Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/158

 146 THE METHODIST HYMN-BOOK ILLUSTRATED

The ship London, on which the Rev. Daniel J. Draper and his wife were returning to Australia, was lost in a storm in the Bay of Biscay, on January u, 1866. There were about 230 persons on board, but only fifteen escaped. Mr. Draper preached Christ to the doomed passengers, and the last man who left the vessel said that he heard them singing Rock of Ages, cleft for me, just before the ship went down.

General Stuart, the cavalry leader of the South in the American Civil War, sang the hymn as he was dying from the wounds received in battle at Richmond.

Abraham E. Farrar (father of the late Canon Farrar, of Durham), who died in the Hinde Street Circuit in 1849, was visited by Dr. Beaumont, his colleague, on Easter Sunday, about half an hour before he died. There is no commandment in the law which I have not broken, he said, but there is the atonement, and I have confidence in it. I can rest on it.

In my hand no price I bring. Simply to Thy cross I cling.

Hymn 169. Man of Sorrows! what a name.

PHILIP BLISS.

In the International Lessons Monthly, 1875.

Mr. Bliss was born in Pennsylvania, 1838. Dr. G. F. Root employed him to conduct musical institutes and compose Sunday- school music. He was brought up as a Methodist, joined Major Bliss in 1874 in evangelical work, and gave the royalty of his Gospel Songs, worth $30,000, to this cause. In the railway disaster at Ashtabula, Ohio, December 30, 1876, he escaped from the burning car, but lost his life in trying to save his wife.

This list of some of his favourite hymns will show how rich a contribution he made to American sacred song

Through the valley of the shadow I must go.

Whosoever heareth, shout, shout the sound.

Almost persuaded now to believe.

Ho ! my comrades, see the signal.

Light in the darkness, sailor, day is at hand.

Down life s dark vale we wander.

More holiness give me.

Only an armour-bearer.

Standing by a purpose true.

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