1812 - 1893 Author of "Great God in heaven above We offer up in love" Waterston, Robert Cassie, M.A., son of Robert Waterston, was born at Kennebunk, in 1812, but has resided from his infancy at Boston, Massachusetts. He studied Theology at Cambridge; had for five years the charge of a Sunday school for the children of seamen; was associated for several years with the Pitts Street Unitarian Chapel, Boston; and then pastor for seven years of the Unitarian Church of the Saviour in the same city. Much of his time has been given to literature, and a long list of his papers of various kinds is given in Putnam's Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith, 1874. He also interested himself largely in educational matters. He contributed one hymn to the American Unitarian Cheshire Pastoral Association Christian Hymns, 1844; to his own popular Supplement to Greenwood's Psalms and Hymns, 1845, and others to various works. Putnam gives 20 poetical pieces in his Singers and Songs, &c, 1874, amongst which are the following, which are in common use at the present time:—
1. In darkest hours I hear a voice. Looking unto Jesus. Contributed to Putnam's Singers and Songs, &c, 1874, and found in a few collections.
2. In each breeze that wanders free. Nature and the Soul. Published before 1853, and again in Putnam, 1874. The hymn "Nature, with eternal youth," in Hedge and Huntington's Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, No. 185, is composed of stanza iv-vii. of this piece.
3. One sweet [bright] flower has drooped and faded. Death of a Child. Appeared in the American Unitarian Cheshire Pastoral Association Christian Hymns, 1844, No. 668, and again in Putnam, 1874, as “One bright flower, &c." It is in several collections. In the Christian Hymns the heading is "Death of a Pupil;" and Putnam, "On the Death of a Child. Sung by her classmates."
In Putnam there are other pieces by him which are worthy of attention. [Rev. F. M. Bird, M.A.]
-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
R. C. Waterston
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