MUSIC. EVENING PRAYER. For comments on the composer, John Stainer, see [Hymn 111]. The tune was composed for this hymn in the first edition of The Church Hymnary, London.
426. Praise Him! Praise Him!
Anonymous
A simple song, of unknown origin, which tiny tots love to sing. The truth the song enforces—“God is love”—is one the child will carry into adulthood and into eternity.
The tune is an arrangement by Hubert P. Main, 1839-1925, American composer of popular Sunday school and evangelistic music, and editor of many hymn books. For sixty years, Main was connected with the Bigelow and Main publishing house in Chicago, now out of business. His private library of song and hymn books, consisting of over 7,000 volumes, is one of the largest of its kind to be found anywhere. Nearly one-half of it is in the Chicago Public Library where it is known as the “Main Collection.” Among his most popular tunes are: “We shall Meet Beyond the River,” “The Bright Forever,” and “In the Fadeless Springtime.”
427. I think when I read that sweet story
Jemima Luke, 1813-1906
A hymn that has gone all over the world and has been learned by a countless number of children of many nations and races. Concerning its origin, Mrs. Luke has written:
I went one day on some missionary business to the little town of Wellington, five miles from Taunton, in a stage coach. It was a beautiful spring morning, it was an hour’s ride, and there was no other inside passenger. On the back of an old envelope I wrote in pencil the first two of the verses now so well known, in order to teach the tune to the village school supported by my stepmother, and which it was my province to visit. The third verse was added afterwards to make it a missionary hymn.
Jemima Luke was the daughter of Thomas Thompson, one of the founders of the British and Foreign Sailors’ Society and a “friend of every good cause.” She volunteered to do missionary work in India, but ill health made that impossible. All her life, however, she maintained an active interest in foreign missions. In 1843, she married the Rev. Samuel Luke, a Congregational minister in Clifton, England.