The Story of Our Hymns Part 47

When sinks the soul, subdued by toil, to slumber, Its closing eye looks up to Thee in prayer; Sweet the repose beneath Thy wings o'ershading, But sweeter still to wake and find Thee there.

So shall it be at last, in that bright morning, When the soul waketh, and life's shadows flee; O for that hour when fairer than the dawning Shall rise the glorious thought, I am with Thee!

Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1855

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE AND HER HYMNS

Through the fame that her book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," brought her, the name of Harriet Beecher Stowe has become almost a household word on both sides of the Atlantic. But not many, perhaps, are familiar with Mrs.

Stowe the hymn-writer. And yet she wrote a number of hymns that are worthy of finding a place in the best of collections. Indeed, for sheer poetic beauty there is probably not a single American lyric that can excel "Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh."

It was her brother, Henry Ward Beecher, who introduced Mrs. Stowe as a hymn-writer, when he included three of her hymns in the "Plymouth Collection," which he edited in 1865. One of the three was the hymn mentioned above; the other two were "That mystic word of Thine, O sovereign Lord" and "When winds are raging o'er the upper ocean."

Like the Wesley family in England, the Beecher family became one of the most famous in religious and literary circles in America. Harriet Beecher was born in Litchfield, Conn., June 14, 1812. Her father was the noted Dr. Lyman Beecher, a distinguished clergyman of his day. Her mother, a very devout Christian, died when Harriet was less than four years of age.

Her dying prayer was that her six sons might be called into the ministry.

That prayer was answered, and the youngest of them, Henry Ward Beecher, who was only a boy when the mother died, became one of America's greatest preachers. We do not know what the dying mother's prayer for her daughter was, but we do know that Harriet Beecher achieved fame such as comes to few women. Even as a child she revealed a spiritual nature of unusual depth. An earnest sermon preached by her father when she was fourteen made such an impression on her youthful heart that she determined to give herself wholly to Christ. She tells of the experience in these words:

"As soon as my father came home and was seated in his study, I went up to him and fell in his arms, saying, 'Father, I have given myself to Jesus, and He has taken me.' I never shall forget the expression of his face as he looked down into my earnest childish eyes; it was so sweet, so gentle, and like sunlight breaking out upon a landscape. 'Is it so?' he said, holding me silently to his heart, as I felt the hot tears fall on my head. 'Then has a new flower blossomed in the kingdom this day.'"

In 1832 the father removed to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he became president of Lane Theological Seminary. Here Harriet married Prof. Calvin E. Stowe, a member of the faculty. Many misfortunes and sorrows came into her life, but always she was sustained by her strong faith in G.o.d, and she bore them with unusual Christian fort.i.tude. In 1849 her infant boy was s.n.a.t.c.hed from her by the dreadful cholera scourge. Her husband, broken in health, was in an Eastern sanatorium at the time, and all the cares and anxieties of the household fell upon the shoulders of the brave young wife. A letter written to her husband, dated June 29, 1849, gives a graphic description of the plague as it was then raging in Cincinnati.

She wrote:

"This week has been unusually fatal. The disease in the city has been malignant and virulent. Hea.r.s.e drivers have scarce been allowed to unharness their horses, while furniture carts and common vehicles are often employed for the removal of the dead. The sable trains which pa.s.s our windows, the frequent indications of crowding haste, and the absence of reverent decency have, in many cases, been most painful.... On Tuesday, one hundred and sixteen deaths from cholera were reported, and that night the air was of that peculiarly oppressive, deathly kind that seems to lie like lead on the brain and soul. As regards your coming home, I am decidedly opposed to it."

Under date of July 26, she wrote again: "At last it is over and our dear little one is gone from us. He is now among the blessed. My Charley--my beautiful, loving, gladsome baby, so loving, so sweet, so full of life, and hope and strength--now lies shrouded, pale and cold, in the room below.... I write as though there were no sorrow like my sorrow, yet there has been in this city, as in the land of Egypt, scarce a house without its dead. This heart-break, this anguish, has been everywhere, and when it will end G.o.d alone knows."

The succeeding years brought other tragedies to the sorely tried family.

In 1857 the eldest son, Henry, pride of his mother's heart, was drowned at the close of his freshman year at Dartmouth College. Then came the Civil War with its b.l.o.o.d.y battles. At Gettysburg a third son, Fred, was wounded in the head by a piece of shrapnel. Although it did not prove fatal, his mental faculties were permanently impaired.

Through all these afflictions the marvelous faith of Mrs. Stowe remained firm and unshaken. Many years afterwards, in looking back upon these bitter experiences, she wrote: "I thank G.o.d there is one thing running through all of them from the time I was thirteen years old, and that is the intense unwavering sense of Christ's educating, guiding presence and care."

It was in the midst of these dark tragedies that Mrs. Stowe wrote a hymn ent.i.tled "The Secret."

When winds are raging o'er the upper ocean, And billows wild contend with angry roar, 'Tis said, far down, beneath the wild commotion, That peaceful stillness reigneth evermore.

Far, far beneath, the noise of tempests dieth, And silver waves chime ever peacefully; And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er it flieth, Disturbs the Sabbath of that deeper sea.

So to the heart that knows Thy love, O Purest!

There is a temple sacred evermore, And all the babble of life's angry voices Dies in hushed stillness at its sacred door.

Far, far away, the roar of pa.s.sion dieth, And loving thoughts rise calm and peacefully; And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er it flieth, Disturbs that deeper rest, O Lord, in Thee!

O Rest of rests! O Peace serene, eternal!

Thou ever livest, and Thou changest never; And in the secret of Thy presence dwelleth Fulness of joy, forever and forever.

It was the writing of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" that brought world-wide fame to this unusual mother. The family had moved from Cincinnati to Brunswick, Maine, where Professor Stowe had accepted a position in the faculty of Bowdoin College. There were six children now and the father's income was meager. In order to help meet the family expenses, Mrs. Stowe began to write articles for a magazine known as the "National Era." She labored under difficulties. "If I sit by the open fire in the parlor," she wrote, "my back freezes, if I sit in my bedroom and try to write my head and my feet are cold.... I can earn four hundred dollars a year by writing, but I don't want to feel that I must, and when weary with teaching the children, and tending the baby, and buying provisions, and mending dresses, and darning stockings, I sit down and write a piece for some paper."

The pa.s.sage of the Fugitive Slave Act aroused the deepest feeling among Abolitionists in the North. While living in Cincinnati her family had aided the so-called "underground railway," by which runaway slaves were helped in their efforts to reach the Canadian boundary. Now Mrs. Stowe's spirit burned within her. "I wish," she writes at this period, "some Martin Luther would arise to set this community right."

It was then she conceived the idea of writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin." In the month of February, 1851, while attending communion service in the college church at Brunswick, the scene of the death of Uncle Tom pa.s.sed before her mind like the unfolding of a vision. When she returned home she immediately wrote down the mental picture she had seen. Then she gathered her children around her and read what she had written. Two of them broke into violent weeping, the first of many thousands who have wept over "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

The first chapter was not completed until the following April, and on June 5 it began to appear in serial form in the "National Era." She had intended to write a short tale of a few chapters, but as her task progressed the conviction grew on her that she had been intrusted with a holy mission. Afterwards she said: "I could not control the story; it wrote itself." At another time she remarked: "The Lord himself wrote it, and I was but the humblest of instruments in His hand. To Him alone should be given all the praise."

Mrs. Stowe received $300 for her serial story! However, scarcely had the last instalment appeared when a Boston publisher made arrangements to print it in book form. Within one year it had pa.s.sed through 120 editions, and four months after the book was off the press the author had received $10,000 in royalties. Almost in a day Mrs. Stowe had become one of the most famous women in the world, and the specter of poverty had been banished forever. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" exerted a profound influence not only over the American people, but its fame spread to Europe. The year following its publication Jenny Lind came to America. Asked to contribute to a fund Mrs. Stowe was raising for the purpose of purchasing the freedom of a slave family, the "Swedish Nightingale" gladly responded, also writing a letter to Mrs. Stowe in the following prophetic vein: "I have the feeling about 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' that great changes will take place by and by, from the impression people receive from it, and that the writer of that book can fall asleep today or tomorrow with the bright, sweet consciousness of having been a strong means in the Creator's hand of having accomplished essential good."

Tributes like this came to Mrs. Stowe from the great and lowly in all parts of the world.

Concerning Jenny Lind's singing, Mrs. Stowe wrote to her husband from New York: "Well, we have heard Jenny Lind, and the affair was a bewildering dream of sweetness and beauty. Her face and movements are full of poetry and feeling. She has the artless grace of a little child, the poetic effect of a wood-nymph."

Mrs. Stowe died in 1896 at the ripe age of eighty-four. Not long before her death she wrote to a friend: "I have sometimes had in my sleep strange perceptions of a vivid spiritual life near to and with Christ, and mult.i.tudes of holy ones, and the joy of it is like no other joy--it cannot be told in the language of the world.... The inconceivable loveliness of Christ!... I was saying as I awoke:

'Tis joy enough, my All in all, At Thy dear feet to lie.

Thou wilt not let me lower fall, And none can higher fly."

Bishop c.o.xe's Missionary Hymn

Saviour, sprinkle many nations, Fruitful let Thy sorrows be; By Thy pains and consolations Draw the Gentiles unto Thee.

Of Thy cross the wondrous story, Be it to the nations told; Let them see Thee in Thy glory, And Thy mercy manifold.

Far and wide, though all unknowing, Pants for Thee each mortal breast: Human tears for Thee are flowing, Human hearts in Thee would rest.

Thirsting as for dews of even, As the new-mown gra.s.s for rain, Thee they seek, as G.o.d of heaven, Thee as Man, for sinners slain.

Saviour, lo, the isles are waiting, Stretched the hand, and strained the sight, For Thy Spirit, new-creating, Love's pure flame, and wisdom's light.

Give the word, and of the preacher Speed the foot, and touch the tongue, Till on earth by every creature, Glory to the Lamb be sung.

Arthur Cleveland c.o.xe, 1851.

A HYMN WRITTEN ON TWO Sh.o.r.eS

"Saviour, sprinkle many nations" has been called the "loveliest of missionary hymns." The praise is scarcely too great. All the elements that make a great hymn are present here. Scriptural in language and devotional in spirit, it is fervent and touching in its appeal and exquisitely beautiful in poetic expression. It was given to the Church by Arthur Cleveland c.o.xe, an American bishop, in 1851, and since that time it has made its victorious course around the world.

A study of the hymn is interesting. The first stanza at once suggests the words of Jesus, uttered in the last week of His life, when Greek pilgrims in Jerusalem came seeking for Him: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." In the second stanza the author no doubt had in mind the immortal words of St. Augustine: "Thou, O Lord, hast made me for Thyself, and my heart can find no rest till it rest in Thee." And in the final stanza we find almost an echo of the thought expressed by Paul in Romans: "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!"

Curiously enough, this beautiful missionary lyric was written on two sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic. It was on Good Friday, in the year 1850, that the first stanza was written by Bishop c.o.xe at his home in Hartford, Conn.

For lack of time, however, or because the needed inspiration did not come to him the unfinished ma.n.u.script was laid aside.

The next year he visited England, and one day, while wandering about the campus of Magdalen College, Oxford, the thought flashed through his mind that he had never completed the hymn. Finding a sc.r.a.p of paper and a pencil, he sat down to write, and in a few moments the touching words of the two concluding stanzas were composed, and the hymn was sent on its way to stir the heart of the world.