Mother, let thy faith be surer,

Holier, undefiled;

Let thy life be grander, purer,

For this little child,

Who smiles as Jesus smiled.

Lo! the heavens break in beauty;

Catch the light that falls-
Wrap it round thee, as a duty,
Like a rampart's walls,
Till the trumpet calls.

MATTHIAS BARE.

SONGS OF DELIVERANCE.

OME, see how these Christians can die." This was said when, amid the fires of persecution, the martyrs gave up their lives for the testimony of the truth. But there have been other fires, besides those of persecution, through which Christians have been called to pass and to glorify God. The slow fire of lingering disease, the life-long struggles against things which oppose themselves, the constant battle with inward foes these have been the trials of the life; and the adversaries have wondered whether the sufferer would curse God and die, or endure unto the end. Life's last words are ever full of interest, and some of the richest legacies left to the Church have been the farewell utterances of her children. It is interesting to study the hymns which have been written on the subject of death, and then to see how the writers died. Did those who wrote so triumphantly of death die triumphantly? Did those who sung, "Thanks be to God that giveth us the victory," come off more than conquerors at last?

We are tempted sometimes, in reading hymns which tell so fluently of joys and consolations in the hour and article of death, to think that it is comparatively easy to preach, but very hard to practise; and when we have seen how these hymnists could write, we feel we should like to see how they could die. To compare the writings about death with the deaths of the writers is the subject of this paper.

In the majority of hymns we find death is referred to as a person. The “ King of Terrors," the "Angel of Death," the "Messenger," &c., are common expressions. They are doubtless allowable-St. Paul is sufficient authority-but the invariable use of figurative language is, perhaps, not well when the subject is one of such real and practical importance. Many hymns speak of the second advent of the Saviour as death, but it is a pity to perpetuate a theological error, even though it may be an allowable illustration.

We very strongly object to phrases, more frequently to be found in Roman Catholic hymnals than our own, such as "beauteous death," "sweet death." Death is a horrible thing; it is the enemy-the last enemy to be destroyed. It is repugnant to our

feeling, and it was intended that it should be sc. It may be a universal law, but it is the wages of siz. Disease cannot be beautiful or attractiveit is the fruit of sin. Death cannot be attractive or beautiful—it came into the world by sin. The exultation of St. Paul is not that death is no longer an enemy, but that victory over it may be obtained through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We know how variously the thought of death affects different minds. To some it is a horror of great darkness which passes before the soul. Some through fear of death are all their lifetime subject to bondage. To some it is simply the becoming absent from the body; to some the time when heart and flesh shall fail; to others it is the longing desire to depart and be with Christ. We find all these phases of feeling described by our hymn-writers.

Pope's Ode is familiar to all, but the sentiments expressed in it of the "bliss of dying," and the "languishing into life," are strangers to many. He knew how to write about death, but he had not learnt the secret of life. With him it was one long disease, not only of body, but of soul. He looked to the end with but little hope, and himself was Taught half by reason, half by mere decay, To welcome death and calmly pass away."

He held the doctrines of the Romish Church, and when asked, as death approached, if a priest should be sent for, he said, "I do not think it essential, but thank you for putting me in mind.” His last words were strangely characteristic: "There is nothing that is meritorious but virtue and friendship; and, indeed, friendship itself is but a part of virtue." The mistake of his life is told in that hackneyed quotation from the “ Essay and his last words proved his adherence to that on Man," "The proper study of mankind is man;' statement. But the true Christian, whose desire is, Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his," will surely feel that the proper study of mankind is God.

Toplady was a mere lad when he strolled one Sunday into a barn in Ireland to hear a layman preach. The voice of God was heard through the voice of the preacher, and he who "sometime was far off, was made nigh by the blood of Christ." Henceforth his life was devoted to the

service of the Saviour-not a long life, for he died at the age of thirty-eight, but a life full of labour. The last two or three years of his career were marked by great suffering. His lungs were affected, his health was slowly but surely getting worse and worse, and he wrote and spoke as one ready and waiting for the expected summons of the Master. Listen to what he could say, when in illness, upon the subject of death—

"When languor and disease invade

This trembling house of clay,

"Tis sweet to look beyond the cage
And long to fly away."

There is probably no hymn on death to compare
with that of Toplady's, entitled "The Dying Be-
liever to his Soul." It is a triumphant and exult-
ing song of deliverance.
And although many
have cavilled at the mode in which the hymn is
written, yet there is no one who would not wish
to have the faith which would enable him to say to
his soul-

"Go, He beckons from on high!
Fearless, to His presence fly;
Thine the merit of His blood,
Thine the righteousness of God.
"Burst thy shackles, drop thy clay,
Sweetly breathe thyself away;
Singing, to thy crown remove,
Swift of wing and fired with love.
"Shudder not to pass the stream,
Venture all thy care on Him;
Him whose dying love and power
Stilled its tossing, hushed its roar."

Just

And how did the man who could thus sing of
death in a transport of holy rapture, die?
as one who had written such hymns might be ex-
pected to die. The prayer which he had breathed
for himself in earlier years, and which he has left
as a priceless gift to the Church, was answered in
his own experience.

"While I draw this fleeting breath-
When my eyes are closed in death-
When I soar through tracts unknown-
See Thee on Thy judgment throne-
Rock of ages, cleft for me!

Let me hide myself in Thee!"

He was asked in the time of great bodily aistress, whether his consolations always abounded. "I cannot say there are no intermissions," said he, "for if there were not, my consolations would be more and greater than I could possibly bear; but when they abate they leave such an abiding sense of God's goodness, and of the certainty of my being fixed upon the eternal Rock Christ Jesus, that my soul is filled with peace and joy." He was told that his pulse grew weaker and weaker every day. "It is a good sign," said he, "for my death is fast approaching, and blessed be God I can add, that my heart beats every day stronger and stronger for glory." Just before his departure he said, with tears of joy streaming down his thin

491

and wasted face, brightened, however, with a heavenly light, "It will not be long before God takes me, for no mortal man can live after the glories which God has manifested to my soul."

"Such the prospects that arise
To the dying Christian's eyes;
Such the glorious vista faith

Opens through the shades of death.”

Thousands stood around his grave, although he had expressed the wish that his funeral should be strictly private, and Rowland Hill, who could not restrain himself, despite the further wish that there might be no funeral sermon, delivered a touching oration to the assembled multitude.

Rowland Hill was an intimate friend of Toplady's, and an enthusiastic admirer of the poet. He does not claim much merit as a hymn-writer, although he has left one or two that retain their place in our collections

and

"Ye that in His courts are found,"

"We sing His love who once was slain." But when he was dying he quoted the passage so full of hope and trust: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." And his last words were a quotation from a hymn on death, certainly not very poetical, but containing such sentiments as so good a man could utter with joy

"And when I'm to die,

Receive me, I'll cry,

For Jesus hath loved me, I cannot tell why;
But this I can find,

We two are so joined,
He'll not be in glory
And leave me behind."

Rowland Hill sang a hymn while dying. Beddome wrote a hymn while dying. It was a beautiful exemplification in a good sense of "the ruling passion strong in death." During his life he wrote 830 hymns, many of them of great merit.

Robert Hall wrote an introduction to the volume of his collected poems, which was published about twenty years after his death, and in it he says:The variety of the subjects treated of, the poetical beauty and elevation of some, the simple pathos of others, and the piety and justness of thought which pervade all the compositions in the succeeding volume will, we trust, be deemed a valuable accession to the treasures of sacred poetry, equally adapted to the closet and the sanctuary." One of his hymns is entitled "Death Inevitable," and was written during a severe illness which he had many years before his death.

"If I must die, oh, let me die Trusting in Jesu's blood;

That blood which full atonement made, And reconciles to God.

"If I must die, then let me die

In peace with all mankind,

And change these fleeting joys below
For pleasures all refined.

"If I must die, as die I must,

Let some kind seraph come And bear me on his friendly wing To my celestial home."

The last verse reminds us very much of Dr. Watts. "Of Canaan's land, from Pisgah's top,

May I but have a view,

Though Jordan should o'erflow its banks,
I'll boldly venture through.”

It was Beddome's great wish that he might die a sudden death; he seemed to dread the thought of living and not being able to teach and preach.

His wish-which doubtless was his frequent prayer-was gratified; for he was only laid aside one Sabbath, and his power of working was not withdrawn until the very last, for within an hour of his death he commenced the composition of a hymn, and wrote the two following verses :

"God of my life and of my choice,
Shall I no longer hear Thy voice?
Oh, let the source of joy divine
With rapture fill this heart of mine.
"Thou openedst Jonah's prison doors;
Be pleased, O Lord, to open ours;
Then will we to the world proclaim
The various honours of Thy name."

And so he died, doing the Master's work until interrupted for a little moment by death, and then resuming it in a higher sphere. "Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing."

Henry Francis Lyte, one of the sweetest singers of our time, was one whose spiritual life was the result of being brought into contact with death. He was a clergyman, but not in the highest sense a Christian, and was called to the death-bed of a friend, also a clergyman and like-minded. They studied the Scriptures together, sought for pardon and reconciliation in the way in which they had preached it to others, and together they found the Saviour. A new life now dawned upon Lyte: for him to live was Christ; but he could hardly finish the sentence," to die is gain." He longed to live that he might labour; but his strength, overtaxed with labours of love, failed him, and gradually he sank from weakness to weakness. In one of his poems, entitled "Declining Days," he uttered a prayer and a prophecy:

And grant me, swan-like, my last breath to spend
In song that may not die!"

The prayer was answered; and that deathless
song
is-

"Abide with me, fast falls the eventide."

The story of it is very touching. The cold weather of 1847 was advancing, and Lyte was recommended to winter at Nice; but ere he went he was constrained to meet once more with his dear "fisher folk" in the Brixham Church, and gave to them his parting counsels. He spoke to them with all the burning eloquence of one standing on the verge of the grave, and then, when he had of his twenty years' labour never to return. On administered the Lord's Supper, he left the scene the evening of the day, he gave to a very dear relative the last hymn he ever wrote "Abide with me"-the hymn which so beautifully breathes the earnest, loving spirit of the author-and with it the music which he had adapted for it. Not long after this was he permitted to remain on earth. He arrived at Nice; but only to find there his final resting-place. The confidence expressed in his last hymn did not fail him when death drew near; still he could say

"I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless:

Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness :
Where is death's sting? where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still if Thou abide with me!"

and faintly uttering "peace," "joy," he fell asleep. Philip Doddridge, the friend of Watts and the Wesleys and Whitefield-the laborious worker, the convert of Richard Baxter and the spiritual father of Wilberforce, the earnest preacher, the beloved tutor, and the gifted writer-has left us several beautiful hymns, in anticipation of the change which happeneth to all. At the age of seventeen he commenced his life work, and continued it with unabated energy until his decease, at the age of fifty. But mind and body were both overtaxed, and he was subject to a pulmonary disease, which eventually became so distressing that he was com pelled to leave England for change of air. Death was long in prospect, but he could think of it with calm and holy joy; and thus he expresses himself in the hymn, "Interval of grateful shade."

"What if death my sleep invade,

Should I be of death afraid?
Whilst encircled by Thy arm,
Death may shake, but cannot harm.

"With Thy heavenly presence blest,
Death is life, and labour rest.
Welcome sleep or death to me,
Still secure, for still with Thee."

The journey to Lisbon was accomplished in safety; but the days of Doddridge were numbered. His work, however, was not yet done; for, as he had glorified God in his life, so should he in his