“JOYFULLY, JOYFULLY ONWARD I MOVE.”
The maker of this hymn has been confounded with the maker of its tune—partly, perhaps, from the fact that the real composer of the tune also wrote hymns. The author of the words was the Rev. William Hunter, D.D., an Irish-American, 337 / 289 and a Methodist minister. He was born near Ballymoney, County Antrim, Ire., May, 1811, and was brought to America when a child six years old. He received his education in the common schools and at Madison College, Hamilton, N.Y., (now Madison University), and was successively a pastor, editor and Hebrew professor. Besides his work in these different callings, he wrote many helpful hymns—in all one hundred and twenty-five—of which “Joyfully, Joyfully,” dated 1842, is the best. It began originally with the line—
Friends fondly cherished have passed on before,
—and the line,—
Home to the land of delight I will go.
—was written,—
Home to the land of bright spirits I'll go.
Dr. Hunter died in Ohio, 1877.