Mysterious presence, source of all

Mysterious presence, source of all. Seth Curtis Beach* (1837-1932). First printed in the ‘Order of Exercises at the Fiftieth Annual Visitation of the Harvard Divinity School, 17 July 1866’, having been written for that occasion. It first appeared in the Hymn and Tune Book for the Church and Home (1868). The hymn subsequently appeared in nearly every American Unitarian hymnbook in the 20th century, including Singing the Living Tradition (1993). Other books to print it included the St Alban Hymnal (Liberal Catholic Church, Los Angeles and London, 1921) and Hymns and Songs (Friends’ General Conference, 1924). In Britain it appeared in the Essex Hall Hymnal (1902) and in subsequent Unitarian...