United in loving wedlock with these words in former years was "Golden Hill," a chime of sweet counterpoint too rare to bury its authorship under the vague phrase "A Western Melody." It was caught evidently from a forest bird[10] that flutes its clear solo in the sunsets of May and June. There can be no mistaking the imitation--the same compass, the same upward thrill, the same fall and warbled turn. Old-time folk used to call for it, "Sing, my Fairweather Bird." It lingers in a few of the twenty- or thirty-years-ago collections, but stronger voices have drowned it out of the new. [Footnote 10: The wood thrush.] "Thacher," (set to the same hymn,) faintly recalls its melody. Nevertheless "Thacher" is a good tune. Though commonly written in sharps, contrasting the B flat of its softer and more liquid rival of other days, it is one of Handel's strains, and lends the meaning and pathos of the lyric text to voice and instrument. "WHEN I SURVEY THE WONDROUS CROSS." This crown of all the sacred odes of Dr. Watts for the song-service of the church of God was called by Matthew Arnold the "greatest hymn in the English language." The day the eminent critic died he heard it sung in the Sefton Park Presbyterian Church, and repeated the opening lines softly to himself again and again after the services. The hymn is certainly _one_ of the greatest in the language. It appeared as No. 7 in Watts' third edition (about 1710) containing five stanzas. The second line-- On which the Prince of Glory died, --read originally-- Where the young Prince of Glory died. Only four stanzas are now generally used. The omitted one-- His dying crimson like a robe Spreads o'er His body on the tree; Then am I dead to all the globe, And all the globe is dead to me. --is a flash of tragic imagination, showing the sanguine intensity of Christian vision in earlier time, when contemplating the Saviour's passion; but it is too realistic for the spirit and genius of song-worship. That the great hymn was designed by the writer for communion seasons, and was inspired by Gal. 6:14, explains the two last lines if not the whole of the highly colored verse. _THE TUNE._ One has a wide field of choice in seeking the best musical interpretation of this royal song of faith and self-effacement: When I survey the wondrous Cross On which the Prince of Glory died, My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride. Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast Save in the death of Christ my God; All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to His blood. See from His head, His hands, His feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled down; Did e'er such love and sorrow meet; Or thorns compose so rich a crown? Were the whole realm of Nature mine, That were a present far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.