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This special mid-week video continues the celebration of Thanksgiving with the hymn, “Come Ye Thankful People Come.” Henry Alford penned the lyrics in 1844 as a commemoration of the harvest festival in the English countryside. Alford was born in 1810. His father and grandfather were both Anglican clergymen. He attended Trinity College in Cambridge, England, and upon graduating in 1832, began his life-long ministry as a theologian, poet and musician.

The music composed by George J. Elvey in 1856. Elvey was organist and master of the boys’ choir at St. George Chapel in Windsor from age 19 until his retirement in 1882. He also composed the music for the well-known hymn, “Crown Him with Many Crowns.”

Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
all is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;
come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.

All the world is God’s own field, fruit as praise to God we yield;
wheat and tares together sown are to joy or sorrow grown;
first the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God shall come, and shall take the harvest home;
from the field shall in that day all offenses purge away,
giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast;
but the fruitful ears to store in the garner evermore.

Even so, Lord, quickly come, bring thy final harvest home;
gather thou thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,
there, forever purified, in thy presence to abide;
come, with all thine angels, come, raise the glorious harvest home.

Thank you for listening!

“¹¹ You crown the year with your bounty,
and your carts overflow with abundance.
¹² The grasslands of the wilderness overflow;
the hills are clothed with gladness.
¹³ The meadows are covered with flocks
and the valleys are mantled with grain;
they shout for joy and sing.”

(Psalm 65:11-13)

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