Opening
Hymn Story
"REJOICE,
THE LORD IS KING"
(SDAH
221)
This hymn
by Charles Wesley (1707-1788) was written in 1744 and first appeared in John
Wesley's Moral and Sacred Poems. It was republished by Charles in Hymns
for Our Lord's Resurrection. Each of these stanzas concluded with the exultant
refrain of rejoicing, but Wesley concluded his last stanza with the stirring
couplet:
We
soon shall hear the Archangel's voice,
The
trump of God shall sound, rejoice.
DARWALL'S
148TH, named for the composer and the psalm for which he wrote it,
"Ye Boundless Realms of Joy," was first used in Aaron Williams's New Universal
Psalmist, 1770. John Darwall was born in the village of Haughton, Staffordshire,
England, in January 1731. An Oxford graduate, he served as curate, then 20 years
as vicar, of St. Matthew's church, Walsall, where this tune was first sung on
Whitsunday in 1773. He died there on December 18, 1789. As an amateur musician,
Darwall wrote two volumes of piano sonatas, hymn texts, and tunes and composed
music for all 150 psalms in two-part harmony.
The Seventh-day
Adventist Hymnal, published in 1985, was the first Adventist hymnal to include
this hymn.
--Condensed
from Wayne Hooper and Edward E. White, Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist
Hymnal, 1988, pp. 263-265.