Isaac Watts died on this date in 1748 but is a presence in the life of everyone who next month will sing Joy to the World. He is the author also of At The Cross and Let Children Hear The Mighty Deeds, of O God, Our Help in Ages Past, sung at the funeral of Winston Churchill, and of When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. Charles Wesley said of the last that he would rather have written it than all of his own hymns.



So great a talent casts a shadow, and a lesser figure also died on this date, in 1900. Robert Lowry was a Philadelphian and spent his life and ministry within a hundred miles of the city. He was a Baptist minister, a music editor and a composer and among his notable hymns are Low In The Grave He Lay, the mournful solemnity of death overwhelmed by Christ's triumph, and Shall We Gather At The River. In a happy circumstance, the men are joined in one work; Lowry wrote the musical setting for Watts's hymn Marching to Zion.



There's another of the hymns of Robert Lowry that I've always liked and that, because of an association, has become more important to me and more fixed in my mind. My father, another Philadelphian, died suddenly on a summer Saturday a couple of years ago and this happened to be the recessional hymn at the Mass I attended the following day. And fitting. For songs of reassurance are meant sometimes to be sung through tears.



How Can I Keep From Singing



My life flows on in endless song;

Above earth’s lamentation

I hear the sweet though far off hymn

That hails a new creation:

Through all the tumult and the strife

I hear the music ringing;

It finds an echo in my soul—

How can I keep from singing?



What though my joys and comforts die?

The Lord my Savior liveth;

What though the darkness gather round!

Songs in the night He giveth:

No storm can shake my inmost calm

While to that refuge clinging;

Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth,

How can I keep from singing?



I lift mine eyes; the cloud grows thin;

I see the blue above it;

And day by day this pathway smoothes

Since first I learned to love it:

The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,

A fountain ever springing:

All things are mine since I am His—

How can I keep from singing?