the Light of Day," a graceful lyric, full of gentleness and piety. Another woman hymn writer of this period, though she is represented in hymn-books generally by but one hymn, stands nevertheless by virtue of that single lyric near to Watts and Wesley. Sarah Flower Adams was born in 1806. She was the daughter of Benjamin Flower, who was editor of the "Cambridge Intelligencer." She married William B. Adams, an eminent engineer, and himself a writer of some note in his day. The historian and critic of literature must search far to find songs of any kind equal to "Nearer, My God, to Thee"; he will probably not find one superior to it. If there is anything lacking in this hymn to make a perfect song and an adequate expression of true religion, I am unable to say what it is. The hymn-book has made a slight revision in the mode of a verb in the fifth line of the first stanza of the original: "would be" is made to read "shall be." This is a delicate bit of adaptation, yet it is important. The slightly uncertain subjunctive was out of place in a poem of such clarity and power, and it is important to remove even the slightest let or hindrance to the sweeping power of one of the world's greatest songs of religion. The poem was published in 1841 at the close of an epoch of poetry such as England had not seen since the days of great Elizabeth. In its brief line-as also in the lines of Heber and others-we can see how the lyric of religion expresses in its own way the mind and spirit of its time; here we see the ardor of the age-its wildly free imagination, its mingled dreams and realities, its impetuous will, its soul of beauty-all reflected in the hymns of its religion. D CHAPTER VIII THE NINETEENTH CENTURY URING the Victorian era, and more recently both in England and America, have appeared a remarkable number and variety of hymns. Several scores of these the hymn-book seems to have chosen permanently; many others have been chosen, of course, only tentatively. There are a few outstanding ones, like Kipling's "Recessional" and Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar," which leave little doubt of their permanence. In all the huge movement and stir in the last fifty years, there has been much vigorous manifestation of the religious life. It is not surprising that the fifteen years following the publication of Darwin's "Origin of Species" produced more ringing lyrics of religion than has any period of the same length in English history. There was tremendous agitation and conflict among religious forces. The zeal of the conservative faithful and the ardor of the progressive faithful showed itself in flashes of art as well as in the earnest, long-drawn, and bitter prosaic struggles. Hymns rich, intense, and luminous sprang from Conservatives and Progressives alike. And it is strong attestation of the truth and universality of the hymns that even radical Conservatives and radical Progressives were soon-however much or little they were aware of the fact-singing each other's hymns, "teaching and admonishing one another" according to the Scripture in spiritual songs, singing and making melody in their hearts unto the Lord. The Fundamentalists and the Liberals of to-day sing the hymns of Whittier and Holmes and Mrs. Adams, together with those of Bonar, Newman, and Bickersteth. Among the major hymnists of the time is Horatio Bonar, the foremost of the Scottish hymn-writers. He was born in Edinburgh in 1808. Graduated from the University of Edinburgh, he entered the ministry of the Established Church of Scotland, from which he later seceded to become one of the founders, and for the rest of his life a leader, of the Scottish Free Church. He died in 1889. He published many hymns, some translations from the Greek and Latin, but mostly original hymns. Among his best are "A Few More Years Shall Roll"; "Beyond the Smiling and the Weeping"; "Thy Way, Not Mine, O Lord"; "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say"; "Here, O My Lord, I Meet Thee Face to Face"; and "Go Labor On, Spend and Be Spent." Bonar's hymns are sorrowful and plaintive, like autumn winds over Scottish hills. The sadness and transience of life is a recurrent theme. A few more years shall roll, A few more seasons come; A few more storms shall beat Beyond the frost-chain and the fever Beyond the rock-waste and the river, I shall be soon. Toil on, and in thy toil rejoice; For toil comes rest, for exile, home; Make haste, O man, to live, Thy time is almost o'er O sleep not, dream not, but arise. But the somber tone of his hymns is usually lightened by grave consolations and rock-founded hopes. His communion hymn, three stanzas of which are quoted here, is a wistful and heavenly minded song, intensely personal, yet broad enough, it would seem, for Christians of any and all opinions of that sacrament: |