HYMN-WRITERS I HAVE KNOWN _Montgomery--Bonar--Bowring--Palmer and Others_ Hymnology has always been a favorite study with me, and it has been my privilege to be acquainted with several of the most eminent hymn-writers within the last sixty or seventy years.

It is a remarkable fact that among the distinguished English-speaking poets, Cowper and Montgomery are the only ones who have been successful in producing many popular hymns; while the greatest hymns have been the compositions either of ministers of the Gospel, like Watts, Wesley, Toplady, Doddridge, Newman, Lyte, Bonar and Ray Palmer, or by godly women, like Charlotte Elliott, Mrs.Sarah F.Adams, Miss Havergal and Mrs.Prentiss.During my visit to Great Britain in the summer of 1842, I spent a few weeks at Sheffield as the guest of Mr.Edward Vickers, the ex-Mayor of the city.

His near neighbor was the venerable James Montgomery, whose pupil he had been during the short time that the poet conducted a school.

Mr.Vickers took me to visit the poet at his residence at The Mount.

A short, brisk, cheery old man, then seventy-one, came into the room with a spry step.