Lyrics:

1. He is risen! He is risen!
Tell it out with joyful voice.
He has burst his three days’ prison;
Let the whole wide earth rejoice.
Death is conquered; man is free.
Christ has won the victory.

2. Come with high and holy hymning;
Chant our Lord’s triumphant lay.
Not one darksome cloud is dimming
Yonder glorious morning ray,
Breaking o’er the purple east,
Symbol of our Easter feast.

3. He is risen! He is risen!
He hath opened heaven’s gate.
We are free from sin’s dark prison,
Risen to a holier state.
And a brighter Easter beam
On our longing eyes shall stream.

Text: Cecil Frances Alexander, 1818-1895
Music: Joachim Neander, 1650-1680

-History: (Source: Wikipedia)

Written By: Cecil Frances Alexander

Cecil Frances Humphreys Alexander (Early April 1818, Dublin – 12 October 1895^[1]), was a hymn-writer and poet.

She was born in Dublin, the daughter of Major John Humphreys and Elizabeth (née Reed). She began writing verse in her childhood. Her religious work was strongly influenced by her contacts with the Oxford Movement and in particular with John Keble, who edited one of her anthologies. By the 1840s she was already known as a hymn writer and her compositions were soon included in Church of Irelandhymnbooks.

Her book, Hymns for Little Children reached its 69th edition before the close of the nineteenth century. Some of her hymns, e.g. “All Things Bright and Beautiful“, “There is a Green Hill Far Away” and the Christmas carol “Once in Royal David’s City“, are known by many millions of Christians the world over, as is her translation of “Saint Patrick’s Breastplate”.

In Strabane in October 1850 she married the Anglican clergyman William Alexander, afterwards Bishop of Derry and Archbishop of Armagh. Her husband also wrote several books of poetry, of which the best known is St. Augustine’s Holiday and other Poems.

She was also involved in charitable work. Money from her first publications had helped build the Derry and Raphoe Diocesan Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, which was founded in 1846 in Strabane. The profits from “Hymns for Little Children” were donated to this school.

Music By: Joachim Neander

Joachim Neander (Neumann) (1650 – 31 May 1680) was a German Reformed (Calvinist) Church teacher, theologian and hymn writer whose most famous hymn, Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation (German: ‘Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren’) is generally regarded as one of the greatest hymns of praise of the Christian church and, since being translated into English by Catherine Winkworth in the 19th century, it has appeared in most major hymnals.

Neander wrote about 60 hymns and provided tunes for many of them. He is considered by many to be the first important German hymnist after the Reformation and is regarded as the outstanding hymn writer of the German Reformed Church.

Joachim Neander was born in Bremen, the son of a Latin teacher. His grandfather, a musician, had changed the family name from the original “Neumann” (“New man” in English) to the Greek form Neander following the fashion of the time. After the death of his father, he could not afford to study at a famous university. He therefore studied theology in his hometown from 1666 to 1670. At first, his heart was not in it. It was only when he heard a sermon of Theodor Undereyk (shortly before the end of his course) that his beliefs became serious.

In 1671 he became a private tutor in Heidelberg, and in 1674 he became a teacher in a Latin school in Düsseldorf, one step before becoming a minister. While living there, he liked to go to the nearby valley of the Düssel river, nature being the inspiration for his poems. He also held gatherings and services in the valley, at which he gave sermons. The valley (German thal modernized to tal) was renamed in his honor in the early 19th century, and became famous in 1856 when the remains of the Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthal Man) were found there.

In 1679, Neander became a pastor in Bremen, as his popularity with the common people had caused problems with the church administration in Düsseldorf. One year later, at the age of 30, he died of tuberculosis.

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