ement and
phrase the great song-dialogue. Words and music together, the piece
ranks with the foremost missionary lyrics. Like the greater Mason-Heber
world-song, it has acquired no arbitrary name, appearing in Mason's own
tune-books under its first hymn-line and likewise in many others. A few
hymnals have named it "Bowring," (and why not?) and some later ones
simply "Watchman."

1.
Watchman, tell us of the night.
What its signs of promise are!
(Antistrophe)
Traveler, on yon mountain height.
See that glory-beaming star!

2
Watchman, does its beauteous ray
Aught of hope or joy foretell?
(Antistrophe)
Trav'ler, yes; it brings the day,
Promised day of Israel.

3
Watchman, tell us of the night;
Higher yet that star ascends.
(Antistrophe)
Trav'ler, blessedness and light
Peace and truth its course portends.

4
Watchman, will its beams alone
Gild the spot that gave them birth?
(Antistrophe)
Trav'ler, ages are its own.
See! it bursts o'er all the earth.

"YE CHRISTIAN HERALDS, GO PROCLAIM."

In some versions "Ye Christian _heroes_," etc.

Professor David R. Breed attributes this stirring hymn to Mrs. Vokes (or
Voke) an English or Welsh lady, who is supposed to have written it
somewhere near 1780, and supports the claim by its date of publication
in _Missionary and Devotional Hymns_ at Portsea, Wales, in 1797. In this
Dr. Breed follows (he says) "the accepted tradition." On the other hand
the _Coronation Hymnal_ (1894) refers the authorship to a Baptist
minister, the Rev. Bourne Hall Draper, of Southampton (Eng.), born 1775,
and this choice has the approval of Dr. Charles Robinson. The question
occurs whether, when the hymn was published in good faith as Mrs.
Vokes', it was really the work of a then unknown youth of twenty-two.

The probability is that the hymn owns a mother instead of a father--and
a grand hymn it is; one of the most stimulating in Missionary
song-literature.

The stanza--

God shield you with a wall of fire!
With flaming zeal your breasts inspire;
Bid raging winds their fury cease,
And hush the tumult into peace,

--has been tampered with by editors, altering the last line to "Calm the
troubled seas," etc., (for the sake of the longer vowel;) but the
substitution, "_He'll_ shield you," etc., in the first line,