{"id":1880,"date":"2008-11-23T20:48:17","date_gmt":"2008-11-24T01:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/?p=1880"},"modified":"2010-03-25T15:47:26","modified_gmt":"2010-03-25T22:47:26","slug":"hymn-by-hosea-ballou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/?p=1880","title":{"rendered":"Hymn by Hosea Ballou"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hosea Ballou is one of the theological giants of my religious tradition, Unitarian Universalism. Back in 1805, Ballou wrote A Treatise on Atonement<\/em>, still the major exposition of North American Universalism (you can read it online here<\/a>). Unfortunately, Ballou was not what you’d call a great writer. When trying to describe his writing style, the adjective “clunky” comes immediately to mind.<\/p>\n

Because he was a mediocre writer, hardly anyone reads his Treatise<\/em> any more, and hardly anyone bothers to sing any of the hundreds of hymns he wrote. This is unfortunate, because buried in Ballou’s clunky prose is a vision of a universe run by Love, where someday the power of Love is going to make everything turn out well.<\/p>\n

I recently discovered that one of Ballou’s hymns is still in print — not in the current Unitarian Universalist hymnal, but in The Sacred Harp<\/em><\/a>, a songbook widely used by shape-note singers<\/a>. It’s number 411 in The Sacred Harp<\/em>, and it goes like this:<\/p>\n

1. Come, let us raise our voices high,
\nAnd from a sacred song,
\nTo him who rules the earth and sky,
\nAnd does our days prolong.
\nWho through the night gave us to rest,
\nThis morning cheered our eyes;
\nAnd with the thousands of the blest,
\nIn health made us to rise.<\/p>\n

2. Early to God we’ll send our prayer,
\nMake hast to pray and praise,
\nThat he may make our good his care,
\nAnd guide us all our days.
\nAnd when the night of death comes on,
\nAnd we shall end our days,
\nMay his rich grace the theme prolong,
\nOf his eternal praise.<\/p>\n

Hosea Ballou, 1808 (C.M.D.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, I’m not proposing that we include this hymn in the next edition of the Unitarian Universalist hymnal. In The Sacred Harp<\/em> book, Ballou’s hymn is set to a fuguing tune<\/a>, fairly complex music that is far beyond the singing ability of the average American congregation (though it might be fun for a church choir), and the hymn itself is not quite good enough for me to want to go to the trouble of finding another, easier, tune for it. But it’s nice to know that people still do sing this old Universalist hymn, even though most of those who sing it probably have no idea who Hosea Ballou was, or what Universalism might be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hosea Ballou is one of the theological giants of my religious tradition, Unitarian Universalism. Back in 1805, Ballou wrote A Treatise on Atonement, still the major exposition of North American Universalism (you can read it online here). Unfortunately, Ballou was not what you’d call a great writer. When trying to describe his writing style, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[229,131,204],"class_list":["post-1880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberal-religion","tag-hosea-ballou","tag-hymns","tag-universalist-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1880"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6582,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880\/revisions\/6582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}