Hymn Trivia
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99 free Hymn trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Behind almost every hymn in the book is a story: a slave-ship captain writing about grace, a lawyer who lost four daughters at sea, a blind poet who turned out eight thousand texts, a dying vicar finishing one last prayer. This quiz covers the hymns most congregations know by heart and the people who wrote them: Amazing Grace, How Great Thou Art, Abide with Me, Rock of Ages, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, It Is Well with My Soul, Blessed Assurance, Be Thou My Vision, Jerusalem, Lift Every Voice and Sing and many more. Easy questions ask who wrote Amazing Grace and which hymn was said to be playing as the Titanic sank. Harder ones want the tune names (Eventide, Nicaea, Cwm Rhondda, Old Hundredth), the year Isaac Watts published his first collection, which hymn is sung at every FA Cup Final, and who translated a Swedish poem into How Great Thou Art. Nothing here quotes lyrics; the questions are about authors, tunes, dates and history. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the hymns and their writers, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up. Useful for church quiz nights, choir socials, Bible study groups and anyone who grew up with a hymnal.
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Q 01Who wrote the words to 'Amazing Grace'?
John Newton
Newton was a former slave-ship captain turned Anglican curate; the hymn illustrated a New Year's Day sermon in 1773.
Q 02In which hymn collection did 'Amazing Grace' first appear in print, in 1779?
Olney Hymns
Newton compiled it with the poet William Cowper while curate of Olney in Buckinghamshire.
Q 03What is the name of the tune to which 'Amazing Grace' has been sung since 1835?
New Britain
New Britain is the tune William Walker paired with the words in his 1835 shape-note book Southern Harmony, after more than 20 other melodies had been tried.
Q 04'Be Still, My Soul' is sung to a melody from which Sibelius tone poem?
Finlandia
Finlandia: the hymn tune is taken from Sibelius's 1899 tone poem and carries Katharina von Schlegel's German words, translated into English by Jane Borthwick in 1855.
Q 05Carl Boberg's 1885 poem 'O Store Gud', later a famous English hymn, was written in which language?
Swedish
Swedish: Carl Boberg wrote 'O Store Gud' in 1885 at Mönsterås on Sweden's Baltic coast, after watching a thunderstorm clear over the bay.
Q 06Which English missionary produced the 1949 translation of 'O Store Gud' sung by George Beverly Shea?
Stuart K. Hine
Stuart K. Hine, an English missionary who had worked in Ukraine, completed his English text in 1949; George Beverly Shea then made it famous at the postwar crusades.
Q 07Elvis Presley won his first Grammy in 1967 for a gospel album named after which hymn?
How Great Thou Art
How Great Thou Art was his second gospel LP, after His Hand in Mine (1960); a live recording of the same hymn brought him another Grammy in 1974.
Q 08Henry Francis Lyte wrote 'Abide with Me' in 1847 while dying of which disease?
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis: Lyte wrote the hymn in September 1847, weeks before the disease killed him at Nice that November; it was first sung at his own funeral.
Q 09What is the name of William Henry Monk's tune for 'Abide with Me'?
Eventide
Eventide was composed by Monk for the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern, which he edited; the name comes from the hymn's opening line, 'fast falls the eventide'.
Q 10'Abide with Me' is traditionally sung before which annual sporting event?
The FA Cup Final
The FA Cup Final has opened with 'Abide with Me' since 1927, when Cardiff City beat Arsenal; it was chosen reportedly because it was King George V's favourite hymn.
Q 11Who wrote 'Rock of Ages'?
Augustus Toplady
Augustus Toplady, an Anglican curate and fierce Calvinist opponent of John Wesley, published 'Rock of Ages' in The Gospel Magazine in 1776.
Q 12'Be Thou My Vision' is a translation of a poem in which language?
Old Irish
Old Irish: the poem 'Rop tú mo baile' was translated into English prose by Mary Elizabeth Byrne in 1905, versified by Eleanor Hull in 1912, and paired with the folk tune Slane in 1919.
Q 13Which hymn is famously said to have been played by the band as the Titanic sank?
Nearer, My God, to Thee
Nearer, My God, to Thee, Sarah Flower Adams's 1841 hymn retelling Jacob's dream of a ladder to heaven, was also reportedly sung by passengers as the SS Valencia sank in 1906.
Q 21Fanny Crosby was the first woman to do what in the United States Senate?
Speak there, reading a poem
She had gone to Washington in 1843 to lobby for education for the blind.
Q 22Isaac Watts, credited with about 750 hymns, is known by what nickname?
The Godfather of English Hymnody
The Godfather of English Hymnody: Isaac Watts, a Nonconformist minister, wrote some 750 hymns, among them 'Joy to the World' and 'When I Survey the Wondrous Cross'.
Q 23'Our God, Our Help in Ages Past' paraphrases which chapter of the Psalter?
Psalm 90
Psalm 90 ('Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations'); John Wesley changed 'Our God' to 'O God' in 1738, and the tune is William Croft's St Anne.
Q 14Who composed the tune 'St Gertrude' for 'Onward, Christian Soldiers'?
Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan composed St Gertrude in 1871; Sabine Baring-Gould had written the words in 1865 for children at Horbury Bridge, Yorkshire, processing to a neighbouring church.
Q 15Which organisation adopted 'Onward, Christian Soldiers' as its favoured processional?
The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army took up 'Onward, Christian Soldiers' as its favoured processional; the hymn's marching imagery suited a body organised with military ranks and brass bands.
Q 16Who wrote both the words and the tune of 'A Mighty Fortress Is Our God'?
Martin Luther
Martin Luther wrote both text and melody, probably between 1527 and 1529, paraphrasing Psalm 46; the hymn has been called the Battle Hymn of the Reformation.
Q 17Which poet called 'Ein feste Burg' the Marseillaise of the Reformation?
Heinrich Heine
Heinrich Heine, in his 1830s essay on religion and philosophy in Germany, called the hymn the Marseillaise of the Reformation; it has been translated into English at least seventy times, including Carlyle's 'A safe stronghold'.
Q 18Horatio Spafford wrote 'It Is Well with My Soul' after his four daughters died in what disaster?
The sinking of the SS Ville du Havre
Philip Bliss named the tune 'Ville du Havre'; Spafford had already lost a son and his fortune in the Chicago fire.
Q 19Roughly how many hymns and gospel songs did the blind writer Fanny Crosby produce?
More than 8,000
More than 8,000 hymns and gospel songs, among them 'Blessed Assurance' and 'To God Be the Glory', earned Fanny Crosby the title Queen of Gospel Song Writers.
Q 20Fanny Crosby wrote the words of 'Blessed Assurance' in 1873 to a tune by which friend?
Phoebe Knapp
Knapp played the new melody on her piano while a pipe organ was being installed and asked Crosby what the tune said.
Q 24Charles Wesley, the Methodist leader, wrote roughly how many hymns?
Over 6,500
Over 6,500 hymns by most counts, among them 'And Can It Be', 'Love Divine, All Loves Excelling' and the carol 'Hark! The Herald Angels Sing'.
Q 25'Great Is Thy Faithfulness' takes its title phrase from which Old Testament book?
Lamentations
Lamentations 3:23 ('great is thy faithfulness'); Thomas Chisholm wrote the poem in 1923 and William Runyan set it to music in Kansas; the postwar evangelistic crusades made it famous.
Q 26For whom did Cecil Frances Alexander write the 1848 collection containing 'All Things Bright and Beautiful'?
Little children
Hymns for Little Children also gave the world Once in Royal David's City and There Is a Green Hill Far Away.
Q 27Whose 1916 setting turned Blake's 'And did those feet in ancient time' into 'Jerusalem'?
Hubert Parry
Hubert Parry wrote it in 1916 at the request of Poet Laureate Robert Bridges, who wanted simple music a wartime audience could join in; Elgar orchestrated it in 1922.
Q 28'The Old Rugged Cross' was written in 1912 by which Methodist evangelist?
George Bennard
George Bennard began the hymn in Albion, Michigan, in 1912 and finished it in Pokagon, Michigan, where it was first sung in 1913.
Q 29Joseph Scriven wrote 'What a Friend We Have in Jesus' as a poem in 1855 to comfort whom?
His mother in Ireland
His mother in Ireland: Scriven sent her the poem from Canada in 1855; it was published anonymously and his authorship emerged only decades later.
Q 30Charlotte Elliott's 'Just as I Am' became the altar-call song of which evangelist's crusades?
Billy Graham
Billy Graham's crusades used it as the invitation hymn from the 1940s, and Graham titled his 1997 autobiography 'Just As I Am'; the usual tune is William Bradbury's Woodworth.