"I HAVE A FATHER IN THE PROMISED LAND." Another cazonet for the infant class. Instead of a hymn, however, it is only a refrain, and—like the ring-chant of the "Hebrew Children," and even more simple owes its only variety to the change of one word. The third and fourth lines,— My father calls me, I must go To meet Him in the Promised Land, -take their cue from the first, which may sing, I have a Saviour I have a mother I have a brother -and so on ad libitum. But the little ones love every sound and syllable of the lisping song, for it is plain and pleasing, and when a pinafore school grows restless nothing will sooner charm them into quiet than to chime its innocent unison. Both words and tune are nameless and storyless. "I THINK WHEN I READ THAT SWEET STORY" While riding in a stage-coach, after a visit to a mission school for poor children, this hymn came to the mind of Mrs. Jemima Thompson Luke, of Islington, England. It speaks its own purpose plainly enough, to awaken religious feeling in young hearts, and guide and sanctify the natural childlike interest in the sweetest incident of the Saviour's life. I think when I read that sweet story of old How He called little children as lambs to His fold, I should like to have been with them then. I wish that His hands had been laid on my head, And that I might have seen His kind look when He said, "Let the little ones come unto me." This is not poetry, but it phrases a wish in a child's own way, to be melodized and fixed in a child's reverent and sensitive memory. Mrs. Luke was born at Colebrook Terrace, near London, Aug. 19, 1813. She was an accomplished and benevolent lady who did much for the education and welfare of the poor. Her hymn-of five stanzas-was first sung in a village school at Poundford Park, and was not published until 1841. THE TUNE. It is interesting, not to say curious, testimony to the vital quality of this meek production that so many composers have set it to music, or that successive hymn-book editors have kept it, and printed it to so many different harmonies. All the chorals that carry it have substantially the same movement for the spondaic accent of the long lines is compulsory-but their offerings sing "to one clear harp in divers tones." The appearance of the words in one hymnal with Sir William Davenant's air (full scored) to Moore's love-song, "Believe me, if all those en dearing young charms," now known as the tune of "Fair Harvard," is rather startling at first, but the adoption is quite in keeping with the policy of Luther and Wesley. "St. Kevin," written to it forty years ago by John Henry Cornell, organist of St. Paul's, New York City, is sweet and sympathetic. The newest church collection (1905) gives the beautiful air and harmony of "Athens" to the hymn, and notes the music as a "Greek Melody." But the nameless English tune, of uncertain authorship* that accompanies the words in the smaller old manuals, and which delighted Sundayschools for a generation, is still the favorite in the memory of thousands, and may be the very music first written. "WE SPEAK OF THE REALMS OF THE BLEST." Mrs. Elizabeth Mills, wife of the Hon. Thomas Mills, M. P., was born at Stoke Newington, Eng., 1805. She was one of the brief voices that sing one song and die. This hymn was the only note of her minstrelsy, and it has outlived her by more than three-quarters of a century.. She wrote it about three weeks before her decease in Finsbury Place, London, April 21, 1839, at the age of twenty-four. We speak of the land of the blest, A country so bright and so fair, And oft are its glories confest, But what must it be to be there? We speak of its freedom from sin, But what must it be to be there! THE TUNE. The hymn, like several of the Gospel hymns besides, was carried into the Sunday-schools by its music. Mr. Stebbins' popular duet-and-chorus is fluent and easily learned and rendered by rote; and while it captures the ear and compels the voice of the youngest, it expresses both the pathos and the exaltation of the words. George Coles Stebbins was born in East Carleton, Orleans Co., N. Y., Feb. 26, 1846. Educated at common school, and an academy in Albany, he turned his attention to music and studied in Rochester, Chicago, and Boston. It was in Chicago that his musical career began, while chorister at the First Baptist Church; and while holding the same position at Clarendon St. Church, Boston, (1874-6), he entered on a course of evangelistic work with D. L. Moody as gospel singer and composer. He was co-editor with Sankey and McGranahan of Gospel Hymns. "ONLY REMEMBERED." This hymn, beginning originally with the lines,~ Up and away like the dew of the morning, --has been repeatedly altered since it left Dr. Bonar's hands. Besides the change of metaphors, the first personal pronoun singular is changed to the plural. There was strength, and a natural vivacity in So let me steal away gently and lovingly, Only remembered for what I have done. As at present sung the first stanza reads, Fading away like the stars of the morning Losing their light in the glorious sun, Thus would we pass from the earth and its toiling The idea voiced in the refrain is true and beautiful, and the very euphony of its words helps to enforce its meaning and make the song pleasant and suggestive for young and old. It has passed into popular quotation, and become almost a proverb. THE TUNE. The tune (in Gospel Hymns No. 6) is Mr. Sankey's. Ira David Sankey was born in Edinburgh, Lawrence Co., Pa., Aug. 28, 1840. He united with the Methodist Church at the age of fifteen, and became choir leader, Sunday-school superintendent and president of the Y. M. C. A., all in his native town. Hearing Philip Phillips sing impressed him deeply, when a young man, with the power of a gifted solo vocalist over assembled multitudes, but he did not fully realize his own capability till Dwight |