Handbook to the Mennonite Hymnary

A hymn of simple trust. Information concerning the author, Louisa M. R. Stead, has not been traced.

MUSIC. TRUSTING was composed for these words by the gospel singer and composer, Wm. J. Kirkpatrick, 1838-1921.

For comments on Kirkpatrick see Hymn 334.

489. What a fellowship, what a joy divine

For comments on the author, Elisha A. Hoffman, see Hymn 464.

MUSIC. LEANING ON JESUS was composed by Anthony J. Schowalter, who was born at Cherry Grove, Pa., May 1, 1858. The following from his pen tells the story of the origin of this hymn and tune:

While I was conducting a singing-school at Hartsells, Alabama, I received a letter from two of my former pupils in South Carolina, conveying the sad intelligence that on the same day each of them had buried a wife. I tried to console them by writing a letter that might prove helpful in their hour of sadness. Among other Scriptures, I quoted this passage, “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” Before completing the writing of the sentence, the thought came to me that the fact that we may lean on these everlasting arms and find comfort and strength, ought to be put in a song; and before finishing that letter, the words and music of the refrain were written. The manuscript was sent to Elisha Hoffman ... in a few days his completion of the poem was received.

490. Jesus, keep me near the cross

A hymn on “the cross.” The refrain suggests the words of Paul: “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 6:14). This is another instance in which the words of the blind hymn writer and the music of Mr. Doane were combined to make a popular gospel song.

For comments on Fanny Crosby and Wm. H. Doane, composer of the tune, see Hymn 313.

491. Nearer the cross

For comments on the author of these words, Fanny Crosby, see Hymn 313.

For Mrs. J. F. Knapp, composer of the tune, see Hymn 480.

492. There is a fountain filled with blood

The imagery in the first verse is drawn from Zechariah 13:1: “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.” The dislike which some have for this Old Testament phraseology has given rise to much dispute concerning the hymn, but all attempts to revise it have been without success. It is excellent poetry and should be left as Cowper wrote it.

The hymn was published in Conger’s Collection of Psalms and Hymns, 1772, and later in the Olney Hymns (See Hymn 60).

For comments on William Cowper see Hymn 60.

MUSIC. CLEANSING FOUNTAIN, also called “Western Melody” in some of the older books, is a stirring tune reminiscent of the early American camp meeting songs. It is attributed here to Lowell Mason, but it is not certain whether he wrote it or whether it is an adaptation from his tune, “Cowper,” which it resembles and to which the hymn is set in The Hymnal, 1933 (Presbyterian).

For comments on Lowell Mason see Hymn 12.

493. I love to tell the story

A simple song which became popular and has been translated into several different languages, because it expresses what is in the hearts of multitudes of people.

The words are from a long poem of 50 stanzas, in two parts, on the life of Jesus. Part I, dated January 29, 1866, is entitled, “The Story Wanted.” Part II, dated November 18, 1866, is entitled, “The Story Told.” The author composed the poem during a long period of convalescing after a serious illness. This hymn and “Tell me the old, old story” (No. 495) are selections from Part II and Part I, respectively, of the above-mentioned poem.

Katherine Hankey, born in Clapham, England, was the daughter of a banker. She was a refined, consecrated woman, a Sunday school teacher, and organizer of Bible classes among working girls. She travelled in South Africa to look after an invalid brother and became so interested in mission work that she devoted thereto the income from her writings.

MUSIC. HANKEY was composed for these words. For comments on the composer, Wm. G. Fischer, see Hymn 469. The melody, written in 1869, was harmonized by Hubert P. Main (No. 426) and became popular at revival meetings. It is one of the gospel song tunes that is included in the more dignified church hymnals.

494. Sing them over again to me

Written especially for use in the first issue of Words of Life, a Sunday school paper published by Fleming H. Revell. Two years later, George Stebbins introduced the song in an evangelistic campaign which he and Dr. Pentecost were conducting in New Haven, Conn., the two men singing the song as a duet. The song was received with enthusiasm and immediately became popular. It was published in Gospel Hymns, No. 3 and has had a wide use in evangelistic services and in the Sunday schools throughout the country.

For comments on Philip P. Bliss, author and composer, see Hymn 442.

495. Tell me the old, old story

For comments on the author, Katherine Hankey, and an account of the origin of this hymn, see Hymn 493.

MUSIC. Dr. W. H. Doane heard the poem read at a Y.M.C.A. Conference at Montreal in 1867 and was so impressed by it that he copied it and later set it to music while riding on a stage coach during a vacation in the White Mountains.

For comments on W. H. Doane, see Hymn 313.

496. There is a Name I love to hear

A hymn on the name of Jesus which was published in 1855 in hymn-sheets and leaflets in various languages. In 1861, it appeared in the author’s Sacred Poems and Prose, a volume containing twenty-six hymns.

Frederick Whitfield, born at Threapwood, Shropshire, was a minister in the Anglican Church. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he took his B.A. degree in 1859, he became, successively, curate of Otley, vicar of Kirby-Ravensworth, senior curate of Greenwich, and vicar of St. John’s, Bexley. He is the author of nearly thirty volumes of prose and poetry.

MUSIC. O HOW I LOVE JESUS is a traditional melody of unknown authorship.

497. Rescue the perishing

A rallying song for Christian workers in all parts of the world. This is the only one of Fanny Crosby’s hymns to be included in the famous English publication, Hymns Ancient and Modern. It was a great favorite of Frances E. Willard and Frances Murphy, temperance crusaders, and D. L. Moody was very fond of it.

The hymn had its origin in a visit which the blind poet made to one of the worst slum districts in New York City. When she addressed the men at a rescue mission, Miss Crosby heard harrowing tales of lost and perishing people. She wrote:

“While I sat there that evening the line came to me, ‘Rescue the perishing, care for the dying.’ I could think of nothing else that night. When I arrived at my home, I went to work at once, and before I retired the entire hymn was ready for a melody.”

For comments on Fanny J. Crosby see Hymn 313.

MUSIC. RESCUE was composed by Dr. Doane for this hymn. The hymn and tune have resounded through many thousands of mission services.

For comments on Wm. H. Doane see Hymn 313.

498. O scatter seeds of loving deeds

For comments on Jessie Brown Pounds, see Hymn 453.

Her song poem has gone around the world on the wings of this tune composed by Fred A. Fillmore, of the musically famous Fillmore brothers. See comments at Hymn 453. Fred A. was born May 15, 1856, at Paris, Illinois.

499. Judge me, God of my salvation

A metrical version of Psalm 43 which may be compared with the version from the Scottish Psalter at No. 587. The fifth verse of the Psalm is made to serve as the refrain. The poet who made the version has not been identified. The hymn and tune were taken from the Psalter of the United Presbyterian Church.

MUSIC. AMARA was composed by William O. Perkins, concerning whom no information has been found.

500. I can hear my Savior calling

An intimate hymn of personal consecration. The repetition of the phrases and the close harmony of the music have made the use of this song, even without the aid of an accompanying instrument, easy and enjoyable. No information has been found concerning the author, E. W. Blandy (misspelled Blandly in the Hymnary).

MUSIC. WHERE HE LEADS ME is admirably suited to the words. No information has come to light concerning the composer, J. S. Norris.

501. And must I be to judgment brought

The hymn, originally in eight stanzas, was entitled “A Thought on Judgment” and was written for children! Why Wesley wrote such serious-minded hymns for children is explained in his preface to Hymns for Children, from which this hymn is taken:

There are two ways of writing or speaking to children. The one is to let ourselves down to them; the other, to lift them up to us. Dr. Watts wrote in the former way, and has succeeded admirably well, speaking to children as children and leaving them as he found them. The following hymns are written on the other plan. They contain strong and manly sense, yet expressed in such plain and easy language as even children may understand. But when they do understand them, they will be children no longer—only in years and in stature.

For comments on Charles Wesley, see Hymn 6.

MUSIC. MARLOW was composed by Rev. John Chetham, 1700-63, an English clergyman, curate of Skipton.

502. Savior, lead me lest I stray

The words and music were written on the deck of a steamer that plied between Baltimore and Savannah.

Frank M. Davis was born on a farm near Marcellus, New York, the youngest of a family of ten children. He began composing tunes at an early age and became a teacher of vocal and instrumental music. He travelled extensively through the eastern and southern states, directing chorus choirs and teaching vocal classes. He compiled several Sunday school collections, among them New Pearls of Song, 1877, and Notes of Praise, of which more than 100,000 copies were sold. Davis is the author of over 100 vocal and instrumental compositions. He died suddenly of heart failure at Chesterfield, Indiana, where he was attending a camp meeting.

503. My days are gliding swiftly by

A hymn written by a preacher while hiding from pursuing slave-holders whose anger and violence were aroused by Nelson’s aggressive anti-slavery views.

David Nelson, a surgeon in the U. S. Army during the war of 1812, left his profession to become a minister, meanwhile owning and operating a plantation in Missouri. After listening to an address on slavery, he declared himself in favor of freeing the slaves and advocated the plan of colonizing them in Africa. This so enraged some of the slave-holders that they drove Nelson from his home. To avoid mob violence, he escaped, reaching, after three days and nights of wandering, the Mississippi River opposite Quincy, Illinois. Hiding there in the bushes, with his pursuers near but unable to find him, the river gliding swiftly before him, he wrote this hymn on the back of old letters he had in his pocket. He was finally rescued by members of the Quincy Congregational Church who, having learned of his plight, took him on a fishing canoe and rowed him across the river, still pursued, to safety and friends, on the hospitable shore of a free state.

MUSIC. SHINING SHORE, one of the composer’s most popular tunes, has been given various arrangements for voice and instruments. Root has written concerning the origin of the tune:

One day, I remember, as I was working at a set of graded part-songs for singing classes, mother passed through the room and laid a slip from one of the religious newspapers before me, saying, “George, I think that would be good for music.” I looked at the poem which began, “My days are gliding swiftly by,” and a simple melody sang itself in my mind as I read. I jotted it down and went on with my work. That was the origin of the music of “The Shining Shore.” Later, when I took up the melody to harmonize it, it seemed so very simple and commonplace, that I hesitated about setting the other parts to it. I finally decided that it might be useful to somebody, and I completed it, though it was not printed until some months afterward. In after years I examined it in an endeavor to account for its great popularity—but in vain. To the musician there is not one reason in melody or harmony scientifically regarded, for such a fact. To him hundreds of others, now forgotten, were better.

For comments on George F. Root, 1820-95, see Hymn 418.

504. There’s a land that is fairer than day

“It’ll be all right by and by.” This trivial remark by Webster, when one morning, seemingly depressed, he was asked by his partner, Bennett, what was wrong with him, was the occasion for the writing of this hymn. The author and composer were friends and partners in the music publishing business in the village of Elkhorn, Wis. Webster, the musician of the firm, was inclined to be nervous and subject to periods of depression. His partner understood this and often effected a cure, as on this occasion, by putting him to work on a new song. Upon Bennett’s suggestion, the two agreed that morning to make a hymn out of the idea, “The sweet by and by.” Bennett penned the words and handed them to Webster, who promptly wrote the music. Words and music were thus produced in the incredibly short time of about thirty minutes. The song was published soon afterward in a Sunday school song book, The Signet Ring, which the two men were compiling. From there it found its way into numerous collections of songs until today “it is translated into various foreign languages and sung in every land under the sun.”

Sanford Filmore Bennett was a native of the West. He settled in Elkhorn, Wis., in 1861, to devote himself to music but later studied medicine and practiced in Richmond, Ill.

MUSIC. SWEET BY AND BY. Joseph Philbrick Webster, 1819-75, composer of this tune, was born in New Hampshire. He was an active member of the Handel and Haydn Society and various other musical organizations. He lived in Madison, Indiana, and Racine, Wisconsin, before finally moving to Elkhorn, in 1857.

BOOK IV
The Christian Year in Chorales

CALL TO WORSHIP

505. Open now Thy gates of beauty

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A beautiful worship hymn, first published in the author’s Kirchen-Gefährte, 1732, in seven stanzas, entitled, “The First Step into the Church.” Its joyous spirit is characteristic of many of Schmolck’s poems.

Benjamin Schmolck, the most popular and prolific hymn writer of his time, was born in Silesia, and educated in the University of Leipzig. He was ordained to become his father’s assistant in the church at Brauchitzchdorf, his birthplace. Later he became the pastor of Friedenskirche at Schweidnitz, in Silesia, where he labored patiently for a period of 35 years, beloved of his people for his understanding and sympathy. He had rare poetic gifts and published a number of volumes of devotional books in which his hymns were included. His contemporary, Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685-1750, greatest of all church musicians, helped to make the poems of Schmolck immortal.

Catherine Winkworth translated five stanzas of this hymn; three of which are used here.

For comments on Miss Winkworth see Hymn 236.

MUSIC. NEANDER. For comments on this tune, and the composer, Joachim Neander, see Hymn 127.

506. God reveals His presence

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First published in the author’s Geistliches Blumengärtlein, entitled “Remembrance of the glorious and delightful presence of God,” 1729.

Gerhard Tersteegen, one of the greatest of German hymn writers, was born at Mörs in Westphalia, the son of a tradesman. He was educated at the grammar school of his native place, and then bound as an apprentice to an elder brother, a shop-keeper at Mülheim. When his time was out, he left his brother and moved to a little cottage near Mülheim where for some years he supported himself by weaving silk ribbons, giving his money to the poor, and living a life so simple that it brought upon him the contempt of his thriving and money-getting relatives. For a time, due to various disappointments, he lived in a “state of darkness,” a five year period of spiritual depression, during which he doubted the love, if not the existence, of God. He at last, as in a moment, regained peace and joy, whereupon he signed, with his own blood, a covenant with God to devote himself to His service. Soon he was found speaking at prayer meetings and other places and became popular as a religious teacher and counsellor. From far and wide people came to him for personal interviews, and his public meetings were always crowded.

Tersteegen was never ordained. Grieved by the open sin of the church people of his time, he early dissociated himself from the organized church and absented himself from the communion service. Though he had a wide following, he never organized a sect of his own, and, after his death, most of his disciples reunited with the Reformed Church. Like all great leaders, he pled the cause of the underprivileged. He was a mystic of the purest type, yet his faith was practical. He provided food and simple medicines for the poor and became widely known as the physician to the poor and forsaken. Tersteegen had many friends among the Mennonites and often preached in their church at Krefeld.

He is the author of 111 hymns, many of which have been rendered into English.

Frederick Foster and John Miller, translators of stanzas one and two, respectively, were both members of the Moravian Church. William Mercer, translator of stanza three, was an English scholar who translated and paraphrased many of the Latin and German hymns into English, but is best known for his successful work as editor of The Church Psalter and Hymn Book, 1857, the most popular hymn book of the Church of England. Another translation of this hymn appears at No. 508.

MUSIC. ARNSBERG, also called “Wunderbarer König,” and “Gott ist gegenwärtig,” was composed by the poet and musician, Joachim Neander, 1650-80. It appeared in his collection, Glaub- und Liebesübung, Bremen, 1680, set to the hymn, “Wunderbarer König.”

For comments on Neander see Hymn 127.

507. Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah!

The original is a one-stanza hymn. The author, Gottlieb Pfeffel, was born at Colmar in Alsace. His literary work consisted primarily of the writing of fables and hymns for instruction in the Colmar schools. At the age of 21 he became totally blind, but carried on, despite the handicap, a magnificent life work as president of the schools at Colmar. He was also the founder of a nursery for Protestant children.

Christian George Haas, translator of the hymn, was a minister in the Evangelical Church. After graduating from Eden Theological Seminary, he held pastorates in St. Paul and in Buffalo, and edited the Hymnal of the Evangelical Church, 1898.

Two stanzas were added to Pfeffel’s hymn, by G. F. W. Schultz:

No information has been traced concerning the author.

For comments on C. E. Krehbiel who translated stanzas 2 and 3, see Hymn 376.

MUSIC. JEHOVAH. No information is at hand concerning Johann C. Gerold, composer of this somewhat long, but dignified and effective tune, with its peculiar meter.

508. Lo, God is here! let us adore

The most widely used of Tersteegen’s hymns. The German version and another translation are found at No. 506.

For comments on Tersteegen see Hymn 506.

The present translation was made by John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. For comments on Wesley see Hymn 170.

MUSIC. MACH’S MIT MIR GOTT, also called “Schein,” and “Eisenach,” was composed by J. H. Schein, 1586-1630, for the hymn “Mach’s mit mir Gott.” Schein was the son of a Lutheran pastor and became one of the most distinguished musicians of his time. For a number of years he held the honored position of cantor of St. Thomas’ Church and School in Leipzig, and composed many hymn tunes. He is best known by the great hymn book he edited for the Lutheran Church, Cantional, oder Gesangbuch Augsburgischer Confession, Leipzig, 1627.

The present form of the melody is an adaptation of the original and is the one used by J. S. Bach in his St. John’s Passion. “The tune is not one of the ‘grand’ chorales, but retains, even in its later version, a suave, song-like character.”

PRAISE

509. O that I had a thousand voices

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A popular hymn of praise and thanksgiving, written in 1704, shortly after the author’s home was destroyed by fire! Our version is a selection of stanzas 1, 4, 5, and 15, of the original 15.

The author, Johann Mentzer, was for 38 years a pastor at Kemnitz, Saxony, and belonged to the more conservative Pietistic school of hymn writers. He is the author of 34 hymns, many of them of high merit.

For comments on the translator, Catherine Winkworth, see Hymn 236.

MUSIC. O DASS ICH TAUSEND ZUNGEN HÄTTE was composed by Johann Balthasar König, 1691-1758, director of music in several churches in Frankfurt-am-Main. The tune appeared in Harmonischer Liederschatz, Frankfurt, 1738, where it is set to the hymn, “Ach sagt mir nichts von Gold und Schätzen.” The Harmonischer Liederschatz, edited by König, is the most comprehensive chorale-book of the 18th century. It contains 1940 tunes, including several of König’s own compositions.

510. Heav’n and earth, the sea, the air

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Based on Psalm 19 and Acts 14:17. The hymn sings of God’s revelation to man in nature. It once had a footnote: “Is also a traveler’s hymn by land and water,” to which we might add, “and air.” The hymn first appeared in the author’s Glaub- und Liebesübung, Bremen, 1680.

For comments on Joachim Neander see Hymn 127.

The translation is mainly from Catherine Winkworth, but partly from Frances Cox.

For comments on Miss Winkworth see Hymn 236. For Miss Cox, Hymn 512.

MUSIC. GOTT SEI DANK, also known as “Lübeck,” “Berlin,” and “Carintha,” is by an unknown composer. The tune, since slightly altered, first appeared in J. A. Freylinghausen’s Neues Geistreiches Gesangbuch, Halle, 1704, an important collection described as “the only book which can, as a collection, be set alongside with Praxis Pietatis Melica.” It is a lively, spirited tune, its moderate range making it especially suitable for unison singing.

511. Lord, with glowing heart I’d praise Thee

The author of this hymn, Francis Scott Key, is known to every American child as the man who wrote our national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner.” Born in Frederick County, Virginia, he was educated at St. John’s College, Annapolis. He practiced law in Washington, D. C., and served as United States District Attorney for three terms, till his death on January 11, 1843. As a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, he held a lay reader’s license and for many years read the service and visited the sick. He taught a Bible class and conducted family prayers twice a day, requiring all members of the household, including the servants, to be present. He did much for the negroes of the south and although he lived in a slave state, he was moved by conscientious scruples to free his own slaves. The hymn, as he wrote it, had four stanzas. The second and third stanzas, omitted here, read as follows: