The Holy Child Jesus

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Abashed be all the boast of age

Author: Reginald Heber
Tune: DUNDEE (Ravenscroft)
Published in 16 hymnals

Printable scores: PDF, Noteworthy Composer
Audio files: MIDI

Piano/Organ
	Peace Like a River (Heartfelt Hymn Setti…

Representative Text

1 Abashed be all the boast of age!
Be hoary learning dumb!
Expounder of the mystic page,
Behold an infant come!

2 Oh, Wisdom, whose unfading power
Beside th’Eternal stood,
To frame, in nature’s earliest hour,
The land, the sky the flood;

3 Yet didst not Thou disdain awhile
An infant form to wear;
To bless Thy mother with a smile,
And lisp Thy faltered prayer.

4 But, in Thy Father’s own abode,
With Israel’s elders round,
Conversing high with Israel’s God,
Thy chiefest joy was found.

5 So may our youth adore Thy name!
And Savior, deign to bless
With fostering grace the timid flame
Of early holiness.

Source: The Cyber Hymnal #10921

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Author: Reginald Heber

Reginald Heber was born in 1783 into a wealthy, educated family. He was a bright youth, translating a Latin classic into English verse by the time he was seven, entering Oxford at 17, and winning two awards for his poetry during his time there. After his graduation he became rector of his father's church in the village of Hodnet near Shrewsbury in the west of England where he remained for 16 years. He was appointed Bishop of Calcutta in 1823 and worked tirelessly for three years until the weather and travel took its toll on his health and he died of a stroke. Most of his 57 hymns, which include "Holy, Holy, Holy," are still in use today. -- Greg Scheer, 1995… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	Abashed be all the boast of age
Title:	The Holy Child Jesus
Author:	Reginald Heber
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

Abash'd be all the boast of Age. Bishop R. Heber. [Epiphany.] Appeared in his posthumous Hymns, &c, 1827, pp. 27-8, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines as the first of two hymns for the First Sunday after Epiphany. In its original form it is not in common use, but stanzas ii.-v. as—"O Wisdom, whose unfading power"—is given in Kennedy, 1863, No. 229 (with alterations), and the Methodist Sunday School Hymn Book 1879,No.77, also slightly altered.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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Tune

DUNDEE (Ravenscroft)

DUNDEE first appeared in the 1615 edition of the Scottish Psalter published in Edinburgh by Andro Hart. Called a "French" tune (thus it also goes by the name of FRENCH), DUNDEE was one of that hymnal's twelve "common tunes"; that is, it was not associated with a specific psalm. In the Psalter Hymnal…

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