Full of Mercy, Truth, and Grace (Day Ten)

Is thy heart athirst to know
That the God of heav’n and earth
Deigns to dwell with us below,
Yea, hath stoop’d to mortal birth?
Search the Word with ceaseless care
Till thou find this treasure there.

With the sages from afar
Journey on o’er sea and land,
Till thou see the Morning Star
O’er thy heart unchanging stand,
Then shalt thou behold his face
Full of mercy, truth, and grace.

Jesus, let me seek for nought
But that thou shouldst dwell in me
Let this only fill my thought,
How I may grow more like thee,
Through this earthly care and strife,
To the calm eternal life.

With the wise who know thee right,
Though the world accounts them fools,
I will praise thee day and night;
I will order by thy rules
All my life, that it may be
Filled with praise and love of thee.

Laurentius Laurenti, 1700;
tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1863; alt.
Tune: SHERBORNE (7.7.7.7.7.7.)
William H. Monk, 1861

Six Years Ago: We three kings

One Year Ago: I think of that star of long ago

Martin Luther

From the great reformer Martin Luther (November 10, 1483 - February 18, 1546), a hymn asking for the intervention of the Holy Spirit to bring us clarity and strength that we may persevere in the right:

Come, Holy Spirit, God and Lord!
Let all your graces be outpoured
On each believer’s mind and heart;
Your fervent love to us impart;

And by the brightness of your light,
In holy faith all folk unite
Of every land and every tongue;
This to your praise, O God, be sung.

From every error keep us free;
Let none but Christ our Teacher be,
That we in living faith abide,
In Christ with all our might confide.

O holy Fire, our Comfort true,
Grant us the will your work to do
And in your service to abide,
Let trials turn us not aside.

And by your power prepare each heart,
Unto our weakness strength impart,
That bravely here we may contend,
Through life and death to you ascend.

Martin Luther, 1524;
tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1855, and others
Tune: DAS NEUGEBORNE KINDELEIN (L.M.)
Melchior Vulpius, 1609;
harm. Johann Sebastian Bach, 1724




Eight Years Ago: Martin Luther

Seven Years Ago: Martin Luther

Catherine Winkworth.

Catherine Winkworth, born today in 1829 in London, remains one of the most prolific and most well-known translators of German hymns into English. Though contemporary hymnal editors (Lutheran and others) are always looking for modern translations, Winkworth's are still prominently included.

We have covered much of her biographical information in previous years, and included many of her translations at other times of the year (click on the tag below), but a few items caught my attention this year in reading about her again.

Catherine and her sister Susanna were mostly educated at home, but they also studied with the Reverend William Gaskell, the Unitarian minister of the Cross Street Chapel in Manchester. Gaskell and his wife, Elizabeth, the popular novelist (whose books are still read and adapted for television today) were family friends of the Winkworths.  Catherine was also acquainted with other literary women of her day, including Charlotte Bronte and Harriet Martineau.

Catherine's first book of translated German hymn texts, the first volume of Lyra Germanica, was published in August of 1855. Within weeks of its appearance, Catherine began receiving requests from hymnbook editors for permission to include her translations in the collections they were preparing. The book had fortuitously arrived during a period of great change in congregational singing; the long resistance to hymns in the worship of the Church of England was coming to a close and there was great demand for new hymns. Six of Winkworth's translations appeared in the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1860), which probably spread them even faster and farther, and before long she was included in the hymnals of many denominations in the English-speaking world.  Closer to our own time, she is mostly known in Lutheran hymnals, though some of her hymns still cross denominational lines.

Today's hymn is from the second volume of Lyra Germanica (1858).

All depends on our possessing
God’s abundant grace and blessing,
Though all earthly wealth depart.
They who trust with faith unshaken
In their God are not forsaken
And will keep a dauntless heart.

God, who to this day has fed me
And to many joys has led me
Is and ever shall be mine.
God who did so gently school me,
God who still doth guide and rule me,
Will remain my Help divine.

When with sorrow I am stricken,
Hope anew my heart will quicken,
All my longing shall be stilled.
To God's lovingkindness tender
Soul and body I surrender;
For on God alone I build.

Well God knows what best to grant me;
All the longing hopes that haunt me,
Joy and sorrow have their day.
I shall doubt God's wisdom never—
As God wills, so be it ever—
Freely I commit my way.

As on earth my days are lengthened,
God my weary soul has strengthened;
All my trust in God I place.
Earthly wealth is not abiding,
Like a stream away is gliding;
Safe I anchor in God's grace.

Anonymous, from Nurnburg Gesang-Buch, 1676;

tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1858; alt.
Tune: ALLES IST AN GOTTES SEGEN (8.8.7.8.8.7.)
Johann Löhner, 1691; adapt. Johann B. König, 1737

Catherine died of heart trouble in France in 1878. She had traveled to Europe to help care for her invalid nephew Frank Shaen.  After her death, her sister Susanna (who was a noted translator of German prose) began to write a memorial volume drawn from family correspondence, but she died in 1884 before completing the work. Years later, their niece Margaret Shaen took up the project and finished it, and it was finally published in 1908, Memorials of Two Sisters: Susanna and Catherine Winkworth.



Eight Years Ago: Catherine Winkworth

Seven Years Ago: Catherine Winkworth

One Year Ago: Catherine Winkworth

Catherine Winkworth

Catherine Winkworth (September 13, 1827 - July 1, 1878) is best known for her translations of German hymns into English.  She contributed to at least three major collections: Lyra Germanica (1855), Chorale Book for England (1863, and Christian Singers of Germany (1869). In our time, she is regarded as the most significant single individual to make the heritage of German hymns known to the English-speaking world. A memorial stone on the wall of Bristol Cathedral commends her for "open(ing) a new source of light, consolation, and strength in many thousand homes."

Winkworth was also active in the social causes of the Victorian era, particularly in the area of women's education. While living in Bristol, she served as secretary for the Clifton Association for Higher Education for Women, and supported the Clifton High School for Girls, founded in 1877. She also served as governor of the Red Maids' School.

Today's hymn, originally written in seventeenth-century Germany, was by Tobias Clausnitzer (1619-1684).  Nearly two hundred years later it was translated by Winkworth, and two hundred years after that it will still be sung.

Blessèd Jesus, at thy Word
We are gathered all to hear thee;
Let our hearts and souls be stirred
Now to seek and love and fear thee,
By thy teachings sweet and holy,
Drawn from earth to love thee solely.

All our knowledge, sense and sight
Lie in deepest gloom enshrouded,
'Til thy Spirit breaks our night
With the beams of truth unclouded.
Thou alone to God canst win us;
Thou must work all good within us.

Glorious Lord, thyself impart!
Light of light, from God proceeding,
Open thou our ears and heart;
Help us by thy Spirit’s pleading;
Hear the cry the earth upraises;
Hear and bless our prayers and praises.

Tobias Clausnitzer, 1663;
tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1858; alt.
Tune: LIEBSTER JESU (7.8.7.8.8.8.)
Johann R. Ahle, 1664

This hymn is still widely sung across denominations and appears in many newer hymnals. As Winkworth herself wrote in the preface to Lyra Germanica, hymns like this can "make us feel afresh what a deep and true Communion of Saints exists among all the children of God in different churches and lands."



Seven Years Ago: Catherine Winkworth

Six Years Ago: Catherine Winkworth

A World Renewed to Life

The season of Easter links resurrection with new life and rebirth,  and sometimes with the season of spring as well.  It's been a long winter in many places in the US and we're ready for all these things, so I like that we have several more weeks of the Easter season.

A trip to a local library book sale yesterday yielded two interesting hymnals, one of them being Hymns of the Kingdom of God (1910), edited by Henry Sloane Coffin and Ambrose White Vernon.  This was a nondenominational hymnal, described in the Preface as "a small collection of large hymns" (small in its own time, perhaps, but it includes 488 hymns, which we probably wouldn't call small today).  Coincidentally, the Preface is dated Easter 1910, and so I looked for something new and different (to me) for the season.  The thing I like about today's text is that it's not just about the Easter story, it's about going out and telling the good news of the resurrection.

Proclaim to all, both far and near
That Christ is ris'n again;
That he is with us now and here,
And ever shall remain.

And what we say, let all this morn,
Go tell it to their friends,
That soon in every place shall dawn
Christ's reign, which never ends.

The earthly paths that Jesus trod
To heav'n at last shall come,
And all who hearken to the Word
Shall reach God's promised home.

He lives! His presence has not ceased,
Though foes and fears be rife;
And thus we hail in Easter’s feast
A world renewed to life!

Friedrich von Hardenberg, 1799;
tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1858; alt.
Tune: MAGNIFY (C.M.)
Calvin W. Laufer, 20th cent.

OK, the word "rife" is probably not the most user-friendly of terms, and I'm not sure modern hymnwriters should use it, but I do like the rest of that stanza.

I've had a copy of this hymnal downloaded from the internet for some time, but there's really no more convenient substitute for holding the book in your hand and leafing through it.

In the spirit of Eastertide I hope to bring some new life of my own to the blog here.  Hope someone out there is still listening.

Hope and Freedom Gave Us

The church year begins again today with the first Sunday in Advent. As in previous years, we won't see any Christmas carols in this season, even though you have probably been hearing them in public places for at least a few days. Today's sixteenth century hymn comes from the Bohemian Brethren, a German sect with a strong tradition of congregational singing which later became the Moravian Church.   Johann Roh (also known as Jan) was a priest of the Brethren who also edited their first two hymnals.  Catherine Winkworth, the great translator of so many German hymns, included this in her Chorale Book for England (1863).                                                          

Once he came in blessing,

All our ills redressing,

Came in likeness lowly,

Child of God most holy;

Bore the cross to save us,

Hope and freedom gave us.

Still he comes within us,

Still his voice would win us

From the doubts that hurt us;

Would to truth convert us

Not in torment hold us.

But in love enfold us..

Thus if we can name him,

Not ashamed to claim him,

But will trust him boldly,

Nor will love him coldly,

He will now receive us,

Heal us, and forgive us.

All who thus endureth,

Bright reward secureth;

Come, then, O Lord Jesus,

From our fears release us;

Let us here confess thee,

Till in heav’n we bless thee.

Johann Roh, 1544;

tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1863; alt.

Tune: GOTTES SOHN IST KOMMEN (6.6.6.6.6.6.)

Michael Weisse, 1531

The Feast of the Presentation

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

Let New and Nobler Life Begin

A new year for the church begins today with the First Sunday in Advent as we prepare for the Incarnation later this month. The theme of the day in many churches is often not specifically about the birth of a baby, but closer to last week's Christ the King commemoration, talking about the coming of Jesus as the ruler of the world.

For our third Advent here at the blog we begin with a German Lutheran hymn from the seventeenth century,based in part on Psalm 24:7-10, translated by Catherine Winkworth in 1861 and appearing in many different versions across different denominations.

Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates;

Behold, the King of glory waits;

The Word of Life is drawing near;

The Savior of the world is here!

O blest the land, the city blest,

Where Christ the Ruler is confessed!

O happy hearts and happy homes

To whom this Fount of Justice comes!

Fling wide the portals of your heart;

Make it a temple, set apart

From earthly use for heaven’s employ,

Adorned with prayer and love and joy.

Redeemer, come, with us abide;

Our hearts to Thee we open wide;

Let us thy inner presence feel;

Thy grace and love in us reveal.

So come, my Sovereign, enter in!

Let new and nobler life begin;

Thy Holy Spirit guide us on,

Until the glotious crown is won.

Georg Weissel, 1642;

tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1861; alt.

Tune: TRURO (L.M.)

Psalmodia Evangelica, Part II, 1789;

harm. Lowell Mason, 19th cent.

The longer version of this text, in Weissel's original meter, with eight-line stanzas, can be seen here. A modern translation by Gracia Grindal, Fling wide the door, which first appeared in the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), uses the original German tune, MACHT HOCH DIE TUR, named for the first line of Weissel's text).

The annual Advent debate in undoubtedly underway in many places: Can we sing Christmas carols in worship during Advent? The answer here is still "No."

Two Years Ago: Thousand, Thousand Saints Attending

One Year Ago: When Our Hearts Are Bowed With Care

With Countless Gifts of Love

Now thank we all our God,

With hearts and hands and voices,

Who wondrous things has done,

In whom this world rejoices;

Who from our mothers’ arms

Has blessed us on our way

With countless gifts of love,

And still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God

Through all our life be near us,

With ever joyful hearts

And blessèd peace to cheer us;

The one eternal God,

Whom earth and Heaven adore;

For thus it was, is now,

And shall be evermore.

Martin Rinkart, 1636;

tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1856

Tune: NUN DANKET (6.7.6.7.6.6.6.6.)

Johann Crüger, 1647

Two Years Ago: All Good Gifts Around Us

One Year Ago: The Song of Harvest Home

More Voices Found: Alice Nevin

Today we celebrate the birthday of the little-known composer Alice Nevin, born in 1837 in Pittsburgh. Her father, John Williamson Nevin, was a theologian in the German Reformed Church and taught at various seminaries before becoming the president of Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1866. It was in Lancaster that Alice lived for most of her adult life, and where she is still remembered today.

As with many other women hymn tune composers, only scraps of information can be gathered from various sources. For example, a house that she lived in after 1903 is today part of a walking tour of historic homes in Lancaster. By that time she was quite well-known there, having founded the Iris Club in 1895. She invited seventy women to her home and proposed the formation of a women's club (to be named for the the Greek goddess of the rainbow) which would "further the education of women and encourage movements for the betterment of society, and foster a generous spirit in the community." The Iris Club founded the first free kindergarten in Lancaster and also a well baby clinic in its early years. It remains in existence today, and its facilities (a historic house bought by the club in 1898) can apparently be rented for special events. Another Lancaster history site adds that Nevin was active in the cause of women's suffrage.

For several years Nevin was the organist at the First Reformed Church. While there, she edited a hymnbook which was published by the Philadelphia firm of J.B. Lippincott, Hymns and Carols for Church and Sunday School (1879). Unfortunately it is not yet available online, but it was well-reviewed in its day. From the Reformed Quarterly Review:

The object of the author was to provide something above the light, jingling tunes that have run Sunday-school singing into a sort of secular jollification, and that are fast becoming a nuisance. (...) It is music that will wear. Let our Sunday-schools test it by a fair trial, and we are sure it will win favor.

More succinctly, The Churchman said that the book was of "a much higher order than usual, and it deserves to become popular."

Today's tune by Nevin was published in that same year (probably in her hymnal) but it had perhaps been sung earlier in her church. It was written for The Lord of Life is risen, an Easter hymn originally in German that was translated by Henry Harbaugh, an earlier pastor of the First Reformed Church, in 1860. Since we're rather past the Easter season, I've matched it to another general text (also originally in German and translated by Catherine Winkworth).

The golden morn is breaking;
I thank you, God once more,
Beneath your care awaking,
I find the night is o’er.
I thank you that you call me
To life and health anew;
I know, whate’er befalls me,
Your care will still be true.

O Israel’s Guardian, hear me,
Watch over me this day;
In all I do be near me.
For others, too, I pray;
Grant us your peace and gladness,
Give us our daily bread,
Shield us from grief and sadness,
On us your blessings shed.

You are the Vine -— oh, nourish
Your heirs on shore and sea,
And let them grow and flourish,
A fair and fruitful tree.
Your Spirit pour within us
Such boundless gifts of grace,
And life eternal win us,
That all shall sing your praise.

Johannes Mühlmann, 1618
tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1863; adapt.
Tune: RESURRECTION (7.6.7.6.D.)
Alice Nevin, 1879

Nevin's tune has also been matched with The day of resurrection, another translation by John Mason Neale, but the tune name shouldn't limit it to Easter texts alone. I think it's pretty singable. Though the Cyber Hymnal lists only this tune by Alice Nevin, I have found three others in various hymnals, and I suspect that her own hymnal might contain more.

She died in 1925, and The Lord of Life is risen was sung at her funeral, which was held in the chapel at Franklin & Marshall College. As described later, the people gathered there heard Nevin's RESURRECTION once more, "its triumphant notes ringing from the old organ which had often responded to her own fingers..."

To Show God's Love Aright (Day Nine)

Moving away from the obscure for a day or two we come to a Christmas selection that I know is a favorite of many. More than four hundred years old, it comes from German Catholic origins, first published in Gebetbuchlein des Frater Conradus (1582) in nineteen stanzas. At that time it focused on Mary, comparing her to the Rose of Sharon from the Song of Solomon 2:1. In Cologne, a later hymnbook, Alte Catholische Geistliche Kirchengeseng (1599) published twenty-three stanzas.

Before long the hymn was taken up by the Protestants and reinterpreted to relate to Jesus. Some claimed that the German word "Ros," or rose actually should have been "Reis," or branch. This would correspond more closely to Isaiah 11:1.

The translation we know today, mostly from Theodore Baker, somehow or other combines both the Rose with the prophecy of Isaiah. An earlier translation by Catherine Winkworth (1869) remains closer to the Marian German origins of the text. Many of the German stanzas are also preserved online. Most American hymnals today only print these three.

Lo! how a Rose e'er blooming
From tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse's lineage coming,
As those of old have sung.
It came, a floweret bright,
Amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.

Isaiah 'twas foretold it,
The Rose I have in mind;
With Mary we behold it,
The virgin mother kind.
To show God's love aright,
She bore to us a Savior,
When half spent was the night.

This Flower, whose fragrance tender
With sweetness fills the air,
Dispels with glorious splendor
Divisions everywhere;
True flesh, yet very God,
From sin and death Christ saves us,
And lightens every load.

German carol, 15th cent.
tr. Theodore Baker (st. 1 & 2), 1894
Harriet Krauth Spaeth (st. 3), 1875; alt.
Tune: ES IST EIN ROS' (7.6.7.6.6.7.6.)
Cologne, 1599; harm, Michael Praetorius, 1609

Most people probably visualize a red rose when singing this hymn, and another legend about the origins of this carol tells how a German monk from Trier was walking through the woods in winter and found a rose in bloom growing up through the snow. He brought the miraculous flower back and placed it on the altar to the Virgin Mary, and the carol was first written by someone from that monastery. The flower pictured above, however, is the Christmas rose, which does apparently bloom in winter.

This week I came upon another stanza translated by Harriet Spaeth, sometimes used between the second and third one here. Looking further, I see that her full translation, in five stanzas, and generally used in older Lutheran hymnals, begins Behold, a Branch is growing (no Rose for her!). Some of you may know this one; I'm sure I've never sung it before.

The shepherds heard the story
Proclaimed by angels bright,
How Christ, the Lord of glory
Was born on earth this night.
To Bethlehem they sped
And in the manger they found him,
As angel heralds said.

I don't dislike it (the word sped falls in a fun place in the harmony), but I think we've had a lot of shepherds and angels this week, don't you?


One Year Ago: Elizabeth Rundle Charles

Catherine Winkworth

Hymn translator Catherine Winkworth was born today in 1827 in London, and moved to Manchester at a young age, where she spent much of the rest of her life. Her interest in translating German hymns of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was perhaps sparked by the gift of a book (with the generic title Andachtsbuch, or "devotional book") containing some of these hymns, which she received from Christian Karl Bunsen, a family friend who also happened to be the British ambassador to Germany.

Catherine, assisted by her sister Susanna, published two volumes of hymn translations from German titled Lyra Germanica. The first, in 1855, contained 103 hymns, and the second, in 1858, contained 131. These books contained only the texts. In 1863, with the assistance of musical editors William Sterndale Bennett and Otto Goldschmidt, Catherine published The Chorale Book for England, which paired many of her translations to their original German tunes.

Several of her translations have already appeared here (click on her name in the tags below). This familiar hymn is adapted from one of her best known translations from a hymn by Joachim Neander, published in the Chorale Book with its original German tune arranged by Sterndale Bennett. She retained the original meter which is quite unusual for a hymn in English: two very long lines (14 syllables!) followed by a very short line of four syllables and then finished with two lines relatively normal in length. I don't think there is another tune that would fit it.

Praise be to God, the Almighty, who rules all creation!
O my soul, worship the wellspring of health and salvation!
Join the great throng,
Psaltery, organ, and song;
Sound forth your glad adoration.

Praise be to God, who o'er all things is wondrously reigning,
And as on wings of an eagle, uplifting, sustaining!
Have you not seen
All that is needful has been
Sent by God's gracious ordaining?

Praise be to God, who will prosper your work and defend you;
Surely God's goodness and mercy here daily attend you;
Ponder anew
What the Almighty can do,
Who with great love shall befriend you.

Praise be to God, O forget not God's manifold graces!
Each that has life and breath, one song of gratitude raises;
Let the Amen
Sound from God's people again,
Singing forever God's praises.

Joachim Neander, 1680
tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1863; alt.
Tune: LOBE DEN HERREN (14.14.4.7.8.)
Ander Theil des Erneuerten Gesangbuch, 1665
harm. William Sterndale Bennett, 1864

Winkworth's four-stanza translation (fairly free to begin with, according to contemporaneous sources) has been altered in several different ways by several generations of hymnal editors, but the sense is the same. In the English Hymnal (1906) there were three additional stanzas added which were not from the German original, and perhaps written by Percy Dearmer. This is the best of them, I think (though I probably wouldn't add it in myself):

Praise be to God, who, when tempests their warfare are waging,
Who, when the elements madly around you are raging,
Bids them to cease,
Turning their fury to peace,
Whirlwinds and waters assuaging.


One Year Ago: Catherine Winkworth

Samuel Sebastian Wesley

Samuel Sebastian Wesley was born today in 1810, the son of composer Samuel Wesley and the grandson of hymnwriter Charles Wesley. The circumstances of his birth must have been considered shocking at the time (and maybe to some today). The younger Samuel and three of his siblings were the children of Samuel the elder and a young female servant, Sarah Suter; the elder Mrs. Wesley (mother of three older children) having left the household upon discovering the relationship (which never resulted in marriage). Samuel Wesley, though apparently called "the English Mozart" in his time, was not to retain that fame; Samuel Sebastian is surely the more well-known Wesley composer in our time.

Samuel Sebastian, his middle name coming from Johann Sebastian Bach, was a chorister at the Chapel Royal as a boy, then became an organist who served at several churches and cathedrals, each successive one generally more prestigious than the last. He wrote pieces for organ and several anthems over the years, and many of those are still sung today. Nearly every church choir in existence has sung the short and simple Lead me, Lord, taken from a longer anthem, Praise the Lord, O my soul. In 1872 he published a collection of hymn tunes, The European Psalmist, which contained 733 tunes, 130 of which were his compositions. Several of Wesley's anthems and hymn tunes can be seen and/or heard at the Choral Public Domain Library online. This tune, still universally known, was number 451 in The European Psalmist, set there to our old friend Jerusalem the golden, but used for many other texts over the years.

O living Bread from heaven,
How well you feed your guest!
The gifts that you have given
Have filled my heart with rest.
O wondrous food of blessing,
O cup that heals our woes,
My heart, this gift possessing,
In thankful song o’erflows!

Jesus, you here have led me
Within your holiest place,
And here yourself have fed me
With treasures of your grace;
For you have freely given
What earth could never buy,
The bread of life from Heaven,
That now I shall not die.

You gave me all I wanted,
This food can death destroy;
And you have freely granted
The cup of endless joy.
I thank you that I merit
The favor you have shown,
And all my soul and spirit
Bow down before your throne.

O, grant me that, thus strengthened
With heavenly food, while here
My course on earth is lengthened,
And that I feel you near;
And when you call my spirit
To leave this world below,
I enter, through your merit,
Where joys unmingled flow.

Johann Rist, 1651;
tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1858; alt.
Tune: AURELIA (7.6.7.6.D.)
Samuel Sebastian Wesley, 1864

By nearly all accounts, Wesley was a difficult man, not usually happy in his organist positions and often battling with the clergy and others as to the circumstances of his employment. After he left Exeter Cathedral, a clerk appended a note to a bundle of his papers: "The most to be avoided Man I ever met with." Hymnologist Ian Bradley, in Abide With Me: The World of Victorian Hymns, also recounts instances where Wesley wrangled with hymnal editors, insisting that he be paid more than any other composer for the use of his tunes (you will not be surprised to hear that this attitude is alive and well to this day among some composers and copyright owners).

Solace, Light and Grace

I have been somewhat remiss in not coming up with Sunday themes this summer for the Sundays after Pentecost. It's several months until Advent and the beginning of the church year, when we always have an appropriate theme for a hymn (unless there's a hymnic birthday to mark). Last summer I rotated between four different ones on Sundays:

• hymns of social justice
• communion hymns
• hymns of the Holy Spirit
• gospel songs

but I haven't come up wth four new ones yet. Let's try this one to start.

There's a certain subset of hymns that are often (not always) used as opening hymns, the first hymn of the service. Services across many denominations often open with a hymn of praise to God. This hymn may specifically mention morning, traditionally the time of Sunday worship (also not always). Sometimes there are specific references to the congregation's coming together for worship, with perhaps a prayer for blessing or for receiving the gifts of Word and sacrament.

I think these traditions come partly from a section of the Catholic mass, the Gloria, which exists in several different textual versions and countless musical settings. Some churches use both an opening hymn of praise and a Gloria, but why not? Plenty of room for praise.

Here's one I remember, as a little Lutheran boy, that was always the opening hymn when we sang it. Other denominations use it now but the text at least is of Lutheran origin (Composer Neander, while German, was a Calvinist, and wrote many texts as well as tunes). In the original German it began Thut mir auf die schöne Pforte. Online translators can't provide a literal English version beyond "beautiful gate," but Catherine Winkworth knew how to phrase it.

Open now thy gates of beauty,
Zion, let me enter there,
Where my soul in joyful duty
Waits for God, who answers prayer.
Oh, how blessèd is this place,
Filled with solace, light and grace!

Gracious God, I come before thee,
Come thou also unto me;
Where we find thee and adore thee,
There a heav’n on earth must be.
To my heart, oh, enter thou,
Let it be thy temple now!

Here thy praise is gladly chanted,
Here thy seed is duly sown;
Let my soul, where it is planted,
Bring forth precious sheaves alone,
So that all I find may be
Fruitful unto life in me.

Thou my faith increase and quicken,
Let me keep thy gift divine,
Howsoe’er temptations thicken;
May thy Word still o’er me shine
As my guiding star through life,
As my comfort in all strife.

Speak, O God, and I will hear thee,
Let thy will be done indeed;
May I undisturbed draw near thee
While thou dost thy people feed.
Here of life the fountain flows,
Here is balm for all our woes.

Benjamin Schmolck, 1730
tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1863; alt.
Tune: UNSER HERRSCHER (8.7.8.7.7.7.)
Joachim Neander, 1680

Filled with solace, light and grace! I didn't even know what solace was but it had to be a good thing. This was one of my first "favorite hymns" and it's a good one for children because the first two lines of the melody are repeated, so it's easy to remember. In The Lutheran Hymnal (1941), which we used, this tune is matched with five different texts, but this is the one I remember singing. Also, it's the first hymn in that book, #1. Nowadays I like a little more melodic variety, which is probably why it's moved down my list, but I do still like the tune very much, and it goes well with some other texts too.

As we've seen, when I'm writing a new entry I often come across some odd connection to something that I've recently written about. Timothy Matthews, the composer of the tune MARGARET for Emily Elliott's Thou didst leave thy throne, also wrote a tune that can be used for this text called VILLAGE VESPERS. It's an interesting curiosity (note that his tune's first two lines also repeat) but I'm not surprised it never caught on. Neander's seventeenth-century tune UNSER HERRSCHER (sometimes called NEANDER) may well be sung for another three hundred years.

What are some opening hymns that are used regularly in your churches? I have several in mind, so we won't run out, and maybe we'll get to some of yours.

One Year Ago: Jessie Seymour Irvine

Frances E. Cox

Frances Elizabeth Cox was born at Oxford on this day in 1812. Almost nothing is known about her life, but her translations of German hymns have survived and continue to be sung today.

Congregational hymn singing in Germany was part of their worship long before the practice took hold in England. Yet German hymns were nearly unknown in England until the middle of the nineteenth century, except for some that had been translated by John Wesley. Catherine Winkworth would come to be the most prolific translator, but others such as Frances Cox made their contribution.

In 1841, Cox published Sacred Hymns from the German, containing 49 translated hymns. Her second volume, 23 years later, Hymns from the German, contained many of those 49 with an additional 29. Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology says that there were a few other translations published in magazines that appeared in neither collection.

It seems that everyone who ever translated a German hymn took a crack at Martin Luther's Ein feste burg. Cox's translation begins:

A Fortress firm and steadfast Rock
Is God in time of danger
A Shield and Sword in every shock
From foe well-known or stranger.

Two of Cox's translations we have already seen here: one for Easter and one of my favorite hymns, for All Saints' Day. This one is, I suspect, more widely known in various denominations.

Sing praise to God who reigns above,
The God of all creation,
The God of power, the God of love,
The God of our salvation;
With healing balm my soul is filled,
And every faithless murmur stilled:
To God all praise and glory.

What such almighty power hath made,
God's gracious mercy keepeth;
By morning glow or evening shade
God's watchful eye ne'er sleepeth.
Within the realm of God's delight,
Lo! all is just and all is right:
To God all praise and glory.

For God is never far away,
But through all grief distressing,
An ever present help and stay,
Our peace and joy and blessing.
As with a mother's tender hand,
God gently leads the pilgrim band:
To God all praise and glory.

Then all my toilsome way along
I sing aloud God's praises,
That all may hear the grateful song
My voice unwearied raises:
Be joyful in the Lord, my heart!
Both soul and body bear your part!
To God all praise and glory.

O ye who name Christ's holy name
Give God all praise and glory;
Let all who know God's power proclaim
Aloud the wondrous story!
Cast each false idol from its throne,
And worship God, and God alone!
To God all praise and glory.

Johann J. Schutz, 1675
tr. Frances E. Cox, 1864; alt.
Tune: MIT FREUDEN ZART (8.7.8.7.8.8.7.)
Bohemian Brethren Kirchegesang, 1566

This hymn by the Lutheran Johann Schutz was originally in eight verses, though most hymnals print only four or five. One that is rarely seen:

I cried to God in my distress --
In mercy, hear my calling!
My Maker saw my helplessness
And kept my feet from falling;
For this, Lord, thanks and praise to thee
Praise God, I say, praise God with me!
To God all praise and glory.

The tune, MIT FREUDEN ZART, may have been traced back to a medieval French secular song, Une pastourelle gentille, though the more martial setting we know today seems a little heavy for a French shepherd girl.

Hark, the Voice of One That Crieth

Another recurring theme of Advent is the coming of the promised reign of God, foretold by the Old Testament prophets. Everything will be all right! In many churches today the opening verses of Isaiah 40 were read, along with their recurrence in the opening verses of the book of Mark.

Comfort, comfort ye my people,
Speak ye peace, thus saith our God;
Comfort those who sit in sadness,
Mourning ’neath their sorrow’s load;
Speak ye to Jerusalem
Of the peace that waits for them;
Tell her that her sins I cover,
And her warfare now is over.

Hark, the voice of one that crieth
In the desert far and near,
Calling all to true repentance,
Since the reign of God is here.
O that warning cry obey!
Now prepare for God a way!
Let the valleys rise in meeting,
And the hills bow down in greeting.

Make ye straight what long was crooked,
Make the rougher places plain:
Let your hearts be true and humble,
As befits this holy reign,
For the glory of our God
Now o’er earth is shed abroad,
And all flesh shall see the token
That God's word is never broken.

Johann Olearius, 1671; tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1842; alt.
Tune: PSALM 42 (8.7.8.7.7.7.8.7.)
Louis Bourgeois, 1551

This paraphrase of the beginning of Isaiah 40 was written by.Johann Olearius and later translated by Catherine Winkworth. It was originally written to commemorate the feast day of Saint John the Baptist (June 24) but is generally used in Advent now. Olearius published an important Lutheran hymnal, Geistliche Singe-Kunst (1671) with over 1200 hymns, nearly one-quarter of which were written by him.

The tune has several different names in different hymnals but it was originally composed by Louis Bourgeois to accompany a version of Psalm 42.

Martin Luther

Today is the birthday of Martin Luther, German theologian and reformer who rebelled against the abuses of the medieval Catholic Church and (the legend goes) began the Protestant Reformation by nailing his Ninety-Five Theses to a church door in Wittenburg.

You can read many more learned articles on Luther and his historic and theological importance than I could provide, so I'll confine myself to his hymns.

Luther had some musical training in his youth and played both the lute and the flute. He composed many of the tunes sung with his hymn texts, which numbered about three dozen and were published intermittently during his lifetime. Since each of his hymns have been translated into other languages numerous times, it sometimes seems that there are many more.

This is undoubtedly his most famous hymn (taken partially from Psalm 46) sung across nearly all Christian denominations -- even Catholic hymnals include it now -- and 1t also has its own separate Wikipedia entry.

A mighty fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing;
Our helper 'mid the raging flood
Of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe;
With craft and power great,
And, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not an equal.

Did we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing;
Were not the right one on our side,
The One of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, verily;
Anointed One by name,
From age to age the same,
And Christ shall win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed
The truth to triumph through us:
The powers of evil grim,
We tremble not for them;
Their rage we can endure,
For lo, their doom is sure,
One little word shall fell them.

That word above all earthly powers,
No thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours
Through God who with us sideth:
Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also;
The body they may kill:
God’s truth abideth still,
This truth shall last forever.

Martin Luther, 1529; tr. Frederick F. Hedge, 1853; alt.
Tune: EIN FESTE BURG (8.7.8.7.6.6.6.6.7.)
Martin Luther, 1529

This is the version most familiar to American singers. There are reportedly more than seventy different translations from Luther's German text into English, though most of them are not regularly sung. A popular translation used in the UK is by Thomas Carlyle:
A safe stronghold our God is still

Industrious translator Catherine Winkworth contributed
A sure stronghold our God is he

Henry J. Buckoll took a crack at it:
A tower of strength our God doth stand

and Richard Robinson Whittingham gave us
A mountain fastness is our God

Elizabeth Wordsworth (daughter of hymnwriter Christopher Wordsworth) translated it as
God is a stronghold and a tower

and Godfrey Thring, writer of many hymn texts, came up with
A fortress sure is God our King

These seven were all nineteenth century translations, developed to meet a growing demand for hymns -- editors probably wanted unique translations for their new hymnals before the Hedge and Carlyle versions became the standards. Supposedly there are ten times as many more out there! And that's not counting the many translations into other languages (click on the flags).