ring and
the transports of her utter absorption in God that could make the stones
of her dungeon "look like jewels." When we emulate a faith like
hers--with all the weight of absolute certainty in it--we can sing her
hymn:

My Lord, how full of sweet content
I pass my years of banishment.
Where'er I dwell, I dwell with Thee,
In heaven or earth, or on the sea.

To me remains nor place nor time:
My country is in every clime;
I can be calm and free from care
On any shore, since God is there.

And could a dearer _vade mecum_ enrich a Christian's outfit than these
lines treasured in memory?

While place we seek or place we shun,
The soul finds happiness in none;
But, with a God to guide our way,
'Tis equal joy to go or stay.

Cowper, and also Dr. Thomas Upham, translated (from the French) the
religious poems of Madame Guyon. This hymn is Cowper's translation.

_THE TUNE._

A gentle and sympathetic melody entitled "Alsace" well represents the
temper of the words--and in name links the nationalities of writer and
composer. It is a choral arranged from a sonata of the great Ludwig von
Beethoven, born in Bonn, Germany, 1770, and died in Vienna, Mar. 1827.
Like the author of the hymn he felt the hand of affliction, becoming
totally deaf soon after his fortieth year. But, in spite of the
privation, he kept on writing sublime and exquisite strains that only
his soul could hear. His fame rests upon his oratorio, "The Mount of
Olives," the opera of "Fidelio" and his nine wonderful "Symphonies."

"NO CHANGE IN TIME SHALL EVER SHOCK."

Altered to common metre from the awkward long metre of Tate and Brady,
the three or four stanzas found in earlier hymnals are part of their
version (probably Tate's) of the 31st Psalm--and it is worth calling to
mind here that there is no hymn treasury so rich in tuneful faith and
reliance upon God in trouble as the Book of Psalms. This feeling of the
Hebrew poet was never better expressed (we might say, translated) in
English than by the writer of this single verse--

No change of time shall ever shock
My trust, O Lord, in Thee,
For Thou hast always been my Rock,
A sure defense to me.

_THE TUNE._

The sweet, tranquil choral long ago wedded to this hymn is lost from the
church collections, and its very name forgotten. In fact the hymn itself
is now seldom seen. If it ever comes back, old "Dundee" (Guillaume Fr