Opening Hymn: Joyful, Joyful, We Adore
Thee
(SDAH 12)
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The words to this stirring hymn were written in 1907
by Henry van Dyke while on a preaching mission to Williams College
in the state of Massachusetts in America. He was a guest in the
home of the college president. Coming down to breakfast one morning,
he placed a manuscript on the table and said to his host, “Here
is a hymn for you. Your mountains were my inspiration. It must
be sung to the music of Beethoven’s ‘Hymn to Joy.’” Van Dyke (1852-1933)
was one of the most distinguished literary men of his generation.
He pastored Congregational and Presbyterian churches and gained
a wide reputation as a powerful preacher. He taught at prominent
universities in America and Europe, became the moderator of the
Presbyterian General Assembly in 1902, and as a close friend of
United States President Woodrow Wilson, he was appointed as a government
minister to the Netherlands and Luxembourg in 1913. His fame rested
solidly on the books he wrote, the most successful of which was
The Other Wise Man.
Ludwig van Beethoven never wrote a hymn tune as such,
but several hymns have been adapted from his larger works. The
melody for Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee comes from the glorious
final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, written in
1824. In 1846 Edward Hodges adapted it for use as a hymn.
Alternate Opening Hymn: The Lord in Zion Reigneth
(CH 7)
Fanny Crosby (1820-1915) is the author of the words to this majestic
hymn, an inspiring congregational hymn of praise. She was blind
from six weeks of age onward, but her poems, set to music, have
brought hope and inspiration to countless Christians. She wrote
at least 9000 hymns, and her work is well represented in Seventh-day
Adventist hymn books.
The music to this hymn was composed by Hart Pease Danks (1834-1903).
He was a carpenter, but he had a strong interest in music. He wrote
more than 1,000 songs appealing to popular taste. As a young boy
he was a soprano, and later he became a singer and choir conductor
in Chicago.
The first publication of “The Lord in Zion Reigneth” was in the
Seventh-day Adventist songbook Hymns and Tunes (1886), which
James Edson White produced. He was the second son of James and
Ellen G. White.
Closing Hymn: Face to Face
(SDAH 206, CH 545)
Grant Colfax Tullar (1869-1950) was a minister of the
Methodist Episcopal Church and a public evangelist. While assisting
in some evangelistic meetings, he wrote the words and music to a
gospel song, but he was dissatisfied with the words. After deciding
that he should revise them, in the next morning’s mail he found
several poems from Carrie Ellis Breck (1855-1934), a Presbyterian
woman who wrote verse for religious periodicals, including about
1,500 hymns. One of the poems she sent to Tullar, “Face to Face,”
was in the exact meter of the song he had composed. So he set the
words to his music, and they have been together ever since.
Adapted from Wayne Hooper and Edward E.
White, Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal (Hagerstown,
Md.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1988).
SDAH = Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal
CH = Church Hymnal