On January 15 Robert Cottrill, at the always interesting and informative Wordwise Hymns blog, featured Sarah Doudney author, of the hymn ‘The Master Has Come’, which is sung to the melody ‘Ash Grove’.
I recognised the melody from Michael Card’s CD ‘Starkindler’, with Card singing ‘Let All Things Now Living’ to the tune. ‘Let All Things Now Living’ was composed by Katherine K. Davis.
Read the wikipedia entry for the tune ‘The Ash Grove’ here.
So, tonight at mgpc we sang ‘Let All Things Now Living’. In the future we might sing ‘The Master Has Come’.
Turns out lots more people knew the tune than I thought, with even some Dutch friends recognising it. (But again with different words.)
Here’s the lyrics:
1.
Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving
To God the Creator triumphantly raise,
Who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us,
Who guideth us on to the end of our days.
His banners are o’er us,
His light goes before us,
A pillar of fire shining forth in the night,
‘Til shadows have vanished and darkness is banished,
As forward we travel from light into light.
2.
His law He enforces: the stars in their courses,
The sun in His orbit, obediently shine;
The hills and the mountains, the rivers and fountains,
The deeps of the ocean proclaim Him divine,
We too should be voicing
Our love and rejoicing,
With glad adoration a song let us raise,
‘Til all things now living unite in thanksgiving
To God in the highest, hosanna and praise.
The tune lends itself to choral or folk/popular type rendering and the lyric provides timeless praise, though apparently it is much loved during the Thanksgiving Season in the US.
Here’s a YouTube of ‘Let All Things Now Living’. The video tells us that this rendition is sung by Lebanon County Youth Chorus, who even finish with a fine ‘Amen’.
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