Hymn: "God of Our Fathers"

for my friend Florence...

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GOD OF OUR FATHERS -- Tune ("National Hymn" by George W. Warren), Words by Daniel C. Roberts.

(The hymn was written in 1876 for a celebration of the Centennial Fourth of July, and sung at Brandon, Vermont, originally sung to the tune called Russian Hymn!)

God of our fathers, whose almighty hand
Leads forth in beauty all the starry band
Of shining worlds in splendor through the skies
Our grateful songs before Thy throne arise.

Thy love divine hath led us in the past,
In this free land by Thee our lot is cast,
Be Thou our Ruler, Guardian, Guide and Stay,
Thy Word our law, Thy paths our chosen way.

From war's alarms, from deadly pestilence,
Be Thy strong arm our ever sure defense;
Thy true religion in our hearts increase,
Thy bounteous goodness nourish us in peace.

Refresh Thy people on their toilsome way,
Lead us from night to never ending day;
Fill all our lives with love and grace divine,
And glory, laud, and praise be ever Thine.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• organ
• church
• casavant
• lutheran
• God
• of
• Our
• Fathers
• whose
• almighty
• hand

[pstr1bill]

I love the improv, out of tune or not. Thanks for the effort to record.

George William Warren Jr. (greatgrandson)

[theremin137]

@pstr1bill Thank you very much! What an honor to know that the great grandson of the composer of this stirring hymn has visited my YouTube channel.

[theremin137]

"Some ranks are [were] out of tune." I recorded most of these videos in late summer / early autumn, in late afternoon / early evening, when the temperature in the organ loft usually was 80 degrees or hotter. Thus, tuning issues abounded. This problem has been addressed with restoration of the glorious Christus Rex window - which included sealing the window in a 'sandwich' of UV-filtering material.

[theremin137]

The hymn appears in nearly every "traditional" Protestant hymnal - the modulation and improvisation you hear on the last verse in this video was just that - an improvisation and not written down anywhere.

[JWall416]

@theremin137 "nearly every "traditional" Protestant hymnal" --except, for some idiotic reason, the new Lutheran ELW. Very unfortunate, all things considered... I've always loved this hymn, and this is a very good arrangement.

[theremin137]

@JWall416 - Yes, that's another unfortunate omission. OTOH, most of those awful Paul Bunjes "reharmonizations" were thrown out, some of which were difficult to play and nearly impossible to sing and most were NOT improvements on the originals. Another failed attempt to "reinvent the wheel."

[katietillinghastde]

I love this hymn!

[sweetmelodymusicman5]

our band played this at our district convention

[sweetmelodymusicman5]

i love this song we played this in our district convention

[sweetmelodymusicman5]

our band played this song in the bahamas district convention

[Jacobre156]

@Reesman95 To solve that problem, I use the Trumpet en Chamade stop on my church's organ. It startles the congregation so much that they forget the hymn and look up at the loft to see what happened...haha...

[hpa2005]

the Army Hymn if I'm not mistaken

[camedon]

I think you did an excellent job. I have listened to this many times over and I must tell you, it is so very enjoyable. I hope you plan to post most of your work.