for Marseilles. Soon after sailing, the ship was becalmed for a week. It was at this point, when everything seemed against him that he wrote the hymn. May not the circumstances give a new, and perhaps literal, meaning to the lines?—

"The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead Thou me on!

Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.”

He did finally reach England in safety.

Newman was the leader of the High-Church party in England. Twelve years later he left the Established Church and entered the Romish fold. He became quite eminent, and in 1879 was made cardinal by Leo XIII.

In general these hymns breathe a spirit of great humility. They reveal the inward greatness of their authors, not the outward rank.

CHAPTER VI.

Hymns in Literature.

THE poets as a class have not been hymnwriters. Yet there are exceptions.

John Milton gave the Church paraphrases of several of the Psalms. He wrote one of them,

"Let us with a gladsome mind,

Praise the Lord, for He is kind,"

when he was fifteen years of age. Another was written in 1648. At that time England was in the throes of civil war. For half a century she had suffered under the oppression and tyranny of two monarchs, James I and Charles I, and now she had arisen in arms to assert her rights. The Puritans, who represented the cause of the people, were most strict in their morals. To them the loose life at the court was abhorrent. When they came into power, they ruled England with a rod of iron, morally as well as politically.

To this party Milton belonged, and to it he gave his most hearty sympathy and vigorous support. Perhaps he had these political conditions in mind when he wrote:

"The Lord will come, and not be slow;
His footsteps can not err;

Before Him Righteousness shall go,
His royal harbinger.

Truth from the earth, like to a flower,

Shall bud and blossom then,

And Justice, from her heavenly bower,
Look down on mortal men."

"The Dying Christian to his Soul" is the work of Alexander Pope. It adds significance to the ode when one knows that the author was a hunch-back and a lifelong invalid:

"Vital spark of heavenly flame,
Quit, O quit this mortal frame;
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
O the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life."

A number of our hymns were not written to be used as such, but were imbedded in literature. Those of Joseph Addison were appended to his essays in the Spectator. While he was traveling along the coast of Italy his ship encountered

a severe storm. The passengers thought they were lost, and the captain confessed his sins to a Capuchin friar who was on board. During this crisis Addison wrote:

"How are Thy servants blest, O Lord!
How sure is their defense!

Eternal Wisdom is their guide,

Their help, Omnipotence.

When by the dreadful tempest borne

High on the broken wave,

They know Thou art not slow to hear,

Nor impotent to save."

It was published several years later in the Spectator at the close of his essay on "The Sea." It is called "The Traveler's Hymn."

His thoughts often dwelt on the providence of God. As a natural result, "the feeling which predominates in all his devotional writings is gratitude." He wrote in one hymn:

"When in the slippery paths of youth,
With heedless steps I ran,

Thine arm, unseen, conveyed me safe,
And led me up to man.

Through hidden dangers, toils, and deaths,
It gently cleared my way;

And through the pleasing snares of vice,
More to be feared than they.

Through all eternity to Thee
A grateful song I'll raise;
But O, eternity's too short

To utter all Thy praise."

In his paraphrase of his favorite Psalm he

wrote:

"The Lord my pasture shall prepare,
And feed me with a shepherd's care;
His presence shall my wants supply,
And guard me with a watchful eye;
My noonday walks He shall attend,
And all my midnight hours defend."

Such meditations doubtless increased the natural cheerfulness of his disposition. He always looked on the bright side of life, and was an optimist in the truest sense of the word. In his essays he tried to win men to virtue by making it look attractive. Vice, on the other hand, was made to appear ridiculous and offensive. His method was eminently successful. Macaulay says, "So effectively, indeed, did he retort on vice the mockery which had recently been directed against virtue, that since his time the open violation of decency has always been considered among us the sure mark of a fool.”

Addison was a statesman as well as an essayist. He held several public offices, and finally became Secretary of State. Through all his pub