cerning the hymn: "It was born in my heart and demanded expression." The popular account of the first publication of the hymn in the United States, is, that about two years after it was written, Mr. Palmer met Dr. Lowell Mason on a street in Boston, when the composer remarked that he was engaged in compiling a Church music book, and requested him to furnish some lines for the work. Mr. Palmer then thought of the hymn he had written over two years before, and took it from his pocket, and when Dr. Mason read it he made the prophetic remark that the hymn would be sung around the world; and he ventured another prophecy, that whatever great things Mr. Palmer might do in his lifetime, his fame would still rest upon that hymn. Dr. Mason composed Olivet for the hymn, and to this setting the words are sung in all gospel lands. Professor Austin Phelps, father of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, when speaking of the singular conditions that sometimes start a hymn around the globe, says: "One of those fleeting conjunctions of circumstances and men! The doctor of music and future doctor of theology are thrown together in the roaring thoroughfare of commerce for a brief interview, scarcely more than enough for a morning salutation; and the sequence is the publication of a Christian lyric which is to be sung around the world." The fiftieth anniversary of the marriage of Dr. Palmer to Miss Ann M. Ward of New York, was celebrated in 1882. Some of the greatest minds in the land attended the golden wedding, and among these who spoke words befitting the delightful occasion was the late Dr. Richard S. Storrs, who said: "The grandest privilege which God ever gives to His children upon earth, and which He gives to comparatively few, is to write a noble Christian hymn, to be accepted by the Churches, to be sung by reverent and loving hearts in different lands and different tongues, and which still shall be sung as the future opens its brightening centuries. Such a hymn brings him to whom it is given into most intimate sympathy with the Master, and with the more sensitive and devout spirits of every time." In connection with the spiritual use of the hymn, this story, though old, is still interesting. Mrs. Layyath Baraket, a native of Syria, who was educated in the mission schools at Beirut, went as a teacher to Egypt, where she made much use of My Faith Looks up to Thee. By the insurrection of Arabi Pasha in 1882, she was driven out of that country, and with her husband and child came to the United States. "Her history is a strange illustration of God's providential care, as they were without any friends in Philadelphia, where they landed." During her visit in America Mrs. Baraket made many public addresses and attracted large audiences. Her talks on missionary efforts in Syria and Egypt were rich in practical and interesting incidents and illustrations. She had been permitted to see her whole family, who were Maronites of Mt. Lebanon, converted to Christianity. Her mother, at the age of sixty-two, was taught to sing an Arabic translation of Dr. Palmer's hymn; and in 1884, when she received the news that her daughter had reached the United States in safety and was kindly received, she responded by simply repeating the words of this hymn. In the evening before one of the terrible battles of the Wilderness during the Civil War, eight young men who were warmly attached to each other by the ties of Christian comradeship, held a prayer-meeting. A great battle was imminent, and it seemed improbable that all of them would survive the conflict. Before separating for the night, they wrote an expression of their feelings on a sheet of paper. It was in fact, a death pledge; and was to remain as evidence of their Christian faith should they fall in battle. The words to which all the brave young men subscribed their names were those of the hymn, My Faith Looks up to Thee. The battle on the morrow went hard with the regiment to which these eight soldiers of the Cross and the Union belonged, and seven of them fell before the blazing discharge of shot and shell of the enemy. Dr. Palmer wrote many hymns, and although he produced nothing else that equals that on faith, several of them are extensively used in this country and Great Britain. Some of his translations have gained international fame. The finest English rendering of the beautiful hymn by Gregory the Great, |