Joy, grief and care shall be The year 1856, in the life of Mrs. Prentiss, was overshadowed by clouds of anxiety and distress. It was a time of great bodily suffering and she was likewise passing through sharp spiritual conflicts. Her best-known hymn, "More Love to Thee, O Christ," written in this year, reflects in a number of its lines the experience of those trying days. Dr. Prentiss says of it: "Like most of her hymns, it is simply a prayer put into the form of verse. She wrote it so hastily that the last stanza was left incomplete, one line having been added in pencil when it was printed. She did not show it, not even to her husband, until many years after it was written; and she wondered not a little that, when published, it met with so much favor." It is sung to-day wherever the English language is spoken, and it has been translated into foreign tongues, including the Arabic and Chinese. On that beautiful day in August, 1878, just as the sun was setting, when a company of friends were gathered about the open grave of this sainted woman, it was very fitting that at the close of the service they should sing this hymn, which was not only the supreme cry of her own soul, but which has voiced the eager yearning of an unnumbered multitude of fellowdisciples: "More love to thee, O Christ, More love to thee! Hear thou the prayer I make, On bended knee; This is my earnest plea, More love, O Christ, to thee, More love to thee! "Once earthly joy I craved, Give what is best; This all my prayer shall be, More love to thee! "Let sorrow do its work, Send grief and pain; Sweet their refrain, When they can sing with me, More love, O Christ, to thee, "Then shall my latest breath My heart shall raise, This still its prayer shall be, More love to thee!" CHAPTER XXII HUNTER, EVEREST, WOLCOTT, MARCH, PHELPS, HOPPER, MRS. SLADE, MRS. THOMSON, GILMORE, GLADDEN, BABCOCK, SHURTLEFF WILLIAM HUNTER 1811-1877 "My heavenly home is bright and fair: THIS well-loved hymn, which for so many years multitudes of pilgrims to the City of the Great King have been singing with joyous hearts, was written in 1838. The author, Rev. William Hunter, D.D., was born in Ireland in 1811. He came to this country as a youth, entered the Methodist Episcopal ministry, taught for a time in Alleghany College, and for some years was editor of the Pittsburgh Christian Advocate. He wrote many hymns, though this is the only one now in use. He was a member of the committee of twelve appointed by the General Conference of 1876 to revise the Church Hymnal, and he lived to practically complete |