This hymn is the result of a long series of translations and arrangements. The original was in Swedish, written by Carl Boberg (1859-1940), preacher, member of the Swedish Parliament, and editor of the weekly Sanningsvittnet (Witness of Truth). He wrote it one evening in 1888 while contemplating the power of God in the beautiful things of nature all around him. Published in several magazines, it traveled to Germany and was translated there in 1907 as “Wie gross bist Du” (How Great Thou Art). In 1912 it found its way to Russia, where the Russian translation by Ivan Prokhanoff caught the attention of Methodist missionary Stuart K. Hine (1899-). Hine used it in his evangelistic work in Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania before making the English translation of the first three stanzas from the Russian. (At this time he had no idea that the original was Swedish.)

At the outbreak of World War II Hine returned to England and there wrote stanza 4 in 1948. The idea for this stanza was suggested to him by a question the Polish refugees were asking, “When are we going home?” This he published, together with the Russian version, in a gospel magazine, Grace and Peace, in 1949, copies of which went to missionaries all over the world. One of these copies fell into the hand of George Beverly Shea (see SDAH 75), who popularized it by repeated performances in the Billy Graham crusades. Shea says that in the 1957 New York crusade “the choir joined me in singing it 93 times! It became a keynote of praise each evening.”

In 1925 an English translation, “O Mighty God,” had been made by American E. Gustav Johnson. It has appeared in several hymnbooks but has never achieved a significant following.

O STORE GUD (O Great God) is a Swedish folk melody, first published in Sanningsvittnet, 1891, the magazine edited by Boberg noted above. Hine says, “The harmony I wrote from memory, and despite a few harmonic inaccuracies, is essentially that in use in nine languages. I have never seen the original Swedish music.”

The harmonic arrangement used in SDAH is that owned by Manna Music, Inc., for use in North America. Hine still owns the rights for overseas use. SDAH was requested not to use the tune name O STORE GUD at the head of the hymn, even though this is the name used in most books. The committee was also asked not to print the name of Carl Boberg as the author of the Swedish original poem, since Hine’s translation from the Russian is essentially a totally new work. We don’t know who borrowed from whom, but the first melodic phrase in the refrain is note for note the same as the Hawaiian goodbye song “Aloha Oe.”

Stuart Wesley Keene Hine was born July 25, 1899, at London, where he attended the Coopers Company School. He took the entrance exam at Oxford University, but did not enter the university. After serving in the British Army in France during World War I, he and his wife went as Methodist missionaries, serving from 1923 to 1939 in Poland, Russia, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. In the years of World War II he worked among displaced persons in Britain. He now lives in retirement in Somerset, continuing to help produce evangelistic literature. In 1958 he added these two stanzas to the hymn:

Oh, when I see ungrateful man defiling
This bounteous earth, God’s gifts so good and great;
In foolish pride God’s holy name reviling
And yet, in grace, His wrath and judgment wait:

When burdens press, and seem beyond endurance,
Bowed down with grief, to Him I lift my face;
And then in love He brings me sweet assurance:
“My child! For thee sufficient is My grace.”

Methodist Hymnal, 1964, was the first major hymnal to use “How Great Thou Art.” Since then, nearly all editors are recognizing the universal appeal of this hymn in praise of the greatness of God.