Hymn #63: Holy Spirit, Truth Divine | First Congregational Church

Samuel Longfellow (1819-1892) intended this text to be a “prayer for inspiration.” The original six-stanza poem was published in a Unitarian collection, Hymns of the Spirit (1864), which Longfellow edited with Samuel Johnson.

Samuel Longfellow was born and died in Portland, Maine. He was as well known as his now famous poet brother Henry Wadsworth during his lifetime. He served three parishes as a Unitarian minister and then retired to write a biography of his brother.

Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) composed the popular and sentimental piano piece “The Last Hope.” Although it was greatly inferior to some of his earlier works, it was adapted as a hymn by Edwin P. Parker (1836-1925). The tune is termed variously as MERCY, GOTTSCHALK, and LAST HOPE.

Louis M. Gottschalk, a child prodigy at the piano, was the son of an English Jew of German descent and a Creole mother of aristocratic French background. He was one of few recitalists from the United States to enjoy success on European concert stages in the nineteenth century.