Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/305

 THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 293

of the most important of the Pietist hymn-writers, and his work is marked by fervent piety, childlike love to God, and deep spiritual experience. He died at Halle n 1711.

��Hymn 470. O Thou, to whose all-searching sight.

ZINZENDORF (69) ; translated by JOHN WESLEY (36).

Seelenbriiutigam, O du Gotteslamm ! was written Septeml&amp;gt;cr, 1721; published in his Sammlung, Leipzig and Gorlitz, 1725. Wesley s translation appeared in Psalms and Hymns, 1 738 ; Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1739. Works, i. 134.

The reading of 1739 is

Ver. I, O hurst these bonds, and set it free.

Ver. 4, \Vhere rising floods my head o erflow. The alteration to sou) robs the fourth line of its point, but it is Wesley s own change.

Ver. 4 is based on J. A. Freylinghausen s Wer ist wohl wie du

��Hymn 477. Comfort, ye ministers of grace.

CHARLES WESLEY (i).

Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1742 ; Jft r&s, ii. 165. Two verses from the fourth part of a hymn, Groaning for Redemption.

Hymn 478. In time of tribulation.

JAMES MONTGOMERY (94). Psalm Ixxvii. in Songs of Zion, 1822.

��Hymn 479. Sometimes a light surprises.

WILLIAM COWPER (60). Olney Hymns, 1779, headed Joy and Peace in believing.

Dr. Andrew Bonar says that the last words which R. M. McCheyne, that saint of Scotland, heard, and the last he seemed to understand, were those of Cowper s hymn, which his sister quoted to him four days before his death. Then delirium came on, and he gradually passed away.

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