66 THE METHODIST HYMN-BOOK ILLUSTRATED
Bishop Heber was born in 1783 at Malpas, Cheshire, in the beautiful Higher Rectory overlooking the valley of the Dee. He became Rector of Hodnet, where his father was Lord of the Manor, in 1807, Prebendary of St. Asaph, 1812, Bishop of Calcutta, 1823. His poetical powers developed early. His Newdigate Prize Poem, Palestine, was read, before it was sent in to the examiners, to Sir Walter Scott and some friends whom Heber s half-brother was entertaining at breakfast. Scott pointed out that Heber had overlooked the fact that no tools were used while the Temple was being erected. Heber at once retired, and added the famous lines
No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung ; Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung. Majestic silence !
In the spring of 1819, a fortnight after he composed his great missionary hymn, Heber wrote to a friend, I have been for some time engaged in arranging my hymns, which, now that I have got them together, I have some High Church scruples against using in public. He had been stirred to this task by seeing the Olney Hymns, which he greatly admired. In 1821 he consulted Milman about his hymn-book, and secured his help. Then he approached the Bishop of London, Dr. Howley, asking permission to publish it. He urged that hymns were a powerful engine with Dissenters, were much enjoyed by the people, and as their use in church could not be suppressed, he pleaded that it was better to regulate it. He had even thought of using the Olney Hymns at Hodnet. The bishop criticized and advised the completion of the project, but the proposal was dropped for the time. Heber s fifty-seven hymns, however, were all written at Hodnet, and were sent to the Christian Observer, the organ of Evangelical Churchmen, edited by Zachary Macaulay, with the initials D. R., the last letters of his name. His widow published his book in 1827 : Plymns written and adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the Year. It was the first attempt to supply hymns based avowedly on the Book of Common Prayer. Heber claimed that no fulsome or indecorous language has been knowingly adopted ; no erotic address to Him whom no unclean lips can approach ; no allegory, ill-understood, and worse applied. An English critic says, The lyric spirit of Scott and Byron passed into our hymns in Heber s verse, imparting a fuller rhythm to the older measures.
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