How shall I sing that majesty

It was not until the 20th c that this wondering, wonderful hymn by the little-known visionary John Mason began to feature among the church’s hymns. Its full 12-stz text had appeared as no. 1 in the author’s Spiritual Songs in 1683, and his Songs of Praise in 1694—perhaps the first use of this title, by a collection which enjoyed 20 edns. Both books were compiled at Water Stratford, a village near Buckingham, where he was the rector. EH can be credited with the rediscovery and re-emergence of this text. Commenting on its appearance in the later SP, Percy Dearmer wrote, ‘The whole weakness of Victorian hymnody may be summed up in the fact that this great hymn … had not even come into the index of Julian’s Dictionary of 1891, though over 400,000 hymns had been examined.’ Two lines of information did reach the supplement to Julian in 1907. For comparison, even Conder’s How shall I follow him I serve has 16 lines of detail. That too is a question; J R Watson points out that Mason’s ‘How shall I … Who am I?’ is not unlike his senior contemporary Crossman’s ‘Who am I?’ (in 403); he might have added Binney’s ‘How shall I … ?’ (243) or Wesley’s ‘Where shall my … ?’(751).

For most of the 1900s the expected tunes were SOLL’S SEIN, THIRD MODE MELODY or KINGSFOLD. But, said Robert Willis in 2001, ‘These words had to wait 300 years for COE FEN’. Lionel Dakers, writing in Beauty Beyond Words (2000) describes Kenneth Naylor’s music as ‘Now firmly established as one of the great tunes of the twentieth century. It does everything a hymn tune ideally should do in terms of melody and harmony, and with an unerring sense of climax where needed … Although the words in themselves are demanding, how transformed they become when linked with this fine music!’ (p20). It was published with the words in Praise and Thanksgiving (1985); the composer had been music master at The Leys School, Cambridge, which Coe Fen adjoins.

b ?Irchester, nr Rushden, Northants, c1646, d Water Stratford, Bucks 1694. Strixton Sch, Northants; Clare Hall, Cambridge. Following ordination he became curate of Isham, nr Kettering, Northants; in 1668, Vicar of Stantonbury, nr Newport Pagnell, Bucks; and in 1673, Rector of Water-Stratford nr Buckingham. Here he completed the often ‘astonishing’ Spiritual Songs, or Songs of Praise to Almighty God upon Several Occasions, published in 1683 with 69 hymn texts and needing some 20 further edns. To the hymns he added a full metrical paraphrase of the Song of Songs, in CM rhyming abab. Congregational hymns were at that time neither usual nor legal in the CofE; whether or not these were sung at Isham, in which case they would be among the first to be so used, they were certainly appreciated by the Free Churches. Watts and the Wesleys admired them, while Baxter called him ‘the glory of the Church of England’. Following a vision he experienced c1690, or alternatively a month before his death, he preached an urgent sermon (which he published 1691), ‘The Midnight Cry’, on the parable of the wise and foolish virgins (Matt 25). This led many to suppose, with him, that the return of Christ was both imminent and local. Mason no longer held Communion services, and though the expected events did not take place the mood of expectation and the awe in which Mason was held continued for some years after his death. The hymn for which he is now best known, and placed at no.1 in his own collection, was not noticed in Julian (though Mason’s life and other works are outlined), and like most of his work was ‘hardly sung at all before the 20thc editors discovered him’ (Routley). Its recent popularity is largely due to its inclusion in EH in 1906, renewed afresh by Kenneth Naylor’s tune; see notes. Mason also wrote the earlier (1683) and similarly remarkable hymn My Lord, my Love, was crucified; also I’ve found the pearl of greatest price, Now from the altar of our hearts, The world can neither give nor take and There is a stream, which issues forth, all in CM. His texts are seldom less than arresting: ‘ 7 of them found a place in Spurgeon’s Our Own Hymn Book (1866): Minutes and mercies multiplied/ have made up all this day;/ minutes come quick, but mercies were/ more swift and free than they’. His Select Remains were published by Mason’s grandson, also John; this mixture of letters and practical counsels was highly regarded by Isaac Watts. It is a pity than his known humility, preaching and prayerfulness (‘a light in the pulpit and a pattern out of it’) should be overshadowed by the sensational close, and great anticlimax, of his life. No.247.