Friday, March 13, 2026

It is the 13th of March 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Sometimes the stories for this show come from emails (thanks, Mason, just got yours!), and sometimes they come from my large collection of “on this day” texts, and sometimes I get curious, fall down a rabbit hole, and find a new story to tell.

 

This weekend on the show, I am preparing another Hymn history show- the best of Lenten hymns (we haven’t done that yet!). And as I was looking through one particular hymnal (hint: it’s maroon), I found the classic “O Sacred Head Now Wounded”, I found the traditional attribution to Bernard of Clairvaux, the tune by Hans Leo Hassler, and the German translation by Paul Gerhardt. Friends, there was zero attribution for the English translation. And so I dug and found not only the story of some 20+ different English translations but the one used by most, and that maroon hymnal comes from James Waddell Alexander. His is some story- and, to my delight, he was born on this day! So, we’ll talk more about the hymn this weekend, but let me introduce you to the man whose name might ring a bell- let me explain.

 

James Waddel Alexander was born on this day in 1804. His mother, Janetta Alexander, nee Waddel, was the daughter of James Waddel. James Waddel was born in Ireland and came to the United States, where he became a minister in the Shenandoah Valley, where he also lost his sight and was memorialized as the “Blind Preacher of Virginia”. His father was Archibald Alexander, the famous theologian and first professor at Princeton Theological Seminary.

 

And so, James Waddel Alexander was destined for a life in the church- he attended Princeton in 1820 but didn’t graduate. There was seemingly no problem with the family connections, and in 1824, he was made tutor at the college and ordained in the Presbyterian church. He would serve churches in Virginia and New Jersey before becoming a professor of Rhetoric at Princeton.

 

He wrote under a pseudonym, “Charles Quill,” in the style of Benjamin Franklin- pithy advice in works like “The American Mechanic and Working Man”. He also wrote on the life of Bishop Cyprian, on William Wilberforce, and “On the Evils of an Unsanctified Literature”. But it was his work as a translator that marks him- and specifically his English translation of what we call “O Sacred Head Now Wounded”. You’ll hear more about this hymn (which might be in my top three of all time) this weekend, but it took some skill to take a medieval text- with some of its language that is perhaps both more intimate and gory for moderns- and turn it into a classic. Alexander didn’t go from the medieval texts but took Gerhardt’s German and turned it into poetic English in the New York Observer, a Presbyterian magazine, for April 24th, 1830. Writing under the pseudonym Didymus, he wrote:

 

"I am unacquainted with any human composition of a devotional kind more deeply impressive and melting than this eighteenth-century hymn of the pious Gerhardt. For more than a century, it has been the favorite of orthodox Christians in Germany. The imitation has but a shadow of the original simplicity and unction; yet I am unwilling to withhold even this imperfect copy, which may direct the attention of more gifted poets to these invaluable relics.”.

 

More tomorrow on how he took a Latin hymn, set to a love song, with a setting by Bach, translated by Gerhardt into an English classic.

 

James Waddel Alexander would die in 1859 in West Virginia while at a hot springs for his health. He was taken to the family lot in New Jersey and buried in the family plot. His name might also ring a bell as James Waddell Alexander II would become a famous Princeton mathematician implicated in the Oppenheimer affair amidst the McCarthy scandals.

 

The original James Waddel Alexander had his correspondence collected as “Forty Years of Familiar Correspondence,” and his hymn translations were collected as “The Breaking Crucible; and Other Translations of German Hymns,” published posthumously in 1861. Born on this day in 1804, James Waddel Alexander was 55 years old.

 

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and we get Psalm 23- let’s head to my favorite translation of the Psalms- the old RSV:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.


He leads me in paths of righteousness
 for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
 I fear no evil;

for thou art with me;
 thy rod and thy staff,
 they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me
 in the presence of my enemies;

thou anointest my head with oil,
 my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
 all the days of my life;

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
 for ever.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 13th of March 2026, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose own denomination and maroon hymnal is responsible for the Alexander erasure- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who just wrote “erasure” and has that one song in his head… give a little respect… too oo oo me! I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.