Onward, Christian Soldiers

"Onward, Christian Soldiers" is a 19th-century English hymn. The words were written by Sabine Baring-Gould in 1865, and the music was composed by Arthur Sullivan in 1871. Sullivan named the tune "St Gertrude," after the wife of his friend Ernest Clay Ker Seymer, at whose country home he composed the tune. The Salvation Army adopted the hymn as its favoured processional. The hymn's theme is taken from references in the New Testament to the Christian being a soldier for Christ

Quotes

• We sang "Onward, Christian Soldiers" indeed, and I felt that this was no vain presumption, but that we had the right to feel that we were serving a cause for the sake of which a trumpet has sounded from on high. When I looked upon that densely packed congregation of fighting men of the same language, of the same faith, of the same fundamental laws, of the same ideals ... it swept across me that here was the only hope, but also the sure hope, of saving the world from measureless degradation.
  • Winston Churchill, when meeting with Franklin Roosevelt in August 1941 on the battleship HMS Prince of Wales to agree on the Atlantic Charter, Ace Collins (2003), Stories Behind the Hymns That Inspire America, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, pp. 153–154, ISBN 978-0-310-24879-8 

Lyrics

• Onward, Christian soldiers,
  Marching as to war.
  With the cross of Jesus,
  Going on before!