Fair are the feet that bring the news

Author: John Mason

Fair are the feet which bring the news. J. Mason. [Missions.] First published in his Spiritual Songs; or, Songs of Praise, 1683, p. 36, as "A Song of Praise for a Gospel Ministry," in 5 stanzas of 8 lines. (Sedgwick's reprint, 1859, p. 26). In its full form it is unknown to modern hymn-books. The following centos therefrom are in common use:—
1. Fair are the feet which bring the news. In Longfellow and Johnson's Hymns of the Spirit, Boston, U.S., 1864, No. 343 is compiled from stanzas i., iii. and iv., considerably altered.
2. Bless'd are the feet which bring the news. This was given in Bickersteth's Christian Psalmody, 1833, No. 429, and is altered from stanzas i., iii.-v.
3. How blest the feet which bring the news. In Hall's Mitre, 1836, No. 117 is stanzas i., v. altered.
4. How beautiful the feet that bring. This altered form of stanzas i.—iii., v. is by the Rev. J. Keble. It was given in the Salisbury Hymn Book, 1857, No. 188, the Sarum Hymnal, 1868, Kennedy, 1863, and others.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Page Scans

Hymnal Amore Dei (1897), p.124