Samuel Longfellow

Samuel Longfellow (1819 - 1892), a Unitarian pastor, hymnwriter, and hymnal editor was born today in Portland, Maine, and lived most of his life in New England.  He is probably best known for two Unitarian hymnals he edited with his close friend Samuel Johnson: A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion (1844) and Hymns of the Spirit (1864). Both of these collections include several texts by Longfellow and Johnson, as well as poets whose verse had not previously been sung (such as John Greenleaf Whittier) or had not previously appeared in an American collection (such as Nearer, my God, to thee) Most of the material was edited to make it conform to Unitarian belief.

Longfellow and Johnson met as students at Harvard Divinity School and remained friends for the rest of their lives, carrying on a long and affectionate correspondence. When Johnson died in 1882. Longfellow spent the next year writing a memoir of his friend. A biographer of Longfellow's would later describe his friendship with Johnson as the most significant relationship of his life. The exact nature of the relationship remains unclear, but it's possible that Longfellow was thinking about it in a rather sad poem called "Love" (1851), which concludes:

 

To love, nor ask return,

To accept our solitude,

Not now for others' love to yearn

But only for their good;

To joy if they are crowned,

Though thorns our head entwine,

And in the thought of blessing them

All thought of self resign.

 

Is this the lament of a man who has decided that his feelings will never be returned in the way he wants? We will probably never know for sure.

 

Today's hymn was written toward the end of Longfellow's life, just a few years before the photograph above (from 1890), and on the occasion of the dedication of the new Cambridge Hospital, in the Massachusetts town where he was then living, and working on a three-volume biography of his brother, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

O Lord of life, our saving Health,
Who mak’st thy suffering ones our care;
Our gifts are still our truest wealth,
To serve thee our sincerest prayer.

As on the river’s rising tide
Flow strength and coolness from the sea,
So through the ways our hands provide,
May quickening life flow in from thee;

To heal the wound, to still the pain,
And strength to failing pulses bring,
Till stumbling feet shall leap again,
And silent lips with gladness sing.

Bless thou the gifts our hands have brought!
Bless thou the work our hearts have planned,
Ours is the hope, the will, the thought;
The rest, O God, is in thy hand.
 
Samuel Longfellow, 1886; alt.
Tune: ELY (L.M.)
Thomas Turton, 1844

The final stanza here has often been taken out of this hymn and used separately in many hymnals as an offertory response, but that actually changes its meaning. In that usage, the text is consecrating the offerings of the people for the work of the church.  However, the complete hymn has a different theme and meaning: that we can be healers through the gifts of God, flowing though us. This idea feels quite modern, even though the language is archaic.



Nine Years Ago: Samuel Longfellow

Eight Years Ago: Samuel Longfellow

Six Years Ago: Samuel Longfellow

Four Years Ago: Samuel Longfellow

Phillips Brooks

The Episcopal calendar of saints remembers former Bishop of Massachusetts Phillips Brooks (December 13, 1835 - January 23, 1893) on this day. Born in Boston, he graduated from Harvard in 1855 and was ordained in 1859. He first served two churches in Philadelphia, where he was known for his anti-slavery views and for a widely-circulated sermon he delivered shortly after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

In 1869 he was named rector of Trinity Church in Boston, where he stayed intil 1891, when he accepted the post of bishop, which he was only to hold for 15 months. He once claimed that the theme of all his sermons was from John 10:10 -- "I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly." His funeral service packed the huge sanctuary at Trinity, and more than 10,000 people who were not able to get in waited outside in Copley Square.

His great fame was largely due to his renowned preaching; several volumes of his sermons were published as well as smaller books of quotations, marking him as quite a celebrity. If he had been born a hundred years later he'd have had his own television show. Since he never married, there has also been some speculation about his personal life.
Though it's now a bit out of season, it would be foolish not to remember his most familiar hymn today, a Christmas carol known and sung around the world.

O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by.
Yet over thy streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.

For Christ is born of Mary,
And gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love.
O morning stars together,
Proclaim the holy birth,
And praises sing and anthems ring,
And peace to all on earth!

How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is giv’n;
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings sent from heav’n.
No ear may hear his coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still,
The dear Christ enters in.

Where children pure and happy
Pray to the blessèd Child,
Where misery cries out to thee,
Born of a mother mild;
Where charity stands watching
And faith holds wide the door,
The dark night wakes, the glory breaks,
And Christmas comes once more.

O holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in,
Be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
Our God, Emmanuel!

Phillips Brooks, 1867; alt.
Tune: ST. LOUIS (8.6.8.6.7.6.8.6.)
Lewis H. Redner, 1868

When writing this text, Brooks must have been remembering his own trip to the Holy Land, where on Christmas Eve, 1865, he assisted with the midnight service in Bethlehem. The fourth verse is sometimes omitted in hymnals, and I'd imagine that many churches sing even fewer verses than that in crowded Christmas services, but the entire text is worth preserving. Lewis Redner was the organist at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Philadelphia when Brooks was the rector there, and he wrote the tune the night before it was sung in worship for the first time on Christmas Day, 1867.

Phillips Brooks wrote a few other verses and hymn texts, but not many. In 1903, a small collection titled Christmas Songs and Easter Carols was published, though none are as well-known as O little town of Bethlehem, the first selection in the book.