"O God my heart with love inflame"

[Wade Kotter]

Here is the first verse of a hymn text that I'm considering for use with a tune I've been working on:

1 O God my heart with love inflame,
That I may in thy holy name,
Aloud in songs of praise rejoice,
While I have breath to raise my voice:
Then will I shout, then will I sing,
And make the heavenly arches ring:
I'll sing and shout for evermore
On that eternal happy shore.

The earliest sources I've found for this text both date to 1801:

Allen, Richard. "A Collection of Spiritual Songs and Hymns, Selected from Various Authors." (Philadelphia: Printed by John Ormrod, 1801)

"Hymns and Spiritual Songs for the Use of Christians." (Baltimore: Printed by M'Rae and Barnhill, 1801)

Is anyone aware of an earlier printing of this text? And is the collective wisdom still that this text is anonymous?

Thanks in advance!

Wade Kotter
South Ogden, UT

[Wade Kotter]

Good idea, Matt! I forgot that Ingalls used this text. However, it's not in my 1799 Norwich "Ninth Edition" (with additions by William Northrup). And it's not in any of the editions of "Divine Hymns" indexed at hymnary.org. But this doesn't mean much since the contents varied so much among different editions and hymnary.org only indexes a few of these. In his article on Smith's "Divine Hymns" in American Baptist Quarterly 25.1 (Spring 2006), pp. 63-81, David W. Music lists 24 editions published between 1791 and 1816, and there are over 600 distinct texts in these 24 editions! We would probably need to know which edition Ingalls used in order to determine for sure what texts Ingalls got from "Divine Hymns" My guess is that he got it from some other source. I seem to remember that Ingalls also used Josiah Goddard's "A New and Beautiful Collection of Select Hymns and Spiritual Songs," first published in 1798. However, this text does not appear in the first line index of the 1801 copy indexed at hymnary.org. Does anyone know of any other sources used by Ingalls, perhaps Tom Malone? I have a copy of Klocko's dissertation, but it's buried some where in one of my many boxes or piles.

Wade Kotter

South Ogden, UT

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From: "invisibl...@gmail.com" <invisibl...@gmail.com>
To: wadek...@yahoo.com
Cc: Fasola Discussions <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 9:00 PM
Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] "O God my heart with love inflame"

Have you checked Joshua Smith's Divine Hymns?  Jeremiah Ingalls used this hymn, so there's a good chance it's in there, though maybe not in a pre-1801 edition.

Matt Bell

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[invisibl...@gmail.com]

Have you checked Joshua Smith's Divine Hymns?  Jeremiah Ingalls used this hymn, so there's a good chance it's in there, though maybe not in a pre-1801 edition.

Matt Bell

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 9:51 PM, Wade Kotter <wadek...@yahoo.com> wrote:

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