The author, William Cowper, son of a clergyman, was born at Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire, Eng., Nov. 15, 1731, and died at Dereham, Norfolk, April 25, 1800. Through much of his adult life he was afflicted with a mental ailment inducing melancholia and at times partial insanity, during which he once attempted suicide. He sought literary occupation as an antidote to his disorder of mind, and besides a great number of lighter pieces which diverted him and his friends, composed "The Task," an able and delightful moral and domestic poetic treatise in blank verse, and in the same style of verse translated Homer's _Odyssey_ and _Iliad_. One of the most beloved of English poets, this suffering man was also a true Christian, and wrote some of our sweetest and most spiritual hymns. Most of these were composed at Olney, where he resided for a time with John Newton, his fellow hymnist, and jointly with him issued the volume known as the _Olney Hymns_. _THE TUNE._ Music more or less closely identified with this familiar hymn is Gardiner's "Dedham," and also "Mear," often attributed to Aaron Williams. Both, about equally with the hymn, are seasoned by time, but have not worn out their harmony--or their fitness to Cowper's prayer. William Gardiner was born in Leicester, Eng., March 15, 1770, and died there Nov. 11, 1853. He was a vocal composer and a "musicographer" or writer on musical subjects. One Aaron Williams, to whom "Mear" has by some been credited, was of Welsh descent, a composer of psalmody and clerk of the Scotch church in London. He was born in 1734, and died in 1776. Another account, and the more probable one, names a minister of Boston of still earlier date as the author of the noble old harmony. It is found in a small New England collection of 1726, but not in any English or Scotch collection. "Mear" is presumably an American tune. "WHAT VARIOUS HINDRANCES WE MEET." Another hymn of Cowper's; and no one ever suffered more deeply the plaintive regret in the opening lines, or better wrought into poetic expression an argument for prayer. What various hindrances we meet In coming to a mercy-seat! Yet who that knows the worth of prayer But wishes to be often there? Prayer makes the darkest clouds withdraw, Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw. The whole hymn is (or once was) so thoroughly learned by heart as to be fixed in the church among its household words. Preachers to the diffident do not forget to quote-- Have you no words? ah, think again; Words flow apace when you _complain_. * * * * * Were half the breath thus vainly spent To Heaven in supplication sent, Our cheerful song would oftener be, "Hear what the Lord hath done for me!" And there is all the lifetime of a proverb in the couplet-- Satan trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees. Tune, Lowell Mason's "Rockingham." "MY GRACIOUS REDEEMER I LOVE."