This hymn by John Fawcett (1740-1817; see SDAH 64) appears as No. 104 in his Hymns Adapted to the Circumstances of Public Worship and Private Devotion, published in Leeds, England, in 1782. It was entitled “Brotherly Love” and had two other stanzas. His book was written from Brearley Hall, near Halifax, where he was the pastor of a Baptist congregation at Wainsgate in 1765. He had endeared himself so greatly to his flock that when a call came to him in 1772 to accept a more auspicious appointment in London, he hesitated. However, he had a large family to support and finally decided to transfer. After his farewell sermon, his congregation begged him to remain with them. The next morning the furniture was loaded onto the wagons, but at the last moment of pleas of his flock prevailed on him and his wife to the extent that they unloaded the furniture and refused the appointment, staying on in his parish in Yorkshire.

DENNIS is an arrangement of a tune brought back from Europe by Lowell Mason (1792-1872; see Biographies), and published in his and George J. Webb’s (see SDAH 618) The Psalter, 1845. Mason credited Hans (Johann) George Naegeli, of Zurich, Switzerland, with the tune, but omitted to state the particular source. Leonard Ellinwood suggests it might have been from his Christliches Gesangbuch (Christian Hymnbook) 1828, which has a tune almost identical in the first half’ as DENNIS. Naegeli was born May 26, 1768, in Wetzikon, now a suburb of Zurich. He established a music publishing business there. He composed vocal and instrumental works and taught music according to the principles of his contemporary fellow citizen and educational reformer, Johann Pestaöozzi. Naegeli died in his hometown on December 26, 1836.

📖 Reference: Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal by Wayne Hooper and Edward E. White. Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1988.