88 OUR HYMNS :
and Lyrics. How often, by singing some of them when by my self, on horseback, and elsewhere, has the evil spirit been made to fly away.
" Whene er my heart in tune was found, Like David s harp of solemn sound."
Dr. Gibbons, in his "Life of Watts," has shown that his Psalms and Hymns, though showing art by veiling art, are yet rich in rhetorical figures.
Thus, in
"The heavens declare thy glory, Lord." No. 17.
How happy the moment and the manner in which the apo strophe of the fifth verse is introduced,
" Great Sun of Righteousness arise." In
"What sinners value I resign," No. 13,
the exclamations of the third verse,
" glorious hour! blest abode ! "
are at once most natural and most expressive. No circumlocu tion of words could produce the same effect. In
" God is the refuge of His saints," No. 63,
the words are most admirably adapted to the various scenes pic tured. They are not merely the names of the things described, but their " sounds are an echo to the sense" conveyed. If we did not know the meaning of the words used in verse two, we should yet know tliLit it spoke of what was abrupt and terrible. And we could be equally sure that verse four spoke of what was flowing and delightful.
And in the favourite hymn,
There is a land of pure delight," No. 742,
where the poet was obliged to introduce death in the midst of the most pleasing objects, he does so by a periphrasis that disarms it
of its terrors :
" Death, like a narrow sea, divides This heavenly land from ours."
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