Who on earth thy name confest

In the English Hymnal there was an excellent hymn for the feast of St Simon and St Jude (October 28th). It's by J. Ellerton and begins "Thou who sentest thine apostles two and two before thy face...". Sung to Brintyrion (in the EH) or alternatively Oriel vel sim, it is (as far as I can see) unexceptionable, indeed perfectly fine.

For some reason this has been banished from the New English Hymnal. So in order to provide a hymn for the feast of St Simon and St Jude, the EDITORS have (alas) felt themselves called upon to write some appropriate doggerel. The result is a set of three verses beginning "Lord of all the saints, we praise thee for those two apostles blest", followed by a standard doxology in the NEH's favourite form (i.e. the one that includes 'one in love and one in splendour...').

The first two verses of this hymn are pure stuffing: a kind of metrical rhyming kapok. They might be about anyone, or no one, though they have some vague relevance to the celebration of a pair of saints (any two would do, except for the description of them as 'apostles' in verse 1, which is clearly intended to try to limit the applicability and make it seem as if the hymn is about S and J).

The only specific stuff about S and J is in verse 3. Here the editors have started from the reference to Simon in Luke 6:15, as "the one who was called the Zealot" and the reference to Jude in John 14:22 as "Judas (not Iscariot)" and tried to construct a hymn on the basis of those rather minimal bits of information. The result is not exactly imaginative, and probably has virtually nothing to do with either character. First we have a reference to Simon's "zeal" ("Simon, may thy zeal inspire us Christ our Lord to serve with might") and then we have a reference to Jude as a "true disciple" ("Blessed Jude, thou true disciple, we thy faithfulness recite"), on the assumption that whereas the other Judas Iscariot was a false disciple, this one was a true one. But then so, presumably, were ten others. So this hardly picks out our Jude very effectively, does it. And I somehow doubt that the zealot Simon was actually named for his zeal, as opposed to his association with the Zealot resistance to Roman rule (though clearly the title is primarily given just to distinguish him from the other Simon Peter; if one were to describe one disciple as marked by zeal perhaps it would have been Simon Peter, no?). Apparently the Simon who was called zealot in Luke is the same one as the Simon called Canaanite in Mark 3:18 and Matthew 10:4.

Anyway, be that as it may, the fact is that despite the appearance of saying something specific here, nothing whatever that is not vacuous is actually said. Besides the two lines just mentioned (both of them badly marred by having to have the word order distorted to get the verbs at the end so as to adhere to the metre and achieve a rhyme between 'might' and 'recite') the verse finishes with this wholly fatuous request: "May God grant us grace to follow till, with thee, faith ends in light." Do we perhaps just a teeny bit get the sense that we just had to have the word 'light', in order to rhyme with might and recite? And that the rest of this wish was just constructed in order to get something that would finish with the word 'light' and could plausibly, if pointlessly, follow an address to an otherwise obscure Jude?

And when you think about it, wouldn't it have been better and more artful to have the verse finish with a couplet addressed to the two of them together (two lines for Simon, two lines for Jude and then two lines to both), rather than this four line set of trivial thoughts apparently addressed just to Jude (the 'thee' of the last line)?

One would like to say that this is not among the editors' best work as poets. Unfortunately I know of no better work by them.

By contrast, Ellerton's poem did a very good job on the basis of what little evidence we have for these two disciples. First, it refers to Simon's zeal, but cleverly suggests that he had already been a zealot before joining Jesus, and that Jesus had converted him from terrorism to a nobler cause ("One, whose zeal by thee enlightened, burned anew with nobler flame") and secondly it picks up on the idea that Jude (who may also be Lebbaeus surnamed Thaddeus) is sometimes said to be the brother of James the son of Alphaeus, and this James is perhaps taken by the poet to be the same person as James the brother of the Lord. Hence the claim that "One, the kinsman of thy childhood brought at last to know thy name." I suppose this slightly speculative genealogy may have been too much for the NEH editors to bear. But when you have no information, why not say something about what might be true, especially if it can be turned to edifying effect?

In Ellerton's second verse there is a nice construction with two lines for the two together, and then each apostle gets two lines to himself. Then in verse three the whole verse is devoted to praising God for the two of them together, attributing signs and wonders to them as well as examples of love and stern advice to the early church. All of this seems appropriate and probable, and if you need to write a hymn about two apostles who are scarcely more than names but must have played a role in establishing the very early church communities, this is at least an attempt at reconstructing a likely scenario.

And, finally, as far as I can see the spelling 'confest' in line 4 of verse 1 is probably disallowed by the OED for the meaning in question. And in any case is certainly an affectation, given the hymn was presumably cobbled together in the twentieth century, and not apparently from any archaic or archaising sources. Why not just write 'confessed'?

All in all, I can see no good reason to reject the existing hymn by Ellerton. I can see no value whatever in the new hymn by the EDITORS.

How sad.

How very sad.

Ut queant laxis

There's a famous hymn for the feast of St John the Baptist, written by Paul the Deacon in the 8th Century A.D., which begins "Ut queant laxis resonare fibris".

It's famous mainly because it is the origin of the names ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la to name the notes of the musical scale (the plainsong tune to this hymn, which, alas, we did not sing this morning, starts on the tonic with the word "ut", and then "re-" of resonare occurs on the second note of the scale, and so on with each new five or six syllable phrase starting one note higher). This way of naming the notes was apparently invented by Guido of Arezzo in the tenth century. "Ut", for the tonic, was changed to "Do" in the sixteenth century by someone called Hubert Waelrant.

Paul the Deacon's hymn came in three parts. "Ut queant laxis" is the first part, five verses, and is set for vespers on the eve of the feast of the birth of St John the Baptist; the second part "Antra deserti teneris sub annis" is set for Matins, and the third part "O nimis felix, meritique celsi" is set for Lauds.

Translations of two of these parts were included in the English Hymnal, with Ut queant laxis set as office hymn for evensong and Antra deserti set as office hymn for matins (Hymns 223 and 224, both to the same tune though, oddly, the plainsong tune given in EH was not ut queant laxis.) The EH version, translated by R. Ellis Roberts, presumably specially for this hymnal, begins with a verse that goes like this

Let thine example, Holy John, remind us
Ere we can meetly sing thy deeds of wonder,
Hearts must be chastened, and the bonds that bind us
Broken asunder.

It's true that this is not entirely effective as a translation of the Latin, which is a plea to Saint John himself to cleanse our polluted lips of the sin (reatum) so that we can sing with loosened vocal cords (laxis fibris) the wonders of his deeds. It's said that this verse was composed by Paul the Deacon after he'd had some trouble intoning the Exsultet at the Easter service, and the verse is a prayer to avert such an affliction. Given how the hymn goes on, he's evidently adverting to the affliction that silenced Zechariah when he doubted the word of the Lord, and he's asking that our vocal cords won't be seized up in the same way; so, pace Ellis, it's not John's example that needs to remind us of this risk, but Zechariah's. Here's the Latin for verse 1.

Ut queant laxis resonare fibris
Mira gestorum famuli tuorum,
Solve polluti labii reatum,
Sancte Joannes.

Still, Ellis proceeds to give us the rest of the hymn pretty accurately, with beautifully formed stanzas that rhyme first and third, second and fourth (although Paul the Deacon didn't use rhymes in this hymn). I won't bore you with the details now, but will add them at the foot of the post.

By contrast the New English Hymnal has done some of its dastardly deeds.

First, notice that it no longer claims that this hymn is actually "Ut queant laxis" at all. No Latin is given at the head of the hymn. Yet it does have that metre and it is set to that tune.

Instead they say that it is a hymn by the "EDITORS based on the Latin of Paul the Deacon 730-99".

This is always a bad sign. It means they've decided they can improve on Paul the Deacon's sentiments with some drivel of their own.

So what heinous crimes have they committed on this ancient and famous text?

Well, predictably enough the first and oh-so-famous verse about not having our voices silenced has gone altogether.

Perhaps they didn't see that it is about the story of Zechariah's silence?

Perhaps they couldn't find a way to put it into good English in sapphics?

Anyway, what they've done is invent a kind of introductory verse in the form of one of those abbreviated death announcements in the newspaper:

On this high feast day honour we the Baptist,
Greatest and last of Isreal's line of prophets,
Kinsman of Jesus, herald of salvation,
Chosen forerunner.

Then they give us two verses that are translations of verses 2 and 3 of the Latin original, though of course, in the absence of verse 1, it's now become rather pointless to narrate the story of Zechariah's dumbness.

Verse four in the original was an extremely clever composition recalling the occasion when Mary visited Elizabeth; and John, then still in the womb, recognised the babe in Mary's womb as king, hence acting already as a prophet revealing hidden mysteries to the two mothers even before his birth. This verse has gone entirely from the EDITORS' substitute, even though it was an eminently suitable event to recall on this particular day, celebrating the birth of the Forerunner.

Instead we have what appears to be a set of completely random ramblings about John the Baptist, mostly without foundation, some positively false as far as I can see. On what basis, for example, do they say "Greater art thou than all the sons of Adam"? Presumably this is supposed to reflect Luke 7:28 "For I say unto you, Among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist; but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he." Well, first what Jesus says there is nothing at all about sons of Adam, but rather about those born of woman. And since Jesus himself is born of a woman, this has got to be a paradox, since many texts testify to John saying that "He who comes after me is greater than I " and so on. And second, even if we took it straight, that among those born of woman, John is greater than any other prophet, Jesus's next saying undercuts it by saying that that's no big deal since anyone in the kingdom of God is greater than that. I suppose the editors may have been prompted by verse 8 of the complete text (see below) but they haven't really got it right, have they? In fact Ellis Roberts does it better, don't you think? (see verse 7 of the English translation at the end of this post)

The rest of their verse 'Lowly in spirit, faithfully proclaiming Israel's Messiah, Jesus our Redeemer, Thus we exalt thee"— all this is just bubble wrap to fill up the space in the verse. It has no theological import or profundity and adds no spiritual uplift. Rather, downlift.

All hymn books add a trinitarian doxology as the last verse, at the end of part one. The NEH has given us a version that presumably purports to be a translation of the last verse of Paul the Deacon's hymn.

But overall, the result is a very sad hymn, because the two really distinctive verses with some theological stuffing have been cut and replaced with a sorry mess. Oh how sad! How very sad! How twentieth century...

Read to the bottom of the post for this week's competition.

Here, for interest, is first the complete Latin text of all three parts of Paul the Deacon's work:

1.
Ut queant laxis resonare fibris
mira gestorum famuli tuorum,
solve polluti labii reatum,
Sancte Iohannes!

2.
Nuntius celso veniens Olympo
te patri magnum fore nasciturum,
nomen et vitae seriem gerendae
ordine promit.

3.
Ille promissi dubius superni
perdidit promptae modulos loquelae;
sed reformasti genitus peremptae
organa vocis.

4.
Ventris abstruso positus cubili
senseras regem thalamo manentem,
hinc parens nati meritis uterque
abdita pandit.

5.
Antra deserti teneris sub annis
civium turmas fugiens, petisti,
ne levi saltim maculare vitam
famine posses.

6.
Praebuit hirtum tegimen camelus,
artubus sacris strofium bidentis,
cui latex haustum, sociata pastum
mella locustis.

7.
Caeteri tantum cecinere vatum
corde praesago iubar adfuturum;
tu quidem mundi scelus auferentem
indice prodis.

8.
Non fuit vasti spatium per orbis
sanctior quisquam genitus Iohanne,
qui nefas saecli meruit lavantem
tingere limphis.

9.
O nimis felix meritique celsi
nesciens labem nivei pudoris,
prepotens martyr heremique cultor,
maxime vatum!

10.
Serta ter denis alios coronant
aucta crementis, duplicata quosdam;
trina centeno cumulata fructu
te, sacer, ornant.

11.
Nunc potens nostri meritis opimis
pectoris duros lapides repelle
asperum planans iter, et reflexos
dirige calles,

12.
ut pius mundi sator et redemptor
mentibus pulsa luvione puris
rite dignetur veniens sacratos
ponere gressus.

13.
Laudibus cives celebrant superni
te, deus simplex pariterque trine,
supplices ac nos veniam precamur:
parce redemptis!

And now here's the EH translation:

Let thine example, holy John, remind us,
Ere we can meetly sing thy deeds of wonder,
Hearts must be chastened, and the bonds that bind us
Broken asunder!

Lo! a swift angel, from the skies descending,
Tells to thy father what shall be thy naming;
All thy life’s greatness to its bitter ending
Duly proclaiming.

But when he doubted what the angel told him
Came to him dumbness to confirm the story;
At thine appearing, healed again behold him,
Chanting thy glory!

Oh! what a splendour and a revelation
Came to each mother, at thy joyful leaping,
Greeting thy Monarch, King of every nation,
In the womb sleeping.

E'en in they childhood, mid the desert places,
Thou hadst a refuge from the city gainèd,
Far from all slander and its bitter traces
Living unstainèd.

Often had prophets in the distant ages
Sung to announce the Daystar and to name him;
But as the Saviour, last of all the sages,
Thou didst proclaim him.

Than John the Baptist, none of all Eve's daughters,
E'er bore a greater whether high or lowly,
He was thought worthy, washing in the waters
Jesus the holy.

Angels in orders everlasting praise Thee,
God, in Thy triune majesty tremendous,
Hark to the prayers we, penitents, upraise Thee:
Save and defend us.

And finally, this week's competition. Can you produce a better translation of verse 1 of this hymn, retaining the metre of the original, but not necessarily the rhyme scheme introduced by Ellis Roberts? Answers in a comment please....

Disposer Supreme

A hymn by Jean Baptiste de Santeuil (1630-97):

Supreme quales arbiter
Tibi ministros eligis,
Tuas opes qui vilibus
Vasis amas committere.

Haec nempe plena lumine
Tu vasa frangi praecipis;
Lux inde magna rumpitur,
Ceu nube scissa fulgura.

Totum per orbem nuntii
Nubes velut citi volant:
Verbo graves, Verbo Deo
Tonant, soruscant, perpluunt.

Christum sonant: versae ruunt
Arces superbae daemonum;
Circum tubis clangentibus
Sic versa quondam moenia.

Fac, Christe, coelestes tubae
Somno graves nos excitent:
Accensa de te lumina
Pellant tenebras mentium.

Uni sit et trino Deo
Supremam laus, summum decus,
De nocte qui nos ad suae,
Lumen vocavit gloriae.

I've copied out the whole of the Latin here, partly because it doesn't seem to be included anywhere on existing web sites that I can discover. And also because the point I want to make about this hymn is that there is a sequence of thought to it.

The first verse, "Disposer supreme and judge of the earth" remarks on the fact that God chooses "frail earthen vessels" as his ministers. "Frail earthen vessels" (vilibus vasis) means unprepossessing pots. That is a reference to us (or rather, to the saints).

The second verse remarks on the fact that these pots soon break. In fact God breaks them, even the ones that are full of light. Tu vasa frangi praecipis: at thy decree they are broken. But out of them bursts a great light, a kind of lightning bolt. That is, on the death of the saints the light that was concealed in the unprepossessing pots bursts forth and fills our world with a new blast of light, like lightning breaking out of a cloud.

The third and fourth verses pick up on this idea and suggest that once it's been released from the unprepossessing pots, the light of the saints becomes God's messengers. These fly round the world thundering the sound of God's word. Christum sonant: they trumpet out Christ, and immediately the devil's citadels fall like the walls of Jericho which fell at the sound of the trumpet.

Verse five asks that Christ should ensure that these heavenly trumpets should wake us from our sleep. And verse six concludes with a doxology, which praises God for calling us out of night to his glory.

Now apart from the fact that the New English Hymnal has (for reasons that are not apparent) re-written the perfectly good translation by Isaac Williams to which we were accustomed, what you might not have noticed is that they have cut out verse 2. You might not have noticed because the sequence of thought has become so disjoined that you'd be forgiven for thinking that there was none, and that trying to work out how verse 3 followed from verse 1 was a wasted effort. Well indeed it would be a wasted effort, because alas without verse 2 it would be impossible to see the connection.

The point is this: verse 1 sees the saints from the outside, their vile pots. Verse 2 explains why God breaks the pots, to let the light out. Verse 3, with its image of lightning blasts and the thundering sound that they make, only makes sense if you know where the lightning blasts have come from and how they connect with the vile pots mentioned in verse 1. And then, once you know why the lightning is sounding like a trumpet, you can understand what the imagery of the fall of Jericho has got to do with it, and also why we ask to be wakened from our sleep by those trumpets.

But without verse 2? Bad case of lost coherence.

Mocked, imprisoned, stoned, tormented, sawn asunder, slain with sword

Ah lovely words, how they capture the true agony and all the gory details of the lives and deaths of the saints we celebrate around this time!

How could anyone think that the hymn "Hark the sound of holy voices" is better without these graphic images? It beats me.

But these are, I am afraid, among the many wonderful things that we have lost in the so-called "progess" of changing to the New English Hymnal.

Here's what we used to sing:

They have come from tribulation and have washed their robes in blood,
Washed them in the blood of Jesus; tried they were, and firm they stood;
Mocked, imprisoned, stoned, tormented, sawn asunder, slain with sword,
They have conquered death and Satan by the might of Christ the Lord.

Marching with thy Cross their banner, they have triumphed following
Thee, the captain of salvation, thee, their Saviour and their King;
Gladly, Lord, with thee they suffered; gladly, Lord, with thee they died,
And by death to life immortal they were born and glorified.

Fine words, written by Bishop Christopher Wordsworth (1807-85), author of Songs of Thankfulness and praise, and Gracious Spirit Holy Ghost among others. They're important words too. Partly they are important because they remind us that being a saint is not all fun, and that it requires a certain degree of courage and, indeed, determination. But also important poetically and for the sense because, look, "Gladly Lord with thee they suffered, gladly, Lord, with thee they died" is meant to alert us to the fact that despite the terrible sufferings and terrifying kinds of death they endured (about which we have just sung in the previous verse) nevertheless they were, in a curious way, doing so gladly, and that was because they did it "with thee", following the banner of Christ who had suffered just such a gruesome and terrifying death and thus provided the leadership. But really, we lose the sense of how miraculous this is, how it constitutes a triumph, if we don't actually mention the terrible things they were afflicted with.

For we don't really mention them—not so as to conjure up what they were really like—in the New English Hymnal. That's because we sing this (with four lines missing, two from verse 3 and two from verse 4):

They have come from tribulation and have washed their robes in blood,
Washed them in the blood of Jesus; tried they were, and firm they stood;

Gladly, Lord, with thee they suffered; gladly, Lord, with thee they died,
And by death to life immortal they were born and glorified.

We don't mention the details because they are too gruesome? We want our saints cleaned up? We'd rather not remember how the Church was built upon the blood of the martyrs? And, presumably, we don't like the military imagery of "marching with thy cross their banner". (Let's throw out all the traditional imagery shall we? rid Christianity of all its fervour and imagination....? and then wonder why the pews are empty and everyone is going to the evangelical churches where fervour and commitment is allowed?)

And anyway, even if those lines were not vital to the sense, what is this Hymnal doing eliminating all the most entertaining bits of poetry, that bring a smile of wonder to the face as one sings? I mean could anyone in the world beat that magnificent line "Mocked, imprisoned, stoned, tormented, sawn asunder, slain with sword"? If we never get to sing that any more, won't we have lost one of the greatest bits of tragi-comedy in the hymn book?

Jerusalem, my happy home

On Tuesday, which was St James's day, we sang a hymn (number 228 in the New English Hymnal) which begins "Jerusalem thou city blest".

The words, according to the foot of the page, are by the EDITORS.

In the English Hymnal there was a hymn in three parts with 26 verses, for a saint's day procession, which began "Jerusalem my happy home." It seems clear that the NEH editors were trying to model their work on that, since they have retained one verse intact:

In thee no sickness may be seen,
no hurt, no ache, no sore;
In thee there is no dread of death,
But life for evermore.

... write the editors of the New English Hymnal, echoing the editors of the English Hymnal.

That verse, however, had already been revised before it made into the EH. This is what F.B.P. wrote:

In thee no sickness may be seen,
no hurt, no ache, no sore;
there is no death nor ugly devil,
there is life for evermore.

F.B.P is the otherwise unknown author of the 16th century manuscript from which the words were taken. They are said to be based on stuff in St Augustine. But the NEH has not much left of F.B.P. Among the gems that have gone missing are the following:

Thy walls are made of precious stones,
thy bulwarks diamonds square;
thy gates are of right orient pearl;
exceeding rich and rare;

thy turrets and thy pinnacles
with carbuncles do shine;
thy very streets are paved with gold,
surpassing clear and fine;

thy houses are of ivory,
thy windows crystal clear;
thy tiles are made of beaten gold--
O God that I were there!

Within thy gates nothing doth come
that is not passing clean,
no spider's web, no dirt, no dust,
no filth may there be seen.

and a bit further on, these:

We that are here in banishment
continually do mourn:
we sigh and sob, we weep and wail,
perpetually we groan.

and these:

There's nectar and ambrosia made,
there's musk and civet sweet;
there many a fair and dainty drug
is trodden under feet.

There cinnamon, there sugar grows,
there nard and balm abound.
What tongue can tell or heart conceive
the joys that there are found?

And some mention of the saints one might encounter there:

There David stands with harp in hand
as master of the choir:
ten thousand times that man were blessed
that might this music hear.

Our Lady sings Magnificat
with tune surpassing sweet,
and all the virgins bear their parts,
sitting about her feet.

Te deum doth Saint Ambrose sing,
Saint Austin doth the like;
Old Simeon and Zachary
Have not their songs to seek.

There Magdalen hath left her moan,
and cheerfully doth sing
with blessèd saints, whose harmony
in every street doth ring.

So what do we have in the NEH to displace all those vivid individuals and their peculiar joys in heaven? Well we have this:

And praise and honour be to him
Whom earth and heaven obey
For that blest saint whose festival
Doth glorify this day.

Enough said.

The son of consolation

St Barnabas's day was June 11th. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get round to finishing this post, but I started it some time after the day in question (because I'd forgotten about it, and then I had to put it aside due to other things, and since then I've been away).

The New English Hymnal provides a hymn for St Barnabas, which begins "The 'Son of Consolation', St Barnabas the good". We sang it on June 11th. The words are said to be by "Maud Coote 1852-1935 and EDITORS".

At the foot of the hymn there is a piece of advice to the reader as follows:

See Acts 11.24 'he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.'

Presumably that's to help us to understand why the hymn goes (in lines 2-4) "St Barnabas the good,/ filled with the Holy Spirit/ And faith in Christ the Lord." Those lines do indeed seem to be a slightly prosaic paraphrase of Acts 11.24.

What the hymn book fails to explain for its readers is the first line of each of the three verses of the hymn as presented in the NEH. These lines go "The 'Son of Consolation'" in verse 1; "The Son of Consolation" in verse 2; "All sons of consolation" in verse 3). What is all this about the "Son of Consolation"? Well the answer is that the reference we really needed, in order to understand the hymn, was Acts 4.36:

Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation), a Levite.

That is, the name "Barnabas" was the nickname that the Apostles gave to Joses, and it meant Son of Consolation ("son" is the "Bar" bit, as in Barabbas, Bartimaeus and so on, all of which are patronymics).

It would have been helpful (it seems to me) if the hymn book had supplied that reference. After all, it seems to be the most crucial key to understanding this hymn.

Why did they give the other text, not this one?

Was it merely an oversight?

No, I think not.

It was, I rather think, because they have a guilty conscience...


They're ashamed of what they've done to this hymn and they're trying to justify it, by showing that their new text is a paraphrase—pedantic and prosaic, but paraphrase all the same— of a biblical text... As though any bad poetry is okay if it can be shown to be an allusion to the bible.

The good old English Hymnal had the whole of this hymn (five verses), all of them in Mrs Coote's own words. Verse 1 of the original begins thus:

The Son of Consolation!
Of Levi’s priestly line,
Filled with the Holy Spirit,
And fervent faith divine,
With lowly self-oblation,
For Christ an offering meet,
He laid his earthly riches
At the apostles’ feet.

The second line here, "Of Levi's priestly line", is also (like "Son of Consolation") alluding to the bit from Acts 4.36 that we quoted above:

Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation), a Levite.

That is, Barnabas was a Levite, one of Levi's priestly line.

For some reason, best known to themselves, the Editors of the NEH have replaced that with

St Barnabas the good

and then justified that revision by supplying the reference to Acts 11.24 where Barnabas is said to be "a good man". I suppose that they thought that we needed to be told in the hymn itself that we were singing about St Barnabas. But that's surely not necessary, since the page is headed "St Barnabas". It seems to me that if you've taken the trouble to go to church on St Barnabas's day, and you find yourself singing a hymn headed "St Barnabas, June 11th", you'd have to be very stupid not to realise that the person the hymn was talking about was St Barnabas. On the other hand, it's quite useful to be reminded that he was a Levite (in case you don't know the Book of Acts off by heart).

This is the most significant change in verse 1. The rest of that verse has been subjected to a variety of small alterations of an apparently pointless sort. Verse 2 has gone completely. Mrs Coote wrote as follows about the comforting significance of Barnabas's nick name, and about his ministry to the gentiles:

The Son of Consolation!
O name of soothing balm!
It fell on sick and weary
Like breath of Heaven’s own calm!
And the blest Son of Comfort
With fearless loving hand
The Gentiles’ great apostle
Led to the faithful band.

It seems to me that the omission of that verse is a great mistake, since it is that verse that meditates on the name "Son of Consolation" and asks why it is appropriate. Without that verse, the repetition of that name at the start of each verse is kind of vacuous.

Verse 3 in Maud Coote's original was about Barnabas's martyrdom:

The Son of Consolation!
Drawn near unto his Lord,
He won the martyr’s glory,
And passed to his reward;
With him is faith now ended,
For ever lost in sight,
But love, made perfect, fills him
With praise, and joy, and light.

It survives in the NEH, with trivial alterations, as verse 2.

Maud Coote's fourth verse has, however, been cut out. This verse reflected on the significance of the "Son of Consolation" title, this time as something for us to aspire to. Once again, we might observe that without it, the whole conceit on which the original poem was grounded has been cut away and become empty. It went as follows:

The Son of Consolation!
Lord, hear our humble prayer,
That each of us Thy children
This blessèd name may bear;
That we, sweet comfort shedding
O’er homes of pain and woe,
’Midst sickness and in prisons,
May seek Thee here below.

Finally, the last verse (following on from that idea that we might aspire to the title "son of consolation") thinks about how we too (if we do take on that role) can look forward to eternal life, receiving the same reward as the martyr Barnabas. A version of this last verse survives, badly mutilated in the NEH. But unfortunately its point is completely lost, because the preceding verse that explained how there could be many "Sons of Consolation", and that they would be us, once we'd taken on Barnabas as our role model, has been omitted.

Here's what Coote wrote:

The Sons of Consolation!
O what their bliss shall be
When Christ the King shall tell them,
“Ye did it unto Me!”
The merciful and loving
The Lord of life shall own,
And as His priceless jewels,
Shall set them round His throne.

Here's what the NEH EDITORS have substituted:

All sons of consolation,
How great their joys will be
When Christ the King shall tell them
'You did it unto me':
The merciful and loving
The loving Lord shall own,
And set them as his jewels
Around the Father's throne.

Well, it means much the same (so much so that you can't really see what's the point of interfering), but the real tragedy is that we've lost the point of the hymn altogether. If you think about it, the hymn was designed to reflect on Barnabas, under the description "Son of Consolation", as a role model for us. But without the verses the engineer that set of thoughts, it no longer does that for us.

In the NEH the last verse appears to be about some other people, sons of consolation. These will be Barnabas, we suppose, and anyone else, presumably male, who goes by that name. It doesn't seem to be about us.

In Coote's original by contrast, even though that too was in the third person plural, we already knew that it might and should include us, because we'd already reflected on how one could acquire the name "son of consolation" in virtue of the deeds of love that one might do.

But we've lost all that in the omission of the two crucial verses.

So it doesn't say what it needs to say any more.

Oh dear. How sad.