The church's one foundation

For once, the occasion for the hymn’s writing is not in doubt. This was Samuel John Stone’s classic statement in verse, asserting orthodox Anglicanism in the face of both liberalism and dissent. To judge from the range of hymnals now including it, it is sung as heartily today by liberal nonconformists as by anyone, though sometimes its more stark stz 3 (at least) is omitted. In 1866 Capetown’s Bishop Robert Gray found himself defending the traditional faith in the face of critical theories about the Bible then advanced by Bishop John Colenso of Natal. Although the latter was deposed, replaced and excommunicated by Gray, he won a series of legal battles and many of his views have persisted. S J Stone, then a youthful (27) curate at Windsor and an admirer of Bp Gray on the side of orthodoxy, published his hymn as one of 12 in Lyra Fidelium, illustrating the Apostles’ Creed for the poorer people of his parish, in the way that Mrs Alexander had done a little earlier for the children of hers. His original 7 stzs were headed ‘The Holy Catholic Church; the Communion of Saints’ adding Colossians 1:18. In 1868 it was compressed into 5 stzs for the A&M Appendix, but from 1885 Salisbury Cathedral used a text of twice that length, including an explicit reference to baptism and given in full in Julian. It was taken up with extraordinary enthusiasm by the Lambeth Conference (of bishops) in 1888, and remained a favourite, notably at great occasions, for the next century or so. A notable recent event was in Dec 2006 in Virginia, USA: ‘They came as Episcopalians. They voted. They sang “The church’s one foundation”. They departed as Anglicans’ – having left the theologically and morally apostate American Episcopal Ch to associate with orthodox Anglicans led from Nigeria.

Although 2.4 has been criticised as being not quite what Ephesians 4:5 says (cf 579’s refrain), it is retained in virtually all books as a ‘shorthand’ version impossible to emend; line 6 originally began ‘partakes …’ Stz 3 is further changed, from ‘Though with a scornful wonder/ men see her sore oppressed,/ by schisms rent asunder,/ by heresies distressed,/ yet saints their watch are keeping …’ 4.7 was ‘and the great church’, while stz 5 has its orthodoxy further sharpened here. The original read, ‘Yet she on earth hath union/ with God the Three in One/ and mystic, sweet communion/ with those whose rest is won:/ O happy ones and holy!/ Lord, give us grace that we,/ like them, the meek and lowly,/ on high may dwell with thee.’ The version revised for Praise! applies ‘union’ to all the saints while reserving ‘communion’ to their relationship with God (a change followed by CH in 2004); otherwise the central thought remains the same. The great theme of the whole (as in the derivative 573) remains 1 Corinthians 3:11 with Ephesians 5:2,25.

Samuel Sebastian Wesley composed AURELIA for Jerusalem the golden (971); his wife named it from the Lat ‘aurum’=gold. He wrote the tune in his Winchester home in 1864, calling the family in from the garden (‘Wesley’s Wilderness’) to sing it around the piano one Sunday afternoon. In 1865/72 it appeared in Charles Kemble’s A Selection of Psalms and Hymns arranged for the Public Services of the Church of England; it was then chosen for a grand service at St Paul’s Cathedral, this time to Stone’s hymn with which it has been associated ever since. Against the criticisms of such as Dr Henry Gauntlett, it achieved enormous success; G K Chesterton regarded it as the archetypal English hymn tune. It is set (as more commonly) in the key of E flat at 630.

b Whitmore, Staffs 1839, d at The Charterhouse, Finsbury, N London 1900. Charterhouse Sch and Pembroke Coll, Oxford (BA, MA). He was ordained in 1862, to be curate at Windsor, then in 1870 joined his father William at St Paul’s Haggerston, succeeding him as incumbent from 1874 until 1890 when he moved to All-Hallows-on-the-Wall, in the City of London. He was concerned there for the hundreds of girls who travelled to the city on cheap early-morning fares, and then walked the streets until the offices opened. His church became a temporary haven for many of them, and he prepared some for Confirmation. Of the 50 or so hymns he wrote, one proved of enduring value—see notes to 577. 10 of them featured in various edns of Hymns A&M, on whose committee he served. The collections he compiled were published in 1866 (Lyra Fidelium, including 12 hymns based on the Apostles’ Creed), 1872, 1875 (Sonnets of the Christian Year) and 1886. His poems and hymns, some of which are marked by a wistful yearning or even melancholy, were posthumously edited, with a memoir, by F G Ellerton, Vicar of Ellesmere. They include the remarkable hymn of assurance (in spite of its opening), Weary of earth, and laden with my sin; the missionary challenge of Through midnight gloom from Macedon; and the spiritual battle-cry of ‘Round the sacred city gather/ Egypt, Edom, Babylon;/ all the warring hosts of error, sworn against her, move as one…’. ‘Dogmatic’ and ‘hopeful’ are two adjectives used by Julian, where Stone’s hymns are said to ‘present a pleasing variety’, and in spite of abrupt antitheses and limited vocabulary, to show ‘a masterly condensation of Scripture facts and of Church teaching given tersely and with great vigour’. No.577.