The Feast of the Epiphany

Twelve days after Christmas we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, marked by the visitation of the Magi to the infant Jesus (Matthew 2:1-12), and beginning a season in the church year that commemorates the revelation of Jesus as the child of God to the people of the world.  The painting above, Adoration of the Magi by Jacopo Pontormo (c.1520), shows those strangers paying homage to the child, but behind them there streams a long procession of pilgrims waiting to do the same thing, illustrating the broader meaning of the season..

Hail, O source of every blessing,
Sovereign God of humankind!
Nations now, your truth possessing,
To your courts admission find.

Once revealed to Eastern sages,
See the star of mercy shine;
Mystery hid in former ages,
Mystery great of love divine.

Gratefully we come before you,
In your church obtain a place,
Now by faith behold your glory,
Praise your Name, and taste your grace.

Once far off, but now invited,
We approach your sacred throne;
In your covenant united,
Reconciled, redeemed, made one.

May we, body, soul, and spirit,
Live devoted to your praise,
Glorious realms of bliss inherit,
Grateful anthems ever raise!

Basil Woodd, 1810; alt.
Tune: PETERSON (8.7.8.7.)
Emily Swan Perkins, 1921

The Reverend Basil Woodd (1760-1831) prepared a collection of psalm and scriptural paraphrases with a very long title: New Metrical Version of the Psalms of David; With an Appendix of Select Psalms and Hymns; Adapted to the Service of the United Church of England and Ireland: For Every Sunday in the Year, Festival Days, Saints' Days, &c. (1794).

Composer Emily Swan Perkins (1866-1941) was a founding member of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada and also for many years its corresponding secretary.



Seven Years Ago: Saw you never, in the twilight

Six Years Ago: Earth has many a noble city

Five Years Ago: What star is this, with beams so bright

Four Years Ago: As with gladness those of old

Three Years Ago: O thou, who by a star didst guide

Two Years Ago: Lo! the pilgrim Magi

Minot Judson Savage

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

Emily Swan Perkins

Emily Swan Perkins (October 19, 1866 - June 27, 1941) was one the founders of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada (originally the Hymn Society of America) in 1922, and served as its Corresponding Secretary for nearly twenty years. Her letters to friends in England about the Society have been credited with influencing the 1936 formation of the Hymn Society in Great Britain and Ireland.

In her younger years she accompanied various singing groups on the piano, beginning at the Sunday school where her father was superintendent. She retained this interest in church music thoughout her life; after she became known for composing and writing hymns and tunes she was appointed to serve on the Commission on Worship of the Presbyterian Church in the USA.

This hymn appeared in her 1921 collection Stonehurst Hymn Tunes, and later in the Presbyterian Hymnal of 1933.

Thou art, O God, the God of might;
Thy power is never failing;
Thou safely leadest in the fight,
’Gainst every foe prevailing.

Thou art, O God, the God of truth;
Thy Word remains unshaken;
Thy justice and Thy righteousness
Have every stronghold taken.

Thou art, O God, the God of love;
Thy mercy is unending;
Thou guardest us with tender care,
Each day our souls defending.

Emily S. Perkins, 1921
Tune: BURG (8.7.8.7.)

At this summer's Annual Conference of the Hymn Society, Perkins was honored by the establishment of the Emily Swan Perkins Lectureship, which will be an annual presentation during the Conference. The first Perkins Lecture was delivered by theologian Marva Dawn. The Executive Committee of the Society was looking for a way to honor the retiring Executive Director, Carl P. Daw Jr., and he suggested that this lectureship in Perkins's name would be an appropriate way. Daw was presented with a copy of Stonehurst Hymn Tunes at the Conference when the Perkins Lecture was announced, and I have the somewhat offbeat hope that he will write a new text to be sung to one of Perkins's tunes. It would be an appropriate collaboration to link the past and present of the organization.

Mary Louise Bringle, current President of the Society, wrote a biographical sketch of Perkins in this year's Conference booklet (from which some of the information in this entry is taken), which concluded:

Truly, it would be ironic if a person who gave so lavishly of her time, talents, and treasure to the worship life of the church and particularly to the life of this organization were to remain an “unsung” hero.


One Year Ago: Emily Swan Perkins

More Voices Found: Emily Swan Perkins

Composer and hymnwriter Emily Swan Perkins was born today in 1866. Though she was musically gifted from an early age, she did not start writing hymns until later in life.

During World War I she served with the Red Cross, and wrote text and tune for a hymn of thanks for that organization (possibly one of her first). The first verse:

A blessed ministry of love
Goes forth to all the world,
For every nation, every tribe
The Red Cross flies unfurled.
Oh! come, ye people everywhere,
Its love and power and worth declare.

In 1921 she published Stonehurst Hymn Tunes, a book of 38 of her tunes and four of her texts. She writes in the introduction:

Old tunes are being used with a fair measure of success, but the new wine cannot always be contained in the old bottles. A really great hymn must have its own tune and any hymn of worth should have proper setting if its message is to gain full interpretation.

Many of the tunes in her collection are written for familiar texts, and some to more obscure ones that she hoped would gain more exposure. Yesterday's tune by Perkins, LAUFER, was written for the hymn The light of God is falling, by Louis F. Benson. Benson was pleased with the tune, and used it in a published collection of his hymns, but he admitted in a letter to Perkins that it would be difficult to supplant GREENLAND, the tune that his hymn had originally, and usually, been matched with. LAUFER was named for another friend of Perkins, Presbyterian hymnist Calvin Laufer.

Here is another tune from her first collection.

Years are coming, speed them onward
When the sword shall gather rust,
And the helmet, lance, and arrow
Sleep at last in silent dust.

Earth has heard too long of battle,
Heard the trumpet's voice too long.
But another age advances,
Seers foretold in ancient song.

Years are coming when forever
War's dread banner shall be furled,
And the angel Peace be welcomed,
Regent of a happy world.

Hail with song that glorious era,
When the sword shall gather rust,
And the helmet, lance and arrow
Sleep at last in silent dust.

Adin Ballou, 1849; alt.
Tune: PETERSON (8.7.8.7.)
Emily S. Perkins, 1921

Emily Perkins published another collection, Riverdale Hymn Tunes, in 1938, three years before her death, presumably containing a similar number of new tunes. Unfortunately, not many of her tunes were published in other hymnals (there are only three available to be heard at the Cyber Hymnal site), but I think they should be reevaluated. Surely out of possibly 60+ tunes there are more than three worth using. Has anyone out there heard any of the others?

In 1922, Perkins was one of the instrumental founders of the Hymn Society of America, (later renamed the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada), an organization that would help her share her love of hymnody with thousands of people throughout the world. She served as Corresponding Secretary of the group for nearly two decades.

P.S. We will hear more about Adin Ballou on his birthday a few months from now. His hymn has been used many times in recent years, as evidenced by several worship services for peace than can be found online.

Saint Luke

Today is the feast day of Saint Luke the Evangelist. Though not one of the twelve disciples, Luke is believed to be the author of two books of the New Testament: his own Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. He was a follower of Paul; he uses the word "we" in those parts of Acts that describe Paul's journeys.

Luke's writings are respected for their accuracy by many. As archaeologists and historians have discovered more about New Testament geography and custom, Luke's books have been proven correct, providing many details that would only have been noticed and recounted by someone genuinely living at that time.

Luke was a physician himself, and thus made the patron saint of physicians in some traditions. Many towns and cities across the country have a hospital or other medical facility named for St. Luke. The Order of Saint Luke the Physician, established in 1932, is an international, nondenominational Christian healing ministry.

Hymns about Luke generally describe him as a physician, and evoke a healing theme. This year we are continuing with Come sing, ye choirs exultant as we have previously used for St. Mark and St. Matthew, with a new tune.

Come sing, ye choirs exultant,
Those messengers of God,
Through whom the living Gospels
Came sounding all abroad!
In one harmonious witness
The chosen four combine,
While each his own commission
Fulfills in ev'ry line.

As, in the prophet's vision,
From out the amber flame
In form of visage diverse
Four living creatures came;
Lo, these the fourfold river
Of paradise above,
Whence flow for all earth's people
New mysteries of love.

For Luke, beloved physician,
All praise, whose Gospel shows
The healer of the nations,
And sharer of our woes.
Thy wine and oil, O Savior,
On bruised hearts come to pour,
And with thy Spirit's unction
Anoint us evermore.

Adam of St. Victor, c.1170;
tr. Jackson Mason, 1889; alt. (v 1 & 2)
Horatio Bolton Nelson, 1864; alt. (v.3)
Tune: LAUFER (7.6.7.6.D.)
Emily S. Perkins, 1924


For more about composer Emily Perkins, tune in tomorrow (which happens to be her birthday).