The Story of the Hymns and Tunes Part 77

Jonathan Call Woodman was born in Newburyport, Ma.s.s., July 12, 1813. He was the organist of St. George's Chapel, Flushing L.I. and a teacher, composer and compiler. His _Musical Casket_ was not issued until Dec.

1858, but he wrote the tune of "State St." in August, 1844. It was a contribution to Bradbury's _Psalmodist_, which was published the same year.

"YE GOLDEN LAMPS OF HEAVEN, FAREWELL."

Dr. Doddridge's "farewell" is not a note of regret. Unlike Bernard, he appreciates this world while he antic.i.p.ates the better one, but his contemplation climbs from G.o.d's footstool to His throne. His thought is in the last two lines of the second stanza, where he takes leave of the sun--

My soul that springs beyond thy sphere No more demands thine aid.

But his fancy will find a function for the "golden lamps" even in the glory that swallows up their light--

Ye stars are but the shining dust Of my divine abode, The pavement of those heavenly courts Where I shall dwell with G.o.d.

The Father of eternal light Shall there His beams display, Nor shall one moment's darkness mix With that unvaried day.

_THE TUNE._

The hymn has been a.s.signed to "Mt. Auburn," a composition of George Kingsley, but a far better interpretation--if not best of all--is H.K.

Oliver's tune of "Merton," (1847,) older, but written purposely for the words.

"TRIUMPHANT ZION, LIFT THY HEAD."

This fine and stimulating lyric is Doddridge in another tone. Instead of singing hope to the individual, he sounds a note of encouragement to the church.

Put all thy beauteous garments on, And let thy excellence be known; Decked in the robes of righteousness, The world thy glories shall confess.

G.o.d from on high has heard thy prayer; His hand thy ruins shall repair, Nor will thy watchful Monarch cease To guard thee in eternal peace.

The tune, "Anvern," is one of Mason's charming melodies, full of vigor and cheerful life, and everything can be said of it that is said of the hymn. Duffield compares the hymn and tune to a ring and its jewel.

It is one of the inevitable freaks of taste that puts so choice a strain of psalmody out of fashion. Many younger pieces in the church manuals could be better spared.

"SHRINKING FROM THE COLD HAND OF DEATH."

This is a hymn of contrast, the dark of recoiling nature making the background of the rainbow. Written by Charles Wesley, it has pa.s.sed among his forgotten or mostly forgotten productions but is notable for the frequent use of its 3rd stanza by his brother John. John Wesley, in his old age, did not so much shrink from death as from the thought of its too slow approach. His almost constant prayer was, "Lord, let me not live to be useless." "At every place," says Belcher, "after giving to his societies what he desired them to consider his last advice, he invariably concluded with the stanza beginning--

"'Oh that, without a lingering groan, I may the welcome word receive.

My body with my charge lay down, And cease at once to work and live.'"

The antic.i.p.ation of death itself by both the great evangelists ended like the ending of the hymn--

No anxious doubt, no guilty gloom Shall daunt whom Jesus' presence cheers; My Light, my Life, my G.o.d is come, And glory in His face appears.

"FOREVER WITH THE LORD."

Montgomery had the Ambrosian gift of spiritual song-writing. Whatever may be thought of his more ambitious descriptive or heroic pages of verse, and his long narrative poems, his lyrics and cabinet pieces are gems. The poetry in some exquisite stanzas of his "Grave" is a dream of peace:

There is a calm for those who weep, A rest for weary mortals found; They softly lie and sweetly sleep Low in the ground.

The storms that wreck the winter's sky No more disturb their deep repose Than summer evening's latest sigh That shuts the rose.

But in the poem, "At Home in Heaven," which we are considering--with its divine text in I Thess. 4:17--the Sheffield bard rises to the heights of vision. He wrote it when he was an old man. The contemplation so absorbed him that he could not quit his theme till he had composed twenty-two quatrains. Only four or five--or at most only seven of them--are now in general use. Like his "Prayer is the Soul's Sincere Desire," they have the pith of devotional thought in them, but are less subjective and a.n.a.lytical.

Forever with the Lord!

Amen, so let it be, Life from the dead is in that word; 'Tis immortality.

Here in the body pent, Absent from Him I roam, Yet nightly pitch my moving tent A day's march nearer home.

My Father's house on high!

Home of my soul, how near At times to faith's foreseeing eye Thy golden gates appear.

I hear at morn and even, At noon and midnight hour, The choral harmonies of heaven Earth's Babel tongues o'erpower.

The last line has been changed to read--

Seraphic music pour,

--and finally the hymnals have dropped the verse and subst.i.tuted others.

The new line is an improvement in melody but not in rhyme, and, besides, it robs the stanza of its leading thought--heaven and earth offsetting each other, and heavenly music drowning earthly noise--a thought that is missed even in the rich cantos of "Jerusalem the Golden."

_THE TUNES._

Nearly the whole school of good short metre tunes, from "St. Thomas" to "Boylston" have offered their notes to Montgomery's "At Home in Heaven,"

but the two most commonly recognized as its property are "Mornington,"

named from Lord Mornington, its author, and I.B. Woodbury's familiar harmony, "Forever with the Lord."

Garret Colley Wellesley, Earl of Mornington, and ancestor of the Duke of Wellington, was born in Dagan, Ireland, July 19, 1735. Remarkable for musical talent when a child, he became a skilled violinist, organ-player and composer in boyhood, with little aid beyond his solitary study and practice. When scarcely twenty-one, the University of Dublin conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Music, and a professorship. He excelled as a composer of glees, but wrote also tunes and anthems for the church, some of which are still extant in the choir books of the Dublin Cathedral Died March 22, 1781.

"HARK! HARK, MY SOUL!"

The Methodist Reformation, while it had found no practical sympathy within the established church, left a deep sense of its reason and purpose in the minds of the more devout Episcopalians, and this feeling, instead of taking form in popular revival methods, prompted them to deeper sincerity and more spiritual fervor in their traditional rites of worship. Many of the next generation inherited this pious ecclesiasticism, and carried their loyalty to the old Christian culture to the extreme of devotion till they saw in the sacraments the highest good of the soul. It was Keble's "Christian Year" and his "a.s.size Sermon" that began the Tractarian movement at Oxford which brought to the front himself and such men as Henry Newman and Frederick William Faber.

The hymns and sacred poems of these sacramentarian Christians would certify to their earnest piety, even if their lives were unknown.

Faber's hymn "Hark, Hark My Soul," is welcomed and loved by every Christian sect for its religious spirit and its lyric beauty.

Hark! hark, my soul! angelic songs are swelling O'er earth's green fields and ocean's wave-beat sh.o.r.e; How sweet the truth those blessed strains are telling Of that new life where sin shall be no more.

REFRAIN Angels of Jesus, angels of light Singing to welcome the pilgrims of the night.

Onward we go, for still we hear them singing "Come, weary souls, for Jesus bids you come,"