Previous items in this series of posts about notable hymns from the gray Psalter Hymnal that were omitted from Lift Up Your Hearts focused on songs from the 1960s & ’70s, Psalm settings, Bible songs,  Christmas/Advent songs, and rousing mid-19th Century hymns. This post deals with the half a dozen miscellaneous hymns remaining on my list.

Five of these six hymns made their first appearance in a CRC hymnal with the gray Psalter Hymnal (“Hail, O Once-Despised Jesus” was also in the blue Psalter Hymnal) so they don’t have deep roots in the denomination. Still, I don’t have a very good idea about what deficiencies could have led to their being cut.

“Lord, I Want to be a Christian” (PH87 #264), a popular spiritual first published in Folk Songs of the American Negro (1907), was part of our repertoire at Trinity. It seems like a strange omission.

“Sing, Choirs of New Jerusalem” (PH87 #404) has lyrics (originally in Latin) from the 11th Century by Bishop Fulbert of Chartres set to LYNGHAM, which the Psalter Hymnal Handbook calls a “fuguing tune” (I would say it ends with a two-part round that is fun to sing). (According to the hymn’s hymnary.org page, the more popular tune for the hymn is actually ST. FULBERT.) It was also part of our Trinity repertoire.

Sing, choirs of new Jerusalem,
your sweetest notes employ,
your sweetest notes employ
the paschal victory to hymn in songs of holy joy,
in songs of holy joy, in songs of holy joy!

“We Plow the Fields and Scatter” (PH87 #456), “originally a poem in seventeen stanzas” from the 18th Century (says the Psalter Hymnal Handbook), is a nice song of harvest thanksgiving.

We plough the fields, and scatter
The good seed on the land,
But it is fed and watered
By God’s almighty hand;
He sends the snow in winter,
The warmth to swell the grain,
The breezes and the sunshine,
And soft refreshing rain.

“Hail, O Once-Despised Jesus” (PH87 #395/PH57 #369) is a theologically rich Lenten/Easter hymn from the 18th Century set to ARFON.

Hail, O once-despised Jesus! Hail, O Galilean King!
You have suffered to release us,
hope and joy and peace to bring.
Hail, O agonizing Savior, bearer of our sin and shame;
by your merits we find favor;
life is given through your name.

“Living for Jesus” (PH87 #292), an early 20th Century hymn, is, Justin Struik informed me, the theme song of the Calvin Calvinist Cadet Corps, a group that, given my boyhood as a Lutheran, I never had the pleasure of joining. (If you’re reading this Justin, feel free to reminisce in the coments about singing “Living for Jesus.”) According to the Psalter Hymnal Handbook, “This is a hymn of total consecration and dedication in which we commit to ‘living for Jesus’ in all that we do (st. 1) and wherever we are (st. 3) in response to Christ’s sacrifice (st. 2; refrain).”

O Jesus, Lord and Savior, I give myself to you,
for you in your atonement did give yourself for me.
I own no other master, my heart shall be your throne:
my life I give, henceforth to live, O Christ, for you alone.

“We Come, O Christ, To You” (PH87 #238), another 20th Century song, 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)” (Psalter Hymnal Handbook). It is usually set to DARWALL (“Rejoice the Lord Is King”), but the Psalter Hymnal sets it to EASTVIEW. We sang this at Trinity.

We come, O Christ, to you, true Son of God and man,
by whom all things consist,  in whom all life began.
In you alone we live and move
and have our being in your love.

This post exhausts my list of 30 notable hymns that appeared in the gray Psalter Hymnal but not in Lift Up Your Hearts. I originally put this list together for our worship committee and included every hymn we had used in the past year and other hymns that were missed by me or brought to my attention by someone else on the committee. That’s under a tenth of 300+ hymns that got dropped, which seems like a positive reflection on LUYH’s selection process. (The roughly 300 hymns that did make the cut are listed here.)