Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/403

 THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 391

name Santorius Victorinus. He was a wit and a society poet, who flattered the King and courted the great. After thus serving the world he was urged to devote himself to Christian subjects, which would secure him every advantage he could wish. He followed the advice, received a State pension of 800 livres, which, with presents from the Prince of Conde&quot; and other nobles, and an allowance made by his own family, gave him a very respectable income. He relapsed for a moment into society verse ; but Bossuet took him to task severely, and the poet made an abject apology. He was set to replace the rugged hymns of the Paris Breviary by verse that might satisfy scholars and gentlemen, and threw himself heartily into his task. His hymns became popular with the clergy and gentry, lie went the round of the churches to hear them sung, and amused his gay contemporaries by the contortions and grimaces with which he recited his own verse.

Isaac Williams was the son of a Chancery barrister. He gained the prize for Latin verse at Oxford, and this led to a friendship with Keble, who took him into the country to read during the vacation with Robert Wilberforce and Hurrell Froude, who introduced him to Newman. He was for two years curate to Thomas Kcble at Bisley. He became Newman s curate at St. Mary s, Oxford, and was so identified with the Tractarian party that he failed to gain the Professorship of Poetry in succession to Keble. He left Oxford about this time. His relation to Newman had long been a curious mixture of the most affectionate attachment and intimacy, with growing dis trust and sense of divergence. He holds high rank as a devotional writer. Three of the Tracts for the Times were from his pen. He died at Stinchcombe in 1865.

The original of ver. 4 reads

They thunder their sound it is Christ the Lord!

Then Satan doth fear, his citadels fall : As when the dread trumpets went forth at Thy word,

Aud on the ground lieth the Canaanites wall.

Hymn 758. Not from a stock of ours but Thine. CHARLES WESLEY (i).

Hymns on the Fcntr Gospels (Nos. 362, 363, and 365, kft in MS.) ; Works, x. 280. Matt. xiv. 16-18.

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