Thanks for mercies past receive,

Pardon of our sins renew;
Teach us henceforth how to live
With eternity in view.

Bless thy word to young and old;

Fill us with a Saviour's love;
And, when life's short tale is told,

May we dwell with thee above.

This hymn was written by the Rev. John Newton, for the " Olney Hymns." Mr. Newton calls his hymns "The fruit and expression of his own experience." The allusion in the first stanza of the hymn has reference to the changes that had taken place in his own parish at Olney, where he was, at the time of the writing, a very active and sympathizing curate.

"ON THE MOUNTAIN-TOP APPEARING.”

THOMAS KELLY, an admired hymn-writer and an excellent and useful clergyman, was the son of the Hon. Chief Baron Kelly of Dublin, and was born in 1769. He was educated in Dublin University, and was partly prepared to enter the profession of law, when he became deeply impressed with the instability of worldly things and the magnitude of spiritual riches, and decided to enter the ministry. He was ordained in the Established Church at the age of twenty-four. He began to labor with great zeal for the conversion of souls, preaching the doctrine of justification by faith. This course was deemed by his friends a departure from the dignity of of his office, and was deeply humiliating to his high-born

family, who for a time treated him with marked coolness and disregard. "To go to the stake," he said, “would be a less trial to me than to so set myself against those whom I so dearly love." But he remained firm to his convictions of duty, and multitudes flocked to his preaching, and he was able to exert a very powerful influence. He was an Oriental scholar and a musical composer, as well as a poet, but he laid all of his varied gifts and accomplishments, with unaffected simplicity and humility, at the foot of the Cross.

His religious experience is related in the following hymn :

POOR and afflicted, Lord, are thine,
Among the great they seldom shine;
Yet though the world may think it strange,
They would not with the world exchange.

Poor and afflicted-'tis their lot;

They know it, and they murmur not;

'T would ill become them to refuse

The state their Maker deigned to choose.

Poor and afflicted—yet they sing;
For Jesus is their glorious King;

Through sufferings perfect now he reigns,
And shares in all their griefs and pains.

And while they walk the thorny way
They're often heard to sigh and say

Dear Saviour come, oh, quickly come,
And take thy mourning pilgrims home.

The lines, as applied to his own case, are not in the strictest sense true, for he was a man of large wealth. He wrote more than seven hundred hymns of many de

grees of excellence. pline of the Established Church; entertained broad views, and looked for the coming of Christ's universal kingdom. This experience is the origin of his wellknown hymn:

He was dissatisfied with the disci

ON the mountain-top appearing,

Lo the sacred herald stands,
Joyful news to Zion bearing,

Zion long in hostile hands:
Mourning captive,

God himself shall loose thy bands.

Has thy night been long and mournful?
Have thy friends unfaithful proved?
Have thy foes been proud and scornful,
By thy sighs and tears unmoved?
Cease thy mourning;

Zion still is well beloved.

God, thy God, will now restore thee;
He himself appears thy Friend;

All thy foes shall flee before thee;
Here their boasts and triumphs end

Great deliverance

Zion's King will surely send.

Peace and joy shall now attend thee;
All thy warfare now is past;
God thy Saviour will defend thee;
Victory is thine at last:

All thy conflicts

End in everlasting rest.

He labored in Dublin for more than sixty years.

Lord Plunkett, one of his intimate friends, once said to

"I think you will live to a great age."

"I am confident I shall," said the vicar; "I expect never to die."

His dying testimony was to this effect: "The Lord is my all in all."

“IF I MUST DIE, oh let me diE TRUSTING IN JESUS' BLOOD."

BENJAMIN BEDDOME, a Baptist minister, lived a life of comparative seclusion in a a small country village, called Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, where he died September, 1795, in the 79th year of his age. He was a religious poet, and wrote nearly one thousand hymns.

In 1749 he was prostrated by a very severe illness, and on his recovery wrote a hymn, which, after some improving, was published as follows:

IF I must die, oh let me die
Trusting in Jesus' blood,

That blood which full atonement made

And reconciles to God.

If I must die, then let me die

In peace with all mankind,

And change these fleeting joys below

For pleasures all refined.

If I must die, as die I must,
Let some kind seraph come,
And bear me on his friendly wing
To my celestial home.

Of Canaan's land, from Pisgah's top,

May I but have a view,

Though Jordan should o'erflow its banks,
I'll boldly venture through.

His death fulfilled the expectations of the hymn. He preached long after the silver crown of age had been set upon his head, and venerableness had added solemnity and dignity to his words. He desired that he might depart without a long sickness. He was confined to his house at last only a single Lord's day. An hour before his death he was found composing a hymn, in which was the following stanza:

"God of my life and of my choice,

Shall I no longer hear thy voice?

Oh let the source of joy divine

With rapture fill this heart of mine."

"AWAKE, MY SOUL, IN JOYFUL LAYS."

REV. SAMUEL MEDLEY was born in Hertfordshire, England, 1738. At the age of eighteen he entered the navy, and was wounded in the engagement off Cape Lagos, under Admiral Boscawen, in 1759. His wound proved a very serious one.

"I am afraid,” said the surgeon, "that amputation is the only thing that will save your life. I can tell tomorrow morning."

Medley had received religious instruction from a pious father and grandfather, and had been made the subject of frequent prayer. He had led a profligate life in the navy, but the pious lessons of his early youth