Carl Boberg
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How Great Thou Art lyricist Carl Boberg (August 16, 1859 – January 17, 1940) was a Swedish poet, writer and legislator best known for writing the Swedish Hymn O Store Gud. Born in Mönsterås, Sweden, near Kalmar, Boberg was a carpenter’s son, worked briefly as a sailor and served as a lay minister. He was the editor of a weekly Christian newspaper, Sanningsvittnet (Witness of the Truth), from 1890 until 1916. Boberg served in the Swedish Parliament for twenty years from 1912 – 1931. He published more than 60 poems and hymns, including a collaboration with Swedish hymnist Lina Sandell. However, it is How Great Thou Art, one of the most recorded hymns ever, that has preserved Carl Boberg’s name in history,
[edit] Origin of How Great Thou Art
Boberg wrote the poem O Store Gud in 1885 as a nine verse poem. The inspiration for the poem came when Boberg was walking home from church near the village of Kronabäck, Sweden. A sudden awe inspiring storm gripped Boberg’s attention, and then just as suddenly as it had made its violent entrance, it subsided to a peaceful calm which Boberg observed over Mönsterås Bay.
Boberg first published O Store Gud in the Mönsterås Times in 1886 and later sold the rights to the Swedish Missionary Society. It was set to an old Swedish folk tune and sung in public for the first time in 1888.
[edit] Translation and migration of the song
The song then made a most remarkable international journey. It was first translated from Swedish to German by Manfred von Glehn and became popular in Germany. Eventually, the German version traveled to the former Soviet Union where a Russian version managed to get published in 1927.
British missionary Stuart Hine first heard the song while on a mission to the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine, near the Polish border. Hine added the third verse:
- "And when I think that God, His Son not sparing, sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in; that on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, how great Thou art! How great Thou art!"
He eventually managed to translate the other verses from Boberg's original poem into English and brought the hymn to England at the conclusion of his mission. The poem became popular in each country that it reached. British missionaries began to spread the song around the world to former British colonies in Africa and India in its current English version.
In a small village nearby Deolali, India, Dr. J. Edwin Orr of the Fuller Theological Seminary discovered the song being sung by a choir of the Naga tribe near Burma. From there it returned to the United States, eventually becoming the “signature song” of the 1950s Billy Graham Crusades.
How Great Thou Art was ranked second, after Amazing Grace, on a list of the favorite hymns of all time in a survey by Christianity Today in 2001. George Beverly Shea's recording of the beloved hymn ranks number 204 on the top recordings of the century according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
