Copyright Ian Ellis-Jones 2004 - All Rights Reserved.

1. GREAT UNITARIAN SONGWRITERS
A Revised Precis of an Address Delivered by
IAN ELLIS-JONES
at the Sydney Unitarian Church on 16 May 2004
It has been estimated that over 5,000,000 hymns have been written in the
history of the Church. Hymn singing has been a vital part of the Church for
several centuries. Many great hymns and songs, that have found their way
into the hymnbooks of all denominations, were written by Unitarians. Here,
very briefly, are the stories of twelve great Unitarian songwriters and a little
about some of their more important hymns and songs.
Robert Robinson (1735-1790)
Robinson, an Englishman, was originally a bit of a rebel. Nevertheless, he
converted to Christianity at age 17, and subsequently became a Methodist
minister. However, in the words of one of the hymns that he wrote, "Come,
Thou Fount of Every Blessing", he was "prone to wander ... prone to leave the
God I love". He wandered from Methodist to Independent to Baptist, and was
reportedly not a very happy man. Eventually he embraced Unitarian views,
dying in the company of his Unitarian friend, the great Joseph Priestley (1733-
1804).
John Pierpont (1785-1866)
Pierpont, who was born in Connecticut, graduated from Yale College. He
later became a lawyer, then went into business, and later still studied
theology, becoming the pastor of the Unitarian Church in Hollis Street,
Boston, Massachusetts. He was a noted Abolitionist and social reformer.
One of his great hymns is "O Thou to Whom, in Ancient Time", which he
wrote for the opening of the Independent Congregational Church in Barton
Square, Salem, Massachusetts, on 7 December 1824. See also James Lord
Pierpont, below.
Sir John Bowring (1792-1872)
Bowring, who had been born into a Unitarian family, was, among other things,
a renowned linguist. (He was proficient in 5 different languages before the
age of 16, was fluent in over 20 languages, could speak 80 more, and was
known for his translations of Dutch poetry.) In addition, he was a political
economist, reformer, hymnist and writer. He was also the Governor of Hong
Kong, and agent of the imperial policies, at a time when the British Empire
was forcing the opium traffic on China. He was knighted in 1854 and was
twice a member of Parliament. His hymns include "In the Cross of Christ I
Glory" and "Watchman, Tell Us of the Night".
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Emerson, the son of the Unitarian pastor of Boston's fashionable First Church,
was one of the most influential literary figures of the 19th century. Although
he endured a lot of suffering and loss in his personal and family life, he
nevertheless distinguished himself as a Unitarian minister, philosopher,

2. educator, traveller, essayer and lecturer. He was the author of the hymn, "We
Sing of Golden Mornings", a song full of religious naturalism.
Sarah Fuller Flower Adams (1805-1848)
Adams, an Englishwoman, and the daughter of a journalist and politician, is
the much celebrated hymn writer of "Nearer, My God, to Thee", a hymn that
has been greatly identified with tragic situations, including the sinking of the
Titanic and the memorial services in honour of US President William
McKinley. Adams had taken up hymn writing when failing health forced her to
give up her career as an actress. She wrote "Nearer, My God, to Thee" for
her minister, the Rev William J Fox (of South Place Unitarian Church,
Finsbury, London), who was looking for a hymn to close a sermon on Jacob
and Esau.
Edmund Hamilton Sears (1810-1870)
Sears was born in Sandisfield, Massachusetts. He was educated at Harvard
Divinity School. Although a Unitarian minister, he believed in the divinity of
Christ. He wrote "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" at a time when the
United States was in the midst of great social upheaval as a result of the
industrial revolution and the growing debate over slavery. Sears was aware
of these problems and, in a verse that is usually omitted from most
hymnbooks, wrote of "[t]wo thousand years of wrong ... man, at war with
man".
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)
Lowell, who was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a prominent poet
and author. A graduate of Harvard College, he was admitted to the bar in
1840 and later became Professor of Modern Languages and Literature at
Harvard. He was an editor of the Atlantic Monthly and served as American
minister to Spain. He wrote the hymns "Once to Every Man and Nation" and
"What Means This Glory Round Our Feet". In the firstmentioned hymn Lowell
spoke out against what he thought was the plan of the slave-holding states to
gain more territory: "Once to every man and nation / Comes the moment to
decide, / In the strife of truth with falsehood, / For the good or evil side."
Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)
Howe was born in New York City and died at the age of 91. She was a
Unitarian Abolitionist. The horror of the Civil war inspired her to call upon
women to work for disarmament. In 1861 she was riding through the Union
Army camps as a guest of President Lincoln when she heard the Federal
troops singing the popular Southern tune, "John Brown's Body". That inspired
her to write "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory" (the "Battle Hymn of the
Republic"), which was sung or played at the funerals of such notables as Sir
Winston Churchill, Senator Robert F Kennedy, and Presidents Richard Nixon
and Ronald Reagan.
Samuel Longfellow (1819-1892)
Longfellow, who was the brother of famed poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
was born in Portland, Maine. He attended both Harvard College and
Cambridge Divinity School and was subsequently ordained a Unitarian

3. minister. An ardent theist and mystic, he served Unitarian churches in various
parts of the United States. Ill health, together with the desire to write the life
of his brother, were the reasons for his early retirement from the Unitarian
ministry. Among the beautiful hymns he wrote is "Holy Spirit, Truth Divine".
James Lord Pierpont (1822-1893)
The last Unitarian minister of what is now the Unitarian Universalist Church of
Savannah, Georgia, before the Civil war was the Rev John Pierpont Jr (1819-
1879), a native of Boston and son of the abovementioned John Pierpont
(1785-1866). The brother of John Pierpont Jr, James Lord Pierpont, was the
church organist. He also gave organ and singing lessons at the church. He
also wrote "Jingle Bells".
Edwin Henry Wilson (1898-1993)
Wilson was born in Woodhaven, New York, and was raised in Concord,
Massachusetts, where he attended the First Parish Church, a Unitarian
fellowship. Wilson attended Meadville Theological School, was ordained, and
served as a Unitarian minister for 65 years. Recognised as the founder of
organised Humanism in the United States, he was one of the founders of the
American Humanist Association, was a primary author of both Humanist
Manifesto I (1933) and Humanist Manifesto II (1973), and also participated in
the founding and naming of the International Humanist and Ethical Union
(IHEU) uniting the Humanist movement worldwide. He wrote the hymn,
"Where is our Holy Church?"
Carolyn McDade (born 1935)
Carolyn McDade, who was born and raised in Louisiana, grew up with one
sister in a Southern Baptist family. She has lived in New England for over 30
years, and played, sang and wrote music for the Arlington Street Women's
Caucus in Boston in the 1970s. She is a social activist, theologian and
"spiritual feminist". She has written "Come Sing a Song with Me" as well as
the ever-popular "Spirit of Life", which is perhaps the widest known and most
lived hymn in the contemporary Unitarian and UU repertory.
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