O Lord of heaven and earth and sea

This hymn by Christopher Wordsworth moves grandly and spaciously from ‘General Thanksgiving’ mode, in gratitude for temporal and spiritual blessings, into a searching reminder of our consequent responsibilities. This leads some editors to place it in sections variously labelled ‘Almsgiving’, ‘Stewardship’ or ‘Harvest’. The original 9 stzs appeared in 1863 in the 3rd edn of the author’s The Holy Year: or Hymns for Sundays and Holy-days. And other occasions. He was then vicar of Stanford-in-the-vale-cum-Goosey near Faringdon, Oxon. It was headed ‘Charitable Collections: Offertory’. He had written it on first arriving there, when perceiving that many people came to church primarily for the handouts of coal, clothing and blankets. He apparently included this hymn once a month until attitudes improved. The omitted stz (originally the 8th) read ‘Whatever, Lord, we lend to thee/ repaid a thousandfold will be;/ then gladly we will lend to thee/ who givest all.’ The author agreed several changes for A&M in 1868; those made here are adopted mainly from HTC. Stz 5 shows most variation, avoiding the rhymes dower/power/shower. 2.1 originally had ‘vernal air’ and 4.3 ‘blessed One’. 1 Chronicles 29:14 and Romans 8:32 are among many biblical references.

With the music edition of the Holy Year (1865) came John B Dykes’ tune ALMSGIVING, having been composed at Durham for these words and almost invariably now used with them. Its final line is not always sung as printed.

b Lambeth, S London (Surrey) 1807, d Harewood, Yorkshire 1885. A nephew of William W (whose brief biography he was later to write), he lost his mother before he was 7; Winchester Coll and Trinity Coll Cambridge (BA 1830, maths and classics), where he was described as ‘brilliant’, possibly the best Gk scholar of his generation, and won numerous prizes. He was a keen sportsman; travelled in Italy and Greece in 1832 and was ordained in the following year. He was a Fellow of Trinity, Lecturer in Classics, and in 1836 Public Orator of the Univ. In that year he became Headmaster of Harrow Sch where he proved a reforming influence, he gained BD and Hon DD in 1839; becoming a Canon of Westminster from 1844. From 1850 to 1868 he was Vicar of Stanford-in-the-Vale-cum-Goosey, Berks, during which time he again toured Italy (1862) and also gave many academic lectures. He was then Bishop of Lincoln from 1869 for 16 years until resigning through illness a month before his death. A distinguished but stern-looking bust of him currently adorns the Lincoln Cathedral Library.

Bp Wordsworth He was a prolific author who wrote a commentary on the whole Bible, in stages between 1856 and 1870, a year in which he issued Prayers in Time of War; his many other books included (in 1862) The Holy Year: Hymns for every Season. He believed that hymns should use ‘we’ rather than ‘I’, and that ‘it is the first duty of a hymn to teach sound doctrine, and thence to save souls’; he was critical of much earlier hymnody. John Ellerton praised his humble and loving character while calling his verse plain, sometimes unpoetic, but with a charm which makes us ‘forget its homeliness’; J H Overton (in Julian) went into some detail but admits the ‘very unequal merit’ of his hymns, while later critics have been less kind. J R Watson (1997) calls his verse churchy, pedestrian and untheological; but Routley said that it ranged from the trivial to the magnificent. An early biography was written jointly by his daughter Elizabeth Wordsworth (hymnwriter; Head of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford) and J H Oldham. Nos.210, 331, 496, 847.