WE, as a nation, have laid our monarch of 70 years, Queen Elizabeth II, to rest. For many, the numerous televised services offered for her will have brought back personal memories of funerals past. During the period of national mourning these and many other services have been permeated with well-known hymns dedicated to funerals and memorials, sung with both a smile and a tear. But when we turn open the pages of our hymn books or service sheets to find the announced hymns, how often do we notice the names of the writers/composers? Do we ever wonder who these people were and why they wrote what they did? These were real people who, for a variety of reasons and differing circumstances, felt called upon to express their faith and feelings through the medium of hymn, poetry, or prayer. In looking more deeply into the writer we can discover what tremendous blessing and encouragement can be ours through understanding why a particular piece came to be written.

Music and poetry have always been part of our means of expressing our worship and relationship with God. In the Christian church there are hymns of praise and thanksgiving which uplift the heart; hymns of testimony and witness proclaiming God’s truth; hymns that anticipate heaven, and some hymns which are associated with special occasions such as Christmas, Easter, weddings, and funerals.

We may think that it is only in today’s church that young people complain about outdated and boring hymns! When as a teenager Isaac Watts did just that to his father, a leading deacon of the church, he said: ‘Alright then young man, you give us something better’. Accepting his father’s challenge, he eventually wrote a total of more than 600 hymns, earning himself the title ‘father of church hymnody’. Among those hymns remembered today are ‘Oh God our help in ages past’, ‘Joy to the world’ and ‘When I survey the wondrous cross’.

One of the most well-known hymns, associated with a special occasion, and which is often sung at funerals (and Rugby League Finals!) expresses the great torment felt by the writer, whilst expressing his great faith and hope of heaven. That hymn is ‘Abide with me’.

The writer Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847) was pastor of a small church whose congregation were mostly seafaring people, and as such at the mercy of the ravages of the weather and the tragedy of sudden death. Lyte himself was a man who suffered much ill health. Eventually he was persuaded to exchange the climate of Lower Brixham, Devon for warmer and sunnier climes after being told that he had contracted TB. He had become very attached to his congregation and his ministry among them. The Sunday before he was due to leave he took his last service, preaching his last sermon and administering communion. That same evening at home, overcome with grief and anguish over the coming parting, and in search of comfort and consolation, he wrote the five verses of this now well-known hymn. Before retiring to bed, he handed them to his daughter and the next day left for Nice. Two months later he died at the age of 54.

Lyte would not know the legacy he left behind, a hymn which has strengthened and consoled countless numbers of people over many years. It is therefore comforting to know that whatever our feelings, our concerns and worries, we can take them, as well as our praise and thanksgiving, and pour them out before God in song.