letter written to him by Dr. Nicolas S. Nimr, dated at Cairo, Egypt, February, 1902. The doctor is a Syrian, but joined the Egyptian army fifteen years ago as a medical officer. He says he can never forget the occasion when he first heard Mrs. Prentiss's hymn sung in Arabic at Beirut. He has lost none of the impression it made on his mind at that time; and whether in action or on hard marches, the singing of the hymn affords him great consolation. The letter also contained an account of a recent visit Mr. Sankey made to Cairo. He gave the people the pleasure. of hearing his voice in gospel song, and when he had concluded he expressed a wish to hear an Arabic hymn, and to the surprise and gratification of the singing evangelist, the Syrian doctor responded with his favorite, "More Love to Thee."

JULIA WARD HOWE

HE most famous war lyric ever writ

ΤΗ

ten by a woman woman is described by Rudyard Kipling as "the terrible Battle Hymn of the Republic." Much has been written about this wondrous song, but the story of its inspiration is still worth retelling, for if any lyric ever came spontaneously from the heart of a woman it is Mrs. Howe's "Battle Hymn."

Mrs. Howe's daughter, Florence Howe Hall, once told in "The Independent" the story of "The Building of a Nation's War Hymn." I can quote only a few lines from that part of the story which tells how the hymn was inspired :

"It was in December, 1861, that Mrs. Howe, in company with her husband, Governor and Mrs. Andrew, and other friends, visited Washington, itself almost in the condition of an armed camp. On their journey thither, the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps gleamed in the

darkness, the railroad being patrolled by pickets. Mrs. Howe has told of the martial sights and sounds in the national capital, and of her drive to a distance of several miles from the city to see a review of our troops. An attack of the enemy interrupted the programme, and the return drive was made through files of soldiers, who occupied almost the entire road. To beguile the tedium of their slow progress, Mrs. Howe and her friends sang army songs, among others, 'John Brown's Body.' This seemed to please the soldiers who surrounded them like a river, and who themselves took up the strain, in the interval crying, 'Good for you!' Our poet had often wished to write words to be sung to this tune, and now, indeed, had she 'read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel.'

The visit to the army of the Potomac gave Mrs. Howe a vision of the commotion of war, of lives sacrificed, and of the stress and agony of the government in its mortal grapple with rebellion. These scenes deeply touched her heart, which

throbbed in unison with the great heart of the nation; and in the following night she sprang from her bed and wrote the expression of her soul in these words of living power:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fateful lightnings of His terrible, swift sword:

His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred

circling camps;

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:

His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel;

"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;

Let the hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,

Since God is marching on."

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you

and me;

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

On Mrs. Howe's return to her home in Boston she showed the manuscript of the poem to James T. Fields, editor of "The Atlantic Monthly," and it was he who suggested the title "Battle Hymn of the Republic." It occupies a place on the first page of the February "Atlantic," 1862, and bears no signature, and no mention is made of its author. Mrs. Hall says that practical people may be interested in the fact that her mother received five dollars for her poem.