58 OUR HYMNS t
burying him, his .attendants saluted the opening day with the strains of his "Morning Hymn."
During ten years of severe affliction the poet wrote his "Anodynes" to relieve the tedium of his sufferings. Another of his poems is called " Hymnotheo, or the Penitent." It is a piece founded on a story of apostolic times, given in Eusebius Ecclesiastical History. His hymns and poems have been pub lished in four small volumes. Ken was also the author of some prose works.
"Bishop Ken," says Montgomery, "has laid the Church of Christ under abiding obligations by his three hymns, Morning, Evening, and Midnight. Had he endowed three hospitals he might have been less a benefactor to posterity."
The " Morning Hymn" is given in the "New Congregational Hymn Book" (No. 929), with six verses omitted. The " Evening Hymn " is No. 938
" Glory to Thee my God this night." It is given with the omission of five verses.* The Doxology, No. 458
" Praise God from whom all blessings flow,"
is also the last verse of the Morning and Evening hymns. The author at first wrote the third line
" Praise Him above, ye angelic host."
Of this verse Montgomery says : " The well-known doxology, " Praise God from whom all blessings flow/ &c.,
" is a master-piece at once of amplification and compression: amplification, on the burthen, Praise God, repeated in each line ; compression, by exhibiting God as the object of praise in every view in which we can imagine praise due to Him ; praise,
- Sir Koundell Palmer has in his possession an edition of Ken s
work (1709), with the Bishop s latest corrections, which proves the genuineness of the text of the three hymns as it is now given.
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