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William Cowper

1731 - 1800 Author of "God moves in a mysterious way" in Hymns of the Spirit for Use in the Free Churches of America William Cowper (pronounced "Cooper"; b. Berkampstead, Hertfordshire, England, 1731; d. East Dereham, Norfolk, England, 1800) is regarded as one of the best early Romantic poets. To biographers he is also known as "mad Cowper." His literary talents produced some of the finest English hymn texts, but his chronic depression accounts for the somber tone of many of those texts. Educated to become an attorney, Cowper was called to the bar in 1754 but never practiced law. In 1763 he had the opportunity to become a clerk for the House of Lords, but the dread of the required public examination triggered his tendency to depression, and he attempted suicide. His subsequent hospitalization and friendship with Morley and Mary Unwin provided emotional stability, but the periods of severe depression returned. His depression was deepened by a religious bent, which often stressed the wrath of God, and at times Cowper felt that God had predestined him to damnation. For the last two decades of his life Cowper lived in Olney, where John Newton became his pastor. There he assisted Newton in his pastoral duties, and the two collaborated on the important hymn collection Olney Hymns (1779), to which Cowper contributed sixty-eight hymn texts. Bert Polman ============ Cowper, William, the poet. The leading events in the life of Cowper are: born in his father's rectory, Berkhampstead, Nov. 26, 1731; educated at Westminster; called to the Bar, 1754; madness, 1763; residence at Huntingdon, 1765; removal to Olney, 1768; to Weston, 1786; to East Dereham, 1795; death there, April 25, 1800. The simple life of Cowper, marked chiefly by its innocent recreations and tender friendships, was in reality a tragedy. His mother, whom he commemorated in the exquisite "Lines on her picture," a vivid delineation of his childhood, written in his 60th year, died when he was six years old. At his first school he was profoundly wretched, but happier at Westminster; excelling at cricket and football, and numbering Warren Hastings, Colman, and the future model of his versification. Churchill, among his contemporaries or friends. Destined for the Bar, he was articled to a solicitor, along with Thurlow. During this period he fell in love with his cousin, Theodora Cowper, sister to Lady Hesketh, and wrote love poems to her. The marriage was forbidden by her father, but she never forgot him, and in after years secretly aided his necessities. Fits of melancholy, from which he had suffered in school days, began to increase, as he entered on life, much straitened in means after his father's death. But on the whole, it is the playful, humorous side of him that is most prominent in the nine years after his call to the Bar; spent in the society of Colman, Bonnell Thornton, and Lloyd, and in writing satires for The Connoisseur and St. James's Chronicle and halfpenny ballads. Then came the awful calamity, which destroyed all hopes of distinction, and made him a sedentary invalid, dependent on his friends. He had been nominated to the Clerkship of the Journals of the House of Lords, but the dread of appearing before them to show his fitness for the appointment overthrew his reason. He attempted his life with "laudanum, knife and cord,"—-in the third attempt nearly succeeding. The dark delusion of his life now first showed itself—a belief in his reprobation by God. But for the present, under the wise and Christian treatment of Dr. Cotton (q. v.) at St. Albans, it passed away; and the eight years that followed, of which the two first were spent at Huntingdon (where he formed his lifelong friendship with Mrs. Unwin), and the remainder at Olney in active piety among the poor, and enthusiastic devotions under the guidance of John Newton (q. v.), were full of the realisation of God's favour, and the happiest, most lucid period of his life. But the tension of long religious exercises, the nervous excitement of leading at prayer meetings, and the extreme despondence (far more than the Calvinism) of Newton, could scarcely have been a healthy atmosphere for a shy, sensitive spirit, that needed most of all the joyous sunlight of Christianity. A year after his brother's death, madness returned. Under the conviction that it was the command of God, he attempted suicide; and he then settled down into a belief in stark contradiction to his Calvinistic creed, "that the Lord, after having renewed him in holiness, had doomed him to everlasting perdition" (Southey). In its darkest form his affliction lasted sixteen months, during which he chiefly resided in J. Newton's house, patiently tended by him and by his devoted nurse, Mrs. Unwin. Gradually he became interested in carpentering, gardening, glazing, and the tendance of some tame hares and other playmates. At the close of 1780, Mrs. Unwin suggested to him some serious poetical work; and the occupation proved so congenial, that his first volume was published in 1782. To a gay episode in 1783 (his fascination by the wit of Lady Austen) his greatest poem, The Task, and also John Gilpin were owing. His other principal work was his Homer, published in 1791. The dark cloud had greatly lifted from his life when Lady Hesketh's care accomplished his removal to Weston (1786): but the loss of his dear friend William Unwin lowered it again for some months. The five years' illness of Mrs. Unwin, during which his nurse of old became his tenderly-watched patient, deepened the darkness more and more. And her death (1796) brought “fixed despair," of which his last poem, The Castaway, is the terrible memorial. Perhaps no more beautiful sentence has been written of him, than the testimony of one, who saw him after death, that with the "composure and calmness" of the face there “mingled, as it were, a holy surprise." Cowper's poetry marks the dawn of the return from the conventionality of Pope to natural expression, and the study of quiet nature. His ambition was higher than this, to be the Bard of Christianity. His great poems show no trace of his monomania, and are full of healthy piety. His fame as a poet is less than as a letter-writer: the charm of his letters is unsurpassed. Though the most considerable poet, who has written hymns, he has contributed little to the development of their structure, adopting the traditional modes of his time and Newton's severe canons. The spiritual ideas of the hymns are identical with Newton's: their highest note is peace and thankful contemplation, rather than joy: more than half of them are full of trustful or reassuring faith: ten of them are either submissive (44), self-reproachful (17, 42, 43), full of sad yearning (1, 34), questioning (9), or dark spiritual conflict (38-40). The specialty of Cowper's handling is a greater plaintiveness, tenderness, and refinement. A study of these hymns as they stood originally under the classified heads of the Olney Hymns, 1779, which in some cases probably indicate the aim of Cowper as well as the ultimate arrangement of the book by Newton, shows that one or two hymns were more the history of his conversion, than transcripts of present feelings; and the study of Newton's hymns in the same volume, full of heavy indictment against the sins of his own regenerate life, brings out the peculiar danger of his friendship to the poet: it tends also to modify considerably the conclusions of Southey as to the signs of incipient madness in Cowper's maddest hymns. Cowper's best hymns are given in The Book of Praise by Lord Selborne. Two may be selected from them; the exquisitely tender "Hark! my soul, it is the Lord" (q. v.), and "Oh, for a closer walk with God" (q. v.). Anyone who knows Mrs. Browning's noble lines on Cowper's grave will find even a deeper beauty in the latter, which is a purely English hymn of perfect structure and streamlike cadence, by connecting its sadness and its aspiration not only with the “discord on the music" and the "darkness on the glory," but the rapture of his heavenly waking beneath the "pathetic eyes” of Christ. Authorities. Lives, by Hayley; Grimshaw; Southey; Professor Goldwin Smith; Mr. Benham (attached to Globe Edition); Life of Newton, by Rev. Josiah Bull; and the Olney Hymns. The numbers of the hymns quoted refer to the Olney Hymns. [Rev. H. Leigh Bennett, M.A.] --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907) ================ Cowper, W. , p. 265, i. Other hymns are:— 1. Holy Lord God, I love Thy truth. Hatred of Sin. 2. I was a grovelling creature once. Hope and Confidence. 3. No strength of nature can suffice. Obedience through love. 4. The Lord receives His highest praise. Faith. 5. The saints should never be dismayed. Providence. All these hymns appeared in the Olney Hymns, 1779. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907) ===================== Cowper, W., p. 265, i. Prof. John E. B. Mayor, of Cambridge, contributed some letters by Cowper, hitherto unpublished, together with notes thereon, to Notes and Queries, July 2 to Sept. 24, 1904. These letters are dated from Huntingdon, where he spent two years after leaving St. Alban's (see p. 265, i.), and Olney. The first is dated "Huntingdon, June 24, 1765," and the last "From Olney, July 14, 1772." They together with extracts from other letters by J. Newton (dated respectively Aug. 8, 1772, Nov. 4, 1772), two quotations without date, followed by the last in the N. & Q. series, Aug. 1773, are of intense interest to all students of Cowper, and especially to those who have given attention to the religious side of the poet's life, with its faint lights and deep and awful shadows. From the hymnological standpoint the additional information which we gather is not important, except concerning the hymns "0 for a closer walk with God," "God moves in a mysterious way," "Tis my happiness below," and "Hear what God, the Lord, hath spoken." Concerning the last three, their position in the manuscripts, and the date of the last from J. Newton in the above order, "Aug. 1773," is conclusive proof against the common belief that "God moves in a mysterious way" was written as the outpouring of Cowper's soul in gratitude for the frustration of his attempted suicide in October 1773. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)

Samuel Longfellow

1819 - 1892 Author of "Beneath the shadow of the cross" in Hymns of the Spirit for Use in the Free Churches of America Longfellow, Samuel, B. A., brother of the Poet, was born at Portland, Maine, June 18, 1819, and educated at Harvard, where he graduated in Arts in 1839, and in Theology in 1846. On receiving ordination as an Unitarian Minister, he became Pastor at Fall River, Massachusetts, 1848; at Brooklyn, 1853; and at Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1860. In 1846 he edited, with the Rev. S. Johnson (q. v.), A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion. This collection was enlarged and revised in 1848. In 1859 his Vespers was published, and in 1864 the Unitarian Hymns of the Spirit , under the joint editorship of the Rev. S. Johnson and himself. His Life of his brother, the Poet Longfellow, was published in 1886. To the works named he contributed the following hymns:— i. To A Book of Hymns , revised ed., 1848. 1. Beneath the shadow of the Cross. Love. 2. 0 God, thy children gathered here. Ordination. ii. To the Vespers 1859. 3. Again as evening's shadow falls. Evening. 4. Now on land and sea descending. Evening. iii. To the Hymns of the Spirit, 1864. 5. A voice by Jordan's shore. Advent. 6. Father, give Thy benediction. Ordination. 7. Go forth to life, 0 child of earth. Life's Mission. 8. God of ages and of nations. Holy Scriptures. 9. Holy Spirit, Truth divine. The Holy Spirit desired. 10. I look to Thee in every need. Trust in God. 11. In the beginning was the Word. The Word. 12. Love for all, and can it be? Lent. The Prodigal Son. 13. 0 God, in Whom we live and move. God's Law and Love. 14. 0 God, Thou Giver of all good. Prayer for Food. 15. O still in accents sweet and strong. Missions. 16. 0 Thou, Whose liberal sun and rain. Anniversary of Church dedication. 17. One holy Church of God appears. The Church Universal. 18. Out of the dark, the circling sphere. The Outlook. 19. Peace, peace on earth! the heart of man for ever. Peace on Earth. 20. The loving Friend to all who bowed. Jesus of Nazareth. 21. ’Tis winter now, the fallen snow. Winter. Of these, hymn No. 2 was written for the Ordination of E. E. Hale (q. v.), at Worcester, 1846. Several are included in Martineau's Hymns, 1873. Died Oct. 3, 1892. [Rev. F. M. Bird, M.A.] --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907), p. 685 =============== Longfellow, S., p. 685, i. Since Mr. Longfellow's death on Oct. 3, 1892, his hymns have been collected by his niece, Miss Alice Longfellow, as Hymns and Verses(Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1904.) From this work we find many of the hymns signed Anon, in the Index to Longfellow and Johnson's Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, were his; several of these, including E. Osier's "O God unseen, yet ever near," were popular English hymns which he rewrote from his own theological standpoint. These re¬written hymns are very widely used by Unitarians and others. During the last ten years the following additional hymns by S. Long¬fellow have come into common use:— 1. Eternal One, Thou living God. Faith in God. 2. God of the earth, the sky, the sea. God in Nature. 3. God's trumpet wakes the slumbering world. Call to duty. 4. Light of ages and of nations. God in and through all time. 5. Lo, the earth is risen again. Spring. (1876.) 6. Now while we sing our closing psalm. Close of Worship. 7. O Life that maketh all things new. Unity. (1874.) 8. O Thou in Whom we live and move. The Divine Law. 9. The summer days are come again. Summer. From his hymn,"The sweet[bright] June days are come again." 10. Thou Lord of lite, our saving health. In Sickness. (1886.) Of these hymns Nos. 2, 3 appeared in the Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, and all with the dates appended in Hymns and Verses, 1904. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907) ================== http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Longfellow

Josiah Booth

1852 - 1930 Person Name: Josiah Booth, 1852-1929 Composer of "CLOVELLY" in Hinário para o Culto Cristão Josiah Booth (27 March 1852 – 29 December 1929) was an English organist and composer, known chiefly for his hymn-tunes. See also in: Wikipedia

Horatio W. Parker

1863 - 1919 Person Name: Horatio William Parker Composer of "CLOVELLY" in Hymns of the Spirit for Use in the Free Churches of America

Solomon L. Ginsburg

1867 - 1927 Person Name: Salomão Luiz Ginsburg, 1867-1927 Author of "Desejo a Santidade" in Hinário para o Culto Cristão Born in Poland in 1867, Ginsburg was a Baptist pastor and missionary to Brazil for thirty-five years. He wrote A Wandering Jew in Brazil: An Autobiography

William Henry Furness

1802 - 1896 Author of "Unworthy to be called thy son" in Services for Congregational Worship. The New Hymn and Tune Book Furness, William Henry, D.D., born in Boston, 1802, and graduated at Harvard in Arts and Theology, 1820. From 1825 he has been an Unitarian Pastor in Philadelphia. He is an accomplished scholar, and has been an active worker in reforms of various kinds. His publications are numerous and include a Manual of Domestic Worship, 1840, and a translation of Schiller's Song of the Bell. His hymns are somewhat numerous, and several of them have great merit. The best and most widely used are:— 1. Father in heaven, to Thee my heart. Resignation. Appeared in The Christian Disciple, 1822. It was repeated in this form in some of the older collections, and a few modern hymnals, including the Boston Unitarian Hymns [& Tune] Book, 1868. In 1846 it was given in Longfellow and Johnson's Book of Hymns as "Father in heaven, to Whom our hearts;" again in their Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, and in Dr. Martineau's Hymns of Praise & Prayer, 1873. This hymn is sometimes ascribed to "H. Ware," but in error. 2. Feeble, helpless, how shall I? Jesus our Leader. First published in the Cheshire Unitarian Christian Hymns, 1844, No. 272, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines. It is in several modern collections, including Lyra Sacra Americana, 1868: Thring's Collection, 1882. 3. Have mercy, 0 Father. Divine direction desired. Contributed to Dr. Martineau's Hymns of Praise and Prayer, 1873, in 2 stanzas of 6 lines. 4. Here in a world of doubt. Psalms xlii. Contributed to the N. Y. Lutheran Collection, 1834, and repeated in his Manual of Domestic Worship, 1840, Martineau's Hymns, &c, 1873. 5. Here in the broken bread. Holy Communion. Appeared in the Appendix to the Philadelphia Unitarian Collection, 1828. It is in a few modern collections, including the Boston Unitarian Hymn [and Tune] Book, 1868. 6. Holy Father, Gracious art Thou. Purity & Peace. Contributed to Dr. Martineau's Hymns, &c, 1873, in 1 stanza of 12 lines. 7. I eel within a want. Likeness to Christ desired. Appeared in the Cheshire (U. S.) Unitarian Christian Hymns, 1844, No. 687, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines. It is in a few collections both old and new. 8. In the morning I will raise [pray] . Morning. Appeared in his Manual of Domestic Worship, 1840, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines, and repeated in Dr. Martineau's Hymns, &c, 1873. In Longfellow and Johnson's Book of Hymns, 1846, and the Boston Unitarian Hymn [& Tune] Book it begins with stanzas ii., "In the morning I will pray." 9. 0 for a prophet's fire. Holy Communion. Published in the Appendix to the Philadelphia Unitarian Collection, 1828, and repeated in the Cheshire (U. S.) Unitarian Christian Hymns, 1844, and later hymn-books. 10. Richly, O richly have I been. The Prodigal Son. In his Manual of Devotion, 1840. In Longfellow and Johnson's Book of Hymns, 1846, and their Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, it is given as "O richly, Father, have I been"; whilst in Hedge & Huntington's Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, the Boston Unitarian Hymns [and Tune] Book, 1868, and others, it opens with stanzas ii., "Unworthy to be called Thy son." 11. Slowly by Thy [God's] hand unfurled. Eternal Light. Given in his Manual of Domestic Worship, 1840, and repeated in a few hymnals. In Drs. Hedge & Huntington's Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, the first line was changed to “Slowly by God's hand unfurled." This is the reading of the Boston Unitarian Hymn [& Tune] Book, 1868. Dr. Martineau retains the original reading in his Hymns, &c, 1873. 12. Thou only Living, only True. Ordination. In Dr. Martineau's Hymns, &c, 1873, where it is dated 1868. 13. To the High and Holy One. Consecration of Church. In Lyra Sacra Americana, 1868. From this is taken "To the truth that makes us free" (stanzas ii.), in the Boston Hymns of the Spirit, 1864. 14. What is the world that it should share? Invocation of the Spirit. Given in The Christian Disciple, 1822, and Dr. Martineau's Hymns, &c, 1873. It begins with stanza ii. of his hymn "Here in Thy temple, Lord, we bow." In Lyra Sacra Americana it reads, "Oh, is there aught on earth to share." 15. What is this that stirs within? The Soul. Appeared in his Manual of Domestic Worship, 1840. In 1844 it passed into the Cheshire (U.S.) Unitarian Christian Hymns, No. 318, and later into numerous collections, both old and new. Furness died in 1896. [Rev. F. M. Bird, M.A.] --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907) =================== Furness, W. H., p. 402, ii. His Verses, Translations, and Hymns were published 1886. Of his hymns the following, in addition to those on pp. 402-3, have come into common use:— 1. She is not dead, but sleepeth. [Death and Burial.] 2. That God is Love, unchanging Love. [God is Love.] This is in several American collections, including the Boston Unitarian Hymns for Church and Home, 1895, where it is dated 1892. 3. Thou Who dost all things give. [Seeing the Unseen.] This is dated in The Pilgrim Hymnal, 1904, as having been written in 1860. It is from the Author's Verses, &c, 1886. Also in Border's Treat. of Amer. Sacred Song, 1896. Dr. Furness was b. April 20, 1802, and d. in 1896. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)

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