"The Father of English Hymnody"

Happy Birthday, Isaac Watts. Born this day in 1674, Watts wrote something in the neighborhood of 600 hymns, many of which are still in the book. From my personal experience, they are uniformly sublime.

I remember a story I read when I was a boy about a battle during the American Revolution - I want to say it was Princeton- during which the Continentals started running low on the paper wadding to hold the charges and bullets in their muskets until fired. Apparently, a patriotic clergyman dashed into a nearby church, scooped up a hand-full of hymnals and passed them out to the troops, yelling, "Give 'em Watts, boys!"

UPDATE: Well, my memory was slightly imperfect but not seriously flawed:

The incident I was thinking of was the Battle of Springfield, NJ in 1780. The fiery clergyman involved was one James Caldwell. The Church Militant, indeed.

Yips! to my real-life pal Bev for the original tip.