AN EASTER THOUGHT

Introduction

Words: How­ard A. Wal­ter, My Creed, and Oth­er Po­ems (Bos­ton, Mas­sa­chu­setts: Ri­chard G. Bad­ger, 1912), page 104.

Music: Staf­ford Jo­hann G. C. Störl, ar­ranged by Sam­uel S. Wesley (🔊 )

Ju­li­an in the lyr­ics is Fla­vi­us Clau­di­us Ju­li­an­us (331–363), the last non-Christ­ian rul­er of the Ro­man Em­pire.

Though raised a Chris­tian, he is called Ju­lian the Apos­tate due to his at­tempt to re-im­pose pa­gan­ism as the em­pire’s of­fi­cial re­li­gion.

Julian was killed dur­ing the Bat­tle of Sa­mar­ra in Me­so­po­tam­ia (now Sam­ma­ra, Ir­aq, سَامَرَّاء). The first line be­low gives what are said to be his dy­ing words.

This short hymn is a good re­mind­er of how all peo­ple, high and low, of ev­ery faith (or no faith at all), will be judged based on their ac­cept­ance or re­ject­ion of the Gos­pel.