50 free Hymn trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 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.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
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
William Walker joined the words to the tune in his shape-note book Southern Harmony; more than 20 melodies had been tried before.
Q 04Before his conversion, the author of Amazing Grace made his living how?
Captaining slave ships
A violent storm in 1748 prompted his cry to God for mercy; he later became an abolitionist and lived to see the trade banned in 1807.
Q 05Carl Boberg's 1885 poem 'O Store Gud', later a famous English hymn, was written in which language?
Swedish
Carl Boberg wrote 'O Store Gud' in 1885 after watching a thunderstorm clear over Mönsterås Bay.
Q 06Which English missionary produced the 1949 translation of 'O Store Gud' sung by George Beverly Shea?
Stuart K. Hine
Shea and Barrows popularised it at the great postwar crusades, and Elvis won a Grammy for it in 1967.
Q 07Elvis Presley won his first Grammy in 1967 for a gospel album named after which hymn?
How Great Thou Art
It was his second gospel LP; he won another Grammy for a live version of the same hymn in 1974.
Q 08Henry Francis Lyte wrote 'Abide with Me' in 1847 while dying of which disease?
Tuberculosis
It was first sung at his own funeral; he died in Nice a few weeks after writing it.
Q 09What is the name of William Henry Monk's tune for 'Abide with Me'?
Eventide
Monk was the original editor of Hymns Ancient and Modern; Melita is the Navy Hymn tune, Diademata belongs to Crown Him with Many Crowns.
Q 10'Abide with Me' is traditionally sung before which annual sporting event?
The FA Cup Final
The tradition dates to 1927 (Arsenal v Cardiff), after the crowd sang it while the pitch was cleared at the 1923 final.
Q 11Who wrote 'Rock of Ages'?
Augustus Toplady
The famous story of him sheltering from a storm in a cleft at Burrington Combe surfaced only in 1898 and most hymnologists doubt it.
Q 12'Be Thou My Vision' is a translation of a poem in which language?
Old Irish
Mary Elizabeth Byrne translated it in 1905, Eleanor Hull versified it in 1912, and it has been sung to the folk tune Slane since 1919.
Q 13Which hymn is famously said to have been played by the band as the Titanic sank?
Nearer, My God, to Thee
Sarah Flower Adams' hymn retells Jacob's dream of a ladder to heaven; it was also sung as the SS Valencia sank in 1906.
Q 21Fanny 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 22Fanny 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 23Isaac Watts, credited with about 750 hymns, is known by what nickname?
The Godfather of English Hymnody
Q 14Which Savoy operas composer wrote the tune 'St Gertrude' for 'Onward, Christian Soldiers'?
Arthur Sullivan
Sabine Baring-Gould dashed off the words in about 15 minutes for children processing between churches in 1865.
Q 15Which organisation adopted 'Onward, Christian Soldiers' as its favoured processional?
The Salvation Army
Baring-Gould later apologised that some of the lines were faulty because he wrote it in such haste.
Q 16Who wrote both the words and the tune of 'A Mighty Fortress Is Our God'?
Martin Luther
Written around 1527-29 and paraphrasing Psalm 46, it has been called the Battle Hymn of the Reformation.
Q 17Which poet called 'Ein feste Burg' the Marseillaise of the Reformation?
Heinrich Heine
The hymn has been translated into English at least seventy times, including Thomas Carlyle's 'A safe stronghold'.
Q 18'Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty' was written by which Anglican bishop for Trinity Sunday?
Reginald Heber
It paraphrases Revelation 4 and is sung to John Bacchus Dykes' tune Nicaea, named for the council that defined the Trinity.
Q 19Horatio 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 20Roughly how many hymns and gospel songs did the blind writer Fanny Crosby produce?
More than 8,000
She was called the Queen of Gospel Song Writers, and Ira Sankey credited her hymns for the success of the Moody revivals.
His works include Joy to the World, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross and Our God, Our Help in Ages Past.
Q 24'Our God, Our Help in Ages Past' paraphrases which chapter of the Psalter?
Psalm 90
John Wesley changed 'Our God' to 'O God' in 1738, and both versions remain in use; the tune is William Croft's St. Anne.
Q 25Charles Wesley, the Methodist leader, wrote roughly how many hymns?
Over 6,500
They include And Can It Be, Love Divine All Loves Excelling and the carol Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.
Q 26'Great Is Thy Faithfulness' takes its title phrase from which Old Testament book?
Lamentations
Thomas Chisholm wrote the poem in 1923 and William Runyan set it in Kansas; the postwar evangelistic crusades made it famous.
Q 27For 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 28Whose 1916 setting turned Blake's 'And did those feet in ancient time' into 'Jerusalem'?
Hubert Parry
Poet Laureate Robert Bridges asked for simple music a wartime audience could join in; Elgar later orchestrated it.
Q 29'The Old Rugged Cross' was written in 1912 by which Methodist evangelist?
George Bennard
He wrote the first verse in Albion, Michigan, after being ridiculed at a revival meeting.
Q 30Joseph Scriven wrote 'What a Friend We Have in Jesus' as a poem in 1855 to comfort whom?
His mother in Ireland
He was living in Canada and published it anonymously; he was not fully credited until the 1880s.