23, 1717. Settled in 1743, he remained with the same church till his death, Sept. 3, 1795. His hymns were not collected and published till 1818. THE TUNE. "Dennis," a soft and smoothly modulated harmony, is oftenest sung to the words, and has no note out of sympathy with their deep feeling. Did Christ o'er sinners weep, The Son of God in tears Be thou astonished, O my soul; He wept that we might weep; And there's no weeping there. The tune of" Dennis" was adapted by Lowell Mason from Johann Georg Nägeli, a Swiss music publisher, composer and poet. He was born in Zurich, 1768. It is told of him that his irrepressible genius once tempted him to violate the ethics of authorship. While publishing Beethoven's three great solo sonatas (Opus 31) he interpolated two bars of his own, an act much commented upon in musical circles, but which does not seem to have cost him Beethoven's friendship. Possibly, like Murillo to the servant who meddled with his paintings, the great master forgave the liberty, because the work was so good. Nägeli's compositions are mostly vocal, for school and church use, though some are of a gay and playful nature. The best remembered of his secular and sacred styles are his blithe aria to the song of Moore, "Life let us cherish, while yet the taper glows" and the sweet choral that voices Beddome's hymn. "MY JESUS, I LOVE THEE." The real originator of the Coronation Hymnal, a book into whose making went five years of prayer, was Dr. A. J. Gordon, late Pastor of the Clarendon St. Baptist church, Boston. While the volume was slowly taking form and plan he was wont to hum to himself, or cause to be played by one of his family, snatches and suggestions of new airs that came to him in connection with his own hymns, and others which seemed to have no suitable music. The anonymous hymn, "My Jesus, I Love Thee," he found in a London hymn-book, and though the tune to which it had been sung in England was sent to him some time later, it did not sound sympathetic. Dissatisfied, and with the ideal in his mind of what the feeling should be in the melody to such a hymn, he meditated and prayed over the words till in a moment of inspiration the beautiful air sang itself to him* which with its simple concords *The fact that this sweet melody recalls to some a similar tune sung sixty years ago reminds us again of the story of the tune "America." It is has carried the hymn into the chapels of nomination. My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine, every I will love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death, In mansions of glory and endless delight I'll ever adore Thee, unveiled to my sight, de The memory of the writer returns to a day in a railway-car en route to the great Columbian Fair in Chicago when the tired passengers were suddenly surprised and charmed by the music of this melody. A young Christian man and woman, husband and wife, had begun to sing "My Jesus, I love Thee." Their voices (a tenor and soprano) were clear and sweet, and every one of the company sat up to listen with a look of mingled admiration and relief. Here was something, after all, to make a long journey less tedious. They sang all the four verses and paused. There was no clapping of hands, for a reverential hush had been cast over the audience by not impossible that an unconscious memory helped to shape the air that came to Dr. Gordon's mind; though unborrowed similarities have been inevitable in the whole history of music. the sacred music. Instead of the inevitable applause that follows mere entertainment, a gentle but eager request for more secured the repetition of the delightful duet. This occurred again and again, till every one in the car-and some had never heard the tune or words before-must have learned them by heart. Fatigue was forgotten, miles had been reduced to furlongs in a weary trip, and a company of strangers had been lifted to a holier plane of thought. Besides this melody there are four tunes by Dr. Gordon in his collection, three of them with his own words. In all there are eleven of his hymns. Of these the "Good morning in Glory," set to his music, is an emotional lyric admirable in revival meetings, and the one beginning "O Holy Ghost, Arise" is still sung, and called for affectionately as "Gordon's Hymn." Rev. Adoniram Judson Gordon D. D. was born in New Hampton, N.H., April 19, 1836, and died in Boston, Feb. 2d, 1895, after a life of unsurpassed usefulness to his fellowmen and devotion to his Divine Master. Like Phillips Brooks he went to his grave "in all his glorious prime," and his loss is equally lamented. He was a descendant of John Robinson of Leyden. CHAPTER IV. MISSIONARY HYMNS. "JESUS SHALL REIGN WHERE'ER THE SUN." One of Watts' sublimest hymns, this Hebrew ode to the final King and His endless dominion expands the majestic prophesy in the seventysecond Psalm: Jesus shall reign where'er the sun The hymn itself could almost claim to be known "where'er the sun" etc., for Christian missionaries have sung it in every land, if not in every language. One of the native kings in the South Sea Islands, who had been converted through the ministry of English missionaries, substituted a Christian for a pagan constitution in 1862. There were five thousand of his subjects gathered at the ceremonial, and they joined as with one voice in singing this hymn. |