her up, as no doubt he would prefer to put it, from musical to straight
comedy.

Apropos of Wilson's beginnings, a well-known writer on dramatic topics was
"reminiscing" some time since, and recalled the wigging he had received in
his early days--along in '72 or '73--when he was a very young city editor
of the Buffalo _Evening Post_. He had gone to Dan Shelby's Terrace
Theater, and devoted considerable space the next day to praising the work
of two men who took part in the variety show there current, and it was for
this eulogy he had been called down by his chief. One of the men was
Denman Thompson, who was using "Uncle Josh" in its crude, one-act form;
the other was Francis Wilson, who was doubling song and dance with Jimmie
Mackin.

TWO IMMORTAL HYMNS.

Interesting Stories of the Origin of World-famous Sacred Lyrics Which Have
Been Sung in Every Country on the Globe.

The two favorite hymns, "Lead, Kindly Light," and "Abide With Me," were
each written in circumstances which lend them peculiar significance. In
1833 John Henry Newman, afterward Cardinal Newman, left England in extreme
ill-health. "My servant thought I was dying," he relates, "and begged for
my last directions. I gave them as he wished; but I said: 'I shall not
die, for I have not sinned against light, I have not sinned against
light!' I never have been able to make out at all what I meant." This was
just before he started upon his journey. He was still in a very feeble
state, suffering from bodily weakness and mental depression, when one June
evening he was becalmed in an orange-boat on the Mediterranean, in sight
of Garibaldi's home on the island of Caprera. As he lay there he composed
the beautiful hymn "Lead, Kindly Light."

Did the language of his fevered mind flash back upon him as he saw the
shore lights on Caprera? The lights led the boat safely to harbor, and he
returned to England. The mental darkness with which he had been struggling
also cleared for him, for it was just after his return that the Oxford
Movement began. He was a leader in that movement until he went over to the
Church of Rome in 1845.

Henry Francis Lyte, curate of Brixham, in Devonshire, England, from 1823
until his death, in 1847, wrote many "hymns for his little ones, and hymns
for his hardy fishermen, and hymns for sufferers like himself." His health
declined as the years passed, and it was seen that the climate of the
Devon coast was too harsh for his frail con