Hymn of the Week: July 28, 2024
I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord
Glory to God: 310
Text: Timothy Dwight, 1800
Music: The Universal Psalmodist, 1763;
adapt. Aaron Williams, 1770
I love thy kingdom, Lord,
the house of thine abode,
the church our blest Redeemer saved
with his own precious blood.
I love thy church, O God.
Her walls before thee stand,
dear as the apple of thine eye,
and graven on thy hand.
For her my tears shall fall;
for her my prayers ascend;
to her my cares and toils be given,
till toils and cares shall end.
Beyond my highest joy
I prize her heavenly ways:
her sweet communion, solemn vows,
her hymns of love and praise.
Sure as thy truth shall last,
to Zion shall be given
the brightest glories earth can yield,
and brighter bliss of heaven.
“I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord” (1801)
is perhaps the earliest hymn still currently used that was composed by a citizen of the United States. The author, Timothy Dwight (1752-1817), was one of the outstanding leaders of his time.
Dwight, Timothy, D.D.
This is the most important name in early American hymnology, as it is also one of the most illustrious in American literature and education. He was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, May 14, 1752, a grandson of the famous minister, Jonathan Edwards, and graduated from Yale College, in 1769; he was a tutor there from 1771 to 1777. He then became for a short time a chaplain in the United States Army, but passed on in 1783 to Fairfield, Connecticut, where he held a pastorate, and taught in an Academy, till his appointment, in 1795, as President of Yale College. His works are well-known and need no enumeration. He died at New Haven, on Jan. 11, 1817. In 1797 the General Association of Connecticut, dissatisfied with Joel Barlow's 1785 revision of Watts, requested Dwight to do the work de novo. This he did liberally (furnishing in some instances) several paraphrases of the same psalm, and adding a selection of hymns, mainly from Watts. The book appeared as—
"The Psalms of David, &c.... By I. Watts, D.D. A New Edition in which the Psalms omitted by Dr. Watts are versified, local passages are altered, and a number of Psalms are versified anew in proper metres. By Timothy Dwight, D.D., &c….To the Psalms is added a Selection of Hymns," 1800.
Dwight's lyrics are all professedly psalms, but they are by no means literal versions. His original compositions number 33. Of these many are still in common use, the most important being:—
Blest be the Lord, Who Heard my Prayer. Psalm xxviii. This is the second part of Psalm xxviii., in 5 stanzas of 4 lines. It is in the English New Congregational Hymn Book, 1859.
I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord. Psalm cxxxvii. This is version three of Ps. 137, in 8 stanzas of 4 lines, and is in extensive use at the present time throughout the States. It is also included in many English, Irish, and Scottish collections, sometimes in the original form, as in Alford's Year of Praise, 1867; again as, "I love Thy Church, O God," which opens with the second stanza, as in the Scottish Evangelical Union Hymnal, 1878, in 3 stanzas, and "We love Thy kingdom, Lord," in the Irish Church Hymnal, 1873. In Cleveland's Lyra Sacra Americana six stanzas only are given from the original.
