There is a dynamic which is commonly found in churches among people who are always looking for something new for music in their worship services. It’s not unusual to find music leaders in local churches who write new songs for their churches on a regular basis. A few, very few, of these will find a lasting place in the church’s musical vocabulary. But that shouldn’t surprise us when we remember that of the 7500 hymns that Charles Wesley wrote in the mid 18th century, only a handful remain in active use today, only the very best, like “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today” and “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing.”
It is interesting to note that the “something new” that some churches music leaders are finding today is actually “something old” … they’re discovering the joy of singing the Psalms, something of which many had been totally, and sadly, unfamiliar! It is a new experience for people when it is introduced self-consciously so that people recognize they are actually singing one of the 150 inspired Psalms in the Bible, singing the very words God gave us for our songs in worship, singing His God-breathed words! An increasing number of reformed churches are adopting the practice of singing one Psalm each Lord’s Day, along with several hymns in the order of worship. Of course, to do this, the church needs a hymnal that includes a substantial number of the Psalms, if not all of them. What a shame that most hymnals have at most only two Psalms, numbers 23 (“The Lord’s My Shepherd, I’ll Not Want”) and number 100 (“All People That On Earth Do Dwell”).
When we investigate Psalm singing, we should recognize that the Psalms are found in our hymnals in three different “forms” or “styles” of compositions. First, there are metrical Psalms, like Psalm 23. These follow the language of the biblical Psalm as closely as possible (realizing we’re moving from Hebrew to English). In the translation process, the text is set in a “metrical” structure, so that there are the correct number of syllables to fit the music and so that the appropriate vowel sounds match the sounds at the ends of phrases. A key to recognizing such a Psalm in the hymnal is if at the bottom of the page we read the words, “Psalm (number).”
Second, there are Psalm versions in which the phrases, if not the exact words, of the Psalm are followed in sequential order, but in a manner that only follows the general outline, not the exact language, of the Psalm, and often omits verses of the biblical text. “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past” would be a good example of this, in the setting of Psalm 90 composed by Isaac Watts. A key to recognizing such a Psalm in the hymnal is if at the bottom of the page we read the words, “From Psalm (number).”
Third, there are Psalm paraphrases in which the basic idea and key themes of the Psalm are present, but with much greater freedom of expression by the hymn writer. Often this includes adding New Testament concepts and expressions, and even the name of Jesus and references to the cross. “Praise to the Lord the Almighty” would be a good example of this, drawn from Psalm 103, in the setting by Joachim Neander. A key to recognizing this in a hymnal is if at the bottom of the page we read the words, “Based on Psalm (number).”
This hymn study currently before us is of the second kind, a Psalm version, drawn from Psalm 103. The five stanzas of the English hymn follow the flow of thought, and use much of the language of the English translation of the Hebrew text in our Bibles, but without references to every single verse in the biblical text. As we sing it, we can truly have a sense that we are singing God’s words back to Him, singing the words He gave us and which He loves to hear from His people.
The hymn text was written in 1834 by Anglican pastor Henry Francis Lyte (1793 – 1847). It was in a now-forgotten collection, “Spirit of the Psalms,” with another 280 compositions, all free Psalm paraphrases. He was born in northern Ireland and graduated from Trinity College in Dublin in 1814. After a brief first pastorate, he moved to Cornwall where he experienced a great spiritual change in 1818, one that shaped the entire remainder of his life. He attended the death of a fellow clergyman, one who returned to the Lord after straying, and who, as Lyte described it, “died happy under the belief that though he had deeply erred there was One whose death and sufferings would atone for his delinquencies, and be accepted for all that he had incurred.” It was the realization that both of them had been unwilling to accept and preach the Scriptures in their “plain and literal sense.” Lyte went on to write, “I was greatly affected by the whole matter, and brought to look at life and its issue with a different eye than before; and I began to study my Bible, and preach in another manner than I had previously done.”
While a curate in Marazion, Cornwall, he met and married Anne Maxwell, daughter of a well-known Scottish-Irish family. She was 31, seven years older than her husband and a “keen Methodist.” Furthermore, she “could not match her husband’s good looks and personal charm.” Nevertheless, the marriage was happy and successful. Anne eventually made Lyte’s situation more comfortable by contributing her family fortune, and she was an excellent manager of the house and finances. They had two daughters and three sons.
About April 1824, the family moved to Lower Brixham, a Devon fishing village. Almost immediately, Lyte joined the schools committee, and two months later he became its chairman. Also in 1824, Lyte established the first Sunday school in the Torbay area and created a Sailors’ Sunday School. Although religious instruction was given there, the primary object of both was educating children and seamen for whom other schooling was virtually impossible. Each year Lyte organized an Annual Treat for the 800 – 1000 Sunday school children, which included a short religious service followed by tea and sports in the field. He was also deeply concerned about the spiritual well-being of sailors, and visited them on their ships, providing Bibles to any who did not have one. Shortly after Lyte’s arrival in Brixham, the minister began to attract such large crowds that the church had to be enlarged.
Lyte was a tall and “unusually handsome” man, “slightly eccentric but of great personal charm, a man noted for his wit and human understanding, a born poet and an able scholar.” He was an expert flute player and according to his great-grandson always had his flute with him. Lyte spoke Latin, Greek, and French; enjoyed discussing literature; and was knowledgeable about wild flowers. At Berry Head House, a former military hospital, Lyte built a magnificent library, largely of theology and old English poetry, one described in his obituary as “one of the most extensive and valuable in the West of England.”
In poor health throughout his life, Lyte suffered various respiratory illnesses and often visited continental Europe in attempts to check their progress. In 1835 Lyte sought appointment as the vicar of Crediton but was rejected because of his increasingly debilitating asthma and bronchitis. In 1839, when only 46, Lyte wrote a poem entitled “Declining Days.” Lyte also grew discouraged when numbers of his congregation (including in 1846, nearly his entire choir) left him for Dissenter congregations, especially the Plymouth Brethren, after Lyte expressed High Church sympathies and leaned towards the Oxford Movement.
By the 1840s, Lyte was spending much of his time in the warmer climates of France and Italy, making written suggestions about the conduct of his family’s financial affairs after his death. When his daughter was married to his senior curate, Lyte did not perform the ceremony. Lyte complained of weakness and incessant coughing spasms, and he mentions medical treatments of blistering, bleeding, calomel, tartar emetic, and large doses of Prussic acid. Yet his friends found him buoyant, cheerful, and keenly interested in affairs of the Europe around him.
Lyte spent the summer of 1847 at Berry Head, then, after one final sermon to his congregation on the subject of Holy Communion, he left again for Italy. He died on November 20, 1847 at the age of 54, in the city of Nice, where he was buried. It was exactly one hundred years later on November 20, 1947 that then-Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip chose this as the opening processional hymn for their wedding. Lyte’s last words were “Peace! Joy!” Shortly before his death he wrote the hymn “Abide with Me,” a hymn about the evening of life as death draws near, not (as often wrongly supposed) the evening of life as the sun is going down after dinner. It’s not an “evening hymn;” it’s a “dying hymn.”
“Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven” is a setting of Psalm 103. As an Anglican minister, Lyte drew upon Miles Coverdale’s translation as found in the “Book of Common Prayer” rather than the Authorized King James Version. Instead of beginning with “Bless the Lord, O my soul,” this translation opens with: “Praise the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me praise His holy Name. Praise the Lord, O my soul: and forget not all his benefits; who forgiveth all thy sin: and healeth all thine infirmities; Who saveth thy life from destruction: and crowneth thee with mercy and loving-kindness.” One can see these theological ideas in the opening stanza of Lyte’s hymn, but in a free poetic form. When the hymn appeared in the influential 1875 collection “Hymns Ancient and Modern,” the editors substituted “Alleluia! Alleluia!” for “Praise Him! Praise Him!” and this has continued to be common to avoid the extreme repetition of the original text.
Stanza 1 is drawn from verses 1-5 of the Psalm and praises the King of heaven for all His blessings. Especially gripping are the four verbs coming in staccato fashion: “ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,” summarizing in a most eloquent way the breadth of divine mercy we have received. We joyfully bring our tribute as we kneel in praise before this everlasting King.
Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven; To His feet thy tribute bring.
Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven, Who like me His praise should sing?
Alleluia! Alleluia! Praise the everlasting King.
Stanza 2 is drawn from verses 6-12 of the Psalm and praises God for His grace. Sometimes people incorrectly view God as described in the Old Testament as an angry, impatient God, and that in the New Testament Jesus brings a softer, gentler version! Nothing could be further from the truth. They are one and the same, and in both testaments we see God’s abundant kindness, “slow to chide and swift to bless.”
Praise Him for His grace and favor To our fathers in distress.
Praise Him still the same forever, Slow to chide, and swift to bless.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Glorious in His faithfulness.
Stanza 3 is drawn from verses 13-14 of the Psalm and praises God for His mercy. As David wrote, He is not only LIKE a father, He IS our Father. “Mercy” is not the same as “grace.” Mercy refers to the kindness and compassion and affection with which He deals with us. He understands how weak we are, spiritually and emotionally as well as physically. We depend on this Father to protect us from all the threats we face.
Father-like He tends and spares us; Well our feeble frame He knows.
In His hands He gently bears us, Rescues us from all our foes.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Widely as His mercy flows.
Stanza 4 is drawn from verses 15-19 of the Psalm and praises God for His unchangeableness. And that is especially in contrast to our ever-changing needs and struggles. David compares our lives to that of summer flowers that flourish for a few months and then perish when the dry, hot winds blow. The same is true of our lives, as we pass from the springtime of our existence. But God “endures unchanging on.”
Frail as summer’s flow’r we flourish, Blows the wind and it is gone;
But while mortals rise and perish God endures unchanging on,
Alleluia! Alleluia! Praise the High Eternal One!
Stanza 5 is drawn from verses 20-22 of the Psalm and praises God for all that He has made and maintains in His creation. This is a theme found often in the Psalms, speaking not only of “sun and moon,” but also of mountains and creatures that praise Him. And in this doxology at the end of the hymn, we call on angels, those who “behold Him face to face,” to adore Him, along with all “who dwell in time and space.”
Angels, help us to adore Him; Ye behold Him face to face;
Sun and moon, bow down before Him, Dwellers all in time and space.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Praise with us the God of grace.
The hymn is generally sung to the tune LAUDA ANIMA, written in 1869 for this very text by Sir John Goss (1800-1880). His father, also named John Goss, was an organist. At the age of eleven, young Goss went to London to live with his uncle, a singer of considerable reputation. After being a chorister in the Chapel Royal and a pupil of Thomas Attwood, organist at St. Paul’s Cathedral, he became professor of harmony at the Royal Academy for 47 years beginning in 1827, and edited “Parochial Psalmody” the year before for a congregation at Chelsea. Having served as an organist at Stockwell and St. Luke’s in Chelsea, he published “An Introduction to Harmony and Through Bass” in 1831. In 1838 he succeeded Attwood as organist at St. Paul’s, and in 1841 he edited “Chants, Ancient and Modern.” Because of his compositional skill, in 1856, Goss was appointed composer to the Chapel Royal. A composer of mostly church music such as anthems, service music, and hymn tunes, Goss was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1872 and given an honorary Mus. D. degree by Cambridge in 1876. He died in London on May 18, 1880. He has also left us the music for the Christmas songs “See Amid the Winter’s Snow” and the Polish carol “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly.”ed has also left us tye music for See Amid the Winyer’s Snow and Infant Hly, Infant Lowly.
A second tune has also become widely known, in part as a result of its inclusion in an Inter Varsity American collection of hymns. It is Mark Andrews’1930 tune, named ANDREWS, published that year as a fine anthem arrangement that has become part of the choral library of many churches.
Here is a video of the singing of the hymn with the tune LAUDA ANIMA.