Hymn #28: For the Beauty of the Earth | First Congregational Church

Folliott Sandford Pierpoint (1835-1917), an English poet, was inspired to write these words by the beauty of a spring day in his native town of Bath. He intended it to be sung as a hymn of joy for services of Holy Communion. It originally had eight stanzas.

Folliott S. Pierpoint was born in Bath, England, on October 7, 1835, and graduated from Queens’ College, Cambridge. He served as headmaster at Somersetshire College, taught classics, and wrote a number of sacred poems. Pierpoint died March 10, 1917, at Newport, Monmouthshire, England.

Conrad Kocher (1786-1872), of Würtemberg, Germany, wrote this melody as part of a chorale. It was revised by William H. Monk in 1861 for William C. Dix’s hymn “As with Gladness” and later was given the name DIX because of its connection with that text.

Conrad Kocher intended to be a teacher but was influenced by the music of Haydn and Mozart to become a musician. He was organist in the Stiftskirche, Stuttgart, Germany, for nearly forty years. Kocher founded a sacred choral music society and was a leader in the movement to reform German church music in the early nineteenth century.