Budry's Easter Hymn

Edmond Budry (1854-1932) wrote a hymn in French after, it is believed, his wife died. It has become famous in the English speaking world as 'Thine be the glory' a version Richard Hoyle (1875-1939). The first two verses are based on Budry's hymn but the last verse is an original composition - not many people know that. Either Hoyle was baffled by it or, more likely, he had fresh inspiration and so gave us that new verse with 'aid us in our strife' and 'Make us more than conquerors' etc. A few years ago I made my own version of verse 3 and later found that I had reinvented the wheel for Alan Gaunt redid the whole thing some time earlier. Nevertheless, I thought that I would look again at the hymn and over the weekend produced the following:

A fresh version of Budry’s Easter Hymn

1. To you the glory, and the victory!

Resurrected Jesus, for eternity!

Brightly shines the angel coming down in light,

Rolls the stone away and death is put to flight.

To you the glory, and the victory!

Resurrected Jesus, for eternity!

2. See him, our Saviour, Jesus who is here,

He’s our living Master, doubt must disappear!

We as his disciples constantly encore,

Joyfully confessing: Christ is conqueror!

To you the glory, and the victory!

Resurrected Jesus, for eternity!

3. Are we afraid now? He lives for evermore,

Prince of Peace is Jesus, He whom we adore;

Victory he gives us, strong, supportive aid,

He’s our life and glory: we are not afraid!

To you the glory, and the victory!

Resurrected Jesus, for eternity!

WJY 7/4/12 based closely on the French hymn by Edmond L. Budry (1854-1932)

It was first discovered in Cornwall

In his 1998 book, Molecules at an Exhibition, John Emsley described two elements as ‘from heaven’. One was titanium, first discovered in 1791 when William Gregor, the vicar of Creed in Cornwall and a keen geologist, went about collecting Cornish minerals. In Menaccan he found some black sand with unusual properties that clearly included something new. He wanted to name it menaccanine but a German chemist who discovered it again a few years later named it titanium and this name stuck. It turns out to be abundant in the earth’s crust though the pure metal was not isolated until 1910. Since then its uses have multiplied. I once worked in a laboratory and we used titanium tetrachloride as a catalyst in making plastics. The most common use of titanium is titanium dioxide which gives a brilliant white to paint and such other products as window frames. The metal itself is light, strong and not easily corroded. It is often alloyed with other metals with many uses in engineering (spacecraft, aircraft, cars...) but many people will know its medical application in replacement hip joints where it does not react with body tissues. Altogether titanium has turned out to be an extremely useful substance.

Now why does John Emsley describe it as coming from heaven? I couldn’t see why from his book but most other elements could be described as ‘from heaven’. As far as we understand things it works like this. Stars are great nuclear reactors which burn hydrogen and produce helium but all the elements needed for life were not found in the first generation of stars until late in their life and were not released until some of them departed in a great explosion. As later generations of stars were formed from clouds of gas they took in the debris from dead stars. We were fortunate that when the planets formed around our sun so many elements gravitated together to form our earth which is rich in substances that support life as well as many, such as titanium, that are plain useful. They are ‘from heaven’ in the sense that they come from the stars. It is very wonderful.