🏴‍☠️ PIRATE CONNECTION

“What Wondrous Love Is This” — The Hymn That Came from a Pirate Song

One of the most haunting, solemn hymns in the English language — “What Wondrous Love Is This” — has a secret that would shock most congregations: its meter (the number of syllables per line) is derived from the meter of a jaunty English ballad about a notorious pirate.

The ballad is called “Captain Kidd” — a lively, irreverent song recounting the sins and crimes of the infamous pirate William Kidd, who was executed in 1701. The melody was popular in English taverns and public houses.

Somehow, the sacred text of “What Wondrous Love Is This” — a meditation on Christ’s self-sacrificing love — was fitted to this same rhythmic structure. The result is one of the most beautiful Lenten hymns in any hymnal, with a lineage that traces back to… a pirate’s shanty.

The Canadian folk band Great Big Sea performs “Captain Kidd” — and if you try singing “What Wondrous Love” over the top, you’ll discover they fit perfectly. It’s a reminder that God can use any raw material, no matter how unlikely, to create something sacred.

🚫 BOTH AUTHORS SAID NO

“Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” — The Hymn Neither Creator Wanted

This beloved Christmas carol is the result of a collaboration that never happened — between two people who were both dead when it was finally created.

Charles Wesley wrote the original lyrics in 1739. The opening line was: “Hark, how all the welkin rings!” (meaning: “Listen, how the sky resounds!”). Wesley wanted a slow, somber tune to match the theological weight of the words.

Over a century later, in 1840, Felix Mendelssohn composed “Festgesang” — a cantata celebrating the invention of the Gutenberg printing press. When it came to the second movement’s melody, Mendelssohn was explicit: it “will never do to sacred words.” He wanted it used for “national or merry” subjects with “gay and popular” lyrics.

So: the lyricist wanted slow music. The composer said his music was unfit for sacred lyrics. Both were dead.

Then in 1856, a musician named William Cummings — who had served under Mendelssohn — did what neither composer nor poet had wanted. He boldly merged Wesley’s words with Mendelssohn’s tune. And the result?

One of the most beloved Christmas carols in the English language.

😔 THE REGRETFUL AUTHOR

“Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” — Written at 22, Regretted at 60

Robert Robinson wrote “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” when he was just 22 years old. The hymn contains one of the most candidly honest lines in all of hymnody: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it — prone to leave the God I love.”

It was a self-portrait — and a prophecy.

Robinson started as a Methodist minister, then became a Baptist pastor. He spent nine years writing a monumental History of Baptism and Baptists. But as he aged, his faith wavered. He was accused of drifting toward Unitarianism. Some say he abandoned Christianity entirely.

The famous story: while riding in a stagecoach, a woman beside him began humming a familiar tune. She asked if he knew the hymn. He replied:

Whether he was ultimately restored to faith remains uncertain. But there’s a beautiful alternative ending: some accounts say the woman gently replied, “Sir, the ‘streams of mercy’ are still flowing” — quoting Robinson’s own hymn back to him. And he was deeply touched.

Either way, his hymn endures as a monument to spiritual honesty — a song that admits wandering while still reaching for home.

📰 ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERY

A Newspaper Reporter Stumbled Into a Hymn’s Origin Story

A newspaper reporter in upstate New York had an unusual assignment each Sunday: attend a selected church and write about his impressions. He was particularly sensitive to music.

One December Sunday, he was assigned to a Presbyterian church to report on a visiting minister. After the service, he met the minister and they discussed the hymns. The minister mentioned that while on a trip to Oriental missions, he had heard his own hymn sung in both Japanese and Chinese. It had also been sung at a meeting in India.

The reporter realized that thirty years earlier, in a city in California, he had heard this exact hymn for the first time — and had remembered the author’s name all those years. Now, by pure coincidence, he was sitting across from the author himself.

This kind of accidental encounter — a reporter, a hymn, and thirty years of memory — is the kind of story that only hymn history can produce.

⛏️ FROM BAR BRAWL TO GOSPEL PUBLISHER

How “Cigarettes, Whiskey, and Wild Wild Women” Led to “How Great Thou Art”

Vernon “Tim” Spencer was recovering from a mining accident in Oklahoma and needed work. He started playing music at a local bar called the Bucket of Blood. He loved it so much that he hopped a train to Hollywood in 1931, joined Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers, and became one of America’s most popular Western performers.

His hit song? “Cigarettes, Whiskey, and Wild Wild Women.”

He married a Christian woman named Velma, who prayed for him constantly while he was on the road. His lifestyle matched his song title perfectly. Then one day, in a hotel in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, he opened a letter from Velma containing a verse of Scripture. He picked up a nearby Gideon Bible, read the passage, and his life changed.

Tim Spencer later established a Gospel Music publishing company called Manna Music. Years later, his college-age son brought him a song from a student missionary conference. Tim contacted the author, Stuart Hine, and published the song.

That song was “How Great Thou Art” — one of the most beloved hymns of the 20th century.

So the man who sang about “Cigarettes, Whiskey, and Wild Wild Women” became the publisher who helped introduce the world to “How Great Thou Art.” If that’s not divine humor, nothing is.

🌊 THE SHIPWRECK CONNECTION

“Onward, Christian Soldiers” — Sung Simultaneously in 100+ Languages

In 1910, the Executive Committee of the World’s Sunday School Convention in Washington, D.C., arranged something extraordinary: the hymn “Onward, Christian Soldiers” would be sung in Sunday Schools all over the world on the same day — Sunday, May 22, 1910.

The hymn was translated into more than 100 languages and dialects and printed for distribution worldwide. On that single day, congregations from every continent sang the same march-like hymn at roughly the same time — a magnificent illustration of global Christian solidarity.

The author, Sabine Baring-Gould, was one of the most eccentric figures in hymn history. A Cambridge graduate with independent wealth, he traveled extensively in France and Germany. It is said that he has more book titles in the British Museum’s catalogue than any other writer of his era. He eventually inherited his father’s estate and appointed himself rector of his own parish — because he could.