THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 79
Hymn 54. My God, how wonderful Thou art. FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER, D.D. (1814-63).
In Jesus and Mary, 1849, entitled The Eternal Father.
Faber was born at Calverley Vicarage, Yorkshire, educated at Balliol College, Fellow of University College, Oxford. He was appointed Rector of Elton, Huntingdonshire, 1843, and joined the Church of Rome, 1846. He established the London Oratory in 1849, which was removed to Brompton, 1854. All his hymns were published after he became a Roman Catholic. In his preface to Jesus and Mary ; or, Catholic Hymns for Singing and Reading, 1849, ne says that he was led to feel the want of a collection of English Catholic hymns fit for singing, and though his ignorance of music appeared to disqualify him in some measure from supply ing the defect, yet he wrote eleven hymns, chiefly for particular tunes and on particular occasions, which became very popular with a country congregation. They were afterwards printed for St. Wilfrid s Schools, Staffordshire, and the numerous applications for them showed how anxious people were to have Catholic hymns. Dr. Faber submitted his MS. to a musical friend, who replied that certain verses of all, or nearly all, of the hymns would do for singing ; and this encouragement has led to the publication of the volume. He set the Olncy Hymns, and those of the Wesleys, before him as models of simplicity and intense fervour. He lamented that Catholics had not the means of influence which one school of Protestants has in Wesley s, Newton s, and Covvper s hymns, and another in the more refined and engaging works of Oxford writers. He says in his preface, Catholics even are said to be sometimes found poring with a devout and unsuspecting delight over the verses of the Olney Hymns, which the author himself can re member acting like a spell upon him for years, strong enough to be for long a counter-influence to very grave convictions, and even now to come back from time to time unbidden into the mind. Canon Ellerton says Faber s devotional works have the same characteristics as his hymns. They are full of noble passages, and often show deep insight into the secrets of the human heart ; but they are curiously wanting in the sense of proportion, their emotionalism is at times all but hysterical.
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