"Just knows and knows no more, her Bible true, The hymn, beginning, "Jesus shall reign where'er the sun,” which is in part a paraphrase of Psalm 72, is probably Watts' best ascription of praise, and his nearest approach to Bishop Ken's universal doxology. After five generations of service, it now seems to have entered an almost new field as a foreign missionary hymn. Many of Watts' hymns were composed to be sung after special sermons, and were intended to combine the best thoughts of the subject on which the preacher had dwelt. Thus the hymn, beginning, "What shall a dying sinner do?" was first sung after one of Dr. Watts' sermons from the text, Rom. 1:16, and was originally entitled, "The Gospel-the Power of God to Salvation." The hymn beginning, "And is this life prolonged to me?" was written to follow a sermon on "The Right Improvement of Life," I Cor. 3:22. The hymn beginning, "How vast a treasure we possess," was written for a sermon on "The Christian Treasure," from the text, "All things are yours." Many pleasing anecdotes are associated with certain of Watts' hymns, as with certain of John and Charles Wesley's. The hymn, "Not all the blood of beasts," was found by an intelligent Jewess on a wrapper of some parcel she had received from a store, and made such an impression upon her mind that she was led to a perusal of the Bible, and to become a Christian. On announcing the change in her views, she was abandoned by her husband, and thereafter lived a life of great destitution, but consoled by a satisfying and comforting faith. Dr. Belcher gives an anecdote of a young man who found his heart hardened by a severe sermon on the punishments of sin, but who was asked to read the hymn, beginning, "Show pity, Lord; O Lord, forgive." The hymn produced a total change in his feelings, and he left the room in tears, and soon after was made the partaker of a rich religious experience. Watt's hymn beginning, "I'll praise my Maker while I've breath," was sung by John Wesley when dying. Perhaps no hymn conveys a richer and riper religious experience, that accords with the best Christian sentiment, than that beginning, "My God, the spring of all my joys." No stanza certainly was ever so often repeated in life's extremity, as the following: "Jesus can make a dying bed Feel soft as downy pillows are, And breathe my life out sweetly there." The serene close of Dr. Watts' life was in harmony with the consolations of this stanza. "I thank God," he used to say in old age, “that I can lie down with comfort at night, not being solicitous whether I awake in this world or another." He spoke of his physical sufferings as enabling him to "bear the will of God when he could no longer do it." He requested that these words only, In uno Fesu omnia, should follow the name and dates on his tomb. CHARLES WESLEY: HYMNS FOR SPECIAL OCCASIONS. CHARLES WESLEY'S hymns were written under a great variety of interesting circumstances, and nearly all furnish a record of personal experience. Thus his mellifluous hymn, beginning, "Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing," was written for the anniversary-day of one's conversion, probably just a year after his own conversion, thus being a retrospection. "Head of the church triumphant," was written during the war between England and France and Spain, and has reference to the Wesleyan persecutions in those troubled times. The hymn beginning, "Glory to God, whose sovereign grace," has reference to the wonderful revival among the Kingswood colliers, as do the hymns beginning, and "Let all men rejoice, by Jesus restored," "Brethren beloved, your calling see." The hymns, beginning, and "God of my life, to thee," "Away with our fears, the glad morning appears,' were written on birthdays, and record the progress of spiritual attainment and experience. "Come, O thou all-victorious Lord, was composed in June, 1746, before preaching in the Isle of Portland, Dorsetshire, where the people were mostly employed in stone quarries. "See how great a flame inspires," was written at the time of the author's wonderful success in preaching among the Newcastle colliers. The imagery recalls the large fires that burned in Newcastle by night. "Blow ye the trumpet, blow," first appeared in a tract entitled, "Hymns for the New Year," or Hymns for New Year's Day, 1755. The hymn, beginning, "Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go, My daily labors to pursue; has reference to his itinerant preaching: That, which is made to begin in many hymn-books with the second stanza, "Lo! on a narrow neck of land," is said to have been written at Land's End in Cornwall, with the British Channel and the broad Atlantic in view, and surging around the "narrow neck of land" on either hand: Lo! on a narrow neck of land, 'Twixt two unbounded seas, I stand, Secure, insensible: A point of time, a moment's space, O God, mine inmost soul convert, Give me to feel their solemn weight, JAMES MONTGOMERY'S HYMNS OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. ON the fourth of November, 1871, it was just one hundred years since James Montgomery was born in the lowly home of a humble Moravian minister in Irvine, at seaport town in Ayrshire, Scotland. The lessons of hope and faith in God which his parents early endeavored to inculcate, made a deep impression upon his mind. At the age of six, his parents placed him at a Moravian school at Fulneck, near Leeds, in Yorkshire, England. Here he was kindly treated; the discipline of the school, so happily blending pleasant recreation with study, was well calculated to inspire a love for study in the childish mind; while over all was thrown the sweet and holy in |