STRIKING INCIDENTS CONNECTED WITH HYMNS
The Lay of the Last Minstrel
One of the greatest and grandest of the old Latin hymns is that known as Dies hew, of which it has been said "every word is weighty, yea, even a thunderclap." It was probably the composition of a Franciscan Friar named Thomas of Celano, who lived in the thirteenth century. English people, of course, know it best in its translated forms, two being especially familiar.
The original hymn consisted of twenty-two verses of three lines each, but one of the most widely used English forms is that condensed into only three verses of four lines, beginning, "That day of wrath, that dreadful day." But few who use the hymn know that its author was Sir Walter Scott, and that the three verses are taken from his most famous poem," The Lay of the Last Minstrel." In that work the poet is describing the monks of Melrose Abbey and their service in the days of old:
With snow-white stoles in order due
The holy fathers two and two
In long procession came;
And far the echoing aisles prolong
The awful burden of their song:
That day of wrath, that dreadful day,
When heaven and earth shall pass away,
What power shall be the sinner's stay?
How shall he meet that dreadful day?
The Archbishop's Funeral Sermon
The fullest and best translation of Dies Irae, however, is that by Dr. W. J. Irons, which was inspired by unusual circumstances. During the French Revolution in 1848 the Archbishop of Paris was shot dead on one of the barricades in the city, while he was endeavoring to persuade the insurgents to cease firing, and was buried on July 7th of that year.
It was not considered safe at the moment to have a funeral sermon in his memory, but as soon as possible this took place in the cathedral of Notre Dame, accompanied by a most impressive and solemn service, throughout which the deceased Archbishop's heart was exposed in a glass case in the choir of the cathedral, while at the appointed place the Dies Irae was sung, of course in Latin, by an immense body of priests.
The wonderful rendering of this great hymn by the massed voices, together with the peculiarly solemn surroundings, the exposed heart of the Archbishop, the deep sense of bereavement, and the terror of the times, made the service most remarkably impressive, and Dr. Irons, who was present, was deeply moved both by the singing and the whole scene.
As soon as the service was over he went home and wrote his translation of the great hymn, a translation by far the finest of the 183 renderings into English of the great Latin original, and one which doubtless owes much of its power and beauty to the impression produced by the scene in the cathedral. As Dr. Irons wrote it, the first verse ran,
Day of wrath, O day of mourning,
See once more the Cross returning—
Heaven and earth in ashes burning.
The translator's last two lines ran,
Lord, Who didst our souls redeem,
Grant a blessed Requiem!
for which, in most hymn books, are substituted the lines of another translator,
Lord all-pitying, Jesu blest,
Grant them Thine eternal rest.
It is remarkable that when Sir Walter Scott was on his death-bed he was heard repeating over and over one verse, from the longer Latin version, which in Dr. Irons's translation runs,
Faint and weary Thou halt sought me,
On the Cross of suffering bought me:
Shall such grace in vain be brought me?
The Two Tunes
Dr. Rankin, the author of the hymn whose popularity is world-wide, namely, "God be with you till we meet again," says that it was written in 1882 simply as a Christian "goodbye," that it was not called forth by any person or any special occasion, but was simply composed on the basis of the etymological meaning of the word "good-bye," which is, "God be with you.”
That the hymn owes much of its usefulness to Mr. Tomer's tune, to which it is always sung, is unquestioned, and it is therefore of great interest to know that, when the hymn was written, Dr. Rankin sent a copy of the first verse to two different composers, one well known, and the other unknown and not even a competent musician, with the request that they would submit a tune for the hymn.
When these arrived, and Dr. Rankin had examined them, he selected the tune from the unknown composer, showed it to the organist of his church, who suggested one or two amendments, had it sung at one of his services, and adopted the tune for his hymn, in conjunction with which it has proved of immense value. Mr. Tomer was a school teacher, when he wrote the tune at Dr. Rankin's request.
In the State Prison
A remarkable incident, illustrating the power of Mr. Palmer's hymn, "Yield not to temptation," took place in the State Prison at Sing Sing, New York. At that time women were confined there as well as men, and on one occasion, when the women were allowed to sit in the corridor to listen to an address from a lady, the prisoners rebelled against an order given by the matron, resulting in a terrible scene, during which screams, ribaldry, blasphemy and profanity filled the place. The matron had sent for help, when suddenly a voice rose above the tumult, singing,
Yield not to temptation,
For yielding is sin.
It was one of the prisoners' favorite hymns, and as the words pealed out, first quiet began to prevail, then the women joined in the hymn, and finally marched quietly back to their cells.
The Child's Additional Verse
A good many years ago a lady was returning from an evangelistic meeting, accompanied by her little daughter, only eight years of age. At the meeting the hymn beginning "Knocking, knocking, who is there?" had been sung, and on the way home the child referred to the last verse, which ends,
Yes, the pierced Hand still knocketh,
And beneath the crowned hair
Beam the patient eyes, so tender,
Of thy Savior, waiting there.
“Mother," said the little girl, "I don't think the hymn ought to end like that, because, you see, it leaves the Savior still standing outside!”
The mother thought no more of her child's remark, but on reaching home her little daughter disappeared for a time, remaining in her own room.
When she at length came downstairs again, she gave her mother a piece of paper, saying: “There, mother, I think it ought to have something at the end like that.”
The mother, greatly astonished, unfolded the paper, and read the verse her little child had written: Enter! enter Heavenly Guest!
Welcome! welcome to my breast!
I have long withstood Thy knocking,
For my heart was full of sin;
But Thy love hath overcome me,
Blessed Jesus!—O come in!
The mother, as well she might be, was so impressed with her little daughter's additional verse that she sent it to a religious paper, explaining the circumstances of its composition. There it caught the eye of the Rev. Canon Hay Aitken, who was so struck by it that he added it to the original hymn in the Church Parochial Mission Hymn Book.
Saved From the Fire
On February 9, 1709, at Epworth Rectory, the Rector, the Rev. Samuel Wesley, sat in his room writing the following lines:
Behold the Savior of mankind
Nailed to the shameful tree!
How vast the love that Him inclined
To bleed and die for thee!
It was the beginning of a new hymn for Good Friday. Having completed its four verses, the Rector left the manuscript near the window, and presently retired to rest.
That night the Rectory caught fire, and the whole building, with all its contents, was utterly destroyed. In one room slept little John Wesley, aged five, with his three sisters, the baby and the nurse. On the alarm being given, the nurse seized the baby and rushed from the room, calling to the other children to follow her, which they did, with the exception of John, who was still fast asleep.
Waking soon after, he found his escape cut off by the flames, but climbed the chest which stood by the window, where he was quickly observed. His father made two attempts to reach him by the stairs, but was beaten back by the flames. There was no time to fetch a ladder, but a spectator urged a smaller man to climb on his shoulders and try to reach the child at the window, which he succeeded in doing at the second attempt.
Hardly had he lifted the boy out to safety than the whole roof fell in, fortunately falling inward, or the child and his rescuers would have been killed.
“Come neighbors," cried the Rector, as he clasped John in his arms, " let us kneel down; let us give thanks to God! He has given me all my eight children; let the house go; I am rich enough!”
Yet that night there was one other escape from the flames. Later on, someone walking in the Rectory garden, near the ruins of the house, noticed a piece of paper lying on the ground, and picked it up. It was the Rector's new hymn, blown through the open window from the burning house, which, like John Wesley himself, was thus saved from the fire!
The Prophetic Lines
The author of the well-known hymn "Come, Thou Fount of every blessing," was a Norfolk lad named Robert Robinson. His was a chequered career. His widowed mother's ambition was to see her son a clergyman of the Church of England, but poverty forbidding the fulfillment of her ambition, the boy was apprenticed to a barber and hairdresser in London at the age of fourteen. He was a bookish lad, and his occupation was anything but congenial.
In his seventeenth year, in company with some of his companions, he joined in making an old fortune-teller intoxicated, in order to make fun of her drunken predictions concerning them. One of her predictions about Robinson was that he should see his children and grandchildren, which, instead of amusing him, turned him to serious thought.
Six years later he wrote his famous hymn above mentioned. But, in the light of his subsequent history, some of its lines seem tragically prophetic:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it;
Prone to leave the God I love.
It is said that, towards the end of his life, when again he had given way to frivolous habits, he was once traveling by stage-coach with a lady, an entire stranger, who in the course of conversation spoke of Robinson's hymn and the blessing it had brought to her soul.
The author vainly attempted to turn the conversation into other channels, but when the lady persisted in referring to his hymn, he became agitated beyond control, and exclaimed: “Madam, I am the poor, unhappy man who composed that hymn many years ago; and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then!
From the Prison Window
The legend of the origin of the Latin hymn Gloria laws et honor (familiar to us in the English translation beginning "All glory, laud and honor") is interesting, although the historical accuracy cannot be entirely vouched for.
St. Theodulph of Orleans, about the year 820, was imprisoned by King Louis the Pious in the cloister at Angers. On Palm Sunday, 821, the King, who was at Angers, took part in the usual procession of clergy and laity, and as they passed St. Theodulph's prison, the saint, standing at the window of his cell, sang this hymn, which he had just composed, all the people standing in silence to listen.
The King was so delighted with the hymn that he set St. Theodulph at liberty, restored him to his see, and ordered that henceforth the hymn should always be used in processions on Palm Sunday.
In the present day we are mercifully spared the singing of the whole of the hymn which in its original form consisted of no less than seventy-eight lines, or thirty-nine verses in our English translation. Up to the seventeenth century was constantly sung one of these verses, arranged in four lines, the pious quaintness of which would certainly cause smiles in congregations of the present day; it ran thus:
Be Thou, O Lord, the Rider,
And we the little ass;
That to God's holy city
Together we may pass.
It is certainly conceivable that worshippers of past generations, who could sing these words in all reverent seriousness, possessed a greater measure of earnest devotion than people in the present day.
The Translation on the Death-Bed
The Rev. Thomas Whytehead, at the age of twenty-six, was appointed chaplain to Dr. Selwyn, the Bishop-elect of New Zealand. He sailed for that colony in 1842, but he never did any work in his new sphere, as he ruptured a blood-vessel soon after landing and died after a few months' illness.
During his last days he occupied what little strength he had in correcting the translations of the Bible and Prayer Book into the Maori language, while just before his death he also translated into that tongue Ken's Evening Hymn, "Glory to Thee, my God, this night," the meter and the rhythm being identical with the English, the first instance of a translation of that kind. Two hundred and fifty copies of the new hymn were printed, and were sung by the natives in church and school, while some of them came and sang the hymn under the dying man's window.
“They call it," wrote Whytehead to a friend, five days before his death "the ' new hymn of the sick minister.' It is very hard to compress Bishop Ken's fine lines within the same bounds in a rude language. However, it is done, and people seem pleased with it; and it is a comfort to think one has introduced Bishop Ken's beautiful hymn into the Maori's evening worship, and left them this legacy when I could do no more for them.”
It has been well said, "A life so short and holy could have had no more beautiful ending.”
The Evangelist's Mistake
Few incidents connected with hymns are so tragic as the following, which occurred when Mr. Moody was first beginning his work as an evangelist in Chicago. Mr. Moody had been preaching on Bible Characters, and decided to devote the sermons for six successive Sunday nights to the Life of Christ.
On the fifth Sunday night, October 8, 1871, he preached to the largest congregation he had ever addressed in Chicago on the Trial before Pilate, and having put the claims of Christ before them with intense earnestness, the text being the words "What shall I do with Jesus which is called Christ?" (St. Matt. 27:2222Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. (Matthew 27:22)), he concluded: "I wish you would take this text home with you, and turn it over in your minds during the week, and next Sabbath we will come to Calvary and the Cross, and we will decide what to do with Jesus of Nazareth!”
Speaking of this in after-years, Mr. Moody called it one of the greatest mistakes of his life.
“For," he said, "I have never seen that congregation again!”
Having concluded his sermon, he called on Mr. Sankey to sing "To-day the Savior calls." Almost prophetically the third verse rang out:
To-day the Savior calls;
For refuge fly;
The storm of justice falls,
And death is nigh.
It was the last verse ever sung in that fine hall. For, even as he sang, the singer's voice was drowned by the clang of fire-bells and the rushing of fire-engines in the street. It was the night of the great Fire of Chicago, in which Moody's hall was laid in ashes, and in which it is estimated that over a thousand people perished, some of whom were probably among the evangelist's hearers that evening.
Moody could hardly speak of that night in later years without tears.
“There is one lesson," he used to say, “I learned that night which I have never forgotten, and that is, when I preach, to press Christ upon the people then and there, and try to bring them to a decision on the spot. I would rather have this right hand cut off than give an audience now a week to decide what to do with Jesus!
The King of the Cannibal Islands
Little more than a century ago the whole of the South Sea Islands were peopled by the most savage cannibal races. Of these some of the most ferocious were the people of Tonga. In 1821 the natives of Fiji, where many of the inhabitants had become Christian, were terrified by the sight of a Tonga war-canoe rapidly approaching the shore. But its occupants had come not to kill, but—of all things in the world—to buy a Bible The people of Tonga had heard of the white man's religion, and wanted to know about it. They had sent a canoe before, which had never been heard of again, and now this second expedition had rowed 250 miles across the open sea in their fragile craft to obtain a copy of the Christian's book, never realizing that it would be entirely useless, since none of them could read I However, a missionary returned with the party, and so successful was the work in that and the neighboring islands that on Whit-Sunday, 1862, a most remarkable gathering took place.
Under the spreading branches of the banyan-trees assembled some thousand natives from Tonga, Fiji, and Samoa, presided over by King George, the old native monarch who had himself been a cannibal in his younger days, but was now an earnest follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, and who had summoned his people in order to declare his islands Christian, and to give them a new constitution, exchanging a heathen for a Christian form of government.
Now they met first of all for divine worship; foremost among them all sat King George himself; around him were old chiefs and warriors who had shared the perils of many a battle, and, like their sovereign, had lived in the gross darkness and sins of heathendom. But now all rejoiced together in the gladness of that great day, their faces radiant with Christian joy, and love, and hope.
No words could describe the intense feeling manifested when the solemn service began by the whole multitude singing the words, translated into their own tongue, of Dr. Watts' great hymn, "Jesus shall reign where'er the sun Doth his successive journeys run.”
Who like these, rescued from heathen darkness, meeting that day for the first time under a Christian constitution, under a Christian king, and with Christ Himself reigning in their hearts, could enter into and realize the full meaning of such words as these:
Blessings abound where'er He reigns,
The prisoner leaps to lose his chains,
The weary find eternal rest,
And all the sons of want are blest?
The Stolen Hymns
Nearly every hymn book of note contains the hymn beginning "Where high the heavenly temple stands." Who was the author of this beautiful composition? Most books, in the index, give the name of "Michael Bruce" as the writer, but one book at least gives "Bruce and Logan," and in those two names is bound up an extraordinary incident in the history of this hymn.
Michael Bruce and John Logan were two young Scotchmen of about the same age, Bruce being born in 1746 and Logan two years later. During the latter years of his short life (he died at the age of twenty-three) Bruce wrote a number of poems, and also several hymns for the use of the singing class at Kinnesswood, the village in which he lived. These compositions were well known to his family and friends, and he eventually copied them out in a quarto manuscript book, hoping that one day he would see them in print.
Immediately after Bruce's death Logan called on his father and asked for the loan of the manuscript book, that he might publish the contents for the benefit of the family, a request which was granted. No publication, however, appeared for three years, and then a book of poems was published under Bruce's name, but the hymns which Bruce's father used to call his son's "Gospel Sonnets" were not included.
As Logan, who was now minister of South Leith, left unanswered all letters and demands for the return of the manuscript book, Mr. Bruce called upon him in person, but the book was not forthcoming, only a few scraps of paper being returned, while Logan excused himself by saying that he feared "the servants had singed fowls with it"!
But eleven years later a second book of poems was published as being the compositions of Logan himself, and with these were included a number of hymns, some of which were immediately recognized by the Kinnesswood singing class as those written by Bruce and sung by them, one of these thus claimed both by Bruce and Logan being "Where high the heavenly temple stands.”
There can be little doubt that Logan did thus steal Bruce's hymns, and after the lapse of years endeavor to pass them as his own. It is not a little significant of the man's character that he was finally compelled to resign his pastorate at Leith in order to avoid deposition.
The Queen's Choice
The hymn, so widely known and loved, beginning,
O happy day that fixed my choice
On Thee, my Savior and my God,
and written by Doddridge in the middle of the eighteenth century, is entitled by him " Rejoicing in Our Covenant Engagements with God." It was, therefore, a fitting thing that Queen Victoria, when one of the Princesses at her Confirmation was about to publicly profess her vows to God, selected this hymn to be sung during the service. The London correspondent to one of the provincial papers, however, in mentioning this fact, ascribed the authorship of the hymn to Lord Tennyson, and added that he was not worthy of his salary as Poet Laureate if he could not produce anything better than that! It is a pity that the hymn is sometimes spoiled by the addition of a jingling chorus, quite unworthy of association with Doddridge's fine lines.
The Misty Morning
In the beginning of the year 1883 Messrs. Moody and Sankey conducted a fortnight's mission in the city of Manchester, the scene of their labors being the Free Trade Hall, where each day's work commenced with a meeting at 8 a.m. On one of these mornings the weather was anything but cheering; the sky was dark and the atmosphere cold, while within the huge hall, which was filled from end to end, the mist was so dense that from the platform those at the further end of the hall were scarcely visible.
Gazing on this depressing scene, Mr. Sankey felt that he must sing something of a bright character. In his portfolio was a new hymn, with music, which he had never used up to that time. He decided to introduce this, and in these remarkably appropriate surroundings were sung for the first time the beautiful words, which not only filled the audience with enthusiasm, but became one of Mr. Moody's great favorites:
When the mists have rolled in splendor
From the beauty of the hills,
And the sunlight falls in gladness
On the river and the rills,
We recall our Father's promise
In the rainbow of the spray;
We shall know each other better
When the mists have rolled away
From Dying Days
Exactly one hundred years ago there graduated at Oxford a most brilliant scholar of Christ Church College, gaining double first-class honors. At the extraordinarily early age of twenty-two, Joseph Anstice was appointed Professor of Classical Literature at King's College, London; six years later the short life reached its end at Torquay.
From his pen, as he entered into the valley of the shadow, came a number of hymns, which are sung today by innumerable worshippers, such as "Father, by Thy love and power"; "Lord of the harvest, once again"; and "O Lord, how happy should we be." Some of the words of these well-known hymns are fraught with intense pathos, when we learn the circumstances, as given later by Mrs. Anstice, under which they were written. She writes: “The hymns were all dictated to his wife during the last few weeks of his life, and were composed just at the period of the day (the afternoon) when he felt the oppression of his illness—all his brighter morning hours being given to pupils up to the very day of his death.”
How truly pathetic, when we think of the dying man, become such words as those of the closing verse of the third of the above hymns!
Lord, make these faithless hearts of ours
Such lessons learn from birds and flowers;
Make them from self to cease,
Leave all things to a Father's will,
And taste, before Him lying still,
E'en in affliction, peace.
On the Spur of the Moment
In the year 1874 the two American evangelists, Messrs. Moody and Sankey, were entering the train at Glasgow, on their way to begin a campaign of four months at Edinburgh. On the platform Mr. Sankey bought a paper, and, taking his seat, looked through it in the hope of finding some American news. Having glanced through it in vain, he threw the paper down, and only looked at it again just before reaching their destination. Then, in a corner of the paper, he noticed a little piece of poetry, and read for the first time the lines destined to become one of the most famous hymns in the world:
There were ninety and nine that safely lay
In the shelter of the fold;
But one was out on the hills away,
Far off from the gates of gold;
Away on the mountains wild and bare,
Away from the tender Shepherd's care.
Immensely impressed by the words, Mr. Sankey proceeded to read them to Mr. Moody, only to find, when he had finished, that Mr. Moody, plunged in thought over a letter, had not heard a single word! However, Mr. Sankey cut out the little poem, and placed it in his music note-book.
At the second day's meeting in Edinburgh Mr. Moody spoke with all his wonted fervor and power on the subject of "The Good Shepherd." He then called on Dr. Bonar to give a brief address, during which Mr. Moody turned to Mr. Sankey and asked him if he could sing some appropriate solo with which to close the meeting. But Mr. Sankey had nothing suitable in his stock of music.
Suddenly the thought flashed into his mind like a message, "Sing the solo you read in the train." But how could he do this when there was no music for it? Yet he felt that he must sing those words, so placing the newspaper cutting in front of him on his American organ, and lifting up his heart 1 in prayer for help, he essayed the apparently impossible task of composing a tune as he went along for words he had never sung before. Yet as he played, note by note was given to him the tune which everyone to-day knows so well.
At the end of the first verse a fresh difficulty presented itself. Could he accurately repeat the music he had just played? But that too he was enabled to do.
Deeply moved, Mr. Moody came down from the pulpit to Mr. Sankey, and asked him: “Where did you get that hymn? I never heard the like of it in my life." To which Mr. Sankey replied: “Why, it is the hymn I read to you in the train yesterday!”
Then, raising his hand, Mr. Moody closed the meeting with the benediction, a benediction which assuredly was not for the great audience only, but which has ever since rested on the hymn so wondrously set to music on the spur of the moment.
The Preacher's Last Utterance
Dr. Watts' collection of hymns and poems, published under the name of Horœ Lyricœ in 1705, concluded with the magnificent hymn, beginning,
Eternal Power, Whose high abode
Becomes the grandeur of a God,
to which he prefixed the title "God Exalted Above All Praise.”
There is a pathetically tragic incident which occurred in connection with this hymn. On the morning of Sunday, January 23, 1855, Dr. Joseph Beaumont was announced to preach the Sunday School Anniversary sermons at Waltham Street Chapel, Hull. Although he was suffering considerably from rheumatism, he refused to take any relieving medicine that morning, lest it should interfere with his day's work. The morning was frosty and the streets slippery, but he walked to the chapel leaning on his daughter's arm, and ascended the pulpit stairs at the beginning of the service with apparent ease. The service commenced with Dr. Watts' hymn just referred to, but instead of reading the first verse, Dr. Beaumont gave out the first two lines of the second, which he pronounced, it is said, with an awful pathos, even his lips quivering as he uttered the solemn words:
Thee, while the first archangel sings,
He hides his face behind his wings.
The preacher's emotion was doubtless partially due to the approach of death at that moment, for while the congregation were singing the second of the above lines, and after glancing round as if in search of something, Dr. Beaumont sank down in the place where he stood, whence without any sound, any sigh, or any further movement, his soul instantly passed to the presence of that Lord in Whose praise he had just uttered these two magnificent lines of Dr. Watts' hymn.