The Lion of Judah is Jesus, the Lamb

While not claiming to be in the first rank of hymns (though one 20th-c church leader counted it his favourite), With harps and with vials there stand(s) a great throng has remained popular among evangelicals and generally singable since Ira D Sankey chose it for his (late-19th-c) Sacred Songs and Solos. It is the work of British-born Arthur T Pierson, headed ‘The New Song’ on its first appearance. In latter years CH and GH include it, as does MP (while persisting, like GH, with the misspelt or misunderstood ‘viols’). The original or traditional text, however, brings problems with it. The ‘great throng’ introduced in the opening line actually consists in Revelation 5:8ff (the primary location of the ‘new song’) of 24 elders and possibly four beasts. The vials, or bowls, are filled either with prayers or with wrath (Revelation 16) and in neither case are they in the possession of the multitude in ch 14. It seemed necessary, then, to revise as well as re-examine the text, so this version with its alternating refrain was drafted by Christopher Idle and finalised with help from the Praise! editorial group. The need of a strong opening was felt, and Revelation 5:5–6 provides the imagery, with other Messianic titles from the same book. Stz 2 retains the familiar objects (in the proper hands) without losing the ‘great throng’. The result is a hymn which includes more Scripture but keeps the basic feel of Pierson’s original. His lines are recognisably kept at 3.1–3, 4.1–2, and stz 5; entirely new are the 1st and last stzs, but except in stz 1 the final ‘Amens’, the decisively repeated ending to each original chorus, are retained. An earlier treatment of the same Scripture is Joseph Swain’s We long for that fair morning’s light, with ‘To him that loved us…To him that lives, but once was slain, be honour…’ etc.

Philip P Bliss’s tune, which has never been challenged, was marked ‘Allegretto’ (a fairly brisk tempo) on its first appearance in ‘Sankey’ with these words. It has been called VIOLA (a further confusion of vials and viols?) but is more generally known as NEW SONG.

b New York, USA 1837, d 1911. (His second Christian name was that of the N American hymnwriting evangelist William Tappan, 1794–1849.) Hamilton Coll, NY, and Union Theol Seminary. Ordained in the Presbyterian ch at 23, he held a series of pastoral appointments in New York state, Detroit, Indianapolis and Philadelphia (Penns). While at this last he began a savings scheme which grew into the city’s first Penny Savings Bank. Following these ministries he launched into his evangelistic travels while also continuing a prolific teaching and writing career. In 1891 he came to London, briefly succeeding C H Spurgeon (qv) as Pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, 1891–93. Not at that time but a few years later, at the age of 59, he was persuaded of his need of believer’s baptism by immersion; on submitting to this ordinance he resigned from the presbytery of Philadelphia. He spoke at the Keswick Convention, then a rare American voice in that Lakeland setting. He also promoted the Student Volunteer Movement which from 1886 onwards appealed for recruits for overseas mission—a role partly taken over later by IVF/UCCF. His theology leaned towards dispensationalism, the division of biblical and church history into distinct periods each with its own principles, and he advised on what became known as ‘The Scofield Bible’. In periodicals and books he left a considerable body of writing; he heard Geo Müller preach at Bristol in the latter’s 95th year (1896), and 3 years later wrote a biography George Müller of Bristol and his Witness to a Prayer Hearing God. But among fellow-evangelicals and Pentecostals (as in Sankey) two of his hymns have proved the most memorable items. Nos.706, 972*.