Margaret Dryburgh, an English musician and the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, felt the call to ministry through missions. In 1919, the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Association sent her to South China. Following intense persecution by the Chinese government, they reassigned her in 1925 to Singapore, which housed a significant Chinese population. Margaret became the beloved principal at a girl’s school and served as the organist at the prominent Presbyterian Church on Orchard Road.

 After the outbreak of World War II in the Pacific, Margaret and five other missionaries remained in Singapore, doing what they could to calm fears and provide encouragement. Eventually, mission officials decided that they should evacuate with the other English and Dutch civilians. On February 12, 1942, Margaret boarded the Mata Hari, a hastily outfitted cargo ship. But by then, it was too late. The Japanese already controlled the waters and were lying in wait for the evacuating ships. 

 Many evacuees were killed by bombs or drowned in the water. Those who survived, including Margaret, were captured and held with other civilian POWs in horrific conditions in a Japanese internment camp on the island of Sumatra. Food and water along with medicines proved scarce, while tropical diseases abounded. Margaret assumed the role of spiritual shepherdess quite naturally, leading daily devotions and Sunday services. A talented artist and poet, Margaret created drawings and penned humorous verse that she gave as gifts of encouragement. 

Despite the privations, music flourished in the camp, especially corporate singing that buoyed their spirits. Margaret and a group of Dutch nuns organized multiple choirs including one for the children. In July 1942, after about five months in captivity, Margaret wrote the words and music of a hymn. It was her answer to the profound question posed in Psalm 137 about another captivity — “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” She called her five-stanza song of prayer, praise, and solace “The Captives’ Hymn.” It was first sung at the Sunday service on July 5, 1942, and it continued to be sung every Sunday until the liberation. 

Father, in captivity,

We would lift our prayers to Thee,

Keep us ever in Thy love,

Grant that daily we may prove

Those who place their trust in Thee

More than conquerors may be.

Give us patience to endure,

Keep our hearts serene and pure,

Grant us courage, charity,

Greater faith, humility,

Readiness to own Thy will,

Be we free or captives still.

For our country we would pray,

In this hour be Thou her stay,

Pride and sinfulness forgive,

Teach her by Thy laws to live,

By Thy grace may all men see

That true greatness comes from Thee. 

For our loved ones we would pray,

Be their guardian night and day,

From all danger keep them free,

Banish all anxiety,

May they trust us to Thy care,

Know that Thou our pains dost share.

 

May the day of freedom dawn,

Peace and justice be reborn,

Grant that nations loving Thee

O’er the world may brothers be,

Cleansed by suffering, know rebirth,

See Thy kingdom come on earth.

In the absence of earthly freedom, songs of deliverance became Margaret’s ministry. In framing music as an act of faith, Harold Best writes, “When all Scripture references to music making are combined, we learn that we are to make music in every conceivable condition: joy, triumph, imprisonment, solitude, grief, peace, war, sickness, merriment, abundance, and deprivation.” (1) Margaret realized that spiritual truth and “believed that this internment had blessed her with yet another opportunity to spread the love of God.” (2) 

As months of malnutrition and disease turned into years, Margaret also became the committer of souls to the dust of the earth. She assembled a funeral liturgy that included her beloved Psalm 121, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help,” and a few verses of “Just as I Am.” She concluded the funerals with the evening prayer from the Book of Common Prayer : “O Lord, support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in your mercy grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.” 

 On April 21, 1945, four months before Japan’s unconditional surrender, Margaret Dryburgh entered into that holy rest at age 55. A few of her closest friends, although barely able to walk, dug her grave and marked it with a simple wooden cross. Those who survived till liberation never forgot her. Many credited their lives to Margaret’s strength of character and to her constant encouragement for them to “look up” and see that there was no barbed wire in God’s heaven. Betty Jeffrey, a nurse with the Australian Army Nursing Service, reflected after the war about what singing “The Captives’ Hymn” had meant to her. “To hear people of all colours and creeds singing this each Sunday, is one of the things I shall never forget.” (3) Helen Colijn, a member of a well-known Dutch family imprisoned with her two sisters, published one of the first accounts of this POW camp. In her book, she emphasized what the words of the hymn said about the hymnwriter. “She showed no bitterness or anger, only courage and hope that o’er the world nations may brothers be…Margaret Dryburgh’s ‘Captives’ Hymn’ as an instrument of peace.” (4) 

In 2019, as I was finishing my book on music’s role during the Holocaust and World War II, I connected with Helen Colijn’s daughter Madelyn in Amsterdam. Over a series of phone conversations, I learned more about her mother’s experience in the camp and about Margaret Dryburgh’s hymn. Madelyn told me that it remains dear to the Dutch people and is sung frequently at Remembrance services throughout the world. When I submitted my manuscript to the publisher that September, I exhaled a great sigh of relief. After having researched the topic for 20 years and written intensely for four years, I could now look forward to the release date in Summer 2020. 

If we could see into the future, would it make us any better prepared? Probably not. It is fortunate that none of us possess that kind of prescience. I would not have wanted to know in those celebratory days that my book would be released during a global pandemic. 

 By March 2020, my university pivoted to online classes. For those of us teaching music, this meant the cancellation of the anticipated concerts for which much work had been invested, with no reason or effective way to continue our performing ensembles. Lecture-based courses such as music history fared better. I limped along teaching violin lessons over Zoom, with its exasperating audio quality and latency issues. As the department chair, I felt the burden of saving our programs, all while trying to navigate this pandemic as an immune-compromised person. My husband and I hunkered inside the walls of our home except for curbside grocery pickups and walks in the neighborhood. What frightened me most in those early months was the thought that it might become safe for other people to return to normal life but might never be safe for me.

 During the early weeks of summer, I assumed we would still be online when the fall semester began, but that wasn’t the case. We would be in-person with masks and whatever other precautions could be made. Today, I still stand by my observation from that time that no one in education had it harder than performing arts faculty. Singing and playing wind instruments became one of the most dangerous activities you could do. My colleagues and I spent the summer keeping up with the science and networking with professional music organizations about suggested precautions. We could only mitigate, not eliminate the threat, because we also needed to deliver effective and meaningful music instruction and performance opportunities for our students. 

Without live performances, video recordings became our concert venue for the entire academic year. We relied on uplifting repertoire, including sacred works. On March 24, 2021, the Milligan University Women’s Chorale arrived at an outdoor venue for recording without masks. While maintaining social distancing, these students sang Margaret Dryburgh’s “The Captives’ Hymn.” (5) There was a comfort in those words and solidarity in the act of joining voices despite risk, even as the anxiety and uncertainty of the current situation didn’t evaporate as it didn’t for the women on Sumatra. But any comparisons needed to be made cautiously. 

In an August 2020 review of my book, The Washington Post suggested that music was providing a “contemporary resonance” (6) to people during the pandemic as during the Holocaust. When people asked me about that, I was adamant in saying that nothing about 2020 should ever be equated with the horrors inflicted during the Holocaust and World War II. I also said that music had been an agent of solace and strength for people since ancient times, and so yes, the fact that we saw musicians sharing living room concerts over social media and people singing together from balconies in Italy did not surprise me. More importantly, as our YouTube post circulated not only in our university community, but around the world, we joined a mission started almost eight decades prior — Margaret’s music ministry and her belief that God’s love cannot be blocked by razor wire or by walls.