Hymns of Homage to Christ

‘THERE are many popular hymns whose key-note is an ascription of heart-loyalty to Jesus Christ. Among these, two are especial favorites; yet so little is generally known of their authorship and their history that we propose to write what we have been able to gather in regard to them.

The first of these hymns is one which always stirs us like the sound of a trumpet. Everybody knows the words, and everybody is familiar with the tune of “Coronation,” to which it is wedded. If a man like George H. Stuart or D. L. Moody were called upon to lead a vast miscellaneous meeting of Christians, probably the first hymn which they would choose to “fire the heart” of the meeting would be those well-known lines, — “All hail the power of Jesus’ name! Let angels prostrate fall; Bring forth the royal diadem, And crown Him Lord of all!”

As published in pur American collections, this joyous and inspiring hymn contains only five verses. But the original version — nowpreserved in the British Museum — contains eight stanzas, of which the last one is as follows: —

“Let every tribe and every tongue,
That bound creation’s call,
Now shout in universal song,
And crown Him Lord of all!”

Of this stanza our ordinary version retains but one line. The whole hymn has been most ruthlessly tinkered by the tribe of hymnmenders; but, not content with patching the sacred song itself, they have plundered it of its rightful authorship. It was often attributed to Rowland Hill, with whom it was a great favorite. In most of our books it is attributed to one “Duncan.” But the real author was the Rev. Edward Perronet, a zealous minister of Jesus Christ in the ancient county of Kent. He was a man of keen wit and indomitable courage, and broke loose from the English Established Church to become a travelling companion of Charles Wesley. He afterwards became the pastor of one of Lady Huntington’s chapels in Canterbury. He must have been a kindred spirit with joyous-hearted Wesley, and we can imagine them as singing their way through southern England like old “Great Heart” and “Standfast” in Bunyan’s allegory. Perronet published a small volume of “Occasional Verses, Moral and Social,” in 1785, which is preserved in the British Museum. He wrote many verses, but only one great hymn. That was enough: the man did not live in vain who taught Christ’s Chuixh her grandest coronation-song in honor of her King. When and where Perronet was born we do not know; but he died with holy ecstasy in 1792, and went up to join in the coronation services of heaven. His last words were, “Glory to God in the height of His divinity! Glory to God in the depth of His humanity! Glory to God in His all-sufficiency, and into His hands I commit my spirit.” He left no written biography on earth; but when his soul entered the realms of bliss there must have been a “new song” of peculiar sweetness and rapture heard before the throne of God and of the Lamb.

With the song of homage to Jesus, left to us by Edward Perronet, there is worthy to be coupled another one, which is pitched to the same joyful key. It, too, was composed by a hymnist quite unknown to fame Very few persons, as they see the name oi^ Medley” attached to the list of authors in their hymn-books, are fully certain whether the word describes a man or a musical “medley” of some kind. Let it be known, then, that Samuel Medley was a man, — every inch of him, — and a rather extraordinary man too in his way. Born somewhere in England during the year 1738, he became a midshipman in the British navy, and fought bravely in several battles under some of old William Pitt’s stout admirals. He was converted by reading one of

Isaac Watts’s discourses. He then quit the sea and entered the army of Christ’s ministers, serving in the Baptist “corps” with remarkable zeal and success. Medley preached in Liverpool for many years, attracting troops of sailors to his chapel. Sometimes he went out on mission-tours through the land, and once he was preaching in a barn on the text, “Cast down, but not destroyed.” In the midst of the discourse his temporary pulpit of rough boards gave way and precipitated him upon the barn-floor. The lively sailor leaped up, and in a Beecher-ish vein of humor exclaimed, “Well, friends, you see we too are cast down, but not destroyed.”

While in Liverpool the Spirit moved him to compose over two hundred hymns, which he published first on slips of paper for circulation. Many of them were sold for a ha’penny by a poor blind girl who sat on the churchsteps, and thus earned her daily bread. But that poor sightless child had some rare treasures in her pile of “broadsheets.’’ For among them was that glowing lyric, — y

“Oh could I speak the matchless worth, Oh could I sound the glories forth,

That in my Saviour shine, — I’d soar and touch the heavenly strings. And vie with Gabriel while he sings

In notes almost divine!”

In that collection was also the hymn, “Dearest of names, my Lord and King.” But the choicest treasure in the poor blind girl’s pile of handbills was the one on which was printed that dear old hymn, which has been sung in ten thousand revival meetings, —

“Awake, my soul, in joyful lays, And sing thy great Redeemer’s praise; He justly claims a song from me; His loving kindness, oh, how free!”

In this jubilant song there were originally nine verses: the last one has been dropped out of our collections, and I therefore insert it here: —

“There with their golden harps I’ll join.
And with their anthems mingle mine.
And loudly sound on every chord
The loving kindness of my Lord.”

JEsthetically considered, this is not a remarkable bit of poetry; but, for a popular outburst of loyal love to the Redeemer, it is unsurpassed. The common people sing it gladly. It will be chanted through tears of joy when many a massive epic is forgotten. It bears the odors of paradise.

Samuel Medley, like Perronet, went home to glory, shouting. On his dying-bed he seemed to be watching the points of a compass, and kept saying, “One point more; two points more; now only one point more.” Then he shouted out, “How sweet will be the port after the storm! Dying is sweet work! Home, home, hallelujah! glory, home, home! ‘’ And so the glorious old mariner passed in, with all sails set, to the “desired haven.”