One of Mason’s most widely used hymns is “Now from the altar of my heart Let incense flames arise; Assist me, Lord, to offer up Mine evening sacrifice. Awake, my Love! awake, my Joy; Awake, my Heart and Tongue: Sleep not: when Mercies loudly call, Break forth into a Song.” High authority claims that Mason’s hymn, “Thou wast, O God, and Thou wast blest,” is one of the best in the language. Its third verse is particularly noble: “To whom, Lord, should I sing but Thee, The Maker of my tongue? Lo, other lords would seize on me, But I to Thee belong. As waters hasten to their sea, And earth unto its earth, So let my soul return to Thee, From whom it had its birth.” His influence on Watts was very considerable. George MacDonald says of Mason’s hymns: “Dr. Watts was very fond of them; would that he had written with similar modesty of style.” Mason was made to supply many a good line to the hymns of Watts, we are told by those who have compared the hymns of the two writers.[3] The hymns are good, because the writer was good! Richard Baxter styled him “the glory of the Church of England,” saying that “the frame of his spirit was so heavenly, his deportment so humble and obliging, his discourse of spiritual things so weighty, with such apt words and delightful air, that it charmed all that had any spiritual relish.” Before closing this chapter, mention must be made of Joseph Addison (1672-1719), who is so widely known because of his connection with the famous _Spectator_, a weekly devoted to essays on various topics, literary and otherwise. While his essays are his chief claim to literary honor, he wrote five hymns, three of which are found in most of our larger hymnals: “The spacious firmament on high,” “When all thy mercies, O my God,” “How are thy servants blest, O Lord.” These hymns are all most thoughtful and felicitously expressed. They are admirably adapted for the worship of God, but they too unanimously ignore the higher attributes of the divine nature as manifested in Jesus Christ, and the salvation he wrought out for fallen and needy humanity, to take a high place in Christian Hymnody. The same is true of Psalms, of course, but they were written before Christ appeared. _Chapter XV_ ISAAC WATTS AND HIS PERIOD I. THE HYMNIC NEED OF THE TIME We have now reached the point in the development of the English hymn where the shortcomings of the metrical versions of the Psalms were keenly realized, and where the conception of the practicable congregational hymn was clarified and the model definitely established.