O Zion, haste, thy mission high fulfilling

O Zion, haste, thy mission high fulfilling. Mary Ann Thomson* (1834-1923). Written in 1868, while Thomson was nursing a sick child, to the tune PILGRIMS by Henry Smart*, used for ‘Hark! hark! my soul! Angelic songs are swelling’* by Frederick William Faber*. Thus the refrain, added three years after the six stanzas, runs as follows: Publish glad tidings, tidings of peace, Tidings of Jesus, redemption and release. It became part of the Episcopal Church’s hymn repertoire in the Hymnal (1892), although it had almost certainly been published before that time in The Churchman or The Living Church, the periodicals of that church in the 19th century. It has remained in use in the Episcopal Church...