Are hymns capa­ble of being a sub­lime art-form? Or does the Dev­il have the best tunes? Well, cer­tain­ly, we might dis­miss the arche­type of the mod­ern folk-derived “wor­ship song”, fee­bly crooned to the accom­pa­ni­ment of a strummed gui­tar, but how about the con­tents of the clas­sic Hymns Ancient & Mod­ern from the hey­day of Vic­to­ri­an hymnody?

Many of these paeans come across to mod­ern ears as some­what plod­ding and, pep­pered as they so often are with that staunch­ly God-fear­ing lyri­cism laid down by the likes of Charles Wes­ley, strict­ly for die-hard Methodists.

How­ev­er, most peo­ple tend to con­nect with at least one hymn from their youth that stirs their spir­it, be it Abide With Me, I Vow To Thee My Coun­try, or that oth­er hardy peren­ni­al, Amaz­ing Grace. One such hymn that I con­tend is capa­ble of sub­lime heights is Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, the won­der­ful mar­riage of Hubert Parry’s 1888 music writ­ten for Rep­ton School in Der­byshire and words tak­en from John Leaf Whittier’s 1872 poem, The Brew­ing of Soma.

The title of that poem may appear odd; the “soma” of the title was a sacred drink in the Vedic reli­gion with hal­lu­cino­genic prop­er­ties and which was used by devo­tees in an attempt to expe­ri­ence divin­i­ty (cf. the “ide­al plea­sure drug”, soma, of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World). Whit­tier’s point is that one doesn’t need an exter­nal agent to expe­ri­ence divin­i­ty; all one needs is to lis­ten to the “small, still voice” inside and to live the sober, self­less lives as prac­tised by the Quak­ers to whom he was aligned.

Be that as it may, it’s when words and music com­bine in the hands (or throats) of a decent choir that the music comes alive. Joe Wright’s film, Atone­ment, has an acclaimed five-minute track­ing shot depict­ing war-torn Dunkirk dur­ing which we begin to hear a choir of sol­diers, in a bat­tered band­stand, singing Dear Lord and Father of Mankind. An effec­tive and iron­ic poignan­cy aris­es from the jux­ta­po­si­tion of the bleak and des­per­ate scene with the rous­ing majesty of the hymn.

In that spir­it I present a love­ly ver­sion of the hymn, sung excel­lent­ly by the choir of the Abbey School, Tewkes­bury, set, in sim­i­lar jux­ta­po­si­tion, to footage from the Great War.

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
for­give our fool­ish ways;
reclothe us in our right­ful mind,
in pur­er lives thy ser­vice find,
in deep­er rev­er­ence, praise.

In sim­ple trust like theirs who heard,
beside the Syr­i­an sea,
the gra­cious call­ing of the Lord,
let us, like them, with­out a word,
rise up and fol­low thee.

O Sab­bath rest by Galilee,
O calm of hills above,
where Jesus knelt to share with thee
the silence of eter­ni­ty,
inter­pret­ed by love!

Drop thy still dews of quiet­ness,
till all our striv­ings cease;
take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives con­fess
the beau­ty of thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
thy cool­ness and thy balm;
let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
speak through the earth­quake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm.