The Story of the Hymns and Tunes, page 29 by Theron Brown
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tiful symphonies which placed him among the foremost in that class of music. Invited to England, he received the Doctor's degree at Oxford, and composed his great oratorio of "The Creation," besides his "Twelve Grand Symphonies," and a long list of minor musical works secular and sacred. His invention was inexhaustible.
Haydn seems to have been a sincerely pious man. When writing his great oratorio of "The Creation" at sixty-seven years of age, "I knelt down every day," he says, "and prayed God to strengthen me for my work." This daily spiritual preparation was similar to Handel's when he was creating his "Messiah." Change one word and it may be said of sacred music as truly as of astronomy, "The undevout composer is mad."
Near Haydn's death, in Vienna, 1809, when he heard for the last time his magnificent chorus, "Let there be Light!" he exclaimed, "Not mine, not mine. It all came to me from above."
"NOW TO THE LORD A NOBLE SONG."
When Watts finished this hymn he had achieved a "noble song," whether he was conscious of it or not; and it deserves a foremost place, where it can help future worshippers in their praise as it has the past. It is not so common in the later hymnals, but it is imperishable, and still later collections will not forget it.
Now to the Lord a noble song, Awake my soul, awake my tongue! Hosanna to the Eternal Name, And all His boundless love proclaim.
See where it shines in Jesus' face, The brightest image of His grace! God in the person of His Son Has all His mightiest works outdone.
A rather finical question has occurred to some minds as to the theology of the word "works" in the last line, making the second person in the Godhead apparently a creature; and in a few hymn-books the previous line has been made to read--
God in the Gospel of His Son.
But the question is a rhetorical one, and the poet's free expression--here as in hundreds of other cases--has never disturbed the general confidence in his orthodoxy.
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