The Story of the Hymns and Tunes Part 60

composition comes nearest to being the favorite, if one judges by the extent and frequency of its use. It can be either partly or wholly choral; and the third stanza makes the refrain--

O dearly, dearly has He loved And we must love Him too, And trust in His redeeming blood, And try His works to do.

"REJOICE AND BE GLAD!"

This musical shout of joy, written by Dr. Horatius Bonar, scarcely needs a new song helper, as did Bishop Heber's famous hymn--not because it is better than Heber's but because It was wedded at once to a tune worthy of it.

Rejoice and be glad! for our King is on high; He pleadeth for us on His throne in the sky.

Rejoice and be glad! for He cometh again; He cometh in glory, the Lamb that was slain Hallelujah! Amen.

The hymn was composed in 1874.

_THE TUNE._

The author of the "English Melody" (as ascribed in _Gospel Hymns_) is said to have been John Jenkins Husband, born in Plymouth, Eng., about 1760. He was clerk at Surrey Chapel and composed several anthems. Came to the United States In 1809. Settled in Philadelphia, where he taught music and was clerk of St. Paul's P.E. Church. Died there in 1825.

His tune, exactly suited to the hymn, is a true Christian paean. It has few equals as a rouser to a sluggish prayer-meeting--whether sung to Bonar's words or those of Rev. William Paton Mackay (1866)--

We praise Thee, O G.o.d, for the Son of Thy love,

--with the refrain of similar spirit in both hymns--

Hallelujah! Thine the glory, Hallelujah! Amen, Hallelujah! Thine the glory; revive us again;

--or,--

Sound His praises! tell the story of Him who was slain!

Sound His praises! tell with gladness, "He liveth again."

Husband's tune is supposed to have been written very early in the last century. Another tune composed by him near the same date to the words--

"We are on our journey home To the New Jerusalem,"

--is equally musical and animating, and with a vocal range that brings out the full strength of choir and congregation.

"COME, SINNER, COME."

A singular case of the same tune originating in the brain of both author and composer is presented in the history of this hymn of Rev. William Ellsworth Witter, D.D., born in La Grange, N.Y., Dec. 9, 1854. He wrote the hymn in the autumn of 1878, while teaching a district school near his home. The first line--

While Jesus whispers to you,

--came to him during a brief turn of outdoor work by the roadside and presently grew to twenty-four lines. Soon after, Prof. Horatio Palmer, knowing Witter to be a verse writer, invited him to contribute a hymn to a book he had in preparation, and this hymn was sent. Dr. Palmer set it to music, it soon entered into several collections, and Mr. Sankey sang it in England at the Moody meetings.

Dr. Witter gives this curious testimony,

"While I cannot sing myself, though very fond of music, the hymn sang itself to me by the roadside _in almost the exact tune given to it by Professor Palmer_." Which proves that Professor Palmer had the feeling of the hymn--and that the maker of a true hymn has at least a sub-consciousness of its right tune, though he may be neither a musician nor a poet.

While Jesus whispers to you, Come, sinner, come!

While we are praying for you, Come, sinner, come!

Now is the time to own Him, Come, sinner, come!

Now is the time to know Him, Come, sinner, come!

"ONE MORE DAY'S WORK FOR JESUS."

The writer of this hymn was Miss Anna Warner, one of the well-known "Wetherell Sisters," joint authors of _The Wide World_, _Queechy_, and a numerous succession of healthful romances very popular in the middle and later years of the last century. Her own pen name is "Amy Lothrop,"

under which she has published many religious poems, hymns and other varieties of literary work. She was born in 1820, at Martlaer, West Point, N.Y., where she still resides.

One more day's work for Jesus, One less of life for me: But heaven is nearer, And Christ is dearer Than yesterday to me.

His love and light Fill all my soul tonight.

REFRAIN:-- One more day's work for Jesus, (_ter_) One less of life for me.

The hymn has five stanzas all expressing the gentle fervor of an active piety loving service:

_THE TUNE_

was composed by the Rev. Robert Lowry, and first published in _Bright Jewels_.

THE GOSPEL HYMNS.

These popular religious songs have been criticised as "degenerate psalmody" but those who so style them do not seem to consider the need that made them.

The great majority of mankind can only be reached by missionary methods, and in these art and culture do not play a conspicuous part. The mult.i.tude could be supplied with technical preaching and technical music for their religious wants, but they would not rise to the bait, whereas nothing so soon kindles their better emotions or so surely appeals to their better nature as even the humblest sympathetic hymn sung to a simple and stirring tune. If the music is uncla.s.sical and the hymn crude there is no critical audience to be offended.

The artless, almost colloquial, words "of a happily rhymed camp-meeting lyric and the wood-notes wild" of a new melody meet a situation. Moral and spiritual lapse makes it necessary at times for religion to put on again her primitive raiment, and be "a voice crying in the wilderness."

Between the slums and the boulevards live the ma.s.ses that shape the generations, and make the state. They are wage-earners who never hear the great composers nor have time to form fine musical and literary tastes. The spiritual influences that really reach them are of a very direct and simple kind; and for the good of the church--and the nation--it is important that at least this elementary education in the school of Christ should be supplied them.

It is the popular hymn tunes that speed a reformation. So say history and experience. Once in two hundred years a great revival movement may produce a Charles Wesley, but the humbler singers carry the divine fire that quickens religious life in the years between.

All this is not saying that the gospel hymns, as a whole, are or ever professed to be suitable for the stated service of the sanctuary. Their very style and movement show exactly what they were made for--to win the hearing of the mult.i.tude, and put the music of G.o.d's praise and Jesus'

love into the mouths and hearts of thousands who had been strangers to both. They are the modern lay songs that go with the modern lay sermons.

They give voice to the spirit and sentiment of the conference, prayer and inquiry meetings, the Epworth League and Christian Endeavor meetings, the temperance and other reform meetings, and of the ma.s.s-meetings in the cities or the seaside camps.

During their evangelistic mission in England and Scotland in 1873, Dwight L. Moody and Ira D. Sankey used the hymnbook of Philip Phillips, a compilation ent.i.tled _Hallowed Songs_, some of them his own. To these Mr. Sankey added others of his own composing from time to time which were so enthusiastically received that he published them in a pamphlet.

This, with the simultaneous publication in America of the revival melodies of Philip P. Bliss, was the beginning of that series of popular hymn-and-tune books, which finally numbered six volumes. Sankey's _Sacred Songs and Solos_ combined with Bliss's _Gospel Songs_ were the foundation of the _Gospel Hymns_.

Subjectively their utterances are indicative of ardent piety and unquestioning faith, and on the other hand their direct and intimate appeal and dramatic address are calculated to affect a throng as if each individual in it was the person meant by the words. The refrain or chorus feature is notable in nearly all.

A selection of between thirty and forty of the most characteristic is here given.

"HALLELUJAH! 'TIS DONE."