Loved with everlasting love

At every level of writing, some hymns stand out because they say what no other hymn does. Mainly for its 2nd stz, though with partial parallels at 663 and 738, George W Robinson’s text here falls into this category; some have found its words unjustifiably exclusive, but they resonate with the experience of too many Christians to be lightly set aside. They testify that to find the glory of God’s Son is also to find the beauty of God’s creation. Henry Martyn (quoted by Millar Patrick and others) wrote in his diary, ‘Since I have known God in a saving manner, painting, poetry and music have had charms unknown to me before’. Nearly 2 centuries later Charles Colson said and wrote something similar (Born Again, 1976, ch10). Even more important, however, is the hymn’s foundation in Jeremiah 31:3, ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love’ (a phrase much treasured by Wesley; eg 718), and its crowning affirmation from the Song of Songs in the final lines of each stz. It was published in Sacred Songs for Missions, Prayer and Praise Meeting in 1876, and in the precursor to the ‘Keswick’ books, the 1890 Hymns of Consecration and Faith. It is sometimes given the title ‘I am his’. 1.6 formerly had ‘transport’; 2.2, ‘sweeter’ and 2.5, ‘birds with gladder songs o’erflow’; 3.1,3, ‘… only his … Ah, with what a rest of bliss.’

The tune EVERLASTING LOVE has been virtually inseparable from these words since James Mountain, its composer, published it with them in the 1876 book which he edited. Linda Mawson has arranged the music for Praise! Paul Wigmore also wrote a text in 1992, Everlasting Father, known as ‘Everlasting love’ from its refrain, but John Dankworth’s tune for that is CHILDREN.

b Cork 1838, d Southampton, Hants 1877. Trinity Coll, Dublin; New Coll (St John’s Wood), N London. He was ordained to minister in the Congregational church, first as co-pastor at York St Chapel, Dublin; then successively at St John’s Wood (then in Middx); Dudley, W Midlands; and Union St Chapel in Brighton, Sussex. His 3 vols of verse, published during his relatively short life, were Iona and other Sonnets (1868), Loveland (1870) and Songs in God’s World (1872). His most acclaimed hymn has been widely loved and sung by evangelicals but littleknown elsewhere; at least 2 others appeared in 19th-c Congregational collections. No.715.