier in the Civil War and a writer of good ability as well as a composer. For some time he was editor of the High Bridge Gazette, and music with him was an avocation rather than a profession. He wrote the melody to Dr. Rankin's hymn in 1880, Prof. J.W. Bischoff supplying the harmony, and the tune was first published in Gospel Bells the same year.
FUNERALS.
The style of singing at funerals, as well as the character of the hymns, has greatly changed—if, 562 / 498 indeed, music continues to be a part of the service, as frequently, in ordinary cases, it is not. “China” with its comforting words—and terrifying chords—is forever obsolete, and not only that, but Dr. Muhlenberg's, “I Would Not Live Alway,” with its sadly sentimental tune of “Frederick,” has passed out of common use. Anna Steele's “So Fades the Lovely, Blooming Flower,” on the death of a child, is occasionally heard, and now and then Dr. S.F. Smith's, “Sister, Thou Wast Mild and Lovely,” (with its gentle air of “Mt. Vernon,”) on the death of a young lady. Standard hymns like Watts', “Unveil Thy Bosom, Faithful Tomb,” to the slow, tender melody of the “Dead March,” (from Handel's oratorio of “Saul”) and Montgomery's “Servant of God, Well Done,” to “Olmutz,” or Woodbury's “Forever with the Lord,” still retain their prestige, the music of the former being played on steeple-chimes on some burial occasions in cities, during the procession—
The latter hymn (Montgomery's) is biographical—as described on page 301—
Only five stanzas of this long poem are now in use.
The exquisite elegy of Montgomery, entitled “The Grave,”—
—is by no means discontinued on funeral occasions, nor Margaret Mackay's beloved hymn,—
—melodized in Bradbury's “Rest.”
Mrs. Margaret Mackay was born in 1801, the daughter of Capt. Robert Mackay of Hedgefield, Inverness, and wife of a major of the same name. She was the author of several prose works and Lays of Leisure Hours, containing seventy-two original hymns and poems, of which “Asleep in Jesus” is one. She died in 1887.
“MY JESUS, AS THOU WILT.”
(Mein Jesu, wie du willst.)
This sweet hymn for mourners, known to us here in Jane Borthwick's translation, was written by Benjamin Schmolke (or Schmolk) late in the 17th century. He was born at Brauchitzchdorf, in Silesia, Dec. 21, 1672, and received his education at the Labau Gymnasium and Leipsic University. A sermon preached while a youth, for his 564 / 500 father, a Lutheran pastor, showed such remarkable promise that a wealthy man paid the expenses of his education for the ministry. He was ordained and settled as pastor of the Free Church at Schweidnitz, Silesia, in which charge he continued from 1701 till his death.
Schmolke was the most popular hymn-writer of his time, author of some nine hundred church pieces, besides many for special occasions. Withal he was a man of exalted piety and a pastor of rare wisdom and influence.
His death, of paralysis, occurred on the anniversary of his wedding, Feb. 12, 1737.
The last line is the refrain of the hymn of four eight-line stanzas.
THE TUNE.
“Sussex,” by Joseph Barnby, a plain-song with a fine harmony, is good congregational music for the hymn.
But “Jewett,” one of Carl Maria Von Weber's exquisite flights of song, is like no other in its intimate interpretation of the prayerful words. 565 / 501 We hear Luther's “bird in the heart” singing softly in every inflection of the tender melody as it glides on. The tune, arranged by Joseph Holbrook, is from an opera—the overture to Weber's Der Freischutz—but one feels that the gentle musician when he wrote it must have caught an inspiration of divine trust and peace. The wish among the last words he uttered when dying in London of slow disease was, “Let me go back to my own (home), and then God's will be done.” That wish and the sentiment of Schmolke's hymn belong to each other, for they end in the same way.
“I CANNOT ALWAYS TRACE THE WAY.”
In later years, when funeral music is desired, the employment of a male quartette has become a favorite custom. Of the selections sung in this manner few are more suitable or more generally welcomed than the tender and trustful hymn of Sir John Bowring, rendered sometimes in Dr. Dykes' “Almsgiving,” but better in the less-known but more flexible tune composed by Howard M. Dow—
566 / 502The first line of the hymn was originally, “'Tis seldom I can trace the way.”
Howard M. Dow has been many years a resident of Boston, and organist of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons at the Tremont St. (Masonic) Temple.
WEDDING.
Time was when hymns were sung at weddings, though in America the practice was never universal. Marriage, among Protestants, is not one of the sacraments, and no masses are chanted for it by ecclesiastical ordinance. The question of music at private marriages depends on convenience, 567 / 503 vocal or instrumental equipment, and the general drift of the occasion. At public weddings the organ's duty is the “Wedding March.”
To revive a fashion of singing at home marriages would be considered an oddity—and, where civil marriages are legal, a superfluity—but in the religious ceremony, just after the prayer that follows the completion of the nuptial formula, it will occur to some that a hymn would “tide over” a proverbially awkward moment. Even good, quaint old John Berridge's lines would happily relieve the embarrassment—besides reminding the more thoughtless that a wedding is not a mere piece of social fun—
Tune, “Lanesboro,” Mason.
A wedding hymn of more poetic beauty is the one written by Miss Dorothy Bloomfield (now Mrs. Gurney), born 1858, for her sister's marriage in 1883.
568 / 504Tune by Joseph Barnby, “O Perfect Love.”
FRUITION DAY.
“LO! HE COMES WITH CLOUDS DESCENDING.”
Thomas Olivers begins one of his hymns with this line. The hymn is a Judgment-day lyric of rude strength and once in current use, but now rarely printed. The “Lo He Comes,” here specially noted, is the production of John Cennick, the Moravian.
THE TUNES.
Various composers have written music to this universal hymn, but none has given it a choral that it can claim as peculiarly its own. “Brest,” Lowell Mason's plain-song, has a limited range, and runs low on the staff, but its solemn chords are musical and commanding. As much can be said of the tunes of Dr. Dykes and Samuel Webbe, which have more variety. Those who feel that the hymn calls for a more ornate melody will prefer Madan's “Helmsley.”
“LO! WHAT A GLORIOUS SIGHT APPEARS.”
The great Southampton bard who wrote “Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood” was quick to kindle at every reminder of Fruition Day.
This hymn of Watts' sings one of his most exalted visions. It has been dear for two hundred years to every Christian soul throbbing with millennial thoughts and wishful of the day when—
—and when—
—and the yearning cry of the last stanza, when the vision fades, has been the household ?† of myriads of burdened and sorrowing saints—
† Transcriber's note: This question mark is in the original. It is possibly a compositor's query which the author missed when correcting the proofs. The missing text could be ‘word’.
THE TUNES.
By right of long appropriation both “Northfield” and “New Jerusalem” own a near relationship to these glorious verses. Ingalls, one of the constellation of early Puritan psalmodists, to which Billings and Swan belonged, evidently loved the hymn, and composed his “New Jerusalem” to the verse, “From the third heaven,” and his “Northfield” to “How long, dear Saviour.” The former is now sung only as a reminiscence of the music of the past, at church festivals, charity fairs and 571 / 507 entertainments of similar design, but the action and hearty joy in it always evoke sympathetic applause. “Northfield” is still in occasional use, and it is a jewel of melody, however irretrievably out of fashion. Its union to that immortal stanza, if no other reason, seems likely to insure its permanent place in the lists of sacred song.
John Cole's “Annapolis,” still found in a few hymnals with these words, is a little too late to be called a contemporary piece, but there are some reminders of Ingalls' “New Jerusalem” in its style and vigor, and it really partakes the flavor of the old New England church music.
Jeremiah Ingalls was born in Andover, Mass., March 1, 1764. A natural fondness for music increased with his years, but opportunities to educate it were few and far between, and he seemed like to become no more than a fairly good bass-viol player in the village choir. But his determination carried him higher, and in time his self-taught talent qualified him for a singing-school master, and for many years he travelled through Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, training the raw vocal material in the country towns, and organizing choirs.
Between his thirtieth and fortieth years, he composed a number of tunes, and, in 1804 published a two hundred page collection of his own and others' music, which he called the Christian Harmony.
572 / 508His home was for some time in Newberry, Vt., but he subsequently lived at Rochester and at Hancock in the same state.
Among the traditions of him is this anecdote of the origin of his famous tune “Northfield,” which may indicate something of his temper and religious habit. During his travels as a singing-school teacher he stopped at a tavern in the town of Northfield and ordered his dinner. It was very slow in coming, but the inevitable “how long?” that formulated itself in his hungry thoughts, instead of sharpening into profane complaint, fell into the rhythm of Watts' sacred line—and the tune came with it. To call it “Northfield” was natural enough; the place where its melody first beguiled him from his bodily wants to a dream of the final Fruition Day.
Ingalls died in Hancock, Vt., April 6, 1828.
573 / 509CHAPTER XIV.
HYMNS OF HOPE AND CONSOLATION.
“JERUSALEM THE GOLDEN.”
Urbs Sion Aurea.
“The Seven Great Hymns” of the Latin Church are:
- Laus Patriae Coelestis,—(Praise of the Heavenly Country).
- Veni, Sancte Spiritus,—(Come, Holy Spirit)
- Veni, Creator Spiritus,—(Come, Creator Spirit)
- Dies Irae,—(The Day of Wrath)
- Stabat Mater,—(The Mother Stood By)
- Mater Speciosa,—(The Fair Mother.)
- Vexilla Regis.—(The Banner of the King.)
Chief of these is the first named, though that is but part of a religious poem of three thousand lines, which the author, Bernard of Cluny, named “De Contemptu Mundi” (Concerning Disdain of the World.)
Bernard was of English parentage, though born at Morlaix, a seaport town in the north of France. 574 / 510 The exact date of his birth is unknown, though it was probably about A.D. 1100. He is called Bernard of Cluny because he lived and wrote at that place, a French town on the Grone where he was abbot of a famous monastery, and also to distinguish him from Bernard of Clairvaux.
His great poem is rarely spoken of as a whole, but in three portions, as if each were a complete work. The first is the long exordium, exhausting the pessimistic title (contempt of the world), and passing on to the second, where begins the real “Laus Patriae Coelestis.” This being cut in two, making a third portion, has enriched the Christian world with two of its best hymns, “For Thee, O Dear, Dear Country,” and “Jerusalem the Golden.”
Bernard wrote the medieval or church Latin in its prime of literary refinement, and its accent is so obvious and its rhythm so musical that even one ignorant of the language could pronounce it, and catch its rhymes. The “Contemptu Mundi” begins with these two lines, in a hexameter impossible to copy in translation:
Or, as Dr. Neale paraphrases and softens it,—
—and, after the poet's long, dark diorama of the world's wicked condition, follows the “Praise of the Heavenly Fatherland,” when a tender glory dawns upon the scene till it breaks into sunrise with the vision of the Golden City. All that an opulent and devout imagination can picture of the beauty and bounty of heaven, and all that faith can construct from the glimpses in the Revelation of its glory and happiness is poured forth in the lavish poetry of the inspired monk of Cluny—
* In first editions, “conjubilant with song.”
Dr. John Mason Neale, the translator, was obliged to condense Bernard's exuberant verse, and he has done so with unsurpassable grace and melody. He made his translation while “inhibited” from his priestly functions in the Church of England for his high ritualistic views and practice, and so poor that he wrote stories for children to earn his living. His poverty added to the wealth of Christendom.
THE TUNE.
The music of “Jerusalem the Golden” used in most churches is the composition of Alexander Ewing, a paymaster in the English army. He was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, Jan. 3d, 1830, and educated there at Marischal College. The tune bears his name, and this honor, and its general favor with the public, are so much testimony to its merit. It is a stately harmony in D major with sonorous and impressive chords. Ewing died in 1895.
“WHY SHOULD WE START AND FEAR TO DIE?”
Probably it is an embarrassment of riches and despair of space that have crowded this hymn— 577 / 513 perhaps the sweetest that Watts ever wrote—out of some of our church singing-books. It is pleasant to find it in the new Methodist Hymnal, though with an indifferent tune.
Christians of today should surely sing the last two stanzas with the same exalted joy and hope that made them sacred to pious generations past and gone—
THE TUNE.
The plain-music of William Boyd's “Pentecost,” (with modulations in the tenor), creates a new accent for the familiar lines. Preferable in every sense are Bradbury's tender “Zephyr” or “Rest.”
No coming generation will ever feel the pious gladness of Amariah Hall's “All Saints New” in E flat major as it stirred the Christian choirs of seventy five years ago. Fitted to this heart-felt lyric of Watts, it opened with the words—
in full harmony and four-four time, continuing to the end of the stanza. The melody, with its slurred syllables and beautiful modulations was almost 578 / 514 blithe in its brightness, while the strong musical bass and the striking chords of the “counter,” chastened it and held the anthem to its due solemnity of tone and expression. Then the fugue took up—
—bass, treble and tenor adding voice after voice in the manner of the old “canon” song, and the full harmony again carried the words, with loving repetitions, to the final bar. The music closed with a minor concord that was strangely effective and sweet.
Amariah Hall was born in Raynham, Mass., April 28, 1785, and died there Feb. 8, 1827. He “farmed it,” manufactured straw-bonnets, kept tavern and taught singing-school. Music was only an avocation with him, but he was an artist in his way, and among his compositions are found in some ancient Tune books his “Morning Glory,” “Canaan,” “Falmouth,” “Restoration,” “Massachusetts,” “Raynham,” “Crucifixion,” “Harmony,” “Devotion,” “Zion,” and “Hosanna.”
“All Saints New” was his masterpiece.
“WHEN I CAN READ MY TITLE CLEAR.”
No sacred song has been more profanely parodied by the thoughtless, or more travestied, (if we may use so strong a word), in popular religious airs, than this golden hymn which has made Isaac Watts a benefactor to every prisoner of hope. Not 579 / 515 to mention the fancy figures and refrains of camp-meeting music, which have cheapened it, neither John Cole's “Annapolis” nor Arne's “Arlington” nor a dozen others that have borrowed these speaking lines, can wear out their association with “Auld lang Syne.” The hymn has permeated the tune, and, without forgetting its own words, the Scotch melody preforms both a social and religious mission. Some arrangements of it make it needlessly repetitious, but its pathos will always best vocalize the hymn, especially the first and last stanzas—
“VITAL SPARK OF HEAVENLY FLAME.”
This paraphrase, by Alexander Pope, of the Emperor Adrian's death-bed address to his soul—
—transfers the poetry and constructs a hymnic theme.
An old hymn writer by the name of Flatman wrote a Pindaric, somewhat similar to “Adrian's Address,” as follows:
580 / 516Pope combined these two poems with the words of Divine inspiration, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” and made a pagan philosopher's question the text for a triumphant Christian anthem of hope.
THE TUNE.
The old anthem, “The Dying Christian,” or “The Dying Christian to his Soul,” which first made this 581 / 517 lyric familiar in America as a musical piece, will never be sung again except at antique entertainments, but it had an importance in its day.
Beginning in quadruple time on four flats minor, it renders the first stanza in flowing concords largo affettuoso, and a single bass fugue, Then suddenly shifting to one flat, major, duple time, it executes the second stanza, “Hark! they whisper” ... “What is this, etc.,” in alternate pianissimo and forte phrases; and finally, changing to triple time, sings the third triumphant stanza, andante, through staccato and fortissimo. The shout in the last adagio, on the four final bars, “O Death! O Death!” softening with “where is thy sting?” is quite in the style of old orchestral magnificence.
Since “The Dying Christian” ceased to appear in church music, the poem, for some reason, seems not to have been recognized as a hymn. It is, however, a Christian poem, and a true lyric of hope and consolation, whatever the character of the author or however pagan the original that suggested it.
The most that is now known of Edward Harwood, the composer of the anthem, is that he was an English musician and psalmodist, born near Blackburn, Lancaster Co., 1707, and died about 1787.
“YOUR HARPS, YE TREMBLING SAINTS.”
This hymn of Toplady,—unlike “A Debtor to Mercy Alone,” and “Inspirer and Hearer of Prayer,” both now little used,—stirs no controversial 582 / 518 feeling by a single line of his aggressive Calvinism. It is simply a song of Christian gratitude and joy.
THE TUNE.
“Olmutz” was arranged by Lowell Mason from a Gregorian chant. He set it himself to Toplady's hymn, and it seems the natural music for it. The words are also sometimes written and sung to Jonathan Woodman's “State St.”
Jonathan Call Woodman was born in Newburyport, Mass., July 12, 1813. He was the organist of St. George's Chapel, Flushing L.I. and a teacher, composer and compiler. His Musical Casket was not issued until Dec. 1858, but he wrote the tune of “State St.” in August, 1844. It was a contribution to Bradbury's Psalmodist, which was published the same year.
583 / 519“YE GOLDEN LAMPS OF HEAVEN, FAREWELL.”
Dr. Doddridge's “farewell” is not a note of regret. Unlike Bernard, he appreciates this world while he anticipates the better one, but his contemplation climbs from God's footstool to His throne. His thought is in the last two lines of the second stanza, where he takes leave of the sun—
But his fancy will find a function for the “golden lamps” even in the glory that swallows up their light—
THE TUNE.
The hymn has been assigned to “Mt. Auburn,” a composition of George Kingsley, but a far better interpretation—if not best of all—is H.K. Oliver's tune of “Merton,” (1847,) older, but written purposely for the words.
“TRIUMPHANT ZION, LIFT THY HEAD.”
This fine and stimulating lyric is Doddridge in another tone. Instead of singing hope to the 584 / 520 individual, he sounds a note of encouragement to the church.
The tune, “Anvern,” is one of Mason's charming melodies, full of vigor and cheerful life, and everything can be said of it that is said of the hymn. Duffield compares the hymn and tune to a ring and its jewel.
It is one of the inevitable freaks of taste that puts so choice a strain of psalmody out of fashion. Many younger pieces in the church manuals could be better spared.
“SHRINKING FROM THE COLD HAND OF DEATH.”
This is a hymn of contrast, the dark of recoiling nature making the background of the rainbow. Written by Charles Wesley, it has passed among his forgotten or mostly forgotten productions but is notable for the frequent use of its 3rd stanza by his brother John. John Wesley, in his old age, did not so much shrink from death as from the thought of its too slow approach. His almost constant prayer was, “Lord, let me not live to be useless.” 585 / 521 “At every place,” says Belcher, “after giving to his societies what he desired them to consider his last advice, he invariably concluded with the stanza beginning—