Light’s abode, celestial Salem

The words of this hymn are commonly attributed to Thomas à Kempis (ca. 1380-1471), i.e., Thomas from Kempen, a small community in the Rhineland, near the border of the Netherlands.  At age 12 Thomas went to Deventer in the Netherlands, a good day’s journey in the 14th century.  His aim was to enrol in the prominent Latin school at there, which was associated with the Brothers of the Common Life, or Devotio Moderna.  He studied in Deventer for seven years and then joined the order of the Brothers, whose rule was directed to achievement of apostolic renewal through humility, obedience, piety and simplicity of life.  Thomas entered the new monastery of Mount St Agnes at Windesheim, where his older brother was Prior, and remained there until his death.  During his long life as a monk, Thomas, a prolific writer and scribe, wrote much, including some hymns, but he sent out his writings without claiming authorship.  Most modern scholarship attributes to him the widely-known 15th-century work rooted in Devotio Moderna thought, De Imitatio Christi.  There is less agreement, however, about Thomas’ authorship of hymns.

 

The Latin poem from which this hymn is translated, Jerusalem Luminosa, has seventeen six-line stanzas rhyming ababab; it is found in a 15th century German manuscript in which no author is named.  John Mason Neale, indefatigable conveyor of the hymns of the early and medieval church to the modern church, considered the poem to be by Thomas  or a close follower. Neale translated parts of it twice: seven stanzas in The Hymnal Noted (1854) and twelve stanzas in Hymns, Chiefly Mediaeval, on the Joys and Glories of Paradise (1865).  Modern hymn books commonly use five of Neale’s stanzas, sometimes with alterations, plus a doxology which is not in the Latin and was probably written by Neale himself.  Neale preserves the rhyming structure of the Latin, though not the exact rhymes, by keeping the repeated b-rhyme while altering the a-rhyme for rhyme-poor English.    

 

Born in London into a musical family, Henry Smart (1813–1879), who composed the tune, was educated at the Highgate School and then briefly articled to a solicitor.  But he left the law after a short time.  Smart had some initial keyboard lessons with his father, who died when the boy was ten years old; after that he was largely self-taught as a player.  In his early youth he often spent time in the organ-building firm of Robson (later Robson and Flight) in St Martin’s Lane, where he learned all about the physical and mechanical aspects of organs.  He built a set of organ pedals for the family’s pianoforte.  Later, at age seventeen, he built a pedal division for the organ in the parish church at Yarmouth and gave a concert on it.  As an adult, he designed or was consulted on organs in Leeds Town Hall, St Andrew’s Hall, Glasgow and the City Hall, Glasgow, among others.  His first position as organist was in Blackburn Parish Church (1832-38), now Blackburn Cathedral.  He then returned to London, to St Giles, Cripplegate (1836-38) and St Philip’s, Regent Street (1838 to 1843 or 1844; demolished after irreparable damage in the Second World War).  He moved to St Luke’s, Old Street for 20 years and then to St Pancras Parish Church (1865-79).  Smart composed operas, cantatas and songs, as well as hymns. The tune “Regent Square” was first published in Psalms and Hymns for Divine Worship (1867), the new hymn book of the English Presbyterian Church.  Smart was the musical editor of the volume, while the textual editor was James Hamilton, the minister of the chief London Presbyterian Church, located in Regent Square.