including that of Watts's, for which John Wesley wrote the majestic first line: Before Jehovah's awful throne. But four versions of the same psalm were not thought enough, and so, from the almost forgotten and deservedly neglected doggerel of Sternhold & Hopkins, they give us such stanzas as these: All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice; The Lord, ye know, is God indeed; O enter then his gates with praise, Hymn No. 646, entitled Blessedness of Love to God, is a translation from the German, "done into English" by one who had no knowledge of the niceties of either language. Notice in the first stanza with what resolute determination the translator "compiles " the rhyme: Ah, happy hours! whene'er upsprings Whence the glad river downward sings, The second and third verses are in a similar strain, and the fourth-O yes, do read the fourth! Nor here alone; hope pierces far Through all the shades of earth and time; Faith mounts beyond the farthest star; Yon shining heights she fain would climb. On these lines comment is needless; but a hard question suggests itself: If when faith has mounted away beyond the farthest star, how immensely far off must be those shining heights which she fain would climb? We know not whence our compilers obtained their hymn 661. It is certain we never saw anything like it elsewhere. We copy the first two verses: Along my earthly way How many clouds are spread! Darkness, and scarce one cheerful ray, Yet, Father, thou art true; O hide not from my view! The rhyme you perceive is perfect, but the sense, the meaning, the idea-well, we can't find it. What kind of mercy that is in which the poet entreats his Father to appear when he looks in prayer above is beyond our comprehension : Appear in mercy through! Hymn 83 is a part of Tate & Brady's version of the ninetyfifth psalm. It is perfect doggerel, apparently not objectionable to the compilers on that account; but we should have thought the invitation to "fall on our knees" would have been erased, or altered, in a collection of hymns intended for that denomination which prefer to stand erect in prayer. Possibly they overlooked the stanza: O let us to thy courts repair, To our ear (perhaps we may be fastidious) there is something offensive, almost like blasphemy, in the pertness of the manufactured rhyme in hymn 243: To thee all angels cry aloud, Through heaven's extended coasts, Of glory and of-hosts. Something like irreverence too, it seems to us, is found in the first stanza of hymn 156. Perhaps it may be owing to unfamiliarity with the use of the word as applied to the Supreme Being; but that, so far as we are concerned, does not alter the fact. We submit it to the reader: Jehovah reigns; let all the earth A stanza from one of Dr. Watts's hymns, omitted by other compilers for the sake of their own reputation, as well as out of regard to that of the poet, has been dragged from the oblivion to which it had been consigned, and spread out in hymn 179: Praise to the God whose strong decrees The good doctor very seldom fell into bad grammar, and it was unkind to restereotype this unfortunate line. There is another stanza by the same poet, which, although grammatically not so bad as the one just quoted, adds no beauty to the collection, does no credit to the author, and, if we may be pardoned for expressing the opinion, does no honor to the Supreme Being: To thee ten thousand thanks we bring, Great Advocate on high; And glory to th' eternal king, Who lays his anger by. In the stanza just quoted, as the reader will observe, the poet has carefully attended to the rhyme, which is faultless, however ungrammatical the language or unscriptural the sentiment. But Watts perpetrated occasionally (even Homer, it is said, sometimes nods) the most bungling rhymes. Most compilers pass them by, but the ambitious brethren who prepared "The Sabbath Hymn Book" uncover to the world's gaze the old man's nakedness, and affix his name to such trash as this: From the provisions of thy house We shall be fed with sweet repast; And brings salvation to our taste.-H. 157. The incongruity of the imagery, "fed with sweet repast from a river which brings salvation to our taste," is not in the usual style of this admirable lyric poet; and, of the myriad of His wakeful eyes employ his power There is an unhappy equivoke in the first line of the hymn numbered 810: Up to the hills where angels lie. It is at least doubtful whether angels "lie" on the hills up there, even in the sense in which the poet intended to be understood. Now we protest against the perpetuation of such blots as these: first, because the stanzas in which they are found do not deserve a place in any collection of sacred poetry. The "maimed" and the "halt" were not allowed in sacrifice even under the old dispensation. And secondly, we are jealous of the fame of "the good and great Dr. Watts," as John Wesley calls him. A very few such verses as these, paraded in a hymn book with the writer's name, are enough to ruin the reputation of any man; and that of Watts, who wrote so much that is as near perfection as we may hope for in the Church militant, ought not to be jeoparded by the unwise ambition of men whose aim is to make a big hymn book. There is one other piece of rhyme attributed to the doctor which we do not remember to have met with in any previous collection of hymns. By a perusal of one or two stanzas the reader will have no difficulty in assigning a reason for their omission by former hymn-book makers. We quote from hymn 629, verses 2, 3, 5: When my forgetful soul renews But ere one fleeting hour is past, Make haste, my days,* to reach the goal, And bring my heart to rest My God, my Saviour's breast! But it is time to turn our attention for a few moments to, the novelties of this collection, "the contributions prepared expressly for it," by which, as we are assured, "it has been enriched." And first, by all means, let us pay our respects to the Rev. Horatius Bonar, of Scotland. He is the Magnus Apollo of the Sabbath Hymn Book in the way of novelty. He "prepared "that is the word—he "prepared" many contributions expressly for it. In general terms let us say, then, that the Rev. Horatius is no poet; and yet some of his verses are very well expressed, and, in most of them, the jingle of the rhyme is well sustained; but in not a solitary stanza "prepared" by him is there a scintillation of genuine poetry. We may take at random a few specimens. Hymn 469 is one of Mr. Bonar's "preparations." It is entitled, "Praise to the Trinity," and thus plunges in medias res : Praises to him who built the hills; Praises to him who wakes the morn, And thus he dawdles on through seven stanzas, each beginning with "praises to him," the pronoun uniformly spelt with a small h, and each inducing the reader to wish from his heart that the whole of it had remained "in the blue afar," and had never reached this western world. Hymn 717 is also one of Mr. Bonar's. It is entitled, quaintly enough, "Mine-Thine," and is chiefly remarkable as an ingenious play upon those two pronouns. It indicates the wonderful facility with which hymns may be "prepared" in Scotland for the American market. We copy the second and third stanzas: * Watts has it, "Make haste, my soul, to reach the goal." The emendation is by our compilers, one of those, we presume, that was deemed absolutely necessary. |