choir. At Sunday School and YPF, rousing hymns and choruses were part of the diet.
I had to learn the nuances of plainsong for
office hymns and psalms when I became a member of the choir at All Saints, Margaret Street, (five minutes from Oxford Circus), using the English Hymnal. We performed under the baton of Dr Eric Arnold, an expert in the field. Since then, I have encountered new hymns in each church choir and have always had the pleasure of being accompanied by a talented organist. It’s no wonder choirs have always been the biggest evangelical movement in the Church.
My favourite hymn had to be that great hymn
of adoration, thanksgiving and supplication from the days of the Reformation, ‘Now thank we all our God’.
It firstly gives thanks for the wondrous deeds of God, who has given us so much. The
poignant reminder of our mothers and what they meant to us with their loving nurture reminds us of the debt we owe them, as many of us will have been put on the road to faith, albeit unknowingly, by their words and attitudes. We thank God that he blessed us while in the shelter of our childhood home and still does now we are in the wider world.
The second verse is a heart-felt prayer for the future, a prayer that God will give us life-
long joy and peace. These are things we all long for in this turbulent and busy world. We also pray for guidance in a society where the rapidity of change seems to be making old values appear obsolete. The petition to free us from all ills has an echo of Psalm 91 about it; ‘Whoso dwelleth under the defense of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty . . .’
Then last we have a glorious doxology of adoration of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It
reminds us of much of the most important tenets of our faith, our belief in the Trinity, and the omnipotence of the everlasting God. ‘For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore’, a reminder of eternity and our smallness in it, and this alone should make us thankful that God has blessed us.
I was brought up on the old tune, Cruger’s melody with a little help from Mendelssohn-
Bartholdy, and I still love its dignified phrases, and somewhere out there is a half- remembered descant. Perhaps it will find its way into a hymnbook someday.
Gillian Shilling
19
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