"BEYOND THE SMILING AND THE WEEPING." This song of hope-one of the most strangely tuneful and rune-like of Dr. Bonar's hymn-poems -is less frequently sung owing to the peculiarity of its stanza form. But it scarcely needs a staff of I shall be soon. Love, rest and home! Beyond the frost-chain and the fever Beyond the rock-waste and the river Beyond the ever and the never I shall be soon. Love, rest and homet The wild contrasts and reverses of earthly vicissitude are spoken and felt here in the sequence of words. Perpetual black-and-white through time; then the settled life and untreacherous peace of eternity. Everywhere in the song the note of heavenly hope interrupts the wail of disappointment, and the chorus returns to transport the soul from the land of emotional whirlwinds to unbroken rest. THE TUNES. Mr. Bradbury wrote an admirable tune to this hymn, though the one since composed by Mr. Stebbins has in some localities superseded it in popular favor. Skill in following the accent and unequal rhythms produces a melodious tonepoem, and completes the impression of Bonar's singular but sweet lyric of hope which suggests a chant-choral rather than a regular polyphonic harmony. W. A. Tarbutton and the young composer, Karl Harrington, have set the hymn to music, but the success of their work awaits the public test. "WE SHALL MEET BEYOND THE RIVER." The words were written by Rev. John Atkinson, D.D., in January, 1867, soon after the death of his mother. He had been engaged in revival work and one night in his study, "that song, in substance, seemed," he says, "to sing itself into my heart. He said to himself, "I would better write it down, I shall lose it." or "There," he adds, "in the silence of my study, and not far from midnight, I wrote the hymn." We shall meet beyond the river And the darkness will be over With the toilsome journey done, The Rev. John Atkinson was born in Deerfield, N. J. Sept. 6, 1835. A clergyman of the Methodist denomination, he is well-known as one of its writers. The Centennial History of American Methodism is his work, and besides the above hymn, he has written and published The Garden of Sorrows, and The Living Way. He died Dec. 8, 1897. The tune to "We Shall Meet," by Hubert P. Main, composed in 1867, exactly translates the emotional hymn into music. S. J. Vail also wrote music to the words. The hymn, originally six eight-line stanzas, was condensed at his request to its present length and form by Fanny Crosby. "ONE SWEETLY SOLEMN THOUGHT." Phebe Cary, the author of this happy poem, was the younger of the two Cary sisters, Alice and Phebe, names pleasantly remembered in American literature. The praise of one reflects the praise of the other when we are told that Phebe possessed a loving and trustful soul, and her life was an honor to true womanhood and a blessing to the poor. poor. She had to struggle with hardship and poverty in her early years: "I have cried in the street because I was poor, " she said in her prosperous years, “and the poor always seem nearer to me than the rich." When reputation came to her as a writer, she removed from her little country home near Cincinnati, O., where she was born, in 1824, and settled in New York City with her sister. She died at Newport, N. Y., July 31, 1871, and her hymn was sung at her funeral. Her remains rest in Greenwood Cemetery. "One Sweetly Solemn Thought," was written in 1852, during a visit to one of her friends. She wrote (to her friend's inquiry) years afterwards that it first saw the light "in your own house......in the little back third-story bedroom, one Sunday after coming from church." It was a heart experience noted down without literary care or artistic effort, and in its original form was in too irregular measure to be sung. She set little value upon it as a poem, but when shown hesitatingly to inquiring compilers, its intrinsic worth was seen, and various revisions of it were made. The following is one of the best versions-stanzas one, two and three:One sweetly solemn thought Comes to me o'er and o'er, I am nearer home to-day, Than I ever have been before. Nearer my Father's house, Where the many mansions be, |
