esides
preaching occasionally, he employed his mechanical skill in making small
useful articles of bone and ivory.

The tune was composed by W.B. Bradbury in 1859, and first appeared with
the hymn in _Cottage Melodies_.

Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer
That calls me from a world of care,
And bids me at my Father's throne
Make all my wants and wishes known.
In seasons of distress and grief
My soul has often found relief,
And oft escaped the tempter's snare
By thy return, sweet hour of prayer.

"O BLISS OF THE PURIFIED! BLISS OF THE FREE!"

Rev. Francis Bottome, D.D., born in Belper, Derbyshire, Eng., May 26,
1823, removed to the United States in 1850, and entered the Methodist
ministry. A man of sterling character and exemplary piety. He received
the degree of Doctor of Divinity at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa. Was
assistant compiler of several singing books, and wrote original hymns.
The above, entitled "O sing of His mighty love" was composed by him in
1869. The last stanza reads,--

O Jesus the Crucified! Thee will I sing,
My blessed Redeemer, my God and my King!
My soul, filled with rapture shall shout o'er the grave
And triumph in death in the Mighty to save.

CHORUS.
O sing of His mighty love (_ter_)
Mighty to save!

Dr. Bottome returned to England, and died at Tavistock June 29, 1894.

_THE TUNE._

Bradbury's "Songs of the Beautiful" (in _Fresh Laurels_). The hymn was
set to this chorus in 1871.

"WHAT SHALL THE HARVEST BE?"

Very popular in England. Mr. Sankey in his _Story of the Gospel Hymns_
relates at length the experience of Rev. W.O. Lattimore, pastor of a
large church in Evanston, Ill., who was saved to Christian manhood and
usefulness by this hymn. It has suffered some alterations, but its
original composition was Mrs. Emily Oakey's work. The Parables of the
Sower and of the Tares may have been in her mind when she wrote the
lines in 1850, but more probably it was the text in Gal. 6:7--

Sowing the seed by the daylight fair,
Sowing the seed by the noonday glare,
Sowing the seed by the fading light,
Sowing the seed in the solemn night.
O, what shall the harvest be?

Lattimore, the man whose history was so strangely linked with this hymn,
entered the army in 1861, a youth of eighteen with no vices, but when
promoted to first lieutenant he learned to drink in the officers' mess