The Spirit of God

[TheAnswerIs42]

I have to say that this questionfascinated me. I took a class at BYU on the Hymns, so of course I had to duck down to the basement to check my notes. For our class, we used the Karen Lynn Davidson book "Our Latter-Day Hymns", which I highly recommend to anyone. She goes through the history of each hymn, the tunes used, the deleted or changed verses, you name it. It looks like she didn't believe the "probably" that the book was printed in 1836 instead of 1835- she mentions that the song was printed "again" in the Janary 1836 newspaper, and always cites Emma's book as being printed in 1835. It looks like the people who brought forth that idea are the RLDS/Community of Christ historians, and maybe they know better.

The only other thing she mentioned in her discussion that I thought was a bit different from what Waldorf and Sauron said was about ASSEMBLY, the tune we currently use.

"The tune ASSEMBLY was first published in 1844 in a small hymnal designed for use by Latter-day Saint missionaries in New England. It may have been an already existing hymn tune; some believe it may even be HOSANNA, the tune used at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. To this point, no researcher has uncovered the details of its origin."

In fact, in the preface to the book, she lists the origins to that tune as one of the mysteries that we may never know about our hymnbook.

Oh, and if you ever get the chance to take this class from Bro. Clyde Williams, it was an awesome class.

[NerdGirl]

I took an honors class called "Poetry of the Restoration", and we used that same book when we talked about the hymns. It's one of my favorite church-related books now. It gives you an interesting perspective on church history.

[Katya]

The only other thing she mentioned in her discussion that I thought was a bit different from what Waldorf and Sauron said was about ASSEMBLY, the tune we currently use.

"The tune ASSEMBLY was first published in 1844 in a small hymnal designed for use by Latter-day Saint missionaries in New England. It may have been an already existing hymn tune; some believe it may even be HOSANNA, the tune used at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. To this point, no researcher has uncovered the details of its origin."

In fact, in the preface to the book, she lists the origins to that tune as one of the mysteries that we may never know about our hymnbook.

Actually, family lore has it that one of my ancestors wrote the music, but didn't want to take credit for it as she'd adapted it from another tune. I'll double check what our evidence is with my uncle, who's the family historian.

[TheAnswerIs42]

oooooh! Oh, and for irony, let me throw in the rest of the quote from the preface.

Even some of our most popular hymns elude the efforts of researchers. For example, what is the source of the hymn tune we now associate with "The Spirit of God"? . . . Somewhere, in family histories, journals, obscure hymnals, or little-known reference works, may be the answers to these and many other questions. I hope that anyone who has such information will forward it to the General Music Committee of the Church.

[Katya]

oooooh! Oh, and for irony, let me throw in the rest of the quote from the preface.

Even some of our most popular hymns elude the efforts of researchers. For example, what is the source of the hymn tune we now associate with "The Spirit of God"? . . . Somewhere, in family histories, journals, obscure hymnals, or little-known reference works, may be the answers to these and many other questions. I hope that anyone who has such information will forward it to the General Music Committee of the Church.

Ha!

OK, I contacted the uncle in question and apparently the source is a journal or statement or something from one of her descendants. So, we don't have any contemporary evidence (which is probably why we haven't gone to the GMC with it), but there aren't any competing theories out there, that we know of, and there's no real reason to have lied about it (or exaggerated the truth), I think.