Or glorify my God!
O Thou! whose touch can lend
Life to the dead, Thy quickening grace supply,
And grant me, swanlike, my last breath to spend
In song that may not die!
Was ever faithful prayer more abundantly answered? ‘He asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest it, even length of days for ever and ever.’
Christopher Wordsworth (1807-85), Bishop of Lincoln, nephew of the poet, was of set purpose a writer of hymns for congregational use. He taught that hymns should express the feeling of the Church, and not of the individual worshipper. He thought it ‘inexpressibly shocking’ that ‘Jesu, Lover of my soul’ should be sung in Westminster Abbey, at least, so I understand his reference to ‘a large, mixed congregation in a dissolute part of a populous and irreligious city.’[178] His hymns are objective, and the best—e.g. ‘O day of rest and gladness,’ ‘See the Conqueror mounts in triumph’—are very fine. Bishop Wordsworth did not ‘translate any ancient hymns, but attempted to infuse something of their spirit into’ his own.
The Holy Year was a distinct contribution to the literature of the Anglican Revival. Very inferior in strength and beauty to the Christian Year, it was more useful to editors of hymn-books, and it helped to concentrate interest upon the selection of hymns suited to the Church year. Bishop Wordsworth kept closely to the Prayer-book ideal of devotion, and some of his less-known poems are illustrative of its special teaching. A good example is the hymn for the Second Sunday in Advent, which he inscribed, ‘Christ ever coming in Holy Scripture.’
Lord, who didst the Prophets teach
To prepare Thy way of old;