HYMNS TODAY
SIR,—When writing my letter on " Hymns Today," which appears in your columns of Friday's issue, I suggested that the publiihers of Hymns Ancient and Modern might some day issue an edition without some of the hymns which, for various reasons, are rarely or ever sung.
I find I owe the publishers an apology over this, as I have now seen a shortened edition which they produced in 1939 just before the outbreak cf war. It is entirely edited by Dr. S. Nicholson, Mus.Bac. All hymns which have fallen to a large extent out of use have only their number in the old edition and the first line of the words given for reference. This was exactly the idea I had in mind when writing my letter.
This shortened edition is further improved by the addition of a number of new tunes to tl•ose already in the book, and classified indexes to suitable hymns for special occasions and Saints' Days. Just one further point. Mr. James suggests that good hymn singing is only attainable if one has the right book, presumably the English Hymnal. Would it not be more charitable to assume that good hymn singing can be enjoyed from any hymn book, provided the singer is in the right spiritual mood, otherwise our fellow-Christians in the Free Churches and the Scottish Church, to mention two only, who do not use either English Hymnal or Ancient and Modern, will be in a parlous condition?—
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