It would be hard to find a church that doesn’t sing “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come” at one of their Thanksgiving week services. For those who have lived where leaves change, the music brings to mind fall colors (brilliant reds, yellows, and oranges) mixed with bright evergreens along blue lakeshores under sapphire skies, along with family gatherings at tables filled with turkey and dressing, cranberry and corn pudding, mashed potatoes and green beans, and of course pumpkin pie. And how we love the Thanksgiving services at church where one after another stands to testify about God’s goodness in their lives.
The words to the hymn bring to mind the harvest season from the fields, as we celebrate God’s design of growth in the crops that fill our storehouses. Remember the rolling hills of corn and boxes of apples, and the vegetable stands complete with multi-colored chrysanthemums. Those come to mind as we sing the first stanza of the hymn. But what we sometimes fail to notice is that there will be a harvest of souls at the Second Coming, and that’s the focus in the second half of the hymn.
The hymn text was written in the fall of 1844 by Henry Alford (1810-1871). That year, members of his parish decided to have a festival celebrating the abundant harvest they had gathered into their barns, and Alford composed the hymn for that celebration. After the hymn appeared in Hymns Ancient and Modern (one of the first hymnals to be widely accepted for the Anglican Church), he revised the hymn in 1865, and again in 1867, and that is the version most often used today, reducing it from his original six stanzas to just four.
Born on October 7, 1810 in London, his mother died when he was only four months old. His father raised him as the only child of the marriage. Since his father was the traveling chaplain of Lord Calthorpe and was seldom home, young Henry grew up with his uncle, Rev. Samuel Alford. Henry was educated at private schools and with tutors until being admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated high in his class in 1832.
At college, he enjoyed close friendships with the noblest men of his day, among them Alfred Lord Tennyson. One of the deans said, “I really think he was morally the bravest man I ever knew. His perfect purity of mind and singleness of purpose seemed to give him a confidence and unobtrusive self-respect which never failed him.” Rejecting participation in the sins that were so common among young men at Cambridge, he became an outstanding scholar. It did not go to his head. For example, he wrote in his journal, “I went up to town and received the Holy Orders of a Priest; may I be a temple of chastity and holiness, fit and clean to receive so great a guest; and, on so great a commission as I have now received, O my beloved Redeemer, my dear Brother and Master, hear my prayer.”
When Henry Alford was only sixteen years old, he wrote a statement of faith in the front of his Bible: “I do this day, in the presence of God and my own soul, renew my covenant with God and solemnly determine henceforth to become His, and to do His work as far as in me lies.” His life gave solid confirmation of the fulfillment of that youthful commitment. In 1836 he married his cousin, Fanny Alford, daughter of his uncle Rev. Samuel Alford, vicar of Curry Rivell. They had two sons and two daughters, but their two sons died in their childhood, Ambrose at the age of ten and Clement only one year old. Both daughters, Alice and Francis survived and married during his lifetime.
In 1833 he was ordained as curate of Ampton where he combined his pastoral ministry with teaching as a fellow of Trinity. He led the church in a restoration of the facility and built schools in the parish. In 1835 he became the vicar in Wymeswold in Leicestershire and served there for 18 years. He instituted a Sunday afternoon service there, preaching through books of the Bible. In 1853 he became minister of Quebec Street Chapel in Marylebone, a sizable congregation which appreciated his gospel preaching. He was Hulsean lecturer at Cambridge in 1841-42, and steadily built up a reputation as a scholar and preacher.
He showed himself to be a very competent preacher, using different styles that reflected the thorough study that he brought with him to the pulpit to deliver extempore sermons. He was described as neither eloquent or impassioned but straightforward. He maintained strong and interesting relationship with evangelicals as well non-conformists. He made every effort to stay away from the high church movement within the Anglican Church.
His next assignment was to serve as dean of Canterbury Cathedral, known as “the mother church of England.” Here he made major contributions to the restoration of the cathedral and supporting structures as well as to the spiritual life at the cathedral, including establishing a Sunday afternoon sermon and a choral society for the performance of oratorios. He remained in the position until his death in 1871, after having suffered a physical breakdown in connection with his strenuous activities in the ministry.
A very versatile man, he was an artist, an organist and singer, a musical composer (including the hymn “Ten Thousand Times Ten Thousand”), and a very talented speaker. His greatest accomplishment was the publication of a four volume definitive edition of and commentary on the Greek New Testament. He spent 20 years of hard labor in textual criticism, researching and writing that monumental work, which marked a major change in the manner of New Testament exegesis. That work is recognized as the standard critical commentary of the late nineteenth century. Also, he was a member of the New Testament Revision Committee which eventually produced the English Revised Version of 1881 (published in this country in 1901 as the American Standard Version). He was a moderate who tried to keep good relations between the High Church Anglicans and the non-conformists.
His well-known hymn, “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come,” was written in 1844 when he was still the vicar of Wymeswold parish. He wrote it to celebrate the bountiful harvest the people of that hamlet had brought into their barns. It first appeared in print that year in his collection of “Psalms and Hymns adapted to the Sundays and Holydays throughout the year.”
The name of the tune to which we sing Alford’s words is ST. GEORGE’S WINDSOR. It was written in 1859 by George J. Elvey (1816 – 1893). As a young boy, he was a chorister in Canterbury Cathedral, the same church where Alford would later become Dean of the cathedral. Elvey was educated at Oxford University and at the Royal Academy of Music, where he developed the skills to be a fine organist. At the age of nineteen he became organist and master of the boys’ choir at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. That explains the name of this tune. He remained there until his retirement in 1882. He was frequently called on to provide music for royal ceremonies including the wedding of Princess Louise in 1871, after which he was knighted. He composed a number of hymn tunes in additional to this one (including DIADEMATA – “Crown Him with Many Crowns” or “Soldiers of Christ, Arise”), as well as numerous anthems, oratorios, and service music.
In stanza 1, the Thanksgiving harvest scene is prominent. It’s easy for us in the modern suburban world to forget how much agriculture dominated the lives of previous generations, and that was true for individual local families as well as for the family farm business and the community’s well-being. When a good harvest had been gathered into the barns before the winter storms arrived, there was great celebration for the food and economic provision that meant. It was a time to celebrate God’s faithfulness, and therefore to come to church to raise songs of gratitude to the Lord of the harvest.
Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
all is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;
come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.
In stanza 2, our vision expands to see the broader picture. The whole world is a field in which the Lord is at work. So many of Jesus’ parables made this analogy, including His parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew 13:24-30. Until He returns, wheat and tares grow together in the world, and even in the church. Christians and non Christians will live and work (and even worship!) side by side, before being separated at that final harvest. Our prayer is that we would so live for Christ that we would be counted by Him to be wholesome, pure grain.
All the world is God’s own field, fruit as praise to God we yield;
wheat and tares together sown are to joy or sorrow grown;
first the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.
In stanza 3, we look ahead to a greater harvest in the future. It’s the Second Coming of Christ when He will come with His angels in that final day. It will be just as in the corn fields in the countryside where the corn stalks grow tall with the ears of corn maturing until the harvest when the field is cut. The weeds in the field are cut along with the corn, but only the corn is gathered and stored. The remnants of the weeds are scattered as worthless debris to be collected and thrown into the fire. May He find us faithful as He gathers us unto Himself for eternal joys in His presence (His garner) forever.
For the Lord our God shall come, and shall take the harvest home;
from the field shall in that day all offenses purge away,
giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast;
but the fruitful ears to store in the garner evermore.
In stanza 4, we look to that day in prayerful anticipation. This world is so full of sin and misery, of sorrow and weakness, we long for the day of our redemption when soul and body shall be re-united and drawn into God’s presence, and we shall be re-made in perfect, incorruptible purification. What a magnificent harvest that will be, when we are together and home at last with the Lord! Lord, send Your harvesting angels. We eagerly await that day.
Even so, Lord, quickly come, bring Thy final harvest home;
gather Thou Thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,
there, forever purified, in Thy presence to abide;
come, with all Thine angels, come, raise the glorious harvest home.
Here is a link to an anthem arrangement of the hymn, sung by the choir at Ft. Lauderdale’s Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church.