Like a river glorious

with WYE VALLEY

I. Origins

In the Poetical Works of Frances Ridley Havergal (London: James Nisbet, 1884), edited by her sister, Maria V.G. Havergal, this hymn was dated 3 Nov. 1874, written in Leamington, Warwickshire, England, where her family had a home. Frances Havergal (1836–1879) had recently returned to Leamington from an excursion to Switzerland with her niece Constance Crane and her friends Elizabeth, Margaret, and Bessie. At first, the trip was rejuvenating for her; she wrote to her mother on 29 September 1874:

It was so nice, and altogether I am so well and happy! It was curious, dearest mother, that you should send me Psalm 103:1–3, for my mind was specially full of it, only adding verses 4 and 5. I have so very much to thank Him for, and the beautiful sequence of five blessings seemed to sum it all up: “forgiveth,” “healeth,” “redeemeth,” “crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies,” and “satisfieth thy mouth with good things.” And, really, I may add “so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s,” for I feel so mentally fresh and unweary, and my cousins say they never saw me looking so well.[1]

But near the end of her trip, she had a turn of health. Her sister noted, “Somehow or somewhere she caught fever, and commenced her homeward journey with dull headache and sickness.”

Home was reached, shiverings and feverish symptoms rapidly set in, and she was soon utterly prostrate with typhoid fever. All that motherly watchfulness, medical skill, and trained nursing could do failed to arrest the attack. About the middle of November, the balancings of our hopes and fears were just between life and death. Prayer was made unceasingly for the life so dear to us, and even special prayer meetings were held to plead for one known so widely, though principally by her writings. Our prayers and cries and tears were answered, and our beloved one was restored.[2]

In spite of her illness, Frances found an incredible peace. She later explained to her sister:

All through my long illness I was very happy; the first part was the most painful; I think it must have been neuralgia with the fever. . . . My one wish was to glorify God and to let my doctor and nurse see it; so at the very first I determined to ask for nothing and just obey. . . . Sometimes I could not quite see His Face, yet there was His promise, “I will never leave thee.” I knew He said it and that He was there. . . . It was on the first day of this illness I dictated to Constance, “Just as Thou wilt, O Master, call!”[3]

When Maria inquired whether Frances was delighted with the idea of going home, to heaven, Frances replied:

No, it was not the idea of going home, but that He was coming for me and that I should see my King. I never thought of death as going through the dark valley or down to the river; it often seemed to me a going up to the golden gates and lying there in the brightness, just waiting for the gate to open for me. . . . I never before was, so to speak, face to face with death. It was like a look into heaven; and yet, when my Father sent me back again, I felt it was His will, and so I could not be disappointed.[4]

Her hymn “Like a river glorious / is God’s perfect peace,” although not mentioned specifically here, was therefore written in the midst of terrible sickness, probably dictated to a family member, and it expresses the peace she felt in the possibility of finding heaven.

II. Publication & Tune

Havergal’s hymn was initially published in the first edition of Hymns of Consecration and Faith (London: Haughton & Co., 1876 | Fig. 1), edited by Rev. James Mountain (1844–1933), who at the time was active as an evangelist in England. It was given in three stanzas with a refrain, labeled “Perfect Peace,” with a tune composed by Mountain. Mountain’s tune, with its simple rhythms and repeated tones, seems to have resonated with worshipers because of its child-like manner and its ease of singing. The name WYE VALLEY came much later, appearing as early as Redemption Songs (1937), apparently named after an area at the border of England and Wales.

Havergal’s text was also published in her own collection, Loyal Responses (London: James Nisbet, 1878 | Fig. 2), formatted as three stanzas of eight lines, plus the chorus of four lines.

III. Analysis

The opening stanza of the hymn is based on a trio of passages from Isaiah 26:3 (“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you,” ESV), Isaiah 48:18 (“Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river”), and Isaiah 66:12–13 (“Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river”). Pastor Robert Cottrill wrote about the interplay of ideas in these Scriptures:

Notice, we have faith represented in the first text [Is. 26:3], and obedience in the second [Is. 48:18]. These are the keys to inner peace. But earthly trials also come upon people who trust and obey God. What of times when trials come our way, and burdens weigh upon us? Then we can be confident that a wise and loving God would allow only those things to touch the life of His child that are ultimately for our best and for His glory.[5]

The second stanza, speaking of being held in God’s hand, calls upon other sentiments from Isaiah, such as Isaiah 46:4 (“I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save”) or Isaiah 63:9 (“he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old”). Regarding the message of this stanza, minister/composer Bryan Jeffery Leech noted:

It may take a lot of prayer and struggle to achieve the serenity of stanza 2, but it is possible. For often in their worst moments, when Christians have cultivated God beforehand, they find a calm that defies analysis, a sense of safety in danger, and a peace in sorrow, something miraculous because it is such a contrast to their outward circumstances. Frances R. Havergal is absolutely correct in asserting that at any moment in life, however pleasurable and however anguished, the only safe thing to do is to trust in God.[6]

The third stanza alludes to James 1:17 (“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above”) and any number of verses about trust, such as Proverbs 3:5 (“Trust in the Lord with all your heart”). Literary scholar Leland Ryken explained the sun dial reference, saying, “Havergal manages the image in such a way as to stress the concept of a predictable pattern that is traced by a source in the sky (a metaphor for divine providence).”[7]

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
12 August 2020

Footnotes:

1. Maria V.G. Havergal, Memorials of Frances Ridley Havergal (1884), pp. 152–153: Archive.org

2. Memorials, p. 155.

3. Memorials, pp. 156–157.

4. Memorials, p. 157.

5. Robert Cottrill, “Like a river glorious,” Wordwise Hymns (2 April 2012): https://wordwisehymns.com/2012/04/02/like-a-river-glorious/

6. Bryan Jeffery Leech, “Like a river glorious,” The Worshiping Church: Worship Leaders’ Edition (1990), no. 594.

7. Leland Ryken, “Like a river glorious,” 40 Favorite Hymns on the Christian Life (2019), pp. 66–67.

Related Resources:

Bryan Jeffery Leech, “Like a river glorious,” The Worshiping Church: Worship Leaders’ Edition (Carol Stream, IL: Hope, 1990), no. 594.

Bert Polman, “Like a river glorious,” Psalter Hymnal Handbook (Grand Rapids: CRC, 1998), p. 735.

Robert Cottrill, “Like a river glorious,” Wordwise Hymns (2 April 2012):
https://wordwisehymns.com/2012/04/02/like-a-river-glorious/

Leland Ryken, “Like a river glorious,” 40 Favorite Hymns on the Christian Life (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2019), pp. 64–67: Amazon

“Like a river glorious,” Hymnary.org: https://hymnary.org/text/like_a_river_glorious