ccent of its
sextuple time, exactly reproducing the easy iambic of the verses,
inevitably made it popular, and thousands of older singers today will
have no other music with "I heard the voice of Jesus say."

"Vox Jesu," from the andante in one of the quartets of Louis Spohr
(1784-1859), is a psalm-tune of good harmony, but too little feeling.

An excellent tune for all the shades of expression in the hymn, is the
arrangement by Hubert P. Main from Franz Abt--in A flat, triple time.
Gentle music through the first fifteen bars, in alternate duet and
quartet, utters the Divine Voice with the true accent of the lines, and
the second portion completes the harmony in glad, full chorus--the
answer of the human heart.

"Vox Dilecti," by Dr. Dykes, goes farther and writes the Voice in B flat
_minor_--which seems a needless substitution of divine sadness for
divine sweetness. It is a tune of striking chords, but its shift of key
to G natural (major) after the first four lines marks it rather for
trained choir performance than for assembly song.

It is possible to make too much of a dramatic perfection or a supposed
indication of structural design in a hymn. Textual equations, such as
distinguish Dr. Bonar's beautiful stanzas, are not necessarily
technical. To emphasize them as ingenious by an ingenious tune seems,
somehow, a reflection on the spontaneity of the hymn.

Louis Spohr was Director of the Court Theatre Orchestra in Cassel,
Prussia, in the first half of the last century. He was an eminent
composer of both vocal and instrumental music, and one of the greatest
violinists of Europe.

Hubert Platt Main was born in Ridgefield, Ct., Aug. 17, 1839. He read
music at sight when only ten years old, and at sixteen commenced writing
hymn-tunes. Was assistant compiler with both Bradbury and Woodbury in
their various publications, and in 1868 became connected with the firm
of Biglow and Main, and has been their book-maker until the present
time. As music editor in the partnership he has superintended the
publication of more than five hundred music-books, services, etc.

"I LOVE TO STEAL AWHILE AWAY."

The burdened wife and mother who wrote this hymn would, at the time,
have rated her history with "the short and simple annals of the poor."
But the poor who are "remembered for what they have done," may have a
larger place in history than many rich who did nothing.

Phebe Hinsdale Brown, was born in Canaan, N.Y., in 1783. H