# What hymn is the "Old Hundred" from Tom Sawyer? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 9, 2006, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139 "2006-01-09T12:38:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/1 "2006-01-09T12:38:09Z")
(Most likely CS material though there should be a factual answer) You remember the scene . . . Tom and Huck and Joe had disappeared, off playing pirates on their island. The town thought they were dead. They snuck into the church while their own funeral was in progress, to the amazement of the townspeople and… > [@](#): > > Suddenly the minister shouted at the top of his voice: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow – SING! – and put your hearts in it!” > > And they did. Old Hundred swelled up with a triumphant burst, and while it shook the rafters Tom Sawyer the Pirate looked around upon the envying juveniles about him and confessed in his heart that this was the proudest moment of his life. > > As the “sold” congregation trooped out they said they would almost be willing to be made ridiculous again to hear Old Hundred sung like that once more. The minister’s words makes it sound like they are talking about the traditional Doxology hymn, but it could be that they sang the Doxology and then sang this unknown “Old Hundred” Anyone know what one that would be? ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/2 "2006-01-09T12:51:43Z")
[Old Hundred](http://www.ccel.org/s/southern_harmony/sharm/sharm/hymn/t=Old+Hundred.html) ---
**Author:** ![CBCD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@CBCD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBCD)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/3 "2006-01-09T14:05:38Z")
Actually, [this](http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/p/p047.html) is the Old Hundredth referred to in Huck Finn, sung to the words 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow…", not what Athelas cited. Warning - the link above plays a midi file. In the Episcopal Church this is commonly The Doxology. I believe the Lutheren and Methodist Churches also use it as well. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/4 "2006-01-10T02:08:23Z")
I think that it’s called that because it was on page 100 as a rule of thumb in hymnals. No cite, can’t even remember where I heard it. hh ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/5 "2006-01-10T03:19:49Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > I think that it’s called that because it was on page 100 as a rule of thumb in hymnals. I thought it was because it was a setting of the words of Psalm 100. ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/6 "2006-01-10T03:37:45Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > I think that it’s called that because it was on page 100 as a rule of thumb in hymnals. > No cite, can’t even remember where I heard it. > hh Actually, it’s called that because the English words originally set to the tune (in approximately 1551) were paraphrased from Psalm 100 by William Kethe in the 1500s. It’s the “Old” Hundredth because a New Version of the English Psalter was published in 1696, with Psalm 100 set to a different tune. Technically, it’s the music that’s referred to by “[Old Hundred](http://www.ccel.org/cceh/0000/x000006.htm)”. Any number of hymns have been set to this [music](http://www.ccel.org/cceh/0000/000006d.mid) through the years, most famously Bishop Thomas Ken’s “Arise My Soul and With The Sun”, of which the last verse is commonly sung by Protestant congregations as the [Doxology](http://www.webedelic.com/church/doxolf.htm),: > [@](#): > > Praise God from whom all blessings flow; > Praise God, all creatures here below; > Praise God above, ye heavenly host, > Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. FWIW, it’s Hymn No. 95 in the standard Methodist Hymnal. The Old Hundredth is almost without a doubt the best-known and most-frequently played piece of Protestant liturgical music in the English-speaking world; anyone who grew up attending a Protestant church, particularly Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist, or similar denominations, would instantly recognize it. I’m Jewish now and it still provokes a visceral reaction in me. ---
**Author:** ![E.Thorp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/7 "2006-01-10T06:11:45Z")
> [@athelas](#): > > [Old Hundred](http://www.ccel.org/s/southern_harmony/sharm/sharm/hymn/t=Old+Hundred.html) > [@CBCD](#): > > Actually, this is the Old Hundredth referred to in Huck Finn, sung to the words 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow…", not what Athelas cited. Take a look at the 3rd line (tenor) in what **athelas** cited. It’s the same melody as the midi file, though the rhythm (which even today varies among denominations) is a bit different. In the singing tradition Twain’s writing about, the tenor part carries the melody. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow” was one of the verses of “Old Hundred,” but not necessarily the first. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/8 "2006-01-10T15:46:52Z")
We sang The Doxology (tune “Old Hundredth”) every Sunday when I was in the Christian & Missionary Alliance Church. We sing it rarely in my Assembly of God church. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/9 "2006-01-10T21:08:46Z")
> [@rackensack](#): > > … I’m Jewish now and it still provokes a visceral reaction in me. Um… dare I ask what _kind_ of visceral reaction? Does it evoke bad memories of the religion of your upbringing? Hope not - I’ve always liked it. We often sing it - in church (I’m Episcopalian), at big family meals, etc. We sang it at our wedding rehearsal dinner, come to think of it. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/10 "2006-01-10T23:44:23Z")
I’m confused now. I thought Psalm 100 was: > [@](#): > > Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth. > Serve the LORD with gladness; > Come before Him with joyful singing. > Know that the LORD Himself is God; > It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; > We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. > Enter His gates with thanksgiving, > And His courts with praise. > Give thanks to Him; bless His name. > For the LORD is good; > His lovingkindness is everlasting, > And His faithfulness to all generations. So the “praise God” is in there, but not much else. No heavenly host. No Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I’m no biblical scholar, but I am pretty sure the Trinity is a specifically Christian concept, so it wouldn’t be mentioned in the OT. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/11 "2006-01-11T00:15:01Z")
The setting of Psalm 100 which most Anglicans would recognise is:- All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice. Him serve with fear, His praise forth tell; Come ye before Him and rejoice. The Lord, ye know, is God indeed; Without our aid He did us make; We are His folk, He doth us feed, And for His sheep He doth us take. O enter then His gates with praise; Approach with joy His courts unto; Praise, laud, and bless His Name always, For it is seemly so to do. For why? the Lord our God is good; His mercy is for ever sure; His truth at all times firmly stood, And shall from age to age endure. To Father, Son and Holy Ghost, The God Whom Heaven and earth adore, From men and from the angel host Be praise and glory evermore. The tune is the ‘Old One Hundreth’ mentioned by previous contributors ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/12 "2006-01-11T01:09:29Z")
Okay, let me see: [Revised Standard](http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=RsvPsal.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=100&division=div1) > [@](#): > > 0: A Psalm for the thank offering. > 1: Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the lands! > 2: Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! > 3: Know that the LORD is God! It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. > 4: Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him, bless his name! > 5: For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures for ever, and his faithfulness to all generations. [King James](http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KjvPsal.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=100&division=div) > [@](#): > > 1: Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. > 2: Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. > 3: Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. > 4: Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. > 5: For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations. I don’t get what you posted in either of these, or the Catholic. Again, I don’t believe anything that mentions the Trinity can be attributed to the Old Testament. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/13 "2006-01-11T01:19:38Z")
Crap. I meant to add that the Trinity appears to be a development of the Second Century, first developed into a doctrine by [Tertullian.](http://www.auburn.edu/~allenkc/trinity.html) ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/14 "2006-01-11T06:52:20Z")
> [@Elendil's Heir](#): > > Um… dare I ask what _kind_ of visceral reaction? Does it evoke bad memories of the religion of your upbringing? Hope not - I’ve always liked it. We often sing it - in church (I’m Episcopalian), at big family meals, etc. We sang it at our wedding rehearsal dinner, come to think of it. No, it’s not negative at all. It’s just one of those things that I have such strong memories of, and it’s such a majestic bit of music, that it evokes a whole complex of memories, associations, and emotions; don’t really know how to describe it. I don’t have bad memories of my childhood religion – as late as my senior year of high school I actually considered becoming a Methodist minister. I grew away from Christtianity for a variety of reasons, and eventually found Judaism to be a much more in line with my personal beliefs, but it was never because of any negative experiences. ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/15 "2006-01-11T07:11:45Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > I’m confused now. I thought Psalm 100 was: > > So the “praise God” is in there, but not much else. No heavenly host. No Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I’m no biblical scholar, but I am pretty sure the Trinity is a specifically Christian concept, so it wouldn’t be mentioned in the OT. The words quoted by the preacher are, as mentioned earlier, the first of the final four lines of a seventeenth-century hymn by Bishop Thomas Ken. They have nothing to do with Psalm 100, except that they are frequently sung as the Doxology to the melody known as the Old Hundredth, which is called that because in the first Protestant English Psalter, it was used as the tune for a paraphrase of Psalm 100 by William Kethe. ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/16 "2006-01-11T11:45:47Z")
In the current Episcopal Hymnal, it’s hymn 380. Hymns are referred to by number, not page number. In fact, the hymnal I’m looking at doesn’t have page numbers. The first verse goes like this: > [@](#): > > From all that dwell below the skies, > Let the Creator’s praise arise! > Let the Redeemer’s Name be sung > Through every land, by every tongue! The hymn is attributed to Isaac Watts who lived at the turn of the 17th century and is a paraphrase of Psalm 117. This one isn’t listed in the copyright notices at the back of the hymnal. My church still does it most Sundays between the offertory anthem and the beginning of Communion while people’s offerings are being brought to the altar, and I usually sing the alto harmony line because I remember my father singing that bit of harmony. CJ ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/17 "2006-01-11T16:59:32Z")
> [@Siege](#): > > …The hymn is attributed to Isaac Watts who lived at the turn of the 17th century and is a paraphrase of Psalm 117… It seems to be a paraphrase of bits of Psalm 117, bits of 103, and, as I mentioned before, a little Christain Era theology thrown in at the end. ---
**Author:** ![clywdd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@clywdd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clywdd)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/18 "2013-01-31T13:03:46Z")
Both the Doxology by Thomas Ken (“Praise God from whom all blessings flow”) and William Kethe’s rhymed version of Psalm 100 (“All people that on earth do dwell”) are sung to a tune by Louis Bourgeois known as “Old Hundred.” Since the funeral preacher lines out the beginning words of the Doxology, I think it’s pretty clear that Twain means the congregation shook the rafters with those words to the famous “Old Hundred” tune. Kethe and Ken lived in the 16th and 17th centuries, respectively. Too bad they weren’t contemporaries; they could have teamed up as “Kith and Kin.” ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hymn-is-the-old-hundred-from-tom-sawyer/339139/19 "2013-01-31T14:27:10Z")
I read the Brian Aldiss short story “[Old Hundredth](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?51068)” in one of the Judith Merril anthlogies. It’s a memorable bit of writing & does use the old hymn.