Please turn your hymnals to number 138 and join with the clarinets in, “Most Ancient of All Mysteries”.
Number: 138
First Line: Most Ancient of All Mysteries
Name: ST. FLAVIAN.
Meter: C.M.
Tempo: In moderate time
Music: John Day’s Psalter, 1562
Text: Frederick William Faber, 1814-63
Clarinet Arrangement: 138-MostAncientOfAllMysteries
On the other hand, this is not a particularly interesting hymn. It’s not bad or anything, just not particularly harmonically interesting.
The lyrics, from Francis William Faber, however, are nicely poetic.
1 Most ancient of all mysteries,
Before Thy throne we lie;
Have mercy now, most merciful,
Most holy Trinity.2 When heav’n and earth were yet unmade,
When time was yet unknown,
Thou in Thy bliss and majesty
Didst live and love alone.3 Thou wert not born; there was no fount
From which Thy Being flowed;
There is no end which Thou canst reach;
But Thou art simply God.4 How wonderful creation is,
The work which Thou didst bless,
And O what then must Thou be like,
Eternal loveliness!5 O listen then, most pitiful,
To Thy poor creature’s heart:
It blesses Thee that Thou art God,
That Thou art what Thou art.6 Most ancient of all mysteries,
Still at thy throne we lie;
Have mercy now, most merciful,
Most holy Trinity.
Faber was born in 1814 at Calverley, then within the Parish of Calverley in the West Riding of Yorkshire,[1] where his grandfather, Thomas Faber, was the vicar. His father served the local bishop of the Church of England as his secretary.[2]
Faber attended grammar school at Bishop Auckland in County Durham for a short time, but a large portion of his boyhood was spent in Westmorland. He afterwards attended the Harrow School for five years, followed by enrollment in 1832 at Balliol College at the University of Oxford. In 1834, he obtained a scholarship at the University College, from which he graduated. In 1836 he won the Newdigate Prize for a poem on “The Knights of St John,” which elicited special praise from John Keble. Among his college friends were Arthur Penrhyn Stanley and Roundell Palmer, 1st Earl of Selborne. After graduation he was elected a fellow of the college.
Faber’s family was of Huguenot descent, and Calvinist beliefs were strongly held by them. When Faber had come to Oxford, he was exposed to the Anglo-Catholicpreaching of the Oxford Movement which was beginning to develop in the Church of England. One of its most prominent proponents was the popular preacher John Henry Newman, vicar of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin. Faber struggled with these divergent forms of Christian beliefs and life. In order to relieve his tension, he would take long vacations in the Lake District, where he would write poetry. There he was befriended by another poet, William Wordsworth. He finally abandoned the Calvinistic views of his youth and became an enthusiastic follower of Newman.[2][3]
