Arthur Scargill, the militant former leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, must surely have surprised and touched his many detractors when on 'Desert Island Discs' he chose George Matheson's 'O love that wilt not let me go' because of its abiding associations with his mother's love. This fact is brought home to me by the hymns which I learned as a child, and never forgot. They mean to me almost more than the finest poetry, and they have for me a more permanent value, somehow or other. For him the real power of hymns lay in their capacity to evoke wonder, the element which is the basis of a child's perceptions. The educational benefits alone of singing great hymns are evident.
Beautiful melodies overcome the contemporary teenage reluctance to sing.
A fine tune can break through that adolescent superiority and school-children may find themselves singing in spite of themselves. A prophetic query made by Alfred Tennyson shortly before his death in 1892 is being fulfilled. The majority never enter churches. And it doesn't matter if these things take time to absorb. You can explore the rhythm and workings of the language through Christian hymns.