“Standing on the Promises”
R. Kelso Carter UM Hymnal, No. 374
The Pender UMC Traditional Service Middle Hymn “Standing on the Promises”, Sunday February 25, 2024 was played by Hetty Jacobs on piano and sung by the Sanctuary Choir and congregation. This was the second Sunday in Lent.
“Standing on the Promises” was the middle hymn at Pender’s 9:00 am Traditional Service on June 18, 2023 It was sung by Pender’s congregation, accompanied on piano by Heidi Jacobs and guitar by Brian Stevenson.
The Pender UMC Traditional Service Opening Hymn “Standing on the Promises” on Sunday November 6, 2022 was played by Liz Eunji Moon on piano, accompanied on guitar by Brian Stevenson and sung the Pender Sanctuary Choir and congregation.
Standing on the promises of Christ my King,
Through eternal ages let his praises ring;
Glory in the highest, I will shout and sing,
Standing on the promises of God.
Russell Kelso Carter (1849-1928) was a man of diverse interests and abilities. A native of Baltimore, Md., Carter was known as an outstanding athlete in his younger days. The Methodist Holiness camp meeting movement had a profound impact on his life and he was ordained into ministry in 1887.
Carter held a number of teaching posts at the Pennsylvania Military Academy including professor of chemistry, natural science, civil engineering and mathematics. Not only did he teach, but he also published text books in his various disciplines and even authored several novels. Other interests included sheep-raising and practicing medicine.
If this were not enough, Carter also edited hymnals. He assisted A.B. Simpson in the compilation of a hymnal for the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, Hymns of the Christian Life (1891), a collection that contained 68 of his tunes and 52 of his texts.
“Standing on the Promises” was composed in 1886 while Carter was teaching at the military academy. He was a member of the first graduating class in 1867 and had a strong affinity for the school. Author Phil Kerr makes a connection between the music and the military academy in his book, Music in Evangelism, stating that Carter’s military experience was reflected in the martial musical style of the hymn.
Published the year it was written in the collection, Songs of Perfect Love, edited by John K. Sweeny and Carter, the original text had five stanzas. The missing stanza reads:
Standing on the promises I now can see
Perfect, present cleansing in the blood for me;
Standing in the liberty where Christ makes free,
Standing on the promises of God.
The second line of this stanza has a particular Wesleyan tone with its focus on perfection and cleansing blood. The Rev. Carlton Young, editor of the UM Hymnal, notes: “As in other single-theme evangelical hymns and songs of this period, the biblical source of the hymn is not clear. ‘Stand firm’ from Ephesians 6:14 has often been cited as the theme of the hymn, although the word ‘promise’ tends to be reinforced as well.”
Thus, two passages of Scripture seem to undergird the central premise of this gospel song: “Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place. . . .” (Ephesians 6:14). Several passages relate to the promises of God including 2 Samuel 22:31: “As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is tried; he is a buckler to all them that trust in him.”
Dr. Young points out that this hymn was not included in authorized hymnals for Methodists (or in the 1957 hymnal of the Evangelical United Brethren Church) until the current hymnal. He states, “Its place in our hymnal came from its inclusion in a list of hymns determined to be widely used by evangelical United Methodists.”
As is the case of many gospel songs, this song revolves around its refrain. The stanzas, rather than serving to develop a sequential train of thought, are more like the spokes of a bicycle—all serving as an entry point to the refrain from various perspectives. One could reorder the stanzas and not lose any train of thought.
Hymnologist Kenneth Osbeck places the hymn in its context: “The hymn has been widely used in the great evangelistic crusades throughout the past century.” It is in this context that its single focus and rousing, martial music may be best suited.
The Pender UMC Traditional Service Middle Hymn “It is Well With My Soul” on Sunday November 13, 2022 was played by Liz Eunji Moon on piano, directed by Brian Stevenson and sung the Pender Sanctuary Choir and congregation.
The hymn “It Is Well With My Soul” was written by a successful Christian lawyer called Horatio Spafford.
His only son died at age 4 in 1871. That year, the Great Chicago Fire wiped out his vast estate, made from a successful legal career.
In 1873 he sent his wife Anna and four daughters over to Europe on a summer trip on the ill-fated SS Ville du Havre. Since he had a lot of work to do, he had planned to travel to England with his family on the SS Ville du Havre, to help with D. L. Moody’s upcoming evangelistic campaigns. In a late change of plan, he sent the family ahead while he was delayed on business concerning zoning problems following the Great Chicago Fire.
On November 22 the ship was struck by an iron sailing vessel killing 226 people, including all four of Spafford’s daughters: Annie, age 12; Maggie, 7; Bessie, 4; and an 18-month old baby. His wife survived the tragedy.
Upon arriving in England, she sent a telegram to Spafford that read “Saved alone.”
Shortly afterwards, as Spafford traveled to meet his grieving wife, he was inspired to write these words as his ship passed near where his daughters had died.;Bliss called his tune Ville du Havre, from the name of the stricken vessel.
It is Well With My Soul
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Refrain:
It is well with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!—
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.
But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!
And Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.
“Lift Every Voice and Sing”
James Weldon Johnson The United Methodist Hymnal, No. 519
Pender pianist, Liz Eunji Moon played Lift Every Voice and Sing for the postlude on Martin Luther King Holiday weekend. “Lift Every Voice” began as a hastily-written composition for an unassuming school assembly in 1900, but has become the African-American national anthem.
Lift every voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Few hymns have the capacity to define the identity of an entire group. “Lift Every Voice” began as a hastily-written composition for an unassuming school assembly in 1900, but has become the African-American national anthem.
James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) received degrees in literature from Atlanta University in 1894, with a master of arts in 1904. He had a versatile career as a writer, teacher, diplomat and lawyer, becoming the first African-American to pass the bar in the state of Florida. His diplomatic posts took him in 1906 to Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, and in 1909, to Corinto, Nicaragua, where he served as the American consul.
His most prominent leadership role was as the executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a position that he assumed in 1920.
His most important published works include The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1920), The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), God’s Trombones (1927), and Along This Way (1933).
Johnson had been asked to speak by the principal of a school in Jacksonville, Fla., his hometown, for an observance celebrating the birth of Abraham Lincoln. Rather than make a speech, he decided to write a poem. As the time drew near, his plans changed from a poem to a song. James turned to his brother J. Rosamund Johnson (1873-1954) to compose music for his text.
Even though the Johnsons’ New York publisher did not actively promote the song, children throughout the South kept it alive. The song gathered momentum, as it became known around the country.
Though the brothers wrote over 200 songs together, mostly for the stage, “Lift every voice” had an exceptional place in their musical collaborations. James noted in 1935, “The lines of this song repay me in elation, almost of exquisite anguish, whenever I hear them sung by Negro children.”
Gene Logan, a member of Ebenezer UMC in Jacksonville, Florida, connects the Johnson brothers with the Methodist Church: “James and his brother Rosamond became members of Zion Episcopal Methodist Church where their mother served as choir director and the young men served as musicians. The church was renamed Ebenezer United Methodist Church, which is now located at 9114 Norfolk Blvd in Jacksonville, Florida.” According to columnist Sharon Coon in Florida, their mother, Helen, “was the first Black female public school teacher in Florida. She taught at Old Stanton School on Ashley Street in Jacksonville, FL. His mother taught both James and J. Rosamond music and reading.” After receiving his degree from Atlanta University, James returned to the school where his mother taught as Principal in 1894. The brothers’ connections to the Methodist Church and their rearing by a nurturing and courageous mother surely contributed to their accomplishments.
The NAACP adopted “Lift every voice” as its theme song. Julian Bond, former NAACP chairman, stated that the song holds deep meaning for the Civil Rights Movement: “When people stand and sing it, you just feel a connectedness with the song, with all the people who’ve sung it on numerous occasions, happy and sad, over the 100 years before.”
This hymn, often called the “Negro National Anthem” or “Black National Anthem,” gave hope to many during the Civil Rights Era. Its centrality in African-American life may be illustrated by a childhood memory of Vernellia Randall, a law professor at the University of Dayton, who grew up in Texas. She recalls starting each day in her school in the 1950s and 1960s with The Lord’s Prayer, The National Anthem, and the Negro National Anthem.
Wendell Whalum, the late choral director at Atlanta’s Morehouse College, often spoke of the progression of the three stanzas as that of praise, lament, and prayer. The opening stanza is a resounding hymn of praise full of rich metaphors such as the “harmonies of liberty” and rejoicing “loud as the rolling sea.” The second stanza is a lament that recounts the price of liberty:
Stony the road we trod,
bitter the chastening rod,
felt in the day when hope unborn had died.
The sting of these words echoes Psalm 130, “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee.” Yet the poet does not leave us here long. By the end of the stanza, we are singing with hope,
Out of the gloomy past, till now we stand at last where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
The final stanza is often referred to as a prayer in the African-American community. This prayer culminates with the petitions, “keep us forever in the path, we pray” and “may we forever stand true to our God, true to our native land.”
Is this a hymn just for African-Americans or is it for all people? Dr. James Abbington, Associate Professor of Music and Worship at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, Atlanta, Georgia, and a scholar in African American hymnody, provides an answer to this question: “Several years ago, I was invited to organize and conduct a 1,000-voice choir for the annual Detroit Branch NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner at Cobo Hall. It was during the time of the Persian Gulf War and tensions were very high between the Jewish and Arab communities in the city.?rel=0″The 1,000 voice choir, accompanied by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, was made up of Anglo-Americans, Canadians, Native Americans, Koreans, Italians, Jews, Arabs, African-Americans and others, and ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ was one of the selections for that occasion. After the first rehearsal Jewish, Korean, and Native American members of the chorus approached me and said, ‘This song isn’t just for African-Americans and people from Africa, it belongs to all of us who are ‘true to our God and true to our Native land.'”?
On May 20, 2018, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) attended The Tabernacle Choir’s weekly Music and the Spoken Word broadcast. Members of the National Board of Directors of the NAACP and the NAACP Foundation were in Salt Lake City for their board meetings, which were held in Salt Lake City for the first time. They also met with the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and made a joint statement to the media calling for “greater civility and racial harmony.”
The Pender UMC Traditional Service Middle Hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” on Sunday October 23, 2022 was played by Liz Eunji Moon on piano, accompanied on guitar by Brian Stevenson and sung the Pender Sanctuary Choir and congregation.
How does a personal poem written to a mother from a despondent son, recently immigrated from England to a relatively remote section of Canada in the mid-nineteenth century, become one of the most widely sung hymns in the world?
Joseph Medlicott Scriven (1819–1886) was born in Seapatrick, Ireland (now Northern Ireland,) and died in Ontario, Canada. After attending classes at Trinity College, Dublin, he pursued a military career, where he trained for service in India; but had to abandon that ambition because of his poor health. He returned to Trinity and graduated in 1842.
SCRIVEN’S LIFE
Scriven’s life was full of tragedy. Following the accidental drowning of his Irish fiancée the evening before their wedding, he moved to Woodstock, Canada West (now Ontario) in 1844, where he led a Plymouth Brethren fellowship and taught. Scriven organized a private school in 1850 in Brantford and preached in the area. Some scholars believe that Scriven may have composed his initial draft of “What a Friend” written during this time.
Moving near Clinton in Huron County in 1855, he read the Bible to railway construction workers who were building the Grand Trunk Railway across the Canada West. By 1857, he relocated to Bewdley, supporting himself as a private tutor to the family of Robert Lamport Pengelly, a retired naval officer. Tragedy struck again when his second fiancée, Eliza Catherine Roach, Pengelly’s niece, died in 1860 of an illness shortly before their wedding. Scriven then returned to ministry among the Plymouth Brethren in Bewdley, near Rice Lake (McKellar and Leask, Canterbury Dictionary, n.d.). Hymnologist Albert Bailey noted that Scriven, a selfless person by nature, was known as “the man who saws wood for poor widows and sick people who are unable to pay” (Bailey, 1950, p. 495).
The Dictionary of Canadian Biography describes what we know about the circumstances surrounding Scriven’s death in October 1886:
His last days were clouded with ill-health and despondency. James Sackville, his friend and fellow-believer, found Scriven ill and brought him to his house. One hot night in 1866, Scriven left his bed without disturbing anyone, probably to drink at a nearby spring: some hours later, presumably having fainted or fallen, he was found dead in the spillway of Sackville’s grist-mill, a few feet from the spring. He was buried in the Pengelly burial-ground in an unmarked grave between Eliza Roach and Commander Pengelly (Macpherson, “Scriven,” n.d.).
A few days before Scriven’s death, Sackville found the dejected Scriven “prostrate in mind and body and heard him say, ‘I wish the Lord would take me home’” (Cleland, 1895, p. 17). It was never determined if his death was accidental or a suicide. A monument was later erected over his gravesite by friends and neighbors. Joseph Medlicott Scriven’s historical marker was placed in Otanabee-South Monaghan, Ontario, Canada, marking his homestead and burial place.
ORIGINS OF ‘WHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE IN JESUS’
Scriven published a collection of his poetic works, Hymns and Other Verses, which included seventy-one hymns “intended to be sung in assemblies of the children of God on the first day of the week and on other occasions when two or three are met together in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” These were followed by thirty-four scriptural paraphrases “not to be sung in the assembly, but to express truth, as well as convey comfort, instruction or reproof to our hearts, in order that we may walk together in obedience” (Scriven, 1869, Preface). “What a Friend,” the hymn for which he is known, does not appear in the collection, however. Why not?
Some writers have noted that the hymn was written for his mother, who was suffering from illness. Musical evangelist Ira D. Sankey (1840–1908) spread this account (cited in Bailey, 1950, pp. 495–496). This assertion is hard to verify, however. A statement from Scriven’s biography (1895) by James Cleland includes the author’s mother in the dissemination of the hymn but does not clarify other details:
When residing at the house of his friend Mr. Sackville, near Rice Lake, he composed this hymn; making two copies, one of which he sent to his mother, in Dublin, and gave the other to Mrs. Sackville, which the old lady, now over eighty years of age values highly. Probably it was through his mother that the hymn was given to the public (Cleland, 1895, p. 13).
If indeed “What a Friend” were composed as a personal poem, it may explain why it did not appear in the collection the author published in 1869. The personal first-person plural perspective contrasts with other hymns by the author. As one author noted, “almost all of his others are more firmly constructed, without emotional softness, and developed from biblical texts” (Macpherson, “Scriven,” n.d.). Carl Daw Jr. has also noted the differences between “What a Friend” and the author’s published works in Hymns and other verses, supporting the hypothesis that the poem was intended for his ailing mother rather than public use (Daw, 2016, p. 470).
Some commentaries state that the text was first published in J.B. Packard’s Spiritual Minstrel: A Collection of Hymns and Music (1857), but this is erroneous, according to hymnologist Chris Fenner (See Fenner, 2020, n.p.). The hymn appeared as we know it anonymously in three stanzas of eight lines each in Social Hymns, Original and Selected (1865), compiled by Horace Lorenzo Hastings. New England composer and church musician Charles Converse (1832–1918) then included the text in his Silver Wings (1870) with his tune under his pen name Karl Reden, a Germanization of his name (“reden” meaning “to speak” or “converse”). He states that he obtained the text from the privately produced hymnal, “Genevan Presbyterian Church (of Brooklyn) Collection.” No copy of this hymnal appears to be extant. Converse’s tune paired with the text gained prominence with Ira Sankey and spread in his revivals with Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899). Published in Sankey’s Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs (1875), later known as Gospel Hymns No. 1., Sankey mistakenly attributed the hymn to Scottish hymnwriter Horatius Bonar (1808–1889), an assertion disputed by Bonar.
The text has remained unusually stable with few editorial alterations over the years. Edward Samuel Caswell (1861–1938) published an early manuscript version signed by Scriven that was titled “Pray without Ceasing” (from 1 Thessalonians 5:17) in 1919. It appeared in four quatrains, the first three of which are familiar. The fourth reads as follows:
Are we cold and unbelieving, Cumbered with a load of care? Here the Lord is still our refuge: Take it to the Lord in prayer. (See the manuscript at Fenner, 2020, n.p.)
Of the hymn, Caswell stated that it was “beyond question the best-known piece of Canadian literature” (Macpherson, “Scriven,” n.d.).
Stanza 1 establishes that Jesus is a friend that can bear our sins and burdens. This theme appears in the eighteenth century with Charles Wesley’s “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” (1740) and John Newton’s “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds” (1779). Nineteenth-century hymnwriters are especially known for expressing their personal friendship with Jesus. For example, see Louisa M.R. Stead’s “‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus” (1882), Elisha A. Hoffman’s “I Must Tell Jesus All of My Trials” (1894), and Fanny Crosby’s “Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine” (1873). The author uses the first-person plural perspective—perhaps indicating that he and his mother (“we”) have a bond in prayer and need not suffer sin and grief alone.
The second stanza asks two rhetorical questions—rhetorical because, indeed, all humans suffer “trials and temptations” and witness “trouble.” The answer becomes a short refrain: “Take it to the Lord in prayer.” A third rhetorical question asks, “Can we find a friend so faithful . . .?” The intimate friendship with the one who “knows our every weakness” is the source of solace. The refrain returns: “Take it to the Lord in prayer.”
The third stanza reframes the premise of the song with different questions, while the theme remains the same:
Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care? Do your friends despise, forsake you?
The answer to both questions is, “Take it to the Lord in prayer.” The closing image of Jesus enfolding his friend in his arms is also a common trope in many hymns from this era. The two most known are Fanny Crosby’s “Safe in the Arms of Jesus” (1868) and Elisha Hoffman’s “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” (1887).
Hymnologist Fred Gealy found an additional stanza published in Hastings’ Songs of Pilgrimage: A Hymnal for the Churches of Christ (Boston, 1886; Second Ed. 1888) with the following fourth stanza:
Blessed Jesus, thou hast promised Thou wilt all our burdens bear, May we ever, Lord, be bringing All to thee in earnest prayer. Soon in glory, bright, unclouded, There will be no need for prayer; Rapture, praise, and endless worship Shall be our sweet portion there.
Since this seems to be the only hymnal to include this stanza, it may have been added by the editor who felt that an eschatological focus was more theologically suitable for a closing stanza.
Albert Bailey notes correctly that Scriven’s poetry is of relatively low quality with monotonous rhymes (Scriven uses five words to rhyme with “prayer”—some multiple times) and trite language. But even Bailey admits, “Our criticism is made harmless by the tremendous service the hymn has rendered. Any unlettered person can understand it; the humblest saint can take its admonitions to heart, practice prayer, find his load more bearable and [her] spiritual life deepened” (Bailey, 1950, p. 496).
Paul Westermeyer offers a critique from a Lutheran perspective, noting:
It has been a source of comfort for many who have sung it, though paradoxically it has also been a part of a Protestantism that denies its own heritage by turning prayer into work to control God’s grace. The repeated line “Take it to the Lord in prayer” relates to . . . comfort, and forfeiting peace or suffering pain “All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer” suggests our capacity to save ourselves by the work of our prayer (Westermeyer, 2010, p. 606).
Carl Daw offers a different analysis: “As a hymn of assurance, it has served as an effective reminder of the centrality of prayer in a well-rounded spirituality. Unfortunately, singing it has often been a substitute for the comprehensive prayer life it advocates, and its advice has been cherished, but not followed” (Daw, 2016, p. 471).
While other tunes appear with this text, CONVERSE by Charles Converse is the most popular. Carlton Young suggests that CONVERSE is reminiscent of Stephen Foster tunes of the era and provides a perfect musical vehicle for this prayerful text. He notes that this tune follows the same general melodic contour as Foster’s “Jeanie with the light brown hair” (Young, 1993, pp. 687–688). Converse, a Massachusetts native, was an associate of William Bradbury (1816–1868) and Ira Sankey in revivals and the Sunday school movement.
The range of recording artists who have sung this song is staggering from long-established white performers Pat Boone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcHbzSi7fho&feature=emb_title), Rosemary Clooney, Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, Willie Nelson, and Dolly Parton to African American gospel artists Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, and Ike and Tina Turner (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay1lUmnaZfA&feature=emb_title). More recently, Contemporary Christian artist Paul Baloche has recorded the song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pJb0nUiZWc&feature=emb_title), indicating that it continues to have a witness to younger generations. Baloche’s improvisatory coda bridges the nineteenth century with the twenty-first. The hymn’s inclusion in the film Driving Miss Daisy (1969) as sung by Little Friendship Missionary Baptist Church Choir (Decatur, Georgia) confirms its iconic status in the genre.
The simple language becomes a virtue in translation, and the folk-like melody easily transcends cultures around the world. The musical treatment of CONVERSE varies in each cultural setting, but the message remains the same. There are few hymns that I have heard more regularly around the world. Scriven’s biographer, James Cleland, noted in 1895, “In the steerage of the steamer, a traveler returning from Europe, heard a mixed company, who spoke different languages, united in singing this hymn” (Cleland, 1895, pp. 5–6). One hundred years later, this author verifies hearing this song sung in various languages and renditions, including a humble congregation for people with leprosy near Ogbomosho, Nigeria; a Filipino Anglican congregation in Manila; a thriving Baptist congregation in Matanzas, Cuba; and an African American Methodist congregation in Atlanta. A modest poem, written in Canada as a private meditation for the author’s mother in Ireland, has found its way into many hearts worldwide and, undoubtedly, has been a source of comfort for millions of Christians for more than one hundred fifty years.
SOURCES
Albert E. Bailey, The Gospel in Hymns (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950).
“Come, Ye Thankful People, Come”
by Henry Alford The United Methodist Hymnal, 694
Come, ye thankful people, come, Raise the song of harvest home; All is safely gathered in, Ere the winter storms begin. God our Maker doth provide For our wants to be supplied; Come to God’s own temple, come, Raise the song of harvest home.
The Pender UMC Traditional Service Opening Hymn “Come Ye Thankful People, Come” on Thanksgiving Sunday November 20, 2022 was played by Liz Eunji Moon on piano, Teresa Rothschild on clarinet, Brian Stevenson on flute and sung the Pender Sanctuary Choir and congregation.
With the upcoming celebration of Thanksgiving, people in churches, schools, and other events will sing the traditional harvest song, “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come,” by Henry Alford (1810–1871).
Born into a long line of Anglican clergymen, Alford was raised early by his father and later by his uncle, Rev. Samuel Alford, due to his mother’s death during his birth. This instability resulted in his early education being scattered between private tutoring and a variety of schools, but in 1827 he became a scholar at Trinity College where he received all his secondary education (B.A. 1832, M.A. 1835). He was ordained a priest in the Anglican church in 1834, served in the vicarage at Wymeswold in Leicestershire (18 years), at Quebec Street Chapel in Marylebone, London (4 years), and as Dean of the Chapter of the Cathedral of Christ Church, Canterbury, England (14 years).
This hymn first appeared in Alford’s Psalms and Hymns, adapted to the Sundays and Holydays throughout the year (1844). Methodist hymnologist J. Richard Watson details several revisions of the text both by Alford and others, resulting in the author’s final revision in 1868 (Watson, Canterbury Dictionary, n.p.). In this hymn, Alford used traditional language and imagery of the rural community to lend words of thankfulness for God’s provision and to expand upon Matthew 13:24–30:
He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat in my barn.’” (NRSV)
Tom Stewart, in his writing, says:
[The hymn] addresses the common theme of harvest festivals, called in England the Harvest Home, which is celebrated in English churches usually during the month of September. A thanksgiving service would be held in the church, where the bounty of the harvest is collected, displayed with the fall trappings of pumpkins and autumn leaves, and then dispensed to the needy. And, of course, unlike the humanist that is essentially grateful to only himself, a true Harvest Home celebration acknowledges the provision of God, as did the Pilgrims in 1621 and the ancient Hebrews in their Feast of Firstfruits in the spring on the first day after Passover at the time of the barley harvest. (Stewart, 2016, n.p.)
The eminent minister and hymnologist, Erik Routley (1917–1982), took great offense at this hymn in his book, Hymns Today and Tomorrow. For the most part, his criticism concerns the musical setting, ST. GEORGE’S WINDSON, yet Routley feels that it is “extremely doubtful whether the [imagery of the last judgment] makes any impact on congregations at all” (Routley, 1964, p. 126). The hymn is complex, but it is by no means obscure or opaque.
The first stanza focuses directly on the physical harvest, an image used throughout scripture from early in Genesis through Revelation. We give thanks for the physical harvest as we give thanks for our daily bread in the Lord’s Prayer. Thanksgiving begins with the most concrete blessings in our lives. As well as a physical harvest, the first stanza alludes to Jesus’ remark in all three synoptic gospels—the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few, and the thankful people who are called to come are those who have already been sent by the Lord of the harvest, Jesus Christ.
The second stanza begins Alford’s expansion upon the parable of Jesus concerning the wheat and the tares (weeds) from Matthew 13:24–30. It is a challenging parable, which Alford interprets in this hymn to describe how joy and sorrow grow together in life, and how God does not eliminate sorrow until after the final harvest when God “will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4. (NRSV).
The third and fourth stanzas move more directly to the apocalyptic reference, “For the Lord our God shall come.” Erik Routley felt this imagery out of place. However, connecting thanksgiving with the coming of Jesus is imagery that is used at every celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
The hymn tune ST. GEORGE’S WINDSOR, composed in 1856 by George J. Elvey (1816–1893) for the hymn “Hark! The Song of Jubilee,” has been associated with “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come” since the publication of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861). As noted above, some reviewers of the hymn have pointed to the incongruity of this sturdy and joyful tune with these words, but there is some beauty in this pairing as well, especially with text painting at some points. Among others, one such case is the use of a dotted rhythm, balanced throughout the music, as a compelling invitation to sing, notably on the opening “Come.” One might also notice the phrase “all is safely gathered in” where the pitch begins and ends on A, but feels “gathered” by the use of the neighboring tones, Bb and G. Midway through the hymn, the phrases, “first the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear,” are sung in an ascending sequence that seems almost like corn growing in the field. Later, the leap upward for ‘raise the song’ and ‘raise the glorious’ helps to paint the intent of the final phrases in stanzas 1 and 4.
Regardless of Routley’s misgivings, the discerning hymn singer cannot help but appreciate the vibrant eschatological final stanza that amplifies Christ’s parable. It is offered here in the author’s original language and punctuation:
Even so, Lord, quickly come,
Bring Thy final Harvest-home!
Gather Thou Thy people in,
Free from sorrow, free from sin;
There, forever purified,
In Thy garner to abide:
Come with all Thine angels, come,
Raise the glorious Harvest-home!
SOURCES
Erik Routley, Hymns Today and Tomorrow (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1964).
News and Views 