American Unitarian Hymn Writers and Hymns, compiled by Henry Wilder Foote: a Project Gutenberg eBook

Compiled by Henry Wilder Foote for the Hymn Society of America for publication in the Society’s proposed Dictionary of American Hymnology

Contents:

I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Misses Ruth and Orlo McCormack in the preparation of this compilation.

AMERICAN UNITARIAN HYMNODY

In the first edition of Julian’s Dictionary of Hymnology (1891) F. M. Bird[1] wrote, “The Unitarians—possessing a large share of the best blood and brain of the most cultivated section of America—exhibit a long array of respectable hymnists whose effusions have often won the acceptance of other bodies,” (pp. 58-59). And in this century Louis F. Benson[2] in his classic book The English Hymn (p. 460) wrote, “It is not surprizing that a body including the best blood and highest culture of Massachusetts shared in the Literary Movement [of the 19^th century] and succeeded in imparting to its hymn books a freshness of interest in great contrast to those of the orthodox churches” and that “from their [the compilers’] hands there proceeded —— a series of hymn books whose literary interest was very notable” (p. 462).

This succession of Unitarian hymn writers over a period of approximately 150 years can best be traced in the nearly 50 hymn books compiled by individuals or committees for use in Unitarian churches.[3] The editors of these books were among the best educated men of their time, who knew where to look for fresh lyrical utterances of a living faith. The earliest of them lived in the period when the traditional metrical psalms which, for more than two centuries, had been almost the only worship-song of the English speaking world, were being slowly superseded by 2 the songs of a new age. These songs they chiefly found in the various hymn-books published for use in English Non-conformist chapels when the Church of England still generally adhered to the Old or New Versions of the Psalms. It was from these sources that Jeremy Belknap first introduced to Americans the hymns of Anne Steele, and included in his Sacred Poetry (1795) hymns by Addison, Cowper, Newton, Doddridge and other English contemporaries. When, in 1808, the vestry of Trinity Church, Boston, impatient at the delay of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in getting out a hymnal, issued one for their own use, they drew heavily upon Belknap’s collection, saying in their preface “In this selection we are chiefly indebted to Dr. Belknap, whose book unquestionably contains the best expressions of sacred poetry extant.”

Many of the later collections in this series of Unitarian hymn books have been no less notable for their introduction to use in this country of new English hymns, such as Pope’s “Father of all, in every age;” Sir Walter Scott’s “When Israel of the Lord beloved;” translations of hymns in the Roman Breviary; Sarah Flower Adams’ “Nearer, my God, to Thee” (only three years after its publication in England); and Newman’s “Lead, kindly Light;” and for the ability of their compilers to discover fresh materials near at hand, as when Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson were the first to notice the hymnic possibilities of Whittier’s poems.

The story of American Unitarian hymnody begins with the publication in 1783 of the Collection of Hymns—designed for the use of the West Society of Boston. This church belonged to 3 the liberal wing of New England Congregationalism, destined to become known as Unitarian a generation later. The book contained a small selection of traditional psalms and hymns by British authors and a number of quaintly didactic moral ditties in doggerel, presumably contributed by Boston versifiers who cannot now be identified.

The first group of Unitarian hymn-writers whose names are known and whose productions have survived did not begin to write until the opening decades of the 19^th century. Of this group the earliest born was John Quincy Adams, (1767-1848), best remembered as the sixth President of the United States. That he was also a hymn writer, and the only president of the country who was one, has generally been forgotten. Two or three hymns by him were written earlier but most of them came from the period following his retirement from the presidency in 1829. Soon after that event he wrote one for the 200^th anniversary of the First Church in Quincy, of which he was a member, and later in life he composed a metrical paraphrase of the whole Book of Psalms. When Dr. Lunt, minister of the Quincy church, was preparing his Christian Psalter, 1841, Mrs. Adams put into his hands the mss. of her husband’s poems, and Lunt included in his book five hymns and seventeen psalms by his distinguished parishioner. None of them rose above the level of respectable verse but his version of Psalm 43 survived in one or more hymn books 100 years later.

Rev. John Pierpont (1785-1866) was a poet of considerable abilities whose verses were in demand for special occasions and whose hymns were the best lyrical expressions of the developing 4 new thought in religion. W. Garrett Horder, the English hymnologist, wrote that Pierpont’s hymn of universal praise was “the earliest really great hymn I have found by an American author.” It is still in use, as are two others by him.

Prof. Andrews Norton (1786-1853) of the Harvard Divinity School, published a hymn as early as 1809 and a good deal of verse in later years, much of it in a rather sombre introspective mood, but with one fine hymn still in use. He was followed by Rev. Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham (1793-1870) who wrote a good many hymns for special occasions, one of which survives today, and by Rev. Henry Ware, Jr. (1794-1843) who wrote a number of hymns highly valued as utterances of the religious idealism of the period, but long since dropped from use, except for an excellent one for the dedication of an organ, probably the only hymn in the English language written expressly for such an occasion. William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), a lay man of letters, was another of the elder members of the famous group of New England poets of the 19^th century, and as early as 1820 he contributed 5 hymns to Sewall’s New York Collection, published in that year, and he later wrote others.

The latest born of this first group who attained memorable distinction in this field was Rev. Frederic Henry Hedge (1805-1890), whose earliest hymn, still in use, was written in 1829, but who is best known for his great translation of Luther’s “Ein’ feste Burg,” and for a fine Good Friday hymn. He collaborated 5 with Rev. Frederic Dan Huntington[4] (1819-1904) then the college preacher at Harvard, in compiling Hymns for the Church of Christ, (1853), to which Huntington contributed five hymns, none now in use. Their book was the last and best of the various Collections published up to the middle of the century by editors who belonged to what was becoming the conservative wing of the denomination, to whom Emerson’s Divinity School Address of 1838 seemed dangerously radical.

But meantime a new era in Unitarian hymnody was opening with the publication in 1846 of the Book of Hymns edited by Samuel Longfellow (1819-1891) and Samuel Johnson (1822-1882), while they were still studying in the Harvard Divinity School. Both had come under the influence of the Transcendentalist movement which was liberalizing Unitarian thought and they eagerly sought out hymns which were fresh expressions of their youthful outlook on religion. The book was notable for the new sources of hymns which they discovered, among them the poems of John Greenleaf Whittier, which they were the first to introduce into a hymn book.

Their Book of Hymns was followed in 1864 by their larger and even more influential Hymns of the Spirit, which includes most of their own hymns and many by other Unitarian writers of the period, too numerous to name here, but whose hymns are listed in the catalogue of writers appended to this introductory 6 sketch. Samuel Johnson wrote only half a dozen hymns, but they are among the finest in the language. Samuel Longfellow wrote many more, the best of which are quite equal to Johnson’s, and together they made a more important contribution to American Unitarian hymnody than that of any other writers in the middle of the 19^th century.

This was the period of “the flowering of New England literature” and two of its poets, besides those already named, made their contribution to hymnody. The more important of the two was Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, (1809-1894) with half a dozen fine and widely used hymns, and Prof. James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) who, strictly speaking, was hardly a hymn writer at all, but from whose poems two or three have been quarried. Two other writers of this period were Rev. Edmund Hamilton Sears (1810-1876) and his niece, Miss Eliza Scudder (1819-1896). Sears wrote two Christmas hymns widely used throughout the English speaking world. Miss Scudder wrote half a dozen hymns in a mystical vein of the highest quality, but in temperament and outlook both writers belong more to the earlier period of Unitarian thought than to that prevalent in their later lifetime.

In this mid-century period should also be included the famous war-time hymn by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,” written in 1861 to provide worthier words than “John Brown’s body” for the popular tune “Glory, Hallelujah”, which had been composed a few years earlier for a Sunday School in Charleston, South Carolina.

A third period in Unitarian hymnody began with the appearance 7 of hymns by three good friends, Rev. John White Chadwick (1840-1906), Rev. Frederic Lucian Hosmer (1840-1929) and Rev. William Channing Gannett (1840-1923), who carried forward in the last third of the century the broadly theistic interpretation of a universal religion to which Longfellow and Johnson had given utterance. Chadwick’s first hymn was written in 1864 for the graduation of his class from the Harvard Divinity School, a great hymn of brotherhood, widely used in England as well as here. A half-dozen others of fine quality have survived. Hosmer and Gannett worked together in bringing out their book The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems, 1885, 1894, and Unity Hymns and Chorals, 1880, 1911. Neither wrote any hymns while in the Divinity School, but both began to do so soon after. In 1873 Gannett wrote a fine one which is probably the earliest in the language to give a religious interpretation to the then controversial doctrine of evolution, and later a half dozen others to which deep feeling is expressed in beautiful lyrical verse. Hosmer, however, was a much more prolific writer, producing more than 40 hymns which have had some use. He was a meticulous craftsman who studied the technique of hymn-writing, and several of his hymns are among the finest in the language. Canon Dearmer, a leading authority on hymnody in the Church of England, included seven of them in his Songs of Praise and calls one of them “this flawless poem, one of the completest expressions of religious faith,” and says another is “one of the noblest hymns in the language.” For approximately 40 years, c. 1880-1920, Hosmer was the outstanding hymn writer in the English speaking world, and he left no successor who was his equal in the perfection of his finest hymns.

A smaller but important contribution to the Unitarian hymnody of this period was made by Rev. Theodore Chickering Williams (1855-1915) who, while still a student in the Harvard Divinity School wrote one of the best ordination hymns in the language, and, in later years, eight others, still in use, which are religious poetry of a high order.

The latest period in Unitarian hymnody, covering the last half-century, is notable for the productions of two writers, Rev. Marion Franklin Ham (1867-1957) and Rev. John Haynes Holmes, (1879-still living). Although he had published a volume of poems in 1896 Dr. Ham did not begin to write hymns until 1911, but thereafter he produced a succession of beautiful religious lyrics, eight or ten of which have come into use. Some of them are utterances of a profound mystical insight akin to that of Eliza Scudder, but others are expressions of a world-wide theism, and one has been translated into Japanese.

Rev. John Haynes Holmes has been a more prolific writer, author of about 45 hymns, many written for special occasions, but 10 or 15 others have come into general and widespread use. His hymns are in a quite different key from those of Dr. Ham’s quiet mysticism, generally being stirring calls to social justice and the service of mankind, though a few are hymns of gratitude for the simple joys of life. While he has infrequently attained the felicity of phrasing which results in a memorable line his hymns are cast in vigorous and often stirring verse, expressing a noble altruism and a wholesome attitude towards life.

M. F. Ham and J. H. Holmes are the latest notable figures in 9 this era of 150 years since the beginning of American Unitarian hymnody, throughout which scores of lesser writers have also contributed their offerings to the main stream. These writers are far too numerous to name in this outline sketch but their thumbnail biographies and notations as to their hymns will be found in the following catalogue. A survey of this whole era discloses the evolution in liberal religious thought from the period when the emphasis was on the sinfulness of man and the redemptive function of the Christian Church, to the vision of a world wide religion taking in many forms, and manifested in that service of mankind which found expression in the “social gospel” in the first half of this century.

The production of so great a number of fine hymns (and of a long series of hymn books of a superior type) over so long a period, by persons belonging to one of the smallest Protestant denominations, commonly considered coldly intellectual rather than emotional in its approach to religion, is a phenomenon unique in the history of hymnody. When the first edition of the Pilgrim Hymnal was published in 1910 it listed both the nationality and the church membership of the authors included, which led to the disclosure that nearly half the American authors were Unitarians who had contributed considerably more than half the hymns of American authorship. In answer to critics Dr. Washington Gladden replied that this was due to the simple fact that the Unitarians had written a larger number of the best hymns than had the American writers in other denominations.

Canon Dearmer in England observed the same fact and was puzzled to explain it. The explanation, however, is a simple one. 10 With the exception of a relatively small number of writers born in other parts of the country and with different backgrounds, these Unitarian authors were men brought up in the atmosphere of the so-called “New England Renaissance,” that literary revival of which Boston, Cambridge and Concord were the chief centres in the 19^th century, and they belonged by blood, by education and by social ties to the New England literary group. The majority were also graduates of Harvard College or Harvard Divinity School, or both, in a period when the spirit of the time was most favorable to the stimulation of poetic gifts, and in a place where the intellectual level was high and there was freedom from any dogmatic control.[5] Thus they had the culture and the warmth of atmosphere needed, and the Divinity School had the admirable custom of encouraging students to write a hymn for the annual graduation exercises or for the School’s Christmas service, and so stimulated their poetic gifts.

Thanks to these favorable circumstances what has been called “the Harvard school of hymnody” has had no equal in the English speaking world, the only comparable institution being Trinity College, Cambridge, England, which, for a much briefer period (1820-1845) was the nursing mother of a notable succession of Anglican hymn writers. It was this fact which led W. Garrett Horder, an English Congregationalist who was also a highly competent hymnologist, to write, “Harvard, like our English Cambridge, 11 has been ‘a nest of singing birds’. I was struck by this when editing The Treasury of American Sacred Songs. Harvard provided the bulk —— of the verse I included.” And other orthodox authorities, notably F. M. Bird and Louis F. Benson, already quoted, have borne witness to the high achievements of both the editors of the long succession of Unitarian hymn books and the authors of the hymns which they included.

Catalogue of American Unitarian Hymn Books.
compiled by Henry Wilder Foote and reprinted (with revisions) from the Proceedings of the Unitarian Historical Society, May, 1938, by permission.

In the 17^th century, and down to the middle of the 18^th, all churches of the Congregational order in New England used the Bay Psalm Book, first printed in Cambridge in 1640, except for the use of Ainsworth’s Psalter in the churches of the Plymouth Plantation and in the First Church in Salem for a part of the 17^th century. In the latter part of the 18^th century, the Bay Psalm Book was gradually superseded by either the New Version of the Psalms (Tate and Brady) or, more generally, by one of the editions of Watts and Select, i.e. Isaac Watts’ Psalms and Hymns, with a supplement of hymns selected from other authors.

The first steps away from the Psalm books in general use were taken by two churches which were in the vanguard of the rising liberalism of the last half of the 18^th century. In 1782 the West Church in Boston published A Collection of Hymns, more particularly designed for the Use of the West Society in Boston (1),[6] and in 1788 the East Church in Salem published A Collection of Hymns for Publick Worship, (2). These two books were of only 13 local significance, but they clearly pointed the way which later publications were to follow. In 1795 Rev. Jeremy Belknap brought out his Sacred Poetry (3), which was an attempt to produce a book which should be acceptable to both the liberal and the orthodox wings of Congregationalism. In this purpose it failed, though it was widely used by Unitarians. The succeeding books were more definitely Unitarian in character and illustrate the changing emphasis in religious thought and practice through five generations of religious liberals. They form a notable series, for most of them attained a literary standard and spiritual outlook higher than that of other contemporary hymn books.

The earlier books in this series were very imperfectly edited, judged by modern standards. Some of them contain no preface and no indication as to the identity of the compiler. In other cases, the compiler is indicated by initials. In some cases the names of the authors of hymns are not given at all, in others only the surname, when known, and there are frequent mistaken attributions. Directions as to the music are usually lacking, the metre of each hymn alone being indicated. In some cases the names of suitable tunes are given, but only one book (18) earlier than 1868 included any music, in that case an appendix of twenty-one tunes in two parts at the back of the book. The first American Unitarian hymn book to be printed with a tune on each page was the American Unitarian Association’s Hymn and Tune Book of 1868 (34). Thereafter few books appeared without tunes, but half-a-dozen other collections with music were published in the next forty years, each of which had considerable use.

It will be noted that in the course of the 19^th century no 14 less than thirty-six different hymn-books appeared, a far larger number than any other American denomination can show for the same period, and illustrative of the extreme individualism of the Unitarian churches. Throughout the middle third of the century Greenwood’s Collection (13), the Springfield Collection (14), and the Cheshire Collection (20), had the widest use, followed in the last third of the century by the Hymn and Tune Books (34) and (36) of the American Unitarian Association, but all the other collections had some local vogue, in some cases only for a brief period or only in those churches the ministers of which had compiled the collections in question. As late, however, as the beginning of the 20^th century, at least eight different hymn-books were in use in the Unitarian churches of the United States and Canada. This diversity of usage declined rapidly after the publication of The New Hymn and Tune Book (45) in 1914, and had practically disappeared by the time when that book’s successor, Hymns of the Spirit (48) was published in 1937.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. A Collection of Hymns, more particularly designed for the Use of the West Society in Boston—Boston, 1782; 2nd ed., 1803; 3rd ed., 1806; 4th ed., 1813.

The editor is said to have been Rev. Simeon Howard (1733-1804), (See Bentley’s Diary, II, 371), Jonathan Mayhew’s successor as minister of the West Church. Mayhew’s congregation was notably liberal and this book represents the first step away from psalm-books of the traditional type. It contains 166 hymns, including a number of classics by Watts, Barbauld, Addison, etc. The tone in general is ethical rather than theological, and many of the hymns are moral precepts in mediocre verse, some, at least, probably of local production, but the authors cannot be identified as no author is named; there is no preface, and the compiler’s name is not given.

Edited by Rev. William Bentley (1750-1819) of the East Church, Salem, Mass., and used there until superseded in 1843 by Flint’s Collection (17). There is no preface and the compiler’s name is not given. There are no musical directions except the metre of each hymn. The book consists of two parts, the first 16 containing 40 psalms “according to Tate and Brady’s Version,” arranged by metre; the second containing 163 hymns of high quality, including many of the classics of the period. The book is much superior to No. 1, but had little use outside the church for which it was intended, perhaps because Bentley, though one of the earliest outspoken Unitarians, was persona non grata in a Federalist stronghold on account of his political opinions.

3. Sacred Poetry: consisting of Psalms and Hymns adapted to Christian devotion in publick and private. Selected from the best authors, with variations and additions—By Jeremy Belknap, D.D., Boston, 1795.

Many editions. Some included a supplement of Hymns for the Lord’s Supper, selected and original, (7) prepared by Rev. Thaddeus M. Harris, minister of the First Church in Dorchester, 1801. In 1812 an edition appeared with 28 additional hymns, “Selected by the successor of the Rev. Author,” i.e. by W. E. Channing.

Dr. Belknap (1744-1798) was the first Congregational minister of the Federal Street Church (his predecessors having been Presbyterians), and his immediate successor was William Ellery Channing. Belknap endeavored to compile a collection which should serve both the orthodox and the liberal wings of the New England Congregationalism of his day. In his preface he says, “In this selection, those Christians who do not scruple to sing praises to their Redeemer and Sanctifier, will find materials for such a sublime enjoyment; whilst others, whose tenderness of conscience may oblige them to 17 confine their addresses to the Father only, will find no deficiency of matter suited to their idea of the chaste and awful spirit of devotion.” Belknap, however, failed in his attempt to produce a compromise book, as it found favor only in the liberal churches, which used it for some forty years.

The book contains 150 psalms, selected from versions by Tate and Brady, Watts, and others, often “with variations”; and 300 hymns, widely selected from English sources, including Pope’s “Universal Prayer” (altered), Helen Maria Williams’ “While Thee I seek, protecting Power,” hymns by Cowper, Newton, Doddridge, Merrick, Addison, Anne Steele and others. Belknap introduced Anne Steele’s hymns to Americans. There are no hymns by Charles Wesley, and the only hymns of American authorship appear to be Mather Byles’ “When wild confusion rends the air,” and a metrical version of Psalm 65 by Jacob Kimball.

There are no musical directions save the metre of each hymn and the key. “The characters denoting the sharp or flat key are prefixed to each psalm or hymn, at my request, by the Rev. Dr. Morse, of Charlestown.”

The book was much the best of its period. When, in 1808, the vestry of Trinity Church, Boston, impatient at the delay of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in getting out a hymnal, issued one for their own use, they drew heavily on Belknap’s, saying in their preface, “In this selection we are chiefly indebted to Dr. Belknap, whose book unquestionably contains the best specimens of sacred poetry extant.”

4. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for public worship.—Boston, 1799; edited by Rev. James Freeman (1759-1825). 2nd ed., 1813.

This was the first of the hymn-books prepared for use in King’s 18 Chapel, Boston, where it was used for 30 years until succeeded by Greenwood’s Collection (13). No preface; no musical directions except that the metre is indicated. The names of some authors are given in the index of first lines. The book contains 155 psalms, or parts of psalms, “selected principally from Tate and Brady,” followed by 90 hymns and 8 doxologies. The collection is decidedly inferior to that of Belknap (3) in range and quality.

5. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns—by William Emerson, A.M., Pastor of the First Church in Boston; Boston, 1808.

Rev. William Emerson (1769-1811) was the father of Ralph Waldo Emerson. His book is more handsomely printed than most hymn books of the period and contains 150 hymns. It was very liberal in tone and was assailed by the orthodox for having omitted hymns on several of “the most essential doctrines of Christianity.” Its most notable feature was its endeavor to improve the singing by “prefixing to each psalm and hymn the name of a tune, well composed and judicially chosen” as “a valuable auxiliary to musical bands. No American hymn-book has hitherto offered this aid to the performers of psalmody.” The key in which the tune is set and the metre are also indicated at the head of each hymn. There is also an interesting “Index of Tunes, and Musical Authors,” with references to the various collections in which the recommended tunes may be found. As this list of collections of tunes was prepared by a person particularly interested in promoting good music it is here reprinted as indicating the best available sources at the time:

Mass. Com., Massachusetts Compiler; Sal. Coll., Salem Collection; Lock H. Coll., Lock’s Hospital Collection; Sac. Min., Sacred Minstrel; B.C.M., Beauties of Church Music; Psal. Evan., Psalmodia Evangelica; F. C. Coll., First Church Collection; Suff. Selec., Suffolk Selection; Bos. Selec., Boston Selection; Newb’t Coll., Newburyport Collection; Mus. Olio, Musical Olio; Col. Repos., Columbian Repository; B. Coll., Bridgewater Collection.

While this book thus made the selection of tunes easier than did most of its contemporaries, it is needless to point out how inconvenient it was not to have the tunes in the same book with the words. With all its excellencies the book had small use, being rather too far in advance of its time.

6. A Selection of Sacred Poetry consisting of Psalms and Hymns from Watts, Doddridge, Merrick, Scott, Cowper, Barbauld, Steele and others—Philadelphia, 1812; 2nd ed., 1818; 3rd ed., 1828; 4th ed., 1846.

Edited by Ralph Eddowes (1751-1833) and James Taylor (1769-1844) two laymen of the church in Philadelphia in which Joseph Priestley had preached after coming to America, but which remained without a settled minister until Rev. W. H. Furness was installed in 1825. A good collection of 606 psalms and hymns, from varied English sources, as indicated by the following quotation from preface:—“The Society of Unitarian Christians in Philadelphia, from its first formation, has used, in its public devotional exercises, the collection of hymns and psalms made by the Rev. Doctors Kippis and Rees, and Messrs. Jervis and Morgan.... A late collection by the Rev. Mr. Aspland, of Hackney, has also afforded assistance, of which advantage has been freely 20 taken; and by resorting to another, published in 1789 by the Rev. Messrs. Ash and Evans of Bristol, this work has been enriched with several pieces of Mrs. Steele’s exquisitely beautiful and highly devotional poetry.”

7. Hymns for the Lord’s Supper, Original and Selected. [edited] by Thaddeus Mason Harris, D.D., Boston; printed by Sewall Phelps, no. 5 Court Street, 1820; 2nd ed., 1821.

In 1801 Rev. Thaddeus M. Harris, minister of the First Church in Dorchester, Mass., printed a few hymns for use at the Lord’s Supper, and these formed the basis for this enlarged collection published in 1820. This edition contains original hymns by Rev. John Pierpont of Boston, Rev. Samuel Gilman of Charleston, S. C., and others, none of them in use today. The booklet probably had more circulation for private reading than for public use.

8. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns, for social and private worship—New York, 1820; 2nd ed., 1827; 4th ed., 1845.

Compiled by Dr. Henry D. Sewall, one of the laymen who founded the First Congregational Society of New York, now All Souls Church, which was organized in 1819. Commonly called “the New York Collection.” It contains 504 psalms and hymns arranged in three sections in alphabetical order of first lines. There are no musical directions except that the metre of each hymn is indicated. The Collection is chiefly notable for the inclusion, without the author’s name, of five original hymns by William Cullen Bryant, a member of the congregation, who had written them at the instance of Miss Sedgwick.

The fourth edition, 1845, made some substitutions and added 146 hymns to the original number.

9. A Selection of Psalms and Hymns, for social and private worship—Andover, 1821; 2nd ed., Cambridge, 1824; 11th ed., Boston, 1832.

Edited by Jonathan Peele Dabney (1793-1868), a graduate of Harvard who had studied for the ministry but was never ordained. The book was smaller, cheaper and better arranged than Sewall’s (8), and had considerable use. It contains 385 hymns, and 21 “Ascriptions and Occasional Pieces,” these last including Henry Ware’s Easter hymn, “Lift your glad voices,” and Heber’s “From Greenland’s icy mountains.” There are no musical instructions beyond indication of metres.

10. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Social and Private Worship, compiled by a committee of the West Parish in Boston—Boston; printed by John B. Russell, 1823.

This book was a successor to No. 1. No preface; no copyright; no indication of the identity of the compilers. It contains 320 psalms and hymns by Tate and Brady, Watts, Doddridge, Barbauld, Steele and others. No hymn by Charles Wesley, but it has John Wesley’s “Lo, God is here,” attributed to “Salisbury Coll.” Also 6 communion hymns; 5 for Christmas, including Tate’s “While shepherds watched their flocks by night,” attributed to Dr. Patrick; Milton’s “Nor war nor battle’s sound,” altered by Dr. Gardiner; and Sir Walter Scott’s “When Israel of the Lord beloved”.

11. A Selection from Tate and Brady’s Version of the Psalms: with Hymns by various authors—For the use of the church in Brattle Square, Boston. Boston: Richardson & Lord, 1825.

Compiled by a committee of that church. The church used the Bay Psalm Book until 1753; then Tate and Brady’s New Version of the Psalms, with an appendix of hymns selected by a committee. In 1808 another committee published another appendix, entitled A Second Part of Hymns. The book issued in 1825, by a committee the membership of which is unknown, is a revision and enlargement of the original Tate and Brady and the appendices. It contains 150 psalms and 363 hymns. No musical directions save indications of metres.

12. Sacred Poetry and Music reconciled, or a Collection of Hymns original and compiled—by Samuel Willard, D.D., A.A.S. Boston: L. C. Bowles, 1830.

This book, “adopted while in manuscript, by the Third Congregational Society in Hingham,” had little use beyond that parish. It contains 518 hymns, and 7 chants, the latter being a feature not met with in any earlier book in this series. Tunes are indicated for each hymn, but the editor had some peculiar theories about the “reconciliation” of words and music. The editor, Rev. Samuel Willard (1776-1859), had been minister at Deerfield but had retired on account of blindness and was temporarily resident in Hingham when this book was published.

13. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Christian Worship—Boston: Carter and Hendee, 1830.

Edited by Rev. Francis William Pitt Greenwood (1797-1843), minister of King’s Chapel, Boston. Greenwood’s Collection, as it was generally called, containing 560 psalms and hymns, superseded Belknap’s (3) as the hymn-book most widely used in Unitarian churches in the first half of the 19^th century. It ran to fifty 23 editions and was used in King’s Chapel, for which it was prepared, until superseded there by Hymns of the Church Universal, 1890, (39). Based upon Watts, the book contains the then very recent hymns by James Montgomery, Harriet Auber, Bowring and Heber, and practically introduced Charles Wesley to American Unitarians. In Young Emerson Speaks, edited by A. C. McGiffert, 1937, pages 145-150, will be found a sermon on “Hymn Books” preached by R. W. Emerson in 1831, while still minister of the Second Church in Boston, in which he recommends the church to adopt Greenwood’s Collection in place of Belknap’s. Emerson, in his Journal for 1847, noted that Greenwood’s Collection was “still the best.”

14. The Springfield Collection of Hymns for sacred worship, by William B. O. Peabody—Springfield: Samuel Bowles, 1835.

Rev. William Oliver Bourne Peabody (1799-1847) was minister at Springfield, Mass. His collection contains 509 hymns, admirably chosen from the accepted classics of the period, Watts and Doddridge predominant, but with an increasing number of the recent compositions by Unitarian hymn-writers of the first third of the 19^th century. No musical instructions beyond indication of metres. On its merits the Springfield Collection rightly shared with Greenwood’s Collection (13) and The Cheshire Collection (20) the largest measure of popularity and use among Unitarians in the middle of the 19^th century.

15. The Christian Psalter: A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for social and private worship—Boston, 1841.

Edited by Rev. William Parsons Lunt (1805-1857), for use in the First Church in Quincy, Mass. It contains 702 hymns and psalms and represents a reversion to the older type of hymnody, “but, if old-fashioned, 24 it was excellent and serviceable.” Lunt included 22 pieces by his parishioner, ex-President John Quincy Adams, whose wife had put into his hands a complete metrical psalter which Adams had composed. At least one of Adams’ psalms is still to be found in some hymn-books.

16. A Manual of Prayer for public and private worship, with a collection of hymns—Boston, 1842.

Edited by Rev. William Greenleaf Eliot (1811-1887). Although printed in Boston, this book was prepared for The First Congregational Society of St. Louis, Missouri, of which the editor had become minister in 1834. The Society was the earliest Unitarian church in the Mississippi Valley, excepting that at New Orleans. The book is primarily a collection of service materials followed by 272 well-selected hymns from standard sources. It was the earliest volume of the sort to be prepared for Unitarian use in the Middle West.

Edited by Rev. James Flint (1779-1855). The editor was minister of the East Church in Salem, Mass., and based his book upon the 18^th century collection of his predecessor, William Bentley (2). He borrowed the title and much of the contents of James Martineau’s book published in England in 1840. The book contains 415 hymns.

18. The Social Hymn Book; consisting of psalms and hymns for social worship and private devotions—Boston, 1843.

Edited by Rev. Chandler Robbins (1810-1882), minister of the Second Church in Boston. The book, which contains 350 psalms and hymns, is based upon Watts and Doddridge, but it introduced new hymns from various sources, among them about twenty of Bishop Mant’s translations of “ancient hymns” from the Roman Breviary. Dr. Robbins was one of the earliest American hymn-book editors to avail himself of the English versions of Latin hymns which were among the fruits of the Oxford Movement. His book has an appendix of 21 tunes in two parts, the book being thus the first in this series to include any printed music.

19. The Disciples’ Hymn Book; a collection of hymns and chants for public and private devotions, prepared for the use of the Church of the Disciples—Boston, 1844.

Edited by Rev. James Freeman Clarke (1810-1888) for use in the Church of the Disciples, Boston, which had been organized in 1841 and of which he was the first minister. The first edition is commonly bound up with Service Book: for the use of the Church of the Disciples. A revised and enlarged edition appeared in 1852. The collection contains 318 hymns and an appendix of chants. It was notable for its freshness and progressive outlook, and drew upon the most recent English sources. It introduced into American use the hymn “Nearer, my God, to thee,” by Sarah Flower Adams, published in England only three years earlier, and other hymns by the same author. It also included some of Clarke’s own hymns, more of which appeared in the second edition.

20. Christian Hymns for public and private worship. A Collection compiled by a committee of the Cheshire Pastoral Association—Boston, 1845.

Edited by Rev. Abiel Abbott Livermore (1811-1892), Chairman; Rev. Levi W. Leonard (1790-1864), Rev. William A. Whitwell (1804-1865) and Rev. Curtis Cutler (1806-1874), ministers at Keene, Dublin, Wilton, and Peterboro, New Hampshire, respectively. The editorial work was chiefly done by Livermore, who also contributed to it his communion hymn, “A holy air is breathing round.”

This book, commonly called The Cheshire Collection, ran through sixty editions and was widely used. Its popularity was due in part to its wide range—908 hymns—and to its provision for special occasions, but more to the inclusion of fresh material of high quality.

Edited by Rev. George E. Ellis (1814-1894) for use in the Harvard Church in Charlestown, Mass., of which he was then minister. It contains 658 hymns and psalms, and is based on Greenwood’s Collection (13) and The Springfield Collection (14). A Selection from the Psalms, apparently intended for responsive reading, is bound up with the hymn-book, of which it is an unusual feature.

Edited by Rev. George W. Briggs (1810-1895), minister of the First Church at Plymouth, Mass. (1838-1852). The book contains 601 hymns; no musical directions beyond indication of metres. There is a strong emphasis on hymns of the inner life, the compiler having sought “to bring together the most fervent expressions of a profound spiritual life,” many of which “have never been in familiar use in Unitarian churches.”

23. Service Book: for the Church of the Saviour, with a Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Christian Worship—Boston, 1845.

Edited by Rev. Robert Cassie Waterston (1812-1893), minister of the Church of the Saviour, Boston. The Collection of Psalms and Hymns bound up with the services is Greenwood’s Collection (13) with a supplement of 116 hymns selected by Waterston, so that the book is more accurately described as one of the editions of Greenwood than as an independent publication. The supplement, however, is notable for the high proportion of good new hymns, not available when Greenwood’s Collection first appeared. Among them are hymns by Samuel F. Smith, G. W. Doane, the early and mid-century Unitarian writers, and some taken from Breviary sources.

24. A Book of Hymns for public and private devotion—Cambridge: Metcalf & Company, printers to the University. 1846.

Edited by Samuel Longfellow (1819-1892) and Samuel Johnson (1822-1882). The editors were, at the time, students in the Harvard Divinity School (class of 1846), and the book “grew out of an offer to provide a new book for a minister who found even the recent ones too antiquated.” It was marked by poetic excellence and freshness, and introduced to American use “Lead, Kindly Light,” and hymns by Whittier, Longfellow, Lowell, Jones Very, Mrs. Stowe and others, besides hymns by the editors themselves. First used in Church of the Unity, Worcester, Mass., of which Edward Everett Hale was minister; then in the Music Hall congregation of Theodore Parker, who is said, on receiving a copy, to have remarked, “I see we have a new book of Sams.” It ran to a twelfth edition in two years, but its greatest influence was as a source-book for later editors. A somewhat enlarged edition appeared in 1848.

Edited by Rev. Cyrus A. Bartol (1813-1900), minister of the West Church in Boston, assisted by Charles G. Loring, Joseph Willard, and other laymen of the church. The book is a revised and enlarged edition of the “West Boston Collection” (10) of which the original edition had been prepared by Rev. Simeon Howard (1). It contains 643 hymns and a few chants. No musical directions beyond indication of metres.

26. Hymns for the Church of Christ—Edited by Rev. Frederic H. Hedge and Rev. Frederic D. Huntington, Boston, 1853.

Frederic Henry Hedge (1805-1890) later became a distinguished professor in the Harvard Divinity School. Frederic Dan Huntington (1819-1904) later joined the Episcopal Church, in which he attained a bishopric.

The book contains 872 hymns,—no musical instructions beyond indication of metres. It is conservative in tone but is marked by high literary standards, and by a catholic inclusiveness beyond that of most books in this series. It includes a number of translations of Breviary hymns, and in it appears, for the first time, Hedge’s translation of Luther’s “Ein’ feste Burg.” Better printed than most contemporary hymn-books, it was hailed as “much the best book of hymns yet published.” Many hymns are listed as “Anon.” and some authors are given by surname only, making identification doubtful.

27. Services and Hymns for the use of the Unitarian Church of Charleston, S.C., 1854, 1867.

The preface to the first edition, dated “April, 1854,” was signed by S. Gilman and C. M. Taggart, then joint ministers of the church. No copy of this edition appears to be extant. A new and enlarged edition, with an unsigned preface but reprinting the earlier preface signed by Gilman and Taggart, appeared in 1867, “Printed by Joseph Walker, Agt., Charleston.” “Hymns for Christian Worship,” 29 171 in number, make up the second half of this volume. Almost all of them are the standard English hymns in current use in the first half of the 19^th century, with 10 hymns by American authors, three of which are by Dr. Gilman and two by his wife, Caroline Gilman, all of which had appeared in earlier collections.

There is no preface and the name of the compiler nowhere appears. It was, however, edited by Rev. Chandler Robbins (1810-1882), minister of the Second Church in Boston, and is, in effect, an enlargement of his earlier Social Hymn Book, (18), with 761 hymns, better adapted to church use. Like its predecessor, it contained chiefly the older type of hymns,—107 by Watts, 62 by Doddridge, 40 by James Montgomery, 13 by C. Wesley, and 20 more called “Wesleyan.”

29. The Soldier’s Companion: Dedicated to the Defenders of their Country in the Field, by their Friends at Home, published as the issue of The Monthly Journal, Boston, for October, 1861, vol. II, No. 10.

This was a small paper bound collection of a few traditional hymns, supplemented by a dozen anti-slavery or wartime songs by living writers, including J. Pierpont, E. H. Sears, and J. R. Lowell, with a supplement of devotional readings and prayers. Presumably it had some use in the Army, but copies are now very rare.

Edited by Rev. Samuel Osgood (1812-1880), then minister of the Church of the Messiah, New York, and Rev. Frederic A. Farley (1800-1892), minister of The First Unitarian Congregational Church, Brooklyn, N. Y.

A small collection of 159 hymns, bound up with a liturgical type of service-book indicating the trend which later took Osgood into the Episcopal Church.

31. The Soldier’s Hymn Book, containing a supplement of national songs for the use of chaplains and soldiers in the army and navy of the United States—Prepared by J. G. Forman, Chaplain of the 3d Regiment Missouri Infantry, Army of the U. S., Alton, Illinois, 1863.

Rev. Jacob G. Forman (d. 1885), the compiler, was at the time minister of the Unitarian Church at Alton. This little pocket hymnal contains 99 hymns, and 26 additional patriotic songs.

32. The Soldier’s Hymn Book for Camp and Hospital—Cambridge, printed at the University Press, 1863.

There is no indication as to the source of this little book, and the identity of its compiler has not been discovered. Its contents, however, indicate that it came from a Unitarian source. It is a pocket hymnal containing 150 familiar hymns and a few prayers, somewhat larger and better printed than (31).

Edited by Samuel Longfellow (1819-1892) and Samuel Johnson (1822-1882). This is the second and more famous hymn-book compiled by the editors. It contains 717 hymns and represents their later and more radical trend of thought, the book being theistic rather than explicitly Christian in its emphasis. It introduced many hymns by the editors themselves, and made drastic adaptations or revisions of hymns by other authors. Like their first book (24), it was more generally drawn upon as a source-book by later editors than it was used in the churches. In that respect it was one of the most important books in this series.

This book was compiled by a committee appointed by the American Unitarian Association, but the editorial work was chiefly done by Rev. Leonard J. Livermore (1822-1886). It is the first hymn-book to be issued by the Association and the first American Unitarian hymn-book to be completely furnished with tunes. It contained 740 hymns, about 30 chants, etc., and 299 tunes, a large proportion of which have since dropped out of use. Regarded as in some measure an authorized denominational hymn-book, it had wide use, though it “marked no advance over its predecessors, but its tunes were well up to the average level and gave it a great advantage,” and stimulated congregational singing.

35. Hymns for the Christian Church, for the use of the First Church of Christ in Boston—Boston, 1869.

Edited by Rev. Rufus Ellis (1819-1885), minister of the First Church, Boston. It was based on Lunt’s conservative Christian Psalter (15) which had been in use in the First Church for 25 years. About 250 hymns were retained from the earlier volume and enough more added to bring the total to 469. The selections were well made, but, without music, the book could not compete with the more inclusive Hymn and Tune Book (34) which the American Unitarian Association had published the preceding year.

36. Hymn and Tune Book for the Church and Home—Revised edition. American Unitarian Association, Boston, 1877.

The compiler’s name nowhere appears in the book, which was edited by Rev. Rush R. Shippen (1828-1911), then Secretary of the American Unitarian Association. It is a thorough-going revision of (34), virtually a new book. It contains 871 hymns, 14 chants, etc., 316 tunes, a much richer selection than its predecessor, although 32 the music was still of the mid-century type, with only a few examples of the newer English tunes which were being introduced into America by the choirs of Episcopal churches. The book was well adapted to the general needs of Unitarians and was the most widely used book among the Unitarian churches for the ensuing forty years.

37. Unity Hymns and Chorals—Edited by W. C. Gannett, J. V. Blake, F. L. Hosmer. Chicago, 1880.

A later and largely revised edition was published in 1911 by Hosmer and Gannett. The editors, Frederick Lucian Hosmer (1840-1929), William Channing Gannett (1840-1923), and James Vila Blake (1842-1925), were hymn-writers and ministers in the Western Unitarian Conference. This small book, noted for its “split-leaf” arrangement, represented the point of view of the “left-wing” group in the denomination. In its two editions it contained most of the hymns by its editors, and a good many by other authors which appeared for the first time within its covers. In this respect, as in its radical character, it may be compared to the hymn-books by Longfellow and Johnson (24 and 33). It was widely used in the Western Unitarian Conference. Musically it was mediocre.

38. Sacred Songs for Public Worship: A Hymn and Tune Book—Edited by M. J. Savage and Howard M. Dow. Boston, 1883.

This small book contains 195 hymns and songs for popular use, selected by Minot J. Savage (1841-1918), minister of Unity Church, Boston, Mass., and set to music by Howard M. Dow. Forty-two items are from Mr. Savage’s pen, the rest mostly from familiar sources. It is much more of a “one-man book” and musically nearer akin to the typical gospel song-book than any other collection in this series.

39. Hymns of the Church Universal—Compiled by the Rev. Henry Wilder Foote [I]: Revised and edited by Mary W. Tileston and Arthur Foote. Boston, 1890.

This book was compiled for use in King’s Chapel, Boston, of which Mr. Foote (1838-1889) was minister, but was not published until after his death, the editorial work being completed by his sister and brother. The book superseded Greenwood’s Collection (13) in King’s Chapel, and had considerable use elsewhere. It contained 647 hymns, a number of chants, and 299 tunes. It introduced many hymns and tunes of the later 19^th century English authors and composers which were not found in any earlier American Unitarian collections, and was influential in setting a standard for later books.

40. Hymnal: Amore Dei—Compiled by Mrs. Theodore C. Williams, Boston, 1890. Revised, 1897.

Edited by Mrs. Williams in co-operation with her husband, Rev. Theodore C. Williams (1855-1915), minister of All Souls’ Church, New York.

It contained 382 hymns, about 25 chants and responses and 272 tunes. A collection similar to Hymns of the Church Universal (39) in utilizing the newer English hymns and tunes of the nineteenth century, it had many excellencies and considerable use. The biographical indexes of composers and authors are far more complete than those of any earlier book in this series.

Edited by Mary Wilder Tileston and Arthur Foote, it was in effect a revised and enlarged edition of Hymns for the Church Universal 34 (39), containing 801 hymns. It was an admirable compilation but rather large and heavy for handling.

Edited by Louisa Putnam Loring (1854-1924). A book of high literary and musical standards, based upon the (Harvard) University Hymn Book (1895). It contained 316 hymns and 205 tunes, but it represented a rather limited and individualistic point of view and did not prove adaptable to general use.

44. Isles of Shoals Hymn Book and Candle Light Service—The Isles of Shoals Association, 1908.

Edited by Rev. George H. Badger (1859-1954). Since the book was intended for use at the summer meetings on the Isles of Shoals, off Portsmouth, N. H., the religious interpretation of nature is strongly emphasized. The book contains 219 hymns and 96 tunes, mostly selected from Hymns for Church and Home (41), but nine of them are original contributions to this book, some with lines referring directly to the island setting or history. Both words and music represent the highest standards at the time of publication, and the book is an exceptional collection of hymns expressing this aspect of religion.

45. The New Hymn and Tune Book—American Unitarian Association: Boston, 1914.

Edited by a commission: Rev. Samuel A. Eliot (1862-1950), Chairman; Rev. Henry Wilder Foote, (II), (1875-____), Secretary; Rev. Rush R. Shippen, (1828-1911), Rev. Lewis G. Wilson, (1858-1928).

Nominally a revision of the Hymn and Tune Book of 1877 (36), it was in effect a new compilation, drawing largely upon Hymns for Church and Home (41), Amore Dei (40) and Unity Hymns and Chorals (37). It contained 546 hymns, 28 chants, etc., and 268 tunes. It also included a set of services and responsive readings, prepared by another committee. It represented a great advance on earlier books and was more widely adopted than any of them. In its music it was less progressive than in its selection of hymns, representing the musical standard and practice of about 1900.

46. Twenty-five Hymns for Use in Time of War—The Beacon Press. Boston, n. d. (1916).

A pamphlet of hymns, more than half of them reprinted from the Hymn and Tune Book of 1914 (45) for use during the Great War.

47. Songs and Readings—compiled and edited by Jacob Trapp and R. T. Porte. Salt Lake City, 1931.

This booklet contains 58 songs and hymns, without music, and 32 responsive readings for use in the First Unitarian Church in Salt Lake City, of which Mr. Trapp (1899-____) was then minister. Intended for ministers with “Humanist” leanings.

Edited by a Unitarian Commission: Rev. Henry Wilder Foote, (II) (1875-____), Chairman; Rev. Edward P. Daniels (1891-____), Rev. Curtis W. Reese (1887-____), Rev. Von Ogden Vogt (1879-____), working in co-operation with a Universalist Commission: Rev. L. G. Williams (1893-____), Chairman; Rev. Prof. Alfred S. Cole, (1893-____), Rev. Prof. Edson R. Miles (1875-1958), and Rev. Tracy M. Pullman (1904-____).

The title is borrowed from the second collection, edited by 36 Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson, 1864, (33). The book is printed with services and responsive readings prepared by the same two commissions. It is an extensive revision of the New Hymn and Tune Book (45) of 1914, with special emphasis on “the social gospel” and on hymns dealing with “man in the universe.” Its most notable advance over its predecessors is in its music, edited by E. P. Daniels and Robert L. Sanders. It contains 533 hymns, 42 chants, etc., 366 tunes.

Alphabetical List of Unitarian Hymn Writers In the Following Catalogue

Biographical Sketches
with Notes on Hymns

Adams, Hon. John Quincy, Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts, July 11, 1767—February 21, 1848, Washington, D. C. He graduated from Harvard in 1787. From 1794-1801 he was United States Minister to England, the Netherlands and Prussia. In 1806 he was appointed Professor of Rhetoric at Harvard. In 1809 he became United States Minister to Russia, in 1817 he was Secretary of State, and from 1824 to 1828 he was President of the United States. In 1831 he was elected to the House of Representatives, in which body he served until his death.

Most of his verse, both religious and secular, was written after he had left the Presidency, but he remains the only hymn writer who has ever been President of this country. In his later years he composed a metrical version of the Psalms, best described as a free rendering in fairly good verse of what he felt was the essential idea of each Psalm. When his minister, Rev. William P. Lunt, q.v., of the First Parish, (Unitarian) Quincy, Massachusetts, undertook the preparation of his hymn book The Christian Psalmist, (1841), Mrs. Adams put the manuscript of her husband’s metrical Psalms into Mr. Lunt’s hands, and the latter included 17 of them in his book, and five other hymns by his distinguished parishioner.

The effect on Adams is recorded in a moving entry in his Journal which reveals an aspect of his character quite unknown to those who regarded him as an opinionated and uncompromising though sincere and upright politician. He wrote on June 29, 1845, “Mr. Lunt preached this morning, Eccles. III, 1. For everything 41 there is a season. He had given out as the first hymn to be sung the 138^th of the Christian Psalter, his compilation and the hymn-book now used in our church. It was my version of the 65^th Psalm; and no words can express the sensations with which I heard it sung. Were it possible to compress into one pulsation of the heart the pleasure which, in the whole period of my life, I have enjoyed in praise from the lips of mortal man, it would not weigh a straw to balance the ecstasy of delight which streamed from my eyes as the organ pealed and the choir of voices sung the praise of Almighty God from the soul of David, adapted to my native tongue by me. There was one drawback. In the printed book, the fifth line of the second stanza reads,

‘The morning’s dawn, the evening’s shade,’

and so it was sung, but the corresponding seventh line of the same stanza reads,

‘The fields from thee the rains receive,’

totally destroying the rhyme. I instantly saw that the fifth line should read,

‘The morning’s dawn, the shades of eve,’

but whether this enormous blunder was committed by the copyist or the pressman I am left to conjecture.”

After Adams’ death his verses, both religious and secular, were published in a small volume entitled Poems of Religion and Society, New York, 1848, which ran to a fourth edition in 1854. This collection included the five hymns and 17 metrical Psalms printed in The Christian Psalmist, unchanged except that the opening line of each psalm has been substituted for the number 42 of the psalm as its heading. Nor was the misprint which Adams lamented amended. Judged by the conventional standards of his time Adams’ poetry was consistently respectable verse, but without any notable distinction other than that lent to it by the fame of the author.

His five hymns are,

1. Sure to the mansions of the blest, (Death of Children)

This is part of a piece of 20 stanzas, which appeared in the Monthly Anthology and Boston Review, January 1807. It is entitled “Lines addressed to a mother on the death of two infants, 19th Sept. 1803, and 19th Decb. 1806.”

2. Alas! how swift the moments fly, (The Hour-Glass)

Sometimes given as

How swift, alas, the moments fly,

written for the 200^th anniversary of the First Parish Church in Quincy, September 20, 1839.

3. Hark! ’tis the holy temple bell, (Sabbath morning) undated

4. When, o’er the billow-heaving deep,

“A Hymn for the twenty-second of December,” i.e., the coming of the Pilgrim Fathers, undated.

5. Lord of all worlds, let thanks and praise,

“Written in Sickness;” undated.

A few of these hymns and psalms found their way into other collections. Nos. 2 and 3 were included in Lyra Sacra Americana; no. 18 is in Hymnal for American Youth and the American Student Hymnal; no. 16 is in the Jewish Union Hymnal for Worship, 1914.

Alcott, Louisa May, Concord, Massachusetts, November 29, 1833—March 5, 1888, Concord. She was the author of widely known books for children, Little Women, Little Men, and others. Julian’s Dictionary, p. 1602, records her hymn,

A little kingdom I possess,

and cites Eva Munson Smith’s Women in Sacred Song as quoting a note from Miss Alcott dated “Concord, Oct. 7, 1883,” in which she says that this is “the only hymn I ever wrote. It was composed at thirteen - - - and still expresses my soul’s desire.” Notwithstanding this statement another hymn attributed to her, apparently written for use by young people and beginning,

O the beautiful old story!

is included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914.

J 1550, 1602 H.W.F.

Alger, Rev. William Rounsville, Freetown, Massachusetts, December 28, 1822—February 7, 1905, Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in 1847 and in the same year became minister of the Mount Pleasant Society, Roxbury, Massachusetts. In 1855 he was settled over the Bulfinch Place Church, Boston. He was a popular lecturer and the author of numerous articles and several books, the most notable of which was his History of the Doctrine of the Future Life, 1864, and later editions.

His Christmas hymn

Jesus has lived! and we would bring,

written in 1845 while he was still a student, is included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853.

Other poems by him, including a hymn for the graduation of his class from the Divinity School in 1847 and another for the ordination of Thomas Starr King, are included in Putnam, Singers and Songs, but have had no further use.

H.W.F.

Ames, Rev. Charles Gordon, Dorchester, Massachusetts, 1828—April 15, 1912, Boston, Massachusetts. He was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1849 and spent some years as a home missionary in Minnesota. In 1859 he joined the Unitarian denomination and served several churches, his last pastorate being with the Church of the Disciples, Boston. In 1905 he wrote a hymn for the dedication of the new edifice of that Society beginning,

With loving hearts and hands we rear,

which is included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914.

A hymn beginning

Father in heaven, hear us today,

is attributed to him in the Universalist Church Harmonies: Old and New, 1898, but is not found elsewhere.

H.W.F.

Anonymous

In Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, there is no Index of Authors, but in its Index of First Lines the name of the author, (often only his or her surname) is given in most instances. The Index also lists 57 hymns as “Anon.” or, more often, with no word as to authorship. The source of several of these hymns can be traced in Julian’s Dictionary or in Putnam’s Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith, but I have been unable to identify the author or source of the following hymns, or to check their later use, if any.

H.W.F.

Hys. Ch. Ch.

Anonymous Hymns

Come, Holy Spirit, hush my heart,

C.M. 3 stas. 3 Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908.

Come thou Almighty King!

The widely used hymn to the Trinity which begins with this line was written about 1757 in England. It has often been mistakenly attributed to Charles Wesley, and research has failed to discover who its author was. Perhaps he thought it prudent not to disclose his name because both his words and the tune by Felice di Giardini to which it was set in 1769 offered so marked a contrast to the British national anthem, in the same unusual metre, which had come into popular use about 1745 with the words God save our lord the King. American Unitarians in the 19^th century could sing the first stanza of the hymn, addressed to the “Father all glorious,” but not the trinitarian stanzas which followed. An unknown writer produced two additional stanzas in a carefully revised version which was included in Lunt’s Christian Psalter, 1841; in the 1851 Supplement to Longfellow and Johnson’s Book of Hymns, 1846; and in their Hymns of the Spirit, 1864. This version, however, was not satisfactory to later Unitarians and was again largely rewritten in the form in which it has been included in most of the Unitarian hymn books of more recent date. This version will be found in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

H.W.F.

50

For mercies past we praise thee, Lord,

Given as Anonymous in Longfellow and Johnson’s Book of Hymns, 1846, in 4 stas. of 4 l. It was repeated in their Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, and in the (Unitarian) Hymn and Tune Book, 1868.

J. 1564

My life flows on in endless song,

8.7.8.7.D. 3 stas. Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908.

Now, when the dusky shades of night retreating,

This is a free translation in five stanzas of the Latin hymn, Ecce jam noctis tenuatar umbra by Gregory the Great, c. 600, included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, as anonymous. It passed into Beecher’s Plymouth Collection, 1855, and into many other hymn books, British and American, often with the 3^d and 4^th stanzas omitted. There is no clue as to its author though Julian (p. 320) points out that the first stanza appears to be an altered form of W. J. Copeland’s translation from the Latin, published in 1848. The three stanza form of the hymn is included in the New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 819 H.W.F.

We follow, Lord, where thou dost lead,

L.M. 5 stas. Attributed to “Book of Hymns,” in Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908.

Appleton, Rev. Francis Parker, Boston, Massachusetts, August 9, 1822—June 14, 1903, Cohasset, Massachusetts. He graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in 1845, and was minister to the Unitarian church, in South Danvers, (now Peabody) Massachusetts from 1846 to 1853. He then left the ministry for secular occupations. His hymn,

Thirsting for a living spring,

was included, anonymously, in Longfellow and Johnson’s Book of Hymns, 1846, and, attributed to him, in Hymns of the Spirit, 1864. It is included in the Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908; in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937. His hymn,

The past yet lives in all its truth, O God,

was also included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, and in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, but has now dropped out of use.

J. 1551, 1606 H.W.F.

Badger, Rev. George Henry, Charlestown, Massachusetts, March 27, 1859—May 11, 1953, Orlando, Florida. He was educated at Williams College, A.B. 1883, at Andover Theological Seminary and the Harvard Divinity School, receiving the degree of S.T.B. from the latter institution in 1886. He served several Unitarian churches in New England. From 1912-1918 he was a minister in San Antonio, Texas; from 1919-1936 in Orlando, Florida. The preface to The Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908, is signed with his initials as editor. That book contains three hymns of which he was author:—

1. God of the vastness of the far-spread sea,

2. Lord, I believe, and in my faith,

3. Thy way, O Lord, is in the sea,

In 1910 he wrote a hymn beginning,

4. O Thou who art my King,

which was included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914. None of these hymns have passed into later collections.

H.W.F.

Ballou, Rev. Adin, 1803-1890. Without much formal education, but gifted in mind and spirit, he was ordained in 1827 as a Universalist minister, but in 1831 joined the Unitarian denomination in which he served a number of New England parishes. He wrote a hymn beginning,

Years are coming—speed them onward!

When the sword shall gather rust

which was included in Universalist hymnbooks and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

H.W.F.

Barber, Rev. Henry Hervey, Warwick, Massachusetts, December 30, 1835—January 18, 1923, Jacksonville, Florida. He was educated at Deerfield (Massachusetts) Academy, and at Meadville Theological School from which he graduated in 1861. After pastorates in two New England churches he became in 1881 a professor in Meadville Theological School, a position from which he retired in 1904. His hymn beginning,

Far off, O God, and yet most near,

dated 1891, had considerable use and was included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914.

H.W.F.

Barnard, Rev. John, Boston, Massachusetts, November 6, 1681—January 24, 1770, Marblehead, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard in 1700, and was installed as minister of the Congregational Church in Marblehead in 1716, which he served with distinction through the rest of his life. A number of his sermons were printed, and in 1752 he published A New Version of the Psalms of David, 278 pp., printed in Boston, the result of his own endeavor to produce a fresh metrical translation. It is listed in Julian’s Dictionary, p. 929, under Psalters, English. His book was used in his own church, but not elsewhere, and is now very rare. His own annotated copy is in the Harvard College Library and the original ms. is in the Massachusetts Historical Society.

H.W.F.

Barrows, Rev. Samuel June, New York, New York, May 26, 1845—April 21, 1909, New York. He graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in 1875 and in 1876 was ordained minister of Mount Pleasant Church, Dorchester, Massachusetts, where he served until 1881. He was editor of the Christian Register from 1881 to 1897, and was a member of Congress, 1897-1899.

A hymn beginning

Enkindling Love, eternal Flame

is attributed to him in the Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908.

H.W.F.

Bartol, Rev. Cyrus Augustus, D.D., Freeport, Maine, August 30, 1813—December 16, 1890, Boston. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1832 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1835. After lay preaching for a year in Cincinnati he was ordained in 1837 as successor to Rev. Charles Lowell (father of James Russell Lowell) in the West Church (Unitarian) in Boston. He retired in 1889. He was author of several books and of a large number of printed sermons and addresses. He, with others, edited Hymns for the Sanctuary, Boston, 1849, commonly called “Bartol’s Collection”, in which was included an anonymous hymn beginning

Be thou ready, fellow-mortal (Readiness for Duty)

This hymn passed into the Supplement to Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns of the Church of Christ, Boston, 1853, and into other collections. Its authorship has never been disclosed, but its theme and mode of expression suggest that it may have been written by Bartol.

J. 120 H.W.F.

Bartrum, Joseph P., a Unitarian layman living in the 19^th century, who published The Psalms newly Paraphrased for the Service of the Sanctuary, Boston, 1833, from which his version of Psalm CVI,

O from these visions, dark and drear,

was taken for inclusion in several Unitarian collections in Great Britain and America and in the Universalist Church Harmonies, New and Old, 1895. His version of Psalm LXXXVII,

Amid the heaven of heavens,

is included in Holland’s Psalmists of Britain, 1843, vol. II, p. 339, with a critical note.

Neither hymn is found in use today.

J. 116 H.W.F.

Beach, Rev. Seth Curtis, D.D., near Marion, Wayne County, New York, August 3, 1837—January 30, 1932, Watertown, Massachusetts. He graduated from Union College, Schenectady, New York in 1863, and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1866. From 1867 to 1869 he served the Unitarian Church in Augusta, Maine. Ill health then led him to take up a farm in Minnesota for four years. In 1873 he returned to New England, where his longest pastorates were at Bangor, Maine, 1891-1901, and at Wayland, Massachusetts, 1901-1911, when he retired to Watertown. His hymn,

1. Mysterious Presence! Source of all,

was first printed in the “Order of Exercises at the Fiftieth Annual Visitation of the Divinity School, July 17, 1866,” having been written for that occasion.

In 1884 he wrote

2. Thou One in all, thou All in one (God in Nature)

These two hymns were included in the Unitarian New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937. His third hymn

3. Kingdom of God! The day how blest,

is included in the Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908.

J. 1581 H.W.F.

Belknap, Rev. Jeremy, D.D., Boston, Massachusetts, June 4, 1744—June 20, 1798, Boston. He graduated from Harvard College in 1762; taught school for four years; in 1766 accepted a position as assistant to Rev. Jonathan Cushing of Dover, New Hampshire, and in 1767 was ordained, serving that parish until 1786. In 1787 he became minister of the Federal Street Church, (now the Arlington Street Church) Boston, which he served until his death. Harvard gave him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1792. He was the author of a three volume History of New Hampshire; of a petition (1788) for the abolition of the slave trade; and of other books and essays; and formed the plan for the Massachusetts Historical Society, organized in 1791. He wrote no hymns but made an important contribution to American hymnody in his collection Sacred Poetry: consisting of Psalms and Hymns adapted to Christian devotion in public and private. Selected from the best authors, with variations and additions, by Jeremy Belknap, D.D., Boston, 1795, which ran to many editions. His intention was to provide a book acceptable to both the conservative and the liberal wings of Congregationalism, to bridge the widening gap which resulted in the formation of the Unitarian denomination a generation later. In this he failed, for only the liberal churches accepted it, though it was widely used by them for 40 years, being much the best of the period. It includes 300 hymns from the best English sources, and was the first to introduce to Americans the hymns by Anne Steele. The only American hymns in the collection are Jacob Kimball’s metrical version of Psalm 65 and Mather Byles’ When wild confusion rends the air.

H.W.F.

Blake, Rev. James Vila, Brooklyn, New York, January 21, 1842—April 28, 1925, Chicago, Illinois. He graduated from Harvard College in 1862 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1866, and served Unitarian churches in Massachusetts and Illinois, his last and longest pastorate being at Evanston, Ill., 1892-1916. Author of a number of books. He shared with W. C. Gannett, q.v. and F. L. Hosmer, q.v. in the compilation of the first edition of Unity Hymns and Chorals, 1880, which included his hymn,

Father, Thou art calling, calling to us plainly,

included also in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937. The latter book also includes his hymn of the church universal,

O sing with loud and joyful song.

H.W.F.

Briggs, C. A.

A hymn beginning,

God’s law demands one living faith (Law of God)

is attributed to a person with this name in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853. It is probable, but not certain, that the author was Rev. Charles Briggs, Halifax, Massachusetts, January 17, 1791—December 1, 1873, Roxbury, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1815 and from the Divinity School in 1818, was minister of the First Church in Lexington, Massachusetts, 1818-1834, and secretary of the American Unitarian Association, 1835-1848.

H.W.F.

Briggs, LeBaron Russell, LL.D., Salem, Massachusetts, December 11, 1855—April 24, 1934, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He graduated from Harvard College in 1875, A.M., 1882; served as tutor, then as professor of English, and as dean from 1891-1925. Harvard gave him the degree of LL.D. in 1900, as did Yale in 1917, and Lafayette University gave him the degree of Litt.D. For the celebration of the 300^th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, December 21, 1920, he wrote a poem which is introduced by a prayer in three stanzas, 11.10.11.10, offered by “The Pilgrim”, beginning,

God of our fathers, who hast safely brought us,

It is a fine hymn of thanksgiving for religious freedom and it was included in the program celebrating the 300^th anniversary of the “Cambridge Platform” in October 27, 1948. It deserves wide use.

H.W.F.

Brooks, Rev. Charles Timothy, Salem, Massachusetts, June 20, 1813—June 14, 1883, Newport, Rhode Island. He graduated from Harvard College in 1832 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1835. He was ordained as the first minister of the Unitarian Church in Newport, Rhode Island, on January 1, 1837, and served there until 1873. He was author of a number of books, most of them translations from German poets and novelists. After his death a volume entitled Poems, Original and Translated, was published. The only hymn with which his name is associated was in two stanzas beginning,

God bless our native land!

said to have been written while he was a student in the Divinity School. Part of the first and almost the whole of the second stanza were rewritten by J. S. Dwight, q.v., and Putnam, in Songs of the Liberal Faith, states that it was first published in this form in one of Lowell Mason’s song books in 1844. It was included, with further alterations, in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns of the Church of Christ, 1853, and with yet other changes in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864. In the 20^th century collection also entitled Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, the hymn appears in 3 stas. of which the first is by Brooks, the second by Dwight, and a third, of which the first 3 lines are those introduced by Longfellow and Johnson, the remaining four lines from a later unknown source, and its authorship is attributed to “Composite: based on Charles Timothy Brooks and John Sullivan Dwight.” The complicated history of this hymn is traced in Julian, 184, 1566, 1685.

H.W.F.

Bryant, William Cullen, Cummington, Massachusetts, November 3, 1794—June 12, 1878, New York, New York. He was a student at Williams College for two years, then studied law, and was admitted to the bar at Great Barrington, Massachusetts in 1815, where he practised until 1825 when he removed to New York. There he devoted himself to journalism as editor of The New York Review and of the New York Evening Post, reserving part of his time, especially in later years, to literary pursuits at his retreat at Roslyn, Long Island, where he wrote addresses, essays and reviews as well as poems. In point of time he was the first of the famous group of New England poets of the nineteenth century. He began writing verses when a child and composed his noblest poem, Thanatopsis, when only eighteen years of age. His first volume of poems, containing one entitled The Ages delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard, and some others, was published in 1821. In 1832 a volume entitled Poems, complete to that date, was published, for which Washington Irving secured republication in England, where it brought him wide recognition. Many successive editions of Poems, each with some additional items, were published in later years, and after his death a complete edition of the Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant appeared in 1879. He also had privately printed a little volume of his Hymns, 1869.

The following pieces by him have been included in various collections of hymns, some of them having considerable use in Great Britain as well as in this country.

1. All praise to him of Nazareth (Communion)

Dated 1864. Included in Hatfield’s (British) Church Hymn Book, 1874, in 3 stanzas, and in Songs of the Sanctuary and in Putnam’s Singers and Songs, etc. in 5 stanzas.

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2. All that in this wide world we see (Omnipresence)

Dated 1836, but Beard, in his Collection, (British) 1837, gives it as an original contribution, thus fixing the date of first publication. Putnam, Singers and Songs, etc., notes that it was “Written, probably, for some church in England,” information which sounds like the aged poet’s vague recollection many years after he had responded to Beard’s request. Included in Lunt’s Christian Psalter, 1841.

3. All things that are on earth,(Love of God)

Included in Beard’s Collection, 1837.

4. Almighty! hear thy children raise, (Praise)

One of five hymns written by Bryant at the request of Miss Sedgwick for inclusion (without the author’s name) in Sewall’s Collection, 1820, compiled for use in the First Congregational Society of New York (Unitarian), now All Souls Church. In Beard’s Collection, 1837, the first line is altered to read

Almighty, listen while we praise,

and in the Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book, Boston, 1868, it is altered to

Almighty, hear us while we praise,

5. As shadows cast by cloud and sun,

Written for the Semi-Centennial of the Church of the Messiah, Boston, March 19, 1875. Included in the Methodist Episcopal Hymnal, New York, 1878.

6. Close softly, fondly, while ye weep (Death)

Included in H. W. Beecher’s Plymouth Collection, 1855.

7. Dear ties of mutual succor bind (Charity)

Putnam, Singers and Songs, 1874, p. 130, says, “Mr. 65 Bryant has kindly sent us, as an additional contribution to this volume, the following exquisite lines, which were written about forty years since, for some charitable occasion, and which he lately found among some old papers. They are not among his published poems.” Included in the Methodist Episcopal Hymnal, 1878.

8. Deem not that they are blest alone (Mourning)

Written for Sewall’s Collection, 1820, vide supra. Included in Beard’s Collection, 1837, and, the first line altered to read,

O deem not they are blest alone,

in Martineau’s Hymns of Prayer and Praise, 1873, and in Songs for the Sanctuary, New York, 1865-1872.

9. Father, to thy kind love we owe, (God’s Loving Kindness)

One of the five hymns, written by Bryant for inclusion in Sewall’s Collection, New York, 1820. Included in the Hymn and Tune Book, Boston, 1868, and in Martineau’s Hymns, 1873. In Putnam’s Singers and Songs, etc. the first line reads,

Our Father, to thy love we owe.

10. How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps? (Future life)

A memorial poem in 9 stanzas rather than a hymn, but included in part in the supplement of devotional readings in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853. Complete text in Putnam’s Singers and Songs, etc., pp. 125-126.

11. Look from Thy sphere of endless day (Home missions)

Dated 1840. Included in Songs for the Sanctuary, 66 New York, 1865; in Horder’s (British) Congregational Hymns, 1884, and in the Pilgrim Hymnal, 1935.

12. Lord, who ordainest for mankind (Thanks for Mother Love)

Written at the request of Rev. Samuel Osgood of New York for inclusion in his Christian Worship, 1862, and included in Martineau’s Hymns, etc., 1873.

13. Mighty One, before whose face (Ordination)

Dated c. 1820. It was included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns, etc. 1853, H. W. Beecher’s Plymouth Collection, 1855, and elsewhere.

14. Not in the solitude, (God in the city)

Dated 1836. Included in Martineau’s Hymns, 1873.

15. O God, whose dread and dazzling brow (God’s compassion)

Included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns, etc. 1853, and in the Hymn and Tune Book, Boston, 1868.

16. O North, with all thy vales of green! (Reign of Christ)

Included in the author’s privately printed Hymns, 1869, undated. It passed into several British collections, e.g., the Scotch Church Hymnary, 1898; Worship Song, 1905; The English Hymnal, 1906; and is included in the American Episcopal Hymnal, 1940.

17. O Thou, whose love can ne’er forget (Ordination)

One of Bryant’s early hymns, perhaps written for the ordination of Rev. William Ware, December, 1821, as minister of the First Congregational Society of New York, (now All Souls Church). Included in Beard’s English Collection, 1837.

18. O Thou Whose own vast temple stands (Opening of a house of worship)

Written in 1835 for the dedication of a Chapel in Prince Street, New York. The building was soon 67 afterwards destroyed by fire. This hymn is the most widely used of all those written by Bryant. It was included in Beard’s English Collection in 1837, and in Martineau’s Hymns, 1873. In Putnam’s Singers and Songs, etc., the opening line reads,

Thou, whose unmeasured temple stands,

and in this form it was included in Lunt’s Christian Psalter, 1861, and in the American Presbyterian Psalms and Hymns, Richmond, 1867; in Horder’s Congregational Hymns, London, 1884; and elsewhere.

19. Standing forth in life’s rough way (On behalf of children)

Included in Dr. Allon’s (British) Children’s Worship, 1878; in Horder’s Congregational Hymns, 1884; and elsewhere.

20. Thou unrelenting past (The Past)

Dated 1836. A poem of 14 stanzas, a few of which were included in Martineau’s Hymns, 1873.

21. When doomed to death the Apostle lay (On behalf of Drunkards)

Included in the Methodist Episcopal Hymnal, 1878.

22. When he who from the scourge of wrong (Hope of Resurrection)

Written for Sewall’s Collection, 1820. Included in Lyra Sacra Americana, 1868.

23. When this song of praise shall cease (Anticipation of Death)

Written for a collection of hymns printed at the end of a Sunday School Liturgy, prepared by James Lombard, of Utica, New York, in 1859. Included in Bryant’s privately printed Hymns, 1869, and in Stevenson’s (British) School Hymnal, 1889.

24. When the blind suppliant in the way (Opening the eyes of the blind)

68

Dated 1874. Included in the Methodist Episcopal Hymnal, New York, 1878.

25. Whither, midst falling dew, (Divine Guidance)

This is one of Bryant’s best known poems, entitled “To a Waterfowl,” and dated 1836, and is in no sense a hymn, although included in Martineau’s Hymns, 1873.

26. Wild was the day, the wintry sea, (The Pilgrim Fathers)

Included in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864.

Putnam, Singers and Songs, etc., p. 123 reports a hymn beginning

Ancient of Days! except Thou deign,

“written for the dedication of Rev. R. C. Waterston’s church in Boston,” and another hymn beginning

Lord, from whose glorious presence came,

written “at the request of a friend, Mr. Hiram Barney, for the opening of an Orthodox Congregational Church,” but does not print the text of either, and neither appears to have been included in any Collection.

As indicated in the foregoing list, the text of several of Bryant’s hymns is found with the opening line altered from the original, either by the author himself, or, presumably, with his consent, so that it is impossible to say which is the correct or authorized form, and frequently no more than approximate date of composition can be given.

The early flowering of Bryant’s gifts as a poet, promoted by a fortunate combination of circumstances, quickly brought him widespread recognition in both Great Britain and America, which deepened 69 into respect for his fine character as he advanced in age. The writings of no other American poet of his period were so eagerly searched by compilers of hymn books, who sometimes included verses which were meditative, poems rather than hymns, e.g., nos. 8, 10, 20 and 25 in the above list. Bryant’s mind was cool and meditative, and his hymns are correct and smoothly flowing, but seldom touched with lyric fire, and none of them quite reach the highest level. They express an attitude towards religion characteristic of the intellectual life of his time but now largely passed away. No. 16 is still included in several leading hymn collections of the 20^th century; nos. 11 and 18 are in the Unitarian New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914; and nos. 12 and 18 are in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 189-190, 1682 H.W.F.

Bulfinch, Rev. Stephen Greenleaf, D.D., Boston, Massachusetts, June 18, 1809—October 12, 1870, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was son of Charles Bulfinch, a leading architect, and received his early education in Washington, D.C., returning to Cambridge to enter the Harvard Divinity School, from which he graduated in 1830. He was ordained in January, 1831, as assistant to Rev. Samuel Gilman, q.v., of Charleston, South Carolina, and later served Unitarian churches in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Washington, D.C.; Nashua, New Hampshire; Dorchester, Massachusetts and East Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was a voluminous writer in both prose and verse. Most of his hymns first appeared in his books Contemplations of the Saviour, Boston, 1832; Poems, Charleston, 1834; and Lays of the Gospel, 1845. The first of these was reprinted in England, where 19 of his hymns were included in Beard’s Collection, 1837, and where they had widespread use.

His best known hymns are as follows:

1. Benignant Saviour: ’twas not thine, (Compassion of Christ)

From his “Contemplations of the Saviour,” altered in Horder’s Congregational Hymns, 1884, to read

Most gracious Saviour: ’twas not thine.

2. Burden of shame and woe, (The Crucifixion)

3. Hail to the Sabbath day, (Sunday)

4. Hath not thy heart within thee burned, (Evening)

5. Holy Son of God most high, (Christ)

6. How glorious is the hour, (The New Life)

7. In the Saviour’s hour of death, (Good Friday)

8. It is finished! Glorious word, (Good Friday)

9. Lord, in this sacred hour, (Worship)

10. O suffering friend of all mankind, (Passiontide)

11. There is a strife we all must wage, (Life’s Duty)

71

12. Toiling through the livelong night, (Miracle of fishes)

13. What power unseen by mortal eye, (Miracle)

These hymns are well written contemplations of gospel episodes, as viewed by the conservative piety of the author’s period. Several were included in Longfellow and Johnson’s Book of Hymns, 1846-1848; nos. 6 and 10 are in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853; and most of them in one and another 19^th century collection. Only No. 4 has survived in present-day use, being found in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 191, 1555 revised H.W.F.

Burleigh, William Henry, Woodstock, Connecticut, February 12, 1812—March 18, 1871, Brooklyn, New York. He was an editor and publisher working successively in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1837-1843; in Hartford, Connecticut, 1843-1849; in Syracuse, New York, 1849-1854. From 1855-1870 he was Harbor Master of New York. He was a member of the Second Unitarian Church in Brooklyn and an ardent advocate of anti-slavery and temperance reforms. Early in life he began writing hymns and other poems which were printed in various periodicals, but for many of which the date and occasion are impossible to determine. They were collected for publication in a volume entitled Poems, Philadelphia, 1841, and this book, enlarged with his later poems, was republished in 1871 after his death, with a biographical notice by his wife. Some of the best were included in the British collection Lyra Sacra Americana, 1868, the editor of which, Dr. Cleveland, said, “Most of these beautiful hymns of Mr. Burleigh’s were given to me in ms. by the author.” From this publication they were taken for extensive use in British hymn books.

1. Abide not in the realm of dreams, (The Harvest Call)

Included in Putnam, Singers and Songs, etc., is a poem of 10 stanzas from which a cento consisting of the first two lines of stanza 1 combined with the second two lines of stanza 2, followed by stanzas 3, 6, 7 and 10 are taken to form a hymn in the New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

2. Fades from the west the farewell light (Night)

This poem, entitled “A Psalm of Night,” is given in his Poems, New York, 1871. Although not in 73 the first edition of Poems, 1841, stanzas selected from it came into use as early as 1844. The original is in 5 stanzas of 8 lines. From it the following centos have come into use.

(a) Day unto day uttereth speech,

This consists of stanzas III-V, and is given in the Christian Hymns of the Cheshire Pastoral Association, 1844, as an “Evening Hymn.”

(b) O Holy Father, mid the calm

This cento consists of stanzas IV-V, and is given in Longfellow and Johnson’s Book of Hymns, 1846, and in their Hymns of the Spirit, 1864.

(c) Not only doth the voiceful day,

Composed of stanzas II-III, in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864. Another arrangement beginning with the same stanza is in Lyra Sacra Americana.

(d) The brightening dawn and voiceful day,

In the British Hymnary, London, 1872, an altered form of (c), with the addition of a doxology.

In these various forms the use of this hymn was very extensive.

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3. Father, beneath thy sheltering wing, (Trust and Peace)

Printed in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines. Included in the British Baptist Hymnal, 1879; in Horder’s Congregational Hymns, 1884; and others; and in many American collections.

4. Father, thy servant waits to do thy will (Ordination)

“Written for the ordination of Mr. J. W. Chadwick, as pastor of the Second Unitarian Church, in Brooklyn, New York, 1864.” Included in Putnam, Singers and Songs, etc.

5. For the dear love that kept us through the night (Morning)

Taken from the author’s Poems, 1871, for inclusion in Horder’s Congregational Hymns, 1884.

6. From the profoundest depths of tribulation (Lent)

A meditative poem rather than a hymn, included in the Supplement to Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns of the Church of Christ, 1853.

7. Lead us, O Father, in the paths of peace (Divine Guidance)

In Lyra Sacra Americana headed “A Prayer for Guidance.” This is one of the author’s best known and most widely used hymns. Included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

8. Not in vain I poured my supplication (Lent)

A continuation of the same thought as no. 6, preceding, which it follows in the Supplement to Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns, etc.

9. O deem not that earth’s crowning bliss, (Morning)

75

In his Poems, 1871; in Lyra Sacra Americana from which it passed into the British Baptist Hymnal, 1879, and Horder’s Congregational Hymns, 1884, and others. In the Methodist Episcopal Hymnal, New York, 1878, the hymn beginning

From lips divine the healing balm

is a cento from this poem.

10. Still will we trust though earth seems dark and dreary, (Faith)

From Lyra Sacra Americana this passed into many non-conformist collections in Great Britain where it was the most widely used of all of Burleigh’s hymns. It had a much more limited use in this country. Included in Putnam’s Singers & Songs, etc.

11. There is a beautiful land by the spoiler untrod, (Heaven)

Dr. Cleveland, editor of Lyra Sacra Americana says “This piece was first published in the Independent, Jan. 18, 1866.”

12. They who have kept their virgin whiteness, (Purity)

In Lyra Sacra Americana.

13. Thou who look’st with pitying eye (Lent)

In Lyra Sacra Americana.

14. Through the changes of the day (Evening)

From his Poems, 1841. In Lyra Sacra Americana; in S.P.C.K.’s Psalms and Hymns, 1852; in Thring’s Collection, and other British books.

15. We ask not that our path be always bright, (Trust in God)

76

From Lyra Sacra Americana this passed into Horder’s Congregational Hymns, 1884.

16. When gladness gilds our prosperous day (Good in all)

From Lyra Sacra Americana this passed into Horder’s Congregational Hymns, 1884.

The above hymns have had much less use in this country than in Great Britain. Nos. 7 and 10 are in the Universalist Church Harmonies, 1895; nos. 1 and 7 in Hymns of the Spirit. 1937, no. 7 in The Hymnal, 1940; and no. 3 in the Isles of Shoals Hymn Book. The others, though very acceptable expressions of the religious thought and feeling in the era in which the author lived, have now dropped out of use.

J. 195-6 Revised H.W.F

Chadwick, Rev. John White, Marblehead, Massachusetts, October 19, 1840—December 11, 1904, Brooklyn, New York. After two years of study at the Bridgewater Normal School, and a shorter period at Phillips Exeter Academy, he entered the Harvard Divinity School, from which he graduated in 1864. He received the degree of A.M. 1888. In December, 1864, he was ordained minister of the Second Unitarian Church, Brooklyn, where he remained until his death. He was an influential preacher and a prolific author in both prose and verse, his principal publications being a Book of Poems, 1876, Nazareth Town, 1883 (poems), the two being later combined and republished in 1888 with the earlier title; The Bible Today, 1879: Old and New Unitarian Belief, 1894; and first-rate biographies of Theodore Parker, 1901, and William Ellery Channing, 1903. After his death a small volume was published entitled Later Poems, 1905, and his printed sermons have been collected in 14 volumes. As a young man he became a close friend of W. C. Gannett, q.v., and F. L. Hosmer, q.v., both of whom were also born in 1840, though not his classmates in the Divinity School, and his hymns are expressions of a theological outlook similar to theirs, notably in his endeavor to give a religious interpretation to the then disputed doctrine of evolution. Although several of his hymns are of exceptionally fine quality, he often wrote in haste, lacking the patience with which his two friends sought for the precise word to convey their meaning, but he often abbreviated or re-wrote his verses at the request of hymn-book editors, or willingly accepted their proposed alterations. The result is that some of his hymns now appear in forms which depart considerably from their original texts. His 78 secular poems, mostly the utterances of a nature lover, are often the too hastily written verse of a minor poet.

His Book of Poems, 1888, and Later Poems, 1905, include all his hymns, three of which had little use, viz:

1. A gentle tumult in the earth, (Easter) 1876

2. Everlasting Holy One, (Invocation) 1875

3. O God, we come not as of old, (Worship) 1874

His best known hymn was written for the Visitation Day exercises at the Harvard Divinity School, 1864,

4. Eternal Ruler of the ceaseless round,

It has been widely used in Great Britain and in this country. Other hymns by him have had considerable use, as follows:

5. Another year of setting suns, (New Year’s) 1873

This was written in ten stanzas beginning

“That this shall be a better year,”

but in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, only stas. 5, 6, 7, and 10 are given, beginning as above.

6. It singeth low in every heart, (Commemoration) 1876

Written for the 25^th anniversary of the dedication of his church in Brooklyn, and widely used.

7. Now sing we a song of the harvest, (Thanksgiving Day) 1871

8. O Love Divine, of all that is, (A song of Trust) 1865

9. O Thou, whose perfect goodness crowns, (Anniversary Hymn)

Written in 1889 for the 25^th anniversary of his ordination.

10. Thou glorious God, before whose face, (Anniversary Hymn)

Undated.

79

11. Thou whose spirit dwells in all, (Easter)

Written in 1890.

12. Thy seamless robe conceals Thee not, (Jesus)

Written in 1876. Included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, but not in later publications.

13. What has drawn us thus apart, (Unity of Spirit)

Written in 1891.

Several of the above hymns, as printed in current hymn-books, consist of selected stanzas, or have been slightly altered from their original forms, in most cases by Gannett and Hosmer, for inclusion in their collection Unity Hymns and Chorals, 1880, 1911. Two others included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, were not written as hymns but have been quarried out of verses in Later Poems, by permission of the author’s widow, viz:

14. Spirit of God, in thunder speak, (Summons to Duty)

This arrangement combines stanzas 13 and 16 in the poem entitled “A Missionary Chant”, used as the first two stanzas of the hymn, with stanzas 8 and 9 of the poem to “William Cullen Bryant” as the third and fourth stanzas of the hymn, both poems being found in Later Poems, 1905.

15. Thou mighty God, who didst of old, (Communion of Saints)

This is arranged from the same sources. Stanzas 1 and 2 are the first two stanzas in “William Cullen Bryant,” the last three stanzas are stanzas 11, 7, and 8 in “A Missionary Chant,” considerably altered. These arrangements were made by H. W. Foote, with the coöperation of 80 F. L. Hosmer and W. C. Gannett, for inclusion in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914.

Of the hymns listed above Hymns of the Spirit, 1937 includes Nos. 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, and 15.

J. 216, 1619 Revised by H.W.F.

Chapman, Mrs. (No information available).

An anti-slavery hymn beginning

O God of freedom! Hear us pray,

is attributed to “Mrs. Chapman” in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853.

H.W.F.

Cheney, Mrs. Ednah D. (Dow) Boston, Massachusetts, June 27, 1824—November 19, 1904, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. She married Seth Wells Cheney. She was the author of several books, including The Life and Letters of Louisa May Alcott. She wrote a hymn on “the larger prayer,” beginning

At first I prayed for Light,

in 4 stanzas of 10 lines each, printed in the Riverside Record and reprinted in the Boston Gazette, February 4, 1882. Enough lines have been taken from this hymn to make a much shorter one in 5 stanzas of four lines each, C.M. for inclusion in Unitarian hymn-books. It has also been considerably rewritten, but since this revised form is not marked as “altered” it is probable that the changes were made by the author or at least with her permission. It is included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

H.W.F.

Church, Edward Alonzo, Boston, Massachusetts, —— 1844—January 29, 1929, Roxbury, Massachusetts. He was a business man who wrote in 1904, for the laying of the cornerstone of a new edifice for the Church of the Disciples (Unitarian), Boston, of which he was a member, a hymn beginning,

Almighty Builder, bless, we pray,

The cornerstone that here we lay,

The next year, for the final service in the old edifice which the congregation was leaving, he wrote one beginning,

O Thou to whom in prayer and praise

We here have turned with constant heart.

Both hymns were included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and the first is also in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

H.W.F.

Clapp, Eliza Thayer, 1811-1888. She was a resident of Dorchester, Massachusetts. She was author of Words in a Sunday School, of Studies in Religion, New York, 1845, and of later essays on religion and of poems posthumously collected in a volume entitled Essays, Letters and Poems, privately printed in Boston, 1888. At the request of her friend R. W. Emerson she contributed three hymns and two poems to The Dial, 1841. From one of the hymns in 9 stanzas of 4 lines, published in The Dial, July, 1841, and entitled “The future is better than the past,” is taken the hymn beginning

All before us is the way, (Onward with confidence)

included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, where it was erroneously attributed to Emerson, an error which was repeated in several other collections which included it.

J. 234 H.W.F.

Clarke, Rev. James Freeman, D.D., Hanover, New Hampshire, April 4, 1810—June 8, 1888, Boston, Massachusetts. He was named for his step-grandfather, Rev. James Freeman, q.v. He graduated from Harvard College in 1829 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1833. He served as minister of the Unitarian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, from 1833 to 1840. In 1841 he returned to Boston where he gathered a group of persons interested in the more radical social and religious reforms of the day into a church which he named the Church of the Disciples (Unitarian) of which he remained minister until his death. He became one of the most distinguished ministers of his period in Boston, greatly beloved and admired for his courage as well as his piety, his wisdom as well as his wit. He was the author of several books (and many short printed articles) the best known of which were his Orthodoxy: its Truths and Errors, and Ten Great Religions. The latter is an amplification of lectures on Comparative Religion which he gave at the Harvard Divinity School as early as 1854, and again for several years in the eighteen-seventies, the earliest course in this field of study to be given in any American theological school. In 1844 he published a Service Book for use by his congregation, which included a small selection of hymns, among them Sarah Flower Adams’ Nearer my, God, to Thee, which had appeared in England only three years earlier and was now introduced for the first time to an American congregation, whence it quickly passed into numerous other collections. In 1852 a revised and enlarged edition of the Service Book was published entitled the Disciples Hymn Book, which included five hymns by the compiler. A few of his poems are included in Putnam’s Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith, and the following hymns by him have come into some use.

84

1. Brother, hast thou wandered far? (The Prodigal)

First printed in the Service Book, 1844. It appeared in abbreviated form as

Hast thou wasted all the powers?

(beginning with the second stanza) in Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853; in Beecher’s Plymouth Collection, 1855, and in other American and British books.

2. Dear Friend, whose presence in the house, (Jesus at Cana)

Dated 1855. A tender poem rather than a hymn, included in the British Lyra Sacra Americana.

3. Father, to us Thy children humbly kneeling (Aspiration)

About 1833, after arrival in Louisville, Clarke wrote a poem entitled “Hymn and Prayer” beginning Infinite Spirit, who art round us ever, which was published in The Dial for January, 1841. Five stanzas beginning

Unseen, yet not unfelt!—if any thought

were taken from this form of the poem for inclusion in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, but already Clarke had taken from his poem, and largely rewritten, three stanzas to make the hymn beginning as above. In this later form it was included in his Service Book, 1844, in Longfellow and Johnson’s Book of Hymns, 1846, in the Disciples Hymn Book, 1852, and in many later collections down to the present day.

4. For all thy gifts we bless Thee, Lord

Written for a Unitarian Convention in New York City, 85 held on October 22, 1845, and included in Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853.

5. Hast thou wasted all the powers,

Included in Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853.

6. To him who children blessed (Christening)

7. To Thee, O God in heaven (Christening)

Both of these tender and beautiful hymns for a christening appeared in the Service Book, 1844, and have passed into a good many other collections, although hymns are now seldom sung at such a service.

Of the above no. 3 was included in Longfellow and Johnson’s Book of Hymns, 1846, attributed to Clarke, and nos. 1, 5 and 6 were included as Anonymous. In their Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, these hymns were correctly attributed to Clarke. He was the author of a limited quantity of pleasing religious verse acceptable to his many friends rather than a hymn writer of distinction, his best ones being nos. 3, 5 and 6. The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, includes nos. 3 and 6; The Pilgrim Hymnal, 1935, includes nos. 3 and 5; Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, has only no. 3.

J. 235, 1556 Re-written, H.W.F.

Collyer, Rev. Robert, D.D., Keighly, Yorkshire, England, December 8, 1823—November 30, 1912, New York, New York. His education in childhood was very limited, and in early manhood he became a blacksmith, which had been his father’s trade. He joined the Methodist Church in 1847 and three years later sailed for America, settling at Shoemakertown, Pennsylvania, where he was both a blacksmith and a preacher. Having become acquainted with Dr. W. H. Furness, q.v., of Philadelphia, he accepted Unitarian beliefs and left the Methodist Church. His great intellectual abilities and natural gifts as a preacher brought him an invitation in 1859 to go to Chicago to take charge of the newly organized Unity Church in that city, which he served until 1879, when he accepted a call to the Church of the Messiah (Unitarian), New York. He was a widely popular lecturer and author of many published sermons, other articles, and a few occasional verses. The church of which he was minister was destroyed by the great Chicago fire of 1870 but was soon rebuilt. For the dedication of the new building in December 3, 1873, he wrote his one fine hymn beginning,

With thankful hearts, O God, we come,

which altered to

Unto thy temple, Lord, we come,

has had wide use in Unitarian hymn books and is included in the New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 1623 H.W.F.

Clute, Rev. Oscar, Bethlehem, New York, March 11, 1837—January 27, 1902, Sawtelle, California. He took the degree of M.S. at Michigan State College, and then studied at Meadville Theological School, 1867-1868. In the latter year he was ordained as minister of the Unitarian Church at Vineland, New Jersey, where he remained for five years. He served churches in Keokuk, Iowa, 1875-1878; Iowa City, 1878-1888; and Pomona, California, 1888-1889. From 1889 to 1893 he was president of Michigan State Agricultural College, and president of Florida Agricultural College from 1893 to 1897, when he moved to California.

He wrote a hymn beginning,

O Love of God most full,

O Love of God most free,

which is included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, and in The Hymnal (Presbyterian), 1935, the Handbook to which describes it as “a rhapsody of gratitude for the love of God.”

J. 1682 H.W.F.

Dana, Charles Anderson, Hinsdale, New Hampshire, August 8, 1819—October 17, 1897, Glen Cove, Long Island, New York. He was one of the leaders in the Brook Farm Association, 1842; then became a journalist and man of letters; on the staff of the New York Tribune, 1847-1862; Assistant Secretary of War, 1863-1864; editor of the New York Sun, 1868.

The hymn beginning

Work, and thou shalt bless the day (Joy in Labor)

which Hedge and Huntington included in their Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, and attributed to “C. A. Dana” was probably written while he was engaged in the Brook Farm experiment.

H.W.F.

Dwight, Rev. John Sullivan, Boston, Massachusetts, May 13, 1812—September 5, 1893. He graduated from Harvard College and from the Harvard Divinity School, and entered the Unitarian ministry, but after six years turned to literary pursuits, and was for nearly 50 years editor of the Journal of Music. A meditative poem by him in seven stanzas, entitled “True Rest,” beginning

Sweet is the pleasure,

is included in the Supplement in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, but it is not a hymn and his only connection with hymnody was his part in re-writing the hymn beginning

God bless our native land!

by his friend, C. T. Brooks, q.v. In most versions of this much altered hymn the second stanza is in the form given it by Dwight.

J. 1560, 1631 H.W.F.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, LL.D., Boston, Massachusetts, May 25, 1803—April 27, 1882, Concord, Massachusetts. He was the son of Rev. William Emerson, q.v., minister of the First Church of Boston (Unitarian) who, though not himself a hymn writer, published in 1808 the excellent small collection entitled A Collection of Psalms and Hymns (5).

R. W. Emerson graduated from Harvard College in 1821 and after further study in the Harvard Divinity School took his A.M. in 1827. He was ordained in 1829 as minister of the Second Church of Boston (Unitarian). He served the church for three years but resigned in 1832, feeling that his pastoral work was inadequate and that he was not in accord with his parishioners’ views about the Communion Service. A volume of his sermons, selected and edited by A. C. McGiffert, Jr., was published in 1938 under the title The Young Emerson Speaks. Although he preached occasionally for several years thereafter he never held another pastorate, but retired to Concord and devoted himself to lecturing and authorship. As an essayist and poet he rose to great and lasting distinction. He published Orations, Lectures, and Addresses, 1844; Poems, 1846; Representative Men, 1850; English Traits, 1856; and a succession of later volumes. His Collected Works were published after his death, in 12 volumes. Perhaps his most famous essay was his epoch-making Divinity School Address, delivered in 1838. In 1833 he wrote his hymn

We love the venerable house (The house of God)

for the ordination of his successor, Rev. Chandler Robbins, q.v., in the Second Church, though it is more a commemorative poem than an ordination hymn. It was included in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864; in Martineau’s Hymns of Praise and Prayer, printed in England in 1873; and in later Unitarian and other hymn 90 books down to the present day. Four stanzas selected from this poem, beginning with the second,

Here holy thoughts a light have shed,

were included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, though without the author’s name, and the same collection erroneously attributed to Emerson a hymn beginning,

All before us is the way,

the author of which was Eliza T. Clapp, q.v., an error which was repeated in various other collections.

Part of Emerson’s poem entitled The Problem, beginning

Out of the heart of nature rolled (The Everlasting Word)

originally printed in the Dial, July, 1840, and then in his Poems, 1846, was also included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, and in Martineau’s Hymns, but has since dropped out of use.

Another poem of two stanzas beginning

Not gold, but only men can make

was attributed to Emerson in the later book called Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, probably mistakenly. These verses are listed as Emerson’s in Granger’s Index to Poetry and Recitations, under A Nation’s Strength, and Granger states that they are to be found in a publication of The Penn Publishing Company of Philadelphia. They are not to be found, however, in the Centenary Edition of Emerson’s Poems nor in Hubbell’s Concordance to the poems of Emerson (N. Y., Wilson, 1932). It is therefore doubtful whether the attribution to Emerson is well-founded.

J. 329 Revised by H.W.F.

Everett, William, Watertown, Massachusetts, October 10, 1839—February 16, 1910, Quincy, Massachusetts. Son of Hon. Edward Everett. He graduated from Harvard College in 1859; took the B.A. degree at Cambridge University, England, in 1863; and the degrees of A.M. and LL. B. at Harvard in 1865. He received the honorary degree of Litt.D. from Williams College in 1889 and the degree of LL.D. from the same college in 1893 and from Dartmouth in 1901. After graduation from the Harvard Law School he did not enter the legal profession but served the College as tutor and then Assistant Professor of Latin for several years. In 1872 the Boston Association of Ministers licensed him as a lay preacher and thereafter he spoke frequently in Unitarian pulpits in New England, but he was never ordained as a settled minister. He served Adams Academy in Quincy, Massachusetts as headmaster from 1877 to 1907, with an interruption of two years when in 1893 he was elected a member of the House of Representatives in Washington. In 1866 The Christian Register printed his hymn beginning

Deal gently with us, Lord,

and three years later he wrote “for the Unitarian Festival at the Music Hall [Boston], May 27, 1869” a hymn beginning

Almighty Father, Thou didst frame

These hymns, and four others by him, are included in Putnam’s Singers and Songs, Etc.

J. 1634 H.W.F.

Fernald, Woodbury Melcher, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, March 21, 1813—December 10, 1873, Boston, Massachusetts. He entered the Universalist ministry in 1835 and served churches of that denomination in Newburyport and Chicopee, Massachusetts, and elsewhere, for a few years. He then became a Unitarian, without entering the ministry of that denomination, and eventually joined the Swedenborgian Church of the New Jerusalem in Boston. He did some travelling on behalf of this body, as far west as Wisconsin, in intervals of employment at the Custom House and, later, at the Post Office in Boston. He was author of books and essays, most of them expositions of Swedenborgian doctrine, and of a small amount of occasional verse, published in the periodicals of the day but never collected in a printed volume. In his private collection of his poems are a few hymns, only two of which appear to have had any public use. One beginning

Great Source of being, truth and love,

was written for the ordination of Rev. Thomas C. Adam as pastor of the West Universalist Society in Boston, March 12, 1845. The other,

When Israel, humbled of the Lord,

a protest against slavery published in the Boston Journal, in July, 1861, was included, in part and considerably re-written, in The Soldier’s Companion: Dedicated to the Defenders of their Country in the Field, by their Friends at Home. This was published as the Army Number of the Monthly Journal, Boston, October, 1861, vol. II, no. 10, a small Unitarian collection of hymns and devotional readings. In this collection the hymn begins,

When Israel’s foes, a numerous host,

and is attributed to “Rev. W. M. Fernald,” though it is not included in this form in the author’s private collection of his verse. None of his hymns appear to have had any further use.

H.W.F.

Flint, Rev. James, D.D. Reading, Massachusetts, December 10, 1779—March 4, 1855. He graduated from Harvard College in 1802, and was ordained an orthodox Congregational minister at East Bridgewater in 1806, where he soon adopted more liberal beliefs, and carried most of his congregation with him. In 1821 he accepted a call to the East Church (Unitarian) Salem, Massachusetts, where he served until his death. In 1843 he published A Collection of Hymns for the Christian Church and Home, to replace the earlier collection (1788) by Rev. William Bentley, q.v., for use in the East Church. Flint’s Collection included several hymns by himself. One of them, “On leaving an old house of worship,” beginning

Here to the high and holy One

was included in Lunt’s Christian Psalter, 1841, as was a second, written in 1840 for the 200^th anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Quincy, Massachusetts, beginning,

In pleasant lands have fallen the lines

That bound our goodly heritage.

This second hymn has been included in a number of later hymnbooks, among them The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 379 H.W.F.

Follen, Mrs. Eliza Lee (Cabot), Boston, Massachusetts, August 15, 1787—January 26, 1860, Brookline, Massachusetts. In 1828 she married Dr. Charles Follen, a German scholar who had sought freedom in this country and who was then teaching German Literature and Ecclesiastical History at Harvard. Later he was minister of the Unitarian Church (now called the Follen Church Society) at East Lexington, Massachusetts. Mrs. Follen both before and after her marriage contributed verse and prose articles to various periodicals and published a number of small books, including Hymns for Children, Boston, 1825; Poems, 1839, and, while she was in England in 1854, another small volume for children, entitled The Lark and the Linnet. These books contain some translations from the German and the versions of a few Psalms.

Her best known hymns are

1. How sweet to be allowed to pray, (Resignation)

This first appeared in The Christian Disciple, September 1818, then in her Poems, 1839, entitled “Thy will be done.”

2. How sweet upon this sacred day (Sunday)

In The Christian Disciple, September, 1828, and in Poems, entitled “Sabbath Day.”

3. Lord deliver, thou canst save, (Prayer for the Slave)

In Songs of the Free, 1836; in Adams and Chapin’s (Universalist) Hymns for Christian Devotion, Boston, 1845; in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853; and in other collections, but not included in her Poems.

96

4. God, thou art good, each perfumed flower, (God In Nature)

This first appeared in Hymns for Children, Boston, 1825, beginning with a defective line (7s instead of 8s)

(a) God is good! each perfumed flower

and altered as above in her Poems and in The Lark and the Linnet.

This hymn underwent further transformations in England. In Emily Taylor’s Sabbath Recreations, 1826, it was included as an original piece never before printed, and signed “E.L.C.”, the initials of Mrs. Follen’s maiden name. Possibly she sent a ms. copy to Miss Taylor before it appeared in Boston. In J. R. Beard’s British Unitarian Collection of Hymns, 1837, it appears as

(b) Yes, God is good! each perfumed flower,

J. H. Gurney, the Anglican hymn writer and editor, included it in his Lutterworth Collection of Hymns for Public Worship, 1838, but, while retaining Mrs. Follen’s opening stanza, rewrote about half of the remaining four stanzas, and in his later Marylebone Collection, 1851, rewrote it further, beginning it

(c) Yes, God is Good.—in earth and sky,

and in a note appended to the Index of first lines he wrote that he had found the hymn “in a small American volume —— well conceived, but very imperfectly executed,” and that because of “successive 97 alterations—the writer has not scrupled to put his name to it, J.H.G.” In these altered forms the hymn had considerable use in England (For further details see Julian, Dictionary, 1298).

5. Will God, who made the earth and sea, (Child’s Prayer)

In Poems, 1839. In Dr. Allan’s (English) Children’s Worship it is erroneously attributed to “H. Bateman.”

The only one of Mrs. Follen’s hymns in present use is 4c, in The Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908, but several of her poems are included in Putnam’s Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith.

J. 380, 1298 H.W.F.

Foote, Rev. Henry Wilder (I), Salem, Massachusetts, June 2, 1838—May 29, 1889, Boston, Massachusetts. Educated at Harvard, A.B. 1858; A.M. 1861; graduated at the Harvard Divinity School, 1861. He was minister of King’s Chapel (Unitarian), Boston, from 1861 until his death, and his book, The Annals of King’s Chapel (vol. I, 1882, vol. II, 1896, completed by others) gives an authoritative account of the religious controversies in Colonial Boston. At the time of his death he had in preparation a hymnbook to replace the Collection of Psalms and Hymns which his predecessor, Rev. F. W. P. Greenwood, q.v., had published in 1830. His hymnbook was completed by his widow, his sister Mrs. Mary W. Tileston, (q.v.) and his brother Arthur Foote, and was published in 1891 as Hymns of the Church Universal. It was notable for its scholarly catholicity and helped to introduce to American congregations the then popular English hymn tunes of the “cathedral school” by Barnby, Dykes, Stainer, Sullivan and others. The book included the hymn which Mr. Foote had written for the Visitation Day (graduation exercises) at the Divinity School in 1861,

O Thou with whom in sweet content

This hymn has also been included in Hymns for Church and Home, 1896, in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 1604 H.W.F.

Foote, Rev. Henry Wilder (II), D.D., Litt.D., Boston, Massachusetts, February 2, 1875—still living. Son of the above; educated at Harvard, A.B. 1897; A.M. 1900; S.T.B. 1902. He entered the Unitarian ministry and has served churches in New Orleans, Louisiana; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Belmont, Massachusetts and Charlottesville, Virginia. From 1914-1924 he was an assistant professor at the Harvard Divinity School where he gave a course on the history of Christian hymnody. He was secretary of the committee which edited The New Hymn and Tune Book, published in 1914 by the American Unitarian Association, and was chairman of the committee which edited Hymns of the Spirit, published in 1937 by the Beacon Press (to be distinguished from the earlier Hymns of the Spirit by S. Johnson and S. Longfellow, 1864). This later book includes one hymn by Dr. Foote beginning,

Thou whose love brought us to birth,

Dr. Foote also edited the words in The Concord Anthem Book, 1924, and in The Second Concord Anthem Book, 1936, for which Professor Archibald T. Davison selected and edited the music. He is the author of several books and articles on the cultural or religious aspects of American colonial history, one of which, Three Centuries of American Hymnody, 1940, covers the period from the publication of the Bay Psalm Book in 1640 to the late nineteen-thirties.

Freeman, James, D.D., Charlestown, Massachusetts, April 22, 1759—November 14, 1835, Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1777. In March, 1776, Rev. Henry Caner, rector of King’s Chapel, Boston, left with the British troops when they evacuated the town, accompanied by many of his leading parishioners. The remaining members of the church in September, 1782, engaged James Freeman as a lay “Reader” to conduct worship. The prayers for the King and royal family of England had been dropped and Freemen soon began to omit references to the Trinity, expecting soon to be dismissed as Reader. Instead the congregation voted to revise the liturgy in accordance with his beliefs and in 1785 published the first edition of the “Book of Common Prayer according to the Use of King’s Chapel.” This action led Bishop Seabury, after his arrival in America, to refuse ordination to Freeman, whereupon the congregation ordained him according to Congregational usage. Freeman thus became “the first avowed preacher of Unitarianism in the United States.” He remained active pastor of the Chapel until 1826. He edited a Collection of Psalms and Hymns for public worship, published in 1799. It included 155 psalms “selected chiefly from Tate and Brady,” followed by 90 hymns, and remained in use in the Chapel until the publication in 1830 of the much better Collection edited by his successor, Rev. F. W. P. Greenwood, q.v. Freeman wrote one hymn

Lord of the worlds below (The Seasons)

which first appeared in his Collection, from which it passed to a number of later ones. It is an adaptation for congregational use of Thomson’s “Hymn on the Seasons.” See Putnam, Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith.

J. 389 Revised by H.W.F.

Frothingham, Rev. Nathaniel Langdon, D.D., Boston, July 23, 1793—April 4, 1870, Boston. He graduated from Harvard in 1811, and after a brief period of further study and as tutor in the College, he entered the Unitarian ministry and in 1815 was settled as minister of the First Church in Boston, where he served until 1850, when ill-health and approaching blindness caused his resignation. He was one of the most distinguished Boston ministers of his period, and the author of a good deal of verse, published in his Metrical Pieces, Translated and Original, 1855, and in a second volume with the same title in 1870. In 1828 he wrote his finest hymn,

1. O God, whose presence glows in all

for the ordination of his friend, W. P. Lunt, q.v., as minister of the Second Unitarian Congregational Church, New York, on June 19, of that year.

In 1835 he wrote

2. We meditate the day

for the installation of Mr. Lunt as Co-pastor with Rev. Peter Whitney of the First Church at Quincy, Massachusetts, and in 1839 he wrote

3. O Lord of life and truth and grace,

for the ordination of Henry Whitney Bellows in New York.

His later hymns were

4. O Saviour, whose immortal word,

“Written for the Dedication of the Church of the Saviour, Boston, November 16, 1847.”;

5. Remember me, the Saviour said, (Communion Service)

102

6. The Lord gave the word,

’Twas the word of his truth.

7. The patriarch’s dove, on weary wing,

8. They passed away from sight, (Death and Burial)

9. When I am weak, I’m strong (Spiritual Strength)

Of these hymns the first two were included in Lunt’s Christian Psalter, 1841; nos. 1, 2, 6 and 7 were included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ (1853); and all but no. 8 are included in the author’s Metrical Pieces, 1855. No. 5 had considerable use in the 19^th century, but no. 1 alone survives in 20^th century Unitarian collections.

J. 400, 1564 Revised H.W.F.

Frothingham, Rev. Octavius Brooks, son of Rev. Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham, D.D., q.v., Boston, November 26, 1822—November 27, 1895, Boston. He graduated from Harvard College in 1843, and in 1846 from the Harvard Divinity School, where, for the graduating exercises of his class, he wrote his fine, and only, hymn,

Thou Lord of Hosts, whose guiding hand, (Soldiers of the Cross)

which was included in the Book of Hymns prepared by his classmates, Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson, published later in the same year. He served as minister of the (Unitarian) North Church, Salem, Massachusetts from 1847 to 1855, and became minister of the Third Congregational Church in New York City, resigning in 1879. He was a bold, outspoken, eloquent speaker, and the author of many printed discourses and of several important biographies.

J. 400, 1638 H.W.F.

Furness, Rev. William Henry, D.D., Boston, Massachusetts, April 20, 1802—January 30, 1896, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Harvard College in 1820 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1823, and was given the degree of Doctor of Divinity by Harvard in 1847. In 1825 he was ordained minister of the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia where he served for 50 years before becoming pastor emeritus, his connection with the church covering a period of 71 years. He was an accomplished scholar, and attained distinction as a preacher, an author and a worker in social reforms. His publications include Notes on the Gospels, 1836; Jesus and his Biographers, 1838; The History of Jesus, 1850; a Manual of Domestic Worship, 1840, in which his earlier hymns were printed; a translation of Schiller’s Song of the Bell; and other translations from the German. His collected Verses, Translations and Hymns appeared in 1886. The following hymns by him have had considerable use.

1. Father in heaven, to Thee my heart,

Appeared in The Christian Disciple, 1822. It was printed in this form in several collections, including the Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book, 1868. In Longfellow and Johnson’s Book of Hymns, 1846, it reads

Father in heaven, to whom our hearts

and was reprinted in this form in their Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, and in Martineau’s Hymns of Praise and Prayer, 1873.

This hymn has sometimes been attributed to “H. Ware,” in error.

2. Feeble, helpless, how shall I,

Included on the Cheshire Christian Hymns, 1844, and in later 19^th century Unitarian publications; also in the 104 British Lyra Sacra Americana, 1868, and Thring’s Collection, 1882.

3. Have mercy, O Father,

Contributed to Martineau’s Hymns of Praise and Prayer, 1873.

4. Here in a world of doubt, (Psalm XLII)

Contributed to the New York Lutheran Coll., 1834, and included in the author’s Manual of Domestic Worship, 1840 and in Martineau’s Hymns, 1873.

5. Here in the broken bread,

Included in the Appendix to the Philadelphia Unitarian Collection, 1828; in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853; and in a few later collections, among them The Hymn and Tune Book, 1868.

6. Holy Father, Gracious art Thou,

Contributed to Martineau’s Hymns, 1873.

7. I feel within a want,

Included in the Cheshire Christian Hymns, 1844; in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853; and in a few other collections.

8. In the morning I will praise (pray)

In the author’s Manual of Domestic Worship, 1840, this hymn began

In the morning I will raise

and was thus included in Martineau’s Hymns, 1873, but in Longfellow and Johnson’s Book of Hymns, 1846, and later American collections the first stanza is dropped and the hymn begins

In the morning I will pray

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9. O for a prophet’s fire,

Included in the Appendix to the Philadelphia Unitarian Collection, 1828, and in the Cheshire Christian Hymns, 1844.

10. Richly, O richly have I been,

Written in 1823 and included in the author’s Manual of Domestic Worship, 1840. In Longfellow and Johnson’s Book of Hymns, 1846, and in their Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, it is altered to begin

O richly, Father, have I been

In Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, and most later Unitarian and other collections, the opening stanza is dropped and it begins with the second stanza,

Unworthy to be called Thy son,

11. She is not dead, but sleepeth

Included in the author’s Verses, Translations and Hymns, 1886.

12. Slowly by Thy [God’s] hand unfurled

Written in 1825 and included in the author’s Manual of Domestic Worship, 1840. In Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, the first line was changed to read,

Slowly by God’s hand unfurled,

and was thus printed in the Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book, 1868. In Martineau’s Hymns, 1873, and in most later American Unitarian collections, the original reading has been retained.

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13. That God is Love, unchanging Love,

Written in 1892 and included in Hymns for Church and Home, 1896, and in The Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908.

14. Thou only Living, only True,

An ordination hymn, dated 1868, included in Martineau’s Hymns, 1873.

15. Thou who dost all things give

Written in 1869. Included in the author’s Verses, Translations and Hymns, 1886; in The Pilgrim Hymnal, 1904; and in Horder’s Treasury of American Sacred Song, 1896.

16. To the High and Holy One,

This is printed in full in Lyra Sacra Americana, 1868. In Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, the first stanza is dropped and it begins with the 2^nd stanza,

To the truth that makes us free,

17. What is the world that it should share,

Printed in the Christian Disciple, 1822, and in Martineau’s Hymns, 1873. It begins with the second stanza of a hymn of which the opening line reads,

Here in Thy temple, Lord, we bow,

In Lyra Sacra Americana it is altered to read

Oh, is there aught on earth to share

18. What is this that stirs within?

Printed in the author’s Manual of Domestic Worship, 1840; in the Cheshire Christian Hymns, 1844, in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, and in a good many other American collections.

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Dr. Furness’s hymns, though creditable religious verse of the period and widely esteemed because of the author’s distinction, nowhere attain a very high level of poetic beauty, and almost all of them have passed out of use. Only nos. 8, 10, and 12 were included in the Unitarian New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and only no. 12 survives in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 402, 1638 Revised by H.W.F.

Fuller, Sarah Margaret, Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 23, 1810—July 16, 1850, in a shipwreck south of New York. In 1847 she married the Marchese Ossoli in Rome. She did educational work in Boston and in Providence, Rhode Island, edited The Dial in 1840, and was noted locally for her intellectual brilliance. Memorials of her by R. W. Emerson, W. H. Channing and J. F. Clarke appeared in 1851, her Works in 1874.

Her hymn beginning

Jesus, a child his course began, (Christ the Pattern of Childhood)

from Life Without and Life Within, 1859, p. 404, had some use in Great Britain as well as in America.

J. 1585 H.W.F.

Gannett, Rev. William Channing, D.D., Boston, Massachusetts, March 13, 1840—December 15, 1923, Rochester, New York. He graduated from Harvard College in 1860; taught school in Newport, Rhode Island one year; and spent four years on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, as agent for the New England Freedmen’s Society doing relief and educational work with the thousands of Negro refugees gathered there. In 1865 he studied for a year in Europe, then entered the Harvard Divinity School from which he graduated in 1868. His first pastorate was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1868-1871. He then spent several years writing a biography of his father, Ezra Stiles Gannett, who had been William Ellery Channing’s successor as minister of the Federal Street Church, Boston. He was minister of Unity Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, 1877-1883; served the Western Unitarian Conference for four years; was minister at Hinsdale, Illinois, 1887-1889; and of the Unitarian Church in Rochester, New York, 1889-1908, where he remained as minister-emeritus until his death. Throughout his professional career he was closely associated with Frederick Lucian Hosmer, q.v. Together they published three small collections entitled The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems, the first in 1885, the second in 1894, the third in 1918; and together they also edited Unity Hymns and Chorals, 1880, revised edition in 1911. James Vila Blake, q.v., was co-editor of the first edition. This little hymn book is a markedly individualistic production with many of the older hymns altered to conform to the beliefs of the editors.

In these publications, in which most of their own hymns were first published, and in the careful workmanship with which their thought was brought to a perfection of poetic utterance, Gannett 109 and Hosmer may be compared to Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson whose Book of Hymns, 1846, and Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, had appeared a generation earlier.

Dr. Gannett’s hymns are listed, with annotations “based upon ms. notes kindly supplied by the author” in Julian’s Dictionary of Hymnology, pp. 1638-9, as follows:

1. Bring, O morn thy music! Night thy starlit silence! (God Everlasting)

Written in 1892, and printed in A Chorus of Faith, being an account and resumé of the Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago, 1893. Included in The Thought of God, 2^nd Series, 1894, and again in several hymnals.

2. Clear in memory’s silent reaches, (Memory)

Written in 1877 for a Free Religious Association Festival, and published in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885.

3. From heart to heart, from creed to creed, (Faith)

Written in 1875 for 150^th anniversary of the First Religious Society of Newburyport, and given in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885.

4. He hides within the lily, (Divine Providence)

“Consider the lilies, how they grow.” Written in 1873, and printed for use at the Free Religious Association Festival, May 30, 1873. Published in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885, in 4 st. of 8 l. The most widely used of the author’s hymns.

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5. I hear it often in the dark, (The Voice of God)

Written at Milwaukee in 1870, and published in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885. Sometimes it begins with St. iii, “O God within, so close to me,” as in Hys. for Church and Home, Boston, 1895.

6. Praise to God and Thanksgiving, (Harvest)

Written in 1882 for a Harvest Festival at St. Paul, Minnesota, where he was then a pastor, and included in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885. In the Boston Pilgrim Hymnal, 1904, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, it begins

Praise to God, and thanks we bring,

7. Sleep, my little Jesus, (Christmas Carol)

Written for the Sunday School, St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1882, and given in The Thought of God, 2^nd Series, 1894, as “Mary’s Manger Song.”

8. The Lord is in His holy place (Dedication of a Place of Worship)

Written for the Dedication of the Rev. C. W. Wendte’s Church, Chicago, April 24, 1873, and published in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885. It is one of the most popular and widely used of the author’s hymns.

9. The morning hangs its signal, (Morning)

This is dated by the author “Chicago, July 30, 1886,” and printed in Love to God and Love to Man, being no. 28 of the Chicago “Unity Mission” series of hymns, n.d. It is also included in The Thought of God, 2^nd Series, 1894. Although a morning hymn it is adapted for use in Advent. It is usually known as “The Crowning Day.”

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Of the hymns thus listed in Julian’s Dictionary Nos. 1, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 9 have been widely used and are included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937. No. 1 was written to be set to J. B. Dykes’ tune Nicaea, to which it is usually sung. No. 4 is probably the earliest hymn in the English language to give a religious interpretation of the then novel and controversial doctrine of evolution. No. 9, as included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, is attributed to “William Channing Gannett and others”, being an arrangement from one of his poems.

Another fine hymn by Dr. Gannett beginning,

10. God laid his rocks in courses,

is unaccountably missing from the above list in Julian’s Dictionary. It is dated 1888 and was written for the dedication of the church in Hinsdale which was erected shortly before his pastorate there came to an end.

Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, also includes as a hymn beginning,

11. It sounds along the ages,

an arrangement of stanzas from one of Dr. Gannett’s poems entitled “The Word of God.”

Finally, mention should be made of his part in giving form to the great hymn beginning

12. Praise to the living God! All praiséd be his name!

This is a metrical version of the Yigdal, a summary of the Jewish faith attributed to Daniel Ben Judah who lived about the 14^th century A.D. About 1760 Thomas Olivers, a Methodist preacher visiting a Jewish synagogue in London, heard it chanted in Hebrew by the 112 cantor Leoni (Meyer Lyon) to a traditional melody. Much impressed he secured a prose translation which he turned into the hymn beginning

The God of Abraham praise,

to be sung to the same tune, to which he gave the name Leoni. His version, however, did not follow the original text at all closely, for he gave it a Christian interpretation. (A detailed account of this episode will be found in Julian’s Dictionary, pp. 1149-1151.) This hymn soon became, and has remained, widely popular. In the 1880’s Rabbi Max Landsberg of Temple Berith Kodesh in Rochester, New York, a friend of Rev. Newton Mann, q.v. then minister of the Unitarian Church in Rochester, asked Mr. Mann if he could not make a metrical version of the Yigdal in English which would be a more exact translation. Mr. Mann did so, but not in the metre of the tune to which the Hebrew text was sung. After Dr. Gannett had succeeded Mr. Mann in Rochester, Rabbi Landsberg asked him to recast Mr. Mann’s version in the same metre as the tune. Dr. Gannett did so, and his version in 5 stas. was included in the Jewish Union Hymnal, 1910, from which, with one stanza omitted and some other alterations which in most cases are not improvements, it has come into a number of Christian hymn books. The unchanged version in 4 stas. will be found in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, where it is recorded as “Revised version of the Yigdal of Daniel Ben Judah” and the tune is called “Yigdal (Leoni)” and is described as “Jewish Melody, arr. by Meyer Lyon.” Dr. Gannett never claimed this version as his, and it is 113 now impossible to discover how much of its wording is due to Mr. Mann’s earlier verse, but its poetic perfection is highly suggestive of Dr. Gannett’s craftsmanship, which assuredly has contributed much to its present form.

H.W.F

Gilman, Mrs. Caroline (Howard), Boston, Massachusetts, October 8, 1794—September 18, 1888, Washington D. C. She married Rev. Samuel Gilman, q.v., on October 14, 1819, and after his death in 1858 lived for a time in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and later in Tiverton, Long Island, New York.

She began to write stories and poems at an early age, many of which were published in “The Rosebud,” later called “The Southern Rose,” a juvenile weekly paper published in Charleston, South Carolina, which she edited for several years, beginning in 1832. Her book entitled “Verses of a Lifetime” was published in 1854, as were a number of other books which gave her a considerable reputation as an author. Five of her poems are included in Putnam’s Singers and Songs, etc. Two of her hymns had considerable use,

1. Is there a lone and dreary hour, (Providence)

This was contributed to Sewall’s Collection, 1820, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines, to which in 1867 she added a fifth stanza for inclusion in the Charleston Services and Hymns. This hymn had wide use in both British and American collections in the 19^th century.

2. We bless Thee for this sacred day (Sunday)

Also contributed to Sewall’s Collection, 1820, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines, to which she added a fifth stanza, when included in the Charleston Services and Hymns, 1867.

Neither of these hymns is in current use.

J. 423 Revised by H.W.F.

Gilman, Rev. Samuel, D.D., Gloucester, Massachusetts, February 16, 1791—February 9, 1858, Kingston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1811, served the College as tutor in mathematics for two years, and studied in the Harvard Divinity School. On December 1, 1819, he was ordained minister of the Unitarian Church in Charleston, South Carolina, which he served with great distinction until his death, which occurred while on a visit to Massachusetts. His wife, Caroline Howard Gilman, q.v., was a writer noted in her day. He wrote a good many poems and essays, published in magazines; a book, “Memoirs of a New England Village Choir,” 1829, which ran to three editions; and in 1856 a volume of his miscellaneous essays, entitled “Contributions to Literature, Descriptive, Critical, Humorous, Biographical, Philosophical and Poetical.” His two best known songs were The Union Ode, composed for the Union party of South Carolina and sung there on July 4, 1831, during the Nullification excitement, and later in the North during the Civil War; and the college hymn Fair Harvard, which he wrote in 1836. He had come to Cambridge for the twenty-fifth anniversary of his graduation and the 200^th anniversary of the founding of the College. On the eve of the celebration, having already an established reputation as a poet, he was asked to write a song for the occasion and it was sung at the meeting on September 8, 1836, to a tune popular at the time, composed for the song “Believe me, if all those endearing young charms.” Harvard gave him the honorary degree of D.D. in 1837.

He wrote a number of hymns of minor importance.

1. O God, accept this sacred hour (Communion)

was contributed to Rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris’s Hymns for the Lord’s Supper, 1820, and was republished in Sewall’s New York Collection of the 116 same year, in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, and other collections.

2. This child we dedicate to Thee (Christening)

In Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ the author’s name is not given and the piece is attributed to the West Boston Collection, 1823. Putnam, in Singers and Songs, etc., p. 73, gives four of its original stanzas, and says that it is a translation from the German, but the original has not been traced.

3. We sing Thy mercy, God of love, (Communion)

Contributed to Hymns of the Lord’s Supper and included in Sewall’s New York Collection.

4. Who would sever freedom’s shrine?

A song supporting the Union cause, of which Gilman was a strong advocate, written at the time of the Nullification agitation. Several stanzas from it, beginning as above, were included in The Soldier’s Companion, 1861.

5. Yes, to the [that] last command (Communion)

Like no. 1 and 3 included in Hymns for the Lord’s Supper and in Sewall’s Collection.

All these hymns have long since passed out of use.

Gilman (with C. M. Taggart) edited the Charleston Collection in 1854, under the title Services and Hymns for the use of the Unitarian Church of Charleston, S.C., a second and enlarged edition of which appeared in 1867. It included three of his hymns, nos. 1, 3 and 5, listed above, and the two by his wife, Caroline Gilman, q.v., listed under her name.

J. 423, 1592 revised—H.W.F.

Goldsmith, Rev. Peter Hair, D.D. (1865-1926) was born in Greenville, South Carolina. He was educated at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, and served several Baptist churches before transferring his membership to the Unitarian denomination, after which he served as minister to the First Church in Salem, Massachusetts, 1903-1910, and to the church in Yonkers, New York, 1910-1917.

In 1912 he wrote a hymn beginning,

Holy, holy Lord,

We with one accord,

which was included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, but has not passed into other collections.

H.W.F.

Greenough, James Bradstreet, Portland, Maine, 1833-1901, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1856, was appointed tutor in 1865, assistant professor in 1873, and professor of Latin in 1883. In 1884 he wrote the Latin hymn in four stanzas beginning

Deus omnium creator,

for the tune Harvard Hymn which his friend, John Knowles Paine, professor of music at Harvard, had composed in 1883 for use at the Harvard Commencement dinner.

It is included in The University Hymn Book, 1896, and in The Harvard University Hymn Book, 1926.

H.W.F.

Greenwood, Helen Woodward, Leominster, Massachusetts, April 18, 1880—April 2, 1959, Leominster. She was for many years engaged in secretarial work for the General Alliance of Unitarian Women at 25 Beacon Street, Boston. A hymn by her, beginning

As once again we gather here

is included in the Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908.

H.W.F.

Hale, Rev. Edward Everett, D.D., Boston, Massachusetts, April 3, 1822—June 10, 1909, Roxbury, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1839, the youngest member of his class. He did not go to the Divinity School, but taught in the Boston Latin School and studied for the ministry under the direction of Rev. S. K. Lothrop and Rev. J. G. Palfrey. He was licensed to preach by the Boston Association and in 1846 was ordained as minister of the Church of the Unity (now the First Unitarian Church), Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1856 he moved to Boston, where he served the South Congregational Church (Unitarian) as minister and minister emeritus until his death. He was a voluminous writer. One of his stories entitled “A Man Without A Country,” and another, “In His Name,” brought him wide reputation. He was a distinguished preacher and a greatly beloved pastor, an ardent advocate of peace who as early as 1871 proposed a “United States of Europe,” and in 1889 outlined a plan for an “International Tribunal.” In 1858 he wrote a hymn “For the dedication of a Church” beginning,

O Father, take this new-built shrine,

which was included in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, from which Martineau took it for his Hymns of Praise and Prayer, London, 1873.

J. 481 H.W.F.

Hale, Mary Whitwell, Boston, Massachusetts, January 29, 1810—November 17, 1862, Keene, New Hampshire. Most of her life she was a school teacher in Boston, later in Taunton, Massachusetts, and, for her last 20 years, in Keene. She wrote a good deal of verse. Two of her poems, one on “Home,” and the second on “Music” were written for a juvenile concert in the Unitarian Church at Taunton, April, 1834. A number of her later hymns and poems appeared in The Christian Register, signed by Y.L.E. (the final letters of her name), and in 1840 a volume entitled Poems was published in Boston. Several of her poems are included in Putnam’s Singers and Songs, etc.

Four of her hymns were included in the Cheshire Collection, 1844, viz:

1. Praise for the glorious light,

Written for a Temperance meeting.

2. This day let grateful praise ascend (Sunday)

3. Whatever dims the sense of truth

In Putnam, Singers and Songs, this is entitled “A Mother’s Counsel,” with a quotation from John Wesley’s mother.

4. When in silence o’er the deep (Christmas)

Of these nos. 2 and 3 were taken from her Poems, and nos. 1 and 4 were written for the Cheshire Collection. No. 4 is in Church Harmonies. 1895, but none of her hymns are in current use.

J. 481 H.W.F.

Hall, Harriet Ware, Boston, Massachusetts, September 15, 1841—March 18, 1889, Boston. She was a lifelong resident of Boston, a member of King’s Chapel. Two small books by her were privately printed, one a collection of poems entitled A Book for Friends, 1888, the other entitled Essays, printed posthumously in 1890. The first book contains a hymn beginning

Lord, beneath thine equal hand,

in three stanzas, 7.7.7.7.D., dated February 10, 1869, and written for the installation of Rev. E. H. Hall at Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1869. It is included in the Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908, the first line altered to read,

Lord, beneath whose equal hand.

H.W.F.

Ham, Rev. Marion Franklin, D.D., Harveysburg, Ohio, February 18, 1867—July 23, 1956, Arlington, Massachusetts. He was educated in the public schools at Harveysburg, but as a youth moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee to find employment. There he joined the Unitarian Church and, after serving it as a lay reader for several years, was ordained in 1898 as its minister, serving it until 1904. He later served Unitarian churches in Dallas, Texas, 1904-1909; in Reading, Massachusetts, 1909-1934; and in Waverley, Massachusetts, 1934-1939. He began to write verse in 1888, and many of his poems appeared in newspapers and periodicals, some of them being widely reprinted. His collected poems were published in book form in 1896, entitled The Golden Shuttle, which reached a fourth edition in 1910. He then turned to hymn writing, and four of his earliest hymns were included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, viz:—

1. I hear Thy voice, within the silence speaking, (1913)

2. O Lord of life, Thy kingdom is at hand, (1912)

3. O Thou whose gracious presence shone (Communion) (1912)

4. Touch Thou mine eyes, the sombre shadows falling, (1911)

These are also included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, as are five later hymns by him, viz:—

5. As tranquil streams that meet and merge (1933)

6. From Bethany the Master, (Palm Sunday) (1935)

7. Heir of all the waiting ages, (Advent) (1937)

8. Ring, O ring, ye Christmas bells (1932)

9. The builders, toiling through the days (Church dedication) (1925)

In April, 1936, he wrote an Easter hymn

10. Oh, who shall roll the stone away?

which first appeared in the Boston Transcript. It is included in The Hymnal, 1940.

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In his later years he published, or had privately printed, several small booklets containing these and other poems by him: Songs of the Spirit, 1932; Songs of Faith and Hope, 1940; Songs at Sunset, 1951; Songs of a Lifetime, 1953; and In a Rose Garden, 1956. Of these, Songs of a Lifetime contains what he regarded as his best poems, as well as his latest hymns, among them one widely used on United Nations Sunday, beginning,

11. Freedom, thy holy light,

and a fine national hymn,

12. O my country, land of promise,

A number of his hymns have been included in the hymnals of several denominations, and No. 2 was translated into Japanese.

Dr. Ham’s hymns manifest a deep spiritual insight expressed with literary craftsmanship of a high order, which make them among the most notable contributions to American hymnody in the first half of the 20^th century.

H.W.F.

Harris, Florence, (Mrs. Robert G. Hooke) (1891-1933) wrote in 1907, for the tenth anniversary of Unity Church (Unitarian), Montclair, New Jersey, of which she was a member a hymn entitled “The Founders,” beginning,

Like pilgrims sailing through the night,

which was included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

H.W.F.

Harris, Rev. Thaddeus Mason, D.D. (1768-1842). He graduated from Harvard in 1787, entered the ministry and served the First Church in Dorchester, Massachusetts (Unitarian) from 1793 until his resignation in 1836. Librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society. In 1801 he printed a leaflet with a few hymns, which formed the basis for a larger collection of Hymns for the Lord’s Supper, original and selected, [edited] by Thaddeus Mason Harris. D.D. Boston; printed by Sewall Phelps, No. 5 Court Street, 1820. A second edition was printed in 1821. This booklet contains original hymns by Rev. John Pierpont, q.v., Rev. Samuel Gilman, q.v., and others, none of them in use today.

H.W.F.

Hedge, Rev. Frederic Henry, Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 12, 1805—August 21, 1890, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Son of Professor Levi Hedge of Harvard, he was a very precocious child, ready to enter college at 12 years of age, but his father wisely sent him to Germany, with a tutor, George Bancroft, later a noted historian, where he studied in German schools for 5 years. He then returned to Harvard College, graduating in 1825, followed by a period of study in Harvard Divinity School, where he became an intimate friend of R. W. Emerson. He was ordained minister of the First Congregational Parish (Unitarian) in West Cambridge (now Arlington) Massachusetts in 1829. In 1835 he moved to Bangor, Maine, where he served the Independent Congregational Society until 1850, then serving the Westminster Congregational Church, Providence, Rhode Island, 1850-1856. In the latter year he was called to the First Parish in Brookline, Massachusetts, which he served until 1872. His removal to Brookline enabled him to serve as a nonresident professor of ecclesiastical history in the Harvard Divinity School. He retired from the ministry in 1872 and moved to Cambridge, where he was appointed professor of German language and literature, retiring in 1882. He was a man of extraordinary intellectual ability, one of the most learned of his time, and a pioneer in bringing to this country an acquaintance with German literature and metaphysics. Harvard gave him the degree of D.D. in 1852, and that of LL.D. in 1886. He was one of the editors of the Christian Examiner, author of The Prose Writers of Germany, 1848, of Reason in Religion, 1865, of a volume of Metrical Translations and Poems in 1888, and of a large number of essays and sermons. He was president of the American Unitarian Association 1860-1863. He collaborated with Dr. F. D. Huntington, q.v., in editing Hymns for the Church of Christ, Boston, 1853, to which he contributed three translations from the German:

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1. A mighty fortress is our God, (Ein’ feste Burg)

2. Christ hath arisen! (Goethe’s Faust)

3. The sun is still forever sounding (Goethe’s Faust)

The Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book for Church and Home, 1868, includes his translation from the Latin,

4. Holy Spirit, Fire Divine, (Veni, Sancte Spiritus)

Translated 1862.

His original hymns included in Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, are,

5. Beneath thine hammer, Lord, I lie,

Undated but “Written at a time of severe trial and deep depression.”

6. Sovereign and Transforming Grace,

Written for the ordination of H. D. Barlow at Lynn, Massachusetts, December 9, 1829. This fine hymn is appropriate to a service of worship and, with the omission of one stanza, has been widely used.

7. ’Twas in the East, the mystic East,

A Christmas hymn, written about 1853.

8. ’Twas the day when God’s anointed,

Written for a service in Bangor, Maine, held on Good Friday, 1843, in six stanzas, the last three of which, beginning

It is finished, Man of sorrows!

had considerable use in Great Britain and this country. The whole six stanzas were included in 127 Longfellow and Johnson’s Book of Hymns, 1846, as “Anonymous.” The last three stanzas are in Martineau’s Hymns and in many other collections.

He also wrote a hymn beginning

9. Lo! another offering,

To Thy courts this day we bring,

for his own ordination at West Cambridge in 1829, which was also used at the ordination of F. A. Whitney, at Brighton, Massachusetts, on February 24, 1844, but which passed into no collections.

All these hymns, and two other religious poems, are included in Putnam’s Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith. Most of them had gone out of use by the end of the 19^th century, but nos. 1, 6 and 8 (beginning It is finished, Man of sorrows,) are in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

By far the best known of Hedge’s hymns is his fine and accurate translation of Luther’s great chorale Ein’ feste Burg (no. 1). This is the version accepted by almost all the Protestant denominations in this country, whereas in Great Britain Thomas Carlyle’s earlier translation (1831) is generally used, although James Martineau included Hedge’s version in his Hymns of Praise and Prayer, 1873, mistakenly attributing it to Samuel Longfellow. Putnam, op. cit., 214, says that it was first printed in W. H. Furness’s Gems of German Verse, which appeared in Philadelphia, without date but undoubtedly in the latter part of 1853, a second edition following in 1859. That Hedge should have sent his translation 128 of the chorale to Furness without delay was natural, because the two men were close friends with a common interest in German literature, and Putnam was the younger contemporary of both, in a position to know that Furness’s little book had appeared on the market a few days, or weeks, ahead of the collection of hymns which Hedge and F. D. Huntington were editing and which they published late in 1853 as Hymns for the Church of Christ.

The earliest record of the hymn, however, is to be found in the autograph letter (now in the Harvard University Library) which Hedge wrote to Rev. Joseph H. Allen, his successor in the pulpit at Bangor, Maine, asking him to recommend hymns for inclusion in the book on which he and Huntington were working. This letter is dated “Providence, March 27th, 1853.” In the course of it Hedge wrote, “I have made a new translation of Luther’s splendid psalm ‘Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott’ Carlyle’s translation not being available.” This statement is followed by the four stanzas of his translation. That book contained no printed tunes, only citing the metre at the head of each hymn as a guide to the organist, but in his letter Hedge goes on with the surprizing statement, “The original is much sung in Germany and therefore I suppose that it will not be difficult to find a tune for it.” Since he must have become familiar with both the words and the music of the famous chorale when he was a youthful student in Germany this remark indicates that the tune was still unknown in America, and that he took little interest in introducing it.

J. 504, 1647 Revised by H.W.F.

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 12, 1822—May 9, 1911, Cambridge. He graduated from Harvard College in 1841 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1847. Entering the Unitarian ministry he served churches in Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1847-1850, and in Worcester, Massachusetts, 1852-1858. He was an ardent Abolitionist and when the Civil War came he entered the Union Army, in which he rose to the command of a Negro regiment. After the war he became a man of letters and published several books and numerous essays. While still a student in the Divinity School he contributed to the Book of Hymns, 1846, which his friends Longfellow and Johnson were preparing, four hymns, which they marked with an asterisk, viz:

1. No human eyes Thy face may see (God known through love)

2. The land our fathers left to us (American Slavery)

3. The past is dark with sin and shame, (Hope)

4. To thine eternal arms, O God, (Lent)

The last two have had considerable use. Both express the pessimistic mood with which the young man viewed the evils of the time.

One of his later poems of social justice has also had some use as a hymn,

5. From street and square, from hill and glen,

Of this vast world beyond my door.

His four hymns in the Book of Hymns, with other poems by him, are included in Putnam’s Singers and Songs, of the Liberal Faith, 1875. Of the above hymns those listed as 3 and 5 are included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 521, 1711 H.W.F.

Hill, Rev. Thomas, D.D., L.L.D., New Brunswick, New Jersey, January 7, 1818—November 21, 1891, Portland, Maine.

He graduated from Harvard College in 1843 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1845. He served as minister of the First Parish (Unitarian) in Waltham, Massachusetts from 1845 to 1859; was president of Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio, 1859-1862; president of Harvard University, 1862-1868; and minister of the First Parish of Portland, Maine, 1873 to 1891. He was distinguished as a mathematician.

In the earlier part of his career he wrote or translated many hymns which found publication in current periodicals, usually anonymously or signed only with cryptic initials. One by him, beginning,

All holy, ever living One,

was included in a few hymn books of the 19^th century, but has dropped out of use. A few others, mostly written for special occasions, are in Putnam’s Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith, but none have found other use.

J. 524 H.W.F.

Holland, Joseph Gilbert, Belchertown, Massachusetts, July 24, 1819—October 12, 1881. A newspaper man on the staff of the Springfield Republican who became editor of Scribner’s Magazine in 1870. Author of several books and some poetical pieces. One of the latter, beginning

For summer’s bloom, and autumn’s blight, (Praise in and through all things)

from his Bitter Sweet, 1858, was included in the Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book for Church and Home, Boston, 1868.

J. 529 H.W.F.

Holmes, Rev. John Haynes, D.D.; Litt. D.; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 29, 1879—still living. He graduated from Harvard, summa cum laude in 1902, and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1904. He received the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from the Jewish Institute of Religion in 1930, from St. Lawrence University in 1931, and from Meadville Theological School in 1945; Doctor of Letters from Benares Hindu University, India, in 1947, and Doctor of Humanities from Rollins College, Florida, in 1951. He was installed as minister of the Third Religious Society (Unitarian), Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1904, and went to New York in 1907 as associate and successor to Rev. Robert Collyer, q.v., minister of the Second Congregational Unitarian Society, (Church of the Messiah, now called the Community Church of New York) of which he became pastor emeritus in 1949. He withdrew from the Unitarian fellowship in 1919, not on theological grounds but because he preferred a position independent of any denominational label. Throughout his career in New York he has been an outspoken leader in many causes for social betterment, and a prolific author in prose and verse who has published a large number of books, religious and biographical, and of printed sermons. No other American author of his period has written so many fine hymns which have been widely used in this country, in England, and in Japan.

1. Accept, O Lord, this precious gift

8.6.8.6. 3 stas.

Written for dedication on October 31, 1943, of Chapel in the rebuilt Community Church.

2. Accept, O Lord, this temple,

7.6.7.6.7.6. 3 stas.

Written on the occasion of the rededication of the Community Church, December 31, 1922.

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3. All hail the pageant of the years,

8.6.8.6.8.8. 5 stas. Undated

Included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

4. Almighty God, beneath whose eye

C.M.D. 4 stas.

An early hymn written for Labor Day Sunday in 1910.

5. Almighty God, to whom the dark

C.M.D. 3 stas. 8 l.

A Vesper hymn written in 1906.

6. America triumphant! Brave land of pioneers.

7.6.7.6.D. 5 stas.

Written during World War I, in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

7. Behold, O God! our holy house,

C.M. 5 stas. September, 1919

Written on the occasion of the burning of the Community Church, September 11, 1919.

8. Be with us, Father, in this place.

Dated 1945.

9. Bless, thou, O God, this fellowship

8.6.8.6.D. 3 stas.

Written for the Installation of Rev. Dana McLean Greeley, B.D., D.D. as President of the American Unitarian Association on October 7, 1958.

10. Bright visions glow across the sky,

8.6.8.6.8.6.8.6. 3 stas.

Written by Mr. Holmes in 1947 on the occasion of his 40^th anniversary as Minister of the Community Church.

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11. God of the nations, near and far.

C.M. 6 stas.

Written before this country entered World War I, for a hymn contest sponsored by the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, for use on Peace Sunday. This hymn was widely sung in churches of many denominations.

Included in New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, with alteration in 2^nd sta.

12. God save the people’s cause.

6.6.4.6.6.6.4. 3 stas.

Written in 1939.

13. Great Spirit of the speeding spheres,

L.M. 6 stas.

Written in 1932 on the occasion of the 25^th anniversary of Mr. Holmes as minister of the Community Church.

14. Joy to our hearts! Again we meet!

8.6.8.8.6.6.6.4. 3 stas. 8 l.

A Hymn of reunion, 1920, set to the tune of Antioch.

15. O blessed isle of quiet,

7.6.8.6.D. 3 stas.

Written at the Isles of Shoals in the summer of 1930, and set to an original tune by Robert B. Buxton.

16. O Father, Thou who givest all

L.M. 4 stas.

Written for The Beacon Song and Service Book, Beacon, 1908; included in New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

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17. O God of field and city,

7.6.7.6.7.6.7.6. 3 stas. Prompted, in 1917, by the darkly unfolding experiences of World War I.

18. O God of light and darkness,

7.6.7.6.D. 3 stas. 8 l. Undated.

19. O God, whose law from age to age

8.6.8.6.D. 4 stas. 1910.

20. O God, whose love is over all,

8.6.8.6.D. 3 stas. 1909.

21. O God, whose smile is in the sky

8.6.8.6.D. 4 stas.

Written in 1907 for the Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908, in 4 stas., C.M.D. Included in the New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, in 5 stas. of 4 l. with revisions approved by the author, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

22. Old Jubal twanged the bow-string

7.6.7.6.D. 3 stas.

Written for the 25^th anniversary of Clifford Demarest as organist of the Community Church, May 10, 1936, based on Genesis 4.21. “Jubal,—father of all such as handle the harp and the pipe.” An interesting tour de force on the rise of music in praise of God.

23. Onward still and upward

6.5.6.5.D. 3 stas.

Written in 1950, and dedicated to the American Unitarian Association in celebration of the 125^th anniversary (1825-1950) of its founding.

24. O Thou who in chaotic night,

8.8.8.8.8.8. 4 stas.

Written in war time, 1918.

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25. O Thou, whose presence moved before

C.M.D. 6 stas.

Written for use on the 10^th anniversary of his installation as Minister of the Community Church, February 4, 1917.

26. O’er continent and ocean

7.6.8.6.D. 3 stas.

Written for a “Service of Commemoration of a Century of British American Peace,” held in the Church of the Messiah, Montreal, Canada, at a meeting of Unitarian General Conference on September 25, 1917. In Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

27. Show us thy way, O God!

6.6.8.6. 4 stas.

Printed in The Christian Century in 1936, included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, with a correction by the author.

28. The Bethlehem stars are dim tonight

8.6.8.6.D. 3 stas. Dated 1925

29. The voice of God is calling

7.6.7.6.D. 4 stas.

Written in September, 1913 for the Young People’s Religious Union of Boston. In New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914. In Hymns of the Spirit, 1937; widely used in the United States, England, translated into German, Japanese and Spanish.

30. Thou God of all, whose presence dwells

8.8.8.8. 4 stas.

Written some time after World War I. Intended as a protest against nationalistic theism which induced both belligerent nations to claim a monopoly of God.

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31. Thou God of all, whose Spirit moves

8.6.8.6.D 3 stas.

Printed in The Christian Century, May 29, 1940 and in The Christian Register, August, 1940.

32. Thy voice, O God, in every age

8.6.8.6.D. 3 stas.

Written for the Installation of Rev. Donald Harrington at the Community Church of New York on November 19, 1944.

33. To earth’s remote horizons

7.6.7.6.D. 4 stas.

Written in 1949 and first sung on November 27th of that year at a special service in commemoration of the retirement of Mr. Holmes from the active ministry.

34. To Thee, O God, be homage

7.6.7.6.D. 3 stas. 1945.

35. When darkness, brooding o’er the deep

8.6.8.6.D. 4 stas.

Written in 1925 on the occasion of the 100^th anniversary of the founding of the Community Church of New York.

36. Why trust we not our God?

6.6.8.6. 5 stas.

Of the hymns listed above, Nos. 3, 6, 11, 18, 20, 23 and 29 have had the most widespread use.

H.W.F. in collaboration with J.H.H.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, M.D., LL.D., Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 29, 1809—October 7, 1894, Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in the famous Class of 1829, studied medicine and became a practitioner in Boston, and was appointed Professor of Anatomy in the Harvard Medical School in 1847. Although distinguished as a physician his fame is that of a man of letters gifted with a sense of humor which made him one of the wittiest men of his time. Besides important medical treatises he wrote essays, novels, biographical sketches, and poetry which brought him a great reputation in this country and in Great Britain. Much of his poetry is occasional verse, which he was often called upon to write, such as his “International Ode” to be sung to the tune “America” (“God Save the Queen”) on the occasion of the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1860. Oxford University gave him the honorary degree of D.C.L. in 1886. He was a member of Kings’ Chapel, (Unitarian) Boston, and two of his poems are about that church. He contributed The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table to the opening issues of The Atlantic Monthly, 1857-58, published The Professor at the Breakfast Table in 1859, The Poet at the Breakfast Table in 1872. He wrote Elsie Venner, 1861, and two other novels. His poetry was published in Songs in Many Keys, 1861; Humorous Poems, 1865; Before the Curfew, 1888; and in his Complete Poetical Works, in 1895.

Although he made a greater contribution to American hymnody than did any other of the “New England poets” of his era, except Bryant and Whittier, his hymns were incidental literary by-products, for he was not primarily a hymn writer. They include:

138

1. Angel of peace, thou hast tarried too long

Written in 1869.

2. Father of mercies, heavenly Friend,

A prayer in time of war. Undated but between 1861 and 1865.

3. Lead where the banners wave last to the sea,

Written as an American national anthem. It appeared in his Songs in Many Keys, 1861, entitled “Freedom, our Queen.”

4. Lord of all being, throned afar, (God’s Omnipotence)

Included in The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table, 1848, under the title of “A Sun-day Hymn.” This is his finest hymn and has had widespread use in many collections.

5. O Lord of hosts, Almighty King,

Entitled “Army Hymn,” and published in The Soldier’s Companion, a hand-book of hymns and scripture readings issued in the fall of 1861, by the American Unitarian Association, for use by soldiers in the Union Army. It is a fine hymn, but with several lines directly referring to the immediate situation which make it unsuitable for present use and which cannot be altered or dropped without mutilating the hymn. In the same collection he wrote an “Additional Verse” appended to “The Star-Spangled Banner,” beginning

When our land is illumined with Liberty’s smile,

6. O Love Divine, that stooped to share,

Written in 1859, a hymn of trust in time of doubt and sorrow.

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7. Our Father, while our hearts unlearn,

The creeds that wrong thy name,

Written for the 25^th Anniversary of the Boston Young Men’s Christian Union, May 31, 1893.

8. Thou gracious Power whose mercy lends,

Written in 1869 for the 40^th anniversary meeting of the Harvard Class of 1829. In the Methodist Hymn Book, 1904, altered to read

Thou gracious God, etc.

Of these hymns nos. 4 and 6 have had the most widespread use. Those two, and no. 1 are included in The Pilgrim Hymnal, 1935, and nos. 4, 6, 7 and 8 are in the Unitarian New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and In Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 530, 1649, 1713, rewritten by H.W.F.

Horton, Rev. Edward Augustus, Springfield, Massachusetts, September 28, 1843—April 15, 1931, Toronto, Canada. He studied at the University of Chicago and at Meadville Theological School, from which he graduated in 1868. He served Unitarian churches in Leominster, Massachusetts, 1868-1875; Hingham, Massachusetts, 1877-1880; and the Second Church in Boston, 1880-1892. Thereafter he was active in the work of the Unitarian Sunday School Society. In 1912 he wrote an “Anniversary Hymn” beginning,

We honor those whose work began,

which was included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914.

H.W.F.

Hosmer, Rev. Frederick Lucian, D.D., Framingham, Massachusetts, October 16, 1840—June 7, 1929, Berkeley, California. He graduated from Harvard College in 1862, and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1869. In October of that year he was ordained minister of the First Congregational Church (Unitarian), Northborough, Massachusetts, where he served for 3 years. He served the Unitarian Church in Quincy, Illinois, 1872-1877; then spent sixteen months in Europe, returning late in 1878 to serve the First Unitarian Church of Cleveland, Ohio, 1878-1892; the Church of the Unity, St. Louis, Missouri, 1894-1899; and the First Unitarian Church, Berkeley, California, 1900-1915, where he remained as minister-emeritus until his death. In 1887 Buchtel College gave him the degree of Doctor of Divinity.

While in the Divinity School he formed a close life-long friendship with William C. Gannett, q.v. Neither wrote any hymns until early middle life, Dr. Gannett’s earliest having been written in 1873, Dr. Hosmer’s in 1875, but thereafter they worked together for nearly four decades to make a contribution to American hymnody comparable to that made by Samuel Longfellow, q.v., and Samuel Johnson, q.v., a generation earlier. Of the two men it has been well said that “Gannett was the better poet, Hosmer the better hymn writer,” and many more of his hymns than of those by Gannett have come into widespread use.

Working together they edited Unity Hymns and Chorals, published in 1880, a revised edition of which appeared in 1911. (J. V. Blake, q.v., was also an editor of the first, but not of the revised edition). In 1885 they published a small collection of their poems entitled The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems, followed by later collections with the same title, 2^nd Series 1894, 3^rd Series 1918. In 1908 Dr. Hosmer gave a series of lectures 141 on hymnody at the Harvard Divinity School, repeated at the Pacific Unitarian School for the Ministry, in Berkeley, California, but these have not been published.

Julian’s Dictionary, pp. 1650-51, lists 27 hymns by Dr. Hosmer, with “annotations—from ms. notes supplied—by the author,” as follows:—

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1. Father, to Thee we look in all our sorrow (Trust in God)

Written in 1881 upon the death of a member of the author’s congregation, and published in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885.

2. From age to age how grandly rise (Unity)

Written for the annual festival of the Free Religious Association, Boston, June 2, 1899, and first published in Souvenir Festival Hys. 1899. Subsequently altered by the author to “From age to age the prophet’s vision.”

3. From age to age they gather, all the brave of heart and strong, (Victory of Truth)

Written in 1891 for the Dedication of Unity Church, Decorah, Iowa, and published in The Thought of God, 2^nd Series, 1894.

4. From many ways and wide apart, (College or School Reunion)

Dated in The Thought of God, 2^nd Series, 1894, as having been written in 1890.

5. Go not, my soul, in search of Him, (God within)

Written in 1879, printed in the Boston Christian Register, May 31, 1879, and included in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885, with the title “The Indwelling God.”

6. I cannot think of them as dead (Eternal Life)

Written in 1882 and first published in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885, and entitled “My Dead.” In the English collections it is usually given as “We cannot think of them as dead.”

7. I little see, I little know, (Trust)

“A Psalm of Trust” written in 1883, first appeared in 143 the Boston Christian Register, and again in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885.

8. Immortal, by their deed and word (The Spirit of Jesus)

Written in 1880, and first published in Unity Hys. and Carols, Chicago, Illinois, 1880, and then in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885.

9. Many things in life, there are (Mystery in All Things)

Written in 1885 and first published in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885, with the title “Passing Understanding”, and the quotation “the Peace of God which passeth all understanding.”

10. Not always on the Mount may we (On the Mount)

This lesson from the Transfiguration was written in 1882, and published in the Chicago Unity, April 1, 1884. After revision by the author, it was included in the 1^st Series of The Thought of God, 1885.

11. Not when, with self dissatisfied, (Lent)

Written in 1891, and given in The Thought of God, 2^nd Series, 1894, p. 33. It is in The Public School Hymn Book, 1903, and others.

12. O beautiful, my country, (National Hymn)

As “Our Country,” written in 1884, and published in the Chicago Unity Festivals, 1884, and again in The Thought of God, 1885.

13. O Light, from age to age the same, (Dedication Anniversary)

Written in 1890 for the fiftieth anniversary of the Second Congregational Church (Unitarian), Quincy, Illinois. Included in The Thought of God, 2^nd Series, 144 1894, and entitled “From Generation to Generation.”

14. O Lord of Life, where’er they be, (Life in God)

“Written in 1888 for Easter service in Author’s own church,” and first published in the Chicago Unity, and again in The Thought of God, 2^nd Series, 1894. The “Alleluia” refrain, which is added in some collections to each verse, is appended, in the original, to the last verse only.

15. O Name, all other names above, (Trust in God)

Under the title “Found. ‘They that know Thy name will put their trust in Thee’,” this hymn, written in 1878, was given in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885.

16. O Prophet souls of all the years (Unity)

“Written in 1893 for, and sung at, the Unitarian gathering in connection with The World’s Parliament of Religions (World’s Fair) Chicago, Sep. 1893,” and included in The Thought of God, 2^nd Series, 1894, and entitled “One Law, One Life, One Love.”

17. O Thou, in all Thy might so far, (God All in All)

This hymn, given in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885, with the title “The Mystery of God,” was written in 1876, and first published in the New York Inquirer.

18. O thou in lonely vigil led,

This encouragement for lonely workers was written for the “Emerson Commemoration, W.U.C. 1888,” and included in The Thought of God, 2^nd Series, 1894.

19. O Thou, who art of all that is, (Divine Guidance)

Under the title “Through unknown paths,” this hymn 145 was included in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885; it was written in 1877.

20. O Thou, whose Spirit witness bears, (Dedication of a Place of Worship)

Written for the Dedication of the First Unitarian Church, Omaha, February 6, 1891, and published in The Thought of God, 2^nd Series, 1894, with the title “The Inward Witness”, and the subscription “For T.K. Omaha, 1891.”

21. On eyes that watch through sorrow’s night (Easter)

A Carol for Easter Morn, written in 1890 for the author’s congregation, and published in The Thought of God, 2^nd Series, 1894.

22. One thought I have, my ample creed, (The Thought of God)

This is the initial hymn to the collection The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885, and supplies the title to the work. It was written in 1880, and first published in the Chicago Unity Hymns and Carols, 1880, and then in The Thought of God, 1885.

23. The rose is queen among the flowers, (Flower services)

Written in 1875, first published in The Sunnyside, a songbook for Sunday Schools, and again in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885, under the title “Flower Sunday.”

24. Thy kingdom come—on bended knee, (Missions)

“Written in 1891 for the Commencement of the Meadville Theological School (Meadville, Pa.) June 12, 1891, and pub. in The Thought of God, 2^nd Series, 1894.” under the title “The Day of God,” and the subscription “M.T.S., June 12, 1891.”

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25. We pray no more, made lowly wise

For miracle and sign. (Greater Faith Desired)

“Written in 1879, and first pub. in The Christian Register (Boston) Mar. 22 of that year, under the title ‘The Larger Faith.’” Included under the same title in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885. Sometimes given as “Made lowly wise, we pray no more.”

26. When courage fails, and faith burns low, (Victory of Truth)

Under the title “Loyalty,” this hymn was given in The Thought of God, 1^st Series, 1885. It was written in 1881.

27. Where men on mounts of vision,

Have passed the veil within. (Dedication of a Place of Worship)

“Written in 1891 for the Dedication of First Unitarian Church, Oakland, California.” Included in The Thought of God, 2^nd Series, 1894, entitled “Holy Place”, and subscribed “For C.W.W., Oakland, Cal. 1891.”

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This account of Hosmer’s hymns, copied verbatim from Julian’s Dictionary, may be accepted as authoritative as to the date and occasion for each hymn listed, but Canon Julian presumably added the descriptive notations in brackets, and fell into minor inaccuracies, as when he wrote Unity Hymns and Carols for Unity Hymns and Chorals (cf. nos. 3 and 22), and cited the periodical Unity, published in Chicago, as Chicago Unity. By way of further clarification it should be noted that the opening line of no. 12, O beautiful my country, was taken from J. R. Lowell’s great Commemoration Ode, and that Hosmer always wanted it printed ‘O Beautiful my Country’, in recognition of its source. No. 18 was written for the observance by the Western Unitarian Conference of the fiftieth anniversary of Emerson’s famous Divinity School Address. The person initialed as “T.K.” for whom no. 20 was written on February 6, 1891, probably was Thomas Kilpatrick, a layman who did much to make possible the erection of the church in Omaha, which was not dedicated until December 15 of that year. The person initialled “C.W.W.”, for whom no. 27 was written, was Rev. Charles W. Wendte, then minister of the First Unitarian Church in Oakland, California.

Julian’s account of Hosmer’s contribution to hymnody, though no doubt as satisfactory as could be expected at the time it was written, is incomplete in two respects. The latest hymn listed is dated 1899, yet at least three earlier hymns by Hosmer are unaccountably missing, (viz, nos. 32, 33, 41, noted below), presumably because he neglected to send Julian any information about them. More important than these are several later occasional 148 hymns which he wrote in the last three decades of his life, too late for any inclusion in Julian’s Dictionary, and which form a notable addition to the earlier list. Some of them were included in the revised edition of Unity Hymns and Chorals, 1911, and all of them in The Thought of God, 3^rd. Series, 1918, as follows:

28. Across a century’s border line,

Written for the centennial commemoration of W. E. Channing’s famous “Baltimore Sermon” at the General Unitarian Conference, September 26, 1917.

29. All hidden lie the future ways,

Written as a hymn at the christening of children. Not dated.

30. Forward through the ages, in unbroken line,

A hymn of the church universal, written in 1908 for an Installation Service, set to Sullivan’s tune St. Gertrude. In some collections it has replaced Baring Gould’s Onward, Christian Soldiers.

31. Hear, hear, O ye nations, and hearing obey, (Reign of Peace)

Written in 1909 and included in New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and, with one word altered in the last stanza, in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

32. I came not hither of my will, (Divine Providence)

Written in 1883.

33. Lo, the day of days is here, (Easter)

Written in 1890.

34. Lo, the Easter-tide is here, (Easter)

Written in 1914.

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35. Now while the day in trailing splendor (Evening)

Written in 1902, published in Louisa Loring’s Hymns of the Ages, 1904.

36. O blest the souls that see and hear,

Written for the National Conference of Unitarian Churches, Chicago, September 27, 1909, in 5 stanzas, beginning “From many ways and far apart.” In The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, this first stanza has been dropped, and the remaining four stanzas printed, beginning as above.

37. O day of light and gladness (Easter)

Written in 1903, published in Louisa Loring’s Hymns of the Ages, 1904, and, slightly revised, in Unity Hymns and Chorals, 1911.

38. The outward building stands complete,

Written for the Dedication of Unity Church, St. Louis, Missouri, October 7, 1917.

39. Through willing heart and helping hand,

Written in 1909 for the Dedication of the Parish House of the First Unitarian Church, Berkeley, California.

40. Thy kingdom come, O Lord.

Written in 1905.

41. Today be joy in every heart, (Christmas)

Written in 1877.

42. Uplift the song of praise,

The first two stanzas of this hymn were written in 1904 and were included in Miss Louisa Loring’s 150 Hymns of the Ages, published in that year. At a later date Dr. Hosmer wrote two additional stanzas and the hymn was thus printed in The Thought of God, 3^rd Series, 1918. In The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, it is set to the tune Yigdal.

43. When shadows gather on our way,

Written in 1904 and published in Miss Louisa Loring’s Hymns of the Ages, 1904.

44. When the constant sun returning,

Reginald Heber in 1827 wrote a single stanza hymn beginning, “God that madest earth and heaven.” In 1912 Hosmer wrote for The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, a second stanza, the first line of which is quoted above, to complete the thought. This composite two stanza hymn has since been included in The Pilgrim Hymnal, 1935, and Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

The period of Dr. Hosmer’s hymn writing covered more than 40 years (1875-1917) and during the latter half of that time he was widely recognized by hymn lovers as the most distinguished hymn writer of his time. Many of his hymns found their way into the collections of various denominations in both this country and Great Britain. Canon Dearmer included 8 in the British collection Songs of Praise, and in the accompanying handbook, Songs of Praise Discussed, calls the hymn O Thou, in all thy might so far, (no. 17) “this flawless poem, one of the completest expressions of religious faith,” and the hymn Thy kingdom come, on bended knee, (no. 24) “one of the noblest hymns in the language.”

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All of Hosmer’s hymns in recent use will be found in both the Unitarian collections—The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, except where initials indicate one or the other book, as follows:—Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 (N.H.T.B.), 8, 10 (N.H.T.B.), 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 (H.S.), 29 (H.S.), 30, 31, 32, 34 (H.S,), 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43. Nos. 10, 17, 24, 30 and 40 are included in the Protestant Episcopal Hymnal, 1940.

J. 1650 H.W.F.

Howe, Mrs. Julia (Ward), New York, New York, May 27, 1819—October 17, 1910, Boston, Massachusetts. Married Samuel Gridley Howe on April 26, 1843. She was a woman with a distinguished personality and intellect; an Abolitionist and active in social reforms; author of several books in prose and verse. The latter include Passion Flower, 1854; Words of the Hour, 1856; Later Lyrics, 1866; and From a Sunset Ridge, 1896. She became famous as the author of the poem entitled “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” beginning,

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, which, in spite of its title, was written as a patriotic song and not as a hymn for use in public worship, but which has been included in many American hymn books. It was written on November 19, 1861, while she and her husband, accompanied by their pastor, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, q.v., minister of the (Unitarian) Church of the Disciples, Boston, were visiting Washington soon after the outbreak of the Civil War. She had seen the troops gathered there and had heard them, singing “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave” to a popular tune called “Glory, Hallelujah” composed a few years earlier by William Steffe of Charleston, South Carolina, for Sunday School use. Dr. Clarke asked Mrs. Howe if she could not write more uplifting words for the tune and as she awoke early the next morning she found the verses forming in her mind as fast as she could write them down, so completely that later she re-wrote only a line or two in the last stanza and changed only four words in other stanzas. She sent the poem to The Atlantic Monthly, which paid her $4 and published it in its issue for February, 1862. It attracted little attention until it caught the eye of Chaplain C. C. McCabe (later a Methodist bishop) who had a fine singing voice and who taught it first to the 122d Ohio Volunteer Infantry regiment to which he 153 was attached, then to other troops, and to prisoners in Libby Prison after he was made prisoner of war. Thereafter it quickly came into use throughout the North as an expression of the patriotic emotion of the period.

J. 1652 H.W.F.

Huntington, Rt. Rev. Frederic Dan, D.D., Hadley, Massachusetts, May 23, 1819—July 11, 1904, Hadley, Massachusetts. He graduated from Amherst College in 1839 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1842. He was minister of the South Congregational Church (Unitarian), Boston, 1842-1855, and from 1855 to 1859 he was Professor of Christian Morals and University Preacher at Harvard College. In 1859 he was ordained priest in the Protestant Episcopal Church and served as rector of Emmanuel Church in Boston from 1860 to 1869, when he was consecrated Bishop of Central New York. In 1853 he collaborated with Rev. Frederic Henry Hedge, q.v., in editing their Unitarian collection, Hymns for the Church of Christ, to which he contributed three hymns,

1. O Love Divine, lay on me burdens if Thou wilt (Supplication)

2. O Thou, in whose Eternal Name (Ordination)

3. O Thou that once on Horeb stood (God in Nature)

The hymn beginning

Father, whose heavenly kingdom lies,

in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, is a cento taken from no. 2. Hymns for the Church of Christ also includes a good many anonymous hymns, some of which may be by him, though there is no proof that such is the case. Dr. Huntington also collaborated with Dr. Hedge in editing a collection of sacred poetry entitled Elim: Hymns of Holy Refreshment, Boston, 1865, which includes a funeral hymn beginning

So heaven is gathering one by one,

This hymn has been mistakenly attributed to Huntington, but is an altered form of a hymn by E. H. Bickersteth beginning

Thus heaven is gathering one by one.

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Although Dr. Huntington is known to have written occasional verses in religious themes later in life for his own edification he is not credited with any published hymns after his resignation from his professorship at Harvard, and none of the three listed above are in present use.

J. 544, 1714 Revised by H.W.F.

Hurlburt, (Hurlbut, Hurlbert) William Henry. Charleston, South Carolina, July 3, 1827—September 4, 1895, Cadenabbia, Lake Como, Italy. (His family name is spelled Hurlburt in records at Charleston but at Harvard he was registered as Hurlbut, and in later years he changed the spelling to Hurlbert). He graduated from Harvard College in 1847 and from the Divinity School in 1849. He preached in Unitarian pulpits for a few months but was never ordained as a settled minister; then he studied in the Harvard Law School for a year; then turned to journalism in New York City. After 1883 he spent most of his time in Europe, his last few years in Italy. As a student at Harvard he was a contemporary of Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson and contributed three hymns to their Book of Hymns, edition of 1848, which they also included in their Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, viz:

1. My God, in life’s most doubtful hour,

2. We pray for truth and peace,

3. We will not weep, for God is standing by us

In both books his surname is spelled Hurlbut.

J. 545 Revised by H.W.F.

Johnson, Rev. Samuel, Salem, Massachusetts, October 10, 1822—February 19, 1882, North Andover, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1842 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1846. He served from 1853-1870 as minister of the Independent Church, Lynn, Massachusetts which he organized and which ceased to exist when he resigned. He refused to identify himself with any denomination, though in belief he was a Unitarian and in the public mind was associated with the churches which adhered to the liberal wing of the Congregational order. He was author of a book on Oriental Religions, one of the earliest American studies in the History of Religions. In 1846 he and his classmate in the Divinity School, Samuel Longfellow, q.v., while still students, prepared their Book of Hymns, because they and some of their friends thought the Unitarian hymn books then in use were too traditional. This book appeared in enlarged edition in 1848, and made a notable contribution to American hymnody in its freshness of outlook and its inclusion of hymns by hitherto unrecognized writers, notably John Greenleaf Whittier. Johnson contributed 7 hymns to the edition of 1846, viz:

1. Father [Savior] in Thy mysterious presence kneeling (Worship)

2. Go, preach the gospel in my name (Ordination)

3. Lord, once our faith in man no fear could move, (In Time of War)

4. Onward, Christians, though the region (Conflict)

Altered in Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, to

Onward, onward though the region

5. Thy servants’ sandals, Lord, are wet (Ordination)

In the edition of 1848 he included

6. God of the earnest heart, (Trust)

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which he had “Written for the Graduating Exercises of the Class of 1846, in Cambridge Divinity School.” In 1864 he and Longfellow published their second and no less important collection, Hymns of the Spirit, (not to be confused with the book of the same title published in 1937 by the American Unitarian Association). To this volume he contributed 7 more hymns, viz:

7. City of God, how broad, how far, (The Church Universal)

8. I bless Thee, Lord, for sorrows sent (Purification through suffering)

This was “Written at the request of Dorothea L. Dix for a collection made by her for the use of an asylum.” (Miss Dix was engaged in a notable reform of institutions for the insane.)

9. Life of Ages, richly poured (Inspiration)

10. Strong-souled Reformer, whose far-seeing faith (Jesus)

11. The Will Divine that woke a waiting time (St. Paul)

12. Thou whose glad summer yields, (Worship)

13. To light that shines in stars and souls, (Dedication of a Place of Worship)

A number of these hymns have had widespread and long-continued use. Numbers 1, 4, 6, 7, and 9 are included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, and stand out as some of the finest examples of American hymnody in their lyrical quality and depth of religious feeling. A few of Johnson’s hymns have found acceptance also in England, the most notable example being No. 7, sung at the consecration of the new Anglican cathedral at Liverpool in 1924, an occasion which the words fitted to perfection. But, since even the existence of the obscure minister in Lynn, Massachusetts, was quite unknown to all but very few of those present, the Samuel Johnson to whom it 158 was attributed was commonly supposed to be the famous 18^th century English lexicographer, and the hymn is mistakenly assigned to him in the latest edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations! Following its use at Liverpool it was sung in Westminster Abbey at a service for the League of Nations in 1935; at the jubilee service for the 25^th anniversary of the coronation of George V; and was one of seven hymns included in the special service prepared by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York for use in parish churches throughout England at the time of the coronation of George VI. Probably no other hymn of American authorship is so widely known or used in British dominions.

J. 604-5, 1583, 1681, 1711 H.W.F.

Kimball, Jacob, Topsfield, Massachusetts, February 15, 1761—July 24, 1826, Topsfield. He graduated from Harvard in 1780, studied law, taught school, and tried to make a living at various other occupations, with small success except in the field of music where he was regarded as the outstanding singer, teacher, and composer of his period. He edited Rural Harmony, (Boston, 1793) which he followed with Essex Harmony, (1800) and Essex Harmony, Part II, (1802), which included the only tunes of his own composition which can now be identified as his, except those in the popular Village Harmony (1795) the later editions of which, down to 1821, were probably edited by him. There is evidence that he also wrote poetry, including a number of hymns, some of them perhaps the anonymous ones, otherwise unknown, included in the above-mentioned song books. The one hymn which can be attributed to him with assurance is his excellent metrical version of Psalm 65 which Jeremy Belknap included in his Sacred Psalmody (1795), entitled “A New Version” and beginning

Thy praise, O God, in Zion waits.

The only other hymns by an American author in Belknap’s Collection is Mather Byles’

When wild confusion wrecks the air,

republished in 1760.

See Jacob Kimball: A Pioneer American Musician, Essex Institute Historical Collections, XCII, no. 4.

H.W.F.

Larned, Augusta, Rutland, New York, April 16, 1835—1924. Author of six volumes of stories for children and of one on Greek mythology and another on Norse mythology. Contributor to various periodicals and for 20 years correspondent and editorial writer with The Christian Register, Boston. She published in 1895 a book of poems entitled In the Woods and Fields from which was taken her hymn on peace of mind,

In quiet hours the tranquil soul,

for inclusion in the Isles of Shoals Hymn-Book, 1908; The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914 and Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

H.W.F.

Lathrop, Rev. John Howland, D.D., Jackson, Michigan, June 6, 1880—still living. He graduated from Meadville Theological School in 1903, then entered Harvard where he took an A.B. in 1905. He also studied at the University of Chicago, and the University of Jena. He served as minister of the First Unitarian Church of Berkeley, California, 1905-1911, and the First Unitarian Congregational Church of Brooklyn, New York, 1911 to 1957, when he became pastor emeritus. In 1935 he wrote a hymn for Palm Sunday beginning,

Hosanna in the highest! Our eager hearts acclaim,

which was included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, set to St. Theodulph.

H.W.F.

Livermore, Rev. Abiel Abbot, D.D., Wilton, New Hampshire, October 26, 1811—November 28, 1892, Wilton, New Hampshire. He graduated from Harvard College in 1833, and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1836. He was ordained minister of the Unitarian Church at Keene, New Hampshire, in November, 1836, and remained there until 1850, when he accepted a call to Cincinnati, Ohio. After a period in New York he was elected president of the Meadville Theological School in 1862, and served in that capacity until 1890, when he retired to his ancestral home at Wilton. He received the degree of D.D. from Harvard in 1888. He was author of a number of books, and of several hymns, printed in Putnam’s Singers and Songs. He was the chief editor of the Cheshire Pastoral Association’s Christian Hymns, 1844, one of the finest and most widely circulated American Unitarian collections, to which he contributed his Communion hymn beginning,

A holy air is breathing round,

This hymn was included in Martineau’s Hymns, 1873, in most American Unitarian collections, and appears in slightly altered form in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 680 H.W.F.

Livermore, Sarah White, Wilton, New Hampshire, July 20, 1789—July 3, 1874, Wilton. She was an aunt of A. A. Livermore, q.v., and was a school teacher for most of her life. She contributed two hymns to the Cheshire Collection, 1844, viz:

1. Glory to God, and peace on earth, (Christmas)

2. Our pilgrim brethren, dwelling far, (Mission)

These passed into a few other collections.

She wrote a number of others for various church occasions, but they have never been collected for publication.

J. 680 H.W.F.

Long, Hon. John Davis (1838-1915) was born in Buckfield, Maine, October 27, 1838, and died in Hingham, Massachusetts on August 28, 1915. Harvard, A.B. 1857, L.L.D. 1880. He was Governor of Massachusetts, 1880-1883, and Secretary of the Navy, 1897-1902. A member of the First Parish (Unitarian) in Hingham, he wrote one hymn beginning,

The evening winds begin to blow

which was included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, but which has not passed into other books.

H.W.F.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, D.C.L., Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807—March 24, 1882, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825. After four years of study in Europe he was appointed to the Chair of Modern Languages at Bowdoin, but removed to Harvard in 1835, upon his election as professor of Modern Languages and Belles-Lettres in the latter College. He retained that Professorship until 1854, when he retired to give himself time for authorship in prose and verse. He became one of the most widely read and beloved poets in the English-speaking world, and after his death a marble bust commemorating him was placed in Westminster Abbey. In the strict sense of the term he was not a hymn-writer, his brother, Samuel Longfellow, q.v., twelve years his junior, far surpassing him in this field, but hymn-book editors have culled selections from his poems which they could use, as follows:

1. Ah, what a sound! The infinite fierce chorus,

From his poem “The Arsenal at Springfield,” published in The Belfry of Bruges, 1845. Four stanzas, beginning as above, are included in The Pilgrim Hymnal, 1935. In S. Longfellow’s and Johnson’s Book of Hymns, 1848, the selected stanzas from this poem begin

Down the dark future through long generations,

and the hymn appeared in this form in other collections.

2. Alas, how poor and little worth,

Tr. from the Spanish of Don Jorge Manrique, (d. 1479), in Longfellow’s Poetry of Spain, 1833.

3. All are architects of fate,

The first three stanzas of Longfellow’s poem, “The Builders,” written in 1846. Included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

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4. All is of God; If he but wave his hand.

From the poem “The Two Angels,” in his Birds of Passage, 1858; included in S. Longfellow’s and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864.

5. Blind Bartimeus at the gate,

From Miscellaneous Poems, 1841. Included in G. W. Conder’s 1874 Appendix to the (British) Leeds Hymn Book.

6. Christ to the young man said, “Yet one thing more.”

Written in 1848 for the ordination of the poet’s younger brother, Samuel Longfellow; published in the author’s Seaside and Fireside, 1851, and in H. W. Beecher’s Plymouth Collection, 1855, altered to read,

The Saviour said, “Yet one thing more”

In spite of the occasion for which it was written it is not a hymn but a hortatory poem of five stanzas in a most unusual 10.6.10.6 metre, for which it must have been difficult to find any singable tune.

7. I heard the bells on Christmas Day

This carol was written in 1864, for the Sunday School of the Unitarian Church of the Disciples, Boston, of which Rev. James Freeman Clarke was minister. The entire poem, entitled “Christmas Bells,” has seven stanzas, of which 1, 2, 6 and 7 are in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, and in The Pilgrim Hymnal, 1935. The omitted stanzas contain references to the Civil War, in progress when the carol was written.

165

8. Into the silent land,

A translation from the German poem “Ins Stille Land! Wer Leitet uns hinüber,” by J. G. Salis-Seewis, 1808. Published by Longfellow in Voices of the Night, 1840. Included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, and other American collections.

9. Tell me not in mournful numbers,

Published in Voices of the Night, 1839, as “A Psalm of Life; What the heart of the Young Man said to the Psalmist.” Included in several hymnals in Great Britain and America. In some collections it begins with the second stanza

Life is real! Life is earnest

10. There is no flock, however watched and tended

A cento from the author’s Seaside and Fireside, 1849.

11. We have not wings: we may not soar.

In 1850 the poet wrote “The Ladder of St. Augustine,” a poem in twelve stanzas, based upon a quotation from Sermon III, De Ascensione, by St. Augustine of Hippo, “De vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus, si vitia ipsa calcamus.” (We shall make a ladder out of our vices, if we tread those vices under foot.) The three stanzas of the hymn are, respectively, the seventh, tenth and second stanzas of the poem.

H.W.F.

Longfellow, Rev. Samuel, Portland, Maine, June 18, 1819—October 3, 1892, Portland, was the youngest of the eight children of Stephen and Zilpah (Wadsworth) Longfellow. Stephen Longfellow had graduated from Harvard and had become one of the most prominent citizens of Portland. His son Samuel entered Harvard with the Class of 1839, just after his brother, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, more than twelve years his senior, had returned from Europe to begin his professorship at Harvard.

Samuel entered the Harvard Divinity School, from which he graduated in 1846, and served as minister of the Unitarian Church in Fall River, Massachusetts, 1848-51; the Second Unitarian Church, Brooklyn, New York, 1853-1860; and the Unitarian Church, Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1878-1883. In the intervals between these pastorates he did much occasional preaching, and, having independent means and no marital ties, made several prolonged visits to Europe. He had an attractive personality, was witty and highly intelligent, and was an acceptable though outspoken preacher, but he is now remembered for his contribution to American hymnody through the hymns which he wrote and the books which he edited. His accomplishment in this field was greater and more lasting than that of any other American in the middle period of the 19^th century. Its development can best be traced in the books which he published.

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The first of these was A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotions, which he and his classmate in the Divinity School, Samuel Johnson, daringly compiled while still students in the School. A not improbable story of the origin of the book reports that their friend, Rev. Francis Parker Appleton, then a young minister at Peabody, Massachusetts, had complained to them about the antiquated hymn-book which he found in use in his church, to which they replied that they would prepare a book for him which would express the religious aspirations of the rising generation. The book appeared in 1846, before either of the young editors had been ordained, and was an immediate success. It was first used in the First Unitarian Church at Worcester, Massachusetts, where Longfellow’s classmate and lifelong friend, Edward Everett Hale, had just been ordained at a service for which Longfellow wrote the ordination hymn, and it was promptly adopted by Theodore Parker for his congregation in Music Hall. The book was re-published in somewhat revised and enlarged form in 1848, and ran to 12 editions. It marked a new epoch in American hymnody because it was the product of young and adventurous but well-trained minds seeking to give utterance to the emotions stirred by the intellectual and political ferment of the times, and because of the new sources to which they turned. They were the first to see and make use of the hymnic possibilities of the poems of John Greenleaf Whittier, and to include in an American hymn-book Newman’s “Lead, kindly Light,” which they had found printed in a newspaper without the author’s name, though they altered the first line to read “Send kindly Light,” and another line further down. From their book it passed into other collections, with variant readings.

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In 1859 Longfellow published a little collection entitled Vespers, hymns for use at the vesper services which he had instituted in his church in Brooklyn. In 1860 he published A Book of Hymns and Tunes for the Sunday School, the Congregation, and the Home, and in 1864 he and Samuel Johnson brought out their second notable book, Hymns of the Spirit, (not to be confused with the hymn book with the same title published by the Beacon Press in 1937). This book contained most of the later hymns written by the two editors, and a good many new hymns by other authors who were glad to contribute them. Its literary level was higher than that of their first book, but it had less popular success, in part, perhaps, because they failed to set the words to tunes, which had become the common practice in the period since their earlier book appeared. In 1876 he brought out A Book of Hymns & Tunes for the Congregation & the Home, a revision of his earlier book with a similar title, in which several of his earlier hymns appear in revised form. In 1887 he printed privately A Few Verses of Many Years.

After his death a small volume entitled Hymns and Verses by Samuel Longfellow was published in 1894 with a very brief introductory note by his niece, Miss Alice M. Longfellow. It included 41 hymns which she thought were his, followed by 30 short poems of no outstanding excellence. Some of the “hymns” included seem never to have come into use as such; some of her attributions were mistaken; she omitted some hymns which he wrote or adapted but cited in his books as “Anonymous” because based on the work of others; and she did not always print the best of extant variant readings. This book, therefore, must be used with caution in compiling the list of Longfellow’s hymns, whether original or adapted.

Before listing his hymns it should be noted that he wrote 169 or edited several other literary works. In 1853 he and his classmate Thomas Wentworth Higginson published a beautiful collection of sea-poems entitled Thalatta. He wrote a memoir of his friend, Rev. Samuel Johnson, 1883; was the author of a Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1886; and edited Final Memorials of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1887. A volume of his own Essays and Sermons, edited by Joseph May, was published in 1894.

170

Alphabetical List of Hymns written or adapted by Samuel Longfellow

Abbreviations:: Bk. Hys. = The Book of Hymns, 1846 or 1848.; H. and V. = Hymns & Verses by Samuel Longfellow, 1894.; Hys. Sp. = Hymns of the Spirit, 1864.; J. (followed by page number) = Julian’s Dictionary of Hymnology.; S. L. = Samuel Longfellow

1. A voice by Jordan’s shore. (Advent)

Printed in Hys. Sp. 1864, under title of “John and Jesus”; in H. & V., no date.

2. Again as evening’s shadow falls. (Evening)

Published in Vespers, New York, 1860, headed “Nox et tenebrae,” in 2 stas. of 8 l., and reprinted in Hys. Sp. 1864, with the title “Vesper Hymn,” in 4 stas. of 4 l.; also in H. & V. in which it is the fourth and concluding hymn of a group called “Vesper Hymns,” and dated 1859, the 3^d and 4^th of which were included in Hys. Sp., 1864.

3. Beneath the shadow of the cross. (Sacrifice)

Written in Fall River, 1848, and published in the Supplement to A Book of Hymns, Second Edition, Boston, 1848, with the title “The New Commandment,” in 3 stas. of 4 l.; in H. & V.

4. Eternal One, Thou living God. (Anniversary)

Written in 1875 for a church anniversary, possibly for the 25^th anniversary of the Preble Chapel in 171 Portland, Maine; 5 stas. of 4 l. In H. & V. the original reading of the last two lines,

“Afloat upon its boundless sea,

Who sails with God is safe indeed.”

are changed to the inferior reading,

“That truth alone can make us free;

Who goes with God is safe indeed.”

5. Every bird that upward springs.

Included in Supplement to Bk. Hys., 1848, attributed to Neale, and also in Hys. Sp., 1864. It is in fact S.L.’s adaptation of part of a hymn by Neale for St. Andrew’s Day, included in his “Hymns for Children”, 1842; see pp. 360-1 of the Collected Hymns, Sequences and Carols of J. M. Neale, 1914. S.L. used stas. 4, 5, 6 and 7 of Neale’s hymn in 8 stas. Of the 16 lines in S.L.’s version 9 are taken unchanged from Neale, 6 contain part of Neale’s wording, and only 1 is wholly S.L.’s. S.L. writing in 1880 said, “I may say that hymn 585, [i.e. Every bird, etc.] is mine—I did not put my name because two lines were not mine—“. (see H. W. Foote, The Anonymous Hymns of Samuel Longfellow, Harv. Theol. Rev. Oct., 1917.) This letter illustrates the fallibility of human memory. In the 32 years which had elapsed since he had adapted Neale’s verses for the Supplement to Bk. Hys. his own contribution to the final result had come to bulk much larger than it really was. S.L. was right in ascribing the hymn to Neale, as he did in 1848 and 1864, tho he might properly have marked it as “Neale, altered.”

172

6. Father, give thy benediction. (Dismissal)

One stanza, 8 lines, printed anonymously in Hys. Sp.; described by S.L. as “of no importance”, but included in his H. & V. Listed as “Anon.” in the first edition of the Pilgrim Hymnal. Included in the Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908. (H. W. Foote, The Anonymous Hymns of Samuel Longfellow, Harv. Theol. Rev. October, 1917). See J. 1563.

7. Go forth to life, O child of earth. (Life’s mission)

Written in 1859, included in his Book of Hymns and Tunes for the Sunday School, and in Hys. Sp. 1864, under title “Life’s Mission.” 4 stas. of 4 l.

8. God of the earth, the sea, the sky. (Divine Immanence)

Printed anonymously in Hys. Sp. 1864, under title “God, through all and in you all”; included in H. & V. with l. 2 in sta. 1 altered; no date. (H. W. Foote, The Anonymous Hymns of Samuel Longfellow, Harv. Theol. Rev. October, 1917).

9. God of Truth! Thy sons should be,

No. 550 in Hys. Sp. 1864, where it is listed as “Anon,” because, as he later wrote, it was “founded on a H. of Wesley” though “nearly all mine.” (H. W. Foote, The Anonymous Hymns of Samuel Longfellow, Harv. Theol. Rev., October, 1917).

10. God’s trumpet wakes the slumbering world. (Courage)

Printed anonymously in Hys. Sp. 1864 under title “On the Lord’s Side”; in H. & V., no date. 5 stas. of 4 l.

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11. He, who himself and God would know. (Silent worship)

Printed in Hys. Sp. 1864 as “From Martineau” under title of “Be still, and know that I am God.” This is S.L.’s versification of a passage from Martineau’s sermon, “Silence and Meditation”, no. 17 in “Endeavors after the Christian Life,” in which Martineau paraphrased a few sentences in Pascal’s “Thoughts”, no. 72. Not dated; not included in H. & V. (H. W. Foote, The Anonymous Hymns of Samuel Longfellow, Harv. Theol. Rev. October, 1917.)

12. Holy Spirit, Truth [Light] Divine.

Included in Hys. Sp. under title “Prayer for Inspiration”; also in H. & V., without date. In the introductory note to H. & V. it is stated that this hymn “bears some resemblance to one by Andrew Reed, but after careful investigation they appear to be quite distinct.” In spite of this disclaimer it is clear that the theme of the hymn as a whole, and several of its lines, are borrowed from the hymn, “Holy Ghost, with light divine” by Andrew Reed, 1817. Furthermore, S.L.’s arrangement of this hymn is found in two different versions, the one in H. & V. beginning, “Holy Spirit, Truth divine,” the other, and superior one, beginning, “Holy Spirit, Light divine.” It will be found in this latter form in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, in both of which it is attributed to both Reed and Longfellow.

174

13. Holy Spirit, source of gladness.

S.L.’s adaptation of Jacobi and Toplady’s version of Gerhardt’s “O du allersusste Freude”; included in Supplement to Bk. Hys. 1848, and in altered form in Hys. Sp. 1864; set down as “Anon.” in both; not included in H. & V.

14. I look to Thee in every need, (Trust)

In Hys. Sp., 1864, with title “Looking Unto God,” and listed as “Anon.”, but included in H. & V. as Longfellow’s. He had not claimed it because its opening stanza was strongly reminiscent of a love-song by Thomas Haynes Bayly, as indicated by S.L.’s pencilled notation in his copy of Hys. Sp. now in the library of Union Theological Seminary, New York, reading “V. 1, T. H. Bayley, alt.” Bayly (not Baylēy) (1797-1839) was an English composer of popular sentimental songs one of which began,

I turn to thee in time of need

And never turn in vain;

I see thy fond and fearless smile

And hope revives again.

It gives me strength to struggle on,

Whate’er the strife may be;

And if again my courage fail

Again I turn to thee.

This song, though one of Bayly’s best, is not included in his collected works, but a copy, with his name as its author, is in the Harvard University Library. It 175 was published by C. Bradlee, 107 Washington St., Boston, n.d., the words set “to a favorite Neapolitan melody”, and must have still been well remembered when S.L. was inspired to transfigure the thought of its opening stanza by giving it a profoundly spiritual interpretation. He made no use of Bayly’s second and third stanzas, and changed the metre from 8.6.8.6. double to six line stanzas, 8.6.8.6.8.8., thus making sure that his words would be sung to another tune than the “Neapolitan melody.”

15. In the beginning was the word. (The Word of God)

This was printed in The Liberty Bell, Boston, 1851, in 6 stanzas of 8 lines, and dated “Fall River, Sept. 1850.” Two stanzas are included in Hys. Sp. 1864; also in H. & V., undated.

16. Life of all that lives below.

An adaptation from Charles Wesley; not in Bk. Hys. or Hys. Sp.

17. Life of God, within my soul. (God in the soul)

Only found in H. & V., undated, entitled “A Prayer.” 4 stas. of 4 l.

18. Light of ages and of nations. (Inspiration)

Dated 1860 in H. & V. in which it begins as above with title “In all ages entering holy souls.” It was first printed, however, in Hys. Sp. 1864 as “God of ages,” under title “The word of the Lord abideth forever.” 3 stas. of 8 l.

19. Lo! the earth is risen again. (Easter)

In H. & V. the first line reads “Lo the earth again 176 is risen,” with no date, but Dr. Louis F. Benson owned a copy of the book in which a ms. note was appended to this hymn reading

“In memory of C.J.
July 6, 1864
May 12, 1886.
Written for the first anniversary of her death, May 12, 1887.”

Several other lines besides the opening one have been re-written, presumably by S.L., to make the later and improved version of the hymn included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

20. Love for all! and can it be? (The Prodigal Son)

Included in Hys. Sp. 1864 under title “Father, I have sinned”; also in H. & V. without date. 6 stas. of 4 l.

21. Now on land and sea descending. (Evening)

This is the 3^d of the Vesper Hymns in H. & V. 2 stas. of 8 l. (See note under “Again as evening’s shadow falls.”)

22. Now while we sing our closing psalm. (Close of worship)

In H. & V., no date; not in Bk. Hys. or Hys. Sp.

23. Now with creation’s morning song. (Morning)

In Hys. Sp. 1864, ascribed to “Breviary”; it is S.L.’s adaptation of E. Caswall’s trans. of “Lux ecce surgit aurea”, beginning “Now with the rising golden dawn”; see Julian’s Dict. pp. 820-821.

24. O church of freedom and of faith. (Installation)

Written in 1891, presumably for the installation 177 of Rev. John Carroll Perkins as minister of the First Parish in Portland in that year. Included in H. & V. Not found elsewhere.

25. O Father, fix this wavering will.

No. 368 in Hys. Sp. 1864, “Anon.” but later acknowledged by S.L. as his though “of no importance.” (H. W. Foote, The Anonymous Hymns of Samuel Longfellow, Harv. Theol. Rev., Oct., 1917.)

26. O God! a temple to thy name.

“Hymn for the dedication of the new chapel of the First Parish, Haverhill.” Dated 1848 in H. & V., but not found elsewhere. 5 stas. of 4 l.

27. O God! Thy children gathered here. (Ordination)

“Hymn for the ordination of Edward Everett Hale” at Worcester, Massachusetts in 1846. Bk. Hys. 1848; H. & V. 1894. 6 stas. of 4 l.

28. O God, thou giver of all good! (Gratitude)

Included in Hys. Sp. 1864, and in H. & V., without date, under title “Give us this day our daily bread.” 4 stas. of 4 l.

29. O God unseen, but ever near.

S.L.’s adaptation of hymn by E. Osler, printed in Hys. Sp. 1864, in 3 stas of 4 l., entitled “At the fountain”. Anon, in index. “It is, in fact E. Osler’s hymn rewritten, 7 of its 12 lines being Osler’s.” The expanded form in later books is 178 attributed to S.L., but should be “E. Osler alt. by S.L.” See Julian’s Dict. pp. 1665, 1681, 833.

30. O holy, holy, holy,

Art Thou, our God and Lord. (Praise)

This hymn in two stanzas, 8 lines, is found only in C. W. Wendte’s book The Carol: for Sunday School and the Home (1886), where it is attributed to Samuel Longfellow and dated 1886.

31. O Life that maketh all things new.

Written under the title “The light that lighteth every man,” for the 2^d Social Festival of the Free Religious Association 1874, in 2 stas. of 8 l.; afterwards published in A Book of Hymns and Tunes for the Congregation and the Home, Cambridge, 1876, with the title “Greeting”, in 4 stas. of 4 l.; included in H. & V. under title “Behold, I make all things new”, and there incorrectly dated 1878. For use of first line see note under “O Thou whose liberal sun and rain.”

32. O still in accents sweet and strong. (Ordination)

Printed in Hys. Sp. 1864 under title “Behold the fields are white.” H. & V., no date. 4 stas. of 4 l.

33. O Thou, in whom we live and move.

In Hys. Sp. 1864, this begins, “O God, in whom we live and move,” 5 stas. of 4 l. headed “God’s Law and Love.” In H. & V. it begins, “O Thou, in whom we live and move,” the form in which the hymn has passed into later use.

179

34. O Thou, whose liberal sun and rain. (Church anniversary)

Included in Hys. Sp. 1864, and in H. & V. no date. 3 stas. of 4 l. (Note the last line, “To Him who maketh all things new”, used later for first line of hymn “O Life that maketh all things new.”)

35. One holy church of God appears. (The church universal)

Dated 1860 in H. & V.; included in Hys. Sp. 1864. 5 stas. of 4 l.

36. Out of every clime and people. (Christmas)

This hymn in two stanzas, 8 lines, with chorus, is found only in C. W. Wendte’s The Carol: for Sunday School and the Home (1886) where it is attributed to S.L. (except chorus).

37. Out of the dark, the circling sphere. (Hope and courage)

Based on a hymn written in 1856 for the 25^th anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, with the title “What of the night?” and beginning, “A quarter of the circling sphere.” See H. & V. for the original version, which S.L. rewrote for Hys. Sp. 1864, in 5 stas. of 4 l. The misplaced comment by Putnam in Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith, p. 429, that it was “founded on a passage in one of Mr. Martineau’s sermons,” refers not to this hymn but to “He who himself and God would know,” cited earlier in this listing.

38. Peace, peace on earth, the heart of man forever. (Peace on earth)

Included in Hys. Sp. 1864 and H. & V., no date. 2 stas. of 4 l.

180

39. Sing forth his high eternal name. (Praise)

Written by request for words to tune “Coronation.” In H. & V. under title “The Lord of all”, no date, 6 stas. of 4 l.

40. Spirit divine attend our prayer.

This hymn appeared in Hys. Sp. 1864, as “Anon.” It is S.L.’s adaptation of a hymn by Andrew Reed, 1829, about half the lines having been re-written. It should be credited to both writers as a joint production.

41. The loving Friend to all who bowed. (Jesus)

Included in Hys. Sp. under title “Jesus of Nazareth”; no date in H. & V. 5 stas. of 4 l.

42. The summer days are come again.

H. & V. includes a song in three 8-line stanzas headed “Summer Rural Gathering”, dated 1859, each stanza beginning, “The sweet June days are come again.” In Hys. Sp. 1864, the second and third stanzas of this song are taken to form a hymn for summer, each beginning, “The summer days are come again”, the concluding quatrain of the last stanza re-written.

43. ’Tis winter now; the fallen snow.

Dated 1859 in H. & V. In Hys. Sp., 4 stas. of 4 l.

44. Thou Lord of life, our saving health. (Dedication of hospital)

“Written for dedication of Cambridge Hospital.” In H. & V., 4 stas. of 4 l., dated 1886.

181

45. We sowed a seed in faith and hope.

“Written for the 25^th anniversary of the first meeting of the Second Unitarian Society of Brooklyn”, included in H. & V. under title “The truth shall make you free.” No further use.

46. When from the Jordan’s gleaming wave. (Baptism)

Dated 1848 in H. & V., but it was included in Bk. Hys. 1846, 5 stas. of 4 l.

There are also five hymns, composite in origin and listed as “Anonymous” in Hys. Sp. 1864, which in style and sentiment so closely resemble S.L.’s writings as to suggest that he gave them the form in which they are there printed, viz:—

47. As darker, darker fall around

The shadows of the night.

This is printed in 6 stas., the first four of which are taken from “The Hymn of the Calabrian Shepherds,” printed in William Young’s Catholic Choralist, 1842, but there beginning, “Darker and darker fall around.” The 5^th and 6^th stas. may be by S.L. since he referred to this hymn as it appeared in Hys. Sp. as “founded upon the Hymn of the Calabrian Shepherds,” tho he did not state that he wrote them. (H. W. Foote, The Anonymous Hymns of Samuel Longfellow; and Julian, Dictionary, p. 1627.)

48. Come, thou Almighty Will

This hymn in three stanzas was included as Anon. in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 182 1864. Its theme was obviously suggested by Ray Palmer’s five stanza translation of the 12^th century Latin hymn Veni Sancte Spiritus, beginning Come, Holy Ghost, in love, published in 1858, from which three lines are borrowed intact, with as many more which only slightly alter Palmer’s words. Since the religious outlook expressed is characteristic of Samuel Longfellow, and the hymn first appeared in Hymns of the Spirit, it seems certain that he was the author but listed it as Anon, because of its composite form. It was included in several later Unitarian hymn books, most recently in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937. (J. 1623 H.W.F.)

49. Give forth thine earnest cry.

Printed in three 4-line stas. There is no evidence as to the authorship of this hymn, but its sentiment is completely in line with Longfellow’s. Included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, and in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914.

50. God is in his holy temple.

Printed in four 4-line stas. One line is almost identical with one found in S.L.’s earlier hymn “Written for the dedication of the New Chapel of the First Parish, Haverhill, Mass.”, which had had no use beyond the occasion for which it was 183 written, but which Miss Longfellow included in Hymns and Verses. The recurrence of this line in the hymn here listed suggests the probability that the whole hymn is by S.L. though he preferred to cite it as “Anon.”

51. Supreme disposer of the heart.

This appeared in the 1848 edition of the Book of Hymns, where it is cited as from “Breviary”, and was included by Miss Longfellow in Hymns and Verses with the same citation. She probably assumed that it was a translation by S.L. from a Latin hymn. It is, however, a largely rewritten version of John Chandler’s translation of the hymn Supreme motor cordium, in his Hymns of the Primitive Church, 1837, p. 31. Longfellow retained the general pattern of Chandler’s five stanzas, and kept a few of his lines unchanged, or altered by only a word or two, but rewrote the rest, the fourth and fifth stas. being wholly S.L.’s, differing from Chandler’s in both phrase and significance, and even further from the Latin original.

The Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908, contains a hymn in two stanzas, 8.6.8.6.D., beginning

52. The heavens thy praise are telling,

Given as “Anon.” but Mrs. Emma Marean, q.v., who was exceptionally well informed about that book, attributed it to “Spitta-Longfellow,” i.e., by 184 S. Longfellow based on a German hymn by C. J. P. Spitta. It is possible that this is the case but the original by Spitta has not been traced and Longfellow did not claim this arrangement.

H.W.F.

Loring, Louisa Putnam (1854-1924) of Boston and Pride’s Crossing, Massachusetts, compiled Hymns of the Ages, published in 1904. Her literary and musical standards were high, and the book was handsomely printed, but its appeal was limited and it had to compete with several other excellent hymnbooks then on the market for use among Unitarians. It included Miss Loring’s own morning hymn beginning,

O Thou who turnest into morning, (1902)

also included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914.

H.W.F.

Loring, William Joseph, Boston, Massachusetts, October 8, 1795—1841, Boston. He graduated from Harvard College in 1813 and went into business in Boston. He was a lay member of the Unitarian denomination; was president of the Washington Benevolent Society; and was a member of the Horticultural Society. He was probably the author of the hymn beginning,

Why weep for those, frail child of woe,

attributed to “W. J. Loring” in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853.

H.W.F.

Lowell, James Russell, LL.D., Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 22, 1819—August 12, 1891, Cambridge. Son of Rev. Charles Lowell, minister of the West Church (Unitarian), Boston, he graduated from Harvard College in 1838, and entered upon a literary career as a poet, essayist and scholar. In 1855 he succeeded H. W. Longfellow as Professor of Belles Lettres at Harvard and spent the next two years in Europe to increase his knowledge of southern European languages and literature. On his return he was the first editor of The Atlantic Monthly, 1857-1862, then editor of The North American Review, 1863-1872. He was United States Minister to Spain, 1877-1880, and to Great Britain, 1880-1885. He wrote many essays, addresses and poems. These last were published in a succession of volumes, “A Year’s Life,” 1841; “Poems,” 1844-1854; “The Vision of Sir Launfal,” 1845; “A Fable for Critics,” 1845; “The Biglow Papers,” 1848 and 1867; “The Commemoration Ode,” 1865; “Under the Willows,” 1868; and later volumes, his “Complete Poems” appearing in 1895. Though some of his poems show deep religious feeling he made only a slight and indirect contribution to American hymnody, writing only one hymn and one Christmas carol, although stanzas quarried out of his poems have been used as hymns, as follows:—

1. Men who boast it is that ye

Come of fathers brave and free,

The 1^st, 3^d and 4^th stanzas of his anti-slavery poem, “Stanzas on Freedom,” written in 1844. It was included in this form in The Soldier’s Companion, 1861, in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, and in part in Songs of the Sanctuary, N. Y. 1865, beginning

They are slaves who will not choose,

187

2. Once to every man and nation,

In December, 1844, Lowell wrote a poem in 18 stas. of 5 l. entitled “The Present Crisis,” a protest against the war with Mexico. The English hymnnologist, Rev. V. Garrett Horder, took from this poem a number of lines sufficient to make a hymn of 4 stas. which he included, with a few verbal alterations, in his Hymns Supplemental, 1896, and then in his Treasury of Hymns. The English Hymnal included the hymn in 1906, and from this it passed into many collections. In the form commonly used in this country, stanza 1 is that of sta. 5 in the original poem; sta. 2 is that of original sta. 11; sta. 3 is no. 13, original; and sta. 4, part of sta. 6 and part of sta. 8 original. In this form it has had considerable use in this country.

3. Our house, our God, we give to Thee,

Hymn for the dedication of the First Church (Unitarian), Watertown, Massachusetts, on August 3, 1842, in a service in which Rev. Samuel Ripley made the dedicatory prayer and the sermon was preached by Rev. Convers Francis, who had recently left Watertown to accept a professorship at the Harvard Divinity School. Lowell’s Cambridge residence at “Elmwood” was only a short distance from the Watertown line, and Miss Maria White, whom he married in 1844, belonged 188 to the Watertown parish, which suggests the possibility that it was she who persuaded him to write the hymn. It was not included in any of his published works but has been found on the only known copy of the printed program of the service, now owned by the Huntington Library, San Marino, Pasadena, California. It probably was used only on the occasion for which it was written.

4. The ages one great minster seem,

Taken from a poem “Godminster Chimes” which was “Written in aid of a chime of bells for Christ Church, Cambridge,” and published in “Under the Willows,” 1868. From this poem of 7 stas. 8 l., enough lines have been selected and arranged, with a few verbal alterations, to make a hymn on the theme of the Church Universal, in 4 stas. of 4 l.

5. What means this glory round our feet?

A Christmas carol written in 1866 “For the children of the Church of the Disciples”, Boston, (Unitarian), of which Rev. James Freeman Clarke, q.v., was minister. Of the original 7 stas., five have come into considerable use.

Of the above listed hymns all except no. 3 are in current use in various hymn books. Nos. 2 and 5 are in The Pilgrim Hymnal, 1935; nos. 1, 2, 4 and 5 in the New Hymn and Tune Book, 189 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1864.

J. 698 H.W.F.

Lunt, Rev. William Parsons, D.D., Newburyport, Mass., April 21, 1805—March 31, 1857, Akabah, Arabia. He graduated from Harvard College in 1823, and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1828. On June 19, 1828 he was ordained as the first settled minister of the Second Unitarian Congregational Society in New York, where he served for five years. On June 3, 1835, he was installed as associate minister of the First Church in Quincy, Mass., where he became the sole minister in 1843 and served until his death while on a journey to Palestine. After his death his hymns and occasional poems were printed in a small volume entitled Gleanings, but none of them have been included in later books. His contribution to American hymnody was made by the publication of his collection entitled The Christian Psalter, 1841, for his congregation at Quincy, but its fine quality brought it into much wider use. It is chiefly remembered today because it included 5 hymns and the metrical version of 17 psalms by his distinguished parishioner, John Quincy Adams, q.v.

J. 703 H.W.F.

Mann, Rev. Newton, Cazenovia, New York, January 16, 1856—July 25, 1926, Chicago, Illinois. He graduated from Cazenovia Academy, and during the Civil War served as head of the Western Sanitary Commission. He then entered the Unitarian ministry and was ordained as pastor of the church in Kenosha, Wisconsin, which he organized and served for three years. He later served churches in Troy, New York, 1868-70; Rochester, New York, 1870-1888; and Omaha, Nebraska, 1888-1908, after which he retired to Chicago. His only connection with hymnody was his versification of an English translation of the Jewish creedal statement known as the Yigdal. His verse, which has not survived, was later recast by Rev. W. C. Gannett, q.v., to form the great hymn

Praise to the living God! All praiséd be his name!

concerning which detailed information will be found under Dr. Gannett’s name. In its present form the hymn is probably mostly the work of Gannett, but Mann should be credited with having drafted its earlier form. See also Foote, Three Centuries of American Hymnody, 339-340.

H.W.F.

Marean, Mrs. Emma (Endicott), Boston, Massachusetts, January 20, 1854—October 17, 1936, Cambridge, Massachusetts. She married Joseph Mason Marean January 20, 1876. Two hymns by her were included in The Isles of Shoals Hymn Book (Unitarian), 1908,

1. Grateful for another day, (An Island Morning)

2. Set from the restless world apart (An Island Hymn)

Neither has been included in later hymn books but both are in her small volume of poems, Now and Then, Cambridge, 1928.

H.W.F.

Mason, Mrs. Caroline Atherton (Briggs), Marblehead, Massachusetts, July 27, 1823—June 13, 1890, Fitchburg, Massachusetts. In 1853 she married Charles Mason, a lawyer living in Fitchburg. She published in 1852 a volume of poems entitled Utterance: or Private Voices to the Public Heart, and after her death another collection was published, her Lost Ring and Other Poems, 1891.

Three of her hymns have had considerable use.

1. I cannot walk in darkness long, (Evening)

This begins with stanza V of her poem on Eventide, “At cool of day with God I walk,” in her Lost Ring, p. 165.

2. O God I thank Thee for each sight, (The Joy of Living)

A cento of 4 stanzas, from her poem “A Matin Hymn” beginning “I lift the sash and gaze abroad,” in her Lost Ring, p. 164.

3. The changing years, eternal God, (Adoration)

Written for the Bicentennial of the First Congregational Church, Marblehead, August 13, 1884. In her Lost Ring it begins “The changing centuries, O God,”.

Of these hymns no. 2 has had considerable use. It is included in Hymns of the Church Universal, 1891; the New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914; the Pilgrim Hymnal, 1935; Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 1669 H.W.F.

Miles, Sarah Elizabeth (Appleton) Boston, Massachusetts, March 28, 1807—January 3, 1877, Brattleboro, Vermont. She married Solomon P. Miles. In 1827 she printed in the Christian Examiner a hymn beginning,

Thou, who didst stoop below,

which passed into a number of hymn books of the period, and in 1828, in the same periodical she printed a poem in 4 stanzas, C.M.D., which S. Longfellow and S. Johnson, in their second hymn-book, Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, divided into two hymns, of 2 stanzas each, the first beginning

The earth, all light and loveliness,

the second

When, on devotion’s seraph wing.

They also included another of her hymns, consisting of the second, fourth and fifth stanzas of her poem entitled “In Affliction,” beginning

Thou, infinite in love.

These, and some other religious poems, are included in Putnam’s Singers and Songs, etc. None of her hymns are now in use.

H.W.F.

Mott, Rev. Frederick B., England, 1856-1941, England. When a young man he emigrated to this country and on September 30, 1887 was ordained minister of the Barton Square Church (Unitarian) in Salem, Massachusetts. In 1892 he became minister of the Third Religious Society in Dorchester, Massachusetts, which he served till 1903. In 1904 he returned to England and was installed as minister of the Unitarian Chapel at Southport, and later moved to London as editor of the periodical Christian Life. Two hymns in the Universalist Church Harmonies, 1895, are attributed to him, viz:—

1. Take our pledge, eternal Father,

2. The spirit of the Lord has stirred,

but appear to have had no further use.

H.W.F.

Newell, Rev. William, D.D., Littleton, Massachusetts, February 25, 1804—October 28, 1881, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1824 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1829. He was ordained minister of the First Parish in Cambridge on May 19, 1830, where he served until his retirement on March 31, 1868. He was author of many commemorative sermons and memoirs, and received the honorary degree of D.D. from Harvard in 1853. A number of his poems are included in Putnam, Singers and Songs, etc. His hymn beginning,

All hail, God’s angel, Truth (Thanksgiving)

is included in G. Horder’s Worship Song, with Tunes, London, 1905, but is not found in American collections.

J. 1676 H.W.F.

Norton, Prof. Andrews, Hingham, Massachusetts, December 31, 1786—September 18, 1853, Newport, Rhode Island. He graduated from Harvard in 1804. In 1811 he was appointed tutor in the College, in 1813 librarian and Lecturer on the Bible, and in 1819 Professor of Sacred Literature in the Harvard Divinity School, a post which he resigned in 1830 to devote himself to literary and theological pursuits. In 1837 he published the first volume of his famous book The Genuineness of the Gospels, followed in 1844 by the second and third volumes. This was the earliest scholarly work on the New Testament by an American author, and expressed the conservative Unitarian thought of his period. He wrote several other books, and numerous articles. His few poems were printed in a small volume soon after his death, including six hymns, some of which have had considerable use.

1. Another year, another year, (Close of the Year)

Appeared in the Christian Examiner, Nov.-Dec. 1827, in 11 stas. of 4 l. In the Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book, 1868, a cento from it begins with sta. 6,

O what concerns it him whose way

2. Faint not, poor traveller, though thy way, (Fortitude)

Printed in the Christian Disciple, July-Aug. 1822, and included in the West Boston Collection, 1823.

3. He has gone to his God, he has gone to his home (Burial)

Printed in the Christian Examiner, Jan.-Feb. 1824.

4. My God, I thank Thee; may no thought (Submission)

Appeared in the Monthly Anthology and Boston Review, Sept. 1809, and was included in Lunt’s Christian Psalter, 1841, and in many later collections. This was Norton’s earliest and best known hymn.

197

5. O stay thy tears; for they are blest, (Burial of the Young)

Printed in the General Depository and Review, April, 1812, in 5 stas. of 4 l. In 1855, stas. III-V were included in Beecher’s Plymouth Coll. no. 1094 as

How blest are they whose transient years

6. Where ancient forests round us spread,

Written in 1833 for the dedication of a church.

Of the above nos. 1, 4, 5 were included in Martineau’s Hymns, London, 1873. Nos. 4 and 6 are in the Unitarian New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and no. 6 is in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937. See Putnam’s Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith for the full text of all Norton’s hymns.

J. 810 Revised by H.W.F.

Parker, Rev. Theodore, was born on a farm in Lexington, Massachusetts on August 24, 1810, and died in Florence, Italy, on May 10, 1860. He entered Harvard College in 1830, but did most of his work at home, and studied in the Harvard Divinity School, 1834-1836. In 1840 he was granted the degree of A.M. from Harvard. Entering the ministry he served the Unitarian Church in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, 1837-1846, and the 28^th Congregational Society, Boston, 1846-1860. He was a famous preacher; author of numerous printed discourses on social and religious problems; and one of the earliest American translators of current German theological literature. He wrote a few poems, none intended for use as hymns, but Longfellow and Johnson took one of his sonnets and, by eliminating two lines, transformed it into a hymn of 3 stanzas of 4 lines each beginning,

O thou great Friend of all the sons of men,

which they included in their Book of Hymns, 1846. It has had widespread and long continued use in American hymn-books and to some extent in England. Twelve of Parker’s poetical pieces are included in A. P. Putnam’s Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith. Biographies of Parker have been written by John Weiss, Octavius B. Frothingham, and other authors.

J. 882 H.W.F.

Peabody, Rev. Ephraim, Wilton, New Hampshire, March 22, 1807—November 28, 1856, Boston, Massachusetts.

He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1827, and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1830. After serving as a tutor in the Huidekoper family in Meadville, Pennsylvania, he was ordained in 1832 as minister of a recently gathered Unitarian congregation in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1837 he joined Rev. John H. Morison in serving the First Congregational Society of New Bedford, Massachusetts, and in 1845 he accepted a call to King’s Chapel, Boston, where he remained until his death, though ill-health prevented him from preaching in the last year and a half of his life. An impressive preacher, he also wrote some poetry, and a hymn for an ordination, beginning

Lift aloud the voice of praise

is attributed to him in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853.

H.W.F.

Peabody, Rev. Oliver William Bourne, Exeter, New Hampshire, July 9, 1799—July 5, 1847, Burlington, Vermont. He was twin brother of W. B. O. Peabody, q.v. He graduated from Harvard College in 1817, practised law for a few years at Exeter, served as professor of English Literature in Jefferson College, Louisiana from 1842 to 1845, and in the latter year was licensed to preach by the Boston Association and served as minister of the Unitarian Church at Burlington, Vermont, until his death two years later.

A hymn beginning

God of the rolling orbs above

is attributed to him in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, but does not appear to have had further use.

J. 887 H.W.F.

Peabody, Rev. William Bourne Oliver, D.D., Exeter, New Hampshire, July 9, 1799—May 28, 1847, Springfield, Massachusetts. Graduated from Harvard College in 1817, taught for a year in Phillips Exeter Academy, and studied for the ministry at the Harvard Divinity School. He was ordained as the first minister of the Unitarian Church in Springfield, Massachusetts, in October, 1820, and remained there until his death. In 1823 he published a Poetical Catechism for the Young, in which he included some original hymns. He edited The Springfield Collection of Hymns for Sacred Worship, Springfield, 1835, which was adopted for use in many parishes besides his own, and several of his hymns were included in it. A Memoir of him, written by his twin brother, O. W. B. Peabody, was published in the 2^d edition of his Sermons, 1849, and a collection of his Literary Remains was published in 1850. He is described as “a man of rare accomplishments, and consummate virtue,” widely respected and admired.

The following hymns by him had considerable use in the 19^th century, but only the last survived in a hymn book of the 20^th.

1. Behold the western evening light; (Death of the Righteous)

Published in his Catechism, 1823, and in Springfield Collections, 1835, and elsewhere. It passed into use in England; in altered form in the Leeds Hymn Book, 1853, and in George Rawson’s Baptist Ps. and Hys. 1858, where it begins,

How softly on the western hills.

2. O when the hours of life are past (The Hereafter)

Published in his Catechism in answer to the question “What do you learn of the future state of happiness?” 202 It was included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, and had some use in its original form, and also altered to When all the hours of life are past.

3. The moon is up; how calm and slow, (Evening)

A poem rather than a hymn, in 6 stas. of 4 l., appended to his Catechism, 1823.

4. When brighter suns and milder skies, (Spring)

Appended to his Catechism, 1823, in 6 stas. of 4 l.

5. Who is thy neighbor? He whom thou (The good neighbor)

Included in the New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914.

The full texts of Peabody’s hymns are printed in Putnam, Singers & Songs of the Liberal Faith, Boston, 1874.

J. 887 Revised by H.W.F.

Perkins, Rev. James Handasyde, Boston, Massachusetts, July 31, 1810—December 14, 1849, near Cincinnati, Ohio. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and at Round Hill School, Northampton, Massachusetts. After a brief business experience in Boston he moved to Cincinnati, where he was admitted to the bar in 1837, but two years later he took up the Ministry-at-Large organized by the First Congregational Society (Unitarian) of Cincinnati, and later became pastor of the church. He was active in social reforms and as a lecturer, and was author of a number of essays descriptive of life in what was then the far west.

The hymn in 3 stanzas, C.M., beginning

It is a faith sublime and sure,

attributed to “J. H. Perkins” in Longfellow and Johnson’s Book of Hymns, 1846-48, is presumably by him, although it is not included with his poems printed in the Memoir and Writings of James Handasyde Perkins, edited by W. H. Channing, Cincinnati, 1851. It does not appear to have had any further use.

H.W.F.

Pierpont, Rev. John, Litchfield, Connecticut, April 6, 1785—August 27, 1866, Medford, Massachusetts. He graduated from Yale College in 1804, studied law, and in 1812 set up practice in Newburyport, Massachusetts, but later turned to the ministry and graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in 1818. That fall he became minister of the Hollis Street Church (Unitarian) in Boston, which he served till 1840, when a sharp controversy over his outspoken attacks on intemperance, slavery and other social evils led to his resignation. In the same year he published his Poems and Hymns, which included his temperance and anti-slavery poems and songs, and of which a later edition appeared in 1854. He also wrote a number of excellent school books. In 1845 he became minister of the Unitarian Church at Troy, New York, and in 1849 of the First Parish in Medford, Massachusetts, which he served until 1859, when he retired. With the outbreak of the Civil War he became an Army chaplain and was later employed in the Treasury Department at Washington. He died suddenly while on a visit to Medford.

He was the maternal grandfather of J. Pierpont Morgan of New York, who was named for him, but it would be hard to find a greater contrast than that offered by the careers of the hymn-writing reformer and his grandson, the financial magnate.

In his own day Pierpont’s hymns brought him a wide reputation. Thus Putnam, in his Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith, 1873, says, “Mr. Pierpont was one of the best hymn writers in America. He was a genuine poet, as well as a powerful preacher and stern reformer.” Today he occupies a much more modest place in American hymnody. None of his hymns attained a very high level of excellence. Most of them are respectable verse, written in 205 response to frequent requests for hymns for special occasions, but they well illustrate the mood of the Unitarianism of his period.

His hymns which have come into use are

1. Another day its course hath run (Evening)

Appeared in Hymns for Children, Boston 1825; in Greenwood’s Chapel Liturgy, 1827; in Lunt’s Christian Psalter, 1841; and in the author’s Poems and Hymns, 1840.

2. Break forth in song, ye trees (Public Thanksgiving)

Written for the celebration of the 200^th anniversary of the Settlement of Boston, Sept. 17, 1830. Included in Poems and Hymns, 1840.

3. Break the bread and pour the wine (Communion)

In Harris’s Hymns for the Lord’s Supper, 1820.

4. Father, while we break the bread, (Communion)

5. God Almighty and All-seeing (Greatness of God)

Contributed to Elias Nason’s Congregational Hymn Book, Boston, 1857.

6. God of mercy, do Thou never (Ordination)

Written for the ordination of John B. P. Storer at Walpole, Mass., Nov. 18, 1826. Included in the author’s Poems, 1840, and in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853.

7. God of our fathers, in Whose sight, (Love of Truth)

This hymn is composed of stas. IX and X of a longer hymn written for the Charlestown (Mass.) Centennial, June 17, 1830. In this form it was included in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, and elsewhere.

206

8. Gone are those great and good, (Commemoration)

Part of no. 2, above, in Church Harmonies, 1895.

9. I cannot make him dead (Memorial)

A part of an exquisitely touching and beautiful poem of ten stanzas, originally printed in the Monthly Miscellany, Oct. 1840.

10. Let the still air rejoice, (Praise)

This was headed “Temperance Hymn” in The Soldier’s Companion, 1861, but is really a patriotic ditty.

11. Mighty God, whose name is holy (Charitable Institutions)

Written for the anniversary of the Howard Benevolent Society, Dec. 1826. Included in the author’s Poems, 1840.

12. My God, I thank Thee that the night (Morning)

In the author’s Poems, 1840. In Lunt’s Christian Psalter, 1841, and Martineau’s Hymns, 1873, it begins

O God, I thank Thee.

13. O bow Thine ear, Eternal One (Opening of Worship)

Dated 1823, but not included in the author’s Poems. It is given in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns, etc. 1853.

14. O Thou to Whom in ancient times (Worship)

“Written for the opening of the Independent Congregational Church in Barton Square, Salem, Mass. Dec. 7, 1824,” and printed at the close of the sermon preached by Henry Colman on that day. Included in the author’s 207 Poems, 1840, and in many collections in this country and in Great Britain.

15. O Thou Who art above all height (Ordination)

“Written for the ordination of Mr. William Ware as Pastor of the First Congregational Church in New York, Dec. 18, 1821.” Included in Poems, 1840, and in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns, etc.

16. O Thou, Who on the whirlwind rides (Dedication of a Place of Worship)

Written for the opening of the Seamen’s Bethel in Boston, Sept. 11, 1833. Sometimes used beginning

Thou Who on the whirlwind rides

17. O’er Kedron’s stream, and Salem’s height, (Gethsemane)

Contributed to T. M. Harris’s Hymns for the Lord’s Supper, 1820. Included in Martineau’s Hymns, London, 1873.

18. On this stone, now laid with prayer (Foundation Stone)

Written for the laying of the cornerstone of Suffolk Street Chapel, Boston, for the Ministry to the Poor, May 23, 1839.

19. With Thy pure dew and rain, (Against slavery)

Written for the African Colonization Society. Included in Cheever’s Common Place Book, 1831, but not in the author’s Poems, 1840.

20. While with lips with praise that glow, (Communion)

Included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns, etc.

All of the above hymns have passed out of use except nos. 1, 208 8, 12, and 14 which are included in the New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and nos. 8 and 14, included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 895, 1647 Revised by H.W.F.

Pray, Lewis Glover, Quincy, Massachusetts, August 15, 1793—October 9, 1882, Roxbury, Massachusetts. He was a business man in Boston, active in civic and church affairs. For 33 years he was superintendent of the Sunday School in the Twelfth Congregational Society of Boston. In 1833 he published a Sunday School Hymn Book, the first book containing music published for Sunday Schools in New England. It appeared in enlarged form in 1844 as the Sunday School Hymn and Service Book. In 1847 he published his History of Sunday Schools. His own hymns and poems were published in 1862 as The Sylphids’ School, and in a second volume, Autumn Leaves, 1873. Most of them are songs for Sunday School use rather than hymns for the church service but one of them, from The Sylphids’ School, beginning

When God upheaved the pillared earth,

was included in Hymns of the Ages. 3^d Series, 1864.

J. 906 H.W.F.

Prince, Rev. Thomas, D.D., Sandwich, Massachusetts, May 15, 1687—October 22, 1758, Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard in 1707. After voyages to Barbadoes and a stay of several years in England he returned to Boston and in 1717 was ordained as colleague of Rev. Joseph Sewall, minister of the Old South Church. His career was marked by frequent controversies and by his Chronological History of New England, based on his great collection of rare documents dating from the early years of the Colony. This priceless collection was unfortunately dispersed and much of it lost after his death. During his ministry the Tate and Brady version of the Psalms was gradually replacing the Bay Psalm Book in New England, but his parishioners clung to the old book. He persuaded them to let him revise it, which he did, improving or modernizing the verse and printing after the Psalms “an addition of Fifty other Hymns on the most important subjects of Christianity.” It included one hymn by himself beginning

With Christ and all his shining Train

Of Saints and Angels, we shall rise (The Resurrection)

His collection was published in 1758 and was first used in the Old South Meeting House on the Sunday following his death. Its use there continued for another 30 years, but it was not adopted elsewhere, the Bay Psalm Book being by that time generally superseded by collections of Watts and Select.

H.W.F.

Putnam, Rev. Alfred Porter, D. D. Danvers, Massachusetts, January 10, 1827—April 15, 1906, Salem, Massachusetts. He was educated at Brown University, A.B. 1852, and graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in 1855. Entering the Unitarian ministry he served a church in Roxbury, Massachusetts, 1855-1864, and the Church of the Saviour, Brooklyn, New York, 1864-1886, when he retired. Brown University gave him the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1871. He wrote no hymns but published in 1874 a book entitled Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith: being selections of hymns and other sacred poems of the Liberal Church in America, with biographical sketches of the writers. This book includes practically all the hymns by American Unitarian authors which had come into use prior to 1870, and the biographical sketches are generally accurate and adequate in brief space. This useful reference book is elsewhere referred to in this Dictionary as Putnam: Singers and Songs.

H.W.F.

Robbins, Rev. Chandler, D.D., Lynn, Massachusetts, February 14, 1810—September 12, 1882, Westport, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1829 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1833. On December 4th of the same year he was ordained minister of the Second Church (Unitarian), Boston, in succession to Henry Ware, Jr. and R. W. Emerson. He received the honorary degree of D.D. from Harvard in 1855. He was the author of a number of books, essays and memorial discourses dealing with local events and persons. In 1843 he published The Social Hymn Book, intended for social gatherings rather than for church services, and in 1854 an enlarged edition entitled Hymn Book for Christian Worship, though this book does not give his name as editor. He contributed two hymns to A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for the Sanctuary, 1845, compiled by George E. Ellis.

1. Lo! the day of rest declineth (Evening)

for which L. B. Barnes, then president of the Handel and Haydn Society composed the tune, Bedford Street, named for the location of Dr. Robbins’ church.

2. While thus [now] thy throne of grace we seek, (Voice of God)

The first of these is included in The Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908, and in the New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914. The second is in Church Harmonies, 1895.

J. 966 H.W.F.

Robbins, Rev. Samuel Dowse, Lynn, Massachusetts, March 7, 1812—?1884, Belmont, Massachusetts, he was a brother of Chandler Robbins, q.v. He graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in 1833 and on November 13 of the same year was ordained minister of the Unitarian Church in Lynn. He subsequently held pastorates in Chelsea (1840), Framingham (1859) and Wayland, Massachusetts, 1867-1873.

He wrote a good many poems on religious themes, which were published in magazines and newspapers but were never collected in a volume. The Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book, 1868, included four of his hymns, viz:

1. Down toward the twilight drifting, (Sunset)

2. Saviour, when thy bread we break, (Communion)

3. Thou art my morning, God of light, (Day)

4. Thou art, O God! my East. In thee I dawned,

In Putnam, Singers and Songs, etc., this is entitled “The Compass,” with the statement, “Several mistakes in this hymn, as it is printed in the Hymn and Tune Book, are here corrected by Mr. Robbins.”

Julian’s Dictionary, p. 967, also cites one beginning

5. Thou art our father! thou of God the Son (Christ)

but it is a religious poem rather than a hymn and there is no evidence that it was included in any hymn book.

J. 967 Revised H.W.F.

Sargent, Lucius Manlius, Boston, Massachusetts, June 25, 1786—June 2, 1867, Boston. A layman of independent means, author of many articles advocating temperance. His temperance hymn beginning

Slavery and death the cup contains

“was written during the Washingtonian Temperance Revival” and appeared in Adams’ and Chapin’s Unitarian Hymns for Christian Devotion, Boston, 1846. In the American Methodist Episcopal Hymnal, 1878 the first line is altered to read

Bondage and death the cup contains,

The hymn is included, with the original wording, in the Universalist Church Harmonies, 1895.

J. 1061 H.W.F.

Savage, Rev. Minot Judson, D.D., Norridgewock, Maine, June 10, 1841—May 22, 1918, Boston, Massachusetts. His parents were strictly orthodox Congregationalists whose resources were meagre, but a generous benefactor made it possible for him to enter Bangor Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in 1864. He served as a Congregational minister in California, Massachusetts and Missouri, but, having become acquainted with the works of Darwin and Herbert Spencer, he transferred his membership to the Unitarian denomination in 1872 and became minister of the Third Unitarian Church in Chicago. Two years later he accepted a call to Unity Church in Boston, which he served until 1896 when he moved to New York as minister of the Church of the 214 Messiah. He was one of the earliest advocates of a religious interpretation of the doctrine of evolution, a bold thinker and forceful speaker in great demand, and the author of many books and printed sermons. In 1883 he published Sacred Songs for Public Worship; a Hymn and Tune Book, with music arranged by Howard M. Dow, for use in Unity Church. It contained 195 hymns and songs, 42 of which were from his own pen. It had the shortcomings of a “one-man book” and was musically nearer akin to the typical gospel song-book than was usual in Unitarian hymn-books, and it had little use outside his own congregation. Several of his hymns passed into other collections in England and America, viz:

1. Dost thou hear the bugle sounding, (Duty)

2. Father, we would not dare to change thy purpose (Prayer)

3. God of the glorious summer hours, (New Year)

4. How shall come the kingdom holy (Coming of the kingdom)

5. O God, whose law is in the sky (Consecration to Duty)

6. O star of truth, down shining, (Devotion to Truth)

7. Seek not afar for beauty, (God in Nature)

8. The God that to our fathers revealed his holy will,

9. The very blossoms of our life, (Baptism)

10. What purpose burns within our hearts, (Church Fellowship)

11. When the gladsome day declineth, (Evening)

Of these nos. 4, 6, 7 and 11 are included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 1698 H.W.F.

Scudder, Eliza, Boston, Massachusetts, November 14, 1821—September 28, 1896, Weston, Massachusetts. She was a niece of Rev. E. H. Sears, q.v. Early in life she joined a Congregational Church, throughout her middle years was a Unitarian, and late in life entered the Episcopal Church. She wrote a small number of poems which were published in Boston in 1880 under the title Hymns and Sonnets, by E.S., and again with her two latest poems and a brief biographical sketch by Horace E. Scudder, in 1897, but most of her hymns had appeared at earlier dates in other places. They are characterized by a profound mystical spirit expressed in terms of great literary beauty, and some of them passed into a considerable measure of common use.

1. And wherefore should I seek above,

This hymn, included in The Isles of Shoals Hymnbook, 1908, consists of the last three stanzas of a much longer poem entitled “The New Heaven,” dated 1855.

2. From past regret and present faithlessness, (Repentance)

written in August, 1871, and published in Quiet Hours, Boston, 1875. This was altered in some hymnbooks to,

From past regret and present feebleness,

In most cases the opening stanza has been omitted and the hymn has begun with the second stanza,

Thou Life within my life, than self more near,

see no. 9, below.

3. I cannot find Thee, still on restless pinion, (Seeking after God)

This first appeared in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864.

216

4. In Thee my powers and treasures live, (Faith and Joy)

This appeared in Hymns of the Spirit, 1864. It is part of a hymn of 10 stanzas beginning

Let whosoever will inquire, dated 1855.

In The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, another arrangement of stanzas forms a hymn beginning

My God, I rather look to Thee

5. Life of our life, and light of all our seeing, (Prayer)

Written in August, 1870, it was included in Quiet Hours, 1875.

6. The day is done: the weary day of thought and toil is past, (Evening)

Included in Sermons and Songs of the Christian Life, E. H. Sears, Boston, 2^nd ed. 1878, p. 296, entitled “Vesper Hymn,” dated “October, 1874.”

7. Thou Grace divine, encircling all, (Divine Grace)

This appeared in E. H. Sears’ Pictures of the Olden Time, as shown in the Fortunes of a Family of Pilgrims, 1857. Written in 1852, it was included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1864. In the Universalist Psalms and Hymns, 1865, it was mistakenly called “An Ancient Catholic Hymn.”

8. Thou hast gone up again (Ascension)

In Hymns and Sonnets, 1880.

9. Thou Life within my life, than self more near,

As noted above, this is part of No. 2, beginning with the second stanza of that hymn. In this form it is perhaps Miss Scudder’s most beautiful hymn.

217

10. Thou long disowned, reviled, opprest,(Spirit of Truth)

Written in January, 1860, it was included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1864. A cento from this hymn, altered to read,

Come Thou, with purifying fire,

was included in Stryker’s Church Song, 1889.

Of these hymns nos. 3, 4 (selected stanzas), 7, 9 and 10 are included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and nos. 3, 7 and 9 in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 1035, 1589, 1700 H.W.F.

Sears, Rev. Edmund Hamilton; Sandisfield, Massachusetts April 6, 1810—January 16, 1876, Weston, Massachusetts. Studied at Union College, graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in 1837. Ordained minister of the First Parish (Unitarian) of Wayland, Massachusetts, on February 20, 1839. He soon after went to Lancaster, Massachusetts; returned to Wayland, 1848-1864; and was minister of the First Parish, Weston, Massachusetts, 1866 until his death. He was author of many books and printed sermons, and of a good many poems, often hymns supplementary to his sermons. None of these, however, have come into general use, and his reputation as a hymn writer is based on his two widely used Christmas hymns, found in many hymn books. The first,

Calm on the listening ear of night,

was written in 1839. It was included as “Anon.” in The Christian Psalter, published in 1841 by Sears’ friend, Rev. W. P. Lunt, q.v. of Quincy, Massachusetts. In the New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, the second line of sta. 6

The Saviour now is born!

was changed to read

The Prince of Peace is born!

but the original reading was restored in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937. His second hymn,

It came upon the midnight clear,

was written in 1849. One tradition about it reports that it was written at Mr. Lunt’s request and was first used at the Christmas celebration of the Sunday School in Quincy in that year. Sta. 5 of this hymn

219

For lo! the days are hastening on

By prophet bards foretold,

When with the ever-circling years

Comes round the age of gold;

When peace shall over all the earth

Its ancient splendors fling,

And the whole world give back the song

Which now the angels sing

has appeared in re-written forms more than once because its “backward look” to a golden age is not Biblical but is derived from the Fourth Eclogue of the poet Virgil. In the Episcopal Hymnal of 1874 this is altered to read

For lo, the days are hastening on

By prophets seen of old,

Till with the ever circling years

Shall come the time foretold,

When the new heaven and earth shall own

The Prince of Peace their King- - - -

and this version was reprinted in the Episcopal hymnals of 1892 and 1916, and passed into other collections. In the Hymnal, 1940, it was again altered to read

For lo, the days are hastening on

By prophets seen of old,

When with the ever circling years

Shall come the time foretold

These alterations may have brought the hymn into closer accord with orthodox theology, but at the expense of some of its poetic 220 beauty.

Two patriotic songs by Sears were included in the army hymn book, The Soldier’s Companion, 1861. One headed “A Psalm of Freedom” begins,

Still wave our streamer’s glorious folds,

The other is headed “Song of the Stars and Stripes,” and begins,

We see the gallant streamer yet,

Neither has any great merit, though both may have served the purpose for which they were written.

J. 1036 H.W.F.

Sewall, C.

An anti-slavery hymn attributed to a person of this name is included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853. It begins,

Lord, when thine ancient people cried,

It is probable, but not certain, that the author was Rev. Charles Chauncy Sewall, Marblehead, Massachusetts, May 10, 1802—November 22, 1886, Medfield, Massachusetts; who was a graduate of Bowdoin College and who received the degree of Master of Arts from Harvard in 1832. He was a Unitarian minister serving churches in Peabody, Massachusetts, 1827-1841; Sharon, Massachusetts, 1857-1862; and Medfield, 1873-1377.

H.W.F.

Sigourney, Mrs. Lydia Howard (Huntley), Norwich, Connecticut, September 1, 1791—June 10, 1865, Hartford, Connecticut, wife of Charles Sigourney. She was a prolific writer of prose and verse contributed to many periodicals, and author of many books, chiefly moral tales for young people. She became a very popular writer and spent two years, 1840-1842, in England where she met many celebrities. Two hymns by her were included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, viz:

1. Laborers of Christ, arise,(Brotherhood)

This was also included in Church Harmonies, 1895, with the first line altered to read

Servants of Christ, arise.

2. When adverse winds and waves arise(Trust)

Neither hymn has had later use.

J. 1057, 1589. H.W.F.

Sill, Edward Rowland, Windsor, Connecticut, April 29, 1841—February 27, 1887, Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from Yale in 1861 and spent several months in the year 1866-1867 at the Harvard Divinity School, writing his one fine hymn,

Send down thy truth, O God,

for the School’s Visitation Day exercises in 1867. It was included in his collection of poems, The Hermitage, published the same year, and passed thence into many American hymnbooks. Presumably he entered the Divinity School intending to prepare for the Unitarian ministry, but he did not do so and neither then nor later associated himself with any denomination. At the end of the academic year 1867 he moved to California where he was Professor of English Literature, 1874-1882 at the University of California. He published several books of poems of superior quality.

J. 1703 H.W.F.

Silliman, Rev. Vincent Brown, D.D., Hudson, Wisconsin, June 29, 1894—still living. He graduated from Meadville Theological School in 1920 and from the University of Minnesota in 1925. He has served Unitarian churches in Buffalo, New York; Portland, Maine; Hollis, New York; and Chicago, Illinois. He was a member of the committee which edited The Beacon Song and Service Book for Children and Young People, 1935, and edited We Sing of Life, 1955, an unusual collection of songs for children and young people, with a strong ethical emphasis, some set to familiar hymn tunes, others to interesting folk music. Mr. Silliman contributed the words of several songs. One of them, beginning,

Morning, so fair to see,

is also included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, set to St. Elizabeth (Crusader’s Hymn).

H.W.F.

Spencer, Mrs. Anna Garlin, (wife of Rev. William H. Spencer), Attleboro, Massachusetts, April 17, 1851—February 12, 1931, New York. She was ordained as a Unitarian minister, and was a lecturer and author of books on social problems. In 1896 in her “Orders of Service for Public Worship” she included her song entitled “The Marching Song of the Workers,” beginning,

Hail the hero workers of the mighty past,

set to St. Gertrude. It was included in Hymns of the United Church, 1924, in Songs of Work and Worship, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

H.W.F.

Sprague, Charles, Boston, Massachusetts, October 22, 1791—January 22, 1875, Boston. A Unitarian layman. Although a business man without a college education he wrote much verse which brought him a considerable reputation and requests for poems to celebrate special occasions. One of them was read before the Harvard chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in Cambridge in 1829, and was re-published, with minor alterations, a few years later in Calcutta by a British officer, as his own work. A collection of his poems was published in 1841, and an enlarged edition in 1850. A number of his shorter poems are given in Putnam’s Singers and Songs, and a hymn attributed to “C. Sprague” is included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, beginning

O Thou, at whose dread name we stand.

H.W.F.

Trapp, Rev. Jacob, S.T.D., Muskegon, Michigan, April 12, 1899—still living. He was educated at Valparaiso University and The Pacific Unitarian School for the Ministry (now called The Starr King School for the Ministry). He was ordained in 1929 and has served Unitarian churches in Salt Lake City, Utah; Denver, Colorado; and Summit, New Jersey. In 1932 he wrote a hymn beginning,

Wonders still the world shall witness,

which is included, with some revisions, in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

H.W.F.

Tuckerman, Rev. Joseph, D.D., Boston, Massachusetts, January 18, 1778—April 20, 1840, Havana, Cuba. He graduated from Harvard College in 1798, a classmate of Rev. William Ellery Channing, whose close friend he remained through life. He was licensed to preach by the Boston Association and in 1801 was ordained minister of a church in Chelsea, Massachusetts, at that time a small farming community, which he served for 25 years. He then moved to Boston to begin his “ministry-at-large” to the unchurched elements in the population, under the auspices of the American Unitarian Association and later of the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches. He attained wide reputation for his philanthropy and his wide methods of social reform. Harvard gave him the honorary degree of D.D. in 1824.

His hymn

Father divine! This deadening power control (Aspiration)

is attributed to “Tuckerman” in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, and in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, but is not listed in Julian’s Dictionary or included in later collections.

H.W.F.

Very, Jones, Salem, Massachusetts, August 28, 1813—May 8, 1880, Salem, Massachusetts. He was brother of Washington Very, q.v. He graduated from Harvard College in 1836, and served as tutor in Greek there for two years. Although Julian, Dictionary, p. 1219, says that he entered the Unitarian ministry in 1843, he was never ordained as a settled minister though he served frequently as an occasional lay preacher. Most of his life was given to literary pursuits. In 1839 he published Essays and Poems, and thereafter was a frequent contributor in prose and verse to periodicals, including The Christian Register and the Monthly Magazine. The following hymns by him have passed into various American Unitarian collections.

1. Father! I wait Thy word, (Waiting upon God)

2. Father, there is no change to live with Thee (Peace)

3. Father! Thy wonders do not singly stand (The Spirit Land)

4. Wilt Thou not visit me? (The Divine Presence)

These four, from Essays and Hymns, were included in Longfellow and Johnson’s Book of Hymns, 1846, as were also three from other sources:—

5. I saw on earth another light (The Light Within)

6. The bud will soon become a flower (Sowing and Reaping)

7. Turn not from him who asks of thee (Kind Words)

Longfellow and Johnson’s second book, Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, also included

8. One saint to another I heard say, How long (The Future)

Most of these hymns are in Lyra Sacra Americana and in Putnam’s Singers and Songs, etc. Two other of his hymns have been published in later collections, viz:

9. O heavenly gift of love divine, (Divine assistance)

from his Essays and Poems is included in the Pilgrim Hymnal, 1904; and

227

10. We go not on a pilgrimage (This earth as holy land)

is included in the New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914 and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

Of the hymns listed above nos. 2 and 3 are included in the Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, and in other publications. Another hymn beginning

There is a world eye hath not seen (The Spirit World)

included in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, and there marked Anon., is attributed to Very in Julian’s Dictionary. The hymn is an abbreviated and mutilated version of the beautiful poem beginning

There is a world we have not seen

in A. M. Buchanan’s Folk Hymns of America, pp. 80-81. (See H. W. Foote, Three Centuries of American Hymnody, p. 173). The original form is in three stanzas of eight lines, long metre. The very inferior re-written form is in four stanzas, four lines, common metre. Some of the lines are unchanged from the original, others altered, and the last stanza is a didactic addition. It is altogether improbable that this was done by Very.

J. 1219, 1721 H.W.F.

Very, Washington, Salem, Massachusetts, November 12, 1815—April 28, 1853, Salem. He graduated from Harvard College in 1843, and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1846. After preaching for a year without settlement he opened a private school in Salem, which he conducted until his death. He was brother of Jones Very, q.v. Putnam in Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith includes three of W. Very’s poetical pieces, one of which

There cometh o’er the Spirit (Spring)

appeared in Longfellow and Johnson’s Book of Hymns, 1846.

J. 1219 H.W.F.

Ware, Rev. Henry, Jr., D.D., Hingham, Massachusetts, April 21, 1794—September 22, 1843, Framingham, Massachusetts. His family was for three generations an outstanding one in the liberal ministry; his father, Dr. Henry Ware, Sr., was called in 1805 from a pastorate in Hingham to serve as Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard; his younger brother, William Ware, was the first minister of what is now All Souls Church, New York; and his son, J. F. W. Ware, was later the minister of Arlington Street Church, Boston. Henry Ware, Jr. graduated with high honors from Harvard in 1812, and after teaching for two years at Phillips Exeter Academy returned to Cambridge, to continue his theological studies. He was licensed to preach on July 31, 1815, but was not ordained as minister of the Second Church in Boston (Unitarian) until January 1, 1817. Never vigorous in body, he offered his resignation in 1829, but the congregation refused to accept it, appointing R. W. Emerson to be assistant minister. In 1830, however, he resigned, to accept an appointment as Professor of Pulpit Eloquence and Pastoral Care at the Harvard Divinity School, a position which he held till 1842. He then moved from Cambridge to Framingham, Massachusetts, where he died a few months later. Harvard gave him the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1834. In spite of ill health he wrote much, and he was a greatly beloved teacher, whose saintly character commanded the highest respect. For several years he edited the Christian Disciple, established in 1813, and he was author of many printed books, addresses and sermons, listed in the Memoir of him, published by his brother, Dr. John Ware, in 1846. His collected works were published in four volumes in 1847, the first volume including his occasional poems and his hymns. Some of these last reached a high standard 230 of excellence and brought him wide recognition in the liberal churches of Great Britain as well as in this country. No less than eight pieces of his verse were included in Lyra Sacra Americana, published by the British Religious Tract Society in 1868. His hymns are some of the choicest poetical expressions of liberal religious thought in the first period of American Unitarian hymnody, but almost all have dropped out of present use. Most of them will be found in Putnam’s Singers and Songs, etc.

1. All nature’s works His praise declare, (Worship)

Headed “On Opening an Organ” and dated November 9, 1822. In view of the almost universal use of organs in modern churches it is rather surprizing that this should be a well-nigh unique example of a hymn for the dedication of such an instrument. It is also a good general hymn of worship. It was included in Horder’s British Congregational Hymns, 1884, and in a number of American Unitarian collections.

2. Around the throne of God, the host angelic sings,

A hymn of “Universal Praise,” based on Revelation IV, 2, 3; XV, 3. Dated 1823 and published in the Christian Disciple, vol. V. A fine hymn of its type, but little used, perhaps because of its metre, 6.6.6.6.4.4.4.4.

3. Father of earth and heaven, Whose arm upholds creation, (Thanksgiving for Divine Mercies)

Included in Cheever’s Common Place Book, 1831, and in Lyra Sacra Americana.

4. Father, Thy gentle chastisement (In sickness)

Dated March, 1836. In Lyra Sacra Americana.

231

5. Great God, the followers of thy Son, (Ordination)

Written for the ordination of Jared Sparks, the historian, as minister of the First Unitarian Church, Baltimore, Maryland, May 5, 1819, but suitable for any service of worship and perhaps the most widely used of Ware’s hymns.

6. In this glad hour when children meet (Family Gatherings)

Dated August 20, 1835. In Lyra Sacra Americana.

7. Lift your glad voices in triumph on high (Easter)

Dated 1817, and published in the Christian Disciple of that year, in 2 stanzas of 8 lines. In Lyra Sacra Americana and included in many 19^th century hymn books. In a few cases the second stanza alone is given, beginning

Glory to God, in full anthems of joy!

8. Like Israel’s hosts to exile driven (The God of our Fathers)

Written for the Centennial Celebration of the Boston Thursday Lecture, October 17, 1833. It is a quasi-national hymn in praise of the Pilgrim Fathers. Included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ and in Lyra Sacra Americana.

9. O Thou in whom alone is found (Laying Foundation Stone for a Place of Worship)

Not dated. In Lyra Sacra Americana, and in Thring’s Collection (British) 1882.

10. O Thou who on thy chosen Son, (Ordination)

Written “For an ordination, March, 1829.” Included in Dale’s English Hymn Book, 1874.

11. Oppression shall not always reign, (Anti-Slavery Song)

Dated March 15, 1843, it is the last of the author’s 232 writings in verse. In its original form it was a poem in several stanzas unsuited for use as a hymn, but 3 stanzas, beginning as above, had been taken from it, altered and transposed, and thus adapted for worship. Stanzas one and two were included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ and in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864.

12. To prayer, to prayer, for morning breaks, (Prayer)

In 1826 he wrote a poem of 10 stanzas, 6 lines each, entitled “Seasons of Prayer,” printed in full in Lyra Sacra Americana and in Putnam, Singers and Songs, from which at least three variant centos were in use in the 19^th century. One beginning with the first line, as above, adapting it for morning worship, was included in Lunt’s Christian Psalter, 1841, and in later collections. Another beginning with the second stanza

To prayer, the glorious sun is gone,

was adapted for evening worship. A third selection, beginning with the third stanza of the poem,

To prayer! for the day that God hath blest,

was included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ.

13. We rear not a temple, like Judah of old, (Dedication of a Place of Worship)

“For the dedication of a church, April, 1839.”

14. With praise and prayer our gifts we bring (Opening of a Place of Worship)

233

In Dale’s English Hymn Book, 1874. Not in Putnam’s Singers and Songs, etc.

None of the hymns listed above are in current use except nos. 1 and 5, both of which are included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.

J. 1233, 1595 Revised by H.W.F.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of American Unitarian Hymn Writers and Hymns

American Unitarian Hymn Writers and Hymns

Contents:

AMERICAN UNITARIAN HYMNODY

Catalogue of American Unitarian Hymn Books.
compiled by Henry Wilder Foote and reprinted (with revisions) from the Proceedings of the Unitarian Historical Society, May, 1938, by permission.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alphabetical List of Unitarian Hymn Writers In the Following Catalogue

Biographical Sketches
with Notes on Hymns

FOOTNOTES

Transcriber’s Notes

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

The Project Gutenberg eBook of American Unitarian Hymn Writers and Hymns

American Unitarian Hymn Writers and Hymns

Contents:

AMERICAN UNITARIAN HYMNODY

Catalogue of American Unitarian Hymn Books. compiled by Henry Wilder Foote and reprinted (with revisions) from the Proceedings of the Unitarian Historical Society, May, 1938, by permission.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alphabetical List of Unitarian Hymn Writers In the Following Catalogue

Biographical Sketches with Notes on Hymns

FOOTNOTES

Transcriber’s Notes

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

Catalogue of American Unitarian Hymn Books.
compiled by Henry Wilder Foote and reprinted (with revisions) from the Proceedings of the Unitarian Historical Society, May, 1938, by permission.

Biographical Sketches
with Notes on Hymns