The Doing of Hymnbook Editors (continued)

Abstract

"AN interesting discussion of what words a modern congregation J-\. will stand is provided by the now famous hymn, " Who would true valour see ". Dearmer claims the credit for " daring " to put this into the English Hymnal in 19061, but he declares that to have included hobgoblin would have been to " invite disaster". " No one", he says, " would have been more distressed than Bunyan himself to have people singing about hobgoblins in church " and he would never have sanctioned the unaltered form as a hymn. (I wonder!) So Dearmer produced a gentle drawing-room ver,sion of Bunyan's rugged verse, cutting out the wind and the weather, the giants and goblins and lions. He agreed with Bottom, "To bring in a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing". But Baptist and Congregational books, for the last thirty years anyway, have happily swallowed Bunyan whole: even Hymns Ancient and Modern, though it carefully alters hob-goblin to goblin"