Previous items in this series of posts about notable hymns from the gray Psalter Hymnalthat were omitted from Lift Up Your Hearts focused on songs from the 1960s & ’70s, Psalm settings, Bible songs, and Christmas/Advent songs. The theme of this post is rousing mid-19th Century hymns.

Here are three hymns I imagine singing at a Victorian era YMCA meeting, Salvation Army mission, or Billy Sunday revival.

“Onward Christian Soldiers” (PH87 #522/PH57 #466/HFW #146) is one of only 11 hymns to appear in all three Psalter Hymnals (1934, 1957 & 1987) but not make the cut for Lift Up Your Hearts. According to the Psalter Hymnal Handbook: “Its martial imagery, though drawn from biblical texts such as Ephesians 6:10-18, has often been misinterpreted as militaristic. Thus various opinions exist about the modem usefulness of this text.” Sabine Baring-Gould wrote it as a children’s processional hymn for Pentecost 1864.

“Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus” (PH87 #559/PH57 #467) is presumably another victim of its “martial imagery.” Here’s the dramatic story of its creation (again from the Psalter Hymnal Handbook):

George Duffield, Jr.… was inspired to write this text after hearing the dying words of a Presbyterian colleague, Dudley A. Tyng. Ousted from his own congregation for his strong anti-slavery stance, Tyng preached to large crowds in weekday meetings sponsored by the YMCA. … At Tyng’s deathbed, caused by a farm accident in which he lost an arm, Duffield and others asked if he had any final message. Tyng replied, “Tell them to stand up for Jesus!” At Tyng’s memorial service on April 25, 1858, Duffield preached on Ephesians 6:14 and concluded his sermon by reading his new hymn text, “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus.”

“O, Christians Haste” (PH87 #525), a.k.a. “Publish Glad Tidings,” doesn’t have any martial imagery so maybe it’s the soteriology in the first stanza that’s the problem.

O Christians, haste, your mission high fulfilling,
to tell to all the world that God is light,
that he who made all nations is not willing
one soul should perish, lost in shades of night.

The Psalter Hymnal changed “soul” to live “life,” but that still doesn’t sound like Calvinist soteriology. (Some of the original stanzas are even less Reformed.) Mary Ann Thomson’s original title is “O Sion, Haste”; the change to “Christians” is an improvement.

Of these three, I miss “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus” the most. Having spent so much time around Anabaptists, I was turned against “Onward Christian Soldiers” long ago. I guess I could take or leave “O, Christians Haste.”