an English "down" Mr. Sankey sang the following hymn with marvelous feeling and effect. As he closed, a little dark skinned boy climbed upon the carriage wheel and said: "Mister, won't you please sing that again?" Mr. Sankey was obliged to hurry away, but he put his hand upon the boy's head and said: "I hope the Lord will make a preacher of you." That boy was Gypsy Smith. When the mists have rolled in splendor From the beauty of the hills, We shall know each other better Oft we tread the path before us When we gather in the morning When the mists have rolled away. We shall come with joy and gladness, Prof. John Stuart Blackie, of Edinburg university, was not a professional hymn writer, but there is a chant inserted in his "Lays and Legends of Ancient Greece," published in 1857, which presses hard on anything in "Paradise Lost" and reminds one of David in the 103d Psalm, "Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion: Bless the Lord, O my soul." There are six stanzas in the chant, part of which we quote: Angels holy, High and lowly, Sing the praises of the Lord, Ocean hoary Tell his glory, Cliffs where tumbling seas have roared, Wave advancing, wave retreating, Praise ye, praise ye God the Lord! Rolling river Praise him ever, From the mountain's deep vein poured Silver fountain, clearly gushing, Troubled torrents madly rushing, Praise ye, praise ye God the Lord! But Prof. Blackie could do what is better than writing a hymn he could live one and help others to do the same. He was rather strict with his classes. One day he called a class to the floor. He noticed a new boy holding his book in the left hand. "Take your book in your right hand," came the order. "Please, sir," began the lad. "Take your book in your right hand, or take your seat," thundered Blackie. "Please, sir, I have no right hand," holding up the stump. Scotch boys are rather high strung and the class began to hiss. Blackie hesitated just a moment, then stepped down from the platform and, putting his hands on the boy's shoulders, said, “Forgive me, I did not know." Then the class shouted and cheered. When the church clock struck "one" that night Blackie was still up in the eighth "land" with that boy, going over the account of his life and hearing of the friendliness, the helplessness, the loneliness, but above all the determined ambition of the boy to be a scholar. Blackie took him, furnished him not only tuition, but food and clothing, and stood by him until he entered life as a young professional of merit and learning. IN 1637, Pym and Hampden and Oliver Cromwell with others concluded to abandon the despotic government of Charles I. and try a free state in the wilds of America, where The breaking waves dashed high On a stern and rock bound coast. Charles I. in his arbitrary authority ordered their goods put on shore and themselves detained, and by the issuance of that despotic order he himself signed his own death warrant. Even Hume, who considered it impossible that a king could do wrong, says with pitiful irony, "The king had afterwards full leisure to repent this exercise of his authority." Cromwell, in the autumn of 1650, was in search of Leslie to give him battle, but the canny Scotchman had such a secured position at Dunbar that Cromwell determined to retire and had already sent away some of his strength. The fanatical Scots, however, had a vision that the heretics—including Cromwell whom they called "Agag," were to be delivered into their hands by the power of God, and so Leslie, against his own judgment, moved to attack Cromwell upon his retreat. Cromwell, looking through his glass, saw the Scotch in motion and instantly rising in his stirrups exclaimed in the language of the Sixty-eighth Psalm, "Now let God arise. Let his enemies be scattered." He sounded the charge and ordered the attack. His army took up the metrical version of the psalm, and the weird singing came floating up through the fog into Leslie's camp, from unseen enemies, like the voice of one crying in the wilderness. The Scotch, albeit outnumbering Cromwell's force two to one, were panicstricken and the Cromwellians gained a great victory. The psalm won the battle, just as it had given nerve to Charlemagne, had inspired the hard pressed Huguenots in many a fight, and had cheered poor Savonarola as he made his way to immolation at Florence. The psalm in meter opens: Let God arise and scattered Let all his en'mies be, And let all those who do him hate Before his presence flee. As smoke in tempest's rage is lost Or wax in furnace cast, So let their sacrilegious host Before his presence waste. The battle being won, the Cromwell forces sang mightily the One Hundred and Eighteenth Psalm, and these two have ever been known since as Cromwell's psalms. The opening of the One Hundred and Eighteenth Psalm in meter is O praise the Lord, for he is good, His mercies ne'er decay, And that his favors ever last Their sense of his eternal love That fear the Lord confess. This may not be the highest form of poetry, but, as W. T. Stead says in commenting upon it, "who would exchange that rugged verse, sung from the hearts of the victors of Dunbar while the smoke of their powder was lying low over the dead, for the most mellifluous verse that ever charmed the ear of the critic, but never stirred the mighty hearts of heroes?" Cromwell had no psalm for defeat. His soldiers needed none-they never met defeat. When a Scotch piper was captured at Waterloo he was taken to Napoleon. The emperor said, "Play a pibroch.' It was done. "Play a march," and he played it. "Play a retreat." "Na, na. A' never kenned to play a retreat." There are some wonderful lines written by Lord Macauley upon the battle of Ivry. I do not know of their being set to music. The words of course are of limited application, but music which would float such language would be inspiring to a degree. Now glory to the Lord of hosts THE following hymn was written by Mrs. Anna Letitia Barbauld, who died in 1825, at over 80 years of age. It is probably founded upon the forty-first Psalm, the first lines of "Blessed is he that considereth the poor. which are: |