I gave them a two hours' reading in their handsome theatre, and I never had a more intensely attentive audience than those three hundred lunatics.

The ballad runs thus,--if any wish to see it, as for the first time:-- "Never give up! it is wiser and better Always to hope than once to despair; Fling off the load of Doubt's heavy fetter And break the dark spell of tyrannical care: Never give up! or the burden may sink you,-- Providence kindly has mingled the cup, And, in all trials or troubles, bethink you The watchword of life must be Never give up! "Never give up! there are chances and changes Helping the hopeful a hundred to one, And through the chaos High Wisdom arranges Ever success, if you'll only hope on: Never give up! for the wisest is boldest, Knowing that Providence mingles the cup, And of all maxims the best as the oldest Is the true watchword of Never give up! "Never give up! though the grapeshot may rattle Or the full thunderbolt over you burst, Stand like a rock,--and the storm or the battle Little shall harm you, though doing their worst: Never give up!--if Adversity presses, Providence wisely has mingled the cup, And the best counsel in all your distresses Is the stout watchword of Never give up!" I can quite feel what a moral tonic and spiritual stimulant these sentiments would be to many among the thousand patients under Dr.
Kirkland's care.
I recollect also now, that once when I read at Weston-super-Mare, with Lord Cavan in the chair, a military man among the audience, on hearing me recite "Never give up," came forward and shook hands, showing me out of his pocket-book a soiled newspaper cutting of the poem without my name, saying that it had cheered him all through the Crimea, and that he had always wished to find out the author.

Of course we coalesced right heartily.

Some other such anecdotes might be added, but this is enough.
* * * * * Year by year, for more than a dozen, I have given a harvest hymn to the jubilant agriculturists: they have usually attained the honour of a musical setting, and been sung all over the land in many churches.
Perhaps the best of them is one for which Bishop Samuel Wilberforce wrote to "thank me cordially for a real Christian hymn with the true ring in it." There are, or were, many musical settings thereof, the best being one of a German composer.
"O Nation, Christian Nation Lift high the hymn of praise! The God of our salvation Is love in all His ways; He blesseth us, and feedeth Every creature of His hand, To succour him that needeth And to gladden all the land.
"Rejoice, ye happy people, And peal the changing chime From every belfried steeple In symphony sublime: Let cottage and let palace Be thankful and rejoice, And woods and hills and valleys Re-echo the glad voice! "From glen, and plain, and city Let gracious incense rise; The Lord of life and pity Hath heard His creatures' cries: And where in fierce oppression Stalk'd fever, fear, and dearth, He pours a triple blessing To fill and fatten earth! "Gaze round in deep emotion; The rich and ripened grain Is like a golden ocean Becalm'd upon the plain; And we who late were weepers, Lest judgment should destroy, Now sing, because the reapers Are come again with joy! "O praise the Hand that giveth, And giveth evermore, To every soul that liveth Abundance flowing o'er! For every soul He filleth With manna from above, And over all distilleth The unction of His love.
"Then gather, Christians, gather, To praise with heart and voice The good Almighty Father Who biddeth you rejoice: For He hath turned the sadness Of His children into mirth, And we will sing with gladness The harvest-home of Earth." My "Song of Seventy," published more than forty years ago, has been exceedingly popular; and I here make this extract from an early archive-book respecting it:--"Dr.Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, was so pleased with this said 'Song of Seventy' that he posted off to Hatchards' forthwith (after seeing it quoted anonymously in the _Athenaeum_) to inquire the author's name." It was published in "One Thousand Lines." I composed it during a solitary walk near Hurstperpoint, Sussex, in 1845, near about when I wrote "Never give up." * * * * * Of my several ballads upon Gordon (I think there were nine of them) I will here enshrine one, printed in the newspapers of May 1884, and perhaps worthiest to be saved from evanescence:-- "If England had but spoken With Wellesley's lion roar, Or flung out Nelson's token Of duty as of yore, We should not now, too late, too late, Be saddened day by day, Dreading to hear of Gordon's fate, The victim of delay.
"He felt in isolation '_Civis Romanus sum_,' And trusted his great nation Right sure that help would come: Could he have dreamt that British power Which placed him at his post, In peril's long-expected hour Would leave him to be lost?
"He lives alone for others,-- Himself he scorns to save, And ev'n with savage brothers Will share their bloody grave! Woe! woe to us! should England's glory, To our rulers' blame, Close gallant Gordon's wondrous story, England! in thy shame." This was half prophetic at the time, and we all have grieved for England's Christian hero ever since.
* * * * * When Lord Shaftesbury's lamented death lately touched the national heart, I felt as others did and uttered this sentiment accordingly:-- _The Good Earl._ "Grieve not for him, as those who mourn the dead; He lives! Ascended from that dying bed, Clad in an incense-cloud of human love, His happy spirit met the blest above; And as his feet entered the golden door, With him flew in loud blessings of the poor; While in a thrilling chorus from below-- Millions of children, saved by him from woe, With their sweet voices joined the seraphim Who thronged in raptured haste to welcome him! "For God had given him grace, and place, and power To bless the destitute from hour to hour; And from a child to fourscore years and four, All knew and lov'd the Helper of the poor, O coal-pit woman-slave! O factory child! O famished beggar-boy with hunger wild! O rescued outcast, torn from sin and shame! Ye know your friend--by myriads bless his name! We need not utter it--The Good, The Great, These are his titles in that Blest Estate." I was much touched and pleased with this little anecdote to the purpose.
Speaking casually to a bright-looking boy of the Shoeblack Brigade about Lord Shaftesbury (the boy didn't know me from Adam), to find out how far he felt for his lost friend, with tears in his eyes he quoted to my astonishment part of the above, and told me that he and many of his mates knew it by heart, having seen it in some paper.

I never said who wrote it (probably he wouldn't have believed me if I had) but left him happy with some pears.
Perhaps I may here add (and all this has been part of "My Life as an Author") a couple of stanzas I wrote, (but never have published till now) on another worthy specimen of humanity, mourned in death by our highest:-- _In Memoriam J.B._ "Simple, pious, honest man, Child of heaven while son of earth, We would praise, for praise we can, Thy good service, thy great worth; Through long years of prosperous place In the sunshine of the Crown, With man's favour and God's grace Humbly, bravely, walked John Brown.
"Faithful to the Blameless Prince, Faithful to the Widowed Queen, Loved,--as oft before and since Truth and zeal have ever been,-- His no pedigree of pride, His no name of old renown, Yet in honour lived and died Nature's nobleman, John Brown." Also, I will here give, as it appears nowhere else, a few lines to a dying brother, for the sake of recording his hopeful last three words:-- _Dear Brother Dan's Latest Whisper._ "'Life unto life!' This was the whispered word That from my dying brother's lips I heard Faintly and feebly uttered, in the strife Of Nature's agony,--'Life--unto--life!' Yea, brother! for thou livest; death is dead, And life rejoiceth unto life instead; No sins, no cares, no sorrows, and no pains,-- But deep delights, unutterable gains, Now are thy portion in that higher sphere, The heritage of God's own children here Who loved their Lord awhile on earth, and now Live to Him evermore in love--as thou!" And in this connection I will print here a psychological poem of mine, not to be found in any other of my books:-- _Memory._ I.
"When the soul passes Eternity's portal, In that Hereafter of Being Elsewhere, When this poor earthworm becomes an Immortal, Risen to Life Incorruptible There; If in some semblance of spirit and feature, Still to be recognised one and the same, Not in its entity quite a new creature, But as a growth of the world whence it came,-- II.
"Oh, what a river of gladness or sadness Then must gush out from quick memory's well, Infinite ecstasy, uttermost madness, As the quick conscience greets Heaven--or Hell! Whilst he reviews old scenes and past travels, Grained in himself and engraved on his soul, As the knit robe of his timework unravels And his whole life is unmeshed to its goal.
III.
"Yea, for within him, far more than without him, Works ever following, evil or good, Happiness, misery, circling about him, Plant a man's foot in the soil where he stood: If he was sensual, sordid, and cruel, Sensual, cruel, and base let him be, If he have guarded his soul as a jewel, Holy and happy and blessed be he! IV.
"For that the seeds both of Hell and of Heaven Darnel or wheat-corn, crowd memory's mart, And though all sin be repented, forgiven, Yet recollections must live in the heart: Still resurrected each moment's each action Comes up for conscience to judge it again, Joy unto peace or remorse to distraction, Growing to infinite pleasure or pain.
V.
"Thy many sins were the ruin of others, Though the chief sinner's own guilt may be waived: What! shall the doom of those sisters and brothers Not be a sorrow to thee that art saved?
Can utter selfishness be God's Nirwana, Blest--with our brethren of blessing bereft?
Must not His Heaven seem poorer and vainer, Where one is taken and others are left?
VI.
"Oh, there is hope in His mercy for ever-- Yea, for the worst, after ages of woe, Till on this side of the uttermost Never, Even the devils His mercy may know! Punished and purified, Justice and Reason Well would rejoice if the Judge on His throne Grant His salvation to all in full season, Ruling, in bliss, all His works as His own.
VII.
"Every creature, redeemed and recovered Through the One sacrifice offered for all, Where sin and death so fatally hovered, Mercy triumphant in full o'er the fall! Thus shall old memories harmonise sweetly With the grand heavenly anthem above, As this sad life that was shattered so fleetly, Then is made whole in the Infinite Love." It may count as one of my heresies in an orthodox theological sense, but I certainly cling to the great idea of Eternal Hope; and, after any amount of retributive punishment for purifying the "lost" soul, I look for ultimate salvation to all God's creatures.