Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal index

The hymnal's sections

The hymns are grouped into 13 sections. After them, numbers 696 to 920 are worship aids, which aren't hymns and aren't listed here.

• Worship 1–69
• Trinity 70–73
• God the Father 74–114
• Jesus Christ 115–256
• Holy Spirit 257–270
• Holy Scriptures 271–278
• Gospel 279–343
• Christian Church 344–379
• Doctrines 380–437
• Early Advent 438–454
• Christian Life 455–649
• Christian Home 650–659
• Sentences and Responses 660–695

The 1908 hymn words

The words of the 12 historic hymns are taken from Christ in Song (Revised and Enlarged), compiled by F. E. Belden and sold by the Adventist publisher Review and Herald in 1908. A scan of the book is online, and each hymn page links to its own page in that scan.

We keep the 1908 spelling, such as “thro’”, “pray’r” and “Saviour”, and the stanzas the book chose to print. The only changes are to layout: the words are joined back up where the music split them into syllables, and each stanza is set out in its lines. Anything else, such as a printer's slip, is listed on that hymn's page. Each page has Print, Copy words and Download buttons; there's no sheet music or audio.

Why they are public domain

The words of all 12 historic hymns were printed in 1908 or earlier, and every writer died in 1915 or earlier, more than a hundred years ago. We check who wrote each text, including the translator if there is one, and when they died. A song's age isn't enough on its own, because a later writer may have reworded it.

We compare the 1908 words with earlier printings where we can find them, record known differences and leave out texts when an unidentified reviser's contribution remains unresolved. The South Pacific Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church's hymnal copyright FAQ says much the same: where a hymnal's version is still under copyright, the original public-domain words can be used instead.

Adventist and Sabbath hymns

Two of the 1908 hymns are by Annie R. Smith (1828–1855), whose words were in Adventist hymnbooks by 1886 and are still in today's Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal: How Far from Home? and Long upon the Mountains. Both look ahead to the Second Coming.

For the Sabbath, there's Don’t Forget the Sabbath and How Sweet the Light of Sabbath Eve. To know when the Sabbath begins where you live, use our Sabbath sunset times.

A prayer before your phone

PrayLock is an iPhone app that puts a prayer before the apps you choose. It isn't a hymnal app: it has no hymns, sheet music or audio, and this index isn't part of it. Nothing you search here is saved or sent.

PrayLock requires a Pro subscription and iOS 18.0 or later. See how PrayLock works, or browse our other tools.

Hymnal: common questions

Sources

• Hymn numbers, titles and sections: the joshpetit/sda-hymnal dataset for the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal (1985), spot-checked against Hymnary.org's index of the hymnal
• Christ in Song (1908), scan at the Internet Archive (the words of the 12 historic hymns); also at the Sounding Spirit Digital Library, which marks it “No Copyright – United States”
• Hymnary.org index of Christ in Song and its writer records (names and dates)
• Seventh-day Adventist Church, South Pacific Division: Music copyright and its hymnal copyright FAQ (2018)

Checked on 22 October 2026.