From Every Stormy Wind

Praise for the Lord #159

Words: Hugh Stowell, 1828
Music: RETREAT, Thomas Hastings, 1841

Hugh Stowell, ca. 1860
engraving by John D. Pound 

Hugh Stowell (1799-1865) was born a clergyman's son on the Isle of Man, far from the urban ministry that characterized his career. He was ordained in the Church of England while at Oxford, earning a name as an "extemporaneous firebrand" in the pulpit (Wolffe). By his own account, he never preached from a written out text (common at the time) after his first few sermons, finding he had a greater connection with his listeners when he worked from a memorized outline of Scriptures relating to his topic (Marsden 231). In 1828 (the year this hymn was written) he moved to a work in Salford, one of the boroughs of Greater Manchester, where his success eventually inspired the community to build a new church in order to keep him--Christ Church in Acton Square, consecrated in November 1831 (an excellent post in the blog Salford History offers drawings and photographs of this long-gone structure). Stowell preached there the remainder of his career, turning down other opportunities more than once. He was strongly opposed to the emerging Tractarian or Oxford Movement, and became widely known in ecclesiastical and political circles for his opposition to Roman Catholicism and its influence in the Church of England (Wolffe). 

Stowell's biographer Marsden notes of his career at Salford that "large tracts of time float by unmarked by events which a biographer can notice, but full of the deepest interest to the Minister of Christ himself" (46). Though Stowell is remembered by history more for his political battles, the bulk of his time was taken up with things less noticeable on the world stage--the responsibility for five services every Sunday, afternoon catechism classes, Wednesday evening Bible studies, Sunday schools, day schools, and libraries (47). It is well to remember that some of these works provided the only free education available to the urban poor. 

Not surprisingly, the sociable Stowell was more a talker and doer than a solitary writer, and Marsden notes that "He kept no journal; he wrote few letters except those of affection to his family, or of business to his friends; indeed writing was with him difficult, if not painful" (171). Julian counts 56 hymns by Stowell, all but nine of which were written for the anniversary celebrations of  his Sunday schools (1097). All of these may be found in the enlarged 10th edition (1864) of Stowell's hymnal, A Selection of Psalms and Hymns, Suited to the Services of the Church of England. The tone of his preface shows the ebullient and practical nature that characterized the man:

In forming this Selection of PSALMS and HYMNS the Editor aimed at excluding whatever might savour of familiarity or irreverence; and yet at securing sobriety without the sacrifice of fervour. Some persons may be disappointed at not finding in the Collection favourite Hymns which they would have wished introduced; but let them remember that much which is suited for private devotion is very unsuitable for public worship; at the same time much pains have been taken to adapt the work to the Closet as well as the Sanctuary and to the Sunday Scholar as well as the Father in Christ (Preface).

The Text and its Variations

"The Mercy Seat" first appeared in the 1828 volume of The Winter's Wreath, a Christian literary annual published in London by George B. Whittaker. Stowell included it in the first edition of his Selection of Psalms and Hymns (1831), not long after he went to Salford. Julian notes that Stowell revised the text for the Selection of Psalms and Hymns (399). The 1831 edition of this hymnal is not available online, so I am indebted to Candace Reilly, Manager of Special Collections at Drew University, for providing me the text from their copy of this nearly 200-year-old book. The differences between the original and revised texts are fairly minor:

1. In the close of the 2nd stanza, the original line "It is the blood-bought mercy seat" is revised to read "It is the blood-stained mercy seat."
2. In the original version the 3rd stanza begins, "There is scene where spirits blend"; in the revision it reads "There is a spot where spirits blend."
3. In the 5th stanza (often the 4th and closing stanza today), the original line "And sin and sense seem all no more" is revised to "And time and sense seem all no more."
4. In the final stanza (often omitted today), the original line "My tongue be silent, cold and still" is revised to read "My tongue be silent, stiff and still."

The revised text is also found (with minor differences) in Stowell's Pleasures of Religion: With Other Poems (London: C. J. G. and F. Rivington, 1832), page 119. Julian avers that the 1831 form of the text "has been adopted by all editors of modern collections" (399). As often with the admirable Julian, one might need to append the adjective "British" to the nouns in this statement; we shall see shortly that even the author loses control once a hymn catches on with the public!

The Newspapers.com database shows that "The Mercy Seat" was reprinted in newspapers in the United States within months of its publication in London, including:

• The Village Messenger (Fayetteville, Tennessee), 1 May 1828 (page 4)
• Literary Cadet and Rhode-Island Statesman (Providence), 14 June 1828 (page 4)
• Vermont Gazette (Bennington), 24 June 1828 (page 1)
• The Ariel (Natchez, Mississippi), 19 July 1828 (page 412). 

Before the end of 1828 "From every stormy wind" appeared in the second edition of Thomas Cleland's Evangelical Hymns, published in Lexington, Kentucky--an ocean away from Salford and in the midst of a boisterous religious revival that would have been quite shocking to Stowell. By 1831, the same year Hugh Stowell published his revised text in his own hymnal, the original version of his hymn  had appeared in no fewer than six different hymnals in the United States, including: A Selection of Hymns, compiled by Enoch W. Freeman (Exeter, New Hampshire: L. & P. T. Russell); A Selection of Hymns, compiled by Archibald Alexander (New York: Jonathan Leavitt); Additional Hymns Adopted by the General Synod of the Reformed Dutch Church in North America (New York: Rutgers Press); The Dover Selection of Spiritual Songs (Richmond, Virginia: R. I Smith) ; and most significantly, the second volume of Joshua Leavitt's Christian Lyre (New York: Jonathan Leavitt), one of the most influential hymnals of the Second Great Awakening.

The various lines to which Stowell made revision received the attention of the American editors as well; in 1832 the Additional Hymns to the Supplement of Winchell's Watts (Boston: Loring, Lincoln & Edmunds) altered the line "And sin and sense seem all no more" to "And sin and sense molest no more." In the 1840s this was picked up in the "better church music" circle of Lowell Mason (cf. Chapel Hymns ed. Mason, Boston, 1842; The New York Choralist, ed. Hastings & Bradbury, New York, 1847), and entered important denominational hymnals such as Hymns for the Use of the Methodist Episcopal Church (New York, 1849) and Baptist Psalmody, ed. Basil Manly (New York, 1850). Using the advanced search on Google Books with the date limited to before 1860, this altered form of the line turns up 238 times compared to 127 times for the original wording, and 227 times for Stowell's revision "time and sense seem all no more" (which naturally became more widespread in the U.K.). Resetting the date limits to 1861-1900, the "sin and sense molest no more" version appears 275 times, the original wording 101 times, and Stowell's own revision 432 times. The proportions are similar for publications in the 20th century; Stowell's revision finally did overtake the other versions, though they remain in use to a significant degree in the United States. 

This history casts a different light on the remarks of Jeremiah Bascom Reeves (1884-1946) in his seminal hymnological work The Hymn as Literature (New York: Century, 1924). An English professor at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri (where the library today bears his name), Reeves wrote passionately and critically on hymns. In this particular case, however, he did not have the benefit of the all the facts. Based on the information available to him, he wrote of this stanza in "From every stormy wind":

Many hymn-books have unfortunately changed the line, "Where time and sense seem all no more," to read, "And sin and sense molest no more." Perhaps the revisers did not like the use of "all," a word that Tennyson delights to use in similar slightly oblique ways. Perhaps the desired to add a touch of homily by the word "sin." At any rate, the revision will not stand (240-241).

But "sin and sense" were Stowell's own words, not the work of moralizing hymnal editors. The rest of the comment, however, has a point--something about "seem all no more" triggered the editorial impulse in the American compilers. Was it too mystical and subjective in tone, for a time and place that was struggling with complex doctrinal divisions? Whatever the reason, the various forms of this text continued to be reproduced in the U.S. down through the decades.

In the hymnals associated with the Churches of Christ, the earliest instance of this hymn I have found is from an 1843 edition of Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, edited by Alexander Campbell, Walter Scott, Barton Stone, and J. T. Johnson. The text is identical to Stowell's original 1828 version from Winter's Wreath. It continues to appear in the same form in later editions of that hymnal, including the Christian Hymn Book revision in 1866 after Campbell's death. It also appeared in David King's 1868 hymnal Psalms, Hymns, and Scripture Chants for Christians; interestingly, this British hymnal used the earlier form of the text as well. When the a cappella Churches of Christ in the U.S. began publishing hymnals for themselves, "From every stormy wind" appeared in the following volumes, all of which draw from the 1828 text except as indicated:

• Words of Truth (Gospel Advocate, 1892)
• Gospel Praise (Gospel Advocate, 1900) - text is altered to "sin and sense molest no more"
• The New Christian Hymn Book (Gospel Advocate, 1907)
• Great Songs of the Church (Word and Work, 1921) 
• Choice Gospel Hymns (Gospel Advocate, 1923)
• Sweeter Than All Songs (Gospel Advocate, 1927) - omitting the stanza in question
• New Ideal Hymn Book (Firm Foundation, 1930) - "sin and sense molest no more"
• Christian Hymns (No. 1) (Gospel Advocate, 1935) - first three stanzas only
• Great Songs of the Church no. 2 (Great Songs press, 1937)
• Christian Hymns No. 2 (Gospel Advocate, 1948) - now including the stanza in question
• Majestic Hymnal no. 2 (Firm Foundation, 1959)
• Sacred Selections (Sacred Selections, 1960) -  first three stanzas only
• Christian Hymnal (Slater Co., 1963)
• Christian Hymns No. 3 (Gospel Advocate, 1966)
• Songs of the Church (Howard Publishing, 1971)
• Church Gospel Songs and Hymns (Central Printers, 1986)
• Praise for the Lord (Praise Press, 1992)
• Songs of Faith and Praise (Howard Publishing, 1994) - "sin and sense molest no more"
• Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs (Sumphonia, 2022) - omitting stanza in question

Out of these 19 hymnals, the stanza in question is either altered or omitted in 7 instances, enough to suggest some discomfort with the original text. But this could also be the result of the sources different compilers used, their own familiarity with different versions of the hymn, or even the demands of space causing stanzas to be dropped.

The Mercy Seat in the Bible

The term "mercy seat" (as it is rendered in most English Bibles) first appears in Exodus chapter 25 with the instructions given for the construction of the Ark of the Covenant. Since its dimensions given in v. 17 are those of the length and breadth of the ark specified in v. 10, it obviously refers to the entire cover that went on the top of the Ark; but v. 20 describes the cherubim facing "toward the mercy seat," so the focus of attention is the center of that cover.

Multiple and intertwined roles are attributed to the mercy seat in the Hebrew Testament:

1. A place to receive God's word. The discussion in Exodus 25 concludes with, "There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel" (v. 22). Numbers 7:89 describes Moses meeting God at the mercy seat: "And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with the LORD, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim; and it spoke to him."
2. A place where God visibly manifested His presence. Leviticus 16:2b says "For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat." The passage details strict requirements for the high priest's preparation to enter the Most Holy Place to stand before that Presence, and v. 13 adds an extra precaution: the high priest "shall put the incense on the fire before the LORD, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is over the testimony, so that he does not die."
3. A place where atonement was made. Leviticus 16 continues with a description of the rituals of the Day of Atonement, the one day in the year that the high priest would stand before the mercy seat. "And he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the front of the mercy seat on the east side, and in front of the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times. Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, sprinkling it over the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat. Thus he shall make atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleannesses of the people of Israel and because of their transgressions, all their sins. And so he shall do for the tent of meeting, which dwells with them in the midst of their uncleannesses" (Leviticus 16:14-16).

To the Israelite believer, then, it was the place where the great leader and prophet Moses met with God and received His will to communicate to the people, and the place where the great priest Aaron (and his successors) made atonement for the people's sins according to God's direction. Small wonder then that the writer of the letter to the Hebrews referred to the mercy seat (9:5) and the Day of Atonement (9:7), affirming that Jesus Christ "entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption" (9:12). And if Moses stood before the earthly mercy seat to converse with God (apparently the only man who did), "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" Hebrew 9:24. The Christian's mercy seat is the place where we receive the atonement provided by our High Priest himself, and where (by His intercession) we are permitted to communicate with the Father.

Replica of the Ark in the Cathedral of
St. Anastasia, Zadar, Croatia
Photo by LBM1948

The history of the term "mercy seat" as we have come to use it in English is oddly complex. On the one hand, the kapōreṯ referred to in the Hebrew Testament is clearly a cover for the Ark of the Covenant; on the other hand, the etymology of the word and what it implies is somewhat disputed. Gordon Campbell's entry in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church claims that "the Heb. kapporet (כַּפֹּרֶת‎), Gk (LXX and NT, ἱλαστήριον‎), and Lat. (Vulgate, propitiatorium) words are all connected with the idea of 'propitiation.'" Isaacs and Hemmings, however, state that:

Amongst these words is kappōret, or the so-called "Mercy Seat," notable because its common translation makes little sense in relation to the word’s etymology. In biblical Hebrew, kappōret means "cover," nothing more or less. . . .

It has been translated as mercy seat because of its perceived affinity to the idea of atonement and forgiveness as well as its possible connection to the word kāpar, translated by some as "to cover," which has many meanings associated with pacification, atonement, and mercy. This relationship, though postulated by many, should be approached with caution as there is a segment of scholars who claim that kappōret being derived from kāpar is "dubious" (11-20).

Note that the question here is the specific meaning of this single word--as we saw above, the connection to atonement in practice is obviously more than a "perceived affinity." But how did we come to the phrase "mercy seat" from a "cover" or "lid"? 

The Septuagint translators of the Hebrew Scriptures consistently rendered the Hebrew kappōret with the Greek hilastérion in reference to the Ark of the Covenant. The Bauer-Denker-Arndt-Gingrich Greek-English Lexicon defines hiláskomai, a related verb, as "to cause to be favorably inclined or disposed, propitiate, conciliate"; hilastérion is "1. means of expiation," and "2. place of propitiation" (419-420). In choosing a Greek word to represent this cover of the Ark, the Septuagint translators went somewhat beyond the etymology of the original Hebrew and included its function as part of the name of the thing. In short, it went from being a "cover" to "the cover that is the place where propitiation is made." Centuries of association with the solemn rites of the Day of Atonement described in Leviticus 16 had permanently connected this object to its function in the Jewish mind. 

Daniel P. Bailey argues that "only concrete, inanimate referents of this term are actually found in the other ancient sources; a ἱλαστήριον is always a thing--never an idea or an action or an animal" (155). In his survey of ancient literature as well as the Scriptures he finds that in Jewish and Christian contexts the term always refers to the cover of the Ark, though in pagan settings it can refer to an offering made to a deity (156). The writer of Hebrews refers to the hilastérion (9:5) in this familiar context, referring simply to the literal cover on the Ark; but what about Paul in Romans 3:25? The same word is used to describe Jesus Christ, "whom God put forward as a hilastérion by His blood." Bailey concludes that Romans 3:25 refers to Jesus as the metaphorical "mercy seat", stating that "God's open setting out of Jesus as the new ίλαστήριον--the centre of the sanctuary and focus of both the revelation of God (Ex. 25:22; Lv. 16:2; Nu. 7:89) and atonement for sin (Leviticus 16)--fulfils this tradition" (157). Perhaps the Roman Christians, a mix of Jews and former pagans, perceived the duality of the term (which would certainly be known to Paul as well); Jesus is both our High Priest and the propitiatory offering to our God, the one who stands before God and the one who allows us access to God.

Thus we have the Septuagint translators to thank for the "mercy", but whence the "seat"? Latin had the economical noun propitiatorium (place of propitiation), used in the Vulgate, and in his landmark translation of the Bible into English, John Wycliffe simply borrowed it wholesale as "propiciatorie" (though he alternates this in Exodus 25 and Leviticus 16 with the paraphrase "Goddis lystening place").   In the next great phase of English Bible translation, William Tyndale had at hand Martin Luther's German translation, which uses Gnadenstuhl--literally, "grace-chair"--and came up with the euphonious "mercy seat" (Campbell). Luther, having just used Gnadenstuhl for "throne of grace" in Hebrews 4:16, chose the same term for the propitiarium or hilastérion in Hebrews 9:5 (Rehr 1). Thematically it makes a great deal of sense in Hebrews, and is consistent with the use of the Greek in the Septuagint, though it adds a shade of meaning. 

It is worth noting as well that the word "seat" (as well as Luther's Stuhl) was not intended in the sense of an ordinary piece of furniture. We still use the word "chair" to mean a position of authority, such as the chair of a board of directors. In countries with a monarchy, the "royal seat" is where the king or queen holds court, and even in the U.S. we have an echo of this term: the "county seat", the town in which a county's courts and executive offices are located. The "mercy seat", then, is not an empty chair (as I imagined as a child), but the metaphorical locus from which God dispenses His mercy through the atoning sacrifice of His Son, through whom we are allowed to enter His presence to bring our petitions and to hear His words.

Stanza 1:

From every stormy wind that blows,
From every swelling tide of woes,
There is a calm, a sure retreat;
'Tis found beneath the mercy seat.

The previously mentioned Jeremiah Reeves was deeply touched by the opening lines of this text: "At the first words, it rises into lyric flight as with free sweep of strong wings" (239). Opening with a prepositional phrase, the text pulls the reader forward to find the gist of meaning; another prepositional phrase in the second line heightens the tension further. The end of the third line provides at last the subject of the sentence and a punctuated pause, but with the aabb rhyme scheme now apparent, it also demands a response. The final line introduces the unifying idea of the "mercy seat" that appears as the last three syllables of each stanza. This structural buildup of tension to a point of release and repose is matched by the meaning of the words. A "stormy wind" is external and might be no more than an inconvenience; but a "swelling tide" places us at sea where the stormy wind is much more a concern, and the metaphorical troubles are now impinging on the inner person as "woes." After this survey of the situation comes the assurance of a contrasting place of "calm" and assurance; but where? The final line soothes our fears by pointing to the mercy seat. (Thomas Hastings, whose tune RETREAT was written especially for the text, mirrored this structure in his melody.) Stowell follows a similar structure in each stanza, particularly evident in the 4th stanza ("There, there on eagle's wings we soar") which is the final stanza in many hymnals.

Storms at sea are serious business, even today with all our technology. In any given year several cargo ships, tankers, or commercial fishing vessels are lost in storms, and though modern communications have reduced the loss of life, it is still common. The sea will do what it will do, and we are not in control. The modern sailor understands exactly what was described centuries ago in Psalm 107:

Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters; they saw the deeds of the LORD, His wondrous works in the deep. For He commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their evil plight; they reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end (Psalm 107:23-27).

And when human effort and wisdom fail, people naturally call upon something greater. The pagan sailors with whom Jonah took his ill-advised voyage called upon their gods for mercy in the storm and urged Jonah to do the same (Jonah 1:5-6). Likewise the disciples called on the slumbering Jesus to save them in the storm on Galilee (Matthew 8:25). The Psalmist continues:

Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and He brought them to their desired haven (Psalm 107:28-30).

NOAA ship Discoverer breaks waves in the Bering Sea.
Photo by Cmdr. Richard Behn

The use of storms as a metaphor for the troubles of life has an equally long pedigree, evidenced by Job's complaint to God that, "You lift me up on the wind; You make me ride on it, and You toss me about in the roar of the storm" (Job 30:22). Though these troubles may not be an imminent threat to life, sometimes they make us feel that same helplessness, and like Paul and his storm-tossed shipmates in Acts 27 we "pray for day to come" (27:29). But alongside this metaphor of trouble, there is a metaphor of relief--the "shelter from the storm" promised three times in Isaiah (4:6, 25:4, 32:2), the last of which stems directly from "a king [who] will reign in righteousness" (32:1). The God who governs the storms has also provided the shelter--the mercy seat through which we petition God and receive His blessing.

Stanza 2:

There is a place where Jesus sheds
The oil of gladness on our heads,
A place than all besides more sweet;
It is the blood-bought mercy seat.

The phrase "oil of gladness" first appears in Scripture in Psalm 45 as part of the preparations for a king's wedding (Ash & Miller 161-163): "Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions; your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia" (Psalm 45:7b-8a). This phrase is quoted in Hebrews 1:9 and applied to Jesus as the ultimate King, not only divinely appointed but himself divine. A similar phrase occurs in Isaiah 61:1-3,

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion-- to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.

This passage is also associated with Jesus, who read through at least the first half of it in the synagogue of Nazareth, followed by the stunning claim, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:16-21).

In the ancient world, anointing with oil was part of daily skin and hair care, as we would use lotions and conditioners today, but certain anointing oils also distinguished special persons at special times. Exodus 30:22-33 describes the formula given Moses for an anointing oil for the tabernacle, its furniture and implements, and the priests; so holy was this oil that the recipe was forbidden for any other use. Israel's kings also were anointed with oil to signify their selection by God for the task (1 Samuel 9:16, 1 Samuel 16:13, etc.). "The Lord's anointed" became another term for the king (Barton & Kohler), as used by David in 1 Samuel 24 and 26 referring to Saul; he respected the anointing because of the One on whose authority it was done, despite the failures of the man to whom it was applied.

In Jesus Christ we see the King and Priest whose anointing is not calling Him up to any higher service, but rather acknowledging who He is by nature, and celebrating the perfection of His holiness instead of amending it. The "oil of gladness" with which He was anointed also overflows to the benefit of His followers; as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 1:21, "It is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us." We are "anointed by the Holy One" (1 John 2:20). As told in the Isaiah passage Jesus read in Nazareth, this anointing comes "to bring good news to the poor... to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives." Putting aside the ceremonial anointing for a moment, it was Jewish custom to cease using anointing oil for personal care during a period of fasting or mourning (Barton & Kohler, cf. 2 Samuel 12:16-20). The "oil of gladness" that Jesus brings, overflowing from His own abundance of anointed blessing, brings an end to mourning and desolation. It is available at the mercy seat of God, where our High Priest and King awaits.

Stanza 3:

There is a scene where spirits blend,
Where friend holds fellowship with friend;
Though sundered far, by faith they meet
Around one common mercy seat.

In Exodus 33 we read this description of Moses' consultations with God in what was apparently a temporary "tent of meeting" before the construction of the tabernacle (which begins in chapter 35):

When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the LORD would speak with Moses. And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent door. Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend (Exodus 33:9-11a).

"Approaching the Mercy Seat."
Engraving by Caspar Luyken (1672-1708)

Other than Moses, I can think only of Abraham--called "a friend of God" in James 2:23--who could claim to have such personal interaction with the Almighty. The whole design of worship in the Hebrew Testament set up layers of separation between God and the individual. How truly shocking, then, are the words Jesus says in John 15:15--"No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you." So much is packed into the "farewell discourse" (John 13-17) between the Last Supper and the arrival at the Mount of Olives, and the drama of that night is so tense, that it is easy to almost overlook the profound nature of what is said. The God who told Moses "Man shall not see Me and live" (Exodus 33:20), who had communicated only through select prophets and a chosen priesthood, had sent His Son to convey the Father's mind to us--and the Son now calls us His friends!

This fellowship of friend to friend extended from the Son to His disciples, and naturally between the disciples themselves. At the very beginning of the church we read that "they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers" (Acts 2:42). The apostle John, who had known Jesus as intimately as anyone during the Lord's time on this earth, would say many years later, "that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:3). This fellowship in Christ was as strong, or even stronger, than any earthly kinship--Paul addressed Titus, for example, as "my true child in a common faith" (Titus 1:4).

Then, as now, the face-to-face fellowship of Christians may be disrupted by circumstances of this life. We find scattered throughout the New Testament epistles the little asides of human life that still ring true:

For I do not want to see you now just in passing. I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits (1 Corinthians 16:7).

But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face (1 Thessalonians 2:17).

As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy (2 Timothy 1:4).

I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face (3 John 14).

And yet--"though sundered far, by faith they meet." 

I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf (Romans 15:30).

I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers (Ephesians 1:16).

We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers (1 Thessalonians 1:2).

I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day (2 Timothy 1:3).

Time, and place, and eventually death will sunder every earthly connection. But before the mercy seat of God we are together, and the prayers of the saints rise before the same throne of God in heaven (Revelation 8:3-4) where time, and place, and death have no meaning. We are never really alone there. All around this world others are gathering there as well, with heavy hearts, with joyful hearts, with pleas for mercy, with petitions for others. It matters not whether we speak the same language, or whether we will ever meet on this side of eternity. The friends of Jesus are always welcome there.

In the fuller version of this hymn follows another stanza not common in the hymnals used by the Churches of Christ, at least in the U.S.:

Ah whither could we flee for aid
When tempted, desolate, dismayed,
Or how the hosts of hell defeat,
Had suffering saints no mercy seat?

This stanza helps me personally to settle a question I have long had about this hymn: is the "mercy seat" here referring to prayer, or to the Lord's Supper? Or perhaps to worship as a whole? As mentioned above, the mercy seat was the place of communication with God, which we have today in prayer; but it was also the place of atonement, and Jesus himself is called our hilastérion ("propitiation" or "mercy seat", Romans 3:25). This has sometimes led me to interpret this hymn in the context of the Lord's Supper. I believe it could be read either way, or generalized to the entirety of worship; but seeing the text now in its entirety, I believe Stowell had prayer in mind when he wrote it. The stanza at hand calls the mercy seat a respite for the tempted and dismayed, and we have Jesus' own instruction to "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation" (Matthew 26:41).

Stanza 4:
There, there on eagle's wings we soar,
And sin and sense seem all no more,
And heaven comes down our souls to greet,
And glory crowns the mercy seat.

In cultures around the world, and from the earliest times, the eagle has been a symbol of strength, freedom, and courage; and though some birds fly higher and some fly farther, eagles are renowned for their ability to carry heavy loads. (Though these stories can be exaggerated, something dropped a slain deer fawn onto power lines outside East Missoula, Montana!) And though it is not a well-documented behavior, there are isolated reports of eaglets appearing to rest on a parent's back when first learning to fly (Miller), reminiscent of a metaphor used for God's deliverance of Israel: 

The LORD called to [Moses] out of the mountain, saying, "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: 'You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself'" (Exodus 19:3-4).

Victor Hamilton's commentary on this passage notes the implied contrast to the nations around Israel, who instead had to carry their "gods" from place to place (cf. Isaiah 46:1) (378). It is the power of God that carried them, and thus the "eagles' wings" are symbolically granted to His people as well, as in the famous passage from Isaiah:

Imperial eagle in the Kuwait desert.
Photo by Irvin Calicut.

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint (40:28-31).

It seems likely these passages were what Stowell had in mind at the beginning of this stanza of the hymn. In prayer we have communication with the Father, through the mediation of the Son (John 14:6), with the intercessory help of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:26). By this power we can rise above the mundane circumstances of daily life, wherever we are, to the presence of the Ancient of Days. Like the eagle rising to its natural home, the skies and the heights, the Christian in prayer is enabled to inhabit for a time that spiritual region which we long to make our permanent home.

We come now again to the line of this hymn that is most often revised, and was even revised by the author himself, from "sin and sense seem all no more" to "time and sense seem all no more." If we take "sense" to mean the world of the senses (that is, the material world), the latter wording is saying that prayer takes us to a world beyond the limits of time and space. This is certainly true, but (with respect to the author's privilege to change his mind) I am glad to have the original version in my hymnal. The world of the senses was good in its original creation, and is only corrupted by sin; likewise, time is only an oppressor in conjunction with a fallen creation, in which it can be either too long or too short. Sin is the problem at the root of it all, because as Jesus said, "everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin" (John 8:34). Paul expands on the theme in Romans:

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But 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. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:20-23).

We rejoice in the assurance that Jesus sets us free from sin, yet we struggle with it just the same. Not long afterward, Paul explains:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin (Romans 7:1-25).

Here again prayer comes to our relief, where "sin and sense seem all no more." Here we cling to the mercy seat, asking forgiveness again and refreshing our souls in the pure, sinless air of heaven. "For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more" (Jeremiah 31:34, cf. Hebrews 8:12).

Stowell closes this stanza with the image of "heaven coming down," an image repeated at key points in Scripture. Returning to the scene at Sinai where our discussion began, there is the awesome moment of God's descent upon Mount Sinai:

The LORD said to Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, 'Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death'" (Exodus 19:10-12).

The next time God came down from heaven was far different; He arrived in humility, born in a stable, to walk among us as one of us and to bring the salvation we desperately need. 

For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. . . . All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never cast out. (38) For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me (John 6:33, 37-38).

And we look forward yet again to a time when heaven will come down for good: 

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God himself will be with them as their God (Revelation 21:2-3).

Until that day, we can rely on prayer as our unbreakable link to that better land. We can say with Jacob, who in the wilderness saw a vision of heaven reaching down to earth, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven" (Genesis 28:17)

The original closing stanza, often omitted in later hymnals, is as follows:

O let my hand forget her skill,
My tongue be silent, cold and still,
This bounding heart forget to beat
If I forget the mercy seat.

The rhetorical figure is borrowed from Psalm 137, verses 5-6: "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!" 

Jeremiah Reeves says, "The thrilling abandon of devotion in the last stanza, the grand triumph of spirit over flesh, is too strong for some of the milder books. It is the climax of Stowell's poem and should be kept" (241). I would argue rather that it is a closing reflection on the subject, and if stanzas must be omitted because of modern preferences of hymn length, the preceding stanza is the essential climax of the text. 

About the music:

from Sacred Songs for Family and Social Worship 
(New York: American Tract Society, 1842)

Thomas Hastings (1784-1872), born in rural Connecticut and growing to manhood in the Mohawk Valley region of New York state, was almost by necessity a self-taught composer. He probably mastered the basic elements of music theory from attending singing schools; but from that point forward, there was really nowhere in the young United States to study any further without finding a private (and probably foreign) teacher in one of the large cities. Not having that opportunity, Hastings simply taught himself. Working first as a traveling singing school teacher himself, he continued to study the latest books on music available from England, and in 1822 published a 228-page Dissertation on Musical Taste in which he first began to set out his ideas on how to strengthen and improve church music programs. It was arguably the first major work of music scholarship from an American author (Crawford & Music). In the first paragraph Hastings quotes from Thomas Busby's A Dictionary of Music Theoretical and Practical (London, 1813); by page 8 he has quoted from Scottish musicologist George Farquhar Graham's General Observations upon Music (Edinburgh, 1817); and of course he refers to the revered Dr. Burney's A General History of Music (London, 1776) throughout. A footnote on page 42 name-checks Augustus Kollmann's Essay on Musical Harmony (London, 1796), John Callcott's Musical Grammar (London, 1806), William Crotch's Elements of Musick Display'd (London, 1772), and "Rousseau's" Musical Dictionary (probably actually James Grassineau's work, which was partly dependent on Rousseau's Dictionnaire de musique). The Yankee do-it-yourself attitude combined with a real thirst for knowledge, and this work would strongly influence a future partner in church music efforts, Lowell Mason (Jordan 25).

From 1823-1832 Hastings published a religious weekly in Utica called the Western Recorder, with a regular column on church music that allowed his ideas wider dissemination. As his talents for songbook compiling and editing became more known, it was perhaps inevitable that he would move down to New York City, where he collaborated with publishing luminaries such as William B. Bradbury and George F. Root (Crawford & Music). Somewhat surprisingly, Hastings only partnered with Mason on two collections, the Spiritual Songs for Social Worship (1832) and Sacred Songs for Family and Social Worship (1842), the latter of which included the first appearance of "From every stormy wind" with the musical setting RETREAT, now the common tune for this hymn in the United States. Jordan believes that part of  the motivation for Hastings and Mason to publish in this genre of "family and social worship" (that is, not the formal Sunday services) was to counter the rising popularity of revival songs such as those found in Leavitt's Christian Lyre, precursors to the growth of shape-note and gospel music (26ff.). 

RETREAT has a gently rolling rhythm in 6/4 time, and is marked "slow" in the original publication. This style might be related to the pastorale, siciliano, or barcarolle in classical music, but could equally be inspired by folk ballads such as "Ye banks and braes." Hastings shows particular sensitivity to the structure of the text: 

• The rising tension of the first two lines is accentuated by sequencing the first phrase up by the interval of a 5th (the notes of "From every swelling" in the 2nd phrase move up and down, and in the same rhythm, identically to those of "From every stormy" in the 1st phrase, just starting at a higher pitch).
• The 1st phrase ends with a leap upward on "wind"; the 2nd phrase ends by leaping even higher in "tide OF woes." The word "of" is on an E, the highest note the tune reaches, but...
• The 3rd phrase creates the true peak of the melody at "There IS a calm," placing the high E on the downbeat.
• This begins a stately descent through the end of the 3rd phrase, with the words "is," "calm," and "sure" emphasizing the notes of the tonic C major chord on strong beats.
• The 4th phrase begins identically to the 1st, but strides confidently up to the key note C on "mercy SEAT."

Did Thomas Hastings think through all of these things? We have no way to know, and it is the nature of music, poetry, and really any kind of art, that different people see slightly different things in it. But the structure fits the character of the text so well, I would be surprised if it were entirely a happy accident!

---

References:

Ash, Anthony, and Clyde Miller. Psalms. The Living Word Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 10. Austin, Texas: Sweet Publishing Co., 1980.

Bailey, Daniel P. "Jesus as the Mercy Seat: the semantics and theology of Paul's use of hilasterion in Romans 3:25." Tyndale Bulletin vol. 51, no. 1 (2000), 155-158.

Barton, George A., and Kaufmann Kohler. "Anointing." Jewish Encyclopedia (1906).  https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1559-anointing

Campbell, Gordon. "Mercy-seat." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 4th edition. Oxford University Press, 2022.

Crawford, Richard, and David W. Music. “Hastings, Thomas.” Grove Music Online.

A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 4th ed. Revised and edited by Frederick William Danker, based on [Bauer-Arndt, Gingrich]. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021.

Hamilton, Victor P. Exodus : An Exegetical Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2011.

Isaacs, Roger D., and Adam R. Hemmings. "The 'mercy seat' and the ark of the testimony: an age-old misnomer?" Studies of Biblical Interest vol. 1, no. 1 (2023), 11-20.

Jordan, John M. "Sacred Praise": Thomas Hastings and the Reform of Sacred Music in Nineteenth-Century America. Ph.D. dissertation, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1999.

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

Marsden, John Buxton. Memoirs of the Life and Labours of the Rev. Hugh Stowell. London: Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1868.  https://archive.org/details/memoirsofstowell00marsuoft

Miller, Loye. "First Flights of a Young Golden Eagle." Condor vol. 20, no. 6 (1918), article 9.  https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/condor/vol20/iss6/9/

Reeves, Jeremiah Bascom. The Hymn as Literature. New York: Century, 1924.  https://archive.org/details/hymnasliterature0000reev

Rehr, Jonathan. Der Gnadenstuhl als interkonfessionelles Zentralthema. Historia Hermeneutica. Series Studia 22. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2023.

Stowell, Hugh. "The Mercy Seat." The Winter's Wreath (London: G. B. Whitaker, 1828), 239-240. Digital copy from University of South Carolina, Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. https://digital.tcl.sc.edu/digital/collection/annuals/id/4905

Stowell, Hugh. Pleasures of Religion: With Other Poems. London: C. J. G. and F. Rivington, 1832.
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/103040379

Stowell, Hugh, editor. A Selection of Psalms and Hymns, Suited to the Services of the Church of England. Manchester: Edwin Slater, 1864. https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=oRnnZybZ9MMC

Wolffe, John. "Stowell, Hugh (1799–1865), Church of England clergyman." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Published online 23 September 2004.