Tell Me the Stories of Jesus

By Ronnie Bray

As a child and young lad I attended Brunswick Street Methodist Church in Huddersfield, and
enjoyed my association from being very young up until halfway through my fourteenth year.
Harvest Festivals at Brunswick Street were memorable affairs, but equally memorable was the
polished woodwork that sang through the beautiful architecture of its chapel and gallery.

In later years I attended Sunday evening services more and enjoyed the organ and the
enthusiastic singing that lifted my soul in ways I could neither define nor express. Between
Brunswick Street, as the chapel was affectionately known, and the morning assemblies of Spring
Grove School, sacred music was poured into my soul, enriching it by thrills and passions it
evoked, causing me to hunger for more.

Although I became familiar with multitudes of words and tunes from ‘Ancient and Modern,’
three hymns stood out from them all. Two were regularly sung at school, and the third at Sunday
School.

‘Holy, Holy, Holy,’ evinced the raw power of divine majesty and power even as I considered it
theologically unsound. In today’s Christian Age when many have abandoned God the Father in
favour of his Son Jesus Christ, the hymn serves to remind us that whatever happens, God is
above all, over all. This was of great comfort to me as a child growing up in the War Years
when the whole of the world seemed engaged in a Life or death struggle against the powers of
darkness.

Its words were written by Reverend Reginald Heber when he was the Vicar of Hodnet in Shrop-
shire. The powerful music, ‘Nicea,’ was composed by John B Dykes. The marriage of poesy
and tune combined in this great hymn to stir my soul. I did not understand it, but it was a hint of
something ‘other’ that was as real and tangible as the hewn rocks that were built into the walls of
the houses of old Huddersfield.

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!

Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessèd Trinity!
Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Who was, and is, and evermore shall be.
Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see;
Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in power, in love, and purity.
 Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, holy, holy; merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessèd Trinity!

The second school hymn brought terror in its train. Not a terror for myself, but a sense of the
awfulness that sailors face at sea, whether from storm and tempest, or from death dealing
bombardment by sea and air. If I remember it or hear it now, I relive the sense of dread and
foreboding it instilled into my heart and mind as I stood with my fellows on the stepped benches
of my alma mater. The hymn is sung on ships of the Royal Navy, and other nations have
adopted it as a sailor’s anthem. William Whiting wrote it for one of his students who was about
to sail to America, and was set to music by John B Dykes, the year before it was published in
Hymns Ancient and Modern.

Eternal Father, strong to save,

Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bid’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,

For those in peril on the sea!

O Christ! Whose voice the waters heard

And hushed their raging at Thy Word,
Who walked on the foaming deep,
And calm amidst its rage didst sleep;

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,

For those in peril on the sea!

Most Holy Spirit! Who didst brood

Upon the chaos dark and rude,
And bid its angry tumult cease,
And give, for wild confusion, peace;

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,

For those in peril on the sea!

O Trinity of love and power!

Our family shield in danger’s hour;
From rock and tempest, fire and foe,
Protect us wheresoe’er we go;
 Thus evermore shall rise to Thee
Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.

But neither of these stirring hymns of angst and alarm tops the list a favourite of my boyhood
days. That honour goes to a sweet hymn whose simple message reached into my heart with its
words and music to touch whatever it was inside me that was tuned to a timeless sense of
spiritual realities and woke me to experience the love of a Heavenly Father. That place is
reserved for a down-to-earth child’s view of a figure from the past who reaches us still. The
words were written by William H. Parker, and were set to music by Frederick A. Challinor.

Tell me the stories of Jesus I love to hear;

things I would ask him to tell me if he were here:
scenes by the wayside, tales of the sea,
stories of Jesus, tell them to me.

First let me hear how the children stood round his knee,
and I shall fancy his blessing resting on me;
words full of kindness, deeds full of grace,
all in the lovelight of Jesus' face.

Into the city I'd follow the children's band,

waving a branch of the palm tree high in my hand;
one of his heralds, yes, I would sing
loudest hosannas, "Jesus is King!"

This children’s hymn still moves me as it did [more than] sixty years ago when I sat among
Methodists and felt the wonder of the life of Jesus as it was recounted by dedicated teachers. I
knew that Jesus was special; moreover, I was convinced by this hymn that he was especially
special to children, and I longed to see him.

By the time I was fifteen I had moved on from the Methodists, spurred by unkindness that I
vowed as a teacher never to emulate. My new church introduced me to many new hymns.
Hymns that for the more part had been produced in the furnaces of persecutions and
misunderstandings.

I have other favourites now; far too many to recount. Yet, as long as I remain in mortality I will
always remember the part these three hymns of yesteryear contributed to my religious and
spiritual endowment. And when I sing “Tell Me The Stories Of Jesus,” I still become moist
eyed, and hope I always will.

Copyright © 2006 Ronnie Bray

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED