He leadeth me! Oh, blessed thought, Oh, words with heavenly comfort fraught; Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me! Lord, I would clasp Thy hand in mine, Content, whatever lot I see, Since 'tis my God that leadeth me. Professor Joseph Henry Gilmore was born in Boston, April 29, 1834. He was graduated at Phillips Academy, Andover, at Brown University, and at the Newton Theological Institution, where he was afterwards Hebrew instructor. After four years of pastoral service he was elected (1867) professor of the English Language and Literature in Rochester University. He has published Familiar Chats on Books and Reading, also several college text-books on rhetoric, logic and oratory. THE TUNE. The little hymn of four stanzas was peculiarly fortunate in meeting the eye of Mr. William B. Bradbury, (1863) and winning his musical sympathy and alliance. Few composers have so exactly caught the tone and spirit of their text as Bradbury did when he vocalized the gliding measures of "He leadeth me." CHAPTER VI. CHRISTIAN BALLADS. Echoes of Hebrew thought, if not Hebrew psalmody, may have made their way into the more serious pagan literature. At least in the more enlightened pagans there has ever revealed itself more or less the instinct of the human soul that "feels after" God. St. Paul in his address to the Athenians made a tactful as well as scholarly point to preface a missionary sermon when he cited a line from a poem of Aratus (B. C. 272) familiar, doubtless, to the majority of his hearers. Dr. Lyman Abbot has thus translated the passage in which the line occurs: Let us begin from God. Let every mortal raise And we His offspring are.* He, ever good, To Him, the First, the Last, all homage yield,― *Toũ yàp xal yévos éoμév. "RISE, CROWNED WITH LIGHT.” Alexander Pope, a Roman Catholic poet, born in London 1688, died at Twickenham 1744, was not a hvmnist, but passages in his most serious and exalted flights deserve a tuneful accompaniment. His translations of Homer made him famous, but his ethical poems, especially his "Essay on Man, are inexhaustible mines of quotation, many of the lines and couplets being common as proverbs. His "Messiah," written about 1711, is a religious anthem in which the prophecies of Holy Writ kindle all the splendor of his verse. THE TUNE. The closing strain, indicated by the above line, has been divided into stanzas of four lines suitable to a church hymn-tune. The melody selected by the compilers of the Plymouth Hymnal, and of the Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book is "Savannah," an American sounding name for what is really one of Pleyel's chorals. The music is worthy of Pope's triumphal song. The seas shall waste, the skies to smoke decay, "OH, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT?" This is a sombre poem, but its virile strength and its literary merit have given it currency, and com mended it to the taste of many people, both weak and strong, who have the pensive temperament, Abraham Lincoln loved it and committed it to memory in his boyhood. Philip Phillips set it to music, and sang it-or a part of it-one day during the Civil war at the anniversary of the Christian Sanitary Commission, when President Lincoln, who was present, called for its repetition.* It was written by William Knox, born 1789, son of a Scottish farmer. The poem has fourteen stanzas, the following being the first and two last Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, Tis the wink of an eye; 'tis the draft of a breath Philip Phillips was born in Jamestown, Chautauqua Co., N. Y., Aug. 11, 1834, and died in Del *This account so nearly resembles the story of Mrs. Gates' "Your Mission," sung to a similar audience, on a similar occasion, by the same man, that a posable confusion by the narrators of the incident has been suggested. But that Mr. Phillips sang twice before the President during the war does not appear to be contradicted. To what air he sang the above verses is uncertain. aware, O., June 15, 135 He wrote no hymns and was not an educated musician, but the airs of popular hymn-music came to him and were harmonized for him by others, most frequently by his friends, S. J. Vall and Hubert P. Main. He compiled and pubished thirty-one collections for Sunday-schools and gospel meetings, besides the Methodist Hymn and Time Bock, issued in 1866. He was a pioneer gospel singer, and his tuneful journeys through America, England and Australia gave him the name of the "Singing Pilgrim,” the title of his song collection collection (1867). "WHEN ISRAEL OF THE LORD BELOVED.” The "Song of Rebecca the Jewess,” in “Ivanhoe," was written by Sir Walter Scott, author of the Waverly Novels, "Marmion," etc., born in Edinburgh, 1771, and died at Abbotsford, 1832. The lines purport to be the Hebrew hymn with which Rebecca closed her daily devotions while in prison under sentence of death. When Israel of the Lord beloved Out of the land of bondage came Then rose the choral hymn of praise, **** |
