ve been successful in producing many popular
hymns; while the greatest hymns have been the compositions either of
ministers of the Gospel, like Watts, Wesley, Toplady, Doddridge, Newman,
Lyte, Bonar and Ray Palmer, or by godly women, like Charlotte Elliott,
Mrs. Sarah F. Adams, Miss Havergal and Mrs. Prentiss. During my visit to
Great Britain in the summer of 1842, I spent a few weeks at Sheffield as
the guest of Mr. Edward Vickers, the ex-Mayor of the city. His near
neighbor was the venerable James Montgomery, whose pupil he had been
during the short time that the poet conducted a school. Mr. Vickers
took me to visit the poet at his residence at The Mount. A short,
brisk, cheery old man, then seventy-one, came into the room with a spry
step. He wore a suit of black, with old-fashioned dress ruffles, and a
high cravat that looked as if it choked him. His complexion was fresh,
and snowy hair crowned a noble forehead. He had never married, but
resided with a relative. We chatted about America, and I told him that
in all our churches his hymns were great favorites. I unfortunately
happened to mention that when lately in Glasgow I had gone to hear the
Rev. Robert Montgomery, the author of "Satan," and other poems. It was
this "Satan Montgomery" whom Macaulay had scalped with merciless
criticism in the _Edinburgh Review_. The mention of his name aroused the
old poet's ire. "Would you believe it?" he exclaimed, indignantly, "they
attribute some of that fellow's performances to me, and lately a lady
wrote to me in reference to one of his most pompous poems, and said "it
was the _best that I had ever written!_" I do not wonder at my venerable
friend's vexation, for there was a world-wide contrast between his own
chaste simplicity and the stilted pomposity of his Glasgow namesake.
Montgomery, though born a Moravian and educated at a Moravian school,
was a constant worshipper at St. George's Episcopal Church, in
Sheffield. The people of the town were very proud of their celebrated
townsman, and after his death gave him a public funeral, and erected a
bronze statue to his memory. While he was the author of several volumes
of poetry, his enduring fame rests on his hymns, some of which will be
sung in all lands through coming generations. Four hundred own his
parentage and one hundred at least are in common use throughout
Christendom. He produced a single verse that has hardly been surpassed
in all hymnology:

"Here in the body p