For comments on the author, William P. Merrill, see [Hymn 183].
MUSIC. LEIGHTON was composed by Henry Wellington Greatorex, 1811-58, an Englishman by birth. Coming to the United States in 1839, he served as organist at Central Congregational Church, Hartford, Conn., in St. Paul’s and Calvary Churches, New York City, and finally in an Episcopal Church at Charleston, S. C. He edited the Greatorex Collection of 1856 and did much to improve the standards of music used in the worship service. He composed a widely used setting for the “Gloria Patri” ([606]). Dr. Merrill’s hymn has been set to various tunes, the one generally used and preferred by the author being “Festal Song,” by William H. Walter.
231. Go, labor on; spend and be spent
Horatius Bonar, 1809-89
A hymn to encourage Christian workers. It was published in Songs for the Wilderness, 1843, under the title, “Labour for Christ.” In Hymns of Faith and Hope, 1867, it was entitled, “The Useful Life.”
Regarding the origin of the hymn, Rev. H. N. Bonar, son of the author wrote:
It was probably in the year 1836 that my father first wrote a hymn not primarily intended for the young. To encourage his faithful fellow workers in his mission district, he wrote, to the tune of the “Old Hundredth,” the now-familiar hymn, “Go, labour on.”
For comments on Horatius Bonar see [Hymn 129].
MUSIC. ERNAN was written for Cantica Laudis, 1850, one of the books which Mason published with the assistance of Geo. J. Webb. For comments on the composer, Lowell Mason, see [Hymn 12].