#66 O Day of Radiant Gladness
Christopher Wordsworth (1807-1885) presented this text in six stanzas as the opening hymn in his collection The Holy
Year (1862). In the version provided in The New Century Hymnal, only the first two stanzas are from Wordsworth’s
original; the third and fourth were created for The Hymnal 1982.
Christopher Wordsworth spent fourteen years as public orator at Cambridge University and headmaster of Harrow
School. Later he was rector for nineteen years at a quiet country parish where he had time for study and writing.
A Greek scholar, Wordsworth often wrote about Green culture.
This old German tune is named ES FLOG EIN KLEINS WALDVÖGELEIN after the first line of a folk song translated as
“There flew a little forest bird.” It was first paired with Wordsworth’s text in George R. Woodward’s Songs of Syon
(London, 1904).
George Ratcliffe Woodward (1848-1934) harmonized this tune found in a seventeenth-century manuscript. His Songs
of Syon (1904) was a supplemental collection of plainsong and metrical melodies, Lutheran tunes, and psalm tunes from
various countries.
#533 Children of God
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) wrote these stanzas in 1848 as part of his longer poem “Worship” to articulate
his Quaker views on that subject. The poem included a biblical reference to James 1:27 when it was published in
Whittier’s Labor and Other Poems (1850).
John Greenleaf Whittier was born near Haverhill, Massachusetts, on December 17, 1807. He began writing poetry as a
teenager and became friends with William Lloyd Garrison, whose abolitionist views he shared. Whittier was not a
hymnwriter, but at least seventy-five cantos from his poems have been used in various hymnals.
Alfred Scott-Gatty (1847-1918) named this tune WELWYN after a model suburb being built near London, England. He
composed the tune in 1902, and it was published that year in Arundel Hymns. It found wider acceptance, however, after
appearing in The Church Hymnary (1927).
Alfred Scott-Gatty had two passions in life: writing children’s songs and heraldry. He wrote hundreds of songs,
many of which were published by his mother in Aunt Judy’s Magazine. Scott-Gatty founded the Magpie Madrigal Society
in 1886 and published an operetta, Tattercoats, in 1900.
#353 Great Work Has God Begun in You
Carol Birkland (b. 1946) wrote this text to express to confirmands the love and support they might expect from God, who
is present in their lives both at the confirmation of their faith and throughout their faith journeys. Trained as a
Christian educator, Birkland has spent many years as a confirmation teacher.
Carol Birkland incorporated in this text three Bible verses that have been significant to her. Colossians 2:6 was
written on the inside cover of her first Bible. The references to Philippians 1:6 and Ephesians 5:1 are passages she
has used in her teachings to reinforce the idea that all are called to respond to God’s call to discipleship.
John Hatton (c.1710-1793) was first credited as the composer of this tune in Dixon’s Euphonia (1805). It had been
published anonymously in 1793 with a text called “Addison’s 19th Psalm.” Here the tune is named DUKE STREET, which
is where Hatton lived in St. Helen’s England.
John Hatton’s life is mostly a mystery to hymnologists. He was born in Warrington, England, and is believed to have
died when accidentally thrown from a stagecoach. Hatton’s funeral was December 13, 1793, at the Presbyterian Chapel
at St. Helen’s, a township in Windle, England.
From The New Century Hymnal Companion
Copyright 1998, The Pilgrim Press
Donald J. DeBruin, Director of Music Ministries
