,
From the cross the radiance streaming
Adds new lustre to the day.

Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure
By the cross are sanctified,
Peace is there that knows no measure,
Joys that through all time abide.

_THE TUNE._

Ithamar Conkey's "Rathbun" fits the adoring words as if they had waited
for it. Its air, swelling through diatonic fourth and third to the
supreme syllable, bears on its waves the homage of the lines from bar to
bar till the four voices come home to rest full and satisfied in the
final chord--

Gathers round its head sublime.

Ithamar Conkey, was born of Scotch ancestry, in Shutesbury, Mass., May
5th, 1815. He was a noted bass singer, and was for a long time connected
with the choir of the Calvary church, New York City, and sang the
oratorio solos. His tune of "Rathbun" was composed in 1847, and
published in Greatorex's collection in 1851. He died in Elizabeth, N.J.,
April 30, 1867.

CHAPTER III.

HYMNS OF CHRISTIAN DEVOTION AND EXPERIENCE.

"JESU DULCIS MEMORIA."

"Jesus the Very Thought of Thee."

The original of this delightful hymn is one of the devout meditations of
Bernard of Clairvaux, a Cistercian monk (1091-1153). He was born of a
noble family in or near Dijon, Burgundy, and when only twenty-three
years old established a monastery at Clairvaux, France, over which he
presided as its first abbot. Educated in the University of Paris, and
possessing great natural abilities, he soon made himself felt in both
the religious and political affairs of Europe. For more than thirty
years he was the personal power that directed belief, quieted
turbulence, and arbitrated disputes, and kings and even popes sought his
counsel. It was his eloquent preaching that inspired the second crusade.

His fine poem of feeling, in fifty Latin stanzas, has been a source of
pious song in several languages:

Jesu, dulcis memoria
Dans vera cordi gaudia,
Sed super mel et omnium
Ejus dulcis presentia.

Literally--

Jesus! a sweet memory
Giving true joys to the heart,
But sweet above honey and all things
His _presence_ [is].

The five stanzas (of Caswall's free translation) now in use are familiar
and dear to all English-speaking believers:

Jesus, the very thought of Thee
With sweetness fills my breast,
But sweeter far Thy face to see,
And in Thy presence rest.

Nor voice can sing no