On Jordan's bank the baptist's cry

To the surprise of many, this further adapted paraphrase did not appear in HTC in 1982, an omission corrected in its 2nd edn (1987). This time the Lat is identifiably from the French author Charles Coffin; it comes in a 1736 Paris Breviary (another hymn for early morning Lauds on Sundays in Advent) and in the writer’s own Hymni Sacri in the same year. The next stage comes with John Chandler’s version, or something like it, in the first A&M. It was Michael Perry who drafted the HTC modernisation; the ascription to Word and Music refers to the small quarterly ‘Gallery for New Writing’ which he launched and edited in the 1980s, and where this first appeared. Again, many variations are in current use. While ‘nigh’ is retained in line 2 for the sake of familiarity, 1.3–4 replace the traditional ‘Awake and hearken … glad tidings of the King of kings’; and 2.1, ‘Then cleansed be every breast from sin’. But if we were to go back to Chandler, far more lines would be unfamiliar to many who now sing the hymn; for example, ‘Stretch out thine hand to heal our sore …’ Whichever text is preferred, the hymn remains an obvious choice on a theme which until recently has not produced other hymns of similar scope or weight.

This last feature is enhanced by the now general use of WINCHESTER NEW. This tune began life in Hamburg in 1690, as a melody in George Wittwe’s Musikalisches Hand-Buch der Geistlichen Melodien …; Freylinghausen’s 1704 book took it further, from where John Wesley introduced it to England in his ‘Foundery’ collection of 1742. In 1754 George Whitefield set it in triple time and named it WINCHESTER NEW TUNE; the former feature survived only in Scotland (as EFFINGHAM), but the name proved more widely acceptable, the present form of name and music coming in Old Church Psalmody edited by W H Havergal in 1847. In A&M (1861) it was set to this hymn and to 3 others. CH, which omits this hymn, uses the tune 3 times including its familiar pairing with Ride on, ride on. Gary Miles’ rhythmic but so far unnamed tune from c1974 featured in Sound of Living Waters published in that year.

b Witley, nr Godalming, Surrey 1806, d Putney, Surrey (SW London) 1876. Corpus Christi Coll Oxford (BA 1827, then a Fellow). Ordained (CofE) 1831, to be curate of Witley before succeeding his father, John F Chandler, as its Vicar, thus remaining in the same parish all his life. In 1837 he published his significant pioneer work, Hymns of the Primitive Church, now first Collected, Translated, and Arranged: 108 hymns in Lat and English, most from the 1736 Paris Breviary, with additional items. In this he was a pioneer like Isaac Williams, whose example encouraged him some years before J M Neale’s work 30 miles to the west. A further collection appeared 4 years later, with a similar title but pruned and much revised. 30 such texts have been included in various edns of A&M, with 7 in the current one, Common Praise 2000. Julian observed that sometimes ‘doctrinal difficulties are either evaded or softened down’, but in this Chandler was hardly unique. He also compiled Horae Sacrae: Prayers and Meditations from the writings of the Divines of the Anglican Church (1844), as well as tracts, other books of prayers and in 1842 a biography of William of Wykeham (1324–1404). Nos.226, 316, 348.

b Buzancy, Ardennes, France 1676, d Paris 1749. From 1712 he was principal of the Coll of Dormans-Beauvais, Univ of Paris, and in 1718 he became Rector of the University. Many of his (Lat) hymns appeared in the 1736 Paris Breviary, the RC liturgical book with the cycle of readings and hymns etc. In that year he (?re-)published his own volume with 100 texts. This was the time of a mini-explosion of counterreformation hymnwriting in W Europe in general and France in particular. A collected volume was published posthumously in 1755, and in 1838 J H Newman edited the breviary. Coffin’s main English translators have been John Chandler and Isaac Williams; various edns of A&M have used versions, whole or in part, of 25 of his hymns. No.348.