Hymn of the Week: May 3, 2021
Hymn of the Week: My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less
The Solid Rock
Glory to God #353
Music William Batchelder Bradbury 1863
Text Edmund Mote 1864
My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less
The Solid Rock
My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
all other ground is sinking sand,
all other ground is sinking sand.
In ev’ry rough and stormy gale,
my anchor holds within the vale.
When all around my soul gives way,
he then is all my hope and stay.
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
all other ground is sinking sand,
all other ground is sinking sand.
Not earth, nor hell, my soul can move;
I rest upon unchanging love.
I trust his righteous character,
his counsel, promise, and his pow’r.
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
all other ground is sinking sand,
all other ground is sinking sand.
When he shall come with trumpet sound,
oh, may I then in him be found,
dressed in his righteousness alone,
faultless to stand before the throne.
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
all other ground is sinking sand,
all other ground is sinking sand.
Edward Mote (1797-1874) falls into the rare category of hymn writers who grew up without religious training and whose parents were pub owners. He was apprenticed at a young age by his parents to a cabinetmaker but found faith when he heard the preaching of John Hyatt at the Tottenham Court Road Chapel in London at age 15. Living in Southwark near London, he established a successful cabinet-making enterprise and became a Baptist minister in 1852, at 55 years of age. He ministered for 21 years at Strict Baptist Church in Horsham, Sussex. Singing hymns was of great interest to him. The master cabinetmaker became a prolific hymn writer, composing more than 100 hymns. He published his hymns with selections
by others in 1836 in Hymns of Praise, A New Selection of Gospel Hymns. Hymnologists note that this is the first time the now-common term “gospel hymn” appears.
Mote is quoted as saying, “One morning it came into my mind as I went to labour, to write a hymn on the ‘Gracious Experience of a Christian.’ As I went up to Holborn I had the chorus, On Christ the solid Rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. “In the day I had four verses complete and wrote them off... On the Sabbath following... by the fireside [I] composed the last two verses... Brother Rees of Crown Street, Soho, brought out an edition of hymns (1836) and this hymn was in it.” Baptist hymnologist William Reynolds summarizes the rest of the story: “The next Sunday [Mote] visited the home of some fellow church members where the wife was very ill. The husband informed Mote that it was their custom on the Lord’s Day to sing a hymn, read the Bible, and pray together. Mote produced the new hymn from his pocket, and they sang [“The Solid Rock”] together for the first time.”
The “foot-stomping” tune was composed by American gospel song composer, William Bradbury (1816-1868), a fellow Baptist and known for his hymn Softly and Tenderly, for Mote’s text in 1863 and appeared during the American Civil War in Bradbury’s Devotional Hymn and Tune Book (1864).
Enjoy!
Philip
Enjoy members of the Festivo Bell Choir as they ring this timeless hymn!
