yeoman, upon Sir Walter Scott's testimony. He succeeded to good farms under the Duke of Buccleugh, but became dissipated, and ultimately bankrupt. It was then that his fine vein of pensive poetry showed itself. His Lonely Hearth, Songs of Israel, and Harp of Zion displayed a talent which years afterward attracted the attention of Abraham Lincoln to what is now, through his commendation, a poem of classic excellence.

In 1864, during the month of March, the artist Carpenter and the sculptor Swayne were both in Washington. The sculptor was working upon a bust of Mr. Lincoln in a temporary studio in the Treasury Building. The President asked Mr. Carpenter to accompany him thither, and there, referring again to this poem by Knox, he was delighted to find that Mr. Swayne possessed a copy of the verses in print, which he had cut, several years before, from a Philadelphia paper. They had been originally given to Mr. Lincoln by a young man named Jason Duncan, and the President had recently written them from memory for the wife of Secretary Stanton, saying that he had often tried to discover the author, but in vain. Subsequently the re-publication of the stanzas in the New York Evening Post secured the identification of the poem with the name of William Knox. Lincoln's death was precisely such a sharp contrast as that of the final couplet :

"From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud :-
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ?''

This hymn is in Knox's Harp of Zion, where it is based on Job 22:21, 27, and 28, and has the title, "Heavenly Wisdom." The original form is much the best. It has apparently been strained through an evil sieve, and the volume, which bears the date 1825, is so rare that few have seen it. The lines are there stated to have been "written for Mr. Pettet."'

"Acquaint thee, O mortal'

Acquaint thee with God-
And the prayer of thy spirit
Shall reach his abode ;
And the wish of thy bosom
Shall rise not in vain ;
And his favor shall nourish
Thy heart, like the rain.
"Acquaint thee, O mortal!

Acquaint thee with God-
And he shall be with thee
When fears are abroad;
And in every danger

That threatens thy path,
And even in the valley

Of darkness and death.”

"In composing the following poems," says Knox in his preface, “I felt a pure and elevated pleasure, and it is my sincere wish that the reader may experience somewhat of a similar feeling in the perusal of them."

AGAIN as evening's shadow falls.-S. LONGFELLOW.

Rev. Samuel Longfellow is a brother of the poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and a Unitarian clergyman. He was born June 18th, 1819, at Portland, Me.; graduated at Harvard College, 1839, and at the Divinity School in Cambridge, 1846. He then became pastor at Fall River in 1848, and was afterward, in 1853, settled over the Second Unitarian Church in Brooklyn, N. Y. He next went abroad on an extended tour, from which he returned to assume the charge of the Unitarian Church in Germantown, Pa. From this pastorate he resigned in 1882 in order to prepare the materials for a full biography of his brother. On this work he is understood to be at present (1885) engaged.

Mr. Longfellow and his friend, Rev. Samuel Johnson, labored faithfully to advance the hymnody of their denomination. It is to him in particular that the "Vesper Service" owes its popularity. He was the first to maintain it in the shape which other churches have since employed. Perhaps as a consequence of their labors among hymns, both Mr. Longfellow and Mr. Johnson have been for years regarded as holding strongly to "theistic opinions," and opposing all chilling rationalism whatsoever. It is the highest

testimony that could be paid to the devotion of these writers that their compositions have not been deemed incongruous or inconsistent in recent collections made for evangelical churches. The hymn itself was written for a little book of Vespers, prepared in 1859.

AGAIN our earthly cares we leave. -NEWTON.

This piece, written by Rev. John Newton, is usually changed from its original form as it appears in the Olney Hymns, where it is reckoned as No. 43 of Book III. The title given to it there is: "On opening a House of Worship." And the hymn begins with the line, O Lord, our languid souls inspire," and has seven In comparing it with the version in common use one would conjecture that the first and the third stanzas of our ordinary hymn were by Cotterill; the rest remain substantially as they were written by Newton.

stanzas.

AGAIN returns the day of holy rest.-W. MASON.

There were two persons bearing this name of Rev. William Mason; one of them wrote the hymn now before us, the other was the author of the not less widely-known, "Welcome, welcome, dear Redeemer." The first of these is to be distinguished from his contemporary only by his recorded life and writings. He was an English Episcopalian, born at Kingston-on-Hull in 1725. In 1742 he entered St. John's College in Cambridge, and was graduated with honor, becoming finally a Fellow of Pembroke Hall. He took orders in 1754, received the living of Aston, and was one of the chaplains to George III. As a friend of Thomas Gray he edited that poet's works in 1775, and at the time of his death he had been for thirty-two years precentor and canon residentiary of York. Miss Mitford, Lord Jeffrey, and Dibdin have dealt kindly by his memory, and Dr. Johnson allowed him a place among the British poets. Perhaps Boswell borrowed his method of biography in which to immortalize Johnson, for Mr. Mason employed this same gossiping style in his memoirs of Gray.

In art and literary criticism our author stood high, and it is possible that his attainments were only dwarfed by comparison with the almost gigantic scholarship of his nearest friends. The death of this excellent man was occasioned by a hurt received in alighting from his carriage. This seemed of such a trivial character

that it was neglected. The limb thereupon mortified, and, in spite of every attention, the worthy precentor died on the 5th of April, 1797. The present hymn-that by which he is best remembered-will be found at the end of Volume I. of the Works of William Mason, M.A., Precentor of York and Rector of Aston, which appeared in four volumes in 1811.

The other William Mason was born at Rotherhithe, in 1719, and was an associate of Whitefield and Romaine. He succeeded Toplady in the editorship of the Gospel Magazine, in 1777, and died of a paralytic stroke, September 29th, 1791.

ALAS! and did my Saviour bleed. -WATTS.

This hymn is found in Dr. Watts's works as Book II., No. 9, of Hymns on Divine Subjects. Originally it possessed six stanzas, with the title, "Godly Sorrow arising from the Sufferings of Christ."

"Your

At the Soldiers' Cemetery in Nashville, Tenn., a stranger, it is related, was once seen planting a flower upon a grave. He was asked: "Was your son buried there?" "No." brother?'' "No." "Any relative ?" "No." Then the stranger laid down a small board which was in his hand and said: "I will tell you. When the war broke out I lived in Illinois. I wanted to enlist, but I was poor. I had a wife and seven children. I was drafted, and I had no money to hire a substitute. I made up my mind to go. After I was all ready to start a young man came to me and said: 'You have a large family which your wife cannot take care of. I will go for you.' He did go in my place, and at the battle of Chickamauga he was wounded and taken to Nashville. Here he died. Ever since I have wished to come and see his grave. So I have saved up all the spare money I could, and came on and found my dear friend's grave." He then took the head-board and fixed it into the ground at the head of the grave. It bore the soldier's name, and underneath were the words, "He died for me."

The evangelist E. P. Hammond ascribes his conversion to the hymn, "Alas! and did my Saviour bleed." It was in Southington, Conn., when he was seventeen, and not at any time of re

So that he has always, under God, regarded this hymn as used by the Holy Spirit to regenerate his heart.

ALAS! what hourly dangers rise.-STEELE.

In Miss Steele's Poems by Theodosia, 1760, this is entitled, It has six stanzas.

Watchfulness and Prayer, Matt. 26:41.”

ALL glory, laud, and honor.-Neale, ir.

This is the Gloria, laus et honor of Theodulphus, Bishop of Orleans, who died in the year 821. The translation was made by Dr. John Mason Neale in 1856, and is to be found in his Mediaval Hymns.

Clichtoveus (1517), one of the earliest authorities on Latin hymnology, tells us that Theodulph wrote this hymn in prison, where Ludovicus Pius (Louis I., le Debonnaire) had cast him. The accusation, made by Theodulph's enemies and believed by the king, was that the bishop was in conspiracy with the royal family against its head. However true or false the charge, it is certain that Theodulph was imprisoned at Anjou, and that on Palm Sunday he "sweetly sang before all" this hymn from his grated window. Another account has it that the sequence was chanted by boys whom the bishop had trained. This variation does not vitiate the fact that the king released the singer, restored him to office, and appointed that hymn for the processional on Palm Sunday. The Roman Missal recognizes this use by its rubric :

"At the return of the procession two or four singers enter into the church, and standing behind the closed door, with faces toward the procession, they begin, ‘Gloria, laus,' etc., and chant the first two verses. The priest, with the rest outside of the church, repeats them. Then those who are within chant the other following verses, either in whole or in part as seems best, and those without respond to each couple of verses, 'Gloria, laus,' etc., as at the beginning. Afterward the subdeacon strikes upon the door with the shaft of the cross."

The ceremonial then proceeds according to the established forms. In the Protestant churches during the sixteenth century this hymn by Theodulph was frequently sung. For further information on the sequences and upon the life of Theodulph, see “The Latin Hymn Writers and their Hymns."

ALL hail the power of Jesus' name. -PERRONEt.

Edward Perronet was born at Shoreham, England, August 2d, 1721; died January 2d, 1792. He was the son of Rev. Vincent