Christian people, raise your song

Christian people, raise your song. Colin Thompson* (1945- ). Written to fit the tune AVE VIRGO VIRGINUM, from a Bohemian or Moravian source. The tune is found in J. Horn’s Ein Gesangbuch der Brüder im Behemen und Merherrn (Nürnberg, 1544), and set in an altered form in EH to ‘Come, ye faithful, raise the strain’* by St John of Damascus*. The words were written for the first book of the United Reformed Church, New Church Praise (1975), as an Offertory Hymn, headed ‘At the offering of bread and wine’. It appeared in MHfT, and thus in A&MNS, and it has been retained in A&MCP; it is found in other books (HP, RS, BPW). The vigorous words and the energetic rhythm are well suited to the...