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The better portion
Author: Robert Seagrave Appears in 807 hymnals Topics: Pleasures; Pleasures First Line: Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings Lyrics: 1 Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings,
Thy better portion trace;
Rise from transitory things
Toward heaven, thy native place:
Sun and moon and stars decay;
Time shall soon this earth remove;
Rise, my soul, and haste away
To seats prepared above.
2 Rivers to the ocean run,
Nor stay in all their course;
Fire ascending seeks the sun;
Both speed them to their source:
So a soul that's born of God,
Pants to view his glorious face;
Upward tends to his abode,
To rest in his embrace.
3 Cease, ye pilgrims, cease to mourn,
Press onward to the prize;
Soon our Saviour will return
Triumphant in the skies:
Yet a season, and you know
Happy entrance will be given,
All our sorrows left below,
And earth exchanged for heaven. Used With Tune: AMSTERDAM
The better portion
Deut. 30:19
Author: James Montgomery Appears in 646 hymnals Topics: Pleasures; Pleasures First Line: Oh, where shall rest be found Lyrics: 1 Oh, where shall rest be found
Rest for the weary soul?
'Twere vain the ocean's depths to sound,
Or pierce to either pole.
2 The world can never give
The bliss for which we sigh:
'Tis not the whole of life to live,
Nor all of death to die.
3 Beyond this vale of tears
There is a life above,
Unmeasured by the flight of years;
And all that life is love.
4 There is a death whose pang
Outlasts the fleeting breath:
Oh, what eternal horrors hang
Around the second death!
5 Lord God of truth and grace!
Teach us that death to shun;
Lest we be banished from thy face,
And evermore undone. Used With Tune: SHAWMUT
Deut. 30:19
One thing needful
Author: Doddridge Appears in 203 hymnals Topics: Worldly Pleasures First Line: Why will ye waste on trifling cares Used With Tune: BERA
One thing needful
Time and Eternity; or, longing after unseen Pleasures
Author: Steele Hymnal: A Selection of Hymns #DXLVI (1792) Meter: 8.6.8.6 Topics: Unseen pleasures longed for First Line: How long shall earth's alluring toys Lyrics: 1 How long shall earth's alluring toys
Detain our hearts and eyes,
Regardless of immortal joys,
And strangers to the skies?
2 These transient scenes will soon decay,
They fade upon the sight;
And quickly will their brightest day
Be lost in endless night.
3 Their brightest day, alas, how vain!
With conscious sighs we own;
While clouds of sorrow, care and pain
O'ershade the smiling noon.
4 O could our thoughts and wishes fly,
Above these gloomy shades,
To those bright worlds beyond the sky
Which sorrow ne'er invades.
5 There joys unseen by mortal eyes,
Or reason's feeble ray,
In ever blooming prospects rise,
Unconscious of decay.
6 Lord, send a beam of light divine,
To guide our upward aim!
With one reviving touch of thine,
Our languid hearts inflame.
7 Then shall, on faith's sublimest wing
Our ardent wishes rise
To those bright scenes, where pleasures spring
Immortal in the skies. Languages: English
Time and Eternity; or, longing after unseen Pleasures
If life's pleasures charm thee, give them not thy heart
Hymnal: Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Original and Selected, for the Use of Christians. (5th ed.) #B290 (1838) Meter: 11.8.7 Topics: If life's pleasures charm thee Languages: English
If life's pleasures charm thee, give them not thy heart
The pleasures of social Worship
Author: Dr. S. Stennett Hymnal: A Selection of Hymns #CCCXLI (1792) Meter: 6.6.8.6 Topics: Pleasures of Worship First Line: How charming is the place Lyrics: 1 How charming is the place
Where my Redeemer God,
Unveils the beauties of his face,
And sheds his love abroad!
2 Not the fair palaces
To which the great resort
Are once to be compar'd with this,
Where Jesus holds his court.
3 Here on the mercy-seat,
With radiant glory crown'd,
Our joyful eyes behold him sit,
And smile on all around.
4 To him their prayers and cries
Each humble soul presents;
He listens to their broken sighs,
And grants them all their wants.
5 To them his sovereign will
He graciously imparts:
And in return accepts with smiles,
The tribute of their hearts.
6 Give me, O Lord, a place
Within thy blest abode,
Among the children of thy grace,
The servants of my God. Languages: English
The pleasures of social Worship
Lowell Mason
1792 - 1872 Topics: Pleasures; Pleasures Composer of "SHAWMUT" in Laudes Domini Dr. Lowell Mason (the degree was conferred by the University of New York) is justly called the father of American church music; and by his labors were founded the germinating principles of national musical intelligence and knowledge, which afforded a soil upon which all higher musical culture has been founded. To him we owe some of our best ideas in religious church music, elementary musical education, music in the schools, the popularization of classical chorus singing, and the art of teaching music upon the Inductive or Pestalozzian plan. More than that, we owe him no small share of the respect which the profession of music enjoys at the present time as contrasted with the contempt in which it was held a century or more ago. In fact, the entire art of music, as now understood and practiced in America, has derived advantage from the work of this great man.
Lowell Mason was born in Medfield, Mass., January 8, 1792. From childhood he had manifested an intense love for music, and had devoted all his spare time and effort to improving himself according to such opportunities as were available to him. At the age of twenty he found himself filling a clerkship in a banking house in Savannah, Ga. Here he lost no opportunity of gratifying his passion for musical advancement, and was fortunate to meet for the first time a thoroughly qualified instructor, in the person of F. L. Abel. Applying his spare hours assiduously to the cultivation of the pursuit to which his passion inclined him, he soon acquired a proficiency that enabled him to enter the field of original composition, and his first work of this kind was embodied in the compilation of a collection of church music, which contained many of his own compositions. The manuscript was offered unavailingly to publishers in Philadelphia and in Boston. Fortunately for our musical advancement it finally secured the attention of the Boston Handel and Haydn Society, and by its committee was submitted to Dr. G. K. Jackson, the severest critic in Boston. Dr. Jackson approved most heartily of the work, and added a few of his own compositions to it. Thus enlarged, it was finally published in 1822 as The Handel and Haydn Society Collection of Church Music. Mason's name was omitted from the publication at his own request, which he thus explains, "I was then a bank officer in Savannah, and did not wish to be known as a musical man, as I had not the least thought of ever making music a profession." President Winchester, of the Handel and Haydn Society, sold the copyright for the young man. Mr. Mason went back to Savannah with probably $500 in his pocket as the preliminary result of his Boston visit.
The book soon sprang into universal popularity, being at once adopted by the singing schools of New England, and through this means entering into the church choirs, to whom it opened up a higher field of harmonic beauty. Its career of success ran through some seventeen editions. On realizing this success, Mason determined to accept an invitation to come to Boston and enter upon a musical career. This was in 1826. He was made an honorary member of the Handel and Haydn Society, but declined to accept this, and entered the ranks as an active member. He had been invited to come to Boston by President Winchester and other musical friends and was guaranteed an income of $2,000 a year. He was also appointed, by the influence of these friends, director of music at the Hanover, Green, and Park Street churches, to alternate six months with each congregation. Finally he made a permanent arrangement with the Bowdoin Street Church, and gave up the guarantee, but again friendly influence stepped in and procured for him the position of teller at the American Bank.
In 1827 Lowell Mason became president and conductor of the Handel and Haydn Society. It was the beginning of a career that was to win for him as has been already stated the title of "The Father of American Church Music." Although this may seem rather a bold claim it is not too much under the circumstances. Mr. Mason might have been in the average ranks of musicianship had he lived in Europe; in America he was well in advance of his surroundings. It was not too high praise (in spite of Mason's very simple style) when Dr. Jackson wrote of his song collection: "It is much the best book I have seen published in this country, and I do not hesitate to give it my most decided approbation," or that the great contrapuntist, Hauptmann, should say the harmonies of the tunes were dignified and churchlike and that the counterpoint was good, plain, singable and melodious.
Charles C. Perkins gives a few of the reasons why Lowell Mason was the very man to lead American music as it then existed. He says, "First and foremost, he was not so very much superior to the members as to be unreasonably impatient at their shortcomings. Second, he was a born teacher, who, by hard work, had fitted himself to give instruction in singing. Third, he was one of themselves, a plain, self-made man, who could understand them and be understood of them."
The personality of Dr. Mason was of great use to the art and appreciation of music in this country. He was of strong mind, dignified manners, sensitive, yet sweet and engaging.
Prof. Horace Mann, one of the great educators of that day, said he would walk fifty miles to see and hear Mr. Mason teach if he could not otherwise have that advantage.
Dr. Mason visited a number of the music schools in Europe, studied their methods, and incorporated the best things in his own work. He founded the Boston Academy of Music. The aim of this institution was to reach the masses and introduce music into the public schools. Dr. Mason resided in Boston from 1826 to 1851, when he removed to New York. Not only Boston benefited directly by this enthusiastic teacher's instruction, but he was constantly traveling to other societies in distant cities and helping their work. He had a notable class at North Reading, Mass., and he went in his later years as far as Rochester, where he trained a chorus of five hundred voices, many of them teachers, and some of them coming long distances to study under him. Before 1810 he had developed his idea of "Teachers' Conventions," and, as in these he had representatives from different states, he made musical missionaries for almost the entire country. He left behind him no less than fifty volumes of musical collections, instruction books, and manuals.
As a composer of solid, enduring church music. Dr. Mason was one of the most successful this country has introduced. He was a deeply pious man, and was a communicant of the Presbyterian Church. Dr. Mason in 1817 married Miss Abigail Gregory, of Leesborough, Mass. The family consisted of four sons, Daniel Gregory, Lowell, William and Henry. The two former founded the publishing house of Mason Bros., dissolved by the death of the former in 19G9. Lowell and Henry were the founders of the great organ manufacturer of Mason & Hamlin. Dr. William Mason was one of the most eminent musicians that America has yet produced.
Dr. Lowell Mason died at "Silverspring," a beautiful residence on the side of Orange Mountain, New Jersey, August 11, 1872, bequeathing his great musical library, much of which had been collected abroad, to Yale College.
--Hall, J. H. (c1914). Biographies of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company.
Lowell Mason
George Duffield
1818 - 1888 Person Name: Rev. George Duffield, Jr., 1818-1888 Topics: Earthly Pleasures Author of "Blessed Saviour, thee I love" in Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church Duffield, George, Jr., D.D., son of the Rev. Dr. Duffield, a Presbyterian Minister, was born at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Sept. 12, 1818, and graduated at Yale College, and at the Union Theological Seminary, New York. From 1840 to 1847 he was a Presbyterian Pastor at Brooklyn; 1847 to 1852, at Bloomfield, New Jersey; 1852 to 1861, at Philadelphia; 1861 to 1865, at Adrian, Michigan; 1865 to 1869, at Galesburg, Illinois; 1869, at Saginaw City, Michigan; and from 1869 at Ann Arbor and Lansing, Michigan. His hymns include;—
1. Blessed Saviour, Thee I love. Jesus only. One of four hymns contributed by him to Darius E. Jones's Temple Melodies, 1851. It is in 6 stanzas of 6 lines. In Dr. Hatfield's Church Hymnbook it is given in 3 stanzas. The remaining three hymns of the same date are:—
2. Parted for some anxious days. Family Hymn.
3. Praise to our heavenly Father, God. Family Union.
4. Slowly in sadness and in tears. Burial.
5. Stand up, stand up for Jesus. Soldiers of the Cross. The origin of this hymn is given in Lyra Sac. Americana, 1868, p. 298, as follows:—
"I caught its inspiration from the dying words of that noble young clergyman, Rev. Dudley Atkins Tyng, rector of the Epiphany Church, Philadelphia, who died about 1854. His last words were, ‘Tell them to stand up for Jesus: now let us sing a hymn.' As he had been much persecuted in those pro-slavery days for his persistent course in pleading the cause of the oppressed, it was thought that these words had a peculiar significance in his mind; as if he had said, ‘Stand up for Jesus in the person of the downtrodden slave.' (Luke v. 18.)"
Dr. Duffield gave it, in 1858, in manuscript to his Sunday School Superintendent, who published it on a small handbill for the children. In 1858 it was included in The Psalmist, in 6 stanzas of 8 lines. It was repeated in several collections and in Lyra Sac. Amer., 1868, from whence it passed, sometimes in an abbreviated form, into many English collections. [Rev. F. M. Bird, M.A.]
- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
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Hymn Writers of the Church
George Duffield
E. Prentiss
1818 - 1878 Person Name: Elizabeth P. Prentiss, 1818-1878 Topics: Earthly Pleasures Author of "More love to thee, O Christ!" in Hymnal and Liturgies of the Moravian Church Elizabeth Payson Prentiss USA 1818-1878. Born at Portland, ME, 5th child of Congregationalist minister, Edward Payson. He died of tuberculosis in 1827, and the family moved to New York City in 1831. That year she professed faith in Christ and joined the Bleeker Street Presbyterian Church. She possessed keen abilities, including sympathy and perceptiveness. She began writing stories and poems, and contributed her works to “The youth’s companion”, a New England religious periodical. In 1838 she opened a small girls’ school in her home and took up a Sabbath-school class as well. Two years later, she moved to Richmond, VA, to be a department head at a girls’ boarding school. In 1845 she married George Lewis Prentiss, a brother of her close friend, Anna Prentiss Stearns. The Prentisses settled in New Bedford, MA, where George became pastor of South Trinitarian Church. In 1851 George became pastor of Mercer St Presbyterian Church in New York City. After a happy period in life, by 1852 she had lost two of her three children, one as a newborn, one at age four. However, she went on to have three more healthy children, despite her poor health. She wrote her first book of stories, published in 1853. In 1856 she penned her famous hymn lyrics (noted below) after she nearly lost her daughter, Minnie, to an illness. After George resigned from his church due to failing health, the family went abroad for a couple of years. In 1860 they returned to NY, where George resumed his pastorate and held a chair at Union Theological Seminary. She published her most popular book, “Stepping heavenward” in 1869, furnishing it in installments to ‘Chicago Advance’. The family evenually settled in Dorset, VT, where she died. After her death, her husband published “The life and letters of Elizabeth Prentiss” in 1882. The family children were: Annie, Eddy, Bessie, Minnie, George, and Henry.
John Perry
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Prentiss, Elizabeth, née Payson, youngest daughter of Dr. Edward Payson, was born at Portland, Maine, Oct. 26, 1818; married to George Lewis Prentiss, D.D., then at Bedford, Massachusetts, April, 1845; and died at Dorset, Vermont, Aug. 13, 1878. Her Life and Letters by her husband appeared some time after. Dr. Prentiss removed from Bedford to New York in 1851, and was appointed Professor of Pastoral Theology at Union Seminary, New York, 1873. Mrs. Prentiss's works include The Flower of the Family; Stepping Heavenward, 1869; and Religious Poems, 1873. Of her hymns the two following are most widely known:—
1. As on a vast eternal shore Thanksgiving. Contributed to Schaff's Christ in Song, 1869.
2. More love to Thee, 0 Christ. More Love to Christ desired. Written in 1869, and first printed on a fly-sheet; then in Hatfield's Church Hymn Book, N. Y., 1872.
[Rev. F. M. Bird, M.A.]
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
E. Prentiss
