1
I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love:
The love that asks the reason, the love that stands the test,
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.
2
And there’s another country, I’ve heard of long ago,
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And one by one and fervently we pray for her increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.
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As a native-born Englishman, I think the following comments are in order. That hymn is sung on Remembrance Day in my country – and when you recognised that over 750,000 British soldiers perished in the four-year carnage you can recognise the understandable patriotic feelings!
Yes, the changes have spoiled it somewhat, and I wish they had left the way that Sir Cecil Spring-Rice wrote it
However, when I looked over it initially I notices two more notable deficiencies. First, the number of hymns relating to Christ’s intercession seemed few, and I happened to be able to compile a list of other hymns expressing this from other sources. Most shocking is that there are only TWO hymns under the heading of baptism – don’t we have a witness to share with paedobaptists on this?
As it is, when the SDA Hymnal came out I happened to spot a WELSH hymnbook when I was staying with a pastor friend in S.W. England. Yes, there are many we could not use. However, compiled as it was by the Evangelical Movement of Wales, it is an excellent work.