Onward, Christian Soldiers
246

Text: Sabine Baring- Gould (1834–1924)
Music: Arthur S. Sullivan (1842–1900)
Tune name: ST. GERTRUDE

Though Latter- day Saints do not glory in the thought of violence, the “war against evil” is a metaphor that has meaning for us in its spiritual sense. In this hymn, we march “as to war,” Christian soldiers who do not seek actual warfare but who are enlisted forever as soldiers in another kind of battle.

Is it the stirring text or the vigorous, appealing tune that makes this hymn so popular among so many Christian denominations? J. Spencer Cornwall observed that in the case of this hymn it is impossible to know whether Sabine Baring- Gould or Arthur S. Sullivan made the more important contribution (see Stories of Our Mormon Hymns, 133).

Sabine Baring- Gould commented many years later on the hymn text he had written in 1864: “Whitmonday [the eighth Monday after Easter] is a great day for school festivals in Yorkshire. One Whitmonday . . . it was arranged that our school should join forces with a neighboring village. I wanted the children to sing when marching from one village to another, but couldn’t think of anything quite suitable; so I sat up at night, resolved that I would write something myself. ‘Onward, Christian soldiers’ was the result. It was written in great haste, and I am afraid some of the rhymes are faulty. Certainly nothing has surprised me more than its popularity” (quoted in Charles S. Nutter and Wilbur F. Tillett, The Hymns and Hymn Writers of the Church [New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1911], 205).

The original hymn was six stanzas long. A stanza omitted from our hymnal is this:

Crowns and thrones may perish,
Kingdoms rise and wane.
But the Church of Jesus
Constant will remain.
Gates of hell can never
‘Gainst the church prevail;
We have Christ’s own promise,
And that cannot fail.

Another stanza, beginning “What the saints established, / That I hold for true,” is consistently omitted from hymnals today because it is Sabine Baring- Gould’s personal statement of his allegiance to English High Church principles.

Arthur Sullivan wrote his fine tune, ST. GERTRUDE, specifically for these words seven years later. The tune name honors Mrs. Gertrude Clay- Ker- Seymour, in whose home he was a guest at the time.