For evermore in dignity The Lord doth rule and reign; And in the seat of equity True judgement doth maintain. With justice He doth keep and guide The world and every wight, With conscience and with equity He yieldeth folk their right. He is Protector of the poor, What time they be opprest; He is in all adversity Their refuge and their rest. All they that know Thy holy name, Therefore do trust in Thee; For Thou forsakest not their suit, In their necessity. But sure the Lord will not forget The poor man’s grief and pain; The patient people never look For help of God in vain. The Old Version, which bears the name of Sternhold and Hopkins, was the work of several hands. John Hopkins was the largest contributor. Of his life little is known. Warton called him not the least of the British poets of his day, and his versions are generally considered superior to Sternhold’s. They are no doubt smoother, but I cannot see that they have more poetry in them. Sometimes his lines are ridiculously divided, and it is difficult to imagine that at any period they could have been regarded as tolerable. It was, however, a psalm of Hopkins’s which comforted John Wesley after hearing a sermon, of which he disapproved, at Bow, in 1738. ‘God answered the thoughts of my heart, and took away my fear, in a manner I did not expect, even by the words of Thomas Sternhold. They were these (sung immediately after the sermon)’— Thy mercy is above all things, O God; it doth excel; In trust whereof, as in Thy wings, The sons of men shall dwell. Within Thy house they shall be fed With plenty at their will; Of all delights they shall be sped, And take thereof their fill. Because the well of life most pure, Doth ever flow from Thee; And in Thy light we are most sure, Eternal light to see. From such as Thee desire to know, Let not Thy grace depart; Thy righteousness declare and show To men of upright heart. William Whittingham, Calvin’s brother-in-law, and Knox’s successor as pastor of the English congregation at Geneva, contributed about twelve psalms, including the cxix., which runs to over 700 lines. In 1563 he became Dean of Durham, and was excommunicated by the Archbishop of York (father of George Sandys). He died in 1579, and was buried in the cathedral in which he is said to have destroyed the image of St. Cuthbert and other ancient monuments which were obnoxious to his Puritan taste. Other writers were John Pullain, another Genevan exile; Robert Wisdome, who was frightened into a recantation of his ‘errors’ by Bishop Bonner, but shortly after recanted again; Thomas Norton, who wrote the version of Ps. cxlvii., beginning— Praise ye the Lord, for it is good Unto our God to sing; For it is pleasant, and to praise It is a comely thing.