shower, under a cliff. This is, however, but one of several stories about the birth-occasion of the hymn.

It has been translated into many languages. One of the foreign dignitaries visiting Queen Victoria at her "Golden Jubilee" was a native of Madagascar, who surprised her by asking leave to sing, but delighted her, when leave was given, by singing "Rock of Ages." It was a favorite of hers and of Prince Albert, who whispered it when he was dying. People who were schoolchildren when Rev. Justus Vinton came home to Willington, Ct., with two Karen pupils, repeat today the "la-pa-ta, i-oo-i-oo" caught by sound from the brown-faced boys as they sang their native version of "Rock of Ages."

Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, the famous Confederate Cavalry leader, mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern, Va., and borne to a Richmond hospital, called for his minister and requested that "Rock of Ages" be sung to him.

The last sounds heard by the few saved from the wreck of the steamer "London" in the Bay of Biscay, 1866, were the voices of the helpless passengers singing "Rock of Ages" as the ship went down.

A company of Armenian Christians sang "Rock of Ages" in their native tongue while they were being massacred in Constantinople.

No history of this grand hymn of faith forgets the incident of Gladstone writing a Latin trans

(of the unknown path,—instead of going to many "worlds"). The Unitarians have their version, with substitutes for the "atonement lines."

But the Christian lyric maintains its life and inspiration through the vicissitudes of age and use, as all intrinsically superior things can and will, and as in the twentieth line,—

When my eyestrings break in death;

-modernized to

When my eyelids close in death,

-the hymn will ever adapt itself to the new exigencies of common speech, without losing its vitality and power.

THE TUNE.

A happy inspiration of Dr. Thomas Hastings made the hymn and music inevitably one. Almost anywhere to call for the tune of "Toplady" (namesake of the pious poet) is as unintelligible to the multitude as "Key" would be to designate the "Star-spangled Banner." The common people -thanks to Dr. Hastings-have learned "Rock of Ages" by sound.

Thomas Hastings was born in Washington, Ct., 1784. For eight years he was editor of the Western Recorder, but he gave his life to church music, and besides being a talented tone-poet he wrote as many as six hundred hymns. In 1832, by invitation from twelve New York churches, he went

to that city, and did the main work of his life there, dying, in 1872, at the good old age of eightynine. His musical collections number fifty-three. He wrote his famous tune in 1830.

"MY SOUL BE ON THY GUARD."

Strangely enough, this hymn, a trumpet note of Christian warning and resolution, was written by one who himself fell into unworthy ways.* But the one strong and spiritual watch-song by which he is remembered appeals for him, and lets us know possibly, something of his own conflicts. We can be thankful for the struggle he once made, and for the hymn it inspired. It is a voice of caution to others.

George Heath, the author, was an English minister, born in 1781; died 1822. For a time he was pastor of a Presbyterian Church at Honiton, Devonshire, and was evidently a prolific writer, having composed a hundred and forty-four hymns, an edition of which was printed.

THE TUNE.

No other has been so familiarly linked with the words as Lowell Mason's "Laban" (1830). It has dash and animation enough to reënforce the hymn, and give it popular life, even if the hymn had less earnestness and vigor of its own.

*I have been unable to verify this statement found in Mr. Butterworth's "Story of the Hymns.”—T. B.