Part 6

Dwight, Rev. John Sullivan, Boston, Massachusetts, May 13, 1812—September 5, 1893. He graduated from Harvard College and from the Harvard Divinity School, and entered the Unitarian ministry, but after six years turned to literary pursuits, and was for nearly 50 years editor of the Journal of Music. A meditative poem by him in seven stanzas, entitled “True Rest,” beginning

_Sweet is the pleasure_,

is included in the Supplement in Hedge and Huntington’s _Hymns for the Church of Christ_, 1853, but it is not a hymn and his only connection with hymnody was his part in re-writing the hymn beginning

_God bless our native land!_

by his friend, C. T. Brooks, _q.v._ In most versions of this much altered hymn the second stanza is in the form given it by Dwight.

J. 1560, 1631 H.W.F.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, LL.D., Boston, Massachusetts, May 25, 1803—April 27, 1882, Concord, Massachusetts. He was the son of Rev. William Emerson, _q.v._, minister of the First Church of Boston (Unitarian) who, though not himself a hymn writer, published in 1808 the excellent small collection entitled _A Collection of Psalms and Hymns_ (5).

R. W. Emerson graduated from Harvard College in 1821 and after further study in the Harvard Divinity School took his A.M. in 1827. He was ordained in 1829 as minister of the Second Church of Boston (Unitarian). He served the church for three years but resigned in 1832, feeling that his pastoral work was inadequate and that he was not in accord with his parishioners’ views about the Communion Service. A volume of his sermons, selected and edited by A. C. McGiffert, Jr., was published in 1938 under the title _The Young Emerson Speaks_. Although he preached occasionally for several years thereafter he never held another pastorate, but retired to Concord and devoted himself to lecturing and authorship. As an essayist and poet he rose to great and lasting distinction. He published _Orations, Lectures, and Addresses_, 1844; _Poems_, 1846; _Representative Men_, 1850; _English Traits_, 1856; and a succession of later volumes. His _Collected Works_ were published after his death, in 12 volumes. Perhaps his most famous essay was his epoch-making _Divinity School Address_, delivered in 1838. In 1833 he wrote his hymn

_We love the venerable house_ (The house of God)

for the ordination of his successor, Rev. Chandler Robbins, _q.v._, in the Second Church, though it is more a commemorative poem than an ordination hymn. It was included in Longfellow and Johnson’s _Hymns of the Spirit_, 1864; in Martineau’s _Hymns of Praise and Prayer_, printed in England in 1873; and in later Unitarian and other hymn books down to the present day. Four stanzas selected from this poem, beginning with the second,

_Here holy thoughts a light have shed_,

were included in Hedge and Huntington’s _Hymns for the Church of Christ_, 1853, though without the author’s name, and the same collection erroneously attributed to Emerson a hymn beginning,

_All before us is the way_,

the author of which was Eliza T. Clapp, _q.v._, an error which was repeated in various other collections.

Part of Emerson’s poem entitled _The Problem_, beginning

_Out of the heart of nature rolled_ (The Everlasting Word)

originally printed in the _Dial_, July, 1840, and then in his _Poems_, 1846, was also included in _Hymns of the Spirit_, 1864, and in Martineau’s _Hymns_, but has since dropped out of use.

Another poem of two stanzas beginning

_Not gold, but only men can make_

was attributed to Emerson in the later book called _Hymns of the Spirit_, 1937, probably mistakenly. These verses are listed as Emerson’s in Granger’s _Index to Poetry and Recitations_, under _A Nation’s Strength_, and Granger states that they are to be found in a publication of The Penn Publishing Company of Philadelphia. They are not to be found, however, in the _Centenary Edition of Emerson’s Poems_ nor in Hubbell’s _Concordance to the poems of Emerson_ (N. Y., Wilson, 1932). It is therefore doubtful whether the attribution to Emerson is well-founded.

J. 329 Revised by H.W.F.

Everett, William, Watertown, Massachusetts, October 10, 1839—February 16, 1910, Quincy, Massachusetts. Son of Hon. Edward Everett. He graduated from Harvard College in 1859; took the B.A. degree at Cambridge University, England, in 1863; and the degrees of A.M. and LL. B. at Harvard in 1865. He received the honorary degree of Litt.D. from Williams College in 1889 and the degree of LL.D. from the same college in 1893 and from Dartmouth in 1901. After graduation from the Harvard Law School he did not enter the legal profession but served the College as tutor and then Assistant Professor of Latin for several years. In 1872 the Boston Association of Ministers licensed him as a lay preacher and thereafter he spoke frequently in Unitarian pulpits in New England, but he was never ordained as a settled minister. He served Adams Academy in Quincy, Massachusetts as headmaster from 1877 to 1907, with an interruption of two years when in 1893 he was elected a member of the House of Representatives in Washington. In 1866 _The Christian Register_ printed his hymn beginning

_Deal gently with us, Lord_,

and three years later he wrote “for the Unitarian Festival at the Music Hall [Boston], May 27, 1869” a hymn beginning

_Almighty Father, Thou didst frame_

These hymns, and four others by him, are included in Putnam’s _Singers and Songs, Etc._

J. 1634 H.W.F.

Fernald, Woodbury Melcher, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, March 21, 1813—December 10, 1873, Boston, Massachusetts. He entered the Universalist ministry in 1835 and served churches of that denomination in Newburyport and Chicopee, Massachusetts, and elsewhere, for a few years. He then became a Unitarian, without entering the ministry of that denomination, and eventually joined the Swedenborgian Church of the New Jerusalem in Boston. He did some travelling on behalf of this body, as far west as Wisconsin, in intervals of employment at the Custom House and, later, at the Post Office in Boston. He was author of books and essays, most of them expositions of Swedenborgian doctrine, and of a small amount of occasional verse, published in the periodicals of the day but never collected in a printed volume. In his private collection of his poems are a few hymns, only two of which appear to have had any public use. One beginning

_Great Source of being, truth and love_,

was written for the ordination of Rev. Thomas C. Adam as pastor of the West Universalist Society in Boston, March 12, 1845. The other,

_When Israel, humbled of the Lord_,

a protest against slavery published in the _Boston Journal_, in July, 1861, was included, in part and considerably re-written, in _The Soldier’s Companion: Dedicated to the Defenders of their Country in the Field, by their Friends at Home_. This was published as the Army Number of the _Monthly Journal_, Boston, October, 1861, vol. II, no. 10, a small Unitarian collection of hymns and devotional readings. In this collection the hymn begins,

_When Israel’s foes, a numerous host_,

and is attributed to “Rev. W. M. Fernald,” though it is not included in this form in the author’s private collection of his verse. None of his hymns appear to have had any further use.

H.W.F.

Flint, Rev. James, D.D. Reading, Massachusetts, December 10, 1779—March 4, 1855. He graduated from Harvard College in 1802, and was ordained an orthodox Congregational minister at East Bridgewater in 1806, where he soon adopted more liberal beliefs, and carried most of his congregation with him. In 1821 he accepted a call to the East Church (Unitarian) Salem, Massachusetts, where he served until his death. In 1843 he published _A Collection of Hymns for the Christian Church and Home_, to replace the earlier collection (1788) by Rev. William Bentley, _q.v._, for use in the East Church. Flint’s _Collection_ included several hymns by himself. One of them, “On leaving an old house of worship,” beginning

_Here to the high and holy One_

was included in Lunt’s _Christian Psalter_, 1841, as was a second, written in 1840 for the 200^th anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Quincy, Massachusetts, beginning,

_In pleasant lands have fallen the lines_ _That bound our goodly heritage._

This second hymn has been included in a number of later hymnbooks, among them _The New Hymn and Tune Book_, 1914, and _Hymns of the Spirit_, 1937.

J. 379 H.W.F.

Follen, Mrs. Eliza Lee (Cabot), Boston, Massachusetts, August 15, 1787—January 26, 1860, Brookline, Massachusetts. In 1828 she married Dr. Charles Follen, a German scholar who had sought freedom in this country and who was then teaching German Literature and Ecclesiastical History at Harvard. Later he was minister of the Unitarian Church (now called the Follen Church Society) at East Lexington, Massachusetts. Mrs. Follen both before and after her marriage contributed verse and prose articles to various periodicals and published a number of small books, including _Hymns for Children_, Boston, 1825; _Poems_, 1839, and, while she was in England in 1854, another small volume for children, entitled _The Lark and the Linnet_. These books contain some translations from the German and the versions of a few Psalms.

Her best known hymns are

1. _How sweet to be allowed to pray_, (Resignation)

This first appeared in _The Christian Disciple_, September 1818, then in her _Poems_, 1839, entitled “Thy will be done.”

2. _How sweet upon this sacred day_ (Sunday)

In _The Christian Disciple_, September, 1828, and in _Poems_, entitled “Sabbath Day.”

3. _Lord deliver, thou canst save_, (Prayer for the Slave)

In _Songs of the Free_, 1836; in Adams and Chapin’s (Universalist) _Hymns for Christian Devotion_, Boston, 1845; in Hedge and Huntington’s _Hymns for the Church of Christ_, 1853; and in other collections, but not included in her _Poems_.

4. _God, thou art good, each perfumed flower_, (God In Nature)

This first appeared in _Hymns for Children_, Boston, 1825, beginning with a defective line (7s instead of 8s)

(a) _God is good! each perfumed flower_

and altered as above in her _Poems_ and in _The Lark and the Linnet_.

This hymn underwent further transformations in England. In Emily Taylor’s _Sabbath Recreations_, 1826, it was included as an original piece never before printed, and signed “E.L.C.”, the initials of Mrs. Follen’s maiden name. Possibly she sent a ms. copy to Miss Taylor before it appeared in Boston. In J. R. Beard’s British Unitarian _Collection of Hymns_, 1837, it appears as

(b) _Yes, God is good! each perfumed flower_,

J. H. Gurney, the Anglican hymn writer and editor, included it in his Lutterworth _Collection of Hymns for Public Worship_, 1838, but, while retaining Mrs. Follen’s opening stanza, rewrote about half of the remaining four stanzas, and in his later _Marylebone Collection_, 1851, rewrote it further, beginning it

(c) _Yes, God is Good.—in earth and sky,_

and in a note appended to the Index of first lines he wrote that he had found the hymn “in a small American volume —— well conceived, but very imperfectly executed,” and that because of “successive alterations—the writer has not scrupled to put his name to it, J.H.G.” In these altered forms the hymn had considerable use in England (For further details see Julian, _Dictionary_, 1298).

5. _Will God, who made the earth and sea_, (Child’s Prayer)

In _Poems_, 1839. In Dr. Allan’s (English) _Children’s Worship_ it is erroneously attributed to “H. Bateman.”

The only one of Mrs. Follen’s hymns in present use is 4_c_, in _The Isles of Shoals Hymn Book_, 1908, but several of her poems are included in Putnam’s _Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith_.

J. 380, 1298 H.W.F.

Foote, Rev. Henry Wilder (I), Salem, Massachusetts, June 2, 1838—May 29, 1889, Boston, Massachusetts. Educated at Harvard, A.B. 1858; A.M. 1861; graduated at the Harvard Divinity School, 1861. He was minister of King’s Chapel (Unitarian), Boston, from 1861 until his death, and his book, _The Annals of King’s Chapel_ (vol. I, 1882, vol. II, 1896, completed by others) gives an authoritative account of the religious controversies in Colonial Boston. At the time of his death he had in preparation a hymnbook to replace the _Collection of Psalms and Hymns_ which his predecessor, Rev. F. W. P. Greenwood, _q.v._, had published in 1830. His hymnbook was completed by his widow, his sister Mrs. Mary W. Tileston, (_q.v._) and his brother Arthur Foote, and was published in 1891 as _Hymns of the Church Universal_. It was notable for its scholarly catholicity and helped to introduce to American congregations the then popular English hymn tunes of the “cathedral school” by Barnby, Dykes, Stainer, Sullivan and others. The book included the hymn which Mr. Foote had written for the Visitation Day (graduation exercises) at the Divinity School in 1861,

_O Thou with whom in sweet content_

This hymn has also been included in _Hymns for Church and Home_, 1896, in _The New Hymn and Tune Book_, 1914, and in _Hymns of the Spirit_, 1937.

J. 1604 H.W.F.

Foote, Rev. Henry Wilder (II), D.D., Litt.D., Boston, Massachusetts, February 2, 1875—still living. Son of the above; educated at Harvard, A.B. 1897; A.M. 1900; S.T.B. 1902. He entered the Unitarian ministry and has served churches in New Orleans, Louisiana; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Belmont, Massachusetts and Charlottesville, Virginia. From 1914-1924 he was an assistant professor at the Harvard Divinity School where he gave a course on the history of Christian hymnody. He was secretary of the committee which edited _The New Hymn and Tune Book_, published in 1914 by the American Unitarian Association, and was chairman of the committee which edited _Hymns of the Spirit_, published in 1937 by the Beacon Press (to be distinguished from the earlier _Hymns of the Spirit_ by S. Johnson and S. Longfellow, 1864). This later book includes one hymn by Dr. Foote beginning,

_Thou whose love brought us to birth_,

Dr. Foote also edited the words in _The Concord Anthem Book_, 1924, and in _The Second Concord Anthem Book_, 1936, for which Professor Archibald T. Davison selected and edited the music. He is the author of several books and articles on the cultural or religious aspects of American colonial history, one of which, _Three Centuries of American Hymnody_, 1940, covers the period from the publication of the _Bay Psalm Book_ in 1640 to the late nineteen-thirties.

Freeman, James, D.D., Charlestown, Massachusetts, April 22, 1759—November 14, 1835, Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1777. In March, 1776, Rev. Henry Caner, rector of King’s Chapel, Boston, left with the British troops when they evacuated the town, accompanied by many of his leading parishioners. The remaining members of the church in September, 1782, engaged James Freeman as a lay “Reader” to conduct worship. The prayers for the King and royal family of England had been dropped and Freemen soon began to omit references to the Trinity, expecting soon to be dismissed as Reader. Instead the congregation voted to revise the liturgy in accordance with his beliefs and in 1785 published the first edition of the “Book of Common Prayer according to the Use of King’s Chapel.” This action led Bishop Seabury, after his arrival in America, to refuse ordination to Freeman, whereupon the congregation ordained him according to Congregational usage. Freeman thus became “the first avowed preacher of Unitarianism in the United States.” He remained active pastor of the Chapel until 1826. He edited a _Collection of Psalms and Hymns for public worship_, published in 1799. It included 155 psalms “selected chiefly from Tate and Brady,” followed by 90 hymns, and remained in use in the Chapel until the publication in 1830 of the much better _Collection_ edited by his successor, Rev. F. W. P. Greenwood, _q.v._ Freeman wrote one hymn

_Lord of the worlds below_ (The Seasons)

which first appeared in his _Collection_, from which it passed to a number of later ones. It is an adaptation for congregational use of Thomson’s “Hymn on the Seasons.” See Putnam, _Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith_.

J. 389 Revised by H.W.F.

Frothingham, Rev. Nathaniel Langdon, D.D., Boston, July 23, 1793—April 4, 1870, Boston. He graduated from Harvard in 1811, and after a brief period of further study and as tutor in the College, he entered the Unitarian ministry and in 1815 was settled as minister of the First Church in Boston, where he served until 1850, when ill-health and approaching blindness caused his resignation. He was one of the most distinguished Boston ministers of his period, and the author of a good deal of verse, published in his _Metrical Pieces, Translated and Original_, 1855, and in a second volume with the same title in 1870. In 1828 he wrote his finest hymn,

1. _O God, whose presence glows in all_

for the ordination of his friend, W. P. Lunt, _q.v._, as minister of the Second Unitarian Congregational Church, New York, on June 19, of that year.

In 1835 he wrote

2. _We meditate the day_

for the installation of Mr. Lunt as Co-pastor with Rev. Peter Whitney of the First Church at Quincy, Massachusetts, and in 1839 he wrote

3. _O Lord of life and truth and grace_,

for the ordination of Henry Whitney Bellows in New York.

His later hymns were

4. _O Saviour, whose immortal word_,

“Written for the Dedication of the Church of the Saviour, Boston, November 16, 1847.”;

5. _Remember me, the Saviour said_, (Communion Service)

6. _The Lord gave the word,_ _’Twas the word of his truth._

7. _The patriarch’s dove, on weary wing_,

8. _They passed away from sight_, (Death and Burial)

9. _When I am weak, I’m strong_ (Spiritual Strength)

Of these hymns the first two were included in Lunt’s _Christian Psalter_, 1841; nos. 1, 2, 6 and 7 were included in Hedge and Huntington’s _Hymns for the Church of Christ_ (1853); and all but no. 8 are included in the author’s _Metrical Pieces_, 1855. No. 5 had considerable use in the 19^th century, but no. 1 alone survives in 20^th century Unitarian collections.

J. 400, 1564 Revised H.W.F.

Frothingham, Rev. Octavius Brooks, son of Rev. Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham, D.D., _q.v._, Boston, November 26, 1822—November 27, 1895, Boston. He graduated from Harvard College in 1843, and in 1846 from the Harvard Divinity School, where, for the graduating exercises of his class, he wrote his fine, and only, hymn,

_Thou Lord of Hosts, whose guiding hand_, (Soldiers of the Cross)

which was included in the _Book of Hymns_ prepared by his classmates, Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson, published later in the same year. He served as minister of the (Unitarian) North Church, Salem, Massachusetts from 1847 to 1855, and became minister of the Third Congregational Church in New York City, resigning in 1879. He was a bold, outspoken, eloquent speaker, and the author of many printed discourses and of several important biographies.

J. 400, 1638 H.W.F.

Furness, Rev. William Henry, D.D., Boston, Massachusetts, April 20, 1802—January 30, 1896, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Harvard College in 1820 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1823, and was given the degree of Doctor of Divinity by Harvard in 1847. In 1825 he was ordained minister of the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia where he served for 50 years before becoming pastor emeritus, his connection with the church covering a period of 71 years. He was an accomplished scholar, and attained distinction as a preacher, an author and a worker in social reforms. His publications include _Notes on the Gospels_, 1836; _Jesus and his Biographers_, 1838; _The History of Jesus_, 1850; _a Manual of Domestic Worship_, 1840, in which his earlier hymns were printed; a translation of Schiller’s _Song of the Bell_; and other translations from the German. His collected _Verses, Translations and Hymns_ appeared in 1886. The following hymns by him have had considerable use.

1. _Father in heaven, to Thee my heart_,

Appeared in The _Christian Disciple_, 1822. It was printed in this form in several collections, including the Unitarian _Hymn and Tune Book_, 1868. In Longfellow and Johnson’s _Book of Hymns_, 1846, it reads

_Father in heaven, to whom our hearts_

and was reprinted in this form in their _Hymns of the Spirit_, 1864, and in Martineau’s _Hymns of Praise and Prayer_, 1873.

This hymn has sometimes been attributed to “H. Ware,” in error.

2. _Feeble, helpless, how shall I_,

Included on the Cheshire _Christian Hymns_, 1844, and in later 19^th century Unitarian publications; also in the British _Lyra Sacra Americana_, 1868, and Thring’s _Collection_, 1882.

3. _Have mercy, O Father_,

Contributed to Martineau’s _Hymns of Praise and Prayer_, 1873.

4. _Here in a world of doubt_, (Psalm XLII)

Contributed to the New York Lutheran Coll., 1834, and included in the author’s _Manual of Domestic Worship_, 1840 and in Martineau’s _Hymns_, 1873.

5. _Here in the broken bread_,

Included in the _Appendix_ to the Philadelphia Unitarian _Collection_, 1828; in Hedge and Huntington’s _Hymns for the Church of Christ_, 1853; and in a few later collections, among them _The Hymn and Tune Book_, 1868.

6. _Holy Father, Gracious art Thou_,

Contributed to Martineau’s _Hymns_, 1873.

7. _I feel within a want_,

Included in the Cheshire _Christian Hymns_, 1844; in Hedge and Huntington’s _Hymns for the Church of Christ_, 1853; and in a few other collections.

8. _In the morning I will praise_ (pray)

In the author’s _Manual of Domestic Worship_, 1840, this hymn began

_In the morning I will raise_

and was thus included in Martineau’s _Hymns_, 1873, but in Longfellow and Johnson’s _Book of Hymns_, 1846, and later American collections the first stanza is dropped and the hymn begins

_In the morning I will pray_

9. _O for a prophet’s fire,_

Included in the _Appendix_ to the Philadelphia Unitarian _Collection_, 1828, and in the Cheshire _Christian Hymns_, 1844.

10. _Richly, O richly have I been_,

Written in 1823 and included in the author’s _Manual of Domestic Worship_, 1840. In Longfellow and Johnson’s _Book of Hymns_, 1846, and in their _Hymns of the Spirit_, 1864, it is altered to begin

_O richly, Father, have I been_

In Hedge and Huntington’s _Hymns for the Church of Christ_, 1853, and most later Unitarian and other collections, the opening stanza is dropped and it begins with the second stanza,

_Unworthy to be called Thy son_,

11. _She is not dead, but sleepeth_

Included in the author’s _Verses, Translations and Hymns_, 1886.

12. _Slowly by Thy [God’s] hand unfurled_

Written in 1825 and included in the author’s _Manual of Domestic Worship_, 1840. In Hedge and Huntington’s _Hymns for the Church of Christ_, 1853, the first line was changed to read,

_Slowly by God’s hand unfurled_,

and was thus printed in the Unitarian _Hymn and Tune Book_, 1868. In Martineau’s _Hymns_, 1873, and in most later American Unitarian collections, the original reading has been retained.

13. _That God is Love, unchanging Love_,