Who would true valour see

Who would true valour see. John Bunyan* (1628-1688). These words were sung by Mr Valiant-for-Truth, ‘a man with his Sword drawn, and his Face all bloody’, in Part II of The Pilgrim’s Progress (1684). Probably their first inclusion in a hymn book was in the second edition of Our Hymn Book (1873), a selection compiled for the use in his church by a Congregational minister in Brighton, E. Paxton Hood. They were unchanged from Bunyan’s original text, as they were in the Congregational Hymnary (1916). In that book they were set to a tune, VALOUR, by Josiah Booth, with a note that they could be sung to a tune in an Appendix of Supplemental Tunes called MONKS GATE. This was the tune which had been...