Cecil Humphreys was very much concerned when she overheard one of her godsons complaining about not being able to understand the catechism, so she decided to simplify the difficulty by writing hymns for children based on the different articles of the Apostles’ Creed. This hymn amplifies and simplifies the first of the 12 clauses, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth”; it appeared in her Hymns for Little Children, 1848. There were seven stanzas, the seventh being the same as the first and not really intended to be used as a refrain. The two omitted are:

3. The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate;
God made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.

6. The tall trees in the greenwood,
The meadows where we play,
The rushes by the water,
We gather every day.

Cecil Frances Humphreys was born in 1818 at Redcross, County Wicklow, Ireland, and showed poetic talent. In 1846 she wrote a volume of devotional poems, and in 1848 Hymns for Little Children. In 1850 she married William Alexander, then a curate in Londonderry, who in 1867 became bishop of Derry and Raphoe, and in 1896, archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland. She wrote about 200 hymns and 200 poems, most of them for children, as well as other books. She died in Londonderry on October 12, 1895. Her other hymns in SDAH are: SDAH 149 Once in Royal David’s City; SDAH 164 There Is a Green Hill Far Away; SDAH 285 Jesus Calls Us

ROYAL OAK was adapted in 1915 from an English traditional melody by Martin Edward Fallas Shaw (1875–1958; see Biographies). It was a song in honor of the restoration of Charles II to the throne, May 29, 1660, and titled appropriately, “The Twenty-ninth of May.” The name of the hymn tune recalls the fact that Charles had hidden in an oak tree in Boscobel, Shropshire, in 1651,after his defeat at the battle of Worcester.