Hymns of the Cross
OF all the hymns of the cross, the “Rock of Ages” may well be styled the masterpiece. Perhaps the second place should be given to those grand lines of Isaac Watts which we once heard Mr. Spurgeon read in tones as sonorous as a trumpet —
“When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.”
Close beside Watts’ glorious hymn belong those tender strains which Cowper sung in one of his inspired hours of joy, when the cloud of melancholy lifted from his soul —
“There is a fountain filled with blood.”
This hymn is saturated with grateful love for the “dear dying Lamb.” Its author glories only in the Cross of Christ, and lifts with trembling hand his crown of adoration, and places it above the crown of thorns on Jesus’ brow. Although Cowper was immeasurably the greatest living poet then in Britain, he confesses that his is but a “poor lisping, stammering tongue” to sing the song of redeeming love. He promises to himself “a nobler, sweeter song” when he gets his well-tuned harp in the grand oratorio of heaven.
To these three hymns of redemption which sprang from the devout souls of Toplady, Watts, and Cowper, America has contributed a fourth which is worthy to stand in this matchlesss quartette. It is, by far, the most precious contribution which American genius has yet made to the hymnology of the Christian church. The author of it was a native of “Little Compton” in little Rhode Island — and was graduated from old Yale in 1830. Immediately after leaving college he came to New York, and spent a few hours each day in teaching young ladies in a school which stood in the then fashionable quarter of Fulton Street, behind St. Paul’s church. In December of that year (1830) — just forty years ago, he sat down one day in his room, and wrote in his pocket memorandum-book four simple verses, which he says “were born of my own soul,” and were not written to be seen by another human eye. He wrote them rapidly, and with his eyes swimming in tears. The first verse reads thus:
“My faith looks up to Thee,
Thou Lamb of Calvary,
Saviour divine! Now hear me while I pray: Take all my guilt away; Oh let me from this day Be wholly Thine I He put the memorandutn-book mlo Vsk ioctet, and carried it there for two whole years — little dreaming
Aat he was carrying about with him his own passport
to immortality. One day Dr. Lowell Mason met him
1^ the streets of Boston, and asked him to furnish
Some hymns for the volume of “Spiritual Songs”
‘^hich he (Dr. Mason) and Dr. Thomas Hastings were
about to publish. The young college graduate drew
from his pocket the lines — My faith looks up to Thee.”
Dr. Mason went home, and catching a similar inspiraation to that of the author of the lines, composed for them tlut beautiful tune of “Olivet,’’ to which the hymn is wedded unto this day. Dr. Mason met the author a few days afterwards, and said to him prophetically, “Mr. Palmer, you may live many years, and do many good things, but I think that you will be best known to posterity as the author of this hymn.” The prediction is fulfilled. The man who sang this sweet song of Calvary is still living, and has composed many tender and beautiful poems and discourses; but his devout mind flowered out in one matchless lily whose rich odours have filled the courts of our God with fragrance.
How many a penitent, while reading or singing that hymn, has looked up tq Calvary’s cross and found peace in believing! In how many a prayer-meeting has it been sung through tears of holy gratitude! To how many a sick chamber and dying bed has it come JiJre a. strain from that heavenly laiid^YvvOci^^^a.^ in full view! The poetry of the hymn is as perfect as its theology. In its structure it closely resembles the “Rock of Ages.” It begins in penitence; it ends in praise. It begins in heart-broken sorrow, and concludes with the most glorious assurance of hope.
In the first verse the suppliant is represented as bowing before the crucified Saviour, and looking up to Him, and to Him only. He sees none but Jesus. His cry is, —
‘* Take all my guilt away!”
His aspiration is, —
“Oh, let me, fi-om this day.
Be wholly Thine.”
Before that cross the praying soul obtains strength, and a pure, warm, and changeless Ipve for his Redeemer. He is filled with a “living fire.” He is the new man in Christ Jesus.
But as he looks forward, he foresees a “dark maze” of trial before him, overhung with clouds of grief that lower black and terrible, and sometiies weep great showers of tears. Surrounded with these discouraging clouds of confusion and temptation he shouts out like one lost in the dark, —
“Be Thou my guide I
Bid darkness turn to day
Wipe sorrow’s tear away,
Nor let me ever stray
From Thee aside 1”
JSe/bre him lies still one mote la)!X^^ ^Vfc ^ixwx any passed before. It is that vale in which” ends life’s transient dream/* Through it rolls death’s cold and sullen stream! He already imagines himself in the swellings of Jordan. And as the floods go over him, he lifts his last victorious voice of sublime trust, —
“Blest Saviour! then in love
Fear and distrust remove;
Oh, bear me safe above,
A ransomed soul!”
Such is the grandest of American hymns. Is it not the grandest of this century? And if our readers wish to know and to thank its modest author, they have but to go into the “Bible House” in New York, and take by the hand our genial and beloved friend Dr. Ray Palmer.