May 17, 2020

Each week, you may find information here about the music in the traditional worship services at First United Methodist Church in Lewisville, Texas.  Some of this information is original; much of it is "borrowed" from other sources such as Wikipedia, GBOD, and hymnary.org.  It is my hope that this information will enhance your understanding and enrich your worship experience.  

About the Piano Music:

Morning Prayer - Nicholas Palmer

"Morning Has Broken" was first published in 1931 in Songs of Praise. It was written by English author Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965) and  set to a traditional Scottish Gaelic tune known as BUNESSAN.  In Songs of Praise Discussed, the editor, Percy Dearmer, explains that as there was need for a hymn to give thanks for each day, English poet and children's author Eleanor Farjeon had been "asked to make a poem to fit the lovely Scottish tune". A slight variation on the original hymn, also written by Eleanor Farjeon, can be found in the form of a poem contributed to the anthology Children's Bells, under Farjeon's new title, "A Morning Song (For the First Day of Spring)", published by Oxford University Press in 1957. English pop musician and folk singer Cat Stevens (known as Yusuf Islam since 1978) included a version on his 1971 album “Teaser and the Firecat”. The song became identified with Stevens when it reached number six on the US “Billboard” Hot 100 and number one on the US easy listening chart in 1972. 

Farjeon was born in London, England.  She came from a literary family and was an author of children’s stories and plays, among numerous other literary pursuits.  Known as ‘Nellie’ to her immediate family, she was a sickly child who suffered from poor eyesight and educated at home.  Her father encouraged her to write from the age of five.  She eventually earned a living as a journalist, broadcaster, writing poetry and stories and counted among her friends the celebrated D H Lawrence and Walter de la Mare.  Farjeon never married but had two long term relationships.  First with an English teacher, George Earle, and after his death with the actor, Denys Blakelock.   In 1951, she converted to become a Roman Catholic.  She won numerous literary awards during her lifetime.  The Children’s Book Circle, a society of publishers, present the Eleanor Farjeon Award annually to individuals or organizations whose commitment and contribution to children’s books is deemed to be outstanding.

Sweet as dew and drenched in sunlight,  Farjeon’s lyrics are built, surprisingly, on verses found in The Book of Lamentations, written, it’s widely believed, by Jeremiah, the grieving, raging, weeping prophet. In this book of sorrows, the despairing observer lists all that is wrong with the world around him: illness, exile, hunger and misery, crime, ravage and ruin.  The list sounds familiar: check out today’s news. Is there nothing new under the sun?

But, in the middle of this inventory of woe (Lamentations 3:22-23), the weeping prophet waves away clouds of doom and gloom, steps into the sunshine, and startles us with joy. Jeremiah affirms his trust in God, whose mercies are “new every morning,” and proclaims, “Great is Thy faithfulness!” These exclamations of praise arise from a litany of despair.

Knowing that this refreshing and gentle hymn was inspired by verses in Lamentations deepens our experience of it. We are reminded that our task is to awaken, not only to this day, but to the world around us, to be mindful of all of it — the beauty and the pain. This hymn calls us to be faithful to the whole of God’s wondrous, suffering creation.

Morning has broken like the first morning;

Blackbird has spoken like the first bird.

Praise for the singing, Praise for the morning,

Praise for them springing fresh from the Word.

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven

Like the first dew fall on the first grass.

Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden

Sprung in completeness where His feet pass.

Mine is the sunlight, Mine is the morning

Born of the One Light Eden saw play.

Praise with elation, praise every morning

God's recreation of the new day.

Nicholas Palmer resides in Grand Rapids, Michigan, working as a composer and arranger, choral conductor, organist and pianist. His primary work has been done in the context of liturgy, playing various keyboard instruments, running choral programs, and writing music for liturgical use. He currently directs music for St. John's Episcopal in Grand Haven, Michigan, and teaches at Muskegon Community College. His freelance work involves performing on stage, writing commissioned pieces for concert and liturgy, creating digital instrument tracks for general media use, and underscoring larger media projects.

Here I Am, Lord - Zach Unke

Dan Schutte is a native of Wisconsin, who received his education at St. Louis University with a bachelor’s degree in 1973, a master of divinity degree in 1979 at the Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, Calif., and a master’s degree in 1980 at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.  Following graduation, Mr. Schutte joined the Jesuits and served as the director of liturgy at Marquette University (1982-1986). He entered parish ministry in Milwaukee serving as director of music at Immaculate Heart of Mary and then Our Lady of Lourdes parishes.   He is currently director of music at the University of San Francisco, a Jesuit institution, and tours extensively as a Christian concert artist. Of his many hymns, “Here I Am, Lord” is the most commonly sung.

A salient feature of Catholic renewal hymnody since the Second Vatican Council is a stirring and memorable refrain. “Here I Am, Lord” recalls immediately Isaiah 6:8: “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’”

An unusual attribute of this hymn is the change in point of view that the singer makes between the stanzas and the refrain. The stanzas speak from the perspective of God in the first person singular, while the refrain, though remaining in first person, is from the perspective of the singers of the hymn offering their lives to God.   Each stanza reflects a paradox. The powerful God, creator of “sea and sky,” “snow and rain” and “wind and flame” is also the God who hears the “people cry,” bears the “people’s pain” and “tend[s] the poor and lame.”  This is a hymn of transformation. God transforms the darkness into light in stanza one, melts “hearts of stone” with love in stanza two and nourishes the “poor and lame” with the “finest bread”—a clear Eucharistic reference.  Each stanza ends with the question, “Whom shall I send?” Rhetorical questions are very common poetical devices in Christian hymnody, but this is not one of them. The refrain immediately offers the response, “Here I am, Lord.”

I, the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard My people cry.
All who dwell in dark and sin, My hand will save.
I who made the stars of night, I will make their darkness bright.
Who will bear My light to them? Whom shall I send?

I, the Lord of snow and rain, I have born my peoples pain.
I have wept for love of them, They turn away.
I will break their hearts of stone, Give them hearts for love alone.
I will speak My word to them, Whom shall I send?

I, the Lord of wind and flame, I will tend the poor and lame.
I will set a feast for them, My hand will save
Finest bread I will provide, Till their hearts be satisfied.
I will give My life to them, Whom shall I send?

Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord? I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me. I will hold Your people in my heart.

A native of Tacoma, Washington, Zach Unke grew up playing the piano and began playing in church as a second grader and accompanied several services as well as choir and classroom singing.  He studied piano both at Lakeland College and Martin Luther College.  He has played for several art openings, the 2008 Unity Music Festival in Sheboygan, and at both The Osthoff Resort in Elkhart Lake, WI and The American Club in Kohler, WI. He says: “I grew up as a church pianist.  I write music for the church pianist.  My goal is to create music that excites and challenges the pianist but is easily enjoyed by the listener.”

Let All Things Now Living - Nicholas Palmer

Let All Things Now Living, first published in 1939 was written by composer and pianist: Katherine Davis. It is set to the traditional Welsh melody, Llwyn Onn which is best known as the setting for John Oxenford's The Ash Grove. In the Liturgy of the Hours, Let All Things Now Living is used during Ordinary Time for Evening Prayer. 

Katherine Kennicott Davis (1892-1980) studied at Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, where she was also a teaching assistant in music. From 1921 to 1929 she taught singing and piano in private schools in Concord, Massachusetts, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After 1929 she devoted herself largely to music composition. Like many American composers during the twentieth century, she studied in Paris for an interval with the famous composition teacher and conductor Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979).  She wrote some eight hundred pieces, most of which were choral (often writing under several pseudonyms). One of her most popular songs is "The Little Drummer Boy," originally called "Carol of the Drum" (1941). Her other publications include the folk operetta Cinderella (1933) and Songs of Freedom (1948).

Davis (1892-1980) published this text as an anthem in 1939 under the pseudonym of John Cowley.  The text can be read in different ways. The final line of the first stanza – “as forward we travel from light into light” – might reflect confidence in the ultimate progression of human endeavors for the better under God’s providence, an extension of eighteenth-century Enlightenment thought, and nineteenth-century philosophers John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) and Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). This certainly would have been consonant with early twentieth century New England liberal philosophical thought. Mission hymns of the era employ a similar idea reflected as a Christian extension of Manifest Destiny. Drawing upon the Exodus narrative, the first stanza alludes to the “pillar of fire shining forth in the night” (Exodus 13:21-22). Appearing between world wars, such optimism might have seemed premature.  Another way to view this text would be from an eschatological perspective as seen in the phrase, “who guides us and leads to the end of our days.” The direction of the Christian life is ultimately consummated in heaven. The beauty of hymn texts is that they may be read in several ways.

Much of the popularity of this hymn comes with its paring with the buoyant Welsh folk tune, THE ASH GROVE. The roots of this melody may be found in the eighteenth century. Arrangements published in England in the early and mid-nineteenth century increased its popularity. The tune had been in limited use in evangelical hymnals in the United States with the text “The Master hath come” by Sarah Doudney (1841-1926). Davis’s use of the tune in her 1939 anthem brought the tune to broader denominational prominence in the United States.

Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving 

to God our Creator triumphantly raise;

Who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us, 

by guiding us unto the end of our days,

His banners are o'er us, his light goes before us, 

a pillar of fire shining forth in the night:

Till shadows have vanished and darkness is banished, 

as forward we travel from light into light.

His law he enforces, the stars in their courses, 

the sun in its orbit obediently shine,

The hills and the mountains, the rivers and fountains, 

the depths of the ocean proclaim God divine.

We too, should be voicing our love and rejoicing 

with glad adoration, a song let us raise:

Till all things now living unite in thanksgiving, 

to God in the highest, hosanna and praise.

About the Hymns:

Amazing Grace

"Amazing Grace" was written by the English poet and clergyman John Newton (1725–1807).  With the message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of sins committed and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God, "Amazing Grace" is one of the most recognizable songs in the English-speaking world.

Newton wrote the words from personal experience. He grew up without any particular religious conviction, but his life's path was formed by a variety of twists and coincidences that were often put into motion by his recalcitrant insubordination. He was drafted into the Royal Navy, and after leaving the service became involved in the Atlantic slave trade. In 1748, a violent storm battered his vessel so severely that he called out to God for mercy, a moment that marked his spiritual conversion. However, he continued his slave trading career until 1754 or 1755, when he ended his seafaring altogether and began studying Christian theology.

Ordained in the Church of England in 1764, Newton became curate of Olney, Buckinghamshire, where he began to write hymns with poet William Cowper. "Amazing Grace" was written to illustrate a sermon on New Year's Day of 1773. It was first printed in 1779 in Newton and Cowper's Olney Hymns, but settled into relative obscurity in England. In the United States however, "Amazing Grace" was used extensively during the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century. It has been associated with more than 20 melodies, but in 1835 it was joined to a tune named "New Britain" to which it is most frequently sung today.

The melody sung to John Newton’s 1779 hymn “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound” is, without a doubt, America’s best-loved hymn tune. Unlike Lowell Mason’s “Nearer, my God, to thee,” the “Amazing grace” tune is of unknown origin. It first appeared in print in 1829 without any composer attribution, and there were thought to be no earlier surviving instances of the tune. However, an 1828 manuscript by Lucius Chapin (1760-1842), who was famous in his day as a hymn tune writer, raises the possibility that Lucius was its composer.

Lucius and his brother Amzi (1768-1835) were among the first and most influential composers to harmonize American folk hymns, using principles they had absorbed from New England and English church music, and perhaps from the oral tradition as well. They also composed hymns in a similar style. The brothers came from a large, musical Massachusetts family. Their mother was an exceptional singer, though she did not read music, and two of their brothers also became singing masters. Lucius and Amzi moved south and west as young men and taught singing schools throughout their lives. In 1828, Lucius was living in central Kentucky and Amzi in western Pennsylvania.  The 1828 manuscript was mentioned in passing in James Scholten’s 1972 dissertation on Lucius and Amzi Chapin. On July 25, 1828, Lusius’ son Cephas died from typhus in Oxford, Ohio en route home to visit his parents. There are three tender expressions of paternal love and grief on the back of Cephas’ last letter penned there by Lucius, the tunes AMAZING GRACE and BRAINARD and a brief poem.

The familiar melody had a number of titles in its early publications: ST. MARY’S, GALLAHER, HARMONY GROVE (Shenandoah Harmony), NEW BRITAIN (Sacred Harp), and more. The one title it did not have was AMAZING GRACE, though that title was used for at least two other melodies. The tune wasn’t paired with Newton’s text until 1835. The great nineteenth-century scholar W.E. Chute (1832-1900) attributed the melody to the Chapins. 

It is possible that NEW BRITAIN was added to the manuscript after 1828, or copied from a source that does not survive. However, the version here doesn’t exactly match any tune found, either published or in manuscript, in Nikos Pappas’ exhaustive index of over 60,000 early American hymn tunes (1700-1870). It is closest to the tune ST. MARY’S found in Shaw and Spilman’s Columbian Harmony (1829) [4]. Like Lucius, Shaw and Spilman lived in central Kentucky.

Even if Lucius were the first to notate the tune, the concept of “authorship” in this repertoire is difficult. Composers felt free to write arrangements of popular sacred or secular melodies in oral tradition and publish them, either as unattributed tunes or with their own names attached. They also made their own versions of tunes in books or manuscripts, appropriated and rearranged European classical music, and composed music from scratch in a folk idiom.

If Lucius didn’t compose NEW BRITAIN, then who did? The basic structure of the tune is ancient. NEW BRITAIN is a folk hymn—a sacred melody that existed, in some form, in oral tradition prior to being notated. It belongs to a recognized “tune family,” or group of tunes, sacred or secular, that share enough structure and melodic phrases that they seem to be descended from a common root. Other related tunes include Amzi Chapin’s TWENTY-FOURTH (written in the 1790s) and, more distantly, the African-American spiritual “Swing low, sweet chariot” (published in 1873, but definitely older). The folk hymn CONSOLATION (attributed to the Chapins when first published in 1812) has the same contour, but is in the minor mode. However, just because a tune is a folk hymn doesn’t mean that there wasn’t an originator for a particular variant of the tune family. There were at least ten slightly different versions of NEW BRITAIN written down from 1828 to 1840 in Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. Three of these were from central Kentucky. This argues for oral transmission, but the fact that each version differs from the others only in the amount of ornamentation notated suggests that one person, perhaps an itinerant preacher or singing master, was the “vector” that spread the tune through this area in the late 1820s to 1830s.

Another interesting story, though tangential, is the Chapin family’s connection to the antislavery movement. If you’ve read the story of John Newton (the author of the words to “Amazing Grace”), you know that he was the captain of a slave ship who later rejected his past and advocated against slavery. The Chapin family lived in central Kentucky and some of their neighbors owned slaves, though there weren’t large plantations in the area. However, the diary of Cephas’ sister Harriet survives, and she was profoundly antislavery, though as a woman she didn’t have power to make decisions about her household. She thanks God that her father is “an Emancipator.” I don’t know if that means that he had slaves and set them free or if he didn’t believe in slavery and never owned slaves. Harriet considered it her duty to educate the two young African-Americans who worked for the family, an act that would have been illegal in many states. Harriet died in 1827, just a year before Cephas.

In general, the early revivals in Kentucky were far more democratic than were churches later in the 19th century. Both white women and African-Americans—even slaves—were called on to testify and even preach, and everyone participated in group singing, which was one of the hallmarks of these revivals. So the fact that this particular tune, whoever wrote it, is often associated with black spirituals and related to “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” is not surprising, as it was first popular in a mixed environment.

Be Thou My Vision

"Be Thou My Vision" (Old Irish: Rop tú mo baile or Rob tú mo bhoile) is a traditional hymn from Ireland. The most well known English version, with some minor variations, was translated by Eleanor Hull and published in 1912. In 1919, the lyrics were set to the tune of the Irish folk tune "Slane", to which the song is sung to this day, both in English and Irish. The song dates from at least the eighth century, though the text dates to the sixth-century.

The original Old Irish text, "Rop tú mo Baile" is often attributed to Saint Dallán Forgaill in the 6th century. Eochaid Mac Colla (c. 530 – 598), better known as Saint Dallan or Dallán Forgaill (Old Irish: Dallán Forchella; Latin: Dallanus Forcellius), was an early Christian Irish poet whose writings include the "Amra Choluim Chille" ("Elegy of Saint Columba") and "Rop Tú Mo Baile" ("Be Thou My Vision").  Saint Dallan was Chief Ollam of Ireland (similar to poet laureate), as well as a scholar of Latin scriptural learning. He helped to reform the Bardic Order at the Convention of Drumceat.  He reputedly wrote Amra Choluim Chille, which he completed shortly after the death of Saint Columba in 597, because Columba had successfully saved poets from expulsion from Ireland at the assembly of Druim Cett in 575. The “Amra Choluim Chille,” is the earliest Irish poem that can be dated.

"Rop tú mo Baile" had been a part of Irish monastic tradition for centuries before its setting to music. The Irish text was translated into literal prose by Irish scholar Mary Elizabeth Byrne (1880-1931), a Dublin native, and then published in Eriú, the journal of the School of Irish Learning, in 1905. Byrne was also known for her academic publications, including Old and Mid-Irish Dictionary, Dictionary of the Irish Language, and a treatise, England in the Age of Chaucer. 

It is at this point that Eleanor Hull (1860-1935) enters the story. Born in Manchester, England, she was the founder of the Irish Text Society and president of the Irish Literary Society of London. Hull versified the text and it was published in her Poem Book of the Gael (1912).

Following the original publication in Ireland, the hymn was included in a number of British hymnals. After World War II, the hymn came to the attention of hymnal editors in the U.S. and it has become a standard hymn in most hymnals today. 

Irish liturgy and ritual scholar Helen Phelan, a lecturer at the University of Limerick, points out how the language of this hymn is drawn from traditional Irish culture: "One of the essential characteristics of the text is the use of 'heroic' imagery to describe God. This was very typical of medieval Irish poetry, which cast God as the 'chieftain' or 'High King' (Ard Ri) who provided protection to his people or clan. The lorica is one of the most popular forms of this kind of protection prayer and is very prevalent in texts of this period." The original chieftain language of the "High King of heaven" has given way to the more inclusive "Great God" in the UM Hymnal. 

When Hull's versification was paired with the lovely traditional Irish tune SLANE in The Irish Church Hymnal in 1919, its popularity was sealed. The folk melody was taken from a non-liturgical source, Patrick Weston Joyce's Old Irish Folk Music and Songs: A Collection of 842 Airs and Songs hitherto unpublished (1909).   "Most 'traditional' Irish religious songs are non-liturgical," says Dr. Phelan. "There is a longstanding practice of 'editorial weddings' in Irish liturgical music, where traditional tunes were wedded to more liturgically appropriate texts. This is a very good example of this practice.”  The tune name SLANE is drawn from deep in Irish history. It was on Slane Hill in County Meath around 433 CE that St. Patrick lit candles on Easter Eve, defying a decree by High King Logaire of Tara that no one could light a fire before the king signaled the beginning of the pagan spring festival by lighting a fire on Tara Hill. King Logaire was so impressed by Patrick's devotion that, despite his defiance, he was permitted to continue his work as Ireland's first Christian missionary.

First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas

A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus

#joychurch   #lovelikeJesus  #vision

May 10, 2020

Each week, you may find information here about the music in the traditional worship services at First United Methodist Church in Lewisville, Texas.  Some of this information is original; much of it is "borrowed" from other sources such as Wikipedia, GBOD, and hymnary.org.  It is my hope that this information will enhance your understanding and enrich your worship experience.   

About the Piano Music:

O Day of Peace - Marianne Kim

Carl Pickens Daw Jr. (b. 1944) was born in Louisville, Ky. He holds a doctoral degree in English from the University of Virginia and the masters of divinity degree from the University of the South. He has been the executive director of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada since 1996. An Episcopal priest, Dr. Daw has served congregations in Virginia, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Daw began writing hymns as a consultant member of the Text committee for The Hymnal 1982, the current hymnal of the Episcopal Church. Since that time, he has been recognized as one of the leading hymn writers in North America, with texts in most denominational and ecumenical hymnals published on this continent.

Episcopal hymnologist Raymond Glover provides the background for the composition of this hymn: “[It] was created in response to two special requests received by the Standing Commission of Church Music during its preparation of The Hymnal 1982 . . . the General Convention’s Joint Commission on Peace . . . and an appeal from many sources, request[ing] the inclusion of [Charles Hubert Hasting Parry’s] tune “Jerusalem”. . . . To satisfy both of these appeals, the Commission called on [Dr. Daw], a Consultant to the Text Committee . . . to compose a text on the theme of peace that could be sung to the popular Parry tune.”

Dr. Daw was influenced in his composition by the book Turning to Christ by Urban T. Holmes III, one of his seminary professors. Daw’s] attention was drawn to Isaiah 11:6-8, and the heart of the hymn [focused on] the peaceable kingdom, paradise regained. The second stanza was drawn from this prophetic passage of Scripture. Daw describes his thinking about the hymn: “This hymn deals with two aspects of peace: pax, an understanding of peace based on the cessation of conflict, and shalom, the condition of living abundantly in harmony and mutual goodwill. . . . Although this hymn affirms that peace is always God’s gift, it also recognizes the importance of human responsibility in preparing an environment in which peace can flourish.”

The tune JERUSALEM plays prominently in the interpretation and success of this text. For British singers, this tune has a long history having been paired with a William Blake poem on social justice, the first line of which was drawn form the author’s Preface to his book Milton.

Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918), music scholar and professor of composition and music history at the Royal College of Music, wrote a setting for Blake’s text that became so popular that the hymn became an unofficial British national anthem.  Dr. Daw succeeds admirably in composing a text with a majesty that matches Parry’s music. The most important words of each stanza—“grace” in stanza one and “peace” in stanza two—coincide powerfully with the apex of the melody. In doing so, he provides English-speaking Christians worldwide with perhaps the finest hymn on peace in the closing decades of the 20th century.

O day of peace that dimly shines through all our hopes and prayers and dreams,

Guide us to justice, truth, and love, delivered from our selfish schemes.

May swords of hate fall from our hands, our hearts from envy find release,

Till by God’s grace our warring world shall see Christ’s promised reign of peace.

Then shall the wolf dwell with the lamb, nor shall the fierce devour the small; 

As beasts and cattle graze, a little child shall lead them all.

Then enemies shall learn to love, all creatures find their true accord;

The hope of peace shall be fulfilled, for all the earth shall know the Lord.

A Chicago-based composer, pianist, organist, and harpsichordist, Marianne Kim (b. 1972) has been noted for her vibrant performances and compositions in a wide diversity of musical styles, including classical, jazz, Broadway musicals, R&B, and gospel, alongside traditional and contemporary church music.  Born and raised in Korea, Marianne studied piano and composition at Pusan High School of Arts and earned a BM in composition at Pusan National University. After working professionally for more than a decade in the United States, she returned to school and earned dual Masters of Music in jazz studies and organ performance with scholarships and prizes from Northern Illinois University.

Arise - C. E. Walz

Joseph Hart (1712-1768) was never voted "most likely to become a minister" by the friends of his youth. Though raised among Christian influences, he was not serious about spiritual matters and soon fell into, as he put it, the "vanities and vices" of youth. But as an adult he began to feel a concern for his soul, running what he described as "an uneasy restless round of sinning and repenting." Frustrated by his inner turmoil, he looked for answers elsewhere; and listening to all the wrong voices of the age, fell captive to a doctrine that taught grace unfettered by any responsibility. Among his scholarly writings during this period was a scathing attack on John Wesley titled The Unreasonableness of Religion (1741), which reveals his adherence to the rationalist critics and to a certain extent to deism. But approaching the age of forty, he became convicted of the error of his beliefs and reformed his ways. Over the next few years he began in earnest to seek a truer path, and eventually became a minister to a Congregationalist body in London.

Hymns composed on various subjects (1759), which went through countless editions as "Hart's Hymns," was written during this period of deep soul-searching and repentance beginning around 1757. According to Hart, "They are published not only in the same order, but also in the same manner in which they were first written: for though they have since undergone a cursory revisal, and have been lightly retouched, the alterations I have made in them are neither very numerous nor material." His collection is therefore not only an anthology of his work, but a spiritual journal of this period in his life. And for a body of hymns so quickly got together, his work well stood the test of time. Augmented by his supplements of 1762 and 1768, "Hart's Hymns" became a staple in Calvinist circles.

"Come, ye sinners" is held by many to be Hart's greatest hymn. It is #100 in his original 1759 collection, and falls within the last group of hymns in that work, probably written in the spring of that year. These hymns as a group seem to look back in review of Hart's spiritual journey, though they still shows flashes of that "disorder and darkness of soul" that plagued him over his sins. Frequent themes are the assurance of salvation, our hopelessness without the atoning work of Christ, the majesty of Christ revealed in His humble sacrifice, and encouragement to the weak in faith.  To this extent, then, "Come, ye sinners" is as much autobiography as invitation.

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity, love, and pow'r:
He is able, He is able, He is willing: doubt no more.

Come, ye thirsty, come and welcome, God's free bounty glorify;
True belief and true repentance, Ev'ry grace that brings us nigh,
Without money, without money, Come to Jesus Christ and buy.

Come, ye weary, heavy laden, Bruised and broken, full of sin;
If you tarry till you're better, You may never enter in:
Not the righteous, not the righteous; Sinners Jesus came to win.

Three additional verses are found in some hymnals by an unknown writer:

View Him prostrate in the garden; On the ground your Maker lies; 

On the bloody tree behold Him;  Sinner, will this not suffice? 

Lo! th' incarnate God ascended,  Pleads the merit of His blood: 

Venture on Him, venture wholly,  Let no other trust intrude. 

Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream;

all the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of him.

The chorus that follows each stanza, however, is by an entirely different hand:

      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.

Raymond Glover has identified this as a variant on one of the stanzas of Caleb Jarvis Taylor's "Don't you see my Jesus coming?" Caleb Jarvis Taylor (1763-1816) was a schoolteacher from Maryland who served as a fill-in preacher for Methodist churches in western Virginia and Pennsylvania. In 1792 he moved to north central Kentucky, where he continued to teach school as his primary support, but preached wherever and whenever he could. Sometimes he preached as an official circuit rider sponsored by a Methodist association, but more often it was his willingness to fill vacancies for other preachers that kept him in the pulpit. He was the founder of the Mt. Gilead Methodist Church just north of Paris, Kentucky, also known as the Old Matheny Meeting House, probably the earliest Methodist congregation in that area northeast of Lexington. By 1795 he relocated to the vicinity of what is now Maysville, Kentucky, along the Ohio River.

The Mt. Gilead meeting house was less than ten miles from the famous Cane Ridge meeting house, so it was inevitable that Taylor was right in the thick of the Second Great Awakening. And though he was known to be a successful revivalist, he was noted by his contemporaries as well as by modern historians as one of the chief songwriters of this watershed moment in American religious history.

The earliest appearance of the tune RESTORATION in print appears to be that found in William Walker's Southern Harmony. As was typical of the old colonial singing-school music, Walker's arrangement places the melody in the tenor voice; he added a bass part below and a "treble" above. The Sacred Harp version has an alto part, added in later years, to fill out a more typical voicing. William "Singing Billy" Walker (1809-1875) was a Baptist song leader from Spartanburg, South Carolina. His Southern Harmony (1835) is one of the most important hymn publications in American history, because it preserved many of the melodies of the camp-meeting folk hymns at a time when the generation that created them was passing away. 

C.E. (Carolyn) Walz was born and raised near Atlanta, Georgia, where, at age ten, she began piano lessons with Robert Fraumann, the minister of music at her church. By age twelve, Carolyn was playing piano solos for church services and accompanying children’s choirs.  Apart from her musical studies, Carolyn had a keen interest in teaching English and writing children’s books. She earned her Bachelor of Art Degree in Christian Education from Atlanta Christian College and her Master of Science Degree in Middle Grades Education from Georgia State University. She authored several books for children and became a full-time English teacher at Woodward Academy. In 2015, she retired as English Department Head of the Middle School after more than thirty years of service.

Since retirement, Carolyn has become an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and a two-time national winner of the DAR’s American Heritage Instrumental Music Award. Today she continues to serve as a church musician, accompanist, and children’s choir director as she pursues her new interest: composing and arranging piano solos and choral anthems for Lorenz and other publishing companies.

Wonderful Words of Life - William Ringham

Philip Bliss (1838-1876) went to Chicago in the employ of Dr. George F. Root, the musician, where he was engaged in conducting musical Institutes, and in composing Sunday School melodies. Originally a Methodist, he became, about 1871, a choirman of the First Congregational Church, Chicago, and the Superintendent of its Sunday Schools. In 1874 he joined D. W. Whittle in evangelical work. To this cause he gave (although a poor man) the royalty of his Gospel Songs, which was worth some thirty thousand dollars. His death was sudden. It occurred in the railway disaster at Ashtabula, Ohio, Dec. 30, 1876. He had escaped from the car, but lost his life in trying to save his wife. In spite of the shortness of his life, Philip Bliss is one of the most important and influential gospel song writers of the nineteenth century.

Christian publisher Fleming H. Revell (Dwight Moody’s brother-in-law) was about to launch a new Sunday School paper. He wanted a song that would capture the overall focus of the publication, which was to emphasize the vital importance of studying the Word of God. The name of the paper was to be Words of Life, so Mr. Revell asked Philip Bliss if he could come up with a song to fit, suggesting the key text, John 5 & 6. In the passage, many who had followed Christ were drifting away. The Lord turned to His disciples and asked, “Do you also want to go away?” And Peter made this reply on behalf of the other men: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life”.  Bliss duly produced a song, as requested, calling it Wonderful Words of Life.  It’s a simple song. Bliss wrote both the text and the tune, WORDS OF LIFE.  And after it served its purpose, in the first issue of the publication, it was all but forgotten. But Revell passed on a copy of the Sunday School paper to another hymn writer, George Stebbins. Stebbins began using Philip Bliss’s song in evangelistic meetings, with he and his wife Elma singing it as a duet. It caught on, after that, and became very popular. Simple though it is, it reminds us that we have a precious treasure in the Scriptures–words of life.

          Sing them over again to me, wonderful words of life;

          let me more of their beauty see, wonderful words of life;

          words of life and beauty, teach me faith and duty:

          Christ, the blessed One, gives to all wonderful words of life;

          sinner, list to the loving call, wonderful words of life;

          all so freely given, wooing us to heaven: 

          Sweetly echo the gospel call, wonderful words of life;

          offer pardon and peace to all, wonderful words of life;

          Jesus, only Savior, sanctify forever, 

          Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life.

William Ringham holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in Piano Performance from Indiana University, where he also studied composition. He has performed as a piano soloist in concerts across the U.S. and Mexico. During many years of teaching music and serving various congregations as organist and conductor, Ringham continued to compose and arrange for the groups he was leading. After retiring from teaching, he turned his full attention to his writing, first publishing in 2000. A member of ASCAP, AGEHR, and ACDA, he has received consecutive annual ASCAP awards since 2003. In 2013, Ringham retired from his position of Director of Music at Mission Del Sol Presbyterian Church in Tempe, Arizona.

About the Hymns:

Crown Him with Many Crowns                  

The song was originally penned in 1851 by Matthew Bridges (1800-1894), an Anglican scholar who once wrote a book condemning Roman Catholic theology, and then later converted to Catholicism. Bridges wrote six stanzas, based upon Revelations 19:12, “...and on His head were many crowns.”  The text of this hymn was first published 1852 in The Passion of Jesus, a Collection of Original Pieces Corresponding with the Five Sorrowful Mysteries in the Rosary of Our Blessed Lady, a collection of devotional poetry.  The prayers of the rosary are said in sets of ten, each focused on a "mystery" concerning the life of Christ; the mysteries themselves are in groups of five: the "Joyful Mysteries" concerning Christ's birth and childhood, the "Sorrowful Mysteries" concerning His death, and the "Glorious Mysteries" concerning the Resurrection and events following. (In the 20th century the "Luminous Mysteries" of Christ's earthly ministry were added.) Bridges's collection was dedicated to the five Sorrowful Mysteries: Christ's agony in Gethsemane, His scourging, the crown of thorns, Christ carrying His cross, and finally the Crucifixion itself. "Crown Him with many Crowns," therefore, was a reflection on the central mystery of the original 15 mysteries of the rosary. Bridges employs an unexpected approach to the topic, however, taking the cruel mockery intended by that original crown and turning it on its head by contemplating the glorious coronation of Christ in heaven.  Each verse of Bridge’s poem was to describe of a different kind crown (Many Crowns, Virgin’s Son, Lord of Love, Lord of Peace, Lord of Years, and Lord of Heaven).

Godfrey Thring (1823-1903) was a devout Anglican clergyman who was concerned that this popular hymn was allowing Catholic theology to be sung by protestant congregations. Thring wrote an entirely new hymn of six verses to serve as a substitute for that of Bridges, using the same meter and basic plan of successive stanzas extolling Jesus' lordship over various domains. It was decided to keep the two versions separate but publish them both in 1874 in Thring’s hymnbook: Hymns and Sacred Lyrics. Thring’s version was also published in the Church of England Hymn-Book. The 12 stanzas have been mixed and matched down through the years. Of the following four verses found in our hymnal, three were written by Bridges (vs 1,3,and 4) and one by Thring (vs 2).

Composed for Bridges's text by George J. Elvey, DIADEMATA was first published in the 1868 Appendix to Hymns Ancient and Modern. Since that publication, the tune has retained its association with this text. The name DIADEMATA is derived from the Greek word for “crowns."

Come, My Way, My Truth, My Life

Not all texts in hymnals began as poetry for congregational singing. Such is the case of the mystical verse by the famous Welsh poet George Herbert (1593-1633).  In his nearly 40 years of life, Herbert accomplished much. He held positions at Cambridge University and in Parliament, and later in life became a Anglican priest and one of the leading metaphysical poets of his time.  Herbert was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, with the intent of becoming a priest. But King James I, who shepherded the King James translation of the Bible, was interested in his scholarly skills. So Herbert was called to service in the court until the king died in 1625, followed soon by the death of Herbert’s patrons.  Herbert then returned to his earlier calling in the church, serving for six years in two parishes. He wrote poetry while serving as a parish priest, partly to supplement his own funds and to help to rebuild the church he was serving at Bremerton, a rural parish about 75 miles southwest of London. According to Adam Nicolson in his fascinating book God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible (2003), Herbert’s poetry influenced Lancelot Andrewes, a primary player in the translation.

Herbert was born into an aristocratic family known for supporting the arts, including his mother Magdalen, a patron of the famous John Donne (1572-1631) and other poets.  At the time, the Church of England employed many psalm singers. Donne, Herbert and others contributed to a culture of devotional poetry that later inspired great 18th-century hymn writers like Isaac Watts (1674-1748) and Charles Wesley (1707-1788), whose hymnody eventually broke the stranglehold of singing only metrical psalms in worship.

Herbert’s most enduring work was The Temple (1633). John Wesley made use of its poems in various collections, including the 1737 Charleston Collection, the first hymnal published in the American colonies.  This text comes from a section of The Temple entitled “The Call,” published the year after Herbert’s death from tuberculosis.  John Wesley included this poem in his Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739).

Herbert’s text expands John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” by incorporating additional metaphors: Light, Feast and Strength (stanza two), and Joy, Love and Heart (stanza three).  Concerning the hymn’s structure, English literary scholar Richard Watson notes: “The three-fold structure of the first verse is repeated in the other two; there is a trinity in each verse, and three verses, making a trinity of trinities.”

Famous British composer and hymn tune writer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) set several of Herbert’s poems in a song cycle entitled Five Mystical Songs (1911). Vaughan Williams’ tune THE CALL and harmonization were adapted by E. Harold Geer for congregational singing in Hymnal for Colleges and Schools (1956).

First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas

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