Monthly column on hymns and songs
'Come, ye souls by sin afflicted'. We sang that at least three times at Limehouse, as my annotated Anglican Hymn Book reveals; the last occasion being in 1984, a year of some personal affliction for me. It is a hymn found in other discerning books from Congregational Praise to Christian Hymns, among those still in use.
Christopher Idle
Whom were we addressing? Probably ourselves and one another; unlike Joseph Hart's marginally earlier 'Come ye sinners, poor and needy' (also in AHB) which made good preaching but not good singing. The one we did sing encapsulates some gospel Scriptures rare in hymns: 'Blessed are the eyes that see him' and so on. But the hymns came to life again as a precious part of local history.
