• THANKSGIVING SERVICES.
[To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—Referring to the above services held all over the Empire last Sunday, I have been much impressed with the appropriateness to the occasion of the 124th Psalm "Metrical Version" as used by the Scottish Presbyterian Churches. In the country church at the service I attended this psalm was sung as the opening act of worship; and it is safe to say that it would be sung in the majority of the churches throughout Scotland at this service. The tune to which it is set is so well known that the psalm is always sung heartily, and the effect is very impressive. As this version may not be familiar to English readers of the Spectator, it might interest some of them at least if you will insert it. It begins and ends as follows :
" Now Israel may say, and that truly, If that the Lord had not our cause maintain'd; If that the Lord had not our right sustain'd, When cruel men against us furiously Rose up in wrath to make of us their prey : Ev'n as a bird Out of the fowler's snare Escapes away,
so is our soul set free;
Broke are their nets, and thus escaped we.
Therefore.our help is in the Lord's great name, Who heav'n and earth by his great pow'r did frame."
To some the words may seem rough and uncouth, but I venture to assert that none of our hymns, either ancient or modern, fits the occasion of Thanksgiving for Victory half so well as this grand old psalm.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Royal Exchange, Glasgow. Josar ROSSSILle
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