E. Margaret Clarkson

8 June 1915—17 March 2008

EDITH MARGARET CLARKSON, almost always known as Margaret or E. Margaret, was born 8 June 1915 in Melville, Saskatchewan, Canada, daughter of Frederick Henry and Ethel May (Brown) Clarkson, third of five children (siblings Jessie, Arthur, Molly, and Bruce). As a small child, her family moved to Toronto, where she grew up attending St. John’s Presbyterian Church, learned to love hymns, and studied the Westminster Shorter Catechism. She started to play the piano and write poetry at age 12, around the same time her parents divorced. Her love for hymns came early in life, as she later recalled:

Before I was ten I knew hundreds of hymns by heart. At church I would lose myself in the hymnbook during long sermons; at home, I would sing hymns perched high in a cherry tree.[1]

Clarkson chose a profession of teaching, receiving her degree from the Toronto Teachers’ College. She initially taught elementary school in northern Ontario before moving back to Toronto, where she spent the next 31 years as a teacher, except for an intensive stint as a writer for Scripture Press in Wheaton, Illinois, in 1948 and 1949. As a writer, her first book was Let’s Listen to Music (1944, rev. 1957), which was a series of music appreciation lessons intended to be used with Victor recordings. An early reviewer wrote:

The author of Let’s Listen to Music reveals excellent taste in the choice of recordings she has made, while her brief biographical notes on the composers and her well-thought-out teaching points on the various selections make her book one which should prove extremely valuable and helpful to young people. Adults, moreover, will find Miss Clarkson’s book thoroughly stimulating.[2]

Clarkson would go on to be credited with writing 17 books in her long career. Much later in life, she wrote Destined for Glory: The Meaning of Suffering (1983) in which she recounted a long struggle with physical ailments:

I can’t remember a time in which I was not tormented by excruciating headaches coupled with compulsive vomiting, lasting for days at a time. … Though I have besought God earnestly for healing, He has not seen fit to touch my body with a miracle. His working in me has been more intimate—He has touched my spirit and is working His miracle there.[3]

In 1946, Clarkson’s gifts as a teacher and poet came to the attention of C. Stacey Woods, General Secretary of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, who asked her to write a hymn for the campus ministry. The result, “We come, O Christ, to Thee,” was premiered at IVCF’s first Missionary Convention at Toronto in December 1946, and it was included in IVCF’s Hymns (1947). In spite of writing poetry in the past, she regarded this to be her first true hymn. More of her hymns were included in IVCF’s Anywhere Songs (1960) and Hymns II (1976). Clarkson’s own anthologies of her hymns and poems were published as Clear Shining After Rain (1962) and A Singing Heart (1987). Her hymn “Praise the Lord, sing hallelujah” was featured at the 1974 Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Switzerland, and her hymn “Jesus, life of all the world” was featured at the 1983 meeting of the World Council of Churches in Vancouver.

Clarkson often wrote about the practice of writing hymns. In 1984, she summarized her approach this way:

Good hymns do not spring from ambition, but from personal Christian faith and devotion. They are God-centered, not man-centered, solidly rooted in Scripture. Their doctrine is neither myopic nor over blown, but true to the Word of God and the experience of the average believer. They are practical, designed to help worshipers to live better lives. Good hymns have an arresting first line, a single theme, and a clear progression of thought moving to a decisive climax. They must have organic unity—no extraneous thought may intrude because of strictures of rhyme or rhythm. They must be adult in tone, and innocent of offense. Emotionally warm and fervent, they are never sentimental. They must be capable of sustaining a good tune, and short enough to be sung in their entirety.[4]

Clarkson retired from teaching in 1973, although she later taught courses in hymnody at Regent College in Vancouver in 1979 and 1981. For many years she was a member of Knox Presbyterian Church, Toronto. She was named a Fellow of the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada in 1993. She died 17 March 2008 at Shepherd Lodge, Toronto. At her death, fellow hymn writer Christopher Idle said of her:

She was a robust defender of the Reformed faith, a lively and witty correspondent, and a respected editor and consultant. . . . Although her final years were clouded by dementia, countless believers share her heartfelt prayer: “Lead on in sovereign mercy through all life’s troubled ways, till resurrection bodies bring resurrection praise!”[5]

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
28 May 2020

  1. E. Margaret Clarkson, “Approaches to hymn writing,” The Hymn, vol. 35, No. 2 (April 1984), p. 79.

  2. “Useful Book,” Vancouver Daily Province (13 January 1945), p. 15.

  3. Destined for Glory: The Meaning of Suffering (1983), quoted in Leslie K. Tarr, “Suffering issue baffles, embitters,” Calgary Herald (10 Dec. 1983), p. G10.

  4. E. Margaret Clarkson, “Approaches to hymn writing,” The Hymn, vol. 35, No. 2 (April 1984), p. 79.

  5. Christopher Idle, “Edith Margaret Clarkson,” Evangelicals Now (June 2008).

Featured Hymns:

For Your gift of God the Spirit
So send I you

Collections of Hymns:

Clear Shining After Rain (1962)

A Singing Heart (1987)

Manuscripts:

E. Margaret Clarkson Papers, Buswell Library Special Collections, Wheaton College:
https://archives.wheaton.edu/repositories/2/resources/926

Related Resources:

Margaret Clarkson, “What makes a hymn ‘good’?” Christianity Today, vol. 24, no. 12 (27 June 1980), pp. 22–23: CT

E. Margaret Clarkson, “Christian hymnody,” The Christian Imagination: Essays on LIterature and the Arts, ed. Leland Ryken (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), pp. 415–428.

Margaret Clarkson, “The making of a hymn writer,” Decision, vol. 22 (Dec. 1981), p. 7.

E. Margaret Clarkson, Carl P. Daw Jr., and Fred Pratt Green, “Approaches to hymn writing,” The Hymn, vol. 35, No. 2 (April 1984), pp. 79–82: HathiTrust

E. Margaret Clarkson, “What is a hymn?” Reformed Worship, No. 4 (June 1987): RW

Harry Eskew, “E. Margaret Clarkson,” Handbook to the Baptist Hymnal (Nashville: Convention Press, 1992), p. 315.

David W. Music, “An interview with Margaret Clarkson,” The Hymn, vol. 45, no. (July 1994), pp. 8–11: HathiTrust

Christopher Idle, “Edith Margaret Clarkson,” Exploring Praise, vol. 2 (Darlington: Praise Trust, 2007), pp. 59–60.

Obituary, The Globe and Mail, Toronto (31 May 2008): Legacy.com

Christopher Idle, “Edith Margaret Clarkson,” Evangelicals Now (June 2008): https://www.e-n.org.uk/ ; reprinted in Evangelical Times (Sept. 2008): https://www.evangelical-times.org/25104/news-edith-margaret-clarkson-1915-2008/

Andrew Wymer, “We Come, O Christ, to You: The Life and Hymns of E. Margaret Clarkson,” SBTS Hymn Society Lectures (16 Sept. 2009), MP3 Audio: SBTS

Margaret Leask, “Margaret Clarkson,” Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology:
http://www.hymnology.co.uk/m/margaret-clarkson

Margaret Clarkson, Hymnary.org: https://hymnary.org/person/Clarkson_EM