The Story of the Hymns and Tunes Part 18

"Fled to Jesus alone for refuge, 1756.

"Fell asleep in Jesus Christ,--" (1793.)

_THE TUNE._

The once popular score that easily made the hymn a favorite, was "Salem," in the old _Psalmodist_. It still appears in some note-books, though the name of its composer is uncertain. Its notes (in 6-8 time) succeed each other in syllabic modulations that give a soft dactylic accent to the measure and a wavy current to the lines:

O happy saints that dwell in light, And walk with Jesus clothed in white, Safe landed on that peaceful sh.o.r.e, Where pilgrims meet to part no more:

Released from sorrow, toil and strife, Death was the gate to endless life, And now they range the heavenly plains And sing His love in melting strains.

Another version reads:

----and welcome to an endless life, Their souls have now begun to prove The height and depth of Jesus' love.

"THOU DEAR REDEEMER, DYING LAMB."

The author, John Cennick, like Joseph Hart, was led to Christ after a reckless boyhood and youth, by the work of the Divine Spirit in his soul, independent of any direct outward influence. Sickened of his cards, novels, and playhouse pleasures, he had begun a sort of mechanical reform, when one day, walking in the streets of London, he suddenly seemed to hear the text spoken "I am thy salvation!" His consecration began at that moment.

He studied for the ministry, and became a preacher, first under direction of the Wesleys, then under Whitefield, but afterwards joined the Moravians, or "Brethren." He was born at Reading, Derbyshire, Eng., Dec. 12, 1718, and died in London, July 4, 1755.

_THE TUNE._

The word "Rhine" (in some collections--in others "Emmons") names a revival tune once so linked with this hymn and so well known that few religious people now past middle life could enjoy singing it to any other. With a compa.s.s one note beyond an octave and a third, it utters every line with a clear, bold gladness sure to infect a meeting with its own spiritual fervor.

Thou dear Redeemer, dying Lamb, I love to hear of Thee; No music like Thy charming name, Nor half so sweet can be.

The composer of the bright legato melody just described was Frederick Burgmuller, a young German musician, born in 1804. He was a remarkable genius, both in composition and execution, but his health was frail, and he did not live to fulfil the rich possibilities that lay within him. He died in 1824--only twenty years old. The tune "Rhine" ("Emmons") is from one of his marches.

"WHILE THEE I SEEK, PROTECTING POWER."

Helen Maria Williams wrote this sweet hymn, probably about the year 1800. She was a brilliant woman, better known in literary society for her political verses and essays than by her hymns; but the hymn here noted bears sufficient witness to her deep religious feeling:

While Thee I seek, Protecting Power, Be my vain wishes stilled, And may this consecrated hour With better hopes be filled.

Thy love the power of thought bestowed; To Thee my thoughts would soar, Thy mercy o'er my life has flowed, That mercy I adore.

Miss Williams was born in the north of England, Nov. 30, 1762, but spent much of her life in London, and in Paris, where she died, Dec. 14, 1827.

_THE TUNE._

Wedded so many years to the gentle, flowing music of Pleyel's "Brattle Street," few lovers of the hymn recall its words without the melody of that emotional choral.

The plain psalm-tune, "Simpson," by Louis Spohr, divides the stanzas into quatrains.

"JESUS MY ALL TO HEAVEN IS GONE."

This hymn, by Cennick, was familiarized to the public more than two generations ago by its revival tune, sometimes called "Duane Street,"

long-metre double. It is staffed in various keys, but its movement is full of life and emphasis, and its melody is contagious. The piece was composed by Rev. George Coles, in 1835.

The fact that this hymn of Cennick with Coles's tune appears in the _New Methodist Hymnal_ indicates the survival of both in modern favor.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Augustus Montague Toplady]

Jesus my all to heaven is gone, He whom I fixed my hopes upon; His track I see, and I'll pursue The narrow way till Him I view.

The way the holy prophets went, The road that leads from banishment, The King's highway of holiness I'll go for all Thy paths are peace.

The memory has not pa.s.sed away of the hearty unison with which prayer-meeting and camp-meeting a.s.semblies used to "crescendo" the last stanza--

Then will I tell to sinners round What a dear Saviour I have found; I'll point to His redeeming blood, And say "Behold the way to G.o.d."

The Rev. George Coles was born in Stewkley, Eng., Jan. 2, 1792, and died in New York City, May 1, 1858. He was editor of the _N.Y. Christian Advocate_, and _Sunday School Advocate_, for several years, and was a musician of some ability, besides being a good singer.

"SWEET THE MOMENTS, RICH IN BLESSING."

The Hon. and Rev. Walter Shirley, Rector of Loughgree, county of Galway, Ireland, revised this hymn under the chastening discipline of a most trying experience. His brother, the Earl of Ferrars, a licentious man, murdered an old and faithful servant in a fit of rage, and was executed at Tyburn for the crime. Sir Walter, after the disgrace and long distress of the imprisonment, trial, and final tragedy, returned to his little parish in Ireland, humbled but driven nearer to the Cross.

Sweet the moments, rich in blessing Which before the Cross I spend; Life and health and peace possessing From the sinner's dying Friend.

All the emotion of one who buries a mortifying sorrow in the heart of Christ, and tries to forget, trembles in the lines of the above hymn as he changed and adapted it in his saddest but devoutest hours. Its original writer was the Rev. James Allen, nearly twenty years younger than himself, a man of culture and piety, but a Christian of shifting creeds. It is not impossible that he sent his hymn to Shirley to revise.

At all events it owes its present form to Shirley's hand.

Truly blessed is the station Low before His cross to lie, While I see Divine Compa.s.sion Beaming in His gracious eye.[11]

[Footnote 11: "Floating in His languid eye" seems to have been the earlier version.]

The influence of Sir Walter's family misfortune is evident also in the mood out of which breathed his other trustful lines--

Peace, troubled soul, whose plaintive moan Hath taught these rocks the notes of woe,

(changed now to "hath taught _these scenes_" etc).

Sir Walter Shirley, cousin of the Countess of Huntingdon, was born 1725, and died in 1786. Even in his last sickness he continued to preach to his people in his house, seated in his chair.

Rev. James Oswald Allen was born at Gayle, Yorkshire, Eng., June 24, 1743. He left the University of Cambridge after a year's study, and became an itinerant preacher, but seems to have been a man of unstable religious views. After roving from one Christian denomination to another several times, he built a Chapel, and for forty years ministered there to a small Independent congregation. He died in Gayle, Oct. 31, 1804.

The tune long and happily a.s.sociated with "Sweet the Moments" is "Sicily," or the "Sicilian Hymn"--from an old Latin hymn-tune, "O Sanctissima."

"O FOR A CLOSER WALK WITH G.o.d."

The author, William Cowper, son of a clergyman, was born at Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire, Eng., Nov. 15, 1731, and died at Dereham, Norfolk, April 25, 1800. Through much of his adult life he was afflicted with a mental ailment inducing melancholia and at times partial insanity, during which he once attempted suicide. He sought literary occupation as an antidote to his disorder of mind, and besides a great number of lighter pieces which diverted him and his friends, composed "The Task," an able and delightful moral and domestic poetic treatise in blank verse, and in the same style of verse translated Homer's _Odyssey_ and _Iliad_.