"To lay aside His crown..."

A good Lenten hymn. The last two verses here were unfamiliar to me, but I like them.

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
To lay aside his crown for my soul, for my soul,
To lay aside his crown for my soul.

To God and to the Lamb, I will sing, I will sing;
To God and to the Lamb, I will sing.
To God and to the Lamb who is the great I AM;
While millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing;
While millions join the theme, I will sing.

And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on.
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing and joyful be;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on.

Then friends shall meet again, who have loved, who have loved,
Then friends shall meet again, who have loved;
Then friends shall meet again, in Jesus' presence, when
We'll meet to part no more, who have loved, who have loved,
We'll meet to part no more, who have loved.

Ye winged seraphs, fly! Bear the news, bear the news.
Ye winged seraphs fly! bear the news;
Ye winged seraphs fly! Like comets through the sky,
Fill vast eternity with the news, with the news,
Fill vast eternity with the news!

Anonymous; composite; 19th cent.

Tune: WONDROUS LOVE (6.6.6.3.6.6.6.6.6.3.)

American folk tune; The Southern Harmony, 1840

Conjubilant with Song included this about the hymn, which first appeared in 1811:

The tune for this hymn, adapted from an earlier folk tune, was first printed in the second edition of William Walker's The Southern Harmony (1840), in three-part harmony (and with only one stanza of the text). There have been many different arrangements of the tune since then, not only in hymnals but also as choral anthems and instrumental pieces.

Conjubilant with Song: Like Comets Through the Sky

"May I but safely reach my home"

Re-posted

From Conjubilant With Song: Safely Reach My Home:

.... A simple, four stanza text by Isaac Watts, first published in 1707, which appeared under the epigraph The hope of heaven our support under trials on earth.... It could be set to many different tunes in Common Meter (8.6.8.6.) such as ST. ANNE or WINCHESTER OLD, tunes which were known in Watts's time. However, it has become more familiar in this country with a folk tune from Scotland which was arranged in an early American tune collection titled Kentucky Harmony (1817).

When I can read my title clear To mansions in the skies, I'll bid farewell to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes. And wipe my weeping eyes, And wipe my weeping eyes I'll bid farewell to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes.	Let cares, like a wild deluge come, And storms of sorrow fall! May I but safely reach my home, My God, my heav’n, my all. My God, my heav'n, my all, My God, my heav'n, my all, May I but safely reach my home, Ay God, my heav'n, my all.
Should earth against my soul engage, And fiery darts be hurled, Then I can smile at Satan’s rage, And face a frowning world. And face a frowning world, And face a frowning world, Then I can smile at Satan’s rage, And face a frowning world.	There shall I bathe my weary soul In seas of heav’nly rest, And not a wave of trouble roll, Across my peaceful breast. Across my peaceful breast, Across my peaceful breast, And not a wave of trouble roll, Across my peaceful breast.

Isaac Watts, 1707
Tune: PISGAH (8.6.8.6.6.6.8.6.)
Scottish tune, arr. Joseph C. Lowry, 1817
Conjubilant With Song: Safely Reach My Home

Heaven

Joni Eareckson Tada reflecting on the hymn "When We All Get to Heaven":

.... Shining in brilliant beauty, with no more pain or sorrow, dementia, or disability. We will shed these travails as we would a heavy coat slipping from our shoulders, and we'll finally comprehend that the whole plan of redemption—all the suffering—was the Father's way of securing for his Son a wonderful gift: a radiant bride. And to think we can brighten that radiance, for it will be made plain how our suffering prepared us for such shining glory! Charles Spurgeon writes:

We make too much of this poor life, for the trials that now weigh us down will soon vanish like morning dew. We are only here long enough to feel an April shower of pain, then we are gone among the unfading flowers of the endless May. So, put things in order. Allot to this brief life its brief consideration, and to everlasting glory, its weight of happy meditations.

Now picture it. You and I among great multitudes of the redeemed, pulsing with joy and infused with light. We are surrounded by the angelic host, and we happily press in line with the great procession of the saved, streaming through gates of pearl, an infinite cavalcade from earth's wide bounds and the oceans' farthest coasts, all in one joyous parade countless generations, all lifting our diadems before God. ....

Joni Eareckson Tada, Songs of Suffering: 25 Hymns and Devotions for Weary Souls, Crossway, 2022.

"Be our strength..."

1 Father, hear the prayer we offer:     not for ease that prayer shall be, but for strength that we may ever live our lives courageously.	3 Not forever by still waters would we idly rest and stay; but would smite the living fountains from the rocks along our way.
2 Not forever in green pastures do we ask our way to be; but the steep and rugged pathway may we tread rejoicingly.	4 Be our strength in hours of weakness, in our wanderings be our guide; through endeavour, failure, danger, Father, be Thou at our side.

"Without our aid..."

Re-posted, updated, from a very early post here:

Know that the LORD is God indeed;
Without our aid He did us make;
We are His flock, He doth us feed,
And for His sheep He doth us take.
Old 100^th

In the KJV, verse 3 of Psalm 100 reads "Know ye that the LORD He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture." Old 100^th reworks the second phrase to read "Without our aid He did us make." I've always liked that. It is an important reminder, particularly to those of us inclined to the sin of Pride, which is to say all of us.

In the late 1980s, browsing through CDs in a music store in London, I came across Psalms of Scotland by the Scottish Philharmonic Singers. It is a wonderful collection, beautifully sung, of twenty selections from the Scottish Psalter. The image here is of that CD. I was pleased to discover this morning that the recording is still available from Amazon here.

There have always been those who believe that only the Psalms should be sung in church. Like Watts, the early Seventh Day Baptist hymn writer, Joseph Stennett, was consequently very careful to establish the Biblical basis for hymns that were not paraphrases of the Psalms. Although singing only the Psalms seems needlessly restrictive, they should certainly be an important part of worship. That is, after all, what they are intended for, and there is a rich heritage to enjoy.

Towner

I have collected a pretty good selection of hymnbooks from various Christian traditions, recent, and some from the past. One of the more curious is Towner's Male Choir (1894) described by its editor as "a most helpful accessory in the service of praise, more especially for Y.M.C.A., Y.P.S.C.E, and Evangelistic meetings." My copy is stamped inside the front cover "Alfred University School of Theology," which was the Seventh Day Baptist theological school. It was common around the turn of the last century for college-age male quartets to travel the country in the summer break months singing at SDB churches and at revival services. Towner was often what they sang from. Leafing through my copy this afternoon I found Towner's version of "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say," a familiar hymn, but, of course, here arranged for a male quartet. The image can be enlarged.

D.B. Towner, Towner's Male Choir, Fleming H. Revell, 1894.

At the beginning of Lent

A good hymn for Ash Wednesday:  "Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy" (Joseph Hart, 1759):

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, Weak and wounded, sick and sore; Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity, love and power. Refrain	View Him prostrate in the garden; On the ground your Maker lies. On the bloody tree behold Him; Sinner, will this not suffice? Refrain
I will arise and go to Jesus, He will embrace me in His arms; In the arms of my dear Savior, O there are ten thousand charms.	Lo! th’incarnate God ascended, Pleads the merit of His blood: Venture on Him, venture wholly, Let no other trust intrude. Refrain
Come, ye thirsty, come, and welcome, God’s free bounty glorify; True belief and true repentance, Every grace that brings you nigh. Refrain	Let not conscience make you linger, Not of fitness fondly dream; All the fitness He requireth Is to feel your need of Him. Refrain
Come, ye weary, heavy laden, Lost and ruined by the fall; If you tarry till you’re better, You will never come at all. Refrain

A variation on the hymn by the Missouri All State Choir:

"O to grace how great a debtor..."

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing Thy grace; Streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it, mount of Thy redeeming love.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer; hither by Thy help I’m come; And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home. Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God; He, to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be! Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.

On the writer of the hymn:

Born at Swaffham in Norfolk, the son of poor parents, apprenticed as a boy to a London hairdresser, and a somewhat dissolute youth — such was the unpromising beginning to the life of Robert Robinson, the author of this hymn. But then the grace of God intervened. At the age of seventeen he came under the influence of George Whitefield, was converted, and dedicated himself to Christ's service. Six years later (1758) when in charge of a Methodist chapel in Mildenhall, Suffolk, he wrote this hymn, a hymn of providence and grace, as it has well been called.

Clearly it reflects something of the author's own spiritual history and is an outpouring of praise for what God had done for him:

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
    Wandering from the fold of God ...

And so he cries:

Oh, to grace how great a debtor
   Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy grace, Lord, like a fetter,
   Bind my wandering heart to thee.

Frank Colquhoun, A Hymn Companion, 1985.

"Lo, He comes..."

Advent is a time about the "already but not yet": the time between the coming of Messiah and the time when He comes again. Three prayers composed for this season:

ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which Thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when He shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through Him who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.

O LORD, raise up, we pray Thee, Thy power, and come among us, and with great might succour us; that whereas, through our sins and wickedness, we are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us, Thy bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, be honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

ALMIGHTY God, we beseech Thee, grant unto Thy people grace that they may wait with vigilance for the advent of Thy Son our Lord, that when He shall arise from Thy right hand to visit the earth in righteousness and Thy people with salvation, He may not find us sleeping in sin, but diligent in Thy service, and rejoicing in Thy praises, that so we may enter in with Him unto the marriage of the Lamb; through His merits, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

All Saints'

A hymn most appropriate for All Saints' Day sung to Ralph Vaughan Williams's SINE NOMINE ("without name"):

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well-fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on His way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
Singing to God, the Son, and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

When trav’ling days are over

Mom's favorite hymn:

Sing the wondrous love of Jesus, Sing His mercy and His grace; In the mansions bright and blessed He’ll prepare for us a place.    Refrain	Let us then be true and faithful, Trusting, serving every day; Just one glimpse of Him in glory Will the toils of life repay.    Refrain
When we all get to Heaven,    What a day of rejoicing that will be!       When we all see Jesus,    We’ll sing and shout the victory!	Onward to the prize before us! Soon His beauty we’ll behold; Soon the pearly gates will open; We shall tread the streets of gold.    Refrain
While we walk the pilgrim pathway, Clouds will overspread the sky; But when trav’ling days are over, Not a shadow, not a sigh.    Refrain

How can I keep from singing?

A friend recently called my attention to this hymn. It was unfamiliar to me although far from new. It's a 19^th century hymn by Robert Lowry who also wrote, among others, "Shall We Gather at the River?" "I Need Thee Every Hour," "All the Way My Saviour Leads Me," and "We're Marching to Zion."

How Can I Keep From Singing?

My life flows on in endless song, above earth’s lamentation. I catch the sweet, though far-off hymn that hails a new creation.	What though my joys and comforts die, I know my Savior liveth. What though the darkness gather round? Songs in the night he giveth. [Refrain]
Refrain: No storm can shake my inmost calm      while to that Rock I’m clinging. Since Love is lord of heav’n and earth, how can I keep from singing?	The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart, a fountain ever springing! All things are mine since I am his! How can I keep from singing? [Refrain]
Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear that music ringing. It finds an echo in my soul. How can I keep from singing? [Refrain]	Robert Lowry (1826-1899)

Robert Lowry, "My Life Goes on in Endless Song," Hymntime, Robert Lowry in Wikipedia.

"Where the weary shall toil no more"

A friend recently linked to a song about West Virginia (where I was born) that reminded me of a chorus sung at my mother's funeral by a male quartet. Mom was born and grew up in West Virginia. "Beautiful Hills" isn't about West Virginia, it is about Heaven (not "almost Heaven"), but it was appropriate. The pages below are from The Milton College Carmina (1928) and the music was harmonized by J.M. Stillman, a professor at that college, my alma mater. (the images can be enlarged)

 

 

 

 

We've been here before

A test for just how badly everything is going:

The test is from a 2018 commentary by Irish essayist Fintan O’Toole. He calls it “the Yeats test.” He wrote, “The proposition is simple: the more quotable Yeats seems to commentators and politicians, the worse things are.”

Specifically, O’Toole references William Butler Yeats’s “magnificently doom-laden” 1919 poem “The Second Coming.” You may have heard many parts of this poem all your life without realizing it: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold,” “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

Yeats wrote this poem at a time when it indeed seemed, as his poem says, that “mere anarchy” had been unleashed on the world—with the seismic catastrophes of the 1918 flu pandemic and, of course, World War I. O’Toole argues that when speeches repeatedly cite this poem or when Google searches magnify looking for its phrases, times often feel especially chaotic.

The reverse is true, he says, if we see a spike in quotations from another Irish poet, Seamus Heaney—such as his phrase “hope and history rhyme.” When we hear leaders use lines like that, times may feel more stable. ....

Even so, O’Toole argues, in all its bleakness, “The Second Coming” is kind of a sign of hope.

“It reminds us that we’ve been here before, that the current sense of profound unsettlement is not unique in modern history,” he writes. “Perhaps especially on social media, where everything exists in a continuous, frantic present tense, the insertion of Yeats might do something to provoke a wider reflection on the big things that are happening around us and where they might lead.” ....

Regardless, even when it seems the “center cannot hold,” we can remember, as the hymn teaches us, “In every high and stormy gale / My anchor holds within the veil.” Things fall apart, yes. But Christ “is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). (more)

Russell Moore, "The Dwight Schrute Theory of American Culture," Christianity Today, May 19, 2023.

Abide with me

Patrick Kurp today:

.... The worthy dead are to be remembered. I take that to mean the personal dead – family, friends – and those we know only second-hand, perhaps through books or history. Memory grants a post-mortem immortality. Only when the last to remember the dead person is gone is he truly dead. Memory reanimates. The Jewish practice of observing the Yahrtzeit only makes sense. Forgetting kills. Every March 28 I remember my maternal grandmother, the kindest of my relatives, who died in 1972 at age eighty-four and whom I never saw angry. While she was alive I would never have thought to tell her that. .... In his Rambler essay published on February 17, 1751, Dr. Johnson writes:

[F]ew can review the time past without heaviness of heart. He remembers many calamities incurred by folly, many opportunities lost by negligence. The shades of the dead rise up before him; and he laments the companions of his youth, the partners of his amusements, the assistants of his labours, whom the hand of death has snatched away.”

The hymn “Abide with Me” was written by the Scottish Anglican cleric Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847). It’s a prayer imploring God to stay with the speaker throughout life and in death, and was written by Lyte as he was dying from tuberculosis. ....

Patrick Kurp, "The Shades of the Dead Rise Up," Anecdotal Evidence, Feb. 17, 2023.

“I am this dark world’s light..."

Jonathan Aigner, at his blog Ponder Anew, has been posting a "Hymn of the Day" series. Today the selection is "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say," one of my favorite hymns. A very good performance:

Jonathan Aigner, "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say," Ponder Anew, Jan. 30, 2023.

Grace

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing;
it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
 Ephesians 2:8-9

 

New Year's Day, 2023, marks the 250^th anniversary of John Newton's great hymn, Amazing Grace.

The hymn was written in the town by curate—and former slave ship captain—the Reverend John Newton, for his sermon at St Peter and St Paul Church on 1 January 1773.

The familiar tune we sing today is much more recent, dating from the early 19^th century.

Advent is only a foretaste

Philip Jenkins, from "Advent, and the End Times":

If you don’t think you know the antiphons — well, you’re probably wrong. You know them in English if you have ever heard a very popular hymn translated by J. M. Neale, which begins,

Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel....

Each antiphon gives one of the divine titles associated with messianic prophecy, with a prayer, each rooted in scripture. We begin for instance with Sapientia, Wisdom:

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other mightily,
and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.

Then we move to Adonai, the God who manifested on Sinai; then the Root of Jesse; the Key of David; Oriens, the Morning Star; King of the Nations; and finally, on Christmas Eve, to the title Emmanuel itself. And roughly, Neale’s hymn translates the antiphons in that sequence. You thus work through the whole development of the Old Testament, so that you are then ready to welcome the Christian message on Christmas morning. ....

That “coming” reminds us that Christmas is only a foretaste, a first draft, of the Second and final coming, a point that assuredly will not appear as much as it might in the year’s Christmas sermons. Advent after all, adventus, is the Latin form of the Greek parousia. To understand the implications of that weighty word in the New Testament, see its main occurrences in two heavily End Times-related sequences, namely Matthew 24, and both 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Typically, “For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” Now that would be a Christmas sermon.

Philip Jenkins, "Advent, and the End Times," Anxious Bench, Nov. 24, 2022.

Acapella

Hymns that teach

Jonathan Aigner is a parent and considers "What Do I Want My Kids to Sing":

...I find that I cannot escape considering what I would want my own children singing. Which hymns do I want entrenched in their earliest memories of singing in church? Which hymns do I want them to encounter with enough repetition that they become part of their spiritual formation? Which hymns do I want them to take with them in the coming seasons of their life? Time is short. ....

Here’s what I came up with. [at the post, he elaborates and gives examples]

Hymns of Praise That Speak to God’s Character

It should be obvious, but good hymns testify to the transcendent character of Almighty God as revealed in Scripture, and call the church to join in his praise. An overarching theme of worship is that God is God, and we are not. Great hymns remind us of this, and set our minds on God’s greatness. ....

Hymns That Proclaim the Gospel

I want them to sing hymns that talk about the love of Christ as shown through his redemptive work. Christ crucified for sinners is the greatest theme the human voice could possibly sing. ....

Hymns That Draw from Holy Scripture

Great hymns don’t apologize or cloud the truth of Holy Scripture, nor do they seek to make it more palatable to modern ears. Some of the greatest hymns are simply Scripture in poetic form. Take the wonderful hymns of Isaac Watts, for instance. ....

Hymns That Teach Good Theology

The hymnal is many things. One of those things is a theological textbook. (I think I said this in a post a long time ago…) Choose hymns that teach the truths of the Christian faith strongly and beautifully.

Hymns With a Low Anthropology

Again, God is God, and we are not. There is a tendency in modern hymn-writing to make too much out of human ability, insight, and will.... This is, in part, a high anthropology; it is the notion that, if all external factors are removed, humans can choose to be good and well-behaved, and can turn the world into a nice place. I want to sing hymns that, instead, follow the biblical and orthodox understanding of humanity as fallen, helpless to save themselves, and fully in need of God’s grace. ....

Hymns That Faithfully Portray the Church’s Mission ....

Hymns That Are Beautiful

There are a number of hymns that have some good things to say, but the poetry is so awful it gets in the way. ....

There are many examples of these kinds of hymns. Some are rich theological treasures. Others more simple and stark. Again, the main concern should be whether the hymn is really worth singing, knowing, and committing to memory. Is it true? Does it edify? Does it have enough meat on it to sustain us? Does it give us a realistic view of God, his kingdom, Christ’s work on our behalf, and humanity? If the answer to these is “no,” then perhaps it won’t do us any good at all, and maybe we should choose something else.  (more)

Jonathan Aigner, "What Do I Want My Kids to Sing: How I Choose Hymns," Ponder Anew, Sept. 28, 2022.