This only can my fears control,
And bid my sorrows fly.

What harm can ever reach my soul
Beneath my
Father's eye?

Whate'er Thy Providence denies,
I calmly would resign,

For Thou art good and just and wise:
O bend my will to Thine.

Whate'er Thy sacred will ordains,
O give me strength to bear;
And let me know my Father reigns,
And trust His tender care.

Thy sovereign ways are all unknown
To my weak, erring sight;
Yet let my soul adoring own
That all Thy ways are right.

My God, my Father, be Thy name
My solace and my stay.

O wilt Thou seal my humble claim,
And drive my fears away?

58-O THOU, FROM WHOM ALL
GOODNESS FLOWS.

THIS hymn was written by Thomas Haweis, who lived from 1732 to 1820.

THOU, from whom all goodness flows,
I lift my soul to Thee:

In all my sorrows, conflicts, woes,

Good Lord, remember me.

When on my aching, burdened heart
My sins lie heavily,

My pardon speak, new peace impart;
In love, remember me.

When trials sore obstruct my way,

And ills I cannot flee,

Lord, let my strength be as my day;
For good remember me.

When worn with pain, disease, and grief,
This feeble body see;

Grant patience, rest, and kind relief,
Hear and remember me.

If on my face, for Thy dear name,
Shame and reproach shall be;
All hail reproach, and welcome shame,
If Thou remember me.

When, in the solemn hour of death,
I wait Thy just decree,

Saviour, with my last parting breath

I'll cry,

Remember me.

When Henry Martyn, one of the earliest and most saintly of the Protestant missionaries, was labouring in Persia, he found much consolation by repeating in his tent, amid the revilings of his persecutors:

If on my face, for Thy dear name
Shame and reproaches be,

All hail reproach, and welcome shame,
If Thou remember me.

The Rev. C. H. E. White mentions, as an incident in his own experience, that "O Thou, from whom all goodness flows was the means of the conversion of a young guardsman, who was executed for murder. His

last word on the scaffold was the burden of the hymn, "Oh Lord, remember me." The rector says: "The hymn, always a favourite with me, is now very specially written on my heart, and it is a hymn which has helped me not a little."

59 THE EMPEROR FREDERICK'S HYMN. WHEN the Emperor Frederick lay dying of the cancer which made his brief reign but one long agony, he was Isaid to have derived much help and comfort in the gloom by the following simple hymn, written by a lad of twelve, named Ernst von Willich. The boy was an invalid, and, like many others greater than he, had learnt in suffering what he taught in song. The hymn has been Englished as follows:

F the Lord me sorrow send,

IF

Let me bear it patiently;

Lifting up my heart in prayer,
Comfort He will not deny;
Therefore, let there come what will,
In the Lord my heart is still.

Though the heart is often weak,
Full of pain, and all forlorn,
Though in days of utmost pain
Not a day of joy will dawn,
Tell it, let there come what will,
In the Lord all pain is still.

So I pray, Oh Lord, my God,
Let my hope and comfort stand,
Fear nor care no more I heed,
Guided ever by Thy hand.
Therefore, let there come what will,
In the Lord my heart is still.

TUNE" DIx."

WHEN the Sunday at Home took the plebiscite of 3,500 of its readers as to which were the best hymns in the language, the "Rock of Ages" stood at the top of the tree, having no fewer than 3,215 votes. Only three other hymns had more than 3,000 votes. They were, "Abide with me," 'Jesu, Lover of my soul," and "Just as I am."

66

OCK of Ages, cleft for me,

R°

Let me hide myself in Thee!

Let the water and the blood,

From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.
Not the labours of my hands
Can fulfil Thy law's demands:
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears for ever flow,
All for sin could not atone,
Thou must save, and Thou alone!

Nothing in my hand I bring;
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly:
Wash me, Saviour, or I die!

While I draw this fleeting breath

When my eye-strings break in death—
When I soar to worlds unknown

See Thee on Thy judgment throne -
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee!

Tune—“Redhead, No. 76."

Toplady, a Calvinist vicar of a Devonshire parish, little dreamed that he was composing the most popular hymn in the language when he wrote what he called "A living and dying prayer for the holiest believer in the world." For Toplady was a sad polemist, whose orthodox soul was outraged by the Arminianism of the Wesleys. He and they indulged in much disputation of the brickbat and Billingsgate order, as was the fashion in those days. Toplady put much of his time and energy into the composition of controversial pamphlets, on which the good man prided himself not a little. The dust lies thick upon these his works, nor is it likely to be disturbed now or in the future. But in a pause in the fray, just by way of filling up an interval in the firing of polemical broadsides, Augustus Montague Toplady thought he saw a way of launching an airy dart at a joint in Wesley's armour, on the subject of Sanctification. So without much ado, and without any knowledge that it was by this alone he was to render permanent service to mankind, he sent off to the Gospel Magazine of 1776 the hymn "Rock of Ages."1 When it appeared, he had, no doubt, considerable complacency in reflecting how he had winged his opponent for his insolent doctrine of entire sanctification, and it is probable that before he died, for he only survived its publication by two years, dying when but thirty-eight, he had still no conception of the relative importance of his own work. But to-day the world knows Toplady only as the writer of these four verses. All else that he laboured over it has forgotten, and indeed does well to forget.

It was this hymn which the Prince Consort asked for as he came near to death. Mr. Gladstone has trans

1 On the appearance of the first edition of this work a ministerial correspondent who has given considerable attention to the subject of hymnology wrote to say that this story of the hymn "Rock of Ages" was rather misleading. "Toplady," he said, "was editor of the Gospel Magazine at the time, and the hymn was the pendant to a curious theological article."