Nearer, My God, to Thee

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Nearer, my God, to Thee" is a 19th century Christian hymn based loosely on Genesis 28:11-19,[1] the story of Jacob's dream. Genesis 28:11-12 can be translated as follows: "So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it...."

The verse was written by British actress, dramatic poet and Unitarian hymn writer Sarah Flower Adams at her home in Sunnybank, Loughton, in 1841. In the United Kingdom, it is usually performed to the 1861 tune "Horbury" by John Bacchus Dykes, while in the rest of the world, it is usually performed to the 1856 tune "Bethany" by American composer Lowell Mason. Methodists prefer the tune "Propior Deo" (Nearer to God), written by Sir Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan) in 1872. Sullivan also wrote a second setting of the hymn to a tune referred to as "St. Edmund", and there are other versions, including one referred to as "Liverpool" by John Roberts.

"Nearer, my God, to Thee" is traditionally associated with the RMS Titanic, as passengers reported that the ship's band played the hymn as the Titanic sank. The "Bethany" version was used in Jean Negulesco's 1953 film Titanic, whereas the "Horbury" version was played in Roy Ward Baker's 1958 movie about the sinking called A Night to Remember, and the "Bethany" version is used in the 1997 film. Wallace Hartley, the ship's band leader, who like all the musicians on board went down with the ship, was known to like the song and to wish having it performed at his funeral. He was British and Methodist, and would have been familiar with both the "Horbury" and "Propior Deo" versions, but not with "Bethany". His father, a Methodist choirmaster, used the "Propior Deo" version at church for over thirty years.

Another tale, surrounding the death of President William McKinley in September 1901, quotes his dying words as being the first few lines of the hymn. On the afternoon of September 13, 1901, after five minutes of silence across the nation, bands in Union and Madison Squares in New York City played the hymn in memory of the fallen president. It was also played at a memorial service for him in Westminster Abbey, London. The hymn was also played as the body of assassinated American President James Garfield was interred at Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.

"Nearer, My God, to Thee" is sung at the end of the award-winning 1936 movie San Francisco. A 1917 film called "Nearer My God to Thee" was made in 1917 in the UK. It is also the title of a painting by physician Jack Kevorkian.