George James Webb was born near Salisbury, Wiltshire, Eng., June 24, 1803. He studied music in Salisbury and for several years played the organ at Falmouth Church. When still a young man (1830), he came to the United States, and settled in Boston where he was long the leading organist and music teacher of the city. He was associate director of the Boston Academy of Music with Lowell Mason, and joint author and editor with him of several church-music collections. Died in Orange, N.J., Nov. 7, 1887. Dr. Webb's own account of the tune "Millennial Dawn" states that he wrote it at sea while on his way to America--and to secular words and that he had no idea who first adapted it to the hymn, nor when. "IF I WERE A VOICE, A PERSUASIVE VOICE." This animating lyric was written by Charles Mackay. Sung by a good vocalist, the fine solo air composed (with its organ chords) by I.B. Woodbury, is still a feature in some missionary meetings, especially the fourth stanza-- If I were a voice, an immortal voice, I would fly the earth around: And wherever man to his idols bowed, I'd publish in notes both long and loud The Gospel's joyful sound. I would fly, I would fly, on the wings of day, Proclaiming peace on my world-wide way, Bidding the saddened earth rejoice-- If I were a voice, an immortal voice, I would fly, I would fly, I would fly on the wings of day. Charles Mackay, the poet, was born in Perth, Scotland, 1814, and educated in London and Brussels; was engaged in editorial work on the _London Morning Chronicle_ and _Glasgow Argus_, and during the Corn Law agitation wrote popular songs, notably "The Voice of the Crowd" and "There's a Good Time Coming," which (like the far inferior poetry of Ebenezer Elliot) won the lasting love of the masses for a superior man who could be "The People's Singer and Friend." He came to the United States in 1857 as a lecturer, and again in 1862, remaining three years as war correspondent of the _London Times_. Glasgow University made him LL.D. in 1847. His numerous songs and poems were collected in a London edition. Died Dec. 24, 1889. Isaac Baker Woodbury was born in Beverly, Mass., 1819, and rose from the station of a blacksmith's apprentice to be a tone-teacher in the church. He educated himself in Europe, returned and sang his life songs, and died in 1858 at the age of thirty-nine. A tune preferred by many as the finer music is the one written to the words by Mr. Sankey, _Sacred Songs_, No. 2. "SPEED AWAY! SPEED AWAY!" This inspiriting song of farewell to departing missionaries was written in 1890 to Woodbury's appropriate popular melody by Fanny J. Crosby, at the request of Ira D. Sankey. The key-word and refrain are adapted from the original song by Woodbury (1848), but in substance and language the three hymn-stanzas are the new and independent work of this later writer.