Dear Lord, to you again our gifts we bring

Dear Lord, to you again our gifts we bring. Howard Charles Adie Gaunt* (1902-1983). This communion hymn was first published in 100HfT (1969) It takes as its model the ‘four-fold’ shape of the Eucharist (‘He took’, ‘He blessed’, ‘He broke’, ‘He gave’). The Companion to RS (1999) quotes Cyril Taylor* as describing it as ‘heavy going, because the thought is tight-packed’: Taylor went on to suggest that a choir could sing the first four lines of each verse, leaving the congregation to sing the last two lines. ‘Whatever the practicalities of use’, says the Companion severely, ‘the hymn needs and deserves the best attention that congregations can give to it, in order to make the most of its...