Favourtie Gymns

Sunday 16th September 2007

  Hymn 94 In the Name of Jesus

First appeared in 1870 as a processional hymn for Ascension Day. The writer Caroline Maria Noel was the daughter of Canon Gerard Thomas Noel who was for many years Vicar of Romsey in Hampshire. She wrote her first hymn at the age of seventeen. However she suffered poor health. Her illness prevented her from writing hymns but she returned to this activity when she was in her forties. In the Name of Jesus  has a strong scriptural base. It not only announces the triumph of Christ’s ascension but also looks back to his humiliation and suffering and points forward to his coming again.

 

Hymn 80. Great is thy faithfulness

Thomas Obediah Chisholm was born in Franklin, Kentucky and chose teaching as a career before becoming editor of the local newspaper. He was subsequently ordained into the ministry of the Methodist Church and began writing poems. One of these was “Great is thy Faithfulness”, and he gave the text to the Methodist evangelist, church organist and publisher, the Revd William Runyan who composed the tune Faithfulness for its publication as a hymn in Runyan’s own Songs of Salvation and Service published in Chicago in 1923. In the 1950s it was promoted by George Beverly Shea in the Billy Graham evangelistic campaigns. The hymn is a strongly biblical expression of joyful confidence in God’s enduring and faithful provision for us. It is inspired by some verses in the Lamentations of Jeremiah, a book which poignantly describes the overwhelming sense of loss that accompanied the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and its Temple of Solomon in 586 BC. This “holocaust” has never been forgotten and today Jews still read these Lamentations each week at the |Western Wall of the city, more commonly known as the “Wailing Wall”. However Jeremiah focuses upon the  goodness of God which never changes. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamenations. 3:22-23).

  Hymn 93. I danced in the morning.

In seeking to understand this hymn, we might start by recognising the desire that many people have to express their worship of Almighty God through the medium of dance. Like speech, drama, or music, dancing can have the very positive effect of expressing things sacred as well as profane. Of course some deplore the use of dancing in worship. Yet there is biblical precedence for enriching our worship with the movement of dancing, David for instance, “danced before the Lord with all his might” “2Sam. 6.14); in the Psalms we are told “Let them praise his Name in the dance” (Ps 149:3) and “Praise him in the timbrels and dances (Ps 150.4); and Jesus compared “this generation”, without any indication of disapproval, to children in the market places, calling to one another “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance” (Matthew 11.16-17). It is suggested that if we study closely the artistic movements of those engaged in liturgical dance sequences we may recognise the discipline that is required and this can serve as a telling image of the Christian way of life. In this hymn Sydney Carter has given us a modern form of the old Cornish Carol, “Tomorrow shall be my dancing day” in which the life of Jesus is told in terms of a dance. This is a lively yet thought-provoking song, one that celebrates the full gospel of Jesus Christ.  The tune has associations with dancing, being probably one of the best known of some 10,000 tunes found in the Shaker hymn books. The Shakers or Shaking Quakers were members of the United States Society of Believers, a breakaway group from the Society of Friends (Quakers). They used to throw themselves into waves of ecstasy at the thought of the immanence of the Second Coming of Christ, and their assurance of salvation was expressed in free and disorganised movements of running, leaping, dancing and singing – hence the name “Shakers”.

 

4.     Hymn 127 Hark what a sound.

Frederic Myers was a School Inspector, working for the Department of Education in England for almost thirty years. He was the founder of the Society of Psychical Research and also published several volumes of poetry and essays. While he was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge he wrote a poem entitled St Paul which was based on 2 Corinthians 12.9: “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee”. The poem was published in 1867 when Myers was only twenty four years old. The final stanzas of the poem use the imagery of Christ’s Second Coming described in the closing chapter of Revelation. “Hark what a sound” consists of some of these stanzas. The tune Highwood is always used for this hymn was composed by Sir Richard Terry at the suggestion of his uncle, Lord Runciman. Highwood was the name pof a wood on Lord Runciman’s estate at Doxford, Nothhumberland.

 

5.     Hymn 325 Be still

This worship song was first introduced to the Church of Ireland in Irish Church Praise (ICP) in 1990. It has enabled people in all walks of life to find the spiritual presence of God in times of tragedy, grief and bereavement. The author and composer, David J Evans, tells us that he wrote the song in 1985 when he was involved in leading worship in what he himself describes as “new” churches. He said: “It grew out of concern that charismatic worship was becoming over-familiar with God. I felt we need to regain a sense of awe, wonder and mystery of his presence and like Jacob at Bethel, exclaim: “ Surely the Lord is in this place and I wasn’t aware of it. How awesome is this place!” (Genesis 28.16). The song turned out to be prophetic of lessons that Evans was to learn over the following years. He described his life as being in “a wilderness” that was to last several, often painful years – an experience that gradually led him into an abiding knowledge of God’s peace.

 

6.     Hymn 319. Father of heaven, whose love profound

In 1793 London-born Edward Cooper became a Fellow of All Souls’ College, Oxford and was ordained into the ministry of the Church of England. He became Rector of Hamstall-Ridware in 1799 and of Yoxall, Staffordshire ten years later. He died at Yoxall on 26 February 1833. A preacher of some repute, he published seven volumes of highly acclaimed sermons. He edited along with others A Selection of Psalms and Hymns for Public and Private Use in 1805 amongst which Father of heaven whose love profound was included. The hymn passed fairly rapidly into most English-speaking hymnals. It is based on the invocations of the three persons of the Trinity at the beginning of the traditional BCP Litany, compiled in 1544 by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer for use in the processions ordered by King Henry VIII at a time when England was at war with Scotland and France.The hymn for obvious reasons is very suitable for use on Trinity Sunday.

 

7.     Hymn 666. Be still my soul

Katharina von Schegel, the author of the orginal German version of this hymn, was comparatively unknown. She was born in 1697 and is thought by some to have been a Lutheran nun. She wrote at least 20 hymns, but only one that appears to have survived to this day is the translated form of Be still my soul. It first appeared in 1752 in Germany and over a century later it was translated into English by Jane Borthwick, the elder daughter of the Manager of the North British Insurance Company in Edinburgh. She and her sister published Hymns from the land of Luther. The theme of this hymn springs from our Lord’s words: “In you patience possess ye your souls” (Lk 21.19). It speaks of the Christian’s trust and submission to Christ. The hymn also emphasises that through all our afflictions, Jesus guides us and cares for us. He will keep us safe when the storms of life seem to overwhelm us, just as he did when he awoke from sleep in the boat that was caught up in a storm. He rebuked the winds and created a great calm. The hymn is believed to be have been a great favourite of the Olympic runner Eric Liddell, who was featured in the film Chariots of Fire as the athlete who would not compete in races on Sundays as a matter of Christian conscience. After becoming a missionary in China, he was incarcerated in a Japenese prisoner-of-war camp where he died of a brain tumour, but not before he regularly shared this hymn with his fellow-prisoners.

 

8.     Hymn 647 Guide me, O thou great Jehovah

This Welsh hymn has been amongst the “Top Ten” of the BBC Songs of Praise poll. So popular has it become in its English translation that it has since been translated into some seventy-five languages. Welsh supporters at Rugby internationals in Cardiff can frequently be heard singing it with vigourous passion and feeling, almost as if it has become a kind of national anthem. The original Welsh version of the hymn was written as early as 1745. The author William Williams (1717-91) was a product of the Welsh evangelical revival and was ordained a deacon in the established Anglican Church. Three years later he became a preacher for the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist movement. The text is full if biblical imagery drawn from the story of the Israelites’ pilgrimage from Egypt to the promised land of Canaan as told in Exodus. The purpose of the hymn is to portray the Christian life as a pilgrimage against the background of that biblical story. It is also a prayer that God’s care and protection will guide us along the road of life to a safe arrival at the end of our pilgrimage towards our promised heavenly home. The tune CWM RHONDDA, meaning “Rhondda valley”, was written by John Hughes, an official of the Great Western Railway and Precentor of Salem Baptist Church in Pontypridd, South Wales, for a Welsh Baptist singing festival in 1905. By 1930 it was said to have been sung at no fewer than 5000 such festivals.

 

 

 

9.     Hymn 636 May the mind of Christ my Saviour

Nothing is known of the author of this hymn, Mrs Katie Barclay, other than she was a member of the Church of England and organised Christian work amongst girls in West London. She is believed to have written this hymn around 1912 but it remained unpublished until it appeared in the Children’s Special Service Mission hymnal in 1925. In recent years it has grown in popularity and has appeared in both Anglican and nonconformist hymnals. The tune St Leonard’s was written for these words and named after St Leonard’s-on-Sea where it was composed and where the composer Barham Gould was living at the time. He was ordained to the Church of England ministry in 1927 and held two London curacies at All Souls’, Langham Place and Holy Trinity, Brompton. From 1936 until his death in 1953 he was Vicar of St Paul’s, Onslow Square, London.

 

10.   Hymn 549 Dear Lord and Father of mankind

John Whittier, the American author of this most popular of all hymns, was a strict member of the Religious Society of Friends, the Quakers. Quakers believed and taught that true Christian worship was marked by silence, quietness, stillness and inward peace. Whittier maintained that creeds, dogmas and religious expressions of outward show are unimportant compared to the ‘simple trust’ shown by the first disciples in response to our Lord’s call ‘beside the Syrian sea’. Having as our model our Lord’s life of prayer, sharing in quiet communion with his heavenly Father –‘the silence of eternity’ – we should wait to hear God speaking to us in the ‘still small voice of calm’ with which he spoke to the prophet Elijah on Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19, 11-12). The hymn was sung regularly in Repton School, Derbyshire and appeared in Repton School Hymns in 1924. The preface to this school hymnal was written by the headmaster, Geoffrey Fisher, later to become Archbishop of Canterbury. The tune by Sir Hubert Parry was named Repton after the school where it was first sung to Whittier’s words. Hubert Parry began composing at the age of eight and took the Oxford BMus degree while still a schoolboy at Eton. His father was opposed to music as a profession so he entered Lloyd’s Register of Shipping in 1870. However seven years later he abandoned this career for composing and teaching and subsequently became Director of the Royal College of Music. He is best known for the coronation anthem I was glad (1902) and his setting of Blake’s Jerusalem (1916), familiar to many through its regular inclusion in the annual Last Night of the Proms in the Royal Albert Hall.

 

11.Hymn 528 The Church’s one foundation

This hymn is automatically included in practically every English-speaking hymn book. It puts great emphasis on the universal catholicity and unity of the Christian Church whose very foundation is none other than Jesus Christ. And yet it was a hymn born out of controversy. It was written in 1866 when its author, Samuel Stone, was a twenty-seven-year-old curate at Windsor. Then the “Colenso affair” was opening up old wounds of division between liberal and conservative wings within the Church of England. John Colenso, Bishop of Natal had published A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans in 1861 in which he put forward unorthodox views on the nature of the atonement and the eternity of future punishment. He also questioned the historical accuracy of the first five books of the Bible. Colenso was bitterly attacked not least by his boss Bishop Robert Gray of Cape Town. Samuel Stone was not only upset by Colenso’s writings, but he was equally impressed by Gray’s defence which inspired him to write this magnificent hymn. He based the hymn on 1 Corinthians 3. 11: ‘For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ’. Stone moved from Windsor to become curate of St Paul’s, Haggerston where his father was the Vicar. In 1874 he succeeded his father as Vicar and wrote a considerable number of hymns, but he will be remembered above all for ‘The Church’s one foundation’. It was sung at all three of the 1888 Lambeth Conference festival services at Canterbury Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral. It was said that out of controversy the Church had found in this hymn a rich vein of truth – the foundation of the Christian Church is not human, but devine.

 

12    Hymn 288. Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son.

The author of this hymn, Edmond Budry, was a Swiss pastor who, after being educated in Lausanne, became a minister in the Free Evangelical Church of the Canton of Vaud, a breakaway from the National Reformed Church. In 1889 he became the pastor of Vevey, near Montreux on Lake Geneva. It was said that the death of his first wife inspired him to write Thine be the glory in 1884. Rolan Hoyle later translated the hymn into twelve different languages, all of which he read and spoke fluently. Hoyle was editor for some years of the YMCA periodical, Red Triangle, and included the hymn in the World Student Christian Federation hymnal. It was widely used during the 1948 Assembly of the World Council of Churches at Amsterdam.