On the day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost filled the disciples and “there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as fire “(Acts 2:3). The Holy Spirit also filled the Old Testament prophets though not necessarily with same outward manifestation: “Holy men of God speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Peter 1 :21). Bathurst combined this idea of fire and the presence of the Spirit of God by picking out seven saints of old and including them in this hymn written in 1831. The hymn was first printed in Psalms and hymns for Public and Private Use, 1831.

     William Hiley Bathurst was born August 28, 1796, at Clevedale, Mangotsfield, near Bristol. Son of a member of Parliament for Bristol, he graduated from Oxford University in 1818 with a B.A.  In 1820 he accepted an appointment as rector on his uncle’s estate at Barwick-in-Elmet, near Leeds, Yorkshire. He changed his name from Bragge to Bathurst, after his uncle, and occupied this position until1852. He objected to the doctrine of baptism and burial as set out in the Book of Common Prayer, resigned his position, and returned to the family estate at Gloucestershire, where he died November 25, 1877. He wrote several books, and more than 200 hymns, including SDAH 533,” O for a Faith.”

     MENDON, named for a village in Worcester County, Massachusetts, was arranged from a German melody in 1824 by Samuel Dyer, an Englishman who emigrated to the United States in 1811 and became a choirmaster and music teacher. Dyer organized sacred concerts in Philadelphia and in 1814 settled in Baltimore. The name of the tune was given by the compilers of the Methodist Harmonist, 1821. Note that the second and fourth phrases of the melody are almost identical.