234. Thou true Vine, that heals the nations
T.S.N.
Based on John 15:1-5: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now are ye clean through the work which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches; He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”
The hymn was composed for Songs of Praise, 1933, London. The author is not identified except by the initials T.S.N.
MUSIC. PLEADING SAVIOUR, a folk-song type of tune, is from the Plymouth Collection of Hymns and Tunes, New York, 1855, which Henry Ward Beecher compiled for use in the Plymouth Congregational Church, Brooklyn, of which he was pastor. The musical editors were John Zundel ([178]) and the Rev. Charles Beecher.