preach in 1766, Wartford in Hertfordshire being the first
scene of his godly labors. He died in Liverpool July 17, 1799, at the
end of a faithful ministry there of twenty-seven years. A small edition
of his hymns was published during his lifetime, in 1789.

O could I speak the matchless worth,
O could I sound the glories forth
Which in my Saviour shine,
I'd soar and touch the heavenly strings
And vie with Gabriel while he sings,
In notes almost divine!

_THE TUNE._

"Colebrook," a plain choral; but with a noble movement, by Henry Smart,
is the English music to this fine lyric, but Dr. Mason's "Ariel" is the
American favorite. It justifies its name, for it has wings--in both full
harmony and duet--and its melody feels the glory of the hymn at every
bar.

"ROCK OF AGES CLEFT FOR ME."

Augustus Montagu Toplady, author of this almost universal hymn, was born
at Farnham, Surrey, Eng., Nov. 4, 1740. Educated at Westminster School,
and Trinity College, Dublin, he took orders in the Established Church.
In his doctrinal debates with the Wesleys he was a harsh
controversialist; but his piety was sincere, and marked late in life by
exalted moods. Physically he was frail, and his fiery zeal wore out his
body. Transferred from his vicarage at Broad Hembury, Devonshire, to
Knightsbridge, London, at twenty-eight years of age, his health began to
fail before he was thirty-five, and in one of his periods of illness he
wrote--

When languor and disease invade
This trembling house of clay,
'Tis sweet to look beyond my pains
And long to fly away.

And the same homesickness for heaven appears under a different figure in
another hymn--

At anchor laid remote from home,
Toiling I cry, "Sweet Spirit, come!
Celestial breeze, no longer stay,
But swell my sails, and speed my way!"

Possessed of an ardent religious nature, his spiritual frames
exemplified in a notable degree the emotional side of Calvinistic piety.
Edward Payson himself, was not more enraptured in immediate view of
death than was this young London priest and poet. Unquestioning faith
became perfect certainty. As in the bold metaphor of "Rock of Ages," the
faith finds voice in--

A debtor to mercy alone,

--and other hymns in his collection of 1776, two years before the end
came. Most of this devout writing was done in his last days, and he
continued it as long as strength was left, until, on