THEIR AUTHOKS AND ORIGIN. 207
intensely interesting character and career, they have their own intrinsic worth as models of correspondence. Their excellence made Southey describe Cowper as " the most popular poet of his generation, and the best of English letter- writers."
Cowper s hymns are part of the prized treasures of the Christian Church. Several of them give expression to the dark passages of religious experience through which he was passing. " God moves in a mysterious way." No. 281.
The title of this hymn is " Light shining out of darkness." It is said, that on one occasion Cowper thought it was the Divine will he should go to a particular part of the river Ouse and drown himself, but the driver of the postchaise missed his way, and on the poet s return he wrote this hymn. By others, it is said to have been written during a solitary walk in the fields, when he had a presentiment of the gloom that would soon fall on him again, but was still cleaving to God in whom he trusted. Mont gomery says, "It is a lyric of high tone and character, and rendered awfully interesting by the circumstances under which it was written in the twilight of departing reason." It was the last he composed for the " Olney Collection." And after study ing his life, we are not surprised to find two hymns (Nos. 640 and 644) by Cowper, under the head of "Declensions in the Christian Life." It was a happy circumstance that having to contribute to a collection that was to meet the various wants of a public assembly, led Cowper to write on several great subjects ; but those of his hymns are the most pathetic which give ex pression to his own inward fears and conflicts. Such are : " for a closer walk with God,
A calm and heavenly frame." No. 644. And,
" Lord, my best desire fulfil " No. 598.
especially the last verse
" But ah ! mine inward spirit cries,
Still bind me to Thy sway : Else the next cloud that veils my skies,
Drives all these thoughts away."
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