Hymns of Our Own Land
OF all the hymns born on this side of the Atlantic, the most celebrated, and the most perfect in execution, is Dr, Eay Palmer’s “My faith looks up to Thee.” The history of this exquisite production, which, like Heber’s missionary hymn, was thrown off “in a heat,” we have already published. The venerable Dr. Muhlenberg is about telling to the world the biography of his famous lines, “I would not live alway:” probably they rank next to Palmer’s in popularity among our American churches.
The first hymn ever composed by one of our countrymen, that has won permanent place in all our collections, came from that “king of New England,” Timothy Dwight. While he was President of Yale College he wielded a wider intellectual and religious influence than any man of his day in the American pulpit. His discourses on “Theology” were in every minister’s study: they were a text-book for students of divinity while Andover and Princeton were in their infancy. But they have gradually been supplanted, and few of our, younger clergymen ever open the four formidable but almost obsolete volumes. President Dwight will live longest in his one classic hymn, whose first verse is so familiar to us all, —
“I love Thy kingdom, Lord,
The house of Thine abode.
The Church our blest Redeemer saved
With his own precious blood.”
It is a metrical version of the one hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm; and it contains one verse of pathetic sweetness, worthy of Watts or Cowper. In addressing the Church of God, he passionately exclaims, —
“For her my tears shall fall;
For her my prayers ascend;
To her my cares and toils be given,
Till toils and cares shall end.”
This fine hymn was born in the first year of this century, while Dr. D wight was at Yale. His more ambitious poem of “Greenfield Hill” is now forgotten, except in the families who still live on that verdant and picturesque spot. His theological treatises have climbed away into upper shelves. And the great and good Timothy Dwight, like several other good men, owes his main chance of immortality to a score or two of lines, which he could have written on a small sheet of note-paper.
The classic city of New Haven has given existence to another hymn, which Dr. Leonard Bacon says is “unsurpassed in the English language, and as near perfection as any uninspired production can be.” This is rather extravagant praise of a composition which not one person in an hundred has ever heard of. But it is certainly an exquisite hymn both in thought and in diction. If any of my readers will turn to the 557th of Dr. C. S. Robinson’s “Songs of the Sanctuary,” they will find it under the head of “Hymns of Repentance and Reception of Christ.” It opens with the utterance of lowliest abasement. In the second verse, joy breaks in upon the penitent from the loving countenance and voice of Jesus. The third verse is “a gem of purest ray serene.” My readers will thank me for giving these stanzas complete: —
“Trembling before Thine awful throne, O Lord! in dust my sins I own; Justice and mercy for my life Contend! Oh, smile, and heal the strife!
The Saviour smiles! Upon my soul
New tides of hope tumultuous roll;
His voice proclaims my pardon found;
Seraphic transport wings the sound.
Earth has a joy unknown in heaven, The new-born peace of sins forgiven! Tears of such pure and deep delight. Ye angels! never dimmed your sight.”
The thought of this third stanza is expanded in three more verses of most magnificent imagery. So grand a hymn ought to have an air adapted to it, and it would soon become an universal favorite.
The author was Mr. Augustus L. Hillhouse, ’ one of that cultured family from whom “Hillhouse Avenue” is named. He was born at New Haven, in 1792, and died near Paris twelve years ago. While in France he composed this graceful and melodious hymn, and left it as a legacy of love to “that Name that is above every other.”
About the year 1847, the late Dr. George W. Bethune, then pastor of a church in Philadelphia, published a hymn of rare beauty which soon found its way into nearly all the later collections. The reigning idea of this song of triumph over death is similar to that of Dr. Caesar Malan’s, “Non, ce n’est pas mourir,” a French production, which has been well translated by Professor E. P. Dunn of Brown University. Before Dr. Bethune’s remains were borne to their last resting-place in Greenwood Cemetery, these notes of victory were sung: —
“It is not death to che,
To leave this weary road,
And ‘midst the brotherhood on high
To be at home with God.
It is not death to close
The eye long dimmed by tears,
And wake in glorious repose,
To spend eternal years.
It is not death to bear
The wrench that sets us free From dungeon chain, to breathe the air
Of boundless liberty.
It is not death to fling
Aside this sinful dust.
And rise, on strong, exulting wing.
To live among the just.
Jesus, Thou Prince of life!
Thy chosen cannot die; Like Thee, they conquer in the strife,
To reign with Thee on high.”
To many of our readers the Rev. Dr. Charles S. Robinson of New York is known as the successful compiler of the “Songs for the Sanctuary.” But only a few sharp eyes may have detected his name appended to the 773d hymn as its author. Those who do not possess this volume may thank me for inserting Dr. Robinson’s sweet hymn entke: —
“Saviour! I follow on,
Guided by Thee,
Seeing not yet the hand
That leadeth me;
Hushed be my heart and still.
Fear I no further ill.
Only to meet Thy will
My wUl shall be.
Riven the rock for me
Thirst to relieve,
Manna from heaven falls
Fresh every eve;
Never a want severe
Causeth my eye a tear,
But Thou art whispering near,
‘Only believe!’
Often to Marah’s brink
Have I been brought;
Shrinking the cup to drink,
Help I have sought;
And with the prayer’s ascent,
Jesus the branch has rent, — Quickly relief he sent.
Sweetening the draught.
Saviour! I long to walk
Closer with Thee;
Led by Thy guiding hand.
Ever to be;
Constantly near Thy side,
Quickened and purified,
Living for Him who died
Freely for me!”
When that most apostolic minister of Jesus Christ, Dr. William Augustus Muhlenberg composed his world-known lines, “I would not live alway” (in 1824), it is said that he was suffering under a sore heart-sorrow. A spirit of mournfulness over “life’s vroes” breathes through the poem. But in later years he has expressed some doubts whether the hymn is not too lugubrious for a “happy warrior” in the glorious service of Immanuel. In a letter now lying before me, the sunny-hearted old man says, that “Paul’s ’ to depart and be with Christ ’ is far better than Job’s ‘I would not live alway.’”
Like many other hymns, this precious production of Dr. Muhlenberg’s genius has suffered many mutilations. The following verse, which originally closed the hymn, is now omitted from most of our books of metrical devotion: —
“That heavenly music, hark! sweet in the air, The notes of the harpers, how clear ringing there! And see, soft unfolding those portals of gold, The King, all arrayed in His beauty behold! Oh, give me, oh, give rde the wings of a dove. To adore Him, be near Him, enwrapt with His love! I but wait for the summons, I list for the word, AUeluia! Amen! Evermore with the Lord!”
Of one more American hymn we must speak before closing this paragraph. Its author was my beloved friend and teacher the late Dr. Joseph Addison Alexander. He certainly never dreamed that it would find its way into any collection for public worship when he threw it off, one evening, rapidly from his versatile pen. The day after its composition he mailed it to E.ev. Dr. Hall, then the editor of the “Sunday School Journal.” The lines were published under the title of “The Doomed Man,” and they describe with solemn and terrible energy the fate of a sinner who has “crossed the hidden boundary between God’s patience and His wrath.” These fearful lines are not so much a hymn as a thrilling appeal to the impenitent, in metre. They were at first circulated in small hand-bills through prayer-meetings, in seasons of revival. They went the rounds of religious journals, and finally lodged in Dr. Robinson’s Hymn-book, and in one or two others. As originally written, the opening verse was —
“There is a time, we know not when,
A point, we know not where,
That marks the destiny of men
To glory, or despair.”
If Hillhouse’s hymn is a prelude to the minstrelsy of heaven, these solemn lines of Alexander may be styled the dirge of a lost soul against whom the gates of heaven are closed for ever!