Scripture References:
all st. =Luke 11:13, John 15:26, John 16:13
st. 6 = Num 21:17, John 4:10
Samuel Longfellow (b. Portland, ME, 1819; d. Portland, 1892) wrote this text with the heading "Prayer for Inspiration." It was published in the Unitarian hymnal Hymns of the Spirit in 1864.
Like "O Come, O Come, Immanuel" (328), this text is a catalog: it lists attributes of the Holy Spirit in successive stanzas. The text is a prayer that the application of the Spirit's attributes may result in more vibrant Christian living, which will then be manifest in discernment of God's will (st. 1), holiness and purity (st. 2), courageous servanthood (st. 3), obedience to God's rule (st. 4), peace and restfulness (st. 5), and the experience of joy (st. 6). The final stanza alludes to Numbers 21:17 ("song of the well") and to John 4:10 ("living water"). Note that this hymn addresses the Holy Spirit without any reference to the Trinity, a Unitarian position that should not, however, hamper its use.
Samuel Longfellow is not as famous as his brother, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, about whom he wrote a biography that was published in 1886. In his time, however, Samuel was well known as a Unitarian preacher and hymn writer. Educated at Harvard College and Harvard Divinity School, he became a minister in 1848 and served Unitarian congregations in Fall River, Massachusetts (1848-1851), Brooklyn, New York (1853-1860), and Germantown, Pennsylvania (1860-1883). With Samuel Johnson he compiled two hymnals: A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion (1846) and Hymns of the Spirit (1864). He also published a number of his hymn texts in A Book of Hymns and Tunes (1860).
Liturgical Use:
Pentecost; many other worship services: entire hymn or select stanzas at the opening of worship, as a response to the Decalogue, as a prayer for illumination, as a hymn of dedication following the sermon.
--Psalter Hymnal Handbook, 1988
Longfellow, Samuel, B. A., brother of the Poet, was born at Portland, Maine, June 18, 1819, and educated at Harvard, where he graduated in Arts in 1839, and in Theology in 1846. On receiving ordination as an Unitarian Minister, he became Pastor at Fall River, Massachusetts, 1848; at Brooklyn, 1853; and at Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1860. In 1846 he edited, with the Rev. S. Johnson (q. v.), A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion. This collection was enlarged and revised in 1848. In 1859 his Vespers was published, and in 1864 the Unitarian Hymns of the Spirit , under the joint editorship of the Rev. S. Johnson and himself. His Life of his brother, the Poet Longfellow, was published in 1886. To the works named he contributed the follow… Go to person page >
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