Press on, press on! ye sons of light

Press on, press on! ye sons of light. William Gaskell* (1805-1884).  According to JJ, p. 406, this was one of the many hymns by Gaskell that appeared in John Relly Beard*’s A Collection of Hymns for Public and Private Worship (London and Manchester, 1837). It was not in either of the two principal collections by James Martineau*, Hymns for the Christian Church and Home (1840) and Hymns of Praise and Prayer (1873). However, it became one of the best known of Gaskell’s hymns in the USA. It had three stanzas, exhorting the faithful to work for a better world, in the true Unitarian manner. The last stanza draws on Matthew 25:   Press on, press on! ye sons of light, Untiring in your holy...