For comments on the translator, Ray Palmer, see [Hymn 131].
MUSIC. QUEBEC. This tune by Henry Baker was originally set to the hymn, “Sun of my soul.” It is also called “Hesperus” and “Whitburn.”
Henry Baker (not to be confused with Henry W. Baker), 1835-1910, son of Rev. James Baker, was educated as a civil engineer and spent many years in his profession on railroad work in India. He loved music, and, encouraged by John B. Dykes, proceeded in 1867 to his musical degree (Mus. Bac.) at Exeter College, Oxford.
172. O love divine, that stooped to share
Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1809-94
One of Holmes’ best hymns to which he gave the title, “Hymn of Trust.” It is found in the author’s Poems, 1862. It was first published as one of the poems in The Professor at the Breakfast Table, where it was represented as having been heard by the professor as he walked by a sick room. The little refrain, “Thou art near,” is based on Psalm 119:151: “Thou art near, O Lord; and all thy commandments are truth.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, American poet and man of letters, was the son of Rev. Abiel Holmes, a Congregational minister. He graduated from Harvard in 1829, studied medicine at home and abroad, and became Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Dartmouth in 1838. He was elected to the same chair at Harvard in 1847, a position he filled with distinction for 35 years. During all his years of teaching he was also engaged in literary work and published many volumes. Holmes was chief founder of the Atlantic Monthly. He was a member of the Unitarian Church though in later years he fell back for spiritual comfort on the great evangelical hymns of Watts and Wesley, finding in them a source of satisfaction and power which the hymns of his own denomination failed to supply. His son, Oliver Wendell, Jr., became an eminent member of the Supreme Court of the United States.
For further comments on Holmes see [Hymn 53].
MUSIC. QUEBEC. For comments on this tune see [Hymn 171].