standard of popular favor, his hymn on prayer
and "Forever with the Lord" have aroused the most enthusiasm on the part
of literary critics. Julian says of the latter that "it is full of lyric
fire and deep feeling," and Dr. Theodore Cuyler declares that it contains
four lines that are as fine as anything in hymnody. This beautiful verse
reads:

Here, in the body pent,
Absent from Thee I roam,
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent
A day's march nearer home.

Montgomery's last words were words of prayer. After his usual evening
devotion on April 30, 1854, he went to sleep, a sleep from which he never
woke on earth. And so was fulfilled in his own experience the beautiful
thought contained in his glorious hymn on prayer:

Prayer is the Christian's vital breath,
The Christian's native air,
His watchword at the gates of death--
He enters heaven with prayer.

A Sublime Hymn of Adoration

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee:
Holy, Holy, Holy! merciful and mighty;
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Holy, Holy, Holy! all the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns upon the glassy sea;
Cherubim and Seraphim falling down before Thee,
Which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.

Holy, Holy, Holy! though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eyes of sinful man Thy glory may not see,
Only Thou art holy: there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in power, in love, in purity.

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea:
Holy, Holy, Holy! merciful and mighty;
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Reginald Heber, 1826.

HEBER, MISSIONARY BISHOP AND HYMNIST

In the glorious hymns of Reginald Heber, missionary bishop to India, we
find not only the noblest expression of the missionary fervor which in
his day was stirring the Church, but also the purest poetry in English
hymnody. Christians of all ages will gratefully remember the name of the
man who wrote the most stirring of all missionary hymns, "From
Greenland's icy mountains," as well as that sublime hymn of adoration,
"Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!"

The latter was regarded by Alfred Tennyson as the world's greatest hymn.

Born April 21, 1783, at Mal