Go To Dark Gethsemane

Words: James Montgomery
Born: No­vem­ber 4, 1771
Died: Ap­ril 30, 1854
When Montgomery was five years old, his fam­i­ly moved to the Mo­rav­i­an set­tle­ment at Grace­hill, near Bal­ly­mena, Coun­ty An­trim. Two years lat­er, he was sent to the Ful­neck Sem­in­ary in York­shire. He left Ful­neck in 1787 to work in a shop in Mir­field, near Wake­field. Soon tir­ing of that, he se­cured a sim­i­lar po­si­tion at Wath, near Rother­ham, on­ly to find it as un­suit­a­ble as his pre­vi­ous job. A trip to Lon­don, hop­ing to find a pub­lish­er for his youth­ful po­ems, end­ed in fail­ure. In 1792, he glad­ly left Wath for Shef­field to be as­sist­ant to Mr. Gales, auc­tion­eer, book­sel­ler, and print­er of the Shef­field Reg­is­ter. In 1794, Gales left Eng­land to avoid po­lit­ic­al pro­se­cu­tion. Mont­gom­ery took the Shef­field Reg­is­ter in hand, changed its name to the Shef­field Iris, and con­tin­ued to ed­it it for 32 years. Dur­ing the next two years he was im­pris­oned twice, first for re­print­ing a song in com­mem­or­a­tion of the fall of the Bas­tille, then for giv­ing an ac­count of a ri­ot in Shef­field.

"Go to dark Gethsemane, ye that feel the tempter’s power;
Your Redeemer’s conflict see, watch with Him one bitter hour,
Turn not from His griefs away; learn of Jesus Christ to pray.

See Him at the judgment hall, beaten, bound, reviled, arraigned;
O the wormwood and the gall! O the pangs His soul sustained!
Shun not suffering, shame, or loss; learn of Christ to bear the cross.

Calvary’s mournful mountain climb; there, adoring at His feet,
Mark that miracle of time, God’s own sacrifice complete.
“It is finished!” hear Him cry; learn of Jesus Christ to die.

Early hasten to the tomb where they laid His breathless clay;
All is solitude and gloom. Who has taken Him away?
Christ is risen! He meets our eyes; Savior, teach us so to rise".

It was my blessing to sing this great hymn as a choral anthem today.The message in this hymn is so deep and the melody and arrangement portrayed the purpose of the words in a really wonderful and worshipful manner. Thank you Gordon Leavitt Choir Director, Jon Waite Organist and each of my fellow Temple Choir members at First Presbyterian Church.

Music:Thomas Tertius Noble 1867-1953.
Noble stu­died at the Roy­al Coll­ege of Mu­sic with, among others, Charles Stan­ford. No­ble be­came a fel­low in 1905. He served as a church or­gan­ist in Cam­bridge and Col­ches­ter. He moved to Ely Ca­thed­ral in 1892 as or­gan­ist and choir­mas­ter, and in 1898 to York Min­ster, where he found­ed the York Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra, di­rect­ed the York Mu­sic­al So­ci­e­ty, con­duct­ed the York Pa­geant, and re­vived the York Mu­sic­al Fes­tiv­al af­ter a lapse of 75 years. He be­came an hon­or­ary fel­low of the Roy­al Coll­ege of Or­gan­ists in 1905. In 1913, he moved to New York Ci­ty, where he was or­gan­ist at St. Thom­as’ Epis­co­pal Church, and es­tab­lished its choir school and a boys’ choir. In ad­di­tion to com­pos­ing, he wrote about mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion, and helped ed­it the 1916 Pro­test­ant Epis­co­pal hym­nal, and served on the mu­sic com­mit­tee that pre­pared its 1940 suc­ces­sor. He wrote a wide range of mu­sic, but on­ly his serv­ices, an­thems and hymn tunes are still per­formed reg­u­lar­ly.

Above material from cyberhymnal.org