New Year's Day

Representative Text

1 Now, gracious Lord, thine arm reveal,
And make thy glory known;
Now let us all thy presence feel,
And soften hearts of stone!

2 Help us to venture near thy throne,
And plead a Savior's name;
For all that we can call our own,
Is vanity and shame.

3 From all the guilt of former sin
May mercy set us free;
And let the year we now begin,
Begin and end with thee.

4 Send down thy spirit from above,
That saints may love thee more;
And sinners now may learn to love
Who never loved before.

5 And when before thee we appear
In our eternal home;
May growing numbers worship here,
And praise thee in our room.

The Christian's duty, exhibited in a series of hymns, 1791

Author: John Newton

John Newton (b. London, England, 1725; d. London, 1807) was born into a Christian home, but his godly mother died when he was seven, and he joined his father at sea when he was eleven. His licentious and tumul­tuous sailing life included a flogging for attempted desertion from the Royal Navy and captivity by a slave trader in West Africa. After his escape he himself became the captain of a slave ship. Several factors contributed to Newton's conversion: a near-drowning in 1748, the piety of his friend Mary Catlett, (whom he married in 1750), and his reading of Thomas à Kempis' Imitation of Christ. In 1754 he gave up the slave trade and, in association with William Wilberforce, eventually became an ardent abolitionist. After becoming a tide… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: Now, gracious Lord, Thine arm reveal
Title: New Year's Day
Author: John Newton
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain

Notes

Now gracious Lord, Thine arm reveal. J. Newton. [The New Year.] The first of thirteen hymns to be sung "Before Annual Sermons to Young People, on New Years' Evenings," first published in the Olney Hymns, 1779, Bk. ii., No. 7., in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, and headed "Prayer for a Blessing." (Original text, Hymnal Companion, No. 90.) Its use is very extensive in all English-speaking countries; it has also been translated into several languages.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Tune

MARTYRDOM (Wilson)

MARTYRDOM was originally an eighteenth-century Scottish folk melody used for the ballad "Helen of Kirkconnel." Hugh Wilson (b. Fenwick, Ayrshire, Scotland, c. 1766; d. Duntocher, Scotland, 1824) adapted MARTYRDOM into a hymn tune in duple meter around 1800. A triple-meter version of the tune was fir…

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ST. PETER (Reinagle)

Composed by Alexander R. Reinagle (b. Brighton, Sussex, England, 1799; d. Kidlington, Oxfordshire, England, 1877), ST. PETER was published as a setting for Psalm 118 in Reinagle's Psalm Tunes for the Voice and Pianoforte (c. 1836). The tune first appeared with Newton's text in Hymns Ancient and Mode…

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Timeline

Media

The Cyber Hymnal #11825
  • PDF (PDF)
  • Noteworthy Composer Score (NWC)

Instances

Instances (1 - 3 of 3)

The Baptist Hymnal #704

TextScoreAudio

The Cyber Hymnal #11825

Church Hymnal, Mennonite #588

Include 139 pre-1979 instances
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