Church of England Hymn Book

Church of England Hymn Book, A (1880). This hymnbook, edited by Godfrey Thring*, was an important contender for an official hymn book for the Church of England, although Thring claimed disingenuously in the preface that the time was not right for such a book. He went on: On the other hand, the very arguments which may be urged against an authorized hymnal are in themselves a call for further progress, in order that hymns which offend both the taste and conscience, and which in a literary point of view have no pretensions to be included in a national hymn-book, may be weeded out, and their places supplied, so far as is possible, with worthier matter. (p.vi) The reference to a national...