Alleluia! Sing to Jesus!
His the scepter, His the throne;
Alleluia! His the triumph,
His the victory alone;
Hark, the songs of peaceful Zion
Thunder like a mighty flood;
Jesus, out of every nation,
Hath redeemed us by His blood.
Public domain hymn text (1866). Words by William Chatterton Dix.
The Story Behind the Hymn
William Chatterton Dix, already discussed elsewhere in this collection as author of 'What Child Is This' (hymn 109) and 'As With Gladness Men of Old' (hymn 184), wrote this hymn's text in 1866, several years after recovering from the serious illness and spiritual crisis that had shaped his two earlier, better-known Christmas hymns, this time focusing not on Christ's birth but on His ascension into heaven and ongoing heavenly reign.
The hymn's central theme — Christ's continued sovereignty even though He is 'not here' bodily present with believers on earth — draws on Acts 1:9-11, the account of Christ's ascension, and on the broader New Testament teaching that Christ, though physically absent, remains actively present with believers through the Holy Spirit and through the sacrament of Communion, a theme the hymn's later verses (not always included in shorter modern printings) develop at greater length.
Rowland H. Prichard, a Welsh musician who worked for much of his life as a loom tender in a Welsh flannel factory rather than as a professional musician, composed the tune, known as 'Hyfrydol,' considerably earlier, in the 1830s, for an entirely different hymn text, before the tune was later paired with Dix's words; Prichard's tune has since become one of the most widely reused hymn melodies in English-language hymnody, paired over the years with numerous different texts by different authors.
Dix worked throughout his life as a manager for a marine insurance company in Glasgow, Scotland, treating his considerable hymn-writing output as a devotional practice conducted entirely outside his regular working career in the insurance business, and this hymn, alongside his two Christmas carols found elsewhere in this collection, remains one of his most enduringly sung contributions to English hymnody, this time addressing Christ's ongoing reign rather than the circumstances of His birth.
