Written for a consecration service at Boston University School of Religious Education, in 1926, where the author was Professor of Religious Education.
It is based on Jesus’ question of James and John, and their answer: “Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto Him, Lord, we are able” (Matt. 20:22).
The second verse came to the author’s mind as a result of seeing the Passion Play at Oberammergau, where he was greatly moved by the scene where the dying thief turned to Jesus and said, “Remember me when Thou contest into Thy Kingdom.” “As Anton Lang, playing the part of Christ, said, ‘Today, shalt thou be with me in paradise,’” the author writes, “Immortality suddenly became as real to me as the sunlight at that moment driving the clouds from the mountains, and I knew that nothing, nothing could ever shake my faith in that vision.”
The hymn was written for the tune “Beacon Hill.” The combination of words and tune was adopted as one of the school songs of Boston University School of Theology, whose students have carried it all over the world. It was incorporated into the Methodist Hymnal of 1935, from whence it came into the Hymnary.
Earl Bowman Marlatt, son of a Methodist minister, was born at Columbus, Indiana. He graduated from De Pauw University and then studied at Boston University, Harvard, Oxford, and the University of Berlin, becoming Professor of Philosophy at Boston University in 1923 and later Professor of Religious Education in that institution.
MUSIC. BEACON HILL received its name from Beacon Hill, Boston, where Marlatt resided when he wrote the words for this tune. The composer, Harry Silvernale Mason, born in 1881, was a student at Boston University when he wrote the tune. He is now serving as instructor in Fine Arts in Religion at Auburn Theological Seminary, Auburn, N. Y.
393. Just as I am, Thine own to be
Marianne Hearn, 1834-1909
A young people’s consecration hymn, contributed to The Voice of Praise, 1887, published by the Sunday School Union of London. Verses 5 and 6, omitted here, read as follows:
With many dreams of fame and gold,