For all Thy saints, a noble throng

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For all Thy saints, a noble throng

Author: Cecil Frances Alexander (1875)
Tune: ST. JAMES (Courteville)
Published in 14 hymnals

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Representative Text

1 For all thy saints, a noble throng,
who fell by fire and sword,
who soon were called, or waited long,
we praise thy name, O Lord;

2 for him who left his father’s side,
nor lingered by the shore,
when, softer than the weltering tide,
thy summons glided o’er;

3 who stood beside the maiden dead,
who climbed the mount with thee,
and saw the glory round thy head,
one of thy chosen three;

4 Who knelt beneath the olive shade,
who drank thy cup of pain,
and passed from Herod’s flashing blade
to see thy face again.

5 Lord, give us grace, and give us love,
like him to leave behind
earth’s cares and joys, and look above
with true and earnest mind.

6 So shall we learn to drink thy cup,
so meek and firm be found,
when thou shalt come to take us up
where thine elect are crowned.

Source: CPWI Hymnal #833

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Author: Cecil Frances Alexander

As a small girl, Cecil Frances Humphries (b. Redcross, County Wicklow, Ireland, 1818; Londonderry, Ireland, 1895) wrote poetry in her school's journal. In 1850 she married Rev. William Alexander, who later became the Anglican primate (chief bishop) of Ireland. She showed her concern for disadvantaged people by traveling many miles each day to visit the sick and the poor, providing food, warm clothes, and medical supplies. She and her sister also founded a school for the deaf. Alexander was strongly influenced by the Oxford Movement and by John Keble's Christian Year. Her first book of poetry, Verses for Seasons, was a "Christian Year" for children. She wrote hymns based on the Apostles' Creed, baptism, the Lord's Supper, the Ten Commandment… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	For all Thy saints, a noble throng
Author:	Cecil Frances Alexander (1875)
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

For all Thy Saints, a noble throng. Cecil F. Alexander. [St. James.] Contributed to Hymns Ancient & Modern, revised edition, 1875, and repeated in Mrs. Brock's Children's Hymn Book, 1881.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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