O Day of Rest and Gladness

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O day of rest and gladness

Author: Christopher Wordsworth (1862)
Tune: MENDEBRAS
Published in 819 hymnals

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Piano/Organ
	The Church's One Foundation

Choral
	A Hymn to God: Creator

Instrumental
	Worship the King

Representative Text

1 O day of rest and gladness,
O day of joy and light,
O balm of care and sadness,
most beautiful, most bright;
on thee the high and lowly,
through ages joined in tune,
sing "Holy, holy, holy,"
to the great God Triune.

2 On thee, at the creation,
the light first had its birth;
on thee, for our salvation,
Christ rose from depths of earth;
on thee, our Lord victorious,
the Spirit sent from heav'n;
and thus on thee, most glorious,
a triple light was given.

3 Today on weary nations
the heav'nly manna falls;
to holy convocations
the silver trumpet calls,
where gospel light is glowing
with pure and radiant beams,
and living water flowing
with soul-refreshing streams.

4 New graces ever gaining
from this our day of rest,
we reach the rest remaining
to spirits of the blest;
to Holy Ghost be praises,
to Father, and to Son;
the church her voice upraises
to Thee, blest Three in One.

Source: Our Great Redeemer's Praise #449

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Author: Christopher Wordsworth

Christopher Wordsworth--nephew of the great lake-poet, William Wordsworth--was born in 1807. He was educated at Winchester, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A., with high honours, in 1830; M.A. in 1833; D.D. in 1839. He was elected Fellow of his College in 1830, and public orator of the University in 1836; received Priest's Orders in 1835; head master of Harrow School in 1836; Canon of Westminster Abbey in 1844; Hulsean Lecturer at Cambridge in 1847-48; Vicar of Stanford-in-the-Vale, Berks, in 1850; Archdeacon of Westminster, in 1865; Bishop of Lincoln, in 1868. His writings are numerous, and some of them very valuable. Most of his works are in prose. His "Holy Year; or, Hymns for Sundays, Holidays, and other occ… Go to person page >

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Related Texts

Christ, Whose glory fills the skies

First Line:	O day of rest and gladness
Title:	O Day of Rest and Gladness
Author:	Christopher Wordsworth (1862)
Meter:	7.6.7.6 D
Language:	English
Notes:	Spanish translation: See "O día de reposo" by E. L. M. and George Paul Simmonds
Copyright:	Public Domain

English

10 shown out of 610

German

Ausgewahlte Lieder des Evangeliums (Selected Gospel Songs) #d69

Welsh

Cân a Mawl: llyfr hymna a thonau Methodistiaid Calfinaidd Unol Dalaethau yr America=Song and Praise: the hymnal of the Calvinistic Methodist Church of the United States of America #13

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O day of rest and gladness. Bishop C. Wordsworth, of Lincoln. [Sunday.] This is the opening hymn of his Holy Year, 1862, p. i., in 6 stanzas of 8 lines. It is a fine hymn, somewhat in the style of an Ode from a Greek Canon, and is in extensive use. Sometimes stanzas v. and vi. are given as a separate hymn, beginning, "To day on weary nations." In the 3rd edition of the Holy Year, 1863, the full hymn was given as No. 3. In the 1874 Supplement to the New Congregational Hymn Book, it is reduced to 4 stanzas of 8 lines, and is also somewhat altered.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)