Happy the home that welcomes you, Lord Jesus

This item and the next, with overlapping themes, in the same metre and with virtually interchangeable tunes, are both the products of more than one hand. If 929 is specifically for a wedding while also looking ahead, the emphasis of this one, written only four years earlier, is clearly on the home, as the opening words of each stz indicate. Carl Spitta’s original German O selig Haus, wo man dich aufgenommen appears in his Psalter und Harfe of 1833, where his 5 stzs are headed ‘Salvation is come to this house’ (Luke 19:9); it may have been written by 1826. Sarah Findlater’s popular paraphrase of 1858 O happy home, where thou art loved the dearest has featured in many hymnals, but Honor Mary Thwaites wrote the present closer translation for The Australian Hymn Book/With One Voice (1977).

The newer words were first published with J B Dykes’ tune STRENGTH AND STAY, as chosen here. Its name comes from the words to which it was written and with which it featured in the 1875 edition of A&M, the Ellerton/Hort version from the Lat, O strength and stay upholding all creation.

b Hanover, Germany 1801, d Burgdorf, Germany 1859. The son of a French father and a Christian Jewish mother, he was a writer of verse from the age of 8 and apprenticed at first to a watchmaker, he studied at the Univ of Göttingen where he met Heinrich Heine and continued to produce poems and song lyrics. Soon afterwards, in 1824 as he later explained to a friend, his hymnwriting began: ‘In the manner in which I formerly sang, I sing no more. To the Lord I consecrate my life and my love, and likewise my song…He gave me song and melody; I give it back to him’. In 1828 he was ordained as asst Lutheran pastor at Sudwalde nr Hoya. After 9 years he became the pastor at nearby Wechold, and a decade later a superintendent successively at Wittingen, Peine and briefly at Burgdorf where he died at his desk very suddenly. He published 2 parts of the Psalter und Harfe in 1833 and 1843, and these volumes achieved nationwide popularity. They are highly praised in Julian, while being very personal in style and considered by some to be better suited to private use. No.928.

b Young, NSW, Australia 1914, d 1993. Geelong CofE Grammar Sch and the Univ of Melbourne. Coming to England in the 1930s, she worked in London with a group from the Society of Friends, assisting Jewish people and others to escape from Nazi Germany. In 1939 she married the Australian poet, naval officer and (later) counter-espionage intelligence officer Michael Thwaites (1915-2005); they returned to Australia with their 4 children in 1947, to live in Canberra where she joined the Anglican parish ch. Together they wrote the hymn ‘For Australia’, sung at the 1988 bicentennial celebration at the Sydney Opera House. Her own work, original or translated, appears in the Australian hymn-book known in the UK as With One Voice (1979), Together in Song (Australian Hymn Bk II, 1999), and in HTC, Hymns and Psalms (1983) and other books. No.928.