Then I saw a new heaven and earth

Some readers turn first to the end of the paper, or to the last page of a book—for different reasons. One new Christian, reading the Bible through, is said to have encouraged a struggling friend by saying ‘Don’t worry; I’ve got to the end; and we win!’ So Praise! concludes with 976, which is its 999th item. This is firmly focused on the Book of Revelation, the city of God and the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and whose name is Jesus. Christopher Idle drafted the words during the final work on Psalm Praise; they were written in 1972 at what was then St Matthias’ Vicarage in Poplar High Street, E London. Based on Revelation 21–22, they were initially sketched out without rhyme (as was sometimes the habit of the writers of this group) but soon made more compact in rhyming form; after some very late editorial fine-tuning they were published in PsP the next year. There it was the last of 5 ‘Revelation canticles’ placed between fresh versions of the Prayer Book ones and the newly-paraphrased Psalms; they included what in Praise! are 488 and 497, by Timothy Dudley-Smith. Since then the hymn text has featured in some dozen other books in Britain and the USA. The text has seemed strangely vulnerable to printing or proofing gremlins; 2.3 should have ‘crying’; 3.4, ‘on deceit …’; and stz 5, ‘sacred throne’ and ‘healing leaves’, as in Praise!

Although for want of other tunes the author had A STORY FOR THE NATION in mind when drafting the words, and British and American composers have offered more new ones, Norman Warren’s EMILY’S DREAM has indisputably had much to do with the hymn’s wide acceptance. Formerly known as NEW HEAVEN, it was written while he watched two of his children at swimming lesson at Leamington Spa in Warwicks. ‘As I read the words’, he says, ‘it was almost as if a door had opened and I was caught up with a vision of heaven. The melody and harmony came immediately. I had some manuscript paper in my pocket, wrote the music down in five minutes, and did not have to alter a note.’ The composer was at that time vicar of St Paul’s Leamington. He later renamed the tune after his granddaughter; see also EMILY’S SONG at 36, for words (as it happens) by the same author. Words and music appeared together in PsP. Though hardly planned as such, it is surely appropriate that the final line of text in this present book includes ‘praise’, and that the last word of all should be ‘grace’.

b Bromley, Kent 1938. Eltham Coll, St Peter’s Coll Oxford (BA, English), Clifton Theol Coll Bristol; ordained in 1965 to a Barrow-in-Furness curacy. He spent 30 years in CofE parish ministry, some in rural Suffolk, mainly in inner London (Peckham, Poplar and Limehouse). Author of over 300 hymn texts, mainly Scripture based, collected in Light upon the River (1998) and Walking by the River (2008), Trees along the River (2018), and now appearing in some 300 books and other publications; see also the dedication of EP1 (p3) to his late wife Marjorie. He served on 5 editorial groups from Psalm Praise (1973) to Praise!; his writing includes ‘Grove’ booklets Hymns in Today’s Language (1982) and Real Hymns, Real Hymn Books (2000), and The Word we preach, the words we sing (Reform, 1998). He edited the quarterly News of Hymnody for 10 years, and briefly the Bulletin of the Hymn Society, on whose committee he served at various times between 1984 and 2006; and addressed British and American Hymn Socs. Until 1996 he often exchanged draft texts with Michael Perry (qv) for mutual criticism and encouragement. From 1995 he was engaged in educational work and writing from home in Peckham, SE London, until retirement in 2003; following his return to Bromley after a gap of 40 years, he has attended Holy Trinity Ch Bromley Common and Hayes Lane Baptist Ch. Owing much to the Proclamation Trust, he also belongs to the Anglican societies Crosslinks and Reform, together with CND and the Christian pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation. A former governor of 4 primary schools, he has also written songs for school assemblies set to familiar tunes, and (in 2004) Grandpa’s Amazing Poems and Awful Pictures. His bungalow is smoke-free, alcohol-free, car-free, gun-free and TV-free. Nos.13, 18, 21, 23A, 24B, 27B, 28, 31, 35, 36, 37, 48, 50, 68, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 85, 89, 92, 95, 102, 108, 109, 114, 118, 119A, 121A, 125, 128, 131, 145B, 157, 176, 177, 193*, 313*, 333, 339, 388, 392, 420, 428, 450, 451, 463, 478, 506, 514, 537, 548, 551, 572, 594, 597, 620, 621, 622, 636, 668, 669, 693, 747, 763, 819, 914, 917, 920, 945, 954, 956, 968, 976, 1003, 1012, 1084, 1098, 1138, 1151, 1158, 1159, 1178, 1179, 1181, 1201, 1203, 1204, 1205, 1209, 1210, 1211, 1212, 1221, 1227, 1236, 1237, 1244, 1247, 5017, 5018, 5019, 5020.