Entitled, “Intercession for All Conditions of Men,” in Bonar’s Hymns of Faith and Hope, 3d series, 1867.
The history of this hymn is given by the author’s son, Rev. H. N. Bonar, as follows:
My father was asked to provide words to the music, and was especially requested to furnish a fitting refrain to the two lovely lines of Mendelssohn’s with which Callcott’s tune, “Intercession,” ends. In searching for a Scripture theme containing some reiterated phrase almost of the nature of a refrain, he was struck with Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple (2 Chron. 6) in which every separate petition concludes with substantially the same words.
This idea was taken for his starting point, and Solomon’s words, “Hear thou from heaven thy dwelling place and forgive,” became the familiar couplet:
“Hear then in love, O Lord, the cry
In heaven, thy dwelling place on high.”
This foundation once provided, the rest of the hymn was built upon it.
For comments on Horatius Bonar see Hymn 129.
MUSIC. INTERCESSION was composed by William H. Callcott, 1807-82, an English musician. He was organist of Ely Chapel, Holborn, and afterwards of St. Barnabas’ Church, Kensington, and composed anthems and songs.
The refrain is from Mendelssohn’s oratorio, Elijah, part of the prayer for rain by the prophet and the people. Bonar’s hymn was written for this tune.
Based on Gen. 27:34: “Bless me, even me also, O my Father,” and Ezek. 34:26: “There shall be showers of blessing.” It is an especially useful hymn at revival meetings.
Elizabeth Codner was the wife of Rev. David Codner, a clergyman of the Church of England. She engaged in some literary work and was much interested in the Mildmay Protestant Mission in North London.
The author has given the origin of the hymn as follows:
A party of young friends over whom I was watching with anxious hope attended a meeting in which details were given of a revival work in Ireland. They came back greatly impressed. My fear was lest they should be satisfied to let their own fleece remain dry, and I pressed upon them the privilege and responsibility of getting a share in the out-poured blessing. On the Sunday following, not being well enough to get out, I had a time of quiet communion. Those children were still on my heart, and I longed to press upon them an earnest individual appeal. Without effort words seemed to be given to me, and they took the form of a hymn. I had no thought of sending it beyond the limits of my own circle, but, passing it on to one and another, it became a word of power, and I then published it as a leaflet. Of its future history I can only say the Lord took it quite out of my own hands. It was read from pulpits, circulated by tens of thousands, and blessed in a remarkable degree. Every now and then some sweet token was sent to cheer me in a somewhat isolated life, of its influence upon souls. Now it would be tidings from afar of a young officer dying in India and sending home his Bible with the hymn pasted on the flyleaf as the precious memorial of that which brought him to the Lord. Then came the story of a poor outcast gathered into the fold by the same means. Then came to me a letter given me by Mr. E. P. Hammond, which he had received, and in which were the words: “Thank you for singing that hymn ‘Even Me,’ for it was the singing of that hymn that saved me. I was a lost woman, a wicked mother. I have stolen and lied and been so bad to my dear, innocent children. Friendless, I attended your inquiry meeting; but no one came to me because of the crowd. But on Saturday afternoon, at the First Presbyterian Church, when they all sang that hymn together, those beautiful words, ‘Let some drops now fall on me,’ and also those, ‘Blessing others, O bless me,’ it seemed to reach my very soul. I thought, ‘Jesus can accept me—“even me”’ and it brought me to his feet, and I feel the burden of sin removed. Can you wonder that I love those words and I love to hear them sung?”
The original rendering has in a variety of instances been departed from. To some alterations I have consented, but always prefer that the words remain unchanged from the form in which God so richly blessed them. The point of the hymn, in its close and individual application, is in the “Even me” at the end of the verse. I thankfully commit them to whoever desires to use them in the services of our blessed Master.
MUSIC. EVEN ME. For comments on the composer, Wm. B. Bradbury, see Hymn 103.
A hymn of the simple, pure life. Purity of heart has a wider meaning than the specific virtue of chastity. Stanzas 1 and 3 are from Keble’s, The Christian Year, 1827. Stanzas 2 and 4 are from the New Mitre Hymn Book, 1836, and their authorship is uncertain. Some think they are from the pen of the editor of the book, W. J. Hall, or of the co-editor, Edward Osler.
For comments on John Keble see Hymn 22.
MUSIC. FRANCONIA is from a book compiled by Johann Balthasar König, Harmonischer Lieder-Schatz, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1738, where it is set to the hymn, Was ist, das mich betrübt? The original melody may have been by König himself.
The present tune, arranged by Rev. W. H. Havergal, has become one of the best known Short-Meter (6.6.8.8.) tunes.
For comments on W. H. Havergal see Hymn 153.
Based on the beatitude in Matt. 5:8: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”
For comments on the author, W. H. Bathurst, see Hymn 153.
MUSIC. GLENLUCE is one of the Common Tunes (See 20) in the Scottish Psalter of 1635.
For comments on the Scottish Psalter see Hymn 575.
A popular hymn at young people’s summer conferences and other youth gatherings. The words have often been reprinted in trade journals and newspapers and used on many a motto card. The ideals of youth—truth, purity, strength, bravery, friendship, generosity, humility, laughter, love, and helpfulness, encompassed in these few lines—were all revealed in the author’s brief life.
Howard Arnold Walter was graduated cum laude in 1905 from Princeton University while Woodrow Wilson was president of the institution. He then entered Hartford Theological Seminary to prepare himself for the ministry, but after the first year went to Japan to teach English in Waseda University in Tokyo. After one year, he returned to Hartford where, upon graduation, he won the Two-Year Fellowship. In 1909 and 1910 he studied in Edinburgh and in German Universities. He chose the foreign mission field for life service but, owing to a weak heart, was unable to pass the required physical examination. In spite of his handicap, he volunteered for Y.M.C.A. work and was assigned by John R. Mott to India, where he worked among the Mohammedan students in Foreman Christian College, Lahore. He died there November 1, 1918, during the influenza epidemic, leaving a devoted wife and three small children. The words, “I would be true,” were inscribed on a memorial tablet erected in his home church in New Britain, Conn.
The hymn was written in 1907 in Japan when Walter was just 23 years old. Recalling the joys and friendships of his home, the words came to him on New Year’s morning as he was on his knees. He mailed the poem entitled, “My Creed,” to his mother who sent it to Harper’s Magazine in order to share with others the beauty of its message. It appeared in the May, 1907, issue of that magazine and later found its way into a number of hymn books.
The third stanza, making the hymn more complete, was later written by the author and sent to Rev. Theodore A. Green, minister of the First Church of Christ, New Haven, Connecticut:
I would be prayerful through each busy moment;
I would be constantly in touch with God;
I would be tuned to hear the slightest whisper;
I would have faith to keep the path Christ trod.
MUSIC. PEEK. No one seemed to know anything of the composer of this tune until very recently when Dr. Reginald L. McAll, secretary of the Hymn Society of America, assigned to the Hon. Edgar M. Doughty, Brooklyn, an official referee of the New York State Supreme Court, an accomplished musician and active member of the Baptist Church, the task of searching out in behalf of the Society the facts concerning Mr. Peek. The Hon. Mr. Doughty completed his research just before his death in 1947, at the age of 80 and the information presented here is based on a document compiled from his papers by his secretary. Miss Mildred Taylor Denisch:
Joseph Yates Peek, 1843-1911, born in Schenectady, N. Y., had very little formal musical training, but was endowed with a love for music and considerable native musical ability and became a proficient amateur performer on the violin and piano. In early life he was a carpenter and farmer but later established a business as florist and horticulturist. A deeply religious man, always interested in the church, he retired from business in 1904, and in spite of his advanced years, became a prominent lay preacher in the Methodist Church. In 1911 he was ordained, but his career as a regular minister was cut short when a heart attack, which occurred while preaching, resulted in his death. Peek was a humble Christian gentleman who sought no honors for himself, which may account for the fact that his identity as the composer of this tune remained hidden so long. Then, too, he may have felt that the credit for the tune did not belong entirely to himself, for he received considerable help from a friend, Dr. Tuller, an organist and composer, who jotted down the notes as Peek whistled the melody, and later added the harmonization.
Peek had received a copy of Walter’s poem which was printed on a New Year’s card and entitled, “My Creed.” He was greatly impressed with the words, and in a moment of inspiration gave them wings of song to carry them over the wide world.
The tune has become immensely popular in spite of its weak down-curve of melody. The hymn may also be sung to Barnby’s more sturdy tune, “Perfect Love” (312), which fits the words perfectly.
The original of this hymn was published in Reliquiae Wottonianae with a memoir by Isaac Walton, 1651. The poem was altered somewhat to make it suitable for a congregational hymn.
Henry Wotton graduated from Oxford in 1588. He had a varied career, travelling on the continent, acting as agent to the Earl of Essex for collection of foreign intelligence, and then settling in Venice where he was ambassador at the court from 1604-24, with two intervals during which he was engaged in diplomatic missions to other countries and in parliamentary work in England. From 1624 until his death he was provost of Eton. Besides the above-named book, he published The Elements of Architecture, 1624, and Ad Regem e Scotia reducem in 1633.
MUSIC. WAREHAM, by William Knapp, is from A Sett of New Psalm Tunes and Anthems, in Four Parts by Wm. Knapp, 1738, where it is set to Psalm 36:5-10 with the heading, “For the Holy Sacrament.” It is a deservedly popular melody, remarkably smooth, moving throughout by step except the perfect fourth interval between the fifth and sixth notes.
A useful hymn, by a Quaker poet, setting forth the characteristic Quaker doctrine of the “Inner Light,” based on I John 1:7: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
The hymn appeared in the author’s Devotional Verses, London, 1826.
Bernard Barton, known in England as the “Quaker Poet” (as was Whittier in America), was born in London and educated at a Quaker school at Ipswich. When 26 years old he became a Clerk in Alexander’s Bank at Woodbridge, Suffolk, and stayed there the remainder of his life. On Nov. 16, 1843, he wrote in a letter:
I took my seat on the identical stool I now occupy at the desk to the wood of which I have now well-nigh grown, in the third month of the year 1810, and there I have sat for three and thirty years beside the odd eight months without one month’s respite in all that time. I often wonder that my health has stood this sedentary probation as it has and that my mental facilities have survived three and thirty years of putting down figures in three rows, casting them up and carrying them forward, ad infinitum.
He might have given some of these years to literary pursuits had he not followed the good advice of Charles Lamb who wrote him:
Throw yourself on the world, without any rational plan of support beyond what the chance employ of booksellers would afford you! Throw yourself rather, my dear sir, from the steep Tarpeian rock, slap-dash headlong upon iron spikes. If you have but five consolatory minutes between the desk and the bed, make much of them, and live a century in them, rather than turn slave to the booksellers. They are Turks and Tartars when they have poor authors at their beck. Hitherto you have been at arm’s length from them—come not within their grasp. I have known many authors’ want for bread—some repining, others enjoying the blessed security of a counting-house—all agreeing they had rather have been tailors, weavers, what not? rather than the things they were. I have known some starved, some go mad, one dear friend literally dying in a workhouse. Oh, you know not—may you never know—the miseries of subsisting by authorship!
He published eight or ten volumes of verse. His writings show an extensive acquaintance with the Scriptures.
MUSIC. DEDHAM. For comments on the composer, William Gardiner, see Hymn 197.
A hymn of courage. The original is in 10 stanzas, of which this hymn is a selection of stanzas 1, 2, 8, 9, 10.
Anne Brontë, one of three illustrious sisters, the other two being Charlotte and Emily, was born near Bradford, England, the daughter of the Rev. Patrick Brontë, Vicar of Haworth, Yorkshire. She was joint author with her sisters of a book of Poems, 1846, and wrote other volumes under the pseudonym, “Acton Bell.”
MUSIC. The tune, VIGIL, is by the Italian composer, Giovanni Paisiello, 1741-1816, whose works include 100 operas, a Passion oratorio, 30 masses, a requiem, 40 motets, and 8 symphonies. From 1776 to 1784, he was in the service of Empress Catherine of Russia, who a few years later was receiving Mennonites from Danzig and West Prussia to settle her crown lands at Chortitz. Paisiello was called to Paris to organize the music of the First Consul, meanwhile composing some church music. His last years were spent in Naples, where he was choirmaster to Joseph Bonaparte and Murat.
A challenge to live life bravely and true. The hymn is from Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, prepared by Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson. It is one of the lyrics which helped establish Longfellow’s reputation as a hymn writer.
For comments on Samuel Longfellow see Hymn 28.
MUSIC. MENDON is a variation of a “German Air” introduced into American hymn books by Samuel Dyer. The original had an additional note in each line and a different last line. The change to the present form and its name is attributed to Lowell Mason.
Samuel Dyer, 1785-1835, born in England, came to America when 26 years old and became a choir leader and teacher of sacred music in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. He published several collections of sacred music, one of which, Philadelphia Collection of Sacred Music, 1828, gives valuable sketches of composers, and information about Dyer himself.
A hymn of consecration which the author wrote on the occasion of the confirmation of his daughter and two sons as “O Jesus, we have promised.” It is frequently, and appropriately, used at baptismal services.
John Ernest Bode graduated with high honors from Oxford, where he was a fellow and tutor for six years; then became rector of Westwall, Oxfordshire, and later of Castle Campus, Cambridgeshire. He was a man of considerable attainments and was Bampton Lecturer in 1855. He wrote a number of hymns and is the author of several volumes of poetry.
MUSIC. ANGEL’S STORY, also known as “Supplication” and “Watermouth,” was written for Emily H. Miller’s hymn, “I love to hear the story which angel voices tell,” from which it derives its name. It first appeared in the Methodist Sunday School Hymn Book, 1881, but has since come into wide usage set to “O Jesus, I have promised.”
The composer, Arthur H. Mann, 1850-1930, was a distinguished English organist, and musical editor of The Church of England Hymnal. He was an authority on the music of Handel, and composed much church music. Oxford University gave him the degrees of Bachelor of Music and Doctor of Music.
Based on Prov. 19:17: “He that hath pity on the poor lendeth to the Lord.” It is a hymn on Christian giving and liberality, sounding the real humanitarian note, a side of religion which an effective and virile hymnology cannot ignore. It may appropriately be sung by choir or congregation in the dedication of the offering. (See comments at 611.)
For comments on W. W. How see Hymn 144.
MUSIC. SCHUMANN, a fine short-meter tune, is ascribed to Robert Schumann but it seems as if no one has ever found anything among his musical writings from which the tune could have been derived. It appeared in Lowell Mason’s Cantica Laudis in 1850.
For comments on Schumann see Hymn 296.
One of the greatest of Wesley’s short hymns taken from Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures, 1762, where it is headed, “Keep the charge of the Lord, that ye die not” (Lev. 8:35).
The hymn strikes a much-needed note regarding the serious significance of this life. Thomas Carlyle expressed the same thought in his old age when he said: “The older I grow, and now I stand upon the brink of eternity, the more comes back to me the sentence in the catechism which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes: ‘What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’”
For comments on Charles Wesley see Hymn 6.
MUSIC. BOYLSTON was composed by Lowell Mason and named after one of the towns in his native state. It appeared in The Choir, 1832, set to “Our days are as the grass.” The tune is widely used with “Blest be the tie that binds.”
For comments on Lowell Mason, see Hymn 12.
One of the finest hymns of consecration and service. It has been translated into many languages, including Russian, and many of Africa and Asia.
The author’s own story of how this hymn was written after her visit in a certain home throws a vivid light on her evangelical zeal:
There were ten persons in the house, some unconverted and long prayed for, some converted but not rejoicing Christians. He gave me the prayer, “Lord give me ALL in this house.” And He just did. Before I left the house everyone had got a blessing. The night of my visit, after I had retired, the governess asked me to go to the two daughters. They were crying. Then and there both of them trusted and rejoiced. I was too happy to sleep, and passed most of the night in praise and renewal of my own consecration; and these little couplets formed themselves and chimed in my heart one after the other, till they finished with “Ever, ONLY, ALL for Thee!”
The hymn appears here unaltered from the original.
For further comments on Frances Havergal see Hymn 126.
MUSIC. HENDON. This tune appeared first in America in Carmina Sacra, 1841, edited by Lowell Mason. The composer, Henri Abraham César Malan, 1787-1864, born in Geneva, Switzerland, was a man of many interests. He was a well educated minister, a blacksmith, carpenter, printer, and artist. He had a burning zeal for the conversion of souls. Convinced that the national church stood in need of reform, he aroused much opposition. After preaching an unorthodox sermon at the College of Geneva, he was dismissed from his regentship at the college and was finally driven from the state church. He then built a chapel in his own garden and preached there for 43 years, attracting overflowing crowds and becoming widely known throughout Belgium, France, England, and Scotland for his evangelism. He wrote more than 1,000 hymns and set tunes to them, a remarkable achievement. As the originator of the modern hymn movement in the French Reformed Church, Malan has a permanent place in French Hymnody.
The authorship of this hymn was unknown until recently when Robert McCutchan, author of Our Hymnody, discovered that it was written by William Rolf Featherstone, a Canadian by birth, when he was only sixteen years of age. The author sent the hymn to an aunt, Mrs. E. Featherstone Wilson, living in Los Angeles, who suggested to her nephew that it be published. No further information concerning Featherstone is at hand.
MUSIC. GORDON. The tune was written for this hymn which the composer, Dr. Gordon, found in the London Hymn Book, 1864. This combination of hymn and tune became popular and is widely known in America.
Adoniram Judson Gordon, 1836-1895, was born at New Hampton, New Hampshire, educated at Brown University and Newton Theological Seminary, and became the distinguished pastor of the Clarendon Street Baptist Church, Boston. He at one time was editor of The Watchword, and is author of a series of books called Quiet Talks.
A hymn of the believer’s humble resignation to God, as the clay to the potter.
The author, Adelaide Addison Pollard, was a modest poet. She signed her writings for many years with only her initials, but in recent times her publishers have used her full name. Miss Pollard was born in Iowa, but died in New York City. She was buried in the family plot at Ft. Madison, Iowa. While a teacher of elocution and expression, she became interested in deeper spiritual things through the ministry of R. A. Torrey and James M. Gray, and enrolled for further Bible training at the Moody Bible Institute, Chicago. She became a teacher in the Missionary Alliance Bible School at Nyack, N. Y., and also did missionary work in South Africa. Miss Pollard wrote numerous hymns and devotional poems. Her two best-known hymns are: “Have Thine own way, Lord,” and “Shepherd of Israel.” Her mother was Rebecca Pollard who wrote the song poem, “I surrender all,” for which D. B. Towner wrote the music.
MUSIC. ADELAIDE. The name of the tune is obviously derived from the name of the author of the words for which it was composed. For comments on the composer, Geo. C. Stebbins, see Hymn 38.
An appealing hymn on fellowship and service as well as consecration.
The author entitled the hymn, “On Relieving Christ in the Poor.” The original first line began “Jesus, my Lord, how rich thy grace.” The hymn was rewritten by Edward Osler, 1798-1863, for Hall’s Mitre Hymn Book, 1836, in which form it is found in modern hymnals, including the Hymnary.
For comments on Philip Doddridge see Hymn 56.
MUSIC. DALEHURST was composed by Arthur Cottman, 1842-79, an Englishman trained for the law but interested keenly in sacred music. It was first published in Cottman’s Ten Original Tunes, 1874, and has since been introduced into the hymnals and set to various texts. It is a tune of simple pattern, contemplative in mood, and should be sung in an even, moderate tempo.
Based on the conversation between Samuel and Eli, I Sam. 3:1-10.
Miss Havergal’s favorite name for Christ was “Master,” because, she said, “it implies rule and submission, and this is what love craves. Men may feel differently, but a true woman’s submission is inseparable from deep love.”
For comments on Frances Havergal see Hymn 126.
MUSIC. AMEN, JESUS HAN SKAL RAADE (“Amen, Jesus, He shall reign”) comes from Denmark. The composer, Anton Peter Berggreen, 1801-80, was born in Copenhagen and lived there all his life. He studied music and became a composer of many works, the most popular being his National Songs in eleven volumes. His collection of Psalm Tunes are widely used in Danish churches. He was organist at Trinity Church, Copenhagen, and organized musical associations among laboring people which are still popular. For a number of years he was Professor of Singing at the Metropolitan School and inspector of the public schools in his native city.
Phelps gave this hymn to be published in Pure Gold, a Sunday school songbook which Robert Lowry, composer of music, was then editing and of which more than a million copies were sold. The hymn was given the heading, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6.)
Sylvanus Dryden Phelps, Baptist minister, was born in Suffolk, Conn.; received his education at Brown University; and in 1846 became pastor of the First Baptist Church, New Haven, Conn., where he remained for 28 years. He published three volumes of poetry. His son, William Lyon Phelps, was the distinguished Professor of English Literature at Yale and a lay preacher.
MUSIC. SOMETHING FOR JESUS was written for this hymn. At the time he composed this tune, Lowry was pastor of a Baptist Church in Lewisburg, Pa., and Professor of Literature in Bucknell University.
For further comments on Robert Lowry see Hymn 187.
Based on John 9:4: “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.” The hymn was written when the author, eighteen years old, lived in Canada. It was published in a Canadian newspaper and later in her small volume of poems, Leaves from the Backwoods, Montreal, 1864.
Anna Louisa Walker was born in England but went in her teens with her parents to Sania, Canada, where her brothers were railway engineers. Returning to England, she became a governess for a time, then she reviewed books, making her home with her second cousin, a Mrs. Oliphant, for some years. In 1883 she married Harry Coghill, a wealthy merchant. She published six novels and a book of poems, Oak and Maple, and edited the Autobiography and Letters of Mrs. Oliphant.
MUSIC. WORK SONG, known in England as “Diligence,” was written for this hymn. To fit the tune it became necessary to drop a syllable in the fourth line of each verse, an alteration which the author disliked extremely and which she never sanctioned.
For comments on Lowell Mason see Hymn 12.
An unexcelled “Hymn for the City.” The following account of it is given in The Churchman, July, 1938, in an article by Eloise R. Griffith, on “Our Great Hymns”:
Frank Mason North, D.D., a well-known clergyman of the Methodist Church, is the author of this well-loved hymn. It is sometimes called “A Prayer for the City,” or “A Prayer for the Multitudes,” and has the distinction of appearing in more standard hymnals today than any other hymn written in this century. To those of us who are concerned about “how the other half lives,” and who know either from our own experiences or those of friends about the darker side of life in a great city and particularly in our own country during the last nine years,—this beautiful hymn never fails to find a heartfelt response. It paints a picture with which many city dwellers are all too familiar.
In 1903, Dr. North was editor of The Christian City, the organ of the Methodist City Missionary Society. His office was in the Fifth Avenue building of the Methodist Book Concern. One day one of the professors of Wesleyan University (who was on the committee to prepare and revise the new Methodist hymnal, and who knew North’s ability to write hymns), met him in one of the halls. “Why don’t you write a missionary hymn for us, Dr. North?” asked the professor. “We need more missionary hymns in our new hymnal.” Dr. North modestly answered that he did not feel he would be able to write a hymn worthy of the proposed new hymnal, but that he would try.
Soon after this incident occurred, Dr. North was preaching a sermon from the text in St. Matthew 22:9: “Go ye therefore into the highways,” etc. During his preparation for this sermon, he was again especially impressed by the rendering of the Greek text in the Revised Version, which reads “Go ye therefore into the partings of the highways.” Dr. North thought of and described in his sermon the appealing challenge made by great crowds of people thronging the crossroads of the city—places like Madison Square and Union Square in the New York of 1903. Dr. North knew New York City very thoroughly, and his heart yearned over the sick, the lonely, the destitute, the troubled. So, while he preached, the first line of this great hymn came to him—“Where cross the crowded ways of life.” It did not take him long to compose the words which followed, and after the publication of the hymn in The Christian City, it was at once accepted for the new Methodist hymnal of 1905. The hymn is widely used in Canada and throughout Great Britain, and has been translated into several foreign languages, including some of the Far East ones.
MUSIC. GERMANY is a fine long-meter tune found in a book, Sacred Melodies, in which the compiler, William Gardiner, 1770-1853, an English stocking manufacturer interested in music, collected compositions by the best foreign composers, adapting them to English words. The tune is also known by the name “Walton,” especially in England. As to its origin, Gardiner says in his book, Music and Friends, that it “is somewhere in the works of Beethoven, but where I cannot now point out.” This may be a mistake, for no one else has ever found it in a Beethoven collection.
A greatly loved service hymn which the author entitled, “Walking with God.” In a note dated June 15, 1907, Gladden says:
This hymn was written in 1879 for a magazine, Sunday Afternoon, which I was then editing. There were three eight-line stanzas. Dr. Charles H. Richards found the poem, which was not intended for a hymn, and made a hymn of it by omitting the second stanza, which was not suitable for devotional purposes.
The omitted stanza reads as follows:
O Master, let me walk with Thee
Before the taunting Pharisee;
Help me to bear the sting of spite,
The hate of men who hide thy light,
The sore distrust of souls sincere
Who cannot read thy judgments clear,
The dullness of the multitude
Who dimly guess that thou art good.
Washington Gladden, distinguished Congregational minister and author, was reared on a farm near Oswego, N. Y., attending country school and Oswego Academy and later entering Williams College, from which he graduated in 1859. He was licensed to preach in 1860; then held pastorates in Congregational churches in New York and Massachusetts, and finally in 1882 began his widely known and influential work as pastor of the First Congregational Church in Columbus, Ohio, which was to last for 28 years. His lectures and writings on social questions were prophetic messages of the time. After 50 years in the ministry, he wrote: “If the church would dare to preach and practice the things which Jesus Christ has commanded, she would soon regain her lost power.” He is the author of thirty or more volumes but is remembered best by this poem which has come into such wide use in the worship services of all the churches.
MUSIC. MARYTON was written for the words, “Sun of my soul, Thou Savior dear,” in Church Hymns and Tunes, 1874; but it has become inseparably associated with Gladden’s hymn. Permission to use this hymn was granted by the author only on condition that it be used with this tune.
The composer, Henry Percy Smith, 1825-98, was a minister in the Church of England, deeply interested in church music. After graduating from Balliol College, Oxford, he served various churches as curate and vicar and finally became chaplain at Cannes and Canon of Gibraltar.
Based on the Scriptural passages, John 15:14: “Ye are my friends if ye do the things which I command you” and John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
The author, Rev. Theodore Parker, an outstanding abolitionist and a leader in New England Unitarianism, was educated at Harvard and spent most of his ministry in Boston. While travelling abroad in the hope of restoring his health, he became ill and died at Florence, Italy, where he was buried.
MUSIC. FFIGYSBREN. For comments on this tune see Hymn 183.
A hymn of the Christian warfare, written by a Church of England clergyman for a children’s processional, but now having a much wider use. The author gave the following account of the writing of the hymn:
Whitmonday is a great day for school festivals in Yorkshire. One Whitmonday, thirty years ago, it was arranged that our school should join forces with a neighboring village. I wanted the children to sing when marching from one village to another; so I sat up at night, resolved that I would write something myself. “Onward, Christian soldiers” was the result. It was written in great haste, and I am afraid some of the rhymes are faulty. Certainly nothing has surprised me more than its popularity.
An omitted stanza reads:
What the saints established,
That I hold for true;
What the saints believed,
That believe I too.
Long as earth endureth
Men that faith will hold,
Kingdoms, nations, empires
In destruction rolled.
For comments on the author, S. Baring-Gould, see Hymn 29.
MUSIC. ST. GERTRUDE was written for these words by Sir Arthur Sullivan and dedicated to Mrs. Gertrude Clay-Ker-Seymer, in whose house the composer often stayed. The hymn derived a great part of its popularity from its use with this stirring tune.
For comments on Sullivan see Hymn 113.
A hymn of consecration and heavenly-mindedness that marks the Christian life. Verses 2 and 4 are by John Wesley, and the third verse was altered by him. For comments on John Wesley see Hymn 170.
George Herbert, noted English poet and minister in the Church of England, was born in Wales; educated at Cambridge; and became a great pastor and preacher, serving, during his all too brief career, churches at Layton Ecclesia in 1626, and at Bemerton from 1630 to his death in 1632. His spare moments were given to the cultivation of sacred music. His principal work is The Temple, a book of poems. His popularity was greatly increased through the publication of his Life, written by Isaak Walton.
MUSIC. MORNINGTON is an arrangement of a chant written about 1760 by the Earl of Mornington, whose name was Garret Wellesley (or Wesley), 1735-81. He was the father of the Duke of Wellington. The name was changed from Wesley to Wellesley about 1790. A composer of much secular and sacred music, he lived most of his life in Dublin, and was the first Professor of Music at Dublin University.
A hymn setting forth the spirit of brotherhood in terms of sharing. Information regarding the author, Rev. Theodore C. Williams, has not been traced.
MUSIC. BULLINGER was written in 1874 by Ethelbert William Bullinger, 1837-1913, an English clergyman who made the study of music his avocation. He is remembered principally as the composer of this tune with its last phrase somewhat awkward due to the long, tied initial note.