333. From Greenland’s icy mountains
Reginald Heber, 1783-1826
One of the most famous missionary hymns ever written. An interesting story is attached to its origin, a detailed account of which was written by Thomas Edgeworth on the fly-leaf of a facsimile of the original manuscript as follows:
On Whitsunday, 1819, the late Dr. Shipley, Dean of St. Asaph, and Vicar of Wrexham, preached a sermon in Wrexham Church in aid of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. That day was also fixed upon for the commencement of the Sunday evening lectures intended to be established in the church, and the late Bishop of Calcutta (Heber), then rector of Hodnet, the Dean’s son-in-law being together in the vicarage, the former requested Heber to write “something for them to sing in the morning”; and he retired for that purpose from the table where the Dean and a few friends were sitting to a distant part of the room. In a short time the Dean enquired, “What have you written?” Heber having then composed the three first verses, read them over. “There, there, that will do very well,” said the Dean. “No, no, the sense is not complete,” replied Heber. Accordingly he added the fourth verse, and the Dean being inexorable to his repeated request of “Let me add another; oh, let me add another!” thus completed the hymn of which the annexed is a facsimile and which has since become so celebrated. It was sung the next morning in Wrexham Church the first time.
The tune to which it was sung was “’Twas when the seas were roaring,” from The Beggar’s Opera—a fine but somewhat incongruous selection.
The words of the hymn reflect the enthusiasm and zeal of consecrated youth, eager, like Livingstone, to go out to a distant people needing help and to sacrifice life for the cause. Greatly interested in missions, Heber was offered the Bishopric of Calcutta and accepted it against the advice of his friends. After three years of strenuous, devoted labor, he was stricken with apoplexy and found dead in his bath on the evening of a busy day in which he had baptized forty-two native converts.
The much-discussed second stanza, omitted in the Hymnary because of its seeming low estimate of man, is as follows:
What though the spicy breezes
Blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle;
Though every prospect pleases
And only man is vile;
In vain with lavish kindness
The gifts of God are strown;
The heathen in his blindness
Bows down to wood and stone.
The hymn is widely used among German speaking people in the following translation made by Dr. Ch. G. Barth, 1799-1862:
Von Grönlands eis’gen Zinken,
China’s Korallenstrand,—
Wo Ophirs Quellen blinken,
Fortströmend goldnen Sand,—
Von manchem alten Ufer,
Von manchem Palmenland
Erschallt das Fleh’n der Rufer:
“Löst unsrer Blindheit Band!”
Gewürzte Düfte weben
Sanft über Ceylons Flur;
Es glänzt Natur und Leben
Schlecht sind die Menschen nur.
Umsonst sind Gottes Gaben
So reichlich ausgestreut;
Die blinden Heiden haben
Sich Holz und Stein geweiht.
Und wir, mit Licht im Herzen,
Mit Weisheit aus den Höh’n,
Wir könnten es verschmerzen,
Dass sie im Finstern geh’n?
Nein, nein! das Heil im Sohne
Sei laut und froh bezeugt,
Bis sich vor Christi Throne
Der fernste Volkstamm beugt!
Ihr Wasser sollt es tragen,
Ihr Winde, führt es hin,
Bis seine Strahlenwagen
Von Pol, zu Pole ziehn;
Bis der versöhnten Erde,
Das Lamm, der Sünderfreund,
Der Herr und Hirt’ der Heerde
In Herrlichkeit erscheint!
MUSIC. MISSIONARY HYMN, like the hymn to which it is sung, was written in a few minutes time. Miss Mary W. Howard of Savannah, Ga., read the words in the American edition of The Christian Observer, of February, 1823, and was so impressed with them that she requested a young bank clerk who had gone to Georgia from New England, to write a tune for them. He complied, and in a half hour handed her the tune which is now sung all over the world. The clerk was Lowell Mason. For further comments on Mason see [Hymn 12].