Frederick William Faber

Today is the birthday of priest and hymnwriter Frederick William Faber (1814 - 1863), born in Yorkshire. Educated at one of the colleges of Oxford, he was ordained in the Church of England in 1837. Faber apparently had a lifelong interest in St. Wilfrid, and in 1844, published a biography, St. Wilfrid, Bishop of York.

Faber was influenced by John Henry Newman and the Tractarian (or Oxford) movement, which believed that Anglicanism had become too liberal, and that it should move closer to Roman Catholicism. In fact, Newman shocked many by converting to Catholicism in 1845, and Faber followed in 1846. He established a religious order in Staffordshire, the Brothers of the Will of God, choosing St. Wilfrid as their patron saint.

Faber believed that English Catholics needed new hymns of their own, rather than only translations from earlier, continental sources, or Protestant borrowings, and wrote many during his lifetime (unsurprisingly, one of his popular collections, Jesus and Mary (1849), included a hymn to St. Wilfrid.). A later volume which collected most of his texts from other sources and titled simply Hymns was first published in 1861 and went through many editions.

Today, his hymns are found in most hymnals, having never been limited to Catholic ones. There were various changes made over the years for theological and other reasons, but there are a few of his texts that most hymnsingers know. This text is perhaps the one most-tinkered-with, and I couldn't keep from doing yet another version.

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
Like the wideness of the sea;
There’s a kindness in God's justice,
Which is more than liberty.
There is no place where earth’s sorrows
Are more felt than up in heav'n;
There is no place where earth’s failings
Have such kindly judgment given.

Longing souls, come nearer Jesus,
Come, oh come not doubting thus,
But with faith that trusts more bravely
God's huge tenderness for us.
For we make that love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify God's strictness
With a zeal unlike God's own.

For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of the mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.
There is grace enough for thousands
Of new worlds as great as this;
There is room for fresh creations
In that upper room of bliss.

Frederick W. Faber, 1854; alt.
Tune: WEISSE FLAGGEN (8.7.8.7.D.)
Tochter Sion, 1741

Faber wrote this text in four line verses, and added to it over the years; the final version has thirteen verses. Some hymnals still retain the four-line verses, but it seems to me that more these days use eight-line verses, each one combining two of the original verses. The hymn rarely follows Faber's original order either; the combined verses are assembled in many different sequences, not to mention including or leaving out various verses. In fact, Faber's original text began with a verse that is generally omitted these days:

Souls of men! why will ye scatter
Like a crowd of frightened sheep?
Foolish hearts! why will ye wander
From a love so true and deep?

There seems to be no widely accepted tune either, though I admit that my choice, coming from an eighteenth-century German tune book, probably doesn't appear in print anywhere (I like it, though!). You may know the hymn to IN BABILONE or BEECHER (both eight-line tunes) or WELLESLEY (four-line tune by Lizzie Tour­jée), but it has been sung to many over the years, apparently even ERIE (better known as What a friend we have in Jesus -- it fits but I really can't imagine using it here). Searching for a tune I also considered MOUNT OF OLIVES, which is similar to IN BABILONE, but better (less frantic), I think.

One Year Ago: Eliza E. Hewitt

More Voices Found: Lizzie Tour­jée

Lizzie Tourjee was born on September 8, 1858, into a musical family. Her father, Eben Tour­jée, taught music in several places, then in 1867 founded the New England Conservatory of Music. The following tune by Lizzie was composed for a graduation song at her high school in 1874. A few years later her father was working on the committee that produced the Methodist Hymnal of 1878, and he submitted her tune, calling it WELLESLEY after the New England college that Lizzie had attended. The tune became very popular before long, and was used in a great number of hymnals for at least the next 50-60 years, often paired with There's a wideness in God's mercy, but I prefer it with this text, a paraphrase of Psalm 150.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
In the temple God be praised;
In the high and heavenly places
Be the sounding anthem raised.

Hallelujah! Shout your praises
For God's mighty acts of fame;
Excellent God's might and greatness;
Equal praises then proclaim.

Hallelujah! Sing your praises!
With the trumpet’s joyful sound;
Praises give with harp and psaltery,
Let God's glorious praise abound.

Hallelujah! Lift your praises,
With the flute God's praises sing;
Praise God with the clanging cymbals,
Let them with loud praises ring.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
All that breathe, resound God's praise;
Let the voices God has given
Joyful anthems ever raise.

The Psalter, 1912; alt.
Tune: WELLESLEY (8.7.8.7.)
Lizzie Tour­jée, 1874

This tune has grown on me; I didn't always think much of it. The second and fourth lines are better than the slightly frantic first and third. In The Music and Hymnody of the Methodist Hymnal (1911), author Carl Price describes WELLESLEY as "stately," which is not a term I would have chosen. Maybe they played it a lot slower in those days. Still, it's a tune that many have sung over the years and deserves to be remembered, though it doesn't appear in as many hymnals as it used to.

Not much more is known about Tour­jée (no known photograph of her, for example). I've found only one reference to a children's song written by her in a nineteenth-century anthology.

Many psalm paraphrases were written by well-known hymn writers such as Isaac Watts, but most older ones were anonymously written. This one comes mostly from the Presbyterian Psalter of 1912, though it is based on an earlier one.