Hymn. 146. All Parish Service Guilsborough 8 August 2009

Good Morning!  That greeting more than usual resonance to-day.
For it's a morning hymn we are to sing first to-day.
The rising sun and it's feeling of well being.   Our survival and renewal after the terrors of the night.
Favourite philosopher, Charles Schultz, the creator of cartoon strip "Peanuts" was,  as usual,  spot on when his hero Snoopy says 
"The daytime is so you can see where you are going. The night so you can lie awake worrying. " 
Every culture, I imagine, salutes the dawn.  From the druids at Stonehenge to the pilgrims at the summit of Mount Fuji.  Or standing in the Arches National Park in Utah, marvelling at the wonders of God's creation and thankful to be part of it. 
Awake!  For morning in the bowl of night has thrown the stone that put the stars to flight; and Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught the Sultan's turret in a noose of light
This particular hymn is an eighteen century German one, translated by Edward Caswall, a nineteenth century Anglican vicar an d hymn writer who later converted to Catholicism  More important is its inclusion in the Yattendon hymnal published by the poet Robert Bridges in 1899. Bridges wanted produce a classical hymn book based on literary excellence. He put this one in it more or less unchanged, tho it had 15 verses in the original. 
Get us off on the right foot in our worship to-day, let's sing this hymn of praise


