The Story of the Hymns and Tunes Part 5

The writer of this hymn was William Goode, who helped to found the English Church Missionary Society, and was for twenty years the Secretary of the "Society for the Relief of Poor Pious Clergymen." For celebrating the praise of the Saviour, he seems to have been of like spirit and genius with Perronet. He was born in Buckingham, Eng., April 2, 1762; studied for the ministry and became a curate, successor of William Romaine. His spiritual maturity was early, and his habits of thought were formed amid a.s.sociations such as the young Wesleys and Whitefield sought. Like them, even in his student days he proved his aspiration for purer religious life by an evangelical zeal that cost him the ridicule of many of his school-fellows, but the meetings for conference and prayer which he organized among them were not unattended, and were lasting and salutary in their effect.

Jesus was the theme of his life and song, and was his last word. He died in 1816.

Crown His head with endless blessing Who in G.o.d the Father's name With compa.s.sion never ceasing Comes salvation to proclaim.

Hail, ye saints who know His favor, Who within His gates are found.

Hail, ye saints, th' exalted Saviour, Let His courts with praise resound.

_THE TUNE._

"Haydn," bearing the name of its great composer, is in several important hymnals the chosen music for William Goode's devout words. Its strain and spirit are lofty and melodious and in entire accord with the pious poet's praise.

Joseph Haydn, son of a poor wheelwright, was born 1732, in Rohron, a village on the borders of Hungary and Austria. His precocity of musical talent was such that he began composing at the age of ten years. Prince Esterhazy discovered his genius when he was poor and friendless, and his fortune was made. While Music Master for the Prince's Private Chapel (twenty years) he wrote many of his beautiful symphonies which placed him among the foremost in that cla.s.s of music. Invited to England, he received the Doctor's degree at Oxford, and composed his great oratorio of "The Creation," besides his "Twelve Grand Symphonies," and a long list of minor musical works secular and sacred. His invention was inexhaustible.

Haydn seems to have been a sincerely pious man. When writing his great oratorio of "The Creation" at sixty-seven years of age, "I knelt down every day," he says, "and prayed G.o.d to strengthen me for my work." This daily spiritual preparation was similar to Handel's when he was creating his "Messiah." Change one word and it may be said of sacred music as truly as of astronomy, "The undevout composer is mad."

Near Haydn's death, in Vienna, 1809, when he heard for the last time his magnificent chorus, "Let there be Light!" he exclaimed, "Not mine, not mine. It all came to me from above."

"NOW TO THE LORD A n.o.bLE SONG."

When Watts finished this hymn he had achieved a "n.o.ble song," whether he was conscious of it or not; and it deserves a foremost place, where it can help future wors.h.i.+ppers in their praise as it has the past. It is not so common in the later hymnals, but it is imperishable, and still later collections will not forget it.

Now to the Lord a n.o.ble song, Awake my soul, awake my tongue!

Hosanna to the Eternal Name, And all His boundless love proclaim.

See where it s.h.i.+nes in Jesus' face, The brightest image of His grace!

G.o.d in the person of His Son Has all His mightiest works outdone.

A rather finical question has occurred to some minds as to the theology of the word "works" in the last line, making the second person in the G.o.dhead apparently a creature; and in a few hymn-books the previous line has been made to read--

G.o.d in the _Gospel_ of His Son.

But the question is a rhetorical one, and the poet's free expression--here as in hundreds of other cases--has never disturbed the general confidence in his orthodoxy.

Montgomery called Watts "the inventor of hymns in our language," and the credit stands practically undisputed, for Watts made a hymn style that no human master taught him, and his model has been the ideal one for song wors.h.i.+p ever since; and we can pardon the climax when Professor Charles M. Stuart speaks of him as "writer, scholar, thinker and saint,"

for in addition to all the rest he was a very good man.

_THE TUNE._

Old "Ames" was for many years the choir favorite, and the words of the hymn printed with it in the note-book made the a.s.sociation familiar. It was, and _is_, an appropriate selection, though in later manuals George Kingsley's "Ware" is evidently thought to be better suited to the high-toned verse. Good old tunes never "wear out," but they do go out of fas.h.i.+on.

The composer of "Ames," Sigismund Neukomm, Chevalier, was born in Salzburg, Austria, July 10, 1778, and was a pupil of Haydn. Though not a great genius, his talents procured him access and even intimacy in the courts of Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and England, and for thirty years he composed church anthems and oratorios with prodigious industry.

Neukomm's musical productions, numbering no less than one thousand, and popular in their day, are, however, mostly forgotten, excepting his oratorio of "David" and one or two hymn-tunes.

George Kingsley, author of "Ware," was born in Northampton, Ma.s.s., July 7, 1811. Died in the Hospital, in the same city, March 14, 1884. He compiled eight books of music for young people and several manuals of church psalmody, and was for some time a music teacher in Boston, where he played the organ at the Hollis St. church. Subsequently he became professor of music in Girard College, Philadelphia, and music instructor in the public schools, being employed successively as organist (on Lord's Day) at Dr. Albert Barnes' and Arch St. churches, and finally in Brooklyn at Dr. Storrs' Church of the Pilgrims. Returned to Northampton, 1853.

"EARLY, MY G.o.d, WITHOUT DELAY."

This and the five following hymns, all by Watts, are placed in immediate succession, for unity's sake--with a fuller notice of the greatest of hymn-writers at the end of the series.

Early, my G.o.d, without delay I haste to seek Thy face, My thirsty spirit faints away Without Thy cheering grace.

In the memories of very old men and women, who sang the fugue music of Morgan's "Montgomery," still lingers the second stanza and some of the "spirit and understanding" with which it used to be rendered in meeting on Sunday mornings.

So pilgrims on the scorching sand, Beneath a burning sky, Long for a cooling stream at hand And they must drink or die.

_THE TUNE._

Many of the earlier pieces a.s.signed to this hymn were either too noisy or too tame. The best and longest-serving is "Lanesboro," which, with its expressive duet in the middle and its soaring final strain of harmony, never fails to carry the meaning of the words. It was composed by William Dixon, and arranged and adapted by Lowell Mason.

William Dixon, an English composer, was a music engraver and publisher, and author also of several glees and anthems. He was born 1750, and died about 1825.

Lowell Mason, born in Medfield, Ma.s.s., 1792, has been called, not without reason, "the father of American choir singing." Returning from Savannah, Ga., where he spent sixteen years of his younger life as clerk in a bank, he located in Boston (1827), being already known there as the composer of "The Missionary Hymn." He had not neglected his musical studies while living in the South, and it was in Savannah that he made the glorious harmony of that tune.

He became president of the Handel and Haydn Society, went abroad for special study, was made Doctor of Music, and collected a store of themes among the great models of song to bring home for his future work.

The Boston Academy of Music was founded by him and what he did for the song-service of the Church in America by his singing schools, and musical conventions, and published manuals, to form and organize the choral branch of divine wors.h.i.+p, has no parallel, unless it is Noah Webster's service to the English language.

Dr. Mason died in Orange, N.J., in 1872.

"SWEET IS THE WORK, MY G.o.d, MY KING."

This is one of the hymns that helped to give its author the t.i.tle of "The Seraphic Watts."

Sweet is the work, my G.o.d, my King To praise Thy name, give thanks and sing To show Thy love by morning light, And talk of all Thy truth at night.

_THE TUNE._

No n.o.bler one, and more akin in spirit to the hymn, can be found than "Duke Street," Hatton's imperishable choral.

Little is known of the John Hatton who wrote "Duke St." He was earlier by nearly a century than John Liphot Hatton of Liverpool (born in 1809), who wrote the opera of "Pascal Bruno," the cantata of "Robin Hood" and the sacred drama of "Hezekiah." The biographical index of the _Evangelical Hymnal_ says of John Hatton, the author of "Duke St.": "John, of Warrington; afterwards of St. Helens, then resident in Duke St. in the towns.h.i.+p of Windle; composed several hymn-tunes; died in 1793.[5] His funeral sermon was preached at the Presbyterian Chapel, St.

Helens, Dec. 13."

[Footnote 5: Tradition says he was killed by being thrown from a stage-coach.]

"COME, WE THAT LOVE THE LORD."

Watts ent.i.tled this hymn "Heavenly Joy on Earth." He could possibly, like Madame Guyon, have written such a hymn in a dungeon, but it is no less spiritual for its birth (as tradition will have it) amid the lovely scenery of Southampton where he could find in nature "glory begun below."

Come, we that love the Lord, And let our joys be known; Join in a song with sweet accord, And thus surround the throne.

There shall we see His face, And never, never sin; There, from the rivers of His grace, Drink endless pleasures in.