One Encircling Providence

In many churches, today marks a re-gathering of the community, returning from summer to a new program year for the church, even perhaps a rededication to the mission.  Seems like a good occasion for a "re-run," a hymn about our communities of faith and what we find in them.

O Light, from age to age the same,
Forever living Word,
Here have we felt thy kindling flame,
Thy voice within have heard.
Here holy thought and hymn and prayer
Have winged the Spirit’s powers,
And made these walls divinely fair,
Thy temple, God, and ours.

What visions rise above the years,
What tender memories throng
To fill the eye with happy tears,
The heart with grateful song!
Then vanish mists of time and sense,
They come, the loved of yore,
And one encircling Providence
Holds all forevermore.

O not in vain their toil who wrought
To build faith’s freer shrine;
Nor theirs whose steadfast love and thought
Have watched the fire divine.
Burn, holy Fire, and shine more wide!
While systems rise and fall,
Faith, hope, and charity abide,
The heart and soul of all.

Frederick Lucian Hosmer, 1890; alt.
Tune: ST. MATTHEW (C.M.D.)
William Croft, 1708

You can read more about this hymn and its author from October 16, 2008. 

Today is also the fifteenth anniversary of the largest terrorist attack on the United States, known simply by the date: September 11.  Many hymn texts have been written in response, and several have been gathered by the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, which you can request through the Hymns in Time of Crisis page of their website (scroll down to Violence: Acts of Terrorism, Overcoming Despair).  More readily available online are three hymn texts on the topic (linked here) written by Presbyterian pastor Carolyn Winfrey Gillette, whose ministry in providing comforting hymns for difficult times we have covered before.

Seven Years Ago: Harry Thacker Burleigh

Maria Weston Chapman

Maria Weston Chapman (July 25, 1806 - July 12, 1885) was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, the oldest of eight children.  When she was in her teens, a wealthy uncle took her to England to complete her education, and upon returning to Boston she became the principal of the Young Ladies' High School, a new progressive school.

In 1830 she married Henry Grafton Chapman, a prominent abolitionist. Maria also joined the abolition movement, and in 1833 she was a founding member of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society with eleven other women (including two of her sisters).

Maria gradually grew more and more committed to the cause, particularly after she got to know William Lloyd Garrison, perhaps the best-known abolitionist in the country.  She became Garrison's assistant, helping him to run the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and she also edited The Liberator, the weekly abolitionist newspaper he published. She avoided public speaking, and worked behind the scenes, organizing fundraisers and eventually writing her own material for the cause.

In 1836 she compiled, contributed to, and published Songs of the Free, and Hymns of Christian Freedom, which may have been the first songbook of the abolition movement.  In the introduction to the collection, Chapman writes that those who were working for the end of slavery felt the need for "...the encouragement, consolation, and strength afforded by poetry and music." There were new hymn texts by people in her circle, including Garrison, her sisters, and other prominent women writers such as Eliza Follen and Lydia Sigourney, and she interspersed these among hymns by prominent hymnwriters such as Watts, Wesley, James Montgomery, Reginald Heber, and Anna Laetitia Barbauld. Those older hymns had not been expressly written against slavery, but Chapman chose texts that included the same themes of justice and freedom that her contemporaries were using.  She also included other poetry that was not written for singing (that is, in regular meters).

Today's hymn is one of those written by Chapman.

O God of Freedom, bless this night
The steadfast hearts that toil as one,
Till thy sure law of truth and right
Alike in heav'n and earth be done.

A piercing voice of grief and wrong
Goes upward from the groaning earth!
Oh true and holy Lord! how long?
In majesty and might come forth!

Yet, God, rememb'ring mercy too,
Behold th'oppressors in their sin;
Make all their actions just and true,
Renew their wayward hearts within.

From thee let righteous purpose flow,
And find in every heart its home,
Till truth and justice reign below;
On earth thy free dominion come.

Maria Weston Chapman, 1836; alt
Tune: UXBRIDGE (L.M.)
Lowell Mason, 1830

This text was titled Monthly Concert of Prayer for Emancipation, and "this night," as mentioned in the first line of the text, was footnoted "the last Monday night of every month," which was apparently the regular meeting time for Garrison's Society and this may have been emulated in other abolitionist groups.

Songs of the Free contained texts only, no tunes. At the close of the book's introduction, Chapman wrote:

The machinery of metres, names of tunes, numerals, and characters has been omitted, because they are useless to those who are unable to sing, and because the spirit and the understanding are a sufficient directory to those who can.

Song leaders in local abolitionist groups were free to choose whichever tunes they wanted, and likely chose familiar tunes that most people would know (such as the tunes of Bostonian Lowell Mason, which quickly spread within a few years of publication).



Eight Years Ago: Saint James

Through Jordan's Flood Was Led

The season of Epiphany continues this week with the story of John baptizing Jesus in the Jordan River from Mark 1:4-11, depicted here in a woodcut illustration by Gustave Dore. This particular hymn draws a bit more from the same story in Matthew 3: 13-16.

The author of the text is unknown, but it first appeared in the Christian Hymn Book of 1865. It may have been some sort of joint editorial concoction, or a particular editor who didn't want his contribution credited (I've been there).

"I come," the great Redeemer cries,
"To do thy will, O Lord!"
At Jordan's stream, behold! he seals
The sure prophetic word.

"Thus it becomes us to fulfill
All righteousness," he said.
Then, faithful unto God's commands,
Through Jordan's flood was led.

Hark, a glad voice! God kindly speaks
From heaven's exalted height:
"This is my Child, my well-beloved
In whom I take delight."

The Savior Jesus, well-beloved,
That Name we will profess;
Like Christ, desirous to fulfill
God's will in righteousness.

Christian Hymn Book, 1865; alt.
Tune: ST. ANNE (C.M.)
William Croft, 1708

William Croft

Composer William Croft was baptized on this date in 1678 (his birthdate went unrecorded) in Warwickshire. Like John Goss of a few days ago, he was a boy chorister at the Chapel Royal and continued on after his voice broke, studying composition with John Blow and later assuming Blow's organist position at Westminster Abbey in 1708, as Goss did from Thomas Attwood.

Many of Croft's choral compositions were published in a collection called Musica Sacra (1724), including a Burial Service that is still used at state funerals in Great Britain, most recently for Princess Diana in 1997 and the Queen Mother in 2002.

Croft's hymn tunes were used widely and have appeared in most hymnals up to the present day. His most popular remains ST. ANNE, particularly after it became inextricably linked with Isaac Watts' text O God our help in ages past. Here on the blog we have also heard his ST. MATTHEW. Modern scholarship now doubts whether Croft wrote all of the tunes attributed to him, including this familiar one, but I think his name will remain linked with them.

O worship our God, all glorious above,
And publish abroad God's power and God's love;
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.

O tell of God's might, O sing of God's grace,
Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space,
Whose chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,
And dark is whose path on the wings of the storm.

The earth with its store of wonders untold,
Almighty, thy power hath founded of old;
Hath 'stablished it fast by a changeless decree,
And round it hath cast, like a mantle, the sea.

Thy bountiful care, what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air, it shines in the light;
It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,
And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.

Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
In thee do we trust, nor find thee to fail;
Thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end,
Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend.

Robert Grant, 1833; alt.
Tune: HANOVER (10.10.11.11.)
William Croft, 1708

Unlike many English hymnwriters, who either come from the clergy or from clerical families, Sir Robert Grant was a lawyer and politician who was for a time the governor of Bombay. After his death, twelve of his verses were collected by his brother, published as Sacred Poems, and including this, his most familiar hymn, a paraphrase of Psalm 104. There is a sixth verse, often left out of modern hymnals (and generally altered even when printed).

O measureless might! Ineffable love!
While angels delight to hymn thee above,
Thy humbler creation, though feeble their lays,
With true adoration shall lisp to thy praise.

Frederick Lucian Hosmer

Frederick Lucian Hosmer (October 16, 1840 - June 7, 1929) was another Unitarian clergyperson and hymnwriter whose hymns are still sung today across many denominations.

He graduated first from Harvard University, then from Harvard Divinity School in 1869 and pastored churches in Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and California. He was involved with two important hymnbooks: Unity Hymns and Chorals, which he co-edited with William Channing Gannett, first appeared in 1880 and was followed by The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems in 1885. Both of these books were updated in a number of subsequent editions, so that his later hymns (as well as other more recent texts by others) could be included.

In the early years of the twentieth century, noted hymnographer John Julian wrote "Amongst Unitarian hymn writers of the last twenty years Mr. Hosmer is the most powerful and original known to us." Hosmer was also an authority on hymnody, and was asked to present a series of lectures on the subject at Harvard in 1903.

The following hymn was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the Second Congregational Church in Quincy, IL (where Hosmer had been pastor from 1872 - 77).

O Light, from age to age the same,
Forever living Word,
Here have we felt thy kindling flame,
Thy voice within have heard.
Here holy thought and hymn and prayer
Have winged the Spirit’s powers,
And made these walls divinely fair,
Thy temple, God, and ours.

What visions rise above the years,
What tender memories throng
To fill the eye with happy tears,
The heart with grateful song!
Then vanish mists of time and sense,
They come, the loved of yore,
And one encircling Providence
Holds all forevermore.

O not in vain their toil who wrought
To build faith’s freer shrine;
Nor theirs whose steadfast love and thought
Have watched the fire divine.
Burn, holy Fire, and shine more wide!
While systems rise and fall,
Faith, hope, and charity abide,
The heart and soul of all.

Frederick Lucian Hosmer, 1890; alt.
Tune: ST. MATTHEW (C.M.D.)
William Croft, 1708

Burn, Holy Fire! (from the last verse) is the title of a book by Jeremy Goring (2003). Goring writes:

"...Hosmer was referring to the Pentecostal fire of the Spirit. He believed that throughout history the upholders of religious "systems" had often sought to quench this fire. Standing as he did in the tradition of the New England Transcendentalists -- Emerson, Thoreau, Longfellow -- he was convinced that in due course all such systems, having outlived their usefulness, would disappear."

Many of Hosmer's other hymns were written on similar themes, foretelling the coming of the promised reign of God, beyond doctrine and denomination.

Isaac Watts

Today is the birthday of Isaac Watts, often called the Father of English Hymnody. Anyone out there reading this blog undoubtedly knows a number of hymns by Watts, maybe without realizing it, because many of them are still sung today and I think it's a rare hymnal that contains no Watts hymns. Cyberhymnal.org lists nearly 700, and most accounts say that there were about fifty more that he wrote.

Watts showed a talent for poetry at an early age and was challenged by his father to write hymn texts. I'm still travelling this week without a lot of time to blog, but I encourage you to read the biographical material at the links above, since Watts is still so very important to our modern understanding and love of hymns. Too important to skip his birthday!

It's hard to say which one is the most familiar, but I'm choosing this one for today, which has to be right up there at the top.

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.

Under the shadow of thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.

Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting thou art God,
To endless years the same.

A thousand ages in thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

Time, like an ever rolling stream,
Bears all of us away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.

Isaac Watts, 1719
Tune: ST. ANNE (C.M.)
William Croft, 1708

This paraphrase of Psalm 90 has had a number of small alterations over the years across the hundreds of hymnals that have published it. Some use Watts' original Our God, our help in ages past, but many have altered it as above. For me, God is bigger than just "ours."

A birthday this important deserves two hymns. The most significant thing about Watts, and why he received the "Father of English Hymnody" title, is that he published and popularized hymns that were not simply transcriptions of the Psalms and other passages from Scripture. Others took up this method of hymnwriting and it eventually overtook the previous one; there are many many more of these kind of hymns than the Scripture paraphrases. Here's one that is not as well known, but I always like hymns that use garden imagery and the people of God as plants tended by a loving gardener.



We are a garden walled around,
Chosen and made peculiar ground;
A little spot enclosed by grace
Out of the world's wide wilderness.

Like trees of myrrh and spice we stand,
Planted by God's almighty hand;
And all the springs in Zion flow,
To make the young plantation grow.

Awake, O, heav'nly wind! and come,
Blow on this garden of perfume;
Spirit divine! descend and breathe
A gracious gale on plants beneath.

Make our best spices flow abroad,
To entertain our Savior God
And faith, and love, and joy appear,
And every grace be active here.

Isaac Watts, c. 1708; alt.
Tune: DAS NEUGEBORNE KINDELEIN (L.M.)
Melchior Vulpius, 1609; harm. J.S. Bach, 1724


So how many of the 700 listed at the above link do you know?