His hymn, The Larger View, was sung at the closing session of this year’s SoF Conference.
The Larger View In their ancient isolation Races framed their moral codes, And the peoples of each nation Trod their solitary roads.
Now the distances are shrinking; Travel, and the printed page, All earth’s many lands are linking Spreading knowledge of each age.
Now new times demand new measures, And new ways we must explore; Let each faith bring its own treasures To enrich the common store.
Then no more will creeds divide us – Though we love our own the best – For the larger view will guide us As we join in common quest.
John Andrew Storey was born on March 24th 1935 in the Isle of Ely. He was a Congregational Minister from 1961 to 1963, then left to become a Unitarian. From 1963 until 1994 he served as a Unitarian Minister in various places. It was then he began writing his hymns, which became widely known and sung, both in this country and abroad. In 1972 he founded the Unitarian Buddhist Society. His concerns over racism, conservation, ecology and peace led him into political activism and during his years in Plymouth he stood as Ecology Party candidate.
This hymn is published in The Common Quest: Selected Writings of John Andrew Storey, edited by Charles Hughes and Sylvia Storey (Lindsey Press, London 2000). It is reprinted here by kind permission of Mrs Sylvia Storey. The editor would also like to thank Miles and Jane Howarth for information about the author and for bringing his book to her attention.