Mysterious Presence, Source of All

Representative Text

1 Mysterious Presence, source of all —
the world without, the soul within —
thou fount of life, O hear our call,
and pour thy living waters in.

2 Thou breathest in the rushing wind,
thy spirit stirs in leaf and flower;
nor wilt thou from the willing mind
withhold thy light and love and power.

3 Thy hand unseen to accents clear
awoke the psalmist’s trembling lyre,
and touched the lips of holy seer
with flame from thine own altar fire.

4 That touch divine again impart,
still give the prophet’s burning word;
and vocal in each waiting heart
let living psalms of praise be heard.

Source: Singing the Living Tradition #92

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Author: Seth Curtis Beach

Seth Curtis Beach was born on August 8, 1837 in western New York State. He was a Unitarian minister, author, poet and hymnist. The family lived in a log cabin they had built on a fifty acre farm near the village of Marion, New York. His mother and older sister tutored him until he was eight. In 1858 he enrolled at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, but transferred to Union College in Schenectady, New York and gradated from there with an A.B. degree in 1863. As a Unitarian, Beach enrolled at Harvard Divinity School to prepare for the ministry. After college he preached as a supply minister for a number of churches eventually settling at All Souls Unitarian Church in Augusta, Maine in 1867. He also served as minister at First Church… Go to person page >

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First Line:	Mysterious presence, source of all
Title:	Mysterious Presence, Source of All
Author:	Seth Curtis Beach (1866)
Meter:	8.8.8.8
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

Mysterious Presence, Source of all. [Before Sermon.] This hymn in the American Unitarian Hymn & [Tune] Book, 1868, is attributed therein to "S. C. Beach."

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)

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Tune

WAREHAM (Knapp)

William Knapp (b. Wareham, Dorsetshire, England, 1698; d. Poole, Dorsetshire, 1768) composed WAREHAM, so named for his birthplace. A glover by trade, Knapp served as the parish clerk at St. James's Church in Poole (1729-1768) and was organist in both Wareham and Poole. Known in his time as the "coun…

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DUKE STREET

First published anonymously in Henry Boyd's Select Collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes (1793), DUKE STREET was credited to John Hatton (b. Warrington, England, c. 1710; d, St. Helen's, Lancaster, England, 1793) in William Dixon's Euphonia (1805). Virtually nothing is known about Hatton, its composer,…

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HURSLEY

HURSLEY is a Protestant French Huguenot melody by an anonymous composer.

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Timeline

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Arrangements

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