While Watts still reigned supreme during the next quarter of a century, the impulse and the ability to write acceptable hymns was rapidly developing. Eccentric Elder John Leland (1754-1851) among a lot of almost amusing trash wrote an evening hymn that had very wide acceptance. Dr. Duffield characterizes it as a “classic in its unpretending beauty,” and Dr. Charles S. Robinson esteemed it so highly as to exclaim, “May it live forever and ever!” Unfortunately the supply of fine evening hymns is so great that in the competition Leland’s hymn has fallen by the way. The last verse will enable the reader to savor its quality: “And when our days are past, And we from time remove, Oh, may we in Thy bosom rest, The bosom of Thy love.” How many ministers who sing “Coronation” so heartily are aware that the composer, Oliver Holden (1765-1844), was a hymn writer as well as a musician? Yet one of his hymns had a wide use in both America and England: “They who seek the throne of grace Find that throne in every place; If we live a life of prayer, God is present everywhere.” After a long and useful life, it, too, has practically disappeared from our hymnals. IV. COLLECTIONS OF AMERICAN HYMNS By 1824 the evangelistic movement, partly a heritage from the Great Awakening, partly due to the Methodist aggressiveness, and partly to the religious needs of a widely scattered and pioneer population, made it evident that the hymns of Watts and his school, with minds set on worship in more or less formal services for the edification of the elect, and ignoring the needs of an urgent discipling, were not fitted for revival work. Rev. Asahel Nettleton, an evangelistic minister greatly interested in foreign missions, issued his _Village Hymns_, containing six hundred hymns, only fifty of which were by Watts. Some of Charles Wesley’s hymns were included, but most of these were credited to other authors. While other English sources were drawn upon, the book was noteworthy for the American hymns that appeared in it. Hymns by Davies, Occom, Alline, Strong, and Dwight were used. An eager quest for new American hymnists was rewarded by contributions from William B. Tappan (“’Tis midnight; and on Olive’s brow” and “The ransomed spirit to her home”); from Phoebe Hinsdale Brown (“I love to steal awhile away”); and from Abby B. Hyde (“Dear Saviour, if these lambs should stray”). William B. Tappan (1794-1849) was a largely self-educated man, having attended school but six months. His hymn “There is an hour of peaceful rest” was widely published in America and England, and on the Continent, and used to be inevitable in the hymnbooks of sixty years ago. His “’Tis midnight; and on Olive’s brow” still holds its place, though largely descriptive, but none the less impressive and useful.