Come, you souls by sin afflicted

Although this is not the sole survivor from Joseph Swain’s hymnwriting (GH has 3 others) it is clearly the most enduring and features in at least 9 books in current use. Its gospel appeal, similar in its way to some of the Wesleyan hymns and using the initial ‘Come’ with the same force, sprang from a brief but fruitful ministry in Walworth, SE London. Headed ‘The yoke of Christ’ (from Matthew 11:28–30), it was published in the author’s Walworth Hymns of 1792 and 1796. From the original 5 stzs, Praise! uses 3; the order has varied in different books, and sometimes ends with ‘Sweet as home to pilgrims weary …’ PHRW has this as the 2nd of 3 and starts with ‘Come, all souls …’, instead of ‘ye’. Here the modified lines are also 1.2, from ‘bowed with fruitless sorrow …’; and 2.1,3, avoiding the much misused ‘Blessèd’.

A variety of tunes is in use with these words. Praise! has taken the opportunity of including BRYN CALFARIA (‘Mount Calvary’) here. Sometimes set to Hart’s similar Come ye sinners, poor and wretched, it has the advantage of the 5th-line repeats where, notably in Wales, the emphasized syllables are often printed and sung as minims. This, the best-known of the tunes by William Owen ‘Prysgol’, was published in 1841 in Y Per Cerddorol, vol II, 1852. It survived changing tastes among Welsh tunes, and by inclusion in EH (to Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendour) it became widely known in England. It is now in use around the world; the Australian With One Voice recommends it for 3 of its hymns, and its 1982 companion speaks of its ‘sombre grandeur’. Routley calls it ‘a piece of real Celtic rock, uncompromising and austere in the extreme, but abundantly repaying the effort required to master its forbidding grandeur.’ It is possibly named from its association with 419, with its ‘sounds aloud from Calvary’.

b Birmingham 1761, d Walworth, Surrey (SE London) 1796. Like other hymnwriters (see eg notes to Doddridge, Gerhardt, Hood, Lyte and Olivers) he was orphaned when young; he was originally apprenticed to an engraver, but travelled to London to seek a quicker fortune and typically fell into a young man’s follies. He was already blossoming into a gifted writer of light entertainment. But in 1783 he was persuaded to attend the Carter Lane Baptist church near London Bridge (at Tooley St, later succeeded by the New Park St church), where John Rippon ministered, and was converted through his preaching. His hymnwriting began soon afterwards, and encouraged by Rippon he trained for the ministry and was called to pastor the Baptist Church in Walworth, also just south of the Thames. There the congregation grew rapidly, but its young minister was taken from them when he died at the age of 35. His collected hymns were often reprinted, together with his Short Essay on Christian Fellowship and Social Religion; some lines, while not peculiar to him in their subject, may indicate his doubtful health and/or a premonition of an early death: ‘A few more days, or months, or years,/ in this dark desert to complain;/ a few more sighs, a few more tears,/ and we shall bid adieu to pain’. The other collections where they are best represented remain the Strict (Grace) Baptist and other evangelical books such as those mentioned in the entry for John Kent. While not in the same league as Cowper, his A friend there is—your voices join deals with the same theme as God moves in a mysterious way and uses some of the same imagery. The current East Street church, while not in direct lineal descent from Swain’s (being a mission plant from the Metropolitan Tabernacle) has inherited many of his traditions and archives. GH retains 4 of his hymns; J Stevens’ Selection of Hymns included 41, with ‘The Church’ (8 hymns) as a prominent theme, and D Denham’s Selection (where many are anonymous) at least 22. (Denham, 1791-1849, was pastor of Unicorn Yard Chapel in Tooley St. not far from Walworth.) See also under B Beddome. No.666.