life was greatly influenced by Dr. Guthrie, whom he followed in the establishment of the Free Church of Scotland.

Born in 1808 in Edinburgh, he was about forty years old when he came back from a successful pastorate at Kelso to the city of his home and Alma Mater, and became virtually Chalmers' successor as minister of the Chalmers Memorial Church.

The peculiar richness of Bonar's sacred songs very early created for them a warm welcome in the religious world, and any devout lyric or poem with his name attached to it is sure to be read.

Dr. Bonar died in Edinburgh, July 31, 1889. Writing of the hymn, "I heard the voice," etc., Dr. David Breed calls it "one of the most ingenious hymns in the language," referring to the fact that the invitation and response exactly halve each stanza between them-song followed by countersong. "Ingenious" seems hardly the right word for a division so obviously natural and almost automatic. It is a simple art beauty that a poet of culture makes by instinct. Bowring's "Watchman, tell us of the night," is not the only other instance of similar countersong structure, and the regularity in Thomas Scott's little hymn, "Hasten, sinner, to be wise," is only a simpler case of the way a poem plans itself by the compulsion of its subject.

I heard the voice of Jesus say,

Come unto me and rest,

Lay down, thou weary one, lay down
Thy head upon My breast:

I came to Jesus as I was,
Weary and worn and sad,
I found in Him a resting-place,
And He has made me glad.

THE TUNE.

The old melody of "Evan," long a favorite, and since known everywhere through the currency given to it in the Gospel Hymns, has been in many collections connected with the words. It is good congregational psalmody, and not unsuited to the sentiment, taken line by line, but it divides the stanzas into quatrains, which breaks the happy continuity. "Evan" was made by Dr. Mason in 1850 from a song written four years earlier by Rev. William Henry Havergal, Canon of Worcester Cathedral, Eng. He was the father of Frances Ridley Havergal.

The more ancient "Athens," by Felice Giardini (1716-1796), author of the "Italian Hymn," has clung, and still clings lovingly to Bonar's hymn in many communities. Its simplicity, and the involuntary accent of its sextuple time, exactly reproducing the easy iambic of the verses, inevitably made it popular, and thousands of older singers today will have no other music with "I heard the voice of Jesus say."

"Vox Jesu," from the andante in one of the quartets of Louis Spohr (1784-1859), is a psalmtune of good harmony, but too little feeling.

An excellent tune for all the shades of expression

in the hymn, is the arrangement by Hubert P. Main from Franz Abt-in A flat, triple time. Gentle music through the first fifteen bars, in alternate duet and quartet, utters the Divine Voice with the true accent of the lines, and the second portion completes the harmony in glad, full chorus-the answer of the human heart.

"Vox Dilecti," by Dr. Dykes, goes farther and writes the Voice in B flat minor-which seems a needless substitution of divine sadness for divine sweetness. It is a tune of striking chords, but its shift of key to G natural (major) after the first four lines marks it rather for trained choir performance than for assembly song.

It is possible to make too much of a dramatic perfection or a supposed indication of structural design in a hymn. Textual equations, such as distinguish Dr. Bonar's beautiful stanzas, are not necessarily technical. To emphasize them as ingenious by an ingenious tune seems, somehow, a reflection on the spontaneity of the hymn.

Louis Spohr was Director of the Court Theatre Orchestra in Cassel, Prussia, in the first half of the last century. He was an eminent composer of both vocal and instrumental music, and one of the greatest violinists of Europe.

Hubert Platt Main was born in Ridgefield, Ct., Aug. 17, 1839. He read music at sight when only ten years old, and at sixteen commenced writing hymn-tunes. Was assistant compiler with both Bradbury and Woodbury in their various publica

tions, and in 1868 became connected with the firm of Biglow and Main, and has been their bookmaker until the present time. As music editor in the partnership he has superintended the publication of more than five hundred music-books, services, etc.

"I LOVE TO STEAL AWHILE AWAY."

The burdened wife and mother who wrote this hymn would, at the time, have rated her history with "the short and simple annals of the poor." But the poor who are "remembered for what they have done," may have a larger place in history than many rich who did nothing.

Phebe Hinsdale Brown, was born in Canaan, N. Y., in 1783. Her father, George Hinsdale, who died in her early childhood, must have been a man of good abilities and religious feeling, being the reputed composer of the psalm-tune, "Hinsdale," found in some long-ago collections.

Left an orphan at two years of age, Phebe "fell into the hands of a relative who kept the county jail," and her childhood knew little but the bitter fare and ceaseless drudgery of domestic slavery. She grew up with a crushed spirit, and was a timid, shrinking woman as long as she lived. She married Timothy H. Brown, a house-painter of Ellington, Ct., and passed her days there and in Monson, Mass., where she lived some twenty-five years.

In her humble home in the former town children were born, and it was while caring fo own little family of four, and a sick sister, th incident occurred (August 1818), which forth her tender hymn. She was a devout tian, and in pleasant weather, whenever she find the leisure, she would "steal away" at. from her burdens a little while, to rest and mune with God. Her favorite place v wealthy neighbor's large and beautiful garden. A servant reported her visits there mistress of the house, who called the "int

to account.

"If you want anything, why don't you con was the rude question, followed by a plain h no stealthy person was welcome.

Wounded by the ill-natured rebuff, the s woman sat down the next evening with h in her lap, and half-blinded by her tear "An Apology for my Twilight Rambles, verses that have made her celebrated.

She sent the manuscript (nine stanzas captious neighbor-with what result h been told.

Crude and simple as the little rhyme contained a germ of lyric beauty and l Rev. Dr. Charles Hyde of Ellington, w neighbor of Mrs. Brown, procured a co was assisting Dr. Nettleton to compile the FONE Hymns, and the humble bit of devotion was at once judged worthy of a place in