Elizabeth Gaskell

The celebrated English novelist Elizabeth Gaskell is not generally known as a hymnwriter, but there are a few to her credit.  She was born today in London in 1810. Her father had been a Unitarian minister, but resigned that occupation some years before Elizabeth's birth.

She married another Unitarian minister, William Gaskell, in 1832. She helped him in his work, teaching reading and writing as well as Scripture to Sunday School students at his church in Manchester. She also published a few short stories during the early years of her marriage. The Gaskells had four daughters. and it was following the death of an infant son in 1845 that William suggested that Elizabeth write a novel to distract from her grief. That novel, Mary Barton, was published anonymously in 1848.

Gaskell came to be primarily known for her novels, which often dealt with issues of social concern. Charles Dickens took an interest in her work, and published some of her later writing in his magazine Household Words. While supportive of her career, he was often frustrated by her refusal to agree to his editorial suggestions. Gaskell's reputation has survived to our own day, and you can probably find her books at your local bookstore. Some have also been adapted for film and television.

There are a number of ministers' wives who wrote hymns, such as Cecil Frances Alexander, Julia Anne Elliott, and Jane Lundie Bonar, so it is not surprising that Gaskell also tried her hand at it.  This wedding hymn was published in a number of nineteenth-century hymnals but is hardly known today. One unusual thing about it is that it makes no reference to gender, as most wedding hymns written before the last ten years or so usually do.

We join to pray, with wishes kind,
A blessing, God, from thee,
On those who now the bands have twined
Which ne'er may broken be.

We know that scenes not always bright
Must unto them be given;
But over all give thou the light
Of love, and truth, and heav'n.

Still hand in hand, their journey through,
Joint pilgrims may they go;
Mingling their joys as helpers true,
And sharing every woe.

May each in each still feed the flame
Of pure and holy love;
In faith and trust and heart the same,
The same their home above.

Elizabeth Gaskell, 19th cent.
Tune: HOWARD (C.M.)
Elizabeth Cuthbert, 1814


P.S. - In previous years, we have observed the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels on this date.

Eight Years Ago: Around the throne of God a band

Seven Years Ago: Stars of the morning, so gloriously bright

Six Years Ago: They are evermore around us

Four Years Ago: O Captain of God's host

Two Years Ago: High on a hill of dazzling light

One Year Ago: Praise to God who reigns above

Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts, was born today in 1674 in Southhampton, England, where this statue (dedicated in 1861) stands in a park today. His father was a schoolmaster, so the boy began to learn Latin at age four, and by seven he was starting to write verse. His first hymn, reportedly written before he was twenty, was Behold the glories of the Lamb.

Watts was the first prolific writer of hymns which were not paraphrases of the Psalms, until that time the only accepted texts to be sung in worship in England. As a Nonconformist minister, he began to use his hymn texts in his own congregation and published his first collection in 1707, inspiring writers of the time such as Philip Doddridge and Anne Steele. His ministry was focused more on education than strict denominational dogma, and he was surprisingly ecumenical for his time. This may be part of the reason that his hymns have been so widely sung across so many different churches in the last three hundred years.

His total output was more than 750 hymns, and each year more and more of them are available at the Cyber Hymnal. According to John Julian in his Dictionary of Hymnology, about 450 of those were still in use at the beginning of the twentieth century. Today's hymn is perhaps not as widely known as it once was (#20 in 1899's The Best Church Hymns), but it's not gone completely. Here Watts joins our voices on earth with the angelic choir in Revelation 5:11-13.

Come, let us join our cheerful songs
With angels round the throne.
Ten thousand thousand are their tongues,
But all their joys are one.

“Worthy the Lamb that died,” they cry,
“To be exalted thus!”
“Worthy the Lamb,” our hearts reply,
“The Lamb was slain for us!”

Jesus is worthy to receive
Honor and power divine;
And blessings more than we can give,
Be ever, ever thine.

Let all that dwell above the sky,
And air and earth and seas,
Conjoin to lift thy glories high,
And speak thine endless praise!

The whole creation joins in one,
To bless the sacred Name
Of God who sits upon the throne,
And to adore the Lamb.

Isaac Watts, 1707; alt.
Tune: HOWARD (C.M.)
Elizabeth Howard Cuthbert, 1814

This tune by Elizabeth Cuthbert is one of two that she is known to have written (though I have not yet located the second). It appeared in several nineteenth century hymnals but is not much known today (much like its composer, unfortunately).

Two Years Ago: Isaac Watts

One Year Ago: Isaac Watts