The Story of the Hymns and Tunes Part 31

When gathering clouds around I view, And days are dark, and friends are few, On Him I lean who not in vain Experienced every human pain.

The lines are no less admirable for their literary beauty than for their feeling and their faith. Unconsciously, it may be, to the writer, in this and the following stanza are woven an epitome of the Saviour's history. He--

Experienced every human pain, --felt temptation's power, --wept o'er Lazarus dead,

--and the crowning a.s.surance of Jesus' human sympathy is expressed in the closing prayer,--

--when I have safely pa.s.sed Thro' every conflict but the last, Still, still unchanging watch beside My painful bed--for _Thou hast died_.

_THE TUNE._

Of the few suitable six-line long metre part songs, the charming Russian tone-poem of "St. Petersburg" by Dimitri Bortniansky is borrowed for the hymn in some collections, and with excellent effect. It accords well with the mood and tenor of the words, and deserves to stay with it as long as the hymn holds its place.

Dimitri Bortniansky, called "The Russian Palestrina," was born in 1752 at Gloukoff, a village of the Ukraine. He studied music in Moscow, St.

Petersburg, Vienna, Rome and Naples. Returning to his native land, he was made Director of Empress Catharine's church choir. He reformed and systematized Russian church music, and wrote original scores in the intervals of his teaching labors. His works are chiefly motets and concertos, which show his genius for rich harmony. Died 1825.

"JUST AS I AM, WITHOUT ONE PLEA."

Charlotte Elliott, of Brighton, Eng., would have been well-known through her admired and useful hymns,--

My G.o.d, my Father, while I stray,

My G.o.d, is any hour so sweet,

With tearful eyes I look around,

--and many others. But in "Just as I am" she made herself a voice in the soul of every hesitating penitent. The currency of the hymn has been too swift for its authors.h.i.+p and history to keep up with, but it is a blessed law of influence that good works out-run biographies. This master-piece of metrical gospel might be called Miss Elliott's spiritual-birth hymn, for a reply of Dr. Caesar Malan of Geneva was its prompting cause. The young lady was a stranger to personal religion when, one day, the good man, while staying at her father's house, in his gentle way introduced the subject. She resented it, but afterwards, stricken in spirit by his words, came to him with apologies and an inquiry that confessed a new concern of mind. "You speak of coming to Jesus, but how? I'm not fit to come."

"Come just as you are," said Dr. Malan.

The hymn tells the result.

Like all the other hymns bound up in her _Invalid's Hymn-book_, it was poured from out the heart of one who, as the phrase is, "never knew a well day"--though she lived to see her eighty-second year.

Ill.u.s.trative of the way it appeals to the afflicted, a little anecdote was told by the eloquent John B. Gough of his accidental seat-mate in a city church service. A man of strange appearance was led by the kind usher or s.e.xton to the pew he occupied. Mr. Gough eyed him with strong aversion. The man's face was mottled, his limbs and mouth twitched, and he mumbled singular sounds. When the congregation sang he attempted to sing, but made fearful work of it. During the organ interlude he leaned toward Mr. Gough and asked how the next verse began. It was--

Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind.

"That's it," sobbed the strange man, "I'm blind--G.o.d help me!"--and the tears ran down his face--"and I'm wretched--and paralytic," and then he tried hard to sing the line with the rest.

"After that," said Mr. Gough, "the poor paralytic's singing was as sweet to me as a Beethoven symphony."

Charlotte Elliott was born March 18, 1789, and died in Brighton, Sept.

22, 1871. She stands in the front rank of female hymn-writers.

The tune of "Woodworth," by William B. Bradbury, has mostly superseded Mason's "Elliott," and is now the accepted music of this lyric of perfect faith and pious surrender.

Just as I am,--Thy love unknown Hath broken every barrier down, Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone, O Lamb of G.o.d, I come, I come.

"MY HOPE IS BUILT ON NOTHING LESS."

The Rev. Edward Mote was born in London, 1797. According to his own testimony his parents were not G.o.d-fearing people, and he "went to a school where no Bible was allowed;" but at the age of sixteen he received religious impressions from a sermon of John Hyatt in Tottenham Court Chapel, was converted two years later, studied for the ministry, and ultimately became a faithful preacher of the gospel. Settled as pastor of the Baptist Church in Horsham, Suss.e.x, he remained there twenty-six years--until his death, Nov. 13, 1874. The refrain of his hymn came to him one Sabbath when on his way to Holborn to exchange pulpits:

On Christ the solid rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand.

There were originally six stanzas, the first beginning:

Nor earth, nor h.e.l.l, my soul can move, I rest upon unchanging love.

The refrain is a fine one, and really sums up the whole hymn, keeping constantly at the front the corner-stone of the poet's trust.

My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But only lean on Jesus' name.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand All other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness veils His lovely face I trust in His unchanging grace, In every high and stormy gale My anchor holds within the veil.

On Christ the solid Rock, etc.

Wm. B. Bradbury composed the tune (1863). It is usually named "The Solid Rock."

"ABIDE WITH ME! FAST FALLS THE EVENTIDE."

The Rev. Henry Francis Lyte, author of this melodious hymn-prayer, was born at Ednam, near Kelso, Scotland, June first, 1793. A scholar, graduated at Trinity College, Dublin; a poet and a musician, the hard-working curate was a man of frail physique, with a face of almost feminine beauty, and a spirit as pure and gentle as a little child's.

The shadow of consumption was over him all his life. His memory is chiefly a.s.sociated with the district church at Lower Brixham, Devons.h.i.+re, where he became "perpetual curate" in 1823. He died at Nice, France, Nov. 20, 1847.

On the evening of his last Sunday preaching and communion service he handed to one of his family the ma.n.u.script of his hymn, "Abide with me,"

and the music he had composed for it. It was not till eight years later that Henry Ward Beecher introduced it, or a part of it, to American Congregationalists, and fourteen years after the author's death it began to be sung as we now have it, in this country and England.

Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide, The darkness deepens,--Lord with me abide!

When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O abide with me!

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes; s.h.i.+ne through the gloom, and point me to the skies; Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee; In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me!

_THE TUNE_

There is a pathos in the neglect and oblivion of Lyte's own tune set by himself to his words, especially as it was in a sense the work of a dying man who had hoped that he might not be "wholly mute and useless"

while lying in his grave, and who had prayed--

O Thou whose touch can lend Life to the dead. Thy quickening grace supply, And grant me swan-like my last breath to spend In song that may not die!

His prayer was answered in G.o.d's own way. Another's melody hastened his hymn on its useful career, and revealed to the world its immortal value.