Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/93

 THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 8 1

did not make him think less of the manual, for in his Life of Fletcher he refers to his friend s intention to prepare various little tracts for the use of the schools. I do not regret his not living to write those tracts ; because I despair of seeing any in the English tongue superior to those extracts from Abbe* Fleury and Mr. Poiret, published under the title of Instructions for Children. I have never yet seen anything comparable to them either for depth of sense or plainness of language.

Hymn 57. Begin, my soul, some heavenly theme. ISAAC WATTS, D.D. (3).

Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 1707. Entitled, The faithfulness of God in the promises. The first verse is

Begin, my tongue, some heavenly theme, And speak some boundless thing.

Toplady altered this to Begin, my soul. Watts wrote (ver. 5), His very word of grace. The hymn was included in the Wesleyan Supplement, 1831. Verses 5i 7 and 8 were omitted, and ver. 9 altered.

5. He that can dash whole worlds to death,

And make them when He please, He speaks, and that almighty breath Fulfils His great decrees.

7. He said, Let the wide heav n be spread,

And heav n was stretch d abroad ; Abra m, I ll be thy God, He said, And he was Abra m s God.

8. O might I hear Thy heav nly tongue

But whisper Thou art Mine ! Those gentle words should raise my song To notes almost divine.

9. How would my leaping heart rejoice

And think my heav n secure ! I trust the all-creating voice, And faith desires no more.

Hymn 58. O Lord, how good, how great art Thou. HENRY F. LYTE (7).

An altered version of his paraphrase of Psalm viii. given in The Spirit of the Psalms, 1834. The version in the Poems, 1853, began 1 How good, how faithful, Lord, art Thou !

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