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 THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 239

alterations. It did not secure a place in the Wesleyan hymn-book till 1805.

Montgomery speaks of this as a hymn which would not have discredited Gray himself (Christian P salmis f). Milner describes the hymn in his Life of Watts as almost without spot or blemish. A writer in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine calls it the very best Watts wrote, a hymn which breathes the intense earnestness, and passionate, kindling fervour of Wesley himself. It is an effusion of irrepressible joy and triumphant faith.

George Smith, of Coalvillc, the friend of the canal children, found peace as he sang this hymn in 1848, when he lay prostrate with cholera, face to face with death. When the light came into his soul, he sang, In darkest shades, if Thou appear.

Dr. George Smith says in his Harmony of the Divine Dispensations, As the ancient Hebrews rejoiced at the shining forth of the glorious Shekinah, so may our spirits feel, while contemplating this heavenly light, that our treasure and heart are there ; and armed by divine love, and lit up by the corusca tions of glory which radiate from that throne of grace, we may even here exultingly exclaim

The opening heavens around me shine

With beams of sacred blk&amp;lt;, If Jesus shows His mercy mine

And whispers I am His.

��Hymn 370. Jcsu, Thy blood and righteousness. ZINZEXDORF (69) ; translated by JOHN WESLEY (36).

Christi Blut und Gercchtigkeit, written in 1739, during his voyage from St. Thomas, in the West Indies, and published in the Herrnhut collection. In Knapp s edition of ZinzendorPs Gcistlithc Licder, 1845, it is headed On St. Eustachius, which may mean that it was written on that saint s day, March 29, 1739. ZinzendorPs first two lines are from a hymn of Eber s, In Christi Wunden schlaf ich ein. Wesley s translation appeared in Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1740; Works t i. 346, headed The Believer s Triumph.

The Rev. James Smetham, Wesleyan minister, father of the painter poet (817), told his son in his last illness, in 1847, I

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