The first of these is not only Montgomery’s finest psalm-version, but an unsurpassed rendering of a triumphant Messianic psalm. It owes something to the instinctive wisdom with which the best verses have been selected, and to a few editorial touches.[193] One can well imagine the thrill with which it was heard in Pitt Street Chapel, Liverpool, when the author recited the hymn at the close of a missionary speech, and how Adam Clarke rejoiced to add this magnificent rendering of the 72nd Psalm to his _Commentary_. It is, I think, a finer and a much closer rendering of the ‘Psalm for Solomon’ than Watts’s great version. When urged by Dr. Clarke to attempt a complete version of the Psalms, Montgomery said that he feared to touch the harp of Zion. He did, however, paraphrase about fifty or sixty psalms with more than average success. It is sometimes said that ‘Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire’ is not ‘in the true sense’ a hymn, but this is to take too narrow a view of the term. It excellently illustrates the way in which devout meditation ends in prayer. Had the last verse been omitted, it would have been a religious poem, not a hymn, but this throws upon all that precedes it the light of devotion. Each verse looks forward to the last— O Thou by whom we come to God, The Life, the Truth, the Way! The path of prayer Thyself hast trod: Lord! teach us how to pray. It is superfluous to refer to all Montgomery’s contributions to our hymn-books, but we must ever gratefully remember such pieces as his Communion hymn According to Thy gracious word, and the solemn prayer In the hour of trial, Jesus, pray for me, Lest by base denial I depart from Thee. It is remarkable that editors should have thought it necessary to meddle (as indeed Montgomery himself did) with the second line of this verse, thinking it ‘unscriptural,’ although the very word ‘pray’ is taken from the lips of our Lord. Montgomery has also given us a fine Christmas carol— Angels, from the realms of glory; and a solemn meditation on the Passion, Death, and Resurrection, rising at the last into actual prayer— Early hasten to the tomb Where they laid His breathless clay: All is solitude and gloom; Who hath taken Him away? Christ is risen! He seeks the skies: Saviour, teach us so to rise. In Montgomery, as in all great hymn-writers, the word of Christ dwelt richly, and his songs are full of the thoughts and phrases of the Psalter and the New Testament. Some of his sacred poems, though unsuitable for congregational singing, are good devotional reading. I quote one such, which seems to me to deserve something better than the place he gave it in the Appendix to his _Poetical Works_. CHRIST THE PURIFIER (Mal. iii. 2, 3.)