O God beyond all praising

O God beyond all praising. Michael Arnold Perry* (1942-1996). Like ‘Bring to the Lord a glad new song’*, this later text, written in 1981 at Bitterne, Southampton, provides new words to a favourite tune. THAXTED, hitherto wedded to a text which is often judged as questionable for Christian worship, was offered by Gustav Holst* from the ‘Jupiter’ movement in his suite The Planets (1914-1916) to Cecil Spring Rice* for his ‘I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above’* (1918). Perry is one of several authors, secular and sacred (including Albert Bayly*, ‘With reverence and wonder we view your work, O God’), who have provided their alternatives to the perceived nationalism of Spring...