"Onward Christian soldiers.."

"Onward, Christian Soldiers"

A 19th century English hymn originally titled "Hymn for Procession with Cross and Banners." Lyrics written in 1865 by Sabine Baring-Gould, as a processional hymn for children walking from Horbury Bridge where he was curate, to St. Peter's Church near Wakefield, Yorkshire at Whitsuntide. The musical score was composed in 1871 by Arthur Sullivan, and he named the tune "St. Gertrude" after the wife of his friend Ernest Clay Ker Seymer, at whose home he composed it.

Baring-Gould allowed the lyrics to be altered by hymn book compilers and the Fellowship Hymn Book, with his permission, changed the phrase "one in hope and doctrine" to "one in hope and purpose." For the 1909 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern. He changed the fifth line of the same verse from "We are not divided" to "Though divisions harass." However, Baring-Gould’s original words are used in most modern hymnals. The Salvation Army adopted the hymn as its favoured processional.

"...the song has been associated with protest against the established order, particularly in the case of the civil rights movement."

An attempt was made in the 1980s to strip "Onward, Christian Soldiers" from the United Methodist Hymnal and the Episcopal Hymnal 1982 due to perceived militarism. Outrage among church goers caused both committees to back down. However, the hymn was omitted from the 1990 hymnal of the Presbyterian Church, (USA) and the 1888 Australian Hymn Book, published in 1988, and its successor, Together in Song, published in 1999. The Spiritualists' National Union hymnbook has a variation on the hymn, entitled "Onward, Comrades, Onward".