Jesus Shall Reign

Isaac Watts

I’d like to say that you could go to Duke Street, in the industrial town of Saint Helen’s in Lancashire, and find many an old stone house with a slate roof, and the church where the composer of the melody for our Hymn of the Week, John Hatton, once worshiped. Well, you won’t. You can find a Chinese restaurant, a Turkish restaurant, a tattoo parlor, a taxi company, and other clean-looking and rather plain modern urban establishments. But that’s the street where our otherwise unknown fellow lived, and that’s why the melody is called “Duke Street.” It’s a spirited and triumphant air, ranging up and down an octave, easy for any voice to manage, and you’ll most often hear it set to Dr. Watts’ “Jesus Shall Reign,” but it’s just as fine for Samuel Medley’s “I Know that My Redeemer Lives.”

“Jesus Shall Reign” isn’t a prayer. It’s a declaration of fact, now and in the time to come. Before his ascension into heaven, Jesus gave his disciples their great task, to go “make disciples of all n…