City of God, how broad and far

City of God, how broad and far. Samuel Johnson* (1822-1882). Written in 1860, and first published in Hymns of the Spirit (Boston, 1864), a notable Unitarian hymnbook compiled by Johnson and his friend Samuel Longfellow*. It was entitled ‘The Church the City of God’. It became renowned as a grand American poem, and was included in Edmund Clarence Stedman’s An American Anthology (1900), as well as in many hymnbooks. The first words echo Saint Augustine, and ‘one holy church’ (verse 2 line 1) is a reference to his idea of the heavenly city as opposed to the earthly city. The characteristics of this city of God reflect the values of Johnson’s Unitarianism, with its empire of ‘freedom, love, and...