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

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

Good Friday

Beneath the shadow of the cross,
As earthly hopes remove,
A new commandment Jesus gives -- 
The blessed word of love.

O bond of union, strong and deep!
O bond of perfect peace!
Not e'en the lifted cross can harm
If we but hold to this.

Then, Jesus, be thy Spirit ours,
And swift our feet shall move
To deeds that match your sacrifice
And the sweet tasks of love.

Samuel Longfellow, 1848; alt.
Tune: CLAIRVAUX (C.M.)
Herman Adolph Polack, 1910



Three (Liturgical) Years Ago: On a hill far away

Four (Liturgical) Years Ago: Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Five (Liturgical) Years Ago: When I survey the wondrous cross

Six (Liturgical) Years Ago: Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended?

Six (Calendar) Years Ago: The Feast of the Annunciation

Seven (Liturgical) Years Ago: There is a green hill far away

Seven (Calendar) Years Ago: Godfrey Thring

Eight (Calendar) Years Ago: The Feast of the Annunciation

You Give the Winter's Cold

'Tis winter now; the fallen snow
Has left the heavens all coldly clear;
Through leafless boughs the sharp winds blow,
And all the earth lies dead and drear.

And yet God's love is not withdrawn;
God's life within the keen air breathes;
God's beauty paints the crimson dawn,
And clothes each branch with glittering wreaths.

And though abroad the sharp winds blow,
And skies are chill, and frosts are keen,
Home closer draws its circle now,
And warmer glows its light within.

O God, you give the winter's cold,
As well as summer's joyous rays,
You warmly in your love enfold,
And keep us through life's wintry days.

Samuel Longfellow, 1864; alt.
Tune: QUEEN'S CROSS (L.M.)
Kenneth G. Finlay, 1912




Seven Years Ago: Phillips Brooks

Five Years Ago: O star of truth, downshining

Frederick Lucian Hosmer

Unitarian hymn writer and hymnal editor Frederick Lucian Hosmer was born today in 1840, in Framingham, Massachusetts.  In 1872, following graduation from Harvard Divinity School a few years earlier, he was "ordained to a fruitful ministry," as described by the Handbook to The Hymnal (1935 - Presbyterian), serving both Unitarian and Congregational churches in different states.

Writing hymns came later, and he was considered the finest hymn writer of his day (a worthy successor to Samuel Longfellow) among the Unitarians, but several of his texts were taken up by hymnals outside that denomination as well.

In the fourth volume of Heralds of a Liberal Faith (1952), American Unitarian Association president Samuel Atkins Eliot wrote of Hosmer:

...a poet intent on making his hymns as perfect an expression of his thought as possible. He had a wide knowledge of hymnody and sound theories of hymn construction which he expounded in lectures at the Harvard Divinity School in 1908. His hymns are the expression of a cheerful faith and are carefully wrought out in simple and facile forms which do not disclose the labor and care which went into their making.

In today's hymn, Hosmer only wrote the second stanza.  The first had been written nearly a century earlier, by Reginald Heber, and over the years other people have added stanzas of their own.  The stanza by Hosmer was written in 1912, and may have first appeared in The New Hymn and Tune Book (1914), a Unitarian collection that Hosmer had helped compile. 

God that madest earth and heaven,
Darkness and light;
Who the day for toil hast given,
For rest the night;
May thine angel guards defend us,
Slumber sweet thy mercy send us,
Holy dreams and hopes attend us,
This livelong night.

When the constant sun, returning,
Unseals our eyes,
May we, born anew, like morning,
To labor rise.
Gird us for the tasks that call us,
Let not ease and self enthrall us,
Strong through thee, whate'er befall us,
O God most wise.

Reginald Heber, 1827 (st. 1);
Frederick Lucian Hosmer, 1912 (st. 2)
Tune: AR HYD Y NOS (8.4.8.4.8.8.8.4.)
Welsh traditional melody; harm. Luther O. Emerson, 1906

The idea of adding a stanza or two to an existing hymn is not particularly novel and may be done for various reasons, though some consider it unnecessary tinkering with the original author's intent.  In this case I suspect that people just thought that a hymn with a single stanza was too short and was less likely to be sung at all.  Certainly the stanzas added to Mary Lathbury's Break thou the bread of life seem intended to "correct" her original concept of seeking God "beyond the sacred page" (of scripture).  I believe that several hymnal editors before the twentieth century, when scholarship around hymns and their origins became more widespread, often added stanzas to hymns either original or borrowed from other hymns, and since those books often didn't include any credits at all, no one knew the difference.

This continues in more modern times; I am particularly thinking of the stanza added by Georgia Harkness to This is my song, O God of all the nations by Lloyd Stone, found in a number of modern hymnals.  And I've even done it myself a few times, such as this instance seen here a few years back.



Seven Years Ago: Frederick Lucian Hosmer

Six Years Ago: Frederick Lucian Hosmer

Five Years Ago: Frederick Lucian Hosmer

One Year Ago: Frederick Lucian Hosmer

The Feast of Pentecost

Happy Birthday to the Church!  One more Pentecost - a day that I have not yet missed here for the last six years (so there are plenty of hymns to explore again below).  You have to look closely at the picture above to see the tongues of fire on the heads of Mary and the apostles.

Spirit of grace and health and pow'r,
Fountain of life and light below,
On us your healing influence show'r
O'er all the nations let it flow.

Inflame our hearts with perfect love;
In us the work of faith instill;
So not heavn's host shall swifter move
Than we on earth to do your will.

In faith we wait and long and pray
To see that time by prophets told,
When nations, new-born into day,
Shall be ingathered to your fold.

We cannot doubt your gracious will,
O Spirit, merciful and just;
And you will speedily fulfill
The word in which your people trust.

Charles Wesley, 1742; alt.
Tune: HEBRON (L.M.)
Lowell Mason, 1830

This text, which I found in the Mission Hymnal (1929) of the Unitarian Laymen's League, is at least partly taken from Charles Wesley's Son of thy Sire's eternal love,  The text as amended seems to have appeared first in a later edition of A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion, which was originally compiled in 1844 by our old friends Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson, so it's likely that they adapted it from Wesley's original words. 



Six Years Ago: Joy! because the circling year

Five Years Ago:  O prophet souls of all the years

Four Years Ago: Above the starry spheres

Three Years Ago: Hail thee, festival day

Two Years Ago: Hail festal day! through every age

One Year Ago: O God, the Holy Ghost

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

Calvin W. Laufer

Today we celebrate the birthday of Presbyterian minister and hymnologist Calvin Weiss Laufer (April 6, 1874 -September 21, 1938).  I have been reading his book Hymn Lore (1932) which tells the stories of fifty different hymns which he considered significant at that time.  

The introduction of the book, by the Reverend Park Hays Miller, tells a bit more about Laufer's biography than I had encountered previously.

The author of this book has been peculiarly fitted for his take.  At the age of nine he learned to play the reed organ in his home.By the time he was eleven he was organist in his Sunday School.  At twelve he took lessons on the piano, and later on the pipe organ.  During his student days he paid his way by teaching music.  He presided at the organ in the college chapel and was also a church organist.  Later, as a pastor he  gave special attention to the development of music and worship in his church.

Miller goes on to cover the facts of Laufer's career which we have already covered here, including his writing of hymns and composition of hymn tunes, and of course his editorial work for the Presbyterian Board of Christian Education.

Today's tune by Laufer was published in 1918.  It is perhaps a bit too much of its time to be used again in a modern setting, but it's not wholly without merit either.

Eternal One, thou living God,
Whom changing years unchanged reveal,
With thee their way our forebears trod;
The hand they held, in ours we feel.

The same our trust, the same our need,
In sorrow’s stress, in duty’s hour;
We keep their faith, by thee decreed,
That faith the fount of all our power.

We bless thee for the growing light;
Th’advancing thought, the wid’ning view,
The larger freedom, clearer sight,
Which from the old unfolds the new.

With wider view, come loftier goal;
With fuller light, more good to see;
With freedom, truer self control,
With knowledge, deeper reverence be.

Anew we pledge ourselves to thee,
To follow where thy truth shall lead;
Afloat upon its boundless sea,
Who sails with God is safe indeed!

Samuel Longfellow, 1876; alt.
Tune: LITTLEFIELD (L.M.)
Calvin W. Laufer, 1918

Unfortunately, Laufer's work overall has not survived well.  The new Presbyterian hymnal, Glory to God, which will be published later this year, apparently only contains one of his tunes (HALL) and none of his texts.  It was disappointing to hear, a few years back, that the committee producing the new hymnal  had only looked back as far as The Hymnbook, published in the 1950s, for their material.



Three Years Ago: Calvin W. Laufer

Five Years Ago: Calvin W. Laufer

All the Earth Shall Be Made New

In hundreds of churches all over the world, some version of this hymn was sung this morning, but probably not this particular one. Many more sang at least this tune, but with a different (perhaps related) text.

Jesus Christ is ris'n today, Alleluia!

Our triumphant holy day, Alleluia!

Who did once upon the cross, Alleluia!

Suffer to redeem our loss. Alleluia!

Haste, ye seekers from your fright, Alleluia!

Take to Galilee your flight, Alleluia!

To the sad disciples say, Alleluia!

Jesus Christ is ris'n today. Alleluia!

Lo, the earth awakes again, Alleluia!

From the winter's bond and pain, Alleluia!

Bring we leaf and flower and spray, Alleluia!

To adorn this happy day. Alleluia!

Once again the Word comes true, Alleluia!

All the earth shall be made new, Alleluia!

Now the long, cold days are o'er, Alleluia!

Life and gladness are before, Alleluia!

Jesus Christ is ris'n today! Alleluia!

Christ our Light, our Life, our Way, Alleluia!

Who, by dying conquered death. Alleluia!

Ever sing our love and faith! Alleluia!

Text: Composite

Tune: EASTER HYMN (7.7.7.7. with Alleluias)

Lyra Davidica, 1708; arr. William H. Monk, 19th cent.

As I said, there are, and have been many different versions of this text in English over the last three centuries (it originally derives from a Latin text, perhaps from the fourteenth century). The last stanza here comes from a nine-stanza version published in 1800. The third and fourth stanzas are actually taken from a text by the Unitarian Samuel Longfellow. I can't prove this, but it seems possible that it was written so that Unitarians could get to sing this popular tune also (though it may have only been matched to this tune later).

The second stanza no longer appears in many hymnals, but it actually comes from Lyra Davidica (1708 - full title: Lyra Davidica, or a Collection of Divine Songs and Hymns, partly new composed, partly translated from the High German and Latin Hymns; and set to easy and pleasant tunes), the book where three stanzas of the old Latin text were first translated into English. That version reads:

Jesus Christ is risen today, Halle-Halle-lujah.

Our triumphant Holyday

Who so lately on the Cross

Suffer'd to redeem our loss.

Haste, ye females from your fright

Take to Galilee your flight

To the sad Disciples say

Jesus Christ is risen today.

In our Paschal joy and feast

Let the Lord of life be blest

Let the Holy Trine be prais'd

And thankful hearts to Heaven be rais'd.

The third stanza of this version seems unlikely to be revived; particularly the reference to the "Holy Trine" which does not appear to be a usual shortening of "Trinity," but perhaps an alteration to make it fit the meter of the text.

There is a similar hymn by Charles Wesley which is sometimes sung to this tune: Christ the Lord is risen today, which you might have sung today instead (particularly if you're a Methodist). Many hymnals have even combined stanzas from Wesley and the original.

The tune known now as EASTER HYMN, as first printed in Lyra Davidica is not what we sing today. There it was described as "a little freer air than the grand movement of the Psalm tunes." A later arrangement, closer to what we know, appeared in The Compleat Psalmodist (1749), and this version was later harmonized by William H. Monk. In at least one nineteenth century hymnbook, the tune was matched with a very different text by Charles Wesley: Hark, how all the welkin rings, which we know today by a rather different first line. Christmas might feel a bit different today if that had caught on.

P.S. The art above, The Resurrection of Christ and Women at the Tomb is a fresco by Fra Angelico, from the Convent of San Marco in Florence.

Three Years Ago: Christ is risen! Alleluia!

Two Years Ago: The strife is o'er, the battle done

Thoro Harris

Gospel song writer and composer Thoro Harris (March 31, 1874 - March 27, 1955) was born in Washington DC. His father was black and his mother white, and some accounts claim that he "passed as white" in some situations, though it seems that he is generally considered to be an African-American Pentecostal songwriter.

After attending college in Battle Creek, Michigan, he lived in Boston and Chicago, compiling his first hymnbook in 1902 (containing several of his own songs). He wrote both texts and tunes, and sometimes arranged the tunes of other composers. We encountered Harris briefly as the arranger of a song based on Aloha Oe, the best-known melody by the Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani. Several other books under his editorship followed and his songs were widely sung for many years across many denominations, including the hymnals of Bishop Alma White's Pillar of Fire Church. In 1925 he edited The New Hymnal, the first collection for Swedish-American Baptists published in English (and containing 39 of his songs), though he was not a Baptist. The Cyber Hymnal's listing of his works (see the link above) is quite small; you can get a better sense of his large output as listed at The Hymnary site.

In addition to his many gospel songs, Harris also wrote some more "standard" hymn tunes as well, including this one, which may have first appeared in the Free Methodist Hymnal (1910), set to a translated text by Martin Luther, All praise to thee, Eternal Lord, but I think it suits this text as well.

O God, in whom we live and move,
Thy love is law, thy law is love;
Thy present Spirit waits to fill
The soul which comes to do thy will.

Unto thy people’s spirits teach
Thy love, beyond the powers of speech;
And make them know, with joyful awe,
Th'encircling presence of thy law.

Its patient working doth fulfill
Our hopes, and God’s all-perfect will,
Nor suffers one true word or thought,
Or deed of love, to come to naught.

Such faith, O God, our spirits fill,
That we may work in patience still.
Who works for justice, works for thee;
Who works in love, thy child shall be.

Samuel Longfellow, 1864
Tune: PERRY STREET (L.M.)
Thoro Harris, c. 1910

There is a Perry Street in Chicago, in Boston, and in Battle Creek so we can't say which one he had in mind, assuming it was Harris who named this tune and not some editor somewhere.

Around 1930 Harris moved to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, where he played the organ at several churches. He also owned a boarding house for a time, which is still in operation today as a bed-and-breakfast.

Four Years Ago: Franz Joseph Haydn

Three Years Ago: Franz Joseph Haydn

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

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

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.

Sir John Stainer

Composer John Stainer was born in London on this day 170 years ago. His father was a schoolmaster and good amateur musician and the young Stainer learned the piano and organ at a young age (there were reportedly five pianos in the house as well as a chamber organ).

He became a boy chorister at age eight at St. Paul's Cathedral and a few years later was playing the organ there on occasion. When Stainer was a teen, Frederick Gore Ouseley heard him play and invited him to be the organist at the music school Ouseley had established at Tenbury. During those years Stainer also attained a Bachelor of Music degree from Oxford University.

After receiving two more advanced music degrees (one for his oratorio Gideon in 1865) he returned to St. Paul's in the position of organist. He became renowned for improving musical standards at the cathedral during his tenure there. Stainer was also a government inspector of music training and visited elementary school training colleges, interviewing the students and evaluating the programs. He was knighted in 1888 for his many contributions to English music.

His compositions include forty-two anthems, four oratorios (including The Crucifixion, still performed today), service music for the Anglican church, organ works and vocal madrigals. His hymn tunes run to several dozen, at least (though not many are still sung), and he also edited The Church Hymnary for the Church of Scotland. Another book by Stainer still studied today is The Music of the Bible (1879), which looks like it might deserve more exploration.

This short morning hymn, set to one of Stainer's tunes, is by an English Methodist writer and may have first appeared in this country in Hymns of the Spirit (1864), the Unitarian hymnal compiled by Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson. It was retained in other Unitarian hymn collections into the twentieth century.

The light pours down from heaven
And enters where it may;
The hearts of all earth's children
Are cheered with each bright ray
So let the soul's true sunshine
Be spread o'er earth as free,
And fill our waiting spriits
As waters fill the sea.

Then let each human spirit
Enjoy the radiance bright;
The Truth which comes from heaven
Shall spread like heav'n's own light;
Till earth becomes God's temple,
And every human heart
Shall join in one great service,
Each happy in our part.

Joseph Gostock, 1849; alt.
Tune: JERUSALEM (7.6.7.6.D.)
John Stainer, 19th cent.

Two Years Ago: Sir John Stainer

P.S. I don't usually play this game, but if a movie was ever to be made of Stainer's life (ha!) I think he should be played by actor Dennis Franz (formerly Detective Sipowicz from NYPD Blue).