For the Beauty of the Earth
Folliott Sandford Pierpoint was an English poet and classics teacher. He wrote this classic hymn after being inspired by the countryside around Bath while contemplating God's gifts in creation and the church. He was an Anglican – but why would most Protestants change the words of his hymn and leave out some of the verses?
Introduction
Welcome back to Friday Classic Hymns. This is one that a few of you have requested on this channel. It's one that I didn't know, so I had to go and learn it this week. It's an interesting one because the lyrics are quite different depending on who's publishing it! Different theological schools tend to change the words to fit their theology, perhaps more than other hymns.
If you like hymns, if you enjoy the old classic songs of faith, I'm sure you'll enjoy my Friday Classic Hymns series - I release one of these pretty much every Friday. This is number 99! I'm going to do a nice special one next week for number 100.
If you enjoy God-focused music, I'm sure you'll enjoy my Sunday Night Encounters and my Tuesday Tunes that I release, so subscribe to the channel if you haven't already - I appreciate that.
Now, what are your thoughts on "For the Beauty of the Earth"? Do you know the song? What does it mean to you? If you've got memories or thoughts about the song, I'd love for you to share them in the comments below.
The Story Behind "For the Beauty of the Earth"
Folliott Sandford Pierpoint was born in 1835 in Bath, England. He lived in that region for most of his life and was a devout churchman. He was an Anglican through and through, and was quite influenced by the Oxford Movement, which was a movement in the Anglican Church of the time to return to more Catholic ways. The Anglicans, I suppose, may have been influenced by John Wesley and the more evangelical English clergymen the century before, so now the Oxford Movement was trying to pull the Church of England (the Anglican Church) back to a more Catholic understanding of things.
Pierpoint graduated from Queens College in 1857, and he became a classics teacher at Somersetshire College. But because he had received a great big inheritance from his family, he didn't really need to work, so he had a kind of informal arrangement: He would spend a lot of his time writing and relaxing rather than teaching.
The story behind the song is that at the age of 29, Pierpoint was wandering around the English countryside next to the Avon River and was just so overwhelmed by the beauty that he saw around him that he decided to write the song, thanking God for the beauty of the earth. He famously said that his “fingers had wings of joy” as he wrote these beautiful words.
Originally, this was actually entitled "Sacrifice of Praise". We'll see in a little while when we look at the lyrics why this is so. This is a very Catholic hymn, actually, and it was written to be used in the Eucharist (or Holy Communion) in the Catholic Mass, or the Anglican Mass which was being reshaped into a Catholic type of Mass by Pierpoint and people like him in the Oxford Movement.
There's a lovely run through the verses of this hymn, through these different things that he's thankful for. It's really quite a beautiful one to look at! But interestingly, over time, because of its fairly Catholic theology, Protestant hymnal publishers would change the words very slightly and drop out the verses that they didn't like. It's just such a beautiful song, but differing in theology meant we can either leave the song out, or we can change the song and still sing it with our theology. I'd love for you to share in the comments which version you sing when we go through the words just now.
Pierpoint published three books of poetry, and he contributed hymns to various hymnals of the time, although this is pretty much the only one of his that people know and still sing today. It's a beautiful song, and even though he died in 1917, the song still lives on.
What Do the Lyrics of "For the Beauty of the Earth" Mean?
Let's take a look at the words and see where the changes were made as well, to see where we fit in to the theology of the song. Each verse has got four lines. There are eight verses, and there's a little refrain in between each verse of two lines.
Verse 1
For the beauty of the earth, for the beauty of the skies.
Of course, this makes you think of psalms which cry out about the beauty of God. The heavens declare the glory of God - Psalm 19. The earth is the Lord's and everything in it - Psalm 24. He was looking at creation, thinking how wonderful God is. Maybe we need to do more of that?
For the love which from our birth over and around us lies.
As he looked at the beauty of the earth and the skies, he saw the love of God, which was over and around him from his birth. For these things he wants to give praise.
Refrain
Christ our God, to Thee we raise this our sacrifice of praise.
He was saying for all these things, for the beauty of the earth and the skies, and for the love of God with us from birth, we raise our sacrifice of praise for these things to You, O God.
But this refrain was the controversial thing. Firstly, some people for some reason took issue with the line "Christ our God". I’m not quite sure why. He famously said that Pliny the Elder, the famous writer of early Christian times, described Christians as singing songs to Christ, their God, as God. So Pierpoint said, “why should we not do it?” I tend to agree.
But the controversial line here is this our sacrifice of praise. This speaks to the heart of the Catholic Mass, where during the Eucharist, Christ is sacrificed again, the elements become His body and blood again, and then in the Eucharist we sacrifice Him again. That's Catholic theology. Of course, Protestants run for cover when they hear this! They say, no, that's not true. Some say that it's just a memorial. Others would say that Christ is present in a mysterious way, but the elements remain just symbolic.
So when Protestant hymn writers wanted to include this in their hymnals, they changed it to say, "Lord of all, to Thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise." So it took out that controversial element.
But you know that that phrase, the sacrifice of praise, comes from Hebrews 13, which says, "Therefore let us continually through Christ offer a sacrifice of praise." Perhaps you can sing that line without thinking of the Eucharistic elements being re-sacrificed at the altar, but sing our praise. The time and the effort we put into our Christian lives is our sacrifice of praise. We do it to praise God even though it costs us.
What do you think? Do you think the original refrain that Pierpoint wrote is okay, even if you're a Protestant? Or do you think it's too Catholic, I'd rather sing it differently? I'd love to know your thoughts.
Verse 2
For the beauty of each hour, of the day and of the night,
hill and vale and tree and flower, sun and moon and stars of light.
Again he's thanking God for the beauty of time passing, day and night. Each hour is beautiful in its own way, and all around we see trees and flowers, the sun and moon and stars. They're all God's creation. For these things we worship Him.
Verse 3
Verse three is a verse of praise for the human body.
For the joy of ear and eye, for the heart and brain's delight,
for the mystic harmony linking sense to sound and sight.
Just thankful, he is, for the miracle of the human body. I wonder if you are thankful for the miracle of your body, for your sight and your sound and your taste and your touch, and for the way that your body and brain works. I mean, it's a miracle, right? It's the work of a beautiful creator, surely. Do you thank Him for this enough, I wonder? Do we praise Him for the bodies that we have? Maybe not. Maybe we should do more of this sort of singing.
Verse 4
Verse four is about human relationships.
For the joy of human love, brother, sister, parent, child,
friends on earth and friends above.
I like that. That reminds me of some of Wesley's emphases on the communion of the saints here and in heaven.
For all gentle thoughts and mild.
Between us we are the family of God, the community of God. We praise Him for that. We praise Him for our families, for our friends. Are you grateful for the people in your life today? I'm sure you are.
Verse 5
Verse five is thanking God for the divine gifts.
For each perfect gift of Thine to our race so freely given.
Which reminds me of James 1:17 - “every good and perfect gift is from the Father above.”
Graces human and divine, flowers of earth and buds of heaven.
Human and divine, earth and heaven, he’s connecting earthly and heavenly blessings. We've got earthly blessings, human ones, earthly ones, but we've also got divine and heavenly blessings. They all come from God. We praise Him for these! Wonderful words.
Verse 6
Verse six thanks God for the church as the bride of Christ.
For Thy bride that evermore lifteth holy hands above.
Paul talked about how the church must be holy and unblemished when Christ comes to receive this church. Of course, Revelation talks a lot about the church being the bride, and the great wedding at the end. He's thanking God for this love that God has for the church and for the church's role in being holy and sanctified.
Offering up on every shore this pure sacrifice of love.
All around the world, the body of Christ, holy and sanctified, is offering sacrifices of love to Jesus, offering themselves as living sacrifices of love, I would say.
Verse 7
Then verse seven is where the Protestants again start to get a bit jumpy! Because it says:
For Thy martyrs' crown of light.
Of course, Catholics tend to venerate martyrs and make them saints, and pray to them that they would intercede for us while we're on earth. Protestants tend not to like that sort of thing! I'm a bit skeptical of it myself. It's not the way I understand the relationship between the saints. I don't know that we need to ask them to pray for us. Nonetheless, that's Catholic thinking. Maybe there's some of that here.
For Thy martyrs' crown of light, for Thy prophets' eagle eye,
for Thy bold confessors' might, for the lips of infancy.
See now, there's not much there that would stop me from singing it. I would say thank you, God, for the martyrs and for the crowns that they got. I remember Revelation 2 talks about the crowns that the martyrs receive, the victor's crowns. There’s nothing wrong with singing about that.
For Thy prophets' eagle eye - I'm thankful for prophetic words in the Bible, the prophets, and Jesus Himself as a kind of a prophet, giving great spiritual insight and calling people to repentance.
For Thy bold confessors' might - the people who confessed their faith boldly under persecution. Of course, we thank God for them in the example they set.
For the lips of infancy - that's Matthew 21. Jesus talks about how from the lips of children and infants, God has called forth praise. He was quoting a psalm. This is all very biblical and thanking God for those who have done these sorts of things. I think that's okay as long as we're not venerating and worshipping them as we would Jesus, or as only Jesus deserves.
What do you think? Am I wrong? Do you have any other thoughts about those words?
Verse 8
Verse eight as well is one that Protestants normally drop because it talks about Mary, who Catholics also tend to venerate, and it talks of the Eucharist in a different way.
For Thy virgin's robes of snow, for Thy maiden mother mild.
This is honouring the Virgin Mary. I don't want to have a whole discussion on Mariology, but this is the Catholic thinking, that Mary deserves special praise as a woman. I'm not sure about that. Jesus Himself didn't seem to do that. But here it is - this is what he was writing about.
Then the last two lines:
For Thyself with hearts aglow, Jesu, victim undefiled,
offer we at Thine own shrine Thyself, sweet sacrament divine.
He's now thanking Jesus for His sacrifice on the cross. And then again here's the Catholic thinking of the Eucharist, offering Jesus back to Himself in a sense through the sacraments, as the elements become His body and blood again.
I can see why Protestants drop some of those words. It's very Catholic theology that tends to be at odds with some of our Protestant thinking. I also don't know that I'd sing verse eight really, but the rest I'm okay with.
Conclusion
What do you think of these words? Do you find worth in them? Are you confused by any of them? Share your thoughts below. I think it's a beautiful hymn. Despite some of the theological differences, I'd be happy to sing the parts I agree with, which is 95% of it, and just thank God and lift up my praise to Him for all these wonderful blessings.
Christian life is about gratitude. If you're not grateful for the things you see around you, you become very miserable. Maybe this song can unlock within us a new gratitude and thankfulness for what He's done.
I’m looking forward to singing it with you, we're going to use a tune called Dix, which - according to Hymnary.org, where I do a lot of my research - is the most commonly sung tune to this song. If you sing a different tune, I'd love to also hear, please put that down in the comments below.
Please share this video with someone that you think might enjoy it. If you are willing, I'd love to have your support on my Patreon. I send out all the recordings I do for free to download on my Patreon. The piano pieces for all these hymns, you can get those there, and all of my songs that I've written as well, available there for any amount that you want to donate. You can do that and I thank you. I thank you for your kindness because your generosity helps me to do this week in and week out.
Come on, let's sing this song together. What I'm going to do, by the way, is sing two verses at a time with the refrain in the middle. That'll just enable us to sing the whole thing and get through it a bit quicker. Let's worship!
References
- Hymnary.org - "For the Beauty of the Earth"
- Osbeck, K.W. 1985. 101 Hymn Stories. Kregal Publications: Grand Rapids
- Anderson, T.K. 2009. 60 Hymn Stories. Nyakod: Cape Coast
