1 On Sion and on Lebanon,
On Carmel's blooming height,
On Sharon's fertile plains, once shone
The glory, pure and bright.
2 From thence its mild and cheering ray
Stream'd forth from land to land;
And empires now behold its day;
And still its beams expand.
3 Its brightest splendours, darting west,
Our happy shores illume;
Our farther regions, once unblest,
Now like a garden bloom;
4 But ah, our deserts deep and wild
See not this heavenly light;
No sacred beams, no radiance mild,
Dispel their dreary night.
5 Thou, Who didst lighten Sion's hill,
On Carmel Who didst shine,
Our deserts let Thy glory fill,
Thy excellence divine.
6 Like Lebanon, in towering pride,
May all our forests smile;
And may our borders blossom wide
Like Sharon's fruitful soil
Hymnal: according to the use of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, 1871
Henry Ustick Onderdonk, Bishop of Pennsylvania, was born in New York, March 16, 1789, and educated at Columbia College, B.A. 1805, M.A. 1808, D.D. 1827. Having decided to devote his life to medicine, he studied first in London and then in Edinburgh, receiving his M.D. from that university in 1810. Returning to New York, he began to study theology under Bishop Hobart and was ordained in 1815. He was rector of St. Ann's, Brooklyn, until 1827 when, following a famous controversy, he was elected bishop coadjutor of Pennsylvania, becoming diocesan in 1836 upon the death of Bishop White. He, with W.A. Muhlenberg, q.v., was influential on the committee appointed by General Convention to prepare the so-called Prayer Book Collection, 1826. The… Go to person page >
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