ORIGIN OF SEAMEN'S HYMNS.

THE principal seamen's hymn of the early church was that of St. Anatolius. It has lately been introduced into modern psalmody, being one of the happiest translations of Dr. John Mason Neale. Dr. Neale has not only clearly given the sense of the original, but has preserved the part of the Nicene creed-the "God of God," "Light of Light,” and “Truth of Truth"-which it repeats. Its inspiration may have been drawn from the storms that beset the church, or from the tempests that darkened the Ionian seas.

FIERCE was the wild billow,

Dark was the night;

Oars labored heavily,

Foam glimmered white;

Mariners trembled,

Peril was nigh:

Then said the God of God,

"Peace! it is I."

Ridge of the mountain wave,

Lower thy crest!

Wail of Euroclydon,

Be thou at rest!

Peril can none be,

Sorrow must fly,

When saith the Light of Light,

"Peace! it is I."

Jesus, deliverer!

Come thou to me;

Soothe thou my voyaging

Over life's sea.

Thou, when the storm of death

Roars, sweeping by,

Whisper, O Truth of Truth,
"Peace! it is I."

The origin of the best known sailors' hymns is interesting, most of them being produced after perilous experiences at sea. Perhaps no hymn is more sung on the water than Charles Wesley's, beginning,

"Jesus, lover of my soul."

It was written in 1740, shortly after Wesley's return from America to England, and during the first stormy scenes of his itinerant preaching. Whether the figures in the first stanza were suggested by the storms of the Atlantic, which the writer had but recently encountered, or by the storms of human passion, we cannot say. But most of the sea hymns of Charles Wesley were but the unfoldings of actual experiences. In his journal on the Atlantic, he thus describes his spiritual conflicts and triumphs during a storm: "I prayed for power to pray, for faith in Jesus Christ, continually repeating his name, I felt the virtue of it at last, and knew I abode under the shadow of the Almighty. The storm was at its height. At four o'clock, the ship made so much water, that the captain, finding it impossible otherwise to save her from sinking, cut down the mizen mast. In this dreadful moment, I bless God, I found comfort and hope, and

till