Cherubim and seraphim, falling down before Thee,
Which wert, and art, and evermore shall be.
THE TUNE.
Grand as the hymn is, it did not come to its full grandeur of sentiment and sound in song-worship till the remarkable music of Dr. John B. Dykes was joined to it. None was ever written that in performance illustrates more admirably the solemn beauty of congregational praise. The name “Nicæa” attached to the tune means nothing to the popular ear and mind, and it is known everywhere by the initial words of the first line.
Rev. John Bacchus Dykes, Doctor of Music, was born at Kingston-upon-Hull, in 1823; and 78 / 52 graduated at Cambridge, in 1847. He became a master of tone and choral harmony, and did much to reform and elevate congregational psalmody in England. He was perhaps the first to demonstrate that hymn-tune making can be reduced to a science without impairing its spiritual purpose. Died Jan. 22, 1876.
“LORD OF ALL BEING, THRONED AFAR.”
This noble hymn was composed by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, born in Cambridge, Mass., 1809, and graduated at Harvard University. A physician by profession, he was known as a practitioner chiefly in literature, being a brilliant writer and long the leading poetical wit of America. He was, however, a man of deep religious feeling, and a devout attendant at King's Chapel, Unitarian, in Boston where he spent his life. He held the Harvard Professorship of Anatomy and Physiology more than fifty years, but his enduring work is in his poems, and his charming volume, The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. Died Jan. 22, 1896.
THE TUNE.
Holmes' hymn is sung in some churches to “Louvan,” V.C. Taylor's admirable praise tune. Other hymnals prefer with it the music of “Keble,” one of Dr. Dykes' appropriate and finished melodies.
Virgil Corydon Taylor, an American vocal composer, was born in Barkhamstead, Conn., April 2, 1817, died 1891.