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George Herbert

1593 - 1633 Topics: Church Work Author of "Teach me, my God and King" in The Hymnal Herbert, George, M.A., the fifth son of Richard Herbert and Magdalen, the daughter of Sir Richard Newport, was born at his father's seat, Montgomery Castle, April 3, 1593. He was educated at Westminster School, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1611. On March 15, 1615, he became Major Fellow of the College, M.A. the same year, and in 1619 Orator for the University. Favoured by James I., intimate with Lord Bacon, Bishop Andrewes, and other men of influence, and encouraged in other ways, his hopes of Court preferment were somewhat bright until they were dispelled by the deaths of the Duke of Richmond, the Marquis of Hamilton, and then of King James himself. Retiring into Kent, he formed the resolution of taking Holy Orders. He was appointed by the Bishop of Lincoln to the Prebend of Lcighton Ecclesia and to the living of Leighton Bromswold, Hunts, July 15, 1626. He remained until 1629, when an attack of ague obliged him to remove to his brother's, house at Woodford, Essex. Not improving in health at Woodford, he removed to Dantsey, in Wiltshire, and then as Rector to Bemerton, to which he was inducted, April 26, 1630, where he died Feb. 1632. The entry in the register of Bemerton is "Mr. George Herbert, Esq., Parson of Foughleston and Bemerton, was buried 3 day of March 1632." His life, by Izaak Walton, is well known; another Memoir, by Barnabas Oley, is forgotten. Herbert's prose work, Priest to the Temple, appeared several years after his death: but The Temple, by which he is best known, he delivered to Nicholas Ferrar (q.v.), about three weeks before his death, and authorized him to publish it if he thought fit. This was done iu 1633. The work became popular, and the 13th edition was issued in 1709. It is meditative rather than hymnic in character, and was never intended for use in public worship. In 1697 a selection from The Temple appeared under the title Select Hymns Taken out of Mr. Herbert's Temple & turned into the Common Metre To Be Sung In The Tunes Ordinarily us'd in Churches. London, Parkhurst, 1697. In 1739, J. & C. Wesley made a much more successful attempt to introduce his hymns into public worship by inserting over 40 in a much-altered form in their Hymns & Sacred Poems. As some few of these came into their collection of Psalms & Hymns, 1741, revised 1743, they were long sung by the Methodists, but do not now form part of the Wesleyan Hymn Book. No further attempt seems to have been made to use the Temple poems as hymns until 1853, when some altered and revised by G. Rawson were given in the Leeds Hymn Book of that year. From that time onward more attention was paid to Herbert alike by Churchmen and Nonconformists, and some of his hymns are now widely accepted. Many editions of his works have been published, the most popular being that of the Rev. Robert Aris Wilmott, Lond., Geo. Routledge & Son, 1857; but Dr. Grosart's privately printed edition issued in his Fuller Worthies Library in 1874, in three volumes, is not only the most complete and correct, but included also his psalms not before reprinted, and several poems from a ms. in the Williams Library, and not before published. The Temple has also been pub¬lished in facsimile by Elliott Stock, 1876, with preface by Dr. Grosart; and in ordinary type, 1882, by Wells Gardner, with preface by J. A. Shorthouse. The quaintness of Herbert's lyrics and the peculiarity of several of their metres have been against their adoption for congregational purposes. The best known are: "Let all the world in every corner sing"; "My stock lies dead, and no increase"; "Throw away Thy rod"; "Sweet day, so cool, so calm"; and "Teach me, my God, and King." [William T. Brooke] --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Mary Ann Thomson

1834 - 1923 Person Name: Mary Ann Thomson, 1834-1923 Topics: The Church's Mission Author of "Publish glad tidings" in The Hymnal 1982 Thomson, Mary Ann, wife of Mr. John Thomson, Librarian of the Free Library, Philadelphia, was born in London, England, December 5, 1834. She has written about forty hymns, which have appeared mostly in the Churchman, New York, and in the Living Church, Chicago. Four of her hymns are found in the Protestant Episcopal Hymnal, 1892. Of the origin of the missionary hymn by Mrs. Thomson which is found in our Hymnal she writes as follows: I wrote the greater part of the hymn, "O Zion, haste," in the year 1868. I had written many hymns before, and one night, while I was sitting up with one of my children who was ill of typhoid fever, I thought I should like to write a missionary hymn to the tune of the hymn beginning "Hark, hark, my soul, angelic songs are swelling," as I was fond of that tune; but as I could not then get a refrain I liked, I left the hymn unfinished, and about three years later I finished it by writing the refrain which now forms part of it. By some mistake 1891 is given instead of 1871 as the date of the hymn in the (Episcopal) Hymnal. I do not think it is ever sung to the tune for which I wrote it. Rev. John Anketell told me, and I am sure he is right, that it is better for a hymn to have a tune of its own, and I feel much indebted to the composer of the tune "Tidings" for writing so inspiring a tune to my words. Hymn Writers of the Church by Wilber F. Tillett and Charles S. Nutter, 1915 ================== Thomson, Mary Ann, wife of John Thomson, Librarian of the Free Library, Phila., was born in London, England, Dec. 5, 1834. She has written several hymns and poems. To 1895, eight of these appeared in The Churchman (New York); and thirty-four in The Living Church (Chicago). Of her hymns the following were included in The Hymnal, Revised and Enlarged .. . The P. E. Church, U.S.A., 1892 :— 1. Now the blessed Dayspring. [Annunciation B. V. M.] Begins with stanza ii. of "Through the sins and sorrows," which appeared in The Living Church, March 29, 1890. 2. O King of saints, we give Thee praise and glory. [All Saints.] First published in The Living Church, Nov. 8, 1890. In the first ed. of The Book of Praise, N.Y., 1894, it was attributed to Bp. W. W. How in error. 3. O Sion, haste, thy mission high fulfilling. [Missions.] No. 249 in The Hymnal, &c., 1892. 4. Saviour, for the little one. [Burial of a Child.] The Hymnal, &c., 1892, No. 247. Mrs. Thomson's Christmas Carol, "Lo! amid the shades of night," appeared, with music by B. Cecil Klein, in The Churchman, N.Y., Dec. 19, 1891, and separately at Phila. in 1892. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)

Dorothy Frances Gurney

1858 - 1932 Person Name: Dorothy B. Gurney Topics: The Sacraments and Rites of the Church Marriage; The Sacraments and Rites of the Church Marriage Author of "O Perfect Love" in The United Methodist Hymnal Blomfield, Dorothy F. , was born at 3 Finsbury Circus, Oct. 4, 1858. Miss Blomfield is the eldest daughter of the late Rev. F. G. Blomfield, sometime Rector of St. Andrew's Undershaft, London, and granddaughter of the late Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of London. Her very beautiful hymn for Holy Matrimony, “O perfect Love, all human thought transcending," was written for her sister's marriage in 1883, and was intended to be sung to Strength and Stay, in Hymns Ancient & Modern, No. 12. Subsequently it was set as an anthem by J. Barnby for the marriage of the Duke of Fife with the Princess Louise of Wales, on July 27, 1889. In 1889 it was included in the Supplemental Hymns to Hymns Ancient & Modern, and in 1890 in the Hymnal Companion. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907) =============== Gurney, Dorothy Frances, née Blomfield, p. 1553, ii. Married to Mr. Gerald Gurney. Mrs. Gurney's personal account of her hymn, "O perfect Love," &c, is given in detail in the Rev. J. Brownlie's Hymns and Hymn Writers of The Church Hymnary, 1899, p. 248. Her hymn is given in most hymn books published since 1889. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)

Michael Perry

1942 - 1996 Person Name: Michael Perry (born 1942) Topics: Pentecost 2 The Church's Unity and Fellowship; Pentecost 5 The Church's Mission to All Author of "In Christ there is no east or west" in Hymns for Today's Church (2nd ed.) Initially studying mathematics and physics at Dulwich College, Michael A. Perry (b. Beckenham, Kent, England, 1942; d. England, 1996) was headed for a career in the sciences. However, after one year of study in physics at the University of London, he transferred to Oak Hill College to study theology. He also studied at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and received a M.Phil. from the University of Southhampton in 1973. Ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1966, Perry served the parish of St. Helen's in Liverpool as a youth worker and evangelist. From 1972 to 1981 he was the vicar of Bitterne in Southhampton and from 1981 to 1989, rector of Eversley in Hampshire and chaplain at the Police Staff College. He then became vicar of Tonbridge in Kent, where he remained until his death from a brain tumor in 1996. Perry published widely in the areas of Bible study and worship. He edited Jubilate publications such as Hymns far Today's Church (1982), Carols far Today (1986), Come Rejoice! (1989), and Psalms for Today (1990). Composer of the musical drama Coming Home (1987), he also wrote more than two hundred hymns and Bible versifications. Bert Polman

John Keble

1792 - 1866 Topics: The Church Evening Author of "Sun of My soul, Thou Savior Dear" in Trinity Hymnal (Rev. ed.) Keble, John, M.A., was born at Fairford, in Gloucestershire, on St. Mark's Day, 1792. His father was Vicar of Coln St. Aldwin's, about three miles distant, but lived at Fairford in a house of his own, where he educated entirely his two sons, John and Thomas, up to the time of their entrance at Oxford. In 1806 John Keble won a Scholarship at Corpus Christi College, and in 1810 a Double First Class, a distinction which up to that time had been gained by no one except Sir Robert Peel. In 1811 he was elected a Fellow of Oriel, a very great honour, especially for a boy under 19 years of age; and in 1811 he won the University Prizes both for the English and Latin Essays. It is somewhat remarkable that amid this brilliantly successful career, one competition in which the future poet was unsuccessful was that for English verse, in which he was defeated by Mr. Rolleston. After his election at Oriel, he resided in College, and engaged in private tuition. At the close of 1813 he was appointed Examining Master in the Schools, and was an exceedingly popular and efficient examiner. On Trinity Sunday, 1815, he was ordained Deacon, and in 1816 Priest, by the Bishop of Oxford, and became Curate of East Leach and Burthorpe, though he still continued to reside at Oxford. In 1818 he was appointed College Tutor at Oriel, which office he retained until 1823. On the death of his mother in the same year, he left Oxford, and returned to live with his father and two surviving sisters at Fairford. In addition to East Leach and Burthorpe, he also accepted the Curacy of Southrop, and the two brothers, John and Thomas, undertook the duties between them, at the same time helping their father at Coln. It should be added, as an apology for Keble thus becoming a sort of pluralist among "the inferior clergy," that the population of all his little cures did not exceed 1000, nor the income £100 a year. In 1824 came the only offer of a dignity in the Church, and that a very humble one, which he ever received. The newly-appointed Bishop of Barbadoes (Coleridge) wished Keble to go out with him as Archdeacon, and but for his father's delicate state of health, he would probably have accepted the offer. In 1825 he became Curate of Hursley, on the recommendation of his old pupil, Sir William Heathcote; but in 1826, on the death of his sister, Mary Ann, he returned to Fairford, feeling that he ought not to separate himself from his father and only surviving sister. He supplied his father's place at Coln entirely. 1827 was memorable for the publication of The Christian Year, and 1828 for the election to the Provostship of Oriel, which his friends, rather than himself, seem to have been anxious to secure for him. In 1829 the living of Hursley was offered to him by Sir William Heathcote, but declined on the ground that he could not leave his father. In 1830 he published his admirable edition of Hooker's Works. In 1831 the Bishop of Exeter (Dr. Philpotts) offered him the valuable living of Paignton, but it was declined for the same reason that Hursley had been declined. In the same year he was also elected to the Poetry Professorship at Oxford. His Praelectiones in that capacity were much admired. In 1833 he preached his famous Assize Sermon at Oxford, which is said by Dr. Newman to have given the first start to the Oxford Movement. Very soon after the publication of this sermon the Tracts for the Times began to be issued. Of these Tracts Keble wrote Nos. 4, 13, 40, and 89. In 1835 his father died, and Keble and his sister retired from Fairford to Coln. In the same year he married Miss Clarke and the Vicarage of Hursley, again becoming vacant, was again offered to him by Sir W. Heathcote, and as the reason for his previous refusal of it no longer existed, he accepted the offer, and in 1836 settled at Hursley for the remainder of his life. That life was simply the life of a devoted and indefatigable parish priest, varied by intellectual pursuits. In 1864 his health began to give way, and on March 29, 1866, he passed away, his dearly loved wife only surviving him six weeks. Both are buried, side by side, in Hursley churchyard. In his country vicarage he was not idle with his pen. In 1839 he published his Metrical Version of the Psalms. The year before, he began to edit, in conjunction with Drs. Pusey and Newman, the Library of the Fathers. In 1846 he published the Lyra Innocentium, and in 1847 a volume of Academical and Occasional Sermons. His pen then seems to have rested for nearly ten years, when the agitation about the Divorce Bill called forth from him in 1851 an essay entitled, An Argument for not proceeding immediately to repeal the Laws which treat the Nuptial Bond as Indissoluble; and in the same year the decision of Archbishop Sumner in the Denison case elicited another essay, the full title of which is The Worship of Our Lord and Saviour in the Sacrament of the Holy Communion, but which is shortly entitled, Eucharistical Adoration. In 1863 he published his last work, The Life of Bishop Wilson (of Sodor and Man). This cost him more pains than anything he wrote, but it was essentially a labour of love. In the popular sense of the word "hymn," Keble can scarcely be called a hymnwriter at all. Very many of his verses have found their way into popular collections of Hymns for Public Worship, but these are mostly centos. Often they are violently detached from their context in a way which seriously damages their significance. Two glaring instances of this occur in the Morning and Evening hymns. In the former the verse "Only, O Lord, in Thy dear love, Fit us for perfect rest above," loses half its meaning when the preceding verse, ending "The secret this of rest below," is excised, as it generally is in collections for public worship, and the same may be said of that most familiar of all Keble's lines, "Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear," which has of course especial reference to the preceding verse, "'Tis gone, that bright and orbed blaze," &c. The Lyra Innocentium has furnished but few verses which have been adopted into hymn collections; the Psalter has been more fortunate, but the translations from the Latin are almost unknown. Taking, however, the word "hymn" in the wider sense in which Dr. Johnson defines it, as "a song of adoration to some superior being," Keble stands in the very first rank of hymnwriters. His uneventful life was the very ideal life for such a poet as Keble was, but not the sort of life which would be best adapted to train a popular hymnwriter. The Christian Year and the Lyra Innocentium reflect in a remarkable degree the surroundings of the writer. They are essentially the works of a refined and cultured mind, and require a refined and cultured mind to enter into their spirit. Keble, all his life long, and never more than in the earlier portion of it, before he wrote, and when he was writing The Christian Year, breathed an atmosphere of culture and refinement. He had imbibed neither the good nor the evil which the training of a public or even of a private, school brings. It was not even the ordinary home education which he had received. He had been trained, up to the very time of his going to college, by his father, who was clearly a man of culture and refinement, and had been himself successively Scholar and Fellow of Corpus. When he went to Oxford, he can scarcely be said to have entered into the whirl of university life. The Corpus of those days has been admirably described by Keble's own biographer, Sir John Coleridge, and by Dean Stanley in his Life of Dr. Arnold; and the impression which the two vivid pictures leave upon the mind is that of a home circle, on rather a large scale, composed of about twenty youths, all more or less scholarly and refined, and some of them clearly destined to become men of mark. When he removed across the road to Oriel, he found himself in the midst of a still more distinguished band. Whether at home or at college he had never come into contact with anything rude or coarse. And his poetry is just what one would expect from such a career. Exquisitely delicate and refined thoughts, expressed in the most delicate and refined language, are characteristic of it all. Even the occasional roughnesses of versification may not be altogether unconnected with the absence of a public school education, when public schools laid excessive stress upon the form of composition, especially in verse. The Christian Year again bears traces of the life which the writer led, in a clerical atmosphere, just at the eve of a great Church Revival, "cujus pars magna fuit." “You know," he writes to a friend, “the C. Y. (as far as I remember it) everywhere supposes the Church to be in a state of decay." Still more obviously is this the case in regard to the Lyra Innocentium. It was being composed during the time when the writer was stricken by what he always seems to have regarded as the great sorrow of his life. Not the death of his nearest relations—-and he had several trials of this kind—-not the greatest of his own personal troubles dealt to him so severe a blow as the secession of J. H. Newman to the Church of Rome. The whole circumstances of the fierce controversy connected with the Tract movement troubled and unsettled him; and one can well understand with what a sense of relief he turned to write, not for, but about, little children, a most important distinction, which has too often been unnoticed. If the Lyra had been written for children it would have been an almost ludicrous failure, for the obscurity which has been frequently complained of in The Christian Year, is still more conspicuous in the latter work. The title is somewhat misleading, and has caused it to be regarded as a suitable gift-book for the young, who are quite incapable of appreciating it. For the Lyra is written in a deeper tone, and expresses the more matured convictions of the author; and though it is a far less successful achievement as a whole, it rises in places to a higher strain of poetry than The Christian Year does. Another marked feature of Keble's poetry is to a great extent traceable to his early life, viz. the wonderful accuracy and vividness of his descriptions of natural scenery. The ordinary schoolboy or undergraduate cares little for natural scenery. The country is to him a mere playing field. But Keble's training led him to love the country for its own sake. Hence, as Dean Stanley remarks, “Oxford, Bagley Wood, and the neighbourhood of Hursley might be traced through hundreds of lines, both in The Christian Year and the Lyra Innocentium.” The same writer testifies, with an authority which no other Englishman could claim, to "the exactness of the descriptions of Palestine, which he [Keble] had never visited.” And may not this remarkable fact be also traced to some extent to his early training? Brought up under the immediate supervision of a pious father, whom he venerated and loved dearly, he had been encouraged to study intelligently his Bible in a way in which a boy differently educated was not likely to do. Hence, as Sir John Coleridge remarks, "The Christian Year is so wonderfully scriptural. Keble's mind was, by long, patient and affectionate study of Scripture, so imbued with it that its language, its train of thought, its mode of reasoning, seems to flow out into his poetry, almost, one should think, unconsciously to himself." To this may we not add that the same intimate knowledge of the Bible had rendered the memory of the Holy Land so familiar to him that he was able to describe it as accurately as if he had seen it? One other early influence of Keble's life upon his poetry must be noticed. Circumstances brought him into contact with the "Lake poets." The near relation of one of the greatest of them had been his college friend, and John Coleridge introduced him to the writings not only of his uncle, S. T. Coleridge, but also of Wordsworth, to whom he dedicated his Praelectiones, and whose poetry and personal character he admired enthusiastically. To the same college friend he was indebted for an introduction to Southey, whom he found to be "a noble and delightful character," and there is no doubt that the writings of these three great men, but especially Wordsworth, had very much to do with the formation of Keble's own mind as a poet. It has been remarked that in Keble's later life his poetical genius seemed to have, to a great extent, forsaken him; and that the Miscellaneous Poems do not show many traces of the spirit which animated The Christian Year and the Lyra Innocentium. Perhaps one reason for this change may be found in the increased interest "which Keble took in public questions which were not conducive to the calm, introspective state of mind so necessary to the production of good poetry. The poet should live in a world of his own, not in a world perpetually wrangling about University Reform, about Courts of Final Appeal, about Marriage with Deceased Wife's Sister, and other like matters into which Keble, in his later years, threw himself—heart and soul. It is not needful to say much about Keble's other poetical works, The Psalter was not a success, and Keble did not expect it to be. It was undertaken," he tells us, "in the first instance with a serious apprehension, which has since grown into a full conviction, that the thing attempted is, strictly speaking, impossible." At the same time, if Keble did not achieve what he owned to be impossible, he produced a version which has the rare merit of never offending against good taste; one which in every line reflects the mind of the cultured and elegant scholar, who had been used to the work of translating from other languages into English. Hymnal compilers have hitherto strangely neglected this volume; but it is a volume worth the attention of the hymn compiler of the future. There is scarcely a verse in it which would do discredit to any hymnbook; while there are parts which would be an acquisition to any collection. His translations from the Latin have not commended themselves to hymnal compilers. Some of his detached hymns have been more popular. But it is after all as writer of The Christian Year that Keble has established his claim to be reckoned among the immortals. It would be hardly too much to say that what the Prayer Book is in prose, The Christian Year is in poetry. They never pall upon one; they realise Keble's own exquisite simile:— "As for some dear familiar strain Untired we ask, and ask again; Ever in its melodious store Finding a spell unheard before." And it would hardly be too bold to prophesy that The Christian Year will live as long as the Prayer Book, whose spirit Keble had so thoroughly imbibed, and whose "soothing influence" it was his especial object to illustrate and commend. [Rev. John H. 0verton, D.D.] Keble's hymns, poetical pieces, and translations appeared in the following works :— (1.) The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holy days Throughout the Year. Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1827. Preface dated "May 30th, 1827." The last poem, that on the “Commination," is dated March 9, 1827. The poems on the "Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea," "Gunpowder Treason," "King Charles the Martyr," "The Restoration of the Royal Family," "The Accession," and "Ordination," were added to the 4th edition, 1828. The Messrs. Parker have pub. a large number of editions to date, including a facsimile reprint of the first edition, and an edition with the addition of the dates of composition of each poem. A facsimile of Keble's manuscript as it existed in 1822 was also lithographed in 1882, by Eliot Stock, but its publication was suppressed by a legal injunction, and only a few copies came into the hands of the public. Since the expiration of the first copyright other publishers have issued the work in various forms. (2.) Contributions to the British Magazine, which were included in Lyra Apostolica, 1836, with the signature of "γ." (3.) The Psalter or Psalms of David; In English Verse; By a Member of the University of Oxford. Adapted for the most part, to Tunes in Common Use; and dedicated by permission to the Lord Bishop of Oxford. . . . Oxford, John Henry Parker: J. G. & F. Rivington, London, MDCCCXXXIX. Preface dated “Oxford, May 29, 1839." (4.) The Child's Christian Year: Hymns for every Sunday and Holy-Day. Compiled for the use of Parochial Schools. Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1841. This was compiled by Mrs. Yonge. Keble wrote the Preface, dated “Hursley, Nov. 6, 1841," and signed it “J. K." To it he contributed the four poems noted below. (5.) Lyra Innocentium: Thoughts in Verse on Christian Children, their Ways and their Privileges . . . Oxford: John Henry Parker : F. & J. Rivington, London, 1846. The Metrical Address (in place of Preface) “To all Friendly Readers," is dated "Feb. 8, 1846." (6.) Lays of the Sanctuary, and otter Poems. Compiled and Edited by G. Stevenson de M. Rutherford... London: Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1859. This was a volume of poems published on behalf of Mrs. Elizabeth Good. To it Keble contributed the three pieces noted below. (7.) The Salisbury Hymn-Book 1857. Edited by Earl Nelson. To this be contributed a few hymns, some translations from the Latin, and some rewritten forms of well-known hymns, as "Guide me, 0 Thou great Jehovah," &c. (8.) Miscellaneous Poems by the. Rev. J. Keble, M.A., Vicar of Hursley. Oxford and London: Parker & Co., 1869. The excellent Preface to this posthumous work is dated "Chester, Feb. 22, 1869," and is signed "G.M," i.e. by George Moberly, late Bishop of Salisbury. This volume contains Keble's Ode written for the Installation of the Duke of Wellington as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, in 1834, his poems from the Lyra Apostolica, his hymns named above, his translations from the Latin, and other pieces not published in his works. The most important centos from The Christian Year, which are in common use as hymns, and also the hymns contributed to the Salisbury Hymn Book, 1857, are annotated in full under the first lines of the original poems. The translations from the Latin and Greek are given under the first lines of the originals. There are also several of his more important pieces noted in the body of this work. Those that …have no special history, are the following (the dates given being those of the composition of each piece):— i. From The Christian Year, 1827 and 1828. 1. Creator, Saviour, strengthening Guide. Trinity Sunday. (March 3, 1826.) 2. Father, what treasures of sweet thought. Churching of Women. (March 13, 1827.) 3. God is not in the earthquake: but behold. 9th Sunday after Trinity. The still mall voice. (Aug. 13,1822.) 4. In troublous days of anguish and rebuke. 9th S. after Trinity. The still small voice. (Aug. 13, 1822.) 5. Lessons sweet of spring returning. 1st Sunday after Epiphany. Spring. (May 17,1824.) 6. My Saviour, can it ever be? 4th Sunday after Easter. The promised Comforter. 7. 0 Father of long suffering grace. 18th Sunday after Trinity. God's longsuffering. (Oct. 6, 1823.) 8. 0 God of mercy, God of might, How should, &c. Holy Communion. (Jan. 31, 1827.) 9. 0 Lord my God, do Thou Thy holy will. Wednesday before Easter. Resignation. (Aug. 13, 1821.) 10. 0 say not, dream [think] not, heavenly notes. Catechism. (Feb. 16, 1827.) 11. 0 shame upon thee, listless heart. SS. Philip & James. (Aug. 3, 1825.) 12. 0 who shall dare in this frail scene? St. Mark's Day. (1820.) 13. Red o'er the forest peers the setting sun. 23rd Sunday after Trinity. The Resurrection of the body. (Nov. 12, 1825.) 14. Spirit of Christ, Thine earnest give. Ordination. (March 28, 1828.) 15. Spirit of light and truth, to Thee. Ordination. (March 28, 1828.) 16. Spirit of might and sweetness too. Confirmation. (Feb. 21, 1827.) 17. Sweet nurslings of the vernal skies. 15th S. after Trinity. Consider the lilies. Live for today. (Feb. 3, 1826) 18. The days of hope and prayer are past. 4th Sunday after Easter. The promised Comforter. 19. The live-long night we've toiled in vain. 5th Sunday after Trinity. Miracle of the Fishes. (1821.) 20. The midday sun with fiercest glare. Conversion of St. Paul. (Mar. 2,1822.) 21. The shadow of the Almighty's cloud. Confirmation. (Feb. 22, 1827.) 22. The silent joy that sinks so deep. 2nd Sunday after Epiphany. Turning Water into Wine. 23. Then, fainting soul, arise and sing. 4th Sunday after Easter. The promised Comforter. 24. When brothers part for manhood's race. St. Andrew's Day. (Jan. 27, 1822.) 25. Who is God’s chosen priest ? St. Matthias's Day. 26. Why doth my Saviour weep? 10th Sunday after Trinity. Christ weeping over Jerusalem. (1819.) 27. Why should we faint and fear to live alone? 24th Sunday after Trinity. God's goodness in veiling the future. (June 7, 1825.) 28. Wish not, dear friends, my pain away. 16th Sunday after Trinity. Resignation. (1824.) ii. From The Psalter, 1839. 29. From deeps so wild and drear. Ps. cxxx. 30. God our Hope and Strength abiding. Ps. xlvi. 31. How pleasant, Lord of hosts, how dear. Ps. lxxxiv. 32. Lord, be my Judge, for I have trod. Ps. xxvi. 33. Lord, Thy heart in love hath yearned. Ps. lxxxv. 34. Lord, Thou hast search'd me out and known. Ps. cxxxix 35. My God, my God, why hast Thou me? Ps. xxii. 36. My Shepherd is the living God. Ps. xxiii. 37. My Shepherd is the Lord; J know. Ps. xxiii. 38. Praise the Lord, for He is love. Ps. cxxxvi. 39. Praise ye the Lord from heaven. Ps.cxlviii. 40. Sing the song unheard before. Ps. xcvi. 41. Sound high Jehovah's Name. Ps. cxxxv. 42. The earth is all the Lord's, with all. Ps. xxiv. 43. The mercies of the Lord my God. Ps. lxxxix. 44. The seed of Jacob, one and all. Ps. xxii. iii. From The Child's Christian Year, 1841, and later editions. 45. Bethlehem, above all cities blest. Innocents’ Day. 46. Lo, from the Eastern hills the Lord. l0th Sunday after Trinity. The Gospel. (Late editions.) 47. Our God in glory sits on high. 1st Sunday after Easter. The Epistle. 48. When Christ to village comes or town. 16th Sunday after Trinity. The Gospel. (Late editions.) iv. From Lyra Innocentium, 1846. 49. Christ before thy door is waiting. Presence of Christ in His poor; or, Offertory. 50. How [When] the new-born saints, assembling. Offertory. 51. Once in His Name Who made thee. Holy Baptism. 52. Who for the like of me will care? Naamans' Servant-maid v. From Lays of the Sanctuary, 1859. 53. Lord, lift my heart to Thee at morn. Emigrant's Midnight Hymn. 54. O Love unseen, we know Thee nigh. Cento from No. 53. 55. Slowly the gleaming stars retire. Morning Hymn for Emigrants at Sea. 56. The twilight hour is sweet at home. Evening hymn for Emigrants at Sea. The editor of Keble's Miscellaneous Poems says concerning Nos. 53, 55, and 56:— "The three hymns for Emigrants, for use at Midnight, Morning, and Evening, were written at the request of his friend Sir Frederic Rogers, at that time Emigration Commissioner. They were printed in the first edition of the ‘Prayers for Emigrants, which he had compiled, but were subsequently omitted, perhaps as being thought not sufficiently simple for the class of people for whose use the Book of Prayers was chiefly intended." Preface, p. vi. It is found that nearly 100 hymns (counting centos as such) by Keble are in common use at the present time, and of these some rank with the finest and most popular in the English language. -- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

George Duffield

1818 - 1888 Topics: Church Triumph of Author of "Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus" in Trinity Hymnal (Rev. ed.) Duffield, George, Jr., D.D., son of the Rev. Dr. Duffield, a Presbyterian Minister, was born at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Sept. 12, 1818, and graduated at Yale College, and at the Union Theological Seminary, New York. From 1840 to 1847 he was a Presbyterian Pastor at Brooklyn; 1847 to 1852, at Bloomfield, New Jersey; 1852 to 1861, at Philadelphia; 1861 to 1865, at Adrian, Michigan; 1865 to 1869, at Galesburg, Illinois; 1869, at Saginaw City, Michigan; and from 1869 at Ann Arbor and Lansing, Michigan. His hymns include;— 1. Blessed Saviour, Thee I love. Jesus only. One of four hymns contributed by him to Darius E. Jones's Temple Melodies, 1851. It is in 6 stanzas of 6 lines. In Dr. Hatfield's Church Hymnbook it is given in 3 stanzas. The remaining three hymns of the same date are:— 2. Parted for some anxious days. Family Hymn. 3. Praise to our heavenly Father, God. Family Union. 4. Slowly in sadness and in tears. Burial. 5. Stand up, stand up for Jesus. Soldiers of the Cross. The origin of this hymn is given in Lyra Sac. Americana, 1868, p. 298, as follows:— "I caught its inspiration from the dying words of that noble young clergyman, Rev. Dudley Atkins Tyng, rector of the Epiphany Church, Philadelphia, who died about 1854. His last words were, ‘Tell them to stand up for Jesus: now let us sing a hymn.' As he had been much persecuted in those pro-slavery days for his persistent course in pleading the cause of the oppressed, it was thought that these words had a peculiar significance in his mind; as if he had said, ‘Stand up for Jesus in the person of the downtrodden slave.' (Luke v. 18.)" Dr. Duffield gave it, in 1858, in manuscript to his Sunday School Superintendent, who published it on a small handbill for the children. In 1858 it was included in The Psalmist, in 6 stanzas of 8 lines. It was repeated in several collections and in Lyra Sac. Amer., 1868, from whence it passed, sometimes in an abbreviated form, into many English collections. [Rev. F. M. Bird, M.A.] - John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907) See also in: Hymn Writers of the Church

William W. Walford

1772 - 1850 Topics: Church Communion of Saints Author of "Sweet Hour of Prayer" in Trinity Hymnal (Rev. ed.) William W. Walford, a blind preacher of England, is the author of the hymn beginning "Sweet hour of prayer." This hymn first appeared in print in the New York Observer September 13, 1845. The contributor who furnished the hymn says: "During my residence at Coleshill, Warwickshire, England, I became acquainted with W. W. Walford, the blind preacher, a man of obscure birth and connections and no education, but of strong mind and most retentive memory. In the pulpit he never failed to select a lesson well adapted to his subject, giving chapter and verse with unerring precision, and scarcely ever misplacing a word in his repetition of the Psalms, every part of the New Testament, the prophecies, and some of the histories, so as to have the reputation of knowing the whole Bible by heart." Rev. Thomas Salmon, who was settled as the pastor of the Congregational Church at Coleshill in 1838, remained until 1842, and then removed to the United States, is believed to have been the contributor who says of the hymn: "I rapidly copied the lines with my pencil as he uttered them, and send them for insertion in the Observer if you think them worthy of preservation." From: Nutter, C. S., & Tillett, W. F. (1911). The hymns and hymn writers of the church, an annotated edition of The Methodist hymnal. New York: Methodist Book Concern.

Omer Westendorf

1916 - 1997 Topics: The Sacraments and Rites of the Church Marriage; The Nature of the Church United in Christ; The Sacraments and Rites of the Church Marriage; Church Community in Christ Translator of "Where Charity and Love Prevail" in The United Methodist Hymnal Omer Westendorf, one of the earliest lyricists for Roman Catholic liturgical music in English, died on October 22, 1997, at the age of eighty-one. Born on February 24, 1916, Omer got his start in music publishing after World War II, when he brought home for his parish choir in Cincinnati some of the Mass settings he had discovered in Holland. Interest in the new music being published in Europe led to his creation of the World Library of Sacred Music, initially a music-importing firm that brought much of this new European repertoire to U.S. parishes. Operating out of a garage in those early years, Omer often joked about the surprised expressions of visitors who stopped by and found a wide range of sheet music in various states of “storage” (read disarray). Later, as World Library Publications, the company began publishing some of its own music, including new works with English texts by some of those same Dutch composers, for example, Jan Vermulst. In 1955 World Library published the first edition of The Peoples Hymnal, which would become the People's Mass Book in 1964, one of the first hymnals to reflect the liturgical reforms proposed by Vatican II. Omer also introduced the music of Lucien Deiss to Catholic parishes through the two volumes of Biblical Hymns and Psalms. Using his own name and several pen names, Omer composed numerous compositions for liturgical use, though his best-known works may be the texts for the hymns “Where Charity and Love Prevail,” “Sent Forth by God’s Blessing,” and especially “Gift of Finest Wheat.” As he lay dying, his family and friends gathered around his bed to sing his text “Shepherd of Souls, in Love, Come, Feed Us.” NPM honored Omer as its Pastoral Musician of the Year in 1985. --liturgicalleaders.blogspot.com/2008 =========================== Pseudonyms: Paul Francis Mark Evans J. Clifford Evers --Letter from Tom Smith, Executive Director of The Hymn Society, to Leonard Ellinwood, 6 February 1980. DNAH Archives.

Daniel March

1816 - 1909 Topics: Church Work Author of "Hark! The voice of Jesus crying" in The Hymnal March, Daniel, D.D., an American Congregational minister, b. July 21, 1816, has published Night Scenes in the Bible, and other works. His hymn "Hark, the voice of Jesus crying [calling]. Who will go," &c. (Missions), is given in the American Methodist Episcopal Hymnal, 1878, in 2 stanzas; in Sankey's Sacred Songs & Solos, 1878, in 6 stanzas; and in the Scottish Hymnal 1884, in 5 stanzas; in each case of 8 lines. It was written in 1863. (See Nutter's Hymn Studies, 1884, p. 236.) --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907) =============== March, D., p. 1578, ii. The following details concerning Dr. March's hymn, "Hark ! the voice of Jesus crying," have been furnished us by himself:— "It was written at the impulse of the moment to follow a sermon I was to preach in Clinton St. Church to the Philadelphia Christian Association on the text Is. vi. 8. That was some time in 1868." The original text in full is in The Hymnal, (Presb.), Phila., 1895, No. 361. Dr. March declines to accept the interpolations which have been made in this hymn. We must note also that the incident given in Brownlie's Hymns and Hymnwriters of the Church Hymnary (Scottish), p. 303, relative to this hymn and President Lincoln, is incorrect. It relates to Mrs. E. Gates's " If you cannot on the ocean," p. 1565, i. 5. [Rev. L. F. Benson, D.D.] --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)

Eleanor Hull

1860 - 1935 Person Name: Eleanor H. Hull Topics: The Church in the World Commitment: Pilgrimage Versifier of "Be Thou My Vision" in Voices United