Conjubilant with Song

The Confession of Saint Peter

2012-01-18T12:58:00.017-05:00

In many liturgical churches, January 18 marks the Confession of Saint Peter, which commemorates the apostle's declaration of the Godhood of Jesus, as told in Matthew 16:13-20. This is apparently the first time that the followers of Jesus realized exactly who they had been following.

Today's hymn is by the Anglican hymnwriter (and eventually Bishop) William Walsham How, and first appeared in Church Hymns (1871), a hymnal produced by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (still in existence today). How was also the chair of the committee that compiled this hymnal.

“Thou art the Christ, O Lord,
The Son of God most high!”
For ever be adored
That name in earth and sky,
In which, though mortal strength may fail,
The saints of God at last prevail!

Oh,great was Peter blest
With blessedness unpriced,
Who, taught of God, confessed
The Godhead in the Christ!
For of thy Church, Lord, thou didst own
Thy saint a true foundation stone.

Thrice was he put to shame,
Thrice did the dauntless fall;
But, oh, that look that came
From out the judgment hall!
It pierced and broke his fearful heart,
And foiled the Tempter’s sifting art.

Thrice fallen, thrice restored!
The bitter lesson learnt,
That heart for thee, O Lord,
With triple ardor burnt.
The cross he took he laid not down,
Until he grasped the martyr’s crown.

Oh, bright triumphant faith!
Oh, courage void of fears!
Oh, love most strong in death!
Oh, penitential tears!
May all these keep us lest we fall,
And make us go where thou shalt call.

William Walsham How, 1871; alt.

Tune: BEVAN (6.6.6.6.8.8.)
John Goss, 1853

There are not many hymns written specifically for this day, but the theme certainly suggests several general hymns which could be sung.

The Feast of the Epiphany

2012-01-06T13:17:00.012-05:00

January 6 is the "official" date for the Feast of the Epiphany, though your church may celebrate it on Sunday. In some parts of the world, it is better known as Three Kings Day, but by any name it marks the visit to the infant Jesus by people of distant countries (whether they were indeed kings, or magi, or whatever), as opposed to the nearby shepherds. It signifies the eventual importance of this baby who was to be known around the world, not just in Bethlehem or Galilee.

This hymn was written by William Chatterton Dix, whose work we have seen before, and appeared in his first collection, Hymns of Love and Joy (1861). Reportedly he wrote it on the feast day, January 6, 1856.

As with gladness those of old

Did the guiding star behold;

As with joy they hailed its light,

Leading onward, beaming bright;

So, most gracious Lord, may we

Evermore be led to thee.

As with joyful steps they sped

To that lowly manger-bed;

There to bend the knee before

Christ, whom heaven and earth adore;

So may we with willing feet

Ever seek the mercy seat.

As they offered gifts most rare

At that manger rude and bare;

So may we with holy joy,

Pure and free from sin's alloy,

All our costliest treasures bring,

Christ! to thee, our heavenly King.

Holy Jesus! every day

Keep us in the narrow way;

And, when earthly things are past,

Bring our ransomed souls at last

Where they need no star to guide,

Where no clouds thy glory hide.

In that heavenly country bright,

Need they no created light;

Thou its light, its joy, its crown,

Thou its sun which goes not down;

There for ever may we sing

Alleluias echoing.

William Chatterton Dix, 1856; alt.

Tune: DIX (7.7.7.7.7.7.)

Conrad Kocher, 1838; adapt. William H. Monk, 1861

This well-known tune was altered slightly from its German original form by William Henry Monk, editor of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861), where it was first matched to this text. It was probably also Monk who named the tune for this text's author.

P.S. You may have thought that after three years (beginnning a fourth later this month) that we have run out of familiar hymns, but as you can see we're not done yet.

Three Years Ago: Saw you never, in the twilight

Two Years Ago: Earth has many a noble city

One Year Ago: What star is this, with beams so bright

P.S. You may have thought that after three years (beginnning a fourth later this month) that we have run out of familiar hymns, but as you can see we're not done yet.

Three Years Ago: Saw you never, in the twiligh

Two Years Ago: Earth has many a noble city

One Year Ago: What star is this, with beams so bright

Another Year Its Course Has Run

2012-01-01T15:48:00.003-05:00

O God, whom neither time nor space

Can limit, hold, or bind.

Look down from heav'n, thy dwelling place

With love for humankind.

Another year its course has run,

Thy loving care renew;

Forgive the ill that we have done,

The good we failed to do.

In doubt or danger, all our days,

Be near to guard us still;

Let all our thoughts and all our ways

Be guided by thy will.

O help us here on earth to live

From selfish strife set free;

To us at last in mercy give

Eternal life with thee.

Horace Smith, 19th cent.; alt.

Tune DUNFERMLINE (C.M.)

Scottish Psalter, 1615

Three Years Ago: Bessie Porter Head

Two Years Ago: O God, by whom all change is wrought

One Year Ago: Another year is dawning

When Right Shall Triumph Over Wrong

2011-11-27T14:13:00.008-05:00

It's a new beginning as we come 'round again to the opening of the church year and the First Sunday in Advent, a time of preparation for the coming Christmas season (four weeks to go!). As usual, we will not see any Christmas carols here until the season of Advent is over. It's our fourth Advent here at CWS, and we have not yet run out of material for the season.

On this first Sunday you may have noticed that the lessons and hymns in your church frequently refer not only to the prophesied birth of a Savior, but also to the Second Coming of Jesus, linking us to both the past and the future.

The King shall come when morning dawns,

And light triumphant breaks;

When beauty gilds the eastern hills,

And life to joy awakes.

Not as of old, a little child,

To bear, and fight, and die,

But crowned with glory like the sun,

That lights that morning sky.

The King shall come when morning dawns,

And earth’s long night is past;—

O, haste the rising of that morn,

That day that e'er shall last.

And let the endless bliss begin,

By weary saints foretold,

When right shall triumph over wrong,

And truth shall be extolled.

The King shall come when morning dawns,

And light and beauty brings;

Hail. Christ the Word! Thy people pray.

Come quickly, King of kings!

John Brownlie, 1907; alt.

Tune: ST. STEPHEN (C.M.)

William Jones, 1789

In many hymnals, this text is said to be originally from the Greek, and translated by John Brownlie, a Scottish Presbyterian. It was first published in his Hymns from the East (1907), a collection of translations. However, no Greek original has ever been identified, and some more modern sources believe that Brownlie wrote the text himself, perhaps using a concept from an older text.

Three Years Ago: Lo, he comes with clouds descending

Two Years Ago: Jesus came, the heav'ns adoring

One Year Ago: Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates

The Feast of All Souls

2011-11-02T12:04:00.000-04:00

In some traditions, today is celebrated as All Souls Day, the Commemoration of All Faithful Departed, or the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Prayers are offered in remembrance of those who have died. While it is a separate occasion from All Saints' Day, the two days' proximity on the calendar has blurred their differences in the minds of many. It's usually the celebration of All Saints that is transferred to the Sunday before or after.

My own church has an annual weekday service for All Souls, where a small choir sings portions of the plainsong chant service Missa pro defunctis and the names of the departed loved ones of the congregation are read. This hymn is also usually a part of the service.

Jesus, Son of Mary, Fount of life alone,
Here we hail thee present on thine altar throne.
Humbly we adore thee, Lord of endless might,
In the mystic symbols veiled from earthly sight.

Think, dear Christ, in mercy on the souls of those
Who, in faith gone from us, now in death repose.
Here ’mid stress and conflict toils can never cease;
There, the warfare ended, bid them rest in peace.
:
Rest eternal grant unto them, after weary fight;
Shed on them the radiance of thy heavenly light.
Lead them onward, upward, to the holy place,
Where thy saints made perfect gaze upon thy face.

Edmund S. Palmer, 1906; alt.
Tune: ADORO TE DEVOTE (6.5.6.5.D.)
Plainsong Mode V, 13th cent.

Anglican priest Edmund Stuart Palmer was for several years a missionary in Zanzibar. He originally wrote this text in Swahili (Yesu, Bin Mariamu) and it was published in a hymnal for the Diocese of Zamzibar. After returning to England, he translated it into English.

Walter Russell Bowie

2011-10-08T19:54:00.000-04:00

Walter Russell Bowie was born today in 1882 in Richmond, Virginia. He was educated at Harvard University (where he co-edited the Harvard Crimson newspaper with Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and the Virginia Theological Seminary. In 1909 he was ordained in the Episcopal Church.

Following two years at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Greenwood, VA, he became the rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond, where he had been baptized in 1883. During World War I he took a leave of absence from that church to serve as a Red Cross hospital chaplain in France, then returned to Richmond until 1923, when he went to Grace Church in New York City. After sixteen years at Grace he served as Professor of Practical Theology and later Dean of Students at Union Theological Seminary.

Bowie was a renowned preacher who is still referenced in most histories of preaching. A series of his sermons from 1935 at the Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale University was published as The Renewing Gospel, only one in a long series of books he published in his lifetime. He was also on the editorial committee for the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

He was a strong proponent of the social gospel, which applies Christian ethics to the problems of the world. The first of his hymn texts to receive wide publication is still one of the great social gospel hymns of the twentieth centtury: O holy city, seen of John, which was written at the request of Henry Sloan Coffin for inclusion in Hymns of the Kingdom of God (1910). Coffin and his co-editor, Ambrose White Vernon, were looking for texts that would demonstrate that signs of the reign of God could be brought forth here on earth, and were not just something to be hoped for in the life to come.

Bowie naturally supported many other social causes and was active in promoting them. In the 1920s he joined the American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born, which opposed the racist immugration laws that were being passed at that time. This was not a new cause for him, as this hymn from 1913 shows. Since immigration is still a prominent topic in our national discussion it seems appropriate for today.

God of the nations, who from dawn of days,
Hast led thy people in their widening ways,
Through whose deep purpose seeking thousands stand
Here in the borders of our promised land.

Thine ancient might rebuked the Pharaoh’s boast.
Thou wast the shield for Israel’s marching host,
And, all the ages through, past crumbling throne
And broken fetter, thou hast brought thine own.

Thy hand has led across the hungry sea
The eager peoples flocking to be free,
And, from the lands of earth, thy silent sway
Fashions the nation of the broadening day.

Then, for thy grace to grow in unity,
For hearts aflame to serve thus cause for thee,
For faith, and will to win what faith shall see,
God of thy people, hear our cry to thee.

Walter Russell Bowie, 1913; alt.
Tune: SUMMERFORD (10.10.10.10.)
John T. Grimley, 1887

Bowie would have been familiar with The New Colossus, the famous poem by Emma Lazarus that was written for the Statue of Liberty; this hymn follows a similar theme.

There is not a great number of hymn texts by Walter Russell Bowie, but they surely still .do merit our consideration. I also like this prayer he wrote for a united world made stronger by the gifts of God.

O God, out of all the world you let us find one another and learn together the meaning of love. Let us never fail to hold love precious. Let the flame of it never waver or grow dim, but burn in our hearts as an unwavering devotion and shine through our eyes in gentleness and understanding. Teach us to remember the little courtesies, to be swift to speak the grateful and happy word, to believe rejoicingly in each other’s best, and to face all life bravely because we face it with united heart….Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Labor Day

2011-09-05T00:23:00.007-04:00

The secular holiday we celebrate today in the US has no specific religious counterpart, but it still may have been commemorated in some way in your own worship service yesterday.

The Episcopal Church has a collect (opening prayer) for the day in the Book of Common Prayer which begins Almighty God, you have so linked our lives one with another that all we do affects, for good or ill, all other lives. A broader concept of labor which is linked to the common good of all has been a focus of many churches over the past century or so.

Jesus, thou divine Companion,
By thy lowly human birth

Thou hast come to join the workers,

Burden bearers of the earth.

Thou, the carpenter of Naz'reth,

Toiling for thy daily food,

By thy patience and thy courage,

Thou hast taught us toil is good.

All who tread the path of labor

Follow where thy feet have trod;

May we work for good of others,

Do the holy will of God.

Thou, the peace that passeth knowledge,

Dwellest in the daily strife;

Thou, the bread of heaven, broken

In the sacrament of life.

Every task, however simple,

Sets the soul that does it free;

Every deed of love and kindness

Done to each is done to thee.

Jesus, thou divine Companion,

Help us all to do our best;

Bless in our daily labor,

Lead us to our Sabbath rest.

Henry Van Dyke, 1909; alt.
Tune: PLEADING SAVIOR (8.7.8.7.D.)
The Christian Lyre, 1830

The Macalester Plymouth United Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, has for many years sponsored searches for new, contemporary hymn texts on social justice topics. Their 2010 contest sought texts for use on Labor Day (or at least, the day before). The winning text (God, bless the work your people do) was submitted by the Reverend Dr. John A. Dalles, who has a blog where you can read his new hymn for the day.

Three Years Ago: Amy Beach

Two Years Ago: Amy Beach

One Year Ago: Thy grace impart! in time to be

William Hiley Bathurst

2011-08-28T11:34:00.004-04:00

William Hiley Bathurst, born today in 1796, was ordained in the Church of England in 1819 following his graduation from Oxford, and served as the rector of a Yorkshire church for thirty-two years.

He was a fairly prolific hymnwriter, though not many of his texts are known today. In 1831 he published Psalms and Hymns for Public and Private Use, which collected more than three hundred of his hymns and psalm paraphrases (only 18 texts in the book, all psalm paraphrases, are not by Bathurst).

He left the Anglican Church and retired from his parish in 1852 because he had developed doubts about the rites of the church as laid out in the Book of Common Prayer for baptism and burial.

O for that flame of living fire,
Which shone so bright in saints of old!
Which bade their souls to heav’n aspire,
Calm in distress, in danger bold.

Grant us that Spirit, God, which dwelt
In Abram’s breast, and sealed him thine,
Which made Paul’s heart with sorrow melt,
And glow with energy divine.

That Spirit which eternally,
Proclaimed thy love, and taught thy law?
Led to Christ's tomb those women three
And changed their sorrow into awe.

Is not thy grace as mighty now
As when Elijah felt its power;
When glory beamed from Moses’ brow,
Or Job endured the trying hour?

When Miriam, faithdul unto death,
Led Israel's children through the wild,
Or Sarah and Elizabeth
Received a long-awaited child?

Remember, God, the ancient days;
Renew thy work; thy grace restore;
As still today our hearts we raise,
On us thy Holy Spirit pour.

William Hiley Bathurst, 1831; adapt. C.W.S. 1993
Tune: HERR JESU CHRIST (L.M.)
Pensum Sacrum, 1648;
harm. J.S. Bach, 18th cent.

As you probably noticed, this text is not exactly as Bathurst wrote it. Like most of the hymns we know which talk about people from the Bible, his text included only men. (There were older hymns written about the women of the Scriptures, as we have seen here and here, among others, but these texts have not survived in modern hymnals.) My revision replaced Isaiah and David in stanza three and added the new stanza five, reminding us that God's Spirit was poured on several women as well.

Two Years Ago: Ira David Sankey

In Tempests As They Blow

2011-08-27T23:35:00.011-04:00

It's been raining here for the last few hours, with much more predicted to come overnight and into tomorrow. Hurricane Irene has already caused death and destruction with more to come, probably, as it approaches New York City. Many churches in the Northeast have cancelled services tomorrow as the storm is predicted to be at its height during the morning hours, so don't forget to pray for those affected as you worship tomorrow in other places.

Looking around the internet today I came upon this blog post from several years ago by the Reverend Scott Wells, a Christian Universalist minister who writes at Boy in the Bands. I had been thinking about Eternal Father, strong to save but it wasn't exactly what I wanted. This, too, isn't quite what we might sing today but it has some interesting ideas (I especially like the final stanza). Given that the East Coast felt an earthquake this week too (small though it was), the first line of the second stanza jumped out at me too.

Amid surrounding gloom and waste,
From nature’s face we flee;
And in our fear and wonder haste,
O nature’s Life, to thee!
Thy ways are in the mighty deep;
In tempests as they blow;
In floods that o’er our treasures sweep;
In lightning and the snow.

Though earth upon its axis reels,
And heaven is veiled in wrath;
Not one of nature’s milling wheels
Breaks its appointed path;
Fixed in thy grasp, the sources meet
Of beauty and of awe;
In storm or calm, all pulses beat
True to the central Law.

Thou art that Law, whose will be done,
In seeming wreck or blight,
Sends the calm planets round the sun,
And pours the moon’s soft light.
We trust thy love; thou best dost know
The universal peace;
How long the stormy force should blow,
And when the flood shall cease.

And though our path around some form
Of mystery ever lies,
And life is like the calm and storm
That checker earth and skies
Through all its mingling joy and dread,
Permit us, Holy One,
By faith to see the golden thread
Of thy great purpose done.

Edwin Hubble Chapin, 1871
Tune: THIRD MODE MELODY (C.M.D.)
Thomas Tallis, 16th cent.

Universalist minister Edwin Hubble Chapin was one of the editors of Hymns of Christian Devotion (1871), where some of his other hymn texts appeared with this one.

Two Years Ago: Thomas Gallaudet

Flora Hamilton Cassel

2011-08-21T13:02:00.008-04:00

Today is the birthday of composer and songwriter Flora Hamilton Cassel (August 21, 1852 - November 17, 1911). She was raised in the Baptist church in Illinois (where her father was a minister) and learned to play the piano at a young age.

In 1873 she graduated from the Maplewood Institure in Pittsfield, MA (now a collection of condo-miniums), where she had studied music, including piano and composition. She returned to Illinois and found a teaching position at Shurtleff College, where she later met and married her husband, Elijah Taylor Cassel.

The Cassels collaborated on several songs for Sunday School children, he writing the words and she the music. Later, Flora would go on to write song texts of her own. This song was written by the duo for the first convention of the Baptist Young People's Union in 1894.

From over hill and plain there comes the signal strain,
’Tis loyalty, loyalty, loyalty to Christ;
Its music rolls along, the hills take up the song,
Of loyalty, loyalty, yes, loyalty to Christ.

Refrain
“On to victory! On to victory!”
Cries our great commander, “On!”
We’ll move at this command,
And spread across the land,
In loyalty, loyalty,
Yes, loyalty to Christ.

O hear, ye brave, the sound that moves the earth around,
’Tis loyalty, loyalty, loyalty to Christ;
Arise to dare and do, ring out the watchword true,
Of loyalty, loyalty, yes, loyalty to Christ.
Refrain

The strength of youth we lay at Jesus’ feet today,
’Tis loyalty, loyalty, loyalty to Christ;
The Gospel we’ll proclaim, throughout the world’s domain,
Of loyalty, loyalty, yes, loyalty to Christ.
Refrain

Elijah Taylor Cassell, 1894; alt.
Tune: LOYALTY TO CHRIST (6.6.12.D. with refrain)
Flora Hamilton Cassel; 1894

The Cassels had moved to Nebraska by this time, where Flora became the president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) chapter in Edgar, NE. She compiled and edited White Ribbon Vibrations (1890), a popular temperance hymnal, which included many of her own songs.

Flora died in 1911, killed in a buggy accident (like Clara Scott before her).

Three Years Ago: Civilla Durfee Martin (another wife-husband team of collaborators)

Two Years Ago: Alexander Reinagle

Saint Mary the Virgin

2011-08-15T14:12:00.008-04:00

The feast day of Saint Mary the Virgin (also known as the Assumption) is celebrated today (or was perhaps yesterday) in some churches. Though the story of Mary rising bodily into heaven is not told in the Bible, it dates back several centuries. One theory of its origin is that, although the bones and relics of the apostolic saints were venerated as early as the second century, there never were any claims of finding relics of Mary; therefore, her earthly body was no longer in this world.

We sing this hymn every year in my church when celebrating this feast, though it is not quite as focused on Mary as it is on Jesus (which makes it equally as appropriate for the Feast of the Presentation, when we also sing it). It is one of the posthumously-published hymns of Reginald Heber in his Hymns Written and Adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the Year (1827).

Virgin-born, we bow before thee:
Blessed was the womb that bore thee;
Mary, Mother meek and mild,
Blessed was she in her Child.
Blessed was the breast that fed thee;
Blessed was the hand that led thee;
Blessed was the parent's eye
That watched thy slumbering infancy.

Blessed she by all creation,
Who brought forth the world's salvation,
And blessed they, for ever blest,
Who love thee most and serve thee best.
Virgin-born, we bow before thee;
Blessed was the womb that bore thee;
Mary, Mother meek and mild,
Blessed was she in her Child.

Reginald Heber, 1827
Tune: PSALM 86 (8.8.7.7.D.)
Claude Goudimel, 1564; adapt. 20th cent.

The tune comes from composer Goudimel's setting of Psalm 86 for a sixteenth century French psalter, which he adapted from an earlier tune. It was later used by Gustav Holst in a choral setting os the same psalm.

Three Years Ago: Ye who claim the faith of Jesus

Two Years Ago: Hail, holy Queen

One Year Ago: Sing, sing ye angel bands

Samuel Sebastian Wesley

2011-08-14T16:27:00.007-04:00

Today is the 201st birthday of composer Samuel Sebastian Wesley, the grandson of hymnwriter Charles Wesley. His father, also Samuel, was a composer of some renown in his day but is largely forgotten now. The elder Samuel worked to promote the music of Johann Sebastian Bach in England, and his son (whose middle name came from the German master) would do the same in his day.

Young Samuel Sebastian became a boy chorister at the Chapel Royal at age ten. One story told of his time there claims that his singing caught the attention of King George IV, who gave him a gold watch.

He obtained his first position as an organist at sixteen at St. James Church, Hampstead Road, and over the next five years worked at three additional London churches (sometimes at more than one at a time). In 1832 he became organist at Exeter Cathedral, and would go on to serve at the cathedrals of Winchester and Gloucester. He published the book A Few Words on Cathedral Music (1849) which argued for higher standards (and therefore higher salaries) for cathedral musicians.

Wesley wrote some music for the organ, but most of his output was choral music, both anthems and music for the service, as well as 130 hymn tunes, several of which we have already heard here.

Today's hymn is set to a tune by Wesley which appeared in The European Psalmist (1872), a collection he edited. The text is by an unknown author, but it has been used as a gospel song with a tune by James McGranahan.

O Christ, in thee my soul hath found,
And found in thee alone,
The peace, the joy I sought so long,
The bliss till now unknown.

I sighed for rest and happiness,
I yearned for them, not thee;
But, while I passed my Savior by,
Thy love laid hold on me.

I tried the broken cisterns, Lord,
But, ah, the waters failed;
Even as I stooped to drink they fled,
And mocked me as I wailed.

Now none but Christ can satisfy,
None other Name for me!
There’s love, and life, and lasting joy,
Dear Jesus, found in thee.

Author unknown, 19th cent.; alt.
Tune: WETHERBY (C.M.)
Samuel Sebastian Wesley, 1872

The 'broken cisterns' in stanza three are presumably those in Jeremiah 2:13.

Two Years Ago: Samuel Sebastian Wesley

John Newton

2011-07-24T00:31:00.006-04:00

John Newton, whose birthday we mark today, was well-known in his own time for his influential collection titled Olney Hymns (named for the parish he led) which led to many congregations taking up the singing of hymns. However, he is much more well-known today as the author of Amazing grace; many people who couldn't name any other hymnwriter know of Newton because of that hymn and the story behind it.

Today's hymn comes from the last pages of Olney Hymns, a section of short hymns labeled After Sermons (though, in fact, in Newton's own church, all his hymns were sung after the sermon as they were specifically written to accompany his preaching). It was originally a general hymn, though in more recent times it has been slightly altered to be used as a wedding hymn, in this manner.

May the grace of Christ our Savior
And our Maker’s boundless love
With the Holy Spirit’s favor,
Rest upon them from above.

Thus may they abide in union
With each other and the Lord,
And possess, in sweet communion,
Joys which earth cannot afford.

John Newton, 1779; alt.
Tune: STUTTGART (8.7.8.7.)
Christian F. Witt, 1715
adapt. Henry J. Gauntlett, 19th cent.

Three Years Ago: John Newton

Two Years Ago: John Newton

One Year Ago: John Newton

Philip P. Bliss

2011-07-09T00:38:00.012-04:00

Gospel songwriter Philip Paul Bliss was born today in Pennsylvania in 1838. There are some accounts which claim that he really had no middle name; that his name was originally Philipp, and he decided to spell it differently by making the second "p" into a middle initial, but most modern sources believe that Paul was his true middle name.

He grew up in farm country, where he went to work in that profession as a boy of thirteen. He had little or no opportunity for exposure to music, but he did attend school as much as possible, in addition to work, and by age eighteen he was teaching school. Shortly after that, he met Lucy Jane Young and they were married in 1859. Lucy sang in her church choir and had received some musical education, and she encouraged his modest interest in music. Over the next few years he studied music more formally and discovered a talent for songwriting.

His first published (secular) song was Lora Vale, which was brought out by George Root's company. This new career avenue was very nearly delayed when he was drafted into the Union Army, in the spring of 1865, but as the Civil War was coming to an end the order was rescinded after two weeks. The following year Philip and Lucy moved to Chicago, where he went to work for Root's publishing house conducting singing schools and musical conventions, and continued to write secular and humorous songs, some under the pseudonym of Pro Phundo Basso.

In 1870 Bliss became both the choir director and Sunday school superintendent at the First Congregational Church of Chicago. Around this time he began to write Sunday School songs, and compiled the songbook The Charm in 1871, which included several of these songs. Over the next two years, he published three more collections.

In 1874 he joined Ira Sankey and Dwight Moody in their evangelical meetings as a song leader and soloist, and also began writing songs for their meetings. George Stebbins, in his Reminiscences and Gospel Hymn Stories (1924), recalled:

He had a voice of rare quality and splendid volume, a baritone of extraordinary range and evenness throughout... As a leader he occupied a position of prominence by reason of native gifts and years of enterience, which, combined with an impressive personality (he was six feet tall and of commanding stature, with features as perfect as form, and eyes that were large and kindly in expression), made him into the great leader of evangelistic song that he was.

In 1874 Bliss collaborated with Ira Sankey on the first volume of Gospel Songs, which contained this song which is still sung today.

Sing them over again to me,
Wonderful words of life,
Let me more of their beauty see,
Wonderful words of life;
Words of life and beauty,
Teach me faith and duty.

Refrain
Beautiful words, wonderful words,
wonderful words of life,
Beautiful words, wonderful words,
wonderful words of life.

Christ, the blessèd One, gives to all
Wonderful words of life;
We will list to the loving call,
Wonderful words of life;
All so freely given,
Wooing us to heaven.
Refrain

Sweetly echo the gospel call,
Wonderful words of life;
Offer pardon and peace to all,
Wonderful words of life;
Jesus, only Savior,
Sanctify forever.
Refrain

Philip P. Bliss, 1874; alt.
Tune: WONDERFUL WORDS OF LIFE (8.6.8.6.6.6. with refrain)

During the next two years, Bliss wrote several more gospel songs (sometimes both words and music, sometimes collaborating with others), including the well-loved tune VILLE DU HAVRE for Horatio Spafford's text It is well with my soul. However, on December 29, 1876, Philip and his wife Lucy were killed in a horrific train accident in Ashtabula, Ohio while traveling back to Chicago from spending Christmas in Pennsylvania. He was reported to have escaped the crash, but returned to the burning train car to rescue her. The victims of the wreck were burned beyond recognition and were buried in a common grave in Ashtabula.

Friend and fellow songwriter Daniel Webster Whittle compiled the Memoirs of Philip P. Bliss, a brief biography which included testimonials from many friends and collaborators, which was sold to benefit the two young sons of Philip and Lucy, only two and four years old at the time of their parents' deaths. Many of Bliss's contemporaries believed that he would have become even more accomplished and popular as a songwriter had he lived to write for thirty more years.

Today, the Philip P. Bliss Gospel Songwriters Museum in Rome, Pennsylvania in their former family home (picture below), honors the legacy of the man and his work. Northeastern PA is not so far away from me, so it may be that a visit is in order at some point.

Three Years Ago: Henry J. Gauntlett

Two Years Ago: Henry J. Gauntlett

Eliza Edmunds Hewitt

2011-06-28T23:03:00.002-04:00

Today is the 150th birthday of lifelong Philadelphian Eliza Edmunds Hewitt, a prolific writer (and sometimes composer) of gospel songs. She graduated as valedictorian of the Philadelphia Girls' Normal School and began a career as a public school teacher. However, she was injured in the classroom by an unruly student who threw a heavy slate which struck her in the back, and this caused her to be bedridden for an extended period of time (and to suffer from back pain for the rest of her life).

It was apparently during this time that she began to write poetry which came to the attention of publisher John R. Sweney (a gospel songwrtier himself), who invited her to try writing songs. She became one of his must successful writers, and he himself supplied tunes for several of her texts.

There's a clear fountain flowing
From the heavens above,
And its waters are glowing
With the sunshine of love;
Take the blest consolation,
Jesus came to bestow,
Take the cup of salvation,
Let the joy overflow.

Refrain
O the joy! With this wondrous salvation
Be our hearts all aglow;
O the joy! Let the blessing run over,
And joy overflow.

Many hearts need the story,
Are athirst for that grace;
Go to them with Christ's glory
Shining out from your face;
Tell of Jesus your Savior!
And his mercies you know,
Show the light of his favor
Let the joy overflow.
Refrain

Be our lives freely yielded
To the Savior's command;
By his care ever shielded
And upheld by his hand;
In the pathways of sadness,
Sweetest lilies may grow;
Let us sow seeds of gladness,
Let the joy overflow.
Refrain

Eliza E. Hewitt, 1917; alt.
Tune: OVERFLOWING (7.6.7.6.D. with refrain)
Charles H. Gabriel, 1917

Three Years Ago: More Voices Found: Eliza Hewitt

Two Years Ago: Frederick William Faber

Philip Doddridge

2011-06-26T01:44:00.008-04:00

Philip Doddridge (June 26, 1702 - October 26, 1751) is probably the third-most popular hymnwriter from the eighteenth century, behind Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley, in the number of his texts which are still sung today.

Both of his grandfathers were ministers (though he never knew them); his mother's father lived in Germany for a time and returned to England with a Luther Bible, which was passed down to Philip, who was eventually to follow in his grandfathers' profession. His mother, Monica, taught him stories from the Bible when he was a child, pointing out the scenes as painted on Delft tiles surrounding the family fireplace.

For Doddridge's previous birthdays I have used more familiar hymns, but this one is probably not so well-known. Like all his texts, it was not published during his lifetime.

O Zion, tune your voice,
And raise your hands on high;
Tell all the earth your joys,
Proclaim salvation nigh;
Cheerful in God,
Arise and shine
While rays divine
Stream all abroad.

God gilds your mourning face
With beams that cannot fade;
God's all-resplendent grace
Is poured around your head;
The nations round
Your form shall view
With luster new
Divinely crowned.

In honor to God's name
Reflect that sacred light;
And loud that grace proclaim,
Which makes the whole world bright;
Pursue God's praise
Till sovereign love
In worlds above,
The glory raise.

Philip Doddridge, 1755; alt.
Tune: DARWALL (H.M.)
John Darwall, 1770

The church that Doddridge pastored in Northhampton for more than twenty years is still open today as the Castle Hill United Reformed Church (interior pictured below).

A note on the tune: The Hallelujah meter, or as it is often written out, (6.6.6.6.8.8.) is not so widely used in modern hymnwriting, and overall there are fewer tunes written for it than some of the more oft-used ones. I think it could be due to the fact that there is only one truly great tune that has been written to fit that meter, the one above by John Darwall. I have used two others previously at the blog, BEVAN and SAMUEL, but neither is a good fit for these words. I looked at several others: ZEBULON was not quite right, and ST. SWITHIN was hopelessly Victorian. LAUS DEO and ST. GODRIC were both closer to the right feel, but really, if anyone was going to sing this hymn today, why would they not choose the familiar DARWALL, which is about as joyful a tune as you could want, proceeding to a powerful climax.

Three Years Ago: Philip Doddridge

Two Years Ago: Philip Doddridge

One Year Ago: Philip Doddridge

Trinity Sunday

2011-06-19T08:49:00.006-04:00

O Trinity of blessed light,
O Unity of sovereign might,
Whene'er the fiery sun departs,
Shed thou thy beams within our hearts.

To thee our morning song of praise,
To thee our evening prayer we raise;
Thy threefold glory we adore
Forever and forevermore.

Now to the great and sacred Three,
Creator, Christ, and Spirit be
Eternal praise and glory giv'n
By all the saints in earth and heav'n.

Ambrose of Milan, 4th cent.; tr. composite
Tune: BROMLEY (L.M.)
Jeremiah Clarke, 1700

Three Years Ago: Trinity Sunday

Two Years Ago: Trinity Sunday

One Year Ago: Trinity Sunday

Samuel Longfellow

2011-06-18T23:32:00.010-04:00

Unitarian minister, hymnwriter and editor Samuel Longfellow (June 18, 1819 - October 3, 1892) was born in Portland, Maine, the younger brother of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

His first major hymnological undertaking was while he was still a student at Harvard Divinity School, when he and his friend Samuel Johnson compiled a new hymnal for Unitarian churches, A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion (1844). The book was successful, selling out and requiring a second edition two years later, which they revised and updated. Several years later the two collaborated again, publishing Hymns of the Spirit (1864), much of which they edited while on an extended European vacation.

These two books were criticized for the liberties which Longfellow and Johnson took with the hymn texts they included. They drew their material from a wide variety of sources, including the hymnals of several different denominations, and were not hesitant to alter the texts to conform to Unitarian beliefs. Longfellow explained their reasons to another Unitarian minister in a letter not long before his death.

It is the principle of adaptation to a special use which is the only justification of changes in hymns that I can offer. It is a question of using or not using which makes it needful to change (1) some verses originally written not as hymns, yet which one wants to use as such; (2) some hymns written by persons of different beliefs from those who are to use the hymn-book, phrases in which could not be conscientiously said or sing by the latter, yet which from their general value of strength, fervor, or tendeness could ill be spared. If I had been making a collection of hymns or religious poetry for private reading, I should not have altered a single word.

Nothing here is particularly unusual; as I have said many times, hymnal editors have always done this, long before Johnson and Longfellow, and right up to the present day. However, they were particularly known in their own day for their editorial changes. The sister of one of their friends, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, wrote the following limerick:

There once were two Sams of Amerique
Who belonged to a profession called clerique.
They hunted up hymns and cut off their limbs,
These truculent Sams of Amerique.

Of course, the hymns that the two men wrote themselves did not have to be altered, though sometimes they were altered when included in later hymnals edited by others (no one gets a pass). This hymn of Longfellow's has appeared in at least a hundred collections, according to Hymnary.org.

God of the earth, the sky, the sea!
Maker of all above, below!
Creation lives and moves in thee,
Thy present life in all doth flow.

Thy love is in the sunshine's glow,
Thy life is in the quickening air;
When lightnings flash and storm winds blow,
There is thy power; thy law is there.

We feel thy calm at evening's hour,
Thy grandeur in the march of night;
And when the morning breaks in pow'r,
We hear thy Word, “Let there be light.”

But higher far, and far more clear,
Thee in our spirits we behold;
Thine image and thyself are there,
Indwelling God, proclaimed of old.

Samuel Longfellow, 1864
Tune: DUKE STREET (L.M.)
John Hatton, 1793

Longfellow's collected texts were published after his death as Hymns and Verses (1894), edited by his niece, Alice Longfellow. They continue to appear in hymnals today, and not just Unitarian ones. I have presented a number of others over the last few years on other dates than his birthday, which you can find by clicking his tag/label below.

There is a fairly recent Longfellow biography, The Quiet Radical (2007) by Joseph C. Abdo which I have not yet read but hope to soon. And tomorrow, at least one of Longfellow's hymns will be sung in this hymn festival in California, though I have not heard which one yet.

Three Years Ago: Samuel Longfellow

Two Years Ago: Samuel Longfellow

The Feast of Pentecost

2011-06-12T11:14:00.006-04:00

This ancient hymn for the day of Pentecost is used as a processional in many places, though it's not for everyone. The musical setting is a bit more complex than a standard hymn, beginning with a refrain and proceeding to two different, alternating melodies for the stanzas.

Refrain:
Hail thee, festival day!
Blest day that art hallowed forever;
Day when the Holy Spirit
Shone on the world with God's grace.

Lo! in the likeness of fire,
On them that await her appearing,
She whom the Lord foretold,
Suddenly, swiftly, descends.
Refrain

Down from the heavens she comes
With her sev'nfold mystical off'ring,
Pouring on all human souls
Infinite riches of God.
Refrain

Hark! in a hundred tongues
Christ's own, the chosen Apostles,
Preach to a hundred tribes
Christ and his wonderful works.
Refrain

Praise to the Spirit of life,
All praise to the Fount of our being,
Light that dost lighten all,
Life that in all dost abide.
Refrain

God the Almighty, who fillest
The heav'n, the earth and the ocean,
Guard us from harm without,
Free us from evil within.
Refrain

God, who art Giver of all
Good gifts and lover of concord,
Pour thy balm on our souls,
Order our ways in thy peace.
Refrain

Venantius Fortunatus, 6th cent.;
tr. Gabriel Gillett, 1906; alt.
Tune: SALVE, FESTA DIES
Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906

The original Latin text Salve, festa dies (Hail thee, festival day) by Venantius Honorius Fortunatus is much longer, and there are other modern hymns also taken from it for Easter and Ascension. It became popular in his time and stanzas were added by others over time. In fact, much of this Pentecost text is apparently not by Fortunatus, but derives from a later medieval version used as a Pentecost precessional in York.

Three (Liturgical) Years Ago: The Feast of Pentecost

Two (Liturgical) Years Ago: The Feast of Pentecost

One (Liturgical) Year Ago: The Feast of Pentecost

One (Calendar) Year Ago: Harriet Martineau

Minot Judson Savage

2011-06-10T23:51:00.004-04:00

Minot Judson Savage was born on this day in 1841 in the small town of Norridgewock, Maine (which certainly sounds like an interesting place to be born). His family were committed New England Congre-gationalists, and he attended the Bangor Theological Seminary and was ordained in the Congregational Church upon his graduation in 1864. He had served a year in the Christian Commission during the Civil War, and now he was sent to California as a missionary, returning in 1867 to pastor a church in Framingham, Massachusetts.

His views and beliefs changed over time, and in 1873 he resigned from his pastorate in Hannibal, Missouri and became a Unitarian minister. Over the next thirty years he led congregations in Chicago and Boston, and was finally the associate pastor of the Church of the Messiah in New York City (now the Community Church).

He championed the causes of progressive Christianity in his day, including comparative religion and modern biblical criticism. His 1876 book The Religion of Evolution, less than a quarter century after Darwin's theory was published, was very influential. Many of his sermons were published, and he also wrote poetry and hymns.

While in Boston he began compiling a hymnal for the use of his own church, as he was not satidfied with the available choices, but when this became known he was encouraged to publish it for wider cicculation. Sacred Songs for Public Worship appeared in 1883. This book included several of his own hymns, and in 1899 several more were collected with those, published as Hymns by Minot Judson Savage. These texts follow his particular themes, bearing titles such as Evolution, Education, and All Truth Leads to God.

His thoughts on the hymnwriting process may be gleaned from a verse on the title page of the later collection.

But one hymn let me write
Which men will keep alive
For strength and hope and light
As up and on they strive,
And I will ask no more of fame;
For loving hearts will love my name.

His hymn O star of Truth, down shining still appears in the latest Unitarian hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition (1993), and while it is not more widely known in other denominations, that may be enough for Savage. In looking through his later collection, this one caught my eye for today.

New blessings ev'ry morning,
New blessings still at eve,
Our lives with mercy crowning,
We as thy gift receive.
As are the stars in number,
As are the seashore sands,
So many are the bounties
Still flowing from thy hands.

But of thy gifts the sweetest,
Divinest is that we,
Our own small needs forgetting,
May work and give like thee.
The world and all it's sorrows
Our hearts, like thine, can feel,
And we, as thy co-workers,
Can trust and hope and heal.

Then to this holy mission
We pledge ourselves anew:
We give our minds to seeking,
Our hearts to love, the true.
So, grateful for thy goodness,
We join with thee to prove
All service shows thy teaching:
The way of life is love.

Minot Judson Savage, 1890; alt.
Tune: LAUFER (7.6.7.6.D.)
Emily Swan Perkins, 1924

The footnotes indicate that this hymn was written for a meeting of the New York League of Unitarian Women in December of 1890, so it seems appropriate to match it with a tune by Emily Swan Perkins, as the original tune to which it was sung is unrecorded.

Savage retired from the Church of the Messiah in 1906 due to poor health, but he remained active in the American Unitarian Association. He died in Boston on May 22, 1918, while attending a national Unitarian conference.

Three Years Ago: Saint Ephrem

Sir John Stainer

2011-06-06T17:01:00.007-04:00

Sir John Stainer (June 6, 1840 - March 31, 1901) was one of the most well-known English church musicians of his time. Though he wrote many hymn tunes, anthems and service music, not many of them are still in use today. His one enduring work was an oratorio, The Crucifixion: A Meditation on the Sacred Passion of the Holy Redeemer (to give the full title), words by William J. Sparrow-Simpson, which was first performed on February 24, 1887, which was the day after Ash Wednesday. This work is still often performed by church choirs all over the world.

Of particular interest here is that there are six hymns interspersed between the choral movements, which were intended to be sung by the audience/congregation. At least two of the tunes of these hymns by Stainer have retained some life of their own, ALL FOR JESUS and CROSS OF JESUS.

But by far the most well-known section of The Crucifixion is God so loved the world, which has been sung by thousands of choirs who would never sing the entire work. The video below is the choir of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, where Stainer both sang as a boy chorister, and served for many years as organist.

God so loved the world
That he gave his only-begotten Son
That whoso believeth, believeth in him
Should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world
But that the world through him might be saved.

John 3:16-17

Three Years Ago: Sir John Stainer

One Year Ago: Sir John Stainer

Seeking Thee Beyond the Skies

2011-06-05T08:41:00.008-04:00

The Feast of the Ascension, forty days after Easter (and thus always a Thursday), is often moved to the Sunday after.

Hail the day that sees him rise, Alleluia!
Glorious to his native skies, Alleluia!
Christ, awhile to mortals given, Alleluia!
Enters in the highest heaven, Alleluia!

Circled round with angel pow'rs, Alleluia!
Their triumphant Lord, and ours, Alleluia!
There the glorious triumph waits, Alleluia!
Lift your heads, eternal gates, Alleluia!

See! He lifts his hands above, Alleluia!
See! He shows the prints of love, Alleluia!
Hark! His gracious lips bestow, Alleluia!
Blessings on the church below, Alleluia!

Grant our hearts may thither rise, Alleluia!
Seeking thee beyond the skies, Alleluia!
Ever upward let us move, Alleluia!
Wafted on the wings of love, Alleluia!

There we shall with thee remain, Alleluia!
Partners of thy endless reign, Alleluia!
There thy face unclouded see, Alleluia!
Find our heav'n of heav'ns in thee, Alleluia!

Charles Wesley, 1739; alt.
Tune: LLANFAIR (7.7.7.7. with Alleluias)
Robert Williams, 1817;
harm. John Roberts, 1837

Short entry today as I am off to NYC to sing a performance of Haydn's Creation in a memorial concert fot Johannes Somary, a famed choral conductor who died earlier this year, with a chorus of 200.

Three Years Ago: The Feast of the Ascension

Two Years Ago: The Feast of the Ascension

One Year Ago: The Feast of the Ascension

Charles H. Steggall

2011-06-03T15:22:00.007-04:00

British composer Charles Steggall (June 3, 1826 - June 7, 1905) was born in London, where he was to remain the rest of his life. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music under William Sterndale Bennett, and later became the chief professor of the organ there from 1851 to 1903. It's claimed that he taught more organists than anyone else in England in the second half of the nineteenth century.

His own career as an organist spanned several London churches, particularly Lincoln's Inn Chapel, where he served from 1864 until his death. He began writing hymn tunes and worked as musical editor on two early collections: Church Psalmody (1849) and Hymns for the Church of England (1865).

In 1889, after the death of William H. Monk, Steggall succeeded him as musical editor of Hymns Ancient and Modern. Unfortunately, the next published edition, in 1904, was not popular, considered to be too severe in its changes.

Unlike many of his Victorian age counterparts in church music, who wrote at least one or two tunes that we still sing today, Steggall's tunes (a few of which you can hear at the Cyber Hymnal site) have not survived well. I liked this one, which was written fairly late in his career and apparently was first published in this country in the Presbyterian Hymnal of 1933 matched with O holy city, seen of John.

Beyond, beyond the boundless sea,
Above the dome of sky.
Farther than thought itself can flee
Thy dwelling is on high;
Yet dear the blissful thought to me
That thou, my God, art nigh!

We hear thy voice when thunders roll,
Through the wide fields of air;
The waves obey thy firm control,
Yet still thou art not there;
Where shall I find thee present, God.
Who yet is everywhere?

O, not in circling depth or height,
But in the conscious breast,
Present to faith, yet veiled to sight,
There doth thy Spirit rest;
O come, thou Presence infinite,
And make thy people blest!

Josiah Conder, 1824; alt.
Tune: MORWELLHAM (8.6.8.6.8.6.)
Charles H. Steggall, 1890

One Year Ago: Brian Wren

Our Hymn of Grateful Praise

2011-05-29T14:07:00.005-04:00

Rogation Sunday, a time to mark the changing season and our thanks for the good things of the earth is celebrated in some churches on the last Sunday of the Easter season. Today's hymn is probably still found in nearly every modern hymnal, as it has been for the last century and longer.

For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies,

Refrain:
Source of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each hour
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree and flow'r,
Sun and moon, and stars of light,
Refrain

For the joy of ear and eye,
For the heart and mind's delight,
For the mystic harmony
Linking sense to sound and sight,
Refrain

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth, and friends above,
For all gentle thoughts and mild,
Refrain

For each perfect gift of thine
to all people freely giv'n,
Graces human and divine,
Flowers of earth and buds of heav'n,
Refrain

Folliott Sandford Pierpoint, 1864; alt.
Tune: DIX (7.7.7.7.7.7.)
Conrad Kocher, 1838

Folliott Pierpoint, a native of Bath in England, reportedly wrote this text after returning from a walk on a fine spring day. Though the hymn is widely used, it is also widely altered; it almost seems that every hymnal editor who has chosen to include it has changed something in the text. Even the well-known last line of the refrain, which I used above as the title, was originally "this our sacrifice of praise." There are also three additional stanzas:

For thy Bride that evermore
Lifteth holy hands above,
Off'ring up on every shore
This pure sacrifice of love,

For the martyrs' crown of light,
For thy prophets' eagle eye,
For thy bold confessors' might,
For the lips of infancy,

For thy virgins' robes of snow,
For thy maiden Mother mild,
For thyself, with hearts aglow,
Jesus,Victim undefiled,

The first of these is sometimes used, altering "Bride" to "Church," but the other two have disappeared completely. I suppose the assumption is that they don't go with the theme of God in Nature, though that wasn't really Sandford's original theme.

DIX is a German tune that was named at some later date in English hymnals when the tune came to be widely matched with an Epiphany hymn by poet William Chatterton Dix.

Two Years Ago: Kindly Earth with Timely Birth

One Year Ago: Earth Feels the Season's Joyance

Streams For Thirsting Souls

2011-05-15T15:49:00.006-04:00

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday in many churches and if yours is one of them you have probably already heard more than one version of Psalm 23 either read aloud or sung, and a sermon on top.

There are many hymn texts derived from this psalm; some of which we have already seen here (click on the tag below). Two of the most familiar of them were listed last year on one grouping of "the ten best" hymns. Here's one more for today, and I think I could go on for several more years with one more each year.

I shall not want: in deserts wild
Thou spread’st a table for thy child;
While grace in streams for thirsting souls,
Thro’ earth and heav'n forever rolls.

I shall not want: my longest night
Thy loving smile shall fill with light;
While promises around me bloom,
And cheer me with divine perfume.

I shall not want: thy righteousness
My soul shall clothe with glorious dress;
My heav'nly robe shall be more fair
Than garments kings or angels wear.

I shall not want: whate’er is good,
Of daily bread or angels’ food,
Shall to my longing heart be sure,
So long as earth and heav'n endure.

Charles F. Deems, 1872; alt.
Tune: CANONBURY (L.M.)
Robert Schumann, 1839, adapt.

Charles Force Deems led the Church of the Strangers in New York City when he wrote this hymn. It was a nondenominational Protestant congregation, founded in part by a $50,000 gift fron philanthopist Cornelius Vanderbilt, and its pastor was feeling a bit overwhelmed with the many individual needs of his parishioners. Meditating on those concerns, the words "I shall not want" from the psalm spoke to him most directly and the hymn soon followed.

The tune CANONBURY which still appears in many hymnals is arranged from a melody by the German composer Robert Schumann in his solo piano work Nachtstucke, Opus 23 No. 4.

Two Years Ago: Samuel Webbe

One Year Ago: Austin C. Lovelace

Now You Live Forever

2011-05-08T01:47:00.004-04:00

Low in the grave you lay,
Jesus, my Savior,
Waiting the coming day,
Jesus, my Love!

Refrain
Up from the grave you arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er your foes,
You arose a victor from the grave's domain,
Now you live forever, with the saints to reign.
You arose! You arose!
Hallelujah! You arose!

Vainly they watch your bed,
Jesus, my Savior;
Vainly they seal the dead,
Jesus, my Life!
Refrain

Death cannot keep its prey,
Jesus, my Savior;
You tore the bars away,
Jesus, my Lord!
Refrain

Robert Lowry, 1874; alt.
Tune: CHRIST AROSE (6.5.6.4. with refrain)

The sound file doesn't quite capture the usual distinction between the short stanzas, generally played and sung quite slowly and heavily, in contrast to the longer, quicker joyful refrain.

Baptist minister Robert Lowry reportedly wrote this song during the Easter season of 1874, and it was published the following year in Brightest and Best, a collection he helped compile in his caopacity as musical editor at Biglow & Main, which was becoming the largest publisher of Sunday school music and gospel songs in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

This Easter song went on to many other nondenominational songbooks as well as denominational hymnals around the world, well into the twentieth century and beyond, including the British Methodist Hymn-Book (1933) and (a late arrival) in the US Methodist Hymnal of 1964. Even more recently it has been included in the Congregational Hymns for a Pilgrim People (2007) and the Baptist Celebrating Grace (2010). The Guide to United States Popular Culture (2001) even lists it as one of the most popular Easter songs, alongside Irving Berlin's Easter Parade (!) -- I'd like to see which one would really come out on top if you asked a hundred people.

Three Years Ago: Julian of Norwich

Three Years Ago: Mother's Day

Not Faithless, But Believing Be

2011-05-01T01:51:00.006-04:00

On the Second Sunday of Easter, many churches will hear the story of the disciple Thomas (from John 20: 24-29), who was not with the others the first time they saw Jesus after the Resurrection, and would not believe the story until he had seen his friend for himself. I like to remind people that the other disciples didn't believe the story either when Mary first told them the week before (Luke 24: 1-11), but somehow Thomas is the one who gets scolded for it and held up as a bad example.

This sixteenth century hymn, originally written in Latin by the French Franciscan monk Jean Tisserand, takes us from the Resurrection to the story of Thomas. The translation most often sung today is by John Mason Neale which first appeared in his Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences (1851). The tune is even older, but it is the one that has always been used with this text -- it's rare that a text/tune combination lasts for more than five hundred years, as we have seen.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

O sons and daughters, let us sing!
Tis Jesus Christ, whose tale we bring,
O'er death today rose triumphing.
Alleluia!

That Easter morn, at break of day,
The faithful women went their way
To seek the tomb where Jesus lay.
Alleluia!

An angel clad in white they see,
Who sat, and spake unto the three,
“Your friend has gone to Galilee.”
Alleluia!

That night th’apostles met in fear;
Amidst them came their friend most dear,
And said, “My peace be on all here.”
Alleluia!

When Thomas first the tidings heard,
How they had seen the risen Lord,
He doubted the disciples’ word.
Alleluia!

“My piercèd side, O Thomas, see;
My hands, my feet, I show to thee;
Not faithless, but believing be.”
Alleluia!

No longer Thomas then denied;
He saw the feet, the hands, the side;
“Thou art my Lord and God,” he cried.
Alleluia!

How blessed are they who have not seen,
And yet whose faith has constant been;
For they eternal life shall win.
Alleluia!

On this most holy day of days
To God yur hearts and voices raise
In laud and jubilee and praise.
Alleluia!

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Jean Tisserand, 1525;
tr. John Mason Neale, 1851; alt.
Tune: O FILII ET FILIAE (8.8.8. with Alleluias)
French melody, 15th cent.

The original melody has not survived completely unaltered; your hymnal may well have something a but different. The triple Alleluia most often is sung at the beginning and the very end, though some arrangements over the years have inserted it between each stanza. And, of course, most hymnals today do not include all nine stanzas.

P.S. - The illustration above is from The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, c. 1604 (not far from the origin of this hymn), by the Dutch painter Hendrick ter Brugghen.

Two Years Ago: Saint Philip and Saint James

One Year Ago: Joseph Addison

Hymns in the News

2011-04-28T18:02:00.006-04:00

Even here you cannot escape the Royal Wedding Mania that has infected much of the world for the last few weeks. Today the music that will be sung and played during tomorrow's service at Westminster Abbey was announced to the media.

However, the broader and more long-range importance of the wedding music chosen by Kate and Wills will be understood by church musicians everywhere, because brides will want some of the same selections for their own ceremonies this summer and for years to come. The Prince of Denmark's March by Jeremiah Clarke became the fashionable processional after its appearance at the 1981 wedding of Charles and Diana. Somehow I do not see I was glad, an anthem by C.H.H. Parry, and tomorrow's processional, becoming equally popular (how many weddings today have a choir?), but the Fantasia on 'Greensleeves' of Ralph Vaughan Williams might be heard more often.

(That said, I will be singing in a wedding this Saturday, but the musical couple are two section leaders of our church choir, and the groom has composed the music for the Anglican chant to which we will sing the psalm. But I doubt they would have chosen I was glad for their processional, either, even if they had known about this.)

So tomorrow's hymns, like the rest of the music, will be British.

Guide me, O thou great Redeemer is assumed to be a tribute to Diana, at whose funeral it was sung.

Love divine, all loves excelling will be sung to BLAENWERN, as it often is in the UK and rarely is in the US.

Jerusalem (And did those feet in ancient times), also composed by Parry, is one of those songs that the British consider a hymn, but not everyone else does. (The corresponding "hymn" at Charles and Diana's wedding was I vow to thee, my country).

You could dismiss the hymn selections as no more than interesting trivia (like the fact that the other hymn in the 1981 royal wedding was Christ is made the sure foundation) but remember that they will be heard tomorrow by millions of people around the world. Some may even be singing along.

Good Friday

2011-04-22T02:04:00.006-04:00

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

See from his head, his hands, his feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an off'ring far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Isaac Watts, 1707
Tune: ROCKINGHAM (L.M.)
Edward Miller, 1790

(#2 in The Best Church Hymns of 1899 and still fairly high on most lists today)

Two Years Ago: Good Friday

One Year Ago: Good Friday

Maundy Thursday

2011-04-21T12:37:00.011-04:00

Today we remember the final night that Jesus spent with his friends before his death and the events of their evening together as they gathered for a meal. That Last Supper has been depicted in art and poetry in many different ways (such as the painting above by Tintoretto).

Today's hymn is inspired by just one verse in the Gospel story of the day. Matthew 26:26-30 recounts the disciples' gathering, and ends with "And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives." This text by Frances Ridley Havergal, part of a longer poem, imagines that the hymn they sang together, the last time they would sing before Jesus died, must have been something very unique.

Within an upper room they met,
A small, yet faithful band,
On whom a deep, yet chast'ning grief
Had laid its soft'ning hand.
Disciples seated 'round have heard
Their friend and Savior tell
That he with them no longer now
As heretofore may dwell.

The hour is come, but ere they meet
Its terrors, yet once more
Their voices blend with his who sang
As none e'er sung before.
Why do they linger on that note?
Why thus the sound prolong?
Ah! 'Twas the last, 'tis ended now,
That strangely solemn song.

And forth they go, the song is past;
But like the roseleaf, still,
Whose fragrance does not die away,
Its soft, low echoes thrill.
Through many a soul, and there awake
New strains of glowing praise
To Christ who, on that fateful eve,
That last sweet hymn did raise.

Frances Ridley Havergal, 1855; alt.
Tune: PENMAENMAWR (C.M.D.)
Sarah G. Stock, 1887

It's unlikely that this hymn would find its way into a service nowadays, dealing as it does with such a small part of the Passion story, but it's the part we celebrate here, of singing hymns together.

Sarah Geraldina Stock wrote both hymn tunes and texts, as well as several popular books for children on religious subjects. PENMAENMAWR (named for the town in Wales where she lived) seems like a tune that's just as unusual as this text, so they made a good pairing.

Three Years Ago: Maundy Thursday

Two Years Ago: Maundy Thursday

One Year Ago: Maundy Thursday

Hosanna in the Highest

2011-04-17T12:34:00.011-04:00

Come, faithful people, come away,
Your homage unto Jesus pay;
It is the feast of palms today;
Hosanna in the highest!

Go, Savior, thus to triumph borne,
Thy crown shall be the wreath of thorn,
Thy royal garb the robe of scorn:
Hosanna in the highest!

They thronged before, behind, around,
They cast palm branches on the ground,
And still rose up the joyful sound:
Hosanna in the highest!

Thus, Savior, to thy passion go,
Arrayed in royalty of woe,
Assumed for people here below:
Hosanna in the highest!

Gerard Moultrie, 1867; alt.
Tune: GREENWELL (8.8.8.7.)
William J. Kirkpatrick, 1885

Three Years Ago: Green Palms and Blossoms Gay

Two Years Ago: The Victor Palm Branch Waving

One Year Ago: To See the Approaching Sacrifice

Lelia Naylor Morris

2011-04-15T18:25:00.012-04:00

Gospel song writer Lelia Naylor Morris was born today in 1862. After the death of her father, her mother opened a millinery shop in McConnelsville, Ohio, to support the family and Lelia learned to sew there. She also showed an early interest in music, and practiced the piano at a neighbor's house because her family could not afford one. By age twelve she was playing the organ for local prayer meetings.

She did not begin writing and composing gospel songs until she was thirty, ten years after her marriage to Charles H. Morris. She has been working as a seamstress, but her long association with church music both as a singer and an organist probably led her to composition. She reportedly kept a pad of paper nearby to write down the texts as inspiration struck, and she composed the music at the organ of the Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church in McConnellsville where she served for many years as organist.

She would eventually write more than a thousand gospel songs, and many early twentieth century hymnbooks contain more than a dozen of them (always credited to Mrs. C. H. Morris).

Do we live so close to the Lord today,
Passing to and fro on life’s busy way,
That the world in us can a likeness see
To the Christ of Calvary?

Refrain
Can the world see Jesus in me?
Can the world see Jesus in you?
Does your love to him ring true,
And your life and service, too?
Can the world see Jesus in you?

As an open book they our lives will read,
To our words and acts giving daily heed;
Will they be attracted, or turn away
From the Christ of Calvary?
Refrain

Lelia Naylor Morris, 1917; alt.
Tune: CHRIST'S EXAMPLE (10.10.10.7. with refrain)

Morris lost her eyesight in later years but found various ways to continue writing songs. Her songs traveled around the world; during her lifetime several of them were translated into various languages and used by Methodist missionaries (including one of her daughters).

Two Years Ago: Lelia Naylor Morris

Felice di Giardini

2011-04-12T16:10:00.014-04:00

Italian composer Felice di Giardini (April 12, 1716 - June 8, 1796) was born in Turin. Showing musical talent at an early age, his father sent him to Milan to study voice, harpsichord, and violin. He became renowned as a violin virtuoso and played in opera orchestras in Rome and Naples beginning at age 12.

In an early encounter with a famous composer, di Giardini was the assistant concertmaster in a Teatro San Corlo performance of an opera by Niccolo Jommelli wherein he played his own elaborate ornamentations and variations on the violin part, which earned him a public slap in the face from the composer. He later called this incident "the most instructive lesson I ever received from a great artist."

In the 1750s di Giardini toured Europe as a violinist, eventually settling in England after successes in Paris and Berlin. He became the director of the Italian Opera Company in London and continued to perform as a solo artist in concerts arranged by Johann Christian Bach, who became a close friend. He was also the director of the Three Choirs Festival (which is still in operation today) for six years beginning in 1770.

He composed in many different musical forms, but focused primarily on opera and chamber music. Very little of his music is known today, though some solo songs and string trios are still in print.

However, one of his hymn tunes remains in nearly every hymnal published up to the present. During his time in London he was asked by the Countess of Huntingdon, a well-known evangelical leader, to contribute tunes to a hymnal she was sponsoring. In 1769 this Collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes was published, edited by Martin Madan and benefiting London's Lock Hospital. Four of its tunes were written by di Giardini, including this most famous one.

Come, mighty Giver of Life,
Calm thou our discord and strife;
Help us to praise!
Maker, whose love unknown,
All things created own,
Build in our hearts thy throne,
Ancient of Days!

Come, thou incarnate Word,
By heav'n and earth adored,
Our prayer attend!
Come, and thy people bless;
Come, give thy Word success,
'Stablish thy righteousness,
Savior and Friend!

Spirit of truth and love,
Life-giving, holy Dove,
Come down this hour!
Move on the water's face,
Bearing the gifts of grace;
Fly to earth's farthest place,
Spirit of power!

To thee, great One in Three,
Our highest praises be,
Hence, evermore!
Thy sov'reign majesty
May we in glory see,
And to eternity
Love and adore!

Text Composite, 18th & 19th cent.
Tune: ITALIAN HYMN (6.6.4.6.6.6.4.)
Felice di Giardini, 1769

There are several small variations in the melody that have crept in over the last two centuries; the one in your hymnal may not match this one completely. ITALIAN HYMN seems like an obvious name, but it is also sometimes known as MOSCOW, which is the city where di Giardini died in 1796, sadly in poverty. His fame turned out not to last even through his lifetime; while he was once known throughout Europe, painted by famous artists such as Sir Joshua Reynolds (above) and John Francis Rigaud (below), he went back to Italy for a few years in 1784 and suffered some financial setbacks. Returning to England in 1793 he found that he was no longer in favor with the public and eventually left for Russia, where he was also unsuccessful.

P.S. - This is post #500.

George Matheson

2011-03-27T16:34:00.010-04:00

Scottish minister George Matheson was born today in Glasgow in 1842. He entered the university there at fifteen, and during his time there his already-poor eyesight deteriorated to the point of blindness. Undeterred, he continued his studies with the help of his sisters and was awarded several academic honors. HIs first degree was in philosophy, followed by one in divinity, after which he was licensed to preach in the Church of Scotland.

Over the next several years he became a renowned preacher, adding to his fame when the first of his several books was published in 1874. He continued to write books an articleGs on theology and comparative religions even after his retirement in 1899, until his death from a stroke in 1906.

He published only one book of poetry, Sacred Songs (1890), though he did not include his most well-known hymn until the third edition in 1904. He considered O Love that wilt not let me go to be a special case as it was written with an ease that he never experienced again. Most of the poems in Sacred Songs are not suited to be hymns, but a few of them have also appeared in hymnals, such as this one.

Jesus, Fountain of my days,
Wellspring of my heart's delight.
Brightness of my morning rays,
Solace of my hours of night,
Loving thee I shall arise
To the hope of cloudless skies.

As thy presence on the deep
Calmed the pulses of the sea,
And the waters sank to sleep
In the rest of seeing thee,
So my restless, troubled will
Heard the mandate, "Peace, be still!"

Now thy will and mine are one,
Heart in heart and hand in hand;
All the clouds and all the sun,
All the ships have reached the land;
And thy love has said to me,
"No more night!" and "No more sea!"

George Matheson, 1890; alt.
Tune: RATISBON (7.7.7.7.7.7.)
Leipzig Choralbuch, 1816;
harm. William Henry Havergal, 1861

P.S. - In many churches today, the Gospel lesson was the story of the woman at the well (John 4:4-41), which brings to mind this hymn from a few years ago.

Two Years Ago: George Matheson

One Year Ago: George Job Elvey

Another Birthday Today: Emma Ashford

Fanny Crosby

2011-03-24T14:05:00.013-04:00

The popular and prolific song writer Frances Jane Crosby (March 24, 1820 - February 12, 1915) was born in the town of South East, NY. Her mother, Mercy, was widowed shortly thereafter, and went to work as a maid to support the family, leaving the infant Fanny in the care of her grandmother, Eunice. She then suffered an eye infection that was treated incorrectly, which led to blindness.

Her grandmother initially oversaw her education at home, and as a child she had memorized the first four books of the Old Testament by the time she was ten. Later, in 1834, she continued her education at the New York Institute for the Blind (still in operation today); after graduating, she returned there as a teacher of English, rhetoric, and American history.

Long before she began writing sacred texts for Sunday school music in 1864, she had already published books of poetry, beginning in 1844, and had collaborated on secular songs and longer works with composers such as George Root (their 1852 cantata, The Flower Queen, can now be seen online) and Lowell Mason.

Later, of course, her gospel songs came to be numbered in the thousands, appearing in hundreds of hymnals and songbooks in the last third of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth. In the books of her primary publisher, Biglow & Main, usually around half of the the songs were by Crosby, often under her numerous pseudonyms. Crosby's own records showed that she wrote 5959 texts for Biglow & Main alone, and it's not known how many were written for other publishers. It's estimated that there may have been a few thousand texts written by Fanny that were never published. In 1977, Hope Publishing Company (the successor to Biglow & Main) published 120 of these (a small fraction!) as Fanny Crosby Speaks Again, edited by Donald P. Hustad.

This is one of those texts which was not published in Crosby's lifetime. Hope Publishing has graciously allowed the reprinting of those texts in their 1977 collection even though under current copyright law, they are not in the public domain.

O Love divine, amazing Love,

That brought to earth from heav'n above,

The Son of God for us to die,

That we might dwell with him on high.

For us the crown of thorns he bore,

For us the robe of scorn he wore,

He conquered death and rent the grave,

And lives again our souls to save.

O wanderer, come, on him believe,

His offered grace by faith receive;

Awake, arise, and hear him call,

The feast is spread -- there's room for all!

Fanny Crosby, 1905

Tune: LOUVAN (L.M.)

Virgil C. Taylor, 1850

Used by permission.

LOUVAN is a tune that Fanny Crosby would probably have known; it appeared in many hymnals of her day (and still a few today).

An early account of Crosby's life was written by Robert Lowry and published in her 1897 poetry collection Bells at Evening (which was dedicated "to all who sing my hymns"). In addition to the outline of her life, he gives some details about the working relationships between her several of the composers who wrote tunes for her texts. Of her many, many songs, he writes:

The time has not yet come when Fanny Crosby's place among the hymn writers of Christendom may be determined, but it is safe to say that, of the many hymns which have come up from the throbbings of her warm heart, there will be found in the ultimate sifting no inconsiderable number which the world will not willingly let die.

Two Years Ago: Fanny Crosby

One Year Ago: Fanny Crosby

May Whittle Moody

2011-03-20T14:18:00.004-04:00

Composer May Whittle Moody (March 20, 1870 - August 20, 1963) was a second-generation hymnist, the daughter of gospel songwriter Daniel Webster Whittle. Daniel Whittle was a friend of the evangelist Dwight Moody, and May attended the Northfield Seminary for Young Women, one of two schools founded by Moody in Northfield, Massachusetts. She went on to study music at Oberlin College and the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Returning to this country, she joined her father and Moody in their evangelistic work as a solo singer and she also began writing tunes for some of her father's texts. In 1894 she married Dwight Moody's son William, and they returned to Northfield, where William headed the schools founded by his father there.

This collaboration between father and daughter was one of their last. Daniel Whittle died the following spring, in 1901, and for the last year of his life he lived with May and her family.

They tell me the story of Jesus is old,

And they ask that we preach something new;

They say the example of Christ's loving care

For the wise of this world will not do.

Refrain

It can never grow old, it can never grow old,

Though a million times over the story is told;

While there is injustice and pain in the world,

The story of Jesus can never grow old.

Yet the story is old, as the sunlight is old,

Though it’s new every morn all the same;

As it floods all the world with its gladness and light,

Kindling faraway stars by its flame.

Refrain

For what can we tell to the weary of heart,

If we preach not salvation from sin?

And how can we comfort the souls that depart,

If we tell not how Christ rose again?

Refrain

So with sorrow we turn from the wise of this world,

To the wanderers far from the fold;

With hearts for the message they’ll join in our song,

That the story can never grow old.

Refrain

Daniel Whittle, 1900; alt.

Tune: ETERNAL STORY (Irregular with refrain)

May Whittle Moody, 1900

The Cyber Hymnal page for this song has a quote from 1 Corinthians 3:19 "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." If you've ever heard a discussion of using modern marketing techniques to bring people to church, this song might speak more directly to you.

In later years May also worked with Charles Alexander on the third edition of the Northfield Hymnal and after his death, produced the fourth revised edition herself in 1927.

The Hymns That Keep On Going

2011-03-19T10:43:00.009-04:00

If you have not already seen it, you will probably be interested in a recent article by the above title from Christianity Today (that you can read online). The author sifted through twenty-eight hymnals from "mainline" Protestant denominations, from 1877 to the present, which contained 4905 different hymns to find which ones were most often used over that entire period. His final list of twenty seven hymns appeared in at least twenty-six of those, and the top thirteen appeared in all of them.

Appeared in 28 of 28:

Abide with me

All hail the power of Jesus' Name

Come, ye thankful people, come

Crown him with many crowns

Glorious things of these are spoken

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah

Holy, holy, holy

How firm a foundation

In the cross of Christ I glory

Jesus shall reign where'er the sun

Love divine, all loves excelling

O sacred head, now wounded

When I survey the wondrous cross

Appeared in 27 of 28:

A mighty fortress is our God

All glory, laud, and honor

Come, thou almighty King

Just as I am

Now thank we all our God

O, for a thousand tongues to sing

O God, our help in ages past

O worship the King

The Church's one foundation

Appeared in 26 of 28:

Christ the Lord is ris'n today

Jesus, the very thought of thee

Savior, like a shepherd lead us

The day of resurrection

There's a wideness in God's mercy

It's interesting to compare this list to the one from The Best Church Hymns (1899) which we've talked about here before. Louis Benson was working with a much larger number of hymnals (107), and there was much more variation between them, as no hymn appeared in all of those (the top hymn missed one!).

Comparing Benson's top thirteen with the top thirteen here (which appeared in all 28 hymnals), only two appear in both lists; Benson's #2, When I survey the wondrous cross and his #8, Abide with me. Three from the modern list moved up to that top thirteen, but ten of the original top thirteen dropped off the modern list entirely (though a few are probably not too far down in the #30s or 40s).

Of Benson's bottom nineteen, only nine of them remain on the modern list. So, between them, the two lists only share eleven hymns. Our tastes have changed (or at least, the tastes of hymnal editors). You probably know all of the hymns on this new list, which might not have been true of the older list.

The other thing to remember is that all of the hymns on the modern list were already published before Benson's 1899 book; they're not new hymns, but ones that have become much more popular today than they were a hundred years ago. Twenty-two of them didn't make the older list but for whatever reason, we prefer them now to two-thirds of Benson's selections.

One's favorite hymns are not necessarily the same as the most popular hymns, but I was a little surprised to realize that five of my top ten hymns are on this new list. I expected to be a bit more exclusive than that (though if I thought about it today, my top ten might be a little different than it was when I wrote that almost two years ago).

Two Years Ago: Saint Joseph

William Channing Gannett

2011-03-13T00:12:00.007-05:00

Hymnwriter William Channing Gannett, born today in 1840, was a Unitarian minister who served several different congregations and was widely known in his time as a social reformer. Before the Civil War he had supported and worked for the cause of abolition. He interrupted his studies at the Harvard Divinity School to work with the New England Freedmen's Society in South Carolina during the war, helping former slaves and organizing a school. He apparently was planning to make this his life's work, but after four years his father's poor health brought him back to the North and he finally finished his studies. In later years he became a strong advocate for women's suffrage and education.

His first collection of hymns, Unity Hymns and Chorals (1880) was followed five years later by The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems. Both books were collaborations with his friend Frederick Lucian Hosmer, and the two worked on these books for years afterward, bringing out a number of revised editions with new material.

Gannett worked to encourage ecumenism and unity among churches, belonging to organizations such as the Free Religious Association and the New York state chapter of the Parliament of Religions. In 1887 he wrote Things Commonly Believed Among Us, a broad statement which was adopted by the Western Unitarian Conference. Today's hymn expresses similar concepts, which is probably why it is not more well-known.

It sounds along the ages,

Soul answering to soul;

It kindles on the pages

Of every Bible scroll;

The psalmist heard and sang it,

From martyr lips it broke,

The prophet tongues out-rang it

Till sleeping nations woke.

From Sinai's cliffs it echoed,

It breathed from Buddha's tree,

It charmed in Athens' market,

It hallowed Galilee;

The hammer stroke of Luther,

The Pilgrims' seaside prayer,

The oracles of Concord,

One holy Word declare.

It calls -- and lo, new justice!

It speaks -- and lo, new truth!

In ever nobler stature

And unexhausted youth.

Forever on resounding,

And knowing nought of time,

Our laws but catch the music

Of its eternal chime.

William Channing Gannett, 1894

Tune: FAR OFF LANDS (7.6.7.6.D.)

Bohemian Brethren Hemlandssanger, 1892

What is "It"?

The explanation is not in the text. Modern-day Unitarian preachers will tell you that you're free to decide for yourself what "It" is (such as in this sermon), and that understanding might possibly suit Gannett, but in fact he did have something more concrete in mind. The text as it appeared in The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems was titled The Word of God. Hymnwriters of earlier days such as Philip Doddridge and Charles Wesley had often titled their texts only to see the titles abandoned over the years; while those titles sometimes give us a better insight into the texts than we might otherwise have, few are as essential as the title of this one.

The tune, which comes from the Bohemian Brethren (or Moravians), is named for the children's mission hymn by Percy Dearmer to which it is also matched: Remember all the people / Who dwell in far off lands., which is the kind of text that isn't sung much any more (due to lines such as Some work in sultry forests / Where apes swing to and fro).

In spite of Gannett's interest in ecumenism, his hymns have not received the same wider acceptance in other denominations as those of his collaborator Frederick Lucian Hosmer. Probably only two, Praise to the Living God, and Bring, O morn, thy music are known today in non-Unitarian collections.

One Year Ago: William Channing Gannett

Paul Gerhardt

2011-03-12T11:28:00.007-05:00

Lutheran pastor and hymnwriter Paul Gerhardt was born today in 1607 near Wittenburg in Germany. He enrolled in the university there in 1628, where one of his most influential instructors, Paul Röber, often used hymns as sermon texts and encouraged their instructional use.

At this time, the destructive Thirty Years War was raging in Germany (it's estimated that the population of Germany declined by thirty percent during those years) and due to its disruption Gerhardt was not ordained and assigned to a parish until 1651, when he settled in Mittenwalde, southeast of Berlin.

Gerhardt could not avoid the religious conflict between the Lutherans and the Reformed Church, which eventually led to his losing his position since the secular authorities supported the other side. Ironically, by that time his hymns were already sung and loved by both the Lutheran and the Reformed sides.

After his death, his hymns were published in a collected edition edited by his son, and a collection translated into English by John Kelly, Spiritual Songs of Paul Gerhardt, appeared in 1867, though many of his texts had previously been translated by various poets.

This text, O du allersüsste Freude, comes to us through a translation by John Christian Jacobi which was then adapted by Samuel Longfellow in the Unitarian Book of Hymns (1848).

Holy Spirit, source of gladness,

Come in all your radiance bright;

O’er our weariness and sadness

Breathe your life and shed your light!

Send us your illumination,

Banish all our fears at length;

Rest upon this congregation,

Spirit of unfailing strength.

Let that love which knows no measure,

Now in quickening showers descend,

Bringing us the richest treasures

We can wish or God can send.

Hear our earnest supplication,

Every struggling heart release;

Rest upon this congregation,

Spirit of untroubled peace!

Paul Gerhardt, 1648;

tr. John C. Jacobi, c.1725;

adapt. Samuel Longfellow, 1848; alt.

Tune: SHIPSTON (8.7.8.7.)

Traditional English melody,

arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906

The chaotic times that Gerhardt lived through, as well as the disruption of his professional life and the deaths of his wife and four of five children, led him to be described as a "theologian sifted in Satan's sieve," an inscription written on a full-length portrait painted after his death in the church at Lübben.

Three Years Ago: Gregory the Great

Two Years Ago: Paul Gerhardt

One Year Ago: Robert Lowry

John Bacchus Dykes

2011-03-10T15:48:00.009-05:00

John Bacchus Dykes, born today in 1823, was for many years the most popular of the English Victorian hymn tune composers, and still today most hymnals include his tunes.

His musical career began first, at the age of ten when he began playing the organ at the church where his grandfather was the vicar, but following his graduation from Cambridge University (where he co-founded the Cambridge University Musical Society) he was ordained in the Church of England in 1847. He was precentor at Durham Cathedral for several years before leading the parish of St. Oswald's in Durham.

Though he was influenced by the Oxford Movement, he was blocked by his bishop from instituting any practices in his own parishes that might be seen as "high church." His requests for assisting clergy were denied until he promised three things: that incense would not be used during worship, that no clergy would wear colored stoles, and that the celebrant of the Eucharist would not face away from the people. He appealed his case to the Queen's Bench, but was not successful.

Several of his hymn tunes appeared in the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861) and after that were in great demand in the big business of Victorian hymnal publishing. He supplied tunes for nearly every editor who requested them, regardless of denomination. In response to one American hymnal editor, J. Ireland Tucker (whose work was very influential in spreading Dykes's music to this country), regarding terms, he wrote:

I have never been accustomed to write for money, although I have frequently had an honorarium sent to me for work done. (...) Bur when a man has a large parish, and a family growing up, and is not overburdened with the world's goods, and finds considerable difficulty in making both ends meet, I suppose there is nothing objectionable in resorting to any legitimate means which God's good Providence may throw in his way for enabling him to pay his just and lawful debts. and obtain a little help for those who are dependent on him.

You will recognize many of his tunes, and most of his familiar tunes have already been seen here. This one is less familiar, but suits this German text by Wolfgang Dessler (translated by John Wesley).

Into thy gracious hands I fall,

And with the arms of faith embrace;

Loving Redeemer, hear my call,

O raise me, heal me, by thy grace!

Still let thy wisdom be my guide,

Nor take thy light from me away,

Still with me let thy grace abide,

That I from thee may never stray:

Let thy word richly in me dwell;

Thy peace and love my portion be;

My joy to endure and do thy will,

Till perfect I am found in thee.

From faith to faith, from grace to grace,

So in thy strength shall I go on,

Till heaven and earth flee from thy face,

And glory end what grace begun.

Wolfgang C. Dessler, 1692;

tr. John Wesley, 1739; alt.

Tune: CALM (L.M.)

John Bacchus Dykes, 19th cent.

Two Years Ago: John Bacchus Dykes

Ash Wednesday

2011-03-09T17:23:00.008-05:00

O Christ, whose tender mercy hears

Contrition’s humble sigh,
Whose hand indulgent, wipes the tears
From sorrow’s weeping eye.

See here, before your throne of grace,
A seeking wanderer mourn:
Have you not bid me seek your face?
Have you not said, “Return”?

Absent from you, my Guide, my Light!
Without one cheering ray,
Through dangers, fears, and gloomy nights,
How desolate my way!

O shine upon my weary heart,
With beams of mercy shine!
And let your healing voice impart
A taste of joys divine.

Anne Steele, 1760
Tune: BURFORD (C.M.)
Chetham's Psalmody, 1718

One (Calendar) Year Ago: Phoebe Knapp

Two (Liturgical) Yeara Ago: Ash Wednesday

Let Us For a While Give O'er

2011-03-06T02:23:00.008-05:00

Iu many churches today the readings will be recounting the story of the Transfiguration, which appears in three of the gospels. I believe this year's appointed version will be from Matthew 17:1-9. This is a twentieth-century innovation, because the true Feast of the Transfiguration falls on August 6. In earlier times, this Sunday was known as Quinquagesima, the last Sunday before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. The latest this day can fall in the calendar is March 7, so we are pretty much at the limit this year.

One of the customs associated with Quinquagesima in some places was a kind of farewell observance, in preparation for giving various things up for the duration of the Lenten season. In liturgical worship, the word Alleluia (from the Hebrew, meaning praise to God) is not used during Lent, neither spoken, sung, nor chanted, so this would be its last Sunday appearance until it re-emerges at Easter.

There were various local rites in the medieval church for this renunciation. In the French city of Toul, up until the fifteenth century, they would celebrate a full requiem mass and bury a coffin ostensibly containing the word Alleluia, which may have been the most extreme form of observance.

The Latin hymn for this occasion, from the eleventh century, is still sung today, though not quite as they sang it in Toul. It originally began:

Alleluia, dulce carmen

Vox perennis gaudii,

Alleluia vos suavis

Est choris coelestibus,

Quam canunt Dei manentes

In domo per saecula.

This was translated by our old friend John Mason Neale, preserving the original meter, and appeared in his Hymnal Noted (1851), and does still in several hymnals today.

Alleluia, song of gladness,

Voice of joy that cannot die;

Alleluia is the anthem

Ever dear to choirs on high;

In the house of God abiding

Thus they sing eternally.

Alleluia thou resoundest,

True Jerusalem and free;

Alleluia, joyful mother,

All thy children sing with thee;

But by Babylon’s sad waters

Mourning exiles now are we.

Alleluia though we cherish

And would chant forevermore

Alluluia in our singing,

Let us for a while give o'er

As our Savior in his fasting

Pleasures of the world forbore.

Therefore in our hymns we pray thee,

Grant us, blessèd Trinity,

At the last to keep thine Easter

With thy faithful saints on high;

There to thee forever singing

Alleluia joyfully.

Latin, 11th cent.; tr. John Mason Neale, 1851; alt

Tune: DULCE CARMEN (8.7.8.7.8.7)

Collection of Motetts and Antiphons, 1840

(there is, unfortunately, an egregious error in the harmony at the end of the third line)

The tune, which derives its name from this Latin text, had earlier appeared in plainsong form in An Essay on the Church Plain Chant (1782) by Samuel Webbe, but was arranged into its metrical form in a later book by Webbe. It's also been known as CORINTH and TANTUM ERGO, among other names.

Neale's first line of the translation was originally Alleluia, song of sweetness, which is really closer to the Latin dulce, but less often used today. His original third stanza is also quite different.

Alleluia we deserve not

Here to chant forevermore;

Alleluia our transgressions

Make us for a while give o’er;

For the holy time is coming

Bidding us our sins deplore.

I believe the revised version was written for the Episcopal Hymnal 1982 but I don't know by whom.

So here we have seven Alleluias to tide us over for the next six weeks. Alleluia will be back before we know it (nearly any good Easter hymn will have several of them). I'm kind of glad we don't have to actually bury it any more.

One (Liturgical) Year Ago: Not always on the mount may we

Charles Wesley

2011-03-03T16:37:00.003-05:00

Charles Wesley (December 18, 1707 - March 29, 1788) and his brother John are commemorated today in the calendar of the modern Episcopal Church. Charles was a priest in the Church of England, ordained in 1735, and always insisted that he remained faithful to that church, though he and his brother are considered the founders of the Methodist denomination.

Since the message of the Wesley brothers was not welcome in their own churches, they traveled widely and preached in many different places (including a year in the American colony of Georgia). Charles began writing hymns as a way to teach their doctrines in a shorter and more easily-remembered way than sermons. It's said that many of his hymns were composed on horseback while riding from place to place. Eventually his health forced him to curtail his traveling ministry and settle in one place, whereupon he devoted more time to hymnwriting. His final output was more than six thousand hymns, most published in many different collections during his lifetime.

Many of Wesley's hymns are still sung today, and by many more people than Methodists. Today's text is not as well-known as some, but many people have believed it to be his finest verse, including Isaac Watts, who wrote that this text was worth all the hymns he himself had written. Its immediate inspiration comes from Genesis 32:22-30, which is the story of Jacob wrestling with an unknown man in the night, and the hymn is often sung to accompany that lesson. But Wesley broadens the meaning to encompass an individual and personal meeting with God, coming to know God's true name and nature through the physical contact of "wrestling."

Come, O thou Traveler unknown,
Whom still I hold, but cannot see!
My company before is gone,
And I am left alone with thee;
With thee all night I mean to stay,
And wrestle till the break of day.
With thee all night I mean to stay,
And wrestle till the break of day.

I need not tell thee who I am,
My misery and sin declare;
Thyself hast called me by my name,
Look on thy hands, and read it there;
But who, I ask thee, who art thou?
Tell me thy name, and tell me now.
But who, I ask thee, who art thou?
Tell me thy name, and tell me now.

Yield to me now, for I am weak,
But confident in self-despair;
Speak to my heart, in blessings speak,
Be conquered by my instant prayer;
Speak, or thou never hence shalt move,
And tell me if thy name is Love.
Speak, or thou never hence shalt move,
And tell me if thy name is Love.

’Tis Love! ’tis Love! Thou diedst for me!
I hear thy whisper in my heart;
The morning breaks, the shadows flee,
Pure, universal love thou art;
To me, to all, thy mercies move;
Thy nature and thy name is Love.
To me, to all, thy mercies move;
Thy nature and thy name is Love.

Charles Wesley, 1742; alt.
Tune: CANDLER (L.M.D.)
Scottish melody, adapt. 1847

(The sound file is a bit faster than I think it should be sung.)

Wesley's original text was fourteen stanzas long, later shortened to twelve by his brother John. Twelve stanzas was the usual length in hymnbooks through the nineteenth century. The US Methodist Hymnal of 1905 shortened it to seven, and the 1935 edition to these four, which are generally sung today. The latest United Methodist Hymnal (1989), however, does include the entire fourteen-stanza text on the page following the four stanzas with music.

Two weeks after Charles' death, John Wesley was teaching this hymn to a congregation and broke down during the first stanza at the lines My company before is gone / And I am left alone with thee.

Two Years Ago: John and Charles Wesley

Saint David

2011-03-01T13:51:00.005-05:00

March 1 is the feast day of the patronal saint of Wales, Saint David (or Dewi Sant in Welsh). He was a sixth-century monk and later Archbishop of Wales, said to have converted thousands from the pagan Celtic tribes to Christianity. St. David's Cathedral in Pembrokeshire was built after he was made a saint in the twelfth century, on the site of one of his monasteries. He is usually depicted in art with a dove on his shoulder or hovering near him, and he is also closely associated with water, as fresh springs are said to have erupted in the Welsh countryside to mark many of the milestones of his life.

There are hymns specifically written for Saint David, many probably untranslated into English. You can see one at this page (of uncertain provenance) with several other legends about his life and works. However, I thought I would take this day of Welsh celebration to gather together several of the Welsh hymn tunes already used here over the last three years. The tunes of Wales were said to be rousing melodies, some from older folk melodies, simple for a congregation to learn and remember, and were not from a high church tradition. This is probably still true today - you will probably know many of these even if you did not see them the first time around on the blog. I like them all.

HYFRYDOL - Love divine, all loves excelling (and also here and here)

CWM RHONDDA - God of grace and God of glory (also here)

ST. DENIO - Immortal, invisible, God only wise

ABERYSTWYTH - Watcher, tell us of the night

TON-Y-BOTEL - Jesus Christ, eternal Savior

LLANGLOFFAN - Sometimes a light surprises

BRYN CALFARIA - Look, O look, the sight is glorious

RHOSYMEDRE - O Source of Life divine

MEIRIONYDD - You hide within the lily

RHUDDLAN - Light's abode, celestial Salem

These are most, if not all, of the Welsh tunes I've used, and I'm sure there are more to come (the familiar AR HYD Y NOS has not yet appeared, for example).

St. David's Day is also an occasion for large gatherings of Welsh choirs, particularly in the male choir tradition, and many of these hymn tunes were probably sung somewhere today. If you want to hear more of these tunes, searching for any of the tune names above at YouTube will probably bring up a rendition or two (or more) sung exuberantly by a Welsh male choir.

P.S. - Our commenter Leland is looking for some information on a particular Welsh hymn (the text, not the tune) at his blog, if anyone here happens to know more about it.

William James Kirkpatrick

2011-02-27T01:13:00.007-05:00

Composer William James Kirkpatrick was born today in 1838 in Duncannon, PA. His father was a music teacher, so William studied music from an early age and learned to play different musical instruments. At sixteen he left home to further his music studies, including composition, in Philadelphia. He supported himself through carpentry and joined the Wharton Street Methodist Episcopal Church, accompanying and singing in the choir.

When he was just twenty-one, several of his tunes appeared in Devotional Melodies (1859), published by A.J. Jenks. who, in the book's introduction, thanks "Mr. W. J. Kirkpatrick for the simple and appropriate arrangement of a large number of the musical compositions found in this book." Two years later, during the early years of the Civil War, he served as fife major and principal musician for the 91st Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers. He returned from the war and went into the furniture business in Philadelphia, though church music remained a very active sideline.

Following the death of his first wife in 1878 he decided to devote himself to music full-time, and for several years thereafter was the organist and music director at Grace Methodist Episcopal Church. His tunes were now in great demand and he also began editing and compiling songbooks either alone or in collaboration with others. John R. Sweney was a friend and frequent collaborator.

His most enduring tune is probably CRADLE SONG, one of the tunes sung with Away in a manger (though it's used with other texts too). Another one already seen here is O spread the tidings round. Many will probably remember this well-known tune of Kirkpatrick's which first appeared in Sweney's Songs of Redeeming Love (1882) with a text by Priscilla Owens, a Methodist Sunday School teacher in Baltimore who wrote several songs for her students which were later published.

We have heard the joyful sound:
Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
Spread the tidings all around:
Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
Bear the news to every land,
Climb the mountains, cross the waves;
Onward! ’tis our God’s command;
Jesus saves! Jesus saves!

Waft it on the rolling tide:
Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
Tell to people far and wide:
Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
Sing, you islands of the sea;
Echo back, you ocean caves;
Earth shall keep the jubilee:
Jesus saves! Jesus saves!

Sing above the battle strife:
Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
Sing of love and endless life:
Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
Shout it brightly through the gloom,
When the heart for mercy craves;
Sing in triumph o’er the tomb:
Jesus saves! Jesus saves!

Give the winds a mighty voice:
Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
Let the nations now rejoice:
Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
Shout salvation full and free;
Highest hills and deepest caves;
This our song of victory:
Jesus saves! Jesus saves!

Priscilla J. Owens, 1882; alt.
Tune: SALVATION (7.6.7.6.7.7.7.6.)
William J. Kirkpatrick, 1882

Kirkpatrick would go on to compile or collaborate on more than eighty songbooks and write more than a thousand vocal compositions, including gospel songs, anthems, and solo songs. You can see about half of the book titles and several of his tunes at his Cyber Hymnal page. He eventually became a publisher himself as president of the Praise Publishing Company. He died in 1921, only four years after marrying his third wife (who had been the widow of John Sweney), while working on one last tune.

Two Years Ago: Charles Hubert Hastings Parry

Saint Matthias

2011-02-24T03:13:00.005-05:00

The feast day of Saint Matthias is celebrated today in some churches while others commemorate him on May 19 in order to move the occasion out of Lent, when it would generally fall (though not this year). In the Eastern Orthodox Church, his day is August 9.

Very little is known of Matthias from the New Testament, which only mentions him once by name, at the very end of the first chapter of Acts. He was one of the large group of disciples who followed Jesus from the time of his baptism to his ascension, and after that occasion he was chosen to replace Judas as one of the twelve apostles. Various contradictory accounts of his later life, ministry, and death have been told, and other scholars have attempted to identify him in the earlier New Testament accounts, often choosing different people.

There was also a lost Gospel of Matthias, only known to have existed by accounts of it in other writings, but it was later declared to have been written in the second century (by "heretics") and not by the apostle himself.

Today's hymn for the day by John Mason Neale first appeared in his Hymns for Children (1842), but was included in the much more widely-used Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861) and Church Hymns (1872).

Christ is gone up, but ere he passed
From earth to heav'n to reign;
He formed one holy Church to last
Until he comes again.

The twelve apostles first were made
His ministers of grace,
And they their hands on others laid
To fill in turn their place.

First called to know the Church's grace,
By apostolic hands,
To take dishonored Judas' place;
Matthias with them stands.

So, age by age, and year by year,
Christ's grace is handed on,
And still the Church he loved is here,
Though he himself has gone.

May all who seek, unite with us
In mission strong and bold;
Bring wand'rers in and let there be
One Shepherd and one Fold.

John Mason Neale, 1842; alt.
Tune: SOLOMON (C.M.)
from George F. Handel, 1749; adapt. ?

The tune SOLOMON is an adaptation by an unknown composer of a tune by George Frederick Handel from his oratorio Solomon (1749), specifically, the aria What though I trace each herb and flower. Handel's birthday, incidentally, was yesterday, and while he wrote no hymn tunes as we know them, several tunes in our hymnals are derived from melodies from his operas, oratorios and orchestral works.

P.S. The wooden statue of the saint is by the German sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider and dates from the early sixteenth century.

The Fruits of Peace and Joy

2011-02-13T15:25:00.006-05:00

It's been a rough winter here this year, as well as in many other places, and I'm really looking forward to spring. We have some time before it's here, but in the meantime, we can think about sprouting seeds and growing plants.

Almighty God, your Word is cast
Like seed upon the ground,
Now let the dews of heaven descend
And righteous fruits abound.

Let not our selfishness and hate
This holy seed remove:
But give it root in every heart,
To bring forth fruits of love.

Let not our unimportant cares
The rising plant destroy,
But let it yield a hundred-fold
The fruits of peace and joy.

Oft as the precious seed is sown,
Your quick'ning grace bestow;
That all whose souls the truth receive
Its saving power may know.

John Cawood, 1815; alt.
Tune: ST. MAGNUS (C.M.)
Jeremiah Clarke, 1709;
harm. William H. Monk, 1868

Thy Best Name of Comforter

2011-02-06T02:06:00.007-05:00

O Breath of God, breathe on us now,

And move within us while we pray:

The Spring of our new life art thou,

The very light of our new day.

O strangely art thou with us here

Neither in height nor depth to seek:

But ever shall thy voice be near

Spirit to spirit, thou dost speak.

Christ is our Advocate on high;

Thou art our Advocate within.

To plead the truth, and make reply

To every argument of sin.

Be with me when no other friend

The mystery of my heart can share;

And be thou known, when fears transcend,

By thy best name of Comforter.

Alfred H. Vine, 1895

Tune: TALLIS' CANON (L.M.)

Thomas Tallis, 1560

We have a long way to go until Lent this year (which is fine with me), another whole month before Ash Wednesday. In the meantime, a hymn to the Holy Spirit is never out of place.

It's been nearly a year since I last used TALLIS' CANON for another text, but it's a good, familiar tune that people sing well. I don't know that I'd sing it as a round in this particular case, but it's always a possibility.

P.S., the window above is in the Latin chapel of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford.

The Feast of the Presentation

2011-02-02T11:50:00.005-05:00

We come round again to our fourth Feast of the Presentation here at the blog. The story is told in Luke 2:22-40, how Jesus was brought to the temple forty days after his birth, there to be recognized by Anna and Simeon as the fulfillment of ancient prophecy.

The Song of Simeon, which begins in verse 29, also known as the Nunc dimittis, has been a part of Christian liturgy for hundreds of years. It is often sung in various musical settings, but today's version was set as a hymn by Martin Luther, and adapted from a translation by Catherine Winkworth.

In peace and joy I now depart,
According to thy will;
For full of comfort is my heart,
So calm and still.

For thou in mercy unto all
Hast set this Savior forth;
To Christ's dominion thou dost call
The whole wide earth.

Christ is the Hope, the saving Light,
That earthly nations need,
And those who know thee now aright
Will teach and lead.

Martin Luther, 16th cent.
tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1869; adapt.
Tune: WREFORD (8.6.8.4.)
Edmund S. Carter, 1874

The weather in many parts of the country today has probably cancelled many midweek observances of the day (including ours here in CT) but here you have four hymns for the occasion to consider without going outside in the cold.

Three Years Ago: O Zion, open wide thy gates

Two Years Ago: Hail to the Lord who comes

One Year Ago: O Jerusalem beloved

Bernard Barton

2011-01-31T15:20:00.005-05:00

Bernard Barton (January 31, 1784 - February 19, 1849) was known in England as the Quaker Poet, years before John Greenleaf Whittier gained that attribution in this country.

Born in Carlisle, in northwest England, into a Quaker family, he eventually settled on a career in banking. His first book of poetry, Metrical Effusions, was published in 1812. Several succeeding volumes over the next sixteen years would help him establish friendships with other famous poets of the day such as Robert Southey and Charles Lamb. It was Lamb who gave him some advice when Barton was considering leaving his position at Alexanders' Bank in Suffolk to support himself through his writing. "Keep to yous bank, and the bank will keep you." So Barton would remain at that same Suffolk bank until his death. After 1828 his books of poetry became less frequent until 1845, when his Household Verses appeared to great acclaim and success.

Many of Barton's poems that later appeared in hymnals are from his Devotional Verses (1826). Today's hymn was probably his most well-known, which Hymnary.org finds in more than 200 hymnals, but only two published since 1978. Still, it's probably remembered by many.

Lamp of our feet, whereby we trace
Our path when wont to stray;
Stream from the fount of heav’nly grace,
Brook by the traveler’s way.

Bread of our souls whereon we feed,
True manna from on high;
Our guide and chart wherein we read
Of realms beyond the sky.

Pillar of fire, through watches dark,
Or radiant cloud by day;
When waves would break our tossing bark,
Our anchor and our stay.

Yet to unfold thy hidden worth,
Thy myst'ries to reveal,
That Spirit which first gave thee forth,
Thy volume must unseal.

God, grant us all aright to learn
The wisdom it imparts,
And to its gracious teaching turn
With simple, childlike hearts.

Bernard Barton, 1826
Tune: EVAN (C.M.)
William Henry Havergal, 1846

I think that, in some places today, hymns about the Scriptures themselves are sometimes seen as "singing to the Bible" and are less likely to be found in hymnals. But here I think you could make a broader case; that Barton was talking about the concept of the Word of God and not, strictly speaking, about words on a page.

The Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul

2011-01-25T16:31:00.006-05:00

The great Apostle, called by grace,

Turned from his wrath aside,
Preached the same faith he once abhorred,
And Christ, whom he denied.

In perils and in troubles oft,
His new-made life he passed;
And God who turned his heart at first,
Upheld him to the last.

A chosen vessel of God's will,
He fought the fight of faith;
And gained the crown of righteousness,
Obedient unto death.

Thus, God of grace, to do thy will,
Thy people may we be;
And follow ever in Paul's steps,
E'en as he followed thee.

Henry Alford, 1845; alt.
Tune: DUNFERMLINE (C.M.)
Scottish Psalter, 1615

Two Years Ago: The Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul

John Mason Neale

2011-01-24T17:30:00.009-05:00

John Mason Neale (January 24, 1818 - August 6, 1866) is, in some ways, a sort of godparent to this blog. His birthday today is one day after the anniversary of the first posting here in 2009, and, as you may remember, the title up there at the top of the page comes from one of his translated hymns.

Looking at a listing of his hymns, I am reminded of several that have already appeared here and several more that I expect to write about in the months (years?) to come. Most of his texts were translations from Latin or Greek, or any of the other languages he had mastered, and any familiarity with ancient hymn texts that we have in our own time is largely due to his work.

This short hymn is from a text (Rerum Deus tenax vigor) ascribed to Ambrose of Milan, the fourth century bishop who was one of the original four Doctors of the Church, so called because of their importance in establishing Christian doctrine. It was an evening hymn in the Liturgy of the Hours.

O God, creation’s secret force,
Thyself unmoved, all motion’s source,
Who from the morn till evening ray
Through all its changes guid’st the day:

Grant us, when this our life is past,
The glorious evening that shall last;
That, by your holy grace attained,
Eternal glory may be gained.

Mighty Creator, hear my cry
Through Christ our Savior, ever nigh,
Who with the Holy Ghost and thee
Doth live and reign eternally.

Ambrose of Milan, 4th cent.
tr. John Mason Neale, 1852; alt.
Tune: OLIVE'S BROW (L.M.)
William B. Bradbury, 1855

I've mentioned before that I think this tune by William B. Bradbury might have been meant to suggest a chant melody.

So we're beginning our fourth year here. Posting has been a bit sparse for the last few weeks, but I am making some plans for some new and different things in the upcoming year, and there are still plenty of hymns and hymnists to write about. Hope you continue to come back to see what's attracting my interest each week in the world of hymnody.

However Long the Journey

2011-01-23T15:05:00.009-05:00

O star of Truth, down-shining,
Through clouds of doubt and fear,
I ask beneath thy guidance
My pathway may appear.
However long the journey,
However hard it be,
Though I be lone and weary,
Lead on, I follow thee.

I know thy blessèd radiance
Can never lead astray,
Though ancient creed and custom
May point some other way.
E’en if through untrod desert,
Or over trackless sea,
Though I be lone and weary,
Lead on, I follow thee.

Minot Judson Savage, 1883; alt.
Tune: MUNICH (7.6.7.6.D.)
Neuvermehrtes Gesangbuch, 1693
harm. Felix Mendelssohn, 1847

Two Years Ago: Phillips Brooks

As Christ, the Morning Star

2011-01-16T18:23:00.004-05:00

The Epiphany season continues in many churches, with lessons about Christ revealing his glory to the world. The image of Jesus as the Morning Star comes from Revelation 22:16, and we know it from another popular hymn often sung during this season. This text is even earlier, and still appears in Lutheran hymnals.

The Savior sent from heaven,
Foretold by ancient seers,
By our Creator given,
In human form appears.
No sphere his light confining,
No star so brightly shining,
As Christ, our Morning Star.

O time of God appointed,
O bright and holy morn!
The Sovereign One anointed,
The Christ, the virgin-born,
Grim death to vanquish for us,
To open heav'n before us,
And bring us life again.

Awaken now our spirit
To know and love you more,
In faith to stand unshaken,
In spirit to adore,
That we, through this world moving,
Each glimpse of heaven proving,
May reap in fullness there.

Creator, here before you,
With God the Holy Ghost,
And Jesus, we adore you,
O pride of angel-host.
Before you mortals lowly
Cry "Holy, Holy, Holy,"
Eternal Trinity!

Elizabeth Cruciger, 1524
tr. Arthur Tozer Russell, 1851; alt.
Tune: MEIN FREUD (7.6.7.6.7.7.6.)
Erfurt Enchiridion, 1524

Elizabeth Cruciger was the first Lutheran woman to write hymns. Born around 1500, she married Caspar Cruciger, a student of Martin Luther whom Luther encouraged and helped in various ways. Elizabeth also became a friend of Luther's wife Katherine. This text appeared in the Enchiridion, published in Erfurt in 1524, one of the first Protestant hymnals, and Luther later included it in some of his own hymn collections. It was first translated into English by Arthur Tozer Russell in his Psalms and Hymns (1851), an Anglican hymnbook.

The tune was selected by Cruciger hersself, but it was based on an older German folk tune often matched with the secular text Mein Freud mocht such wohl mehren. Like many other chorale melodies set down in the Enchiridion, it was used by Johann Sebastian Bach in some of his cantatas and organ works.

Two Years Ago: Wisdom eternal, brooding o'er creation

The Feast of the Epiphany

2011-01-06T11:17:00.012-05:00

Today's Feast of the Epiphany marks the visit of the "three kings" to the baby Jesus and his parents, told in Matthew 2:1-12, though as you can see they aren't called kings there, nor are there said to be three of them.

Another important part of the story is the star that led them on their journey, which always appears in the hymns for this day. Its appearance was foretold in Numbers 24:17, which reads in part: There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, which many will recognize from a popular Epiphany anthem by Felix Mendelssohn.

Today's hymn was written in Latin (Quae stella sole pulchrior) by Charles Coffin and appeared in the Roman Catholic Paris Breviary (1736). It was translated by John Chandler a century later though it has been much altered since.

What star is this, with beams so bright,
More beauteous than the noonday light?
It shines to herald forth the Word.
Of whom the nations long have heard.

True spake the prophet from afar
Who told the rise of this bright star:
And eastern sages with amaze
Upon the wondrous token gaze.

The guiding star above is bright:
Within them shines a clearer light,
And leads them on with power benign
To seek the Giver of the sign.

Their love can brook no dull delay,
Though toil and danger block the way;
Home, kindred, native land, and all
They leave at their Creator's call.

To God our Maker, heav'nly Light,
To Christ, revealed to earthly sight,
And to the Holy Spirit, raise
Our equal and unceasing praise.

Charles Coffin, 1736
tr. John Chandler, 1837; alt.

Tune: PUER NOBIS (L.M.)
Michael Praetorius, 1609
harm. George Woodward, 1901

Two Years Ago: Saw you never, in the twilight

One Year Ago: Earth has many a noble city

That Night In the Long Ago

2011-01-05T04:15:00.014-05:00

You may recall that last year I celebrated the Twelve Days of Christmas here at CWS with a daily Christmas selection, including several that had likely not been sung anywhere for many years. I decided not to continue that this year (though I certainly would not have run out of things to present), but you can revisit them yourself through the archive links at the right.

Here, on the twelfth day of this Christmas season, I have one last song that I stumbled upon this week. I found it while looking through The Royal Hymnal for the Sunday School (1899) for something else entirely. I don't think I can even explain why I like it; it's a bit like the near-ragtime Easter song from several months ago (harmonically if not rhythmically), and I think it would be fun to sing at least once.

Do you know the song that the angels sang
On that night in the long ago,
When the heav'ns above with their music rang
Till it echoed in the earth below?

Refrain
All glory in the highest,
Peace on earth, goodwill to all,
Glory, glory in the highest,

(In the highest, glory, glory)
Glory in the highest,
Glory in the highest,
Peace on earth, goodwill to all.

Do you know the song that the shepherds heard
As they watched o’er their flocks by night,
When the skies bent down, and their hearts were stirred
By the voices of the angels bright?
Refrain

Do you know the song that the sages learned
As they journeyed from the east afar,
O’er a pathway plain, as there nightly burned
In the heights a glorious guiding star?
Refrain

Abner P. Cobb, 1893; alt.
Tune: SONG IN THE NIGHT (Irregular with refrain)
James H. Fillmore, Sr., 1893

P.S. The painting above is from Song of the Angels (1881) by the French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau.

One Year Ago: The Twelfth Day of Christmas

Elizabeth Rundle Charles

2011-01-02T14:08:00.004-05:00

Today is the birthday of Elizabeth Rundle Charles, born in 1838 in Tavistock, in the county of Devon. She was raised in the Church of England, and would write more than twenty-five books, including several popular books on various aspects of church history.

Her hymns and poems were published in several different places, and she also translated several hymns from various languages. This text comes from her collection The Women of the Gospels: The Three Wakings and Other Poems (1859).

Come and rejoice with me!
For once my heart was poor;
But I have found a treasury
Of love, an endless store.

Come and rejoice with me!
For I have found a Friend
Who knows my heart's most secret depths
Yet loves me without end.

I knew not of this love
Which God had loved so long,
This love, so faithful and so deep,
So tender and so strong.

And now I know it all,
Have heard and known God's Voice,
And hear it still from day to day --
Can I enough rejoice?

Elicabeth Rundle Charles, 1859; alt.
Tune: ADVENT (S.M.)
John Goss, 1872

That same collection also contained a poem entitled New Years' Hymn, probably not a surprising topic for her to write about given her birthday. Its first stanza reads:

What marks the dawning of the year
From any other morn?
No festal garb doth Nature wear
Because a Year is born.

Two Years Ago: Elizabeth Rundle Charles

One Year Ago: The Ninth Day of Christmas

Another Year With Thee

2011-01-01T10:02:00.000-05:00

I've written before on this date how hymnwriter Frances Ridley Havergal had an annual New Years' custom of sending a new poem to her many correspondents. Many of these then received wider distribution in her various collections of verse and some have even made their way into hymnals. Today's hymn may be the most well-known of these, from 1874.

Another year is dawning,
Creator, let it be
In working or in waiting,
Another year with thee.
Another year of progress,
Another year of praise,
Another year of proving
Thy presence all the days.

Another year of mercies,
Of faithfulness and grace,
Another year of gladness
In the shining of thy face;
Another year of leaning
Upon thy loving breast;
Another year of trusting,
Of quiet, happy rest.

Another year of service,
Of witness for thy love,
Another year of training
For holier work above.
Another year is dawning,
Creator, let it be
On earth, or else in heaven,
Another year for thee.

Frances Ridley Havergal, 1874; alt.
Tune: AURELIA (7.6.7.6.D.)
Samuel Sebastian Wesley, 1864

Two Years Ago: Bessie Porter Head

One Year Ago: O God, by whom all change is wrought

William Orcutt Cushing

2010-12-31T22:14:00.006-05:00

Song writer William Orcutt Cushing was born today in 1823 in Hingham, Massachusetts. His parents were Unitarians, but Cushing was eventually ordained in the Christian Church, which we know today as the Disciples of Christ. He served several different congregations all over New York state.

Following the death of his wife in 1870, he developed what nearly all sources call "creeping paralysis," which caused him to lose his voice. Now unable to preach, his pastoral career was at an end. Over the years he had written a few Sunday school songs for use in his churches, and he now turned his efforts more fully toward gospel song writing. His texts, which eventually numbered about 300, were set to music by several of the best-known composers of his time, including Robert Lowry, George Root, and Ira Sankey.

This song originally appeared in Welcome Tidings (1877) with a tune by Robert Lowry, who was also one of the editors of the songbook, but I like it better with this later tune by Daniel B. Towner.

Cheer, O cheer, ye heirs of Zion!
Weary days will soon be past;
Joy’s bright banner waving o’er us
Tells that heav’n is won at last.
On that fair, celestial morning,
Comes no cloud of grief or pain;
In your peaceful tents abiding,
Sorrow ne’er shall come again.

Cheer, O cheer, the morn is breaking!
Gloomy night will disappear;
Christ will come with sweet awaking;
Happier days will soon be here;
Long the pilgrim path we’ve wandered,
Long we’ve hoped ’mid doubt and fear,
Hard we’ve pressed thro’ many a trial --
Now the day of peace is here.

Cheer, O cheer, the morn is breaking!
Bright its beams of promise rise;
Sing, O sing, ye heirs of Zion!
Hear the welcome from the skies:
Come, ye blessèd of creation,
Dwell no more ’mid doubts and fears;
Join the throngs of saints and angels,
Crownèd with immortal years.

William O. Cushing, 1877; alt.
Tune: TOWNER (8.7.8.7.D.)
Daniel B. Towner, 1913

Two Years Ago: A year of precious blessings

One Year Ago: John Robson Sweney

The Gifts They Gave Emmanuel

2010-12-24T18:18:00.005-05:00

Jesus, our Brother, strong and good,

Was humbly born in a stable rude,
And the friendly beasts around him stood,
Jesus, our Brother, strong and good.

I, said the donkey, shaggy and brown,
I carried his mother uphill and down,
I carried his mother to Bethlehem town;
I, said the donkey, shaggy and brown.

I, said the cow, all white and red,
I gave him my manger for his bed,
I gave him hay to pillow his head;
I, said the cow, all white and red.

I, said the sheep with curly horn,
I gave him my wool for his blanket warm,
He wore my coat on Christmas morn;
I, said the sheep with curly horn.

I, said the dove, from the rafters high,
I cooed him to sleep that he should not cry,
We cooed him to sleep, my mate and I;
I, said the dove, from the rafters high.

Thus all the beasts, by some good spell,
In the stable dark were glad to tell
Of the gifts they gave Emmanuel,
The gifts they gave Emmanuel.

French, 12th cent.
Tune: ORIENTIS PARTIBUS (Irregular)
Medieval French melody

Two Years Ago: It came upon the midnight clear

One Year Ago: While shepherds watched their flocks by night

Horatius Bonar

2010-12-19T16:14:00.010-05:00

Horatius Bonar, whose birthday in 1808 we celebrate today, was one of a group of dissenting clergy who broke away from the Church of Scotland to form the Free Church in 1843. The worship tradition of both those Scottish churches was only to sing psalm paraphrases, so it seems unusual that Bonar became a prolific hymn writer whose texts were popular in many other denominations but not his own.

This text first appeared in his Hymns of Faith and Hope (1861), one of at least ten collections he pubished. I don't know if it has ever been sung as an Advent hymn but I think it could be, given its invitatory theme.

O Love that casts out fear,
O Love that casts out sin,
Tarry no more without,
But come and dwell within!

True sunlight of the soul,
Surround us as we go;
So shall our way be safe,
Our feet no wand'ring know.

Great Love of God, come in!
Wellspring of heav'nly peace;
O Living Water, come!
Spring up, and never cease.

Horatius Bonar, 1861
Tune: MOSELEY (6.6.6.6.)
Henry T. Smart, 1881

Only last month the Free Church of Scotland voted to allow the singing of hymns and songs in addition to the psalms, and today, St. Peter's Church in Dundee held its first carol service, which is also the first in the denomination. This change is not without controversy, as at least one minister has chosen to leave over this decision, but many people undoubtedly think that it's about time this happened. At any rate, I expect that the hymns of Horatius Bonar will finally become more widely known in his own country.

One (Calendar) Year Ago: Horatius Bonar

One (Liturgical) Year Ago: Away with loyal hearts and true

Two (Liturgical) Years Ago: Great Gabriel sped on wings of light

Charles Wesley

2010-12-18T08:54:00.001-05:00

Today is the birthday of Charles Wesley (December 18, 1707 - March 29, 1788), who helped his brother John in founding the movement that eventually became the United Methodist Church. Though John wrote much of the underlying theology, it was undoubtedly the hymns of Charles that spoke most directly to the people of that church over the last three three centuries. Most Methodist hymnals have been compiled around his texts, and though the current United Methodist Hymnal (1989) is down to only 41 by him, that's a good number for any one person to have in a modern denominational collection. Of course, Wesley is well-represented in the hymnals of many other churches as well.

Like Luther, Charles Wesley is one of those people who have been written about much more extensively than I could adequately cover here. Since I missed an Advent hymn for last Sunday, I thought I would present Wesley's most well-known Advent text on his birthday today (incidentally, the very first Advent hymn presented here more than two years ago was also by him).

This one, which probably still appears in the hymnals of most churches today, was first published in Wesley's Hymns for the Nativity of Our Lord (1745). There it was arranged in only two stanzas; though he is often cited for his long texts, such as the nineteen original stanzas of O for a thousand tongues to sing, he was also able to be brief at times.

Come, thou long-expected Jesus
Born to set thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in thee.

Israel’s Strength and Consolation,
Hope of all the earth thou art;
Dear Desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.

Born thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever,
Now thy great dominion bring.

By thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By thine all-sufficient merit,
Raise us to thy glorious throne.

Charles Wesley, 1745; alt.

Tune: STUTTGART (8.7.8.7.)

Christian F. Witt, 1715

adapt. Henry J, Gauntlett, 19th cent.

If you prefer this in two stanzas rather than four, you probably sing it to the ubiquitous HYFRYDOL, which of course is 8.7.8.7.D. (for double). In the UK they frequently use the John Stainer tune CROSS OF JESUS (again in four stanzas) and several other tunes have been sung over the years with these words.

Charles Wesley wrote between 5500 and 6000 hymn texts, and as usual you can see and hear many of them (though still a small fraction) at the Cyber Hymnal site, and of course you can click on his name below for the ones I've written about here. I wondered, however, whether I could find them all online somewhere, so I started at the site of the Charles Wesley Society. Before long I was directed to the Duke Divinity School site, where they do indeed have searchable PDF files of both his published verse and that which remained in manuscript at the time of his death.

John Greenleaf Whittier

2010-12-17T11:50:00.007-05:00

The Quaker poet and activist John Greenleaf Whittier, born today in 1807, did not consider himself a hymn writer.

I am really not a hymnwriter, for the good reason that I know nothing of music. Only a very few of my pieces were written for singing. A good hymn is the best use to which poetry can be devoted, but I do not claim that I have succeeded in composing one.

However, hymnal editors since his time have not shared his opinion, and even today most hymnals you will see contain his work. It's true that most of his hymns were not written as such, and are often taken from longer poems. Sometimes the same poem yields different hymns, or at least different arrangements of stanzas. John Julian, in his Dictionary of Hymnology (1907), lists 33 hymn texts by Whittier and traces their provenance from the original poems. Today, at Hymnary.org, which has references from hundreds more hymnals since Julian's work was compiled, they list 165 texts, and the number may even be larger.

This hymn is derived from Whittier's 1859 poem My Psalm, which is seventeen stanzas long, and has birthed several different arrangements of stanzas.

All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told.

That more and more God's Providence
Of love is understood,
Which makes the springs of time and sense
Bright with eternal good --

That care and trial seem at last,
Through memory's sunset air,
Like mountain-ranges overpast,
In purple distance fair;

That all the jarring notes of life
Seem blending in a psalm,
And all the angles of its strife
Slow rounding into calm.

No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.

John Greenleaf Whittier, 1859; alt.
Tune: ST. FULBERT (C.M.)
Henry J. Gauntlett, 1849

John Julian also wrote that Whittier's hymns were "characterized by rich poetic beauty, sweet tenderness, and deep sympathy with human kind."

A new book, Congregational Hymns from the Poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier (2009) by Samuel J. Rogal delves into this subject further, and you can see a preview of it online thanks to Google Books.

Two Years Ago: John Greenleaf Whittier