Spitta wrote this hymn about the home and family in 1826 and published it in his Psalter und Harfe, 1833, in five eight-line stanzas titled “Salvation is come to this house” (Luke 19:9). The translation from the German by Honor Mary Thwaites was made for the ecumenical Australian Hymn Book, 1977.

Karl Johann Philipp Spitta was born August 1, 1801, at Hannover, Germany. At age 11 he was apprenticed to a watchmaker, but he intensely disliked watchmaking. Finally the opportunity came for him to go to the University of Göttingen, where he finished in 1824. After ordination he pastored the Lutheran church at Sudwalde, served as a military chaplain, and in 1847 was instituted as Lutheran superintendent at Wittingen. Before his death of a heart attack while writing at his desk, September 28, 1859, he also served at Peine and Burgdorf. He began writing poetry at age 8, and while at the university wrote secular pieces. Near the end of his school work there, a new spiritual experience led him to quit secular writing. He wrote to a friend, “In the manner in which I formerly sang, I sing no more. To the Lord I consecrate my life and my love, and likewise my song. His love is the one great theme of all my songs; to praise and exalt it worthily is the desire of the Christian singer. He gave to me song and melody; I give it back to Him.”

His book of hymns became very popular in Germany; many translators have shown their appreciation, as evidenced by a list nearly two pages long in Julian’s Dictionary of Hymnology, of those that have been translated. Numerous musical settings have also been made for Spitta’s poetry, which was written for private devotional and family use.

Honor Mary Thwaites was born September 21, 1914, at Young, New South Wales, Australia. She was the daughter of a family doctor and elder of the Presbyterian Church. She studied French and German at the University of Melbourne, Australia, receiving a B.A. with honors. While a student there, she made a lifelong commitment to the Christian faith. Just prior to World War II she worked in London with the Society of Friends Committee to help “non Aryan” Christians escape from countries ruled by the Nazis. Back in Australia, she became an Anglican; she now lives in Canberra with her husband and is a member of the church of St. John the Baptist.

WELWYN, a Welsh word pronounced “well-in,” was first printed in Arundel Hymns, 1902. Ralph Vaughan Williams used it in the 1906 English Hymnal altering the present rhythm of the beginning of line 3 to fit the text “O Perfect Love, All Human Thought Transcending,” which has the same meter as “Happy the Home.”

Sir Alfred Scott-Gatty was born April 26, 1847, at Ecclesfield, York- shire, England, where his father was subdean of the great York Minster (Cathedral). By a royal license, Alfred assumed as an additional surname his mother’s name Scott. Her father, a minister also, had been private secretary to Lord Nelson. Alfred spent his life as a specialist in heraldry; he held a number of official posts in this line, the last one as Garter Principal King of Arms. On his appointment to this office in 1904, he was knighted. Interested in music all his life, he published (with his poet mother) several books of children’s songs and hundreds of popular humorous and sentimental songs. He died at St. Marylebone, London, December 18, 1918.

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