345. Judge Eternal, throned in splendor
Henry Scott Holland, 1874-1918
A prayer for the nation.
The hymn was written with the English Empire in mind, but its message and concern for the removal of national evils are such as to make it appropriate for use nearly everywhere.
Henry Scott Holland had a distinguished career at Oxford and attained to numerous positions of responsibility in the Church of England. He was Professor of Divinity at Oxford and later Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The two chief interests of his fruitful life were social reform and missionary work, both of which are embodied in this, his only hymn. The poem was published in July, 1902, in The Commonwealth, a Christian social magazine which Dr. Holland edited, and was included in the English Hymnal in 1906.
MUSIC. SICILIAN MARINERS. For comments on this tune see [Hymn 45].