There's a wideness in God's mercy There is welcome for the sinner And more graces for the good; There's no place where earthly sorrows In the blood that has been shed, For the love of God is broader Than the measure of man's mind, If our love were but more simple No tone of comfort has breathed itself more surely and tenderly into grieved hearts than these tuneful and singularly expressive sentences of Frederick Faber. THE TUNE. The music of S. J. Vail sung to Faber's hymn is one of that composer's best hymn-tunes, and its melody and natural movement impress the meaning as well as the simple beauty of the words. Silas Jones Vail, an American music-writer, was born Oct., 1818, and died May 20, 1883. Another charming tune is "Wellesley," by Lizzie S. Tourjee. daughter of the late Dr. Eben Tourjee. "HE LEADETH ME! OH, BLESSED THOUGHT." Professor Gilmore, of Rochester University, N. Y., when a young Baptist minister (1861) supplying a pulpit in Philadelphia "jotted down this hymn in Deacon Watson's parlor" (as he says) and passed it to his wife, one evening after he had made "a conference-room talk" on the 23d Psalm. Mrs. Gilmore, without his knowledge, sent it to the Watchman and Reflector (now the Watchman). Years after its publication in that paper, when a candidate for the pastorate of the Second Baptist Church in Rochester, he was turning the leaves of the vestry hymnal in use there, and saw his hymn in it. Since that first publication in the Devotional Hymn and Tune Book (1865) it has been copied in the hymnals of various denominations, and steadily holds its place in public favor. The refrain added the tunemaker emphasizes the sentiment of the lines, and undoubtedly enhances the effect of the hymn. "He leadeth me" has the true hymn quality, combining all the simplicity of spontaneous thought and feeling with perfect accent and liquid rhythm. He leadeth me! Oh, blessed thought, Oh, words with heavenly comfort fraught; Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me! ** Lord, I would clasp Thy hand in mine, Content, whatever lot I see, Since 'tis my God that leadeth me. Professor Joseph Henry Gilmore was born in Boston, April 29, 1834. He was graduated at Phillips Academy, Andover, at Brown University, and at the Newton Theological Institution, where he was afterwards Hebrew instructor. After four years of pastoral service he was elected (1867) professor of the English Language and Literature in Rochester University. He has published Familiar Chats on Books and Reading, also several college text-books on rhetoric, logic and oratory. THE TUNE. The little hymn of four stanzas was peculiarly fortunate in meeting the eye of Mr. William B. Bradbury, (1863) and winning his musical sympathy and alliance. Few composers have so exactly caught the tone and spirit of their text as Bradbury did when he vocalized the gliding measures of "He leadeth me. CHAPTER VI. CHRISTIAN BALLADS. Echoes of Hebrew thought, if not Hebrew psalmody, may have made their way into the more serious pagan literature. At least in the more enlightened pagans there has ever revealed itself more or less the instinct of the human soul that "feels after" God. St. Paul in his address to the Athenians made a tactful as well as scholarly point to preface a missionary sermon when he cited a line from a poem of Aratus (B. C. 272) familiar, doubtless, to the majority of his hearers. Dr. Lyman Abbot has thus translated the passage in which the line occurs: Let us begin from God. Let every mortal raise And we His offspring are.* He, ever good, To Him, the First, the Last, all homage yield,- *Τοῦ γὰρ καὶ γένος ἐσμέν. "RISE, CROWNED WITH LIGHT.” Alexander Pope, a Roman Catholic poet, born in London 1688, died at Twickenham 1744, was not a hymnist, but passages in his most serious and exalted flights deserve a tuneful accompaniment. His translations of Homer made him famous, but his ethical poems, especially his “Essay on Man,” are inexhaustible mines of quotation, many of the lines and couplets being common as proverbs. His "Messiah," written about 1711, is a religious anthem in which the prophecies of Holy Writ kindle all the splendor of his verse. THE TUNE. The closing strain, indicated by the above line, has been divided into stanzas of four lines suitable to a church hymn-tune. The melody selected by the compilers of the Plymouth Hymnal, and of the Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book is "Savannah," an American sounding name for what is really one of Pleyel's chorals. The music is worthy of Pope's triumphal song. The seas shall waste, the skies to smoke decay, "OH, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT?" This is a sombre poem, but its virile strength and its literary merit have given it currency, and com |