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A Light is Gleaming ('When light comes pouring into the darkest place'). Linnea Good* (1962– ).
Written first for The Whole People of God church school curriculum (1992), Linnea Good's 'A Light Is Gleaming' appeared subsequently in Voices United (VU, 1996) the denomination hymnal of the United Church of Canada.
The song begins with a refrain inviting the singers to come and share in the light and love of God. Notable in its text construction, the line 'living in the light', sung twice in the...
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...
All who hunger, gather gladly. Sylvia Dunstan* (1955-1993).
Dunstan wrote: 'At the Hymn Society Congress in 1990 I had the chance to acquaint myself with the tunes of the Southern Harmony. After the conference, some of us vacationed at Folly Beach outside Charleston, where I worked out this text, wandering up and down the beach singing the tune HOLY MANNA.' The hymn was sung for the first time in worship that Fall at one of the weekly Eucharistic liturgies at the chapel of Emmanuel College,...
DONALDSON, Andrew James. b. Matheson, Ontario, Canada, July 22, 1951. Pastoral musician Andrew Donaldson is a composer, hymn-writer, and leader of congregational song, the third of seven children of missionaries in northern Ontario. He was educated in French and English studies at Glendon College, York University (BA, 1974), and studied classical guitar at the Royal Conservatory of Music (ARCT, Classical Guitar Performance, 1979).
From 1982 until 2010 he combined directing music at Beaches...
[This article considers congregational song in the Church of England (later, The Anglican Church of Canada) in that part of British North America which became known as Canada. It does not deal with hymnody in Newfoundland, a separate British colony until 1949, when it became a Canadian province.]
Systematic British settlement in Canada began in 1763, after France ceded sovereignty to Britain. During the 18th century, the singing repertoire and practices of the Church of England in Canada...
BRIGGS, Anna. b. Newcastle upon Tyne, 15 February 1947. Anna is the eldest of six daughters. Her parents, Harry and Gwen Briggs, were active in the church, the Labour Party and many other political pressure groups, and she grew up surrounded by campaigning and lobbying as a way of life, not divorced from, but an essential part of, her family's Christian beliefs.
She graduated in Political and Economic Studies from University College, Cardiff (1968) and took a postgraduate Diploma in Health...
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...
As comes the breath of spring. David Lakie Ritchie* (1865-1951).
This hymn for Pentecost is from the Congregational tradition in Canada. Alexander MacMillan (1864-1961) noted that Ritchie wrote this hymn for youth, featuring 'aspects of the manifold work of the Divine Spirit in the transforming of human life.' It was first published in The Hymnary (1930). The author, a Scottish Congregationalist, was Dean of United Theological College in Montreal. His use of vivid imagery makes the hymn...
Before the cock crew twice. Hallgrim Pjetursson* (1614-1674), translated by Charles Venn Pilcher* (1879-1961).
Hallgrim Pjetursson (Hallgrímur Pétursson) wrote fifty hymns on the Passion of Christ, which he completed in 1659. This is from the twelfth hymn, entitled 'Um ithran Péturs' ('The Remorse of Peter'), beginning 'Péter þar sat í sal'. It is still sung in Iceland at Passiontide and during Lent.
The translation of selected portions of Pjetursson's hymn was made by Pilcher in 1921 and...
POLMAN, Bert Frederick. b. Rozenburg, the Netherlands, 28 August 1945; d. Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1 July 2013. Polman spent part of his childhood in Indonesia with his missionary parents. After the family immigrated to western Canada, Polman received his education at Dordt College, Sioux Center, Iowa (BA, 1968); University of Minnesota (MA, 1969; PhD in Musicology, 1981); and did postgraduate work at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He taught music at the Ontario...
MILLIGAN, Carman Hilliard. b. York, Ontario, 20 March 1909; d. Ottawa, 14 April 1999. He was educated at the University of Toronto (MusBac in composition, 1937), and the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York State (MA in musicology, 1956). In 1982 he was made an Honorary Fellow in the Canadian College of Organists. He served as organist and choirmaster at St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Ottawa, from 1937 to 1984. Editor (1964-72) and chair of the Committee for the revision of The Book...
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...
CAMERON, Catherine Bonnell Arnott Oskamp. b. St John, New Brunswick, Canada, 27 March 1927; d. Claremont, California, USA, 26 July 2019. She was born into a Presbyterian preacher's family, which immigrated to the United States in 1935, at which point she became an American citizen. She was educated at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario (BA in English, 1949); and at the University of Southern California (MA, 1970, PhD 1971, in Social Psychology). She married Robert Arnott, a minister, from...
PILCHER, Charles Venn. b. Oxford, 4 June 1879; d. Sydney, Australia, 4 July 1961. He was educated at Charterhouse School (1892-98) and Hertford College, Oxford (BA 1902, MA 1905, BD 1909). He took Holy Orders (deacon 1903, priest 1904), becoming curate of St Thomas', Birmingham (1903-05) and Domestic Chaplain to Handley Moule*, Bishop of Durham (1905-06). In 1906 he left for Canada, where he taught Greek at Wycliffe College, Toronto, later becoming a curate at St James's Church (later the...
Christ, you are the fullness. Bert Polman* (1945-2013).
This is a Bible song on Colossians 1:15-18 and 3:1-4, 15-17; written in 1986 for the Psalter Hymnal (1987). Bert Polman wrote this unrhymed paraphrase of the New Testament epistle to ensure that a Korean folk melody, ARIRANG, would be included in this Christian Reformed hymnal. The biblical text reaffirms the new life in Christ. The tune was adapted by Bert Polman for congregational singing, and harmonized by composer Dale Grotenhuis who...
Christian, do you struggle. Bert Polman* (1945-2013).
This is based on an ancient New Testament hymn text about Christian experience of conflict. Polman comments, in the Psalter Hymnal Handbook (p. 751):
The Christian battle is 'not against flesh and blood' but against the 'powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil.' It is a deadly serious battle that requires Christians to 'put on the full armour of God,' which his Word and Spirit provide. This spiritual warfare is...
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...
The Consultation on Common Texts (CCT) is a North American ecumenical consultation which produces English-language liturgical texts and lectionaries. Members of CCT include representatives from over twenty church bodies across North America. The CCT was responsible for compiling the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) and, as a member body of the international group English Language Liturgical Consultation* (ELLC), helped to produce Praying Together (a collection of common liturgical texts).
The...
Crashing waters at creation. Sylvia Dunstan* (1955-1993).
A member of the National Worship Committee of the United Church of Canada, Sylvia Dunstan was the editor of the trial 1986 liturgical resource 'Baptism and Renewal of Baptismal Faith' that contained her own 'Prayer of Thanksgiving and Pouring of Water'. She wrote 'Crashing waters' to accompany that prayer, calling to mind the richness of salvation history. Published in the first volume of Dunstan's collected works, In Search of Hope and...
NIXON, Darryl. b. Vancouver, British Columbia, 1953. His musical training began in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with Donald Hadfield and Lawrence Ritchey. In Geneva he completed his formation at the Conservatoire de Genève with Lionel Rogg (organ) and Christianne Jaccottet (harpsichord), winning the Premier Prix de Virtuosité avec Distinction, and teaching at the Conservatoire as assistant to Rogg. While in Geneva, between 1975 and 1983, he served the Lutheran Church of Geneva as organist.
In 1983 he...
KAI, David. b. Toronto, Ontario, 14 May 1955. David Kai is a composer, songwriter, and arranger whose extensive body of work reflects his own background as a Sansei (a third generation Canadian of Japanese descent), and his eclectic musical training and experience. Kai grew up in Toronto, highly involved in the music ministry of Centennial-Japanese United Church, where he began playing piano for Sunday school by about age 10. By the age of 13 he was playing for services.
Influences upon him...
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...
Deep in our hearts. John Wesley Oldham* (1945– ).
Though John Wesley Oldham (b. 1945) has written more than eight thousand hymns and songs, 'Deep in our hearts' is his most popular and beloved. Written in 1994 while walking in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the text came to Oldham over the course of about an hour and a half. He subsequently sent it to composer Ronald Klusmeier* to be set to music, which did not occur until 1996, just prior to its performance in concert. It was subsequently published with...
Draw the circle wide. Gordon S. Light* (1944- ).
Inclusive language for humankind and for God was a strong current in the tide of liturgical renewal among mainstream Canadian churches in the 1980s and 1990s. Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian and United Churches responded to the call for new congregational song with collections that included not only strophic hymns new and revised, but also songs in many genres and languages from writers and composers around the globe. How seriously the hymnal...
Eternal, Unchanging, we sing to thy praise. Robert Balgarnie Young Scott* (1899-1987).
Written in 1937 for the Fellowship for a Christian Social Order, this is one of four hymns by Scott, who was president of the Fellowship. It was published on a broadsheet for an organization dedicated to world peace. Then Professor of Old Testament at United Theological College in Montreal, Scott began to write hymns about peace and social justice. The penultimate line is 'His comfort in sorrow, his patience...
For beauty of prairies, for grandeur of trees. Walter Farquharson* (1936- ).
Written in 1966, this hymn celebrates the prairie landscape and calls for responsible stewardship of the gifts of God's creation. Stanley Osborne*described it as a prayer: 'It asks us the question what have we done with the garden God has leased to us? Says the author, 'We threaten all existence with our blindness.' In the warnings of ecologists we may even hear the voice of God today, and it is clear that the author...
WHITELEY, Frank J. b. Sheffield, England, 22 December 1914; d. Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, 20 October 1998. Whiteley's parents emigrated to Dryden, Ontario, in 1919, when he was four years old. He graduated from Peterborough Normal School in 1941 and taught elementary school for one year. He studied at Queen's University in Kingston (BA 1944), Queen's Theological College (BD 1946) and the Victoria University of Toronto (MDiv 1970). He was ordained in the United Church of Canada in 1946 and...
GRAHAM, Fred Kimball. b. Oshawa, Ontario, 8 April 1946. He was educated at the Royal Conservatory of Music (ARCT 1966) and the University of Toronto (Mus. Bac. in Education 1967), winning a graduating scholarship and a Canada Council bursary which took him to Germany for three years to study sacred music and conducting. He completed a Fellowship in the Royal College of Organists in London in 1970.
Returning to Canada as a parish musician, he taught instrumental and choral music in Ottawa, and...
SCOTT, Frederick George. b. Montreal, 1861; d. 19 January 1944. He was educated at Bishop's University, an Anglican foundation, at Sherbrooke, Lennoxville, Quebec (BA 1881, MA 1884). He was ordained (deacon 1884, priest 1886), and after serving as a curate at St John the Evangelist, Montreal (1884-86) he spent a year in England as curate of Coggeshall, Essex (1886-87). Returning to Canada, he was rector of St George's, Drummondville, Quebec (1887-96); curate and then rector of St Matthew's,...
CLARKE, Frederick Robert Charles. b. Vancouver, Canada, 7 August 1931; d. Kingston, Ontario, 18 November 2009. He was educated at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, where he studied organ with Eric Rollinson, and at the University of Toronto, where his principal composition teacher was Healey Willan*. He completed the BMus. degree at Toronto in 1951 and the DMus. degree in 1954; his doctoral thesis was the oratorio Bel and the Dragon, set to a text from the Apocrypha. In 1952 he became...
From the river to the desert. Sylvia Dunstan* (1955-1993).
For the liberal Protestant church the adoption of the Revised Common Lectionary has meant a recovery of the church year and a need for hymns to mark particular events in the life of Christ. 'The Temptation', as Sylvia Dunstan called this hymn, was written for the first Sunday of Lent, 1989: 'I prepared this hymn on the temptation story. It is essentially a conversation between Jesus and Satan, bracketed by narration in the first stanza...
BLACK, George Alexander. b. Toronto, 8 May 1931; d. Paris, France, 1 July 2003. He was professor of French Language and Literature, Latin, Liturgy and Church Music at Huron College, University of Western Ontario at London, Ontario; and a Canadian liturgist, hymnist, organist and choral director. George Black served as organist and choir director at several Toronto churches before he moved to London, ON, where he continued leading congregational music while teaching at Huron College. As Director...
Give to us laughter, O Source of our life. Walter Farquharson* (1936- ).
First published in Praise to the Lord! 12 Modern Hymns with Contemporary Music (Oakville, Ontario, 1974), a production of Farquharson in collaboration with Ron Klusmeier*. This hymn was described by Erik Routley* in A Panorama of Christian Hymnody (1979). It was one of two hymns by Farquharson cited by Routley for their references to Canadian landscape: 'joining with stars and with bright northern lights,/ laughing and...
Go to the world. Sylvia Dunstan* (1955-93).
'Alan Barthel commanded me to write a hymn for the 1985 Emmanuel College Convocation, on the scriptural text of the great commission, saying, “And I'll need it Thursday to go to the printers.” So I did as he commanded me' (author's note). The hymn became an 'instant' tradition at the Emmanuel Convocations where Sylvia Dunstan was working on her ThM. degree and Barthel was professor of church music. The hymn's use quickly spread as part of the closing...
God who gives to life its goodness. Walter Farquharson* (1936-). A summer holiday inspired this two-verse hymn of celebration, written while the Farquharson family camped at Kenosee Lake in Moose Mountain Provincial Park in Saskatchewan.
It was sung at the ecumenical service of dedication for The Hymn Book (1971) organized by the United Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. Within a decade congregations in both churches across Canada knew it so well many had forgotten it was a 'new'...
God who hast caused to be written thy word for our learning. T. Herbert O'Driscoll* (1928 - ).
Herbert O'Driscoll recast the Collect, Epistle (Romans 15:4-13) and Gospel (Luke 21:25-33) from the Book of Common Prayer into language of the mid 20th century for worship on the second Sunday of Advent. The new hymn would fit in congregational worship with the vocabulary and structure of recent translations of the Bible and of Anglican liturgy. The 'thy' in the first line has been changed to 'your'...
God, who stretched the spangled heavens. Catherine Cameron* (1927- ).
This was written ca. 1967 for the tune AUSTRIA. It was published in Contemporary Worship 1 (1969), the first volume of an inter-Lutheran series of hymn and worship samplers issued in preparation for the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978). Cameron revised the language for LBW, where the hymn was shortened to three verses, and this version appeared in the joint hymnal of the Anglican Church and the United Church of Canada, The...
LIGHT, Gordon Stanley. b. Claresholm, Alberta, 7 May 1944. A bishop in the Anglican Church of Canada, Gordon Light was born into a military family. He has lived in Alberta and in various places in Canada. Studies at Carleton University (Ottawa) (BA, 1965), then at Trinity College (Toronto) (STB, 1969) led to ordination as deacon and priest in the Anglican Church in 1969. In 2001, he was consecrated as bishop for the Anglican Parishes of the Central Interior of British Columbia. Light worked in...
YARDLEY, Harold Francis. b. Salford, Lancashire, England, 11 March 1911; d. 10 October 1990. Yardley received an elementary education at Nicholls Hospital (1919-25) and worked as an office boy and as a farm labourer before emigrating in 1929 to Ontario, where he eventually settled in Toronto, working in the magazine and book wholesaling trade. He was unemployed during the early years of the Depression, and United Church superintendents in Toronto persuaded him to undertake lay pastoral work in...
WILLAN, (James) Healey. b. Balham, Surrey, England, 12 October 1880; d. Toronto, Canada, 16 February 1968. Willan's father was a chemist, his mother an amateur pianist who gave him his first instruction in music. He was educated at St. Saviour's Choir School in Eastbourne, Sussex, followed by private organ lessons with William Stevenson Hoyte in London. After a succession of organist-choirmaster positions in London, he moved in 1913 to Toronto, serving first at St Paul's Anglican Church, and...
BANCROFT, Henry Hugh. b. Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, 29 February 1904; d. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 11 September 1988. A student of E. P. Guthrie and J. S. Robson at Grimsby, Bancroft took his FRCO in 1925 and served as organist and choir director at Old Clee Parish Church for four years before emigrating to Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1929 to begin his Canadian career at St Matthew's Anglican Church. He completed an external BMus at Durham in 1936. During 1936-37 he served at the Church of the...
Here, Lord, we take the broken bread. Charles Venn Pilcher* (1897-1961).
Written in 1935, this hymn was published in the Canadian Book of Common Praise (1938), the hymnbook of the Church of England in Canada and a revision of the original BCP of 1908. Pilcher's hymn was in the 'thou' form normal at that time. The first stanza was as follows:
Here, Lord, we take the broken Bread
And drink the Wine, believing
That by thy life our souls are fed,
Thy dying gifts receiving.
The phrase 'dying...
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...
The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada (HSUSC) is comprised of poets, composers, publishers, teachers and scholars, institutional and public libraries, church musicians, clergy, and laypersons, and is uniquely devoted to encourage, promote, and enliven congregational song. Throughout its history of more than a century, The Hymn Society has worked steadily and creatively to promote congregational singing, encourage the creation of new and excellent texts and tunes, and support...
I believe in God Almighty. Sylvia Dunstan* (1955-1993).
This is a metrical version of the Apostles' Creed about which, in her own words, Sylvia Dunstan says, 'Although the United Church of Canada has a denominational statement of faith which is commonly used in worship, the national worship committee has been committed to fostering the use of the great ecumenical creeds. Encouraged (and nagged) by Fred McNally, I worked out this metrical version, which has not had the desired effect on United...
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.,...
Imagine the dream of creation (Caring Community). Pat Mayberry* (1950– ).
Mayberry credits Rev. Elisabeth Jones as co-writer of the lyrics of 'Caring Community' (2016). Listening from the choir loft as Jones spoke at church during a period of several weeks, Mayberry wove into the song Jones's images of becoming part of 'the dream of God', and of being a 'caring community' (Mayberry, 2021, email).
Pat Mayberry has collaborated in recent years with pianist, composer and lyric writer David...
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...
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...
DE BRÉBEUF, Jean, SJ. b. Condé-sur-Vire in Lower Normandy, France, 25 March 1593; d. Saint-Ignace, Canada, 16 March 1649. Born into a family that may have been related to the English Earls of Arundel, Brébeuf entered the Jesuit novitiate at Rouen at age 24, where he taught at the Collège de Rouen and was ordained priest in 1622 at Pontoise. A linguist, he was chosen to go to the missions in New France; he sailed from Dieppe in April 1625. After spending a winter with the Montagnais of the...
MIDDLETON, Jesse Edgar. b. Pilkington Township, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada, 3 November 1872; d. Toronto, 27 May 1960. He was educated at Strathroy and Dutton, Ontario; he attended Ottawa Normal School and taught school (1892-95). He took a job in Cleveland, Ohio, as a proof-reader and copyist for a book publisher, before returning to Canada to the city of Quebec as a reporter for the Montreal Herald. After five years he joined the Mail and Empire in Toronto as a music critic, becoming a...
AMBROSE, John Edward. b. Ottawa, Ontario, 30 January 1936. Minister, denominational worship official, and hymnal editor, John Ambrose received degrees at Carlton University (BA, 1959), Emmanuel College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto (MDiv, 1962), and University of Notre Dame (MA, Liturgical Studies, 1982). Following his ordination as a minister in The United Church of Canada (1962), he served congregations in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. He was called to create the...
GRANT, John Webster. b. Truro, Nova Scotia, 27 June 1919; d. Toronto, 16 December 2006. He was educated at Pictou Academy and Dalhousie University, Halifax (BA 1938, MA 1941). He attended Princeton University on a graduate scholarship before enrolling in Pine Hill Divinity Hall at Halifax. Ordained to the ministry of the United Church of Canada in 1943, he was appointed director of information to the non-Roman Catholic churches with the Wartime Information Board and chaplain to the Royal...
OLDHAM, John Wesley. b. Sarnia, Ontario, 11 April, 1945. John Oldham grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. He studied History and Philosophy at Carleton University, Ottawa (BA, 1966) before pursuing Theology at Emmanuel College, Toronto (BD, 1969). In 1969, he was ordained in The United Church of Canada. Over the next 25 years, he served rural and urban congregations across Manitoba before being called to Rama United Church near Orillia, ON. Conflicts in this pastoral charge led to Oldham being placed on...
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...
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...
Let streams of living justice. William Whitla (1934 –).
Set to Gustav Holst*'s THAXTED, 'Let streams of living justice' was written in 1989 as a response to the events in Tiananmen Square, in Beijing, China; and dedicated to the mothers of the disappeared (in Argentina), the author's home community of Holy Trinity in Toronto, and the people of Tiananmen Square. It was first published in Sing Justice, Do Justice (Selah Publishing, 1998), the result of the Hymn Society in the United States and...
Lift up your heads, O gates. Bert Polman* (1945-2013). A paraphrase of Psalm 24:7-9, written in 1986 for the Psalter Hymnal (1987). Bert Polman, co-editor of the hymnal, wrote this text for the vivid processional hymn tune VINEYARD HAVEN by Richard Dirksen*. The author retained the refrain sometimes sung with Edward H. Plumptre*'s 'Rejoice, ye pure in heart'*, which Dirksen had set in June 1974 in the form of a hymn-anthem for the installation of John M. Allin as the Presiding Bishop of...
Lim, Swee Hong (林瑞峰).b. Singapore; 11 June 1963.
Lim, Swee Hong is a Singaporean church musician, composer, and educator. Born into a Chinese Christian family, Lim inherited the faith of his maternal heritage as a fourth-generation Christian. His father (Baptist) and mother (Presbyterian) instilled the value of service to God. Along with his siblings, Lim was encouraged by his mother to serve the church through music-making. Lim began to learn musical instruments at an early age, planting the...
GOOD, Linnea. b. Boston, Massachusetts, 24 March 1962. Born in Boston, Linnea Good was raised in Fredericton, New Brunswick. From an early age she was steeped in music. Her father, Frank Good (1938–2015), was well known in the provinces of eastern Canada as a hilarious and engaging performer in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. At age 12, 'at an age when other kids were leaving the church', Good notes, she was invited to sing in the choir of the local Anglican church.
Good pondered a vocation as...
ADEY, Lionel. b. Wednesbury, near Birmingham, UK, 4 January 1925; d. Cadboro Bay, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 17 September 2009. Adey took his undergraduate degrees at Birmingham University, and his PhD in English at the University of Leicester. He taught in grammar schools at Sheffield and Leicester until he accepted a teaching post at the University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, in the Canadian centennial year, 1967.
Adey wrote two ground-breaking studies on the function of hymns in...
[note: 'French Canada' refers not only to the province of Quebec, but also to the pockets of French-speaking people in all parts of Canada]
Early history
Roman Catholic liturgical music was brought to New France in the 17th century by French missionaries and peasants. In the 1640s the Jesuit Relations (Relations des jésuites, Paris, 1632-72) referred to music sung by the peoples of the First Nations and French settlers. One of the songs that has survived and is sung at Christmas time in...
Long ago and far away (Fill the Cup). Pat Mayberry* (1950– ).
This song was composed in 2000. It was recorded by children on the album Kids Songs for Choirs and Congregations (2004). The editorial note under this song in More Voices (2007) identifies it as a 'communion song for all ages.' It is written with children in mind yet possesses a depth of imagery that also nourishes adult spirits.
The song begins with the textual formula of countless traditional stories for children: 'Long ago and...
MANZARA, Loretta, CSJ. b. London, Ontario, Canada, 4 May 1948. Loretta Manzara, CSJ, is a liturgist, organist, and hymnal editor. Her family's origins, and the rich cultural roots which fed her early life, can be traced to England on her maternal grandparents' side and to Italy on the side of her paternal grandparents. Music was a part of the life of her parents and their six children. After working his regular job at GM Diesel, her father took weekend bartending work to pay for her music...
Make a Joyful Noise ('Know the Lord God'). Linnea Good* (1962– )
Linnea Good's paraphrase of Psalm 100, written in 1991, appears in the psalter section of Voices United (VU, 1996). Her paraphrase retains the parallelisms emblematic of this Psalm, where each line repeats the previous idea but with variation and intensification of its meaning. These characteristic textual repetitions are well-matched by Good's choice of the cyclic song form, with its melodic reiterations rather than the more...
CLARKSON, (Edith) Margaret. b. Melville, Saskatchewan, Canada, 8 June 1915; d. Toronto, 17 March 2008. Margaret Clarkson moved with her family to Toronto at the age of four. As a child she attended St John's Presbyterian Church in Toronto where she would study a hymnbook during the sermons, beginning her lifelong engagement with hymnody. She wrote her first hymn texts at twelve. Educated in Toronto, she taught elementary school for 38 years, starting in lumber and mining communities in northern...
LEASK, Margaret Anne. b. Winnipeg, Manitoba, 2 September 1953. She was educated at the University of Toronto (BA 1976), Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario (MA 1983), and Durham University, UK (PhD 2000). Her Master's thesis was on the role of congregational song and the hymn writing of Henry Alline during the Great Awakening in Nova Scotia and New England, 1776-83( see Great Awakenings, USA'*). As a staff editor on Volume VIII of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, she oversaw the...
EDGAR, Mary Susannah. b. Sundridge, Ontario, 23 May 1889; d. Toronto, 17 September 1973. She won awards for essays, poems and plays written at Havergal College in Toronto. She took a BA in English, through extension courses from the University of Chicago and the University of Toronto. In 1912 Mary Edgar began her career working with the Young Women's Christian Association in Montreal. She studied at the National Training School of the YWCA in New York City in 1914-15, where she also attended...
GRAHAM, Melva Treffinger. b. Baltimore, Maryland, 16 January 1947. She began piano studies in Baltimore at the Peabody Preparatory School and organ studies with Helen Cullen. After two years at Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio, she went on to church music studies at the Berliner Kirchenmusikschule where she studied organ literature with Karl Hochreither and choral conducting with Martin Behrmann. Having completed the Mittlere Kirchenmusikalische Prüfung, Melva Graham returned to...
GUIMONT, Michel. b. 1950. Composer and choral director, Michel Guimont studied psychology at Concordia University, received his Bachelor of Music and Masters in Music Composition at the University of Montreal and attended Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. He has studied conducting with Canadian choral conductor Wayne Riddell in Montreal and attended numerous master classes with Frieder Bernius and Helmuth Rilling from Germany.
Director of music at Notre Dame Cathedral-Basilica...
KROETSCH, Murray John. b. Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, 7 April 1952. He was educated at St. Jerome's University College, University of Waterloo (BA in Religious Studies, 1974) and King's College, University of Western Ontario (MDiv, 1978); University of Notre Dame, Indiana (MA in Liturgical Studies, 1985); and postgraduate studies at Lateran University, Rome (2002-03).
Murray Kroetsch was ordained a priest for Hamilton Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in Canada on 29 April 1978; and was...
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...
[Note: The terms most commonly used for North American aboriginal peoples are 'Native Americans' in the USA and 'First Nations' in Canada. Anthropologists and ethnologists tend to prefer language group designations, which often are not necessarily appropriately designated by national borders][1]
In North American hymnody there is no Christian tradition or denominational heritage that embodies the volume of productivity of hymns and hymnbooks that exists in Native American languages. The...
The North American Academy of Liturgy (NAAL) describes itself as 'an ecumenical and inter-religious association of liturgical scholars who collaborate in research concerning public worship.' The stated purpose of the Academy is 'to promote liturgical scholarship among its members and to extend the benefits of that scholarship to the worshiping communities to which its members belong.'
NAAL traces its beginnings to December 1973, when Jesuits John Gallen (1932-2011) and Walter Burghardt...
O Holy Spirit, by whose breath. Latin, ca. 9th century, translated by John Webster Grant* (1919-2006).
Grant's translation of the 'Veni creator spiritus'* dates from 1968. It was made for The Hymn Book (1971) of the Anglican Church and the United Church of Canada, from the Latin office hymn for Pentecost written about the 9th century; it has appeared in numerous hymnbooks, including the Canadian Catholic Book of Worship (Ottawa, 1972, 1980 and 1994), The Australian Hymn Book (WOV, Sydney,...
PARK, Chai-hoon (Jai-hoon) 박재훈. b. Gimwha County, Gangwon Province, Korea (now North Korea), 14 November 1922; d. Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, 2 August 2021. Park was a composer and the foremost Korean hymnodist. His music-making and life influenced and shaped the development of Korean church music. He grew up in a Christian family, a rarity in that era, the youngest of the four sons from nine siblings. All four brothers became ministers later, a pledge that his mother had made to God. An...
MAYBERRY, Pat. b. Montreal, Québec, b. 29 November 1950. At age twelve, Mayberry moved with her family from Montreal to England. She studied Sociology at Durham University (Hons, 1972), followed by graduate studies in Social Work at the University of Edinburgh.(1975). After returning to Canada in her late 20s, she worked as a Hospital Social Worker and Clinical Practice leader in Ottawa before retirement.
Pat has been songwriting since her teen years and plays both piano and guitar. After many...
GIBSON, Paul S. b. Guelph, Ontario, Canada, 3 August 1932. He earned the LTh at St Chad's Theological College, Regina (1954), a BA at Bishops University (1956), and studied at Oxford University (1957) doing research on the moral theology of Tractarians. He holds honorary degrees from the University of Emmanuel College, Saskatoon; Huron College, London; Vancouver School of Theology; Montreal Diocesan College; and Trinity College, Toronto. In 2006, he received the Cross of St Augustine, presented...
DAVISON, Peter Wood Asterly. b. Montreal, 12 June 1936. After a year at McGill University, he went to Balliol College, Oxford (BA 1959, MA 1962), Cuddesdon Theological College, Oxford (1959-61), and subsequently to McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago (DMin 1989). Ordained in 1961, he returned to Canada, serving as rector in Anglican churches in Montreal and in Alymer, Quebec, and in Vancouver; before becoming rector at Bishop Cronyn Memorial Church in London, ON, where he also taught...
Presbyterian hymnody, Canadian
Canadian Presbyterian congregations for the most part have adopted hymnals sanctioned by their General Assemblies for congregational singing of hymns: Hymnal of the Presbyterian Church in Canada was issued in 1880 (full music edition in 1881), and The Book of Praise in 1897, 1918, 1972 and 1997.
Two seminal figures in the hymnody of the early Presbyterian Church in Canada were Daniel James Macdonnell (1843-1896), whose career within the church is extensively...
HOBBS, R. Gerald. b. Dundalk, Ontario, 16 July 1941. Professor of church history, biblical studies, and church music, Gerald Hobbs was educated at the University Toronto (BA, Victoria College, 1963; MA in Near Eastern Studies, 1965; and BD, Emmanuel College), followed by ordination to the United Church of Canada, (1966). He earned a doctorate in Reformation history from the Faculté de Théologie Protestante at the Université de Strasbourg in 1971, writing his dissertation on 'An introduction to...
PALMER, Roland Ford. b. London, England, 12 December 1891; d. Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 24 August 1985. He was educated in London at the Skinners' Company School, and (after leaving for Canada in 1905) at the Grove School, Lakefield, Ontario. He studied at Peterborough Collegiate Institute and Trinity College, Toronto (LTh, 1914, BA 1916). He took Holy Orders (deacon 1916, priest 1917). After serving in two parishes in Ontario, Engelhart and Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay), he left for...
HENDERSON, Ruth Louise Watson. b. Toronto, 23 Nov 1932. Internationally renowned composer, pianist and church musician, she was educated at the Toronto Conservatory of Music (1937-52) and the Mannes College of Music in New York (1952-4). In 2003 she was awarded an honorary Fellowship in the Royal Canadian College of Organists. From 1998 to 2013, Henderson served as organist and choir director at Kingsway Lambton United Church in Toronto. The elegance, melodic beauty and sensitivity to the text...
Sing of Mary, pure and lowly. Roland Ford Palmer* (1891-1985).
Written for the revised edition of the Canadian Book of Common Praise (Toronto, 1938), to which it was submitted anonymously (Palmer was a member of the committee). According to the H82 Companion, Volume 3A, p. 537, it was based on a poem of unknown authorship found in a pamphlet at Ilkeston, Derbyshire, ca. 1914, written for the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary. After the Canadian publication, the first two stanzas were printed in...
Songs for a Gospel People (Winfield, BC: Wood Lake Books, 1987). Songs for a Gospel People was a collection issued as a supplement to The Hymn Book (1971) of the Anglican and United Churches of Canada, under the authority of two annual conferences (Alberta and British Columbia) of the UCC. It was prepared by a team directed by R. Gerald Hobbs*, professor of church history and music at Vancouver School of Theology; with Darryl Nixon*, as music editor; and with the collaboration of publisher...
OSBORNE, Stanley Llewellyn. b. Clarke Township on a farm near Bowmanville, close to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 6 January 1907; d. Oshawa, Ontario, 7 December 2000. He graduated (BA 1929, BD 1932) from Victoria University, Toronto. After ordination in The United Church of Canada in 1932, he served as minister in Alberta at Paradise Valley, and in Ontario at Core Hill, Hay Bay, Timothy Eaton Memorial Church in Toronto, and First United Church in Port Credit. In 1948, he became principal of Ontario...
O'DRISCOLL, Thomas Herbert. b. Cork, Ireland, 17 October 1928; d. Victoria, British Columbie, 25 July 2024. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, 1951 and ordained in 1953. He became assistant rector at Christ Church Cathedral, Ottawa, Canada, in 1954. He served for three years as chaplain with the Royal Canadian Navy at Shearwater, Nova Scotia, before returning to Ontario (1960-67). He was Dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver, British Columbia (1968-1982), Warden of the College...
The flaming banners of our King. Venantius Fortunatus* (ca. 540- early 6th century), translated by John Webster Grant* (1919-2006).
In The Hymnal 1982 Companion (Vol 3A, pp. 327-30), Grant traced alterations to the Latin text, 'Vexilla Regis prodeunt'* up to modern Roman missals used as sources for 37 English translations published by 1907, as noted by JJ (pp. 1219ff), and described the circumstances of its composition. He described its effect through the ages: 'Its strains…confirmed to the...
ARMSTRONG, Thomas Barrett. b. Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, November, 1929; d. Toronto, 14 November 2009. Arriving as a student at St Michael's Choir School in 1942, Barrett Armstrong went on to study philosophy and theology at St. Augustine's Seminary in Toronto, was ordained in 1955, and completed licentiate degrees in Gregorian chant and sacred music at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome. He returned to St Michael's, where he taught from 1958 until his retirement in 2004,...
'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...
LEUPOLD, Ulrich Siegfried. b. Berlin, Germany, 15 January 1909; d. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 9 June 1970. He undertook musicological studies at Friedrich Wilhelm University, Berlin (1927–31), under such leading musicologists as Johannes Wolf, Arnold Schering, Curt Sachs, and Hans Joachim Moser; theological studies at the University of Zürich under Reinhold Seeberg, and in Berlin with Leonhardt Fendt, Emil Brunner, and Hans Asmussen, among others. His PhD thesis, Die liturgischen Gesänge der...
The Methodist Church Canada, the Congregational Union of Canada and 70% of the Presbyterian Church in Canada united to form The United Church of Canada on 10 June 1925. The first hymnbook of the new church, The Hymnary, was published in Toronto in 1930 by The United Church Publishing House. In 1971 the United Church of Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada issued a joint hymnal entitled The Hymn Book. It was the only product of a thirty-year dialogue towards church union. Voices United: the...
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...
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:...
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...
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...
WHITLA, William John. b. Galt (now Cambridge), Ontario, Canada, 1 May 1934. Whitla was educated at University College, Toronto (BA, English Language & Literature, 1957); University of Toronto (MA, English, 1961); Trinity College, Toronto (STB, Bachelor of Sacred Theology, Graduate Honours degree in Theology, 1961); Merton College, Oxford (DPhil, English, 1968).
He was Professor of English and Humanities at York University, Toronto (1963–94), and Professor Emeritus and Senior Scholar...
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...