David's Hymn Blog

Come Unto Me

2012-03-11T21:47:00.000-05:00

Praise for the Lord #107
Words: Franklin E. Belden, 1895
Music: Franklin E. Belden, 1895; arr. Ellis J. Crum, 1959

Franklin Edson Belden (1858-1945) has been described as "the most prolific writer of hymn tunes, gospel songs, and related texts in the early years of the Seventh-day Adventist Church."(IAMA) A nephew of Ellen White herself, he was close to the inner circle of Adventist leadership, and used his considerable talents in songwriting and editing in service of the Review and Herald Publishing House in Battle Creek, Michigan.(Land, 39) He was quickly recognized as the rising star among Adventist songwriters, and co-edited the 1886 Hymns and Tunes, contributing more than 80 songs. Christ in Song (1900) was a project conceived and carried out on his own, and has been called "the most popular songbook ever published by the [Seventh-Day Adventist] church."(IAMA)

Belden's career among the Seventh-Day Adventists ended abruptly, however, in the midst of a complicated controversy. Land's entry on Belden in the Historical Dictionary of Seventh-Day Adventists says that he left that church in 1907 over a royalties dispute.(39) According to the biography on the web site of the International Adventist Musicians Association, Belden relinquished copyright on his songs for use in the Adventist hymnals at a time when all royalties went to mission work, and objected when this policy was later changed.(IAMA)

There was considerably more to this story, however; Belden was actually among a large number of Seventh-Day Adventists who were expelled from that fellowship in the summer of 1907, branded as "apostates" and "heretics" for lack of faith in the inspiration of Ellen White.(Cass City Chronicle, 17 July 1907) Belden's real position on Seventh-Day Adventism and his aunt's prophecies is still disputed. Following this break, Belden wrote songs for the evangelical revivalist Billy Sunday.

In "Come unto me," Belden takes his chorus directly from the words of Christ in Matthew 11:28-29 (King James Version), a beautiful invitation that is all the more powerful taken in context of the entire discourse. Toward the beginning of the chapter, Jesus received two disciples of John who brought word from that prophet, then bound in Herod's prison, who asked, "Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?"(v.3) Opinions vary on why John asked this question, but the most obvious answer seems to be a certain amount of doubt mixed with some frustration as Jesus pursued a path far different from what anyone expected of the Messiah. Jesus' reply is terse:

The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. And blessed is the one who is not offended by Me.(v.5-6)

But then Jesus strongly defended His cousin, contrasting John's faithfulness (in spite of doubts) to the fickleness of the crowds who had come to hear, first the herald, and then the Messiah Himself.(v.7-8,16-17) This leads into a series of "woes" pronounced on places where Jesus had worked extensively, specifically the Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum.

"I would believe in God if He personally revealed Himself to me." Have you ever heard someone express this? The people of those Galilean cities and villages, in that generation, had just that opportunity--but relatively few believed. "No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him,"(v.27) and Jesus had done just that; but the seemingly "wise and prudent" of His own people rejected Him.(v.25) He fulfilled the words of the prophets, revealed the Father, and preached the gospel of grace and peace. What more could He have done? No wonder His comparisons are so harsh--Tyre and Sidon, the proud seacoast cities that were utterly destroyed according to prophecy, and Sodom, which is still a byword for sin.

Yet after these reflections on His own rejection, and on the coming condemnation of those who turned away from Him, come some of the most beautiful words ever to cross His lips.

Come unto Me, all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.(v.28-30)

Even in the face of rejection, persecution, and His coming passion, Jesus held out the hope of forgiveness. "The Lord . . . is longsuffering toward us, not willing [i.e., desiring, DRH] that any should perish but that all should come to repentance."(2 Peter 3:9) We have a hard time understanding that kind of forgiveness. Perhaps the closest we can see, in human terms, is the longsuffering patience of parents; even toward a child who has hurt them, there is a nearly unquenchable desire to restore the relationship. God's love is far greater even than this love, thus the indescribable beauty of His grace as seen in Jesus' words.

Stanza 1:
O heart bowed down with sorrow!
O eyes that long for sight!
There's gladness in believing,
In Jesus there is light.

The "heart bowed down with sorrow" was a fairly common cliche of Victorian prose and poetry, as a phrase search of Google Books reveals, but I believe Belden was referencing a Scriptural expression: "The LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous.(Psa 146:8) This was fulfilled literally in the miracles of Jesus, as His message to John in Matthew 11:5 made clear. Luke 13:11-12 tells of Jesus' healing of a woman who was "bent over [KJV 'bowed together'] and could in no way raise herself up." Jesus also restored sight to the blind on several occasions, most famously when He gave sight to the man born blind (John 9).

But as wonderful as these physical, outward miracles were, Jesus grieved all the more over the spiritual hurts that people would not let Him heal. He saw people "burdened with sins" (2 Timothy 3:6), and misled by erring spiritual leaders who "tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger."(Matthew 23:4) He saw multitudes turn away from His message, fulfilling the word that, "seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand."(Isaiah 6:9, Luke 8:10) How much more Jesus rejoiced to straighten up the spiritually "bowed down," and offer sight to the spiritually blind!

Chorus:
"Come unto me,
All ye that labor,
And are heavy laden,
And I will give you rest.

Take My yoke upon you,
And learn of Me;
For I am meek and lowly in heart:
And ye shall find rest unto your souls."

There are many famous revolutionary speeches in history, rallying people around a leader and a cause. The Jews of the 1st century had heard a few themselves. But instead of promising glory and honor, riches and lands, or freedom from political oppression, Jesus called His followers to something no earthly leader could offer--rest and relief of the spirit. The world could not understand this kind of revolution, because, as Jesus tried to explain to Pontius Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world."(John 18:36) It is an inward overthrow of servitude to sin, and restoration of God to His rightful place in our lives. As Jesus told His confused hearers, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you."(Luke 17:20-21)

The outcome of this revolution is also far different from that of most human political upsets. From ancient times up to this morning's news report, we have ample evidence that many revolutions just end up changing one kind of tyranny for another. By contrast, Jesus promises that His "yoke is easy." The yoke, a frame used to harness plow animals for work, was a symbol of servitude to another, stretching back to the book of Genesis. Christ's revolution does not free us from all service; Bob Dylan was right when he claimed, "Gotta serve somebody." But the yoke of obedience laid on us by Christ is for our good, not our exploitation, and leads us to joy and rest.

Finally, Christ's credentials are in stark contrast to those heroes of human history who led revolutions. He did not ask people to come to Him because of His power, or authority, or ability to confound the political, military, and religious leadership of His day; He claimed instead, "For I am meek and lowly in heart." Few politicians would run on that campaign platform (if only they would!), and few revolutions, if any, hinge on the humility of their instigator. But this kind of revolution could not work in any other way. If we can come to truly understand the
humility of Christ, the revolution has begun within us.

Earth's fleeting gain and pleasure
Can never satisfy:
'Tis love our joy doth measure,
For love can never die.

(Chorus)

In Belden's original this is the second of four stanzas, but the Churches of Christ in the U.S. have used two different three-stanza versions over the years. "Come unto me" appears in the Gospel Advocate Co.'s Christian Hymns (1935) with all four, but the original second stanza (above) is retained and the original third stanza (below) is omitted in Christian Hymns no. 2. That three-stanza version was followed by the hymnals from Firm Foundation (Majestic Hymnal) and Howard Publishing (Songs of the Church). The Great Songs of the Church series, however, did just the opposite, omitting the original second stanza and retaining the original third stanza. This was followed, as usual, in Praise for the Lord. The reasons for some of these editorial decisions may become apparent below.

The stanza above might have been inspired in part by the description of Moses in the great 11th chapter of Hebrews:

By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.(24-26)

Even if riches and pleasures of the world do not keep a person out of the kingdom (and the kingdom out of the person), they can stunt the believers' growth to the point of futility: "as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature."(Luke 8:14) Moses in his day was tempted with the best the world had to offer, and chose instead the greater riches of faithful service to his God. He chose to trust instead in the steadfast love and mercy of God, which endures forever.(Psalm 136)

Stanza 2:
Divinest consolation
Doth Christ the Healer give;
Art thou in condemnation?
Believe, repent and live.

(Chorus)

"And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel . . ."(Luke 2:25) One of the attributes of the Messiah was this "consolation," comforting hurts and righting wrongs, bringing about a joyous and cheerful situation for the people of Israel. Jesus brought this in a greater sense than even faithful Simeon could have hoped, offering us a "strong"(Hebrews 6:18) and "everlasting"(2 Thessalonians 2:16) consolation that "abounds."(2 Corinthians 1:5) The Greek word here is παράκλησις (paraklēsis), related to the Lord's name "Comforter" for the Holy Spirit.(John 14-17) Both are rooted in the idea of "calling to the side (of another)."(Thayer, 137) This is, in a sense, exactly what the gospel offers: to be called to the side of the Father from whom we once were separated by sin.

Christ as the Healer is a favorite image to many of us, and has inspired many great hymns. Rather than a warrior-king bringing death and destruction, He came as the Great Physician to heal a hurting world. David knew this side of God when he said of his Lord, "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds."(Psalm 147:3) Faithful Jews such as Simeon thrilled to the promise in the closing chapter of the Hebrew Testament, "But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings."(Malachi 4:2) When Jesus came working the signs of the Messiah, the majority of them were just such acts of healing. But the greatest work of healing of all was when the Healer gave up His own life to save the patient: "Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—-by whose stripes you were healed."(1 Peter 2:24, cf. Isaiah 53:5)

The last line of this stanza, "Repent, believe, and live," may be the reason it was dropped from many of the hymnals used among Churches of Christ; we are so used to having to defend the essentiality of baptism in salvation, that we are quick to suspect any omission of its mention. It is clear from their official doctrinal statements that the Seventh-Day Adventist position on salvation (like that of many other religious groups) is that belief and repentance are all that is required to be born again; baptism is treated quite separately as a public confession of one's committment to Christ and desire to be recognized in the church.("Fundamental beliefs") There is every reason to believe that Belden held the same view, and would have considered "believe, repent, and live" to be a sufficient answer to the question, "What must I do to be saved?"

By contrast, the Acts of the Apostles, which is nothing less than a record of evangelism and conversions under the inspired teaching of those men, presents baptism as the immediate response for a believer desiring salvation. Other more theological passages connect it directly to the spiritual regeneration of the new birth: "He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit."(Titus 3:5) And when Peter said, "Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you,"(1 Peter 3:21) he placed that act on a par with faith and repentance as an essential part of salvation. (For an interesting article on this topic, I recommend Wayne Jackson's Acts 2:38--not so tough!")

But must every song that mentions the subject give a thorough step-by-step treatment of the plan of salvation? Very few of our "invitation songs" do. I suggest this is something that has to be determined case by case, and according to the best judgment of elders, song leaders, and individual Christians. I remember a good sister objecting to the line "Thou savest those that on Thee call" in the hymn "Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts." She felt that it was teaching a faith-only or "sinner's prayer" salvation that omitted baptism. That line, of course, is a paraphrase of Romans 10:13, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Given the discussion of baptism in the preceding 6th chapter of the same letter, it is gross error to take this single verse as a full statement of Paul's teaching on how to be saved! Besides, Paul himself gave a commentary on "calling on the name of the Lord" when he retold the words he had heard from Ananias, "And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord."(Acts 22:16)

But to that particular sister, it was a problem, and I took her advice respectfully and promised to give it thought. Certainly if there is one song that causes honest concerns on the part of some members (and she was a gracious, spiritual lady who was not a chronic fault-finder!), there are plenty of other songs in the book. The decision to omit this stanza of "Come unto Me" in many hymnals may have been wise, and I too have generally avoided using this stanza simply because of the assumptions that some might make about the meaning of that final line. Error is so rampant on the subject that I would not want to give an "uncertain sound."(1 Corinthians 14:8)

Stanza 3:
His peace is like a river,
His love is like a song;
His yoke's a burden never;
'Tis easy all day long.

(Chorus)

The phrase "peace like a river" is common to several hymns, old and new, but is traceable back to two statements recorded by the prophet Isaiah. The first is spoken in woe: "Oh that you had paid attention to My commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea."(Isaiah 48:18) But the second is spoken in reassurance of the future:

For thus says the LORD: "Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip, and bounced upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.(Isaiah 66:12-13)

A large river is a thing of beauty and power, and inspires awe when we give it consideration. Slow-moving and calm as it may appear, it has an inexorable force that can move massive burdens in shipping and turn generators that light our cities. The peace Jesus offers is far more powerful, of course, and just as surely can sweep away the burdens of sin and bring new light and life to our lives!

But is Christ's yoke really "easy all day long?" He said it was "easy" and "light," and that of course is enough. It is not, however, nonexistent; and perhaps His words are best understood in comparison to the alternative. Which is harder to bear, a heavy load on direct journey to a known destination, or an even heavier load carried in circles without purpose? Jesus also said, "If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me."(Matthew 16:24) Whatever our cross may be, it is a burden; but like the far greater cross borne by our Savior, it is not carried without purpose! There is rest and peace, a resolution of purpose, to be found in this path of the cross.

About the music:

"Come unto me" is one of the finest gospel songs of its type that I have encountered, and even a brief glance at Belden's other works reveals an intriguing variety in both texts and music. "I cannot drive the nails again", "The Passover", "God shall be first", and "Hallelujahs to Jesus", to name just a few, show an unusual imagination. This raises an interesting question: where did Belden receive his musical training? Latter-Day Saints sources say that he received most of his education at Battle Creek College, but did not begin composing until his family moved to California for a missionary sojourn in about 1876.("We Know Not the Hour") Battle Creek College did not have a music teacher on staff at its founding in 1874,(Lawrence, 47) so the logical supposition is that Belden studied in California (though there were music teachers of course in Battle Creek at the time).

A search of Newspaperarchive.com for "Adventists" shows they were particularly active in Oakland about 1874-1876, and at Placerville in 1879; these are the only locations in California where they are mentioned in the 1870s. Bishop's Oakland Directory for 1876-1877 places "Frank E. Belden" in Oakland as a mailing agent for Signs of the Times, an Adventist newspaper, during this very period, confirming the received history of his movements.

Where might he have studied music in Oakland during the late 1870s? The fledgling University of California was located there, on what is today the Berkeley campus, but in 1876 it was strictly a professional school with no arts faculty. In fairness, few universities in the U.S. offered advanced studies in music at this time; the traditional route for a professional musician was through a conservatory or independent studies. An exception to this rule, however, was Mills Seminary (now Mills College), a women's college that strongly emphasized the integration of the arts across the curriculum. The Department of Music in 1876 had a faculty of eight, including some names well known in their time. Ernst von Hartmann (1840-1894) was actually a graduate of the famed Leipzig Conservatory, and has been called "one of San Francisco's first teachers of standing and reputation."(Frederica) The vocal instructor, Alfred Kelleher, was a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London.(Pankey)

If you listen the music of this hymn by itself, and try to separate it from the spiritual association formed by long familiarity with the text, it really has a great deal of that trait called bel canto ("beautiful song") for which Italian singing has so long been famous. "Come unto Me" sounds like it could have been a lost aria from an early Romantic opera, or perhaps one of those Neapolitan songs that cross the line between classical and popular song. Compare, for example, Enrico Caruso's classic recording of "Santa Lucia":

I'm not suggesting we sing "Come unto me" in this style, but only to point out that Belden's setting is really a very beautiful piece of music on its own merits. Imagine Caruso singing the chorus of "Come unto Me," or maybe one of the Italian crooners, and I think you'll see what I mean.

In Praise for the Lord and a few other hymnals, Belden's original soprano-alto duet is harmonized in the standard a cappella SATB format. The editors note that this arrangement came from Ellis J. Crum's Sacred Selections, a hymnal that is famous for the editor's penchant for making changes to texts, and occasionally to the music. (I greatly respect Brother Crum's desire for our singing to be in accord with Scripture, but I am sometimes baffled by his decisions.) Why would Crum have added the bass and tenor parts to the original duet by the women's voices?

I have known at least one person who objected to any song in which the women's parts were featured alone in this fashion, because it theoretically gave the women of the church a teaching position over the men. (Not surprisingly, this person had a lot of unusual ideas.) He resolved this problem by singing along with all the soprano-alto duets, which of course any man is welcome to do anyway in the free-wheeling atmosphere of congregational singing. I did wonder, of course, why he didn't object to the sopranos being given the melody all the time, since that could technically be viewed as usurping authority over the tenors and basses.

I do not know if this objection had anything at all to do with Crum's decision. He might simply have thought that the singing would be better served by keeping all the parts in. This song was meant to have instrumental accompaniment under the women's voices, and though they are quite beautiful without it, I have noticed a tendency for these soprano-alto duets to drag even more than congregational singing naturally does. (There must be some corollary between congregational a cappella singing and Newton's Law of Inertia, but I have not finalized this theory.) The editors of Praise for the Lord also opted for fully harmonized versions of all the songs that originally featured soprano-alto duets.

References:

"Franklin Edson Belden." International Adventist Musicians Association web site. http://www.iamaonline.com/Bio/Franklin_Edson_Belden.htm

Land, Gary. Historical Dictionary of Seventh-Day Adventists. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2005.

"Adventists fired." Cass City Chronicle (Cass City, Michigan), 2/12 (12 July 1907) http://newspapers.rawson.lib.mi.us/chronicle/ccc1907b%20(E)/issues/07-12-1907_2.pdf

Thayer, Joseph Henry. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, revised and enlarged. Boston: H. L. Hastings, 1896. http://books.google.com/books?id=y6AsAAAAYAAJ

"Fundamental beliefs." Adventist.org: The Official Site of the Seventh-Day Adventist World Church. http://www.adventist.org/beliefs/fundamental/index.html

"We Know Not the Hour." Suggested Materials for use on Heritage Sabbath, October 20, 2001. Ellen G. White Estate, 2001. http://www.whiteestate.org/sop/2001/hymn-2.html

Lawrence, Henry H. "Select Michigan Counties." Pure Michigan. http://www.pure-michigan.com/counties/1.php/1.php

Bishop's Oakland Directory for 1876-1877. Oakland, California: B. C. Vandall, 1876. http://www.archive.org/stream/bishopsoaklanddi187677dmbi

Fredericka, Jessica M. California Composers California Federations of Music Clubs, San Francisco, 1934. Quoted in A San Francisco Songster, 1849-1939. San Francisco: Works Progress Administration, 1939, p. 134 http://www.archive.org/stream/sanfranciscosong01hist#page/n363/mode/2up

Pankey, Marilyn R. "Alfred Kelleher." 2004. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~npmelton/sfbkel.htm

Come, Come, Ye Saints

2012-03-02T06:09:00.000-06:00

Praise for the Lord #106

Words: William Clayton, 1846; alt. Joseph F. Green, 1960
Music: Neale's & Day's Revival Hymns, 1842

Sometimes a hymn so aptly describes the experience of a particular group that it becomes an unofficial anthem for generations to come. Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress" embodies the stern resolve of the early Reformation; "O for a thousand tongues to sing" captures the exuberant joy of the Wesleys. "Come, come ye saints" is the most famous hymn of the Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, because it documents their formative experience, the pilgrimage into the American west.

William Clayton (1814-1879) was a bookkeeper from Lancashire who became one of the earliest converts to the Latter Day Saints in Britain. In 1840 he left his native England for the "new Zion" of Nauvoo, Illinois. There he served in numerous capacities, including as scribe to Joseph Smith himself.("Clayton") He did not remain long; the Mormons had already been driven from New York, to Ohio, to Missouri, to Illinois, and Smith's assassination in 1844 meant they could not long remain in the settled areas of the United States. Brigham Young, their new leader, planned to lead them from Nauvoo to the far West beginning in the spring of 1846, but events forced a departure in early February during a winter so cold that the Mississippi River froze over.(Pioneer Story) Young appointed William Clayton the official records-keeper for this group, an honor that was not without cost; Clayton was forced to leave behind one of his wives, Diantha, who was eight months pregnant.(Dahl, 516)

Into these hard circumstances, with unknown dangers ahead and known dangers behind, came one spot of good news: on April 15th, as the group was camped somewhere along Locust Creek near the Missouri-Iowa border, a letter came with the news that Diantha's child was delivered healthy.(Dahl, 517ff.) Clayton recorded in his journal,

This morning I composed a new song--"All is well." I feel to thank my heavenly father for my boy and pray that he will spare and preserve his life and that of his mother and so order it so that we may soon meet again.(Dahl, 518)

It is likely that Clayton had in mind both the tune and refrain of a folk hymn by the title "All is well;" there is another hymn with nearly the same tune but almost entirely different lyrics, beginning with the first line "What's this that steals, that steals upon my soul?" It is a hymn about a Christian joyfully greeting death, and contains the same refrain line: "All is well! All is well!" The earliest known appearance of the earlier hymn is in Revival Hymns by J. H. Neale, first published in 1842. (More on this below.) Paul Dahl believes that both Clayton and White drew from the same folk sources.(Dahl, 520)

Clayton's hymn quickly spread throughout the Latter Day Saints community, and was sung on a daily basis during their westward migration. It was first published in a Latter Day Saints hymnal in England in 1851, just five years after its composition.(Dahl, 524) Clayton's original lyrics in four stanzas are quite stirring, and one need not agree with his doctrines to share his sense of self-sacrifice and rejection of this present world. Certain references, however--especially the line, "We'll find the place which God for us prepared / Far away in the West"--make the original lyrics awkward for those of us who do not share the belief in a modern-day prophet or an earthly, physical Christian Zion. In 1960 Joseph F. Green, an editor with the Southern Baptists' Broadman Press, published a heavily rewritten version in Broadman Songs for Men, no. 2. This is the text used in Praise for the Lord, and given below.(Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs)

Stanza 1:
Come, come, ye saints, no toil nor labor fear;
But with joy wend your way.
Though hard to you the journey may appear,
Grace shall be as your day.
We have a living Lord to guide,
And we can trust Him to provide;
Do this and joy your hearts will swell:
All is well! All is well!

There is a great old English word that is preserved for us in the language of the King James Version: "sojourner." The sojourner is not just a traveler, but a person who is permanently traveling. A traveler has a destination to reach, and a home to which he returns after a time. A sojourner has no such ends in view; he knows only that where he has been, and where he is now, is not his home. He has no permanent connections with a place.

Abraham described himself this way to his Hittite neighbors: "I am a stranger and a sojourner with you."(Genesis 23:4) Wealthy as he was, Abraham did not even own a plot of ground to bury his dead, and had to buy it from another. For the Bedouin-style herding economy of Abraham and his early descendants, it was necessary to be on the move to find pasture and water; it is perhaps significant that Jacob is remembered not for establishing a city, but a well.(John 4) When the descendants of Abraham returned to Canaan centuries later, most turned to a settled agricultural life; but the Feast of Booths kept alive the memory of their wanderings in the Sinai, and of their ancestors' sojourning.

In the Psalms we see this concept turned to the spiritual: "Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry; hold not Your peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with You, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were."(Psalm 39:12) When we look at the brevity of our lives, and the swiftness with which one generation passes away to be replaced by another, we learn the truth of this statement: "The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away."(Psalm 90:10) We are all sojourners in this world, here for a little while but not to stay.

How do we respond to this knowledge? 1 Peter 1:17 tells us, "pass the time of your sojourning here in fear," such "fear" being a reverent attitude toward God and His word. Once again Abraham becomes our example:

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.(Hebrews 11:8-10)

The background of this hymn is tied up in a journey--a physical journey toward an unknown goal, full of very real threats and hardships. Our spiritual sojourning is of the same sort. We do not know where it will lead us in this life; we do not know what trials we will face, or what price we will pay for our faith. But we do know that the God who guided Israel through the wilderness has promised to be with us as well.

The first stanza encourages us to be not afraid. Dozens of times in Scripture people are told, "Fear not!" And is it coincidence that this state of fear, and the divine reassurance, so often came right before God did something wonderful? "Fear not," Israel, God will part the Red Sea before you. "Fear not," Joshua, and Gideon, and many other leaders, because God will give you victory. "Fear not," Mary, because God will work His greatest wonder through you. "Fear not," disciples, it is the resurrected Lord. When our spirits are sapped by fears, let us remember Moses' encouraging words at the beginning of the Exodus, "Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will work for you today!"(Exodus 14:13)

The hymn tells us not only "be not afraid," but to be joyful as well! James (who certainly saw his share of persecution and fears) said, "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness."(James 1:2-3) Sometimes we are put in bad situations that really are beyond our control. But in another sense, we always have control of one thing: our response. If we can look at a bad situation and ask, "What spiritual lesson can I learn? How can I give glory to God through my actions?," then we still have a path to victory.

Sometimes a bad situation may arise just in order to test us and to strengthen our faith; on the other hand, sometimes a bad situation arises solely out of the meanness of another person. But I can still choose to glorify God through my actions, and the spiritual reward of having done right is a greater comfort than any revenge could offer. As Joseph said to his brothers, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good."(Genesis 50:20) And especially if we are persecuted by another for the sake of our desire to follow Christ, we should remember the example of the apostles, "rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name."(Acts 5:41)

Stanza 2:
The world of care is with us every day,
Let it not this obscure;
Here we can serve the Master on the way,
And in Him be secure.
Gird up your loins; fresh courage take;
Our God will never us forsake;
And so our song no fear can quell:
All is well! All is well!

The Greek word for "care" used in the New Testament is μέριμνα (merimna), which has an interesting derivation: the root word is μερίζω (merizō), a verb meaning "to draw in different directions."(Thayer, 400) That sounds exactly like my daily life, and perhaps it sounds like yours. This is the word used in the Parable of the Sower, describing the seed that fell among thorns: "He also that received seed among the thorns is he that hears the word, and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful."(Matthew 13:22) As this stanza says, care can obscure our vision of our true mission.

Notice that the person in this parable didn't just ignore the Word, as did the one who was like the hardened pathway; this person became unfruitful, which suggests that the seed took root, developed into a plant, and began the process of fruit-bearing. Its growth was stunted, however, because of competition from the weeds that sapped the water and nutrients from the same soil. It didn't die, but it never became what it should have been. Spiritually speaking, this person could be struggling along for years, trying to serve God but not with a whole heart, and feeling miserable about it all the while.

There are many, many cares in this world, and there seem to be more all the time. We need to examine ourselves frequently and see where we are spending our best time and effort, asking the question, "Does this give glory to God?" Fortunately, as long as that spiritual plant is alive, it can be brought back to healthy fruit-bearing. But we may have to do some weeding! Thankfully we are not alone in this struggle; Peter told us, "Cast all your care upon Him; for He cares for you."(1 Peter 5:7) Interestingly, the verb used to describe God's "care" is a different word from the one mentioned above; God is not pulled in different directions by all His activities. It is impossible to distract the Omniscient, or to overwhelm the Omnipotent. Let us learn to give up our cares to Him; He is far better able to deal with them.

In addition to casting aside worry and care, we are also exhorted in this stanza to get back into action for the cause of Christ. The phrase "gird up your loins" is not one we encounter outside Scripture today, but has a simple meaning if we examine its background. The long, loose robes worn by men in the Bible lands were comfortable for the hot climate, but inconvenient for hard work or running. To avoid tripping on his own robe, and to keep it from flapping about, a man would "gird up the loins" by pulling up his robe and fastening a belt or "girdle" around it.(Barnes, 281ff.) "Gird up the loins" thus became a common expression to describe readiness for action. Scripture records two occasions of Elisha telling someone to "Gird up your loins, . . . and go," to carry out the prophet's orders.(2 Kings 4:29, 9:1)

God used this expression in a spiritual sense when He commissioned Jeremiah's ministry by saying, "gird up your loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command you."(Jeremiah 1:17) Peter touches on this image as well, speaking to Christians:

Wherefore girding up the loins of your mind, be sober and set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.(1 Peter 1:13)

The style of clothing has changed, but the message has not. Like any smart strategist, the devil prefers to have his enemies distracted, disorganized, and discouraged. This hymn reminds us that we often need to take an assessment of ourselves, and get our minds set again for action as we turn back to the daily fight.

Stanza 3:
We'll find the rest which God for us prepared,
When at last He will call;
Where none will come to hurt or make afraid,
He will reign over all.
We will make the air with music ring,
Shout praises to our God and King;
O how we'll make the chorus swell:
All is well! All is well!

Clayton's original text spoke here of "the place which God for us prepared / Far away in the West," but Joseph Green's revision invokes instead the "Sabbath rest" of the faithful spoken of in the 4th chapter of Hebrews. After discussing the Israelites during Exodus who were unable to enjoy God's intended blessings because of their disobedience, the Hebrews writer makes a fascinating point from Psalm 95, which also references those events:

For we who have believed enter that rest, as He has said, "As I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest,'"[Psalm 95:11] although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works."[Genesis 2:2] And again in this passage He said, "They shall not enter My rest."

Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again He appoints a certain day, "Today," saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts." For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.

So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.(Hebrews 4:3-11)

When I was a little boy I could hardly imagine wanting to rest. I am told that I once complained of my grandmother's house that, "There's nothing to do here but to watch the dog sleep." What would we give now, as adults, to go back and spend just one afternoon in that kind of peaceful retreat? We don't know everything about heaven, but we know that it is a place of peace and wholeness, where there is no regret about yesterday or worry about tomorrow. And if we are sojourners in this world, without a permanent home, we know that heaven is a place where we will really be at home, finally.

During the years that my family lived in Nashville, Tennessee, we frequently made the 12-hour drive back to Oklahoma and Texas to visit family. These were long, long trips, and though the countryside is beautiful, after a few years we knew every turn in the road and every tree. I remember that when we would get through Memphis heading home to Nashville, with a little under 200 miles to go, we were less and less likely to stop. Part of the reason, of course, is that there are precious few places to stop on that road! But even more compelling was the desire to just get home. "Do you want to stop for supper?" "No, let's keep going. Let's get home." How much better will our Christian lives be, if we learn to think that way about this world, and about heaven? Let's keep going. Let's get home.

About the music:

ALL IS WELL is a fine old folk tune, with all the catchiness and oddity that implies; it has a metrical identity crisis, with phrases in 4/4 time bumping up against the 3/4 refrain line, "All is well! All is well!" The rendition given in Praise for the Lord is that found in Hymns: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (see Dahl's article, page 523), with the meter changing between phrases. But there have been other attempts to tame this unruly melody. In the score provided by Hymnary.org, the editor gave up and didn't provide a time signature at all. Another earlier Latter Day Saints version keeps the meter 3/4 throughout and places fermatas over the 4th and 10th notes of the 1st and 3rd phrases--a clever dodge that avoids the problem.

As mentioned before, there was another version of "All is well!" with completely different lyrics but essentially the same tune. This hymn, beginning with the line "What's this, what's this, that steals upon my soul?," is attributed to J. T. White in the 1844 Sacred Harp. It is a three-voice hymn, and appeared in later editions of Walker's Southern Harmony. (N.B. The melody is in the tenor, the middle voice.) In this version the metrical weirdness is straightened out by dropping beats and adding pickup notes, allowing it to stay in 4/4 time. I have enjoyed singing this version with Sacred Harp groups, but the meter is somewhat unconvincing if you know the other versions!

Though the 1835 Southern Harmony is sometimes given as the earliest appearance of that hymn, it was not added until later editions.(Eskew, 142) The earliest instance, predating its inclusion in the Sacred Harp, was in Revival Hymns (Boston: H. Wood, 1842). I had the pleasure of examining a copy of this little volume at the Bowld Music Library of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. (Special thanks to Aaron Kuglin, a student employee who found this title for me--it was still in processing and not yet shelved in the rare books room--and on a weekend, no less!) It is a tiny little paperback of 71 pages, 16 centimeters tall, and cheaply printed; it amazes me that it has survived 170 years.

The full title is instructive: Revival hymns: principally selected by the Rev. R. H. Neale: set to some of the most familiar and useful revival tunes, many of which have never before been published, arr. and newly harmonized by H. W. Day. The preface notes that these are "as they were originally sung at the meetings of the Rev. Mr. Knapp." Neale was minister at the First Baptist Church in Boston, where Jacob Knapp held a series of evangelistic meetings.(Music & Richardson, 309)

From Boston to the Sacred Harp, and to the Mormon frontier, is a journey far greater than the miles on a map, and it is striking that these instances were only two years apart. But the connection to Jacob Knapp provides the key: he was one of the foremost Baptist preachers of the Second Great Awakening, and led revivals in the eastern U.S. cities a generation before the better known urban revivalism of Dwight Moody and others.(Hammond, 10ff.)

H. W. Day, who presumably arranged our earliest recorded instance of ALL IS WELL, was a Boston music publisher, teacher, and editor of the American Journal of Music and Musical Visitor. He is most famous for a very public feud with Lowell Mason which resulted in the latter's firing by the Boston School Committee (Mason was later reinstated, and Day came off the worse for the encounter).(Mark, 48) How well he came out in his wrestling match with this hymn tune, I leave for the reader to decide. The irregularities of barring (in particular, the end of the 1st staff and beginning of the 2nd) are as found in the original:

The origin of these different versions of the hymn tune, as Dahl suggests, is most likely from some common ancestor now lost to us. Dahl claims the tune is descended from the English tune "Good morning [or 'morrow'], Gossip Joan," which has a Virginia cousin in "Good morning, neighbor Jones."(Dahl, 520) Below is a version of "Gossip Joan" that shows the resemblance, but it is really just in the middle section; measures 5-10 of "Gossip Joan" correspond roughly to the 5th and 6th lines of the hymn.

Tune from http://www.mudcat.org/olson/S1.ABC
GIF rendered by JC's ABC Tune Finder

References:

"Clayton, William." The Joseph Smith Papers http://josephsmithpapers.org/person?name=William+Clayton

"Nauvoo, Illinois: 1839-1846." The Pioneer Story. Intellectual Reserve, Inc. http://www.lds.org/gospellibrary/pioneer/02_Nauvoo.html

Dahl, Paul E. "'All is well . . . ': the story of the 'hymn that went around the world.'" BYU Studies 21:4 (Fall 1981), 515-527. https://byustudies.byu.edu/showTitle.aspx?title=5494

"Come, come ye saints." Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs. Glen Arm, MD: Long Green Valley Church of the Brethren. http://rockhay.tripod.com/worship/music/comeyesaints.htm

Thayer, Joseph Henry. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. New York: American Book Company, 1889. http://www.archive.org/details/greekenglishlexi00grimuoft

Barnes, Charles Allen. Dictionary of the Bible. New York: Eaton & Mains, 1900. http://books.google.com/books?id=7h0YT_QXdLsC

Eskey, Harry. "William Walker's Southern Harmony: its basic editions." Latin American Music Review 7:2 (Autumn-Winter 1986), pp. 137-148.

Music, David W., and Paul Akers Richardson. I Will Sing the Wondrous Story: A History of Baptist Hymnody in North America. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 2008.

Mark, Michael L. A Concise History of American Music Education. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.

Hammond, Paul. "From Calvinism to Arminianism: Baptists and the Second Great Awakening, 1800-1835." Colloquium on Baptist Church Music, Baylor University Center for Christian Music Studies, 24-25 September 2009. http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/98384.pdf

Christian Hymns no. 2 (Nashville: Gospel Advocate, 1948)

2012-02-23T12:10:00.000-06:00

In a previous post I examined the origins of Christian Hymns "no. 1," the Gospel Advocate Company's 1935 "reboot" of its hymnal franchise under the leadership of a new music editor, Lloyd O. Sanderson. The new Christian Hymns series was clearly begun in competition with Elmer Jorgenson's Great Songs of the Church, at least in the intention of Foy E. Wallace, Jr., the Gospel Advocate editor who initiated the project. But over time, new editions of each hymnal would show a degree of mutual influence, probably owed to the mutual respect the hymnal editors themselves showed toward each other. Sanderson, in fact, had given high praise to Great Songs in a 1926 letter:

A hymnal of great songs for spiritual worship. In price, none to compare; in make-up, very neat; in binding, lasting quality; in arrangement of songs, superior; in fact--the book the church has been needing. -- L. O. Sanderson, Director Vocal Music, Harding College.(Boll)

And though I have not found an actual statement by Jorgenson on Sanderson's work at Gospel Advocate, the 2nd edition of Great Songs (1937) picked up several songs that had appeared in the 1935 Christian Hymns, including a new song by Thomas Chisholm and L. O. Sanderson himself, "Buried with Christ." In turn, Great Songs of the Church, no. 2 was very probably an influence on the direction Sanderson took in his next edition: Christian Hymns no. 2, which appeared in 1948.

The Impact of Great Songs no. 2 on Christian Hymns no. 2

There were 175 songs in Christian Hymns no. 2 that did not appear in the 1935 Christian Hymns, more than a third of the contents of the new book. I looked for these 175 new songs in several competing hymnals from the Churches of Christ in the decade before Sanderson's revision appeared: Great Songs of the Church no. 2 (1937); two Will Slater publications, Church Hymnal (1938) and Gospel Songs and Hymns (1944); two Firm Foundation publications, New Wonderful Songs (1938) and Our Leader (1941); and Teddlie's Standard Gospel Songs (1944). As a sort of control to this less-than-scientific experiment, I also compared the popular Broadman Hymnal (1940) and The Methodist Hymnal (1939), both of which were published in Nashville during the time Sanderson was working on the Christian Hymns series. The Broadman Hymnal, a Baptist publication edited by B. B. McKinney, was used by some Churches of Christ during the middle decades of the 20th century, according to a survey in Jim Jackson's 1970 doctoral dissertation.)

Of the 175 songs searched, 85 songs did not appear in any of these books; 32 of these, of course, were original compositions or arrangements by Sanderson himself. Of the 90 that were found in one or more of these hymnals, the results were as follows:

Great Songs of the Church no. 2	74
Broadman Hymnal	51
Standard Gospel Hymns (Teddlie)	33
Will Slater publications	30
Methodist Hymnal	24
Firm Foundation publications	13

One caveat about the results is that neither of the Firm Foundation publications examined is really a general-purpose hymnal; they are smaller paperback books that focused more on introducing new songs. The Teddlie hymnal compares much more favorably despite its small size, showing that Sanderson did have a significant connection with the Texas school of songwriters. It is also no surprise to find that the hymn repertoire of the Churches of Christ resembles that of the Southern Baptists more than that of the Methodists, even in a hymnal edited by Sanderson, whose roots were in the Methodist church.

But the significant statistic here, of course, is the preponderance of correspondence to Great Songs of the Church no. 2. If Sanderson's own songs are excluded, more than half of the remaining 143 new songs in Christian Hymns no. 2 can be found in the 1937 Great Songs no. 2. Elmer Jorgenson's hymnal had sold in all about 250,000 copies by 1946 (including all editions from 1921 on), and was probably the most widely used hymnal throughout the Churches of Christ. Its appeal grew even more rapidly in the postwar years, and sales reached the 1 million mark by 1952.(McCann, 226) Of course this figure included replacement copies over the years, but if Yeakley's estimates are correct and the Churches of Christ had about 500,000 members during the 1940s, this is still a staggering number.(Yeakley, 4)

Changing Tastes in the U.S. Churches of Christ During the Postwar Era

Though Flavil Yeakley's studies have provided a valuable corrective to the often exaggerated claims of growth among the Churches of Christ during the period immediately following World War Two, it was nonetheless a time of significant change. The most dramatic growth was in urban and suburban congregations, where the membership was increasingly college-educated and relatively affluent.(Harrel, 568ff.) The smaller rural congregations remained, then and now, a huge portion of the fellowship, but the rising city congregations were a new element with somewhat different tastes.

The Christian colleges, especially through their touring a cappella choirs, raised awareness of the classical hymn style in particular--evidenced by the contents of the Singing Hymnbook LP set, recorded in the early 1950s. (For sake of argument, here are my imperfect definitions of "classical hymn" and "gospel song": a gospel song probably has a chorus, a classical hymn does not; a gospel song may be in any musical meter with much rhythmic variety, a classical hymn is usually in simple duple or triple time with relatively little rhythmic variety; a gospel song is closer to popular music styles of its day, a classical hymn is closer to Western classical art music.) This broader repertoire had long been included in Great Songs of the Church, but was not as much part of the southern traditions represented in hymnals from Gospel Advocate and Firm Foundation. With new church buildings going up, there were hymnal racks to fill, and Sanderson wanted his revision of Christian Hymns to keep pace with the changing times.

First, consider the 125 songs that were dropped from the 1935 Christian Hymns, highlighted in blue in the linked spreadsheet. Sanderson omitted several of his own songs, written with Thomas O. Chisholm, which had not caught the churches' fancy. Mainstream gospel writers such as Leila Morris, Grant Colfax Tullar, and James Rowe figure prominently in the songs that were cut, though their works are still well represented in the newer hymnal. But barely a dozen of the songs that were left out from the earlier hymnal could be called classical hymns. This is one-fifth of the five dozen or so hymns in the 1935 book that I would place in the "classical" category; but the remaining 100-plus songs that were deleted are close to a third of the gospel songs from the 400-number hymnal. A contributing factor might be that the classical hymn category was older material, winnowed out over the centuries until most of what remained was really worth keeping, whereas the newer gospel songs had more "chaff" to lose. Still, the proportions suggest that Sanderson was favoring classical hymns and looking more critically at the gospel songs.

This becomes even more apparent when we look at the 175 songs that were added. Though the number of classical hymns in this group is not dramatic, the overall result is a noticeable increase in the proportion of classical repertoire to gospel songs from the first Christian Hymns. The 1935 book, with 400 numbers, had about five dozen classical hymns, 15% of the contents. Looking through the 1948 Christian Hymns no. 2, which has 453 numbers, I spot about 90 hymns that I would put in this category--19% of the contents. Again, this is an imprecise measurement, because this classification is a matter of personal judgment. Is Sanderson's "Be with me, Lord" a classical hymn? (Probably.) Is "Onward Christian soldiers," which has a chorus, a gospel song? (No.) But the shift is still big enough to notice.

It is also worth noting that the classical hymns added to the 1948 hymnal include many that are either well known in English hymnody in general, or that have become popular among the Churches of Christ in the U.S. in particular, such as:

A mighty Fortress
Beneath the cross of Jesus
Dear Lord and Father of mankind
Fairest Lord Jesus
My Jesus, as Thou wilt
O worship the King
The Lord's my Shepherd (Scottish Psalter)

Each one of these was present in the 1937 Great Songs of the Church no. 2, but could not be found in any of the other contemporary hymnals from Churches of Christ that I examined. It appears that Sanderson was in fact influenced by his rival, and upon taking sole editorship of the revision of Christian Hymns, steered it in a direction more similar to that of Jorgenson's hymnal

Sanderson's Original Songs in Christian Hymns no. 2

In the 1935 Christian Hymns, Sanderson introduced a number of fine songs co-written with the Methodist lyricist Thomas O. Chisholm; but in Christian Hymns no. 2, only one new song from this team appears. "The home up there" is copyrighted 1935, and thus appears to have been a leftover from their earlier work. By 1948 Chisholm was 72 years old, and having been in poor health most of his adult life was undoubtedly becoming more frail with age. A search of his texts on Hymnary.org shows that the appearances of new songs by Chisholm fell off during the 1940s, though a few new songs turn up even to the end of his life (it is not always possible to tell whether these were newly written, included from earlier collections, or newly set to music).

"The providence of God" is one of Sanderson's new songs in the 1948 hymnal that has continued in use. The text was written by W. E. Brightwell, who at the time was the news editor and circulation manager for Gospel Advocate.(Gospel Guardian) I haven't found reference to any other hymns by this author, but this is a good treatment of the subject and calls out some of Sanderson's best composition. I think I hear a trace of "On Zion's glorious summit" in this music.

Sanderson also set a text by Frank E. Roush, "Nearer to Jesus." Roush was a prolific hymn writer from the independent Christian Churches in Ohio. Additionally, Sanderson wrote two texts adapted to music by other composers: "The Lord is our salvation," to music by Alexander Ewing, and "Then be prepared," with music by C. E. Leslie. Sanderson also did a good deal of arranging and minor editing of the music of others, primarily to make it more suitable for a cappella congregational singing.

There were 28 new songs with both words and music by Sanderson himself, though usually the text is attributed to his pseudonym, "Vana R. Raye" (adapted from his wife's nickname).(Sanderson, "Autobiography") Out of these, I am familiar with only four:

"Pray all the time" has the signature bass lead, "Pray in the morn-ing..." which has an unfortunate similarity to "On top of old Smoky," at least to a little boy. It is also the only bass lead song I have seen that has the lead in a separate staff, with an ordinary bass part to be sung at the same time. In my experience, all the basses sing the lead anyway, and it works just about as well. We have a fairly limited number of songs about the need for prayer, and this was a worthy enough effort that it was has lasted a few decades.

"The Lord has been mindful of me" is another fine song on the subject of divine providence, this time with text by Sanderson himself. In his autobiographical sketch, Sanderson relates that the text was inspired by reflection on his own life. He once had a promising church music career in the Methodist church, but gave it up at the age of 22 when he was baptized into the Church of Christ. There was no corresponding position of music minister or choir director to which he could aspire in this fellowship, yet he found new doors opening that led him into college choir directing and eventually to hymnal editing with the Gospel Advocate. Through it all, he felt that he certainly had been much favored.

Of the hymns for which Sanderson wrote both words and music, this is in my opinion the best. The genuineness of the text shines through the somewhat cliched hymn language common to gospel songs of the era, and the music is bold and fresh compared to many of his other songs; the first phrase pair in particular trips along in an unusual and compelling way.

"'Tis set, the feast divine" is the shortest and most unassuming of Sanderson's new songs, but it really may be the best-written and will probably continue the longest in use. It is a quiet, modest little hymn for the Lord's Supper, and perhaps shows Sanderson's reflection on the classical hymns he was emphasizing in the 1948 edition.

"Where livest thou?" is an example of Sanderson's experimental streak, and shows both the strength and weakness of that element of his style. It is really quite unusual musically, and somewhat hard to sing, with halting phrases that do not quite do what one expects. It is quite original, especially within the context of congregational gospel song of the era; but in my opinion, it doesn't quite work.

This is a good place to point out a difference between Sanderson's style and that of his contemporary, Tillit Teddlie. Of the songwriters coming from the Churches of Christ in the 20th century, these two contributed the largest number of lasting songs and probably had the biggest impact. Between the two, Teddlie's work is more even in quality--there are Teddlie songs that are better than others, but I can't think of one that doesn't work. Sanderson wrote some songs that just didn't.

On the other hand, Teddlie's style usually stayed within a pretty consistent set of parameters--he knew what worked, and like many another songwriter, he did it repeatedly. Sanderson's style, by contrast, is all over the place. He wrote more experimental songs, some of which didn't work. Between the two, I think Teddlie was the better songwriter on the strength of his more natural melody writing and his sense of what would work for congregational singing. But I have to respect Sanderson's quirkiness, too; it gave us some really good songs. In his own words, "an evaluation of personal contributions is left to the critics and users."("100 years") Critics notwithstanding, the users have kept a dozen or so of Sanderson's songs in use for more than half a century.

Assessment of Impact

I do not have sales figures on Christian Hymns no. 2, but it certainly seemed as though every church building I was in during my growing up years had a stack of these in a closet somewhere. It seems as though this was a very, very popular book across the southern United States where the Gospel Advocate's influence was strongest. And for what it's worth--this is just a rough indication at best--Worldcat.org, which is a union list of thousands of libraries, shows 21 libraries holding copies of the original 1935 hymnal, and 20 libraries holding copies of the 1966 Christian Hymns III, but 39 libraries holding Christian Hymns no. 2--almost twice as many as the others. There seem to have been many more copies of the 2nd edition floating around!

This backs up Sanderson's own assessment in 1955: "The extended circulation and use of Christian Hymns no. 2 throughout America and in some foreign lands, attest to the success of the effort."("100 years") Indeed it does. Looking through the songs in Christian Hymns no. 2, I believe I could still get up and lead about two-thirds of these in most of the Churches of Christ in the southern United States that still sing the the traditional repertoire. Young people who have never seen this hymnal, whose parents were born since it went out of print, may still know half the songs. Though Sanderson's work was influenced by that of Jorgensen and others, it was certainly a major part of establishing the canon of that traditional repertoire.

References:

Boll, Robert H. "Commendations." Word and Work 19/2 (February 1926), 64. http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/digital/ww/WW1902/W1902064.HTM

Jackson, James L. Music practices among Churches of Christ in the United States. D.Mus.Ed. dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 1970.

McCann, Forrest. "A History of Great Songs of the Church." Restoration Quarterly 38/4 (1996), 219-228. http://www.acu.edu/sponsored/restoration_quarterly/documents/RQ_38.4_(McCann).pdf

Yeakley, Flavil. The Growth Record Revisited. Harding Center for Church Growth Studies, 1998. http://www.pureheartvision.org/resources/docs/yeakley/Growth%20record%20revisited%2098.pdf

Harrell, David Edwin. "Noninstitutional movement." The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2004.

"Brightwell added to our staff." Gospel Guardian 1/25 (27 October 1949), p. 4 http://wordsfitlyspoken.org/gospel_guardian/v1/v1n25p4.html

Walker, Wayne S. "I love Him because He first loved me." Hymn Studies http://homeschoolblogger.com/hymnstudies/659175/

Sanderson, Lloyd O. "'The Lord has been mindful of me': an autobiography of L. O. Sanderson." Gospel Advocate 146/9 (September, 2004), pages 26-28. Reproduced by Scott Harp, The Restoration Movement web site. http://www.therestorationmovement.com/sanderson.htm

Sanderson, Lloyd O. "One hundred years in song." Gospel Advocate 97/28 (July 1955), p. 598. Reprinted in Singing for the Master, ed. Irma Lee Batey (Nashville: Gospel Advocate, 1962), pp. 138-142.

Come Let Us Join Our Cheerful Songs

2012-02-11T16:52:00.000-06:00

Praise for the Lord #105

Words: Isaac Watts, 1707
Music: Thomas Haweis, RICHMOND, 1792

This hymn was #62 in the first book of Watts's Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707), where it has the inscription, "Christ Jesus the Lamb of God, Worshipped by All the Creation, Rev. v.11-13."(Julian, 248) It is hard to realize today the context in which this volume appeared, when many English Protestants held scruples against singing any text in worship that did not come directly from Scripture. Others had broken this barrier before Watts, but Watts was the indispensable figure in the development of the English hymn-singing culture that emerged during the 17th century. Kenneth Cousland summarized his career well: "One simple fact is eloquent--when Isaac Watts was born, scarcely a hymn was sung in church; when he died seventy-four years later, the floodgates of church praise had been flung wide open."(298)

But when the first volume of Hymns and Spiritual Songs appeared in 1707, it was by no means certain that it would be accepted. Watts was carefully apologetic in the preface to this collection, recognizing the prejudices arrayed against any such attempt:

I have borrowed the Sense and much of the Form of the SONG from some particular Portions of Scripture . . . In these I expect to be often censured for a too religious Observance of the Words of Scripture, whereby the Verse is weakened and debased, according to the Judgment of the Critics; But as my whole Design was to aid the Devotion of Christians, so more especially in this Part: And I am satisfied I shall hereby attain two Ends, namely, assist the Worship of all serious Minds, to whom the Expressions of Scripture are ever dear and delightful, and gratify the Taste and Inclination of those who think nothing must be sung unto GOD but the Translations of his own Word.(ix-x)

Note that his apology is addressed to critics of poetry, not of doctrine; by invoking their imagined objections to his literalness in paraphrase, he subtly courted the acceptance of the Scripture-only faction.

As a Calvinist, Watts was naturally drawn to the principle of God's absolute majesty and sovereignty, and spoke in tones that recall something of the spirit, if not the poetic style and skill, of Milton's Paradise Lost. Frederic Palmer notes that "when [Watts] approaches God there is ever with him the sense of awe; he bows low in the Divine presence. . . . He is almost unique in his ability to convey the impression of sublimity."(393) This hymn is an example of one of Watts's favorite variations on that theme: Christ, the sacrificial Lamb of God, now enthroned in glory. In his first book of hymns, Watts paraphrased from the Revelation no fewer than 15 times out of 150 hymns. The image of Jesus as the Lamb appears 20 times, and almost all of these reference the same passages from the Revelation. For a good readable (and searchable) online copy of Watts's three books of original hymns, see the 1803 edition by Manning & Loring of Boston.

Stanza 1:
Come let us join our cheerful songs
With angels round the throne;
Ten thousand thousand are their tongues,
But all their joys are one.

And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands . . . (Revelation 5:11)

Who are all these citizens of heaven? Descriptions in Scripture tell us that an angel looks like us, only more glorious; but these are occasions when God sent those beings to communicate with humans. How do we know that is their true appearance? And when it comes to the four beasts or "living creatures," the best imaginations of science fiction writers could not come up with more terrifyingly alien beings. How long have these heavenly beings existed? What was the circumstance of their creation? We cannot say, but we know what they do--they serve and worship the Lord. "Day and night they never cease to say, 'Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!'"(Revelation 4:8) They have done so since the creation of this universe, "when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy."(Job 38:7) They do so still, and the Revelation makes clear that they will do so when this universe is no more.

Into this scene of ageless, eternal, august celebration, God invites you and me, who "are but of yesterday and know nothing, for our days on earth are a shadow."(Job 8:9) But through Christ's grace, He has assured us that we can "with confidence draw near to the throne of grace."(Hebrews 4:16) When we raise our voices in sincere praises of the Almighty, we are joining in the songs of the angels! My singing would never win "American Idol," but if I am "singing and making melody to the Lord in [my] heart," I am pleasing an infinitely more significant Judge.(Ephesians 5:19) I might never win a place in the chorus of the Metropolitan Opera (which I would covet far more than "American Idol"), but when I lift up my songs with my brothers and sisters in the church, I am joining in the great and everlasting chorus of "angels round the throne."

Twice during the vision of the Revelation, John fell down and worshiped the angels who were speaking to him; but each time the heavenly being said, "See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God!"(Revelation 19:10, 22:8-9) Though the glory of these beings is so far above ours, they call us their fellow servants under the Lord of All. No doubt their singing, whatever that may be, is far above ours as well, but they call us to be fellow worshipers with them.

All around this globe Christians can join together in praise of God, in many languages and accents, but with one accord. Basil of Caesarea (330-379) said, "Who can regard a man as his enemy, when they have lifted up one voice to God together?"(Letters, 60) Unfortunately, there are many things that divide those who seek to follow Christ, but Basil's words are true: if all those who seek to be pleasing to God will unite in harmony with God's will, we will be in harmony with each other.

Stanza 2:
Worthy the Lamb that died they cry,
"To be exalted thus:"
"Worthy the Lamb," our lips reply,
For He was slain for us.

Here Watts renders the next verse of his source text: "Saying with a loud voice, 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.'"(Revelation 5:12) This statement follows, in context, the question posed at the beginning of this episode of the Revelation:

Then I saw in the right hand of Him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, "Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?" And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.(Revelation 5:1-4)

If none among that company of sinless heavenly beings was worthy, it is no surprise that no one "on earth or under the earth" was worthy to look into the scroll! The very best among us would still have to say with Isaiah, "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."(Isaiah 64:6)

But the Everlasting Son of the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Heaven, came down to this earth and "in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin."(Hebrews 4:15) Our sins were washed away "with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a Lamb without blemish or spot."(1 Peter 1:19) He is worthy of the honor of opening that scroll, and of any other honor there may be on earth or in heaven. And if the angels of heaven praise His worthiness, how much more should we? It is through His sacrifice that we can aspire to join our praises with them. They love Him for who He is; we love Him for who He is, and for what He has done for us.

In Watts's original there is another stanza following, based on the same verse of Scripture:

Jesus is worthy to receive
Honor and power divine;
And blessings more than we can give,
Be, Lord, for ever Thine.

In his younger, more faithful days, King Solomon prayed as he dedicated the temple, "But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from You, and of Your own have we given You."(1 Chronicles 29:14) He had just sacrificed an array of livestock that would boggle the mind of even a West Texas rancher! But Solomon knew it was really nothing compared to the honors God deserves. Micah echoed this attitude: "Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"(Micah 6:7) There is nothing we could have done to repay the debt of sin; likewise there is nothing we could do to fully offer the honor and gratitude Jesus deserves. But it is our duty and privilege to do our best!

Stanza 3:
Let all that dwell above the sky,
And air, and earth, and seas,
Conspire to lift Thy glories high,
And speak Thine endless praise.

Another stanza originally followed, closing out the hymn:

The whole creation join in one,
To bless the sacred name
Of Him that sits upon the throne,
And to adore the Lamb.

The two preceding stanzas paraphrase Revelation 5:13,

And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, "Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever."

There is one little issue of language to address before looking at the content: why did Watts use the word "conspire?" I have never heard that word used, in modern speech, without the implication of a sinister intent. The Oxford English Dictionary shows that this is the oldest and primary meaning of the word, as far back as Chaucer. But there was a secondary meaning, now fallen out of use, that implied only concerted action and unity of purpose. The word itself is a Latin borrowing, meaning "to breathe together," speaking as with one voice. Watts's poetry and choice of words are not without flaw, to be sure, but the intent here was perfectly sensible to his contemporaries.

The thought presented in this Scripture verse, and in Watts's closing stanzas, is a common one in Old Testament poetry: the chorus of creation. The last verses of Psalm 150, the very final words of that wonderful book, command: "Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!" Psalm 148 is a more detailed catalog, calling on all created things to praise their Maker, from the greatest to the least.

The heavenly beings: "Praise Him, all His angels; praise Him, all His hosts!"(v.2)
The celestial bodies of the universe: "Praise Him, sun and moon, praise Him, all you shining stars!"(v.3)
The atmosphere of our earth: "Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!"(v.4)
The seas and all creatures in them: "Praise the LORD
from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps!"(v.7)
The phenomena of weather: "Fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling His word!"(v.8)
The dry land and its features: "Mountains and all hills . . ."(v. 9a)
The plant kingdom: "fruit trees and cedars!"(v. 9b)
The animal kingdom large and small, wild and tame, even down to the tiniest "creeping things": "Beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds!"(v. 10)

To the ancient Hebrews it was a matter of great import to remember that God is the Creator of all things. They were surrounded by peoples that worshiped many limited gods of limited things, a god for this and a god for that. The children of Israel had a profoundly different perspective: they served the One God who created all, and who therefore holds all creation under His control. It was a way of life, as Artur Weiser described in his commentary on Psalms:

Because all things are God’s handiwork, He has the power to help whatever may happen; for even now all things are still in His hand. The distinctive character of the Old Testament concept of creation . . . represents not a piece of knowledge but a decision to submit oneself to God’s creative will and power.(Weiser, 747)

So as the writer of Psalm 148 concludes, he turns to that one part of God's creation that does not already unabashedly and ungrudgingly give Him glory: human beings.(v. 11-12) Here is the invitation of the heavenly worship, and here is Watts's plea in making this hymn: submit to the will of God, and join with the rest of His creation in an endless stream of joyful praise!

About the music:

Thomas Haweis (1734-1820; last name rhymes with "paws") was a prominent leader in the Evangelical movement within the Church of England, and was associated with many of its most important figures. In 1762 he was appointed to serve at the Lock Hospital Chapel in London, under chaplain Martin Madan. Through Madan he became acquainted with Lady Huntingdon, whom he served as chaplain for many years following.(Wikipedia) Madan was publisher of the significant hymnal known as the Lock Hospital Collection (1769); Lady Huntingdon was also heavily involved in hymnody as a facilitator and encourager of aspiring hymnists.

Haweis consistently tried to keep the Evangelical movement within the bounds of the Church of England, which led to something of a separation from Lady Huntingdon, though her respect for him was such that her will made him a trustee of the Huntingdon Connexion after her death. He was a scholar and practical theologian of considerable note; his Evangelical Principles and Practice was a standard work for the rising generation of leaders in the new movement, and he also wrote a commentary on the Bible, a translation of the New Testament, and a history of Christianity.(Wikipedia)

Most of Haweis's hymns and tunes are known from his Carmina Christi; or Hymns to the Saviour, with editions in 1792 and 1808.(Wikipedia) Though he is not as well known today as some of his contemporaries, he was a central figure in the new hymnody of the late 18th century. In one striking coincidence, he was actually offered the curatorship of Olney, which he declined, suggesting John Newton instead. The substitution was made, and it was at Olney that Newton worked and lived alongside William Cowper, producing the landmark Olney Hymns.(Huntingdon, 2:36 fn.)

Though Haweis's tune RICHMOND is his most lasting musical composition, it was not his first: contemporary testimony identifies him as the "T. H." who wrote some of the tunes for Madan's Lock Hospital Collection (1769). This publication is notable for its departure from the somber hymn tunes of the preceding generations, turning instead to the popular song styles of the music halls.(Temperly, 67ff.) It was this work that introduced one of the best-known examples of the new style, Giardini's glorious ITALIAN HYMN. Haweis's RICHMOND has something of the same light minuet-like feel.

RICHMOND is a much-used tune, found associated with no fewer than 23 different texts at Hymnary.org. Like Giardini's ITALIAN HYMN, the version we have today is modified from Haweis's more elaborate original; we sing an arrangement of the tune by Samuel Webbe, Jr., published in his Collection of Psalm Tunes (1808).(Hymnary.org) The tune is not particularly difficult, but neither is it easy; another Common Meter tune such as AZMON ("O for a faith that will not shrink") would do as a substitute if necessary.

References:

Julian, John. A Dictionary of Hymnology. (London: J. Murray, 1891). http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001413164

Cousland, Kenneth. "The Significance of Isaac Watts in the Development of Hymnody." Church History: Studies in Christianity & Culture 17/4 (December 1948), pages 287-298.

Watts, Isaac. Hymns and Spiritual Songs in Three Books. London: Strahan & Rivington, 1773. http://books.google.com/books?id=3CEDAAAAQAAJ

Basil of Caesarea. Letters and Selected Works, edited by Blomfield Jackson. London, 1894. http://www.archive.org/stream/St.BasilLettersAndSelectedWorks

Artur Weiser. The Psalms: a Commentary, 5th rev. ed., translated Herbert Hartwell. The Old Testament Library. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962.

"Thomas Haweis." Wikipedia.org. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Haweis N.B. This article is well written and sourced, obviously by someone familiar with the subject, and is the best resource available without access to the biography by Wood.

The Life and Times of Selina Countess of Huntingdon, 2 volumes. London: William Edward Painter, 1844. Volume 2: http://books.google.com/books?id=HgtGAQAAIAAJ

Temperley, Nicholas. "The Lock Hospital Chapel and its Music." Journal of the Royal Music Association volume 118/1 (1993), pages 44-72.

"RICHMOND." Hymnary.org. http://www.hymnary.org/tune/richmond_haweis

Christ's Love is All I Need

2012-02-07T07:23:00.001-06:00

Praise for the Lord #104

Words & music: George W. Sides, 1924

This song is fairly well known in southern gospel circles, but information about George W. Sides has been hard to find. The following biography has been gleaned from primary sources such as census records and newspaper articles; to avoid excessive repetition in citations, these are listed at the end of the post or are linked in the text.

George William Sides was born 29 August 1880 in the Pleasant Grove community of Walker County, Alabama, to William Lafayette and Martha Elizabeth Sides. As a young man he went to work in the coal mines at nearby Carbon Hill, but by age 30 he was back in Pleasant Grove as a music teacher. On 13 October of that year he married Alice Pearl Ray; the couple would have three children, Mary, George Jr., and Jennie. It was probably during this period that Sides published his first paperback hymnal: Perennial hymns of praise, edited with L. Dow McDonald, R. H. Brooks and J. T. Lane. This undated work was published simultaneously by Sides in Oakman, Alabama and by R. H. Brooks in Whitesburg, Tennessee.

Sides moved his family to the neighborhood of Hatley in Monroe County, Mississippi in 1912. Though his primary occupation was farming, during this period he was associated with the Stanley-Gardner Company, a gospel music publisher in Saltillo, Mississippi. The owners were James Henry Stanley (composer of "Prepare to meet thy God") and W. P. Gardner. The company issued several paperback hymnals, most without dates, but they were in operation at least by 1910 when they published a Rudiments of Music. Stanley also operated a music school in Saltillo. Sides produced two books for Stanley-Gardner: Our Tidings of Praise, co-edited with J. H. Stanley, and The Golden Harp, co-edited with J. H. Pannell and Samuel W. Beazley.

By 1930 there are no further references to the Stanley-Gardner company, and James H. Stanley had become a justice of the peace. Small gospel music publishers came and went frequently, even before the economic hardships of the Great Depression. The manifesto of the Southern Song Book Cooperative Association, formed in 1916, gives an idea of the difficulties faced by this industry. (Both Stanley and Gardner figure prominently among the officers of this organization; this document is practically a "Who's Who" of the early southern gospel publishers.) In 1929 George W. Sides moved his family west to farm in the Pettit community just outside Greenville, Mississippi. In later years he served three terms as a justice of the peace. George William Sides passed away on 3 November 1956, in Avon, Mississippi, south of Greenville. He is buried in the cemetery of the New Hope Baptist Church near his former home in Hatley, in Monroe County.

These are all the songs by George W. Sides I have been able to discover, along with the earliest publication I can find:

"Christ's love is all I need (Though dark and dreary be life's way)" (Gospel Sunshine, 1924)
"Get right" (Crowning Hymns no. 4, 1924)
"Glory all the way (There's a spring of glory flowing through my soul)" (Pleasures of Heaven, 1926)
"He died for me (I was lost in sin's dark night)" (Gospel Sunshine, 1924)
"Home of the soul (Beautiful songs we'll sing)" (Signal Bells, 1925)
"I've found the glory way" (Crowning Hymns no. 4, 1924)
"Riches untold (Walking with Christ along)" (Gospel Sunshine, 1924)
"Sinful pleasures now are past" (The Blessed Way, 1925)
"Sometime, but when I cannot tell" (Gospel Sunshine, 1924)
"The Lord has been so good to me" (The Blessed Way, 1925)
"Who can take away your sin?" (His Voice of Love, 1924)

If he wrote this many songs in three years, he probably wrote many more. It is possible, of course, that some of these were reprints from earlier years. It is an interesting coincidence that five of these (including "Christ's love is all I need") appear in the publications Gospel Sunshine and Signal Bells from B. B. Bateman in Knoxville, Tennessee, and that the only extant copy of Sides's publication Perennial Hymns of Praise is in the rare books collection of the Knox County Public Library.

"Christ's love is all I need" seems to be Sides's most popular song, and was known among the Churches of Christ at least as early as 1938, when it appeared in New Wonderful Songs, edited by Thomas S. Cobb and George H. P. Showalter (Austin, Texas: Firm Foundation).(Hymnary.org) Its widest exposure, however, doubtless came from Sacred Selections, edited by Ellis J. Crum (Kendallville, Indiana: Ellis J. Crum, 1956), a very popular hymnal among Churches of Christ in the southern United States.

Stanza 1:
Though dark and dreary be life's way
And burdens hard to bear;
There's One whose love will never fail,
My heart shall ne'er despair.
My hope is staid in Him today,
And He will safely lead
To that sweet home beyond the sea;
Christ's love is all I need.

(Chorus)
Christ's love is all I need each day,
I know, I know, Christ's precious love is all I need;
He'll lead me safely on life's way,
I know, I know Christ's precious, precious love is all I need.

Does "dark and dreary" really describe our lives? That answer will vary depending on the circumstances of the individual; I hope your answer is, "No!" But for many of us there have been times when we would have to answer, "Yes." And with age and experience, we begin to see the truth of Ecclesiastes 11:7-8, "Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many."

The path of the Christian life helps us avoid many of the dark pitfalls of this world, but nothing can spare us from the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," not to mention the active ill will of the wicked. No, Christians are not immune to the darknes and burdens, but we have a source of strength the world does not know. "There's One whose love will never fail," says our songwriter, no matter who turns against us or disappoints us in this life. David the Psalmist said: "For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the LORD will take me in."(Psalm 27:10) Jeremiah, in his Lamentations, spoke as though God had abandoned him along with his nation; then in the midst of this book of tears, the weeping prophet cries out:

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.(3:21-23)

How much better promises we have now, if we "know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge!" It is all we need, and it is more than enough, "that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."(Ephesians 5:19) Paul understood this, and even under threat of death, he could say cheerfully, "For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain."(Philippians 1:21) Christ's love was all Paul needed. It was this love from and for Christ that sustained him through all his troubles, because it was a constant source of hope. For this reason Paul told the Christians in Thessalonica, "Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word."(2 Thessalonians 2:16-17)

Note that Christ's love gives us not only future promises--"eternal comfort and good hope through grace"--but comfort in this life as well, as we are "established in every good work and word." We are established in "every good work" when we "walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."(Ephesians 5:2) We are established in "every good word" when we "follow the pattern of the sound words . . . in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus."(2 Timothy 1:13) Christ's love is the foundation of our beliefs and our course of life:

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that One has died for all, therefore all have died. And He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.(2 Corinthians 5:14-15)

Stanza 2:
Though trials press on every side
And many snares there be;
I look in simple faith to Him
Who calmed the stormy sea.
He is the Shepherd kind and true,
His sheep He'll ever feed;
This cheers me on and makes me strong,
Christ's love is all I need.

(Chorus)

Jesus calming the stormy Sea of Galilee is one of the first stories we teach to children, and with good reason, because it touches on an almost universal experience. Storms are frightening to most children, and even some adults confess to hiding under the covers during a booming thunderstorm. To some of us, a powerful storm is fascinating as well; but the disciples in that boat had little time to contemplate the beauty and majesty of the elements, and were more concerned about their lives! If you have ever been in such a situation, you know what they were doing. You force the fear to the back of your mind, and do your best to reason clearly and make the right decisions quickly, but a little voice inside says, in a rather surprised tone, "You know what? This could be the end for you."

In the midst of this terror and frantic activity, we see Jesus serene and composed. In the incident of Matthew chapter 8, He was asleep in the stern of the boat. In Matthew 14 He came walking across the waves--not flying, or running, or swimming, but walking as though nothing were out of the ordinary. Of course, to Him, it wasn't. He was active in the creation of the great oceans of our planet, and could hardly be impressed with the minor tantrums of a fairly small body of water. God said to Job and his friends,

Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, and said, "Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed"? . . . Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?(Job 38:8-11, 16)

Job had to answer no, and even with all our exploration, there are many "recesses of the deep" that remain a mystery today. But Jesus knew the sea and the storm, and though His disciples were amazed at His power over these elements, it was nothing of particular note to Him who had created them. "He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed."(Psalm 107:29) When we endure storms of the figurative sort--trials and persecutions, blows of fate and of foes--Jesus is also present, serenely guiding us, if we will only look to Him. He has the same power to calm the storms of our lives, and the storms that sometimes rage within our own hearts.

But in addition to the power to command, He has the power to comfort. The other image used in this stanza is that of the Shepherd, as Jesus describes in John 10:14-15, "I am the good Shepherd. I know My own and My own know Me, just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep." An earthly shepherd defends and sustains the flock in his care, and the spiritual sheep of Jesus' flock are likewise promised that "He will guide them to springs of living water."(Revelation 7:17) It was this sustaining love that carried the apostle Paul through his numerous trials, any one of which might have broken a man without this secret strength: "the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus."(1 Timothy 1:14) That same comfort and strength is available to all who will seek it in obedience to a loving Savior's will.

Stanza 3:
And when I hear the boatman's call,
"Come cross the chilly tide;"
I shall not fear to launch my bark,
For Christ is at my side.
He bore the sting of death for me,
Has met my every need;
And so I sing the sweet refrain,
Christ's love is all I need.

(Chorus)

Benjamin Franklin once wrote, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Now, it is true that some people manage to avoid the latter, either through having nothing to be taxed, or through having enough of it to hire a good team of lawyers and accountants; but there is no exemption, no loophole, for escaping the former. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment,"(Hebrews 9:27) and that is one appointment we all shall keep.

This is not a prospect to be faced alone; but in facing death, none of our fellow human beings can comfort us by sympathy of having passed that trial before. None, that is, but One who walked that road before us, and calls us on from the other side. In the end, the love of Christ is our only true assurance and hope in this trial. Paul wrote of this comfort at a time when Christians daily faced the prospect of death at the hands of an oppressive government:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, "For Your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.(Romans 8:35-39)

It is a bond unbreakable (except by our own deliberate rejection!) and will carry us even through death itself. In view of these wonderful promises, then, "keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life."(Jude 21)

The "sting of death is sin,"(1 Corinthians 15:56) but Jesus took this sting away for His followers, bearing it Himself on the cross. Death must still be faced, but it is already a beaten opponent for those who are in the love of Christ:

When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"(1 Corinthians 15:54-55)

"Christ's love is all we need" in this life, and in facing the inevitable end of life, it will be all we have; but it is more than enough. "To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood and made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."(Revelation 1:5b-6)

About the music:

I haven't seen any other examples of Sides's songwriting for comparison, but judging it within the context of its style--early 20th-century quartet gospel--his technique is strong. He uses a little barbershop-style chromatic harmony, but not too much, and the dissonances created by doubled nonharmonic tones are unexpected and pleasing. (For example, the doubled accented "neighbor tone" created at the beginning of the 6th measure ("NEV-er fail") by the soprano/alto A-flat/F against the bass/tenor E-flat/B-flat, resolved into an E-flat chord on the next note.)

One of the general principles of four-part harmony writing is to move each voice to the nearest possible note in each successive chord, so that the individual parts flow logically and smoothly. The shortest possible movement, of course, is to not move at all--to hold the same note from one chord to the next, whenever the chords have a note in common. Given the other restrictions on note doublings within chords, and against parallel 5ths and octaves between successive chords, there is a strong tendency for these held notes to accumulate in a single voice part. At least one of the parts, therefore, will often have a less interesting role than the others (altos have long recognized this phenomenon). Sides breaks up this tendency, whether deliberately or accidentally, especially in the first phrase. At first the tenor moves in parallel 6ths with the melody, while the alto holds an E-flat; then as the melody works its way into a higher register, the alto takes up parallel 3rds and the tenor takes over the held E-flats.

One rule that Sides breaks is pretty obvious to any student of part-writing--the parallel perfect 5th in the bass/tenor parts from the second measure of the chorus to the third. There were ways around this, such as moving the tenor to an A-flat in the 3rd measure (tripling the A-flat, or putting the soprano on the E-flat instead of the tenor). But the prohibition of perfect parallel 5ths is intended to preserve the independence of the voices, and in the chorus, the soprano, tenor, and bass are really serving more as a chordal accompaniment to the alto's melody, and the effect of the parallel 5ths is not really noticeable.

There is a real problem with the final phrase of the stanza, before the chorus--a problem that is not at all the fault of the songwriter. Sides chose to put the voices in unison, a striking effect in a cappella music. The unison melody is a descending scale passage, B-flat / A-natural / G / F, implying the key of B-flat, the dominant of the main key, E-flat. This is nicely written and causes the ear to anticipate the coming E-flat / B-flat / E-flat cadence that concludes the stanza. But only if it is sung correctly! Many singers run over the A-natural unawares, and sing it as an A-flat, as though it had no accidental. If everyone sang it this way, it would be weaken the harmonic progression of the song, but would still work; but unfortunately, it is more common for some singers to hit the A-natural as written, some to sing the A-flat they hear in the scale of the overall key, and others to wander between the two!

References:

George W. Sides, 1900 U.S. Census. https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-11819-23956-70?cc=1325221

William L. Sides family, 1910 U.S. Census. http://www.archive.org/stream/13thcensus1910po0035unit#page/n1296/mode/1up

Record of George W. Sides-Alice Pearl Ray marriage. "Alabama Marriages." Familysearch.org https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FQ4R-73X

World War One Draft Registrants, Monroe County, Mississippi. http://files.usgwarchives.net/ms/monroe/military/ww1/registrants/mon-s.txt

George W. Sides family, 1920 U.S. Census. http://www.archive.org/stream/14thcensusofpopu886unit#page/n1058/mode/1up

George W. Sides family, 1930 U.S. Census. http://www.archive.org/stream/15thcensus1170unit#page/n649/mode/1up

George W. Sides obituary. Delta Democrat Times (Greenville, Mississippi), 4 November 1956, p. 2. http://newspaperarchive.com/the-delta-democrat-times/1956-11-04/page-2/

"Sides Family Cemetery (Walker County, Alabama)." Findagrave.com. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&GRid=62623229&CRid=575489&

"George William Sides." Findagrave.com. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSsr=161&GScid=61381&GRid=42380327&

James H. Stanley family, 1910 U. S. Census. http://www.archive.org/stream/13thcensus1910po748unit#page/n137/mode/1up

James H. Stanley family, 1930 U. S. Census http://www.archive.org/stream/15thcensus1154unit#page/n810/mode/1up

"What the Southern Association seeks to Accomplish." Music Trade Review 63/24 (December 1916), p. 138.
http://mtr.arcade-museum.com/MTR-1916-63-24/MTR-1916-63-24-158.pdf

Come to Jesus

2012-01-30T11:37:00.001-06:00

Praise for the Lord #103

Words: Eden Reeder Latta, 1878
Music: John Harrison Tenney, 1878

The author of this text offers a first-rate example of the reason so many men of earlier generations went by their initials. Eden Reeder Latta (1839-1915) probably received his unlikely name from the Eden Township in La Grange County, Indiana (not the same as the incorporated community of Eden, Indiana nearer Indianapolis). Eden's grandfather Robert Latta settled in the area in 1832, and with fellow Methodists began the Eden Chapel Society. Eden's father, William James Latta, succeeded his father Robert in this pulpit. Eden thus grew up in a strong Methodist family in which he was expected to bear his part in the work of the church. In an interesting coincidence, this sparsely populated farming region was also home for a time to William A. Ogden (1841-1897), who also wrote many popular gospel songs.(Gingerich)

Eden R. Latta became a school teacher as a young man, and pursued this calling until his retirement. The 1860 U.S. Census finds him teaching in a "common school" in Perry Township, Noble County, Indiana. Shortly after this he moved to the vicinity of Manchester, Iowa, and married Mary E. Wright in 1863. Latta was apparently not in military service during the Civil War, though he was 22 when the conflict began. He preached for the Manchester Methodist Church during the war, and the name "E. R. Latta" turns up in the histories of other Iowa Methodist congregations during this period. Perhaps during wartime he filled various pulpits as a "circuit rider." Latta spent many years in Delaware County, teaching in Manchester (1870 U.S. Census) and later at Colesburg (1880 U.S. Census). By the 1890s the Lattas had moved to Guttenberg, Iowa, on the Mississippi River, where they were also active in the Methodist Church. In the 1900 U.S. Census Latta's occupation is listed as "songwriter," so he may have retired from teaching by that time.

J. H. Hall gives Eden R. Latta a brief chapter in his 1914 Biography of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers, and notes that he wrote lyrics for several major gospel composers, including his childhood friend William A. Ogden, and also James McGranahan, James H. Fillmore, and Edmund S. Lorenz. He wrote more than 1,600 hymn lyrics.(Hall, 173ff.) A search of his name in Hymnary.org shows that his songs were widely popular a century ago, though only a few remain in common use. Besides "Come to Jesus," he is remembered among the Churches of Christ in the U.S. for the lyrics of "Live for Jesus, O my brother." Another of his well-known songs was "Blessed be the fountain (Whiter than snow)," which was in Jorgenson's Great Songs of the Church.

Stanza 1:
Come to Jesus, He will save you,
Though your sins as crimson glow,
If you give your heart to Jesus,
He will make it white as snow.

Refrain:
Come to Jesus! Come to Jesus!
Come to Jesus! come today!
Come to Jesus! Come to Jesus!
Come to Jesus! come, come today!

This is one of many hymns inspired by the rich prose of Isaiah 1:18,

"Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

As is common to the symbolism of many nations, the ancient Israelites associated red with blood and bloodshed, and thus by extension with sin in general. White was associated with purity; the Mishnah also associated it with joy, which can only be received in its truest sense by a pure heart.(Jewish Encyclopedia)

Red's double association with blood and sin came together in the ancient system of animal sacrifices. God declared in Leviticus 17:11, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life." The crimson of the sacrificial blood was in atonement for the crimson stain of sin; what was yet wanted was a perfect Sacrifice that could render the soul white like snow or wool, as though it had never been sullied by sin.

The Hebrew Testament prescribed many rules for outward purification, but also made it clear that the need for a pure heart is the real issue between God and humanity. "Rend your hearts and not your garments," cried the prophet Joel,(2:13) and King David plaintively asked the Lord, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."(Psalm 51:10) Jesus framed the problem perfectly when He said, "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander."(Matthew 15:19) The Sermon on the Mount is primarily directed toward this end as well: that we pursue holiness in the inward person as well as in our external behavior.

Excursus: In Defense of the "Invitation Song"

This is a classic "invitation song," sung during the portion of a worship service when those present are invited to come and be baptized into Christ, or if already Christians, to come and confess sins or to present any other need. (Other folks might term this the "altar call.") Churches of Christ in the U.S. typically extend this invitation at the end of a sermon, usually worded by the preacher (though in some older traditions this was done by a separate "exhorter"). The congregation typically stands and sings a song that encourages all present to take whatever steps are needed to get right with God.

The familiarity of long use sometimes breeds contempt, and I some brethren now speak disparagingly of this long-standing practice. I have heard of congregations doing away with it completely; others have separated it from the sermon and extend the invitation at another time in the worship service. Of course the time, place, and manner are matters of convenience and custom; the Lord's invitation stands open at all times, and many Christians (myself included) have been baptized into Christ at some time other than the regular worship assembly. But it should never be taken for granted or treated lightly; the content of that invitation is something both wonderfully beautiful and of the greatest importance.

Among the final thoughts revealed in Scripture are these simple words inviting all to submit to God's will, and to receive His grace:

And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.(Revelation 22:17)

This echoes Jesus' frequent invitations during His ministry, perhaps most fully expressed in Matthew 11:28-30.

Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.

Imagine being among the crowds that heard these words for the first time! Moses had given God's laws, which contrasted sin and holiness in high relief. The prophets, down to John the Baptizer, the last of that line, had called the people to repentance from their sins. But when had any prophet or teacher offered rest and relief from this burden? In some of the Psalms there were hints; but what prophet or teacher had ever offered a personal invitation to these delights? It would have been blasphemy, for anyone but God Himself. The invitation is a startling and remarkable thing: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man who was and is the Son of God, offers to take away your sins, restore your relationship to God, and bring you into the blessings of His family.

Just before He returned to heaven, Jesus commissioned His followers to extend this invitation on His behalf. Summing up God's plan of salvation, what the whole of Scripture teaches, He said:

Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.(Luke 24:46-47)

When we extend the Lord's invitation, whether at the end of a sermon while standing and singing, or in simple conversation with another person, we are fulfilling Jesus' greatest desire--not to mention one of His most obvious commands.

The sermons recorded in the Acts of the Apostles show that His followers fulfilled this mission and extended the Lord's invitation whenever they could. Christianity is a thinking religion, a feeling religion, but also an acting religion; when the hearers of the first gospel sermon realized their lost condition and asked, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?," Peter gave them an answer:

And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself." And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation."(Acts 2:38-40)

About three thousand responded to this invitation and were baptized into Christ that day. In Paul's first recorded sermon, given in the synagogue of Salamis on the island of Crete, he concluded with these words of invitation and solemn warning:

Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this Man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by Him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets should come about: "Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish; for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you."(Acts 13:38-41)

It is true that not every recorded public sermon in Acts contains an invitation as such (some of these sermons, of course, were cut short by violence). But the active responses of so many people to the apostles' preaching is evidence in itself, and the examples we have are certainly sufficient endorsement of the value of our modern custom to extend this invitation at every gathering.

Stanza 2:
Come to Jesus do not tarry,
Enter in at mercy’s gate,
O delay not till the morrow,
Lest Thy coming be too late.

(Chorus)

There are times, perhaps, when delay in obeying the Lord's invitation is necessary. A person who wishes to receive baptism, but does not understand the Scriptural meaning of that act, needs further teaching. Some people desire salvation, but are wrestling with questions of repentance in their lives. Some people are interested but not yet convinced, as we see in the hopeful words of some of Paul's listeners in Athens: "We will hear you again about this."(Acts 17:32)

Sadly, however, the overwhelming majority of delays in obeying the Lord's invitation come from one simple factor: avoidance. The classic case of this in Scripture is Marcus Antonius Felix, the Roman procurator of Judaea before whom the apostle Paul stood trial in Acts 24. Paul, of course, took this as an opportunity to preach the gospel. In the quaint, striking language of the King James Version, we read of Felix's reaction:

And as he [Paul] reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, "Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee."(Acts 24:25)

Note that Felix was trembling! He really was convicted in his heart, and it made him uncomfortable. He wanted to make that discomfort go away--but he didn't want to obey, either. He wanted a third option, so he delayed. Of course this is no real option at all, because it depends on the uncertain premise that a "convenient season" will come again. In fact, Felix did hear Paul again, several times according to verse 26--but that trembling conviction was gone. By that time Felix's third option had hardened into rejection of the gospel. But the day that he rejected Paul's message could equally likely have been his last. If a person knows what to do, and knows it must be done, there are no good reasons for delay. "And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on His name."(Acts 22:16)

Stanza 3:
Come to Jesus, dying sinner,
Other Savior there is none,
He will share with you His glory,
When your pilgrimage is done.

(Chorus)

The comedian Jerry Clower told the story of a man whose truck ran off a remote mountain road, leaving the vehicle hanging precariously from a ledge over a gorge. Unaccustomed to prayer, he spoke up as best he could: "Is there anybody up there? I need some help!" As the story goes, a voice spoke from the heavens saying, "My son, have faith and jump, and I will see you safely to the ground." After a moment of consideration, the man yelled again, "Hey! Is there anybody else up there I could talk to?"

Jesus summarized this attitude among His Pharisee listeners when He said, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about Me, yet you refuse to come to Me that you may have life."(John 5:39-40) The Pharisees still have many descendants today, people who have heard the gospel, accept the fact that they need salvation, but are determined to have it on some other terms.

More than once Jesus described His invitation through telling parables of a great feast. In Matthew 22 it was a wedding feast given by a great king, whose guests refused to come, even abusing the servants sent to deliver the message. The king instead invited whatever people his servants could find, including many commoners who proved perfectly happy to drop whatever they were doing in order to attend the royal event! Jesus wants you to respond to His invitation, but if you refuse He will not force you to come.

In the same parable, verses 11-13, the king encounters a man during the feast who does not have the appropriate wedding garment; this person is forcibly ejected from the feast. This section of the parable is the subject of much debate, but I merely point to the facts that 1) there was a dress code for this feast, 2) the man was not so attired, and 3) he was not allowed to remain. Though the king had very unusually extended his invitation to anyone who wished to attend,(v. 9) they still had to obey the accepted customs, including the wearing of a wedding garment. Some commentators believe that hosts provided these garments as a matter of custom; certainly this would be a fair assumption in this case, given the unexpected and immediate nature of the invitation. We can only suppose, then, that the man had either rejected the garment offered to him, or (more likely) had sneaked in uninvited. In the same fashion, the Lord's invitation is for "whosoever will,"(Revelation 22:17, KJV) but not "howsoever you will." Jesus declared Himself the only way into that great feast: "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except by me."(John 14:6) And to do that, He says, one must "observe all that I have commanded."(Matthew 28:10)

Every day that dawns means that the Lord's invitation is still open, but the sobering truth is that some day that invitation will be closed. I won't ask you to stand and sing, but if there is something you need to make right with God, please do not delay. "Today is the day of salvation."(2 Corinthians 6:2)

About the music:

"Come to Jesus" is often said to have first appeared in The River of Life, edited by Latta and published in 1878 by Oliver Ditson of Boston. Only the date of this attribution appears to be correct. River of Life was published in 1873, does not contain "Come to Jesus," and makes no mention of Latta's involvement as an editor (though it does contain several of his songs). A copy is available online at Hathitrust.org. A search of WorldCat.org for "Eden Latta" and "E R Latta" reveals several publications of poetry in periodicals, popular songs, and gospel songs found in hymnals edited by others, but I have found no proof that Latta himself ever edited a hymnal.

Some of this confusion, I suspect, came from a simple misunderstanding of one particular passage in Hall's Biography entry on Latta:

In his early career as a hymnwriter, he composed his hymn "Whiter than snow" for Dr. H. S. Perkins, of Chicago, who wrote music to the words, and the song was published in his book, "The River of Life," by Oliver Ditson Company, of Boston.(p. 173)

The writer's liberal use of commas, combined with the vaguely referenced pronoun in "his books," could easily lead a reader to believe that Latta was the editor. (If I had not viewed the online copy of River of Life, I would not be sure either.) Adding further puzzlement, "Come to Jesus" is not even mentioned in this entry; the hymn under discussion is Latta's "Blessed be the fountain."

It appears that the first instance of "Come to Jesus" was actually in Spiritual Songs for Gospel Meetings and the Sunday School, edited by Elisha A. Hoffman and John Harrison Tenney (composer of "Come to Jesus"), and published in Cleveland, Ohio by Samuel Barker in 1878. The Hymnary.org listing of this hymnal mistakenly gives this as Edward Hammond's "Come to Jesus," an entirely different text. But Paula Hickner, Music Librarian at the Fine Arts Library of the University of Kentucky, has checked their copy of Spiritual Songs and confirms that this is in fact the "Come to Jesus" by Latta and Tenney.

John Harrison Tenney (1840-1918) was a Massachusetts farmer and shoemaker who was also quite active in hymnal publishing.(Tenney Family, 223) A search in WorldCat.org shows that he edited at least two dozen hymnals, beginning in the early 1870s with Boston publishers Lee & Shepherd and Oliver Ditson. Though he continued the relationship with Ditson throughout his career, by the 1880s he was increasingly working with hymnal publishers from the midwest (Brainard's Sons and R. E. Hudson in Ohio) and the south (Ruebush-Kieffer in Virginia, A. J. Showalter in Georgia). His publishing slowed toward the end of the 1890s.

Though Tenney wrote a few texts, and set several lyrics to music, "Come to Jesus" is by far his best known contribution. (A lesser known tune of his is "Father, in the morning, unto Thee I pray" PFTL #304.) It is a sturdy, singable tune, which is a harder thing to write than it seems. Part of the strength of this tune is the rhythm, which is repetitive enough to appeal to our sense of symmetry, yet varied enough not to be dull. The dotted eighth-sixteenth figure begins each phrase, then the rhythm proceeds in a strident series of quarter notes interrupted by the longer half note. In the chorus this long-short interruption is repeated for the central idea, "Come to JE-sus." To have no variation in rhythm would be dull; too much variation seems chaotic; but a little rhythmic alteration, playing on ideas already presented, is just right.

The pitch aspect of the melody is also similarly confined to easily grasped patterns. The movement from one note to the next is either a step within the scale, or a leap within the tonic triad (DO-MI-SOL). The one exception to this is in the chorus, on the third repeat of "Come to Jesus," which begins on a high E after leaving an F#--an unusual leap of a 7th. This is the highest note in the melody, and stands out somewhat for this reason as well, but it is logically prepared by the high D in the preceding subphrase.

One aspect of this hymn that has made it wear thin on many singers is the frequent repetition of the phrase, "Come to Jesus!" This is at the beginning of each stanza, which makes sense, but is repeated six times in the text of the chorus, adding very little to the stanzas. And though Tenney could not help what Latta wrote, he made himself an accessory to the crime when he made the accompanying parts sing, "Come, come today!," to the rhythm of "rum-tum-te-tum," on the tonic triad. If all three stanzas are sung, it is 18 times in all.

No one seems to know where the phrase "'Come to Jesus' in whole notes" started, but I have heard it since I first started playing in bands. (Example: "You guys couldn't play 'Come to Jesus' in whole notes!") Warren Wernick, a trumpeter and and composer from New York City, has actually written a brass quintet arrangement of "Come to Jesus" in whole notes: http://www.scoreexchange.com/scores/102943.html. I have no idea how Tenney's melody was chosen for this distinction. Another colloquialism referencing this song is "to have a 'Come-to-Jesus' meeting" with someone, or to inform someone that "it's 'Come-to-Jesus' time." Both imply that a confrontation is imminent that will involve frank discussion, usually resulting in a change of behavior by the other party. These certainly attest to the wide usage of this song over the years!

References:

Gingerich, Howard D. "The Hawpatch hymnwriter." Mile 146 (Topeka Historical Society, Topeka, Indiana) 4/2 (April-June 2011). http://topekahistoricalsociety.com/Uploads/May2011Newsletter.pdf

Hall, J. H. Biography of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers. New York: Revell, 1914. http://www.archive.org/stream/biographyofgospe00hall#page/n5/mode/2up

"Color." Jewish Encyclopedia (1906). http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4557-color

Tenney, M. J. The Tenney Family. Boston: American Printing and Engraving, 1891. http://www.archive.org/stream/tenneyfamilyorde00tenn

"John Harrison Tenney." Cyberhymnal. http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/t/e/n/tenney_jh.htm

Closer to Thee

2012-01-22T21:17:00.000-06:00

Praise for the Lord #102

Words: Austin Taylor, 1911
Music: Austin Taylor, 1911

Austin Taylor (1881-1973) was born in Morgantown, Kentucky, but grew up in north and central Texas. He taught singing school for more than seven decades, and was a founder of the Texas Normal Singing School, the oldest such institution affiliated with the Churches of Christ that is still in existence.(Finley, 465ff.) Taylor was equally important as a songwriter and editor; his first songbook was Gospel Messenger (1905), self-published in Sherman, Texas. The majority of his music publishing, however, would be with the Firm Foundation Publishing House, where he worked closely with George H. P. Showalter (1870-1954), the editor of the Firm Foundation religious journal for nearly 50 years. From The New Gospel Song Book of 1914 to the close of the 1920s, the pair would produce 10 songbooks. They teamed up one final time in 1953 and produced the first edition of the Majestic Hymnal, Firm Foundation's most successful hymnal.

Austin Taylor's hymn "Closer to Thee" was one of the first songs by the "Texas school" of songwriters to be included in a hymnal produced by the Churches of Christ east of the Mississippi. Lloyd O. Sanderson included it in Christian Hymns "no. 1" (Nashville, Tennessee: Gospel Advocate, 1935), along with a few songs by Texas songwriter Tillit S. Teddlie. It can be found in most of the major hymnals produced among the Churches of Christ since that time. For more on Austin Taylor's career, please see my recent post on the Firm Foundation hymnals.

The year 1911 was an interesting time in Taylor's life. He married Augusta Barbara Jerger, a daughter of German immigrants, in about 1907.(1930 U.S. Census) The Lord blessed the couple with their first child, Dorcas Geneva Taylor, on the 8th of February, 1911.(Texas Birth Certificates via Familysearch.org) I was a year older than Taylor when my first child, also a daughter, was born. She was also a February baby, and an ice storm shut down the college where I worked the day after we brought her home. With my unexpected day off I sat in the quiet house with my wife and mother-in-law, all of us watching this new soul that was part of us, yet completely apart. Not for the last time, I approached God in prayer to ask, "How do I do this?" It was one thing to discuss parenting in the Marriage & Christian Family course in college; it was another to be a parent, knowing that my actions would affect this person for the rest of her life, and for eternity.

Perhaps something like this ran through Austin Taylor's mind as he wrote this hymn in 1911. If a man takes fatherhood seriously, it will drive him closer to God. Becoming responsible for the spiritual welfare of another soul, at least for the years it is under his care, makes a man realize just how much he needs to grow up himself. It is true of all of us, I suppose, parents or not; but the demands of that particular job reveal our weaknesses to us in high relief. (If they don't become apparent to us on our own, our children will gladly point them out as they get older.) And no matter what our age, situation, or level of spiritual maturity, we all need to get closer to God.

Stanza 1:
Closer to Thee, near to Thy side,
Closer dear Lord, I would abide;
Hold me in Thy embrace,
'Neath every smile of grace,
Grant me, O Lord, a place
Closer to Thee.

Psalm 65:4 sings forth, "Blessed is the one You choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house, the holiness of Your temple!" People place a high value on being close to famous and important people; even in our cynical times, it is quite the honor to be invited to visit the President or Governor, or to be seated at a dinner with a celebrity athlete. That proximity implies a familiarity and privilege not accessible to just anyone; we get the chance to see the "real person," and to be seen by them as an individual, not just a part of the crowd.

It's funny--and sad--that more people don't place the same value on being close to God. People will stand in line for hours to meet an athlete who makes his living throwing, hitting, kicking, bouncing, or running with a ball. People will brag for the rest of their lives that they got to shake hands with a political figure who, at best, is only one of many that will come and go in our lifetimes. But the Ancient of Days, the Great Maker of all things, has invited us to be His personal friends, and how many people place value on that? He seeks us out, and wants to lavish that familiarity and privilege on us, that comes from being His friend. He wants us to see the "real Him," and came down to this earth among us in order to make that happen. He wants us to know that He cares about each of us individually; He knows your name, and wants to hear from you.

The ancient Israelite could think of drawing close to God in a very literal way, by coming to the temple where God's presence was revealed. The closer you were to that place, the better. But we don't have a temple like that today; Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, in John 4:21-23,

Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. . . . But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him.

The Hebrew Scriptures gave plenty of hints that this attitude was at the heart of the relationship all along: "Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, that glory may dwell in our land."(Psalm 85:9) "The LORD is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth."(Psalm 145:18) But the New Testament took away the importance of physical place entirely; now the "temple of God" is within us, both individually (1 Corinthians 6:19) and collectively as God's church (Ephesians 2:19-22).

The letter to the Hebrews speaks of this "drawing near" frequently, playing on the cultural understanding of Israel's historic relationship to God. In the former days, it had been a matter of physical birth and physical location; "but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God."(Hebrews 7:19) This hope is our personal relationship with God's Son, whose sacrifice enabled us to have a new level of access unimagined in earlier dispensations. "Consequently, He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them."(Hebrews 7:25) The foundation of this drawing near is faith and trust, because, "without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him."(Hebrews 11:6) And as always, a saving faith in the Bible sense is a faith made complete through submissive obedience: "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water."(Hebrews 10:22)

Getting to this place, closer to God, is worth whatever effort or sacrifice it requires. Brother Taylor describes the superlative nature of the goal as the "embrace" of God, where we are favored with His "smile of grace." Moses, in his final speech to the Israelites, reassured them that "The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."(Deuteronomy 33:27) We see the embrace of God once more in the gospels, when Jesus called the children to Him, "and He took them up in His arms, put His hands upon them, and blessed them."(Mark 10:16) Who would not want to be in that number, who were so blessed by His touch and His words?

Stanza 2:
Closer to Thee, near to Thy breast,
Closer to Thee, Lord, let me rest;
Guide me when I would stray,
Keep me from sin each day,
Draw me, dear Lord, I pray,
Closer to Thee.

In the second stanza, Brother Taylor speaks to our need to stay close to God. It is sadly true that many who have once drawn near to God through obedience to His Son "have fallen away from grace."(Galatians 5:4) This was a problem of the ancient Hebrews as well, because it is a problem of the human heart. It was the message of the prophets, such as Isaiah, who delivered God's pointed message that, "these people draw near with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, while their hearts are far from Me."(Isaiah 29:13) The letter of James gives the antidote, for ancient times, New Testament times, and all times: "Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded."(James 4:8)

The possibility of straying is not taught in order to keep us on pins and needles, in constant fear of our salvation. The apostle John assures us of a better salvation than that! "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."(1 John 2:1) But that same Advocate warns us, "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."(Matthew 26:41) And John's reassurance is predicated on our own salvation through obedience to Christ, with a subsequent effort to "walk in the light, as He is in the light."(1 John 1:7)

There is a line from the early Medieval prayer known as the Te Deum that has become a favorite phrase of mine: "Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin." Just as walking down a physical road depends on taking each individual step within the boundaries of that path, so walking in the light is a series of decisions made every day, that we will make our best effort to do what God would have us do, and avoid what He would not have us do. And like that physical path, we are less likely to stray outside the borders if we draw closer to the One who walks before us.

Stanza 3:
Closer to Thee, happy and free,
Grant me, O Lord, ever to be;
Hear me in ev'ry cry,
Stand near when I must die,
Then take me home on high,
Closer to Thee.

The chief reason to seek a closer relationship to God is because we love Him and want to know Him better, "for the Father is seeking such people to worship him."(John 4:23) But it is equally true that there are great benefits to be had from this relationship. There are times when, sad to say, there are people who mean us harm. No matter how hard we try to "live peaceably with all," we can only control what "depends on [us]."(Romans 12:18) With some people it will not be enough. What a blessing to know that if we are close to God, we have a protector who will always be with us, and whose word is our steady support!

They draw near who persecute me with evil purpose;
They are far from Your law.
But You are near, O LORD,
And all Your commandments are true.
(Psalm 119:150-151)

Even without the active persecution of enemies, life can be hard enough. There will be struggles and sometimes losses, and times will come when we need someone to lean on. It is unfortunately true that in some of these times, even the best of family and friends will let us down. Sometimes they are doing their best to support us, but simply do not know how to help. Some suffering is hard for us even to express, much less for another to understand.

How comforting to know that, "The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit."(Psalm 34:18) When we are close to God, we have the attention of the Father, the advocacy of the Son, and the interceding help of the Holy Spirit:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.(Romans 8:26)

We have all sometimes felt that no one understood the depth of sorrow we suffered, or the fear and worry under which we labored. If we have lived long on this earth, we can relate to the old spiritual, "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen." But always remember the next line! "Nobody knows, but Jesus." If it is the pain of rejection, He knows that. If it is the pain of physical suffering, He knows that. If it is the pain of disappointment in those we love, He knows that. If it is the fear of that "undiscovered country" of death, He knows that too. Jesus experienced the range of human suffering firsthand.

God knows our troubles, and He hears our prayers. "For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayer."(1 Peter 3:12) "Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."(Hebrews 4:16)

About the music:

Several aspects of the music show Taylor's lifelong involvement with quartet singing. The distinctive "hook" of the song is heard in the first two phrases with the chromatic downward slide of the soprano and alto. In each case the chromatic chord that falls on the second syllable is (technically) a C#-E-[G]-Bb, or a C#dim7 with the G omitted; but instead of having a leading-tone function (e.g., C#dim7 to Dmin), it is just chromatic decoration. The Bb is held through from the preceding chord and on into the following chord, giving this technique the name "common-tone diminished 7th" in some theory textbooks. In my own classes (which were oriented toward classical music theory) I jokingly referred to this as the "barbershop diminished 7th" because of its prominence in the American male quartet tradition. (Part of the fun of barbershop harmony is holding a note through in one part while changing the others to create a new and unexpected chord!) Taylor does the same chord in both of the two-measure sub-phrases that open the song, but with a voice swap that flips the harmony roles of the soprano and alto. It is a classic case of "same but different" that makes a musical idea memorable, and I daresay this is the part of this song that sticks in a person's head the longest.

Another example of quartet harmony is found in the 7th measure, in the last two notes of the bar. The first is a C9 chord (C-E-[G]-Bb-D), and the final note of the bar is an honest-to-goodness flat 9th chord, C-E-[G]-Bb-Db. (If there are other flat 9th chords in this hymnal, I cannot remember where.) As is common in four-part writing of these five-note chords, the 5th of the chord (G) is omitted. The root of the chord (C) is in the bass--this harmony is best heard when presented in root position, with the bass holding it together. The E-natural, the 3rd of the chord, is necessary to distinguish the quality of the chord (major), and the Bb, the 7th of the chord, serves as a bridge to the 9th (D, then Db) above it; if the Bb were omitted rather than the G, the D and Db would sound much less integrated into the overall sound. The resolution of the flat 9th is typical here, moving down a half-step (Db-C), but Taylor heightens the chromatic tension by moving this in parallel with E-natural to Eb in the alto. The E-natural is the leading tone of the C9 harmony, and by all rights should have moved up to the F in the next chord. Moving it down to Eb, the 7th of the F7 chord, is against the grain in classical theory, but is a trademark of the American quartet sound.

The form of the melody in this hymn is unusual, with a syllable pattern of 88.666.4 in 16 measures. The first eight measures are fairly conventional, with two-measure subphrases repeating the same rhythmic pattern and leading up to a strong half-cadence on "a-BIDE." The second half begins exactly like the opening measure (compare "Clos-er to" to "Hold me in"), but then spins off in a series of expansive 6-syllable lines, each building on the one before without a break, and piling up momentum toward the end. This forward motion is brought to rest in the final two measures, which return to the more staid rhythm of the first 8 measures. It is a simple enough technique, but effective. Some songs can manage the same rhythm throughout, of course, but think how dull this song would have been if Taylor had staid with the same 2-bar rhythmic pattern in the second half! The combination of repetition, variation, and contrast gives the music "singability" without becoming tedious; it is a characteristic found in good music of many sorts.

References:

Finley, Gene C., ed. Our Garden of Song. West Monroe, La.: Howard Publishing, 1980.

Hymnals Published by Firm Foundation (Austin, Texas), 1909-1979

2012-01-16T21:07:00.064-06:00

For several decades in the 20th century, the Firm Foundation was second only to the venerable Gospel Advocate among the religious journals read by the Churches of Christ in the U.S. It was by far the leading voice from Texas, and its influence was strong in the bordering states; I distinctly remember my father reading it and retaining back issues for future reference. Firm Foundation published an adult Sunday School quarterly, just as Gospel Advocate did; and like its competitor on the other side of the Mississippi, the Firm Foundation publishing enterprise included hymnals.

Firm Foundation Publishing House, 27 August 1946
Austin History Center via Portal to Texas History

Firm Foundation began as a weekly journal in Austin, Texas, in 1884. It was first edited by Austin McGary (1846-1928), followed by G. W. Savage (1860-1923) in 1902 and then George H. P. Showalter (1870-1954) in 1906. Showalter ran the paper for nearly half a century. After his death in 1954 Reuel Lemmons (1912-1989) edited the paper, though the Showalter family continued as owners. In 1983 the Showalter family sold the enterprise to H. A. "Buster" Dobbs and Bill Cline, who changed the journal to a bi-weekly, then to a monthly format.(Crawford)

A search of Worldcat.org has turned up no fewer than 38 hymn publications from Firm Foundation, spanning the years 1909-1979. No doubt there are more, and I would be glad to hear of others so that I could add them to the list below. My Worldcat list of these hymnals (which also shows the libraries that hold them) can be viewed at: http://www.worldcat.org/profiles/haimericus/lists/2935751.

Gospel Songs, ed. James W. Acuff & William D. Evridge (1909; ca. 240 hymns)
Zion Melodies, ed. Austin Taylor, George H. P. Showalter, J. S. Dunn, Frank Grammer (1910; 80 hymns)
For His Praise, ed. Woodie Washington Smith, Austin Taylor, L. E. Edmonds (1911)
New Songs of Victory, ed. Austin Taylor et al. (1911; 155 hymns)
Song Crown, ed. Austin Taylor et al. (1912; 154 hymns)
Select Songs, ed. Austin Taylor & J. M. Hagan (c. 1912?; 48 hymns)
Harvest call, ed. Austin Taylor (1913; ca. 120 hymns)
The New Gospel Song Book, ed. George H. P. Showalter & Austin Taylor (1914; 224 hymns)
New Songs of Praise, ed. Austin Taylor & George H. P. Showalter (1916; 219 hymns)
Gospel Songs no. 2, ed. Austin Taylor & George H. P. Showalter (1919; 210 hymns)
Jewel Quartets, ed. Austin Taylor (1910s?; 12 hymns)
Harvest Hymns, ed. Austin Taylor, George H. P. Showalter, Tillit S. Teddlie (c. 1921?; 108 hymns)
Church Evangel, ed. Emmett S. Dean et al. (1921?; 94 hymns)
Hymns of Zion, ed. Austin Taylor, George H. P. Showalter, Tillit S. Teddlie (1922; 159 hymns)
Songs of the Reapers no. 2, ed. Austin Taylor, George H. P. Showalter, Tillit S. Teddlie (1923?; 77 hymns)
Gospel Songs no. 3, ed. Austin Taylor & George H. P. Showalter (1924, reprint 1934, 1937, 1940; 234 hymns)
Gospel Songs no. 4, ed. Austin Taylor & George H. P. Showalter (1927, reprint 1939; 193 hymns) [This was also published in 1927 by Primitive Christian in Union City, Tenn.]
Carols of Praise, ed. J. W. Gaines (1928; 176 hymns; co-published with Trio Music, Memphis, Tenn.[?])
Carols of Devotion, ed. J. W. Gaines (1930; 170 hymns)
New Ideal Gospel Hymn Book, ed. Austin Taylor, James W. Acuff, William D. Evridge, George H. P. Showalter (1930, reprint 1945, 1947; 320 hymns)
New Wonderful Songs, ed. Thomas S. Cobb & George H. P. Showalter (1933, reprint 1944; 296 hymns)
Select Songs, ed. Thomas S. Cobb & George H. P. Showalter (1935; 70 hymns)
Christian Hymns, ed. L. O. Sanderson & C. M. Pullias (1935) [This was a Gospel Advocate hymnal, the only occasion I have found when the two "rivals" published jointly.]
Best of All Songs, ed. Thomas S. Cobb & George H. P. Showalter (1937; 137 hymns)
Glad News, ed. Austin Taylor (1939; 66 hymns)
Special Songs New and Old, ed. Thomas S. Cobb & George H. P. Showalter (1940; 135 hymns)
Greater Gospel Songs, ed. Austin Taylor (1941; 190 hymns)
Our Leader, ed. Thomas S. Cobb & George H. P. Showalter (1941, reprint 1946; 175 hymns)
Majestic Hymnal, ed. Austin Taylor & George H. P. Showalter (1953; 329 hymns)
Majestic Hymnal no. 2, ed. Reuel G. Lemmons, with Tillit S. Teddlie, Austin Taylor, Holland Boring, Edgar Furr, Marvin Rowland, Elbert V. Kelley, Wilkin Bacon (1959; 442 hymns)
Tiny Tot Tunes, ed. John Fletcher Floyd (1960; 20 pages)
Heart Melodies, ed. Elbert V. Kelley (1961; 174 hymns)
Songs of Joyful Praise, ed. Frank Roberts (1965; 110 pages)
Awakening Songs, ed. Holland L. Boring, Sr. (1971; 201 hymns)
Songs for the Master, ed. Holland L. Boring, Sr. (1975; 213 hymns)
Gems for His Crown, ed. Holland L. Boring, Sr. & Bill Cox (1977; ca. 150 hymns)
Hymns of Praise, ed. Reuel G. Lemmons, associate eds. Holland Boring, Sr., Paul Epps, Bobby Connel, Bill Cox, Tom Chapin, Holland Boring, Jr., tech. advisor Eris Ritchie (1978; 753 hymns)
Songs of Hope, ed. Holland L. Boring, Sr. (1979; 216 hymns)

The table below shows the frequency with which these were published, by decade, and also the involvement of various editors.

DECADE	1909-1920	1921-1930	1931-1940	1941-1950	1951-1960	1961-1970	1970-1980
HYMNALS	10	9	5	2	3	2	5
EDITORS	Taylor(10) Showalter(4) Acuff(1) Evridge(1) Dunn(1) Grammer(1) Smith(1) Edmonds(1) Hagan(1)	Taylor(6) Showalter(6) Teddlie(3) Gaines(2) Dean(1) Acuff(1) Evridge(1)	Cobb(3) Showalter(3) Taylor(1)	Cobb(1) Showalter(1) Taylor(1)	Taylor(2)* Showalter(1) Lemmons(1) Teddlie(1)* Kelley(1)* Boring(1)* Furr(1)* Rowland(1)* Bacon(1)* Floyd(1)	Kelley(1) Roberts(1)	Boring(5) Lemmons(1) Cox(2) Epps(1) Connel(1) Chapin(1) Ritchie(1)
Assisted with Majestic Hymnal, no. 2* (1959) *Assisted with Hymns of Praise* (1978)

Overview of Hymnal Publishing by Firm Foundation

There were two distinct eras of hymnal publishing at Firm Foundation: the years prior to the U.S. entry into the Second World War, and the postwar period. In the prewar days, the publications were typically the small paperbacks such as were used at singing schools and conventions. They usually numbered fewer than 200 songs, and featured many new works in the "quartet gospel" style. New books were issued much more frequently than one would expect with standard full-size hymnals, sometimes more than once a year.

Something changed this situation drastically; I have found no Firm Foundation hymnals from 1942-1952, except for a few reprints of earlier books. And when the Majestic Hymnal broke this silence in 1953, it presented a different kind of hymnal--larger, more inclusive of the traditional classical hymns, and more suited to use in weekly worship. Though there were still some smaller books consisting primarily of new material, they were far fewer in number than before. The emphasis was on the bigger, more ambitious hymnals; Majestic Hymnal, no. 2 (1959) and Hymns of Praise (1978) were collaborative efforts involving half-a-dozen or more editorial consultants.

What caused this change? One would expect that the Great Depression of the 1930s would have hurt any kind of publishing business, yet the Firm Foundation kept turning out hymnals at an impressive pace; counting reprints of earlier works, the years 1931-1940 yielded 8 publications, compared to 9 for 1921-1930 and 10 for 1909-1920. If anything, the hard times of the 1930s were a boost to the simple, cheap pleasures such as singing schools and "all day singing with dinner on the grounds." Perhaps a more important factor was the gradual disengagement of Austin Taylor from hymnal editing, starting about 1930 (more about this below). Taylor had been the leading music editor of the early period; but again, this did not seem to dampen the enthusiasm for new books during the following decade, and other editors stepped into Taylor's shoes.

The war years, however, brought challenges to the gospel "singing convention" culture. Many of the young men who were the song leaders, singing school teachers, and quartet singers, were away in the service of their country. Wartime rationing of gasoline and tires made travel more difficult for those who remained, both leaders and participants. At the same time, radio and recording media had matured and were expanding their influence. Families that once traveled all weekend to attend singings were now staying home and hearing their favorite gospel quartets over the airwaves instead. In the postwar era, this increased commercialization and centralization of the gospel music business led to a concert culture that began to supplant the traditional singing convention. Though the "fifth-Sunday singing" continues to this day in many places, the greater variety of entertainments available in the postwar era meant that the days were gone when the whole town would show up for a singing, regardless of religious inclinations, simply for something to do.(Goff, 157ff.)

At the same time, the postwar period was a time of dramatic change for the Churches of Christ in the United States. We saw many years of sustained numerical growth, leading to the oft-cited (but never quite proven?) claim that we were "the fastest-growing religious body in the nation." This period saw change in much more than numbers: the most dramatic growth was in urban and suburban congregations, where the membership was increasingly college-educated and relatively affluent.(Harrel, 568ff.) So if the publishing demand for the older "singing convention" books was not what it once had been, there was on the other hand a real opportunity for the publisher who could put full-size hymnals in the hands of all these new members and fill up the pew racks in all the new church buildings. Great Songs of the Church, for example, sold 250,000 copies (all editions combined) from 1921 to 1946; between 1946 and 1952 it sold three times that number.(McCann, 226) This was also the era that Gospel Advocate brought out Christian Hymns, no. 2 (1948), the ubiquitous little tan books once found throughout the southern states.

The Firm Foundation first responded to this demand with reprints of its two larger hymnals from the prewar era, the New Ideal Gospel Hymn Book (1930) and New Wonderful Songs (1933). But the long dearth of new hymnals came to an end in a big way in 1953 with the Majestic Hymnal, the last effort from the great editorial team of Austin Taylor and George H. P. Showalter. Following Showalter's death, the new editor of Firm Foundation, Reuel Lemmons, took a different approach. He assembled a "dream team" of consulting editors, tapping the talents of songwriters and singing school teachers who were widely recognized among the Churches of Christ in the western United States: Austin Taylor, Tillit S. Teddlie, Elbert V. Kelley, Holland Boring, Sr., Edgar Furr, Marvin Rowland, and Wilkin Bacon. Lemmons's other major hymnal, Hymns of Praise (1978) also had a panel of associate editors made up of well known names: Holland Boring, Sr., Paul Epps, Bobby Connel, Bill Cox, Tom Chapin, and Holland Boring, Jr.

By the Decades: Editors 1909-1920

One of the most influential figures in this early period actually never edited a Firm Foundation hymnal: Frank L. Eiland (1860-1909). He was one of the most important founders, however, of the "Texas school" of songwriters in the Churches of Christ, and was founder of the Trio Music Company and the Southern Development Normal in Waco, Texas. Eiland's school drew some of the best young talent in the state, including James W. Acuff, William Evridge, and Emmett S. Dean, who went on to edit songbooks for Trio Music and later for Firm Foundation. Eiland also taught Thomas S. Cobb, a Firm Foundation hymnal editor in later years. During his final illness, he even tutored the young Tillit S. Teddlie by correspondence from his sickbed.(Harp, "Eiland") Acuff, Evridge, and Dean co-edited several publications for Trio Music in the first decade of the 20th century, and Acuff and Dean co-wrote what is probably the single best-known song from this group, "Just over in the gloryland." The earliest Firm Foundation hymnal I could find, Gospel Songs (1909), was also co-edited by Acuff and Evridge, and was simultaneously published through Trio Music.

James Warren Acuff (1864-1937) was a native Texan whose parents moved there from Tennessee; he is often said to have been related to the country singer Roy Acuff, but the family trees I have seen for each don't seem to intersect. This was probably just a common assumption, since "Just over in the gloryland" crossed over into commercial country music; it is even sometimes misattributed to Roy Acuff! A search of the Bartlett Tribune in the invaluable Portal to Texas History shows that Acuff was engaged as the song leader for the Church of Christ in Georgetown, Texas in the 1930s, and was leading singing for gospel meetings in other communities. Though Acuff's involvement with the Firm Foundation hymnals was intermittent, his reappearance in the editorial team of the 1930 New Ideal Gospel Hymn Book was not a fluke. He was still active and sought-after, and by that time was probably one of the most widely known songwriters among the Churches of Christ. He wrote a large number of songs, many of which can be traced through Hymnary.org.

The best-known song by William D. Evridge (1873-1932) was probably "For the soul that's redeemed," with text by James Rowe. This song was copyrighted in 1907, an entry that confirms his full name: William Daniel Evridge.(Copyright Catalog, 74) The Bartlett Tribune mentions Evridge frequently as a song leader for gospel meetings in the Churches of Christ. The data given in his wife's obituary (Friday, June 8, 1934, p.1) confirms that Evridge died in 1932, and that the Daniel Evridge buried in the Grainger, Texas cemetery is the same W. D. Evridge. Acuff and Evridge worked together on the first Firm Foundation hymnal, and returned for the New Ideal Gospel Hymn Book (1930), a major stepping stone toward a full-size hymnal. Emmett S. Dean, the other major figure from Trio Music, was much less involved with Firm Foundation. It is possible that there was a desire on the part of Showalter or others to use only editors from the Churches of Christ; Dean was Methodist.(Cyberhymnal, "Dean") The Gospel Advocate, of course, had used Methodist and Baptist music editors in its early hymnals, but in Texas of the early 1900s there were many capable songwriters among the Churches of Christ who were available for this purpose.

Several other men were involved in the early Firm Foundation hymnals in various capacities during this busy period. James Sterling Dunn (1874-1922) was a native of Tennessee, one of five brothers who all preached for the Churches of Christ. He came to Texas and preached for the old Central Church of Christ in Fort Worth.(Harp,"J. S. Dunn") Dunn was a co-editor of Zion Melodies in 1911; I have not been able to discover any songs by him, or any other involvement with church music. James M. Hagan (1858-1933) is best known among the Churches of Christ for writing the music of "I would not live without Jesus" and "Oh the things we may do." A Baptist from rural Kentucky, Hagan worked his way through the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and became a nationally known figure in music education as well as in gospel music.(Rone, 457ff.) In addition to hymnals, he also edited music books for schools. Hagan co-edited Select Songs with Austin Taylor for Firm Foundation in about 1912.

Frank Grammer was an associate of the songwriter and hymnal publisher Will Slater as far back as the Eureka Normal School in Stigler, Oklahoma. He edited several hymnals with Slater, and a few published by the Hartford Music Company. He later produced Favorite Songs of the Church numbers 1 and 2 (1946 and 1948) with Rue Porter, published by the Church Music Company in Fullerton, California. I have been unable to find anything else about his life, except that he was associated with several leaders among the Churches of Christ in the Oklahoma-Arkansas area.(WorldCat.org) According to the 1930 U.S. Census, Woodie Washington Smith was born in Alabama in 1877, and was a Baptist preacher in Crowell, Texas (between Wichita Falls and Lubbock). Hymnary.org lists a large number of songs by Smith, and WorldCat.org shows that he published hymnals under his own imprint "W. W. Smith Co." in Fort Worth, Texas from about 1915-1925. Smith was a co-editor of Firm Foundation's For His Praise in 1911, along with Austin Taylor and L. E. Edmonds. I have found no information on Edmonds except for a few songs listed in Hymnary.org, and two hymnals he edited for the Ozark Music Company in Springfield, Missouri.

Taylor & Showalter: A Classic Team

Firm Foundation front office, 27 August 1946
Austin History Center via Portal to Texas History
(G.H.P. Showalter at right)

After the round-robin of the early years, an editorial team emerged that would set the pace for the next few decades: Austin Taylor and George H. P. Showalter. Though they are both listed as editors of Zion Melodies (1910), along with Dunn and Grammer, it was The New Gospel Song Book (1914) that began their lasting editorial partnership; by 1930 they issued no fewer than 10 hymnals with the familiar credits: "Austin Taylor & G.H.P. Showalter." After a hiatus of more than two decades, they co-edited the landmark Majestic Hymnal in 1953.

Austin Taylor (1881-1973) was born in Morgantown, Kentucky; his parents were baptized into Christ at the famous Cane Ridge congregation. The family moved to Sherman, Texas in 1890. He learned music in singing schools, and even had opportunity to study under the Chatauqua, New York songwriter Horatio Palmer ("Master, the tempest is raging"). Taylor was well known as a song leader for gospel meetings, and taught singing schools for more than 70 years. He was a founder of the Texas Normal Singing School.(Finley, 465ff.) Brother Taylor made a deep impression on many, many songleaders and songwriters through this work; see the Hymnal Collector post on Taylor's "On the sun-bright road of Calvary," and read the comments; see also Wayne Walker's post "A Bit of History" for more reminiscences about Austin Taylor.

Taylor was by far the most prolific of the Firm Foundation hymnal editors, and is probably the name most associated with these publications. Interestingly, though, his involvement waned after 1930; his name did not appear on another hymnal until 1939. This was followed by only two more (1941 and 1953), even though he was teaching singing schools into the early 1970s.(Finley, 467) Edgar Furr's recollections of Taylor's career during the Great Depression suggest that financial necessity may have been a factor. Taylor might have needed to spend more time on the road teaching singing schools and leading singing for gospel meetings, where remuneration was more immediate. It may have been that he simply could not devote the same time to the publishing business as he did in earlier years.

Austin Taylor's hymn "Closer to Thee" was one of the first songs by the "Texas school" of songwriters to be included in a hymnal of the Churches of Christ east of the Mississippi--Christian Hymns (Nashville, Tennessee: Gospel Advocate, 1935), edited by Lloyd O. Sanderson and Charles M. Pullias. But his song "Do all in the name of the Lord," though not as widely used initially, may yet outlast "Closer to Thee" in the common usage of the Churches of Christ. It is a fine treatment of a much needed topic. Taylor also self-published hymnals, including his earliest book, the Gospel Messenger (1905), published in Sherman, Texas. Later in life he self-published Favorite Gospel Songs (1965), edited with Claude Thomas Lynn, and published at his home of Uvalde, Texas. In the 1970s the Texas Normal Singing School published a collection of his works, The Songs of Austin Taylor, honoring his lifetime of work in serving the Lord through song.

George Henry Pryor Showalter (1870-1954) edited the Firm Foundation, then a weekly journal, from 1908 until his death in 1954. He was without question one of the most influential men in the Churches of Christ during the early 20th century. In addition to his editorial duties, he wrote books on prayer, Christian unity, God's plan of salvation, marriage, and Christian stewardship. A native of Snowville, Virginia, Showalter came to Texas in 1897 as the first president of the short-lived Sabinal Christian College.(Harp, "Showalter") Upon taking the editorship of Firm Foundation, Showalter built it up from a one-issue paper (Austin McGary's baptism controversy with David Lipscomb) into a more balanced forum for discussion of many topics. By the 1920s it had nearly displaced the Gospel Advocate among Texas Churches of Christ. Showalter's leadership has been particularly noted in the area of missionary work.(Hooper, 138ff.)

Though Showalter edited a large number of hymnals, I can find only scattered references to any songs by him. (He should not be confused with the prolific Anthony J. Showalter, composer of "Leaning on the everlasting arms," and I can find no relation between the two.) Most likely his role was that of reviewing the textual content of the hymns, as was done by senior editors at Gospel Advocate.

By the Decades: Editors 1921-1930

Six of the nine Firm Foundation hymnals from the decade of the 1920s were edited Taylor and Showalter as well, including the significant Gospel Songs numbers 3 and 4, each of which went into reprints in later years. But they also utilized a third editor who was a rising star among songwriters in the Churches of Christ: Tillit S. Teddlie (1885-1987). A native of the community of Swan in East Texas (just outside Tyler), Teddlie attended the Southern Development Normal in Waco, Texas.(Harp, "Teddlie") He also received tutoring by correspondence from Frank L. Eiland.(Harp, "Eiland") Teddlie's formal education was completed at my alma mater, the North Texas State Teachers College (University of North Texas) in Denton, Texas. Though he was nationally known for his gospel songs, Teddlie was an evangelist first. He preached in gospel meetings from the early 1920s on, and spent most of his life preaching for congregations in the north and central regions of Texas.(Harp, "Teddlie")

Teddlie joined Taylor and Showalter as co-editor of Harvest Hymns, Hymns of Zion, and Songs of the Reapers no. 2, all published by Firm Foundation in the early 1920s (the exact dates are uncertain). He would have been a natural replacement for Taylor when the latter stepped away from hymnal editing in the 1930s, but by that time he was engaged in his own publishing ventures. A search of WorldCat.org reveals that Teddlie published his own songbooks from Dallas, Texas, beginning in 1936. He brought out a new volume nearly every year, even through the early part of the Second World War. After a wartime interruption, Teddlie resumed occasional publishing from various places where he was preaching in Texas, such as Ennis, Sulphur Springs, and Greenville. His hymnal editing career culminated in the Great Christian Hymnal (Abilene, Texas: Brotherhood Press, 1962), a full-size hymnal for weekly worship. This was followed by a second edition in 1965. For more on Teddlie as songwriter, see my post surveying his hymns.

Hymnal publishing at Firm Foundation during the 1920s continued at nearly the same frenetic pace as it had in the preceding decade, and other editors stood in the gap as needed. Emmett Sydney Dean (1876-1951), who wrote the music for Acuff's "Just over in the glory land," was lead editor for Church Evangel, published circa 1921. Dean was a founder of the Trio Music Company, and co-edited Dawning Light with Frank L. Eiland and H. W. Elliott in 1895, the earliest Trio publication I have been able to discover. He edited more than two dozen songbooks for Trio Music in the first quarter of the 20th century. Two other Firm Foundation hymnals appeared later in the decade under the editorship of James Washington Gaines (1880-1937). Another Methodist songwriter, Gaines was an associate from the early days of the Trio Music Company, and a personal friend of Frank L. Eiland--it was at Gaines's log cabin home in Palo Pinto County, Texas, that Eiland wrote the famous music to "Hold to God's unchanging hand."(Walker, "In that home") Gaines is best remembered among the Churches of Christ for "Take my hand and lead me," and for the music of "You never mentioned Him to me."

Firm Foundation closed out the decade with the New Ideal Gospel Hymn Book (1930). For this effort, the editorial team of Taylor and Showalter was augmented by James W. Acuff and William Evridge, editors of the first Firm Foundation hymnal back in 1909. Wayne Walker has identified this hymnal one of the most important of the early Firm Foundation hymnals.("Hymnbooks") It was the first of the larger hymnals (300-plus songs), and was reprinted in 1945 and 1947 as demand for this kind of book was rising among the Churches of Christ.

By the Decades: Editors 1931-1940; 1941-1950

As mentioned before, Austin Taylor's involvement with the Firm Foundation hymnals declined sharply after 1930. He edited only one more, in fact, until after the Second World War: Glad News (1939). The new hymnal team at Firm Foundation in the 1930s was instead Cobb & Showalter. Thomas S. Cobb (1876-1942), a native Texan, was educated in much the same circles as Taylor, and received his music diploma from the Western Normal and College of Music in Dallas. He taught singing schools across Texas and the bordering states, and was particularly noted for the "Cobb Quartet" made up of his four daughters. He was recruited to Firm Foundation by Showalter in 1935.(Finley, 122ff.) Cobb edited only four hymnals for Firm Foundation before his death in 1942, but among these was the significant New Wonderful Songs (1933); at 296 hymns it was part of the trend toward more substantial publications.

Prior to his work with Firm Foundation, Cobb edited hymnals for the Quartet Music Company of Fort Worth, Texas. A search of WorldCat.org shows that he was involved with at least 7 books for this publisher, going back as far as the 1890s when it was called the "Quartette Company." One of these earlier works, From the Cross to the Crown (1921?) was subtitled, "Scriptural Songs," and was co-edited with Elder T. B. Clark and T. B. Mosley, one of the most well-known singing school teachers among the Churches of Christ in the southeastern U.S.(Finley, 366ff.) Mosley was also known as a staunch doctrinal conservative. This gives some idea of the bona fides Cobb brought with him during the era of the "hymnal controversy" surrounding E. L. Jorgenson's Great Songs of the Church. Jorgenson was firmly in the premillennial camp, and was an editor of Word and Work, the primary voice of this viewpoint within the Churches of Christ. Opponents of premillennialism objected to several hymns in Great Songs that supported this doctrine, or were at least questionable. (Most of these were removed or altered in the better-known "No. 2" edition).

Foy E. Wallace, Jr., the most vocal opponent of the premillennial movement, did more than object to individual hymns--he was opposed to using the hymnal at all. As editor of the Gospel Advocate during the early 1930s, Wallace brought in Lloyd O. Sanderson to work on an alternative, the Christian Hymns "no. 1." This desire to catch up with the popularity of Great Songs was probably what led to one of the most unusual events in the history of Firm Foundation hymnal publishing: when Gospel Advocate released the hymnal in 1935, it was co-published with rival Firm Foundation. It is the only such occasion I have found. Wallace left the Gospel Advocate before the hymnal actually came out, and preached in Oklahoma for a time. It was during this period, as best I can tell, that he submitted a series of articles to Firm Foundation in which he attacked Jorgenson and Great Songs of the Church from every angle imaginable. These are useful documents because they give the most detailed description of exactly which songs were considered "premillennial" (some really are, though as usual, some come down to poetic interpretation). But they are also sad evidence of a tendency to attack the person as well as the doctrine, often with a hateful sarcasm unbecoming to a Christian gentleman. It is all the more tragic in a man of Wallace's ability. Wallace particularly praised Austin Taylor's editing, however, considering it more attentive to scripturalness.

The decade of the 1940s saw very little activity in new hymnals at the Firm Foundation. Austin Taylor edited one smaller book, Greater Gospel Songs, and the Cobb & Showalter team brought forth another titled Our Leader. Both of these were published in 1941 before the U.S. entry into World War Two. No new hymnals would come from the Firm Foundation presses for more than a decade, though some earlier songbooks were reprinted.

By the Decade: Editors 1951-1960

Firm Foundation Bookstore, 27 August 1946
Austin History Center via Portal to Texas History

Thomas S. Cobb passed from this life in 1942, shortly after the last of the pre-war Firm Foundation hymnals appeared. When Firm Foundation returned to hymnal publishing after the war, it first offered reprints of earlier books. But a new project was in the offing, and the classic team of Taylor and Showalter reunited for a completely different kind of work. The result was a new full-size hardback hymnal that would be the most successful ever to come from the Firm Foundation presses: the Majestic Hymnal, first published in 1953. It marked the end of an era as well as a beginning; the revered George H. P. Showalter passed away the following year, and this was his final collaboration with Austin Taylor. They truly saved the best for last!

A 1954 article by Edgar Furr of the Texas Normal Singing School shows the enthusiasm with which this hymnal was received:

Our song book the "Majestic Hymnal" printed by the Firm Foundation is the official song book used in the school. The book contains a great number of new songs printed for the first time in 1953. Many of the new hymns were written by the teachers of our school and some were contributed by our friends and were placed in the book by the request of our faculty. The song services where this book is being used have created more interest and have shown a marked improvement. We have never been given to "conventional" singing.

This was an era when the Churches of Christ experienced rapid growth, riding the baby boom and postwar optimism. College education was increasingly accessible thanks to the "G.I. Bill," and for better or worse, the average affluence of congregations rose as membership in urban and suburban congregations grew. This phenomenon naturally led to an increased demand for substantial hymnals suitable for weekly worship; and though the gospel roots remained strong, there was also a desire for greater inclusion of music from the broader tradition of English hymnody. Great Songs of the Church had taken this approach from the beginning, and I believe it had an influence on Lloyd O. Sanderson's selections in Christian Hymns no. 2 (1948). Majestic Hymnal was the last of these major postwar hymnals to appear, but proved a worthy competitor and had a strong following in the western U.S.

Following the death of Showalter in 1954, the editorship of Firm Foundation passed to Reuel Lemmons (1912-1989). Lemmons was a native of Arkansas, but grew up in Tipton, Oklahoma near the border of the Texas panhandle. He became a prominent preacher and missionary, founding the Pan-American Lectureship held in Central and South America, and the European Lectureship held in Vienna. He was especially noted for his missionary work in Africa. Lemmons became the editor of Firm Foundation in 1955, following the death of George H. P. Showalter.(Finley, 314ff.) Terry Crawford notes that Lemmons was one of the most widely respected leaders in the Churches of Christ during the second half of the century, serving as a voice of moderate reason in the disputes of the era. This certainly matches the impression I received of Lemmons from my own parents, who held him in high regard. (I am sure his Oklahoma roots in no way prejudice my opinion.)

Though Lemmons wrote a few hymn texts, his most important role was as lead editor in the production of two hymnals. He oversaw the 1959 Majestic Hymnal, no. 2, probably the most influential of all the Firm Foundation hymnals. He also edited the 1978 Hymns of Praise, another work on a similar scale. Lemmons followed a somewhat different approach from that of Showalter. Though he is listed as editor, he drew on a large pool of music editors, broadening the perspective brought to the decisions involved. The title page presents a long and distinguished list of men as contributors: Austin Taylor, Tillit S. Teddlie, Elbert V. Kelley, Holland Boring, Sr., Edgar Furr, Marvin Rowland, and Wilkin Bacon.

Taylor and Teddlie need no further introduction! Elbert V. Kelley (1887-1970) was a native of Arkansas, but his family moved to Sabinal, Texas while he was still a small child. His career was centered around Sabinal, at that time the home of the Texas Normal Singing School.(Finley, 309) He is best remembered for his song, "I'll go" (1953). Following his involvement with Majestic Hymnal no. 2 he also edited Heart Melodies (1961).

Holland L. Boring, Sr. (1905-2000), a native Texan who graduated high school in Austin, would not be associated with Firm Foundation's hymnals until much later in life. After a decade as a public school principal, he went into full-time preaching, but went to Oregon in the 1950s as dean of Columbia Christian College in Portland. He directed the chorus there as well, and also directed music in the Columbia Christian High School. Boring's formal music training began at a singing school taught by Virgil O. Stamps, and he was teaching singing schools himself from the age of 16. He and Austin Taylor were the first teachers in the Texas Normal Singing School, and Boring later would establish the Haskell Singing School in western Texas, and the Foundation School of Church Music in the Austin area.(Finley, 84ff.) He wrote numerous songs, the best known of which is probably "He is near." This song debuted in the original 1953 Majestic Hymns.

Edgar Furr spent much of his preaching career in southern Texas, along the Gulf coast and the Texas-Mexico border. He attended Abilene Christian College around 1929-1930, and began preaching soon after.(Finley, 215) He was a lifelong friend of Austin Taylor, with whom he shared the hardships of a traveling preacher during the Depression. The two later co-founded the Texas Normal Singing School in Sabinal, Texas. This school is currently operated from the campus of Abilene Christian University, under the direction of the founder's son, Joe Ed Furr. It is the oldest such school still in operation.

Marvin Rowland (1907-2002) was a preacher in the central and western areas of Texas, but supplemented his income through farming, school teaching, and running a feed store. (More than one small-town preacher can relate to this!) He was a 1933 graduate of Abilene Christian College,(Christian Chronicle) where he sang in gospel quartets that traveled to area communities to support evangelistic efforts.(Optimist) He was serving as superintendent of the Sunny Glenn Children's Home in San Benito, Texas around the time that Majestic Hymnal no. 2 was published.(Del Rio News Herald)

Wilkin Bacon (1909-1981), a son of the Choctaw Nation of southeast Oklahoma, was a singer in the Frank Stamps Quartet in his early days but gave up a professional career in music to preach the gospel full-time. He is best remembered for his song "Can He depend on you?" (see this post for more on his life and career).

I have not been able to examine the comparatively rare 1953 Majestic Hymnal, but thumbing through the Majestic Hymnal no. 2, I am impressed with the quality of this work. Though Furr's 1954 article naturally pointed out the contributions of the Texas Normal faculty and students, the editorial team did not pad the hymnal with their own compositions. There are a number of songs by Taylor and Teddlie, of course, and a few by Eiland, Kelley, and others from the "Texas School." There is certainly a distinct Texas flavor to the work, to be sure, but it has a good representation of traditional 19th-century gospel and classical hymns as well. Though it is a fairly brief volume (442 hymns) and more than half-a-century old, it would be workable hymnal for many traditional Churches of Christ even today. I have certainly had to use worse!

I have found only one other Firm Foundation music publication from this era, Tiny Tot Tunes (1960) by John Fletcher Floyd. Hymnary.org lists a volume called Hymns for Him (New York: Vantage Press, 1965), which might be by the same individual. I have not determined whether this is the same John Fletcher Floyd who published Thy Kingdom Come: A Survey of Church History in the Twentieth Century (Fort Worth: Star Bible Publications, 1996).

By the Decades: Editors 1961-1970 and 1971-1980

Though the Majestic Hymnal no. 2 ascended in popularity during the 1960s, Firm Foundation introduced only two hymnals during that decade: Heart Melodies (1961) edited by Elbert V. Kelley, and Songs of Joyful Praise (1965) edited by Frank Roberts. This might be the Frank Roberts (1927-2006) who was a choral director at Columbia Christian College,(Miller, 52) and later in the high school department of the Columbia Christian School.(FindAGrave)

The decade of the 1970s was dominated by one editor, Holland L. Boring, Sr., who was second only to Taylor and Showalter in the number of hymnals he edited for Firm Foundation. After his work with Columbia Christian College and School during the 1950s, Boring returned to preaching in western Texas. A Google search of his name turns up repeated references to his preaching for the Church of Christ in Spur, Texas during the 1960s. During this period he established the Haskell Singing School in Haskell, Texas (halfway between Fort Worth and Lubbock).(Walker, "I ask the prayers") In 1968 Holland Boring, Sr. and Reuel Lemmons inaugurated the Foundation School of Church Music near Austin, Texas. Boring, Sr. directed the school for many years.("FSCM History")

He was thus involved in the founding of the three most influential permanent singing schools among the Churches of Christ, having also established the Texas Normal Singing School with Austin Taylor in 1946. All three of these institutions are still in operation today. The following article by Holland Boring, Sr., We need more singing schools, reveals his commitment to training new generations of song leaders, singers, and songwriters. More than this, it reveals his deep understanding of the importance of church music in the spiritual development of Christians. Like Shakespeare, Boring must have believed that,

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.
(Merchant of Venice, V, i, 83-85)

Most of Boring's publications for Firm Foundation were of the smaller paperback variety, promoting new songs from the singing schools. The return to this format may have been a reaction to the economic downturn of the 1970s. As prices of everything rose, congregations would have more reason to hold on to their old hymnals, buying replacement copies as needed. Small, cheap paperbacks once again became the best means of getting new music into the hands of church members.

The last major hymnal by Firm Foundation was Hymns of Praise (1978). Reuel Lemmons served again as editor-in-chief, with another large panel of associate editors, including several well-known names: Holland Boring, Sr., Paul Epps, Bobby Connel, Bill Cox, Tom Chapin, and Holland Boring, Jr. All of these were faculty of the Foundation School of Music.("FSCM History")

Holland Boring Jr. (1930-1997) was brought up in singing schools, naturally, and became a widely known song leader and teacher in Texas. In addition to full-time pulpit preaching he often held ministry positions that combined song leading with another area of service, such as youth ministry or directing the Bible school program. The father-and-son team taught together in the Texas Normal Singing School with Austin Taylor, then in their new project, the Foundation School of Music.(Finley, 78ff.) The elder Boring passed the directorship over to his son sometime after the mid-1980s.("FSCM History," also see FSCM flyer) Holland Boring Jr.'s tenure was sadly cut short by his 1997 death from a brain tumor, at the age of 66.(Walker, "I ask the prayers") His father passed away in 2000.

Paul H. Epps (1914-2002) was a native of Arkansas, but might better be described as an "Arklatexan," living the majority of his life in the bordering states of Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas. He was a full-time preacher, but like Holland Boring Jr. also held positions combining song leading with other ministry duties. In addition to teaching at the Foundation School, Epps co-taught singing schools with Lloyd O. Sanderson.(Finley, 185ff.) Some of his better-known songs are "Jesus knows and cares" and "God in His mercy." Bob Connel is still on the faculty of the Foundation School of Church Music, and still active in presenting singing seminars at congregations. Until recently he was editor of Christian Bible Teacher, and he is a well-known preacher.("Sermons," Abilene Reporter-News) In addition to teaching at the Foundation School, he was one of the original faculty of the Haskell Singing School,(Ellsworth) and taught there as recently as 2006.(Reed)

Bill Clyde Cox (b. 1931) was the only member of this editorial group who was not a minister. He was a masonry contractor, whose love of the Lord and interest in poetry and song led him to a fruitful avocation in church music. He studied composition under Holland Boring, Sr., with whom he co-edited Gems for His Crown in 1977. Cox was particularly concerned that new songs continue to be introduced to the churches, especially from songwriters within the Churches of Christ.(Finley, 127; 130) Tom Chapin (b. 1950) graduated from West Texas State University in 1974 with a music degree, and that summer took the directorship of the Haskell Singing School.(Ellsworth) He is still there, nearly 40 years later. Given the longevity of the tenures of these singing school teachers, there must be something intrinsically healthy about summer singing schools in the Texas heat! Chapin has been particularly successful in taking contemporary Christian songs with instrumental accompaniments and arranging them for four-part a cappella singing; several of his arrangements are in Praise for the Lord.

The book that these men produced for Firm Foundation, Hymns of Praise, is an impressive effort--at 753 hymns, it was by far the largest hymnal the publisher ever issued. But it did not stay in print long, and certainly did not enjoy the success of the earlier Majestic Hymnal.(Walker, "Hymnbooks") There are a number of reasons that one hymnal succeeds and another does not, but I think this was a simple case of a changed marketplace. When Majestic Hymnal first appeared in 1953, it had two primary competitors--Jorgenson's Great Songs of the Church no. 2 and Sanderson's Christian Hymns no. 2. By the time the improved 1959 Majestic Hymnal no. 2 appeared, Christian Hymns no. 2 was more than 10 years old; Great Songs of the Church no. 2, of course, was still essentially unchanged from its pre-war form. The only new competitor to take the field since 1953 was Ellis Crum's Sacred Selections (1956), which likely had not yet gained enough traction to be a major factor. Majestic Hymnal no. 2 was in an ideal position to build on earlier successes, and did so.

But by 1978, nearly two decades later, things were different. Abilene Christian University, having bought the copyright to Great Songs of the Church from Elmer Jorgenson, had updated this old classic with a supplement of 70 well-chosen hymns. Sanderson had brought out Christian Hymns III in 1966. Sacred Selections, with its much higher percentage of "quartet-style" gospel songs, had caught on across the southern and western states and had been recently updated. In 1971, Alton Howard published Songs of the Church, and followed this up with a slightly revised edition in 1977; his books also contained a good share of songs in the southern gospel style. It was a much more crowded field, and Hymns of Praise was competing with already established hymnals that appealed to the very same segment of the market.

Afterword

Typesetters at Firm Foundation, 27 August 1946
Austin History Center via Portal to Texas History

After Buster Dobbs replaced Reuel Lemmons as editor of Firm Foundation in 1983, there were no further hymnal publications. This is not surprising; the Gospel Advocate Company, which had published hymnals since the late 19th century, produced no more after Christian Hymns III in 1966. Richard Hughes observed that the last few decades of the 20th century saw the waning of the era in which two or three religious journals were read almost universally among the Churches of Christ in the U.S.; the rise of many smaller papers diffused the influence of the editors of major papers.(Hughes, 214) Add to this the boom of self-publishing via the Internet, and it is easy to see how fragmented the readership has become. It may be that no one journal wields enough influence to make a new hymnal succeed. Since the last two decades of the 20th century, hymnal publishing among Churches of Christ has largely been the domain of single-editor efforts, sometimes connected with a larger publishing house (Howard Publishing or ACU Press for example) but usually not with a religious journal.

There is also the fact that the amateur gospel singing culture, which supported Firm Foundation's early boom in paperpack songbooks, no longer exists to the extent it once did. In addition, the regrettable and unnecessary antagonism that exists between some proponents of traditional church music and some proponents of contemporary church music has divided the efforts of those who should instead be working together to promote our worship in song. What the future of hymnal publishing may be is uncertain; as digital projection becomes more common, the entire concept of "hymnal" may change. But perhaps the ready availability of desktop music publishing, and the easy integration of new songs into a congregation's available repertoire via PowerPoint, will lead to a new era of collaboration in songwriting and publishing such as existed in the past.

References:

Crawford, T. Wesley. "Firm Foundation." The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2004.

Finley, Gene C., ed. Our Garden of Song. West Monroe, La.: Howard Publishing, 1980.

Goff, James R. Close Harmony: A History of Southern Gospel Music. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Harrell, David Edwin. "Noninstitutional movement." The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2004.

McCann, Forrest. "A History of Great Songs of the Church." Restoration Quarterly 38/4 (1996), 219-228. http://www.acu.edu/sponsored/restoration_quarterly/documents/RQ_38.4_(McCann).pdf

Catalog of Copyright Entries, Part 3: Musical Compositions. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1907. http://books.google.com/books?id=fi_QAAAAMAAJ

Harp, Scott. "J. S. Dunn." The Restoration Movement. http://www.therestorationmovement.com/dunn,js.htm

Harp, Scott. "F. L. Eiland." The Restoration Movement. http://www.therestorationmovement.com/eiland.htm

"Emmett Sydney Dean." Cyberhymnal. http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/d/e/a/dean_es.htm

Rone, Wendell H. A History of the Daviess-McLean Baptist Association in Kentucky,
1844-1943 Owensboro, Kentucky: Messenger Job Printing Co., 1944. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/daviess/hagan.jm.txt

Harp, Scott. "George Henry Pryor Showalter." The Restoration Movement. http://www.therestorationmovement.com/showalter.htm

Hooper, Robert E. A Distinct People. West Monroe, Louisiana: Howard Publishing, 1993.

Harp, Scott. "Tillit Sydney Teddlie." The Restoration Movement. http://www.therestorationmovement.com/teddlie,ts.htm

Walker, Wayne S. "In that home of the soul." Hymn Studies. http://homeschoolblogger.com/hymnstudies/661885/

Walker, Wayne S. "A history of our hymnbooks." Faith and Facts October 1999. http://lavistachurchofchrist.org/LVarticles/HistoryOfOurHymnbooks.html

Walker, Wayne S. "Just over in the glory land." Hymn Studies. http://homeschoolblogger.com/hymnstudies/585533/

Furr, Edgar. "Texas Normal Singing School." Gospel Guardian 5/38 (4 February 1954) http://www.wordsfitlyspoken.org/gospel_guardian/v5/v5n38p14a.html

Obituaries. Christian Chronicle July 2002. http://www.christianchronicle.org/article1409320~Obituaries

"Marvin Rowland to speak Sunday in Church of Christ." News Herald (Del Rio, Texas) 1 December 1961, p. 3A. http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FreePdfViewer.aspx?img=111836328

"Five additions are reported in Hawley revival to present." Optimist (Abilene, Texas) 16/38 (11 July 1929) http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth91477

"Franklin Roberts." FindAGrave.com. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=20776206

Miller, Bonnie, et al.Navigating the Mighty Columbia: Columbia Christian College, a Comprehensive History, a Collaborative Work of Love. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Oklahoma Christian University, 2009. http://www.oc.edu/cascade/documents/historycolumbia.pdf

Owens, Joel. "A history of the Pecos River Family Encampment." http://www.joelowens.org/pecosriver/camp_hist3.html

Walker, Wayne S. "I ask the prayers of those I love." Hymn Studies. http://homeschoolblogger.com/hymnstudies/658268/

"FSCM History." Foundation School of Church Music, 2006. http://www.foundmusic.org/FSCMHistory.htm

Boring, Holland L., Sr. "We need more singing schools." Gospel Guardian 19/47 (4 April 1968), p. 9b-10.

Flyer advertising Foundation School of Church Music. Center for Restoration Studies at Abilene Christian University. http://www.bible.acu.edu/crs/ItemDetail.asp?Bookmark=1911

"Sermons." Abilene Reporter-News 26 May 2011. http://www.reporternews.com/news/2011/may/26/no-headline---sermons/

Reed, Jerry Daniel. "Scores gather in Haskell." Abilene Reporter-News 11 July 2006. http://www.reporternews.com/news/2006/jul/11/scores-gather-in-haskell-to-sing-learn/

Ellsworth, Ken. "Singing in Haskell." Abilene Reporter-News 14 July 2000. http://www.texnews.com/1998/2000/local/sing0714.html

Hughes, Richard T. "Churches of Christ." Encyclopedia of Religion in the South. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 2005.

Close to Thee

2011-12-27T20:46:00.000-06:00

Praise for the Lord #101

Words: Fanny J. Crosby, 1874
Music: Silas J. Vail, 1874

Fanny Crosby probably was the most prolific hymn writer who ever lived, with approximately 9,000 texts (surpassing even the 6,000 or so of Charles Wesley). And though only a fraction of these have stood the test of time, even a small fraction of 9,000 leaves an impressive number of hymns that still give voice to our praises and comfort to our souls. She was truly the standout writer of the early phase of gospel music, and of the 19th century American hymn writers generally; Wilhoff's article in the Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music notes that "with the possible exception of Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley, Crosby has generally been represented by the largest number of hymns of any writer of the twentieth century in nonliturgical hymnals."(92)

Crosby's tremendous success as a hymn writer (in fame if not in fortune), recognition as a champion of social causes, and reputation for generosity and good works fostered an idealized view of her life that fit the mold of the optimistic, romanticized views of the era. She was portrayed as an unfailingly cheerful "Protestant saint," overcoming all obstacles through hard work and simple faith. A recent biographer, Edith Blumhofer, expressed frustration with journalistic conventions of the era (so different from today!) that seemed purposely to avoid addressing areas of her life that were far less than idyllic.(xii)

Truth be told, Fanny Crosby was in difficult straits in 1874, when "Close to Thee" was written. Her husband, Alexander Van Alstyne, made a meager living as a church organist and private teacher, and Fanny's own income--despite the huge contribution she made to gospel music--was relatively small. When they had money, they had the habit of giving much of it away to those who were worse off; consequently, they lived month to month and moved frequently from one apartment to another. Sometimes they stayed at different addresses.

There was an increasing strain within their marriage that led to a permanent separation just a few years later. No doubt money was a great deal of it; perhaps it was also difficult for Alexander to accept Fanny's celebrity, when his own musical efforts were largely unsuccessful. But another factor, no doubt, was the lingering anguish caused by the crib death of the couple's only child in 1859. After moving to New York in the early 1860s, Fanny and Alexander never spoke of the child; only late in life did Fanny reveal this tragedy, to the shock of her closest friends.("Crosby," Wikipedia)

The sensibilities of the era tended to consider this troubled side of Crosby's life off limits for discussion, and it may ultimately have been to the detriment of her later critical reception. The great American hymnologist Henry Wilder Foote, for example, might not have been so quick to dismiss Crosby's poetry as "overwrought sentimentality" had he known the real depth of personal suffering from which she spoke.(Foote, 270) Her lyrics gain an added dimension of meaning when we look at them as the writings, not of a stereotyped "cheerful blind girl," but of a real woman who had misfortunes and disappointments, made mistakes, and got through the best she could by clinging to a simple faith and an ethic of service.

"Close to Thee" was just such an autobiographical outburst. Crosby said of this hymn,

Towards the close of a day in the year 1874 I was sitting in my room thinking of the nearness of God through Christ as the constant companion of my pilgrim journey, when my heart burst out with the words:

Thou, my everlasting Portion,
More than friend or life to Thee;[sic]
All along my pilgrim journey,
Saviour, let me walk with Thee.
(Crosby's Story, 79)

But this reveals another problem in unraveling Fanny Crosby's lyrics--this is from a volume of anecdotal material, taken from interview with Crosby many years after the incident described. Ira Sankey related a different story of the hymn's origin:

The late Silas J. Vail having composed this tune brought it to Fanny Crosby and requested her to write words for it. As he was playing it for her on the piano, she said, "That refrain says, 'Close to Thee, Close to Thee.' Mr. Vail agreed that that was true, and it was agreed that it should be a hymn entitled "Close to Thee."(Sankey, 362)

It is possible that both accounts are true, as far as they go; Crosby's account of the origin of the first stanza does not include the refrain, and Sankey's account of Vail's encounter mentions only the refrain and not the stanzas. Perhaps Vail, editor of the hymnal in which "Close to Thee" first appeared, matched the stanzas to the germ idea of the refrain he had discussed with Crosby. Vail did something similar when he added a chorus to Frederick Faber's "There's a wideness in God's mercy." (Usually under the title, "There's a fullness in God's mercy," this was one of Vail's most popular hymns.) "Close to Thee" was first published in 1874, in Songs of Grace and Glory (New York: Horace Waters & Son), edited by William F. Sherwan and Silas J. Vail.

Stanza 1:
Thou my everlasting portion,
More than friend or life to me;
All along my pilgrim journey,
Savior, let me walk with Thee.

The opening line of this stanza is rooted in the language of Old Testament poetry. A "portion" in the legal sense of an allotted inheritance came to signify the circumstances of life in general; or, as we still say in English, our "lot in life." The priests of Israel had God alone as their "portion" both literally and figuratively, as God told Aaron from the time of the Exodus: "You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel."(Numbers 18:20) In an era when the worth of a man, a family, or a tribe was tied up in land and possessions (is it any different now?), the sons of Aaron had to look beyond the physical to the spiritual.

David adopted this language to himself in the Psalms: "The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; You hold my lot."(Psalm 16:5) "I cry to you, O LORD; I say, 'You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.'"(Psalm 142:5) This is continued by other poets: "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."(Psalm 73:26) "The LORD is my portion; I promise to keep Your words."(Psalm 119:57) The everlasting nature of God's faithfulness is emphasized, and also our choice to receive our inheritance in Him through our obedience to Him.

Perhaps the most moving instance of this poetic image, however, is from Jeremiah's Lamentations:

He has filled me with bitterness;
He has sated me with wormwood.
He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
and made me cower in ashes;
my soul is bereft of peace,
I have forgotten what happiness is, so I say,
"My endurance has perished;
so has my hope from the LORD."

Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
His mercies never come to an end;
They are new every morning;
great is Your faithfulness!
"The LORD is my portion," says my soul,
"therefore I will hope in Him."
(Lamentations 3:15-24)

Sometimes it takes losing everything else to make us realize that our real hope and future, our "everlasting portion," is in the Lord. Was this the passage that sparked Crosby's lines? She had endured many things in her life that could have made her bitter, but like the prophet, clung to the one thing that made sense of life, and could not be taken away.

Refrain:
Close to Thee, close to Thee,
Close to Thee, close to Thee!
All along my pilgrim journey,
Savior, let me walk with Thee.

"Walking with Jesus" and being "close to Jesus" are major themes of Crosby's hymns, and reflect the 19th-century Evangelical presentation of Jesus as a warm, welcoming Friend.(Blumhofer, 253ff.) The Victorian sentiment in religious poetry tended toward emotionalism, and if it sometimes went to excess, it is not any more to our credit today that we are often uncomfortable expressing such emotion. Even men of the "repressed" Victorian era seemed to find much less difficulty in expressing affection toward a male friend, not to mention toward our Savior!

There is a natural tendency when walking with a friend to fall in alongside them; we would hardly call it "walking with" someone if we did not. We walk close enough to converse, to see the person's face; in other words, to be in intimate communication with each other. If it is a close family member we will walk a little closer because we are at ease with them, and little children very naturally take the hand of someone they trust to keep them safe.

The letters of John are full of references to the Christian's walk, centering on the key passage, "Walk in the light, as He is in the light."(1 John 1:6) We do this when we "walk in the same way in which He walked,"(1 John 2:6) "according to His commandments,"(2 John 1:6) "walking in the truth."(3 John 1:3) A walk, of course, is made up of steps; every step we take, in every decision we make, is either closer to Jesus or further away. If we learn to know Him better, our love for Him will increase; and if our love increases, our desire to walk close to Him, in constant communion with Him, will keep our steps in the light with Him.

Stanza 2:
Not for ease or worldly pleasure,
Not for fame my prayer shall be:
Gladly will I toil and suffer,
Only let me walk with Thee.

Refrain:
Close to Thee, close to Thee,
Close to Thee, close to Thee!
Gladly will I toil and suffer,
Only let me walk with Thee.

This was an honest statement in view of Fanny Crosby's life. The 1870 U.S. Census shows that she and her husband were then living in a boarding house in the middle of Manhattan's 8th Ward. Today, this is the exclusive SoHo district, but back then it was a poor working-class neighborhood just a few blocks from the red-light district off Broadway. By contrast, Crosby's friend Phoebe Knapp Palmer (composer of "Blessed assurance") lived in an urban mansion in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, then a prestigious enclave of wealthy industrialists.

Despite their difficult financial circumstances, Fanny seemed always to keep in mind that others were more in need. When the couple gave lecture-recitals to raise money, they routinely donated half the proceedings to the poor. Beginning in the late 1860s, Fanny worked with rescue missions in some of the toughest New York neighborhoods, speaking and counseling whenever she could. And when friends took it upon themselves to organize activities to raise funds for Crosby in her elderly years, her reaction was always to insist that she was not in need.("Crosby," Wikipedia)

James 4:3 says, "You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures." Fanny Crosby received that for which she asked, because the example of her life shows that she wanted most to be a help and comfort to other people. Her songs continue to do this even today. To take an example from the Bible, the apostle Paul showed that his great desire and constant prayer was for the furthering of the gospel of Christ. In the first chapter of Philippians, he related the circumstances of his imprisonment and the opposition he received even from some in the church. There were selfish brethren who thought to eclipse his work while Paul was unable to operate freely. But his conclusion tells us all we need to know about Paul: "Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice."(Philippians 1:18)

What do we seek in our prayers? The model prayer that Jesus gave His disciples mentions material things only in passing--our "daily bread." These things are important and necessary, but they are not the most important and necessary; the emphasis by far is on seeking a right relationship with God and doing His will. We know how to pray for a material blessing, and for deliverance from a physical hardship. When we learn to pray just as earnestly that we may be better servants to others, better proclaimers of the gospel, and better examples of holy living, we will be more pleasing to our Father.

Stanza 3:
Lead me through the vale of shadows,
Bear me o'er life's fitful sea;
Then the gate of life eternal
May I enter, Lord, with Thee.

Refrain:
Close to Thee, close to Thee,
Close to Thee, close to Thee!
Then the gate of life eternal
May I enter, Lord, with Thee.

The final stanza of this hymn uses two familiar old metaphors for the struggles of life--the "vale of shadows" and the "fitful sea." A search of 19th-century works in Google Books shows that these phrases were rather common in religious prose and poetry of Crosby's era. The "vale of shadows" is of course inspired by the "valley of the shadow of death" in the 23rd Psalm. The "fitful sea" was a stock poetic image, especially in the Anglo-American culture that so depended on sea travel. But in the context of a hymn, of course, it calls up the events of the Sea of Galilee when frightened disciples looked to their Lord to save them from a storm.

These phrases are commonplace, even cliched, for a good reason: they express the common experience of humanity. "Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble,"(Job 14:1) and even to the most fortunate of lives "the years draw near of which you will say, 'I have no pleasure in them.'"(Ecclesiastes 12:1) Much of life really is spent in that valley, as we walk among dangers both physical and spiritual. Life really is much like a stormy ocean, as we are buffeted by pressures from many directions, ever changing, and threatening to overturn us.

Both images reflect the fact that we have to face events beyond our control, and sometimes completely unforeseen. But the child of God knows that we are not alone in this journey; instead, we can say with David, "I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me." On the ocean of life, we can remember with the Psalmist, "You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, You still them."(Psalm 89:9)

About the music:

Silas Jones Vail (1818-1884) was one of the many lesser lights in the gospel music boom of the post-Civil War era, and like many church musicians before and since, he practiced a trade in order to pursue his passion. In the U.S. Census records from 1850-1870, his occupation is listed as "hatter," and Troy's New York City Directory from 1865 lists "Silas J. Vail, hats," in business at 118 Fulton Street.(894) This is in lower Manhattan, just a few blocks from the site of the World Trade Center; in Vail's day, it was a mercantile district between City Hall and the Stock Exchange. The hectic bustle of the growing super-city is seen in the print below, which shows hatters' and clothiers' shops along Fulton St. at the intersection with Broadway. Vail's shop was just another couple of blocks up Fulton.

Broadway opposite Fulton Street, 1860.
Courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Collection.

Music was Vail's avocation for many years; a search of Worldcat.org, the list of works at Cyberhymnal, and Hymnary.org shows that Vail was writing music as early as 1858, and was active until at least 1876. These are the works discovered in the search, giving an idea of the extent of his activity:

"Nothing but leaves" published in Christian Observer (New York), 1858

"Beautiful Zion," quartet (New York: Horace Waters, 1859)

Contributions to Shining Star: A New Collection of Hymns and Tunes for Sunday Schools (New York: Huntington, 1863)

Editor, The Athenaeum Collection (New York: Horace Waters, 1863)

"I will be true to the Stars and Stripes," quartet (New York: Horace Waters, 1864)

Editor, The Diadem: A Collection of Tunes and Hymns for Sunday School and Devotional Meeting. (New York: Horace Waters, 1865)

Contributions to Musical Leaves for Sabbath Schools (Cincinnati: Philip Phillips, 1865)

"Happy golden days," solo or duet with chorus (New York: Horace Waters, 1866) N.B. Not the same as "Happy golden years" from Laura Ingalls Wilder books!

Editor, Chapel Melodies (New York: Biglow & Main, 1868)

Contributions to Song Life for Sunday School, ed. Philip Phillips (New York: Harper, 1872)

Editor, Songs of Grace and Glory (New York: Horace Waters, 1874)

Contributions to Echoes from Zion, ed. William F. Sherwin (New York: Horace Waters, 1874)

Contributions to Singing Annual for Sabbath Schools, ed. Philip Phillips (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1874)

Contributions to Royal Songs: For Sunday Schools and Families (New York: American Tract Society, 1875)

Contributions to Gospel Hymns no. 2, ed. Bliss & Sankey (New York: Biglow & Main, 1876)

Contributions to Good News (New York: C.H. Ditson, 1876)

Vail eventually went into the music business full time, though in a different direction; the 1880 U.S. Census lists his occupation as "piano salesman."

According to Robert Lowry's biographical sketch of Fanny Crosby, Vail began working with her in 1872.(Crosby, Bells, 18) They wrote at least a half-dozen songs together:

"Close to Thee" (Songs of Grace and Glory, 1874)
"Where is thy refuge, dear brother?" (Echoes from Zion, 1874)
"Royal Songs" (Royal Songs, 1875)
"The palace of the King" (Gospel Songs no. 2, 1876)
"O be saved" (Good News, 1876)
"The guiding hand" (Good News, 1876)

Except for the first, none of these are in common use today. Vail's other hymn that has lasted to our time is "The Gate Ajar," with text by Lydia Baxter, written in 1872.(Hymnary.org) Of the two musical works, "The Gate Ajar" with its folksy pentatonic scale seems less dated; and in my opinion, the chorus of "Close to Thee" adds nothing to to Crosby's hymn. In fact, the hymn might have been better suited without a chorus at all. Sing the stanzas to another 8.7.8.7 tune, such as ST. SYLVESTER ("Father, hear the prayer we offer" in most hymnals among the U.S. Churches of Christ), and the simple beauty of the text speaks out much better.

References: Wilhoff, Mel R. "Crosby, Fanny Jane." Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music, ed. W. K. McNeil. New York: Routledge, 2005, p. 91-92.

Blumhofer, Edith L. Her Heart Can See: The Life and Hymns of Fanny J. Crosby. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005.

Foote, Henry Wilder. Three Centuries of American Hymnody. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1940.

Fanny Crosby's Story of Ninety-Four Years, retold by S. Trevena Jackson. New York: Revell, 1915. http://books.google.com/books?id=QsxEAAAAYAAJ

"Fanny Crosby." Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Crosby

Crosby, Fanny. Bells at Evening and Other Verses, with biographical sketch by Robert Lowry. New York: Biglow & Main, 1897. http://books.google.com/books?id=upwaAAAAYAAJ

Sankey, Ira. My Life and the Story of the Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs. Philadelphia: Sunday School Times Press, 1907. http://books.google.com/books?id=55ICSWK_wtkC

Trow's New York City Directory, 1865 ed. http://books.google.com/books?id=hY4tAAAAYAAJ

Come, Thou Almighty King

2011-12-21T20:28:00.003-06:00

Praise for the Lord #100

Words: Anonymous, c. 1757
Music: Felice di Giardini, 1769

The authorship of this hymn has been long debated, with little new evidence coming to light. The two men most often connected with it are Charles Wesley and George Whitefield, based on the following circumstantial evidence. The first known publication of this text was in a short pamphlet published sometime prior to 1757. Unfortunately the only known copies of this pamphlet have no title page, and thus give no positive attribution of the authorship of "Come, Thou Almighty King." Even the date is conjecture, based on the hymnals into which it was bound. The pamphlet contains only one other hymn, "Jesus, Let Thy Pitying Eye," which is definitely by Charles Wesley. This suggests that Wesley might have been the author of both, though the hymn never appears in any of Wesley's publications.

All of the known copies of this pamphlet are held by the British Museum, and are found bound into the backs of hymnals edited by George Whitefield, the prominent "Calvinist Methodist" minister. Whitefield's Collection of Hymns for Social Worship was the first hymnal to incorporate the text into the body of the work.(Hymnary.org) Because of this association, Whitefield is sometimes given attribution, but this is even less likely than Wesley's authorship; Whitefield was an editor and arranger, but not a writer of original hymns. He may have selected and arranged the stanzas, however, from a longer hymn now lost to us.

The author of this hymn may have had reason to remain anonymous; the text is an obvious play on the British anthem, "God Save the King," and is found set to that tune in early sources.(Nutter, 2) The implication that we ought to "render unto God what is God's,"(Matthew 22:21) instead of heaping our praise and professions of loyalty upon mere mortals, is well taken. But given the Methodists' history of challenging the positions of the established Church of England, it could also have been taken as a subversion of the King's authority as earthly head of the church.

Stanza 1:
Come, Thou almighty King,
Help us Thy name to sing, help us to praise!
Father all-glorious, o’er all victorious,
Come and reign over us, Ancient of Days!

For sake of comparison, the first stanza of "God Save the King," as found in the Gentleman's Magazine, 15 October 1745.(Wikimedia Commons)

God save great George, our king,
Long live our noble king, God save the king.
Send him victorious, happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us, God save the king.

In modern times some have called into question the imagery of God as King, because of the negative consequences that kind of absolute authority has had in human hands. But just as we must remember that God as Father is a perfect Father, unlike the imperfect fathers of this world, so we also must remember that God is a perfect King, better than the wisest and most benevolent king who ever ruled on this earth. Beyond that, we must lay aside our natural objection to anyone holding such absolute power; though we rightly object to a fellow human being having such authority, if God is the Creator and Sustainer of this universe, then all such authority belongs to Him by nature.

The Psalms frequently present this metaphor for God's authority over His creation. God is represented as a King who is invincible in face of all mere human threats: "Who is this King of Glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle!"(Psalm 24:8) He is invincible in the face of any earthly disaster--"the LORD sits enthroned over the flood"--and unlike human monarchs, God's good reign is everlasting: "The LORD sits enthroned as King forever."(Psalm 29:10) For this reason our King is deserving of utmost respect and honor. "For the LORD, the Most High, is to be feared, a great King over all the earth. . . Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!"(Psalm 47:2,6)

But God's power and authority are not the only aspects of His divine reign that are described in the Psalms. In Psalm 74:12 we read, "God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth." The Sovereign Lord is the source of help and comfort to His people, as David said in Psalm 5:2, "Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to You do I pray."

The same picture of God as the Great King is continued in the New Testament: "To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen."(1 Timothy 1:17) But where the supreme moral authority of God was viewed in an earthly context in the Psalms, Jesus portrays the eternal nature of God as the Sovereign Judge: "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."(Matthew 25:34)

Sadly, many reject the lordship of God when it comes to their own lives. "His invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,"(Romans 1:20) but some "did not like to retain God in their knowledge."(Romans 1:28) In 1 Samuel 8, the great prophet-judge was distressed that the people of Israel demanded an earthly king in his place; but God told him, "they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them."(1 Samuel 8:7) An echo of this was heard centuries later when a crowd of Israelites cried out, "We have no king but Caesar."(John 19:15) An echo of this is heard still today, whenever some human authority exalts itself as supreme--whether over fellow humanity, or over one's own self--and rejects the authority of God who made us all.

The original text had another stanza next, still found in some hymnals, but not used in the hymnals common to the Churches of Christ in the United States:

Jesus, our Lord, arise,
Scatter our enemies, and make them fall;
Let Thine almighty aid our sure defense be made,
Our souls on Thee be stayed; Lord, hear our call.

This is a reworking of the second stanza of "God Save the King," even more blatant than the first. The early version of the British anthem reads:

O Lord our God arise,
Scatter his enemies, and make them fall;
Confound their politics, frustrate their knavish tricks,
On him our hopes we fix, O save us all!

The hymn seems to take the anthem to task in this stanza, insisting that God alone is worthy of such trust. It is interesting to note that the last line of this stanza in the royal anthem has evolved over the years to "On Thee our hopes we fix," an understandable emendation in reaction to such criticism. The language of this stanza (and of the corresponding stanza in the anthem) is based on Numbers 10:35, which records the invocation given whenever the Israelites began a new leg of their journeys during the Exodus: "And whenever the ark set out, Moses said, 'Arise, O LORD, and let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee before You.'"

This stanza of the hymn has decreased in usage, however, perhaps in part because of the difficult rhyme between "arise" and "enemies." This is probably a case, however, where changing accents of English have made obtuse what at one time might have been a reasonable rhyme. (No doubt some accents of English could succeed in making this rhyme even today, as "aroise" and "enemoies.")

Stanza 2:
Come, Thou Incarnate Word,
Gird on Thy mighty sword, our prayer attend!
Come, and Thy people bless, and give Thy Word success,
Spirit of Holiness, on us descend!

This stanza, the second in our arrangement, addresses praise to God the Son. "Incarnate Word" is simply an expression of John 1:14, "And the Word became flesh." It is easy to say, and hard to grasp. Many volumes have been written--and not a few doctrinal battles fought--over how the infinite God could become also fully human. But if we look to the "what" rather than the "how," it is abundantly clear how thankful we must be that He did!

For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him.(Colossians 1:19-22)

Because of this Perfect Man who took our sins to the cross, we can approach God with confidence that Jesus will "our prayer attend." We have no standing with God on our own; what can a finite mortal creature of a few years existence say before the Eternal Creator? As Job said, "How then can I answer him, choosing my words with him?"(Job 9:14) But in Jesus we have "an Advocate with the Father,"(1 John 2:1) who has walked in our shoes, whom we can understand as one of us.

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain, that is, through His flesh, and since we have a great Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.(Hebrews 10:19-22)

The closing part of this stanza refers to the "Spirit of Holiness," an expression found in Romans 1:4 that must in context refer to the Holy Spirit rather than Christ. Whether this transition in mid-stanza was intended or not, it serves the hymn well in our current abbreviated version, giving homage to each member of the Godhead.

This does not refer necessarily to a charismatic experience; the "baptism of the Spirit" experienced by the apostles at Pentecost was exceptional enough that a similar outpouring on Cornelius and his household evoked comparison as an equally significant and momentous event. But we are all called to be "filled with the Spirit."(Ephesians 5:18) "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."(Romans 5:5) We must be "led by the Spirit,"(Romans 8:14) "strengthened with power through His Spirit in [the] inner being."(Ephesians 3:16) Our great hope is to bear the "fruit of the Spirit" in our lives.(Galatians 5:22) Since we know the Spirit "intercedes for us" in prayer,(Romans 8:26) and that we "worship by the Spirit of God,"(Philippians 3:3) it is natural that we appeal to the Spirit of God in our approach to worship.

There was originally an entire stanza directed to the Holy Spirit; this is not used in most of the hymnals of the Churches of Christ, at least in the United States, with the exception of the publications of Will Slater:

Come, holy Comforter,
Thy sacred witness bear in this glad hour.
Thou who almighty art, now rule in every heart,
And ne’er from us depart, Spirit of power!

The idea of the Spirit bearing witness is most clearly seen in this beautiful passage in Romans:

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.(Romans 8:15-17)

Stanza 3:
O Lord, our God, to Thee
The highest praises be, hence evermore!
Thy sovereign majesty may we in glory see,
And to eternity love and adore!

The hymn concludes with an outburst of praise to our God, with a prayer that we will be with Him in eternity. We strive to give our "highest praises," but understand that our best falls short. "With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high?"(Micah 6:6) Even the great temple of Solomon, the greatest work of Israel's most magnificent king, was rightly viewed as inadequate for the God for whom it was built. Solomon, in better, humbler days, said: "But will God indeed dwell with man on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You, how much less this house that I have built!"(2 Chronicles 6:18) But we offer to God what we can, humbly entreating His acceptance of our imperfect worship.

Someday it will be different, though, in the New Jerusalem;

"The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His servants will worship Him. They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever."(Revelation 22:3-5)

Until that day, let us do our best on this earth to praise Him. When we truly lift up our hearts in selfless worship to Him, we are as close to heaven as we will come, until that great day arrives.

Excursus: Yes, Robert, We Do Believe in the Trinity

Here I am referring to my nephew-by-marriage, who came to the Church of Christ as an adult just a few years ago, having grown up in another religious group. He once asked me about the altered line of Reginald Heber's "Holy, Holy, Holy," which originally ran "God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity," but among Churches of Christ (at least in the U.S.) is usually sung as "God over all, and blest eternally." In that particular case, it seems to have been an accident that some of our hymnals picked up an altered text from a Unitarian hymnal; one of our major hymnal traditions, the Gospel Advocate Christian Hymns series, always used the original lyrics.

But there is another instance of this sort of thing in "Come, Thou Almighty King." The original opening lines of the final stanza were:

To Thee, great One in Three,
Eternal praises be, hence, evermore.

The change to the second line might just be to avoid using "eternal" and "eternity" in the same stanza; I don't see what objection anyone might have had to the original. But the first line is another matter!

First, it should be remembered that the Churches of Christ in this country have a musical tradition dominated by the gospel style, and that our knowledge of the classical hymns has largely been through a process of reintroduction, except for a few old war-horses such as "Amazing Grace." Under these circumstances, it would be easy for congregations to sing a Unitarian-friendly alteration without realizing it had ever been changed. That is probably what happened with "Holy, Holy, Holy;" we simply fell into the use of one or the other according to the choice of an editor at some point in the past.

This is not to say that there has never been controversy among us on the subject of the Trinity. In the 19th century, two of the most prominent leaders of the Restoration Movement, Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone, were sometimes at odds over this topic. Stone openly questioned the concept of the Trinity, and though neither man adopted a Unitarian view, both were critical of what they saw as dogmatism in the traditional Trinitarian explanations.(Blowers, 356) Campbell may have best summed up the point of view held by most in the Churches of Christ (even today) about the nature of the Godhead: "Language fails and thought cannot reach."(Blowers, 357) The traditional approach, then, has been to carefully examine what Scripture says, then try to say that and no more--even if it leaves some questions unresolved. (This is my reading of Roy Lanier Sr.'s classic book The Timeless Trinity.) If God of the Bible exists at all, the very nature of what He would have to be sets Him beyond human experience; why should we be surprised if there are things about Him we cannot comprehend?

I don't think most members of the Churches of Christ would object to the original line "God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity" in Heber's "Holy, Holy, Holy," or to "Great One in Three" in this hymn; but this principle of "calling Bible things by Bible names" may have made editors hesitant about using texts with this terminology. The expressions "Trinity," "Three in One," and "One in Three" are not found per se in Scripture, and have a long history of controversy in Christian thought. Though many of us use them ourselves as ways to describe what we understand of God, there may have been an underlying reluctance to employ these in our common language of worship. It may be the same sort of editorial caution that is seen in songs about the Holy Spirit, where there has been a tendency to avoid the subject rather than take a chance of raising objections.

In the case of "Come, Thou Almighty King," there is a very mixed message from the hymnal editors. The Christian Hymns series, edited by Lloyd O. Sanderson for the Gospel Advocate, never included this hymn at all. Great Songs of the Church, edited by Elmer Jorgenson, uses the altered version of this stanza, and hymnals from Howard Publishing (Songs of the Church, Church Gospel Songs & Hymns, Songs of Faith and Praise) followed Jorgenson in this usage. Tillit Teddlie's Great Christian Hymnal, which sometimes varies from the others in text alterations, has the same non-Trinitarian-specific version. But at least two of Will Slater's publications--The Church Hymnal (1938) and Hymns of Praise and Devotion (1952)--have the original "One in Three" text. The latter of these also includes the "Come, Holy Comforter" stanza.

After looking at every instance available with full text through Hymnary.org, I can only offer a few observations to add to our understanding of this alteration. First, this is not the usual alteration of the text found in Unitarian Hymnals, which have usually read, "Never from us depart / Rule Thou in every heart" as far back as the Springfield Collection of 1835. As an alternative, some Unitarian hymnals (for example, Longfellow's Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion, 1848) drop the final stanza with its explicit Trinity reference. Hymnals by other non-Trinitarian groups (Christian Scientist, Adventist) make other alterations to remove this reference.

It is worth noting as well that a fair number of hymnals from a variety of religious groups drop the final stanza, using only the stanzas beginning "Come, Thou Almighty King," "Come, Thou Incarnate Word," and "Come, Holy Comforter." There are also frequent variations in the opening line of the final stanza--sometimes it is the original "To Thee, Great One in Three," but sometimes "To the Great One in Three." Some hymnals even reverse the expression, using "Thrice-blessed Three in One! / On earth Thy will be done." Perhaps there is a bit of awkwardness in the original wording that has spawned so many different fixes, completely without reference to the doctrinal content.

I have not found the specific alteration known among the Churches of Christ in any source outside of the churches of the Restoration Movement. The earliest instance I have found of this reading is in the Convention Hymnal edited by J. H. Garrison for the International Centennial Celebration and Conventions of the Disciples of Christ (1909). The same text variant is found in The King of Kings (Indianapolis; St. Louis: Christian Board of Publication, 1915). The earliest instance of this hymn I have found in a hymnal produced among the Churches of Christ is in the 1930 edition of Elmer L. Jorgenson's Great Songs of the Church. Jorgenson uses the same text variant found in the Disciples publications, and it is likely through his hymnal's influence that it became the common form of this text among Churches of Christ in the United States.

Does this usage imply anything about the Trinitarian vs. Unitarian issue? Jorgenson's 1953 article on the opening paragraphs of John's gospel makes it clear that he believed in distinct but equally divine Persons within one Godhead.(Word and Work) Why would he not have used the original Trinitarian version of this hymn's final stanza? With the breadth of his experience and training, one would expect that he had encountered it. The occurrence of this particular variant in a few earlier Disciples/Christian Churches publications suggests that Jorgenson followed an existing usage within the Restoration Movement.

But in searching through the likely 19th-century sources (publications from the Fillmore company, Standard Publishing, etc.) and the Enos J. Dowling Collection of earlier Restoration Movement hymnals, I am mostly struck by the complete absence of this hymn. It was in use in North America within a few years of its composition, appearing as early as 1761(?) in the Urania tune-book, and was found (with its original text) in hymnals of the Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and of course the Methodists. Why did the churches of the Restoration Movement not adopt this hymn? Was it just accidental, or a deliberate omission? The question awaits further evidence.

About the music:

This tune, usually known as ITALIAN HYMN, apparently was written specifically for this text by the once-popular Italian composer and conductor, Felice di Giardini. How a composer best known for operas and concertos came to write hymn tunes is an interesting story, and involves two important movers and shakers in early Methodist hymnody--Martin Madan and the Lady Bingley. For more about the history of this excellent tune, please see my previous post on Christ for the World We Sing.

References:

"Come, Thou Almighty King." Hymnary.org http://www.hymnary.org/text/come_thou_almighty_king_help_us_thy

Nutter, Charles S., and Tillet, Wilbur F. The Hymns and Hymn Writers of the Church: An Annotated Edition of the Methodist Hymnal. New York: Eaton & Mains, 1911. http://openlibrary.org/books/OL22883100M/The_hymns_and_hymn_writers_of_the_church

"God save our lord the king." Wikimedia Commons. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gstk.png

Garrison, J. H. Convention Hymnal for the International Centennial Celebration and Conventions of the Disciples of Christ. 1909 http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/jhgarrison/ccp/CCPH25.HTM

Jorgenson, Elmer L. "John's prologue." Word and Work 47/4 (April 1953), p. 77-79. http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/digital/ww/WW4704/W4704077.HTM

Blowers, Paul M. "God, Doctrine of." The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, 356-359.

Christ, Thou Alone

2011-12-14T11:16:00.002-06:00

Praise for the Lord #99

Words: Swedish folk hymn, translated by Elmer L. Jorgenson, 1921
Music: NEW SWEDEN, Jorgenson's Great Songs of the Church, 1921

"Christ, Thou Alone" is a translation by Elmer Leon Jorgenson, editor of the influential Great Songs of the Church series, from an unknown Swedish folk hymn. He also translated the German hymn "Weißt du, wie viel Sternlein stehen" into "Can you count the stars of evening?" and Julie von Haussman's "So nimm denn meine Hände" into "Take Thou my hand and lead me." Just how many languages did he speak? And what was his connection with these repertoires?

The Jorgenson family were immigrants from Denmark; according to Forrest McCann, his father was a member of the palace guard and his mother was a seamstress to the queen.(McCann, 219) The 1900 census for the Dublin/Roselma Precinct, Boone County, Nebraska, gives a snapshot of the Jorgenson family. (Dublin and Roselma were communities west of Albion, Nebraska, a little over two hours northwest of Lincoln, Nebraska.)

Elmer's father, Christ Jorgenson, was born in Denmark in October 1843, and was self-employed in farming. His wife, Nicoline, was born in Denmark in November 1844. The Jorgensons had been married 26 years, and were blessed with eight children, two of whom did not survive childhood. Their adult children, including Alfred (b. Feb. 1879) who was living at home, were born in Denmark; the family came to the United States in 1884. Elmer, age 14, was in school along with a younger sister, Alice, age 11. The younger two children were born in Nebraska. All of the family could read and write.(1900 U.S. Census)

Given his age and the date of the family's immigration, Christ Jorgenson would have been a member of the Royal Life Guards at the Amalienberg palace in Copenhagen during the reign of Christian IX; Nicoline would have been seamstress to the Queen Consort Louise. This was one of the most glamorous and cosmopolitan courts of the era; Christian and Louise had secured political marriages for their children that made them in-laws to most of the royalty of Europe.

It would be interesting to know why the Jorgensons, quite middle-aged by the standards of the day, would leave that life for the hardships of farming in Nebraska. But they were hardly the only Danes in the area! Danish immigration to the U.S. swelled during the period 1870-1895, with most coming to farm in the upper Midwest and Great Plains. In 1872 Den Danske Pioneer--the oldest Danish-language newspaper still in print in the U.S.--began publication in Omaha, Nebraska, and was a cultural lifeline to the far-flung Danish settlers.(Pioneer) A search of WorldCat.org for Danish-language materials including the keyword "Nebraska," shows that another Danish paper, Stjernen, was founded in St. Paul, Nebraska in 1885. The Danish Lutheran Publishing House began operating in Blair, Nebraska in the 1890s, publishing Danish-language religious materials.

There were also publications back in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden about opportunities available in Nebraska, including one published in Copenhagen in 1872 with a title that translates as Concerning the State of Nebraska in the United States, North America, By Far the Best of the Western States for Emigrant Norwegians.(WorldCat, OCLC #468155788) Another title, published in Göteborg, Sweden in 1882, gives a clue to this intense interest: Advice and Information for Those Who Desire to Travel to the Union Pacific Railway Co. (Pacific Track) Land Tracts in the State of Nebraska.(WorldCat, OCLC #185268140) The transcontinental railroad had opened up cheap land, and made farming more profitable by providing transportation to markets.

Denmark's geographic proximity to Germany, Norway, and Sweden, and long history of involvement with these countries, made it possible, even likely, for Danes in the capital city to be familiar with dialects of all three countries. But even in the middle of Nebraska, the Jorgensons were surrounded by the languages of their native home. The Nebraska Staats-Anzeiger began in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1880, and during the following two decades half-a-dozen other German-language papers were begun in the state. Swedish-language publishing started early as well, with the newspaper Vårt nya hem (Our New Home) founded in Kearney, Nebraska in 1877. There were education institutions affiliated with each of these immigrant groups as well. Dana College was founded in Blair, Nebraska in 1884 by the Danish Evangelical Lutherans, and Luther College was founded in Wahoo, Nebraska in 1883 by the Swedish Lutherans (Augustana Synod).(Brown) Concordia College was founded by the German Lutherans (Missouri Synod) in Seward, Nebraska in 1894.(Concordia)

So young Elmer Leon Jorgenson grew up in an environment awash with Scandinavian and German languages, cultures, and music. His parents and older siblings were native speakers of Danish, and there were strong Danish, Swedish, and German cultural institutions all around. Small wonder that he was so open to the great hymn tradition of the Lutheran chorales, and that he showed such interest in translating the folk hymns he probably heard in his childhood.

Stanza 1:
Christ, Thou alone art my Lord, and no other
Shall, on the throne of my heart, rival Thee;
Stronger Thy love than the love of a mother,
Deeper Thy peace than the depths of the sea.

The wideness and inclusiveness of the gospel is a wonderful truth--that "God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."(John 3:16) God "is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance."(2 Peter 3:9) The gospel is broad enough to forgive all the sins of the world, if the world would seek that forgiveness. But in another sense, the gospel is extraordinarily narrow. The same Jesus who said, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,"(Matthew 11:28) also said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."(John 14:6) That is an astonishing statement!

Imagine hearing someone say, on one of the many religious programs on television, "I know how a person can be saved and go to heaven, I am the only person who understands this correctly, and if you want to go to heaven, you must listen only to me." Our skepticism would be aroused immediately, and we would suspect the person of being either a charlatan or a dangerous fanatic. It would be preposterously arrogant for a person to claim to be the only conduit of truth on the subject. But Jesus said exactly that, because He alone can take the third option. As the Son of God, He claimed to be the exclusive way to the Father, and He absolutely meant it. The gospel is wide enough to save the world, but it is also so narrow that access to it comes down to one Man. This is the central theme of this hymn--there are certain things to be found in Christ alone.

The first stanza emphasizes the exclusive nature of Christ's lordship over our lives. The exclusivity of God is an outstanding theme of the Old Testament, when belief in a single God was out of the mainstream of human beliefs. Psalm 83:18 asserts that, "You alone, whose name is the LORD, are the Most High over all the earth." Closely tied to this exclusive sovereignty was the understanding of God as the sole Creator and Sustainer of the physical universe: "You are the LORD, You alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and You preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you."(Nehemiah 9:6) And since God created all things, He is the Lord over all peoples, as Hezekiah expressed in his magnificent prayer: "O LORD, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; You have made heaven and earth."(2 Kings 19:15)

The same exclusive authority is inherent in His Son, "our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ."(Jude 4) "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him."(1 John 4:9) He is the "only begotten" Son, monogenes, the only one of His kind. As the unique Son of the Father, He carried those attributes that are present only in God. When a man called Him "good," Jesus reminded him, "No one is good except God alone."(Mark 10:18) If we accept the perfect goodness of Jesus, we must also accept His perfect authority that comes from being Deity. He exercised the privilege of moral judgment and mercy that is unique to a sinless God, causing His enemies to say, "Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"(Mark 2:7) They were more right than they knew!

The exclusive authority of Christ was made especially manifest in His Transfiguration. After witnessing a greater portion of His glory revealed, the disciples saw Him speaking with Moses and Elijah--the great represenatatives of the Law and the Prophets. But then the voice spoke from heaven telling the disciples to listen to the Son above and beyond these ancient worthies; Moses and Elijah disappeared and "Jesus was found alone."(Luke 9:36)

In the second half of this first stanza, the unknown author uses an uncommon metaphor in which Deity is compared to a mother; but there is good precedent for this metaphor in Scripture. Here is how God described to Isaiah the coming restoration of Jerusalem:

For thus says the LORD: "Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip, and bounced upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem."(Isaiah 66:12-13)

In one sense the mother is Jerusalem--God will "extend peace to her," and the returning exiles "shall be carried upon her hip." But in the next verse, God is comparing His comforting of the people to a mother comforting her child. The images used here--a mother nursing a child, carrying the child on her hip, bouncing the child on her knees--are powerful. There is a sacredness, almost, to these scenes; for a little while, there is a world of just two people, mother and child. Christ showed this same tender love for humanity when He sorrowfully said of Jerusalem, "How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!"(Matthew 23:37) He wants to have a personal, loving, and nurturing relationship with each one of us, if only we will let Him.

Stanza 2:
Christ, Thou alone dost from bondage deliver,
Bringing me freedom and blessed release;
Crushing the heart then restoring forever,
Pouring into it the balm of Thy peace.

The Psalms frequently celebrate salvation, usually from a physical peril, and it is here that we first encounter the idea that God is the exclusive source of deliverance. David (who had frequent need for such help!) said, "For God alone my soul waits in silence; from Him comes my salvation."(Psalm 62:1) Likewise Hezekiah, when he acknowledged God as Lord over all nations (2 Kings 19:15), was seeking deliverance from an invading army. But the bondage of sin is a far greater enemy--it has made the whole of humanity, at least all morally accountable persons, "slaves of sin"(Romans 6:17)--and it requires a far greater deliverer.

There are people among us whose job, day by day, is to run toward danger instead of away from it--firefighters, police officers, and the like--and we are right to recognize the heroism of those who put their lives at risk for others. But even when plunging into a desperate circumstance, these individuals cling to the natural human hope that somehow they will escape unharmed. Jesus had no such luxury; He knew from the beginning that, if the job were done at all, it would require Him to die a grueling and humiliating death. He went forward anyway, and "when He ascended on high He led a host of captives."(Ephesians 4:8)

That means of escape being provided, one would not expect the captives to ignore it or to demand another. I remember an incident off the Atlantic coast several years ago, when three men on a yacht were caught up in the edge of a hurricane and were close to being swamped. The U.S. Coast Guard sent a ship as close as they dared, then dispatched a helicopter with rescuers who lowered themselves down to the sinking ship. The pilot skillfully kept the helicopter in line with the pitching deck, for fear of the rescue jumpers being slammed into it, or of the cable getting entangled and putting the helicopter itself at risk. Finally they reached the deck and were able to strap the first of the yachtsmen into a harness to be pulled up to safety. Now, at that moment, can you imagine that man saying, "No thanks, that doesn't look very safe, or very comfortable, and I am afraid of heights. I'll wait here while you send a boat?"

But that is what too many have done. John 3:16, that beautiful verse, has a tragic corollary in the words that follow it:

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

God sent the very best, His only Son, the unique expression of the Father. If we do not accept His offer of salvation, we will not be saved, "for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."(Acts 4:12)

We do not often think of Jesus "crushing the heart," but that is exactly what He said would happen to those who did not receive Him:

"What then is this that is written: 'The Stone that the builders rejected has become the Cornerstone'? Everyone who falls on that Stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him."(Luke 20:17-18)

Jesus confronts us with ourselves, challenging us to see what we do not wish to see. He holds us to His own standard, and takes away our convenient comparisons with the other sinners around us. But realization of sinfulness is the first step toward forgiveness. David understood this well, as expressed in one of the great Penitential Psalms:

O LORD, rebuke me not in Your anger,
Nor discipline me in Your wrath!
For Your arrows have sunk into me,
and Your hand has come down on me.
There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your indignation;there is no health in my bones because of my sin.
For my iniquities have gone over my head;
like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. . . .
I am feeble and crushed;
I groan because of the tumult of my heart.

(Psalm 38:1-4,8)

But in another Penitential Psalm, David shows the outcome of this crushed heart full of godly sorrow:

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
And in His word I hope;
My soul waits for the Lord
More than watchmen for the morning,
More than watchmen for the morning.
O Israel, hope in the LORD!
For with the LORD there is steadfast love,
And with Him is plentiful redemption.
And He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

(Psalm 130:5-8)

The heart that is hardened will never receive the truth that will bring salvation; God knows that He must first break us so that He can remake us.

Stanza 3:
Christ, Thou alone shalt be master and owner:
Thou art the Bridegroom and we are the bride;
Faithful to Thee, to obey and to honor,
Robed as a queen we shall reign at Thy side.

The third stanza begins with an image that has a hard, ugly history in human affairs. The enslavement of one person by another, or one people by another people, has gone on for as long as history records; and if it was less brutal and permanent in the 1st century world than it later was in the New World, it was still the case that a large number of people in Roman and Greek society were completely subject to the will of another. The gospel led a silent revolution against this institution, one heart at a time, with the central theme of equality in Christ--"Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all."(Colossians 3:11)

The image of masters and slaves was also subverted by its use to describe spiritual rather than physical bondage:

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.(Romans 6:16-19)

And Paul repeatedly referred to himself as a "slave of Christ" (doulos Christon), as in Romans 1:1, Galatians 1:10, Philippians 1:1, Titus 1:1; though many translations soften it to "servant," it carries at least the meaning of "bondservant," that is, a servant bound to service. Paul, a well-educated Roman citizen, equated himself with the very lowest class of his society. He humbled himself, and lifted up his brothers and sisters among the slave class, recognizing that we are all very weak and small before the Almighty God.

As part of the same image, Deity is represented as "Lord" and "Master" (despotes), the same term used for human slave-owners. This is also the root, obviously, of our word "despot." But this is the term used in Jude v.4, monos despotēs theos, "the only Lord God." It is used even more graphically in 2 Peter 2:1, describing Jesus as "the Master who bought [us]."

What do we learn from these stark words? First, we see the utterly desperate and helpless situation brought about by sin. Once in the shackles of sin, we are completely subject to its power, without even the Roman slave's possible recourse to earning our freedom. Next, we see that our release from sin is bought at a price that we could never pay ourselves; we are at the mercy of another Master's goodwill. And finally, we are reminded that we are still bound, and must subject ourselves to the new Master as completely as we did to the old one. At no point did we become our own, to go and do as we please; "For you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body."(1 Corinthians 6:20)

Of course, this is just one of the ways that Scripture describes our relationship to Jesus; and the severity of the master-slave image, though Scriptural, is offset by the gentler words of John 15:15, "No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you."(John 15:15) This is the character of our Master, the only Master in all history who gave His life to save His slaves; and we can gladly submit our lives to Him!

We have seen Jesus elevate His followers from slaves to friends, but the the metaphor taken up in the second half of this stanza raises the faithful even higher. Now, a man may feel a little awkward to sing of himself as the "bride of Christ," but that is what we all must be!

For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the Head of the church, His body, and is Himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.(Ephesians 5:23-27,32

The mystery is revealed a bit further in the later chapters of the Revelation:

Let us rejoice and exult and give Him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure--for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her Husband.

Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, "Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb." And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.(Revelation 19:7-8, 21:2,9-10)

The elaborate figurative language of the Revelation shifts the metaphor somewhat, but the point is clear: the church, the redeemed body of the faithful, is the bride of Christ. As the man and woman are made "one flesh" in marriage,(Ephesians 5:31, Genesis 2:24) so the church and Christ are in one body. Christ is the Head of His body, the church; and the church is to submit to Him.

Look again at the teaching of Ephesians 5 about marriage, and consider how it applies to the church as the bride of Christ: we are to be subject to Christ, we are to be "holy and without blemish,"(v.27) and we are to respect the authority of our divine Husband.(v.33) In turn, Christ is our Savior who loves us so much He sacrificed Himself for us.(v.25) He nourishes and cherishes us, because He loves us with a divine love.(v.28-29)

I suppose every man, since the world began, has wished the same for his wedding day; he longs to see a bride beaming with love for him, pure and chaste, without any thought of another. Let us commit ourselves to do all we can to see that Christ's church is just such a bride!

Stanza 4:
Christ, Thou alone into harbor shall guide me,
After the journey forever is o'er;
Safe in Thy glory, no shadow to hide Thee,
Sorrow and sighing shall end evermore.

David the Psalmist had a life with many dangers and hardships, and often betrayals; perhaps this is why his poetry is so expressive of his trust in God. No other had been so faithful to him: "In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety."(Psalm 4:8) In Psalm 62, he spoke on this at greater length:

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
From Him comes my salvation.
He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress;
I shall not be greatly shaken.

How long will all of you attack a man to batter him,
Like a leaning wall, a tottering fence?
They only plan to thrust him down from his high position.
They take pleasure in falsehood.
They bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse.

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,
For my hope is from Him.
He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress;
I shall not be shaken.
On God rests my salvation and my glory;
My mighty Rock, my refuge is God.

(Psalm 62:1-7)

The first disciples of Jesus did not come by this trust as easily. (And to be fair, David sometimes expressed doubt and frustration as well.) In Matthew 8:23-27, the physical presence of Christ was not enough to make them trust that they would get through the storm on the Sea of Galilee. In a later incident (Matthew 14:22-33) involving the disciples, a boat, the sea, and a storm, they were still amazed at Christ's command over the elements. But there were flashes of faith; Peter, on the latter occasion, took a few hesitant steps on the water before his faith and focus failed.

And perhaps the best step of faith Peter took, next to his confession of Christ as the Son of God,(Matthew 16:16) was his frank statement after Christ's "hard teachings" in John 6. After much of the crowd had left and "followed Him no more," Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you want to go away as well?" But Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."(John 6:66-68)

As this final stanza of the hymn teaches, it is Christ alone who can direct us safely through life. Just as He took control of the boat on Galilee and stilled the storm, He can take control of our lives and bring us safely through our storms. Christ alone has the "words of eternal life" that will guide us home. He has been that way before, through both life and death, and can see His people through as well. This is why Paul could say, even under threat of execution, "The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom."(2 Timothy 4:18) Paul's physical fate was uncertain, but his soul was secure. And when, by God's grace, we are there with Paul and all of the saved, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."(Revelation 21:4)

About the music:

Elmer Jorgenson, though profoundly influential on the Churches of Christ as an editor, was not a prolific songwriter himself. Where Lloyd O. Sanderson, editor of the Gospel Advocate hymnals, contributed a large number of songs that are still widely sung, Jorgenson's are few and far between. Jorgenson's translations and arrangements, however, are tastefully done and show the editor's keen eye for good church music. In addition to "Christ, Thou Alone" and "Can You Count the Stars?," already mentioned, he also arranged the lovely "Thou art Merciful, O Father," an adaptation of the Andante theme from Mozart's A major piano sonata (K.331). Like "Christ, Thou Alone," this first appeared in the 1921 Great Songs of the Church.

Showing a modesty uncharacteristic of many other hymnal editors, Jorgenson actually cut some of his own songs from the 1921 to the 1930 edition, including "Christ, Thou Alone" and "Thou Art Merciful, O Father." They might have gone missing for good, had they not been reinserted in the 1975 supplement to Great Songs of the Church, No. 2, when the hymnal was taken up by the Abilene Christian University Press.

I have been unable to trace a source for the melody of "Christ, Thou Alone," but in the course of looking I came across an online version of the 1819 Swedish Psalm-Boken that gives some idea of the singing of these early settlers. This particular edition was published in 1892 in Chicago. The first section, the Psalm-Bok proper, is all sturdy old psalm-tunes and chorales. (An interesting feature of the book is that the pages are cut in half horizontally, with music on the top half and text on the lower half, so the singer could conviently match together any tune and text of a compatible meter.) But on page 415, a new section begins--the Kör-Sånger, or Choir Singer. On the lower halves of the pages following, there are several sprightly works appropriate for amateur choirs. The music of "Christ, Thou Alone" seems right at home among these.

References:

McCann, Forrest. "A History of Great Songs of the Church." Restoration Quarterly 38/4 (1996), 219-228. http://www.acu.edu/sponsored/restoration_quarterly/documents/RQ_38.4_(McCann).pdf

Den Danske Pioneer/The Danish Pioneer. http://www.dendanskepioneer.com/english/index.html

Brown, Ray C. "List of Colleges and Universities that have Closed, Merged, or Changed their Names." http://www2.westminster-mo.edu/wc_users/homepages/staff/brownr/ClosedCollegeIndex.htm

Concordia University web site. http://www.cune.edu/

Christ is Alive!

2011-12-05T13:50:00.000-06:00

Praise for the Lord #98

Words: Brian Wren, 1975
Music: TRURO, Williams's Psalmodia Evangelica, 1789

Reports of the death of the classical hymn style are greatly exaggerated. Yes, this kind of congregational song (several stanzas developing a theme in a complex, objective fashion, and in a high literary style) fell on hard times in the early 20th century. The shock of the modern era, and in particular, the First World War, was a death knell to the Victorian era, and to the hymns of that style. In addition, the growth of a competing church music tradition, the gospel song, undercut the influence of the established denominational hymnals. But that tide began to turn again around mid-century, leading to an era of hymn-writing that has been called the "Hymn Explosion." Central to this movement was the founding of the Hymn Society of America (today the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada) in 1922, and of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland in 1936. Stripped of Victorian verbiage and clothed again in frank simplicity of language, this was really almost a revival of the 18th-century style.

So far the Churches of Christ in the United States have not mined this vein of new hymnody very far. There are probably several reasons for this, including the primacy of the gospel style in our repertoire and a lack of contact with the worship traditions that have been most involved with the modern hymn revival. (Our repertoire tends to intersect with those closer to us culturally, such as the Southern Baptists or Pentecostals.) But just as E. L. Jorgenson re-introduced us to the classical hymns of an earlier age with Great Songs of the Church, hopefully we will find ways to embrace the good and useful within this modern movement as well.

Brian A. Wren (b. 1936) grew up in wartime London, and was baptized into the Congregational church as a young man. He is ordained in the United Reformed Church, and began writing hymns during his first ministry appointment at the Hockley and Hawkwell Congregational Church near Essex. During the 1980s he began traveling extensively giving church music workshops, and has continued to do so after accepting the John and Miriam Conant Chair of Worship at Columbia Theological Seminary in 2000.(Wren, "Biographical")

Dr. Wren is one of the finest writers of the modern hymn school, creating challenging and interesting hymns in refreshingly simple language. His texts have real content, and since I do not always agree with his theology, I cannot always agree with his hymns; but even then I find them to be thoughtful expressions of his point of view.

Stanza 1:
"Christ is alive!" Let Christians sing.
The cross stands empty to the sky.
Let streets and homes with praises ring;
Love, drowned in death, shall never die.

In this hymn, Wren examines what the Resurrection of Christ means to us today--not in terms of our future hope, but right here and now. How should our lives be different in view of this fact? He begins with the bald assertion, "Christ is alive!" The same simple but profound statement lies behind the very name of God, "I AM." Jesus is not just someone who lived long ago. He is not someone who, like Lazarus, was raised from the dead once upon a time, but is no longer living. He is "the First and the Last, and the Living One," who told the apostle John, "I died, and behold, I am alive forevermore."(Revelation 1:17-18)

How long, I wonder, did that cross stand "empty to the sky" before it was taken down? And what did the disciples think, if they passed by and saw that empty cross, after having seen the resurrected Lord? No one could have predicted that an instrument of torture and humiliation would become the symbol of a faith, but it did. "The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."(1 Corinthians 1:18) The power of God worked through the tragedy of Christ's rejection and humiliation, transforming it into atoning sacrifice and ultimate victory; "for He was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God."(2 Corinthians 13:4)

"Love, drowned in death, shall never die." This is a complex thought packed in a few words. Jesus, "the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature,"(Hebrews 1:3) came as the perfect expression and representative of His Father. "God is love,"(1 John 4:8) and though there is much more in this concept than we may ever understand, it is the primary expression of His nature, and therefore was embodied in His Son. "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him."(1 John 4:9) Love was "drowned in death" when that perfect expression of God's love was put to death. But God turned the tables on the Devil; what appeared to be Satan's victory, when the sinful world killed God's Son, instead became the ransom through which humanity could be brought out from under Satan's dominion.

We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God.(Romans 6:9-10)

Dr. Wren encourages us to "let streets and homes with praises ring" as we celebrate this good news. The joyous fact of Christ's resurrection is not something to remember once a year, or even once a week; it is something that should affect us every moment of every day. "In Him we live and move and have our being;"(Acts 17:28) therefore "if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins."(1 Corinthians 15:17) But if He is risen, we know His promise is true: "Because I live, you also will live."(John 14:19) Paul said, "far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."(Galatians 6:14) How can we keep this good news to ourselves?

Stanza 2:
Christ is alive! No longer bound
To distant years in Palestine,
But saving, healing, here and now
And touching every place and time.

When we think of the suffering of Christ, we naturally think first of His crucifixion and the events immediately leading up to that crisis; but it is also worthwhile to step back and look at what He gave up from the moment He was conceived in the womb of Mary.

Though He was in the form of God, [He] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped [that is, "clung to"], but made Himself nothing ["emptied Himself," ASV], taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.(Philippians 2:6-7)

For thirty-odd years He lived in the same awkward, limited form that we all know from our own selves; and then, "being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."(Philippians 2:8) After that period of time, He returned to the eternal glory He has always known:

Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.(Philippians 2:9-11)

But was He the same? Yes, He lives forever; but in the Revelation (5:6, 5:12, 13:8) He is called "the Lamb who was slain." We may not be capable of really understanding what this means, but we are bound to accept it and rejoice in it!

For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer Himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then He would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.(Hebrews 9:24-26)

From the human perspective, limited as we are by our moment-by-moment experience of time, the crucifixion was an event that came and went on a particular day in the fourth decade of what we now call the 1st century. But to God, it was "foreknown before the foundation of the world."(1 Peter 1:18-20) To the Creator, who stands outside His creation, every moment of time is forever within His view. (I am indebted here to C. S. Lewis's essay "Beyond Personality" in Mere Christianity.) And if this understanding is correct, one of those moments is that Friday afternoon outside Jerusalem. Although Jesus did make that sacrifice at a particular point in time as we experience it, to God it "touches every place and time." That day never dims in God's memory.

"Consequently, He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them."(Hebrews 7:25) If the tragedy of Calvary is always before God's eyes, so also is the victory of the Resurrection. "According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."(1 Peter 1:3) And through the "power of His resurrection"(Philippians 3:10) we are "renewed day by day."(2 Corinthians 4:16) Jesus described this continuing flow of life and power in one of His hard sayings: "As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on Me, he also will live because of Me."(John 6:57) Hard indeed, because it speaks to the life of the spirit and not of the body; but that incredible power still flows from our resurrected Lord even today.

Stanza 3:
Not throned afar, remotely high,
Untouched, unmoved by human pains,
But daily, in the midst of life,
Our Savior in the Godhead reigns.

The Creator and Lord of our universe went to considerable lengths to become one of us. He was literally "born in a barn," to blue-collar parents who had to give the poor man's sacrifice of doves instead of a lamb at His dedication in the temple. He grew up in his father's trade of carpentry; and when His ministry began, His first disciples were men of a similar class, the hard-working fishermen of Galilee. He illustrated His teaching using common things--sowing and reaping, hard masters and wily servants, working in vineyards, and the birds, flowers, and trees.

But when He rose from the dead, His followers were shocked into a different realization of who He really was. (Though Peter, James, and John had seen a kind of preview of this at the Transfiguration.) The Son of Man was seen more fully as the Son of God, and in Luke 24:37 we read that some of His disciples at first found it easier to believe they were seeing a ghost. With his physician's critical eye for the evidence, Luke notes that Jesus showed them the wounds in His hands and feet,(v.40) and ate food in their presence.(v.43) The final chapter of the gospel according to John gives similar reinforcement to the humanity of the risen Lord; what could be more mundane than a Man squatting by a fire, broiling fish for breakfast?

The humanity and deity of Christ, His transcendence and yet nearness, are just not easy things to grasp. Some of the earliest divisions in Christianity came about because of disagreements in how to express these ideas. I want to tread carefully where so many greater minds have spoken, but in this (as with many other things) I cling to the principle of Deuteronomy 29:29, "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." Let's study carefully what is revealed, and rejoice in the wonderful things we do know, while admitting that there are things we do not understand.

One thing I understand is that Christ, though "enthroned afar," is not "untouched, unmoved by human pains." He is certainly enthroned as the victorious King, because,

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.(Hebrews 1:3)

But He is not some distant spectator, an absentee landlord. "Christ Jesus is the One who died--more than that, who was raised--who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us."(Romans 8:34) Christians have the promise of 1 John 2:1, "But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

We understand from our human legal systems the importance of having a sharp-witted, experienced advocate to present our case; but the word "Advocate" here implies much more. It is the Greek parakletos, the same word Jesus used to describe the Holy Spirit in John 14, and carries the idea of standing alongside another to help them.(Strong's G3875) Jesus is at the right hand of God, but He is also by the side of His disciples, so He is exactly where we need Him! A beautiful illustration of this idea is given in Act 7:56, when Stephen, right before he becomes the first Christian martyr, says, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." It is interesting that this is the only reference to Jesus standing, rather than sitting, in His heavenly enthronement. "Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints."(Psalm 116:15)

Another vision of the resurrected Jesus that shows us His presence "in the midst of life" is His appearance to John in the first chapter of the Revelation. Jesus stood among seven lampstands,(v.13) and held seven stars in His hand.(v.16) He explained to John that both of these symbols represented the seven churches of Asia, for whom He had specific messages. He was not viewing the churches from some remote distance, but rather was walking "in the midst," just as He promised: "For where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I among them."(Matthew 18:20) The stars He held showed that the churches are like precious jewels to Him, kept carefully in the palm of His hand. And in the letters to the churches, in the next two chapters, we have proof again: at some point in the course of each letter, Jesus says the words, "I know." He said, "I know your works."(2:2; 2:19; 3:1; 3:8; 3:15) He knows what we have done, the good and the bad. He said, "I know your tribulation,"(2:9) and, "I know where you dwell."(2:13) He knows what we are going through, and what we are up against.

Stanza 4:
In every insult, rift and war,
Where color, scorn or wealth divide,
Christ suffers still, yet loves the more,
And lives, where even hope has died.

In his collection Faith Looking Forward, Dr. Wren reveals that the first version of this hymn was written for Easter of 1968--just ten days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In view of the despair and violence that followed, Wren tried to say something "with truth and integrity in words that would be more widely applied."(Wren, FLF, note 20; cited from The Hymnal 1982 Companion, 1:370)

Sadly, the words he wrote in 1968 can still be "widely applied." Things have gotten better in the United States since those dark days; good laws have been passed, and existing laws enforced, to ensure that all enjoy the freedoms with which they are "endowed by their Creator," according to one of our noblest ideals. We should celebrate the progress that has been made. But as Jesus said, "From within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts."(Mark 7:21) As long as hearts are full of sin, we will have these "insults, rifts, and wars." It is not really color or wealth themselves that divide us, but the sins of selfishness, pride and covetousness. Every nation and people in the history of this world has a stain on its past, or its present. It can be said of us all, "They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one."(Psalm 14:3)

Like everything else about this fallen world, Jesus came to change that. He pulled together an anti-government extremist, Simon the Zealot, and a tax collector, Matthew, and made them brothers. He talked with everyone--the high and mighty, but also the outcast lepers, the blind beggars, and a woman caught in adultery. He made a point to cross into Samaria, and broke multiple taboos by speaking to a woman by Jacob's well.(John 4) His parable of the good Samaritan made a man whose race was considered inferior to be the hero of the story.

The first conflict in the infancy of the church was along cultural lines, as the Hellenistic Jews felt they were being discriminated against, but this was resolved through establishing a diversified leadership.(Acts 6) The second congregation established after Jerusalem was in the city of Samaria,(Acts 8) and an officer of the much-resented Roman army was the first Gentile to come to Christ.

Were there difficulties over these things in the early church? Certainly! Acts 15 tells us of an early problem with some Jewish Christians trying to bind their traditions on the Gentiles. In Romans 14 we learn that the Gentile Christians sometimes tried to enforce their issues of conscience as a rule for all. The second chapter of the letter by James shows us that there was discrimination relative to wealth and position. The early church, made up of people coming out of a sinful world, had every problem of class and race division that the sinful world has today. But as David Lipscomb pointed out in an 1878 Gospel Advocate article,

That race prejudice would cause trouble in the churches we know. It did this in apostolic days. Not once did the apostles suggest that they should form separate congregations for the different races. But they always admonished them to unity, forbearance, love, and brotherhood in Christ Jesus.(Campbell, 29)

It is worth noting that Lipscomb was a Southerner, writing from Nashville, Tennessee during the troubled and violent Reconstruction period following the Civil War. Lipscomb was not saying this to win any political points or to garner more subscriptions; it probably had much the reverse effect. But the truth of what he said still rings out; the early church accomplished something incredible, overcoming the barriers that people put up between themselves and others. We can do so again, if we do what they did and follow the Lord they followed. The world is crying out for healing of these divisions; will Christ's followers not take the lead?

Stanza 5:
Christ is alive, and comes to bring
Good news to this and every age,
Till earth and sky and ocean ring
With joy, with justice, love, and praise.

Early in His ministry on earth, Jesus went to the synagogue in His home town, Nazareth. No one was surprised to see Him there, for attending worship services "was His custom."(Luke 4:16) I suspect few were surprised at Him reading the Scriptures; perhaps He had done so often before. The reading was from Isaiah 61:1-2,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

They knew that He had begun teaching in the synagogues,(Luke 4:14) so they were not surprised when He sat back down in the position of a teacher beginning a lecture. Instead, they "fixed their eyes upon Him" in expectation.(Luke 4:20) But I would love to have seen their faces when He made that first statement! "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."(Luke 4:21)

For those with ears to hear, Jesus was proclaiming His life and work to be the good news, the gospel, that would comfort the poor and sick, and would liberate the captive and oppressed. This good news "is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes."(Romans 1:16) And central to the theme of this good news--the gospel, the evangelion--the keystone holding it all together, is the resurrected Christ. Paul reminded Timothy to, "remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel."(2 Timothy 2:8)

It is an "everlasting gospel,"(Revelation 14:6) never out of date; it is perfect in every respect, with no need for substitution, replacement, or modification. Paul even said, "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed."(Gal 1:8) It is relevant and applicable to "this and every age," and if the times do not agree with this good news, it is the fault of the times and not of the message.

It is a gospel for everyone; by His own command, Jesus and His redeeming work is the good news to be preached "to the whole creation."(Mark 16:15) It is the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham, "In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed," all the way back in Genesis 12:3. "Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all."(Colossians 3:11)

And the result? Where Christ is, there is joy. "Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory."(1 Peter 1:8) Where Christ is, there is justice. "Justice and mercy and faithfulness" are the "weightier matters," in Christ's own words.(Matthew 23:23) His followers will be like Him, and "execute justice and righteousness in the land."(Jeremiah 33:15) Where Christ is, there is love. Paul admonishes us in Ephesians 5:1-2, "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." And finally, where Christ is, how can we but praise Him for all these things His good news has brought us?

Excursus: Gender-Inclusive Language in Hymns

Gender-inclusive language has been with us a few decades now in the public sphere, and I believe we have gotten past the initial awkwardness of the "he/she" era, into a manner of writing and speaking that simply avoids gendering language unnecessarily. I am not casting stones at those who do not follow this trend; the intent and spirit of what is said is more important than the changing forms of expression. But for myself, I do try to be respectful and inclusive of both genders when I write, just as I try to be respectful of my readers in other countries by acknowledging that my experience is mostly limited to the Churches of Christ in the United States.

When it comes to the language of hymns, we all recognize that the expressions "mankind" and "all men" that occur in some texts were not meant to exclude women, but simply reflect the linguistic usage of the era in which they were written. We accomodate the antiquated language of the King James Version in many hymns as well, with the same understanding (though obviously this is not the same kind of controversy). But if a subtle alteration to a text can make it more inclusive, I am glad to use it. I find it jarring, for example, to sing "Rise up, O men of God" in a mixed assembly. (Though there is an argument to be made, that it is usually not the women who need to be spurred to greater activity!) If I had the altered version of this text that simply changes the line to "Rise up, O church of God," I would use it instead, reserving the original for occasions when the men specifically are to be addressed.

But when we are speaking of God, this is a different subject entirely and deserves careful examination. Brian Wren has written clearly and thoughtfully, over many years, on the power of metaphor in shaping our thinking about God and about the Christian life. It is a necessary part of our understanding of unfamiliar things, to compare them to more familiar things.

But though I appreciate the attention he has brought to the subject, it is in the application of these ideas that the liberal and conservative must part ways, because I simply hold to a more literal and verbal concept of the inspiration of Scripture. Since God reveals Himself in Scripture as masculine, as a Father, and as a King, I will not apologize for using the same terms, though I am always glad to refine my understanding of what these descriptive terms really teach us about God. Dr. Wren revised (rewrote, really) the final stanza of this hymn for just such issues. The original text was:

Christ is alive! Ascendant Lord,
He rules the world His Father made,
Till in the end, His love adored
Shall be to every man displayed.
(Hymnal 1982 Companion, 1:370)

The revision of this stanza was doubtless driven primarily by the author's later dissatisfaction with his choice of metaphor--specifically, the depiction of Christ as the "Lord" who "rules" by the authority of His "Father." From Wren's 1989 book What Language Shall I Borrow? God-Talk in Worship: A Male Response to Feminist Theology, I understand that it is not so much the masculine portrayal of deity that he takes issue with, but rather the metaphor of masculine power and control. This is a different subject, perhaps, because there is masculine power as taught in Scripture and modeled by Christ, and there is masculine power as we see it in sinful men. But here again, my view of Scripture forces me to accept the way God has chosen to reveal Himself.

I think Wren is saying more than that, however, and despite my differences with his premises there is still much to take away from his arguments. God has chosen to reveal Himself in certain ways, using certain metaphors; but He is not limited by our language or understanding. Jesus is a King, and God is a Father, but They are far above and beyond even the best kings and fathers this world has known.

What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!(Luke 11:11-13)

We have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness.(Hebrews 12:9-10)

God obviously has power, control, and authority, but exercises it in a manner beyond any comparison to the power, control, and authority that is so often abused in this world. Earthly fathers can be abusive bullies, and too many are; but God is better even than the gentlest, most nurturing father who ever lived on this earth. Kings and other kinds of human leaders can also be abusive bullies, and too many are; but God is wiser and more just than the very best earthly leader who ever lived.

It is very much worth noting, as Wren does, that God has also revealed Himself in images of feminine tenderness. This is perhaps most notable in Matthew 23:37, when Jesus expressed His desire to gather in the people of Jerusalem "as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings," a metaphor also frequently found in the Psalms. But I will continue to speak of God as "He" (and to be fair, Wren was not among those insisting on "She"), and I will continue to submit to Him as my Sovereign. Let us never limit our understanding of God, however, to a worldly and fallen conception of masculinity.

About the music:

TRURO first appeared in the second volume of Psalmodia Evangelica (1789), edited by Thomas Williams. It is named after the city in Cornwall.(Hymnary.org) The tune is sometimes attributed to Williams, but appears in his work without a composer named. The more recent attribution to the English music historian, Charles Burney, is without foundation. Originally harmonized in three voices, the common four-part arrangement was written by Lowell Mason.(McKim, 21)

The style of the the melody is very similar to that of "Joy to the world," and the tune has the same feel of a Handel march.(Hymnary.org) The rhythm of the opening phrase, in fact, is identical to that of "Joy to the world," and the notes are an exact inversion (move in the opposite direction), descending the scale instead of ascending.

This tune is not very familiar to the Churches of Christ, at least in the U.S.; but since this is a Long Meter text, it could be sung to any good Long Meter tune. DUKE STREET ("Awake, my tongue, thy tribute bring") is very similar, and OLD 100TH would do as well. For something of a quieter character, MARYTON ("O Master, let me walk with Thee"), HESPERUS ("Father and Friend"), or ELEOS ("Father of mercies") would work.

References

Wren, Brian A. "Biographical Information." Columbia Theological Seminary. http://www.ctsnet.edu/Files/Directories/Emeriti/Resumes/Wren_Brian.pdf

Wren, Brian A. What Language Shall I Borrow? God-Talk in Worship: A Male Respone to Feminist Theology. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2009.

Wren, Brian A., and Peter Cutts. Faith Looking Forward. Carol Stream, Illinois: Hope Publishing, 1983.

Glover, Raymond F. The Hymnal 1982 Companion, 3 volumes. New York: Church Pension Fund, 1994.

Strong's G3875. Blueletterbible.org. http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G3875&t=ESV

Campbell, Will D. Race and the Renewal of the Church. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962. http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/rmeyes/willcamp.html (Excerpt.)

McKim, Linda Jo. Presbyterian Hymnal Companion. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993.

"TRURO." Hymnary.org, also credits Psalter Hymnal Handbook. http://www.hymnary.org/tune/truro_williams?tab=about

Christ the Lord is Risen Today

2011-11-22T21:46:00.000-06:00

Praise for the Lord #97

Words: Charles Wesley, 1739
Music: Lyra Davidica, 1708

This is one of the best hymns ever on the Resurrection. It is traditionally an Easter hymn, but since I believe in celebrating Easter every Sunday, I would be perfectly happy to sing it every week! Both the words and the music are vigorous, brash, almost swaggering. The fourth stanza (in our version) actually taunts death and the grave at their powerlessness over Jesus, and ultimately over His followers. And what could be wrong with that? 2 Corinthians 10:17 says, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord!"

This version of the hymn comes to us through a rather circuitous path. Yes, the words are Charles Wesley's, but the format--singing "Hallelujah!" at the end of each line--was not in his original version. That comes from the text that was originally associated with this tune, "Jesus Christ is Risen Today." Other than the nearly identical first lines, that is a completely different hymn; it is actually a translation/adaptation from the Lutheran chorale "Erstanden ist der heilige Christ," which in turn was an adaptation of the 14th-century Latin Easter carol, "Surrexit Christus hodie."(Julian, 596ff.; more on this in About the music, below) It was apparently John Wesley, in his Foundry Tune Book of 1742, who first adapted Charles's text to this tune with its "Hallelujahs."(Lightwood, 97)

Wesley's original text is eleven stanzas, of which our version has only the first four; most modern hymnals have no more than one or two more beyond this. Since the number of omitted stanzas is so extensive, and what we have left is a continuous whole in itself, I will discuss only these first four. The complete text is available from the Duke University Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition in their scholarly edition of Wesley's 1739 Hymns and Sacred Poems (the hymn begins p. 209, or p. 98 of the PDF file).

Stanza 1:
Christ the Lord is risen today, Hallelujah!
Sons of men and angels say, Hallelujah!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Hallelujah!
Sing, ye heav’ns, thou earth, reply, Hallelujah!

"He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay."(Matthew 28:6) These were the words of the angel that greeted the women coming to the tomb on the first day of the week. (Was it not especially appropriate that these women, who were among the only ones to stay by Jesus throughout His crucifixion, should be the first to hear these amazing words?) It was a morning of upheavals, of fear and wonder.(Mark 16:8) It is thoroughly confusing to work out, in harmonizing the four gospel accounts, just who went where and when, and in what order events unfolded.

But what a morning of joy it was! I am indebted to brother Jim Dearman of the White Oak Church of Christ in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for an excellent sermon on this topic this past Sunday, some of which I will try to summarize briefly. Consider this first: Isn't it wonderful that the angel said "the place where the Lord lay," and not "the place where the Lord lies?" There are many famous tombs around the world, to which people travel to pay homage to great leaders; but Christianity celebrates an empty tomb that was barely used!

Because the tomb was empty, Christ was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of Holiness, by the resurrection from the dead."(Romans 1:4) That is to say, He rose again just as the Holy Spirit had predicted through the prophets, and just as Jesus himself had promised. If He had not, the prediction of Gamaliel in Acts 5:38 would certainly have come true--Christianity would have ended before it had begun. His resurrection was the ultimate miracle, the ultimate proof that He was who He claimed to be.

Jesus' resurrection is also a guarantee of our own resurrection some day. Paul reasoned on this as follows:

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a Man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.(1 Corinthians 15:21-22)

And if He is risen from the dead, then surely He is able to keep His promise of providing us a home with Him someday. Even the night before His death, Jesus promised His disciples that, "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also."(John 14:3) What did the disciples think of those words, if they thought on them the next day? And what did they think again, when they saw Him alive and triumphant, just as He had predicted?

In light of these things, what can we do but rejoice? Remember His promise that "your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you."(John 16:22) The heavenly beings rejoiced at His resurrection, as John saw in his vision:

Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!"

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, "To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" And the four living creatures said, "Amen!" and the elders fell down and worshiped.(Revelation 5:11-14)

How can we not join in this rejoicing? As the angel told the women at the tomb, "Go and tell!"(Mark 16:7) They were not to keep this good news to themselves, but shared it with the despondent disciples (especially the grieving and crestfallen Peter), and soon they would share it with the world.

Stanza 2:
Love’s redeeming work is done, Hallelujah!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Hallelujah!
Lo! Our Sun’s eclipse is o’er, Hallelujah!
Lo! He sets in blood no more, Hallelujah!

"When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, 'It is finished,' and He bowed His head and gave up His spirit."(John 19:30) If any of the people gathered on that cruel hill heard His words, what did they take Him to mean? If the theives on either side heard Him, they might have thought, "Yes, it is for me, as well." The soldiers may have thought very little of it at all; death was no stranger to them. Perhaps the centurion, at least, admired the Lord's stoicism. No doubt the enemies of Christ, who had gathered to watch the end, smiled to themselves at what they thought was an admission of defeat. And for the small group of disciples still present, what a sinking feeling might have come over them, if they heard those words!

But when they had time to reflect on all that He had said before, they understood what we know from our perspective on this side of the cross. In Luke 13:32, as Jesus' steps drew ever closer to Calvary, He said, "Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish My course." It is the same verb used by Paul in 2 Timothy 4:7 when he spoke about "finishing the race" of his life and ministry. Jesus had finished what He came to do--"love's redeeming work." This perfect completion of God's plan became the centerpiece of the gospel, as Peter said in his sermon at the Temple, "What God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He thus fulfilled."(Acts 3:18)

For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.(Colossians 1:19-20)

His enemies saw Him hanging dead on a cross; His friends would soon see Him in glorious resurrection; but someday all will see the Son of Man return in victory. The "battle was won" at Calvary, and the tide of war forever turned. When He returns to bring the conflict to an end, it will be a very different scene:

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The One sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems, and He has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which He is called is The Word of God.(Revelation 19:11-13)

In the last two lines of this stanza, Wesley makes an interesting reference to a particular detail of the events of the Crucifixion. In Luke 23:44-45 we read, "It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun's light failed." In the same way, Jesus, the Light of the World (John 8:12), the Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4:2), was eclipsed for a time by death. And when the sun finally began to set to close out that terrible day, we have the touching scene in which Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, along with the faithful women disciples, lay the Lord's bloodied body to rest.(John 19:38-42) These men, alone among the Sanhedrin, gave their rightful King something of the dignity and honor He deserved. It was indeed a bloody sunset that day; but He rose again in power and joy, greeting His disciples with the simple word, "Rejoice!"(Matthew 28:9)

Stanza 3:
Vain the stone, the watch, the seal, Hallelujah!
Christ hath burst the gates of hell, Hallelujah!
Death in vain forbids Him rise, Hallelujah!
Christ hath opened paradise, Hallelujah!

Tomb at Horvat Midras.
Image courtesy of
www.holylandphotos.org.

Scholars debate the size and shape of the stone at Jesus' tomb; graves with round, rolling stones were apparently uncommon, though there are a few good examples extant. But the point that matters is that the stone was moved and the tomb was empty. Even the enemies of Jesus did not deny this, though they claimed it was the act of His disciples.(Matthew 28:13) The Bible tells us the stone was "very large," large enough that three women were concerned about their ability to move it unaided.(Mark 16:3-4) It seems reasonable that a small group of people could move such a stone using a lever; it is not reasonable to suppose they could do so without waking the guards. (The idea that a man who had been scourged and crucified somehow survived the experience, then rolled the stone away from the inside with his bare hands, is preposterous.) But the fact remains that the stone was placed there in vain.

Equally unlikely is the idea that any Roman soldier posted to the troublesome province of Palestine would dare fall asleep on guard after the events of that day. Pilate granted the Sanhedrin's request for a guard,(Matthew 27:65) probably at least a squad of four soldiers (a quaternion, Acts 12:4), perhaps more. We know from Matthew 27:24 that the governor already viewed the matter of Jesus as a potential uprising, and if Josephus is to be believed, he already had a less-than-stellar track record in pacifying the people of Jerusalem. Could the soldiers have been unaware of Who they were guarding and why? It is inconceivable that an entire squad or more of Roman troops, on such an unusual guard duty, and during the Passover time when the population of the city was swelled to its highest numbers, would have fallen asleep. Even if they were not exactly the cream of the imperial legions, the fear of a nighttime guerilla attack, and of the brutal discipline of their superiors (Herod put guards put to death in similar circumstances--Acts 12:19) would have kept them alert. But the watch was also in vain.

As a final act of precaution, Pilate even had an official seal placed on the tomb,(Matthew 27:66) warning any potential hoaxers or fanatics that the authority of Rome decreed Jesus to be dead and buried. Breaking the seal would bring down the wrath of a governor whom Philo described as "a man of most ferocious passions," who had already proven himself willing to commit indiscriminate slaughter to terrorize his subjects into compliance.(Luke 13:1) Yet the seal, as well, was in vain.

All these were insignificant compared to the battle that took place unseen. Death had Him, but "it was not possible for Him to be held by it."(Acts 2:24) He "burst the gates of hell" (literally, "Hades," the realm of the dead) and could say to John in Revelation 1:18, "I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades." In Christ's resurrection, God "disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him."(Colossians 2:15) Jesus not only broke open the gates, He took away the keys! Death is still with us, but never again can it have the iron grip it once knew. Where Jesus went, we may follow: "when He ascended on high He led a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men."(Psalm 68:18, Ephesians 4:8-9)

Stanza 4:
Lives again our glorious King, Hallelujah!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Hallelujah!
Once He died our souls to save, Hallelujah!
Where's thy vict'ry, boasting grave? Hallelujah!

One line of this stanza has had a significant change from Charles Wesley's original. The third line originally read, "Dying once He all doth save." This could be taken to mean a universal salvation, though we have to keep this within the context of the Wesleys' entire teachings. They were "universalist" in comparison to the staunch Calvinism of their day, and rejected the limited atonement of predestinarian teaching. They believed instead that Christ's atonement is universal, that is, available to every person; but they also believed that it is up to every individual whether to accept it.(Tyson, 37ff.)

Wesley might have been thinking of this passage in particular:

We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God.(Romans 6:9-10)

"Once for all" here does not refer to "once for all people," but rather "once for all time," and is rendered just as "once" in the King James Version. Wesley may instead have been thinking of Romans 5:18, "Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men." This verse needs to be kept in the context of its neighbors:

For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one Man's obedience the many will be made righteous.(Romans 5:17-19)

The emphasis here is on the superlative nature of the act and the gift, not on the number that will accept it; "many will be made righteous," not all. The atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ "leads to justification and life for all men," but the fact that something "leads to" a result does not necessarily mean that all will choose to make use of it.

Wesley must have had the ambiguity of this line called to his attention. In the 4th edition of his Hymns and Sacred Poems (1743) he changed the wording to that which we know today.(Wesley, Duke edition, 210, fn. 72) The result is clearer, without diminishing the strength of its declaration of the singularity of Christ's sacrifice.

Wesley's inspiration in lines 2 and 4 of this stanza is the outburst in 1 Corinthians 15:55, "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" This quotes the rather controversial passage in Hosea 13:14, in which God addresses the wayward northern kingdom of Israel, concluding, "Compassion is hidden from My eyes." When death and the grave are personified in Hosea, was God calling on them to bring their worst on Israel in punishment? Or was this passage actually promising a glimmer of future hope? Reading the entire passage in Hosea, there is a whiplash effect between thundering pronouncements of doom and sorrowful regret, exemplified in verse 9, "You are destroyed, O Israel, because you are against Me, against your Helper." The disjointed style is intensely expressive. "The prophet obviously intends for the reader to take in each short declaration in sequence, without transitions, so that the reader might fully experience the jolting effect of these pronouncements."(Garrett, 6)

But as with so many prophecies, the reality is greater than the shadow. When Hosea wrote these words, the victory of the grave and the sting of death were hardly in question; the northern kingdom of Israel was doomed to a violent end. When Paul quoted them in 1 Corinthians and applied them to Christ's resurrection, it was in a far larger context. It was not the death of a nation that was at stake, but the eternal death of humanity itself; it was not about the graves of a particular generation in a particular place and time, but all the graves in all the world. And this time, the result was different. As C.S. Lewis phrased it in his allegorical story The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, "Death itself would start working backwards."

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory."(1 Corinthians 15:51-54)

About the music:

One of the distinctive features of "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" is the "Hallelujah" at the end of each line, a feature that it acquired not from Charles Wesley's original text, but from its adaptation to the tune of the anonymous hymn "Jesus Christ is Risen Today." Songs with a repeated refrain line after each new line of text can be traced as far back as Psalm 136 ("For His mercy endures forever"). Often this kind of text might be sung in a responsorial fashion, with a leader singing the new line (the "verse") and the congregation singing the repeated line (the "respond"). This practice is found from many different cultures and worship traditions even today.

The use of "Alleluia" as a refrain line in this fashion derives from the Psalms as well; several of the Psalms from nos. 105-118, and from no. 135 to the end of the book, begin and end with this expression of praise. Christians expanded this practice by singing "Alleluia" between verses as well, and adapted the practice to other texts besides the Psalms. The video below records the singing of Psalm 32:6,13 with Alleluias, in the very ancient tradition of the St. Basil liturgy of the Orthodox church:

This practice sometimes carried over into the less formal "carols," the folk spirituals of the Middle Ages. An example of this is found in the old Lutheran chorale "Erstanden ist der heilige Christ" ("Risen is the Holy Christ"), which was a translation of "Surrexi Christe Hodie," a Latin Easter carol from Bohemia dating back to the 14th century. The earliest known German version dates back to 1544 in Nuremburg, and is an adaptation of the Latin carol with "Hallelujah" interpolated after each line.(Julian, 1104) The video below is a performance of a slightly different text, but with the same tune, and "Alleluia" at the end of each line.

This leads us to the first appearance of the music we know for "Christ the Lord is Risen Today." The earliest instance of this tune is on p. 11 of Lyra Davidica (London: Walsh, 1708), with a text translated from "Erstanden ist." Neither the Latin nor the German versions of this hymn have the tune we know; that is apparently original to some unknown tunesmith in the Lyra Davidica. Click here for a recording of the first stanza. (Thanks to my daughter Amelia for recording this with me!)

The preface of this work mentions the desire for "a little freer air [melody] than the grand psalm tunes," and after a century or more of the solemn measures of tunes such as OLD 100TH, this must have seemed shockingly light-hearted. (A similar situation occurred in the American colonies with the emergence of the "fuging tunes" of the singing-school movement.) In its time, the style of this tune was more in keeping with something from the pageantry of the court, or the entertainments of the stage; but needless to say it has lived on in spite of any controversy.(Lightfoot, 95-97)

The form of the tune (but not the harmonization) that we have today is from The Compleat Psalmodist (1742). The most significant change is in the final "Hallelujah," which originally was the same those at the ends of the 1st and 2nd lines. It makes more sense, with such a text, to end (literally) on a high note!

Tune for "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" from The Compleat Psalmodist, 1742

The melody is in the tenor, a holdover practice from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance that survived in some Lutheran chorale settings, in English psalm and hymn tune harmonizations, and in the colonial American singing school (it survives today in the Sacred Harp tradition). Here each line of text is presented by the tenor and bass, with the soprano and alto joining only for the "Alleluia" phrases. A facsimile of this version is available from the International Music Score Library Project, in book 4, on page 9 (p. 188 of the 2nd PDF file). I have also provided a transcription for easier reading, a MIDI audio file of the original version, and another MIDI audio file with the soprano and tenor parts flipped for easier comparison to the modern version.

Thomas Butts's Harmonia Sacra (first published c. 1753) has the tune even closer to the modern setting, and also sorts out Arnold's somewhat dodgy harmonization. (Butts however put this tune with "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," which works quite well!) Though Praise for the Lord attributes our modern harmonization to the Compleat Psalmodist, there is a better argument that it evolved from Butts's version. Even though it has only three parts--tenor (melody), bass, and treble--the bass line differs from our version only in a few spots, most of them inconsequential differences of passing tones, and most of the treble part can be found in the modern version split up between the alto and tenor. Another significant development is the division of the original half note in the second half of the second measure (on "to-DAY") into two quarter notes. A facsimile is available from the Internet Archive, and I have provided MIDI audio files of the original version and a version with the tenor and treble parts flipped.

References:

Julian, John. A Dictionary of Hymnology. New York: Dover, 1957.

Philo, "On the Embassy." Translation by Charles Duke Yonge. Wikisource. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_Embassy_to_Gaius

Garrett, Duane A. "An Introduction to Hosea." Criswell Theological Review 7/1 (1993), 1-14. http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/28-Hosea/Text/Articles/Garrett-IntroHosea-CTR.pdf

Tyson, John R., editor. Charles Wesley: A Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Wesley, Charles. Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739), ed. Randy L. Maddox. Duke Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, 2010. http://divinity.duke.edu/sites/default/files/documents/cswt/01_Hymns_and_Sacred_Poems_%281739%29_CW_Verse.pdf

Lightwood, James T. Hymn-Tunes and their Story. London: C. H. Kelly, 1906. http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7106809M/Hymn-tunes_and_their_story

Christian Hymns "No. 1" (Gospel Advocate, 1935) - Part 2 of 2

2011-11-14T11:20:00.000-06:00

In a previous post I discussed the people and motivations behind Christian Hymns no. 1, published by the Gospel Advocate in Nashville, Tennessee in 1935. This hymnal was the first of three edited by Lloyd O. Sanderson, and was the beginning of a hymnal tradition that exerted a significant influence on the song repertoire of the Churches of Christ in the United States. In this post I will try to assess the impact of this hymnal.

Establishing the Specific Influence of Christian Hymns no. 1

In order to understand the impact of Christian Hymns no. 1, I have narrowed my scope down to those songs found in it that had not been published up to that time in the other major hymnal tradition among the Churches of Christ: Great Songs of the Church, edited by Elmer L. Jorgenson. I eliminated from my list any songs that were present in either the original 1921 edition or the 1930 revision of that hymnal (prior to the better known Great Songs no. 2 of 1937). About half of the contents of Christian Hymns no. 1 were also found in Great Songs. This is not to say that Sanderson and Pullias depended on Great Songs in their selections, since much of this material was common gospel fare of the day and standard classical hymns. On the other hand, Sanderson had spoken highly of Great Songs prior to this time, and there is no doubt it had its influence.

The remaining half of the contents (206 songs out of 400), found in Christian Hymns but not found in Great Songs of the Church, will be the subject of this post. But how many of these songs were actually sung? Through some data collected by a friend at a congregation in Nashville, I once determined that this congregation--which sang a broader variety of songs than most--had sung in all about 600 different songs over a two-year period, out of a hymnal containing 990 hymns. But when I eliminated those songs that had been sung only once or twice, I found that there was actually a core of about 150 songs that made up most of the singing. That is at least anecdotal evidence of what I have long suspected to be true: as many as half of the songs in a hymnal may never be sung by an individual congregation. This makes it difficult to assess the impact of a hymnal, because the mere presence of a song does not mean it was ever used.

Looking at this data again, I found that my sample congregation still sings 67 of these 206 songs found in Christian Hymns but not in the earlier editions of Great Songs. 52 of these songs had been sung three or more times in two years, and 13 had been sung ten or more times in that period. Of the core of 150 songs that make up most of the congregation's singing, then, a full third are from the group of songs that came down through the Christian Hymns series! The following thirteen songs out of this group were sung more than ten times over a two-year period:

O how I love Jesus
O they tell me of a home
I want to be a worker for the Lord
The old rugged cross
I will sing the wondrous story
There's within my heart a melody
Walking in sunlight
There's a fountain free
On the cross of Calvary
O listen to our wondrous story
Angry words
Jesus is all the world to me
When we all get to heaven

Songs Carried Over from Earlier Gospel Advocate Hymnals

Out of the 206 hymns examined, I found 80 that had been published in earlier Gospel Advocate hymnals. I examined Gospel Praise (1900), The New Christian Hymnal (1907), Choice Gospel Hymns (1923) and Sweeter Than All Songs (1927). A large majority of these songs were found in the two more recent hymnals, Sweeter Than All Songs (36 songs) and Choice Gospel Hymns (30 songs). Both of these were edited by Charles M. Pullias, who was co-editor with Lloyd O. Sanderson in Christian Hymns no. 1. A smaller number were found only in the older publications: 4 from Gospel Praise, and 11 from The New Christian Hymn Book. I do not currently have access to two of the important early Gospel Advocate hymnals, the original Christian Hymns (1889) and Voice of Praise (1895). The dwindling number of hits found in the earlier hymnals I have examined, however, suggests that few if any songs from these 19th-century hymnals would be picked up again 40 years later, if they had not been used in any intervening hymnals.

These songs carried over from the existing "Gospel Advocate tradition," and not found in Great Songs of the Church, are almost entirely in the gospel style--only a handful are traditional hymns. Some are old favorites from Fanny Crosby & William Doane, such as "Though your sins be as scarlet," "Hide me, O my Savior, hide me," and "To the work! To the work!" Hymns from this songwriting team are to be found in nearly any hymnal, of course, but were present in somewhat greater numbers in the Gospel Advocate publications. Another songwriting partnership that is prominent in this tradition was Mary Slade & Asa Everett. The earlier Great Songs of the Church did have "Sweetly, Lord, have we heard Thee calling" and "Who at the door is standing?," but the Gospel Advocate tradition included as well the classic "There's a fountain free." Christian Hymns no. 1 had all of these and also added "Beyond this land of parting," for the first time (as far as I know) in a hymnal among the Churches of Christ. Asa Everett was a major influence on Rigdon McIntosh, music editor of the first Gospel Advocate hymnal, and this may be the source of these songs (see my post on "Beyond this land of parting").

Some other songs still very popular among Churches of Christ in the United States, that carried over specifically through the Gospel Advocate tradition, were:

Eliza E. Hewitt, "When we all get to heaven"
Elisha Hoffman, "Leaning on the everlasting arms"
Eden Reeder Latta, "Live for Jesus"
William A. Ogden, "Where He leads I'll follow"
Will L. Thompson, "Jesus is all the world to me"
Philip P. Bliss, "I gave My life for Thee" (music only)

The Gospel Advocate tradition also contributed a few more songs by Jessie Hunter Brown Pounds, the prominent Christian Church songwriter; but of these only "Am I nearer to heaven today?" has remained in any use. Of particular importance for the future, however, was the inclusion of songs coming from the Churches of Christ in the Western part of the United States. The Gospel Advocate tradition included, for example, "Closer to Thee" by Austin Taylor (editor of the influential Texas journal Firm Foundation) and "Heaven holds all to me," one of the first among many contributions to come from Tillit S. Teddlie.

Songs Newly Introduced by Christian Hymns no. 1

When we look at the songs in Christian Hymns no. 1 that had not been included in Great Songs of the Church up to that point, had not been published in earlier Gospel advocate hymnals, it is interesting to see the emphasis placed upon particular songwriters. There were five additional songs, for example, by Leila N. Morris (Mrs. C. H. Morris), best known for "Nearer, still nearer" and "My stubborn will at last hath yielded." None of these, however, caught on in the mainstream repertoire. The same could be said of the songs introduced from "Gipsy" Simon Smith, Albert Troy Hardy, and Samuel Beazley, but their inclusion was telling in that these were rather contemporary writers of the gospel style. Beazley in particular was the writer of songs such as "Jesus paid it all," "Ring out the message," and "Home of the soul," in which a part other than soprano takes the melody in the chorus; these songs would later become a staple of the Churches of Christ in the Southern part of the United States. This tendency to embrace the newer flavor of Southern gospel was not shared by Elmer Jorgenson, the editor of Great Songs of the Church, who wanted no "jazz" or "rag-time" in his hymnal!

Sanderson and Pullias made a long-lasting contribution by introducing more hymns by the Texas songwriter Tillit S. Teddlie. In addition to "Heaven holds all to me," which had been published in earlier Gospel Advocate Hymnals, Christian Hymns no. 1 included his "When we meet in sweet communion," "Worthy art Thou!," and "Cast all your burdens on Jesus." Though the last of these did not catch on as widely, the former two have become staples of the repertoire. No doubt this exposure also increased Teddlie's visibility among the churches, and led to more of his songs being sought out for future hymnals.

A number of other songs were introduced in Christian Hymns no. 1 that have had a good deal of longevity, such as "I surrender all" and "I wandered in the shades of night" by Judson Van De Venter & W. S. Weeden; "The last mile of the way" and "What shall it profit a man?" by Johnson Oatman; "Come, let us all unite to sing" by E. S. Lorenz; "Angry words" by Horatio Palmer; and "Master, the tempest is raging" by Mary Baker & Horatio Palmer.

A Fruitful Partnership: Songs by Thomas O. Chisholm & Lloyd O. Sanderson

By far the most important songs introduced by Christian Hymns no. 1, however, were those written for its publication by Lloyd O. Sanderson and his pen pal Thomas O. Chisholm (they never met face to face). These alone would make its impact huge. Their collaborations introduced in this hymnal include:

Be with me, Lord
Bring Christ your broken life
Buried with Christ (A new creature)
All things work together for good
I love Thee, Lord Jesus
I would see God in everything
The way that seemeth right
Thy word is very pure
We know in part

The first three of these are standards in the traditional repertoire, and some of the others ("All things work together for good," "I love Thee, Lord Jesus") deserve a revival.

It is typical for the editor of a hymnal to include a good number of his or her own works, if only because they are freely available. But I cannot think of another major hymnal among the Churches of Christ in which the editor's own works have been such a lasting contribution. The first three songs in the list are in every modern hymnal that I am familiar with among the Churches of Christ in this country, even making the cut for Great Songs of the Church, Revised (Abilene Christian University Press, 1986), which had the most rigorous editorial board of all.

There are a few other songs in this group with texts by Thomas Chisholm, but set to music by other composers. They have not continued in the repertoire, but it shows the high regard Sanderson had for his friend. Unfortunately Christian Hymns did not include what I believe must be Chisholm's best lyric, "Great is Thy faithfulness," written in 1923. It took much longer for that hymn to become known among the Churches of Christ.

Besides those written with Chisholm, Sanderson wrote another dozen songs that appeared for the first time in Christian Hymns no. 1. (Two of these texts had appeared in earlier Gospel Advocate hymnals--"For me He careth" and "Buried beneath the yielding wave"--but Sanderson set them to new music.)

All things bright and beautiful
For me He careth
I'll never forsake my Lord
That dreadful night
Sunset and evening star (Crossing the bar)
Buried beneath the yielding wave
Hosanna! be the children's song
I would be a ray of sunshine
A manger bed, a precious Babe
Thy word is like a garden, Lord
We look to Thee, O Savior
We shall sleep, but not forever

His choice of texts is broad, showing the effect of his continuous efforts to improve his education; he reached back to the 18th century for "Buried beneath the yielding wave" (Benjamin Beddome) and "That dreadful night" (Joseph Hart), and made quite a nice setting of Tennyson's poem "Crossing the bar." Of the songs in the list above, the first four are still in the traditional repertoire of the Churches of Christ; "Sunset and evening star" has been an outlier, in my experience, familiar to some congregations but unknown to many others.

Notable as well are Sanderson's attempts at writing children's songs, which include some of his first essays at lyric writing--under the pseudonym Vana R. Raye, derived from his wife's name. "I would be a ray of sunshine" and "A manger bed" have not persisted in the repertoire; but Sanderson made a very successful children's song (which appeals to many adults as well!) in his setting of Cecil Alexander's "All things bright and beautiful."

Christian Hymns no. 1 in Retrospect

In the end, of course, many songs fall by the wayside. Many of Fanny Crosby's hymns are still sung, but of her estimated 8,000 lyrics, really only a small percentage have survived. Charles Wesley wrote more than 6,000 hymns and founded one entire wing of English hymnody, but the United Methodist Hymnal contains only about 50 of his texts. (This is an impressive number for any single writer, but it also means that only 1% of his total work survives in the very hymnal he founded!)

The passage of time has the same effect on the influence of hymnals. Many of the songs in Christian Hymns no. 1 never became popular, and some that once were sung have failed the test of time. But though it was only one of many sources that have shaped the singing repertoire of the Churches of Christ in the United States, I believe its importance is clear in at least three areas:

1. It established a significant alternative to Great Songs of the Church, lasting into three editions over a span of three decades. Though I would not suggest its influence was as far-reaching as E. L. Jorgenson's classic hymnal, it did preserve a distinctly Southern flavor in in the repertoire.

2. It introduced for the first time, or carried over from the earlier Gospel Advocate hymnals, a core of several dozen songs that are still sung by many Churches of Christ today, in the United States and many other countries. As a measure of its impact, it is interesting to note that Jorgenson's Great Songs of the Church no. 2 (published just two years afterwards) picked up nearly 40 songs that appeared in Christian Hymns, including Teddlie's "Heaven holds all to me" and Sanderson's "Buried with Christ (A new creature)."

3. It established the hymnwriting and editing career of Lloyd O. Sanderson, and introduced the songs of Tillit S. Teddlie to a wider audience. These two songwriters are probably the most immediately recognized names among songwriters from the Churches of Christ. Each man wrote enough songs of lasting value, that I could plan an entire song service exclusively from his works, and be fairly confident that I could lead it at any Church of Christ in U.S. that still sings the traditional repertoire.

With the advent of singing from PowerPoint projection, the significance of the hymnal is changing. The Paperless Hymnal product, for example, allows you to buy songs in packages of 100 each, with the option to add in an extra package of contemporary songs or further packages of traditional gospel. With so many songs available, a congregation could create a customized repertoire unique to its own tastes. But in looking over the first ten volumes of Paperless Hymnal, it is satisfying to see that the same 80-odd songs discussed above, that were incorporated into the repertoire of the Churches of Christ by the 1935 Christian Hymns, will be available in this new digital medium for generations yet to come.

Here is a link to the contents of Christian Hymns no. 1 (1935):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ajnby7wW6ZCidC1UNVZKVURCcF9KTXJxYVJKN0NfLWc

Here is a link to all the songs in Christian Hymns no. 1 that were not found in Great Songs of the Church prior to 1935:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ajnby7wW6ZCidDU4eW5lcFRjU1dRb1ZSdVk0SHpZdGc

Here is a link to my contents list of the original 1921 Great Songs of the Church (titles shaded in blue are those that were dropped by the time of the 1930 edition): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ajnby7wW6ZCidEw0RThDMnVvaWJtSEc2ZFVMcXlYMXc
N.B. Author/composer information is incomplete for titles that are relatively familiar; if it is omitted, it is to be assumed that the song appears as it is known in the traditional repertoire of the Churches of Christ in the United States.

Here is a link to my contents list of the 1930 Great Songs of the Church, the latest edition I could find before the "No. 2" edition a few years later (songs highlighted in yellow were not present in the original 1921 edition): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ajnby7wW6ZCidFY5b1p0MHNDLXEtZW5mcmxJWnJ6ZXc
I apologize for the discrepancy in the numbering; I have not had a chance to go back to look at the hymnal again and figure out where I went wrong.

I owe special thanks my wife Leah for volunteering to help me tabulate the contents of the 1921 and 1930 editions of Great Songs of the Church. (That is true love.) Thanks also to Jason Runnels of the Bould Music Library at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas, for his kind help in providing access to these hard-to-find books.

For more on Great Songs of the Church, see Forrest McCann's excellent article at: http://www.acu.edu/sponsored/restoration_quarterly/documents/RQ_38.4_(McCann).pdf

Christ Returneth

2011-11-08T21:57:00.000-06:00

Praise for the Lord #96

Words: H. L. Turner, 1878
Music: James MacGranahan, 1878

No one knows for certain the identity of the "H. L. Turner" who penned these lyrics; I have not found even a suggestion of an identification. The attribution of the lyrics to Harvey Leonard Turner (found in a few library catalog records in Worldcat.org) is erroneous, because that individual was not born until 1893! I am going to stick my neck out and suggest that the author might have been Colonel Henry Lathrop Turner (1845-1915), a prominent citizen of Chicago who was described in his New York Times obituary as "soldier, banker, [and] poet." The alumni magazine of his alma mater, Oberlin College, also noted: "He was a man of fine literary tastes and was the author of books and poems."(29)

Henry L. Turner was a man of many abilities, destined for prominence. Born in Oberlin, Ohio in 1845, he began college in his early teens, and hurried to finish his degree before he came of age for service in the Civil War. He was commissioned as a lieutenant before reaching 20 years of age, and served Adjutant of the 5th Regiment, United States Colored Troops. After the war he went to Chicago and turned to journalism, writing for the Advance and for the Advocate (which he later owned and managed). He then tried his hand at real estate and banking, and became one of the most prominent money men in the booming industrial city. Despite this comfortable existence, at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War he volunteered to command the 1st Regiment, Illinois National Guard, and saw combat again in Santiago, Cuba.(Raum, 635)

But was this the H.L. Turner who wrote "Christ Returneth?" I can offer no concrete connection, only a strong possibility. Colonel Turner was well-known as a speaker, master of ceremonies, and sometime poet. For example, when he hosted a reception for the armed forces at the 1893 Columbian Exposition, he led the crowd in singing a poem he had written just for the occasion, "The National Guard," set to a well-known tune.(NYT, "Soldiers") I have located only one example of his poetry, but it is an excellent insight into his writing: "My Gray Guinever," the story of a cavalryman and his horse who are the lone survivors of a skirmish party.(Werner's, 761) Turner's style is rugged and unpretentious, full of excitement and color. I am not an expert in such comparisons, but it seems in keeping with the style of "Christ Returneth."

My best evidence, however, comes from the following brief essay by Colonel Turner, titled "The Lost Chord." This sounds like a person who could have written "Christ Returneth:"

I am tempted to question whether human content is a human possibility. And yet, as I remember the charming story of the lost chord, as told in the music of Sullivan and the poetry of Adelaide Proctor--how an organist, once pressing idly the keys, struck by chance a chord of wondrous beauty and peace and grandeur, how he lost it, and year by year sought for it in vain--I often wonder if somewhere, at some time, the touch of the great I AM, straying over the keys of human life, did not strike out a divinely beautiful chord of blended love, content and happiness. And I find myself waiting with unfaltering faith and hope for the time when the Great Master shall strike that chord again, and I listen, listen for the heavenly sound which shall breathe content to the discontented and the unhappy, which shall fill every heart and hearthside with a holy, a beneficent satisfaction, which shall come to the American people like the breathing of God's amen.(Spirit of '76, 115)

But did he have any contact with James McGranahan, the composer of the music and co-editor of the hymnal in which "Christ Returneth" first appeared? They would not necessarily have to meet; McGranahan might have found the lyrics published in a magazine. But the men certainly could have met. McGranahan came to Chicago in 1876, taking the place of Philip Paul Bliss (who had died in a railroad accident) as song leader for evangelist D. W. Whittle.(McGranahan obituary, 7) He also replaced Bliss as co-editor of Ira Sankey's prominent Gospel Hymns series. It was just two years later that Gospel Hymns no. 3 was published, containing "Christ Returneth" with music by McGranahan.

Unless some further evidence comes to light, I can only offer the possibility that Colonel Henry L. Turner was the author of these lyrics; I think it is a fairly good case but is still no more than speculation. The only other hymn I can find by an H. L. Turner is "Peace like a river is flooding my soul," published in His Voice in Song (Chattanooga, Tennessee: R. E. Winsett, 1918). That is a world away, stylistically and generationally, from McGranahan, Sankey's Gospel Hymns, and "Christ Returneth," so that lyric may well be from a different person entirely.

But now for the hymn itself!

Stanza 1:
It may be at morn, when the day is awaking,
When sunlight through darkness and shadow is breaking
That Jesus will come in the fullness of glory
To receive from the world His own.

People have tried to pin down the date of the Lord's return for centuries; Harold Camping's recent failed predictions are only the latest and most publicized. I remember reading Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth back in the 1970s; I had peculiar reading tastes even as a kid. It was very interesting to look at world events through the filter of his theories, but many of his predictions about political developments--which he clearly believed would transpire in the then-near future--are laughable in retrospect.

This is exactly the problem; unbelievers are caused to scoff by these false predictions, because too many sincere believers have drawn entirely the wrong lesson from what Jesus said about His return, and have filled too many books with theories that ultimately prove wrong. Until I am convinced otherwise, I will stick with my admittedly simplistic and un-nuanced interpretation of Jesus' statement, "But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."(Matthew 24:36, Mark 13:32) I know what to do with this information, and can take action on it, because Jesus goes on to tell us exactly what our responsibility is: "Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come."(Mark 13:33; Matthew 24:42 reads, "For you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.")

Christ has long been associated with sunrise. His first advent has traditionally been associated with the early morning hours, though I can find no Scriptural evidence of the time of day except that the shepherds were in the field "by night."(Luke 2:8) But the prophecy of John's father, Zecheriah, makes the association firm in a more far-reaching manner: "because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the Sunrise shall visit us from on high."(Luke 1:78) Perhaps there is an echo here of Proverbs 4:8, "But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day." The light of knowledge had been glowing brighter and brighter through the days of the prophets, until at last the Sun itself arrived.

The apostle John tells of Jesus' first coming only in general, philosophical terms, but uses much the same imagery: "The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world."(John 1:9) It was during the early morning hours that Jesus first appeared to His followers after His resurrection, again affirming the image of light overcoming darkness. And in the Revelation, the Light of the World is fully revealed in His overwhelming, terrible glory: "His face was like the sun shining in full strength."(Revelation 1:16) With the darkness forever vanquished, "the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb."(Revelation 21:23)

At the end of each stanza, Turner repeats the line, "When Jesus receives His own." What does it mean, to be numbered among "His own?" At the very least, it means to be among those who hear Him and receive His message with an open mind and heart. Once upon a time there was a nation, carefully prepared for many centuries, that was meant to be such a group of people; but "He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him."(John 1:11) No mere accident of birth made them "His own," when they refused to hear Him.

Those who are "His own" will not only hear, but will also obediently follow His words. John 10:3-4 speaks of Jesus as the Good Shepherd who calls out His sheep from among those who will not follow Him: "The sheep hear His voice, and He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out. When He has brought out all His own, He goes before them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His voice." "His own" are redeemed to a holy manner of living, because Jesus "gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works."(Titus 2:14) Holiness here is both purity and dedication to service. Peter amplifies this idea as well: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light."(1 Peter 2:9)

Chorus:
O Lord Jesus, how long, how long,
Ere we shout the glad song?
Christ returneth! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Amen. Hallelujah! Amen.

"How long?" is a question that is characteristic of the human condition; we are trapped in time. If it is something good, we wonder, "How long do I have?" If it is something unpleasant, we wonder, "How much longer will this take?" Numerous times throughout the Psalms and the prophets, the question rings out "How long, O Lord?" We see this theme again in Revelation 6:10, when the Christian martyrs cry out "How long before You will judge and avenge our blood?"

But there is another way we use the question, "How much longer?" It is the spirit in which the child asks, "How much longer until Christmas?" or the long-absent traveler asks, "How much longer until we reach home?" The writer of Hebrews describes us as those who are "eagerly waiting for Him."(9:28) Paul takes this idea further in Romans, saying, "And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."(Romans 8:23) The closing words of inspired Scripture emphatically say, "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus." Are we ready for Him to return? Do we look forward to His return with that eagerness? If the answer is no, it is well worth examining ourselves to find out why!

Stanza 2:
It may be at midday, it may be at twilight,
It may be, perchance, that the blackness of midnight
Will burst into light in the blaze of His glory,
When Jesus receives His own.

(Chorus)

Certain events affect us so deeply that we will forever remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard the news. On September 11th, 2001, I had just dropped of the kids at school and parked my car at the university where I worked; I stayed in the car a moment to catch the weather report. By the time I had walked across the lawn to my building, reached my office, and switched the radio on there, the world had changed. When Jesus gave His own commentary on the statement "No man knows the day or the hour," He described just such a situation:

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left.

What were you doing at noon yesterday? Were you at work? Eating lunch? Driving to an appointment? Asleep? But how many of us were considering that Jesus might return at that moment? It is easy for us to be distracted during the busy hours of the workday, and it is all too easy for us to slip from the path of obedience and holiness when we are surrounded by worldliness. It is a good thing to stop during the day and pray, remembering that, "You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect."(Matthew 24:44)

Will the midnight open up to the glory of the returning Christ? Yes, it will be midnight somewhere, and in that place there will be a literal fulfillment of the saying in Jesus' parable, "But at midnight there was a cry, 'Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.'"(Matthew 25:6) In the parable, it was a time of joy for those virgins who were prepared, with their lamps burning bright to welcome the guest of honor; but it was a time of disappointment and mourning for the virgins who were unprepared.

In some parables of the Second Advent, the people concerned are totally unprepared--the "master of the house" who is victim of a "thief in the night," for example,(Matthew 24:43) or the lazy steward in Luke 12. But in the parable of the ten virgins, it was not ignorance or neglect that caused the five to be shut outside, it was insufficient preparation. They were not ready for the long delay. James warns us,

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.(James 5:7-8)

What does "at hand" mean? Every generation has wondered this, and we do best to remember Peter's words:

Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation."

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.(2 Peter 3:3-4, 8-9)

In the early morning hours of 6 June 1944, one of the first actions of the D-day invasion was the glider landing of the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Regiment. Their objective was to capture a critical bridge that would allow British and Canadian forces to move inland from the beaches; the same bridge could also be used, of course, by German tanks moving in to crush the invasion. The lightly armed British troops took the bridge quickly, then hunkered down in the darkness to carry out their terse orders: "Hold until relieved." I cannot imagine how long those hours must have been, waiting to hear the rumble of tanks and wondering from which direction that sound would come. And what relief it must have been when the first British and Canadian forces began rolling in from the beaches!

Much credit goes to the steady leadership of Major John Howard. Though he later laughed at "stiff-upper-lip" portrayal given him by Hollywood in The Longest Day, he really was one of those quiet heroes whose work began long before the battle.(Howard obituary) He trained his men intensely, with as much realism as possible, from the terrain of the training site right down to the uniforms and weapons of the men employed as opposing "German" forces. They were prepared, and they got the job done.(Pegasus Archive) Christians are also called to "hold until relieved," not knowing how long this night of conflict may last. "Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.(Ephesians 6:13)

Stanza 3:
While hosts cry Hosanna, from heaven descending,
With glorified saints and the angels attending,
With grace on His brow, like a halo of glory,
Will Jesus receive His own.

(Chorus)

When Jesus came the first time, He came alone, with only a little fanfare--his earthly parents, some common shepherds, and a few wise men were His only attendants. Had it not been for the mad jealousy of Herod, few would have noted the events in Bethlehem. But when Jesus returns, it will be a different story. When the disciples saw Jesus ascend from this earth, they were also promised an even more amazing event to come:

And while they were gazing into heaven as He went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven."(Acts 1:10-11)

He will return as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, "in the glory of His Father with the holy angels."(Mark 8:38) This time, everyone will know He has come, "For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God."(1 Thessalonians 4:16) "Every eye will see Him,"(Revelation 1:7) and there will be a great scene of judgment, as described in Jesus' own words:

When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.(Matthew 25:31-32)

It will be the ultimate "no-spin zone," because He "will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart."(1 Corinthians 4:5) He will come "inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus."(2 Thessalonians 1:8) I take no pleasure in repeating those words, but there they stand. On that day, no one will be absent, no one will be exempted, and no excuses will be accepted. This being the case, may we all heed the comforting and encouraging words of John: "And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears we may have confidence and not shrink from Him in shame at His coming."(1 John 2:28)

Stanza 4:
Oh, joy! oh, delight! should we go without dying,
No sickness, no sadness, no dread and no crying;
Caught up through the clouds with our Lord into glory,
When Jesus receives His own.

(Chorus)

When Jesus returns, there will be Christians alive on this earth, rapture theories notwithstanding. I am as sure of that as I am sure that 1 Thessalonians 4:17 is in the Bible:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.(1 Thessalonians 4:13-17)

Will we be in that number who "meet the Lord in the air," never having experienced death? It will be a strange and wonderful thing, as Paul reveals:

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory."(1 Corinthians 15:51-54)

When I was a boy I convinced myself that I would probably still be alive when the Lord returns; this was nothing more than a fear of dying, and perhaps a touch of end-of-the-millenium thinking, though I knew our calendar was of no particular significance to God! As I became older I realized there is no reason to think that my generation in particular would be the last one upon this earth; for all I know, this world will go on for millions of years before the Lord returns. Who knows the mind of God on this? But whether I breath my last on this earth, or am present when Christ returns, I can be certain of the promise of my Savior:

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also.(John 14:1-3)

About the music:

James M. McGranahan (1840-1907), in my opinion, was the most innovative composer out of the four talented men who edited the landmark Gospel Hymns series. (Not necessarily the best composer; I would rank Philip Bliss first in both lyrics and music.) Though it would always be most associated with Ira Sankey, this series also included Philip Paul Bliss as co-editor for numbers 1-2 (1875, 1876), and McGranahan and George C. Stebbins for numbers 3-6 (1878, 1881, 1887, 1891). Among the Churches of Christ, Sankey is probably best known for "Faith is the Victory;" Bliss was the composer of "It is Well with my Soul," "Hallelujah! What a Savior," and many other fine songs; and Stebbins is known for the music of "Take time to be holy," among others.

McGranahan's work includes the music for the following (he wrote relatively few lyrics, and they have not been as successful):

The Banner of the Cross
Christ Receiveth Sinful Men
Christ Returneth
I Know Whom I Have Believed
I Will Sing of My Redeemer
None of Self, and All of Thee
Not Now, But in the Coming Years
O How Love I Thy Law!
There Shall Be Showers of Blessings

It is an interesting group of songs. First, they are songs with a distinct quality of execution. "Banner of the Cross" is one of the best-written march-style gospel songs, and in McGranahan's setting, the interesting lyric "None of Self, and All of Thee" finally found the right music. The tunefulness of "I Know Whom I Have Believed" and "I Will Sing of My Redeemer" have made these songs last as well.

But it is his penchant for doing things that are simply peculiar that interests me. This is far from a criticism; many a songwriter continues on in more or less the same mode of composition for an entire career, often in a style that is derivative in the first place. But McGranahan tried things that were different, and they usually worked. In the area of lyrics, "O How Love I Thy Law" is an admirable effort at arranging verses from Psalms 19:7-13 and 119:97, with as little alteration as possible. It was also McGranahan's choice to set "Sinners Jesus Will Receive," a translation fro Erdmann Neumeister, the Lutheran theologian better known as the lyricist of many of J. S. Bach's cantatas.

On the purely musical side, McGranahan gives the earliest examples I have seen of changing time signatures in a gospel song. "I Will Sing of My Redeemer" shifts from 9/8 (three beats) in the stanza to 12/8 (four beats) in the chorus, and "Not Now, But in the Coming Years" goes from 4/4 to 3/4. "Christ Receiveth Sinful Men" goes from 3/4 time to 12/8 time, changing both the number and subdivision of the beats.

Then there is "Christ Returneth," the only gospel song you are ever likely to see with an alternating time signature (3/4 4/4). I remember puzzling over this as a kid, and was amused when my son did the same. Usually an alternating meter will occur in some kind of predictable pattern, and it does here as well; the 4/4 bar occurs at the end of each phrase in the opening two lines of the stanza, providing a beat of rest between lines.

Could McGranahan have written the music without this break? Try singing it without the rests, and you will see that it could have worked, but not as well. The break gives it something distinctive; but more importantly, it gives some breathing room to the weak accents at the end of the first two lines of text ("WAK-ing" and "BREAK-ing"). Could he have just written this with a fermata over the last note of each phrase, instead of using alternating meter? Of course he could have, but it would not have been nearly as interesting!

References:

Obituary of Colonel Henry L. Turner. New York Times, 13 July 1915. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F50F15FE385B17738DDDAA0994DF405B858DF1D3

Oberlin Alumni Magazine 12/1 (October 1915). http://books.google.com/books?id=N9_OAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA29#v=onepage&q&f=false

Raum, Green Berry. History of Illinois Republicanism. Chicago: Rollins, 1900. http://books.google.com/books?id=EupKAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA634#v=onepage&q&f=false

"Soldiers at the dance." New York Times 21 October 1892. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F00D14F6355D15738DDDA80A94D8415B8285F0D3

Werner's Magazine: A Magazine of Expression volume 17 (1895). http://books.google.com/books?id=SoEVAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA761#v=onepage&q&f=false

The Spirit of '76 volume 2 number 5 (January 1896) http://books.google.com/books?id=HPgQAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA115#v=onepage&q&f=false

McGranahan obituary pamphlet. http://www.archive.org/stream/jamesmcgranahanb00pitt#page/n5/mode/2up

Major John Howard obituary. The Guardian 7 May 1999. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/1999/may/07/guardianobituaries

"Major John Howard." The Pegasus Archive. http://www.pegasusarchive.org/normandy/john_howard.htm

Upton, Harriet Taylor. A Twentieth Century History of Trumbull County, Ohio. 2 vols. Chicago: Lewis, 1909. http://books.google.com/books?id=WIMUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&#v=onepage&q&f=false

Burdens Are Lifted at Calvary

2011-10-31T17:34:00.000-05:00

Praise for the Lord #95

Words & Music: John M. Moore, 1952

Dr. John M. Moore (b. 1925) is a Baptist minister from Kirkintilloch, Dunbartonshire, Scotland. Following evangelistic work in Glasgow and Inverness, he emigrated to Ontario, where he served at the Willowdale Baptist Church in Toronto.(Osbeck, 54) Now well into his 80s, Dr. Moore is a member of the Springdale Baptist Church in Stouffville, just north of Toronto, where he recently gave a concert featuring his hymns. For a picture and more information about his life, see Sandra Bolan's article at YorkRegion.com.

Dr. Moore has written over 150 hymns, but his most famous by far is this one, which has entered the core repertoire of a number of religious groups. He is philosophical about the fact that his most famous song was one of his earliest: "Not all your songs get recognition like that."(Bolan) In 1952, Moore was in Glasgow, serving as Assistant Superintendent at the Seaman's Chapel. One day he was called to see a young sailor in Glasgow Hospital, and in the course of the visit shared a tract that was based on Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. The image of the Pilgrim leaving his burden of sin at the foot of the cross was the inspiration for this hymn.(Osbeck, 54)

Stanza 1:
Days are filled with sorrow and care,
Hearts are lonely and drear;
Burdens are lifted at Calvary,
Jesus is very near.

In the course of the last century a certain type of gospel lyric emerged that at best indulged in gratuitous sentimentality, and at its worst simply reveled in maudlin self-pity. (A relative of mine has referred to these as "Oh-poor-me songs.") Part of this was a reflection, of course, of the very real hardship and suffering of the Great Depression; some of it was a reflection, as well, of the lingering Romantic pathos of 19th-century poetry. The result is often an exaggerated manner of stating the sufferings of this life, a manner that rings especially false coming from the lips of well-to-do suburbanites.

I contend that this is not one of those songs. Moore speaks of "sorrow and care," and every person will encounter these in some measure while living in this world. Job famously said, "Man who is born of a woman is few of days, and full of trouble."(14:1) In the great philosophical inquiry of Ecclesiastes, after Solomon had tried out every pleasure, occupation, and diversion that a king's wealth and power could command, we read:

What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.(2:22-23)

He continues later in the book,

Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.(11:7-8)

There is much joy in life, but we are kidding ourselves if we do not admit that a great deal of it is "sorrow and care."

Moore also speaks of being lonely. It is bad enough to be lonely during the good times; but woe to the person who faces the difficulties of life alone!

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!(Ecclesiastes 4:9-10)

Is life "dreary?" We want to say it is not (Americans revere optimism), but I venture to say that dreariness would describe the lives of many people, much of the time. Disappointments and setbacks come to us all, and in many lives they pile up with little relief; we just learn to manage them better. In addressing the young person who has not yet traveled these roads, Solomon says,

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, "I have no pleasure in them."(12:1)

But is this all God wants for us? Ecclesiastes is a deep, powerful book, but we need to remember that it describes life "under the sun," to use the phrase that occurs repeatedly throughout its text. That is to say, it is a series of reflections on life lived on an earthly, not a heavenly level. It arrives at the stoic conclusion that it is best to obey God, enjoy His blessings when we can, and accept the limitations of our knowledge. This is wise, godly advice, of course; but in another way, Ecclesiastes serves to illustrate our desperate need for something more.

Enter Jesus Christ: "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly."(John 10:10) One of the things that Jesus wants us to have is joy! His birth was announced with joy: "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people."(Luke 2:10) He taught a way of love, peace, and joy:

If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.(John 15:10-11)

Joy was a frequent theme of Paul the apostle, even though he endured a great deal of hardship and persecution. His closing salutations to the church in Rome are typical: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope."(Romans 15:13)

Chorus
Burdens are lifted at Calvary,
Calvary, Calvary,
Burdens are lifted at Calvary,
Jesus is very near.

Here is the crux of the matter. (The pun is intentional; isn't it telling that the Latin word for "cross" would come to mean, in our usage, the critical deciding point of some development?) The stoic philosophy of Ecclesiastes says to live a decent, upright life, and make the best of a messed-up world. (This seems to be the point of many world religions, and is noble as far as it goes.) Jesus crashes in like a thunderbolt, if you will, and says, "Yes, it is a messed-up world, but it wasn't supposed to be like this, and I am going to set you right." It wasn't stoic endurance He promised, but relief and renewal:

Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light."(Matthew 11:28-30)

At Calvary, He "freed us from our sins by His blood."(Revelation 1:5) When we bring our burdens to Calvary and "become obedient from the heart,"(Romans 6:17) then we, "having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness."(Romans 6:18) But this new Master does not burden us again; instead, "now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life."(Romans 6:22)

One more phrase here deserves mention: "Jesus is very near." Throughout history people have traveled long distances, at great risk and expense, to visit some person or place that they believe will give them spiritual insight and comfort. There is something within the human heart that drives them to find an answer, "that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward Him and find Him."(Acts 17:27) "Yet," as Paul continues in that same passage, "He is actually not far from each one of us, for 'In Him we live and move and have our being.'"(Acts 17:27b-28) God is as close to us as the air we breathe, and He does not make it difficult to find Him or to learn how to please Him.

But the righteousness based on faith says, "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) or "'Who will descend into the abyss?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.(Romans 6-9)

The Word of God is not in short supply; witnesses to a confession of faith Christ are easily found; water for baptism is not in short supply. Jesus is very near, but too many hearts are far from obedience.

Stanza 2:
Cast your care on Jesus today,
Leave your worry and fear;
Burdens are lifted at Calvary,
Jesus is very near.

(Chorus)

Dr. Moore's inspiration here is 1 Peter 5:7, "Casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you." Anxiety, "worry and fear," are a natural part of living in this imperfect world; what matters is how we deal with them. In a fast-paced, stress-filled world, perhaps the majority of people have some problem with anxiety, and a significant number--as many as 18% of the U.S. adult population, according to the National Institute of Mental Health--are suffering from a diagnosable anxiety disorder at any given time.

Doctors can help, and should certainly be consulted in a situation that has become chronic and debilitating--but no counselor can give us forgiveness of sin, and no pill can give us meaning in our lives. Peter rightly said to Jesus, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."(John 6:68) Psychological and emotional healing can begin when we understand that the God who created us, loves us, and will never leave us; for "not one word has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you."(Joshua 23:14)

Our Savior wants us to be free from worry and fear, and part of it is our perspective on what is really important. Many (perhaps most?) of the things we worry about are ultimately of little consequence, and most do not even come to pass. We are often worrying about tomorrow instead of working for today.

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.(Matthew 6:32-34)

If we seek the kingdom first, and meditate on the fact that our eternal problems and concerns are more than taken care of by the blood of Christ, we can look at the transient problems of today with a much encouraged outlook.

Stanza 3:
Troubled soul, the Saviour can see,
Ev'ry heartache and tear;
Burdens are lifted at Calvary
Jesus is very near.

(Chorus)

"Jesus wept."(John 11:35) We all know it as the shortest verse in the English Bible; but what does it mean? In that understatement so typical of the gospels, we are left to work that out on our own. First of all, we need to remember the context. Lazarus was dead, a man Jesus called His friend.(John 11:11) The "King of Kings, and Lord of Lords,"(Revelation 19:16) called this imperfect, mortal man a friend; Lazarus was not just one of his subjects, not just a statistic or an abstraction. I think Jesus wept for the suffering his friend had endured.

We also know that Jesus loved the bereaved sisters, Mary and Martha.(John 11:5) Their home in Bethany was a "home away from home" for Jesus when He was in the Jerusalem area. When Jesus saw Mary weeping, "He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled."(John 11:33) I think Jesus wept for the suffering of the family, even though He knew that suffering was about to turn to joy.

The same passage says that He saw the rest of the people weeping with her, and I think He was in part weeping for all the griefs that sin had wrought in the world, the worst of which was spiritual and physical death.(Romans 5:12) The Son of God, by whom "all things were created,"(Colossians 1:16) wept over the sorrows that creation had brought upon itself, which He was soon to take upon himself on the cross.

Never doubt that "the Savior can see / Every heartache and tear." "For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin."(Hebrews 4:15)

About the music:

It is always interesting to look at an example of gospel music from outside the American traditions. It is worth remembering that Ira Sankey (1840-1908), an American and the putative founder of the gospel music style, became a celebrity first in Great Britain during his 1873-1875 campaigns with revivalist Dwight L. Moody.(Hall, 317) Sankey even sang at Charles Spurgeon's famous Tabernacle in London--though Spurgeon insisted that he only do so a cappella!(Michael, 140)

Dr. Moore's style in this song emphasizes melody more than harmony. There are very few chromatic notes at all. He adds a 7th in the alto at the end of the first phrase, and at the end of the stanza, to pull the harmony toward the subdominant (an important harmony in the song's structure, always occuring with "burdens are lifted"). There is also the little chromatic fill in the tenor (F, E, E-flat) leading into the second phrases of the chorus, but that is really a matter of leading the tenor back to its note for the next phrase. There are no chromatic chords for their own sake, so to speak.

The melody, however, is quite striking; the opening "hook" drops down an arpeggio of the tonic chord (A, F, C), rather an unusual way to start a song; but this returns as part of the title phrase, on the word "Calvary," and becomes a unifying factor. Particularly interesting is the leap upward on the word "LIFT-ed" each time it appears; it is the highest note in the melody, and after the restricted range of the opening two phrases, it is a noticeable contrast. Was Moore illustrating the text, perhaps even subconsciously? At any rate, it puts a proper emphasis on the key idea of the song.

References:

Osbeck, Kenneth W. 101 More Hymn Stories. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 1985.

Bolan, Sandra. "Songwriter sharing his hymns, stories in Stouffville." YorkRegion.com. http://www.yorkregion.com/what's%20on/attractions/article/934098--songwriter-sharing-his-hymns-stories-in-stouffville

National Institute of Mental Health. Anxiety Disorders. Bethesda, Maryland: National Institutes of Health, 2009. http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/anxiety-disorders/index.shtml

Hall, Timothy L. American Religious Leaders. New York: Facts On File, 2003.

Michael, Larry J. Spurgeon on Leadership, 2nd edition. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 2010.

Come, Holy Spirit, Guest Divine

2011-10-24T15:51:00.000-05:00

Praise for the Lord #94

Words: Adoniram Judson, 1847?
Music: DUKE STREET, John Hatton, 1793

Adoniram Judson (1788-1850) was born in Massachusetts, and studied at both Brown University and the Andover Theological Seminary. He married shortly after his graduation, and the newlyweds set out to be missionaries in India. The international situation being what it was in 1815, the American couple was turned away by the British East India Company, and settled instead in Burma. (Ironically, when the British captured Rangoon in the 1820s, Judson placed in prison by Burman authorities who suspected him of being a British agent!) Judson spent the majority of his career in that country, and did the Burmans the considerable service of translating the Bible into their language. He and his family are prominent figures in the 19th-century missionary movement, and in the history of Baptists in America.

Besides a versification of the Lord's Prayer, Judson left only one hymn, but his careful thought on the topic--baptism and the regeneration by the Holy Spirit--has made it a classic. Originally in seven stanzas, it has actually been broken up by editors into two different hymns: "Our Savior bowed beneath the wave," published in 1829 and comprising the first three stanzas, and this hymn (originally titled "Come, Holy Spirit, Dove divine"), taken from stanzas 7, 5, and 6 of the original.(Julian, 609) In a rare slip, Julian mistakenly identifies this hymn with the "Come, Holy Spirit" in Winchell's Collection of 1832; that hymn is not Judson's, however, but an entirely different work attributed to Franklin Barby. I have not discovered the earliest appearance of Judson's hymn, but it is included in the 1847 edition of The Psalmist, a landmark hymnal among Baptists in North America.

Here is one of the first hymns in Praise for the Lord to deal very directly with the work of the Holy Spirit, and like Cicero, "I begin to speak with great fear." In my paper, "A place in the soul, all made of tunes," I presented the argument that Churches of Christ historically have avoided hymns about the Holy Spirit because of long-standing disagreements over the exact means of His work today in the Christian's life. For those unfamiliar with the debate, we do believe that the Holy Spirit dwells in all those who have become Christians (Romans 8:9-14; 1 Corinthians 3:16); some, however, believe this indwelling is accomplished strictly through our knowledge of the Word, and others believe it is a literal, personal indwelling. I am of the latter view because I believe it is the simplest, most obvious interpretation of the relevant passages; I also suggest that when either side is pressed to show the difference it quickly becomes a question of semantics.

But if there are differences on this point, we are united (at least among the traditional mainstream congregations) in the belief that the era of pentecostal miracles, and of fresh revelations from the Holy Spirit, ended according to God's will with the passing of the generation of the original apostles. We are also united in the belief that, though the Spirit works mightily through His Word, no one is caused to believe or not to believe against that person's will, or brought to belief in some miraculous manner apart from the word. (For those who want to understand the Scriptural background of these positions, Wayne Jackson's article "False ideas about the Holy Spirit" briefly addresses these areas.)

We are also united in the belief that the Holy Spirit is present and active in the act of baptism: "For in one Spirit we are all baptized into one body."(1 Corinthians 12:13) We believe this is exactly what Jesus meant when He told Nicodemus, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God."(John 3:5) Galatians 4:29 likewise contrasts "born of the flesh" and "born of the Spirit." Paul summarizes the idea in his letter to Titus as well:

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.(Titus 3:4-6)

We believe that this in fact is "the gift of the Holy Spirit" that accompanies the believer's baptism in Acts 2:38. So why not sing about it? I suggest that the following hymn, though it has not been widely used among the Churches of Christ (at least in the U.S.), is perfectly in agreement with Scripture and is a beautiful illustration of the Spirit's work in baptism.

Stanza 1:
Come, Holy Spirit, Guest divine
On these baptismal waters shine,
And teach our hearts, in highest strain,
To praise the Lamb for sinners slain.

The original first line says "Dove divine," calling up the well-known image from Jesus' baptism. I am not sure why it was changed--perhaps it was just a little too much consonance--but I think it is a change for the better. The baptism of Jesus was a wonderful and singular event, never to be equated with the baptism that is the new birth of a lost sinner. "Guest" also reminds us of the promise of the Spirit's indwelling in our hearts and lives. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 tells us, "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body." Yet a little earlier in the same letter, we read that the Spirit also dwells in us collectively as the body of Christ: "Do you [plural] not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?"(3:16)

We all know what it is like to have house guests. No matter how glad we are to see them, there is a little relief when they are finally gone and we can get our households back to normal, which for many of us means not quite up to the standards of efficiency and neatness that we had been maintaining in the presence of company. Sometimes Christians want to treat their Lord the same way--but He is not just a temporary boarder in our lives, He is the new landlord. The indwelling Spirit is with us at all times, "so glorify God in your body."

But if that is the case, why would we be calling for the Spirit's presence, as in the first line of this hymn? Of course He is present everywhere; but in the same way that we speak of "drawing near to the throne of grace"(Hebrews 4:16) in prayer, we also beseech the Spirit's presence at the moment a person is accepting baptism. Really we are just acknowledging that presence; it is a reminder for us, not for Him! As mentioned previously, the Holy Spirit is present and active in the act of baptism; it is necessary to be born again of "water and the Spirit"(John 3:5) in a "washing of regeneration"(Titus 3:5) to make a "new creature"(2 Corinthians 5:17). Water, of course, is common; but the spiritual birth of a new Christian is not. We do well to take note of the profound wonder of what is taking place.

The focus of praise, however, turns to Jesus, because it is His sacrifice that makes the Spirit's work possible. The image of "a Lamb, as it had been slain" is from the Revelation, beginning in chapter 5, verse 6. The adoration of His person and thanksgiving for His work is described in the following verses:

And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are You to take the scroll and to open its seals, for You were slain, and by Your blood You ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth."

Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!"

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, "To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" And the four living creatures said, "Amen!" and the elders fell down and worshiped.(Revelation 5:9-14)

Revelation 13:8 continues this figure, calling Christ the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." We read more along these lines in 1 Peter 1:18-20,

Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a Lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you . . .

What could be more humbling, inspiring both awe and joy, than to know that it was in the mind of God, from before all time, to sacrifice His sinless Son for you and me?

Stanza 2:
We love Thy name, we love Thy laws,
And joyfully embrace Thy cause;
We love Thy cross, the shame, the pain,
O Lamb of God, for sinners slain.

The second stanza is addressed to Jesus, whose invitation to salvation is being accepted through baptism. We love His name, therefore we confess it before others as part of obeying His gospel,(Romans 10:9-10) and as a new creation we proudly wear His name and are called "Christians."(Acts 11:26) As Judson notes, when we take His name, we are accepting His sovereignty, and are under His laws. There is a "law of Christ,"(Galatians 6:2) and He himself said, "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love."(John 15:10) "His commandments are not burdensome,"(1 John 5:3) and are even called a "law of liberty,"(James 1:25) but they must be respected.

We are also accepting His challenge, "If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me."(Mark 8:34) To those who invented it, the cross was an emblem of disgrace and terror, but Christians gladly embrace the Man who died upon it and accept the consequences--we will get the same rejection by the world. "You will be hated by all for My name's sake" is His promise; and though we are commanded to "live peaceably with all," at least "so far as it depends on you,"(Romans 12:18) following the path of Jesus will bring conflict enough. Hebrews 12:4 reminded many 1st-century Christians that, "You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin." Would the writer say of us, "You have not yet resisted unto inconvenience?" God help us to remember that we are citizens of a kingdom "not of this world,"(John 18:36) and are accountable to better things.

Stanza 3:
We sink beneath Thy mystic flood;
O bathe us in Thy cleansing blood!
We die to sin, and see a grave,
With Thee beneath the yielding wave.

I regret Judson's choice of words (lovely though it is) in "mystic flood." With the many conflicting views of baptism and salvation held by religious people in our day, I do not want to suggest through this song that I hold the view that there is something mysterious or magical in the water itself. But if we remember that "mystery" means "something concealed," Judson is on the right track. What we see is just water, but what the believer brings into it (a repentant, obedient faith) and what the Lord promises in it (His saving blood) are unseen. Jesus "washed us from our sins in his own blood."(Revelation 1:5) When and how do we come into contact with His saving blood? There is a puzzling passage in 1 John 5, verses 6-8, that addresses the question--puzzling unless one keeps it in context of the salvation of a believer, as mentioned in verse 5:

Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is He who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the One who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.(1 John 5:6-8)

The new birth through the water and the Spirit (John 3), and the coming of Jesus into the heart of a penitent, obedient believer, involve contact with His blood. The water, present physically and seen, corresponds to the blood, present symbolically and unseen.

In addition to a symbolic washing, baptism is also a symbolic burial. This stanza leans heavily on Romans chapter 6:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death . . . (Romans 6:1-4a)

This was the only way to kill the power of sin; the "new creation" could not come until the old one was put to death.

We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.(Romans 6:6-7)

In view of these two important aspects of baptism, it is refreshing how clear Judson is in support of immersion as the only logical (and Scriptural!) mode for such an action. Twice in one stanza he emphasizes that this is "beneath" the "flood" and the "wave." The meaning of "baptism" in the original language is obvious enough; and as a symbol, nothing less than immersion could represent the cleansing of bathing or the finality of burial.

Stanza 4:
And as we rise, with Thee to live,
O let the Holy Spirit give
The sealing unction from above,
The breath of life, the fire of love.

Just as we die to sin, being buried beneath the waters of baptism, so our coming up out of the water carries extraordinary significance: "in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life."(Romans 6:4b) The remainder of Romans 6 fills out Paul's application of this doctrine to everyday life: "Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. . . . So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus."(Romans 6:8,11)

The "sealing unction," as Judson puts it, is clearly spoken of in Scripture; and we do not have to understand everything about it to know that it is so. "But you have an anointing [KJV: 'unction'] from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth."(1 John 2:20, ESV) This idea is spelled out more plainly in 2 Corinthians 1:21-22, "And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put His seal on us and given us His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee." Paul says something very similar to the Ephesians: "In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory."(Ephesians 1:13-14)

It was our pleasure this past Sunday morning to witness a woman's decision to come out of the world and into Christ. She professed her faith in Christ as the Son of God; she was lowered into the waters of baptism, letting the power of Christ's sinless death put to death the sins of her former life; she was raised in the power of His resurrection as a new person, reborn through water and the Spirit, with the Spirit's indwelling as guarantee of the "new management" under which she now lives. What a wonderful transformation!

About the music:

The tune DUKE STREET is discussed in connection with "Awake, my tongue, thy tribute bring." Any Common Meter tune, of course, could be used; this could be easily sung with the OLD 100TH ("Doxology") tune.

References:

Julian, John. A Dictionary of Hymnology. New York: Scribner, 1892.

Winchell, James M., editor. An Arrangement of the Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs of the Rev. Dr. Watts. Boston: James Loring, 1832. http://books.google.com/books?id=0wlEAAAAYAAJ

Stow, Baron, and F. S. Smith, editors. The Psalmist: A New Collection of Hymns for the Use of the Baptist Churches Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1847. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008624898

Christian Hymns "No. 1" (Gospel Advocate, 1935) - Part 1 of 2

2011-10-12T20:39:00.000-05:00

Many of us of middle aged and older folks remember the Gospel Advocate hymnals. The last of them, Christian Hymns III, debuted in 1966, just a year before my own arrival. I do not know the sales figures on Christian Hymns no. 2 (1948), but I am fairly certain that nearly every Church of Christ across the southern United States still has a stack of the little tan books (sometimes blue) tucked away in a closet. During the 1970s and 1980s the hymnals from Howard Publishing caught much of this market, with their larger selection and greater inclusion of new Southern gospel. But I believe the impact of the Christian Hymns series was profound in shaping a core repertoire of hymns familiar to the Churches of Christ in the southern U.S., second only to the widely popular Great Songs of the Church edited by Elmer Jorgenson. The hymnal I would like to focus on is the one that started it all--Christian Hymns "no. 1" as we sometimes call it, from 1935. It was this hymnal that launched the editorial career of Lloyd O. Sanderson and introduced many of his most popular hymns, and there are some surprising circumstances behind its origins.

The Early Gospel Advocate Hymnals

The Gospel Advocate Company got into the hymnal line with another book called Christian Hymns, published in 1889. It was edited by Elisha G. Sewell with the assistance of Leonard Daugherty, and with Rigdon McIntosh serving as music editor. This began the practice of using music editors from outside the Churches of Christ, including McIntosh (Methodist) and William J. Kirkpatrick (Baptist), with text decisions made by an editor of the Gospel Advocate. In the 1910s and '20s GA editor Charles M. Pullias (1872-1962) edited some volumes by himself, but as far as I can determine there was no official music editor on staff.(Bowman, 69) The lack of an in-house music editor comes as no surprise when one considers the situation of the U.S. Churches of Christ in the early decades of the 20th century.

The division between the Christian Churches and Disciples of Christ on the one hand, and the Churches of Christ on the other, has been characterized by some as "sectional," a term that obscures the case by oversimplifying. Richard T. Hughes, by no means an apologist for the division, notes that it was as much a division of urban from rural as of North from South. Not surprisingly, the financial resources, institutions of higher learning, and the most educated part of the population went toward the Christian Churches and Disciples.(Hughes, 4) In a time when there were precious few institutions among the Churches of Christ for the training of preachers, there were certainly no facilities for training musicians.

Today, of course, there are strong music departments among the colleges associated with the Churches of Christ, but there is yet another factor to consider, one not that much changed since the early part of the last century--relatively few congregations of the Churches of Christ hire a "music minister" as others would understand it. Most of the paid positions are modest part-time work, and full-time positions often include song leading among several other areas of service. Many of these positions might be filled by a person with only a little formal education in music, perhaps a college minor. And in many, many congregations there is no pay at all for a song leader, or perhaps just enough to cover gas money if someone is driving in from another community. Though I know many song leaders who have a college education in music, they are teachers in schools or colleges, or sometimes professional performers in secular music; if they make their living in music it is outside of the church.

Entering a New Era: Great Songs of the Church

The early lack of formally trained music editors within the Churches of Christ came to an end with the arrival of a man who was to have a huge impact on the hymnody of the Churches of Christ: Elmer Leon Jorgenson (1886-1968). Jorgenson, editor of Great Songs of the Church, took a complete "four-year course in musical theory, history, harmony and composition" at the University of Louisville in his decade-long preparation for his life's labor.(McCann, 220) Though the university's music department did not grant a degree in those days, it presented a curriculum similar to the classroom portions of a bachelor's degree in music without the applied studies in performance.(Catalogue, College of Liberal Arts, 28-30)

Jorgenson's dream of a highly inclusive hymnal, combining the best of the heritage of English hymnody from earlier centuries with the best of the contemporary gospel songs of his day, bore fruit in 1921 when Great Songs almost immediately sold out its first printing. It was obvious that Jorgenson had produced a classic, and the hymnal was widely praised by well-known song leaders. In 1925 Jorgenson accomodated the growing demand from the South for a shape-note edition; earlier editions had been in traditional round notation, and both round- and shape-note versions were produced for many years.(McCann, 222-223)

But Jorgenson's hymnal was not without its detractors. Jorgenson was firmly in the premillennial camp, and was an associate editor of Word and Work, the Louisville, Kentucky journal that came to be the primary voice of this viewpoint within the Churches of Christ. (A search of the archived issues at Hans Rollman's Restoration Movement Pages shows that Jorgenson wrote the "Work and Worship" department of the journal from at least 1913, even before R. H. Boll's editorship brought it to the forefront among the premillennial congregations. With the redesign of the masthead in 1916 he is listed as a co-editor under Boll, along with Stanford Chambers and H. L. Olmstead.) As the premillennial issue swept across the churches during the early decades of the 20th century, Jorgenson's hymnal was inevitably associated with the controversy.

Whether the hymnal itself was premillennial is an interesting question, because most hymnals contain works written by people of widely varying doctrinal beliefs, yet without necessarily reflecting all of those beliefs. There were certainly songs that could support a premillennial interpretation, such as "I know that my Redeemer liveth" by Jessie Hunter Brown Pounds, which originally included this stanza:

I know that my Redeemer liveth,
And on the earth again shall stand,
I know eternal life He giveth,
That grace and power are in His hand.

This is of course based directly on Job 19:25, "For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth." But opponents of premillennialism were quick to point out that the word "again" in the second line is an interpretation of Mrs. Pounds not inherent in the Scripture in question, especially considered from Job's perspective!(Wallace) The argument here turned on this common debate point against premillennialism: at the return of Christ, since we will "meet the Lord in the air" (1 Thessalonians 4:17), and "the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up,"(2 Peter 3:10) therefore the Bible teaches that Jesus will not set foot on this earth again, much less establish an earthly kingdom.

Interestingly, Great Songs of the Church No. 2 (1937) simply omitted the hymn; other hymnals among the Churches of Christ use it with the second line of this stanza altered to, "And that His throne shall ever stand."(Mankin) Most of the rest of the examples cited in Mankin's study are open to "either/or" interpretation, and at any rate those songs were easily enough avoided. But for some brethren it was sufficient that the editor of Great Songs was a premillennialist, and Foy Wallace Jr. (1896-1979), the Texas firebrand who devoted much of his life to refuting that doctrine, believed that Great Songs should be rejected.(Hooper, 149) In the 1930s, with the popular new hymnal available in shape notes, one supposes there was even more urgency to provide an alternative.

Answering the Call: A New Music Editor

Lloyd Otis Sanderson (1901-1992), from Jonesboro, Arkansas, was a precocious boy who quickly soaked up the education opportunities available to him in his rural setting. Trained in music at home and in local singing schools, he was reading music by age five--"before that," he claimed modestly, "I sang much by rote." He was teaching singing schools himself by age fifteen, and by eighteen had attained "graduate" status at the summer music normal schools, which he later equated roughly with a bachelor's degree. He began writing songs at age fourteen, though he later discounted their quality. Some of these works from his teens, however, were at least good enough to publish. His songs appeared in books published by the Hartford Music Company (Hartford, Arkansas), where Albert E. Brumley was a staff songwriter, and by the Hildebrand-Burnett Company (Roanoke, Virginia).(Sanderson, "Autobiography")

Like that of Jorgenson, Sanderson's education was to be an ongoing process. Though he was teaching music and directing the chorus for the newly founded Harding College during the 1920s (having served in the same role at the short-lived Harper College in Kansas), he took voice from a private instructor and did two further years of music studies at the Little Rock Conservatory. Following his desire to serve the Lord in full-time church work, he took a position with a congregation in Springfield, Missouri in 1928; while in the area he took two more years of college work at Southwest Missouri. Most of his studies were in the area of public speaking, but he also took correspondence courses in music history through the University of Arkansas.(Sanderson, "Autobiography")

Foy E. Wallace, Jr. became editor of the Gospel Advocate in 1930, and was soon looking for just such a man. Theodore Thomas, writing on the history of hymnody in the American Restoration Movement, notes merely that the Gospel Advocate Company was "responding to the reluctance of some churches to adopt a premillennial hymnal,"(411) but when we consider who the editor was, it is easy to understand the speed with which the project went forward. Sanderson was contacted by Wallace, and began work on the hymnal in 1933.(Sanderson, "100 years") It should not be assumed, however, that Sanderson shared Wallace's views of Great Songs of the Church; in fact, he was on record to the contrary. The February 1926 issue of Word and Work contained among others this testimonial to Jorgenson's hymnal:

A hymnal of great songs for spiritual worship. In price, none to compare; in make-up, very neat; in binding, lasting quality; in arrangement of songs, superior; in fact--the book the church has been needing. -- L. O. Sanderson, Director Vocal Music, Harding College.(Boll)

In his autobiographical statement, published posthumously in the Gospel Advocate, Sanderson places Elmer L. Jorgenson alongside Will W. Slater, Albert E. Brumley, and Tillit S. Teddlie as acquaintances who were of particular significance in the Churches of Christ for their work as songwriters and editors.

The Title Page: Between the Lines

The title of the the new hymnal, Christian Hymns, was not just a generic descriptor arrived at by accident. It was the title of the very first Gospel Advocate hymnal in 1889, brought out by the efforts of David Lipscomb as an alternative to the Christian Hymn-Book, formerly Alexander Campbell's hymnal but by that time owned by the American Christian Missionary Society. It was the latter association, and the fact that sales of the Christian Hymn-Book helped support the ACMS, that drove Lipscomb to offer a new hymnal.(Bowman, 58) The 1889 Christian Hymns was a small, affordable book, but was obviously designed to serve as the main hymnal of a congregation, rather than as a supplement (as was the case with the many ephemeral paperback publications of the gospel music industry). It was still being sold in 1922, much longer than any other GA hymnals before Sanderson's time.(Bowman, 67) The re-use of this title, therefore, helped emphasize the importance of the 1935 Christian Hymns as a re-invention of its well-known predecessor.

The title page of Christian Hymns is interesting in its presentation of the editorial team. L. O. Sanderson appeared first--though he was very much the junior of the others--and then C. M. Pullias, the editor of the last several Gospel Advocate hymnals. It is impressive that Pullias, one of the best known preachers and writers among Churches of Christ in that era, and the song leader for N. B. Hardeman's famous "Tabernacle Meetings" at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, gave top billing to a newcomer forty years his junior.(Collins) Listed as "associate editors" were Nicholas B. Hardeman (1874-1965), Elvin H. Ijams (1886-1982), and James F. Cox (1878-1968). Though I cannot tell the extent to which these last three men influenced the hymnal, the reason for their inclusion was simple: at the time, Hardeman was president of Freed-Hardeman College, Ijams was president of Lipscomb College, and Cox was president of Abilene Christian College.(Harp, "Hardeman"; Overton; Childers) Nothing more could have been done to proclaim this hymnal a serious endeavor, worthy of brotherhood-wide attention, than securing the endorsement of these three major institutions.

One man's name is missing from this title page--Foy E. Wallace, Jr., who brought Sanderson on board in the first place. Wallace was in dire straits at the time. When he had first arrived in Nashville in 1930 (at the beginning of the Great Depression!), he found that his salary had been significantly reduced even before he began. Additionally, his usually reliable income from preaching gospel meetings was hampered by the perception that the churches were already supporting him through their subscriptions to Gospel Advocate, and thus were not obligated to pay him as much for his preaching.(Harp, "Wallace") (Dr. Carroll Ellis, whom I was blessed to know as a next-door neighbor, said the same situation existed for Lipscomb College faculty when he came to Nashville in the late 1940s. The college assumed you would supplement your income from preaching work, and the churches assumed the college was paying your living, so neither felt obligated to pay you much!) In 1934 Wallace resigned from the editorship of the Gospel Advocate, presumably in order to pursue full-time the gospel meeting work that was his forte. Though he eventually paid off his debts, he was forced to declare bankruptcy later that year and left Nashville.(Wikipedia) Despite these struggles, the new hymnal appeared in 1935, published by Gospel Advocate in Nashville, Tennessee, and in a cooperative effort between the usually rival hymnal publishers, by Firm Foundation in Austin, Texas.

The Importance of Christian Hymns (1935)

In the long run, Christian Hymns did not overtake Great Songs of the Church as the most widely used hymnal among Churches of Christ. Thomas notes that eventually the quality of the hymnal overcame concerns about the editor's premillennial views,(Thomas, 410ff.) and it has already been noted that Great Songs No. 2 omitted some of the hymns that had raised objections. Additionally, as the years passed and premillennialism was clearly not becoming the majority view in the Churches of Christ, the furor died down on its own. I suspect that few in my generation in the Churches of Christ know there ever was an issue with using Jorgenson's hymnal.

Ironically, the hymnal that Sanderson had been recruited to beat was probably also an influence on his work as well. Though at least half of its contents were gospel songs, Great Songs was noted as a hymnal that included many of the best traditional hymns from the entire heritage of English hymnody. When Sanderson brought out Christian Hymns No. 2 in 1948, so did his. I can see no more likely influence than Jorgenson's hymnal, that Sanderson himself had given such high praise.

But the fact that there was a "No. 2" and "No. 3" is evidence enough that Christian Hymns was a major success on its own. To that extent, it succeeded in meeting its purpose--it launched an alternative franchise. When Sanderson brought out the second edition in 1948, it was poised to take advantage of the post-war boom in church growth. Its economical size, quality editing, and the respected names of its publisher and editor meant that a volume called Christian Hymns would be in the hands of many, many Christians for years to come.

One practice of Pullias's era that Sanderson continued was the acquisition of copyrights, and this led to perhaps the greatest lasting influence of the 1935 Christian Hymns. In those days long before clearing-houses such as CCLI, hymnal publishers bartered with each other for discounts on the use of their copyrights. If publisher A held copyright to a particularly popular hymn, publisher B might offer a discounted rate on the use of several of his own hymns in exchange for permission to use publisher A's hymn. Gospel Advocate had been late coming into the hymnal business, but Pullias had learned the ropes and did his best to acquire material to use as leverage with other publishers.(Sanderson, "100 years")

One of the best means of working around this situation, of course, was to write your own songs. They cost you nothing to use, and if they became popular enough they could become a valuable asset sought for by other publishers. Sanderson wrote a number of new songs for Christian Hymns--in fact, the final page of the hymnal is a list of the songs included to which Gospel Advocate held the copyright, and many of them were brand-new works for which he wrote the music. Many of these were collaborations with his Methodist pen-pal (they never met face to face), the talented lyricist Thomas O. Chisholm. Though Sanderson wrote many fine hymns, it is ironic that the hymnal that premiered so much of his music to the Churches of Christ, would contain so many of his best. Theodore Thomas notes this as the high point of the hymnal: "Christian Hymns was a less ambitious work than Great Songs, but it had the virtue of disseminating a number of its editor's finer hymns."(411)

In a later post I will examine the contents of the hymnal itself.

References:

Bowman, John. Sweetly the Tones are Falling: A Hymnal History of Churches of Christ. Brentwood, Tenn.: Penmann Press, 1984.

Hughes, Richard T., and R. L. Roberts. The Churches of Christ. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001.

McCann, Forrest. "A History of Great Songs of the Church." Restoration Quarterly 38/4 (1996), 219-228. http://www.acu.edu/sponsored/restoration_quarterly/documents/RQ_38.4_(McCann).pdf

Catalogue, University of Louisville, 1910-11. http://books.google.com/books?id=geTOAAAAMAAJ

Wallace, Foy E., Jr. "Does it read that way?" Gospel Guardian volume B/1 (January 1936), page 19. http://wordsfitlyspoken.org/gospel_guardian/vb/vbn1p18_image.html

Mankin, Jim, and Jason Fikes. "'When Shall I Reach That Happy Place?' Apocalyptic Themes in the Hymns of the Stone-Campbell Movement." Restoration Quarterly 38/1 (1996)"http://www.acu.edu/sponsored/restoration_quarterly/archives/1990s/vol_38_no_1_contents/mankinfikes.html

Hooper, Robert E. A Distinct People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.

Sanderson, Lloyd O. "'The Lord has been mindful of me': an autobiography of L. O. Sanderson." Gospel Advocate 146/9 (September, 2004), pages 26-28. http://www.therestorationmovement.com/sanderson.htm

Thomas, Theodore N. "Hymnody." The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, 409-411.

Sanderson, L. O. "One hundred years in song." Gospel Advocate July 1955. (quoted in Bowman, John. Sweetly the Tones are Falling: A Hymnal History of Churches of Christ. Brentwood, Tenn.: Penmann Press, 1984, 69ff.)

Boll, Robert H. "Commendations." Word and Work 19/2 (February 1926), 64. http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/digital/ww/WW1902/W1902064.HTM

Collins, Willard. "Charles Mitchell Pullias." Gospel Advocate 104/17 (26 April 1962), 263-264. http://www.therestorationmovement.com/pullias,cm.htm

Harp, Scott. "Nicholas Brodie Hardeman." The Restoration Movement. http://www.therestorationmovement.com/hardeman,nb.htm

Overton, Basil. "Brother and Sister Ijams." The World Evangelist (March 1975), page 6. http://www.therestorationmovement.com/ijams.htm

Childers, Tom. Obituary of James Franklin Cox. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=44488635

Harp, Scott. "Foy E. Wallace, Jr." The Restoration Movement. http://www.therestorationmovement.com/wallace,fe,jr.htm

"Foy E. Wallace." Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foy_E._Wallace