Christ, whose glory fills the skies

including
O disclose thy lovely face

with
DEDICATION
RATISBON
LUX PRIMA
HEATHLANDS

I. Text: Origins

Charles Wesley (1707–1788), having been raised and trained in the Church of England, was familiar with the rhythms of Christian worship, especially as laid out by the Book of Common Prayer, the 1662 revision, which appoints orders for morning and evening prayer. Early in his hymn-writing career, he composed a set of three hymns for morning and evening, published in Hymns and Sacred Poems (1740), the most enduring of which has been “Christ, whose glory fills the skies” (Fig. 1). The original version consisted of three stanzas of four lines, printed without music.

This hymn was not included in this form in any other collections published by the Wesleys in their lifetimes. A different hymn beginning “Christ, whose glory fills the skies, / That famous Plant thou art!” appeared in Short Hymns on Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures (1762), vol. 2, no. 1267, based on Ezekiel 34:29-30. That one was adopted into their career-spanning A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists (1780), at no. 517. The 1740 hymn was included too at no. 150, except John transplanted a stanza from “Lord, how long, how long shall I”—another hymn which had not seen the light of day since Hymns and Sacred Poems (1740 | Fig. 2)—and he used it to make an amalgamated hymn starting with “O disclose thy lovely face” followed by the second and third stanzas from the original “Christ, whose glory fills the skies” (Fig. 3).

Initially, the 1740 hymn was not widely received in the Wesleys’ lifetimes. It is not known to have been printed with music before 1820. John Julian (1892) credited the hymn’s later proliferation to its appearance in collections by Augustus Toplady (1740–1778) and James Montgomery (1771–1854). The 1780 cross-bred version, starting “O disclose thy lovely face,” was adopted into other collections, reprinted throughout the 1800s, but it has since fallen out of use in favor of the original text.

II. Analysis

This hymn, like so many of Wesley’s hymns, contains several Scripture allusions. The idea of the glory of the Lord filling the skies, especially at morning, can be seen in passages such as Exodus 16:7 (“In the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord”) or 2 Samuel 23:4 (“He dawns on them like the morning light”). Jesus said, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12, 9:5), and John called him “The true light, which gives light to everyone” (John 1:9). Wesley used the name “Sun of Righteousness,” which is from Malachi 4:2. He used this name frequently in his hymns, including “Hark! the herald angels sing,” “Come, O thou traveller unknown,” the original 18-stanza form of “O for a thousand tongues to sing,” and “Sun of unclouded righteousness.” The name “Day-spring from on high” is from Luke 1:78, especially in the King James Version (1611) and the Book of Common Prayer (1662). Similarly, “Day-star in my heart appear” is almost a direct quote from 2 Peter 1:19.

After the rich infusion of Scripture, Wesley shifted his approach. As Carl Daw has noted, “Wesley does not continue with this intense level of scriptural allusion but moves ahead with a logician’s or rhetorician’s tendency to emphasize the desirable by considering its opposite.”[1] The second stanza speaks of how the return of natural daylight in the morning is still dark, cheerless, and joyless, if it is without the mercy of Christ. The third stanza is a prayer, asking for Christ to pierce the heart and be displayed in the life of the worshiper.

Reformed scholar Bert Polman believed this morning hymn was “unusual in that it does not contain the customary reference to the previous night’s rest or to the work and dangers of the day ahead.”[2]

James Montgomery is often quoted for his endorsement of the hymn, calling it one of Wesley’s “loveliest progeny.” In the preface to his Christian Psalmist (1825), in the process of summarizing the hymns of Toplady, he mentioned a situation in which “Christ whose glory fills the skies” had often been misattributed to Toplady:

Had this poem appeared without name, it might have been confidently set down as the production of Charles Wesley—as one of Charles Wesley’s loveliest progeny has been fathered upon Augustus Toplady.[3]

Timothy Dudley-Smith agreed with Montgomery’s idea:

Montgomery’s praise was entirely justified. These verses are indeed some of the loveliest written by Charles Wesley, with a poetic imagery that is beautifully handled within the metre. They are based on the Benedictus (Luke 1: 68-79), with which he would have been daily familiar from the Order for Morning Prayer in the Prayer Book.[4]

J.R. Watson has praised it also, saying, “from the brilliant assurance of the first line to the triumphant final image, it has a poetic sweep and imaginative command that are rare even for Charles Wesley.”[5] He explained further elsewhere:

The three verses are economical, absolutely functional in that there are no distractions from the theme, and wonderfully accommodated to the rhythm and metre. It could be said of the first line that, as Christ’s glory fills the skies, so the words exactly fill the line, beginning a hymn which is rare in its taut control and imaginative power.[6]

Erik Routley put the nature of this morning hymn in the context of two others from the broader repertoire:

“Sun of righteousness” caught the imagination of Charles Wesley, and here we find it; along with that other picturesque and old-fashioned word, “Dayspring.” Now this gives “Christ, whose glory” a universality which places it apart from all other morning hymns. Compare it with Bishop Ken’s [“Awake, my soul, and with the sun”], which we noticed above, or with Keble’s [“New every morning is the love”]. The Bishop gives us solid, down-to-earth, honest puritan counsel; the country parson gives gentle advice about the sanctification of daily routine. But Wesley talks all the time about the glory of Christ. “Christ, whose glory fills the skies”—the late Bernard Manning called the phrase “Dantesque,” and that is not undue praise. It is as bold a conception as you will find anywhere in all the hymn-books. …

For whereas Ken’s excellent lines tell us to do our duty, and Keble’s tell us that God can make the dullest work profitable to his glory, what Wesley is here saying amounts to no less than a prayer that, through the present day, my life may be comformable to the mystery of the Gospel. … To pray, “Sun of righteousness, arise, … Daystar, in my heart appear,” is to pray that the miracle of the incarnation may be re-enacted in my own person; that will and affections may be the very habitation of Christ even as Bethlehem’s stable was his habitation. We sing “Visit then this soul of mine,” and we mean just what we meant when we sang “Visit us with thy salvation” in “Love divine [all loves excelling].” We mean (as is explained at that place) not merely “come,” but “come and convert and conquer.”[7]

The great irony of the hymn is in the way it is so masterfully treated by scholars, in spite of its near-dismissal by the Wesleys in favor of the 1762 version, which turned out to be the one set aside by generations to follow.

Given the hymn’s textual association with the Song of Zechariah and the theme of light, the hymn is particularly well suited for the season of Advent.

III. Tunes

1. DEDICATION

In the fifth through seventh editions of A Collection of Hymns (1786–1791), the Wesleys recommended the tune DEDICATION for the version of the hymn beginning “O disclose thy lovely face.” The tune first appeared anonymously in Thomas Butts’ Harmonia Sacra (ca. 1754), and from there it was adopted into the Wesleys’ Select Hymns with Tunes Annext (1761, rev. 1765) and Sacred Harmony (1780 | Fig. 4). From its first printing through 1820, it was invariably set to a doxology text, “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” from Hymns on the Lord’s Supper (1745).

2. RATISBON

The tune known as RATISBON to English worshipers has a long history, tracing back to a German folk hymn from the early fifteenth century, known both as “Sanctus Petrus von uns bei” or “Sancta Maria won uns bei.” The earliest surviving copy of the melody is in the Halberstadt choirbook, held in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, MS Mus. 40021, fol. 240v, dated 1485. Martin Luther (1483–1546) adapted the hymn for his Reformation efforts, keeping the melody, but recrafting the text as a trinitarian hymn, “Gott der Vater wohn uns bei.” This was published in Geystliche Gesangk Buchleyn (1524 | Fig. 5), melody in the tenor part book, in a choral arrangement by Johann Walter.

Luther’s version was readily adopted into English, first in Miles Coverdale’s Goostly Psalmes (ca. 1536). The melody continues to be printed in Lutheran hymnals with the same name, GOTT DER VATER WOHN UNS BEI, typically with an English translation by Richard Massie (1800–1887), “God the Father, be our stay,” with various alterations. For a fuller history and analysis of the German tune, see “Gott der Vater wohn uns bei.”

This anonymous German tune seems to have been a springboard for more than one variant tune. In 1653, Johann Crüger (1598–1662) adapted it by keeping the first section of the melody (the Stollen) and writing a much shorter ending (the Abgesang). Whereas the original melody is a lengthy 77.77.7777.7777.78, Crüger’s melody is a brief 78.78.77. This was published in the 5th edition of Praxis Pietatis Melica (1653), set to the text “Jesus, meine Zuversicht,” which is probably by Otto von Schwerin (1616–1679). Consequently, this tune is known as JESUS MEINE ZUVERSICHT.

Another variant, the one underlying RATISBON, was crafted by Johann Werner (1777–1822), here again taking the first section of the melody (the Stollen) and writing a new ending for it (the Abgesang). Werner’s version is meant for texts of 87.87.8877. It was published in his Choral-Buch zu den neuen sächsischen Gesangbüchern (Leipzig: bei Friedrich Hofmeister, 1815), intended for the text “Jesu meines Lebens Leben” by Ernst C. Homburg (1605–1681).

The adoption of Werner’s German tune into English hymnody came via William Henry Havergal (1793–1870), who simplified it for his Old Church Psalmody (1847 | Fig. 7). Havergal eliminated the repeat of the opening section, and he eliminated the repeated ending notes at the ends of phrases, yielding a tune suitable for texts of 77.77.77, versus Werner’s 87.87.8877. He paired it with Toplady’s text “Rock of ages, cleft for me,” he credited the tune to Werner’s collection, and he gave it the name RATISBON, which is the old name for the historic city Regensburg, Germany.

The connection between RATISBON and “Christ, whose glory fills the skies” happened in the first edition of Hymns Ancient & Modern (1861 | Fig. 8).

In spite of the frequent pairing of these two items (Paul Westermeyer called this “an apt tune for Wesley’s text”[8]), this tune is not universally loved as a proper setting for Wesley’s hymn. Australian scholar Wesley Milgate was particularly unimpressed, saying the tune, “having got off to a drab start, maintains its dullness with consistency; sing it, if you must, with some attempt at cheerfulness.”[9] Similarly, Methodist scholar Carlton Young called it an “exceedingly dull ‘grey’ tune that seldom complements Wesley’s dynamic, exciting, and contrasting metaphors.”[10]

3. LUX PRIMA

Another common setting for Wesley’s text is LUX PRIMA (or GOUNOD) by French composer Charles Gounod (1818–1893), first published in The Hymnary, edited by Joseph Barnby (London: Novello, 1872 | Fig. 9), where it appeared four times (Nos. 148, 235, 375, 614), and it was not given a name. The tune is said to have been written while Gounod was in England escaping the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), and it was reportedly intended as a setting for “Hark, ten thousand harps and voices” by Thomas Kelly (1769–1855).[11] The tune has to be modified slightly at the ends of the first and third phrases in order it to work for Wesley’s meter of 7s.

LUX PRIMA, meaning “first light,” is an appropriate name in relation to Wesley’s text. This pairing can be found as early as Charles Hutchins’ Church Hymnal with Canticles (Medford, MA: Charles Hutchins, 1883 | Fig. 10), and the naming of the tune seems to have come from Hutchins. In comparing RATISBON with this tune as a setting for Wesley, Reformed scholar Bert Polman noted, “its isorhythmic (all equal rhythms) shape doesn’t fit this text as well as Gounod’s more lively LUX PRIMA.”[12]

4. HEATHLANDS

One other tune closely associated with Wesley’s text is HEATHLANDS by Henry Smart (1813–1879), first published in Psalms and Hymns for Divine Worship (London: James Nisbet, 1866 | Fig. 11), credited to Smart in the index. Notice how in this first printing, it was situated across the page from a tune of the same meter, PRAGUE (from “Schwing dich auf zu dienem Gott”), and among the texts for that meter was “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” thus the association between Smart and Wesley started from the outset.

Erik Routley said of this tune, “It combines good diatonic melody with adequate lyrical appeal in a way thoroughly characteristic of one of the best nineteenth-century church musicians.”[13]

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
6 May 2020

Footnotes:

1. Carl P. Daw Jr., “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” Glory to God: A Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2016), p. 628.

2. Bert Polman, “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” Psalter Hymnal Handbook (Grand Rapids: CRC, 1998), p. 649.

3. James Montgomery, The Christian Psalmist (Glasgow: Chalmers & Collins, 1825), p. xxvi: Archive.org

4. Timothy Dudley-Smith, “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology: http://www.hymnology.co.uk/c/christ,-whose-glory-fills-the-skies

5. Richard Watson, “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” Companion to Hymns and Psalms (Peterborough: Methodist Publishing House, 1988), p. 278.

6. J.R. Watson, “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” An Annotated Anthology of Hymns (Oxford: University Press, 2002), p. 170.

7. Erik Routley, “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” Hymns and the Faith (London: John Murray, 1955), pp. 143-144.

8. Paul Westermeyer, “Christ whose glory fills the skies,” Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2010), p. 389.

9. Wesley Milgate, “RATISBON,” Songs of the People of God (London: Collins, 1982), p. 140.

10. Carlton Young, “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” Companion to the United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), p. 284.

11. William Cowan & James Love, “GOUNOD,” The Music of the Church Hymnary and the Psalter in Metre (Edinburgh: Henry Frowde, 1901), p. 63: Archive.org

12. Bert Polman, “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” Psalter Hymnal Handbook (Grand Rapids: CRC, 1998), p. 649.

13. Erik Routley, “HEATHLANDS,” Companion to Congregational Praise (London: Independent Press, 1953), p. 24.

Related Resources:

Johannes Zahn, Die Melodien der deutschen evangelischen Kirchenlieder (Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1890–1892), vol. 2, no. 3432 (Crüger | Archive.org), vol. 4, no. 6801 (Werner | Archive.org), vol. 5, no. 8507 (Luther | Archive.org)

John Julian, “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” A Dictionary of Hymnology (London: J. Murray, 1892), p. 226: Google Books

William Cowan & James Love, “GOUNOD,” The Music of the Church Hymnary and the Psalter in Metre (Edinburgh: Henry Frowde, 1901), p. 63: Archive.org

Albert Edward Bailey, “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” The Gospel in Hymns (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950), p. 102.

Erik Routley, “HEATHLANDS,” Companion to Congregational Praise (London: Independent Press, 1953), p. 24.

Erik Routley, “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” Hymns and the Faith (London: John Murray, 1955), pp. 141-144.

Richard Watson & Kenneth Trickett, “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” Companion to Hymns and Psalms (Peterborough: Methodist Publishing House, 1988), p. 278.

Carlton Young, “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” Companion to the United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), pp. 283-284.

Robin A. Leaver, “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” The Hymnal 1982 Companion, vol. 3A (NY: Church Hymnal Corp., 1994), pp. 11-13.

Robin A. Leaver, “JESUS, MEINE ZUVERSICHT,” The Hymnal 1982 Companion, vol. 3A (NY: Church Hymnal Corp., 1994), p. 591.

Bert Polman, “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” Psalter Hymnal Handbook (Grand Rapids: CRC, 1998), pp. 648-649.

J.R. Watson, “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” An Annotated Anthology of Hymns (Oxford: University Press, 2002), pp. 169-170.

Paul Westermeyer, “Christ whose glory fills the skies,” Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2010), pp. 389-390.

Carl P. Daw Jr., “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” Glory to God: A Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2016), pp. 627-629.

David Rogner & Joseph Herl, “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” Lutheran Service Book Companion, vol. 1 (St. Louis: Concordia, 2019), pp. 1361-1363.

Victor E. Gebauer & Joseph Herl, “Triune God, be thou our stay,” Lutheran Service Book Companion, vol. 1 (St. Louis: Concordia, 2019), pp. 441-444.

Joseph Herl & John G. Fleischmann, “Jesus Christ, my sure defense,” Lutheran Service Book Companion, vol. 1 (St. Louis: Concordia, 2019), pp. 1055-1059.

“Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” Hymnary.org:
https://hymnary.org/text/christ_whose_glory_fills_the_skies