GREAT UNITARIAN SONGWRITERS

A Revised Precis of an Address Delivered by IAN ELLIS-JONES at the Sydney Unitarian Church on 16 May 2004

It has been estimated that over 5,000,000 hymns have been written in the history of the Church. Hymn singing has been a vital part of the Church for several centuries. Many great hymns and songs, that have found their way into the hymnbooks of all denominations, were written by Unitarians. Here, very briefly, are the stories of twelve great Unitarian songwriters and a little about some of their more important hymns and songs.

Robert Robinson (1735-1790) Robinson, an Englishman, was originally a bit of a rebel. Nevertheless, he converted to Christianity at age 17, and subsequently became a Methodist minister. However, in the words of one of the hymns that he wrote, "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing", he was "prone to wander ... prone to leave the God I love". He wandered from Methodist to Independent to Baptist, and was reportedly not a very happy man. Eventually he embraced Unitarian views, dying in the company of his Unitarian friend, the great Joseph Priestley (1733- 1804).

John Pierpont (1785-1866) Pierpont, who was born in Connecticut, graduated from Yale College. He later became a lawyer, then went into business, and later still studied theology, becoming the pastor of the Unitarian Church in Hollis Street, Boston, Massachusetts. He was a noted Abolitionist and social reformer. One of his great hymns is "O Thou to Whom, in Ancient Time", which he wrote for the opening of the Independent Congregational Church in Barton Square, Salem, Massachusetts, on 7 December 1824. See also James Lord Pierpont, below.

Sir John Bowring (1792-1872) Bowring, who had been born into a Unitarian family, was, among other things, a renowned linguist. (He was proficient in 5 different languages before the age of 16, was fluent in over 20 languages, could speak 80 more, and was known for his translations of Dutch poetry.) In addition, he was a political economist, reformer, hymnist and writer. He was also the Governor of Hong Kong, and agent of the imperial policies, at a time when the British Empire was forcing the opium traffic on China. He was knighted in 1854 and was twice a member of Parliament. His hymns include "In the Cross of Christ I Glory" and "Watchman, Tell Us of the Night".

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) Emerson, the son of the Unitarian pastor of Boston's fashionable First Church, was one of the most influential literary figures of the 19th century. Although he endured a lot of suffering and loss in his personal and family life, he nevertheless distinguished himself as a Unitarian minister, philosopher, educator, traveller, essayer and lecturer. He was the author of the hymn, "We Sing of Golden Mornings", a song full of religious naturalism.

Sarah Fuller Flower Adams (1805-1848) Adams, an Englishwoman, and the daughter of a journalist and politician, is the much celebrated hymn writer of "Nearer, My God, to Thee", a hymn that has been greatly identified with tragic situations, including the sinking of the Titanic and the memorial services in honour of US President William McKinley. Adams had taken up hymn writing when failing health forced her to give up her career as an actress. She wrote "Nearer, My God, to Thee" for her minister, the Rev William J Fox (of South Place Unitarian Church, Finsbury, London), who was looking for a hymn to close a sermon on Jacob and Esau.

Edmund Hamilton Sears (1810-1870) Sears was born in Sandisfield, Massachusetts. He was educated at Harvard Divinity School. Although a Unitarian minister, he believed in the divinity of Christ. He wrote "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" at a time when the United States was in the midst of great social upheaval as a result of the industrial revolution and the growing debate over slavery. Sears was aware of these problems and, in a verse that is usually omitted from most hymnbooks, wrote of "[t]wo thousand years of wrong ... man, at war with man".

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) Lowell, who was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a prominent poet and author. A graduate of Harvard College, he was admitted to the bar in 1840 and later became Professor of Modern Languages and Literature at Harvard. He was an editor of the Atlantic Monthly and served as American minister to Spain. He wrote the hymns "Once to Every Man and Nation" and "What Means This Glory Round Our Feet". In the firstmentioned hymn Lowell spoke out against what he thought was the plan of the slave-holding states to gain more territory: "Once to every man and nation / Comes the moment to decide, / In the strife of truth with falsehood, / For the good or evil side."

Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) Howe was born in New York City and died at the age of 91. She was a Unitarian Abolitionist. The horror of the Civil war inspired her to call upon women to work for disarmament. In 1861 she was riding through the Union Army camps as a guest of President Lincoln when she heard the Federal troops singing the popular Southern tune, "John Brown's Body". That inspired her to write "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory" (the "Battle Hymn of the Republic"), which was sung or played at the funerals of such notables as Sir Winston Churchill, Senator Robert F Kennedy, and Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

Samuel Longfellow (1819-1892) Longfellow, who was the brother of famed poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was born in Portland, Maine. He attended both Harvard College and Cambridge Divinity School and was subsequently ordained a Unitarian minister. An ardent theist and mystic, he served Unitarian churches in various parts of the United States. Ill health, together with the desire to write the life of his brother, were the reasons for his early retirement from the Unitarian ministry. Among the beautiful hymns he wrote is "Holy Spirit, Truth Divine".

James Lord Pierpont (1822-1893) The last Unitarian minister of what is now the Unitarian Universalist Church of Savannah, Georgia, before the Civil war was the Rev John Pierpont Jr (1819- 1879), a native of Boston and son of the abovementioned John Pierpont (1785-1866). The brother of John Pierpont Jr, James Lord Pierpont, was the church organist. He also gave organ and singing lessons at the church. He also wrote "Jingle Bells".

Edwin Henry Wilson (1898-1993) Wilson was born in Woodhaven, New York, and was raised in Concord, Massachusetts, where he attended the First Parish Church, a Unitarian fellowship. Wilson attended Meadville Theological School, was ordained, and served as a Unitarian minister for 65 years. Recognised as the founder of organised Humanism in the United States, he was one of the founders of the American Humanist Association, was a primary author of both Humanist Manifesto I (1933) and Humanist Manifesto II (1973), and also participated in the founding and naming of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) uniting the Humanist movement worldwide. He wrote the hymn, "Where is our Holy Church?"

Carolyn McDade (born 1935) Carolyn McDade, who was born and raised in Louisiana, grew up with one sister in a Southern Baptist family. She has lived in New England for over 30 years, and played, sang and wrote music for the Arlington Street Women's Caucus in Boston in the 1970s. She is a social activist, theologian and "spiritual feminist". She has written "Come Sing a Song with Me" as well as the ever-popular "Spirit of Life", which is perhaps the widest known and most lived hymn in the contemporary Unitarian and UU repertory.

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