Funerals: Proper chants, including Requiem Aeternam and Lux Aeterna. In Paradisum. Ave Maria, Panis Angelicus. Hymns: Jerusalem, My Happy Home, I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say, Lord of All Hopefulness, The King of Love My Shepherd Is, Sing With All the Saints in Glory.

I don't see anything wrong with LoAH:
The structure of each verse is basically:
The Lord has these good attributes (praising him by acknowledging them,) asking him to "be there" with us, and then asking him for that particular good attribute to be with us at a certain time of the day.
What's wrong with that?

Be Thou My Vision is not the Protestant version of Lord of All Hopefulness.
They are different texts altogether, often sung to the same tune.
(And, at any rate- LoAH is low-church Protestant, while BTMV is 6th Century Catholic).

As for what's wrong with LoAH...
It's nice. But, I don't know- it seems a but homey.
When I can't put my finger on exactly what I think is wrong with a hymn, I try to imagine what type of congregation would be most comfortable singing it. For LoAH, I can't help but think of a low-Church vaguely-liturgical Protestant congregation.
There's nothing directly wrong with it, it just doesn't seem to have a very real high value. (IMveryHO)

I think it's beautiful. Yes, it's a lowish theology, insofar as it deals with daily-life-spirituality, or whatever. But the following of Christ is a very old idea, and sanctifying the day is a very very old, very monastic idea.

(According to Wikipedia, anyway...)
Songs of Praise was intended as a low-Church (or, if you like, Broad Church) answer to the 1906 English Hymnal.

It also included this hymn (also by Struther), which I really wish I had written as a poem, but seems to have no place in any reasonably orthodox liturgical setting:

When a knight won his spurs, in the stories of old,
He was gentle and brave, he was gallant and bold
With a shield on his arm and a lance in his hand,
For God and for valour he rode through the land.

No charger have I, and no sword by my side,
Yet still to adventure and battle I ride,
Though back into storyland giants have fled,
And the knights are no more and the dragons are dead.

Let faith be my shield and let joy be my steed
'Gainst the dragons of anger, the ogres of greed;
And let me set free with the sword of my youth,
From the castle of darkness, the power of the truth.


So- in case anyone else thought (like me) that the 1982 has some goofy things in it, apparently there was already Anglican precedent for ridiculous hymns to be included in hymnals. (Although, I do understand that schools used hymnals as educational song-books, so maybe they have a wholly different conception of "Hymnal" in England than we/I do.)

I'm surprised no one has offered "Be still, my soul" (FINLANDIA) as it seems, well, darn near perfect. "In paradisum" is a mandatory, and thankfully my clergy accepted that when proposed. After chanting that and aware of a clearly "not all RC" aggregation, I don't have a problem seque'ng to "Shall we gather at the river", using a Copland-esque accompaniment, particularly if OEW is not requested for that slot. Of the newer generation of sacred song, I'd include J.Sullivan-Whitaker's "In every age" and Br. Zaragoza's "Cross of Love" as worthy for use.

In case anyone is interested, I wrote a hymn text that amalgamates the Requiem Propers together with some sentimentality and a well-known doxology (which could be switched out, obviously). I sang it to CONDITOR ALME at the the last funeral I did, and it was very well received.

Eternal Rest grant her, we pray
and shine the light of endless day.
Appoint for her a place with those
who in you died, and in you rose.

Lord Jesus Christ, our Glorious King
protect her soul from suffering.
Deliver her from darkness deep,
and give the angels guard to keep.

Receive our prayer and offering,
the tears we shed, the songs we sing.
Accept our sacrifice today
to aide the soul for whom we pray.

With her, and with us, Lord be near.
To you we cry, bend down your ear-
For in your mercy there is light,
You make the darkness ever bright.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise Him, all creatures here below.
Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

In a very different vein, to my mind the best American analog to Abide With Me is one of the greatest American sacred songs ever put to paper: Precious Lord.

Here's an sample of a historical moment: Mahalia Jackson's moving offering (while she was in fact ill) of Precious Lord at the funeral of Dr King in April 1968 (mind you, I prefer this sung chorally, but still, I remember that funeral and Bobby Kennedy's that awful spring of 1968, and it was a much more difficult time than anything we've got going on today):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riu5ZaY2k2A

Hmm, "Thaxted" would be one hymntune that I would reserve for a particular funeral that, for whatever reason(s), could bear the density of both the melody and text. It's not in my experience a pro forma item found among parish providers. I am impressed it is considered so up in the GWN, tho', CD. But I never program it even on Sundays without a measure of considerable reason.
Someone on the thread mentioned the Allegri. I think that would be a perfect example of rationalizing (in a good way) the measure of one's association with that setting as an offset of any ostentatious display, even given its pure aesthetic. There, after all, was a reason why it was sequestered for GF at St. Peter's by one pope who recognized its "singularity" as a work that persists to this day.
Say no more. (To myself)

Of course, CW, I wouldn't think that you'd take my qualification of it otherwise. I meant to put the ribbon on the bow of THAXTED by declaring it my personal favorite hymntune of all time!