The Hymn-Book of the Modern Church: Brief studies of hymns and hymn-writersGregory, Arthur E. (Arthur Edwin)
Religion
The Hymn-Book of the Modern Church: Brief studies of hymns and hymn-writers
Gregory, Arthur E. (Arthur Edwin)
Hymn writers; Hymns, English -- History and criticism
Give us homes serene and pure,
Settled freedom, laws secure;
Truthful lips and minds sincere;
Faith and love that cast out fear.
Grant that light and life divine
Long on England’s shores may shine;
Grant that people, Church, and throne
May in all good deeds be one.[182]
Of the eighteenth century, Miss Steele and Mrs. Barbauld are almost
the only women whose hymns survive to-day. In the nineteenth century,
however, there are not a few women whose songs are likely to endure.
Charlotte Elliott, Cecil Frances Alexander, Anna Lætitia Waring, have
written immortal hymns, and it will be long ere Frances Ridley
Havergal is absent from the songs of the Church. It is safe to
prophesy that ‘Just as I am,’ ‘There is a green hill far away,’ and
‘Father, I know that all my life,’ will be sung through many
generations—as long, indeed, as English Christianity endures.
Charlotte Elliott (1791-1871), who belonged to a famous evangelical
Church family, is one of many who learnt in suffering what she taught
in song. Her greatest hymn, ‘Just as I am,’ was first published in the
_Invalid’s Hymn-book_ (1836), and, without her knowledge, was
reprinted and widely circulated. In no other hymn has the sinner’s way
to the Saviour been made more plain. Through the penitential
self-despair of its earlier verses countless numbers of the weary and
heavy-laden have found rest unto their souls, and entered into the
joyous confidence of its closing lines. Wordsworth’s daughter, Dora,
received the hymn in her last illness, and her husband wrote to the
authoress, ‘At least ten times that day she asked me to repeat it to
her,’ and every morning she asked for it again till the end came.
After her death it formed part of her mother’s ‘daily solitary
prayer.’
Miss Elliott is the truest and the best representative of the early
evangelical Church hymn-writers. Many of her little-known hymns are
very beautiful. I quote two pieces, notwithstanding a breath of
Calvinism in them both, for it is a Calvinism that has good Scripture
warrant.
‘My soul followeth hard after Thee’ (Ps. lxiii. 8).
I look to Thee, I hope in Thee,
I glory in Thy name!
I make Thy righteousness my plea,
Thou all-atoning Lamb!
Methinks even death will welcome be,
That I, through death, may pass to Thee.
Thou art my portion, saith my soul,
My all in earth or heaven;
None but Thyself can make me whole,
No name but Thine is given
At which the gates of pearl fly wide—
The passport of the justified.
I know Thy voice—I strive to keep
Thy word within my heart;
Though the most worthless of Thy sheep,
Still Thou my Shepherd art;
Firm as a rock that word shall stand,
None, none shall pluck me from Thy hand.
Without repentance are Thy gifts;
This thought my hope sustains,
In deep distress my soul uplifts,
When sin the victory gains;
My faith, though weak, shall never fail,
Thy prayer shall even for me prevail.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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