Songs of prayer and praise

The Church of Scotland has recently published a new edition of its hymnary, the first for 30 years. A committee of ministers had the difficult task of deciding which of the old hymns to reject in order to make room for the new songs — many of them from Africa and South America — which have ‘enlivened worship’ over the last few decades. John Bell, who convened the committee, tells us in his introduction that the aim was ‘to combine the best of the new hymnary with the cherished and rich tradition that had nourished and sustained previous generations, and so sound forth the eternal gospel in a world constantly changing in customs and culture’. Bell is himself a distinguished composer and hymn-writer. Among his contributions is the accompaniment to a Zimbabwean hymn, based on a traditional English folk tune.

The Hymnary begins with a section devoted to psalms, many of them metrical, and continues with hymns arranged ‘according to aspects of faith and life which closely correspond to the three persons of the Trinity’.