Page:Our Hymns.djvu/110

 90 OUR HYMNS :

Dr. Belcher gives an anecdote of a young man, who com plaining of the hardening effect on himself of a severe sermon on sin, was further asked to read this psalm, and, attempting to do so, his feelings overcame him, and he could proceed no further than the words &quot; I am condemned,&quot; v. 4. He then burst into tears, and rushed out of the room. From that day his life began to be changed.

&quot;Before Jehovah s awful throne, Ye nations bow, with sacred joy.&quot; No. 152.

These words are by John Wesley (1741), Dr. Watts (1719) wrote instead :

&quot; Nations, attend before His throne, With solemn fear, with sacred joy.&quot;

&quot;My soul thy great Creator praise.&quot; No. 161.

Watts rendering of Psalm civ.; the original piece consists of twenty-eight verses. It takes its first verses from the version of Sir John Denham, (1615 1688), whom Pope styles &quot;majestic Denham.&quot; Dr. Johnson says, &quot;he is one of the writers that improved our taste, and advanced our language.&quot; He is best known as the author of &quot; Cooper s Hill.&quot; In the history of English versification, it was his part, in conjunction with Waller, to cultivate the rhyming couplet, till it became almost perfect in the hands of Dryden.

&quot;When Israel, freed from Pharaoh s hand.&quot; No. 179.

Dr. Watts rendering of Psalm cxiv. has a peculiar interest from having been first printed in the &quot; Spectator,&quot; August 19th, 1712, accompanied with a letter, in which the writer says that he had observed what had escaped the notice of several other poetical translators, that the force and beauty of the psalm are preserved only by keeping the name of Jehovah till the end. This he has done with good effect in his rendering, while they have marred the rhetorical arrangement of the psalm by intro ducing the name of God at the beginning.

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