CHAPTER X. SAILORS' HYMNS. The oldest sailors' hymn is found in the 107th Psalm, vss. 23-30: They that go down to the sea in ships, To do business in great waters, These see the works of the Lord, Montgomery has made this metrical rendering of these verses: They that toil upon the deep, In the chariots of the wind. The hymn is not in the collections, and has no tune. Addison paraphrased the succeeding verses of the Psalm in his hymn, "How are thy servants blessed O Lord," sung to Hugh Wilson's* tune of "Avon": *Hugh Wilson was a Scotch weaver of Kilmarnock, born 1764; died 1824. When by the dreadful tempest borne High on the broken wave, They know Thou art not slow to hear, Nor impotent to save. The storm is laid, the winds retire, Obedient to Thy will; The sea that roars at Thy command, At Thy command is still. “FIERCE WAS THE WILD BILLOW.” (Ζοφεράς τρικυμίας) The ancient writer, Anatolius, who composed this hymn has for centuries been confounded with "St" Anatolius, patriarch of Constantinople, who died A. D. 458. The author of the hymn lived in the seventh century, and except that he wrote several hymns, and also poems in praise of the martyrs, nothing or next to nothing, is known of him. The "Wild Billow" song was the principle seaman's hymn of the early church. It is being introduced into modern psalmody, the translation in use ranking among the most successful of Dr. John Mason Neale's renderings from the Greek. Fierce was the wild billow, Dark was the night; Foam glimmered white; Peril was nigh; Then said the God of God, "Peace! It is I!" Ridge of the mountain wave, Be thou at rest! Sorrow can never be, Darkness must fly, When saith the Light of Light, "Peace! It is I!" THE TUNE. The desire to represent the antiquity of the hymn and the musical style of its age, and on the other hand the wish to utilize it in the tune-manuals for Mariners' Homes and Seamen's Bethels, makes a difficulty for composers to study—and the task is still open to competition. Considering the peculiar tone that sailors' singing instinctively takes—and has taken doubtless from time immemorial-perhaps the plaintive melody of "Neale," by J. H. Cornell, comes as near to a vocal success as could be hoped. The music is of middle register and less than octave range, natural scale, minor, and the triple time lightens a little the dirge-like harmony while the weird sea-song effect is kept. A chorus of singing tars must create uncommon emotion, chanting this coronach of the storm. John Henry Cornell was born in New York city, May 8, 1838, and was for many years organist at St. Paul's Chapel, Trinity Church. He is the author of numerous educational works on the theory and practice of music. He composed the above tune in 1872. Died March 1, 1894. "AVE, MARIS STELLA." One of the titles which the Roman Catholic world applied to the Mother of Jesus, in the Middle Ages, was "Stella Maris," "Star of the Sea." Columbus, being a Catholic, sang this hymn, or caused it to be sung, every evening, it is said, during his perilous voyage to an unknown land. The marine epithet by which the Virgin Mary is addressed is admirable as a stroke of poetry, and the hymn-of six stanzas-is a prayer which, though offered to her as to a divine being, was no doubt sincere in the simple sailor hearts of 1492. The two following quatrains finish the voyagers' petition, and point it with a doxology— Vitam praesta puram, Iter para tutum, Sit laus Deo Patri, Tribus honor unus! A free translation is Guide us safe, unspotted Praise to God the Father, To the Holy Three. Inasmuch as this ancient hymn did not attain the height of its popularity and appear in all the breviaries until the 10th century, its assumed age has been doubted, but its reputed author, Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers, was born about 531, at Treviso, Italy, and died about 609. Though a religious teacher, he was a man of romantic and convivial instincts—a strange compound of priest, poet and beau chevalier. Duffield calls him "the last of the classics and first of the troubadours," and states that he was the "first of the Christian poets to begin that worship of the Virgin Mary which rose to a passion and sank to an idolatry.” TUNES To this ancient rogation poem have been composed by Aiblinger (Johann Caspar), Bavarian, (17791867,) by Proch (Heinrich), Austrian, (1809-1878,) by Tadolini (Giovanni), Italian, (1803-1872,) and by many others. The "Ave, Maris Stella" is in constant use in the Romish church, and its English translation by Caswall is a favorite hymn in the Lyra Catholica. "AVE, SANCTISSIMA I" This beautiful hymn is not introduced here in order of time, but because it seems akin to the foregoing, and born of its faith and traditions— though it sounds rather too fine for a sailor song, on |