When Our Hearts Are Bowed With Care

Today is the beginning of the church year, which begins with the first Sunday of Advent. This season of preparation is made up of several different threads: the prophetic voices of hope from the Old Testament, the witness of John the Baptist, the visit of the angel Gabriel to Mary, the approaching birth of Jesus, and even the return of Christ in the Second Advent.

These things don't proceed in a linear sequence; in fact, the story of the end times usually comes at the beginning of Advent. John the Baptist foretells the ministry of Jesus but that's many years after the birth in Bethlehem; John is still a baby when Mary and Joseph take their difficult journey.

This Advent hymn encompasses the beginning and the end as well as the promises of hope.

Jesus came, adored by angels,
Came with peace from realms on high;
Jesus came for our redemption,
Lowly came on earth to die.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Came in deep humility,
Came in deep humility

Jesus comes again in mercy,
When our hearts are bowed with care;
Jesus comes again in answer
To an earnest, heartfelt prayer;
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Comes to save us from despair,
Comes to save us from despair.

Jesus comes to hearts rejoicing,
Bringing news of sins forgiven;
Jesus comes in sounds of gladness,
Leading souls redeemed to Heav’n;
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Now the gate of death is riv’n,
Now the gate of death is riv'n.

Jesus comes on clouds triumphant,
When the heav’ns shall pass away;
Jesus comes again in glory;
Let us then our homage pay,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Till the dawn of endless day,
Till the dawn of endless day.

Godfrey Thring, 1864; alt.
Tune: CWM RHONDDA (8.7.8.7.D.)
John Hughes, 1907


One (Liturgical) Year Ago: Thousand Thousand Saints Attending

One (Calendar) Year Ago: John Haynes Holmes

Whose Glories Now We Sing

OK, here we go -- the previously unrevealed Number Seven on the top ten list I submitted to the survey at Semicolon. Numbers 82 - 100 have been counted down thus far, and I feel fairly certain that this one will yet make the list. It's also on the list submitted by Leland (he ranked it at Number Six), so at least two of us voted for it. However, like many other hymns presented here, it won't be quite the way you remember it.

Crown thee with many crowns,
The Lamb upon the throne;
Hark how the heav'nly anthem drowns
All music but its own;
Our souls awake to sing
Sweet praises unto thee,
To hail thee, voices echoing
Through all eternity.

Crown thee the Child of God
Before the worlds began,
Who know'st the paths that we have trod,
According to God's plan;
Who ev'ry grief hath known
That wrings the human breast,
And takes and bears them for thine own
That all in thee may rest.

Crown thee the God of life
Who triumphed o'er the grave,
And rose victorious in the strife
For those thou cam'st to save;
Whose glories now we sing,
Who died, and rose on high,
Who died eternal life to bring,
And lives that death may die.

Crown thee the God of years,
The Potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres,
Ineffably sublime;
Glass'd in a sea of light,
Whose everlasting waves
Reflect thy throne -- the Infinite!
Who lives and loves and saves,.

Crown thee the God of peace,
Whose pow'r a sceptre sways
From pole to pole that wars may cease,
Absorbed in prayer and praise;
All hail, Redeemer, hail!
For thou dost live in me;
Thy praise shall never, never fail
Throughout eternity.

Crown thee the God of heav'n,
Enthroned in worlds above;
Crown thee the One to whom is giv'n
The wondrous name of Love;
Crown thee with many crowns
As thrones before thee fall;
We crown thee, Christ, with many crowns,
Who rulest over all.

Matthew Bridges, 1851 and Godfrey Thring, 1874; alt.
Tune: DIADEMATA (S.M.D.)
George Job Elvey, 1868

This is a composite version of this hymn that merges verses by two different writers. The original version in six verses was by Matthew Bridges, published in the second edition of his collection Hymns for the Heart (1851). Bridges was originally an Anglican, but converted to Roman Catholicism as a young man. It may be for that reason that Godfrey Thring was asked some years later to revise the hymn. He wrote a number of other verses, which first appeared in Church Hymns (1874) and Thring's own Church of England Hymnbook (1882). Since that time many different hymnals have used verses from both versions, always beginning with Bridges' first verse (Thring's opening verse began Crown him with crowns of gold), though there are still hymnals which use only Bridges' verses. Most modern hymnals (nearly all of which still include this hymn, as you'd probably guess) use only four or five verses, but we wanted at least six.

George Elvey composed DIADEMATA, certainly one reason for the continued popularity of this hymn, for the Bridges text in the 1868 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern.

Godfrey Thring

English hymn writer and hymnal editor Godfrey Thring was born on this day in 1823 in the town of Alford in Somerset. Years later, as an Anglican priest, he would return to the local church as rector for nine years.

In Popular Hymns and Their Writers, by Norman Mable, it's recorded that Thring wrote his first hymn when his mother complained that there were no good texts for a particular tune she liked -- they all required that the last line be repeated three times, which she thought ridiculous. The result of his effort was not mentioned, though presumably he was successful, judging by his further career in hymnody.

Thring published a few volumes of his own hymn texts, and also edited hymnals, most notably A Church of England Hymn-book (1880) which was considered by many hymnologists to contain the most literary collection of hymns available at that time.

Looking at a list of his works, you may discover that in many cases he was only adding a verse or two to someone else's hymn text (see here and here for examples), probably in line with his editorial work. His added verses (as well as many other textual revisions he made to various hymns) have come to be accepted as the "standard" version of those hymns (I should be so lucky).

While I considered each of the two above examples for today's hymn I decided to go with a less-familiar text that at least was entirely by Thring.

All that's good, and great, and true,
All that is and is to be,
Be it old, or be it new,
Comes, Creator, all from thee.

Mercies dawn with every day,
Newer, brighter than before,
And the sun's declining ray
Gathers others up in store.

Every blade and every tree,
All in happy concert ring,
And in wondrous harmony,
Join the cheerful birds to sing.

Far and near, o'er land and sea,
Mountain top and hidden dell,
All, in singing, sing of thee,
Songs of love unquenchable.

Fill us then with love divine,
Grant that we, though toiling here,
May, in spirit being thine,
Know and serve thee everywhere.

May we all with songs of praise,
Here on earth thy name adore,
Till with angel choir we raise
Songs of praise forevermore.

Godfrey Thring, 1874; alt.
Tune: EVELYN (7.7.7.7.)
Emma Ashford, 1905

I have used this tune by Emma Ashford before when writing about her last fall. It suits this text quite well, and as it happens, Ashford's birthday is this Friday, so this is also in celebration of that occasion.

One Year Ago: The Feast of the Annunciation

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).