O day of rest and gladness. Bishop C. Wordsworth, of Lincoln. [Sunday.] This is the opening hymn of his Holy Year, 1862, p. i., in 6 stanzas of 8 lines. It is a fine hymn, somewhat in the style of an Ode from a Greek Canon, and is in extensive use. Sometimes stanzas v. and vi. are given as a separate hymn, beginning, "To day on weary nations." In the 3rd edition of the Holy Year, 1863, the full hymn was given as No. 3. In the 1874 Supplement to the New Congregational Hymn Book, it is reduced to 4 stanzas of 8 lines, and is also somewhat altered.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
Christopher Wordsworth--nephew of the great lake-poet, William Wordsworth--was born in 1807. He was educated at Winchester, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A., with high honours, in 1830; M.A. in 1833; D.D. in 1839. He was elected Fellow of his College in 1830, and public orator of the University in 1836; received Priest's Orders in 1835; head master of Harrow School in 1836; Canon of Westminster Abbey in 1844; Hulsean Lecturer at Cambridge in 1847-48; Vicar of Stanford-in-the-Vale, Berks, in 1850; Archdeacon of Westminster, in 1865; Bishop of Lincoln, in 1868. His writings are numerous, and some of them very valuable. Most of his works are in prose. His "Holy Year; or, Hymns for Sundays, Holidays, and other occ… Go to person page >
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