My Lenten hymn this week is the traditional “Forty days and forty nights” by George Hunt Smyttan (1822-1870). It is forever in my mind associated with Ash Wednesday services at Manchester Cathedral where the choir, organ and acoustic combine to make it a haunting and moving act of worship.
According to hymnary.org, George Hunt Smyttan studied at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and graduated B.A. 1845. He was ordained Deacon in 1848, Priest in 1849 and appointed Rector of Hawksworth in 1850. He has published some small volumes of poetry.
Author of four hymns; two in English including this one, the other being “Incarnate God! What tongue can tell.” The other two are in Dakota and Arabic.
The Church of Scotland website has slightly more, if somewhat confusing information, as it cites Francis Pott as author as well:
George Smyttan (d.1870), born in India, was a Church of England clergyman, author, poet, and hymn writer. This, intended for Lent, first appeared in a religious periodical called the Penny Post. Francis Pott (d.1909), who had to resign from his parish near Biggleswade due to deafness, adapted the hymn for one of his own collections. Pott also wrote original hymns, including ‘Angel voices, ever singing.’
The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology has more light to shed:
This is a re-writing by Pott of a poem in nine stanzas by ‘G. H. S.’ (George Hunt Smyttan, a Nottinghamshire vicar) published in a religious magazine, the Penny Post (March 1856), with the title ‘Poetry for Lent: As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing’. This hymn is known principally in the version altered by Francis Pott and printed in his Hymns Fitted to the Order of Common Prayer (1861) and used in the First Edition of A&M in the same year.
Forty days and forty nights
Thou wast fasting in the wild;
forty days and forty nights
tempted still, yet undefiled:
Sunbeams scorching all the day;
chilly dewdrops nightly shed;
prowling beasts about thy way;
stones thy pillow, earth thy bed.
Shall not we Thy sorrows share,
and from earthly joys abstain,
fasting with unceasing prayer,
glad with Thee to suffer pain?
And if Satan, vexing sore,
flesh or spirit should assail,
Thou, his vanquisher before,
wilt not suffer us to fail.
Watching, praying, struggling thus,
victory ours at last shall be;
angels minister to us,
such as ministered to thee.
Keep, O keep us, Saviour dear,
ever constant by Thy side;
that with Thee we may appear
at the eternal Eastertide.
The German tune, Aus Der Tiefe, meaning ‘Out of the deep,’ is probably by Martin Herbst, who died of the plague in 1681 aged twenty-seven. I suggest that it might be more effective to just listen to the hymn rather than try to sing along, especially if the tune is unfamiliar to you. May it be an aid to your Lenten devotions.
Alan Kennedy
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