Let saints on earth for August 17 2025

This hymn by Francis Murray (1820-1902), written for his Hymnal, for Use in the English Church (1852), is a rewriting of Charles Wesley’s hymn “Come, let us join our friends above.” Wesley wrote the hymn in five eight-line stanzas and published it as the first piece in Funeral Hymns in 1759.  Murray wrote a new opening quatrain and then used half of Wesley’s first stanza and all of the second (divided into two quatrains) plus two new quatrains to create “Let saints on earth.”  The new hymn somewhat softens Wesley’s focus on the desire for death.  The son of George Murray, Bishop of Sodor and Man, Murray was educated at Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1841, MA 1845), and ordained to the priesthood in 1845. He became rector of Chislehurst in Kent in 1856 [his father having been transferred to Rochester] and remained there for the rest of his life. (newsletter readers: continue reading here): Murray was one of the two priests who, on a train journey, discussed the need for a hymnal to be used by the whole Anglican church.  The other priest was William Denton, and the ultimate result of their discussion was Hymns Ancient and Modern.

The tune Dundee first appeared in English in The CL psalmes of David, in prose and meeter: with their whole usuall tunes, newly corrected and amended With: A Catechisme of Christian religion. Appointed to be printed for the use of the Kirke of Edinburgh, 1615. There it is called “French toone,” and it is sometimes called “French” in modern hymnals.  Some early form of the tune may have been composed by Guillaume Franc, one of the musicians who was associated with the Geneva Psalter.  He died in 1570.  Modern hymnals use the tune as harmonized by Thomas Ravenscroft (c. 1588-1635) with the melody in the Tenor line in his Whole Booke of Psalms, 1621(where it is called “Dundy tune”).  Ravenscroft, who may have sung as a treble at St Paul’s, graduated B.Mus. from Pembroke College, Cambridge and was later music master in Christ’s Hospital in Sussex.  He was a noted composer of glees, catches and rounds, including “Three Blind Mice.”  The Scottish town of Dundee was a noted centre of Reformation thought and was sometimes called “the Scottish Geneva.”