For a New-Year's Day

Representative Text

1 Eternal Source of every joy,
Well may Thy praise our lips employ,
While in Thy temple we appear,
Whose goodness crowns the circling year.

2 Seasons, and months, and weeks, and days,
Demand successive songs of praise;
Still be the cheerful homage paid
With opening light and evening shade.

3 Here in Thy house shall incense rise,
And circling Sabbaths bless our eyes.
Still will we make Thy mercies known
Around Thy board, and round our own.

4 O may our more harmonious tongue
In worlds unknown pursue the song.
And in those brighter courts adore,
Where days and years revolve no more!

AMEN.

Source: The A.M.E. Zion Hymnal: official hymnal of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church #83

Author: Philip Doddridge

Philip Doddridge (b. London, England, 1702; d. Lisbon, Portugal, 1751) belonged to the Non-conformist Church (not associated with the Church of England). Its members were frequently the focus of discrimination. Offered an education by a rich patron to prepare him for ordination in the Church of England, Doddridge chose instead to remain in the Non-conformist Church. For twenty years he pastored a poor parish in Northampton, where he opened an academy for training Non-conformist ministers and taught most of the subjects himself. Doddridge suffered from tuberculosis, and when Lady Huntington, one of his patrons, offered to finance a trip to Lisbon for his health, he is reputed to have said, "I can as well go to heaven from Lisbon as from Nort… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: Eternal source of every joy
Title: For a New-Year's Day
Author: Philip Doddridge
Meter: 8.8.8.8
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain

Notes

Eternal Source of every joy. P. Doddridge. [New Year.] Dated in the D. MSS. Jan. 1, 1736, and first published by Job Orton in his posthumous edition of Doddridge's Hymns, &c, 1755, No. 43, in 7 stanzas of 4 lines, and in J. D. Humphreys's edition of the same, 1839, No. 55. In the D. MSS. the title is, "God crowning the Year with His goodness"; and in the Hymns, "The Year crowned with the divine goodness." It is usually given in an abbreviated form, the number of stanzas varying in the various hymn-books. Its use in Great Britain is much less extensive than in America. The text usually adopted is from the 1755 book, as in Lyra Britannica, 1867, p. 193; that, however, in the Methodist Sunday School Hymn Book is from the Brooke manuscript of Doddridge's Hymns.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Tune

WAREHAM (Knapp)

William Knapp (b. Wareham, Dorsetshire, England, 1698; d. Poole, Dorsetshire, 1768) composed WAREHAM, so named for his birthplace. A glover by trade, Knapp served as the parish clerk at St. James's Church in Poole (1729-1768) and was organist in both Wareham and Poole. Known in his time as the "coun…

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CREATION (Haydn)

The tune CREATION is taken from the chorus “The Heavens Are Telling” from the well known oratorio The Creation (1798) by Franz Joseph Haydn (b. Rohrau, Austria, 1732; d. Vienna, Austria, 1809). Haydn's life was relatively uneventful, but his artistic legacy was truly astounding. He began his mus…

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GERMANY (Gardiner)


Timeline

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The Cyber Hymnal #1375
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Methodist Tune Book: a collection of tunes adapted to the Methodist Hymn book #9

Instances

Instances (1 - 4 of 4)

A Selection of Plain Tunes, Set Pieces, and Anthems from Indian Melodies #7

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The A.M.E. Zion Hymnal #83

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The Cyber Hymnal #1375

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The Song Book of the Salvation Army #925

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