Gill, Thomas Hornblower, an English layman, was born in Birmingham February 10, 1819, and died in 1906. He prepared for the University of Oxford, but could not enter because, having been trained in Unitarian principles, he could not subscribe to the Articles of the Church of England, as was then required. Later he left the Unitarian Church. He wrote about two hundred hymns. Most of them were collected in his Golden Chain of Praise, London, 1869. He was an original hymnist, and had some very correct ideas as to what a hymn should be. In his preface he said: "Hymns are not meant to be theological statements, expositions of doctrine, or enunciations of precepts; they are utterances of the soul in its manifold moods of hope and fear, joy and sorrow, love, wonder, and aspiration. . . . Hymns are meant and made to be sung. The best and most glorious hymns cannot be more exactly defined than as divine love songs."