Over the last few days we have been on vacation.  We are visiting family, which means we weren’t at our church this morning.  We got a chance to worship at another small, rural, yet non-traditional church this morning.  It was planted by my Father-in-Law and is now pastored by one of Pam’s brother-in-laws.  It was a wonderfully simple service.  One of the things that amazed me was the fellowship after worship. The people stood around and talked with each other for over an hour.

This morning we had a carol sing, which is very appropriate for the Sunday following Christmas.  Before we sang each carol, my brother-in-law gave us a brief history of the song.  While I have heard Isaac Watt’s story before, it was again interesting to hear how this man got started writing many of the great hymns we sing today, including Joy to the World.

Young Isaac quickly showed himself at ease with words. He learnt Latin at four years of age, Greek at nine, French at 11 and Hebrew at 13. His mother was astonished by the quality of the poetry he wrote when he was only seven. Once when his father reprimanded him for laughing during family prayers, Isaac pointed to a bell rope by the fireplace, where he had just seen a mouse run up, and speedily explained in verse:

There was a mouse, for want of stairs,
ran up a rope to say his prayers.

As his father picked up the cane, Isaac sought to save his skin with a second verse:

Oh father, father pity take
and I will no more verses make.

Sadly for Isaac it seems he was punished then, but thankfully for us, he did go on to “make verses”.A famous story about Isaac Watts tells how it all began. The teenaged Isaac complained bitterly to his father about the dreary Psalms sung in church – the tunes were tiresome and the words meaningless, he said. His discerning father, who recognised the burden oppressing his son’s soul, encouraged him to see what he could do “to mend the matter”. Isaac went to his room and wrote his first hymn.

The next Sunday that first hymn Behold the Glories of the Lamb was sung in the Congregational chapel to which the Watts family belonged in Southampton. Isaac was about 19 years old at the time. There were to be very many more hymns – almost 700 in all – before he died at the age of 74. Some three centuries later we are still singing them.

Isaac Watts was the man who, virtually single-handed, introduced, developed, invented, the hymn as we know it today. This influence was so strong that he has been called the father of English hymnody. One other interesting fact I learned this morning was that at one time Watts was composing one new tune a week for 222 weeks. Each week the congregation would sing a new Watts hymn. I think Isaac Watts really knew what it meant to sing to the Lord a new song.