Friday, August 3, 2007

Belovèd, let us love

This is a nice little Horatius Bonar piece, based on 1 John. TCH has 5 verses, and three tunes.
  1. Belovèd, let us love: love is of God;
    In God alone hath love its true abode.

  2. Belovèd, let us love: for they who love,
    They only, are His sons, born from above

  3. Belovèd, let us love: for love is rest,
    And he who loveth not abides unblest.

  4. Belovèd, let us love: for love is light,
    And he who loveth not dwelleth in night.

  5. Belovèd, let us love: for only thus
    Shall we behold that God Who loveth us.

The 1932 Christian Science Hymnal (CSH), my only other source for the hymn, gives four verses, changing the first line to "Belovèd, let us love: for love is God;" and omitting #3.

I definitely want this in my hymnal—it first appeared in a Baptist hymnal (Sup­ple­ment of the Bap­tist Psalms and Hymns, 1880), according to TCH, and I am sorry it has fallen from our denominational repertoire—but I am not sure what tune to use. I'll be trying out those in TCH (GLOVERNIA, GRANDPONT, DENNIS (Thalben-Ball), the last two also in CSH) but I wonder what tune (if any) it had in the Baptist Sup­ple­ment of 1880, and I am open to other suggestions in 10.10 or 6.4.6.4.

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