THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 117
human affection, but which has, nevertheless, been popular with many devout persons in Protestant as well as Roman Catholic Churches.
Jesu dulcis memoria was probably written about 1150, when he was living in retirement. Dr. Schaff calls it the sweetest and most evangelical hymn of the Middle Ages. It is known as the Joyful Rhythm of St. Bernard on the Name of Jesus. The oldest form of the text is given by a twelfth-century MS. in the Bodleian, in forty-two verses of four lines.
Bernard s devotion to his Master breathes in his famous words, which embody the spirit of the hymn, If thou writest, nothing therein has savour to me unless I read Jesus in it. If thou discoursest or converses!, nothing therein is agreeable to me unless in it also Jesus resounds. Jesus is honey in the mouth, melody in the ear, a song of jubilee in the heart. He is our medicine as well. Is any among you saddened? Let Jesus enter into his heart, and thence leap to his lips, and lo ! at the rising illumination of His name every cloud flies away, serenity returns.
��Hymn 111. Jesu, Thou Joy of loving hearts. ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX ; translated by RAY PALMER, D.D.
This translation of Jesu dulcis memoria (no) appeared in the American Andover Sabbath Hymn-book^ 1858.
Ray Palmer, D.D. (1808-87), was the son of a judge in Rhode Island, and was born at Little Compton. He became Congregational minister at Bath (Maine), and at Albany, New York, and Corresponding Secretary to the American Congrega tional Union, 1865-78. He spent his last years at Newark, New Jersey. Dr. Palmer was in great request as a powerful preacher. When told by his son that he was dying, he replied, Thank God ! Occasionally he was heard to repeat a hymn of Wesley s or of his own. Not many hours before his death the watchers caught a few syllables of the last verse of his hymn, Jesus, these eyes have never seen -
\Vhen death these mortal eyes shall seal,
And still this throbbing heart, The rending veil shall Thee reveal,
All glorious as Thou art.
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