I greet my sure Redeemer and my King

Je te salue, mon certain Rédempteur; this at least was the original French which Elizabeth L Smith translated in New York in 1868 as I greet thee, who my sure Redeemer art, but much of its precise history remains uncertain. It is included as a ‘Salutation to Jesus Christ’ in the 1545 Strasbourg edn of Marot’s Psalms, but ‘discovered’ in an old German prayer-book and published in an edition of John Calvin’s works—hence the occasional ascription to him. The translation (in eight 8-line stzs) was published in Christ in Song (New York 1869, London 1870), but Prof Smith’s text has been much altered by other hands, and Jean Gernier has been suggested as a likelier author than Calvin. The changes here are closest to the text in CH, except for removing ‘our whole being sway’ (stz 2); some books have ‘every trying hour’ in stz 3, and a final line ‘that in thy strength we evermore endure’.

Louis Bourgeois’ tune TOULON is at least of the right genre, originating in the 1551 Geneva Psalter and set to a version of Psalm 124. The Scots took the tune up in 1564, to William Whittingham’s words, but it is generally found today, if at all, set to this hymn.

b Pittsfield, Mass [?Dartmouth], USA 1817, d 1898. The daughter of Dr W Allen, president of Dartmouth Univ; in 1943 she married Dr H Boynton Smith, Prof at New York’s Union Theological Seminary. Some of her translations of French and German hymns were published in Christ in Song, compiled by Dr Philip Schaff (New York 1869, London 1870). Nos.301*, 817*.

A book of Psalm versions and other metrical paraphrases published in a period of 2 or 3 decades of great industry, notably in London and Geneva. No.301.