The Story of the Hymns and Tunes Part 17

The hymn has been sometimes sung to "Pisgah," an old revival piece by J.C. Lowry (1820) once much heard in camp-meetings, but it is a pedestrian tune with too many quavers, and a headlong tempo.

Bradbury's "Jazer," in three-four time, is a melody with modulations, though more sympathetic, but it is hard to divorce the hymn from its long-time consort, old "Arlington." It has the accent of its sincerity, and the breath of its devotion.

"LO, ON A NARROW NECK OF LAND."

This hymn of Charles Wesley is always designated now by the above line, the first of the _second_ stanza as originally written. It is said to have been composed at Land's End, in Cornwall, with the British Channel and the broad Atlantic in view and surging on both sides around a "narrow neck of land."

Lo! on a narrow neck of land, Twixt two unbounded seas, I stand, Secure, insensible: A point of time, a moment's s.p.a.ce, Removes me to that heavenly place, Or shuts me up in h.e.l.l.

O G.o.d, mine inmost soul convert, And deeply on my thoughtful heart Eternal things impress: Give me to feel their solemn weight, And tremble on the brink of fate, And wake to righteousness.

The preachers and poets of the great spiritual movement of the eighteenth century in England abated nothing in the candor of their words. The terrible earnestness of conviction tipped their tongues and pens with fire.

_THE TUNE._

Lady Huntingdon would have lent "Meribah" gladly to this hymn, but Mason was not yet born. Many times it has been borrowed for Wesley's words since it came to its own, and the spirit of the pious Countess has doubtless approved the loan. It is rich enough to furnish forth her own lyric and more than one other of like matter and metre.

The muscular music of "Ganges" has sometimes carried the hymn, and there are those who think its thunder is not a whit more Hebraic than the words require.

"COME YE SINNERS POOR AND NEEDY."

Few hymns have been more frequently sung in prayer-meetings and religious a.s.semblies during the last hundred and fifty years. Its author, Joseph Hart, spoke what he knew and testified what he felt. Born in London, 1712, and liberally educated, he was in his young manhood very religious, but he went so far astray as to indulge in evil practices, and even published writings, both original and translated, against Christianity and religion of any kind. But he could not drink at the Dead Sea and live. The apples of Sodom sickened him. Conscience a.s.serted itself, and the pangs of remorse nearly drove him to despair till he turned back to the source he had forsaken. He alludes to this experience in the lines--

Let not conscience make you linger, Nor of fitness fondly dream; All the fitness He requireth Is to feel your need of Him.

During Pa.s.sion Week, 1767, he had an amazing view of the sufferings of Christ, under the stress of which his heart was changed. In the joy of this experience he wrote--

Come ye sinners poor and needy,

--and--

Come all ye chosen saints of G.o.d.

Probably no two hymn-lines have been oftener repeated than--

If you tarry till you're better You will never come at all.

The complete form of the original stanzas is:

Come ye sinners poor and needy, Weak and wounded, sick and sore; Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity, love and power.

He is able, He is willing; doubt no more.

The whole hymn--ten stanzas--is not sung now as one, but two, the second division beginning with the line--

Come ye weary, heavy laden.

Rev. Joseph Hart became minister of Jewin St. Congregational Chapel, London, about 1760, where he labored till his death, May 24, 1768.

_THE TUNE._

A revival song by Jeremiah Ingalls (1764-1828), written about 1804, with an easy, popular swing and a _sforzando_ chorus--

Turn to the Lord and seek salvation,

--monopolized this hymn for a good many years. The tunes commonly a.s.signed to it have since been "Greenville" and Von Weber's "Wilmot," in which last it is now more generally sung--dropping the echo lines at the end of each stanza.

Carl Maria Von Weber, son of a roving musician, was born in Eutin, Germany, 1786. He developed no remarkable genius till he was about twenty years old, though being a fine vocalist, his singing brought him popularity and gain; but in 1806 he nearly lost his voice by accidently drinking nitric acid. He was for several years private secretary to Duke Ludwig at Stuttgart, and in 1813 Chapel-Master at Prague, from which place he went to Dresden in 1817 as Musik-Director.

Von Weber's Korner songs won the hearts of all Germany; and his immortal "Der Freischutz" (the Free Archer), and numerous tender melodies like the airs to "John Anderson, my Jo" and "O Poort.i.th Cauld" have gone to all civilized nations. No other composer had such feeling for beauty of sound.

This beloved musician was physically frail and delicate, and died of untimely decline, during a visit to London in 1826.

"O HAPPY SAINTS WHO DWELL IN LIGHT."

Sometimes printed "O happy _souls_." This poetical and flowing hymn seems to have been forgotten in the making up of most modern church hymnals. Hymns on heaven and heavenly joys abound in embarra.s.sing numbers, but it is difficult to understand why this beautiful lyric should be _universally_ neglected. It was written probably about 1760, by Rev. John Berridge, from the text, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord,"

The first line of the second stanza--

Released from sorrow, toil and strife,

--has been tinkered in some of the older hymn-books, where it is found to read--,

Released from sorrows toil and _grief_,

--not only committing a tautology, but destroying the perfect rhyme with "life" in the next line. The whole hymn, too, has been much altered by subst.i.tuted words and s.h.i.+fted lines, though not generally to the serious detriment of its meaning and music.

The Rev. John Berridge--friend of the Wesleys, Whitefield, and Lady Huntingdon--was an eccentric but very worthy and spiritual minister, born the son of a farmer, in Kingston, Nottinghams.h.i.+re, Eng., Mar. 1, 1716. He studied at Cambridge, and was ordained curate of Stapleford and subsequently located as vicar of Everton, 1775. He died Jan. 22, 1793.

He loved to preach, and he was determined that his tombstone should preach after his voice was still. His epitaph, composed by himself, is both a testimony and a memoir:

"Here lie the earthly remains of John Berridge, late vicar of Everton, and an itinerant servant of Jesus Christ, who loved his Master and His work, and after running His errands many years, was called up to wait on Him above.

"Reader, art thou born again?

"No salvation without the new birth.

"I was born in sin, February, 1716.

"Remained ignorant of my fallen state till 1730.

"Lived proudly on faith and works for salvation till 1751.

"Admitted to Everton vicarage, 1755.