John Samuel Bewley Monsell (1811-75) was an Irish-born Anglican clergyman who wrote about three hundred hymns, two of which are in LSB ("Fight the Good Fight," 664, and "Sing to the Lord of Harvest," 893). He joined the churchly concerns of the Oxford Movement with the warmth of the Methodists, and he had no patience with cold, reserved singing. In the preface to Hymns of Love and Praise for the Church's Year (1863) he wrote: "We are, alas! too distant and reserved in our praises. We sing not, as if our hearts were on fire with the flame of Divine love and joy." This Easter hymn, with its repeated alleluias, is his remedy: the congregation answers the news of the empty tomb with open, unreserved joy. --- *Another telling:* This joyful nineteenth-century Easter hymn was written by John Samuel Bewley Monsell (1811–1875), an Irish Anglican clergyman and prolific hymn writer who penned roughly 300 hymns over his lifetime. Monsell was a passionate advocate for lively, spirited congregational singing and published this text in his 1863 collection Hymns of Love and Praise. The hymn moves through the entire Easter narrative in four stanzas: from the victorious rising of our “victorious Head,” through the open gates of gladness where death and hell bend before the Victor, to the glorious morrow that transforms sorrow into joy (“He was dead, but now is living; He was lost, but He is found”), and finally to the triumphant declaration that “death or hell shall us enthrall” nevermore. The closing line, “Let us rise and keep the feast,” echoes Paul’s Easter command in 1 Corinthians 5:8, sending us out from the service to live every day as an Easter celebration.
Sung at Our Saviour
2026