5 OCTOBER 1951, Page 5

The compilers of the new B.B.C. hymn-book have taken licence

to amend some hymns and abbreviate others. The familiar "O'er heathen lands afar

Thick darkness broodeth yet" becomes the rather flat "O'er lands both near and far,"

and the apparently impermissible word is perhaps responsible for the total omission of the familiar "From Greenland's icy mountains," with the heathen in his blindness bowing down to wood and stone. For the curtailment of Faber's "My God, how wonderful thou art," there is something to be said if the reason was that the missing last verse, "What rapture will it be

Prostrate before thy throne to lie And gaze and gaze on thee " represents an aspiration after the physically impracticable ; " prostrate " means lying face downwards.