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Reginald Heber
- Birth: April 21, 1783, Malpas, Cheshire, England
- Death: April 3, 1826, Trichinopoly, Tamil Hadu, India
An Oxford scholar, Reginald Heber was ordained into the Anglican Church and served for sixteen years at an obscure parish church in Hodnet, England. He was highly respected as a minister and as a prolific writer, contributing poetry, essays, and hymns to magazines.
He was also known for his Christian character and refinement. And he often tried to improve the music at the church he served. Though his superiors discouraged the use of anything but metrical psalms, he introduced hymns by Newton and Cowper, along with hymns he wrote himself. He dreamed of publishing a collection of strong hymns corresponding to the church year, but the Bishop of London wouldn't allow it.
At the age of forty, Heber was sent to India and served as Bishop of Calcutta, serving not only India but the Island of Ceylon and Australia as well. The weather and the stress of his position were hard on his health. One Sunday morning, after preaching to a large outdoor congregation, he suffered a stroke and died suddenly, at the age of forty-three.
It was after his death that his widow, after finding his collection of fifty-seven hymns in a trunk, succeeded in publishing his Hymns Written and Adapted to the Weekly Service of the Church Year. This volume included the great Trinitarian hymn, "Holy, Holy, Holy," and many of its hymns are still in use today.
Page numbers in Trinity Hymnal (1990) and The Worshiping Church (1990)
| Title | Trinity | Worshiping |
|---|---|---|
| Bread of the World in Mercy Broken | 425 | 774 |
| Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning | 574 | 182 |
| God That Madest Earth and Heaven | 405 | 336 |
| Holy, Holy, Holy | 100 | 2 |
| The Son of God Goes Forth to War | 578 |