The Story of the Hymns and Tunes | Page 8

at Winchester School,
Hertford College, and New College, Oxford. In 1662 he took holy
orders, and seventeen years later the king (Charles II.) appointed him
chaplain to his sister Mary, Princess of Orange. Later the king, just
before his death, made him Bishop of Bath and Wells.
Like John the Baptist, and Bourdaloue, and Knox, he was a faithful
spiritual monitor and adviser during all his days at court. "I must go in
and hear Ken tell me my faults," the king used to say at chapel time.
The "good little man" (as he called the bishop) never lost the favor of
the dissipated monarch. As Macaulay says, "Of all the prelates, he liked
Ken the best."
Under James, the Papist, Ken was a loyal subject, though once arrested
as one of the "seven bishops" for his opposition to the king's religion,
and he kept his oath of allegiance so firmly that it cost him his place.
William III. deprived him of his bishopric, and he retired in poverty to
a home kindly offered him by Lord Viscount Weymouth in Longleat,
near Frome, in Somersetshire, where he spent a serene and beloved old

age. He died æt. seventy-four, March 17, 1711 (N.S.), and was carried
to his grave, according to his request, by "six of the poorest men in the
parish."
His great doxology is the refrain or final stanza of each of his three
long hymns, "Morning," "Evening" and "Midnight," printed in a Prayer
Manual for the use of the students of Winchester College. The
"Evening Hymn" drew scenic inspiration, it is told, from the lovely
view in Horningsham Park at "Heaven's Gate Hill," while walking to
and from church.
Another four-line doxology, adopted probably from Dr. Hatfield
(1807-1883), is almost entirely superseded by Ken's stanza, being of
even more pronounced credal character.
To God the Father, God the Son, And God the Spirit, Three in One. Be
honor, praise and glory given By all on earth and all in heaven.
The Methodist Hymnal prints a collection of ten doxologies, two by
Watts, one by Charles Wesley, one by John Wesley, one by William
Goode, one by Edwin F. Hatfield, one attributed to "Tate and Brady,"
one by Robert Hawkes, and the one by Ken above noted. These are all
technically and intentionally doxologies. To give a history of
doxologies in the general sense of the word would carry one through
every Christian age and language and end with a concordance of the
Book of Psalms.
[Illustration: Oliver Holden]
THE TUNE.
Few would think of any music more appropriate to a standard doxology
than "Old Hundred." This grand Gregorian harmony has been claimed
to be Luther's production, while some have believed that Louis
Bourgeois, editor of the French Genevan Psalter, composed the tune,
but the weight of evidence seems to indicate that it was the work of
Guillaume le Franc, (William Franck or William the Frenchman,) of
Rouen, in France, who founded a music school in Geneva, 1541. He

was Chapel Master there, but removed to Lausanne, where he played in
the Catholic choir and wrote the tunes for an Edition of Marot's and
Beza's Psalms. Died in Lausanne, 1570.
"THE LORD DESCENDED FROM ABOVE."
A flash of genuine inspiration was vouchsafed to Thomas Sternhold
when engaged with Rev. John Hopkins in versifying the Eighteenth
Psalm. The ridicule heaped upon Sternhold and Hopkins's psalmbook
has always stopped, and sobered into admiration and even reverence at
the two stanzas beginning with this leading line--
The Lord descended from above And bowed the heavens most high,
And underneath His feet He cast The darkness of the sky.
On cherub and on cherubim Full royally He rode, And on the wings of
mighty winds Came flying all abroad.
Thomas Sternhold was born in Gloucestershire, Eng. He was Groom of
the Robes to Henry VIII, and Edward VI., but is only remembered for
his Psalter published in 1562, thirteen years after his death in 1549.
THE TUNE.
"Nottingham" (now sometimes entitled "St. Magnus") is a fairly good
echo of the grand verses, a dignified but spirited choral in A flat.
Jeremiah Clark, the composer, was born in London, 1670. Educated at
the Chapel Royal, he became organist of Winchester College and
finally to St. Paul's Cathedral where he was appointed Gentleman of the
Chapel. He died July, 1707.
The tune of "Majesty" by William Billings will be noticed in a later
chapter.
TALLIS' EVENING HYMN.
Glory to Thee, my God, this night For all the blessings of the light,
Keep me, O keep me, King of kings, Under Thine own Almighty

wings.
This stanza begins the second of Bp. Ken's three beautiful
hymn-prayers in his Manual mentioned on a previous page.
THE TUNE.
For more than three hundred and fifty years devout people have
enjoyed that