We come, O Christ, to you

John 14:6 is as clearly the inspiration for this hymn as for 678; this one has had a missionary dimension from the start. Although (Edith) Margaret Clarkson had loved writing, including songs, as a Canadian teenager (see 353), this her ‘first real hymn’ did not come about until her early 30s, in 1946. C Stacey Woods was then General Secretary of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship in Canada and the United States, equivalent to what is now UCCF in Britain; he asked her ‘to write a hymn which might serve to link the scattered groups of the young movement.’ This, in ‘thee/thou’ form, was the result, introduced by CSW in Toronto that year, at the first of many Inter-Varsity Missionary Conferences (‘Urbana’). It appeared in the 2nd printing (1947) of Hymns, IVCF’s first hymn-book, and ‘caught on slowly’ (EMC). In Britain it became known through Christian Hymns, the student hymnal of 1957, and the 1965 Anglican Hymn Book—in each case her only text in the book. It remained her only hymn in GH and Christian Worship (CH1977 and HTC have none while Sing Glory has 3), and more than most of her writing, has spread around the world to the hymnals of many countries over the past 50 years. Those N American books with a fuller selection rarely omit it.

Like her older British contemporary Albert Bayly (818, 934) but very few others, the author was of a generation of hymnwriters who had begun in ‘thee/thou’ mode but (reluctantly at first) moved to ‘you’ in line with Bible translations and the language of prayer, and eventually of liturgy. Some never relinquished the archaic forms while most younger ones have never used them. This hymn proved a catalyst in the author’s response to such changes. The revision was made in 1984, changing, says the author, ‘as little as possible … It is likely—and I hope—that it will eventually replace the original.’ The only changes involving a rhyme come in stzs 3 (‘… dwells in thee/ eternal Verity’) and 4 (‘… in thee/ and thou in us eternally’). But a 5th stz, originally ‘We worship thee/you, Lord Christ’ is omitted here, as the reference to ‘our youth and strength’ is not always as appropriate as it was in its first context. The author’s 1987 collection A Singing Heart, from which some of her account is quoted, prints both texts.

Of 3 tunes which she recommended, CHRISTCHURCH (164) has been the frequent choice in British books. EASTVIEW was composed by J Vernon Lee at his home in Ditchling, Sussex, for Rejoice, the Lord is King (495) to mark the 80th birthday of his mother, whose home was named Eastview. But it was printed first with 312 and one other text in the 1951 Congregational Praise.

b Melville, Saskatchewan, W Canada 1915; d Shepherd Lodge, Toronto, Canada, 2008 Riverdale Collegiate Institute, Toronto Teachers’ Coll, and Univ of Toronto. A sufferer from arthritis and migraine since childhood, she testified that from her early years ‘God gave me a singing heart’. She discovered the treasures of her church’s hymn-book (St John’s Presbyterian, from age 4) while sitting through 45-minute sermons as a child, and later came to see the vital link between sound teaching and good hymns. At church she responded to the gospel by the age of 10 during a series of meetings based on The Pilgrim’s Progress. She memorised the Westminster Shorter Catechism and learned to love the Scriptures. She also loved to climb the cherry tree in the family’s back yard and sing hymns from the topmost branch; knowing scores of them by heart, she appreciated Watts, Newton, Havergal and the classic hymn-writers. At 12 she learned to play the piano, and wrote her first verses while still at school, some of which were published as hymns and are still in print. When she was 13 the family moved to a church where gospel songs were the main diet; she enjoyed these but preferred ‘real hymns’. In her mid-teens she also discovered the musical classics. At 20 she left home and found a church ‘with good preaching and good hymns’.

After training as a teacher she taught in primary schools in the far north of Ontario for 7 years, then for a further 31 in Toronto, sometimes combating considerable pain before and after surgery. She has published hundreds of poems, features, songs and sketches, and written 17 books in 7 languages (beginning with Let’s Listen to Music, 1944) including work on nature, education, glory, grace, and singleness. Her writing and occasional travelling continued in retirement; other enthusiasms include music, global mission and evangelism, student work, the natural world (especially birds) and her Bible. Her first hymn was not written until she was in her 30s; see no.720 and note. She served on N American hymnal committees, and some 110 of her own hymns written over 6 decades were collected, with autobiographical introduction, in A Singing Heart in 1987, the same year as a Hymn Festival was held in her native Toronto. The UK first recognised her writing in Christian Praise (1957), Hymns of Faith (1964) and the Anglican Hymn Book (1965); 3 texts feature in the 1974 Baptist Praise and Worship, and Praise! has her fullest representation to date. The 2004 CH includes 10; in N America 10 of her original texts feature in The Worshiping Church (1990), 9 in the Mennonite Worship Together (1995) and 7 in Worship and Rejoice (2001). Paul A Richardson chose 2 for his 2005 revision of A Panorama of Christian Hymnody (‘Her hymns express a conservative, evangelical theology in traditional poetic forms’) and also that year she was the only woman author since Fanny Crosby/van Alstyne to feature in Faith Cook’s Hymnwriters and their Hymns. Like Albert Bayly (qv), but few other writers of note, she was of the generation which made the transition from the earlier ‘thou’ language to ‘you’ forms of speech, but she resisted the more radical N American shift towards liberal feminism; she also wrote that ‘True hymn-writers have not sought primarily to write hymns, but to know God’. See also HSB 18.11, July 2008.

On March 17 2008, from her Toronto nursing home, Margaret went to meet the Lord she had served so faithfully and for so long. Although her final years were clouded by dementia, countless believers share her heartfelt prayer: ‘Lead on in sovereign mercy through all life’s troubled ways, till resurrection bodies bring resurrection praise!’ (Praise! no.960).

Nos.250, 257, 329, 353, 383, 512, 538, 720, 762, 798, 848, 960, 961, 1031.