Samuel Longfellow, 1819-92
A “delicately etched winter hymn” which appeared in Hymns of the Spirit, 1864, by Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson.
For comments on the author, Samuel Longfellow, see [Hymn 28].
MUSIC. MELROSE. For comments on the composer, Frederick C. Maker, see [Hymn 112]. This combination of hymn and tune was made by the editors of the Hymnary.
SPRING
385. The glory of the spring, how sweet
Thomas Hornblower Gill, 1819-1906
Based on Psalm 104:30: “... thou renewest the face of the earth,” and Ephesians 4:23: “... be renewed in the spirit of your mind.”
It is an exquisite lyric, expressing not only the glory of the springtime with its newborn life, but depicting also, with rare beauty and power, the renewal of life which God works in the soul—a new birth of faith and love, prayer and song. The author himself wrote that, as a result of the study of the New Testament, “truth upon truth brake upon my gaze and God put a new song into my mouth.”
Thomas Hornblower Gill, born in Birmingham, England, was brought up a Unitarian, but, unsatisfied with the Unitarian view of the person of Christ, he withdrew from that church and joined the Evangelical party in the Church of England. One of the major influences leading him to this decision was his study of the hymns of Isaac Watts. He saw “the contrast between their native force and fulness and their shrunken and dwindled presentation in the mutilated version in Unitarian hymnbooks.” Gill published a number of books of poems which R. W. Dale, in compiling a hymnbook for his congregation at Carr’s Lane, Birmingham, found “a very mine of wealth.”