Music For Our Souls - Carl Boberg - "How Great Thou Art"
In springtime, it's hard not to admire the many shades of green blanketing the countryside, smell the blossoms bursting on the fruit trees, listen to the gobble of a turkey on the hills, or welcome the chorus of peepers on a pond, and not to wonder at the glory of God and all He has created for us to enjoy.
Sometimes there are no words. We can only try to imagine what that new earth will appear like, void of sin's deteriorating effects, when God comes to dwell with us, and all things are new. Yet, while we are here, we can also not help to be in awe at the miraculous majesty already surrounding us.
That's how Swedish lay minister Carl Broberg must have felt on his walk home from church, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in 1885, as he enjoyed the blue sky and warm sunshine, the birdsong lifting his spirit, and peace filling his soul. Then, in the distance a thunderhead appeared. With staggering swiftness, the day changed. The sky darkened as thunder rolled and cracked, lightning flashed wildly, and winds buffeted the trees. Within moments of the previous tranquility, a storm lashed the countryside.
Carl wasn't frightened but gripped in awe at the mightiness of God's sudden display. Just as quickly, the storm ceased, and blue skies returned. The winds calmed, and the birds sang. Once again, Carl Broberg was mesmerized at God's power.
Like us, when we have those moments of awed, holy reverence, Carl wished to find the words to express what he saw and felt. That evening he penned a poem:
O (Thou)
great God! When I the world consider
Which Thou has made by Thine almighty Word;
And how the web of life Thy wisdom guideth,
And all creation feedeth at Thy board:
Then doth my soul burst forth in song of praise:
O (Thou) great God! O (Thou) great God!
Carl wrote nine verses to his poem titled in Swedish O STORE GUD. But that is only the beginning of the journey of this great hymn which has since been a favorite for generations. As the poem made it's way to places around the world, stanzas were added or taken away. Tempo was change. Here and there a word replaced.
In 1891, when Boberg was editor of the periodical Sanningsvittnet (“Witness of the Truth”), he published his poem again, this time to the tune of an old Swedish folk melody. Some say he wrote the poem with this tune in mind, others say he was inspired to use it when he first heard a congregation singing the lyrics to that tune. Either way, the song and tune became inseparable.
There were two English translations made. One by Stuart Hine, a British missionary in Ukraine. After learning the Russian version, he transcribed it to English, and produced the poem in a booklet of Russian Melodies and Hymns of Other Lands.
The other English translation, by E. Gustav Johnson, was published 1925 in The Children’s Friend, a periodical produced by The Swedish Christian Orphanage in Cromwell, Connecticut. His text and the Swedish melody were then published together in The Covenant Hymnal. It is Johnson's version that's considered to be a more faithful English rendition of the original Swedish text than the version we sing today.
It wasn't until April, 1954, when Baptist minister, Dr. J. Edwin Orr, professor of missions and founding board member of Campus Crusade for Christ, introduced the song to publishers in the United States. Then the hymn moved forward and changed once again. Orr had learned the song in India as it was being sung by tribespeople. He introduced it at the Forest Home Christian Conference Center in southern California where it was arranged as broadsheets by Gospel Light publications. That arrangement didn't survive. However, one of those sheets were carried home by the son and daughter of Christian music writer and publisher Tim Spencer. Spencer had found fame while singing with Sons of the Pioneers, along with Bob Nolan and Roy Rogers. Spencer contacted Stuart Hine and was given copyright to the music under Manna Music, Inc. The hymn changed again, this time to the version we most commonly know, and it was published in 1955.
Two years later, in 1957, it rose to even greater popularity when George Beverly Shay sang it at the Billy Graham Crusades at Madison Square Garden. It went on to be considered by many as the biggest song in Christendom, even being sung by Elvis.
That is the SHORT version of how we came to know and love this hymn.
Imagine hearing the majesty of this song, sung in this arena:
George Beverly Shay singing "How Great Thou Art"
Carl Broberg, born in 1859, passed into God's glorious presence in 1950. He could not have known on that day he strolled home from church, with thoughts of praise and wonderment toward God, how the poem he then wrote would one day influence millions. It will be interesting to meet him and talk together about his work in Heaven some fine day.
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