American Unitarian Hymn Writers and Hymns
Compiled by Henry Wilder Foote for the Hymn Society of America for publication in the Society’s proposed Dictionary of American Hymnology
Contents:
[(1) Historical Sketch of American Unitarian Hymnody.] (Pages 1-11) [(2) Catalogue of American Unitarian Hymn Books.] (Pages 12-36) [(3) Alphabetical List of Writers.] (Pages 37-39) [(4) Biographical Sketches, with Notes on Hymns.] (Pages 40-247) [(5) Index of First Lines of Published Hymns.] (Pages 248-270)
Cambridge, Massachusetts January, 1959
I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Misses Ruth and Orlo McCormack in the preparation of this compilation.
H.W.F.
AMERICAN UNITARIAN HYMNODY
In the first edition of Julian’s Dictionary of Hymnology (1891) F. M. Bird[1] wrote, “The Unitarians—possessing a large share of the best blood and brain of the most cultivated section of America—exhibit a long array of respectable hymnists whose effusions have often won the acceptance of other bodies,” (pp. 58-59). And in this century Louis F. Benson[2] in his classic book The English Hymn (p. 460) wrote, “It is not surprizing that a body including the best blood and highest culture of Massachusetts shared in the Literary Movement [of the 19th century] and succeeded in imparting to its hymn books a freshness of interest in great contrast to those of the orthodox churches” and that “from their [the compilers’] hands there proceeded —— a series of hymn books whose literary interest was very notable” (p. 462).
This succession of Unitarian hymn writers over a period of approximately 150 years can best be traced in the nearly 50 hymn books compiled by individuals or committees for use in Unitarian churches.[3] The editors of these books were among the best educated men of their time, who knew where to look for fresh lyrical utterances of a living faith. The earliest of them lived in the period when the traditional metrical psalms which, for more than two centuries, had been almost the only worship-song of the English speaking world, were being slowly superseded by the songs of a new age. These songs they chiefly found in the various hymn-books published for use in English Non-conformist chapels when the Church of England still generally adhered to the Old or New Versions of the Psalms. It was from these sources that Jeremy Belknap first introduced to Americans the hymns of Anne Steele, and included in his Sacred Poetry (1795) hymns by Addison, Cowper, Newton, Doddridge and other English contemporaries. When, in 1808, the vestry of Trinity Church, Boston, impatient at the delay of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in getting out a hymnal, issued one for their own use, they drew heavily upon Belknap’s collection, saying in their preface “In this selection we are chiefly indebted to Dr. Belknap, whose book unquestionably contains the best expressions of sacred poetry extant.”
Many of the later collections in this series of Unitarian hymn books have been no less notable for their introduction to use in this country of new English hymns, such as Pope’s “Father of all, in every age;” Sir Walter Scott’s “When Israel of the Lord beloved;” translations of hymns in the Roman Breviary; Sarah Flower Adams’ “Nearer, my God, to Thee” (only three years after its publication in England); and Newman’s “Lead, kindly Light;” and for the ability of their compilers to discover fresh materials near at hand, as when Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson were the first to notice the hymnic possibilities of Whittier’s poems.
The story of American Unitarian hymnody begins with the publication in 1783 of the Collection of Hymns—designed for the use of the West Society of Boston. This church belonged to the liberal wing of New England Congregationalism, destined to become known as Unitarian a generation later. The book contained a small selection of traditional psalms and hymns by British authors and a number of quaintly didactic moral ditties in doggerel, presumably contributed by Boston versifiers who cannot now be identified.
The first group of Unitarian hymn-writers whose names are known and whose productions have survived did not begin to write until the opening decades of the 19th century. Of this group the earliest born was John Quincy Adams, (1767-1848), best remembered as the sixth President of the United States. That he was also a hymn writer, and the only president of the country who was one, has generally been forgotten. Two or three hymns by him were written earlier but most of them came from the period following his retirement from the presidency in 1829. Soon after that event he wrote one for the 200th anniversary of the First Church in Quincy, of which he was a member, and later in life he composed a metrical paraphrase of the whole Book of Psalms. When Dr. Lunt, minister of the Quincy church, was preparing his Christian Psalter, 1841, Mrs. Adams put into his hands the mss. of her husband’s poems, and Lunt included in his book five hymns and seventeen psalms by his distinguished parishioner. None of them rose above the level of respectable verse but his version of Psalm 43 survived in one or more hymn books 100 years later.
Rev. John Pierpont (1785-1866) was a poet of considerable abilities whose verses were in demand for special occasions and whose hymns were the best lyrical expressions of the developing new thought in religion. W. Garrett Horder, the English hymnologist, wrote that Pierpont’s hymn of universal praise was “the earliest really great hymn I have found by an American author.” It is still in use, as are two others by him.
Prof. Andrews Norton (1786-1853) of the Harvard Divinity School, published a hymn as early as 1809 and a good deal of verse in later years, much of it in a rather sombre introspective mood, but with one fine hymn still in use. He was followed by Rev. Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham (1793-1870) who wrote a good many hymns for special occasions, one of which survives today, and by Rev. Henry Ware, Jr. (1794-1843) who wrote a number of hymns highly valued as utterances of the religious idealism of the period, but long since dropped from use, except for an excellent one for the dedication of an organ, probably the only hymn in the English language written expressly for such an occasion. William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), a lay man of letters, was another of the elder members of the famous group of New England poets of the 19th century, and as early as 1820 he contributed 5 hymns to Sewall’s New York Collection, published in that year, and he later wrote others.
The latest born of this first group who attained memorable distinction in this field was Rev. Frederic Henry Hedge (1805-1890), whose earliest hymn, still in use, was written in 1829, but who is best known for his great translation of Luther’s “Ein’ feste Burg,” and for a fine Good Friday hymn. He collaborated with Rev. Frederic Dan Huntington[4] (1819-1904) then the college preacher at Harvard, in compiling Hymns for the Church of Christ, (1853), to which Huntington contributed five hymns, none now in use. Their book was the last and best of the various Collections published up to the middle of the century by editors who belonged to what was becoming the conservative wing of the denomination, to whom Emerson’s Divinity School Address of 1838 seemed dangerously radical.
But meantime a new era in Unitarian hymnody was opening with the publication in 1846 of the Book of Hymns edited by Samuel Longfellow (1819-1891) and Samuel Johnson (1822-1882), while they were still studying in the Harvard Divinity School. Both had come under the influence of the Transcendentalist movement which was liberalizing Unitarian thought and they eagerly sought out hymns which were fresh expressions of their youthful outlook on religion. The book was notable for the new sources of hymns which they discovered, among them the poems of John Greenleaf Whittier, which they were the first to introduce into a hymn book.
Their Book of Hymns was followed in 1864 by their larger and even more influential Hymns of the Spirit, which includes most of their own hymns and many by other Unitarian writers of the period, too numerous to name here, but whose hymns are listed in the [catalogue of writers] appended to this introductory sketch. Samuel Johnson wrote only half a dozen hymns, but they are among the finest in the language. Samuel Longfellow wrote many more, the best of which are quite equal to Johnson’s, and together they made a more important contribution to American Unitarian hymnody than that of any other writers in the middle of the 19th century.
This was the period of “the flowering of New England literature” and two of its poets, besides those already named, made their contribution to hymnody. The more important of the two was Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, (1809-1894) with half a dozen fine and widely used hymns, and Prof. James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) who, strictly speaking, was hardly a hymn writer at all, but from whose poems two or three have been quarried. Two other writers of this period were Rev. Edmund Hamilton Sears (1810-1876) and his niece, Miss Eliza Scudder (1819-1896). Sears wrote two Christmas hymns widely used throughout the English speaking world. Miss Scudder wrote half a dozen hymns in a mystical vein of the highest quality, but in temperament and outlook both writers belong more to the earlier period of Unitarian thought than to that prevalent in their later lifetime.
In this mid-century period should also be included the famous war-time hymn by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,” written in 1861 to provide worthier words than “John Brown’s body” for the popular tune “Glory, Hallelujah”, which had been composed a few years earlier for a Sunday School in Charleston, South Carolina.
A third period in Unitarian hymnody began with the appearance of hymns by three good friends, Rev. John White Chadwick (1840-1906), Rev. Frederic Lucian Hosmer (1840-1929) and Rev. William Channing Gannett (1840-1923), who carried forward in the last third of the century the broadly theistic interpretation of a universal religion to which Longfellow and Johnson had given utterance. Chadwick’s first hymn was written in 1864 for the graduation of his class from the Harvard Divinity School, a great hymn of brotherhood, widely used in England as well as here. A half-dozen others of fine quality have survived. Hosmer and Gannett worked together in bringing out their book The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems, 1885, 1894, and Unity Hymns and Chorals, 1880, 1911. Neither wrote any hymns while in the Divinity School, but both began to do so soon after. In 1873 Gannett wrote a fine one which is probably the earliest in the language to give a religious interpretation to the then controversial doctrine of evolution, and later a half dozen others to which deep feeling is expressed in beautiful lyrical verse. Hosmer, however, was a much more prolific writer, producing more than 40 hymns which have had some use. He was a meticulous craftsman who studied the technique of hymn-writing, and several of his hymns are among the finest in the language. Canon Dearmer, a leading authority on hymnody in the Church of England, included seven of them in his Songs of Praise and calls one of them “this flawless poem, one of the completest expressions of religious faith,” and says another is “one of the noblest hymns in the language.” For approximately 40 years, c. 1880-1920, Hosmer was the outstanding hymn writer in the English speaking world, and he left no successor who was his equal in the perfection of his finest hymns.
A smaller but important contribution to the Unitarian hymnody of this period was made by Rev. Theodore Chickering Williams (1855-1915) who, while still a student in the Harvard Divinity School wrote one of the best ordination hymns in the language, and, in later years, eight others, still in use, which are religious poetry of a high order.
The latest period in Unitarian hymnody, covering the last half-century, is notable for the productions of two writers, Rev. Marion Franklin Ham (1867-1957) and Rev. John Haynes Holmes, (1879-still living). Although he had published a volume of poems in 1896 Dr. Ham did not begin to write hymns until 1911, but thereafter he produced a succession of beautiful religious lyrics, eight or ten of which have come into use. Some of them are utterances of a profound mystical insight akin to that of Eliza Scudder, but others are expressions of a world-wide theism, and one has been translated into Japanese.
Rev. John Haynes Holmes has been a more prolific writer, author of about 45 hymns, many written for special occasions, but 10 or 15 others have come into general and widespread use. His hymns are in a quite different key from those of Dr. Ham’s quiet mysticism, generally being stirring calls to social justice and the service of mankind, though a few are hymns of gratitude for the simple joys of life. While he has infrequently attained the felicity of phrasing which results in a memorable line his hymns are cast in vigorous and often stirring verse, expressing a noble altruism and a wholesome attitude towards life.
M. F. Ham and J. H. Holmes are the latest notable figures in this era of 150 years since the beginning of American Unitarian hymnody, throughout which scores of lesser writers have also contributed their offerings to the main stream. These writers are far too numerous to name in this outline sketch but their thumbnail biographies and notations as to their hymns will be found in the following catalogue. A survey of this whole era discloses the evolution in liberal religious thought from the period when the emphasis was on the sinfulness of man and the redemptive function of the Christian Church, to the vision of a world wide religion taking in many forms, and manifested in that service of mankind which found expression in the “social gospel” in the first half of this century.
The production of so great a number of fine hymns (and of a long series of hymn books of a superior type) over so long a period, by persons belonging to one of the smallest Protestant denominations, commonly considered coldly intellectual rather than emotional in its approach to religion, is a phenomenon unique in the history of hymnody. When the first edition of the Pilgrim Hymnal was published in 1910 it listed both the nationality and the church membership of the authors included, which led to the disclosure that nearly half the American authors were Unitarians who had contributed considerably more than half the hymns of American authorship. In answer to critics Dr. Washington Gladden replied that this was due to the simple fact that the Unitarians had written a larger number of the best hymns than had the American writers in other denominations.
Canon Dearmer in England observed the same fact and was puzzled to explain it. The explanation, however, is a simple one. With the exception of a relatively small number of writers born in other parts of the country and with different backgrounds, these Unitarian authors were men brought up in the atmosphere of the so-called “New England Renaissance,” that literary revival of which Boston, Cambridge and Concord were the chief centres in the 19th century, and they belonged by blood, by education and by social ties to the New England literary group. The majority were also graduates of Harvard College or Harvard Divinity School, or both, in a period when the spirit of the time was most favorable to the stimulation of poetic gifts, and in a place where the intellectual level was high and there was freedom from any dogmatic control.[5] Thus they had the culture and the warmth of atmosphere needed, and the Divinity School had the admirable custom of encouraging students to write a hymn for the annual graduation exercises or for the School’s Christmas service, and so stimulated their poetic gifts.
Thanks to these favorable circumstances what has been called “the Harvard school of hymnody” has had no equal in the English speaking world, the only comparable institution being Trinity College, Cambridge, England, which, for a much briefer period (1820-1845) was the nursing mother of a notable succession of Anglican hymn writers. It was this fact which led W. Garrett Horder, an English Congregationalist who was also a highly competent hymnologist, to write, “Harvard, like our English Cambridge, has been ‘a nest of singing birds’. I was struck by this when editing The Treasury of American Sacred Songs. Harvard provided the bulk —— of the verse I included.” And other orthodox authorities, notably F. M. Bird and Louis F. Benson, already quoted, have borne witness to the high achievements of both the editors of the long succession of Unitarian hymn books and the authors of the hymns which they included.
Catalogue of American Unitarian Hymn Books.
compiled by Henry Wilder Foote and reprinted (with revisions) from the Proceedings of the Unitarian Historical Society, May, 1938, by permission.
In the 17th century, and down to the middle of the 18th, all churches of the Congregational order in New England used the Bay Psalm Book, first printed in Cambridge in 1640, except for the use of Ainsworth’s Psalter in the churches of the Plymouth Plantation and in the First Church in Salem for a part of the 17th century. In the latter part of the 18th century, the Bay Psalm Book was gradually superseded by either the New Version of the Psalms (Tate and Brady) or, more generally, by one of the editions of Watts and Select, i.e. Isaac Watts’ Psalms and Hymns, with a supplement of hymns selected from other authors.
The first steps away from the Psalm books in general use were taken by two churches which were in the vanguard of the rising liberalism of the last half of the 18th century. In 1782 the West Church in Boston published A Collection of Hymns, more particularly designed for the Use of the West Society in Boston [(1)],[6] and in 1788 the East Church in Salem published A Collection of Hymns for Publick Worship, [(2)]. These two books were of only local significance, but they clearly pointed the way which later publications were to follow. In 1795 Rev. Jeremy Belknap brought out his Sacred Poetry [(3)], which was an attempt to produce a book which should be acceptable to both the liberal and the orthodox wings of Congregationalism. In this purpose it failed, though it was widely used by Unitarians. The succeeding books were more definitely Unitarian in character and illustrate the changing emphasis in religious thought and practice through five generations of religious liberals. They form a notable series, for most of them attained a literary standard and spiritual outlook higher than that of other contemporary hymn books.
The earlier books in this series were very imperfectly edited, judged by modern standards. Some of them contain no preface and no indication as to the identity of the compiler. In other cases, the compiler is indicated by initials. In some cases the names of the authors of hymns are not given at all, in others only the surname, when known, and there are frequent mistaken attributions. Directions as to the music are usually lacking, the metre of each hymn alone being indicated. In some cases the names of suitable tunes are given, but only one book [(18)] earlier than 1868 included any music, in that case an appendix of twenty-one tunes in two parts at the back of the book. The first American Unitarian hymn book to be printed with a tune on each page was the American Unitarian Association’s Hymn and Tune Book of 1868 [(34)]. Thereafter few books appeared without tunes, but half-a-dozen other collections with music were published in the next forty years, each of which had considerable use.
It will be noted that in the course of the 19th century no less than thirty-six different hymn-books appeared, a far larger number than any other American denomination can show for the same period, and illustrative of the extreme individualism of the Unitarian churches. Throughout the middle third of the century Greenwood’s Collection [(13)], the Springfield Collection [(14)], and the Cheshire Collection [(20)], had the widest use, followed in the last third of the century by the Hymn and Tune Books [(34)] and [(36)] of the American Unitarian Association, but all the other collections had some local vogue, in some cases only for a brief period or only in those churches the ministers of which had compiled the collections in question. As late, however, as the beginning of the 20th century, at least eight different hymn-books were in use in the Unitarian churches of the United States and Canada. This diversity of usage declined rapidly after the publication of The New Hymn and Tune Book [(45)] in 1914, and had practically disappeared by the time when that book’s successor, Hymns of the Spirit [(48)] was published in 1937.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Copies of at least one edition of each of the following books are in the Historical Library of the American Unitarian Association, 25 Beacon Street, Boston, except in the cases noted.
1. A Collection of Hymns, more particularly designed for the Use of the West Society in Boston—Boston, 1782; 2nd ed., 1803; 3rd ed., 1806; 4th ed., 1813.
The editor is said to have been Rev. Simeon Howard (1733-1804), (See Bentley’s Diary, II, 371), Jonathan Mayhew’s successor as minister of the West Church. Mayhew’s congregation was notably liberal and this book represents the first step away from psalm-books of the traditional type. It contains 166 hymns, including a number of classics by Watts, Barbauld, Addison, etc. The tone in general is ethical rather than theological, and many of the hymns are moral precepts in mediocre verse, some, at least, probably of local production, but the authors cannot be identified as no author is named; there is no preface, and the compiler’s name is not given.
Note:—The American Unitarian Association does not own a copy. There is one in the Congregational Library, 14 Beacon Street, Boston.
2. A Collection of Hymns for Publick Worship—Salem; n.d. (1788)
Edited by Rev. William Bentley (1750-1819) of the East Church, Salem, Mass., and used there until superseded in 1843 by Flint’s Collection [(17)]. There is no preface and the compiler’s name is not given. There are no musical directions except the metre of each hymn. The book consists of two parts, the first containing 40 psalms “according to Tate and Brady’s Version,” arranged by metre; the second containing 163 hymns of high quality, including many of the classics of the period. The book is much superior to [No. 1], but had little use outside the church for which it was intended, perhaps because Bentley, though one of the earliest outspoken Unitarians, was persona non grata in a Federalist stronghold on account of his political opinions.
Note:—The American Unitarian Association does not own a copy. There is one at The Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
3. Sacred Poetry: consisting of Psalms and Hymns adapted to Christian devotion in publick and private. Selected from the best authors, with variations and additions—By Jeremy Belknap, D.D., Boston, 1795.
Many editions. Some included a supplement of Hymns for the Lord’s Supper, selected and original, [(7)] prepared by Rev. Thaddeus M. Harris, minister of the First Church in Dorchester, 1801. In 1812 an edition appeared with 28 additional hymns, “Selected by the successor of the Rev. Author,” i.e. by W. E. Channing.
Dr. Belknap (1744-1798) was the first Congregational minister of the Federal Street Church (his predecessors having been Presbyterians), and his immediate successor was William Ellery Channing. Belknap endeavored to compile a collection which should serve both the orthodox and the liberal wings of the New England Congregationalism of his day. In his preface he says, “In this selection, those Christians who do not scruple to sing praises to their Redeemer and Sanctifier, will find materials for such a sublime enjoyment; whilst others, whose tenderness of conscience may oblige them to confine their addresses to the Father only, will find no deficiency of matter suited to their idea of the chaste and awful spirit of devotion.” Belknap, however, failed in his attempt to produce a compromise book, as it found favor only in the liberal churches, which used it for some forty years.
The book contains 150 psalms, selected from versions by Tate and Brady, Watts, and others, often “with variations”; and 300 hymns, widely selected from English sources, including Pope’s “Universal Prayer” (altered), Helen Maria Williams’ “While Thee I seek, protecting Power,” hymns by Cowper, Newton, Doddridge, Merrick, Addison, Anne Steele and others. Belknap introduced Anne Steele’s hymns to Americans. There are no hymns by Charles Wesley, and the only hymns of American authorship appear to be Mather Byles’ “When wild confusion rends the air,” and a metrical version of Psalm 65 by Jacob Kimball.
There are no musical directions save the metre of each hymn and the key. “The characters denoting the sharp or flat key are prefixed to each psalm or hymn, at my request, by the Rev. Dr. Morse, of Charlestown.”
The book was much the best of its period. When, in 1808, the vestry of Trinity Church, Boston, impatient at the delay of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in getting out a hymnal, issued one for their own use, they drew heavily on Belknap’s, saying in their preface, “In this selection we are chiefly indebted to Dr. Belknap, whose book unquestionably contains the best specimens of sacred poetry extant.”
4. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for public worship.—Boston, 1799; edited by Rev. James Freeman (1759-1825). 2nd ed., 1813.
This was the first of the hymn-books prepared for use in King’s Chapel, Boston, where it was used for 30 years until succeeded by Greenwood’s Collection [(13)]. No preface; no musical directions except that the metre is indicated. The names of some authors are given in the index of first lines. The book contains 155 psalms, or parts of psalms, “selected principally from Tate and Brady,” followed by 90 hymns and 8 doxologies. The collection is decidedly inferior to that of Belknap [(3)] in range and quality.
Note:—The American Unitarian Association does not own a copy, but King’s Chapel does.
5. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns—by William Emerson, A.M., Pastor of the First Church in Boston; Boston, 1808.
Rev. William Emerson (1769-1811) was the father of Ralph Waldo Emerson. His book is more handsomely printed than most hymn books of the period and contains 150 hymns. It was very liberal in tone and was assailed by the orthodox for having omitted hymns on several of “the most essential doctrines of Christianity.” Its most notable feature was its endeavor to improve the singing by “prefixing to each psalm and hymn the name of a tune, well composed and judicially chosen” as “a valuable auxiliary to musical bands. No American hymn-book has hitherto offered this aid to the performers of psalmody.” The key in which the tune is set and the metre are also indicated at the head of each hymn. There is also an interesting “Index of Tunes, and Musical Authors,” with references to the various collections in which the recommended tunes may be found. As this list of collections of tunes was prepared by a person particularly interested in promoting good music it is here reprinted as indicating the best available sources at the time:
Mass. Com., Massachusetts Compiler; Sal. Coll., Salem Collection; Lock H. Coll., Lock’s Hospital Collection; Sac. Min., Sacred Minstrel; B.C.M., Beauties of Church Music; Psal. Evan., Psalmodia Evangelica; F. C. Coll., First Church Collection; Suff. Selec., Suffolk Selection; Bos. Selec., Boston Selection; Newb’t Coll., Newburyport Collection; Mus. Olio, Musical Olio; Col. Repos., Columbian Repository; B. Coll., Bridgewater Collection.
While this book thus made the selection of tunes easier than did most of its contemporaries, it is needless to point out how inconvenient it was not to have the tunes in the same book with the words. With all its excellencies the book had small use, being rather too far in advance of its time.
6. A Selection of Sacred Poetry consisting of Psalms and Hymns from Watts, Doddridge, Merrick, Scott, Cowper, Barbauld, Steele and others—Philadelphia, 1812; 2nd ed., 1818; 3rd ed., 1828; 4th ed., 1846.
Edited by Ralph Eddowes (1751-1833) and James Taylor (1769-1844) two laymen of the church in Philadelphia in which Joseph Priestley had preached after coming to America, but which remained without a settled minister until Rev. W. H. Furness was installed in 1825. A good collection of 606 psalms and hymns, from varied English sources, as indicated by the following quotation from preface:—“The Society of Unitarian Christians in Philadelphia, from its first formation, has used, in its public devotional exercises, the collection of hymns and psalms made by the Rev. Doctors Kippis and Rees, and Messrs. Jervis and Morgan.... A late collection by the Rev. Mr. Aspland, of Hackney, has also afforded assistance, of which advantage has been freely taken; and by resorting to another, published in 1789 by the Rev. Messrs. Ash and Evans of Bristol, this work has been enriched with several pieces of Mrs. Steele’s exquisitely beautiful and highly devotional poetry.”
7. Hymns for the Lord’s Supper, Original and Selected. [edited] by Thaddeus Mason Harris, D.D., Boston; printed by Sewall Phelps, no. 5 Court Street, 1820; 2nd ed., 1821.
In 1801 Rev. Thaddeus M. Harris, minister of the First Church in Dorchester, Mass., printed a few hymns for use at the Lord’s Supper, and these formed the basis for this enlarged collection published in 1820. This edition contains original hymns by Rev. John Pierpont of Boston, Rev. Samuel Gilman of Charleston, S. C., and others, none of them in use today. The booklet probably had more circulation for private reading than for public use.
8. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns, for social and private worship—New York, 1820; 2nd ed., 1827; 4th ed., 1845.
Compiled by Dr. Henry D. Sewall, one of the laymen who founded the First Congregational Society of New York, now All Souls Church, which was organized in 1819. Commonly called “the New York Collection.” It contains 504 psalms and hymns arranged in three sections in alphabetical order of first lines. There are no musical directions except that the metre of each hymn is indicated. The Collection is chiefly notable for the inclusion, without the author’s name, of five original hymns by William Cullen Bryant, a member of the congregation, who had written them at the instance of Miss Sedgwick.
The fourth edition, 1845, made some substitutions and added 146 hymns to the original number.
9. A Selection of Psalms and Hymns, for social and private worship—Andover, 1821; 2nd ed., Cambridge, 1824; 11th ed., Boston, 1832.
Edited by Jonathan Peele Dabney (1793-1868), a graduate of Harvard who had studied for the ministry but was never ordained. The book was smaller, cheaper and better arranged than Sewall’s [(8)], and had considerable use. It contains 385 hymns, and 21 “Ascriptions and Occasional Pieces,” these last including Henry Ware’s Easter hymn, “Lift your glad voices,” and Heber’s “From Greenland’s icy mountains.” There are no musical instructions beyond indication of metres.
10. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Social and Private Worship, compiled by a committee of the West Parish in Boston—Boston; printed by John B. Russell, 1823.
This book was a successor to [No. 1]. No preface; no copyright; no indication of the identity of the compilers. It contains 320 psalms and hymns by Tate and Brady, Watts, Doddridge, Barbauld, Steele and others. No hymn by Charles Wesley, but it has John Wesley’s “Lo, God is here,” attributed to “Salisbury Coll.” Also 6 communion hymns; 5 for Christmas, including Tate’s “While shepherds watched their flocks by night,” attributed to Dr. Patrick; Milton’s “Nor war nor battle’s sound,” altered by Dr. Gardiner; and Sir Walter Scott’s “When Israel of the Lord beloved”.
Note:—The American Unitarian Association does not own a copy, but there is one at the Congregational Library, 16 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.
11. A Selection from Tate and Brady’s Version of the Psalms: with Hymns by various authors—For the use of the church in Brattle Square, Boston. Boston: Richardson & Lord, 1825.
Compiled by a committee of that church. The church used the Bay Psalm Book until 1753; then Tate and Brady’s New Version of the Psalms, with an appendix of hymns selected by a committee. In 1808 another committee published another appendix, entitled A Second Part of Hymns. The book issued in 1825, by a committee the membership of which is unknown, is a revision and enlargement of the original Tate and Brady and the appendices. It contains 150 psalms and 363 hymns. No musical directions save indications of metres.
12. Sacred Poetry and Music reconciled, or a Collection of Hymns original and compiled—by Samuel Willard, D.D., A.A.S. Boston: L. C. Bowles, 1830.
This book, “adopted while in manuscript, by the Third Congregational Society in Hingham,” had little use beyond that parish. It contains 518 hymns, and 7 chants, the latter being a feature not met with in any earlier book in this series. Tunes are indicated for each hymn, but the editor had some peculiar theories about the “reconciliation” of words and music. The editor, Rev. Samuel Willard (1776-1859), had been minister at Deerfield but had retired on account of blindness and was temporarily resident in Hingham when this book was published.
13. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Christian Worship—Boston: Carter and Hendee, 1830.
Edited by Rev. Francis William Pitt Greenwood (1797-1843), minister of King’s Chapel, Boston. Greenwood’s Collection, as it was generally called, containing 560 psalms and hymns, superseded Belknap’s [(3)] as the hymn-book most widely used in Unitarian churches in the first half of the 19th century. It ran to fifty editions and was used in King’s Chapel, for which it was prepared, until superseded there by Hymns of the Church Universal, 1890, [(39)]. Based upon Watts, the book contains the then very recent hymns by James Montgomery, Harriet Auber, Bowring and Heber, and practically introduced Charles Wesley to American Unitarians. In Young Emerson Speaks, edited by A. C. McGiffert, 1937, pages 145-150, will be found a sermon on “Hymn Books” preached by R. W. Emerson in 1831, while still minister of the Second Church in Boston, in which he recommends the church to adopt Greenwood’s Collection in place of Belknap’s. Emerson, in his Journal for 1847, noted that Greenwood’s Collection was “still the best.”
14. The Springfield Collection of Hymns for sacred worship, by William B. O. Peabody—Springfield: Samuel Bowles, 1835.
Rev. William Oliver Bourne Peabody (1799-1847) was minister at Springfield, Mass. His collection contains 509 hymns, admirably chosen from the accepted classics of the period, Watts and Doddridge predominant, but with an increasing number of the recent compositions by Unitarian hymn-writers of the first third of the 19th century. No musical instructions beyond indication of metres. On its merits the Springfield Collection rightly shared with Greenwood’s Collection [(13)] and The Cheshire Collection [(20)] the largest measure of popularity and use among Unitarians in the middle of the 19th century.
15. The Christian Psalter: A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for social and private worship—Boston, 1841.
Edited by Rev. William Parsons Lunt (1805-1857), for use in the First Church in Quincy, Mass. It contains 702 hymns and psalms and represents a reversion to the older type of hymnody, “but, if old-fashioned, it was excellent and serviceable.” Lunt included 22 pieces by his parishioner, ex-President John Quincy Adams, whose wife had put into his hands a complete metrical psalter which Adams had composed. At least one of Adams’ psalms is still to be found in some hymn-books.
16. A Manual of Prayer for public and private worship, with a collection of hymns—Boston, 1842.
Edited by Rev. William Greenleaf Eliot (1811-1887). Although printed in Boston, this book was prepared for The First Congregational Society of St. Louis, Missouri, of which the editor had become minister in 1834. The Society was the earliest Unitarian church in the Mississippi Valley, excepting that at New Orleans. The book is primarily a collection of service materials followed by 272 well-selected hymns from standard sources. It was the earliest volume of the sort to be prepared for Unitarian use in the Middle West.
17. A Collection of Hymns, for the Christian Church and Home—Boston, 1843.
Edited by Rev. James Flint (1779-1855). The editor was minister of the East Church in Salem, Mass., and based his book upon the 18th century collection of his predecessor, William Bentley [(2)]. He borrowed the title and much of the contents of James Martineau’s book published in England in 1840. The book contains 415 hymns.
Note:—The American Unitarian Association does not own a copy of this book. One is in the Congregational Library, 14 Beacon Street, Boston.
18. The Social Hymn Book; consisting of psalms and hymns for social worship and private devotions—Boston, 1843.
Edited by Rev. Chandler Robbins (1810-1882), minister of the Second Church in Boston. The book, which contains 350 psalms and hymns, is based upon Watts and Doddridge, but it introduced new hymns from various sources, among them about twenty of Bishop Mant’s translations of “ancient hymns” from the Roman Breviary. Dr. Robbins was one of the earliest American hymn-book editors to avail himself of the English versions of Latin hymns which were among the fruits of the Oxford Movement. His book has an appendix of 21 tunes in two parts, the book being thus the first in this series to include any printed music.
19. The Disciples’ Hymn Book; a collection of hymns and chants for public and private devotions, prepared for the use of the Church of the Disciples—Boston, 1844.
Edited by Rev. James Freeman Clarke (1810-1888) for use in the Church of the Disciples, Boston, which had been organized in 1841 and of which he was the first minister. The first edition is commonly bound up with Service Book: for the use of the Church of the Disciples. A revised and enlarged edition appeared in 1852. The collection contains 318 hymns and an appendix of chants. It was notable for its freshness and progressive outlook, and drew upon the most recent English sources. It introduced into American use the hymn “Nearer, my God, to thee,” by Sarah Flower Adams, published in England only three years earlier, and other hymns by the same author. It also included some of Clarke’s own hymns, more of which appeared in the second edition.
20. Christian Hymns for public and private worship. A Collection compiled by a committee of the Cheshire Pastoral Association—Boston, 1845.
Edited by Rev. Abiel Abbott Livermore (1811-1892), Chairman; Rev. Levi W. Leonard (1790-1864), Rev. William A. Whitwell (1804-1865) and Rev. Curtis Cutler (1806-1874), ministers at Keene, Dublin, Wilton, and Peterboro, New Hampshire, respectively. The editorial work was chiefly done by Livermore, who also contributed to it his communion hymn, “A holy air is breathing round.”
This book, commonly called The Cheshire Collection, ran through sixty editions and was widely used. Its popularity was due in part to its wide range—908 hymns—and to its provision for special occasions, but more to the inclusion of fresh material of high quality.
21. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for the Sanctuary—Boston, 1845.
Edited by Rev. George E. Ellis (1814-1894) for use in the Harvard Church in Charlestown, Mass., of which he was then minister. It contains 658 hymns and psalms, and is based on Greenwood’s Collection [(13)] and The Springfield Collection [(14)]. A Selection from the Psalms, apparently intended for responsive reading, is bound up with the hymn-book, of which it is an unusual feature.
22. Hymns for Public Worship—Boston, 1845.
Edited by Rev. George W. Briggs (1810-1895), minister of the First Church at Plymouth, Mass. (1838-1852). The book contains 601 hymns; no musical directions beyond indication of metres. There is a strong emphasis on hymns of the inner life, the compiler having sought “to bring together the most fervent expressions of a profound spiritual life,” many of which “have never been in familiar use in Unitarian churches.”
23. Service Book: for the Church of the Saviour, with a Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Christian Worship—Boston, 1845.
Edited by Rev. Robert Cassie Waterston (1812-1893), minister of the Church of the Saviour, Boston. The Collection of Psalms and Hymns bound up with the services is Greenwood’s Collection [(13)] with a supplement of 116 hymns selected by Waterston, so that the book is more accurately described as one of the editions of Greenwood than as an independent publication. The supplement, however, is notable for the high proportion of good new hymns, not available when Greenwood’s Collection first appeared. Among them are hymns by Samuel F. Smith, G. W. Doane, the early and mid-century Unitarian writers, and some taken from Breviary sources.
No musical instructions beyond indication of the metres.
24. A Book of Hymns for public and private devotion—Cambridge: Metcalf & Company, printers to the University. 1846.
Edited by Samuel Longfellow (1819-1892) and Samuel Johnson (1822-1882). The editors were, at the time, students in the Harvard Divinity School (class of 1846), and the book “grew out of an offer to provide a new book for a minister who found even the recent ones too antiquated.” It was marked by poetic excellence and freshness, and introduced to American use “Lead, Kindly Light,” and hymns by Whittier, Longfellow, Lowell, Jones Very, Mrs. Stowe and others, besides hymns by the editors themselves. First used in Church of the Unity, Worcester, Mass., of which Edward Everett Hale was minister; then in the Music Hall congregation of Theodore Parker, who is said, on receiving a copy, to have remarked, “I see we have a new book of Sams.” It ran to a twelfth edition in two years, but its greatest influence was as a source-book for later editors. A somewhat enlarged edition appeared in 1848.
25. Hymns of the Sanctuary—Boston, 1849.
Edited by Rev. Cyrus A. Bartol (1813-1900), minister of the West Church in Boston, assisted by Charles G. Loring, Joseph Willard, and other laymen of the church. The book is a revised and enlarged edition of the “West Boston Collection” [(10)] of which the original edition had been prepared by Rev. Simeon Howard [(1)]. It contains 643 hymns and a few chants. No musical directions beyond indication of metres.
26. Hymns for the Church of Christ—Edited by Rev. Frederic H. Hedge and Rev. Frederic D. Huntington, Boston, 1853.
Frederic Henry Hedge (1805-1890) later became a distinguished professor in the Harvard Divinity School. Frederic Dan Huntington (1819-1904) later joined the Episcopal Church, in which he attained a bishopric.
The book contains 872 hymns,—no musical instructions beyond indication of metres. It is conservative in tone but is marked by high literary standards, and by a catholic inclusiveness beyond that of most books in this series. It includes a number of translations of Breviary hymns, and in it appears, for the first time, Hedge’s translation of Luther’s “Ein’ feste Burg.” Better printed than most contemporary hymn-books, it was hailed as “much the best book of hymns yet published.” Many hymns are listed as “Anon.” and some authors are given by surname only, making identification doubtful.
27. Services and Hymns for the use of the Unitarian Church of Charleston, S.C., 1854, 1867.
The preface to the first edition, dated “April, 1854,” was signed by S. Gilman and C. M. Taggart, then joint ministers of the church. No copy of this edition appears to be extant. A new and enlarged edition, with an unsigned preface but reprinting the earlier preface signed by Gilman and Taggart, appeared in 1867, “Printed by Joseph Walker, Agt., Charleston.” “Hymns for Christian Worship,” 171 in number, make up the second half of this volume. Almost all of them are the standard English hymns in current use in the first half of the 19th century, with 10 hymns by American authors, three of which are by Dr. Gilman and two by his wife, Caroline Gilman, all of which had appeared in earlier collections.
28. Hymn Book for Christian Worship—Boston, 1854.
There is no preface and the name of the compiler nowhere appears. It was, however, edited by Rev. Chandler Robbins (1810-1882), minister of the Second Church in Boston, and is, in effect, an enlargement of his earlier Social Hymn Book, [(18)], with 761 hymns, better adapted to church use. Like its predecessor, it contained chiefly the older type of hymns,—107 by Watts, 62 by Doddridge, 40 by James Montgomery, 13 by C. Wesley, and 20 more called “Wesleyan.”
29. The Soldier’s Companion: Dedicated to the Defenders of their Country in the Field, by their Friends at Home, published as the issue of The Monthly Journal, Boston, for October, 1861, vol. II, No. 10.
This was a small paper bound collection of a few traditional hymns, supplemented by a dozen anti-slavery or wartime songs by living writers, including J. Pierpont, E. H. Sears, and J. R. Lowell, with a supplement of devotional readings and prayers. Presumably it had some use in the Army, but copies are now very rare.
30. Christian Worship—New York, 1862.
Edited by Rev. Samuel Osgood (1812-1880), then minister of the Church of the Messiah, New York, and Rev. Frederic A. Farley (1800-1892), minister of The First Unitarian Congregational Church, Brooklyn, N. Y.
A small collection of 159 hymns, bound up with a liturgical type of service-book indicating the trend which later took Osgood into the Episcopal Church.
31. The Soldier’s Hymn Book, containing a supplement of national songs for the use of chaplains and soldiers in the army and navy of the United States—Prepared by J. G. Forman, Chaplain of the 3d Regiment Missouri Infantry, Army of the U. S., Alton, Illinois, 1863.
Rev. Jacob G. Forman (d. 1885), the compiler, was at the time minister of the Unitarian Church at Alton. This little pocket hymnal contains 99 hymns, and 26 additional patriotic songs.
32. The Soldier’s Hymn Book for Camp and Hospital—Cambridge, printed at the University Press, 1863.
There is no indication as to the source of this little book, and the identity of its compiler has not been discovered. Its contents, however, indicate that it came from a Unitarian source. It is a pocket hymnal containing 150 familiar hymns and a few prayers, somewhat larger and better printed than [(31)].
33. Hymns of the Spirit—Boston, Ticknor & Fields, 1864.
Edited by Samuel Longfellow (1819-1892) and Samuel Johnson (1822-1882). This is the second and more famous hymn-book compiled by the editors. It contains 717 hymns and represents their later and more radical trend of thought, the book being theistic rather than explicitly Christian in its emphasis. It introduced many hymns by the editors themselves, and made drastic adaptations or revisions of hymns by other authors. Like their first book [(24)], it was more generally drawn upon as a source-book by later editors than it was used in the churches. In that respect it was one of the most important books in this series.
34. Hymn and Tune Book for the Church and Home—Boston, 1868.
This book was compiled by a committee appointed by the American Unitarian Association, but the editorial work was chiefly done by Rev. Leonard J. Livermore (1822-1886). It is the first hymn-book to be issued by the Association and the first American Unitarian hymn-book to be completely furnished with tunes. It contained 740 hymns, about 30 chants, etc., and 299 tunes, a large proportion of which have since dropped out of use. Regarded as in some measure an authorized denominational hymn-book, it had wide use, though it “marked no advance over its predecessors, but its tunes were well up to the average level and gave it a great advantage,” and stimulated congregational singing.
35. Hymns for the Christian Church, for the use of the First Church of Christ in Boston—Boston, 1869.
Edited by Rev. Rufus Ellis (1819-1885), minister of the First Church, Boston. It was based on Lunt’s conservative Christian Psalter [(15)] which had been in use in the First Church for 25 years. About 250 hymns were retained from the earlier volume and enough more added to bring the total to 469. The selections were well made, but, without music, the book could not compete with the more inclusive Hymn and Tune Book [(34)] which the American Unitarian Association had published the preceding year.
36. Hymn and Tune Book for the Church and Home—Revised edition. American Unitarian Association, Boston, 1877.
The compiler’s name nowhere appears in the book, which was edited by Rev. Rush R. Shippen (1828-1911), then Secretary of the American Unitarian Association. It is a thorough-going revision of [(34)], virtually a new book. It contains 871 hymns, 14 chants, etc., 316 tunes, a much richer selection than its predecessor, although the music was still of the mid-century type, with only a few examples of the newer English tunes which were being introduced into America by the choirs of Episcopal churches. The book was well adapted to the general needs of Unitarians and was the most widely used book among the Unitarian churches for the ensuing forty years.
37. Unity Hymns and Chorals—Edited by W. C. Gannett, J. V. Blake, F. L. Hosmer. Chicago, 1880.
A later and largely revised edition was published in 1911 by Hosmer and Gannett. The editors, Frederick Lucian Hosmer (1840-1929), William Channing Gannett (1840-1923), and James Vila Blake (1842-1925), were hymn-writers and ministers in the Western Unitarian Conference. This small book, noted for its “split-leaf” arrangement, represented the point of view of the “left-wing” group in the denomination. In its two editions it contained most of the hymns by its editors, and a good many by other authors which appeared for the first time within its covers. In this respect, as in its radical character, it may be compared to the hymn-books by Longfellow and Johnson ([24] and [33]). It was widely used in the Western Unitarian Conference. Musically it was mediocre.
38. Sacred Songs for Public Worship: A Hymn and Tune Book—Edited by M. J. Savage and Howard M. Dow. Boston, 1883.
This small book contains 195 hymns and songs for popular use, selected by Minot J. Savage (1841-1918), minister of Unity Church, Boston, Mass., and set to music by Howard M. Dow. Forty-two items are from Mr. Savage’s pen, the rest mostly from familiar sources. It is much more of a “one-man book” and musically nearer akin to the typical gospel song-book than any other collection in this series.
39. Hymns of the Church Universal—Compiled by the Rev. Henry Wilder Foote [I]: Revised and edited by Mary W. Tileston and Arthur Foote. Boston, 1890.
This book was compiled for use in King’s Chapel, Boston, of which Mr. Foote (1838-1889) was minister, but was not published until after his death, the editorial work being completed by his sister and brother. The book superseded Greenwood’s Collection [(13)] in King’s Chapel, and had considerable use elsewhere. It contained 647 hymns, a number of chants, and 299 tunes. It introduced many hymns and tunes of the later 19th century English authors and composers which were not found in any earlier American Unitarian collections, and was influential in setting a standard for later books.
40. Hymnal: Amore Dei—Compiled by Mrs. Theodore C. Williams, Boston, 1890. Revised, 1897.
Edited by Mrs. Williams in co-operation with her husband, Rev. Theodore C. Williams (1855-1915), minister of All Souls’ Church, New York.
It contained 382 hymns, about 25 chants and responses and 272 tunes. A collection similar to Hymns of the Church Universal [(39)] in utilizing the newer English hymns and tunes of the nineteenth century, it had many excellencies and considerable use. The biographical indexes of composers and authors are far more complete than those of any earlier book in this series.
41. Hymns for Church and Home—American Unitarian Association, Boston, 1895.
Edited by Mary Wilder Tileston and Arthur Foote, it was in effect a revised and enlarged edition of Hymns for the Church Universal [(39)], containing 801 hymns. It was an admirable compilation but rather large and heavy for handling.
42. Hymns for Church and Home Abridged—1902.
An edition of [(41)] with the number of hymns reduced to 513.
43. Hymns of the Ages—Cambridge: The University Press. 1904.
Edited by Louisa Putnam Loring (1854-1924). A book of high literary and musical standards, based upon the (Harvard) University Hymn Book (1895). It contained 316 hymns and 205 tunes, but it represented a rather limited and individualistic point of view and did not prove adaptable to general use.
44. Isles of Shoals Hymn Book and Candle Light Service—The Isles of Shoals Association, 1908.
Edited by Rev. George H. Badger (1859-1954). Since the book was intended for use at the summer meetings on the Isles of Shoals, off Portsmouth, N. H., the religious interpretation of nature is strongly emphasized. The book contains 219 hymns and 96 tunes, mostly selected from Hymns for Church and Home [(41)], but nine of them are original contributions to this book, some with lines referring directly to the island setting or history. Both words and music represent the highest standards at the time of publication, and the book is an exceptional collection of hymns expressing this aspect of religion.
45. The New Hymn and Tune Book—American Unitarian Association: Boston, 1914.
Edited by a commission: Rev. Samuel A. Eliot (1862-1950), Chairman; Rev. Henry Wilder Foote, (II), (1875-____), Secretary; Rev. Rush R. Shippen, (1828-1911), Rev. Lewis G. Wilson, (1858-1928).
Nominally a revision of the Hymn and Tune Book of 1877 [(36)], it was in effect a new compilation, drawing largely upon Hymns for Church and Home [(41)], Amore Dei [(40)] and Unity Hymns and Chorals [(37)]. It contained 546 hymns, 28 chants, etc., and 268 tunes. It also included a set of services and responsive readings, prepared by another committee. It represented a great advance on earlier books and was more widely adopted than any of them. In its music it was less progressive than in its selection of hymns, representing the musical standard and practice of about 1900.
46. Twenty-five Hymns for Use in Time of War—The Beacon Press. Boston, n. d. (1916).
A pamphlet of hymns, more than half of them reprinted from the Hymn and Tune Book of 1914 [(45)] for use during the Great War.
47. Songs and Readings—compiled and edited by Jacob Trapp and R. T. Porte. Salt Lake City, 1931.
This booklet contains 58 songs and hymns, without music, and 32 responsive readings for use in the First Unitarian Church in Salt Lake City, of which Mr. Trapp (1899-____) was then minister. Intended for ministers with “Humanist” leanings.
48. Hymns of the Spirit—Beacon Press, 1937.
Edited by a Unitarian Commission: Rev. Henry Wilder Foote, (II) (1875-____), Chairman; Rev. Edward P. Daniels (1891-____), Rev. Curtis W. Reese (1887-____), Rev. Von Ogden Vogt (1879-____), working in co-operation with a Universalist Commission: Rev. L. G. Williams (1893-____), Chairman; Rev. Prof. Alfred S. Cole, (1893-____), Rev. Prof. Edson R. Miles (1875-1958), and Rev. Tracy M. Pullman (1904-____).
The title is borrowed from the second collection, edited by Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson, 1864, [(33)]. The book is printed with services and responsive readings prepared by the same two commissions. It is an extensive revision of the New Hymn and Tune Book [(45)] of 1914, with special emphasis on “the social gospel” and on hymns dealing with “man in the universe.” Its most notable advance over its predecessors is in its music, edited by E. P. Daniels and Robert L. Sanders. It contains 533 hymns, 42 chants, etc., 366 tunes.
Alphabetical List of Unitarian Hymn Writers In the Following Catalogue
[Adams, John Quincy] [Alcott, Louisa May] [Alger, Wm. R.] [Ames, Chas. G.] [Anonymous] [Appleton, Francis P.]
[Badger, George H.] [Ballou, Adin] [Barber, Henry H.] [Barnard, John] [Barrows, Samuel J.] [Bartol, Cyrus A.] [Bartrum, Joseph P.] [Beach, Seth Curtis] [Belknap, Jeremy] [Blake, James Vila] [Briggs, C. A.] [Briggs, LeB. R.] [Brooks, Charles T.] [Bryant, William Cullen] [Bulfinch, Stephen G.] [Burleigh, Wm. H.]
Cabot, Eliza Lee, see [Follen, Eliza Lee] [Chadwick, John W.] [Chapman, Mrs.] [Cheney, Mrs. Edna D.] [Church, Edward A.] [Clapp, Eliza T.] [Clarke, J. F.] [Collyer, Robert] [Clute, Oscar]
[Dana, Chas. A.] [Dwight, John S.]
[Emerson, R. W.] [Everett, Wm.]
[Fernald, W. M.] [Flint, James] [Follen, Eliza Lee] [Foote, H. W., I] [Foote, H. W., II] [Freeman, James] [Frothingham, N. L.] [Frothingham, Octavius B.] [Fuller, Sarah Margaret] [Furness, W. H.]
[Gannett, W. C.] [Gilman, Caroline (Howard)] [Gilman, Samuel] [Goldsmith, Peter H.] [Greenough, James B.] [Greenwood, Helen W.]
[Hale, Edw. Everett] [Hale, Mary W.] [Hall, Harriet W.] [Ham, M. F.] [Harris, Florence] [Harris, Thaddeus M.] [Hedge, F. H.] [Higginson, T. W.] [Hill, Thomas] [Holland, J. G.] [Holmes, John Haynes] [Holmes, Oliver Wendell] [Horton, Edw. A.] [Hosmer, F. L.] [Howe, Julia (Ward)] [Huntington, F. D.] [Hurlburt, W. H.]
[Larned, Augusta] [Lathrop, John Howland] [Livermore, A. A.] [Livermore, Sarah W.] [Long, John D.] [Longfellow, Henry W.] [Longfellow, Samuel] [Loring, Louisa P.] [Loring, W. J.] [Lowell, J. R.] [Lunt, W. P.]
[Mann, Newton] [Marean, Emma (Endicott)] [Mason, Caroline A.] [Miles, Sarah E.] [Mott, F. B.]
[Newell, Wm.] [Norton, Andrews]
Ossoli, Margaret, see [Fuller]
[Parker, Theodore] [Peabody, Ephraim] [Peabody, O. W. B.] [Peabody, W. B. O.] [Perkins, J. H.] [Pierpont, John] [Pray, Lewis G.] [Prince, Thomas] [Putnam, A. P.]
[Robbins, Chandler] [Robbins, S. D.]
[Sargent, L. M.] [Savage, M. J.] [Scudder, Eliza] [Sears, E. H.] [Sewall, C.] [Sigourney, Lydia H.] [Sill, E. R.] [Silliman, V. B.] [Spencer, Anna G.] [Sprague, Charles]
[Trapp, Jacob] [Tuckerman, J.]
[Very, Jones] [Very, Washington]
[Ware, Henry] [Waterston, R. C.] [Weir, R. S.] [Weiss, John] [Wendte, Chas. W.] [Westwood, Horace] [Wile, Frances W.] [Wiley, Hiram O.] [Willard, Samuel] [Williams, Theodore C.] [Williams, Velma C.] [Willis, Love Maria] [Willis, Nathaniel P.] [Wilson, Edwin H.] [Wilson, Lewis G.]
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 there is a season. He had given out as the first hymn to be sung the 138th of the Christian Psalter, his compilation and the hymn-book now used in our church. It was my version of the 65th Psalm; and no words can express the sensations with which I heard it sung. Were it possible to compress into one pulsation of the heart the pleasure which, in the whole period of my life, I have enjoyed in praise from the lips of mortal man, it would not weigh a straw to balance the ecstasy of delight which streamed from my eyes as the organ pealed and the choir of voices sung the praise of Almighty God from the soul of David, adapted to my native tongue by me. There was one drawback. In the printed book, the fifth line of the second stanza reads,
‘The morning’s dawn, the evening’s shade,’
and so it was sung, but the corresponding seventh line of the same stanza reads,
‘The fields from thee the rains receive,’
totally destroying the rhyme. I instantly saw that the fifth line should read,
‘The morning’s dawn, the shades of eve,’
but whether this enormous blunder was committed by the copyist or the pressman I am left to conjecture.”
After Adams’ death his verses, both religious and secular, were published in a small volume entitled Poems of Religion and Society, New York, 1848, which ran to a fourth edition in 1854. This collection included the five hymns and 17 metrical Psalms printed in The Christian Psalmist, unchanged except that the opening line of each psalm has been substituted for the number of the psalm as its heading. Nor was the misprint which Adams lamented amended. Judged by the conventional standards of his time Adams’ poetry was consistently respectable verse, but without any notable distinction other than that lent to it by the fame of the author.
His five hymns are,
1. Sure to the mansions of the blest, (Death of Children)
This is part of a piece of 20 stanzas, which appeared in the Monthly Anthology and Boston Review, January 1807. It is entitled “Lines addressed to a mother on the death of two infants, 19th Sept. 1803, and 19th Decb. 1806.”
2. Alas! how swift the moments fly, (The Hour-Glass)
Sometimes given as
How swift, alas, the moments fly,
written for the 200th anniversary of the First Parish Church in Quincy, September 20, 1839.
3. Hark! ’tis the holy temple bell, (Sabbath morning) undated
4. When, o’er the billow-heaving deep,
“A Hymn for the twenty-second of December,” i.e., the coming of the Pilgrim Fathers, undated.
5. Lord of all worlds, let thanks and praise,
“Written in Sickness;” undated.
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
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.
Alcott, Louisa May, Concord, Massachusetts, November 29, 1833—March 5, 1888, Concord. She was the author of widely known books for children, Little Women, Little Men, and others. Julian’s Dictionary, p. 1602, records her hymn,
A little kingdom I possess,
and cites Eva Munson Smith’s Women in Sacred Song as quoting a note from Miss Alcott dated “Concord, Oct. 7, 1883,” in which she says that this is “the only hymn I ever wrote. It was composed at thirteen - - - and still expresses my soul’s desire.” Notwithstanding this statement another hymn attributed to her, apparently written for use by young people and beginning,
O the beautiful old story!
is included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914.
J 1550, 1602 H.W.F.
Alger, Rev. William Rounsville, Freetown, Massachusetts, December 28, 1822—February 7, 1905, Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in 1847 and in the same year became minister of the Mount Pleasant Society, Roxbury, Massachusetts. In 1855 he was settled over the Bulfinch Place Church, Boston. He was a popular lecturer and the author of numerous articles and several books, the most notable of which was his History of the Doctrine of the Future Life, 1864, and later editions.
His Christmas hymn
Jesus has lived! and we would bring,
written in 1845 while he was still a student, is included in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853.
Other poems by him, including a hymn for the graduation of his class from the Divinity School in 1847 and another for the ordination of Thomas Starr King, are included in Putnam, Singers and Songs, but have had no further use.
H.W.F.
Ames, Rev. Charles Gordon, Dorchester, Massachusetts, 1828—April 15, 1912, Boston, Massachusetts. He was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1849 and spent some years as a home missionary in Minnesota. In 1859 he joined the Unitarian denomination and served several churches, his last pastorate being with the Church of the Disciples, Boston. In 1905 he wrote a hymn for the dedication of the new edifice of that Society beginning,
With loving hearts and hands we rear,
which is included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914.
A hymn beginning
Father in heaven, hear us today,
is attributed to him in the Universalist Church Harmonies: Old and New, 1898, but is not found elsewhere.
H.W.F.
Anonymous
In Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, there is no Index of Authors, but in its Index of First Lines the name of the author, (often only his or her surname) is given in most instances. The Index also lists 57 hymns as “Anon.” or, more often, with no word as to authorship. The source of several of these hymns can be traced in Julian’s Dictionary or in Putnam’s Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith, but I have been unable to identify the author or source of the following hymns, or to check their later use, if any.
H.W.F.
Hys. Ch. Ch.
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, 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?
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 19th 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.
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 3d and 4th stanzas omitted. There is no clue as to its author though Julian (p. 320) points out that the first stanza appears to be an altered form of W. J. Copeland’s translation from the Latin, published in 1848. The three stanza form of the hymn is included in the New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.
J. 819 H.W.F.
We follow, Lord, where thou dost lead,
L.M. 5 stas. Attributed to “Book of Hymns,” in Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908.
Appleton, Rev. Francis Parker, Boston, Massachusetts, August 9, 1822—June 14, 1903, Cohasset, Massachusetts. He graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in 1845, and was minister to the Unitarian church, in South Danvers, (now Peabody) Massachusetts from 1846 to 1853. He then left the ministry for secular occupations. His hymn,
Thirsting for a living spring,
was included, anonymously, in Longfellow and Johnson’s Book of Hymns, 1846, and, attributed to him, in Hymns of the Spirit, 1864. It is included in the Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908; in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937. His hymn,
The past yet lives in all its truth, O God,
was also included in Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, and in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, but has now dropped out of use.
J. 1551, 1606 H.W.F.
Badger, Rev. George Henry, Charlestown, Massachusetts, March 27, 1859—May 11, 1953, Orlando, Florida. He was educated at Williams College, A.B. 1883, at Andover Theological Seminary and the Harvard Divinity School, receiving the degree of S.T.B. from the latter institution in 1886. He served several Unitarian churches in New England. From 1912-1918 he was a minister in San Antonio, Texas; from 1919-1936 in Orlando, Florida. The preface to The Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908, is signed with his initials as editor. That book contains three hymns of which he was author:—
1. God of the vastness of the far-spread sea,
2. Lord, I believe, and in my faith,
3. Thy way, O Lord, is in the sea,
In 1910 he wrote a hymn beginning,
4. O Thou who art my King,
which was included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914. None of these hymns have passed into later collections.
H.W.F.
Ballou, Rev. Adin, 1803-1890. Without much formal education, but gifted in mind and spirit, he was ordained in 1827 as a Universalist minister, but in 1831 joined the Unitarian denomination in which he served a number of New England parishes. He wrote a hymn beginning,
Years are coming—speed them onward!
When the sword shall gather rust
which was included in Universalist hymnbooks and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937.
H.W.F.
Barber, Rev. Henry Hervey, Warwick, Massachusetts, December 30, 1835—January 18, 1923, Jacksonville, Florida. He was educated at Deerfield (Massachusetts) Academy, and at Meadville Theological School from which he graduated in 1861. After pastorates in two New England churches he became in 1881 a professor in Meadville Theological School, a position from which he retired in 1904. His hymn beginning,
Far off, O God, and yet most near,
dated 1891, had considerable use and was included in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914.
H.W.F.
Barnard, Rev. John, Boston, Massachusetts, November 6, 1681—January 24, 1770, Marblehead, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard in 1700, and was installed as minister of the Congregational Church in Marblehead in 1716, which he served with distinction through the rest of his life. A number of his sermons were printed, and in 1752 he published A New Version of the Psalms of David, 278 pp., printed in Boston, the result of his own endeavor to produce a fresh metrical translation. It is listed in Julian’s Dictionary, p. 929, under Psalters, English. His book was used in his own church, but not elsewhere, and is now very rare. His own annotated copy is in the Harvard College Library and the original ms. is in the Massachusetts Historical Society.
H.W.F.
Barrows, Rev. Samuel June, New York, New York, May 26, 1845—April 21, 1909, New York. He graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in 1875 and in 1876 was ordained minister of Mount Pleasant Church, Dorchester, Massachusetts, where he served until 1881. He was editor of the Christian Register from 1881 to 1897, and was a member of Congress, 1897-1899.
A hymn beginning
Enkindling Love, eternal Flame
is attributed to him in the Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908.
H.W.F.
Bartol, Rev. Cyrus Augustus, D.D., Freeport, Maine, August 30, 1813—December 16, 1890, Boston. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1832 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1835. After lay preaching for a year in Cincinnati he was ordained in 1837 as successor to Rev. Charles Lowell (father of James Russell Lowell) in the West Church (Unitarian) in Boston. He retired in 1889. He was author of several books and of a large number of printed sermons and addresses. He, with others, edited Hymns for the Sanctuary, Boston, 1849, commonly called “Bartol’s Collection”, in which was included an anonymous hymn beginning
Be thou ready, fellow-mortal (Readiness for Duty)
This hymn passed into the Supplement to Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns of the Church of Christ, Boston, 1853, and into other collections. Its authorship has never been disclosed, but its theme and mode of expression suggest that it may have been written by Bartol.
J. 120 H.W.F.
Bartrum, Joseph P., a Unitarian layman living in the 19th century, who published The Psalms newly Paraphrased for the Service of the Sanctuary, Boston, 1833, from which his version of Psalm CVI,
O from these visions, dark and drear,
was taken for inclusion in several Unitarian collections in Great Britain and America and in the Universalist Church Harmonies, New and Old, 1895. His version of Psalm LXXXVII,
Amid the heaven of heavens,
is included in Holland’s Psalmists of Britain, 1843, vol. II, p. 339, with a critical note.
Neither hymn is found in use today.
J. 116 H.W.F.
Beach, Rev. Seth Curtis, D.D., near Marion, Wayne County, New York, August 3, 1837—January 30, 1932, Watertown, Massachusetts. He graduated from Union College, Schenectady, New York in 1863, and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1866. From 1867 to 1869 he served the Unitarian Church in Augusta, Maine. Ill health then led him to take up a farm in Minnesota for four years. In 1873 he returned to New England, where his longest pastorates were at Bangor, Maine, 1891-1901, and at Wayland, Massachusetts, 1901-1911, when he retired to Watertown. His hymn,
1. Mysterious Presence! Source of all,
was first printed in the “Order of Exercises at the Fiftieth Annual Visitation of the Divinity School, July 17, 1866,” having been written for that occasion.
In 1884 he wrote
2. Thou One in all, thou All in one (God in Nature)
These two hymns were included in the Unitarian New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937. His third hymn
3. Kingdom of God! The day how blest,
is included in the Isles of Shoals Hymn Book, 1908.
J. 1581 H.W.F.
Belknap, Rev. Jeremy, D.D., Boston, Massachusetts, June 4, 1744—June 20, 1798, Boston. He graduated from Harvard College in 1762; taught school for four years; in 1766 accepted a position as assistant to Rev. Jonathan Cushing of Dover, New Hampshire, and in 1767 was ordained, serving that parish until 1786. In 1787 he became minister of the Federal Street Church, (now the Arlington Street Church) Boston, which he served until his death. Harvard gave him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1792. He was the author of a three volume History of New Hampshire; of a petition (1788) for the abolition of the slave trade; and of other books and essays; and formed the plan for the Massachusetts Historical Society, organized in 1791. He wrote no hymns but made an important contribution to American hymnody in his collection Sacred Poetry: consisting of Psalms and Hymns adapted to Christian devotion in public and private. Selected from the best authors, with variations and additions, by Jeremy Belknap, D.D., Boston, 1795, which ran to many editions. His intention was to provide a book acceptable to both the conservative and the liberal wings of Congregationalism, to bridge the widening gap which resulted in the formation of the Unitarian denomination a generation later. In this he failed, for only the liberal churches accepted it, though it was widely used by them for 40 years, being much the best of the period. It includes 300 hymns from the best English sources, and was the first to introduce to Americans the hymns by Anne Steele. The only American hymns in the collection are Jacob Kimball’s metrical version of Psalm 65 and Mather Byles’ When wild confusion rends the air.
H.W.F.
Blake, Rev. James Vila, Brooklyn, New York, January 21, 1842—April 28, 1925, Chicago, Illinois. He graduated from Harvard College in 1862 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1866, and served Unitarian churches in Massachusetts and Illinois, his last and longest pastorate being at Evanston, Ill., 1892-1916. Author of a number of books. He shared with [W. C. Gannett], q.v. and [F. L. Hosmer], q.v. in the compilation of the first edition of Unity Hymns and Chorals, 1880, which included his hymn,
Father, Thou art calling, calling to us plainly,
included also in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937. The latter book also includes his hymn of the church universal,
O sing with loud and joyful song.
H.W.F.
Briggs, C. A.
A hymn beginning,
God’s law demands one living faith (Law of God)
is attributed to a person with this name in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853. It is probable, but not certain, that the author was Rev. Charles Briggs, Halifax, Massachusetts, January 17, 1791—December 1, 1873, Roxbury, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1815 and from the Divinity School in 1818, was minister of the First Church in Lexington, Massachusetts, 1818-1834, and secretary of the American Unitarian Association, 1835-1848.
H.W.F.
Briggs, LeBaron Russell, LL.D., Salem, Massachusetts, December 11, 1855—April 24, 1934, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He graduated from Harvard College in 1875, A.M., 1882; served as tutor, then as professor of English, and as dean from 1891-1925. Harvard gave him the degree of LL.D. in 1900, as did Yale in 1917, and Lafayette University gave him the degree of Litt.D. For the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, December 21, 1920, he wrote a poem which is introduced by a prayer in three stanzas, 11.10.11.10, offered by “The Pilgrim”, beginning,
God of our fathers, who hast safely brought us,
It is a fine hymn of thanksgiving for religious freedom and it was included in the program celebrating the 300th anniversary of the “Cambridge Platform” in October 27, 1948. It deserves wide use.
H.W.F.
Brooks, Rev. Charles Timothy, Salem, Massachusetts, June 20, 1813—June 14, 1883, Newport, Rhode Island. He graduated from Harvard College in 1832 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1835. He was ordained as the first minister of the Unitarian Church in Newport, Rhode Island, on January 1, 1837, and served there until 1873. He was author of a number of books, most of them translations from German poets and novelists. After his death a volume entitled Poems, Original and Translated, was published. The only hymn with which his name is associated was in two stanzas beginning,
God bless our native land!
said to have been written while he was a student in the Divinity School. Part of the first and almost the whole of the second stanza were rewritten by [J. S. Dwight], q.v., and Putnam, in Songs of the Liberal Faith, states that it was first published in this form in one of Lowell Mason’s song books in 1844. It was included, with further alterations, in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns of the Church of Christ, 1853, and with yet other changes in Longfellow and Johnson’s Hymns of the Spirit, 1864. In the 20th century collection also entitled Hymns of the Spirit, 1937, the hymn appears in 3 stas. of which the first is by Brooks, the second by Dwight, and a third, of which the first 3 lines are those introduced by Longfellow and Johnson, the remaining four lines from a later unknown source, and its authorship is attributed to “Composite: based on Charles Timothy Brooks and John Sullivan Dwight.” The complicated history of this hymn is traced in Julian, 184, 1566, 1685.
H.W.F.
Bryant, William Cullen, Cummington, Massachusetts, November 3, 1794—June 12, 1878, New York, New York. He was a student at Williams College for two years, then studied law, and was admitted to the bar at Great Barrington, Massachusetts in 1815, where he practised until 1825 when he removed to New York. There he devoted himself to journalism as editor of The New York Review and of the New York Evening Post, reserving part of his time, especially in later years, to literary pursuits at his retreat at Roslyn, Long Island, where he wrote addresses, essays and reviews as well as poems. In point of time he was the first of the famous group of New England poets of the nineteenth century. He began writing verses when a child and composed his noblest poem, Thanatopsis, when only eighteen years of age. His first volume of poems, containing one entitled The Ages delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard, and some others, was published in 1821. In 1832 a volume entitled Poems, complete to that date, was published, for which Washington Irving secured republication in England, where it brought him wide recognition. Many successive editions of Poems, each with some additional items, were published in later years, and after his death a complete edition of the Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant appeared in 1879. He also had privately printed a little volume of his Hymns, 1869.
The following pieces by him have been included in various collections of hymns, some of them having considerable use in Great Britain as well as in this country.
1. All praise to him of Nazareth (Communion)
Dated 1864. Included in Hatfield’s (British) Church Hymn Book, 1874, in 3 stanzas, and in Songs of the Sanctuary and in Putnam’s Singers and Songs, etc. in 5 stanzas.
2. All that in this wide world we see (Omnipresence)
Dated 1836, but Beard, in his Collection, (British) 1837, gives it as an original contribution, thus fixing the date of first publication. Putnam, Singers and Songs, etc., notes that it was “Written, probably, for some church in England,” information which sounds like the aged poet’s vague recollection many years after he had responded to Beard’s request. Included in Lunt’s Christian Psalter, 1841.
3. All things that are on earth,(Love of God)
Included in Beard’s Collection, 1837.
4. Almighty! hear thy children raise, (Praise)
One of five hymns written by Bryant at the request of Miss Sedgwick for inclusion (without the author’s name) in Sewall’s Collection, 1820, compiled for use in the First Congregational Society of New York (Unitarian), now All Souls Church. In Beard’s Collection, 1837, the first line is altered to read
Almighty, listen while we praise,
and in the Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book, Boston, 1868, it is altered to
Almighty, hear us while we praise,
5. As shadows cast by cloud and sun,
Written for the Semi-Centennial of the Church of the Messiah, Boston, March 19, 1875. Included in the Methodist Episcopal Hymnal, New York, 1878.
6. Close softly, fondly, while ye weep (Death)
Included in H. W. Beecher’s Plymouth Collection, 1855.
7. Dear ties of mutual succor bind (Charity)
Putnam, Singers and Songs, 1874, p. 130, says, “Mr. Bryant has kindly sent us, as an additional contribution to this volume, the following exquisite lines, which were written about forty years since, for some charitable occasion, and which he lately found among some old papers. They are not among his published poems.” Included in the Methodist Episcopal Hymnal, 1878.
8. Deem not that they are blest alone (Mourning)
Written for Sewall’s Collection, 1820, vide supra. Included in Beard’s Collection, 1837, and, the first line altered to read,
O deem not they are blest alone,
in Martineau’s Hymns of Prayer and Praise, 1873, and in Songs for the Sanctuary, New York, 1865-1872.
9. Father, to thy kind love we owe, (God’s Loving Kindness)
One of the five hymns, written by Bryant for inclusion in Sewall’s Collection, New York, 1820. Included in the Hymn and Tune Book, Boston, 1868, and in Martineau’s Hymns, 1873. In Putnam’s Singers and Songs, etc. the first line reads,
Our Father, to thy love we owe.
10. How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps? (Future life)
A memorial poem in 9 stanzas rather than a hymn, but included in part in the supplement of devotional readings in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853. Complete text in Putnam’s Singers and Songs, etc., pp. 125-126.
11. Look from Thy sphere of endless day (Home missions)
Dated 1840. Included in Songs for the Sanctuary, 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 afterwards destroyed by fire. This hymn is the most widely used of all those written by Bryant. It was included in Beard’s English Collection in 1837, and in Martineau’s Hymns, 1873. In Putnam’s Singers and Songs, etc., the opening line reads,
Thou, whose unmeasured temple stands,
and in this form it was included in Lunt’s Christian Psalter, 1861, and in the American Presbyterian Psalms and Hymns, Richmond, 1867; in Horder’s Congregational Hymns, London, 1884; and elsewhere.
19. Standing forth in life’s rough way (On behalf of children)
Included in Dr. Allon’s (British) Children’s Worship, 1878; in Horder’s Congregational Hymns, 1884; and elsewhere.
20. Thou unrelenting past (The Past)
Dated 1836. A poem of 14 stanzas, a few of which were included in Martineau’s Hymns, 1873.
21. When doomed to death the Apostle lay (On behalf of Drunkards)
Included in the Methodist Episcopal Hymnal, 1878.
22. When he who from the scourge of wrong (Hope of Resurrection)
Written for Sewall’s Collection, 1820. Included in Lyra Sacra Americana, 1868.
23. When this song of praise shall cease (Anticipation of Death)
Written for a collection of hymns printed at the end of a Sunday School Liturgy, prepared by James Lombard, of Utica, New York, in 1859. Included in Bryant’s privately printed Hymns, 1869, and in Stevenson’s (British) School Hymnal, 1889.
24. When the blind suppliant in the way (Opening the eyes of the blind)
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.