THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 85
Hymn 62. Praise to the Holiest in the height. JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D.
From his Dream of Gerontius, which appeared in The Month for May and June, 1865. It represented his musings on the death of a dear friend, and he was so dissatisfied with it that he threw the MS. aside. By good fortune a friend rescued it. The Dream traces the journey of a monk s soul after death to Purgatory. This hymn is sung by the Fifth choir of Angelicals as the soul is conducted into the presence-chamber of Emmanuel. The Dream appeared in his Verses on Various Occasions, 1868, andjthe hymn was given the same year in the Appendix to Hymns Ancient and Modern.
Cardinal Newman was born in i8or, in the city of London, where his father was chief clerk and afterwards partner in a banking-house. His mother taught him to read the works of Thomas Newton, Dr. Watts, Richard Baxter, and Thomas Scott, of Aston Sandford, to whom, he said, humanly speaking, I almost owe my soul. He became Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, in 1822, and afterwards tutor. In 1828 he was appointed Vicar of St. Mary s, Oxford. He says, It was to me like the feeling of spring weather after winter ; and, if I may so speak, I came out of my shell ; I remained out of it till 1841. He resigned his living in 1843, and on October 9, 1845, was received into the Church of Rome. In 1858 he found his place in the Oratory at Birmingham, and in 1864 published his Apologia- pro Vita Sna. In 1879 he was created a Cardinal. He died August 11, 1890, and was buried in the graveyard of the Oratorians at Rednal. Besides his two famous hymns, New man compiled a collection of hymns chiefly from the Paris Breviary, and made some fine translations from the Latin.
The hymn was a source of consolation and strength to Mr. Gladstone on his death-bed. Canon Scott Holland referred to him at St. Paul s as spending his life in benediction to those whom he leaves behind in this world, and in thanksgiving to God, to whom he rehearses over and over again, day after day, Newman s hymn of austere and splendid adoration, Praise to the Holiest in the height. It was sung at his funeral service.
The hymn strengthened Gordon to face death at Khartoum.
O generous love ! that He, who smote
In Man for man the foe, The double agony in Man
For man should undergo.
�� �
