WE’VE A STORY TO TELL TO THE NATIONS

Jesus Christ’s last commandment was our greatest commission!  If the Gospel is global and the mission universal, shouldn’t we be singing about it?  There are so many ‘missionary hymns’…such as ‘Bring Them In’, ‘So Send I You’, ‘Rescue the Perishing’ and ‘Send the Light’…each providing a personal motivation.

The hymn, WE’VE A STORY TO TELL TO THE NATIONS, continues to be a most popular mission hymn.  It was written by an eclectic musician, poet, artist and writer named Henry Ernest Nichol.  He was born in 1862 in Hull, a port city north of London, England. 

Although he planned to study for civil engineering, his love for music led him at the age of 23 to change studies.  He began learning about music and earned a degree in music at Oxford.  He taught music, wrote musical textbooks, composed popular poetry and established a reputation in his day for literary dexterity and excellence.

Nichol found personal fulfillment in writing Sunday School songs.  For a time, he served as the music editor for the London Sunday School Times.  He wrote about 130 hymn tunes and occasionally supplied the words.

Henry Nichol passed away in 1926, and most of his secular and sacred works have been forgotten, but this hymn lingers in missionary circles.  It is a rousing anthem with an enthusiastic refrain that practically shoves us out the door to tell the story of our Lord, Jesus Christ, to neighbours and communities at home and across the seas!