Once To Every Soul And Nation

Tune: Ebenezer

This hymn text, written by James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), was first published in 1896. Lowell wrote the original 18-stanza poem as a protest against the Mexican War, which, through the annexation of the new Southwest Territory, would have enlarged the area of the slaveholding states.

The poem first appeared in print in the Boston Courier on December 11, 1845. The hymn appeared in the 1905, 1935, and 1966 Methodist Hymnals (Once to Every Man and Nation), but was dropped from the 1989 United Methodist Hymnal. The Ebenezer hymn tune was composed by Thomas J. Williams (1869-1944) and was first published in 1890. The tune has gone by several names including Ton-Y-Botel (tune in the bottle), Assurance, and Ebenezer.

Ton-Y-Botel originates from a false legend that a peasant found it in a sealed bottle on the coast of Wales. (Source: Companion to the [1964] Hymnal: A Handbook to the United Methodist Book of Hymns (sic), Abingdon Press, 1970.)

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