She was all smiles in the porch - nearly. An occasional visitor because her family lived nearby. Nothing to show that she was seething. But I too had relatives in the congregation that morning, and because they weren't deaf, I received over lunch a reported summary of her real opinions.
Why, she had demanded as we found number 321, did we have to sing songs from Urdu, of all things? Or words to that effect. Our Urdu-speaking son was amused. Goodness me, she might have added, are these (nickname deleted) even flooding our hymn-books now? And we used to be proud to be British!
Let's take soundings, one from the last century and two from this. William Young Fullerton, a name to be reckoned with in Baptist history, has soared well beyond denominational or evangelical divides by his superb hymn 'I cannot tell why he whom angels worship'. It is no disgrace, but an honour, that Christians of all traditions agree that as a composition worthy of the 'Londonderry Air' this has never been bettered.
