Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1863-09-11
History of Certain Hymns.

/ or one, we read that countess once
sung it at public house. For, as she
was travelling in Austria, she stopped al
village inn, and found the parlor full Of
Austrian peasants. The law forbade
Christian assemblies, but it allowed any
drinking assembly, so they met, aud hac
beer jugs on the table, but in reality
came to share the Lords supper. And
having asked permission to join them, a,
also a servant of Christ, she raised the
hymn. Yet the singularity of this Incl
dent is surpassed. A christian noble
man put up on his journey at little vii
age inn, where there was one of those
wild, immoral dances that still disgrace
some parts of the country. Having oh.
tanned permission to look on at the dance,
he went up TO the musicians, and asked
if he would be allowed to have any tune
he wished played for his money. And
being told that he would, he asked them
in one of the lulls of the dance to play a
hymn, and sung it with them. Some
ran away, but most stayed, and be prayed
with them, and this was the beginning Of
singular awakening in the neighbor-
hood. Nogalis, poet and philosopher,
wrote some hymns of a wonderful and
gracious beauty, ineligible to all, more
over, and singularly distinct from those
speclations that ranked him chief OF
mystic thinkers. His father, a business
like, prosaic, working man, troubled him
self little about either poet or philoso-
pher, considering rhyming, indeed, pure
ly mischievous but having theory that
boys would be boys, neither interfering
with Novalis, nor, it is believed, read a
line he ever wrote, unless it was in the
ledger. Novalis died in his bright youth,
and soon after his father attended the
Morayian church on Sunday, as his Gus
tom was. The congregation sang words
that he had never heard before, so thrill
ing so full! of Christian passion, so mourn
fully sweet, that he was deeply moved,
and on leaving the church, asked a
neighbor how they came by so glorious
a hymn, and if he; knew the authors
name? why he replied, starting back,
don't you know? 1t was your own son.
A single hymn has conferred immortal-
ty. Wearing but this one decoration,
man goes down to posterity and cult
Yates the most famous Of bis time. The
Dies Ire has been oitener translated
than any book except the Bible. The
preceptor of a country church is remem.
bered in more hearts than the poet of o
nation. The biography of hymn will
often reverse and confound the judg-
ments of letters. 1t is not the great poet,
but the obscure pastor, who writes these
heavenly lays" In no country which
a hymnology have the great
poets shared in its construction. Three !
of our greatest poets-Spencer, Milton
and Wordsworth-are essentially religi-
Gus poets. You cannot read page Fl
their writings without being struck by
the deep, pervading.. religious feeling.
Yet all the service Milton rendered that
way for the magnificent ode on the
is scarcely hymn was versi
Tying, poorly enough, few of the psalms.
while Wordsworth wrote some agreeable
stanzas, which he called The Laborer's
MONDAY Hymn" 1t is not by its Schil-
Ter or Goethe that the great hymns OF
Germany have been sung, but by monks
and country pastors, schooImasters and i
humble men, whoseinames, if they were
ever known, have long since beer forgot
Ton. And if we turn TO the Bible, we
ind indeed the highest poetry in Job and
The Prophets, the men who were poets
and prophets by their calling; but we
10 not find in their writings single lyric.
1t was David the warrior and king.
Mary the young virgin mother, Simeon
he aged man who waited in the temple
1T was by them that those hymns were
written which have been sung these
thousands of years, which will yet be
,banted with holy JOY in every land
which the sun visits, from its rising till
is setting.-Home Journal.
A lady from the city, who was visiting
ii J..,~Ita, |