A LEADER OF PRAISE

Evening Star, Issue 18852, 29 January 1925, Page 1

A LEADER OF PRAISE

WATTS AND HIS HYMNS. Which is the most popular English hymn? (asks a writer in ‘John o’ London’s Weekly.’) Whenever the question is asked, one invariably linds ‘ 0 God, Our Help in Ages Bast’ among the first halfdozen named, if not actually leading the list. No hymn in the language is better known ; none has been sung on a greater diversity of occasions. ’With this iii mind, it is interesting to know that the tomb of its author, Dr Isaac Watts, in Bmihill Fields, Finsbury, has just- been restored, after having for years been all but lost among tbo monuments that encumber that ancient burial ground. SON OF A TAILOR. Isaac Watts, the eldest of a family of nine, was bom exactly 250 years ago at Southampton, whore his father was a clothier, and, later, a boarding-house keeper. Something of an infant prodigy, Isaac, settled do.cn to learn Latin in his fifth year, and at seven lie composed a series of devotional poems, dedicated to his mother. Precluded by his nonconformity from going up to either of tho universities, ho entered, at sixteen, tho Nonconformist Academy at. Stoke Newington, and trained fur the ministry. It was in tho interval between leaving Ihe academy and obtaining a tutorial post in the Harlopp family that he began to write hymns, and in doing so laid the foundations of modern English hymnology. .Many of Watts's contributions to hymnology have barely survived; others have, not done so at all. but his critics must always be confounded by the fact that he wrote a number of hymns unnpproached by any- other writer, with the possible exception oi Charles Wesley: ‘ When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,' ‘Jesus Shall Reign Where'er tbo Sun’; ‘Before Jehovah’s Awful Throne,’ ‘My Soul, Repeat His Praise.’ ‘There Is a Laud of Pure Delight.’ For fervent simplicity, directness of sentiment, and purity of language these and others of Watts’s hymns have never been surpassed. BACHELOR TO THE END. Hard work, combined with too little recreation, resulted in Watts being attacked by fever, and in 1712 ho was obliged to relinquish his duties as pastor of an Independent congregation and settle at Abney Park, where, under the patronage of Sir Thomas Abney, he spent the remainder of his life. -Apart from hymnwrit ing, he exercised -his imagination in other literary pursuits. He wrote two notable educational works—an essay on logic and one on geography and astronomy. But Watts’s most enduring literary monument, setting aside Ins hymns, is probably his How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour, -And gather honey all the day From every opening flower.

He (Tied at the age. ot seventy-four, and is commemorated bv a memorial in Westminster Abbey, ami hy a hall erected in his honor at Southampton sixty years ago.