AN UNFORTUNATE HYMN TITLE

 

Saturday, January 4, 2025

 

AN UNFORTUNATE HYMN TITLE

 

Ps 16:11

11 Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

 

          “How tedious and tasteless the hours” is a hymn written by John Newton who also wrote the better-known hymns “Amazing Grace” and “Glorious things of Thee are spoken.”

 

          Conscripted into the Royal Navy, Newton was a slave trader and was himself a slave in west Africa (now Siera Leone) for a short time. He became an abolitionist after becoming a Christian and an Anglican Priest in Buckinghamshire. He lived to see the British Empire abolish slavery in 1807 just months before his death.

 

          The hymn is not actually doom and gloom as its title suggests but points out the dull reality of a life without Christ.

 

How tedious and tasteless the hours

When Jesus no longer I see!

Sweet prospects, sweet birds and sweet flow’rs,

Have all lost their sweetness to me.

The midsummer sun shines but dim,

The fields strive in vain to look gay;

But when I am happy in Him

December’s as pleasant as May.

 

Say, why do I languish and pine?

And why are my winters so long?

Where winter and clouds are no more.

In Thy presence is fullness of joy;

at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

 

Jude 24-25

24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,

25 To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.