We Gather Together

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We Gather Together is a Christian hymn of Netherlands origin written in 1597 by Adrianus Valerius (pka François Valéry) as Wilt Heden Nu Treden to celebrate the Dutch victory over Spanish forces in the Battle of Turnhout. In the United States, it is popularly associated with Thanksgiving Day and is often sung at family meals and at religious services on that day.

We gather together to ask our Lord's blessing...

Although it appeared in a Dutch hymnal printed in 1626 (after the Pilgrims sailed to Massachusetts), the Pilgrims probably knew the hymn or about it from the period when they lived in Holland.

The hymn is customarily performed to a tune known as "Kremser", from Eduard Kremser's 1877 score arrangement and lyric translation of Wilt Heden Nu Treden into Latin and German. The modern English text was written by Theodore Baker in 1894.

This hymn is generally sung at American churches the day before Thanksgiving.