Uploaded March 2021 | Updated September 2026, 6 days ago
This ends the first chapter "Our God, Our Hope" in Carl Sandburg's 1950 New American Songbag. Sandburg was feeling patriotic because World War II not only came to its conclusion, Sandburg had hopes it was time for peace to be ushered in. . . and the "family of man" recognized.
Sandburg writes: "Often the saying goes in these days, "There is a search for God now as never before." Among the varied religions of mankind there are different names and interpretations of a Supreme Being, an absolute and universal Higher Intelligence having a hand: m. the affairs of men and nations. Around this Mystic Power, Isaac Watts wrote his psalm of faith in God as related to The Peoples who are now more vast and restless over the earth than in any previous age. Watts is a towering figure among hymn writers. He couldn't have known that of his hundreds of hymns this one would wear better and longer than any other. For more than three hundred years the English-speaking people and their changing rulers and servants have kept this hymn. Among trials and triumphs—and trials again—they go on singing it.
"You might say it is an antique that never goes out of use. On VE day and the war's ending in Europe in 1945, in St. Paul's Cathedral in London, England, "Our God, Our Help in Ages Past" was sung with depths of fervor by a congregation overflowing that famous structure which had been a target of Nazi bombers. Among the singers there that day was the late Joseph Fort Newton, pastor of the Church of St. Luke and Epiphany in Philadelphia. Next to Dr. Newton stood another singer, the playwright and paradoxist, George Bernard Shaw.· The last lines of the time-honored hymn had rolled out sonorous and resounding from the throats of men and women who had heard and seen the appalling "buzz bombs."
"In a moment of quiet, when the singing ended, George Bernard Shaw turned to the Reverend Dr. Newton of Philadelphia and said, "Do you know, I think I would rather have written that little thing than all my plays?" Thus Dr. Newton gave the incident to his longtime valued friend Abby Sutherland, head of Ogontz School. G. B. S. of course, did go in for much foolery in his time. Yet he had his solemn moments and this may have been one."
This ends the first chapter "Our God, Our Hope" in Carl Sandburg's 1950 New American Songbag. Sandburg was feeling patriotic because World War II not only came to its conclusion, Sandburg had hopes it was time for peace to be ushered in. . . and the "family of man" recognized.
Sandburg writes: "Often the saying goes in these days, "There is a search for God now as never before." Among the varied religions of mankind there are different names and interpretations of a Supreme Being, an absolute and universal Higher Intelligence having a hand: m. the affairs of men and nations. Around this Mystic Power, Isaac Watts wrote his psalm of faith in God as related to The Peoples who are now more vast and restless over the earth than in any previous age. Watts is a towering figure among hymn writers. He couldn't have known that of his hundreds of hymns this one would wear better and longer than any other. For more than three hundred years the English-speaking people and their changing rulers and servants have kept this hymn. Among trials and triumphs—and trials again—they go on singing it.
"You might say it is an antique that never goes out of use. On VE day and the war's ending in Europe in 1945, in St. Paul's Cathedral in London, England, "Our God, Our Help in Ages Past" was sung with depths of fervor by a congregation overflowing that famous structure which had been a target of Nazi bombers. Among the singers there that day was the late Joseph Fort Newton, pastor of the Church of St. Luke and Epiphany in Philadelphia. Next to Dr. Newton stood another singer, the playwright and paradoxist, George Bernard Shaw.· The last lines of the time-honored hymn had rolled out sonorous and resounding from the throats of men and women who had heard and seen the appalling "buzz bombs."
"In a moment of quiet, when the singing ended, George Bernard Shaw turned to the Reverend Dr. Newton of Philadelphia and said, "Do you know, I think I would rather have written that little thing than all my plays?" Thus Dr. Newton gave the incident to his longtime valued friend Abby Sutherland, head of Ogontz School. G. B. S. of course, did go in for much foolery in his time. Yet he had his solemn moments and this may have been one."
