For all Thy saints, a noble throng

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For all Thy saints, a noble throng

Author: Cecil Frances Alexander (1875)
Tune: ST. JAMES (Courteville)
Published in 12 hymnals

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Representative Text

1. For thy blest saints, a noble throng,
who fell by fire and sword,
or early died or flourished long,
we praise thy Name, 0 Lord.

2. For James who left his father's side,
not lingering by the sea:
he heard what could not be denied,
thy summons, "Follow me";

3. he stood with thee beside the dead;
he climbed the mount with thee,
and saw the glory round thy head,
one of thy chosen three;

4. he knelt beneath the olive shade;
he drank thy cup of pain;
and slain by Herod's flashing blade,
he saw thy face again.

5. Lord, may we learn to drink thy cup,
and meek and firm be found,
when thou shalt come to take us up
where thine elect are crowned.

Source: The Hymnal 1982: according to the use of the Episcopal Church #276

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Author: Cecil Frances Alexander

As a small girl, Cecil Frances Humphries (b. Redcross, County Wicklow, Ireland, 1818; Londonderry, Ireland, 1895) wrote poetry in her school's journal. In 1850 she married Rev. William Alexander, who later became the Anglican primate (chief bishop) of Ireland. She showed her concern for disadvantaged people by traveling many miles each day to visit the sick and the poor, providing food, warm clothes, and medical supplies. She and her sister also founded a school for the deaf. Alexander was strongly influenced by the Oxford Movement and by John Keble's Christian Year. Her first book of poetry, Verses for Seasons, was a "Christian Year" for children. She wrote hymns based on the Apostles' Creed, baptism, the Lord's Supper, the Ten Commandment… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	For all Thy saints, a noble throng
Author:	Cecil Frances Alexander (1875)
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

For all Thy Saints, a noble throng. Cecil F. Alexander. [St. James.] Contributed to Hymns Ancient & Modern, revised edition, 1875, and repeated in Mrs. Brock's Children's Hymn Book, 1881.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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