the Gold," "Only a Pansy
Blossom" etc., and many essays and treatises on flowers, of which he is
passionately fond.

"IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL."

Horatio Gates Spafford, the writer of this hymn, was a lawyer, a native
of New York state, born Oct. 30, 1828. While connected with an
institution in Chicago, as professor of medical jurisprudence, he lost a
great part of his fortune by the great fire in that city. This disaster
was followed by the loss of his children on the steamer, Ville de Havre,
Nov. 22, 1873. He seems to have been a devout Christian, for he wrote
his hymn of submissive faith towards the end of the same year--

When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea-billows roll--
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
"It is well, it is well with my soul."

A friend of Spafford who knew his history read this hymn while repining
under an inferior affliction of his own. "If he can feel like that after
suffering what he has suffered," he said, "I will cease my complaints."

It may not have been the weight of Mr. Spafford's sorrows wearing him
down, but one would infer some mental disturbance in the man seven or
eight years later. "In 1881" [writes Mr. Hubert P. Main] "he went to
Jerusalem under the hallucination that he was a second Messiah--and died
there on the seventh anniversary of his landing in Palestine, Sept. 5,
1888." The aberrations of an over-wrought mind are beckonings to God's
compassion. When reason wanders He takes the soul of His helpless child
into his own keeping--and "it is well."

The tune to Spafford's hymn is by P.P. Bliss; a gentle, gliding melody
that suits the mood of the words.

"WAITING AND WATCHING FOR ME."

Written by Mrs. Marianne Farningham Hearn, born in Kent, Eng., Dec. 17,
1834. The hymn was first published in the fall of 1864 in the _London
Church World_. Its unrhythmical first line--

When mysterious whispers are floating about,

--was replaced by the one now familiar--

When my final farewell to the world I have said,
And gladly lain down to my rest,
When softly the watchers shall say, "He is dead,"
And fold my pale hands on my breast,
And when with my glorified vision at last
The walls of that City I see,
Will any one there at the Beautiful Gate
Be waiting and watching for me?

Mrs. Hearn--a member of the Baptist denomination--has long been the
editor of the (English) _Sunday