Read the book: «Best Loved Hymns and Readings»
Best
Loved
Hymns,
Poems &
Readings
Compiled by
Martin H. Manser
Associate Editor: David H. Pickering
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Introduction
Abide with me
Adam and Eva
Adonais
Afterwards
All creatures of our God and King
All people that on earth do dwell
All things bright and beautiful
All we like sheep
Amazing grace
And can it be?
Away in a manger
Be baptized
Be still, my soul
Be Thou my vision
Blessed are the poor in spirit
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine
Blood, toil, tears and sweat
Breathe on me, Breath of God
The burning bush
Christ, the Lord, is risen today
Christ triumphant
The Church’s one foundation
Come, ye thankful people, come
Come down, O love divine
Come live with me and be my love
Crossing the bar
Crown Him with many crowns
Daniel in the lions’ den
David and Goliath
The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended
Dear Lord and Father of mankind
Death, be not proud
Death is nothing at all
Do not go gentle into that good night
Do not stand at my grave and weep
Do not worry
Drink to me only with thine eyes
Each eve Earth falleth down the dark
Eternal Father, strong to save
Faith, hope, and love
Far above rubies
Father, hear the prayer we offer
A father’s advice to his son
Fight the good fight
For all the saints
For everything there is a season
For I dipt into the future
For the beauty of the earth
For unto us a child is born
Friends, Romans, countrymen
Give a man a horse
Glorious things of thee are spoken
God be in my head
God is our refuge and strength
God moves in a mysterious way
God save the queen
God’s grandeur
The Good Samaritan
Great is thy faithfulness
Guide me, O Thou great Redeemer
Hallelujah, what a Saviour!
Hark! the herald-angels sing
Hills of the north, rejoice
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty
Home, sweet home
Home-thoughts, from abroad
The hound of heaven
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
How great Thou art!
How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
I am the good shepherd
I am the resurrection and the life
I felt my heart strangely warmed
I run toward the prize
I’ve found a friend
I vow to thee, my country
I wandered lonely as a cloud
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills
I will raise him up at the last day
If
If I should go before the rest of you
Immortal, invisible, God only wise
In Memoriam
In my house are many mansions
In the beginning
Invictus
Jerusalem
Jerusalem the golden
Jesus Christ is risen today
Jesus loves me
Jesus shall reign
Joy to the world
Just as I am
The King of love my Shepherd is
The Lake isle of Innisfree
Land of hope and glory
Land of my fathers
Last lines
Lead, kindly light
Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us
Let the little children come to me
Let us now praise famous men
Let us, with a gladsome mind
The Listeners
The Lord is my shepherd
Lord of all hopefulness
The Lord’s Prayer
Loud is the vale
Love alters not
Love divine, all loves excelling
Love lives beyond the tomb
Love seeketh not itself to please
Make me a channel of your peace
Many waters cannot quench love
May the road rise to meet you
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
Miss me – but let me go
Morning has broken
My God, how wonderful Thou art
My song is love unknown
Nearer, my God, to thee
A new heaven and a new earth
No coward soul is mine
No man is an island
No room at the inn
No single thing abides
The noblest Roman of them all
Now thank we all our God
O captain! my captain!
O come, all ye faithful
O come, O come, Emmanuel
O death, where is thy sting?
O for a closer walke with god
O for a heart to praise my God
O for a thousand tongues to sing
O God, our help in ages past
O Jesus, I have promised
O little town of Bethlehem
O love divine
O may I join the choir invisible
O Thou who camest from above
The old rugged cross
The Old Vicarage, Grantchester
Once in royal David’s city
Once more unto the breach, dear friends
Onward, Christian soldiers
Our revels now are ended
The parable of the Sower
Pippa passes
Praise, my soul, the King of heaven
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
Prayer for generosity
The Prodigal Son
The quality of mercy is not strained
The race is not to the swift
A red, red rose
Rejoice, the Lord is King
Remember me when I am gone away
Remembrance of things past
Requiem
Resurrection hope
The road to Emmaus
Rock of ages
Rule Britannia
Say not the struggle naught availeth
Search me, O God, and know my heart
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day
The shepherd boy sings in the valley of humiliation
Silent night
The Soldier
Soldiers of Christ, arise
The Song of Solomon
Stand up! stand up for Jesus
Stone walls do not a prison make
Sweet spirit, comfort me
Swing low, sweet chariot
Take my life, and let it be
Tell me not, in mournful numbers
Tell me the old, old story
Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord
There is a green hill far away
There is no death!
There is therefore now no condemnation
There’ll always be an England
They shall not grow old
Thine be the glory
Those who are first will be last
The three wise men
Through all the changing scenes of life
Till the sun grows cold
To a good man of most dear memory
To God be the glory
To his coy mistress
To the virgins, to make much of time
To thine own self be true
Trust and obey
Turn the other cheek
Vitaï Lampada
We brought nothing into this world
We plough the fields, and scatter
We rest on Thee
We shall fight them on the beaches
The wedding at Cana
Were you there?
What a friend we have in Jesus
What is man?
What God has joined together, let no one separate
When I am dead, my dearest
When I survey the wondrous cross
When my hour is come
Where you go I will go
While shepherds watched their flocks by night
Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
Who would true valour see
Whoever welcomes one such child
Wives and husbands
The wolf shall live with the lamb
The Word became flesh
Author Index
Index of Bible references
Index of first lines
Index of themes
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
This collection of Best-loved Hymns and Readings has been compiled as a resource for personal devotion and also as a reference work. It will be useful for making selections for such services as weddings, Christenings, or funerals. You will find here many favourite and traditional hymns, poems, readings, and extracts from the Bible (e.g., ‘Amazing Grace’ and Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan), together with less familiar ones (e.g., Shakespeare’s ‘The quality of mercy is not strained’). Each hymn, reading, poem, etc., is given an introduction which sets its background or gives interesting or helpful information. All the readings are arranged in alphabetical order of title (ignoring ‘A’ or ‘The’ at the beginning of a title). For ease of reference there are also indexes at the end of the book to enable you to find a particular item by reference to its first line, its author, its overall theme or, where appropriate, its Bible reference.
These extracts have been compiled in the hope that they will provide inspiration and encouragement both for everyday life and also at times of particular need and on special occasions.
Martin H. Manser
Abide with me
Henry Francis Lyte was vicar of the fishing port of Brixham, Devon, and wrote a number of greatly loved hymns, of which ‘Abide with me’ is perhaps the most celebrated. He wrote it shortly after his last sermon, knowing that his own death (at the premature age of 54) was imminent, having been diagnosed with tuberculosis.
In 1915 Nurse Edith Cavell famously derived strength from this hymn by singing it in her cell the night before she was executed by a German firing squad. Today it is also a great favourite with crowds at football matches.
The original reference is to Luke 24:29, which runs ‘Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.’
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, oh, abide with me!
Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see:
O Thou, who changest not, abide with me!
I need Thy presence every passing hour;
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me!
I fear no foe with Thee at hand to bless:
Ills have no weight and tears no bitterness:
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still if Thou abide with me.
Hold then Thy cross before my closing eyes!
Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies!
Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee:
In life and death, O Lord, abide with me!
Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847)
Adam and Eva
This passage from. Genesis 2:18-24 is sometimes used as a Bible reading at weddings. It illustrates the mutual companionship and interdependence that exist in a marriage relationship.
Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.’ Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Adonais
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s lament for fellow-poet John Keats ranks among his most celebrated poetic works. Written in 1821 in response to the news of Keats’s premature death from consumption in Rome, it is often quoted in part or in full at funerals (the extracts below comprise the more famous passages).
Many have commented upon the melancholy prescience of the final stanza in which Shelley describes how his own spirit is ‘driven far from the shore’: the following year he was himself drowned in a sudden storm while sailing in the bay of Lerici.
Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep;
He hath awakened from the dream of life.
‘Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
And in mad trance, strike with out spirit’s knife
Invulnerable nothings. We decay
Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief
Convulse us and consume day by day,
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.
He has outsoared the shadow of our night;
Envy and calumny and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again;
From the contagion of the world’s slow stain
He is secure, and now can never mourn
A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain;
Nor, when the spirit’s self has ceased to burn,
With sparkles ashes load an unlamented urn.
He is made one with Nature; there is heard
His voice in all her music, from the moan
Of thunder to the song of night’s sweet bird;
He is a presence to be felt and known
In darkness and in light, from herb and stone,
Spreading itself where’er that Power may move
Which has withdrawn his being to its own;
Which wields the world with never-wearied love,
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.
He is a portion of the loveliness
Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear
His part, while the one Spirit’s plastic stress
Sweeps through the dull, dense world, compelling there
All new successions to the forms they wear,
Torturing th’ unwilling dross that checks its flight
To its own likeness, as each mass may bear,
And bursting in its beauty and its might
From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven’s light.
The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven’s light for ever shines, Earth’s shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments. Die,
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!
Follow where all is fled! Rome’s azure sky,
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.
That Light whose smile kindles the Universe,
That Beauty in which all things work and move,
That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
Which, through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.
The breath whose might I have invoked in song
Descends on me; my spirit’s bark is driven
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven!
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;
Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,
The soul of Adonais, like a star,
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
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