One of the wonderful topical sections in all hymnals has to do with creation. Psalm 19 calls us to rejoice that “the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament (the skies) shows His handiwork.” If we will open our eyes thoughtfully, we will see that all around us every day. We awake in the morning to the brilliance of the sun and hear the delightful songs of the robins and bluebirds in the branches of the trees. We go outside on a clear night, away from street and city lights, and look up into the heavens to see amazing lights, even without a telescope. But if we add that instrument to our investigative arsenal, we are astonished by the realization that every one of those hundreds of billions of tiny pinpoints of light is an entire galaxy, each with billions of stars of their own.
In the spring, we walk outside across bright green grass and are awestruck by the blankets of purple azalea flowers throughout the neighborhood bushes. In the fall, we look across the glassy-smooth blue waters of a lake surface to gaze at the reds and yellows and oranges of the sugar maples in the splendor of their incredible pallet of color. In the winter we can sit for hours in our living room in the warm glow of the fireplace, hypnotized by the snowflakes falling gently and piling up on the branches of the blue spruces in our front yard. And in the summer, we sit on the porch after mowing the lawn, admiring the kaleidoscope of colors from the annuals we have planted … the zinnias and marigolds and petunias and snapdragons, and relaxing near the hanging baskets of ferns and fuchsias.
We must also include the magnificence of living creatures that God has designed for His world. We need not travel to the exotic locales of Africa to see elephants and zebras and giraffes, or the far distant regions of Australia to see koalas and kangaroos and kookaburras, or the jungles of Sumatra to find tigers and orangutans and Komodo dragons. Nor do we need to go the Grand Canyon to ride the rapids and look for mountain lions, or hike the glaciers of the Grand Tetons to look for mountain goats, or ride the Amazon river into Brazilian jungles to see flights of multi-colored macaws. How many of us can travel to the Antarctic to see penguins, or to the middle of the Pacific to see blue whales, or to Alaska to see reindeer? We only need to look at the homes in our own neighborhood to enjoy the pets we so enjoy, the Dachshunds and Persian cats, and ferrets and sugar gliders, and guinea pigs and hedgehogs … or go out at different times of the day and night to see raccoons and armadillos and squirrels, and yes, even skunks!
We dare not forgot the intricate wonders that thrill us with the inner workings of our own bodies, from eyes and ears to hearts and livers. We can see colors and enjoy music and taste chocolate, and know that these are all possible because of our heavenly Father’s creative imagination and power. And what about the marvel of conception and growth in the womb that brings precious babies into our lives? We could go on and on and barely scratch the surface of the wonders of His hand.
And so we have many hymns that point us to those marvels of creation. One of them is the hymn, “This Is My Father’s World,” written by Maltbie Davenport Babcock (1858-1901). It was published posthumously in 1901, and is widely sung today using only six of the original 16 four line couplets to create three stanzas. It was one of Babcock’s friends, Franklin Shepherd (1852-1930) who adapted the music from an English folk song to create the tune we know, TERRA BEATA, inserting portions of Babcock’s text into three, eight-line stanzas. The hymn in this form first appeared in the composer’s hymnal, “Alleluia,” a Presbyterian Sunday school book published in 1915. It’s a hymn that celebrates so many of these beautiful things in creation.
But when we look at the world around us, it certainly does not look like our heavenly Father’s world, at least as we imagine what it ought to be. There is the natural beauty of mountains and forests and butterflies and toucans, but we stagger at the realization of the amount of ugliness that has spread across this world because of the effects of sin and the fall. There are natural disasters like tornadoes and earthquakes. There are the horrors of wars and the corruption of politicians. There are the agonies that come from famines and diseases. There are the sorrows that hit families from birth deformities and dementia. And there are the pains that come from criminal activity in our cities and even abusive behavior in our homes.
So in the face of all that (and more!), how can we sing with a smile and joyful spirit, “This is my Father’s world?” We need to look deeper … and higher. This is one area in which, as Christians, we walk by faith and not by sight. We find beauty in much of what we see and experience, including as well the beauty and happiness from love shared in human relationships within our families and our churches. But we find greater beauty in our firsthand knowledge of the love of our Creator and Redeemer. More than that, we see beauty in all of His attributes of holiness and grace and mercy and kindness, all revealed to us in His Word and at work in His providential care for us.
When we know Him as Savior, we also begin to find beauty in the world around us. We see in the rainbow, not only its colors, but also God’s promise never to destroy the world by water again (Genesis. We see in the birth of a child the marvel of God’s creating life and guiding its development in the womb (Psalm 139:13-16). We see broken relationships healed and enemies becoming reconciled. We see self-centered pride broken by the Holy Spirit’s transforming work in the regenerating work of spiritually dead souls born again to light and life from above. In addition, in every dimension of creation, from the light of distant galaxies that sparkle in the night skies to the brilliance of fall colors reflected off the beautiful blue waters of a mountain lake, we see the handiwork of our heavenly Father, and the hints of the incredible beauty of the world that will be re-made in perfection at the second coming of the Lord Jesus.
So yes, this is indeed “My Father’s World,” and He delights in it. We read in Genesis that at the end of each day in the creation week, He pronounced it good. Then at the end of that week, He pronounced it all VERY good! And remember that as the designer of beauty, He is the greatest love of beauty who exists!
Maltbie Babcock was born in Syracuse, New York. He was a high-ranking student in college and seminary. Tall, muscular, and broad-shouldered, he presided over the baseball team, and was an expert pitcher and fantastic swimmer. As a musician, he played various musical instruments, directed his school’s orchestra, was a lead vocalist and head of the glee club, and played and composed for the organ. Something of a Renaissance man, Babcock loved poetry and was sometimes found reciting from his favorite poet, Wordsworth, though he was well versed in Tennyson and Browning as well. His own poetry was said to be full of beauty and life. His love of words was incorporated beautifully into his calling as a preacher. He was well known for delivering incisive, fresh, soul-gripping sermons. Babcock loved the outdoors, hiking and spending time as he put it, “in his Father’s world.” His godliness and vibrant personality was a delight to all who met him, especially those who laughed at his impersonations, enjoyed his skillful drawings, benefitted from his handiness with tools and were blessed by his shepherding and teaching.
Babcock’s life was not always without difficulty. He and his wife, Katherine, had two children, both of whom died in infancy. Babcock’s own life ended tragically in Naples, Italy, having contracted a bacterial infection called brucellosis while on his way home from a trip to Israel, a vacation that was gifted to him by his church. Sadly, among the symptoms of this particular bacterial infection were depression and delirium, and doctors said that Babcock was not in his right mind when he slit his wrist and died at the age of 43. His wife collected and published many of his writings after Babcock died. A beautiful 16 stanza poem expressing Babcock’s own immense pleasure of God’s creation and his trust in the sovereign rule of God over all things, “This Is My Father’s World” was among them.
He was one of the leading Presbyterian ministers of his generation. He followed Dr. Henry Van Dyke, author of the hymn “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee,” as the minister of Brick Presbyterian Church in New York, City. He was called to that church in 1901, and was at that time one of the highest paid clergymen in the world with an annual salary of $30,000. Babcock was a graduate of Syracuse University. He continued his education at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York. After serving two congregations at Lockport near Lake Ontario and Baltimore, he assumed the pastorate at Brick Church. It was while serving as a pastor in Lockport, New York, near Lake Ontario, that he had the practice of “taking morning walks to the top of a hill north of town where he had a full view of Lake Ontario and the surrounding country.” It was said that he had a frequent expression before leaving for these walks, “I’m going out to see my Father’s world.”
Here is his hymnic legacy of worship about his Father’s world.
Stanza 1 surveys in a broad way the arenas in which nature reflects God’s glory. These first two stanzas are unusually concrete in their references to nature. For Babcock, nature was not only a visual spectacle, but also an aural experience. Perhaps the author’s skill as a musician contributed to the many auditory images: “listening ears” and “nature sings” and “birds their carols raise” and “rustling grass.” The “music of the spheres” is a concept borrowed from Greek philosophy. This is the idea that the most perfect sounds cannot be heard by human ears. They take place in the orderly movements of planets and stars. The actual sounds that we hear on earth are but a weak imitation of what we read in the book of Job 38:7 about the morning stars singing together.
This is my Father’s world, And to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings The music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world: I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas – His hand the wonders wrought.
Stanza 2 takes us to more discoveries of God’s marvels as we begin the day with the sound of birds singing “carols,” along with the “morning light,” and that both “declare their Maker’s praise.” As James 1:17 tells us that “every good and perfect gift come from above,” Babcock tells us that our Father “shines in all that’s fair.” And we can’t help but think of Adam in the Garden of Eden taking a walk with the Lord Jesus (yes, as a theophany in human form, it was certainly Jesus who formed Adam out of the dust of the ground, breathed life into his soul, and then joined him for a walk each afternoon to see what names Adam had given to the creatures that they met along the way!) as Babcock writes of hearing Him pass “in the rustling grass,” and then speaking to the ones made in His own image.
This is my Father’s world: The birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white, Declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass, He speaks to me everywhere.
Stanza 3 shifts the focus from the overwhelming visual and aural beauty of our Father’s world to the reality that all is not right with the world. As a Calvinist, Babcock embraces the wonderfully helpful biblical doctrine of providence, observing “that though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.” How many times in Scripture, and in history, do we see examples of that, when it seems so hopeless that anything good could come out of this mess, God works His design to accomplish His own purposes. That will be true in the final day, when it will appear that the forces of evil will have overwhelmed the world. But we remember Jesus’ promise in Matthew 16:18 that though there is a very real battle, He will build His kingdom, and the gates of hell will not be able to stop it. Babcock concludes rightly that “The battle is not done; Jesus who died shall be satisfied, and earth and heav’n be one.”
This is my Father’s world: O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done;
Jesus who died shall be satisfied, and earth and heav’n be one.
It is sad that in many hymnals today, the sentiment of modern liberal theology has prevailed, the theology that turns attention away from the substitutionary sacrifice Jesus made for us on the cross to satisfy divine justice. Babcock’s words in stanzas 2 and 3 are blended, so that the second part of stanza 2 reads, “He trusts us with His world, to keep it clean and fair – all earth and trees, all skies and seas, all creatures everywhere,” a clear capitulation to a gospel of ecological care and green earth policies! And instead of this reference to the biblical description of Jesus’ triumphant victory in the final two lines of stanza 3, the revision reads, “This is my Father’s world: why should my heart be sad? The Lord is King, let heaven ring! God reigns; let earth be glad!” There is nothing wrong with those words. But we are displeased that a clear reference to Jesus’ work has been replaced by a generic reference to the joy when everything will be fixed. The Bible is clear that it will only be fixed when Jesus returns to create the new heavens and new earth.
The tune TERRA BEATA was composed for these words by Babcock’s friend, Franklin L. Sheppard (1852-1930), in 1915, almost 20 years after Babcock’s tragic death. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Sheppard entered the family foundry business in Baltimore, Maryland in 1875. He was organist at Zion Episcopal Church and later was an elder and music director of the Second Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. President of the Presbyterian Board of Publications, Sheppard also served on the committee that prepared the Presbyterian Hymnal of 1911. In the history of hymnody he is remembered primarily for arranging this tune for “This Is My Father’s World.”
Here is the hymn as sung by Kristyn Getty, with beautiful Irish orchestration in the accompaniment and interludes.