'A year or two after the hymn was written, and when no one, so far as can be recollected, had ever seen it, Dr. Lowell Mason met the author in the street in Boston, and requested him to furnish some hymns for a Hymn and Tune Book which, in connection with Dr. Hastings of New York, he was about to publish. The little book containing it was shown him, and he asked a copy. We stepped into a store together, and a copy was made and given him, which without much notice he put in his pocket. On sitting down at home and looking it over, he became so much interested in it that he wrote for it the tune Olivet,' in which it has almost universally been sung. Two or three days afterward we met again in the street, when, scarcely waiting to salute the writer, he earnestly exclaimed, Mr. Palmer, you may live many years and do many good things, but I think you will be best known to posterity as the author of "My Faith Looks Up to Thee."""

·

The hymn and tune book referred to by Dr. Palmer, in which the hymn first appeared, came out in twelve parts in 1831-32, and was called Spiritual Songs for Social Worship. Numerous editions of the book were printed; before long the hymn and its tune became widely sung and began to be copied into other books. In 1842 it was introduced into England through the Rev. Andrew Reed's Hymn Book. The hymn is to-day among those most familiar in evangelical churches of both countries. The statement often made that it now appears in every hymn book is, of course, not true. That is not true of any hymn. But it is as well known. and as well loved as any American hymn. It seems to many people like a part of their own spiritual life.

Frith.

My faith looks up to thee. Thou Lamb of Calvary. Laviour divine:

Now hear me whiled pray. Jake all my guilt-Away, 6 let me, from this day. Be Wholly Thine!

Newark May 13th 1881. Coprice for Mr Haines.

Hay Palene.

AN AUTOGRAPH VERSE

THE AUTHOR OF THE HYMN

Ray Palmer was the son of the Hon. Thomas Palmer of Little Compton, Rhode Island, and was born at that place on November 12th, 1808. In his thirteenth year he became clerk in a dry-goods store at Boston, and while there he connected himself with the Park Street Church. His thoughts turned toward the ministry, and he spent three years preparing for college at Phillips Academy, Andover, and in 1830 was graduated from Yale. Then came the years of teaching and of preparation for the ministry, first at New York and afterward at New Haven. He was ordained in 1835, becoming pastor of the Central Congregational Church of Bath, Maine, where he remained until 1850. From then until 1866 he was pastor of the First Congregational Church of Albany, New York. In 1866 he became the Corresponding Secretary of the American Congregational Union, removing to New York City, and holding that laborious post until 1878. He resigned his secretaryship in that year and had already removed to Newark, New Jersey.

The real occasion of this resignation was the failure of Dr. Palmer's health. He suffered from a nervous affection causing an uncertainty, at times even a stagger, in his walk. But for some years after giving up his work in New York he continued in active service in connection with the Belleville Avenue Congregational Church, of Newark. By a unique arrangement Dr. Palmer became its "pastor," having especial charge of visiting the people; while Dr. George H. Hepworth was its "preacher," and Dr. William Hayes Ward its "superintendent of mission work." At Newark, in 1882, Dr.

Palmer gathered about him a distinguished and affectionate company to celebrate the golden anniversary of his wedding to Miss Ann M. Ward, of New York. But the warning of his approaching end soon followed. He died at Newark on March 29th, 1887.

Dr. Palmer was the author of a number of books. His prose writings were generally of a devotional character, but included Hints on the Formation of Religious Opinions (1860), of which several editions were printed. His hymns and other verse appeared in successive volumes: Hymns and Sacred Pieces (1865), Hymns of My Holy Hours (1868), Home, or the Unlost Paradise (1868), Complete Poetical Works (1876), and Voices of Hope and Gladness (1881). Dr. Palmer's poetical work was voluminous enough to fill an 8vo volume of more than three hundred and fifty pages. It is always pure and often graceful, and written in easily flowing verse, but the body of his miscellaneous poetry does not attain such elevation of thought or distinction of form as would recommend it to the student of literature.

In estimating his poetry it is only fair to remember that Dr. Palmer's life "for more than forty years was unremittingly devoted to the absorbing duties of a Christian minister, and for more than three-fourths of this period to the manifold labors of a city Pastor. Poetry, instead of filling any prominent place in the programme of his life, has been only the occupation of the few occasional moments that could be redeemed from severer, and generally very prosaic, forms of work."

When we turn from the miscellaneous poetry to the hymns, we have a different situation and a happier result. There was nothing in Dr. Palmer's circumstances to

interfere with the production of hymns.

They were

quite in line with his thought and work. And the hymn-form furnished precisely the medium through which his purely devotional spirit and gift for graceful verse could find their most spontaneous expression. It is among the hymn writers that Dr. Palmer finds his proper place, and by many he is considered to be the foremost hymn writer of America. He is distinguished not only for the excellence of his best hymns, but for the number of his hymns that are in all ways good. And to them must he added his translations of Latin hymns, in which he was especially successful. Several of his hymns are favorites; and yet what Lowell Mason prophesied has come to pass, and Dr. Palmer is best known as the author of "My Faith Looks Up to Thee."

Dr. Palmer's character corresponded to his hymns. One who knew him well has recently spoken of him to the present writer as "One of the loveliest of men. He was exceedingly agreeable in conversation, which had always a spiritual tone," the same friend went on to say. "There was a certain saintliness in his manner and personality. He was gentle in his ways of speech, but had very deep feelings, which often came to the surface in conversation. His religious character was never better illustrated than when he was drawn out to speak of his famous hymn: the usual egotism of an author was so overcome by a feeling of simple gratitude for what the hymn had accomplished."

Dr. Palmer's portrait illustrates the description of his personal appearance given by his friend Dr. Theodore Cuyler (in Recollections of a Long Life): “He was short in stature, but his erect form and habit of brushing