How good, Lord, to be here!

The theologian and biblical commentator Joseph Armitage Robinson has provided here one of the simplest hymns on the Transfiguration of Christ, the first of 3 included in the present book. Yet its simplicity encompasses many elements from the brief gospel event it describes, including the telling final line; the reference to ‘the night’ in line 2 is an assumption from the disciples’ sleepiness. It was written (as ’Tis good, Lord, to be here) at Cambridge on the festival itself (6 Aug) in 1888, the year in which the author, then Dean of Christ’s College, became Vicar of All Saints’ church and Professor of Divinity. Apparently the only hymn he wrote, it was taken up by the 1904 A&M and proved one of the comparatively few successful innovations in that edn. Except for the older pronouns, now dropped from many books, the only change is the dropping of ‘We fain …’ from 4.3.

Many tunes including CARLISLE and VENICE (198, 858) have been set to the words; AUGUSTINE (602) is another option, but the first choice here is William H Walter’s FESTAL SONG. This rarely-used Victorian tune is matched in the Anglican Hymn Book with My times are in thy hand.

b Keynsham, Som 1858, d Upton Noble, Shepton Mallett, Som 1933. Christ’s Coll Cambridge (BA/MA); Fellow of the College 1881–1899; BD 1891, DD 1896. He was ordained (CofE) in 1881 and was briefly chaplain to Bp Lightfoot of Durham 1883–84; then Dean of Christ’s Coll 1884–90, overlapping with a period as Curate of Gt St Mary’s Cambridge 1888–92. In 1893 he was appointed Prof of Divinity, before moving to London in 1899. There he became Rector of St Margaret’s Westminster 1899–1900, then Dean of Westminster from 1902 to 1911 when he became Dean of Wells, Som. He was a NT scholar and patristic expert who originated and edited the first of the Cambridge Texts and Studies which began in 1891, and in 1903 wrote a landmark and conservative commentary on Ephesians, which he calls ‘the crown of St Paul’s writings’. On Eph 5:19 he suggests that ‘the implied contrast with the revelry of drunkenness makes it plain that in speaking of Christian psalmody the Apostle is not primarily referring to public worship, but to social gatherings in which a common meal was accompanied by sacred song’. Other writings among his 26 books included work on post-apostolic texts, a defence of the historicity of the Gospel according to John (1929) and historical studies on church leaders in Wells and Worcester. Like others in this catalogue, he is, says Julian, ‘only slightly associated with hymnology’; but see the Introduction to this volume. No.391.