Hymns for Exploring the Word in Hymnody,

Sunday, October 19, 2008

OPENING HYMN   #433         In the Bulb There is A Flower               Natalie Sleeth, 1985

Natalie Wakeley Sleeth (1930-1992) was born on October 29, 1930 in Evanston, IL Sleeth began studying piano at age four. She majored in music at Wellesley College from which she earned a BA in Music Theory. An organist, she wrote over 180 highly successful selections for church and school. Natalie finished this hymn just as her husband died; it was sung at his funeral. At age 62 at the height of her career (1992), Natalie died of cancer.   

#207         Just As I Am                                                                Charlotte Elliott, 1836                           (Eph 2:14, John 6:37)

Charlotte Elliott was born March 18th, 1789 in Clapham, England.  Her first thirty years were filled with joy and blessing.  She was a professional artist making her living as a portrait artist and a writer of humorous verse.  Shortly after her thirtieth birthday Charlotte’s health suddenly and dramatically failed.  She was beset by an undiagnosed debilitating illness and was forced to spend most of every day in bed.  Although she never recovered her health, she lived to the age of 82, and wrote 150 hymns in total. The first  hymn of our “exploration section” this morning is a familiar one, which Charlotte wrote in 1836, after a visit from a Swiss minister in her home. When Charlotte lost her temper and railed against  God over dinner, Dr. Malan, the minister, invited her into conversation about  her bitterness over her poor physical condition.  Finally, when Charlotte asked Rev. Malan what she should do if she wanted to share his peace and acceptance of life, he told her simply to “come to God just as you are.” It was this moment that inspired this well-known hymn,  Just As I Am.

Insert      Will There Be Any Stars In My Crown       Eliza E. Hewitt, 1897                                                  (1Peter 5:4)

Eliza was born in 1851, in a house on Christian Street in Philadelphia. She was a teenager during the Civil War, but managed to concentrate on school well enough to graduate valedictorian of her class. She displayed an unusual love for children, and after further study she became a school teacher, a career that was cut short by a serious spine injury inflicted by one of her students. She is often identified in the early hymnals as E.E. Hewitt, so many have missed the fact that this writer was a woman.

#606         Nearer, My God, to You                 Sarah Flower Adams, 1841          (Gen. 28:10-22, Matt. 16:24)

Sarah Flower Adams was born at Harlow, Essex on 22 February 1805, and died in London on 14 August, 1848. She was the younger daughter of Benjamin Flower, editor and owner of The Cambridge Intelligencer; and was married, in 1834, to William Brydges Adams, a well-known inventor and civil engineer. Unitarian in belief, like many major writers and social reformers of the period, her convictions owed much to health reformer Thomas Southwood Smith (with whom she lived for over twenty years) and to her association with 'William Johnson Fox’'s radical Unitarian congregation of the 1830s.

As a member of this congregation, she contributed 13 hymns to the Hymns and Anthems, published in 1841. Robert Browning admired her and was a frequent correspondent.  And, of course, there is a tradition that the band played "Nearer, my God, to Thee" on the Titanic, as the ship sank. 

#610         My Eyes Have Seen the Glory                        Julia Ward Howe, 1861            (Acts 7:55-59, 2Cor. 5:1-10)

Invited to Washington by President Lincoln, Julia Ward Howe, an early leader in the movement for women’s suffrage and an abolitionist, wrote this text specifically for a familiar camp-meeting tune one night after reviewing Union troops near Washington, D.C. There, they heard the men singing the song which had been sung by both North and South, one in admiration of John Brown, one in celebration of his death: "John Brown's body lies a'mouldering in his grave." A clergyman in the party, James Freeman Clarke, who knew of Julia's published poems, urged her to write a new song for the war effort to replace "John Brown's Body." It was published on the front page of the Atlantic Monthly, which added the title “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

#563         We Cannot Own the Sunlit Sky                     Ruth Duck, 1989                                                            (John 10:10)

Born in Washington, D.C. in 1947, with roots in Tennessee, Ruth Duck grew up in Annapolis, Maryland and Memphis, Tennesee.  She is professor of worship at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, where she has been on the faculty since 1989.  She is president of the North American Academy of Liturgy, an organization of liturgical scholars. Twelve of her hymns are in the 1995 United Church of Christ (U.S.A.) hymnal; eleven appear in the 1995 Chalice Hymnal (Disciples of Christ).  Her texts are also included in Presbyterian, Baptist, Mennonite/Brethren, United Methodist, Reformed Church in America, and United Church of Canada hymnals, among others. 

CLOSING HYMN   #473     Blessed Assurance           Fanny Crosby, 1873                  (Acts 17:30-31; Rev. 7:9-14)

Fanny Crosby (1823-1915) is the best known of the women hymn writers. She wrote more than 8,500 hymns. She was blind from early infancy, attended the New York School for the Blind and also taught at the school as an adult. She was a Methodist; 29 of her hymns have been included in one or more of the official Methodist-related hymnals starting with the 1882 hymnal of the Evangelical Church. The bulk of her hymns have been published in Gospel and Sunday-school hymnals.

EXTRA:  #165        Love Came Down at Christmas    Christina Rossetti, 1885                           (Matt 2:1-11; Luke 2:8-18)

Rossetti began writing at age 7 but she was 31 before her first work was published — Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862). Rossetti was born in London and educated at home by her mother. She wrote and published for the rest of her life although she focused primarily on devotional writing and children's poetry. She maintained a large circle of friends and for ten years volunteered at a home for prostitutes. Her Christmas poem "In the Bleak Midwinter" became widely known after her death when set as a Christmas carol by Gustav Holst as well as by other composers.

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