American Unitarian Hymn Writers and Hymns, compiled by Henry Wilder Foote: a Project Gutenberg eBook

Lowell, James Russell, LL.D., Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 22, 1819—August 12, 1891, Cambridge. Son of Rev. Charles Lowell, minister of the West Church (Unitarian), Boston, he graduated from Harvard College in 1838, and entered upon a literary career as a poet, essayist and scholar. In 1855 he succeeded H. W. Longfellow as Professor of Belles Lettres at Harvard and spent the next two years in Europe to increase his knowledge of southern European languages and literature. On his return he was the first editor of The Atlantic Monthly, 1857-1862, then editor of The North American Review, 1863-1872. He was United States Minister to Spain, 1877-1880, and to Great Britain, 1880-1885. He wrote many essays, addresses and poems. These last were published in a succession of volumes, “A Year’s Life,” 1841; “Poems,” 1844-1854; “The Vision of Sir Launfal,” 1845; “A Fable for Critics,” 1845; “The Biglow Papers,” 1848 and 1867; “The Commemoration Ode,” 1865; “Under the Willows,” 1868; and later volumes, his “Complete Poems” appearing in 1895. Though some of his poems show deep religious feeling he made only a slight and indirect contribution to American hymnody, writing only one hymn and one Christmas carol, although stanzas quarried out of his poems have been used as hymns, as follows:—

1. Men who boast it is that ye

Come of fathers brave and free,

The 1^st, 3^d and 4^th stanzas of his anti-slavery poem, “Stanzas on Freedom,” written in 1844. It was included in this form in The Soldier’s Companion, 1861, in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, and in part in Songs of the Sanctuary, N. Y. 1865, beginning

They are slaves who will not choose,

2. Once to every man and nation,

In December, 1844, Lowell wrote a poem in 18 stas. of 5 l. entitled “The Present Crisis,” a protest against the war with Mexico. The English hymnnologist, Rev. V. Garrett Horder, took from this poem a number of lines sufficient to make a hymn of 4 stas. which he included, with a few verbal alterations, in his Hymns Supplemental, 1896, and then in his Treasury of Hymns. The English Hymnal included the hymn in 1906, and from this it passed into many collections. In the form commonly used in this country, stanza 1 is that of sta. 5 in the original poem; sta. 2 is that of original sta. 11; sta. 3 is no. 13, original; and sta. 4, part of sta. 6 and part of sta. 8 original. In this form it has had considerable use in this country.

3. Our house, our God, we give to Thee,

Hymn for the dedication of the First Church (Unitarian), Watertown, Massachusetts, on August 3, 1842, in a service in which Rev. Samuel Ripley made the dedicatory prayer and the sermon was preached by Rev. Convers Francis, who had recently left Watertown to accept a professorship at the Harvard Divinity School. Lowell’s Cambridge residence at “Elmwood” was only a short distance from the Watertown line, and Miss Maria White, whom he married in 1844, belonged to the Watertown parish, which suggests the possibility that it was she who persuaded him to write the hymn. It was not included in any of his published works but has been found on the only known copy of the printed program of the service, now owned by the Huntington Library, San Marino, Pasadena, California. It probably was used only on the occasion for which it was written.

4. The ages one great minster seem,

Taken from a poem “Godminster Chimes” which was “Written in aid of a chime of bells for Christ Church, Cambridge,” and published in “Under the Willows,” 1868. From this poem of 7 stas. 8 l., enough lines have been selected and arranged, with a few verbal alterations, to make a hymn on the theme of the Church Universal, in 4 stas. of 4 l.

5. What means this glory round our feet?

A Christmas carol written in 1866 “For the children of the Church of the Disciples”, Boston, (Unitarian), of which Rev. James Freeman Clarke, q.v., was minister. Of the original 7 stas., five have come into considerable use.

Of the above listed hymns all except no. 3 are in current use in various hymn books. Nos. 2 and 5 are in The Pilgrim Hymnal, 1935; nos. 1, 2, 4 and 5 in the New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1864.

J. 698 H.W.F.

Lunt, Rev. William Parsons, D.D., Newburyport, Mass., April 21, 1805—March 31, 1857, Akabah, Arabia. He graduated from Harvard College in 1823, and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1828. On June 19, 1828 he was ordained as the first settled minister of the Second Unitarian Congregational Society in New York, where he served for five years. On June 3, 1835, he was installed as associate minister of the First Church in Quincy, Mass., where he became the sole minister in 1843 and served until his death while on a journey to Palestine. After his death his hymns and occasional poems were printed in a small volume entitled Gleanings, but none of them have been included in later books. His contribution to American hymnody was made by the publication of his collection entitled The Christian Psalter, 1841, for his congregation at Quincy, but its fine quality brought it into much wider use. It is chiefly remembered today because it included 5 hymns and the metrical version of 17 psalms by his distinguished parishioner, John Quincy Adams, q.v.

J. 703 H.W.F.

Mann, Rev. Newton, Cazenovia, New York, January 16, 1856—July 25, 1926, Chicago, Illinois. He graduated from Cazenovia Academy, and during the Civil War served as head of the Western Sanitary Commission. He then entered the Unitarian ministry and was ordained as pastor of the church in Kenosha, Wisconsin, which he organized and served for three years. He later served churches in Troy, New York, 1868-70; Rochester, New York, 1870-1888; and Omaha, Nebraska, 1888-1908, after which he retired to Chicago. His only connection with hymnody was his versification of an English translation of the Jewish creedal statement known as the Yigdal. His verse, which has not survived, was later recast by Rev. W. C. Gannett, q.v., to form the great hymn

Praise to the living God! All praiséd be his name!

concerning which detailed information will be found under Dr. Gannett’s name. In its present form the hymn is probably mostly the work of Gannett, but Mann should be credited with having drafted its earlier form. See also Foote, Three Centuries of American Hymnody, 339-340.

H.W.F.

Marean, Mrs. Emma (Endicott), Boston, Massachusetts, January 20, 1854—October 17, 1936, Cambridge, Massachusetts. She married Joseph Mason Marean January 20, 1876. Two hymns by her were included in The Isles of Shoals Hymn Book (Unitarian), 1908,

1. Grateful for another day, (An Island Morning)

2. Set from the restless world apart (An Island Hymn)

Neither has been included in later hymn books but both are in her small volume of poems, Now and Then, Cambridge, 1928.

H.W.F.

Mason, Mrs. Caroline Atherton (Briggs), Marblehead, Massachusetts, July 27, 1823—June 13, 1890, Fitchburg, Massachusetts. In 1853 she married Charles Mason, a lawyer living in Fitchburg. She published in 1852 a volume of poems entitled Utterance: or Private Voices to the Public Heart, and after her death another collection was published, her Lost Ring and Other Poems, 1891.

Three of her hymns have had considerable use.

1. I cannot walk in darkness long, (Evening)

This begins with stanza V of her poem on Eventide, “At cool of day with God I walk,” in her Lost Ring, p. 165.

2. O God I thank Thee for each sight, (The Joy of Living)

A cento of 4 stanzas, from her poem “A Matin Hymn” beginning “I lift the sash and gaze abroad,” in her Lost Ring, p. 164.

3. The changing years, eternal God, (Adoration)

Written for the Bicentennial of the First Congregational Church, Marblehead, August 13, 1884. In her Lost Ring it begins “The changing centuries, O God,”.

Of these hymns no. 2 has had considerable use. It is included in Hymns of the Church Universal, 1891; the New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914; the Pilgrim Hymnal, 1935; Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 1669 H.W.F.

Miles, Sarah Elizabeth (Appleton) Boston, Massachusetts, March 28, 1807—January 3, 1877, Brattleboro, Vermont. She married Solomon P. Miles. In 1827 she printed in the Christian Examiner a hymn beginning,

Thou, who didst stoop below,

which passed into a number of hymn books of the period, and in 1828, in the same periodical she printed a poem in 4 stanzas, C.M.D., which S. Longfellow and S. Johnson, in their second hymn-book, Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, divided into two hymns, of 2 stanzas each, the first beginning

The earth, all light and loveliness,

the second

When, on devotion’s seraph wing.

They also included another of her hymns, consisting of the second, fourth and fifth stanzas of her poem entitled “In Affliction,” beginning

Thou, infinite in love.

These, and some other religious poems, are included in Putnam’s Singers and Songs, etc. None of her hymns are now in use.

H.W.F.

Mott, Rev. Frederick B., England, 1856-1941, England. When a young man he emigrated to this country and on September 30, 1887 was ordained minister of the Barton Square Church (Unitarian) in Salem, Massachusetts. In 1892 he became minister of the Third Religious Society in Dorchester, Massachusetts, which he served till 1903. In 1904 he returned to England and was installed as minister of the Unitarian Chapel at Southport, and later moved to London as editor of the periodical Christian Life. Two hymns in the Universalist Church Harmonies, 1895, are attributed to him, viz:—

1. Take our pledge, eternal Father,

2. The spirit of the Lord has stirred,

but appear to have had no further use.

H.W.F.

Newell, Rev. William, D.D., Littleton, Massachusetts, February 25, 1804—October 28, 1881, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1824 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1829. He was ordained minister of the First Parish in Cambridge on May 19, 1830, where he served until his retirement on March 31, 1868. He was author of many commemorative sermons and memoirs, and received the honorary degree of D.D. from Harvard in 1853. A number of his poems are included in Putnam, Singers and Songs, etc. His hymn beginning,

All hail, God’s angel, Truth (Thanksgiving)

is included in G. Horder’s Worship Song, with Tunes, London, 1905, but is not found in American collections.

J. 1676 H.W.F.

Norton, Prof. Andrews, Hingham, Massachusetts, December 31, 1786—September 18, 1853, Newport, Rhode Island. He graduated from Harvard in 1804. In 1811 he was appointed tutor in the College, in 1813 librarian and Lecturer on the Bible, and in 1819 Professor of Sacred Literature in the Harvard Divinity School, a post which he resigned in 1830 to devote himself to literary and theological pursuits. In 1837 he published the first volume of his famous book The Genuineness of the Gospels, followed in 1844 by the second and third volumes. This was the earliest scholarly work on the New Testament by an American author, and expressed the conservative Unitarian thought of his period. He wrote several other books, and numerous articles. His few poems were printed in a small volume soon after his death, including six hymns, some of which have had considerable use.

1. Another year, another year, (Close of the Year)

Appeared in the Christian Examiner, Nov.-Dec. 1827, in 11 stas. of 4 l. In the Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book, 1868, a cento from it begins with sta. 6,

O what concerns it him whose way

2. Faint not, poor traveller, though thy way, (Fortitude)

Printed in the Christian Disciple, July-Aug. 1822, and included in the West Boston Collection, 1823.

3. He has gone to his God, he has gone to his home (Burial)

Printed in the Christian Examiner, Jan.-Feb. 1824.

4. My God, I thank Thee; may no thought (Submission)

Appeared in the Monthly Anthology and Boston Review, Sept. 1809, and was included in Lunt’s Christian Psalter, 1841, and in many later collections. This was Norton’s earliest and best known hymn.

5. O stay thy tears; for they are blest, (Burial of the Young)

Printed in the General Depository and Review, April, 1812, in 5 stas. of 4 l. In 1855, stas. III-V were included in Beecher’s Plymouth Coll. no. 1094 as

How blest are they whose transient years

6. Where ancient forests round us spread,

Written in 1833 for the dedication of a church.

Of the above nos. 1, 4, 5 were included in Martineau’s Hymns, London, 1873. Nos. 4 and 6 are in the Unitarian New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and no. 6 is in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937. See Putnam’s Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith for the full text of all Norton’s hymns.

J. 810 Revised by H.W.F.

Parker, Rev. Theodore, was born on a farm in Lexington, Massachusetts on August 24, 1810, and died in Florence, Italy, on May 10, 1860. He entered Harvard College in 1830, but did most of his work at home, and studied in the Harvard Divinity School, 1834-1836. In 1840 he was granted the degree of A.M. from Harvard. Entering the ministry he served the Unitarian Church in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, 1837-1846, and the 28^th Congregational Society, Boston, 1846-1860. He was a famous preacher; author of numerous printed discourses on social and religious problems; and one of the earliest American translators of current German theological literature. He wrote a few poems, none intended for use as hymns, but Longfellow and Johnson took one of his sonnets and, by eliminating two lines, transformed it into a hymn of 3 stanzas of 4 lines each beginning,

O thou great Friend of all the sons of men,

which they included in their Book of Hymns, 1846. It has had widespread and long continued use in American hymn-books and to some extent in England. Twelve of Parker’s poetical pieces are included in A. P. Putnam’s Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith. Biographies of Parker have been written by John Weiss, Octavius B. Frothingham, and other authors.

J. 882 H.W.F.

Peabody, Rev. Ephraim, Wilton, New Hampshire, March 22, 1807—November 28, 1856, Boston, Massachusetts.

He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1827, and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1830. After serving as a tutor in the Huidekoper family in Meadville, Pennsylvania, he was ordained in 1832 as minister of a recently gathered Unitarian congregation in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1837 he joined Rev. John H. Morison in serving the First Congregational Society of New Bedford, Massachusetts, and in 1845 he accepted a call to King’s Chapel, Boston, where he remained until his death, though ill-health prevented him from preaching in the last year and a half of his life. An impressive preacher, he also wrote some poetry, and a hymn for an ordination, beginning

Lift aloud the voice of praise

is attributed to him in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853.

H.W.F.

Peabody, Rev. Oliver William Bourne, Exeter, New Hampshire, July 9, 1799—July 5, 1847, Burlington, Vermont. He was twin brother of W. B. O. Peabody, q.v. He graduated from Harvard College in 1817, practised law for a few years at Exeter, served as professor of English Literature in Jefferson College, Louisiana from 1842 to 1845, and in the latter year was licensed to preach by the Boston Association and served as minister of the Unitarian Church at Burlington, Vermont, until his death two years later.

A hymn beginning

God of the rolling orbs above

is attributed to him in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, but does not appear to have had further use.

J. 887 H.W.F.

Peabody, Rev. William Bourne Oliver, D.D., Exeter, New Hampshire, July 9, 1799—May 28, 1847, Springfield, Massachusetts. Graduated from Harvard College in 1817, taught for a year in Phillips Exeter Academy, and studied for the ministry at the Harvard Divinity School. He was ordained as the first minister of the Unitarian Church in Springfield, Massachusetts, in October, 1820, and remained there until his death. In 1823 he published a Poetical Catechism for the Young, in which he included some original hymns. He edited The Springfield Collection of Hymns for Sacred Worship, Springfield, 1835, which was adopted for use in many parishes besides his own, and several of his hymns were included in it. A Memoir of him, written by his twin brother, O. W. B. Peabody, was published in the 2^d edition of his Sermons, 1849, and a collection of his Literary Remains was published in 1850. He is described as “a man of rare accomplishments, and consummate virtue,” widely respected and admired.

The following hymns by him had considerable use in the 19^th century, but only the last survived in a hymn book of the 20^th.

1. Behold the western evening light; (Death of the Righteous)

Published in his Catechism, 1823, and in Springfield Collections, 1835, and elsewhere. It passed into use in England; in altered form in the Leeds Hymn Book, 1853, and in George Rawson’s Baptist Ps. and Hys. 1858, where it begins,

How softly on the western hills.

2. O when the hours of life are past (The Hereafter)

Published in his Catechism in answer to the question “What do you learn of the future state of happiness?” It was included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, and had some use in its original form, and also altered to When all the hours of life are past.

3. The moon is up; how calm and slow, (Evening)

A poem rather than a hymn, in 6 stas. of 4 l., appended to his Catechism, 1823.

4. When brighter suns and milder skies, (Spring)

Appended to his Catechism, 1823, in 6 stas. of 4 l.

5. Who is thy neighbor? He whom thou (The good neighbor)

Included in the New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914.

The full texts of Peabody’s hymns are printed in Putnam, Singers & Songs of the Liberal Faith, Boston, 1874.

J. 887 Revised by H.W.F.

Perkins, Rev. James Handasyde, Boston, Massachusetts, July 31, 1810—December 14, 1849, near Cincinnati, Ohio. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and at Round Hill School, Northampton, Massachusetts. After a brief business experience in Boston he moved to Cincinnati, where he was admitted to the bar in 1837, but two years later he took up the Ministry-at-Large organized by the First Congregational Society (Unitarian) of Cincinnati, and later became pastor of the church. He was active in social reforms and as a lecturer, and was author of a number of essays descriptive of life in what was then the far west.

The hymn in 3 stanzas, C.M., beginning

It is a faith sublime and sure,

attributed to “J. H. Perkins” in Longfellow and Johnson’s Book of Hymns, 1846-48, is presumably by him, although it is not included with his poems printed in the Memoir and Writings of James Handasyde Perkins, edited by W. H. Channing, Cincinnati, 1851. It does not appear to have had any further use.

H.W.F.

Pierpont, Rev. John, Litchfield, Connecticut, April 6, 1785—August 27, 1866, Medford, Massachusetts. He graduated from Yale College in 1804, studied law, and in 1812 set up practice in Newburyport, Massachusetts, but later turned to the ministry and graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in 1818. That fall he became minister of the Hollis Street Church (Unitarian) in Boston, which he served till 1840, when a sharp controversy over his outspoken attacks on intemperance, slavery and other social evils led to his resignation. In the same year he published his Poems and Hymns, which included his temperance and anti-slavery poems and songs, and of which a later edition appeared in 1854. He also wrote a number of excellent school books. In 1845 he became minister of the Unitarian Church at Troy, New York, and in 1849 of the First Parish in Medford, Massachusetts, which he served until 1859, when he retired. With the outbreak of the Civil War he became an Army chaplain and was later employed in the Treasury Department at Washington. He died suddenly while on a visit to Medford.

He was the maternal grandfather of J. Pierpont Morgan of New York, who was named for him, but it would be hard to find a greater contrast than that offered by the careers of the hymn-writing reformer and his grandson, the financial magnate.

In his own day Pierpont’s hymns brought him a wide reputation. Thus Putnam, in his Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith, 1873, says, “Mr. Pierpont was one of the best hymn writers in America. He was a genuine poet, as well as a powerful preacher and stern reformer.” Today he occupies a much more modest place in American hymnody. None of his hymns attained a very high level of excellence. Most of them are respectable verse, written in response to frequent requests for hymns for special occasions, but they well illustrate the mood of the Unitarianism of his period.

His hymns which have come into use are

1. Another day its course hath run (Evening)

Appeared in Hymns for Children, Boston 1825; in Greenwood’s Chapel Liturgy, 1827; in Lunt’s Christian Psalter, 1841; and in the author’s Poems and Hymns, 1840.

2. Break forth in song, ye trees (Public Thanksgiving)

Written for the celebration of the 200^th anniversary of the Settlement of Boston, Sept. 17, 1830. Included in Poems and Hymns, 1840.

3. Break the bread and pour the wine (Communion)

In Harris’s Hymns for the Lord’s Supper, 1820.

4. Father, while we break the bread, (Communion)

5. God Almighty and All-seeing (Greatness of God)

Contributed to Elias Nason’s Congregational Hymn Book, Boston, 1857.

6. God of mercy, do Thou never (Ordination)

Written for the ordination of John B. P. Storer at Walpole, Mass., Nov. 18, 1826. Included in the author’s Poems, 1840, and in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853.

7. God of our fathers, in Whose sight, (Love of Truth)

This hymn is composed of stas. IX and X of a longer hymn written for the Charlestown (Mass.) Centennial, June 17, 1830. In this form it was included in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, and elsewhere.

8. Gone are those great and good, (Commemoration)

Part of no. 2, above, in Church Harmonies, 1895.

9. I cannot make him dead (Memorial)

A part of an exquisitely touching and beautiful poem of ten stanzas, originally printed in the Monthly Miscellany, Oct. 1840.

10. Let the still air rejoice, (Praise)

This was headed “Temperance Hymn” in The Soldier’s Companion, 1861, but is really a patriotic ditty.

11. Mighty God, whose name is holy (Charitable Institutions)

Written for the anniversary of the Howard Benevolent Society, Dec. 1826. Included in the author’s Poems, 1840.

12. My God, I thank Thee that the night (Morning)

In the author’s Poems, 1840. In Lunt’s Christian Psalter, 1841, and Martineau’s Hymns, 1873, it begins

O God, I thank Thee.

13. O bow Thine ear, Eternal One (Opening of Worship)

Dated 1823, but not included in the author’s Poems. It is given in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns, etc. 1853.

14. O Thou to Whom in ancient times (Worship)

“Written for the opening of the Independent Congregational Church in Barton Square, Salem, Mass. Dec. 7, 1824,” and printed at the close of the sermon preached by Henry Colman on that day. Included in the author’s Poems, 1840, and in many collections in this country and in Great Britain.

15. O Thou Who art above all height (Ordination)

“Written for the ordination of Mr. William Ware as Pastor of the First Congregational Church in New York, Dec. 18, 1821.” Included in Poems, 1840, and in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns, etc.

16. O Thou, Who on the whirlwind rides (Dedication of a Place of Worship)

Written for the opening of the Seamen’s Bethel in Boston, Sept. 11, 1833. Sometimes used beginning

Thou Who on the whirlwind rides

17. O’er Kedron’s stream, and Salem’s height, (Gethsemane)

Contributed to T. M. Harris’s Hymns for the Lord’s Supper, 1820. Included in Martineau’s Hymns, London, 1873.

18. On this stone, now laid with prayer (Foundation Stone)

Written for the laying of the cornerstone of Suffolk Street Chapel, Boston, for the Ministry to the Poor, May 23, 1839.

19. With Thy pure dew and rain, (Against slavery)

Written for the African Colonization Society. Included in Cheever’s Common Place Book, 1831, but not in the author’s Poems, 1840.

20. While with lips with praise that glow, (Communion)

Included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns, etc.

All of the above hymns have passed out of use except nos. 1, 8, 12, and 14 which are included in the New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and nos. 8 and 14, included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 895, 1647 Revised by H.W.F.

Pray, Lewis Glover, Quincy, Massachusetts, August 15, 1793—October 9, 1882, Roxbury, Massachusetts. He was a business man in Boston, active in civic and church affairs. For 33 years he was superintendent of the Sunday School in the Twelfth Congregational Society of Boston. In 1833 he published a Sunday School Hymn Book, the first book containing music published for Sunday Schools in New England. It appeared in enlarged form in 1844 as the Sunday School Hymn and Service Book. In 1847 he published his History of Sunday Schools. His own hymns and poems were published in 1862 as The Sylphids’ School, and in a second volume, Autumn Leaves, 1873. Most of them are songs for Sunday School use rather than hymns for the church service but one of them, from The Sylphids’ School, beginning

When God upheaved the pillared earth,

was included in Hymns of the Ages. 3^d Series, 1864.

J. 906 H.W.F.

Prince, Rev. Thomas, D.D., Sandwich, Massachusetts, May 15, 1687—October 22, 1758, Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard in 1707. After voyages to Barbadoes and a stay of several years in England he returned to Boston and in 1717 was ordained as colleague of Rev. Joseph Sewall, minister of the Old South Church. His career was marked by frequent controversies and by his Chronological History of New England, based on his great collection of rare documents dating from the early years of the Colony. This priceless collection was unfortunately dispersed and much of it lost after his death. During his ministry the Tate and Brady version of the Psalms was gradually replacing the Bay Psalm Book in New England, but his parishioners clung to the old book. He persuaded them to let him revise it, which he did, improving or modernizing the verse and printing after the Psalms “an addition of Fifty other Hymns on the most important subjects of Christianity.” It included one hymn by himself beginning

With Christ and all his shining Train

Of Saints and Angels, we shall rise (The Resurrection)

His collection was published in 1758 and was first used in the Old South Meeting House on the Sunday following his death. Its use there continued for another 30 years, but it was not adopted elsewhere, the Bay Psalm Book being by that time generally superseded by collections of Watts and Select.

H.W.F.

Putnam, Rev. Alfred Porter, D. D. Danvers, Massachusetts, January 10, 1827—April 15, 1906, Salem, Massachusetts. He was educated at Brown University, A.B. 1852, and graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in 1855. Entering the Unitarian ministry he served a church in Roxbury, Massachusetts, 1855-1864, and the Church of the Saviour, Brooklyn, New York, 1864-1886, when he retired. Brown University gave him the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1871. He wrote no hymns but published in 1874 a book entitled Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith: being selections of hymns and other sacred poems of the Liberal Church in America, with biographical sketches of the writers. This book includes practically all the hymns by American Unitarian authors which had come into use prior to 1870, and the biographical sketches are generally accurate and adequate in brief space. This useful reference book is elsewhere referred to in this Dictionary as Putnam: Singers and Songs.

H.W.F.

Robbins, Rev. Chandler, D.D., Lynn, Massachusetts, February 14, 1810—September 12, 1882, Westport, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1829 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1833. On December 4th of the same year he was ordained minister of the Second Church (Unitarian), Boston, in succession to Henry Ware, Jr. and R. W. Emerson. He received the honorary degree of D.D. from Harvard in 1855. He was the author of a number of books, essays and memorial discourses dealing with local events and persons. In 1843 he published The Social Hymn Book, intended for social gatherings rather than for church services, and in 1854 an enlarged edition entitled Hymn Book for Christian Worship, though this book does not give his name as editor. He contributed two hymns to A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for the Sanctuary, 1845, compiled by George E. Ellis.

1. Lo! the day of rest declineth (Evening)

for which L. B. Barnes, then president of the Handel and Haydn Society composed the tune, Bedford Street, named for the location of Dr. Robbins’ church.

2. While thus [now] thy throne of grace we seek, (Voice of God)

The first of these is included in The Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908, and in the New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914. The second is in Church Harmonies, 1895.

J. 966 H.W.F.

Robbins, Rev. Samuel Dowse, Lynn, Massachusetts, March 7, 1812—?1884, Belmont, Massachusetts, he was a brother of Chandler Robbins, q.v. He graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in 1833 and on November 13 of the same year was ordained minister of the Unitarian Church in Lynn. He subsequently held pastorates in Chelsea (1840), Framingham (1859) and Wayland, Massachusetts, 1867-1873.

He wrote a good many poems on religious themes, which were published in magazines and newspapers but were never collected in a volume. The Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book, 1868, included four of his hymns, viz:

1. Down toward the twilight drifting, (Sunset)

2. Saviour, when thy bread we break, (Communion)

3. Thou art my morning, God of light, (Day)

4. Thou art, O God! my East. In thee I dawned,

In Putnam, Singers and Songs, etc., this is entitled “The Compass,” with the statement, “Several mistakes in this hymn, as it is printed in the Hymn and Tune Book, are here corrected by Mr. Robbins.”

Julian’s Dictionary, p. 967, also cites one beginning

5. Thou art our father! thou of God the Son (Christ)

but it is a religious poem rather than a hymn and there is no evidence that it was included in any hymn book.

J. 967 Revised H.W.F.

Sargent, Lucius Manlius, Boston, Massachusetts, June 25, 1786—June 2, 1867, Boston. A layman of independent means, author of many articles advocating temperance. His temperance hymn beginning

Slavery and death the cup contains

“was written during the Washingtonian Temperance Revival” and appeared in Adams’ and Chapin’s Unitarian Hymns for Christian Devotion, Boston, 1846. In the American Methodist Episcopal Hymnal, 1878 the first line is altered to read

Bondage and death the cup contains,

The hymn is included, with the original wording, in the Universalist Church Harmonies, 1895.

J. 1061 H.W.F.

Savage, Rev. Minot Judson, D.D., Norridgewock, Maine, June 10, 1841—May 22, 1918, Boston, Massachusetts. His parents were strictly orthodox Congregationalists whose resources were meagre, but a generous benefactor made it possible for him to enter Bangor Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in 1864. He served as a Congregational minister in California, Massachusetts and Missouri, but, having become acquainted with the works of Darwin and Herbert Spencer, he transferred his membership to the Unitarian denomination in 1872 and became minister of the Third Unitarian Church in Chicago. Two years later he accepted a call to Unity Church in Boston, which he served until 1896 when he moved to New York as minister of the Church of the Messiah. He was one of the earliest advocates of a religious interpretation of the doctrine of evolution, a bold thinker and forceful speaker in great demand, and the author of many books and printed sermons. In 1883 he published Sacred Songs for Public Worship; a Hymn and Tune Book, with music arranged by Howard M. Dow, for use in Unity Church. It contained 195 hymns and songs, 42 of which were from his own pen. It had the shortcomings of a “one-man book” and was musically nearer akin to the typical gospel song-book than was usual in Unitarian hymn-books, and it had little use outside his own congregation. Several of his hymns passed into other collections in England and America, viz:

1. Dost thou hear the bugle sounding, (Duty)

2. Father, we would not dare to change thy purpose (Prayer)

3. God of the glorious summer hours, (New Year)

4. How shall come the kingdom holy (Coming of the kingdom)

5. O God, whose law is in the sky (Consecration to Duty)

6. O star of truth, down shining, (Devotion to Truth)

7. Seek not afar for beauty, (God in Nature)

8. The God that to our fathers revealed his holy will,

9. The very blossoms of our life, (Baptism)

10. What purpose burns within our hearts, (Church Fellowship)

11. When the gladsome day declineth, (Evening)

Of these nos. 4, 6, 7 and 11 are included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 1698 H.W.F.

Scudder, Eliza, Boston, Massachusetts, November 14, 1821—September 28, 1896, Weston, Massachusetts. She was a niece of Rev. E. H. Sears, q.v. Early in life she joined a Congregational Church, throughout her middle years was a Unitarian, and late in life entered the Episcopal Church. She wrote a small number of poems which were published in Boston in 1880 under the title Hymns and Sonnets, by E.S., and again with her two latest poems and a brief biographical sketch by Horace E. Scudder, in 1897, but most of her hymns had appeared at earlier dates in other places. They are characterized by a profound mystical spirit expressed in terms of great literary beauty, and some of them passed into a considerable measure of common use.

1. And wherefore should I seek above,

This hymn, included in The Isles of Shoals Hymnbook, 1908, consists of the last three stanzas of a much longer poem entitled “The New Heaven,” dated 1855.

2. From past regret and present faithlessness, (Repentance)

written in August, 1871, and published in Quiet Hours, Boston, 1875. This was altered in some hymnbooks to,

From past regret and present feebleness,

In most cases the opening stanza has been omitted and the hymn has begun with the second stanza,

Thou Life within my life, than self more near,

see no. 9, below.

3. I cannot find Thee, still on restless pinion, (Seeking after God)

This first appeared in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864.

4. In Thee my powers and treasures live, (Faith and Joy)

This appeared in Hymns of the Spirit, 1864. It is part of a hymn of 10 stanzas beginning

Let whosoever will inquire, dated 1855.

In The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, another arrangement of stanzas forms a hymn beginning

My God, I rather look to Thee

5. Life of our life, and light of all our seeing, (Prayer)

Written in August, 1870, it was included in Quiet Hours, 1875.

6. The day is done: the weary day of thought and toil is past, (Evening)

Included in Sermons and Songs of the Christian Life, E. H. Sears, Boston, 2^nd ed. 1878, p. 296, entitled “Vesper Hymn,” dated “October, 1874.”

7. Thou Grace divine, encircling all, (Divine Grace)

This appeared in E. H. Sears’ Pictures of the Olden Time, as shown in the Fortunes of a Family of Pilgrims, 1857. Written in 1852, it was included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1864. In the Universalist Psalms and Hymns, 1865, it was mistakenly called “An Ancient Catholic Hymn.”

8. Thou hast gone up again (Ascension)

In Hymns and Sonnets, 1880.

9. Thou Life within my life, than self more near,

As noted above, this is part of No. 2, beginning with the second stanza of that hymn. In this form it is perhaps Miss Scudder’s most beautiful hymn.

10. Thou long disowned, reviled, opprest,(Spirit of Truth)

Written in January, 1860, it was included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1864. A cento from this hymn, altered to read,

Come Thou, with purifying fire,

was included in Stryker’s Church Song, 1889.

Of these hymns nos. 3, 4 (selected stanzas), 7, 9 and 10 are included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and nos. 3, 7 and 9 in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 1035, 1589, 1700 H.W.F.