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Onward! Christian soldiers
Author: Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) Meter: 6.5.6.5 D with refrain Appears in 1,796 hymnals Topics: Life in Christ Our Response to Christ - In Discipleship Lyrics: 1 Onward! Christian soldiers,
marching as to war,
with the cross of Jesus
going on before.
Christ, the royal Master
leads against the foe;
forward into battle,
see! his banners go:
[Refrain:]
Onward! Christian soldiers,
marching as to war,
with the cross of Jesus
going on before.
2 At the sign of triumph
Satan's legions flee;
on then, Christian soldiers,
on to victory!
Hell's foundations quiver
at the shout of praise;
lift your hearts and voices,
loud your anthems raise: [Refrain]
3 Crowns and thrones may perish,
kingdoms rise and wane,
but the Church of Jesus
constant will remain;
gates of hell can never
'gainst that Church prevail;
we have Christ's own promise,
and that cannot fail: [Refrain]
4 Onward, then, you people,
join our happy throng;
blend with ours your voices
in the triumph song:
'Glory, laud, and honour
unto Christ the King!'
This through countless ages,
we with angels sing: [Refrain] Scripture: 2 Timothy 2:3-4 Used With Tune: ST. GERTRUDE
Onward! Christian soldiers
Great God, your love has called us here
Author: Brian Wren (b. 1936) Meter: 8.8.8.8.8.8 Appears in 32 hymnals Topics: Our Response to Christ In Penitence Lyrics: 1 Great God, your love has called us here,
as we, by love, for love were made.
Your living likeness still we bear,
though marred, dishonoured, disobeyed.
We come, with all our heart and mind
your call to hear, your love to find.
2 We come with self-inflicted pains
of broken trust and chosen wrong,
half-free, half-bound by inner chains,
by social forces swept along,
by powers and systems close confined
yet seeking hope for humankind.
3 Great God, in Christ you call our name
and then receive us as your own,
not through some merit, right or claim,
but by your gracious love alone.
We strain to glimpse your mercy seat
and find you kneeling at our feet.
4 Then take the towel, and break the bread,
and humble us, and call us friends.
Suffer and serve till all are fed,
and show how grandly love intends
to work till all creation sings,
to fill all worlds, to crown all things.
5 Great God, in Christ you set us free
your life to live, your joy to share.
Give us your Spirit's liberty
to turn from guilt and dull despair
and offer all that faith can do
while love is making all things new. Scripture: 2 Corinthians 3:17 Used With Tune: MELITA
Great God, your love has called us here
Through the love of God our Saviour
Author: Mary Peters (1813-1856) Meter: 8.4.8.4.8.8.8.4 Appears in 191 hymnals Topics: Life in Christ Our Response to Christ - In Devotion Lyrics: 1 Through the love of God, our Saviour,
all will be well.
Free and changeless is his favour;
all, all is well.
Precious is the blood that healed us,
perfect is the grace that sealed us,
strong the hand stretched forth to shield us;
all must be well.
2 Though we pass through tribulation,
all will be well.
Ours is such a full salvation,
all, all is well.
Happy still in God confiding,
fruitful, if in Christ abiding,
holy, through the Spirit’s guiding;
all must be well.
3 We expect a bright tomorrow;
all will be well.
Faith can sing through days of sorrow,
'All, all is well.'
On our Father’s love relying,
Jesus every need supplying,
in our living, in our dying,
all must be well. Scripture: 1 Peter 1:19 Used With Tune: AR HYD Y NOS
Through the love of God our Saviour
HOW CAN I KEEP FROM SINGING
Meter: 8.7.8.7 with refrain Appears in 76 hymnals Topics: Life in Christ Our Response to Christ - In Devotion Tune Sources: American traditional melody; Arr.: compilers Common Ground, 1998 Tune Key: F Major Incipit: 51231 21651 35332 Used With Text: No storm can shake my inmost calm
HOW CAN I KEEP FROM SINGING
SCHÖNSTER HERR JESU (ST. ELISABETH)
Meter: Irregular Appears in 491 hymnals Topics: Our Response to Christ In Devotion Tune Sources: Silesian melody from Schlesische Volkslieder, Leipzig, 1842; harmonised Rejoiced and Sing, 1991 Tune Key: E Flat Major Incipit: 11127 13333 42351 Used With Text: Fairest Lord Jesus
SCHÖNSTER HERR JESU (ST. ELISABETH)
[My Jesus, my Saviour]
Appears in 35 hymnals Composer and/or Arranger: Darlene Zschech Topics: Life in Christ Our Response to Christ - In Discipleship Tune Key: B Flat Major Incipit: 34571 21111 75361 Used With Text: Shout to the Lord, all the earth, let us sing
[My Jesus, my Saviour]
Jesus Christ, our living Lord
Author: John L. Bell (b. 1949) Hymnal: Church Hymnary (4th ed.) #524 (2005) Meter: 7.7.7.4.7 Topics: Our Response to Christ In Discipleship Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:24 Languages: English Tune Title: SANDOR
Jesus Christ, our living Lord
Jesus Christ, our living Lord
Author: John L. Bell (b. 1949) Hymnal: Hymns of Glory, Songs of Praise #524 (2008) Meter: 7.7.7.4.7 Topics: Our Response to Christ In Discipleship Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:24 Languages: English Tune Title: SANDOR
Jesus Christ, our living Lord
Oh, for a closer walk with God
Author: William Cowper (1731-1800) Hymnal: Church Hymnary (4th ed.) #552a (2005) Meter: 8.6.8.6 Topics: Our Response to Christ In Devotion; Our Response to Christ In Penitence Lyrics: 1 Oh, for a closer walk with God,
a calm and heavenly frame,
a light to shine upon the road
that leads me to the Lamb!
2 Where is the blessedness I knew
when first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
of Jesus and his word?
3 What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void
the world can never fill.
4 Return, O Holy Dove! return,
sweet messenger of rest!
I hate the sins that made thee mourn,
and drove thee from my breast.
5 The dearest idol I have known,
whate'er that idol be,
help me to tear it from thy throne,
and worship only thee.
6 So shall my walk be close with God,
calm and serene my frame;
so purer light shall mark the road
that leads me to the Lamb. Scripture: 1 John 5:21 Languages: English Tune Title: MARTYRDOM (FENWICK)
Oh, for a closer walk with God
William Cowper
1731 - 1800 Person Name: William Cowper (1731-1800) Topics: Our Response to Christ In Devotion; Our Response to Christ In Penitence Author of "Oh, for a closer walk with God" in Church Hymnary (4th ed.) William Cowper (pronounced "Cooper"; b. Berkampstead, Hertfordshire, England, 1731; d. East Dereham, Norfolk, England, 1800) is regarded as one of the best early Romantic poets. To biographers he is also known as "mad Cowper." His literary talents produced some of the finest English hymn texts, but his chronic depression accounts for the somber tone of many of those texts. Educated to become an attorney, Cowper was called to the bar in 1754 but never practiced law. In 1763 he had the opportunity to become a clerk for the House of Lords, but the dread of the required public examination triggered his tendency to depression, and he attempted suicide. His subsequent hospitalization and friendship with Morley and Mary Unwin provided emotional stability, but the periods of severe depression returned. His depression was deepened by a religious bent, which often stressed the wrath of God, and at times Cowper felt that God had predestined him to damnation.
For the last two decades of his life Cowper lived in Olney, where John Newton became his pastor. There he assisted Newton in his pastoral duties, and the two collaborated on the important hymn collection Olney Hymns (1779), to which Cowper contributed sixty-eight hymn texts.
Bert Polman
============
Cowper, William, the poet. The leading events in the life of Cowper are: born in his father's rectory, Berkhampstead, Nov. 26, 1731; educated at Westminster; called to the Bar, 1754; madness, 1763; residence at Huntingdon, 1765; removal to Olney, 1768; to Weston, 1786; to East Dereham, 1795; death there, April 25, 1800.
The simple life of Cowper, marked chiefly by its innocent recreations and tender friendships, was in reality a tragedy. His mother, whom he commemorated in the exquisite "Lines on her picture," a vivid delineation of his childhood, written in his 60th year, died when he was six years old. At his first school he was profoundly wretched, but happier at Westminster; excelling at cricket and football, and numbering Warren Hastings, Colman, and the future model of his versification. Churchill, among his contemporaries or friends. Destined for the Bar, he was articled to a solicitor, along with Thurlow. During this period he fell in love with his cousin, Theodora Cowper, sister to Lady Hesketh, and wrote love poems to her. The marriage was forbidden by her father, but she never forgot him, and in after years secretly aided his necessities. Fits of melancholy, from which he had suffered in school days, began to increase, as he entered on life, much straitened in means after his father's death. But on the whole, it is the playful, humorous side of him that is most prominent in the nine years after his call to the Bar; spent in the society of Colman, Bonnell Thornton, and Lloyd, and in writing satires for The Connoisseur and St. James's Chronicle and halfpenny ballads. Then came the awful calamity, which destroyed all hopes of distinction, and made him a sedentary invalid, dependent on his friends. He had been nominated to the Clerkship of the Journals of the House of Lords, but the dread of appearing before them to show his fitness for the appointment overthrew his reason. He attempted his life with "laudanum, knife and cord,"—-in the third attempt nearly succeeding. The dark delusion of his life now first showed itself—a belief in his reprobation by God. But for the present, under the wise and Christian treatment of Dr. Cotton (q. v.) at St. Albans, it passed away; and the eight years that followed, of which the two first were spent at Huntingdon (where he formed his lifelong friendship with Mrs. Unwin), and the remainder at Olney in active piety among the poor, and enthusiastic devotions under the guidance of John Newton (q. v.), were full of the realisation of God's favour, and the happiest, most lucid period of his life. But the tension of long religious exercises, the nervous excitement of leading at prayer meetings, and the extreme despondence (far more than the Calvinism) of Newton, could scarcely have been a healthy atmosphere for a shy, sensitive spirit, that needed most of all the joyous sunlight of Christianity. A year after his brother's death, madness returned. Under the conviction that it was the command of God, he attempted suicide; and he then settled down into a belief in stark contradiction to his Calvinistic creed, "that the Lord, after having renewed him in holiness, had doomed him to everlasting perdition" (Southey). In its darkest form his affliction lasted sixteen months, during which he chiefly resided in J. Newton's house, patiently tended by him and by his devoted nurse, Mrs. Unwin. Gradually he became interested in carpentering, gardening, glazing, and the tendance of some tame hares and other playmates. At the close of 1780, Mrs. Unwin suggested to him some serious poetical work; and the occupation proved so congenial, that his first volume was published in 1782. To a gay episode in 1783 (his fascination by the wit of Lady Austen) his greatest poem, The Task, and also John Gilpin were owing. His other principal work was his Homer, published in 1791. The dark cloud had greatly lifted from his life when Lady Hesketh's care accomplished his removal to Weston (1786): but the loss of his dear friend William Unwin lowered it again for some months. The five years' illness of Mrs. Unwin, during which his nurse of old became his tenderly-watched patient, deepened the darkness more and more. And her death (1796) brought “fixed despair," of which his last poem, The Castaway, is the terrible memorial. Perhaps no more beautiful sentence has been written of him, than the testimony of one, who saw him after death, that with the "composure and calmness" of the face there “mingled, as it were, a holy surprise."
Cowper's poetry marks the dawn of the return from the conventionality of Pope to natural expression, and the study of quiet nature. His ambition was higher than this, to be the Bard of Christianity. His great poems show no trace of his monomania, and are full of healthy piety. His fame as a poet is less than as a letter-writer: the charm of his letters is unsurpassed. Though the most considerable poet, who has written hymns, he has contributed little to the development of their structure, adopting the traditional modes of his time and Newton's severe canons. The spiritual ideas of the hymns are identical with Newton's: their highest note is peace and thankful contemplation, rather than joy: more than half of them are full of trustful or reassuring faith: ten of them are either submissive (44), self-reproachful (17, 42, 43), full of sad yearning (1, 34), questioning (9), or dark spiritual conflict (38-40). The specialty of Cowper's handling is a greater plaintiveness, tenderness, and refinement. A study of these hymns as they stood originally under the classified heads of the Olney Hymns, 1779, which in some cases probably indicate the aim of Cowper as well as the ultimate arrangement of the book by Newton, shows that one or two hymns were more the history of his conversion, than transcripts of present feelings; and the study of Newton's hymns in the same volume, full of heavy indictment against the sins of his own regenerate life, brings out the peculiar danger of his friendship to the poet: it tends also to modify considerably the conclusions of Southey as to the signs of incipient madness in Cowper's maddest hymns. Cowper's best hymns are given in The Book of Praise by Lord Selborne. Two may be selected from them; the exquisitely tender "Hark! my soul, it is the Lord" (q. v.), and "Oh, for a closer walk with God" (q. v.). Anyone who knows Mrs. Browning's noble lines on Cowper's grave will find even a deeper beauty in the latter, which is a purely English hymn of perfect structure and streamlike cadence, by connecting its sadness and its aspiration not only with the “discord on the music" and the "darkness on the glory," but the rapture of his heavenly waking beneath the "pathetic eyes” of Christ.
Authorities. Lives, by Hayley; Grimshaw; Southey; Professor Goldwin Smith; Mr. Benham (attached to Globe Edition); Life of Newton, by Rev. Josiah Bull; and the Olney Hymns. The numbers of the hymns quoted refer to the Olney Hymns. [Rev. H. Leigh Bennett, M.A.]
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
================
Cowper, W. , p. 265, i. Other hymns are:—
1. Holy Lord God, I love Thy truth. Hatred of Sin.
2. I was a grovelling creature once. Hope and Confidence.
3. No strength of nature can suffice. Obedience through love.
4. The Lord receives His highest praise. Faith.
5. The saints should never be dismayed. Providence. All these hymns appeared in the Olney Hymns, 1779.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)
=====================
Cowper, W., p. 265, i. Prof. John E. B. Mayor, of Cambridge, contributed some letters by Cowper, hitherto unpublished, together with notes thereon, to Notes and Queries, July 2 to Sept. 24, 1904. These letters are dated from Huntingdon, where he spent two years after leaving St. Alban's (see p. 265, i.), and Olney. The first is dated "Huntingdon, June 24, 1765," and the last "From Olney, July 14, 1772." They together with extracts from other letters by J. Newton (dated respectively Aug. 8, 1772, Nov. 4, 1772), two quotations without date, followed by the last in the N. & Q. series, Aug. 1773, are of intense interest to all students of Cowper, and especially to those who have given attention to the religious side of the poet's life, with its faint lights and deep and awful shadows. From the hymnological standpoint the additional information which we gather is not important, except concerning the hymns "0 for a closer walk with God," "God moves in a mysterious way," "Tis my happiness below," and "Hear what God, the Lord, hath spoken." Concerning the last three, their position in the manuscripts, and the date of the last from J. Newton in the above order, "Aug. 1773," is conclusive proof against the common belief that "God moves in a mysterious way" was written as the outpouring of Cowper's soul in gratitude for the frustration of his attempted suicide in October 1773.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)
William Cowper
Brian A. Wren
b. 1936 Person Name: Brian Wren (b. 1936) Topics: Our Response to Christ In Penitence Author of "Great God, your love has called us here" in Church Hymnary (4th ed.) Brian Wren (b. Romford, Essex, England, 1936) is a major British figure in the revival of contemporary hymn writing. He studied French literature at New College and theology at Mansfield College in Oxford, England. Ordained in 1965, he was pastor of the Congregational Church (now United Reformed) in Hockley and Hawkwell, Essex, from 1965 to 1970. He worked for the British Council of Churches and several other organizations involved in fighting poverty and promoting peace and justice. This work resulted in his writing of Education for Justice (1977) and Patriotism and Peace (1983). With a ministry throughout the English-speaking world, Wren now resides in the United States where he is active as a freelance lecturer, preacher, and full-time hymn writer. His hymn texts are published in Faith Looking Forward (1983), Praising a Mystery (1986), Bring Many Names (1989), New Beginnings (1993), and Faith Renewed: 33 Hymns Reissued and Revised (1995), as well as in many modern hymnals. He has also produced What Language Shall I Borrow? (1989), a discussion guide to inclusive language in Christian worship.
Bert Polman
Brian A. Wren
William Henry Monk
1823 - 1889 Person Name: William Henry Monk (1823-1889) Topics: Our Response to Christ In Devotion Composer of "EVENTIDE" in Church Hymnary (4th ed.) William H. Monk (b. Brompton, London, England, 1823; d. London, 1889) is best known for his music editing of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861, 1868; 1875, and 1889 editions). He also adapted music from plainsong and added accompaniments for Introits for Use Throughout the Year, a book issued with that famous hymnal. Beginning in his teenage years, Monk held a number of musical positions. He became choirmaster at King's College in London in 1847 and was organist and choirmaster at St. Matthias, Stoke Newington, from 1852 to 1889, where he was influenced by the Oxford Movement. At St. Matthias, Monk also began daily choral services with the choir leading the congregation in music chosen according to the church year, including psalms chanted to plainsong. He composed over fifty hymn tunes and edited The Scottish Hymnal (1872 edition) and Wordsworth's Hymns for the Holy Year (1862) as well as the periodical Parish Choir (1840-1851).
Bert Polman
William Henry Monk
