Lyrics: Eugene M. Bartlett, 1939.
Music: Eugene M. Bartlett, 1939.
Theme: “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. I Corinthians 15:55-57

Eugene Monroe Bartlett Senior was born on Christmas Eve of 1885. He wrote the words to this hymn — his last song — in 1939. Mr. Bartlett was well known as a gospel singer, writer, teacher, editor, and publisher. He was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1979.

I think of all the renditions of Victory in Jesus that I found on youtube, I liked this one best, because it’s real and honest and full of the victory that’s found in Jesus alone.

Here’s the first part of David Ring’s story.
And here’s Part 2.

It’s an old, old story, but it keeps happening over and over again. God takes the most unlikely people and uses us to glorify His name.

I heard an old, old story,
How a Savior came from glory,
How He gave His life on Calvary
To save a wretch like me;
I heard about His groaning,
Of His precious blood’s atoning,
Then I repented of my sins;
And won the victory.

Chorus:
O victory in Jesus,
My Savior, forever.
He sought me and bought me
With His redeeming blood;
He loved me ere I knew Him,
And all my love is due Him,
He plunged me to victory,
Beneath the cleansing flood.

I heard about His healing,
Of His cleansing power revealing.
How He made the lame to walk again
And caused the blind to see;
And then I cried, “Dear Jesus,
Come and heal my broken spirit,”
And somehow Jesus came and brought
To me the victory.

I heard about a mansion
He has built for me in glory.
And I heard about the streets of gold
Beyond the crystal sea;
About the angels singing,
And the old redemption story,
And some sweet day I’ll sing up there
The song of victory.

The summer after I graduated from high school I left West Texas where I had lived all my life and went to the foreign country of Oklahoma (City) to serve as a summer missionary in the Baptist Mission Center in downtown, near the stockyards, OKC. There were several other college age missionaries serving there for the summer, too, and and most of them were from somewhere in Oklahoma. They began to tell me that at the end of the summer we would spend a week at a place called Falls Creek and that Gene Bartlett would be leading the music there.

I looked at them blankly and said something noncommittal. Then, they told me that Mr. Bartlett’s father was the author of the hymn Victory in Jesus. Unfortunately, I had never heard the hymn. I had never heard of Falls Creek nor of Mr. Bartlett. My fellow missionaries were not at all convinced that I had grown up in a Southern Baptist church nor that I even knew the Lord after that. What kind of pagan wouldn’t know about Falls Creek and Gene Bartlett? And not knowing Victory in Jesus? Impossible.

True story. I now know and love E.M. Bartlett’s old hymn of victory.

Sources:
All About God: Victory in Jesus.
Turn Your Radio On by Ace Collins.

Lyrics: Harry Emerson Fosdick, 1930.
Music: CWM RHONDDA by John Hughes, 1907.
Theme: Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. Ephesians 6:19-20.

October 5, 1930, saw the celebration of the first service at Riverside Church, New York City. To mark the occasion, Harry wrote the hymn “God of Grace and God of Glory.”

God of grace and God of glory,
On Thy people pour Thy power.
Crown Thine ancient church’s story,
Bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour,
For the facing of this hour.

Lo! the hosts of evil ’round us,
Scorn Thy Christ, assail His ways.
From the fears that long have bound us,
Free our hearts to faith and praise.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the living of these days,
For the living of these days.

Cure Thy children’s warring madness,
Bend our pride to Thy control.
Shame our wanton selfish gladness,
Rich in things and poor in soul.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
Lest we miss Thy kingdom’s goal,
Lest we miss Thy kingdom’s goal.

Set our feet on lofty places,
Gird our lives that they may be,
Armored with all Christ-like graces,
In the fight to set men free.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
That we fail not man nor Thee,
That we fail not man nor Thee.

Save us from weak resignation,
To the evils we deplore.
Let the search for Thy salvation,
Be our glory evermore.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
Serving Thee Whom we adore,
Serving Thee Whom we adore.

Fosdick became a central figure in the conflict between fundamentalist and liberal forces within American Protestantism in the 1920s and 1930s. While at First Presbyterian Church, on May 21, 1922, he delivered his famous sermon “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?”, in which he defended the modernist position. In that sermon, he presented the Bible as a record of the unfolding of God’s will, not as the literal Word of God. He saw the history of Christianity as one of development, progress, and gradual change. To the fundamentalists, this was rank apostasy, and the battle lines were drawn.”

It’s interesting that I’ve been reading Chaim Potok’s The Chosen this week which presents a fictional picture of the same basic controversy in almost the same time period (1940’s) within Orthodox Judaism.

Whether you agree with his theology or not, it’s a rather good and sticky hymn. (As in, it sticks in my memory.) “Grant us wisdom, grant us courage . . . ”

Sources:
John MacArthur: Harry Emerson Fosdick and the Emerging Theology of Early LIberalism.
Wikipedia: Harry Emerson Fosdick
Christian History: Harry Emerson Fosdick Dedicated Riverside Church