In our Thanksgiving services over the years, one of the hymns we always sang was “We Gather Together to ask the Lord’s Blessing.” In fact, to this day for some of us, singing it brings back pleasant memories of the church in which we grew up, and the yearly Thanksgiving Eve (or Thanksgiving Day) service. On that occasion, we sang this hymn (and others with a similar theme) before the Pastor’s brief devotional message. And then what followed was “open mike” time, as one after another stood where they were in the pews and described ways in which they were so thankful for what the Lord had done for them during the past year.
Thankfulness is a prominent theme in all of Scripture, especially in Psalms like 103, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me … and forget not all His benefits: who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” How often do we need to be reminded of that when we look around at our present problems and challenges, forgetting how the Lord has proven Himself over and over again to be a good and faithful God?
This hymn is probably found in almost every hymnal, if not in the section of hymns for Thanksgiving, then perhaps in the section on Providence. In these other topics, we sing of God’s mercy and grace to us, His kindness in ways that we do not deserve, not treating us as our sins deserve, but according to His sovereign love for us, His adopted children. The theme is one that ought to be prominent in our prayers, remembering to thank the Lord for what He has promised and what He has already done, before we begin to list all the things that we yet desire from Him and for which we will always be dependent on Him.
It’s interesting to discover in the origins of this hymn that it was not written for the American Thanksgiving holiday. In fact, it was written as a Dutch hymn in 1597 by Adrianus Valerius (1575-1625) to celebrate the Dutch victory over Spanish forces in the Battle of Turnhout, and was originally set to a Dutch tune. At the time the hymn was written, the Dutch were engaged in a war of national liberation against the Catholic King Philip II of Spain. Under the Spanish King, Dutch Protestants were forbidden to gather for worship. The opening line was “Wilt heden, Nu treden,” which translates into English as “Wilt we now step.” That led to our common English translation that begins with “We gather together,” which is consistent with its origins as Dutch folks were proclaiming their resolve to “gather” for worship, even though forbidden by their Roman Catholic oppressors. The hymn first appeared in print in a 1626 collection of Dutch folk and patriotic songs. Most today think it was written a year earlier, in 1625.
The year of its origin in Holland is a very important one. It’s the year that one of the Williams of the Orange Order, the Orange dynasty in Holland, came into power. He was the son of William the Silent, who was assassinated just months before this William was born. This is the William who is the grandfather of the famous William of Orange (in British terms “King Billy”) who fought in the so-called Battle of the Boyn in 1690 in the Catholic/Protestant wars of aggression in the seventeenth century.
The Dutch had beenemancipated from the Roman Catholic Church that year with a twelve-year truce, giving young Prince Frederick Henry a chance to mature into an able politician and soldier. Under his guidance, Spain’s efforts to regain supremacy on land and sea were finally overcome in 1648. And that led to half a century of perhaps the most prolific period. It’s the time of Vermeer and Rembrandt, and Dutch Protestantism, and so this hymn takes on all the tones of a hymn like “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”
The first appearance of “We Gather Together” in an American hymnal was in 1903. It had retained popularity among the Dutch, and when the Dutch Reformed Church in North America decided in 1937 to abandon the policy that they had brought with them to the New World in the 17th century of singing only Psalms, and added hymns to the church service, “We Gather Together” was chosen as the first hymn in the first hymnal. Today it is most commonly sung in the 1917 English setting by Theodore Baker, one which is not really the closest possible translation of the Dutch. It is curious to discover that there are alternate lyrics in a Roman Catholic version (with reference to a human priest) and also a Jehovah’s Witnesses version (with no reference to Jesus, only Jehovah), neither of which would be acceptable in an evangelical church, needless to say.
Our English translation came during the time of the First World War. And Americans began to think in terms of the text of the song about themselves and their own experience in the ways that certainly the Dutch folk had thought about themselves in the words of this song in a time of great conflagration and conflict and war. The text is very robust. It talks about things that we don’t hear in many songs today. We need to think of a nation as a whole identifying with these terms, expressions like “He chastens and hastens His will to make known,” and the longing that He would cause an end to “the wicked oppressing.”
In addition to our church Thanksgiving services, some of us are old enough to remember singing this hymn in a public state elementary school in lower grades around Thanksgiving time, perhaps along with Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang. This hymn, for whatever reason, has in the American psyche and in the twentieth century been a hymn that we always expect to sing at Thanksgiving time. This is unique in America, since our friends from the British Isles are not nearly as familiar with it as we are in this country, at least with this classic American holiday.
The English language translation of the text was made by Theodore Baker (1851-1934). Although he originally prepared for a business career, he turned his interest to music. After his musical training in Germany, where he received his doctoral degree at the University of Leipzig in 1881, he studied the music of the Seneca Indians of New York state. His dissertation on the music of these people was one of the first studies of the music of Native Americans. From 1892 to 1926 he was a literary editor with the well-known music publisher G. Shirmer, Inc. In 1926, he returned to Germany, where he died in Dresden.
It was while with Schirmer that Baker first translated this Dutch hymn as “We Gather Together” in 1894, for an anthem setting entitled “Prayer of Thanksgiving,” and it was first published in the 1917 “Dutch Folksongs” compiled by Coenraad V. Bos. It soon became quite popular. In 1900 Baker, who was active in the promotion of American music and composers, compiled his most famous work, the “Biographical Dictionary of Music and Musicians.” In 1927 Baker made an English libretto version of the French cantata “Les Sept Paroles du Christ” (“The Seven Last Words of Christ”)written and composed by Theodore Dubois (1837-1924). Several American hymnals include “Christ, We Do All Adore Thee,” taken from this.
As we sing the hymn with our 21st century Thanksgiving focus, we may not have the same context of gratitude as those of our Dutch ancestors, but we certainly ought to sing with a similar sense of thankfulness to God for His mercies to us, mercies without number. The mood of the hymn ought to connect us to Psalm 103. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.” For some American families, the tradition was that at the Thanksgiving table, with the tantalizing sight and smell of turkey filling our eyes and nostrils, we would take a few moments (perhaps after the main meal, but before the pumpkin and apple pie dessert), to go around the table and each offer a brief testimony of some way in which God’s goodness had induced a special feeling of gratitude. After all, what would Thanksgiving mean if there was not a clear identification of the one to whom we are thankful?
Stanza 1 refers to God as our Lord whose blessing we seek as we gather in corporate worship. The text reflects the reality that God’s blessings sometimes come in the form of chastening us that we might seek to know and do His will rather than our own. We also need Him as our Lord to bless us in those times when He permits the wicked to oppress us. History demonstrates that this happens all too often. But even in the valley of the shadow of death, He is by our side. There are overtones here to the persecution of the Roman Catholic Church in Holland under the policies of Spain.
We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known;
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing:
Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.
Stanza 2 refers to God as our Guide whose character and power are able to lead us in this fight. This is a God who does not stand far off, but rather one who joins with us in the midst of the battle. The text joins three comforting verbs relating to His work in building His divine kingdom: “joining, ordaining, maintaining.” Those who sing believing these truths do so with confidence that “from the beginning the fight we were winning.” That’s not a self-focused optimism, but rather an acknowledgement that “Thou, Lord, wast at our side.” We can hold on to that when we are challenged by hostile opponents in debate, when we are anxious about political trends, when friends turn on us, and when military might is attacking. Always we sing, “All glory be Thine!”
Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;
So from the beginning the fight we were winning:
Thou, Lord, wast at our side; all glory be Thine!
Stanza 3 refers to God as our Defender when the battle comes near to us. As our leader, we can also sing the contemporary chorus: “The Battle Belongs to the Lord!” Once again, the original setting is instructive. It was during that oppression that the Dutch people were experiencing in the 17th century from Spain’s heavy hand that the people were maintaining their trust in the Lord as their leader and defender. Jesus promised that we would experience tribulation, but how amazing it must be to nonbelievers when they see Christians not only enduring through tribulation, but praising the name of the Lord. That trust also includes the plea that God would hear from heaven and “make us free.”
We all do extol Thee, Thou Leader triumphant,
And pray that Thou still our Defender wilt be;
Let Thy congregation endure thro’ tribulation:
Thy Name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free.
The KREMSER tune was written by the Austrian Eduard Kremser (1838-1914). He was a choir director, conductor, composer and musicologist. He was the arranger of the music for male voices in “Sechs altniederländische Volkslieder,” a collection of six Dutch folk songs from Adriaan Valerius’ publication, “Nederlandtsche gedenck-clanck” (not a musical collection but a history book chronicling the Eighty Years War – 1568 to 1648 – between “The Low Countries” and Spain). From this publication comes this tune, which is named after Kremser. It is generally assumed that the tune originated as a folk melody from a time perhaps as early as the 16th century. He also edited and arranged a three volume set of German and Austrian folk music: “Wiener Lieder und Tänze: im Auftrage der Gemeindevertretimg der Stadt Wien”(published 1912-1925) as well as other volumes of folk music.
Here is a link to the congregational singing of this great hymn.