3° 2 ,
��HYMNOLOGY OF THE CHURCHES.
��HYMNOLOGY OF THE CHURCHES.
��BY ASA MCFARLAND.
��The circumstances under which some hymns, destined to hold a permanent place in "the tunes of the church" were written, are such as to show that their endurance is attributable rather to the fervor with which their authors were in- spired, than the labor bestowed upon them. Perhaps no favorite production was ever so expeditiously written as the " Missionary Hymn," by Rev. Regi- nald Heber :
•• From Greenland's icy mountains.
From India's coral strand, Where Afric's sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sand," &c.
The author, then 35 years of age, was visiting his father-in-law, Rev. Dr. Shipley, in Wrexham, England. On a Saturday evening a few friends were assembled in the parlor of the rectory, when Dr. Shipley, aware of the ease with which his son-in-law composed verses, asked him if he could not write a hymn to be sung the next forenoon, as he was to preach upon missions. With this brief notice Heber retired to an adjacent room, and wrote three of the four stanzas of which this celebrated production consists, and, not long after the request was made, came back and read them. "There, there," said Dr. Shipley, " that will do." But Heber, thinking the idea had not been carried to completion, returned and wrote the fourth stanza, which is the bugle blast, or trumpet call of the Missionary Hymn, as follows :
■' Waft, waft, ye winds his story,
And you, ye waters, roll ; Till, like a sea of glory,
It spreads from pole to pole ; Till o'er our ransomed nature The Lamh for sinners slain. Redeemer, .King, Creator,
In hliss returns to reign." The words were printed the same evening, and sung the next forenoon in Wrexham church. Such were the cir- cumstances under which a hymn was written that bids fair to hold its place
��in the hymnology of the churches so long as the English language is spoken. Reginald Heber became Lord Bishop of Calcutta, and died in Trinchinopo- ly, India, April 3, 1826, aged 43.
Henry Francis Lyte, an Episcopal clergyman, was the author of a hymn the world will never let die, com- mencing :
" Ahide with me, fast falls the eventide. The darkness deepens — Lord, abide with
me, When other helpers fail, .and comforts
flee. Help of the helpless, Lord, abide with
me."
This hymn was a few years since printed in illustrated form, for Christ- mas and New Year presentation to friends. The author was pastor, from choice, of a poor people, many of them of sea-going occupation living on the coast of Devonshire, England, whose surroundings were bleak and desolate. In the autumn of 1847, me gloom of winter then settling upon the coast, his health having become impaired, Francis Lyte resolved to pass the winter in a more salubrious climate. On his last Sunday in England he dragged his weakened body into his desk, and de- livered the discourse which proved to be his last, and drew tears from his weather-worn congregation. He ended the day by composing the memorable production here alluded to. The auth- or soon sailed for Nice, on the shore of the Mediterranean, where he soon after died.
The hymn known, as " Rock of Ages," found in books in use by peo- ple of Trinitarian belief, had its origin in one who writes as follows of him- self:
" At the age of sixteen I went into a barn, in an obscure portion of Ireland, and heard an earnest but illiterate lay- man preach from the text : ' Ye who some time were far off are brought nigh by
�� �
