The Tuneful Path of “Draw Us in the Spirit’s Tether”

For Sunday, January 18, 2026
Draw Us In The Spirit’s Tether

By David Jolliffe

The anthem that the St. Paul’s choir will sing at the 11 am service on January 18 has traveled a circuitous path from a hymn originally published in the 19th century to Harold Friedell’s lovely expansion and arrangement first performed in 1957, which the choir will perform on Sunday.

Carlton Young, the former editor of the United Methodist Hymnal sketches out the aforementioned path:
In 1874 George H. Bourn privately published Seven Post-Communion Hymns for use in the chapel at St. Edmund’s College, Salisbury. One of the hymns, “Lord, Enthroned in Heavenly Splendor,” was included in Supplement to Hymns Ancient and Modern (1889), and later in The English Hymnal (1906), set to the powerful Welsh tune “Bryn Calfaria.” Percy Dearmer, an Anglican priest and poet, thought this popular tune lacked the desired quiet devotional qualities for a post-Communion hymn. Consequently, he composed three new stanzas and set them to an ancient melody. Before the hymn text was published in the U.S. in Hymnbook for Christian Worship (1970), it gained popularity because of Harold Friedell’s 1957 anthem setting. Friedell (1905-1958) was a professor of theory and composition at the School of Sacred Music, Union Theological Seminary, New York City.

According to Young, Dearmer was one of the most influential leaders in twentieth-century English hymnody.” He was born in Kilburn, Middlesex, England, and died at London’s Westminster Abbey.  Educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, Dearmer served as a British Red Cross chaplain in Serbia during World War I. After the war he became a professor of ecclesiastical art at King’s College, London, and later served as canon of Westminster.

Here are the lyrics:

Draw us in the Spirit's tether,
For when humbly in Your name
Two or three are met together,
You are in the midst of them;
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Touch we now Your garment's hem. 

As disciples used to gather
In the name of Christ to sup,
Then with thanks to God the giver
Break the bread and bless the cup,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
So now bind our friendship up.

All our meals and all our living
Make as sacraments of You,
That by caring, helping, giving,
We may be disciples true.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
We will serve with faith anew.

The text beautifully links the singer with the disciples who gathered with Christ at the table (Matthew 18:20). We are joined by a “tether”—an archaic word but an appropriate image of the work of the Holy Spirit that links Christians of every time and place at the table. In the final stanza, Dearmer makes a beautiful and powerful statement that “All our meals and all our living make as sacraments of thee.” Through “caring, helping, giving, we may true disciples be.” Thus, the hymn begins in the upper room with the disciples and comes full circle as we join them around the table and are nourished to serve others in the world.