The four hymns on that October Sunday evening weren’t bad.
Good, in fact, which these days means above average. Not for the first time I was a visitor to the chapel. We led off with ‘In heavenly love abiding’; then came ‘Through all the changing scenes of life’; before the sermon, ‘Be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side’; and to conclude, ‘When peace like a river’. Nothing remarkable there — so what about these choices?
Everybody knew them. In most evangelical churches in the past 100 years everybody would have known them; until recently. They were clearly chosen to connect with the Scripture reading and sermon theme, the stilling of the storm in Mark 4. Four reminders: ‘The storm may roar without me’; ‘When in distress to him I called, he to my rescue came…’; ‘Be still my soul; the waves and winds still know his voice who ruled them while he dwelt below’; and, of course, ‘When sorrows like sea billows roll’.
Good homework
So someone (the preacher?) had done his homework, either from memory or with the Scripture index to his hymn book. They are all, so far, hymns with a single tune each; indeed, the last one seems as eternally wedded to its music (‘It is well… with my soul…’) as it is to the dramatic story of the author’s wife and their four drowned daughters, which it has become obligatory to relate every time we sing the hymn.
But on the 17th hearing we might begin to wonder why and when some of the others were written; help is always at hand. Surprisingly, perhaps, we were not told that the second hymn was actually a metrical Psalm – part of the 34th, as paraphrased by Nahum (‘While shepherds watched’) Tate and Nicholas Brady, and almost the only survivor from their ‘New Version’ of 1696. NB: George Smart’s new-fangled tune ‘Wiltshire’ was composed in 1795 when he was 19; but the trendy ‘pairing’ was not made until 1863.
Oh yes, these dates. Another eyebrow might be raised on realising that the hymns (words) were all written between 1696 and 1876, three of them being solidly Victorian. Which carries the subliminal message that hymnwriters are essentially dead people; as ‘saints’ for most Catholics, so authors of hymns for many evangelicals. The newest of these texts was completed before my grandparents (and possibly your great-grandparents) were born. These have lasted well; yet many of today’s Christians have never sung any of them.
A nearby church
Just up the road from this house of prayer stands another where the same gospel of grace is loved and preached, yet little is sung from before about 1990. Both congregations are surely the losers from this myopic view of our inheritance; I think I know who is losing most.
If we want to know more about the hymns, the classic source of information — until this very Sunday evening — has been the Dictionary of Hymnology edited by John Julian in 1892, printed later with two smaller supplements. Its 1,768 pages need strong wrists and keen eyesight; but here at least are three of our authors and the rest of their hymns; perhaps the fourth had not achieved lift-off before ‘Julian’ was finally put to bed in 1907.
St Mary’s Redcliffe
But wait. At the very hour of our evening worship in South London, in the fine city of Bristol something remarkable was happening. At the majestic, cathedral-like church of St. Mary Redcliffe they were also singing hymns: six which spanned the 16th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, with a possible 21st. One was a translation from the Japanese; the 18th-century representative was Charles Wesley whose Bristol home, complete with music room, study and inkwell, some of us had visited the day before.
And today’s Bristol sermon (October 20 2013) was preached by the retired bishop and un-retired hymn-writer Timothy Dudley-Smith. They sang TDS’s ‘Lord, for the years’; his text was Psalm 100.2: ‘Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!’
So ‘the great congregation’ heard of past serving and singing by some notable servants and singers, and of Wesley’s ‘Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim’: ‘Charles cannot finish his hymn without inviting our response’, said Timothy, ‘and, as so often with him, it is our response to the cross. “Worship the Lamb”, he reminds us, is the song of heaven, the Lamb of God who takes away our sins, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world’.
Dictionary launch
What made this event historic? The whole weekend marked the launch of the long-awaited successor to Julian’s great Dictionary. So much has happened since 1907 that even the most cheerful enthusiasts had given up any hope of ever revising or replacing it; but now electronic technology (and one Durham professor with his team) has come to the rescue.
So a two-day conference and the service which crowned it was arranged to celebrate the arrival online of The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Two million words, 4,000 entries, over 300 contributors from more than 30 countries — these are some of the stats. The key names are Professor Richard Watson of Durham and Bristol’s Dr. Emma Hornby, who have drawn it all together to make a uniquely useful resource for all who love hymns — not least those who choose them.
The conference heard contributions from all over the UK, plus South Africa, Canada and the USA, Australia and New Zealand (two very different traditions here) and continental Europe. We and our short lists of local favourites are not alone!
Montage
The publicity also springs some surprises. In a montage of famous faces, we find Isaac Watts (of course) as well as Wesley, Fanny Crosby, J.M. Neale and Mrs. Alexander. But also Fred Pratt Green (real hymns, late 20th-century) and Darlene (‘Shout to the Lord’) Zschech; yes, they have done their research into the oceans of newer worship-songs too.
So those whose bottom line is ‘My Jesus, my Saviour’, or their favourite Townend/Getty, can also browse here with delight. It may just be that both the trads and the mods, and those in between, will make some rich discoveries; then our Sunday evenings (and mornings) need not be quite so monochrome after all.
And all the people sang ‘the loud Amen’!
