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Joseph Seiss

Birth: March 18, 1823, Graceham, Maryland
Death: June 20, 1904, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Seiss was born in the German Moravian settlement of Graceham in Frederick County, Maryland in 1823. He was confirmed in the Moravian church at 16. Although he was discouraged from entering the ministry by his father and bishop, he studied at night with his pastor and eventually entered Pennsylvania College at Gettysburg, studying his theological course predominately in private, and was licensed to preach by the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Virginia in 1842.

Seiss pastored churches in Virginia and Maryland, then in 1858 moved to St. John's Lutheran Church in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, where he remained for sixteen years. Then, with some of his members, he established the Church of the Holy Communion in Western Philadelphia. He also served as president of the Pennsylvania Ministeruim and General Council.

Seiss wrote or edited about 80 works. These included Ecclesia Lutherana, 1868; Lectures on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 1885; Lectures on the Gospels, 1868-1872; The Evangelical Psalmist, 1859 and others. He also wrote works on education, the Lutheran liturgy and hymn collections.

The translator of the first three verses of the version of "Fairest Lord Jesus" which appears in most English hymnals is unknown. It first appeared in Richard Storrs Willis' Church Carols and Choir Studies, 1850.

The fourth verse comes from the translation from Joseph August Seiss. His translation, distinctly Lutheran, is as follows:

Beautiful Savior, King of Creation
Son of God and Son of Man!
Truly I'd love Thee, truly I'd serve Thee,
Light of my soul, my joy, my crown.

Fair are the meadows, Fair are the woodlands,
Robed in the flowers of blooming spring;
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,
He makes our sorrowing spirit sing.

Fair is the sunshine, Fair is the moonlight,
Bright the sparkling stars on high;
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer
Than all the angels in the sky.

Beautiful Savior, Lord of the nations,
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, Praise, adoration
Now and forevermore be Thine!