From Bethany, the Master
Text · full lyrics
From Bethany, the Master
Comes down Mt. Olive’s slope,
And all the world is singing,
A glad new song of hope;
Cry out, O stately cedars,
Along the rugged way!
Ye vineyards, shout hosanna,
To greet this happy day!
The King of Love, in triumph
Rides through the city’s gate;
Rejected, scorned-yet Victor,
The Conqueror of hate;
O wave your green palm branches!
Exalt His matchless worth!
This King of Love shall conquer
The nations of the earth.
Not of this world His kingdom;
His power is from above;
His realm is of the spirit,
His scepter—Truth and Love;
The King of Love, in triumph
Rides through the city’s gate;
Rejected, scorned-yet Victor,
The Conqueror of hate;
The lyricist
Marion Ham
Ham came to hymn-writing late. A Unitarian minister, he spent his twenties as a Chattanooga newspaper reporter and then a bank clerk before his 1898 ordination, and though he had published a volume of poems in 1896, he did not write his first hymn until 1911, more than a decade into the pulpit. Over the rest of his career, while serving small congregations in Tennessee, Texas, and Massachusetts, he produced only eight or ten hymns that came into general use, one of them eventually translated into Japanese. "From Bethany, the Master" is among that slim handful.