In Praise of Unsung Verses

Last Sunday the opening hymn for sacrament meeting in our ward was #116, "Come, Follow Me". It's one of my favorite hymns, and perhaps one of yours, too. At the end of the fourth verse, as usual, the chorister sat down and the organist stopped playing and we went on with the rest of the meeting. After the opening prayer, with my hymn book still open to #116, I began to read the two verses we NEVER sing and I began to wonder why.

Get out a hymn book (you do have one at home, don't you, perhaps with your name on it?) and turn to Hymn #116.Take a few moments to read verses 5 and 6. Note how the poet brings the whole theme to a beautiful conclusion by the last words,repeating "Come, follow me." Note, too, how the poem extends the thought into the eternities. I think the hymn would take on a much more powerful meaning if we sang all six verses.

So why don't we?

As a former stake president back in Oregon was fond of saying, "In the essence of time...."

We must get on with the meeting, because we have to stay on schedule because there are lots of announcements and ward business to take care of and because we still have two more meetings coming up.

But, except for the sacrament, when are we, as a congregation, brought more in harmony (word chosen deliberately) than when we are singing together? Why, in a church where we pride ourselves (rightfully so) on our love for music in our servies, do we give short shrift to the words of such poets as Parley P. Pratt, Charles W. Penrose, and, most notably, Eliza R. Snow?

It makes me wonder what those gifted poets must be thinking when they hear us cut their thoughts short.

I did a bit of research (i.e. looked in the hymn book) and found more than twenty hymns that have verses we rarely, if ever, hear sung in our meetings. For example:

#85 "How Firm a Foundation";

#100 "Nearer, My God, to Thee"

#145 "Prayer Is the Soul's Sincere Desire"

#195 "How Great the Wisdom and the Love"

etc., etc., etc.

Oh, I know I'm pleading a lost cause here. I don't really expect any ward music chairman anywhere, or any bishopric, or chorister, or organist (who is seldom consulted about what we sing) to start encouraging us to sing the whole hymn.

But I do have a suggestion that I hope some of you will consider. The next time your congregation sings a hymn where there are additional verses, take a moment during the meeting to quietly read "the rest of the story". I think you will be struck by how those unsung verses extend the range and bring a beautiful conclusion to the hymn.

Okay, now, all together ---you know the tune ---sing along with me:

"Be kind to your fine feathered friends

For a duck may be somebody's mother.

It lives in a place called a swamp,

Where it's always cold and damp.

Now you may think that this is the end,

Well it is."