All Things Bright and Beautiful - I Don't Think So!
July 2018
Have you ever heard the hymn “All Things Bright and Beautiful”? It is a lovely hymn with a beautiful tune. It was written and published by Cecil Frances Alexander in 1848 (see the words below). Alexander waxes lyrical about the beauties of the natural world as created by God in her eyes.
Fans of James Herriot will recognize the phrase “All creatures great and small” which he took directly from it. Anyone who has an appreciation of nature (on seeing a stunning sunset or a host of golden daffodils, for example) can understand the sentiments behind the words. However, I would say that there are 2 essential things which are wrong with the hymn.
Firstly, it is so optimistic, just unremittingly so. Whether you believe in God, Mother Nature, Fate and destiny or random chance in the chaotic arrangement of molecules, it is simply unrealistic to describe the earth in such non-stop glowing terms. The world is a great place, but not always. If you think it is then try talking to someone living in a famine area or someone infected by malaria or an earthquake victim. You cannot simply overlook the nastier side of life. Even William Blake when considering the “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright” in his famous poem “The Tyger” asked “Did He who made the lamb make thee?”
Eric Idle (of Monty Python fame) parodied the lyrics in his song “All things dull and ugly” (see words below) making reference to “Each little snake that poisons” and “Each little wasp that stings”. Of course, not everything is bad either, but Idle was making a point. See here.
ERIC IDLE always looking on the bright (if not beautiful) side of life
Secondly, there is a verse in the original version that is not featured nowadays.
The rich man in his castle,
the poor man at his gate,
God made them high and lowly,
and ordered their estate.
You may have noticed that the hymn came out in 1848 which coincidentally is the same year as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels produced The Communist Manifesto. It is interesting that Alexander along with Marx and Engels all seem to have arrived at the conclusion that the class system exists - for “poor man at the gate” read proletariat and for “rich man in his castle” read capitalist. Their interpretations of this conclusion couldn’t be further apart though.
Alexander saw “the poor man at the gate“ as the settled order and what’s more she promoted it to children. The hymn was first published in “Hymns for Little Children”. It is not always the case, but you can sometimes find that people with moral views based on a deity seem to be able to praise God as creator while at the same time showing little (if any) concern for people as the beings created by that God. It’s a kind of Orwellian religious double-think. In the middle of the 19th century poverty was rife. Many people lived in slums and worked tremendous hours for poor wages. Although there were some improvements, the housing and conditions of life of the working class in town and country were still a disgrace to an age of plenty. It makes you wonder how Alexander could square trying to demonstrate to children that their (and their parents’) lowly station in life was something ordered for them by the same God who also said things like “Suffer the little children to come to me” or “Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself”. Even someone with a basic knowledge of British history would have argued that the divine right of kings had been successfully refuted by the English Civil War 200 years previously.
Marx and Engels saw things differently. They did not want things to carry on as they were. They wanted workers to unite and revolt against the capitalist system because of the inherent unfairness, misery and exploitation of working people in it. They wanted people to understand the essential characteristic of capitalism is greed and therefore exploitation of people flowed naturally from this. There couldn’t be a sharper contrast to Alexander who saw it as the natural order set in place by the benign divinity she believed in.
One of Karl Marx’s most famous quotes is “Religion is the opium of the people”. This is really a paraphrase as the full quote is “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” It is strange to consider that an atheist who said that should have wanted to help people more than a person who was devoted to writing songs about how God’s settled order (as she believed it to be) should be upheld despite the obvious detriment to the poor people in it.
In case you think the intention of this article is to knock religion or religious people, it isn’t. There are millions of people from many religions who have done good and charitable deeds down the years and are still doing them today. However, there are many examples where the original message from the starter of a religion is not understood or misinterpreted or just used for their own ends by others who follow on. This is part of the human condition and doesn’t just apply to religion. Look at Stalin who is arguably the one of greatest mass-murderers in history. His version of Marxism strayed as far from Marx as torturing or burning heretics strayed from the message of Jesus.
One day maybe humanity will “evolve” to a stage where we collectively (either through religion or politics or both) accept the Golden Rule of reciprocity. This Rule is contained in all the great moral or ethical codes:
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In the Hebrew bible at Leviticus 19:18 “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your kinsfolk. Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD”.
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In Christianity at Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:1 "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".
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In Islam in the Qur'an 83:1-6 "Pay, Oh Children of Adam, as you would love to be paid, and be just as you would love to have justice!"
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In Humanism, "A decalogue for the modern world” Adam Lee, Ebon Musings “Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you is the single greatest, simplest, and most important moral axiom humanity has ever invented, one which reappears in the writings of almost every culture and religion throughout history, the one we know as the Golden Rule”.
If humanity does reach the stage where the Golden Rule is accepted and practiced, then surely the fair and equal distribution of opportunities and wealth will follow. You don’t have to look around the world for long to realize that we appear to be a long way off from that ideal state. However, “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and Darwin shows us that the process of evolution is slow. It depends on huge amounts of small changes that take place over generations to bring about superior and winning traits. As slow as they might be though, these small changes do add up. They do bring about improvements. Eventually all the good deeds that people do will add up and all the lessons learned will be remembered and acted upon. The insecurity of a world based on fear will disappear to be replaced by the security of a world based on love and at last, at long last, maybe all things will become bright and beautiful.
For the time being, however, we‘ve a long way to go and I don’t think I will hear that hymn in quite the same way next time round, but one day...
And finally, you can see a slightly chilling Friends of the Earth video featuring the hymn here.
“All things bright and beautiful” by Cecil Frances Alexander
Refrain: All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful,
the Lord God made them all.
Each little flower that opens,
each little bird that sings,
he made their glowing colors,
he made their tiny wings. Refrain
The purple-headed mountain,
the river running by,
the sunset, and the morning
that brightens up the sky. Refrain
The cold wind in the winter,
the pleasant summer sun,
the ripe fruits in the garden,
he made them every one. Refrain
He gave us eyes to see them,
and lips that we might tell
how great is God Almighty,
who has made all things well. Refrain
The author's original version included the following additional verse, which is largely omitted from modern day hymnals, as it is thought to express an outmoded social view.
The rich man in his castle,
the poor man at his gate,
God made them high and lowly,
and ordered their estate.
“All things dull and ugly” by Eric Idle
All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom.
He made their horrid wings.
All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.
Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid,
Who made the spikey urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did!
All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.
Amen.