Samuel Francis Smith

Baptist minister and hymnwriter Samuel Francis Smith (1808-1895) was born today in Newton, Massachusetts (where he is also buried). Ordained to the ministry in 1834, he was pastor for several churches in Massachusetts and Maine over his long career.

While still a student at Andover Theological Seminary, he began to write poetry and other literary work to support himself. In 1831, his friend, composer and editor Lowell Mason, gave him a songbook in German and asked him to either translate or rewrite some of the texts so that Mason could include them in his musical publications. Smith was supposedly interested a particular tune in the book, which accompanied a German national song and decided to write an American national song for it. This was to be his most lasting legacy: My country, 'tis of thee, first sung at the Park Street Church in Boston for a children's service on July 4, 1831. It's said that he was unaware that the tune had already been used for the English national anthem, God save the King.

Smith would go on to write many more hymns, which have not yet all been documented online at the usual sites. The most complete list probably appears in The Hymn, the journal of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. Baptist hymnologist David W. Music's article The Hymns of Samuel Francis Smith in The Hymn volume 59 number 2 (Spring 2008) includes an extensive list of 193 hymns (and other texts which might have been sung as hymns) as well as a detailed bibliography. He also acknowledges that there may well be other hymns by Smith that have not been discovered yet.

Smith was also one of the editors of The Psalmist (1843), a hymnal which quickly became widely used in Baptist churches. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Dictionary of Hymnology by John Julian still described it as "the most creditable and influential of the American Baptist collections to the present day."

Today's hymn by Smith is far less known and does not seem to have appeared in any American hymnals.  Earlier this year I was working at the First Baptist Church in Needham, MA, and discovered this text in one of their written histories. It was sung there on June 5, 1872 at the dedication service for their new building (which they still occupy). At this time, Smith was the pastor of the Needham church, which was not far from his home in Newton. Somewhat surprisingly, the tune they sang in 1872 was documented, and so the congregation in 2018 sang this hymn on the first Sunday in June to commemorate their building's dedication, as it had been sung in 1872.

Come, O divine Shekinah, come,
With glory fill this new abode;
Come, in our waiting souls there's room!
Display thy pow'r, a present God.

Come to our shrine, a God of love,
Come as a God of love and pow'r;
Refresh thy people from above
As dews refresh the drooping flow'rs.

Come as a spring and fount of grace,
Our temple with thy light adorn,
As crimson rays thy glory trace
The gorgeous rising of the morn.

Come as a dove, with wings of peace,
The sad to cheer, the bruised to heal;
The wounds that sin has made, to ease,
The covenant of our life, to seal.

Dispolay thy pow'r, a present God,
Come, in our waiting souls there's room;
With glory fill this new abode,
Come, O divine Shekinah, come!

Samuel Francis Smith, 1865 (?)
Tune: HOLLEY (L.M.)
George Hews, 1835

Shekinah is not a word many hymn lovers have encountered before. I have seen it in a few contremporary texts, but not those of 150 years ago.

In the recorded history of the Needham church, they believe that Smith wrote this text specifically for their dedication service in 1872. However, it appears in David Music's list of Smith's hymns as having been used in a similar service in Taunton, MA, on October 10, 1865, because their dedication service was published that same year. Was that then the first time it was sung, or did Smith perhaps write it even earlier, for another dedication that hasn't yet been documented? There are probably hundreds of similar hymns still undiscovered, written by authors both famous and unknown for various local occasions around the country.

Anne Steele

November 11 marks the anniversary of the death of Baptist hymnwriter Anne Steele (1716-1778), the first prolific female writer of hymns in English. Following the cultural practice of the eighteenth century, her hymns, psalm paraphrases, and poetry were originally published under the pseudonym of "Theodosia." The books above are well-preserved first editions of her Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional (1760), acquired last year by the Boyce Centennial Library Archives at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY.

New research on Steele's life over the last decade has cast doubt on some long-reported incidents in her biography, which you can read about here.  Also apparent from that site is that her hymns, no longer as numerous in hymnals of today as they were a century ago, have been taken up by the retuned hymns movement in several instances.

Today's hymn is Steele's version of Psalm 119, which is a long psalm of 178 verses, boiled down into fourteen stanzas by her, and further reduced and rearranged here into five stanzas (a bit more likely for modern congregations, who still might cut a stanza or two).

Blessed be God, our Strength, our Shield,
Amid the dangers of the field;
God's constant love and saving pow'r,
Is our defense, a sacred tow'r.

O let your mighty arm control
These threat'ning waves that round us roll,
Then shall our children, 'neath thy care,
Grow up like plants erect and fair.

Then plenty shall our stores increase,
Plenty, the lovely child of peace;
No more shall cruel plunder reign,
Nor want nor misery complain.

Your Name shall then new songs inspire,
And wake to joy the sounding lyre,
And ev'ry tuneful string shall raise
In various notes, our grateful praise.

O happy people! favored state!
Whom such peculiar blessings wait;
Happy! who on God's pow'r depend,
Our God, our Guardian, and our Friend.

Anne Steele, 1760; alt.
Tune: SHARON (L.M.)
Frederick Arthur Gore Ouseley, 1875

In the final stanza we find the word "peculiar," which may remind you of Jesus shall reign by Isaac Watts (unless your modern hymnal has altered that line). Of course, in the eighteenth century, people understood the word to mean "unique," but you can also read a discussion of how it might still mean "strange" in a Christian context.



Eight Years Ago:  Anne Steele

Six Years Ago:  Anne Steele

Four Years Ago: Anne Steele

One Year Ago: Anne Steele

Hymns in the News

A few hymn-related articles have caught my eye in recent days that you might be interested to read.

On Friday, the website of the Baptist Press brought tidings of a new online resource for hymn researchers. The New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary is starting the process of scanning their 400 rare hymnals (in a library of 5000+) to make them available on the web. Though at present they seem to have scanned less than ten percent of their collection, they have started a Center for Hymnological Research where you (or I) can view or downlead them. It sounds like many of these have not previously been available online, and are older than the majority of hymnals you can see at Google Books or the Internet Archive (which are mostly nineteenth century or newer).  The article is also quite informative about the process of scanning books for online posting, if you've ever wondered about that.

From Wisconsin, the Wausau Daily Herald brought news of a concert held last Sunday in tribute to hymnwriter and composer Joy F. Patterson, who is celebrating her 85th birthday and her fortieth year of creating congregational song. Patterson's congregation (since the 1950s), the First Presbyterian Church of Wausau, filled their "Afternoon of Joy" with her hymns and choir anthems, which have been sung across several denominations and across the country.  According to their Facebook page, it was a "most festive event."

I know that many readers here are church musicians themselves, and understand the unique, powerful, and long-lived commitment that we often see in each other. For this reason, I always like to see those commitments recognized (personal shout-out to Merion F!).  Last month, the Mankato Free Press told the story of Iris Davis of Lewisville, MN, who was retiring as the organist of Zion Lutheran Church after 65 years and "thousands of hymns." She plans to continue teaching piano lessons and to write her autobiography -- I wish her the best.



Eight Years Ago: Saint James of Jerusalem

Horatio R. Palmer

On the birthday of Baptist composer Horatio Richmond Palmer (1834-1907) we remember a man dedicated to spreading sacred song as far as possible.

Palmer's various musical occupations were described here six years ago (music teacher, choir leader and organizer, writer of gospel song tunes and texts, editor of fifty hymn and song collections, author of several books on music and other subjects) but he was even busier than that.  From 1877-1891 he led the Summer School of Music at the Chautauqua Institution, a program that has continued to expand to the present day. While there he must have met hymnwriters Mary Lathbury and William Fisk Sherwin. For eleven years he also directed the choir at the Broome Street Tabernacle in New York City.

Today's tune by Palmer (with text by Fanny Crosby) appeared first in Our Treasury of Song (1883) compiled by Hubert P. Main and published by Biglow & Main, probably the largest producer of Sunday School music and gospel songs in its day.  You can imagine this as a popular marching song for children, but adults probably liked it too.

Sing praise to God,
Joyfully sound hosanna,
Praising God with glad acclaim.
Lift up your hearts
Unto the throne with gladness,
Magnify God's holy name.
Marching along
Under that banner bright,
Trust in promised mercy as we go,
God's light divine
Tenderly o’er us will shine,
Guided by God's protecting hand
Now and forever.

Refrain
Steadily marching on,
With our banners waving o’er us;
Steadily marching on,
While we sing the joyful chorus;
Steadily marching on,
Pillar and cloud going before us,
To the realms of glory
To our home on high.

Sing praise to God,
Ruler on high eternal,
Glory be to God on high.
Sing praise to God,
Tell of that loving kindness,
Join the chorus of the sky.
Still marching on,
Cheerily marching on,
In the ranks of heaven we will go,
Home to our rest,
Joyfully home where the blest
Gather and sing our Maker’s name,
Praising forever.
Refrain

Fanny Crosby, 1883; alt.
Tune: STEADILY MARCHING ON (Irregular with refrain)
Horatio R. Palmer, 1883

The picture below is a musical autograph of Palmer's which quotes one of his most famous songs, Yield not to temptation (1868).

Six Years Ago: Horatio R. Palmer

George C. Stebbins

Evangelist and gospel song composer George Coles Stebbins was born today in 1846 on a farm in upstate New York. He moved to Chicago as a young man and became the organist at the First Baptist Church in 1870.  While in Chicago he met Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey, as well as some of the other song writers that contributed to the Moody-Sankey revivals. 

Five years later he moved to Boston where he worked at more churches, including the Tremont Temple Baptist Church. When Stebbins encountered Dwight Moody again, the noted evangelist persuaded him to join the Moody-Sankey organization as a soloist, to lead the choir, and write songs, first in Chicago and later on various tours, traveling to Europe, India,  and the Middle East in addition to trips inside the US.  He was also one of the editors of Sankey's popular Gospel Hymns (first published in 1875 but proceeding through many subsequent editions) and other collections sponsored by Moody, including the Northfield Hymnal (1904).  He was also associated with YMCA conventions and other large religious gatherings where he led the music.

He retired from evangelistic work in 1908 when his hearing began to fail, but continued his composing and editing. In 1924 he published Reminiscences and Gospel Hymn Stories, a book containing biographical sketches of many of the song writers and composers he had worked with over his career.  He had composed tunes for most of the major text writers of the day, including (of course) Fanny Crosby.  Today's song is one of their collaborations (with an added stanza from me).

Gather them in! for yet there is room
At the feast that our God has spread;
O gather them in! let this house be filled,
And the hungry and poor be fed.

Refrain
Out in the highway, out in the byway,
Out to the far and the near,
Go forth, go forth, with a loving heart,
And gather the wanderers here!

Gather them in! for yet there is room
For the downtrodden in despair;
O gather them in! we will love them all;
For the outcasts a place prepare.
Refrain

Gather them in! for yet there is room;
’Tis a message from God above;
O gather them into the fold of grace,
And the arms of the Savior’s love.
Refrain

Fanny Crosby, 1883; alt.; st. 2 CWS, 2016
Tune: GATHER THEM IN (Irregular with refrain)
George C. Stebbins, 1883

Stebbins lived to the age of 99 and reportedly continued to compose songs nearly to the end of his life. His son, George Waring Stebbins (1869-1930), was also a musician and an organist in New York City, but composed far fewer works.

Hymns In The News

Today we're not talking about a hymn connected to a single event but rather about a collection of hymns for multiple events.  The website Baptist News Global published an article today about a set of resources recently made available by the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada for times of crisis. 

Over the years, the Society has been contacted by people looking for suggestions of hymns that could be used either at times of national crisis or tragedy, or for a similar event in the life of an individual congregation.  While there are certainly many general hymns in our hymnals that can be used at such times, there has also been a need for texts that have been targeted for particular themes or events, perhaps in more contemporary language. Modern hymnwriters have also been writing on these topics, though their texts are usually considered too specific for inclusion in a denominational hymnal.

A task force from the Hymn Society has compiled a collection of these hymns on several themes and worked with the authors to make the hymns accessible, resolving copyright issues in a simple way.  They will be adding to the collection so that it will be an ongoing resource.

The Baptist News Global article can be seen here, and the Hymn Society collection is here.


P.S. I'm pretty sure that I am somewhere in that photograph at the top of the article, taken during a hymn festival at the Hymn Society's annual conference in 2009 at St. Olaf College, but no one has found me yet.

Anne Steele

Today is the anniversary of the death in 1778 of Anne Steele, the first female hymnwriter in England who produced a substantial number of texts, though many of them were not published until nearly a century after her death. Daughter of a Baptist minister, Steele was born on an unrecorded date in 1716 in the town of Broughton in Hampshire, where she lived her whole life.  The hymns and poems that were published in her lifetime were credited to her pseudonym of "Theodosia."

The image here is from the title page of a book published in Boston in 1908, but it is incorrect in at least two ways: Steele never married, and thus was never "Mrs." and these two volumes did not include her "complete works," which were not actually compiled and published until 1863.

Today's hymn appears to be one of those that was published later.  Though the Wikipedia entry linked above claims that her hymns "emphasize the less optimistic phases of Christian experience" I find that this one, while acknowledging earthly troubles, still tells of the hope and trust found in God (also, I don't find the other hymns of hers we have seen here in the past -- see the links below -- to be "less optimistic" either).

Almighty Refuge of my soul,
On thee when sorrows rise,
On thee, when waves of trouble roll
My weary hope revives.

While hope revives, though pressed with fears,
And I can say "My God,"
Before thy throne I spread my cares
And pour my woes abroad.

To thee I tell each rising grief,
For thou alone canst heal;
Thy word can bring a sweet relief
For every pain I feel.

But oh, when gloomy doubts prevail,
I fear to call thee mine;
The springs of comfort seem to fail,
And all my hopes decline.

Yet, gracious God, where can I flee?
Thou art my only trust;
And still my soul would cling to thee,
Though prostrate in the dust.

Thy mercy-seat is open still;
Here let my soul retreat,
With humble hope attend thy will,
Expectant at thy feet.

Anne Steele,  18th cent.; alt.
Tune: WORCESTER (C.M.)
John Playford, 1671

Steele may well have known Playford's tune, which was published in his collection Psalms and Hymns a century earlier than her hymns were written, but of course we can't know whether she thought of matching this text to that tune. 



Seven Years Ago:  Anne Steele

Five Years Ago:  Anne Steele

Three Years Ago: Anne Steele


P.S. Steele's hymn from 2008 can now be seen and downloaded at my Facebook page (Conjubilant W. Song).  "Follow" that page for continuing updates.

Phebe Hanaford

Phebe Hanaford, born today in 1829, was not only the fourth woman ordained in the United States (in the Universalist Church) but was also an author, activist, poet and hymnwriter.

Born into a Quaker family, she was aware from a young age that women in that tradition were allowed to preach during services, but she tried to put those ideas aside when she married Joseph Hanaford in 1849 and agreed to worship in his Baptist church.  A few years later she learned that Lucy Stone, a prominent activist for abolition and women's rights, was speaking at a local church.  Knowing that her husband would not approve of her attending the lecture, she stayed outside the church but managed to listen anyway.

Following her ordination in 1868, she led churches in the Massachusetts towns of Hingham and Waltham, but when she was called to a Universalist congregation in New Haven, Connecticut, her husband refused to go with her and they separated.  Ellen Miles, a Sabbath school teacher in Phebe's Waltham congregation, accompanied her to New Haven and throughout the rest of her long career, often being called the "minister's wife."

Today's hymn, probably written in the 1860s, not long before Phebe decided to pursue ordination, takes its theme from Exodus 15:20-21, the Song of Miriam, which follows the story of the deliverance of the people of Israel from Egypt. It's not quite a paraphrase of that passage, but takes it as a springboard of sorts.

Miriam’s song we’ll echo now,
Singing praises to the Lord;
Who has triumphed gloriously,
Shout the victory of our God!

Sound the timbrel! Loud and high!
Let the song of praise ascend!
Sound the timbrel, far and nigh!
God is our unchanging friend!

When the Red Sea tide o’erwhelmed
Israel’s foes in that great hour
While they sought the promised land,
Then was seen th’Almighty’s power.

Ever thus shall righteousness
Over wrong victorious be,
And the Lord shall be proclaimed
Ruler over land and sea.

Phebe Hanaford. c.1866; alt.
Tune: EVELYN (7.7.7.7.)
Emma L. Ashford, 1905

Poor health and the loss of Ellen Miles, her companion of more than forty years, prevented Phebe from remaining active in her causes in the final years of her life.  She was living unhappily with her granddaughter's family in rural upstate New York, far from the cities and organizations she had loved and led.  Though she had worked for years in the cause of women's suffrage, there is no evidence in local voting records that she cast a vote in 1920, the first national election following the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.  At age 91, she was unable to travel to the polls on her own. Fortunately, New York State allowed women to vote a few years earlier, and she did take advantage of that limited opportunity.

She died on June 2, 1921, one month after her 92nd birthday, and was buried in an unmarked grave next to her daughter Florence Hanaford Warner.  There were some attempts over the years to have a headstone erected for her, but that did not happen until 1998, when the headstone (pictured below) was funded by the Unitarian Universalist Women's Heritage Society.


P.S. - As we were discussing Abraham Lincoln's funeral services two days ago, it should be noted that Hanaford also wrote a hymn for an ecumenical memorial service for the President at the Old South Congregational Church in Reading, Massachusetts.  This is the first stanza:

Hushed today are sounds of gladness
From the mountains to the sea;
And the plaintive voice of sadness
Rises, mighty God, to thee.

Combined choirs from the Congregational, Baptist and Universalist churches sang Phebe's hymn to the tune MOUNT VERNON by Lowell Mason (finally, a historical record of a tune!).  She later published it in the closing chapter of her best-selling biography of Lincoln.



***UPDATE***  This hymn is now posted on Facebook with words and music together.  Go to "Conjubilant W. Song" and click on "Photos" -- it's in the Downloadable Hymns section.


Six Years Ago: Phebe Hanaford

Five Years Ago: Phebe Hanaford

Three Years Ago: Phebe Hanaford

Anne Steele

Hymnwriter Anne Steele (May 1717 - November 11, 1778), born in Broughton,  was the first female writer to produce a large number of hymns that were widely sung for over a hundred years.  She was a Baptist, but her hymns were used across many denominations in a time when the hymns of many writers from any particular denomination were not accepted elsewhere.  Though far fewer of her 180 texts are sung today, she is not completely forgotten and several hymnals still contain her work.

To our Redeemer’s glorious name
Awake the sacred song:
O may his love — immortal flame —
Tune every heart and tongue.

His love, what mortal tongue can reach?
What mortal tongue display?
Imagination’s utmost stretch
In wonder dies away.

Let wonder still with love unite,
And gratitude and joy;
Be Jesus our supreme delight,
His praise our best employ.

O Christ, while we adoring pay
Our humble thanks to thee,
May every heart with rapture say,
"The Savior died for me."

O may the sweet, the blissful theme
Fill every heart and tongue,
Till all shall love thy charming name,
And join the sacred song.

Anne Steele, 1760; alt
Tune: AZMON (C.M.)
Carl G. Glaser, 1828;
arr. Lowell Mason, 1839

She was confined to bed for the last nine years of her life, but continued to write.  The following verse appears on her gravestone:

Silent the lyre, and dumb the tuneful tongue
That sung on earth her Great Redeemer’s praise
But now in Heaven she joins the angels’ song
In more harmonious, more exalted lays



Four Years Ago: Anne Steele

Two Years Ago: Anne Steele

Flora Hamilton Cassel

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

Now You Live Forever

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

Anne Steele

Today we mark the anniversary of the death of Anne Steele in 1778 (born sometime in May of 1716 in Hampshire), the first widely-known and sung woman hymnwriter. During her lifetime she wrote under the pen name of Theodosia (meaning "gift of God"), publishing her first collection, Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional in 1760.

Her hymns received wider recognition in 1769 when the fourth edition of A Collection of Hymns Adapted to Public Worship appeared with sixty-two of her hymns, quite a large number for a "newcomer." This Baptist hymnal was compiled by Caleb Evans, a minister and hymnologist who later wrote a memoir of Steele and greatly admired her verse.

Today's hymn was perhaps not intended by Steele for congregational singing, as she originally wrote it in thirty-nine stanzas. John Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology (1892) lists five different arrangements of stanzas which had appeared in hymnals up to that time; this is a sixth.

Come, heav'nly Love, inspire my song
With thy immortal flame,
And teach my heart, and teach my tongue
The Savior's lovely name.

The Savior! oh, what endless charms
Dwell in that blissful sound!
Its influence ev'ry fear disarms,
And spreads sweet comfort 'round.

Oh, the rich depths of love divine!
Of grace, a boundless store!
Dear Savior, let me call thee mine;
I cannot wish for more.

On thee alone my hope relies;
Beneath thy cross I fall
My Love, my Life, my Sacrifice,
My Savior, and my All!

Anne Steele, 1760; alt.
Tune: REDCLIFFE (C.M.)
Phyllis Skene, c. 1902

Julian noted that the different versions of Steele's hymn sometimes had different opening lines; the original (as seen here) was altered in these ways:

Come, heav'nly Dove, inspire my song

Come, Holy Ghost, inspire our songs

Come, Holy Spirit, guide my song

Anne Steele's hymns remained popular through the nineteenth century but mostly have not survived into our time. Her complete works, finally collected and published in 1863, were republished by the Gospel Standard Baptist Trust of London in 1967, but did not, apparently, inspire a new generation of hymnal editors to reexamine her work.

Two Years Ago: Anne Steele

George Rawson

George Rawson (June 5, 1807 - March 25, 1889) wrote his first several hymns under the nom de plume of "A Leeds Layman." Fortunately, the Congregational clergy in the town of Leeds knew his real identity as well as his extensive knowledge of hymnody, and asked him to join them in compiling a hymnal. The book was eventually known as the Leeds Hymn Book and probably led to a group of Baptists asking Rawson to help them with their hymnal a few years later.

Rawson contributed his own texts to these hymnals (15 to the Congregationalists and 27 to the Baptists) and assisted in the selection of hymns chosen, but he was also known for his editorial work, altering older texts as necessary and adding original stanzas of his own to some texts. He was an early advocate of the seventeenth-century poet George Herbert and adapted some of Herbert's poems into hymn texts for the Leeds Hymn Book, though his adaptations are not those we use today.

This hymn was published in the first collection of Rawson's own texts, Hymns, Verses and Chants (1876).

Transcendent mystery unknown!
O God unsearchable!
O still receding, tow'ring Light
Incomprehensible!

What can we know? Things that are seen
Are faint reports of thee --
Smallest upliftings of the veil
Of thine immensity.

In thy creation, filled with awe,
Thy wondrous hand we trace
In all our witness of thy pow'r
Divine Almightiness!

How grand thy glowing rainbows are,
Thy skies and stars, how bright!
Eternal Loveliness, they gleam
But shadows of thy light.

So we look up, thy little ones,
To thy majestic state;
Our comfort is, thou art so good
And that thou art so great.

George Rawson, 1876; alt.
Tune: SONG 67 (C.M.)
Orlando Gibbons, 1623
arr. Henry T. Smart, 19th cent.

You don't see many six-syllable words in hymn texts, particularly ones that take up a whole line (stanza 1).

This tune comes from the work of Orlando Gibbons, whose birthdate is unrecorded, but who died on this date in 1625, so today's hymn is a double commemoration. SONG 67 was originally set to a text for St. Matthias' Day, but was arranged by Henry Smart more than two hundred years later into "the more stately, dignified, measured beat and slow movement of the old psalm tunes" according to Handbook to the Hymnal (1935).

Two Years Ago: Orlando Gibbons

One Year Ago: George Rawson

Phebe Hanaford

Phebe Hanaford, the fourth woman minister ordained in this country, was born today in 1829. Though raised in a Quaker household, and converting to the Baptist faith upon her marriage in 1849, she later became intrigued with Universalism, and preached her first sermon to a group of family and friends at a private function.

Family financial troubles had already forced her to turn to writing for additional income, and after her Baptist minister made his objections to her Universalist leanings plain, she left his church and took a job as the editor of The Ladies' Repository and The Myrtle, two Universalist magazines, for an annual salary of $600. This brought her into contact with leading Universalists, including Olympia Brown, the first ordained woman in the US, which probably contributed to her own desire to enter the ministry.

This hymn by Phebe dates from 1852, the early days of her writing career and well before her ordination in 1868. It did appear in several nineteenth- and early twentieth-century hymnals, though often anonymously for some reason.

Cast your bread upon the waters,
Do not think it thrown away;
God has said that you shall gather
It again some future day.

Cast your bread upon the waters.
Wildly though the billows roll,
They will help your work to prosper,
Truth to spread from pole to pole.

Cast your bread upon the waters;
Why do you still doubting stand?
Bounteous God will send the harvest
If you sow with liberal hand.

Give then freely of your substance,
O'er this purpose God shall reign;
Cast your bread and work with patience.
You will labor not in vain.

Phebe A. Hanaford, 1852; alt.
Tune: AGAWAM (8.7.8.7.)
Thomas Whittemore, 1841

Hanaford's lifelong commitment to women's rights brought her into contact with the leading suffragists of her day. She was one of twenty-six collaborators with Elizabeth Cady Stanton who published The Women's Bible in 1895. This book was a commentary on the various passages of the Bible that had been used over centuries against women 's equality, particularly in the church, and Hanaford certainly knew those arguments firsthand. The suffragist movement was divided with regard to this book; many believed that it would damage their cause. Some do say that women's right to vote was delayed in part because The Women's Bible was used by religious leaders to denounce the movement; the title alone was considered shocking to many and only the title needed to be brought up to suggest the things that might happen if women were actually allowed to participate in the political process. No familiarity with the work itself was required (I can think of similar bugaboos today).

Phebe Hanaford officiated at the burial of Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1902; this is part of the prayer she offered:

O Thou Infinite and Eternal Power whom so many of thy children love to call Our Father and Our Mother, into thy hands we commit the spirit of our beloved one, assured that all is right where thy rule extends.

Hanaford is, not surprisingly, remembered most in the Unitarian Universalist church, but many feel that she should be more widely known. I plan to keep looking for more information and more of her hymns (as well as those of her companion of more than forty years, Ellen Miles).


One Year Ago: Phebe Hanaford

Horatio R. Palmer

Horatio Richmond Palmer (April 26, 1834 - November 15, 1907) was born in upstate New York, where he first sang at age seven in the church choir his father conducted. He later lived in the town of Rushford, where he first attended, then taught at the Rushford Academy of Music.

He later lived in Chicago and New York City, where he directed church choirs in addition to teaching and composing music. He wrote some texts also, but mostly tunes. He reportedly edited about fifty collections of hymns and gospel songs, including The Standard (1872) and Palmer's Songs of Love for the Bible School (1874), and also wrote popular textbooks on music instruction.

Under his leadership, the Church Choral Union, a federation of church choir singers in New York City drawn from more than two hundred congregations. Palmer supervised the teaching of music classes to the members. One of their combined concerts at the original Madison Square Garden featured a choir of nearly four thousand singers. The Choral Union then became the title of a popular 1884 book of music instruction by Palmer (subtitled An Improved Text Book in the First Principles of Singing). The Church Choral Union expanded to other cities around the country as well.

This song with a tune by Palmer is still remembered by many, and surely still sung. It begins with a story from Mark 4:35-41, of the disciples caught in a tempest at sea, then broadens the theme to our own lives, challenged by the metaphorical storms we face. Author Mary Ann Baker was a Sunday School teacher at the Second Baptist Church in Chicago when Palmer was the music director there, and he asked her to write some song texts based on her lessons.

Master, the tempest is raging!
The billows are tossing high!
The sky is o’erclouded with shadow,
No shelter or help is nigh;
Carest thou not that we perish?
How canst thou lie asleep,
When each moment so madly is threatening
A grave in the angry deep?

Refrain
The winds and the waves shall obey thy will,
Peace, be still!
Whether the wrath of the storm tossed sea,
Or sorrows or fears, or whatever it be
No waters can swallow the ship where lies
The Ruler of ocean, and earth, and skies;
They all shall sweetly obey thy will,
Peace, be still! Peace, be still!
They all shall sweetly obey thy will,
Peace, peace, be still!

Jesus, with anguish of spirit
I bow in my grief today;
The depths of my sad heart are troubled
Oh, waken and save, I pray!
Torrents of fear and of anguish
Sweep o’er my sinking soul;
And I perish! I perish! dear Savior,
Oh, hasten, and take control.
Refrain

Jesus, the terror is over,
The elements sweetly rest;
Earth’s sun in the calm lake is mirrored,
And heaven’s within my breast;
Linger, O blessèd Redeemer!
Leave me alone no more;
And with joy I shall make the blest harbor,
And rest on the blissful shore.
Refrain

Mary A. Baker, 1874; alt.
Tune: PEACE, BE STILL (Irregular with refrain)
Horatio R. Palmer, 1874

George C. Stebbins wrote of Palmer in his Reminiscences and Gospel Hymn Stories (1924):

His was a magnetic personality that enabled him to impart his enthusiasm to choruses. What a pleasure it always was to meet him! How his keen eyes and earnest, smiling expression held you as with a grip and left you with a feeling akin to his own enthusiasm.

P.S. The painting below, Jesus Stilling the Tempest (Jésus calmant la tempête) is by the French watercolor artist James Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836 - 1902).