He made
a pledge while still in the early stages of his chosen career as a religious
man. What would a 12-year veteran of an English religious persuasion be
promising to do – wasn’t his ministry enough to testify about his motives? But,
apparently William Walsham How felt the need to say “We Give Thee But Thine Own”
in several ways as he considered himself in God’s service in Whittington,
England, near the Welsh border. Was it just financial gifts that How pondered
he needed to give to his Creator? Obviously,
as a minister, he must have felt much more was necessary, and he must have been
thinking of others who he thought needed to offer it all up to God, as he penned
the word ‘we’ in his poetry.
William How
was a 35-year old who’d been laboring as an Anglican minister in the small
rural community of Whittington in west-central England when he wrote ‘We Give
Thee…”. It was 1858, and he still lived in the area near where he’d been born
and raised. He’d ultimately serve more than 30 years in the Shrewsbury-Whittington
area and the county of Shropshire, evidently a work in which he deeply believed
– 30 years of commitment speaks for itself. He was a familiar face by this
time, a home-grown element who was among many people he’d known for some time,
perhaps some of them since boyhood. One can imagine that his words were crafted
to arouse the assent of those with whom he worshipped and felt a deep kinship. “‘We’
should be about this in our lives”, you can hear him exhorting his congregants
from the pulpit. It would have flowed naturally from his sermons to the poet’s
page, to find its way into a collection known as Psalms and Hymns in 1864. Whatever one has comes from the One
above, so use it for His purposes – that’s the message of How’s poem. But, he
also thought about how this attitude of giving might draw others, for it wasn’t
just an act of surrender to a higher power. He felt the mission of God was his
own, that in fact a faith community – the ‘we’—was a force to relieve
suffering. Faith stragglers (v.3), the sad (v.4), orphaned (v.4), and
imprisoned (v.5) were all some who must have crossed paths with William in his
ministry in Shropshire County. He was spelling out what he wanted to be about
in his hometown, and beyond, if he ever chose to leave.
How did
in fact leave Shropshire and minister in London by 1879 and for the better part
of the next two decades, taking with himself this ‘We Give Thee…” life-purpose.
What he discovered in the farming community of his hometown wasn’t backward for
where he went later. His was a ministry that in fact burgeoned once he
relocated to the larger urban area. It says something about God’s mission…it
might look provincial and small in an area like Whittington, but its principles
translate well. How was willing to “Give thee thine own” wherever he found
himself, and his words resonated in the big city as well as they did in the
farm country. One can take himself anywhere, when you’ve found what How did.
See more
information on the song story in these sources: The Complete Book of
Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J.
Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006.
See brief biography of composer here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/h/o/w/how_ww.htm
Also see this link, showing all six original verses of the song:
http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/w/e/g/wegiveth.htm
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