TUNE_

Old "Hanover," by William Croft (1677-1727), carries Newton's hymn
successfully, but Joseph Haydn's choral of "Lyons" is more familiar--and
better music.

"Hanover" often accompanies Charles Wesley's lyric,--

Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim.

"HOW FIRM A FOUNDATION."

The question of the author of this hymn is treated at length in Dr.
Louis F. Benson's _Studies of Familiar Hymns_. The utmost that need to
be said here is that two of the most thorough and indefatigable
hymn-chasers, Dr. John Julian and Rev. H.L. Hastings, working
independently of each other, found evidence fixing the authorship with
strong probability upon Robert Keene, a precentor in Dr. John Rippon's
church. Dr. Rippon was pastor of a Baptist Church in London from 1773
to 1836, and in 1787 he published a song-manual called _A Selection of
Hymns from the Best Authors_, etc., in which "How Firm a Foundation"
appears as a new piece, with the signature "K----."

The popularity of the hymn in America has been remarkable, and promises
to continue. Indeed, there are few more reviving or more spiritually
helpful. It is too familiar to need quotation. But one cannot suppress
the last stanza, with its powerful and affecting emphasis on the Divine
promise--

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose
I will not, I will not, desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no never, no never forsake.

_THE TUNE._

The grand harmony of "Portuguese Hymn" has always been identified with
this song of trust.

One opinion of the date of the music writes it "about 1780." Since the
habit of crediting it to John Reading (1677-1764) has been discontinued,
it has been in several hymnals ascribed to Marco Portogallo (Mark, the
Portuguese), a musician born in Lisbon, 1763, who became a composer of
operas in Italy, but was made Chapel-Master to the Portuguese King. In
1807, when Napoleon invaded the Peninsula and dethroned the royal house
of Braganza, Old King John VI. fled to Brazil and took Marco with him,
where he lived till 1815, but returned and died in Italy, in 1830. Such
is the story, and it is all true, only the man's name was Simao,
instead of Marco. _Grove's Dictionary_ appends to Simao's biography the
single sentence, "His brother wrote for the church." That the Brazilian
episode may have been connected with this brother's history by a
confusion of names, is imaginable, but i