a single line in one of them--

Love Divine, all loves excelling,

--thrills through them all. He led a spotless life from youth to old
age, and grew unceasingly in spiritual knowledge and sweetness. His
piety and purity were the weapons that alike humbled his scoffing fellow
scholars at Oxford, and conquered the wild colliers of Kingwood. With
his brother John, through persecution and ridicule, he preached and sang
that Divine Love to his countrymen and in the wilds of America, and on
their return to England his quenchless melodies multiplied till they
made an Evangelical literature around his name. His hymns--he wrote no
less than six thousand--are a liturgy not only for the Methodist Church
but for English-speaking Christendom.

The voices of Wesley and Watts cannot be hidden, whatever province of
Christian life and service is traversed in themes of song, and in these
chapters they will be heard again and again.

A Watts-and-Wesley Scholarship would grace any Theological Seminary, to
encourage the study and discussion of the best lyrics of the two great
Gospel bards.

_THE TUNES._

The musical mouth-piece of "O for a thousand tongues," nearest to its
own date, is old "Azmon" by Carl Glaser (1734-1829), appearing as No. 1
in the _New Methodist Hymnal_. Arranged by Lowell Mason, 1830, it is
still comparatively familiar, and the flavor of devotion is in its tone
and style.

Henry John Gauntlett, an English lawyer and composer, wrote a tune for
it in 1872, noble in its uniform step and time, but scarcely uttering
the hymnist's characteristic ardor.

The tune of "Dedham," by William Gardiner, now venerable but surviving
by true merit, is not unlike "Azmon" in movement and character. Though
less closely associated with the hymn, as a companion melody it is not
inappropriate. But whatever the range of vocalization or the dignity of
swells and cadences, a slow pace of single semibreves or quarters is not
suited to Wesley's hymns. They are flights.

Professor William Gardiner wrote many works on musical subjects early in
the last century, and composed vocal harmonies, secular and sacred. He
was born in Leicester, Eng., March 5, 1770, and died there Nov. 16,
1853.

There is an old-fashioned unction and vigor in the style of
"Peterborough" by Rev. Ralph Harrison (1748-1810) that after all best
satisfies the singer who enters heart and soul into the spirit of the
hymn. _Old Peterborough_ was composed in 1786.