We Come, O Christ, to You

with
DARWALL 
EASTVIEW

I. Origins

Canadian educator and writer E. Margaret Clarkson (1915–2008) provided in her lifetime at least two similar accounts of the genesis of this hymn. One account was given in her book A Singing Heart (1987), p. 183:

I wrote this hymn at the Severn River during the summer of 1946. C. Stacey Woods, then General Director of the young Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship in Canada and the United States, asked me if I would write a hymn which might serve to link together the widely-scattered groups of IVCF students. It was published in the second printing of Hymns, the first hymnbook of the IVCF, and is now in countless hymnals the world over, including some in other languages. It also appeared in Clear Shining After Rain, 1962.

She also gave a brief explanation in an interview with David W. Music published in The Hymn, vol. 45, no. 3 (July 1994), p. 8:

Intervarsity was fairly young in the early 30s—only five school groups across the country [Canada]—in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, London, and McGill. Stacey Woods, its General Secretary, asked me if I would write a hymn that might help to unify the young movement. So I wrote “We come, O Christ, to thee,” which has since gone around the world. It was published in the new Inter-varsity hymnbook of 1947. Stacey’s vision has long since been fulfilled!

In spite of writing poetry from the age of 12—including “So send I you,” which had been printed in 1939—she regarded this as her first hymn. It was premiered at InterVarsity’s first Missionary Convention in December 1946.

In this first printing, the text spanned five stanzas of six lines. The recommended tune was DARWALL, which appeared on the opposing page.

As attitudes shifted in the mid-20th century regarding the use of old norms in church language, away from the longstanding model set by the King James Bible, this hymn became ripe for revision. Clarkson, in her 1994 interview, offered this viewpoint on revising her own work:

I realized in the early [nineteen] seventies that I was going to have to take out the thee’s and thou’s. There was no point in teaching from a revised Scripture and not being contemporary. The kids are not going to take archaic language, nor should they. I love good language, but good language is timeless. Something from long ago can stand with the best of hymnody. Something from long ago can stand with the best of hymnody, as well as be appealing to today’s young people. I did a major revision in 1970, in which I went over anything that I thought was really singable, and I left behind a lot of hymn that were not.

This hymn escaped the knife until the mid-1980s. Her rationale was given in A Singing Heart (1987):

Since most people today are reading the Scriptures in contemporary langauge, I made a revision of “We Come, O Christ, to Thee” in 1984. I changed it as little as possible, but replaced the “thee-thou” langauge with the more familiar “you” in order that the hymn may continue to be accessible to the thousands of students and young people who have long counted it among their favorites. The revision is now appearing in a number of hymnals. It is likely—and I hope—that it will eventually replace the original.

This new version was included in the The Hymnal for Worship and Celebration (Nashville: Word, 1986).

II. Text: Analysis

Consistent with the idea of unification, the hymn was written from a first-person-plural perspective. The first stanza is a collective statement of commitment, while also establishing some foundational statements regarding the nature of the person we are addressing. The middle stanzas offer an array of doctrinal pillars, then the final stanza returns to the collective call to worship. Reformed scholar Bert Polman saw this overarching structure in the hymn:

Full of biblical phrases from the New Testament, “We come, O Christ, to you” is a hymn of praise to Christ, who is the source of our life (st. 1), the Way (st. 2), the Truth (st. 3), the Life (st. 4), and the one we worship as Savior and King (st. 5).[1]

In the first stanza, the second phrase affirms the divinity and humanity of Jesus; the second phrase echoes Colossians 1:16, and the third phrase is taken almost verbatim from Acts 17:28. In the second stanza, we find the first of three successive affirmations of Jesus’ statement “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6), followed by the blood ransom (Mt. 20:28, Mk. 10:45), and our right standing before the throne (Heb. 4:14–16). The third stanza looks to Jesus as the source of wisdom (Heb. 4:14–16) and rest (Mt. 11:28). The fourth points to Christ as the source of abundant life (John 10:10).

III. Tune

The hymn is most often set to DARWALL (or DARWALL’S 148TH) by John Darwall (1731–1789). Darwall was curate of St Matthew’s, Walsall, from 1761 to 1769, and vicar until his death. One manuscript of the tune, said to be in the possession of his grandson, Rev. L.J.T. Darwall, was reproduced in Hymns Ancient & Modern Historical Edition (1909). It was written in two parts, melody and bass. Notice how the first note of the melody begins on 5 rather than 1. A set of Darwall’s manuscripts are currently held in the British Library, Add. MS 50891 A and B, with the tune for 148 being in MS 50891 B, fols. 22v–23r.

Darwall’s tune was first printed in Aaron Williams’ Psalmody in Miniature, Book 1 (London: Longman, Lukey and Co., 1769 | Fig. 4), again with just melody and bass.

The following year, it was included in Aaron Williams’ New Universal Psalmodist (London: Aaron Williams, 1770 | Fig. 5), this time harmonized in four parts. The text here is the paraphrase of Psalm 148 from Tate & Brady’s New Version of the Psalms (1696/98).

Some hymnals made in the last 150+ years use a harmonization by Arthur Sullivan from Church Hymns with Tunes (1874).

Of the pairing of Clarkson with Darwall, Bert Polman asserted, “Sung to DARWALL, this text benefits from the ascending motives and strong rhythms of the tune.”[2] The majestic strains of the tune inspire confidence in the message behind the text; at the same time, its vigor might not be appropriate for all circumstances, especially if the text is used as a response, in which a sense of calm, steady assurance is warranted. One common substitute for DARWALL is EASTVIEW, composed by British musician Vernon Lee (1892–1959), originally intended for Charles Wesley’s text “Rejoice, the Lord is King,” and said to have been composed for his mother’s 80th birthday. It was first printed in Congregational Praise (1951), where it appeared twice, with Isaac Watts’ text “Join all the glorious names” and with George Wallace Briggs’ text “Now is eternal life.” EASTVIEW, like DARWALL, has a strong character and similar rhythmic scheme, the main difference being the way the last two sets of eight syllables carry on without interruption.

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
12 July 2024

Footnotes:

1. Bert Polman, “We come, O Christ, to you,” Psalter Hymnal Handbook (Grand Rapids: CRC, 1998), p. 375.

2. Bert Polman, “We come, O Christ, to you,” The Worshiping Church: Worship Leaders Edition (Carol Stream, IL: Hope, 1990), no. 86.

Related Resources:

Robert A. Sorensen & Joseph Herl, “Christ is our cornerstone [with DARWALL],” Lutheran Service Book Companion to the Hymns, vol. 1 (St. Louis: Concordia, 2019), pp. 1457–1458.

John Wilson, John Darwall and the 148th Metre, HSGBI Occasional Paper, Second Series, No. 5 (April 2002).

“We come, O Christ, to you,” Hymnary.org: https://hymnary.org/text/we_come_o_christ_to_you