CHAPTER 1
HYMNS BASED UPON SCRIPTURE
Thanksgiving for Peace
During the Thirty Years' War (1620 to 1648) the little town of Eilenburg, in Saxony, suffered severely. The Austrians sacked it once and the Swedes twice. The overcrowding caused by the influx of refugees from the countryside produced the plague, which ravaged the city four times during the period of war. Only one minister of the town, Martin Rinkart, survived this scourge and it often fell to his lot to take as many as fifty funerals in a single day! Famine was yet another of the miseries of war which left its mark on Eilenburg, while of its thousand houses nearly eight hundred were laid in ruins.
But at last came the great day when news arrived that the Peace of Westphalia had been signed and the war had come to an end. The Elector of Saxony at once ordered Thanksgiving Services to be held in every church, and also selected a text from which ministers were to preach, viz.
Ecclus. 1:22: "Now bless ye the God of all, Who everywhere doeth great things, Who exalteth our days from the womb, and dealeth with us according to His mercy. May He grant us joyful hearts, and may peace be in our days forever.”
A splendid text for the occasion, and one which so struck Martin Rinkart that, as he pondered over it, its words gradually shaped themselves into the form of a hymn, which was doubtless sung at his own Thanksgiving Service, has been translated into other languages, and is now used everywhere. Its notes of gladness are intensified when we remember the horrors of war which its author had experienced, and the close of which it first commemorated. How well Rinkart enshrined the text in the hymn can be seen from the first verse, as translated by Miss Winkworth:
Now thank we all our God
With hearts, and hands, and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In Whom His world rejoices;
Who from our mothers' arms
Hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love,
And still is ours to-day.
The Bishop's Mistake
“The origin of English hymns," it has been said, "lies in the paraphrases," or the rendering of passages of Scripture in metrical form for singing. At the Reformation the English Bible seemed to men to have in its words the only security from human error. Hence the long series of Metrical Psalms, which until the end of the seventeenth century alone were used for public praise. Other passages of Scripture were gradually used in this way, some most absurdly, as, for instance, the production of a Metrical Version of the Genealogies!
This practice, however, gave rise in later years to some of our most beautiful hymns, one of which is Bishop Wordsworth's "Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost," which, when read in full, is seen to be a fine paraphrase of 1 Cor. 13, St. Paul's great panegyric of Love. But the two verses which make this so clear are omitted in nearly every Hymn Book, thus mutilating the paraphrase entirely; namely:
Faith that mountains could remove,
Tongues of earth or heaven above,
Knowledge—all things—empty prove
Without heavenly love.
Though I as a martyr bleed,
Give my goods the poor to feed,
All in vain, if love I need;
Therefore, give me love.
But the seventh stanza is the most remarkable of all, from the fact that the words of the good Bishop therein are absolutely contradictory of the passage he is paraphrasing! St. Paul having described the transitoriness of prophecies and tongues and knowledge, declares that, in contrast to these, the three graces of Faith, Hope, and Love will remain forever; "But now," he writes, " abideth (that is, continueth forever) faith, hope, love, these three." But the Bishop's hymn states that both faith and hope will disappear in eternity, and that only love will abide!
Faith will vanish into sight;
Hope be emptied in delight;
Love in heaven will shine more bright;
Therefore give us love.
The Snowy Sunday
It is, perhaps, not very usual to have snow in April, but April 19, 1872, was a snowy Sunday, and Frances Ridley Havergal, then staying at Winterdyne and not very strong, was unable on that account to accompany her friends to church. She remained in bed, only asking for her Prayer Book to be brought to her, as she always liked to follow the services for the day.
On returning from church, Mr. Shaw, with whom she was staying, heard the sound of the piano, and found Miss Havergal playing.
“Why, Frances," he said, "I thought you were upstairs 1”
“Yes," replied Miss Havergal,” but I had my Prayer Book, and in the Psalms for to-day I read, ' Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King.' I thought, ' What a splendid first line! ' and then words and music came rushing in to me.
There, it is all written out.' “With these words she handed Mr. Shaw her manuscript, rapidly written out with the neatness of copperplate—words, music, harmonies, all complete. It will be remembered that Miss Havergal was using her Prayer Book, not her Bible, the translation of Psa. 96:1010Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth: the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved: he shall judge the people righteously. (Psalm 96:10) being different in the latter.
Miss Havergal's words have a splendid ring about them, and her music is as stirring as her words, but, as will be seen from the first verse, the meter is so unusual that the use of the hymn has been distinctly limited on that account:
Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King;
Tell it out! Tell it out!
Tell it out among the nations, bid them shout and sing;
Tell it out! Tell it out!
Tell it out with adoration that He shall increase;
That the mighty King of Glory is the King of Peace:
Tell it out with jubilation, though the waves may roar.
That He sits above the water-flood a King for evermore.
The Sunday School Lesson
Miss Mary A. Baker, the authoress of the well-known hymn beginning "Master, the tempest is raging," had been passing through a sad and trying experience. Her beloved and only brother had journeyed to the South in the hope of being restored to health. There, a thousand miles from home, he grew rapidly worse; Miss Baker herself was ill and could not go to him, and after a fortnight's suffering he died. Miss Baker, although a Christian, says that she became “wickedly rebellious '! under this bereavement, and actually began to doubt God's love and care. But presently the Master Himself spoke to the restless, troubled heart, and she passed into a new and deeper peace and trust.
Soon after this, Miss Baker was asked to write some hymns on a series of Sunday School lessons then being studied and taught, one of which was on "Christ Stilling the Tempest." The hymn which she wrote on that theme not only embodied the teaching of the lesson, but bore within its bosom the record of her own personal experience, which is clearly set forth in the second verse:
Master, with anguish of spirit,
I bow in my grief to-day;
The depths of my sad heart are troubled
Oh, waken and save, I pray
Torrents of sin and of anguish
Sweep o'er my sinking soul;
And I perish! I perish! dear Master;
Oh, hasten, and take control.
The Dissatisfied Worshipper
In the year 1694 a young fellow of twenty, whose parents lived at Southampton, returned home from a Nonconformist Academy in London, and joined in worship in a Southampton chapel. The hymn book in use in this chapel was one edited by the Rev. W. Barton, a Nonconformist minister of Leicester, and was one of the first collection of hymns, as distinct from psalms, in the English language. The young worshipper, however, was very dissatisfied with the hymns contained in this book, and went so far as to make a complaint about them, upon which he was challenged to produce anything better. Quite unabashed, he accepted the challenge and set to work to compose a hymn himself, the first of an enormous series of such compositions which were destined to enrich the whole Church of God.
The young man was Isaac Watts, and this first hymn was founded upon the fifth chapter of the Book of the Revelation, beginning, "Behold the glories of the Lamb." This hymn proved so acceptable to the congregation, that he was requested to write more, which he did during the two years he remained at home, the hymns being written out and sung in the chapel from manuscript. Among them was the favorite hymn commencing "There is a land of pure delight," which is said to have been suggested by the view across Southampton Water.
The Dialogue Hymn
Everybody is familiar with the beautiful hymn, based upon Rev. 7:12-1712Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. 13And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? 14And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. 16They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. 17For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. (Revelation 7:12‑17), which begins "Lo! round the throne at God's right hand," or sometimes "Lo! round the throne a glorious band," which was written by Cotterill, and appears in his Selection of Hymns, published in 1810. But Cotterill's hymn is not original, it is really an adaptation of a hymn written by the famous Rowland Hill nearly thirty years before. The peculiarity about this hymn, as Rowland Hill wrote it, is that it is cast in the form of a dialog, one verse asking a question and the next giving the reply, probably a unique form for a hymn to take. Here are the first two verses:
Q. Exalted high at God's right hand,
Nearer the throne than cherubs stand,
With glory crowned in white array,
My wondering soul says, Who are they?
A. These are the saints beloved of God,
Washed are their robes in Jesus' blood
More spotless than the purest white,
They shine in uncreated light.
The New Year's Bells
As the hour of midnight struck on New Year's Day, 1859, the bells of St. Nicholas' Church, Worcester, of which the Rev. W. H. Havergal was then rector, burst out into a merry peal. The Rector's daughters, Maria and Frances, were sleeping together in the Rectory close by, and Maria roused her sister to listen to the bells, at the same time quoting to her, as a New Year's motto, the text "As thy days thy strength shall be.”
Frances Havergal did not reply for a few minutes, and then gave back to her sister the same beautiful thought in the form of two verses, which she had composed in those few moments of silence. Her sister was so pleased with them, that the next day the authoress added two more verses to those of the night before.
The four verses form a very beautiful hymn, which appears in a number of American hymn books, and is well worthy a place in our English hymnals, though none seem to have included it. The readers of these pages can judge for themselves of its worth:
“As thy days thy strength shall be"!
This should be enough for thee;
He Who knows thy frame will spare
Burdens more than thou canst bear.
When thy days are veiled in night,
Christ shall give thee heavenly light;
Seem they wearisome and long,
Yet in Him thou shalt be strong.
Cold and wintry though they prove,
Thine the sunshine of His love,
Or, with fervid heat oppressed,
In His shadow thou shalt rest.
When thy days on earth are past,
Christ shall call thee home at last,
His redeeming love to praise,
Who hath strengthened all thy days.
The Application of the Sermon
Quite a number of our well-known hymns had their origin in the curious device of a famous Nonconformist minister, some two centuries ago, for riveting the lessons of his sermon on the minds of his congregation. These lessons he put together in the form of a hymn, and at the end of his sermon made his congregation sing it.
Hymn books were unknown in those days, nor could many of his hearers have read them had they possessed them; he therefore gave out his hymn, line by line, each line being sung as he announced it. But one member of his congregation, who could both read and write, used to copy down these hymns as Philip Doddridge recited them from the pulpit, and thus they were preserved for the use of countless thousands of worshippers in after years.
Let us in thought join Doddridge's congregation one Sunday morning in his chapel at Northampton.
He reads a lesson from St. Luke 12:35-3835Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; 36And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. 37Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. 38And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. (Luke 12:35‑38), and then proceeds to impress upon his hearers the solemn and striking teaching of this wonderful passage. It is they who are the servants of the Lord Christ, expectant of His Second Advent, and with lighted lamps and girded loins watching for His Coming, which even then for them was close at hand. Let each one be ready for that hour, for great indeed would be the reward of watchfulness; not only the rapturous vision of the Lord, and the crown of glory, but even the participation at the King's Own table of the feast prepared by His Own Hand. And then, line by line, the now well-known words are sung for the first time:
Ye servants of the Lord,
Each in his office wait,
Observant of His heavenly word,
And watchful at His gate.
It will be seen, by reference to the hymn, how it drove home the lessons of the passage from which Doddridge preached. Some five hundred hymns were the work of Doddridge's pen, among which are "Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve"; "Hark, the glad sound, the Savior comes"; "My God, and is Thy Table spread"; "O God of Bethel, by Whose Hand"; and "Oh happy day that fixed my choice.”
Formed From a Single Word
The well-known hymn "O come, O come, Emmanuel," has a curious origin. In the ancient Church it was the custom to sing a short sentence which fitted in with the particular Church season or festival immediately before and after the Magnificat. This was called the Antiphon. The Antiphon sung in this way during the season of Advent consisted of only one word, a long drawn out "O!", like a cry of distress, meant to indicate the intense longing of the Church for her Lord's Return. This was called "The Great O of Advent.”
After a time, someone added to this single word some of the titles ascribed in Scripture to our Lord, together with a brief prayer, such as "O Emmanuel, come and save us"; "O Key of David, unlock the prison house"; "O Dayspring, come and give us light," etc. One of these was chanted on each of the seven days before Christmas, and if any reader will turn to the calendar for December, at the beginning of his Prayer Book, he will find printed in it on December 16th the words "O Sapientia," the Latin for "O Wisdom," the two words with which the first of the Advent Antiphons began, and which was sung on that day.
Later still, some person turned five or more of these Antiphons into a Latin hymn, and finally Dr. Neale translated that hymn into English, his translation finding a place in every hymn book of any repute in the present day.
My First Hymn
It may be of some interest, perhaps, to the readers of these pages to know the circumstances which led to the publication of my first hymn. I was then on the staff of the Church Missionary Society in London, in connection with which Society was the world-wide organization, the Gleaners' Union (as it was then called, now "The Missionary Service League"), founded by Dr. Eugene Stock, and which always held its anniversary on All Saints' Day, November 1st. At this anniversary the Union's Motto Text for the following year was announced and for the year 1897 the Motto Text which had been selected was threefold, viz.:
“When the burnt-offering began, the song of the Lord
On a Sunday afternoon, about a week before the anniversary, I was sitting in my drawing-room and thinking over this striking motto, chosen by Dr. Stock himself, and known, of course, to us at headquarters, when the idea suddenly flashed into my mind to jot down in verse some of the thoughts which it suggested. I did this, and the next morning, thinking that Dr. Stock, who then was our Editorial Secretary, might care to publish the lines in one of the C.M.S. magazines, I went to his room, which was empty, and laid them on his table.
Of their use as a hymn I had never dreamed, but Dr. Stock, coming in and finding them, was at once struck, not merely by the lines, but by the fact that they exactly fitted the beautiful tune "Ruth.”
He had them printed off at once as a leaflet, and to my intense surprise they were sung at the forthcoming anniversary. Except for this generous appreciation and action of Dr. Stock's, it is probable that I should never have tried to do any work as a hymn writer. This first hymn has been included in several collections, including "Hymns of Consecration and Faith," and I may, perhaps, venture to quote the first and last verses:
In the cleansed temple,
On the festal day,
When the whole burnt-offering
On the altar lay
Then the priestly trumpets
Echoed loud and long,
Then ten thousand voices
Sang the Lord's own song
Grant us, blessed Master,
So to yield to Thee
Body, soul, and spirit,
Our burnt-offering free—
That in Thine own temple,
With the white-robed throng,
We may join forever
In the glad new song.
After the Sermon
Dr. Thomas Hastings was a musician as well as a hymn writer. Taking the aggregate number of American hymnals published during the last half of the nineteenth century, it has been found that more hymns written by him are included than those of any other American writer. Yet not one of his hymns can be said to be of the highest merit! He has told us the story of the hymn of which the first verse runs Return, O wanderer, to thy home,
Thy Father calls for thee;
No longer now an exile roam,
In guilt and misery.
Return Return
Dr. Hastings says that it was written after hearing a striking revival sermon on the Prodigal Son preached by the Rev. Mr. Kint, at a large meeting where two hundred converts were present. The preacher, at the close of his sermon, appealed to the congregation with great tenderness, exclaiming, "Sinner, come home come home!" "It was easy," says Dr. Hastings, “afterward to write, ' Return, O wanderer.'!!
The Three Periods of Life
Caroline Maria Noel, daughter of the Rev. and Hon. Baptist W. Noel, wrote her first hymn at the age of seventeen, which was followed by the writing of several others during the next three years. On reaching her twentieth birthday she ceased to write anything for another period of twenty years, which brought her to the age of forty. Then, for a third period of twenty years, she once more took her pen and wrote. It was during this third period that she composed the most famous of all her hymns, the Processional for Ascension Day, based upon the great passage Phil. 2:6-116Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 9Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 10That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 11And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:6‑11), and beginning:
At the Name of Jesus
Every knee shall bow,
Every tongue confess Him
King of Glory now;
'Tis the Father's pleasure
We should call Him Lord,
Who from the beginning
Was the mighty Word.
Written on Glass
One Whit-Sunday, at Hoddesdon, in Hertford shire, a lady was sitting in her bedroom, and thinking over the sermon she had heard that morning in church. She had in her desk a number of hymns intended for publication, and, as she sat meditating the lines of a new hymn began to form themselves in her mind. Neither pencil nor paper were handy, but she was sitting near her window, so with a diamond ring which was on her finger she wrote the verses, one by one, on a pane of the glass, beginning
Our Blest Redeemer, ere He breathed
His tender last farewell,
A Guide, a Comforter bequeathed
With us to dwell.
Miss Harriet Auber wrote one verse which is omitted from many hymn books at the present day, viz.:
He came in tongues of living flame
To teach, convince, subdue;
All-powerful as the wind He came,
As viewless too.
The words of the hymn remained written on the bedroom window for many years, but after the death of the authoress the pane of glass was cut out and stolen.
The Sick-Bed
Sixty years ago a man was ill in bed at Bristol. William Chatterton Dix was an insurance agent, and an earnest, godly Churchman. When the Feast of the Epiphany came round (January 6, 1860) he was, of course, unable to go to church, so as he lay in bed he read to himself the Epiphany Gospel (St. Matt. 2:1-121Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, 2Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. 3When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 4And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. 5And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judea: for thus it is written by the prophet, 6And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel. 7Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. 8And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. 9When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. 10When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. 11And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. 12And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. (Matthew 2:1‑12)).
Pondering over the passage, it seemed to him to be fraught with real practical teaching for ourselves, and the Wise Men became to him examples to be followed by us. So before he slept that night he had turned these ideas into poetry, and given the world that lovely Epiphany hymn, each verse setting forth, first, the Wise Men's example, and then how we can imitate them:
As with gladness men of old
Did the guiding star behold;
As with joy they hailed its light,
Leading onward, beaming bright;
So, most gracious Lord, may we
Evermore be led to Thee.
In the Baker's Shop
To James Montgomery the Church of Christ owes a number of the most familiar and best-loved hymns, such as "Hail to the Lord's Anointed," "Songs of praise the angels sang," and "Forever with the Lord." Of the four hundred hymns from his pen, no less than one hundred are still in use. The earliest of all was a metrical version of Psa. 113., beginning "Servants of God, His praise proclaim,'! though in some hymn books it appears with the first line of the last verse as the opening of the hymn—" Servants of God! in joyful lays. "The curious thing about this first hymn is that at the time he wrote it Montgomery had run away from the Moravian School at Fulneck at the age of seventeen, and had entered the employ of a man named Lockwood, at Mirfield, who was known as" The Fine Bread Baker." In his shop, Montgomery waited behind the counter for about a year and a half, but there was little to do, and the employment was anything but congenial. He seems, therefore, to have spent a good deal of his time in writing poetry, including a long poem called “Alfred," and it was then that he, one of the most famous hymn writers of our land, produced his first hymn.
Beside the Death-Bed
In August 1875, the Rev. E. H. Bickersteth, then Vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead, was staying with his family in a house at Harrogate, facing the Stray. One Sunday morning he heard Canon Gibbon, the Vicar of Harrogate, preach from the text "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee" (Isa. 26:88Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. (Isaiah 26:8)), in which he alluded to the beauty of the phrase "perfect peace" as rendering the repeated word "peace, peace" in the original Hebrew.
That Sunday afternoon Mr. Bickersteth went to visit a dying relative in Harrogate, Archdeacon Hill of Liverpool, and, finding him somewhat troubled in mind, he took a sheet of paper, and wrote there and then his beautiful hymn, "Peace, perfect peace," afterward reading it to the dying man.
Mr. Bickersteth's son states that he still remembers his father coming in to tea that Sunday afternoon, saying "Children, I have written you a hymn," and reading it to them at the meal. His custom at that particular meal on Sundays was to ask each of his family to repeat a hymn, doing the same himself or reading out some new composition of his own.
Later on, one of Mr. Bickersteth's sisters drew his attention to the fact that his hymn, beautiful as it was, contained no reference to the trial of physical suffering. "That is soon remedied," he replied, and, taking up an envelope, wrote on the back, Peace, perfect peace, 'mid suffering's sharpest throes? The sympathy of Jesus breathes repose.
These additional lines, however, were either written too late or did not carry the same appeal as the rest; at any rate, they do not appear in any of the best-known hymn books as a part of the hymn.
In singing the hymn it is all but impossible to convey the fact that it really consists of question and answer, the question being in the first line of each verse (except the last, while the second line gives the reply thus:—
Q. Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin?
A. The Blood of Jesus whispers peace within.
But no music has ever yet been written to this hymn—perhaps cannot be—which indicates this fact, although the author knows of one composer who added to his tune the odd direction "To be sung in an inquiring spirit"—without, however, any indication of how this was to be done! Probably nearly everyone, therefore, in singing the hymn, will continue to take the first line of each verse merely as a statement of fact.