Judge eternal, throned in splendour

Though by some scale of measurement a ‘modern’ hymn, not least in its style and subject-matter, Henry Scott Holland’s words have already attained classic status. He wrote them in 1902, publishing the text in The Commonwealth, the Christian social magazine which he edited. He had some share also in the editing of the 1906 EH (though this is not noted in the Acknowledgements), the first hymnal of many to include it. This appears to be the only hymn he wrote, and many would regard it as surpassing and certainly outliving his various prose works. The version adopted here includes changes at 1.5–6 (from ‘solace all … / with the healing …’; HTC has ‘comfort all …’); stz 2 is from the Jubilate text (originally ‘Still the weary folk are pining/ … crowded clangour/ and the homesteads …’). 3.3 was ‘… faint and hungry heathen, changed to ‘cheer the faint and feed the hungry’ in the 1965 Anglican Hymn Book and elsewhere; 3.5 is also an AHB amendment, from ‘… this empire’, adopted by HTC and others.

From EH onwards the words have been set to the 18th-c Welsh tune RHUDDLAN; see 419.

b Underdown, Ledbury, Herefords 1847, d Oxford 1918. Eton Coll; Balliol Coll Oxford (BA, MA); subsequently Senr Student and Tutor of Christ Ch, 1870–84. Ordained (CofE) 1872; Select Preacher to Oxford Univ, 1879–80 and 1894–96. He was a Canon of St Paul’s, London from 1884 to 1910, and Regius Prof of Divinity at Oxford from then until his death. In 1889 he contributed the opening essay (on ‘Faith’) to the influential liberal anthology Lux Mundi, but also assisted in editing Lyra Apostolica, the traditional ‘catholic’ EH in 1906 and the New Cathedral Psalter. With others, he was a founder of the Christian Social Union (see also notes to P Dearmer), and he edited the Commonwealth journal 1895 to 1912, and wrote several books including some personal autobiographical sketches, volumes of sermons, and in 1887 Creed and Character. As with other liberal authors, his frequently independent, eccentric or unevangelical views have not prevented lovers of the Gospel from appreciating his keen social conscience, or from singing his finest hymn which features in several evangelical books and many others. He was awarded DD by Aberdeen, 1903. No.950.