Vital Sparks: God’s Garden

I want to write about 335 RETURN AGAIN:

Savior, visit Thy plantation;
Grant us Lord, a gracious rain.
All will come to desolation,
Unless Thou return again.

I want to write about 335 RETURN AGAIN, but I first have to discuss the word, “plantation,” although I’m not particularly eager to do so. I have heard it said that some do not want to sing this song because of the use of the word. Although, I, personally, haven’t seen anyone suggest this, have only heard claims that others do. Since there are few activities so voluntary as Sacred Harp singing, there’s no problem here: just don’t sing it. But it might be worth understanding the background a little bit more.

Given the previous essay on “semantic drift” in the texts of The Sacred Harp, it’s definitely in my bailiwick to talk about this. So, first a bit of a digression before I get to the heart of this essay, which, to be honest, will be a fairly plain and modest one. An AI-based analysis of a sample of 1000 uses of “plantation” in the Corpus of Contemporary American English notes that, although this word is used in various contexts, the majority of uses refer to the plantations of the antebellum South and Caribbean, chattel slavery, and slavery’s legacy in the U.S. More neutral uses often describe large monocrop farming estates of the present and past: sugar, coffee, cotton, rice, pine, banana, pineapple, and so forth—even marijuana plantations. Searches on the New York Times and Fox News websites are similar; in all cases, they also reference place names (Plantation, Florida, for example) and sometimes historical locations and tourist sites (Plimoth Plantation, Monticello, Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, and so forth). And, of course, the political discourse around the use of the term “plantation.”

What I find interesting, as someone who has worked as a lexicographer, is that the meanings of plantation as either an estate where enslaved people work or large monocrop estates only rarely show up in dictionaries. Merriam-Webster’s defines plantation as a large group of plants under cultivation or the place where such plants are grown, or a settlement in a new country or region. The American Heritage definition is similar. Both note that the plantation often has “resident workers.” Only The Century Dictionary, from the turn of the last century, offers a definition more closely aligned with the current, modern use.

This poem is from John Newton’s Olney Hymns, and was first published in 1779. Of course, Newton worked on slave ships and as an investor in the slave trade, although he later became an abolitionist. Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, published roughly contemporaneously with Olney Hymns, does not include the large estate meaning of plantation, and treats it roughly as a synonym of “planting.” And this general sense of a “planting” is what Newton is trying to evoke. So, without making a fuss, I want to turn to the poem as a whole, and explore its imagery.

The 2025 edition has two verses and a chorus (which is not present in Olney Hymns):

Savior, visit Thy plantation;
Grant us Lord, a gracious rain.
All will come to desolation,
Unless Thou return again.

Keep no longer at a distance;
Shine upon us from on high.
Lest for want of Thy assistance,
Ev’ry plant should droop and die.

Lord, revive us! Lord, revive us!
All our help must come from Thee.

Newton entitled this, his Hymn 51, “A prayer for revival.” Here are the remaining verses:

Surely, once thy garden flourished,
Every part looked gay and green;
Then thy word our spirits nourished,
Happy seasons we have seen!

But a drought has since succeeded,
And a sad decline we see;
LORD, thy help is greatly needed,
Help can only come from thee.

Where are those we counted leaders,
Filled with zeal, and love, and truth?
Old professors, tall as cedars,
Bright examples to our youth!

Some, in whom we once delighted,
We shall meet no more below;
Some, alas! we fear are blighted,
Scarce a single leaf they show.

Younger plants–the sight how pleasant,
Covered thick with blossoms stood;
But they cause us grief at present,
Frosts have nipped them in the bud!

Dearest Savior, hasten hither,
Thou canst make them bloom again;
O, permit them not to wither,
Let not all our hopes be vain!

Let our mutual love be fervent,
Make us prevalent in prayers;
Let each one esteemed thy servant,
Shun the world’s bewitching snares:

Break the tempter’s fatal power,
Turn the stony heart to flesh;
And begin, from this good hour,
To revive thy work afresh.

Newton’s image is of a small, cultivated garden. It is a lament and a plea for the renewal of the church, which is in danger of becoming, once again, a desolate wilderness unless Christ tends to it. It needs the renewing rain and sunshine of God to be restored and revived.

As is often the case in such poetry, Newton looks back to a time when things were better: “Surely, once thy garden flourished.” He laments the drought that has occurred, which he describes in three verses. First, there has been a failure in leadership (“Where are those we counted leaders?”). Second, many people have left or become lifeless (“Some … we shall meet no more below” and “Some … are blighted.”). Third, the younger people in the congregation, the “younger plants,” have become “nipped … in the bud” by spiritual frost.

He turns to the church itself, calling it to fervent mutual love, to prevalent prayer, and to shun worldly snares. Finally, he returns to call on God to revive God’s work, breaking the power of the devil, and softening the hearts of the church.

I have been continuing in my research on Isaac Watts’s congregation, Bury Street. It started small, in the days of persecution of the dissenting churches, and in the second generation or so, first joined with another congregation, but was declining when Watts was called. In a few years, the membership swelled under Watts and his co-pastor, Samuel Price, and I imagine this felt like an answer to a prayer for revival. After Watts died, the church seemed to flourish well enough under Price. But the church petered out after the death of another pastor, Samuel Chase, and (I think) closed its doors about 100 years after its founding. I can easily imagine the congregation singing Newton’s lyrics, hoping for a revival of the salad days under Watts.

But, speaking of Watts, this text reminds me of his hymn “The Church, the garden of Christ” from The Psalms of David. This is set to MUSGROVE in The Shenandoah Harmony with its first two verses:

We are a garden walled around,
Chosen and made peculiar ground;
A little spot enclosed by grace
Out of the world's wide wilderness.

Like trees of myrrh and spice we stand
Planted by God the Father's hand; 
And all his springs in Sion flow
To make the young plantation grow.

This is a much more optimistic view of the church, based on Song of Songs 4:12-15, where the bride (prefiguring, to Watts, the church) is compared to a fragrant, well-watered garden:

A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,
Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:
A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.

We get a similar image in the poetry in 64 NASHVILLE and 284 GARDEN HYMN, which uses imagery from the Garden of Eden and John 15, I believe:

The Lord into His garden comes,
The spices yield a rich perfume,
The lilies grow and thrive;
Refreshing showers of grace divine
From Jesus flow to every vine,
And make the dead revive.

284 GARDEN HYMN uses water imagery, too:

O that this dry and barren ground
In springs of water may abound,
A fruitful soil become;
The desert blossoms as the rose,
While Jesus conquers all His foes
And makes His people one.

Sometimes, we are in need of revival, as individuals, or in our churches or other institutions. We may remember times of plenty, and desire a return to that. Singing “Lord, revive us! Lord, revive us!” can be our prayer. Sometimes, we can simply enjoy what has been given to us, even in a dangerous, frightening world, and we can declare we are in “a little spot, enclosed by grace.” Sometimes, we are enamored by the presence of Christ and feel the “refreshing showers of grace divine,” and can “taste the sweetness of his word” and “in Jesus’ ways go on.”