For the Fruits of This Creation: History, Meaning, and Tunes

"For the fruits of this creation"

Written: 1970
Category: Hymn
Tune: Standard Tune

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Story

For the Fruits of This Creation is Frederick Pratt Green’s 1970 harvest hymn, written at John Wilson’s request for Francis Jackson’s EAST ACKLAM. Its enduring theme is that gratitude for creation must take practical form in stewardship, justice, generosity, and care for neighbors.

Overview

For the Fruits of This Creation is a modern harvest and thanksgiving hymn written by Frederick Pratt Green in 1970. It treats the created world as God’s generous gift and places human gratitude within the larger responsibilities of stewardship, justice, and service.

The hymn’s distinctive contribution is ethical: thanksgiving is not isolated from the way food, work, wealth, and opportunity are shared. Praise of providence therefore leads naturally toward concern for hungry people, equitable relationships, and practical generosity.

The text is suitable for harvest festivals, Thanksgiving observances, stewardship services, creation-focused worship, and services concerned with hunger or economic justice. Its principal tune, Francis Jackson’s EAST ACKLAM, predates the words but was the tune for which Green was asked to write them.

Historical Background

The hymn began with a specific commission. In a letter dated July 12, 1970, hymn editor and musician John Wilson asked the recently retired Methodist minister Fred Pratt Green for a new text to fit Francis Jackson’s tune EAST ACKLAM, preferably on a harvest theme. Wilson needed it for a hymn-singing event at Guildford Congregational Church connected with the Congregational Guild of Organists.

Green completed the text in time for its first documented singing at Guildford Congregational Church on August 2, 1970, where it was supplied on informally reproduced sheets. Four days later, on August 6, the Methodist Recorder printed the three-stanza text without music under the heading Harvest Hymn. The newspaper recommended both EAST ACKLAM and the Welsh tune AR HYD Y NOS.

The tune had its own earlier history. Jackson composed EAST ACKLAM in 1957 because he wanted a different setting for a familiar evening hymn then commonly sung to AR HYD Y NOS. His first sketch was in E-flat and included an unusual 5/4 passage, which he revised. The completed tune was first sung at the York Minster Old Choristers’ reunion in October 1957 and was named for the village where Jackson lived. After a recording of it came to Francis Westbrook’s attention, it was published with another author’s text in Hymns and Songs in 1969.

Green’s text and Jackson’s tune appeared together in Green’s collection 26 Hymns, published by Epworth Press in 1971. The text was also used at a Hymn Society Act of Praise in Norwich that July. Its first known hymnal appearance followed in the Roman Catholic collection Praise the Lord in 1972, again with EAST ACKLAM. These dates clarify that the tune was neither composed for Green’s words nor first published with them, even though the pair soon became closely identified.

Several textual forms circulate. Green’s official original used a possessive reference to God in the opening and the generic term then commonly used for humanity. The Lutheran Book of Worship in 1978 introduced both a singular, inclusive opening and gender-inclusive language elsewhere. Green accepted the inclusive revision concerning humanity but did not adopt that hymnal’s altered opening as his official text. The title used for this database record reflects another established American hymnal variant, notably the form printed in The United Methodist Hymnal of 1989.

EAST ACKLAM remains a principal setting, while AR HYD Y NOS became another important pairing; Green’s text appeared with both tunes in the 1983 Methodist collection Hymns and Psalms. Emma Lou Diemer composed SANTA BARBARA specifically for the text in the 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship. The hymn’s adoption across Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic, Presbyterian, Reformed, Anglican, and ecumenical collections reflects its usefulness as a modern harvest text that joins praise with social responsibility.

Biblical Foundations

Genesis 1:29-31 grounds thanksgiving in God’s provision of food and in the goodness of the created order. Psalm 65:9-13 develops the same theme through rain, grain, pasture, flocks, and the abundance of the year. These passages support a doctrine of providence in which human life depends upon gifts that originate beyond human control.

Leviticus 19:9-10 prevents harvest celebration from becoming private self-congratulation. Israel’s landowners are commanded to leave part of the yield for poor people and foreigners, making provision and justice inseparable. Second Corinthians 9:10-11 likewise joins seed, bread, righteousness, generosity, and thanksgiving to God.

Galatians 5:22-23 extends harvest imagery into Christian character. The Spirit’s fruit shows that divine generosity is not only material: grace also produces virtues that shape communal life. Together, these texts explain why the hymn can move conceptually from creation’s abundance to just sharing and spiritual maturity without treating those concerns as separate subjects.

Verse Explanation

A lyric-by-lyric account is intentionally omitted because the hymn text is copyrighted and no lyrics were supplied for processing. Structurally, the authorized text is a compact three-stanza hymn whose five-line printed stanzas expand musically into the tune’s eight phrases. Each stanza uses a repeated response pattern, giving the song a litany-like shape and making its central act of thanksgiving congregationally memorable.

Editors and worship planners should consult the licensed text in the hymnal or publisher’s edition they are using. Editions differ in the opening wording and in one historically gendered expression. Green accepted the gender-inclusive revision but retained his own official opening, so variations should not automatically be treated as transcription errors.

Theological Reflection

The hymn presents creation as gift rather than possession. Providence does not deny human labor; it places labor within a network of divine generosity, ecological dependence, and shared human responsibility. Gratitude is therefore a truthful response to dependence, not merely a seasonal mood.

Its theology also challenges any account of thanksgiving that ignores unequal access to created goods. Biblical stewardship includes restraint, fair dealing, generosity, and attention to people who are vulnerable. Worship becomes credible when praise is embodied in the social and economic practices of the worshiping community.

Finally, the hymn links material and spiritual fruitfulness. Christian maturity is not an escape from bodily need or public responsibility. The Spirit forms people whose love, goodness, and self-control enable more faithful care of creation and neighbor. Thanksgiving thus becomes a pattern of discipleship: receiving gratefully, using wisely, and sharing justly.

Church Impact

For the Fruits of This Creation became one of Green’s most widely circulated hymns and an influential example of late twentieth-century harvest writing. Its first hymnal placement was in a Roman Catholic collection, although both author and commissioning context were Methodist and Congregational. Later appearances across numerous denominational traditions demonstrate ecumenical reception rather than ownership by a single communion.

The hymn helped broaden harvest worship beyond rural nostalgia. It gave congregations a concise way to connect creation, human labor, global need, justice, generosity, and spiritual formation. That combination has kept it useful in settings far removed from the English harvest festivals for which it was first requested.

Today it is regularly indexed for harvest, Thanksgiving, stewardship, creation care, hunger, service, and social justice. Its multiple textual variants and tune pairings also make careful attribution important: congregations may know the same hymn under a different opening form or melody, while still participating in the same modern tradition of grateful and responsible worship.

Musical Notes

EAST ACKLAM is Francis Jackson’s 1957 tune in meter 8.4.8.4.8.8.8.4. Jackson’s own account says that his initial E-flat sketch contained a 5/4 passage; he revised the tune before its first singing at York Minster. Modern hymnals commonly print it in D or E-flat. Its broad, dignified phrases support a deliberate tempo and clear articulation of the text’s alternating short and long lines.

The tune was first sung with an older evening hymn in October 1957 and first published with a different text in Hymns and Songs in 1969. Green wrote the present text at John Wilson’s request in 1970 specifically to fit EAST ACKLAM, and the pairing appeared in 26 Hymns in 1971. That chronology distinguishes composition, first performance, first publication, and first pairing.

AR HYD Y NOS, a traditional Welsh tune often known through its association with All Through the Night, is a widely used alternative and was suggested at the text’s first newspaper publication. Emma Lou Diemer’s SANTA BARBARA is another purpose-written setting. Directors should identify the tune named in their hymnal rather than assume that every edition uses EAST ACKLAM. Both Green’s text and Jackson’s tune remain protected by copyright in the United States; the traditional AR HYD Y NOS melody is public domain, though particular harmonizations may not be.

Application

Name specific forms of daily provision for which gratitude is due, including the labor and ecosystems that sustain them.
Examine whether personal, congregational, and institutional choices distribute resources fairly.
Support practical responses to hunger through giving, food ministries, advocacy, and partnerships that respect recipients’ dignity.
Treat land, water, food, and energy as entrusted goods rather than unlimited commodities.
Connect sung thanksgiving with habits of generosity, honest work, ecological care, and Spirit-formed character.

Discussion Questions

How do Genesis 1 and Psalm 65 shape a Christian understanding of food and ecological abundance?
What does the gleaning command in Leviticus 19 suggest about ownership, access, and care for outsiders?
Why does 2 Corinthians 9 connect generosity with thanksgiving rather than treating them as separate virtues?
Where might a congregation’s economic practices contradict its worship language of gratitude?
How can the fruit of the Spirit shape practical responses to hunger, labor, and creation care?

Teaching Tips

Introduce the 1970 commission and explain that Green wrote the text to fit an already existing tune.
Place Genesis 1, Leviticus 19, Psalm 65, 2 Corinthians 9, and Galatians 5 in conversation rather than using harvest imagery only decoratively.
Ask singers to identify the tune printed in their edition, since EAST ACKLAM, AR HYD Y NOS, and SANTA BARBARA are all documented pairings.
Explain that published editions contain legitimate wording variants; use the licensed text of the congregation’s hymnal rather than reconstructing it from memory.
Pair the singing with a concrete practice such as a food-security offering, a stewardship commitment, or reflection on the congregation’s environmental impact.
Secure the appropriate permissions for the copyrighted text and, when used, the copyrighted EAST ACKLAM tune or arrangement.

Sources

Hymnology Archive, historical study drawing on the Fred Pratt Green Papers and contemporary publications: [https://www.hymnologyarchive.com/for-the-fruits-of-his-creation
Francis](https://www.hymnologyarchive.com/for-the-fruits-of-his-creation
Francis) Jackson, “Adventures of a Hymn Tune,” Church Music Society: [https://church-music.org.uk/article/adventures-hymn-tune.php
Emory](https://church-music.org.uk/article/adventures-hymn-tune.php
Emory) University, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Fred Pratt Green papers, 1957-2000: [https://archives.libraries.emory.edu/repositories/2/resources/4144
The](https://archives.libraries.emory.edu/repositories/2/resources/4144
The) Pratt Green Trust, “Fred Pratt Green”: [https://prattgreentrust.org.uk/fred-pratt-green/
York](https://prattgreentrust.org.uk/fred-pratt-green/
York) Minster, “Dr Francis Jackson CBE, Organist Emeritus, dies aged 104”: [https://yorkminster.org/latest/dr-francis-jackson-cbe-organist-emeritus-dies-aged-104/
Hymnary.org](https://yorkminster.org/latest/dr-francis-jackson-cbe-organist-emeritus-dies-aged-104/
Hymnary.org), text authority and hymnal instances: [https://hymnary.org/text/for_the_fruit_of_all_creation
Hymnary.org](https://hymnary.org/text/for_the_fruit_of_all_creation
Hymnary.org), EAST ACKLAM tune authority: [https://hymnary.org/tune/east_acklam_jackson
World](https://hymnary.org/tune/east_acklam_jackson
World) English Bible, Classic edition, Scripture text: [https://ebible.org/eng-web/](https://ebible.org/eng-web/)

Lyrics

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Tune

Standard Tune

Sheet Music

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Tune: Standard Tune

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