The author of the original of this poem, William P. Merrill, gives this account of how it was written: “Nolan R. Best, then editor of The Continent [Presbyterian magazine], happened to say to me that there was urgent need of a brotherhood hymn …. The suggestion lingered in my mind, and just about that time [1911] I came upon an article by Gerald Stanley Lee, entitled ‘The Church of the Strong Men.’ I was on one of the Lake Michigan steamers going back to Chicago for a Sunday at my own church, when suddenly this hymn came up, almost without conscious thought or effort.” “To the Brotherhood,” It was published in the above magazine, and the same year appeared as a hymn in Shephard’s Hymns of the Centuries with FESTAL SONG.

At a time when the brotherhood movement was strong in the Presbyterian Church, this hymn was a trumpet call to men to stand up and be counted for God:

Rise up, O men of God! Have done with lesser things; Give heart and soul and mind and strength. To serve the King of kings.

In the early work of the SDAH Committee for this book, Merrill’s hymn was voted as is a hymn of challenge to men. But in later meetings as the committee members became more conscious of the exclusive language of many hymns, they questioned the wisdom of including it in its familiar form and voted it down because of the several exclusively male-oriented phrases.

Ottilie Stafford, (1921-; see SDAH 398), a member of the committee, tells how her adaptation came about: “The rousing quality of both words and music was attractive, and everyone regretted losing the hymn. One day, after we had argued about it once more, during a break in the meetings I sat down to see if the words could be changed to include women. I discovered that by rearranging the order of the stanzas and by doing some rewriting they could be changed. Then Ron Graybill [another committee member] suggested that we include a stanza for young people. That way the entire church could be included. That was an exciting idea! By the time the day’s meetings had come to an end, we had copies of the new words for the hymn, and the committee sang them. The unanimous vote of the committee to include it showed that we were all happy that the problem was resolved, and we now had the hymn we all wanted but had become resigned to losing.”

William Pierson Merrill was born January 10, 1867, at Orange, New Jersey. He was educated at Rutgers College and Union Theological Semi- nary, New York, and began his pastoral work in 1890 in Philadelphia. After 16 years in Chicago he went to the famous Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City, where for 27 years he developed a reputation as a great preacher, dedicated leader, and writer of inspirational books. From 1915 he was president of the Church Peace Union. He received degrees from Rutgers College and New York University, and Columbia University honored him with a doctoral degree in 1927. He retired in 1938 and died on June 19, 1954, in New York City.

For FESTAL SONG and William Henry Walter (1825-1893), see SDAH 117.

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