Father, Hear the Prayer We Offer

Lyrics

Father, hear the prayer we offer:
not for ease that prayer shall be,
but for strength that we may ever
live our lives courageously.

Not for ever in green pastures
do we ask our way to be;
but the steep and rugged pathway
may we tread rejoicingly.

Not for ever by still waters
would we idly rest and stay;
but would smite the living fountains
from the rocks along our way.

Be our strength in hours of weakness,
in our wanderings be our guide;
through endeavour, failure, danger,
Father, be thou at our side.

History

Love Maria Whitcomb was born on 9 June 1824 in Hancock, New Hampshire, into a family of Unitarian ministers, and in 1858 married Dr Frederick L. H. Willis. She lived for many years at Rochester, New York, and is reported to have been an editor of Tiffany's Monthly. She is credited with this hymn, which she is said to have called 'Aspiration' and originally wrote in the first-person singular.

The hymn's first publication is dated differently by different sources. Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology gives Tiffany's Monthly in 1859 and an altered text in Longfellow and Johnson's Hymns of the Spirit (1864), where it appeared in four stanzas of four lines with a changed opening that turns the 'I' into 'we'. Julian says the text was largely rewritten, probably by Samuel Longfellow. Another account gives an earlier appearance in John S. Adams's Psalms of Life (1857), a later printing of an altered text in Longfellow's A Book of Hymns and Tunes (1860), and six original stanzas. The four-stanza, plural-voice version is the one found in modern hymnals; it was included in The English Hymnal (1906).

The text is sung to several tunes, including SUSSEX, an arrangement by Ralph Vaughan Williams of an English folk melody for The English Hymnal; GOTT WILL'S MACHEN, a melody by Johann Ludwig Steiner (1688-1761); and MARCHING by Martin Shaw. ST SYLVESTER by J. B. Dykes is also among the tunes used for the words.

Performance

This recording is by St Martin's Voices and runs to about two and a half minutes (2:35). The channel also carries an earlier recording of the hymn, titled as being by the same group.

Sources: hymnary.org · stgeorgescathedral.ca · St Martin's Voices recording and Words book