The writer is not so much objecting now to the new and more tripping hymns, such as "There is Life for a Look," "Only a Step to Jesus," "Pull for the Shore," "Ring the Bells of Heaven," etc., as he is regretting the decadence of so many of our grand old hymns. Take that favorite hymn of Canon Liddon, "O God, Our Help in Ages Past." This was Dr. Watt's paraphrase of the Nineteenth Psalm. This Psalm was chanted as a dirge at John Hampden's funeral. Or that hymn often used by William Lloyd Garrison "Awake, My Soul, Stretch Every Nerve;" or Cowper's "Oh, for a Closer Walk with God;" or "There Is a Land of Pure Delight;" or "God Moves in a Mysterious Way;" or "Jerusalem the Golden;" or "One Sweetly Solemn Thought;" or "Behold a Stranger at the Door;" or "Safe in the Arms of Jesus." Some of these are left out entirely, others garbled and few used. There is a very remarkable hymn-new, as compared with those of Watts and Rippon and Wesley, though it has been before the public for several years. It seems to embody both the fervent faith of St. John and the earnest works of St. James. It is McGranahan's "I Know Whom I have Believed." It embraces the beauty of both the old and the new, and the essential feature is its strict adherence to scripture truth, the chorus being literally II. Tim. 1: 12. A recent edition of the Bible ruins this great verse (1) by making any change, and (2) especially by using "guard" instead of "keep;" "For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." This royal passage is wrapped up in the hearts of millions and to change "keep" for an inferior word, "guard," is, to say the least, most unfortunate. "He shall give his angels charge to keep," not merely to guard. At the time of the Torrey-Alexander mission in the Albert Hall, London, Mrs. Alexander, before an audience of 10,000, rendered the following with amazing effect: Poor lil brack sheep, don strayed away, And the hirelin' frown, "O shepherd, But de shepherd, he smile like the lil brack sheep But de shepherd, he smile like de lil brack sheep An' he say, "O hirelin', hasten, Lo! here am de ninety-an'-nine, But dar, way off from de sheep fol', An' the hirelin' frown, "O shepherd, But de shepherd, he smile like de lil brack sheep An' de shepherd go out in de darkness, Where de night was col' an' bleak; An' dat lil brack sheep, he finds it, But de shepherd, he smile, an' he hol' it close. REV. E. PERRONET, an English minister, published a little book of "moral and sacred songs" in 1785, in which appeared his great hymn, "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name.' There were six stanzas, to which Dr. Rippon added a seventh. The mighty tune, "Coronation," to which the hymn is now universally sung in this country, was composed in about 1792, by Oliver Holden, who was a carpenter and afterwards a teacher of music at Charlestown, Mass. This hymn is the great "Te Deum" of English speaking peoples wherever found, all over the world: All hail the power of Jesus' name, Let angels prostrate fall; Bring forth the royal diadem Crown him, ye martyrs of our God Ye chosen seed of Israel's race- Ye Gentile sinners ne'er forget Go spread your trophies at his feet Let every kindred, every tribe, To him all majesty ascribe And crown him Lord of all. Oh, that with yonder sacred throng And crown him Lord of all. The old country church with its white paint and green blinds, its little cupola and tinkling bell, has largely gone with the stage coach and the old country store. Sixty-five years ago they were in all their glory, but the telephone and the automobile and the general rush for the conveniences of modern city life are fast driving them (with the red men), into oblivion. Three score and odd years ago the village choir met, and opening the fluttering leaves of the old "Shawm" proceeded to practice for Sunday. In winter it was too cold to use the church without fire, and it was too expensive to heat the church -the trustees "couldn't allow it nohow." So they met at the store, or rather in a room back of it, used only by the storekeeper for conferences with delinquent purchasers, and occasionally for sessions of the justice court, and semi-occasionally for meetings of the community witenagemot. The room was permeated with all the odors that Proctor Knott ascribed to Cairo, where he said he had recognized and classified seventy distinct smells. But how could it be otherwise in a building where, behind a thin partition, were stored butter and cheese and onions, dried apples and kerosene, lard and lollipops, fresh meat, bacon and hams, potatoes and parsnips, sugar and molasses, turpentine, tea, coffee, tar and whiskey, with a heterogenous collection of barlow knives, paper collars, turkey red calico and Amoskeag sheeting massed together in such inextricable confusion that it kept the old storekeeper lean and scrawny hunting for what he wanted? Ah! I'm not thinking of the store nor its contents, but the singing of the old choir of the singers themselves, of the splendid old "Shawm”—and what difference did all the surroundings make? The singers had music in their souls as well as in their voices, and all the world was young. The great Te Deum, "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name," is the most firmly lodged in my memory of any of the hymns of those days. Your city choir may deride, and the cultivated technique of the soprano be shocked, but they sang "with the spirit and with the understanding," sweetly oblivious to city criticisms. They made the old room ring again, and sometimes the store door would be pushed open and a cheering crowd rush in. As B. F. Taylor sings— You may smile at the nasals of old Deacon Brown, Tried to reach the high notes on the tips of her toes! When Mr. Scott, our missionary to Assam, heard of a ferocious tribe of cannibals living in a mountainous district, he determined to visit them, and taking his violin, against the warning of his friends, he started. At the end of a two days climb he met a number of them armed with their assegais ready to hurl at him. With his heart in his throat he shut his eyes and |