Written in 1954 for the Triple Jubilee of the British and Foreign Bible Society, this hymn has been printed in 100 Hymns for Today, 1969; The Hymn Book, Canada, 1971; and the USA Presbyterian Worshipbook, 1972.

      Reginald Thomas Brooks (always known as “Peter”) was born June 30, 1918, in Wandsworth, London, and studied at the London School of Economics, graduating with a B.Com. from the University of London. He then studied to be a Congregational minister at Mansfield College, Oxford, and was ordained in that church in 1942. He served in Skipton and Horton Lane, Bradford (both in Yorkshire). Since 1950 he has worked in radio and television in the Religious Broadcasting  Department of the BBC (British Broadcasting Company).

      The unison tune WYLDE GREEN was composed by Peter Warwick Cutts (1937- ;see Biographies) about 1955, and sung at the 1960 conference of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland at Cambridge. The tune’s first American appearance was in the Methodist Hymnal (now known as The Book of Hymns), 1966. The composer’s home church, Wylde Green, was in the northern suburb of   Birmingham, England. The accompaniment is rich in harmony, and the melody has a wide sweep that is typical of the tunes written about this time for the boys’ private schools in Britain.