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CARMICHAEL, Amy Beatrice. b. Millisle, Co Down, Ireland (later Northern Ireland), 16 December 1867; d. Tirunelveli, India, 18 January 1951. She was the eldest of seven children of David Carmichael, a prosperous owner of flour mills, and his wife, Catherine Jane Filson Carmichael. Her father died in April 1885, two years after the family moved to Belfast for business. Under the influence of her devout (Presbyterian) mother, Carmichael became involved in welfare work for the underprivileged from...
TUCKER, Charlotte Maria [pseudonym A. L. O. E. (A Lady of England)]. b. Friern Hatch, Barnet, 8 May 1821; d Amritsar, India, 2 December 1893. She was the daughter of Henry St George (1771/2-1851), who rose to the position of chairman in the East India Company, and his wife, Jane Boswell (d. 1869), who was related to Samuel Johnson's biographer. She had a privileged and largely secular upbringing, but underwent an Evangelical conversion around 1848, which led her to devote her life to God's...
NILES, Daniel Thambyrajah. b. Jaffna, north Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) 4 May 1908; d. 17 July 1970. He was born into a Tamil Christian family: his grandfather was a Methodist minister, and his father was a lawyer. He studied law, but then chose to become a Methodist minister; he was ordained in 1936. As a young district evangelist, he was a delegate to the International Missionary Council Tambaram Conference of 1938; he then became YMCA evangelism secretary in Geneva (1939-40), before returning to...
Discendi, amor santo. Bianco da Siena* (d. 1434). For details of the English translation and its use, see 'Come down, O Love divine'*. The Italian text was published by Telesforo Bini in Laudi Spirituali del Bianco da Siena, Povero Gesuato del Secolo XIV (Lucca, 1851). It contained a first verse of four lines:
Discendi, amor santo,
Visita la mie mente
Del tuo amore ardente,
Si che di te m'infiammi tutto quanto.
Followed by seven verses of eight lines. The final lines of the verses rhyme...
Dohnavur Hymns were those written in various books by the missionary Amy Carmichael* (1867-1951), who founded the Dohnavur Fellowship in India in 1901.
In keeping with her ideas about the importance of assimilating the local culture for missionary work, Carmichael wrote hymns for the children of the mission to suit their particular circumstances. In order to be accessible, she frequently used ideas and images from nature; one hymn, 'Sunset', paints a picture of a sunset deepening into the dark...
GOREH, Ellen Lakshmi. b. Benares (now Varanasi), India, 11 September 1853; d. Cawnpore (Kanpur), 1937. Her father, Nehemiah Goreh (later to become an influential priest of the Indian Church) had been excommunicated from his Brahmin caste for converting to the Christian faith. Her mother, Lakshmibai Jongalekar, died less than three months after her birth. Ellen was adopted by a Mrs Smailes, an indigo planter's wife. The Smailes lost their estate in the Indian Mutiny (1857-8) and were unable to...
Father in heaven. Daniel Thambyrajah Niles* (1908-1970).
This touchingly simple hymn in three stanzas was written for the EACC Hymnal (1963) to fit the tune HALAD by Elena G. Maquiso* . The tune had been composed in 1961 for an offering hymn (HALAD means 'offering') in the Cebuano dialect (see 'Philippine hymnody'). Niles's hymn celebrates Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It was originally in the second person singular ('Father in heaven,/ Grant to Thy children'). It has been altered to the 'you'...
COTTON, George Edward Lynch. b. Chester, 29 October 1813; d. Kushtai, India, 6 October 1866. He was the son of an army officer, who was killed in the Peninsular War on 13 November 1813, two weeks after the birth of his son. George was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College Cambridge (BA, 1836), becoming a master under Thomas Arnold at Rugby School in 1837 (in Thomas Hughes's famous novel about Rugby School, Tom Brown's Schooldays, Cotton is 'the young master'). He was appointed...
Golden breaks the dawn. (Qing zao qi zan-mei Shen). Tzu Chen Chao* (1888-1979).
First published in Mien ZhuengSheng Ge Ji ('Hymns for the People', Peking, 1931), it gained wider use from its inclusion in Pu Tian Sueng Zan (Hymns of Universal Praise (Putian Songzan, 普天頌讚) (Shanghai, 1936)*, a collection by six major Christian churches in China.. There are two translations, 'Rise to greet the sun', by Bliss Wiant* (1895-1975) and Mildred Wiant (1898-2001), in their small collection of Chinese...
I have decided to follow Jesus. Simon Kara Marak* (1877–1975). Formerly attributed to Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929).
Very few hymnals ascribe an author or composer to this widely sung piece, usually indicating 'Source unknown' or 'Anonymous'. Several hymnals produced during the decade of the 1950s include it, the earliest catalogued in Hymnary.org being Choice Light and Life Songs (Winona Lake, IN, 1950). It has appeared in over fifty collections in North America published since 1950.
Baptist...
In the secret of His presence how my soul delights to hide. Ellen Lakshmi Goreh* (1853-1937).
First published in Goreh's 'From India's Coral Strand': Hymns of Christian Faith (1883). It was entitled 'My Refuge', and was based on a text from Psalm 31: 20. Ira D. Sankey* introduced it to the British public during the London Winter Mission of 1883-4:
The hymn at once came into general favor, and the deeply spiritual tone of the words brought blessing to many. The song was afterwards published in...
Indian Christian hymnody
The beginning of Christianity in India is ascribed to the arrival of St Thomas—one of the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ—in the Southern part of India during the first century of the Common Era. Even though such an ascription is contested in some scholarly circles, it is certain that the Eastern Orthodox tradition of Christian faith was in existence in India quite early in the Common Era. The Indian Orthodox Church, Orthodox Syrian Church of the East, Armenian...
PAL, Krishna. b.1764, date unknown; d. Serampore, 1822, date unknown. Pal was a Hindu carpenter at Serampore, near Calcutta, India, who was converted and baptised by William Carey (1761-1834), the great Baptist missionary, in 1800, after which he became a Christian evangelist. He died of cholera at Serampore. Pal wrote hymns in Bengali, some of which were translated by Carey. The best known is 'Je Jone Apon Pan' translated by Carey as 'He who yielded up his breath' (available at...
Loving Creator. Daniel Thambyrajah Niles* (1908-1970).
This is the version in CH4 of Niles's Trinitarian hymn addressed in its three stanzas to the three persons of the Holy Trinity, beginning 'Father in heaven'*. In stanza 1 the CH4 version avoids the image of 'Father' for God, changing the first line, and also lines 7-8 from 'Father in heaven,/ Father, our God' to 'Loving Creator,/ Parent and God'. Stanzas 2 and 3 also have substantial alterations from Niles's...
TILAK, Narayan Vaman. b. Karajgaon Village, Ratnagiri District, Maharashtra, 6 December 1861; d. Bombay (now Mumbai), 9 May 1919. Born into a Hindu family of the Brahmin caste, he was greatly influenced by the writings of the 17th-century 'poet-saint' Tukaram (1608-1649), who wrote devotional poems and hymns in Marathi. Tilak was converted to Christianity (baptised 1895), encountering opposition from his family and friends. He worked for more than twenty years at the American Congregational...
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...
O thou my soul, forget no more. Joshua Marshman* (1768-1837), from the Bengali of Krishna Pal* (1764-1822), translated by William Carey (1761-1834).
Pal's hymn, 'Je Jone Apon Pan', must have been written shortly after his conversion in December 1800. It was later published in Quarterly Papers, for the use of the weekly and monthly contributors to the Baptist Missionary Society, January 1830). A 'free translation' was published in the same number (the author's name is not given, but the...
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...
GRANT, (Sir) Robert. b. Kidderpore, Bengal, India, 15 January 1780; d. Dapoorie, Western India, 9 July 1838. He was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge (BA, 1801, MA, 1804). He became a Fellow of Magdalene College, was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn (1807), and became King's Serjeant in the Court of the Duchy of Lancaster. He became a Member of Parliament in 1818 and a Privy Councillor in 1831, promoting a bill in 1833 for the emancipation of the Jews, which passed the Commons but was...
MARAK, Simon Kara. b. near Kamrup, Assam, India, 1877; d. Jorhat, Assam, India, 16 February 1975. Simon Marak, an ethic A·chik (Garo) man, was a schoolteacher, pastor, and missionary in Assam, a state in far northeastern India. He received his primary education from the Guwahati Government School with the financial assistance of the Kamrup Baptist Association (1907–09) and continued his study at the Government Training School (1909–12), supplementing his early years of teaching with work as a...
The great love of God. Daniel Thambyrajah Niles* (1908-1970).
Published in the EACC Hymnal (1963), with the note 'the Thai original is a chorus, which here is the first verse'. That first verse was written by Charoen Vijaya, of Bangkok, and set to music by him to a tune that he called THAILAND. Niles translated the chorus and added three stanzas to make what has become his best known hymn outside East Asia. He entitled it 'The Love of God in Jesus'. In Australia it was in WOV (1977) and...