_MUSIC._ SERENITY is taken from a larger work entitled, _Waft ye winds_. Though the tune is named “Serenity,” the composer’s life was anything but serene; he was the world’s most restless and most picturesque composer. William Vincent Wallace, 1812-65, son of an Irish bandmaster, became a brilliant violinist. He loved adventure and travel and made successful concert tours to Australia, the South Sea Islands, India, South America, Mexico, the United States, and elsewhere. Wallace spent 14 years in Germany composing piano music chiefly, but also writing a number of operas. On account of failing health, he abandoned writing, and went to New York where he lost all his fortune through the failure of a piano factory. Undiscouraged by this disaster, he once more resumed his career as composer, returned to London, and then on doctor’s orders went to the Pyrenees where he died at the age of 51. 174. Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost _Christopher Wordsworth_, 1807-85 Written for one of the pre-Lenten Sundays (_Quinquagesima_), the lesson for the day being I Corinthians 13. It is a fine enough hymn, but no poet can render this great paean of praise of love into verse to equal in poetic beauty the English of the King James Version. Christopher Wordsworth was a nephew of the poet William Wordsworth. He was a brilliant student and a good athlete. After graduation from Cambridge, he became Head Master of Harrow for a time, then minister of a church where he proved to be a model parish priest, and later was appointed Bishop of Lincoln. Among his writings are a _Commentary on the Bible_, and a book of devotional poetry, _The Holy Year_, prepared for use in public worship. _MUSIC._ CAPETOWN is an adaptation of a melody in “_Vierstimmiges Choralbuch herausgegeben von Dr. F. Filitz_,” Berlin, 1847. It was originally set to the hymn, “_Morgenglanz der Ewigkeit_” (554). The composer, Friedrich Filitz, 1804-76, was a musician and editor of German chorale books. He spent all his life in Munich except the years 1843-47 in Berlin. 175. O Love that wilt not let me go _George Matheson_, 1842-1906 A song of joyful resignation, love, and trust, born out of the author’s experience of suffering. The story has been circulated that the hymn was written after the woman whom Matheson loved gave him up because of his becoming blind—a good story with one defect, _viz._, that it isn’t true. It could not be true because Matheson became blind at 15 and the hymn was not written until he was 40 years old. The author’s own account of the composition of the hymn is as follows: