Category search results
“A little while,” - our Lord shall come. James George Deck* (1807-1884).
This hymn was first published in the Appendix to the 1841 edition of the Brethren book, Hymns for the Poor of the Flock (JJ, p. 3). It was prefaced by ' “A little while, and ye shall see me.” – John xvi. 16.' It had four 6-line stanzas:
“A little while,” – our Lord shall come, And we shall wander here no more;He'll take us to our Father's Home, Where He, for us, has gone before,To dwell with Him, to see his...
A Collection of Spiritual Songs and Hymns Selected from Various Authors by Richard Allen, African Minister (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1801). This collection, and its Second Edition published the same year with an additional ten hymns, mark the first known compilation by an African American for use in an African American congregation, the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Richard Allen*, founder and pastor of the church, selected the texts that are included in the volume. No authorial...
A few more years shall roll. Horatius Bonar* (1808-1889).
This was one of Bonar's earliest hymns, written when he was minister of North Parish Church, Kelso. It was printed as a leaflet and sung at Kelso on New Year's Day, 1843. It was published in Bonar's Songs of the Wilderness, No 2 (1844). It had six 8-line stanzas. A five-stanza text, omitting Bonar's stanza 5, was printed in the Appendix (1868) to the First Edition of A&M, and that remained the standard A&M version until the hymn...
A fitly spoken word. George Burden Bubier* (1823-1869).
From Hymns and Sacred Songs for Sunday-schools and Social Worship (Manchester, 1855), the hymnbook in which Bubier collaborated with George MacDonald* and his brother Charles. It was dated January 1855 (JJ, p. 190). Its originality is characteristic of Bubier's and MacDonald's work:
A fitly spoken word, It hath mysterious powers; Its far off echoes shall be heard Ringing through future hours.
An honest, truthful word, It has a...
A great and mighty wonder. Greek, attributed to St Germanos of Constantinople* (ca. 655-before 754), translated by John Mason Neale* (1818-1866).
The Greek text, 'Mega kai paradoxon thauma', is found in editions of the Menaea (twelve sections, one for each month, or 'men', hence the name Menaea) where it is attributed to Germanos of Constantinople* (or Germanus, for whom see Sabine Baring-Gould*, The Lives of the Saints, New Edition, 1897, v. 174-80). Neale's translation appeared in his Hymns...
A hymn for martyrs sweetly sing. Bede* (673/4-735), translated by John Mason Neale* (1818-1866).
This hymn, 'Hymnum canentes Martyrum', is found in an anthology, Hymni Ecclesiastici (Cologne, 1556), ascribed to the Venerable Bede. Neale's translation of some of the verses appeared in Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences (1851), with a first line 'The hymn for conquering martyrs raise', and a note saying that it was 'a Hymn for the Holy Innocents'. It appeared in the First Edition of A&M with the...
A hymn of glory let us sing. Bede* (673/4-735), translated by Elizabeth Rundle Charles* (1828-1896).
Charles's translation of Hymnum canamus gloriae* appeared in her The Voice of Christian Life in Song (1858), where it had six verses:
A hymn of glory let us sing,
New hymns throughout the world shall ring;
By a new way none ever trod,
Christ mounteth to the throne of God.
The apostles on the mountain stand –
The mystic mount – in Holy Land;
They, with the Virgin-mother see
Jesus ascend in...
A little child may know. Jane Eliza Leeson* (1807/8-1881).
From Leeson's Hymns and Scenes of Childhood (1842) where it was entitled 'God's Love of Little Children', in six verses. Its description of the world as 'a picture-book' suggests that it was intended for very young children:
Around me when I look, His handiwork I see;This world is like a picture book To teach his name to me.
The thousand little flowers Within our garden found,The rainbow and the soft spring showers, And every...
A little child the Saviour came. William Robertson, of Monzievaird* (1820-1864).
This hymn for Holy Baptism with its attractive first line was published in the Church of Scotland's Hymns for Public Worship (1861), and subsequently in the Scottish Hymnal (1870). It was also used by the Presbyterian Church of England, and is found in Psalms and Hymns for Divine Worship (1867), and in Church Praise (1884). In JJ, p. 2, it was reported that it had become more popular in America than in Britain,...
A living stream, as crystal clear. John Keble* (1792-1866), based on a hymn by John Mason* (ca. 1645-1694).
Keble wrote this hymn for the Salisbury Hymn-Book (1857). It was forthwith taken up by the compilers of the First Edition of A&M (1861), and it appeared in all editions of A&M until it was dropped by A&MR. Keble's seven 4-line verses were based on a hymn by John Mason from his Spiritual Songs: or Songs of Praise to Almighty God Upon several Occasions (1683). In Mason's book it...
A mighty fortress is our God. Martin Luther* (1483-1546), translated by Frederic Henry Hedge* (1805-1890).
This translation of Luther's version of Psalm 46 ('Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott'*) is the one that is most commonly used in the USA. As expected it is found in Lutheran publications, but it appears in books of all denominations. Hedge's translation, entitled 'Luther's Psalm', was included in the last part ('Supplement') of Hymns for the Church of Christ (Boston, 1853) edited by Hedge...
A mighty mystery we set forth. Mary Peters* (1813-1856), altered by George Rawson* (1807-1889).
This hymn appeared in Psalms and Hymns for the use of the Baptist Denomination (1858). In the Baptist Church Hymnal (1900) it was credited to Rawson. He has continued to be named as the author in some books, such as HP. The hymn is based on one by Mary Peters beginning 'O Lord, whilst we confess the worth', published in her Hymns intended to help the Communion of Saints (1847), a book published by...
A safe stronghold our God is still. Martin Luther* (1483-1546), translated by Thomas Carlyle* (1795-1881).
This is a translation of Luther's magnificent hymn based on Psalm 46, 'Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott'*, the date of which is uncertain (perhaps 1529). Carlyle had been studying German literature during the 1820s, and was supporting himself in part by publishing essays on German authors and by translating. This translation appeared in Fraser's Magazine in 1831, entitled 'Luther's Psalm'....
A stranger once did bless the earth. John Clare* (1793-1864).
This is from a poem by Clare beginning 'When trouble haunts me, need I sigh', which has ten 6-line stanzas. It was not published during Clare's life-time, but was included in John Clare: Poems chiefly from Manuscript, edited by Edmund Blunden and Alan Porter (1920). It is found in Margaret Grainger's Index to the Clare manuscripts held at Peterborough Museum (under A 57, so written 1824-35). It is printed in The Poems of John Clare,...
A toi la gloire, O Ressuscité. Edmond Louis Budry* (1854-1932).
Companions and Handbooks have long been uncertain about the date of this hymn and its first printing. The Swiss National Library confirms that it was published in Chants Évangéliques (Lausanne, 1885), and in subsequent editions of that book (1886, 1889, 1892, 1896, 1908). It was well enough known in Switzerland to have been selected as one of the texts in Chants de Pâques à 2 ou 4 voix avec accompagnement d'Orgue (Lausanne, 1905)....
A type of those bright rays on high. Latin, 15th Century, translated by John Mason Neale* (1818-1866), and the Compilers of A&M (1861).
This translation of 'Caelestis formam gloriae'* (Neale and JJ use 'Coelestis...'. Frere, 1909, and Frost, 1962, use 'Caelestis') is from The Hymnal Noted Part II (1854), where it was headed 'O Nata Lux de Lumine' incorrectly. The other details on the 1854 page are 'For the Transfiguration' and 'From the Salisbury Hymnal', with a quotation from Philippians...
LVOV, Alexei Fyodorovich. b. 5 June 1798, Reval (now Tallinn), Estonia; d. Kovno (Now Kaunus), Lithuania, 28 December 1870. Lvov was the son of Prince Fyodor Petrovich Lvov, the director of music at the Court Chapel at St Petersburg. He served as an officer in the Imperial army, rising to the rank of General, and becoming an aide-de-camp to the Tsar. He succeeded his father as musical director at St Petersburg in 1837, remaining in post until 1861, when he was forced to retire owing to...
SEYMOUR, Aaron Crossley Hobart. b. County Limerick, Ireland, 19 December 1789; d. Bristol, 22 October 1870. He was the son of a vicar of Caherelly in the diocese of Cashel, Co. Tipperary, and the brother of the anti-Catholic polemicist Michael Hobart Seymour (1800-74). He received most of his education at home, and was drawn in early life into the Calvinistic 'Connexion', founded by Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon* (to whom 'When Thou, my righteous judge, shall come' has been...
HYDE, Abigail (née Bradley). b. Stockbridge, Massachusetts, 28 September 1799; d. Andover, Connecticut, 7 April 1872. She was educated at a school in Litchfield, Connecticut; in 1818 she married the Revd Lavius Hyde (1789-1865), a minister at Salisbury, Connecticut. Her husband was dismissed for holding ideas about slavery contrary to those of his congregation, and moved to Bolton, Connecticut. From there he moved to Ellington, Connecticut; Wayland and Beckett, Massachusetts; and then back to...
Abide among us with thy grace. Josua Stegmann* (1588-1632), translated by Catherine Winkworth* (1829-1878).
This translation of Stegmann's 'Ach bleibe mit deiner Gnade'* was printed in Winkworth's Lyra Germanica II (1858), in the section for 'Evening Prayer', entitled 'At the Close of the Sabbath'. It subsequently appeared in her Chorale Book for England (1863). Its six 4-line stanzas present a simple but profound exposition of the Christian life, moving out to a general presentation from its...
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide. Henry Francis Lyte* (1793-1847).
Probably written in 1847, this is one of the world's best known hymns. Based on Luke 24:49, it is particularly associated with funeral services, but has had wide appeal in secular contexts as well. Its origins are somewhat uncertain. It was originally thought that Lyte had written it in his study on the evening before preaching his farewell sermon in the parish of Brixham, Devon, in September 1847; this account is...
JONES, Abner. fl. 1830-1860. Around 1815 Jones seems to have lived in Carroll, a town in Chautauqua County, New York. In the 1830s he lived in New York City, near Murray Street Presbyterian Church which supported the founding of Union Seminary, and whose pastor, William D. Snodgrass (1796-1886), may have done some editing with him. Thomas McAuley (1778-1862) succeeded Snodgrass as pastor and became the first President of Union Seminary. Jones also knew Gardiner Spring who was a member of Brick...
While organized efforts to end slavery began in the Anglo-American world early in the 18th century, the abolitionist movement generally refers to the specific fight against slavery that started in the United States around 1830. This movement grew out of many economic, political and cultural changes, including the political struggles over new states and their status as slave or free, the general indifference of the churches to slavery, and the increased economic growth of the 1820s. With the...
Above the clear blue sky. John Chandler* (1806-1876).
First published in Chandler's The Hymns of the Church, mostly Primitive (1841). It is one of the few hymns by Chandler that are not translations. It appeared in the Second Edition of A&M (1875) in the section 'For the Young', and was at one time very well known: JJ described its use as 'somewhat extensive' (p.8):
Above the clear blue sky,In heaven's bright abode,The Angel host on highSing praises to their God: Alleluia! They love...
Above the starry spheres. Edward Caswall* (1814-1875).
This translation of 'Iam Christus astra ascenderat' was made by Caswall for his Lyra Catholica (1849). It was placed there for Matins on Whit-Sunday. It was a hymn of nine 4-line stanzas, the last of which was a doxology. The previous eight stanzas were a succinct narrative of the events of the first Whit-Sunday, beginning with the reminder that this came ten days after Ascension Day - 'Above the starry spheres,/ To where He was before,/...
According to thy gracious word. James Montgomery* (1771-1854).
First published in Montgomery's The Christian Psalmist (Glasgow, 1825), with the heading '“This do in remembrance of me” Luke 22:19' in six stanzas. It was repeated in Montgomery's Original Hymns (1853), and since that time it has appeared in many books, with slight variations. It was printed in EH and NEH, and came into the A&M tradition with A&MCP in 2000. It has long been a favourite with nonconformists, though it was...
GREENAWAY, Ada Rundall. b. Trivandrum, India, 12 October 1861; d. Woking, Surrey, 15 May 1937. She was the daughter of a general in the Indian army. Like many army children, she was sent to Britain as a child. She lived in Surrey in later years, first at Guildford, and finally at Woking. She had an arrangement to write improving words for the calendars and Christmas cards of Mowbrays, the religious publishers. Her 'Rise in the strength of God'* (in the Second Supplement of A&M, 1916, and in...
POLLARD, Adelaide Addison. b. Bloomfield, Iowa, 27 November 1862; d. New York City, 20 December 1934. She was christened Sarah, but chose the name Adelaide for herself. She attended the Boston School of Oratory, and taught in several girls' schools in Chicago. Although she was brought up a Presbyterian, Pollard's spiritual journey extended to faith healers such as John Alexander Dowie (1847-1907), and preachers of the imminent coming of Christ including her contemporary Frank Sanford...
PROCTER, Adelaide Anne. b. London, 30 October 1825; d. London, 2 February 1864. She was the daughter of Bryan Waller Procter, a distinguished literary figure and friend of Charles Dickens. Under the pseudonym 'Mary Berwick', she submitted poems to Dickens's periodicals: 73 of them were published in Household Words and seven in All the Year Round. Her poems were published in Legends and Lyrics (First Series 1858, Second Series 1861). After her death they were published in a single volume, with...
THRUPP, Adelaide ('A.T.'). b. London, 1831; d. Guildford, Surrey, 1908. She was the sister (not the daughter, or the wife, as is sometimes asserted) of Joseph Francis Thrupp*, and she assisted him with the publication of Psalms and Hymns for Public Worship (Cambridge, 1853). In this book his hymns appear with the initials 'J.F.T.' and the hymn by which she is remembered, 'Lord, who at Cana's wedding-feast'*, is one of two given the initials 'A.T.' The other was 'O Thou, who didst Thy light...
JUDSON, Adoniram. b. Maldon, Massachusetts, 9 August 1788; d. at sea on the Indian Ocean (Bay of Bengal), 12 April 1850. Judson, considered by many as the first American foreign missionary, spent almost forty years in Myanmar (Burma) where he translated the Bible into Burmese, published religious tracts in the indigenous language, completed a Burmese grammar, compiled a Burmese-English dictionary (published posthumously), established Baptist churches in Myanmar, and authored several...
Advent tells us Christ is near. (Arabella) Katherine Hankey* (1834-1911).
According to JJ, p. 483, this was written in 1888 for Sunday School children at St Peter's, Eaton Square, London, then as now a prosperous part of the city (although Hankey organised classes for shop girls). It was printed on a card, with a tune composed by Hankey herself, before being included in many English-speaking hymnbooks on both sides of the Atlantic. It is not a hymn for Advent, in spite of the first line: it is...
YearDenomination and EditorsTitleComments
1801
African Methodist Episcopal ChurchRichard Allen*
A Collection of Spiritual Songs and Hymns Selected From Various Authors, by Richard Allen, African Minister
54 Texts only (no music like other hymnals of this period; the authors of text were not included).
1801
African Methodist Episcopal ChurchRichard Allen
A Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs from Various Authors, by Richard Allen, Minister of the African Methodist Episcopal...
Again the Lord's own day is here. Attributed to Thomas à Kempis* (ca. 1380-1471), translated by John Mason Neale* (1818-1866) and the Compilers of A&M (1861).
This hymn was used in the 'Evening' section for 'Sunday' in the First Edition of A&M. It was based on a translation by Neale in The Hymnal Noted, Part II (1854). The Latin text began 'En dies est dominica'. Frost (1962, p. 149) notes that the translation is of a selection of stanzas (1, 4, 5, 6, 29) of a poem of 29 stanzas...
Ah, holy Jesu, how hast thou offended. Johann Heermann* (1585-1647), translated by Robert Bridges* (1844-1930).
From the Yattendon Hymnal, Part II (1897). This is Bridges's translation of 'Herzliebster Jesu, was hast du verbrochen'*, first published in Heermann's Devoti Musica Cordis (Leipzig and Breslau, 1630) together with its tune, HERZLIEBSTER JESU. This was itself a translation of a text at one time attributed to St Augustine* and then to St Anselm, but now thought to be by Jean de...
TOZER, Albert Edmonds. b. Little Sutton, Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, 13 January 1857; d. Steyning, near Brighton, Sussex, February 1910. He was educated at the City of London School, and the Royal Academy of Music. A brilliant young organist, he was elected FRCO at the age of 19. He was made an ARCM in 1885. He completed a BMus at Durham University and a DPhil at Oxford University.
As a young man Tozer was an organist at two Anglican parishes on the south coast, St Mary Magdalene at St Leonard's...
KNAPP, Albert. b. Tübingen , 25 July 1798; d. Stuttgart, 18 June 1864. He was educated at the theological seminary at Maulbronn (1814-16) and at the 'Stift' at Tübingen (1816-20). He served as a 'Vikar' (assistant) at Feuerbach and at Gaisburg, both near Stuttgart, before being appointed 'diakonus' at Sulz am Neckar (1825-31), at Kirchheim unter Teck (1831-36), and at the Hospitalkirche at Stuttgart (1836-37). (During these years he was a friend of William Nast, who immigrated to the USA and...
PEACE, Albert Lister. b. Huddersfield, Yorkshire, 26 January 1844; d. Blundellsands, near Liverpool, 14 March 1912. Peace was a child prodigy, largely self-taught. He was organist of Holmfirth Parish Church, near Huddersfield, at the age of nine, and thereafter organist of four other Yorkshire churches. On moving to Glasgow, he continued to work as a church organist, and he was appointed to Glasgow Cathedral in 1879. The Church of Scotland had lifted the ban on organs in 1865, and Peace was...
MIDLANE, Albert. b. Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight, 23 January 1825; d. Newport, Isle of Wight, 27 February 1909. He was educated at Newport, Isle of Wight, and contributed to magazines in his youth under the name 'Little Albert'. He was then employed as an ironmonger's assistant, ultimately going into business for himself as tinsmith and ironmonger. Though he received his religious training in the Congregational church and its Sunday school, in which he became a teacher, he subsequently joined the...
MANZONI, Alessandro. b. Milan, 7 March 1785; d. 22 May 1873. Born into a distinguished family, he was educated at Milan and briefly at the University of Pavia; academically he was undistinguished, but he produced his first poem, 'Il Trionfo della Liberta' as early as 1801. After the death of his father in 1805, he lived for two years with his mother at Auteuil, Paris, where he met French writers and encountered the anti-church ideas of Voltaire. In 1808, however, back in Milan, he married...
CARMICHAEL, Alexander. b. Lismore, Argyll, 1 December 1832; d. Edinburgh, 6 June 1912. He worked for a time in the customs and excise division of the Scottish Civil Service, with periods in the Highlands and Islands. He married Mary Frances MacBean in 1868, and they lived on South Uist until 1882, when they moved to Edinburgh, where they became the centre of a Celtic revival. Alexander was the compiler of Carmina Gadelica* (first published in 1900), a two-volume collection of verses, including...
CLARK, Alexander. b. near Steubenville, Ohio, 10 March 1834; d. Atlanta, Georgia, 6 July 1879. Clark was a Methodist Episcopal Church minister. He was at some time at Union Chapel, Cincinnati, Ohio. He is referred to as 'DD' in Sacred Songs and Solos, in which two of his hymns appeared:
Heavenly Father, bless me now*
Make room for Jesus! room, sad heart!
He edited The Methodist Reporter, published in Pittsburgh, from 1870 to 1879. Among his several books were The Old Log School House;...
EWING, Alexander. b. Old Machar, Aberdeen, 3 January 1830; d. Taunton, Somerset, 11 July 1895. He studied law at Marischal College, Aberdeen, but gave it up to study music at Heidelberg, Germany. He joined the army in 1855, serving in the Crimean war, and became a professional soldier, serving in various stations including China and Australia and rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He retired in 1889, and lived at Taunton, Somerset.
Ewing composed part-songs, anthems, and other pieces,...
MacMILLAN, Alexander. b. Edinburgh, 19 October 1864; d. Toronto, 5 May 1961. Born and educated in Edinburgh, Alexander MacMillan moved to Canada following his graduation from the University of Edinburgh, licensed by the United Presbyterian Presbytery of Edinburgh in June, 1887. He described what happened when he was a student:
While a student in the faculty of Arts in Edinburgh University, and in the Divinity Hall, Edinburgh, I felt a gradual and growing desire to make Canada the sphere of my...
REINAGLE, Alexander Robert. b. Brighton, 21 August 1799; d. Kidlington, near Oxford, 6 April 1877. He was brought up in Oxford where his father, the cellist and composer Joseph Reinagle, had settled. After studying with his father he worked as a teacher of stringed instruments in Oxford and was organist of St Peter-in-the-East (1822-53). During the 1860s he was highly active in Oxford music-making and worked closely with John Stainer* who, between 1860 and 1872, was organist of Magdalen...
VINET, Alexandre. b. near Lausanne, 17 June 17, 1797; d. Clarens, 4 May 1847. Vinet was a literary critic, with essays on Pascal, Racine and Châteaubriand, pastor in the Canton of Vaud, moralist, and poet.
Vinet studied theology in Lausanne. He taught French and French literature at the Basel gymnasium as early as 1817, before being ordained in his native town in 1819. During this period he acted as a stand-in for other pastors in Basel. In 1819 he became a privat-docent at the University,...
BARRY, Alfred. b. London, 15 January 1826; d. Windsor, 1 April 1910. He was the son of the architect of the Houses of Parliament, Sir Charles Barry. He was educated at King's College, London (1841-44) and Trinity College, Cambridge (1844-48; BA 1848, MA 1851). He was briefly a Fellow of Trinity College, and took Holy Orders (deacon 1850, priest 1853). By that time he had become sub-Warden of Trinity College, Glenalmond, Perthshire, an independent school of the Scottish Episcopal Church founded...
ALSTON, Alfred Edward. b. British Columbia, Canada, 25 June 1862; d. Framingham Earl, Norfolk, UK, 13 May 1927. Educated in England at St Paul's School, London, and Gloucester Theological College, Alston took Holy Orders (deacon 1886, priest 1887), and after a curacy at St Mark's, Gloucester (1886-87) he was appointed rector of Framingham Earl with Bixley, Norfolk, where he remained until his death, by which time he had been rector for almost fifty years. He published Some Liturgical Hymns...
TENNYSON, Alfred. b. Somersby, Lincolnshire, 6 August 1809; d. Haslemere, Surrey, 6 October 1892. He was the son of the rector of Somersby, educated at Louth Grammar School, and then privately. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1827, leaving in 1831 without taking a degree, but having published Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830).
At Cambridge he became friendly with the brilliant Arthur Henry Hallam (1811-33), whose sudden death, and the reflections upon it, were the cause of Tennyson's most...
FLOWERDEW, Alice. b. 1759; d. Ipswich, Suffolk, 23 September 1830. Her maiden name is unknown (JJ, p. 379). She married Daniel Flowerdew, who for some years held a Government appointment in Jamaica. He died in 1801, and she suffered further distress when her son, Charles Frederic Flowerdew, died on 29 November 1802, aged 21. She opened a school in Islington. She later lived in Bury St Edmunds, where she continued to teach, and Ipswich. She has been variously described as a General Baptist and a...
All as God wills, who wisely heeds. John Greenleaf Whittier* (1807-1892).
From Whittier's 'My Psalm', written ca. 1859, beginning 'I mourn no more my vanished years'. It was published as a leaflet in 1859, and then in the Atlantic Monthly (August 1859); and in Whittier's Home Ballads and Poems (Boston. 1860/61). (It is incorrectly said in JJ, p. 1277, that it appeared in The Panorama, and other Poems, 1856).
The poem is, as the title suggests, his psalm, a reflection on nature, the goodness of...
All for Jesus, all for Jesus. William John Sparrow-Simpson* (1859-1952).
This was written as the closing chorus, entitled 'For the love of Jesus', in John Stainer*'s cantata The Crucifixion, first performed in Marylebone Parish Church, London, on Ash Wednesday, 24 February 1887. The hymn should not be confused with a piece by the American writer Mary Dagworthy James* (1810-1883), which begins 'All for Jesus, all for Jesus! All my being's ransomed powers'*, and which may have been known to...
All for Jesus, all for Jesus!/All my being's ransomed powers. Mary Dagworthy James* (1810-1883).
This hymn was written at the opening of the year 1871 (James, 1886, p. 199). It was almost certainly published in one of the books that came out of the Wesleyan Holiness movement, of which James was an ardent member, but the exact source of first publication has not been located. It was given a tune by Asa Hull, ALL FOR JESUS. It became more widely known after its inclusion in Redemption Songs...
All glory, laud and honour. Theodulf of Orleans* (ca. 760- ca. 821), translated by John Mason Neale* (1818-1866).
This is a translation of the Latin hymn, 'Gloria, laus et honor'*, attributed to St Theodulf (or Theodulph), who was bishop of Orleans, France. During the reign of Louis I (the son of Charlemagne), Theodulf was imprisoned in Angers for some time beginning in 818. According to Clichtoveus in his Elucidatorium Ecclesiasticum (Paris, 1516), the imprisoned bishop sang the hymn from his...
All hail, adorèd Trinity. Latin, before 11th century, translated by John David Chambers* (1805-1893).
The Latin text of this hymn began 'Ave! Colenda Trinitas'. According to JJ, p. 98, it was in The Latin Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church (Durham: the Surtees Society, 1851), from the Durham MS of the 11th century. Frost described it as 'One of the Anglo-Saxon hymns for the Trinity office, but it did not find a place in the Norman and later Uses. Its versification is, in parts, not even...
All my heart this night rejoices. Paul Gerhardt* (1607-1676), translated by Catherine Winkworth* (1827-1878).
Gerhardt's hymn, beginning 'Fröhlich soll mein Herze springen'*, was first published in Johann Crüger*'s Praxis Pietatis Melica (1653). It had 15 stanzas of eight lines each, portraying the Christ child as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and who is worshipped by the shepherds and the Wise Men. Winkworth translated 10 stanzas, omitting stanzas 3-5, 13 and 14, for...
All my hope on God is founded. Joachim Neander* (1650-1680), translated by Robert Bridges* (1844-1930).
Joachim Neander's 'Meine Hoffnung stehet feste'* was published in A und Ω. Joachimi Neandri Glaub- und Liebesübung: auffgemuntert durch einfältige Bundes Lieder und Danck-Psalmen (Bremen, 1680) where it was entitled 'Der nach dem Essen Danckende' ('Grace after food'). Bridges's free translation appeared in the Yattendon Hymnal Part III (1898), in five stanzas, with its 1680 tune, labelled...
All Nature's works his praise declare. Henry Ware, Jr.* (1794-1843).
This hymn is dated 9 November 1822 (JJ, p. 1233). This was during Ware's time as pastor of the Second Unitarian Church at Boston (later incorporated into First Church: see https://www.uuworld.org/articles/exploring-bostons-churches). It was entitled, with nice Unitarian plainness, 'On opening an Organ':
All nature's works his praise declare To whom they all belong; There is a voice in every star, In every breeze a...
All praise to Thee, O Lord. Hyde Wyndham Beadon* (1812-1891).
From The Parish Hymn Book (1863), the book edited by Beadon, Greville Phillimore*, and James Russell Woodford*. It began 'Glory to Thee, O Lord', altered to the present first line, perhaps to avoid confusion with 'Glory to Thee, O Lord'* by Emma Toke*, published a decade earlier in 1852. It has appeared in a number of books, if only because it is one of the few hymns to celebrate the first miracle of Christ at the marriage of Cana...
All prophets hail thee, from of old rejoicing. Thomas Alexander Lacey* (1853-1931).
This is one of the few hymns on the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as related in Luke 2: 22-33. It is a translation of a Latin hymn attributed to Hrabanus Maurus* (ca. 780-856) beginning 'Quod chorus vatum venerandus olim'. It was translated into fluent Sapphic stanzas:
All prophets hail thee, from of old announcing, By the inbreathèd Spirit of the Father, God's Mother, bringing prophecies to...
All the past we leave behind. Walt Whitman* (1819-1892).
This hymn is made up of lines from Whitman's poem 'Pioneers, O Pioneers!', from Leaves of Grass (1882 edition). The first instance that we have found of its use in a hymnbook was in 1925, when Percy Dearmer* included it in SofP. He commissioned Martin Shaw* to write a tune for the unusual metre, which he called PIONEERS.
Sranzas 4-6 of Whitman's poem are the basis of stanza 1 of the hymn:
All the past we leave behind:
We take up the task...
All things are thine: no gift have we. John Greenleaf Whittier* (1807-1892).
Written in 1872 for the opening of Plymouth Church, St Paul, Minnesota, presumably on request. It had five stanzas, with a graceful reference in stanza 3 to the geographical location:
No lack Thy perfect fullness knew;
For human needs and longings grew
This house of prayer, this home of rest,
In the fair garden of the West.
This local reference has led to the omission of this stanza in many hymnals. Without it, the...
All things praise thee, Lord most high. George William Conder* (1821-1874).
First published in an Appendix of 1874 to Psalms, Hymns, and Passages of Scripture for Christian Worship (Leeds, 1853), generally known as the 'Leeds Hymn Book', edited by Conder and other Congregationalists, including George Rawson*. The book had been first compiled when Conder was minister of Belgrave Chapel, Leeds, from 1849 to 1864, but it is not known when this hymn was written. It had six stanzas, beginning:
'All...
All to Jesus I surrender. Judson W. Van De Venter* (1855-1939).
Van De Venter was torn between his ambition to be a great artist, and the call to be an evangelist. While supporting himself by teaching art in Pennsylvania, he resisted the encouragement of those who thought he should be an evangelist. The hymn was written 'in memory of the time, when, after a long struggle, I had surrendered and dedicated my life to active Christian service' (Reynolds, 1964, p. 13). The word 'in memory of a time'...
All ye that seek a comfort sure. Latin, probably 18th century, translated by Edward Caswall* (1814-1878).
The Latin hymn, 'Quicunque certum quaeritis', is found in a Breviary published at Lisbon in 1786 (Ulysse Chevalier cites a Franciscan Breviary of 1757; see Frost, 1962, p. 193). It was appointed for vespers in the Office of the Sacred Heart, which is referred to in stanza 2, 'ad cor reclusum vulnere,/ ad mite cor, accedite'. Caswall's translation appeared in his Lyra Catholica (1849), with...
All ye who seek for sure relief. Latin, probably 18th century, translated by Edward Caswall* (1814-1878).
This is an alternative to 'All ye that seek a comfort sure'*, a variant on Caswall's translation of 'Quicunque certum quaeritis' in his Lyra Catholica (1849). It was set for Vespers and Matins in 'Another Office of the same Feast', referring to 'Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi', the 'Feast of the most sacred heart of Jesus'. It had six stanzas:
All ye who seek a...
All, yes, all I give to Jesus. Jonathan Burtch Atchinson* (1840-1882).
First published in Triumphant Songs No. 2 (Chicago: the Edwin O. Excell Co., 1889), with a tune by Edwin O. Excell* named ESCONDIDO. It was headed 'Dedicated to the “Deaconesses” of America' (Deaconesses were active in several churches and hospitals in the 1880s and 1890s). It had four stanzas:
All, yes, all I give to Jesus, It belongs to Him; All my heart I give to Jesus It belongs to Him; Evermore to be His dwelling,...
See 'Alleluia, song of sweetness'*. The first line as above is that preferred by many books in Canada and the USA, and in H40 and H82 , although the Latin original, 'Alleluya, dulce carmen', is closer to 'sweetness' (dulce = sweet) than to 'gladness'. 'Alleluia, song of gladness' is also the first line in Cooke* and Denton*'s Church Hymnal* of 1853.
Alleluia, song of sweetness. Latin, 11th century or earlier, translated by John Mason Neale* (1818-1866).
This is Neale's translation of 'Alleluya, dulce carmen'*, the hymn used in various rites to mark the pre-season of Lent, normally sung before Septuagesima Sunday, the ninth Sunday before Easter, the third Sunday before Ash Wednesday. It was printed in Neale's Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences (1851), with a preface:
The Latin Church, as is well known, forbade, as a general rule, the use of...
CARDEN, Allen Dickinson. b. Virginia or Tennessee, 13 October 1792; d. Franklin, Tennessee, 21 March 1859. Carden compiled Missouri Harmony, first published in 1820. According to a copy of the Carden family Bible in the Tennessee State Library and Archives, the family moved from Fincastle, Botetourt County, Virginia, to Williamsport, Maury County, Tennessee, situated about 50 miles southwest of Nashville. Although the year of the move is not given in the Bible, some accounts indicate that...
CHATFIELD, Allen William. b. Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, 2 October 1808; d. Much Marcle, Gloucestershire, 10 January 1896. He was educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge (BA 1831, MA 1836). He took Holy Orders (deacon 1832, priest 1833), and was vicar of Stotfold, Bedfordshire (1833-47) and of Much Marcle with Yatton, Gloucestershire, Diocese of Hereford (1847-96). He followed John Mason Neale* in his interest in Greek hymnody: he was a remarkable translator from (and into)...
Almighty Father, hear our cry. Edward Henry Bickersteth* (1825-1906).
Written in 1869, this was published in Bickersteth's Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer* (1870). It was then printed in the Second Edition of A&M (1875) in the section 'For Those at Sea'. It was retained in A&M (1904), and in the Standard Edition of 1922, but dropped from A&MR.
Another version, also dated 1869, was published in Bickersteth's The Two Brothers, and other poems (1871), beginning 'Lord...
Almighty God, Thy word is cast. John Cawood* (1775-1852).
Written in 1816, and first published in Thomas Cotterill*'s suppressed Eighth Edition of his Selection of Psalms and Hymns for Public Worship (1819), in five stanzas. It was entitled 'After a Sermon'. It was based on Mark 4: 3-9. It was printed in James Montgomery*'s Christian Psalmist (Glasgow, 1825), and other books, including Godfrey Thring*'s A Church of England Hymn Book (1880), and became widely known.
There are two texts of this...
Almost persuaded now to believe. Philip P. Bliss* (1838-1876)
According to Taylor (1989, p. 7) this was first published in The Charm: A Collection of Sunday School Music (Chicago, 1871). JJ, p. 150, quotes a source to the effect that it was inspired by a sermon from a Revd Brundage, who said, 'He who is almost persuaded is almost saved, but to be almost saved is to be entirely lost.'
The hymn is in three stanzas, sometimes printed with an abundance of quotation marks, which increases the drama....
Alone with none but thee, my God. St Columba* (521-597), translated by Duncan MacGregor* (1854-1923).
This was first published in Saint Columba. A Record and a Tribute. To which are added the Altus and some other remains, with offices for the thirteen hundredth anniversary of his death (from ancient sources)(Edinburgh and Aberdeen, 1897), one of the first fruits of MacGregor's scholarly interest in the early Celtic church.It had four stanzas:
Alone with none but thee, my God, I journey on...
Altar Hymnal, The (1884/1885).
The Altar Hymnal was a production of the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England. It was edited by Claudia Frances Hernaman*, Elizabeth Harcourt Mitchell, and Walter Plimpton. The music editor was Arthur Henry Brown*. His name appeared on the title page together with that of Thomas Thellusson Carter (rector of Clewer, Berkshire, and the biographer of John Armstrong*), who provided a brief introduction. That introduction left the reader in no doubt about what...
PILSBURY, Amos. b. Newbury, Massachusetts, 15 October 1772; d. Charleston, South Carolina, 19 October 1812. Pilsbury was a tunebook compiler, composer, and schoolmaster. He is known in hymnology primarily for his compilation The United States' Sacred Harmony (Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1799), the earliest tunebook known to include the tunes KEDRON and CHARLESTON. Pilsbury also published a collection of hymn texts, The Sacred Songster (Charleston: G. M. Bounetheau,...
CHAPIN, Amzi. b. Springfield, Massachusetts, 2 March 1768; d. Northfield, Ohio, 19 February 1835. The name is pronounced Am'zeye Chay'pin. Hymn tunes attributed to Amzi in one collection often appear elsewhere attributed to one of his brothers, Lucius Chapin* or Aaron Chapin (1753-1838). In some cases, 'attributed to' should be taken to mean 'arranged by' or 'obtained from'. It was common for tunebook compilers to seek adaptations of existing tunes, and as a result, many tunes were assigned...
An exile for the faith. Nicholas le Tourneaux* (1640-1686), translated by Edward Caswall* and others.
This hymn, 'Iussu tyranni pro fide', is found in the Cluniac Breviary of 1686, for the Festival of St John the Evangelist. It describes the visionary experience recounted in the last book of the Bible; and refers to the tradition, thought improbable, that St John the Apostle and author of the Fourth Gospel, was also the author of Revelation ('of St John the Divine'). A translation by Caswall...
DAVISSON, Ananias. b. Shenandoah County, Virginia, 2 February 1780; d. Rockingham County Virginia, 21 October 1857. Davisson is best known as the compiler of the fasola tunebooks Kentucky Harmony (Harrisonburg, Virginia, five editions), and A Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony (Harrisonburg, Virginia, three editions).
Little is known about Davisson prior to 1816. His successes beginning that year as a printer of tunebooks suggest that he may have been apprenticed to a printer. Only slightly...
Ancient of Days, who sittest throned in glory. William Crosswell Doane* (1832-1913).
Written in 1886 by Doane, the local bishop, for the bicentenary of the charter for the city of Albany, New York, the first chartered city in America. Its original first stanza refers to the occasion:
Ancient of Days, who sittest, throned in glory,
To whom a thousand years are but a day;
First, on this day that crowns our City's story,
With its two hundred years, to Thee we pray.
This verse was amended...
And now the wants are told, that brought. William Bright* (1824-1901).
First published in Bright's Hymns and Other Poems (1866), in six stanzas. It was almost immediately used in the Appendix (1868) to the First Edition of A&M (1861), where it had a doxology. Beginning with Mark 9: 36, the story of Christ setting a child 'in the midst of them' [the disciples], it portrays very exactly a child's approach to the wonder and mystery of God, although it is a hymn for adults also. Stanza 6,...
And now this holy day. Edward Harland* (1810-1890).
Published in the Supplement (1876) to Harland's Church Psalter and Hymnal (1855). It was included in the Supplement (1889) to the Second Edition of A&M, and thus in A&MS, after which it was omitted from A&MR. It is a hymn for Sunday evening, designated 'For the Young' in both books: its simplicity is appealing, although it expresses an idea of a kind of Sunday that has disappeared, and one that was probably never very popular with...
LAW, Andrew. b. Milford, Connecticut, 21 March 1749; d. Cheshire, Connecticut, 13 July 1821. Law, a grandson of Jonathan Law (1674-1750), Governor of the Colony of Connecticut (1741-1750), was a tunebook compiler, clergyman, and composer. His Select Harmony: containing in a plain and concise manner, the rules of singing, together with a collection of psalm tunes, hymns and anthems (Cheshire, Connecticut, 1779) became a major influence among many subsequent collections used by singing masters...
THOMSON, Andrew Mitchell. b. Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire, 11 July 1779; d. Edinburgh, 9 February 1831. His father was a minister who moved to Markinch, Fife, in 1785, and Andrew was educated at the parish school there and at the University of Edinburgh (1796-99). He was ordained at Sprouston, Roxburghshire (1802), serving there until 1808. He was then minister of the East Church, Perth (1808-10) and New Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh (1810-14), before becoming the first minister of St George's Church...
REED, Andrew. b. London, 27 November 1787; d. London, 25 February 1862. He was the son of a watchmaker, who was also a lay preacher. He became a watchmaker himself, but sold his tools and entered Hackney College in 1807 to train for the Congregational ministry. He was ordained in 1811 to a chapel at New Road, East London. He built a new chapel called Wycliffe in Commercial Road, Whitechapel, and became minister of the congregation there in 1831; he retired in November 1861, after thirty years...
YOUNG, Andrew. b. Edinburgh, 23 April 1807; d. Edinburgh, 30 November 1889. The son of a schoolteacher, he was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he was an outstanding student. In 1830, at the age of 23, he was appointed by the Town Council of Edinburgh to be headmaster of Niddry Street School, 'where he began with 80 pupils, and left with the total at 600' (JJ, p. 1299). After ten years in this post he became head of English at Madras College, St Andrews (1840-53). He retired to...
Angels lament, behold your God. Charles Coffin* (1676-1749), translated by John Chandler* (1806-1876).
The text by Coffin was in the Paris Breviary, 1736, and in Hymni Sacri Auctor Carolo Coffin (1736). It began 'Lugete, pacis Angeli', and was set for Friday Vespers. It proved attractive to translators, including Isaac Williams*, William John Blew*, Robert Campbell*, John David Chambers*, and David Thomas Morgan* (JJ, pp. 701-2). The compilers of the First Edition of A&M chose Chandler's,...
Angels we have heard on high. French traditional carol, translated by James Chadwick* (1813-1882).
The French carol, in eight stanzas, is printed in the New Oxford Book of Carols (1992), to which this entry is greatly indebted. The original text seems to have been in dialogue form, and the editors of NOBC have arranged it for singing by the Shepherds ('Bergers', stanzas 1, 3, 6) and the Women ('Femmes de Bethlehem', stanzas 2, 4 and 7). Stanzas 5 and 8 were sung by all ('Tous'):
'Les anges...
TAYLOR, Ann and Jane. Ann, b. Islington, London, 30 January 1782, d. Nottingham, 20 December 1866, married name Ann Taylor Gilbert; Jane, b. Islington, 23 September 1783, d. Ongar, Essex, 13 April 1824.
After Isaac Watts* and Charles Wesley*, Ann and Jane Taylor were the most important of the early hymn writers for children. Their Hymns for Infant Minds was first published in 1810 and was a commercial success in Britain and America (by the 1860s, it had gone into nearly 50 editions in America,...
WARNER, Anna Bartlett. b. New York, 31 August 1827; d. Constitution Island, 22 January 1915. Born at New York, she moved with her family in 1837 to a farmhouse on Constitution Island, on the Hudson River, after the failure of her father's real estate speculation. She and her sister, Susan Bogert Warner*, wrote many novels, Susan very successfully. Anna used the pseudonym 'Amy Lothrop'. She also wrote hymns for the Sunday school, and translated hymns from French and German. She edited Hymns of...
BARBAULD, Anna Letitia (née Aikin). b. Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire, 20 June 1743; d. Stoke Newington, London, 9 March 1825. At Kibworth her father was a Presbyterian minister teaching at the dissenting academy (her maternal grandfather, John Jennings, had taught Philip Doddridge* there). In 1753 her father moved to the celebrated Warrington Academy, where she thrived in the cultural and intellectual freedom and began to write, publishing (with her brother John) Poems (1773) and...
COUSIN, Anne Ross (née Cundell). b. Hull, Yorkshire, 27 April 1824; d. Edinburgh, 6 December 1906. The daughter of a Scottish army surgeon, she moved to Leith, near Edinburgh, as a small child. In 1847 she married William Cousin, who became the minister of the Free Church of Scotland at Irvine, Ayrshire, and later Free Church minister of Melrose, Roxburghshire. When at Irvine, she wrote her best known hymn, 'The sands of time are sinking'*. She published a collection of poems, Immanuel's Land...
COGHILL, Annie (Anna) Louisa (née Walker). b. Brewood, Staffordshire, 23 June 1836; d. Bath, Somerset, 7 July 1907. She was the daughter of a civil engineer, who took his family to Canada to work on the railways when Annie was in her 'teens, ca. 1853. She began writing poetry as a child and young woman, and her volume Leaves from the Backwoods was published anonymously in Montreal in 1861. It contained the poem for which she is remembered, 'Work! for the night is coming'*.
The family returned...
HAWKS, Annie Sherwood. b. Hoosick, New York, 25 or 28 May 1835 or 1836; d. Bennington, Vermont, 3 January 1918. According to Taylor (1989) there is uncertainty about her date of birth. Annie Sherwood married Charles Hawks; for many years she was a member of the Hanson Place Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York, where her pastor, Robert Lowry*, encouraged her to write verse. After her husband's death in 1888, she lived with her daughter in Vermont, though she was buried beside her husband in...
Another Sabbath ended. T. Vincent Tymms* (1842-1921).
According to JJ, p. 1190, this was one of the hymns by Tymms printed in the 1880 Supplement to the Baptist Psalms and Hymns of 1858, and in the Baptist Psalms and Hymns for School and Home (n.d.). It was included in the Baptist Church Hymnal (1900), preceded by a quotation: 'The shadows of the evening are stretched out – Jeremiah vi. 4.' It had four graceful stanzas, expressing the ideal of a Sunday that has now disappeared from British...
Another year is dawning. Frances Ridley Havergal* (1836-1879).
According to JJ, p. 72, this was written in 1874 for an ornamental card or leaflet published by a firm called Caswell in 1875 (this publisher has not been found, and it may be an error for Caswell, the part of Swansea where FRH died). It is not in Under the Surface (1874), as JJ goes on to state. In The Poetical Works of Frances Ridley Havergal (1884), edited by her sister Maria, it was included in the section entitled 'New Year...
SHOWALTER, Anthony Johnson. b. Rockingham County, Virginia,1 May 1858; d. Chattanooga, Tennessee, 14 or 15 September 1924. Showalter was perhaps the most prominent sacred-music publisher and music teacher in the southern United States ca. 1890-1920. A publisher of songbooks in seven-shape and standard notation, his companies surpassed The Ruebush-Kieffer Company* in sales and influence and were, in turn, surpassed by the James D. Vaughan* and Stamps-Baxter* companies. He also was known as an...
CHARTERIS, Archibald Hamilton. b. Wamphray, Dumfiesshire, Scotland, 13 December 1835; d. Edinburgh, 24 April 1908. He was educated at Wamphray, and at the University of Edinburgh (MA, 1852). He became minister of New Abbey, south of Dumfries, and of the Park Church, Glasgow, built in 1858, and now sadly demolished. In those years he wrote The Life of the Rev. James Robertson, formerly Professor of Divinity and Ecclesiastical History at Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1863). He gave speeches and preached...
BROOKS, Arnold. b. Edgbaston, Birmingham, 25 December 1870; d. Edinburgh, 2 July 1933. Brooks was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (BA 1893, MA 1897). After serving a curacy at Bermondsey, London (1897-99), he moved to Scotland and to the Scottish Episcopal Church, becoming a 'licensed curate' of St Peter's, Lutton Place, Edinburgh (1899-1905), and then of St John's, Princes Street, Edinburgh (1905- 09). He was priest-in-charge of St...
THOMAS, (Henry) Arnold. b. Clifton, Bristol, 13 June 1848; d. Sneyd Park, Bristol, 28 June 1924. The son of the minister of Highbury Chapel, Bristol (Congregational), he was educated at Mill Hill School, University College, London, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He assisted his father at Highbury Chapel before training for the Congregational ministry at New College, London. He was ordained to pastorates at Burntash, Lewisham, London (1873-74) and Ealing (1874-76); but 'it was fore-ordained...
Art thou weary, art thou languid. John Mason Neale* (1818-1866), based on a Greek text by St Stephen the Sabaite (725-794).
This translation of a Greek text, 'Kopon te kai kamaton', was first printed in Neale's Hymns of the Eastern Church (1862), where it is assigned to the 'Second Epoch' of Greek hymnody (726-820) and described as 'Idiomela in the week of the First Oblique Tone'. Neale wrote: 'These Stanzas, which strike me as very sweet, are not in all the editions of the Octoechos' (Third...
JOHNSON, Artemas Nixon. b. Middlebury, Vermont, 22 June 1817; d. New Milford, Connecticut, 1 January 1892. A. N. Johnson and his brother James C. Johnson (1820-1895) were musicians, teachers, composers, and publishers of church music. A. N. Johnson's hymn tune MENDOTA (SPEAK GENTLY), with text by Frederick George Lee (1832-1902), appears in several 20th-century hymnals.
Johnson's parents, James Johnson, Sr. (nda) and Anna Ward Johnson (nda) attended the Congregational Church in Middlebury. ...
PATTEN, Arthur Bardwell. b. Bowdoinham, Maine, 26 March 1864; d. Claremont, California, 10 May 1952. He was educated at Colby University, Waterville, Maine (now Colby College, to indicate its status as an old-established Liberal Arts College). He graduated AB in 1890, and went on to Bangor Theological Seminary (graduated 1893). He became a minister in the Congregational Church, serving pastorates at Everett, Massachusetts (1895-97), South Hadley, Mass. (1897-1905), Sant Rosa, California...
BENSON, Arthur Christopher. b. Crowthorne, Berkshire, 24 April 1862; d. Cambridge, 17 June 1925. He was the son of Edward White Benson*, who was Headmaster of Wellington College, Crowthorne, at the time of his birth, and subsequently Archbishop of Canterbury. The younger Benson was educated at Eton, and King's College, Cambridge (BA 1884). He taught at Eton, 1885-1903, resigning to become a full-time writer. He went to live at Cambridge, where he was elected to a Fellowship at Magdalene College...
COXE, (Arthur) Cleveland. b. Mendham, New York, 10 May 1818; d. Clifton Springs, NY, 20 July 1896. The son of a Presbyterian minister named Cox (according to Samuel Willoughby Duffield, 1886, p. 224, he added an 'e' as part of his rebellion against his father and his father's denomination), he lived as a young man in New York with his uncle, a doctor who was an active member of the Episcopal Church. Coxe became an Episcopalian himself, and after graduating from New York University he trained...
MESSITER, Arthur Henry. b. Frome, Somerset, England, 1 April 1834; d. Manhattan, New York, 2 July 1916. Messiter is remembered for his career as organist and choirmaster of Trinity Church in New York City; for one of the music editions of the Episcopal Hymnal prior to the first authorized music edition; and for the hymn tune MARION.
Although the date of Messiter's birth is sometimes shown as 12 April 1834, an official record shows 1 April 1834 for his birth and 2 May 1834 for his baptism. ...
BROWN, Arthur Henry. b. Brentwood, Essex, 24 July 1830; d. Brentwood, 15 February 1926. A self-taught musician, he grew up in Brentwood playing the organ at the parish church, where, apart from a brief interval as organist in nearby Romford (1853-58), he remained for 40 years (1842-53 and 1858-88). It is not known when he became organist of Sir Anthony Browne's School in Brentwood, although a letter from Brown to the headmaster dated 8th Feb 1918 thanks him for his share 'in the very gratifying...
MANN, Arthur Henry. b. Norwich, 16 May 1850; d. Cambridge, 19 November 1929. He was a chorister at Norwich Cathedral and then an articled pupil of Zechariah Buck. He held the positions of organist at St Peter's Church, Wolverhampton (1870), Tettenhall Parish Church (1871) and Beverley Minster (1875) before he was appointed organist of King's College, Cambridge in 1876. He remained in this post for the rest of his life.
Mann did much for Cambridge music. He oversaw the change of regime in which...
MASON, Arthur James. b. Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, 4 May 1851; d. Canterbury, 24 April 1928. The son of a former High Sherriff of Nottinghamshire, he was educated at Repton School and Trinity College, Cambridge (BA 1872). He was elected a Fellow of Trinity College (1873), and took Holy Orders (deacon 1874, priest 1875). He was perpetual curate, St Michael's, Cambridge (1875-77).
Between graduating and taking Holy Orders, Mason taught at Wellington College, where the headmaster was Edward...
SULLIVAN, (Sir) Arthur Seymour. b. London, 13 May 1842; d. London, 22 November 1900. Born in Lambeth, he was the son of an Irish bandmaster. He became a chorister in the Chapel Royal in 1854 and entered the Royal Academy of Music in 1856 where he studied under William Sterndale Bennett*. Between 1858 and 1861 he was a student at the Leipzig Conservatory where he gained notable approbation for his incidental music to The Tempest. After returning to England he made his living as an organist in...
SOMERVELL, (Sir) Arthur. b. Windermere, Cumbria, 5 June 1863; d. London, 2 May 1937. Somervell was a composer and educationist, the youngest of six sons and nine children of Robert Miller Somervell, leather merchant and founder of Somervell Brothers (manufacturers of K (for 'Kendal') Shoes), and Anne Wilson. He was educated for one year at Uppingham School (1878-9) and then at King's College, Cambridge (BA 1884), where he also studied composition under Charles Villiers Stanford*. At Stanford's...
As Jacob with travel was weary one day. Anonymous, perhaps 18th- or 19th-century American or British.
This carol, based on Genesis 28: 10-19, was published in Bramley* and Stainer*'s Christmas Carols New and Old (1871) with the title 'Jacob's Ladder'. It was printed in the Oxford Book of Carols (OBC, 1928), and the University Carol Book (1961). It was also included in Miles Mark Fisher's Negro Slave Songs in the United States (1953), which suggests an alternative origin.
It came into British...
As now the sun's declining rays. Charles Coffin* (1676-1749), translated by John Chandler* (1806-1876).
Coffin's hymn, beginning 'Labente jam solis rota' was written for the revised Paris Breviary of 1736, edited by the Archbishop of Paris, Charles-Gaspard de Vintimille, who encouraged Coffin to write new Latin hymns. It was set for the service of None. It was published in the same year as the Breviary in Hymni Sacri Auctore Carolo Coffin (1736).
John Chandler's translation appeared in his...
As the bridegroom to his chosen. John Tauler* (ca. 1300-1361), translated by Emma Frances Bevan* (1827-1909). This hymn appeared in the first series of Frances Bevan's Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso and Others (1894-97). To date no specific text by Tauler has been identified, and the hymn is thought to have been a paraphrase of some of his ideas, perhaps those preached in a sermon at a nunnery, which referred to the bridegroom. It was reprinted in Bevan's Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso and Others...
As the sun doth daily rise. Horatio Bolton Nelson* (1823-1913).
The origins of this hymn are shrouded in mystery. It was a Latin text, beginning 'Matutinus altiora', translated by a 'J. Masters'. Nothing seems to be known of the Latin text or of its translator. JJ, p. 1579, followed by all commentators, gave the first line of Masters' translation as 'As the sun to brighter skies', and noted that the hymn was described as 'King Alfred's Hymn. Words by O.B.C. Music by Dr Smith'. The entry...
As Thou didst rest, O Father, o'er nature's finished birth. Alfred Barry* (1826-1910).
This hymn was written before 1886, when it appeared in Henry Allon*'s Congregational Psalmist Hymnal. It was subsequently included in Godfrey Thring*'s A Church of England Hymn Book (1880), and William Garrett Horder*'s The Hymn Lover: an account of the rise and growth of English Hymnody (1889). It was retained in Horder's Worship-Song (1905). It was also found in the revised edition of Church Hymns (1903),...
NETTLETON, Asahel. b. North Killingworth, Connecticut, 21 April 1783; d, East Windsor,Connecticut, 16 May 1844. Nettleton was an itinerant revivalist of the conservative (Calvinistic) wing of the Congregational Church, and compiler of Village Hymns for Social Worship* (Hartford, Connecticut, 1824). He was converted when a teenager. Following the death of his father, he managed the family's farm and finances, and taught school. A local Presbyterian minister prepared him for entering Yale College...
Ask ye what great thing I know. Johann Christoph Schwedler* (1672-1730), translated by Benjamin Hall Kennedy* (1804-1889).
Schwedler's hymn, beginning 'Wollt ihr wissen was mein Preis?', has the response at the end of each stanza, 'Jesu, der Gekreuzigte' ('Jesus the crucified'):
Wollt ihr wissen, was mein Preis? Wollt ihr wissen, was ich weiß? Wollt ihr sehn mein Eigentum? Wollt ihr hören, was mein Ruhm? Jesus, der Gekreuzigte, Jesus, der Gekreuzigte.
The hymn was published after his...
At the cross her station keeping. Latin, probably 13th century, translated by Edward Caswall* (1814-1878), Richard Mant* (1776-1848) and others.
This is a translation of 'Stabat Mater dolorosa'*, which in its Latin original is of unknown authorship. It has been attributed to Pope Innocent III (1161-1216), but recent editions of A&M and EH ascribe it to Jacopone da Todi* (died 1306). For the arguments about authorship, see JJ, p. 1082.
There are two versions of the Latin hymn: the full...
At the Lamb's high feast we sing. Latin, Roman Breviary, 1632, translated by Robert Campbell* (1814-1868).
This Easter Communion hymn is a translation of 'Ad regias Agni dapes'*, a hymn in the Roman Breviary (1632) derived from 'Ad cenam Agni providi'* (pre-8th-century). Campbell's translation appeared in his Hymns and Anthems for Use in the Holy Services of the Church within the United Diocese of St Andrews, Dunkeld, and Dunblane (Edinburgh, 1850). It was then printed with alterations in the...
At thy feet, O Christ, we lay. William Bright* (1824-1901).
First published in the Monthly Packet of Evening Readings for Members of the English Church (October 1867), and then in the Second Edition of Bright's Hymns and Other Poems (1874). It became widely known after its printing in the Second Edition of A&M (1875). It is a morning hymn, meditating upon human weakness, but its simplicity of line, and the rhyming couplets, also make it suitable for children. It has been frequently...
At Thy feet, our God and Father. James Drummond Burns* (1823-1864).
According to JJ, p. 1551, this was first published in The Family Treasury, presumably a Christian periodical, in 1861 (Gordon Bell notes 'July'). It later appeared in the Presbyterian Church of England's Psalms and Hymns for Divine Worship (1867), and in James Hamilton's Memoir and Remains of the Rev James D. Burns (1869). The text in 1869 was entitled 'New Year's Hymn', and was preceded by '“Thou crownest the year with thy...
RILEY, John Athelstan Laurie. b. Paddington, London, 10 August 1858; d. Jersey, Channel Islands, 17 November 1945. He was the son of a successful barrister, of Yorkshire stock: educated at Eton and Pembroke College, Oxford, which he left without taking a degree. He spent much time travelling in Europe and the Near East, publishing Athos; or, the Mountain of the Monks, in 1887. He was an active Anglo-Catholic: he wrote a preface to a book by his friend William John Birkbeck*, Why I am an...
DE VERE, Aubrey (Thomas). b. Curragh Chase, Co. Limerick, Ireland, 10 January 1814; d. Curragh Chase, 21 January 1902. Born into the landed gentry (his mother was a Spring-Rice), he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin (1832- ), after which he travelled widely and succeeded in meeting many of the remarkable people of his time, such as William Wordsworth*, John Henry Newman*, and Alfred Tennyson*. As a result of his travels in Europe, he published two early books, The Waldenses, and Other...
CRULL, August. b. Rostock, Mecklenburg, Germany, 27 January 1845; d. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 17 February 1923. August Crull was a German-American Lutheran theologian and educator who played an important role in 19th-century American Lutheranism as a hymnal editor and hymn translator. As a hymnal editor, he helped compile and edit the first English-language hymnals of the Missouri Synod branch of American Lutheranism, thus shaping its hymnic tradition as it began to transition from German to...
FRANCKE, August Hermann (II). b. Gütersloh, 30 August 1853; d. Montreux, Switzerland, 31 May 1891. He had the same name as the great German Pietist (1663-1727). The son of a primary school teacher, he was educated at Barmen and at the Universities of Leipzig and Bonn, with interruptions owing to ill health. He worked as an assistant at the cathedral seminary at Berlin (1879) and at Halle, where he taught from 1882 to 1885, before becoming Professor of New Testament Theology at Kiel. He resigned...
NEWMAN, Augustus Sherman. b. Putnam County [?], New York, 21 July 1848; d. New York City, 11 December 1928. Augustus Sherman Newman was a businessman, avocational musician, collector of hymnals and hymnological materials, and a founder in 1922 of The Hymn Society (now the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada*).
The eldest child of Allen G. and Sarah Church Tompkins Newman, Augustus completed his basic education in New York. He then toured Europe with his younger brother, Allen,...
Awaked from sleep we fall. Greek, 8th Century, translated by Robert Maude Moorsom* (1831-1911).
First published in the Supplement (1889) to the Second Edition of A&M. It is a translation in three stanzas, of an 8th-century Horologion, or Book of Hours, which, as its name implies, was used for the fixed hours of Divine Service in the Eastern Church. This particular text comes from the midnight service: the word 'Awaked' (rather than the more common 'Awake') is particularly significant:...
Awhile in spirit, Lord, to Thee. Joseph Francis Thrupp* (1827-1867).
This is a hymn for Lent from Thrupp's Psalms and Hymns for Public Worship (Cambridge, 1853), later published in Church Hymns (1871, Church Hymns with Tunes, 1874). It was preceded by ' “Forasmuch as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.” - 1 St. Peter iv. I' It had five stanzas:
Awhile in spirit, Lord, to TheeInto the desert would we flee;Awhile upon the barren steepOur...
WHITE, Benjamin Franklin. b. near Cross Keys, Union County, South Carolina, 20 September 1800; d. Atlanta, Georgia, 5 December 1879. White was the principal compiler, along with Elisha J. King*, of The Sacred Harp*.
Benjamin White was the twelfth child of Robert White (1743?-1843) and Mildred White (1745?-1807). As a result of Mildred's death, Benjamin lived for about 11 years in the household of his brother, Robert White, Jr. (1784-1880). Evidence of family involvement with music is the...
See Charitie Lees De Chenez*.
NOEL, The Hon. Baptist Wriothesley. b. Edinburgh, 10 July 1799; d. Stanmore, Middlesex, 19 January 1873. Born into a noble family (see Burke's Peerage, 1939, p. 1055; the name 'Baptist' was common in the family), he was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge (MA 1821). He studied law, and entered Lincoln's Inn, but against the wishes of his family he became an Anglican priest, curate of Cossington, Leicestershire, and then minister of a proprietary chapel in London (St...
HARWOOD, Basil. b. Woodhouse, Olveston, Gloucestershire, 11 April 1859; d. Kensington, London, 3 April 1949. He was the eighth son and youngest of nine children of Edward Harwood, banker and JP, and his first wife, Mary Sturge (daughter of Young Sturge of Bristol, the famous Quaker). He entered Trinity College, Oxford in 1878 to study classics and history and also took the B.Mus. degree in 1880, studying theory with C. W. Corfe, choragus to the university. After leaving Oxford he travelled to...
MANLY, Basil [Junior]. b. Edgefield County, South Carolina, 19 December 1825; d. 31 January 1892. He was the son of Basil Manly, a Baptist minister, and Sarah Murray Rudolph Manly. His father became pastor of First Baptist Church, Charleston—the most prominent Baptist pulpit in the Deep South—and left that position to become the second president of the University of Alabama. The senior Manly promulgated a biblical defense of slavery, led in the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention, and...
WOODD, Basil. b. Richmond, Surrey, 5 August 1760; d. Paddington Green, London, 12 April 1831. Woodd was educated by a clergyman and then at Trinity College, Oxford (BA 1782, MA 1785). He took Holy Orders (deacon 1783, priest 1784), becoming 'lecturer' (preacher) at St Peter's, Cornhill, London (1784-1808). In 1785 he became preacher at Bentinck Chapel, Marylebone, London, a proprietary chapel that he purchased in 1793. He was also chaplain to the Marquis Townshend, and rector of Drayton...
Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side. Katharina Amalia Dorothea von Schlegel* (1697-?), translated by Jane Laurie Borthwick* (1813-1897).
This is a translation of the German text, 'Stille, mein Wille; dein Jesus hilft siegen', published in Neue Sammlung geistlicher Lieder ('A New Collection of Spiritual Songs') (Wernigerode, 1752). It was published in Hymns from the Land of Luther, Second Series (Edinburgh, 1855), where it was entitled 'Submission', followed by the quotation '“In your...
Beautiful Savior. German hymn, 17th century, translated by Joseph A. Seiss* (1823-1904).
In The Lutheran Hymnal (1941) this is the opening line of the translation of 'Schönster Herr Jesu'* from a Roman Catholic Münster Gesangbuch of 1677. Seiss, the translator, was a prominent Lutheran minister and prolific author. His translation was published in The Sunday School Book for the Use of Evangelical Lutheran Congregations (Philadelphia, 1873). It had four stanzas, the last of which returns to...
Before the ending of the day. Latin, 5th-7th century, translated by Robert Campbell* (1814-1868) and John Mason Neale* (1818-1866).
The translations of the Latin 'Te lucis ante terminum'* by these two authors are the best known of many English versions. Campbell's appeared in Hymns and Anthems for Use in the Holy Services of the Church within the United Diocese of St Andrews, Dunkeld, and Dunblane (Edinburgh, 1850). Neale's appeared two years later in The Hymnal Noted Part 1 (1851). Neale's...
Before the throne of God above. Charitie Lees De Chenez* (1841-1923).
According to JJ, p. 109, this was written in 1863 and published in Within the Veil, by C.L.S. (1867); 'C.L.S.' stands for Charitie Lees Smith, her maiden name. It was entitled 'The Advocate'. Before that it had been included by Charles Haddon Spurgeon* in Our Own Hymn Book (1866), so it must have been published elsewhere, probably in leaflet form.
It crossed the Atlantic very quickly: JJ noted its appearance in Laudes Domini...
Behold the Lamb of God. Matthew Bridges* (1800-1894).
From Bridges's Hymns of the Heart, for the use of Catholics (1848), where it was entitled 'Ecce Agnus Dei' (many of the hymns in that collection had Latin titles). It had seven 7-line stanzas, based on John 1: 29. Because, as JJ pointed out (p.129), the hymn is rarely printed in this form, the original text is printed here:
Behold the Lamb! Oh! Thou for sinners slain, - Let it not be in vain, That Thou hast died: Thee for my Saviour let...
Bei dir, Jesu, will ich bleiben. Karl Johann Philipp Spitta* (1801-1859).
From Spitta's Psalter und Harfe, First Series (Pirna, 1833), entitled 'Ich bleibe stets bei dir' ('I stay ever by thee'). It had six 8-line stanzas. It is found in EG in the 'Geborgen in Gottes Liebe' section, using all six stanzas (EG 406). It is based on Psalm 73: 23: 'Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand' and on John 15: 4: 'Abide in me, and I in you.' The reference to John 15...
Believing fathers oft have told. Archibald Hamilton Charteris* (1835- 1908).
This was written in 1889 on a steamer on Lake Como, Italy, where Charteris was presumably on holiday from his duties as a Professor of Biblical Criticism at the University of Edinburgh. It was written for the Young Man's Guild, of which Charteris was a founder, and published in the August number of The Guild Magazine in the same year. It was entitled 'Guild Hymn'. It was a long hymn of five 8-line stanzas, each of...
Beloved, “it is well !”. George Washington Doane* (1799-1859).
In Songs by the Way: the poetical writings of the Right Rev. George Washington Doane, DD., LL.D., arranged and edited by his son, William Crosswell Doane (Third Edition, Albany, 1875) this hymn is dated 'March 2, 1833' (JJ has 'Mar. 12', in error, p. 304). It was entitled 'To my wife'. The text was as follows:
Beloved, “It is well! - ” God's ways are always right; And love is o'er them all, Though far above our sight.
...
CARR, Benjamin. b. London, 12 September 1768; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 24 May 1831. Born in London, Carr was descended from a family of musicians and music publishers from the late 17th century. He studied with his father, Joseph Carr (1739-1819), who operated a music repository in Middle Row, Holborn, and with the composers Samuel Arnold* and Charles Wesley (II)*. Carr was first taken into his father's business, then opened his own shop in London and embarked upon a career as a singer,...
KENNEDY, Benjamin Hall. b. Summer Hill, Tipton, near Birmingham, 6 November 1804; d. Torquay, Devon, 6 April 1889. He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham (1814-18) and then at Shrewsbury School (1819-23), followed by St John's College, Cambridge (BA 1827). At Cambridge he was an outstanding figure, winning many of the University Prizes, becoming President of the Union, and being a member of the 'Apostles' (the intellectual society that included such figures as Arthur Hallam and...
RHODES, Benjamin. b. Mexborough, Yorkshire, 1743, date unknown; d. Margate, Kent, 13 October 1815. He was the son of a schoolmaster, who gave him a good education. At the age of 11 he was much influenced by hearing George Whitefield* preach, and in 1766 he became one of 'Mr Wesley's preachers', serving until his death at Margate. In the obituary in the Minutes of the Methodist Conference he was described as 'a man of great simplicity and integrity of mind; he was warmly and invariably attached...
WAUGH, Benjamin. b. Settle, Yorkshire, 20 February 1839; d. Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, 11 March 1908. He left school at 14, and was apprenticed to a linen draper in Southport; but at 23 he entered Airedale College, Bradford, to train for the Congregational ministry (1862-65). He served at Newbury, Berkshire (1865-66), Greenwich, London (1866-85), and New Southgate, Middlesex (1885-87). While at Greenwich he became interested in the welfare of children, and in 1887 he resigned from the full-time...
BARTON, Bernard. b. Carlisle, 31 January 1784; d. Woodbridge, Suffolk, 19 February 1849. Born into a Quaker family, he was the son of a manufacturer. His mother died a few days after he was born, and his father married again, moving to London and then Hertford. Bernard was sent to a Quaker school at Ipswich, where he learned the principles of business and trade. In 1806 he moved to Woodbridge, Suffolk, where he was a partner in a coal and coke business. He married in 1807, but his wife died in...
INGEMANN, Bernhard Severin. b. 28 May 1789; d. 24 February 1862. He was born in the parsonage of Thorkildstrup. His father was dean of the northern half of the Danish island of Falster. After the death of his father in 1799 Ingemann grew up in Slagelse (West Zealand), where he attended the grammar school. From 1806 to 1816 he studied at the University of Copenhagen without taking a degree (as an undergraduate he took part in the defence of Copenhagen in 1807). In 1811 Ingemann published his...
TOURS, Berthold. b. Rotterdam, 17 December 1838; d. Hammersmith, London, 11 March 1897. His father, Barthélemy Tours, was organist of St Laurence Church, Rotterdam. After early lessons with his father and from Johannes Verhulst he studied at the Brussels and Leipzig Conservatoires before spending two years in Russia (1859-61) in the service of Prince George Galitsin. In 1861 he settled in London as a violinist, writer and teacher and in 1862 was appointed organist of the Swiss Church, Holborn....
LUARD SELBY, Bertram. b. Ightham, Kent, 12 February 1853; d. Winterton, Brigg, Lincolnshire, 26 December 1918 (usually known as 'Luard Selby' with or without hyphen; he introduced the hyphen, ca. 1905). He studied under Reinecke and Jadassohn at the Leipzig Conservatorium (where Stanford* was a fellow pupil) before returning to England in 1876, when he became organist at St Barnabas', Marylebone, and Highgate School. He was organist of Salisbury Cathedral (1881-83), before he decided to move,...
HEAD, Bessie Porter (Elizabeth Ann Head). b. 1849/1850, exact date unknown; d. Wimbledon, Surrey, 28 June 1936. Born, probably in Belfast (though nothing is known of her life before 1897), the youngest daughter of Tobias Porter, a manager for a firm of flour millers. For some years, ca. 1897, she served as a missionary with the South Africa General Mission (now the Africa Evangelical Fellowship), working mostly at Port Elizabeth with some time at Cape Town. During her time in South Africa, she...
Bibliotheca Hymnologica is the title of a bookseller's catalogue of the above date. The bookseller was Charles Higham (1845-1920), who had a shop in Farringdon Street, London, specializing in theological literature. During the late 1880s he acquired, mainly through a series of deaths of hymnbook collectors, a vast collection of hymnals and related books, which he offered for sale ('the whole now on sale, FOR CASH'). The accumulated contents of the catalogue were described on its title page as...
Blessed city, heavenly Salem. Latin, probably 7th century, translated by John Mason Neale* (1818-1866).
This is a translation of the Latin hymn 'Urbs beata Ierusalem'*, found in manuscripts of the 11th century, but probably of greater antiquity, perhaps 6th or 7th century (see JJ, p. 1198-9). The translation was first published in Neale's Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences (1851), in nine stanzas. In The Hymnal Noted Part I (1851) it was divided into two hymns, the first beginning as above, the...
Blessed Jesus, here we stand. Benjamin Schmolck* (1672-1737), translated by Catherine Winkworth* (1827-1878).
Schmolck's hymn, 'Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier, deinem Worte nachzuleben'*, was published in his Heilige Flammen der Himmlisch-gesinnten Seele (Third Edition, 1706) in seven 6-line verses, entitled 'Seasonable Reflections of the sponsors on their way with the child to Baptism'. Winkworth translated six verses for Lyra Germanica II (1858), where it appeared as the first hymn in the...
The Book of Praise (1862)
This influential anthology of hymns was the work of Roundell Palmer*, a distinguished politician and man of letters. Its full title was The Book of Praise from the best English Hymn Writers. It was published by Macmillan in London and Cambridge in 1862. The frontispiece showed a picture of David with his harp, to emphasise the continuity of tradition between the great psalmist and contemporary hymn writers. The book was very successful, and there were many further...
DRAPER, Bourne Hall. b. Cumnor, near Oxford, 1775; d. Southampton, 12 October 1843. He was born into a Church of England family that was too poor to send him for training as an ordinand. He worked as a printer's apprentice at the Clarendon Press, Oxford. He became a Baptist, and when his apprenticeship was ended, he went to study (1802-04) at the Baptist Academy, Bristol, under John Ryland* (Junior, 1753-1825). Ordained in 1804, he became pastor of a Baptist Church at Chipping Norton, and then...
Brief life is here our portion. Bernard of Cluny* (12th century), translated by John Mason Neale* (1818-1866).
This is a translation of 'Hic breve vivitur, his breve plangitur, hic breve fletur', from the poem by Bernard of Cluny (or Morlaix), De Contemptu Mundi. That poem began 'Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt, vigilemus'* (later translated by Neale as 'The world is very evil'*), but Neale first worked from an extract by Richard Chenevix Trench (in Sacred Latin Poetry, 1849) beginning...
Brightly beams our Father's mercy. Philip P. Bliss* (1838-1876).
First published in The Charm, a collection of Sunday School music (Cincinnati, 1871), with the heading 'Let the Lower Lights be Burning'. Like a number of Gospel hymns, this was based on an anecdote (cf. 'Ho! my comrades, see the signal'*). In this case it was told and moralised by Dwight L. Moody* and versified by Bliss. It concerned a ship attempting to make the harbor at Cleveland during a storm on Lake Erie:
'Are you sure...
Bristol Tune Book. Until the First Edition of A&M (1861) and the edition of Church Hymns with Tunes (1874), hymn books were normally printed with words only, sometimes with the names of appropriate tunes added to the texts. Tune books were printed separately. Among the most successful mid-19th-century examples were The London Tune Book, The Leeds Tune Book, The Bradford Tune Book, and The Burnley Tune-Book.
The Bristol Tune Book. A Manual of Tunes and Chants, edited by Alfred Stone, was one...
Brother, hast thou wandered far. James Freeman Clarke* (1810-1888).
This hymn appeared in Service Book: for the use of the Church of the Disciples (1844), and then in The Disciples' Hymn Book (Boston, 1844). This hymn was credited as 'Anonymous'. It is not clear why the authorship should have been so designated, when a much more polemical hymn such as 'For all thy gifts we bless thee, Lord'* was clearly attributed to Clarke. The present hymn remained his best known hymn for many years. It was...
Built on the rock the church doth stand. Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig* (1783-1872), translated by Carl Døving* (1867-1937).
First published in Grundtvig's Sangvärk til den Danske Kirke (1837), and later revised and abbreviated to the normal length of seven 7-line stanzas. The first line was 'Kirken den er et gammelt Hus' ('The church which is a strong house'). It is based on Matthew 16: 18, 'upon this rock I will build my church'. The hymn goes on to locate the church in the hearts and...
'By and by'
The phrase 'by and by', meaning 'in a little while' or 'at some time in the future' has been common in American English parlance since the 19th century. In spite of its simplicity, it is a haunting phrase, much more powerful than any alternatives such as the two above.
'By and by' is the title given to an African American spiritual of unknown origin. It was printed in Folk Song of the American Negro (Nashville, Tennessee: Fisk University, 1907), an account written and edited by...
By the cross, sad vigil keeping. ? Jacopone da Todi (ca, 1236-1306), translated by Richard Mant* (1776-1848).
This was Mant's translation of 'Stabat Mater dolorosa'*, printed in the Anglo-Catholic British Magazine (October 1833) and then in Mant's Ancient Hymns from the Roman Breviary (1837), where it wss the 'Hymn for Good Friday, (2)'. It is one of the texts that has been used by compilers to make the customary English version, together with 'At the cross her station keeping'* by Edward...
Woolston, C. Herbert. b. Camden, New Jersey, 7 April 1856; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 20 May 1927.A pastor, gospel song writer, and sleight-of-hand magician, Clarence Herbert Woolston claimed that he had 'addressed many more than 1,000,000 children' (The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1927, p. 4).
The son of Isaiah S. and Sarah B. Woolston, Herbert attended public schools in Camden, New Jersey, and the South Jersey Institute at Bridgeton. He entered the ministry under the influence of evangelist...
MALAN, (Henri Abraham) Caesar (César). b. Geneva, Switzerland, 7 July 1787; d. Vandoeuvres, Switzerland, 18 May 1864. Descended from Waldensians (see Waldensian hymnody*), Malan's family originally settled at Mérindol in Provence, but were dispersed owing to religious persecution in 1714. Educated in Geneva, Malan was at first pastor in the National Church of Geneva and in accord with its near-Unitarian character. Around 1820, he became pastor of a separatist group in Geneva.
Malan was a...
Captains of the saintly band. Jean-Baptiste de Santeuil* (1630-1697), translated by Sir Henry Williams Baker* (1821-1877).
This is a free translation of de Santeuil's Latin hymn, 'Caelestis (sometimes 'Coelestis') aulae principes' ('leaders of the heavenly courts'), found in the Cluniac Breviary of 1686, in de Santeuil's Hymni Sacri et Novi (1689). It became known in Britain in the 19th century through translation as 'Hail! Princes of the host of heaven' in John Chandler*'s Hymns of the...
GARVE, Carl Bernhard. b. Jeinsen near Hannover, 24 January 1763; d. 21 June 1841. He was educated at a school of the Moravian Brotherhood, becoming a teacher in a secondary school at Niesky (1784) and a lecturer in the theological college of the Brotherhood (1789). There he was introduced to the idealist and romantic spirit, which saw the influence of the Enlightenment as pernicious. He was transferred to work in the archives of the Unitas Fratrum in 1797. He became a preacher in Amsterdam...
DØVING, Carl. b. Norddalen, Sunnmøre, Norway, 1 March 1867; d. Chicago, Illinois, 2 October 1937. Døving left Norway as a young man and lived in South Africa (1883-90), where he taught at a mission school, the Schreuder Mission in Natal, founded by the Norwegian missionary Hans Schreuder (1817-1882). Døving emigrated to the USA in 1890 and attended Luther College, Decorah, Iowa (AB, 1893) and Luther Seminary of the Norwegian Synod, St Paul, Minnesota (CT [Candidatus theologiae], 1896). He was a...
WACKERNAGEL, Carl Eduard Philipp. b. Berlin, 28 June 1800; d. Dresden, 20 June 1877. The son of a printer, he left school following the death of his father in 1816, but with help from his mentor Friedrich Ludwig Jahn ('Turnvater Jahn') he graduated from the University of Berlin in 1819. He then studied mineralogy at Breslau, with help from another mentor, Karl von Raumer. In 1820 he followed Raumer to Halle and in 1823 to Nürnberg, where Raumer and Wackernagel taught at a private school. In...
Carmina Gadelica (1900, and after).
The full title of this remarkable collection is Carmina Gadelica, Hymns and Incantations, with Illustrative Notes on Words, Rites,and Customs, Dying and Obsolete: orally collected in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and Translated into English. Volumes I and II were the work of Alexander Carmichael* (Gaelic name Alastair MacGillemhicheil) (1832-1912). Carmichael was an exciseman who collected Gaelic hymns, prayers, charms, and songs from the Highlands...
Carol, brothers, carol. William Augustus Muhlenberg* (1796-1877).
Written in 1840 for the boys of St Paul's College, Flushing, Long Island, the College that Muhlenberg had founded as the Flushing Institute in 1828. It was published in Muhlenberg's later collection, I Would not Live Alway, and Other Pieces in Verse by the same Author (New York, 1860), printed for the benefit of St Luke's Hospital. It received wider notice when it was printed in Christ in Song (New York, 1869), edited by Philip...
Cast thy bread upon the waters (Anon).
This is a hymn with the same first line, and in the same metre, as 'Cast thy bread upon the waters'* by Phebe Ann Hanaford*. It is based, like hers, on Ecclesiastes 11: 1, but it is so different from her hymn that it requires a separate entry. It is found in many revival hymnals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Gospel Hymns 5 and 6 Combined (1892) and in editions of Sacred Songs and Solos, where (in both books) the tune is attributed to...
Cast thy care on Jesus. Frederick George Scott* (1861-1944).
Written during Scott's time as rector of St George's, Drummondville, Quebec (1887-96), after hearing that a close friend was suffering from a terminal illness and had few months left to live. It was included in the Canadian Book of Common Praise (Toronto, 1909) of which Scott was one of the editors. It was retained in a number of hymnals in the 20th century. It is Scott's best known hymn:
Cast thy care on Jesus, Make Him now thy...
ALEXANDER, Cecil Frances. b. Dublin, April 1818, exact date unknown; d. Derry, 12 October 1895. She was the daughter of Major John Humphreys, a distinguished former soldier who had served in the Napoleonic Wars, and his wife Elizabeth. Her father became agent to the Earl of Wicklow in 1825, and the family were closely associated with the Protestant aristocracy of Ireland. Fanny, as she was known to her family, was well educated and religious, much influenced by figures such as John Keble* and...
SHARP, Cecil James. b. Denmark Hill, London, 22 November 1859; d. London, 23 June 1924. He was educated at Uppingham School and at Clare College, Cambridge, which he entered initially to study mathematics. After ten years in Australia pursuing mostly non-musical employment, he returned to London in 1892 determined to become a professional musician, finding work as a teacher, conductor, and administrator (including the post of principal of the Hampstead Conservatory). In 1899, he observed his...
DE CHENEZ, Charitie Lees (née Smith; also Charitie Lees Bancroft). b. Bloomfield, Merrion, Dublin, 21 June 1841; d. (?) Oakland, California, USA, 1923. The daughter of a Church of Ireland rector, Sidney Smith, she lived at home at Aghalurcher, County Fermanagh, and in Tattyreagh, County Tyrone, where her father held the living from 1867 onwards. She married Arthur E. Bancroft in 1869; after his death she married again, and is sometimes known by her second married name of De Chenez (sometimes...
CONVERSE, Charles Crozat. b. Warren, Massachusetts, 7 October 1832; d. Highwood, New Jersey, 18 October 1918. He was educated at Elmira Free Academy, Chemung County, New York State, and showed early promise as a musician. He played the organ at the Broadway Tabernacle Church, and taught languages and music, earning enough to enable him to study music in Leipzig, Germany, from 1855 onwards. There he met Lizst and Spohr before returning to the USA to study law. He graduated from Albany Law...
MUDIE, Charles Edward. b. Chelsea, London, 18 October 1818; d. Hampstead, London, 28 October 1890. Mudie followed in his father's footsteps as a bookseller. He established his own shop in Bloomsbury in 1840, and for a time was also in business as a publisher. In 1842 he founded the subscription library for which he is chiefly remembered. At its peak this had over 25,000 subscribers, with branches in several parts of London, as well as Birmingham and Manchester. The library exercised a great...
SPURGEON, Charles Haddon. b. Kelvedon, Essex, 19 June 1834; d. Menton, France, 31 January 1892. He was the elder son of a clerk to a coal merchant who was also a Baptist lay preacher and who later became an independent minister. Charles went to school in Colchester and later spent a few months at an agricultural college. He joined the Baptist Church on 3 May 1850 and in spite of his extreme youth almost immediately began his preaching ministry. After short period in teaching, he became a...
HUTCHESON, Charles. b. Glasgow, 1792; d. Glasgow, 20 January 1860. He lived all his life in Glasgow and worked in business there. He was a member of St George's Parish church (now St George's Tron Church). He was an amateur composer, and had a fine singing voice. He published Christian Vespers (1832), containing hymn tunes. He is known for the tune STRACATHRO, composed probably ca. 1849, and published in a collection entitled Mitchison's Improved and Enlarged Edition of Robertson's Selection of...
HUTCHINS, Charles Lewis. b. Concord, New Hampshire, 5 August 1838; d. Concord, Massachusetts, 17 August 1920. Hutchins, an Episcopal priest, was editor of several music editions of 19th-century Episcopal hymnals and related materials. He was a son of George Hutchins (1797-1868) and Sarah Rolfe Tucker (1801-1868). Both parents were born to well-established New England families. Of particular note is Sarah's grandfather, the Rev Dr John Tucker (1719-1792), described in Shipton's New England...
ALEXANDER, Charles McCallon. b. Meadow, Tennessee, 24 October 1867; d. Birmingham, England, 13 October 1920. He was the son of John D. Alexander, a well-known musical leader, and Martha McCallon. A singing evangelist in the style of Ira D. Sankey*, young Alexander was influenced by his family's singing Gospel hymns around the fireside and by his mother's reading Dwight L. Moody*'s sermons to the family each night. Alexander attended Maryville Preparatory School and College, Maryville, Tennessee...
KRAUTH, Charles Porterfield. b. Martinsburg, Virginia, 17 March 1823; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2 January 1883. The son of a Lutheran minister, Charles Philip Krauth, Charles Porterfield Krauth was educated at Pennsylvania College (later Gettysburg College), of which his father was the first President, and at Gettysburg Theological Seminary, graduating in 1841. He served Lutheran churches in Canton, Baltimore (1841-42), the Second English Lutheran Church, Baltimore (1843-47); Winchester,...
ROGERS, Charles. b. Dunino, near Anstruther, Fife, 18 April 1825; d. Edinburgh, 18 September 1890. The son of a minister of the Church of Scotland, he was educated at the parish school and the University of St Andrews (1839-1843), followed by training for the ministry. He was licensed to preach in 1846, and served as an assistant minister and as a 'missionary' to churches affected by the Great Schism of 1843 (Dunfermline North, 1849-50, Carnoustie, 1851-52). He moved to Bridge of Allan, near...
NUTTER, Charles Sumner. b. Tuftonboro, New Hampshire, 19 September 1842; d. Melrose, Massachusetts, 2 August 1928. Charles Nutter and Wilber Fisk Tillett* (1854-1936) wrote The Hymns and Hymn Writers of The Church, an Annotated Edition of The Methodist Hymnal (New York and Cincinnati: The Methodist Book Concern, 1911). Nutter was an avid collector of hymnological materials, and his collection together with that of Frank Metcalf (1765-1945) total more than 2500 volumes, comprising the core of...
ROBINSON, Charles Seymour. b. Bennington, Vermont, 31 March 1829; d. New York, 1 February 1899. The son of General Henry Robinson (1778-1854) and Martha P. Haynes (1800-1857), Robinson studied theology at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, Union Seminary, New York City, and graduated from Princeton Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey. Following his ordination in 1855, he served as pastor of Park Presbyterian Church, Troy, New York. In 1858 he married Harriet Read Church (1835-1895),...
TILLMAN, Charles Davis. b. Tallassee, Alabama, 20 March 1861; d. Atlanta, Georgia, 2 September 1943. Charlie Tillman was a gospel songwriter and publisher. He was the youngest of five children born to James Lafayette Tillman (1829–1904), a Baptist preacher and evangelist, and Mary Fletcher Tillman (née Davis) (1827–1904), who was active in her husband's evangelistic efforts. He married Anna Tillman (née Killingsworth) (1869–1949) in 1889, and they had five children. As a child, he traveled with...
WESLEY, Charles (II). b. Bristol, 11 December 1757; d. London, 23 May 1834. He was the son of Charles Wesley*, and older brother of Samuel Wesley (III)*. He was a child prodigy, admired by many of the foremost musicians in London, such as Samuel Arnold*, and advised and taught by many of them. His playing was much admired by King George III, and as a young man he played frequently at Court, being named 'Royal organist' to George III and to the Prince Regent after 1810. However, he was...
FRY, Charles William. b. Alderbury, near Salisbury, Wiltshire, 30 May 1838; d. Polmont, near Falkirk, Scotland, 24 August 1882. He was the son of a bricklayer. He was registered at birth as 'William Charles', but married as 'Charles William'. At the age of 17 he was converted at a Sunday evening prayer meeting at the Wesleyan chapel in Alderbury. He became a Wesleyan local preacher, but he was also a considerable musician, playing various instruments, including the cornet, which he played in a...
TUCKER, Charlotte Maria [pseudonym A. L. O. E. (A Lady of England)]. b. Friern Hatch, Barnet, 8 May 1821; d Amritsar, India, 2 December 1893. She was the daughter of Henry St George (1771/2-1851), who rose to the position of chairman in the East India Company, and his wife, Jane Boswell (d. 1869), who was related to Samuel Johnson's biographer. She had a privileged and largely secular upbringing, but underwent an Evangelical conversion around 1848, which led her to devote her life to God's...
Chartism was a predominantly working-class movement which campaigned for political reform in Britain from 1838 until the mid-1850s. In particular, the 'People's Charter' contained six demands intended to make the British political system more democratic; these demands were:
A vote for every man over the age of 21;
A secret ballot;
No property qualification for members of Parliament;
Payment for MPs (so poor men could serve);
Constituencies of equal size;
Annual elections for...
LANGDON, Chauncy (or Chauncey). b. Farmington, Connecticut, 8 November 1763; d. Castleton, Vermont, 23 July 1830. Although his first name is spelled Chauncy in a few early publications and on his tombstone, and also in WorldCat Identities and Library of Congress Authorities, it appears that the spelling Chauncey is far more common.
Although Langdon is known primarily as a United States Representative from Vermont, he is also credited with the compiling of Beauties of Psalmody, Containing...
Chetham's Psalmody
The title of this important collection was The Book of Psalmody. It was first published at Sheffield in 1718 by John Chetham or Cheetham (1665 – baptized 4 February -1746), subsequently master of the Clerk's School, Skipton, Yorkshire, and curate of Skipton, 1741-46. Further editions followed in 1722, 1724 and 1731, with many successors. It has been described as 'the most important country collection [of psalm settings] of all' (Temperley, 1979, p. 181). Each edition during...
Child in the manger. Mary Macdonald* (1789-1872), translated by Lachlan Macbean* (1853–1931).
Macdonald's Gaelic text, 'Leanabh an aigh', was freely translated as 'Child in the manger' by Macbean for his Songs and Hymns of the Scottish Highlands (1888) and set to the Highland melody called in hymnbooks BUNESSAN, after the village near Ardtun on the Isle of Mull. The translation was included with this tune in RCH, and in many books since. In addition to Scottish books, they include the Baptist...
Children of Jerusalem. John Henley* (1800-1842).
This Palm Sunday hymn for children has appeared in many forms. The text that is found in the Memorials compiled by his widow is presumably the one that Henley approved before his untimely death. It was printed as follows:
“HOSANNA! BLESSED IS HE THAT COMETH IN THE NAME OF THE LORD! HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST!”
1.Children of JerusalemSang the praise of Jesu's name;Children, too, of modern daysJoin to sing the Saviour's praise.
CHORUS: - Hark! while...
Children of the Heavenly Father. Lina Sandell-Berg* (1832-1903), translated by Ernst W. Olson.
Many commentaries on this hymn state that Sandell-Berg wrote the original Swedish hymn 'Tryggare kan ingen vara' in 1858 as a result of her father's tragic death by drowning. Per Harling*, author of Sandell's most recent biography, Blott en dag: Lina Sandell og hennes sanger (Stockholm, 2004), drawing upon research by Swedish hymnologist Oscar Lövgren, suggests that Sandell wrote the hymn much...
Children's Hymn Book (1881). The Children's Hymn Book was 'published under the direction of W. Walsham How, Ashton Oxenden, and John Ellerton' by the SPCK. It was not the first book with that title: The Children's Hymn Book had been published by Thomas Nelson in 1854, and was successful enough to be enlarged in subsequent editions. The 1881 book, however, was the most important and successful of 19th-century hymnbooks for children of the Church of England (in JJ, p. 223, WTB thought that the...
Singing is a natural activity for children, and one of the most certain ways of passing on doctrine and history of faith is through hymn singing. Because of its ability to draw people into community while teaching doctrine, singing hymns strengthens the fostering of religious values. There is evidence that the teaching of hymnody happened with boys in monasteries as early as the fifth century, and after 1200 there is evidence of girls taking part in monastic liturgical singing. Though we may...
URHAN (Auerhahn), Chrétien. b. Montjoie, near Aix-la Chapelle (now Aachen, Germany), 16 February 1790; d. Belleville, Paris, 2 November 1845. He came from a musical family, and was taught by his father: he became an accomplished violin, viola, and piano player. In 1805 the Empress Josephine, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, ordered him to Paris, where he became a specialist in the violon-alto, a violin with a C string added. Berlioz requested him for the viola solo in the first performance of Harold...
Christ in Song (1869). This was the title of a major anthology by Philip Schaff*, published in New York in 1869, with the preface dated 5 October 1868. The full title was ΙΧΘΥΣ. Christ in Song. Hymns of Immanuel: Selected from all ages, with notes. Another page has the Chi/Rho symbol/ 'Christo Sacrum'/ Φριστòς τà πáντα εν πασιν ('Christ is all in all')/ a verse from F.W.H. Myers*' poem 'St Paul':
Thro' life and death, thro' sorrow and thro' sinning
Christ shall suffice me, for He hath...
Christ is coming! Let creation. John Ross Macduff* (1818-1895).
Based on Revelation 22: 20, this Advent hymn is from Macduff's Altar Stones (1853), published when he was minister of St Madoes, Perthshire (Barkley, 1979, p. 141). It became Macduff's best known hymn. It had four stanzas:
Christ is coming! Let creation From her groans and travail cease; Let the glorious proclamation Hope restore and faith increase: Christ is coming! Come, Thou blessèd Prince of Peace.
Earth can now but...
Christ is made the sure Foundation. Latin, probably 7th century, translated by John Mason Neale* (1818-1866).
This is a translation of verses beginning 'Angularis fundamentum'* from the hymn 'Urbs beata Ierusalem'* (see 'Blessed city, heavenly Salem'*). It is found in manuscripts of the 11th century, but is probably much earlier (see JJ, pp. 1198-99). The translation was printed as a single nine-verse hymn in Neale's Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences (1851). In The Hymnal Noted Part I (1851), it...
Christ is the world's Redeemer. St Columba* (521-597), translated by Duncan MacGregor* (1854-1923).
This is a translation of the second part of a Latin hymn, found in two manuscripts held in Dublin, in the library of Trinity College, and in the Franciscan College.This second part begins 'Christe Redemptor gentium'. Both sections were traditionally attributed to St Columba, but a note in the Trinity College MS casts doubt on his authorship of the first part, beginning 'In Te, Christe,...
Christ of all my hopes the ground. Ralph Wardlaw* (1779-1853).
First published in the supplement of 1817 to A Selection of Hymns for Public Worship: Intended primarily for the Church in Albion Street Chapel (Glasgow, 1803). It was in two parts: the first was entitled 'Christ All, and in all'. Seven stanzas, from parts 1 and 2 were printed in the Church Hymnary (1898), but thereafter it disappeared from Scottish books. SofP has a text of three 8-line stanzas, and SofPE shortens this to two. It...
BUNSEN, Christian Carl Josias. b. Corbach in Waldeck, Germany, 25 August 1791; d. Bonn, 28 November 1860. He was educated at the Universities of Marburg and Göttingen, becoming an assistant master at the Gymnasium (High School) of Göttingen. He resigned his post to engage in philological and historical research, which he continued throughout his career. He married Frances Waddington, of an English landed family, in 1817. He entered the diplomatic service, becoming Prussian Minister at Rome...
BARTH, Christian Gottlob. b. Stuttgart, 31 July 1799; d. Calw, 12 November 1862. He was educated at the Gymnasium at Stuttgart, followed by the University of Tübingen (1817-21). He became assistant at Neckarweihingen and Dornham (1821-22), curate at Effringen and Schönbrunn (1822-24), and pastor at Möttlingen, near Calw, Württemberg (1824-38). In 1838 he resigned his living and went to live at Calw in order to devote more time to writing and missionary work until his death.
Barth translated...
The Christian Harmony is a tunebook of hymn and psalm tunes, odes, and anthems, compiled by William Walker*, first published in 1867 by E. W. Miller (nda) in Philadelphia. Walker's earlier tunebooks, Southern Harmony and Southern and Western Pocket Harmonist (Philadelphia, 1846) used 4-shape notation, but Walker used 7-shape notation for Christian Harmony. The 7-shapes introduced by Jesse Bowman Aikin (1808-1900) in 1846 were patented, so that Walker devised three additional shapes on his own...
BATEMAN, Christian Henry. b. Wyke, Yorkshire, England, 9 August 1813; d. Carlisle, Cumberland, 27 July 1889. Bateman was the son of John Frederick Bateman (1772–1851), a mostly unsuccessful inventor, and Mary Agnes Bateman (née La Trobe) (1772–1848), and the fourth of six siblings (his older brother, the eminent civil engineer John Frederick La Trobe Bateman (1810–1889), was - unlike his father - one of the most successful innovators of his era, supervising reservoirs and waterworks in Ireland...
LATROBE, Christian Ignatius. b. Fulneck, near Leeds, 12 Feb 1758; d. Fairfield, near Manchester, 6 May 1836. Christian was the son of Benjamin Latrobe, one of the leaders of the Moravian Church in England. He was educated at the Moravian Church's schools in Niesky and Barby, Germany (1771-84), where he studied theology and also taught for five years. He was ordained a minister in the Moravian Church and became secretary of the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel, the missionary branch...
Christian Psalmody (1833 and after). This collection, edited by Edward Bickersteth*, became one of the most influential hymnbooks in the Church of England before A&M, and marked a significant increase in the resources available to those who wished to encourage hymn singing. Its title page in 1833 gives an accurate description of its contents and scope:
Christian Psalmody: A Collection of above 700 Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs; selected and arranged for public, school, family and...
Hymnody and Hymnals of the Christian Reformed Church in North America. The Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRC) is an offshoot of the Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerk in the Netherlands, and the Reformed Church in America (RCA), which was established in North America about two centuries before the arrival of the Dutch who would form the core of the CRC. Whereas the RCA grew out of a 17th-century emigration at a time when the Dutch were engaged with the world, prosperous, and...
The Christian Social Union, and its hymns
The Christian Social Union was founded in 1889. However, its concerns had been exercising thoughtful church people, and many others, throughout the 19th century: movements such as those of the Chartists in the 1840s, and the writings of such thinkers as Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872) and Charles Kingsley* provided a background to the practical experience of clergy such as Percy Dearmer* in the East End of London. The Salvation Army was founded...
Christlicher Sängerbund
This is the name of a German free church choral organisation founded at Elberfeld (now part of Wuppertal) in 1879 by Wilhelm Elsner (1833-1892) to encourage the musical life of what is now the Bund Evangelisch-Freikirchlicher Gemeinden in Deutschland (mainly Baptists), the United Methodist Church, and other German speaking free churches all over Europe. When Elsner died in 1892, Ernst H. Gebhardt* was appointed chairman. It is estimated that during the 1930s there were...
SCHMID, Christoph von. b. Dinkelsbühl, north of Augsburg, 15 August 1768; d. Augsburg, 3 September 1854. Born into a Catholic family, he was educated at Dillingen, obtaining a 'Schulbenefiziat' (benefice with teaching duties) at Tannhausen an der Mindel (west of Augsburg, not Tannhausen near Dinkelsbühl). There he published his first collections of hymns at his own expense, for distribution among his parishioners to encourage them to sing hymns. They were a children's book, Der erste Unterricht...
CHRYSANTHOS of Madyta. b. Thrace, ca. 1770; d. 1846. Chrysanthos is said to have been a well-educated man of the church compared to the standards of his time; he knew Latin and French as well as European and Arabian music (he played the flute and the Persian ney). He studied Byzantine music with Petros Byzantios* among others.
Chrysanthos was appointed archimandrite (superior abbot), and as such was also responsible for musical education. He became aware that the complicated notational system...
Church Hymnal (Cooke and Denton, 1853). This was one of the principal books published in the years before the First Edition of A&M. The full title was The Church Hymnal. A Book of Hymns adapted to the use of The Church of England and Ireland, arranged as they are to be sung in Churches. No editors' names appeared on the title page. No date is given on the title page. The copy in the British Library, presented by John Julian in 1893, bears his inscription 'Known as Cooke & Denton's...
Church Hymns (1871), Church Hymns with Tunes (1874). The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) had printed hymns since 1837, when it added them to a reprint of Tate* and Brady*'s Metrical Psalms, the New Version*. In subsequent editions, more hymns were added, and then printed separately from the Psalms in 1852. Psalms and Hymns for Public Worship followed in 1855, with an Appendix in 1863, edited by Berdmore Compton, then rector of Barford, Warwickshire. Some churches, such as St...
Church of England Hymn Book, A (1880). This hymnbook, edited by Godfrey Thring*, was an important contender for an official hymn book for the Church of England, although Thring claimed disingenuously in the preface that the time was not right for such a book. He went on:
On the other hand, the very arguments which may be urged against an authorized hymnal are in themselves a call for further progress, in order that hymns which offend both the taste and conscience, and which in a literary point...
CHURMUZIOS CHARTOPHYLAX (Churmuzios the Archivist). b. ca. 1770; d. 1840. Born on the island of Chalkis, Churmuzios studied Byzantine music with Georgios of Crete*, Petros Byzantios* and Iakobos Peloponnesios* (Protopsaltes), but was also acquainted with Arabian-Persian music. From 1792 onwards Churmuzios seems to have been working as a musician, although he did not have a musical post within the patriarchal church, instead being employed as a chartophylax (archivist). Churmuzios sang in...
MARTIN, Civilla Durfee (née Holden). b. Jordan, Nova Scotia, 21 August 1866; d. Atlanta, Georgia, 9 March 1948. Civilla Durfee was a village schoolteacher with some musical training. She wrote some gospel songs with her husband, Walter Stillman Martin (1862-1935), formerly a Baptist minister but later an itinerant evangelist, teacher, and pastor for the Disciples of Christ, based in Atlanta. She is best known for two very comforting gospel songs: 'Be not dismayed whate'er betide'* ('God will...
BRENTANO, Clemens. b. Ehrenbreitstein, 9 September 1778; d. Aschaffenburg, 28 July 1842. He was brought up in Frankfurt (Main), where his father was a merchant, Koblenz and Mannheim. Among his brothers and sisters Bettine (who married the poet Achim von Arnim) is known as a writer. He studied finance in Halle, medicine in Jena and philosophy in Göttingen, but never took an examination. 1803 he married the writer Sophie Mereau and lived with her in Marburg. Later they moved to Heidelberg, where...
GALE, Clement Rowland. b. Kew, Surrey, England, January 1860, d. New York City, 10 May 1934. Gale was a founding member of the American Guild of Organists* (1896), a member of the music faculty of General Theological Seminary in New York, and composer of several hymn tunes.
Several published accounts give Gale's date of birth as 12 March 1862, but official records show that he was born in January 1860 to William Frederick Gale (b. 1823?) and Elizabeth Gale (b. 1824?) and was baptized at St...
Come and let us drink of that new river. John Damascene* (ca. 655- ca. 745), translated by John Mason Neale* (1818-1866).
This hymn by St John of Damascus, or St John Damascene, 'Δευτε πόμα πίωμεν', was Ode III of the 'Canon for Easter Day, called the Golden Canon, or, The Queen of Canons', from the Pentekostarion Kharmosynon ('Joyful Pentecostarion'), used from Easter Day to the first Sunday after Pentecost (see Litvack, 1994, p. 131, and the entry under 'The Day of Resurrection'). It had nine...
Come and taste, along with me. John Leland* (1754–1841).
This hymn was entitled 'The Christian's Consolation'. It was probably first published in 1801, in at least three collections: Richard Allen*, A Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs: from various authors (Philadelphia: T. L. Plowman, 1801); Richard Allen, A Collection of Spiritual Songs and Hymns (Philadelphia: John Ormrod, 1801); and Josiah Goddard, A New and Beautiful Collection of Select Hymns and Spiritual Songs (Walpole, New...
Come see the place where Jesus lay. James Montgomery* (1771-1854).
In JJ, p. 251, there is precise information about this hymn. It was written for 'The Seventh Anniversary of the Sheffield and Attercliffe Missionary Union in aid of the London Missionary Society', and was first sung in Howard Street Independent Chapel, Sheffield on Easter Sunday, April 2nd, 1820. In leaflet form, it was signed 'J.M.'
It was included in Montgomery's The Christian Psalmist (Glasgow, 1825) and, with minor...
Come to our dark nature's night. George Rawson* (1807-1889).
This hymn was printed in Psalms, Hymns, and passages of Scripture for Christian Worship (1853), the 'Leeds Hymn Book', a book in which Rawson assisted the local Congregationalist editors. There were originally nine stanzas, as found in the Primitive Methodist Hymnal (1887, 1889):
Come to our dark nature's nightWith thy blessèd inward light,Holy Ghost, the Infinite, Comforter Divine.
We are sinful; cleanse us, Lord:Sick and...
Come with us, O blessed Jesus. John Henry Hopkins, Jr.* (1820-1891).
First published in the Second Edition, enlarged, of Hopkins's Carols, Hymns, and Songs (New York, 1872). It was entitled 'Retrocessional for Christmas Day'; it provides a fine conclusion to a service on that day.
After having been neglected for many years, the first stanza of this hymn was printed in H40, with a tune by Johann Schop*, sometimes called WERDE MUNTER, after the hymn by Johann Rist*, 'Werde munter, mein Gemüte'*,...
Come, Holy Spirit, Dove divine. Adoniram Judson* (1788-1850).
'Come, Holy Spirit, Dove divine' is the most widely sung of three hymns written by Adoniram Judson. This four-stanza hymn is extracted from Judson's seven-stanza baptism hymn 'Our Savior bowed beneath the wave'*. The original hymn, written ca. 1829 and first printed in Thomas Ripley's A Selection of Hymns, for Conference & Prayer Meetings, and Other Occasions, Second Edition (1831), appeared under the title 'Hymn written by Mr....
Come, let us sing the song of songs. James Montgomery* (1771-1854).
This was written for the Sheffield Sunday School Whitsun Festival, May 1841. It was later published in Montgomery's Original Hymns (1853), where it was Hymn LXXXIX, entitled 'The Song of Songs'. The title comes from The Song of Solomon, which opens with the words 'The song of songs, which is Solomon's.' Montgomery daringly takes the phrase and uses it to mean 'the song that is the song of all songs' (cf. 'the Holy of Holies')....
Come, pure hearts, in sweetest measures. Latin, translated by Robert Campbell* (1814-1868).
First published in Campbell's Hymns and Anthems for Use in the Holy Services of the Church within the United Diocese of St Andrews, Dunkeld, and Dunblane (Edinburgh, 1850), where it was entitled 'Commemoration of Evangelists'. It was a translation of three stanzas from two anonymous Sequences of the 12th century, 'Iucundare, plebs fidelis'*, and 'Plausu chorus laetabundo'* (altered by Clichtoveus*: see...
Come, sinner, to the gospel feast. Nineteenth century, author unknown.
This hymn is annotated under Charles Wesley*'s 'Come, sinners, to the Gospel feast'* in JJ, p. 251. It is attributed in some books, such as Henry Ward Beecher*'s Plymouth Collection*, to 'Huntingdon' (see 'Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon'*). There were many variants of hymns in editions of the Countess of Huntingdon's hymnals, and the first line obviously derives from Wesley's hymn: but this hymn is exceptional in...
Come, ye disconsolate, where'er you languish. Thomas Moore* (1779-1852).
First published in Moore's A Series of Sacred Songs, Duetts and Trios (1824), the second volume with this title (following that of 1816). It was written to be sung to a tune known as 'German Air' by the music editor, John Andrew Stevenson (1761-1833). It had three stanzas:
Come, ye disconsolate, where'er you languish, Come at the shrine of God, fervently kneel, Here bring your wounded hearts, here...
KRUMMACHER, Cornelius Friedrich Adolf. b. Ruhrort, near Duisburg, 16 June 1824; d. Werningerode, 5 February 1884. The son of the distinguished preacher, Friedrich Wilhelm Krummacher*, Cornelius studied at Bonn and Berlin, and after ordination in 1850 he was pastor of the Liebfrauenkirche at Halberstadt (1853-72), and at Barby. He retired on grounds of ill-health to Werningerode. He published sermons, Christus, sein Wort und seine Kirche, Drei Predigten (Berlin, 1857), and a book of poems,...
Courage, brother! do not stumble. Norman Macleod* (1812-1872).
Written for a Christian rally of working men, this was first published in 1857 in The Edinburgh Christian Instructor (Macleod was at one time its editor). With its strong ethical message ('Trust in God, and do the right') it was a very popular hymn in the 19th century, and in the first part of the 20th.
It had four 8-line stanzas in the Church Hymnary (1898), set to a tune, COURAGE, BROTHER, by Arthur Sullivan*:
Courage, brother! do...
Crown of Jesus (1862) was a major publication during the years of the expansion of the Roman Catholic church in Britain following Catholic Emancipation, the passing of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill in 1829, and the growth in numbers following immigration from Ireland and the converts from the Oxford Movement*. Library catalogues give the names of the editors as R.R. Suffield and C.F.R. Palmer. Its full title was Crown of Jesus: a complete Catholic manual of devotion, doctrine, and instruction....
Daily, daily sing to Mary. Henry Bittleston* (1818-1886), from the 'Hymn of Saint Casimir' probably by Bernard of Cluny* (12th century).
The Latin hymn from which this translation is taken is part 7 of a cycle of hymns, the Mariale, beginning 'Ut jucundas cervus undas, aestuans desiderat'. In the course of a careful discussion of possible authorship, James Mearns* comes down on the side of Bernard of Cluny as the most likely author (JJ, pp. 1200-1202). Section vii of the Mariale begins 'Omni...
MANSFIELD, Daniel Hale. b. probably Bangor, Maine, 23 June 1810; d. probably Augusta, Maine, 25 February 1855. Mansfield is primarily known as the compiler of a popular oblong tunebook, The American Vocalist (Boston, 1848, Rev. 1849). His ancestors, arriving in the American colony of Massachusetts around 1638, reflected seven generations of English Puritan heritage. They prospered as farmers and were gentlemen and owners of enslaved people in the New World. During the second half of the 18th...
MALGAS, Daniel. b. Eastern Cape, South Africa, ca.1853; d. Fort Beaufort, South Africa, March 1936. Malgas was an ordained Anglican priest, whose career was based in the eastern part of the Cape Colony near Kwa Maqoma (formerly Fort Beaufort). An official record of his exact birth date has not been found. It is possible that his birth was not registered because his parents converted to Christianity when Malgas was in his late teens. He began formal education in 1872 at St Luke's Mission....
MARCH, Daniel. b. Milbury, Massachusetts, 21 July 1816; d. Woburn, Massachusetts, 2 March 1909. March was educated at Amherst College (1834-36), and Yale University (BA, 1840). After serving as principal of Fairfield Academy in Connecticut, he returned to Yale for his theological studies. He was ordained into the Presbyterian ministry in 1845, but later changed to Congregationalism, and served churches in Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania, and twice in Woburn, Massachusetts (1856-64,...
READ, Daniel. b. Attleboro, Massachusetts, 16 November 1757; d. New Haven, Connecticut, 4 December 1836. Daniel Read spent his early years working on the family farm. He had only a few months of formal education in common school. His musical training came in singing schools (class lessons in musical rudiments and choral singing) and it is likely that one of his teachers was William Billings*. After service in the Massachusetts militia during the Revolutionary War, Read settled in New Haven,...
WHITTLE, Daniel Webster. b. Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, 22 November 1840; d. Northfield, Massachusetts, 4 March 1901. Whittle was given the name of the great lexicographer, Daniel Webster, which suggests a respect for learning on the part of his parents, who moved to Chicago in his teenage years. He worked as a Wells Fargo Bank cashier in Chicago before serving in the Civil War. In 1861 he joined the 72nd Illinois infantry regiment: he took part in Sherman's march through Georgia from...
Dark, dark indeed, the grave would be. William Gaskell* (1805-1884).
This comforting hymn was published in James Martineau*'s Hymns for the Christian Church and Home (1840, many editions). It was entitled 'The light of the Gospel on the tomb.' It had four stanzas:
Dark, dark indeed the grave would be, Had we no light, O God, from thee; If all we saw were all we knew, Or hope from reason only grew.
But fearless now we rest in faith, A holy life makes happy death,'Tis but a change ordained by...
TERRY, Darley. b. Brighouse, Yorkshire, 19 January 1847; d. Prestatyn, North Wales, 21 January 1933. Terry was a printer at Dewsbury, Yorkshire and a Sunday-school superintendent. He represented Yorkshire on the council of the National Sunday School Union. He was an active member of the Methodist New Connexion, serving on its Sunday schools committee from 1877 to 1899, and on its Young People's and Temperance Department. He is said to have published Poems and Hymns (1904, 1914, second series,...
Das Jahr geht still zu Ende. Eleonore Reuss* (1835-1903).
Written in 1857-58, at the turn of the year, in commemoration of the early death of her close friend Marie Nathusius (1817-1857). It is based on Hebrews 11: 13-16: 'These all died in faith, not having received the promises, … they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth… But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly'. It is a hymn that is wonderfully suited to those who have lost loved ones: it acknowledges the tears that...
CREAMER, David. b. Baltimore, Maryland, 20 November 1812; d. Baltimore, 8 April 1887. David Creamer was one of eleven children born to Joshua Creamer (nda) and Margaret Smith (nda). Creamer was educated in private schools in Baltimore until the age of 17. He was a partner in his father's lumber business until 1858 and served in several small government positions after that time. He was a devout Methodist who developed a strong interest in the hymnody of the church, and who became the first...
EVANS, David Emlyn. b. Pen'ralltwen, Newcastle Emlyn, Carmarthen, 21 September 1843; d. Cemmaes, Machynlleth, Montgomeryshire, 19 April 1913. He began life as a draper's assistant, but became a distinguished Welsh musician, much in demand as an Eisteddfod adjudicator. With David Jenkins* he edited Y Cerddor ('The Musician') from 1889 to 1913. He was the music editor of several Welsh hymnbooks, including the Congregationalist Y Caniedydd Cynulleidfaol (1895) and the Wesleyan Methodist Llyfr...
JENKINS, David. b. Trecastle, Breconshire, 30 December 1848; d. Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire, 10 December 1915. He began life as an apprentice to a tailor. His talent for music enabled him to study under Joseph Parry* at Aberystwyth, 1874-78, and he became (from 1882) successively instructor, lecturer, and finally Professor of Music at University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. He was precentor of the English Presbyterian Church in Aberystwyth, and noted as a choral conductor. With David Emlyn...
David's Companion (1808). James Evans*, a British Methodist who arrived in New York City in 1806, compiled and published David's Companion Being a Choice Selection of Hymn and Psalm tunes being adapted to the words and measures of the Methodist Pocket Hymn-Book containing a variety of tunes to all the metres that are now in use in the different churches: with many new tunes principally from Dr. Miller, Leach and other composers (New York, 1808). The title page dedicates the volume to 'the Rev....
GILBERT, Davies. b. St Erth, Cornwall, 6 March 1767; d. Eastbourne, Sussex, 24 December 1839. He was educated at Penzance Grammar School, at a boarding school at Bristol, and at Pembroke College, Oxford (MA, 1789).
Gilbert came from an old Cornish family: his name was originally Giddy and was changed to his wife's name in 1817, after he had acquired a large Sussex estate by marriage. He was prominent in the affairs of Cornwall, and nationally, serving as Member of Parliament for Helston (1804)...
Dear Angel! ever at my side. Frederick William Faber* (1814-1863).
There are two entries in JJ for this hymn, both under the heading 'Dear Angel! ever at my side', which was Faber's own first line. The first gives the printing in Faber's Jesus and Mary; or, Catholic Hymns (1849). The entry in the 'New Supplement', p. 1627, also gives the date of publication as 1849, in Faber's St Wilfrid's Hymns (Faber, converted in 1846, had founded the 'Brothers of the Will of God of the Congregation of St...
Dein König kommt in niedern Hüllen. Friedrich Rückert* (1788-1866). This hymn was entitled 'Adventlied', and appeared in a collection, Gesammelte Gedichte von Friedrich Rückert (Erlangen, 1834). It had six 6-line stanzas, all of which are found in EG. It celebrates the coming of the Christ-child in lowly form ('niedern Hüllen'). He is a mighty Lord without an army ('ohne Heere', verse 2), whose kingdom is not of this world (verse 3), and who comes to bring light to the world (verse 6).
JRW
...
HUNTINGTON, DeWitt Clinton. b. Townshend, Windham, Vermont, 27 April 1830; d. Lincoln, Nebraska, 8 February 1912. One of a family of nine children, he was the son of Ebenezer Huntington (1780-1866) and Lydia Peck (1786-1857). He was educated at Syracuse University, New York, after which he was ordained as a Methodist Episcopal Church minister in 1853. He was the pastor of churches in New York State and Pennsylvania: Rochester (1861-71); Syracuse (1873-76); Rochester again (1876-79); Bradford,...
DOLBEN, Digby Augustus Stewart Mackworth. b. Guernsey, Channel Islands, 8 February 1848; d. Luffenham, Rutland, 28 June 1867. He was the son of aristocratic and fiercely Protestant parents, and Digby reacted by becoming involved with Roman Catholicism while still at school at Eton, when he associated with an unofficial order of Benedictines which allowed him to dress as a monk. At Eton he became friendly with Robert Bridges*, who encouraged him to write poetry and admired the result; on a visit...
PHOTEINOS (MORAITĒS), Dionysios. b. Achaias, Palaias Patras, Peloponnesios, Greece, 1777; d. Wallachia, 10 October 1821. He studied Byzantine music with his father Athanasios (personal physician of the sultan Abdul Hamit and Domestikos of the Great Church of Constantinople), and then at the Patriarchal School in Constantinople as apprentice of Iakobos Peloponnesios* (Protopsaltes) and Petros Byzantios Fygas (d. 1808). In 1797 he attended the Imperial Academy in Bucharest. He was a tambour,...
Do no sinful action. Cecil Frances Alexander* (1818-1895).
From Alexander's Hymns for Little Children (1848). It was Hymn V, on the first promise in the catechism, to 'renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanity of this wicked world, and all the lusts of the flesh' (following the promise made by the godparents at Baptism). It had seven stanzas:
Do no sinful action, Speak no angry word; Ye belong to Jesus, Children of the Lord.
Christ is kind and gentle, Christ is pure and...
GURNEY, Dorothy Frances (née Blomfield). b. London, 4 October 1858; d. London, 15 June 1932. She was the daughter of the vicar of St Andrew Undershaft in the City of London, and granddaughter of a Bishop of London. In 1887 she married Gerald Gurney, the son of Archer Thompson Gurney*. She and her husband became Roman Catholics in 1919. She published The Childhood of Queen Victoria (1901), Poems (1913), and A Little Book of Quiet (1915). After her death two collections of her poems were...
Down to the valley [river] to pray. African American spiritual*.
The earliest printed version of this song, entitled 'The Good Old Way', appears in the first collection of folk song published in the United States, Slave Songs of the United States* (New York, 1867). Ascribed in the index (No. 104) to 'Mr. G[eorge] H. Allan', Nashville, it is included in section 'III. Inland Slave States: Including Tennessee, Arkansas, and the Mississippi River'. It is likely that Allan transmitted the song...
Drawn to the Cross which Thou hast blest. Geneviève Mary Irons* (1855-1928).
Written in 1880, this hymn was published in the Sunday Magazine in October of that year, entitled 'Consecration of Self to Christ', and in Irons's manual for Holy Communion, Corpus Christi (1884). It was included without an author's name in the Congregational Church Hymnal (1887), and in the Primitive Methodist Hymnal (1887, music edition 1889), from which it passed into MHB. Later British books to include it were...
MacGREGOR, Duncan. b. Fort Augustus, Inverness-shire, 18 September 1854; d. Inverallochy, near Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, 8 October 1923. He attended the University of Aberdeen in the years 1870-71 and 1873-74, but did not take a degree. He was a 'missioner' in parts of Scotland, including the Orkney Islands, before becoming minister of Inverallochy from 1881 until his death.
He became an authority on the early Scottish church, publishing Early Scottish Worship: Its General Principles and...
MOODY, Dwight Lyman. b. Northfield, Massachusetts, 5 February 1837; d. Northfield, 22 December 1899. Moody, the pre-eminent evangelist of the late 19th century, grew up in rural Massachusetts but migrated to Boston and then Chicago as a young man. In Chicago he served as the first salaried president of the YMCA and increasingly established himself as a lay religious leader with no specific denominational ties. In 1873 he set out for Britain to launch a revival campaign, a highly successful...
LORENZ, Edmund Simon (ES). b. near Canal Fulton, Stark County, Ohio, 13 July 1854; d. Dayton, Ohio, 10 July 1942. He was a self-taught musician, tireless innovator, and highly competitive and successful publisher. He was an important and prolific author whose books informed mainline Protestant church music education while attempting to bridge the gap between its contrasting and rival hymnic traditions: the songs of the camp meeting, Sunday school and revival, and the urban church's worship-song...
TOURJÉE, Eben. b. Warwick, Rhode Island, 1 June 1834; d. Boston, Massachusetts, 12 April 1891. Tourjée was an influential music educator, teacher, organist, hymnal editor, and entrepreneur. He worked in cotton mills while attending school at the East Greenwich Seminary, Providence, Rhode Island. He trained as an organist and taught music in public schools. By the age of 20 Tourjée had opened a music school based on the European conservatory model of the conservatory in Fall River,...
STITES, Edgar Page. b. Cape May, New Jersey, 22 March 1836; d. Cape May, 9 January 1921. Stites lived in Cape May for most of his life, apart from a period in Philadelphia during the Civil War, where he worked in the provisions department of the Union army, and another period when he was a missionary in Dakota. He was a pilot on the Delaware River and a lifelong Methodist, a member of the Cape May chapel for sixty years. He was the cousin of Eliza E. Hewitt* of Pennsylvania, whom he would have...
BUDRY, Edmond Louis. b. Vevey, 30 Aug 1854; d. Vevey, 12 Nov 1932. Born in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, Budry was educated at Lausanne, studying at the theological faculty of the Église Évangélique Libre du Canton de Vaud, a breakaway church from the National Reformed Church of Vaud. He served as a pastor of that church at Cully and Ste Croix, between Lausanne and Vevey (1886-89) and of the Free Church at Vevey (1889-1924). He died at Vevey and is buried at Cully. He is famous for...
SEARS, Edmund Hamilton. b. Sandisfield, Massachusetts, 6 April 1810; d. Weston, Mass., 16 January 1876. Sears was educated at Union College in Schenectady, New York (1834), and Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge (MA 1837). He was ordained as a Unitarian minister in 1839, but believed in the divinity of Christ, and had an interest in Swedenborgianism. He served churches in Wayland, Lancaster, and Weston, all in Massachusetts.
Among his many very successful books were Regeneration (1854, Ninth...
VAUGHAN, Edmund. b. Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, 26 November 1827; d. Bishop Eton, Liverpool, 1 July 1908. Born at into a distinguished Roman Catholic family, he became a member of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (C.ss.R), the order of mission priests ('Redemptorists') founded by St Alphonsus Liguori*. He was a Novice in 1850, made his profession as a Redemptorist on 2 February 1852, and was ordained to the priesthood on 22 February 1852. He worked for a time in Australia, and was...
KREMSER, Eduard. b. Vienna, Austria 10 April 1838; d. Vienna 26 November 1914. A distinguished conductor, arranger, editor/compiler of folk and popular music and music critic, Kremser attended business school, studied piano and music theory, and sang in amateur choral societies in Vienna. In 1861 he joined the famed Männergesangverein as rehearsal accompanist and member of the solo quartet. In 1869 he was appointed one of several co-directors: for example, Rudolph Weinwurm (1835-1911)], was...
CASWALL, Edward. b. Yateley, Hampshire, 15 July 1814; d. Birmingham, 2 January 1878. The son of a clergyman, he was educated at Chigwell, Essex and King Edward's Grammar School, Marlborough, Wiltshire. He entered Brasenose College, Oxford (BA 1836, MA 1838) and took Holy Orders (deacon, 1838, priest, 1839). He became Perpetual Curate of Stratford-sub-Castle, near Salisbury, where his uncle, Thomas Burgess, was bishop. He married in 1841, and in 1845 he and his wife went on a tour of the...
DENNY, (Sir) Edward. b. Dublin, 2 Oct 1796; d. London, 13 June 1889. He was the son of an Irish baronet, succeeding to the title in 1831. He was the owner of Tralee Castle, and of much of the county of Kerry, where he was an absentee landlord (living in London for most of his life) but a charitable and sympathetic one. In old age he remembered that he was converted by reading a novel about a Jesuit priest, Father Clement, by Grace Kennedy (Edinburgh, 1823), but he became a member of the...
ELGAR, (Sir) Edward William. b. Broadheath, Worcestershire, 2 June 1857; d. Worcester, 23 February 1934. At Broadheath his father, William Henry Elgar, ran a music retailing business and was organist of St George's Roman Catholic Church. Educated at Littleton House School and self-taught as a composer, Elgar was later to receive honorary degrees from several major universities. He was knighted in 1904, received the O.M. in 1911, and was appointed Master of the King's Music in 1924.
Elgar was...
HODGES, Edward. b. Bristol, England, 20 July 1796; d. Clifton, Bristol, 1 September 1867. Hodges was an organist, composer, and father of Faustina H. Hodges* and John Sebastian Bach Hodges*. Many hymnals include Edward Hodges's tune HYMN TO JOY, arranged from a melody in the finale of Beethoven's 9th symphony [Opus 125, 1824] as the setting for Henry van Dyke*'s 'Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee'*.
Edward's father, Archelaus Hodges (1767-1811), and mother, Elizabeth (Stephens) Hodges...
BRAILSFORD, Edward John. b. Birmingham, 8 March 1841; d. Ilfracombe, Devon, 30 November 1921. He was educated in Ireland at the Wesleyan Connexional School, Dublin, and trained for the Wesleyan Methodist ministry at Didsbury College, Manchester. He was ordained in 1863, and served in various circuits, including Bangor and Caernarvon, Liverpool, London, Bolton, and Ilkley, Yorkshire, where some of his hymns were written. He served as Chairman of the District in no fewer than five districts,...
MOTE, Edward. b. London, 21 January 1797; d. Horsham, Sussex, 13 November 1874. He worked in London as a cabinet-maker. He was greatly influenced by the preaching of the Revd John Hyatt at George Whitefield*'s Tottenham Court Road chapel. Mote became a Baptist minister, serving as pastor of a Baptist Chapel at Horsham, Sussex (1852-74) until his death.
His hymn writing had begun long before his ordination: the hymn by which he is remembered, 'My hope is built on nothing less'*, was published in...
STEPHEN (Jones), Edward ('Tanymarian'). b. Maentwrog, Merioneth, 15 December 1822; d. 10 May 1885. Edward Jones took the name of Edward Stephen when a student. His father played the harp and his mother sang, and he himself studied music assiduously while working in the clothing trade, and then as a student of theology at the Congregational College, Bala. From 1847 he was minister of Horeb, Dwygyfylchi, near Conway, North Wales. He became known throughout Wales as a preacher, poet, lecturer,...
See 'Edward Stephen (Jones)'*
CHAPIN, Edwin Hubbell. b. Union Village, New York, 29 December 1814; d. Pigeon Cove, Massachusetts, 26 December 1880. Chapin was a Universalist minister, author, orator, social reformer, and writer of hymns. With John Greenleaf Adams (1810-1897) he compiled Hymns for Christian Devotion.
Edwin Chapin was a descendant of Samuel Chapin (1598-1675), born in Devon, England, who became a prominent settler at Springfield, Massachusetts. Among other descendants of Samuel Chapin were hymn tune...
EXCELL, Edwin Othello. b. Uniontown, Stark County, Ohio, 13 December 1851; d. Chicago, Illinois, 10 June 1921. Publisher, singer, and gospel song composer best known for his Sunday-school songs, including the standard arrangement of the shape-note melody, AMAZING GRACE, and his tune, BLESSINGS (see following), Excell was born to Rev. Joshua James Excell (1825-1911), a singer and minister in the German Reformed Church, and Emily (née Hess, d. 1888). Before his musical career became successful,...
Eine Heerde und ein Hirt. Friedrich Adolf Krummacher* (1767-1845).
According to James Mearns* in JJ, p. 634, this is from the Third Edition of Das Christfest (1821). Das Christfest was the second Festbüchlein, the series of publications in which Krummacher interspersed narrative, reflections and hymns. It had six 6-line stanzas, each ending with the line 'Jesus hält, was Er verspricht' ('Jesus holds – or keeps – what he promised'). The 'Heerde' in line 1 is sometimes spelt 'Herde' ('flock')....
Einer ist's, an dem wir hangen. Albert Knapp* (1798-1864). This hymn is in five 11-line stanzas, in the 'Sammlung und Sendung' section of EG. It is dated there '(1822) 1824', which makes it one of Knapp's early hymns. At this time he wrote a confirmation hymn at the request of a friend, 'Eines wünsch ich mir vor allem andern', and he was writing mission hymns, of which this is one. It was printed in Knapp's Evangelischer Liederschatz für Kirche und Haus (Stuttgart, 1837). EG omits verse...
HULL, Eleanor Henrietta. b. Cheetham, Manchester, 15 Jan 1860; d. Wimbledon, Surrey, 13 Jan 1935. Born into an Irish family, Eleanor Hull was educated at Alexandra College, Dublin, and the Royal College of Science. She was evidently very proud of her Irish background, and devoted her life to the study of Irish culture. In 1899 she was one of the founders of the Irish Texts Society, and she acted as its London secretary for thirty years.
Before 1899 she had already edited The Cuchulain Saga in...
REUSS, Eleonore (née Gräfin [Countess] zu Stolberg-Werningerode). b. Gedern am Vogelsberg, Hesse, 20 February 1835; d. Schloss Ilsenberg, near Bad Harzburg, 18 September 1903. She came from a distinguished family, and married into an even more distinguished one, marrying (1855) Prince Heinrich Reuss LXXIV. It was his second marriage: he was 27 years older than she. They had five children. She was a close friend of Marie Nathusius (1817-1857), wife of the editor of Volksblatt(es) für Stadt und...
BALL, Eli, b. Marlborough, Vermont, 2 November 1786; d. Richmond, Virginia, 21 July 1853. He was the son of Samuel H. Ball and Phebe Taylor Ball, the younger brother of Amos Ball, and the twin of Pheobe Ball. Following limited former education, he was tutored in Boston by Daniel Stafford in classics and by Caleb Blood in ministerial studies. He served congregations in Malden and Wilmington, Massachusetts; Lansingburg, New York; and Middletown, Connecticut, before moving to Virginia in...
MANN, Elias. b. Stoughton, Massachusetts, 8 May 1750; d. Northampton, Massachusetts, 12 May 1825. Mann was a carpenter, musician, singing teacher, and tunebook compiler, born in the northwest part of Stoughton, in a section of the city now called Canton. He was the seventh of twelve children born to Theodore Mann (nda) and Abigail Day Mann (nda). Although little is known about his childhood and musical training, it is speculated that he grew up in Dedham and Walpole, southwest of nearby...
HOFFMAN, Elisha Albright. b. Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, 7 May 1839; d. Chicago, Illinois, 25 November 1929. Hoffman was an Evangelical Association minister's son (his middle name was given in honour of the founder of the Association, Jacob Albright). After fighting on the Union side in the Civil War, he attended Union Bible Seminary in New Berlin, Pennsylvania, and was ordained in 1868 by the Evangelical Association. He worked with the Association's publishing arm in Cleveland, Ohio (1868-79)....
HEWITT, Eliza Edmunds. b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 28 June 1851; d. Philadelphia, 24 April 1920. Eliza Hewitt spent her entire life in the city of her birth. She taught school there, after being educated at the Girls' Normal School, until she was incapacitated by a spinal injury for some time. Initially active in Olivet Presbyterian Church, Hewitt worked at the Northern Home for Friendless Children, and later as a Sunday-school superintendent at Calvin Presbyterian Church. Publishing various...
HAMILTON, Eliza H. b. Glasgow, 3 October 1807; d. Bridge of Allan, Stirling, 14 April 1868. Hamilton's Hymns for the Weary was published at some time before 1869. In that year the Third Edition was advertised in an Edinburgh newspaper, the Daily Review (British Newspaper Archive, 3, 10 and 17 February), together with several other publications by Eliza H. Hamilton, such as The Destroyer, a Temperance Tale, price 1s 6d, The Convent: or, Paths of Danger, price 2d, The Hurricane: a Touching Story,...
WESTBURY, Eliza. b. Hackleton, Northamptonshire, 1808 (Baptized 22 May); d. 11 April 1828. She was a member of Hackleton Baptist Church (among its founders in 1781 had been the local shoemaker, William Carey, who became a famous missionary and was instrumental in establishing the Baptist Missionary Society). Westbury learned to read and write at Sabbath School. She was a lace-maker and a Particular Baptist. Converted to an evangelical faith in 1826, she subsequently wrote about 150 hymns: 71...
CLEPHANE, Elizabeth Cecilia Douglas. b. Edinburgh, 18 June 1830; d. Melrose, Roxburghshire, 19 February 1869. She was a daughter of Andrew Clephane, Sheriff Principal of Fife and Kinross. The family later moved to Melrose, in the Scottish Borders, where Clephane became renowned for her kindness and generosity to the poor: she is said to have sold her horses to provide relief for the poor. Between 1872 and 1874 eight of her hymns were published in The Family Treasury, a religious magazine, under...
PRENTISS, Elizabeth (née Payson). b. Portland, Maine, 26 October 1818; d. Dorset, Vermont, 13 August 1878. She became a teacher before marrying (1845) George Lewis Prentiss (1816-1903), a Congregational (later Presbyterian) minister and well known author. They lived at New Bedford, Massachusetts (1845-51) and then in New York, with a period in Europe (1858-60). Her husband became Professor of Pastoral Theology at Union Theological Seminary, New York. She died at their summer residence at...
DARE, Elkanah Kelsay. b. Salem, Salem County, New Jersey, 15 January 1782; d. Colerain Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 26 August 1826. Dare is best known for his contributions to John Wyeth*'s shape-note Wyeth's Repository of Sacred Music*, Part Second. Dare married Mary Shallcross Phillips (1785-1841) in 1804. A list of their ten children with dates and places of birth, along with other records, indicates that Dare had moved to Wilmington, Delaware before the end of 1809, and to...
ARMITAGE, Ella Sophia (née Bulley). b. Liverpool, 3 March 1841; d. Leeds, 20 March 1931. Born into a distinguished Congregationalist family, she was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she was one of the first five undergraduates (Newnham was one of the first colleges for women). She was a notable linguist, historian and archaeologist, working at Manchester University, from which she received an Honorary Degree. She married the Revd. Elkanah Armitage, a professor at the Yorkshire...
GOREH, Ellen Lakshmi. b. Benares (now Varanasi), India, 11 September 1853; d. Cawnpore (Kanpur), 1937. Her father, Nehemiah Goreh (later to become an influential priest of the Indian Church) had been excommunicated from his Brahmin caste for converting to the Christian faith. Her mother, Lakshmibai Jongalekar, died less than three months after her birth. Ellen was adopted by a Mrs Smailes, an indigo planter's wife. The Smailes lost their estate in the Indian Mutiny (1857-8) and were unable to...
HALL, Elvina Mable (née Reynolds); JJ prints her second name thus; HymnQuest prints it as 'Mabel'. b. Alexandria, Virginia, 4 June 1820; d. Ocean Grove, New Jersey, 18 July 1889. She was a member of the Monument Street Methodist Episcopal Church, Baltimore. She married Richard Hall; after his death she married the Revd Thomas Myers, of the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Church. She is remembered for one hymn, 'I hear the Savior say'*. This is frequently known and referred to as 'Jesus...
PERKINS, Emily Swan. b. Chicago, Illinois, 19 October 1866; d. Riverdale, New York, 27 June 1941. Perkins was a composer of hymn tunes and the founder in New York City of The Hymn Society (later The Hymn Society of America; now The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada*). She was the fourth child and only daughter of George Walbridge Perkins (1831-1886) and Sarah Louise Mills Perkins (1833-1872) and was named for Emily Swan, a friend of her parents. Two years after Sarah Perkins died in...
BEVAN, (Emma) Frances (née Shuttleworth). b. Oxford, 25 September 1827; d. Cannes, France, 15 March 1909. Born at Oxford, the daughter of the Warden of New College, the anti-Tractarian Philip Shuttleworth, who became Bishop of Chichester in 1840. She married Robert Bevan, a banker, in 1856. She subsequently became a member of the Plymouth Brethren. She referred to herself as 'Frances Bevan' or 'F.B.'.
She published many books on religious topics, including Service of Song in the House of the...
SONTONGA, Enoch Mankayi. b. ca. 1873; d. 18 April 1905. The short, but significant life of Enoch Sontonga, from the Mpinga clan (Xhosa), began in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, around 1873. Like Bokwe* and Soga*, he may have been educated as a teacher at the Lovedale Mission. He was then sent to a Methodist Mission school in Nancefield, near Johannnesburg, to teach. Working as a choirmaster, Sontonga wrote the text and the music of his most famous hymn and the best known hymn in all of Africa,...
Episcopal Church Hymnody, USA
The Introduction is by Raymond F. Glover. The historical survey is by Robin Knowles Wallace.
Introduction
Among the vast number of persons who came as settlers beginning in 1607 to what is now known as the United States of America were many who brought with them a pattern of worship consistent with the liturgies of the Book of Common Prayer, the singing of metrical Psalms from the 'Old Version'* of Thomas Sternhold* and John Hopkins*, perhaps a few hymns of human...
SHURTLEFF, Ernest Warburton. b. Boston, Massachusetts, 4 April 1862; d. Paris, France, August 1917. He was educated at the Boston Latin School and Harvard University, with a further period of study at the New Church (Swedenborgian) Theological Seminary. He trained for the Congregational ministry at Andover Theological College, graduating in 1888. For the graduation ceremony he wrote the hymn by which he is still known, 'Lead on, O King eternal'*. He subsequently served as a minister at...
GEBHARDT, Ernst Heinrich. b. Ludwigsburg, Württemberg, 12 July 1832; d. Ludwigsburg, 9 June 1899. He was educated at Ludwigsburg, where he was inspired by some of his teachers with the ideals of the 1848 revolutions in Europe, with their separation of church and state. On leaving school he became an apprentice chemist, but gave it up to study land management and forestry at Hohenheim, near Stuttgart. In pursuit of this career he worked in Chile (1848-52), returning to Germany where he found his...
ARNDT, Ernst Moritz. b. Groß Schoritz (Rügen, then in Sweden), 26 December 1769; d. Bonn, 29 January 1860. His father, a former serf of the Count of Putbus, had been set free in 1769 and was administrator of Groß Schoritz. From 1780 to 1787 the family lived at the Grabitz estate. Arndt was taught by private tutors until he attended the gymnasium at Stralsund (1787-1789). He studied theology, history and philosophy in Greifswald (1791-1793) and Jena (1793/94), where he attended the lectures of...
Es kennt der Herr die Seinen. Karl Johann Philipp Spitta* (1801-1859).
First published in Spitta's Psalter und Harfe. Zweite Sammlung (Leipzig, 1843), in six 8-line stanzas. It was entitled 'Der Herr kennet die Seinen' ('The Lord knows his own', from 2 Timothy 2: 19). In EG it is included in full in the 'Rechtfertigung und Zuversicht' ('Justification and Confidence') section (EG 358), with the heading '1 Korinther 13,13', referring to the inclusion in stanza 5 of 'Glauben, Hoffnung, Liebe'...
CARPENTER, (Joseph) Estlin. b. Ripley, Surrey, 5 October 1844; d. Oxford, 2 June 1927. He was born into a distinguished Unitarian family: his grandfather, Lant Carpenter, was a noted Unitarian minister and schoolmaster, who taught James Martineau*, who in turn taught Estlin ('Joseph' was usually dropped). The family moved to Hampstead, north London, and Estlin was educated at University College School, London, and the University of London, where he read mental and moral philosophy. He trained...
BERSIER, Eugène. b. Morges, Switzerland, 5 February 1831; d. Paris, 18 November 1889. He was a French Evangelical Reformed Pastor, liturgist, preacher, historian and hymnwriter. His Swiss parents, Jacques Bersier and Louise Coindet (she was born in England), were of French Huguenot descent. So Eugène was naturalised French in 1855. His grandmother, on his mother's side, taught him English. He lived in Geneva with his widowed mother from 1838 to 1848. She prayed the 'Prayer-Book' services with...
HAMILTON, Fayette Montgomery ('F.M.'). b. Washington, Arkansas, 3 September 1858; d. Sparta, Georgia, 10 November 1912. The life of this hymnodist, composer, arranger, and editor is most accurately told within the context of the early history of the Colored Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church (in 1954 the name was changed to the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church). It was first organized on 16 December 1870 as The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, an ecclesial body of mostly African...
Far and near the fields are teeming. James Oren Thompson* (1834-1917).
This was published in The Epworth Hymnal: containing standard hymns of the Church, songs for the Sunday School, songs for social services, songs for the home circle, songs for special occasions (New York, 1885) of the Methodist Episcopal Church, North. The use of the sheaves metaphor suggests that it owed a debt, as other hymns did, to 'Bringing in the sheaves* by Knowles Shaw*, published in 1874. It had a refrain...
Father! Thy wonders do not singly stand. Jones Very* (1813-1880).
The first eight lines of this hymn come from Very's Essays and Poems (1839), a volume that was published with the encouragement of Ralph Waldo Emerson*. It was entitled 'The Spirit Land', and was a poem of fourteen lines, one of a series of poems in that form and in that metre:
Father! Thy wonders do not singly stand, Nor far removed where feet have seldom strayed; Around us ever lies the enchanted land In marvels rich to thine...
Father, to Thee we look in all our sorrow. Frederick Lucian Hosmer* (1840- 1929).
According to JJ, p. 1650, this was written in 1881 to mark the death of a member of Hosmer's congregation. This must have been during his pastorate at Cleveland, Ohio (1878-92). It was published in The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems, First Series (Boston, 1885), edited by Hosmer with William Channing Gannett*. It had four stanzas:
Father, we look to Thee in all our sorrow, Thou art the fountain whence our...
HODGES, Faustina Hasse. b. Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England, 7 August 1823; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 4 February 1895. Daughter of Edward Hodges* and sister of John Sebastian Bach Hodges*, Faustina Hodges was a composer of church music, including hymn tunes, as well as secular songs.
Named after opera singer Faustina Bordoni (1697-1781) and her husband, the composer Johann Adolf Hasse (1699-1783), Faustina Hodges was baptized 5 September 1823 in the Moravian Church, East Tytherton, about...
ARÉVALO, Faustino (S.J.). b. Campanario, Badajoz, Spain, 29 July 1747; d. Madrid, 7 January 1824. Arévalo entered the novitiate in 1761 at Villagarcía de Campos, in the province of Castile. There, together with his training as a Jesuit, he received a solid humanistic education which would be reflected later in his work. In 1764, one year after taking his religious vows, he continued his education at the seminary at Medina del Campo, until the expulsion from Spain of the Society of Jesus in...
MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, (Jacob Ludwig) Felix. b. Hamburg, 3 February 1809; d. Leipzig, 4 November 1847. Grandson of the Jewish Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), Felix Mendelssohn was baptized in Berlin as a Protestant in 1816, around which time the family added the second surname Bartholdy. An extraordinarily versatile child prodigy likened by Goethe and Heinrich Heine to a second Mozart, Mendelssohn established his credentials through a precocious series of romantic...
First New England School. This label refers to the first group of native-born composers and tune compilers active in New England between about 1770 and 1810. William Billings*, who was deemed the unofficial leader of the school, published his ground-breaking tune collection The New-England Psalm-Singer (Boston, 1770). In addition to being the first collection of tunes composed by a single American composer, this book considerably influenced American compositional activity in the decades to...
The original Jubilee Singers was a choral group of students sponsored by Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee (founded 1866), and sponsored by the American Missionary Association (see Anderson 2010). From Oct. 1872 until June 1878 the singers toured the northern U.S. and England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Switzerland, and Germany singing a repertory of hymns, parlor songs, and most significantly, spirituals. They were responsible for popularizing spirituals in mainstream white society and...
For all thy gifts we praise thee, Lord. James Freeman Clarke* (1810-1888).
Published in Service Book: for the use of the Church of the Disciples of Christ (1844), and then in The Disciples' Hymn Book (Boston, 1844), where it was entitled 'Feast of the Reformation'. The word 'Feast' in the title suggests that Clarke was attempting to create a new Feast Day, in opposition to the traditional calendar of Saints' Days and other days in the church calendar. It had eight stanzas, and was given as by...
Fountain of mercy, God of love. Alice Flowerdew* (1759-1830).
This is from the Third Edition of Flowerdew's Poems, on Moral and Religious Subjects (1811). It was entitled 'Harvest Hymn', and is of some interest as preceding the general establishment of Harvest Festival services. It had six stanzas:
Fountain of mercy, God of love!
How rich Thy bounties are!
The rolling seasons, as they move,
Proclaim Thy constant care.
When, in the bosom of the earth,
The sower hid the grain,
...
OWEN, Frances Mary (née Synge). b. Glanmore Castle, County Wicklow, Ireland, 16 April 1842; d. Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, 19 June 1883. Born into the Irish landed gentry, she married (1870) the Revd J.A. Owen, sometime Fellow of University College, Oxford, and subsequently a housemaster at Cheltenham College. She helped her husband in the care of boys in his house, and also did much work in Cheltenham with friendless girls and the education of working people. Her influence in the town was so...
BOTTOME, Francis ('Frank'). b. Belper, Derbyshire, 26 May 1823; d. Tavistock, Devon, 29 June 1894. As a young man he was greatly influenced by the Methodists in his native town, and was called upon to preach to them. After training under Thomas Jackson and obtaining a local preacher's license, serving the Belper Circuit, he went to Guelph, Canada, as a missionary to the Native Americans. His health broke down, and he went to New York en route for England. In New York he recovered in the hands...
ROWLEY, Francis Harold. b. Hilton, New York, 25 July 1854; d. Boston, Massachusetts, 14 February 1952. Born in upper New York State, he was educated at the University of Rochester (BA 1875) and Rochester Theological Seminary (BD 1878). He became a Baptist minister, serving at Titusville, Pennsylvania (1879-84), North Adams, Massachusetts (1884-92), Oak Park, Illinois (1892-96), Fall River, Mass. (1896-1900), and First Baptist Church, Boston, Mass. (1900-1910).
On taking early retirement in...
STANFIELD, Francis. b. probably at Camden, London, 5 November 1835; d. Clapton, east London, 12 May 1914. His family lived at Camden from 1832 to 1839. He was the son of Clarkson Stanfield (1793-1867), the theatrical and landscape painter, and friend of Charles Dickens. Clarkson Stanfield became an increasingly devout Roman Catholic in his later years. Two of his children, Francis and Raymund, became Catholic priests. Francis, a convert to Catholicism like his father, was ordained in 1860 and...
METCALF, Frank Johnson. b. Ashland, Massachusetts, 1865; d. Washington, DC, 25 February 1945. After graduation from Boston University in 1886 he taught at high schools and academies in Vermont, Texas and Massachusetts before settling into a career as a statistician in the Adjutant General's office (1893-1935). He compiled an important collection of some 2,500 hymn books. Select volumes are held by the American Antiquarian Society, of which he was a longtime and active member; it is some 15...
NORTH, Frank Mason. b. New York City, 3 December 1850; d. Madison, New Jersey, 17 December 1935. North received BA and MA degrees from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, and was ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1872. A minister in several churches in Florida, New York, and Connecticut (1872-92), he also held administrative positions in Methodist missionary organizations (1892-1924), and was an early leader of ecumenical causes and an advocate for women's rights, child...
GRUBER, Franz Xaver. b. Unterweizburg, near Hochburg, 25 November 1787; d. Hallein, 7 June 1863. The son of a weaver, Gruber became a typical Austrian cantor/schoolmaster, holding teaching and church positions in villages near Salzburg, including Arnsdorf from 1807, Oberndorf from 1816 and Hallein from 1835, where he remained until his death. His extensive output (church music and some recreational secular music, some now lost) has mostly remained unpublished and almost entirely unknown, with...
HEDGE, Frederic Henry. b. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 12 December 1805; d. 21 August 1890. He was the son of Levi Hedge, Professor of German at Harvard, and his wife Mary Kneeland. Frederic, their only child, was sent to Germany at the age of thirteen to be educated, in the company of George Bancroft (1800-1891, later to become a distinguished statesman and diplomat). He was a pupil at the Gymnasium of Ilfeld (Hannover) and of Schulpforta (Saxony). Returning to the USA in 1823 he entered Harvard,...
HUSENBETH, Frederick Charles. b. Bristol, 30 May 1796; d. Costessey, Norfolk, 31 October 1872. The son of a wine merchant who had originated from Germany, he was educated at Sedgley Park School, a Roman Catholic school near Wolverhampton (1803-10), before entering his father's firm. After three years he decided to become a priest: he returned briefly to Sedgley Park (1813), and thence to St Mary's College, Oscott (1814). He was ordained in 1820. After a short period as a Catholic missioner at...
HOSMER, Frederick Lucian. b. Framingham, Massachusetts, 16 October 1840; d. Berkeley, California, 7 June 1929. Following graduation from Harvard (BA, 1862) he served for two years as headmaster of Houghton School, Bolton, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard Divinity School (BD 1869), and in the same year he was ordained into the Unitarian ministry. He served the First Congregational Church at Northboro, Massachusetts (1870-72), and the Second Congregational Church, Quincy, Illinois (1872-77);...
OAKELEY, Frederick. b. Shrewsbury, 5 September 1802; d. London, 29 January 1880. He was the son of a baronet, Sir Charles Oakeley. He was educated mainly at home and with a private tutor, before entering Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1824). He took Holy Orders (deacon and priest, 1827), and was appointed chaplain and fellow at Balliol College, Oxford, becoming a tutor in 1830. Among his pupils was Archibald Tait, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury, and who remained Oakeley's friend for the...
FABER, Frederick William. b. Calverley, West Yorkshire, 28 June 1814; d. London, 26 September 1863. He was born at Calverley vicarage, the son of Thomas Henry Faber, who became secretary to Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham (1734-1826). He was educated briefly at the grammar school in Bishop Auckland, then privately by the Revd John Gibson at Kirkby Stephen. He entered Shrewsbury School in 1826, and Harrow School in 1827. He matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1832, and was elected...
FOSTER, Frederick William. b. Bradford, Yorkshire, 1 August 1760; d.Ockbrook, near Derby, 12 April 1835. Foster was a Moravian, educated at Fulneck, near Leeds at the Settlement there, and then at the Moravian Settlement at Barby, Germany. He became a minister in the Moravian Church, and was made a Bishop in 1818. He compiled a Supplement (1808) to A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the Protestant Church of the United Brethren (1801), edited by John Swertner*, re-titled Liturgy and Hymns for...
Free at last. African American spiritual*.
The concept of freedom is integral the theology of the spirituals according to liberation theologian James H. Cone (1936-2018):
The divine liberation of the oppressed from slavery is the central theological concept in the black spirituals. These songs show that black slaves did not believe that human servitude was reconcilable with their African past and their knowledge of the Christian gospel. They did not believe that God created Africans to be...
KRUMMACHER, Friedrich Adolf (or Adolph). b. Tecklenburg, Westphalia, 13 July 1767; d. Bremen, 4 April 1845. The son of the Burgomaster of Tecklenburg, he was the father of Friedrich Wilhelm Krummacher*, and grandfather of Cornelius Friedrich Adolf Krummacher*. He was educated at Lingen and at the University of Halle (1787-89). He was a private tutor in Bremen, and then con-rector of the Gymnasium at Hamm (1790-93). He was rector of the Gymnasium at Mörs (1793-1800), where his son Friedrich...
FILITZ, Friedrich. b. Arnstadt, Thuringia, 16 March 1804; d. Bonn, 8 December 1876. Filitz graduated in philosophy and worked as a music critic and historian in Berlin (1843-47) before moving to Munich where he wrote Über einige Interessen der älteren Kirchenmusik (1853).
The hymn tunes associated with Filitz were originally published in two books. Together with Ludwig Erk, he published Vierstimmige Choralsätze der vornehmsten Meister des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Essen, 1845). He also compiled...
OSER, Friedrich. b. Basel, 29 February 1820; d. Biel-Benken, near Basel, 15 December 1891. He was educated at school and university at Basel, where he also studied theology. He was ordained to a pastorate at Waldenburg in 1845. For a large part of his active life he was prison chaplain at Basel (1867-1884), followed by a pastorate at Biel-Benken from 1884 until his death.
The tragic loss of his wife and daughter caused Oser to write Sechzig Kreuz- und Trostlieder mit einem Anhang von Liedern...
RÜCKERT, Friedrich. b. Schweinfurt, Bavaria, 16 May 1788; d. Neuses, near Coburg, 31 January 1866. The son of a lawyer, his university education was interrupted by the Napoleonic wars and by his own ill-health. Instead of the University of Jena, which he had hoped to enter, he studied at Würzburg (1805-08) and Heidelberg (1808-09), returning to Jena to do a doctorate in philology and intending to pursue an academic career: he lectured there for a short time, then became a journalist on the...
SILCHER, (Philipp) Friedrich. b. Schnait, near Stuttgart, 27 June 1789; d. Tübingen, 26 August 1860. Silcher studied music under his father, and later under N.F. Auberlen at Fellbach. He became a private tutor at Schondorf (1806-09), and then taught at a girls' school at Ludwigsburg (1809-15). He then became a private music teacher again at Stuttgart before being appointed director of music at the University of Tübingen in 1817. There he founded a male voice choir, the Akademische Liedertafel,...
SPITTA, Friedrich Adolf Wilhelm. b. Wittingen, near Lüneburg, 10 January 1852; d. Göttingen, 7 June 1924. He was the son of Karl Johann Philipp Spitta*, born at Wittingen when his father was pastor there, and educated at Hildesheim when the family moved to Peine nearby. He followed his father and two elder brothers to the University of Göttingen, with a period at Erlangen, followed by a post at a seminary in Halle (1877), as an assistant pastor at Bonn (1879) and as pastor at Oberkassel (1881)....
From out the cloud of amber light. Cecil Frances Alexander* (1818-1895).
This hymn for St Mark's Day (25 April) was written by Alexander for the Second Edition of A&M (1875). It draws upon the traditional association of St Mark with a winged lion. It had five stanzas:
From out the cloud of amber light, Borne on the whirlwind of the north, Four living creatures wing'd and bright Before the Prophet's eye came forth.
The Voice of God was in the Four Beneath that awful crystal mist, And...
Full in the panting heart of Rome. Nicholas Wiseman* (1802-1865).
This remarkable hymn, notable for its devotion to the supreme head of the Roman Catholic Church, was published in Britain in Crown of Jesus: a complete Catholic manual of devotion, doctrine, and instruction (1862), edited by R.R. Suffield and C.F.R. Palmer. It was included in Catholic Hymns, Original and Translated, edited by Albert Edmonds Tozer* with the assistance of Richard Runciman Terry*, and in many others (JJ, p. 1728)....
Full Salvation! Full Salvation! Francis Bottome* (1823-1894).
According to JJ, p. 164, this hymn was first published in 'a collection by Dr Cullis of Boston, 1873', but this has not been verified. JJ was referring to Charles Cullis (1833-1892), a physician who specialized in faith healing. Cullis's Faith Hymns appeared in a number of editions published by the Willard Tract Repository, Boston, from 1870 onwards (Bottome's hymn was not in the 1870 edition, but was certainly in one of 1887;...
Gadsby's Hymns
William Gadsby* (1773-1844) is famous for his Selection of Hymns for Public Worship (Manchester, 1814), which he published in the same year as a collection of his own work, The Nazarene's Songs: being a Composition of Original Hymns by William Gadsby (Manchester, 1814). Edition after edition followed, with enlargements and supplements (1838, 1844, 1850, 1854, and thereafter) and it is still in print. These were words-only books: tune books, Companion Tunes to Gadsby's hymn book,...
Gather us in, thou love that fillest all. George Matheson* (1842-1906).
Written in 1890, and first published in Matheson's Sacred Songs (1890). It is a most unusual hymn, characteristic of Matheson's unexpected turns of thought and fertile poetic imagination (although blind, he uses the rainbow image, as he does in 'O love that wilt not let me go'*). Percy Dearmer*, who included it in SofPE, described it as 'unlike any other missionary hymn, and full of originality' (Songs of Praise Discussed,...
Geist des Glaubens, Geist der Stärke. Karl Johann Philipp Spitta* (1801-1859). This hymn for Pentecost was first published in Spitta's Psalter und Harfe (Pirna, 1833). It was entitled 'Der Geist der Väter'. It had ten 8-line stanzas: it prays for the spirit that was found in a series of patriarchs and prophets, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah, followed by the Apostles and Stephen. It is found in the 'Pfingsten' ('Whitsun') section of EG in nine stanzas (EG 137), omitting stanza 4,...
IRONS, Geneviève Mary. b. Brompton, London, 28 December 1855; d. Eastbourne, Sussex, 13 December 1928. She was the daughter of William Josiah Irons*. She contributed to the Sunday Magazine from 1876 onwards. She became a Roman Catholic (the Latin title of her manual for Holy Communion, Corpus Christi, 1884, suggests that she was a convert by that time). She translated The Divine Consoler: little visits to the most holy Sacrament, by J.M. Angéli, of the Lazarist Fathers (1900), and published a...
ASKINS, George. b. Ireland, date and place unknown; d. Frederick, Maryland, 28 February 1816. Little is known about Askins save his birth country, Ireland, and that he had made his way to the United States by 1801 as an adult Methodist, where he was given a charge as a trial itinerate preacher in the Montgomery circuit of the Baltimore Annual Conference. Still on trial, he was assigned to the Ohio circuit of the Pittsburgh Annual Conference in 1802 and then to the Shenango circuit of the same...
STEBBINS, George Coles. b. East Carlton, New York, 26 February 1846; d. Catskill, New York, 6 October 1945. Stebbins was a prominent and abiding northern Baptist composer, compiler, soloist, and song leader of 19th- and early 20th-century urban revivals in the UK and the USA. Following his education in an academy in Albany, and early experiences in singing schools (see USA hymnody, music*), he studied music in Buffalo, New York City, and Rochester, where he sang tenor in a church solo quartet....
COTTON, George Edward Lynch. b. Chester, 29 October 1813; d. Kushtai, India, 6 October 1866. He was the son of an army officer, who was killed in the Peninsular War on 13 November 1813, two weeks after the birth of his son. George was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College Cambridge (BA, 1836), becoming a master under Thomas Arnold at Rugby School in 1837 (in Thomas Hughes's famous novel about Rugby School, Tom Brown's Schooldays, Cotton is 'the young master'). He was appointed...
MacDONALD, George. b. Huntly, Aberdeenshire, 10 December 1824; d. Ashstead, Surrey, 18 September 1905. Educated at King's College, Aberdeen (MA 1845), MacDonald moved to London where he was briefly a student at Highbury Theological College (1848- ). Although he did not complete the course, he was ordained at Arundel Congregational Church in 1950. He resigned in 1853, and moved to Manchester, where he became a writer, publishing a dramatic poem, Within and Without (1855), Poems (1857), Hymns and...
MATHESON, George. b. Glasgow, 27 March 1842; d. North Berwick, 28 August 1906. The son of a Glasgow merchant, he was educated at Glasgow Academy and the University of Glasgow, where he won several prizes. He graduated in 1866 and was licensed by the Presbytery of Glasgow in the same year. After serving a probationary year at Trinity Church, Sandyford, he was ordained and inducted as minister of Innellan in 1868. In 1886 he moved to Edinburgh to be minister of St Bernard's Church. He died in...
RAWSON, George. b. Leeds, 5 June 1807; d. Bristol, 24 March 1889. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School. He became a solicitor and practised in Leeds, where he was also an active Congregationalist. He assisted George William Conder* and other local figures in the preparation of an influential Congregationalist collection entitled Psalms, Hymns, and Passages of Scripture for Christian Worship, usually called the 'Leeds Hymn Book' (1853). He then assisted the Baptists in the compilation...
ROWE, George Stringer. b. Margate, Kent, 1 February 1830; d. Bromley, Kent, 18 August 1913. He trained for the Wesleyan Methodist ministry at Didsbury College, Manchester. He served in Wesleyan Methodist circuits, until he was appointed Professor of Pastoral Theology at Headingley College, Leeds, in 1888. He was a member of the committee that produced 'Wesley's Hymns' (1876), the major revision by the Wesleyan Methodists of John Wesley's A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People called...
SMART, (Sir) George Thomas. b. London, 10 May 1776; d. London, 23 February 1867. He received his early musical education as a Child (chorister) of the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace, and began his career as organist of St James' Chapel, Hampstead Road (1791). A few years later he added a similar post at Brunswick Chapel and in 1822 he was appointed one of the two joint organists of the Chapel Royal. By the end of his career his inability to play the pedals was out-dated: when invited to try a...
ROBINSON, George Wade. b. Cork, Ireland, 1838; d. Brighton, 28 January 1877. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, before training for the Congregational ministry at New College, London. He served as a Congregational minister at Dublin, London, Dudley (near Birmingham) and Brighton. During his short life he published Lays of a Heart (1867), Iona and other Sonnets (Dublin, 1868), Loveland and Other Poems, chiefly concerning Love (1870, Second Edition, 1873), and Songs in God's World...
WHELPTON, George. b. Hibaldstow, Lincolnshire, England, 17 May 1847; d. Oxford, Ohio, 22 November 1930. He was a music teacher and music editor, According to the United Kingdom Census of 1851, George Whelpton was born to Joseph Whelpton (1813 -1900) and Mary Ann Whelpton (1824 - 1896) in Hibaldstow. Other accounts name the birthplace as Redbourne, which is located about two miles from Hibaldstow, and others give the city of Lincoln, about 21 miles to the south. At the age of five, George and...
CONDER, George William. b. Hitchin, Hertforshire, 30 November 1821; d. Forest Hill, London, 8 November 1874. He was educated at Hitchin Grammar School. He then went to London to make a career in business, becoming a member of King's Weigh House Chapel under the ministry of Thomas Binney*. Binney encouraged him to enter the Congregational Church ministry, and he trained at Highbury College before serving at High Wycombe (1845-47), Ryde, Isle of Wight (1847-49), and Belgrave Chapel, Leeds...
FULLERTON, (Lady) Georgiana Charlotte (née Leveson-Gower). b. Tixhall Hall, Staffordshire, 23 September 1812; d. Bournemouth, Hampshire, 19 January 1885. The Leveson-Gower family was a distinguished one: her father later became Earl Granville; her mother was Lady Harriet Cavendish. Her father was appointed Ambassador to Paris in 1824. She married Alexander George Fullerton, an attaché at the embassy, in 1833. In 1843 he became a Roman Catholic; she followed in 1846, after her father's...
GEORGIOS of Crete. d. ca. 1815. Unlike many post-Byzantine composers, Georgios of Crete did not work as lampadarios or protopsaltes at the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople. Instead, he worked exclusively as a musician and composer. He studied music with Meletios Sinaïtes, Petros Peloponnesios*, Petros Byzantios* and Iakobos Peloponnesios*. Later, he worked as a teacher in Constantinople, on the island of Chios, and in Chania on Crete (where he is buried). His many pupils...
HOPKINS, Gerard Manley. b. Stratford, London, 28 July 1844; d. Dublin, 8 June 1889. From Stratford, East London, his family moved to Hampstead in 1852. Gerard was educated at Highgate School, followed by Balliol College, Oxford (BA 1867). In the face of anguished opposition from his Anglican parents, he became a Roman Catholic in 1866, being received into the church by John Henry Newman*, and teaching for a short period at Newman's Oratory at Birmingham. He entered the Jesuit order in 1868...
RORISON, Gilbert. b. Glasgow, 7 February 1821; d. Bridge of Allan, 11 October 1869. He was educated at the University of Glasgow. He was a member of the United Presbyterian Church, but joined the Episcopal Church of Scotland. After theological training in Edinburgh he was ordained in 1843, and served as an Episcopal Church priest at Leith, Helensburgh and Peterhead.
He published sermons and other devotional works (On the Christian miracles, 1854; Depression of the clergy the danger to the...
TICKLE, Gilbert Young. b. Maryport, Cumberland (now Cumbria), 30 June 1819; d. Liverpool, 21 April 1888. Tickle was the greatest hymn-writer among Churches of Christ in Great Britain and Ireland. He was born in Maryport, the thirteenth in a family of sixteen, and after education in a dame's school, finishing with a master, he was apprenticed to a draper in Carlisle at the age of 14. Brought up in a hyper-Calvinist Scotch Baptist family, he became a Sunday School teacher in the Independent...
Give me that old time religion. African American spiritual*.
The pre-publication origins of this spiritual, sometimes referred to as 'Old Time Religion', are unknown, though hymnals usually identify it as an African American spiritual. The earliest print version, linked to the Fisk Jubilee Singers*, appears in Gustavus D. Pike's The Jubilee Singers and their campaign for twenty thousand dollars (Boston, 1873) and J.B.T. Marsh's The Story of the Jubilee Singers with their songs (Boston, 1880)....
'Give Me thy heart,' says the Father above. Eliza E. Hewitt* (1851-1920).
Written in 1898, and first published in Pentecostal Praises (Philadelphia, Hall-Mack Company, 1900), in three stanzas with a refrain. The refrain was:
'Give Me thy heart, give Me thy heart' - Hear the soft whisper, wherever thou art; From this dark world He would draw thee apart, Speaking so tenderly, - 'Give Me thy heart.'
The stanzas were:
'Give me thy heart,' says the Father above - No gift so precious to Him as...
Go down, Moses ('Let my people go'). African American spiritual*, 19th century
This song of liberty is of unknown date, but certainly existed before December 1861, when it was published in sheet music form as 'The Song of the Contrabands', 'O Let my people Go', with words and music written down by a chaplain to the escaped slaves, the Revd L.C. Lockwood, and arranged by Thomas Baker. The 'Contrabands' were given that name because they were 'contraband of war'. They were 'the fugitive slaves who...
Go tell it on the mountain. African American spiritual*, verses by John Wesley Work (II)* (1872?-1925).
The several versions of this spiritual are based on settings in two collections. The first appeared with the caption 'Christmas Plantation Song' in Religious Folk Songs of The Negro, as Sung on The Plantations, new edition (Hampton, Virginia, 1909):
When I was a seekerI sought both night and day.I ask de Lord to help me,An' He show me de way.
He made me a watchmanUpon the city wall,An' if I...
God loved the world of sinners lost. Martha Matilda Stockton*.
According to Taylor (1989, p. 50), this was written ca. 1871, and published in The Voice of Praise (Richmond, Virginia, 1872), edited by Ebenezer T. Baird and Karl Reden, and then in Winnowed Hymns: a collection of sacred songs, especially adapted for revivals, prayer and camp meetings (New York and Chicago, 1873).
It entered mainstream gospel hymnody in Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs (Cincinnati, New York and Chicago, 1875), edited...
God named Love, whose fount Thou art. Elizabeth Barrett Browning* (1806-1861).
From The Seraphim, and other poems (1838). This book, besides containing 'The Sleep' (see 'Of all the thoughts of God, that are'* and 'What would we give to our beloved'*), has a sequence of four hymns. The present text is 'Hymn I', entitled 'A Supplication for Love'. It had nine 4-line stanzas, with an unusual accent in line 1 ('namèd') to make up the eight syllables:
God, namèd Love, whose fount Thou art, Thy...
God of Nations at thy feet. Thomas Bracken (1843-1898).
New Zealand's second national anthem, of equal official standing with its first, 'God Save the Queen', is a hymn written in 1876 by Thomas Bracken, Irish-born journalist, poet and parliamentarian. The text was published in a weekly journal under the title 'National hymn' together with a competition to compose a suitable melody. The winner was John Joseph Woods (1849-1932), an Otago schoolteacher.
In 1940, at the time of New Zealand's...
Golden Bells: Hymns for our Children (ca. 1890); Second Edition, 1925/26; Facsimile with Supplement, ca. 1960; Hymns of Faith, 1974.
'Golden Bells' is the title of a succession of hymnbooks for young people published by the Children's Special Service Mission. The CSSM itself was part of the Scripture Union, founded in 1867 by Josiah Spiers and Thomas Hughes to be an alternative to more formal Sunday Schools: in 1868, for example, it began 'beach missions' for children on holiday, and the...
Goode's Psalms
An Entire New Version of the Book of Psalms. William Goode* (1762-1816).
This collection was published in 1811, with a Second Edition in 1813 and a Third in 1816. It was presumably given the 'Entire New' title to distinguish it from the 1696 'New Version' by Nahum Tate* and Nicholas Brady*, and from other predecessors such as Isaac Watts* and James Merrick*: in the Preface, Goode said that Watts' The Psalms of David, 1719, was 'simple and elegant', but that it professed to be...
Gospel Hymns Nos. 1 to 6 Complete (1894) (New York: Biglow & Main Company; and Cincinnati: John Church & Company): Gospel Hymns and Sacred Solos by P. P. Bliss and Ira D. Sankey as used by them in Gospel Meetings [No. 1] (1875), No. 2 (1876), No. 3 (1878), No. 4 (1883), No. 5 (1887), No. 6 (1891), Gospel Hymns Nos. 1 to 6 Complete (1894).
Beginning with the first Great Awakening ca.1730-60 (see Great Awakenings, USA*), the colonies, and subsequently the USA, have periodically...
Gottes Stadt steht festgegründet. Karl Johann Philipp Spitta* (1801-1859).
First published in Spitta's Psalter und Harfe. 8 Zweite Sammlung Christlicher Lieder (Leipzig, 1843) in six 12-line verses. It was the final poem in the book, fittingly entitled 'Gottes Stadt' ('The City of God').
It was translated by Richard Massie* as 'By the holy hills surrounded', printed in all six verses in 'Wesley's Hymns' (1876) and shortened to four verses in the Wesleyan Methodist Hymn Book (1904) and three...
Gracious Power, the world pervading. William Johnson Fox* (1786-1864).
First published in Fox's Hymns and Anthems (1841), in six 3-line stanzas. It is a characteristic Unitarian hymn, addressing God as the 'Gracious Power' that gives wisdom, light and love, and is the soul of thought and feeling:
Gracious Power, the world pervading,Blessing all, and none upbraiding, We are met to worship thee.
Not in formal adorations,Nor with servile depredations, But in spirit true and free.
By thy...
TULLAR, Grant Colfax. b. Bolton, Connecticut, 5 August 1869; d. Ocean Grove, New Jersey, 20 May 1950. He was a gospel singer, evangelist, publisher, writer of hymn texts, and composer of hymn tunes.
A few months before Tullar's birth, Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) and Schuyler Colfax (1823-1885) were inaugurated President and Vice-President of the United States. Tullar was named in their honor. His father, Austin Milleon Tullar (1830-1896) fought briefly in the Civil War, having enlisted 30...
Great Awakenings, USA
The Great Awakenings is the name given to periods of religious revival that occurred in colonial British North America and the United States in the early to mid-18th century, in the early national period to the middle of the 19th century, and in the Reconstruction era to about 1910. These awakenings profoundly changed the course of American religious history, and to a lesser degree that of other countries. By the middle of the 19th century, the dominant character of...
GREGORIOS PROTOPSALTES b. 1777/78?; d. 23 December 1821. Gregorios is said to have been born on the day of Petros Peloponnesios*'s death, and to have taught himself to sing and speak Armenian. His father sent him to the Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai so as to be instructed in Greek grammar and music. Later on Gregorios was taught Byzantine music by Iakobos Peloponnesios*, Georgios of Crete* and Petros Byzantios* as well as Arabian-Persian music by the Ottoman composer Ismail Dede...
JONES, Griffith Hugh ('Gutyn Arfon'). b. Ty Du, Llanberis, Caernarfonshire, January 1849; d. Rhiwddolion, Caernarfonshire, 26 July 1919. He attended music classes held by John Roberts* ('Ieuan Gwyllt') and worked as a teacher in Dolbadarn and Aberystwyth before becoming headmaster of Rhiwddolion primary school near Betws-y-coed. He founded a number of music classes in the area and encouraged instrumental music. His fame now rests on his hymn tune LLEF (the word means 'a cry'), a solemn yet...
Guter Hirt, du hast gestillt. Johann Wilhelm Meinhold* (1797-1851).
Written by Meinhold on the death of his 15 month-old son, Joannes Ladislaus, in 1833. It was published in his Gedichte ('Poems') in 1835. It was translated by Catherine Winkworth* in Lyra Germanica II (1858) as 'Gentle Shepherd, thou hast still'd'*, and headed 'The Death of a little Child'. It was included in the Appendix (1868) to the First Edition of A&M. In the days when infant mortality was common, it must have been a...
See 'Griffith Hugh Jones'*
Hail, glorious Saint Patrick, dear Saint of our isle. Sister Agnes, 19th century.
Published in Henri Friedrich Hemy*'s Easy Hymn Tunes with the words in full, adapted for Catholic Schools (1851), where it attributed to Sister Agnes, 'of the Convent of Charleville, Co. Cork'. This was the Convent of the Sisters of Mercy, founded in 1831. The hymn appeared in Suffield and Palmer's Crown of Jesus (1862), and in many later books, including Albert Edmonds Tozer*'s Catholic Hymns: original and...
MacGILL, Hamilton Montgomerie. b. Catrine, Ayrshire, 10 March 1807; d. Belleville, Paris, 3 June 1880. Born into a Secession family, MacGill entered the University of Glasgow in 1827, studying at the Theological Hall of the United Secession Church, a denomination recently formed in 1820 from two elements of the Secession church. Licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Kilmarnock, he was ordained in 1836 as colleague-minister in Duke Street Church in Glasgow. Dissension led to the exit of part...
Hark! ten thousand harps and voices. Thomas Kelly* (1769-1855).
According to JJ, p. 488, this was first published in Kelly's Hymns on Various Passages of Scripture (Second Edition, Dublin, 1806) in seven 6-line stanzas. It was headed 'Let all the Angels of God worship him. Heb. 1.6.':
Hark ten thousand harps and voices, Sound the note of praise above! Jesus reigns, and heav'n rejoices: Jesus reigns the God of love: See, he sits on yonder throne; Jesus rules the world alone.
Well may...
Hark! the herald angels sing (Jesus the light of the world). Arranged by George D. Elderkin (1845–1928).
Gospel musical traditions in the United States have enlivened the 18th-century hymns for over 150 years. Those by Isaac Watts*, Charles Wesley*, and John Newton* were among those heard by those influenced by the Second Great Awakening (c. 1795–1835), during which rural whites and enslaved Africans reinvented and reinterpreted hymns from England for their own situation. The enlivening of...
Hark, ten thousand voices sounding. Thomas Kelly* (1769-1855).
According to JJ, p. 488, this was first published in Hymns on Various Passages of Scripture (Second Edition, Dublin, 1806). It was prefaced by the heading: 'Death is swallowed up in victory. 1 Cor.xv. 54.'
In the original version, the first stanza is in a different metre from the other three: it rhymes AABB and is in the metre of 77.77., whereas the other three are in 8.7.8.7. In the 1820 edition the text was as follows:
Hark ten...
HARP (as a title). As early as 1795, hymn collections with Harp or Harfe in the title were published in the USA, without music, and thereafter, a number of tunebooks were published with 'Harp' in the title.
The most widely-known Harp, as a collection of hymns, is The Sacred Harp*, by B. F. White* and Elisha J. King*. This usage of Harp probably started in connection with the Psalms of David, as in Dauids harpe ful of moost delectable armony, newely stringed and set in tune, by Theadore...
AUBER, Henriette (Harriet). b. Spitalfields, London, 4 August 1773; d. Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, 20 Jan 1862. Many Huguenot refugees settled in Spitalfields, and Henriette (who anglicized her name to Harriet) was descended from such a family. Her father, James Auber, was a Church of England rector. She seems to have lived an uneventful life ('quiet and secluded', according to JJ, p. 90), but she wrote poetry, published in The Spirit of the Psalms: or, a compressed version of select portions of...
McKEEVER, Harriet Burn. b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 28 August 1807; d. Chester, Pennsylvania, 7 February 1886 or 1887. A member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, McKeever taught for 36 years in a girls' school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was also a successful author of novels, mainly on religious themes and for young women, several of which are still available in digital/printed form. An example is Edith's Ministry (Philadelphia, 1860), which traces the life of the eldest daughter...
SPAETH, Harriet Reynolds Krauth (Harriet Krauth). b. Baltimore, Maryland, 21 September 1845; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 5 May 1925. Spaeth was an author and translator of hymn texts and composer of hymn tunes, and a music editor. Her best known translations are 'As each happy Christmas' and verses 3 and 4 of 'Lo, how a rose e'er blooming' (see 'Es ist ein' Ros entsprungen'*). She was the daughter of Charles Porterfield Krauth (1823-1883) and Susan Reynolds Krauth (1821-1853). C. P. Krauth,...
FOSDICK, Harry Emerson. b. Buffalo, New York, 24 May 1878; d. Bronxville, New York, 5 Oct 1969. Fosdick was educated at Colgate College, Hamilton, New York (BA, 1900); Union Theological Seminary (BD, 1904), and Columbia University (MA, 1908)., the latter two in New York City. Following Baptist ordination in 1903, he was pastor of the First Baptist Church in Montclair, New Jersey (1904-15), and then taught homiletics and practical theology at Union Theological Seminary in 1915, interrupted by a...
BURLEIGH, Harry [Henry] Thacker. b. Erie, Pennsylvania, 2 December 1866; d. Stamford, Connecticut, 12 September 1949. Distinguished singer, composer, and arranger, Burleigh made important contributions to American music through his many timeless vocal solo settings of African-American spirituals scored for classically trained singers. His earliest musical influence was his grandfather, former slave Hamilton Waters, who taught Burleigh and his siblings the songs of the plantation. Racial...
Hath not thy heart within thee burned. Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch* (1809-1870).
From Bulfinch's Contemplations of the Saviour: a series of extracts from the Gospel history, with reflections and original and selected hymns (Boston, 1832). For the structure and arrangement of this book, see the entry on 'Hail to the Sabbath day'*. This hymn comes from Part VIII, 'To the Ascension of Jesus': section xlviii (the sections are numbered independently) is entitled 'Jesus appears to his disciples'. It...
Have you had a kindness shown. Henry Burton* (1840-1930).
Written at Acton on 8 April 1885, and first printed in The Christian Advocate (New York, 1886), and in Burton's Wayside Songs of the Inner and the Outer Life (1886). JJ quoted from the author's manuscript:
This is based on a little incident in the life of my brother-in-law, the Rev. Mark Guy Pearse. When a boy returning home from a Moravian school in Holland, the steward of the boat on which he sailed from Bristol to Hayle showed him...
Hear my prayer, O! Heavenly Father. Harriet Parr*.
This was first published in a Christmas number of Charles Dickens's Household Words. Harriet Parr had earlier submitted her second novel, Gilbert Massenger, to Dickens, who admired it, and helped to get it published in 1855. In the years that followed she contributed to his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round. One of her stories, 'The Wreck of the Golden Mary', was used by Dickens in Household Words in 1856. The full title...
Heavenly Father, bless me now. Alexander Clark* (1834-1879).
This hymn was popular in the 19th century, and is found in a number of books, including two from the Methodist meetings for Sunday-school teachers at Lake Chautauqua, The Chautauqua Collection (1875) and Chautauqua Carols (1878). It is found in Sacred Songs and Solos, in a more intense and urgent evangelical form, with a tune by Robert Lowry*, given a refrain: 'Bless me now! bless me now! Heavenly Father, bless me now!' In view of...
WILLIAMS, Helen Maria. b. London, 17 June 1759; d. Paris, 15 December 1827. Her father, Charles Williams, died in 1762, and her widowed mother brought up Helen Maria and two other children in Berwick upon Tweed, on the Scottish border. The family returned to London in 1781, where Helen Maria began to make a name for herself as a young poet, encouraged by Andrew Kippis*, her Presbyterian/Unitarian minister. Her Poems were published in 1786, containing the two hymns noted in JJ (see below). She...
FRY, Henrietta Joan. b. Bristol, 6 December 1799; d. Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, 1860. She was the daughter of Joseph Storrs Fry, a wealthy chocolate maker, and a Quaker, part of the celebrated 'Fry's Chocolate' dynasty.
She was a fine linguist. She published translations from the hymns of Johann Kaspar Lavater* with the title The Pastors' Legacy; or Devotional Fragments from the German of Lavater (Bristol and London, 1842). She noted that they were taken from Hundert Sentenzen von Seligen...
ALLON, Henry. b. Welton, near Hull, 13 October 1818; d. London (? buried at Abney Park Cemetery)16 April 1892. He was apprenticed as a builder, but decided to become a minister of the Congregational Church. He was educated at Cheshunt College from 1839. He became assistant pastor of Union Chapel, Islington, in 1844, and sole pastor from 1852 to 1892.
His organists there were Henry John Gauntlett* from 1853 to 1861 and Ebenezer Prout* from 1861 to 1873. He wrote a hymn for Passion-tide, 'Low in...
BURTON, Henry. b. Swannington, Leicestershire, 26 November 1840; d. West Kirby, Hoylake, Cheshire, 27 April 1930. As a young man Burton went with his family when they emigrated to the USA in 1856. They settled in Wisconsin, and Henry studied at Beloit College, then fairly new (founded 1846). He became a local preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was in charge of a church at Monroe, Wisconsin, for a short time. He then returned to Britain: he was ordained into the Wesleyan Methodist...
HILES, Henry. b. Shrewsbury, Shropshire, 31 December 1826; d. Worthing, Sussex, 20 October 1904. Hiles was a self-taught organist with the assistance of his brother John (1810-1882), and he was playing in local churches at an early age. At the age of 18 he became organist of the large parish church at Bury, Lancashire, moving to Bishopwearmouth, County Durham, where he was organist from 1847 to 1852. He travelled widely from 1852 to 1859, visiting Australia and other countries. On his return he...
DEXTER, Henry Martyn. b. Plympton, Massachusetts, 13 August 1821; d. Boston, Massachusetts, 13 November 1890. He was educated at Yale (graduated 1840) and Andover Theological Seminary (1844). He served as a Congregational Church Minister at Manchester, New Hampshire (1844-49), and Boston, Massachusetts (1849-67). He resigned his pastorate in order to edit the Congregationalist and Recorder. He was a prolific writer: in addition to his many sermons and discourses, he published Congregationalism:...
MILLS, Henry. b. Morriston, New Jersey, 12 March 1786; d. Auburn, New York, 10 June 1867. He was educated at the College of New Jersey, Princeton, graduating in 1802. According to the Revd. F. M. Bird in JJ, p. 736, he held the degree of DD, which he presumably acquired in the years that followed, when he was also a teacher. In 1816 he was ordained Pastor of the Presbyterian Church, Woodbridge, New Jersey. In 1821 he was appointed Professor of Biblical Criticism and Oriental Languages at Auburn...
McFADYEN, Henry Richard. b. Bladen County, near Elizabethtown, North Carolina, 1 February 1877; d. High Point, North Carolina, 22 June 1964. The son of Rev. Archibald McFadyen (1836–1911) and Miriam Eliza McFadyen (née Cromartie; 1844–1907), he was one of eight children. He married Myrtle Louise Angle (1884–1976) in 1907, and they had two children. Henry's father was a Lieutenant in the North Carolina Cavalry for the Confederate cause in the Civil War, studying for the ministry while a...
CUTLER, Henry Stephen. b. Boston, Massachusetts, 13 October 1825; d. Swampscott, Massachusetts, 5 December 1902. Cutler was an organist, choirmaster, and composer, known especially for his hymn tune, ALL SAINTS (also called ALL SAINTS NEW). The place of Cutler's death is sometimes given as Boston; however, he died at home in Swampscott, about 12 miles north of the city. Cutler's parents were Roland Cutler (1798-1873) and Martha Richardson Cutler (1803-?) (see Josiah Adams, The Genealogy of...
VAN DYKE, Henry Jackson. b. Germantown, Pennsylvania, 10 November 1852; d. Princeton, New Jersey, 10 April 1933. The son of a Presbyterian minister, he was at school at Brooklyn, New York before studying at Princeton University (BA 1873, MA 1876). After a further period of study at Princeton Theological Seminary (1876-77) and in Berlin, he was ordained to the ministry, serving at a Congregational Church at Newport, Rhode Island (1878-82) and Brick Presbyterian Church, New York (1882-99). During...
BEECHER, Henry Ward. b. Litchfield, Connecticut, 24 June 1813; d. New York, 8 March 1887. He was the son of Lyman Beecher, a celebrated Presbyterian minister; one of his sisters was Harriet Beecher Stowe*, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Henry was educated at Amherst College, Massachusetts (graduating in 1834), and Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, Ohio, where his father had become Principal. In 1837 he was ordained to First Presbyterian Church in the small town of Lawrenceburg, Indiana,...
WARE, Henry, Jr. b. Hingham, Massachusetts, 21 April 1794; d. Framingham, Massachusetts, 25 September 1843. Ware, a teacher, influential Unitarian minister, writer, and author of hymns (see Unitarian-Universalist hymnody, USA*), was born of the marriage of Henry Ware (1757-1845) and Mary Clarke Ware (1752-1805). His father was a Minister of First Parish (originally Puritan, then Unitarian-Universalist), Hingham, Massachusetts, 1787-1805, and Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard College,...
Heralds of Christ. Laura L. Copenhaver* (1868-1940).
Laura Copenhaver was scheduled to speak for a conference in Northfield, Massachusetts in the summer of 1894. For personal reasons she could not attend. She wrote the poem 'The King's Highway' and sent it to the conference asking, according to her daughter Eleanor Copenhaver Sherwood, that it be 'accepted in my place' (Reynolds, 1964, p. 66).
Robert Guy McCutchan*, Methodist hymnologist and pastor, cited the author's own account of...
Here is love, vast as the ocean. William Rees* (1802-1883), translated by William Edwards (1848-1929) and Howell Elvet Lewis* (1860-1953).
This is Rees's best known and finest hymn, dating from some time in the 1870s. In the manner of earlier Moravian and Methodist hymns, there is an intense focus on the shedding of Christ's blood, which Rees explores through a series of water-inspired metaphors in the second stanza. Though Edwards' translation is somewhat free, he faithfully preserves this...
Herr, des Tages Mühen und Beschwerden. Karl Johann Philipp Spitta* (1801-1859). First published in Spitta's Psalter und Harfe (Pirna, 1833) in four 8-line stanzas. It was entitled 'Am Abend' ('At Evening'). As the words 'Mühen und Beschwerden' ('trouble and complaint') indicate, it brings the day's problems before God in an evening hymn.
It was translated by Richard Massie* as 'O Lord, who by Thy presence hast made light/ The heat and burden of the toilsome day', found in 'Wesley's Hymns'...
Ho! ye that rest beneath the rock. Edmund Hamilton Sears* (1810-1876).
This hymn was published in Hymns of the Spirit (Boston, 1864), an important Unitarian collection edited by Samuel Johnson* and Samuel Longfellow* (JJ, p. 1036), and this is sometimes taken as its first appearance. However, Hymnary,org has identified at least two earlier printings, in Children's Praise: a book of prayers and hymns for the children of the church (Boston, 1858) and the Second Edition of A Book of Hymns and...
Höga Majestät, vi alla. Samuel Johan Hedborn* (1783-1849).
Published in Psalmer av Hedborn (1812), this has been described by Marilyn Kay Stulken* as 'One of our loftiest hymns of praise' (1981, p. 322). Its use has been primarily by North American Lutherans, in translation. According to hymnary.org., it appeared in a few Swedish language books in the USA between 1890 (Lill Basunen Innehallande Andliga Sånger) and 1903 (Nya Psalmisten: sånger för allmän och enskild uppbyggelse). It was...
Holiness hymnody refers to a body of song associated with the Holiness Movement that grew out of American Methodism in the late 1830s, associated with Phoebe Worrall Palmer and Walter C. Palmer (nda), Sarah Lankford (1806-96 ), Thomas Upham (1799-1872), William Boardman (1810-86), Hannah Tatum Whitehall Smith (1832-1911) and her husband, Robert Pearsall Smith (1827-98). Their collective teachings emphasized a second work of grace by the Holy Spirit in the believer's life to cleanse from sin and...
Holy Ghost, we bid thee welcome. Lelia Morris* (1862-1929).
First published in Songs of Redemption (Boston, Massachusetts, 1899), edited by Joshua Gill, Geo. A. McLaughlin, William J. Kirkpatrick*, and H.L. Gilmour. It had four stanzas which began:
'Holy Ghost, we bid thee welcome'
'Here, like empty earthen vessels'
'Come like dew from heaven falling'
'Hearts are open to receive thee'.
In some books there is a refrain:
Welcome, welcome, welcome, Holy Ghost, we welcome thee; Come in power and...
BALLOU, Hosea. b. Richmond, New Hampshire, 30 April 1771; d. Boston, Massachusetts, 6 June 1852. The eleventh child of Maturin (1720-1804) a Calvinist Baptist preacher, and Lydia (née) Harris Ballou (1728-73), Hosea converted to Universalism in 1789. He spent several years as an itinerant preacher before taking his first congregation in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1809. He subsequently received a call to serve the Second Universalist Society of Boston in 1815. Hosea Ballou made a notable...
How beauteous were the marks divine. Arthur Cleveland Coxe* (1818-1896).
These stanzas were identified in JJ, p. 267, as coming from Coxe's 'Hymn to the Redeemer', a poem of seven 8-line stanzas, written ca. 1840 and published in Halloween (Hartford, 1845) as one of the 'Lays, Meditative and Devotional' that followed 'Halloween' itself. It is uncertain when the selection of stanzas that became so popular was made, or by whom: it may have been by Henry Ward Beecher* for the Plymouth...
How blest the righteous when he dies. Anna Letitia Barbauld* (1742-1825).
According to JJ, p.1107, this was published in the Leisure Hour Improved (Ironbridge, 1809) with the first line as 'Sweet is the scene when virtue dies'. It was then included in The Works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld, with memoir by Lucy Aikin (1825), with the title 'The Death of the Virtuous'. It had five stanzas:
Sweet is the scene when Virtue dies! - When sinks a righteous soul to rest, How mildly beam the closing...
How high Thou art! our songs can own. Elizabeth Barrett Browning* (1806-1861).
This is one of the four hymns printed by Elizabeth Barrett (as she then was) in The Seraphim, and other poems (1838) (cf. 'God named Love, whose fount Thou art'*). This was 'Hymn II', entitled 'The Mediator'. It was prefaced by 'As the greatest of all sacrifices was required, we may be assured that no other would have sufficed.' - BOYD's Essay on the Atonement.' This refers to Hugh Stuart Boyd's An Essay on the...
How lovely shines the morning star. Philipp Nicolai* (1556-1608), translated by Henry Harbaugh* (1817-1867).
This is a translation of Nicolai's great hymn, 'Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern'*, written at Unna during an outbreak of the plague in 1597, and subsequently imitated by others. The original German text was included in the Deutsches Gesangbuch: eine Auswahl geistlicher Lieder aus allen Zeitender Christlichen Kirche für öffentlichen und häuslichen Gebrauch , edited by Philip Schaff*...
GROSE, Howard Benjamin. b. Millerton, New York, 5 September 1851; d. Ballston Spa, New York, 19 May 1939. Educated at the University of Chicago (BA) and the University of Rochester, New York State (MA), he worked as a journalist before becoming a Baptist minister in 1883. He pastored congregations in Poughkeepsie, New York (1883-87) and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1888-90) before turning to academic life. He had spoken at a memorial service for a classmate, Edward Olson, President of the...
KERR, Hugh Thomson. b. Elora, Ontario, Canada, 11 February 1871; d. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 27 June 1950. Kerr was educated at the University of Toronto, and at Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh. After being ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1897, he was pastor of congregations in Kansas and Illinois before having a distinguished and lengthy ministry through two world wars at Shadyside Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh (1913-46). He was Moderator of the General Assembly of the...
Hush'd was the evening hymn. James Drummond Burns* (1823-1864).
This hymn of five stanzas on 1 Samuel 3: 3-10 was entitled 'The Child Samuel', and published in The Evening Hymn (1857). This book, published by Nelsons of London, consisted of an original hymn and prayer for every evening in the month. In 1869, when James Hamilton's Memoir and Remains of the Late Rev. James D. Drummond was posthumously published, Hamilton had included a section 'Selected by his desire from ''The Evening Hymn,''...
Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer (1870). The Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer (not a 'Companion' in the usual sense of the word) was edited by Edward Henry Bickersteth* during his time as vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead, and published in 1870. It was successful enough to warrant a revised and enlarged edition in 1877, and a Third and Revised Edition with tunes in 1890.
The edition of 1870 was a words-only book, of considerable interest because of its Preface and the...
Hymnologia Christiana (1863).
This was the title of a massive anthology of hymns compiled by Benjamin Hall Kennedy*, then Headmaster of Shrewsbury School (he used the title of his office on the title page, presumably to present his credentials). It contained 1500 hymns and 35 doxologies. It was sub-titled 'Psalms and Hymns selected and arranged in the Order of the Christian Seasons'. After Trinity Sunday there was a substantial section of about 360 hymns 'for the weeks after Trinity' (it is...
Hymns Ancient and Modern for use in the Services of the Church (1861); Appendix, 1868; Second Edition, 1875; Supplement, 1889; New and Revised Edition, 1904; Second Supplement, 1916; Standard Edition, 1922; Hymns Ancient and Modern Revised, 1950; Hymns Ancient and Modern New Standard Edition, 1983; Common Praise, 2000; Ancient and Modern: Hymns and Songs for Refreshing Worship, 2013.
[note: Sing Praise is annotated separately].
The 19th Century
During the first half of the 19th century, the...
Hymns of the Spirit (1864). This was the title of a major anthology edited by the Unitarian ministers Samuel Longfellow* and Samuel Johnson*, published at Boston, Massachusetts, in 1864. It contained 717 hymns, arranged in two principal sections: 1. Worship; 2. God and His Manifestations.
The first was divided into:
Usual Public Worship
Special Occasions.
The second was divided as follows:
God in Himself;
God in Nature;
God in the Soul;
God in the Life;
God in Humanity.
The subdivisions of...
I bind unto myself today. Cecil Frances Alexander* (1818-1895). This hymn, in its original Irish form has been attributed to St Patrick, although the dating and authorship remain obscure: in the Irish Liber hymnorum it is said to be 'a lorica [breastplate] of faith for the protection of body and soul against demons and men and vices'. The pagan king, Laoghaire, was confronted by Patrick at Tara in County Meath on Easter Eve: the druids were silenced, and Patrick lit the paschal fire on the hill...
I have read of a beautiful city. Jonathan Burtch Atchinson* (1840-1882).
This is dated in JJ (p. 89) ca. 1874 or 1875, and published in an 'early edition' of Gospel Hymns (according to Hymnary.org it was Gospel Hymns No. 3 (New York and Cincinnati, 1878):
I have read of a beautiful city, Far away in the kingdom of God; I have read how its walls are of jasper, How its streets are all golden and broad; In the midst of the street is life's river, Clear as crystal and pure to behold; But not half...
I heard the bells on Christmas Day. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow* (1807-1882).
A version of this hymn, 'Christmas Bells', was written in 1863 during the Civil War, as a response to the news that his son, Charles Appleton Longfellow, had been wounded fighting for the Union side (Longfellow himself was a strong supporter of abolition). It was published in February 1865 in Our Young Folks, a magazine for young people published by Ticknor and Fields in Boston, and then in Longfellow's Flower-de-Luce...
I know that my Redeemer liveth. Jessie Brown Pounds* (1861-1921).
Based on Job 19: 25, this was written for an Easter Cantata by James H. Fillmore, Hope's Messenger, published by the Fillmore Music House (Cincinnati, 1893). Its first appearance in a hymnal was in The Praise Hymnal: a collection of hymns and tunes, edited by Fillmore and Gilbert J. Ellis (Cincinnati and New York, 1896). This is one of several hymns on this verse (see, for example, I know that my Redeemer lives* by Samuel...
I will follow thee, my Savior. James Lawson* (1847-1926).
This hymn is dated 1866 in Songs of Pilgrimage: a hymnal for the Churches of Christ (Boston, 1886), edited by Horace Lorenzo Hastings (1831-1889) and attributed to James Lawson (in some later books 'Rev. James Lawson'). There has been confusion about the authorship, because in some books it was attributed to 'Jas. L., Elginburg', and in The Revivalist (1872), edited by Joseph Hillman, the words and music are said to be by 'Jas. L.,...
I would I were at last at home. Heinrich von Laufenburg* (ca. 1390- ca. 1460), translated by Catherine Winkworth* (1827-1878).
The German text, beginning 'Ich wollte, dass ich daheime wär', is found in the copy of the Strasbourg manuscript used by Wackernagel, dated 1429 (modern books date it 1430) and printed in Das Deutsche Kirchenlied, II. pp. 540. James Mearns* adds a typically learned reference to manuscript sources and to 19th-century printings of the German text (JJ, p. 507). ...
I would not live alway. William Augustus Muhlenberg* (1796-1877).
A version of this hymn is said to have been written in 1824 at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for a lady's album, where it began:
I would not live alway; no, no, holy man, Not a day, not an hour, should lengthen my span.
This suggests the jeu d'esprit of a young clergyman, although it was based on Job 7: 16: 'I would not live alway: let me alone; for my days are vanity.' The original text had six 8-line stanzas. The text given in...
I/weshall not be moved; African American spiritual*/Folk Song.
Black Spiritual
Bernice Johnson Reagon reminds us that,'The African American spiritual and its evolution within American society—like a great river shooting off hundreds of tributaries to be joined together somewhere further down the way—give us the richest opportunity to view the tradition in a way that unleashes the powerful human story it holds' (Reagon, 1992, p. 13). 'I shall not be moved' is an example of this premise:
I...
Ich steh in meines Herren Hand. Karl Johann Philipp Spitta* (1801-1859).
First published in Spitta's Psalter und Harfe (Pirna, 1833), where it was entitled 'Zuversicht' ('Confidence'). It had five 8-line stanzas. It is a hymn which expresses very clearly the trust in God, whatever may happen ('Und wenn zerfällt/ Die ganze Welt,/ Wer sich an ihm, und wen er hält,/ Wird wohlbehalten bleiben'). All five stanzas are in EG in the 'Angst und Vertrauen' ('Anxiety and Confidence') section (EG 374).
JRW
Ich weiß, woran ich glaube. Ernst Moritz Arndt* (1769-1860).
From the appendix ('nebst geistlichen Liedern') of Arndt's Von dem Wort und dem Kirchenliede nebst geistlichen Liedern (Bonn, 1819), his proposal for a hymn book for the whole of Germany. It is found in five 8-line stanzas in the 'Rechtfertigung und Zuversicht' ('Righteousness and Confidence') section of EG (EG 357). It is a strong statement of trust in God who stands fast, who is the light of the world (verse 4); in its vision of...
In grief and fear to Thee, O Lord. William Bullock* (1798-1874).
According to JJ, p. 564, this appeared in Bullock's Songs of the Church (Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1854), with the title 'The Church in Plague or Pestilence'. It had five stanzas:
In grief and fear, to Thee, O Lord, We now for succour fly,Thine awful judgments are abroad, O shield us, lest we die!
The fell disease on every side, Walks forth with tainted breath;And Pestilence, with rapid stride, Bestrews the land with death.
Our...
In the harvest field there is work to do. Christopher Rubey Blackall (1830-1924).
The first printing of this hymn in Hymnary.org. dates from 1870, and this is likely to be its date of composition. It was presumably written after Blackall's service as a doctor in the Civil War, and during his first years as secretary of the American Baptist Publication Society for the North West. It was based on the traditional interpretation of the harvest image in Matthew 9: 37-8 and Luke 10: 2, and it is...
In the secret of His presence how my soul delights to hide. Ellen Lakshmi Goreh* (1853-1937).
First published in Goreh's 'From India's Coral Strand': Hymns of Christian Faith (1883). It was entitled 'My Refuge', and was based on a text from Psalm 31: 20. Ira D. Sankey* introduced it to the British public during the London Winter Mission of 1883-4:
The hymn at once came into general favor, and the deeply spiritual tone of the words brought blessing to many. The song was afterwards published in...
In the silent midnight watches. Arthur Cleveland Coxe* (1818-1896).
First published in the Second Edition of Coxe's poem, Athanasion (1842), where it was among the 'Several Poems, now first collected', further described as 'Miscellaneous Poems', that followed the main poem. It was called 'The Heart's Song' (it may well be considered alongside the words from the preface to Athanasion quoted in the entry on Coxe). It was printed by Philip Schaff * in Christ in Song (New York, 1869). It had three...
Infinite Spirit, who art round us ever. James Freeman Clarke* (1810-1888).
See 'Father, to us, Thy children, humbly kneeling'*.
It passeth knowledge, that dear love of Thine. Mary Shekleton* (1827-1883).
Written in 1863 and first published in broadsheet form. It was later included in Ira D. Sankey*'s Sacred Songs and Solos No 1 (ca. 1873) to be sung to Sankey's tune IT PASSETH KNOWLEDGE. It is a reflection on Ephesians 3: 17-19, ending 'to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God'.
It had seven verses. It still appears in some hymn books (WOV, HP) in...
PROKHANOFF, Ivan Stepanovich. b. Vladikavkas, Russia, 17 April 1869; d. Berlin, Germany, 6 October 1935. Prokhanoff was a gifted author, preacher, poet and hymn writer, and a primary leader of the evangelical community in Russia. St Petersburg was the center of his activity. Here he founded the Russia Evangelical Association (1905), and the All-Russian Evangelical Association (1908).
His parents grew up in the Molokan ('milk drinkers') tradition of Russia, a pietistic movement that emerged...
Ja, fürwahr! uns führt mit sanfter Hand. Friedrich Adolf Krummacher* (1767-1845).
According to James Mearns* in JJ, p. 634, this was first published in Krummacher's Festbüchlein, in the Third Edition, 1813, of the part entitled Der Sonntag (first published 1808). There were three Festbüchleinen: Der Sonntag (1808, 1810, 1813, 1819); Das Christfest (1810, 1814, 1821); and Das Neujahrsfest (1819). They consisted of conversations, historical observations, and stories: this hymn is sung by children...
DECK, James George. b. Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, 1 November 1807 (JJ gives 1802); d. Motueka, near Nelson, New Zealand, 14 August 1884. He was educated under one of Napoleon's generals to serve in the army, and posted to India in 1824. His religious interests were strengthened by conversion in England in 1826, and he returned to India to witness for Christ among his brother officers. He resigned his commission in 1835. He left the army with the intention of becoming a priest of the Church of...
LAWSON, James. b. Elston, Nottinghamshire, England, 17 March 1847; d. Ottawa, Canada, 1 May 1926. Lawson has been difficult to identify, if only because his best-known hymn, 'I will follow thee, my Savior'*, has, in some books, been incorrectly attributed to 'James L., Elginburg'. In his 1989 Companion to the Song Book of the Salvation Army of 1986, Gordon Taylor suggested that 'it seems likely that his name was James Lawson, and that Elginburg was not a surname but was possibly a place with...
MILLIGAN, James Lewis. b. Liverpool, England, 1 February 1876; d. Toronto, Canada, 1 May 1961. According to Stanley Osborne*, Milligan began his journalism career with the London Daily Chronicle and the Weekly Graphic. He was awarded the Felicia Hemans Prize for poetry by Liverpool University in 1910, a year prior to emigrating to Toronto. He worked in Toronto as a freelance journalist, before his appointment to a Methodist lay pastorate at Actinolite, north of Tweed in central Ontario. In 1913...
MARTINEAU, James. b. Norwich, 21 April 1805; d. London, 11 Jan 1900. He was born into a Unitarian family of Huguenot descent, and educated at Norwich Grammar School and at the school at Bristol run by the distinguished Unitarian Dr Lant Carpenter. He became an engineering apprentice at Derby, but decided to become a Unitarian minister and entered Manchester College, then at York, in 1822. In 1828 he became minister of Eustace Street Presbyterian Meeting House, Dublin, and in 1832 moved to...
MONTGOMERY, James. b. Irvine, Ayrshire, 4 November 1771; d. Sheffield, 30 April 1854. His father was minister of the Moravian congregation at Irvine. He was educated at the Moravian school at Fulneck, Pudsey, near Leeds. In 1783, his parents went as Moravian missionaries to Barbados, where they both died of fever when he was about twenty years old. He was apprenticed to a baker in Mirfield, Yorkshire, but was more interested in writing poetry or playing and composing music. He ran away from the...
ALEXANDER, James Waddell. b. Hopewell Estate, Louisa County, Virginia, 15 March 1804; d. Red Sweetsprings, Virginia, 31 July 1859. The son of a Presbyterian minister, Archibald Alexander (1772-1851) and Janetta (née Waddell) Alexander (1782-1832) he was educated at schools in Philadelphia, where his father was briefly a minister, and then at Princeton, where his father had been appointed as the first professor at the Princeton Theological Seminary (1812). James Waddell Alexander went to the...
CREWDSON, Jane (née Fox). b. Perran-ar-worthal, Cornwall, 22 October 1809; d. Whalley Range, Manchester, 14 September 1863. As a young woman she moved with her family to Exeter in 1825. There she met Thomas D. Crewdson, a Manchester manufacturer, whom she married in 1836. The marriage is recorded in the Register of Marriages of the Devon Quarterly Meeting of the Society of Friends: the Crewdsons were a notable Quaker family, originally from Kendal. She was a strong supporter of the Reformation....
MERCER, Jesse. b. Halifax County, North Carolina, 16 December 1769; d. Butts County, Georgia, 6 September 1841. Mercer was a prominent Baptist minister, and essentially the founder of Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. His main contribution to hymnody was The Cluster of Spiritual Songs ('Mercer's 'Cluster'*), a words-only collection that provided texts for William Walker*'s Southern Harmony* and other important shape-note collections.
Jesse Mercer was the first of eight children born to Silas...
ADAMS, Jessie. b. Ipswich, Suffolk, 9 September 1863; d. York, 15 July 1954. She was educated at Ipswich and at York (her family moved to York in 1878). She continued to live with her parents in various parts of London (Tottenham, Twickenham, Forest Gate) from 1889 until 1900, when they moved back to East Anglia. She returned to York in her final years.
Adams was a member of the Society of Friends; she was very interested in the Adult School Movement (the National Adult School Organisation...
Jesus calls us! O'er the tumult. Cecil Frances Alexander* (1818-1895).
Written for St Andrew's Day (30 November) and included in a book published by the SPCK, Hymns for Public Worship (1852), edited by Thomas Vincent Fosbery*. It was published with an inferior and amended text in its successor, the SPCK Church Hymns (1871) and in the Second Edition of A&M (1875). EH returned to Alexander's version, and many 20th-century books followed, although successive editions of A&M have stuck to...
Jesus is a rock in a weary land. African American spiritual*.
This song of African American origin is characterized by a memorable refrain that has remained constant for over a century; the stanzas, however, vary from publication to publication. The repetition of words in the refrain's first three lines indicates that its origins may lie in oral rather than written tradition. The two primary elements of the refrain text— 'rock in a weary land' and 'shelter in the time of storm'—echo several...
Jesus walked this lonesome valley. American Folk Hymn; African American spiritual*
The origins of this folk hymn, appropriate for Holy Week, are shrouded in obscurity. It first appeared in USA hymnals during the second half of the 20th century. Its frequency of inclusion increased by the end of the last century and continues into the current one. Although listed as an American Folk Hymn in most hymnals, its origins may be found in a conflation of the Appalachian folk song tradition and the...
Jesus, high in glory. Harriet Burn McKeever* (1807-1886 or 1887).
In JJ, p. 1574, this hymn is noted as from the Methodist Episcopal Church's Sunday School Harmonist (1847), without an author's name. McKeever was identified as the author when it appeared in her Twilight Musings: and Other Poems (Philadelphia, 1857) (JJ, p. 1667). It became very popular in the USA and Canada, appearing in many hymnals, mainly those for Sunday schools and young people. It crossed the Atlantic to appear in the...
WALLIN, Johan Olof. b. Stora Tuna, Dalarna, Sweden, 15 October 1779; d. Uppsala, 30 June 1839. The son of a soldier, Wallin studied at Falun, Västeros, and Uppsala (PhD, 1803). He was ordained in 1806, and became theological assistant, then lecturer at Karlberg War College (1807), and pastor at Solna (1808). In 1812 he was appointed pastor of Adolf Frederik Church, Stockholm. He was subsequently dean of Västeros (1818-21), pastor of Storkyrkan Church, Stockholm (1821-24), Bishop (1824) and...
PETER, Johann Friedrich (John Frederick). b. Herrendijk, the Netherlands, 19 May 1746; d. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 13 July 1813. Born into a Moravian Church community where his father was minister, Peter was educated at the Moravian Boys' Schools in Haarlem and Zeist, with further study at the church's academy in Niesky, Germany. In 1765, he entered the seminary at Barby, Germany, for theological training, completing his studies in 1769. In 1770, he was sent by the church to Bethlehem,...
HERBST, Johannes. b. Kempten, Swabia, 23 July 1735; d. Salem, North Carolina, USA, 15 January 1812. Herbst was educated at the Moravian Church school in Herrnhut, Saxony. He served the church in various non-ministerial capacities in the Moravian communities of Gnadenfrey, Gnadenberg, and Kleinwelke (in Germany) and Fulneck (in England). After his ordination as a minister in the Moravian Church in 1774, he was superintendent of the communities of Neudietendorf and Gnadenfrey. In 1786 Herbst and...
LLOYD, John Ambrose. b. Mold, North Wales, 14 June 1815; d. Liverpool, 14 November 1874. John Lloyd (he took the name Ambrose later) received a good education at Mold in Welsh, English and music. He moved in 1830 with his elder brother to Liverpool, where he was a commercial traveller and a distinguished amateur musician. In 1841 he took charge of the music at the newly founded Chapel Salem, Brownlow. There he founded a choir and taught the members to read music, using an early form of Tonic...
STEVENSON, (Sir) John Andrew. b. Dublin, 1761; d. Kells, County Meath, 14 September 1833. Born in Crane Lane off Dame Street, Dublin, he was an indentured choirboy at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, in 1775, receiving tutorage under Richard Woodward junior and Samuel Murphy. He was appointed stipendiary at St Patrick's Cathedral on 20 July 1775 by Dean Cradock and at Christ Church Cathedral in 1781; then vicar choral at St Patrick's Cathedral in 1783 and at Christ Church Cathedral in 1800. He...
ANTES, John (Johann). b. Frederick, Pennsylvania, 24 March 1740; d. Bristol, England, 17 December 1811. Born near the Moravian Church community of Bethlehem, Antes was educated at the Moravian Boys' School in Bethlehem, where his talent in music was encouraged. During the early 1760s, he established an instrument-making atelier in Bethlehem where he crafted violins, violas, and violoncellos (he is known to have made at least seven instruments, of which two are still extant). Feeling the call of...
THOMPSON, John Bodine. b. Readington, New Jersey, 14 October 1830; d. Trenton, New Jersey, 4 September 1907. The son of Joseph Thompson, he received a BA from Rutgers College in 1851, a Bachelor of Divinity degree from New Brunswick Theological Seminary (NBTS) in 1858, and a DD from Rutgers College in 1870. He pastored a succession of Reformed and Presbyterian congregations in New Jersey, New York, and California, and pastored a congregation of the Free Church in Italy (1871-73). In 1889, He...
BOWRING, (Sir) John. b. Exeter, Devon, 17 October 1792; d. Exeter, 23 November 1872. He was educated at school in Exeter at an evening school run by the Unitarian divine, Dr Lant Carpenter. On leaving school he entered a business engaged in foreign trade, where he met many travellers and laid the foundations of his truly extraordinary linguistic acquisition, learning French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Dutch. He later became proficient in Swedish, Russian, Danish, Serbian, Polish...
DAHLE, John. b. in the interior valley county of Valdres, Norway, 3 January 1853; d. St Paul, Minnesota, 16 July 1931. His father was the klokker (precentor or lead singer) in his local church, and singing teacher in the parish school. Dahle graduated from Hamar Normal School (1870), learned to play the violin and organ, and went to Oslo to study language, drama, and singing. In 1876 he married Johanna Sørlie. They came to the United States where he taught singing and Norwegian at St Olaf...
EDWARDS, John David. b. Penderlwyngoch, Gwnnws, Cardiganshire, 19 December 1805; d. Llanddoget, Rhosymedre, Denbighshire, 24 November 1885. He was educated at Jesus College, Oxford. He took Holy Orders (deacon 1832, priest 1833) and became vicar of Rhosymedre from 1843 until his death. He was a prolific musician, and much in demand as an Eisteddfod adjudicator. He published Original Sacred Music in two volumes (1839, 1843). He is chiefly known as the composer of the tune RHOSYMEDRE (sometimes...
FAWCETT, John. b. Lidget Green, Bradford, West Yorkshire, 6 January 1740; d. 25 July 1817. He was the son of Stephen Fawcett, who died young. Influenced while an apprentice by the preaching of George Whitefield on John 3: 14, he was interested in Methodism but joined the Particular Baptists in Bradford. He entered the ministry, and in May 1764 became minister at the small, damp Wainsgate Baptist Church high in the hills at Old Town above Hebden Bridge, where his remuneration never exceeded £25...
YOUNG, John Freeman. b. Pittston, Maine, 30 October 1820; d. New York City, 15 November 1885. He was the son of John Young and Emma Freeman. His family were Wesleyan Methodists, but he joined the Episcopal Church and was educated at Virginia Theological Seminary. He took Holy Orders (deacon, 1845, priest 1846), serving churches in Florida, Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana before becoming assistant rector of Trinity Church, New York City. He was secretary of the Russo-Greek Committee of the...
TUCKER, John Ireland. b. Brooklyn, New York, 26 November, 1819; d. Albany, New York, 17 August 1895. Tucker was an Episcopal priest and editor of several music editions of nineteenth-century Episcopal hymnals and related materials (see Episcopal Church, USA, hymnody*).
Tucker's parents, Fanning Cobham Tucker (1782-1856) and Ann Moore Sands (1781-1833), were born to well-established New York families. Fanning's father, Robert Tucker (1746-1792), was the first to receive the degree Doctor of...
CUMMINS, John James. b. Cork, Ireland, 5 May 1795; d. London, 23 November 1867. An Irishman, he lived in London from 1834 onwards. He was a Director of the Union Bank of Australia. He was also a student of Hebrew and Theology. He published Seals of the Covenant Opened or the Sacraments of the Church considered in their Connexion with the Great Doctrines of the Gospel (1839), a prose work for his family 'to remind them of their solemn responsibilities, as members of the Church of Christ; and...
BOKWE, John Knox. b. 15 March 1855; d. 21 July 1922. Bokwe studied with William Kolbe Ntsikana, grandson of Ntsikana Gaga* (or 'Gaba'), and was ordained a Presbyterian minister in Scotland (1906). He was a member of the Ngqika Mbamba clan (Xhosa), born at Ntselamanzi near Lovedale, the Presbyterian mission. Bokwe was the first to adapt John Curwen's Tonic Sol-fa* system to Xhosa music. Bokwe's transcriptions of Ntsikana's songs, published in 1878, conveyed in notation aspects of the oral...
POLLOCK, John. b. Glasgow, Scotland, 27 October 1852; d. Belfast, Northern Ireland, 4 January 1935. The son of Janet, née Riddell, and Alexander Pollock, a grocer and tea merchant, John was baptized into the Free Church of Scotland, where his father was an Elder of the Kirk. His lively grasp of ideas and propensity for instructing others were in evidence at an early stage: he became a Sunday School teacher at the age of twelve.
At first attracted to a career in business, he entered the Arts...
RICHARDS, John ('Isalaw'). b. Hirael, Bangor, Caernarfonshire 13 July 1843; d. 15 September 1901. He attended a school in Birmingham, where he began to learn music. On returning to Bangor he worked as a newspaper proof-reader, established a Tonic Sol-fa* class, wrote on musical subjects for newspapers and periodicals, and acted as a copyist and editor of the music of others. His own compositions include part-songs and anthems, but he is now best remembered for his hymn tune SANCTUS, set to...
RIPPON, John. b. Tiverton, Devon, 29 April 1751; d. London, 17 December 1836. Born into a devout Baptist family, he studied at the Bristol Baptist Academy (1769-73) and became pastor of the influential Carter Lane Particular Baptist Church in Southwark, London, where he served from 1773 until his death 63 years later. Active in all denominational and many Dissenting activities, Rippon promoted a moderate Calvinism and encouraged many new ventures in Baptist life. He published the Baptist Annual...
ROBERTS, John ('Ieuan Gwyllt'). b. Tanrhiwfelen, near Aberystwyth, 27 December 1822; d. Y Fron, Llanfaglan, Caernarfonshire, 14 May 1877. Roberts was born into a musical family, and was brought up near Aberystwyth. In 1842 he obtained a place in a pharmacy in that town, but in 1844 took a post as schoolmaster. After a period of training in the Borough Road Normal School in London he returned to Wales in 1844 and became clerk to a firm of solicitors in Aberystwyth. In 1852 he moved to Liverpool...
MONSELL, John Samuel Bewley. b. Londonderry, Ireland 2 March 1811; d. Guildford, 9 April 1875. He was the son of an archdeacon of Derry, and brother of the politician William Monsell, first Baron Emly (1812-94). He entered Trinity College, Dublin (BA 1832). He was ordained (deacon 1834, priest 1835), and was successively chaplain to Bishop Richard Mant*; Chancellor of the diocese of Connor; rector of Ramoan, Co. Antrim; vicar of Egham, Surrey (1853-70); and rector of St Nicolas, Guildford...
HODGES, John Sebastian Bach. b. Bristol, Gloucestershire, England, 12 January 1830; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 4 February 1895. An Episcopal priest, Hodges composed several hymn tunes, including EUCHARISTIC HYMN, that are found in present-day hymnals.
J. Sebastian B. Hodges (as his name often appears) was the son of Edward Hodges* and brother of Faustina H. Hodges*, George Frederick Handel Hodges (1822-1842), and Jubal Hodges (1828-1870). The latter was also an Episcopal priest, and...
SWERTNER, John. b. Haarlem, the Netherlands, 1746; d. Bristol, 11 March 1813. As a young man he came to England, where he married Elizabeth, the daughter of John Cennick*. He was the minister of the Moravian church at Dublin, and for ten years minister of the Fairfield Moravian Settlement, Droylsden, Manchester (1790-1800).
He was the editor of the British Moravian hymnbook, A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the Protestant Church of the United Brethren (1789) and of its enlarged edition,...
THOMAS, John (II). b. Blaenannerch, Cardiganshire, 11 December 1839; d. Llanwrtyd Wells, Breconshire, 25 February 1921. He was educated a Blaenannerch and at the Adpar grammar school in Newcastle Emlyn. Largely self-taught in music, he began to compose, and won prizes for part-songs at National Eisteddfodau in the 1860s. Thomas married in 1871 and moved to Llanwrtyd, where he remained for the rest of his life, enjoying popularity as an adjudicator and conductor of the Cymanfa Ganu*. He wrote...
CHAPMAN, John Wilbur. b. Richmond, Indiana, 17 June 1859; d. Long Island, New York, 25 December 1918. Chapman was educated at Lake Forest University in Illinois (BA, 1879), and Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was ordained to the Presbyterian ministry in 1881: his first pastorate was a two-point charge to neighbouring churches in Liberty, Indiana, and College Corner, Ohio. In 1883 he became the minister of the Old Saratoga Dutch Reformed Church in Schuylerville, New York; in...
ADAM, Joseph. b. perhaps Dundee, ca. 1843, date unknown; d. Bournville, Birmingham, 10 March 1919. According to the Churches of Christ periodical, The Bible Advocate ('Pleading for a Complete Return to the Faith and Practice of the New Testament Church'), 4 April 1919, he was born 'some seventy-six years ago in the city of Dundee'. Adam was trained as a carpenter, but became a Churches of Christ evangelist, trained at Birmingham by the great Churches of Christ evangelist David King (1819-1894)....
SCRIVEN, Joseph Medlicott. b. Seapatrick near Banbridge, Co Down, Ireland (later Northern Ireland), 10 September 1819; d. Port Hope, Ontario, Canada, 10 August 1886. The son of James Scriven and Jane Medlicott, he attended Addiscombe Military College, Surrey (1837-39), training for service in India. Owing to poor health he withdrew, returning to Ireland and studying at Trinity College, Dublin (BA 1842). Impelled by his fiancée's drowning on the eve of their wedding, Scriven emigrated from...
MOHR, Joseph. b. Salzburg, Austria, 11 December 1792; d. Wagrein, near St Johann, 4 December 1848. He was a chorister in the cathedral choir at Salzburg. He was ordained into the Roman Catholic priesthood in 1815. Most of his life was spent in parishes near Salzburg, but from 1817 to 1819 he was assistant priest at Oberndorf in Bavaria. His next appointments were as assistant at Ramsau and Laufen; as co-adjutor at Kuchl, Golling, Vigann, Adnet and Authering; as vicar-substitute at Hof and at...
PARRY, Joseph. b. Merthyr Tydfil, 21 May 1841; d. Penarth, Glamorgan, 17 February 1903. The most important figure in Welsh music in the final years of the 19th century, Parry was born into a poor family. By the age of nine he was working in a coal mine, and at twelve in a steel works. As in so many Welsh industrial towns, there was a strong musical life, and Parry sang in an oratorio choir from an early age. In 1854 his family moved to Danville, Pennsylvania, USA, where there was an expatriate...
COOK, Joseph Simpson. b. County Durham, England, 4 December 1859; d. Toronto, Ontario, 27 May 1933. He emigrated to Georgetown, Ontario, entering the Methodist ministry as a probationer with London Conference in 1880, serving Bayfield Mission on the eastern shore of Lake Huron from 1881 until 1883. He enrolled in a combined course in Arts and Theology at McGill University and Wesleyan Theological College, being ordained in 1885. He earned an MA from Illinois Wesleyan University (1892), a BD...
Kein Tierlein ist auf Erden. Clemens Brentano* (1788-1842).
Originally published in Brentano's fairy story 'Gockel und Hinkel' (1815/16), it was later revised as Gockel, Hinkel, Gackeleja (1838), where it had ten stanzas. It is found in EG at no. 509, in the 'Natur und Jahreszeiten' section, set to a tune by Richard Rudolf Klein dated 1962. The story, which takes place in the mouse kingdom, concerns a princess who acquires a special ring that requires her to go on a quest. Before setting out,...
The Keswick Convention and its hymns
The Keswick Convention, a non-denominational and evangelical annual meeting, was founded in 1875 by an Anglican, Canon T.D. Harford-Battersby, Vicar of St John's, Keswick, in collaboration with a Cumberland Quaker, Robert Wilson. It was a product of the 'Holiness movement' of the period (see 'Holiness hymnody, USA*), inspired in part by a book by William Edwin Boardman (1810-1886) called The Higher Christian Life (1859). After a series of revival meetings,...
Kommt her, ihr seid geladen. Ernst Moritz Arndt* (1769-1860).
This hymn for Holy Communion was printed in the addenda ('nebst geistlichen Liedern') to Arndt's Von dem Wort und dem Kirchenliede nebst geistlichen Liedern (Bonn, 1829). It opens the 'Abendmahl' ('Holy Communion') section of EG (EG 213), where it has six 8-line verses. Its message ('Come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden…') is characteristic of Arndt's work in its reaction against the rationalism of the 18th century.
JRW
PAL, Krishna. b.1764, date unknown; d. Serampore, 1822, date unknown. Pal was a Hindu carpenter at Serampore, near Calcutta, India, who was converted and baptised by William Carey (1761-1834), the great Baptist missionary, in 1800, after which he became a Christian evangelist. He died of cholera at Serampore. Pal wrote hymns in Bengali, some of which were translated by Carey. The best known is 'Je Jone Apon Pan' translated by Carey as 'He who yielded up his breath' (available at...
Copenhaver, Laura Lu (née Scherer). b. Columbus, Texas, 29 August 1868; d. Rosemont, Marion, Virginia, 18 December 1940. She was the daughter of native Virginian, Lutheran minister and denominational leader Jacob Scherer (1830-1919) who founded Marion Female College in 1873 two years after his return to Virginia from Texas. At the early age of ten, Laura began teaching Sunday School classes and writing plays that were produced at the College. After graduating from Marion Female College in 1884...
Let me be Thine for ever. Nikolaus Selnecker* (1530/32- 1592), translated by Matthias Loy (1828-1915).
This is based on Loy's translation of 'Laß mich dein sein und bleiben'*, from Selnecker's 'Passio', entitled Passio. Das Leiden und Sterben unsers Herrn Jesu Christi, aus den Vier Evangelisten (Wolfenbüttel, 1572). According to the Companion to the Hymns of LSB (Herl et al., 2019, p. 928, note to Hymn 659) Loy's translation dates from 1863 in the Fourth Edition of A Collection of Hymns for...
Like Noah's weary dove. William Augustus Muhlenberg* (1796-1877).
This imaginative treatment of Genesis 8: 8-9 was one of the hymns contributed by Muhlenberg to the 1826 hymnal of the Episcopal Church in America entitled The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church in the United States of America, known as the 'Prayer Book Collection'. It had five stanzas:
Like Noah's weary dove, That soared the earth around, But not a...
SANDELL-BERG, Lina (née Sandell, Karolina Vilhelmina, sometimes Sandell, Lina). b. 3 October 1832; d. 27 July 1903. Born at Fröderyd, Smaland, Sweden, the daughter of a pastor, she lost both her parents, her father drowning before her eyes in a boating accident. After the death of her parents she lived in a home run by a religious group, and began to write poems, using the initials 'L.S.'. Many of them were set to music by the guitarist Oskar Ahnfelt (1813-1882), the 'spiritual troubadour' of...
The London Hospitals and their hymns
The mid-18th century saw a remarkable burst of new London hospitals (in the wider sense of charitable homes), some of which played an important part in the development of hymnody.
The reasons for the rapid rise of philanthropy are various. Greater sexual promiscuity resulting from early industrialization, urbanization, and the decline of the Puritan ethic had led to soaring numbers of births outside marriage, and to increases in prostitution and venereal...
Lord of our highest love. Gilbert Young Tickle* (1819-1888).
The earliest printing of this hymn recorded in Hymnary.org. is in The Christian Hymnal (Cincinnati, 1882), published for the Churches of Christ. It was published in the same year in New Christian Hymn and Tune Book (Cincinnati: Fillmore Brothers). In Britain it was almost certainly among the 34 hymns by Tickle in A Collection of Hymns for Churches of Christ (Birmingham, 1888), edited by David King (1819-1894), with Tickle as an...
Lord, her watch Thy church is keeping. Henry Downton* (1818-1885).
This stirring hymn for mission was written in 1866 during Downton's time in Geneva, and sung at the annual meeting of the Church Missionary Society in that year. It was published in the Seventh Edition of D.T. Barry's Psalms and Hymns for the Church, School, and Home (1867) and subsequently in Downton's Hymns and Verses, Original and Translated (1873). Too late for the First Edition of A&M, and missed by the 1868 Appendix,...
Founded in 1890 by E.S. Lorenz* in Dayton, Ohio, the company has been under the management of his descendants since that time. In the 1970s and 1980s the company changed its name to Lorenz Industries, and then The Lorenz Corporation. The mainstay of the company for half a century was the gospel hymn and its elaborations in vocal, choral, and keyboard arrangements appearing in subscriptions services and separately published. Under the leadership of Karl K. Lorenz (c.1880-1965) the company...
STEAD, Louisa M.R. b. Dover, England, 1 February 1846; d. Penkridge (now Mutare), near Umtali, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), 18 January 1917. Louisa immigrated to the United States as a young woman, ca. 1871, where she resided with friends in Cincinnati, Ohio. At a camp meeting revival in Urbana, Ohio, Louisa committed herself to missionary service, but was unable to fulfill her vow owing to poor health. After marrying George Stead in 1873, she gave birth to their only child, Louise...
LINDEMAN, Ludvig Mathias. b. 28 November 1812; d. 23 May 1887. Born at Trondhjem [Trondheim], Lindeman was the best known member of a family of Norwegian church musicians. Of German ancestry, his grandfather, Christopher Madsen (1706/08-1788), studied medicine in London, and changed his name to Lindeman after establishing a medical practice in Trondheim. His father, Ole Andreas Lindeman (1769-1857) was for 57 years organist of Vår Frue (Our Lady's) church, Trondheim, a concert pianist, and...
REED, Luther Dotterer. b. North Wales, Pennsylvania, 21 March 1873; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 3 April 1972. Reed's distinguished career included a wide spectrum of activity in liturgics, church art and architecture, church music, and hymnody. He attended Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania (AB, 1882, MA, 1897), the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia ['Mt. Airy'] (BD, 1895), with further study in Germany, Scandinavia and Great Britain (1902-1903). He was...
LANDSTAD, Magnus Brostrup. b. 7 October 1802; d. 8 October 1880. Born at Måsøy, he was one of ten children born to parish priest Hans Landstad (1771-1838) and Margrethe Elisabeth Schnitler (1768-1850). His family moved several times, settling finally in Seljord, Telemark, in 1819. He was raised in a period of abject poverty in rural Norway, partially caused by the Napoleonic wars. His father educated him until 1822, when he began studies at the University of Christiania (Oslo), where he...
MAKARIOS the Hieromonk. b. ca. 1770; d. 1836. A professor of Byzantine chant, typographer, translator and composer, Makarios was born in Perieţi, Walachia (southern Romania); his date of birth, accepted by most of his biographers, remains uncertain: estimates oscillate between 1750 (Bishop Iosif Naniescu) and 1780 (Ion Popescu-Pasărea). Makarios was a pupil of Constandin (Căldăruşani Monastery), affiliated with the teacher Şărban, the protopsaltis of Walachia. In 1817 he learned the New Method...
COCKBURN-CAMPBELL, Margaret (née Malcolm). b. 1808; d. Alphington, near Exeter, Devonshire, 6 February 1841. She was the daughter of a General, Sir John Malcolm, GCB, who was a friend of the Duke of Wellington. She married her cousin, Sir Alexander Thomas Cockburn-Campbell, in 1827. He was one of the founders of the Plymouth Brethren, and he and his wife must have been closely associated with them in their early years during her short life-time. One year after her death, some of her hymns were...
BYRNE, Mary Elizabeth. b. Dublin, Ireland, 2 July 1880; d. Dublin, 19 January 1931. She was educated at the Dominican Convent in Dublin, and the National University of Ireland (the Roman Catholic university founded by John Henry Newman to provide higher education for Catholics parallel to that of Trinity College, Dublin). Her Irish name was Máiri Ní Bhroin, but she published much of her work as Mary E. Byrne. She was a research scholar who worked for the Board of Intermediate Education. With...
PETERS, Mary (née Bowly). b. Cirencester, 17 April 1813; d. Clifton, Bristol, 29 July 1856. Mary Bowly became governess to the children of the Revd John William Peters (1791-1861), rector of Quenington (1823-34) and perpetual curate of Ampney St Mary (1824-32) (both in Gloucestershire), and vicar of Langford (on the Berkshire-Oxfordshire border) (1825-34). Peters resigned the Ampney living in 1832 in order to serve the other two parishes more adequately, and in 1834 he resigned the others on...
SHEKLETON, Mary. b., place and date unknown, 1827; d. Dublin, 28 September 1883. She was born in England, but the place and exact date are unknown. After the death of her father when she was six months old, her mother returned to her family home in Ireland with her children. Shekleton was deeply influenced by her mother, who had experienced an evangelical conversion on the death of her husband, and who brought up her four daughters in a prayerful, scripture-centred household where an emphasis...
Minuit, chrétiens, c'est l'heure solennelle. Placide Cappeau* (1808-1877)
Cappeau is believed to have written this Christmas hymn in 1843, at the request of the parish priest of his native town of Roquemaure in the Gard department of France. Cappeau himself said that he wrote it in a stage-coach travelling to Paris. It has three stanzas. Cappeau had a reputation as a Socialist and a free-thinker: this carol is the Incarnation seen through the eyes of a follower of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
It is...
Mission hymnody, USA
Beginnings
The beginnings of American churches' missions can be traced to the efforts of John Eliot (1604-1690) to gather 'Praying Indians' into towns for worship, preaching, language instruction and Bible study; the churches and day schools established by John Sargent (1710-1749) in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and Eleazar Wheelock (1711-1779) in Connecticut; and the organization of the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge among 'Indians' in North America in...
My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine. William Ralph Featherston* (1846-1873).
This Gospel hymn is normally attributed to Featherston (but see below). After that the information is uncertain. It was said by Ira D. Sankey* (1906, pp. 165-6) to have been published without an author's name in The London Hymn Book of 1862. The usually reliable James Mearns* gives 1864 as the date, and the author as anonymous (JJ, p. 1676). Sankey's title probably refers to The London Hymn Book, containing...
TILAK, Narayan Vaman. b. Karajgaon Village, Ratnagiri District, Maharashtra, 6 December 1861; d. Bombay (now Mumbai), 9 May 1919. Born into a Hindu family of the Brahmin caste, he was greatly influenced by the writings of the 17th-century 'poet-saint' Tukaram (1608-1649), who wrote devotional poems and hymns in Marathi. Tilak was converted to Christianity (baptised 1895), encountering opposition from his family and friends. He worked for more than twenty years at the American Congregational...
New College, Edinburgh, Hymnology Collection
New College was founded to serve the Free Church of Scotland at the Disruption of 1843, when ministers, led by David Welsh and Thomas Chalmers but including such figures as Horatius Bonar*, left the Church of Scotland on the grounds that the church was becoming too closely identified with the state, and subject to the right of patronage (see 'Synod of Relief hymns'*). The buildings of New College, prominent on the Mound on the Edinburgh skyline, were...
GRUNDTVIG, Nicolai Frederik Severin. b. Udby, 8 September 1783; d. Copenhagen, 2 September 1872. He was born in a small village in South Zealand, where his father had been priest since 1778. The small boy remembered news of the revolution in France arriving in the village in 1789, but he seems to have been more impressed in the previous year (when he was five years old) by the news that the Russian troops on the Black Sea coast were advancing south and hoped to be in Constantinople by Easter:...
KANTOUNIARĒS (NAUTOUNIARĒS), Nikēphoros. b. Chios, 1750-75; d. 1830s. Born on the island of Chios, Greece, Kantouniarēs undertook a musical apprenticeship in Constantinople under the patriarchal cantor (psaltēs) Iakobos Peloponnesios* (Protopsaltes) (d. 1800). He spoke Greek, Turkish, Arabic, and maybe Romanian, French and Italian.
Kantouniarēs was an important psaltēs, a composer of both ecclesiastical and secular music, a pedagogue, scribe, and exegete. As archdeacon of Antioch, Kanoutniarēs...
Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika. South African national anthem. See Enoch Mankayi Sontonga*.
NTSIKANA Gaga/Gaba. b. ca. 1780; d. 1821. He seems to be known in two forms, as 'Gaga' and 'Gaba'. The hymns of the prophet Ntsikana are the prototype of church music in a traditional Xhosa style. David Dargie* (1982) describes the prophet as
an attractively mysterious figure in Xhosa history. A Cirha, and son of a councillor of the famous chief Ngqika, he was the first Xhosa Christian. It was probably as a herd-boy that he heard the preaching of the first missionary among the Xhosa, Dr. J. T....
O Bread of Life from heaven. Latin, 17th century or earlier, translated by Philip Schaff* (1819-1893).
This was published in Schaff's Christ in Song (New York, 1869), with an exclamation mark in the title and the Latin inscribed below ('O esca viatorum, O panis angelorum, O manna coelitum'). Schaff noted that this came from a Latin hymn, 'De Sanctissimo Sacramento', found in Daniel*, Thesaurus Hymnologicus II. 369. Like the original, it had three stanzas:
O Bread of Life from heaven To saints...
O du fröhliche. Johannes Daniel Falk* (1768-1826).
This is dated 1816 in Falk's Auserlesene Werke, Alt und neu (Leipzig, 1819), Book I, where it had the title 'Allerdreifeiertagslied' ('Hymn for all three festival days'), and the tune designated as 'Melodie: O sanctissima'. The three festival days were Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun:
O du fröliche, O thou blessed, O du seelige, O...
O for the robes of whiteness. Charitie Lees De Chenez* (1841-1923).
According to JJ, p. 109, this was published in Within the Veil, by C.L.S. [Charitie Lees Smith, her maiden name] (1867), but this has not been verified. It has also been stated that it was published in leaflet form in 1860. It was certainly printed in Lyra Britannica (1867), edited by Charles Rogers, where it was entitled 'Heavenly Anticipations'. Philip Schaff*, who printed it in Christ in Song (New York, 1869), described it...
O komm, du Geist der Wahrheit. Karl Johann Philipp Spitta* (1801-1859). First published in Spitta's Psalter und Harfe (Pirna, 1833) with the title 'Pfingsten' ('Whitsun'), in seven 8-line stanzas. It is found in EG in the full seven stanzas (EG 136). The first line indicates the hymn's message of the 'spirit of truth' ('Geist der Wahrheit').
JRW
O selig Haus, wo man dich aufgenommen. Karl Johann Philipp Spitta* (1801-1859).
First published in Spitta's Psalter und Harfe (Pirna, 1833) in five 8-line stanzas, with the title 'Diesem Hause ist Heil widerfahren' ('Salvation is come again to this house', from Luke 19:9). It had five 8-line stanzas. Its celebration of the Christian home is echoed in another hymn from the same book, 'Ich und mein Haus, wir wollen dem Herrn dienen' ('I and my house, we will serve the Lord').
The hymn has been...
O the bitter shame and sorrow. Théodore Monod* (1836-1921).
This hymn was entitled 'The Altered Motto', referring to its transition from 'All of self, and none of Thee' (stanza 1) to 'None of self, and all of Thee' (stanza 4). Written during one of Monod's many evangelising visits to England in 1874 for a 'consecration meeting' at Broadlands, Hampshire, it was given to Lord Mount-Temple, who took it to another meeting at Oxford in the same year:
O the bitter shame and sorrow, That a time could...
O the deep, deep love of Jesus. Samuel Trevor Francis* (1834-1925).
Written before 1898, when it was published in Francis's Whence-Whither, and Other Poems. It had eight stanzas (accessible at https://www.hymnologyarchive.com/o-the-deep-deep-love-of-jesus). It was shortened to three stanzas in Hymns of Consecration and Faith 2 (1902), and in The Song Companion to the Scriptures (1911), and this has become the customary version in hymnals (the full hymn is in the posthumously-published...
O thou my soul, forget no more. Joshua Marshman* (1768-1837), from the Bengali of Krishna Pal* (1764-1822), translated by William Carey (1761-1834). Pal's hymn, 'Je Jone Apon Pan', must have been written shortly after his conversion in December 1800. It was later published in Quarterly Papers, for the use of the weekly and monthly contributors to the Baptist Missionary Society, January 1830). A 'free translation' was published in the same number (the author's name is not given, but the...
O where are kings and empires now. Arthur Cleveland Coxe* (1818-1896).
The customary form of this hymn is that of four quatrains, selected from Coxe's longer poem, 'Chelsea', a tribute to the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, Chelsea, Massachusetts, where he was a divinity student. According to JJ, p. 267, it first appeared in the Churchman (1839). In ten 8-line stanzas, it was published in Coxe's Christian Ballads (1840). It is a confident poem in which the opening is...
O wie freun wir uns der Stunde. Karl Johann Philipp Spitta* (1801-1859).
First published in Spitta's Psalter und Harfe. Zweite Sammlung (Leipzig, 1843) in six 8-line stanzas. It was entitled 'Du hast Worte des ewigen Lebens' ('Thou hast the words of eternal life', from John 6: 68). It is delightfully simple in places, as in verse 1b:
Lass uns heute nicht vergebens Hörer eines Wortes sein, Schreibe selbst das Wort des Lebens Tief in uns're Herzen ein.
Let us not neglect today Hearers of...
This is the name given to a movement within the Church of England which endeavoured to resist government interference in the church affairs and reaffirm the authority of the church as a holy and divinely authenticated institution. Its origins were political as well as religious (Nockles, 1994). The early adherents of the movement were concerned at the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832; at the appointment of bishops and Regius Professors of Theology by the government; at what they saw as a...
MOISE, Penina. b. Charleston, South Carolina, 23 April 1797; d. Charleston, SC, 13 September 1880. Penina was the sixth of nine children born to the union of Abraham (1736-1809) and Sarah (1762-1840) Moise (Moïse). She left school at the age of 12 upon her father's death but continued to study on her own. She suffered from poverty throughout her life; she suffered severe attacks of neuralgia and lost her eyesight completely by 1865. Her first published volume, Fancy's Sketch Book, appeared in...
SCHAFF, Philip. b. Chur, Switzerland, 1 January 1819; d. New York, 20 October 1893. He was an illegitimate child from a poor family. His father died before Philip was one year old, and he had a disturbed and unhappy childhood in an orphanage from which he was rescued by a local minister, who arranged for the clever child to be educated at a Lutheran school at Kornthal, Württemberg, and then at the Gymnasium at Stuttgart, and at the Universities of Tübingen, Halle, and Berlin. After working as a...
CAPPEAU, Placide. b. Roquemaure, Gard, France, 25 October 1808; d. Roquemaure, 8 August 1877. Cappeau was the son of a cooper and wine seller. He was destined to follow in his father's trade, but he lost a hand in a childhood accident. He studied at Nimes and Paris, and became a lawyer, but gave up the law to become a wine merchant in his native town. The catalogue of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris records several publications relating to his business, but he also had a strong interest in...
Praise ye Jehovah! Praise the Lord most holy. Margaret Cockburn-Campbell* (1808-1841).
Lady Campbell was a member of the Brethren, and this hymn, with others by her, was first published a year after her early death in James George Deck*'s Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1842, enlarged 1847). It had four stanzas:
Praise ye Jehovah! Praise the Lord most holy, Who cheers the contrite, girds with strength the weak; Praise him who will with glory crown the lowly, And with salvation beautify...
Presbyterian Church of England Hymnody
History
Presbyterianism traces its origins back to the Reformation, when one element in the Protestant tradition was the dislike of human authority in religious matters, and the preference for government by 'presbyters' (from the Greek 'presbuteros', or 'elder') rather than bishops or priests. In Scotland the Reformation was guided by the powerful John Knox (1505-1572), who had studied under Jean Calvin* in Geneva; in both Scotland and England...
Refreshed by gentle slumbers. JJohann Kaspar Lavater* (1741-1801), translated by Henrietta Joan Fry* (1799-1860).
We have not been able to discover the publication details of this hymn (the Editors would welcome any information). Although Henrietta Fry translated many hymns by Lavater, this one was not found in The Pastor's Legacy; or Devotional Fragments from the German of Lavater (Bristol and London, 1842: thanks to Lucy Saint-Smith, Society of Friends Library, London, for this...
GRANT, (Sir) Robert. b. Kidderpore, Bengal, India, 15 January 1780; d. Dapoorie, Western India, 9 July 1838. He was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge (BA, 1801, MA, 1804). He became a Fellow of Magdalene College, was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn (1807), and became King's Serjeant in the Court of the Duchy of Lancaster. He became a Member of Parliament in 1818 and a Privy Councillor in 1831, promoting a bill in 1833 for the emancipation of the Jews, which passed the Commons but was...
WILLIAMS, Robert. b. Mynydd Ithel, Llanfechell, Anglesey, 27 October 1782; d. Mynydd Ithel, 15 July 1818. He was blind from birth. He was a basket maker by trade, and a good musician. He is associated with the tune LLANFAIR, which is found in a manuscript book belonging to him, although it may have been a folk tune and he may not have been the composer of it. It had the name BETHEL, and was dated 14 July 1817. It was used by Vaughan Williams* for Charles Wesley*'s 'Hail the day that sees him...
SMITH, Rodney ('Gipsy' Smith). b. Epping Forest, near London, 31 March 1860; d. at sea 4 August 1947). He was born in a Romany tent, the fourth of six children of Cornelius Smith (1831-1922) and Mary Welch (ca. 1831-1865). His family made a living selling baskets, clothes pegs, tinware, and through horse-dealing; neither of his parents could read. He grew up 'as wild as the birds, frolicsome as the lambs, and as difficult to catch as the rabbits' (Smith, 1901, Chapter 1). His mother died of...
PRICHARD, Rowland Huw. b. Y Graienyn, Bala, Meirionnydd (Merioneth), 14 January 1811; d. Holywell, Flintshire, 25 January 1887 ('Prichard was the usage in publications of his own time. 'Pritchard' has been used in the 20th century). Prichard worked at Bala as a weaver for most of his life, but moved in 1880 to Holywell in Flintshire to a post with the Welsh Flannel Manufacturing Company, where he remained. He was one of the minor figures working for the improvement of Welsh hymn singing in the...
SAILLENS, Ruben. b. 24 June 1855, Saint-Jean-du-Gard Cévennes; d. 5 January 1942, Condé-sur-Noireau, Normandy. He was a French Baptist Pastor, evangelist, journalist, poet and hymnwriter. Born into a Reformed family, his father served a Free Church in Lyon. He started work in a bank. During 1873-1874 he received Bible training at the East London Bible Institute. The Mission Populaire, founded in Paris after the Commune (1870-71) by a Congregationalist minister Robert W. McAll (1821-93),...
History
The Ruebush-Kieffer Company was formed at Singers Glen*, Virginia in 1872 by Aldine S. Kieffer (1840-1904) and Ephraim Ruebush (1833-1924). Originally, 'Ruebush, Kieffer, and Company', the name 'Ruebush-Kieffer Company' appeared after 1891. Kieffer and Ruebush were brothers-in-law, Ruebush having married Kieffer's sister in 1861. Kieffer was the grandson of Joseph Funk*, a Mennonite hymnal compiler and printer who had published the successful Harmonia Sacra (Genuine Church Music) at...
TREGELLES, Samuel Prideaux. b. Falmouth, Cornwall, 30 January 1813; d. Plymouth, Devon, 24 April 1875. Educated at Falmouth Grammar School, he was employed at the Neath Abbey ironworks in Glamorgan, South Wales from 1829 to 1835. During that time he taught himself Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, and also learned Welsh, a language in which he sometimes preached. He was brought up as a Quaker, but joined the Plymouth Brethren. His hymns were published in their Hymns for the Poor of the Flock...
The Sandemanian Church was formed in Scotland, ca. 1730, by John Glas (1695-1773), who was dismissed from his charge as minister of Tealing, near Dundee, and who formed an independent church of his followers, opposed to the authority of anything except Holy Scripture, and believing that the death of Jesus Christ was sufficient to present even the worst sinner spotless before God (this antinomian doctrine was the subject of James Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner,...
Saviour, who thy flock art feeding. William Augustus Muhlenberg* (1796-1877).
This prayer for the welfare of children was first published in The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church in the United States of America, known as the 'Prayer Book Collection' (1826). According to JJ, this was 'the most widely known of Dr Muhlenberg's hymns' (p. 775). In Britain it was printed in Lyra Americana (1865), with a title, 'He carrieth the...
Set-Piece
A set piece (or set-piece) is, loosely speaking, a choral setting of sacred or secular metrical poetry performed with or without accompaniment, sometimes with the congregation, usually but not necessarily non-strophic—that is, usually but not necessarily through-composed. As it is not practical to formulate a precise definition based directly on musical and textual characteristics, in this article 'set-piece' is defined as a piece that has been designated a set piece by a composer,...
Shape-note hymnody
This is a tradition of rural American sacred music using unorthodox notations, associated with community singing schools and singings. Although the shape-note singing tradition of the 19th century flourished particularly in the South and Midwest, it spread to practically every section of the United States in the closing decades of the 20th century. Shape-note tunebooks contain introductory rudiments for reading the notation plus up to several hundred hymn tunes, fuging...
Shout the glad tidings, exultingly sing. William Augustus Muhlenberg* (1796-1877).
First published in the hymnal of the Episcopal Church in America (1826) entitled The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church in the United States of America, known as the 'Prayer Book Collection'. According to JJ, Muhlenberg said that it was written 'at the particular request of Bishop John Henry Hobart (1775-1830), who wanted something that would...
Singers Glen, Virginia, is a hamlet in the Shenandoah Valley about eight miles north-northwest of Harrisonburg. It was originally named Mountain Valley by its German-speaking Mennonite settler, Joseph Funk*, who is buried in Singers Glen. It was renamed Singers Glen in 1860 when a post office was established there, and after Funk's music business had become successful.
Its significance is twofold: (1) it was the original base of the music-publishing business (known variously as Joseph Funk...
So nimm denn meine Hände. Julie Hausmann* (1826-1901).
First published by Gustav Knak* in a collection devoted to 'silence' and 'quietness' ('die Stille'), Maiblumen. Lieder der Stillen im Lande (Berlin, 1862). It is a very beautiful and simple hymn of trust in good times and bad ('in Freud und Schmerz', stanza 2) and asks to be led through the night ('auch durch die Nacht', verse 3) through life and into eternity. It became very popular and has rightly remained so; it is found in EG in the...
General
Southern Gospel is one of the multiple vernacular Christian music traditions that developed within American (and to some extent British) Protestant cultures during the 19th and 20th centuries, and part of the gospel music phenomenon that has flourished in Anglophone Christendom since the 1870s. It is also part of the Christian, but especially Protestant, practice of recreational musicking with vernacular songs and hymns.
'Southern Gospel' refers to a music tradition that dates arguably...
Stille Nacht! heilige Nacht! Joseph Mohr* (1792-1848).
The words of this carol were written in 1816 by Joseph Mohr, and set to music in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber*, organist of Arnsdorf. It was first sung on Christmas Eve 1818 in the nearby church at Oberndorf (where Mohr was assistant) to a guitar accompaniment (according to tradition because the organ had broken down).
It became popular as a 'folk carol' in the Tirol in the 1820s. In 1827, the Renner family, a group of folksingers, toured the...
Swing low, sweet chariot. African American spiritual*.
In A Collection of Revival Hymns and Plantation Melodies (Cincinnati, 1883), edited by Marshall W. Taylor, this has six stanzas, with a tune attributed to Jesse Munday. One source attributes it to Wallis Willis, a Choctaw freedman in what is now Oklahoma, whose singing was written down by Alexander Reid, a minister. It has a strong element of the 'revival' tradition, with an emphasis on salvation:
The brightest day that ever I saw,Coming...
Synod of Relief hymns
The 'presbytery of relief' was founded in 1761 by three Scottish ministers, Thomas Gillespie of Dunfermline, Thomas Boston of Jedburgh, and Thomas Collier of Conisburgh, Fife, formerly of Ravenstonedale, Northumberland. Gillespie, who had been educated at the University of Edinburgh and under Philip Doddridge* at Northampton, had been deposed as minister of Carnock, near Dunfermline by the General Assembly in 1752. He had opposed the imposition of ministers by patronage,...
Take me to the water. African American spiritual*
In modern hymnals, this first appears in Yes, Lord! Church of God in Christ Hymnal (Memphis, 1982). However, recordings and possible references to the spiritual in the accounts of enslaved black people indicate that its roots may extend at least to the turn of the 20th century, and perhaps to the antebellum South. While found primarily in African American hymnals, other mainline denominational collections include the spiritual: Chalice Hymnal...
See 'Edward Stephen (Jones)'*
Temperance is one of the four cardinal virtues, and it is recorded as one of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5: 23). St Paul preached to Felix about temperance (Acts 24: 25) and the Second Epistle General of Peter includes temperance as part of the divine nature to which Christians are to aspire (2 Peter 1: 6). It was assimilated into the Christian order of moral thought from the 'nothing too much' of Greek philosophy, and it has remained an important constituent of the Christian life,...
The happy Christmas comes once more. Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig*, translated by Charles Porterfield Krauth* (1823-1883).
This Christmas hymn,'Det kimer nu til Julefest', is from Grundtvig's Nyeste Skilderie af Kjøbenhagen (1817). It was translated by Krauth for the Lutheran Church Book (Philadelphia, 1867), and almost immediately included in Christ in Song, edited by his fellow Lutheran Philip Schaff* (New York, 1869). It has become Krauth's best known work in hymnals.
It had nine...
MONOD, Théodore. b. Paris, 6 November 1836; d. Paris, 26 February 1921. The son of a pastor in the French Reformed Church, he was educated at the University of Paris, where he studied law (1855-58). In order to train as a Protestant minister, he went to the USA, to Western Theological Seminary, Pennsylvania. He became a pastor to a French Canadian congregation at Kankakee, Illinois, south of Chicago (1861-63). During these years he published Regardant Jésus (1862, translated as Looking unto...
There's a star in the east (Rise up, shepherd, and follow). African American spiritual*.
The first stanza as printed in current hymnals is as follows:
There's a star in the east on Christmas morn; Rise up, shepherd and follow; It will lead to the place where the Christ was born; Rise up, shepherd, and follow. Follow, follow, rise up, shepherd, and follow, Follow the star of Bethlehem. Rise up, shepherd, and follow.
The noted African American author James Weldon Johnson*...
WILLIAMS, Thomas John. b. Ynysmeudwy, Pontardawe, Glamorgan, 25 April 1869; d. Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, 24 April 1944. He worked as an insurance man, and was organist of chapels in Pontardawe and Llanelli. He wrote hymn tunes and anthems. His best known hymn tune is EBENEZER, written in 1896 and named after Ebenezer Chapel, Rhos, Pontardawe. It was published in Yr Athraw ('The Teacher') in 1897, and used in Williams's anthem Goleu yn y Glyn ('Light in the valley') in 1899. It appeared in the...
WILLIAM, Thomas. b. Pendeulwyn, Glamorgan 1 Mar 1761; d. Llantwit Major, Glamorgan, 23 Nov 1844. Thomas William joined the Methodists as a young man but was later ordained as an Independent (Congregationalist) minister. He built Bethesda chapel at Llantwit Major in 1806 and ministered there until his death. His hymns were published in volumes and collected together in Dyfroedd Bethesda ('The Waters of Bethesda'), in 1824, with a second edition in 1841. Strongly biblical and full of scriptural...
Thy holy wings, O Savior. Lina Sandell-Berg* (1832-1903), translated by Ernest E. Ryden* and Gracia Grindal* (1943- ).
Like Sandell Berg's beloved Swedish hymn, 'Children of the Heavenly Father'*, this hymn (sometimes 'Thy holy wings, dear Savior') is also sung to a Swedish folk song, in this case, BRED DINA VIDA VINGAR. The relationship between this text and tune extends back to 1889 in a hymnal compiled in part by Sandell-Berg, Sionstoner ('Melodies of Zion'). See Swedish hymnody*. The text...
'Tis the gift to be simple. Shaker spiritual, 19th century, probably by Joseph Brackett, Jr. (1797-1882).
This is a Shaker song, described by them as a 'Gift Song from Mother's work' (referring to Ann Lee, known as 'Mother Ann'. See 'Shaker hymnody'*). David Holbrook*, who printed it in the Cambridge Hymnal* (1967), dated it from between 1837 and 1847. The Hymnal 1982 Companion agreed, noting that this was 'a period of renewed spiritual dedication' among the Shakers. Various theories are...
SOGA, Tiyo. b. 1829; d. 12 August 1871. Soga was born in Gwali, Tyumie Valley, South Africa and died in Tutura, South Africa. JJ noted that 'The Rev. Tiyo Soga, a gifted Kafir missionary educated by the United Presbyterian Church, and early removed by death, compiled a book of hymns, which was printed in Scotland' (p.757). A more recent account by J. A. Millard indicates that Soga was the first Xhosa ordained in the United Presbyterian Church. Though his training at the Lovedale Mission was...
'Twas in the moon of wintertime. [St] Jean de Brébeuf*, SJ (1593-1649).
Like the Bach-Gounod 'Ave Maria', this hymn owes its fame to what a respectful admirer grafted onto a sturdy but unspectacular rootstock. The Huron Indians who settled in the early 19th century at L'Ancienne Lorette, near Quebec City, had in their oral tradition a Christmas hymn which had been taught 150 years earlier, ca. 1643, to their ancestors living in the Midland region near Georgian Bay and which they attributed to...
A Generous Tribute: Twells on Lyte.
Henry Twells* paid a felicitous tribute to Henry Francis Lyte* that deserves to be better known. In Twells's Hymns and Other Stray Verses (1901), published after his death, there is a poem entitled 'The Rev. Henry Francis Lyte'. Twells described him as
A Parish priest, whose anxious post Was on South Devon's rocky coast, Through all his life at various times Had clothed his thoughts in graceful rhymes.
The poem goes on to describe Lyte's most famous hymn,...
Unison hymn tune in Britain, 1861-1939.
1. Victorian hymn tunes in the late 19th Century.
One of the principal features that a student of 19th-century and early 20th-century music has learned about the hymnody of this period in Britain is its transformation from a legacy of the Old Version* and the New Version*. John Stainer* noted that the OV and NV tunes that were still in use at St Paul's Cathedral in the late 1840s were 'groaned through' with commensurate reluctance by choir and...
Var hälsad, sköna morgonstund. Johan Olof Wallin* (1779-1839).
This is from the 1819 Svenska Psalm-Boken, the book that Wallin produced after the unsatisfactory attempt at a national hymnbook in 1811. According to Stulken (1981, p. 176), the translation in LBW was the work of the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship, based on a version made by Ernest William Olson for the Hymnal (1901) of the Augustana Synod of the Lutheran Church. It began 'All hail to you, O blessed morn'. It links the...
MENDOZA, Vicente Polanco. b. Guadalajara, Mexico, 24 December 1875; d. Mexico City, 14 June 1955. Methodist evangelist, hymn writer, and translator, he was acclaimed by many as the leading evangelist in Mexican Methodism of his generation, and the author of some of the most beloved hymns from this era in the Spanish language. Vicente P. Mendoza should not be confused with two others of his generation with a similar name: Vicente T. Mendoza (1894-1964), a Mexican Methodist musicologist,...
We are living, we are dwelling. Arthur Cleveland Coxe* (1818-1896).
First published in the Second Edition of Coxe's Athanasion (Coxe's word 'Athanasius-ism' refers to St Athanasius of Alexandria, d. 373, a doughty opponent of Arianism). It was originally (1840) 'an ode pronounced before the Associate Alumni of Washington College, in Christ Church, Hartford, on the day before Commencement, 1840.' The Second Edition (New York, 1842) had 'notes and corrections' together with 'Several Poems, now...
We hail Thee now, O Jesu. Frederick George Scott* (1861-1944).
Written on a train between Dunmow and London when Scott, a Canadian, was in England as a curate at Coggeshall, Essex (1886-87). It was printed in the Church Times (29 January 1886), and later in Scott's The Soul's Quest, and other poems (1888). It was then included in the Canadian Book of Common Praise (1909), of which Scott was one of the compilers. It was retained in the revised BCP (1938) but omitted from VU; it is also found in...
We love the place, O Lord. William Bullock* (1798-1874).
This hymn was written in 1827, according to Percy Dearmer*, who described the circumstances of it composition in dramatic terms:
A young naval officer, ordered to survey the coast of Newfoundland, is so horrified at the condition of the settlers that he resigns his commission, and returns to Newfoundland as a missionary. At a small place called Trinity Bay he builds a humble mission chapel, and for its consecration he writes this little...
We praise thy name, all-holy Lord. Ebenezer Josiah Newell* (1853-1916).
This hymn on Saint David (ca. 500- ca. 589) was included in EH and NEH, SofPE, and A&MR. The three stanzas in EH and subsequent books were selected from a hymn in seven stanzas on the Welsh saints, published in The Northern Churchman and St David's Weekly (29 February 1896, i.e. just before Saint David's day, 1 March). There is reference to David's noble birth (he was the son of Ceredig ap Cunedda, king of Ceredigion)...
We shall walk through the valley in peace. African American spiritual*.
Variations of this song run deeply in African American tradition. The earliest print version appears in the post-Civil War collection Slave Songs of the United States* (Boston, 1867, no. 95), the first collection of American folk music. Many of the songs gathered by the originators for this source were notated from the formerly enslaved soldiers under the command of Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson* (1823–1911), a...
We would see Jesus, for the shadows lengthen. Anna Bartlett Warner* (1827-1915).
This hymn appeared in Anna Warner's novel, Dollars and Cents (New York, 1852) (JJ, p. 1725). The novel was republished in Britain as Speculation; or the Glen-Luna family (London: Routledge, 1853), with the author's name as 'Amy Lothrop' (Anna Warner's pseudonym).
A previous entry in JJ, p. 1595, had said that the hymn was 'usually atributed to Ellen Ellis, a contributor to the Golden Grain Series' (a...
What a friend we have in Jesus. Joseph Medlicott Scriven* (1819-1886).
Written in Canada West during the mid-1850s by an Irish immigrant teacher, hymn writer, and Plymouth Brethren leader, Joseph Medlicott Scriven, allegedly for his mother who lived in present-day Northern Ireland. While the hymn circulated in at least three manuscripts, Scriven himself did not choose to include it in his own collections of hymns published during his lifetime. It was published in J.B. Packard's Spirit Minstrel:...
What are these in bright array. James Montgomery* (1771-1854).
From Montgomery's collection entitled Greenland, and Other Poems (1819), headed 'Saints in Heaven'. In his Christian Psalmist (Glasgow, 1825), it was entitled 'The song of the hundred and forty and four thousand', referring to Revelation 7: 4: 'And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.'
What are these in bright array,...
When Christmas morn is dawning. Abel Burckhardt (1805–1882); formerly attributed to Betty Ehrenborg-Posse (1818–1880); translated by. Joel L. Lundeen (1918–1990).
This Swedish Christmas children's hymn captures the moment of Jesus' birth when the shepherds followed the directions of the angel, heard the angel hosts singing, 'Glory to God', and 'found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger' (Luke 2: 16, NIV).
Nothing is known of the author of the hymn text. The hymn first...
Why should cross and trial grieve me. Paul Gerhardt* (1607-1676), translated by John Kelly* (1834-1890).
This is a translation of part of Gerhardt's 'Warum sollt ich mich denn grämen'*, first published in Johann Crüger* and Christoph Runge*'s D.M. Luthers und andere vornehmen geistrichen und gelehrten Männer geistlicher Lieder und Psalmen (Berlin, 1653) ('the Crüger-Runge Gesangbuch'); it was then published in the 1656 edition of Crüger's Praxis Pietatis Melica. Kelly's translation was made...
WEXELS, Wilhelm Andreas. b. Copenhagen, 29 March 1797; d. Christiania, 14 May 1866. He was educated at the Metropolitan School, Copenhagen, and the University of Christiania (then in Denmark; now Oslo, Norway). After theological studies, he was appointed catechist at Vår Frelsens Kirke (Our Saviour's Church), Christiania (1818), becoming residing curate in 1846; he was also appointed preacher to the University of Christiania. He remained at Christiania for the rest of his life, declining the...
MUHLENBERG, William Augustus. b. Philadelphia, 16 September 1796; d. New York City, 8 April 1877. William Augustus was the great-grandson of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg* 'the Patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America'. His name is sometimes spelt Mühlenberg, as in JJ, but he used it without an umlaut.
William Augustus became a member of the Episcopal Church in his ninth year. Educated at Philadelphia Academy and the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) (AB 1814), he was ordained deacon in...
BULLOCK, William. b. Prittlewell, Essex, 12 January 1798; d. Halifax, Nova Scotia, 16 March 1874. Educated at Christ's Hospital, he entered the Royal Navy as a young man, following in the footsteps of his brother, who later became an Admiral. He was sent on a survey ship to Newfoundland, and it was during this period that he resolved to be a missionary in Canada. He took Holy Orders, returning to the north-east coast of Newfoundland at the small settlement of Trinity Bay. He later became rector...
WALTER, William Henry. b. Newark, New Jersey, 1 July 1825; d. New York, 19 April 1893. Walter taught music in public schools, and was organist associated with Trinity Church, Manhattan, and its chapels. He composed at least 43 hymn tunes, most published in Charles Lewis Hutchins*'s The Church Hymnal, Revised and Enlarged (Boston, 1908). Among his tunes, FESTAL SONG (1872) is still widely sung to a variety of texts.
His parents were James Hahn Walter (nda) and Mary (née Cheetham) Walter...
FEATHERSTON, William Ralph. b. Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 23 July 1846; d. Montreal, 20 May 1873. Featherston died at the age of 26, and little is known about his life. He was a member of the Wesleyan Methodist church in Montreal. He is normally accepted as the author of the famous Gospel hymn, 'My Jesus I love Thee, I know Thou art mine'*. Information about this hymn is uncertain, but it is believed to have been written at some point between 1858 and 1864, when it was published anonymously in...
REES, William. b. near Llansannan, Denbighshire, 8 November 1802; d. Chester, 8 November 1883. Brought up as a Calvinistic Methodist, Rees was ordained as a Congregationalist minister in 1832. He served chapels in Flintshire, Denbighshire and Liverpool, as was a renowned preacher and lecturer. Having studied Welsh poetry from a young age, his own strict-metre compositions won prizes at eisteddfodau in Brecon (1826) and Denbigh (1828). He took the Bardic name Gwilym Hiraethog. Rees was also...
HARRIS, William Wadé. b. 1860 (?); d. April 1929. Born in Liberia, Harris joined the Methodist Church at the age of twelve, although he subsequently worked as a teacher for the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was an early advocate of independence from the Americo-Liberian colonial rule, and was arrested for treason and twice imprisoned by the administration in Liberia over a two-year period, 1909-1910. During his second imprisonment he had a vision of the Archangel Gabriel, who declared him a...
Work! for the night is coming. Annie Louisa Coghill* (1836-1907).
This was written when Coghill, then Annie Louisa Walker, was living with her family in western Canada, and first published in Leaves from the Backwoods, her collection of poems published anonymously in Montreal in 1861. It had three 8-line stanzas. It was used by Ira D. Sankey* in early editions of Gospel Hymns [see Gospel Hymns 1 to 6 Complete (1894)*]; because it had been published anonymously Sankey attributed it to Sidney...
Ye gates, lift up your heads on high. Scottish Psalter* (1650).
This is the metrical version of Psalm 24: 7-10, traditionally sung in the Church of Scotland at the 'Great Entrance' of the elements at the service of Holy Communion. Because this service was normally held on a few occasions in the year only, it became a moment of high significance. The minister and elders would bring in the bread and wine, and this part of Psalm 24 would be sung.
It was to match the solemn grandeur of this...
Zeuch an die Macht, du Arm des Herrn. Friedrich Oser* (1820-1891).
First published in an enlarged edition of Oser's Sechzig Kreuz- und Trostlieder mit einem Anhang von Liedern auf des Kindes Tod. Weihnachtsgabe für die Trauernden in der Vaterstadt (Wiesbaden, 1865). It is found in the Swiss Gesangbuch der Evangelisch-Reformierten Kirchen der Deutschsprachigen Schweiz in the 'Dank-, Buß- und Bettag' section. In EG it is found in the 'Angst und Vertrauen' section (EG 377), with the first line as...