ent
Absent from Him I roam.
Yet nightly pitch my moving-tent,
A day's march nearer home."

Hymnology has known no denominational barriers. While Toplady was an
Episcopalian, Wesley a Methodist. Newman and Faber Roman Catholics,
Montgomery a Moravian, and Bonar a Presbyterian, the magnificent hymn,

"In the cross of Christ I glory,"

was written by a Unitarian. I had the great satisfaction of meeting its
author, Sir John Bowring, at a public dinner in London during the summer
of 1872. A fresh, handsome veteran he was, too--tall and straight as a
ramrod, and exceedingly winsome in his manners. He had been famous as
the editor of the _Westminster Review_ and quite famous in civil life,
for he was a member of the British Parliament and once had been the
Governor of Hong Kong. He produced several volumes, but will owe his
immortality to half a dozen superb hymns. Of these the best is "In the
cross of Christ I glory"; but we also owe to him that fine missionary
hymn,

"Watchman, tell us of the night"

He told my Presbyterian friend, Dr. Harper, in China, that the first
time he ever heard it sung was at a prayer meeting of American
missionaries in Turkey. Sir John died about four months after I had met
him, at the ripe age of eighty, and on his monument is inscribed only
this single appropriate line, "In the cross of Christ I glory."

The first time I ever saw Dr. Horatius Bonar was in May, 1872, when I
was attending the Free Church General Assembly of Scotland as a delegate
from the Presbyterian Church in the United States. A warm discussion was
going on in the Assembly anent proposals of union with the U.P. body,
and the Anti-Unionists sat together on the left hand of the Moderator's
chair. In the third row sat a short, broad-shouldered man with noble
forehead and soft dark eyes. But behind that benign countenance was a
spirit as pugnacious in ecclesiastical controversy as that of the Roman
Horatius "who kept the bridge in the brave days of old." I was glad to
be introduced to him, for I was an enthusiastic admirer of his hymns,
and I had a personal affection for his brother, Andrew, the author of
the delightful "Life of M'Cheyne." Although Horatius had won his
world-wide fame as a composer of hymns, he was, at that time, stoutly
opposed to the use of anything but the old Scotch version of the Psalms
in church worship. During my address to the Assembly I said: "We
Presbyterians in America sing the