Neale, JOHN MASON

Neale, JOHN MASON, hymnologist, born in London, January 24, 1818, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, became incumbent of Crawley, Sussex, in 1842, and in May 1846 warden of Sackville College, East Grinstead, where he died, August 6, 1866. He belonged to the most advanced section of the High Church party, and was long one of the most misunderstood and unpopular men in England. He was inhibited by his bishop for fourteen years, and burned in effigy in 1857, while throughout life his means were of the smallest. He founded in 1854 the well-known sisterhood of St Margaret. His most important work is his History of the Holy Eastern Church (4 vols. 1847–51); others were Mediæval Preachers (1857), History of the so-called 'Jansenist' Church of Holland (1858), a preposterous adaptation of The Pilgrims' Progress (1853), and a long series of stories for the young, intended to popularise church history, but the value of which is almost exclusively other than historical. But his greatest work was his invaluable contribution to hymnology, both original and translated. His Hymns for the Sick and Hymns for Children were followed by his more important volumes of translations: Mediæval Hymns and Sequences (1851), the Rhythm of Bernard of Morlaix (1858), and his Hymns of the Eastern Church (1863). Many of his translations are cherished by all English-speaking Christendom, as the beautiful hymns, 'O love how deep, how broad,' 'The day is past and over;' and the exquisite series adapted from his translation of Bernard of Morlaix's poem, 'The world is very evil,' 'Brief life is here our portion,' 'For thee, O dear, dear country,' and 'Jerusalem the golden.' There is no modern author to whom hymnology owes a greater debt than to this one inspired writer whose own conscious ecclesiastical sympathies were yet so narrow. A selection from his writings appeared in 1884. See HYMN.