Fruition Day

“Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending.”

Thomas Olivers begins one of his hymns with this line. The hymn is a Judgment-day lyric of rude strength and once in current use, but now rarely printed. The “Lo He Comes,” here specially noted, is the production of John Cennick, the Moravian.

Lo! He comes with clouds descending

Once for favored sinners slain,

Thousand thousand saints attending

Swell the triumph of His train.
Hallelujah!

God appears on earth to reign.

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Yea, amen; let all adore Thee

High on Thy eternal throne.

Saviour, take the power and glory,

Claim the kingdom for thine own;
O come quickly;

Hallelujah! Come, Lord, come.

The Tunes.

Various composers have written music to this universal hymn, but none has given it a choral that it can claim as peculiarly its own. “Brest,” Lowell Mason's plain-song, has a limited range, and runs low on the staff, but its solemn chords are musical and commanding. As much can be said of the tunes of Dr. Dykes and Samuel Webbe, which have more variety. Those who feel that the hymn calls for a more ornate melody will prefer Madan's “Helmsley.”

“Lo! What a Glorious Sight Appears.”

The great Southampton bard who wrote “Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood” was quick to kindle at every reminder of Fruition Day.

Lo! what a glorious sight appears

To our believing eyes!

The earth and seas are passed away,

And the old rolling skies.

From the third heaven, where God resides,

That holy, happy place,

The New Jerusalem comes down,

Adorned with shining grace.

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This hymn of Watts' sings one of his most exalted visions. It has been dear for two hundred years to every Christian soul throbbing with millennial thoughts and wishful of the day when—

The God of glory down to men

Removes His best abode,

—and when—

His own kind hand shall wipe the tears

From every weeping eye,

And pains and groans, and griefs and fears,

And death itself shall die,

—and the yearning cry of the last stanza, when the vision fades, has been the household ? of myriads of burdened and sorrowing saints—

How long, dear Saviour, O how long

Shall this bright hour delay?

Fly swifter round ye wheels of Time,

And bring the welcome day!

The Tunes.

By right of long appropriation both “Northfield” and “New Jerusalem” own a near relationship to these glorious verses. Ingalls, one of the constellation of early Puritan psalmodists, to which Billings and Swan belonged, evidently loved the hymn, and composed his “New Jerusalem” to the verse, “From the third heaven,” and his “Northfield” to “How long, dear Saviour.” The former is now sung only as a reminiscence of the music of the past, at church festivals, charity fairs and 571 / 507 entertainments of similar design, but the action and hearty joy in it always evoke sympathetic applause. “Northfield” is still in occasional use, and it is a jewel of melody, however irretrievably out of fashion. Its union to that immortal stanza, if no other reason, seems likely to insure its permanent place in the lists of sacred song.

John Cole's “Annapolis,” still found in a few hymnals with these words, is a little too late to be called a contemporary piece, but there are some reminders of Ingalls' “New Jerusalem” in its style and vigor, and it really partakes the flavor of the old New England church music.

Jeremiah Ingalls was born in Andover, Mass., March 1, 1764. A natural fondness for music increased with his years, but opportunities to educate it were few and far between, and he seemed like to become no more than a fairly good bass-viol player in the village choir. But his determination carried him higher, and in time his self-taught talent qualified him for a singing-school master, and for many years he travelled through Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, training the raw vocal material in the country towns, and organizing choirs.

Between his thirtieth and fortieth years, he composed a number of tunes, and, in 1804 published a two hundred page collection of his own and others' music, which he called the Christian Harmony.

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His home was for some time in Newberry, Vt., but he subsequently lived at Rochester and at Hancock in the same state.

Among the traditions of him is this anecdote of the origin of his famous tune “Northfield,” which may indicate something of his temper and religious habit. During his travels as a singing-school teacher he stopped at a tavern in the town of Northfield and ordered his dinner. It was very slow in coming, but the inevitable “how long?” that formulated itself in his hungry thoughts, instead of sharpening into profane complaint, fell into the rhythm of Watts' sacred line—and the tune came with it. To call it “Northfield” was natural enough; the place where its melody first beguiled him from his bodily wants to a dream of the final Fruition Day.

Ingalls died in Hancock, Vt., April 6, 1828.

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