I shall behold His face,
I shall His power adore,
And sing the wonders of His grace
Forevermore.


_THE TUNE._

The precise date of the tune "Leoni" is unknown, as also the precise
date of the hymn. The story is that Olivers visited the great "Duke's
Place" Synagogue, Aldgate, London, and heard Meyer Lyon (Leoni) sing the
Yigdal or long doxology to an air so noble and impressive that it
haunted him till he learned it and fitted to it the sublime stanzas of
his song. Lyon, a noted Jewish musician and vocalist, was chorister of
this London Synagogue during the latter part of the 18th century and the
Yigdal was a portion of the Hebrew Liturgy composed in medieval times,
it is said, by Daniel Ben Judah. The fact that the Methodist leaders
took Olivers from his bench to be one of their preachers answers any
suggestion that the converted shoemaker _copied_ the Jewish hymn and put
Christian phrases in it. He knew nothing of Hebrew, and had he known
it, a literal translation of the Yigdal will show hardly a similarity to
his evangelical lines. Only the music as Leoni sang it prompted his own
song, and he gratefully put the singer's name to it. Montgomery, who
admired the majestic style of the hymn, and its glorious imagery, said
of its author, "The man who wrote that hymn must have had the finest ear
imaginable, for on account of the peculiar measure, none but a person of
equal musical and poetic taste could have produced the harmony
perceptible in the verse."

Whether the hymnist or some one else fitted the hymn to the tune, the