Security and Safety

Top Media Text Author Text Info Tune Timeline Arrangements Page Scans Instances

God is our refuge and defense; In trouble our unfailing aid

Author: James Montgomery
Published in 52 hymnals

Printable scores: PDF, MusicXML
Audio files: MIDI

Piano/Organ
	Five Pentecost Hymn Improvisations

Representative Text

1 God is our refuge and defense;
In trouble our unfailing aid:
Secure in His omnipotence,
What foe can make our souls afraid!

2 Yea, though the earth's foundations rock,
And mountains down the gulf be hurled,
His people smile amid the shock:
They look beyond this transient world.

3 There is a river, pure and bright,
Whose streams make glad the heavenly plains,
Where in eternity of light
The city of our God remains.

4 Built by the word of His command,
With His unclouded presence blest,
Firm as His throne the bulwarks stand;
There is our home, our hope, our rest.

Source: Wartburg Hymnal: for church, school and home #226

All representative texts • Compare texts ^ top

Author: James Montgomery

James Montgomery (b. Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, 1771; d. Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, 1854), the son of Moravian parents who died on a West Indies mission field while he was in boarding school, Montgomery inherited a strong religious bent, a passion for missions, and an independent mind. He was editor of the Sheffield Iris (1796-1827), a newspaper that sometimes espoused radical causes. Montgomery was imprisoned briefly when he printed a song that celebrated the fall of the Bastille and again when he described a riot in Sheffield that reflected unfavorably on a military commander. He also protested against slavery, the lot of boy chimney sweeps, and lotteries. Associated with Christians of various persuasions, Montgomery supported missio… Go to person page >

^ top

First Line:	God is our refuge and defense; In trouble our unfailing aid
Title:	Security and Safety
Author:	James Montgomery
Meter:	8.8.8.8
Language:	English
Notes:	Tune: MISSIONARY CHANT
Copyright:	Public Domain

^ top

Tune

ALLEIN GOTT IN DER HÖH

The tune name ALLEIN GOTT derives from the opening words of Decius's rhymed text in High German. The tune was first published in Schumann's Geistliche Lieder. Decius adapted the tune from a tenth-century Easter chant for the Gloria text, beginning at the part accompanying the words "et in terra pax.…

Go to tune page >

EISENACH (Gesius)

MACHS MIT MIR was first published in the collection of music Das ander Theil des andern newen Operis Geistlicher Deutscher Lieder (1605) by Bartholomäus Gesius (b. Münchenberg, near Frankfurt, Germany, c. 1555; d. Frankfurt, 1613). A prolific composer, Gesius wrote almost exclusively for the churc…

Go to tune page >

STELLA (Goodenough)

All tunes published with 'Security and Safety'^ top