Faith

Praise The Lord: Ye Heavens, Adore Him.

This is an older hymn, the first two verses found pasted inside the jacket of the hymnbook for the London’s Foundling Hospital.    This was an orphanage that was famous for their children’s chorus led by trained musicians.   It is remembered today through the hymnbook “Psalms, Hymns and Anthems of the Foundling Hospital, of 1796”.   (source Cyber Hymnal)   There is a museum dedicated the the London Foundling Hospital.

The first two verses were penned by an anonymous author, the third verse was penned by Edward Osler.

The author of the first verse paraphrased Psalm 148, showing all creation praising the Lord.  Then it shows how the Lord created all, and all the world obeys his voice.   Verse two shows God’s care for his creation, how his promises never fail.   Osler’s third verse is our praise to God.

Edward Osler was a physician and author.  He worked as physician from 1819 to 1836.   After which he devoted himself to literary pursuits. Over time he ended up as the editor of the Royal Cornwall Gazette.   He wrote several literary works as well as hymns. (source hymnary)

I wasn’t aware of some controversy around this song until I started researching it. 

The controversy makes sense. There are two men bearing a similar name, living around the same time. Thomas Dorsey the big band musician and Thomas Andrew Dorsey musician.

I depended on Snopes to help wind my way through this quagmire. 

AND EVEN SO.. I still don’t really get it.  ALL I really understand is that Thomas Dorsey (white guy, big band) didn’t write this song.  Thomas Andrew Dorsey (black guy, jazz player) DID write the song.  The fellow who wrote it did have his wife and son die, and through his grief at the loss of both wrote this song Precious Lord. 

It’s important to get the names straight.   

This is a story that comes from a place of extreme grief.  Knowing that you were performing, doing the Lord’s work, while at home your wife is dying, giving birth to your son, and having your son die the next day.  

Pouring out your grief before the Lord in song….and struggling to come back to him in the aftermath.    In the midst of despair, a friend visited Dorsey and arranged for him
to be left alone in a music room with a piano. “It was quiet; the late
evening sun crept through the curtained windows,” Dorsey recalled. For
the first time in many days, he sat at a piano using his fingers to
browse the keys. Soon, the young artist experienced a personal
revival: “I felt at peace. I felt as though I could reach out and
touch God. I found myself playing a melody, one I’d never heard or
played before, and words [for “Precious Lord”] came into my head—they
just seemed to fall into place.”  (source)

 Dorsey was raised in a Baptist home, but turned away from the Lord to pursue playing jazz and blues music.  Severe illness brought him back to the Lord.  Over his life time he composed over 1,000 songs, 200 of which were gospel songs.   To learn more, read this page.   He died in 1993 and is known as the “architect of modern gospel music”.