“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!