Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/124

 112 THE METHODIST HYMN-BOOK ILLUSTRATED

Bellevue Hospital, New York. The man could not speak, and Mr. White stooped down and repeated this hymn. He thought the man was beyond reach of any human voice. But at mid night the sailor sat up in his cot and repeated the whole hymn. For several minutes he quoted other verses ; then he ceased suddenly, and fell back dead.

In the American Civil War a sentry in Grant s army sang this hymn as he paced backwards and forwards ; a soldier of the opposite army had lifted his gun to shoot him through the heart, when the words

Cover my defenceless head

With the shadow of Thy wing,

rang out on the night. He dropped his weapon, and allowed the sentry to pass unharmed. Eighteen years later an excursion steamer was sailing down the Potomac, when an evangelist sang this hymn. A gentleman pushed through the company and asked if the singer had fought in the Civil War. He was the man who had forborne to shoot down the singer.

Southey said in his Life of Wesley that the most character istic parts of the Moravian hymns were too shocking to be quoted. That tended to make John Wesley careful of any approach to familiarity in addressing Christ. For that reason he gave Jesu, Lover of my soul no place in the Large Hymn- book. Bishop Wordsworth regarded it as inexpressibly shocking that this hymn should be sung by a large, mixed congregation in a dissolute part of a populous and irreligious city. That seems to mean in Westminster Abbey. (Preface to The Holy Year.} Dr. A. E. Gregory says, Canon Ellerton hesitated as to the propriety of the inclusion of this great hymn in a Church hymnal, and spoke of it as standing &quot; absolutely upon the line &quot; which separates hymns for public worship from those of private devotion. But the Church in all its borders has decided the question, and our heart tells us that the decision is right. Nor is it, indeed, a hymn solely for the sanctuary and the saint ; it is a hymn for the street and for the sinner. In the Contemporary Review (May, 1904) it is given with Lead, kindly Light, and Abide with me as favourites in the tramp ward.

Hymn 107. Thovi hidden Source of calm repose.

CHARLES WESLEY (i). Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1749 ; Works, v. 50. For the morning.

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