The Church has forgotten the true meaning of martyrdom
All Saints’ Day is upon us. Today, Christians throughout the world will reflect on the lives of saints who have – to quote the Apostle Paul – ‘fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith’. But while we still sing William Walsham How’s magnificent hymn ‘For All the Saints’, most congregations will stop short of the stanza that named the martyrs: For Martyrs, who with rapture-kindled eye, Saw the bright crown descending from the sky, And seeing, grasped it, Thee we glorify. Alleluia, Alleluia. How wrote eleven stanzas in 1864, inspired by the 'cloud of witnesses' described in Hebrews 12.
