Ten thousand differing lips shall join Jesus! the friend of human kind, Exalted high at God's right hand, Through Him is pardoning love dispensed, And boundless blessings flow. And still for erring, guilty man And still His bleeding heart is touched With memory of our woes. To Thee, my Saviour and my King, And stand prepared, like Thee, to die, But perhaps Mrs. Barbauld's finest hymn. is that bearing the title, "The Death of the Virtuous." In all hymnals in which it is included, the hymn begins and ends with the line, "How blest the righteous when he dies." But this is not in the original. Nearly one hundred years ago, a hymn-tinker omitted Mrs. Barbauld's third stanza and substituted one of his Other changes were made in the hymn, and in this mutilated form it is in general use. I give the original, which is taken from Mrs. Barbauld's Works: own. Sweet is the scene when Virtue dies! How gently heaves the expiring breast. So sinks the gale when storms are o'er; Where lights and shades alternate dwell! Light from its load the spirit flies; This is a hymn of rare beauty in both sentiment and structure; and it appealed so strongly to the heart of Carlyle that William T. Stead says it was quoted by him in describing the death of Cromwell. About twelve years before the death of Mrs. Barbauld, she wrote a little poem on "Life," which commanded universal praise. It contains only twelve lines, and the portion that possesses a peculiar charm is this: Life! we've been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather. 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear Perhaps 't will cost a sigh, a tear; Then steal away; give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not good-night, but in some brighter clime, Bid me good-morning! Where in all the thousands of volumes of poetry can one go to find eight lines more exquisite than these? The poet Wordsworth won almost immortal fame by his own verse, but when he had committed to memory Mrs. Barbauld's stanza, he was heard to say, while in a nervous mood, “I wish I had written those lines." HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS TH HIS is an honored name in Christian hymnology. It is associated with only one hymn, but that one is found in all chief denominational and undenominational hymnals published in the United States during the past fifty years. Its author was born in England in 1762, but it is doubtful whether in London or at Berwick-on-Tweed. Miss Williams obtained a good education and was uncommonly bright and studious. She wrote acceptable poetry at an early age; when twenty years old she published her first book, and during the following thirty-five years was the most prolific and versatile writer among the women of her time. A sister of hers having married into a French Protestant family in Paris, Miss Williams made that city her home about 1790. She became an ardent supporter of the Girondins in the Revolution, and her enthusiasm in opposing the Jacobins led by Robespierre "amounted almost to frenzy." Her pen was always busy, and powerful. But the Jacobins finally became dominant in the government, the Reign of Terror quickly followed, and this led to the imprisonment of Miss Williams in the Temple, during which she came near suffering the terrible fate of so many of her political friends. After the fall of Robespierre by the guillotine in 1794, Miss Williams was released from prison. She visited the Bastile and was appalled at the evidences of how the Revolution had degenerated into shocking excesses. "These emblems of cruelty and traces of woe" at once changed her political course, and thereafter she became an avowed opponent of the principles and purposes that inspired the Revolution. She continued to make Paris her home, and died there in 1827. Miss Williams's writings covered a wide range-poetry, fiction, archæology, science, politics, and translations. Little is now known of the works which once gave her wide fame; but she made for herself a |