To read more from Daniel, visit his blog: Sic Et Non.
Strictly speaking, England has no national anthem. However, “God Save the King”—until quite recently, of course, sung as “God Save the Queen”—commonly plays the role, especially at sporting events. Except, that is, at some sporting events where it doesn’t. For example, at cricket matches and at many places elsewhere, a very popular song called “Jerusalem” functions as something of a rival unofficial national anthem.
“Jerusalem” began as (in more than one sense) a quite obscure poem published by the visionary poet and mystic William Blake (1757-1827) in roughly 1808. Over a century later, though, in 1916, during perhaps the worst year of the dark and deadly First World War (1914-1918), the poet laureate of England, Robert Bridges, thought that something was needed to lift the spirits of his countrymen. So he commissioned the composer Sir Hubert Parry to set Blake’s poem to music. The resulting song became phenomenally popular almost immediately thereafter, and has remained so ever since. (In 1922, Sir Edward Elgar famously re-scored it. And Elgar’s orchestral version led King George V, grandfather of the late Elizabeth II and great grandfather to Charles III, to remark that he preferred “Jerusalem” to “God Save the King.”)
Even apart from its musical setting, “Jerusalem” is an exceptionally striking piece:
“And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!
“And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
“Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
“I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.”
Blake’s poem doesn’t actually identify Jesus by name as the visitor to “Englands green & pleasant land,” but the references in the poem’s first two verses to “the holy lamb of God” and “the Countenance Divine” seem to leave little doubt about that visitor’s intended identity. And, indeed, there is a legend of a visit to England by Joseph of Arimathea, who supposedly came to the British Isles as a tin merchant and, even more remarkably, brought with him the young boy Jesus. Unfortunately, though, that legend apparently cannot be shown to have existed prior to 1895—nearly seventy years after Blake’s death and almost a full century after he wrote the poem.
Another proposal involves William Blake’s poetic hero, John Milton. And, in fact, “Jerusalem” appears in the preface of a much larger project of Blake’s entitled “Milton: A Poem in Two Books.” Interestingly, Milton’s 1670 “History of Britain” suggests that Joseph of Arimathea came alone to England after Christ’s crucifixion, where he preached the gospel among the ancient Britons. Again, though, Blake’s descriptions of the visitor don’t seem to fit the entirely non-divine Joseph of Arimathea.
Strictly speaking, the poem doesn’t actually affirm that any specific person visited England. Rather, it simply poses four questions that raise the possibility.
One question asks whether “Jerusalem (was) builded here” in England, “among these dark Satanic Mills.” (The musical setting makes its one change to the poem at this point, substituting “those” for “these.”) What are the “dark Satanic Mills”? Most readers and commentators think that they are the smoke-belching factories of the rising Industrial Revolution in England, which Blake evidently loathed. But that surely doesn’t fit a visit by either Jesus or Joseph to the England of pre-industrial antiquity. Others have noted that Blake, who had his own idiosyncratic mythology and symbolism, wrote elsewhere of Satan’s “mills” in a way that cannot possibly refer to industrial manufacturing.
But what about an ancient “Jerusalem” in England? What does that mean? Could Blake have had something in mind for England resembling the resurrected Christ’s visit to the ancient Americas? Does “Jerusalem” refer to an ideal society? (In the fourth stanza of the poem, it certainly seems to do so.) According to 4 Nephi in the Book of Mormon, the Savior’s brief stay among the descendants of Lehi inaugurated two centuries of peace, equality, and justice among those to whom he ministered.
Let’s step away from William Blake’s poem for a moment, though, and consider some events that began in England about a decade after his death.
The first representatives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in England arrived at the port of Liverpool in 1837, led by Elder Heber C. Kimball of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The missionaries had their first significant success, however, in the smaller industrial town of Preston, about thirty-six miles inland and northward from Liverpool. Preston’s market square, where they preached, is still intact, as is the house on the corner of Fox Street and St. Wilfrid Street, not far away, where they first lodged.
That building is empty and derelict, but it’s still standing—and, honestly, if I had the money to do so I would buy it. Why? Because there’s a truly remarkable story behind it, a spectacular story of literally diabolical opposition to the opening of missionary work in the British Isles, and because I’m afraid that it will be demolished if somebody doesn’t step in to save it fairly soon. (Unfortunately, not everybody shares my enthusiasm for preserving places that were formerly infested with demons.) Later, when Joseph Smith heard about the missionaries’ experience he was surprisingly positive about it:
“At that time you were nigh unto the Lord: there was only a veil between you and Him, but you could not see Him. When I heard of it, it gave me great joy, for I then knew that the work of God had taken root in that land. It was this that caused the devil to make a struggle to kill you.”
Nearby is Avenham Park, a beautiful green area of trees and grass that runs along the River Ribble, where the very first Latter-day Saint baptisms in Great Britain were performed. Several plaques in the park commemorate the early missionaries and the effects of their work.
Up the Ribble Valley are the towns of Chatburn and Downham. Elder Kimball was told to waste no time on either village, because the people in them were irreligious and godless. He went anyway, and enjoyed phenomenal success. (This is one of the stories that I hope we can discuss, to at least some extent, in the docudrama portion of the Interpreter Foundation’s planned “Six Days in August” film project.)
For now, though, I want to concentrate on another aspect of this particular episode: In April 1838, Elder Kimball was about to return to America, so he came back for a farewell visit to Downham and Chatburn. The response of the people there moved him deeply:
“When I left them, my feelings were such as I cannot describe. As I walked down the street I was followed by numbers: the doors were crowded by the inmates of the houses to bid me farewell, who could only give vent to their grief in sobs and broken accents. While contemplating this scene I was constrained to take off my hat, for I felt as if the place was holy ground. The Spirit of the Lord rested down upon me and I was constrained to bless that whole region of country.”
Joseph Fielding was also there with Elder Kimball, and he recorded his own recollection:
“It was very affecting to witness our Parting with them. The Streets were almost lined with them weeping and looking after us. Brother K. [Kimball] left his Blessing on them and the Whole place, walking with his hat off. They all followed us with their Eyes as far as they could see us, many of those even that had not been baptized.”
Elder Orson Hyde recalled the experience in the October 1853 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:
“What were our feelings? We felt that the ground upon which we stood was most sacred, and brother Kimball took off his hat, and walked the streets, and blessed the country and the people, and let his peace come upon it. Why? Because the people were ready to receive the word of our testimony, and us for Christ’s sake.”
In 1857, Elder Kimball again remembered that farewell visit:
“I went through the streets of that town feeling as I never before felt in my life. My hair would rise on my head as I walked through the streets, and I did not then know what was the matter with me. I felt as if my whole system was alive; I felt quickened by some unseen power.”
Soon after returning to America in 1838, Elder Kimball had related his experience in Downham and Chatburn to the Prophet Joseph Smith, whose response was intriguing:
“Did you not understand it?” the Prophet asked. “That is a place where some of the old prophets travelled and dedicated that land, and their blessing fell upon you.”
And, truly, the area has a fascinating historical and spiritual background. Downham sits at the base of Pendle Hill, which remains famous in England for the 1612 trial of the so-called “Pendle witches.” That’s certainly worthy of note, but it’s not even remotely the full story.
One day in 1652, George Fox climbed up Pendle Hill and saw what seems to have been a vision of “a people in white raiment, coming to the Lord,” a “great people to be gathered.” This event, and George Fox’s reaction to it, led to the founding of the so-called Society of Friends, which is better known to most people as Quakerism. John Wesley (1703-1791), the founder of Methodism (which he never intended to be a distinct denomination), also visited Pendle Hill and felt himself exceptionally moved, spiritually, as he worked in the villages and among the people at its base.
So Heber C. Kimball may not have been merely imagining things when he “felt as if the place was holy ground.” Even early seventeenth-century suspicions of witchcraft seem rather appropriate: Satan always seems to make a grand appearance just before the launch of a new dispensation (in the Garden of Eden, for example, and at Moses 1, and in the Judaean desert after Christ’s baptism, and immediately prior to Joseph Smith’s First Vision—to say nothing of that house on the corner of Fox and St. Wilfrid in Preston).
William Blake’s poem doesn’t actually answer the questions that he poses in its first two stanzas. Whatever the answer may be, though, for his final two stanzas Blake borrows the image of a new Jerusalem, a righteous and just society, from the New Testament book of Revelation (e.g., at 3:12 and 21:2) and commits himself to working toward establishing that ideal goal.
The twelfth line of the poem, “Bring me my Chariot of fire!” alludes unmistakably to the story told in 2 Kings 2, in which the prophet Elijah is taken up into heaven: “And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.” (With the plural of 2 Kings 6:17, it furnished the title for the 1981 film “Chariots of Fire,” in the final scenes of which a church congregation sings “Jerusalem” as a four-part hymn.) Importantly,Blake seeks his own chariot of fire, hoping to join in the prophetic mission of Elijah.
In fact, Blake invites all of us to join him in the work: Beneath the poem in its original setting, he inserted a quotation from Numbers 11:29: “Would to God that all the Lord’s people were Prophets.” And that is exactly the spirit that he asks for all of us.
For further reading: On the house at the corner of Fox Street and St. Wilfrid Street, see Peter Fagg, “A Satanic Attack on the First Missionaries in Preston, England” ( See also Peter Fagg, “Ribble Valley – Sacred Pendle Hill” ( Three quite different renditions of “Jerusalem,” chosen unsystematically and pretty much at random, are and and