Scripture Verse

God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9–11

Introduction

portrait
Oliver Holden
1765–1844

Words: Ed­ward Per­ro­net. The first stan­za ap­peared anon­y­mous­ly in The Gos­pel Ma­ga­zine, No­vem­ber 1779. In Ap­ril 1780, the same mag­a­zine pub­lished eight ver­ses ti­tled, On the Re­sur­rec­tion, the Lord Is King. It re­sur­faced half a do­zen years lat­er, again anon­y­mous­ly, ac­com­pa­nied by an acros­tic po­em whose let­ters spelled out Ed­ward Per­ro­net.

Music: Cor­o­na­tion Ol­iv­er Hol­den, Un­ion Har­mo­ny or Un­i­ver­sal Col­lec­tion of Sac­red Mu­sic (Bos­ton, Mas­sa­chu­setts: 1793) (🔊 pdf nwc). Hol­den, a car­pen­ter, had been help­ing with the re­con­struc­tion of Charles­town, Mas­sa­chu­setts, after the 1775 Bat­tle of Bun­ker Hill. He orig­in­al­ly wrote this tune to cel­e­brate his daugh­ter’s birth, but af­ter he dis­cov­ered Per­ro­net’s lyr­ics, it be­came linked to the words below.

Alternate Tunes:

If you know where to get a bet­ter pic­ture of Per­ro­net or Hol­den, would you

portrait
Edward Perronet
1726–1792

Anecdote

Mr. Will­iam Rey­nolds, of Pe­or­ia, Il­li­nois, the well known Sun­day school work­er, tells the fol­low­ing, which he had from the lips of the mis­sion­ary him­self.

The mis­sion­ary, Rev. E. P. Scott, while la­bour­ing in In­dia, saw on the street one of the stran­gest look­ing hea­then his eyes had ev­er lit upon.

On in­qu­iry he found that he was a rep­re­sent­a­tive of one of the in­land tribes that lived away in the moun­tain dis­tricts and that came down once a year to trade.

Upon fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion he found that the Gos­pel had ne­ver been preached to them and that it was dan­ger­ous to ven­ture among them be­cause of their mur­der­ous ten­den­cies.

He was stirred with much de­sire to break un­to them the Bread of Life. He went to his lodg­ing-place, fell up­on his knees and plead­ed for Di­vine di­rec­tion. Aris­ing, he packed his val­ise, took his vio­lin with which he was ac­cus­tomed to sing, and his pil­grim staff, and started in the di­rec­tion of the Ma­ce­don­ian cry.

As he bade his fel­low mis­sion­ari­es fare­well, they said, We shall ne­ver see you again. It is ma­dness for you to go. For two days he tra­veled, scarc­ely meet­ing a hu­man be­ing, un­til at last he found him­self in the moun­tains sur­round­ed by a crowd of sav­ag­es.

Every spear was point­ed at his heart. Not know­ing of any oth­er re­source he tried the pow­er of sing­ing the name of Je­sus to them. Draw­ing forth his vio­lin he be­gan with closed eyes:

All hail the pow­er of Je­sus name! etc.

Afraid to open his eyes he sang on till the third verse, and while sing­ing this verse—

Let ev­ery kin­dred, ev­ery tribe, etc.—

He opened his eyes to see what they were go­ing to do, when, lo! the spears had dropped from their hands and the big tears were fall­ing from their eyes.

They af­ter­wards in­vit­ed him to their homes, an in­vi­ta­tion glad­ly ac­cept­ed. He spent two years and a half amongst them.

His la­bours were great­ly blessed, and he had so won up­on their af­fec­tions that when he was com­pelled to leave on ac­count of im­paired health for this coun­try, they fol­lowed him for thir­ty miles.

O mis­sion­ary, they said, come back to us again. He has gone back and there is la­bour­ing still.

Morrison, pp. 157–58

Note: Two de­cades lat­er, Scott’s wife wrote that the hymn played by the vio­lin­ist was Am I a Sol­dier of the Cross. See An Au­to­bio­gra­phy of An­na Kay Scott, M. D. (Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois: An­na Kay Scott, 1917), pag­es 38–39. We do not know which ac­count is more ac­cur­ate.

Lyrics

All hail the power of Je­sus’ name!
Let an­gels pros­trate fall;
Bring forth the royal dia­dem,
And crown Him Lord of all.
Bring forth the roy­al dia­dem,
And crown Him Lord of all.

Let high­born se­raphs tune the lyre,
And as they tune it, fall
Before His face who tunes their choir,
And crown Him Lord of all.
Before His face who tunes their choir,
And crown Him Lord of all.

Crown Him, ye morn­ing stars of light,
Who fix­ed this float­ing ball;
Now hail the strength of Is­ra­el’s might,
And crown Him Lord of all.
Now hail the strength of Israel’s might,
And crown Him Lord of all.

Crown Him, ye mar­tyrs of your God,
Who from His al­tar call;
Extol the Stem of Jes­se’s rod,
And crown Him Lord of all.
Extol the Stem of Jes­se’s rod,
And crown Him Lord of all.

Ye seed of Is­ra­el’s chos­en race,
Ye ran­somed from the fall,
Hail Him who saves you by His grace,
And crown Him Lord of all.
Hail Him who saves you by His grace,
And crown Him Lord of all.

Hail Him, ye heirs of Da­vid’s line,
Whom Da­vid Lord did call,
The God in­car­nate, Man di­vine,
And crown Him Lord of all,
The God in­car­nate, Man divine,
And crown Him Lord of all.

Sinners, whose love can ne’er for­get
The worm­wood and the gall,
Go spread your tro­phies at His feet,
And crown Him Lord of all.
Go spread your tro­phies at His feet,
And crown Him Lord of all.

Let ev­ery tribe and ev­ery tongue
Before Him pros­trate fall
And shout in uni­ver­sal song
The crown­èd Lord of all.
And shout in uni­ver­sal song
The crown­èd Lord of all.

O that, with yon­der sac­red throng,
We at His feet may fall,
Join in the ev­er­last­ing song,
And crown Him Lord of all,
Join in the ev­er­last­ing song,
And crown Him Lord of all!