434 THE METHODIST HYMN-BOOK ILLUSTRATED
Hymn 845. The day of wrath, that dreadful day.
SIR WALTER SCOTT, Bart. (1771-1832).
Sir Walter Scott s celebrated condensation of the Dies Irae marks the culminating point of The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), where pilgrimage was made to Melrose Abbey f< repose of the soul of Michael Scott-
Then Mass was sung, and prayers were said, And solemn requiem for the dead ; And bells toll d out their mighty peal, For the departed spirit s weal ; And ever in the office close The hymn of intercession rose ; And far the echoing aisles prolong The awful burthen of the song, Dies irae, dies ilia, Sol vet saeclum in favilla ; While the pealing organ rung. Were it meet with sacred strain To close my lay, so light and vain, Thus the holy Fathers sung :
Then follows The Hymn for the Dead
Dr Collyer used this as a hymn in his Selection, 1812.
hymn "of Rebecca in Ivanhoe, When Israel of the Lord
beloved, is another fine illustration of Sir Walter Scott s power
as a writer of sacred song.
Mr Gladstone said in a speech at Hawarden, February 3,
- 866 I know nothing more sublime in the writings of Sir
Walter Scott-certainly I know nothing so sublime m any portion of the sacred poetry of modern times, I mean of the present century, as the - Hymn for the Dead," extending only to twelve line* which he embodied in "The Lay of the Last
��roc says in his account of Sir Walter Scott s
death-bed, But commonly whatever we could follow him in was foment of the Bible (especially the Prophecies of Isaiah and e Book of Job), or some petition in the Litany-or a verse of some psalm (in the old Scotch metrical version)-or of some of the magnificent hymns of the Romish ritual, m which he always delighted, but which probably hung on his memory connexion with the Church services he had attended
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