Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee
Henry Van Dyke, 1907
Our Hymn of the Week will be familiar to most of our readers, I believe, though, as always, you mustn’t trust the contemporary hymnals to have the right words. And the melody to which it is now commonly sung, Ode to Joy, is that of the great triumphant chorale in the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony — a piece of music which Beethoven himself never heard, as by then he had gone quite deaf. Somebody had to turn him around so he could see the audience standing up in overwhelming gratitude, astonishment, and applause. You may also know that the Ode to Joy set to music a grand poem by Friedrich Schiller, “An die Freude,” which I was delighted to hear sung in German by the little daughters of friends of ours in Nova Scotia, all trilingual, French, German, and English.
What I didn’t know was that the author, Henry Van Dyke, the man whom you may know as the author of “The Story of the Other Wise Man,” the fourth sage, Artaban from Ecbatana among the Medes, who doesn’t get to join the three Magi in time, just missing them by an hour, because he had stopped to assist a dying man, a Jew, in the desert. “Should he risk the great reward of his divine faith for the sake of a single deed of human love?” Artaban asks himself. “Should he turn aside, if only for a moment, from the following of the star, to give a cup of cold water to a poor, perishing Hebrew?” But he does. And he is late getting to Bethlehem, then late getting to Egypt where the Holy Family have fled, and for 33 years he seeks Jesus, and never finds him until that fateful and dark day in Jerusalem, or at least so he believes. He has spent those many years in works of pity and mercy, often at odds with his quest to find the great King — but now you must read the story for yourselves, if you’ve never read it!
It’s well to mention Van Dyke’s story here, because it really does touch upon the many facets of a fascinating life, and it is certainly germane to this week’s hymn. Van Dyke was a Presbyterian minister of considerable renown and learning. Among his friends he numbered Helen Keller, Woodrow Wilson, and Mark Twain — at whose funeral he presided, and in whose memory he wrote a splendid poem giving Twain credit not only for satire but for a love of mankind that lay beneath those sword-thrusts of wit which so often drew blood. President Wilson appointed him ambassador to the Netherlands and Luxembourg, just before the onset of the Great War, though he had never held any official diplomatic position. Van Dyke came back to America in 1916, and later wrote about his experiences there, and he was especially eager, in his book Pro Patria, to explain to the peoples of Europe, and especially the French, that the spirit of America wasn’t to be found in American tourists, because to get to know the heart of a people, you must find them in their native land, about their ordinary business. Van Dyke begins by calling his reader’s attention to the statue of Lafayette in Washington, D. C., and to the equestrian statue, in Paris, of the man we Americans call the father of our country, George Washington. We really do have here a man of peace among nations. Did I mention that he was a prolific poet, a writer of hymns, and a professor of English literature at my own alma mater, Princeton?
Well does our hymn today call out with joy, because “hearts unfold like flowers” before the “God of glory, Lord of love.” We flower because God Himself is our sun: we are so made, by Him and for Him. One of our favorite actresses at Word and Song, Irene Dunne, appointed by President Eisenhower as a delegate to the United Nations to support initiatives for peace throughout the world, said that unless we acknowledge the Fatherhood of God, we will not know the brotherhood of man. She believed ardently in both, and she might well have had in mind the final stanza of Van Dyke’s hymn, too often expurgated in modern hymnals to get rid of the words “father,” “brother,” and “man.” Dear editors: Van Dyke said it powerfully; let the words stand!
Today we enjoy the excellent congregational singing at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California. We’ve heard them before, accompanied by their excellent and devout organist, Stephen Sturtz.
Joyful, joyful we adore thee, God of glory, Lord of love; Hearts unfold like flowers before thee, Praising thee, their sun of love. Melt the clouds of sin and sadness, Drive the dark of doubt away; Giver of immortal gladness, Fill us with the light of day. All thy works with joy surround thee, Earth and heaven reflect thy rays; Stars and angels sing around thee, Center of unbroken praise. Field and forest, vale and mountain, Blooming meadow, flashing sea, Chanting bird and flowing fountain Call us to rejoice in thee. Thou art giving and forgiving, Ever blessing, ever blest; Wellspring of the joy of living, Ocean depth of happy rest! Thou our Father, Christ our Brother -- All who live in love are thine; Teach us how to love each other, Lift us to the joy divine. Mortals join the mighty chorus Which the morning stars began; Father-love is reigning o'er us, Brother-love binds man to man. Ever singing march we onward, Victors in the midst of strife; Joyful music lifts us sunward In the triumph song of life.
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My mother requested that this be sung at her funeral. She loved it and sang or hummed it often.
Hymns of Joy seem to predominate in my family.
My husband’s grandparents, who I adored, requested Joy to the World at their funerals. When I questioned why, Grandmother C handed me her hymnal and told me to read it not as a Christmas carol but as a promise of redemption. Both my husband’s grandparents and parents were buried to that hymn.
We sang 'Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee' (with all the thees and thous) at our wedding, 42 years ago. We sang it again at my husband's funeral. Thank you, as always, for the background.