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,

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

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

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

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,

His metrical versions of the Psalms follow:—

6. Blest is the mortal whose delight, Ps. 1

7. Come let us sing unto the Lord, Ps. 95

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8. For thee in Zion there is praise, Ps. 65

9. My Shepherd is the Lord on high, Ps. 23

10. My soul, before thy Maker kneel, Ps. 103

11. O, all ye people, clap your hands, Ps. 47

12. O God, with goodness all thine own, Ps. 67

13. O heal me, Lord, for I am weak, Ps. 6

14. O, judge me, Lord, for thou art just, Ps. 26

15. O Lord my God! how great thou art, Ps. 104

16. O Lord, thy all-discerning eyes, Ps. 139

17. O that the race of men would raise, Ps. 107

18. Send forth, O God, thy truth and light, Ps. 43

19. Sing to Jehovah a new song, Ps. 98

20. Sing to the Lord a song of praise, Ps. 149

21. Turn to the stars of heaven thine eyes, Ps. 19

22. Why should I fear in evil days, Ps. 49

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.

J. 16, 1647 H.W.F.

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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,

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,

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

J 1550, 1602 H.W.F.

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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

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.

46

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,

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

A hymn beginning

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

H.W.F.

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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.

509 Abba, Father, hear thy child,

758 Alas! how poor and little worth,

602 Behold, the servant of the Lord,

73 Blest is the hour when cares depart,

510 Come, let us who in Christ believe

288 Come, O thou universal good!

581 Come to the morning prayer,

707 Gently, Lord, O gently lead us,

868 God of the mountain, God of the storm,

437 God of the rolling year! to Thee

765 Go to thy rest, fair child!

305 Head of the church triumphant,

860 Hear, Father, hear our prayer

691 He sendeth sun, he sendeth shower

686 I cannot always trace the way

763 In the broad fields of heaven,

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37 “Let there be light!” When born on high

255 Lord, in thy garden agony,

409 Lord, may the spirit of this feast,

861 Meek and lowly, pure and holy,

573 Meek hearts are by sweet manna fed,

798 Mortal, the angels say,

856 My feet are worn and weary with the march,

481 O’er mountaintops, the mount of God,

294 On earth was darkness spread,

742 O speed thee, Christian, on thy way,

506 O Thou, who hearest prayer,

803 O why should friendship grieve for them

56 O wondrous depth of grace divine,

307 Saviour and dearest friend,

312 Saviour, source of every blessing,

539 Sovereign of worlds! display thy power,

757 Swift years, but teach me how to bear,

611 Take my heart, O Father, take it,

75 There is a world, and O how blest,

276 Thou art the Way, and he who sighs,

768 Thou must go forth alone, my soul!

155 ’Tis not Thy chastening hand I fear,

247 Wake the song of jubilee.

528 When shall the voice of singing,

846 Why come not spirits from the realms of glory?

448 Why slumbereth, Lord, each promised sign?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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,

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

60

Briggs, C. A.

A hymn beginning,

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.

61

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,

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.

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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.

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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.

64

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

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

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,

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,

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,

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)

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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.

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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

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)

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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.

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)

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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

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)

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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.

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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

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.

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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.

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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.

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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,

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

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.

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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.

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

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

(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

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.

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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.

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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,

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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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,

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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.

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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,

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.

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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.

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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)

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

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

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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)

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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.

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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

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

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

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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

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,

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,

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,

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,

In Lyra Sacra Americana it is altered to read

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.

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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

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

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.