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Hymn 119 Hymns for Living
O'er Continent and Ocean
LLANGLOFFAN 76. 86. D
Hymnau a Thónau (1865) of Daniel Evans
O'er continent and ocean,
From city, field and wood,
Still speak, 0 Lord, thy messengers
Of peace and brotherhood.
In Athens and Benares,
In Rome and Galilee,
They fronted kings and conquerors,
And taught mankind of thee.
We hear, O Lord, these voices,
And hail them as thine own,
They speak as speak the winds and tides
On planets far and lone:
One God, the Life of Ages,
One rule, his will above,
One realm, our wide humanity,
One law, the law of love.
The tribes and nations falter
In rivalries of fear;
The fires of hate to ashes turn,
To dust the sword and spear.
Thy word alone remaineth-
That word we speak again,
O'er sea and shore and continent,
To all the sons of men.
John Haynes Holmes, 1879-1964
Hymn 125 Hymns for Living
One Human Commonwealth
GERONTIUS C M
John Bacchus Dykes, 1823-76
Let freedom span both east and west,
And love both south and north,
In universal fellowship
Throughout the whole wide earth.
In beauty, wonder, everywhere,
Let us communion find;
Compassion be the golden cord
Close-binding humankind.
Beyond all barriers of race,
Of colour, caste or creed,
Let us make friendship, human worth,
Our common faith and deed.
Then east and west will meet and share,
And south shall build with north,
One human commonwealth of good
Throughout the whole wide earth.
Jacob Trapp
Hymn 126 Hymns for Living
The Larger View
STENKA RAZIN 87. 87. D.
Traditional Russian Melody
Arr. David Dawson
In their ancient isolation
Races framed their moral codes,
And the peoples of each nation
Trod their solitary roads.
Now the distances are shrinking;
Travel, and the printed page,
All earth´s many lands are linking,
Spreading knowledge of each sage.
Now new times demand new measures,
And new ways we must explore;
Let each faith bring its own treasures
To enrich the common store.
Then no more will creeds divide us-
Though we love our own the best-
For the larger view will guide us
As we join in common quest.
John Andrew Storey
Hymn 127 Hymns for Living
Gather Us In
WOODLANDS 10 10. 10 10.
Walter Greatorex, 1877-1949
From Enlarged Songs of Praise, Oxford University Press
Gather us in, thou Love that fillest all:
Gather the rival faiths within thy fold;
Throughout the nations, sound the clarion call:
Beneath Love´s banner all shall be enrolled!
Gather us in, we worship only thee;
In varied names we stretch a common hand;
In diverse forms a common soul we see;
In many ships we seek one promised land.
Thine is the mystic life great India craves:
Thine is the Parsee´s sin-destroying beam;
Thine is the Buddhist´s rest from tossing waves;
Thine is the empire of vast China´s dream.
Thine is the Roman´s strength without the pride;
Thine is the Greek´s glad world without its graves;
Thine is the Law that is the Jew´s life-guide;
Thine is the Christian´s faith, the grace that saves.
Gather us in, thou Love that fillest all;
Gather thy rival faiths within thy fold;
Throughout the nations, sound the clarion call:
Beneath Love´s banner all shall be enrolled!
after George Matheson, 1842-1906
Hymn 128 Hymns for Living
Heritage
BRESLAU LM.
Melody in As Hymnodus Sacer, Leipzig (1625)
Har. Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, 1809-47
The art, the science, and the lore
Of those through ages long since dust,
Their hard-won wisdom, slowly grown,
Come down to us a sacred trust.
From Sinai and from Bethlehem,
From China, India, Greece and Rome,
Their music, symbols, songs and prayers
Enrich and beautify our home.
The golden splendour of the sun,
The beauty of the living earth,
The far-flung galaxies of stars,
The need to love, attend our birth;
And all the hopes and prophecies
Of freedom, peace, the coming day
Of life more deeply, grandly lived,
Shine luminous upon our way.
Ours for the present, to increase,
Ours for the future and its care,
A heritage of growing light,
To live, transmit, and greatly share.
Jacob Trapp
Hymn 129 Hymns for Living
It Sounds Along the Ages
FAR OFF LANDS 76. 76. D.
Melody of the Bohemian Brethren, Hemlandssanger, Rock Island, Illinois, 1892
It sounds along the ages,
Soul answering to soul;
It kindles on the pages
Of every Bible scroll;
The psalmist heard and sang it,
From martyr lips it broke,
The prophet tongues out-rang it
Till sleeping nations woke.
From Sinai's cliffs it echoed,
It breathed from Buddha's tree,
It charmed in Athens' market,
It hallowed Galilee;
The hammer stroke of Luther,
The Pilgrims' seaside prayer,
The testament of Torda
One holy word declare.
It calls-and lo, new justice!
It speaks-and lo, new truth!
In ever nobler stature
And unexhausted youth.
Forever on resounding,
And knowing nought of time,
Our laws but catch the music
Of its eternal chime.
From William Channing Gannett, 1840-1923
Hymn 130 Hymns for Living
All Faiths
DANBY LM.
English Traditional Melody
coll. and arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1872-1958
From the English Hymnal
Our faith is but a single gem
Upon a rosary of beads;
The thread of truth which runs through them
Supports our varied human needs.
Confucian wisdom, Christian care,
The Buddhist way of self-control,
The Muslim´s daily call to prayer
Are proven pathways to the goal.
From many lips, in every age,
The truth eternal is proclaimed,
By Western saint, and Eastern sage,
And all the good, however named.
Beside the noblest of our race
Our lives as yet cannot compare:
May we at length their truth embrace
And in their sacred mission share.
John Andrew Storey
Hymn 131 Hymns for Living
All Earth's Children
LONDON (ADDISON'S) L.M.D.
John Sheeles, c. 1720 (shortened version)
For all the paths which guide our ways
We lift our hearts in joyful praise.
For Akhenaton, by whose hand
New light was brought to Egypt´s land:
For Moses, and Judaic seers,
And every Hebrew psalm which cheers,
For Jesus Christ of lowly birth,
Who sought to found God´s reign on earth:
For Hindu´s varied paths to God
Which many noble souls have trod:
For Buddha´s path, which, like the Jain,
Has shown the way to conquer pain:
For Guru Nanak, Punjab's son,
And all that noble Sikhs have done:
For Japanese and Chinese lore,
Confucian wisdom, Shinto awe:
For Zarathustra, Parsi sage,
The fount of Persia's golden age:
For Islam's Prophet, who by grace
Transformed a wayward desert race:
For Stoic souls of Rome and Greece,
Whose fame on earth shall never cease,
For all great souls, with common voice,
Let all earth's children now rejoice!
John Andrew Storey
172 Hymns for Living
All are Welcome Here
WESTMINSTER C. M.
James Turle, 1802-1882
Now open wide your hearts, my friends,
And I will open mine,
And let us share all that is fair,
All that is true and fine.
We gather in this meeting house-
People of many kinds:
Let us, below the surface, seek
A meeting of true minds.
For in our company shall be
Great witnesses of light:
The Buddha, Krishna, Jesus - those
Gifted with clearest sight.
Like them, we seek to know ourselves,
To seek, in spite of fear;
To open wide, to all, our hearts-
For all are welcome here.
Peter Galbraith
Hymn 192 Hymns for Living
A New Community
O PERFECT LOVE 11 10. 11 10.
Joseph Barnby, 1838-1896
We would be one as now we join in singing
Our hymn of love, to pledge ourselves anew
To that high cause of greater understanding
Of who we are, and what in us is true.
We would be one in building for tomorrow
A greater world than we have known today;
We would be one in searching for that meaning
Which binds our hearts and points us on our way.
We would be one in living for each other,
With love and justice strive to make all free;
As one, we pledge ourselves to greater service,
To show the world a new community.
From Samuel Anthony Wright
Hymn 214 Hymns for Living
Our Nation
LAUS DEO (REDHEAD No. 46) 87. 87.
Long ago they came in conquest,
Stayed to make this land their home:
Viking warrior and Norman,
Legionnaire from ancient Rome.
Jewish victims of men's hatred,
Huguenots both rich and poor,
Fled the lands of their oppression,
Finding here an open door.
From the continent of Europe
Came Ukrainian and Greek;
And from lands of past dominion
Hindu, Parsi, Muslim, Sikh.
Many peoples, many customs,
Many new things all must learn;
Each can make a contribution
To the common good we yearn.
All our cultures now converging
Let us learn to understand;
Till in love we've built together
One great nation in this land.
John Andrew Storey