In the first edition of Julian’s Dictionary of Hymnology (1891) F. M. Bird[1] wrote, “The Unitarians—possessing a large share of the best blood and brain of the most cultivated section of America—exhibit a long array of respectable hymnists whose effusions have often won the acceptance of other bodies,” (pp. 58-59). And in this century Louis F. Benson[2] in his classic book The English Hymn (p. 460) wrote, “It is not surprizing that a body including the best blood and highest culture of Massachusetts shared in the Literary Movement [of the 19^th century] and succeeded in imparting to its hymn books a freshness of interest in great contrast to those of the orthodox churches” and that “from their [the compilers’] hands there proceeded —— a series of hymn books whose literary interest was very notable” (p. 462).

This succession of Unitarian hymn writers over a period of approximately 150 years can best be traced in the nearly 50 hymn books compiled by individuals or committees for use in Unitarian churches.[3] The editors of these books were among the best educated men of their time, who knew where to look for fresh lyrical utterances of a living faith. The earliest of them lived in the period when the traditional metrical psalms which, for more than two centuries, had been almost the only worship-song of the English speaking world, were being slowly superseded by the songs of a new age. These songs they chiefly found in the various hymn-books published for use in English Non-conformist chapels when the Church of England still generally adhered to the Old or New Versions of the Psalms. It was from these sources that Jeremy Belknap first introduced to Americans the hymns of Anne Steele, and included in his Sacred Poetry (1795) hymns by Addison, Cowper, Newton, Doddridge and other English contemporaries. When, in 1808, the vestry of Trinity Church, Boston, impatient at the delay of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in getting out a hymnal, issued one for their own use, they drew heavily upon Belknap’s collection, saying in their preface “In this selection we are chiefly indebted to Dr. Belknap, whose book unquestionably contains the best expressions of sacred poetry extant.”

Many of the later collections in this series of Unitarian hymn books have been no less notable for their introduction to use in this country of new English hymns, such as Pope’s “Father of all, in every age;” Sir Walter Scott’s “When Israel of the Lord beloved;” translations of hymns in the Roman Breviary; Sarah Flower Adams’ “Nearer, my God, to Thee” (only three years after its publication in England); and Newman’s “Lead, kindly Light;” and for the ability of their compilers to discover fresh materials near at hand, as when Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson were the first to notice the hymnic possibilities of Whittier’s poems.

The story of American Unitarian hymnody begins with the publication in 1783 of the Collection of Hymns—designed for the use of the West Society of Boston. This church belonged to the liberal wing of New England Congregationalism, destined to become known as Unitarian a generation later. The book contained a small selection of traditional psalms and hymns by British authors and a number of quaintly didactic moral ditties in doggerel, presumably contributed by Boston versifiers who cannot now be identified.

The first group of Unitarian hymn-writers whose names are known and whose productions have survived did not begin to write until the opening decades of the 19^th century. Of this group the earliest born was John Quincy Adams, (1767-1848), best remembered as the sixth President of the United States. That he was also a hymn writer, and the only president of the country who was one, has generally been forgotten. Two or three hymns by him were written earlier but most of them came from the period following his retirement from the presidency in 1829. Soon after that event he wrote one for the 200^th anniversary of the First Church in Quincy, of which he was a member, and later in life he composed a metrical paraphrase of the whole Book of Psalms. When Dr. Lunt, minister of the Quincy church, was preparing his Christian Psalter, 1841, Mrs. Adams put into his hands the mss. of her husband’s poems, and Lunt included in his book five hymns and seventeen psalms by his distinguished parishioner. None of them rose above the level of respectable verse but his version of Psalm 43 survived in one or more hymn books 100 years later.

Rev. John Pierpont (1785-1866) was a poet of considerable abilities whose verses were in demand for special occasions and whose hymns were the best lyrical expressions of the developing new thought in religion. W. Garrett Horder, the English hymnologist, wrote that Pierpont’s hymn of universal praise was “the earliest really great hymn I have found by an American author.” It is still in use, as are two others by him.

Prof. Andrews Norton (1786-1853) of the Harvard Divinity School, published a hymn as early as 1809 and a good deal of verse in later years, much of it in a rather sombre introspective mood, but with one fine hymn still in use. He was followed by Rev. Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham (1793-1870) who wrote a good many hymns for special occasions, one of which survives today, and by Rev. Henry Ware, Jr. (1794-1843) who wrote a number of hymns highly valued as utterances of the religious idealism of the period, but long since dropped from use, except for an excellent one for the dedication of an organ, probably the only hymn in the English language written expressly for such an occasion. William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), a lay man of letters, was another of the elder members of the famous group of New England poets of the 19^th century, and as early as 1820 he contributed 5 hymns to Sewall’s New York Collection, published in that year, and he later wrote others.

The latest born of this first group who attained memorable distinction in this field was Rev. Frederic Henry Hedge (1805-1890), whose earliest hymn, still in use, was written in 1829, but who is best known for his great translation of Luther’s “Ein’ feste Burg,” and for a fine Good Friday hymn. He collaborated with Rev. Frederic Dan Huntington[4] (1819-1904) then the college preacher at Harvard, in compiling Hymns for the Church of Christ, (1853), to which Huntington contributed five hymns, none now in use. Their book was the last and best of the various Collections published up to the middle of the century by editors who belonged to what was becoming the conservative wing of the denomination, to whom Emerson’s Divinity School Address of 1838 seemed dangerously radical.

But meantime a new era in Unitarian hymnody was opening with the publication in 1846 of the Book of Hymns edited by Samuel Longfellow (1819-1891) and Samuel Johnson (1822-1882), while they were still studying in the Harvard Divinity School. Both had come under the influence of the Transcendentalist movement which was liberalizing Unitarian thought and they eagerly sought out hymns which were fresh expressions of their youthful outlook on religion. The book was notable for the new sources of hymns which they discovered, among them the poems of John Greenleaf Whittier, which they were the first to introduce into a hymn book.

Their Book of Hymns was followed in 1864 by their larger and even more influential Hymns of the Spirit, which includes most of their own hymns and many by other Unitarian writers of the period, too numerous to name here, but whose hymns are listed in the catalogue of writers appended to this introductory sketch. Samuel Johnson wrote only half a dozen hymns, but they are among the finest in the language. Samuel Longfellow wrote many more, the best of which are quite equal to Johnson’s, and together they made a more important contribution to American Unitarian hymnody than that of any other writers in the middle of the 19^th century.

This was the period of “the flowering of New England literature” and two of its poets, besides those already named, made their contribution to hymnody. The more important of the two was Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, (1809-1894) with half a dozen fine and widely used hymns, and Prof. James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) who, strictly speaking, was hardly a hymn writer at all, but from whose poems two or three have been quarried. Two other writers of this period were Rev. Edmund Hamilton Sears (1810-1876) and his niece, Miss Eliza Scudder (1819-1896). Sears wrote two Christmas hymns widely used throughout the English speaking world. Miss Scudder wrote half a dozen hymns in a mystical vein of the highest quality, but in temperament and outlook both writers belong more to the earlier period of Unitarian thought than to that prevalent in their later lifetime.

In this mid-century period should also be included the famous war-time hymn by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,” written in 1861 to provide worthier words than “John Brown’s body” for the popular tune “Glory, Hallelujah”, which had been composed a few years earlier for a Sunday School in Charleston, South Carolina.

A third period in Unitarian hymnody began with the appearance of hymns by three good friends, Rev. John White Chadwick (1840-1906), Rev. Frederic Lucian Hosmer (1840-1929) and Rev. William Channing Gannett (1840-1923), who carried forward in the last third of the century the broadly theistic interpretation of a universal religion to which Longfellow and Johnson had given utterance. Chadwick’s first hymn was written in 1864 for the graduation of his class from the Harvard Divinity School, a great hymn of brotherhood, widely used in England as well as here. A half-dozen others of fine quality have survived. Hosmer and Gannett worked together in bringing out their book The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems, 1885, 1894, and Unity Hymns and Chorals, 1880, 1911. Neither wrote any hymns while in the Divinity School, but both began to do so soon after. In 1873 Gannett wrote a fine one which is probably the earliest in the language to give a religious interpretation to the then controversial doctrine of evolution, and later a half dozen others to which deep feeling is expressed in beautiful lyrical verse. Hosmer, however, was a much more prolific writer, producing more than 40 hymns which have had some use. He was a meticulous craftsman who studied the technique of hymn-writing, and several of his hymns are among the finest in the language. Canon Dearmer, a leading authority on hymnody in the Church of England, included seven of them in his Songs of Praise and calls one of them “this flawless poem, one of the completest expressions of religious faith,” and says another is “one of the noblest hymns in the language.” For approximately 40 years, c. 1880-1920, Hosmer was the outstanding hymn writer in the English speaking world, and he left no successor who was his equal in the perfection of his finest hymns.