would seek him out when busy with other things, “just to shake hands," as they said, "with the author of 'I Would Not Live Alway.'" He would be pointed out and introduced as "the author of the immortal hymn," "One would think that hymn the one work of my life," he used to say.

etc.

The exact date of the hymn is uncertain. In his Story of the Hymn it is given as 1824. Several of the dates there are wrong; but this one is perhaps correct. In regard to the circumstances, or experience, out of which the hymn grew, there has been and continues to be a conflict of opinion. The tradition has always been that it was occasioned by a great personal disappointment suffered by its author. Dr. Muhlenberg was well aware of this tradition, and in his Story of the Hymn took occasion to contradict it in the following terms: "The legend that it was written on an occasion of private grief is a fancy." However conclusive this may seem, it has not concluded the matter. The Rev. Frederick M. Bird, in his essay on the Hymnology of the Protestant Episcopal Church, goes so far as to say that Dr. Muhlenberg's assertion "hardly agrees with the clear and minute recollections of persons of the highest character still living, and who knew the circumstances thoroughly." Two remarks seem to be suggested by this statement. One is that the persons referred to may have "known thoroughly" Dr. Muhlenburg's situation at the time and the reality of his private grief, and yet would not seem to have been in a position so good as his for knowing the exact connection, or lack of it, between the grief and the hymn. The other remark is that while we too, if we had enjoyed the privilege of

knowing who the unnamed witnesses were, and of hearing or reading the exact words of their testimony, might have come to feel it more trustworthy than Dr. Muhlenberg's recollections after so many years; yet, in the absence of such opportunity, we feel ourselves bound by the explicit denial of the author himself. There will always, however, be many among the lovers of the hymn who believe the legend and not the assertion. The demand for a specifically romantic origin for every individual piece of verse for which one cares is unfailing. And in this case there is unhappily an apparent reality in the private grief in question, finding, as alleged, corroboration in the fact that Dr. Muhlenberg never married; there is even perhaps a coincidence in date between the sorrow and the hymn. Who but the author (and perhaps not he) could know how far his private grief had clouded the outlook of his muse upon time and the eternal?

For the next step in the history of the hymn, as related by Mr. Bird, the authority is more satisfying :

"It was written at Lancaster, in a lady's album, and began,

'I would not live alway. No, no, holy man.

Not a day, not an hour, should lengthen my span.'

In this shape it seems to have had six eight-line stanzas. The album was still extant in 1876, at Pottstown, Pa., and professed to contain the original manuscript. Said the owner's sister, 'It was an impromptu. He had no copy, and wanting it for some occasion, he sent for the album.' In 1826 he entrusted his copy to a friend, who called on him on the way from Harrisburg to Phila

"delphia, to carry to the 'Episcopal Recorder,' and in
that paper it appeared June 3rd, 1826 (not 1824). For

I would not live alway. I ask not to stay

work be his sone, ipson liper

my work

way

the sap of

sojours belons.

A mower not lime alway, in conflichertu sin

Will the wiles

Ն

Me Samples, around a willin

the Conquersoon

Though string in the hope y

he warfare that wins ist, d'unes no proding

AUTOGRAPH VERSES

these facts we have the detailed statement of Dr. John
B. Clemson, of Claymont, Del., the ambassador men-
tioned, who also chances to have preserved that volume
of the paper." And the present writer, in his turn, must
rest upon the authority of Mr. Bird (which, indeed, is

happily high); not having seen the album nor even chanced upon that number of The Episcopal Recorder.

Dr. Muhlenberg himself has told us how his poem first gained place as a hymn. From the paper, in which it was printed anonymously, it was adopted by a subcommittee among the hymns to be passed upon by the whole committee which then (1826) was engaged in preparing a hymn book for the Protestant Episcopal Church. When this hymn was proposed, "one of the members remarked that it was very sweet and pretty, but rather sentimental; upon which it was unanimously thrown out. Not suspected as the author, I voted against myself. That, I supposed, was the end it. The committee, which sat until late at night at the house of Bishop White, agreed upon their report to the Convention, and adjourned. But the next morning Dr. Onderdonk (who was not one of their number, but who, on invitation, had acted with the sub-committee, which, in fact, consisted of him and myself) called on me to inquire what had been done. Upon my telling him that among the rejected hymns was this one of mine, he said, 'That will never do,' and went about among the members of the committee, soliciting them to restore the hymn in their report, which accordingly they did; so that to him is due the credit of giving it to the Church.” It was copied almost at once into other books, and soon became one of the most popular of American hymns.

Ever since 1833 it has been associated with the melodious tune "Frederick," composed for it by Mr. George Kingsley, and printed as sheet music in that year. Kingsley belonged to the period of American psalmody when the performances of soloists and quartettes drowned the