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the terms in which I have endeavored to provide for the expression of similar religious experience in others. As all my hymns embody some portion of the joys or sor- rows,"the hopes and fears of this poor heart, so I cannot doubt but that they will be found an acceptable vehicle of expression of the experience of many of my fellow- creatures who may be similarly exercised during the pilgrimage of their Christian life.' "
From the fact that he was a layman in active and laborious business, he was less likely than some of his clerical brothers in song to make the hymn simply a doctrine in rhyme. While evangelical in faith, his hymns are always far more than doctrinal statement in verse. The rules which he laid down in the " Introduc- tory Essay" to his Christian Psalmist, which should be adhered to in writing hymns, he has seldom failed to regard. " There should be," he says, " unity, gradation, and mutual dependence in the thoughts, a conscious progress, and at the end a sense of completeness," and he insists that hj'mns ought to be easy to understand. It may be said of his hymns without exception that there is nothing in them to offend the taste, and much to gratify it. The most precious truths of Scripture and the richest experiences of the Christian find in them simple but poetic expression ; and they are made suita- ble for the use of congregations by a poet who was quite familiar with the requirements of an assembly of wor- shippers. As expressive of how important Mr. Mont- gomery deemed his last work, and of his high a]3precia- tion of the works of others, may be quoted part of the closing paragraph of his preface. He says : " Having on tliree former occasions expatiated freely on hymnol- ogy and sacred poesy, I will close this egotistical pre- amble to the most serious work of my long life (now passing fourscore years) with a brief quotation from what may be esteemed a sainted authority on such a subject. Bishop Ken somewhere says, beautifully, humbly, and poetically :
'And should the well-meant song I leave behind With Jesus' lovers some acceptance find, 'Twill heiirhten even the joys of heaven to know That in my verse saints siug God's praise below.'" His last years were passed in ease and comfort, he en- joying, besides the frugal earnings of an industrious life, from 1835 a pension from the government of =£150 per annum. He died at his own residence near Sheffield, April 30, 1854. The London Atkenceian, shortly after his death, thus spoke of him : " Montgomery held a place in the ej'es of the English public — universal as well as sectarian — not far behind Campbell, by the side of Lisle Bowles and Milman, and before such lesser lights as Carrington and Crowe. This generation knows less than its predecessor of the poems of James Mont- gomery, of Sheffield. Some have adopted Pollok as their religious poet elect ; others have taken Keble as their bosom friend. But the author of ' The West In- dies,' ' The World before the Flood,' and ' Greenland,' is still not forgotten, in spite of these shiftings of the shrine at which religious fashion chooses to burn its incense ; and his vogue may one day return — the soon- er because it was merited by the genuine gifts of the poet as well as by the eloquence of the class-preacher." Meinoii-s of the Life and Writings of James Montgom- ery, with Extracts from his Correspondence, etc., were published in 1855-6 (7 vols. 8vo) by two of his friends, John Holland and James Everett. An abridgment of these Memoirs was published by Mrs. Helen C. Knight at Boston in 1857 (12mo, 41C pages). See British and For. Ev.Eev. vol. xxii; xliii, 248 ; [Lond.] Qu.Rev.vol. xi, art. ix; North Amer. Rev. (Oct. 1857) p. 563; Zif- ingAge,:slv,B70; xlvii,282; Yio-^itt, Homes and Haunts of British Poets ; Wilson, Essays, Crit. and Imag. (1856) ii, 238 ; and especially the excellent article in AUibone's Diet, of Brit, and Amer. A uth. ii, 1345-47. (S. S.)
Montgomery, Robert, an Anglican clergyman, very noted especially as a writer of sacred poetry, was born at Bath, England, in 1807, and was educated at VI.— M M