What Meaneth This?

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What meaneth this, this strange display

Author: Edith Grace Updegraff
Tune: [“What meaneth this?” this strange display]
Published in 3 hymnals

Audio files: MIDI

Representative Text

1 “What meaneth this?” this strange display,
These cloven tongues, like as of fire,
This sudden sound like rushing wind,
They all with one accord enquire.

Refrain:
This is the Lord, the Holy One,
This is the promised pow’r bestowed;
The Holy Ghost has surely come,
And taken up his own abode.

2 “What meaneth this?” oh, blessed Lord,
Thy waiting saints all know full well
Thy presence manifested there,
Indued with pow’r, thy love to tell. [Refrain]

3 O, Pentecost, sweet upper room
Where holy fire unloosed the dumb;
“What meaneth this?” oh, praise his name;
The promised pow’r has fully come. [Refrain]

4 “What meaneth this?” such holy joy,
This intermingling wave of sounds;
O, “This is That” which promised was,
And now the Holy Ghost abounds. [Refrain]

Source: Songs of Love and Praise No. 4 #128

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Author: Edith Grace Updegraff

Eliza Grace Updegraff ((1871-1964) was born in Mount Pleasant, Ohio, the daughter of a Quaker minister, the Rev. David Brainard Updegraff and his wife Eliza Jane. According to the 1880 census, at age nine, Eliza Grace Updegraff lived in Mount Pleasant, in Jefferson County, Ohio with her parents and siblings, three brothers and two sisters, all born in Ohio. When she was composing hymn tunes she did not use her first initial, and is almost always listed as E. Grace Updegraff. She is known as the composer of two hymn tunes: CARTER ("In doubt and temptation I rest Lord, in Thee") and THE HOPE OF THE AGES ("Jesus comes, he comes in glory"). Two of her texts are "What meaneth this, this strange display?" (see Songs of Love and Praise, No.4 ,… Go to person page >

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First Line:	What meaneth this, this strange display
Title:	What Meaneth This?
Author:	Edith Grace Updegraff
Language:	English
Refrain First Line:	This is the Lord, the Holy One
Copyright:	Public Domain