Onward! Christian Soldiers

Though it is as firmly rooted in the Christian faith and church as any hymn in the book, this one has made its mark on a communal tradition well beyond any church boundaries. It is widely recognised as a minor Victorian classic, identified by its tune as much as its words, on a level in the popular mind with such others as 23B, 260 and 915; but now it is as much criticised as celebrated. Hymnal editors have been blamed as much for including as for omitting it, in Britain, N America and elsewhere. Most hymnals and reference books attribute it to the new young curate in a Yorks mission district, Sabine Baring-Gould, adding that the occasion was a grand Whitsuntide procession by the Sunday School at Horbury Bridge near Wakefield, Yorks, in 1864. Many also provide the detail that it was written (or at least completed) on the Sunday night and sung by the assembled hundreds the next day, Whit Monday—all without benefit of photocopier. Certainly the Church Times printed it on 15 Oct that year, headed ‘Hymn for Procession with Cross and Banners’, and 30 years on Baring-Gould is quoted as describing its hasty composition and less-than-ideal rhyming.

However, another claimant has posthumously appeared in the person of Ben Preston, a Yorks dialect poet and a great-grandfather of the astronomerSir Fred Hoyle. His family give the occasion as Easter ‘around 1864’, and claim that Baring-Gould, an admirer of Preston’s writing, asked for the hymn, and that it was later attributed to SBG ‘by default’ (see Hoyle’s autobiography Home is Where the Wind Blows, p37, and HSB575, Apr 1995). The debate so far has been inconclusive.

Whatever the truth of its authorship, the original text had 6 stzs; most books print 5, dropping the original 4th, ‘What the saints established/ that I hold for true;/ what the saints believèd,/ that believe we too …’. The further omission here is that beginning ‘Like a mighty army/ moves the church of God;/ brothers, we are treading/ where the saints have trod./ We are not divided …’ The idealised language of these lines in particular provides ample opportunities for parody—itself a backhanded compliment, as with Watts and others. But although the author allowed a more ‘realistic’ alternative, and HTC tried to rescue it (‘Christ is not divided …’), these lines are now omitted. What appears here in stz 1 and the refrain as ‘looking up to Jesus …’ (other books offer ‘unto’, from Hebrews 12:2), was originally ‘with the cross of Jesus going on before’—wording which reflected the highly visual effect of the processions. Stz 2 had ‘Satan’s host doth flee … Hell’s foundations quiver … Brothers …’; 3, ‘rise and wane … constant will remain’; and 4, ‘join our happy throng’, now replaced as in HTC.

In spite of its occasional secular military use, and consequent adaptation not only in parody but for peace, it is vital to recall that the warfare described is spiritual; see also Section 8m. For Bernard L Manning (who in 1942 had ‘a sneaking affection’ for Baring-Gould, ‘despite my better judgement’) the hymn is ‘not to be written off hastily’; for Erik Routley it is ‘the simplest and most inspiriting of processional hymns’; for others it is ‘unsurpassed … [as] the processional hymn of the Church Militant’ (Companion to Hymns and Psalms, 1988.)

ST ALBANS (=HAYDN), adapted from that composer’s Symphony 15 in D, was the original tune for these words; but Arthur Sullivan’s ST GERTRUDE, itself the object of as much attack and defence as the text, was written for the words in 1871. The Musical Times published it with them in Dec that year, as did The Hymnary in 1872, and this has become the inevitable tune. The composer named it for his 1874 collection Church Hymns, in honour of Mrs Gertrude Clay-Ker-Seymer at whose home near Blandford Forum, Dorset, it was written. (Two more official ‘St Gertrudes’ lived in the 7th and 13th c’s.) Though no other tune is now used for the hymn, in spite of Holst’s PRINCE RUPERT in Songs of Praise, other authors have found this one serviceable; see eg 466. It was composed in the key of F major, which thus included 5 top Fs.

b Exeter, Devon 1834, d Lew Trenchard, nr Tavistock, Devon 1924. Clare Coll Cambridge (BA, MA 1856); he taught briefly at the choir school of St Barnabas Pimlico, London, and then as Headmaster of Hurstpierpoint Coll in W Sussex until his ordination (CofE) in 1864. He became Curate of Horbury nr Wakefield, W Yorks, for 2 years, with responsibility for the mission district of Horbury Bridge; incumbencies at Dalton (nr Thirsk, N Yorks) and E Mersea (Essex) followed, but his most notable parish ministry began in 1872. On the death of his father in that year he succeeded to the title and property of Lew Trenchard (now one word) in Devon and in a 3-centuries-old tradition became its Squire and Rector, and later a JP; in his time the parish never contained as many as 300 adults.

While there he published many volumes of verse and prose including historical, biographical, devotional and fictional works, some in a colourfully entertaining style; he would write continuously while standing for long periods (like Toplady before him, not far distant but not much understood) at his high study desk. These included a lavishly-produced The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, 15 vols of Lives of the Saints, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, 2 vols of folk-songs and one of carols, followed by two books of reminiscences. By 1896 at least 22 of his novels were advertised in Messrs Methuen’s list, many with colourful titles and most into 2nd or subsequent edns. He was one of the earliest folk-song collectors, and his view of carols was permanently changed as he was teaching a smoothed-out Victorian text to Yorkshire mill-girls c1865; they burst out with ‘Nay! We know one a great deal better nor yond!’ and proceeded to teach him the authentic version. But Christmas, he believed, was celebrated better in warm and colourful churches than in cold and dark streets.

Baring-Gould was a ‘high’ Anglican, keen to distinguish the orthodox Catholic faith from Romanism and popery. Church Songs was published in 1884, co-edited like some of his other books with H F Sheppard. SBG’s hymns could be either stirring and gentle, with a special appeal to children of his generation as with the once highly popular Now the day is over. Indeed, just as W W How provides us with both nos.429 and 585, so Baring-Gould has given us 575 and Sing lullaby. And the former of these (like Cowper’s 256 and Monsell’s 883) is frequently quoted in all kinds of secular literature and popular journalism alike. Like some other notable Victorians (Wm Morris, Anthony Trollope etc), Baring-Gould also made the journey to Iceland, where realism generally overcame romance. He died at home 4 weeks short of his 90th birthday, and while he seems in many ways a larger-than-lifesize survivor from a different age, his hymns are still being sung; CH and GH both feature two, while 4 are included in the N American Hymnal 1982 and the Irish Church Hymnal of 2005. In translation they are in use in E African Swahili books and elsewhere worldwide. In 1957 William Purcell published Onward, Christian Soldiers: a life of SB-G, Parson, Squire, Novelist, Antiquary, 1834-1924. This included a handsome frontispiece illustration, and a perceptive introduction by John Betjeman who called him ‘a born story-teller’ of ‘uncompromising amateurishness’. Nos.575, 588.