Ship of Fools: 'Songs of Praise' (ed. Dearmer)

Thread: 'Songs of Praise' (ed. Dearmer) Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Oxonian Ecclesiastic (# 12722) on :

I am interested in the use of the 1920s hymn book Songs of Praise, edited by Percy Dearmer. I am aware that it was commonly used in schools, but I am more interested in its use in churches.

I have only once sung from it in church, a few years ago, somewhere in the North Riding. My understanding is that it was considered the Low Church book; but it seems very liberal, and I always thought Low Churches used The Church Hymnal for the Christian Year . So - who used Songs of Praise ?

I am also aware that Dearmer hoped it would be oecumenical. Am I right in thinking it only caught on in schools and in (some) Anglican churches, or were their Non-Conformists who had it in their pews?

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

My mother's grammar school (later a direct grant and now independent) used it in the 30s. I've never seen it in church, and I can't imagine it going down in noncon churches of a remotely evangelical character.

Posted by Metapelagius (# 9453) on :

My impression is that SoP was intended to be 'non-denominational'. However I should have thought the existence of A&M, the English Hymnal, and specific denominational hymnaries for non-Anglican places would have limited its appeal as a book used in any churches. In school, yes. Both spouse and self, at a total of three secondary schools in different parts of the country - we both had to buy our own copies, they weren't issued by the school. My prep school however used the 779 hymn version of A&M, possibly a state/independent difference. So schools accounted for the bulk of the sales, I suspect.

Posted by (S)pike couchant (# 17199) on :

Many schools also used the Public School Hymn Book (1919, revised at least once in 1949) and its successor, Hymns for Church and School (1965). I'm not able to comment on the differences between these books.

Posted by dj_ordinaire (# 4643) on :

As far as I can see, the answer to the question 'Who used it?' is 'not many people', with the possible exception of schools. My understanding is that it attempted to move away from any theology that would be forbidding to unchurched or nominally churched Anglicans and other protestants. I have seen copies of it, including one bound together with an EH which can hardly have found much use!

The index can be found here if anyone is curious.

As a further aside, Wikipedia states that its expanded version was the first to include 'Morning Has Broken', which I didn't know... and I'd be very interested to know what tune this was sung to at the time!

Posted by Metapelagius (# 9453) on :

quote:
Originally posted by dj_ordinaire:
As far as I can see, the answer to the question 'Who used it?' is 'not many people', with the possible exception of schools. My understanding is that it attempted to move away from any theology that would be forbidding to unchurched or nominally churched Anglicans and other protestants. I have seen copies of it, including one bound together with an EH which can hardly have found much use!

The index can be found here if anyone is curious.

As a further aside, Wikipedia states that its expanded version was the first to include 'Morning Has Broken', which I didn't know... and I'd be very interested to know what tune this was sung to at the time!

I have read somewhere that 'Morning has broken' was written to fit the tune Bunessan, which had previously been linked to the Gaelic poem/hymn Leanabh an àigh - 'Child in the manger' being the English version, as included in the revised edition of the Church Hymnary, published around the same time as SoP. Why? perhaps because the musical editors thought that the tune could be then used more widely than just at Christmas?

Percy D. also did a certain amount of fiddling with words, particularly in his curious re-writing of 'Let all mortal flesh', arguably ruining it by doing away with its eucharistic significance.

Posted by Edgeman (# 12867) on :

quote:
Originally posted by dj_ordinaire:
My understanding is that it attempted to move away from any theology that would be forbidding to unchurched or nominally churched Anglicans and other protestants.

I don't know, some of the Eucharistic hymns seem pretty non-protestant.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

This takes me back. I don't think I've seen that hymn book since 1961. Generally, yes, it was used in schools, not churches.

I seem to remember it was criticised because the compilers expurgated it of doctrines they did not approve of. I suspect it was a bit lowest common denominator, worthy but rather Pelagian in the manner of those times. At the age I was then, I wouldn't have been able to tell.

Posted by ElaineC (# 12244) on :

We used it at grammar school in the sixties.

This thread has brought back memorires of having to embroider a cover for it in our first year domestic science classes.

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

I'm pretty sure that the smallish light blue book we had at (Presbyterian) boarding school in the 40s was called Songs of Praise. What hymns we sang I can't remember (of course!) but I don't think they were any different from the Church Hymnary fare that I was accustomed to for the next few decades.

GG

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ElaineC:
We used it at grammar school in the sixties.

Ditto - and it was hard for us adolescents to stifle giggles at the words 'for the sailors tossing in the deep blue seas'. (In 'Now the day is over')

[ 28. August 2012, 15:57: Message edited by: leo ]

Posted by Oferyas (# 14031) on :

Both my OH and I suffered SoP in our respective grammar schools, but I do have dim memories of also seeing it around in one or two low/liberal churches in rural North Kent. It was musically excellent but theologically bizarre, with one or two hymns that can only be described as atheist ('These things shall be' as the most obvious).

A fair number of hymns would now be at home in the 'crappy hymns' thread. 'From out of the wood did a cuckoo fly; cuckoo! etc' was inflicted on my OH at her school, but our headmaster wisely concluded that the young men of our school would not sing this hymn with sufficient gravitas.

Posted by american piskie (# 593) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Oxonian Ecclesiastic:
I am interested in the use of the 1920s hymn book Songs of Praise, edited by Percy Dearmer. I am aware that it was commonly used in schools, but I am more interested in its use in churches.

I have only once sung from it in church, a few years ago, somewhere in the North Riding. My understanding is that it was considered the Low Church book; but it seems very liberal, and I always thought Low Churches used The Church Hymnal for the Christian Year . So - who used Songs of Praise ?

I am also aware that Dearmer hoped it would be oecumenical. Am I right in thinking it only caught on in schools and in (some) Anglican churches, or were their Non-Conformists who had it in their pews?

The preface to the Enlarged Edition claimed that the hymnal had been taken up by many major Education Authorities --- and that a daily service book for schools had been built around it. Quite a nice little earner, I guess.

Dearmer's ambition seems to me to be on the optimistic side: "a full expression of that faith which is common to the English-speaking peoples of the British Commonwealth and the United States of America today." But I think that that clarifies the oicume he had in mind.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

I can remember my mother singing "Out of a wood did a cuckoo fly" at home which she clearly learnt at school and thought charming.

It also included "Glad that I live am I" but without including the sanitised neo-paganism of a final verse that I have come across concluding "That is the country faith and the best of all".

Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :

Yes, we too had SoP at my grammar school in the 60s - it seems it was in common use then - but I've never seen it used in a church.

Ian J.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

I remember a chapter eucharist at a church in our deanery many years ago (the only time I've entered it); we used SoP. I can't remember whether we actually sang, or I was just browsing, the appallingly bowdlerised version of 'Let all mortal flesh.' But I'd be disappointed if that was St Percy's work (admittedly he did go a bit gaga, theologically at least, in his later years)

The church in question was I suppose 'Lanky low' in churchmanship, though with a lib. cath, vicar at the time.

Posted by Metapelagius (# 9453) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
I remember a chapter eucharist at a church in our deanery many years ago (the only time I've entered it); we used SoP. I can't remember whether we actually sang, or I was just browsing, the appallingly bowdlerised version of 'Let all mortal flesh.' But I'd be disappointed if that was St Percy's work (admittedly he did go a bit gaga, theologically at least, in his later years)

The church in question was I suppose 'Lanky low' in churchmanship, though with a lib. cath, vicar at the time.

Oh dear. I hesitate to cause you have to modify your esteem for the Blessèd Percy, but the Revd Dr Ian Bradley (on the whole a reliable authority on hymnology) says that the travesty of the Cherubikon does in fact come from his pen ... (Penguin Book of Hymns, p.238). He notes that various non-conformist hymnals have Dearmer's version, whilst RC, Anglican and Presbyterian books stick to Moultrie's rendering.

Posted by Cornish High (# 17202) on :

Students at Kings College, London in the 1950s were warned against using SoP in their future parishes. Dr Sydney Evans regarded it as heretical and would wag a finger at his men saying "Songs of praise the angels sang, but you mustn't".

Posted by Qoheleth. (# 9265) on :

quote:
Originally posted by american piskie:
The preface to the Enlarged Edition claimed that the hymnal had been taken up by many major Education Authorities --- and that a daily service book for schools had been built around it. Quite a nice little earner, I guess.

That's the first one I remember, a red-covered Middlesex County Council edition in junior school. I can taste it now. Then moved on to the 2-harts pale blue edition at secondary school.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Metapelagius:
I hesitate to cause you have to modify your esteem for the Blessèd Percy, but the Revd Dr Ian Bradley (on the whole a reliable authority on hymnology) says that the travesty of the Cherubikon does in fact come from his pen ...

I feared as much. I hope it doesn't happen to me.

Posted by Edgeman (# 12867) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cornish High:
Students at Kings College, London in the 1950s were warned against using SoP in their future parishes. Dr Sydney Evans regarded it as heretical and would wag a finger at his men saying "Songs of praise the angels sang, but you mustn't".

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

However, SoP does include the Tantum Ergo in the English Hymnal version. I can imagine SoP being used at Benediction at those dodgy 30s churches with roving bishops, theosophy and animal blessings.

Dearmer first included "From out of a wood did a cuckoo fly" in the 1928 Oxford Book of Carols.

Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Dearmer first included "From out of a wood did a cuckoo fly" in the 1928 Oxford Book of Carols.

Help! I can still hear it now - 40 years after Grammar School Assemblies in the early 1970's. I still have my wife's copy (from a village college sec modern) on my bookshelf of hymnbooks.

Never seen the book outside a school

Doing the assembly reading one day i got the Headmaster's view on said book "A lot of rubbish isn't it?"

I expect he was too tight to buy new books though.

[ 29. August 2012, 07:34: Message edited by: ExclamationMark ]

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

Songs of Praise or the Oxford Book of Carols?

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Songs of Praise or the Oxford Book of Carols?

I've never heard this carol before, but it is No 103 in the Oxford Book of Carols. The footnote says it's supposed to be translated from Czech. From my first reading, it's seriously weird.

A cuckoo flies out of the wood to the manger. In December? And it calls over the manger - proclaiming Joseph's ambiguous status??

There's then two more verses. One is about a pigeon. What's that about? The other is about a dove - the child's true Father??? - but what is the difference between a pigeon and a dove, and why are they both there?

I prefer the way the Cherry Tree Carol deals with this.

Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :

It's a disturbing hymn.

I notice it's recorded as translated from the Czech BY Percy Dearmer. Could he understand Czech?

Posted by Below the Lansker (# 17297) on :

I remember 'Songs of Praise' from grammar school in the 70s as well. Even when the words of the hymns were well known (like 'Love Divine, all loves excelling') they were often set to anodyne English tunes, which most of the pupils (coming as we did from village primaries where the teachers were all Welsh non-conformists) didn't know and wouldn't sing.

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

Welcome, Below the Lansker. There's a Welcome thread on the All Saints board if you'd like to introduce yourself to all and sundry. Be sure to take a look at the Ship's FAQs and 10 Commandments. And enjoy sailing with us.

Mamacita, Ecclesiantics Host

Posted by dj_ordinaire (# 4643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
It's a disturbing hymn.

I notice it's recorded as translated from the Czech BY Percy Dearmer. Could he understand Czech?

That's interesting. Did he not also translate the carol 'Sing Lullaby' from Czech? Perhaps he had a working knowledge of it for some reason?

Posted by Metapelagius (# 9453) on :

quote:
Originally posted by dj_ordinaire:

quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
It's a disturbing hymn.

I notice it's recorded as translated from the Czech BY Percy Dearmer. Could he understand Czech?
That's interesting. Did he not also translate the carol 'Sing Lullaby' from Czech? Perhaps he had a working knowledge of it for some reason?

Not impossible, but another explanation could be that someone else provided a literal translation which he then versified.

Posted by Metapelagius (# 9453) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Below the Lansker:
I remember 'Songs of Praise' from grammar school in the 70s as well. Even when the words of the hymns were well known (like 'Love Divine, all loves excelling') they were often set to anodyne English tunes, which most of the pupils (coming as we did from village primaries where the teachers were all Welsh non-conformists) didn't know and wouldn't sing.

With regard to 'Love Divine' SoP is a bit quirky re tunes. It doesn't have the usual suspects (Blaenwern, Hyfrydol or the eponymous Stainer piece), but rather Exile (trad. English) or Moriah (trad. Welsh). Wouldn't the latter have passed muster with the non-conformist teachers?

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Metapelagius:
Percy D. also did a certain amount of fiddling with words, particularly in his curious re-writing of 'Let all mortal flesh', arguably ruining it by doing away with its eucharistic significance.

Have you or anyone else got a link to the Dearmer's lyrics for this hymn? I tried in vain to find it via google.

Posted by Below the Lansker (# 17297) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Metapelagius:
With regard to 'Love Divine' SoP is a bit quirky re tunes. It doesn't have the usual suspects (Blaenwern, Hyfrydol or the eponymous Stainer piece), but rather Exile (trad. English) or Moriah (trad. Welsh). Wouldn't the latter have passed muster with the non-conformist teachers?

The non-conformist teachers were at the primary schools - the ethos of the town grammar school was a bit Edwardian, and although there were non-conformists on the staff, the overwhelming flavour of assembly was a sort of non-descript civic Anglicanism - 'play by the rules, be nice to everyone. but don't get too passionate about religion, it's not good form'. In any case, we certainly didn't sing 'Love Divine' to Moriah, so I presume it was the other one.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Have you or anyone else got a link to the Dearmer's lyrics for this hymn? I tried in vain to find it via google.

Just for you, leo, because I like you really, I've typed out the second and final verses. Here it is:

King he is, yet born a servant, Lord of all in humble guise,
Truly man, yet God revealing, God as love, to mortal eyes;
God with man, he leads and feeds us, he the power and he the prize.

At thy feet the seraphs cluster, veil their faces in that light,
Spirits of just men made perfect, now in timeless splendour dight,
Saints and angels, all adore thee, serve and praise thee in the height.

The problem is not so much the distancing from a eucharistic context as the awful arcane tweeness of the whole thing. Timeless splendour dight, I mean I ask you.

Which heresy is "Truly man yet God revealing (as opposed to being)?

Always a hoot to spot exclusive language in liberals of yesteryear.

"Born of Mary" gets cut, as does references to Body and Blood.

Posted by (S)pike couchant (# 17199) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:

The problem is not so much the distancing from a eucharistic context as the awful arcane tweeness of the whole thing. Timeless splendour dight, I mean I ask you.

What's wrong with that line? It strikes me as the best one in a pretty terrible re-write.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Always a hoot to spot exclusive language in liberals of yesteryear.

Why? It's something nobody thought of until 1986.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

quote:
Originally posted by (S)pike couchant:

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:

Timeless splendour dight, I mean I ask you.

What's wrong with that line? It strikes me as the best one in a pretty terrible re-write.

It doesn't mean or add anything, it is gratuitously archaic and the phrase is glaringly obviously only put in for the rhyme.

Posted by (S)pike couchant (# 17199) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:

quote:
Originally posted by (S)pike couchant:

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:

Timeless splendour dight, I mean I ask you.

What's wrong with that line? It strikes me as the best one in a pretty terrible re-write.
It doesn't mean or add anything, it is gratuitously archaic and the phrase is glaringly obviously only put in for the rhyme.

I wouldn't say that 'dight' is 'gratuitously archaic'. Rather, it is one of those words — like 'ay' — that seems only to exist in hymns, but to which regular Churchgoers are thoroughly accustomed. It is, after all, a regular part of the Good Friday liturgy: 'O tree of beauty, tree of light! /O tree with royal purple dight!'.

Posted by Below the Lansker (# 17297) on :

Most of my experience in church has been spent singing traditional hymnody rather than modern music, I use the Authorised Version, have a fairly decent knowledge of Shakespeare, and I have never heard the word 'dight' before.

Posted by Stranger in a strange land (# 11922) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Below the Lansker:
Most of my experience in church has been spent singing traditional hymnody rather than modern music, I use the Authorised Version, have a fairly decent knowledge of Shakespeare, and I have never heard the word 'dight' before.

Mark Twain used it.
Another good word is 'overdight' as used by Spenser and well known to choristers,

Posted by Below the Lansker (# 17297) on :

We live and learn.

Posted by sebby (# 15147) on :

We had Hymns Ancient and Modern (standard edition) at my prep school (5-13) supplemented by 100 Hymns for Today which, apart from about two hymns, I absolutely hated. There was a Hymn that was hilarious called 'God of Concrete, God of Steel, God of Piston, God of Nylon' or something.

In my senior school we had the influence of PD in The English Hymnal. I remember the delights of the Advent Prose (is that correct?) and something good in the back for Lent, as well.

My absolutely favourite was a hymn that appeared only in Holy Week and therefore only once in the whole of my time there _ Who is This with Garments Gory..' A wonderful stately processional tune. The procession on Palm Sunday all those years ago with the chaplains carrying enormous branches and wearing red copes, entering to that.

Posted by Edgeman (# 12867) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Below the Lansker:
Most of my experience in church has been spent singing traditional hymnody rather than modern music, I use the Authorised Version, have a fairly decent knowledge of Shakespeare, and I have never heard the word 'dight' before.

Interestingly, the first time I heard the word 'dight' used was in an American children's cartoon when I was a bit younger.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

We've had discussions on this book before - if anyone's interested this is a link to one (pointing to my own wibble on the subject so I won't bother you all with repeating it here)

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

I knew I'd like ken's wibble and I wasn't disappointed. One of his best. I particularly liked

A sort of Scouting for Grown-Ups with interior design by the Arts-and-Crafts movement and architecture from the Gothic Revival. Politically conservative, theologically liberal Protestantism overlaid.

Of course that's what in the 70s I thought true catholicism was up against, and why angloid and I notice the dilution of eucharistic theology in "Let all mortal flesh".

(Sebby - 100 Hymns for Today is awful, and alas forms Part 2 of A&M New Standard. A friend with some scientific awareness particularly objects to "God of the boundless curves of space".)

Posted by sebby (# 15147) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Edgeman:

quote:
Originally posted by Below the Lansker:
Most of my experience in church has been spent singing traditional hymnody rather than modern music, I use the Authorised Version, have a fairly decent knowledge of Shakespeare, and I have never heard the word 'dight' before.
Interestingly, the first time I heard the word 'dight' used was in an American children's cartoon when I was a bit younger.

I first heard this word in (I think) Neale's translation of the Vexilla Regis.

Posted by sebby (# 15147) on :

By Ken:

'A cult of national solidarity, almost an English Shinto that no-one was expected to believe as long as they said the right words and wore the right clothes. A sort of Scouting for Grown-Ups with interior design by the Arts-and-Crafts movement and architecture from the Gothic Revival. Politically conservative, theologically liberal Protestantism overlaid with synthetic Anglo-Catholic ritual'

Very well put. That's me I suppose. LOl

Posted by Oxonian Ecclesiastic (# 12722) on :

I am informed that it was used at Liverpool Cathedral for quite a long time.

Posted by Metapelagius (# 9453) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
We've had discussions on this book before - if anyone's interested this is a link to one (pointing to my own wibble on the subject so I won't bother you all with repeating it here)

Yes, but many of the topics here come around again (and sometimes again and again) after a while. I suppose that this is inevitable. Dearmer's rewriting of 'Let all mortal flesh' certainly has, but not having Ken's encyclopaediac memory I can't remember where or when.

Interesting to see who contributed last time around. Some of the names are familiar, but not ones that I have seen recently - like Foaming Draught (who makes reference to Fortescue), or Audrey Ely, who initiated that discussion, but looks to have moved on. Or did she upset someone? Or was that Max? I recall her (AE) asking a question about the Society of Free Catholics - how long before that one comes around again? [Biased]

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

One interesting comparison is Pierpoint’s “For the beauty of the earth” originally a Eucharistic offertory hymn and in English Hymnal appears in the Holy Communion section and has the refrain:

Christ our God to thee we raise
This our sacrifice of praise.

The reference to sacrifice was a bit strong for A&M revised so it became in the General section:

Lord of all to thee we raise
This our joyful hymn of praise.

Songs of Praise puts the hymn in the General section rather than Communion and omits the high Christology, but retains sacrifice. I detect sentimental liberalism in the use of “Father”. And the praise can be a school assembly rather than the eucharist.

Father unto thee we raise
This our sacrifice of praise.

I’ve just notice I can’t remember Christ our God, and that’s because New English Hymnal, while retaining it in the HC section, does a compromise:

Lord of all to thee we raise
This our sacrifice of praise.

Posted by Lily Hegel (# 10097) on :

At the risk of repeating many other posts, we used Songs of Praise at grammar school in the 1950s. In primary school in the 1940s we used a service book which followed BBC broadcast services for schools. What was that?

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

Wasn't there a BBC Hymn Book at one time with a blue cover?

We had A&M Revised at my prep school and English Hymnnal Service Book at my big school, but we only ever used the MOTR hymns and not the bits of the BCP which were helpfully included.

Posted by Metapelagius (# 9453) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
One interesting comparison is Pierpoint’s “For the beauty of the earth” originally a Eucharistic offertory hymn and in English Hymnal appears in the Holy Communion section and has the refrain:

Christ our God to thee we raise
This our sacrifice of praise.

The reference to sacrifice was a bit strong for A&M revised so it became in the General section:

Lord of all to thee we raise
This our joyful hymn of praise.

Songs of Praise puts the hymn in the General section rather than Communion and omits the high Christology, but retains sacrifice. I detect sentimental liberalism in the use of “Father”. And the praise can be a school assembly rather than the eucharist.

Father unto thee we raise
This our sacrifice of praise.

I’ve just notice I can’t remember Christ our God, and that’s because New English Hymnal, while retaining it in the HC section, does a compromise:

Lord of all to thee we raise
This our sacrifice of praise.

Dr Bradley also comments on what hymn book editors have done with this. To summarise: the original A&M docked the last three verses and altered the refrain. The later A&M restored v6 (with 'bride' changed to 'church') but dropped v3. EH prints the hymn in full, but NEH drops vv 7-8 and has the A&M alteration in v6. Interestingly the CoS Church Hymnary, while dispensing with vv. 6-8, has no problem with the original refrain, 'sacrificial language' not withstanding.

For the Martyrs' crown of light,
for thy Prophets' eagle eye,
for thy bold Confessor's might,
for the lips of infancy

For thy Virgins' robes of snow,
for thy Maiden-Mother mild,
For thyself with hearts aglow
Jesu, Victim undefiled

Posted by Ruth Gledhill (# 10885) on :

I love it when Percy Dearmer makes an appearance. He was my godmother Gillian Warr's father. (Gillian married the son of my grandfather's sister.) She often used to regale me with stories of growing up i the cloisters at Westminster Abbey and how her father was an early supporter of women's ordination when it was decidedly unfashionable to be so. Gillian herself ended up living in the Chichester diocese. There was a 'family' pew in her local church where we used to sit when we visited. But she continued, against all the odds, to support women's ordination and made it onto deanery synod. She is on my mind at the moment because of spending yesterday writing about Chichester diocese. (For subscribers, report available via this free-to-view page. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/profile/Ruth-Gledhill)

[fixed broken link]

[ 31. August 2012, 12:06: Message edited by: seasick ]

Posted by sebby (# 15147) on :

and my vicar was a student of Percy Dearmer in about 1922-24. Due to PD's influence he always wore a warham Guild surplice and hood, was wedded to the gothic and the Parson's handbook way of doing things, although I don't think he had actually ever read it. He was most cetainly a great fan - although we had Hymns Ancient and Modern and I don't think the vicar had any views on womens' ordination at all.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

I remember using 'Songs of Praise' in my grammar school (1970s) - 'To mercy, pity, peace and love', etc. - and also the BBC school broadcasts in the 1960s ('When a knight won his spurs in the stories of old'......) Imagine my amazement, when arriving to start a job at a rather old-fashioned primary school in 2001 to find they were still listening to those old BBC broadcasts, and still singing the same songs. Some things are timeless, and recently there was a wonderfully nostalgic 'Songs of Praise' programme all about those schools broadcasts. Of course, one of the songs they sang was 'When a knight won his spurs'. They had to, really.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
Imagine my amazement, when arriving to start a job at a rather old-fashioned primary school in 2001 to find they were still listening to those old BBC broadcasts, and still singing the same songs.

Do you mean they were listening to recordings of those broadcasts, or the BBC was still producing old-style school services?

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

It's still available, but has been updated somewhat.

If you want to see the difference, the Teacher's Notes are available to download, but there don't appear to be any podcasts at the moment. Elements of the old programmes are still quite recognisable.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

Thinking of some of the more, er, individual numbers in Songs of Praise, I'm wondering whatever is the matter with "Shine Jesus Shine".

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
...('When a knight won his spurs in the stories of old'......) Imagine my amazement, when arriving to start a job at a rather old-fashioned primary school in 2001 to find they were still listening to those old BBC broadcasts, and still singing the same songs. Some things are timeless, and recently there was a wonderfully nostalgic 'Songs of Praise' programme all about those schools broadcasts. Of course, one of the songs they sang was 'When a knight won his spurs'. They had to, really.

You mean there are people whose stomachs can actually take that much tweeness?

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Thinking of some of the more, er, individual numbers in Songs of Praise, I'm wondering whatever is the matter with "Shine Jesus Shine".

Some might agree with you.

Posted by georgiaboy (# 11294) on :

quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
We had Hymns Ancient and Modern (standard edition) at my prep school (5-13) supplemented by 100 Hymns for Today which, apart from about two hymns, I absolutely hated. There was a Hymn that was hilarious called 'God of Concrete, God of Steel, God of Piston, God of Nylon' or something.

...

My absolutely favourite was a hymn that appeared only in Holy Week and therefore only once in the whole of my time there _ Who is This with Garments Gory..' A wonderful stately processional tune. The procession on Palm Sunday all those years ago with the chaplains carrying enormous branches and wearing red copes, entering to that.

What was the tune used with 'Who is This'?
I recall it being sung at Christ Church, New Haven, CT (USA) on Palm Sunday to 'Ton-y-Botel,' the organist doing splendid trampling on the pedals. I've tried to introduce it in other places, but w/o any luck.

Almost as bad as 'God of Concrete, etc' is 'Earth and all Stars' a Herbert Brokering text in TEC Hymnal 1982, containing such charming lines as 'Engines and steel, loud pounding hammers' and 'Flowers and trees, loud rustling dry leaves.'
I leave to your imagination the X-rated additions that choristers have made in the pst 30 years!

Posted by Edgeman (# 12867) on :

We sang 'Who is This' to Ebenezer.

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

quote:
Originally posted by georgiaboy:
What was the tune used with 'Who is This'?
I recall it being sung at Christ Church, New Haven, CT (USA) on Palm Sunday to 'Ton-y-Botel,' the organist doing splendid trampling on the pedals. I've tried to introduce it in other places, but w/o any luck.

quote:
Originally posted by Edgeman:
We sang 'Who is This' to Ebenezer.

The Oremus Hymnal suggests that Ton-y-Botel and Ebenezer are the same tune. Cross-referencing the listings for both tune names, it appears they are used for quite a few hymns. There are at least two hymns in "Wonder, Love and Praise" (not in Oremus' data base) that use that tune as well.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

A hymn-writer I know has written alternative words to 'who is this with garments gory'. They fit the same wonderful tune,and are also on the same Good Friday theme, but without the obscure biblical allusions which make the former so difficult. I can send details in reply to a PM.

Posted by Below the Lansker (# 17297) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mamacita:
The Oremus Hymnal suggests that Ton-y-Botel and Ebenezer are the same tune. Cross-referencing the listings for both tune names, it appears they are used for quite a few hymns. There are at least two hymns in "Wonder, Love and Praise" (not in Oremus' data base) that use that tune as well.

They are the same tune. It was originally a Welsh drinking song - 'Ton y Botel' means 'Bottle Song'. The early non-conformists used it as a hymn tune and 'sanctified' it with a scriptural name - Ebeneser (in Welsh) or Ebenezer (English). The metre means it can be used for many different hymns. Where I live, the two most well known hymns it is used for are "Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus' and 'Come, thou fount of every blessing'.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

The new Songs of Praise has rewritten the words of 'O valiant hearts' - makes it possible too sing it on Remembrance Day.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

I went to choir practice last night and spotted an old 'Songs of Praise' in the vestry (no name on the cover, spine missing, but immediately recognised by the picture). Cue nostalgia overflow.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The new Songs of Praise has rewritten the words of 'O valiant hearts' - makes it possible too sing it on Remembrance Day.

Would Mrs Thatcher like the new version?

What's this new Songs of Praise, then?

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

If we're sharing school memories, Ebenezer is a good tune, but it's spoilt for ever for me because at school it was the tune for a hymn which in a long life of exposure to bad hymns, I still think is the worst one I've ever met.

As far as I know, and I hope I'm right, it has died out, but it really is repulsive. The first line goes "Once to every man and nation" which is a link to it, if anyone wants to luxuriate in its awfulness. It's depressing to think that it might well be the reference to 'man' to mean 'humanity' in the first line that might have caused its demise rather than its content. Two very serious theological errors (at least), and what I still think is nastiest imagery I've encountered in a hymn.

"By the light of burning martyrs,
Christ, thy bleeding feet we track"

Incandescent martyrs, like an avenue of life size flaming candles. Yuck.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The new Songs of Praise has rewritten the words of 'O valiant hearts' - makes it possible to sing it on Remembrance Day.

Leo, I can see what you might be getting at, but the rest of us have assumed this is a hymn for Remembrance Day as it was written.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

Given its date, I suspect "Once to every man and nation" was an abolitionist hymn from the USA. In which case, lurid though its expression may be, its intentions would have been highly honourable.

Dearmer included in the National section of English Hymnal with a Welsh tune. I've never sung it.

And in the days when hymns and preaching never mention much about the cost of discipleship, it is a bit of a relief to have any reminder that Christian life can be expected to be a struggle. ("Theology of conflict in the hymns of F Pratt Green" must be one of those contenders for the Shortest Book Ever Published.)

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The new Songs of Praise has rewritten the words of 'O valiant hearts' - makes it possible too sing it on Remembrance Day.
Would Mrs Thatcher like the new version?

What's this new Songs of Praise, then?

No she would not.

The problem with the old version speaks of the knightly virtue of those who fell in war and suggesting a direct connection between the crucifixion of Jesus and our own ‘lesser Calvaries’.

V.2 equates the will of the politicians who declared war with the will of God. Indeed, the Church was co-opted into preaching the duty to fight.

Verse 4 identifies the war dead with Christ who ‘passed the self-same way’. Yet Christ did not ‘fight back’. He simply accepted his fate. Arkwright’s hymn and the tenor of the wartime sermons grossly distort and misrepresent the reality of war by talking in terms of Christlike self-sacrifice.

There is a new BBC cutdown version of Songs of Praise, published about ten years ago.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The new Songs of Praise has rewritten the words of 'O valiant hearts' - makes it possible to sing it on Remembrance Day.
Leo, I can see what you might be getting at, but the rest of us have assumed this is a hymn for Remembrance Day as it was written.

I think it was written as a recruitment device at the start of WW1.

It is one of the British Legion's favourites for Remembrance Day and for Battle of Britain Sunday.

Posted by Sarum Sleuth (# 162) on :

Strangely enough, I found and old Songs of Praise in the Bridge Chapel at Derby, along with some proper English Hymnals and an English Gradual. A very odd combination in a place that at one time had English Missal pretensions!

SS

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

Finishing up some musings on Ebenezer/Ton-y-Botel:

quote:
Originally posted by Below the Lansker:
They are the same tune. It was originally a Welsh drinking song - 'Ton y Botel' means 'Bottle Song'. The early non-conformists used it as a hymn tune and 'sanctified' it with a scriptural name - Ebeneser (in Welsh) or Ebenezer (English).

That is fascinating -- thank you! (Interesting that the 1982 Hymnal retains the Welsh name but not the English.)

quote:
Where I live, the two most well known hymns it is used for are "Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus' and 'Come, thou fount of every blessing'.

Hmm. To pair "Come Thou Fount," which is such a poetic, graceful hymn, with a majestic, almost militant belter like Ebenezer seems odd to me.

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Given its date, I suspect "Once to every man and nation" was an abolitionist hymn from the USA. In which case, lurid though its expression may be, its intentions would have been highly honourable.

Your suspicions are well-founded, according to the Source of all Knowledge™. It appears the hymn's author was an American poet of some renown among his contemporaries and whose first wife was an ardent Abolitionist. His own views on this and other attitudes seem to have wavered over time.

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
As far as I know, and I hope I'm right, it has died out....

"Once to every man and nation" was in TEC's 1940 hymnal but was dropped from the 1982. The hymn tune, as mentioned above, is still in the H1982 with two other hymns. (Oremus used to have a handy cross-referencing table of hymns with hymnals from all over the Anglican Communion, but, sadly, they seem to have pulled it.)

[ 01. September 2012, 19:20: Message edited by: Mamacita ]

Posted by Below the Lansker (# 17297) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mamacita:
Hmm. To pair "Come Thou Fount," which is such a poetic, graceful hymn, with a majestic, almost militant belter like Ebenezer seems odd to me.

Oh, I don't know ... lines like

'Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious measure
Sung by flaming tongues above,
O the vast, the boundless treasure
Of my Lord's unchanging love!

go quite well with the tune.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

Funny that abolitionism could inspire bad hymns. When very young indeed I was present when Michael Ramsey gave a question and answer session at one of our ancient universities. One enthusiastic lady asked him about the wonderful promises, or something, in The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

The Blessed Michael, not a putter down by nature, gently but promptly replied that he'd never understood what The Battle Hymn of the Republic meant. What it means I now see, is to struggle to abolish slavery. But for the British, the words don't mean that.

Posted by Amos (# 44) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Below the Lansker:

quote:
Originally posted by Mamacita:
Hmm. To pair "Come Thou Fount," which is such a poetic, graceful hymn, with a majestic, almost militant belter like Ebenezer seems odd to me.

Oh, I don't know ... lines like

'Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious measure
Sung by flaming tongues above,
O the vast, the boundless treasure
Of my Lord's unchanging love!

go quite well with the tune.

Goodness, I didn't know there was a bowdlerized version! Robinson's actual first verse, as I learned it, ran:
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

[We sang it to 'Nettleton', and fell about laughing every time it came to 'Here I raise my Ebenezer'--a line I would be very sorry to lose]

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

Our version is like Amos' and also sung to Nettleton, although the Ebenezer line is swapped for "Here I find my greatest treasure." And I'm surprised to not find it in the 1940 Hymnal, given it seems like such a classic piece of hymnody. (Hmm. Is the "Ebenezer" line the connection to using the "Ebenezer" hymn tune -- was this perhaps the original pairing?)

Sorry to belabor this. "Fount" has become a very popular hymn these days, across all age groups. (There's even a folksy, C&W version of it on an Amy Grant album.)

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Funny that abolitionism could inspire bad hymns. When very young indeed I was present when Michael Ramsey gave a question and answer session at one of our ancient universities. One enthusiastic lady asked him about the wonderful promises, or something, in The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

The Blessed Michael, not a putter down by nature, gently but promptly replied that he'd never understood what The Battle Hymn of the Republic meant. What it means I now see, is to struggle to abolish slavery. But for the British, the words don't mean that.

I think most Americans know the song traces its roots to the abolitionist movement. But most folks only know the first verse (it's more of a civil hymn than one sung in churches). It may be the undercurrents of redemptive violence in the hymn that attracts nowadays. Sorry, that last bit might make a good Purg thread, so I'll stop now.

[ 01. September 2012, 20:59: Message edited by: Mamacita ]

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
... The Battle Hymn of the Republic ... What it means I now see, is to struggle to abolish slavery. But for the British, the words don't mean that.

Really? I think most of us do get that it was about the American Civil War. Honest.

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

Is "Battle Hymn" included in "Songs of Praise?" I know that looks like a poor attempt to get back to the OP, but I'm just curious how widely known it is on the east side of the Pond.

Posted by Metapelagius (# 9453) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mamacita:
Is "Battle Hymn" included in "Songs of Praise?" I know that looks like a poor attempt to get back to the OP, but I'm just curious how widely known it is on the east side of the Pond.

It is (at no. 578). I would have said that the piece is well known, even if it doesn't figure in the standard Anglican books such as A&M or (N)EH. It is included in a number of hymnaries of other denominations including the CoI and CoS, but is not always set to the tune 'Battle Hymnn / John Brown's body'.

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

Thanks!

Posted by Morlader (# 16040) on :

"There is a new BBC cutdown version of Songs of Praise, published about ten years ago."

I can detect little linkage between BBC Songs of Praise and Dearmer's "old" Songs of Praise. BBC SofP is, I think, a collection of the most popular hymns/songs sung in the BBC's TV programme of the same name.

Posted by Laurence (# 9135) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
A hymn-writer I know has written alternative words to 'who is this with garments gory'. They fit the same wonderful tune,and are also on the same Good Friday theme, but without the obscure biblical allusions which make the former so difficult. I can send details in reply to a PM.

I quite agree that it's not practical as a hymn.
Hitting a congregation with Bozrah's Way (where?) in the second line is bad enough, but going for a full obscurity knock-out with "Idume's Summer" (what's eye-dummy, mum?) before the end of the first verse is just too much. That's before we get the snigger value of "reeking vineyards" and the made-up-English-to-fit-the rhyme of "wreathen/heathen" in verse 3.

Far better to use "Who is this, so meek and helpless", which fits the tune perfectly and has much better theology.

But I realise this may be turning into a Horrible Hymns dead horse, so without any further ado I'll remember that we used Songs of Praise as our school hymnbook when I was 8. We enjoyed hissing "Chrsssssstian soldiers" in the chorus of Onward, Christian Soldiers; there was never anything theologically scary in it for the English Shintoists on the staff, and we the children didn't know anything else. It doesn't seem to have done too much harm.

But looking at it now, it does seem a world away from the stealth Anglo-Catholicism of the 1906 English Hymnal. Had Dearmer's fire gone out after the First World War? Did he think that at that stage, social unity was needed more than Mariology plainchant office hymns, Introits, Grails, Alleluias, Benedictuses and Agnus Deis? Or alternatively did he just think the English Hymnal and Songs of Praise were entirely separate beasts doing different jobs?

Posted by (S)pike couchant (# 17199) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Laurence:

quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
A hymn-writer I know has written alternative words to 'who is this with garments gory'. They fit the same wonderful tune,and are also on the same Good Friday theme, but without the obscure biblical allusions which make the former so difficult. I can send details in reply to a PM.
I quite agree that it's not practical as a hymn.
Hitting a congregation with Bozrah's Way (where?) in the second line is bad enough, but going for a full obscurity knock-out with "Idume's Summer" (what's eye-dummy, mum?) before the end of the first verse is just too much. That's before we get the snigger value of "reeking vineyards" and the made-up-English-to-fit-the rhyme of "wreathen/heathen" in verse 3.

I thought obscure references were part of the fun? Who doesn't enjoy singing 'Here I'll raise my Ebenezer', despite (or rather, because of) the fact that — by my estimation — 95% of regular churchgoers have no idea what it means. It's one of those things like the convoluted syntax of 'He, whose confession God of old accepted' or wonderful KVJisms like 'superfluity of naughtiness' that makes churchgoing fun. To iron out all linguistic idiosyncrasies seems to me mistaken for several reasons: firstly, it's an ahistorical attempt to try to create an ideal Christianity that irons over the rough bits and, yes, the absurdities that will always exist in any human endevour ('of the crooked timbers of humanity', and all that), particularly one that has developed over a period of time; secondly, it risks condescending to congregations; thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it suggests that we take ourselves entirely too seriously. Really, one must ask, what is being an Anglican about if not occasionally saying things in church without having the faintest idea what they mean.

quote:
Originally posted by Laurence:

Had Dearmer's fire gone out after the First World War? Did he think that at that stage, social unity was needed more than Mariology plainchant office hymns, Introits, Grails, Alleluias, Benedictuses and Agnus Deis? Or alternatively did he just think the English Hymnal and Songs of Praise were entirely separate beasts doing different jobs?

Both, I think.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by (S)pike couchant:
one must ask, what is being an Anglican about if not occasionally saying things in church without having the faintest idea what they mean.

Being Anglican is being the established church of this nation and that means being available for all - so we need to make our worship reasonably user-friendly, unless we want to be a little club that will die out quite soon.

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Being Anglican is being the established church of this nation and that means being available for all - so we need to make our worship reasonably user-friendly, unless we want to be a little club that will die out quite soon.

Being Anglican in England perhaps but it must be more than that if being Anglican is to mean anything elsewhere in the World.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mamacita:
Is "Battle Hymn" included in "Songs of Praise?"

On page 358 in my copy.

Astonishingly, it is printed with the wrong tune, [Eek!]

some vaguely folky-sounding thing by Martin Shaw, that I assume no-one ever used. If there is a song attached to a tune more strongly than that one, I don't know what it is. The words were written for the tune, not the other way round. The song in a sense is about the tune, an attempt to control and make respectable the original words.

quote:

... I'm just curious how widely known it is on the east side of the Pond.

Very widely known. Or at least as widely known as hymns ever get in a nation that doesn't go to church.

But back when most people did know hymns, in th elate 19th and early 20th centuries, I think just about everyone would have known it. (and would have known "John Brown's Body" of course, even though its not a hymn). Even now its quite well-known. I have sung it in church, though very rarely. We used to sing it at school sometimes. I think I've heard it on the BBC Songs of Praise programme.

[ 02. September 2012, 17:05: Message edited by: ken ]

Posted by Below the Lansker (# 17297) on :

The Battle Hymn of the Republic was included in Sacred Songs and Solos (Sankey's hymnal here in the UK) so is well known by lots of English-speaking non-conformists of a certain vintage. An over-wrought, multiple key-change all-stops-out arrangement for Soloist, Choir and Organ is (or was) also a popular choice for Welsh Male Voice Choirs.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

I was staggered that, even amongst presumably well-educated young people (the context was an Oxford college v. a Cambridge college on Monday's 'University Challenge'), there was an almost complete inability to recognise even the most well-known hymn tunes. Perhaps it's high time for a national schools' hymn / song book, and commonly listened-to assembly programme, again.

Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :

Ha! I saw that, too, Chorister - and was gobsmacked, as was Paxo!

Posted by Morlader (# 16040) on :

Yes, ignorance of old hymn tunes. But without a 'control group' of old(er) people identifying - or not! - heavy metal tunes, is it so reprehensible?

[They weren't very good at the pre-Raphelites either.]

Funny how one expects "well-educated" people to know about one's area of interest/expertise!

Posted by Amos (# 44) on :

Students at Oxford and Cambridge only know the names of hymn tunes if they sing in their college choirs.
Outside the choirs, the division is between those who attended independent schools and had to go to chapel and sing hymns and those who went to state schools and didn't and don't. Amongst English people under the age of 40 or so, knowledge of traditional hymnody seems to have become a class shibboleth.

Posted by PD (# 12436) on :

Percy Dearmer had something of a crisis during World War I which altered his theological thinking quite profoundly. His wife died in Serbia in 1916, and his son had died in Gallipoli a year earlier. He was serving a a YMCA chaplain in France during this period having had enough (I suspect) of trying to sustain SMVPH, and probably suffering from a certain degree on non-combatant's guilt.

Anyway, between 1915 and 1921 his theological views moved away from liberal Anglo-Catholicism towards the then current forms of Modernism, so his later works include such uplifting numbers as 'The Myth of Hell' and 'The Truth about Fasting' which are written from a modernist perspective. Not surprising, considering that most of the ardent old-fashioned liberals I have known have been Merrie England BCP men, his liturgical views changed far less than his theological views.

PD

[ 04. September 2012, 16:42: Message edited by: PD ]

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
Students at Oxford and Cambridge only know the names of hymn tunes if they sing in their college choirs.

I missed that edition of University Challenge. Were they asking for the names of tunes, or for the hymns associated with them? I doubt if many people, whatever their age or their church commitment, would know the former unless they had sung in a choir.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

Isn't the purpose for giving children a Christian education, assemblies, RE etc, the hope that they become/grow up Christians, rather than that they know a particular tradition of hymnody?

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Isn't the purpose for giving children a Christian education, assemblies, RE etc, the hope that they become/grow up Christians, rather than that they know a particular tradition of hymnody?

Yes. As a non-hymn lover I'd say so. At least a Christian education means they have a familiarity with Christian tradition, and in fairness "traditional hymns" do often embody a lot of that.

Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:

quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
Students at Oxford and Cambridge only know the names of hymn tunes if they sing in their college choirs.

I missed that edition of University Challenge. Were they asking for the names of tunes, or for the hymns associated with them? I doubt if many people, whatever their age or their church commitment, would know the former unless they had sung in a choir.

They listened to the music and were asked for the hymns associated with those tunes. One was 'Guide me O thou great Redeemer', which they didn't know. Another was I think 'Abide with me', which they got. Chorister no doubt will remember the others!

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Morlader:
But without a 'control group' of old(er) people identifying - or not! - heavy metal tunes, is it so reprehensible?

Heavy Metal? Invented round about 1970, achieved its maximum popularity mid 70s immediately pre-punk, another brief burst of popularity in the 1980s but has been essentially a (largish) minority interest ever since - I'd expect the average undergraduate to know less about it than their parents! Possibly even grandparents.

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Isn't the purpose for giving children a Christian education, assemblies, RE etc, the hope that they become/grow up Christians, rather than that they know a particular tradition of hymnody?

How could it possibly be? RE and "acts of worship" in schools have been made compulsory by parliament after parliament for decades, mostly full of non-Christian MPs representing largely non-Christian voters. I have no idea why they keep on voting for it. But it can hardly be so that they children become Christians. If that's what they wanted wouldn't they go to church, or teach them about Christianity at home? Most people do neither.

Posted by Morlader (# 16040) on :

@ken Yes, that was my point about the control group - people of advanced years, not Oxbridge undergrads.

Knowing the first lines of hymns sung to played tunes is hardly "music" though: it was supposed to be a 'music' round, I think.

Posted by Below the Lansker (# 17297) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

RE and "acts of worship" in schools have been made compulsory by parliament after parliament for decades, mostly full of non-Christian MPs representing largely non-Christian voters. I have no idea why they keep on voting for it. But it can hardly be so that they children become Christians. If that's what they wanted wouldn't they go to church, or teach them about Christianity at home? Most people do neither.

From what I remember of RE lessons and assembly at school, the reason they keep on voting for it is precisely to prevent people becoming interested in matters of Christian belief. School assembly in my time consisted of well-meaning fuzzy pep-talks about being nice and playing by the rules, that being a Christian didn't really have anything to do with belief, it had more to do with respectability. The hymns chosen reinforced the message and the Bible readings were tacked on but never commented upon. The RE teacher who chose the Bible readings was a Christian believer and must have hoped and prayed that some kernel of Biblical truth would be able to fight its way through the rest of the dross being served up. Had I not been a Christian already, school assembly and RE lessons would have convinced me that the Christian faith had nothing at all to say to me.

Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :

Originally posted by Below the Lansker:

quote:
From what I remember of RE lessons and assembly at school, the reason they keep on voting for it is precisely to prevent people becoming interested in matters of Christian belief.

This!

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

Below the Lansker has hit the nail on the head! [Overused]

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

I still can't take seriously the sort of hymns sung in school assembly. I'd rather have Sweet Sacrament Divine, Shine Jesus Shine, Daily Daily Sing to Mary, Amazing Grace, Faith of our Forebears or What a Friend We Have in Jesus rather than Praise My Soul the King of Heaven, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind or almost anything by Charles Wesley yet again.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
I still can't take seriously the sort of hymns sung in school assembly. I'd rather have Sweet Sacrament Divine, ... rather than Praise My Soul the King of Heaven, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind or almost anything by Charles Wesley yet again.

You cannot be serious!! [Disappointed]

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
I'd rather have [various nice songs] than Praise My Soul the King of Heaven, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind or almost anything by Charles Wesley yet again.

What on earth is wrong with "Praise My Soul the King of Heaven"? [Confused]

Excellent paraphrase of a psalm, and to an easily singable tune. And written by HF Lyte a Scottish High Churchman who was married to an Irish Methodist and the incumbent of an evangelical English parish at the time. So its almost ecumenical. [Smile]

And the same man also wrote "Abide with me" - literally on his deathbed.

And the dozen or two Charles Wesley hymns that are still in regular use are among the best hymns there ever were! [Yipee]

That's why we still use them and not the other nine hundred and fifty thousand or however many he wrote.

(Don't get me started on the sub-christian Gnostic rubbish that is "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind" - in the unlikely event that anyone here is interested in how much I hate it all they need to is google for it on this website...)

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

Venbede, and anyone who wants to pursue the tangent:

There is a perfectly fine thread on Crappy Choruses, Wonky Worship Songs, and Horrible Hymns just waiting for your contributions in Dead Horses. Many thanks.

Mamacita, Eccles Host

Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
I was staggered that, even amongst presumably well-educated young people (the context was an Oxford college v. a Cambridge college on Monday's 'University Challenge'), there was an almost complete inability to recognise even the most well-known hymn tunes. Perhaps it's high time for a national schools' hymn / song book, and commonly listened-to assembly programme, again.

Yes and my alma mater at that! The wrong team won .... GDBO

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Isn't the purpose for giving children a Christian education, assemblies, RE etc, the hope that they become/grow up Christians, rather than that they know a particular tradition of hymnody?

Neither.

The purpose of RE is that children can learn from and about the beliefs of 6 world religions, of which christianity is only one.

The purpose of collective worship (assemblies are not legislated for or against) is to give children help in whatever spirituality they have, be it secular or religious.

Posted by Corvo (# 15220) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The purpose of RE is that children can learn from and about the beliefs of 6 world religions, of which christianity is only one.

What are the other five?

[fixed code]

[ 05. September 2012, 17:55: Message edited by: seasick ]

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

I wasn't meaning the purpose the DoE has for RE. I mean what I assume we hope it will achieve. Those aren't the same thing.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Corvo:

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The purpose of RE is that children can learn from and about the beliefs of 6 world religions, of which christianity is only one.
What are the other five?

[fixed code]

Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism.

To which i want to add Humanism.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I wasn't meaning the purpose the DoE has for RE. I mean what I assume we hope it will achieve. Those aren't the same thing.

Who are 'we'?

Not just the Dept. of Ed., under whatever of its ever increasing changes of title want, but what educationists believe to be right.

Also what most parents want.

I don't thing that the Christian minority has a right to impose its views on to a largely secular society.

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

The last five posts have wandered squarely into Purgatorial territory.

Can we get back on topic, please (if there is anything more to be said regarding Songs of Praise)? Thank you.

Mamacita, Eccles Host

Posted by Meaculpa (# 11821) on :

An interesting side note to the singing of "Once to Every Man and Nation" which has been both roundly criticized and staunchly upheld in this thread (I think it rather fine, actually).

In fact, all of us alive today should be most grateful that it appears in SOP and more especially in the wonderful 1940 Episcopal hymnary.

Why?

Well, in the late 1950's or early 1960's the skipper of one of Soviet Russia's nuclear subs just off America's Atlantic coast received an "authentic" launch code. Had he done his duty by the strict lights of his training, six warheads would have immediately been launched and rained down enormous havoc minutes later on Washington and New York - and WWIII would inevitably have followed.

However, the relatively young man - who had been a Naval Attaché at Washington in the course of his career, and so spoke very good English - remembered that just months before he had attended in some official capacity a service at Washington's National Cathedral, at that happy time quite Orthodox with a wonderful men and boys' choir.

He was not religious, of course(!) but remembered vividly being moved by the words of the hymn in question, the second line of which is "Comes the moment to decide" - In the circumstance, knowing the consequences, he felt this was his "once" and that he could not possibly launch the missiles without additional verification. Tensions had not been particularly high beyond the general strained atmosphere, and the order out of the blue simply made no sense.

Indeed, before he could send a coded request for such confirmation, frantic messages came into the comm centre of the sub aborting the original order as someone in the Kremlin or wherever had sent the wrong code. So - the power of the words on the mind of an aetheist Communist had their impact - for all of our and our progeny and civilization's good.

Ponder that! wow!

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

Whew, indeed.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Metapelagius:

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
We've had discussions on this book before - if anyone's interested this is a link to one (pointing to my own wibble on the subject so I won't bother you all with repeating it here)
Yes, but many of the topics here come around again (and sometimes again and again) after a while. I suppose that this is inevitable. Dearmer's rewriting of 'Let all mortal flesh' certainly has, but not having Ken's encyclopaediac memory I can't remember where or when.

Interesting to see who contributed last time around. Some of the names are familiar, but not ones that I have seen recently - like Foaming Draught (who makes reference to Fortescue), or Audrey Ely, who initiated that discussion, but looks to have moved on. Or did she upset someone? Or was that Max? I recall her (AE) asking a question about the Society of Free Catholics - how long before that one comes around again?

Tangent - the sig - Cornish, Breton or Old Welsh?

Posted by sebby (# 15147) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:
Originally posted by Metapelagius:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by ken:
[qb] We've had discussions on this book before - if anyone's interested this is a link to one (pointing to my own wibble on the subject so I won't bother you all with repeating it here)
but not having Ken's encyclopaediac memory I can't remember where or when.

Or as much time to spend on Google.

Posted by Metapelagius (# 9453) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:
Originally posted by Metapelagius:

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
We've had discussions on this book before - if anyone's interested this is a link to one (pointing to my own wibble on the subject so I won't bother you all with repeating it here)
Yes, but many of the topics here come around again (and sometimes again and again) after a while. I suppose that this is inevitable. Dearmer's rewriting of 'Let all mortal flesh' certainly has, but not having Ken's encyclopaediac memory I can't remember where or when.

Interesting to see who contributed last time around. Some of the names are familiar, but not ones that I have seen recently - like Foaming Draught (who makes reference to Fortescue), or Audrey Ely, who initiated that discussion, but looks to have moved on. Or did she upset someone? Or was that Max? I recall her (AE) asking a question about the Society of Free Catholics - how long before that one comes around again?
Tangent - the sig - Cornish, Breton or Old Welsh?

Welsh - but early middle rather than old.

PS "Sorry, that member's private message mailbox is full. Please try sending your private message another time, or perhaps to someone else. You could try posting a message for the intended recipient on the "Your PM box is full" thread in All Saints, but he/she probably won't be reading that thread. Very few people ever do."

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

Thanks. Hard to tell when it's that old.

PS - PM box cleared...

Posted by moveabletype (# 10919) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Meaculpa:
An interesting side note to the singing of "Once to Every Man and Nation" which has been both roundly criticized and staunchly upheld in this thread (I think it rather fine, actually).

quote:
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

I didn't think that was your style, Meaculpa. [Smile]

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