An article from the Cathedral Times
by the Very
Reverend Samuel G. Candler,
Dean of the Cathedral of St.
Philip
If you are around my house, or my party, late enough, there is a good
chance you will hear me playing the piano. And, there is a good chance
that, sooner or later, I will be playing one of my favorite hymns, "At
the Name of Jesus."
I have loved that hymn ever
since I grew up with it at St. Paul's Church, Newnan, Georgia. That
church was quite small in those days, and it has been renovated and
added on to several times since then. Perhaps you can imagine all the
various ways I have heard the tune played, from pump organ to piano to
guitar. Maybe that's why I play the tune in so many various ways myself.
In my piano playing, I have a straight version, a jazz version, a modal
version. ... Every night might reveal a different
version!
It's Hymn 435 in our present hymnal. The
words themselves recall another favorite, a biblical favorite, of mine:
Philippians, chapter 2. "At the Name of Jesus every knee shall bow,/ ...
Humbled for a season, to receive a Name/ from the lips of sinners, unto
whom he came,/ faithfully he bore it spotless to the last,/ brought it
back victorious, when from death he passed."
A woman
named Caroline Maria Noel wrote those words originally, though they have
been slightly revised since she published them in 1861. She had written
poetry between the ages of 17 and 20, and then she stopped writing for
20 years. At 40 years old, she resumed writing, apparently while she
entered a stage of "suffering" in her life. She was quite ill during her
later years, maybe even becoming invalid. That's when she published the
small collection, "Name of Jesus, and other Verses for the Sick and
Lonely" in 1861.
In the Episcopal Church, we know the
text today through the tune composed by that most magnificent of
English composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams. In fact, he wrote the tune,
King's Weston, in 1925, exactly for these words. The
tune is exquisitely Anglican, with a lyrical tune, open harmony, and
almost mystical spirit.
(Here, I add one stanza of
Caroline Maria Noel's work that was omitted, and what a grand stanza it
is:)
"Mighty and mysterious in the highest
height,
God from everlasting, very light of light:
In
the Father's bosom with the spirit blest,
Love, in love
eternal, rest, in perfect rest."
Isn't that majestic?
Especially with that tune? How odd it is, then, that Ralph Vaughan
Williams was not exactly the most faithfully religious of Anglicans. His
second wife described him as "an atheist ... [who] later drifted into a
cheerful agnosticism." Yet, he composed some of our truly wondrous hymn
tunes, including Sine Nomine ("For All the Saints")
and Down Ampney ("Come Down, O Love
Divine").
Yes, I admire this hymn's power. It carries
a steady beat and a strong bass line (that I enjoy pounding out on the
piano); and its tune is lyrical and even folksy, evoking even splendid
Anglican mystery. The lyrics, too, though they talk about being "humbled
for a season," are simply noble and powerful.
How
odd it is, then, that this combination of powerful music and powerful
text comes from a woman who was weak in body and a man who was weak in
faith. Such, I believe, is the true Anglican spirit. We are
comprehensive in so many ways. And when we are weak, we are strong.
Saint Paul would have liked that
(2 Corinthians
12:10).
The Very Reverend Sam Candler