The Story of the Hymns and Tunes Part 44

Belongs to a generation long past. Its writer was an architect by occupation, and a man whose piety equalled his industry. He was born in London 1791, and his name was James Edmeston. He loved to compose religious verses--so well, in fact, that he is said to have prepared a new piece every week for Sunday morning devotions in his family and in this way acc.u.mulated a collection which he published and called _Cottager's Hymns_. Besides these he is credited with a hundred Sunday-school hymns.

Little travellers Zionward, Each one entering into rest In the Kingdom of your Lord, In the mansions of the blest,

There to welcome Jesus waits, Gives the crown His followers win, Lift your heads, ye golden gates, Let the little travellers in.

The original tune is lost--and the hymn is vanis.h.i.+ng with it; but the felicity of its rhyme and rhythm show how easily it adapted itself to music.

"I'M BUT A STRANGER HERE."

The simple beauty of this hymn, and the sympathetic sweetness of its tune made children love to sing it, and it found its way into a few Sunday-school collections, though not composed for such use.

A young Congregational minister. Rev. Thomas Rawson Taylor, wrote it on the approach of his early end. He was born at Osset, near Wakefield, Yorks.h.i.+re, Eng., May 9, 1807, and studied in Bradford, where his father had taken charge of a large church, and at Manchester Academy and Airesdale College. Sensible of a growing ailment that might shorten his days, he hastened to the work on which his heart was set, preaching in surrounding towns and villages while a student, and finally quitting college to be ordained to his sacred profession. He was installed as pastor of Howard St. Chapel, Sheffield, July, 1830, when only twenty-three. But in less than three years his strength failed, and he went back to Bradford, where he occasionally preached for his father, when able to do so, during his last days. He died there March 15, 1835.

Taylor was a brave and lovely Christian--and his hymn is as sweet as his life.

I'm but a stranger here, Heaven is my home; Earth is a desert drear, Heaven is my home.

Dangers and sorrows stand Round me on every hand; Heaven is my Fatherland-- Heaven is my home.

What though the tempest rage, Heaven is my home; Short is my pilgrimage, Heaven is my home.

And time's wild, wintry blast Soon will be overpast; I shall reach home at last-- Heaven is my home.

In his last attempt to preach, young Taylor uttered the words, "I want to die like a soldier, sword in hand." On the evening of the same Sabbath day he breathed his last. His words were memorable, and Montgomery, who loved and admired the man, made them the text of a poem, part of which is the familiar hymn "Servant of G.o.d, well done."[29]

[Footnote 29: See page 498]

_THE TUNE._

Sir Arthur Sullivan put the words into cla.s.sic expression, but, to American ears at least, the tune of "Oak," by Lowell Mason, is the hymn's true sister. It was composed in 1854.

"DEAR JESUS, EVER AT MY SIDE."

One of Frederick William Faber's sweet and simple lyrics. It voices that temper and spirit in the human heart which the Saviour first looks for and loves best. None better than Faber could feel and utter the real artlessness of Christian love and faith.

Dear Jesus, ever at my side, How loving must Thou be To leave Thy home in heaven to guard A sinful child like me.

Thy beautiful and s.h.i.+ning face I see not, tho' so near; The sweetness of Thy soft low voice I am too deaf to hear.

I cannot feel Thee touch my hand With pressure light and mild, To check me as my mother did When I was but a child; But I have felt Thee in my thoughts Fighting with sin for me, And when my heart loves G.o.d I know The sweetness is from Thee.

[Ill.u.s.tration: f.a.n.n.y J. Crosby (Mrs. Van Alstyne)]

_THE TUNE._

"Audientes" by Sir Arthur Sullivan is a gentle, emotional piece, rendering the first quatrain of each stanza in E flat unison, and the second in C harmony.

"TIS RELIGION THAT CAN GIVE."

This simple rhyme, which has been sung perhaps in every Sunday-school in England and the United States, is from a small English book by Mary Masters. In the preface to the work, we read, "The author of the following poems never read a treatise of rhetoric or an art of poetry, nor was ever taught her English grammar. Her education rose no higher than the spelling-book or her writing-master,"

'Tis religion that can give Sweetest pleasure while we live; 'Tis religion can supply Solid comfort when we die.

After death its joys shall be Lasting as eternity.

Save the two sentences about herself, quoted above, there is no biography of the writer. That she was good is taken for granted.

The tune-sister of the little hymn is as scant of date or history as itself. No. 422 points it out in _The Revivalist_, where the name and initial seem to ascribe the authors.h.i.+p to Horace Waters.[30]

[Footnote 30: From his _Sabbath Bell_. Horace Waters, a prominent Baptist layman, was born in Jefferson, Lincoln Co., Me., Nov. 1, 1812, and died in New York City, April 22, 1893. He was a piano-dealer and publisher.]

"THERE IS A HAPPY LAND FAR, FAR AWAY"

This child's hymn was written by a lover of children, Mr. Andrew Young, head master of Niddrey St. School, Edinburgh, and subsequently English instructor at Madras College, E.I. He was born April 23, 1807, and died Nov. 30, 1899, and long before the end of the century which his life-time so nearly covered his little carol had become one of the universal hymns.

_THE TUNE._

A Hindoo air or natural chanson, that may have been hummed in a pagan temple in the hearing of Mr. Young, was the basis of the little melody since made familiar to millions of prattling tongues.

Such running tone-rhythms create themselves in the instinct of the ruder nations and tribes, and even the South African savages have their incantations with the provincial "clicks" that mark the singers' time.

With an ear for native chirrups and trills, the author of our pretty infant-school song succeeded in capturing one, and making a Christian tune of it.

The musician, Samuel Sebastian Wesley, sometime in the eighteen-forties, tried to subst.i.tute another melody for the lines, but "There is a happy land" needs its own birth-music.

"I HAVE A FATHER IN THE PROMISED LAND."

Another cazonet for the infant cla.s.s. 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 When Jesus was here among men, How He called little children as lambs to His fold, I should like to have been with them then.