appreciative wit once spoke of Henry in the same terms. And well he might, for in temperament and in his sympathy and appreciation Samuel was not the less poetic of the two. But, while in Henry the creative impulse was vigorous and unfailing, in Samuel it was irregular and weak. "Few verses of many years" is the apt title of a collection of his pieces that he made in 1887, and modestly distributed among his friends, without publishing it abroad. There are only forty-eight, and the most of them are hymns; but what they lack in number they make up in quality. Of his vesper hymns I have already spoken. The first hymn he has preserved was written in 1846, when he was in the Divinity School, for the ordination of Edward Everett Hale. It is astonishing how many of the hymns that are most precious in our churches were written by the students in that dear old hall, Sears's "Calm on the listening ear of night" and "Calm_on_the_listening Johnson's "Father, in thy mysterious presence kneeling," and "Lord, once our faith in man no fear could move," and many another hardly less than these. Several of Mr. Longfellow's hymns besides those for the vesper service were written here in Brooklyn, one of them, At Nice, in "Out of the dark the circling sphere Is rounding onward to the light." 1860, when he and Johnson were compiling "Hymns of the Spirit," they were both filled with the spirit; and Johnson wrote the glorious hymn 'City of God, how broad and far Outstretch thy walls sublime!" and the more glorious "Life of ages, richly poured, Love of God unspent and free"; while Longfellow wrote, "Light of Ages and of Nations" and "One holy Church of God appears Through every age and race." The first fruit of his activity as an editor and compiler was the "Book of Hymns" which he compiled in the Divinity School in co-operation with Samuel Johnson. Theodore Parker always called it the "Sam Book" or the "Book of Sams." It was published in 1848, and marked a great advance both in poetical and spiritual quality on the preceding compilations. It first introduced to this country, but as anonymous, though it had been written in 1833, Newman's 'Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, but with a change in the third stanza that should never have been made. It was only one of many made by Mr. Longfellow from first to last, and some of them have given much offence, and rightly, too; but take them altogether, and the good he did outweighs the evil and mistake a hundred times. Few persons are aware how much he did to make for Whittier the reputation of a hymn-writer in the churches second to no other. For you will notice, as I said here a few weeks ago, that Whittier wrote few hymns as such. He wrote too easily to stop at the fourth or fifth stanza. hymns we sing as his have for the most part been taken here a little and there a little from much longer pieces, and sometimes particular stanzas have been much altered. The hymn called "Christianity" in "Hymns of the Spirit" is taken from a poem on Democracy; and the first stanza is almost entirely Mr. Longfellow's,— The Incomparable the service done to Whittier and to us all by these changes, daring as many of them are! Incomparable the service done by Mr. Longfellow's alterations generally, whatever there may be for our regret! But concerning this whole matter Mr. Longfellow wrote to me only a few months ago; the last letter, except one, he wrote to me, in that beautiful handwriting which reflected the graces of his mind and heart. He said: "It is the principle of adaptation to a special use which is the only justification of changes in hymns that I can offer. It is a question of using or not using which makes it needful to change (1) some verses originally written not as hymns, yet which one wants to use as such, (2) some hymns written by persons of different beliefs from those who are to use the hymn-book, phrases in which could not be conscientiously said or sung by the latter, yet which from their general values of strength, fervor, or tenderness could ill be spared. Among such are the hymns addressed to 'Christ.' The many changes of this kind [addressing them to God] are the more defensible because the authors believed Jesus to be God. . . . If I had been making a collection of hymns or religious poetry for private reading, I should not have altered a single word." In 1864 Mr. Longfellow and Mr. Johnson published a new hymnal, "Hymns of the Spirit," which was a much richer treasury of spiritual things than its forerunner; while its entire omission of the supernatural element, of which the "Book of Hymns" had much, was a bar to its adoption in any churches but the most frankly radical. Moreover, there was in it much less specifically Christian matter; and the hymns touching the life and character of Jesus were but few, though of the best. In these things Mr. Johnson's hand was much more evident than Mr. Longfellow's, who, nevertheless, was grieved because the new book was not adopted here. The book fell into the ground and died, but it has borne much fruit. It has been a quarry from which the loveliest courses of many subsequent hymnals have been hewn. Then, too, it showed the poverty of the current hymns concerning Jesus, and our radical hymnists have done something to make good the lack. In 1860 Mr. Longfellow published a book of "Hymns and Tunes," which was widely used, and by us here until we replaced it by a new edition that appeared in 1876, which differed from the first much as the " Hymns of the Spirit" differed from the "Book of Hymns." The four books have had an incalculable influence upon the hymnology and worship of this country and Great Britain. They have not only entered largely into all the Unitarian hymnbooks, but into those of other sects, an English Episcopalian and a Scotch Presbyterian drawing on them for scores of hymns. In "The Wayside Inn" there is a description of a theologian from the school of Cambridge on the Charles," which, we are assured, was not intended by Henry for a portrait of his brother Samuel; but a better likeness of him could not be: "He preached to all men everywhere The new commandment given to men, And ample as the wants of man." The open secret of his influence was a beautiful sincerity. What the man could say he said: the priest added nothing because it was traditional or expected. On his seventieth birthday he said, "I shall ask no one to-day who does not call me 'Sam.'” If all who called him so had come, the old house would have been as full as when Glover's regiment was quartered there. But it was in speaking of him, and not to him, that the monosyllable was used, except by the most privileged few. It meant that he was infinitely liked and trusted and admired and loved. He was the most companionable of men, full of "wise saws and modern instances,' always ready with a pun or an impromptu rhyme, full of sweet laughter, much travelled, and threading his conversation with delightful reminiscences of the places he had seen, going about doing good in quiet, pleasant ways, laying the humblest duties on himself at all times with a cheerful heart. He was a living illustration of the truth that religion without dogma is no idle dream. He could not affirm the personal ity of God; but I have never known a man, nor read of one in books, including the New Testament, to whom God was a more Real Presence in his daily walk and conversation, in his sermons and his prayers, in the country, in the town, in all he thought and did. We hesitate to affirm the moral perfection of Jesus; and well we may, knowing so little of his outward and his inward life. But we do not question the ability of some men to do each time exactly what they think is right. We believe that there are men who do this, and that Samuel Longfellow was one of these. Our poets have been fortunate in writing songs appropriate to the end of life. Browning did it, and Emerson and Whittier, and Tennyson, who has just crossed the bar. And Mr. Longfellow is not a whit behind. His "Golden Sunset" was written for his friend and mine, Charles Parsons, a lover of this place. It was suggested by a picture Mr. Parsons painted and gave to him, if my memory has not begun to fail. The poem is a prayer, and it was sweetly answered for our friend. God grant that it may be for us! "The golden sea its mirror spreads Beneath the golden skies, And but a narrow strip between "The cloud-like cliffs, the cliff-like clouds, And midway of the radiant floods Hangs silently the boat. "The sea is but another sky, The sky a sea as well, And which is earth and which the heavens The eye can scarcely tell. "So, when for me life's evening hour Soft passes to its end, May glory born of earth and heaven "Flooded with light the spirit float, Till where earth ends and heaven begins |