hymns are cited as having biographical or reminiscent
color. The stanza in--

When I can read my title clear,

--which reads in the original copy,--

Should earth against my soul engage
And _hellish darts be hurled_,
Then I can smile at _Satan's rage_
And face a frowning world,

--is said to have been an allusion to Voltaire and his attack upon the
church, while the calm beauty of the harbor within view of his home is
supposed to have been in his eye when he composed the last stanza,--

There shall I bathe my weary soul
In seas of heavenly rest,
And not a wave of trouble roll
Across my peaceful breast.

According to the record,--

What shall the dying sinner do?

--was one of his "pulpit hymns," and followed a sermon preached from
Rom. 1:16. Another,--

And is this life prolonged to you?

--after a sermon from 1 Cor. 3:22; and another,--

How vast a treasure we possess,

--enforced his text, "All things are yours." The hymn,--

Not all the blood of beasts
On Jewish altars slain,

--was, as some say, suggested to the writer by a visit to the abattoir
in Smithfield Market. The same hymn years afterwards, discovered, we are
told, in a printed paper wrapped around a shop bundle, converted a
Jewess, and influenced her to a life of Christian faith and sacrifice.

A young man, hardened by austere and minatory sermons, was melted, says
Dr. Belcher, by simply reading,--

Show pity Lord, O Lord, forgive,
Let a repenting sinner live.

--and became partaker of a rich religious experience.

The summer scenery of Southampton, with its distant view of the Isle of
Wight, was believed to have inspired the hymnist sitting at a parlor
window and gazing across the river Itchen, to write the stanza--

Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand drest in living green;
So to the Jews old Canaan stood
While Jordan rolled between.

The hymn, "Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb," was personal, addressed by
Watts "to Lucius on the death of Seneca."

A severe heart-trial was the occasion of another hymn. When a young man
he proposed marriage to Miss Elizabeth Singer, a much-admired young
lady, talented, beautiful, and good. She rejected him--kindly but
finally. The disappointment was bitter, and in the first shadow of it he
wrote,--

How vain are all things here below,
How false and yet how fair.

Miss Singer became the