228. Who is thy neighbor?
William Cutter, 1801-87
Based on the parable of the Good Samaritan. The hymn first appeared in The Christian Mirror, Portland, Me., 1838, in seven stanzas. One of the omitted stanzas reads:
Thy neighbor? Yonder toiling slave,
Fettered in thought and limb;
Whose hopes are all beyond the grave,
Go thou, and ransom him.
The author, William Cutter, was an editor and publisher, born at Yarmouth, Me., a graduate of Bowdoin College, and member of the Congregational Church. He was in business in Portland, Me., for several years and then in Brooklyn, N. Y. He has been described as “a deserving writer who has hitherto missed his due meed of acknowledgement.”
MUSIC. BURFORD, a very good tune in triple time, written in the minor mode, is of uncertain authorship, though it is credited in some books to Henry Purcell, c. 1658-95, one of England’s great composers and organists. It is set to Psalm 42 in A Book of Psalmody, 1718, by John Chetham, and appears in a large number of other 18th century psalmodies, invariably without composer’s name.