Hail to the Sabbath day

Hail to the Sabbath day. Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch* (1809-1870).  Published in Bulfinch’s first book, Contemplations of the Saviour: a series of extracts from the Gospel history, with reflections and original and selected hymns (Boston, 1832), and then in his Poems (Charleston, 1834) and in Lays of the Gospel (Boston, 1845). Contemplations is a series of expositions of biblical passages, divided into eight parts. The present hymn comes from Part III, ‘To the Commencement of Jesus’ Public Ministry in Galilee’. The present hymn, Section xii of Part III (the sections were numbered separately), was entitled ‘Walk through the cornfields’, based on Luke 6.  The hymn became well known, and has...