Thou hast heard me; light is breaking-- Light I never saw before. Now, my soul with joy awaking, Gropes in fearful gloom no more: O the bliss! my soul, declare it; Say what God hath done for thee; Tell it out, let others share it-- Christ's salvation, full and free. One cannot help noticing the fondness of the Welsh for the 7-6, 8-7, and 8-7-4 metres. These are favorites since they lend themselves so naturally to the rhythms of their national music--though their newest hymnals by no means exclude exotic lyrics and melodies. Even "O mother dear, Jerusalem," one of the echoes of Bernard of Cluny's great hymn, is cherished in their tongue (_O, Frynian Caerselem_) among the favorites of song. Old "Truro" by Dr. Burney appears among their tunes, Mason's "Ernan," "Lowell" and "Shawmut," I.B. Woodbury's "Nearer Home" (to Phebe Cary's hymn), and even George Hews' gently-flowing "Holley." Most of these tunes retain their own hymns, but in Welsh translation. To find our Daniel Read's old "Windham" there is no surprise. The minor mode--a song-instinct of the Welsh, if not of the whole Celtic family of nations, is their rural inheritance. It is in the wind of their mountains and the semitones of their streams; and their nature can make it a gladness as the Anglo-Saxon cannot. So far from being a gloomy people, their capacity for joy in spiritual life is phenomenal. In psalmody their emotions mount on wings, and they find ecstacy in solemn sounds. "A temporary excitement" is the verdict of skepticism on the Reformation wave that for a twelvemonth swept over Wales with its ringing symphonies of hymn and tune. But such excitements are the May-blossom seasons of God's eternal husbandry. They pass because human vigor cannot last at flood-tide, but in spiritual economy they will always have their place, "If the blossoms had not come and gone there would be no fruit." CHAPTER XII. FIELD HYMNS. Hymns of the hortatory and persuasive tone are sufficiently numerous to make an "embarrassment of riches" in a compiler's hands. Not a few songs of invitation and awakening are either quoted or mentioned in the chapter on "Old Revival Hymns," and many appear among those in the last chapter, (on the _Hymns of Wales_;) but the _working_ songs of Christian hymnology deserve a special space _as_ such. "COME HITHER ALL YE WEARY SOULS," Sung to "Federal St.," is one of the older soul-winning calls from the great hymn-treasury of Dr. Watts; and another note of the same sacred bard,-- Life is the time to serve the Lord, --is always coupled with the venerable tune of "Wells."[44] Aged Christians are still remembered who were wont to repeat or sing with quavering voices the second stanza,-- The living know that they must die, But all the dead forgotten lie; Their memory and their sense are gone, Alike unknowing and unknown. And likewise from the fourth stanza,--