This praise hymn was written especially for use on New Year’s Day. It was first published by Charles Wesley (1707-1788; see Biographies), with no author’s name attached, in a little penny tract of seven poems titled Hymns for New Year’s Day, 1750. The Wesleys printed their hymns anonymously because they knew there would be prejudice and some would turn away if their names were on it. Since then it has been included in every Methodist hymnal except the 1882 edition. Minor alterations have been made. The original had three eight-line stanzas. At the turning of the year, when there is a sense of new beginnings, the hymn recalls the Lord’s promise to King Solomon: “I will lengthen thy days” (1 Kings 3:14).

The tune LOBT GOTT, IHR CHRISTEN was written by Nikolaus Herman in 1554 and included in his Ein Christlicher Abendreihen (A Christian Service for Evenings), Leipzig, matched with a children’s hymn about the life of John the Baptist. In 1560 he put it in his Die Sonntags Evangelia iiber das ganze Jahr (The Gospel for Sundays Throughout the Whole Year) to “Lobt Gott, Ihr Christen alle gleich” (Praise God All Together, Ye Christians), hence the tune name. Much of our enjoyment of this tune comes from the rising scale passage in the final score, and the refrain-like ending.

Herman was born c. 1490 in Altdorf, near Nuremburg, Germany. For the greater part of his life he was organist-choirmaster at St. Joachimstal in Bohemia. Often a good sermon by his pastor would inspire a new hymn on the same subject, which Herman wrote mainly for the children of the school. It is believed that the fine chorales he published with these poems were of his own composition. After he died, on May 3, 1561, his pastor recorded this on the church register: “Nikolaus Herman, a good musician who wrote many fine chorales and German songs, rests in the Lord.”

The Lutheran Hymnal, Concordia, 1941, uses eight of his hymns, the most found in any recent collection. This tune appears in many hymnals, some with a slightly different form of the melody.