Father, although I cannot see

‘I cannot see … give me faith’; ‘We walk by faith, not by sight’. The hymn by John Eddison, written while he was a staff worker with Scripture Union, was published first in the 1980 SU book Songs of Worship. It aptly illustrates 2 Corinthians 5:7, as well as quoting part of Romans 8:28 (which heads the hymn in SOW) and putting it all in fresh and practical terms. 3.1 originally read ‘And so, whate’er …’, and as changed by agreement for HTC and subsequently. The origins of the text go back to some lines written on a train journey by the author during the 2nd world war; the windows were heavily misted-up and he could see very little through them, which turned his thoughts to the spiritual analogy expressed in his words.

Robin Sheldon’s DOWNLAND accompanied the text on its first publication, followed by Norman Warren’s MORDEN (936, a deliberately ‘wandering’ tune—NLW) in HTC and other books. The present editors, however, looked for something different again, and in response to their request, Gill Berry composed ELIDIR at Shrewsbury in April 1999. She wondered ‘whether the music would be considered too syncopated for inclusion …’; but clearly it was not. It is first published here, was recorded on the 2nd Praise! CD, and included with its text in CH in 2004. The name is one of the ‘14 peaks’ in Snowdonia, near which the composer and her husband lived for the first few years of their marriage.

b Derbyshire 1916, d Lingfield, Surrey 2011. Wellington Coll, Trinity Coll Cambridge (MA, History) and Ridley Hall Cambridge; ordained (CofE) 1939. After a curacy at Tunbridge Wells he was a Travelling Secretary for Scripture Union from 1942 80, retiring in 1981 and living in Crowborough, Sussex. Much of that time was filled with a nationwide ministry among schoolboys, both in school (where his gift for the apt illustration kept him in demand as a preacher) and in the Christian camps and holiday houseparties he helped to organise. Of nearly 30 publications on Christian faith and life, some translated into other languages, his first was Newness of Life and among the best known Step by Step and Who Died Why. In 1983 he edited and introduced A Study in Spiritual Power, an appreciation of E J H Nash, founder of the ‘Bash’ camps for boys (new edn 1992) and in 1986 he wrote The Last Lap (on ‘retirement and the latter years: a time of opportunity’). His gift for writing comic verse, sometimes gently satirical, was exercised well into old age. When he came to need more support he moved into the College of St Barnabas at Lingfield, Surrey, for Anglican clergy, where John R W Stott, a friend for more than 70 years, was later to join him. He died peacefully there on 10 May 2011.

John Eddison wrote several hymn-texts from the early 1940s onwards (well before the ‘hymn-explosion’!), soon moving from ‘thee-language’ to ‘you’. Seven were included in the supplement Songs of Worship, 1980, notably ‘At the cross of Jesus I would take my place’, and ‘Father, although I cannot see/ the future you have planned’. Both have also featured, as here, in full-scale hymn-books, the latter with at least three new tunes; his obituary in HSB (July 2011) noted that ‘both are notable for their clarity and simplicity of language, well-honed by his lifelong ministry among a much younger generation, with a total absence of conscious cleverness but with all the marks of a mind and heart steeped in the scriptures’. Nos.414, 870.