Hymn Of The Week: September 21, 2020, Part 3 of 3

Hymn of the Week: 

Brethren, We Have Met to Worship
Glory to God #396

Text George Atkins/Askins 1819
Music Columbian Harmony

Brethren, We Have Met to Worship
Askins or Atkins?

Brethren, we have met to worship and adore the Lord our God.
Will you pray with all your pow-er while we try to preach the word?
All is vain un-less the Spirit of the Holy One comes down.
Breth-ren pray and ho-ly man-na will be showe-ered all a- round.

Sis-ters, will you come and help us? Mo-ses' sis-ter aid-ed him.
Will you help the trem-bling mourn-ers who are strug-gling hard with sin?
Tell them all about the Sa-vior. Tell them that he will be found.
Sis-ters, pray, and ho-ly man-na will be show-ered all a-round.

Is there here a trem-bling jail-er, seek-ing grace and filled with fears?
Is there here a weep-ing Mar-y pour-ing forth a flood of tears?
Breth-ren, join your cries to help them; sis-ters, let your prayers a-bound!
Pray, o pray that ho-ly man-na will be scat-tered all a-round.

Let us love our God su-preme-ly; let us love each oth-er too.
Let us love and pray for sin-ners till our God makes all things new.
Christ will call us home to heav-en; at his table we'll sit down.
Christ will gird him-self and serve us with sweet man-na all a-round.

 The tune HOLY MANNA, which is part of the genre of American folk tunes, has had a popular and persistent presence in hymnals over the years. While “Brethren, We Have Met to Worship” is the single most prevalent text paired with this tune, according to www.Hymnary.org, the tune appears with at least 45 different hymn texts, including several written recently. This may be attributed to at least two things: first, there has been a resurgence of the use of tunes from the shape-note tune book tradition of the nineteenth century because of their sing-ability due to their 5 note or pentatonic tunes and a repetitive melodic structure of AABA or AABA’, three out of four lines being identical. Both features make these melodies easier to learn.

Hymnologists Paul Westermeyer and David Music describe the origins and qualities of these melodies:

The melodies of American folk hymns appear to have been derived mainly from secular folk songs originating in the British Isles. These songs were brought to America by British settlers, but during the Great Awakening of the early eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the melodies were adapted for use with sacred texts. While the melodies might be characterized as British in origin, the forms and uses to which they

were put in America differed considerably from those of the mother country (Music and Westermeyer, 36).

This tune is attributed to William Moore (19th cent.), of which virtually nothing is known, and was first published in The Columbian Harmony (Cincinnati, 1825). It is difficult to know if Moore was the true composer.

The humble and somewhat obscure origins of this hymn (text and tune) belie a complex web of cultural, social, and theological connections. “Brethren, We Have Met to Worship” is a worthy artifact of American spiritualty that deserves to be part of our living repertoire.

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING

“Appalachia’s Lost Hymn: And Why Churches Should Still be Singing It!” Appalachian Magazine (October 18, 2017, n.p.).

George Askin, Obituary. Provided in correspondence with Richard Hulan, (29 May 2019).

Carl P. Daw, Jr., Glory to God: A Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2016).