Publisher's Synopsis
One of the Church's favourite hymns, 'The Church's One Foundation', was taken from a book published in 1866 - Lyra Fidelium by Samuel Stone. Samuel J. Stone was an Anglican clergyman in the 19th century, whose poetry covered many different areas of Christianity. His great work 'Twelve Hymns on the Twelve Articles of the Apostle's Creed' was triggered by a controversy over liberal theology at the time, as prominent preachers in the Church in South Africa were preaching openly that the Bible were false. Samuel Stone returned to the Bible and the Apostle Creed developed by the Early Church, and put the entire statement of faith into hymn form. Stone offered these hymns to the 'poor of his parish', who used the Creed often during prayer time, but with little insight into the meaning of some of its phrases. Stone said of this, that 'there are plenty of theological commentaries on the creed, but you can't pray a commentary. Putting them into poetic form secures a place in the general mind, exercising an influence upon heart and life'. This version has been rewritten by Mathias Johnson into Modern English, in order to make this great set of poems more available to readers today.
