O Lord of heaven and earth and sea

O Lord of heaven and earth and sea. Christopher Wordsworth* (1807-1885). First published in the third edition of The Holy Year (1863), where it had nine stanzas. In the Appendix (1868) to A&M the fourth and fifth stanzas were omitted. Church Hymns (1871) printed all nine stanzas; various selections from the original text have been made by other editors. A modernised version appears in HfTC (1982). The hymn was intended for charitable collections, and the tune ALMSGIVING, written for it by John Bacchus Dykes*, appeared in the musical edition of The Holy Year (1865). The hymn, like many by Wordsworth, relies on the cumulative effect of repetition and enumeration to emphasise its message...