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

Samuel Longfellow

Unitarian minister, hymnwriter and editor Samuel Longfellow (June 18, 1819 - October 3, 1892) was born in Portland, Maine, the younger brother of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

His first major hymnological undertaking was while he was still a student at Harvard Divinity School, when he and his friend Samuel Johnson compiled a new hymnal for Unitarian churches, A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion (1844). The book was successful, selling out and requiring a second edition two years later, which they revised and updated. Several years later the two collaborated again, publishing Hymns of the Spirit (1864), much of which they edited while on an extended European vacation.

These two books were criticized for the liberties which Longfellow and Johnson took with the hymn texts they included. They drew their material from a wide variety of sources, including the hymnals of several different denominations, and were not hesitant to alter the texts to conform to Unitarian beliefs. Longfellow explained their reasons to another Unitarian minister in a letter not long before his death.

It is the principle of adaptation to a special use which is the only justification of changes in hymns that I can offer. It is a question of using or not using which makes it needful to change (1) some verses originally written not as hymns, yet which one wants to use as such; (2) some hymns written by persons of different beliefs from those who are to use the hymn-book, phrases in which could not be conscientiously said or sing by the latter, yet which from their general value of strength, fervor, or tendeness could ill be spared. If I had been making a collection of hymns or religious poetry for private reading, I should not have altered a single word.

Nothing here is particularly unusual; as I have said many times, hymnal editors have always done this, long before Johnson and Longfellow, and right up to the present day. However, they were particularly known in their own day for their editorial changes. The sister of one of their friends, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, wrote the following limerick:

There once were two Sams of Amerique
Who belonged to a profession called clerique.
They hunted up hymns and cut off their limbs,
These truculent Sams of Amerique.

Of course, the hymns that the two men wrote themselves did not have to be altered, though sometimes they were altered when included in later hymnals edited by others (no one gets a pass). This hymn of Longfellow's has appeared in at least a hundred collections, according to Hymnary.org.

God of the earth, the sky, the sea!
Maker of all above, below!
Creation lives and moves in thee,
Thy present life in all doth flow.

Thy love is in the sunshine's glow,
Thy life is in the quickening air;
When lightnings flash and storm winds blow,
There is thy power; thy law is there.

We feel thy calm at evening's hour,
Thy grandeur in the march of night;
And when the morning breaks in pow'r,
We hear thy Word, “Let there be light.”

But higher far, and far more clear,
Thee in our spirits we behold;
Thine image and thyself are there,
Indwelling God, proclaimed of old.

Samuel Longfellow, 1864
Tune: DUKE STREET (L.M.)
John Hatton, 1793

Longfellow's collected texts were published after his death as Hymns and Verses (1894), edited by his niece, Alice Longfellow. They continue to appear in hymnals today, and not just Unitarian ones. I have presented a number of others over the last few years on other dates than his birthday, which you can find by clicking his tag/label below.

There is a fairly recent Longfellow biography, The Quiet Radical (2007) by Joseph C. Abdo which I have not yet read but hope to soon. And tomorrow, at least one of Longfellow's hymns will be sung in this hymn festival in California, though I have not heard which one yet.


Three Years Ago: Samuel Longfellow

Two Years Ago: Samuel Longfellow

Samuel Longfellow

Samuel Longfellow (born June 18, 1819) was the younger brother of famed American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Samuel's fame was and still is less broad than his brother's, but many of his hymns are as good as any that we sing today.

While still a student at Harvard Divinity School, he and his particular friend, classmate Samuel Johnson, compiled and published the Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion, which was used by many liberal churches of the era and went through several editions. Noted Unitarian minister Theodore Parker teasingly referred to it as the Book of Sams. Longfellow and Johnson had gone outside the usual scope of material considered for hymnals and included contemporary poets such as John Greenleaf Whittier and Oliver Wendell Holmes, adapting their verse into hymns.

Following his ordination in the Unitarian church, Longfellow served congregations in Fall River MA and Brooklyn NY (where he met Walt Whitman). He supported abolition, women's suffrage, and was an avowed pacifist. His sermons were described as "serene contemplations, not white and cold, but glowing with interior and suppressed radiance." In 1864, he and Johnson collaborated on another hymnal, Hymns of the Spirit, which contained many of their own hymns. This new book reflected their personal spiritual views as had the previous collection, but in the intervening years their positions had become even more liberal. They were theists and refused to include any texts regarding the divinity of Christ. The hymns under the heading "Christianity" in Hymns of the Spirit only numbered seventeen (out of 717) and there were no communion hymns. The new hymnal was not as successful as their first had been, and might be little more than a footnote today if its name had not been re-used for a combined Unitarian-Universalist hymnal in the 1930s.

But, as Louis Benson writes in Studies of Familiar Hymns (1903):

"There are, no doubt, hymns written by Dr. Holmes, Mr. Longfellow, and other "liberals" which contain their peculiar personal beliefs, some that even sound a note of protest against other peoples' beliefs; and those are passed by, as a matter of course, by churches which profess the Orthodox faith. But the fact of their writing such sectarian hymns does not spoil the quality of such of their hymns as are not sectarian, but are simply religious. Is it not properly a matter of rejoicing that there are so many hymns that religious people of all shades of belief can agree to love and to sing?"

As you may be able to tell, I like Longfellow's hymns. It was actually a challenge to pick just one to present today, so I settled on this one which was reportedly his own favorite, and one that I have known and sung for many years, long before I knew who Samuel Longfellow was.

I look to thee in every need,
And never look in vain;
I feel thy strong and tender love,
And all is well again.
The thought of thee is mightier far
Than sin and pain and sorrow are.

Discouraged in the work of life,
Disheartened by its load,
Shamed by its failures or its fears,
I sink beside the road.
But let me only think of thee
And then new heart springs up in me.

Thy calmness bends serene above,
My restlessness to still;
Around me flows thy quickening life,
To nerve my faltering will.
Thy presence fills my solitude,
Thy providence turns all to good.

Enfolded deep in thy dear love,
Held in thy law, I stand;
Thy hand in all things I behold,
And all things in thy hand.
Thou leadest me by unsought ways,
And turn'st my mourning into praise.

Samuel Longfellow, 1864
Tune: O JESU (8.6.8.6.8.8.)
Evangelisches Gesangbuch, 1741

Now, though never stated, Longfellow was obviously addressing God in this hymn. But I have to wonder whether a later editor chose this particular tune to subtly suggest that Jesus was not altogether absent. Nowadays people don't pay much attention to tune names but I'm not sure that was always true. Longfellow and Johnson had not matched tunes to texts in Hymns of the Spirit - it was a text-only hymnal - and so someone else got to pick an "appropriate" tune when they included it in another hymnal some time later.

Longfellow left his Brooklyn church when he felt that his views were becoming too controversial. It was several years until he led another congregation, in Germantown PA. He continued to write hymns that were published in various places. Following Samuel Johnson's death in 1882, Longfellow edited a collected edition of Johnson's works and added his own biographical memoir of his lifelong friend.

You may guess that you'll be seeing more hymns by Samuel Longfellow as time goes on. Correct. "Is it not properly a matter of rejoicing that there are so many hymns that religious people of all shades of belief can agree to love and to sing?"

Samuel Longfellow

Poet and hymnist Samuel Longlellow was born today in 1819, in Portland, Maine.He attended the Portland Academy, following his elder brother Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and apparently showed a talent for literary writing from a fairly young age.
 I have already recounted his days at Harvard Divinity School, where, with his classmate Samuel Johnson he compiled the Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion (1844).  In this book, as well as another they worked on later, Hymns of the Spirit (1864), several hymns we know today appeared for the first time, both those of Longfellow and Johnson, as well as some taken from the poetry of others that had not been originally conceived for congregational singing.

Longfellow's birthday does not quite fall during summer's official dates, but the weather is generally here by the eighteenth of June.

The summer days are come again;
Once more the glad earth yields
Its golden wealth of ripening grain,
And breadth of clover fields,
And deepening shade of summer woods,
And glow of summer air,
And winging thoughts, and happy moods
Of love and joy and prayer.

The summer days are come again;
The birds are on the wing;
God’s praises, in their loving strain,
Unconsciously they sing.
We know who gives us all the good
That makes our cup o’erflow;
For summer joy in field and wood
Songs lift from all below.

Samuel Longfellow, 1859; alt.
Tune: FOREST GREEN (8.6.8.6.D.)
Traditional English melody;
arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906

After living in various parts of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, Longfellow died in the city of his birth, while on a visit back to Portland on October 3, 1892.

Longfellow remains one of my own favorite hymnwriters, and many of his texts have appeared on the blog, not just on his birthday.  You can click on the tag at the very bottom for more beyond the birthday links.

Five Years Ago: Samuel Longfellow

Four Years Ago: Samuel Longfellow

Two Years Ago: Samuel Longfellow

In the Desert Ways I Sing

It's the Third Sunday after Pentecost, and we are well into the part of the church year called ordinary time. This will go on for quite a while, until we get around again to the First Sunday in Advent, and there are not many Sundays between now and then that have any particular commemorations. So, as in previous years I have picked a few themes for our Sunday hymns in these "ordinary" Sundays.

The first, always appropriate for the post-Pentecost season, will be hymns of the Holy Spirit. And yes, I used this theme two summers ago, but I am sure we won't run out of good hymns; honestly, the Holy Spirit doesn't get much play in many churches during the rest of the church year, which is mostly constructed around the life of Jesus.

Holy Spirit, Truth divine,

Dawn upon this soul of mine;
Word of God and inward Light
Wake my spirit, clear my sight.

Holy Spirit, Love divine,
Glow within this heart of mine;
Kindle every high desire;
Perish sin in your pure fire.

Holy Spirit, Power divine
Fill and nerve this will of mine;
Grant that I may strongly live,
Bravely bear, and nobly strive.

Holy Spirit, Joy divine,
Gladden now this heart of mine;
In the desert ways I sing,
“Spring, O Well, forever spring.”

Holy Spirit, Peace divine,
Still this restless heart of mine;
Speak to calm this tossing sea,
Stayed in your tranquility.

Holy Spirit, Right divine,
Now within my conscience reign;
Be my Law, and I shall be
Firmly bound, forever free.

Samuel Longfellow, 1864; alt.
Tune: CANTERBURY (7.7.7.7.)
Orlando Gibbons, 1623

This hymn has appeared in many different denominational hymnals regardless of the fact that its author, Samuel Longfellow, was a Unitarian. Some hymnals have attributed it as a collaboration between the American Longfellow and Andrew Reed of England, who wrote a similar hymn in 1817 called Holy Ghost, with light divine, and some have even claimed that Longfellow simply rewrote Reed's text for inclusion in Hymns of the Spirit (1864), one of the hymnals Longfellow edited. Longfellow's niece Alice addressed this in the preface to her uncle's collected Hymns and Verses (1897) which she published after his death: The hymn bears some resemblance to one by Andrew Reed, but after careful investigation they appear to be quite distinct.

There's also another Holy Ghost, with light divine written by Rowland Hill in 1783, and I think Reed's text is closer to Hill's than to Longfellow's. I also think it likely that Longfellow knew of one (if not both) of these earlier texts and chose to write his own version of a hymn that would call upon the different aspects of the Holy Spirit; more than that he did not take from either Hill or Reed. When we used this in our hymnal project, we did rearrange a few stanzas, feeling that Firmly bound, forever free was the best closing line for the text as a whole (Longfellow's final line was Spring, O Well, forever spring, certainly not a bad choice either).

P.S. I chose a text by Longfellow on purpose today, even though his birthday is coming up later this week. This afternoon, at a hymn festival in Berkeley, California, he will be presented to many people in a somewhat new light, and they will be singing this hymn of his.

Samuel Longfellow

We already marked the birthday of Samuel Longfellow last year, but there's plenty of good material yet to be seen.

Today's hymn was written when Longfellow was living in Brooklyn NY, leading the Second Unitarian Church there. He preached for the newly formed congregation in early 1853, but felt that his close friend Samuel Johnson would be better suited for the job. Johnson, however, told the group that they should hire Longfellow, which they did. He began as their first full-time minister in April. The New York Times noted that the congregation was already using the Book of Hymns (1846) that Longfellow and Johnson had compiled while they were at Harvard Divinity School.

Longfellow was successful in Brooklyn, and by 1858 the church was able to build a new building that would seat six hundred. He began holding evening vesper services, a first for Unitarians, and in 1859 brought out a book called Vespers, According to the Use at the New Chapel, Brooklyn, which contained an order of service, and hymns and other service selections he had written. This hymn was Number III, titled Creator alme siderum, though it is not a translation of that older Latin hymn.

Now, on land and sea descending,
Brings the night its peace profound;
Let our vesper hymn be blending
With the holy calm around.
Jubilate! Jubilate! Jubilate! Amen!
Let our vesper hymn be blending
With the holy calm around.

Soon as dies the sunset glory,
Stars of heav'n shine out above,
Telling still the ancient story,
Their Creator's changeless love.
Jubilate! Jubilate! Jubilate! Amen!
Telling still the ancient story,
Their Creator's changeless love.

Now, our wants and burdens leaving
To God's care who cares for all,
Cease we fearing, cease we grieving;
Touched by God our burdens fall.
Jubilate! Jubilate! Jubilate! Amen!
Cease we fearing, cease we grieving;
Touched by God our burdens fall.

As the darkness deepens o'er us,
Lo! eternal stars arise;
Hope and faith and love rise glorious,
Shining in the Spirit's skies.
Jubilate! Jubilate! Jubilate! Amen!
Hope and faith and love rise glorious,
Shining in the Spirit's skies.

Samuel Longfellow, 1859; alt.
Tune: VESPER HYMN (8.7.8.7.D.)
Russian melody; arr. John Stevenson, 1818

This hymn was originally in two verses of eight lines, which included only the first four lines of each verse as seen here. On the same page of Longfellow's Vespers was another evening hymn which included the "Jubilate! Amen!" phrase, so it looks as if the later, unknown editor who matched this text to this tune noticed that and added it to this hymn, with a repeat of the last two lines of each verse, so that it would fit this tune.

The tune is often attributed to Russian composer Dmitri Bortnianski, but apparently without much, if any, verification. What's definite is that it appeared in a collection edited by John Stevenson, A Selection of Popular National Airs (1818). I was surprised recently to hear the tune while listening to an opera by Virgil Thomson, Lord Byron, where it is sung to the words of a different hymn, Savior, breathe an evening blessing.

Longfellow left the Second Unitarian Church in 1860 (his final sermon used a text from Deuteronomy 15:1 "At the end of seven years there shall be a release."), and the congregation lasted for nearly a hundred years more. The "New Chapel" (or, the "Church of the Holy Turtle" as it was sometimes called because of its unusual domed roof) was demolished in 1962, replaced a few years later by Cobble Hill Park.

Samuel Johnson

The Samuel Johnson we are talking about today (October 10, 1822 - February 19, 1882) was a New England clergyman and hymnist who collaborated with Samuel Longfellow on two hymnals in the nineteenth century that were influential beyond their actual use in churches of the day. I say this because most internet searches you might make will turn up a more famous Samuel Johnson, the prolific English writer (in fact, Wikipedia erroneously links this Johnson to our Longfellow).

Our Johnson was a student at Harvard Divinity School when he met Longfellow. As told by Longfellow, one of their fellow students, who had graduated and was pastoring a nearby congregation, complained to the two that his new church used "...a very antiquated and unsatisfactory hymn-book. So we told him one day that we would make a new one for his use." This was A Book of Hymns for Pub­lic and Pri­vate De­vo­tion, published in 1846.

Johnson graduated from HDS in July of that year and began preaching in various Boston and Cambridge churches. For over a year he was associated with a Unitarian congregation at Harrison Square, but some thought that he tended to bring political ideas into the pulpit. In a letter from Johnson to the Church Committee, he writes:

Gentlemen, I have received your note of January 8, in which you request me not to introduce any political subject into my discourses next Sunday. [...] It was not my intention to preach on the application of Christianity to any special political subject, but I reserve the right to do so, on all occasions. I do not wish, while preaching at the invitation of your committee, to interfere with your express request, and you will therefore not be surprised that I request you to make some other arrangement for the supply of your pulpit next Sunday.

Eventually, Johnson settled at a Free Church (determinedly outside any denomination) in Lynn, a town north of Boston, and pastored there for nearly twenty years. In a memoir published after Johnson's death, Longfellow writes of his theology:

The inward call to preach, and the outward call of those who wished to hear, were to him sufficient seal of the ministry of religion to which he had devoted himself. Nor did he ever "administer the sacraments." The religion that he preached was natural religion {...}. It was simply another name for truth, freedom, piety, righteousness, love, as it might be given to him to see their various aspects and their applications to present needs.

While on a year-long trip to Europe in 1860, during a particularly rainy stretch in Nice, Johnson and Longfellow began work on their second hymnal, Hymns of the Spirit, which was published in 1864. This hymnal was considered more radical as it was less inclined toward hymns specifically related to Jesus. It was not widely used by congregations, but it was respected, and many of the hymns by Johnson, Longfellow, and the authors they published migrated to later hymnals and are still sung today.

In the following hymn, written for the dedication of a new chapel for the Lynn Free Church, Johnson expresses both his wariness of sacraments and his desire that the church be relevant to the present time.

To Light, that shines in stars and souls;

To Law, that rounds the world with calm;
To Love, whose equal triumph rolls

Through martyr's prayer and angel's psalm --

May purer sacrament be here

Than ever dwelt in rite or creed,

Hallowed the hour with vow sincere

To serve the time's all-pressing need.

Here be the wanderer homeward led,

Here living streams in fulness flow,

And every hungering soul be fed,

That yearns the eternal will to know.

Speak, Living God, your full command

Through prayer of faith and word of power

That we with earnest hearts may stand
To do your work and wait your hour.

Samuel Johnson, 1864; alt.

Tune: ANTWERP (L.M.)

William Smallwood, 19th c.

The two men were often criticized for altering the words in the hymn texts of other writers when they included them in their hymnals. They believed that the theology expressed in hymns should be specifically tailored for the congregations that would be singing them, but they did not want to reject the great wrters of the past. They were doing what hymnal editors had always done and still always do, but they may have been a bit more industrious at it.

Toward the end of his life, Johnson found that his hymn Father, in thy mysterious presence kneeling had been published in a new hymnal, and the first word had been changed to Savior (thus substituting Christ for God). He wrote to Longfellow, seemingly unaware of the irony, "I have written calmly to the reverend Dr. who compiles the Presbyterian Hymn-book for putting a radical of thirty years into the ranks of pronounced Orthodoxy."

P.S. We have already seen another hymn of Johnson's a few weeks ago.

Paul Gerhardt

Lutheran pastor and hymnwriter Paul Gerhardt was born today in 1607 near Wittenburg in Germany. He enrolled in the university there in 1628, where one of his most influential instructors, Paul Röber, often used hymns as sermon texts and encouraged their instructional use.

At this time, the destructive Thirty Years War was raging in Germany (it's estimated that the population of Germany declined by thirty percent during those years) and due to its disruption Gerhardt was not ordained and assigned to a parish until 1651, when he settled in Mittenwalde, southeast of Berlin.

Gerhardt could not avoid the religious conflict between the Lutherans and the Reformed Church, which eventually led to his losing his position since the secular authorities supported the other side. Ironically, by that time his hymns were already sung and loved by both the Lutheran and the Reformed sides.

After his death, his hymns were published in a collected edition edited by his son, and a collection translated into English by John Kelly, Spiritual Songs of Paul Gerhardt, appeared in 1867, though many of his texts had previously been translated by various poets.

This text, O du allersüsste Freude, comes to us through a translation by John Christian Jacobi which was then adapted by Samuel Longfellow in the Unitarian Book of Hymns (1848).

Holy Spirit, source of gladness,

Come in all your radiance bright;

O’er our weariness and sadness

Breathe your life and shed your light!

Send us your illumination,

Banish all our fears at length;

Rest upon this congregation,

Spirit of unfailing strength.

Let that love which knows no measure,

Now in quickening showers descend,

Bringing us the richest treasures

We can wish or God can send.

Hear our earnest supplication,

Every struggling heart release;

Rest upon this congregation,

Spirit of untroubled peace!

Paul Gerhardt, 1648;

tr. John C. Jacobi, c.1725;

adapt. Samuel Longfellow, 1848; alt.

Tune: SHIPSTON (8.7.8.7.)

Traditional English melody,

arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906

The chaotic times that Gerhardt lived through, as well as the disruption of his professional life and the deaths of his wife and four of five children, led him to be described as a "theologian sifted in Satan's sieve," an inscription written on a full-length portrait painted after his death in the church at Lübben.

Three Years Ago: Gregory the Great

Two Years Ago: Paul Gerhardt

One Year Ago: Robert Lowry

William Channing Gannett

The poet and minister William Channing Gannett (March 13, 1840 - July 25, 1923) was named for William Ellery Channing, one of the foremost Unitarian theologians of the day, who was Gannett's godfather and also conducted the christening. His father, Ezra Stiles Gannett, was also a prominent Unitarian minister in Boston, one of the founders of the American Unitarian Association and later its president.

The younger Gannett followed his father by graduating from Harvard in 1860. He was not sure that he was suited for the ministry, but he entered Harvard Divinity School. He left during his first year to go to South Carolina to work with a group of freed slaves. He spent the years of the Civil War there in the south, where he organized a school and helped that community gain a measure of self-sufficiency, something that many people in South Carolina had little interest in supporting.

When he returned to Boston he eventually finished his studies at the Divinity School and was ordained in 1868. In 1875 he published a biography of his father, who had died four years earlier. He also began a long collaboration with Frederick Lucian Hosmer, and together they compiled Unity Hymns and Chorals (1880) and The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems (1885). Both books went through several editions and were very influential in Unitarian hymnody.

Samuel Atkins Elliot, a later president of the American Unitarian Association, wrote in Heralds of a Liberal Faith (1901) regarding their first hymnal:

...in which, after the manner of Samuel Longfellow (and Samuel Johnson - CWS), they adapted and rewrote orthodox hymns and lay poems for the liberal churches, thereby offending some who believed in sticking to the original texts.

Gannett and Hosmer wrote their own texts to their specifications, of course, so they did not have to be altered (though later generations have followed in their footsteps and done so). Gannett showed a particular affinity for the transcendentalist ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson, especially in the concept that God's presence can be seen and felt in the wonders of nature. You can see this in the two hymns of his that I've already written about: Bring, O morn, thy music and Praise to the Living God, as well as in this hymn for today.

You hide within the lily,
A strong and tender Care
That wins the earthborn atoms
To glory of the air;
You weave their shining garments
Unceasingly and still,
Along the quiet waters,
In grasses down each hill.

We linger there in vigil
With Christ, who bent the knee
To watch the ancient lilies
In distant Galilee;
And still our worship deepens
And quickens into new,
And bright'ning down the ages
Your secret thrills us through.

Creator of the lily,
With you the heart e'er sings;
No leaf that dawns to petal
But hints of angel wings.
The flower horizons open,
The blossom vaster shows;
We hear your wide worlds echo,
“See how the lily grows.”

The yearnings of the nations,
Unfolding, thought by thought,
To holier lives are lifted,
To futures clear are wrought:
May all advance in justice,
While evils fade and fall,
Till chaos blooms to beauty,
Your purpose crowning all.

William Channing Gannett, 1873; alt.
Tune: MEIRIONYDD (7.6.7.6.D.)
William F. Lloyd, 1840

This text is taken largely from a website called Hymns of the Spirit Three, which modernizes and inclusifies the public domain texts from Hymns of the Spirit (1937), a popular Unitarian hymnal of the last century, which in turn was named for the 1864 hymnal compiled by Longfellow and Johnson. I admit that I've done a bit of further revision (it's hard to resist once you've been doing this for a while).

John White Chadwick

John White Chadwick, born today in 1840, was a Unitarian theologian and author. He grew up in a seafaring family in Marblehead, Massachusetts working in a dry goods store and also learning the shoemaking trade. Money was raised for his education, and he attended the Bridgewater Normal School and the Phillips Exeter Academy. While at school, he read a sermon by Samuel Longfellow, which he later credited with inspiring him to become a minister. He was admitted to Harvard Divinity School and graduated in 1864, despite not having attended college.

This hymn was written for that graduating class of 1864. The Civil War was still in progress, and it is assumed that this text (particularly the third stanza) was influenced by the conflict. For whatever reason it was not included in the last two Unitarian hymnals of 1964 and 1993 (nor were any of Chadwick's other hymns) but it is in the Episcopal Hymnal 1982 as well as others).

Eternal Ruler of the ceaseless round
Of circling planets singing on their way,
Guide of thy people from the depths profound
Into the glory of the perfect day,
Rule in our hearts, that we may ever be
Guided and strengthened and upheld by thee.

We would be one in hatred of all wrong,
One in our love of all things sweet and fair;
One with the joy that breaketh into song,
One with the grief that trembleth into prayer,
One in the power that makes thy children free
To follow truth, and thus to follow thee.

O clothe us with thy heavenly armor, Lord,
Thy trusty shield, the strength of love divine;
Our inspiration be thy constant Word;
We ask no victories that are not thine;
Give or withhold, let pain or pleasure be,
Enough to know that we are serving thee.

John White Chadwick, 1864; alt.
Tune: SONG 1 (10.10.10.10.10.10.)
Orlando Gibbons, 1623

Following his graduation, Chadwick was ordained into the Unitarian ministry at the Second Unitarian Church of Brooklyn, where Samuel Longfellow had recently been the pastor. He remained there until his death in 1904, becoming widely known outside his small congregation for his many published works, including collections of poetry and sermons, biographies (including those of notable Unitarians Theodore Parker and William Ellery Channing) and reviews and articles in several newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times and Harper's (some of those are available online).

Frederick Lucian Hosmer

Unitarian hymnwriter Frederick Lucian Hosmer was born today in 1840. It was during his years at Harvard Divinity School that he met William Channing Gannett, and the two of them remained close friends for the rest of their lives. They worked together on two influential collections, Unity Hymns and Chorals (1880) and The Thought of God In Hymns and Poems (1885) and worked over the years on several updated editions of these books. This collaboration was often compared to that of Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson, lifelong friends who met in seminary and also produced two important hymnbooks for Unitarians and Universalists a generation earlier.

Hosmer's hymns spread to other denominational hymnals, particularly in the early years of the twentieth century after he was praised by John Julian in his monumental Dictionary of Hymnology (1907) and by Percy Dearmer, who used a number of Hosmer's texts in the British Songs of Praise (1925).

One thought I have, my ample creed,
So deep it is and broad,
And equal to my every need—
It is the thought of God.

Each morn unfolds some fresh surprise,
I feast at life’s full board;
And rising in my inner skies
Shines forth the thought of God.

I ask not far before to see,
But take in trust my road;
Life, death, and immortality
Are in my thought of God.

To this their secret strength they owed
The martyr’s path who trod;
The fountains of their patience flowed
From out their thought of God.

Be still the light upon my way,
My pilgrim staff and rod,
My rest by night, my strength by day
O blessèd thought of God.

Frederick L. Hosmer, 1880; alt.
Tune: ROCHESTER (C.M.)
Aaron Williams, 1764

Hosmer successfully pastored Unitarian congregations across the country, and moved to California in 1900, intending to live in retirement. However, he then agreed to serve as the interim minister of the First Unitarian Church of Berkeley, and ended up staying until 1904. During that time he established a strong musical tradition there which is still upheld today. A pipe organ was installed, the organist's salary was competitive, and the choir gained paid section leaders. Following his second retirement he was appointed minister emeritus by the congregation, which paid him a monthly stipend until his death in 1929.


One Year Ago: Frederick Lucian Hosmer

John White Chadwick

Today is the birthday of the poet, critic, and Unitarian minister John White Chadwick (1840-1904).  He graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1864 (and wrote a hymn for the occasion) without having gone to college and was ordained later that year at the Second Unitarian Church of Brooklyn, where he served as pastor for the next forty years. Samuel Longfellow, a former minister of that congregation, participated in the ordination service and urged Chadwick to proclaim "the gospel of the immediateness of the Spirit" in his work there

Chadwick was eager to address the social and scientific advances of his day, and in his preaching, poetry, and other writing he often combined these "outside" concepts with his religious thought. He wrote of his desire "to reconceive the Bible, to reconceive the life and character of Jesus, to reconceive the universe and man and God, not with my own poor strength, but with the help of all the deepest, highest, noblest philosophical and critical and scientific thinking of the time." His sermon to the National Unitarian Conference in 1876 was titled The Essential Piety of Modern Science, and his book The Faith of Reason (1880) encapsulates much of his thought on these themes.

Several of his hymns also include these ideas, even this one for today,  written for an anniversary occasion, where he sets "truth" against the "bounds of sect and bonds of creed."

O God, whose perfect goodness crowns
With peace and joy each sacred day,
Our hearts are glad for all the years
Your love has kept us in your way.

For common tasks of help and cheer,
For quiet hours of thought and prayer,
For moments when we seemed to feel
The breath of a diviner air;

For truth that evermore makes free
From bounds of sect and bonds of creed;
For light that shines that we may see
Our own in every neighbor's need;

For this and more than words can say,
We praise and bless your holy name.
Come life or death, enough to know
That you are evermore the same.

John White Chadwick, 1889; alt.
Tune: WOOLMER'S (L.M.) 
Frederick Arthur Gore Ouseley, 1861




Eight Years Ago: Emily Swan Perkins

Seven Years Ago: Emily Swan Perkins

Seven Years Ago: John White Chadwick

Three Years Ago: Claudia Frances Hernaman

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Today is the 199th birthday of Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809 - 1894), a doctor and Harvard Medical School professor who is better known today for his literary pursuits -- he was a poet, a novelist, and a writer of humorous essays (though he also published medical books as well). He was also a co-founder of the Atlantic Monthly magazine which is still published today. Born into an old New England family, his father was a Congregational minister, and his mother a descendant of poet Anne Bradstreet. His son, Oliver Wendell Jr., became a justice of the United States Supreme Court. The illustration at the left is a memorial postcard issued after his death (click to enlarge) with a quotation from his poem The Voyage of the Good Ship Union.

Holmes also wrote a number of hymns, including this one, which appeared at the end of his book The Professor at the Breakfast Table.

God of all being, throned afar,

Thy glory flames from sun and star;

Center and soul of every sphere,

Yet to each loving heart how near!

Sun of our life, thy quickening ray,

Sheds on our path the glow of day;

Star of our hope, thy softened light

Cheers the long watches of the night.

Lord of all life, below, above,

Thy light is truth, thy warmth is love,

Thy rainbow arch, our covenant sign;

All that illumines earth is thine.

Grant us thy truth to make us free,

And kindling hearts that burn for thee,

Till all thy living altars claim

One holy light, one heavenly flame.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1848; alt.

Tune: MENDON (L.M.)

German melody; arr. Samuel Dyer, 1828

Holmes appears as a character, along with his literary circle of friends from Cambridge, MA (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and J.T. Fields) in the recent popular historical mystery The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl (recommended).

Emma L. Ashford

Eighty years ago today, composer Emma Louise Ashford died in Nashville, Tennessee. As described here two years ago, she had written about 600 works for voice, chorus, or organ. Though I have learned little more about her life, I have dug up some brief nuggets of information about some of her compositions.

She first published many of her anthems in the Choir Leader, which was a long-running monthly magazine put out by Edmund S. Lorenz for small-to-medium church choirs (his company remains in business today). A Palm Sunday anthem, Lift up your heads, is still in print, and was released on a 1960 recording by Mahalia Jackson, You'll Never Walk Alone.

In addition to the two hymn tunes that appeared in the 1905 Methodist Hymnal, I've also found a song called Christmas Bells in Triumphant Songs (1890), as well as two older gospel songs, none listed yet at the Cyber Hymnal. I also discovered a reference to her writing tunes for temperance songs, but thus far none of the temperance hymnals I've looked at has anything by Ashford.

I have already used Ashford's tune EVELYN for a few different texts, so today we have the second one from the Methodist Hymnal. This text is from the Unitarian Hymns of the Spirit (1864) which was compiled by Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson, but its author remains obscure.

In every human mind we see
A temple made for Deity,
And righteous thoughts and acts declare
The Holy Spirit's presence there.

The Living God who Moses saw,
Whose pow'r revealed the ancient law,
Within the reason and the will
Makes known God's truth and goodness still.

In every age the hallowed light
Of revelation shines more bright;
Our creeds, like meteors, rise and fall;
Faith, Hope, and Love survive them all.

T. L. Harris, 19th cent.?; alt.
Tune: SUTHERLAND (L.M.)
Emma L. Ashford, 1905

Two Years Ago: More Voices Found: Emma Ashford