Hymn of the Week: January 12, 2021
Hymn of the Week:
If Thou But Trust in God to Guide Thee
Hymn 816 in Glory to God
Text and Music by Georg Neumark 1641
Translation by Catherine Winkworth, 1855
If Thou But Trust in God to Guide Thee
1
If thou but trust in God to guide thee,
With hopeful heart through all thy ways,
God will give strength, whate'er betide thee,
And bear thee through the evil days.
Who trusts in God's unchanging love
Builds on the rock that nought can move.
2
Only be still, and wait God's leisure
In cheerful hope, with heart content
To take whate'er thy Keeper's pleasure
And all-discerning love hath sent;
No doubt our inmost wants are clear
To One who holds us always dear.
3
Sing, pray, and swerve not from God's ways,
But do thine own part faithfully;
Trust the rich promises of grace,
So shall they be fulfilled in thee.
God never yet forsook at need
The soul secured by trust indeed.
Great translators can make a difference in how future generations will use hymns. Nineteenth-century England had two translators to which today’s hymn singers owe much. What John Mason Neale (1818-1866) was to the translation of Latin and Greek hymns in the mid-nineteenth century, so was Catherine Winkworth (1827-1878) to the promulgation of German hymnody in English toward the century’s end. At a time when increasing interest in the theology of continental Europe meant the Protestant church in Britain was taking an interest in the Pietism of Germany, Winkworth sought to explore the hymn texts of what scholar and hymn-writer Erik Routley called “the real birthplace of congregational hymnody.” Originally, Winkworth undertook the translation of nearly 400 texts by some 170 authors as a personal devotional exercise, revealing her expert skill in the manipulation of language. Her second published volume of texts, Lyra Germanica: Second Series: The Christian Life (1858), contained a single text by poet Georg Neumark, “If Thou But Suffer God to Guide Thee.”
Neumark (1621-1681) first published in 1657 in Jena his original text, “Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten,” in his Fortgepflantzter musikalisch-poetischer Lustwald. It contained seven stanzas of six lines, set to an original g-minor tune in a dance-like triple meter. He composed it after securing a tutoring post at Kiel, a point of much relief for him after a period of misfortune and instability. This Trostlied or “song of consolation” admonishes Christians to put their faith wholly in God. The hymn draws on parts of Psalm 55 as well as 1 Peter 3:8-15, the epistle for the fifth Sunday after Trinity, which contains instructions to honor life and seek peace. This text is especially poignant in the context of the atrocities and violence of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), which would have still been fresh in the minds of the singers. The tune itself has had its own journey. The haunting melody has been used in various contexts by artists from J.S. Bach (1685-1750) to Lloyd Pfautsch (1921-2003).
Neumark’s hymn (in Danish) is also featured in the 1987 Academy Award-winning Danish film Babettes Gœstebud (Babette’s Feast), and thus has traveled, according to hymnologist Lawrence Lohr, “from Jena in Germany to Oscar night in Hollywood.” Winkworth is known for her sensitivity to the original German in her translations. She said, “a hymn that sounds popular and homelike in its own language must sound so in ours if it is to be really available for devotional purposes, and it seems to me allowable for this object to make such alterations in the meter as lie in the different nature of the language.”
Today’s hymn history comes to us from Ms. Donaldson who is a student of Dr. Michael Hawn, the well-known hymn scholar, who teaches at the Perkins School of Theology.
Today’s hymn tune can be heard in the reed voice. Each four-bar phrase is broken up by Michael Costello in this arrangement with a lovely countermelody. Even as I type this, the pipe organ is being taken apart to be stored in the music room until after construction.
