Father of Mercy, We Bow Before Thee

Words: Unknown (st. 1); George William Walton, 1985 (st. 2)
Music: Adapted from "Lascia ch'io pianga," from Handel's Rinaldo

This is another little gem handed down through "the old blue book," Great Songs of the Church. Wayne Walker notes that it was picked up by Tillit Teddlie in his Great Christian Hymnal No. 2 (1965), and by Lloyd O. Sanderson in Gospel Advocate's Christian Hymns III (1966), which shows that it had some currency (Walker). A quick Internet search for the title shows that it is available in PowerPoint, and is in use by congregations today in that format as well.

The original version published by Jorgenson in 1937 presented just one stanza, author unknown. It is an invocation of prayer, asking for audience with God and His blessing on our petitions.

Father of Mercy,
We bow before Thee;
Bless us, O bless us,
And hear our prayer.

The expression "Father of Mercy," found in 2 Corinthians 1:3, was discussed at some length in the preceding post on the hymn "Father of Mercies, Day by Day." That hymn, however was a hymn of praise of God's attributes, and thanksgiving for His care; "Father of Mercy, We Bow Before Thee" is an expression of our desire to enter into His presence in worship. In this context, there is greater emphasis on God's mercies as expressed in His willingness to reconcile a sinful humanity to Himself; because of His mercy, He desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4). The greatest measure of His mercy, of course, is that "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Even before we showed the least inclination to return to Him, He made the way at His own terrible cost. And it is His mercy, "slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness" (Psalm 86:15), that causes Him to give this wicked world more time to repent, "not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).

It is this "Father of Mercy" whom we approach in worship. He is loving and merciful, and approaching His presence should fill us with love, joy, and comfort. It should also fill us with respect and reverence for One who has done such things for us that He did not have to do, and that we did not deserve--the "fear of God" rightly understood. Robert Nisbet's commentary on Psalm 128 expresses the thought beautifully:

It is that [fear] which they who have been rescued from destruction feel to the benefactor who nobly and at the vastest sacrifice interposed for their safety--a fear to act unworthily of his kindness. It is that which fills the breast of a pardoned and grateful rebel in the presence of the venerated sovereign at whose throne he is permitted to stand in honor--a fear lest he should ever forget his goodness, and give him cause to regret it (150-151).

Coming into His presence in worship, then, we bow before Him. Americans in particular do not like to bow; we eliminated that custom from public life early on in our nation's history, replacing it with the more egalitarian handshake. But when we approach the Creator of the universe, we had better divest ourselves of any such notions. We can approach Him only because it is "His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself" for us to have fellowship with Him (Ephesians 1:9). And though Hebrews 4:16 assures us that we can come "boldly before the throne of grace" (or "with confidence", ESV), we dare not come casually or carelessly. Alexander Campbell wrote thoughtfully, in his Christian System:

Christians need not say, in excuse for themselves, that all days are alike, that all places and times are alike holy, and that they ought to be in the best frame of mind all the time. For even concede them all their own positions: they will not contend that a man ought to speak to God, or to come into the presence of God, as they approach men. They will not say that they ought to have the same thoughts or feelings in approaching the Lord's table, as in approaching a common table; or on entering a court of political justice, as in coming into the house of God. There is, in the words of Solomon the Wise, a season and time for every object and for every work: here is the Lord's day, the Lord's table, the Lord's house, and the Lord's people; and there are thoughts, and frames of mind, and behavior compatible and incompatible with all these (248).

The opening seven verses of the 95th Psalm give us an excellent exposition of what it means to bow down to God in worship. It begins with an intent to approach God, with a joyful purpose in separating from the world for a time in order to praise our Father:

Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;
Let us make a joyful noise to the Rock of our Salvation!
Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving;
Let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise! 

The Psalmist then considers the reason we worship, and just Who it is before whom we stand:

For the LORD is a great God,
And a great King above all gods.
In His hand are the depths of the earth;
The heights of the mountains are His also.
The sea is His, for He made it,
And His hands formed the dry land.

And on consideration of these things, the Psalmist knows just what is appropriate:

Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
Let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture,
And the sheep of His hand.

It may or may not be demeaning to bow down to a fellow human being, but it is simply appropriate to bow down before our Creator! There is no shame in it, but rather joy, because He is truly worthy of our worship. And someday, of course, "we will all stand before the judgment seat of God," where, "'As I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God'" (Romans 14:10-11, cf. Isaiah 45:23). We will be the better prepared for that day, if we engage in frequent and sincere worship that humbles our hearts before our loving Father.

Additional stanzas:

On two different occasions editors have added stanzas to "Father of Mercy", desiring to get more than just one stanza's use out of a very appealing tune. Lloyd O. Sanderson completely reworked the text for Christian Hymns III (Nashville: Gospel Advocate, 1966), where it is titled "Father, Hear Our Prayer" (#166):

Father in heaven,
We come before Thee:
Possess us, and bless us,
And hear our prayer.

Father of mercy,
Grant us this favor:
Possess us, and bless us,
And hear our prayer.

Father, we need Thee,
Living and dying:
Possess us, and bless us,
And hear our prayer.

The trick of maintaining the last two lines of each stanza as a refrain was a good idea, and suits the simplicity of both the text and the music. But in my opinion the decision to alter the meter in the third line, requiring a pick-up note for the first syllable of "Possess", mars the great beauty of this music--the breathless silences between the phrases.

"Father of Mercy" appeared in Great Songs of the Church, Revised (Abilene, Tex.: ACU Press, 1986) with supplemental stanzas written by George William Walton (b. 1941), former chairman of English at Abilene Christian University (McCann, 108).

We seek Thee, Father;
Reveal Thy glory.
Strengthen, O strengthen,
The vision that we share.

Lay hands upon us,
O risen Jesus.
Touch us, O touch us;
Our confidence increase.

Comforting Spirit,
Come and indwell us.
Breathe now, O breath now,
The promise of Thy peace.

In Praise for the Lord only the first of these stanzas is included; and though I cannot read the minds of the editors, I believe Walker is correct in guessing that they were concerned about possible objections to the content of the other stanzas. I have heard criticism of the contemporary song "Glorify Thy name" on the same grounds, that it directly addresses each Person of the Trinity, instead of addressing the Father as we are given example in the Lord's Prayer; for a thoughtful review of this question in general, I recommend Wayne Jackson's article "May a Christian address Christ in praise or prayer?" from the Christian Courier. But if a hymn is clearly just affirming a traditional view of the Trinity, I do not see the problem with it in the first place; and it is curious that the same objections are not raised about the traditional Doxology, or William McKay's "Revive us again".

Other concerns, however, may have caused these stanzas to have been deleted. The expression "Lay hands upon us, / O risen Jesus" is striking, but also puzzling. Jesus laid hands on the sick to heal them (Mark 6:5), and on the children to bless them (Mark 10:16); but the strongest association of "laying on hands" in the language of the New Testament is to the imparting of spiritual gifts. Though it certainly is meant in a metaphorical sense, it is a rather loaded expression. The final stanza probably raised some eyebrows as well; the line "Come and indwell us" broaches the question of when and how the Spirit enters into the heart of the believer. Reading it literally, one might object that the Spirit already indwells the Christian, individually (1 Corinthians 3:16) and as a part of the collective body of Christ (1 Corinthians 6:19). Again, in a metaphorical sense, this expression says no more than does "Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me", but the way it is phrased could be problematic for some worshipers.

About the music:

The music to which this text is set has frequently been misidentified as an aria from the opera Semele (1743) by George Frederick Handel. It is actually the opening 8 measures of a melody best known as "Lascia ch'io piango", a popular aria from Handel's opera Rinaldo (1711). In the video below it is sung by the French coloratura soprano, Patricia Petibon, an outstanding interpreter of Baroque repertoire.

Excerpt from the Chrysander edition of Rinaldo

Like many other composers, Handel was not above repackaging a good tune from an earlier work. John Walter Hill discovered the earliest form of this melody in Handel's Almira (1705), Act 3, Scene 3, as an "Asiatic dance"(or what passed for a Western conception of an Asiatic dance in 1705). It was recast as an aria in the third part of his 1707 oratorio Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno ("The triumph of time and truth"), with the text "Lascia la spina" (Hill).

Handel finally found the perfect fit for this music--if enduring popularity is any measure of its success--as "Lascia ch'io pianga" in the opera Rinaldo of 1711. But after looking through the score of Semele, the only trace of this melody I can find is a faint similarity to the opening phrase of the air "Your tuneful voice my tale would tell," Act I, Scene 2, no. 18. Even there, the minor key context obscures the resemblance. It seems clear that the source of our hymnlet under consideration is the well-known "Lascia ch'io pianga" from Rinaldo, and that the attribution to Semele is a simple error that has been frequently repeated.

The dance origins of this melody may seem obscure to us today, but original audiences would have recognized it immediately as a sarabande, a slow and sedate dance in triple time with a trademark emphasis on the second beat. Long after it was out of fashion for actual dancing, the sarabande style continued as a purely instrumental genre for listening, as seen in the keyboard works of Handel and J.S. Bach, and in the revival of this style by 20th-century composers such as Ravel and Debussy.

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References:

Campbell, Alexander. The Christian System. Nashville, Tenn.: Gospel Advocate, 1956.

Hill, John Walter. “Handel's retexting as a test of his conception of music and text relationship,” Göttinger Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft, III, Gedenkschrift für Jens Peter Larsen (1989); quoted in Gregory Barnett, "Handel's borrowings and the disputed 'Gloria'." Early Music, vol. 34, no. 1 (Feb. 2006), p. 91 n. 17.

McCann, Forrest. Hymns & History: An Annotated Survey of Sources. Abilene, Tex.: ACU Press, 1997.

Nisbet, Robert. The Songs of the Temple Pilgrims. London: Nisbet & Co., 1863.
http://books.google.com/books?id=QgY-AAAAcAAJ

Walker, Wayne S. "Father of Mercy (1)." Hymn of the Day. 2005.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/hymnoftheday/conversations/topics/42?var=1

Father of Mercies, Day by Day

Praise for the Lord #141

Words: Frederick W. Faber, 1849 (st. 1, alt.); Alice Flowerdew, 1803 (st. 2, alt.); Gilbert Rorison, 1851 (st. 3, alt.)
Music: ELEOS, English folk melody

The lovely little hymn "Father of mercies, day by day" has a very unusual history, and seems to be little known outside of the Churches of Christ. (Click here to listen to a recording made in Great Songs Chapel at Oklahoma Christian University.) It appears in just a handful of hymnals indexed at Hymnary.org, most notably Great Songs of the Church, which is probably the source from which it was picked up by other hymnals. It is actually a patchwork of stanzas from two hymns by different authors, the first of which is radically altered from its original intent, and the second of which was altered and added to by a third author even before this adaptation. The first stanza was originally thus:

Mother of mercy, day by day
My love of thee grows more and more;
Thy gifts are strewn upon my way
Like sands upon the great seashore.

When we consider that it was written by Frederick Faber, the great Anglo-Catholic hymnwriter, it is hardly surprising. The stanzas that follow in Faber's original hymn are an apologia for devotion to Mary, which remained a sticking-point within the Oxford Movement. Some enterprising individual, however, turned this first stanza to a hymn of praise to the Father with the stroke of a pen. The plural "mercies" instead of "mercy" may have been suggested by the large number of other hymns that begin with the line "Father of Mercies!" And though the balance of the hymn before us is from another work, written a generation earlier, the sweet, childlike faith so typical of Faber is the perfect way to start off this hymn.

Advertisement from Flowerdew's
Poems on Moral and Religious Subjects, 1803

The remaining stanzas of this pastiche are based on Alice Flowerdew's popular hymn, "Fountain of mercy, God of love". According to Julian's Dictionary Alice Flowerdew was born in 1759 (Stevenson). She may have been the former Alice Ludlow of Norfolk, who married Daniel Flowerdew, a widower, on 22 May 1785. Daniel Flowerdew served as a customs officer in Jamaica for a few years ("1790 Almanac"), where at least one child, Elizabeth, was born to the couple. Josiah Miller, writing in 1869 with information from a living descendant, says that the Flowerdews returned to England prior to Daniel's death in 1801, and that Alice kept a ladies' boarding school in Islington (Miller, 327).

The reality of the situation appears to be a little more complicated. Later authors have tended to assume that Mrs. Flowerdew faced financial difficulties after the death of her husband, but the unnamed editor of Fireside Poetry, a late 19th-century American anthology, was closer to the truth of the situation: "After [Daniel Flowerdew's] return to England he was in such poor circumstances that Mrs. Flowerdew was obliged to keep a school at Islington" (Fireside Poetry, vol. 2, p. 121).

The European Magazine and London Review fills in a missing critical detail, with a report in its obituary column for March-April, 1801: "Lately, in the Rules of the Fleet Prison, Daniel Flowerdew, esq." (vol. 39, p. 319). Readers of Dickens will recognize the Fleet Prison as the debtors' jail where Mr. Pickwick found himself confined. The "rule" of the Fleet Prison was an area just outside the walls where favored prisoners were allowed to rent lodgings, provided they could post bond, pay a regular percentage against their debts, and pay a daily fee to the jailers (Thornbury). Alice Flowerdew's ladies' school in Islington, three miles away, was a means of supporting the family and keeping her husband from the indignity of remaining inside the prison itself. Health conditions at the Fleet Prison and its environs were notoriously poor, of course, and may have hastened his death. Alice Flowerdew's statement in the preface to her 1803 poetry collection takes on an added poignancy in light of these facts:

The Poems which are now presented to the Public Eye, were written at different Periods of Life: some indeed at a very early Age, and others under the severe Pressure of Misfortune, when my Pen has frequently given that Relief which could not be derived from other Employments.

Flowerdew's original hymn was in six stanzas, but was soon redacted "at sundry times and in divers manners" by many different hymnal editors. It first appeared in the 1819 edition of Thomas Cotterill's landmark series A Selection of Psalms and Hymns, with just five stanzas. Several of its later adaptations changed the first line to "Father of mercy, God of love", and one of these versions in particular caught on after being adopted in the influential Hymns Ancient & Modern. It is from the 1st and 5th stanzas of this altered version of the text that the second and third stanzas of our "Father of Mercies" were drawn--and in yet another twist, the 5th stanza was actually a wholesale addition to Flowerdew's hymn by another writer.

The earliest instance of this "Father of mercy" version appears to be in Hymns and Anthems: Adjusted to the Church Services throughout the Christian Year, published in London in 1851, and edited by Gilbert Rorison (1821-1869), a Scottish curate at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Peterhead (Julian, "Rorison"). Rorison's note on "Father of Mercies" in the index of first lines indicates that he both "altered considerably" and "added considerably;" and since the 5th stanza of his adaptation does not bear any discernible relation to Flowerdew's original, I believe he must be given credit for writing what we have as the closing stanza of the modern "Father of Mercies" hymn.

Exactly who combined and arranged these different texts into the form used by many Churches of Christ is not certain, but I agree with Wayne S. Walker that it is most likely the work of Elmer Jorgenson, editor of Great Songs of the Church (Walker). The "old blue book" is the only common thread I can find, from the citations in Hymnary.org to the scant appearances of this hymn on the Internet, and Jorgenson is known to have translated and adapted texts as well as arranging and adapting music. As he was gathering materials for his hymnal, Jorgenson must have hit upon the idea of changing Faber's opening stanza to "Father of mercies"; but, considering the subject of the rest of that hymn, he needed material from elsewhere to provide the rest of the stanzas. The Rorison version of Flowerdew's hymn (perhaps acquired from Hymns Ancient & Modern) begins almost identically, with "Father of mercy"; and with a slight rewriting of the opening of the 5th stanza, Jorgenson had a nice little hymn in three stanzas, each beginning with the same phrase.

There was one problem, however, that required a novel solution: Faber's hymn is in Long Meter (each stanza has 4 lines of 8 syllables each), but Flowerdew's hymn is Common Meter (8 syllables, 6 syllables, 8 syllables, 6 syllables). To make them fit, Jorgenson (presumably) stretched out the 2nd and 4th lines of the two stanzas taken from Flowerdew's hymn, as indicated below in italics:

Original: Father of mercies, God of love, Whose gifts all creatures share, Thy rolling seasons as they move Proclaim Thy constant care. Oh, ne'er may our forgetful hearts O'erlook Thy bounteous care; But what our Father's hand imparts Still own in praise and prayer.

Altered: Father of mercies, God of love, Whose gentle gifts all creatures share, Thy rolling seasons as they move Proclaim to all Thy constant care. Father of mercies, may our hearts Ne'er overlook Thy bounteous care; But what our Father's hand imparts Still own in grateful praise and prayer.

If someone told me that they intended to combine hymn stanzas from three different writers and in two different meters, I would suggest they look for some easier outlet for their creative tendencies. But the alterations to the words of the Flowerdew hymn fit so beautifully, they might have been written that way originally. The addition of the words "gentle" and "grateful" fit the sentiment of this hymn perfectly, and tie these stanzas nicely into Faber's style in the 1st stanza.

Stanza 1:
Father of Mercies, day by day
My love to Thee grows more and more;
Thy gifts are strewn upon my way
Like sands upon the great seashore.

Though "Father of Mercies" was not the original wording of this stanza, it is an eminently appropriate expression, corresponding to Paul's language to the church at Corinth: "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3). The language "Father of Mercies" recalls the Eastern habit of labeling a man the "father of" something, to indicate the prominence of that characteristic in the person. Jesus called Satan the "father of lies," not only as one who promotes lying, but one who lies "out of his own character" (John 8:44). God is elsewhere called "Father of Lights" (James 1:17), and "Father of Glory" (Ephesians 1:17); together with "Father of Mercies", we have a striking picture of the character of God.

The "mercies" spoken of in 2 Corinthians 1:3 are the Greek οἰκτιρμός (oiktirmos), a somewhat stronger word than the more common ἔλεος (eleos). It is the word used in the odd but literal expression "bowels of mercies" used by the King James Version in Colossians 3:12 (cf. Philippians 2:1). To put it in more understandable (if somewhat uncouth) modern terms, it is a compassion so strong you "feel it in your gut" (Vine). We see a shadow of that kind of compassion in the devotion of parents to children, where the needs of a child can evoke nearly superhuman patience and endurance. This is a defining characteristic of God's nature as revealed in the Psalms, where the Hebrew equivalent (as seen in the usage of οἰκτιρμός in the Septuagint) occurs several times: "But You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness" (Psalm 86:15, cf. 103:8, 145:8, also Joel 2:13). In these passages His mercies are seen specifically in two areas: His "steadfast love" (the beautiful Hebrew word חֶסֶד, chesed), is what causes Him gives us so much that we do not deserve; His "slowness to anger" is what spares us from so much that we do!

The abundance of God's blessings is expressed here in a familiar Scriptural hypebole: "Like sands upon the great seashore." God's promises to Abraham included this expression: "I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore" (Gen 22:17). In Genesis 41:49 this simile describes the abundance of grain stored up in Egypt under the wise leadership of Joseph (and the blessing of God!). Psalm 78 uses this phrase in an extensive description of God's care for Israel in the wilderness:

He commanded the skies above
And opened the doors of heaven,
And He rained down on them manna to eat
And gave them the grain of heaven.
Man ate of the bread of the angels;
He sent them food in abundance.
He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens,
And by His power He led out the south wind;
He rained meat on them like dust,
Winged birds like the sand of the seas;
He let them fall in the midst of their camp,
All around their dwellings.
And they ate and were well filled,
For He gave them what they craved.
(Psa 78:23-29)

It is difficult even to begin to count our blessings, but always worthwhile. Today was a fairly ordinary week-day for me, but nonetheless filled with more blessings than I can name. To start with:

• I woke up.
• I was under a roof.
• I was in peace and safety.
• I had a reasonably good night of sleep.
• I was able to get out of bed.
• I had breakfast with hot coffee.
• I had a hot shower.
• I had clean clothes to wear.
• I had some left-over pizza to take for lunch.
• I had a job to go to.
• The car started.

This list could be much longer, and that is before I even left my house. I do these things every day, but how often do I think of what blessings they are? Many people do not have a safe shelter, and live in fear of harm every day. Many people do not have sufficient health to sleep soundly, or even to get out of bed in the morning. Many people do not have jobs, or do not make enough money to live on. Too many people do not even have clean water to drink, much less hot water for bathing. Too many people do not have enough food or clothing.

These facts should make us think first, of course, about the need for those of us who are so richly blessed, to do what we can to improve the lot of the ones in need; as John says, "If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?" (1 John 3:17). Hard on the heels of that thought, however, should be an examination of the claim we make when we sing this hymn: "Day by day, / My love to Thee grows more and more." God blesses us day by day; and though our appreciation and love for Him cannot even begin to approach the magnitude of what He does for us, even in the mundane realm of daily blessings, can we at least say that we are growing in our love for Him? "We love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).

Stanza 2:
Father of Mercies, God of love,
Whose gentle gifts all creatures share,
The rolling seasons as they move
Proclaim to all Thy constant care.

I am happy to be writing on this stanza close to the beginning of spring in North Texas, when we are given a few weeks or at least days of respite between the freezing cold and the blistering heat. There is a hopeful feeling in the air, and though the mockingbird has not yet returned to take over as our local entertainer, this morning I heard the homely call of a red-winged blackbird who seemed optimistic that we have seen the last of our cold weather. (I have a longer memory than that bird, and have not yet put away my winter coat.)

"The rolling seasons as they move" make for variety in life, but we know they are much more; if our planet did not tilt in just such a way to make these changes, not only would the habitable part of the earth be much more limited, but the entire cyclic nature of weather would not exist. There are forms of life that can survive in such a world, certainly, but not the intricate web of plant and animal species that we see in our world as it is. Interestingly, from the earliest verses of Genesis chapter 1 we see the provision for variation in the world God created; beginning with a world "formless and void" (v. 2), He created light, separated it from darkness, and imposed "evening and morning, the first day" (v. 4-5). From the "face of the deep" (v. 1) He separated land and sea (v. 9-10); and how little did we suspect, until the explorations and scientific studies of more recent times, the complicated and necessary relationship between these two domains! Finally, verse 14 tells us that God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years."

In Psalm 65, David, who as a young shepherd had ample time to admire the handiwork of the Great Architect, extols the wonderful blessings of God through the natural world:

You make the going out of the morning
   and the evening to shout for joy.
You visit the earth and water it;
You greatly enrich it;
The river of God is full of water;
You provide their grain,
For so You have prepared it.
You water its furrows abundantly,
Settling its ridges,
Softening it with showers,
And blessing its growth.

You crown the year with Your bounty;
Your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.
The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
The hills gird themselves with joy,
The meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
The valleys deck themselves with grain,
They shout and sing together for joy.
(Psa 65:8b-13)

Though in more recent centuries science has begun to explain the ways in which seasons, days, and years govern the processes of this world, it should only add to our wonder at things "too wonderful for us, which we did not know" (Job 42:3).

But to what end should that wonder lead us? In the ages after the Fall, humanity strayed far from the knowledge of God and invented deities to account for these things--but deities they were, nonetheless, at least in our imaginations. Only in more recent times has learning advanced to the point that intelligent, well-educated people will argue that everything comes from nothing. The vaguest notion of a sun-god or sky-spirit held by our pagan ancestors was more reasonable and convincing than such a conceit! They understood at least that Something, or Someone, "Proclaims to all His constant care" through the provisions of nature. Psalm 19 reminds us,

The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
Day unto day utters speech,
And night unto night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech nor language
Where their voice is not heard.
Their line has gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.
(Psalm 19:1-4)

The power of God is obvious through His creation; but Mrs. Flowerdew's hymn also emphasizes the goodness of God demonstrated in the same. The remaining stanzas of the her hymn (remember that the concluding 3rd stanza of the version at hand was actually by another writer) consider in more detail the blessings of God's provision through the natural world. They are well worth reading:

When in the bosom of the earth
The sower hid the grain,
Thy goodness marked its secret birth,
And sent the early rain.

The spring's sweet influence was Thine,
The plants in beauty grew;
Thou gav'st refulgent suns to shine,
And mild refreshing dew.

These various mercies from above
Matured the swelling grain;
A yellow harvest crowns Thy love,
And plenty fills the plain.

Particularly noteworthy is the following pithy reference to God's promise to Noah after the flood, "While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease" (Genesis 8:22).

Seed-time and harvest, Lord, alone
Thou dost on man bestow;
Let him not then forget to own
From whom his blessings flow.

In the revised form of the original 1st stanza, these ideas are summarized more generally: His "gentle gifts" and "constant care" are given to all creatures. When we think of God's care for the rest of His creatures, we naturally turn to the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: "Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them" (Matthew 6:26a). Of course, the food does not just appear in front of them; they spend most of their day searching, scratching, and pecking, in order to get it. But instead of worrying about tomorrow, they get to work each morning making the most of what God has given for today.

The point of Jesus' words, of course, is this comparison: "Are you not of more value than they?" (Matthew 6:26b). God provides daily for humanity, even though most of us remain in rebellion against Him. "He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matthew 5:45). "Yet He did not leave Himself without witness, for He did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness" (Acts 14:17). The birds set us a fine example in their work ethic; but notice as well that in the hour before sunrise they take time to lift their voices in song before their busy day begins. It is a sentimental notion, but I cannot help thinking that they give us an example there as well. I believe Alice Flowerdew thought the same; though most hymnals that utilized Flowerdew's hymn in its original form ended after the stanzas given above, her original concluded with this additional thought:

Fountain of Love, our praise is Thine;
To Thee our songs we'll raise,
And all created nature join
In sweet harmonious praise.

No doubt the simple joys of nature were a blessing to this woman who dealt with such hardship and disappointment in life. And though her contributions to this hymn as we have it in our particular version are somewhat truncated, her spirit of humble and faithful gratitude permeates it nonetheless.

Stanza 3:
Father of Mercies, may our hearts
Ne'er overlook Thy bounteous care;
But what our Father's hand imparts
Still own in grateful praise and prayer.

In the closing stanza added to his version of Flowerdew's hymn, Gilbert Rorison summarized some of the themes of the omitted stanzas. His lyric originally read, "O ne'er may our forgetful hearts / O'erlook Thy bounteous care," emphasizing the human tendency to forget the true source of our blessings, and to take them for granted. In my country, unless we are directly involved in food production, we tend to act as though food simply appears automatically on the shelves at a local grocery. But farmers know the truth--there are many steps along the way, any one of which could fail, but usually doesn't. Farmers live all year on faith (and credit), and can take nothing for granted until the crops are harvested and sold. We all need to keep such a close eye on our blessings, and realize our dependency on God's providence.

Instead of neglecting our blessings, this hymn adjured us to "own" them "in grateful praise and prayer." And as in all other things, Jesus set us the example, when "He took the seven loaves and the fish, and having given thanks He broke them, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds" (Matthew 15:36). God created food "to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth" (1 Timothy 4:3), and offering thanks before meals is an excellent custom that is worth continuing.

No matter what "our Father's hand imparts" in this life, of course, it will be mixed with the sin and sadness of a fallen world. But if we will only stop to look at the good things He has provided, we cannot fail to see that His blessings far outweigh our sorrows. There is a lesson for us to learn from a passage in the Book of Lamentations, which is familiar to many of us as a praise song. Its placement in the book is key: it begins the middle third of the middle chapter. In the very midst of an entire book of Scripture devoted to lamentation, we are struck by this sudden burst of praise:

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."
(Lam 3:22-24)

Even in the darkest of times, God's mercies are with us; let us learn to look for them and focus on the good He does for us every day!

About the music:

The tune identified here as ELEOS (Greek for "mercy") is called an "English folk melody" by the editors of Praise for the Lord; Jorgenson's Great Songs of the Church identified it simply as a "traditional melody." Searches of melody databases have yielded no further information, except to point out the obvious similarity to the opening phrase of the classic English drawing-room song, "Drink to me only with thine eyes"; the pitches and rhythms are identical for the first six notes. Additionally, the distinctive harmony of the opening two measures of "Father of Mercies"--the bass holding the tonic while the melody and other parts ascend, creating a minor 7th chord--is also found in the earliest part-song arrangement of "Drink to me only with thine eyes".

Adaptation of a popular song into a hymn is not uncommon; the venerable tune to which we sing "O Sacred Head, now wounded" was originally a love song written by Hans Hassler (ironically, it was re-secularized in Simon & Garfunkel's "American Tune"). "Drink to me only with thine eyes" was included in early 19th-century editions of Rippon's Selection of Psalm & Hymn Tunes as the tune PROSPECT, paired with Watts's text "There is a land of pure delight" (Mansfield, 42). The popularity of this melody as a hymn tunes is confirmed by an anonymous editorial in London's Musical World, 1 May 1845, titled "Church Music and Congregational Singing":

What the Church wants is the calling forth of the voice of praise from her lay members. For this end there are no better means than good metrical versions of the Psalms and other portions of Scripture, set to tunes of an impressive character; not the trash which we too often find in favour in our churches, such as Wesley's and Watts's hymns sung to "Rousseau's Dream," and piracies upon "Drink to me only with thine eyes," and other profane airs, which, though pleasing in the concert-room, are out of place in ecclesiastical edifices.

I do not wish to make too much of slim evidence, but a "piracy on 'Drink to me only with thine eyes'" might be just how our hymn tune ELEOS began. "Drink to me only with thine eyes" was adapted by Rippon as a doubled Common Meter tune (Mansfield, 42), and would fit easily with Flowerdew's original "Father of mercies" hymn. Perhaps Jorgensen adapted the melody as well when he altered the hymn to Long Meter.

---

References:

"1790 Jamaica Almanac." Jamaican Family Search. http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/1790al05.htm

"Alice Ludlow." England, Norfolk Bishop's Transcripts, 1685-1941. Familysearch.org.
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NFZM-W4K

Chappell, William. A Collection of National English Airs. London: Chappell, 1840. http://books.google.com/books?id=nxI2AQAAMAAJ

"Church music and congregational singing." Musical World 20:17-18 (1 May 1845), p. 204-205.

"Elizabeth Flowerdew." Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880. Familysearch.org. https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/VH6D-QRP

Fireside Poetry. New York: American News Co., 1880s? http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001907787

Flowerdew, Alice. Poems on Moral and Religious Subjects. London: Stower, 1803.
https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7024621M/Poems_on_moral_and_religious_subfects.
N.B. This is the first edition, and does not include "Father of mercy". I have not found an online copy of the 1811 edition in which this hymn first appeared.

"Fountain of Mercy." Hymnary.org. http://www.hymnary.org/text/fountain_of_mercy_god_of_love

Hymns and Anthems: Adjusted to the Church Services throughout the Christian Year. London: Hope & Co., 1851. https://archive.org/details/hymnsandanthems00hymngoog

Julian, John. "Fountain of mercy, God of love." Dictionary of Hymnology, ed. John Julian, (2nd ed. rev, 1907), 2 vols. New York: Dover, 1957.

Julian, John. "Rorison, Gilbert." Dictionary of Hymnology, ed. John Julian, (2nd ed. rev, 1907), 2 vols. New York: Dover, 1957.

Mansfield, Orlando. "Rippon's tunes." The Baptist Quarterly 8:1 (January 1936), p. 36-43.
http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/bq/08-1_036.pdf

"Merciful, Mercy." Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words. Studylight.org.  http://www.studylight.org/dic/ved/view.cgi?n=1801

Miller, Josiah. Singers and Songs of the Church, 2nd edition. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1869. http://books.google.com/books?id=p-c-AAAAYAAJ

"Monthly obituary." European Magazine and London Review, vol. 39 (1801), April, p. 318-319. http://books.google.com/books?id=qV83AAAAMAAJ&pg=PT135#v=onepage&q&f=false

Stevenson, W. R. "Flowerdew, Alice." Dictionary of Hymnology, ed. John Julian, (2nd ed. rev, 1907), 2 vols. New York: Dover, 1957.

Thornbury, Walter. "Fleet Prison." Old and New London, vol. 2 (1878), pp. 404-416.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45111

Walker, Wayne S. "Father of Mercies." Hymn of the Day. https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/hymnoftheday/conversations/topics/463

The Fruit of Our Lips: A Cappella Praise through the Centuries (Part 6)

The final installment of this overview will focus on the history of a cappella worship in the United States. The very nature of Americans and religion--our strong tradition of religious liberty, from a legal standpoint, and the wide dispersal of independent communities--makes it nearly impossible to summarize the subject. I hope, however, to provide an introduction to a few of the major threads in this story, by following the history of a cappella singing in some of the major religious bodies, and by featuring those groups from within each that remain a cappella today.

A Cappella Singing of the Anabaptist Churches

The third post in this series introduces the interesting origins of the Anabaptist movement and its a cappella singing, which I will not repeat here. The best known Anabaptist groups in the United States, of course, are the "plain people", such as the Amish, Mennonites, and Hutterites. Not surprisingly, all but a small minority of reform groups have retained the a cappella singing of their ancestors.

Old Order Amish

The Old Order Amish still sing from the Ausbund, a German Anabaptist hymnal first published in 1564, supplemented by a few other later collections. The video below, repeated from the previous blog post, is a recording of the "Loblied" or "Praise Song" which is traditionally the second hymn in the service. This recording is audio only, out of respect for the Amish aversion to creating images. At the beginning of each line you will hear the leader "lining out" the opening phrase before the congregation begins, a practice common to many older a cappella traditions.

German lyrics from the Ausbund

(recording begins with 2nd stanza)

English translation

Mennonites

The Mennonite fellowships, being larger and more diverse, exhibit variety in worship practices just as they do in the manner of the observance of "plain living." Originally, however, they were strictly a cappella; the first pipe organ was not installed in a Mennonite church building in the U.S. until 1874. By 1890 the General Conference Mennonite Church allowed instruments, but the more conservative Mennonite Church opposed their use down to the 1950s. These two denominations merged in 2012 to form the Mennonite Church (USA), the largest denomination of Mennonites. Another Mennonite denomination, the Brethren in Christ, also refrained from instrumental music in worship until the 1950s (Krahn).

Many Mennonite congregations, however, remain a cappella. Not surprisingly, of course, the Old Order Mennonites ("horse and buggy Mennonites") continue to sing as they always had. The same stand has been maintained, however, by groups toward the middle of the Mennonite spectrum. As the larger conferences moved in the direction of using instruments (among other changes), these conservative-to-moderate Mennonites coalesced into what is loosely called "Conservative Mennonites" (Wikipedia).

As might be expected, there is a diversity of repertoires and styles among the Mennonites, from the German hymns of the Old Order to contemporary praise choruses among the more modern conservatives. The video below presents an hour's worth of singing from the Sequoia Bible Fellowship in Squaw Valley, California, a conservative Mennonite congregation. (N.B. This is was a special singing night, so there were visitors present who did not adhere to the usual conservative Mennonite practice of head coverings for women.) The first song, "Behold the glories of the Lamb" (ST. MARTIN), goes back to the Harmonia Sacra, a Mennonite hymnal first published in Philadelphia in 1832. The style is very similar to that of Sacred Harp singing and other older shape-note traditions.

Later in the video one may hear more recent Southern gospel songs, such as "Higher ground", that are also common in the traditional repertoire of the Churches of Christ.

A Cappella Singing in Methodist Churches

Though Methodists are not usually thought of as an a cappella tradition, some were at one time opposed to the use of instrumental music in worship. At the 1846 conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and again in 1874, the formal Pastoral Address expressed disapproval of instruments in worship, though no formal action was taken (Westerfield Tucker, 167ff.). It is not surprising that it was the Southern branch of Methodism that was the last to adopt the use of instruments; Southerners of every religious stripe seem to have been more conservative in theology and practice than their Northern counterparts, perhaps reflecting the natural tendencies of a predominantly rural society with few major urban centers. This scenario played out among many religious groups, including, in its own way, the Restoration Movement.

Two groups that refused to follow the Methodist Episcopal mainstream during this time, the Free Methodist Church and the Wesleyan Methodist Church (later just the Wesleyan Church), continued in a cappella singing for several more decades. The Free Methodist Church was organized at a meeting in 1860 on the basis of "primitive Methodism," part of which was stated to be "congregational singing, without instrumental music in all cases" (Fortner). Half a century later, the Doctrines and Discipline of the Free Methodist Church still contained the frank statement, "In no case let there be instrumental music or choir singing in our public worship" (D&D 1915, p. 42). This remained the position of the group until 1943, when the General Conference voted to allow local congregations to decide whether or not to introduce instruments (Daily Times (Beaver & Rochester, NY) 19 June, p. 2).

The Wesleyan Methodist Connection of America, later just the Wesleyan Church, had a less united stance on this and many other issues. The Discipline of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America contained until 1896 this somewhat equivocal statement: "We recommend the churches to dispense with instrumental music." (Discipline 1896, p. 115) It was omitted, however, from 1911 onward (Discipline 1911, p. 205). Many of the Holiness groups related to this tradition adopted instruments over the years, though others remain a cappella. One example of the latter is Christ's Sanctified Holy Church, which was organized in 1892 on Chincoteague Island, Virginia, and has spread through the southeastern U.S. as far as Mississippi ("About us"). The following video is from a singing in Leesburg, Georgia.

The Pentecostal movement, rooted in Wesleyan Methodism, began with a surprisingly strong a cappella worship tradition. For at least the first decade after its beginning in 1906, the famous revival at the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles did not have instrumental music (Robeck).

A Cappella Singing in Baptist Churches

According to David W. Music and Paul A. Richardson, Baptists in the United States were opposed to instrumental music in worship well until the 19th century. Even then, "it is safe to say that few congregations introduced instruments without stirring controversy" (102). Baptists in the South, ancestors of the largest Protestant body in the U.S. today, were still in opposition in large numbers at mid-century. Music & Richardson cite the sentiments of Jeremiah B. Jeter of the First Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia, who wrote in 1840:

I am not favorable to the use of instrumental music in the worship of God. It is warranted neither by precept, nor example, under the new dispensation. . . . On this there is but little difference of opinion among the Baptists of Virginia" (103)

Music & Richardson offer some instructive insights into the shift in Baptist thinking. Foremost was a change in thinking about how Scripture guides what is done in worship. Earlier generations had followed the "regulative principle", that is, they believed that Scripture regulates what is done in worship. But later generations adopted the "normative principle", assuming that anything not prohibited by Scripture is lawful. The authors also note that this change coincided with a rise in affluence and education, as well as an increasing desire to make the Baptist faith more attractive to a wider segment of the population (109ff.). Readers of Earl West's Search for the Ancient Order will recognize an almost identical transformation within the Restoration Movement, only a few decades later. But as can be seen with other major religious groups, there are still remaining branches of the Baptists practicing the a cappella singing that was once universal.

Old Regular Baptists

Found primarily in the Appalachians along the borders of Kentucky and the Virginias, the "Old Regular" Baptists trace their heritage to the New Salem Association founded in 1825. Though their principal distinction is their stance on the relationship between grace and free will, they have also traditionally been among the most resistant to changes in congregational organization and worship, and continue many practices dating from the 18th century (Grammich & Young). In addition to continuing the a cappella practice, they have retained the "lining out" procedure of singing in which the leader chants the words of each line quickly, then leads the congregation through the line following the tune, usually in a very slow, almost arhythmic fashion. This is a tradition dating back to very early Protestant congregational singing, allowing one person with a hymnal (or just a good memory) to lead a congregation that may not have had hymnals, or the literacy to use them.

Primitive Baptists

Primitive Baptists began to be recognized as a distinct group during the 1820s as they rejected the introduction of the missionary societies, seminaries, and Sunday School organizations that were later accepted by the majority of Baptists. They were also known for being the strictest Baptist adherents to the doctrine of predestination, thus receiving the (not always kindly) nickname of "Hard-shell" Baptists. The moniker "Primitive" or "Old-School" is more generally accepted, reflecting the view that they have simply remained in the faith of their fathers while others have moved in more liberal directions (Young). A cappella singing in worship is one of the distinct practices strongly maintained and defended by mainstream Primitive Baptists. The article "Instrumental music in the church" by Elder Bill Walden, which is linked on several Primitive Baptist websites, presents a rather familiar approach to the topic!

Primitive Baptist hymnals include the Old School Hymnal and Old Baptist Hymns, The video below is a group of Primitive Baptists singing SOAR AWAY, a hymn from the Sacred Harp tradition of shape-note music (to be discussed later). The videographer starts the recording well outside the little church building and slowly walks inside, giving an excellent demonstration of how this vigorous style of singing could roll across the "hills and hollows" back in a less noisy age. It also shows the amazing acoustical properties of the small, high-roofed wooden buildings of an earlier era, which make the small group of singers sound much louder.

A Cappella Singing in Reformed & Presbyterian Churches

Those closest to the roots of Calvinism might be expected to hold onto his teachings about worship the longest, and to a great extent this was true. In 1842, the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., the largest Presbyterian body in the country at that time, published Questions on the Confession of Faith and Form of Government, a brief work in question-answer format intended to instruct the faithful in the official positions of the denomination. It included this statement:

[Sec. V.] Q. 6. Is there any authority for instrumental music in the worship of God under the present dispensation?

A. Not the least; only the singing of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs was appointed by the apostles; not a syllable is said in the New Testament in favour of instrumental music; nor was it ever introduced into the Church until the eighth century, after the Catholics had corrupted the simplicity of the gospel by their carnal inventions. It was not allowed in the Synagogues, the parish churches of the Jews; but was confined to the Temple service, and was abolished with the rites of that dispensation (Weed 55).

But this position did not hold. In 1845 the Synod of Cincinnati put forward an overture requesting a formal declaration from the General Assembly on the matter of instrumental music in worship; the Committee on Bills and Overtures stated,

Whereas by our Constitution, (Form of Government chap. ix. sect. 6, and Directory for Worship, chap. iv. sect. 4,) the whole internal arrangement of a church as to worship and order, is committed to the Minister and Session, therefore,

Resolved, That this Assembly do not feel themselves called upon and obliged to take any further order on this subject, but leave to each Session the delicate and important matter of arranging and conducting the music, as to them shall seem most for edification; recommending great caution, prudence, and forbearance, in regard to it" (UPC-USA Minutes 21-22).

I am no expert in the ecclesiastical politics of mid-19th century Presbyterians, but I think I recognize a "punt" when I see one. The simple assertion that it was out of their hands left it open to the factions within each congregation to fight it out, and the recommendations, sincere though they must have been, say nothing about the Scriptural points of the matter--implying by their silence that it had become a matter of expedience.

The United Presbyterian Church of North America was more heavily influenced by the Scottish Covenanter tradition, and held out for another generation. Until 1882 the UPCNA's "Directory of Worship"--its approved regulations for conducting worship--explicitly forbade the use of instruments in worship. This was repealed at the 24th General Assembly (UPCNA Minutes, 519), over considerable protest. The following year saw the "Convention of United Presbyterians Opposed to Instrumental Music in the Worship of God," held in Allegheny, Pennsylvania.

Eventually the two United Presbyterian bodies combined, and, through a further series of mergers, became today's Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the largest Presbyterian group in the United States. But other Presbyterian fellowships resisted this trend of merger for a number of reasons. The Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America, General Synod (an ancestor of today's conservative Presbyterian Church of America, and not to be confused with the modern "Covenanter" group, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America) did not allow instrumental music in worship until 1905, when the synod decided to allow the matter to be addressed at the congregational level (Hutchison 92). Other Presbyterian fellowships remain a cappella to this day.

Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America

The largest of the Presbyterian groups in the U.S. that continue the a cappella practice of their forbears is the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, also known (like their Scottish counterparts) as "Covenanters" because of their historic connection to the Solemn League and Covenant dating from the English Civil War. (Not surprisingly, the Covenanters were some of the staunchest proponents of independence when the American Revolution came!) Organized in this country during the 1700s, the RPCNA has resisted merging into one of the larger Presbyterian conferences, though it has at times lost significant portions of its membership to these bodies (Wikipedia). Following the original practice of Scottish Presbyterianism, they sing only the Psalms. The official position of the RPCNA on instruments in worship is expressed thus: "In keeping with the New Testament Church’s directive for heart worship, we sing without the aid of musical instruments" ("Convictions").

Two Uniquely American A Cappella Traditions

The focus of this series has been on the practices of specific religious bodies, but a discussion of a cappella singing in worship in the United States would hardly be complete without mentioning two other vital traditions that are not associated with any particular religious group.

The African American Tradition

During the period of slavery, music was a prized possession that could be shared but never taken away, and became a means of preserving the history and experiences of the community. The "spirituals" are a genre of great variety, combining uniquely African musical elements with those of the Protestant hymn tradition, and crafting lyrics that express a distinct voice of the African American Christian experience. The hymn "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" is a haunting and evocative text on its own; it becomes all the more powerful when one considers that it came from a people who had really seen men lashed, beaten, and executed. Yet the same spiritual tradition gave us songs of hope and joy, as well as such humorous but thoughtful lines as, "Everybody talking about heaven ain't going there."

The video below is a 1909 recording by the Fisk Jubilee Quartet, a group of African American singers from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. The song is one of the more lively of the spirituals, and prefigures much of the style of Southern gospel quartet singing in the 20th century.

For African American slaves, who were typically forbidden by law to read or write, it was a matter of practicality to have a leader with a good memory "line out" the longer hymns for the congregation. It also gave vent to the typically African musical aesthetic of "heterophony", in which a group can sing the same song together but with great individual freedom. (There is a good argument to be made that a cappella congregational singing tends to be that way by nature!) This practice is still maintained among the African American Old Baptists; in the video below the song leader "lines out" the Isaac Watts hymn, "When I can read my title clear".

The Shape-Note Tradition

As we have seen, during the first 200 years or so of European settlement in North America, many of the largest Protestant religious bodies sang a cappella in worship. Because of this shared practice, it was not uncommon to have community hymn singings that were not under the auspices of a specific denomination. During the Colonial and early Federal era "singing-schools" became a big business, making full-time careers for composers such as William Billings and Jeremiah Ingalls. A hymn from this era that is still in many hymnals today is Oliver Holden's CORONATION, "All hail the pow'r of Jesus' name". Below is a video of the original version of this hymn sung at a Sacred Harp singing in Stroud, Alabama. In keeping with the singing-school tradition, the group runs through the music with solfege syllables first, then sings the words. (WARNING: Sacred Harp singing is very loud and enthusiastic; adjust your volume accordingly!)

Though the more refined tastes of 19th-century urbanization gradually displaced this music from its cradle in New England, it found a welcome in the frontier states of the Midwest and South, and evolved into a musical tradition of its own. The invention of shape-note systems for indicating the scale steps made it easier to teach a basic level of music reading very quickly, and rural and frontier communities dearly appreciated this outlet for education, edification, and socializing.

The best-known book today from this tradition is the Sacred Harp (1860), but it was preceded by the equally important Southern Harmony (1835). (See the "Introduction to Sacred Harp shape note singing" at www.fasola.org for more information on these hymnals.) The composers of this early shape-note music were typically self-taught, or rather, taught by one another, in a rough-and-ready style that must have horrified Lowell Mason and the Bostonians but well suited the loud and enthusiastic singing of the little country meeting-houses. This genre was also deeply imbued with the modal scales of Anglo-Scots-Irish folk music, as can be heard in WONDROUS LOVE.

By the dawn of the 20th century this music was largely crowded out by the new gospel genre, but in the folk music revival of the 1960s, and in the renewed study of American roots music coinciding with the Bicentennial, many people rediscovered this indigenous tradition. Today singings from the old four-shape books are held all over the nation. In the video below, singers in western Massachusetts, one of the states that gave birth to the singing-school movement, sing the most famous tune ever to come from the South, NEW BRITAIN.

A Cappella Singing in the Restoration Movement

The Rise of the "Organ Question"

It should come as no surprise that, at the beginning of the American Restoration Movement (or Stone-Campbell Movement, as some historians prefer), a cappella singing was the norm. Most of those involved came out of denominations that already eschewed instruments in worship, and in their pursuit of the restoration of an ideal New Testament Christianity, they found nothing to change their position on that subject. Musical instruments in worship are not documented among their congregations until two instances from the late 1850s, at Midway, Kentucky, and at the 6th Street congregation in Cincinnati. This practice was met with widespread disapproval, both at home and in the fellowship at large (Ferguson).

The instrument question was increasingly discussed in the second half of the century, however, beginning with an informal written debate between two formidable opponents, Amos Sutton Hayden (1813-1880) and John W. McGarvey (1829-1911), carried out in the pages of the Millennial Harbinger during 1864-1865. Isaac Errett, editor of the Christian Standard (a leading journal among brethren in the North), wrote an editorial in May 1870 declaring his belief that the use of instruments was an expedient, but should not be adopted anywhere if it would cause division. Opposition quickly evaporated in most Northern congregations, however, and by the 1880s most had adopted instruments in worship. Meanwhile, the leading editor in the South, David Lipscomb of the Gospel Advocate, supported the view that instruments were an unauthorized addition to worship. Many more congregations in the South resisted the adoption of instruments than in the North, and the numerical strength of the non-instrumental Churches of Christ in the U.S. is concentrated in the South to this day (Ferguson).

Whatever impact sectional prejudice had in the resulting division, the facts seem better to support an economic and theological interpretation: the wealthier, more socially mobile, and more theologically liberal congregations tended to adopt instruments in worship, and these congregations were much more concentrated in the North. This was true of other religious groups as well; the Southern Baptists have remained much more conservative than most of their Northern counterparts, and the Presbyterian Church of America, composed of conservative Presbyterians who wished to remain separate from the PCUSA, is also concentrated in the South.

The Hymnody of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.

The hymn repertoire of the early Restoration Movement sprang from the music common to the Baptist and Presbyterian churches of the Midwest, crystallized in Alexander Campbell's influential hymnal Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs. First published in 1828, this went through numerous editions before undergoing a more wholesale revision into the Christian Hymnbook in the 1860s. Though Campbell objected to the inclusion of musical notation as a distraction from worship, he did include suggested tunes for many texts (Mankin 11-12). A survey of these tune suggestions reveals a familiarity with the contemporary repertoire of Midwestern shape-note tunes (MEAR, PLEASANT HILL, STAR OF THE EAST) as well as the more traditional psalm and hymn tunes from previous centuries.

Campbell's vision of a common hymnal for all the congregations was probably never realistic, but whatever hold it ever had was certainly broken during the "hymnal dispute" of 1866. Following the death of Campbell, the ownership of his hymnal went to the American Christian Missionary Society, which was disavowed by many of the more conservative congregations as an unauthorized innovation in church organization, and a step toward the loss of congregational autonomy. The hymnal underwent an extensive revision and enlargement, was renamed the Christian Hymnbook, and was put up for sale with the understanding that all proceeds would go to the Missionary Society. David Lipscomb and Tolbert Fanning, writing in the conservative Gospel Advocate, strongly objected to the common hymnal of the brotherhood being tied to support of an organization of which many disapproved. They also noted that the increase in price put it out of reach of many of the impoverished congregations of the war-ravaged South (Bowman 57-58).

By the 1880s Lipscomb had decided to publish hymnals through the Gospel Advocate, catering to the needs of the Churches of Christ. The first of these was Christian Hymns (1889), with texts edited by Lipscomb's associate E. G. Sewell and music edited by Methodist hymnwriter and publisher Rigdon McIntosh. The contents lean heavily toward the Southern gospel song; it is striking, in fact, just how "contemporary" this hymnal was when it appeared. It was certainly a marked departure from the Campbell hymnal, and raises the question of just how closely the Southern congregations were aligned with the "common hymnal" to begin with.

In the early 20th century, Churches of Christ in the U.S. were very active in the shape-note singing-schools of Southern gospel, and produced at least one famous gospel songwriter, Albert E. Brumley (1905–1977), author of songs such as "If we never meet again this side of heaven" and "I'll fly away." The latter is sung in the video below, recorded at a singing in Gadsden, Alabama.

Though not enjoying Brumley's commercial success, other songwriters such as Tillit Teddlie and Lloyd O. Sanderson contributed significant new gospel repertoire to the Churches of Christ during this era.

The introduction of Elmer Jorgenson's Great Songs of the Church, a tremendously popular hymnal first published in 1921, did more than anything else to swing the stylistic pendulum back toward a balance of gospel and classical hymns. His book was even arranged with that in mind: the "gospel songs" were in one section, and the "hymns" in another nearly equal section. (It is interesting to see which songs went in which section!) Though Jorgenson's book was initially resisted in some quarters because of his controversial Premillennial views, it took on a life of its own, and outlasted the hymnal series from publishers such as Gospel Advocate and Firm Foundation. No other hymnal has had such a profound impact on the repertoire sung by the Churches of Christ in this country and abroad.

In the second half of the 20th century, a new hymnal publisher, Alton H. Howard, captured a large portion of the market in the South with Songs of the Church (1971). The success of this hymnal led to another influential book, Songs of Faith and Praise (1994), which was the first major hymnal among the Churches of Christ to incorporate a significant selection of contemporary "praise and worship" music. The contributions of African American Churches of Christ were also significant during this era, particularly in the works of Sylvia Rose Cobb. Her popular "Mansion, Robe, and Crown" is featured in the video below, recorded at the lectureship held by the Southwestern Christian College.

The trend toward using overhead projection instead of hymnals gathered momentum at the turn of the century, and early technologies which had only lyrics raised concerns over what would happen to congregational singing in parts. Fortunately, advances in desktop music publishing have made it possible to project both words and music--even in shape notes--in a practical and effective manner. The Paperless Hymnal product offers songs in batches of 100-200 each, at about $1 per song; congregations can mix and match depending on the repertoire desired.

Resolving the issue of the selection of songs, however, is not amenable to a simple technological fix. The Churches of Christ have not been to the "worship wars" experienced by nearly every other religious group in our time; the main difference has been, where others fight their generational battles over the use of guitars vs. organs, we have sometimes argued over which particular style of a cappella music we will sing. Cool heads, open minds, and loving hearts will get us through these problems. 

It is less easy to say what will happen with the small but increasing trickle of congregations that have begun to use instrumental music in their worship services. It is a disturbing trend--but in no case where I have been familiar with the congregation have I been taken completely by surprise. Just as it was in the late 1800s, the actual adoption of instrumental music in worship is typically a trailing indicator of a larger realignment in theology and practice. I pray that it is not as extensive in our day, as it was in the former.

Conclusion

On reaching the end of this series, it seems useful to repeat its aims. It is not an attempt to argue the case of what kind of music is pleasing to God in Christian worship; others have done that exceptionally well over the years. In fact, I believe one could look at the literature on that subject today, fifty years ago, a century ago, and even further back, and find very little new to be said. My goals instead have been two in number: 1) to frame the argument in context of historical norms of worship practice, and 2) to introduce lovers of a cappella worship today to the rich variety of a cappella praise from ages past. The first goal is of course the more important, and can be restated more plainly as an attempt to encourage a cappella congregations not to accept the "born yesterday" mentality that views us as somehow odd and out of step, simply because we are in a minority at this particular moment in history.

I also hope to stir the honest consciences of those who practice instrumental worship, or those who may be undecided. Of course, the fact that any particular practice or point of view is accepted or rejected at some point in time is really beside the point; what matters is whether that practice or point of view is accepted or rejected by the Holy Spirit through His inspired Scriptures. But if we find that a matter has been settled among most of those calling themselves Christians, for much of the history of Christianity, and has only been changed in the last few centuries--with considerable acrimony and division--is it not worth a second look? 

This was the approach taken recently by John Price in his Old Light on New Worship: Musical Instruments and the Worship of God (Avinger, Texas: Simpson, 2005). I do not agree with all his reasoning, and would hardly expect to, since he is an old-school Calvinist. But the criticisms his book has received are all too familiar (just check Amazon or GoodReads)--He is living in the past. This isn't relevant to today's problems. These arguments were settled a long time ago. Surely he doesn't mean to bring this up again. All of which amounts to what C. S. Lewis wittily called, "chronological snobbery."

When I gather with my brothers and sisters this Sunday--God willing--if we open our mouths to "sing with the spirit and the understanding" (1 Corinthians 14:15), "singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord" (Colossians 3:16), and "making melody" with no other instruments but hearts filled with love and gratitude (Ephesians 5:19), we can be sure that we are praising God in the way that He has appointed, that honors His will and is pleasing to His ears. We will also be joining, in spirit, the hosts of others who have done the same, down through the centuries, offering God "the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name" (Hebrews 13:15).

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References: "About us." Christ's Sanctified Holy Church. http://www.cshc.org/page/about_us_27572

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