A young minister’s two-mile walk in the rain provided the inspiration for “How Great Thou Art,” most recent addition to the great hymns of our time.
The story of the hymn gains interest through the Soviet origin of the version most commonly sung, and its delayed but amazingly swift rise to popularity.
Though as late as five years ago the hymn was still virtually unknown in North America, its lines date to 1885. The Reverend Carl Boberg of Mönsterås. on the southeast coast of Sweden, was 25 years old when he wrote the lyrics after trekking through a thunderstorm from a church meeting two miles away.
His inspiration yielded a poem of nine verses published in a local newspaper under the title, “O store Gud” (O Great God). Several years later, Boberg heard that the poem was being sung to the tune of an old Swedish folk melody. The tune is essentially the same as is used today, but it never became popular in Sweden; neither did an English translation made in 1925 (“Mighty God”).
Boberg became editor of a Christian weekly and later served 13 years as a member of the upper house of the Swedish parliament. He died in 1940 without having seen his hymn gain any extensive acceptance.
In 1907, Boberg’s poem was translated into German by Manfred von Glehn as “Wie gross bist Du” (“How Great Thou Art”). Von Glehn lived in Estonia, which included a large segment of German-speaking inhabitants. Twenty years later I. S. Prokhanoff published in Moscow a Russian translation of the Estonian-German version.
An English missionary, the Reverend Stuart K. Hine, came across the Russian version in the western Ukraine soon after it was published in 1927, and he and his wife used it as a duet during evangelistic meetings. Later he translated three verses into English and brought them back to London. He sang them regularly throughout the war years. In 1948 he added a fourth verse and a year later the hymn was published. It spread quickly through the British Commonwealth, even to Australia and New Zealand. It was introduced in the United States by James Caldwell at the Stony Brook Bible Conference on Long Island in 1951. The hymn was brought to my own attention at Harringay Arena in London in 1954, but I did not give it a fair trial until our crusade in Toronto, Canada, in 1955. There it made an immediate hit with the choir.
“How Great Thou Art” subsequently became the best-loved hymn of the Billy Graham crusades. We used it over and over again. We have heard it sung in every country we have visited, for the words are now translated into many languages. In New York in 1957 it was used more than 100 times by Bev Shea and the choir in the 119 meetings. Two years ago it became the theme of the “Hour of Decision” weekly radio broadcast.
Aside from the melody, the secret of the hymn’s popularity and effectiveness is its direct and simple manner of worship and praise to God. The attention is immediately focused upon the Lord.
Many polls indicate that “How Great Thou Art” is now one of the most beloved hymns in America and elsewhere. Some surveys rank it even higher than “The Old Rugged Cross” and “Rock of Ages.”
Another factor in its popularity lies in its wide distribution by Manna Music Company, which owns the American and Canadian copyrights to the Hine translation. We have known the Manna president, Tim Spencer, for a good many years and his desire has been to make this hymn one of the best known Gospel hymns in the world. He has allowed us to print the song as extensively as we wished for distribution to audiences and choirs. Moreover, the Manna people have themselves printed thousands of copies for distribution. They have given away as many copies as they have sold. As a result, the hymn has become available to many people who would never have heard of it had it merely been printed in a book. Hymnal inserts, for instance, are available even if they cannot be paid for.
A year ago, meditating on the words of “How? Great Thou Art,” I noted the absence of the wonderful fact of the Incarnation. In a matter of moments two verses came to me that expressed this glorious truth. These Christmas verses are reproduced here for the first time for general use. I hope they add to your enjoyment of this wonderful and blessed hymn.
Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.
