The Story of the Hymns and Tunes Part 38

The words are found in "Queen Guinevere," a canto of the "Idyls of the King."

"OH, GALILEE, SWEET GALILEE."

This is the chorus of a charming poem of three stanzas that shaped itself in the mind of Mr. Robert Morris while sitting over the ruins on the traditional site of Capernaum by the Lake of Genneseret.

Each cooing dove, each sighing bough, That makes the eve so blest to me, Has something far diviner now, It bears me back to Galilee.

CHORUS Oh, Galilee, sweet Galilee, Where Jesus loved so much to be; Oh, Galilee, blue Galilee, Come sing thy song again to me.

Robert Morris, LL.D., born Aug. 31, 1818, was a scholar, and an expert in certain scientific subjects, and wrote works on numismatics and the "Poetry of Free Masonry." Commissioned to Palestine in 1868 on historic and archaeological service for the United Order, he explored the scenes of ancient Jewish and Christian life and event in the Holy Land, and being a religious man, followed the Saviour's earthly footsteps with a reverent zeal that left its inspiration with him while he lived. He died in the year 1888, but his Christian ballad secured him a lasting place in every devout memory.

_THE TUNE._

The author wrote out his hymn in 1874 and sent it to his friend, the musician, Mr. Horatio R. Palmer,[21] and the latter learned it by heart, and carried it with him in his musings "till it floated out in the melody you know," (to use his own words.)

[Footnote 21: See page 311.]

CHAPTER VII.

OLD REVIVAL HYMNS.

The sober churches of the "Old Thirteen" states and of their successors far into the nineteenth century, sustained evening prayer-meetings more or less commonly, but necessity made them in most cases "cottage meetings" appointed on Sunday and here and there in the scattered homes of country parishes. Their intent was the same as that of "revival meetings," since so called, though the method--and the music--were different. The results in winning sinners, so far as they owed anything to the hymns and hymn-tunes, were apt to be a new generation of Christian recruits as sombre as the singing. "Lebanon" set forth the appalling shortness of human life; "Windham" gave its depressing story of the great majority of mankind on the "broad road," and other minor tunes proclaimed G.o.d's sovereignty and eternal decrees; or if a psalm had His love in it, it was likely to be sung in a similar melancholy key. Even in his gladness the good minister, Thomas Baldwin, of the Second Baptist Church, at Boston, North End, returning from Newport, N.H., where he had happily harmonized a discordant church, could not escape the strait-lace of a C minor for his thankful hymn--

From whence doth this union arise, That hatred is conquered by love.

"The Puritans took their pleasures seriously," and this did not cease to be true till at least two hundred years after the Pilgrims landed or Boston was founded.

Time, that covered the ghastly faces on the old grave-stones with moss, gradually stole away the unction of minor-tune singing.

The songs of the great revival of 1740 swept the country with positive rather than negative music. Even Jonathan Edwards admitted the need of better psalm-books and better psalmody.

Edwards, during his life, spent some time among the Indians as a missionary teacher; but probably neither he nor David Brainerd ever saw a Christian hymn composed by an Indian. The following, from the early years of the last century, is apparently the first, certainly the only surviving, effort of a converted but half-educated red man to utter his thoughts in pious metre. Whoever trimmed the original words and measure into printable shape evidently took care to preserve the broken English of the simple convert. It is an interesting relic of the Christian thought and sentiment of a pagan just learning to prattle prayer and praise:

In de dark wood, no Indian nigh, Den me look heaben, send up cry, Upon my knees so low.

Dat G.o.d on high, in s.h.i.+nee place, See me in night, with teary face, De priest, he tell me so.

G.o.d send Him angel take me care; Him come Heself and hear um prayer, If Indian heart do pray.

G.o.d see me now, He know me here.

He say, poor Indian, neber fear, Me wid you night and day.

So me lub G.o.d wid inside heart; He fight for me, He take my part, He save my life before.

G.o.d lub poor Indian in de wood; So me lub G.o.d, and dat be good; Me pray Him two times more.

When me be old, me head be gray, Den He no lebe me, so He say: Me wid you till you die.

Den take me up to s.h.i.+nee place, See white man, red man, black man's face, All happy 'like on high.

Few days, den G.o.d will come to me, He knock off chains, He set me free, Den take me up on high.

Den Indian sing His praises blest, And lub and praise Him wid de rest, And neber, neber cry.

The above hymn, which may be found in different forms in old New England tracts and hymn-books, and which used to be sung in Methodist conference and prayer-meetings in the same way that old slave-hymns and the "Jubilee Singers" refrains are sometimes sung now, was composed by William Apes, a converted Indian, who was born in Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1798. His father was a white man, but married an Indian descended from the family of King Philip, the Indian warrior, and the last of the Indian chiefs. His grandmother was the king's granddaughter, as he claimed, and was famous for her personal beauty. He caused his autobiography and religious experience to be published. The original hymn is quite long, and contains some singular and characteristic expressions.

The authors.h.i.+p of the tune to which the words were sung has been claimed for Samuel Cowdell, a schoolmaster of Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, 1820, but the date of the lost tune was probably much earlier.

In the early days of New England, before the Indian missions had been brought to an end by the sweeping away of the tribes, several fine hymns were composed by educated Indians, and were used in the churches. The best known is that beginning--

When shall we all meet again?

It was composed by three Indians at the planting of a memorial pine on leaving Dartmouth College, where they had been studying. The lines indicate an expectation of missionary life and work.

When shall we all meet again?

When shall we all meet again?

Oft shall glowing hope expire, Oft shall wearied love retire, Oft shall death and sorrow reign Ere we all shall meet again.

Though in distant lands we sigh, Parched beneath a burning sky, Though the deep between us rolls, Friends.h.i.+p shall unite our souls; And in fancy's wide domain, There we all shall meet again.

When these burnished locks are gray, Thinned by many a toil-spent day, When around this youthful pine Moss shall creep and ivy twine, (Long may this loved bower remain!) Here may we all meet again.

When the dreams of life are fled, When its wasted lamps are dead, When in cold oblivion's shade Beauty, health, and strength are laid, Where immortal spirits reign, There we all shall meet again.

This parting piece was sung in religious meetings as a hymn, like the other once so common, but later,--

"When shall we meet again, Meet ne'er to sever?"

--to a tune in B flat minor, excessively plaintive, and likely to sadden an emotional singer or hearer to tears. The full harmony is found in the _American Vocalist_, and the air is reprinted in the _Revivalist_ (1868). The fact that minor music is the natural Indian tone in song makes it probable that the melody is as ancient as the hymn--though no date is given for either.

Tradition says that nearly fifty years later the same three Indians were providentially drawn to the spot where they parted, and met again, and while they were together composed and sang another ode. Truth to tell, however, it had only one note of gladness, and that was in the first stanza:

Parted many a toil-spent year, Pledged in youth to memory dear, Still to friends.h.i.+p's magnet true, We our social joys renew; Bound by love's unsevered chain, Here on earth we meet again.

The remaining three stanzas dwell princ.i.p.ally on the ravages time has made. The reunion ode of those stoical college cla.s.smates of a stoical race could have been sung in the same B flat minor.

"AWAKED BY SINAI'S AWFUL SOUND."

The name of the Indian, Samson Occ.u.m, who wrote this hymn (variously spelt Ockom, Ock.u.m, Occam, Occom) is not borne by any public inst.i.tution, but New England owes the foundation of Dartmouth College to his hard work. Dartmouth College was originally "Moore's Indian Charity School," organized (1750) in Lebanon, Ct., by Rev. Eleazer Wheelock and endowed (1755) by Joshua Moore (or More). Good men and women who had at heart the spiritual welfare of a fading race contributed to the school's support and young Indians resorted to it from both New England and the Middle States, but funds were insufficient, and it was foreseen that the charity must inevitably outgrow its missionary purpose and if continued at all must depend on a wider and more liberal patronage.

Samson Occ.u.m was born in Mohegan, New London Co., Ct., probably in the year 1722. Converted from paganism in 1740 (possibly under the preaching of Whitefield, who was in this country at that time) he desired to become a missionary to his people, and entered Eleazer Wheelock's school. After four years study, then a young man of twenty-two, he began to teach and preach among the Montauk Indians, and in 1759 the Presbytery of Suffolk Co., L.I., ordained him to the ministry. A benevolent society in Scotland, hearing of, his ability and zeal, gave him an appointment, under its auspices, among the Oneidas in 1761, where he labored four years. The interests of the school at Lebanon, where he had been educated, were dear to him, and he was tireless in its cause, procuring pupils for it, and working eloquently as its advocate with voice and pen. In 1765 he crossed the Atlantic to solicit funds for the Indian school, and remained four years in England and Scotland, lecturing in its behalf, and preaching nearly four hundred sermons. As a result he raised ten thousand pounds. The donation was put in charge of a Board of Trustees of which Lord Dartmouth was chairman. When it was decided to remove the school from Lebanon, Ct., the efforts of Governor Wentworth, of New Hamps.h.i.+re, secured its location at Hanover in that state. It was christened after Lord Dartmouth--and the names of Occ.u.m, Moore and Wheelock retired into the encyclopedias.

The Rev. Samson Occ.u.m died in 1779, while laboring among the Stockbridge (N.Y.) Indians. Several hymns were written by this remarkable man, and also "An Account of the Customs and Manners of the Montauks." The hymn, "Awaked by Sinai's Awful Sound," set to the stentorian tune of "Ganges,"

was a tremendous sermon in itself to old-time congregations, and is probably as indicative of the doctrines which converted its writer as of the contemporary belief prominent in choir and pulpit.

Awaked by Sinai's awful sound, My soul in bonds of guilt I found, And knew not where to go, Eternal truth did loud proclaim "The sinner must be born again.