When I was in Sudan in the mid-1990s with the Carnival Band we went to the Anglican cathedral in Khartoum. It was breezeblock with strip lighting. There was no organ but the congregation sang a Wesleyan hymn accompanied only by percussion. I'm sure they felt the same passion for the song that we did. A great song will not be denied.

Some consider Anglican hymns to be outdated; to speak in archaic flowery language that no longer reflects our religious needs. Some think religion itself outdated. But for many, both the language and music of our hymns are immensely moving and give a sense of the infinite available nowhere else.

A small volume of hymns collected by Rupert Christiansen entitled Once More With Feeling! brings together the hard core of Anglican hymns from all different sects and attitudes. It is an enthusiastic, careful and loving piece of work, reassuring those of us who hold these hymns dear that they are indeed the worthy and glorious songs we think them.

This is a book for anyone who remembers morning assembly with a couple of hymns as an integral part of the school day.

I was raised an atheist, but the joy of the music of Anglicanism made an impression on my young heart mainly via those morning rituals and the school choir (I was eventually thrown out, probably because of poor punctuality and general sloppiness). There are so many favourites, it is hard to name them. Everyone has their own, and I understand that the offices of The Times echoed to favourite lines of hymns this very week. Dear Lord and Father of Mankind is popular, with its poignant final verse:

Breathe through the heats of our desire

Thy coolness and thy balm

Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire

Speak through the earthquake, wind and fire

O still small voice of calm.

Or imagine a Welsh male-voice choir singing Guide me O, Thou Great Jehovah:

I am weak, but thou art mighty

Hold me with thy powerful hand

Consider the promise in Lead Kindly Light Amidst the Encircling Gloom:

Lead thou me on

The night is dark and I am far from home

Lead thou me on and the unashamed triumph of He Who Would True Valour See:

Hobgoblin nor foul fiend

Can daunt his spirit and the powerful sailors' hymn Eternal Father, Strong to Save with the tortured lines:

O hear us when we cry to thee

For those in peril on the sea.

These great songs lay dormant in my memory for many years, until I met the Carnival Band in the early 1980s. We began singing carols, but also made a rather obscure album of hymns entitled Sing Lustily and with Good Courage (one of John Wesley's instructions for singing — the complete list is in Christiansen's appendix) and that reminded me how brilliant they are to sing.

This year we finally produced a follow-up, Paradise Found, this time containing Wesley's hymns, to celebrate his tricentenary. There is something special about singing sacred music, rather than any other repertoire. It lifts both performer and audience out of day-to-day concerns and gives a wider perspective. Even if the dogma of the Church is anathema, the effect can be profoundly moving.

The violinist Itzhak Perlman said recently that repetition is required for appreciation of all music, including classical. The reason that popular music is so popular is largely down to repetition. Listening to a little Beethoven every day as a child fixes it for ever, and a generation was raised with these hymns as part of their daily musical diet: a small repertoire, repeated regularly. These songs have become hard-wired for many of us, but we are probably the last — in England at least. Only Songs of Praise on television ventures into this realm, and while it still wins good viewing figures, it is seen as mildly eccentric.

This is not true for the rest of the world. Andy Watts of the Carnival Band points out that the big hymn websites are American, and there are a lot of Methodists in the US, so they will be singing the Wesley-Isaac Watts repertoire.

The Methodists are revising their hymn book as I write, and it will be interesting to see what they include and what they omit. Making hymn collections was a great pastime of the Victorians, along with butterflies and fossils. Some volumes contained 900 songs, and they can't all be winners, there is inevitably a large amount of dross. In The English Hymnal, Ralph Vaughan Williams sought to sift through and eliminate this but, as Andy points out, he probably would have eliminated our favourites, because we like the archaic pieces.

Like folk music, religion has revivals every so often. I hope any revival brings back some of the beautiful hymns written both by skilful composers and untutored artisans. They are a wonderful part of our heritage.

Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band tour Britain from November 29 to December 21. www.parkrecords.com

On November 27 at 7.30pm, Short Books and Rupert Christiansen (with guest presenters including Ian Hislop) will host a celebration of hymn and carol-singing at St James's Piccadilly, to mark the launch of Once More With Feeling. St James's Church, 197 Piccadilly, London W1. Tickets £4, available from Waterstone's, 203-206 Piccadilly, London W1 or on 020-7851 2400. All profits will be donated to the church's restoration appeal.

Once More, With Feeling! A Book of Classic Hymns and Carols selected by Rupert Christiansen

Short Books, £12.99

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