The Story of the Hymns and Tunes Part 57

--or to his other well-known--

Arise my soul, arise, Shake off thy guilty fears, The bleeding Sacrifice In thy behalf appear.

In short, the flood tide of 1904 and 1905 brought in very little new music and very few new hymns. "Aberystwyth" and "Tanymarian," the minor harmonies of Joseph Party and Stephens; E.M. Price's "St. Garmon;" R.M.

Pritchard's, "Hyfrydol," and a few others, were choral favorites, but their composers were all dead, and the congregations loved the still older singers who had found familiar welcome at their altars and firesides. The most cherished and oftenest chosen hymns were those of William Williams and Ann Griffiths, of Charles Wesley, of Isaac Watts--indeed the very tongues of fire that appeared at Jerusalem took on the Cymric speech, and sang the burning lyrics of the poet-saints.

And in their revival joy Calvinistic Wales sang the New Testament with more of its Johannic than of its Pauline texts. The covenant of peace--Christ and His Cross--is the theme of all their hymns.

"HERE BEHOLD THE TENT OF MEETING."

_Dyma Babell y cyfarfod._

This hymn, written by Ann Griffiths, is ent.i.tled "Love Eternal," and praises the Divine plan to satisfy the Law and at the same time save the sinner. The first stanza gives an idea of the thought:

Here behold the tent of meeting, In the blood a peace with heaven, Refuge from the blood-avengers, For the sick a Healer given.

Here the sinner nestles safely At the very Throne divine, And Heaven's righteous law, all holy.

Still on him shall smile and shine.

"HOW SWEET THE COVENANT TO REMEMBER."

_Bydd melus gofio y cyfammod._

This, ent.i.tled "Mysteries of Grace," is also from the pen of Ann Griffiths. It has the literalness noticeable in much of the Welsh religious poetry, and there is a note of pietism in it. The two last stanzas are these:

He is the great Propitiation Who with the thieves that anguish bare; He nerved the arms of His tormentors To drive the nails that fixed Him there.

While He discharged the sinner's ransom, And made the Law in honor be, Righteousness shone undimmed, resplendent, And me the Covenant set free.

My soul, behold Him laid so lowly, Of peace the Fount, of Kings the Head, The vast creation in Him moving And He low-lying with the dead!

The Life and portion of lost sinners, The marvel of heaven's seraphim, To sea and land the G.o.d Incarnate The choir of heaven cries, "Unto Him!"

Ann Griffiths' earliest hymn will be called her sweetest. Fortunately, too, it is more poetically translated. It was before the vivid consciousness and intensity of her religious experience had given her spiritual writings a more involved and mystical expression.

My soul, behold the fitness Of this great Son of G.o.d, Trust Him for life eternal And cast on Him thy load, A man--touched with the pity Of every human woe, A G.o.d--to claim the kingdom And vanquish every foe.

This stanza, the last of her little poem on the "Eternal Fitness of Jesus," came to her when, returning from an exciting service, filled with thoughts of her unworthiness and of the glorious beauty of her Saviour, she had turned down a sheltered lane to pray alone. There on her knees in communion with G.o.d her soul felt the spirit of the sacred song. By the time she reached home she had formed it into words.

The first and second stanzas, written later, are these:

Great Author of salvation And providence for man, Thou rulest earth and heaven With Thy far-reaching plan.

Today or on the morrow, Whatever woe betide, Grant us Thy strong a.s.sistance, Within Thy hand to hide.

What though the winds be angry, What though the waves be high While wisdom is the Ruler, The Lord of earth and sky?

What though the flood of evil Rise stormily and dark?

No soul can sink within it; G.o.d is Himself the ark.

Mrs. Ann Griffiths, of Dolwar Fechan, Montgomeryshire, was born in 1776, and died in 1805. "She remains," says Dr. Parry, her fellow-countryman, "a romantic figure in the religious history of Wales. Her hymns leave upon the reader an undefinable impression both of sublimity and mysticism. Her brief life-history is most worthy of study both from a literary and a religious point of view."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Isaac Watts, D.D.]

A suggestive chapter of her short earthly career is compressed in a sentence by the author of "Sweet Singers of Wales:"

"She had a Christian life of eight years and a married life of ten months."

She died at the age of twenty-nine. In 1904, near the centennial of her death, amid the echoes of her own hymns, and the rising waves of the great Refreshing over her native land, the people of Dolwar Fechan dedicated the new "Ann Griffiths Memorial Chapel" to her name and to the glory of G.o.d.

Although the Welsh were not slow to adopt the revival tones of other lands, it was the native, and what might be called the national, lyrics of that emotional race that were sung with the richest unction and _hwyl_ (as the Cymric word is) during the recent reformation, and that evinced the strongest hold on the common heart. Needless to say that with them was the world-famous song of William Williams,--

Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah;

_Arglwydd ar wain truy'r anialoch_;

--and that of Dr. Heber Evans,--

Keep me very near to Jesus, Though beneath His Cross it be, In this world of evil-doing 'Tis the Cross that cleanseth me;

--and also that native hymn of expectation, high and sweet, whose writer we have been unable to identify--

The glory is coming! G.o.d said it on high, When light in the evening will break from the sky; The North and South and the East and the West, With joy of salvation and peace will be bless'd.

O summer of holiness, hasten along!

The purpose of glory is constant and strong; The winter will vanish, the clouds pa.s.s away; O South wind of Heaven, breath softly today!

Of the almost countless hymns that voiced the spirit of the great revival, the nine following are selected because they are representative, and all favorites--and because there is no room for a larger number. The first line of each is given in the original Welsh:

"DWY ADEN COLOMEN PE CAWN."

O had I the wings of a dove How soon would I wander away To gaze from Mount Nebo I'd love On realms that are fairer than day.

My vision, not clouded nor dim, Beyond the dark river should run; I'd sing, with my thoughts upon Him, The sinless, the crucified one.

This is another of Thomas Williams' hymns. One of the tunes suitable to its feeling and its measure was "Edom," by Thomas Evans. It was much sung in 1859, as well as in 1904.

"CAELBOD YN FORSEC DAN YR IAN."

Early to bear the yoke excels By far the joy in sin that dwells; The paths of wisdom still are found In peace and solace to abound.

The young who serve Him here below The wrath to come shall never know; Of such in heaven are pearls that shine Unnumbered in the crown divine.

Written for children and youth by Rev. Thomas Jones, of Denbigh, born 1756; died 1820,--a Calvinistic Methodist preacher, author of a biography of Thomas Charles of Bala, and various theological works.

"DYMA GARIAD FEL Y MOROEDD, TOSTURIASTHAN FEL Y LLI."

Love unfathomed as the ocean Mercies boundless as the wave!