Father in heaven

The seminal, multicultural and best-selling East Asia Christian Conference Hymnal of 1964 (renamed the Christian Conference of Asia Hymnal in 1973/74) was the first to publish this strikingly succinct Trinitarian prayer by its General Editor and General Secretary of the Conference. Dr Daniel T Niles wrote it for the Philippine folk-style tune HALAD (‘offering’) composed by Prof Elena G Maquiso in 1961, with which it was first printed. The 6 instances of ‘thy, thee thine’ were changed to ‘your, you, yours’ in Australian and other books from 1968 onwards; the text had no archaic verbs. ‘Most Trinitarian hymns’, it has been said, ‘aim to avoid heresy and convey mystery. This one does not stand apart from the Trinity, but relates as in a familiar way to the Triune God’.

HTC placed this text at 2, opting for John Barnard’s HARROW WEALD and printing FELMERSHAM by Paul Edwards at 1, with George Timms’ text Father eternal, Lord of the ages for which the Edwards tune was written. Curiously, Archdeacon Timms had written his 4-stz hymn for the original tune; his text was preferred to that of Dr Niles (partly for reasons of cost) by those who with him edited English Praise (1975) and the New English Hymnal (1986), but then Arthur Hutchings’ new tune GEORGE was provided. Meanwhile HTC included the texts side by side, both with new tunes. Continuing the series of borrowings, Praise! adopts Paul Edwards’ tune here, composed 8 Oct 1981, first published in HTC, and according to the composer ‘named after one of the finest churches in North Bedfordshire’. (‘A Home Counties rarity … thrilling’, agrees Simon Jenkins, who gives it three stars in England’s Thousand Best Churches, 1999.) To recap: here is a tune (FELMERSHAM) composed for other words (Father eternal) which were written for another tune (HALAD) for which these words (Father in heaven) were written. Meanwhile the Timms words and the Maquiso, Barnard and Hutchings tunes have dropped out of the frame—not to mention Maquiso’s own words in the Cebuano dialect (Bless our offering) which deserve credit for unwittingly initiating the whole process. Other hymnals retain Maquiso’s tune in order to maintain an authentic Asian sound.

b Telipallai, Sri Lanka 1908, d Vellore, S India 1970. Univ of Ceylon (law); ordained to the Methodist ministry in 1932. He became a Local Minister and Circuit Superintendent, Chairman of N Ceylon District Synod, then from 1968 President of the Ceylon Methodist Conference. He was Sec at various times of the national SCM, YMCA and Christian Council, and became an international missionary statesman and worker for church unity, promoting Bible study and evangelism through the World YMCA, World Council of Churches, and World Student Christian Federation. From 1957 he was Gen Sec of the East Asia Christian Conference; and President from 1968; also General Editor of its 1964 hymnal (later renamed the Asia Christian Conference Hymnal). Through this book he circulated many new Indian and other Asian hymns, some of which in paraphrase reached a global audience. His many other books included 3 short essays on Genesis, rich in quotation, published in the UK in 1958 as In the Beginning, where he pleaded for ‘a re-discovery of the faith of the Bible’. His book concludes, ‘Bethel was set in the path of the sinner. Bethlehem is the fulfilment of Bethel for every sinner now’. 44 of his hymn texts, translations etc, featured in the Asian hymnal. His most popular version to date has probably been the verses from Elena G Maquiso’s Philippine text c1961, Father in heaven, grant to your children; this is one of his 3 texts in the 2005 edn of A Panorama of Christian Hymnody. No.154.