Contents

Talk:Love Divine, All Loves Excelling

This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Christianity: Methodism Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Christianity, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Christianity on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChristianityWikipedia:WikiProject ChristianityTemplate:WikiProject ChristianityChristianity articles Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by Methodism work group (assessed as Mid-importance). Songs This article is within the scope of WikiProject Songs, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of songs on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SongsWikipedia:WikiProject SongsTemplate:WikiProject Songssong articles Christian music This article is within the scope of WikiProject Christian music, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Christian music on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Christian musicWikipedia:WikiProject Christian musicTemplate:WikiProject Christian musicChristian music articles ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

[Untitled][edit]

Love Divine, All Loves Excelling was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was CONSENSUS NOT REACHED

Just lyrics. Part of an earlier nomination, but apparently whoever took care of the others left these behind. Same story for O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing. Niteowlneils 18:17, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• Oh, and apparently also Hark, The Herald Angels Sing. They were apparently discussed at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Jesus Christ (Christ the Lord) is Risen Today. I think transwiki is OK, but that the preface to O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing should stay. That seems to have been the consensus last time too. Cool Hand Luke 18:38, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • See Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, there is more content there. Make the above a redirect. I've been taking quite a lot of abuse from the creator of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing for having the audacity to delete the lyrics. We should transwiki all uncopyrighted lyrics to Wikisource. RickK 21:28, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
    • I've made Hark, The Herald Angels Sing a redirect to Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. What's wrong with having lyrics? Paul August 17:08, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)
• Transwiki to Wikisource and delete. Geogre 19:04, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Transwiki; if there is anything other than lyrics, it should be left, and some of the lyrics should remain (perhaps one verse) to give a sample, plus the Wikisource page should be linked. [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 02:15, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Agree with Aranel. (Keep Hark, as is.) [[User:Rhymeless|Rhymeless | (Methyl Remiss)]] 05:36, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. Jesuscruft. ;) --Improv 07:46, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Keep article, transwiki majority of lyrics and link to them —siroχo 08:26, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)
• Keep article - the author, and musical arrangements are interesting, but the lyrics can be moved elsewhere. Intrigue 16:52, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Just because some people don't approve of anything religious is no reason to remove this. We are making an encyclopedia. These hymns are part of a long tradition in many churches. The stories of how the hymns were written, both text and melody, are interesting. Since space is not a issue, what is the problem with keeping the lyrics (which are now in the public domain) as a documentation? I vort for keeping these and other hymns!--WiseWoman 20:57, 2004 Oct 30 (UTC)

End archived discussion -- Graham ☺ | Talk 16:31, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In his book Companion to the Song Book of The Salvation Army, Gordon Taylor writes of this hymn

Published in Hymns for those that seek and those that have Redemption in the Blood of Jesus Christ, 1747, in four verses and in Hymns for those whom Christ is all in all, 1761, omitting the second verse, which expressed a controversial view of Christian perfection. Commenting on the line 'Take away our Power of sinning', the Reverend John Fletcher (1729-85), of Madeley, said, 'Can God take away from us our power of sinning without taking away our power of free obedience?' In Select Hymns: with Tunes annext, 1761, this hymn was set to an adaptation of Purcell's 'Fairest Isle, all isles excelling', from Dryden's King Arthur, 1691, which may have inspired the opening line of Charles Wesley's hymn. [ISBN 0 85412 531 0. (c) The General of The Salvation Army, published by International Headquarters, London, 1989]

This seems to support some of the assertions in the text. I am reluctant to make the changes myself for a number of reasons.

1. I must declare an interest as a member of The Salvation Army, hence my view of Taylor's work is not unbiased. I should say, however, that Gordon Taylor was (and I believe still is) an archivist and researcher at The Salvation Army's International Heritage Centre, and therefore has access to much SA and other material. He is therefore probably as reliable as many other sources.
2. I do not know whether this book is considered sufficiently authoritative, since it is not primarily about Wesley and his hymnology. (Though note my comments above on Taylor's credentials)
3. I'm not sure how to do it and get it right!

Comments are welcome. Feel free to use this if it helps with the article.

Icabelieveitmei (talk) 19:33, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Me again! I'm looking for background on this hymn in preparing a sermon for Sunday. The Daily Telegraph also has similar information - though this is clearly secondary or even tertiary source.

See the article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/3668060/The-story-behind-the-hymn.html

Icabelieveitmei (talk) 19:43, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And there's more: comments from Conjubilant with Song blog post on John and Charles Wesley (http://conjubilant.blogspot.com/2009/03/john-and-charles-wesley.html). Each writer is familiar with a different version of the hymn.

I may have commented on this before, CWS,that is the variance in text from different hymnals. I have now seen 3 different fifth lines in v.2; your post is one. Another is "Take away our bent to sinning" - which I learned growing up in the Church of the Nazarene (Methodist roots). The third would be "Take away our love of sinning" - in the Presbyterian hymnal I currently use. Interesting, eh?

Yes, that's what hymnal editors do, for one reason or another. Many things have been taken into consideration over the years as the words are changed.

I believe Wesley's original line was "Take away our power of sinning." Each different set of changes was undertaken to make the line more palatable or more in line with a particular theology or doctrine.

Make of that what you will.

Icabelieveitmei (talk) 19:53, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds plausible. Although I haven't quoted the text above, I've included a reference to Taylor's book. Do you have page numbers from it for (a) the Dryden derivation (b) the "take away...sinning" debate? Feline Hymnic (talk) 21:33, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the process of expanding this stub. Still need to expand some references and add others. Though I worked mostly from print sources, many hymn books are now available through the Internet Archive and Google Books. I will add the appropriate URLs as I find them. PFSchaffner (talk) 22:44, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cleaning up my previous expansion: a few minor edits, and many additional references. Still a few references to add, and many URLs for electronic access to the books cited. Would like to track down sources for the tunes (settings) for which no source is listed. PFSchaffner (talk) 21:41, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Question: is it Wikipedia policy NOT to cite online sources that are available only to paying customers? Such as large commercial academic databases? Such as Early English Books Online (EEBO) from ProQuest or Eighteenth-Century Collections Online (ECCO) from Gale/Cengage? Or even the online Oxford English Dictionary? PFSchaffner (talk) 21:44, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Continuing to clean up my expansion. Added final batch of references for various claims to textual history (hard to do concisely, since heavily dependent on primary sources). Began to introduce some internal links. Still need to add external URLs. May still be a few typos, alas. PFSchaffner (talk) 03:28, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In many years in church music in the UK, I have never come across 'Moriah'. 'Blaenwern' in my experience is the preferred tune here, then 'Hyfrydol' and Steiner's 'Love Divine'. Mdrb55 (talk) 17:53, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

that is OK good — Preceding unsigned comment added by Excelling (talk • contribs) 10:23, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]