But Now With Glory Crowned

I'm still in an All Saints kind of mood, since my church (and maybe yours) will be celebrating that occasion today. Today's hymn is a little different from the grand hymns of praise, like yesterday's, or the classic For all the saints (which will be the opening hymn in many churches today). A paraphrase of the opening verses of Hebrews 12, it not only sings of the saints, it reminds us that we will join with them one day. It has been in the Episcopal hymnal since 1826.

Lo! what a cloud of witnesses

Encompass us around!

Those once like us with suffering tried,

But now with glory crowned.

Let us, with zeal like theirs inspired,

Strive in our daily race;

And, freed from every weight of sin,

Their holy footsteps trace.

Behold a Witness nobler still,

Who, moved by pitying love,

Endured the cross, despised the shame,

Now ever reigns above.

Thither, forgetting things behind,

Press we to God's right hand;

There, with the Savior and the saints,

Triumphantly to stand.

Translations and Paraphrases (Scottish), 1802; alt.

Tune: ST. MAGNUS (C.M.)

Jeremiah Clarke, 1707; harm. William H. Monk, 1868

Some will quibble with my choice of tune. The usual tune is ST. FLAVIAN, which I think is a little dreary for a triumphant text such as this one. The melody of ST. MAGNUS keeps moving upward, leading to a strong climactic point in its last line and fitting better the last lines of these verses. ST. FLAVIAN is fine for the Lenten text it is often paired with, but I've never liked it here. After several years of hearing that no one would ever change it, I finally found some (unneeded) vindication: ST. MAGNUS was indeed used with this text in the Church Choral-Book of 1860.

Ash Wednesday

Lord, who throughout these forty days
For us didst fast and pray,
Teach us with thee to mourn our sins
And close by thee to stay.

As thou with Satan didst contend,
And didst the vict'ry win,
So give us strength in thee to fight,
In thee to conquer sin.

As thou didst hunger bear, and thirst,
So teach us, gracious Friend,
To hunger, thirst for righteousness,
Injustice to amend.

And through these days of penitence,
And through thy Passiontide,
Yea, evermore, in life and death,
Jesus! with us abide.

Abide with us, that so this life
Of suff'ring overpast,
An Easter of unending joy
We may attain at last!

Claudia F. Hernaman, 1873; alt.
Tune: ST. FLAVIAN (C.M.)
from Day’s Psal­ter, 1563

This well-known hymn for the first day of Lent by Claudia Frances Hernaman has crossed denominations and appeared in many hymnals for more than a hundred years. I've found two modern adaptations of this hymn, one for general use and one with a specific LGBT focus (scroll down slightly on both pages). I think they are both interesting variations on the Lenten themes of the original.

I recently spotted this hymn in an older hymnal index, with its author listed as C.F. Hernaman. Unless you were familiar with this text, you wouldn't know that C.F. was Claudia Frances. I sometimes wonder when I look at an old index if some of the authors and composers listed by their initials are actually unknown women (sometimes anonymous by their own choice). Google and the Internet make cross-referencing easier than it used to be, but I still believe that there are authors and composers, published in perhaps only one or two hymnals, whose gender we may never know.