been sung perhaps in every Sunday-school in
England and the United States, is from a small English book by Mary
Masters. In the preface to the work, we read, "The author of the
following poems never read a treatise of rhetoric or an art of poetry,
nor was ever taught her English grammar. Her education rose no higher
than the spelling-book or her writing-master,"

'Tis religion that can give
Sweetest pleasure while we live;
'Tis religion can supply
Solid comfort when we die.
After death its joys shall be
Lasting as eternity.

Save the two sentences about herself, quoted above, there is no
biography of the writer. That she was good is taken for granted.

The tune-sister of the little hymn is as scant of date or history as
itself. No. 422 points it out in _The Revivalist_, where the name and
initial seem to ascribe the authorship to Horace Waters.[30]

[Footnote 30: From his _Sabbath Bell_. Horace Waters, a prominent
Baptist layman, was born in Jefferson, Lincoln Co., Me., Nov. 1, 1812,
and died in New York City, April 22, 1893. He was a piano-dealer and
publisher.]

"THERE IS A HAPPY LAND FAR, FAR AWAY"

This child's hymn was written by a lover of children, Mr. Andrew Young,
head master of Niddrey St. School, Edinburgh, and subsequently English
instructor at Madras College, E.I. He was born April 23, 1807, and died
Nov. 30, 1899, and long before the end of the century which his
life-time so nearly covered his little carol had become one of the
universal hymns.

_THE TUNE._

A Hindoo air or natural chanson, that may have been hummed in a pagan
temple in the hearing of Mr. Young, was the basis of the little melody
since made familiar to millions of prattling tongues.

Such running tone-rhythms create themselves in the instinct of the ruder
nations and tribes, and even the South African savages have their
incantations with the provincial "clicks" that mark the singers' time.
With an ear for native chirrups and trills, the author of our pretty
infant-school song succeeded in capturing one, and making a Christian
tune of it.

The musician, Samuel Sebastian Wesley, sometime in the eighteen-forties,
tried to substitute another melody for the lines, but "There is a happy
land" needs its own birth-music.

"I HAVE A FATHER IN THE PROMISED LAND."

Another cazonet for the infant class. Instead of a hymn, however, it is
only a refrain, and--like the ring-chant of the "Hebrew Children," and