The Story of the Hymns and Tunes Part 55

An English clergyman who was on duty at Gibraltar when an emigrant ship went on the rocks in a storm, tells with what pathetic power and effect "Throw out the Life-line" was sung at a special Sunday service for the survivors.

At one of Evan Roberts' meetings in Laughor, Wales, one speaker related the story of a "vision," when in his room alone, and a Voice that bade him pray, and when he knelt but could not pray, commanded him to "Throw out the Life-line." He had scarcely uttered these words in his story when the whole great congregation sprang to its feet and shouted the hymn together like the sound of many waters.

"There is more electricity in that song than in any other I ever heard,"

Dr. Cuyler said to Mr. Sankey when he heard him sing it. Its electricity has carried it nearly round the world.

The Rev. Edward Smith Ufford was born in Newark, N.J., 1851, and educated at Stratford Academy (Ct.) and Bates Theological Seminary, Me.

He held several pastorates in Maine and Ma.s.sachusetts, but a preference for evangelistic work led him to employ his talent for object-teaching in ill.u.s.trated religious lectures through his own and foreign lands, singing his hymn and enforcing it with realistic representation. He is the author and compiler of several Sunday-school and chapel song-manuals, as _Converts' Praise_, _Life-long Songs_, _Wonderful Love_ and _Gathered Gems_.

CHAPTER XI.

HYMNS OF WALES.

In writing this chapter the task of identifying the _tune_, and its author, in the case of every hymn, would have required more time and labor than, perhaps, the importance of the facts would justify.

Peculiar interest, however, attaches to Welsh hymns, even apart from the airs which accompany them, and a general idea of Welsh music may be gathered from the tone and metre of the lyrics introduced. More particular information would necessitate printing the music itself.

From the days of the Druids, Wales has been a land of song. From the later but yet ancient time when the people learned the Christian faith, it has had its Christian psalms. The "March of the White Monks of Bangor" (7th century) is an epic of bravery and death celebrating the advance of Christian martyrs to their b.l.o.o.d.y fate at the hands of the Saxon savages. "Its very rhythm pictures the long procession of white-cowled patriots bearing peaceful banners and in faith taking their way to Chester to stimulate the valor of their countrymen." And ever since the "Battle of the Hallelujahs"--near Chirk on the border, nine miles from Wrexham--when the invading Danes were driven from the field in fright by the rush of the Cymric army shouting that mighty cry, every Christian poet in Wales has had a hallelujah in his verse.

Through the centuries, while chased and hunted by their conquerors among the Cambrian hills, but clinging to their independent faith, or even when paralyzed into spiritual apathy under tribute to a foreign church, the heavenly song still murmured in a few true hearts amidst the vain and vicious lays of carnal mirth. It survived even when people and priest alike seemed utterly degenerate and G.o.dless. The voice of Walter Bute (1372) rang true for the religion of Jesus in its purity. Brave John Oldcastle, the martyr, (1417) clung to the gospel he learned at the foot of the cross. William Wroth, _clergyman_, saved from fiddling at a drunken dance by a disaster that turned a house of revelry into a house of death, confessed his sins to G.o.d and became the "Apostle of South Wales." The young vicar, Rhys Pritchard (1579) rose from the sunken level of his profession, rescued through an incident less tragic.

Accustomed to drink himself to inebriety at a public-house--a socially winked-at indulgence then--he one day took his pet goat with him, and poured liquor down the creature's throat. The refusal of the poor goat to go there again forced the reckless priest to reflect on his own ways.

He forsook the ale-house and became a changed man.

Among his writings--later than this--is found the following plain, blunt statement of what continued long to be true of Welsh society, as represented in the common use of Sunday time.

Of all the days throughout the rolling year There's not a day we pa.s.s so much amiss, There's not a day wherein we all appear So irreligious, so profaned as this.

A day for drunkenness, a day for sport, A day to dance, a day to lounge away, A day for riot and excess, too short Amongst the Welshmen is the Sabbath day.

A day to sit, a day to chat and spend, A day when fighting 'mongst us most prevails, A day to do the errands of the Fiend-- Such is the Sabbath in most parts of Wales.

Meantime some who could read the language--and the better educated (like the author of the above rhymes) knew English as well as Welsh--had seen a rescued copy of _Wycliffs New Testament_, a precious publication seized and burnt (like the bones of its translator) by hostile ecclesiastics, and suppressed for nearly two hundred years. Walter Bute, like Obadiah who hid the hundred prophets, may well be credited with such secret salvage out of the general destruction. And there were doubtless others equally alert for the same quiet service. We can imagine how far the stealthy taste of that priceless book would help to strengthen a better religion than the one doled out professionally to the mult.i.tude by a Civil church; and how it kept the hallelujah alive in silent but constant souls; and in how many cases it awoke a conscience long hypnotized under corrupt custom, and showed a renegade Christian how morally untuned he was.

Daylight came slowly after the morning star, but when the dawn reddened it was in welcome to Pritchard's and Penry's gospel song; and sunrise hastened at the call of Caradoc, and Powell, and Erbury, and Maurice, the holy men who followed them, some with the trumpet of Sinai and some with the harp of Calvary.

Cambria was being prepared for its first great revival of religion.

There was no rich portfolio of Christian hymns such as exists to-day, but surely there were not wanting pious words to the old chants of Bangor and the airs of "Wild Wales." When time brought Howell Harris and Daniel Rowland, and the great "Reformation" of the eighteenth century, the renowned William Williams, "the Watts of Wales," appeared, and began his tuneful work. The province soon became a land of hymns. The candles lit and left burning here and there by Penry, Maurice, and the Owens, blazed up to beacon-fires through all the twelve counties when Harris, at the head of the mighty movement, carried with him the sacred songs of Williams, kindling more lights everywhere between the Dee and the British Channel.

William Williams of Pantycelyn was born in 1717, at Cefncoed Farm, near Llandovery. Three years younger than Harris, (an Oxford graduate,) and educated only at a village school and an academy at Llwynllwyd, he was the song protagonist of the holy campaign as the other was its champion preacher. From first to last Williams wrote nine hundred and sixteen hymns, some of which are still heard throughout the church militant, and others survive in local use and affection. He died Jan. 11, 1791, at Pantycelyn, where he had made his home after his marriage. One of the hymns in his _Gloria_, his second publication, may well have been his last. It was dear to him above others, and has been dear to devout souls in many lands.

My G.o.d, my portion and my love; My all on earth, my all above, My all within the tomb; The treasures of this world below Are but a vain, delusive show, Thy bosom is my home.

It was fitting that Williams should name the first collection of his hymns (all in his native Welsh) _The Hallelujah_. Its lyrics are full of adoration for the Redeemer, and thanksgivings for His work.

"ONWARD RIDE IN TRIUMPH, JESUS,"

_Marchog, Jesu, yn llwyddiannus_,

Has been sung in Wales for a century and a half, and is still a favorite.

Onward ride in triumph, Jesus, Gird thy sword upon thy thigh; Neither earth nor h.e.l.l's own vastness Can Thy mighty power defy.

In Thy Name such glory dwelleth Every foe withdraws in fear, All the wide creation trembleth Whensoever Thou art near.[37]

The unusual militant strain in this paean of conquest soon disappears, and the gentler aspects of Christ's atoning sacrifice occupy the writer's mind and pen.

[Footnote 37: The following shows the style of Rev. Elvet Lewis'

translation: Blessed Jesus, march victorious With Thy sword fixed at Thy side; Neither death nor h.e.l.l can hinder The G.o.d-Warrior in His ride.]

"IN EDEN--O THE MEMORY!"

_Yn Eden cofiaf hyny byth!_

The text, "He was wounded for our transgressions," is amplified in this hymn, and the Saviour is shown bruising Himself while bruising the serpent.

The first stanza gives the key-note,--

In Eden--O the memory!

What countless gifts were lost to me!

My crown, my glory fell; But Calvary's great victory Restored that vanished crown to me; On this my songs shall dwell;

--and the mult.i.tude of Williams' succeeding "songs" that chant the same theme shows how well he kept his promise. The following hymn in Welsh (_Cymmer, Jesu fi fel'r ydwyf_) antedates the advice of Dr. Malan to Charlotte Elliott, "Come just as you are"--

Take me as I am, O Saviour, Better I can never be; Thou alone canst bring me nearer, Self but draws me far from Thee.

I can never But within Thy wounds be saved;

--and another (_Mi dafla maich oddi ar fy ngway_) reminds us of Bunyan's Pilgrim in sight of the Cross:

I'll cast my heavy burden down, Remembering Jesus' pains; Guilt high as towering mountain tops Here turns to joyful strains.

He stretched His pure white hands abroad, A crown of thorns He wore, That so the vilest sinner might Be cleansed forevermore;

Williams was called "The Sweet Singer of Wales" and "The Watts of Wales"

because he was the chief poet and hymn-writer of his time, but the lady he married, Miss Mary Francis, was _literally_ a singer, with a voice so full and melodious that the people to whom he preached during his itineraries, which she sometimes shared with him, were often more moved by her sweet hymnody than by his exhortations. On one occasion the good man, accompanied by his wife, put up at Bridgend Tavern in Llangefin, Anglesea, and a mischievous crowd, wishing to plague the "Methodists,"

planned to make night hideous in the house with a boisterous merry-making. The fiddler, followed by a gang of roughs, pushed his way to the parlor, and mockingly asked the two guests if they would "have a tune."

"Yes," replied Williams, falling in with his banter, "anything you like, my lad; 'Nancy Jig' or anything else."

And at a sign from her husband, as soon as the fellow began the jig, Mrs. Williams struck in with one of the poet-minister's well-known Welsh hymns in the same metre,--