he head immediately behind the eyes amounted to
anguish."

The Hymn of a Wounded Spirit

I love to steal awhile away
From every cumbering care,
And spend the hour of setting day
In humble, grateful prayer.

I love in solitude to shed
The penitential tear,
And all His promises to plead
Where none but God can hear.

I love to think of mercies past,
And future good implore,
And all my cares and sorrows cast
On Him whom I adore.

I love by faith to take a view
Of brighter scenes in heaven;
The prospect doth my strength renew,
While here by tempests driven.

Thus when life's toilsome day is o'er,
May its departing ray
Be calm as this impressive hour
And lead to endless day.

Phoebe Hinsdale Brown, 1818.

AMERICA'S FIRST WOMAN HYMNIST

Less than twenty years after Timothy Dwight's hymns were published, a
very poor and unpretentious American woman began to write lyrics that
have been treasured by the Church until this present day, nor will they
soon be forgotten. Her name was Phoebe Hinsdale Brown, and the story of
her life is the most pathetic in the annals of American hymnody.

"As to my history," she wrote near the end of her life, "it is soon told;
a sinner saved by grace and sanctified by trials."

She was born at Canaan, N. Y., May 1, 1783. Both parents died before she
was two years old and the greater part of her childhood was spent in the
home of an older sister who was married to a keeper of a county jail. The
cruelties and privations suffered by the orphaned child during these
years were such that her son in later years declared that it broke his
heart to read of them in his mother's diary. She was not permitted to
attend school, and could neither read nor write. She was eighteen years
old before she escaped from this bondage and found opportunity to attend
school for three months. This was the extent of her education within
school walls.

In 1805, at the age of twenty-two, she married Timothy H. Brown, a house
painter. He was a good man, but extremely poor. Moving to Ellington,
Mass., they lived in a small, unfinished frame house at the edge of the
village. Four little children and a sick sister who occupied the only
finished room in the house added to the domestic burdens of Mrs. Brown.
In the summer of 1818 a pathe