Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1874-06-19

when survey lfe's varied scene
Amid the darkest hours"
She wrote many other well-known and
highly priced hymns.
Mrs. Anna Letitia Barbauld was the
daughter of DIR. Aiken, a minister at War
rington, England, and the wife of a French
pastor. AS hymnist, she was a great ia
vorite with Charles James Fox. How Of
ten have her holy words soothed the brok-
en- hearts of bereaved ones as we have sung:
"sweet is the scene where Christians die
When holy souls retire 10 rest,
How mildly beams the closing eye,
How gently heaves the expiring breast"
Again, we have from her the hymn
'Praise to God, immortal praise."
Charlotte Elliot was another sweet singer
in Israel she sung her enchanting lyrics
at TOrquay, in Devonshire, and seems TO
have been much given to solitude and
prayer.
Those words are hers:
"My God my Father, while stray"
Again, she strikes the sympathetic cord
in every praying soul in the words:
"Just as Am, without one plea"
Sarah Flower Adams, of Dorsetshre,
England, seems to carry us with her in the
arms of her faith when she ascends TO her
God and our God in a bold, contiding, cour-
ageous love, singing:
"Nearer, my God, to thee"
1t is said that, as she died, her last breath
gasped out a song of love to God. She died
in 1919.
Mrs. Helen Maria Williams, of London,
seems to have been one of the modest and
almost unknown hymnists who, like Jane
Taylor and others, have contributed one or
two well-known offerings at the altar of
praise, and then disappeared forever. She
left us one of the most precious hymns in
our language when she died, in 1877, after
brief imprisonment in Paris in the days
of Robespierre-a hymn which is becom-
ing dearer to our hearts every year:
"while thee seek, protecting Power"
Coquerel, the great French preacher, was
her nephew. He is said to have been re-
| ligiously educated by her.
Few of the daughters of Jerusalem have
sweptthe hand over the lutte so softly and
| touchingly as Mrs. Felicia Hemans, and
few of her sisters have passed through a
| life of such delicate but intense trial as she
did. l never can think of her without
keen sympathy, and wish that 1 might
have stood by her side TO have taken a
blow with her now and then in the battle
of life; for she had many a blow, and the
strife was terrific. She struggled along till
| 1885, and her monument in St. AIMS
Church, Dublin, tells us both how she sus-
tanned the unequal contest and what fol-
| lpNal m har NThila ba oh
sang of another, and we now sing it of heI
in her own words;
| "Calm on the bosom Of thy God,
Fair spirit, rest thee now;
Fen while with us thy footsteps trod
His seal was on thy brow.
| Dust to its narrow house beneath,
Soul to its place on high
| They that have thy look in death,
No more may fear to die"
These, her own words, were chiselled on
her tombstone and none could be more
appropriate.
We are indebted TO Mrs. Phebe II. Brown
for the favorite hymn:
81 love to steal Away awhile
From every cumbering care"
To Maria De Fleury for the lay:
"Thou sweet gliding Kedron."
To Frederika Bremen for the soul stir
ring words:
"cheek grow pale, but heart be vigorous;
Body fail, but soul have peace"
Anne Bronte wrote the words:
81 hoped that with the brave and strong"
Mrs. L. II. Sigourney wrote:
''LAborers Of Christ arise,Hss
and many other hymns.
We owe much TO Phoebe Cary for he
precious
zone sweetly solemn thought"
And much to Caroline Southey, the wifi
of the poet laureate, for her appeals to Chris
tian hope:
Launch thy bark Mariner"
Down from the willow bough,"
Maria, Queen of Hungary, her husband
having been slain by the Turks, was com
PEELED to fly for her own life because of hel
devotion to the reformed faith. Under he
crushing desolations she composed her eel
ebrated "Song of the Cross in the yea
1926. A similar story might be told o
Elizabeth, daughter Of James l., aflerwarC
Queen of Bohemia of her bitter tribula
tions for over forty years, and of her stou
heart which withstood 1t all for Christ
sake; yet she sung:
"This is Joy this Is true pleasure"
Madame Guyon was a woman of wonder
ful powers, hated, feared, haunted, thrown
into prison again and again for religions
sake. She became a disciple in l66S, anc
she filled every prison in which she wa
immured with praise, for she said "th'
stones Of my prison looked TO me like ru
bies." She sang:
"Nor exile l, nor prison fear,
Love makes my courage great
find a Savior everywhere,
His grace in every state"
Louisa Henrietta, Electress of Branden
burg, in the troublous times of 1649, coult
sing on the death of her son:
"Jesus my Redeemer lives"
The first poem ever written, though no
by woman, was written about her. 1t i
the address of Lamech TO his wives, in Gen
esis iv.
When John Wesley was single he wrote
~ have no shArer OF my heart
To rob my Savior Of part"
But after he became acquainted with Mrs
Vizeille he left that verse out of bis pilgrim
bymn. So DIR. Watts fell in love with
Elizabeth Singer afterward Mrs. Rowe
He was rejected He was a man of very
large soul, but Of small stature and not at