Faith of our Mothers, living yet.

Faith of our Mothers, living yet. Arthur Bardwell Patten* (1864-1952).  This is a praiseworthy attempt to assert the rights of women in opposition to the gender-exclusive language of ‘Faith of our fathers! living still’* the famous hymn by Frederick William Faber* of 1849 (each stanza of Patten’s hymn ends, as Faber’s does, with the stirring ‘We will be true to thee till death’). The earliest page scans in Hymnary.org print ‘living yet’, which suggests that Patten was attempting to make his re-write slightly less obvious. From its inclusion in The Broadman Hymnal (1940), edited by Baylus B. McKinney*, to the present, ‘living still’ in line 1 suggests that this no longer matters, and that...