For the Beauty of the Earth Hymn of the Week

This is the For the Beauty of the Earth Hymn of the Week with Dr. Larry Frazier—presenting the good news in song, combining faith and everyday experience.

Tragic circumstances often inspire hymns expressing hope, trust, confidence, love and thankfulness—great statements of faith in a loving God who gives strength to the believer through the most difficult of times.  A spirit of thankfulness for the blessings of God is a quality encouraged throughout scripture and particularly, by this week’s hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth, which was inspired not by tragedy, but by the natural beauty of a lovely spring day.

For the beauty of the earth,
for the beauty of the skies,
for the love which from our birth
over and around us lies,
Refrain:
Christ our God, to thee we raise
this our sacrifice of praise.

For the beauty of each hour
of the day and of the night,
hill and vale, and tree and flower,
sun and moon, and stars of light, Refrain

For the joy of ear and eye,
for the heart and brain’s delight,
for the mystic harmony
linking sense to sound and sight, Refrain

For the joy of human love,
brother, sister, parent, child,
friends on earth, and friends above,
for all gentle thoughts and mild, Refrain

For each perfect gift of thine
to our race so freely given,
graces human and divine,
flowers of earth and buds of heaven, Refrain

For thy Bride that evermore
lifteth holy hands above,
offering up on every shore
this pure sacrifice of love, Refrain

For the martyrs’ crown of light,
for thy prophets’ eagle eye,
for thy bold confessors’ might,
for the lips of infancy, Refrain

For thy virgins’ robes of snow,
for thy maiden Mother mild,
for thyself, with hearts aglow,
Jesus, Victim undefiled, Refrain

For thyself, best gift divine!

To our race so freely given;

For that great, great love of thine,

Peace on Earth and joy in heaven:

Refrain: 

This our hymn of grateful praise.

Now, let us hear our hymn paired with the tune, Dix, as sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, followed by the St. John’s Children’s Chorus.

For the Beauty of the Earth, by Folliott Sandford Pierpont, was first published in 1864, in a collection of communion hymns entitled Lyra Eucharistica. Pierpont, born in Bath, Somerset, England, in 1835, was an honor graduate of Queens College, Cambridge, where he excelled as a student of the classics. After a short stint as headmaster and teacher of classics at Somersetshire College, he devoted his creative energy to writing, producing over seven volumes of hymns and sacred poems.

Though widely traveled, Pierpoint lived most of his life in Bath; his life-long appreciation of nature and the beautiful countryside of southwest England crowned in the purple of violets and the pale yellow primrose of Spring is reflected in his most famous hymn.

A devout lay member of the Anglican Church, he was also committed to the ideals of the Oxford or Tracterian Movement, which sought to establish a more formal liturgy with communion as a central part of the service of worship in which hymns reflect more the collective voice of the people instead of the individual, personal experience emphasized in evangelical hymns.

Simple and direct enough to achieve widespread popularity as a children’s hymn and a beautiful expression of the author’s personal sense of gratitude, the verses of For the Beauty of the Earth are also an ideal expression of common experience, highly suitable to the type of corporate worship favored by the Tracterian reformers as well as for the most personal and informal worship today.

The original refrain, “Christ our God, to thee we raise this our sacrifice of praise,” written to be sung as a post-communion prayer in the Anglican service, was later changed to “Lord of all, to thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise” to make the hymn more suitable for general use as a hymn of praise and thanksgiving. Of the original nine stanzas, no more than five or six are generally included in most modern hymnals. This hymn is usually paired with the tune, Dix, from a German chorale by Conrad Kocher, arranged by William H. Monk.

And now we hear the tune, Dix, as performed by pianist Jim Gibson.

The tune most commonly associated with our hymn was composed from a chorale by German composer Conrad Kocher, who lived from 1786-1872. Kocher studied piano and composition in St. Petersburg, Russia, and in Rome, before returning to Germany in 1820. The next year he founded the School of Sacred Music in Stuttgart, where he also served as organist at the Stiftskirche. His tune was arranged by William H. Monk, paired with the Christmas hymn, As with Gladness, Men of Old, by William Chatterton Dix, for whom it was named upon its appearance in the 1861 first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern.

And now, let us hear this wonderful hymn, set to music by contemporary English composer John Rutter, performed by the Cambridge Singers.

Perhaps the many blessings of which we may be grateful are best summarized in the following two stanzas from For the Beauty of the Earth:

For each perfect gift of thine

To our race so freely given,

Graces human and divine,

Flowers of earth and buds of heaven

Refrain

For thyself, best gift divine!

To our race so freely given;

For that great, great love of thine,

Peace on earth and joy in heaven.

Refrain: Lord of all, to thee, we raise

This our hymn of grateful praise.

Now, consider these verses from Psalm 107: “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so…Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind. And let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices, and tell of his deeds with songs of joy.

Thank you, Folliot S. Pierpoint, for your gift to us of this beautiful song of joy, “For the Beauty of the Earth.”

And now, hear your narrator, Dr. Larry Frazier, accompanied by pianist Terry Lowry, singing our hymn.

 Thank you for joining me for this episode of The Hymn of the Week.  Tune in again next week when we will consider another great hymn. 

 Until then, this is your host, Dr. Larry Frazier…

Goodbye and Keep Singing!