Fight the good fight with all your might

First lines count: in this case, not necessarily for good. The half-quotation from 1 Timothy 6:12, made even more famous by the hymn of commands and promises, has led many who know it to think that the text is all about fighting. It is thus sometimes chosen for various inappropriate occasions. In fact, John S B Monsell writes about Christ—strength and right, path and prize, life and love, all-in-all. The ‘good fight’ is equally ‘the fight of faith’, and the hymn first appeared in the author’s Hymns of Love and Praise for the Church’s Year in 1863. It was set for the 19th Sunday after Trinity, since 1 Timothy 6 was due to be read at Morning Prayer that week according to one ‘Table of Lessons’. James Montgomery also began a hymn with the same 4 words, published in 1834.

This later text is remarkable for its pattern of internal rhyme in each 1st line (highlighted in the original printing as 5-line stzs with line 1 divided), and alliteration throughout, notably at 1.3; 2.1,4; 3.4 and 4.1. CH curiously loses one of these by reversing ‘way’ and ‘path’ in stz 2. One change commonly made is at 3.1–2, from the awkward or ambiguous ‘Cast care aside; upon thy guide/ lean, and his mercy …’; the only one required for modernising purposes affects the last 2 lines, from ‘… thou shalt see/ that Christ is all-in-all to thee’, where the archaic pronoun is addressed not to God or Christ but to the singer (singular). Although Scripture knows of a ‘crown of life’ (1.3–4, cf James 1:12, Revelation 2:10) the phrase ‘joy and crown’ is the apostle’s description of some of his Christian friends in N Greece (Philippians 4:1; 1 Thessalonians 2:19) rather than as used here.

For the popular alternative DUKE STREET see 544, note. A former favourite in contrasting mood was William Boyd’s PENTECOST from 1868. Different books show surprising variety here, with several printing two tunes with the words. But Henry Ley’s RUSHFORD is also well-supported. He composed it for use at Eton College where he was precentor, some time between 1926 and 1936, when it was published in The Clarendon Hymn Book, which itself originated from Charterhouse School. Rushford is a Norfolk village a few miles E of Thetford.

b St Columb’s, Co Derry, Ireland 1811, d Guildford, Surrey 1875. Trinity Coll Dublin (BA 1832, LLD 1836); ordained (Ch of Ireland) 1834, becoming chaplain to Bp Mant (No.193), then Chancellor of the diocese of Connor and Rector of Ramoan. His Hymns and Miscellaneous Poems were published in 1837, and Parish Musings, or Devotional Poems, 1850. He came to England in 1853 as a Surrey incumbent, at Egham from 1853 to 1870, then at Guildford. 9 further books of verse and some prose followed between 1857 and 1873; including The Beatitudes, Our New Vicar, and Spiritual Songs for the Sundays and Holydays throughout the Year (1867), arranged according to the church calendar, but where congregational hymns still merge with more meditative and sermonic poems and versified narrative. The 91 texts in this work are thoughtful, Scripture-based though touched by ritual; one for the 17th Sunday after Trinity powerfully celebrates the Christian Sabbath. The verse-forms range from actual limerick to stzs modelled on Geo Herbert. The author says they were written ‘among the orange and olive groves of Italy during a winter spent (for the sake of health) upon the shores of the Mediterranean Sea’. In all he wrote nearly 300 hymns, 5 of which appeared in The Public School Hymn Book in 1919. Julian’s characteristic verdict is that they ‘are as a whole bright, joyous and musical; but they lack massiveness, concentration of thought, and strong emotion’. Ellerton found his ‘warm and loving devoutness so often counter-balanced by his incorrectness’. During the rebuilding of St Nicholas’ Guildford he either fell from the roof he was inspecting, or was hit by falling masonry, and died shortly afterwards. His final poem was ‘Near home at last’; but Fight the good fight has passed in to the common currency of speech among many who know little more of the hymn and nothing of its biblical origins. Nos.194, 455, 651, 883.