The Stories of the Hymns
Sunday Jul 23, 2017
Page numbers reference the blue Presbyterian Hymnal
The Church’s One Foundation #442
Samuel J. Stone (1839-1900) was regarded in the Church of England as a fundamentalist, opposing liberal theological tendencies of his day. When he was twenty-seven, he wrote a collection of hymns based on the Apostles’ Creed. This hymn is based on the 9th Article regarding the church as the body of Christ. Described as the poor man’s pastor, Stone demonstrated his firm belief in the church as the instrument of Christ for meeting the needs of people. He spent much time ministering to the poor and underprivileged people in London’s East End. It was said “he created a beautiful place of worship for the humble folk and made it a center of light in dark places.” Two years after he wrote his hymn collection, Anglicans from around the world met to discuss the crucial theological issues that were raging in the church. Significantly, they chose Stone’s hymn as the processional for their historic conference. The tune AURELIA was already in existence, composed by the grandson of Charles Wesley, Samuel Sebastian Wesley in 1864.
You Are Before Me, Lord
#248~A setting of Psalm 139. The author, Ian Pitt-Watson (1921-1995) was the son of James Pitt-Watson, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and Queen’s Chaplain. Ian grew up in his father’s manse in Alloa, and attended the University of Edinburgh and the Royal Academy of Music in London. He became a Presbyterian minister in 1950, and served at the Cathedral Church of St. Giles in Edinburgh. In 1980, he moved to Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California, where he was a professor of preaching and practical theology. In addition to his academic duties, from 1946-80, Pitt-Watson regularly preached on the BBC and ITV, and in 1962 presented the radio series "Why I Believe" to Scottish audiences. The tune SURSUM CORDA was composed by Pennsylvania-born Alfred Morton Smith (1879-1971) in 1941. An Epsicopalian, Smith was a chaplain in the U.S.Army during World War I.
We Are All One In Mission #435
Rusty Edwards (b1955) in Dixon, Illinois, and ordained in 1985. He received an M. Div. from Luther Seminary at St. Paul, Minn., in 1985, and a D. Min. from Graduate Theological Foundation at Notre Dame, Ind., in 1990. He also holds certificates from Blackstone School of Law, Dallas, TX, and Seminary of the Southwest at Austin, Texas. Edwards' hymn collections are: The Yes of the Heart with a foreword by Chick Corea, Grateful Praise (Selah), As Sunshine to a Garden, Each Breath Every Heartbeat, and Bidden Unbidden. He has 15 ASCAP Awards, and recorded a Grammy nominated CD with The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Robert Shaw. He is a Kentucky Colonel and an Honorary Citizen of Austin, Texas. Tyler Texas held a "Rusty Edwards Hymnwriter Day" in 2009. The tune ES FLOG EIN KLEINS WALDVOGELEIN, (The little woodland bird has flown) is a German folk tune, first published in an early-seventeenth-century manuscript collection from Memmingen, Germany. ES FLOG's combination of a sturdy tune and an able harmonization calls for energetic singing that remains vibrant but not rushed.
Come, Ye Thankful People, Come #551
Henry Alford (1810-1871) was born into a family of clergy. He received his education at Trinity College, Cambridge, England, and was ordained in the Church of England in 1833. He became dean of Canterbury Cathedral in 1857, a position he held until his death. A renowned scholar, Alford wrote a four-volume commentary on the Greek New Testament, which became a standard work in its field. In 1844, Henry Alford published this hymn in his Psalms and Hymns, under the title “After Harvest.” He was rector of a rural parish in England at that time, and the text was written for a harvest festival. Although it was originally written with seven stanzas, Alford revised and shortened it to include only four in his Poetical Works in 1865. “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come” combines the image of an autumn harvest with two of Jesus parables and is commonly sung as a song of rejoicing over a bountiful harvest, which it appears to be from the first stanza. However, it is really a more sobering text and may have been intended to provoke Christians to consider whether they are truly people of God (represented by the wheat in Jesus' parable of Matthew 13), or merely lookalikes (represented by the weeds – also called “tares” in some translations). The second stanza closes with a brief prayer that God would enable those who sing to be true Christian disciples, while the fourth stanza is a prayer that the Lord would soon return for the final harvest. The tune ST ST. GEORGE’S WINDSOR, is by George J. Elvey (1816-1893), the organist of St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle for 47 years.
Partial Bibliography for these Hymn Stories:primarily from http://www.hymnary.org