Best Loved Hymns and Readings

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Introduction

Abide with me

Adam and Eva

Adonais

Afterwards

All creatures of our God and King

All people that on earth do dwell

All things bright and beautiful

All we like sheep

Amazing grace

And can it be?

Away in a manger

Be baptized

Be still, my soul

Be Thou my vision

Blessed are the poor in spirit

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine

Blood, toil, tears and sweat

Breathe on me, Breath of God

The burning bush

Christ, the Lord, is risen today

Christ triumphant

The Church’s one foundation

Come, ye thankful people, come

Come down, O love divine

Come live with me and be my love

Crossing the bar

Crown Him with many crowns

Daniel in the lions’ den

David and Goliath

The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended

Dear Lord and Father of mankind

Death, be not proud

Death is nothing at all

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not stand at my grave and weep

Do not worry

Drink to me only with thine eyes

Each eve Earth falleth down the dark

Eternal Father, strong to save

Faith, hope, and love

Far above rubies

Father, hear the prayer we offer

A father’s advice to his son

Fight the good fight

For all the saints

For everything there is a season

For I dipt into the future

For the beauty of the earth

For unto us a child is born

Friends, Romans, countrymen

Give a man a horse

Glorious things of thee are spoken

God be in my head

God is our refuge and strength

God moves in a mysterious way

God save the queen

God’s grandeur

The Good Samaritan

Great is thy faithfulness

Guide me, O Thou great Redeemer

Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

Hark! the herald-angels sing

Hills of the north, rejoice

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty

Home, sweet home

Home-thoughts, from abroad

The hound of heaven

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways

How great Thou art!

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds

I am the good shepherd

I am the resurrection and the life

I felt my heart strangely warmed

I run toward the prize

I’ve found a friend

I vow to thee, my country

I wandered lonely as a cloud

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills

I will raise him up at the last day

If

If I should go before the rest of you

Immortal, invisible, God only wise

In Memoriam

In my house are many mansions

In the beginning

Invictus

Jerusalem

Jerusalem the golden

Jesus Christ is risen today

Jesus loves me

Jesus shall reign

Joy to the world

Just as I am

The King of love my Shepherd is

The Lake isle of Innisfree

Land of hope and glory

Land of my fathers

Last lines

Lead, kindly light

Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us

Let the little children come to me

Let us now praise famous men

Let us, with a gladsome mind

The Listeners

The Lord is my shepherd

Lord of all hopefulness

The Lord’s Prayer

Loud is the vale

Love alters not

Love divine, all loves excelling

Love lives beyond the tomb

Love seeketh not itself to please

Make me a channel of your peace

Many waters cannot quench love

May the road rise to meet you

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord

Miss me – but let me go

Morning has broken

My God, how wonderful Thou art

My song is love unknown

Nearer, my God, to thee

A new heaven and a new earth

No coward soul is mine

No man is an island

No room at the inn

No single thing abides

The noblest Roman of them all

Now thank we all our God

O captain! my captain!

O come, all ye faithful

O come, O come, Emmanuel

O death, where is thy sting?

O for a closer walke with god

O for a heart to praise my God

O for a thousand tongues to sing

O God, our help in ages past

O Jesus, I have promised

O little town of Bethlehem

O love divine

O may I join the choir invisible

O Thou who camest from above

The old rugged cross

The Old Vicarage, Grantchester

Once in royal David’s city

Once more unto the breach, dear friends

Onward, Christian soldiers

Our revels now are ended

The parable of the Sower

Pippa passes

Praise, my soul, the King of heaven

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

Prayer for generosity

The Prodigal Son

The quality of mercy is not strained

The race is not to the swift

A red, red rose

Rejoice, the Lord is King

Remember me when I am gone away

Remembrance of things past

Requiem

Resurrection hope

The road to Emmaus

Rock of ages

Rule Britannia

Say not the struggle naught availeth

Search me, O God, and know my heart

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day

The shepherd boy sings in the valley of humiliation

Silent night

The Soldier

Soldiers of Christ, arise

The Song of Solomon

Stand up! stand up for Jesus

Stone walls do not a prison make

Sweet spirit, comfort me

Swing low, sweet chariot

Take my life, and let it be

Tell me not, in mournful numbers

Tell me the old, old story

Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord

There is a green hill far away

There is no death!

There is therefore now no condemnation

There’ll always be an England

They shall not grow old

Thine be the glory

Those who are first will be last

The three wise men

Through all the changing scenes of life

Till the sun grows cold

To a good man of most dear memory

To God be the glory

To his coy mistress

To the virgins, to make much of time

To thine own self be true

Trust and obey

Turn the other cheek

Vitaï Lampada

We brought nothing into this world

We plough the fields, and scatter

We rest on Thee

We shall fight them on the beaches

The wedding at Cana

Were you there?

What a friend we have in Jesus

What is man?

What God has joined together, let no one separate

When I am dead, my dearest

When I survey the wondrous cross

When my hour is come

Where you go I will go

While shepherds watched their flocks by night

Who will separate us from the love of Christ?

Who would true valour see

Whoever welcomes one such child

Wives and husbands

The wolf shall live with the lamb

The Word became flesh

Author Index

Index of Bible references

Index of first lines

Index of themes

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

Introduction

This collection of Best-loved Hymns and Readings has been compiled as a resource for personal devotion and also as a reference work. It will be useful for making selections for such services as weddings, Christenings, or funerals. You will find here many favourite and traditional hymns, poems, readings, and extracts from the Bible (e.g., ‘Amazing Grace’ and Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan), together with less familiar ones (e.g., Shakespeare’s ‘The quality of mercy is not strained’). Each hymn, reading, poem, etc., is given an introduction which sets its background or gives interesting or helpful information. All the readings are arranged in alphabetical order of title (ignoring ‘A’ or ‘The’ at the beginning of a title). For ease of reference there are also indexes at the end of the book to enable you to find a particular item by reference to its first line, its author, its overall theme or, where appropriate, its Bible reference.

These extracts have been compiled in the hope that they will provide inspiration and encouragement both for everyday life and also at times of particular need and on special occasions.

Martin H. Manser

Abide with me

Henry Francis Lyte was vicar of the fishing port of Brixham, Devon, and wrote a number of greatly loved hymns, of which ‘Abide with me’ is perhaps the most celebrated. He wrote it shortly after his last sermon, knowing that his own death (at the premature age of 54) was imminent, having been diagnosed with tuberculosis.

In 1915 Nurse Edith Cavell famously derived strength from this hymn by singing it in her cell the night before she was executed by a German firing squad. Today it is also a great favourite with crowds at football matches.

The original reference is to Luke 24:29, which runs ‘Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.’

Abide with me! fast falls the eventide,

The darkness deepens; LORD, with me abide!

When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;

Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;

Change and decay in all around I see:

O Thou, who changest not, abide with me!

I need Thy presence every passing hour;

What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?

Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be?

Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me!

I fear no foe with Thee at hand to bless:

Ills have no weight and tears no bitterness:

Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?

I triumph still if Thou abide with me.

Hold then Thy cross before my closing eyes!

Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies!

Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee:

In life and death, O Lord, abide with me!

Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847)

Adam and Eva

This passage from. Genesis 2:18-24 is sometimes used as a Bible reading at weddings. It illustrates the mutual companionship and interdependence that exist in a marriage relationship.

Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.’ Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Adonais

Percy Bysshe Shelley’s lament for fellow-poet John Keats ranks among his most celebrated poetic works. Written in 1821 in response to the news of Keats’s premature death from consumption in Rome, it is often quoted in part or in full at funerals (the extracts below comprise the more famous passages).

Many have commented upon the melancholy prescience of the final stanza in which Shelley describes how his own spirit is ‘driven far from the shore’: the following year he was himself drowned in a sudden storm while sailing in the bay of Lerici.

Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep;

He hath awakened from the dream of life.

‘Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep

With phantoms an unprofitable strife,

And in mad trance, strike with out spirit’s knife

Invulnerable nothings. We decay

Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief

Convulse us and consume day by day,

And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

He has outsoared the shadow of our night;

Envy and calumny and hate and pain,

And that unrest which men miscall delight,

Can touch him not and torture not again;

From the contagion of the world’s slow stain

He is secure, and now can never mourn

A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain;

Nor, when the spirit’s self has ceased to burn,

With sparkles ashes load an unlamented urn.

He is made one with Nature; there is heard

His voice in all her music, from the moan

Of thunder to the song of night’s sweet bird;

He is a presence to be felt and known

In darkness and in light, from herb and stone,

Spreading itself where’er that Power may move

Which has withdrawn his being to its own;

Which wields the world with never-wearied love,

Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.

He is a portion of the loveliness

Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear

His part, while the one Spirit’s plastic stress

Sweeps through the dull, dense world, compelling there

All new successions to the forms they wear,

Torturing th’ unwilling dross that checks its flight

To its own likeness, as each mass may bear,

And bursting in its beauty and its might

From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven’s light.

The One remains, the many change and pass;

Heaven’s light for ever shines, Earth’s shadows fly;

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,

Stains the white radiance of Eternity,

Until Death tramples it to fragments. Die,

If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!

Follow where all is fled! Rome’s azure sky,

Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak

The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.

That Light whose smile kindles the Universe,

That Beauty in which all things work and move,

That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse

Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love

Which, through the web of being blindly wove

By man and beast and earth and air and sea,

Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of

The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me,

Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.

The breath whose might I have invoked in song

Descends on me; my spirit’s bark is driven

Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng

Whose sails were never to the tempest given;

The massy earth and sphered skies are riven!

I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;

Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,

The soul of Adonais, like a star,

Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Afterwards

This meditation by the poet and novelist Thomas Hardy upon the way a person might be remembered after they have died remains one of his most popular poetic works. It is sometimes recited at funerals.

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous

stay,

And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,

Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say

‘He was a man who used to notice such things’?

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid’s soundless blink,

The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight

Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,

‘To him this must have been a familiar sight’.

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,

When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,

One may say, ‘He strove that such innocent creatures should

come to no harm,

But he could do little for them; and now he is gone’.

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,

Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,

Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,

‘He was one who had an eye for such mysteries’?

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom,

And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,

Till they rise again, as they were a new bell’s boom,

‘He hears it not now, but used to notice such things’?

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

All creatures of our God and King

The words for this famous hymn were based upon lines written by St Francis of Assisi (1182-1226). Legend has it that the first four verses were inspired by the saint’s experiences after spending forty nights in a rat-infested hut at San Damiano. The fifth verse supposedly resulted from a quarrel between the church and civil authorities of Assisi, while the sixth stanza was written as the saint endured great suffering on his deathbed.

William Henry Draper, rector of a parish in Yorkshire, subsequently produced his celebrated translation of St Francis’s words for a Whitsuntide festival for school children in Leeds. The music was the work of Ralph Vaughan Williams, who based it upon a seventeenth-century tune from Cologne.

All creatures of our God and King,

Lift up your voice and with us sing,

Alleluia, alleluia!

Thou burning sun with golden beam,

Thou silver moon with softer gleam:

0 praise Him, 0 praise Him,Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Thou rushing wind that art so strong,

Ye clouds that sail in heaven along,

O praise Him, alleluia!

Thou rising morn, in praise rejoice;

Ye lights of evening, find a voice:

Thou flowing water, pure and clear,

Make music for thy Lord to hear,

Alleluia, alleluia!

Thou fire, so masterful and bright,

That givest us both warmth and light:

Dear mother earth, who day by day

Unfoldest blessings on our way,

O praise Him, alleluia!

The flowers and fruits that in thee grow,

Let them His glory also show:

And ye that are of tender heart,

Forgiving others, take your part,

O sing ye, alleluia!

Ye who long pain and sorrow bear,

Praise God, and on Him cast your care:

And thou, most kind and gentle death,

Waiting to hush our latest breath,

O praise Him, alleluia!

Thou leadest home the child of God,

And Christ our Lord the way has trod:

Let all things their creator bless,

And worship Him in humbleness;

O praise Him, alleluia!

Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son,

And praise the Spirit, Three in One:

William Henry Draper (1855-1933)

All people that on earth do dwell

This hymn, published in 1561, is based on Psalm 100 and has therefore come to be popularly dubbed ‘The Old Hundredth’. Its author was a Scottish-born minister in the Church of England who fled the country after the accession of the Catholic Queen Mary.

All people that on earth do dwell,

Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice:

Him serve with fear, His praise forth tell;

Come ye before Him and rejoice.

The Lord, ye know, is God indeed;

Without our aid He did us make;

We are His flock, He doth us feed,

And for His sheep He doth us take.

O, enter then His gates with praise,

Approach with joy His courts unto;

Praise, laud, and bless His name always,

For it is seemly so to do.

For why? the Lord our God is good,

His mercy is for ever sure;

His truth at all times firmly stood,

And shall from age to age endure.

William Kethe (d.1594)

All things bright and beautiful

Cecil Frances Alexander was an Irish hymn writer and poet who married William Alexander, Protestant bishop of Derry, in 1850. She bore her husband four children and, among other good deeds, helped her family to establish a school for ‘deaf and dumb’ children. She wrote some 400 hymns, among them such classics as ‘There is a green hill far away’ and ‘Once in royal David’s city’. The original third verse of this hymn, running ‘The rich man in his castle, / The poor man at his gate, / God made them, high or lowly, / And ordered their estate’, has long since been omitted.