While I of Thy strength receive,
Hoping against hope I stand,
Dying, and behold, I live.
The simplicity and literacy art of the hymn are unsurpassed. Of the 188 words in the four stanzas of the hymn generally used, all but 31 are monosyllables. The hymn has been translated into virtually every language and uncounted millions have found it a source of help in time of need. Henry Ward Beecher once said: “I would rather have written that hymn than to have the fame of all the kings that ever sat upon the earth.”
In the annotated edition of the Book of Common Praise, 1909, the following story is given:
A party of Northern tourists were on the deck of an excursion steamer, on the Potomac, one summer evening in 1881. One of the party, who had a remarkable voice, began to sing hymns to the others. When he had sung two verses of “Jesu, lover of my soul,” a stranger made his way from the outskirts of the crowd: “Beg your pardon, sir, but were you actively engaged in the late war?” “Yes, sir, I fought under General Grant.” “Well,” the first speaker continued, “I did my fighting on the other side, and I think I was very near you one bright night eighteen years ago this month. It was much such a night as this. If I am not mistaken, you were on guard-duty. We of the South had sharp business on hand. I crept near your post of duty, my weapon in my hand; the shadows hid me. Your beat led you into the clear light. As you paced back and forth you were singing that same hymn. I raised my gun and aimed at your heart—and I had been selected for the work because I was a sure shot. Then out upon the night floated the words:
Cover my defenceless head
With the shadow of thy wing.
Your prayer was answered. I couldn’t fire after that. And there was no attack made upon your camp that night. I felt sure, when I heard you singing this evening, that you were the man whose life I was spared from taking.” The singer grasped the hand of the Southerner and said: “I remember the night very well, and the feeling of depression with which I went forth to my duty. I knew the post was one of great danger. I paced my lonely beat, thinking of home and friends and all that life holds dear. Then the thought of God’s care came to me with peculiar force, and I sang the prayer of my heart and ceased to feel alone. How the prayer was answered I never knew until this evening.”
For comments on Wesley see [Hymn 6].
MUSIC. MARTYN. The composer of this tune, Simeon B. Marsh, 1798-1875, spent many years teaching singing classes in and near Albany, N. Y., travelling constantly on horseback from town to town through Albany Presbytery. It was while enroute on his weekly circuit, one day during the autumn of 1834, that the melody took form. He alighted from his horse and wrote the music which he set to a hymn by John Newton, “Mary to her Saviour’s tomb.” Thomas Hastings later set the tune to “Jesus, Lover of my soul,” a combination now deeply imbedded in the affections of the American Church.
MUSIC. HOLLINGSIDE ([159]) is the tune composed by John B. Dykes, 1823-76, especially for this hymn. The tune has more of musical interest than the better known “Martyn,” and many hymnals give it first place for use with this hymn. Dykes was always particular about the naming of his tunes, often some incident in his life supplying the name. “Hollingside” was the name of the cottage he lived in, while precentor at Durham, when he wrote this. Regarding its composition, one of his sisters wrote:
Some scenes during that visit will live forever in my memory. As, for instance, one calm Sunday evening, when I sat in the verandah in the deepening twilight and heard, through the open window, my brother composing and playing over the tune “Hollingside,” to the words “Jesu, Lover of my soul.”