The Story of the Hymns and Tunes Part 76

"WHY SHOULD WE START AND FEAR TO DIE?"

Probably it is an embarra.s.sment of riches and despair of s.p.a.ce that have crowded this hymn--perhaps the sweetest that Watts ever wrote--out of some of our church singing-books. It is pleasant to find it in the new _Methodist Hymnal_, though with an indifferent tune.

Christians of today should surely sing the last two stanzas with the same exalted joy and hope that made them sacred to pious generations past and gone--

O if my Lord would come and meet, My soul would stretch her wings in haste.

Fly fearless through death's iron gate, Nor feel the terrors as she pa.s.sed.

Jesus can make a dying bed Feel soft as downy pillows are, While on His breast I lean my head And breathe my life out sweetly there.

_THE TUNE._

The plain-music of William Boyd's "Pentecost," (with modulations in the tenor), creates a new accent for the familiar lines. Preferable in every sense are Bradbury's tender "Zephyr" or "Rest."

No coming generation will ever feel the pious gladness of Amariah Hall's "All Saints New" in E flat major as it stirred the Christian choirs of seventy five years ago. Fitted to this heart-felt lyric of Watts, it opened with the words--

O if my Lord would come and meet,

in full harmony and four-four time, continuing to the end of the stanza.

The melody, with its slurred syllables and beautiful modulations was almost blithe in its brightness, while the strong musical ba.s.s and the striking chords of the "counter," chastened it and held the anthem to its due solemnity of tone and expression. Then the fugue took up--

Jesus can make a dying bed,

--ba.s.s, treble and tenor adding voice after voice in the manner of the old "canon" song, and the full harmony again carried the words, with loving repet.i.tions, to the final bar. The music closed with a minor concord that was strangely effective and sweet.

Amariah Hall was born in Raynham, Ma.s.s., April 28, 1785, and died there Feb. 8, 1827. He "farmed it," manufactured straw-bonnets, kept tavern and taught singing-school. Music was only an avocation with him, but he was an artist in his way, and among his compositions are found in some ancient Tune books his "Morning Glory," "Canaan," "Falmouth,"

"Restoration," "Ma.s.sachusetts," "Raynham," "Crucifixion," "Harmony,"

"Devotion," "Zion," and "Hosanna."

"All Saints New" was his masterpiece.

"WHEN I CAN READ MY t.i.tLE CLEAR."

No sacred song has been more profanely parodied by the thoughtless, or more travestied, (if we may use so strong a word), in popular religious airs, than this golden hymn which has made Isaac Watts a benefactor to every prisoner of hope. Not to mention the fancy figures and refrains of camp-meeting music, which have cheapened it, neither John Cole's "Annapolis" nor Arne's "Arlington" nor a dozen others that have borrowed these speaking lines, can wear out their a.s.sociation with "Auld lang Syne." The hymn has permeated the tune, and, without forgetting its own words, the Scotch melody preforms both a social and religious mission.

Some arrangements of it make it needlessly repet.i.tious, but its pathos will always best vocalize the hymn, especially the first and last stanzas--

When I can read my t.i.tle clear To mansions in the skies I'll bid farewell to every fear And wipe my weeping eyes.

There shall I bathe my weary soul In seas of heavenly rest, And not a wave of trouble roll Across my peaceful breast.

"VITAL SPARK OF HEAVENLY FLAME."

This paraphrase, by Alexander Pope, of the Emperor Adrian's death-bed address to his soul--

Animula, vagula, blandula, Hospes, comesque corporis,

--transfers the poetry and constructs a hymnic theme.

An old hymn writer by the name of Flatman wrote a Pindaric, somewhat similar to "Adrian's Address," as follows:

When on my sick-bed I languish, Full of sorrow, full of anguish, Fainting, gasping, trembling, crying, Panting, groaning, speechless, dying; Methinks I hear some gentle spirit say, "Be not fearful, come away."

Pope combined these two poems with the words of Divine inspiration, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" and made a pagan philosopher's question the text for a triumphant Christian anthem of hope.

Vital spark of heavenly flame, Quit, oh quit this mortal frame.

Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying, Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!

Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life.

Hark! they whisper: angels say, "Sister spirit, come away!"

What is this absorbs me quite, Steals my senses, shuts my sight, Drowns my spirit, draws my breath, Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

The world recedes: it disappears: Heaven opens on my eyes; my ears With sounds seraphic ring.

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!

O grave where is thy victory?

O death, where is thy sting?

_THE TUNE._

The old anthem, "The Dying Christian," or "The Dying Christian to his Soul," which first made this lyric familiar in America as a musical piece, will never be sung again except at antique entertainments, but it had an importance in its day.

Beginning in quadruple time on four flats minor, it renders the first stanza in flowing concords largo affettuoso, and a single ba.s.s fugue, Then suddenly s.h.i.+fting to one flat, major, duple time, it executes the second stanza, "Hark! they whisper" ... "What is this, etc.," in alternate pianissimo and forte phrases; and finally, changing to triple time, sings the third triumphant stanza, andante, through staccato and fortissimo. The shout in the last adagio, on the four final bars, "O Death! O Death!" softening with "where is thy sting?" is quite in the style of old orchestral magnificence.

Since "The Dying Christian" ceased to appear in church music, the poem, for some reason, seems not to have been recognized as a hymn. It is, however, a Christian poem, and a true lyric of hope and consolation, whatever the character of the author or however pagan the original that suggested it.

The most that is now known of Edward Harwood, the composer of the anthem, is that he was an English musician and psalmodist, born near Blackburn, Lancaster Co., 1707, and died about 1787.

"YOUR HARPS, YE TREMBLING SAINTS."

This hymn of Toplady,--unlike "A Debtor to Mercy Alone," and "Inspirer and Hearer of Prayer," both now little used,--stirs no controversial feeling by a single line of his aggressive Calvinism. It is simply a song of Christian grat.i.tude and joy.

Your harps, ye trembling saints Down from the willows take; Loud to the praise of Love Divine Bid every string awake.

Though in a foreign land, We are not far from home, And nearer to our house above We every moment come.

Blest is the man, O G.o.d, That stays himself on Thee, Who waits for Thy salvation, Lord, Shall Thy salvation see.

_THE TUNE._

"Olmutz" was arranged by Lowell Mason from a Gregorian chant. He set it himself to Toplady's hymn, and it seems the natural music for it. The words are also sometimes written and sung to Jonathan Woodman's "State St."