The Story of Our Hymns Part 46

a.s.sociated with "My country, 'tis of thee" will be the stirring missionary hymn, "The morning light is breaking," the two being regarded as the foremost of Dr. Smith's poetical works. Both were written in the winter of 1832, when he was only twenty-four years old. He was a student at Andover Theological Seminary at the time.

Altogether Dr. Smith contributed nearly 150 hymns to American hymnody, many of them on missionary themes. They were written in an era that witnessed a remarkable revival of interest in foreign missions. The famous "Haystack Meeting" at Williams College, which marked the beginning of the modern missionary movement in America, was held in 1806, just two years before Smith was born. Smith himself, while a theological student at Andover, caught the spirit of the times and felt constrained to become a missionary.

At this time reports came from Adoniram Judson in Burmah that, after years of painful disappointment and failure, the light was breaking, and mult.i.tudes were turning to Christ. Smith was fired with hopeful enthusiasm, and it was in this spirit of glad exultation that he sat down to write his immortal missionary hymn:

The morning light is breaking, The darkness disappears; The sons of earth are waking To penitential tears.

Many other missionary hymns came from the gifted writer in succeeding years, and immediately after his graduation from Andover he became editor of a missionary magazine, through which he wielded a great influence.

When the "Lone Star" mission in India was in danger of being abandoned because of lack of funds, Smith did much to save it by writing a poem with the t.i.tle, "Lone Star." Another missionary hymn by him begins with the line, "Onward speed thy conquering flight." However, it does not attain to the poetic heights of "The morning light is breaking," which has been compared to Heber's "From Greenland's icy mountains" in spiritual fervor and literary merit.

Another interesting hymn written by Smith during his student days is called "The Missionary's Farewell." The first stanza reads:

Yes, my native land, I love thee; All thy scenes, I love them well; Friends, connections, happy country, Can I bid you all farewell?

Can I leave you, Far in heathen lands to dwell?

Although Dr. Smith never carried out his earlier resolve to become a missionary, he visited many foreign fields and had the satisfaction of hearing his own hymns sung in many tongues. Referring to "The morning light is breaking," he once wrote:

"It has been a great favorite at missionary gatherings, and I have myself heard it sung in five or six different languages in Europe and Asia. It is a favorite with the Burmans, Karens and Telugus in Asia, from whose lips I have heard it repeatedly."

A son of the distinguished hymn-writer became a missionary to the Burmans.

Dr. Smith filled many important pulpits in New England during his long and ill.u.s.trious career. At one time he was a professor in modern languages. He was an unusual linguist, being familiar with fifteen tongues. In 1894, a year before his death, he was still vigorous in mind and body, writing and preaching, although he was eighty-six years old. It was in this year that he was found looking around for a textbook that would enable him to begin the study of Russian. It was in this year, too, that he wrote one of his finest hymns, for a church dedication.

Founded on Thee, our only Lord, On Thee, the everlasting Rock, Thy Church shall stand as stands Thy Word, Nor fear the storm, nor dread the shock.

For Thee our waiting spirits yearn, For Thee this house of praise we rear; To Thee with longing hearts we turn; Come, fix Thy glorious presence here.

Come, with Thy Spirit and Thy power, The Conqueror, once the Crucified; Our G.o.d, our Strength, our King, our Tower, Here plant Thy throne, and here abide.

Accept the work our hands have wrought; Accept, O G.o.d, this earthly shrine; Be Thou our Rock, our Life, our Thought, And we, as living temples, Thine.

The celebrated hymnist happily has left a personal account of how he wrote "America." Lowell Mason, the composer, had given him a collection of German books containing songs for children with the request that Smith should examine them and translate anything of merit.

"One dismal day in February, 1832," he wrote long afterward, "about half an hour before sunset, I was turning over the leaves of one of the music books when my eye rested on the tune which is now known as 'America.' I liked the spirited movement of it, not knowing it at that time to be 'G.o.d save the King.' I glanced at the German words and saw that they were patriotic, and instantly felt the impulse to write a patriotic hymn of my own, adapted to the tune. Picking up a sc.r.a.p of waste paper which lay near me, I wrote at once, probably within half an hour, the hymn 'America' as it is now known everywhere. The whole hymn stands today as it stood on the bit of waste paper, five or six inches long and two and a half wide."

Dr. Smith was a member of the celebrated Harvard cla.s.s of 1829, to which Oliver Wendell Holmes also belonged. The latter wrote a poem for one of the cla.s.s reunions, in which he referred to the distinguished hymn-writer in the following lines:

And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith-- Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith; But he shouted a song for the brave and the free-- Just read on his medal, 'My country,' 'of thee.'

On November 19, 1895, the venerable pastor and poet was called suddenly to his eternal home. He died as he was taking a train from Boston to preach in a neighboring town.

A Pearl among Christmas Carols

It came upon the midnight clear, That glorious song of old, From angels bending near the earth To touch their harps of gold; "Peace on the earth, good will to men, From heaven's all-gracious King:"

The world in solemn stillness lay To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come With peaceful wings unfurled, And still their heavenly music floats O'er all the weary world; Above its sad and lowly plains They bend on hovering wing, And ever o'er its Babel sounds The blessed angels sing.

And ye, beneath life's crushing load, Whose forms are bending low, Who toil along the climbing way With painful steps and slow-- Look now! for glad and golden hours Come swiftly on the wing: O rest beside the weary road, And hear the angels sing!

For lo! the days are hastening on By prophet-bards foretold, When with the ever-circling years Comes round the age of gold; When peace shall over all the earth Its ancient splendors fling, And the whole world send back the song Which now the angels sing.

Edmund Hamilton Sears, 1834.

TWO FAMOUS CHRISTMAS HYMNS AND THEIR AUTHOR

To be the writer of one great hymn cla.s.sic on the nativity is an enviable distinction, but to be the author of two immortal Christmas lyrics is fame that has probably come to only one man, and he an American. His name was Edmund Hamilton Sears, and so long as Christians celebrate Christmas, they will sing the two hymns he wrote--"It came upon a midnight clear"

and "Calm on the listening ear of night."

Strangely enough, an interval of sixteen years separated the writing of the two hymns. Sears had just graduated from Union College at the age of twenty-four when he wrote "Calm on the listening ear of night." It appeared in the "Boston Observer," and was immediately recognized as a poem of unusual merit. Oliver Wendell Holmes spoke of it as "one of the finest and most beautiful hymns ever written."

Sixteen years elapsed, and then at Christmas time in 1850 the Christian world was delighted to find in the "Christian Register" another lyric, "It came upon the midnight clear," which many believe is superior to the earlier hymn. The language of this hymn is so surpa.s.singly lovely and its movement so rhythmical, it fairly sings itself.

There is, in fact, a close resemblance between the two hymns, and yet they are different. While the earlier hymn is largely descriptive, the later one is characterized by a note of joyous optimism and triumphant faith. In Sears' "Sermons and Songs" he published the one at the beginning, and the other at the close, of a sermon for Christmas Eve on 1 Tim. 2:6.

Each of the two hymns had five stanzas in its original form. The fourth stanza of the older hymn is usually omitted. It reads:

Light on thy hills, Jerusalem!

The Saviour now is born; More bright on Bethlehem's joyous plains Breaks the first Christmas morn; And brighter on Moriah's brow, Crowned with her temple-spires, Which first proclaim the new-born light, Clothed with its orient fires.

The stanza omitted from the second Christmas hymn sounds the only minor note heard in that otherwise hopeful and joyous lyric:

Yet with the woes of sin and strife The world hath suffered long; Beneath the angel-strain have rolled Two thousand years of wrong; And man, at war with man, hears not The love song which they bring: O hush the noise, ye men of strife, And hear the angels sing!

Sears was a native of New England, having been born in Berkshire County, Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1810. He completed his theological course at Harvard Divinity School in 1837, whereupon he entered the Unitarian Church, serving as a pastor for nearly forty years.

Surprise has often been expressed that a Unitarian could write such marvelous hymns on the nativity; but Sears was a Unitarian in name rather than in fact. He leaned strongly toward Swedenborgian teachings, and believed implicitly in the deity of Christ.

In addition to his hymns, he wrote a few works in prose. His books on "Regeneration," "Foregleams of Immortality," and "The Fourth Gospel the Heart of Christ" were widely read in his day. These have now been almost entirely forgotten, but his two great hymns go singing through the years.

They are found in practically all standard hymn-books, although the final stanza of "It came upon the midnight clear" is often altered. Sears died in 1876.

Mrs. Stowe's Hymn Masterpiece

Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh, When the bird waketh, and the shadows flee; Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight, Dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with Thee!

Alone with Thee, amid the mystic shadows, The solemn hush of nature newly born; Alone with Thee, in breathless adoration, In the calm dew and freshness of the morn.