A popular song in the Moody and Sankey revivals. It has few equals as a “rouser” in a revival or prayer meeting. To create interest and add variety in a special song service, Rodeheaver suggests that the leader try having the choir sing the chorus all the way through, the congregation joining only in the “Hallelujah,” and the last phrase, “Revive us again.”
The author, Wm. Paton Mackay, received his education in the University of Edinburgh. For some time he was interested in medicine but gave that up to become the minister of the Prospect Street Presbyterian Church, Hull, England. He came to an untimely death through an accident. Seventeen of his hymns appeared in W. Reid’s Praise Book, 1872. Among these was the present hymn, the author’s most widely known work.
MUSIC. REVIVE US AGAIN is well suited to the text, though it is also used with Horatio Bonar’s hymn:
Rejoice and be glad! for our King is on high;
He pleadeth for us on his throne in the sky.
Rejoice and be glad! for He cometh again;
He cometh in glory, the Lamb that was slain.
Refrain: Sound His praises! tell the story of Him who was slain!
Sound His praises! tell with gladness, “He liveth again.”
The composer, John Jenkins Husband, 1760-1825, born in Plymouth, England, was clerk at Surrey Chapel. In 1809, he came to the United States and settled in Philadelphia, where he taught music and served as clerk of St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal Church. Husband is the composer, also, of several anthems.