O holy city, seen of John

O holy city, seen of John. W. Russell Bowie* (1882-1969). The Companion to UMH (1993) quotes from an earlier work (Guide to the Pilgrim Hymnal, 1966) to the effect that this hymn was written at the request of Henry Sloane Coffin*, the great New York Presbyterian minister and preacher of the social gospel. It was published in Hymns of the Kingdom of God, edited by Coffin and Ambrose White Vernon (New York, 1910) and in many subsequent US books, including The Methodist Hymnal (1935), UMH, and H40. Based on Revelation, chapters 21 and 22, it is a stirring cry for a better world in the face of poverty and misery, especially in stanza 2: Hark, how from men whose lives are held  More cheap than...