most profound teachers in the world," and from their words she caught the inspiration to write some of her later, and possibly her finer hymns. How many of her compositions will survive the disaster that comes to numerous gospel songs which are kept afloat for a few years only by "catchy" tunes, cannot be conjectured; but the late Dr. Lowry, who edited a volume of Mrs. Van Alstyne's poems in 1897, thinks it is safe to say that "of the hymns which have come up from the throbbings of her heart, there will be found in the ultimate sifting no inconsiderable number that the world will not willingly let die."

It is strange in a sense that the simplest of all her songs, Safe in the Arms of Jesus, is her favorite, and perhaps it is the most popular. But the tune, which was composed by Dr. Doane on a railway train, has greatly stimulated the circulation of the song. The air, it is said, was played at the funeral of President Garfield; and it was the favorite air with the band. at the funeral of General Grant on the seventh of August, 1885.

But Rescue the Perishing is no doubt Mrs. Van Alstyne's most powerful song in mission enterprises, and has rescued many a life from wretchedness and crime. And Mr. Stead says that in 1885, in the outburst of public feeling in England that followed the publication of The Maiden Tribute, Rescue the Perishing was the hymn that was always sung at every public meeting in connection with that agitation.

In all the treasure-house of gospel songs there

cannot be found a more tender, heart-felt prayer

than the hymn,

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!

It was written by Mrs. Elizabeth Payson Prentiss, born in Portland, Maine, in 1818. In 1845 she became the wife of Professor George Lewis Prentiss, a Presbyterian minister, but for many years a teacher of pastoral theology in Union Theological Seminary, New York city. She was a voluminous writer, and the reader has not forgotten her Stepping Heavenward, which reached a sale of over 200,000 copies in the United States, and in a translated form had a wide circulation in foreign lands. From early womanhood Mrs. Prentiss was invalided, and died in the height of her literary fame in 1878.

It is by one hymn that her name will be perpetuated. It is one of the many beautiful prayers in verse that have flowed from the great heart of woman, and will long remain one of the precious treasures of the Church. The date of the hymn is probably 1856, a year that was full of keen suffering and "of sharp conflicts of soul, and of peace and joy." Sorrow after sorrow came to her which brought many "careworn days and sleepless nights;" and out of this trying experience came this hymn-prayer as a minis