Review: Then Sings My Soul by Robert Morgan

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Sing praise to God!  What better exemplifies the meaning of Christmas, and of Christianity itself, than glorifying our God with music?

Here’s a wonderful book to help us do just that.  Then Sings My Soul, Special Edition contains 150 Christmas, Easter, and All-Time Favorite Hymns as well as a story about each one.

The hymns themselves vary greatly, ranging from “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and traditional Christmas carols to “A Mighty Fortress is our God” and “I’ll Fly Away.”  As such, this book gives a cross-section of famous hymns of all backgrounds, originally composed over the course of more than 1600 years. Although our family loves to sing Psalms, such a collection of hymns is also wonderful.  I am looking forward to family sing-a-longs using this book.

Each hymn has a one-page story giving its date, a relevant Bible text, and an interesting tale, often about how the hymn came to be written and sometimes about the author’s life.   We read about Bernard of Clairvaux who penned “O Sacred Head Now Wounded,” and about Charles Wesley who wrote so many hymns.  We read about the find of a tiny silver scroll containing the words of Numbers 6:24-26, the text for “The Lord Bless You and Keep You.”  Some of the stories are heartbreaking but full of faith. “It is Well with My Soul,” written by Horatio Spafford who in his lifetime lost both children and fortune to various disasters, shows the power of God’s amazing comfort.  Another story begins humorously with quotes about the decadence of “modern” youth from Luther, Plato, Socrates, and a 6000 year old Egyptian tomb, and ends with a list of teenage heroes, including the 16 year old author of the hymn “My Jesus, I Love Thee.”

Then Sings My Soul is a beautiful book, printed in brown ink on ivory paper.  While  elegant, the jagged-edged paper is not very practical for turning pages.  The biggest problem with this book, however, is its binding.  Anyone who wants to play these hymns on an organ or piano will need to have the book spiral-bound, as we did.  Then Sings My Soul is definitely worth the effort.

Disclosure:  I received a free review copy of this book from Booksneeze in order to give you my honest opinions.