Hymns, Writers and their Stories

Throughout my life I have used hymns to help me with my Christian life. (I have a good example in Jesus himself who is recorded on the night of His betrayal as first singing a hymn with His disciples before going out. - Matthew's Gospel)

If anyone knows me, they will know I like to get away in my caravan and one of the places my wife and I like going most is Scarborough. It may not seem exotic but we were recommended it by Bernard and Jean Leese (two members of our church) and we have a great time when we go.

You may think what has Scarborough to do with hymns? It will all become clear in a minute. One day I was reading my hymnbook and I read 2 hymns next to each other under the section of  ‘Christian life – Service and influence’ and noticed that they were by the same author. I also realised that the mood and the sentiment drastically changed in the hymns.

The first hymn went like this: -

Arm-arm thee for the fight
Cast useless loads away
Watch through the darkest hours of night
Toil through the hottest day
To labour and to love
To pardon and endure
To lift thy heart to God above,
And keep thy conscience pure

A hymn full of fight and purpose. - But author's very next hymn started like this: -

I hoped that with the brave and strong
My portioned task might lie
To toil amid the busy throng with purpose pure and high:
But God has fixed another part
And He has fixed it well;
I said so with a breaking heart
When first this trouble fell

Well what was this trouble that had so changed the hymn writer’s resolve? This is where Scarborough comes in. In the graveyard of St Mary's church in Scarborough is the grave of the author - Anne Bronte, one of the famous Bronte sisters of Wuthering Heights fame. Anne had written several hymns and three of these are in the old Methodist hymnbook. She was dying, she was still just a young woman and she had consumption. She had gone to Scarborough to try and recuperate, but there was little hope and she must of known it. I then realised the first hymn must have been written when she was young and healthy and looking forward to serving the Lord in some great way. The second hymn must have been written after the start of her illness.

But this is the inspiring part the 2nd and 3rd verses of the second hymn go like this: -

Verse 2:

These weary hours will not be lost,
These days of misery,
These nights of darkness, tempest tossed,
Can I but turn to Thee,
With secret labour to sustain
In patience every blow,
To gather fortitude from pain,
And holiness from woe.
Verse 3:
If Thou should’st bring me back to life,
More humble I should be,
More wise, more strengthened for the strife,
More apt to lean on Thee;
Should death be standing at the gate,
Thus should I keep my vow:
But, Lord, whatever be my fate,
O let me serve Thee now. Amen

Such stirring words meaning so much more when the circumstances behind the hymn are known.

Contacts: -
maria.s.carter@ntlworld.com or
gordon.j.carter@ntlworld.com