[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] ever come across have
liked to express their praise and worship in song, and they can render almost anything in that old col- lection con motto brio. I took..some of my parishioners once to a very beautiful cathedral service, and we listened, along- with a thousand other people to a perfect choir rendering
modern hymns (or, at least, hymns.we didn't know), to what I am sure were very beautiful settings. We all came away. a little disgruntled; because we had been unable to join in, and it isn't at all the same thing to praise and worship God by
Troxy. How we might have startled the angels if the thousand of us had just been given one old favourite out of A. and M. I hate the modern organists and people who look down on us simple folk rather as Michal looked down on the dancing David, because we like to stretch our lungs A.M.D.G.
Another thing. I've joined with sailors in the Straits, in the Indian Ocean, in China and Japan, in singing Hymns A.
and M., and for all of us those old words and tunes meant home, as nothing else could: I would even go so far as to say that the fundamental simplicity and genuine goodness of the Naval rating is bound up as much with Hymns A. and M. (which he sings almost every morning of every commission), as with anything else connected with the Chaplain's depart- ment. I am aware that even in my-time we were supplied with the English Hyninal, but every Bandmaster carries a copy of Hymns A. and M., and its tunes are the only ones used. The card hymns used every day are still entirely taken from A. and M. I remember a Bandmaster who played the " wrong tune " to For all the Saints. Hardly a voice was raised. And the Commander said to me afterwards : " Never have that awful tune again, padre. I used to sing the old time every morning for two years biking dosirn to the Gunnery School. It's the only piece of music I've ever got into my head, and.I shall never like any Other.'
And isn't " Hymn 18 "—Hail Gladdening Light—the most lovely. evening hymn ever written? And it's only to be found in Hymns A. and M.—Yours very truly, Pampisford Vicarage, Cambridge. AUSTIN LEE
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