HYMNS INSPIRED BY SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
Following Conversion
The brothers Wesley owed much, in the spiritual crisis of their lives, to the help given them by Peter Bohler, a Moravian. When he left them, Charles Wesley went to reside with a poor brazier named Bray, whom he described as knowing "nothing but Christ," and who so continued the work Bohler had begun that Charles Wesley's conversion soon took place. This was on May 21, 1788, John Wesley's conversion following almost immediately. Charles Wesley gives the account of his writing, two days after his conversion, one of two hymns in commemoration of that event, of which the first lines run,
Where shall my wondering soul begin?
How shall I all to heaven aspire?
The author says: “At nine I began a hymn on my conversion, but was persuaded to break off for fear of pride. Mr. Bray coming in, encouraged me to proceed in spite of Satan. I prayed Christ to stand by me, and finished the hymn. Upon my afterward showing it to Mg. Bray, the devil threw in a fiery dart, suggesting that it was wrong, and I had displeased God.
“My heart sank within me; when, casting my eyes upon a Prayer Book, I met with an answer for him: ' Why boastest thou thyself, thou tyrant, that thou canst do mischief?' that it was a device of the enemy to keep back glory from God. Least of all would he have us tell what things God has done for our souls, so tenderly does he guard us from pride.”
This account of the writing of the hymn is remarkably reflected in its lines. The first two verses express the joy of the forgiven soul, and it was then that probably Wesley was tempted to give up his task, the next verse harmonizing exactly with his determination to continue, as it exclaims,
And shall I slight my Father's love?
Or basely fear His gifts to own?
Unmindful of His favors prove?
Shall I, the hallowed cross to shun,
Refuse His righteousness to impart,
By hiding it within my heart?
On the Way to Work
The well-known hymn beginning,
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' Blood and Righteousness,
was written by Edward Mote, at that time engaged in business in London, and afterward a Sussex Baptist minister, being for the last twenty-six years of his life pastor at Horsham, in Sussex. Mr. Mote gave the following story of the way the hymn was written: "One morning it came into my mind, as I went to labor, to write a hymn on ' The Gracious Experience of a Christian.' As I went up Holborn I had the chorus,
“On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand.
“In the day I had four first verses complete, and wrote them off. On the Sabbath following I met brother King as I came out of Lisle Street Meeting, who informed me that his wife was very ill, and asked me to call and see her.
“I had an early tea, and called afterward. He said that it was his usual custom to sing a hymn, read a portion, and engage in prayer, before he went to meeting. He looked for his hymn book, but could find it nowhere. I said I had some verses in my pocket; if he liked, we would sing them. We did; and his wife enjoyed them so much that, after service, he asked me, as a favor, to leave a copy of them for her. I went home, and by the fireside composed the last two verses, wrote the whole off, and took them to sister King.
“As these verses so met the dying woman's case, my attention to them was the more arrested, and I had a thousand printed for distribution. I sent one to the Spiritual Magazine, without my initials, and it appeared in due course.”
It will be observed that Mr. Mote describes the writing of six verses, in which form the hymn first appeared, the first verse beginning,
Nor earth, nor hell, my soul can move.
But in its modern form only four verses, as a rule are used. The original, in the author's Hymns of Praise, published in 1836, is entitled "The Immutable Basis of a Sinner's Hope." Bishop Bickersteth called it "a grand hymn of faith.”
The Forgotten Meal
The hymn which appears in several hymnals, beginning,
How bright appears the morning star,
With mercy beaming from afar,
is a translation from the German, the author being Dr. Philipp Nicolai, who also wrote "Sleepers, wake, a voice is calling," a hymn of the very first rank, and well-known from its use as a Chorale in Mendelssohn's Oratorio "St. Paul." Both these hymns were written at Unna, in Westphalia, a place of which Nicolai was pastor, during the great pestilence which raged there from July, 1597, to the following January, and in which 1,800 persons perished.
“How bright appears the morning star," was composed by Nicolai one morning when he was in great distress and tribulation in his study. From that distress, and from the death which surrounded him, he rose in spirit to His Redeemer and Savior, and as he gazed up to Him in ardent love there welled forth from his heart this beautiful hymn, full of the Savior's love and of the joys of heaven. So entirely absorbed was he in this holy exaltation that he forgot everything else, including his noontide meal, and allowed nothing to disturb him until he had completed the hymn, which was not finished until three hours after midday.
In the Corner of the Field
When, in the year 1765, the poet Cowper had recovered his balance of mind, his friends made him an annual allowance, sufficient, in addition to his own small income, for his maintenance, and left him to follow his own devices. He resolved to retire both from the business and from the society of the world, and, after vainly trying to get nearer Cambridge, was taken by his brother John to some lodgings which the latter had found for him at Huntingdon.
No sooner had his brother left him than Cowper was overcome with feelings of depression and loneliness. He compares himself to "a traveler in the midst of an inhospitable desert, without friend to comfort, or a guide to direct him." He goes on to say, "I walked forth towards the close of the day, and in this melancholy frame of mind, and having wandered about a mile from the town, I found my heart at length so powerfully drawn towards the Lord that, having found a retired and lonely nook in the corner of a field, I kneeled down under a bank and poured forth my complaints before Him.
“It pleased my Savior to hear me, so that this oppression was taken off, and I was enabled to trust in Him that careth for the stranger. But," he adds," this was not all. He did for me more than either I had asked or thought.”
The following day was Sunday, June 23rd, and Cowper attended Divine Service for the first time since his recovery. He was immensely impressed by two things: the reading of the parable of the Prodigal Son, and by the intense devotion of one of the worshippers. How little that worshipper ever could have dreamed of the help that came through his own earnestness and reverence to another soul!
Immediately after church Cowper retired once more to his quiet nook in the field, and there experienced a far greater blessing even than that of the previous day. "How shall I express," he says, "what the Lord did for me, except by saying that He made all His goodness to pass before me! I seemed to speak to Him face to face, as a man conversing with his friend.”
There can be little doubt that this sacred corner of the field was the birthplace of Cowper's touching hymn, the second verse of which bears clear reference to that hour of blest communion with his Lord:
Far from the world, O Lord, I flee,
From strife and tumult far;
From scenes where Satan wages still
His most successful war.
The calm retreat, the silent shade,
With prayer and praise agree;
And seem, by Thy sweet bounty, made
For those who follow Thee.
The Night of His Conversion
Dr. G. F. Pentecost was once conducting a service in his church at Brooklyn, followed by an after-meeting. In the congregation was a cultured gentleman, Nathaniel Norton, who had never acknowledged himself to be a Christian until that evening, when at the close of the after-meeting he stood up and publicly confessed his acceptance of Christ. That same night, on his return home, he sat down and wrote a hymn, which was afterward given to Mr. G. C. Stebbins, then assisting Dr. Pentecost, by whom it was set to music, being afterward widely used. It began thus:
“Come unto Me" It is the Savior's Voice—
The Lord of Life, Who bids thy heart rejoice;
O weary heart, with heavy cares opprest,
"Come unto Me," and I will give you rest.
Heard in a Dream
A remarkable experience in hymn-writing was that of Prebendary Edward Harland. His hymn "O Heavenly Jerusalem, Thou city of the Lord," is not widely known, but its origin is truly extraordinary. During the night of October 5, 1862, the author was asleep, and dreamed that he saw the heavenly choirs, numbering ten thousand times ten thousand, entering a glorious temple, and singing a hymn of which he could distinguish the very words. He awoke from his dream and, rising from bed, struck a light, and on the back of a letter wrote down the words he had heard in his dream, then once more retired to rest.
The next morning he found on his dressing-table, and afterward published, the hymn which had been given to him in this remarkable way, the first verse of which runs thus:
O heavenly Jerusalem,
Thou city of the Lord,
What holy joy and transport
Does thy sweet name afford!
Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
Enthroned in light above!
Where Jesus reigns in glory,
The Savior Whom I love.
On the Gravel Walk
In 1878 a young Yale student was present at one of Mr. Moody's meetings in America, and was spoken to at the after-meeting by a gentleman, who afterward accompanied him to the gate of his home, urging him to accept Christ and to decide the question that very night. The young student was greatly impressed.
As the young man neared the house he stopped and drew a deep line with his cane on the gravel walk. "Now," he said, "I must decide this question to-night. If I cross this line, my life shall be for Christ; if I go round it, it will be for the world." For some half-hour he stood on the walk with the line at his feet, until at last he cried, "O God, help me to decide aright," and strode over the line, going at once to his father's room to tell him of his decision to be a Christian.
The father, who was a minister, told the story from the platform at Mr. Moody's meeting the following day, many of the audience being moved to tears, while Mr. E. H. Phelps, a newspaper proprietor, published it the next morning. In another town of the same State, Mrs. Ellen K. Bradford read of the incident in the paper and, sitting down, immediately wrote the hymn beginning,
Oh, tender and sweet was the Master's Voice,
As He lovingly called to me:
“Come over the line! It is only a step—
I am waiting, My child, for thee";
followed by the well-known chorus,
“Over the line I" hear the sweet refrain
Angels are chanting the heavenly strain:
"Over the line"—why should I remain
With a step between me and Jesus?
Posted to the editor, Mr. Phelps, he at once set it to music, and gave it to Mr. Sankey, who both used and published it. It has been the means of the conversion of thousands of souls all over the world.
In the Back Room
It was New Year's Eve in the year 1866. The shades of evening were falling where, in a little back room of Shareshill Parsonage, without carpet, without fire, there sat writing, despite the cold, one of our greatest hymn writers, Frances Ridley Havergal. She had been feeling that she had not written anything specially in praise of Christ, but a great longing to do so possessed her, and she was now writing one of her least-known hymns—as perhaps she would have wished it to be, for, she tells us, she was writing just for her Lord alone. The first verse of the hymn, which she entitled "Adoration," is as follows:
O Master, at Thy Feet
I bow in rapture sweet!
Before me, as in darkening glass,
Some glorious outlines pass,
Of love, and truth, and holiness, and power;
I own them Thine, O Christ, and bless Thee for this hour.
Miss Havergal said that "Master" was her favorite title for our Lord, because it implied rule and submission, which is what love craves. "Men," she writes, "may feel differently, but a true woman's submission is inseparable from deep love.”
The Seven Sermons
During the winter of 1869 Henry Moorhouse, a young Englishman, known as the "Boy Preacher," offered to preach for Mr. Moody in his church at Chicago. Mr. Moody, although by no means anxious that he should do so, thinking him too young for preaching, finally consented. The result was that the place became packed with people for seven nights in succession, so great was the attractiveness of Moorhouse's preaching, and on each night the preacher took the same text—St. John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)—and preached on the same subject —the Love of God for the sinner. This course of addresses, Moody says, altered in many respects his own style of preaching, and they also impressed very deeply Mr. P. P. Bliss, who wrote, as an outcome of the lessons he had learned from Moorhouse, the hymn beginning,
Whosoever heareth, shout, shout the sound
Send the blessed tidings all the world around,
which he himself used to sing with special emphasis laid upon the word "Whosoever.”
One Year After Conversion
One of our best-known hymns is that beginning,
Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer's praise.
But the original hymn began otherwise. It was written by Charles Wesley on the first anniversary of his conversion to God, which took place on Sunday, May 21, 1738, and began,
Glory to God, and praise, and love,
the heading being "For the Anniversary Day of One's Conversion." The author's brother, John Wesley, however, very much shortened the original hymn, which consisted of no fewer than eighteen verses, and began the new version with the author's seventh verse, as everyone sings it now.
In this form it stands prominent as the first hymn in The Methodist Hymn Book. It appears that this seventh verse sprang from a conversation which Charles Wesley had with Peter Bohler, the Moravian, on the subject of praising Christ, during which Bohler remarked, "Had I a thousand tongues I would praise Him with them all," thus giving Wesley the idea of the present opening lines of the hymn.
One of the expressions in this hymn provoked at one time some little controversy, namely, the line that runs,
He breaks the power of canceled sin,
for which some have substituted "death and sin," or "reigning sin," but the line is now generally accepted as Wesley wrote it.
While the Vision Lasted
The Rev. W. O. Cushing had a curious experience in the year 1875, to which is due the composition of a very favorite hymn. While holding communion with God, there suddenly dawned upon him a vision of the heavenly country. He seemed to be looking down upon a great river whose waters rolled beneath him, while on the further bank he gazed upon a glorious land, its hills and valleys spread before him in peaceful beauty. It seemed to him, he says, more beautiful than words could describe, while, as he gazed entranced, there came to his lips the words,
Beautiful valley of Eden,
Sweet is thy noontide calm;
Over the hearts of the weary
Breathing thy waves of balm.
As he wrote down the lines of the hymn, the vision still seemed to float before his eyes, and not until the lines were completed did it slowly fade away.
The Midnight Hour of Reconsecration
One of the most beautiful and best-loved hymns in existence is that by Miss Frances Ridley Havergal, beginning,
Take my life, and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee,
which has been translated, not only into a number of European languages, but even into several of Asia and Africa. The striking account of the writing of this hymn is thus given by Miss Havergal herself: “Perhaps you will be interested to know the origin of the consecration hymn" Take my life. "I went for a little visit of five days (to Areley House). There were ten persons in the house, some unconverted and long prayed for, some converted but not rejoicing Christians. He gave me the prayer ' Lord give me ALL in this house.' And He just did. Before I left the house everyone had got a blessing. The last night of my visit, after I had retired, the governess asked me to go to the two daughters. They were crying. Then and there both of them trusted and rejoiced. It was nearly midnight. I was too happy to sleep, and passed most of the night in praise and renewal of my own consecration; and these little couplets formed themselves and chimed in my heart one after another, till they finished with ' Ever, ONLY, ALL for Thee! '”
Miss Havergal always sang this hymn to her father's tune "Patmos," and the desire both of herself and her family was that in any publication including the hymn this same tune should be associated with it. This wish has, however, been almost universally disregarded by compilers, the tune most frequently appearing with the hymn being that known as "Mozart.”