Page:Our Hymns.djvu/26

 G CUE HYMNS :

It used to be customary to attribute the English form of this hymn to the Rev. David Dickson, because his biographer, Robert Wodrow, in his &quot; Life of Dickson,&quot; 1726, speaks of having &quot;seen in print&quot; some short poems, on &quot; pious and serious sub- ects,&quot; published by Dickson, &quot; such as the Christian Sacrifice, e Mother, Dear Jerusalem, and, on somewhat larger octavo, 1649, True Christian Love, to be sung with the common tunes of the Psalms.&quot; Dickson was the author of &quot; A brief explication of the Psalms.&quot; This was done in fifties, in the years 1653-4-5. Dickson s piece, taken from a broadside without date, but pro bably of the beginning of the last century, consists of 248 lines ; it begins, &quot; mother dear, Jerusalem. &quot;

But the discovery of an earlier work containing this hymn has destroyed Dickson s claim. This work is a book of religious songs, in the British Museum, No. 15,225. Dr. Bonar, who has treated this subject very fully in his valuable contribution to hymnology, &quot;The New Jerusalem,&quot; 1852, shows, from internal evidence that this book was probably not published prior to 1616, when Dickson had attained to manhood, so that the date does not destroy his claim. But the work consists of poems of a much earlier date ; and the hymn is ascribed, not to Dickson, but it is entitled &quot; A song made by F. B. P., to the tune of Diana.&quot; It is a different piece, consisting of only 104 lines, and beginning, &quot; Hierusalem, my happy home ! &quot; It has traces of a Popish origin, while Dickson s appears to be an expansion of it with Presbyterian modifications. &quot;Our Ladie singes Magnificat,&quot; in the original, becomes in Dicksou s piece, &quot; There Mary sings Magnificat.&quot;

]t has been suggested that the initials &quot; F. B. P.&quot; stand for &quot; Francis Baker,&quot; &quot; Pater,&quot; or priest.

The Rev. W. Burkitt, the expositor, in a work, dated 1693, gives this hymn in eight verses, in a form resembling that in which it is given in the &quot;New Congregational Hymn Book,&quot; and with a few of the lines the same.

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