Your Mission," sung to a similar audience, on a similar occasion, by
the same man, that a possible confusion by the narrators of the incident
has been suggested. But that Mr. Phillips sang twice before the
President during the war does not appear to be contradicted. To what air
he sang the above verses is uncertain.]

The poem has fourteen stanzas, the following being the first and two
last--

Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passeth from life to rest in the grave.

* * * * *

Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together like sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other like surge upon surge.

'Tis the wink of an eye; 'tis the draft of a breath
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

Philip Phillips was born in Jamestown, Chautauqua Co., N.Y., Aug. 11,
1834, and died in Delaware, O., June 25, 1895. He wrote no hymns and was
not an educated musician, but the airs of popular hymn-music came to him
and were harmonized for him by others, most frequently by his friends,
S.J. Vail and Hubert P. Main. He compiled and published thirty-one
collections for Sunday-schools and gospel meetings, besides the
_Methodist Hymn and Tune Book_, issued in 1866.

He was a pioneer gospel singer, and his tuneful journeys through
America, England and Australia gave him the name of the "Singing
Pilgrim," the title of his song collection (1867).

"WHEN ISRAEL OF THE LORD BELOVED."

The "Song of Rebecca the Jewess," in "Ivanhoe," was written by Sir
Walter Scott, author of the Waverly Novels, "Marmion," etc., born in
Edinburgh, 1771, and died at Abbotsford, 1832. The lines purport to be
the Hebrew hymn with which Rebecca closed her daily devotions while in
prison under sentence of death.

When Israel of the Lord beloved
Out of the land of bondage came
Her fathers' God before her moved,
An awful Guide in smoke and flame.

* * * * *

Then rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answered keen,
And Zion's daughters poured their lays.
With priest's and warrior's voice between.