The Quaker poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) was born today in Massachusetts, where he spent most of his life. Both his birthplace in Haverhill and the home where he lived for nearly sixty years in nearby Amesbury are preserved as historical sites (an honor not bestowed on most hymnwriters). Of course, few of his poems were intended as hymns, but hymnal editors from his own time to the present have captured stanzas from his poetry, assembling them into texts for congregational singing.
As recounted here before, his literary career was encouraged by William Lloyd Garrison, who published many of his early poems and the two men bonded over their commitment to the abolitionist cause. In 1833 Whittier was a delegate to the first convention of the American Anti-Slavery Society, where he signed its declaration (written by Garrison), an act that he was to recall as one of the most significant events of his life. He later served as the Society's secretary, and over the next few years he traveled throughout the northern states lecturing against slavery. Confrontations with proponents of slavery were many, and some were violent. In 1838 he moved to Philadelphia to edit the Pennsylvania Freeman, a prominent abolitionist newspaper. The paper moved its offices to Pennsylvania Hall, a newly built meeting place for abolitionist organizations, but the building was burned in a riot only three days after its grand opening.
By 1839 the abolitionist cause was beginning to fracture over various disagreements. Whittier broke with Garrison, who insisted that the country would only change by a great tide of moral persuasion. Whittier believed that the cause had to be politically viable for any change to happen, and he joined the Liberty Party in 1840. He continued to write poetry for the anti-slavery cause, both before and after emancipation finally occurred, though most of his later verse (from which the hymns are primarily taken) was written on other themes.
Whittier's Quakerism was more than a religious feeling; he dressed in traditional Quaker garb and conversed in the 'simple speech' of the Quakers (though it may sound quite 'formal' to us today). It's probably natural that he would have disliked the boisterous revival services and camp meetings held by the evangelical preachers of his day, and his most well-known hymn appears to be a reaction against such worship. Today's hymn, like his others, is taken from a longer poem, The Brewing of Soma (first published in the Atlantic Monthly in April 1872), which begins with a description of the rites of early Hindu worship, where the priests concoct a formula which produces 'sacred madness' and 'a storm of drunken joy.' He goes on to link this practice to various other sects and cultures through history before bringing it home to his readers:
And yet the past comes round again,
And new doth old fulfil;
In sensual transports wild as vain
We brew in many a Christian fane
The heathern Soma still!
The final six stanzas of the poem are still often sung today, giving us a model for worship that Whittier preferred, incorporating the Quaker values of silence, reverence, and peace.
Dear God, the Source of humankind,
Forgive our foolish ways;
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
In simple trust like theirs who heard,
Beside the Syrian sea,
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word
Rise up and follow thee.
O Sabbath rest by Galilee,
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with thee
The silence of eternity,
Interpreted by love!
With that deep hush subduing all
Our words and works that drown
The tender whisper of thy call,
As noiseless let thy blessing fall
As fell thy manna down.
Drop thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of thy peace.
Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm.
John Greenleaf Whittier, 1872; alt.
Tune: REST (Maker) (8.6.8.8.6.)
Frederick C. Maker, 1887
It should probably be remarked that some of the denominations that Whittier was chastising would eventually include this hymn in their own worship without any compunction. The preceding stanzas are all but unknown today. Some contemporary commentary also believes this hymn to be relevant in our time because of some connection to 'drug culture,' but again, almost anyone singing this hymn today knows nothing about its origins.
The original first line of the hymn, Dear Lord and Father of mankind, has been altered in a few different ways in recent years. The two most popular seem to be Dear God, embracing humankind, and Dear Lord, who loves all humankind, but the line above predates those, taken from the hymnal project I worked on from 1989-1992.
Composer Frederick C. Maker wrote this tune specifically for this text when it appeared in the Congregational Church Hymnal (1887). Though that book was published in London for use in the UK, REST is now considered to be the American tune, and English hymnals prefer REPTON by C.H.H. Parry (though the final two lines in each stanza have to be repeated unnecessarily).
Eight Years Ago: John Greenleaf Whittier
Six Years Ago: John Greenleaf Whittier
One Year Ago: John Greenleaf Whittier
One of the most widely-read poets in her time, Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney (September 1, 1791 - June 10, 1865) published fifty-nine books of poetry and prose. She was born in Norwich, Connecticut. the daughter of a gardener, and one of his wealthy employers paid for her education at a private school. She opened a school for girls in Norwich (sources date its founding to either 1809 or 1811) and she taught there and in Hartford until her marriage in 1819 to Charles Sigourney. She had already published her first book, Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse (1815), but her husband requested that she now publish anonymously.
Lydia agreed to this stipulation and continued to submit to magazines and publish books of her prose and poetry. She initally donated the proceeds from her writing to organizations advancing such social causes as temperance, peace, and abolition, but by the 1830s her husband was no longer entirely able to support their family and she became the primary breadwinner. At that time, she also began to publish under her own name. Her writing was so well known that the publisher of the popular magazine Godey's Lady's Book paid her an honorarium for the use of her name in the masthead beside its other editors (including Sarah Josepha Hale)
, though Sigourney had no editorial duties. The social concerns that she supported continued to appear in her writing, and she was an early advocate for Native American causes.
A number of hymns later identified as hers first appeared in Village Hymns (1824), a Congregationalist collection assembled by Asahel Nettleton for the General Association of Connecticut, and over the years Sigourney's hymns appeared in several other hymnbooks, including Maria Weston Chapman's abolitionist collection, Songs of the Free (1836).
I found today's hymn in a collection titled Lyra Sacra Americana: or, Gems from American Sacred Poetry (1868), and though it probably appeared earlier I do not know whether Sigourney considered it a poem or a hymn. As you know, hymnal editors have often believed such authors' intentions to be relatively unimportant.
Prayer is the dew of faith,
Its raindrop, night and day,
That guards its vital power from death
When cherished hopes decay.
And keeps it 'mid this changeful scene
A bright, perennial evergreen.
Our works, of faith the fruit,
May ripen year by year,
Of health and soundness at the root
An evidence sincere;
Dear Savior! grant your blessing free,
And make our faith no barren tree.
Lydia H. Sigourney, 19th cent.; alt.
Tune: BATH (6.6.8.6.8.8.)
William Henry Cooke, 19th. cent.
(Apparently this meter is rather unusual, as I could only find one tune with a sound file available online. BATH by William Cooke is somewhat acceptable, but probably not the best match.)
Sigourney's autobiography, Letters of Life (1866) was published after her death. Fortunately, she did live to see the end of slavery and the Civil War. Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a memorial poem, including these lines:
She sang alone, ere womanhood had known
The gift of song which fills the air to-day:
Tender and sweet, a music all her own
May fitly linger where she knelt to pray.
Composer and lyricist George Frederick Root (1820-1895), born today in Sheffield, Massachusetts, made his mark in secular songs as much as in songs for Sunday Schools and churches. In Biography of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers (1914), author J. H. Hall writes that by age thirteen, Root could play as many instruments as he was years old.
His early career was as a teacher of music in several schools, and he did not compose much before 1850. Over the next ten years, however, he wrote songs (sometimes both texts and tunes but more often tunes only) which became very popular and by 1860 he went into the music publishing business with his brother and a friend as Root & Cady. The successful firm lost thousands of dollars when their building and inventory burned in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
The text of today's hymn (which was apparently originally sung to a melody known as Lord Ellin's Daughter) was shown to Root by his wife, who suggested he write a tune for it. He was not entirely pleased with the result, thinking it too simplistic, and though it was not immediately published, it eventually appeared in many hymnals (at least 552 according to Hymnary.org). As told in Ira Sankey's Story of the Gospel Hymns, Root said "In after years I examined it in an endeavor to account for its great popularity - but in vain." Many writers of congregational song have been similarly baffled when texts or tunes they thought ephemeral became widely sung.
My days are gliding swiftly by;
And I, a pilgrim stranger,
Would not detain them as they fly,
Those hours of toil and labor.
Refrain
For, oh! we stand on Jordan’s strand;
Our friends are passing over;
And, just before, the shining shore
We may almost discover.
We’ll gird our loins, my kindred dear,
Our distant home discerning:
Our waiting Lord has left us word,
Let ev’ry lamp be burning.
Refrain
Should coming days be cold and dark,
We need not cease our singing:
That perfect rest naught can molest,
Where golden harps are ringing.
Refrain
Let sorrow’s rudest tempest blow,
Each cord on earth to sever:
Jesus says, Come, and there’s our home,
Forever, oh! forever.
Refrain
David D. Nelson, 1835; alt.
Tune: SHINING CITY (8.7.8.7. with refrain)
George F. Root, 1855
David D. Nelson (1793-1844) was born in Tennessee and lived for many years in the South, serving as a surgeon in the War of 1812 and later pastoring Presbyterian congregations in Kentucky and Missouri before moving to Illinois (due at least in part to his anti-slavery views: "I will live on roast potatoes and salt before I will hold slaves," he once declared).
This hymn was reportedly a favorite of Henry Ward Beecher and later appeared in the Plymouth Sabbath School Collection of Hymns and Tunes (1865) which was published by William B. Bradbury but compiled from songs used at Beecher's Brooklyn church. Today, I am told this remains a well-loved hymn still sung at the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims, where they proudly celebrate Beecher's legacy (including his immense contribution to congregational singing in this country).
Eight Years Ago: George Frederick Root
Seven Years Ago: George Frederick Root
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
Phebe Hanaford, born today in 1829, was not only the fourth woman ordained in the United States (in the Universalist Church) but was also an author, activist, poet and hymnwriter.
Born into a Quaker family, she was aware from a young age that women in that tradition were allowed to preach during services, but she tried to put those ideas aside when she married Joseph Hanaford in 1849 and agreed to worship in his Baptist church. A few years later she learned that Lucy Stone, a prominent activist for abolition and women's rights, was speaking at a local church. Knowing that her husband would not approve of her attending the lecture, she stayed outside the church but managed to listen anyway.
Following her ordination in 1868, she led churches in the Massachusetts towns of Hingham and Waltham, but when she was called to a Universalist congregation in New Haven, Connecticut, her husband refused to go with her and they separated. Ellen Miles, a Sabbath school teacher in Phebe's Waltham congregation, accompanied her to New Haven and throughout the rest of her long career, often being called the "minister's wife."
Today's hymn, probably written in the 1860s, not long before Phebe decided to pursue ordination, takes its theme from Exodus 15:20-21, the Song of Miriam, which follows the story of the deliverance of the people of Israel from Egypt. It's not quite a paraphrase of that passage, but takes it as a springboard of sorts.
Miriam’s song we’ll echo now,
Singing praises to the Lord;
Who has triumphed gloriously,
Shout the victory of our God!
Sound the timbrel! Loud and high!
Let the song of praise ascend!
Sound the timbrel, far and nigh!
God is our unchanging friend!
When the Red Sea tide o’erwhelmed
Israel’s foes in that great hour
While they sought the promised land,
Then was seen th’Almighty’s power.
Ever thus shall righteousness
Over wrong victorious be,
And the Lord shall be proclaimed
Ruler over land and sea.
Phebe Hanaford. c.1866; alt.
Tune: EVELYN (7.7.7.7.)
Emma L. Ashford, 1905
Poor health and the loss of Ellen Miles, her companion of more than forty years, prevented Phebe from remaining active in her causes in the final years of her life. She was living unhappily with her granddaughter's family in rural upstate New York, far from the cities and organizations she had loved and led. Though she had worked for years in the cause of women's suffrage, there is no evidence in local voting records that she cast a vote in 1920, the first national election following the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. At age 91, she was unable to travel to the polls on her own. Fortunately, New York State allowed women to vote a few years earlier, and she did take advantage of that limited opportunity.
She died on June 2, 1921, one month after her 92nd birthday, and was buried in an unmarked grave next to her daughter Florence Hanaford Warner. There were some attempts over the years to have a headstone erected for her, but that did not happen until 1998, when the headstone (pictured below) was funded by the Unitarian Universalist Women's Heritage Society.
P.S. - As we were discussing Abraham Lincoln's funeral services two days ago, it should be noted that Hanaford also wrote a hymn for an ecumenical memorial service for the President at the Old South Congregational Church in Reading, Massachusetts. This is the first stanza:
Hushed today are sounds of gladness
From the mountains to the sea;
And the plaintive voice of sadness
Rises, mighty God, to thee.
Combined choirs from the Congregational, Baptist and Universalist churches sang Phebe's hymn to the tune MOUNT VERNON by Lowell Mason (finally, a historical record of a tune!). She later published it in the closing chapter of her best-selling biography of Lincoln.
***UPDATE*** This hymn is now posted on Facebook with words and music together. Go to "Conjubilant W. Song" and click on "Photos" -- it's in the Downloadable Hymns section.
Six Years Ago: Phebe Hanaford
Five Years Ago: Phebe Hanaford
Three Years Ago: Phebe Hanaford
Author Josiah Conder was born today in London in 1789. His father was a bookseller, and Josiah worked in the shop as a boy, eventually taking it over when he was twenty-one. However, he had already begun his writing career by this time (his first published essay appeared when he was ten) and nine years later he gave up the bookshop for writing and editing.
For twenty-three years he was the editor of The Eclectic Review, a popular and respected literary magazine, and later of The Patriot, a Nonconformist newspaper that was a strong supporter of abolition. In 1839 Conder became a founding member of the British and Foreign Anti-slavery Society for the Abolition of Slavery and the Slave-trade Throughout the World, an organization still in existence today as Anti-Slavery International. He was one of the main organizers of the world's first anti-slavery convention held in London in 1840.
Conder published several books of his own, including The Modern Traveler, which was a thirty-volume collection covering the geography of many of the countries of the world. His first book of religions verse, The Star in the East, from where his earliest hymns have been taken, appeared in 1824. This was followed by The Choir and the Oratory (1837), his second collection.
In 1836 he published the first Congregational Hymn Book which had been authorized by a resolution of the Congregational Union three years earlier. It contained 620 hymns by eighty different writers (including fifty-six of his own), and was to be used in conjunction with the Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts, Watts being so revered by the Congregationalists that he deserved a separate volume devoted to his works. Conder too believed in the primacy of Watts and later wrote The Poet of the Sanctuary (1851), a centenary commemoration of Watts, and edited a revised version of Psalms and Hymns (1852), hoping that Watts would continue to have his own volume in the Congregational pew-racks.
Conder's many hymn texts are largely unknown today. The most recent US Congregational hymnal, Hymns for a Pilgrim People (2007), which was intended to emphasize hymns by Gongregationalist authors, unfortunately contains none by Conder. In looking over several possibilities for today I settled on this Trinitarian text that probably hasn't appeared anywhere for a while.
'Tis good, with tuneful verses,
Our God's high praise to sing;
Creator of all mercies,
Our Maker and our King.
Praise God for all creation,
The wonders of our birth;
For daily preservation
And all the joys of earth.
And for the the great Redemption,
Let equal anthems swell,
For pardon and exemption
From woes no tongue can tell.
To Christ all glory render,
Himself, who freely gave;
Our Shepherd, our Defender,
Omnipotent to save.
We bless the Holy Spirit,
For all the means of grace;
The hopes that we inherit,
The faith that we embrace;
The seal of our high calling,
The word that makes us wise,
And strength to keep from falling,
And win the heav'nly prize.
Josiah Conder, 1836; alt.
Tune: MUNICH (7.6.7.6.D.)
Neuvermehrtes Gesangbuch, 1693
harm. Felix Mendelssohn, 1847
Conder died in 1855 from an attack of jaundice. The following year, one of his sons, Eustace, a Congregational minister, compiled his hymn texts into one volume, Hymns of Praise, Prayer, and Devout Meditation.
P.S. - The "portrait" of Josiah Conder above is actually excerpted from a much larger painting by Benjamin Haydon which depicted the delegates at the Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840. You can't even make him out in the full painting online, he's somewhat near the speaker but in the third or fourth row.
Today is the birthday of New England reformer Adin Ballou. He was born in 1803 into a Six-Principle Baptist family, but they converted ten years later to the Christian Connexion. In 1822, Ballou became a Unitarian (thereupon being disinherited by his father), but he was also intrigued by the doctrines of Restorationism and Practical Christianity, and tried to combine strains from all of these in his writing and lecturing over the next several years.
Still more "conversions" followed; he formed a denomination called the Massachusetts Association of Universal Restorationists in 1831, the same year he was dismissed from his Unitarian pulpit in Milford, MA. In 1838 he declared himself a follower of Christian Non-Resistance (what we might call pacifism), and shortly thereafter published a pamphlet called Standard of Practical Christianity. Believing that for Christians to make their beliefs into reality, they had to refashion society, he founded a utopian community named Hopedale on a farm outside Milford. He and his followers embraced his causes of Non-Resistance and Practical Christianity, as well as abolitionism, temperance, and women's rights.
Now we get to the hymn part. The Hopedale Collection of Hymns and Songs, for the Use of Practical Christians, compiled by Ballou and including several hymns written by him, was published in 1850. The hymnal contained many established psalm paraphrases and older texts by Watts, Wesley, and others. Perhaps in accordance with Ballou's support for women's rights, there is a good proportion of texts by women; established writers such as Anne Steele and Anna Laetitia Barbauld, and some who were members of the Hopedale community, such as Abby Price and Mary Colburn.
The new texts by Ballou and his followers were largely instructional, meant to reinforce the beliefs of the community. The hymnal contains the usual sort of sections, such as "Devotional," "Jesus Christ," and "Joy, Gratitude, Praise," but also sections for hymns of "Temperance," "Anti-Slavery," and "Christian Non-Resistance."
For example, these abolitionist verses of Ballou's:
Shall kidnapped Afric's race,
In Southern bondage held,
Forever plead their deep distress
And coldly be repelled?
O Lord, in thunder tones,
Rebuke these giant crimes;
Behold the victims, hear their groans,
And rescue them betimes.
The challenges of living in community were (perhaps) addressed in another hymn, which began:
My fleshly lusts I hate,
And all their works detest;
Yet strangely on their mandate wait,
And do their vile behest.
The citizens of Hopedale were longing for a better world, seen in Ballou's Years are coming, speed them onward (perhaps his only hymn to survive into the twentieth century). A more specific goal than world peace was expressed in these verses from another hymn:
Not individual souls alone
Require the new and heavenly birth,
Society, in sin up-grown,
Needs Christianizing o'er the earth.
The principles, by Jesus taught
Must be impartially applied,
And social institutions brought,
With laws divine to coincide.
While interesting in their historical and social context, none of these hymns is likely to be sung anywhere today. This following one of Ballou's perhaps comes closest for a modern congregation, though I think it might need a different first verse and the "non-resistant" jargon seems a bit clumsy today.
Forbear that treacherous sword!
Its deadly blade restrain;
For they that trust its base support
Shall perish with the slain.
Thus Jesus promptly stayed
Impetuous Peter's arm,
And though to murderous foes betrayed,
Forbade to do them harm.
Obedient to his voice
The first disciples proved --
And bore their non-resistant cross,
By scorn and wrath unmoved.
And let the faithful still
Revere its high command,
Returning only good for ill
With ever generous hand.
Adin Ballou, 1850
Tune: BOYLSTON (S.M.)
Lowell Mason, 1832
I think Lowell Mason's BOYLSTON is the kind of tune that would have been known and sung by the people of Hopedale. Ballou clearly believed in the "powerful engine" of hymn singing (as Tuesday's Reginald Heber called it). Tuesday nights in Hopedale were devoted to community singing because Ballou felt that they needed more opportunities than Sunday worship to express their faith through song. He published another hymnal in 1856, Communal Songs and Hymns.
Like most other utopian communities, Hopedale had a fairly brief life, lasting only until 1856. It continued as a church, Hopedale Parish, in 1867 was admitted to the Unitarian denomination, and still is open today. Adin Ballou remained as the minister until his retirement in 1880.
Today, an organization of Friends of Adin Ballou continues to espouse his belief in a future of peace and cooperation.
Today is the birthday of Helen Maria Williams, born in 1761. She was well-known in the literary circles of her time, particularly after the poet Wordsworth addressed a sonnet to her. She took up several causes, including abolition and feminism in her poetry and her published letters. In later years she lived in Paris, where she was briefly imprisoned during the French Revolution for her writing. Her popularity declined as literary England felt she had abandoned them for France, and her poetry was little published for many years after her death. This hymn, however, appeared in many hymnals in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
While thee I seek, protecting Power,
My earthly cares be stilled;
And may this consecrated hour
With better hopes be filled.
Thy love the power of thought bestowed;
To thee my thoughts would soar:
Thy mercy o’er my life has flowed;
That mercy I adore.
In each event of life, how clear
Thy guiding hand I see!
Each blessing to my soul more dear,
Because conferred by thee.
In every joy that crowns my days,
In every pain I bear,
My heart shall find delight in praise,
Or seek relief in prayer.
My lifted eye, without a tear,
The gathering storm shall see:
My steadfast heart shall know no fear;
That heart will rest on thee.
Helen Maria Williams, 1786; alt.
Tune: CRIMOND (C.M.)
Jessie Seymour Irvine, 1872; arr. David GrantWhen I first found this hymn several years ago, I was looking for texts that referred to God in different ways, and was a little surprised to find this one all the way back in 1786. "Protecting Power" was not a standard name for God in Williams's time - note that it's the only name she uses in the text - it sounds much more modern.
CRIMOND, by Jessie Seymour Irvine, actually does appear in Voices Found, as well it should - it's the oldest known hymn tune by a woman that is still in use today in several hymnals.
Today of the commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Episcopal calendar of saints. It is also the fortieth anniversary of his assassination.
Dr. King's favorite hymn was reported to be Precious Lord, take my hand by Thomas Dorsey, written in 1932. I did not know until today that the tune was actually adapted by Dorsey from an earlier tune by George N. Allen called MAITLAND,
first published in 1844.
Another appropriate hymn for today was written by the Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier, an activist for abolition.
O pure reformers! not in vain
Your trust in humankind;
The good which bloodshed could not gain,
Your peaceful zeal shall find.
The truths you urge are borne abroad
By every wind and tide;
The voice of nature and of God
Speaks out upon your side.
The weapons which your hands have found
Are those which heav'n has wrought:
Light, truth, and love -- your battleground,
The free, broad field of thought.
Press on! and if we may not share
The glory of your fight,
We'll ask at least, in earnest prayer,
That God will bless the right.
John Greenleaf Whittier, 1843; alt.
Tune: AZMON (C.M.)
Carl G. Glaser, 1828; arr. Lowell Mason, 1839
I chose AZMON for its vigor, but an alternate tune might be MARTYRDOM. A different mood, but still appropriate.
I know people will be singing today in honor of Dr. King and his work.
