Tuesday, September 11, 2018*

                 ______________Psalm 45:1a _

My 

heart 

is stir-

ring 

with a

noble song, 

let me  recite what 

I have fashioned for the king

* Henry Thacker Burleigh, 1866–1945

 American composer, singer & arranger. The grandson of a slave who was blinded by a beating, Henry helped preserve and make available "the musical & spiritual riches of the American Negro spiritual." 

 Let that spirit of love which spurred him draw us also to join hands throughout the earth in Christ's one great fellowship of love -Collect

 The collect led me to the hymnal where I discovered that the hymn “In Christ There Is no East of West,” an Afro-American spiritual adapted  and harmonized” by  our friend. These 

are the words that appear in the 1940 hymnal 

and which I grew up singing. I  especially love 

the juxtaposition of the first lines of the first 

and  last stanzas. 

  In Christ there is no east or west, 

in him no south or north, 

but one great fellowship of love  

throughout the whole wide earth. 

In him shall true hearts everywhere 

their high communion find 

his service is the golden cord 

close-binding all mankind. 

Join hands, then, brothers of the faith,           

 whate're your race may be 

 who serves my Father as his son 

is sure surely kin to me.

In Christ now meet both east and west,

in him meet south and north, 

All Christly souls are one in him   

  throughout the whole wide earth.