Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/553

Rh  If I ask Him to receive me,
 * Will He say me nay?

"Not till earth, and not till heaven, Pass away!"

Finding, following, keeping, struggling,
 * Is He sure to bless?

"Angels, prophets, martyrs, virgins, Answer, 'Yes! Tune—"Stephanos."

Of all the modern hymns praying for guidance, Newman's famous three verses seem to be most popular—especially with people who have not accepted the leading of any church or theological authority At Chicago, the representatives of every creed known to man found two things on which they agreed. They could all join in the Lord's Prayer, and they could all sing "Lead, Kindly Light." This hymn, Mrs. Drew tells me, and "Rock of Ages" are two of Mr. Gladstone's "most favorite hymns."

"It seems to me rather singular," writes a correspondent in Wales, "that verses so full of faith as 'Lead, Kindly Light' should be mentioned with such approval by so many sceptics." He then sends me the following attempt to express the views of an agnostic, thoughtful, humble, and reverent, but quite unable to attain to Newman's standpoint.

If "Lead, Kindly Light" is English, and "Guide me, O thou great Jehovah" is Welsh, "The Lord's my Shepherd" is Scotch.

"For me," writes Mr. S. R. Crockett, the popular author of the "Raiders" and many another delightful romance, "there is no hymn like 'The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want.' I think I must have stood by quite a hundred men and women as they lay a-dying, and I can assure you that these words—the first learned by the child—were also the words that ushered most of them out into the Quiet. To me, and to most among these Northern hills, there are no words like them."

Dr. John Ker says: "Every line of it, every word of it, has been engraven for generations on Scottish hearts, has accompanied them from childhood to age, from their homes to all the seas and lands where they have wandered, and has been to a multitude no man can number the rod