The Secret of the Lord - AB Simpson?

You are here

Haruo's picture

What is the evidence for the ascription of the authorship of "There's a secret God has whispered" to A. B. Simpson? Most of the instances show that authorship in the database, but the only two that have page scans show "Anon" as the author (and one of them had Simpson listed, in spite of the page scan, until I fixed it just now). I don't have any of the other hymnals that show this attribution, but my guess is there is one hymnal that so attributes it, and someone trying to be helpful went in and put Simpson's name in all kinds of places where it doesn't belong, with the result that he appears to be the author when in fact there is only a chance, of indeterminate greatness or slenderness, that he wrote it. It looks to me like the 1903 Joyful Songs of Salvation might be the best place to start looking, since that is the year of the original copyright, which is given as belonging to J. M. Harris; if the 1903 publication gives no author, then the text may be anonymous; if it gives Simpson then the attribution is quite probably correct and should stand in the text authority (but that is still no reason to go doctoring the data on instances that don't support it); and if it gives Harris then there is a new possibility. It appears that the ascription of the composition of the music to Maud(e?) Anita Hart is asserted on better footing. According to WorldCat.org, 5 libraries show copies held. Would someone near one of these please check? Thanks!


Comments

The hymn appears in "Hymns of the Christian Life: new and standard songs for the sanctuary...." published by Christian Alliance Publishing Co. (New York) in 1891, edited by Russell Kelso Carter and A. B. Simpson. Simpson's name is on the hymn. The hymnal can be found on Internet Archive along with other volumes of hymns written by Simpson.

Nobody doctored the data. The authorship ascription comes from the DNAH data. Somebody either researched the hymn or it is ascribed to him in one of the hymnals. The DNAH data includes Simpson's name with each instance of the hymn in the hymnals they indexed. That is just the nature of how the DNAH information was structured. We are a long way from fully incorporating the DNAH data into Hymnary standards of attributing the instances according to what is in the hymnal.