It is somewhat unusual to find in a hymnbook words written by a famous novelist, to a tune composed by a well-known musician who wrote music for comic opera. Such, however, is the case with this hymn. The words are by Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924; see SDAH 52), and the music is by Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842-1900; see SDAH 169). In 1864 Sabine Baring-Gould was the new curate at Horbury Bridge, a village in West Yorkshire. He was accorded the courtesy of selecting the hymns for the annual Whitmonday procession of Sunday school children from one village to another. On this particular occasion Baring-Gould could find nothing in the way of music that appeared to him to be suitable. So taking one of the hymns with music by Haydn, he sat up far into the night and that he wrote the words in 1865, they nevertheless appear in the Church Wrote these stirring martial words. In spite of Baring-Gould’s statement Times of October 15, 1864, page 331, under the general heading “Mission Hymns, VII. Hymn for Procession With Cross and Banners.” It carries the initials “S. B. G.” Baring-Gould also wrote SDAH 52, “Now the Day Is Over.”

The hymn was made extremely popular by the marching tune composed in 1871 specially for these words. It appeared in the Musical Times of December of that year, by Arthur Seymour Sullivan. At the time, he was a guest in the home of Gertrude Clay-Ker-Seymer in Hanford, Dorset. Sullivan commemorated her name by making her a “saint” and affixing this title to his tune. He also composed SDAH 169, ST. KEVIN; 582, ST. EDMUND; and arranged 568, LEOMINSTER.

This stirring hymn has been sung on more than one great occasion. On August 10, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met on the deck of the British battleship Prince of Wales for the signing of the historic Atlantic a document that would combine the efforts of the two countries in the fight against Hitler in World War II. The two leaders had chosen the hymns to be sung for the Sunday morning church service. Churchill chose “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” and “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” and Roosevelt wanted “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” so all three of these favorites were sung by the sailors aboard ship. Later, Churchill said in a broadcast to his people: “We sang ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers,’ and indeed, I felt that this was no vain presumption but that we had the right to feel that we were serving a cause for the sake of which a trumpet has sounded from on high.”

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