the hymn-books. In some of the best hymnals today authors' names are given only in indexes at the back. The hymn-books generally have not considered individual authorship so important as to prevent some natural growth in an immature hymn, or to cut away dead and crooked branches. "Come Ye Disconsolate" is an example of an immature poem growing by "folk-culture" into one of the first-rate hymns of the language.

In Byron's book of songs, "Hebrew Melodies,” published in 1815, with music, there is no true hymn. "The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold” was included in a few books of the middle of the last century; but it is a spirited song of war rather than of devotion. Neither of his renderings of the Psalms is a good hymn. The better one begins:

In the valley of waters we wept on that day
When the host of the stranger made Salem his prey.
And our heads on our bosoms droopingly lay,
And our hearts were so full of the land far away.

His most earnest and devout religious song contains a single word that led to "numerous attacks upon the noble author's religion"1 and to a vigorous reply from the noble author. The troublesome monosyllable was "if" in

If that high world which lies beyond.
Our own, surviving Love endears;

1 "The Works of Lord Byron," Vol. III, p. 383, note. Murray, London, 1900.

If there the cherished heart be fond,
The eye the same, except in tears-
How welcome those untrodden spheres!
How sweet this very hour to die!

To soar from earth and find all fears,
Lost in thy light-Eternity!

It must be so; 't is not for self
That we so tremble on the brink;
The striving to o'erleap the gulf,
Yet cling to being's severing link.
O that in future let us think

To hold each heart the best that shares,
With them the immortal waters drink,

And soul in soul grow deathless theirs!

However fine music Byron and his collaborators might have set these lines to, and however many hymn-books might have included them, one does not have to know much about hymns to see that the involved statement of this idea-"If what we say we believe to be true is really so, how sweet it would be to die right now!"-would not be sung as part of the service of the church.

This evident stir of the hymn sentiment among the larger figures of the time was felt also among uncounted humbler ones. There was a true democracy in this realm of poetry. Any man under his own vine and fig-tree could have his own harp. Hundreds-thousands-of hymns found their way into print; many more thousands were perhaps mercifully not preserved. Most of the verses are of

course not poetry but honest rimes carrying right ideas and good sentiment. Among them all there are a few superb hymns. William Williams, a devout itinerant Welsh preacher, wrote many hymns; one of them, "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah," still lives as his great contribution to the hymnbook. Benjamin Beddome (1717-95), a leader of the Baptists of England, wrote many hymns, 830 of which were collected and published by his friends. "Did Christ o'er Sinners Weep?" is perhaps the best known of them. His song on reading the Bible may not have the sweep of lyric wings, but it carries, in noble and not inharmonious words, a most important truth. If one reads these lines gravely he may be surprised to see how rich in truth they grow as he regards them more closely, considering the meaning of the Bible in the history of civilization as well as of individual lives:

God, in the gospel of his Son,

Makes his eternal counsels known:
Where love in all its glory shines,
And truth is drawn in fairest lines.

Here sinners of the humbler frame
May taste his grace and learn his name;
May read in characters of blood

The wisdom, power, and grace of God.

The prisoner here may break his chain,
The weary rest from all his pain,
The captive feel his bondage cease,

The mourner find the way of peace.

Here faith reveals to mortal eyes

A brighter world beyond the skies,
Here shines the light which guides his way
From earth to realms of perfect day.

O grant us grace, Almighty Lord,
To read and mark thy holy word,
Its truth with meekness to receive,
And by its holy precepts live.

John Byrom, a fellow in Trinity College, Oxford, wrote a number of hymns, but one of which, "Christian, Awake, Salute the Happy Morn," survives. In 1787 Dr. John Rippon published "A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors," which contained a new hymn signed with the initial "K."-"How Firm a Foundation." This exultant song of faith, one of the great hymns of the eighteenth century, closes with these words:

The soul that on Jesus still leans for repose

I will not, I will not desert to his foes;

That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake.

These lively songs of the latter half of the eighteenth century show a genuine hunger after righteousness; they are joyful in the sense of the soul's freedom to reach toward heaven, and they are unshakably certain of the infinite power and goodness of God.

A

CHAPTER VII

BISHOP HEBER AND THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL

NEW period of English hymnody centers

around Reginald Heber, who with Watts and Wesley stands in the succession of master writers of hymns. Heber was guided by three ideas in regard to the hymn, none of which was new, yet the union of which was new and highly important. The first idea was that of Bishop Ken and others, and of course the medieval church, that the hymn is liturgical and should follow and adapt itself to the church calendar throughout the year; the second idea was that of Watts, the Wesleys, and the Baptist leaders that the hymn should follow and supplement the sermon; the third idea, so urged by Addison, was that the hymn should be a finished piece of literary art. Heber strove to create and have adopted by the Church of England not a psalm-book, nor a psalm-and-hymn-book, but a hymnal to accompany the Book of Common Prayer as a part of the church service; he strove to create and collect a body of hymns which should be of most practical use to instruct and inspire the people and which at the same time should be poems of high literary excellence.

Reginal Heber was born at Malpas, Cheshire, in