Oxenham’s hymn expresses the desire of the soul in life’s supreme moments. This hymn was written during World War I, when the “sorrow of the human race was most acute.”

Writing under the name of John Oxenham, the author’s real name is William Arthur Dunkerley. Following his education in Victoria University, Manchester, he followed a business career. He spent some time in the United States, and also traveled extensively in Europe and Canada. “He began writing as a relief from business,” we are told. Finding that he enjoyed writing more, he “dropped business and stuck to writing.”

A most unusual note is sounded in this hymn. The heart of the mystic calls for:

In a little private chapel down in the south of England he found the little “shrine of quietness” which he coveted. Thence he would go to “sit and think,” and realize his desire for:

Hymn of the Homesick American

Leading representatives of every department of English public life assembled to do honor to one “who had labored, during the six years he had been ambassador, to promote good-will between the sister nations.” This was on May 6, 1905, when Joseph Hodges Choate was entertained at a farewell banquet in London. He had attained high distinction as a lawyer and achieved great prominence in public life in the United States when, in 1899, President McKinley appointed him ambassador to Great Britain. There he became a “messenger of good-will” in a very marked degree.

The scholarly orator, arising to speak, confessed that he was resigning because he was homesick. Then he explained: “My friends on this side of the water are multiplying every day in numbers and increasing in the ardor of their affection. I am sorry to say that the great host of my friends on the other side are as rapidly diminishing and dwindling away:

and I have a great desire to be with the waning number.”

This was an effective use of words from a great hymn which Mr. Choate, a Harvard graduate, evidently well knew. The incident has been preserved for us by the Rev. John Telford. They came from the hymn of Charles Wesley, which begins:

This was the hymn that John Wesley and his congregation in Staffordshire were singing at the hour when Charles Wesley, its author, joined the company in heaven. Once, when in Dublin, John Wesley announced this hymn, and making some comments on the same affirmed that it was “the sweetest hymn” his brother ever wrote. That lover and critic of hymns, W. T. Stead, reports that the Bishop of Hereford wrote him that he thought that the fourth verse “was one of the finest in the whole realm of hymnology.” This runs:

Students in the classes of the beloved Samuel F. Upham, professor in Drew Theological Seminary, will readily recall how he, in advancing age, with characteristic fervor and deep emotion, occasionally quoted the third and fourth lines of this cherished verse. Stevenson, in his informing discussion of the Wesley hymns, has given us a great variety of incidents associated with this song, and refers to it as “that great and impassioned hymn.”

His Ordination Hymn

The day of his ordination is a sacred one in the life of a minister. It marks the time when he is definitely set apart for a very sacred task for the balance of his life. Therefore the events of that day are deeply embedded in the life of the individual who is henceforth to proclaim the gospel.

Reference was made by Dr. William Pierson Merrill, then pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City, on October 26, 1930, when the fortieth anniversary of his own ordination was observed, to the special hymn which was sung on that occasion. Written by the scholarly Dr. Timothy Dwight, it has held a secure place in the hymnology of the Christian Church. The words deeply impressed him as a young man when they sang:

Speaking of what the hymn had meant to him through the years of his pulpit and pastoral experience, he said: “I believed then, I am far surer now, that this is the attitude for every Christian, and everyone who would do his best for the common good. You cannot afford to neglect the church.” Then once more the hymn was sung.

Deep in the affections of thousands of Christians there dwells this love for the church of the living Christ. Therefore through the decades since this hymn was written Christians have assembled in their various places of worship, and have meaningly and happily sung:

Soldiers Sang at Their General’s Funeral

The great military leader who had a premonition that he would die in battle came to his death as the result of an accident sustained soon after the close of World War II. Generals and colonels were the pall bearers of General George S. Patton, Jr., when he was laid to rest on Christmas eve, 1945, in the American Military Cemetery near Luxembourg. Six hundred men who had served under General Patton in combat formed an honor guard; and his grave “was no different from six thousand others which marked the resting-place of soldiers from his own beloved Third Army.”

Funeral services were held in Christ Church, Heidelberg, Germany, on December 23rd, and those were extensively reported for the Associated Press. Two army chaplains were in charge. Mrs. Patton, who sat in the front of the church, “turned her head to look at the choir loft when a soldier choir of thirty-six voices” began to sing the first hymn:

“This is one of those Easter hymns which is included in almost every hymnal, but which is actually used much less than it deserves,” remarks Dr. Charles A. Boyd. Tersely he adds: “It is a historic treasure, one of those Latin hymns so old that nobody knows the exact age.”

When the choral group from the Seventh Army began to sing:

the khaki-clad officers and men who filled Christ Church, where the Episcopal service was conducted, joined in singing the familiar hymn. Onward to its concluding lines they sang with mighty voice:

The comment of Dr. Charles S. Robinson concerning this hymn merits consideration: “This is one of Bishop Reginald Heber’s finest lyrics, ranking in the estimation of many with that anthem-like composition, ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.’”

The two hymns mentioned were sung at the request of Mrs. Patton, who stated that these were the two hymns which her husband most loved.

The soldiers lifted the flag from the casket, “and held it a few inches” above the lid when the burial service occurred at Luxembourg. The 63rd Psalm (General Patton’s favorite passage of Scripture) was intoned by Chaplain Edwin R. Carter. The military men bared their heads, and the service closed with the Lord’s Prayer. “With the ending of the prayer, the soldiers folded the flag and handed it to Mrs. Patton.... A bugle sounded taps for the fallen leader.... The Russian, British and French generals, their great coats gleaming with medals, held themselves strictly in salute until Mrs. Patton turned to leave.” The body of the American general was now resting beside that of an American private.

Details will gradually be forgotten by those who witnessed them, or followed the reports in the daily newspapers; but Americans will love to recall the favorite hymns of a beloved military leader who participated in a most significant manner in the events of World War II.