# Olney Hymns (1840)/Introductory Essay

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.
ON a small island, covered with palm-trees, lying off the western coast of Africa, visited by none but slaveships, in the year 1746, there lived a young man, of respectable English parentage. His mother, whose only child he was, had died during his infancy; and his father being a mariner, much occupied abroad in the mercantile service, maintained little control over his son after the latter had once escaped from under his eye. The youth himself was headstrong and capricious, and, by his rashness or perversity, repeatedly thwarted the prudent purposes of his surviving parent to settle him honourably in his own profession. After a series of strange adventures by sea and land, during which he had escaped various perils, but fallen into many snares, and lost all sense of religion and decorum, he was impressed and carried on board of the Harwich, about to sail for the East Indies. Here, though promoted by his father's interest to the rank of midshipman, from the outset he exposed himself to the displeasure of the commander by his irregular conduct, and soon afterwards, in a fit of folly, deserted from the service, at the very time when he was appointed to watch over a boat's company, and prevent any of them from deserting. Being retaken, and brought in chains to the vessel, he was publicly flogged, and expelled from the quarter-deck. When the ship reached Madeira, he was exchanged with the captain ​of a merchantman for one more likely to serve his Majesty. From Madeira he was brought to the little island above-mentioned, where, quitting the vessel, he entered into the service of an English speculator in the trade of that coast a broker in blood, buying and selling men, woman, and children, on such terms, and for such profits, as could be made in that lottery of inhuman adventure. His master, though a slave-dealer, was himself the slave, by brutal passion, of a black woman, who lived with him as his wife, and ruled over his household with a tyranny not surpassed by a native driver, with his cart-whip, in the sugar islands.
How our renegade stripling, at an age when youth and ill health might have softened the heart of the least compassionate of the gentler sex, came to be so much out of favour with his mistress, has not been told by himself, but her cruelty has, and the record will not soon be effaced from his pages, though thousands of wretches like him may have suffered as much, under similar circumstances, whose wrongs and oppressions ceased from the earth with themselves, and were written in no book but that out of which the dead as well as the living shall be judged at the last day. His miseries, however, have been preserved by enduring memorials, perhaps as examples of the horrible re-action and vengeance on the spot, and in the persons of the perpetrators, which, even in this world, accompany the practice of that unexpiated crime against God and man, in which civilized nations have been engaged for more than three centuries that crime of Christendom, which has robbed Africa of millions of her offspring, peopled the West Indies with a perishing population beyond the power of nature to renew, and brought upon Europe judgments, ​which may never be traced to their real source till the secret counsels of Providence shall be revealed, and the ways of God to man be justified, in the presence of all the lost, and all the saved, of heaven and earth.
The sufferings of our unhappy outcast cannot be expressed with equal force by any other words than his own. Let him, then, speak for himself not at the time;— no, not at the time, for then he would have spoken swords and spears, and buried his com plaints under the burden of execrations, which he would have poured, and often did pour out, in the bitterness of his soul, upon the female scourge under whose lash of scorpions he (the representative of guilty England, that fostered such spoilers of Guinea) was daily writhing. No, let him speak, as he spoke long afterwards, when the grace of God had reclaimed and translated him from the bondage of Satan into the kingdom of Christ. Having been left sick by his master, under the care of his mistress, he says : —
I had sometimes not a little difficulty to procure a draught of cold water when burning with a fever. My bed was a mat spread upon a board, and a log of wood my pillow. When my fever left me, my appetite returned. I would gladly have eaten, but there was no one gave unto me. She lived in plenty her self, but hardly allowed me sufficient to sustain life, except now and then, when in the highest good humour, she would send me victuals on her own plate, after she had dined; and this (so greatly was my pride humbled) I received with thanks and eagerness, as the most needy beggar does an alms. Once I was called to receive this bounty from her own hand; but, being exceedingly weak and feeble, I dropped the plate. Those who live in plenty can hardly conceive how this loss touched me; but she had the cruelty to laugh at ​my disappointment; and though the table was covered with dishes, she refused to give me any more. My distress has been so great as to compel me to go by night and pull up roots in the plantation, (though at the risk of being punished as a thief,) which I have eaten raw upon the spot, for fear of discovery. The roots I speak of are very wholesome food when boiled, but as unfit to be eaten raw as a potato. The consequence of this diet which after the first experiment I always expected and seldom missed was the same as if I had taken tartar emetic; so that I have often returned as empty as I went; yet necessity urged me to the trial several times. I have sometimes been relieved by strangers, nay, even by the slaves in the chain, who secretly brought me victuals (for they durst not be seen to do it,) from their own slender pittance.
His master also, instigated by her unnatural antipathy, proved as merciless as his mistress. On a coasting voyage, being suspected of theft from the stores,— "almost the only crime I could not justly be charged with," as he himself testifies, he says :
"The charge was believed, and I was condemned without evidence. From that time he used me very hardly. Whenever he left the vessel, I was locked up on deck, with a pint of rice for my day's allowance, and if he staid longer, I had no relief till his return.— When fowls were killed for his own use, I seldom was allowed any part but the entrails, to bait my hooks with; and at what we call slack water, that is, about the changing of the tides, when the current was still, I used generally to fish, (for at other times it was not practicable,) and I often succeeded. If I saw a fish on my hook, my joy was little less than any other person may have found in the accomplishment of the scheme which he had most at heart. Such a fish, ​hastily broiled, or rather half burned, without sauce, salt, or bread, has afforded me a delicious meal. If I caught none, I might, if I could, sleep away my hunger till the next return of slack water, and then try again. Nor did I suffer less from the inclemency of the weather and the want of clothes. The rainy season was now advancing; my whole suit was a shirt, a pair of trowsers, a cotton handkerchief instead of a cap, and a cotton cloth about two yards long to supply the want of upper garments; and thus accoutred I have been exposed for twenty, thirty, perhaps nearly forty hours together, in incessant rain, accompanied with strong gales of wind, without the least shelter, when my master was on shore. I feel to this day some faint returns of the violent pains I then contracted. The excessive cold and wet I endured in that voyage, and soon after I had recovered from a long sickness, quite broke my constitution and my spirits. The latter were soon restored; but the effects of the former still remain with me, as a needful memento of the service and the wages of sin."
One circumstance more from his revolting narrative must be quoted here, to consummate the picture of his personal distresses, and to introduce the reader of this sketch to a knowledge of the far-surpassing debasement of his enslaved, abandoned, and infatuated mind. He says to his friend and correspondent, in after life,— "Had you seen me, then, go pensive and solitary, in the dead of the night, to wash my one shirt upon the rocks, and afterwards put it on wet, that it might dry upon my back while I slept; had you seen me so poor a figure that, when a boat's crew came to the island, shame often constrained me to hide myself in the woods, from the sight of strangers; —especially had you known that my conduct, prin​ciples, and heart, were still darker than my outward condition, how little would you have imagined....... But we must break off here.
In this iron furnace, heated seven times, under a tropical sun, amidst the pestilential atmosphere of a low coast tangled with woods and traversed by rivers, not rolling their healthful and fertilizing streams into the open sea, but degenerating into shallows and marshes— our young prodigal did not come to himself. His heart, which amidst former adversities had been hardened with pride, inflamed with rage, and brooded with resentment, was now brought down, quenched, and subdued. Here he lost all resolution, and almost all reflection, sinking into that fatuity which is the last refuge of exhausted nature in hopeless captivity. He himself thus describes his apathy:— "I had lost the fierceness which fired me when on board the Harwich, and which made me capable of the most desperate attempts; but I was no further changed than a tiger tamed by hunger;— remove the occasion, and he will be as wild as ever.
Such was his personal and mental, but what was his spiritual state? It has already been intimated, that he was the only son of his mother; but she was in her grave; she could no longer plead for him at a throne of grace; her earnest intercession for him in infancy seemed to have been answered no otherwise than by her own providential removal from the evil to come upon him. She had not been permitted to live for him to break her heart; and in mercy to both, he was spared that sin unto death— that species of parricide which it is to be feared is more frequent than forgiving parents and rebellious children are themselves aware. His mother, before he was six years ​old, had instilled into his heart such principles of Christian faith and practice, as he never could wholly get rid of, amidst all the dissipation of his reprobate career. The remembrance of these early lessons had often haunted him before the time at which we have been contemplating his fallen character and condition. Thrice before he became recklessly apostate from the faith— an avowed infidel, half persuading himself that he was altogether such; he had tried to accommodate his desires and projects in life to a form of godliness; but in each instance he had utterly miscarried; for it was in his own wisdom and by his own strength that he sought to make out a righteousness to suit corrupt nature, rather than in obedience to the gospel. In the issue he had been so bewildered by Shaftesbury— whose Characteristics had fallen into his hands, and in whose paradise of fools he delighted to wander and revel till his imagination was intoxicated— that he cast off all reverence for revealed truth, and appeared to others what he himself desired to be— a hardened sceptic. In this victory over better knowledge he was aided by the sophistry of a profligate companion a-board the man of war, after his impressment, and the conflict was decided by the treachery of his own deceitful and desperately wicked heart; for no cup of enchantment, with whatsoever subtlety mingled, can in any case prevail till "a man is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed."
Here, then, on that island of despair, where he wanted every earthly comfort, the forlorn exile was equally destitute of heavenly consolations. God was not in all his thoughts, though often on his tongue, but acknowledged only in curses, and invoked in "the swearer's prayer, that prayer which, through the forbearance of divine mercy, is oftener than any ​other uttered in vain! Had the gifted eye of some living contemporary been miraculously opened to look round the whole world, and select from among the millions of its most miserable inhabitants one supreme in wretchedness, and of whom no hope, either in this world or that which is to come, could be entertained —that one of whom we speak might well have been fixed upon as he— motherless, homeless, friendless a stranger in a strange land, disinherited, for aught he knew, by his father, forsaken of God, and trampled under foot by man experiencing in its most literal fulfilment the curse upon Canaan, (the oldest and direst next to that which accompanied expulsion from Eden) being truly "a servant of servants" —a slave's slave, for whom none prayed, and who prayed not for himself! So fallen below the lowest of his race was he at the crisis which we have described, that had the man of most practical faith then living been permitted to survey such a spectacle of mental, personal, and spiritual reprobation, and heard a voice from eternity whispering in his ear— "Behold, he is a chosen vessel— this shall be a light of the world, a star in the right hand of Him who walketh amidst the golden candlesticks— this derider of the faith shall be the angel of a church, the church of Philadelphia; and of him shall this testimony be given, I know thy works; behold I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it; for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown! "—We say, had the man of most practical faith in existence seen our prodigal in this state, and heard such a prophecy, he could only have received it as the most secret things of the eternal counsels are received— on the simple authority of Him who cannot ​lie and if he had been startled into the exclamation, "How can these things be!" he would have answered himself, and silenced unbelief, by saying "The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.
We pass to the exhibition of another portrait, of which it may emphatically be affirmed and he who penned the lines understood well the incommunicable bitterness of heart which they imply—
"This is a sight for Pity to peruse,
Till she resemble faintly what she views;
Till Sympathy contract a kindred pain,
Pierced with the woes which she laments in vain."
One day, in the month of December, 1763, a sufferer under the most deplorable of human maladies was brought to the house of a medical practitioner, at a small town, in a midland county of England, and left under his care. The patient was little advanced in manhood, but sorrow had done the work of years on his debilitated frame and faded cheek, while some thing more than sorrow had wrought a sadder ruin within, where no eye could search out the cause, unless it could see into the invisible world, and discern the spirit itself within the tabernacle of clay. Rea son had been overthrown, and imagination, usurping its seat, reigned as "lord of misrule," through all the region of thought, over all the faculties of the soul. He was a member of the younger branch of an illustrious house. He, too, (like the former subject of consideration,) had early lost his mother, and being a delicate child, that loss was to him in every way in calculable and irreparable. At school his spirit had been rebuked and prostrated by the tyranny of an elder boy, who exercised such fiend-like dominion over him that he was afraid to lift up his eyes higher ​than his tormentor's knees; and "knew him by his shoe-buckles better than any other part of his dress." It cannot be doubted that the peace of his whole life thenceforward was disturbed by the consequences of this almost-demoniacal possession—not of his person indeed, but of his phantasy and his fears. Being destined for the bar, his relatives took the most prudent means to qualify him for his profession; but he lacked by nature what no discipline could supply, and no learning compensate—the face to show his face, and the tongue to speak in his own hearing before a large assembly. At the age of three and thirty years, having made no progress towards eminence as a practising lawyer, and all prospect of success by his personal exertions having vanished, he was successively nominated to two parliamentary offices, of which the duties were easy and the emoluments considerable. The mere terror, however, which seized him at the idea of a public appearance before the House of Lords to qualify for his appointment threw the reluctant candidate (whom Fortune seemed to pursue with her favours, but could never overtake,) into paroxysms of despair. In the delirium that ensued, he repeatedly attempted self-destruction, and failed—not for want of the resolution which on better occasions had failed him—but because a hand of mercy, unseen though ever present, turned aside his purposes, and (as it seemed to himself) with immediate intervention, preserved a life the extraordinary issues of which were yet as unsuspected as they were undeveloped.
At the time above stated, he was placed under the superintendence of a wise and good physician, who knew not only how to treat a morbid frame and shattered nerves, with tenderness and skill, but to administer the healing balm of gospel comfort to a wounded
Yet here, if ever, appeared a case beyond the reach of medicine or of counsel. Inveterate predisposition to mental derangement had been urged to agony at the existing crisis, in which was involved the failure of all the victim's plans for life, conceived in the credulity of youth and cherished with the poetry of hope. He had done nothing for himself, and he had frustrated all the efforts of his powerful connexions to serve him. To these disappointments of laudable ambition, alone sufficient to drive a fevered brain to frenzy, or plunge a self-tormenting mind in melancholy, were added, about the same time, the bereavement, by death, of a friend whom he loved as his own soul; and the loss, by something worse than death, of another object yet more beloved. In his own affecting words, he
When this sufferer found a sanctuary under the roof of one who merited from all who knew him the appellation which St. Paul bestowed upon Luke "the beloved physician"— the horrors which had previously exasperated his wild imagination to self-slaying rage had nearly subsided into gloomy tranquility. The direful visitation had left his mind, like the lake of Sodom after the storm of fire and brimstone had blown over, dark and motionless— a pool of death, which all the waves of Jordan, flowing into it, could not purify; which nothing, indeed, could heal but the waters of that river of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. Nay, if there could be imagined a spot, in the region ​of human misery, which even these might never visit —the desolation of heart in him must have seemed that spot. The most experienced in the symptoms of that fearful distemper under which he laboured could not have anticipated more than the bare possibility of one so lost being restored to precarious sanity by the happiest efforts of human skill, under the blessing of God. Had Dr. Johnson— at that time the Apollo of literature, whose oracles were both less ambiguous and less fallible than the Pythian responses of old— been admitted to the sight of our captive, roving, as by instinct, through the grounds that enclosed his quiet prison—
brooding over bosom-sorrows not to be told, refusing comfort or hope from every created source, and from religion itself deriving nothing but despair: had Dr. Johnson seen him thus; and had the good angel of the poor unknown spoken aloud in the critic's ear, and cried, "Behold the man whose mind, by its ascendance over the minds of contemporaries, shall purify the public taste, and restore British song from its half-century of captivity and degradation, in French fetters, to its inherited freedom. Behold the man who shall be the father of a new generation of bards, worthy of their native language and their native land; —the man, who shall exhibit, in his uncompromising verse, a style so pure, so simple, and severe, that intellectual excellence alone shall compel admiration, even from those who hate the poet's themes because they hate the gospel. The mourner, the maniac before your eyes, shall do this; and he shall do more, he shall redeem the character of religious poetry from the reproach which, in the presumption of mis​understanding, you yourself have cast upon it."— Had Dr. Johnson been thus addressed, what would have been his reply?— "Though an angel from heaven declare it, I will not believe."
This "stricken deer," thus abandoned by the herd, and thus withdrawn, "in secret shades to die alone," we may now bring into contact and comparison with the former object of sympathy.
Misery more hopeless than either of these cases once embodied is rare even in this world of sinners and sufferers. Recovery from equal depths of moral depravity as the one, and prostration of intellect as the other presents, is rarer still. But that the subjects of such humiliating afflictions should be exalted, like the first, to the summit of influential piety, and like the second, to supremacy of commanding genius —especially, that they should be associated during life, and after death in their respective honours, must be ranked with the few examples which "He that doeth what he will among the inhabitants of the earth" places on record, at long intervals, to teach us, that of no human being, who once possessed reason and conscience, can it be absolutely said "there is no hope for him in this life,— useless to himself, it is impossible that he should ever be useful to others." These very individuals— for the pictures here drawn are not from imagination but from fearful realities— these very individuals, dissimilar as they were in rank, education, habits, and all external circumstances, in the sequel became bosom-friends and counsellors, and were long engaged as fellow-labourers, with heart and hand, in the work of the Lord on earth. Nor did they serve their transient generation only, by the exercise of their distinguished talents; each of them has left behind him some works which the world will ​not willingly let die." In the autumn of 1767, they met as residents in the same town; the impenitent prodigal of the isle of Plantanes was then "the Rev. JOHN NEWTON, Curate of Olney," and the desponding recluse of St. Alban's was "WILLIAM COWPER, Esq., of the Inner Temple," destined to be "the author of the Task," and the regenerator of English poesy, at the end of the eighteenth century.
It is not necessary here to trace the remarkable changes of life, and the greater changes of heart, which had made these two men as much to differ from what they formerly were as though they had been new creatures in every thing except personal identity. Newton s story (told by himself in letters to a friend) contains a more striking variety of "moving accidents by flood and field" than can often be found in the memoirs of a private adventurer. Fourteen times at least, on his own testimony, he was saved from imminent death, and almost as often (judging by his spiritual state,) "plucked as a brand from the fire" that "is not quenched." From his detestable thraldom on the coast of Africa he was rescued by a messenger from his father, to whom he had repeatedly written for help without receiving any answer. Even in this instance he was delivered against his will, having left the hard service of his first master and engaged with another, who allowed him such a share of the hire of iniquity in the staple traffic of the coast, that he grew savagely in love with his inhuman occupation, and so eagerly grasped at its filthy lucre, that the captain of the vessel was tempted to use falsehood to lure him away from it, under pretence that a large fortune had been bequeathed to him in Europe. The hardening, demoralizing, soul - destroying effects of evil associations which he began to feel he thus de​scribes: "There is a significant phrase frequently used in those parts, that such a white man is grown black. It does not intend an alteration of complexion, but of disposition. I have known several in Africa who gradually became assimilated to the tempers, customs, and ceremonies of the natives so far as to prefer that country to England. They have also become dupes to all the pretended charms, necromancies, and divinations of the blinded Negroes; and put more trust in such things than the wiser sort of natives. A part of this spirit of infatuation was growing upon me :in time perhaps I might have yielded to the whole."
Though, during his residence on that frightful coast, it could not be said that "there was found in him any good thing towards the Lord God of Israel "yet one deep, powerful, and unswerving passion, which he cherished in his heart of hearts, towards her whom he afterwards married, but whom he then dared not hope to call his own, seems to have happily restrained him from some excesses, into which he would otherwise have run, amidst his headlong career of licentiousness. The same tender and hallowing affection, through his saddest reverses, had sweetened his thoughts, and softened his desperation, as well when ignominiously punished and degraded on board the Harwich, as when groaning out existence in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and disease, during his bondage under the bond-woman, the negro-mistress of his worse than negro-master. Through a long series of strange vicissitudes and appalling chastisements, he experienced how hard it is for the most determined to enter into the kingdom of darkness, though they fight their way, sword in hand, to the gates of hell, through opposing judgments and surrounding mercies. He did ​so, but could not prevail, for the Lord was stronger than he, and by a succession of humbling and purifying trials, not only brought the rebel to repentance and submission, while he was for several years captain of a Guinea ship; but afterwards, while he was tide- surveyor at Liverpool, prepared him to enter the Holy of holies in the Christian temple, as a minister of the gospel.
As in providence the dealings of the Lord with this refractory subject had been at once more severe and merciful than in the usual course of a sinner's experience, so in grace also the divine discipline by which he was trained seemed no less signally sovereign and peculiar. "The words which his mother taught him" had never been erazed from his mind, nor had they otherwise died in his heart than as good seed, to be re-quickened in due season. In full manhood, then, while prosperously engaged in that infamous commerce, of which he had not yet learned the unlawfulness,— so blinding and deluding is sin of any kind, his conscience was awakened, his fears were alarmed, and the fountains of that great deep, the natural heart of man, "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked," were broken up; all was darkness, horror, and confusion within. Then "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, Let there be light; and there was light".Gradually as the six days works of creation, in which, without agent or auxiliary, God wrought alone the regenerating change went on in this new creation of a human soul; till, as "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy," when "the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them," so may we believe that there was joy in the presence of the angels of God over this one ​sinner that repented. Far from the ordinary means of grace,— beyond the hearing of the word, without the fellowship of Christians, and almost unaided by the writings of divines,— having no book but the Bible, or occasionally a religious treatise, (and these as he says, not always the best,) John Newton, the infidel and blasphemer, was awakened, alarmed, convinced, comforted, and instructed, in such a manner that he could rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of his salvation. During the same extraordinary interval he had patience and resolution to apply himself diligently both to science and polite literature; and he actually acquired as much knowledge of mathematics, and the learned languages, as enabled him in after life to pursue those studies till he became a good reading scholar, if not a great proficient or an acute critic. Thus his mind was expanded and enlightened as his heart was renewed and sanctified. And where was this twofold miracle wrought?— On board of a slave-ship, amidst the iniquities of the coast-traffic, the horrors of the middle passage, and the abominations of the West Indian market. The fact might be doubted had not a life of unwearied labour, most exemplary piety, and pre-eminent usefulness, as a Christian minister, (hardly paralleled among his contemporaries,) proved the reality of his transition, amidst such hindrances, from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to serve the living God. Verily and literally to his experience might be applied the words of his friend, Cowper,
"God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform:
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm".
To his companion at Olney we return. Congeniality ​of sentiment soon united Cowper and Newton in a friendship interrupted only, during the residue of their lives, by the mysterious visitations, from time to time, of that constitutional malady which haunted the former. The first tremendous access of this calamity had been repelled by the skill of Dr. Cotton, at St. Albans. But the good physician had not only stayed, for a while, the plague that laid waste his intellect; he poured the wine and oil of gospel-consolation into the wounds of a spirit in which the arrows of the Almighty had struck deep and remained fixed, till
"One,
Who had himself been hit by the archers,"
found him "withdrawn— to seek a tranquil death in distant shades," and then,
"With gentle force soliciting the darts,"
had healed, and bade him live. Hitherto the conscious transgressor had known religion only by its terrors— "thunder and earthquake and devouring flame:" now he partook of its delights; occasionally of its transports :—
"Twas heaven, all heaven descending on the wings
Of the bright legions of the King of kings;
"Twas more;— twas God diffused through every part;
"Twas God himself triumphant in his heart."
This was indeed the time of the soul's espousals, when the Beloved "allured her into the wilderness, and spake comfortably to her," The page which commemorates our Poet's deliverance from the fear that hath torment, into joy unspeakable and full of glory, is the fairest in the dark-and-bright volume of his book of life; and that page is written by his own hand, in the language of his heart, when he poured forth its fulness and sweetness, in those two hymns of the following Collection, which cannot be read and under​stood without experiencing, by sympathy, a measure of the bliss and tranquility which they breathe.— See Book iii, Hymns 44 and 45. "How blest thy creature is, O God!" and, "Far from the world, Lord, with thee."
The experience of nearly two years of humble and uninterrupted walking with God had confirmed the fugitive from the world in this peaceful frame of mind, when his acquaintance with Newton commenced, under circumstances peculiarly auspicious to both. It has often been ignorantly or insidiously said, that Cowper's connection with the latter was unfortunate for himself; for had he fallen under the influence of some other person, of equal piety, but less hardihood in holding and enforcing certain doctrinal tenets, his own hope in the promises of the gospel might never have failed, nor his reason on that point been utterly perverted,— not only in the cheerless days of mental alienation, but when on every other subject his faculties were clear, and his faith orthodox. What might have been, if what was had not happened, it is in vain to speculate. The contingencies of any one hypothetical event lie far beyond the reach of created intellect. The counsels of God, even in what does come to pass, are in many respects unsearchable. Known unto himself alone from the beginning are all his works; and to justify his ways— for, after all, they were God's ways, and not man's in the particular instance before us, it is sufficient to consider what was the positive result of the connection between these two remarkable men,— the one brought from a slave- ship, and the other from a lunatic asylum, to teach the world justice and mercy, and enlighten it with knowledge. In the preface to the present volume, Newton himself gives a clew to the enquiry, "The ​public may be assured, that the whole number (of Hymns) were composed by two persons only. The original design would not admit of any other association."— What was that design?— "It was intended as a monument to perpetuate an intimate and endeared friendship."
Thus then, prompted by the suggestion and emboldened by the example of plain but intrepid John Newton, the diffident poet was encouraged to make trial of those pure and exquisitely precious talents which had lain like gold untouched, nay, almost undiscovered in the mine, through the greater part of that period of life during which the instinct of ambition is most restless, and its votaries are eagerly pursuing fame at every sacrifice which they can or cannot afford. No person qualified to judge impartially (the mere man of letters is not, for such things must be spiritually discerned) will deny that the greater number of those Hymns which bear the mark of C. in their titles bear also the impress of Cowper's genius in their style, character, and subjects. Many of them, in fact, are miniature poems, regularly planned, brilliantly adorned, and felicitously executed. It is true, that, amidst these morning dreams of his awakening muse, blackness of darkness fell upon his mind, from the malignant influence of bodily distemper acting upon it; yet will his unfinished portion remain a splendid trophy of intellectual prowess, and spiritual attainments, in one who was permitted, by the inscrutable direction of Providence, at times, to lose all command of the former, and all consciousness of the latter. When Cowper was restored to sanity the second time, this very evidence of the gift within him was considered as a pledge of what greater things might be expected from the employment of his genius in an ​ampler field, on themes more complex and difficult, —such as would call forth, if not create, in a capacity like his, the strength to execute them. The hopes of his friends were not too sanguine. In the course of a few years, he produced those singularly original poems which, though written in direct opposition to the taste of the times, and embued with sentiments hateful alike to the scorner and the self-righteous, effected a greater change in the character of contemporary literature than any poetic novelty before had done in a refined and critical age. It is not to be questioned, that the success of Cowper, (in a degree probably unknown even to themselves,) influenced Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, in their daring and successful insurrection against antiquated authorities, to enfranchise English verse from the drawling, driveling imitation of French models, which two of the mightiest masters of the art (Dryden and Pope) had imposed upon their spiritless and imbecile successors.
The subject is only touched upon here, to exhibit Cowper in just proportion between his elder and his junior brethren; as well as to give honour to whom honour is due, by fearlessly stating the fact, that to Newton the world owes Cowper as Cowper appears to the world. It is not presumed, that had the latter never fallen in with the former, he might not have broken out from inglorious obscurity, in all the power of irrepressible genius; but whatever other, or even higher achievements he might have wrought under different circumstances, those by which he will be for ever known and honoured and endeared were all (directly or indirectly) called from his slumbering mind, (oppressed by a burthen more awful than Etna and all its fires on the breast of the giant Enceladus,) ​by the awakening voice, the animating example, and the cordial companionship of Newton. Nor is this said in disparagement of any happy influence which Mrs. Unwin, Lady Austen, or other inspirers of his verse, occasionally exercised over him in the sequel. But by enlisting Cowper, as his coadjutor, in the Olney Hymns, Newton gave to the poet's mind both the bias and the impulse which ever afterwards directed its course.
There are few joint-memorials of friendship and talents, raised by kindred spirits, in polite literature, Every other species of art may be successfully practised by "many men and many minds." In architecture, sculpture, and painting, the diversified talents of various hands may often be so harmoniously associated as to form a magnificent whole; because the composition, however exquisitely and intellectually designed, consists of material parts,, and is accomplished by manual process. But those original works of genius, of which language is the expression, scarcely admit of fellowship, either in conception or execution. One book must be the product of one brain, in which, to constitute excellence, there ought to be as strict unity of thought and diction as the ancient critic required of time and place in dramatic action. Now, two minds cannot think simultaneously; nor can one express a thought suggested by another, in terms which shall convey it to a third with precisely the same impression as it was felt by the first. Language in itself being as invisible and immaterial as the ideas which it communicates, those ideas will necessarily be best communicated in his language who first conceived them; and though others may seize hints, and carry them out into more perfect and beautiful exhibition than the inventors could have done, yet the original ​thoughts themselves will be as much changed (perhaps for the better) as the diction has been improved. These remarks, of course, refer principally to those more recondite and complicated imaginations and reasonings which it is the prerogative of superior minds to create or evolve in their diviner moods, when "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn," give perpetuity of youth to their mental offspring. Yet they do apply, more or less, to all literary productions in which fancy, feeling, or elaborate argument, are component principles, or characteristic features. There is but one splendid exception to this usage—not to call it law—of nature in our poetic annals. The plays which pass under the names of Beaumont and Fletcher were unquestionably written so consentaneously, that it is impossible now to ascertain the peculiar merits of either, by apportioning to each his share of personal contributions to the common stock, or of labour in turning that capital to the best advantage. Unhappily, however, these extraordinary emanations of twin-minds—nobly gifted, but atrociously prostituted—are so tainted with the grossness of the age in which they appeared, and which they too faithfully reflected, that they will neither bear to be read nor represented in our better and more fastidious times; for not merely more fastidious, but positively better, in this respect, our times are, notwithstanding the well-founded charges of licentiousness which may yet be brought against many of the books and much of the conversation of the present day.
The volume before us is a monument of friendship and genius far otherwise directed and far more honourably employed, however short in poetical display it may fall of the former meretricious offspring of combined talents, at once the glory and the shame of ​their possessors. It also belongs to a different class of literary labours,— a class which readily admits of joint-stock authorship, and in which the independent contributions of any number of individuals may be as sociated, for the illustrations of a connected series of subjects. These Hymns, however, (as we have seen already,) were written by two persons only,— living miracles of divine grace,— to perpetuate the remembrance of their fellowship in the bonds of the Gospel, to show what great things the Lord had done for them, and thereby to edify the church of Christ in the neighbourhood where they dwelt. This, and much more, has been effected: the collection has become a standard-book, of its kind, among devout readers of every evangelical denomination. Such a miscellany, with no other means of recommendation than its own intrinsic worth, cannot have been a work of ordinary character, however humble its claims, and unpretending its execution. Many a superficial book has obtained, but not one in the annals of literature ever kept popular favour for half a century, or even half that term. Public opinion is often mistaken before it is formed, but when formed, it is not less infallible and irreversible than human judgment can be when there is neither necessity nor inducement to continue in error. By the decision of posterity— for the present generation is posterity to the authors— this volume may now safely abide, whatever imperfections or offences against good taste may be found in its numerous and very unequal compositions.
Newton's portion of the work is by far the largest, and it is no disparagement to his memory to say, that this might be considerably reduced with advantage to the remainder, though it would be a bold hand, and ought to be a delicate one, that should presume to ​attempt the desirable excision. Let the good man, however, speak for himself: "My part would have been much smaller than it is, and the book would have appeared in a very different form, if the wise though mysterious providence of God had not seen fit to cross my wishes. We had not proceeded far upon our proposed plan before my dear friend was prevented, by a long and affecting indisposition, from affording me any further assistance. My grief and disappointment were great; I hung my harp upon the willows, and for some time thought myself determined to proceed no farther without him. Yet my mind was afterwards led to resume the service."— It was well for him, and well for the world, that he did so. The blessings of millions, on his memory, among the dead, the living, and the unborn, will justify his courage and perseverance in finishing, at his peril, an enterprise so auspiciously begun, and so lamentably interrupted. The suspension of Cowper's labours is the more to be regretted as the pieces which he did furnish towards the work few— (about sixty) in comparison with Newton's— were, nevertheless, sufficient to prove his own peculiar talent for this species of sacred song, and to disprove the unwarrantable canon of criticism which his friend thus lays down:— "There is a style and manner suited to the composition of hymns, which may be more successfully or at least more easily attained by a versifier than a poet. They should be Hymns, not Odes, if designed for public worship, and the use of plain people. Perspicuity, simplicity, and ease, should be chiefly attended to; and the imagery and colouring of poetry, if admitted at all, should be indulged very sparingly, and with great judgment."— What does all this mean? Certainly not that mere versifiers can write hymns ​better than poets—which the author intended to say, but has happily miscarried;—it means neither more nor less than that hymn-writing, like every other kind of poetry, has a style suitable to itself. But to take it for granted, that, because this is the case, a poet, a genuine poet, a poet of the highest order, is not better qualified to excel in this branch of his own art than a free-and-easy syllable-monger, is not less gratuitous and self-contradictory than it would be to affirm, that because an artist, of surpassing skill, can contrive a time-piece, which shall show, not only the lapse of every second, minute, and hour, but also the days of the week, month, year, with all the phases of the moon, and the sun's course through the zodiac,—he is, for that very reason, less able to make a common watch than his own apprentice. The major necessarily includes the minor capacity, as great power includes less; otherwise a child, who might lift ten pounds and no more, would do that better (more easily) than a porter, who could heave five hundred weight. Now, Cowper, in the very "style and manner" which his less-gifted coadjutor lays down as most "suited to this kind of composition;" namely, "perspicuity, simplicity, and ease," combined also with grace, elegance, pathos, and energy, such as poetic inspiration alone could supply,—Cowper as much excels his less-gifted coadjutor in these requisites as in his later and loftier productions, The Task, &c., he excels himself, when considered only as the Author of these humbler and holier essays, in which (again to borrow Newton s own words,) "the imagery and colouring of poetry," though admitted, are "indulged sparingly, and with great judgment." It was no discredit to Newton, to be distanced by Cowper in such a race; he has won glory, which will ​not soon pass away, by having, as he honestly says, "done his best;" and he had reason to be satisfied, that, by "the mediocrity of talent" with which "it pleased the Lord to favour him," he was admirably qualified for usefulness to the weak and the poor of Christ's flock, without disgusting persons of superior discernment.— For, not in the smallest degree to exaggerate his merits, it may be said, that "persons of superior discernment, "who are, at the same time, spiritually-minded, are those by whom his labours will be most highly esteemed, and the value of some of them even put into competition with the more poetic effusions of his friend, to whom he himself so willingly concedes the palm, in his preface to the finished work, at a time when that friend was never likely to claim or enjoy his superior honours.
Though Newton's pieces in this collection may be regarded as fair models, according to his own view of the nature of such compositions, yet it must be confessed, by his warmest admirers, that the pulpit idioms, the bald phraseology, and the conversational cadence of his lines, frequently lower the tone of his poetry so much, that what would be pleasing and impressive in prose becomes languid and wearisome in verse. Indeed, when verse (not otherwise pretending to be poetical) is not much better than prose, by the charm of numbers alone it is much worse. Its artificial structure is then a decided disadvantage, and no reader can even if he would, (though many try to persuade themselves that they do,) like a sentence better for the clanking of a chain of syllables. "The day that makes a man a slave takes half his worth away," says the old poet; and language enslaved in metre loses half its power, unless the loss of natural freedom be abundantly compensated by the grace of accent, and the melody of rhythm. ​This volume is divided into three Books. The first consists of Hymns on select portions of the Old and New Testaments. No experiments in verse can be more hopeless and thankless than such. The difficulty consists partly in the ease with which scriptural passages may be shaped into measured lines, to the satisfaction of the paraphrast himself, and the indifference with which the reader receives the most successful performances of the kind, from their inevitable inferiority to (what are to him) the originals in his native tongue. With these he has been so familiarized from infancy, that no new collocation of words— even in prose, much less in rhyme— can ever be so pleasing to his ear, or convey to his mind so ineffable an impression of the meaning of the sacred oracles. In plain truth, scripture language, whether historical, poetic, or doctrinal, is so comprehensive, that in anywise to alter is to impair it; if you add you encumber; if you diminish you maim the sense; to paraphrase is to enfeeble everlasting strength; to imitate is to impoverish inexhaustible riches; and to translate into verse is necessarily to do one, or the other, or both of these, in nearly every line. For example— I purposely choose what may be called an extreme case, to make the illustration more palpable,— Ps. xix, 7, 8, "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple:— The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes."— The literal terms here are so perfect a vehicle of pure thought, that any metrical reading must render them less so, because words equally few and simple cannot be found in the English tongue which would express these plain sentiments in rhymes and numbers. The failure of all who have ​attempted this passage has proved that it is the cross of versifiers; and he who could carry it, without being put to shame, need not despair of accomplishing what must still be considered as a desideratum— a version of the Psalms, which shall not (on the whole) disappoint every reader. That such is all but impossible may be inferred from one case.—The 137th Psalm is one of the most poetical in imagery and diction; therefore one of the fittest for metrical arrangement. Now this has been oftener essayed than any other, by poets of the highest talents, from Lord Surrey, in the sixteenth century, downwards; yet all have laboured in vain, and spent their strength for nought; as may be seen by turning over the multitudinous volumes of Chambers's British Poets, as well as the countless collections of Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs by versifiers of all ranks.
The prime cause of miscarriage in every attempt to paraphrase scripture passages appears to be, that, in order to bring them within the rules of rhyme and metre, all that the poet introduces of his own becomes alloy, which debases the standard of the original. On the contrary, when he adorns a train of his private thoughts with scripture images and ideas, or interweaves with his own language, scripture phrases, that fall without straining into his verse, the latter is illustrated and enriched by the alliance or the amalgamation. In a word, divine themes are necessarily degraded by human interpolations; while human compositions are necessarily exalted by the felicitous introduction of sacred allusions. This is a secret of which few that have meddled with the perilous and delicate subject have been aware. A single verse, in each way, will probably make the point clear.
"But could I bear to hear him say,
—' Depart, accursed, far away!
With Satan in the lowest hell
Thou art for ever doom'd to dwell!' "
How impotent is this, compared with the terrible words—"Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Here the divine theme is degraded by human interpolation and omission both.
Book iii, Hymn 28.
"Perhaps some golden wedge supprest,
Some secret sin offends my God;
Perhaps that Babylonish vest,
Self-righteousness, provokes the rod."
Here the poet adorns the train of his private thoughts with scripture images; and oh with what force and conviction are "the wedge of gold," and "Babylonish vest," brought in! The reader, from previous knowledge, needs no other hint to recollect the whole history,— yea, and to make him tremble too, as though he felt himself in the tent of Achan at the moment when his sin was discovered. Who does not instinctively recoil, and look with horror towards that dark corner of his own heart, in which "the accursed thing" was once found, or is there still?
Of the scriptural hymns before us, Newton's are not so often feeble paraphrases of the text, as suitable meditations on the respective subjects, and not seldom appear to be little skeletons of sermons, which he may have actually preached. Among these "Cain and Abel," Book i, Hymn 2, may be quoted as an average specimen of plain narrative, easy to be understood, but having little grace or elevation besides. Book i, Hymn 19, is a good sample of his spiritualizing manner, and indeed is of a superior order.
Book i, Hymn 31, is excellent. The author is wak​ening up his heart to prayer. Indeed, this collection contains so many beautiful and exhilarating views of the privilege and happiness connected with that duty, as show the writers to have been themselves men of prayer. Book ii, Hymn 60, Book iii, Hymns 12 and 19, may be specially adduced.— These hymns are often retrospective also, alluding to the real circumstances under which the individual (whether Cowper or Newton) was found by divine grace, and delivered from sin. See Book i, Hymns 41, 43, and 70, Book ii, Hymn 57.— For a cheerful strain of thanksgiving, Book i, Hymn 57, may be named.— Book i, Hymn 119, affectingly describes some of the finer internal conflicts which exercise the faith, the patience, and the love of God's people. Book i, Hymn 130, furnishes a lesson of close self-examination. A preceding hymn (126) in the same book well describes the warfare between sin and grace in the believer's heart. 'Jonah's Gourd,' Hymn 75, in the same Book, is pathetically applied to the writer's Christian trial, on losing the delight of his eyes and the desire of his heart.
A question too comprehensive to be discussed here may be touched upon, since it arises out of the character of the pieces of this First Book, and likewise peculiarly affects the experimental hymns in the other two. Are such compositions fit to be sung in great congregations, consisting of all classes of saints and sinners? It must be frankly answered, with respect to the far greater proportion— No!— except upon the principle, that whatever may be read by such an assembly may also be sung. On no ground can either the reading or chaunting of the Psalms from the Common Prayer-Book of the Church of England, or the singing of authorised versions of the same, be jus​tified except on this— namely, that these are subjects to be impressed upon the minds and memories of the people, for individual application by themselves (when they can be persuaded to make it;) but generally, for instruction, warning, reproof, correction, and example,— in reality as means of grace. The part which a congregation of professing Christians can personally take in the routine of Divine service— in reading, praying, responding, or singing— is a subject (considering what is the real usage,) almost too awful to think upon in any other view than the foregoing. Confining himself to this point of justification alone, the writer of these remarks ventures to add, that, whereas singing is only one of the forms of utterance which God has given to man— not which man has in vented any otherwise than as he may be said to have invented speech, by the faculty which God gave him to do so— whatever a man may, without sin, recite with his lips, in the house of God, he may also sing, when the same subjects or sentiments are modeled verse, or set forth in numerous prose, like the translated Psalms, and other poetical parts of Holy Writ, suitable for chaunting. After all, let every man be persuaded in his own mind, and do that in the house of God which he can do to edification.
The Second Book contains pieces on occasional subjects, and these, for the most part, were on actual, not imagined or hypothetical occasions, though capable also of extensive application under similar circumstances —local, temporal, and providential. Thus there are hymns not only for any New Years or Old Years, but which were expressly written, and used as devotional exercises on the commencement and departure of particular years, long ago numbered with those beyond the flood,— years that came and went ​over millions to whom time is now no longer, but whose everlasting destinies are at this moment affected by their respective employment, for good or for evil, of those very portions of time thus given and taken away. Others, who were then children, may yet be living, and living, at this day, under the effects of the influence which these individual hymns may have then had upon their tender and susceptible minds.— The same may be predicated of the dead, and presumed of the living, with respect to the following hymns for the various 'Seasons' of years, which had their spring, summer, autumn, and winter, in turn,— their flowers and buds, their fruits, their breezes and their storms, not otherwise recorded than in these humble strains ; but yet to some of those who then lived— to some who may still be alive— those seasons had days of the Son of Man on earth— days to be remembered through eternity.— The hymns also under the head of 'Ordinances', were composed to celebrate special Sabbaths, Sacraments, and Anniversaries, &c., though they may generally be used, on corresponding opportunities, to the end of time.
The hymns on 'Providences', in the same Book, are very striking, as commemorating national, local, and personal judgments, visitations, and deliverances. Of those on the commencement of hostilities with the American Colonies, the Fast day in 1776, the earth quake in 1775, it may be said, in justice to each, "that strain was of an higher mood." The stanzas ' On the Fire at Olney, 1777, ' contain incidental glimpses into the dark and fearful condition (spiritually considered) in which Christian society exists, even in places where the Gospel is most faithfully preached, and where it seems to bring forth much fruit. They show us in what a perilous state of un​preparedness the majority of our fellow-creatures every night lie down to sleep,— though liable to be awakened at any hour, by a cry of fire, by the shock of an earthquake, or by the last trumpet itself, for aught they can foresee. How picturesque and terrible are these two verses :—
"The shout of fire, a dreadful cry,
Impress'd each heart with deep dismay,
While the fierce blaze and reddening sky
Made midnight wear the face of day.
"The throng and terror who can speak ?
The various sounds that fill'd the air
The infant's wail, the mother's shriek,
The voice of blasphemy and prayer ! "
The compositions in the latter part of this Second Book are on the works of creation and the phenomena of nature, which belong rather to poetry than devotion ; and these being written more generally by Newton than Cowper, are less interesting than most others in the volume : feeble, though not unpleasing, they are evidently on themes chosen for the purpose of versifying and spiritualizing them— not forced upon the writer's attention by the impulses of his heart, the reveries of his mind, or the duties of his station. The last hymn, however, in this Book, is a more poetical example of Newton's skill in allegorizing than any of the former. It is rather remarkable, that one who had such " visions of the night," and instruction sealed upon his mind, even in youth, as his dream in the Mediterranean implies, should have succeeded so indifferently as he often does in his fancy-pieces and moral fictions. From this flight of imagination, the appearance of a second Bunyan might have been augured ; but Newton, though in many other respects much resembling the author of the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' was far behind him " in similitudes." The ​dream alluded to is one of the most perfect specimens on record of a real yet consistent dream, having a regular plot, a well-connected progress, and moral close. Newton himself, in his waking hours, never beheld such a vision of awe and glory. The incident of his looking from ship-board at the very instant after the loss of the ring, and seeing the range of Alps along the midnight horizon, bursting out into volcanic con flagration, presents an image of consummate terror and sublimity.*
of Venice, where we had lately been, I thought it was night, and my watch upon the deck ; and that, as I was walking to and fro by myself, a person came to me, (I do not remember from whence,) and brought me a ring, with an express charge to keep it carefully ; assuring me, that while I preserved that ring I should be happy and successful ; but if I lost or parted with it, I must expect nothing but trouble and misery. I accepted the present and the terms willingly, not in the least doubting my own care to preserve it, and highly satisfied to have my happiness in my own keeping. I was engaged in these thoughts, when a second person came to me, and, observing the ring on my finger, took occasion to ask me some questions concerning it. I readily told him its virtues ; and his answer expressed a surprise at my weakness in expecting such effects from a ring. I think he reasoned with me some time, upon the impossibility of the thing, and at length urged me, in direct terms, to throw it away. At first I was shocked at the proposal ; but his in sinuations prevailed. I began to reason and doubt ; and at last plucked it off my finger, and dropped it over the ship's side into the water, which it had no sooner touched, than I saw at the same instant, a terrible fire burst out from a range of mountains (a part of the Alps) which appeared at some distance behind the city of Venice. I saw the hills as distinct as if awake, and that they were all in flames. I perceived, too late, my folly ; and my tempter, with an air of insult, informed me, that all the mercy God had in reserve for me was comprised in that ring, which I had wilfully thrown away. I understood, that I must now go with him to the burning mountains, and that all the flames I saw were kindled on my account. I trembled and was in a great agony ; so that it was surprising I did not then awake ; but my dream continued, and when I thought myself upon the point of a constrained departure, and stood self-con​The hymns in the Third Book are very miscellaneous, embracing the most solemn, affecting, delightful, and splendid, as well as the most important and practical themes of religion— warnings and exhortations to repentance ; confession of sin, contrition, seeking, pleading, and hoping for salvation ; reasonings and trials, temptations within and without ; devotion, self- denial, and surrender of all the ransomed powers of mind and body ; and finally, songs of praise and thanksgiving. These are frequently in a higher tone of poetry, with deeper pathos and more ardent expression, than the average strain of pieces in the fore going Books. The best wine has been reserved to the last. Book iii, Hymn 10, is very earnest in prayer and faith and hope ; the two concluding stanzas, in
demned, without plea or hope, suddenly either a third person, or the same who brought the ring at first (I am not certain which), came to me, and demanded the cause of my grief. I told him the plain case, confessing that I had ruined myself wilfully, and deserved no pity. He blamed my rashness, and asked if I should be wiser, supposing I had my ring again. I could hardly answer to this ; for I thought it was gone beyond recall. I believe, indeed, I had not time to answer, before I saw this unexpected friend go down under the water, just in the spot where I had dropped it; and he soon returned, bringing the ring with him. The moment he came on board, the flames in the mountains were extinguished, and my seducer left me. Then was the 'prey taken from the hand of the mighty, and the lawful captive delivered'. My fears were at an end; and with joy and gratitude I approached my kind deliverer to receive the ring again ; but he refused to return it, and spoke to this effect :— 'If you should be entrusted with this ring again, you would very soon bring yourself into the same distress : you are not able to keep it ; but I will preserve it for you, and whenever it is needful will produce it in your behalf'. Upon this I awoke, in a state of mind not to be described : I could hardly eat or sleep, or transact my necessary business for two or three days ; but the impression soon wore off, and in a little time I totally forgot it ; and I think it hardly occurred to my mind again till several years afterwards." ​particular, may be often used by the Christian reader in reference to himself, in his own time of need, but not of despondency. The 22nd Hymn in this Book is very faithful in describing a species of temptation which often pursues the suppliant to the very throne of grace, and in the form of Satan among the sons of God, accuses the self-condemned sinner, who, yet clinging to the footstool, and not to be moved, pleads the promises, and cries for the blessing, which never was so sought in vain. Book iii, Hymn 58— 'Home in View' is one of the most consolatory in the volume, and may make the drooping yet reviving heart home sick for heaven, in prospect, for the last time, before he reaches it for ever. In Hymn 60, Book iii, Newton very strikingly alludes to his former and his latter state ; his change from nature unto grace, and the fruits that followed.
On the whole, though it must be acknowledged that Newton was a poet of very humble order, yet he has produced, in this collection, proofs of great versatility in exercising the one talent of this kind entrusted to him. He has also turned it to the best account, by rendering it wholly subservient to the best purposes in the service of God and man. With this sanction, all his deficiencies as a technical versifier will be forgiven and forgotten by those who have the religious feeling which can appreciate the far higher excellencies of these plain, practical, and often lively, fervent, and sincere effusions of a heart full to overflowing of the love of God, and labouring with indefatigable zeal to promote the kingdom of Christ upon earth.
Of Cowper's share in this work little need be said. Those may disparage the poetry of his hymns who hate or despise the doctrines of the Gospel. They are worthy of him, and honourable to his Christian ​profession. These first-fruits of his Muse, after she had been baptised,— but we must drop the fictitious being, and say rather, after he had been baptised. " with the Holy Ghost and with fire, " will ever be precious (independent of their other merits,) as the transcripts of his happiest feelings, the memorials of his walk with God, and his daily experience (amidst conflicts and discouragements,) of the consoling power of that religion in which he had found peace, and had often enoyed peace to a degree that passed understanding. On the other hand, it is a heart-withering reflection, that his mightier efforts of genius— the poems by which he commands universal admiration though they breathe the soul of purest, humblest, holiest piety, and might have been written amidst the clear shining of the Sun of Righteousness arisen on him with healing in his wings— were yet composed under darkness like that of the valley of the shadow of death. While the tempted poet sang the privileges, the duties, and the blessedness of the Christian, he had himself lost all except the remembrance that he once possessed it, and the bitter, insane, and invincible conviction, that for him there was no hope, " either in this life or that which is to come. " Under this frightful delusion, in its last effect, for several years, even his intellectual being was absorpt, till the disordered body fell into dust, and the soul returned to God who gave it. Oh ! when that veil of horror, with the veil of flesh, was taken away, and the enfranchised captive emerged in the invisible world,— may we not hope, that, like dying Stephen on this side of eternity, he on the other saw heaven opened, with Jesus standing at the right hand of God,— may we not believe that he could then and there exclaim, with that first triumphant martyr,— " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit! " ​In conclusion, this volume of Olney Hymns ought to be for ever dear to the Christian public, as an unprecedented memorial, in respect to its authors, of the power of Divine grace, which called one of them from the negro-slave market, on the coast of Africa, to be a burning and a shining light in the church of God at home,— and raised the head of the other, when he was a companion of lunatics, to make him, (by a most mysterious dispensation of gifts,) a poet of the highest intellectuality, and in his song an unshaken, uncompromising confessor of the purest doctrines of the Gospel, even when he himself had lost sight of its consolations.
J. M.
SHEFFIELD, January, 1829.