ABSTRACT
These verses were written in the early nineteenth century by Reginald Heber, subsequently Bishop of Calcutta, and opened the 'Missions' section in Hymns Ancient and Modern, still used widely in the Church of England in the later twentieth century. This particular hymn, however, tended to fall from favour in more recent anthologies and it can be inferred that Christians in our period were reacting to it in a variety of ways. Some could share wholeheartedly in the spirit of Heber and the missionary movement, convinced that adherence to their own creed was essential for salvation and that the full-blooded proclamation of the Christian gospel to adherents of other religions remained as vital and challenging a task as ever. Others might find a nostalgic attraction in Heber's words as reaffirming traditional certainties, but at other times were increasingly perplexed that not only was there little sign of 'each remotest nation' learning 'Messiah's name', but also that a growing number of people in Britain itself were adherents of different creeds. Others again came to see Heber's sentiments as those of a vanished age of religious dogmatism and imperial arrogance, embarrassing and even offensive in the multi-religious society of post-war Britain.
