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Again the Lord of life and light. Anna Letitia Barbauld* (1743-1825).
First published in her friend William Enfield*'s Hymns for Public Worship: selected from various authors, and intended as a supplement to Dr Watts's Psalms (Warrington, 1772), where it was entitled 'For Easter-Sunday'. It appeared in Barbauld's Poems (1773), as 'Hymn III', with the same title. It had eleven stanzas.
Many different selections from the eleven stanzas have been made, beginning with William Bengo...
FLOWERDEW, Alice. b. 1759; d. Ipswich, Suffolk, 23 September 1830. Her maiden name is unknown (JJ, p. 379). She married Daniel Flowerdew, who for some years held a Government appointment in Jamaica. He died in 1801, and she suffered further distress when her son, Charles Frederic Flowerdew, died on 29 November 1802, aged 21. She opened a school in Islington. She later lived in Bury St Edmunds, where she continued to teach, and Ipswich. She has been variously described as a General Baptist and a...
All beautiful the march of days. Frances Whitmarsh Wile* (1878-1939).
According to Henry Wilder Foote, American Unitarian Hymn Writers and Hymns (Cambridge, Mass., 1959) (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/53833/53833-h/53833-h.htm), this was written ca. 1907 in Rochester with the help of her pastor, William Channing Gannett*. It had three stanzas:
All beautiful the march of days, As seasons come and go; The hand that shaped the rose hath wrought The crystal of the snow; Hath sent the hoary...
All Nature's works his praise declare. Henry Ware, Jr.* (1794-1843).
This hymn is dated 9 November 1822 (JJ, p. 1233). This was during Ware's time as pastor of the Second Unitarian Church at Boston (later incorporated into First Church: see https://www.uuworld.org/articles/exploring-bostons-churches). It was entitled, with nice Unitarian plainness, 'On opening an Organ':
All nature's works his praise declare To whom they all belong; There is a voice in every star, In every breeze a...
BARBAULD, Anna Letitia (née Aikin). b. Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire, 20 June 1743; d. Stoke Newington, London, 9 March 1825. At Kibworth her father was a Presbyterian minister teaching at the dissenting academy (her maternal grandfather, John Jennings, had taught Philip Doddridge* there). In 1753 her father moved to the celebrated Warrington Academy, where she thrived in the cultural and intellectual freedom and began to write, publishing (with her brother John) Poems (1773) and...
Awake, my soul! lift up thine eyes. Anna Letitia Barbauld* (1743-1825).
First published in her friend William Enfield*'s Hymns for Public Worship: selected from various authors, and intended as a supplement to Dr Watts's Psalms (Warrington, 1772), entitled 'The Conflict'. It had six stanzas:
Awake, my soul, lift up thine eyes;See where thy foes against thee rise,In long array, a numerous host;Awake my soul, or thou art lost.
Here giant danger threat'ning standsMustering his pale terrific...
Blest is the man whose softening heart. Anna Letitia Barbauld* (1743-1825).
This text is taken from the hymn beginning 'Behold, where breathing love divine'*, first published in her friend William Enfield*'s Hymns for Public Worship: selected from various authors, and intended as a supplement to Dr Watts's Psalms (Warrington, 1772), where it was entitled 'Christian Charity'. It had eight stanzas. The present hymn starts at stanza 3. It was published in Barbauld's Poems (1773) as 'Hymn IV'...
Brother, hast thou wandered far. James Freeman Clarke* (1810-1888).
This hymn appeared in Service Book: for the use of the Church of the Disciples (1844), and then in The Disciples' Hymn Book (Boston, 1844). This hymn was credited as 'Anonymous'. It is not clear why the authorship should have been so designated, when a much more polemical hymn such as 'For all thy gifts we bless thee, Lord'* was clearly attributed to Clarke. The present hymn remained his best known hymn for many years. It was...
Come, let us join with faithful souls. William George Tarrant* (1853-1928).
Written in 1915, and published in the Congregational Hymnary (1916). It was one of four hymns by Tarrant in the revised Fellowship Hymn Book (1933). It remained in use in Unitarian churches (Hymns of Worship, 1927, Hymns of Worship Revised , 1962) and it remains in HFF (1991), though not in HFL (which prints only two hymns by Tarrant). It had six stanzas:
Come, let us join with faithful souls Our song of faith to...
Come, said Jesus' sacred voice. Anna Letitia Barbauld* (1742-1825).
From Barbauld's Poems (1792). It was headed 'Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' (from part of Matthew 11: 28). It had five stanzas:
Come, said Jesus' sacred voice, Come and make my paths your choice: I will guide you to your home; Weary pilgrim, hither come!
Thou who houseless, sole, forlorn, Long hast borne the proud world's scorn, Long hast roamed the barren waste, Weary pilgrim,...
Come, though we can truly sing. John Murray* (ca. 1740-1815).
This is one of five hymns by Murray, all first published in the 1782 edition of Christian Hymns, Poems and Sacred Songs, Sacred to the Praise of God, Our Saviour, compiled by the English Universalist James Relly* and his brother John Relly. The book was first published in London in 1754, and the 1782 edition was published in Portsmouth, New Hampshire for Noah Parker (1734-1787), a convert of Murray's and preacher in Portsmouth...
Dark, dark indeed, the grave would be. William Gaskell* (1805-1884).
This comforting hymn was published in James Martineau*'s Hymns for the Christian Church and Home (1840, many editions). It was entitled 'The light of the Gospel on the tomb.' It had four stanzas:
Dark, dark indeed the grave would be, Had we no light, O God, from thee; If all we saw were all we knew, Or hope from reason only grew.
But fearless now we rest in faith, A holy life makes happy death,'Tis but a change ordained by...
SEARS, Edmund Hamilton. b. Sandisfield, Massachusetts, 6 April 1810; d. Weston, Mass., 16 January 1876. Sears was educated at Union College in Schenectady, New York (1834), and Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge (MA 1837). He was ordained as a Unitarian minister in 1839, but believed in the divinity of Christ, and had an interest in Swedenborgianism. He served churches in Wayland, Lancaster, and Weston, all in Massachusetts.
Among his many very successful books were Regeneration (1854, Ninth...
CHAPIN, Edwin Hubbell. b. Union Village, New York, 29 December 1814; d. Pigeon Cove, Massachusetts, 26 December 1880. Chapin was a Universalist minister, author, orator, social reformer, and writer of hymns. With John Greenleaf Adams (1810-1897) he compiled Hymns for Christian Devotion.
Edwin Chapin was a descendant of Samuel Chapin (1598-1675), born in Devon, England, who became a prominent settler at Springfield, Massachusetts. Among other descendants of Samuel Chapin were hymn tune...
CARPENTER, (Joseph) Estlin. b. Ripley, Surrey, 5 October 1844; d. Oxford, 2 June 1927. He was born into a distinguished Unitarian family: his grandfather, Lant Carpenter, was a noted Unitarian minister and schoolmaster, who taught James Martineau*, who in turn taught Estlin ('Joseph' was usually dropped). The family moved to Hampstead, north London, and Estlin was educated at University College School, London, and the University of London, where he read mental and moral philosophy. He trained...
Father! Thy wonders do not singly stand. Jones Very* (1813-1880).
The first eight lines of this hymn come from Very's Essays and Poems (1839), a volume that was published with the encouragement of Ralph Waldo Emerson*. It was entitled 'The Spirit Land', and was a poem of fourteen lines, one of a series of poems in that form and in that metre:
Father! Thy wonders do not singly stand, Nor far removed where feet have seldom strayed; Around us ever lies the enchanted land In marvels rich to thine...
Father, behold us here. John Murray* (ca. 1740-1815).
This is the third of five hymns, all first published in the 1782 edition of Christian Hymns, Poems and Sacred Songs, Sacred to the Praise of God, Our Saviour, compiled by English Universalist James Relly and his brother John Relly. The book was first published in London in 1754, and the 1782 edition was published in Portsmouth, New Hampshire for Noah Parker (1734-1787), a convert of Murray's and preacher in Portsmouth (Brewster, pp....
Father, to Thee we look in all our sorrow. Frederick Lucian Hosmer* (1840- 1929).
According to JJ, p. 1650, this was written in 1881 to mark the death of a member of Hosmer's congregation. This must have been during his pastorate at Cleveland, Ohio (1878-92). It was published in The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems, First Series (Boston, 1885), edited by Hosmer with William Channing Gannett*. It had four stanzas:
Father, we look to Thee in all our sorrow, Thou art the fountain whence our...
For all thy gifts we praise thee, Lord. James Freeman Clarke* (1810-1888).
Published in Service Book: for the use of the Church of the Disciples of Christ (1844), and then in The Disciples' Hymn Book (Boston, 1844), where it was entitled 'Feast of the Reformation'. The word 'Feast' in the title suggests that Clarke was attempting to create a new Feast Day, in opposition to the traditional calendar of Saints' Days and other days in the church calendar. It had eight stanzas, and was given as by...
Fountain of mercy, God of love. Alice Flowerdew* (1759-1830).
This is from the Third Edition of Flowerdew's Poems, on Moral and Religious Subjects (1811). It was entitled 'Harvest Hymn', and is of some interest as preceding the general establishment of Harvest Festival services. It had six stanzas:
Fountain of mercy, God of love!
How rich Thy bounties are!
The rolling seasons, as they move,
Proclaim Thy constant care.
When, in the bosom of the earth,
The sower hid the grain,
...
WILE, Frances Whitmarsh. b. Bristol Centre, New York, 2 December 1878; d. Rochester, New York, 31 July 1939 (places and dates from Henry Wilder Foote, American Unitarian Hymn Writers and Hymns, compiled for the Hymn Society of America, Cambridge, Mass., 1959), http://www.gutenberg.org/files/53833/53833-h/53833-h.htm). She was an active member of the First Unitarian Church in Rochester, of which William Channing Gannett* was the pastor from 1889 to 1908. According to Ronander and Porter (1966,...
HEDGE, Frederic Henry. b. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 12 December 1805; d. 21 August 1890. He was the son of Levi Hedge, Professor of German at Harvard, and his wife Mary Kneeland. Frederic, their only child, was sent to Germany at the age of thirteen to be educated, in the company of George Bancroft (1800-1891, later to become a distinguished statesman and diplomat). He was a pupil at the Gymnasium of Ilfeld (Hannover) and of Schulpforta (Saxony). Returning to the USA in 1823 he entered Harvard,...
HOSMER, Frederick Lucian. b. Framingham, Massachusetts, 16 October 1840; d. Berkeley, California, 7 June 1929. Following graduation from Harvard (BA, 1862) he served for two years as headmaster of Houghton School, Bolton, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard Divinity School (BD 1869), and in the same year he was ordained into the Unitarian ministry. He served the First Congregational Church at Northboro, Massachusetts (1870-72), and the Second Congregational Church, Quincy, Illinois (1872-77);...
Gracious Power, the world pervading. William Johnson Fox* (1786-1864).
First published in Fox's Hymns and Anthems (1841), in six 3-line stanzas. It is a characteristic Unitarian hymn, addressing God as the 'Gracious Power' that gives wisdom, light and love, and is the soul of thought and feeling:
Gracious Power, the world pervading,Blessing all, and none upbraiding, We are met to worship thee.
Not in formal adorations,Nor with servile depredations, But in spirit true and free.
By thy...
Hark, 'tis the Saviour of Mankind. John Murray* (ca. 1740-1815).
This is the last of five hymns, all first published in the 1782 edition of Christian Hymns, Poems and Sacred Sons, Sacred to the Praise of God, Our Saviour, compiled by English Universalist James Relly* and his brother John Relly. The book was first published in London in 1754, and the 1782 edition was published in Portsmouth, New Hampshire for Noah Parker (1734-1787), a convert of Murray's and preacher in Portsmouth (Brewster,...
Hath not thy heart within thee burned. Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch* (1809-1870).
From Bulfinch's Contemplations of the Saviour: a series of extracts from the Gospel history, with reflections and original and selected hymns (Boston, 1832). For the structure and arrangement of this book, see the entry on 'Hail to the Sabbath day'*. This hymn comes from Part VIII, 'To the Ascension of Jesus': section xlviii (the sections are numbered independently) is entitled 'Jesus appears to his disciples'. It...
WARE, Henry, Jr. b. Hingham, Massachusetts, 21 April 1794; d. Framingham, Massachusetts, 25 September 1843. Ware, a teacher, influential Unitarian minister, writer, and author of hymns (see Unitarian-Universalist hymnody, USA*), was born of the marriage of Henry Ware (1757-1845) and Mary Clarke Ware (1752-1805). His father was a Minister of First Parish (originally Puritan, then Unitarian-Universalist), Hingham, Massachusetts, 1787-1805, and Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard College,...
FOOTE, Henry Wilder (II). b. Boston, Massachusetts, 2 February 1875; d. Southwest Harbor, Maine, 27 August 1964. Highly respected author, scholar, and hymnologist, Foote was a Unitarian minister, teacher, and progressive figure whose ministry highlighted music, poetry, and art. Born to Frances Anne Eliot (1838-1896) and Henry Wilder Foote (1838-1889), the younger Foote had strong connections with Unitarianism and Harvard University. His grandfather, Samuel Atkins Eliot (1798-1862) was mayor of...
Ho! ye that rest beneath the rock. Edmund Hamilton Sears* (1810-1876).
This hymn was published in Hymns of the Spirit (Boston, 1864), an important Unitarian collection edited by Samuel Johnson* and Samuel Longfellow* (JJ, p. 1036), and this is sometimes taken as its first appearance. However, Hymnary,org has identified at least two earlier printings, in Children's Praise: a book of prayers and hymns for the children of the church (Boston, 1858) and the Second Edition of A Book of Hymns and...
BALLOU, Hosea. b. Richmond, New Hampshire, 30 April 1771; d. Boston, Massachusetts, 6 June 1852. The eleventh child of Maturin (1720-1804) a Calvinist Baptist preacher, and Lydia (née) Harris Ballou (1728-73), Hosea converted to Universalism in 1789. He spent several years as an itinerant preacher before taking his first congregation in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1809. He subsequently received a call to serve the Second Universalist Society of Boston in 1815. Hosea Ballou made a notable...
How blest the righteous when he dies. Anna Letitia Barbauld* (1742-1825).
According to JJ, p.1107, this was published in the Leisure Hour Improved (Ironbridge, 1809) with the first line as 'Sweet is the scene when virtue dies'. It was then included in The Works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld, with memoir by Lucy Aikin (1825), with the title 'The Death of the Virtuous'. It had five stanzas:
Sweet is the scene when Virtue dies! - When sinks a righteous soul to rest, How mildly beam the closing...
How blest the sacred tie that binds. Anna Letitia Barbauld* (1742-1825).
This was entitled 'Pious Friendship'. It was written, when Barbauld and her husband were living in Suffolk, for the marriage of Sarah Rigby and Caleb Parry at Palgrave in October 1778. Parry was a graduate of the Warrington Academy (McCarthy and Kraft, 1994, p. 274). The hymn was published in Barbauld's Poems (1792):
How blest the sacred tie that binds In union sweet according minds! How swift the heavenly course they...
Hymns of the Spirit (1864). This was the title of a major anthology edited by the Unitarian ministers Samuel Longfellow* and Samuel Johnson*, published at Boston, Massachusetts, in 1864. It contained 717 hymns, arranged in two principal sections: 1. Worship; 2. God and His Manifestations.
The first was divided into:
Usual Public Worship
Special Occasions.
The second was divided as follows:
God in Himself;
God in Nature;
God in the Soul;
God in the Life;
God in Humanity.
The subdivisions of...
I heard the bells on Christmas Day. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow* (1807-1882).
A version of this hymn, 'Christmas Bells', was written in 1863 during the Civil War, as a response to the news that his son, Charles Appleton Longfellow, had been wounded fighting for the Union side (Longfellow himself was a strong supporter of abolition). It was published in February 1865 in Our Young Folks, a magazine for young people published by Ticknor and Fields in Boston, and then in Longfellow's Flower-de-Luce...
Infinite Spirit, who art round us ever. James Freeman Clarke* (1810-1888).
See 'Father, to us, Thy children, humbly kneeling'*.
MARTINEAU, James. b. Norwich, 21 April 1805; d. London, 11 Jan 1900. He was born into a Unitarian family of Huguenot descent, and educated at Norwich Grammar School and at the school at Bristol run by the distinguished Unitarian Dr Lant Carpenter. He became an engineering apprentice at Derby, but decided to become a Unitarian minister and entered Manchester College, then at York, in 1822. In 1828 he became minister of Eustace Street Presbyterian Meeting House, Dublin, and in 1832 moved to...
STOREY, John Andrew. b. Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, 24 March 1935; d. Yeovil, Somerset, 5 December 1997. He was born into a Congregationalist family. Instead of two years of National Service, he engaged for three years in order to become a medical orderly in the Royal Air Force. He then trained for the Congregational ministry at the Western College, Bristol (1956-61), where he became interested in the study of comparative religion.
Storey became minister of a group of Congregational churches...
BOWRING, (Sir) John. b. Exeter, Devon, 17 October 1792; d. Exeter, 23 November 1872. He was educated at school in Exeter at an evening school run by the Unitarian divine, Dr Lant Carpenter. On leaving school he entered a business engaged in foreign trade, where he met many travellers and laid the foundations of his truly extraordinary linguistic acquisition, learning French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Dutch. He later became proficient in Swedish, Russian, Danish, Serbian, Polish...
HOLMES, John Haynes. b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 29 November 1879; d. New York City, 3 April 1964. Pastor, hymn writer and social activist, Holmes attended Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts (BA 1901) and Harvard Divinity School, (STB 1904). Following ordination by the American Unitarian Association, he served as minister to the Third Religious Society of Dorchester, Mass. (1904-1907), and then accepted the pastorate at the Unitarian Church of the Messiah, New York City (after 1919...
MURRAY, John. b. Alton, Hampshire, England, ca. 1740; d. Boston, Massachusetts, 3 September 1815. Murray is regarded as the founder of the Universalist denomination in America (see Unitarian-Universalist hymnody, USA*). He contributed five hymn texts to James Relly* and John Relly's Christian Hymns, Poems, and Sacred Songs: Sacred to the Praise of God Our Saviour (Portsmouth, Massachusetts, 1782). His wife, Judith Murray*, became an important American literary figure and Universalist...
HOPPS, John Page. b. London, 6 November 1834; d. Shepperton, Middlesex, 6 April 1911. He was educated at Leicester General Baptist College, where he trained for the Baptist ministry. After serving as minister at Hugglescote and Ibstock (1856) and at Birmingham (1857-), he became a Unitarian in 1860 and went on to serve as a Unitarian minister in Sheffield, Dukinfield, Glasgow, Leicester and London. Hopps published many books, pamphlets and sermons, many of which proved controversial: he...
BEARD, John Relly. b. Portsmouth, 4 August 1800; d. Ashton upon Mersey, 22 November 1876. He was educated at Portsmouth and in France (paid for by a member of the Portsmouth Unitarian chapel). He entered Manchester College (then at York) in 1820, and became a Unitarian minister at Salford, Manchester, then with the same congregation at Strangeways, Manchester (1825-64). He also ran a school to augment his income, and was enthusiastically engaged in promoting education for all. He was a...
WREFORD, John Reynell. b. Barnstaple, Devon, 12 December 1800; d. London, 2 July 1881. He was educated for the Unitarian ministry at Manchester College (then at York). He was appointed co-pastor of the New Meeting, Birmingham, in 1826, but was forced to leave his post in 1831 because of trouble with his voice. In conjunction with another Unitarian minister from Birmingham, Hugh Hutton, he then opened a school at Edgbaston, Birmingham. He retired to Bristol and died in London.
Wreford published...
MURRAY, Judith Sargent. b. Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1 May 1751; d. Natchez, Mississippi, 9 June 1820. She was an essayist, writer for women's rights, poet, and playwright. Possibly she was the first American-born woman to have a hymn published in a hymnal.
Judith's parents were Winthrop Sargent (1727-1793) and Judith Sanders Sargent (1731-1793). The Sargent family had been well established in Gloucester for several generations. 'In spite of his activity in introducing Universalism [cf.,...
HOWE, Julia Ward (née Ward). b. New York, 27 May 1819; d. Portsmouth, Rhode Island, 17 October 1910. She was the daughter of a wealthy and respected New York banker. In 1843 she married Samuel Gridley Howe (1801-1876), founder of the Perkins School for the Blind at Watertown, Boston, Massachusetts. Howe, who was much older than Julia, had old-fashioned views about the place of women in marriage, and she was repressed and unhappy, partly because her husband was bisexual and unfaithful. Her...
Lift your glad voices in triumph on high. Henry Ware, Jr.* (1794-1843).
This joyful hymn for Easter was first published in the Christian Disciple (1817), a liberal periodical, of which Ware was at one time editor. Its name was changed to the Christian Examiner and (in the words of Ware's brother) it became 'the principal, if not the accredited, organ of Unitarianism in the United States' (Memoir, 1846, p. 440). In the unusual metre of 10.11.11.11.12.11.10.11., it nevertheless became Ware's...
Long ago the lilies faded. William George Tarrant* (1853-1928).
Tarrant was one of the editors of the Essex Hall Hymnal (1890), a book for the use of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, and named after Essex Hall in London, the headquarters of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association. None of his hymns was found in that book, but in the Revised Edition of 1902 this hymn, with its beautiful first line, was included. It was entitled 'The Constant Presence'. It was loosely based on the...
AKERMAN, Lucy Evelina, (née Metcalf). b. Wrentham, Massachusetts, 21 February 1816; d. Providence, Rhode Island, 21 February 1874. She was an active Unitarian: some of her hymns were printed at Boston, with those of Jones Very*, under the title of Order of Exercises at the Unitarian Festival, Faneuil Hall, Tuesday, May 26 1863. Another volume, Nothing but leaves: a poem, was published at Philadelphia in 1868.
She married Charles Akerman. The couple lived at Providence, Rhode Island, where,...
My God, all nature owns Thy sway. Helen Maria Williams* (1759-1827). This is one of four 'Paraphrases from Scripture' from Williams's Poems (1786). This one is on Psalm 74: 16, 17. It was described in JJ as being 'in C.U.' ('Common Use'), and as found in Hymns for the Christian Church and Home (1840), compiled by James Martineau*. It is no longer used in Britain, and its time in the USA seems to be over also:
PSALM lxxiv. 16, 17.
My God! all nature owns Thy sway,Thou giv'st the night, and...
My God, since I can call thee mine. John Murray* (ca. 1740-1815).
This is the fourth of five hymns, published in the 1782 edition of Christian Hymns, Poems and Sacred Songs, Sacred to the Praise of God, Our Saviour, compiled by English Universalist James Relly* and his brother John Relly. The book was first published in London in 1754, and the 1782 edition was published in Portsmouth, New Hampshire for Noah Parker (1734-1787), a convert of Murray's and preacher in Portsmouth (Brewster, pp....
FROTHINGHAM, Nathaniel Langdon. b. Boston, Massachusetts, 23 July 1793; d. Boston, 4 April 1870. He was educated at the Latin school in Boston and Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1811, at the age of 18. He became a 'preceptor', studied divinity, and was ordained as minister of the First Church (Unitarian), Boston, in 1815. He married Ann Gorham Brooks, of Boston, in 1818. He received the degree of DD from Harvard College in 1836 (Putnam, 1875, p. 88). He was minister of First Church...
FROTHINGHAM, Octavius Brooks. b. Boston, Massachusetts, 26 November 1822; d. Boston, 27 November 1895. He was the son of Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham* (1793-1870), Unitarian minister and hymn-writer (JJ, p. 400) and his wife Ann Gorham Brooks. Octavius was educated at Harvard College (graduated 1843) and Harvard Divinity School (1843-46), where he was a contemporary of Samuel Johnson*, Samuel Longfellow*, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson*. He wrote of his time there: 'To enter at once the...
Our country is Immanuel's ground. Anna Letitia Barbauld* (1742-1825).
This is a selection of stanzas from a hymn published in Barbauld's Poems (1792) beginning 'Lo where a crowd of Pilgrims toil/ Yon craggy steeps among!' The usual selection of stanzas begins as above, which is different from Barbauld's first line ('...Emanuel's land').
She portrays the pilgrims as singing on their way:
“Our country is Emanuel's land, We seek that promised soil; The songs of Zion chear our hearts, While...
EMERSON, Ralph Waldo. b. Boston, Massachusetts, 25 May 1803; d. Concord, 27 April 1882. The brilliant son of a Congregational minister, he was educated at Boston Latin School (1812-17) and Harvard (AB 1821). After teaching for a few years, he returned to Harvard to study Divinity and Theology (1825-26). He was licensed to preach in 1826, and in 1829 he became junior pastor of the Second Unitarian Church of Boston. He married in 1829, but his wife's death in 1831 distressed him greatly: he...
COLLYER, Robert Staples. b. Keighley, Yorkshire, England, 8 December 1823; d. 1912. Collyer came from a poor family, which moved to Blubberhouses, near Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire, when he was a baby. His father became a blacksmith. Robert left school at the age of eight, and worked 14-hour days in a linen factory. When he was older and stronger he was apprenticed to a blacksmith, and found work at Ilkley and studied at night. Following the death of his wife and daughter in 1849 he became a...
GREG, Samuel. b. Manchester, 6 September 1804; d. Bollington, near Macclesfield, 14 May 1876. His father was a prosperous Unitarian mill-owner at Styal, near Manchester. He was educated at Unitarian schools in Nottingham and Bristol and at Edinburgh University. He became a mill-owner at Bollington, near Macclesfield, Cheshire, where he was a good employer, creating a model village, and providing educational opportunities for his workers, such as flower shows and music classes; but they became...
BALLOU, Silas. b. Cumberland, Rhode Island, 24 February 1753; d. Richmond, New Hampshire, 10 February 1837. Silas Ballou was the son of James (1723-1812) and Tamasin (née) Cook Ballou (1725-1804) , and a cousin of Hosea Ballou*. He was largely self-educated and his verses were popular with his peers. In addition to hymns, he wrote several patriotic ballads and occasional verses. He married Hannah Hilton (1756-1837) in 1774 and they had seven children.
Ballou compiled an early Universalist...
Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith (1875). This is the title of a substantial anthology of American Unitarian hymnody, edited by Alfred P. Putnam (Boston, 1875). Because Unitarianism was flourishing at the time, especially in the Eastern States of the USA, it contained much of permanent value by writers whose work has continued to feature in hymn books of all denominations, such as Samuel Johnson*, Samuel Longfellow*, Oliver Wendell Holmes*, Edmund Hamilton Sears*, and Sarah Elizabeth...
The voice of God is calling. John Haynes Holmes* (1879-1964).
Holmes' text was commissioned in early 1913 by The Young People's Religious Union of Boston, Massachusetts [Unitarian]. It was composed on board the S. S. Laconia during his voyage home from England. Holmes describes writing the hymn in his 'Introduction' to his Collected Hymns (p.18):
. . . here I was on a swift ship headed for New York, and not a line of my hymn written. I had tried my hand at composition several times...
Thy Kingdom come, O Lord. Frederick Lucian Hosmer* (1840-1929).
This was published in Unity Hymns and Chorals, Revised and Enlarged (Chicago, The Unity Publishing Co., The Abraham Lincoln Centre, 1913), edited by Hosmer with William Channing Gannett*, sub-titled 'A Book for Heart, Home, Church'. This hymn was entitled 'The Prophecy Sublime'. It is frequently said to have been written in 1905, but The Hymnal 1940 Companion (1951), gives 1904 (p. 317). It was certainly published before 1913,...
The group of British churches which collectively came to be known as Unitarian have been characterized by significant and continuous developments in their theological positions, moving from an broadly Arian position at the beginning of the 18th century to a clear Unitarian Christian position by the end of the 19th. Since the beginning of the 20th century some ministers and congregations who have adopted a more Universalist (and not necessarily Theistic) theology have even begun to challenge...
When God would prove his love. John Murray* (ca. 1740-1815).
This was the second of five hymns first published in the 1782 edition of Christian Hymns, Poems and Sacred Songs, Sacred to the Praise of God, Our Saviour, compiled by English Universalist James Relly* and his brother John Relly. The book was first published in London in 1754, and the 1782 edition was published in Portsmouth, New Hampshire for Noah Parker (1734-1787), a convert of Murray's and preacher in Portsmouth (Brewster, pp....
While Thee I seek, protecting Power. Helen Maria Williams* (1759-1827).
This was from Williams's Poems (1786), in which it was entitled 'Hymn':
While thee I seek, protecting Power! Be my vain wishes still'd; And may this consecrated hour With better hopes be fill'd. Thy love the powers of thought bestow'd, To thee my thoughts would soar; Thy mercy o'er my life has flow'd- That mercy I adore. In each event of life, how clear, Thy ruling hand I see; Each blessing to my soul more dear, Because...
GANNETT, William Channing. b. Boston, Massachusetts, 13 March 1840; d. Rochester, New York State, 15 December 1923. He was a member of a great Unitarian dynasty of the 19th century in the United States: he was the son of Ezra Stiles Gannett (1801-1871), a friend of the notable preacher and scholar William Ellery Channing (1780-1842, after whom William Channing Gannett was named, and by whom he was baptized); and the daughter of Anna Linzee Tilden (d. 1846: see Wider, 1997).
William Channing...
TARRANT, William George. b. Pembroke, South Wales, 2 July 1853; d. Wandsworth, London, 15 January 1928. He was born in a military barracks, the son of a soldier who was killed at the siege of Sebastopol in the Crimean War. He was apprenticed to a silversmith in Birmingham, where he fell under the influence of a Unitarian minister of the Churches of Christ, George Dawson. Encouraged by Dawson, he entered London University (BA, 1883), becoming the Unitarian minister of the church at Wandsworth in...
FOX, William Johnson. b. Wrentham, Suffolk, 1 March 1786; d. London, 3 June 1864. He was brought up in Norwich, to which his family moved when he was a small child in 1788. He was a clerk in a Bank at Norwich from 1799 to 1806, educating himself in his spare time. With the intention of becoming an Independent minister, he attended the Independent academy at Homerton, near London, serving briefly as a minister to a congregation at Fareham in Hampshire. After leaving Homerton in 1810 he moved...