1855, when he was eighty-five years old. But he still lives. His zeal for the coming of the Kingdom of Christ prompted his best hymn.

On the mountain-top appearing,

Lo! the sacred herald stands,
Joyful news to Zion bearing,
Zion long in hostile lands;
Mourning captive,

God himself will loose thy bands.

Has the night been long and mournful?
Have thy friends unfaithful proved?
Have thy foes been proud and scornful,
By thy sighs and tears unmoved?
Cease thy mourning;

Zion still is well beloved.

THE TUNE.

To presume that Kelly made both words and music together is possible, for he was himself a composer, but no such original tune seems to survive. In modern use Dr. Hastings" "Zion" is most frequently attached to the hymn, and was probably written for it.

"YE CHRISTIAN HEROES, WAKE TO GLORY."

This rather crude parody on the "Marsellaise Hymn" (see Chap. 9) is printed in the American Vocalist, among numerous samples of early New England psalmody of untraced authorship. It might have been sung at primitive missionary meetings, to spur the zeal and faith of a Francis

Mason or a Harriet Newell. It expresses, at least, the new-kindled evangelical spirit of the long-ago consecrations in American church life that first sent the Christian ambassadors to foreign lands, and followed them with benedictions.

Ye Christian heroes, wake to glory:
Hark, hark! what millions bid you rise!
See heathen nations bow before you,

Behold their tears, and hear their cries.
Shall pagan priest, their errors breeding,
With darkling hosts, and flags unfurled,
Spread their delusions o'er the world,
Though Jesus on the Cross hung bleeding?
To arms! To arms!

Christ's banner fling abroad!

March on! March on! all hearts resolved
To bring the world to God.

O, Truth of God! can man resign thee,
Once having felt thy glorious flame?
Can rolling oceans e'er prevent thee,
Or gold the Christian's spirit tame?
Too long we slight the world's undoing;
The word of God, salvation's plan,

Is

yet almost unknown to man,

While millions throng the road to ruin.
To arms! to arms!

The Spirit's sword unsheath:

March on! March on! all hearts resolved,
To victory or death.

"HAIL TO THE LORD'S ANOINTED."

James Montgomery (says Dr. Breed) is "distinguished as the only layman besides Cowper

among hymn-writers of the front rank in the English language." How many millions have recited and sung his fine and exhaustively descriptive poem,—

Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,

--selections from almost any part of which are perfect definitions, and have been standard hyinns on prayer for three generations. English Hymnology would as unwillingly part with his missionary hymns,

The king of glory we proclaim.

Hark, the song of jubilee!

-and, noblest of all, the lyric of prophecy and praise which heads this paragraph.

The hymn is really the seventy-second Psalm in metre, and as a version it suffers nothing by