This is a paraphrase of Psalm 23 by Isaac Watts (1674-1748; see Biographies). It was first published in his The Psalms of David, Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, and Applied to the Christian State and Worship, 1719. He made three paraphrases of this psalm and headed all of them “God Our Shepherd.” The first was in eight stanzas of long meter, this one in six stanzas of common meter, and the third in six stanzas of short meter. The SDAH hymn simply combines each pair of stanzas, making the hymn one of three stanzas of eight lines each, the original wording being followed exactly.

RESIGNATION is one of those early American tunes that appeared in dozens of shaped-note, oblong books, mostly in the South (see comments on BEACH SPRING, SDAH 363). It is in the pentatonic scale, that is, it can be played entirely by using only the black notes on the piano. This means that there are no half-step intervals in the melody, only whole steps. William Walker included it in the 1854 edition of his Southern Harmony, 1835, but no composer is given. The earliest combination of this text and tune seems to have been in John W. Steffy’s The Valley Ilarmonist, Winchester, Virginia, 1836. Melvin harmonic West’s progressions (1930- , that sec have Biographies) bccomc dear adaptation to all who preserves have sungthe or heard the choral anthem on this text and tune by the eminent American composer Virgil Thompson.

Born November 25, 1896, in Kansas City, Missouri, Thompson was educated in public schools and enlisted in the Army, becoming a second lieutenant in the U.S. Military Aviation Corps during World War L After the war he attended Harvard University, graduating in 1922. While there he was awarded the Payne Fellowship, which sent him to Paris in 1921 to study with Nadia Boulanger. For a time he was assistant instructor of music at Harvard, and assistant to Archibald T. Davison, famed conductor of the Harvard Glee Club. In 1922 he was appointed organist-choirmaster at King’s Chapel, Boston, where he also began to write essays and criticisms of the musical scene. Further study at Julliard School of Music, New York, and at Ecole Normale de Musique, Paris, helped to mature his style as a composer of music that is regarded as almost classic in American musical theater. In 1940 he became music critic for the New York Herald Tribune, where his witty, succinct, and penetrating reviews of musical events secured for him a great reputation. His experience as a church musician is reflected in the hymnlike melodies that surface in many of his works. Thomson is known for two operas, Four Saints in Three Acts and The Mother of Us All; a ballet, Filling Station; and chamber, choral, orchestral, band, organ, and vocal works.

Southern Harmony was a collection of hymns made by William Walker (1809-1875), born in South Carolina, the son of a Welsh immigrant. He became a singing teacher and collected folk hymns and tunes from the southern Appalachian region, many of which were of British origin. He was assisted in his collection by his brother-in-law, Benjamin Franklin White (1800-1879), but Walker’s name was the only one on the title page. White subsequently published his own book, The Sacred Harp, in 1844, which in part duplicated much of the material in Southern Harmony. These two books were the most successful of all the tune books published in this era. Southern Harmony also had SDAH 162, WONDROUS LOVE, and SDAH 620, PROMISED LAND.