* Lord, from Thy gifts to Thee we rise, These earnests of Thy dearer love. The second is on the "Divine Renewer," suggested by "Thou renewest the face of the earth," and renewed in the spirit of your mind " :— The glory of the spring, how sweet! But O these wonders of Thy grace, These sinful souls Thou hallowest, This new-born glow of faith so strong This new-born ecstasy of song And fragrancy of prayer! Creator, Spirit, work in me These wonders sweet of Thine! Divine Renewer, graciously Renew this heart of mine; Still let new life and strength upspring, And grant the glad new song to ring "Be His New Year's hymn strikes a new and quite original note, and is full of life and tenderness: Break, new-born year, on glad eyes break! On, rolling Time! thou canst not make : The parted year had wingèd feet; The New Year comes; but, Spirit sweet Our hearts in tears may oft run o'er; But, Lord, Thy smile still beams; Our sins are swelling evermore; But pardoning grace still streams. O make its hours less sad with sin, If Thou shouldst take us home. * Space will not permit me to give further illustrations. These will suffice to show that Mr. Gill, lover and student of Dr. Watts though he be, is, to use Goethe's distinction, no mere echo, but a voice. His hymns, as to their substance, seem to me, marked by the following characteristics (1) A remarkable absence of, and even opposition to, all antiquarian and sacerdotal ideas of Christianity, being rather filled with the conception that the Spirit of God is working as really and as mightily now as in the first age of the Church's history. (2) A keen and searching discernment between the spirit and letter of the gospel; and (3) By often really profound thought on Scripture themes. As to their style, I may notice (1) A certain quaintness of expression, reminding the reader of George Wither or John Mason, but rendered clearer by his study and appreciation of Dr. Watts. (2) Great warmth of feeling, leading to the use of very expressive epithets, but kept within due bounds, save in In exceptional cases, by a taste singularly pure and chaste. (3) Often there is to be noticed a happy adaptation of metre and rhythm to the subject of the hymn. some cases the tune gave birth to the hymn. Mr. Gill is only kept from reaching the very highest place as a hymnist by too great subtlety of thought and expression. This renders many of his hymns more suitable for private reading than public praise. The value of Mr. Gill's hymns is largely due to the fact to which he calls attention in the preface to "The Golden Chain of Praise," that they enshrine the spiritual experience of their author; to this is due their living force. They are not the product of the mere thinker or rhymer, but of one impelled by great spiritual impulses. Mr. Gill rarely, if ever, wrote unless moved thereto by what he does not hesitate to call "inspiration." In an extract from an unpublished autobiography which he has been good enongh to communicate to me, he says "I fully believe in tides of song which we cannot command and cannot restrain; in seasons of inspiration which come and go, not at our bidding, wherein the soul, in the fullest possession and happiest exercise of all its powers, is yet borne along by a power beyond itself. More than twice or thrice have I been borne along on such a tide. I have known three or four such seasons, and have vainly striven to prolong them. Then, hymns have streamed forth day after day, week after week; not without the diligent co-operation of all my powers, but with their unforced, free, gladsome, almost unconscious co-operation. At other times I have set myself to write hymns, and 8 with some effort have accomplished the task; but the task was not worth accomplishing-the song had no life, no power, no glow. "These seasons of inspiration had their rise in some high and happy estate of the soul, in some new revelation of spiritual truth, in some ascent of the spirit into a diviner region; on one occasion in the concurrence of a bright outward experience with a blessed inward stir. Each new birth of grace was attended by a fresh stream of song. Between these seasons I have now and then produced a strain, not without worth, but these gushes of song lay apart from the great tides whereof I have spoken.” Here lies the secret of Mr. Gill's power, moved himself as he produced his hymns, they move others to fresher and more spiritual worship. CHAPTER XVI. LIVING HYMNISTS.-II. BORN 1821 ET SEQ. Edward Hayes Plumptre (born 1821), Dean of Wells, the accomplished scholar, to whom we owe such valuable work in many departments-as translator: of Dante, Eschylus, Sophocles; as poet: "Lazarus," "Master and Scholar," "Old and New"; as theologian: "The Spirits in Prison"; as biographer: "The Life and Letters of Bishop Ken"; as biblical critic: many works on parts of both the Old and New Testament-has written a few hymns, which only lack the lyric fire to make them excellent. Were that present, and were they a little more condensed, they would be even more valuable than they are. Dr. Plumptre, however, takes more space to move in than a hymn affords. The finest, and most lyric of his productions, is the following, which seems to me to stand apart from all his others : : Rejoice, ve pure in heart, Rejoice, give thanks and sing |