The Story of the Hymns and Tunes Part 28

To me remains nor place nor time: My country is in every clime; I can be calm and free from care On any sh.o.r.e, since G.o.d is there.

And could a dearer _vade mec.u.m_ enrich a Christian's outfit than these lines treasured in memory?

While place we seek or place we shun, The soul finds happiness in none; But, with a G.o.d to guide our way, 'Tis equal joy to go or stay.

Cowper, and also Dr. Thomas Upham, translated (from the French) the religious poems of Madame Guyon. This hymn is Cowper's translation.

_THE TUNE._

A gentle and sympathetic melody ent.i.tled "Alsace" well represents the temper of the words--and in name links the nationalities of writer and composer. It is a choral arranged from a sonata of the great Ludwig von Beethoven, born in Bonn, Germany, 1770, and died in Vienna, Mar. 1827.

Like the author of the hymn he felt the hand of affliction, becoming totally deaf soon after his fortieth year. But, in spite of the privation, he kept on writing sublime and exquisite strains that only his soul could hear. His fame rests upon his oratorio, "The Mount of Olives," the opera of "Fidelio" and his nine wonderful "Symphonies."

"NO CHANGE IN TIME SHALL EVER SHOCK."

Altered to common metre from the awkward long metre of Tate and Brady, the three or four stanzas found in earlier hymnals are part of their version (probably Tate's) of the 31st Psalm--and it is worth calling to mind here that there is no hymn treasury so rich in tuneful faith and reliance upon G.o.d in trouble as the Book of Psalms. This feeling of the Hebrew poet was never better expressed (we might say, translated) in English than by the writer of this single verse--

No change of time shall ever shock My trust, O Lord, in Thee, For Thou hast always been my Rock, A sure defense to me.

_THE TUNE._

The sweet, tranquil choral long ago wedded to this hymn is lost from the church collections, and its very name forgotten. In fact the hymn itself is now seldom seen. If it ever comes back, old "Dundee" (Guillaume Franc 1500-1570) will sing for it, or some new composer may rise up to put the spirit of the psalm into inspired notes.

"WHY DO WE MOURN DEPARTED FRIENDS?"

This hymn of holy comfort, by Dr. Watts, was long a.s.sociated with a remarkable tune in C minor, "a queer medley of melody" as Lowell Mason called it, still familiar to many old people as "China." It was composed by Timothy Swan when he was about twenty-six years of age (1784) and published in 1801 in the _New England Harmony_. It may have sounded consolatory to mature mourners, singers and hearers in the days when religious emotion habitually took a sad key, but its wild and thrilling chords made children weep. The tune is long out of use--though, strange to say, one of the most recent hymnals prints the hymn with a _new minor_ tune.

Why do we mourn departed friends, Or shake at death's alarms?

'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends To call them to His arms.

Are we not tending upward too As fast as time can move?

Nor should we wish the hours more slow To keep us from our Love.

The graves of all His saints He blessed And softened every bed: Where should the dying members rest But with their dying Head?

Timothy Swan was born in Worcester, Ma.s.s., July 23, 1758, and died in Suffield, Ct., July 23, 1842. He was a self-taught musician, his only "course of study" lasting three weeks,--in a country singing school at Groton. When sixteen years old he went to Northfield, Ma.s.s., and learned the hatter's trade, and while at work began to practice making psalm-tunes. "Montague," in two parts, was his first achievement. From that time for thirty years, mostly spent in Suffield, Ct., he wrote and taught music while supporting himself by his trade. Many of his tunes were published by himself, and had a wide currency a century ago.

Swan was a genius in his way, and it was a true comment on his work that "his tunes were remarkable for their originality as well as singularity--unlike any other melodies." "China," his masterpiece, will be long kept track of as a curio, and preserved in replicates of old psalmody to ill.u.s.trate self-culture in the art of song. But the major mode will replace the minor when tender voices on burial days sing--

Why do we mourn departed friends?

Another hymn of Watts,--

G.o.d is the refuge of His saints When storms of sharp distress invade,

--sung to Lowell Mason's liquid tune of "Ward," and the priceless stanza,--

Jesus can make a dying bed Feel soft as downy pillows are,

doubly prove the claim of the Southampton bard to a foremost place with the song-preachers of Christian trust.

The psalm (Amsterdam version), "G.o.d is the refuge," etc., is said to have been sung by John Howland in the shallop of the Mayflower when an attempt was made to effect a landing in spite of tempestuous weather. A tradition of this had doubtless reached Mrs. Hemans when she wrote--

Amid the storm they sang, etc.

"FATHER, WHATE'ER OF EARTHLY BLISS."

This hymn had originally ten stanzas, of which the three usually sung are the three last. The above line is the first of the eighth stanza, altered from--

And O, whate'er of earthly bliss.

Probably for more than a century the familiar surname "Steele" attached to this and many other hymns in the hymn-books conveyed to the general public no hint of a mind and hand more feminine than Cowper's or Montgomery's. Even intelligent people, who had chanced upon sundry copies of _The Spectator_, somehow fell into the habit of putting "Steele" and "Addison" in the same category of hymn names, and Sir Richard Steele got a credit he never sought. But since stories of the hymns began to be published--and made the subject of evening talks in church conference rooms--many have learned what "Steele" in the hymn-book means. It introduces us now to a very retiring English lady, Miss Anna Steele, a Baptist minister's daughter. She was born in 1706, at Broughton, Hampshire, in her father's parsonage, and in her father's parsonage she spent her life, dying there Nov. 1778.

She was many years a severe sufferer from bodily illness, and a lasting grief of mind and heart was the loss of her intended husband, who was drowned the day before their appointed wedding. It is said that this hymn was written under the recent sorrow of that loss.

In 1760 and 1780 volumes of her works in verse and prose were published with her name, "Theodosia," and reprinted in 1863 as "_Hymns, Psalms, and Poems_, by Anna Steele." The hymn "Father, whate'er," etc., is estimated as her best, though some rank it only next to her--

Dear Refuge of my weary soul.

Other more or less well-known hymns of this devout and loving writer are,--

Lord, how mysterious are Thy ways,

O Thou whose tender mercy hears,

Thou lovely Source of true delight,

Alas, what hourly dangers rise,

So fades the lovely blooming flower.

--to a stanza of which latter the world owes the tune of "Federal St."

_THE TUNE._

The true musical mate of the sweet hymn-prayer came to it probably about the time of its hundredth birthday; but it came to stay. Lowell Mason's "Naomi" blends with it like a symphony of nature.

Father, whate'er of earthly bliss Thy sovereign will denies, Accepted at Thy throne of grace Let this pet.i.tion rise.

Give me a calm and thankful heart From every murmer free.

The blessings of Thy grace impart, And make me live to Thee.