England's Antiphon

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THE RETURN.

Dear Contemplation! my divinest joy!

When I thy sacred mount ascend, What heavenly sweets my soul employ!

Why can't I there my days for ever spend? When I have conquered thy steep heights with pain, What pity 'tis that I must down again!

And
yet I must: my passions would rebel Should I too long continue here: No, here I must not think to dwell,

But mind the duties of my proper sphere. So angels, though they heaven's glories know, Forget not to attend their charge below.

The old hermits thought to overcome their impulses by retiring from the world: our Platonist has discovered for himself that the world of duty is the only sphere in which they can be combated. Never perhaps is a saint more in danger of giving way to impulse, let it be anger or what it may, than in the moment when he has just descended from this mount of contemplation.

We find ourselves now in the zone of hymn-writing. From this period, that is, from towards the close of the seventeenth century, a large amount of the fervour of the country finds vent in hymns: they are innumerable. With them the scope of my book would not permit me to deal, even had I inclination thitherward, and knowledge enough to undertake their history. But I am not therefore precluded from presenting any hymn whose literary excellence makes it worthy.

It is with especial pleasure that I refer to a little book which was once a household treasure in a multitude of families,[156] the Spiritual Songs of John Mason, a clergyman in the county of Buckingham. The date of his birth does not appear to be known, but the first edition of these songs[157] was published in 1683. Dr. Watts was very fond of them: would that he had written with similar modesty of style! A few of them are still popular in congregational singing. Here is the first in the book:



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