Charitie (Smith) Bancroft was born June of 1841 in Dublin, Ireland. Her father was a Reverend at the Colebrooke Church in Dublin, and her "talent for poetic composition" arose early in her life. Charitie's first poems and hymns were published before she was even twenty! Outside of her writing, little is known about her life …
Category: Literature
Hymns: “Go to Dark Gethsemane”
"Go to Dark Gethsemane", a traditional hymn of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, was written by James Montgomery. Montgomery was born in Scotland in 1771. He worked as a newspaper editor and wrote around 400 hymns and poems during his life. Another well-known hymn of his was "Angels from the Realms of Glory". Though he …
Hymns: “All Glory, Laud, and Honor”
"All Glory, Laud, and Honor" is a hymn traditionally sung on Palm Sunday. Though the words, of course, reference the passages of Scripture about the Triumphal Entry and were written for that day, the story goes that this hymn only became known because of an Emperor's change of heart. This hymn was written by a …
Hymns: “Be Thou My Vision”
"Be Thou My Vision" is a well-known and well-loved hymn. Though it was originally written over 1400 years ago, it was not translated from its Old Irish text until the early 1900's. The hymn is attributed to a monk nicknamed Dallán Forgaill; the first name meant "blind one," though he supposedly regained his sight. …
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Translator: Benjamin R. Foster Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Among the lessor known epics of our world is a piece called the Epic of Gilgamesh or simply Gilgamesh. It is also considered the oldest epic ever found, although the Atrahasis and Enuma Elis are next up. Despite its age and origin, this epic still provides new insights today. The …
