HymnSite.com's Suggested Hymns for the 23rd Sunday After Pentecost

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God Gathers Israel;
Wanderers, Come Home

-or-

Psalm 126

479 Jesus, Lover of My Soul
Additional Suggestions

Featured Hymn
496 Sweet Hour of Prayer

Here's a well-known hymn by an obscure author. And perhaps that is the way it should be: the genesis of a hymn about the spiritual mysteries of prayer is itself shrounded in mystery.

Rev. Thomas Salmon (1800-1854) claims that he met William W. Walford, a blind preacher, of obscure birth and connections, without education, but with a keen mind, particularly apt at memorizing and quoting entire portions of Scripture. During a visit to him, Walford supposedly dictated the words of this hymn to Salmon, who submitted it for publication.

True, it is usually attributed to Walford, but hymnologists have never found "a blind preacher" by that exact name, living at the period of time the hymn is said to have been writen, in the village where it is said he lived and preached. The confusion over the identity of the poet has resulted in this hymn even being wrongly attributed to Fanny Crosby in times past.

William Batchelder Bradbury, the composer of the hymn tune, wrote it specifically for the text in 1861.

The hymn entered Methodist Hymnals in 1878, 1882, and 1889 with stanzas 1,3, and 4. In the 1935 Hymnal stanza 4 was dropped and stanza 2 was added in its place. This is the arrangement in the current United Methodist hymnal as well.

The omitted 4th stanza is still sung in many faith communities:

• • Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer
  • May I thy consolation share,
  • Till, from Mount Pisgah's lofty height,
  • I view my home, and take my flight:
  • This robe of flesh I'll drop, and rise
  • To seize the everlasting prize;
  • And shout, while passing through the air,
  • Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer!

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Lection at HymnSite.com

Contributed by Rev. Linda K. Morgan-Clark

Job: See Index listing "Comfort" p.939; see also Hymns 451-508 (Prayer, Trust and Hope)
Jeremiah: See Hymns 337-350 (Invitation)

Psalm 34: See Job above
Psalm 126: See Index listing, "Joy" p.946

See Index listing, "Presence" p.946; see also Hymns 337-350 (Invitation)

See Index listing, "Atonement" p. 944; see also Hymns 153-195 (In Praise of Christ)