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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...
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...
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...
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 English Master of Madras College, St Andrews (1840-53). He retired...
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...
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...
Before I take the body of my Lord. John Lamberton Bell* (1949- ) and Graham Maule* (1958- ).
From Love from Below (Wild Goose Songs 3) (1989), where the title is 'These I lay down'. It was written for a Thursday night Eucharist at Iona Abbey, in which the participants are seated round tables rather than facing the altar. It is a hymn of confession, although John Bell is on record as saying that he sometimes feels that 'we overdose ourselves in confession' at Holy Communion (Companion to ICH5,...
Behold! the mountain of the Lord. Michael Bruce* (?) (1746-1767).
This is paraphrase 18, of Isaiah 2: 2-6, in the Scottish Psalter (1929). An earlier version was included in the Scottish Translations and Paraphrases (1745) beginning 'In latter days the mount of God,/ His sacred House, shall rise' (annotated under this heading in JJ, pp. 564-5). The present version was published by John Logan* in Poems. By the Rev. Mr. Logan, One of the Ministers of Leith (1781), and printed in the same year...
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...
HUTCHESON, Charles. b. Glasgow, 1792, date unknown; 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...
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 verses, 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 verses, and SofPE shortens this to two. It was...
Christ's is the world in which we move. John Lamberton Bell* (1949- ) and Graham Maule* (1958- )
From Love from Below (Wild Goose Songs 3) (1989) and reprinted in When Grief Is Raw (1997), this is a fervent plea for Christians to feel compassion for others. The hymn, with its title 'A Touching Place', has four stanzas with a refrain, and 'Feel for' are the opening words of stanzas 2-4. It names those for whom we should care, including the people whom we most avoid (stanza 2 line 2), those for...
COLUMBA, St. ('Colm Cille'). b. County Donegal, Ireland, 521; d. Iona, Scotland, 597. Born in the north-west of Ireland, he was trained and educated in Ireland, emigrating to Iona in 563 where he founded a monastery and remained for the rest of his life. The name 'Colm Cille' means 'Dove of the Church', which is latinised as 'Columba'.
St Adomnán (d. 704), ninth abbot of Iona and Columba's biographer, stated that Columba had written a book of hymns for the week (Hymnorum liber septimaniorum)...
Come let us to the Lord our God. John Morison* (1750-1798), perhaps with John Logan* (1747/8-1788).
This paraphrase of Hosea 6: 1-4 was printed in the Scottish Translations and Paraphrases (1781). It has continued in use in the Church of Scotland from that time on, and is found in successive psalters and hymnbooks, up to and including CH3 and CH4. It was used in a number of 19th-century books, but in the 20th century its spread was remarkable, and it is found in many places outwith...
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...
Common Ground
Initiated by the Panel on Worship of the Church of Scotland and published in 1998 by the Saint Andrew Press, this ecumenical hymn book was compiled by representatives of seven Scottish churches and groups: Roman Catholic, Scottish Episcopal, Methodist, United Reformed, Scottish Congregational, Salvation Army, and Church of Scotland. The title page describes it as 'a song book for all the churches', and it was the first such collection since the Scottish Reformation. The...
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 verses in the Church Hymnary (1898), set to a tune, COURAGE, BROTHER, by Arthur Sullivan*. RCH shortened it to...
Dance and sing. John Lamberton Bell* (1949- ) and Graham Maule* (1958- ).
This text was first published in Heaven Shall Not Wait (Wild Goose Songs 1) (1987), paired with the Scottish traditional melody PULLING BRACKEN. The authors' advice is that it should be sung (and danced?) unaccompanied, but a recorder or violin might provide extra confidence. The theme is God's creation; the verses follow the pattern of the first chapter of Genesis while the refrain urges the whole earth to 'dance and...
RITCHIE, David Lakie. b. Kingsmuir, Angus, Scotland, 15 September 1864; d. Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 14 December 1951. He was educated at Forfar Academy and at the University of Edinburgh. He was ordained to ministry in the Congregational Church in Scotland, with a pastorate at Dunfermline (1890-96) and then in England at St. James's Congregational Church, Newcastle upon Tyne (1896-1903). He was Principal of Nottingham Theological Institute from 1903 to 1919; and, after a year in Montreal as...
BUCHANAN, Dugald (Dughall Bochanan). b. Ardoch, Balquhidder, Perthshire, 1716; d. Ardoch, 2 July 1768. His diarydescribed his early manhood as a period of recklessness and ungodliness, profanity and vice (it is possible that he took the outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor (d. 1734), who lived at Balquhidder, as an example). He had some education in Stirling and Edinburgh, and worked for a time as an itinerant carpenter. During the 1740s he is believed to have spent some time at Glasgow at the Divinity...
Dunblane Praises (1965, 1967). The two collections under this title, published in 1965 and 1967 in manuscript form by the Scottish Churches' Music Consultation, were intended as a means of 'field testing' new hymns in congregations and as a stimulus for further new writing. Only two hundred copies of the first volume were printed, but the need to print another 1,200 copies indicated a demand for new material. As the Consultation came to the end of its work, selected items were republished, with...
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...
McNEIL (sometimes McNeill), Duncan. b. Glasgow, 15 February 1877; d. Glasgow, 28 January 1933. McNeil was a travelling Scottish evangelist, based in Glasgow. He continued to live there, apart from a visit to the USA in 1927-30, where he was associated with Kimball Avenue United Evangelical Church, Chicago (1928-30).
McNeil published Duncan McNeil's Hymn Book (London and Glasgow: Pickering and Inglis, n.d., but dated 1923 in British Library Catalogue). It is said to include 'Song Testimonies'...
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...
REID, Eric James. b. Banff, 24 February 1936; d. near Aberdeen, 20 August 1970. He was educated at the University of Aberdeen. He studied in Germany as a postgraduate, where he became deeply interested in twelve-tone music. He was director of music at Turriff Academy, Aberdeenshire (1961-67); lecturer in music, Dundee College of Education (1967-69); exchange teacher, Trenton State College, New Jersey, USA (1969-70); he was killed in a car accident near Aberdeen. He was a member of the Scottish...
Gaelic-speaking congregations of the Presbyterian church confine their congregational praise to the singing of metrical Psalms. This dates from the Reformation in Scotland in 1560, when one of the requirements of reform was that ordinary people should not be deprived of participation in church worship, hitherto the prerogative of clergy and church choirs. For this purpose The Psalms of David, as part of Holy Scripture, were chosen as texts. The folk tunes of British and European origin were...
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,...
BUCHANAN, George. b. Killearn, near Glasgow, February 1506; d. Edinburgh, 28 September 1582. He was educated at the University of Paris (1520-22), the University of St Andrews (BA 1525), and the Scots College in Paris (BA 1527, MA 1528). After a successful early career in Paris, he returned to Scotland in 1537, where he wrote Somnium, a satire on the Franciscans. At this time he was still a Catholic, but a critical one. Imprisoned in 1539 during a persecution of Lutheran sympathisers, he...
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...
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...
God sends us the Spirit. Tom Colvin* (1925-2000).
Written in Ghana during Colvin's period of missionary service, 1959-1964, and set to the melody of a Gonja folk song originally in praise of the tribe and its past leaders. The text was written, according to the author, for 'churches, particularly new churches, where the Spirit is experienced as a powerful presence'. It is included in several standard collections, and captures both the intimacy and the transformative power of the Holy Spirit....
DEANS, Graham Douglas Sutherland. b. Aberdeen, 15 August 1953. He was educated at Mackie Academy, Stonehaven, and the University of Aberdeen (MA 1974, BD 1977). He was licensed by the Presbytery of Aberdeen, 1977; he has served as assistant minister, Corstorphine, Edinburgh (1977-78), minister of Denbeath with Methilhill, Fife (1978-87), of St Mary's Parish Church, Dumfries (1987-2002), of South Ronaldsay and Burray, Orkney (2002-08), and of Queen Street Church, Aberdeen (2008- ).
Deans holds...
MAULE, Graham Alexander. b. Glasgow, 24 September 1958. He was educated at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, University of Glasgow, 1975-80 (B.Arch.); Edinburgh College of Art, 2000-02 (MFA, Sculpture) and 2003 to the present (PhD, sculpture, in progress).
Maule became a youth worker attached to Ruchill Church, Glasgow, 1980-82, and then to Anderston Kelvingrove Church, Glasgow, 1982-83. In 1983 he became a youth worker with the Iona Community, Glasgow, 1983-86, and in 1986 a resource...
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...
BONAR, Horatius. b. Edinburgh, 19 December 1808; d. Edinburgh, 31 July 1889. Educated at the Edinburgh High School and Edinburgh University, he served as a missionary assistant at St James' Church, Leith, and in 1837 was ordained and inducted as minister of the North Parish Church, Kelso. He left the Church of Scotland in the Disruption of 1843 and remained in Kelso as a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. In 1866 he was called to Thomas Chalmers Memorial Church in Edinburgh and in 1883 he...
How lovely is thy dwelling place. Scottish Psalter*, 1564 onwards.
This metrical psalm was the version of Psalm 84 in the first Scottish psalm book after the Reformation, entitled The forme and ministration of the sacraments &c. used in the English church at Geneva, approved and received by the Church of Scotland. Whereunto besydes that was in the former bokes, are also added sondrie other prayers, with the whole psalms of David in English meter (Edinburgh: Robert Lekprevik, 1564). Psalm...
Hushed was the evening hymn. James Drummond Burns* (1823-1864).
This hymn of five verses on 1 Samuel 3: 3-10 was entitled 'The Child Samuel', and published in a book entitled The Evening Hymn (1857). The book, published by Nelsons of London, consisted of an original hymn and prayer for every evening in the month. This hymn became very popular after its publication in the Supplement (1889) to the Second Edition of A&M. It was very popular, usually but not invariably as a children's hymn, in...
I lay my sins on Jesus. Horatius Bonar* (1808-1889).
This was first published in Bonar's Songs for the Wilderness, First Series (Kelso, 1843) (not 'in the Wilderness' as in JJ, p. 556). It was entitled 'The Fulness of Jesus', and preceded by a quotation from Isaiah: 'He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed - Isaiah, liii. 5.' It had four 8-line stanzas.It was later printed in his...
I once was a stranger to grace and to God. Robert Murray McCheyne* (1813-1843).
This hymn is sometimes known as 'Jehovah Tsidkenu'. It is dated 18 November 1834, and was first published in the Scottish Christian Herald (March 1836) (JJ, p. 557). It was then published in Songs of Zion to cheer and guide Pilgrims on their way to the Heavenly Jerusalem (Edinburgh, 1841), and (with the following words added) 'By the late Rev. R.M. McCheyne' (Dundee, 1843); and then in Memoir and Remains of the Rev...
I sought him dressed in finest clothes. John Lamberton Bell* (1949- ).
This hymn is entitled 'Carol of the Epiphany'. Written in 1988, it first appeared in the collection Innkeepers and Light Sleepers: Seventeen New Songs for Christmas (Chicago: 1992). It may be seen as completing a trilogy of hymns that provide insightful socio-political commentary on the Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany cycle:
Carol of the Advent ('From a woman and a weary nation')
The Carol of the Nativity ('A...
BRADLEY, Ian Campbell. b. 28 May 1950. Ian Bradley was educated at Tonbridge School and New College, Oxford (BA 1971, MA, DPhil, 1974), where he won the Arnold Historical Essay Prize in 1971 and was Harold Salvesen Junior Fellow from 1972 to 1975. After a period working at the BBC and on The Times, followed by a time as a schoolmaster, free-lance author and broadcaster, he entered the University of St Andrews, where he studied for the BD and for the Church of Scotland ministry (1986-89). He...
FRASER, Ian Masson. b. Forres, 15 Dec 1917; d. Alva, near Stirling, 10 April 2018. He was the son of a butcher whose family were required to become involved from an early age in the business. Educated at Forres Academy and the University of Edinburgh (MA, BD, PhD). He was one of the earliest members of the newly-founded Iona Community and, in tune with its emphasis on the importance of witnessing to the Gospel within the political and industrial life of society, became a 'pastor-labourer' in a...
PITT-Watson, Ian Robertson. b. Dalmuir, Glasgow, 15 October 1923; d. Westminster, London, 11 January 1995. He was the son of a Church of Scotland minister, James Pitt-Watson, who became Moderator of the Church of Scotland. Ian was educated at Dollar Academy and Edinburgh University, before training for the ministry at New College, Edinburgh. After ordination as assistant minister at St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh (1950-52) he was appointed chaplain to the University of Aberdeen (1952-58),...
Immortal, invisible, God only wise. Walter Chalmers Smith* (1824-1908). First published in Smith's Hymns of Christ and the Christian Life (1867), in the third section, 'Hymns of the Holy Trinity'. It had six verses. This text differs considerably from the one found in most modern hymnbooks, apart from the resounding first stanza.
The hymn was published in a revised form in William Garrett Horder*'s Congregational Hymns (1884) and in his Worship-Song (1905), and thereafter in EH, after which it...
Inspired by love and anger. John Lamberton Bell* (1949- ) and Graham Maule* (1958- ).
This song, 'Inspired by love and anger, disturbed by endless pain', was the title piece to Love & Anger: songs of lively faith and social justice (Wild Goose Publications, 1997). It was reprinted from Heaven Shall Not Wait (Wild Goose Songs 1) (1987), with the first line as 'Inspired by love and anger, disturbed by need and pain'. With the first line as '…endless pain…' this was reprinted in a 1997...
The Iona Community was founded in Scotland in 1938 by the Revd George MacLeod, later Lord MacLeod of Fiunary. It rebuilt the ancient monastic buildings on the island of Iona, from which St Columba* sent out missionaries such as St Aidan to convert Scotland and the north of England in the 6th century. With the rebuilding of the abbey of Iona, the Community has sought also the 'rebuilding of the common life', bringing together (in the words of its website) 'work and worship, prayer and politics,...
I've found a friend, O such a friend. James Grindlay Small* (1817-1888). According to JJ, p. 1590, this was published in Small's Psalms and Sacred Songs (1866), but no copy of this book has been found. 1866 is normally given as the first publication, but according to Gordon Taylor it was printed earlier in The Revival Hymn Book, second series (1864), compiled by William Booth* (Taylor, 1989, p. 87). It became very popular after its inclusion in Gospel Hymns No 3 (1878), to a tune, FRIEND, by...
BURNS, James Drummond. b. Edinburgh, 18 February 1823; d. Mentone, France, 27 November 1864. He was educated at the Edinburgh High School and the University of Edinburgh, and became a minister in the Free Church of Scotland at Dunblane (1845) following the Great Disruption of 1843 (he had been taught at Edinburgh by Chalmers, the leader of the Free Church). He suffered from weak lungs, and was permitted to serve abroad at Funchal, Madeira (1847-55). He returned to Britain in 1855, to a charge...
SMALL, James Grindlay. b. Edinburgh, 1817; d. Renfrew, 11 February 1888. He was educated at Edinburgh High School and the University of Edinburgh. He was a student under the great Thomas Chalmers, and was one of those who followed Chalmers to form the Free Church of Scotland at the Disruption of 1843. He became the minister of the Free Church at Bervie, near Montrose. He was 'generally beloved as one of the kindest and gentlest of men' (Kelynack, 1950, p. 228).
He published several volumes of...
QUINN, James. b. Glasgow, 21 April 1919; d. Edinburgh, 8 April 2010. He was educated at St Aloysius' College, Glasgow, and read Honours in Classics at the University of Glasgow (MA 1939). He entered the Novitiate of the Jesuit Order in 1939, studying philosophy at Heythrop College (1941-44), followed by a period as a Greek and Latin teacher at Preston Catholic College (1944-48). He returned to Heythrop College to study theology (1948-52), being ordained in 1950. He served his Tertianship at St...
WEDDERBURN, James. b. Dundee, Scotland, ca. 1495; d. Dieppe or Rouen, France, 1553. James was the eldest of (probably) four brothers, the son of a merchant of Dundee. The others were John*, Robert and Henry (there may have been others). James was a student at St Andrews University (matriculated 1514), but left without taking a degree. He became a merchant in northern France, but returned at some point before 1539 to Dundee. He wrote two plays, The Beheading of Johne the Baptist and The Historie...
Jesus calls us here to meet him. John Lamberton Bell* (1949- ) and Graham Maule* (1958- ).
From Love from Below (Wild Goose Songs 3) (1989), where the title is 'Jesus calls us'. Its opening line suggests a general call to worship in the manner of William Cowper*'s 'Jesus, where'er thy people meet'*, and the first three stanzas can be used for this purpose. The fourth stanza, beginning 'Jesus calls us to his table', makes its purpose clear. It is a hymn in which the previous three stanzas can...
Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me. Mary Duncan* (1814-40).
This attractively simple three-stanza hymn was one of those written by Mary Duncan for her own children during the last year of her tragically short life. It was published in Memoir of Mrs W.W. Duncan (Edinburgh, 1841), written by her mother, Mary Lundie, and also in Rhymes for my Children (Edinburgh, 1842), containing Duncan's hymns reprinted from the Memoir. It is filled with the care of a dying mother for her little children:
Jesus,...
BROWNLIE, John. b. Glasgow, 3 August 1857; d. Crieff, Perthshire, 18 November 1925. He was educated at the University of Glasgow and the Free Church College, Glasgow. He was licensed by the Presbytery of Glasgow in 1884, and was appointed assistant minister, Trinity Free Church of Scotland, Portpatrick, Wigtownshire (south-west Scotland). He remained there for most of his life, succeeding the senior minister in 1890 and becoming a distinguished and active participant in local affairs (for...
BELL, John Lamberton. b. Kilmarnock, 20 November 1949. He was educated at the University of Glasgow 1968-71 (MA), 1972-74 and 1977-78 (BD). During the intervening periods he served as President of the Students Representative Council (1974-75) and as Associate Pastor for the English Reformed Church in the Netherlands (1975-77). While a student he was elected Rector of the University of Glasgow (1977-80).
His subsequent career was as follows: Youth Advisor, Presbytery of Glasgow (1978-83); Youth...
LOGAN, John. b. Soutra, Midlothian, 1747 or 1748; d. London, 28 Dec 1788. He was educated at schools at Soutra and Musselburgh, and at the University of Edinburgh (1762-65). His family had been members of the Associate Burgher Secession Church founded by Ebenezer Erskine, but Logan joined the Church of Scotland and was ordained as a minister at Leith in 1773. In 1775, perhaps through the influence of William Cameron*, he was appointed to the Committee of the General Assembly charged with the...
MORISON, John. b. Cairnie, Aberdeenshire, 1750 (baptized 12 June); d. Canisbay, Caithness, 12 June 1798. He was a student at King's College, Aberdeen, after which he became a private tutor, first at Dunnet, Caithness, then at Halkirk (1768-ca. 1771). For a short time in 1773 he was a teacher at Thurso, before moving to Edinburgh. He contributed poetical pieces to Ruddiman's Edinburgh Weekly Magazine under the pseudonym 'Musaeus', and met Dr Macfarlane, minister of Canongate Kirk, who was a...
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...
WEDDERBURN, John. b. Dundee, Scotland, ca. 1505; d. England, place unknown, 1556. John Wedderburn was the second of four sons of a Dundee merchant, younger brother of James* and older brother of Robert, later vicar of Dundee from 1546 to ca 1555-60, and Henry. John was educated at St Andrews University (BA 1526, MA 1528), becoming a priest of St Matthew's Chapel, Dundee. His reforming views caused him to be indicted for heresy, and he fled to Germany, probably in 1539. He took refuge in...
GALLOWAY, Kathryn Johnston (née Orr). b. Dumfries, Scotland, 6 August 1952. She was educated at Boroughmuir Secondary School, Edinburgh (1964-70) and Glasgow University (BD 1974, Diploma in Pastoral Studies, 1976). She was licensed as a minister of the Church of Scotland, Edinburgh Presbytery (1976) and ordained in 1977 while Assistant Minister, Muirhouse Parish Church, Edinburgh (1976-9).
She has been a member of the Iona Community since 1976, was co-warden of Iona Abbey from 1983-89, and was...
MACBEAN, Lachlan. b. Kiltarlity, Inverness, 6 November 1853; d. Kirkcaldy, 24 January 1931. He was a Gaelic scholar and journalist. He edited the Fifeshire Advertiser, but his principal interest was in Gaelic language and literature. He published several instruction books, including Elementary Lessons in Gaelic (1889) and a Guide to Gaelic Conversation and Pronunciation (1895).
He is also remembered for his interest in Gaelic hymnody: he published The Sacred Songs of the Gael (1886) and Songs...
Lead, Holy Shepherd, lead us. Hamilton Montgomerie MacGill* (1807-1880).
This translation was included in the hymnbook of the United Presbyterian Church, The Presbyterian Hymnal (1877). The Church had been formed in 1847 through a union between the United Secession Church and the Synod of Relief (see 'Synod of Relief hymns'*). MacGill was one of the compilers of the 1877 hymnbook.
It was a translation of a hymn by Titus Flavius Clemens (Clement of Alexandria, ca. 150- ca. 215), entitled...
FISHER, Malcolm Leith. b. Greenock, Renfrewshire 7 April 1941, d. Glasgow, 13 March 2009. Educated at Greenock Academy, he studied Arts and Divinity at the University of Glasgow 1959-65 (MA BD), and received a Diploma in Pastoral Studies from Birmingham University (1965-66). He was licensed by the Presbytery of Greenock, May 1965. On 18 January 1967 he was ordained by the Presbytery of Glasgow while assistant minister (1966-68) at Govan Old Parish Church, the church from which in 1938 George...
Lord, bring the day to pass. Ian Masson Fraser* (1917- ). Written ca. 1965-66, during the Scottish Churches' Music Consultation at Dunblane and published in New Songs for the Church 1 (Galliard/Scottish Churches' Council, 1969), which included material originally published in Dunblane Praises Nos 1 and 2. Since that time it has undergone slight alterations, changing 'thy' to 'your' and removing non-inclusive gender-based language. The hymn is characteristic of the Dunblane Consultations in...
MACDONALD, Mary (née MacDougall). b. Ardtun, Isle of Mull, 1789; d. Ardtun, 21 May 1872. She was the daughter of a farmer; she married a crofter, Neil Macdonald. A devout Baptist, she wrote hymns and poems in Gaelic which she sang at her spinning wheel. The best known is probably 'Leanabh an aigh', verses of which were roughly translated as 'Child in the manger'* by Lachlan Macbean* for his Songs and Hymns of the Scottish Highlands (1888) and set to the Highland melody called in hymnbooks...
BRUCE, Michael. b. Kinnesswood, Kinross-shire, 27 March 1746; d. Kinnesswood, 5 July 1767. The son of a weaver, he was educated at the local schools: he entered Edinburgh University, intending to become a minister, but died while still an undergraduate. During vacations from the university, he taught at schools at Gairney Bridge and Tillicoultry in order to pay for his studies, and joined a 'singing class' at Kinnesswood in which the members sang hymns composed by him, written down in a...
PATRICK, Millar. b. Ladybank, Fife, 28 June 1868; d. Colinton, Edinburgh, 2 August 1951. The son of a railway fireman, he was educated at Dundee High School and the University of St Andrews (MA 1890). His parents were members of the United Secession Church (part of the United Presbyterian Church: see 'Synod of Relief hymns*) and Patrick went from St Andrews to Edinburgh United Presbyterian College to train for the ministry (1890-93). When the USC merged with the Free Church of Scotland to...
DOUGALL, Neil. b. Greenock, near Glasgow, 9 Dec 1776; d. Greenock, 1 Oct 1862. He was the son of a joiner. His father was captured by the press gang and died on service abroad. When Neil left school at Greenock, he became a sailor in the merchant marine. In 1794 he lost part of his eyesight and the use of one arm in a gunnery accident while celebrating the victory over the French by Admiral Lord Howe on 'the glorious first of June'. Leaving the sea, he became a teacher of singing, and kept a...
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,...
MacNICOL, Nicol. b. Catacol, Lochranza, Isle of Arran, 26 February 1870; d. Edinburgh, 13 February 1952. His father was minister of the United Free Church at Lochranza, later moving to Dunoon. Nicol MacNicol was educated at Glasgow High School and the University of Glasgow. He then studied at the United Free Church Theological College in Glasgow, before being ordained as a missionary to India in 1895. He spent six years at Wilson College, Bombay, before moving to the United Free Church Mission...
Night has fallen. Malawian, translated by Tom Colvin* (1925-2000).
The original was written by a Scottish missionary, probably Clement Scott, about 1885, to a melody collected by him from boatmen on the Zambezi river, and which had become established as a Malawi evening hymn. Colvin made the translation while himself serving in Malawi. The melody is believed to be the remnant of a song about the Virgin Mary introduced by Jesuits some two or three centuries earlier. In performance, the hymn is...
No! not despairingly. Horatius Bonar* (1808-1889). First published in Bonar's Hymns of Faith and Hope, Third Series, 1867, where it was entitled 'Confession and Peace'. It has five stanzas. It was printed in A Church of England Hymn Book, edited by Godfrey Thring* (1880), and in the Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer, Third Edition (1890), edited by Edward Henry Bickersteth*. It was set in the Church Hymnary (1898), to a tune by Robert Prescott Stewart*, ST WERBURGH, which has...
O King enthroned on high. Greek, 8th century, translated by John Brownlie* (1857-1925).
The Greek hymn, 'Basileu ouranie, Parakleite', is from the Pentecostarion, the office book of the Greek church, where it was used on the eve of Pentecost. It is an 8-line hymn (printed in Frost, 1962, p. 374), from which Brownlie made a four-verse hymn for Pentecost, published in his Hymns of the Greek Church (1900). It was included in EH with a tune, TEMPLE, by Walford Davies*, and later in CP with a tune,...
One who is all unfit to count. Narayan Vaman Tilak* (1861-1919), translated by Nicol MacNicol* (1870-1952).
Written in Marathi, and translated by MacNicol, who published it in a periodical, The Indian Interpreter, in 1919. It was subsequently published in J.C. Winslow, Narayan Vaman Tilak, the Christian Poet of Maharashtra (Calcutta, 1923). It was included in A Missionary Hymn Book (1922) and then in RCH, in both books to the tune WIGTOWN (or WIGTON) from the Scottish Psalter of 1635. It has...
SMITH, Robert Archibald. b. Reading, Berkshire, 16 November 1780; d. Edinburgh, 3 January 1829. He was the son of a Scottish silk weaver, who had moved south to find work; Robert himself became a weaver, working in Reading and then in Paisley when the family moved back to Scotland in 1800. In 1803 he felt confident enough in his musical abilities to give up weaving and become a teacher of singing, and in 1807 he was appointed precentor of Paisley Abbey, where he made the choir famous. He...
BURNS, Robert. b. Alloway, Ayrshire, 25 January 1759; d. Dumfries, 21 July 1796. The son of a 'cotter', an agricultural labourer too poor to own his own house, Burns was given a good local education, read much as a child, and began to write poems while still at school. His family remained very poor, before and after his father's death in 1784. With his brother Gilbert he continued to farm, so unsuccessfully that he contemplated emigration to Jamaica. Before leaving, however, he sent his poems...
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,...
Scottish Book of Praise (1876).
The Scottish Book of Praise (SBP) was published in 1876, principally for the fashionable Park Church in the West End of Glasgow. It was a decade at the beginning of which the Scottish Hymnal (SH) (Established Church of Scotland) had appeared, and the co-incidence is defended in the minister's Preface: 'When the Psalm-book and Hymnal of the Church of Scotland were promised, the Committee for a time suspended their labour, in the hope that these works would meet...
The hymns written and sung by Scottish Christians have been generally more rugged, strenuous and theologically nuanced than those of their co-religionists south of the Border, reflecting the harsher nature of their physical landscape, the greater seriousness and intensity of their faith, and the intellectual calibre of their ministry. Scottish hymn writers may not have had the smooth elegance or artistic accomplishment of their English counterparts — JJ ended its entry on them with the...
Scottish Psalter (1564).
Words
The metrical psalter was of immense importance in furthering and establishing the Reformation in Scotland. Even before the psalter of 1564, the Gude and Godlie Ballatis* of the Wedderburn brothers (see James Wedderburn* and John Wedderburn*) had brought the spirit of the continental reformers to Scotland in the 22 psalms translated into the rough vernacular. The Protestant exiles, who returned from Frankfurt, Geneva and elsewhere in the years immediately...
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, arguing that the people...
Take this moment, sign, and space. John Lamberton Bell* (1949– ) and Graham Maule* (1958– ).
The hymn first appeared in Love from Below: The Seasons of Life, The Call to Care, and the Celebrating Community (Wild Goose Songs 3; Chicago: GIA Publications Inc., 1989). Notes with the song indicate that it may be 'used at times of commitment and re-commitment and also at the celebration of Holy Communion or marriage'.
The incipit of each stanza of 'Take this moment' is reminiscent of the...
That boy-child of Mary. Tom Colvin* (1925-2000). Written in Malawi to a traditional dance tune. The theme of naming reflects the fact that in Africa generally the name given is carefully chosen to express the hopes the family has for the child or to record the events associated with his/her birth. Here, through the naming of Jesus and the circumstances of his birth, the meaning of the Incarnation is simply and tellingly expressed. The song is shared between a soloist and a wider group.
Douglas...
The Gude and Godlie Ballatis (ca. 1540). 'The Gude and Godlie Ballatis' is the title generally given to a collection of ballads and other songs, probably, from internal evidence, originating in Scotland in the 1540s. If this date is correct, it pre-dates the Scottish Psalter of 1564. However, the first extant edition, which lacks its title page, is normally dated 1567. There were further editions in 1578, 1600 and 1621, with a title page describing it as 'Ane Compendius Buik of Godly and...
The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want. Scottish Psalter (1650).
This paraphrase of Psalm 23 is the most famous of Scottish metrical psalms, although its fame outside Scotland is comparatively recent. The text is that of the Scottish Psalter* of 1650, sometimes printed with the slight emendation of 'no ill' for the original 'none ill' (verse 3 line 2).
Psalm 23 is a psalm that is greatly loved for its beauty and its power to comfort, and it is not surprising that this version is now frequently...
The race that long in darkness pin'd. John Morison* (1750-1798).
This paraphrase of Isaiah 9: 2-8 was written for the Scottish Translations and Paraphrases (1781). It has a complicated history, and has appeared in many versions.
Morison originally wrote a six-verse text, reproduced in JJ, p. 1155, containing two blood-curdling verses (3 and 4) that do not accord well with the final vision of the coming of the Prince of Peace:
For thou our burden hast remov'd ,
and quell'd th'oppressor's...
The Saviour died, but rose again. Scottish Translations and Paraphrases (1781). This hymn is part of Paraphrase 48 in the Scottish Translations and Paraphrases, on Romans 8: 31-39. The full paraphrase begins 'Let Christian faith and hope dispel', and may have been the work of John Logan*. It was certainly different from the draft paraphrase of Romans 8: 31-39 in the 1745 and 1751 attempts, which began:
Now let our souls ascend above
The fears of guilt and woe:
God is for us, our Friend...
Today I awake. John Lamberton Bell* (1949- ) and Graham Maule* (1958- ).
From Love from Below (Wild Goose Songs 3) (1989). This begins 'Today I awake/and God is before me'. It is a morning hymn in Trinitarian form, affirming Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with a final stanza on the Holy Trinity. It has something in common with the Celtic hymnody found in Carmina Gadelica*: see the 'Morning Prayer' quoted in that entry:
Thanks be to Thee, Jesus Christ, Who brought'st me up from last night, To...
COLVIN, Thomas Stevenson ('Tom'). b. Glasgow, 16 April 1925; d. Edinburgh, 24 February 2000. He was educated at Allan Glen's School, Glasgow and at Glasgow Technical College where he trained as a mining engineer (1945-48). After National Service in Burma and Singapore with the Royal Engineers, he returned to Trinity College, University of Glasgow, to prepare for ministry in the Church of Scotland. He was ordained in 1954 in Blantyre, Nyasaland (now Malawi) as a missionary. This was followed by...
'Twas on that night when doomed to know. John Morison* (1750-1798). This paraphrase of Matthew 26: 26-29 was no 35 in the Scottish Translations and Paraphrases (1781). It is attributed to Morison on the evidence of the daughter of William Cameron, who marked her copy. According to JJ, p. 1180, it is based on a Latin hymn, 'Nocte quâ Christus rabidis Apellis', by Andreas Ellinger (1526-1582), translated by William Archibald, minister of Unst, Shetland (d. 1785).
It has remained as Paraphrase 35...
We cannot care for you the way we wanted. John Lamberton Bell* (1949- ) and Graham Maule* (1958- ).
First published in When Grief Is Raw (Wild Goose, 1997), this tender hymn was written to console those who have had the almost unbearable sadness of losing a baby. It takes a time and a tragedy that is very hard to bear, and expresses the 'mess of anger, grief and tiredness' (stanza 4 line 1) in delicate and gentle phrases that no other hymn writer had ever attempted to face. It must have...
We cannot measure how you heal. John Lamberton Bell* (1949- ) and Graham Maule* (1958- ).
This wonderfully comforting hymn comes from When Grief Is Raw (1997), having first appeared in Love from Below (Wild Goose Songs 3) (1989). The Companion to ICH5 (2005), p. 682, has a note from John Bell explaining that it was originally intended for use in Iona Abbey at services of prayers for the sick with the laying-on of hands, and the hymn appears in The Iona Abbey Music Book (2003). A hymn was...
Where high the heavenly temple stands. Scottish Translations and Paraphrases (1781).
This is the second of two paraphrases of Hebrews 14-16, numbered 58 in the paraphrases. It is thought to have been one of those written by Michael Bruce* for his singing class at Kinnesswood. It appeared in Poems on Several Occasions, by Michael Bruce (1770), edited by John Logan*. It was then found in Poems. By the Rev. Mr. Logan. One of the Ministers of Leith (1781). In this book Logan seemed to be passing...
Who would think that what was needed. John Lamberton Bell* (1949- ) and Graham Maule* (1958- ).
This Christmas hymn was published in Heaven Shall Not Wait (Wild Goose Songs 1) (1987), under the title 'God's Surprise', with each of the three stanzas ending 'God surprises earth with heaven,/ coming here on Christmas Day'. It was written for the American tune SCARLET RIBBONS by Evelyn Danzig (1902-1996), written in 1949. The note to this hymn in Heaven Shall Not Wait is 'The harmonised setting is...
Will you come and follow me. John Lamberton Bell* (1949- ) and Graham Maule* (1958- ).
These words were written for a 'one-off' occasion, the sending-out of voluntary workers on a Glasgow project for the underprivileged managed by Bell and Maule, with no expectation that it would be used elsewhere. It was written to fit the beautiful Scottish tune, given the name KELVINGROVE in hymnbooks. It was first published with the title of 'The Summons' in Heaven Shall Not Wait (Wild Goose Songs 1)...
HAMILTON, William (H). b. Barnhill, Dundee, 24 March 1886; d. Insch, Aberdeenshire, 25 December 1958. He was educated at St Andrews University and the United Free Church College, Glasgow. After ordination, he held various pastorates, until he became General Secretary of the World Alliance of Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in 1927.
In addition to being a United Free Church minister, he was a writer and editor (the Great Heart Magazine, 1921-28, Holyrood Anthology of Modern Scots Poems,...
CAMERON, William. b. near Ballater, Aberdeenshire, 1751; d. Kirknewton, Midlothian, 17 November 1811. He was educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he was a student and friend of the poet James Beattie. It may have been through Beattie's influence that Cameron became a member of the Committee of the General Assembly charged with producing the Scottish Translations and Paraphrases, which appeared in 1781. In turn, it may have been Cameron who introduced the dubious figure of John Logan*...