I cried out to God to help me

‘Has God forgotten to be gracious?’; another cry from the heart, with both biblical roots and timeless relevance. The Psalm, continuing a sequence ascribed to Asaph (73–83), was put into metre by David Preston for Praise! c1996, with a few revisions in 1998. Along with Psalm 74 and 79, it was a text which he ‘had long wanted to put into English verse’. Other options for endings to the 3rd and 4th stzs were eventually discarded. For answers, comfort and hope, the Psalm and its paraphrase draw on the Exodus story which was Israel’s constant inspiration, as a major factor in its God-given national consciousness. Michael Perry has a similar first line (but different metre) from 1990, I cried out for heaven to hear me. The author has again rediscovered a Welsh tune; CEFN MAWR, published in the 1929 Llyfr Emynau a Thonau, is hardly known among English hymnbooks any more than is its composer Wilfrid Jones, who had 2 other tunes in that collection (see also 27A and 73).

b London 1939. d 2020. Archbishop Tenison’s Grammar School, Kennington, London; Keble College Oxford (MA Mod Langs.) He worked as a French Teacher, including 11 years at Ahmadu Bello Univ, Nigeria, and gained a PhD on the French Christian poet Pierre Emmanuel (1916 84). A member of Carey Baptist Ch, Reading, for many years, he later moved to Alweston, nr Sherborne, Dorset. He compiled The Book of Praises (Carey Publications, Liverpool) in 1987, with versions of 71 Psalms; these include modified texts of Watts and a few other classic paraphrasers, but most are by contemporary writers including himself. 60 of his metrical Psalm versions are so far published, including one each in Sing Glory (2000), the Scottish Church Hymnary 4th Edn (2005) and Sing Praise (2010), and 3 in the 2004 edn of CH; also 10 tunes. His writing and composing has taken place in Leicester, Reading, Nigeria and his present home; he was a member of the editorial board throughout the preparation of Praise! and had a major share in the choice of music for the Psalm texts (1-150). His convictions about the Psalms, as expressed in the Introduction to BP, are that ‘There is nothing to compare with their blend of the subjective and the objective, the inner life and practical goodness, the knowledge of one’s own rebellious heart and the knowledge of God…Today’s general neglect of congregational Psalm singing is a symptom of the spiritual malaise of our churches. When the preaching of the Gospel has prospered, bringing into being churches vibrant with spiritual life, men and women have taken great delight in praising their Maker and Redeemer through these scriptural hymns’. 15 of his own, self-selected, feature as his share of ‘contemporary hymns’ in the 2009 Come Celebrate; he has also served as a meticulous proof-reader. Nos.1, 2A, 5*, 6, 7, 11, 15, 16, 17, 19A, 24A, 27A, 30B, 32*, 33*, 38, 40, 42, 43, 47, 51*, 52, 55, 57*, 64, 66, 74, 76, 77, 84, 90, 91A, 96*, 97, 99, 100B, 101, 114*, 120, 126, 132, 139, 142*, 143, 145A, 147*, 824*, 830*, 963*.