Desert Island Hymns

Over the coming weeks, we will explore what I have called, “Desert Island Hymns”. I have asked members of St Nicholas Methodist Church, Topsham, to choose just one hymn that they would take to a Desert Island.  Today’s choice comes from Jenny and Alan Davies, also chosen be Neil Gaylor; ‘Great is Thy faithfulness’.

Thomas Chisholm (1866-1960) wrote the poem in 1923 about God's faithfulness over his lifetime. Chisholm sent the song to William Runyan in Kansas, who was affiliated with both the Moody Bible Institute and Hope Publishing Company. Runyan set the poem to music, and it was published that same year by Hope Publishing Company and became popular among church groups.

The song was exposed to wide audiences after becoming popular with Dr. William Henry Houghton of the Moody Bible Institute and Billy Graham, who used the song frequently on his international crusades.

Thomas O. Chisholm was born in Franklin, Kentucky on July 29, 1866 in a log cabin and became a teacher at age sixteen. In 1893, aged 27, Chisholm had a Christian conversion experience during a revival in Franklin led by Dr. Henry Clay Morrison. He served as a Methodist minister for only one year before resigning due to poor health. Chisholm wrote over 1,200 sacred poems over his lifetime.

The Biblical lyrics reference Lamentations 3:22-23. (KJV) “It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;

There is no shadow of turning with Thee,

Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not,

As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,

Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above;

Join with all nature in manifold witness,

To Thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,

Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;

Strength for today, and bright hope for tomorrow

Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside.