When, Lord, to this our western land

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When, Lord, to this our western land

Author: Henry Ustick Onderdonk
Tune: MISSION (Gilbert)
Published in 46 hymnals

Representative Text

1 When, Lord, to this our western land,
Led by Thy providential hand,
Our wandering fathers came,
Their ancient homes, their friends in youth,
Sent forth the heralds of Thy truth,
To keep them in Thy Name.

2 Then, through our solitary coast,
The desert features soon were lost;
Thy temples there arose;
Our shores, as culture made them fair,
Were hallowed by Thy rites, by prayer,
And blossomed as the rose.

3 And O may we repay this debt
to regions solitary yet
Within our spreading land:
There, brethren, from our common home,
Still westward like our fathers, roam;
Still guided by Thy hand.

4 Saviour, we own this debt of live:
O shed Thy Spirit from above,
To move each Christian breast;
Till heralds shall Thy truth proclaim,
And temples rise to fix Thy Name,
Through all our desert west.

Hymnal: according to the use of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, 1871

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Author: Henry Ustick Onderdonk

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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