Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/65

 THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 53

But this one hymn is enough to secure immortality for Sternhold. The elder Scaliger said he would rather have written the verse On cherub and on cherubim, than any of his own learned works.

Samuel Wesley allowed the novel way of parochial singing at Epworth, and spent a good deal of pains in drilling his people so that they did sing well after it had cost a pretty deal to teach them. The Epworth people preferred the Old Version to the new one, having a strange genius at understanding nonsense. That is Samuel Wesley s caustic fling at Sternhold and Hopkins.

Hymn 15. Father of me, and all mankind.

CHARLES WESLEY (i).

Short Hymns on Select Passages of Scripture, 1762 ; Works, xi. 200. Luke xi. 2-4, The Lord s Prayer.

The original of ver. 4, line 2, is That finishes our sin.

Hymn 10. Glory be to God on high,

God whose glory fills the sky.

CHARLES WESLEY (i).

Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1739; Works, i. 115. Paraphrase of the Gloria in Excelsis in the Communion Service. Ver. 7 reads, With Thy glorious Sire art one !

The Gloria in excelsis is an expansion of the angels song (Luke ii. 14), and is found in the Codex Alexandrinus in the British Museum, which belongs to the close of the fifth century. It is there headed A Morning Hymn. The Latin form is found in an eighth-century MS. in the British Museum. The form in the English Communion Service is a translation from the Latin text.

Hymn 17. Through all the changing scenes of life.

TATE and BRADY. Psalm xxxiv.

Nahum Tate (1652-1715) was the son of an Irish clergyman, Faithful Teate, who was the author of some religious verse.

�� �