The "Rock of Ages"
He southern coast of England has been the birthplace of the grandest hymns in our language. Within that belt of land, sacred to devout poesy, Charles Wesley caught the inspiration of many of his hymns, and there, we believe, he composed that delicious love lay of the heart,
“Jesu, lover of my soul.”
On the shores of Hampshire mused and sang good Isaac Watts; and in the same county, modest Anne Steele breathed forth her tender songs of consolation. In old Kent lived Edward Perronett, who struck that thrilling note,
“All hail the power of Jesu’s name.**
In beautiful Devonshire, the Rev. Henry F. Lyte chanted his last sweet melody,
“Abide with me; fast falls the eventide.**
A few miles from him dwelt Charlotte Elliot, the sister of a clergyman; she went about doing good; but the grandest work God ever put into her hands was to write,
“Just as I am, without one plea.**
Devonshire is certainly honoured above aliife ^Vskes of Britain, for on that poetic soil Augustus Toplady gave birth to the most glorious hymn of modern times, the Rock of Ages. The “Dies Irae” is the king of mediaeval hymns; but of modern songs of Zion, the “Rock of Ages” wears the crown.
It is a curious fact that the spiritual birthplace of the heart which fashioned this hymn was a ham I Augustus Toplady was the son of a British officer. After Major Toplady’s death his widow took the lad Augustus on a visit to Ireland. While at Codymain, the boy of sixteen found his way into a bam, where an earnest but uneducated layman was preaching on the text, “Ye who sometime were afar off”, are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” The homespun preacher “builded better than he knew,” for his sermon converted the soul which gave to the Church of God the Rock of Ages, Let no man feel that he is doing a small thing when he is proclaiming Jesus and the great salvation even to peasants in a cow-house or to sailors on the docks. Probably that obscure Irish preacher has overheard ten thousand echoes of his sermon in the heavenly world.
Toplady was ordained to the ministry in 1762, and began to preach on the banks of the Otter. His career was a short one, for he died at the age of thirty-eight. He lived fast and worked fiercely. James Hamilton says of him, that “like a racehorse, all nerve and fire, his life was on tiptoe, and his delight was to get over the ground.” He comi^Qsed in hot baste. Certainly some ol li ^^ax:^ cwx:^^ versial papers were thrown off as from a furnace, for they scorched terribly.
Even when he wrote his magnificent masterpiece, the “Rock of Ages,” he could not resist the temptation to give a sly thrust at those who he insisted were believers in “Perfectionism.” So he entitled his hymn when he printed it, “A living and dying prayer of the holiest believer in the world.” This was as much as if he had said: “The most sanctified soul in the world must come down on his knees, and confess, * nothing in my hands I bring,’ and ’ vile I to this fountain fly.’”
Glorious child of song! he has gone where the strife of tongues has ceased and controversies are for ever hushed. Perhaps he and Wesley have sung each other’s hymns in glory, and been puzzled to find out which of the two was the “Calvinist.” As we Presbyterians sing with tears of joy,
“Jesus, lover of my soul,”
SO our Methodist brethren have cheered many a love-feast by pouring forth the inspiring strain,
“Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!”
Toplad/s hymn is as universally popular as the sunshine or the vernal flowers. It has been translated into almost every tongue. Dr. Pomeroy went into a church in Constantinople, where a company of Armenians were singing a hymn which so moved them that the tears were tricklmg down pi)[i€lx Os€«.%.
He ioquired what they were singing? A man present translated the words, and lo! they were the dear old lines of Rock of Ages! When Prince Albert of England was dying, his lips feebly murmured the sweet words of Toplad/s hymn. And so it came about that the dying /r;«^^ laid hold of those precious thoughts which had their original root in the rude discourse of an obscure layman in an Irish bam! Truly, the religion of Jesus abaseth the proud and exalteth the lowly. Kings and beggars must go down into the dust alike, where the blood of the atoning Lamb is streaming.
We do not dare to attempt the critical analysis of Toplady’s wonderful hymn. Just as soon would we pull a rose to pieces to find out where the delicious odour was lurking. The hymn itself is absolute perfection. Of all its lines the two finest are those which are carved on a moniment in Greenwood, beneath a figure of faith kneeling before a cross:
“Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy Cross I cling.”
No device in all Greenwood is more impressive; and no words can express more beautifully the entire empty-handedness with which a poc, weak, sinful soul comes to grasp the Divine Redeemer as its last and only hope. The essence of the gospel is in this matchless couplet It has wrought itself into ten thousand prayers for pardon; it has been the condensed “confession of faith “for ten twQvi”axA ^^:s-«
tents.
Two slight changes have been made in Toplad/s hymn. The word “tracts” has been superseded by “worlds” in the last verse. In the same verse the author also wrote, —
“When my eye-strings break in death.”
Perhaps he had learned the medical fact, that at the moment of dissolution, a delicate tendon near the eye sometimes breaks, and causes a flow of tears. But the allusion was more anatomical than poetic, and the word “heart-strings” is substituted in our common version.
This glorious hymn yet waits for a tune worthy of it The one in ordinary use is by no means of the highest order. Some master of music ought to compose an “air” which shall describe the majestic onward and upward movement of the thought to its sublime climax. The whole hymn is a fervent outcry of a broken heart to Jesus. It begins in plaintive confession, —
Not the labour of my hands
Can fulfil Thy law’s commands.
Then the suppHant owns that he is naked, empty-handed and helpless and foul, and calls out imploringly —
“Wash mey Saviour or I die I**
Then his bursting heart begins to yearn and stretch
onward. It reaches on to the dread hour when the
heart’Strings are snapping at the touch oi d^xVv. li
TJie Rock of Ages, sweeps out into eternity; it soars to the judgment seat It beholds the great white throne! And casting itself down before that throne, it pours forth its last piercing but triumphant cry, —
“Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide my self in Thee 1”