MUSIC. THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD. The composer, John H. Maunder, was born in Chelsea, England, in 1858, and died in 1920. He received his musical education at the Royal Academy of Music in London; held various musical appointments and became a well-known and popular accompanist for vocalists. As a composer, he was widely known for his anthems, cantatas, and services which have met with wide approval. His A Song of Thanksgiving, a cantata, has been quite popular in this country, as have several of his anthems. In the secular field he has written much excellent choral music, one of the best being his “The Song of Thor.”
341. Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
Isaac Watts, 1674-1748
Founded on the last part of Psalm 72, this is the earliest of the great English hymns on missions. It is sung by all Christian congregations in the homelands and has probably been translated into a greater number of languages and dialects than any other English hymn.
Watts did not hesitate to use the name of Jesus in interpreting the Psalm. On this point, he wrote in the preface to his Psalms:
Where the original runs in the form of prophecy concerning Christ and his salvation, I have given an historical turn to the sense; there is no necessity that we should always sing in the obscure and doubtful style of prediction, when the things foretold are brought into the open light by a full accomplishment.
“Peculiar honors” in stanza 5 means honors appropriate to the various peoples who bring them.
For comments on Isaac Watts see [Hymn 11].
MUSIC. DUKE STREET. This is a psalm tune by John Hatton (d. 1793), a native of Warrington, England, of whom little is known. The tune appeared first in A Select Collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes, Glasgow, 1793. It has long been associated with this hymn, although other tunes—“Old Hundredth,” “Warrington,” and “Truro”—have also been used with it.