the 11th of August,
1778, he joyfully passed away.

Somehow there was always something peculiarly heartsome and "filling" to
pious minds in the lines of Toplady in days when his minor hymns were
more in vogue than now, and they were often quoted, without any idea
whose making they were. "At anchor laid" was crooned by good old ladies
at their spinning-wheels, and godly invalids found "When languor and
disease invade" a comfort next to their Bibles.

"Rock of Ages" is said to have been written after the author, during a
suburban walk, had been forced to shelter himself from a thunder
shower, under a cliff. This is, however, but one of several stories
about the birth-occasion of the hymn.

It has been translated into many languages. One of the foreign
dignitaries visiting Queen Victoria at her "Golden Jubilee" was a native
of Madagascar, who surprised her by asking leave to sing, but delighted
her, when leave was given, by singing "Rock of Ages." It was a favorite
of hers--and of Prince Albert, who whispered it when he was dying.
People who were school-children when Rev. Justus Vinton came home to
Willington, Ct., with two Karen pupils, repeat to-day the "la-pa-ta,
i-oo-i-oo" caught by sound from the brown-faced boys as they sang their
native version of "Rock of Ages."

Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, the famous Confederate Cavalry leader, mortally
wounded at Yellow Tavern, Va., and borne to a Richmond hospital, called
for his minister and requested that "Rock of Ages" be sung to him.

The last sounds heard by the few saved from the wreck of the steamer
"London" in the Bay of Biscay, 1866, were the voices of the helpless
passengers singing "Rock of Ages" as the ship went down.

A company of Armenian Christians sang "Rock of Ages" in their native
tongue while they were being massacred in Constantinople.

No history of this grand hymn of faith forgets the incident of Gladstone
writing a Latin translation of it while sitting in the House of
Commons. That remarkable man was as masterly in his scholarly
recreations as in his statesmanship. The supreme Christian sentiment of
the hymn had permeated his soul till it spoke to him in a dead language
as eloquently as in the living one; and this is what he made of it:

_TOPLADY._

Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and po