My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less

Please listen to this hymn! Press play on the upper left side.

Many thanks to Bill Schachter ("One take Willy") for recording this hymn and offering to share it here. It was composed by Edward Mote (c.1834) and William B. Bradbury (1863).
(Please note, I've yet to find a way to upload Willy's notation. For now, view the photos of hymn 771. This can be played in the key of C with a capo on fret 5, which puts it in the key of F.)

Ten Thousand Times Ten Thousand

This hymn was composed by Henry Alford (1867) and Frederick Arthur Gore Ouseley (1867). "This all saints hymn...is a special favorite for Moravian funeral services" (Albert Frank, Companion to the Moravian Book of Worship, p. 73).

1. Ten thousand times ten thousand in sparkling raiment bright, the armies of the ransomed saints throng up the steeps of light!

'Tis finished, all is finished, their fight with death and sin. Fling open wide the golden gates, and let the victors in!

2. What rush of hallelujas fills all the earth and sky! What ringing of a thousand harps be-speaks the triumph nigh!

O day, for which creation and all its tribes were made! O Joy, for all its former woes a thousand-fold repaid!

3. O then what raptured greetings on Canaan's happy shore; what knitting severed friendships up, where partings are no more!

Then eyes with joy shall sparkle that brimmed with tears of late, no orphans left without a home, nor mourners desolate.

4. Bring near your great salvation, O Lamb for sinners slain; fill up the roll of your elect, then take your pow'r, and reign!

Appear, Desire of nations, your exiles long for home; show in the heav'n your promised sign; then, Prince and Savior, come.

"Till He Come!"

This song was suddenly interrupted with a surprise phone call from our friend. Was it a mistake, or was it good timing? The text was written by Edward Henry Bickersteth (1862), while the tune was written by Dmitri Bortnianski (1822), and later altered. Our friend Gloria tells us that "Till He Come!" is regularly sung at Communion services in Nicaragua.

Bread of Life

The tune Holy Lord (119 A) is imagined here as a communion song, taken from The Service For Holy Communion: In Celebration of Unity and Renewal (Moravian Church of America). The text is a mystery to me, as I can't determine the author. The song is sung amidst a background of bread and baking materials, reminding us of the care with which Jesus feeds us.