Song · A 1776 town · 1770
Pass it on
Chester
90Living historically.
Trust in God, sung in parts. The famous verse about a tyrant's iron rod was printed in 1778. This score is the hymn a child already had.
The review
Billings published Chester in 1770. By 1776 the tune was in New England camps and meeting houses. People now quote a verse about tyrants and chains. That verse was printed in 1778. A child in 1776 knew the tune. He did not have those later words in a book yet.
The score is for the hymn as a meeting-house song of trust, not for the war lyric that came after.
Journal
Keep Chester in the record.
No house has filed a sentence for this yet.
Live Historic number 90. Yours can differ.
The glance
Industry is the thin one.
Does anyone here do a real job, and does that job matter?
This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.
The eight
- 9Industry
A singable fuging tune. The labor is Billings's, and the congregation's.
- 9Household
Sung with the town, in the meeting house. Not a parlor performance only.
- 9Piety
The early hymn trusts God out loud. That is the piety.
- 9Courage
To sing a bold sacred song in a war year is not nothing.
- 9Republic
New England's public worship and New England's politics were the same room.
- 9Temperance
A hymn has an end. It does not ask you to want the next one.
- 9Truth
It is a hymn and it says so. The 1778 battle verses are a later text, and they are not in this number.
- 9Stewardship
A child learned it from adults, in parts, and could still sing it years on.
Where to listen
Finding the page.
Live Historic · Chester · 90IMDb
