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.”

This post is sort of an appendix to my previous post on Christmas songs from the 1987 Psalter Hymnal that didn’t get included in Lift Up Your Hearts showing all the changes in Christmas songs between the two hymnals.

Christmas Hymns in both the gray Psalter Hymnal (1987) and Lift Up Your Hearts [14]

Four hymns from the 69 to appear in all three Psalter Hymnals and Lift Up Your Hearts:
“Angels from the Realms of Glory” (LUYH #81/PH87 #354/PH57 #340/HFW #114)
“Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” (LUYH #80/PH87 #345/PH57 #339/HFW #82)
“Joy to the World! The Lord is Come” (LUYH #92/PH87 #337/PH57 #337/HFW #78/SWM #94)
“O Come, All Ye Faithful” (LUYH #76/PH87 #340/PH57 #341/HFW #100/SWM #102)

One hymn that was added to the 1957 Psalter Hymnal:
“Silent Night! Holy Night!” (LUYH #85/PH87 #344/PH57 #342/HFW #116)

Nine more hymns in both the the 1987 PH and LUYH:
“Angels We Have Heard on High” (LUYH #82/PH87 #347/HFW #112/SWM #90)
“Away in a Manger” (LUYH #86/PH87 #348/349/SWM #87)
“Glory to God/Ere zij God” (LUYH #84/PH87 #214)
“Go, Tell It on a Mountain” (LUYH #93/PH87 #356/HFW #184)
“Good Christian Friends Rejoice” (LUYH #98/PH87 #355/HFW #43)
“Lo, How a Rose E’re Blooming” (LUYH #79/PH87 #351/HFW #53)
“Of the Father’s Love Begotten” (LUYH #78/PH87 #342/HFW #23)
“Once in Royal David’s City” (LUYH #87/PH87 #346/HFW #131)

“Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” (LUYH #821/PH87 #341/HFW #24) [moved to The Lord’s Supper section in LUYH]

Christmas Hymns New to Lift Up Your Hearts [12]

Two classics:
“O Little Town of Bethlehem” (LUYH #88/HFW #180)
“What Child Is This” (LUYH #95)

Three New Testament Canticles:
“Gloria/Glory” (LUYH #77/SNC #116)
“Gloria, Gloria/Glory to God” (LUYH #83/SNC #115/SWM #93)
“Lord, Bid Your Servant Go In Peace” (LUYH #97/HFW #15/SWM #103/SNT #11)

Four 20th Century Christmas Hymns:
“Lord, You Were Rich Beyond All Splendor” (LUYH #75)
“God Reigns! Earth Rejoices” (LUYH #91)
“In the Heavens Show a Star” (LUYH #94)
“What Feast of Love” (LUYH #96)

Three older Christmas songs:
“How Great Our Joy” (LUYH #90/SNT #10)
“Jesus, Jesus, Oh, What a Wonderful Child” (LUYH #99/SNC #108)
“O Christmas Night” (LUYH #89)

In the gray Psalter Hymnal, but not Lift Up Your Hearts [6]

“Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light” (PH87 #343/PH #344)
“Christians Awake” (PH87 #350/PH57 #346)
“Come and Stand Amazed, You People” (PH87 #338)
“From Heaven Above to Earth I Come” (PH87 #339/PH57 #345/SNT #9)
“Infant Holy, Infant Lowly” (PH87 #353)
“That Boy Child of Mary” (PH87 #352/SWM #100)

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 and Bible songs. Today’s theme is Christmas/Advent songs.

“Christians Awake”  (PH87 #350/PH57 #346)

Christians Awake, salute the happy morn on which the Savior of the world was born.

Only six Christmas songs in the Psalter Hymnal got left out of Lift Up Your Hearts. This spirited 18th Century carol is one of two that I miss.

“Infant Holy, Infant Lowly” (PH87 #353)

Swiftly winging, angels singing, bells are ringing, tidings bringing: Christ the child is Lord of all! Christ the child is Lord of all!

All the internal rhymes—highlighted by the winging/singing/ringing/bringing—make “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly” a Christmas earworm. 

“Little Bethlehem of Judah” (PH87 #204)

I wonder how many hymns that were created for the gray Psalter Hymnal, like “Christ, You Are the Fullness” (PH87 #229/SNT #201), didn’t make it into LUYH. “Little Bethlehem of Judah,” a versification of Micah 5:2-4 by Calvin Seerveld, is another example. Set in the Bible Song section of the Psalter Hymnal, this song was part of our repertoire at Trinity.

“O Lord, How Shall I Meet You” (PH87 #331)

The Psalter Hymnal has only 10 Advent songs and seven appear in Lift Up Your Hearts. This 17th Century hymn is one of the three that didn’t—and another that we sang at Trinity.

“The Prophets Came to Israel” (PH87 #334)

Here’s another CRC hymn that didn’t make the cut. Bert Witvoet wrote “The Prophets Came to Israel” for Advent candle lighting with the verses corresponding to candles for the prophets, Bethlehem, shepherds, angels and Christ. If we’re not going to preserve our own hymns in our own hymnal, we shouldn’t expect them to survive.

(Incidentally, the third lost Advent hymn is the strangely titled “O Christ! Come Back to Save Your Folk” (PH87 #330)—rhymes with “with one clean stroke”— another CRC original by Calvin Seerveld.)

Next up: Rousing hymns from the mid-19th Century.

Previous items in this series of posts about notable hymns from the gray Psalter Hymnal that were omitted from Lift Up Your Hearts focused on songs from the 1960s & ’70s and Psalm settings. Today’s theme is Bible songs, and I wish all four of these songs were in the new hymnal:

“I Will Sing Unto the Lord” (PH87 #152)

I will sing unto the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider thrown into the sea.

“I Will Sing Unto the Lord” is based on “The Song of the Sea” in Exodus 15, one of the oldest songs in the Bible; there are no songs derived from it in Lift Up Your Hearts.

Like “The King of Glory Comes” (PH87 #370) and “The Trees of the Field” (see below), “I Will Sing Unto the Lord” has a lively Jewish-style melody.  (Two of the three songs are set to Israeli folk songs, while “The Trees of the Field” was written by Jews for Jesus’ Stuart Dauermann.)

“The Trees of the Field” (PH87 #197)

You shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills will break forth before you; there’ll be shouts of joy, and all the trees of the field will clap, will clap their hands!

Based on Isaiah 55:12, this is another exuberant song from the 1960s-70s.

“Our God Reigns” (PH87 #195)

How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, good news, announcing peace, proclaiming new of happiness: our God reigns, our God reigns.

According to The Banner’s article “A New Hymnal for a New Generation,” the author of “Our God Reigns,” “wouldn’t allow us to reprint it as it appears in the Psalter Hymnal.”

I’d like to know what that was about. The Psalter Hymnal includes only the first stanza (a versification of Isaiah 52:7). It’s not immediately clear to me what the CRC’s problem with the other four stanzas is or why Leonard Smith objects to  including just one stanza.

This is another omitted song from the 1960s-70s. According to the Psalter Hymnal Handbook, Smith wrote the first stanza and chorus “in just five minutes” in 1973 and added the other stanzas in 1978.

“Christ, You Are the Fullness” (PH87 #229/SNT #201)

Christ you are the fullness of God, first-born of everything. For by you all things were made; you hold them up. You are head of the church, which is your body. Firstborn from the dead, you in all things are supreme.

In my opinion, this is one of the worst losses from the Psalter Hymnal, for which it was created. According to the Psalter Hymnal Handbook: “Bert Polman versified these Scriptures [from Colossians] in 1986 to be sung with the Korean tune ARIRANG so that the hymnal would include at least one Korean tune. A Korean musician recommended this tune as one that all Koreans would know” (p. 363-4). LIft Up Your Hearts includes an actual Korean hymn (“오 소 서/Come Now, O Prince of Peace” [LUYH #905]) so I guess this one was no longer needed. But if we’re not going to keep it alive, who will?

The tune is beautiful and the lyrics paraphrase “three essential passages in Paul’s letter to the Colossians: 1:15-18, about the supremacy of Christ (st. 1); 3:1-4, about our position in Christ (st. 2); and 3: 15-17, about thankful (doxological) living (st. 3)” (Psalter Hymnal Handbook). It’s one of my favorites.

“Christ, You Are the Fullness” did appear in the 1990 Presbyterian Church USA hymnal, but it didn’t make the cut for its recent replacement, Glory to God. The only current denominational hymnal it appears in may be Evangelical Covenant Church’s 1996 The Covenant Hymnal: A Worshipbook.

The hymn does appear in Faith Alive’s Singing the New Testament, but I don’t know how widely used that is.

The Christ hymn (Colossians 1:15-20) in the first stanza is the subject of Matthew Westerholm’s generic praise song “The First Place” (LUYH #15, SNT #199).

Next up: Christmas songs that didn’t make the cut.

When Lift Up Your Hearts came out, I figured that there would be plenty of discussion online about what hymns appeared in the new hymnal and which ones didn’t. I couldn’t find that discussion so this blog is a start.

My previous list of notable songs from the 1987 Psalter Hymnal that were omitted from Lift Up Your Hearts focused on songs written between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s. Part 2 focuses on Psalms (including two more songs from the ’60s and ’70s).

“Clap Your Hands” (PH87 #166/SWM #2)

Clap your hands, all you people; shout unto God with a voice of triumph! Clap your hands, all you people; shout unto God with a voice of praise!

This catchy canon based on Psalm 47:1 was excised from Lift Up Your Hearts and doesn’t appear in Psalms for All Seasons either. It does appear in Sing with Me (our Sunday School songbook) with a second, Ascension-themed verse. It’s another casualty from the 1970s.

“I Will Sing of the Mercies of the Lord” (PH87 #169/PFAS #89A)

 I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever, I will sing, I will sing.

Only one setting of Psalm 89 made it into Lift Up Your Hearts and it wasn’t “I Will Sing of the Mercies of the Lord,” which does appear in Psalms for All Seasons.

“This Is the Day” (PH87 #241/PFAS #118K)

This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made.

I’m surprised this versification of Psalm 118:24, set to a lively Fijian folk medley and published in 1967, didn’t make it into Lift Up Your Hearts, but it does appear in Psalms for All Seasons. I have a sense that the catchy folk tunes of the 1960s and ’70s were swept aside by the catchy praise songs of the 1990s and 2000s.

“Out of the Depths I Cry, Lord” (PH87 #130)

There are some great settings of Psalm 130 in Psalms for All Seasons and this one didn’t make it in—despite being set to GENEVAN 130. Our Sunday School class will take up Psalm 130 in January and decide whether this versification deserved to get the boot.

“Give Thanks to God For Good Is He” (PH87 #182/PFAS #136E)

Eighty hymns appeared in the Psalter Hymnals of 1934, 1957 & 1987 (with the same tune in all three books). Sixty-nine of them appear in Lift Up Your Hearts. “Give Thanks to God For Good Is He” is one of the 11 that didn’t make the cut. The only Psalm 136 setting in Lift Up Your Hearts is “We Give Thanks unto You” (LUYH #52/PFAS #136C/SNC #26). “Give Thanks to God For Good Is He,” which has lyrics from the 1912 Psalter, does appear in Psalms for All Seasons.

“I Will Exalt My God and King” (PH87 #145/PH57 #299/PFAS #145B)

“I Will Exalt My God and King” is another Psalm setting with lyrics from the 1912 Psalter. The 1912 version appeared in the 1957 Psalter Hymnal as “O Lord, Thou Art My God and King” with the original eight verses and tune (DUKE STREET [“Jesus Shall Reign”]). The versification (now with seven verses)  was altered for the 1987 Psalter Hymnal and set to JERUSALEM. That’s the version that appears in Psalms for All Seasons. (This is another hymn that was brought to my attention by one of our accompanists, who notes that JERUSALEM was used in Chariots of Fire.)

Lift Up Your Hearts does include three settings of Psalm 145, including “I Will Extol You, O My God” (LUYH #561/PFAS #145E/PH87 #185/PH57 #298), which also has lyrics from the 1912 Psalter and is one of the 69 hymns to pass through the three Psalter Hymnals into LUYH.

Next up: Notable (non-Psalm) Bible songs omitted from Lift Up Your Hearts.

I would love to see a list of the hymns that just made the cut into Lift Up Your Hearts and those that just missed it. (Around half of the songs in the 1987 Psalter Hymnal—302 of 641 made it into LUYH). My own list of notable hymns that appeared in the Psalter Hymnal but were omitted from Lift Up Your Hearts has around 30 entries. Quite a few of these were written between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s and apparently the LUYH editors didn’t think they aged well. Here are seven of those (in roughly chronological order):

“The King of Glory Comes” (PH87 #370)

The king of glory comes, the nation rejoices. Open the gates before him, lift up your voices.

Willard Jabusch, a Catholic priest, wrote the lyrics for the lively Israeli folk song PROMISED ONE. According to the Psalter Hymnal Handbook, “The text was published in Hymnal for Young Christians (1966), one of the first English Roman Catholic hymnals published in the United States after Vatican II” (p. 526)

“Make Me a Channel of Your Peace” (PH87 #545)

Another post-Vatican II hymn, “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace” is a song I’m fine with tossing out of the hymnal. The lyrics are attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, but their first appearance wasn’t until the 20th Century. The tune is boring;  here’s the first line: F# F# F# F# F# G A F#.

It has been replaced by another version of the prayer, “Lord, Make Us Servants” (LUYH #904) set to O WALY WALY (“As Moses Raised the Serpent Up”). The prayer is also included as a responsive reading: “Prayer of St. Francis” (LUYH #860).

“No Weight of Gold or Silver” (PH87 #374)

I’m not as familiar with this one, but one of our accompanists told me she was very disappointed about its exclusion.

“Father, I Adore You” (PH87 #284)

Father, I adore you, lay my life before you. How I love you.

We sing this as our opening song every Sunday during Children and Worship (with hand motions). Surprisingly, it also isn’t in Sing with Me, our Sunday School hymnal. It’s only one line; they could have squeezed it into the white space below #600.

“Thanks To God Whose Word Was Spoken” (PH87 #281)

The text was written in 1954 and first published in the 1964 Methodist Hymnal. The tune was written 1974 but sounds like a much older traditional hymn.

“Praise the Lord with the Sound of Trumpet” (PH87 #569)

Praise the Lord with the sound of trumpet, praise the Lord with the harp and lute, praise the Lord with the gentle-sounding flute.

By the Natalie Sleeth, the composer of “Go Now in Peace” (LUYH #905/PH87 #317/SWM #231), which did make the cut, this is a catchy “catalog text” calling on musical  instruments and natural phenomena to praise the Lord. It was part of the repertoire at Trinity.

“Father, We Love You” (PH87 #634)

Father, we love you, we worship and adore you, glorify your name in all the earth.

This is another song we sang at Trinity. The Psalter Hymnal Handbook calls it “one of the finest praise choruses as well as prayer hymns from the mid-1970s.”

Next up: Notable psalm settings omitted from Lift Up Your Hearts.