THE TUNE.

Sidney Martin Grannis, author of the tune, was born Sept. 23, 1827, in Geneseo, Livingston county, N. Y. Lived in Leroy, of the same state, from 1831 to 1884, when he removed to Los Angeles, Cal., where several of his admirers presented him a cottage and grounds, which at last accounts he still occupies. Mr. Grannis won his first reputation as a popular musician by his song "Do They Miss Me at Home, "and his "Only Waiting," "Cling to the Union," and "People Will Talk You Know," had an equally wide currency. As a solo singer his voice was remarkable, covering a range of two octaves, and while travelling with members of the "Amphion Troupe," to which he belonged, he sang at more than five thousand concerts. His tune to "Your Mission" was composed in New Haven, Ct., in 1864.

"TOO LATE! TOO LATE! YE CANNOT ENTER NOW."

"Too Late" is a thrilling fragment or side-song of Alfred Tennyson's, representing the vain plea of the five Foolish Virgins. Its tune bears the name of a London lady, "Miss Lindsay" (afterwards Mrs. J. Worthington Bliss). The arrangement of air, duo and quartet is very impressive*.

“Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill: Late, late, so late! but we can enter still." "Too late! too late! ye cannot enter now!"

*Methodist Hymnal, No. 743.

"No light! so late! and dark and chill the night—
O let us in that we may find the light!"

"Too late! too late! ye cannot enter now!"

"Have we not heard the Bridegroom is so sweet?

O let us in that we may kiss his feet!"

"No, No-! too late! ye cannot enter now!"

The words are found in "Queen Guinevere," a canto of the "Idyls of the King.”

"OH, GALILEE, SWEET GALILEE."

This is the chorus of a charming poem of three stanzas that shaped itself in the mind of Mr. Robert Morris while sitting over the ruins on the traditional site of Capernaum by the Lake of Genneseret.

Each cooing dove, each sighing bough,

That makes the eve so blest to me,

Has something far diviner now,

CHORUS

It bears me back to Galilee.

Oh, Galilee, sweet Galilee,

Where Jesus loved so much to be;
Oh, Galilee, blue Galilee,

Come sing thy song again to me.

Robert Morris, LL.D., born Aug. 31, 1818, was a scholar, and an expert in certain scientific subjects, and wrote works on numismatics and the "Poetry of Free Masonry." Commissioned to Palestine in 1868 on historic and archeological service for the United Order, he explored the

scenes of ancient Jewish and Christian life and event in the Holy Land, and being a religious man, followed the Saviour's earthly footsteps with a reverent zeal that left its inspiration with him while he lived. He died in the year 1888, but his Christian ballad secured him a lasting place in every devout memory.

*

THE TUNE.

The author wrote out his hymn in 1874 and sent it to his friend, the musician, Mr. Horatio R. Palmer, and the latter learned it by heart, and carried it with him in his musings "till it floated out in the melody you know," (to use his own words.) *See page 311.

CHAPTER VII.

OLD REVIVAL HYMNS.

The sober churches of the "Old Thirteen" states and of their successors far into the nineteenth century, sustained evening prayer-meetings more or less commonly, but necessity made them in most cases "cottage meetings," appointed on Sunday and here and there in the scattered homes of country parishes. Their intent was the same as that of "revival meetings," since so called, though the method-and the music-were diferent. The results in winning sinners, so far as they owed anything to the hymns and hymntunes, were apt to be a new generation of Christian recruits as sombre as the singing. "Lebanon set forth the appalling shortness of human life; "Windham" gave its depressing story of the great majority of mankind on the "broad road," and other minor tunes proclaimed God's sovereignty and eternal decrees; or if a psalm had His love in it, it was likely to be sung in a similar melancholy key. Even in his gladness the good minister, Thomas Baldwin, of the Second Baptist Church,

at Boston, North End, returning from Newport, N. H., where he had happily harmonized a discordant church, could not escape the strait-lace of a C minor for his thankful hymn

From whence doth this union arise,

That hatred is conquered by love.

"The Puritans took their pleasures seriously," and this did not cease to be true till at least two hundred years after the Pilgrims landed or Boston was founded.

Time, that covered the ghastly faces on the old grave-stones with moss, gradually stole away the unction of minor-tune singing.

The songs of the great revival of 1740 swept the country with positive rather than negative music. Even Jonathan Edwards admitted the need of better psalm-books and better psalmody.

Edwards, during his life, spent some time among the Indians as a missionary teacher; but probably neither he nor David Brainerd ever saw a Christian hymn composed by an Indian. The following, from the early years of the last century, is apparently the first, certainly the only surviving, effort of a converted but half-educated red man to utter his thoughts in pious metre. Whoever trimmed the original words and measure into printable shape evidently took care to preserve the broken English of the simple convert. It is an interesting relic of the Christian thought and sentiment of a pagan just learning to prattle prayer and praise: