The Story of the Hymns and Tunes Part 20

"O, COULD I SPEAK THE MATCHLESS WORTH."

The writer of this hymn of worshiping ardor and exalted Christian love was an English Baptist minister, the Rev. Samuel Medley. He was born at Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, June 23, 1738, and at eighteen years of age entered the Royal Navy, where, though he had been piously educated, he became dissipated and morally reckless. Wounded in a sea fight off Cape Lagos, and in dread of amputation he prayed penitently through nearly a whole night, and in the morning the surprised surgeon told him his limb could be saved.

The voice of his awakened conscience was not wholly disregarded, though it was not till some time after he left the navy that his vow to begin a religious life was sincerely kept. After teaching school for four years, he began to preach in 1766, Wartford in Hertfordshire being the first scene of his G.o.dly labors. He died in Liverpool July 17, 1799, at the end of a faithful ministry there of twenty-seven years. A small edition of his hymns was published during his lifetime, in 1789.

O could I speak the matchless worth, O could I sound the glories forth Which in my Saviour shine, I'd soar and touch the heavenly strings And vie with Gabriel while he sings, In notes almost divine!

_THE TUNE._

"Colebrook," a plain choral; but with a n.o.ble movement, by Henry Smart, is the English music to this fine lyric, but Dr. Mason's "Ariel" is the American favorite. It justifies its name, for it has wings--in both full harmony and duet--and its melody feels the glory of the hymn at every bar.

"ROCK OF AGES CLEFT FOR ME."

Augustus Montagu Toplady, author of this almost universal hymn, was born at Farnham, Surrey, Eng., Nov. 4, 1740. Educated at Westminster School, and Trinity College, Dublin, he took orders in the Established Church.

In his doctrinal debates with the Wesleys he was a harsh controversialist; but his piety was sincere, and marked late in life by exalted moods. Physically he was frail, and his fiery zeal wore out his body. Transferred from his vicarage at Broad Hembury, Devonshire, to Knightsbridge, London, at twenty-eight years of age, his health began to fail before he was thirty-five, and in one of his periods of illness he wrote--

When languor and disease invade This trembling house of clay, 'Tis sweet to look beyond my pains And long to fly away.

And the same homesickness for heaven appears under a different figure in another hymn--

At anchor laid remote from home, Toiling I cry, "Sweet Spirit, come!

Celestial breeze, no longer stay, But swell my sails, and speed my way!"

Possessed of an ardent religious nature, his spiritual frames exemplified in a notable degree the emotional side of Calvinistic piety.

Edward Payson himself, was not more enraptured in immediate view of death than was this young London priest and poet. Unquestioning faith became perfect certainty. As in the bold metaphor of "Rock of Ages," the faith finds voice in--

A debtor to mercy alone,

--and other hymns in his collection of 1776, two years before the end came. Most of this devout writing was done in his last days, and he continued it as long as strength was left, until, on the 11th of August, 1778, he joyfully pa.s.sed away.

Somehow there was always something peculiarly heartsome and "filling" to pious minds in the lines of Toplady in days when his minor hymns were more in vogue than now, and they were often quoted, without any idea whose making they were. "At anchor laid" was crooned by good old ladies at their spinning-wheels, and G.o.dly invalids found "When languor and disease invade" a comfort next to their Bibles.

"Rock of Ages" is said to have been written after the author, during a suburban walk, had been forced to shelter himself from a thunder shower, under a cliff. This is, however, but one of several stories about the birth-occasion of the hymn.

It has been translated into many languages. One of the foreign dignitaries visiting Queen Victoria at her "Golden Jubilee" was a native of Madagascar, who surprised her by asking leave to sing, but delighted her, when leave was given, by singing "Rock of Ages." It was a favorite of hers--and of Prince Albert, who whispered it when he was dying.

People who were school-children when Rev. Justus Vinton came home to Willington, Ct., with two Karen pupils, repeat to-day the "la-pa-ta, i-oo-i-oo" caught by sound from the brown-faced boys as they sang their native version of "Rock of Ages."

Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, the famous Confederate Cavalry leader, mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern, Va., and borne to a Richmond hospital, called for his minister and requested that "Rock of Ages" be sung to him.

The last sounds heard by the few saved from the wreck of the steamer "London" in the Bay of Biscay, 1866, were the voices of the helpless pa.s.sengers singing "Rock of Ages" as the ship went down.

A company of Armenian Christians sang "Rock of Ages" in their native tongue while they were being ma.s.sacred in Constantinople.

No history of this grand hymn of faith forgets the incident of Gladstone writing a Latin translation of it while sitting in the House of Commons. That remarkable man was as masterly in his scholarly recreations as in his statesmanship. The supreme Christian sentiment of the hymn had permeated his soul till it spoke to him in a dead language as eloquently as in the living one; and this is what he made of it:

_TOPLADY._

Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee; Let the water and the blood, From Thy riven side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure, Cleanse me from its guilt and power.

Not the labor of my hands Can fulfil Thy law's demands; Could my zeal no respite know, Could my tears for ever flow, All for sin could not atone, Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling; Naked, come to Thee for dress, Helpless, look to Thee for grace: Foul, I to the fountain fly; Wash, me, Saviour, or I die.

Whilst I draw this fleeting breath, When my eyestrings break in death; When I soar through tracts unknown, See Thee on Thy judgment throne, Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee.

_GLADSTONE._

Jesus, pro me perforatus, Condar intra tuum latus; Tu per lympham profluentem, Tu per sanguinem tepentem, In peccata mi redunda, Tolle culpam, sordes munda!

Coram Te nec justus forem Quamvis tota vi laborem, Nec si fide nunquam cesso, Fletu stillans indefesso; Tibi soli tantum munus-- Salva me, Salvator Unus!

Nil in manu mec.u.m fero, Sed me versus crucem gero: Vestimenta nudus oro, Opem debilis imploro, Fontem Christi quaero immundus, Nisi laves, moribundus.

Dum hos artus vita regit, Quando nox sepulcro legit; Mortuos quum stare jubes, Sedens Judex inter nubes;-- Jesus, pro me perforatus, Condar intra tuum latus!

The wonderful hymn has suffered the mutations common to time and taste.

When I soar thro' tracts unknown

--becomes--

When I soar to worlds unknown,

--getting rid of the unpoetic word, and bettering the elocution, but missing the writer's thought (of the unknown _path_,--instead of going to many "worlds"). The Unitarians have their version, with subst.i.tutes for the "atonement lines."

But the Christian lyric maintains its life and inspiration through the vicissitudes of age and use, as all intrinsically superior things can and will,--and as in the twentieth line,--

When my eyestrings break in death;

--modernized to--

When my eyelids close in death,

--the hymn will ever adapt itself to the new exigencies of common speech, without losing its vitality and power.

_THE TUNE._

A happy inspiration of Dr. Thomas Hastings made the hymn and music inevitably one. Almost anywhere to call for the tune of "Toplady"

(namesake of the pious poet) is as unintelligible to the mult.i.tude as "Key" would be to designate the "Star-spangled Banner." The common people--thanks to Dr. Hastings--have learned "Rock of Ages" by _sound_.

Thomas Hastings was born in Washington, Ct., 1784. For eight years he was editor of the _Western Recorder_, but he gave his life to church music, and besides being a talented tone-poet he wrote as many as six hundred hymns. In 1832, by invitation from twelve New York churches, he went to that city, and did the main work of his life there, dying, in 1872, at the good old age of eighty-nine. His musical collections number fifty-three. He wrote his famous tune in 1830.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Thomas Hastings]