could find.
This fearful truth increased my pain,
"The sinner must be born again,"
And whelmed my troubled mind.

* * * * *

But while I thus in anguish lay,
Jesus of Nazareth passed that way;
I felt His pity move.
The sinner, once by justice slain,
Now by His grace is born again,
And sings eternal Love!

The rugged original has been so often and so variously altered and
"toned down," that only a few unusually accurate aged memories can
recall it. The hymn began going out of use fifty years ago, and is now
seldom seen.

The name "S. Chandler," attached to "Ganges," leaves the identity of the
composer in shadow. It is supposed he was born in 1760. The tune
appeared about 1790.

"WHERE NOW ARE THE HEBREW CHILDREN?"

This quaint old unison, repeating the above three times, followed by the
answer (thrice repeated) and climaxed with--

Safely in the Promised Land,

--was a favorite at ancient camp-meetings, and a good leader could keep
it going in a congregation or a happy group of vocalists, improvising a
new start-line after every stop until his memory or invention gave out.

They went up from the fiery furnace,
They went up from the fiery furnace,
They went up from the fiery furnace,
Safely to the Promised Land.

Sometimes it was--

Where now is the good Elijah?

--and,--

He went up in a chariot of fire;

--and again,--

Where now is the good old Daniel?

He went up from the den of lions;

--and so on, finally announcing--

By and by we'll go home for to meet him, [three times]
Safely in the Promised Land.

The enthusiasm excited by the swinging rhythm of the tune sometimes rose
to a passionate pitch, and it was seldom used in the more controlled
religious assemblies. If any attempt was ever made to print the song[22]
the singers had little need to read the music. Like the ancient runes,
it came into being by spontaneous generation, and lived in phonetic
tradition.

[Footnote 22: Mr. Hubert P. Main believes he once saw "The Hebrew
Children" in print in one of Horace Waters' editions of the _Sabbath
Bell_.]

A strange, wild paean of exultant song was one often heard from Peter
Cartwright, the muscular circuit-preacher. A remembered fragment shows
its quality:

Then my soul mounted higher
In a chariot of fire,
And the moon it was under my feet.

Ther