PHILIP PAUL. BLISS.

PHILIP PAUL BLISS was the author, under God, of a large part of the most popular hymns and music that were used by the two American evangelists in their mighty labors for awakening and evangelizing the English world. By general acceptation, he has been hailed as the Charles Wesley of the Nineteenth century. Mr. Moody, in a loving tribute to the beauty of his life and character, testifies: "I believe he was raised up of God to write hymns for the Church of Christ in this age, as Charles Wesley was for the church in his day. His songs have gone around the world, and have lead and will continue to lead hundreds of souls to Christ. In my estimation, he was the most highly honored of God, of any man of his time, as a writer and singer of gospel songs; and with all his gifts he was the most humble man I ever knew. I loved him as a brother, and shall cherish his memory, giving praise to God for the grace manifested in him, while life lasts.

The ancestors of P. P. Bliss were emigrants from Wales, and were numbered among the early settlers of Connecticut, where their first marriage record dated back to 1670. His grandfather settled in the wilderness of Saratoga county, New York, in 1788. His father, Isaac, whom his son calls "the best man I ever knew," was a poor man,, but a devout, simple-hearted Puritan; a trustful, joyful, singing saint. Philip was born in the log homestead, in Clearfield county, Pennsylvania, on the 9th of July, 1838. When he was six years old, his father removed to Trumbull county, Ohio, and returned into Pennsylvania three years later, settling finally in Tioga county. Thus the boy passed his earlier years in frontier clearings, where the opportunities for schooling were very scanty. He lived much under the open sky, amid the inspiring scenes of a mountainous district, and as a rambler through the forest and by the torrents. As a child, it delighted him to take part with his father in singing some of the grand old revival hymns, such as "Come ye sinners poor and needy," and "Come, ye that love the Lord." He could easily master a new tune, and whistle it, or thrum it out on some hand-made instrument. At the age of eleven, he set out from home to work on a farm, carrying his spare clothing tied up in a handkerchief. Four years later he was in a lumber-camp cutting logs, and soon after, he was engaged in a saw-mill. Meanwhile, the spare time in every season found him a diligent scholar in the district school, for he was eagerly desirous of acquiring an education. At the age of eighteen, his studious habits and manliness of character led to his appointment

as teacher at Hartsville, Alleghany county, New York. Two years later, he taught in the academy at Rome, Pennsylvania.

At Rome, he became acquainted with Miss Lucy J. Young, then aged eighteen, and they were married on the 1st of June, 1859. Major Whittle in his appreciative Memoir, to which we are much indebted in this sketch, thus outlines the personality of this young and happy pair: "Mrs. Bliss was in many things the opposite and the complement of her husband. He was by nature poetical, impulsive, demonstrative, easily moved; she was strongly practical, reticent, and with great adherence of purpose. She was both wife and mother to him from the first of their union. She was of a deep nature, loving, tender in her affection, beyond what most who knew her gave her credit for. His buoyant, joyful, affectionate, warm-hearted demonstrativeness naturally made her more reserved manner seem constrained; but all who learned to know her loved and admired her, and thanked God that Philip Bliss had such a wife.

Mrs. Bliss was already a member of the Presbyterian church, and her husband united himself to the same congregation, while also serving as superintendent of a union Sunday-school in Rome. His actual conversion however, must be antedated many years. Indeed, he appears to have been a child of God when very young, as his personal experience was that he could never remember the time when he did not love the Savior. At the age of twelve, he had openly confessed Christ, and had been baptized in the creek at Ells Run by a Baptist minister.

Mr. Bliss' wealth at the time of his marriage consisted almost wholly of a sound mind in a sound body. His active life had secured him a stalwart and fine physique, while his handsome features, spirited eyes, and emotional nature gave promise of powers of mentality as yet undeveloped. For a year, he worked on the farm of his father-in-law, for the ordinary wages of thirteen dollars a month. His passion for music had been intensified by an attendance at a musical convention held in Rome, by W. B. Bradbury, in 1857, and he was now earnestly desirous of qualifying himself to become a teacher of music. The opportunity of attending a summer session of six weeks at the "Normal Academy of Music," held at Geneseo, N. Y., in 1860, was afforded him through the sympathy of his wife's grandmother, who emptied out for him the silver savings of a good many years. He profited so well by this start that he was able in the following winter to become a professional music teacher, while his summers were still spent in working on the farm. So passed tranquilly and happily, some years of unconscious training for the Lord's service. Mr. Bliss was diligent in continuing his studies, and prospered so that he was able to save a few hundred dollars. With this money he bought a little cottage, and removed his aged parents from the backwoods to his own home. Here his humble-minded

father spent the last years of his life, thanking God for giving him a better home on earth than he had ever expected to have.

Mr. Bliss wrote his first musical composition in the summer of 1864. It was a song of tender sentiment, entitled "Lora Vale," and was published in sheet form by Root & Cady, of Chicago. Its popularity led to his venture before the public in a series of concerts, in which he achieved a fair success. In December, 1865, being then aged twenty-seven, he was permanently engaged by the firm of Root & Cady, and removed his family to Chicago. "He went to work," records Mr. Geo. F. Root, "first about the State, holding musical conventions and giving concerts, and attending to the interests of certain parts of our business; sending to us occasional communications for our musical paper, and occasional compositions. I do not recall particulars about these compositions. I only know that it was my pleasure to look them over and suggest, if I could, improvements, or hint at faults now and then, especially in the earlier ones. I say my pleasure, for never had teacher so teachable and docile a subject for criticism (I can hardly say pupil, for I never taught him regularly), nor one who repaid with such generous affection the small services that were in this way rendered to him. I do not know of his modes or habits of composition, but do know of his wonderful fertility and facility. His responses to the calls for the many kinds of literary and musical work that we soon found he could do always surprised us as much by their promptness as by their uniform excellence. It was lovely to see how near to all he did was his religion. There was for him no line on one side of which was a bright face and on the other a solemn one. His smile went into his religion and his religion into his smile." And Mr. F. W. Root, another associate, describes his personal and mental gifts as wonderful. His faculty for seizing upon the salient features of whatever came under his notice amounted to an unerring instinct. The one kernel of wheat in a bushel of chaff was the first thing he saw. Examine the work which really enlisted his whole soul, and you will see nothing but keen discernment, rare taste, and great verbal facility. His gospel hymns contain no pointless verses, awkward rhythms, or forced rhymes, but, on the contrary, they glow with all that gives life to such composition. Mr. Bliss' voice was always a marvel to me. He used occasionally to come to my room, requesting that I would look into his vocalization with a view to suggestions. At first a few suggestions were made, but latterly I could do nothing but admire. Beginning with E flat, or even Ď flat below, he would, without apparent effort, produce a series of clarion tones, in an ascending series, until having reached the D (fourth line tenor clef) I would look to see him weaken and give up, as would most bass singers; but no, on he would go, taking D sharp, E, F, F sharp and G, without weakness, without throatyness, with

The death of P. P. Bliss and his wife was almost like a translation to heaven by a chariot of fire. That Christian poet was permitted to spend several weeks with Moody and Sankey in Chicago, and to edit" Gospel Hymns No. 2" with the latter. At that time he agreed with Major Whittle to resume their places on their departure, and also to visit England later. He passed Christmas with his mother and sister at Towanda, Pa., and then hastened toward Chicago with Mrs. Bliss, leaving their two little sons at Rome. But that railroad train of eleven cars crashed through the bridge over Ashtabula river on the night of December 29, and fell down seventy feet, a shapeless mass. They were in the first parlor car, and were either crushed at once or else consumed by the conflagration that arose from the stoves. The most diligent search failed to recover their remains. Our whole nation sympathized with the evangelists at Chicago in their great sorrow. The Sunday schools joined in a spontaneous collection for the benefit of the orphaned children, and $10,000 were collected in a few weeks.

REV. JOSEPH COOK.

It happened, through the overruling providence of God, that an admirable coadjutor to prepare the way for Mr. Moody's advent in Boston, by awakening the minds of its thoughtful and skeptical citizens to give a respectful hearing to the claims of the gospel, as well as to co-operate with that evangelist, and continue the good work after his departure, was raised up in the person of REV. JOSEPH COOK. That gentleman was born at Ticonderoga, in the northeastern section of New York, in 1838. He was prepared for college at Phillips' Academy, and then entered Yale College. The attraction of Harvard was more powerful, however, and he graduated from the latter institution in 1865. He next passed to Andover Theological Seminary, and completed its course of study for the ministry three years later. For two years he filled vacancies in the pulpits of Congregational churches at East Abingdon, Mass., Middlebury, Vt., and Malden, Mass. Then his passion for a profound study of the deep problems of religious life and thought, led him abroad as a student to profit by the curriculum of the German universities, and by a personal association with their foremost evangelical divines. After his return, he became for a short time associate minister of the First Church, Lynn. When that edifice was burned, he turned to a music hall, and there lectured impressively on the evils of the factory system and of intemperance.

Thus were spent the formative years of his manhood, in severe and conscientious study, that he might be fitted to grapple understandingly with the mightiest questions that divided the minds of his generation, and upon whose correct decision hung the welfare of untold numbers. A fellow minister, Rev. William. M. Baker, says of him as a student: "It might be said that amid the harvests of books he wields the flail with an arm as muscular as that which holds the sickle, that he has a singularly quick perception as to what is ripe and wholesome wheat for food among the chaff, but this would be only a part of the truth. The fact is, the energy and the discrimination of the man are owing to the instinct, so to speak, in him of one supreme purpose, which is to find for himself and others, among the very latest results of all thought, scientific and philosophic, those ultimate facts which are also, as he thinks, the highest food-food for the intellect and the heart, because for the undying soul."

Early in 1876, Mr. Cook found his congenial and fitting field of labor. Under the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Associa