This text first appeared in a hymnal published by the American Northern Baptists in 1864, where authorship is credited to Horatius Bonar (1808-1889; see SDAH 79). He had a firm belief in the literal second coming of Christ, and used these scriptures: “For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised” (1 Cor. 15:52), “Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust” (Isa. 26:19); “It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power” (1 Cor. 15:43). The hymn was used in four more hymnals up to the year 1886, but in none from there to 1978.

The composer of UNITED MAN, Norman Warren, was born in 1934 in London and has a Master of Arts in Music from Cambridge University. He is presently rector of one of the largest Church of England parishes in southwest London. He is married and the father of five children. Publications include many hymn tunes found in books all over the world; choir anthems; and an evangelistic booklet titled Journey Into Life, of which more than 6 million copies have been sold in the English version, besides translations into 67 languages. His latest work is an evangelistic paperback, What’s the Point?

From his home in Morden, Surrey, he writes that the tune “UNITED MAN was originally written for a beautiful metrical version of Psalm 133, hence the title of the tune as the psalm is about unity. My title [tune name] was a joke. In England our most famous football team is Manchester United, known as ‘Man United.’ The sharp-eyed editors spotted this when I called the tune MAN UNITED and swapped the words around!

📖 Reference: Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal by Wayne Hooper and Edward E. White. Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1988.