O God of our fathers, we praise and adore thee

O God of our fathers, we praise and adore thee. Edward Hughes Pruden* (1903-1987). Written for the First Baptist Church, Washington DC, to mark the 150th anniversary of the church, founded in 1802. It was almost certainly written to fit the tune KREMSER (see ‘We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing’*). It was used in a young people’s hymnal, When Youth Sing (Anderson, Indiana, 1961) and in Baptist hymnals, including the Primitive (Old School) Baptist Hymns of Grace (1968). It was in the Baptist Hymnal (1956, 1975), but not in subsequent editions (Reynolds, pp. 158-9). Its gender-exclusive language (...‘our fathers’), combined with the apparently archaic ‘thee’, was probably...