A History of Hymnody : Vol. 3 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Charles Wesley

In the early years of the eighteenth century, Isaac Watts set hymns free from the puritanical shackles that insisted they be unadorned musical settings of scripture. This, in turn, allowed them to develop as expressions of personal experience which was, undoubtedly, one of the elements that drove the revival.

Charles Wesley (1707-1788) wrote thousands, yes thousands, of hymns that mixed scriptural references with very personal language. His hymns are credited with building the Methodist Church just as much as were his brother John's sermons. Charles suffered from depressive tendencies that could lay him low but also keep him awake for two or three days in a frenzy of creative activity.

Thomas Kelly (1769-1854) was an Irish equivalent of Charles Wesley, although his output ran to hundreds of hymns rather than thousands. Toplady and Perronet are best known, respectively, for the hymns "Rock of Ages" and "All Hail the Power of Jesu's Name".

Answer: Rock of Ages

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee.
Let the water and the blood
From your wounded side which flowed
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power."

If you'll pardon the pun, not everybody involved with the Evangelical Revival was singing from the same hymn sheet. All were united in their desire to preach the doctrine of justification by faith but some were Arminian in their theology whilst others were Calvinist. Put crudely, Arminians believed that anyone could become a Christian; Calvinists held that, if some became Christians and some didn't, God in his omnipotence must know this in advance and have predetermined it. The Arminians were chiefly represented by the Wesleys and their followers; the Calvinists by George Whitefield. These differences were mostly kept under wraps but occasionally flared into bitter dispute.

The romantic story that Augustus Toplady (1740-1778) wrote "Rock of Ages" after sheltering in the cleft of a rock may be correct but did only begin circulating several decades after his death. What is definitely true, though, is that the hymn was first published in 1775 in the "Gospel Magazine" as "A Living and Dying Prayer for the Holiest Believer in the World", and was a dig at the theological views on holiness held by the Wesley brothers.

In fact, Toplady may even have chosen to turn Charles Wesley's own words against him. In Wesley's "Hymns on the Lord's Supper" (1745) appears the following hymn:
"Rock of Israel, cleft for me,
For us, for all mankind,
See, thy feeblest followers see,
Who call thy death to mind:
Sion is the weary land;
Us beneath thy shade receive,
Grant us in the cleft to stand,
And by thy dying live".

Additionally, in the preface to the book, Wesley quotes the following words from Daniel Brevint:
"O Rock of Israel, Rock of Salvation, Rock struck and cleft for me, let those two streams of blood, and water, which once gushed out of thy side, bring down pardon and holiness into my soul...".

Answer: All of them

John Newton (1725-1807) was the hymn writer and Olivia Newton John was the singer. "Amazing Grace" as sung by Judy Collins peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970 and number 5 in the UK. An instrumental version by the Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards topped the UK chart in 1972.

John Newton had a well-documented chequered history, which included slave trading, before he became an Anglican priest, serving as a curate in the Bedfordshire town of Olney. In 1779 he published a volume of hymns, titled simply "Olney Hymns". This was a collaboration with the poet William Cowper, whose manic depressive tendencies had led him to find spiritual solace with Newton at Olney. The book contained such hymns as "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken", "Amazing Grace", "Approach, My Soul, the Mercy-Seat", "How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds", "God Moves in a Mysterious Way", "Hark, My Soul! It Is the Lord", "Jesus, Where'er Thy People Meet", "Sometimes a Light Surprises", "Oh! for a Closer Walk with God" and "There is a Fountain Fill'd with Blood".

Answer: Wales

William Williams Pantycelyn (1717-1791) - the last being a bardic name derived from the name of his farm - was the author of "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah" and one of the greatest Welsh poets. His story is a typical one. He was ordained as a deacon in the Anglican church but was rejected as a priest because of his Methodist sympathies. He then operated as an itinerant preacher within the Calvinistic Methodist movement, averaging over 2500 miles of travelling per year for the following half-century and writing hymns in the Welsh language.

The reputation of the Welsh for choral hymn singing developed from the early Methodist societies and is usually attributed to two men. Thomas Charles (1755-1814), who studied under John Newton at Olney, was another Anglican priest who found churches closed to him because of his perceived Methodist leanings. In 1784 he threw his lot in with the Methodists and, inspired by the developing Sunday School Movement, began a system of "circulating schools" in Wales. On a visit to the Methodist chapel at Llanidloes, he was so impressed by the singing and musicianship of a young man called Henry Mills that he recommended he be appointed as a musical director for the area. Mills, who was succeeded by his son, Richard, began to train young people in the art of choral singing and from these small beginnings grew a worldwide reputation and a significant part of Welsh identity.

Please permit me two small footnotes. Firstly, Francis Scott Key, writer of "The Star Spangled Banner", was a pioneer of the Sunday School movement in America. Secondly, the original Mormon Tabernacle Choir was Welsh! Brigham Young was so impressed with their singing that he invited them to sing at the opening of the Salt Lake Temple. They accepted the invitation and changed their name.

Answer: Just As I Am

"Just as I am, Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;
Because Thy promise I believe
O Lamb of God, I come, I come."

Charlotte Elliott (1789-1871) suffered from poor health and the hymn was supposedly written out of frustration at not being able to play a full part in a bazaar, designed to raise funds for a school that her brother was establishing in Brighton, England. It was first published in 1836 in her "Invalids' Hymn Book".

Answer: 59

What makes this even more remarkable is that we are talking about an American Episcopalian church and a female English Baptist hymn writer. The preface to the book contains these words:
"... if we have extracted more copiously from Mrs Steele than from any other writer, we have done no more, than what we thought due to her poetical superiority, and to the ardent spirit of devotion, which breathes in her compositions". (Source : "Hymns Selected From the Most Approved Authors for the Use of Trinity Church, Boston", 1808)

Steele (1717-1778), whose life was characterised by suffering, was born and died in Broughton, Hampshire and was the daughter of a Baptist lay preacher. Possibly because she was female, she preferred to write anonymously and her first book, "Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional" (1760), was published under the pseudonym "Theodosia". Her gender and experiences may also explain the fact that many of her hymns have an introspective and questioning quality unlike the absolute certainty of her male counterparts. Ironically, this probably makes her better suited for twenty-first century congregations by whom she is largely forgotten.

The epitaph on her tombstone reads:
"Silent the lyre, and dumb the tuneful tongue,
That sung on earth her great Redeemer's praise;
But now in Heaven she joins the angelic song,
In more harmonious, more exalted lays".

Answer: A special service to raise funds for missionary work

The hymn was written at short notice, in 1819, on the occasion of a special offering for missionary work, and at the request of Heber's father-in-law who was dean of St. Asaph cathedral. Heber (1783-1826) was bishop of Calcutta from 1823 until his death in 1826.

A man often described as the father of the missionary hymn is James Montgomery (1771-1854), best-known today as the author of hymns such as "Angels from the Realms of Glory" and "Hail to the Lord's Anointed". He was a member of the Moravian church, as well as being the owner and editor of a newspaper in Sheffield, England. Montgomery was twice imprisoned for political views espoused by the paper but was sufficiently well-regarded after his death for there now to be a monument to him in the precinct of Sheffield Cathedral.

Finally, there was also Moravian influence in the life of Anne Bronte (1820-1849), youngest of the Bronte sisters, whose hymns, like those of Anne Steele, were often introspective. She usually preferred to start from the uncertainty of personal belief rather than the certainty of faith.

Answer: Once in Royal David's City

Both Isaac Watts ("Divine Songs for Children", 1715) and Charles Wesley ("Hymns for Children", 1763) had attempted collections for children but neither was really able to write at the required level.

One of the first examples of a work to be properly aimed at children was "Hymns for Infant Minds", published in 1809 by sisters Ann and Jane Taylor. Independent of her hymns, Jane Taylor's greatest claim to fame is as the writer of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star".

Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895) was the wife of an Irish bishop and a supporter of the High-Church Oxford Movement. The hymns in "Hymns for Little Children" were written to illustrate the articles of the Apostles' Creed and its dedication read:
"To my little godsons,
I inscribe these simple lines, hoping that the language of verse, which children love, may help to impress on their minds
What they are,
What I have promised for them, and
What they must seek to be."

Answer: John Henry Newman

Newman (1801-1890) was closely associated with the High-Church Tractarian or Oxford Movement within the Church of England. He became a cardinal within the Catholic church.

Two other Oxford Movement hymn writers are John Mason Neale and Frederick Faber. Neale is noted as the author of "Good King Wenceslas" but is better known as a translator of older hymns. Faber (1814-1863), like Newman, converted to Catholicism in 1845. His most famous compositions are probably "Faith of Our Fathers" and "There's a Wideness in God's Mercy".

Answer: Abide With Me

"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, O abide with me."

The hymn was written by Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847) as he lay dying from tuberculosis. Lyte was curate of a church in Brixham, located in the English county of Devon. The hymn's association with the F.A. Cup final goes back to 1927 when it was specially requested by King George V.

In his book, "Famous Hymns and their Authors", published in 1902, Francis Jones gives an account of interviewing one of Lyte's former "helpers". The man recalled that, in 1846, the year before Lyte's death and the hymn's composition, he and several other influential men within the church were persuaded to "defect" to the Plymouth Brethren:
"After due deliberation we went in a body to Mr. Lyte and told him that we intended to leave his church. He took it calmly enough, although we practically constituted his entire choir, and said that nothing would be further from his thoughts than to stand between us and our consciences. He bade us think the matter over very seriously and come to him again in a few days. We did so, but our decision remained unaltered. We left him, and never entered his church again. When "Abide with me" came to be written, each of us was given a copy, and then we realized, perhaps more keenly than any one else, the true meaning of the words:
"When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.""