The Son of God rides out to war

Reginald Heber struck a highly distinctive note in his stirring hymn about Stephen the first Christian martyr, The Son of God goes forth to war. Originally a text of eight 4-line stzs, it was intended for St Stephen’s Day (26 Dec) and published posthumously with his other hymns in 1827. As it happens, this totally different text from the preceding 864 has this also in common, that too much now needs explaining when the original words are used. ‘The martyr first …’ (2.1) is not named, any more than ‘Judah’s seer’ in Mant’s original of 193 from 10 years later; at that time it did not seem appropriate to use the proper names, but a more indirect reference was preferred. Even 50 years ago, lines like ‘Who follows in their train?’ and ‘the matron and the maid’ were not sung without either a smile or a puzzled frown. With this in view, at Ealing in 1981 Michael Saward produced so radical a revision that it seemed more honest to count it a different hymn, while acknowledging its source from (then) 150 years earlier. ‘Matrons, maids and trains’, he writes, ‘all mean something quite different to the new century, and the updated words … were deliberately intended to save the powerful and unchanging theme of the challenge of martyrdom for a new generation who might otherwise dismiss the language as merely quaint and irrelevant.’ The 20th c was the century of martyrdom more than any previous one; the 21st began, notably in Asia and Africa, where the 20th left off. The ultimate source of the text is Acts 7:54–60, with echoes (as in Heber, in order) of Revelation 6:2, Luke 23:34, Acts 2, Hebrews 11 and Revelation 7.

The music editors have here yielded to the temptation to use William H Ferguson’s stirring tune LADYWELL for a third time in this book; see 90 for notes, and 574 for a different arrangement in the same key. Another option in use is ELLACOMBE at 861, while ST ANNE (260) has sometimes accompanied Heber’s original words.

HEBER, Reginald, b Malpas Rectory, Cheshire 1783, d Trichinopoly, India 1826. Whitchurch Grammar Sch, Shrops, and private tuition at Neasden, Middlesex; Brasenose Coll Oxford; Newdigate Prize (1803) for his poem Palestine. John Ellerton, who became familiar with Heber’s native Cheshire 70 years later, says that he almost ‘took Oxford by storm…and he never lost a friend save by death’. In 1805 he became a Fellow of All Souls; after travels in Germany and Russia with John Thornton he was ordained to succeed his father (who held 2 livings several miles apart) as Rector of Hodnet in 1807, where he remained for 16 years. Rowland Hill (qv) was for a time a somewhat fiery and eccentric neighbour. Heber admired Newton and Cowper’s Olney Hymns and his own texts appeared in the firmly evangelical journal The Christian Observer from 1811; they were signed only ‘D.R.’, the final letters of his two names. Heber had begun to base new texts on the Sunday Epistle and Gospel, to be sung (daringly then!) after the sermon and creed, as part of an integrated approach within the service. His work was refused official authorisation, but he begged texts from poets such as Scott, Southey and Milman, and revived older material, for an influential collection published after his death (1827) including 57 of his own hymns written at Hodnet: Hymns written and adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the Year. 11 of these are found in EH, as also in the 1950 A&M Revised. Remarkably for his time, a national hymn includes, ‘From foes that would the land devour,/ from guilty pride and lust of power…’.

Heber was a reviewer, Bampton lecturer (1815), Lincoln’s Inn preacher (1822), biographer and editor of the complete works of Jeremy Taylor (1822), and for relaxation he loved sketching. From a distance he was attracted by India, but when offered the bishopric of Calcutta (with a diocese which then included Australia) he twice refused. In 1823, against his friends’ advice, he finally accepted, and began an energetic, gracious and prayerful ministry (as Calcutta’s 2nd bishop). He ordained the first Indian Anglican clergyman, Christian David, and founded the Bishop’s College, Calcutta. He was tireless in his travels, strongly opposed the Muslim treatment of women, but also respected local culture. But his health suffered, and after preaching in Tamil at a Confirmation service at Trichinopoly he suffered a stroke or brain haemorrhage and was found dead in his bath by a servant. His widow Amelia survived him.Julian assesses his writing as embodying purity, grace and reverence rather than scriptural strength or dogmatic force; one of the first was the archetypal From Greenland’s icy mountains (1819, with its famous lines about ‘Ceylon’s isle’), while Tennyson counted Holy, holy, holy as the greatest of all hymns. Some of his stirring missionary hymns are among those currently sung in Nigeria by ‘sending’ churches who have no doubt where the ‘heathen’ and the ‘benighted’ are now largely to be found. Nos.159, 387, 643, 865*.

b Blackheath, SE London 1932; d Switzerland 2015. Eltham Coll; Bristol Univ and Tyndale Hall Bristol (BA); ordained 1956. He ministered in Croydon, Edgware and Liverpool before becoming the C of E’s Radio and TV Officer 1967–72. From 1972 to 1991 he served W London incumbencies in Fulham and Ealing; during the latter he barely survived a vicious attack on himself and his family at the vicarage, by intruders high on drugs. He then became Canon Treasurer of St Paul’s Cathedral from 1991, providing one of the two evangelical voices heard throughout the decade from the cathedral pulpit; some sermons were published in 1997 as These are the Facts (a title from hymn 629). He retired to Wapping, E London, in 2000. He was a Church Commissioner and General Synod member; a prolific writer, speaker and broadcaster on the local and national church, doctrine, mission, liturgy, sexual ethics, baptism and hymnody. His book Signed, Sealed, Delivered: finding the key to the Bible (2004) explores the concept of ‘covenant’ as that key.

From early 1962 onwards he wrote over 100 hymn texts, his first ones including ‘Christ triumphant’ were published in Youth Praise (1966, 1969), followed by several in Psalm Praise (1973) and Hymns for Today’s Church (1982) of which he was words editor. He was a founding Director and later Chairman of Jubilate Hymns, with a leading role in other Jubilate collections including Sing Glory (1999) which features 23 of his hymns. 75 of them were published in 2006, with an introduction and brief notes, in Christ Triumphant and other hymns. In 2009 he initiated and edited Come Celebrate, a unique collection of 291 lesser-known hymn-texts by 20 living authors, 14 of whom are represented in Praise! He said of himself, ‘My style is deliberately punchy and I love to use strong, graphic illustration’. Nos.119D, 162, 166, 249, 291, 446, 525, 592, 629, 635, 656, 849, 865*.