Sounding ChildhoodMain Menu30 Selections from the Top Ranking Hymns for ChildrenAlphabetical Index of Hymn TitlesScoresRecordingsTimelineCredits, 2015 Recording & WebsiteCredits, Permissions and CopyrightWorks CitedRehearsal VideosPart 2--Songs for School and PlayPart 3--Bands of Mercy SongsAlisa Clapp-ItnyreAlisa Clapp-Itnyre ea81b58f96dc50ac6f0312cb8dfd4bbc7d5bfddcSOUNDING VICTORIAN Project 2016
From Greenland’s icy mountains
12017-06-23T17:19:32+00:00Donal Hegartyd91ac6951fc09687a65f62d6a62eb9d3c37c260311Score from: The Methodist Sunday-School Hymn and Tune-Book. London: Wesleyan Methodist Sunday School Union, 1879. Print.plain2017-06-23T17:19:32+00:00Donal Hegartyd91ac6951fc09687a65f62d6a62eb9d3c37c2603
12017-06-23T18:13:53+00:00From Greenland’s icy mountains3plain2017-07-13T03:51:43+00:00Reginald Heber’s “From Greenland’s icy mountains” is a rallying missionary hymn: as Charles Nutter and Wilbur Tillett say of it, “There are many missionary hymns, but this is universally known at the missionary hymn (Hymns and Hymn Writers 343) and Robert Guy McCutchan wishes that other hymn-writers “had been similarly inspired” (Our Hymnody 468). It was found 41% of all children’s hymn books I studied as well. In 1819, Heber was asked to write a hymn for his father-in-law, the Vicar of Wrexham, who was to preach at a meeting of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel of Foreign Parts; Heber wrote these four verses in a matter of minutes and they were sung the next day, being published in The Christian Observer (1823). The tune, “Missionary Hymn,” was written by Lowell Mason especially for the hymn; “Albion Chapel” by Haydn is used in the Juvenile Harmonist, 1843. In 7’s and 6’s and iambic trimester (8 lines in ABABCDCD), the hymn depicts luscious locations (beyond the title): India’s “coral strand,” Africa’s “sunny fountains,” and “spicy breezes” over Ceylon’s isle. The problem is that the people of these countries are “vile” and are “heathens” who in their blindness bow “down to wood and stone.” The smug reply, in the third verse, is for those “lighted/ With wisdom” and “benighted” to rally the “joyful sound” until “earth’s remotest nation/ Has learned Messiah’s name.” It represents the Christian commitment of the nineteenth century to convert those less “enlightened” and has, for obvious reasons, lost its currency.
More discussion of this hymn can be found in Chapter 5, British Hymn Books for Children.
