how the lyric of religion expresses in its own way the mind and spirit of its time; here we see the ardor of the age-its wildly free imagination, its mingled dreams and realities, its impetuous will, its soul of beauty-all reflected in the hymns of its religion.

D

CHAPTER VIII

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

URING the Victorian era, and more recently

both in England and America, have appeared a remarkable number and variety of hymns. Several scores of these the hymn-book seems to have chosen permanently; many others have been chosen, of course, only tentatively. There are a few outstanding ones, like Kipling's "Recessional” and Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar," which leave little doubt of their permanence.

In all the huge movement and stir in the last fifty years, there has been much vigorous manifestation of the religious life. It is not surprising that the fifteen years following the publication of Darwin's 'Origin of Species" produced more ringing lyrics of religion than has any period of the same length in English history. There was tremendous agitation and conflict among religious forces. The zeal of the conservative faithful and the ardor of the progressive faithful showed itself in flashes of art as well as in the earnest, long-drawn, and bitter prosaic struggles.

Hymns rich, intense, and luminous sprang from Conservatives and Progressives alike. And it is

strong attestation of the truth and universality of the hymns that even radical Conservatives and radical Progressives were soon-however much or little they were aware of the fact-singing each other's hymns, "teaching and admonishing one another" according to the Scripture in spiritual songs, singing and making melody in their hearts unto the Lord. The Fundamentalists and the Liberals of to-day sing the hymns of Whittier and Holmes and Mrs. Adams, together with those of Bonar, Newman, and Bickersteth.

Among the major hymnists of the time is Horatio Bonar, the foremost of the Scottish hymn-writers. He was born in Edinburgh in 1808. Graduated from the University of Edinburgh, he entered the ministry of the Established Church of Scotland, from which he later seceded to become one of the founders, and for the rest of his life a leader, of the Scottish Free Church. He died in 1889. He published many hymns, some translations from the Greek and Latin, but mostly original hymns.

Among his best are "A Few More Years Shall Roll"; "Beyond the Smiling and the Weeping"; "Thy Way, Not Mine, O Lord"; "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say"; "Here, O My Lord, I Meet Thee Face to Face"; and "Go Labor On, Spend and Be Spent."

Bonar's hymns are sorrowful and plaintive, like autumn winds over Scottish hills. The sadness and transience of life is a recurrent theme.

A few more years shall roll,

A few more seasons come;

A few more storms shall beat
On this wild, rocky shore.

Beyond the frost-chain and the fever
I shall be soon;

Beyond the rock-waste and the river,
Beyond the ever and the never

I shall be soon.

Toil on, and in thy toil rejoice;

For toil comes rest, for exile, home;

Soon shalt thou hear the Bridegroom's voice,

The midnight peal, "Behold, I come."

Make haste, O man, to live,

Thy time is almost o'er

O sleep not, dream not, but arise.
The Judge is at the door!

But the somber tone of his hymns is usually lightened by grave consolations and rock-founded hopes. His communion hymn, three stanzas of which are quoted here, is a wistful and heavenly minded song, intensely personal, yet broad enough, it would seem, for Christians of any and all opinions of that sacrament:

Here would I feed upon the bread of God,
Here drink with thee the royal wine of heaven;
Here would I lay aside each earthly load;
Here taste afresh the calm of sins forgiven.

This is the hour of banquet and of song;
This is the heavenly table spread for me;
Here let me feast, and feasting, still prolong
• The brief, bright hour of fellowship with thee.

I have no help but thine, nor do I need
Another arm save thine to lean upon;
It is enough, my Lord, enough indeed;

My strength is in thy might, thy might alone.

One of the best hymns of the nineteenth century is that of W. Walsham Howe (1823-97), Bishop of Wakefield, "For All Thy Saints Who from Their Labors Rest." Others of his hymns are "We Give Thee But Thine Own"; "O Word of God Incarnate"; and "O Jesus, Thou Art Standing."

The version of the twenty-third Psalm that the hymn-book has pronounced most nearly adequate is that of the Rev. Sir Henry Williams Baker, "The King of Love My Shepherd Is." It is not so good poetry as the twenty-third Psalm in the Authorized version of the Bible. Take, for example:

He leadeth me beside the still waters,
He restoreth my soul.

Though the Psalm lines do not rime and are not measured, they express the thought as do no other grouping of words.