Short Name: |
James Vila Blake |
Full Name: |
Blake, James Vila, 1842-1925 |
Birth Year: |
1842 |
Death Year: |
1925 |
Blake, James Vila. (Brooklyn, New York, January 21, 1842--April 28, 1925, Chicago, Illinois). He graduated from Harvard College in 1862 and from Harvard Divinity School in 1866, and served Unitarian churches in Massachusetts and Illinois, his last and longest pastorate being at Evanston, Illinois, 1892-1916.
Author of a number of books. He shared with W.G. Gannett and F.L. Hosmer in the compilation of the first edition of Unity Hymns and Chorals, (1880), which included his hymn, "Father, Thou art calling, calling to us plainly," included also in The New Hymn and Tune Book, 1914, and in Hymns of the Spirit, 1937. the latter book also includes his hymn of the church universal, "O sing with loud and joyful song."
--Henry Wilder Foote, DNAH Archives
James Vila Blake (1842–1925) was an American Unitarian minister, essayist, playwright and hymn writer and poet. Blake was born in Brooklyn, New York on January 21, 1842. He graduated from Harvard College in 1862, and from Harvard Divinity School in 1866. He served as pastor in several Unitarian churches in Massachusetts and Illinois. He died in Chicago on April 28, 1925. Different sources give different, and inconsistent, dates for his pastorates: While pastor at Evanston, he penned a Covenant which has been adopted by many Unitarian Congregations:
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