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"For lo! the days are hastening on
By prophet-bards foretold,
When with the ever-circling years
Comes round the age of gold;
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,

And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing."

JARED BELL WATERBURY

1799-1876

"Soldiers of the cross, arise!
Lo! your Leader from the skies
Waves before you glory's prize,
The prize of victory.
Seize your armor, gird it on;
Now the battle will be won;

See, the strife will soon be done;
Then struggle manfully.'

The militant hymn which opens with this stanza first appeared in the Christian Lyre, published by Joshua Leavitt in 1831. It was one of the choicest pieces in that collection and it has lived through all the years. Bishop Warren regarded it so highly that he included it among his "Fifty-Two Memory Hymns." It was written by Jared Bell Waterbury, who was born in New York City in 1799, and who became an eminently useful Congregational minister. He was the author of several hymns, most of them belonging to his early manhood, but he is chiefly remembered for his "Soldiers of the Cross."

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CHAPTER X

HASTINGS, MUHLENBERG

THOMAS HASTINGS

1784-1872

THOMAS HASTINGS, Doctor of Music, is gratefully remembered as the author of a multitude of hymns, more than six hundred in all, some of them of large merit; still more, as the composer of some of our very finest hymn-tunes; and most of all, for the steady, persistent, uncompromising and successful influence which he exerted in improving the standard of sacred music in America.

His career is an eloquent witness to what resolute endeavor can accomplish in the almost total absence of early opportunity. The son of a country physician, he was born in Litchfield County, Connecticut, in 1784. Twelve years later, in the depth of winter, the family migrated by sleigh and ox-sledge, to Clinton, New York. They were now on the frontier, with all the rigorous toil and hardship that such a life entailed. For eight months of the year school was unthought of; the farm demanded all the time and strength of every child old enough to work. When the

ice and snow came, the boy eagerly turned to his studies, gladly trudging six miles a day through cold and drifts for the sake of the coveted instruction. A passionate love for music was born in him, but what chance to cultivate it in that semiwilderness? His first text-book in music was a six-penny primer of four small pages; but he mastered it, and then persevered till he obtained something better. When he was admitted to the choir of the village church, and when at last the proud day came that he stepped forth as the chorister, he was elated beyond measure. Later on, he sought a position as teacher of a singing school, but more than a year passed before he found it, and it was not till 1816, at thirty-two years of age, that he ventured to finally cut loose from the farm and other means of support and devote himself exclusively to his loved profession. From that time till his death in 1872, his name was inseparably connected with the progress of sacred music in this country.

As a lecturer, as a writer of innumerable books and articles, and as the leader of many choirs, he constantly preached the doctrine that "religion has the same claim substantially in song as in speech." The homage that we owe Almighty God calls for the noblest and most reverential tribute that music can render. For several years he edited a religious journal, the Western Re

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