The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1917-01-13
Rock Of ACES.

OAAS ny IL lou years ago an lllI6raT6
evangelist who could scarcely read OF
write preached sermon in a barn In
an Irish village. No doubt the general
opinion Of those who were there was
that the NEE ting was a failure, for the
only convert was 'tGus" Toplady, q
boy of sixteen. Probably the obscure
evangelist, whose name was soon for
gotten, thought too, that the meeting
was failure But if you would only
look at any hymn book in the world to-
day you may find the name of the boy
converted in the barn that night, Al
gusus Montague Toplady, in the upper
corner of the page above the hymn,
Rock of Ages" Toplady became
preacher himself and wrote that hymn,
1.-THE best known, best loved, and most
widely used hymn ever written" Top
lady died while yet young man, with
the words of that hymn upon his lips
and in the century and half since
then thousands have risen to the heaven
life on the wings of this grand old hymn.
General Stuart, the brilliant cavalry
leader of the COnfederaeg, sang this
hymn as his life ebbed through the
wounds he get in the battles before
Richmond. Prince Albert, consort OF
Queen Victoria, repeated this hymn up
on his death bed eff in this hour 1
had only my worldly honors and digni-
ties to depend upon, l should be poor
indeed he said. When the ship Lon
don sank in the Bay of Biscay in 1866,
the passengers on her deck sang Rock
of Ages" as the waves swallowed them.
A body Of Christian Armenians butch
cred in Turkey sang Crock of Ages
even as the sword fell. This was a
favorite hymn with the dying soldiers
of the Civil War
In his great book, Modern Messages
from Great Hymns, Robert Elmer
Smith tells US that when the steamer
Seawauhaka sank and many passengers
were clinging to life preservers and
pieces OF wreck, young wife said to
her husband, q can hold on no longer. -
Try little longer" he urged her.
land let US sing Rock of Ages As
they sang others joined, and the sweet
pleading prayer, arising from amid the
perilous waters, inspired exhausted
bodies with new strength until life
boat came and rescued nearly all
He tells in the same book of a pros
porous business man in New York who
had failed and drank himself into the
gutter, and, becoming utterly discour-
aged, walked toward the docks one
night TO throw himself into the harbor.
As he went down Shinbone Alley he
passsd mission He went in, was
converted and "beat back" singing
''Rock of Ages" 1t had been his
mothers favorite hymn He went
again to his old place IN the business
world 4 religious magazine invited
its readers to send in lists Of their fayo-
rite hymns and $500 responded. Rock
of Ages" was named first by all but
285 of them.
This hymn was 9 favorite OF Mr.
Gladstone and he translated it into
Italian. 1t inspired Signor Bonghi to
write the Life of Christ" in his own
tongue, hundreds of thousands of copies
have been printed. 1t has been trans
lated into many different languages
and is sung around the world, and viii
be sung, probably for hundreds of years
by generations, yet unborn. Such
have been the results Of the sermon of
q poor unlearned man, preaching by
Pickering candle light In a matched
barn. Who could have forseen that
the seed sown in such unpromising soil
would have produced so much?-KaA-
sas City Star