The Singing Church - The Hymns It Wrote and Sang

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Title: The Singing Church - The Hymns It Wrote and Sang
Author: Lorenz, Edmund S. (Edmund Simon)
Language: English
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THE
SINGING CHURCH

THE HYMNS IT WROTE AND SANG

By
Edmund S. Lorenz, LL.D., Mus. Doc.

AUTHOR OF
MUSIC IN WORK AND WORSHIP
PRACTICAL HYMN STUDIES
PRACTICAL CHURCH MUSIC
CHURCH MUSIC

COKESBURY PRESS
NASHVILLE

THE SINGING CHURCH
Copyright, MCMXXXVIII
By WHITMORE & SMITH

All rights in this book are reserved. No part of the text may be
reproduced in any form without written permission of the publishers,
except brief quotations used in connection with reviews in a magazine
or newspaper.

_Set up, electrotyped, printed, and bound by the Parthenon Press at
Nashville Tennessee, United States of America_

“_Be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart
to the Lord._”
(Eph. 5: 18, 19.)

PREFACE

In preparing this discussion of the Christian hymn, it has been my
ambition, not to be pre-eminently scholarly, but rather to be
pre-eminently helpful. The current treatment of this phase of church
worship is quite sufficiently thorough in its literary analysis and
historical research; there is nothing but praise for this aspect of
the study of the hymn in the many excellent treatises in America as
well as in England.

The fathers of American hymnology, Professors Austin Phelps and
Edwards A. Parks and Rev. Daniel L. Furber, set a good example to
later hymnologists in their _Hymns and Choirs_ in laying stress on the
thought and sentiment of the hymns and in devoting nearly one-third of
their study to “The Dignity and the Methods of Worship in Song,”
discussing choirs, congregational singing, organs, and many other
practical phases in the use of hymns. They gave little consideration
to the historicity of individual hymns; that viewpoint had not risen
above the horizon.

Later works have given more attention to the historical background.
The work of Dr. Louis F. Benson, the greatest hymnologist America has
produced, cannot be too highly commended for its scholarly
thoroughness and indefatigable research. His _The English Hymn_ and
_The Hymnody of the Christian Church_ should be found in the library
of every minister. Other valuable American treatises on hymns are
Ninde’s _Story of the American Hymn_, Gilman’s _Evolution of the
English Hymn_, Reeves’ _The Hymn as Literature_, Marks’ _Rise and
Growth of English Hymnody_, and Tillett’s _Our Hymns and Their
Authors_, all of which are most helpful and illuminating discussions
bearing on the literary and historical aspects of Christian hymns. On
the other side of the sea are other most valuable studies of the hymn.
Horder’s _The Hymn Lover_ is particularly fresh and inspiring. Others
are instructive regarding the individual hymns, such as Josiah
Miller’s _Singers and Songs of the Church_, John Telford’s _The
Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated_ and _Evenings with the Sacred Poets_,
and W. T. Stead’s _Hymns That Have Helped_. Supreme above them all is
Julian’s _Dictionary of Hymnology_, which is a stupendous work of vast
comprehensiveness and indefatigable industry, the last word in the
history and critical study of Christian hymns of all lands and all
Christian ages.

The justification of another survey of the field lies in the fact that
all these admirable books confine themselves to the purely literary
and historical data regarding each hymn, with side glances in only a
few cases at the practical values involved. While the fundamental urge
of expressing religious emotions back of Christian hymns is not denied
or even deprecated, the emotional values are not developed or
stressed.

In order to assure this lacking element of practical helpfulness, this
discussion includes four chapters on the purposeful use of hymns in
the work of the Church.

It is proper that I should recognize the sympathetic and cordial
helpfulness in an advisory way of Professor Herman von Berge, my
editorial associate in the musical work to which I have devoted the
larger part of my life. His scholarship and wide practical experience,
both as pastor and theological seminary professor, have helped me
solve some problems that rather daunted me. Acknowledgment is also due
to my son, Rev. Edward H. Lorenz, and to Mrs. F. C. Goodlin, my
private secretary, in typing and proofreading my longhand manuscript.
Last but not least, the co-operation of my brother, Dr. D. E. Lorenz,
organizer of the church of the Good Shepherd in New York City and its
pastor for thirty-four years, in the indexing and proofreading, calls
for grateful recognition. Only an experienced author can fully measure
the value of such efficient helpers.

E. S. L.

Dayton Ohio.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 17
THE PLACE AND IMPORTANCE OF THE HYMN.
The Impulse to Sing Is Constitutional in Man.
Biblical Authority for the Singing of Hymns.
The Use of Hymns in the Development of the Christian Church.
Cultural Value of Hymns.
Spiritual Value of Hymns.
The Value of Singing Hymns Too Often Overlooked.
The Need of Emphasis on Efficient Use of Hymns.

PART I
THE CHARACTER OF THE HYMN

CHAPTER I
WHAT IS A HYMN? 25
I DEFINITION OF THE HYMN.
Importance of Accurate Definition.
Inadequate Definition.
Definition Must Be Based on Practical Considerations.
Types of Hymns.
Definition of the Congregational Hymn.
II THE HYMN MUST BE POETRY.
To Be Poetry, It Must Be Emotional.
It Must Have Poetical Form.
It Must Be Poetic in Spirit.
The Hymn Must Have Unity.
The Poetical Element Is Contributory Only.
III THE CHRISTIAN HYMN MUST BE DISTINCTLY RELIGIOUS.
Poems of Semi-religious Fancy Are No Hymns.
Mere Moralizing Will Not Serve.
Special Propaganda Is Not Admissible.
Christian Hymns Should Be Genuinely Christocentric.
IV SCRIPTURAL ELEMENTS OF THE HYMN.
Hymns Based on the Scriptures.
Use of Scriptural Forms Desirable.
V THE HYMN MUST BE FITTED FOR MASS SINGING.
Congregational Singing Is a Pronouncedly Christian Exercise.
Meter Essential to Mass Singing.
VI PRACTICABILITY FOR ACTUAL USE.
Ideas Must Be Plainly Evident.
Hymns May Not Be Extremely Individualistic.
Distracting Figures and Forms of Expression.
Verses Must Be Complete in Themselves.
Musical Limitations.
Outworn Hymns.
Mistaken Objections to Some Hymns.

CHAPTER II
THE PURPOSE AND VALUE OF HYMNS 40
I THE IMPULSE TO WRITE HYMNS.
II PURPOSE IN WRITING HYMNS.
The Influence of Purpose.
The Purpose Must Affect Only the Practical Aspects.
III PURPOSE OF THE USER OF HYMNS.
IV PURPOSES SERVED BY SINGING HYMNS.
Hymns Unite Christians in Worship and Christian Activities.
Hymns Concentrate Interest and Attention.
Hymns Afford a Means of Expression for the Congregation.
Hymns Provide Help and Comfort in Dark Hours.
Hymns Afford Clear Expression of Christian Truth.
Hymns Give Opportunity for Active Participation by All.
Hymns Provide Variety.
Hymns Create a Religious Atmosphere.
Hymns in the Home.
Hymns in Personal Work.
V REASONS FOR THE MINISTER’S APPRECIATION OF HYMNS.
Hymns Are Evidence of the Effect of the Bible.
Hymns and Psalms Affected the Life of Church.
Hymns in Personal Christian Experience.
Hymns as Stimulating the Spiritual Life of the Minister.
Hymns Approved by Paul.
Hymns in the Early Church.
Hymns Prepared the Church for Periods of Marked Progress.
VI STRANGE INDIFFERENCE TO HYMNS.
The Minister’s Indifference.
Indifference of the Congregation.

CHAPTER III
THE LITERARY ASPECT OF HYMNS 53
I WHAT MAKES THE HYMN LITERATURE?
Its Character as a Transcript of Life.
Its Wide Distribution.
Its Acceptance Through Many Generations.
Its Profound Influence.
II OBJECTIONS TO RECOGNIZING ITS LITERARY CHARACTER.
Due to Narrow Definition of Literature.
Due to Failure to Realize Limitations of Hymns.
Some Critics and Their Criticisms.
III THE WRITING OF HYMNS.
The Handicap of Thought and Diction.
The Handicap of Meter.
IV LITERARY QUALITY NOT TO BE OVERESTIMATED.
Literary Quality Not the Supreme Consideration.
Literary Quality Should Be Subconscious.

CHAPTER IV
THE EMENDATION OF HYMNS 63
I THE CHANGES IN OUR HYMNS.
Early Changes.
The Abuse of the Editorial Revision.
The Return to the Originals.
II PRINCIPLES OF EQUITY INVOLVED IN THESE CHANGES.
The Rights of the Original Writer.
The Limits of the Author’s Rights.
III EFFECT OF CHANGES ON QUALITY.
Loss of Original Writer’s Vision.
Biblical Precedent.
IV ANALYSIS OF CHANGES MADE.
The Omission of Verses.
Reconstructing and Rewriting Faulty Hymns.
Minor Felicitous Changes.

CHAPTER V
THE CONTENT OF THE HYMN 76
I ITS RELATION TO GOD.
Thanksgiving.
Prayer for Future Blessing.
Adoration.
The Hymn of Communion.
II RELATION TO THE SINGER.
The Hymn of Emotion.
The Hymn of Inspiration.
The Hymn of Personal Experience.
The Hymn of Meditation.
The Hymn of Exhortation.
The Didactic Hymn.
The Doctrinal Hymn.
The Homiletical Hymn.
The Hymn of Propaganda.
Hymns of the Social Gospel.
Special Hymns.
The Great Hymnic Themes.

CHAPTER VI
THE GOSPEL HYMN 89
Lack of Discrimination.
Wrong Assumptions of the Opposition.
Unfairness in Comparisons Made.
Criteria for Evaluation.
Gospel Hymns and the Unsaved.
Gospel Hymns and the Demands of Worship.
Gospel Hymns in the Preparatory Service.
Gospel Hymns in the Laboratory.
The Advantages of Gospel Hymns.
Discrimination in the Use of Gospel Songs Needed.

PART II
HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN HYMN

CHAPTER VII
APOSTOLIC ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 103
SACRED SONG IN THE NEW CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
The Rise of Sacred Song in Apostolic Times.
Apostolic Emphasis of Sacred Song.
Traces of Hymns in the Epistles.
The Hymns of the Apocalypse.
“The Odes of Solomon.”
The Failure of Apostolic Spiritual Songs to Survive.

CHAPTER VIII
THE POST-APOSTOLIC HYMN 109
The Post-Apostolic Church a Singing Church.
The Earliest Surviving Hymns.
The Relation of Hymns to Psalms and Canticles.
The Hymn as Propaganda.

CHAPTER IX
THE GREEK HYMNODY 114
Introduction. THE SYRIAC HYMN-WRITERS.
I EARLY GREEK HYMNS.
II THE LATER GREEK HYMNS.

CHAPTER X
THE LATIN HYMNODY 119
I THE BEGINNING OF LATIN HYMNODY.
II EARLY LATIN HYMN-WRITERS.
III GREAT LATIN HYMNS.
IV MEDIEVAL DEVOTIONAL POEMS.
V MEDIEVAL POPULAR HYMNODY.

CHAPTER XI
LUTHER AND THE GERMAN HYMN 130
I PRE-REFORMATION VERNACULAR HYMNS.
II LUTHER’S RELATION TO GERMAN HYMNODY.

CHAPTER XII
THE LATER GERMAN HYMNODY 137
I THE RISING STANDARD OF LITERARY VALUES.
II THE GOLDEN AGE OF GERMAN HYMNODY.
III THE PIETISTIC HYMN-WRITERS.
IV GERMAN REFORMED HYMNODY.
V TRANSITION TO RATIONALISTIC HYMNS.
VI RATIONALISM IN HYMNODY.
VII HYMNS OF RENEWED RELIGIOUS LIFE.
VIII HYMNS OF PIETISTIC TYPE.

CHAPTER XIII
METRICAL PSALMODY 148
I CALVIN’S CONCEPTION OF CONGREGATIONAL SINGING.
II CALVIN’S FOLLOWERS MORE EXTREME.
III MAROT’S SUCCESSFUL VERSIONS.
IV DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENEVAN PSALTER.
V ENGLISH PSALM VERSIONS BEFORE STERNHOLD.
VI VERSION OF STERNHOLD AND HOPKINS.
VII THE SCOTCH VERSION.
VIII ROUS’ VERSION.
IX TATE AND BRADY’S “NEW VERSION.”
X AMERICAN PSALMODY.
XI THE VALUE OF THE PSALM VERSIONS.

CHAPTER XIV
THE ENGLISH HYMN BEFORE WATTS 158
I THE EARLIEST ENGLISH HYMN.
II ENGLISH HYMNODY SUBMERGED BY REFORMED PSALMODY.
III ENGLISH LITERARY IDEALS UNFAVORABLE TO HYMN-WRITING.
IV THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TECHNIC OF WRITING SINGING HYMNS.
V THE IDEAL OF THE SINGING HYMN REALIZED.

CHAPTER XV
ISAAC WATTS AND HIS PERIOD 168
I THE HYMNIC NEED OF THE TIME.
II THE LIFE OF WATTS.
III WATTS AS A HYMN-WRITER.
IV WATTS’ ARGUMENT FOR THE HYMN.
V WATTS’ INSISTENCE ON PRACTICABILITY.
VI THE INESTIMABLE VALUE OF WATTS’ HYMNS.
VII CONTEMPORARIES OF WATTS.

CHAPTER XVI
THE WESLEYS AND THEIR ERA 180
I THE INFLUENCE OF WATTS ON THE WESLEYS.
II THE HOME OF THE WESLEYS.
III THE MORAVIAN INFLUENCE.
IV JOHN WESLEY.
V CHARLES WESLEY.
VI CHARLES WESLEY’S HYMNS QUITE SUBJECTIVE.
VII WATTS AND CHARLES WESLEY.
VIII ISSUES OF THE WESLEYAN HYMNS.
IX THE METHODIST TUNES.
X INFLUENCES OPPOSING THE WESLEYAN HYMNS.
XI OTHER METHODIST HYMN-WRITERS.
XII CALVINISTIC-METHODIST HYMN-WRITERS.
XIII BAPTIST HYMN-WRITERS.

CHAPTER XVII
HYMNS IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 193
I RISE OF SPIRITUAL LIFE IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH.
II EARLY COLLECTIONS OF EVANGELICAL HYMNS.
III EVANGELICAL HYMN-WRITERS.
IV HYMN-WRITERS OF THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL.
V CONTEMPORARY HYMN-WRITERS.
VI MINOR HYMN-WRITERS.
VII THE HYMNS OF THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.

CHAPTER XVIII
AMERICAN HYMNODY 209
I THE TRANSITION FROM PSALMODY TO HYMNODY.
II THE INTRODUCTION OF WATTS’ HYMNS.
III THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN HYMNODY.
IV COLLECTIONS OF AMERICAN HYMNS.
V EPISCOPAL HYMN-WRITERS.
VI UNITARIAN HYMNODY.
VII LATER ORTHODOX HYMN-WRITERS.

PART III
PRACTICAL HYMNOLOGY

CHAPTER XIX
THE STUDY OF HYMNS 229
I IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF HYMNS.
II PERSONAL ADVANTAGES OF SUCH STUDY OF HYMNS.
Literary Pleasure.
Literary Culture.
Development of Emotional Nature.
III THE PRACTICAL VALUES OF INDIVIDUAL HYMNS.
Classifying Hymns by Their Nature.
Classifying Hymns by Their Fitness for Definite Purposes.
IV THE MINUTE STUDY OF HYMNS.
Analysis of the Hymn.
The Background of the Hymn.
Making a Hymnal of His Own.
Memorizing Hymns.
V A STUDY OF METHODS OF USE.
Using Hymns in Sermons.
Studying Responsiveness of the Congregation.
Studying Methods of Announcement and Securing Participation.
Studying Use of Hymnal for Specific Purposes.
VI A STUDY OF THE TUNES.

CHAPTER XX
THE PRACTICAL USE OF HYMNS 248
I THE HYMN AS A MEANS TO AN END.
II ANALYSIS OF PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF HYMNS.
III THE USE OF HYMNS FOR CREATING RELIGIOUS INTEREST.
IV THE HYMN AS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR TEACHING TRUTH.
V HYMN SERMONS AND HYMN SERVICES.
VI THE USE OF HYMNS IN EMERGENCIES.

CHAPTER XXI
THE SELECTION OF HYMNS 256
I SELECTION SHOULD SECURE UNITY OF SERVICE.
Narrow Conception of Unity.
Broader Conception of Unity.
Unity Based on Purpose.
II SUGGESTIVE SELECTIONS OF HYMNS.
Hymns for Service on God’s Omnipotence.
Hymns for Service on God’s Love.
Hymns for a Missionary Service.
III IMPORTANCE OF THE TUNES.

CHAPTER XXII
THE ANNOUNCEMENT AND TREATMENT OF HYMNS 266
I THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF HYMNS.
II THE TREATMENT OF HYMNS.
EPILOGUE 274
REFERENCES AND NOTES 277
GENERAL INDEX 285
INDEX OF HYMNS 291

INTRODUCTION

THE PLACE AND IMPORTANCE OF THE HYMN

The Church of God has been and is a singing church. This was true in
the antediluvian centuries, which was its seminal period, for some of
its canticles have survived. In its pupal stage, the Old Testament
church life developed both the form and the content of the future
hymnody.

To the solo forms of the preceding period, the Mosaic social and
religious organization now adds both the choral and the congregational
forms of vocal worship. To the fear and awe of previous generations,
the Christian development of the Church of God has added the intimate
phases of adoration, of gratitude, of love, based on consciousness of
communion with the Triune Deity.

Outside of the Israelitish Church and its Christian consummation,
there has been little or no song in religious worship. The heathen
deities were honored only with rude vocal and instrumental noises made
by temple singers and players. It is the Church of God under all
dispensations which was a singing church. To this day the voice of
sacred song is practically absent from heathen temple.

_The Impulse to Sing Is Constitutional in Man._

In the beginning, song was a spontaneous expression of feeling, being
based on man’s original constitution as fully as breathing or
speaking. Its exercise did not rise high enough in the consciousness
of men, nor so conspicuously affect the current of events, that
account should be made of it in the sketchy outlines of the early
history of the race. None the less do we hear unrelated echoes from
Lamech and Jubal,[1] and from Laban’s complaint that Jacob gave him no
opportunity to bid farewell “with songs, with tabret, and with harp.”
[2] During the great Exodus, these echoes multiply and become more
articulate at the Red Sea,[3] at the digging of the well at Beer,[4]
about the walls of Jericho,[5] Deborah,[6] Barak,[7] and Hannah,[8]
and the school of the prophets,[9] developing a grand _crescendo_
which culminates in the full-voiced chorus and orchestra of the times
of David and Solomon.[10] Undoubtedly all these were surviving
manifestations of the unbroken tide of social and religious song that
flowed on through the ages. The Hebrew church carried on the model
constructed by the organizing instinct of Samuel and the musical and
literary genius of David, through the succeeding ages, and passed on
the devotional impulse to the Christian Church.

_Biblical Authority for the Singing of Hymns._

If any authority for the use of hymns were needed beyond the unfailing
urge of a sanctified soul to find expression for its spiritual
experiences and to persuade other souls to seek a like blessed
privilege, there would be ample provision in the development of
religious song in the Jewish church, in the participation of Jesus in
such a song at so high a peak of religious solemnity as the
institution of “The Lord’s Supper,”[11] in the use of song by the
Apostles in their private meetings and in unusual personal experiences
from the very beginning,[12] in the exhortations of Paul[13] and
James,[14] and in the choral scenes of the great Apocalypse.[15]

_The Use of Hymns in the Development of the Christian Church._

But the use God has made of song through the succeeding centuries of
the development of the Christian Church, is an even more striking
indication of the high importance placed upon sacred song by the
divine mind.

The results of the thoughtful use of song, both in ancient times and
the recent past, abundantly illustrate its value and are genuine
laboratory proof of its power in deepening the spirituality of
individuals, of communities, and even of nations. The hymns of Huss
and of Luther, the psalmody of Calvin and of Knox, the preparatory
effect of the hymns of Watts for the great Second Reformation in
England and its intensification by the hymns of the Wesleys, the
joyous singing of rudely fashioned psalms and the newly introduced
hymns in the Great Awakening in New England, the great evangelistic
movement in America and in England with its enthusiastic singing of
unpretentious Gospel songs—all establish on unquestionably scientific
basis the spiritual value of sacred song.

_Cultural Value of Hymns._

Compare the number of people in any given city or community who read
poetry in any of its forms with the number of church attendants who
read, even when they do not sing, from three to eight hymns every
Lord’s Day. In literary influence, unconsciously absorbed, this wide
use of hymns is vastly more effective upon the public at large than
the more intensive and conscious influence of distinctly literary
verse.

Millions of homes in Great Britain and America have copies of the
Bible and of some hymnbook, while few of them have books of poetry.
Phrases from hymns and psalms are a large part of the religious
vocabulary of millions. They are quoted not only in sermons, but in
essays and general writings and in the public press, perhaps more
generally than are poems.

They have been appreciated by the greatest minds, who found them to be
of great comfort and even delight, including such men as Benjamin
Franklin (who first issued Watts’ hymns in America), George
Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and William Ewart Gladstone.
They deeply interested the man, Matthew Arnold, although the literary
critic, Matthew Arnold, had no use for them.

_Spiritual Value of Hymns._

Hymns touch and influence the most intimate life of men, the moral and
spiritual, and are always influential for good. They concentrate the
comforting truths of the Gospel, make them rememberable; what is even
more important, they add the emotional vitality to those truths that
make them real and actual.

To leave out the hymns from a single service might be an interesting
experiment; but omit them permanently, as was the former custom among
the Friends, and note how arid and flat the service becomes.

To some, the hymnbook is simply the Bible in another form, bringing
its doctrines, its ideals, its hopes, its promises, its comforts, and
its spiritual inspirations in a more apprehensible form. Having passed
through the crucible of the actual personal experience of the writers
of the hymns, they are more concrete, more appealing, more actual.

_The Value of Singing Hymns Too Often Overlooked._

Since the hymn has so high a spiritual value, it is all the more
distressing that its possibilities of spiritual helpfulness are so
generally overlooked and ignored by our ministers and their people.
Even where it seems to be distinctly cultivated and emphasized, it is
often the merely physiological effects that are sought. In other
apparently earnest endeavors to develop its value, there is the
aridity of merely artistic and literary emphasis, or the formal
liturgical aspect that is stressed!

There is an absence of clear comprehension of what the hymns are
intended to accomplish, of their meaning, of the emotions they are
supposed to express, and of the methods to be used to vitalize them
and to make them effective. They are used mechanically, in deference
to tradition and good ecclesiastical form. Most ministers select hymns
to fit the themes of their discourses, fitness depending solely on
logical relations.

The spiritual life of the churches is not only the poorer and the
shallower because of this loss of the quickening influence of the
hymn, but this mechanical attitude is carried over to the other
exercises of the divine service. The preacher who sings mechanically
will pray mechanically, preach mechanically.

_The Need of Emphasis on Efficient Use of Hymns._

The actual fact is that in the hymn the preacher has a most valuable
factor in making his service spiritually effective. Even as a
perfunctory exercise it has at least a social value; but if its
emotional and spiritual possibilities are fully developed and
exploited, it becomes one of the most impressive and thrilling means
of securing genuinely religious results among his people. It is a
tragedy that so many clergymen have such dull and unattractive
services when through a proper use of hymns they might be made
thrillingly interesting. Professor H. M. Poteat, of Wake Forest
College, does not use too severe language in his _Practical Hymnology_
when he says, “As a result of inexcusable ignorance, carelessness, and
laziness, the singing of hymns, in all too many churches, instead of
being an act of worship, has degenerated into a mere incident of the
service, holding its place solely because of immemorial custom.”

It is the purpose of this treatise at least to prevent the ignorance
Professor Poteat complains of so bitterly. The other difficulties can
be removed only “by fasting and prayer.”

THE SINGING CHURCH

PART I
THE CHARACTER OF THE HYMN

_Chapter I_
WHAT IS A HYMN?

I. DEFINITION OF THE HYMN

_Importance of Accurate Definition._

Before undertaking the study of the hymn in its various aspects and
relations, theoretical and practical, it should be very carefully
defined. This is all the more necessary because the word “hymn” is
used to cover so wide a sweep of religious poetry, and because our
discussion is to be largely limited to its practical use in church
work.

Dr. Austin Phelps’ test of a genuine hymn, “Genuineness of religious
emotion, refinement of poetic taste, and fitness to musical
cadence—these are essential to a faultless hymn, as the three chief
graces to a faultless character,”[1] is a very clear and charming
statement of some essentials of a hymn, which needed emphasis in his
rather prosaic day, but does not include all the requisites of a
useful hymn.

_Inadequate Definition._

The narrow etymological definition of a hymn would confine it to
sacred poems that, in at least some part of them, are directly
addressed to some person of the Deity. St. Augustine limits the word
“hymn” to “songs with praise to God—without praise they are not hymns.
If they praise aught but God, they are not hymns.” Even now there are
hymnologists who insist upon this limited conception. No less a writer
than W. Garrett Horder, in his fresh and illuminating _The Hymn
Lover_, insists that “the cardinal test of a hymn should be that it is
in some one, if not the whole of its parts, addressed to God.” This
shuts out the use of sacred poetry in instruction, inspiration,
exhortation, and special practical applications of hymns. Moreover, if
the hymn is to be limited to worship, then the unconverted can never
sing sincerely in the public service, and the ancient and medieval
churches were justified in withdrawing the privilege of religious song
from the general laity.

_Definition Must Be Based on Practical Considerations._

The hymn is simply a means to the supreme end of all religious effort.
That form of the hymn, that method of its use, and that musical
assistance, which realize most fully the immediate and ultimate ends
in view under given circumstances can be approved and used. This
practical basis of actual spiritual results must govern in formulating
the conception of the Christian hymn, as well as in forms of worship
and prayer, in preaching, or in church organization.

Since our discussion of the hymn has in view its contributing
efficiently to concrete spiritual results, its definition must have a
practical basis. Etymological, scholastic, traditional, abstractly
idealistic considerations can have only minor weight.

_Types of Hymns._

The hymn may be viewed from too many angles to confine it to any one
definition. Hence we must recognize different types of the hymn: (a)
There is the poem regarding religious life and feeling that cannot be
brought within the limitations of a musical setting, constituting the
_Reading Hymn_; (b) we have the formless, but elevated, expression of
worship or religious truth that at best can only be chanted, which we
may call the Canticle, in which may be included such hymns as the Te
Deum, the Sanctus, and unmetrical psalms; these, together with poems
that are expressions of emotion, yet are not fitted for mass singing
but may be effectively set to music of a different order, may be
recognized as Solo, or Choral, Hymns, such of The Stabat Mater, The
Dies Irae, and Sunset and Evening Star.

There is left us the sacred poem of such a form and type that it may
be called the _Congregational_ or _Singing Hymn_, which is really the
subject of the present practical discussion, and may be strictly
defined as follows:

_Definition of the Congregational Hymn._

The Congregational Hymn is a poem expressing worship, praise,
thanksgiving, and prayer on the Godward side; personal spiritual
experience, emotion, and inspiration on the human side; and
instruction on the religious side. It must be adapted to mass thinking
and expression, in a form fitted to be sung by a Christian
congregation, and calculated to express and stimulate or create
religious feeling and purpose.

II. THE HYMN MUST BE POETRY

_To Be Poetry, It Must Be Emotional._

The initiating force of all poetry must be emotion of some kind. That
emotion may be mere earnestness, it may be satire, it may be
satisfaction in contemplation of beautiful scenes, or satisfaction in
ideas and memories, or displeasure at impressions painful or
abhorrent. Few of us realize how unfailing is the flow of emotion in
our minds responding to the world about us and in us.

To view life and the world through the eye of reason is valuable, of
course; but if that vision lacks the support of the eye of emotion, it
brings only a silhouette, without perspective, wanting a sense of
reality. That is the weakness of abstract thinking, whether in
theology or political economy.

If the hymn, therefore, is to perform its functions, it must be
definitely emotional to a greater or less extent. This is particularly
true of hymns of Christian experience or in the hymn’s functioning in
inspiration and exhortation. To confuse animal excitement with emotion
is bad psychology. The genuine emotionality of a hymn is the best
criterion of its practical value, for only through emotion can the
will be reached.

_It Must Have Poetical Form._

The first requirement in this definition is that the hymn must be
poetry. It should have meter and rhyme, else there can be no musical
setting practicable for congregational use. The first task Calvin and
his associates faced, after reaching the conclusion that only the
inspired Psalms could be sung in the public religious assembly, was
the preparation of a metrical version. True, the Psalms had been sung
by the Greek and Roman Catholic churches, but only as chants by
priestly choirs. In the English church service, these chants were
frequently only led by the choir, the congregation joining in their
singing. But this was practicable only in larger and long-established
congregations, and even then there was more or less confusion. In
general, this chanting was a failure, and the English church adopted
the metrical versions. The use of the Psalms for responsive readings
in our modern church services is a definitely practicable way of
utilizing their liturgical and spiritual values.

The ostensible hymns of the Greek Church, of which Dr. Neale and Dr.
Brownlie have furnished translations, or rather transformations, are
not verse but prose. They were not sung by the congregations, or put
into their hands, but were reserved for the reading of the clergy.

In like manner, the Latin hymns, although poetical in form—often
complicated to an absurd degree—were not sung by the people, but were
versified devotions inserted in the prose Psalms usually read by the
priests.

In the Reformed churches for many centuries the word “hymn” referred
to verses of “human composure,” as opposed to metrified inspired
Psalms.

The famous American hymnologist, Dr. Louis J. Benson, lays less stress
on this metrical form: “A Christian hymn, therefore, is a form of
words appropriate to be sung or chanted in public devotions.” This
opens the way for the inclusion of the “Te Deum Laudamus,” the
“Sanctus,” and other canticles among our hymns. But as these historic
texts are rarely or never sung by the people outside of the Church of
England service, and used chiefly as texts for more or less elaborate
musical compositions sung by choirs, we may accept the common
conception of the hymn as a metrical composition.

_It Must Be Poetic in Spirit._

While having the superficial music of the regularly recurring accents,
and the liquid harmony of the vowels and consonants of the words as
they flow through the lines, there must be also the deeper, more
entrancing music of the literary grace of spiritual thought singing
its beautiful expression. If poetry is “the expression of thought
steeped in imagination and feeling,” all the more must the hymn be
expressive of religious thought transfigured by deep and sincere
emotion.

While a hymn may be didactic, formulating doctrine, or enforcing
obligation, it is not a really good and effective hymn unless the
thought or exhortation is vitalized by imagination and emotion. Arid
versification of Christian doctrines metaphysically conceived, or of
ethical discussions with no heat of conviction, will stir no pulses of
body, mind, or soul, but will conduce to the all too prevalent sense
of the unreality of religious ideas and life.

_The Hymn Must Have Unity._

It must have unity of thought, emotion, and expression, all growing
out of a definite vision of emotion, having a beginning, middle, and
end, which mark the progress of the idea or feeling seeking
formulation.[2]

_The Poetical Element Is Contributory Only._

Yet this element must be felt in the spirit of the hymn rather than in
intention. Preciosity of phrase, elaborate metaphors and similes,
obscure allusions, flights of fancy, are rarely in place. John Newton,
the great hymn writer, speaks to this point in his usual forceful way:
“Perspicuity, simplicity, and ease should be chiefly attended to; and
the imagery and coloring of poetry, if admitted at all, should be
indulged in very sparingly and with great judgment.” Sir Roundell
Palmer is more detailed in his criticism: “Affectation or visible
artifice is worse than excess of homeliness; a hymn is easily spoiled
by a single falsetto note.”[3]

The emphasis of the literary and poetical elements in hymns has
produced some most valuable sacred lyrics, notably the hymns of Keble
and Heber; but occasionally it has also led to such refinement, to
such sought-out subtlety, and to such conscious preciosity that the
virility and emotional contagion of what might have been an otherwise
really effective hymn have been lost.

III. THE CHRISTIAN HYMN MUST BE DISTINCTLY RELIGIOUS

_Poems of Semi-religious Fancy Are Not Hymns._

Poems of fancy with a few religious allusions cannot be classed as
Christian hymns. The objection to the “Beautiful Isle of Somewhere”[4]
has been rather heatedly urged, and there is no small justification
for the criticism. The aboriginal idea of “the happy hunting grounds”
might be referred to by its rather invertebrate fancy, instead of the
heaven of the Christian faith. Eugene Field’s “The Divine Lullaby” so
vaguely suggests the divine care that it can hardly pass muster as a
hymn. For use as a hymn, a poem must be explicitly Christian in
thought and expression.

_Mere Moralizing Will Not Serve._

That a poem has a good moral does not authorize it to pose as a
Christian hymn. “Brighten the Corner Where You Are” cannot be
recognized as a Christian hymn, since it has no direct religious
significance. There are recent ostensible sociological and
humanitarian hymns that are open to the same criticism. It is not
enough that the underlying assumptions are of Christian origin; they
must be fundamentally religious, no matter what the application to
practical living may be.

_Special Propaganda Is Not Admissible._

The value of hymns as a method of introducing and enforcing doctrines
was recognized by the enemies of Christianity early in its history.
The Arians in Asia Minor and in Northern Africa, and later throughout
the Roman Empire, flooded the world with songs sung to the popular
melodies attacking the deity of Christ; and by their influence nearly
wrecked Christianity. In our own day various “sports” from
Christianity, and hybrids with other religions, are issuing
collections of songs and garbled Christian hymns to serve their
purposes. The Buddhists of Japan also are taking Christian songs
bodily, with such changes as seem to them necessary. Unitarian hymnal
editors have not hesitated to alter orthodox hymns to suit their own
views.

That these emasculated hymns are no longer Christian hymns need not be
argued at length. The difficulty is that they have lost the kernel of
genuine Christian thought. The same is true of humanistic lyrics of
propaganda in behalf of brotherhood or social welfare or economic
justice, in which the religious motive is not urged. In general, a
controversial poem cannot be recognized as a hymn; there is no
religious help in controversy. Its emotions are combative, not devout.

_Christian Hymns Should Be Genuinely Christocentric._

A Christian hymn should express some definite recognition of God as
manifested in Jesus Christ. Even if, as in metrical psalms, the name
of Christ is not used, it should be implied, and unanimously accepted
as implied. It may be worship, praise, prayer, confession, acceptance
of salvation through Jesus Christ, spiritual experience, consecration,
Christian doctrine, Christian hopes—or any other aspect or activity of
the Christian faith. This is the very heart of the Christian hymn.

IV. SCRIPTURAL ELEMENTS OF THE HYMN

_Hymns Based on the Scriptures._

If the hymn is to be religious and Christian, it must be based on
scriptural ideas, of course; we have no other authoritative source for
our doctrines or experiences. All our other religious ideas and
methods—our doctrines, our ethics, our religious ideals and
impulses—find their roots there. We cannot afford to sing far-fetched
inferences from unrelated scriptural passages when we have such bodies
of stupendous truth awaiting our contemplation, and when the hymnic
expression of the emotions which those high and conspicuous doctrines
call forth is so freely available. Scriptural truth, so plain that he
who runs may sing, is the only raw material from which Christian hymns
can be produced. It will provide for every religious need of the
individual and of the Church.

_Use of Scriptural Forms Desirable._

There can be no question but that when scriptural phraseology is used
spontaneously, it adds very much to the impressiveness of the hymn
because of the devout associations it brings up in the minds of the
singers. The hymn by so much acquires an authoritativeness and
elevation beyond ordinary verbiage.

But while the body of thought in a hymn must be distinctly religious,
and therefore scriptural, it does not follow that the forms of
expression must be scriptural as well. A distinguished writer on the
subject here seems to be at fault: “Nothing should be called a hymn
and nothing should be sung in our assemblies which is not virtually a
paraphrase—and that a very faithful one—of Scripture passages, whether
they are immediately connected in the Holy Word or not.” Apply that
rule to our hymnbooks and what would we have left?

Although biblical phrases do occur in many hymns, a very close
adherence to this rule would stifle the poet’s spontaneity and make
his hymn stiff and mechanical, like most of the metrical psalms. Such
a rule may seem very devout to the cursory reader, but really it is
mischievous; it is sheer bibliolatry, an emphasis of the letter that
killeth at the expense of the spirit that maketh alive.

V. THE HYMN MUST BE FITTED FOR MASS SINGING

That the hymn is a distinctly social expression, participated in by
the varied personalities massed in a congregation, introduces marked
limitations that cannot be evaded.

_Congregational Singing Is a Pronounced Christian Exercise._

It is a remarkable fact that only in Hebrew and Christian worship is a
congregational use of hymns conspicuous. With all their literary and
poetic urge for expression, the Greeks had no singing connected with
their temple rites.[5] In so far as the Egyptians had musical elements
in their temple ritual, it was choral and not congregational. In
visiting pagan temples, one is struck by the utter absence of
organized assembled worship; what worship occurs is individual only.

The Vedic hymns were not singing hymns, but reading hymns, for recital
and meditation. According to Max Mueller, the only share the women had
in the sacrifices was that the wife of the officiating priest, or head
of the house, should recite the necessary hymns. Although in India
there is singing connected with great festivals and processions, the
songs used are so obscene that respectable Hindus are making an effort
to have the public singing of them forbidden. They are usually sung by
the female attendants of the idol, temple prostitutes, who are the
professional singers of these ostensibly religious songs.[6]

The reason for this absence of true hymns is correctly indicated by W.
Garrett Horder in his _The Hymn Lover_: “But so far as the material
before us enables us to form an opinion, it is that hymns, as an
essential of worship, have been mostly characteristic of the Christian
and, in a less degree, of its progenitor, the Hebrew religion. Nor is
this much to be wondered at, since it is the only religion calculated
to draw out at once the two elements necessary to such a form of
worship—awe and love—awe which lies at the heart of worship, and love
which kindles it into adoring song.”

_Meter Essential to Mass Singing._

The form of the verse is practically of commanding importance. The
musical form of the hymn tune definitely fixes the form of the stanza.
It must not be complicated or free in form, else the tune loses its
needed simplicity and symmetry. More elaborate forms of stanza may do
for solo or choral numbers, where skilled composers write music that
follows the vagaries of the form of the text; but the general
congregation cannot be expected to sing tunes of elaborate and
confusing structure. Although an occasional hymn of unusual form of
stanza is fortunate in finding a happy musical mate, like “Lead,
kindly Light” or “O Love, that wilt not let me go,” the usual hymn
must be adapted to one of about a dozen fundamental meters. Although
the Gospel song is not so circumscribed in its form, because its
setting goes with it, its forms are only rhythmical variations of the
standard meters.

VI. PRACTICABILITY FOR ACTUAL USE

_Ideas Must Be Plainly Evident._

The thought of a good hymn must lie on the surface. It must appeal not
only to the scholarly and subtle minds in a singing congregation, but
also to all who are expected to join the religious exercise. Paul’s
word regarding unknown tongues applies here: “Except ye utter by the
tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be understood, how
shall it be known what is spoken?” The practical Paul enforces the
parallel by saying a few verses further on, “I will sing with the
spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.” No matter how
high the thought or how deep the sentiment of a poem may be, or how
felicitously they may be expressed, it is not an effective hymn if
study (for which there is no time at the moment of singing) is
required to bring out its meaning and feeling.

_Hymns May Not Be Extremely Individualistic._

While a hymn may be the expression of the individual poet, it must be
an appropriate expression of the mind and heart of the whole
congregation as it sings. Yet in addition to the evident, clearly
expressed thought, there may be singing, _sotto voce_ between the
lines, of deeper experiences and higher soarings of the spirit that
only prolonged meditation can reveal.

Some sacred poems express a religious emotion in so individual and
unusual a way that they are not at all fitted to express the emotion
of a congregation. As an illustration of a poem too personal and
individualistic, here are a few stanzas of a hymn of Rev. Samuel J.
Stone, which is found in an increasing number of current hymnals:

“My feet are worn and weary with the march
On the rough road and up the steep hillside;
O city of our God, I fain would see
Thy pastures green where peaceful waters glide.

* * * * * * *

Patience, poor soul! The Saviour’s feet were worn,
The Saviour’s heart and hands were weary too;
His garments stained and travel-worn, and old,
His vision blinded with pitying dew.”

This is a beautiful poem that would make an admirable text for a solo,
but it is out of place on the lips of a congregation. Compare with
this the very useful hymn by Bonar:

“I was a wand’ring sheep,
I did not love the fold;
I did not love my Shepherd’s voice,
I would not be controlled.”

Every one of the first eight lines of this once widely used hymn
begins with the pronoun of the first person singular, yet there is no
particular individuality in this confession; it is the expression of
the common experience in a straightforward manner, void of all
idiosyncrasy.

In some hymns there is found an intensity of feeling that leads to an
apparent extravagance of expression that a single soul can sometimes
sincerely accept as the vehicle of its own experience, but which a
gathering of miscellaneous people cannot sing without the great mass
of them being insincere. For a careless person idly to sing with
Faber,

“I love Thee so, I know not how
My transports to control,”

“Ah, dearest Jesus, I have grown
Childish with love of Thee,”

is sheer blasphemy. It is the sin of Uzziah!

The following verses from one of Charles Wesley’s hymns combine the
two faults of extravagance and too-intense individualism:

“On the wings of His love I was carried above
All sin and temptation and pain;
I could not believe that I ever should grieve,
That I ever should suffer again.

I rode in the sky (freely justified I),
Nor envied Elijah his seat;
My soul mounted higher in a chariot of fire,
And the moon it was under my feet.”

_Distracting Figures and Forms of Expression._

Other poems are so full of imagination, so crowded with unusual and
almost bizarre figures of speech, that they fail to be the natural
expression of the religious emotion of an assembly of religious
people. George Herbert wrote a great many religious poems whose beauty
and charm are only enhanced by their quaint and unusual imagery.
Occasionally a hymnal editor ventures on a selection, but it is so
foreign to the methods of thought and expression of the churches as
not to appeal to their taste and feeling. Take the beautiful poem on
the Sabbath day, “O day most calm, most bright.” The first line is
spontaneous, expressive, and musical, and appropriate for a hymn. The
second line, “The fruit of this, the next world’s bud,” with its
antithetical structure, is already somewhat formal and forced. But
when the third and fourth lines,

“The indorsement of supreme delight,
Writ by a Friend and with His blood,”

offer a purely legal and unpoetical figure, one’s sense of song is
entirely obscured.

Yet, when Herbert’s imagery is most matter-of-fact and ungenial, there
is a body of thought and there are a certain fitness and a clearness
of relation that command admiration.

_Verses Must Be Complete in Themselves._

Hymns that have long, intricate sentences extending through two or
more verses are impracticable for use in a song service, as the break
between the stanzas dislocates the development of the idea. Every
verse must be practically complete in itself, no matter what its
relation to the development of the general idea of the hymn may be.

_Musical Limitations._

It must also be recognized that there are limits to the expression
congregational music can give. A poem that is vividly descriptive, or
is in part intensely dramatic, cannot be recognized as a practicable
hymn, since all stanzas have the same tune, a tune which cannot vary
its musical effect to suit the differing stanzas.

Then there are hymns that are too majestic, too glowing, for a
hymn-tune composer to write a fitting tune out of the limited
resources of musical effects available to him. Such a hymn is that one
of Henry Kirke White, of lamented memory:

“The Lord our God is clothed with might,
The winds obey His will;
He speaks, and in His heavenly height
The rolling sun stands still.

* * * * * * *

His voice sublime is heard afar,
In distant peals it dies;
He yokes the whirlwind to His car
And sweeps the howling skies.”

With a chorus of a thousand trained singers, an organ of extraordinary
power, and an orchestra of five hundred instruments, all concentrated
on “St. Anne,” one might make the music adequate to the words, but in
an ordinary congregation the incongruity is painful. This must remain
a reading hymn.

_Outworn Hymns._

The efficient hymn must not distinctly belong to previous generations
in its style and vocabulary or in its peculiar formulation of
doctrine. Only as many of the older hymns have been purged of their
obsolete and archaic words and turns of thought have they survived.
For instance, we no longer sing, “Eye-strings break in death,” as
Toplady originally wrote it.

_Mistaken Objections to Some Hymns._

Some minds, although strong and keen, seem to have a very small visual
angle. Some such persons condemn all hymns that are not direct praise.
The line in Lyte’s “Abide with Me”—“Hold Thou Thy cross before my
closing eyes”—has been objected to as Romish by some, blind to the
fact that it is a prayer to Christ.

Others exclude hymns in which the pronoun of the first person singular
occurs. Bishop Wordsworth, himself a hymn-writer of no mean merit
(_vide_ “O Day of rest and gladness” and “See, the Conqueror rides in
triumph”), says, in his introduction to his _Holy Year_, that while
the ancient hymns are distinguished by self-forgetfulness, the modern
hymns are characterized by self-consciousness. As illustrative
examples, he cites the following: “When I can read my title clear,”
“When I survey the wondrous cross,” “My God, the spring of all my
joys,” and “Jesus, Lover of my soul.” It is strange that so keen a
mind should not have seen that his objection would apply to all
liturgies!

The minister with his eye fixed upon his spiritual purpose can afford
to ignore all these supersensitive critics who have refined refinement
until sensibility becomes hyperesthesia, a veritable disease.

The use of hymns of a somewhat indifferent literary value is often
thoughtlessly condemned because the importance of the recognition of
its topic is overlooked. Such a topic as “Church Erection,” or
“Education,” may not occasion the deep feeling necessary to the
writing of a great hymn, and yet it must find a place in the practical
work of the church. Here again Dr. Phelps gives a useful warning: “The
severity of aesthetic taste must not be permitted to contract the
range of devotional expression in song.... Our desire to restrict the
number of hymns upon occasions, and other hymns of infrequent use,
ought not to banish such hymns entirely.... A hymn intrinsically
inferior, therefore, may be so valuable relatively, as justly to
displace a hymn which is intrinsically its superior.”

Aside from the topical symmetry referred to, this principle will find
other applications in the practical use of hymns. Some inferior hymns
have for some occasions a greater immediate effect than much better
ones, perhaps because of a more singable tune or because its sentiment
fits into the situation or because it makes a desired impression in a
more efficient way.

_Chapter II_
THE PURPOSE AND VALUE OF HYMNS

I. THE IMPULSE TO WRITE HYMNS

The writing of the best hymns of the Christian Church was not a matter
of ulterior purpose, any more than is the singing of the hermit thrush
in the wilderness. They are the result of the urge for expression that
lies back of all the best architecture, literature, and art of the
human race. There is the vision, the sense of reality, the subjective
response to truth, to beauty, and to exalted experiences that must
find an objective bodying-forth in some appropriate form.

The great doctrines of Christianity loom up in their dignity and
majestic sweep, in their adequacy to the highest and deepest needs of
the human soul. The spontaneous hymn is but a cry of astonished
delight, of exalted inspiration, of self-forgetful contemplation of
the revealed glory, an instinctive appeal to other souls to share the
rapture of the vision. Such a hymn is not calmly planned; it forces
itself upon the mind of the rapt poet.

II. PURPOSE IN WRITING HYMNS

_The Influence of Purpose._

This instinct for sharing with others, for winning their attention and
participation in a blessed experience, may produce a measure of
premeditation and become a more or less clearly defined purpose. The
idea of the needs of other souls, or of the Church at large, may
become an additional factor, bringing in the recognition of the
importance of adaptation to the mental processes of those to be
helped, or of practical methods of reaching them.

Also the originating impulse may grow, as in the case of Isaac Watts,
out of the call of some perceived need among the writer’s fellows, or
of some lack in the work of the Church. The emotional and poetic
elements may be marshaled by bringing up the memory of some past
exalted vision of the truth, or of some former quickening spiritual
experience, or (better yet!) by an abiding realization of the truth of
some doctrine, or by a perennial flow of devout feeling.

Dr. Martineau insisted that “every spontaneous utterance of a deep
devotion is poetry in its essence, and has only to fall into lyrical
form to be a hymn.” But he went further and declared that “no
expression of thought or feeling that has an ulterior purpose (i.e.,
instruction, exposition, persuasion, or impression) can have the
spirit of poetry.” His idealism failed to realize that the spirit of
poetry in a writer may be associated with a purpose of helpfulness
urging expression in an efficient form. To delete all the hymns in our
church collections that have definite spiritual purposes would rob the
Christian Church of most of its devoutest and most helpful hymns.

_The Purpose Must Affect Only the Practical Aspects._

Both the literary and devotional value of a hymn of purpose will
depend upon the writer’s ability to reproduce the mental conditions of
a purely spontaneous hymn. If the purpose can be confined to the
practical aspects of the hymn, while the spiritual and poetic impulses
control the thought and spirit, then the most valuable and effective
hymn may be produced.

But if the ulterior purpose fully occupies the mind of the writer, the
hymn will be mechanical and uninspiring. In the more prolific hymn
writers, like Watts and Charles Wesley, the relative influence of
vision and purpose is easily detected. In their best hymns, the
purpose is still present, but latent, and its guidance unconscious.

III. PURPOSE OF THE USER OF HYMNS

When we speak of the purpose of the hymn, therefore, it is not so much
the mental attitude of the writer that is to be considered as that of
the user of the hymn. He finds a body of religious verse ready to his
hand, some of which is adapted to secure spiritual ends, or fitted to
the social conditions which he seeks to improve. His purpose controls
not the production of available verse, but the selection from existing
stores of religious lyrics.

The choice of hymns by the user will be determined by the
characteristics and limitations which his practical purposes demand.
There are three inevitable factors: the end to be realized, the people
to be influenced, and the hymns adapted to affect both.

IV. PURPOSES SERVED BY SINGING HYMNS

_Hymns Unite Christians in Worship and Christian Activities._

The singing of hymns is the most practicable method of uniting
assembled Christians in worship and praise and of creating a common
interest in the various church activities. This is really the leading
purpose of such a gathering.[1]

Worship in prayer, when it is spontaneous, must be largely individual;
when it is expressed in responsive ritual, there is great danger of
mechanical stiffness in the outward form of the prayers and in their
reading, and also in the limited area of the thought to be expressed.
But song is the natural and spontaneous vehicle for exalted feeling
and gives the greatest opportunity for varied sentiment. No one
individual could hope to strike all the strings of noble praise as
have a thousand saints who have written our hymns.

_Hymns Concentrate Interest and Attention._

There is a concentration of interest and attention. The common
thought, the common emotion, the common impulse of devotion, the
common expression, the unanimous attitude of will and purpose—all
quicken the susceptibilities and enlarge the spiritual horizon. God
seems nearer, more actual, and more realizable as the source of every
blessing. Abstract ideas of God as Father, of his Son Jesus Christ as
Saviour, of the Holy Spirit as Comforter, quicken into blessed
realities. It is easy to appropriate the joy, the reverence, the
adoration, the intimate communion with God, which the hymns so
clearly, so movingly, so contagiously, even so rapturously express,
and to make them intimately our own. This is true worship, the high
peak in man’s experience of God.

The social elements in human nature come into play and intensify the
religious emotions. The personal distractions and inhibitions that
hamper devotion are eliminated. Under properly effective conditions
there is a mass attitude, a mass emotion, that needs only a mass
expression to affect every individual unit. The contagion of the crowd
in expression and in action will affect the most sluggish and
indifferent and carry them into an experience that they could not have
reached alone. Add to this the stimulation of the music and the
physical exhilaration of singing, and the worship is lifted to a pitch
of enthusiasm not otherwise possible.

This worshipful use of hymns exercises a most inspiring and vitalizing
influence on the participants. The reaction of the mind and soul of
the singers to the exalted sentiments sung must have a profoundly
spiritualizing effect upon their natures. One cannot sing the old
Latin hymn, “Jesus, the very thought of Thee,” in any genuine way
without feeling an accession of greater love to Christ; or “My faith
looks up to Thee,” by Ray Palmer, without a deeper realization of
one’s dependence on Jesus Christ for salvation and for keeping grace.
[2]

_Hymns Afford a Means of Expression for the Congregation._

Another office of the church hymn is to give a voice to those deep
experiences in spiritual things that enrich the lives of the children
of God. Many excellent Christians are dumb, unable to give expression
to their genuine spiritual experiences. Others find their means of
voicing what they feel totally inadequate. The hymns they sing and
appropriate to themselves unstop their silent tongue. High tides of
spiritual blessings, times of refreshing when Christ is near to the
soul, hours of privilege when the whispering of the Holy Spirit is
heard, victories over fierce or subtle temptation when God’s grace
proves sufficient, moments of God’s overshadowing presence when the
whole world is transfigured, and a thousand other marvelous
experiences in the Christian life—all call for hymns to express them.
They must be tender hymns, ecstatic hymns, triumphant hymns that will
satisfy the craving of the soul to voice forth its deepest love, its
spiritual ecstasies, its strange sense of overcoming power. The dumb
soul, unable to speak of its explorations of divine grace, finds a
voice in these hymns written by saints who had the divine gift of
expressing like glimpses of the divine glory.[3]

_Hymns Provide Help and Comfort in Dark Hours._

These hymns not only bring the joy of giving articulate expression to
these mountain-top experiences, thus reviving them again and again,
but they validate these experiences by showing that others have shared
them and give them reality in the hours when faith fails and the
temptation arises to consider them mere mirages and illusions. Others
have been with us in Bunyan’s Beulah Land and verify our experiences
of its delights.

_Hymns Afford Clear Expressions of Christian Truth._

Another purpose in the use of hymns is to secure the clearest, most
impressive, most appealing, most rememberable statement of the leading
truths of the Christian faith that will fix them most ineradicably in
the consciousness and the life of the individual and of the church.
Such hymns must not be dry formulations of abstract doctrines,
desiccated by logical discussions and metaphysical hair-splittings.
Truth that is dry is no longer vital truth. Its vitamins of reality,
of the deep feelings called forth by a sense of its actuality, of
spiritual and poetic intuition, of self-propagating vitality, have
been lost. Aridity of orthodoxy begets aridity of heterodoxy and is
usually responsible for it.

Didactic hymns that will serve the purposes of the Church must be
living hymns, expressing truth transfigured by the feelings aroused by
the contemplation of its glorious reality. “There is little heresy in
hymns.” Heresies for the most part arise from arid mechanical
reasonings; hymns flow from the intuitions of the heart.[4] This
explains why some of our best hymns about Christ were written by
Unitarians.

_Hymns Give Opportunity for Active Participation by All._

Another purpose of the singing of hymns is to secure the active
participation of the whole congregation in the service. Although the
responsive reading is valuable in this respect, the union of all the
voices of the people in song is more striking, calls for more
aggressive effort, and definitely wins the attention of all to the
sentiments expressed in the hymn. It creates more interest and
stimulates both body and mind.

_Hymns Provide Variety._

The singing of hymns also adds marked variety to the order of service
and so renders it more attractive. It supplies climaxes in different
parts of the program and relaxations of attention to the spoken word.
It represents a greater contrast with the other exercises because it
calls for active participation and produces entirely different
effects. The lack of song in the services of the Friends has been one
of the greatest factors in the limited growth of a movement
representing deep earnestness, conscientiousness, and spirituality.

This variety and the opportunity to take a modest part in the service
have proved among the greatest attractions. The more singing, the more
people, is the universal experience.

_Hymns Create a Religious Atmosphere._

The use of hymns creates an atmosphere of religious interest and
feeling that is realized not only by the believers in the
congregation, but by the unregenerate as well. They may not enter
fully into the spirit of the exercises, but an intellectual interest
is awakened by the singing that may rise into spiritual interest and
into an approach to the spiritual life. Rev. George F. Pentecost,
famous in his day as a preacher and as a very successful evangelist,
recognized the aggressive and practical value of hymn-singing: “I am
profoundly sure that among the divinely ordained instrumentalities for
the conversion and sanctification of the soul, God has not given a
greater, besides the preaching of the Gospel, than the singing of
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. I have known a hymn to do God’s
work in a soul when every other instrumentality has failed—I have seen
vast audiences melted and swayed by a simple hymn when they have been
unmoved by a powerful presentation of the Gospel from the pulpit.”

_Hymns in the Home._

No small practical value in Christian hymns is found in their use in
family life where young and old sing them together and so sanctify and
spiritualize the household atmosphere. The storing of the memories of
the children with the leading hymns of the church is no small factor
in their Christian nurture. The older members of the family also will
be stimulated spiritually, finding in the memorized hymns strength and
solace while they bear the heat and burden of the day. We have lost
the spiritual atmosphere in many of our Christian homes, not only by
the neglect of the family altar, but also by the neglect of the
singing and memorizing of the hymns and tunes of the church.

One of the chief influences in the preparation of Ira D. Sankey for
his great life-work was the singing of hymns as the family gathered
around the great log-fire in the homestead. He not only familiarized
himself with the old hymns and tunes and popular sacred songs, but he
was impressed by their spirit and by their adaptation to the needs of
the human soul.

_Hymns in Personal Work._

The use of hymns in personal work, in the visitation of the sick, in
improvised religious gatherings in private homes, has been largely
abandoned, much to the loss of the churches. When D. L. Moody was
trying out Ira D. Sankey during the latter’s pregnant first visit to
Chicago, his singing to the sick and to the spiritually needy ones
they called upon was a notable item in the practical test.

Prof. Waldo S. Pratt, of the Hartford Theological Seminary, whose most
valuable book has been quoted in these pages again and again, sums up
the results of an intelligent and devout use of hymns most admirably:
“Hymn-singing may surely be called successful when it affords an
avenue for true approach to God in earnest and noble worship; when it
exerts a wholesome and uplifting reflex influence on those who engage
in it, establishing them in the truth and quickening their
spirituality; and when it creates a diffused atmosphere of high
religious sympathy and vigorous consecration, so that even unbelievers
are affected and constrained by it.”[5]

But if these purposes of the singing of hymns are to be realized and
their values exploited, they must be properly employed. They must be
made vital and their messages brought home to the hearts of the
people. There should be no listless, merely formal singing of noble
Christian hymns. There is unwitting sacrilege in doing that. The truth
of God, the high experiences of his saints, are rendered unreal and
lose their appeal—they become stale.

There are multiplied millions of true believers who duplicate the
unhappy experience of a prominent London preacher who declared that he
did not exactly disbelieve the cardinal doctrines of Christianity, but
that they had become unreal to him. They were only abstractions,
playthings of his logical faculties, husks from which the living
kernel had fallen, which left his soul hungry. How could a minister by
the discussion of what seemed to him unrealities inspire and
spiritualize his hearers? How can any minister to whom the hymns in
his hymnal are dry and abstract rhymes about vague and uninteresting
platitudes at best, be able to make his song service a vital
contribution to the spiritual progress of his people? If the hymns
stir him, he can easily make them stir the people.

V. REASONS FOR THE MINISTER’S APPRECIATION OF HYMNS

_Hymns Are Evidences of the Effect of the Bible._

The hymnbook is an evidence of what the Bible can do with unregenerate
human nature. That the truth of the Bible should be able to take
Newton, the slave driver, and make of him a minister of God, not only
himself writing such hymns as “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,”
“Glorious things of Thee are spoken,” or “How sweet the name of Jesus
sounds,” but inspiring and encouraging the poor hypochondriac, William
Cowper, so that from his heart should well forth the hymns, “There is
a fountain filled with blood,” “God moves in a mysterious way,” and
“Sometimes a light surprises,” is in itself one of the great evidences
of Christianity.

_Hymns and Psalms Affected the Life of the Church._

The extraordinary result of the use of hymns and psalms in the life of
the church and of believers is another reason for the minister’s
valuing hymns highly. The awkward lines of Sternhold and Hopkins’
version of the psalms entered into the speech and private devotion of
Scotch and English Christians as even the Bible itself did not,
becoming a very liturgy to the condemners and flouters of liturgies.
Thomas Jackson in his life of Charles Wesley remarks that “it is
doubtful whether any human agency has contributed more directly to
form the character of the Methodist societies than the hymns. The
sermons of the preachers, the prayers of the people, both in their
families and social meetings, are all tinged with the sentiments and
phraseology of the hymns.”

_Hymns in Personal Christian Experience._

Listen to the personal experiences of Christians in our own day and
you will hear more reference to hymns than to the Scriptures. There is
now no such committing to memory of passages of the Bible and of hymns
as there was in preceding generations, but almost without set purpose,
by simple absorption, the average Christian can quote more lines of
hymns than he can of Scripture verses. This extraordinary place in the
affections and life of Christian people is no derogation to the Bible,
for the hymns are simply the Bible in another form.

_Hymns as Stimulating the Spiritual Life of the Minister._

To some men who lack emotional and poetic insight, the hymnbook may
appear dry and uninteresting. It certainly is uninteresting to the
unspiritual man, no matter how poetical he may be, and this will
account for the occasional attack upon the hymns of the Christian
Church as being without poetical power or merit. But the Christian
minister, who deals with spiritual things, for whom the emotions of
the human heart give a great opportunity for sowing the seed of life,
ought to find the study of his hymnbook a great delight.

_Hymns Approved by Paul._

If there were no other reason why a minister should be profoundly
interested in hymns and their use in religious work, the example and
exhortations of Paul should be sufficient. He does not lay as much
stress upon preaching, nor upon praying, as he does on singing. He
admonishes the Ephesians that they “be filled with the Spirit”; and
that divine possession should manifest itself in “speaking to
yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making
melody in your heart to the Lord.” A part of this exercise of singing
was to consist of “giving thanks unto God and the Father in the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ.”[6]

He exhorts the Colossians, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly
in all wisdom,” and one of the results of such indwelling was to be
“teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs”; he even urges earnestness and sincerity in such
singing, “Singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”[7] Such
singing should not be with mere enthusiasm, for he assures the
Corinthians that his singing was not only devout but intelligent as
well: “I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the
understanding also.”[8] There is more than a suspicion that in some of
his most striking passages he is quoting a current hymn or
interjecting a part of an improvised hymn.

_Hymns in the Early Church._

The emphasis placed on the value of song by the early church is made
clear by Tertullian, who states that at the current “love feasts” each
person in attendance was invited at the close of the feast to sing
either from the Holy Scriptures or from the dictates of his own spirit
a song of adoration to God.

In the middle of the third century St. Basil testifies to the value of
congregational singing as practiced in his day: “If the ocean is
beautiful and worthy of praise to God, how much more beautiful is the
conduct of the Christian assembly where the voices of men and women
and children, blended and sonorous like the waves that break upon the
beach, rise amidst our prayers to the very presence of God.” The
remark is made by one of the ancient fathers that the singing of the
churches often attracted “Gentiles”—i.e., unconverted persons—to their
services, who were baptized before their departure.

_Hymns Prepared the Church for Periods of Marked Progress._

While by no means the only cause for such progress, a great increase
in the writing and singing of hymns has been a conspicuous feature in
every great religious movement. The converse is also true that when
the privilege of congregational singing was curtailed or withdrawn,
spiritual declension followed.

The victory of the Church over Arianism was a singing victory both in
the Eastern and Western churches. The Crusades were marked by
processional singing of religious songs. The singing Lollards and
Hussites heralded the Great Reformation, and the most effective
preaching of Huss and Luther and Calvin was the hymns and metrical
psalms they introduced. Watts prepared the way for the Wesleyan
revival, and the Wesley brothers entered the path he had blazed and
made a great highway of Christian song. Dour New England found its
voice during the Great Revival under Jonathan Edwards and later under
Nettleton. The preachers who saved the pioneers of the Appalachian
range of mountains and the budding Middle West from relapsing into
paganism and savagery were “singing parsons” with their repertoire of
“spiritual” revival choruses and religious ballads.

Even Charles G. Finney, the great praying evangelist and later founder
of Oberlin College, whose revivals swept through New York and northern
Ohio like a prairie fire, had the popular _Christian Lyre_, edited by
Joshua Leavitt, as a breeze to fan the flame, although he often
forbade the singing of hymns in certain conditions in his meetings.
William B. Bradbury, S. J. Vail, Robert Lowry, William H. Doane, Fanny
Crosby, George F. Root, Philip Phillips, P. P. Bliss, and many others
had written and taught the American people the songs that prepared the
way for the Moody and Sankey revival movement which so profoundly
affected the religious life of both America and England and, through
the missionaries, intensified the faith of the Christian Church
throughout the world.

Through all the centuries it has been the singing armies that have won
the religious wars. The successful denominations and individual
churches have been pre-eminently singing churches led by singing
preachers who swayed their communities. Cardinal Newman is now chiefly
remembered for his hymn, “Lead, Kindly Light.” Washington Gladden, a
great religious leader, will have his memory kept green by his hymn,
“O Master, let me walk with Thee,” and Bishop Phillips Brooks fifty
years hence will be chiefly remembered for his Christmas carol, “O
little town of Bethlehem.”

VI. STRANGE INDIFFERENCE TO HYMNS

_The Minister’s indifference._

In view of the considerations and facts here marshaled, how strange is
the general lack of interest among ministers toward their hymn
service, toward the hymns themselves, their history, their meaning,
the methods to be used in exploiting their great value. Is it saying
too much to suggest that three out of five ministers have no adequate
conception of the possibilities of hymn singing or appreciation of its
value?

_Indifference of the Congregation._

Outside of the lamentable weakness of egocentric human nature it is
difficult to discover why the part of the divine service devoted to
sacred song should be so utterly subordinated to the other parts of
the sacred program; but that it is true is so evident to any
reasonable observer that it needs little or no proof. The janitor
religiously postpones opening or shutting windows, or shaking down the
furnace, during the prayer, or sermon even, until the hymn is being
sung. Members of the congregation seize the opportunity to leave the
room, or to consult with others about church affairs in all too
audible voices.

The hymn ought to be the consummate note of prayer and praise and
devout meditation on sacred themes, the great co-operative climax in
the worship of God. It is too often looked upon as a merely physical
stimulus to liven up the tedious service.[9]

This ought not so to be! For the primary object of assembling the
saints is united worship—united praise. There can be no true public
prayer without an element of worship; but it has a recognition of
personal needs and even wants. This human factor makes it a composite
of the human and the divine and lowers its dignity. In genuine praise
there is a forgetfulness of the human element and a rising into the
pure realm of the divine. In true praise the human soul is unconscious
of self and utterly absorbed in God.

Hence it is not too much to say that congregational song is the
supreme element in all worship.

_Chapter III_
THE LITERARY ASPECT OF HYMNS

I. WHAT MAKES THE HYMN LITERATURE?

_Its Character as a Transcript of Life._

In so far as a hymn is a transcript of a genuine conviction,
intensified by emotion, or of a profound experience, it is literature.
There have gone into it vision, feeling, imagination, sincerity,
intimate experience—an appropriation of the influences life offers a
soul that gazes upon it with wide-open eyes. It is not the measure or
the rhyme that makes literature of a hymn. A bald formulation in
metrical form of doctrines dissected by metaphysical processes may be
called a hymn by courtesy, but it is not literature any more than
would be a textbook on mathematics.

But a hymn in which the hurried pulse and the throbbing heartbeat of
deep human feeling can be felt is genuine literature, a revelation of
human personality and of the collective life of which it is
representative. It is the story of the experience of an exploring soul
seeking knowledge of the deeper spiritual relations with God and his
Kingdom.[1]

_Its Wide Distribution._

The importance of the hymn as literature is further attested by the
response to it of the many generations which have made it the vehicle
of their religious life. Dr. Reeves calls attention to the wide
distribution of hymnbooks; they have come from the printing press by
the multiplied millions during the last four hundred years. Three
millions of the _Methodist Hymnal_ have been broadcast over the United
States, sixty million _Hymns Ancient and Modern_ over the British
Empire. Hundreds of other contemporary hymnals, both official and
unofficial, aggregate even more millions. If we add collections of
Gospel Songs, we get many millions more. No other form of literature
has had so wide a distribution. A single hymnal has had more active
readers than all the poetry in the world, ancient and modern.[2] To
dispose of an edition of one hundred thousand volumes of Palgrave’s
_Golden Treasury_, the standard collection of the poems of the ages
approved by critics, would take a score of years. Moreover, they would
go largely into libraries, private and public, for occasional
reference.

_Its Acceptance Through Many Generations._

But wideness of distribution is no final criterion of literary
quality, else our newspapers might lay an earnest claim to literary
standing. But these hymnals do not severally represent individual
writers, as do most of the books of poetry; they contain a common body
of hymns representing the major portion of all of them. That selection
of hymns, fundamental to all of them, has been culled out from the
great mass of sacred lyrics written through many centuries, by the
consensus of different generations, of different backgrounds, of
different grades of social and literary culture, of different peoples
and even races, and accepted as the most complete expression of the
fundamental Christian life of them all. If that unanimity of
responsiveness and practical endorsement by continued use does not
confer the accolade of literature upon that body of hymns, the
accepted definition of literature is faulty and inadequate.

_Its Profound Influence._

No other verses have been read so often. They have not only shaped the
religious thought and experience of vast peoples and developed their
character, but have affected their general modes of thought and forms
of expression and influenced their secular literature. Without their
rugged, ax-hewn version of the Psalms, would the Scotch have become
the stern, dour, conscience-driven people the world has learned to
know and value? Without the vigorous “spirituals” and the lively
rhythms of its gospel songs, would the American church life have
developed the freedom from ecclesiastical tradition and formalism, and
the fearless aggressiveness that has lighted the beacons of salvation
in every land? The hymn has been the expression of life, and in turn
has become the wellspring of life.

Whatever of culture and refinement other forms of literature have
brought has directly touched only a small minority, and but indirectly
the great mass of civilized peoples; but the hymn has had a direct
influence on the life and character of the mass of the people, and has
appealed to their instincts and imaginations and shaped their ideals
in the most immediate and striking way. Where one person has been
refined and enriched in mind by the poetry of Milton, or Wordsworth,
or Tennyson, a thousand have been comforted, inspired, and transformed
by Sternhold and Hopkins, Watts, or Wesley.

Archbishop Trench, the fault of whose hymns was chiefly that they were
too few, was admonished by his friend, John Sterling, to give more
attention to hymn-writing: “You would influence millions whom poetry
in any other form would never reach.”

II. OBJECTIONS TO RECOGNIZING ITS LITERARY CHARACTER

_Due to Narrow Definition of Literature._

In spite of these facts that surely entitle the hymn to be considered
literature in the most vital sense of the word, there are critics who
look upon it with undisguised indifference, if not with scorn. Partly
due to an utter lack of sympathy with the use of it, partly to an
academic idea of what literature really is, emphasizing form and
rhetorical interest, partly because its appeal is emotional and not
mainly intellectual, these objectors are blind to the larger interests
involved. If there is any truth in the insistence of some literary
critics that there are few hymns that are good from a literary point
of view, Montgomery’s statement may give a sufficient reason: “Our
good poets have seldom been Christians and our good Christians have
seldom been good poets.”[3]

_Due to Failure to Realize Limitations of Hymns._

A better reason is that such critics have seldom realized the
limitations the singing hymn presents to the poet. Milton was a great
poet, but he could not condense his ideas sufficiently or give them
the needed terse expression. He needed a large canvas, while the
successful hymn-writer is confined to a miniature. Even Tennyson, who
succeeded in small lyrics, wrote only one hymn and that ill-adapted to
actual congregational use.

Palgrave, in the preface to his _Treasury of Sacred Songs_, compares
secular and sacred verse as follows: “Secular verse covers many
provinces: manners, incident, love, landscape, the vast sphere of
drama—in a word, all the many-colored romance of life. Sacred verse
can hardly go beyond one province: to expect masterpieces in one field
approximately numerous as those in the secular lyric is unreasonable.
Even more unreasonable is it, when of this single province a district
only is chosen for censure, and treated as the whole domain. Hymns,
well-nigh limited to the functions of prayer and praise, are precisely
that region in which a practical aim is naturally, almost inevitably,
predominant!”

_Some Critics and Their Criticism._

Dr. Samuel Johnson’s criticism of hymns may be brushed aside as based
on a wrong conception of poetry, which to his mind called not for
simplicity, but for something near to that artificiality which he
conceived of as art: “Contemplative piety, or the intercourse between
God and the human soul, cannot be poetical.”... “The paucity of its
topics enforces perpetual repetition, and the sanctity of its matter
rejects the ornament of figurative diction.”

In mitigation of the false judgment of the old literary dictator, it
may be said that the golden age of English hymnody had not yet
arrived.

The later criticism of the hymn by Matthew Arnold represents more
fully the attitude of the literary critic in our own day. The
practical aspects of life were not ignored by him, but they did not
bulk large in his mind. Hence it is not surprising that, while he
fully comprehended the wide influence of the hymn, he had little or no
sympathy with its spirit and even less with its purpose, so that he
could write about it after this fashion: “Hymns, such as I know them,
are a sort of composition which I do not at all admire.... I regret
their prevalence and popularity among us.” Could anti-religious
rationalism go further?

Among more recent critics, Edmund Clarence Stedman speaks of the hymn
as “the kind of verse which is, of all, the most common and
indispensable.” But Professor Boynton in the _Cambridge History of
American Literature_, gives as much space to “Yankee Doodle” as he
does to American Hymnody and refers to its “sentimental ornateness,”
“tawdry sentimentalism,” and “banalities of evangelistic song,”
unconsciously drawing an unhappy portrait of his own spiritual
condition.[4]

The older criticism of the hymn had at least the merit of
thoughtfulness and serious consideration of its value and of its
shortcomings.

The hymns that would have satisfied literary critics would have
required a spiritual delicacy and refinement, an elegance and artistry
of phrase, a vagueness of religious idea devoid of genuine feeling,
that would shut them out from use in the workaday world in which we
live. To set aside the “good and useful purpose” acknowledged by
Matthew Arnold in the consideration of the hymn is to ignore its whole
reason for being, and, what is vastly more important, to ignore the
deepest needs of the human soul.

III. THE WRITING OF HYMNS

_The Handicap of Thought and Diction._

Alfred Tennyson clearly recognized the limitations that handicap the
writer of hymns. “A good hymn is the most difficult thing in the world
to write!” The hymn he did write, “Sunset and Evening Star,” beautiful
as it is, failed in practicability for congregational use. Its
unfitness for mass singing in its various phases is the chief
stumblingblock.

The hymn writer finds in the limitations, which he must bear in mind
as he writes, no small hindrance to spontaneity and poetic vision. He
must limit the thought not only to the comprehension, but to the
natural feelings of the people who are to sing what he writes. He must
not use unusual or polysyllabic words. Striking figures, startling
tropes, involved similes, obscure metaphors, allusions to things known
by but few, descriptive or dramatic lines, are all forbidden. Every
verse, whether in single or double meter, must be complete in itself,
whatever its relation in thought to what precedes or follows. There
must be unity, simplicity, condensation of thought, and yet a
clearness that shuts out involved thought or mysticism that cannot be
instantly grasped. The hymn writer is like a violinist called upon to
play on a single string.[5]

Thomas Hornblower Gill, an English hymn writer who is slowly gaining
recognition in current hymnals—_The Revised Presbyterian Hymnal_ has
five of his hymns—gives his conception of what hymns should be, in his
preface to his first volume, issued in 1868. He insists that the true
hymn is a true poem in every case, while it is debarred from liberties
of luxuriance which may be claimed by other poetry. “It may easily be
too figurative; it cannot be too glowing or imaginative... They should
exhibit all the qualities of a good song—liveliness and intensity of
feeling, directness, clearness and vividness of utterance, strength,
sweetness, and simplicity and melody of rhythm: excessive subtlety and
excessive ornament should be alike avoided.”

_The Handicap of Meter._

Not the slightest handicap is the necessity of choosing a form of
stanza that will at the same time fit the writer’s sentiment and be
adapted to singable tunes known to the congregations which are to be
lyrically served. This range of form is quite limited. Most of these
tunes call for iambic or trochaic measure, because anapaestic or
dactylic numbers lack the dignity and the impressiveness necessary for
general hymns.

The form of the stanza may take the elevated, heavy “Long” Meter, the
more widely expressive “Common” Meter, the sententious “Short” Meter,
“Sevens and Sixes,” “Eights and Sevens,” plain “Sevens” or “Sixes,” or
the more lively “Sixes and Fours” or “Sixes and Fives.”[6]

These different meters have very marked characteristics. It is really
marvelous how the instinct of true hymn writers in all generations has
unconsciously, or at most subconsciously, taken account of them and
with practical unanimity observed them.

The Long Meter is stately and dignified. It is the fit expression of
noble praise like the Long Meter Doxology, “Lord of all being, throned
afar,” “From all that dwell below the skies,” “Before Jehovah’s awful
throne,” or elevated sentiment like “God is the refuge of His saints,”
“When I survey the wondrous cross,” and “’Tis midnight, and on Olive’s
brow.” Its long, even lines, broken by no strong stops, afford a
smooth, graceful expression for general truths and Christian doctrine
in poetic form, such as “O Jesus, our chief cornerstone,” “Jesus shall
reign where’er the sun,” and “O Love! how deep, how broad, how high!”

The Common Meter is much more varied in its possibilities of
expression, as its unequal lines and alternate rhymes give greater
freedom. It is the prevailing meter of the old English ballad. It is
really the most adaptable and pliable form of stanza open to the hymn
writer, giving equal opportunity of expression to all emotions and
classes of truth. It is a fit vehicle alike for the elevated praise of
“All hail the power of Jesus’ name,” the majesty of “I sing th’
almighty pow’r of God,” the doctrinal statement of “There is a
fountain filled with blood,” the tenderness of “Jesus, the very
thought of Thee,” the vigor of “Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve,”
and the quiet resignation of “Father, whate’er of earthly bliss.” On
account of this adaptability it has become the Common Meter in fact as
well as in name. Its exclusive use in some of the collections of
metrical psalms shut out the use of tunes in other meters and so led
to the singing of only a few of the more popular Common Meter tunes;
the result was that the congregational singing in the churches in
England, Scotland, and America was nearly wrecked.

S. M. might stand for sententious meter as well as for Short Meter, as
the two short lines and the long pauses at the end of each of them
give it an emphatic, terse, even epigrammatic style. This may be seen
in “My soul, be on thy guard,” “Welcome, sweet day of rest,” “Stand up
and bless the Lord,” “Crown Him with many crowns,” and “Come, Holy
Spirit, come.” John Fawcett was not happy in the selection of this
meter for his otherwise very useful and precious hymn, “Blest be the
tie that binds,” as the strong pause at the end of the first line in
all but one of his stanzas cuts his sentences in two and makes the
hymn alike difficult to read and sing. The same difficulty will be
found in the reading of other hymns in this meter, the limitations of
which have not always been recognized by writers using it. It would be
a very slow, heavy meter did not the longer third line give it needed
movement.

The meter known as 6s lacks the longer third line and is therefore
peculiarly grave and disjointed. It is well adapted for hymns of
passive faith or resignation, such as “My Jesus, as Thou wilt,” “Thy
way, not mine, O Lord,” or for dolorous prayers like “My spirit longs
for Thee,” and “I hunger and I thirst.”

The meter 6s and 4s in its various forms might be supposed to be even
slower than the 6s because of the additional short lines of four
syllables each. The opposite is true. In some cases the first four
lines are rhythmically equivalent to two lines of ten syllables each,
so slight is the pause of actual thought at the end of the
six-syllable line, with the result that the slowness is quickened into
simple dignity and elevation. But even where the pauses at the end of
the first and third lines are long, the shorter second and fourth
lines, as in common meter, give added movement. In the other form of
6s and 4s, the first two six-syllable lines are so knit together by
their common rhyme and, if properly written, have so markedly a common
goal of completeness of thought in the third line toward which they
hurry that again the movement is hastened and the severity of the 6s
is mitigated. The same principle applies to the following three or
four lines, depending on the form examined. Hence we have in the
various forms of this meter some of our noblest hymns of prayer,
praise, and victory, such as “Nearer, my God, to Thee,” “More love to
Thee, O Christ,” “We are but strangers here,” “Fade, fade, each
earthly joy,” “My faith looks up to Thee,” “Rise, glorious Conqueror,
rise,” “Come, Thou Almighty King,” and “My country, ’tis of thee.”

IV. THE LITERARY QUALITY NOT TO BE OVERESTIMATED

_Literary Quality Not the Supreme Consideration._

Although poetical feeling and imagination and nice literary
craftsmanship are not to be undervalued, but rather to be earnestly
sought for in our hymns, after all, they are not the supreme
considerations. Practical use has proved many hymns that conspicuously
lacked them to have been supremely useful because of their spiritual
content, sincerely and lucidly expressed. When hymn writers like Watts
and Newton have deliberately ignored and even avoided literary values,
and yet have written among the most useful hymns in our collections,
the critic who insists on poetical quality has by no means a _prima
facie_ case. Charles Wesley was a poet, but in his valuable hymn “A
charge to keep I have” he is a pedagogue without poetic afflatus.
Standards of literary value, when not artificial, as in Samuel
Johnson’s case, have their place, but a place that is modest and not
supreme.

_Literary Quality Should Be Subconscious._

The danger in unduly emphasizing the literary aspect of hymns is well
expressed by Dr. Louis F. Benson: “The hazard is implicit in the very
motive of hymn singing; the heightening of religious emotion. The
danger is of mistaking sugary sentiment for true feeling and its
rhetorical expression in ‘soft, luxurious flow’ for true poetry.” In
other words, the conscious seeking of the hymn writer after literary
atmosphere and skill of treatment is fatal to genuineness of feeling,
and to his success in producing a true hymn.

It will do no harm to iterate here that the two essentials to a
successful hymn are spirituality and the power to express it so as to
reach the understanding as well as the hearts of the people who are to
sing. According to Paul, the first commandment in hymn writing and
singing is: “I will sing with the spirit”; the second is like unto it:
“I will sing with the understanding also.”

_Chapter IV_
THE EMENDATION OF HYMNS

I. THE CHANGES IN OUR HYMNS

_Early Changes._

The question of changes made in hymns by others than their writers
deserves consideration. The point is not that the individual preacher
is supposed to air his critical skill, but that he should understand
why changes have been made by hymnal editors and better appreciate the
principles involved and the literary niceties that are to be observed.

In the first compilations of hymnbooks, the rights of the authors of
the individual hymns were entirely below the horizon. Many hymns were
published without the names of their writers. To this day Charles
Wesley’s claim to “Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” as against that of his
brother John, depends wholly on considerations of style and form of
stanza. There is not even a well-founded tradition.

It was the adaptation of the hymn to immediate actual needs that
counted, not the writer. There was no moral copyright, much less
legal, to stay the hand of the mutilator.

Watts did not hesitate to incorporate in his hymns lines and even
whole stanzas from the hymns of others. John Wesley had no scruples in
rewriting lines and stanzas and even whole hymns already in print.
Toplady’s alterations were often quite radical, as, for example, his
drastic revision of Charles Wesley’s “Blow ye the trumpet, blow”[1] to
suit his intensely Calvinistic views.

_The Abuse of the Editorial Revision._

Dr. Worcester, in this country, who issued several collections of
psalms and hymns, chiefly by Watts, was lavish in his alterations,
mostly for the worse—so much so that the New England churches
revolted. Lord Selborne said of these mutilations by many hands,
“There is just enough of Watts left here to remind one of Horace’s
saying that ‘you may know the remains of a poet even when he is torn
to pieces.’”

The needless alteration of hymns that occurred in these early days is
to be greatly deplored, especially of those most widely known. “Rock
of Ages” and “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” were fair targets for the
editorial spear—out of the twenty-four lines of the former only eleven
have escaped change. The line “When mine eyestrings break in death”
was the only one peremptorily demanding a change, although a few other
alterations may be accepted as slight improvements, as, for instance,
“wounded” instead of “riven” side. So many people have committed this
hymn with its differing lines to memory that when it is sung there is
frequently the clash of these variations instead of the desirable
uniformity of utterance.

The same is true of Wesley’s hymn. In spite of John Wesley’s warning
against changes in the Methodist hymns—“Hymn-cobblers should not try
to mend them. I really do not think they are able”—more than thirty
variations occur in the first stanza of “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.”

The pity is that while uniformity is extremely desirable in these and
many other hymns, it is now out of the question. The several
variations have their partisan upholders.

James Montgomery spent years of his life amending and modifying the
hymns of others, but asked that others should not change his verses.
He insisted that if good people could not conscientiously adopt his
doctrines and diction, it was a little questionable in them to impose
theirs on him.

It is interesting to note that Montgomery could not “conscientiously
adopt the doctrine and diction” of the first verse of Cowper’s “There
is a fountain filled with blood” and substituted a verse of his own of
which he said, “I think my version is unexceptionable.” But hymnal
editors did not find it so and unanimously repudiated it. It was
regarded as “faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null.”

_The Return to Originals._

This abuse of the editorial revision produced a reaction, and in the
last half century, under the leadership of Dr. Louis F. Benson, a
strong movement appeared among hymnal editors whose slogan was “Back
to the originals!” In many cases that was not practicable, as the
changes made were evident improvements, but the new tendency often
proved to be a very useful one in restoring many a good original
phrase in place of a much inferior alteration.

II. PRINCIPLES OF EQUITY INVOLVED IN THESE CHANGES

_The Rights of the Original Writer._

There are some principles of equity that lie upon the surface. The
writer of hymns has rights that must be recognized. His name should be
given as its author. No name other than his own should be connected
with the product of his pen. Unless there are sufficient reasons, the
hymn should be given as he wrote it. If his name is given, no doctrine
or experience should be interpolated. In business affairs that would
be adjudged forgery in the second degree. If interpolations or changes
of ideas become necessary for practical reasons, due notice should be
given that the original writer is not responsible for the new ideas or
the changes of phraseology. Unitarian hymnal editors have not always
recognized this obligation. Our recent well-edited hymnals have been
scrupulous in this particular.

_The Limits of the Author’s Rights._

But there are distinct limits to the author’s rights. If the hymnal
were a merely literary compilation, the liberty to make changes would
not be admissible. But the hymnal is not an anthology; it is a
collection of hymns for a definite and practical purpose of an exalted
character—to aid congregations in the worship of God and in the
realization of the spiritual aims he has set before them. That purpose
has the right of eminent domain. If the original hymn has faulty lines
or weak verses that jeopardize its otherwise practical effectiveness,
competent editors of collections of hymns for congregational use have
the right to amend, or condense, and so add to its usefulness in the
work of the church, in so far as it does not affect the general spirit
and tenor of the original. Isaac Watts recognized this principle,
saying, “Where an unpleasing word is found, he that leads the worship
may substitute a better one.” Indeed, in 1737, he acknowledged that
“Many a line needs the file to polish the roughness of it and many a
thought wants richer language to adorn and make it shine—but I have at
present neither inclination nor leisure to correct and I hope I never
shall.”

III. EFFECT OF CHANGES ON QUALITY

_Loss of Original Writer’s Vision._

It has been strongly urged that the emendation of hymns is dangerous
to their quality; that the original writer was a better judge of both
thought and phrasing than the cold critic whose very attitude prevents
the high feeling that must inspire the most appealing forms of
expression.

But the protest overlooks the fact that the very fervor and urge of
fresh vision and its consequent emotion may prevent attention to nice
details of phraseology or even to the proper balance of parts of a
hymn. Furthermore, the writer with the creative urge may lack the
critical faculty and fine discrimination necessary to polish up his
verses after the impulse of writing has spent its force.

This being true, the editor who supplies the wanting critical attitude
shows no presumption, provided his vision is clear and his skill in
supplying more accurate, more melodious, or more practical phraseology
adds value to the hymn. Martin Madan was no hymn writer, but when he
rewrote Watts’ hymn,

“He dies, the Heavenly Lover dies!
The tidings strike the doleful sound
On my poor heartstrings; deep he lies
In the cold caverns of the ground,”

and gave us the noble stanza,

“He dies, the Friend of sinners, dies;
Lo! Salem’s daughters weep around;
A solemn darkness veils the skies,
A sudden trembling shakes the ground,”

he not only gave it a dignified and Biblical content and form, but he
rescued the hymn for the spiritual edification of coming generations.

_Biblical Precedent._

There is plenty of Biblical precedent. The original compiler and
editor of the Psalms, be he Asaph or Ezra, inserted a version of the
eighteenth psalm differing from the original as found in the
twenty-second chapter of Second Samuel. It cannot escape the most
casual reader of the New Testament that its quotations from the Old
Testament, whether poetical or prose, are by no means accurately
reproduced. Moreover, the writers of psalm versions from Marot and
Luther down to Watts did not hesitate to condense, alter, or
interpolate new ideas in their transcriptions of the sacred originals.
They had no sense of presumption; their minds were preoccupied with
the practical ends they were trying to serve.

IV. ANALYSIS OF CHANGES MADE

It may be instructive to study more in detail the occasions for
changes made in our hymns and learn the justification for many of
them. If some of them seem somewhat microscopic and even captious,
none the less they make for exactness, for nice discrimination, and
for more intelligent appreciation of the literary and spiritual values
of our magnificent body of hymns.[2]

_The Omission of Verses._

A very important change from the original of many hymns is the
omission of some of the less valuable stanzas, or even a condensation
of some of them by omitting unattractive lines.

“Oh for a thousand tongues to sing,” the fine hymn that opens all but
recent Methodist hymnals, originally began, “Glory to God and praise
and love,” and had eighteen stanzas. The hymn as now used consists of
stanzas 7 to 12 of the original. Some hymnals omit stanza 10.

In the Trinity hymn sometimes ascribed to Charles Wesley, “Come, Thou
Almighty King,” the second of the original five stanzas is always
omitted:

“Jesus, our Lord, arise,
Scatter our enemies,
And make them fall;
Let thine almighty aid
Our sure defense be made,
Our souls on thee be stayed;
Lord, hear our call.”

The evident imitation of the second stanza of the British National
anthem is too obvious:

“O Lord, our God, arise,
Scatter his enemies,
And make them fall.
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
Confound their politics,
On Him our hearts we fix;
God save the King.”

In Bishop Brooks’ original of “O little town of Bethlehem,” so widely
known and used, the fourth stanza is omitted:

“Where children, pure and happy,
Pray to the Blessed Child;
Where misery cries out to thee,
Son of the Mother mild;
Where charity stands watching,
And faith holds wide the door,
The dark night wakes, the glory breaks,
And Christmas comes once more.”

The reasons are not far to seek: the double rhyme in the third line is
so forced as to be awkward; the first two lines refer to Jesus in the
third person, but the next two in the second; more important still,
the stanza does not make a sufficient addition to the value of the
hymn to warrant the added length.

The stanza,

“Thy body slain, sweet Jesus, thine,
And bathed in its own blood,
While all exposed to wrath divine,
The glorious suff’rer stood,”

if retained, despite its medieval picture of our suffering Lord, would
have added nothing to Watts’ noble hymn, “Alas! and did my Saviour
bleed,” but rather would have hemmed the progress of its thought and
feeling.

Few of the lovers of Robinson’s classic hymn, “Come, Thou Fount of
every blessing,” would have enjoyed singing and visualizing the
omitted fourth stanza,

“O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see thy lovely face!
_Richly clothed in blood-washed linen_,
How I’ll sing thy sovereign grace!”

A stanza was omitted from a hymn by Isaac Watts by Dr. Worcester, and
he was compelled by public sentiment to replace it in his next
collection. Who was right—Dr. Worcester, or Watts and the church
public?

“But while I bled and groaned and died,
I ruined Satan’s Throne;
High on my cross I hung and spy’d
The monster tumbling down.”

What a travesty in this stanza of Christ’s words, “I beheld Satan as
lightning fall from heaven”!

The omission of all the older hymns regarding “the state of the
unpenitent dead” in our more recent hymnals is due to their usually
rather lurid expressions, going beyond those of the Scriptures, to the
reaction in the church at large against the rather mechanical and
heartless emphasis of the painful doctrine—not only in hymns, but in
sermons as well—and also to the realization that it is not a theme
fitted for singing.

What modern congregation could sing Watts’ stanza formulating the
doctrine,

“Up to the courts where angels dwell,
It [the soul] mounts triumphant there;
Or devils plunge it down to hell
In infinite despair”?

When we come to the hymns constructed by selecting stanzas from long
poems—e.g., by John Keble or by John Greenleaf Whittier—we reach
marvels of skill in selection and co-ordination that have greatly
enriched English hymnody.

_Reconstructing and Rewriting Faulty Hymns._

John Wesley inveighed against “hymn-cobblers,” but he was a most
efficient and skillful “hymn-cobbler” himself. He deserves high
commendation for his literary skill and taste in cutting the rough
diamonds that passed through his editorial hands. A few instances will
illustrate his success.

“Before Jehovah’s awful throne” is recognized as one of Watts’ noblest
hymns of worship. But it is Wesley’s reconstruction that brought out
its essential nobility.

Watts began it in rather mechanical fashion,

“Sing to the Lord with joyful voice,
Let every land his name adore;
The British Isles shall send the noise
Across the ocean to the shore.”

Wesley omitted this stanza entirely. Beginning with the second stanza,

“With gladness bow before his throne,
And let his presence raise your joys;
Know that the Lord is God alone
And formed our soul and framed our voice”

(which shows that Watts’ inspiration had begun to rise), Wesley
transformed it into a majestic expression of pure worship:

“Before Jehovah’s awful throne,
Ye nations, bow with sacred joy;
Know that the Lord is God alone,
He can create and he destroy.”

He was equally successful with Watts’ third stanza:

“Infinite power, without our aid,
Figured our clay to human mould;
And when our wandering feet had strayed,
He brought us to his sacred fold.”

The first line is faulty: the accent of “infinite” is on the first
syllable: Watts placed it on the second. The second line conveys no
clear idea: how is clay “figured”? The third and fourth lines are bald
and ordinary, lacking in poetic grace. See how deftly Wesley took
Watts’ material and gave it grace and dignity:

“His sovereign power, without our aid,
Made us of clay and formed us men;
And when like wand’ring sheep we strayed,
He brought us to his fold again.”

Transforming Watts’ fourth stanza in like manner, he added a majestic
fifth stanza of his own:

“Wide as the world is thy command,
Vast as eternity thy love;
Firm as a rock thy truth shall stand
When rolling years shall cease to move,”

completing one of the noblest hymns in the language.

Another hymn of Isaac Watts was enriched by passing through the hands
of John Wesley. Besides correcting minor infelicities and curtailing
its impracticable length, he rewrote the third stanza of the very
popular hymn, “Come, ye that love the Lord,” transforming Watts’

“The God that rules on high
And thunders when he please,
That rides upon the stormy sky
And manages the seas,”

into

“The God that rules on high,
That all the earth surveys,
That rides upon the stormy sky
And calms the roaring seas.”

He might have gone further and obviated the break of the sentence
occurring between the third and fourth stanzas. Some hymnal editors
meet the difficulty by omitting both.

Rev. Martin Madan wrote no hymns; his only claim to immortality rests
on his emendations of the hymns of greater men. But he well deserves
to be remembered for some of his happy improvements of important
hymns. His revision of Watts’ hymn “He dies! the Heavenly Lover dies!”
has already been referred to.

Madan very fortunately changed Charles Wesley’s

“Hark how all the welkin rings,
Glory to the King of Kings,”

into the much more poetical lines:

“Hark! the herald angels sing,
‘Glory to the newborn King.’”

_Minor Felicitous Changes._

No small improvement in our hymns consists of the change of individual
phrases because of misplaced accents, unfortunate consonantal
combinations, inept metaphors, and phrases that are secular in spirit
and associations.

In Cowper’s “Jesus, where’er thy people meet,” the second line had the
word “inhabitest,” difficult to sing; it was changed to “Dost dwell
with those.”

In Bishop Ken’s “Evening Hymn” some bad cases of wrong accents have
been corrected. “Under thy own almighty wings” now is “Beneath the
shadow of thy wings,” and “Triumphing rise at the last day” is become
“Rise glorious at the judgment day.”

Isaac Watts’ theory that hymns should eschew poetic grace was carried
too far—into euphonic slovenliness. In “Welcome, sweet day of rest” he
wrote “One day amidst the place,” ignoring the fact that “amidst” is
not singable. “One day in such a place” is much more suave. In “Joy to
the world! The Lord is come!” he wrote in the first line of stanza
three “let sins and sorrows grow”; the excessive sibilation has been
removed by using singular nouns.

In Charles Wesley’s very useful hymn, “Ye servants of God, your Master
proclaim,” “The praises of Jesus” is substituted for “Our Jesus’
praises,” distributing the hissing s’s more musically. The second and
third stanzas are wisely omitted; few congregations could sing, with
the solemnity the rest of the hymn calls for, such lines as

“When devils engage, the billows arise,
And horribly rage and threaten the skies.”

Charles Wesley in his hymn, “Jesus, let thy pitying eye,” had a very
realistic vision of the crucifixion and wrote “My Saviour _gasped_,
‘Forgive!’” which for singing purposes was well emended to “prayed.”
How did it escape the eagle eye of his brother John? Or did the
influence of the Moravians, who were fond of these physical touches in
writing of the crucifixion, affect both the Wesleys?

The “Protestant Te Deum,” “All hail the power of Jesus’ name,” has
fared well—or ill, according to the point of view—at the hands of
“hymn-tinkers.” Revisers have omitted

“Let highborn seraphs tune the lyre
And, as they tune it, fall
Before His face who tunes their choir,
And crown him Lord of all.”

They have transformed the stanza,

“Let every tribe and every tongue
That bound creation’s call
Now shout in universal song
The crowned Lord of all,”

into the nobler stanza,

“Let every kindred, every tribe
On this terrestrial ball,
To him all majesty ascribe,
And crown him Lord of all.”

Omitting one or two more stanzas, Dr. John Rippon has added a last
stanza that puts a fitting climax to the whole hymn:

“Oh, that, with yonder sacred throng,
We at his feet may fall!
We’ll join the everlasting song,
And crown him Lord of all.”

Edward Mote began his widely-used hymn, “My hope is built on nothing
less,” with a “stumble on the threshold,” writing “Nor earth nor hell
my soul shall move,” a very unintelligent plunging _in medias res_.
Was it Bradbury, who wrote the popular and effective tune that gave
the hymn wings, that had the happy impulse to combine parts of the
first and second stanzas, using the first two lines of the second
stanza and the last two of the first? This gave an arresting first
line and eliminated a line impossible to put on the lips of a general
congregation, “Midst all the hell I feel within.”

The very familiar and useful hymn of George Heath, “My soul, be on thy
guard,” is a notable example of the value of a competent editor’s
emendations. In stanza three Heath wrote,

“Ne’er think the vict’ry won,
Nor _once at ease sit down_;
_Thy arduous work_ will not be done
Till thou _hast got thy_ crown.”

Again in the fourth stanza he wrote,

“Fight on, my soul, till death.
God will thy work applaud,
Reveal his love at thy last breath,
And take to his abode.”

The improvement in both stanzas, as found in our hymnals, is obvious
at a glance.

Even so finished a poet as the distinguished historian Milman
disfigured his noble Palm Sunday hymn, “Ride on, ride on in majesty,”
by such a line as “Thine humble beast pursues its road,” which Murray
changed to the graceful and appealing line, “Saviour meek, pursue thy
road.”

Space is wanting to exhaust the various changes in hymns that are
amply justified if their most effective use is to be secured. It is
sufficient to say that changes of text must increase the perspicuity,
precision, propriety, and force of the hymn. Single phrases may wisely
be modified if a change corrects a wrong accent, makes a line more
euphonious, adds to its vividness, expressiveness, or vigor, increases
its dignity, clarifies the sense, or better adapts it to public use.

_Chapter V_
THE CONTENT OF THE HYMN

The hymn is not an independent entity, sufficient unto itself, whose
whole purpose is to be beautiful and to give pleasure to those
responsive to its charm. The hymn has a definite message, is big with
purpose.

It is related to its writer in satisfying the urge for expression of
ideas that will give him power over the thoughts and feelings of
others, or of emotions that demand to be voiced forth in the mystic
expressiveness of rhythm and rhyme.

It is related to God as the original source of its impulse and as the
recipient of its response in love and praise.

It is related to the church in the aid it affords to its collective
life and to the reader or singer whose spirituality is to be inspired,
developed, and expressed.

It is the content expressing these several relations and purposes that
separates the hymn from purely literary ideals and criticisms.

I. ITS RELATION TO GOD

_Thanksgiving._

The first impulse is a recognition of the blessings and privileges
that God bestows upon his creatures in general and upon the writer and
the singer in particular. There is consciousness of self in this
expression of gratitude. The soul still has its feet upon the ground.

There is nothing unworthy in this recognition of self as the recipient
of God’s favor, for the soul honors God in its realization of its
dependence on him and in its clear vision of the source of its
blessedness. Indeed, God asks it as his due.

_Prayer for Future Blessing._

The cynic who declares that gratitude is usually tinctured with the
hope of favors to come may not properly represent the soul as it gives
thanks to God, but there is a kinship between thanksgiving and prayer
that makes it easy and logical to pass from the one to the other. The
memory of benefits received inevitably suggests needs yet to be
supplied.

In its relation to God the hymn may well be a vehicle for the prayer
that envisages the spiritual lack that God alone can supply, and
vitalizes the recognition with a desirous urgency that must
characterize true prayer.

Here again we find not only divine authority, but encouragement and
assurance. Whether the hymn is an individual or a collective prayer
matters not. The individual need is also a need common to all
petitioners, and the prayer by a congregation is still the individual
prayer of its units, only intensified objectively toward God and
subjectively toward the singers by its mass expression. This
intensification is multiplied not arithmetically but geometrically.

_Adoration._

The hymn of adoration lifts the soul into a higher plane, into a
contemplation of the glory and majesty of the infinite perfections of
its God in which self is forgotten and a consciousness of the
infinitude of divine beauty, nobility, and spiritual elevation remains
to thrill the soul. It rises on wings of selfless delight and
rejoicing in God into a very ecstasy that only song can express.

Whether the soul stands on some high peak of earth and surveys the
billowing world that stretches far and wide with its beetling cliffs
and rocky headlands, its forests and fields, its meadows and orchards,
filled with the overwhelming mystery of life and force obeying
implicitly the laws formulated only in inherent nature; or gazes into
the great vault of the sky, with the silent majesty of circling stars
and developing universes, it will find the anonymous hymn of more than
a century ago voicing its deepest awe, its noblest joy:

“Praise the Lord! ye heavens adore him,
Praise him, angels in the height;
Sun and moon rejoice before him,
Praise him, all ye stars of light.”

When the soul on some mountaintop of inner experience and vision
glimpses something of the sublimity of the divine character, its
justice, its truth, its purity, its invincible power and will guided
by infinite knowledge and wisdom, its boundless mercy and forgiving
grace flowing from the eternal Source of its all-embracing love, again
it can adopt as its very own the solemn notes of Tersteegen, echoed in
English by John Wesley:

“Lo! God is here; let us adore
And own how dreadful is this place;
Let all within us feel his power,
And humbly bow before his face.”

This is the highest office of the hymn and should be made its largest
use; in no other way can the minds and hearts of Christian worshipers
be filled and thrilled with a consciousness of an indwelling God as by
hymns of praise, fully comprehended and sung with unflawed sincerity.

_The Hymn of Communion._

Beyond the hymn of exultant praise is the hymn of communion with God,
where the soul expresses its joy, not simply in the objective glories
of the divine nature, but in actual communion, companionship, and
conscious unity with God in desire, ideals, and purposes. The soul
thinks the thoughts of God, delights in what God approves, walks in
his ways with spontaneous gladness, and lives in absolute harmony with
his will, not mechanically under a stress of duty, but by urge of the
deepest depths of the soul. Objective praise may pull out all the
stops of the soul’s enthusiasm and the high imaginings of the spirit,
but the hymn of communion may express itself in tenderness and
sweetness, in upwelling love and quiet affection. It often is a
personal rather than a collective hymn.

II. RELATION TO THE SINGER

_The Hymn of Emotion._

Given a definite emotion based on realization of some religious truth,
man will urgently call for some expression of it, directly by speaking
or writing, or by means of some provided method.[1] Christians are
stimulated by being impressed by the experiences of others. There is a
blessed contagion in these expressions of the profound experiences of
the saints of God as found in the hymnbooks of all our churches. One
feels the accelerated spiritual heartbeat as one reads (or, better
yet, sings) Watts’ emotional cry as he stands before the cross of
Christ:

“When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss
And pour contempt on all my pride.”

Who can fail to follow him in his final consecration,

“Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all”?

Medley’s hymn, “Oh, could I speak the matchless worth,” in not a
single phrase directly addresses the Deity. It is a purely subjective
expression of delight in the Lord Jesus Christ; and yet how
impressive, how delightful, how eminently worthy of the feelings of
any great congregation, is this hymn of Christian joy.

The hymn of emotion, therefore, supplies the soul’s demand, for it
satisfies the instinct for expression. It clarifies the intellectual
basis of the emotion and in so doing intensifies it. The collective
singing and mass expression of a common emotion intensify it still
further and fit it more fully to affect the will and the character,
and so give permanence to the influence of the truth underlying the
feeling. Where at the beginning the truth is but dimly perceived and
passively accepted, the resulting shallow feeling will be deepened. In
this way the hymn becomes a very generator of desirable religious
emotion.

_The Hymn of Inspiration._

It follows that the hymn may be a means of stimulating interest and
enthusiasm in connection with a topic or proposed course of action,
and may become the hymn of inspiration. Any line of thought or method
of presentation appealing to any emotion or impulse that creates
courage, hopefulness, confidence, assurance of success, will be
pertinent and desirable. The intenser element of direct exhortation
may be added, making a hortative hymn of one of mere inspiration.

_The Hymn of Personal Experience._

The hymn of personal experience differs from that of emotional
expression in being more subjective, more analytical of the effect
produced on the mind by the apprehension of the religious truth. The
latter is based on the realization of some objective truth or
doctrine, while the hymn of personal experience emphasizes the inner
experience in prayer, in specific exercise of faith, in a reaction of
the soul to some accomplished task, or to a season of communion with
God. The hymn of the blind poet, George Matheson, which has been so
widely used,

“O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul on Thee,”

is distinctly a hymn of Christian experience; while Isaac Watts gives
poignant expression to the emotions of the Christian, as he
contemplates the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, borne to atone
for his sins,

“Alas! and did my Saviour bleed?
And did my Sovereign die?
Would he devote that sacred head
For sinners such as I!”

The hymn of personal experience has been rather heatedly objected to
by critics like Bishop Wordsworth. In some cases these “I and My”
hymns have been rewritten to meet the objection.

These critics who find their own “ego” offended by the apparent
emphasis of the hymn writer’s “ego” forget some rather important
factors in the situation.

1. It would have been rather presumptuous on the part of the writer to
speak for the collective “We” and “Us” who presumably were to sing his
verses.

2. As a spontaneous expression of personal experience, the hymn had to
be individualistic. Not often, if ever, are particular religious
experiences common to a body of believers at a given moment.

3. The high peaks of religious experience which are most valuable as
furnishing ideals and stimulus to the members of a singing
congregation can be reached only by individuals, not by a mass of
people. To restrict the expression of religious experience to that
common to all Christians, would be to omit the most inspiring and
helpful hymns, and keep our song service at a dead level of inferior
value.

4. It must not be forgotten that it is not the congregation that
sings; it is its individual units! The congregation is an abstraction,
a merely mental conception. The singing of each member is
fundamentally as purely individual as if he were absolutely alone!
Hence the “I and My” hymn is entirely fitting. Each sings what is, or
ought to be, his own individual experience. Indeed, he makes his best
contribution to the collective effect if he is intensely
individualistic in his singing.

5. In all ages this individualistic participation in mass singing has
been natural and spontaneous. The children of Israel sang an
individualistic “I and My” hymn in rejoicing over the army of Pharaoh.
The psalms are largely “I and My” hymns of praise, of prayer, and of
confession. David sings, “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.”

It is too much to expect that every singer shall apprehend the full
import of the words he sings; to accuse him of insincerity and
hypocrisy if he fails to rise to their level, or if he takes them on
his lips thoughtlessly, is uncharitable. In most cases the fault lies
with the leader of the service who does not bring out the meaning and
does not prepare the minds and hearts of the singers for the hymn
about to be sung.

It is, therefore, not a question of the first person singular, but of
the kind of personal experience that finds a voice. Is it artificial
or genuine? Is it morbid or wholesome? Is it depressing or stimulating
to the spiritual life? Is it an experience to which all have attained
or may attain, in terms all can accept, or is it morbid, fanatical,
extravagant?

No congregation should be expected to sing offhand with Faber,

“I love Thee so, I know not how
My transports to control,”

“Oh, dearest Jesus, I have grown
Childish with love of thee.”

There are other limits that need to be considered. A hymn may properly
be the vehicle for a confession of sin or of spiritual unworthiness;
but it should not take exaggerated forms of expression that only a few
could honestly adopt. The same is somewhat true of hymns of
consecration. Some hymns are title deeds to gifts to Jesus Christ so
comprehensive that few could sincerely subscribe to them. All these
hymns, though they may have been spontaneous outbursts from the hearts
of the writers, will seem unreal and forced to the singer, and will
only aggravate the mechanical unreality and the unwitting insincerity
that vitiate the average service of song.

_The Hymn of Meditation._

The hymn of meditation is less emotional than that of personal
experience or feeling. It is quiet in rhetorical style and gentle in
mood. Its purpose is not didactic, although it often superficially
seems to be so. It is occupied with doctrinal truth only in an
inferential way. It contemplates all religious truth, whether
doctrinal or ethical, in an objective, impersonal way and notes its
implications and corollaries. It is, therefore, emotionally negative,
blending with the other elements of the service rather than
controlling them.

Perhaps as typical an instance as can be cited is Bishop Bickersteth’s

“Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin?
The blood of Jesus whispers peace within.”

Charles Wesley’s meditation on the Christian’s duties, “A charge to
keep I have,” is another hymn of this class. Faber’s “There’s a
wideness in God’s mercy” (“Was there ever kinder shepherd”) is also in
the meditative mood.

_The Hymn of Exhortation._

At first blush it may seem a little absurd that the members of a
congregation should sing at each other such a hymn as “Stand up, stand
up for Jesus” or “Work, for the night is coming.” But this is an
artificial and not a genuine objection. The instinct of the human race
is toward the singing of just such hortatory songs as these. The
Marseillaise Hymn, which was one of the strongest influences leading
to the French Revolution, is simply an exhortation, but it swept the
French people off their feet and helped prepare the way for the great
transformation of the social structure of the nation. The Church has
gone on producing and singing these hortatory hymns throughout all
generations from the time of David until now, because the impulse is
native to the human heart.

_The Didactic Hymn._

The hymn may be used to teach truth as well as to express emotion. If
we are to accept Paul’s statements regarding the use of song in the
churches in his early day, the didactic hymn is the oldest form of the
Christian hymn. “Teaching and admonishing one another” is his phrase
in Colossians 3:16. Indeed, we can go back to Moses for authority for
it, for the ninetieth Psalm is largely didactic. In the Psalms we find
more instruction than worship. There is really no reason why an
assembly should not sing truth, as well as recite it, as it does in
the Apostles’ or in the Nicene Creed.

The didactic value of the hymn is too great that we should refuse its
help in laying a foundation of doctrine in the hearts of the people of
God. Never was it more necessary than now. It is significant of John
Wesley’s appreciation of its didactic value that in his announcement
of his hymnal of 1780, _The Large Hymn Book_, he refers to his
grouping of the hymns under subjects, making the hymnal “a little body
of experimental and practical divinity.”

Many of our most frequently used hymns are unfeignedly didactic.
Bishop Wordsworth’s “O day of rest and gladness” is a resume of the
arguments for the validity of the Christian Sabbath. “The Church’s one
foundation” is one of a series of hymns by Samuel J. Stone expounding
the Apostles’ Creed. Heber’s hymn, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God
Almighty” is suffused with poetical feeling, but is none the less a
didactic hymn emphasizing the doctrine of the Trinity.

At the same time, this religious truth must have a poetic element. It
is the great value of a hymn as a teaching method that it puts heart
and feeling into the doctrine it expresses, and so gives it reality
and appeal. Despite Dr. Austin Phelps’ rejection of Montgomery’s
“Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire” as “without the wings of song,”
the Church at large has been singing it for a century. Even if the
last stanza were omitted, it would still be a good hymn, because the
doctrine of prayer is clothed in such beautiful and inspiring language
that it is eminently fitted for the expression of a congregation in
song.

_The Doctrinal Hymn._

The doctrinal hymn is simply a limited form of the didactic hymn in
that it is devoted to the promulgation of the leading Christian
doctrines, while the general didactic hymn may be used to inculcate
any truth or duty, whether of a fundamental character or not.

The use of the hymn to teach the doctrines of the Church has numerous
advantages. It is clear and succinct, not obscuring the truth with
philosophical or metaphysical subtleties. It is dogmatic and not
argumentative. It has the mnemonic advantage of rhythm and rhyme and
is easily remembered. It has the inspiration of collective singing.
Above all it is vivid and poetical, emotionalizing and vitalizing what
in the philosopher’s hands becomes abstract and dry.

America’s most distinguished hymnologist clearly differentiates the
doctrinal theologian and the doctrinal hymn writer: “The theologian
and the hymn writer traverse day by day the same country, the Kingdom
of our Lord. They walk the same paths; they see the same objects; but
in their methods of observation and in their reports of what they see,
they differ. So far as theology is a science, the theologian deals
simply with the topography of the country: he explores, he measures,
he expounds. So far as hymn-writing is an art, the writer deals not
with topography, but with the landscape: he sees, he feels, he sings.
The difference in method is made inevitable by the variance of
temperament of the two men, the diversity of gifts. But both methods
are as valid as inevitable. Neither man is sufficient in himself as an
observer or a reporter. It is the topography and the landscape
together that make the country what it is. It is didactics and poetry
together that can approach the reality of the spiritual Kingdom.”[2]

It follows that the doctrinal hymn is not simply reluctantly
admissible, it is actually peremptorily necessary if the doctrines of
the Christian faith are to be impressed upon each rising generation.
This function of the hymn is all the more important because of the
decline of doctrinal preaching. It is the “substance of doctrine” the
hymns supply rather than the rigid philosophical shell which the
creeds and the catechism offer. It is this shell that is “dry,” not
the realities it too often hides.

_The Homiletical Hymn._

The homiletical hymn is a homily, as its name implies—a sermonette.
The term refers to its form, not to its content, for that is usually
doctrinal and always didactic. It is sermonic because it proceeds from
point to point, leading the way to a practical application. This form
of hymn makes up the great body of the older hymnody, because it was
written by sermonizers who applied homiletical methods to their hymns.

Take Doddridge’s hymn, “Ye servants of the Lord”: the first stanza
makes the general appeal for service; the second emphasizes the need
of readiness for that service; the third, attention to the Lord’s
commands; the fourth exclaims over the joy and the reward of service;
the fifth, the honors that Christ shall heap on his servant. That
makes a fine outline for a sermon!

The homiletical hymn was often dry because the sermon was dry. They
were both too frequently “proses” in a sense different from the
medieval use of the word.

_The Hymn of Propaganda._

The hymn of propaganda calls for consideration. It is a didactic hymn,
of course, but its purpose is not to express the fundamental doctrines
of the faith, but to urge some subordinate article of it out of all
proportion to its intrinsic importance, or to win adherents for some
new religious ideas. There are hymns of Perfectionism, of Holiness, of
Unity, of Premillenialism, of Second Adventism, of Christian Science,
of phases of Theosophy, that fall within this category.

The spiritual value of some of these is not to be underrated, but each
hymn must be judged on its own merits. The danger of exaggeration is
the chief point calling for circumspection. Hymns of propaganda
criticizing or antagonizing the Christian Church must be rejected.

_Hymns of the Social Gospel._

A few years ago, when the sociological aspect of Christianity won wide
attention, it was seriously proposed to rewrite the whole hymnbook and
inject the “Social Gospel.” A few desirable hymns on Brotherhood were
written which fill out a previously somewhat neglected rubric.
Brotherhood is not a discovery of the twentieth century, but has been
an integral part of Christianity from the beginning and was never so
fully exemplified as at that period.

In so far as the “Social Gospel” is simply the application of the
gospel of Christ to old wrongs that yet need to be righted, like
slavery, and war, and alcoholism, or to new social complexes in our
modern economic life where there is injustice, or where there is need
of help for body, mind, or soul, hymns may prove desirable helps. They
will, however, be written spontaneously, not as propaganda, and will
be used freely in so far as there is practical and emotional
justification for them. The onward progress of the Kingdom in these
unfinished tasks will most likely depend on the stimulation of the
great motives that have given victory in the past. It is the appeal to
these motives that gives vitality to such a hymn as “Where cross the
crowded ways of life,” by Frank Mason North.

_Special Hymns._

It is a little difficult to supply hymns for subordinate topics which
do not stir the spiritual pulses, and hence the poorest hymns in our
hymnbooks are found in these divisions. The doctrines of Human
Depravity, Regeneration, Sanctification, the State of the Impenitent
Dead, do not lend themselves to attractive hymnic expression.

These hymns have no wings; they are unemotional and without appeal to
the imagination. Yet the selectors of hymns who have a purely
homiletical point of view demand that a hymnal shall supply
appropriate lyrics to fit subjects and occasions that have no lyrical
possibilities. If the demands of symmetrical completeness in a hymnal,
or of close fitness of theme in a service, must be met, then one must
be content with prosaic verses lacking in poetic charm or emotional
inspiration.

_The Great Hymnic Themes._

There are certain doctrines, certain experiences, that appeal so
strongly to Christian hearts that the impulse to write and sing about
them far exceeds that growing out of less general, less striking
themes. There may be a great difference in the favorite themes of
different persons, under different circumstances, in different
generations. The Latin medieval hymnists greatly stressed the
suffering Christ; Watts sang of the majesty and glory of God and of
his reign in the moral and spiritual world, and his hymns are found
largely in the purely worshipful rubrics of our hymnals; Charles
Wesley wrote in the midst of a great revival, and his hymns emphasize
the plan of salvation and voice the personal experiences of the saved.
In our own day the ideas of service, of public welfare, of works of
philanthropy and mercy, and of social justice find expression.

The supreme theme, of course, is Christ. Whatever phases of Christian
doctrine or experience may seem to absorb the mind of any generation,
still the songs cluster about the person of Jesus Christ. As Dr.
Austin Phelps eloquently insists, “here the rapture of holy song
culminates on earth, as it does in heaven. Here every grace of
religious character, and every experience of a devout life, has found
freedom to express itself in hymns of worship. Where can another such
body of sacred poetry be found in any language, as that which
comprises the Christology of the songs of the Church?”

This hymnody is all the more appealing in that it sings a living and
not a dead Christ, a present personality, near and dear, and not
merely a historical character. The singer does not strain his power of
thought and elevation of expression to hymn adequately the perfections
of an infinite God, but spontaneously rejoices in a Friend who
“sticketh closer than a brother”!

_Chapter VI_
THE GOSPEL HYMN

If this were a purely scholastic and literary treatise on the hymnody
of the Church, the subject of this chapter might be ignored; but this
discussion purports to be practical, and the Gospel hymn is too large
a factor in the life and work of our churches to be thus brushed
aside. It is a conservative estimate to say that four out of five
churches in our land make use of these hymns to a greater or less
extent. They even elbow their way into the most exclusive hymnals
issued by ecclesiastical authorities. Collections of them are found
not only in rural or village communities, but in urban churches as
well. Great denominational publishing houses issue them by the hundred
thousand. They are heard in the great ecclesiastical gatherings and
conventions of the land. Great evangelistic movements depend on them
for inspiration and for aggressive energy.

Yet the Gospel hymn has been treated as a convenient “punching bag”
for the literary and musical idealist. One respects the antagonistic
attitude of the high liturgist to whom the form is so significant, or
of the literary or scholarly man whose susceptibilities are outraged
by the acknowledged shortcomings and banalities of many of these
popular religious lyrics. Nonetheless, one is astonished that persons
of high intelligence, in their devotion to exclusively literary and
musical standards, should be blind to the great spiritual value of the
better specimens of this indiscriminately condemned class of hymns,
and to the extraordinary effectiveness and the immense results in
aggressive religious work which this people’s hymnody has
demonstrated.

This is really only the recrudescence of an ancient feud between the
conception of the hymn as exclusively worshipful and belonging to the
liturgical service, and as the free lyrical expression of the
religious life of the people adapted to all phases of Christian
life—individual, domestic, and social, as well as ecclesiastical. As
the church life of the early Christians began to crystallize, the
former improvisations were discouraged. In time, the service of song
was taken from the laity in the interest of greater dignity and
churchliness. The Arian controversy with its hymnic outburst freed the
wings of popular religious song, only for them to be restrained again
by the rigid formalism organized and enforced by Gregory the Great.

The Waldenses, the Hussites, the Lollards, each group had its own
popular hymnody. In the general breaking of bonds in the Reformation,
the popular hymns of Huss and Luther and their associates, and the
metrical psalms of Marot and Sternhold set to popular secular
melodies, were the first manifestations of the new freedom.

The same outcry was heard against the hymns of Watts, and a little
later against those of the Wesleys, not only in Great Britain, but in
New England as well. In the latter the outcry was heard against the
“camp-meeting ditties” of the aggressive Methodists as they spread
into the West.

Even now, in Germany there is frequent protest against the use in
church service of the simpler “folk” hymns, like “Harre des Herrn”
(Wait on the Lord), “Ich will streben” (I will strive), and “Sei
getreu bis in den Tod” (Be faithful unto death), because they are more
recent in origin and have not the severe dignity of the older hymns
and chorals.

And so the feud between the devout formalism of the liturgical spirit
and the free attitude of aggressive spirituality has gone on from
century to century and from land to land, and will continue to do so
“until He come.”

_Lack of Discrimination._

There is an utter lack of discrimination shown in the opposition to
Gospel hymns.

It is no more true that all Gospel and Sunday-school hymns are crude,
illiterate, and undignified than is the anti-foreign Chinese’s charge
that all Americans are liars and thieves. Many of the Gospel hymns
were written by devout, cultured people of high intelligence. Fanny
Crosby has had wide recognition, and there have been many others of
equal ability, but lacking her adventitious appeal for sympathy. There
are many Gospel hymns which deserve the harshest denunciations that
have been expressed. In a people’s hymnody that was inevitable; but
there are others so fine that the line of essential values between the
Gospel and the standard hymn is difficult to trace. Lowell Mason and
Thomas Hastings’ _Spiritual Songs_ was practically a people’s Gospel
songbook, used for the same purposes and in the same relative spirit,
and largely made up of new materials in text and music just like a
modern Gospel songbook, being even issued in parts. Among its new
hymns were Palmer’s “My faith looks up to Thee” and Smith’s “The
morning light is breaking,” now recognized as leading standard hymns.
The same is true of Gilmore’s “He leadeth me, O blessed thought!” and
Kate Hankey’s “I love to tell the story” and Mrs. Hawks’ “I need Thee
every hour.” Mrs. Gates’ “I will sing you a song of that beautiful
land,” E. E. Hewitt’s “More about Jesus would I know,” Hopper’s
“Jesus, Saviour, pilot me,” Stite’s “Simply trusting every day,”
Walford’s “Sweet hour of prayer,” Hunter’s “In the Christian’s home in
glory,” Bliss’ “Almost persuaded,” Spafford’s “It is well with my
soul,” and Pres. Dr. J. E. Rankin’s “God be with you till we meet
again” are none of them illiterate or undignified. Indeed, many of the
writers of these despised hymns were college professors, clergymen of
high standing, editors, women of education and culture and of profound
spiritual life. Many Gospel song writers are far and away superior to
the average of the hymnists of the eighteenth century—indeed, have
written nothing so unpoetical and so distinctly offensive to good
taste as some of the hymns published by Watts and Wesley, the hymnic
giants of that age.

There is an impulse to distinguish between Gospel hymns and Gospel
songs, accepting the former and rejecting the latter; but that is
playing with words. Good Gospel songs are to be baptized Gospel hymns
and allowed to enter the golden gates of approved hymnody. Others draw
the line at the end of the Moody and Sankey campaigns, closing the
canon at that time and regarding all later Gospel songs as apocryphal!
But the worst specimens that have appeared were issued before that
date and many excellent ones have been written since. No such
mechanical criteria can be applied. The acid test of actual usefulness
must be employed with Gospel songs as it was to formal hymns. That
many of the former have won a permanent place without the emendation
needed by the latter shows how unjustified is the indiscriminate
condemnation of this whole class of sacred lyrics.

_Wrong Assumptions of the Opposition._

In much of the discussion there seems to be an underlying assumption
that there is an inherent antagonism between the standard and the
Gospel hymn, that the latter is intended to displace the former.
Nothing can be farther from the truth. It is true there is an
occasional church where the standard hymns are neglected, but they are
a negligible minority. The current Gospel song collections practically
all supply a large department of standard hymns and their tunes, in
many cases all that are in actual general use. The value of the
standard hymn is recognized everywhere as having a most important
place in the work of the church.

But its very dignity and strength occasion the limitations to its use,
and beyond those limitations the Gospel hymn comes as a complementary
help. The wise preacher does not use Gospel hymns in his formal,
worshipful services, but finds them indispensable in popular evening
services, where not awe and solemnity but spirit and aggressiveness,
and appeal to the person of average or less culture, are needed. His
prayer meeting and other subordinate meetings of groups need the
individual feeling and intimacy with religious things supplied by the
Gospel hymns.

In evangelistic meetings a few of the standards can express the high
peaks of interest, but the Gospel songs lead up to those heights. The
great revivals of the nineteenth and of the early decades of this
century were distinctly characterized by the use of Gospel songs, many
of them not even of the higher type.

_Unfairness in Comparisons Made._

While the worst specimens of Gospel hymns have usually been selected
as the basis of attack, the very best of the standard hymns have been
held up as the criterion of value; the utter unfairness of such
comparison is evident enough. Gospel hymns should be judged by their
best specimens when compared with standard hymns.

The inequity of such a comparison is made more flagrant by the fact
that these standard hymns, only hundreds in number, which are justly
appreciated and lauded, are the survivors of multiplied tens of
thousands that were written through the generations. Of the more than
seven hundred written by Isaac Watts, twenty-three appear in the
recent _Presbyterian Hymnal_. Of the nearly seven thousand hymns of
Charles Wesley, the new _Methodist Hymnal_, naturally biased in
judgment by tradition, uses only fifty-five, while the _New
Presbyterian Hymnal_ finds space for only eighteen. This tremendous
mortality is not necessarily due to offensive weakness and faults, for
hundreds served their day and generation most acceptably and well. In
like manner the older Gospel hymns, which have had their day of
usefulness are fading out of these collections, making way for new
ones that express the feelings of the present generation more
intimately. This is as it should be.

But when the detractor of current Gospel hymns finds some delectable
bit of vulgarity or of literary clumsiness or of grammatical solecism,
let him remember that Watts published lines like these:

“Tame heifers here their thirst allay
And for the stream wild asses bray.”

“I’ll purge my family around
And make the wicked flee”;

and that John Wesley allowed his brother to publish

“Idle men and boys are found
Standing on the devil’s ground;
He will give them work to do,
He will pay their wages too.”

Remember also that William Cowper, the poet acclaimed by literary
critics as the father of a new movement in poetical writing, issued
such a stanza as this:

“Not such as hypocrites suppose
Who with a graceless heart
Taste not of Thee, but drink a dose
Prepared by Satan’s art.”

If the great poets and hymn writers of that age wrote such lines, what
must have been the character of the verses of the obscure scribblers
and poetasters of their day!

Not only do the best of the standard hymns alone survive, but those
survivors have been rewritten and amended by a half-century of editors
and hymn revisers, their revisions being re-revised by succeeding
critics, as we have seen in a previous chapter. Every line and phrase
has been submitted again and again to the microscope of the literary
critic, until we have a body of hymns established in every detail by
the consensus of the best literary minds of the last century. This is
no derogation of our accepted hymns, but a great advantage to them;
but it must not be overlooked in making a fair comparison.

_Criteria for Evaluation._

Much of the criticism of the Gospel hymn is due to excessive emphasis
on the literary and poetical aspects of the verses to which objection
is made. But we have already insisted on the fact that these are not
the final criteria of the value of hymns, although they are important
factors not to be overlooked.

Speaking of a hymnal containing material of inferior literary quality,
Dr. Austin Phelps, of Andover Seminary, who shared with his colleague
in the faculty of that institution the honor of being the fathers of
American hymnology, wisely remarks: “It is a shallow judgment either
to approve or to condemn such a work in the spirit of a connoisseur in
aesthetics. The very conditions of excellence in a body of popular
psalmody must extend its limits out of the range of a purely Attic
taste.”

The approval or rejection of a hymn, or of a body of hymns, is not a
question of personal taste or liking, nor even of personal religious
reactions, but a question of the needs of the people to be stimulated
and helped, and the results of interest and spiritual impression
secured among them by the hymns under consideration.

_Gospel Hymns and the Unsaved._

There is a distressing lack of understanding both of the real function
of the hymn and of the needs of the body of Christians as a whole, and
even a greater ignorance of the psychology of reaching the unsaved. If
the body of our standard hymns fails to develop needed interest among
a large element in our churches, how much less will it appeal to these
outside the fold! If these intellectually and culturally less
privileged masses in and out of the Church are to follow the Apostolic
example and “sing with the understanding,” the songs must lie within
the range of their understanding. Professor A. S. Hoyt, D.D., of
Auburn Theological Seminary, sums up the situation very wisely: “A few
of the modern revival hymns make quick appeal to the modern heart, are
easily sung, and may be teachers of religious life. The majority of
them are shallow in thought and without musical worth. But in all
matters of education we must help men as we find them and patiently
lift them to better things.”

_Gospel Hymns and the Demands of Worship._

Perhaps the most misleading assumption among those who reject the
Gospel hymn is that the chief use of hymns is in worship. They will
sing didactic hymns, hortative hymns, inspirational hymns, addressed
solely to human ears and hearts in the stated church service and then
cast out the Gospel hymn because it is not fitted for solemn worship.
That attitude conceives the Divine Being as a literary connoisseur, or
as a music critic who applies conventional academic criteria in
accepting what his people bring him. Their slogan is that we must
bring to God only our best, insisting that anything but our best is an
insult to him, forgetting that we do not bring the hymn, but the
spiritual results of the hymn in devotion and love and consecration,
and that hymn which produces these in the given congregation is the
best.

Moreover, the approach to God is not the sole function of effective
hymns; it may instead be the approach to men. The best hymn in that
department is the one that succeeds most fully in affecting the souls
to be influenced. There, not the abstract values of the hymn count,
but its psychological adaptation to the actual mental, moral, and
spiritual condition of the minds and hearts to be helped, not
overlooking even the physical factors essential to religious results.

Furthermore, there are lines of church activity which need the
religious atmosphere and suggestiveness but are concerned with social
and administrative work, with the temporalities of church life, for
which many of these Gospel hymns are eminently fitted. There are
campaigns, drives, and movements that need musical help such as many
of the less subjectively pious Gospel hymns can give.

_Gospel Hymns in the Preparatory Service._

There are large and miscellaneous church gatherings where there is no
preparation of mind to sing worthily and deeply religious hymns, and
where it would be a sacrilege to ask the miscellaneous crowd to take
upon their lips such a hymn as “O Love that wilt not let me go” or
“Oh, worship the King, all-glorious above.” Better to sing the
semi-religious and shallow “Brighten the corner where you are” until
the crowd has been psychically organized.

_Gospel Hymns in the Laboratory._

When we come to organized campaigns to persuade unconverted persons,
old and young, to accept Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord, the need of
these informal, stimulating, emotional folk songs becomes immediately
apparent. Awe, impressiveness, spiritual elevation of mind, such as
are supposed to be produced by the standard hymns, are not the stimuli
that create aggressiveness of mind among Christian workers, nor are
they calculated to awaken a response among the unspiritual. It is
proved as surely by actual laboratory experiment that Gospel songs
produce the conditions needed for securing a religious revival as that
hydrochloric acid and water poured over zinc clippings will produce
hydrogen.

Lord Shaftesbury, the great English philanthropist and Christian
worker, speaking in Ireland in the interest of evangelistic work
there, said: “Therefore go on circulating the Scriptures. I should
have been glad to have had also the circulation of some well-known
hymns, because I have seen the effect produced by those of Moody and
Sankey. If they would only return to this country, they would be
astonished at seeing the influence exerted by those hymns which they
sing.”

It is worthy of incidental note that the most of those to whom the
Gospel hymn is anathema are not much in sympathy with any evangelistic
methods; nay more, they seem to shrink from popular manifestations of
religious life. They have sharpened the edge of their religious
refinement until it will no longer cut.

_The Advantages of Gospel Hymns._

These Gospel hymns have several distinct advantages that should not be
overlooked. They are simple, easily understood by everybody, quickly
appropriated as his own expression by the most limited in education or
culture. They are quite emotional, expressing feeling and creating it.
They are spontaneous and free, with no labored subtlety or recondite
allusion. They are usually more or less rhythmical and stimulating,
physically as well as mentally. They are adaptable to various
situations and states of feeling. Even more than standard hymns they
express personal religious experiences, and are more direct in their
hortative method. The chorus, if intelligently written, emphasizes the
fundamental idea of the hymn in an unescapable way. As a tool for
aggressive effort it has no substitute, and but one rival—earnest and
spirit-filled preaching.

_Discrimination in the Use of Gospel Songs._

It should be said, however, that the inventory of its values mentioned
above applies to only a comparatively small part of the Gospel songs
offered to the public, just as the accepted standard hymns are a very
small part of the formal hymns from which they have been gleaned.
Usually its faults are aridity, vapidity, and shallowness. Yet in all
these shortcomings, specimens of equal weakness and futility can be
found in verses by accepted hymn writers.

The better Gospel songs are after all the sincere expression of a
certain stage of culture of mind and soul. That stage may not be high
nor admirable, but it must be allowed its spontaneous expression.

Every generation has had its own ephemeral hymnody and will continue
to have it in spite of all the scolding critics. When our religious
people stop writing and singing new songs and are satisfied to sing
over and over again the songs of preceding ages, it will prove that
the process of ossification has set in and that vital force is passing
away. Better that literary unskillfulness and mediocre musical talent
shall continue to write, better to have ephemeral, shallow, and
unsatisfying songs written by the thousands, than that the impulse to
express spontaneously the vital godliness within should be entirely
lost.

THE SINGING CHURCH

PART II
HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF HYMNS

_Chapter VII_
APOSTOLIC ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT

In considering the origin of the Christian hymn, one must remember
that it is an outgrowth of man’s innate impulse to express his
feelings in hymns and songs. That impulse is constitutional; man sings
because he was so made that he cannot help singing.

Furthermore, the Christian hymn is the natural development of the
Hebrew psalm, just as Christianity is the consummation of the Jewish
religion. The two systems of religion are related as closely as the
foundation and the superstructure of a great temple. We shall find the
Hebrew voice of worship not only leading the songs of the Apostolic
Church, but through all the succeeding ages sounding the controlling
note of all Christian praise. David and the sons of Asaph led the
choirs and congregations in chapel and church and cathedral as truly
as they did those in the temple and synagogues. Christianity gave the
Psalms a larger, more inspiring message and a more literary and more
musical setting; but the thrumming of David’s harp has been heard
through all the long centuries and is still heard around the world.

The Greek atmosphere in which the Early Church developed might be
supposed to have influenced the character of the Apostolic hymnody;
but the Greek Christians were not literary in culture, and the Greek
religion had no congregational singing. It took several generations
before it began to affect the form and music of the Christian hymnody,
but eventually it was to become a formative force.

I. SACRED SONG IN THE NEW CHRISTIAN CHURCH

_The Rise of Sacred Song in Apostolic Times._

But when the baptism of the Holy Spirit vitalized and organized the
Christian Church, the tide of sacred song began to swell. It had a
great heritage from the dying Jewish church: its fundamental ideas,
its laws, its prophets, its hope of the Messiah now transformed into a
reality; but not the least of its inheritances were the habit of
praise and worship, and the lyrics that gave them form.

We read that the Church was filled with joy and praised God.
Incidentally, we learn that, despite sufferings from cruel scourging,
Paul and Silas sang hymns in the Philippian prison, showing that with
the new wine of Christian joy there were created new bottles to
contain it. We may be sure this was not an isolated instance, but the
occurrence of an established practice.

_Apostolic Emphasis of Sacred Song._

James says, “Is any merry, let him sing psalms.” Whether he meant
David’s or “private” psalms is left open to conjecture. The American
Revised Version translates it “praise.” Paul is most definite in
recognizing “hymns and spiritual songs” as distinguished from
“psalms.” Some commentators have interpreted the latter as David’s
psalms, the “hymns” as the already accepted canticles, and the
“spiritual songs” as the new songs, more or less improvised, that were
sung by individuals, “teaching and admonishing one another,” “singing
with grace in the heart.”

Paul’s conception of the hymn, therefore, was not a collective hymn,
sung by all, but a hymn of edification sung by individual singers. The
practice of solo singing assumed in Paul’s exhortations in Ephesians
and Colossians, due to the perennial danger of governmental raids and
persecutions, still continued in the time of Tertullian (circa 198).
He writes that after their common meal “each man, according as he is
able, is called on, out of the Holy Scriptures, or of his own mind, to
sing publicly to God. Hence it is proved in what degree he hath
drunken”—a refutation of the common charge of gluttony and
drunkenness.

_Traces of Hymns in the Epistles._

In the eagerness to unearth traces of the supposed hymnody of the
Apostolic church, the wish has been father to the thought, and
passages have been pointed out as probable quotations from hymns
current in the churches. Some of them are quite plausible, but others
are examples of the periodic structure so manifest in the style of
both Christ and Paul and in the Oriental proverbial form, but lacking
the parallelism of the Psalms.

In Ephesians 5:14, Paul has the formula of quotation from the Old
Testament, but no such passage, or anything approaching it, can be
found in either the canonical or uncanonical books of the Old
Testament. If we should substitute “it” for “he,” the second word of
the passage “it” might refer to a hymn in common use. Westcott and
Hort put it in metrical form, but the Revised Versions do not. It is
very plausible, however; even in the English translation the structure
is distinctly metrical:

“Awake, thou that sleepest,
And arise from the dead,
And Christ shall give thee light.”

Equally plausible is the passage in 1 Timothy 3:16, although not
formally quoted:

“God was manifested in the flesh,
Justified in the spirit,
Seen of angels,
Preached unto the Gentiles,
Believed on in the world,
Received up into glory.”

This is particularly true of such passages as have rhetorical warmth
rather than inherent lyric quality. The extraordinary flight of the
Spirit that has been called the “Hymn of Love” (1 Cor. 13) can be
called a hymn only by stretching the limits of the definition beyond
all reasonable bounds. Noble as it is, no composer has ever succeeded
in setting it to worthy music. As well call Lincoln’s Gettysburg
address a Memorial Day Hymn. The same may be said of the ecstatic
passage which opens Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (1:2-12).

_The Hymns of the Apocalypse._

It has been suggested that the choral passages of the Book of
Revelation are quotations from current hymns. If that were true, how
could the little gatherings of Christians have risen to the majesty of
these marvelous hymns of adoration, either vocally or spiritually?
They are so intimately a part of the stupendous scenes in which they
appear as to make their being merely quotations seem impossible. Only
the itch of a German-type scholarship to press out the last drop of
possibility from any given historical material, and the calm assurance
that the results must be true, since it has recognized them, can
explain this hypothesis.

These hymns are too integral a part of the scenes, too consonant with
their elevated spirit, and logically too inevitable, that they should
have been mechanically introduced or even adapted from current
hymns—they are too choral in the grand manner.

In general, we may accept the same judgment of Dr. Lyman Coleman, in
his work _The Primitive Church_. “The argument is not conclusive, and
all the learned criticism, the talent and the taste, that have been
employed on this point, leave us little else than uncertain conjecture
on which to build a hypothesis.”

“_The Odes of Solomon._”

“The Odes of Solomon” is a Syriac collection of hymns which good
authorities claim to be of the Apostolic Age; one authority, Mrs.
Gibson, insists that it precedes Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, while
the most conservative concede that it belongs to the first century, or
the first half of the second.

Its discoverer, Dr. Rendell Harris, Director of studies at Woodbrooke,
the Quaker center at Selly Oak, England, says of the “Odes”: “They are
utterly radiant with faith and love, shot through and through with
what the New Testament calls ‘the joy of the Lord.’” He quotes one of
them: “A great day has shined upon us; marvelous is He who has given
us of His glory. Let us, therefore, all of us unite together in the
name of the Lord, and let us honor Him in His goodness, and let us
meditate in His love by night and by day.”[1]

The first stanza of Ode XXVI is translated as follows:

I poured out praise to the Lord,
For I am his:
And I will speak his holy song,
For my heart is with him,
For his harp is in my hands,
And the odes of his rest shall not be silent.
I will cry unto him from my whole heart;
I will praise and exalt him with all my members.
For from the East and even to the West
Is his praise;
And from the South and even to the North
Is his confession:
And from the top of the hills to their utmost bound
Is his perfection.

_The Failure of Apostolic Spiritual Songs to Survive._

It is likely that the reason why no definitely recognized collection
of hymns has survived from Apostolic times, and immediately
thereafter, is that the singing, outside of the Psalms and Gospel
canticles, was largely extemporaneous. The later hymnic form and
structure had not yet developed. Dr. Neale, who deserves to be
recognized as a high authority, referring to the apostolic “hymns” and
“spiritual songs,” says: “From the brief allusions we find to the
subject in the New Testament we should gather that the hymns and
spiritual songs of the Apostles were written in metrical prose.”
Rhyming did not come into use until very much later. The singing was
in recitative with rather formless melodies. Such extemporizations as
appealed to the body of believers were passed on from place to place,
the very best from generation to generation, from memory and by word
of mouth, for illiteracy was the common lot of the mass of early
believers. These people’s spiritual songs were presently lost, much as
were most of our early American “spirituals” that served so excellent
a purpose.

Indeed, it would be entirely correct to conceive of the stream of
devout song flowing steadily on from the “hymns and spiritual songs”
of the Apostolic times down through the centuries until our own time,
sometimes finding temporary subterranean channels, as with the
Albigenses, the Hussites, and the Lollards, but always inspiring,
refreshing, and comforting the generations as it passes. It was the
_Laus Perennis_, the unfailing sacrifice of praise, that day and night
rose without break or intermission to the ears of the Almighty. In
every generation, hymns that had nobly served preceding generations
were replaced by new ones fresh from throbbing hearts that had
re-experienced the vital truths of Christianity.

It is no condemnation of a hymn that the Church lays it aside. That it
served only for a season may have been due to its peculiar adaptation
to the individuality of the age, to the temporary conditions and needs
among God’s saints of that particular time.

_Chapter VIII_
THE POST-APOSTOLIC HYMN

_The Post-Apostolic Church a Singing Church._

Whatever conclusion we reach regarding the song service during the
Apostolic age, because of the meager facts we have regarding it, we
have sufficient information regarding the second, third, and fourth
centuries to be sure that the hymn had become a more and more
important feature of the religious life. The tide of song swells
louder and higher as the generations pass. Clement of Alexandria, the
reputed writer of the earliest surviving Christian hymn, “Shepherd of
tender youth,” writes, “We cultivate our fields, praising; we sail the
sea, hymning.” Jerome writes to Marcellus, “You could not go into the
field, but you might hear the plowman at his hallelujahs, the mower at
his hymns, and the vinedresser singing David’s psalms.” Tertullian, a
little earlier, when the antiphonal singing was still in vogue,
objects to the marriage of a Christian with an unbeliever, because
they cannot sing together, whereas the Christian mates each would
challenge the other “which shall better chant to the Lord.” The early
church was, therefore, a singing church.

Tertullian was not a writer of hymns, for he declared “We have a
plenty of verses, sentences, songs, proverbs.” We do not have their
hymns, but we have the names of prominent hymn writers who sealed
their faith with their blood: Ignatius, Athenogenes, Hippolytus, and
many others who did not win a martyr’s crown.

All these hymns blossomed out of the consuming love for the Lord Jesus
Christ, for which the Jewish psalms could give no expression. That
they were used for public worship we have the testimony of Pliny (A.D.
110). His report from Bithynia to the Emperor Trajan was that “the new
sect have a custom of meeting before dawn on a stated day and singing
by turn a hymn to Christ as God.”

_The Earliest Surviving Hymns._

Unless we accept the Syriac “Odes of Solomon” as an apostolic
hymnbook, none of the “spiritual songs” of that age survive. The hymn
written (or quoted?) by Clement in 170 is accepted as the earliest
hymn handed down to us, with the “Candlelight Hymn” as possibly
contemporaneous.

Clement’s hymn “Shepherd of tender youth” is found in most of our
hymnals and is in actual use.[1] Dr. Henry M. Dexter’s version, as
generally used, is an attenuation suited to the taste of our day
rather than a faithful reproduction of the original, which begins with
a rather violent figure, “Curb for stubborn steed” (E. H. Plumptre).

The date of the “Candlelight Hymn” is very uncertain. It was so old in
370 that another St. Basil could throw no light on its origin: “It
seemed fitting to our fathers not to receive the gift of light at
eventide in silence, but on its appearing immediately to give thanks.”
The version by John Keble is still in use:

“Hail, glad’ning Light, of His pure glory poured
Who is the immortal Father heavenly, blest,
Holiest of holies, Jesus Christ, our Lord!
Now we are come to the sun’s hour of rest;
The lights of evening round us shine;
We hymn the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit divine.”

_The Relation of Hymns to Psalms and Canticles._

In the very nature of the case, these individual songs and hymns and
psalms had no authority back of them. They were the “spirituals,” the
Gospel songs of their day and generation. Most of them were
improvisations for a single service—flying sparks from the anvil of
the Spirit. Undoubtedly others had a longer life, were written out and
passed from hand to hand and even from generation to generation.

These hymns were mostly in Greek, though some were in Syriac, and as
far as they were given a standard form they used Greek classical
meters. Some were modeled on the Septuagint psalms and were known as
“private psalms.” Many were odes, like the “Odes of Solomon.”

But it is quite evident that this body of song was never regarded as
on an equality with the Psalms of the Jewish church, or with the
Canticles of the New Testament. These had the sanctions of the rapidly
crystallizing canon of the New Testament, and the established canon of
the Old, which gave an authority that was lacking in the current
hymnody. The relation was even more pronounced than that in our own
day between the body of hymns surviving through the generations
recognized as “standard” and the current religious songs of the hour.

In addition to the Psalms taken over from the Jewish psalter (not over
one-half of which were ever sung) and the Canticles of Luke’s Gospel,
there gradually rose a subsidiary body of canticles which by the
fourth century had been for the most part fully formulated. They were
developments of passages from both the Old and New Testament. In
addition to the ejaculatory responses, “Alleluia” and “Hosanna,” the
following were hymns authorized to be used in Christian services:

1. The _Gloria in Excelsis_, developed from the song of the angels as
found in Luke, known as the Greater Doxology.

2. The _Ter Sanctus_, based on Isaiah 6:3, possibly later associated
with Revelation 4:8, and called the Cherubical Hymn.

3. The _Benedicite_, the song of the three Hebrew children in the
furnace, a paraphrase of the forty-eighth Psalm, likely taken from the
Apocrypha.

4. The _Gloria Patri_ or Lesser Doxology, apparently handed down from
the Apostolic time, developed from the baptismal formula. It was
expanded during the Arian controversy, adding “As it was in the
beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.”[2]

_The Hymn as Propaganda._

The inferiority of the popular hymnody became ever more pronounced as
the hymn was employed by heretical sects as a means of propagating
their pernicious doctrines. Bardesanes and his son Harmonius in
Edessa, Asia, a little later composed an entire psalter of one hundred
and fifty psalms, “deserting David’s truth and preserving David’s
numbers,” as Ephrem Syrus expressed it.

The Gnostic hymns during the third century were slowly undermining the
faith of the people, but it was not until Arius appeared with his
denial of the deity of Jesus Christ and spread broadcast his “Thalia,”
a collection of practical hymns emphasizing practical duties and the
value of the daily life of the people, as well as magnifying the
humanity of Jesus, that the full extent of the revolution in the
religious sentiment of the people became evident. He fitted his
measures to well-known popular tunes, sung only by those “who sing
songs over their wine with noise and revel.”

Arius, an ungainly giant of tremendous force of personality and
unbounded energy, thus began a movement that was to convulse with its
controversy the whole Roman Empire through many generations, even down
to our own times, and was to prepare Asia and Northern Africa for the
superimposition of the Mohammedan personality and cult upon an
emasculated Christianity.

In 269, Paul of Samosata, an Arian Bishop, banished from his churches
the hymns that had come down from the second century because they were
addressed to Christ as God and “as being innovations, the work of men
of later times.” He began the Arian fashion of propaganda by means of
hymns. As an answer to this came the great hymnic outburst of the
fourth century, headed by Gregory of Nazianzus and participated in by
St. Chrysostom.[3]

It is not surprising, therefore, that the Synod that met in Laodicea
in 363 ordered that “psalms composed by private men must not be read
in the church, nor uncanonical books, but only the canonical of the
New and Old Testament.”

Nor need we wonder that with the Arian fanatics interrupting orthodox
services by starting their heterodox hymns, the same Synod decided
that “beside the psalm singers appointed thereto who mount the ambo
and sing out of the book, no others shall sing in church.”

This robbing the lips and the hearts of the congregation of its share
of the public praise, in order to prevent Gnostic and Arian heretics
from profaning public services with their strife and contention,
hardened into a perpetual prohibition, and in the Greek church the
people are mute to this day.[4]

It should be remembered that these prohibitions applied only to public
services and their liturgies. Outside the walls of the larger churches
the people were still singing. Indeed, the popular song was used by
the orthodox to displace the heretical songs of the Arians, as was
done by Chrysostom in Constantinople, in order to stem the tide of
attack on the doctrine of the deity of Christ.

_Chapter IX_
THE GREEK HYMNODY

I. EARLY GREEK HYMNS

The reaction of the Greek Church to the hymnic attack of Arians
interests us because of its influence on the general development of
the Christian hymn.

Of the earliest hymn writers we know little, and their work has not
come down to us. We have a hymn of Methodius (311) based on the
parable of the ten virgins, of considerable vigor and merit.

The most prominent figure that greets us is that of Gregory of
Nazianzus (327-389). He was called to Constantinople by the Emperor
Theodosius to lead the orthodox forces against the Arian enemy. He was
appointed court preacher, Patriarch of the Eastern Church, and
president of the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople; but the pious,
gentle monk, while a great preacher and a fertile hymn writer (it is
said that he wrote thirty thousand hymns), was not fitted for the
strife and intrigue rampant in the Capital; within a few years he
returned to his cell at Nazianzus in Cappadocia. His hymns are ranked
very high. Dr. Brownlee has given an excellent version of his “Evening
Hymn”:

“O word of truth! In devious paths
My wayward feet have trod;
I have not kept the day serene
I gave at morn to God.

And now ’tis night, and night within,
O God, the light hath fled!
I have not kept the vow I made
When morn its glories shed.

For clouds of gloom from nether world
Obscured my upward way;
O Christ, the Light, thy light bestow,
And turn my night to day!”

Synesius (375-430), Bishop of Cyrene, was a brilliant man, a friend of
Hypatia, whom most general readers know as the heroine of Charles
Kingsley’s great historical romance. He wrote some very tender hymns
and poems that have been widely appreciated. He is best known by his
hymn, “Lord Jesus, think on me,” a free paraphrase of which (by Allen
W. Chatfield) is found in some of our hymnals.

Anatolius (d. 458) is known to us, not as the able and noble Byzantine
pontiff, but as the original writer of two quite different hymns,
translated by Dr. Mason Neale: the evening hymn, “The day is past and
over,” and the descriptive hymn, “Fierce was the wild billow.” He was
one of the first to forsake the classical forms and to put his
thoughts into harmonious prose. He wrote few hymns, but all of great
excellence.

II. THE LATER GREEK HYMNS

The earlier Greek hymn writers wrote in the classical measures and
evinced an admirable sense of form; but the later hymnists, following
the example of Anatolius, wrote in rhythmical prose and not by any
means as felicitously. Moreover, the later Greek language greatly
degenerated, losing its lucidity and subtlety of expression.[1]

The later Greek hymns had many ecclesiastical and theological phrases
difficult to render. They were filled with grotesque figures; the
worship of Mary, and even of the saints, is offensive. Being mostly in
rhythmical prose, they were not intended to be sung—at most only to be
chanted. Really they were not hymns in the ordinary sense of the word;
rather they were the raw materials of hymns. As Dr. Brownlie says,
“The writers are not poets, in the true sense, and their language is
not Greek as we have known it.”

The more conspicuous of these later Greek devotional writers do not
appear until the eighth century.

Andrew of Crete (660-732), an archbishop, was a very voluminous
devotional writer. Among his more important works are the “Great
Canon,”[2] the “Triodion,” and the “Pentecostarion.” The “Great Canon”
has more than three hundred stanzas, illustrating by Scripture
examples the feelings of a penitent confessing his sins. He is
represented in some of our hymnals by the hymn, “Christian, dost thou
see them?” translated by Dr. John Mason Neale and said to be taken
from the “Great Canon.”

The other hymnists of this century are John of Damascus (d.780), his
foster-brother Cosmas, the Melodist (d.760), and Stephen the Sabaite,
his nephew (725-794).

John of Damascus wrote the best Greek of his generation and was most
poetical in spirit and style. Gibbon calls him the “last of the Greek
Fathers.” His verse is characterized by being written in iambics (the
most common measure in modern hymns). His best-known hymn is “’Tis the
day of resurrection,” taken from his great Easter canon, styled the
“Queen of Canons” and the “Golden Canon” by the Greek Church.

John’s foster-brother, Cosmas, survives in the Christmas hymn, “Christ
is born! exalt his name.” Although his canons are very thoughtful, his
style is often turgid and difficult to follow.

Stephen the Sabaite, the nephew of John of Damascus, the third of this
“nest of singing birds” (to use Dr. Gillman’s phrase), came to Mar
Saba as a boy and remained there all his life. Dr. Neale found the
inspiration of his hymn “Art thou weary, art thou languid?” in some
lines of Stephen.

These three Greek hymn writers were monks in the monastery of San
Saba, to be seen to the north from the highway between Jerusalem and
Jericho, on the rugged heights overlooking the Jordan valley.

Another group of Greek hymn writers appears a little later, headed by
Theodore (759-826), abbot of the Studium, a great monastery at
Constantinople. The group was quite controversial, the occasion being
not the Deity of Christ, but the enforced destruction of ikons, or
images. The hymns of this group were not all controversial.
Theoctistus (c.890), an obscure and later member of it, when the heat
of strife had presumably subsided, could write this devout hymn of
praise to Christ:

“Jesu, name all names above,
Jesu, best and dearest.
Jesu, fount of perfect love,
Holiest, tend’rest, nearest.

Jesu, source of grace completest,
Jesu purest, Jesu sweetest.
Jesu, well of power divine,
Make me, keep me, seal me thine.”

Joseph of the Studium (c.840), because of his many hymns, was called
the Hymnographer. He wrote too much to write well. His work is
characterized as tautological, tawdry, tedious. Three of his hymns,
however, had enough suggestiveness to inspire Dr. Neale to write “Let
our choir new anthems raise,” “O happy band of pilgrims,” and “Safe
home, safe home in port.” Dr. Neale’s pump seems to have needed but
slight priming to bring up stirring lyrics from the deepest spiritual
experiences and emotions!

The most striking characteristic of the Greek hymnody is its sheer
objectivity. It is self-forgetful in its rapt, ecstatic contemplation
of the doctrines and facts of the Christian faith. It is never
experiential or self-analytical except when it confesses sin and
unworthiness. The sustained dignity and elevation of its praise and
adoration are other admirable traits. Its consciousness of God, its
unflawed acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, its assurance
of the indwelling Spirit, give it a liturgical value beyond that of
any other ancient hymnody.

_Chapter X_
THE LATIN HYMNODY

I. THE BEGINNINGS OF LATIN HYMNODY

The early disciples in the West were accustomed to use the Greek
language, as may be gathered from Paul’s writing his Epistle to the
Romans in Greek. It is probable that their religious services were
largely in that language until there were Romans enough added to the
churches to make the use of Latin necessary.

That great ode, the “Te Deum,” comes to us only in a Latin form. The
tradition is that it was an antiphon improvised by Ambrose and
Augustine on the occasion of the latter’s baptism, but that is
doubtless a hero-worshiping fancy of the ninth century. That a good
deal of it came from the Greek was to be expected and is quite
certain, whether the Dacian Bishop, Nicetius of Remisiana, gathered up
the Greek material or not (circa 400).

On the other hand, there is no Greek version extant, except a much
later one which is evidently a translation from the Latin.

It may have been written (or compiled) during the Arian controversy as
a creedal song to be sung by clerical or monastic choirs. It may have
grown by gradual accretion, from generation to generation, like the
Easter hymn “Jesus Christ is risen today,” which, begun in the
fourteenth century, was not given final form until 1816.

This magnificent ode, for it is a hymn only by a considerable
extension of the definition, appears in our modern hymnals only as a
chant, and is practically never sung in our non-liturgical
congregations. It has been used as a choral text throughout all its
history, never as a congregational hymn. It has had unnumbered
settings by the greatest composers of Christendom.

It is the high festival ode of the ages, used in celebrating victories
or other stately occasions of great public interest. Its
comprehensiveness, nobility of thought, and elevated style befit the
coronation of kings or the investiture of popes. For the mass of our
churches, great as it is, it has only a historical interest. It might
find impressive use as a responsive reading.

II. EARLY LATIN HYMN WRITERS

Bishop Hilary of Poitiers (circa 300-367), “the hammer of the Arians,”
was exiled into Phrygia by Constantius because he called the Arian
emperor “The Antichrist.” In his exile he came in touch with the
fierce propaganda waged on both sides by means of hymns. His
controversial zeal recognized the opportunity, and he wrote a great
many anti-Arian hymns, which he gathered on his return to France into
his _Liber Mysteriorum_. That his book was lost was no great calamity,
for his fiery, combative spirit, valuable enough at the time, had no
message for future generations. He woke a new interest in singing and
furnished a more practicable model. He undoubtedly suggested the
antiphonal singing he found in the “Hinterland” of Asia Minor and thus
prepared the way for his fellow-countryman, Ambrose, Bishop of Milan.
If the latter is recognized as the father of Latin hymnody, and even
of all the Western hymnody, Catholic and Protestant, Hilary is its
grandfather.

Ambrose (340-397) had been a lawyer, not a product of the
ecclesiastical system, and he brought to his office a freshness of
insight and of resources that might have been atrophied in the
mechanical clerical education of his day. The value of song in
supporting the spirits of his followers when besieged for days in his
cathedral suggested to his practical mind, stimulated by his musical
nature, its wider use when the battle was won.

Ambrose broke new ground for Latin hymnody in several essential
particulars. He transformed the merely reading hymn, confined to the
clergy, to a singing hymn for the congregation, writing hymns for the
express purpose of promoting congregational song. He passed by the
artificial classical meters for the simplest of lyrical meters, four
lines of four iambic measures each, which has come down to us through
the centuries as Long Meter. He also introduced the free use of
rhymes.

Ambrose was not only a learned man of great ability, but—what is more
to our present purpose—a man of great piety and devotion. He sought to
vitalize and actualize the devotions, personal and collective, of the
Christian Church, to make them genuine and heartfelt as against the
formalists to whom the mere letter is all-important. His hymns are
evidences of his spirituality. There is room for stanzas from only a
few of them:

“O splendor of the Father’s face,
Affording light from light,
Thou Light of light, thou fount of grace,
Thou day of day most bright.

Thee, in the morn with songs of praise,
Thee, in the evening time, we seek;
Thee, through all ages, we adore,
And suppliant of thy love we speak.”

In spite of the opposition of the Roman See, and the later effort of
Charlemagne, in his zeal for the Gregorian system, to destroy all
copies of the Ambrosian hymns and tunes, the “Ambrosiani” still keep a
small place in the Roman Breviary.

Among the contemporaries of Ambrose, no hymnist stands out more
conspicuously than the Spaniard, Prudentius (348-424). He also had
been a lawyer and a man of affairs. He had more literary gifts than
Ambrose, and his poems show more personality, more charm, more
unaffected sincerity. Bentley calls him “the Horace and Virgil of the
Christians.” A single stanza may illustrate his spirit and style:

“The bird, the messenger of day,
Cries the approaching light;
And thus doth Christ, who calleth us,
Our minds to life excite.”

Mention should be made of Fortunatus (530-609). He was, like the later
Marot of psalm-version fame, “the fashionable poet of the day,” a
precursor of the troubadours. Later in life he became religious, a
priest, an almoner of a monastery, and finally Bishop of Poitiers. He
wrote a processional to be used at the reception of a piece of the
true cross presented by Queen Rhadegunda. The hymn “Vexilla regis
prodeunt” has come down the ages. Dr. Neale calls it “one of the
grandest in the treasury of the Latin church.” We make room for the
first and last stanzas of Dr. Neale’s translation:

“The royal banners forward go;
The cross shines forth in mystic glow;
Where he in flesh, our flesh who made,
Our sentence bore, our ransom paid.

* * * * * * *

Hail, altar! Hail, O Victim! Thee
Decks now thy passion’s victory
Where life for sinners death endured,
And life, by death, for man procured.”

The influence and power of the Roman hierarchy were steadily exercised
against the use of hymns and in behalf of the sole use of Scripture
psalms and canticles. It is a far cry from Gregory the Great to John
Calvin and John Knox, demanding the sole use of canonical material in
the services of the church; and a like far cry from the Council of
Toledo in Spain in 633, which made a strong plea for the use of hymns
in the church’s devotions, to Isaac Watts and his prefaces to his
several collections of modified psalms and of hymns. It was only
toward the end of the twelfth century that hymns of “human composure”
were used in Roman churches, and then were sung by clerical choirs in
the larger basilicas of the capital city. The people were still shut
out from their use.

But the impulse to write devotional material for the church service
persisted. The Venerable Bede (672-735), scholar, theologian,
philosopher, historian, general encyclopedist, wrote both Latin and
Anglo-Saxon hymns in his faraway monastery at Yarrow, England.
Theodulph (d.821), Paulus Diaconus, Odo of Cluny, Cardinal Damiana,
and other minor hymnists wrote hymns, some of which, transformed by
skillful translators, have found use in our day.

Notker, called Balbulus (850-912), of St. Gall in Eastern Switzerland,
became weary of the long-drawn-out notes of the cadences of the final
syllable of the “Alleluia,” which was prolonged to enable the deacon
to ascend to the rood-loft to chant the Gospel. It was suggested that
a text be supplied, a syllable for every note. At first these texts
had no metrical form and were called Proses. Later they were given a
definite form and were called sequences, because they followed the
“Alleluia.” These sequences continued to be written for over three
centuries and were brought to technical perfection by Adam of St.
Victor.

These sequences, however, were an evidence of the abiding urge for
lyrical expression rather than a step in the progressive development
of the Christian hymn.

III. GREAT LATIN HYMNS

A more important figure in our study of Latin hymns is Rabanus Maurus
(776-856), archbishop of Mainz, Germany, a great scholar, an
influential teacher, a profound theologian, a voluminous writer, as
well as a great hymn writer. He had been a notable figure in German
church history before hymnological investigators proved that he was
the writer of the great hymn, “Veni, Creator Spiritus,” the worthy
successor of Fortunatus’ “Vexilla regis prodeunt.” Its authorship had
been credited at different times to Ambrose, Gregory the Great,
Charlemagne, and Notker Balbulus. It is the only metrical hymn
officially recognized by the early English Church. It is sung at high
ceremonies like the coronation of kings or the consecration of
bishops. The accepted version is by Bishop Cosin. It appears in our
leading hymnals.

The next bead in our rosary of great hymns is “Veni, Sancte Spiritus,”
by the helpless little paralytic and humpback, Hermannus Contractus
(1013-1054). An excellent historian, a renowned philosopher and
theologian, a mathematician of unusual attainments, in short a
universal and encyclopedic scholar, his chief glory now is that he
wrote this hymn which Archbishop Trench rated “as the loveliest of all
the hymns in the whole cycle of Latin sacred poetry.” There is space
for one stanza only, the third of this great hymn:

“O most blessed Light divine,
Shine within these hearts of thine,
And our inmost being fill;
Where thou art not, man hath naught,
Nothing good in deed or thought,
Nothing free from taint of ill.”

The tide of the years had been flowing quietly with only here and
there rapids or an eddy, but now the current was hastening toward the
great whirlpool of the Crusades. Hildebert, Peter the Hermit, Bernard
of Clairvaux, Abelard, Peter the Venerable, Adam of St. Victor, stand
out as lighthouses on an uncharted sea.

Not the least of these was Bernard, the abbot of Clairvaux
(1091-1153), scholar, orator, statesman, and man of affairs, of whom
Archbishop Trent declares: “Probably no man during his lifetime ever
exercised a personal influence in Christendom equal to his; the stayer
of popular commotions, the queller of heresies, the umpire between
princes and kings, the counsellor of popes.” This does not suggest the
writer of such a hymn as “Jesu dulcis memoria,”[1] the tenderest,
sweetest sacred lyric of the Middle Ages. But he was credited with it
for centuries until it was found in a manuscript of the eleventh
century and there credited to a Spanish Benedictine abbess, an origin
more consonant with its spirit and with its finished Latinity. Would
we knew more about her, this medieval precursor of Anne Steele, Sarah
F. Adams, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth P. Prentiss, and Fanny
Crosby! Dr. S. W. Duffield holds “Bernard to be the real author of the
modern hymn—the hymn of faith and worship”; but now the iconoclastic
modern hymnologist denies him even the authorship of the “Salve Caput
Cruentatum.”[2]

We know very little about the other Bernard, who was a monk in the
greater abbacy of Cluny; but his authorship of the great indictment of
the Roman church of his time, “De Contemptu Mundi,” is undoubted. His
great poem of three thousand lines[3] occupied itself with the vice
and moral filth which his pure soul detested. In his disgust with the
moral ordure in which his feet were immersed, he suddenly takes wing
and rises to the heights to contemplate “the Heavenly Land.” Dr.
Neale, out of scattered lines and phrases of the original, with
additions of his own, constructed the wondrous mosaics which we
delight to sing: “Brief life is here our portion,” “Jerusalem, the
Golden,” “For thee, O dear, dear country.”

One thinks of Thomas Aquinas (1227-1274) as the Aristotelian logician,
the profound Augustinian theologian, the philosopher, the invincible
protagonist of medieval orthodoxy, rather than as a hymn writer; yet
some of our present day hymnals contain two communion hymns of
profound thought and deep feeling written by him. “Pange, lingua,
gloriosi” is perhaps the finer; here is one stanza of Edward Caswell’s
version:

“Now, my tongue, the mystery telling
Of the glorious body sing,
And the blood, all price excelling
Which the Gentile’s Lord and King
Once on earth amongst us dwelling
Shed for this world’s ransoming.”

The other, “Lauda, Sion, Salvatorem,” has been rendered by Alexander
R. Thompson, as follows:

“Zion, to thy Saviour singing,
To thy Prince and Shepherd bringing
Sweetest hymns of love and praise,
Thou wilt never reach the measure
Of thy most ecstatic lays.”

IV. MEDIEVAL DEVOTIONAL POEMS

We now reach the consideration of hymns and poems of great excellence
in themselves but without the appeal, or practicability as hymns,
possessed by the foregoing. Some of them appear in liturgical hymnals,
or in more formal hymnals of non-liturgical churches, but their use is
limited.

Among these is Francis of Assisi’s “Canticle of the Sun,”[4] not a
hymn, but a psalm of praise for all created things. For our day it has
chiefly literary and antiquarian interest.

His follower and biographer, Thomas of Celano (?-1255), however, wrote
a sequence or hymn that has intrigued the interest of generation after
generation. Mozart’s “Requiem” uses parts of it as its text. Goethe
introduces it in his “Faust.” Unnumbered translations of it have been
made into all civilized languages. Theodore Parker called it the
“damnation lyric.” In the original “Dies irae” there were eighteen
stanzas. The version of W. J. Irons has fourteen stanzas of three
lines each, a few of which follow:

“Day of Wrath! O day of mourning!
See fulfilled the prophets’ warning,
Heaven and earth in ashes burning!

Oh, what fear man’s bosom rendeth,
When from heaven the Judge descendeth,
On whose sentence all dependeth.”

Sir Walter Scott’s version is in four-line stanzas, three of which are
used to make a practicable hymn. But who in our self-complacent age
cares to sing any of these versions, portraying “The Last Judgment”?

Another famous hymn, written by a follower of Francis of Assisi,
perhaps Jacopone da Todi, “the fool for Christ’s sake,” is the “Stabat
Mater Dolorosa.” It celebrates the sufferings, not of Christ on the
cross, but of Mary, his mother, standing at its foot. It is the
supreme Mariolatrous hymn in sentiment and in diction. It is Roman, of
course, not Catholic, and interests us only as marking the sincerity
and the depth of the medieval sentiment and devotion to the Madonna.

This great hymn is noteworthy because of the many translations into
modern languages which have been made, seventy-eight into German alone
and as many more into English, in whole or in part. Its emotional
possibilities have appealed to many music composers, including
Palestrina, Pergolesi, Haydn, Rossini, and Dvorak—settings varied in
style from Palestrina’s high dignity to Rossini’s almost theatrical
treatment.

It must be remembered that the Greek hymns of the Eastern church, and
the Latin hymns of the Western, were not in dead languages, as they
appear to us, but in living languages, the vernacular of the persons
producing and using them. While the common people may have spoken a
different dialect, the monks and clergy used the classic speech as a
very mother tongue. The hymns were for the most part a perfectly
spontaneous expression of religious conviction and feeling, a living
product of vital experience, an instinctive expression of profound
faith.

In closing this rapid survey of a thousand years of Greek and Latin
hymns, one is impressed that they are all clerical—even monastic—in
type and character. There are in many of them spontaneity, genuine
feeling, and personal experience, a profound sense of spiritual
realities; yet over all of them falls the shadow of the tonsured
ecclesiastic, with his heart set on the impressiveness of the forms of
worship rather than on the ultimate result in creating spiritual
reactions in the individuals of the congregation.

V. MEDIEVAL POPULAR HYMNODY

Although the hymns whose origin we have been tracing were used in
enriching the services of the Roman Church, and for guiding the
meditations and devotions of the clerical spiritually-minded readers,
we get hints of a people’s hymnody used privately and in public
processions, usually in the common speech of the region. It was the
age of the Troubadours, a time of universal song. It is unthinkable
that a people in whose lives religion was a commanding influence
should have no songs of their own about it.

But among the Albigenses and Waldenses and other pietistic sects in
remoter regions there must have been a hymnody all their own. They had
no clergy, no connection with the Romish Church—were in utter
opposition to its forms and organization. Hence their natural impulse
for worship and praise compelled the creation of hymns of their own.
They were spontaneous utterances expressing their spiritual life in a
native vocabulary all could understand and appropriate.

Although this people’s hymnody has perished, because it was produced
and used by the populace and contemptuously ignored or denounced by
the clerical custodians of the literature of their day, or by those of
succeeding generations, the hymns were widely sung in the homes, on
the streets, at popular religious festivals, and even in the remoter
village churches where the clerical choirs were wanting.

It was these popular religious songs, rather than the more stately
hymns read and chanted by clerical and monastic choirs, that kept
alive the vital spark of religious feeling and devotion to Christ. If
most of the doves of song hovered over the head of the Madonna during
this long period, it was because she was the mother of Jesus. It was
as the representative of all motherhood that she brought home the true
manhood of our Lord.

That this popular hymnody of the medieval period has failed to survive
is no proof of its worthlessness. It is no condemnation of the sermons
of Chrysostom, of Peter the Hermit, of Martin Luther, or of a thousand
sermons preached every Sunday that they perish with the breath that
gave them utterance. They served a good purpose in their brief hour.
That hundreds of Watts’ hymns, and thousands by Charles Wesley, are no
longer sung, does not establish their uselessness, but only that their
spiritual as well as verbal idiom is not adapted to the needs of our
day.

_Chapter XI_
LUTHER AND THE GERMAN HYMN

I. PRE-REFORMATION VERNACULAR HYMNS

While there has been a traceable logical progress in the development
of the Christian hymn, as in that of material creation, the generative
relations are not always clear. The link between Greek and Latin
hymnody may be found in Hilary of Poitiers in the fourth century, but
thereafter for five centuries they developed side by side along
independent lines.

The same may be said regarding the Latin and German hymns, Luther
furnishing the connection. But his connection is not so apparent with
the clerical Latin hymn as with the general impulse toward the
vernacular hymn.

Luther did not directly build upon the Latin hymns, although he did
translate a few of them, but on the popular songs and hymns that were
current in his day. Since the eleventh century vernacular hymns and
religious songs had been in private use. The Gregorian rule that
Scripture psalms and canticles only should be sung in public services
had been strictly enforced in the monasteries and larger centers; but
even there the proses and sequences had been allowed—in Latin, of
course. The first hymns sung in the common speech were enlargements of
the short responses allowed the people, “Kyrie eleison” and “Christe
eleison” being surviving Greek phrases which were used as refrains to
the stanzas of the hymns. They were called “Leisen,” or “Leichen.” Our
English word “lay” is a derivative from the same source. Many of these
“Leisen” mingled German and Latin words.

Back of the wrong conception of the way of salvation and the
fanaticism expressed in self-torture, the Flagellant Monks of the
later medieval period had an intensity of conviction and a selfless
devotion that inevitably found expression in song. Bands of them made
pilgrimages through Christian lands in processions, singing hymns to
Mary and her Son in the common speech, little recking that they were
helping to fertilize the soil from which should spring the Great
Reformation.

When King Conrad was anointed in 1024, our information is that
“joyfully they marched, the clergy singing in Latin, the people in
German, each after his own fashion”, but this was not a church
service, it was a festival procession.

Vernacular hymns became more and more numerous during the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. The troubadours and minnesingers could not but
stimulate their production, furnishing the metrical and rhythmical
models and no small part of the hymns themselves, especially those
glorifying the divine motherhood of Mary. The monks, the custodians of
the literary and scholarly product of this age, had no motive for
making a record of these hymns, much less of their tunes, for which,
indeed, no adequate system of notation existed; hence but little of
this popular hymnody survives. It was not until Gutenberg brought in
the age of printing that some of it was handed down to us.[1]

The great mystic, John Tauler (1290-1361), a Dominican monk of
Strassburg, and others, wrote hymns of profound personal religious
experience that were widely sung. John Huss of Prague (1369-1415), the
renowned Bohemian martyr, wrote hymns in both Czech and Latin. In 1501
and 1505 Czech hymnbooks were issued, the first congregational
hymnbooks in the vernacular, the latter containing no less than four
hundred hymns, while Luther’s first collection, in 1524, nineteen
years later, contained only eight.

It will be seen that the foundations of vernacular singing by the
people, with popular tunes, had been laid, deep and wide, foundations
on which Luther could later build his German hymnody. In almost every
particular he had been anticipated by the Bohemian reformers, in
vernacular hymns and psalms, in the use of the people’s tunes, in the
revision of hymns current among the Catholics—by discarding their
worship of Mary and the saints—in the emphasis placed on music as a
vehicle for conveying Gospel truths and for the intensifying of the
needed propaganda.

In France, in England and Scotland, in the Netherlands, the same
impulses were felt. The fullness of the times had been prepared, and
the great protagonist and organizer of the spiritual revolt against
the hierarchy of Rome made of the hymn, which the ecclesiastical
builders had rejected, one of the cornerstones of the new Church.

II. LUTHER’S RELATION TO GERMAN HYMNODY

Luther’s objective in regard to the hymn was entirely different from
that of these representatives of traditional worship. He did not have
in mind the perfecting of a liturgical service on the lines of
ecclesiastical tradition, but the spiritual edification of the mass of
the people whom the liturgic monks had been ignoring. While too
appreciative of the Latin liturgy to cast aside psalms and canticles,
as well as sequences, he rejected them as models for his hymns, and
his creative impulse made the more appealing and practical folk songs
his basis of form and spirit.

Luther was a great lover of poetry and music. In his youth he went
about singing in the streets and in private homes. He knew both the
popular and the churchly music and was well prepared for his future
post of liaison officer between the Latin and the coming German
hymnody.

His great work in hymnody is that he took both the psalm and the hymn
from the clergy, put them into the vernacular in metrical form, with
popular tunes, and restored them to the people. He added to the
function of the hymn as worship those of instruction, meditation, and
exhortation. He added an entirely new dimension to the value of the
hymn, making it a means of creating a religious atmosphere for the
whole life of the Christian—personal, family, community. He made the
German people a singing people and laid the foundations for their
later musical pre-eminence. As Dr. Benson says, “He took it [the hymn]
out of the liturgies and put it into the people’s hearts and homes. He
revived, that is to say, Paul’s conception of hymnody as a spiritual
function.”[2]

Luther’s hymns are the root out of which grew all our Protestant
hymnody. They are like Ambrose’s in their plainness but, owing to
their popular models, are superior in their metrical variety and in
their cheerfulness. They are purposely cheerful: “When we sing, both
heart and mind should be cheerful and merry.” They had also a more
definite evangelical content, both objective and subjective, more
personal experience, more exhortation, thus immensely widening the
horizon of the hymn. Much of this was doubtless due to the Hussite
influence.

Luther anticipated Isaac Watts in demanding that the psalm should be
transformed into a hymn, retaining its important subject matter, but
excluding “certain forms of expression and employing other suitable
ones.”

The most important characteristic of the hymns of Luther and his
associates was the burden of biblical truth. “What I wish is to make
German hymns for this people, that the Word of God may dwell in their
hearts by means of song also,” gives us his ideal and his practical
purpose.

Luther’s hymns bear the characteristics of their writer. They were
straightforward, clear, and unpretentious, full of force and strong of
conviction. He was no poet. He was not conscious of literary impulses.
His diction often is more forcible than elegant. Indeed, he was a
peasant within whose horizon the elegant did not appear. Dr. Philip
Schaff says of him: “He had an extraordinary faculty of expressing
profound thought in the clearest language. In this gift he is not
surpassed by any uninspired writer; and herein lies the secret of his
power.... His style is racy, forcible, and idiomatic.”

Lord Selborne, an English hymnologist, remarks on Luther’s hymns,
“Homely and sometimes rugged in form, and for the most part objective
in tone, they are full of fire, manly simplicity, and strong faith.”

Luther wrote thirty-eight hymns. Twelve of them were based on Latin
hymns, among others, “Veni, Redemptor gentium,” “Veni, Creator
Spiritus,” “O Lux beata Trinitas,” and “Te Deum Laudamus”; four were
rewritten pre-Reformation hymns; seven were versions of Latin psalms;
six were paraphrases of other portions of Scripture, such as the Ten
Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer; nine were original hymns.

Nine collections were issued by Luther, beginning with the “Achtlieder
Buch,” the first evangelical hymnbook in the German language, issued
in 1524. It contained but eight hymns, four by Luther, three by Paul
Speratus, court chaplain at Koenigsberg, and one of unknown
authorship. Later in the year it was increased to twenty-five hymns,
bringing fourteen new hymns by Luther; it was called the “Erfurt
Enchiridion.” During this year, 1524, he wrote twenty-one of his
thirty-eight hymns. Five years later, 1529, he issued another hymnbook
containing fifty-four hymns. The issue of 1553, seven years after his
death, contained one hundred and thirty-one hymns. Three of these nine
issues had prefaces, as noteworthy as those of Watts to his several
books of psalms and hymns in formulating the principles of the new
Christian hymnody.

Luther’s masterpiece, “Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott” (“A mighty
fortress is our God”), is based on the forty-sixth Psalm. It is one of
the greatest hymns in the whole Christian hymnody, great in itself,
great in its influence on the Protestantism of northern Europe. Ranke,
the noted church historian, says: “It is the production of the moment
in which Luther, engaged in a conflict with a world of foes, sought
strength in a consciousness that he was defending a divine cause,
which could never perish.” Carlyle recognized its majesty, “a sound of
Alpine avalanches, or the first murmurs of earthquakes.” Calling up
the inspiration it brought to the Protestant armies, German and
Swedish, in the religious wars after the Reformation, Heine
characterized it as “the Marseillaise of the Reformation.” It has been
recognized as the national hymn of Protestant Germany.

A number of translations into English have been made. Carlyle
successfully reproduces its rugged strength in his version, but for
congregational use the translation of Rev. Frederick H. Hedge, made in
1853, is more practicable.

Luther’s tune is worthy of the text in its ponderous majesty. A small
congregation, or a larger one that does not know it very well, can do
little with it; only a large congregation singing lustily and in the
characteristically German slow _tempo_ can do it justice.

His Christmas hymn, “Vom Himmel hoch da komm’ ich her” (“From heaven
above to earth I come”), his praise of Jesus Christ, “Gelobet seist
du, Jesu Christ” (“All praise to Thee, eternal Lord”), a revision of a
pre-Reformation popular hymn, and his doctrinal hymn, rejoicing over
the salvation wrought out by Jesus Christ, “Nun freuet euch, lieb’
Christen G’mein” (“Dear Christian people, now rejoice”), have been
very much beloved and were very effective in building up the
Protestant cause.

Luther deserves well of the Christian Church, not only because of his
own hymns, but because of the inspiration he afforded others among his
contemporaries, and to the generations since his day, to take up the
writing of hymns. Among the co-laborers in this field in his own
generation were Justus Jonas, Paul Eber, Erasmus Alber, Lazarus
Spengler, Paul Speratus, and Nicolaus Decius. Luther furnished the
idea, the inspiration, and the model for all these hymnists. According
to Koch, fifty-one writers contributed hymns to swell the Lutheran
hymnody between 1517 and 1560.

As was to be expected, the early German hymnody was also enriched by a
number of excellent hymns from the Bohemian Brethren. They were
translated by Michael Weiss and Johann Roh, German ministers who had
been associated with them.

No small part of the immediate success of Luther’s hymns was the tunes
which he provided. He used the melodies already current among the
people. He had providentially associated with him musical helpers like
Johann Walther and Ludwig Senfl, who did the musical editorial work on
his issues. His settings of his “Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott” and
“Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ” are still a valuable part of the
melodic treasury of the Christian Church.

_Chapter XII_
THE LATER GERMAN HYMNODY

I. THE RISING STANDARD OF LITERARY VALUES

After Luther’s death, the impetus of his hymnic influence gradually
lost its evangelical force, and a more self-consciously literary
coterie raised both the literary and musical standards. Prominent
among them was Bartolomaeus Ringwaldt (1530-1598), who wrote “Es ist
gewisslich an der Zeit”—the German “Dies Irae”—which probably
suggested the English hymn, “Great God! what do I see and hear?” He
was a very fertile writer. Equally fertile was Nicolaus Selnecker
(1530-1592), who wrote nearly one hundred and fifty hymns.

More important than either was Philipp Nicolai (1556-1608), a
Westphalian pastor, whose “Wie schoen leuchtet der Morgenstern” (“O
Morning Star, how fair and bright”) and “Wachet auf, ruft uns die
Stimme” (“Sleepers, wake, a voice is calling”) have been and are the
most widely used of all German hymns outside of Luther’s two
masterpieces. Nicolai wrote them while a great pestilence was raging
in Unna, during which fourteen hundred persons perished. He wrote the
hymns for his own comfort and that of his people. He also wrote the
chorales to which they are sung and which have been called
respectively the “Queen” and “King” of German chorales. On the basis
of their intrinsic value rather than on that of adaptation to American
spirit and type of church life, they occasionally appear in our
hymnals, but they are rarely or never sung. Miss Winkworth’s
translation of the “King” may be judged by the first stanza:

“Wake, awake, the night is flying;
The watchmen on the heights are crying,
Awake, Jerusalem, at last!
Midnight hears the welcome voices,
And at the thrilling cry rejoices;
Come forth, ye virgins, night is past!
The Bridegroom comes, awake,
Your lamps with gladness take;
Alleluia!
And for his marriage-feast prepare,
For ye must go to meet him there.”

This chorale was used by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy as one of the
climaxes of his great oratorio, “St. Paul.”

The popular “Te Deum” of Germany, “Nun danket alle Gott” (“Now thank
we all our God”), was written by Martin Rinkart (1586-1649). Miss
Winkworth’s version is found in most modern hymnals and deserves wide
use, for it is entirely practicable in a congregation of average size.
Mendelssohn used this chorale in his cantata “Lobgesang” with much
effectiveness. This great hymn was written at the conclusion of the
horrible and disastrous Thirty Years’ War. Michael Altenburg
(1584-1640) wrote the famous battle hymn of Gustavus Adolphus with
which the great Warrior King has been credited; “Verzage nicht, du
Haeuflein klein” (“Fear not, O little flock, the foe”) is still used
in Germany. However, Luther’s “Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott” was the
more usual battle hymn, as Altenburg’s hymn was not introduced until
late in Gustavus Adolphus’ campaigns—indeed, has been called his “Swan
song.” Martin Opitz (1597-1639) deserves mention as a valuable
influence in regulating the meters and in stressing poetical values.
One of the immortal hymns written during this period was that of Georg
Neumark (1621-1681), librarian of the Duke of Weimar, “Wer nur den
lieben Gott laesst walten” (“If thou but suffer God to guide thee”).
Other hymn writers during this distressful period were Johann Heermann
(1585-1647), who wrote distinctive hymns of prayer in a correct style
and good versification; Johann Rest (1607-1667), who wrote six hundred
and eighty hymns intended to cover the whole domain of theology (two
hundred of which were in common use in the German churches); and
Matthaeus Apelles von Loewenstein (1594-1648), Johannes Matthaeus
Meyfart (1590-1642), and Paul Fleming (1609-1640).

This was a period of tribulation, calamity, and desperation, which, as
Miss Winkworth remarks, “caused religious men to look away from this
world” and led to a more subjective type of hymn, expressing personal
feeling. In general, the literary value of the hymns of this period,
in form and diction and imagination, exceeded that of those of the
previous generation.

II. THE GOLDEN AGE OF GERMAN HYMNODY

The spiritual deepening of this age of sorrow, the widening of the
scope of the hymn by the inclusion of more subjective elements, and
the literary advance in the structure and diction were preparing the
way for the Golden Age of German hymnody which followed the conclusion
of the great religious war. It extended from Paul Gerhardt (1604-1676)
to Christian Fuerchtegott Gellert (1715-1769).

Gerhardt had spent his young manhood amid the desolation and
difficulties of the Thirty Years’ War. He did not enter the ministry
until he was nearly fifty years old, having written no hymns up to
that time. A great preacher and a devoted pastor, he was a man of deep
piety and of unflinching loyalty to the truth, as it was given to him
to see it. As calamity followed calamity, under strict divine
discipline in preparation for his great work in the writing of hymns,
not only for the German church, but also for the whole Christian
world, he united in himself the two tendencies, the one of viewing God
and divine things in an objective way, characteristic of the early
Lutheran hymns, and the other, the expression of the emotion produced
by such contemplation in the heart of the Christian, characteristic of
the subsequent period. He had the body of the older hymnody and the
spirit of the new.

Moreover, Gerhardt was a poet. Indeed, his writings were extensive
lyrics rather than hymns. Some of them have furnished several hymns.
He was the Keble of German hymnody, and his influence upon subsequent
hymn writing has been most helpful. There is a poetic fertility in the
man lacking in his predecessors.

He wrote one hundred and twenty-three hymns, of which Dr. Philip
Schaff declares that they “are among the noblest pearls in the
treasury of sacred poetry.” They are of such uniform excellence that
it is difficult to select those of outstanding merit. “Befiehl du
deine Wege” (“Give to the winds thy fears”) was translated by John
Wesley. “O Jesu Christ, mein schoenstes Licht” (“Jesus, thy boundless
love to me”) is another most successful translation by the same hand.
“O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden” (“O sacred head, now wounded”) leans
hard on “Salve, caput cruentatum,” but has a spirituality the older
hymn does not so fully display. Thirty of his hymns are in general use
in the German churches, and Germany recognizes him as her prince of
hymnists, superior even to Luther.

Gerhardt’s contemporaries, John Franck (1618-1677) and John Scheffler
(1624-1677), while fairly prominent do not compare with him in
thoughtfulness and literary felicity. Both are more pietistic. The
latter has a somewhat exuberant style, intense and enthusiastic. John
Wesley translated and adopted one hymn known to our hymnals as “Thee
will I love, my strength, my tower.”

III. THE PIETISTIC HYMN WRITERS

In the latter decades of the seventeenth century, Philipp Jacob
Spener, August Hermann Francke, and Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen
led a strong movement of protest, called Pietism, against the arid
scholasticism and cold formalism of the Lutheran church. It was a
second Reformation, emphasizing piety and sincere emotionalism. It
postponed the blight of Rationalism for a few decades and led a
generation into a devouter, more genuine, religious life.

Spener was a great leader and a good man, but no hymn writer; Francke
wrote but few hymns, and so this phase of their work devolved on
Freylinghausen. He was full of spirit, with attractive rhythms and
florid music. His songs were very popular, but lacked permanent merit.
Other writers of this school were Schade, Schutz, and Rodigast.

Less immediately connected with the Pietistic movement, but under its
influence, are Hiller of South Germany, Arnold, a professor at the
University of Giessen, and Tersteegen of Westphalia, a mystic, all of
whom wrote very acceptable hymns. Tersteegen was highly appreciated by
John Wesley, who translated his “Gott rufet noch; sollt’ ich nicht
endlich hoeren?” (“God calling yet! shall I not hear?”). “Gott ist
gegenwaertig! lasset uns anbeten” (“Lo! God is here; let us adore”)
and “Jedes Herz will etwas lieben” (“Something every heart is loving”)
are others found translated in current hymnals. Lord Selborne speaks
of him as “of all the more copious German hymn writers after Luther,
perhaps the most remarkable man, pietist, mystic, and missionary, he
was also a great religious poet.” That he was a layman makes his
religious life all the more remarkable.

A more widely known and striking personality was Count von Zinzendorf
(1700-1760), a very devout but somewhat erratic man. He became the
patron saint of the Moravian Church and shared—perhaps created—its
zeal for foreign missions. He spent some time in the United States, in
eastern Pennsylvania, and in the West Indies, doing evangelistic work.
He wrote two thousand religious lyrics, disfigured to a large extent
by extravagances and by repulsive materialistic similes and phrases.
His associate and successor, Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenberg, long
resident in America, and Bishop Christian Gregor also wrote very
useful hymns. The Moravian hymnody is all the more noteworthy in that
it had a great influence over the hymnic work of the Wesleys.

IV. GERMAN REFORMED HYMNODY

The Reformed Church in Germany long followed Calvin in exclusively
using the Psalms of David, but finally felt the impulse of the
Lutheran hymnody. Tersteegen, mentioned above, leaned to this branch
of the German church, although not officially connected with it.
Joachim Neander (1650-1680), a Reformed minister at Bremen, wrote some
extremely valuable and popular hymns of praise and was called the
Psalmist of the New Covenant. Among his best are “Sieh, hier bin ich,
Ehren-Koenig” (“Behold me here in grief draw near”), “Lobe den Herren,
den maechtigen Koenig der Ehren” (“Praise to the Lord! He is King over
all the creation”), “Unser Herrscher, unser Koenig” (“Sovereign Ruler,
King victorious”), still sung in every pious home in Germany.

V. TRANSITION TO RATIONALISTIC HYMNS

The transitional personality between this Pietistic and the succeeding
Rationalistic era, was Christian F. Gellert (1715-1769), a professor
in Leipzig University. He was a man of sincere piety; he was a
teacher, not only in the classroom, but in all his literary efforts.
He wrote moral _Tales and Fables_, _Moral Poems_, _Didactic Poems_, as
well as _Sacred Odes and Hymns_. There were fifty-four of these, all
in the same didactic style. They lacked the rugged strength of Luther,
the poetical element of Gerhardt, and the mystic insight of
Tersteegen; but this very matter-of-factness made his writings
immensely popular. Of all his hymns, but one survives in our modern
hymnals, his Easter hymn, “Jesus lebt, mit ihm auch ich” (“Jesus
lives, no longer now”).

VI. RATIONALISM IN HYMNODY

German hymnody suddenly fell from its exalted Pietistic rhapsodies
into a crass materialism. Dr. Philip Schaff gives a vivid glimpse into
the situation: “He (Klopstock) was followed by a swarm of hymnological
tinkers and poetasters who had no sympathy with the theology and
poetry of the grand old hymns of faith; weakened, diluted, mutilated,
and watered them, and introduced these misimprovements into the
churches.... Conversion and sanctification were changed into
self-improvement, piety into virtue, heaven into the better world,
Christ into Christianity, God into Providence, Providence into fate.
The people were compelled to sing rhymed sermons on the existence of
God, the immortality of the soul, the delights of reunion, the dignity
of man, the duty of self-improvement, the nurture of the body, and the
care of animals and flowers.”

There is no poetical, much less religious, lyrical impulse in
rationalism, and the church lyrics of this period have left little
impress on the hymnody of the Christian Church. It was the classic
period of German literature, but it had few Christian elements in it.
Athens and Rome, not Jerusalem, were the centers of intellectual
interest; and it might almost be said that it is a pagan literature.

VII. HYMNS OF RENEWED RELIGIOUS LIFE

As in the immediate pre-Reformation age, in spite of the decadence of
religious life among the Roman Catholic leaders, there was a
semi-submerged piety that forced the Reformation inside the church; so
in this recrudescence of paganism in the German church, there was a
great body of earnest, pious Christians who kept the spirit of true
German devoutness alive.

These were represented by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724-1803),
who, although he set the disastrous fashion of re-writing the older
hymns in order to improve their literary value by removing archaisms
and harsh lines, was yet a devout man, writing the great German epic
“Messias” and also some deeply religious hymns that were too poetic
for the common people. Another devout writer was Johann Kasper Lavater
(1741-1801), better known by his treatise on physiognomy, who wrote
some hymns after the style of Klopstock, but with greater popular
success, for his “O suessester der Namen all” (“O name than every name
more dear”) has been translated and used in English hymnals.

When the first intoxication of the new freedom from churchly, and even
moral, restraint passed away, the German church again found able
representatives to give expression to its religious life. Friedrich
von Hardenberg (1772-1801), also called “Novalis,” a mining engineer
of fine literary ability, wrote some hymns of deep feeling and
beautiful style. Friedrich de la Motte Fouque (1777-1843), chiefly
known as the author of _Undine_, and as an outstanding representative
of the Romantic school in literature, wrote some very beautiful hymns,
including two missionary hymns of great excellence. There is a
literary and imaginative charm in these hymns, as in his general
German style, that betrays his Huguenot heredity. Both these writers
had the literary emphasis that somewhat discounted the value of their
hymns for the common people. They stand, however, as landmarks of the
subsidence of the rationalistic period in German hymnody.

VIII. HYMNS OF PIETISTIC TYPE

In the reaction from Rationalism, Pietism again came into its own and
a noble roster of sacred lyrists have given it expression. This
includes Ernst Moritz Arndt, professor of history at the University of
Bonn, whose “Wahres Christentum” was as necessary to every Christian
home as the Bible itself, a patriot who won the hatred and persecution
of Napoleon Bonaparte by his patriotic songs, and whose hymns are no
small part of the treasury of later German hymnody. Among them are
“Ich weiss, an wen ich glaube” (“I know in whom I put my trust”),
which is one of the German classics.

Friedrich Adolf Krummacher (1767-1845) is best remembered by his hymn
“Mag auch die Liebe weinen” (“Though love may weep with breaking
heart”) and his missionary hymn, “Eine Herde und ein Hirt” (“One
shepherd and one fold to be”). Still others are Friedrich Ruckert
(1789-1866) whom Dr. Schaff calls “one of the greatest masters of
lyric poetry,” Albert Knapp (1798-1864), editor of the outstanding
critical collection of German hymns, “Der Liederschatz,” and writer of
many widely used hymns, and Meta Heusser-Schweizer (1797-1876), of
Switzerland, “the most eminent and noble among all the female poets of
our whole evangelical Church.”[1]

The primate of them all is Karl Johann Philipp Spitta (1801-1859),
“the most popular hymnist of the nineteenth century.” The fifty-fifth
edition of his _Psalter und Harfe_ appeared in 1889. He was an
Hanoverian pastor. He had been under rationalistic teachers at the
University of Goettingen, but toward the end of his university course
had a profound religious experience that affected all his future life;
he wrote no secular verse after that time. He was recognized as a
mystic and pietist and his promotion was antagonized on that ground.

Many of his hymns have been translated into English. Among the most
successful are “O Jesu, meine Sonne” (“I know no life divided”), “Es
kennt der Herr die Seinen” (“He knoweth all His people”), “O selig
Haus, wo man dich aufgenommen” (“O happy home, where thou art loved
the dearest”), “O treuer Heiland, Jesu Christ” (“We praise and bless
thee, gracious Lord”).

Spitta may be called “the Gerhardt of the nineteenth century,” for he
has many of that great hymn writer’s qualities as well as his
popularity. He was sincerely devout, a man of an abiding sense of
God’s care and nearness; his style is smooth and melodious as well as
poetical.

Spitta’s hymns are very practical in length and form of stanza, and
his themes grow out of the common needs and experiences of general
humanity. For this reason they have been very largely translated into
English—no less than thirty-three of them—and, what is more
significant, selected by editors of hymnals, especially in England.

Karl von Gerok (1815-?) is another exceedingly popular religious
lyrist of the nineteenth century, hardly second to Spitta. His
“Palm-blaetter,” issued in 1857, reached its fifty-sixth edition in
1886. By this time it has likely reached the century mark. But his
verses are religious poetry, not hymns, and but a few centos have been
admitted to German hymnbooks.

Recently the new rationalism and sensual materialism have again
submerged the religious life of Germany and the impulse to write hymns
has lost its urgency. Whether the shattering of the illusion of
world-wide power, and the sobering effect of its terrible losses of
men and of wealth, will bring Germany back to her religious senses
must be patiently awaited by those eager for her highest welfare. The
recrudescence of paganism and its threat of renewed striving after
world dominance need not blast this pious hope. God’s hand is still on
the tiller of the German national bark, and the heart of the German
people is not represented by the bulletins on the surface of its
current events, caused by the pride of nationalism in the shallow
vocal stratum that stridently claims the world’s attention.

In this hurried review of the development of the German hymn from
Luther to Spitta much that is interesting and profitable has been
omitted. But it is manifest that this German hymnody holds the supreme
place in the hymnody of the Christian Church in all ages and nations.
The reasons for this lie on the surface: the German people are a
singing people, and the instinct to sing their thoughts and feelings
is stronger than in any other race. Again, they did not lose two
centuries under the spell of Calvin’s devotion to the Hebrew Psalms,
as did Great Britain and America. In contrast with the Latin and Greek
hymnodies, it is the voice of the people, not the restrained
liturgical voice of the clergy.

The German hymnody is often ponderous and heavy, often tediously
prolix and dull, but at the heart of it is a profound realization of
the actualities of the Christian faith, and a responsiveness to its
appeals to the hearts of men, that one cannot find elsewhere to the
same extent.

_Chapter XIII_
METRICAL PSALMODY

I. CALVIN’S CONCEPTION OF CONGREGATIONAL SINGING

While Luther recognized the value of hymns as pre-eminent in his work,
he still left a large place for the Psalms, himself making some
admirable versions and inciting others to do the same. But there were
limits to his sympathy with an undue and merely formal emphasis of
them. He canceled the obligation of repeating the whole Psalter once a
week, instituted by Cardinal Quimonez, as “a donkey’s burden.” Luther
was a reformer, changing only what needed changing in order to secure
a deeper spirituality. Calvin and Zwingli were not reformers, but
re-creators, setting wholly aside all the liturgy, the ecclesiastical
organization, the clerical rules, and the distinctive doctrines of the
Roman church, and building up an entirely new church with no other
sanction than their interpretation of the Word of God.

Perhaps unconsciously, Calvin harked back to the Roman attitude of
Gregory the Great, in insisting on purely Scriptural sources for the
service of song. He was too good a Biblical scholar not to know that
the Apostolic Church used “hymns and spiritual songs” as well as
Psalms; indeed he never categorically forbade hymns of “human
composure.” But the people had been forbidden the Bible. The Psalms
had been sung by the clergy alone in an already dead language. Calvin
declared that “if a man sang in an unknown tongue, he might as well be
a linnet or a popinjay.” So he reacted somewhat violently. He had a
profound sense of the authority of the Word of God, and his mind was
possessed by the idea of the divine sovereignty; hence religious rites
of human origin seemed trifling and negligible.

This attitude was emphasized all the more by the Latin hymns sung and
read in the churches, and on religious occasions, whose chief burden
was worship of the Madonna, and even of the saints, against which his
mind rose in outraged horror.

II. CALVIN’S FOLLOWERS MORE EXTREME

Human nature being what it is, it was inevitable that Calvin’s
followers should carry his ideas to an extreme, and mechanically add
the conclusion that hymns independent of the lyrics of the Scriptures
should be forbidden.

While Luther stressed the Biblical content of the hymns and exalted
the Psalms as the source of religious lyrical impulses, Calvin and his
disciples added a rigid and almost superstitious regard for the mere
form of the Scripture lyrics. They accepted their distortion and
mutilation in giving them a metrical form as justified by the
congregational necessity, and by the evident devotional results among
the people.

III. MAROT’S SUCCESSFUL VERSIONS

Beneath his austerity Calvin evidently had an appreciation of literary
beauty and grace, for he developed an ambition to clothe the Hebrew
Psalms in a literary French metrical dress. It was while this problem
was exercising his mind that there fell into his hands the French
version of some of the Psalms by Clement Marot (1497-1544), who had
come under the influence of Marguerite de Valois, the Huguenot
princess, whose _valet de chambre_ he was during his early twenties.
It is possible that he and Calvin met at Ferrara in 1535. Though the
work of a Huguenot poet, these lyrics were admired in high political
and social circles in France. Written in measures fitting them to
popular tunes, they were very popular among the royal courtiers,
Catholics as well as Protestants, and were soon introduced into other
countries.

That he was later persecuted by the Roman ecclesiastics only
recommended him the more to Calvin. Here was a poet of high
reputation, a skillful versifier of the Psalms, a fellow-sufferer at
the hands of the Roman hierarchy—why not commit to his hands the task
of supplying Calvin’s new church with its needed book of Psalms? So
Marot was called to Geneva.

IV. DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENEVAN PSALTER

In 1543, nineteen years after Luther’s first venture, the _Acht
Liederbuch_, appeared, _The Genevan Psalter_ was issued in the French
language. It contained fifty psalms by Marot. Marot died in 1544. The
completion of the Psalter was committed to Theodore Beza of Burgundy,
who revised Marot’s verses, eliminating the classical allusions and
offensive gaiety. With the help of Bourgeois, and later of Goudimel,
in completing and harmonizing the tunes, he finished the Psalter in
1562.[1]

V. ENGLISH PSALM VERSIONS BEFORE STERNHOLD

There had been English versions of some of the Psalms before Sternhold
undertook the task. Bishop Aldhelm of Sherborne, who died in 709 A.D.,
composed a complete psalter. Two versions were due to Lutheran
influence. That of Miles Coverdale, _Ghoostly Psalms and Spiritual
Songs_, appearing sometime between 1530 and 1540, used some of the
German chorales, including the great “Ein’ feste Burg.”

The Wedderburn brothers of Dundee, Scotland, issued the _Compendious
Booke of Gude and Godlie Ballates_, also known as _Dundee Psalms_, on
the return of John Wedderburn, soon after 1539, from Wittenberg, where
he had been under the influence of both Luther and Melanchthon. Latin
psalms and hymns had no value with young people, he insisted in his
preface; “but when they hear it sung into their vulgar tongue, or sing
it themselves, with sweet melody, then shall they love their God with
heart and mind, and cause them to put away bawdry and unclean songs.”
While considerably better than the songs the collection displaced, the
new book was too cheaply popular, and undignified in many of its
religious parodies of popular songs, to satisfy the elders of the
Scottish Kirk (!) and they tried to suppress it.

But the lines of religious, social, doctrinal, and political influence
connected England and Scotland with France and Geneva so closely that
it happened that the new English and Scotch psalmody was based on the
work of Marot and Calvin and not on that of Luther. To human minds
with some sense of literary dignity and style and of a more
spontaneous expression of religious life and experience, it seems a
great pity!

The first response in England to the new version of Marot was the
Latin version of George Buchanan in 1548. Latin was an entirely dead
language to the commonalty, but was quite generally familiar to people
of scholarship and culture. This version, in the scholarly language of
all Europe (like the Mandarin in China), found wide appreciation in
intellectual circles and many editions of it were issued. Of course,
the mass of the English people was not affected by it, and it had
little or no influence on the development of English psalmody.

That there were vernacular versions already in use, is quite certain.
Robert Cowley anticipated Sternhold and Hopkins in the versifying of
the whole Psalter, issuing his work in 1549. In the preface to this
collection he refers to previous versions which had passages “obscure
and hard.” Probably they were Lollard or Wycliffite in origin, for
these “sweet singers,” precursors of the Reformation to come, worked
among the lower classes in the Low Countries as well as in England,
singing the Gospel in the vernacular.

VI. VERSION OF STERNHOLD AND HOPKINS

Undoubtedly it was the French Psalms of Marot, and their great
popularity in the highest circles in France, that incited Thomas
Sternhold to undertake a like version in the English language. His
first issue, probably in 1547 and 1548, contained nineteen Psalms. In
1549 he published another edition containing thirty-seven Psalms.
Sternhold died in 1549, leaving but nineteen additional Psalms
unpublished. Another poet, John Hopkins, a near neighbor in
Gloucestershire, contributed to the edition of 1551. In 1562 the
psalter was completed. Of the one hundred and fifty Psalms, Sternhold
had supplied fifty-one, Hopkins sixty, all in common meter, and the
rest were contributed by various writers. It also contained metrical
versions of the Canticles, the Ten Commandments, the Athanasian Creed,
the Te Deum, the Lord’s Prayer, an English version of the festival
hymn, “Veni, Creator Spiritus,” and several original English hymns.

This psalter had a popularity equaled only by _Hymns Ancient and
Modern_ and the _Gospel Hymns_ series in the recent past. Within half
a century more than fifty editions were issued. By 1841 no less than
six hundred and fifty different editions had been absorbed by the
religious public—more than all other metrical versions combined.

This version was adopted by the Church of England in 1562 and
continued to be used for nearly two hundred and fifty years, despite
its notorious crudities and imperfections, and despite the many
efforts made to supersede it by other versions and by hymns. The
singing of Psalms became universal. At St. Paul’s Cross, after the
service, there were sometimes six thousand persons engaged in singing
Psalms. It was a time of genuine community singing.

VII. THE SCOTCH VERSION

In 1556, John Knox issued his _Anglo-Genevan Psalter_, based on the
1551 edition of Sternhold and Hopkins, with some alterations and
additions. It naturally was greatly influenced by Calvin’s _Genevan
Psalter_. The _Anglo-Genevan Psalter_ is significant chiefly because
of its influence on the Scotch Psalter. Through that, it is the source
of some psalms and tunes still in use—notably, “All people that on
earth do dwell” and “Old Hundredth” to which the Long Meter Doxology
is sung.

The Scotch Psalter developed on a different line. The Psalm editors of
the Scottish Church accepted eighty-seven of the Anglo-Genevan Psalms,
added and somewhat altered forty-two from the final Sternhold and
Hopkins editions, and supplied twenty-one from their own versifiers.
It appeared in 1564 and was adopted by the General Assembly as its
authorized Psalm book.

In 1600 James I began a revision and himself wrote thirty-five of the
Psalms before his death. This psalter was completed by William
Alexander and was issued in 1630, being known as the _Royal Psalter_.
Charles I bound up a revised edition of it with a new liturgy prepared
by the Scotch bishops in 1536, and ordered its exclusive use. But the
Scotch clergy declined with thanks, having no use for “the mass in
English.”

But the question of a revision of this Psalter having been raised, its
deficiencies, which had been passively accepted, rose up into
consciousness. Rous’ version, adopted by the Westminster Assembly in
1643, and hence widely used in England, was made the basis of the new
Scotch Psalter and, after seven years of amending and revision, was
adopted in 1650. It is still used in Scotland and in American
Presbyterian churches whose eyes look back reverently to Scotland.

VIII. ROUS’ VERSION

Rous’ version was made by Francis Rous, Provost of Eton College,
Oxford, a Presbyterian lawyer and a man of public affairs. It was an
improvement on Sternhold and Hopkins, but still left much to be
desired in smoothness of versification and grace of diction, owing to
the continued loyalty to the original phraseology of the Psalms. Hence
it had some “awful examples,” to use Matthew Arnold’s phrase, whose
repetition here might amuse but not edify. But it also had some happy
stanzas that we still are glad to sing, e.g.:

“The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want;
He makes me down to lie
In pastures green; he leadeth me
The quiet waters by.”

Compare this with Archbishop Parker’s version of the Shepherd Psalm
written in 1557:

“To feed my neede: he will me leade
To pastures green and fat:
He forth brought me: in libertie
To waters delicate.”

But with the blindness of the versifiers to the need of diversifying
their meters in the interest of varied and attractive tunes, all the
psalms were written in Common Meter.[2]

IX. TATE AND BRADY’S “NEW VERSION”

A new version by two Irishmen, Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady, appeared
in 1696. Tate was a literary man, a playwright, a poet, and finally
poet laureate. Brady had a rather varied clerical career in Ireland
and in England, becoming chaplain to King William. This will partly
explain why this version received royal endorsement and gradually
replaced Sternhold and Hopkins in the English Church. It was adopted
by the Protestant Episcopal Church of America in 1789. The fact that
the Nonconformist churches remained faithful to the “Old Version” and
to Rous’ version, no doubt had its bearing on the final acceptance of
the “New Version” by the Established Church.

This “New Version” was a little smoother than the “Old Version,” and
had a little more literary grace, but still was shackled by devotion
to “purity”—to the exact thought and phraseology of the Hebrew Psalms.
Nevertheless, as Gillman says, “this book contained a plentiful supply
of chaff, but perhaps a few more grains of golden corn than
Sternhold’s.” “As pants the hart for cooling streams” and “Through all
the changing scenes of life” are still highly prized, and Tate’s
Christmas Carol, “While shepherds watched their flocks by night”
(which appeared in a supplement to the “New Version”) is a masterly
adaptation of the Nativity story. On the other hand, Montgomery, in
comparing the “New Version” with the “Old Version,” remarks: “It is
nearly as inanimate as the former, though a little more refined.” Of
the “Old Version” he says: “The merit of faithful adherence to the
original has been claimed for this version and need not be denied, but
it is the resemblance which the dead bear to the living.” Old Thomas
Fuller wittily says of Sternhold and Hopkins that “They are men whose
piety was better than their poetry, and they had drunk more of Jordan
than of Helicon.” Thomas Campbell even more harshly exclaims: “With
the best intensions and the worst taste, they degraded the spirit of
Hebrew poetry by flat and homely phraseology, and, mistaking vulgarity
for simplicity, turned into bathos what they found sublime.” From the
literary point of view these dicta are correct enough, but they
overlook what is vastly more important—the high moral and spiritual
uses which these homely versions so amply served.

X. AMERICAN PSALMODY

The Pilgrims brought with them from Leyden Ainsworth’s version of the
Psalms, published in Amsterdam—Genevan rather than English in
character. Its use was largely confined to the Pilgrims and their
descendants. Presently the copies of both versions became rare and the
service of song depended on the “lining out” of the verses.

The first book printed in America was the _Bay Psalm Book_, an
independent version of the Psalms made by Thomas Welde, Richard
Mather, and John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, a committee
appointed in 1636. It was proposed to make it more scriptural than
either of the previous versions used. It appeared in 1640. Its preface
consisted of a discourse urging that psalm-singing was both lawful and
necessary. During the next century and a half no less than seventy
editions were printed. It was improved by Dunster and Lyon and
reprinted in Great Britain, eighteen editions being called for in
England and twenty-two in Scotland. This was America’s first
contribution to the song service of the Mother Country, but by no
means the last.

It may be interesting to see just what literary style this _Bay Psalm
Book_ could display, and a few specimens are herewith given. The one
hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm, for instance, was given the
following form:

1. “The rivers on of Babilon
There when wee did sit downe:
Yea, even then wee mourned when
wee remembred Sion.

2. Our Harp wee did hang it amid
Upon the willow tree,
Because there they that us away
led in captivitee,

3. Required of us a song and thus
ask mirth: us waste who laid,
sing us among a Sion’s song
unto us then they said.

4. The Lord’s song sing can wee? being
in stranger’s land. Then let
loose her skill my right hand, if I
Jerusalem forget.

5. Let cleave my tongue my pallate on
if minde thee doe not I
if chief joys or’e I prize not more
Jerusalem my joy.”

Cotton Mather’s rhymeless version was much more sensible in its form,
for it eliminated the chief handicap in producing a literal version in
metrical form.

As in the Psalm versions of England and Scotland, there was a vivid
consciousness of literary and poetic shortcomings; but the sense of
obligation to supply a literal translation of the Hebrew overrode all
impulses toward a smoother rendering. The preface frankly states the
position of the committee: “If therefore the verses are not always so
smooth and elegant as some may desire or expect; let them consider
that God’s altar needs not our polishing (Ex. 20), for we have
respected rather a plaine translation, than to smooth our verses with
the sweetness of any paraphrase, and soe have attended Conscience
rather than Elegance, fidelity rather than poetry, in translating the
Hebrew words into English language and David’s poetry into English
meetre.”

There were other American Psalm versions, but the only versions worth
considering are the revisions of Isaac Watts’ Psalms, which will come
up in introducing American hymnody later.

XI. THE VALUE OF THE PSALM VERSIONS

In smiling over this rude psalmody of England, Scotland, and America,
it is always to be remembered that these versions were not a literary
endeavor. Their ambition was to secure ‘purity,’ loyalty to the rather
prosaically conceived doctrines of the originals. There was no thought
of poetry or of literary finish. The meter and rhyme were practical
devices to make congregational singing possible.

_Chapter XIV_
THE ENGLISH HYMN BEFORE WATTS

I. THE EARLIEST ENGLISH HYMN

Just as Gregory the Great did not create the music that bears his
name, nor Luther the congregational hymnody, so Isaac Watts did not
originate the English hymnody of which he is often termed the father.
The Lollards, or Wickliffites, sang metrical psalms, and also hymns,
in the Low Countries, as well as in England, long before Luther, or
Marot, or Sternhold.

Moreover, the emphasis of the Psalms was an ecclesiastical, clerical
attitude, while the people at large to whom the Scriptures had been a
closed book, and the Psalms an unknown language, sang such vernacular
hymns as sprang up among them; so, while we cannot doubt but that they
sang some metrical psalms, based on the Wickliffe English Bible, the
body of their singing was presumably hymnic.

Indeed, we must go back much farther to find the spring of religious
song that was to become a great river of praise. Caedmon, a monk,
originally a swineherd, of the early seventh century, supplied the
earliest recorded English hymns:

“Now must we hymn the Master of heaven,
The might of the Maker, the deeds of the Father,
The thought of his heart.”

Undoubtedly the times before Caedmon were resonant with earlier songs,
for the Venerable Bede (673-735) in the next generation records the
fact of a great deal of singing among the people. Indeed, he himself
wrote hymns in Anglo-Saxon, as well as in Latin. Patrick and Colombo
sang psalms and hymns and made them a means of converting the pagans
of Ireland and Scotland.

II. ENGLISH HYMNODY SUBMERGED BY REFORMED PSALMODY

The urge, not only for versifying all parts of the Scriptures,
including genealogies, but of actually singing them with fervor,
submerged the native impulse of song. The religious loyalty to the
letter of the Scriptures that followed closed the door against the
development of the English hymn.[1]

Professor Reeves in his _The Hymn as Literature_ remarks: “As vigorous
and variegated and prevalent as this union of popular poetry and
popular music was in England, it strangely weakened and paled at the
one time in English history when it might have been expected most to
flourish. The Reformation, born of that new freedom of thought and
worship which produces the best hymnody, did not in England, as it
gloriously did in Germany, speak out richly in the native vernacular
hymn.”[2]

III. ENGLISH LITERARY IDEALS UNFAVORABLE TO HYMN-WRITING

But it was not only the blight of a narrow bibliolatry that prevented
the development of the English religious lyric. English poetry had
lost its spontaneity and its gracious simplicity in a self-conscious
devotion to false literary ideals.

The conception of a congregational hymn did not exist among the
literary men of the Reformation and later. Indeed, that Reformation
among the cultured and intellectual classes was not so much a
religious transformation as a political and cultural repudiation of
clerical bonds, and an enjoyment of new liberties. There was some
religious feeling, of course, but it was expressed in elaborate forms,
not in spontaneous simple lyrics that the people could sing.

The technic of the singing hymn had not been developed, nor its
limitations recognized. It took nearly a century before even an
approximation could be reached to the practicability of the Lutheran
hymns, which were written, not by literary connoisseurs, but by men in
close touch with the people, men who had with singleness of mind
striven to win and edify them. As we study the English lyrics,
written, not to be sung, but simply to express the personal feelings
of the writer in the current style and in complicated measures, we see
how far English poets had to go before a practicable singing hymn
could be written.

The conceptions of poetry, the prevalent grandioseness of style, the
studied phrasemaking, the excessive Latinity of vocabulary among
distinctively literary men, made the simplicity needed in a
congregational hymn impossible. Despite Mr. Horder’s enthusiasm over
the possible use Luther would have made of John Milton, the German
hymnody creator could have done nothing with the ponderous
large-planning author of _Paradise Lost_, with his wealth of classical
allusions and mythology, and his phrasing rich with preciosity.
Milton’s Psalm versions, fine as they are, were simply not singable by
the commonalty of his time who were to be depended on to do the
singing. He was a writer of odes, not of singing hymns.

Here is a literary hymn—balancing phrases, piling up antitheses,
consciously seeking striking and euphonious combinations of words:

“I praise Him most, I love Him best, all praise and love is His;
While Him I love, in Him I live, and cannot live amiss.
Love’s sweetest mark, laud’s highest theme, man’s most desired
Light,
To love Him life, to leave Him death, to live in Him delight.”

The writer of the foregoing, Robert Southwell, a Romanist martyr,
writing in prison, could write simple lyrics out of the fullness and
genuineness of his religious experience, but it was not in the
accepted fashion. What Protestant dare refuse to sing this simple hymn
of his?

“Yet God’s must I remain,
By death, by wrong, by shame;
I cannot blot out of my heart
That grace wrought in his name.”

IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TECHNIC OF WRITING SINGING HYMNS

All these writers, and many others that might be mentioned, had not
acquired the technic of congregational hymn writing. They either did
not recognize the limitations of the singing hymn, or refused to be
hampered by its restraints.

But presently the idea of the singing hymn defined itself. Thomas
Campion in 1613 issued a number of lyrics that combined spiritual
insight, literary grace, and practical availability to a hitherto
unattained degree. Dr. Benson characterizes his

“Never weather-beaten sail
More willing beat to shore,”

as “among the loveliest of the lyrics expressing the heavenly
homesickness.” Campion was a musician as well as a poet, which partly
accounts for the singability of his hymns.

In 1623 George Withers issued a complete hymnbook for the Established
Church. It was made up of Scriptural paraphrases and hymns for special
occasions. The hymns are superior to previous attempts in structure
and method, in their simple piety and practical purpose, and in their
availability for actual congregational singing. But in the midst of
admirable lines there were strange lapses in taste. The hymn whose
first verse began so auspiciously,

“Come, oh, come, in pious lays
Sound we God Almighty’s praise;
Hither bring in one consent
Heart and voice and instrument,”

makes the singing congregation a conductor directing a vast chorus:

“From earth’s vast and hollow womb
Music’s deepest bass may come;
Seas and floods, from shore to shore,
Shall their counter-tenors roar,” etc.

Clever in a way, but hardly devotional!

Withers’ “Musicians’ Hymn” has a very practical hint to the “singers’
gallery,” as well as to the congregation:

“He sings and plays
The songs which best Thou lovest,
Who does and says
The things which Thou approvest.”

What Withers’ influence on subsequent English hymnody might have been
we can only conjecture: the Company of Stationers boycotted his book
because he had secured the king’s order to bind it up with the Psalter
and shut it out from the regular channels of trade. His second
collection, “Hallelujah,” was even more practicable and candidly
didactic in style. But Withers had but a slight, if any, influence,
for Sternhold and Hopkins still ruled the worship of the churches.

His immediate successors in hymn writing, Herbert, Donne, Crashaw, and
Vaughan, were not influenced by his practical spirit and sang to
please themselves, not to lead the congregation.

George Herbert (1593-1633) was a devout soul, full of a usually
charming fantasy and fertile in imagery; but antithesis was still an
allurement to poets in his generation. His “Antiphon” makes an
effective hymn, but the inevitable contrast is still there:

“The heavens are not too high,
His praise may thither fly;
The earth is not too low,
His praises there may grow.”

Donne, Crashaw, and Vaughan all share in the quaintness of Herbert and
also in his general hymnic impracticability.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674), the singer of rather worldly songs, but a
literary artist withal, in his “Litany to the Holy Spirit” reaches
more nearly up to the ideal of the singing hymn:

“In the hour of my distress,
When temptations me oppress,
And when I my sins confess,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me.”

But when in the second stanza he descends to a description of a
feverish sleepless night,

“When I lie within my bed
Sick in heart and sick in head,
And with doubts discomforted,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me,”

a doubt of its congruity on the lips of a crowd of worshipers begins
to rise. But when in the fourth and fifth verses one is asked to sing,

“When the artless doctor sees
No one hope but of his fees,
And his skill runs on the lees,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me.

When his potion and his pill,
His or none or little skill,
Meet for nothing but to kill,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me,”

one understands why, despite some fine lines, hymnal editors hesitate
to use it.

Richard Baxter (1615-1691), chiefly remembered by his _Saints’
Everlasting Rest_ and _Call to the Unconverted_ and a mass of other
most useful writings, prepared a metrical psalter which found little
response; he also wrote some poetry, but, as a child of his age,
delighted in antithesis. One of his books of poetry had as its
subtitle _The Concordant Discord of a Broken-healed Heart_. His hymns,
however, are simple in style and make a close approach to the
practicable type. Two of them are still largely in use: “Lord, it
belongs not to my care” and “Ye holy angels bright.” Had the churches
in his day given a fair opportunity, or furnished the inspiration of
demand, Baxter might have been one of our great hymnists, superior to
Watts in his deeper spirituality.

John Austin (?-1669) wrote some excellent hymns for a book of
“Devotions” for family use. Among them is

“Blest be Thy love, dear Lord,
That taught me this sweet way,
Only to love Thee for Thyself
And for that love obey,”

which still finds a worthy place in our hymnals.

About this time (1616) the long poem, “Hierusalem, my happie home,”
appears to have been written. Only the initials F. B. P. are attached
to the manuscript, now in the British Museum. It is conjectured that
they stand for Francis Baker Priest. Out of it have been fashioned two
very useful hymns: “Jerusalem, my happy home,” by Joseph Bromehead in
1795, and “O mother dear, Jerusalem,” by an unknown hand. The debt of
the original to the Latin is quite evident, but it has original values
as well. Aside from its length, a common fault in its time, it
approaches the final type of the congregational hymns very nearly in
its simplicity, devoutness, and in its practicable measure.

Closely allied to the Herbert school of religious lyrics, Bishop
Thomas Ken (1637-1711) had the advantage of belonging to a later
generation in which the conception of the congregational hymn had
begun to crystallize into a definite form. His Morning and Evening
Hymns are both simple in structure—in Ambrose’s iambic long meter—free
from affectations and bizarre rhetoric, easily comprehensible, and
devout and spiritual. They have been accepted as among the best hymns
in the language.

The doxology with which the two hymns close has been sung more
frequently and with greater elevation of mind and heart than any other
four lines in all earth’s literature. There is in this doxology a
nobility, a majesty, a comprehensiveness of praise which have not been
approached elsewhere outside of the choruses found in the Book of
Revelation. English hymnody had at last found its voice, its spirit,
and its model.

The conception of the congregational hymn had now been clearly defined
and, from Bishop Ken on, English hymnody was established as a distinct
department of English lyrical poetry. Hymn writers thenceforward were
content to accept the mediocrity Montgomery later called for. The
difficulty was that the English Protestant churches, still
psalm-fanatic, were not ready to sing the hymns they needed so much
for their highest spiritual development, and which now began to be
supplied.

That the idea of singing hymns of “human composure” was making
progress is evidenced by the issue in 1659 of the first collection of
hymns, _A Century of Select Hymns_, by William Barton (1603-1678). He
had issued a collection of versified Psalms in 1644 and a little book
of Psalms and hymns of thanksgiving in 1651. A little later he
published a review of the current Psalm version discussing its
“errors” and “absurdities.” He issued six collections during his
lifetime, most of whose content we would recognize as hymns. His work
has little interest to us except as it, as well as that of Wither,
Baxter, and Mason, helped to clarify the ideas of the young man Watts.

V. THE IDEAL OF THE SINGING HYMN REALIZED

It was the lack of preparation on the part of the churches, rather
than any essential inferiority to Isaac Watts, that prevented John
Mason (?-1694) from being recognized as the father of English hymnody.
Watts’ superiority lay in his having an intenser consciousness of the
greater value of the free hymn and the strength and ability to force
the issue to a final conclusion.

Mason’s hymns were the first to be used in regular congregational
worship. Twenty editions of his _Spiritual Songs_ were issued;
considering the times and the small population, this was a marvelous
success. This collection may be considered the thin edge of the wedge,
later driven by Watts, between the churches and psalmody. Horder in
his _Hymn Lover_ declares that “rarely did Watts rise to the height of
thought and beauty of expression which are found in Mason’s hymns.”

One of Mason’s most widely used hymns is

“Now from the altar of my heart
Let incense flames arise;
Assist me, Lord, to offer up
Mine evening sacrifice.

Awake, my Love! awake, my Joy;
Awake, my Heart and Tongue:
Sleep not: when Mercies loudly call,
Break forth into a Song.”

High authority claims that Mason’s hymn, “Thou wast, O God, and Thou
wast blest,” is one of the best in the language. Its third verse is
particularly noble:

“To whom, Lord, should I sing but Thee,
The Maker of my tongue?
Lo, other lords would seize on me,
But I to Thee belong.
As waters hasten to their sea,
And earth unto its earth,
So let my soul return to Thee,
From whom it had its birth.”

His influence on Watts was very considerable. George MacDonald says of
Mason’s hymns: “Dr. Watts was very fond of them; would that he had
written with similar modesty of style.” Mason was made to supply many
a good line to the hymns of Watts, we are told by those who have
compared the hymns of the two writers.[3]

The hymns are good, because the writer was good! Richard Baxter styled
him “the glory of the Church of England,” saying that “the frame of
his spirit was so heavenly, his deportment so humble and obliging, his
discourse of spiritual things so weighty, with such apt words and
delightful air, that it charmed all that had any spiritual relish.”

Before closing this chapter, mention must be made of Joseph Addison
(1672-1719), who is so widely known because of his connection with the
famous _Spectator_, a weekly devoted to essays on various topics,
literary and otherwise. While his essays are his chief claim to
literary honor, he wrote five hymns, three of which are found in most
of our larger hymnals: “The spacious firmament on high,” “When all thy
mercies, O my God,” “How are thy servants blest, O Lord.” These hymns
are all most thoughtful and felicitously expressed. They are admirably
adapted for the worship of God, but they too unanimously ignore the
higher attributes of the divine nature as manifested in Jesus Christ,
and the salvation he wrought out for fallen and needy humanity, to
take a high place in Christian Hymnody. The same is true of Psalms, of
course, but they were written before Christ appeared.

_Chapter XV_
ISAAC WATTS AND HIS PERIOD

I. THE HYMNIC NEED OF THE TIME

We have now reached the point in the development of the English hymn
where the shortcomings of the metrical versions of the Psalms were
keenly realized, and where the conception of the practicable
congregational hymn was clarified and the model definitely
established.

Someone of combative courage and of organizing ability was needed who
would break down the wall of mere usage and custom in the churches—of
the sheerly mechanical tradition and mental inertia; all the better,
if he could replace the outworn Psalm versions with practicable
congregational hymns that would more intelligently and efficiently
voice the faith and the experience of God’s people. He needed to be a
man of clear vision of the essential lyric needs of the church, of a
clear conception of the type of hymns best fitted to supply those
needs, of literary culture and adaptativeness, and of a high moral
courage to face and overcome the extreme conservativeness that seems
to be inherent in all ecclesiastical organizations.

II. THE LIFE OF WATTS

In the distinct providence of God, the man appeared, exactly fitted
for the important task. Isaac Watts was born at Southampton, England,
July 17, 1674, the son of a very intelligent and devout schoolmaster,
who during the reign of Charles II was imprisoned and exiled from his
family for his nonconformity. Isaac was extraordinarily precocious,
studying Greek and Hebrew at the age of eight years, writing verses
when a mere child, and attempting Latin and English poetry in his
schooldays. His brilliant scholarship brought him offers of a career
at one of the universities, but he refused, being staunch in his
nonconformity.

He became a Nonconformist minister in 1698 and pastor of the
Independent Church, Berry Street, London, in 1702. His health being
frail, owing to his excessive study as a student, he was given an
assistant, Rev. Samuel Price, with whom he spent “many harmonious
years of fellowship in the Gospel.”

Visiting Sir Thomas Abney, a staunch Dissenter living at Theobalds in
Hertfordshire, for a week, Watts was persuaded to remain with him and
his wife permanently, making his home with them the rest of his life.
He never married. His health was always precarious, and his pastorate
at the Berry Street Independent Church, which ended only with his
death, was largely nominal.

We rarely think of Isaac Watts as anything more than a hymn writer,
but his intellectual activities were wide and his writing outside of
hymnody extensive. He wrote a number of treatises on Theology. His
textbooks on Geography, Astronomy, and Logic were used in the English
universities, and at Yale and Harvard.

III. WATTS AS A HYMN WRITER

Watts had been recognized from childhood as having a talent in the
making of verses. Returning from a church service in Southampton, he
sharply criticized the hymns of Barton—an inferior contemporary of
John Mason. His devout father, a deacon in the church, playfully,
perhaps seriously, replied that he should try his skill in supplying a
better one. The challenge was accepted and he brought his father the
hymn:

“Behold the glories of the Lamb
Amidst his Father’s throne;
Prepare new honors for his name,
And songs before unknown.”

He little realized that it was his life’s most illustrious task to
fulfill the exhortation of the last two lines.

The success of the new hymn when lined out to the congregation and
sung by them led to a demand for more. Thus unconsciously and
unpretentiously was ushered in a new epoch in the devotional singing
of the Christian Church. Presumably this occurred in his twenty-first
year, for this and the succeeding year were spent at home in
Southampton in varied studies and in writing hymns.

These hymns seem to have remained in manuscript for some years,
despite the earnest protest of his younger brother, who declared that
“Mason now reduces this kind of writing to a sort of yawning
indifference, and honest Barton chimes us asleep.” This literary
judgment of young Enoch must not be taken too seriously, except as
expressing his eagerness to have his brilliant brother’s hymns brought
before the public.

It was nearly or quite ten years after the first hymn that a
collection of hymns and odes and other poems, _Horæ Lyricæ_, was
issued, in 1706. It contained twenty-five hymns, four psalm
paraphrases, and eleven religious songs in varied measures and meters.
It also contained elegies, odes, and blank verse of a purely literary
character. In his preface he suggests the spirit and methods which
should later be more fully developed. “The hymns were never written to
appear before the judges of wit, but only to assist the meditations
and worship of vulgar Christians.”[1]

In 1709 the second edition of the _Horæ_ furnished an increased number
of hymns. In the preface of this edition he confesses that in the
hymns of the _Horæ_ “there are some expressions which are not suited
to the plainest capacities, and differ too much from the usual methods
of speech in which holy things are proposed to the general part of
mankind.”

The hymns contained in the more popular _Hymns and Spiritual Songs_ in
1707, and in the augmented edition of 1709, were of a plainer type for
“the level of vulgar capacities.” The edition of 1709 contained two
hundred and fifty-five hymns, seventy-eight paraphrases, and
twenty-two communion hymns. The hymns were in only three meters, Long,
Common, and Short. Watts had an eye single for practicability.

The four Psalm versions contained in his _Horæ Lyricæ_ had a prefatory
note, “An essay on a few of David’s Psalms translated into plain
verse, in language more agreeable to the clearer revelations of the
Gospel,” which makes certain that he had already clearly in mind the
evangelical psalter which, despite his absorption in other tasks and
his long illness in 1712, finally appeared in 1719, “The Psalms of
David imitated in the language of the New Testament and apply’d to the
Christian state and worship.” Watts excluded twelve Psalms entirely
and omitted passages from some of the one hundred and thirty-eight
that were retained, because they were not adapted to Christian use.

Although he never married, Watts was very fond of children. In 1715,
in the midst of his program for the public service of song, his _opus
magnum_, he prepared his “Divine Songs, attempted in easy language for
the use of children.” It was to be used in connection with the
“Catechism” he had prepared for their use. It was the first collection
of its kind and was the forerunner of the immense supply of children’s
songs that was to grow out of the activities of the Sunday school. One
is amazed that the writer of “When I survey the wondrous cross,” or
“Our God, our help in ages past,” could write so tender and graceful a
lullaby as

“Hush, my babe, lie still and slumber,
Holy angels guard thy bed!
Heavenly blessings without number
Gently falling on thy head.”

IV. WATTS’ ARGUMENTS FOR THE HYMN

However kindly we may estimate the value of Watts’ hymns and of his
evangelical metrical versions of the Psalms, we must recognize that
his service as the protagonist of the free hymn is quite as great. His
hymns and evangelical psalter would likely have suffered the fate of
those of Wither and Mason, his immediate predecessors, had he not
written attractive and practicable congregational hymns and versions,
and not accomplished two other results essential to the substitution
of the free hymn for the often grotesque Psalm versions.

He did not simply write a miscellaneous lot of religious lyrics and
shoot them like arrows into the air; he had a clear and efficient
theory of church song, recognizing not only the varied needs, but the
psychology underlying those needs, and produced “a system of praise”
that supplied those needs and conciliated current prejudices.

Again, in his prefaces and in his _Essay towards the Improvement of
Psalmody_, he laid hymnological foundations that not only prepared the
way for the introduction of his own hymns and versions, but also for
such a fresh consideration of the whole subject as led to the
revolution in the English song service; from these have come the
freedom and spontaneity, genuineness and sincerity, definiteness of
purpose, and deepening of personal experience which have blessed
succeeding generations.

His supreme merit, in this definite onslaught on the rigid literalism
of the churches, was that he not only brought destructive criticism,
but supplied an adequate substitute for that which he condemned.

Watts denied the obligation to sing the Bible. The Scriptures were the
Word of God to the soul and the hymn was the work of the soul in
response to God. He further denied that the Book of Psalms was given
as a hymnbook for the Christian Church. It was not even adapted to its
use, for it was distinctly Jewish and not Christian in ideals and
spirit. “Some of ’em are almost opposite to the spirit of the Gospel;
many of them are foreign to the state of the New Testament and widely
different to the present circumstances of Christians.” Before they can
be sung in a Christian service they must be rewritten as if David were
a Christian and not a Jew.

Even allowing that there was an obligation to sing the Word of God,
Watts denied that the metrical Psalm was the pure Word of God. The
demands of meter and rhyme so refashioned and even mutilated the
Psalms that they no longer were the words of the Scripture, nor even
its ideas. Its inspiration suffered a total eclipse under the hands of
the versifiers, and the metrical Psalm became a work of “human
composure” with none of the vital spirit of the free hymn.

Watts could not understand why “we under the Gospel should sing
nothing else but the joys, hopes, and fears of Asaph and David.” He
declared that “David would have thought it very hard to have been
confined to the words of Moses and sung nothing else on all his
rejoicing days but the drowning of Pharaoh in the fifteenth of
Exodus.” He complained that even in those places where the Jewish
psalmist seems to mean the Gospel, excellent poet as he was, he was
not able to speak it plain, by reason of the infancy of that
dispensation, and longs for the aid of a Christian writer.

He set aside the prevalent “superstitious reverence for the letter of
the Jewish Scriptures,” and in an almost defiant spirit declared,
“Though there are many gone before me who have taught the Hebrew
Psalmist to speak English, yet I think I may assume the pleasure of
being the first who hath brought down the royal author into the common
affairs of the Christian life, and led the Psalmist of Israel into the
Church of Christ, without anything of the Jew about him.”

Whatever devotional value we may assign to the Psalms, we must accept
Watts’ fundamental idea that they are not the exclusive formulary of
the use of song in the worship of God and in the life of the Church.
His further contention that not all the Psalms, nor all parts of them,
are adapted to Christian use, we cannot now gainsay. The Jews
themselves only used about forty of them. It was not until centuries
after the Apostolic Age had elapsed that, due to monkish superstition,
all the Psalms were recognized as of equal exclusive use.

So many versions of individual Psalms make such satisfactory hymns and
so many hymns are such faithful transcripts of passages from the
Psalms, or echoes of their sentiments, that the distinction between
psalm versions and hymns in individual cases might well be set aside
entirely, as having no actual basis or value.

V. WATTS’ INSISTENCE ON PRACTICABILITY

While Watts laid the strongest emphasis on the awkwardness and
absurdity of much of the Psalm paraphrasing, he was also impressed
with the unavailability of the literary hymns of his predecessors, or
even of some of his own in his first book. The common people would not
sing them, they were out of their reach; moreover, they were not in
practicable meters and measures, and did not fit the accepted tunes
the people knew. Watts accepted the current Psalm version meters, Long
Meter, Common Meter, and Short Meter, and the Psalm tunes at once
became hymn tunes. It was quite a handicap to a literary hymn writer,
but essential to the practical use of the hymn.

Watts deliberately avoided distinctly literary quality in his hymns,
seeking only lucidity and plainness of expression, all within the
capacity of the common people. To quote from his prefaces, he
“endeavored to make the sense plain and obvious.... The metaphors are
generally sunk to the level of vulgar capacities.... Some of the
beauties of poesy are neglected and some wilfully defaced.”

Dr. Benson, whom it is always profitable to quote, says: “Watts’ work
earns a place in the literature of power, the literature that leaves
esthetic critics cold while it moves men.” Palgrave included nothing
of Watts in his _Golden Treasury_, but elsewhere speaks of him as “one
of those whose sacrifice of art to direct usefulness has probably lost
them those honors in literature to which they were entitled.”

VI. THE INESTIMABLE VALUE OF WATTS’ HYMNS

The offensive lines in Watts must be judged with due regard to their
background. The Sternhold and Hopkins version was vastly worse. It was
a time of dry doctrinal preaching and of a literal interpretation of
the Bible which to the preachers was largely a mere collection of
isolated proof texts. In these matters he was speaking in the idiom
and with the accent of his own generation. In the two centuries that
have since passed, the sand and gravel and debris have been washed
away, and our hymnals contain the pure gold of his verse for our
edification and delight. Outside of the hymnbooks of the Wesley
brothers, where can we find such a placer mine of spiritual wealth?

At his best Watts wrote hymns of majesty and ecstatic adoration that
have never been excelled:

“Our God, our Help in ages past,
Our Hope for years to come;
Our Shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal Home.”

How he has made the Long Meter measure sound like the great Open
Diapason of the pipe organ in the following lines!

“Before Jehovah’s awful throne,
Ye nations bow with sacred joy;
Know that the Lord is God alone,
He can create, and he destroy.”

What if John Wesley does add a majestic note or two in the foregoing
hymn; the singer of the whole hymn is the noble spirit of little Dr.
Watts.

Had David himself returned with an English tongue, he could not have
reproduced the spirit of the seventy-second Psalm more nobly:

“Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
Doth his successive journeys run;
His Kingdom spread from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.”

Solomon’s coronation song (Ps. 72) was no more majestic than this
crowning hymn Watts wrote for his Lord.

But Watts could not only be majestic; he could be tender:

“When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.”

Is there a tenderer strain in all English hymnody than the third
verse?

“See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?”

Not in the same exquisite vein of noble tenderness, but perhaps all
the more useful for its reduced voltage, is his other hymn of the
Crucifixion,

“Alas! and did my Saviour bleed?
And did my Sovereign die?
Would he devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I!”

Its last verse has deepened the consecration of unnumbered millions as
they sang the sacred vow:

“But drops of grief can ne’er repay
The debt of love I owe;
Here, Lord, I give myself away—
’Tis all that I can do.”

The list of the great hymns that have come down to us from Isaac Watts
is too long to be given here, but they enrich the pages of all our
hymnals and exalt the spirit of all our church services.

The criticism often urged that Watts wrote too much cannot well be
gainsaid, but the striking fact confronts us that most of the great
hymns were written by men who wrote too much! The same is true of the
composers of our greatest music, as, for instance, Mendelssohn and
Handel. Much writing develops technic, ease, spontaneity,
unselfconsciousness, that make the heights of feeling and expression
more accessible. But what Watts needed was not so much to write less,
but to have a competent editor like John Wesley to eliminate his
vulgar and often grotesque lines.

That Watts should find plenty of antagonists to pick up the gauge of
challenge he threw out was inevitable. His hymns were called “Watts’
Whims” in sardonic derision. It is noteworthy that the opposition did
not prove so heated against his hymns as against his _The Psalms of
David Imitated_ (1719). In daring to amend the Judaism of David he had
committed sacrilege! This volume practically closed his work of
reforming the service of song in the English language. He was but
forty-four years old at this time and he lived thirty years more—spent
in theological, educational, and devotional writings.

The hymns of Watts slowly found their way among the Nonconformist
churches. Before his death a large part of the Presbyterian and
Congregational churches were nearly monopolized by them. However, the
Established Church still clung to the Psalm Versions.

VII. CONTEMPORARIES OF WATTS

A contemporary of Watts, Simon Browne (1680-1732) issued a collection
of hymns in 1720, _Hymns and Spiritual Songs_, designed as a
supplement to Dr. Watts, containing one hundred and sixty-six hymns
which had considerable vogue during the next generation. Now only one
hymn, “Come, gracious Spirit, heavenly Dove,” survives in some of our
hymnals.

Another contemporary was John Byrom (1691-1763), scientist and mystic,
whose “Christians, awake, salute the happy morn” is still a Christmas
favorite and whose “My spirit longeth for Thee” is “terse and tender
in a very high degree.”[2] MacDonald speaks of his few hymns as a
“well of the water of life, for its song tells of the love and truth
which are the grand power of God.”

Another hymn writer of Watts’ day was Robert Seagrave (1693-?), who
added fifty of his own hymns to a collection prepared for his own
church at Lorimer’s Hall, Cripplegate, London, all of which had a high
degree of excellence, of which “Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings”
is found in most of our current hymnbooks.

A greater than any of the above was Philip Doddridge (1702-1751), who
was a close friend of Isaac Watts, although nearly thirty years
younger. He wrote three hundred and seventy-five hymns, most of them
as pendants to sermons, recapitulating and enforcing the points of his
discourse. They were not collected and published until four years
after his death. The fine character and high ability displayed by
Doddridge endeared him to many of the most important people of his
day. The devoutness, literary grace, and adaptation to actual use of
his lyrics were immediately recognized. Their distinctly homiletical
character, combined with deep religious feeling and tenderness, and
their varied topics, greatly appealed to ministers, and they were
recognized as second only to Watts. The Church owes some of its most
useful hymns to him: “Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve,” “Grace;
’tis a charming sound,” “How gentle God’s commands,” “O happy day,
that fixed my choice,” “My gracious Lord, I own thy right,” are among
the many found in all our hymnals. His relative standard may be
inferred from the use made of leading hymn writers by Dr. Benson in
his _Revised Presbyterian Hymnal_: Watts 49, Charles Wesley 24,
Doddridge 13.

_Chapter XVI_
THE WESLEYS AND THEIR ERA

I. THE INFLUENCE OF WATTS ON THE WESLEYS

The line of hymnic succession between Watts and the Wesleys was direct
and not through Doddridge, for the latter’s hymns did not appear until
1754. One-half of John Wesley’s _American Collection_, the first
hymnbook published in America, issued in Charleston, South Carolina,
in 1737, after two years’ work in the new Colony of Georgia, consisted
of Watts’ hymns. It goes without saying that Watts’ hymnbooks, with
others like Tate and Brady’s _New Version_, George Herbert’s poems,
the hymns of John Austin, of Henry More, and of Norris of Bemerton,
were so well known, and so appreciated, that copies of them were
included among the books carried to America. In early manhood they met
the already elderly Watts, and as they walked they sang together.
Indeed, with Dr. Benson we may “infer that Watts’ _Psalms and Hymns_,
in connection with Tate and Brady’s _New Version_, furnished the
materials for the singing of the ‘Holy Club.’”

It is evident from the list of hymnbooks, and from the list of
Wesley’s selections for his _American Collection_, that Watts was not
the only influence that gave the impulse and fashioned the Wesleyan
ideals of the public song service. It is noteworthy that Barton and
Mason were not included. The High-Church Anglican Wesleys were not so
prejudiced against Watts’ Nonconformist hymns as to exclude them.

II. THE HOME OF THE WESLEYS

With the Wesleys perhaps the strongest influence was that of the
family and the home. Their grandfather, John Wesley, was a
Nonconformist clergyman, and, what is more to the point, a poet. Their
father, Samuel Wesley, was quite a voluminous poet (sixteen volumes),
owing his Epworth rectorship to Queen Mary’s approval of his _Life of
Christ, an Heroic Poem_. One of his hymns, “Behold the Saviour of
mankind,” still appears in some of our current hymnals.

Their maternal grandfather was Rev. Samuel Annesley, LL.D., a
scholarly Nonconformist clergyman. Their mother, Susanna Annesley, is
recognized as a woman of extraordinary force of character, organizing
ability, and intense piety, the “Mother of Methodism,” and even more
gifted than her gifted but less steady and dependable husband. It will
be noted that both grandfathers were dissenting clergymen.

The Epworth rectory life was intellectual, intensely devout, and full
of the singing of psalms and hymns, for it was “a nest of singing
birds.” When students at Oxford, John and Charles used to walk out
into the meadows and sing songs and hymns together.[1]

III. THE MORAVIAN INFLUENCE

As we shall see, another extremely important influence was that of the
Moravians on their personal religious experience, which under the
Moravian guidance, on the Atlantic voyage and later, became intense
and profound, furnishing tremendous motive power for all their work.
The Moravian missionaries brought the realization of the power the
Christian hymn can wield, and of the deep spirituality it may be used
to express. It was not only the hymns the Moravian brethren sang that
impressed John Wesley, but the spirit and genuineness of feeling with
which they sang.

IV. JOHN WESLEY

John Wesley was born at Epworth in 1703. He inherited his mother’s
organizing and administrative ability, no less than her deep religious
nature. He was to Methodist hymnody what John Calvin was to the
Reformed psalmody, its initiator and director. He added a critical
power and a practical sense of relation of means to ends his younger
brother lacked—Charles Wesley wrote the hymns and John winnowed and
edited them. At Oxford he was called the “Father of the Holy Club.”
His aggressive spirit drove him to Georgia as a missionary, where he
was a misfit, but where he was subjected to needed spiritual
discipline, and to the influence of the Moravian pietism and
absorption in spiritual things, so valuable for his symmetrical
preparation for his future work. It led to his conversion—or, if you
prefer, to his baptism of the Holy Spirit—and that of Charles, in
1738, which opened out to them both a new spiritual dimension. It also
led to his interest in the Moravian “Gesangbuch,” or hymnbook, from
the German of which he translated several hymns for his _Charleston
Collection_. On his return to England he took an early opportunity to
visit Herrnhut, Saxony, the parent society of the connection. He was
delighted with the atmosphere of piety and Christian song which he
found there. His pietistic and mystical tendencies were greatly
strengthened by his intercourse with Count Zinzendorf and Rothe whom
he there met.

On his return to London John Wesley kept up his association with the
Moravian brethren for some time; but his active temperament could not
long be content with their quiet, contemplative attitude, nor could he
overcome his dislike for the emphasis they placed on the merely
physical aspects of the life and death of Christ which they had
brought over from the Roman Catholic mystics. So they presently parted
company to the advantage of the aggressive spirit the Wesleys were
developing.

John Wesley was a scholarly man who had acquired all the culture of
seven generations of intellectual family life and of the literary
training of a great English university. He had the critical faculty
well developed, a nice sense of the value of words, and the ability to
marshal them for the expression of his thoughts. His sermons and his
theological treatises reveal his logical and analytical mind. His
feelings were strong, but not of the effusive character.

With this type of mind, it was not strange that as a hymn writer he
would succeed better as a translator than as an original hymnist. His
important contribution, therefore, consisted of translations from the
German of Tersteegen, Gerhardt, Scheffler, Spangenberg, and
Zinzendorf, and the amendment or even recasting of hymns by Watts, or
of poems by George Herbert. Perhaps his greatest work in hymnody lay
in encouraging as well as editing the work of his younger brother,
Charles.[2]

In John Wesley’s plans to elevate the degraded population of England
both spiritually and mentally, the hymn bears an important part. His
keen and critical literary faculty was brought to bear upon its
cultural as well as spiritual aspects, and his drastic corrections and
revisions, as well as his translations, did much to lift the hymnody
of his age to a higher literary plane.

V. CHARLES WESLEY

Charles Wesley was born at Epworth in 1707, being four and a half
years younger than John. He inherited a full portion of the family
religious nature, but with his mother’s mental energy he combined a
double portion of the Wesley poetic temperament. With less of the
rigid will of his older brother, he had a more sensitive spirit, a
more emotional nature, a greater literary impulse. Critics scold that
he wrote too much.[3] As well scold the mockingbird for being so
prodigal of its notes or that it occasionally merely twitters.

When he “got religion,” his religion made him sing. Did he rejoice?
His joy found utterance in a joyous hymn, “O for a thousand tongues to
sing.” Had he trials? What more natural than a hymn of prayer, “My
God, my God, to Thee I cry”? Was there a riot about him? A hymn of
steadfastness, “Thou hidden Source of calm repose,” sang in his heart.
The impulse to write was not always accompanied by creative insight,
so, of course, he wrote inferior hymns. The urge to write was too
spontaneous that it should wait for the critical attitude. Let John
supply that! Charles had the joy of writing and John winnowed the
product. There was chaff, of course, but the golden wheat cannot grow
without chaff.

It must not be assumed that Charles was only a hymn writer.
Immediately on his conversion, he began to preach the need of the new
birth, and for fifteen years he vied with John in field work in behalf
of the new movement. With his background, his culture and education,
his poetic nature and wealth of vocabulary and depth of experience,
Charles might be expected to preach a vivid, glowing, flaming
message—and such was his style. His meetings carried him into all
parts of England, Wales, and Ireland.

What a team the Wesley brothers were! John with his masterly logical
sermons and profound theological writings, Charles with his hymns and
his sermons aflame with feeling, the Annesley organizing instinct in
both of them. What a spiritual force they set in motion that
transformed the spiritual and moral life of England and saved its
soul—nay more, it swept around the whole earth, and determined the
character of nations yet waiting to be born.

VI. CHARLES WESLEY’S HYMNS QUITE SUBJECTIVE

By the necessities of the situation, by the character of the work, and
by his own temperament, Charles Wesley was led to write subjective,
emotional hymns, keeping personal experience to the fore. But his
emotionality was not shallow sentiment, but spontaneous and genuine
feeling, based on clear recognition of the actual truths of the
Scriptures. In a very intense way he had actually experienced the
sorrow for sin, the joy of salvation from its guilt and power,
complete assurance of divine acceptance, the longing for divine
communion, the sense of the love of God as it planned and fashioned
his inner as well as his outward life, the certainty of safety from
the power of sin in sanctification. He could write affecting
invitations to sinners, for he knew their condition and danger, and
also the results of peace and joy, of power and efficiency, that the
acceptance of Christ would bring. The truths of the Gospel in passing
through the crucible of his personality acquired an actuality, a
poignancy of appeal, that made his hymns a mighty power, not only in
the immediate campaigns of the Wesley brothers, but in the life and
work of the Church in the generations to come.[4]

VII. WATTS AND CHARLES WESLEY

That was the difference between Wesley and Watts. The latter was
objective, reasonable, formal. The majesty of a sovereign God appealed
to him. He delighted in the infinite perfections of the divine nature.
He surveyed the wondrous cross. He trembled before it, as did the
children of Israel before the Holy Mount. His attitude was that of the
Old Testament. Watts viewed the sovereignty of God objectively; Wesley
felt the facts of salvation as actual experiences.

Charles Wesley was subjective; he expressed the feelings that the
truths of the Gospel produced in him.[5]

God to him also was great, but as a Saviour, companion, friend. Why
should he tremble? He was not Moses viewing the burning bush, but John
leaning on the breast of Jesus. He shared the ecstasies of the
apostles and disciples portrayed in the New Testament.[6]

So Watts gives dignity and majesty to the early topics of our
hymnbooks on the attributes of God, his worship, the awe of the soul
in the presence of its sovereign Lord in hymns like “Before Jehovah’s
awful throne,” “Great God! how infinite thou art,” “I’ll praise my
Maker while I’ve breath,” “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun,” “Our
God, our help in ages past,” while Charles Wesley fills the sweeter,
tenderer, more intimate departments of salvation, forgiveness,
communion with God, with the odor of the spikenard of his heart in
hymns like “Depth of mercy! can there be,” “I know that my Redeemer
lives,” “Jesus, Lover of my soul,” “Love divine, all loves excelling.”
How well these singers of the Lord’s song supplement each other, and
how much more symmetrical and complete are our hymnals because both
have written in their own lines and styles!

Which is the greater hymn writer? That is a mooted question that need
not be decided here. In Scriptural content the older man is superior,
as, at his best, he is in majesty of style. For formal services of
worship his hymns are more fitting and impressive. On the other hand,
Wesley was superior in quantity and in the number of hymns of high
quality. It must be granted that he is more poetical, more graceful,
more suave and human. His range is more extensive, his emotion deeper
and more noble. In immediate results on the lives of the people
Charles Wesley is incomparably richer than Watts, for his hymns then
and since turned multitudes unto righteousness.[7]

VIII. THE ISSUES OF THE WESLEYAN HYMNS

Space is wanting, and the profit would be slight, to give a catalogue
of the sixty-four original issues of hymns that John published from
1737 to 1790, the mass of them for the use of the evangelistic
campaign. They were largely occasional, issued to meet a pressing but
only temporary need. They varied from a single sheet containing but a
single hymn (Charles Wesley’s hymn praying for his brother’s long
life) to the two volumes with two thousand and thirty short hymns on
Scripture passages. It was not until 1780 that a regular hymnbook “for
the use of the people called ‘Methodists’” was issued, containing five
hundred and twenty-five hymns.

IX. THE METHODIST TUNES

So practical a mind as that of John Wesley, who had from childhood
engaged in sacred song, would not be expected to overlook the great
importance of the tunes to which the new hymns were to be sung. In
1742 he printed a _Collection of Tunes_ in which only three of the
_Old Version_ tunes appeared. Tunes were freely borrowed from the
musical _Supplement to the New Version_, six were secured from German
Moravian sources, and a few were new. Tunes were later supplied by
Handel and Lampe; popular melodies which the Wesleys picked up in
their preaching tours were also adopted.

Some twenty years later fugal tunes became popular among the churches,
but became known as “Old Methodist Tunes,” although they had never
been officially recognized and had first been written in Scotland.

When we regard the quantity and quality of the Wesleyan hymns, or
their adaptation to the spiritual and evangelistic purposes for which
they were written, or the body of teaching they conveyed, or the
spiritual fervor they created and are still creating in millions of
souls, or the influence they exerted on all subsequent hymnody, we do
not find the sweeping statement of Dr. James Martineau, the Unitarian
divine and hymnbook editor, as exaggerated: “After the Scriptures, the
_Wesley Hymn Book_ appears to me the grandest instrument of popular
religious culture that Christendom has produced.”

X. INFLUENCES OPPOSING THE WESLEYAN HYMNS

The contemporary prejudice against the Wesleyan hymnody was very
strong and bitter. There were many influences against them: the
conservative devotion to the psalm versions, “New” and “Old,” the
Nonconformist loyalty to the psalms and hymns of Watts, the
Established Church’s resentment against the revolters against
established rule and custom within her bounds, the formalist objection
to what seemed to them the fanatical, extravagant, and effusive type
of piety, the emotional, subjective, experiential style of the hymns,
and (worst of all!) the low social class that constituted the bulk of
the followers of the Wesleys. The result was that both in Great
Britain and in America the Wesleyan hymns crept very slowly into the
hymnbooks of the churches outside the Methodist movement. It was many
years before any appeared in the English church hymnals; even when
they did, Charles Wesley’s name did not appear with them; it even
happened that other writers were credited with them. In America, where
the Methodists were the Salvation Army of their day, the Wesleyan
hymns were slow of recognition. This was partly due to the general,
almost fanatical, devotion to Watts’ hymnody.

The Arminian attitude of the Wesleys, as against the rigid Calvinism
of both the Established and the Nonconformist churches, led to acrid
theological discussions that intensified the opposition to the
movement they headed. Even among those favorable to the spiritual
reformation was there an element antagonistic to the Wesleys.
Whitefield, Toplady, and the Countess of Huntingdon were leaders in
this revolt.

The fact that Charles Wesley rather monopolized the writing of hymns
undoubtedly had its adverse influence. John Wesley did not encourage
others to write.[8] This accounts for the fact that comparatively few
of their immediate associates wrote hymns, and some of these drifted
into other relations. What else could a man expect who fearlessly
amended, revised others’ hymns, and then warned the general hymnbook
maker regarding the Wesleyan hymns as follows: “Hymn-cobblers should
not try to mend them. I really do not think they are able.”

XI. OTHER METHODIST HYMN WRITERS

Among these transient supporters was Edward Perronet (1726-1792) of
Huguenot stock. He wrote “All hail the power of Jesus’ name,” which
makes so noble a climax for many of our services. For a time he was a
preacher in the Wesleyan connection. He then adopted Calvinistic
views, and joined the forces of the Countess of Huntingdon, preaching
under her direction. His caustic Gallic wit, exercised against the
Established Church, offended his patroness and he became the pastor of
a small congregation of dissenters.

Another associate of the Wesleys was Thomas Olivers (1725-1799), who
had small educational advantages, but was an indefatigable worker. One
of his hymns has kept its place in our hymnals, “The God of Abraham
praise.” Montgomery says of it: “This noble ode, though the essay of
an unlettered man, claims special honor. There is not in our language
a lyric of more majestic style, more elevated thought, or more
glorious imagery.”

John Bakewell, the head of a prominent academy at Greenwich, was a
local preacher of whom his tombstone, near to that of John Wesley in
the cemetery of the City Road Chapel, records that “he adorned the
doctrine of God, our Saviour, 80 years and preached his Gospel 70
years.” He is remembered by the hymn, “Hail, Thou once despised
Jesus,” which is found in most of the current hymnals.

XII. CALVINISTIC-METHODIST HYMN WRITERS

There were no poetic restraints felt by the adherents of the
Calvinistic wing of the Methodist movement as met the associates of
the Wesleys, and the number of hymn writers in its ranks is larger.

William Williams (1717-1791), “the Watts of Wales,” spent his life in
working in the Welsh Calvinistic-Methodist connection. Early in his
career the need of appropriate Welsh hymns was so pressing that
recourse was had to a sort of Eisteddfod of hymn-writing in which he
easily won first honors. He was an indefatigable preacher, taking all
Wales for his parish. His chief claim to immortality is his hymn,
“Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,” originally written in Welsh, but
soon used in the Whitefield Methodist Connection in England. His
missionary hymn, “O’er the gloomy hills of darkness,” while not so
popular, has had a wide use.

John Cennick (1718—1755) was originally associated with the Wesleys as
a preacher, but the burning question of Calvinism separated them and
he became associated with Whitefield and later with the Moravians. Two
hymns of his were extremely popular both in Great Britain and in the
early years of Methodism in America: “Jesus, my all, to heaven is
gone,” and “Children of the heavenly King.” The former was used as the
verse basis of a great many “spiritual” choruses in pioneer times. His
“Lo! He comes with clouds descending” was reshaped and rewritten by
Charles Wesley and Martin Madan. The literary quality of his hymns is
not high, but their sincerity and adaptation to universal Christian
experience give them practical value.

Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-1778) was associated with the Wesleys
and with the Calvinistic-Methodist leaders, but was a Church of
England clergyman. He wrote four hundred and nineteen hymns; only a
few continue in use. Notable among these is “Rock of Ages, cleft for
me,” which has been almost universally used and most mercilessly
amended and revised. It has been translated into many languages:
Gladstone having translated it into Latin, Greek, and Italian.

Montgomery says of Toplady’s hymns: “There is a peculiarly etherial
spirit in some of these, in which, whether mourning or rejoicing,
praying or praising, the writer seems absorbed in the full triumph of
faith.” Another hymn of Toplady’s, “Deathless principle, arise,” has
been characterized as “almost peerless,” but it is rather a reading
hymn.

XIII. BAPTIST HYMN WRITERS

While the Methodists were enriching the hymnody of the Christian
Church, the Baptists were not idle. The second reformation of England
did not leave them unaffected, even though they were not officially
associated with it.

Their chief hymn writer was Anne Steele (1716-1778), an invalid of
great spirituality and piety and of much literary felicity as well as
facility. She wrote one hundred and forty-four hymns and thirty-four
versions of psalms. Her hymns are meditative in style, graceful and
gentle in spirit. She is best remembered by her hymn of resignation,
“Father, whate’er of earthly bliss.” Other hymns still widely used are
“Now I resolve with all my heart,” the hymn regarding the Scriptures,
“Father of mercies, in Thy word What endless glory shines,” and the
(for her) enthusiastic hymn of praise to Christ, “To our Redeemer’s
glorious name.” Her vogue in America at one time was very great.

John Fawcett was another Baptist hymnist of note. He issued one
hundred and sixty-six hymns, three of which are standards in our day:
“How precious is the book divine,” “Lord, dismiss us with Thy
blessing,” and “Blest be the tie that binds.” Besides the duties of a
heavy pastorate at Wainsgate (with a salary of less than two hundred
dollars) he did a great amount of literary work. The third hymn
mentioned above has done more for Christian unity than all arguments
and commissions.

Another hymn writer of note, who may be classed as a Baptist, was
Robert Robinson (1735-1790). Converted under Whitefield’s preaching,
he later took a Baptist pastorate at Cambridge. He was very active in
a literary way. He began a _History of Baptists_ in 1781 which
appeared in 1790, but in spite of laborious research it did not reach
the completeness he desired. Besides eleven hymns of but moderate
value written for Whitefield, he wrote a Christmas hymn, “Mighty God,
while angels bless Thee” and the ever-useful and prayerful “Come, Thou
Fount of every blessing.” This was another favorite basis for
“Spiritual” revival choruses in America. There was a lack of
steadiness in his temperament. After writing _A Plea for the Divinity
of Our Lord Jesus Christ_, he later came under suspicion as a
Unitarian and Socinian.

Samuel Medley was a midshipman in the navy, but being sorely wounded
in a terrible naval battle off Cape Lagos, he refused to continue as a
naval officer. During his recovery he was soundly converted under the
influence of his grandfather Tonge. After being at the head of a
school for a time, he accepted a Baptist pastorate. Medley wrote a
number of hymns, of which “O could I speak the matchless worth,”
“Awake, my soul, to joyful lays,” “I know that my Redeemer lives,” and
“Mortals, awake, with angels join,” are still found in most of our
hymnals. He claimed no literary merit for himself, but his hymns have
found a hearty response in England, and even more in America.

Joseph Grigg (1720-1768) was not a Methodist or a Baptist, but a
Presbyterian. He is further noteworthy as an “infant phenomenon,”
having written a very familiar hymn, “Jesus, and shall it ever be?” at
the age of ten years. He was in humble circumstances at first, “a
laboring mechanic.” He was assistant minister in a prominent London
Presbyterian church for four years, then “married well” and retired,
still writing and preaching. His “Behold, a Stranger at the door,”
with a stirring tune by T. C. O’Kane, has been widely used in America
as an evangelistic hymn with a refrain.

_Chapter XVII_
HYMNS IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

I. RISE OF SPIRITUAL LIFE IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH

Although the Wesleys were Church of England clergymen, the tide of
religious feeling they set in motion could not sweep over the mass of
the population without its waves dashing across all ecclesiastical and
traditional barriers. But John Wesley’s somewhat arrogant spirit, the
extreme methods which he found necessary to reach the lower classes,
so desperately in need of a new religious impulse, above all, his
sharp reaction against the high Calvinistic theology of the Church,
repelled many who had been deeply affected by the Methodist atmosphere
that enveloped them and had felt a new sense of obligation to bring
back their people to a true religious life.

II. EARLY COLLECTIONS OF EVANGELICAL HYMNS

The effectiveness of the spontaneous Methodist singing was evident
enough and the Evangelical ministers of the Established Church felt
the need of collections of hymns that should achieve the same results
without what seemed to them the doctrinal vagaries and emotional
extravagances of the Wesleyan hymns. Nor were they at first willing to
set entirely aside the psalmody that had served the church for so many
generations.

As might be expected, the earliest collections of hymns for use in the
Established churches were largely based on Nonconformist and Wesleyan
materials, since most of their editors, and the churches they wished
to serve, were under the influence of the Countess of Huntingdon, who
in turn was in close touch with the Calvinistic-Methodist movement.

One of the first of the collections of the Evangelical wing was that
of Martin Madan, _Psalms and Hymns_, containing 170 hymns without
order or arrangement, except that sacramental hymns had a department
by themselves. Madan used a free hand in revising and remodeling the
hymns he selected, sometimes for good, frequently for ill. He was
quite a musician, supplying tunes, thirty-three of which were his own
composition, of which “Huddersfield” and “Helmsley” still occasionally
appear in our hymnals. His book was used to a considerable extent and
helped to hasten the introduction of hymns in the Church of England.
Other collections of the same name and type were issued by Berridge
and Conyers.

More important was Toplady’s _Psalms and Hymns_, issued in 1776.
Despite his virulent attacks on the Wesleys, he used quite a number of
their hymns, without credit and drastically revised. His collection
contained 418 hymns, some by Watts and by other Nonconformists. His
revisions were not wholly on doctrinal grounds, but on literary as
well—“God is the God of _Truth_, of Holiness, and of Elegance.
Whoever, therefore, has the honor to compose, or to compile, anything
that may constitute a part of his worship should keep those three
particulars constantly in view.” In this remark, found in his preface,
Toplady anticipated the later period of the literary hymn by Heber,
Keble, and Milman. This collection continued in use for nearly fifty
years.

III. EVANGELICAL HYMN WRITERS

With the exception of this later collection of Toplady these hymnbooks
were mere compilations. The impulse of this Evangelical wing to write
hymns of their own did not long delay. The most notable of these hymn
writers were John Newton (1725-1807) and William Cowper (1731-1800).
They co-operated in the issue of _Olney Hymns_, so called after the
village of which Newton was the curate.

John Newton was born in London. His mother, who was a pious Dissenter,
and had dedicated her boy from his birth to the Christian ministry and
had tried to train him in preparation for this work, died when he was
but seven years old. He grew up to be a wild, profligate, wicked young
man; he speaks of himself as “once an infidel and libertine, a servant
of slaves in Africa.” At the age of twenty-three he again came under
religious influences and became an ardent Christian.

It was not until he was nearly thirty-nine years old that he entered
the ministry of the Established Church, being appointed curate of the
village of Olney. He had always had an impulse, even during his
wildest years, to read and study and to add to his general culture.
Hence, in spite of his vagrant life (having spent eighteen years on
the sea) and his secular pursuits, he came into the ministry with a
rough-hewn education, and a practical and resourceful attitude of
mind, that served him well in his aggressive ministry. His spiritual
experience was deep and intense. He had been in close touch with
Whitefield, the Wesleys, and other leaders in the great evangelistic
movement.

For his work as a curate in the Established Church, the hymns of Watts
lacked the deep personal spirituality for which his own soul sought
expression. The Wesleys supplied that element abundantly, but their
hymnbooks did not express his Calvinistic attitude, nor fit his local
needs. His own urge to write hymns and his intimacy with Cowper, which
undoubtedly seemed a providence, encouraged him to produce Olney
Hymns, which contained 280 hymns by Newton and 68 by Cowper.

Newton sympathized with Watts in his objection to pronouncedly poetic
elements in hymns; in his preface he remarks that “the imagery and
coloring of poetry, if admitted at all, should be admitted very
sparingly.” The book was dedicated to “the use of plain people,” to
promote the faith and comfort of sincere Christians. To secure these,
“perspicuity, simplicity, and ease” were sought. Yet some of Newton’s
best hymns closely approach the best of his friend, the poet Cowper.
Genuine feeling gave lyric wings.

Of his 280 hymns, the most successful in maintaining a place in our
hymnals are: “Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,” “Approach, my soul,
the mercy seat,” “Glorious things of thee are spoken,” “Come, my soul,
thy suit prepare,” “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds,” “Safely
through another week,” “While with ceaseless course the sun,” “One
there is, above all others.” What a noble chaplet of pearls for his
Lord is this amazing contribution by the former “servant of slaves”!

Newton’s famous coworker on the _Olney Hymns_, William Cowper, was the
son of one of the chaplains of George II and was born in Hertfordshire
in 1731. He was frail and shy, and had a very painful experience among
the boys of the Westminster School which he attended for ten years.
Doubtless his later mental affliction was due in large part to the
bullying of his schoolmates. He studied law, but did not find it to
his taste. At the age of thirty-six he moved to Olney, where he met
John Newton, who became his close friend and protector as well as his
leader in the writing of hymns. He co-operated with Newton’s religious
work as lay reader and wrote his hymns for the cottage prayer meetings
that were a feature in Newton’s work.

While his literary work shows no trace of his melancholia, being
cheerful and even humorous, his hymns frequently show traces of it,
notably in “God moves in a mysterious way” and “Oh, for a closer walk
with God.” Newton’s habit of introspection may have influenced him,
and the obscurity of the people and of the occasions for which he
wrote may have given him a sense of freedom in expressing his deeper,
subconscious experience. He was an exceedingly spiritual-minded man.
It was said of him by one who often heard him, “Of all the men I ever
heard pray, none equaled Mr. Cowper.” He had a vivid and intense
experience when he was converted: “For many succeeding weeks tears
were ready to flow if I did but speak of the Gospel, or mention the
name of Jesus. To rejoice day and night was all my employment. Too
happy to sleep much, I thought it was lost time that was spent in
slumber.”

Cowper’s literary work was done after he was fifty years old—indeed,
after his contributions to _Olney Hymns_ had been made. His hymns were
really preliminary studies for his secular work.

Cowper made a very important contribution to the Christian hymnody of
the ages: “God moves in a mysterious way,” “Oh, for a closer walk with
God,” “Jesus, where’er thy people meet,” “Sometimes a light
surprises,” “There is a fountain filled with blood,” “Hark, my soul,
it is the Lord,” which will all survive as long as devout hearts
meditate and sing. _Olney Hymns_ was very widely accepted and had more
to do with the introduction of hymns into Anglican services than any
other hymnbook up to that time. It was speedily reprinted in America
and was very popular there.

Beyond all its Church of England predecessors, it established the
ideal of the hymn as evangelical, as an expression of personal
spiritual experience, as a vehicle for the conveying of spiritual
truth. It was closely akin to the Methodist ideal, but more sober and
sedate, with less of the poetical element. The hymnbook was the
crystallizing force of the Evangelical party and its unifying
discipline. It did not win the co-operation of the whole Church, by
any means, but it prepared the way for the final acceptance of the
hymn as an inherent part of the Church service in that communion.

While the _Olney Hymns_ continued in use by the Evangelical wing of
the Established Church, there continued to be _Psalms and Hymns_
issued by various compilers, Basil Woodd, Simeon Bidulph, Cecil Venn,
and others, all giving increasing attention to the hymns, and
extending their use, in the church service.

IV. HYMN WRITERS OF THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL

If in the actual singing hymn up to this time there had been any
definitely literary quality or poetic spirit, it had been in spite of
a theory that the hymn must be plain and simple and adapted to plain
people, as in those of Watts and Newton, or somewhat unconsciously so
by reason of an imagination vitalized by deep feeling, as in those of
Charles Wesley. The hymn had been a practical religious vehicle for
expressing feeling and impressing truth, not an artistic and a
literary effort.

From this time on the Romantic movement in literature began to affect
the ideal of the hymn. Since the hymn was to become a part of the
religious service, instead of a Nonconformist addition to the sermon,
and since the metrical psalm was to pass away because of its literary
shortcomings and absurdities, it was felt that the opportunity had
come to put a higher literary quality, a more vivid imagination, a
more definitely poetic element into the hymn—hence the literary
singing hymn came into being.

This was all the more opportune, since literature was turning to
religion for its themes. Coleridge issued his _Religious Musings_,
Wordsworth his _Ecclesiastical Sonnets_, Moore his _Sacred Songs_, and
the libertine Byron his _Hebrew Melodies_. In 1807 the literary
remains of the lamented Henry Kirke White, including his ten hymns,
among which was the sublime “The Lord our God is clothed in might” and
his spiritually autobiographical “When marshalled on the mighty
plain,” were edited by Robert Southey. It is also worth while noting
that from 1809 to 1816 Reginald Heber printed his religious poems and
his hymns. In 1827 John Keble’s _The Christian Year_ made its
appearance with its materials for singing hymns. In the same year the
hymns of Bishop Heber and of Henry Hart Milman greeted the Christian
public.

As early as 1809 Heber was considering the use of a hymnal in his
parish church. In 1811 he published four hymns in the _Christian
Observer_ as specimens of a series he was contemplating. He proposed a
hymnbook that should be “a collection of sacred poetry.” He sought the
help of Sir Walter Scott, Robert Southey, and other literary men of
prominence, but only Henry Hart Milman, the great church historian,
responded. The ecclesiastical authorities sympathized, but thought the
church unready for an authorized hymnbook.

After Heber’s death in India in 1826, his widow brought the manuscript
back to England and it was published in 1827—not as a hymnbook,
however, but in the form and style of current poetic issues. In this
book appeared fifty-seven hymns by Heber and twelve by Milman. Having
due regard to its size, it was probably the richest contribution ever
made to Christian hymnody.

After the lapse of a century, his hymns are still in current use, many
of them inevitable in every hymnal whether churchly or popular, such
as “From Greenland’s icy mountains,” “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God
Almighty,” “The Son of God goes forth to war,” “By cool Siloam’s shady
rill,” “Bread of the world, in mercy broken,” “Brightest and best of
the sons of the morning.”

The beauty of Heber’s style was recognized from the first. His hymns
were distinctly literary in flavor, poetically conceived, with varied
rhythms and forms of stanza. But he did not transgress the limitations
of the singing hymn, as had the literary men of a century and more
before, nor did he ignore the practicability of the small number of
verses. The hymns were poems, but they were congregational hymns none
the less. But they might have been all this and yet perished by the
way. It was their deep spirituality, their lucid expression of
Christian truth, transmuted by intense conviction and personal
experience into a personal appeal that was abiding, that have made
them immortal.

Dean Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868) was a brilliant scholar and church
historian and a poet of great reputation. His hymns are strong,
churchly, thoughtful to a high degree, but they lack the poetic charm
of those of Heber. Of the eleven that appeared in Heber’s posthumous
collection, and of others that were printed later, only one, his Palm
Sunday hymn, “Ride on, ride on in majesty,” is certain to be included
in every hymnal. The litany, “When our hearts are bowed with woe,” and
“Oh help us, Lord, each hour of need,” are only occasionally used.

Like Saul among the prophets, we find the author of _Lalla Rookh_,
Thomas Moore (1779-1852), enrolled among our English hymn writers. The
charm of his secular verse and songs is found also in his _Sacred
Songs_, from which his ever-useful and tender “Come, ye disconsolate”
has been taken; it is found in most of our hymnals. Less often do his
“Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea” and “O Thou who driest
the mourner’s tear” find a place. Not directly associated with
ecclesiastical circles and lacking in religious fervor, he yet
deserves a place among distinctly literary hymn writers.

No small factor in the development of the literary hymn was _The
Christian Year_ by John Keble (1792-1866). It was not a collection of
hymns, but a series of poems appropriate to all the several sacred
times and seasons; but out of it were salvaged a number of hymns that
have served the needs of high liturgical churches on special days.
_Hymns Ancient and Modern_, the High-Church hymnal so popular in Great
Britain and its dominions, contains no less than eleven of these
adapted hymns. The Christian Church at large is a grateful debtor to
this devotional poetry for the two hymns, “Sun of my soul, thou
Saviour dear,” the evening hymn, and “The voice that breathed o’er
Eden,” the wedding song. Beyond the value of these excerpts from his
poems was the poetic stimulus that enriches all subsequent hymnody by
raising the literary quality of the ideal hymn.

It was this literary quality of the work of the foregoing writers,
their definite recognition of the liturgic needs of the Church, and
their high church ideals and sympathies, that won the final victory of
the hymn over the metrical psalm in the Church of England. This party
had been the last stronghold in England of metrical psalmody.

V. CONTEMPORARY HYMN WRITERS

Although contemporary with the foregoing romantic school, Thomas Kelly
(1769-1854), originally an Evangelical Church of England clergyman,
later on an Independent, was not particularly influenced by them. He
was an indefatigable hymn writer; his collection of _Scripture Hymns_
finally contained 765 hymns, all original. His ideal was still that of
Watts, Wesley, and Newton—the useful hymn. He had no conscious
striving after literary quality, but, like Newton, frequently rose to
a high standard in this particular when lifted by his theme. He was an
earnest, pious, zealous, enthusiastic preacher, and liberal with his
large wealth. His influence in Ireland was widespread and counted
largely for piety and for evangelistic aggressiveness.

Some of our most widely used hymns are from his pen: “Hark, ten
thousand harps and voices,” “Look, ye saints, the sight is glorious,”
“On the mountain’s top appearing,” “The Head that once was crowned
with thorns,” “Zion stands with hills surrounded.”

Another distinguished contemporary, James Montgomery (1771-1854), was
probably more directly influenced by the literary impulses of the
times. A Moravian layman, the son of a Moravian minister, he was a
professional writer and editor of a secular newspaper of considerable
influence. For years a worldling, he was forty-two years old before he
publicly professed his acceptance of Christ.

He had written quite a good deal of secular poetry up to this time;
now he turned to writing hymns, which he had ceased to do since he was
a boy of fourteen. His poetry was highly appreciated at the time, but
it is now forgotten, although his hymns keep his memory green. He had
served a full literary apprenticeship and had formulated his theories
of the hymn—its character, its content, its limitations—before he
began writing, so that his hymns have an average excellence and
effectiveness that can be paralleled only by those of Bishop Heber.
His critical attitude is very evident in his introduction to his
second book, _Christian Psalmist_: “The faults in ordinary hymns are
vulgar phrases, low words, hard words, technical terms, inverted
construction, broken syntax, barbarous abbreviations that make our
beautiful English horrid even to the eye, bad rhymes, or no rhymes
where rhymes are expected, but above all numbers without cadence.” It
is not surprising that, with this keenly critical approach, he made
many alterations in Cotterill’s _Selection of Psalms and Hymns_, which
he was asked to edit, nor that he almost rewrote the Moravian hymnbook
on which he labored for twelve years.

The list of Montgomery’s widely accepted hymns is very large: _The New
Methodist Hymnal_ has 8, the _New Presbyterian Hymnal_ 9, _Hymns
Ancient and Modern_ (1904 Ed.) 13.

The most widely used of Montgomery’s hymns are: “Angels from the
realms of glory,” “Forever with the Lord,” “Hail to the Lord’s
Anointed,” “Hark the song of jubilee,” “In the hour of trial,” “Prayer
is the soul’s sincere desire,” “Oh, where shall rest be found,” “The
Lord is my Shepherd, No want shall I know.”

VI. MINOR HYMN WRITERS

There are some minor writers in this and the succeeding generation
that deserve passing mention. The man of a single hymn sometimes
strikes twelve.

Among these is John Marriott (1780-1825), a Church of England vicar
whose “Thou, whose almighty word” is in the first rank because of its
dignity and sustained feeling. It is one of our best missionary hymns.

James Edmeston (1791-1867), a London architect, served his day and
generation with hundreds of hymns for adults and children; only one of
them has become a permanent addition to English hymnody, the evening
hymn, “Saviour, breathe an evening blessing.”

Another layman, Sir Robert Grant (1785-1838), was conspicuous in his
day as a statesman, and finally as Governor of Bombay; he was a man of
deep piety and elevation of mind. He wrote a number of thoughtful and
impressive hymns, but he made his most permanent contribution to the
Christian Church’s sacrifice of praise in his noble “Oh, worship the
King, all-glorious above,” which is in the first rank for its noble
poetry as well as its profound devotion.

Another writer of high merit is the butcher’s son, Henry Kirke White
(1785-1806), whose death at the early age of twenty-one years, after
writing at the age of seventeen some poems of such merit as to arrest
the attention of the literary world, was a distinct loss to English
hymnody. How great that loss can be judged from the high quality of
his “The Lord our God is clothed with might,” “Oft in danger, oft in
woe,” and his Christmas hymn, “When marshaled on the nightly plain.”
His struggles with poverty in seeking an education, with skepticism in
finding peace of soul, with dread disease to which he had to succumb,
invest his story with a poignant pathos.

Another hymnist deserving attention was Bernard Barton (1784-1849), a
Quaker banker, twenty of whose hymns came into general use. Two of
them seem to have won a permanent place in our hymnody, “Lamp of our
feet, whereby we trace” and “Walk in the light! so shalt thou
know”—not great hymns, but extremely useful.

Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847) entered the church as a profession, but
presently was led into a deep religious experience by attending the
dying bed of a neighboring clergyman who, too, had looked upon his
work as a means of livelihood. The fruit of this experience was the
hymns that have been so loved and appreciated on both sides of the
ocean. The favorites among them are “Abide with me! Fast falls the
eventide,” “Jesus, I my cross have taken,” “As pants the hart for
cooling streams,” and “Praise, my soul, the King of heaven.” The
pathetic story of his last days has touched the hearts of God’s people
as they have sung his swan song, “Abide with me”—the finest evening
hymn of the Christian church—if it is accepted as an evening hymn.

That a Unitarian, Sir John Bowring (1792-1872), should have written so
noble a hymn about the cross of Christ as “In the cross of Christ I
glory,” expressing all its spiritual implications, can be explained
only by his orthodoxy of heart. His superficial reasonings were the
outgrowth of his early educational and social environment, and were
not in co-ordination with his deeper convictions. He was a voluminous
writer. His extraordinary genius for languages is revealed in his
series of “Specimens” from the poetry of no less than five European
languages. Politically he was even more conspicuous than Sir Robert
Grant, but, like him, his name will be ever revered for a single great
hymn, “In the cross of Christ I glory.” Other hymns in common use are
“Watchman, tell us of the night” and “God is love; his mercy
brightens.”

Josiah Conder (1789-1855), the compiler of the _Congregational Hymn
Book_, wrote fifty-six hymns for it, one of which is very impressive
and worshipful, “The Lord is King! lift up thy voice,” which will
undoubtedly live through coming generations. His other hymns are
uniformly good and of a high literary standard, but with less appeal.

VII. THE HYMNS OF THE OXFORD MOVEMENT

Cardinal Newman held that John Keble was the originator of the Oxford
Movement[1] by his great Assize sermon on “The Great Apostasy”
preached at Oxford, and by his emphasis of the church’s calendar in
his _The Christian Year_; but he can hardly be associated with the
school of hymn writers that grew out of it, for some of them
repudiated the literary hymn entirely.

John Henry Newman (1801-1890) was the leader of the movement back to
the ideals of the pre-Reformation church. He wrote some poetry,
notably “The Dream of Gerontius,” and a few hymns. Of these, “Lead,
kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom” is the most widely known,
because of its attractive music, as he himself testifies. “Praise to
the Holiest in the height” is really a more serviceable hymn for
actual church services.

His disciples, Edward Caswall (1814-1878) and John Mason Neale
(1818-1866), opened new veins of hymnic wealth in their translations
from the Latin and the Greek, with which they greatly enriched the
treasury of sacred song. In the enthusiasm evoked by their success,
the suggestion was seriously made that all the post-Reformation
hymnody be set aside to give way to the medieval and even earlier
hymns!

Caswall devoted himself to the Latin medieval hymns and sequences and
made some surpassing translations, or, if you please,
transformations—e.g., “Jesus, the very thought of Thee,” “The sun is
sinking fast,” “My God, I love Thee, not because,” and “When morning
gilds the skies” from the German. He was a Church of England man, but
in 1847 he entered the Roman Catholic Church, following his leader,
Dr. Newman.

Dr. Neale did not leave the English Church, but was quite prominent in
High-Church circles. He was intensely interested in the liturgics of
his church, which led to his studies of the early Greek church and its
breviaries. He brought to his translations of Greek hymns a literary
skill, a spiritual insight, and a fervor that made him the primate
among those who found their inspiration in these ancient books of
service and breathed into these ancient lyrics the breath of modern
life. Among his most notable successes are: “Art thou weary, art thou
languid?” “Christian, dost thou see them?” “The day is past and over,”
“Fierce was the wild billow,” “’Tis the day of resurrection,” “Brief
life is here our portion,” “Jerusalem the golden.” It must be
remembered that these are not literal translations, but English hymns
made up of ideas suggested by phrases in the originals. Only a poet
imbued with devout feelings, responding to the vague suggestions of
the often obscure originals, could have produced them.

Another disciple of Cardinal Newman who also followed him into the
Roman Catholic Church was Frederick W. Faber (1814-1863), a poet by
the grace of God, a devout Christian, a man of intense convictions,
but somewhat temperamental and impulsive. Among his many good hymns
are: “My God, how wonderful thou art,” “There’s a wideness in God’s
mercy” (sometimes beginning “Was there ever kindest Shepherd”), “O
Paradise! O Paradise,” “Hark, hark, my soul! angelic songs are
swelling,” “Faith of our fathers! living still.” Few that sing the
last-mentioned hymn realize that it refers to the faith of the Roman
Catholic saints and that the hymn had to be cleansed of its Mariolatry
before being used in our Protestant hymnals. Nevertheless, in its
present form it is a very impressive and valuable hymn that has been
redeemed from the propagandist vagary of its original writer.

Still under the influence of the Oxford High, or Anglo-Catholic
Church, we find Mrs. Cecil Frances Alexander, (1823-1895), the writer
of many hymns, especially for children, among which are a number that
promise permanent usefulness: “There is a green hill far away,” “Jesus
calls us, o’er the tumult,” “The roseate hues of early dawn.”

Bishop W. W. How (1823-1897) wrote a number of excellent hymns for his
hymnal, _Psalms and Hymns_, some of which have since found their way
into other hymnals. Perhaps those that have appealed most are “O
Jesus, Thou art standing,” “We give Thee but Thine own,” “O Word of
God incarnate,” “Soldiers of the cross, arise,” “Summer suns are
glowing.” His hymns are thoughtful, devout, and full of tender
feeling; their literary quality is admirable.

A very copious writer of the same generation was Frances Ridley
Havergal (1836-1879), whose devotional poetry touched the heart of her
generation to a remarkable degree. Her pen was quite facile, and not
all she wrote had more than transient value: but some of her hymns the
Christian Church will permanently treasure: “Take my life, and let it
be,” “I could not do without Thee,” “True-hearted, whole-hearted,”
“Lord, speak to me, that I may speak,” “I gave my life for thee.” Miss
Havergal was a woman of profound Christian experience, which is voiced
by her hymns.

Among the later writers is Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1927), voluminous
writer on a variety of topics as well as a fairly popular novelist. He
wrote the stirring “Onward, Christian soldiers” for a local
processional of school children and assured himself of an immortality
by a half hour’s writing that all his laborious literary work would
not have won him. He also wrote an appealing evening hymn, “Now the
day is over,” that Joseph Barnby has made popular by his pleasing
tune, “Merrial.”

In spite of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns and a number of minor
poets, and in spite of a wealth of charming folk songs, to prove that
the spirit of song dwells in the Scottish breast, Scotland has made
but a small contribution to English hymnody. The metrical psalm ruled
the Scotch religious heart with a rod of iron. Only during the last
generation has Scotia almost unwittingly made an important
contribution. Horatius Bonar (1808-1889) was an industrious writer on
many topics. He allowed no hymns to be sung in his church, but by a
strange anomaly he issued three series of _Hymns of Faith and Hope_—in
1856, 1861, and 1866. While these hymns were being increasingly sung
around the world, his church sang metrical psalms! More than one
hundred of his hymns are in common use. Among them are the following:
“I heard the voice of Jesus say,” “I lay my sins on Jesus,” “Go, labor
on; spend and be spent,” “Beyond the smiling and the weeping,” “A few
more years shall roll,” “I was a wand’ring sheep,” “When the weary,
seeking rest.”

Another Scotchman, George Matheson (1842-1906), the blind preacher,
has written, among many others, a hymn whose beauty and mystical
suggestiveness has rapidly given it wide usefulness: “O Love, that
wilt not let me go.” Fortunate in having a very pleasing and effective
tune, St. Margaret by Albert L. Peace, it promises to be a permanent
fountain of blessing.

_Chapter XVIII_
AMERICAN HYMNODY

I. THE TRANSITION FROM PSALMODY TO HYMNODY

The metrical versions used in New England were Ainsworth’s in Plymouth
and vicinity under Pilgrim influence, and Sternhold and Hopkins’,
where Puritan influence controlled. The New England ministers were
scholarly and knew their Hebrew Bible. The Sternhold and Hopkins
version was unsatisfactory, not so much for its literary deficiencies,
but because it was not literal enough, did not reproduce the Hebrew
minutely enough. This led, as we have seen in Chapter X, to the Bay
Psalm Book of 1640, which was widely adopted, although Sternhold and
Hopkins still had its partisans.

These versions could not but find sharp critics among a more or less
scholarly ministry and in time their absurdities weakened their hold
upon the New England churches.

The utter collapse of the congregational singing due to the lack of
tunes in the psalm books, and the absence of competent precentors,[1]
hastened the revolt among some of the Churches against the versions.
Yet the tyranny of “use and wont” kept most of the churches in line,
only a few of them adopting the later version of Tate and Brady.

The interest aroused by the “singing school,” and by the organization
of choirs due to the multiplication of tune books, both English and
American, delayed the abolition of the older metrical versions and
postponed the introduction of Watts’ Imitations and Hymns for several
decades, but the complaints from the larger and more cultured churches
and their scholarly ministers became more vociferous.[2] The
combination of the absurdities of the metrical versions, and those
created by the senseless repetition made necessary by the fugue tunes
then in use, became unendurable.

II. THE INTRODUCTION OF WATTS’ HYMNS

Watts’ _The Psalms of David Imitated_ was very well adapted to serve
as an entering wedge. It brought a certain sanction by making David’s
Psalms the foundation. They were still psalms, not hymns, and so
satisfied to some degree the claims of tradition, and placated those
who would have balked at hymns of “human composure.” Benjamin Franklin
in 1729 was the first to reprint the Imitation, but complained that
the copies remained on his shelves unsold. The demand evidently grew,
for in 1741 he issued a second edition. The first reprint of Watts’
Hymns appeared in 1739 in Boston. Three years later, in 1742, Franklin
reprinted them in Philadelphia, and years later still, they were
republished in New York.

Whitfield’s visit to America and the outburst of singing of the Great
Awakening (1742), with its profound religious experiences that could
find no adequate expression in the Psalms alone, gave Watts’ Hymns a
larger opportunity. In 1744 the singing of Watts’ Hymns was one of the
diversions of the people when they met together.

It was not until after the Revolution that the introduction of Watts’
Psalms and Hymns became general. There were a number of issues with
such abridgments or changes as were made necessary by Watts’
references to British conditions, by Joel Barlow, a patriotic poet,
author of the _Columbiad_, and later U. S. Minister to France, and by
Nathan Strong, Samuel Worcester, and Timothy Dwight, the distinguished
president of Yale College. All these had considerable vogue,
especially the last which contained metrical versions of the Psalms
Watts had omitted and other psalms versified anew. President Dwight’s
“I love Thy kingdom, Lord” appeared as a versification of Psalm 137.
It is a classic, one of the two leading hymns on the Christian Church,
and is rarely omitted in our hymnals. Besides the Psalms it contained
263 hymns, 168 of which were by Watts.

The contentions which had occurred over methods of singing—the
“Deaconing” or lining out of the hymns, the use of choirs, the fugal
tunes—now gave way to differences over the use of various editions of
Watts, or over the use of hymns in church service. The tradition,
happily unjustified now, that the music of the church constituted “the
war department” seems to have been originated during that century of
conflict.

III. THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN HYMNODY

Wherever Watts had been able to overthrow the tyranny of the metrical
versions, he seemed to have instituted a tyranny of his own, to the
detriment of the development of an American hymnody. But here and
there lonesome birds were singing songs of their own, early harbingers
of the springtime of American sacred song.

Samuel Davies, the eloquent President of the College of New Jersey,
now Princeton University, began writing hymns in the middle of the
eighteenth century that were accepted in English hymnbooks before they
became generally known in America. Their quality may be judged from
his hymn of consecration:

“Lord, I am thine, entirely thine,
Purchased and saved by blood divine;
With full consent thine I would be
And own thy sovereign right in me.”

The other verses are equally good, if not superior.

Mather Byles, the brilliant Tory preacher of Boston, was a poet of no
mean pretentions and in close touch with Swift, Pope, and Watts. He
wrote hymns that served their purpose in his day and generation, but
have not been recognized since, partly because of his political
attitude and his advanced views, being one of the first to use Watts’
Hymns in his congregation. His somewhat oratorical style is evident in
his hymn on the greatness of God:

“Who can behold the blazing light?
Who can approach consuming flame?
None but thy wisdom knows thy might;
None but thy word can speak thy name.”

Another early songbird was Samson Occom, the Mohegan Indian, who
raised the money in England which later became the financial nucleus
of the present Dartmouth College. His autobiographical hymn, “Waked by
the Gospel’s joyful sound,” was widely used in England and translated
into Welsh, among whom it was used in their revivals and “led many
hundred sinners to the cross of Christ.”

Harry Alline (1748-1783) was the most copious hymn writer of that
early day, his _Hymns and Spiritual Songs_ containing four hundred and
eighty-seven Hymns, all from his own pen. His

“Amazing sight, the Saviour stands,
And knocks at every door!
Ten thousand blessings in his hands
To satisfy the poor,”

was quite a favorite for many years, but was finally submerged in the
larger tide of sacred song that sprang up through the years.

The scholarly and eloquent Nathan Strong in his _Hartford Selection_
used several hymns of his own. His patriotic hymn, “Swell the anthem,
raise the song,” has had a long life of wide usefulness.

While Watts still reigned supreme during the next quarter of a
century, the impulse and the ability to write acceptable hymns was
rapidly developing. Eccentric Elder John Leland (1754-1851) among a
lot of almost amusing trash wrote an evening hymn that had very wide
acceptance. Dr. Duffield characterizes it as a “classic in its
unpretending beauty,” and Dr. Charles S. Robinson esteemed it so
highly as to exclaim, “May it live forever and ever!” Unfortunately
the supply of fine evening hymns is so great that in the competition
Leland’s hymn has fallen by the way. The last verse will enable the
reader to savor its quality:

“And when our days are past,
And we from time remove,
Oh, may we in Thy bosom rest,
The bosom of Thy love.”

How many ministers who sing “Coronation” so heartily are aware that
the composer, Oliver Holden (1765-1844), was a hymn writer as well as
a musician? Yet one of his hymns had a wide use in both America and
England:

“They who seek the throne of grace
Find that throne in every place;
If we live a life of prayer,
God is present everywhere.”

After a long and useful life, it, too, has practically disappeared
from our hymnals.

IV. COLLECTIONS OF AMERICAN HYMNS

By 1824 the evangelistic movement, partly a heritage from the Great
Awakening, partly due to the Methodist aggressiveness, and partly to
the religious needs of a widely scattered and pioneer population, made
it evident that the hymns of Watts and his school, with minds set on
worship in more or less formal services for the edification of the
elect, and ignoring the needs of an urgent discipling, were not fitted
for revival work. Rev. Asahel Nettleton, an evangelistic minister
greatly interested in foreign missions, issued his _Village Hymns_,
containing six hundred hymns, only fifty of which were by Watts. Some
of Charles Wesley’s hymns were included, but most of these were
credited to other authors. While other English sources were drawn
upon, the book was noteworthy for the American hymns that appeared in
it. Hymns by Davies, Occom, Alline, Strong, and Dwight were used. An
eager quest for new American hymnists was rewarded by contributions
from William B. Tappan (“’Tis midnight; and on Olive’s brow” and “The
ransomed spirit to her home”); from Phoebe Hinsdale Brown (“I love to
steal awhile away”); and from Abby B. Hyde (“Dear Saviour, if these
lambs should stray”).

William B. Tappan (1794-1849) was a largely self-educated man, having
attended school but six months. His hymn “There is an hour of peaceful
rest” was widely published in America and England, and on the
Continent, and used to be inevitable in the hymnbooks of sixty years
ago. His “’Tis midnight; and on Olive’s brow” still holds its place,
though largely descriptive, but none the less impressive and useful.

Mrs. Phoebe Hinsdale Brown (1783-1861) still is represented in most of
our hymnals by her “I love to steal awhile away,” with its pathetic
story of her misunderstood habit of prayer among the scenes of nature.
Greater than the hymn, valuable as it has been, is her contribution to
the progress of Christ’s Kingdom in the work of her missionary son,
Rev. Samuel R. Brown, in China and Japan and that of her grandsons in
the latter country.

But the revival took on an intenser form under the preaching and
praying of Charles G. Finney and, bright as was the spirit of the
_Village Hymns_, it called for something more vigorous and with a
greater appeal to the unsaved people who were to be won, especially in
the music. Rev. Joshua Leavitt, a Congregational minister, a militant
reformer, enemy of intemperance and slavery (a dangerous attitude in
those days), and an ardent believer in the revival work of Finney,
issued his _The Christian Lyre_ in 1830, which created quite a
sensation. Its hymns did not differ much from those of _Village
Hymns_, but it was more practical in that it supplied the music on the
page opposite to each hymn, no small advance on the ponderous tune
book that had to be held in one hand and the hymnbook in the other.
Lowell Mason and Thomas Hastings had been editing these tune books
filled with dull and stupid music, in whose abundant chaff an
occasional grain of gold occurred, which the Christian Church has been
glad to cherish. The music in _The Christian Lyre_ was bright and
popular, being secular melodies the people were singing. Leavitt had
taken a leaf out of the book of the old mass-writers, who used popular
melodies for their descants, and of Luther and Bourgeois, in taking
popular tunes to reach the people. It was an anticipation of Horace
Waters’ policy in his _Sabbath School Bell_ in 1859. It was also an
anticipation of Moody and Sankey’s _Gospel Hymns_, except that Leavitt
had no Fanny Crosby or Lydia Baxter to supply new texts, and no
reserve of popular music by Lowry, Doane, Bliss, and others to draw
upon.

As Horace Waters stimulated Bradbury into developing the popular
Sunday school music, one of whose by-products was the Gospel song, so
Leavitt stirred up Mason and Hastings to begin the issue in 1832 of
_Spiritual Songs for Social Worship_, in twelve parts, more nearly the
archetype of the future _Gospel Hymns_. _The Christian Lyre_ left no
residuum for future generations, but Spiritual Songs, edited by men of
wide experience, in touch with the most cultivated clerical circle of
the day, one of them a hymnist of both facility and felicity, made
important permanent contributions not only to American but to
universal Christian hymnody.

In this collection appeared Thomas Hastings’ “Hail to the brightness
of Zion’s glad morning,” “Gently, Lord, O gently lead us,” “How calm
and beautiful the morn,” “Child of sin and sorrow.” Here also appeared
his enlargement of Thomas Moore’s “Come, ye disconsolate.” Add to
these his tunes “Ortonville,” “Retreat,” “Zion,” “Toplady,” and others
and his other hymns, “Return, O wanderer, to my home,” “Delay not,
delay not, O sinner, draw near,” “The Saviour bids thee watch and
pray,” and it will be seen that Thomas Hastings, even if he is not in
the first rank as hymnist or composer, deserves well of the Christian
Church.

In this same volume of Spiritual Songs first appeared Rev. Samuel F.
Smith’s two great hymns, “The morning light is breaking” and “My
country, ’tis of thee.” He was still a theological student,
twenty-four years of age, when these were written. The theme of the
latter was suggested in a general way by Lowell Mason, who needed a
patriotic song for his children’s singing schools, and who supplied
him with some music he had recently received from Germany. During a
leisure moment his eye fell on “Heil dir im Sieger-Kranz,” the German
“God Save the King,” written to the English tune, “God Save the King.”
This latter fact he did not know, but liked the tune and was moved to
write unknowingly our National Hymn. Sung by Lowell Mason’s children’s
chorus, it was rapidly introduced and was presently _viva voce_
accepted as the long-desired National Anthem. Practically an
improvisation, not intended for wide use, it is open to criticism; but
it is greatly superior to its only competitor for national honors,
“The Star-Spangled Banner,” because of its practicability in singing,
its dignity, and its noble expression of the American spirit. That it
refers to hills and not to prairies, and speaks of “pilgrim’s pride”
(without the capital) is open only to captious criticism.

His “The morning light is breaking” was due to the missionary spirit
that was prevalent in the theological seminaries during that period.
It is the peer of Heber’s “From Greenland’s icy mountains” as a
missionary hymn; many recent critics greatly prefer it.

Another great hymn that made its premier appearance in _Spiritual
Songs_ was “My faith looks up to Thee,” by Dr. Ray Palmer (1808-1887),
set to one of Lowell Mason’s best tunes, “Olivet.” Meeting Dr. Palmer
on the street, Mason asked him whether he had not an appropriate hymn
for his forthcoming book; young Palmer remembered he had some verses
in his pocketbook and handed them to Mason. Meeting Palmer a few days
afterwards on the street, Mason with great earnestness exclaimed: “Mr.
Palmer, you may live many years and do many good things, but I think
you will be best known to posterity as the author of ‘My faith looks
up to Thee!’” The prophecy, so literally fulfilled, speaks well for
Mason’s critical acumen. Ray Palmer, despite Bishop Wordsworth’s
objection to the pronouns of the first person, wrote “My faith,” “I
pray,” “my guilt,” for his hymn was not intended to be sung, but
simply to express his own spiritual experience. It was a personal
prayer none the less that it took a metrical form. It is one of the
great factors in its world-wide appeal that it becomes the personal
expression of every individual who sings it.

But Dr. Palmer was not the author of only a single song: he wrote many
others of almost equal value. Writing a sermon on the words of Peter,
“Jesus Christ, whom having not seen ye love,” he was suddenly
overwhelmed by his rapture of love for the Christ, and, the sermon
forgotten, he wrote down the hymn the church will never allow to die:

“Jesus, these eyes have never seen
That radiant form of thine;
The veil of sense hangs dark between
Thy blessed face and mine.

I see thee not, I hear thee not,
Yet art thou oft with me;
And earth hath ne’er so dear a spot
As where I meet with thee.”

In his dying hour he was heard to repeat with broken voice the last
stanza of this hymn:

“When death these mortal eyes shall seal,
And still this throbbing heart,
The rending veil shall thee reveal,
All glorious as thou art.”

Other important hymns of Dr. Palmer’s are: “Come, Jesus, Redeemer,
abide Thou with me,” “O Jesus, sweet the tears I shed,” “Take me, O my
Father, take me,” “O Christ, the Lord of heav’n, to Thee,” “Come, Holy
Ghost, in love.” His translation of “Jesu, dulcedo cordium,” the Paris
cento of “Jesu, dulcis memoria,” by an unknown Spanish abbess, is most
highly esteemed: “Jesus, Thou joy of loving hearts.” This cento is
made up of selected verses from “Jesu, dulcis memoria,” from which
Edward Caswell took his admirable “Jesus, the very thought of Thee.”

Dr. Leonard Bacon (1802-1881), the son of a missionary among the
Indians of Michigan, is noteworthy in two particulars: he issued, at
the age of twenty-one, the first collection of missionary hymns
printed in America, and he wrote the New England patriotic hymn still
used in our churches,

“O God, beneath thy guiding hand
Our exiled fathers crossed the sea;
And when they trod the wintry strand
With prayer and psalm they worshiped Thee.”

Born in Detroit, he sang the praise of the divine hand that founded
the New England churches.

V. EPISCOPAL HYMN WRITERS

While the Anglican Church remained faithful to the traditional
metrical versions well into the nineteenth century, the American
Episcopal Church was hospitable to hymns much earlier. Already in 1789
the House of Bishops ratified the addition of hymns to the psalter.
From decade to decade the demand for additional hymns grew until in
1823 William A. Muhlenberg, a rector of Lancaster, Pa., issued his
_Church_ _Poetry_, consisting of psalms and hymns, which was adopted
by the rectors of other Episcopal churches. In 1827 appeared _Hymns of
the Protestant Episcopal Church_, the majority of whose hymns were by
Watts, Doddridge, Steele, and Charles Wesley. Its most distinctive
feature was the new hymns supplied by five Episcopal writers, Dr. H.
U. Onderdonk, Dr. William Augustus Muhlenberg (1796-1877), Bishop
George W. Doane (1799-1859), J. W. Eastburn, and Francis S. Key
(1779-1843).

Of Dr. Onderdonk’s nine hymns one came into general use, “The Spirit
in our hearts.”

Dr. Muhlenberg was more successful, for three of his five are
recognized as a part of American Hymnody: “I would not live alway; I
ask not to stay,” “Shout the glad tidings, exultingly sing,” and the
baptismal hymn, “Saviour, who thy flock art feeding.”

Bishop Doane was represented by two hymns, both of which still find a
place in our hymnals: “Thou art the way; to thee alone,” “Softly now
the light of day.” The latter is one of our most acceptable evening
hymns. Fully as useful is his vigorous missionary hymn, which, with
its very appropriate tune, “Waltham,” by J. Baptiste Calkin, is adding
inspiration everywhere to the cause,

“Fling out the banner! let it float
Skyward and seaward, high and wide;
The sun, that lights its shining folds,
The cross, on which the Saviour died.”

Francis S. Key, the well-known writer of “The Star-Spangled Banner,”
to whom Baltimore has erected an elaborate statue, furnished a fine
hymn of praise, “Lord, with glowing heart I’d praise Thee.”

VI. UNITARIAN HYMNODY

The production of original hymns in New England took a peculiar
course. After Samuel F. Smith, the spirit of praise left the Orthodox
churches and took refuge with the ostensible Unitarians. The reaction
against the rigid and harsh Calvinism was not so much against the
doctrine of the deity of Christ, as against the false corollaries
drawn metaphysically from the noble doctrine of the Sovereignty of
God, as well as the crass, materialistically conceived, conception of
the state of the impenitent dead, that was painted so luridly and
offensively in song as well as in sermon.

Henry Ware, Jr. (1794-1843), was the son of Professor Henry Ware, who
held the chair of Divinity in Harvard College for thirty-five years.
He himself became professor of Pulpit Eloquence and Pastoral Care in
the same institution in 1830. The pastor for thirteen years of a
prominent Unitarian church in Boston, he never wavered in his faith in
the deity of Jesus Christ. How otherwise could he have written that
triumphant Easter hymn:

“Lift your glad voices in triumph on high,
For Jesus hath risen, and man cannot die;
Vain were the terrors that gathered around him,
And short the dominion of death and the grave.”

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), America’s first great poet, wrote
five hymns for Henry D. Sewall’s Unitarian Church hymnal in 1820. He
was a member of the First Congregational Unitarian Church in New York
City. Yet in 1865 he could write a hymn containing the following
stanza:

“Lo! in the clouds of heaven appears
God’s well-beloved Son;
He brings the train of brighter years;
His Kingdom is begun;
He comes, a guilty world to bless
With mercy, truth, and righteousness.”

In 1875 he could still write in a hymn on “The Star of Bethlehem,”

“Yet doth the Star of Bethlehem shed
A luster pure and sweet;
And still it leads, as once it led,
To the Messiah’s feet.”

An even more remarkable Unitarian was Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1809-1894), the great physician, but even greater poet. He had the
reputation of being rather radical in his religious views; he was a
humorist whom human life rather amused than impressed seriously
(though he was tender enough to human suffering), but, when a hymn
seemed an appropriate close for one of his genial essays, he could
write,

“Lord of all being, throned afar,
Thy glory flames from sun and star;
Center and soul of every sphere,
Yet to each loving heart how near.”

But unless in the deeper depths of his soul there still lingered faith
in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, how could he write,

“O Love divine, that stooped to share
Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear,
On thee we cast each earthborn care;
We smile at pain while thou art near.”

Especially that last verse of unshaken faith:

“On thee we fling our burdening woe,
O Love divine, forever dear;
Content to suffer while we know,
Living and dying, thou art near.”

What might not Oliver Wendell Holmes have done for Christian hymnody,
had he had Charles Wesley’s evangelical experience and piety?

Another Unitarian deserving recognition was Edmund Hamilton Sears
(1810-1876), who is not remembered because of his successful pastoral
career of forty years, nor by his theological treatises and religious
writings, but by his two Christmas hymns, perhaps the best written in
America (not forgetting Bishop Brooks’ “O Little town of
Bethlehem”)—“Calm on the listening ear of night” and “It came upon the
midnight clear.” The first was written soon after his graduation from
Harvard College in 1834, and the other in 1849 after he had been in
the pastorate over a decade. Of course, he was a firm believer in the
deity of Christ, else he could not have written these hymns.

After Dr. Ray Palmer, our best American hymnist is John G. Whittier
(1807-1892), who never aspired to such honors! His hymns have been
most deftly extracted from longer poems and, despite their being mere
fragments, are distinctive hymns in progress of thought and structure.
Moreover, they are the very choicest passage in these longer poems.
The additional marvel is that this Unitarian Hicksite Quaker, who was
not taught to sing hymns in his youth, should have given finer
expression than any other writer to the sense of present intimate
communion with Christ:

“But warm, sweet, tender, even yet
A present help is He;
And faith has still its Olivet,
And love its Galilee.”

VII. LATER ORTHODOX HYMN WRITERS

To this generation George Duffield, Jr. (1818-1888), may be said to
have belonged. His hymn, “Stand up, stand up for Jesus,” is never
omitted from any reputable collection of hymns, liturgic or popular.
He was a foremost figure in the Philadelphia revival of 1857 and 1858,
being associated with Alfred Cookman, the Methodist, and Dudley A.
Tyng, the Episcopalian, whose dying words suggested the hymn.

Old Dr. Lyman Beecher was a giant in his day, but his chief glory was
in his remarkable family of children. While Henry Ward was most
conspicuous in his day, he was hardly more so than Harriet Beecher
Stowe (1812-1896), the author of _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, which, with
Hanby’s _Darling Nellie Gray_, prepared the heart of the North to buy
at a tremendous cost of treasure and blood the Emancipation
Proclamation. But Mrs. Stowe is not simply a historic character whose
work is done; she is living still in her hymns, notably the exquisite
morning hymn, “Still, still with thee, when purple morning breaketh,”
a fitting mate for Lyte’s evening hymn, “Abide with me; fast falls the
eventide.”

Mention should be made of Anna Warner (1820-1915), whose children’s
hymn, “Jesus loves me, this I know,” set to Bradbury’s simple
pentatonic melody has girdled the globe. Other hymns by Miss Warner
are “One more day’s work for Jesus” and “We would see Jesus; for the
shadows lengthen.”

Among later American hymn writers is Mary Artemisia Lathbury
(1841-1913), who wrote “Break Thou the bread of life” (not a communion
hymn, by the way) and “Day is dying in the West,” with William F.
Sherwin’s tunes, which are to be found in all our hymnals and which
are very tender, very useful.

The American Episcopal Church has supplied some admirable hymns
through Bishop Arthur Cleveland Coxe (1818-1896), who wrote “Oh, where
are kings and empires now,” the almost apocalyptic “We are living, we
are dwelling,” and the missionary “Saviour, sprinkle many nations,”
all hymns of high worth; and Bishop Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), whose
“O little town of Bethlehem” is a favorite Christmas carol.

Mrs. Frances Crosby Van Alstyne (1820-1915), familiarly known as
“Fanny Crosby,” would be the premier hymn writer of America if the
criteria were quantity and wideness of use. There can be no question
as to the evangelistic and devotional value of her hymns, whatever
their literary quality or permanent appeal may be. “Safe in the arms
of Jesus,” “Rescue the perishing,” “Blessed Assurance,” “Pass me not,
O gentle Saviour,” “Saviour, more than life to me,” “I am thine, O
Lord, I have heard thy voice,” “Jesus, keep me near the cross,” and
many others will probably be permanent in hymnals and song collections
of a popular and evangelistic type.

Valuable hymns of the same practical gospel song type have been
written by Mrs. Lydia Baxter, Philip Paul Bliss, Annie Sherwood Hawks,
Mrs. Ellen Huntington Gates, Rev. E. A. Hoffman, Miss E. E. Hewitt,
Mrs. C. H. Morris, President J. E. Rankin, D.D., and many others.

Mrs. Elizabeth Prentiss (1818-1878), daughter of the saintly and
greatly beloved Rev. Edward Payson, wrote _Stepping Heavenward_, a
book that stimulated and cheered multiplied thousands and lifted their
spiritual ideals. Of her 123 _Religious Poems_, one has won a
permanent place in our hymnals, “More love to Thee, O Christ.” It is
not a substitute for Mrs. Adams’ “Nearer, my God, to Thee,” but a
complement.

Other writers of single hymns that the Church has used with great
effect are Dr. Washington Gladden’s (1836-1918) “O Master, let me walk
with Thee,” a hymn of Christian service; Dr. Sylvanus Dryden Phelps’
“Saviour, Thy dying love;” Dr. Edward Hopper’s “Jesus, Saviour, pilot
me;” Dr. Joseph Henry Gilmore’s (1834-1918) “He leadeth me, O blessed
thought;” Ernest W. Shurtleff’s (1862-1917) “Lead on, O King eternal;”
Frank Mason North’s (1850-1935) “Where cross the crowded ways of
life”; the second, third, and fourth of the songs just mentioned have
a Gospel song origin.

More recent writers are Rev. Frederick L. Hosmer and Rev. William C.
Gannett in whose _The Thought of God_ are found hymns of deep piety
and strong religious feeling. Room is made for two stanzas of Dr.
Hosmer’s “Found,”

“O Name, all other names above,
What art thou not to me,
Now I have learned to trust thy love
And cast my care on thee?

What is our being but a cry,
A restless longing still,
Which thou alone canst satisfy,
Alone thy fullness fill?”

A more important recent hymn writer is Rev. Louis F. Benson, D.D.
(1855-1930), the editor of the current Presbyterian hymnals. This
history of Christian hymnody cannot close more fittingly than to quote
part of a stirring hymn by this greatest of American hymnologists:

“Forward! singing ‘Glory
To our Lord the King’;
Forward! Trusting only
In the name we sing.
See the day is breaking
And the road points far;
March, with eyes uplifted
To the Morning Star.

Blessed is the Kingdom;
Blessed be the King!
Crowned is every duty
His commandments bring.
Now to serve like soldiers,
Now to work like men;
Oh, to love as God loves
And to conquer then.”

THE SINGING CHURCH

PART III
PRACTICAL HYMNOLOGY

_Chapter XIX_
THE STUDY OF HYMNS

I. IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF HYMNS

It has been said that the two great books which every minister should
study are the Bible and human nature. A third great book may be added,
in which the foregoing two unite in a new combination—the Hymnbook.

In that collection of hymns the truths of the Bible find their
expression in a new form. They are no longer Oriental in spirit, based
upon human experiences under different conditions and in a different
intellectual atmosphere, but modern, and strong with a fresh vitality.
They have passed through the crucible of intense personal feeling and
experience, and have been recast in forms more comprehensible to a
different race and to a different age.

Next to his library of comment upon the Bible, and of exposition of
its doctrines, should be that of the minister’s hymnological books
giving the history, the illustrations, and the methods of making
effective the hymns he uses in his congregation.

II. PERSONAL ADVANTAGES OF SUCH STUDY OF HYMNS

The first line of the study of hymns should be contributory to his own
personal development.

_Literary Pleasure._

A great delight awaits the minister of cultivated taste and
sensibility, for there are not only ten really good hymns, as a famous
literary doctor[1] once insisted, but hundreds of them, whose
distinction and beauty of phraseology, whose fresh and orderly
development of ideas, and whose elevation and glory of thought give
unfailing literary pleasure. How can one read Harriet Beecher Stowe’s
“Still, still with Thee,” that best of American morning hymns, without
exquisite delight?

“Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh,
When the bird waketh, and the shadows flee:
Fairer than morning, lovelier than daylight,
Dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with Thee.”

Prominent among these literary hymns will be that hymn of majestic
praise by Sir Robert Grant:

“Oh, worship the King, all-glorious above,
Oh, gratefully sing his power and his love;
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of days,
Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.

Oh, tell of his might, oh, sing of his grace,
Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space:
His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,
And dark is his path on the wings of the storm.”

Here are majesty and beauty of thought, flawless phraseology, and
musical numbers. No editor has found excuse to alter or amend it.

Even Isaac Watts, who boasted his freedom from literary trammels and
who illustrated that freedom all too often and too perversely, proved
his latent poetic powers in the noble poetry of

“Our God, our Help in ages past,
Our Hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.”

That the literary quality of Adelaide A. Procter’s hymn, “My God, I
thank Thee who hast made,” is high no one would deny:

“My God, I thank Thee, who hast made
The earth so bright,
So full of splendor and of joy,
Beauty and light;
So many glorious things are here,
Noble and right.”

The minor chord in the third verse but renders more poignant the high
glory of her praise:

“I thank Thee more that all our joy
Is touched with pain;
That shadows fall on brightest hours,
That thorns remain;
So that earth’s bliss may be our guide,
And not our chain.”

There is a mine of inestimable literary wealth awaiting the search of
discriminating taste.[2]

_Literary Culture._

But many ministers of limited native susceptibility to literary and
poetic beauty, and perhaps of none too efficient literary
opportunities, will not be able at once to enter into the delight of
the literary qualities of hymns. All the more will it be important for
them to study their hymnal for the sake of its opportunity for
deepening their capacity for enjoying literary values. Their
imaginations need to be stimulated. Their response to the charm of
musical phrases, to the clearness and lucidity of the thought
expressed, to the fitness of the unexpected and pleasing metaphors
used, to the nice selection of the words employed to weave a garb of
beauty for the message the hymn is intended to convey, can be and must
be developed, if not only the proper appreciation of the hymns but
also their highest efficiency as preachers are to be secured.

Few preachers realize the importance of this literary culture; yet,
apart from his deity, Jesus Christ was the greatest literary man the
race has developed. His parables, his similes, his aptness of phrase,
his wit, his clearness of style, despite the great topics on which he
discoursed, cannot be paralleled in any literature. The literary value
of the Gospels is one of the reasons of their agelong and race-wide
appeal.

The effort of the preacher to sensitize his mind and spirit, in order
to appreciate what his hymnal offers, will give him more of the
extraordinary winsomeness of his Master’s style.

While not all hymns are distinctly literary in style and vocabulary,
most of them have some poetical and imaginative qualities, and a great
many of them have marked literary value. A careful canvass of these
values will develop literary discrimination and taste. Hymns like
Keble’s “Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear” and Heber’s “Brightest and
best of the sons of the morning” must stimulate genuine literary
appreciation. To segregate carefully in his mind the genuinely
literary hymns—those that are full of imagination, symmetrical in
structure, gracious in phraseology—will be a literary exercise of
inestimable value.

_Development of Emotional Nature._

But the finest literary discrimination and the highest literary
delight cannot be secured without an emotional responsiveness that
ministers do not always bring to their reading of hymns. But this
emotion must not simply be poetic, it must be spiritual, based on an
actualization of the profound spiritual truths expressed in the hymns.

The most common fault among ministers is an aridity of mind, a dryness
of feeling, a habit of abstract, academic thinking which have no
response to the emotional values in the doctrines they preach. It is
the secret of many an empty church, of many a barren pastorate.

To some men who lack emotional and poetic insight, the hymnbook may
appear dry and uninteresting. It certainly is unappealing to the
unspiritual man, no matter how poetical he may be, and this will
account for the occasional attack upon the hymns of the Christian
Church as being without poetical power or merit. But the Christian
minister, who deals with spiritual things, for whom the emotions of
the human heart are a great opportunity, ought to find in the study of
his hymnbook a great deepening of emotional intuition.

Here he comes in touch with the saints of the Church who have risen to
the greatest heights of spiritual insight, and who have sung because
the feelings within them were so impelling that they could not do
otherwise than sing. His own deficient emotion and his own dull
insight into spiritual truth are here inspired and stimulated until he
too stands upon the mountaintop. For his own spiritual edification,
therefore, there is nothing, outside the Bible, so likely to be of
spiritual help as the hymnbook. When he is discouraged, its hymns of
inspiration and encouragement cannot but lift the cloud. When his
heart is dull, and his vision of his Lord obscured, such hymns as
“Jesus, I love Thy charming name,” by Philip Doddridge,

“Jesus, these eyes have never seen
That radiant form of Thine,”

by our own Ray Palmer, or

“Jesus, the very thought of Thee
With sweetness fills my breast,”

by that unknown saintly abbess of the Middle Ages, surely will once
more set his spiritual pulses in motion and thrill him with the
vitalizing vision of his Lord.

It is with this emotional attitude alone that a minister should study
his hymns; otherwise, he will fail in realizing any of their values.
To come to them coldly dissecting them with knife and scalpel is to
miss their beauty, their spiritual appeal. The minister who prays over
his sermon would do well to pray with equal fervency over the hymns he
studies and selects. If he vitalizes them for himself, that fresh
vision of their meaning will reach the congregation directly and
indirectly.

III. THE PRACTICAL VALUES OF INDIVIDUAL HYMNS

Not the least important consideration in the study of hymns is clearly
to envisage their several effective values. To know the literary worth
and the spiritual stimulus of a given hymn is most desirable; but to
realize what spiritual results it is fitted to secure, and how, is
even more important. Each hymn has its individual force, its
individual adaptation to definite mental and spiritual results; for
the minister not to recognize these varying effects is like the
failure of a physician to know the differing reactions of baking soda
and strychnine. To announce “All hail the power of Jesus’ name,” when
the situation calls for the tenderness of “How sweet the name of Jesus
sounds,” is malpractice none the less that it is so frequently done.

_Classifying Hymns by Their Nature._

It will be helpful to classify hymns, deciding to which group each one
belongs. Some are purely didactic, bearing instruction rather than
emotion. Others are meditative, combining elements of instruction and
personal experience. Another class expresses personal experience and
the resultant emotion; such hymns may be tender or joyous or even
exultant. Taking another step upward, we find hymns of inspiration and
exhortation, fundamental expressions of faith and enthusiasm. Rising
high above all the foregoing are the hymns of worship and adoration,
thanksgiving and praise.

This is the primary process in evaluating the practical possibilities
of hymns. It is in these pigeonholes of his memory that the minister
finds the hymn called for by a given situation.

_Classifying Hymns by Their Fitness for Definite Purposes._

Then there is the classification of fitness for different purposes,
organizing them according to the particular work each is fitted to do.
Some hymns are distinctly liturgical, fitting only into a solemn and
stately service by the great congregation—e.g., Faber’s “My God, how
wonderful Thou art,” Watts’ “Before Jehovah’s awful throne,” or
Tersteegen’s “Lo, God is here: let us adore.”

In a less formal class are Van Dyke’s “Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee,”
Grant’s “Oh, worship the King, all-glorious above,” “Praise the Lord!
ye heavens, adore Him,” and many others in which rejoicing in the Lord
takes a less majestic but none the less genuine form, fitting smaller
assemblies and what without derogation may be called ordinary church
services.

Hymns of still another class, represented by Robinson’s “Come, Thou
Fount of every blessing,” Wesley’s “O Love divine, how sweet Thou
art,” Keble’s “Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear,” are still
distinctly worshipful, but have an intimacy of communion in which
tenderness and joy veil the sense of infinite majesty.

The foregoing classes of worshipful hymns are available for the
regular services of the church, although some of them call for a
preparation of the worshipers for their intelligent and sincere
singing. They are helpful to devout people in their approach to the
Triune God.

Jesus Christ is not only God in the fullest, truest sense; he is our
Redeemer, our Mediator, our Sharer of the deeper experiences of the
soul, our Comrade in the march of life, our intimate Friend in time
and eternity. Hence, there are many hymns of praise and adoration of
Jesus Christ that are elevated in mood, even majestic, like Wesley’s
“Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing,” Robinson’s “Mighty God, while
angels bless thee,” Hammond’s “Awake and sing the song,” which will
fit into the most exalted service of worship. There are many others
like “Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all nature,” Medley’s “Oh, could I
speak the matchless worth,” Havergal’s “O Saviour, precious Saviour,”
which are keyed a little lower, but are still most appropriate for an
average church service.

In addition to these there are hymns of communion with Christ, of love
for and delight in him, yea, even of intimate affection, like
Caswall’s “My God, I love Thee, not because,” Newton’s “How sweet the
name of Jesus sounds,” Palmer’s “My faith looks up to Thee,” which are
so fine in feeling, so heartfelt, so intimate, that they require
preparation of the congregation before they can be sung sincerely.
Some of them are so intense, like “I need Thee every hour,” “My Jesus,
I love Thee, I know Thou art mine,” and Palmer’s “Jesus, these eyes
have never seen,” that their use seems limited to assemblies, small or
large, entirely made up of earnest believers. Indeed, there are many
of our intensest hymns of devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ that can
be worthily sung only in prayer meetings where there is profound
emotion to be expressed. Some of them cannot be sung by the general
congregation except when the tide of religious fervor runs high.

Without further analysis, enough has been said to show that in the
practical classification of hymns two major factors must be
considered: the character, depth, and quality of the emotional burden
of the hymn, and the character and the emotional responsiveness of the
people who are expected to sing it. Ignorance of the former and lack
of proper diagnosis of the latter will bring defeat to the minister
who is depending on his hymns for help in securing spiritual results.

IV. THE MINUTE STUDY OF HYMNS

There can be no adequate knowledge of a hymn without a survey of the
whole field of hymnology. It is necessary to understand the character
and limitations of the hymn, to visualize its history and development,
in order to secure its proper interpretation and use. It is
unfortunate that too many ministers are satisfied with this general
knowledge which is, after all, only a preparation for the study of the
individual hymn. It is only in the individual hymn that the point of
contact with practical results is reached. One may know all about
Isaac Watts and yet know so little of his great hymn “When I survey
the wondrous cross” as to announce it at a church banquet before all
the people are done eating! Imagine John, Peter, and the rest munching
dried figs or dates as they stand before the cross on which their
Master is dying!

Only as the individual hymns are fully understood as to their meaning,
and as to the methods required to get that meaning transformed into
experience and character, can hymnology become a practical force.

_Analysis of the Hymn._

1. The first step is the investigation of its structure. The form of
the stanza, the kind of measure used, the proper occurrence of
accents, the schedule of rhymes all are important, controlling the
music and the reading of the hymn.

The logical structure is even more important as governing the
development of thought. Recognition of the relation of the several
verses to the general plan of the hymn will reveal their individual
value and prevent mutilation when circumstances demand omission of
verses. This structure is more evident in didactic and homiletical
hymns, of course, but the progress of thought usually lies near the
surface. The doctrinal teachings should be clearly and explicitly
thought out.

2. There is a logic of emotion more or less paralleling that of
thought. There are ebb and flow of feeling, radical change of feeling,
one feeling merging into another, that must be recognized. The
climaxes of interest in the succeeding verses, rising higher and
higher and culminating in the supreme climax of the last verse, should
be noted that they may be expressed in the reading and the singing.
This recognition of the emotional character of the hymn is absolutely
essential to its real effectiveness. The hymn is fundamentally an
expression of emotion, and only as such has it practical value.

3. After this general analysis of the structure and thought and of the
general emotion of the hymn, there will need to be a study of its
detailed phrases. The minister ought to study it line by line and
phrase by phrase. The Scriptural allusions need to be located and
their connections noted. What did Charles Wesley mean in his great
hymn, “Love divine, all loves excelling,” by the phrase in the second
verse, “the second rest”? Why did he pray “Finish, then, thy new
creation”?[3] What is the Scriptural justification for the phrases of
Newton’s “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds”?[4] In Doddridge’s
“Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve,” what Biblical authority has he
for “cloud of witnesses,” or the ideas of “prize” and “race”?[5] What
did Watts mean in the third verse of his “Not all the blood of
beasts,”

“My faith would lay her hand
On that dear head of Thine,
While like a penitent I stand
And there confess my sin”?

Without the picture of the high priest laying his hands on the head of
the scapegoat and confessing the sins of the people before sending it
out into the wilderness (Lev. 16:21), what meaning can these lines
convey?

_The Background of the Hymn._

1. The interpretation of the hymn cannot be complete without a
recognition of the person who wrote it. His type of mind, his
responsiveness to divine truth, his conception of the work of the
Church, stamp themselves on the product of his pen. The personality of
Watts, of Wesley, of Whittier, and of Faber interpret their several
hymns.

Knowledge of the circumstances under which a given hymn was written
will add to the value and correctness of the interpretation, by giving
a sense of actuality to the thought and feeling expressed.

2. The age in which a hymn was written will be a large factor in its
interpretation. The sheer objectiveness of the ancient hymns, the
meditativeness of the medieval hymns stressing the sufferings of
Christ on the cross, the worship character of the pre-Wesley hymns,
including those of Watts, the warm, tender, experiential hymns of the
Wesleyan Revival, all stamp their several hymns ineffaceably with
their characteristics. “A mighty fortress is our God” bears the
_stigmata_ of the opening battles of the German Reformation. “Jesus,
the very thought of Thee” is permeated by the peace and ardent piety
of the Spanish nunnery whose devout abbess wrote the Latin original.
“Stand up, stand up for Jesus” sounds the militant note of the great
Philadelphia revival of 1857 and the Antislavery campaign that was so
soon to drench the South with the noblest blood of both sections.

Watts’ hymns must be analyzed in the light of the prevailing psalmody,
of the religious aridity of his time, and of the formalism, not of the
Established Church only, but of that of the Nonconformist societies as
well. Wesley’s hymns cannot be understood except as expressing the
struggle between extreme worldly-mindedness, sensuality, and social
decay outside of the Church, allied with the mere formalism and the
cold and sheerly pharisaic morality within, on the one side, and the
emphasis of conversion, profound religious experience, and aggressive
evangelistic propaganda on the other. The objectivity and essentially
liturgic spirit of Watts’ hymns and the subjective warmth and the
poetic glow of those of Charles Wesley immediately become full of
meaning and historic vitality.

3. The greater hymns gather about themselves the noble associations of
the many generations which have lived and died with their lines upon
their lips. Would “Rock of Ages, cleft for me” or “Jesus, Lover of my
soul,” if written now, speedily win the place they now hold in our
Christian hymnody? Would “Come, Thou Fount of every blessing” be
widely sung, if it were not that in England and America it had been an
impressive voice of worship in chapel and home, in stately church, and
in mountain schoolhouse on the American frontier? Lips now trembling
with age lisped them in childhood; memories of father and mother, of
thrilling religious experiences, when the very heavens seemed to open
to the soul, cluster about them.

4. Only in this way can he secure a clear idea of what parts of a hymn
will serve his immediate purpose, which lines and phrases will enrich
his discourses or bring his points to an incandescent glow, or which
verses when sung will assure the definite effect he has in mind. There
may well be occasions when he will want his people to sing, not the
first verse of Whittier’s tender hymn, “We may not climb the heavenly
steeps,” but the second,

“But warm, sweet, tender, even yet
A present help is He;
And faith has still its Olivet,
And love its Galilee,”

or the even more comforting third verse,

“The healing of the seamless dress
Is by our beds of pain;
We touch him in life’s throng and press,
And we are whole again.”

Such a study in interpretation will greatly enhance the spiritual
values of the hymns to the minister himself, enriching mind and heart.
It will make it possible for him to interpret them to his people. To
any person the hymn is what he understands it to mean, no more; its
effect on him is in due proportion to the completeness of his
interpretation of it. The minister, therefore, is in duty bound to
supply each singer in his congregation with an accurate and complete
understanding of the hymns that are sung.

_Making a Hymnal of His Own._

The minister who has given his hymnal the study that has been
suggested will wish to garner and organize the materials he has thus
won. He will proceed to make a little hymnal of his own by selecting a
given number of the hymns that appeal to him—say one hundred—in his
regular hymnal. This will constitute his inner hymnal to which from
time to time he will make additions.

These hymns will be marked in his own copy of the church hymnal, a
wide margined one, or an interleaved one, if it can be secured. As he
analyzes each one, finding the joints in its structure, he will
indicate the results by lines of division with the proper captions.
His dissection of the phrases will disclose more or less obscure
allusions needing explanation, like “Siloam’s pool,” “Mt. Nebo’s
lonely height,” “Gog and Magog,” “Ebenezer” and many others that
convey no meaning to the average mind. These should be underlined for
explanation. Some phrases are so suggestive, so packed with meaning,
that their value eludes the ordinary singer—for instance, the second
verse of Monsell’s “My sins, my sins, my Saviour.” These should be put
in quotation marks to remind the preacher to unpack by spirited
comment their wealth for the edification of his people.

Numbers referring to his card index or commonplace book will bring to
mind helpful facts about the hymn, or its writer, or illustrations
that will quicken both mind and heart. Enclosing a verse or verses in
brackets will mark those that can be omitted without wrecking the
symmetrical progress of the thought. That will eliminate the usual
thoughtless phrase, “We will omit the third verse.” If there is a
choice of tunes, the most practicable one can be indicated; or a tune
better known to the congregation elsewhere in the hymnal may be
suggested with its number.

Verses to be read by the congregation, or to be sung by the choir or
by a soloist, before being sung by the people may be starred. Changes
of force, or speed, may be marked _p._ for soft singing, or _f._ for
loud singing. A passage marked _rit._ will be retarded, or hurried if
marked _accel._ A repeat sign, _bis_, after a verse will suggest that
a verse may be profitably repeated. Scripture references will suggest
passages that can be used to emphasize the sentiment of the hymn, such
as Genesis 28:10-13, for the hymn, “Nearer, my God, to Thee.” _M_
before a verse may mark it as a memory verse to be sung with closed
hymnal. _P_ may indicate that it is a prayer, to be sung before the
long prayer. Dates connected with a hymn will show when it has been
sung, and so prevent its unduly frequent repetition from mere force of
habit. Every alert-minded minister will have methods and devices of
his own that should be recorded in connection with the hymns so
treated.

Such a hymnal, individual, practical, wealthy in resources, will be of
incalculable value to the wide-awake, aggressive minister, rendering
him independent of moods, of dull spirits, of disturbing environments.
He needs but open his hymnal, a treasure house of practical
suggestions, and his resources, immediately accessible and fully
prepared, await his use.

A personal hymnal like this will not be made in a day or a month. Week
by week, as hymns are selected, they are fully investigated and
studied and their points recorded in the preacher’s copy. His skimming
of newspapers and magazines, his daily experiences, his hearing of
addresses and sermons; his reading of history and literature, no less
than his study of hymnological literature, will pay heavy tribute to
such a royal treasury.

The books of hymnic material, pretty largely historical, are fairly
numerous, and their help should not be despised, for they offer very
useful illustrative matter. Robinson’s _Annotations upon Popular
Hymns_ is not as up-to-date nor as scholarly exact as the later
Duffield’s _English Hymns_, or as Nutter and Tillett’s _Hymns and Hymn
Writers of the Church_, but is richer anecdotally and more suggestive
of expository comment. Dr. Benson’s still later _Studies of Familiar
Hymns_, Series I and II, will be found very rich in practical
material. The present writer’s _Practical Hymn Studies_[6] offers help
most ministers need. The matter found in these and other like
collections should be carefully sifted and recorded. A condensation of
the selected items, particularly of the longer anecdotes, may be ample
for all practical purposes.

Is it necessary to suggest again that all this varied material should
be well organized in a loose-leaf blank book small enough to be
carried about or, better yet, in a rebound, interleaved hymnal?

In making such a thorough study of as many hymns as he has leisure to
analyze, the minister is really editing a hymnal of his own, none the
less his own that it is embedded in the larger collection. There are
very few preachers who do not have such an inner hymnal made up of the
hymns they are in the habit of using; the pity is that it is
frequently so small, so poorly selected, so unsymmetrical, so
dependent on an unresponsive memory, and so lacking in the materials
that would help to make the hymns effective.

_Memorizing Hymns._

A large number of hymns should be committed to memory for his own
mental enrichment and comfort. It will enlarge his devotional
vocabulary, his power of expression of spiritual things—nay more,
increase the spontaneity and spirituality of his thinking and feeling,
for memory lies nearer the springs of subconscious intuition and
impulses than the printed word. A wealth of spiritual thought, of
sanctified imagination, of vibrant religious feeling, of apt and
expressive phrase and vocabulary, is provided by such a well-stocked
memory.

The subconscious mind will furnish the fitting quotation, whether he
writes his sermon or speaks _ex tempore_. In unexpected emergencies,
when there is no time to leaf over the hymnal for a verse to be sung,
the mind automatically supplies it. In personal work, in cheering the
sick, in comforting those who mourn, in inspiring the lagging and
discouraged ones, the apt quotation will be exceedingly effective.
There are moments in a service, unexpected episodes of an emotional
character, climaxes of feeling in a discourse, when a verse of a hymn
sung by the congregation will exceed in impressiveness any oratorical
outburst; if the minister can trust his memory, he can carry the
faltering memories of his people and realize an effect otherwise
impossible, not only not losing any momentum, as he would if it were
necessary to refer to the hymnal, but indefinitely increasing it. The
great hymns of the Church should be made a part of his mental
furniture, become a large share of his clerical working capital. He
should not be satisfied to have less than a hundred hymns at his
mental fingers’ ends for efficient use at a moment’s notice.

V. A STUDY OF METHODS OF USE

But it is not enough to gather the materials and study the individual
hymns. A magazine of blasting powder has immense possibilities of
power; but unless methods are invented for applying that power to
desired ends, it is a liability and not an asset. Having learned all
about hymns, the next study is how efficiently to use them, to
organize the best methods of exploiting the social, mental, and
spiritual values their singing offers.

_Using Hymns in Sermons._

Few ministers utilize the possibilities of apt Scripture quotations in
their sermons; fewer still know how to draw on the treasures found in
their hymnals to increase interest and intensify emotion. In many
cases the very finest climax to a section of a sermon, or to the
sermon itself, will be found in one or more verses of a hymn which
brings the emotion of the theme to its high culmination. There is no
lack of material; for the expression of every Christian doctrine that
lends itself to lyric feeling there are intense and poignant phrases
and lines steeped in transcendent emotion. Abstract truth has
intellectual value of course, but has spiritual value only when
transmuted into the gold of intense conviction in the heart of true
believers. It is the genuine hymn that raises the temperature to the
transmuting point, if properly introduced and emotionally used.

_Studying Responsiveness of the Congregation._

The intelligent preacher will study his congregation and its
capacities of song to determine what he can do. He will canvass their
responsiveness to certain classes of hymns, solemn, cheerful,
aggressive, meditative, emotional, didactic—literary, popular. Their
taste in the tunes to be used will need to be carefully considered. It
would be folly to announce “When the Roll is Called up Yonder” in a
congregation used to singing and enjoying Luther’s “Ein’ feste Burg
ist unser Gott”; equally so to ask a congregation that enjoys singing
“There’s sunshine in my soul” to sing Iron’s version of the “Dies
Irae.”

A survey must needs be made of the musical resources and of the
adaptability of musical helpers. In some cases such adaptability needs
to be trained and developed. Their pliancy in rapidly taking up new
methods, and executing unexpected plans of the preacher quickly, will
require training.

_Studying Methods of Announcement and Securing Participation._

An important study will be how to announce and introduce the hymns in
such a way as to awaken the interest and to win the sympathetic
attention of the members of the congregation, and also how to help the
people to sing with their minds and hearts, as well as with their
vocal cords.

The methods to be used in securing full participation in the singing,
without losing sight of the deeper meaning of the hymn, will need to
be formulated or borrowed from successful leaders of song. The problem
is not met by merely urgent demands that everybody sing; they must all
be moved upon to want to sing. Can it be done by illustrations, by
moving anecdotes, by tender appeals bearing on the thought and feeling
of the hymn in hand? The kind of anecdotes and how they are to be
used, before or during any given hymn, will call for careful
discrimination. How shall the preacher acquire the power of
introducing a hymn in a very few well-chosen words, vibrant with the
feeling the hymn expresses, striking the spiritual key connecting up
the hymn with the religious purpose of the whole service? Year after
year, by observation of other ministers and song leaders, by his
reading, by experiments of his own, he will acquire a body of
efficient methods with which to vitalize his song service.

_Studying Use of Hymnal for Specific Purposes._

This will include methods of using hymns for specific purposes. Is his
congregation indifferent with regard to some particular line of work
that he wishes to present—missions, for instance: what hymns, and
methods of using them, will stimulate their minds and prepossess them
for this as yet unappealing topic? Are they careless or irreverent in
mood as they gather: can he sober their minds and awe their souls with
a consciousness of God’s actual presence with a solemn hymn and its
impressive tune? How shall he use the singing of the hymns to affect
and win the unsaved whom he plans to invite to accept Jesus Christ as
Saviour and Master? In a thousand ways the intelligent and adroit
minister can make his hymns count largely in accomplishing his
beneficent purposes.

VI. A STUDY OF THE TUNES

One of the most important lines of study will be that of the tunes to
which the hymns are to be sung.[7] To use a botanical figure, a hymn
will not bear fruit unless it is pollenized by a vital tune. Who would
be even aware of Cardinal Newman’s “Lead, Kindly Light,” if it were
not for Dykes’ tune? Without Lowry and Doane’s music what recognition
would the modest lyrics of Fanny Crosby have won? Wesley’s “Hark, the
herald angels sing” owes the wideness of its Christmas use to
Mendelssohn’s tune. Tennyson’s “Sunset and Evening Star” and “Sweet
and Low” were brought to wide public attention by Barnby’s two
settings. Without the wings of melody few hymns would get very far in
place or time. A mediocre hymn with a good singable tune will do
vastly more good than a great hymn with an impracticable one.

Hence it is the minister’s business to study the tunes. Not the notes,
not the harmony: he can leave them to his musical experts, if he has
them. He must study the singability of the tune, its appeal to his
particular people, its adaptation to the sentiment of the hymn with
which it is associated. Its age, its traditional or conventional use,
its style, its composer, its elaboration of harmony—all these are
merely incidental. That it is singable, fitted to express and
intensify the sentiment of the hymn, to give it access to the hearts
of the congregation, to create the contagion of feeling in the
assembly—these are the essentials of a good tune.

Just as the sales departments of our great manufacturing
establishments make an intensive study of the psychology of
salesmanship in all its phases, so the ministry of the church, in its
schools of preparation and in its several organizations, should
increase its efficiency as salesman of vital religion by a like study
of the psychology of the hymn and of its use.

_Chapter XX_
THE PRACTICAL USE OF HYMNS

I. THE HYMN AS A MEANS TO AN END

While our discussion attempts to consider every phase of the Christian
hymn, its chief interest to us lies in it as a means to an end. It may
be a work of literary art, the expression of a noble genius admirable
in itself; it may be an interesting epitome of some noble doctrine
that calls for appreciation of its lucidity and comprehensiveness; but
for us its primary quality must be its adaptation to meet spiritual
needs, in other words, its usefulness in religious work. In some way
it must help in the work of the church, if it is to come within the
sweep of our present horizon.

II. ANALYSIS OF PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF HYMNS

There are two values in the singing of hymns that must needs be taken
into consideration: one is the sheerly musical or nervous value; the
other is the message or burden of the hymn. The two must co-operate
for the best results.

There are two lines of application in using hymns: the one is the
expression and further intensification of an existent religious
feeling; the other, the creation of religious interest or emotion
where none exists. The two types of hymns must be clearly
distinguished, if proper and efficient use is to be made of them.

The first type is worshipful, religiously emotional, based on personal
experience, tenderly meditative. The second is didactic,
inspirational, or hortatory.

III. THE USE OF HYMNS FOR CREATING RELIGIOUS INTEREST

In selecting hymns for the opening of a religious meeting, the
existing nervous and emotional condition of the congregation is an
important factor. That condition may be due to an unlimited number of
influences. Are they gathering under the open sky, in a tent, in a
rough tabernacle, or amid churchly surroundings? What is the character
and background of the assembled people? In a distinctly unreligious
environment, the crowd will be disorganized, in a nervous flutter, in
a secular state of mind, more consciously interested in securing a
desirable seat than in the purpose of the meeting. The people need to
be psychically organized as a unit, need to have their attention
concentrated on the occasion of the meeting, need to be brought into a
religious state of mind. There is nothing better than the singing of a
hymn to secure these very essential results. The unifying effect of
common action, the nervous calming of the music, the religious
suggestiveness of the hymn itself, all will co-operate in creating the
proper attitude of mind.

What hymn shall we use to secure such a diversified result? Shall it
be “My faith looks up to Thee,” or “O Love that wilt not let me go”?
They are both superexcellent hymns, but they would be utterly out of
place. They belong to the first type, the expression of existent
religious feeling; but there is little or no such feeling under the
proposed circumstances. The people are not in a state of mind to sing
them sincerely and earnestly. It would lead to the all too common
hypocrisy of indifference.

Moreover, the tunes to these hymns are not of the organizing or
stimulating type, fine as they are. They are tunes of expression of
existing feeling, not of exhilaration or inspiration.

For such a miscellaneous crowd as has been described, a much less
emotional hymn with a somewhat livelier tune is called for, such as
“Blow ye the trumpet, blow,” “Come, we that love the Lord,” or
“Onward, Christian soldiers.” In most cases a lively Gospel song, such
as “Sunshine in my soul,” “Rescue the perishing,” or even, in extreme
cases, “Brighten the corner where you are” is more effective. The
problem is not so much that of making a religious impression, as of
preparing the people to receive a religious impression. To use tender,
deeply emotional, profoundly spiritual hymns for such preliminary
treatment is to flout psychology.

If the congregation meets in a church or other distinctly sacred
edifice, the religious associations will simplify the problem. In
part, at least, the secular attitude will have given place to a
hospitality of mind for religious ideas and impressions. Under
favorable circumstances the nervous strain will relax and religious
susceptibilities will begin to function. These nervous and mental
transformations of mood will be deepened by the organ prelude, if that
has been wisely selected and effectively played.

In some conservative, devout congregations where solemn earnestness is
the prevailing mood, and the bowed head on entering the pew is not a
mere convention, the usual Doxology may be used after the call to
worship; but usually an introit, such as “The Lord is in His holy
temple” or “Oh, come, let us worship,” sung by the choir, will be the
wiser preparation for the preacher’s invocation. The “Gloria Patri”
should prepare the congregation for some solemn hymn of profound
worship, such as “My God, how wonderful Thou art,” or “Lord of all
being, throned afar.” By the time this is sung, the members of the
congregation should be united in sympathy and responsiveness to the
worshipful exercises that follow.

If the service is to be a joyous one, with an aggressive purpose, the
hymns should still be strictly worshipful, but more animated. “Come,
sound His praise abroad,” “Oh, worship the King, all-glorious above,”
or “Kingdoms and thrones to God belong” should be the unifying
spiritualizing agency.

But if the social instincts are allowed to find expression as the
people gather, and more or less furtive conversation and even gossip
are heard, or worse yet, if the Sunday school has overflowed into the
auditorium or, for lack of separate room, has occupied it, and the
going out of the school and the coming in of the congregation make a
confusion that submerges the hallowed associations of the place, a
much more difficult problem is faced, and a more conscious effort must
be made to prepare the people in mind and heart for the experience of
the hour.

The prelude must be calculated to cover disturbing sounds and to call
the people to order—an entirely different type of prelude from that
used in the previous hypothetical situation. Once quiet and order are
secured, the music may begin a quieter, more religious movement. But
the high ecstasy of the Long Meter Doxology is out of the question. An
earnest Call to Worship by the preacher, and a quiet sentence or
introit by the choir, will hush the people’s minds into sympathy with
the invocation, that may possibly be somewhat longer and more earnest,
which in turn will prepare them for a sincere and thoughtful
participation in the “Gloria Patri.” The wise and observant preacher
will have been able to anticipate their state of mind and decide
whether they are ready to Sing with sincerity “O day of rest and
gladness,” “Safely through another week,” or the more elevated “Holy,
holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,” or “Before Jehovah’s awful throne.”

By the time this hymn is sung, the fate of the service has practically
been settled. The people will have been won and are ready to go on to
a deeper interest and to a fuller yielding of themselves to the
influence of the service; or they are dull and unresponsive, even
somnolent, with an unconscious resentment that they have not been
stirred and quickened. The failure of the service is assured, unless a
miracle happens.

If the minister is a slave to the conventional order of service, that
miracle will not happen. He may be so complacent over the smooth
unfolding of the wonted numbers as not to recognize that the interest
in the minds of his people has dropped.

In such a situation the best means to redeem it is a hymn with a
profound appeal. But it cannot function, if it is used in the
ordinary, conventional way. If the minister is alert and senses the
stupor that is shadowing the minds of his people, and if the success
of his service is more important to him than the mechanical regularity
of the usual order of events, he can bring the miracle to pass by the
use of the next hymn in an unexpected, thrilling way.

If the scheduled hymn does not lend itself to his purpose, he can
exercise the audacity without which no public man can hope to succeed,
by changing it to one that will, and by that act will storm the first
defense of Morpheus, the god of sleep. Of course, he will always keep
in mind practical considerations of teamwork with his musical helpers,
taking enough time in introducing the substituted hymn in an
interesting way to enable them to find it and decide to what tune it
is to be sung. Usually that takes but a moment. Announcing the hymn,
he will explain the message of the hymn in doctrine or in feeling, as
a preliminary to its intelligent and sympathetic singing; or he may
make emotional comment, or relate a fitting anecdote that will grip
the feelings, leaving historical data for some other occasion; or he
may ask the congregation to join him in silent prayer for divine
guidance into the heart of the hymn to be sung; or he may ask his
people to read the first verse in concert, in order that they may sing
it with more intelligence; or if he has a sympathetic soloist, he can
ask him or her to sing a verse, letting the people sing the rest of
the hymn.

If the people are submerged in indifference and stupor, he may treat
the whole hymn in like fashion, verse by verse, always careful to make
his few words count, for prolixity will defeat his purpose. He will be
even more careful that there shall be a _crescendo_ movement of
increasing impressiveness and deepening feeling.

Such a jolt to the passive attitude of an unresponsive people,
genially administered in a confident manner, and with sincere feeling,
will waken the most indifferent congregation and avert the impending
defeat. It will make the frequent use of such unusual methods
unnecessary by creating a latent expectation of the unexpected.

Fortunate is the minister who has a native sensitiveness to the tides
of feeling that ebb and flow in his congregation, to whom the faces
and attitudes of his people are an open book. Most ministers must
develop such a power by keen and persistent observation and by
intelligent experimentation. This psychical _en rapport_ is very
important to the minister. As well might an organist play without
hearing his instrument as for a minister to be ignorant of the states
of feeling of his congregation. He is a blind man trying to paint a
picture.

Some ministers think themselves lacking in magnetism, in sensitiveness
to outside influences, and make no effort to develop their latent
powers. This inferiority complex is wrong; the very sense of
limitation is a proof that the capacity for it exists. It is too
essential to the largest success that a man should not use every
possible effort and method to develop it.

IV. THE HYMN AS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR TEACHING TRUTH

Another practical use of the hymn that will prove very valuable is to
make those hymns that are didactic or meditative the occasion of
discussing for a few minutes the doctrines they express, and so to
teach, to bring back to memory, or to vitalize the articles of their
faith which average Christians are apt to forget. There are Christian
beliefs that do not call for elaborate discussion in a sermon, that
are best impressed by emotional treatment in connection with a hymn.
“Depth of mercy! can there be,” with a background of pure-minded
Charles Wesley’s consciousness of sin, will give an opportunity of
impressing the people with sin’s subtle and soul-destroying power.
“There is a fountain filled with blood” will be the basis of a very
short but a clear and tender exposition of the atonement made for sin
by Christ on the cross. That a person may be conscious of salvation,
of acceptance by God through Jesus Christ, will find fitting
explanation in an exposition of “Rock of Ages, cleft for me.” What
better opportunity for emphasizing the Christian’s dependence on
Christ could be afforded than a study of “Jesus, Lover of my soul”?
Our inability to understand the ways of God’s providences, and our
need of a faith that does not demand explanations, may well be
stressed in an analysis of “God moves in a mysterious way.” A score of
such hymn discussions at irregular intervals during the year would
prove illuminating, and help to remove the haze that prevents clear
definition in the minds of the people of the doctrines on which their
spiritual life must rest. Singing the hymn after such comments will
make it more effective and fasten the Christian teachings in the minds
of the hearers with links of steel.

V. HYMN SERMONS AND HYMN SERVICES

The versatile and adaptable preacher, full of resources, quick to take
advantage of unusual methods, will find the Song Sermon, or rather the
Hymn Sermon, a most attractive and impressive way of using hymns.
Instead of finding an appropriate proof text from the Scriptures for
each leading point of the discourse, search out a hymn, or a single
verse, expressing it in a lucid and emotional way and have it sung by
the congregation, by the choir, or by a soloist. Comment on the hymn
and its illustration, consonant with the development of the general
theme, will supply a new line of most interesting materials. Care must
be taken not to let the hymn hem the momentum of the sermon, but to
make it add to the tide of interest. There will be no time for playing
the tune or to find the hymn, while the preacher is silently waiting.
Close connection and sharp attack are absolutely essential. Such a
sermon will be sure to win a great hearing.[1]

A less formal use of hymns may be made in the Song (or Hymn) Service
in which eight or ten hymns with historical, illustrative, and
devotional comment are sung by soloists, choir, and congregation. Less
valuable in formal teaching than the Hymn Sermon, it will probably win
larger popular acceptance. Such a religious service should not be
allowed to degenerate into merely a Sacred Concert.

VI. THE USE OF HYMNS IN EMERGENCIES

There are occasional disturbing and disorganizing occurrences during
services—a violent storm, a noisy epileptic, a fanatical intruder, a
fire where a panic would be disastrous—when it is important to keep
the disturbance down to a minimum, or even to control the
congregation. The singing of an efficient hymn is often the solution
of the problem when there is a leader of presence of mind (preferably
the minister) who will promptly start it. It must be a hymn that
everybody knows; it must not be a tender, experiential hymn, but one
with a stirring spirit to a stimulating tune that everybody can sing,
such as “Onward, Christian soldiers.”[2]

Such occasions sometimes suggest fitting hymns that turn what might
have been disaster into a spiritual victory. In such a case there must
be a peculiar fitness to the difficulty, an adaptation to the form it
takes. In case of a death, or paralytic stroke, the hymn will not be
loud, but tender like “Rock of Ages,” “He Leadeth Me,” or “The Sweet
By and By.” Softly sung, the episode will be turned from a shock into
a deep spiritual impression.

_Chapter XXI_
THE SELECTION OF HYMNS

I. SELECTION SHOULD SECURE UNITY OF SERVICE

Next in importance to the minister’s selection of his text comes the
selection of his hymns. If he has a clear conception of the real unity
of his service, it will appear in this more than in anything else.

_Narrow Conception of Unity._

If the minister is a narrow, mechanically-minded man, with a sense of
the need of mere logical unity, he will make the subject of his sermon
the governing consideration in all parts of his service. The hymns
will needs be all or nearly all didactic, the type with the least
emotional or inspiring value.

The early hymns of the service will in an ineffective way anticipate
the points of his discourse and, in so far as they have effectiveness,
weaken by their more lucid and concise statement the discussion in the
sermon. As the congregation usually does not know what the topic of
the discourse is to be, the pertinency of the selection is not
evident. The same is true of the Scripture lesson, if it is read
before the long prayer. Logically the whole basis of selection is
absurd.

_Broader Conception of Unity._

The sermon is simply a co-ordinate part of divine service, not its
governing feature to which all things else must be subordinated. The
early hymns should not be selected with reference to the theme of the
sermon; the last hymn should sum up not so much the ideas of the
sermon as its emotional values.

_Unity Based on Purpose._

Among heathen people instruction must be the leading purpose of any
meeting held for their benefit; but among well-taught Christian
people, the chief purpose should be worship, to which the sermon
should be simply one of several aids. The hymns should be emotional,
worshipful, and not exclusively didactic, and should harmonize with
the sermon by being subordinated, with the sermon, to the
clearly-conceived worshipful purpose of the entire service. Dr. Austin
Phelps, more than three-fourths of a century ago, enunciated the right
policy: “It aims at unity of worship, not by sameness of theme, but by
resemblance of spirit. It would have a sermon preceded and followed,
not necessarily by a hymn on the identical subject, but by a hymn on a
kindred subject, pertaining to the same group of thought, lying in the
same perspective, and enkindling the same class of emotions.” To
announce the theme of the coming sermon in the first hymn, to read a
Scriptural passage as a basis for it, to grope around that theme in
the prayer, to emphasize another phase in the second hymn, is a case
of professional egotism so flagrant that its only shocking mitigation
is that it is the accepted clerical estimate of the situation.

Now every service, of whatever form or character, is properly intended
to bring the soul into conscious relation with God. Every phase of the
soul’s activities is to be brought under the influence of this
dominating purpose. As it cannot comprehend God in His completeness at
any one moment, different attributes of His nature and the varied
relation of these several attributes to manifold human needs furnish
an endless abundance of worshipful themes. They will appeal to the
understanding through the truth, to the heart through an emotional
realization of that truth, and to the will by the choices offered to
the soul’s supreme tribunal. Here, then, in this clearly-conceived
phase of worshipful attitude, you find the basis for the logical unity
of the service—a living unity that moves heart and will as well as
reason.

There is in this no fetter to the intellectual activity of the
preacher, but rather a fresh stimulus and source of suggestion. It
brings to bear vital forces within the speaker’s own soul that too
often find little exercise, and changes the emotional elements of the
service, the prayer, and the music—now too often mere haphazard,
characterless excrescences—into definite sources of power for the
realization of the desired spiritual results.

A preacher whose heart is a barometer of the spiritual condition of
his people has no difficulty in finding subjects and texts for his
sermons. If the needs of his people press upon him, those needs
furnish an arc light that illuminates the Bible, and a suggestiveness
that brings him an embarrassment of homiletical riches. Given a clear
recognition of a definite immediate need and the consequent definite
purpose, it will not only make sermonizing easy but will control the
rest of the service. Not the theme of the sermon, but the purpose of
the service as a whole, will be the organizing vitality.

II. SUGGESTIVE SELECTIONS OF HYMNS

Here is an earnest pastor who is impressed with the growing
materialism, or worldliness, of his people. How shall be best dredge
the stagnant shallows of their souls? He decides, not upon a single
sermon, but upon a series of services with cumulative power, whose
whole outlook shall be upon the Person and Character of God as the
basis of his claims upon his creatures. There will be sermons upon
these high themes of course, but they will call for noble and elevated
co-ordinate co-operation in the rest of the service. Now these sermons
should all be peculiarly worshipful, but that worship will be set to
different keys.

_Hymns for Service on God’s Omnipotence._

The sermon on the Divine Omnipotence calls for a noble enthusiasm. The
hymns should be majestic and joyful. After profoundly worshipful
preliminary exercises it will not be wise to sing Watts’ hymn,

“Let all the earth their voices raise,
To sing the great Jehovah’s praise,
And bless His holy name,”

to the tune “Ariel” for the first hymn in spite of its appropriateness
of thought: first, because it is not sufficiently elevated, and
secondly, because the tune is too light. Watts’ more majestic hymn,

“Before Jehovah’s awful throne,
Ye nations bow with sacred joy,”

sung to “Old Hundredth,” would be more harmonious with the general
purpose of the service. By the time the second hymn is reached there
must be some exhilaration of spirit. It will not be desirable
therefore to select

“All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice”;

first, because it is in exactly the same key of feeling as the
previous hymn; second, because for that reason no tune is quite so
fitting to it as “Old Hundredth,” which is already provided for; and
third, because the presumable intensifying of feeling by this time
calls for a brighter text and more spirited music. But it must be a
hymn of worship, none the less; we choose, therefore,

“Oh, worship the King, all-glorious above;
Oh, gratefully sing His power and His love,”

the interrupted dactylic measure and triple time tune giving both
dignity and movement.

If the prelude was a joyfully majestic composition, the anthem one of
elevated praise—e.g., a “Venite” or a “Jubilate”—the responsive
reading and the choir responses reverent and worshipful, the long
prayer of the preacher exalted with genuine adoration (forgetful of
the routine catalogue of petty petitions), and the Scripture passage
noble with inspiring truth, the service might close at this point as
having already realized its prime object of worship. There must have
been something radically wrong in the spirit and management of it, if
the preacher does not find his people responsive and himself
inspiringly attuned to his noble theme. At the close of his discourse
on the Divine Omnipotence, his people will presumably be ready to sing

“Let all on earth their voices raise,
To sing the great Jehovah’s praise,
And bless His holy name.”

to the exhilarating movement of the tune “Ariel.” The organist’s
postlude will be characterized by a joyful solemnity, some strong
_maestoso_ movement.

_Hymns for Service on God’s Love._

A service devoted to the worship of God, as manifested in His love,
offers a wider range of possibilities. Is it the love manifested in
the atonement? there may be the somber element of the crucifixion
combined with its nobly elevated aspects; is it the love manifested to
His children? there will be a chastened ecstasy in the hymns and
prayers; is it the love that consoles and comforts? there will be the
tender and sympathetic development of the theme—each will call for its
own selection of hymns. As the last is perhaps the most difficult, let
us see what program we should prepare for it.

_a._ Tender Service.

The organ prelude will be soft, sweet music, full of chromatic chords
that melt one into the other, or a tender, emotional melody with soft
accompaniment. The usual opening doxology will give way to an introit,
sung very gently by the choir, set to a text expressing divine
sympathy or a prayer for help. The invocation will be a plea for God’s
manifest presence among His needy people. The first hymn sung by the
congregation will sustain the feeling already established,

“Lord, we come before Thee now,
At Thy feet we humbly bow,”

sung to the tune “Aletta” or “Pleyel’s Hymn.” The responsive reading
may be the forty-second and forty-third Psalms. The choir, having been
advised in good time what was desired, sings some sympathetic setting
of the twenty-third Psalm, or of the forty-second Psalm, or of the
hymn “Just as I am.” If the preacher has kept step in his heart with
the emotional progress of his service, the long prayer will be an
expression of the need of the people and of a tender appreciation of
God’s loving sympathy, closing with an ascription of praise to His
limitless love. The people ought now to be ready to sing

“Love divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of heaven, to earth come down.”

After the discourse, a hymn in direct didactic relation to it may be
sung in a bright and joyous spirit:

“God is love; His mercy brightens
All the path in which we rove.”

The postlude will be tenderly joyous and sympathetic in style.

There are many preachers whose nervous organizations would not enable
them to adjust themselves to so tender an emotional key in developing
the service. On the other hand, many congregations would not follow
it, but would be lulled to sleep by it.

_b._ Joyful Service.

They would be entirely right in selecting as the opening hymn one of
general praise and worship:

“Come, Thou Almighty King,
Help us Thy name to sing,
Help us to praise”;

or even the quietly majestic hymn,

“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee.”

The second hymn may be more prayerful and tender:

“Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land,”

“When all Thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys.”

The final hymn may be more didactic:

“God is the refuge of His saints,
When storms of sharp distress invade”;

or the more stirring and forceful

“Give to the winds thy fears;
Hope, and be undismayed”;

or that wonderful paean of faith in the divine love and providence,

“How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word.”

In this case the postlude will be bright and joyous, preferably with
some soft and tender episodical passages.

_Hymns for a Missionary Service._

The preacher plans a missionary discourse: what is his order of
service to be?

That means an aggressive, spiritual program whose purpose is
stimulation of enthusiasm, of courage, of conquering faith, of bold
decision.

The organist will be asked to play a bright prelude with pronounced
but dignified rhythm, and striking harmonic progressions. The anthem
by the choir may be based on some text of praise from the Psalms with
stirring, somewhat rhythmical music that will stimulate the nerves of
the people rather than soothe them. The responsive reading should be a
Psalm of triumph, say the ninety-sixth. The long prayer for once may
drop out of the omnibus conventionality and lead the people in
magnifying the irresistible power and the conquering love of God, with
enough reference to current sorrows in the congregation to serve as a
contrast, to make the realization of the strong right arm of God more
vivid.

The hymns should be in keeping with this joyous recognition of God’s
invincibility and assured triumph.

The first hymn may be Charles Wesley’s “Oh, for a thousand tongues to
sing.” This is worship—mingled with faith and with aggressive purpose,
it is true, but nevertheless distinctly worship.

An equally appropriate selection from Charles Wesley would be “Ye
servants of God, your Master proclaim.” Care should be taken that the
tune used for either is vigorous and well known. A dull tune for
either would be a stumble on the threshold of the service.

The point in the service has not yet been reached where a distinctly
missionary hymn is called for; aggressiveness in the Lord’s service is
still the mood to be created. There would be a choice between
Shurtleff’s vigorous “Lead on, O King Eternal,” with its specific
dedication of self to any forward movement of the Christian Church, or
Baring-Gould’s marching hymn with its American tune written by an
English composer, “Onward, Christian soldiers,” which can hardly fail
to stimulate the pulses of a presumably already stirred congregation,
unless it is sung in a drawling, unaccented way.

If by this time the congregation is not prepared to be thrilled by an
unexpected missionary sermon, eloquent with an appeal hardly to be
equaled by any other topic connected with the Church’s activities,
there has been something wrong with the preacher or his people.

At the close of the sermon the hearts of the people will be glad to
express themselves either in Smith’s “The morning light is breaking,”
or in Watts’ noble Christianized version of the seventy-second Psalm,
“Jesus shall reign where’er the sun.” For once the organist can pull
out all his stops and play a brilliant but not flippant postlude
without disturbing the mind and nerves of thoughtful and devout
people.

In these suggested programs it has been evident that the unity is one
of feeling and not of logic. This gave room for the interest which the
unexpected supplies. There must be progress of feeling as well as of
thought. The long prayer or the music after it, be it organ or choir
or hymn, should be the climax of emotion. It should be allowed to
subside a little during the announcements and offering, in order to
rise to a still higher climax in the sermon and closing hymn.

In a tender, sympathetic service there is more danger of not taking
the audience with you. If the music and the feelings suggested by the
hymns are too quiet and depressing, there is danger of its acting as a
lullaby, putting the people to sleep. Many a preacher wonders why some
of his hearers are asleep before his text is fairly announced. In nine
cases out of ten, it is due to the depressing character of the music
used in the devotional part of the service.

III. IMPORTANCE OF THE TUNES

As has been incidentally suggested in the course of the illustrative
progress, no small importance is to be attached to the selection of
the tunes to be used with the hymns. The preacher cannot always afford
to trust the compiler of the hymnal which he uses. That learned
gentleman does not know what tune the preacher’s people can sing with
a given hymn to the best advantage. He has to meet the difficulty of
providing every hymn with an appropriate tune without having
well-known and effective tunes enough to go round; he cannot repeat
them over and over, but must use less popular tunes. Who shall judge
him harshly, therefore, if in this dilemma he occasionally follows his
own personal taste rather than the vaguely conceived needs of
miscellaneous congregations.

But the minister must study the tunes in his hymnal lest he limit his
song service to the small number he happens to know well. To use a
dozen or so tunes again and again will cut the nerve of musical
interest in his musical helpers and in his congregation as well.

Hence, it is the minister’s task to re-edit the hymnal in part,
remating hymns and tunes in order to secure the greatest results with
his own people. Nor need he suffer with a sense of presumption. The
important consideration is the results of the singing of hymns in an
effective way, not loyalty to his church hymnal at the expense of
those results.

_Chapter XXI_
THE ANNOUNCEMENT AND TREATMENT OF HYMNS

I. THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF HYMNS

It may seem quite superfluous to give any attention to the mere
announcement of hymns; but in many cases the spiritual success or
failure of the congregational song is determined there. It is
generally assumed that any one can announce a hymn and initiate its
singing, but probably the least successful work of ninety-nine out of
a hundred ministers is their management of the service of song in
their churches. The writer remembers one minister who would baldly
announce the number and then turn round and stare at the choir and
organist until they began to sing. The awkwardness and helplessness of
the man invariably produced a most unfortunate effect upon the
congregation. Many ministers announce the number and read the first
line. It makes no difference whether the first line is complete in
meaning or not; they have identified the hymn.

Like a great many others of their professional brethren, they used the
hymn perfunctorily as a traditionally necessary part of the service,
with which they really had little or nothing to do; that it has any
relation to the needs or the objects they have in view for the service
does not occur to them. The unpardonableness of an aimless sermon need
not be emphasized, but why should it be easier to forgive a preacher
for aimlessly selecting and announcing hymns?

Many churches have hymn boards and even bulletins, making the
mechanical interruption caused by the preacher’s announcement of the
numbers unnecessary. The people presumably have found the hymn by the
time the tune is played through.[1]

Of course, if these devices for announcing the hymn are absent, the
preacher must announce the number. If he does so in a listless,
mechanical way, he will unconsciously give the congregation an
unfortunate emotional keynote, and, in turn, it will sing in a
listless, mechanical way. The psychical and emotional value of the
singing of the hymn is already discounted. If it has been announced in
a joyous, or, at least, in an interested spirit, with only a happy
phrase or two, giving a cue to the spirit in which it is to be sung,
the congregation will respond in kind. Twenty seconds of effective
introduction will make the difference between success and failure.

It should be emphasized that a live preacher will not allow the
regular order of service to prevent needed comment on the hymn as it
is needed. The order of service has advantages, but if it robs the
preacher of freedom and spontaneity, it becomes a curse. Too rigidly
followed it makes for dullness and boredom. The congregation should
not be allowed to feel that any departure from it is a doubtful
liberty on the part of the preacher. Opportunity should be made to
dispel any such idea.

If a hymn is curtly announced, or courteously suggested with a
“please” or a “kindly” (as if to sing it were a special favor to the
preacher), and if no hint is given as to the message to be conveyed,
or as to the feeling which is to be expressed, how can the minister
hope that the merely improvised singing of an unexpected hymn, perhaps
with an unknown tune, will have any stimulating, not to say spiritual,
value? If the hymn is well known, it is probably a great hymn, and
what gathering of saints can rise at a moment’s notice to its
spiritual altitude?

What intelligent minister would presume suddenly to ask a trained
elocutionist to read to his audience a poem he had never before seen?
Or what honest lawyer would ask a client to sign a legal paper
involving obligations without explanations or previous reading? Yet,
every Sunday, congregations are asked to sing hymns they have never
noticed, expressing they know not what sentiments, promises, or
consecrations, in the most solemn and exalted manner. Is it ethical?
Is it efficient?

II. THE TREATMENT OF HYMNS

If a congregation is to sing a hymn, not thoughtlessly and
mechanically, but intelligently and with feeling, it must be prepared
for the devout exercise. It is the minister’s task to tune his people
up for the individual hymn, and create the habit of finding meaning
and genuine feeling in all the hymns they sing. Stupid singing is a
habit: why not create a habit of singing thoughtfully and feelingly?

That may be done; but it cannot be done overnight. It will call for
persistent training, for a wealth of resources, and for an unbroken
attitude of genuineness of emotion on the part of the preacher. It is
no small undertaking to transform sleepy church members into sons of
praise.

We may add to the obligations involved still another. If the hymn to
be sung is not merely didactic or meditative, but distinctly emotional
in character, is it not the preacher’s duty to create in those who are
to sing at least the beginnings of the emotions he asks them to voice?

A rapid sketch of blind Matheson’s experience before writing “O Love
that wilt not let me go” will set the heartstrings of the congregation
quivering in the emotional key of the hymn. A vivid picture of the
death of Christ on the cross in a dozen sentences will inspire a
preacher’s people to sing “Beneath the cross of Jesus” with genuine
emotion. Drawing a picture with rapid touches of the charge of the
Light Brigade as it went to its death at Balaklava, and quoting a few
lines of Tennyson’s poem, will stir the pulses for the singing of
“Lead on, O King Eternal.” “Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire” may
be introduced by a few tender sentences on the vital necessity of
prayer to a sincere Christian. A minute’s resume of the influence of
the cross of Christ on an individual life, or on the upward sweep of
the human race under its influence, will give the people a clue to “In
the cross of Christ I glory.” The tender aspect of the atonement made
by Christ for sin may be solemnly suggested before singing “Alas, and
did my Saviour bleed?”

Where a hymn has allusions not likely to be recognized by the average
singer, they ought to be made plain. How many of the millions who have
sung the well-known hymn, “Come, thou Fount of every blessing,” knew
what the word “Ebenezer” signified? Striking phrases, packed with deep
thought and feeling, like Matheson’s

“I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be,”

should have their treasures brought to light, lest the average
churchgoer should overlook them. In other words, there should be a
rapid exposition of unusual and also of over-familiar hymns, so that
the congregation may sing with its mind and heart.

The range of possible comment is so wide, and the opportunity of using
it is so limited, that only the most striking and impressive
illustrations should be considered for actual use. Rhetorical and
anecdotal illustrations should be used sparingly—only when they
promote an exalted and distinctly spiritual state of mind. They are
apt to be prolix, to distract the mind from spiritual contemplation.
They are permissible with joyous, aggressive, victorious hymns rather
than with those that are tender, emotional, subjective.

The inexorable limitations of time must always be borne in mind. When
a hymn is announced the people expect to sing, not to listen to a
hymnological dissertation or to a long-winded anecdote. The simile or
metaphor, or other oratorical comment, must explode with a very short
fuse of preliminary remark. The anecdote must be compact, shorn of
unessential preface or background, and reach its peak of interest, or
of appeal to feeling, with the succinctness of an epigram. Better
limit the illustrations and comments to those that can gracefully and
lucidly be uttered in one or rarely two minutes.

Discussions and illustrations of hymns are often confined to the hymns
as hymns, which is rarely necessary. It is not the hymn that needs
emphasis, much less its writer: it is the message, the burden, the
feeling of the hymn that is to be enforced. An instance of the saving
of a “down and outer” from the Jerry McAuley mission in New York, or
the Pacific Garden mission in Chicago, will create more responsiveness
to “Rescue the Perishing” than biographical facts about Fanny Crosby
or about the composer, W. Howard Doane. The anecdote of missionary
success from the last missionary bulletin or magazine will lead a
Congregation to sing “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun” more
enthusiastically than an explanation of Watts’ having metricized the
seventy-second Psalm with a free hand, making the Jew, David, sing
like a Christian. Illustrating the sense rather than the form of the
hymn will be found very much more thrilling to the people.

In evening services of song, or in midweek lectures, historical
backgrounds will be very helpful and interesting. A series of lectures
on the great hymns of the Church, or even a general survey of the
development of our Christian hymnody, will lay the foundations of a
more intelligent song.

In such services, anecdotal illustrations may have a large place. They
need not be emotional under such circumstances, just so they add
interest and understanding.

As an occasional variation in the introduction of the hymn, why not
have the congregation read it? “It is not done?” All the more reason
for doing it! They will get more actual values out of the reading of
the hymn and its subsequent singing than in any other way; the very
unusualness of the method will give additional effectiveness. Single
stanzas can be most impressively treated in this manner. In singing
Isaac Watts’ great hymn, “When I survey the wondrous cross,” ask the
people to read the third verse softly,

“See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?”

and then sing it very softly and note the effect.

The same method may be used with Mrs. Alexander’s children’s hymn,
“There is a green hill far away,” which adults have adopted for their
own; have them read the last verse,

“Oh, dearly, dearly has He loved,
And we must love Him too,
And trust in His redeeming blood,
And try His works to do,”

and then sing it quite emotionally.

A great many people deprecate the minister’s reading of the hymns. But
that is because so few ministers are able to read hymns with any
degree of impressiveness or reality. Perhaps half the ministers who
read them leave no desirable impression whatever as the result, for
the reading has been without even a thoughtful sense of the meaning of
the hymn, much less of its emotional force. To allow one’s voice to
fall at the end of every line, or to make a habit of having a rising
inflection at the end of each first line and a falling at the end of
each second, without variation, is so vile, from an elocutionary
standpoint, that one cannot wonder that the general congregation
prefers its omission.

On the other hand, if the minister’s mind and heart are profoundly
awake to the thought and feeling of the hymn that is to be used, if
the minister has a definite purpose which he wishes to realize through
the singing of that hymn, if the whole song service is thoroughly
vital and earnest, he cannot help reading the hymn in such a way as to
impress and interest his people. One need not be a well-trained
elocutionist to do this. The genuine feeling will develop a natural
elocution and will even neutralize faulty habits and mannerisms of
reading that would otherwise make it unendurable.

The fact that the hymn is a familiar one may be only an additional
reason for reading it, instead of being an imperative reason for
omitting its reading. As coins long in circulation often lose their
superscription, these familiar words often lose their meaning and
reality by constant use, and these may be restored by intelligent and
emotional reading.

A mere habit of reading a hymn through is sheer mechanism, the fatal
enemy of interest. The situation, the purpose in view, the character
of the service and the time allotted to it, even the preacher’s own
passing mood—all are factors that need to be considered.

At this point it is well to drop a word of warning against the
unintelligent omission of verses. Some ministers invariably restrict
the number to be sung to three or four. If there are five verses, they
invariably omit the fourth, or announce, “We will sing the first three
verses,” no matter what the development of thought may be. One of the
most painful manifestations of ministerial thoughtlessness and
indifference to the congregation’s share of the service, is this
brutal mutilation of the hymns. The preacher wishes a little more time
for his sermon, so he robs God and his people of some of their worship
by singing the pitiful remains of a hymn he has deprived of its unity,
its progress of thought, and perhaps of its best stanzas. Or he has
preached too long and closes with a single verse of some great hymn,
unwittingly losing the best climax his sermon could have had. Because
of the same egotism and his obsequious regard for the tyranny of the
dinner hour, he cuts out the reading and proper introductions of his
hymns throughout the service.

The irony of the situation is that by this neglect of his hymns the
preacher fails to create the enthusiasm and responsiveness of his
hearers essential to the larger success of his sermon. “There is that
withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.” (Prov.
11:24.)

It may well be that some of the ministers who read this practical
section will throw up their hands at the idea of working out the
rather daunting array of suggestions for exploiting the hymn in their
church work. The pastor’s task is such a varied one, with such a mass
of details, all of seeming importance, that he is in danger of wasting
time on comparative trifles, of “puttering” around, feeling very busy
while accomplishing little. A common remark at the close of the day
is, “I’ve been busy as a nailer all day and can’t see that I have
accomplished anything!”

It is this time that is lost by lack of concentration which could
quite comfortably be devoted to hymnological studies. The difficulty
in most cases is not lack of time, but lack of interest, lack of
realization as to how great a contribution the hymn service can make
to the success of his work.

God has put into the throat of every member of this preacher’s
congregation a marvelous musical instrument with a wide range of tones
and of extremely appealing cadences, of great power to express the
emotions of the heart of the singer, and to suggest and stimulate the
feelings of the minds and hearts of the hearers: is the minister
justified in neglecting the opportunity it offers to arouse and
quicken the mental and spiritual natures of the people for whose
religious life he is responsible?

Is it not a crying piece of egotism, in view of the proven efficiency
of hymn singing, to depend exclusively on his own preaching for the
realization of the spiritual ends to which his life is devoted? When
ministers realize the positive power the hymn service can exert, they
will not begrudge the occasional hours for studying and planning it
which are necessary to its full success. That success will create

A SINGING CHURCH

EPILOGUE

_Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter._ Eccl. 12:7.

In traversing the long history of the human use of song in religious
services, rites, and ceremonies, we have found that

1. The hymn has been recognized in every age, in every generation, by
every race, whether savage or cultured, under every sky, as an
expression of religious emotion, and as the generator of such emotion.

2. Religious emotions are of various types. It may be the earnestness
of strong conviction; it may be the hot indignation against sin and
evil, against neglect of the soul’s highest obligations. It may be the
depressing sense of conscious unworthiness, rising into repentance for
sin, into the tenderness of grateful recognition of the divine love
and forgiving grace, expressed in tears, joy over the assurance of
salvation expressed in beaming countenance or in ejaculations of
delight, or even in shouts of victory. The human heart becomes an
Æolian harp from which the winds of the Spirit of God evoke an
infinitude of melodies, grave and solemn, tender and sweet, joyous and
triumphant, or vigorous and inspiring,—a very symphonic orchestra.

3. As an expression of religious emotion the hymn has been effective
in moving the human will, stubborn in its revolt against God, by
intensifying the mental and spiritual power of religious ideas.

4. The religious idea is primary, of course, but its emotional
response in the heart gives it vitality. It is the team of idea and
its normal emotion that exerts the power of the hymn. An abstract
idea, abstract because its emotional reflex has been abstracted, has
no motive power.

5. In the effective use of the hymn the clear apprehension of its
ideas must be enforced by the vital reproduction of the original
emotion of its writer which urged its composure. A dry hymn written
without vitalizing feeling has no power to inspire; it gives no sense
of reality. Dry sermons, not pollinated by emotional vigor, can bear
no fruit. The effectiveness of sermon or hymn will be determined by
the intensity of the feeling behind it.

6. The emotional appeal must be genuine, both writer and singer must
be sincere. Artificial emotion, the mere pretense of a feeling that
does not exist, has no power. It is not merely unappealing, it is
offensive.

7. But emotion necessarily implies an intelligence and a
susceptibility to be moved—in other words, a personality. It also
implies that one person’s feelings can call forth like emotions in
other persons. The merely outward expression may even create a like
emotion among others who do not fully apprehend the primary idea that
set the original emotion to vibrating, creating a very contagion of
feeling.

8. It follows that in actual aggressive work, largely depending on
emotional transmission, the minister or the leader must supply the
initiating impulse. If the minister has a dry mind—there are ministers
who desiccate every topic they discuss—religious ideas suffer a blight
of aridity, killing all sense of reality, this sense of reality being
the _sine qua non_ of all spiritual effectiveness. If he is fortunate
in having a vivid imagination and a heart responsive to religious
truth, he can multiply his mental gifts twentyfold by intensifying the
truths he expresses.

9. Treated in this way, the hymn becomes the peer of the sermon in
influencing power, and assures the minister eager for spiritual
results a large harvest of souls, saved and spiritualized.

REFERENCES AND NOTES

INTRODUCTION

[1]Genesis 4:21, 23.

[2]Genesis 31:27.

[3]Exodus 15:1-21.

[4]Numbers 21:16, 17.

[5]Psalm 90.

[6]Joshua 6:16.

[7]Judges 5:1-31.

[8]I Samuel 2:1-16.

[9]I Samuel 10:5.

[10]I Chronicles 9:22; 11:4, 11:5.

[11]Mark 14:26.

[12]Acts 16:25.

[13]Colossians 3:16.

[14]James 5:13.

[15]Revelation 5:9; 7:9-12; 11:15-18; 14:2,3; 15:3,4; 19:1-7.

CHAPTER I

[1]Dr. Phelps goes on to say, “Yet the greatest of these, that grace
which above all else vitalizes a true hymn, is that which makes it
true—its fidelity to the realities of religious experience.”

[2]“A hymn must have a beginning, middle, and end. There should be a
manifest graduation in the thoughts, and their mutual dependence
should be so perceptible that they could not be transposed without
injuring the unity of the piece; every line carrying forward the
connection, and every verse adding a well-proportioned limb to a
symmetrical body. The reader should know when the strain is
complete, and be satisfied, as at the close of an air in music.”
(James Montgomery.)

[3]Dr. Parks, back in 1857, remarks: “That is not always the best
church song which sparkles most with rhetorical gems. There are
spangled hymns which will never excite devotional feeling.”

[4]Sung at President McKinley’s funeral.

[5]Greece never had a sacred book, she never had any symbols, any
sacerdotal caste organized for the preservation of dogmas. Her
poets and her artists were her true theologians. (Renan, in
_Studies in Religious History_.)

[6]“Even when deeds and events of an innocent and pure character are
thus sung, there is nothing more of spiritual worship in it than
in the recitation of an epic poem. The singer confesses no need,
asks no blessing, reveals no yearning, expects no response. There
is no communion of thought and feeling, no aspiration for purity,
no laying hold of moral strength.” (Rev. G. O. Newport, a
missionary in India, quoted in _The Hymn Lover_.)

CHAPTER II

[1]The instinct to use song in worship was recognized so long ago as
1695 by Dr. Hickman: “There never was any land so barbarous, or
any people so polite, but have always approached their gods with
the solemnity of music and have expressed their devotions with a
song.” (Quoted by Dr. A. S. Hoyt in his _Public Worship for
Non-Liturgical Churches_.)

[2]“Our hymns spring out of religious experience at its best, and they
tend to lift experience to its highest levels. The very cream of
truth and of soul life is gathered into them. They contain the
refined riches, the precious essences, the cut and polished jewels
of Christianity in all ages. They are truly prophetic, the records
of the insight and intuition and rapture of the seer and the
saint.” (Dr. Waldo S. Pratt, in _Musical Ministries_. [New York:
Revell Co., 1915.] Used by permission.)

[3]Henry Ward Beecher placed a high value on the song service of the
church: “I have never loved men under any circumstances as I have
loved them while singing with them; never at any other time have I
been so near heaven with you, as in those hours when our songs
were wafted thitherward.”

[4]“In all great religious movements the people have been inspired
with a passion for singing. They have sung their creed: it seems
the freest and most natural way of declaring their triumphant
belief in great Christian truths, forgotten or denied in previous
times of spiritual depression and now restored to their rightful
place in the thought and life of the Church. Song has expressed
and intensified their enthusiasm, their new faith, their new joy,
their new determination to do the will of God.” (Dr. W. R. Dale.)

[5]Pratt, _Musical Ministries_.

[6]Ephesians 5: 18-20.

[7]Colossians 3: 16.

[8]I Corinthians 14: 15.

[9]Over three-quarters of a century ago, this lament was made by a
prominent New England minister: “Many a man, who carefully
interrogates his own experience, will confess that, while the
voice of public prayer readily engages his attention and carries
with it his devout desires, it is not so with the act of praise;
that he very seldom finds his affections rising upon its notes to
heaven—very seldom can he say at its close that he has worshiped
God. The song has been wafted near him as a vehicle for conveying
upward the sweet odor of a spiritual service, but the offering has
been withheld, and the song ascends as empty of divine honors as a
sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.” (Rev. Daniel L. Furber, in
_Hymns and Choirs_.)

CHAPTER III

[1]“To get behind the hymnbook to the men and women who wrote its
contents, and to the events, whether personal or public, out of
which it sprang and which it so graciously mirrors, is to enter a
world palpitating with human interest. For a hymnbook is a
transcript of real life, a poetical accompaniment to real events
and real experiences. Like all literature that counts, it rises
directly out of life.” (Frederick J. Gillman, in _The Evolution of
the English Hymn_. [New York: The Macmillan Co., 1927.] Used by
permission.)

[2]J. Balcom Reeves, _The Hymn in History and Literature_. (New York:
D. Appleton-Century Co., 1924). Used by permission.

[3]“There is an inclination to fence in what are called ‘literary
lyrics,’ as if to fence out singing lyrics! Now there is, of
course, a distinction between poems meant to be sung and poems
written in the pattern of lyrical poetry, but never meant to be
sung; but the terminology which classes one kind as literary,
thereby implying that the other kind is not of the realm of
literature, is inaccurate and unhappy.” _Ibid._

[4]“In his volume, _The English Lyric_, Professor Felix E. Schelling
virtually disposes of the hymn with the remark that ‘we may or may
not “accept” certain hymns, but we do not have to read them.’ That
is readily granted—unless, of course, one wishes to know them or
to write just criticism about them.” _Ibid._

[5]“Frequently a hymn is a prayer; and it is a rule for the structure
of prayers that they exclude all those recondite figures, dazzling
comparisons, flashing metaphors, which, while grateful to certain
minds of poetic excitability, are offensive to more sober and
staid natures, and are not congenial with the lowly spirit of a
suppliant at the throne of grace. A simile may be shining, but it
may not be exactly chaste; and a hymn prefers pure beauty to
bedizening ornament.” (Dr. Edwards A. Park, in _Hymns and
Choirs_.)

[6]These numbers, of course, refer to the number of syllables in a
line.

CHAPTER IV

[1]The vagaries of credit for writing given hymns is illustrated in
the appearance of the intensely Calvinistic Toplady’s name as the
writer of Charles Wesley’s intensely Arminian “Blow ye the
trumpet, blow.”

[2]Those who care to make a fuller study of the revision of hymns than
the following discussion affords are referred to the full
treatment of the subject, and to the abundant cases cited, by
Professor Edwards A. Park, D.D., of Andover Theological Seminary,
in _Hymns and Choirs_, issued in 1860 by Drs. Austin Phelps,
Edwards A. Park, and Daniel L. Furber. The lapse of years has in
no way diminished the value of this volume. It is unfortunately
out of print and inaccessible to the average pastor, outside of
public libraries.

CHAPTER V

[1]“But the emotional life, strongest, no doubt, in youth, remains a
lifelong element of personality and especially of the religious
personality. Feeling is not merely an integral part of religious
experience, it is central, vital, its inmost core. William James
speaks of it as the deeper source of religion, and says that
‘philosophical and theological formulas come below it in
importance. It is the dynamic factor in the religious life. When
it is absent, religion degenerates into mere formalism or barren
intellectualism.’” (Gillman, in _The Evolution of the English
Hymn_.)

[2]Rev. Louis F. Benson, D.D., in _The Hymnody of the Christian
Church_. (New York: Harper and Bros., 1927.) Used by permission.

CHAPTER VII

[1]Dr. Harris says of his discovery, “The manuscript had been lying
with a heap of other stray leaves of manuscript on the shelves of
my library without awakening any suspicion that it contained a
lost hymnbook of the early Church of the apostolic times, or at
the very latest of the sub-apostolic times.”

CHAPTER VIII

[1]There is frequent lament that in the translations of Greek, Latin,
and German hymns into English much of the original beauty is lost.
But the converse is also true: that such translators as Neale,
Brownlie, and Palmer have taken the uncut diamonds of the Greek
and Latin Fathers and so transformed them by their lapidarian
skill that the world-wide Christian Church is rejoicing in their
beauty.

[2]The _Te Deum_ has only slight claims to Greek origin and is
postponed to a later chapter.

[3]In like manner the rationalists of the age of Frederick the Great
of Prussia sought to prevent the use of the Lutheran hymns; the
Arians in the pre-Wesleyan times contended for the psalm versions
without doxologies recognizing the Trinity; in our own day,
extreme Modernists belittle Christian hymns as dogmatic and
unpoetical and urge the use of sociological hymns.

[4]This transfer of the song to clerical singers soon had its
inevitable result. Jerome begins to be apprehensive that the form
of singing would come to have too exclusive consideration. He
complained that those who led the song, like comedians, “smoothed
their throats with soft drinks in order to render their melodies
more impressive, and that the heart alone can properly make melody
to God.“

CHAPTER IX

[1]“The Greek language lived long and died slowly, and the Christian
hymn writers wrote in its decadence.” (Rev. John Brownlie, in his
preface to _Hymns of the Greek Church_.)

[2]The canon is an elaborate service consisting of nine odes or hymns
of different forms.

CHAPTER X

[1]“Jesus, the very thought of Thee” (Caswall) or “Jesus, Thou joy of
loving hearts” (Palmer).

[2]“O sacred Head, now wounded,” translated by James W. Alexander from
Paul Gerhardt’s “O Haupt voll Blut and Wunden,” a German version
of the Latin hymn above.

[3]Imagine a poem of such length in the difficult “Leonine hexameter”
of which the following translated lines will give an inkling:

“These are the latter times, these are not better times, let us
stand waiting!
Lo, how with awfulness, He, first in lawfulness, comes
arbitrating.”

Dr. Neale wisely reduced his centos to a plain meter, giving them
practical usefulness.

[4]Matthew Arnold described it as “the utterance of all that is
exquisite in the spirit of its century.” (Quoted by Gillman, in
his _Evolution of the English Hymn_.)

CHAPTER XI

[1]As an indication of how prevalent this singing of religious hymns
was, we note the fact that in 1512, twelve years before Luther’s
first hymnbook appeared, a collection of Roman Catholic hymns, set
to profane tunes, was issued in Venice, Italy.

[2]“To Luther belongs the extraordinary merit of having given to the
German people in their own tongue the Bible, the Catechism, and
the Hymnbook, so that God might speak directly to them in his
Word, and that they might directly answer him in their songs.” Dr.
Philip Schaff adds elsewhere that Luther “is the father of the
modern High German language and literature,” and that these are
the common possession of the Germanic tribes with their
diversified dialects from the Adriatic to the Baltic Sea. Erasmus
Alber, a contemporary who wrote twenty excellent hymns, calls
Luther “the German Cicero, who not only reformed religion, but
also the German language.” Hans Sachs, the poet cobbler of
Nuremberg, who, besides a great deal of general poetry, also wrote
a number of hymns, styled Luther “the nightingale of Wittenberg.”

CHAPTER XII

[1]Dr. Schaff.

CHAPTER XIII

[1]Dr. Louis F. Benson has well characterized this Psalter in its
influence on French character: “The metrical Psalter made the
Huguenot character. No doubt a character nourished on Old
Testament ideals will lack the full symmetry of the Gospel. But
the Huguenot was a warrior, first called to fight and suffer for
his faith. And in singing psalms he found his confidence and
strength.... In the wars of religion, the Psalms in meter were the
songs of camp and march, the war cry on the field, the swan song
at the martyr’s stake.”

[2]“Of course, psalms in the ballad form were easily learned and kept
in memory. And in the days when the ability to read was less
general than now, these rhymes, scattered so freely broadcast,
took root in many a mind and contributed powerfully to the
righteousness and stability of the nation.” (J. Balcom Reeves, in
_The Hymn in History and Literature_.)

CHAPTER XIV

[1]Comparing the English church with the German, Horder exclaims: “The
Puritans, indeed, had in their midst a finer poet than Luther, but
they never introduced even Milton’s superb renderings of certain
of the Psalms into their worship. What a use Luther would have put
Milton to, if he had been a member of his church! What songs he
would have written! Aye, what music, too!”

[2]“Thus the psalms have been at once an inspiration and a bondage:
_an inspiration_ in that they have kindled the fire which has
produced the hymnody of the entire church; _a bondage_, because,
by stereotyping religious expression, they robbed the heart of the
right to express in its own words the fears, the joys, the hopes
that the Divine Spirit had kindled in their souls.” (W. Garrett
Horder, in _The Hymn Lover_.)

[3]Thomas Wright in his recent _Life of Isaac Watts_ remarks: “Earlier
in this work I referred to Watts’ enthusiasm for, and his
indebtedness to, John Mason, who deserves rather than any other
writer the name of the Father of the Modern Hymn. If there had not
been a Mason there would never have been a Watts.”

CHAPTER XV

[1]It is perhaps needless to say that the word “vulgar” did not have
the opprobrious connotation that it inevitably brings today. It
simply meant “ordinary.”

[2]George W. Garrett Horder, in _The Hymn Lover_.

CHAPTER XVI

[1]“It was their love of social psalmody that made Methodist hymnody
what it was, and it was the desire to better parochial psalmody
that furnished John Wesley with the original motive of his work in
hymnody.” (Dr. Louis F. Benson, in _The English Hymn_. [New York:
Harper and Bros.] Used by permission.)

[2]“John Wesley was a good writer and preacher, and possessed
extensive learning. He was a man of unfailing perseverance, great
self-denial, large liberality, singular devotedness to his
Master’s service, and eminent piety. But perhaps his most
remarkable gift was the power he possessed of making men willing
to fall in with his purposes and of organizing systematic action
for the benefit of his followers.” (Josiah Miller, in _Singers and
Songs of the Church_.)

[3]“Wesley, like Watts, wrote very freely and spontaneously, as the
thousands of lyrics he wrote bear witness. Not all of them were
good; much of the verse reminds one of a painter’s tentative
sketches. But had he not freely written so many, he might not have
written the smaller number so consummately well.” (J. Balcom
Reeves, in _The Hymn in History and Literature_.)

[4]“The Wesley hymnbooks constitute an extraordinary interesting human
document, palpitating with real life. Every event of those
wonderful years, every experience, public or private, through
which the singers passed, is mirrored in some sweet song. But
there is more in them than that. They are _Pilgrim’s Progress_ in
verse. They trace the religious life of every man as he travels
from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. They unfold
the spiritual drama of man, his hopes and fears, his aspirations
and affections, his failures and victories; each chequered
experience trembles into songs, and scarcely a note is missing.
Springing from the heart of the eighteenth century, their music
seems to drown its licentiousness and frivolity in paeans of
praise.” (Frederick J. Gillman, in _The Evolution of the English
Hymn_.)

[5]Charles Wesley’s best hymns—and who would dare estimate his genius
on any other basis?—meet John Drinkwater’s two tests of vital
poetry:

(1) It must spring from vital and intense personal experience.

(2) It must transfer to the reader by “pregnant and living words”
the ecstasy that swelled the heart of the poet.

[6]“The style of Watts is austere, objective, formal; the style of
Wesley is warm, subjective, intimate.” (J. Balcom Reeves, in _The
Hymn in History and Literature_.)

[7]Dr. Benson in his exhaustive treatise on _The English Hymn_
remarks: “The Wesleys inaugurated a great spiritual revival; and
their hymns did as much as any human agency to kindle and
replenish its fervor.... John Wesley led an ecclesiastical revolt
and, failing to conquer his own church, established a new one of
phenomenal proportions: the hymns prefigured the constitution of
the new church and formed the manual of its spiritual discipline.”

[8]He frankly expressed his inhospitable attitude: “Were we to
encourage little poets, we should soon be overrun.”

CHAPTER XVII

[1]The Oxford or Tractarian Movement on the one hand sought a deeper
spiritual life than was then prevalent, and on the other
emphasized the solidarity of the Church of Christ before and after
the Reformation. It recognized the authority of the
pre-Reformation theology and of the associated ceremonial liturgy.
Many of its leaders entered the Roman Catholic Church, accepting
even its worship of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and of the saints.

CHAPTER XVIII

[1]The condition of congregational singing at this time is reported by
Rev. Thomas Walter as follows: “Our tunes are left to the mercy of
every unskilful throat to chop and alter, to twist and change,
according to their infinitely diverse and no less odd humors and
fancies. I have myself paused twice in one note to take breath. No
two men in the congregation quaver alike or together; it sounds in
the ears of a good judge like five hundred tunes roared out at the
same time with perpetual interferings with one another.”

[2]It is related of a New England minister, Rev. T. Bellamy, that
after the choir had outdone all its past discord and blundering in
rendering the Psalm, he announced another and admonished his
choir, “You must try again, for it is impossible to preach after
such singing.”

CHAPTER XIX

[1]Dr. S. Weir Mitchell.

[2]Dr. Louis F. Benson says of Charles Wesley’s “Jesus, lover of my
soul”: “The suspicion remains that the secret of its appeal lies
in a poetic beauty that the average man feels without analyzing
it, and in a perfection of craftsmanship that makes him want to
sing it simply because it awakens the spirit of song in him,
rather than a mood of reflection.”

[3]The Wesleyan doctrine of the Second Work, or Holiness, now known as
“The Victorious Life.”

[4]It will be a good introduction to this minute study to work out the
Biblical authority for the dozen or more allusions.

[5]Hebrews 12:1.

[6]Fleming H. Revell Co. New York.

[7]A full discussion of hymn tunes will be found in Chapters X to XII
of _Music in Work and Worship_ or in Chapters V to X in _Practical
Church Music_, of which books the present writer is the author.
Both published by Fleming H. Revell Co. New York.

CHAPTER XX

[1]A fuller discussion of this topic will be found in Chapter XXIX of
_Music in Work and Worship_, by the present writer.

[2]When Moody was superintendent of a Sunday school in Chicago, he had
a vicious boy in one of the classes whom he had reprimanded again
and again for disturbing the meeting. Finally one Sunday the boy
was unusually fractious and Moody turned to his chorister and
said, “When I get up and walk up the aisle, you start ‘Hold the
Fort’ as vigorously as you can.” While the song was being sung
with much enthusiasm, Moody dragged the boy out of the class by
the collar, took him to an adjacent room, and punished him
drastically while the school sang and submerged the boy’s cries.
The boy grew up, became a minister, and often told with glee the
story of how Moody started the work of grace in his heart.

CHAPTER XXII

[1]In regular services, single verse tunes may be played through, but
only the last half of double verse tunes should be allowed, lest
the momentum gained by the introductory comment be lost.

GENERAL INDEX

A
Adam of St. Victor 123
Addison, Joseph 167
Adolphus, Gustavus 138
Ainsworth’s Version 155
Alber, Erasmus 136
Albigenses 128
Aldhelm, Bishop 150
Alexander, Mrs. Cecil Frances 206
Alexander, William 153
Alline, Harry 212
Ambrose of Milan 120, 124
American Hymnody, Beginnings of 208
American Hymns, Early Collections of 213
American Psalmody 155-157
American Recent Hymn Writers 222-225
Anatolius 115
Andrew of Crete 116
Annesley, Rev. Samuel 181
Annesley, Susanna 181
Announcement of Hymns 266-8
Appelles, von Loewenstein 139
Aquinas, Thomas 125
Arndt, Ernst Moritz 144
Arnold, Matthew 57, 58
Austin, John 164

B
Bacon, Dr. Leonard 218
Bakewell, John 189
Baring-Gould, Sabine 207
Barnby, Joseph 207
Barton, Bernard 203
Barton, William 165
Basil, Saint 50
Baxter, Richard 163, 167
Bay Psalm Book 156, 209
Benedicite, The 111
Benson, Louis F. 7, 62, 65, 85, 133, 174, 225
Bernard of Clairvaux 124
Bernard of Cluny 125
Beza, Theodore 150
Bliss, P. P. 51, 91, 224
Bonar, Horatius 207
Bourgeois 150
Bowring, Sir John 204
Bradbury, William B. 51
Brady, Nicholas 154
Bromehead, Joseph 164
Brooks, Bishop Phillips 51, 222, 223
Brown, Phoebe Hinsdale 214
Brownlie, Rev. Dr. John 114
Bryant, William Cullen 220
Buchanan, George 143, 147
Byles, Mather 211
Byrom, John 178

C
Caedmon 158
Calkin, J. Baptiste 219
Calvin, John 148
Campbell, Thomas 155
Campion, Thomas 161
Candlelight Hymn 110
Canon, Golden 116
Canon, Pentecostarion 116
Canons, Queen of 116
Canon, The Great 116
Canon, Triodion 116
Carlyle, Thomas 135
Caswall, Edward 126, 204
Celano, Thomas of 126
Cennick, John 190
Character of German Hymnody 146
Charlemagne 124
Christian Lyre 215
Christian Year 200
Church Poetry 218
Clement of Alexandria 109
Coleman, Dr. Lyman 106
Compendious Booke of Gude and Godlie Ballates 150
Concordant Discord of a Broken-Hearted Heart 164
Conder, Josiah 204
Cosin, Bishop 124
Cosmas 116
Cotterill, Thomas 202
Coverdale, Miles 150
Cowley, Robert 151
Cowper, William, Life of 196, 197
Coxe, Bishop Arthur Cleveland 223
Crosby, Fanny 51, 261

D
Damiana, Cardinal 123
Da Todi, Jacopone 127
Davies, Samuel 211
Decius, Nicolaus 136
De la Motte Fouque 144
Dexter, Henry M. 110
Doane, Bishop George W. 219
Doane, William H. 51, 270
Doddridge, Philip 233, 238
Doddridge, Relative Standing 178
Duffield, George, Jr. 222
Dundee Psalms 150
Dunster and Lyon 156
Dwight, Timothy (Pres.) 210

E
Earliest English Hymns 158
Eber, Paul 136
Edmeston, James 203
Eliot, John 156
Emergency Hymns 260
English Literary Ideals Discourage Hymn Writing 159
English Psalmody Submerges English Hymnody 159
English Psalm Versions Before Sternhold 150

F
Faber, Frederick W. 206, 235
Fawcett, John 60, 191
Finney, Charles G. 51, 214
Fitting Hymn Tunes to Congregations 249
Flagellant Monks 131
Fleming, Paul 139
Francis of Assisi 126
Francke, August Hermann 141
Franck, John 140
Franklin, Benjamin 210
Freylinghausen, Johann A. 141
Fuller, Thomas 155
Furber, Rev. Daniel L. 7

G
Gates, Ellen H. 91
Gellert, Christian Fuerchtegott 139, 142
Genevan Psalter 150
Gerhardt, Paul 139
German Te Deum 138
Gerok, Karl von 146
Ghoostly Psalms and Spiritual Songs 150
Gill, Thomas Hornblower 58
Gilman, Frederick J. 155
Gilmore, Joseph H. 91, 224
Gladden, Washington 51, 224
Gloria in Excelsis 111
Gloria Patri 112
Goethe 126
Gospel Hymn, The 89
Adaptation to Practical Work 96-99
Advantages of 98
Almost Universal Use 89
Discrimination in Use of Gospel Songs Needed 98
Judged by Results 90
Lack of Discrimination of Critics 91
Precursors of 90
Standard Hymns 92
Unfair Comparisons 93
Wrong Assumptions 92
Goudimel 150
Grant, Sir Robert 203, 230, 235
Great Hymnic Themes 88
Gregory of Nazianzus 114
Gregory the Great 124
Grigg, Joseph 192

H
Hammond, William 235
Hankey, Kate 91
Hardenberg, Friedrich von 144
Harris, Dr. Rendell 107
Hastings, Thomas 91, 215, 216
Havergal, Frances Ridley 207
Hawks, Mrs. Annie S. 91, 234
Heath, George 75
Heber, Bishop Reginald 84, 199, 232
Hedge, Frederick H. 135
Herbert, Geo. 36, 162
Hermannus Contractus 124
Herrick, Robert 163
Hewitt, Eliza Edmunds 91
Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers 120, 130
Hiller 141
Holden, Oliver 213
Holmes, Oliver Wendell 220
Hopper, Rev. Edw. 91, 224
Horder, W. Garrett 25, 160, 166
Hosmer, Rev. Frederick L. 224
How, Bishop W. W. 206
Hoyt, Dr. A. S. 96
Hunter, Rev. William 91
Huntington, Countess of 194
Huss, John, of Prague 131
Hyde, Abby B. 214
Hymnal as a Text Book of Theology 84-86
Hymnal, Making a Personal 240-242
Hymn Lover, The 25
Hymnology, Works on 7-8
Hymns 35
Adjusted to Mass Singing 74
As a Pedagogic Device 74
As Literature 53
As Poetry 27
Changes in 63-75
Character of changes 67-72
John Wesley as Reviser 70-72
Limits of author’s rights 65
Minor changes in hymns 73-75
Often needless 64
Return to originals 65
Rights of authors 65
Christocentric 31
Congregational or Singing Hymn 27
Create Religious Atmosphere 72
Definition of Hymn 25
Definition of Hymn by Dr. Benson 28
Distinctly Religious 30
Earliest Hymns 110
Early Greek Hymns 114
Efficiency of Hymns 21
Excessive “Ego” in Hymns 81
Flaws in Hymns by Standard Writers 94
Ignorance of Hymns 21
Importance of Hymns 17
Impulse to Write Hymns 40
In Apostolic Times 104
Indifference to Hymns 50-52
Influence of Purpose on Writing 40-43
In the Epistles 105
Limitations of 58
Literary Criticism of 41, 55-57
Means of Emotional Expression 43
Meters of 33, 59-61
Of the Apocalypse 106
Of the Social Gospel 87
Origin and Development of Apostolic Hymns 104
Place of Hymns 17
Practicability of 34
Purpose of Singing Hymns 42
Purpose of User 42
Relation of Hymns to God 76-8
Relation of Hymns to Singer 79-82
Scriptural, Must be 31
Source of 103
Special Subjects 87
Succeeded Psalms 103
Supreme Theme of 88
Taken from Congregation 112
Too Intense 245
Use in Propaganda 112
Valuable Aids in Services 242
Value of 40-46
“Hymns Ancient and Modern” 54
Hymn Sermons and Services 254
Hymns of the Protestant Episcopal Church 218

I
Irons, Rev. W. J. 126

J
James I of England 153
John of Damascus 116
Johnson, Dr. Samuel 56
Joseph of the Studium 117
Jonas, Justus 136

K
Keble, John 199, 200, 232, 235
Kelly, Thomas 201
Ken, Bishop Thomas 72, 164
Key, Francis S. 219
“King” and “Queen” Chorales 137
King Conrad 131
Klopstock, Friedrich G. 143
Knapp, Albert 145
Knox, John 153
Knox’s Version 153
Krummacher, Friedrich Adolph 145

L
Language of Post-Apostolic Hymns 111
Later American Orthodox Hymnists 222
Lathbury, Mary Artemisia 223
Latin Psalm Version by Geo. Buchanan 151
Lavater, Johann Kasper 144
Leavitt, Rev. Joshua 214
Leland, John 213
Literary Trend in English Hymns 198
Lollards, The 50
Lowry, Robert 51
Luther and Calvin 148
Luther and the Vernacular Hymn 130
Luther, Martin 130
Luther’s Great Chorale 134
Luther’s Hymn Collections 134
Luther’s Relation to German Hymnody 132
Luther’s Tunes 136
Lyte, Henry Francis 204

M
MacDonald, George 167, 178
Madan, Rev. Martin 72, 194
Marot, Clement 149
Marriott, John 203
Marseillaise Hymn 83
Martineau, Dr. James 41, 187
Mason, John 166
Mason, Lowell 91, 215-217
Mather, Cotton 157
Mather, Richard 156
Matheson, Dr. George 208
Medieval Popular Hymnody 146
Medley, Rev. Samuel 192, 235
Memorizing Hymns 243
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix 138
Methodist Hymnal 93
Methods of Hymn Study 234-240
Meyfart, Johannes 139
Milman, Henry Hart 75, 199, 200
Milton, John 160
Montgomery, James 56, 64, 155, 190, 201-2
Montgomery, James, as Critic 202
Moore, Thomas 200
Moravians 181
Morris, Mrs. C. H. 224
Mote, Edward 73
Mozart, Wolfgang A. 126
Muhlenberg, Rev. William Augustus 218

N
Neale, Dr. Mason 115, 125, 205
Neumark, Georg 138
Newman, Cardinal John Henry 51, 204
New Presbyterian Hymnal 93
Newton and Cowper 195
Newton, John, Life of 195
Nicolai, Philipp 137
North, Frank Mason 224
Notker, called Balbulus 123, 124

O
Occom, Samson 212
Odes of Solomon 106
Odo of Cluny 123
Olivers, Thomas 189
Olney Hymns (Newton) 195
Omitting Verses 272
Onderdonk, Dr. H. U. 219
Opitz, Martin 138

P
Palgrave 56, 175
Palmer, Ray 91, 217-18, 233
Parker, Archbishop 154
Parker, Theodore 126
Parks, Prof. Edwards A. 7
Patrick, Saint 159
Paul of Samosata 112
Paulus Diaconus 123
Perronet, Edward 189
Personal Hymnal 240-2
Peter the Hermit 125
Phelps, Prof. Austin 7, 88, 95, 257
Phelps, Dr. Sylvanus Dryden 224
Phillips, Philip 51
Pietism in German Hymnody 144
Planning Music of Service 250-53
Popularity of Sternhold and Hopkins Version 152
Poteat, Prof. H. M. 21
Practical Hymnology 21
Practical Hymn Studies 242
Prentiss, Mrs. Elizabeth 224
Preparing a Congregation to Sing Hymns 268-72
Priest, Francis Baker 164
Primitive Church, The 106
Procter, Adelaide A. 231
Proses 123
Protestant Te Deum 74
Prudentius, Bishop of Poitiers 112
Psalmody in America 209
Psychology of Psalmody 148-9

R
Rabanus, Maurus 123
Rankin, Rev. Jeremiah E. 91, 224
Rationalism in German Hymnody 143
Reeves, Prof. J. Balcom 159
Revised Presbyterian Hymnal 179
Ringwaldt, Bartolomaeus 137
Rinkart, Martin 138
Robinson, Robert 191, 235
Rodigast 141
Roh, Johann 136
Root, George F. 51
Rous, Francis 153
Rous’ Version 153
Ruckert, Friedrich 145

S
Saint Basil 50
Saint Colombo 159
Saint Patrick 159
Sanctus 28
Schade 141
Schaff, Dr. Philip 134, 143
Scheffler, John 140
Schultz 141
Scott, Sir Walter 127
Seagrave, Robert 178
Sears, Edmund Hamilton 221
Selborne, Lord 134
Selnecker, Nicolaus 137
Senfl, Ludwig 136
Shurtleff, Ernest W. 224
Smith, Samuel F. 91, 216
Solomon’s Coronation Song 176
Southwell, Robert 160
Spafford, Horatio G. 91
Spener, Philipp Jacob 140
Spengler, Lazarus 136
Speratus, Paul 134, 136
Spirituals 55
Spiritual Songs for Social Worship 216-17
Spitta, Karl Johann Philipp 145
Steele, Anne 125, 191
Stephen, the Sabaite 116
Sternhold and Hopkins Versions 152
Sternhold, Thomas 152
Stite, Edgar F. 91
Stone, Samuel J. 84
Stowe, Harriet Beecher 222, 230
Strong, Nathan 212
Studying Hymn Tunes 246, 264
Studying Methods of Using Hymns 244-47, 249
Study of Hymns, Advantages of 229-33
Suggestive Selection of Hymns 258-64
Synesius 115

T
Tappan, William B. 214
Tate and Brady’s Version 154
Tate, Nahum 154, 209
Tauler, John 131
Teaching Truth by Use of Hymns 253
Technic of Hymnwriting Established 165
Te Deum Laudamus 28, 119
Ter Sanctus, The 111
Tersteegen, Gerhardt 141, 235
Tertullian 109
Theodore of the Studium 117
Theodulph 123
Thomas of Celano 126
Thompson, Alexander R. 126
Toplady, Augustus Montague 190
Toplady’s Hymn Tests 194
Treasury of Sacred Songs 56
Trench, Archbishop 55, 124
Trent, Archbishop 125
Troubadours 128
Two Values in Singing Hymns 248
Types of Hymns 76-88
“I” and “My” hymns 81
In Relation to God 76-9
In Relation to Singer 79

U
Unitarian Hymnody in America 219
Unity in Selecting Hymns 256

V
Valois, Marguerite de 149
Value of Psalm Versions 157
Van Alstyne, Frances Crosby 223
Van Dyke, Dr. Henry 235
Venerable Bede, The 123, 159
Verse, Secular and Sacred Compared 56

W
Waldenses 128
Walford, H. W. 91
Walther, Johann 136
Ware, Henry, Jr. 220
Warner, Anna 223
Waters, Horace 215
Watts and Charles Wesley 185
Watts, Isaac 41, 62, 169, 235, 238
Watts’ Argument for Hymns 172-4
Watts’ First Hymn 169
Watts’ Horæ Lyricæ 169, 170
Watts’ Hymns in America 210
Watts’ Hymns, Value of 175
Watts, Life of 168
Watts, Stress on Practicability 174
Wedderburn Brothers 150
Weiss, Michael 136
Welde, Thomas 156
Wesley Brothers, Relation of 182
Wesley, Charles 62, 88, 183, 235, 238, 254
Wesley, Charles, as a preacher 184
Wesley, Charles, Life of 183
Wesley Family, The 181
Wesley Hymns, Issues of 186
Wesley, John 64, 181, 182
Wesley, John, American Collection 182
Wesley, John, Changes in Watts’ Hymns 70-2
Wesley, John, Character of 183
Wesley, John, Life of 181
Wesley, Samuel 181
Wesleys and the Moravians, The 181
Wesleys, Opposition to 187
Wesleys, Theology of 188
White, Henry Kirke 198, 203
Whitfield, George 210
Whittier, John G. 222
Williams, William 189
Winkworth, Catherine 138
Withers, George 161
Wordsworth, Bishop Christopher 38, 84

Z
Zinzendorf, Count Nicholaus Ludwig von 182
Zwingli, Ulrich 148

INDEX OF HYMNS

(First lines, except those in parenthesis which are first lines of
other than first verse, or of first lines of translations.)

A
A charge to keep I have 62, 83
A few more years shall roll 208
(A mighty fortress is our God) 134, 239
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide 204, 223
Ah, dearest Jesus, I have grown 36
Alas, and did my Savior bleed 69, 81, 116, 269
All hail the pow’r of Jesus’ name 60, 74, 189, 234
All people that on earth do dwell 153, 259
(All praise to Thee, eternal Lord) 135
Almost persuaded, now to believe 91
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound 48, 196
Amazing sight, the Savior stands 212
(And when our days are past) 213
Angels from the realms of glory 202
Approach, my soul, the mercy seat 196
Art thou weary, art thou languid 117, 206
As pants the hart for cooling streams 155, 204
Awake and sing the song 235
Awake, my soul, in joyful lays 192
Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve 60, 179, 238

B
Be faithful unto death 90
Befiehl du deine Wege 140
Before Jehovah’s awful throne 59, 70, 175, 186, 235, 251, 259
Behold, a Stranger at the door 192
Behold the glories of the Lamb 170
Behold the Savior of mankind 181
Beneath the cross of Jesus 268
Beyond the smiling and the weeping 208
Blest be the tie that binds 191
Blest be Thy love, dear Lord 164
Blow ye the trumpet, blow 63, 251
Bread of the world, in mercy broken 199
Break Thou the bread of life 223
Brief life is here our portion 125, 206
Brighten the corner where you are 30, 97, 251
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning 199, 232
(But warm, sweet, tender, even yet) 222
By cool Siloam’s shady rill 199

C
Calm on the listening ear of night 222
Child of sin and sorrow 215
Children of the heavenly King 190
Christ is born, exalt His name 116
Christian, dost thou see them 206
Christians, awake, salute the happy morn 178
Come, gracious Spirit, heavenly Dove 178
Come, Holy Ghost, in love 218
Come, Holy Spirit, come 60
Come, Jesus, Redeemer, abide Thou with me 218
Come, my soul, thy suit prepare 196
Come, oh, come, in pious lays 161
Come, sound His praise abroad 251
Come, Thou Almighty King 61, 68, 261
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing 192, 235, 239, 269
Come, we that love the Lord 251
Come, ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish 200, 211
Crown Him with many crowns 60

D
Day is dying in the West 223
Day of wrath! O day of mourning 127
(Dear Christian people, now rejoice) 135
Dear Savior, if these lambs should stray 217
Deathless principle, arise 190
Delay not, delay not, O sinner, draw near 216
Depth of mercy, can there be 186, 254

E
Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott 134, 136, 138, 150, 245
Eine Herde und ein Hirt 145
Es ist gewisslich an der Zeit 137
Es kennt der Herr die Seinen 145

F
Fade, fade, each earthly joy 61
Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all nature 235
Faith of our fathers, living still 206
Father of mercies, in Thy word 191
Father, whate’er of early bliss 60, 191
(Fear not, O little flock, the foe) 138
Fierce was the wild billow 115, 206
Fling out the banner; let it float 219
For thee, O dear, dear country 125
Forever with the Lord 202
Forward! singing glory 225
From all that dwell below the skies 59
From Greenland’s icy mountains 199, 216
(From heaven above to earth I come) 135

G
Gently, Lord, oh, gently lead us 215
Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ 135-6
Give to the winds thy fears 140, 262
Glorious things of thee are spoken 48, 196
Go, labor on, spend and be spent 208
God be with you till we meet again 91
(God calling yet; shall I not hear?) 141
God is love; his mercy brightens 204, 261
God is the refuge of His saints 59, 262
God moves in a mysterious way 48, 196, 254
Gott ist gegenwaertig! lasset uns anbeten 141
Gott rufet noch, sollt’ ich nicht endlich hoeren? 141
Grace, ’tis a charming sound 179
Great God, how infinite Thou art 186
(Great God, what do I see and hear) 137
Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah 190, 262

H
Hail, glad’ning light, of His pure glory poured 110
Hail, Thou once despised Jesus 189
Hail to the brightness of Zion’s glad morning 215
Hail to the Lord’s Anointed 202
Hark, hark, my soul, angelic strains are swelling 206
Hark, my soul, it is the Lord 197
Hark, ten thousand harps and voices 201
Hark, the herald angels sing 72, 246
Hark, the song of jubilee 202
Harre des Herrn 90
He dies, the Friend of sinners dies 67
(He knoweth all His people) 145
He leadeth me, O blessed thought 91, 224, 255
He sings and plays the songs which best thou lovest 162
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty 84, 199, 251, 261
How are Thy servants blest, O Lord 167
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord 262
How gentle God’s commands 179
How precious is the book divine 191
How sweet the name of Jesus sounds 48, 196, 236, 238
Hush, my babe, lie still and slumber 172

I
I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice 223
I could not do without Thee 207
I gave my life for Thee 207
I heard the voice of Jesus say 208
I hunger and I thirst 61
(I know in whom I put my trust) 145
(I know no life divided) 145
I know that my Redeemer lives (Medley) 192
I know that my Redeemer lives (Wesley) 186
I lay my sins on Jesus 208
I love Thee so; I know not how 35, 82
I love Thy kingdom, Lord 211
I love to steal awhile away 214
I love to tell the story 91
I need Thee every hour 91, 236
I praise Him most, I love Him best 160
I sing th’ almighty pow’r of God 60
I was a wand’ring sheep 35, 208
I will sing you a song of that beautiful land 91
I would not live alway; I ask not to stay 219
I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath 186
Ich weiss, an wen ich glaube 145
If thou but suffer God to guide thee 139
In the Christian’s home in glory 91
In the cross of Christ I glory 204, 269
In the hour of my distress 163
In the hour of trial 202
It came upon the midnight clear 222
It is well with my soul 91

J
Jedes Herz will etwas lieben 141
Jerusalem, my happy home 164
Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest 125, 206
Jesu, dulcedo cordium 218
Jesu, dulcis memoria 125, 218
Jesus, name all names above 117
Jesus, and shall it ever be 192
Jesus calls us, o’er the tumult 206
Jesus, I love Thy charming name 233
Jesus, I my cross have taken 204
Jesus, keep me near the cross 223
Jesus, lebt, mit ihm auch ich 142
Jesus, let thy pitying eye 73
(Jesus lives, no longer now) 142
Jesus, Lover of my soul 38, 63, 64, 186, 239, 254
Jesus loves me, this I know 223
Jesus, my all, to heaven is gone 190
Jesus, Savior, pilot me 91, 224
Jesus shall reign where’er the sun 59, 176, 186, 263
Jesus, the very thought of Thee 43, 60, 205, 218, 233, 239
Jesus, these eyes have never seen 217, 233, 236
Jesus, Thou joy of loving hearts 218
Jesus, where’er Thy people meet 73, 197
(Jesus, Thy boundless love to me) 140
Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee 235
Joy to the world, the Lord is come 73

K
Kingdoms and thrones to God belong 251

L
Lamp of our feet, whereby we trace 203
Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom 34, 51, 205, 246
Lead on, O King eternal 224, 263, 269
Let all the earth their voices raise 259, 260
Let our choir new anthems raise 117
Lift your glad voices in triumph on high 220
Lo! God is here, let us adore 78, 141, 235
Lo! He comes with clouds descending 190
Lo! in the clouds of heaven appears 220
Lobe den Herren, den Maechtigen Koenig der Ehren 142
Look, ye saints, the sight is glorious 201
Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing 191
Lord, I am Thine, entirely Thine 211
Lord, it belongs not to my care 164
Lord Jesus, think on me 115
Lord of all being, throned afar 59, 221, 250
Lord, speak to me, that I may speak 207
Lord, we come before Thee now 261
Lord, with glowing heart I’d praise Thee 218
Love divine, all loves excelling 186, 238, 261

M
Mag auch die Liebe weinen 145
Mighty God, while angels bless Thee 191, 235
More about Jesus would I know 91
More love to Thee, O Christ 61, 224
Mortals awake, with angels join 192
My country, ’tis of thee 61, 216
My faith looks up to Thee 43, 61, 91, 213, 236, 249
(My feet are worn and weary) 35
My God, how wonderful Thou art 206, 235, 250
My God, I love Thee, not because 205, 236
My God, I thank Thee, who hast made 231
My God, my God, to Thee I cry 184
My God, the spring of all my joys 38
My gracious Lord, I own Thy right 179
My hope is built on nothing less 74
My Jesus, as Thou wilt 60
My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine 246
My soul, be on thy guard 60, 75
My spirit longeth for Thee 61, 178

N
Nearer, my God, to Thee 61, 224, 242
Never weather-beaten sail 161
(Not all the blood of beasts) 238
Now from the altar of my heart 166
Now I resolve with all my heart 191
Now must we hymn the Master of heaven 158
Now, my tongue, the mystery telling 126
(Now thank we all our God) 138
Now the day is over 207
Nun danket alle Gott 138
Nun freuet euch, lieb Christen G’mein 135

O
O Christ, the Lord of heaven, to Thee 218
O day of rest and gladness 38, 84, 251
O God, beneath Thy guiding hand 218
O happy band of pilgrims 117
O happy day that fixed my choice 179
(O happy home, where Thou art loved the dearest) 145
O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden 140
O Jesu Christ, mein schoenstes Licht 140
O Jesu, meine Sonne 145
O Jesus, our chief cornerstone 59
O Jesus, sweet the tears I shed 218
O Jesus, Thou art standing 207
O little town of Bethlehem 51, 68, 223
O love divine, how sweet Thou art 235
O Love divine, that stooped to share 221
O Love! how deep, how broad, how high 59
O Love that wilt not let me go 34, 80, 97, 208, 249, 268
O lux, beata Trinitas 134
O Master, let me walk with Thee 51, 224
(O Morning Star, how fair and bright) 137
O most blessed Light divine 124
O mother dear, Jerusalem 164
O name, all other names above 224
(O name than every name more dear) 144
O Paradise, O Paradise 206
(O sacred head now wounded) 140
O Savior, precious Savior 235
O selig Haus, wo man dich aufgenommen 145
O splendor of the Father’s face 121
O sussester der Namen all 144
O Thou who driest the mourner’s tear 200
O treuer Heiland, Jesu Christ 145
O Word of God, incarnate 207
O Word of truth! in devious paths 114
O’er the gloomy hills of darkness 190
Oft in danger, oft in woe 203
Oh, could I speak the matchless worth 79, 192, 235
Oh, for a closer walk with God 196
Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing 68, 235, 263
Oh, help us, Lord, each hour of need 200
Oh, where are kings and empires now 223
Oh, where shall rest be found 202
Oh, worship the King, all-glorious above 97, 203, 235, 251, 259
On the mountain’s top appearing 201
On the wings of His love I was carried above 36
One more day’s work for Jesus 223
(One Shepherd and one fold to be) 145
One there is above all others 196
Onward, Christian Soldiers 207, 251, 255, 263
Our God, our help in ages past 171, 175, 186, 230

P
Pange, lingua, gloriosi 125
Pass me not, O gentle Savior 223
Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin 83
Praise, my soul, the King of heaven 204
Praise the Lord, ye heavens adore Him 78, 235
Praise to the Holiest in the height 205
(Praise to the Lord! He is King over all the creation) 142
Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire 84, 202, 269

R
Return, O wanderer, to thy home 216
Ride on, ride on in majesty 75, 200
Rise, glorious Conqueror, rise 61
Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings 178
Rock of Ages, cleft for me 64, 190, 239, 254, 255

S
Safe home, safe home in port 117
Safe in the arms of Jesus 223
Safely through another week 196, 251
Salve, Caput cruentatum 125, 140
Savior, breathe an evening blessing 203
Savior, more than life to me 223
Savior, sprinkle many nations 223
Savior, Thy dying love 224
Savior, who Thy flock art feeding 219
(See from his head, his hands, his feet) 271
See, the Conqueror rides in triumph 38
Shepherd of tender youth 109, 110
Shout the glad tidings, exultingly sing 219
Sei getreu bis in den Tod 90
Sieh, hier bin ich, Ehrenkoenig 142
Simply trusting every day 91
(Sleepers, awake, a voice is calling) 137
Softly now the light of day 219
Soldiers of the cross, arise 207
(Something every heart is loving) 141
Sometimes a light surprises 48, 197
Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea 200
(Sovereign Ruler, King Victorious) 142
Stand up and bless the Lord 60
Stand up, stand up for Jesus 83, 222, 239
Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh 223, 230
Summer suns are glowing 207
Sun of my soul, Thou Savior dear 200, 232, 235
Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer 91
Swell the anthem, raise the song 212

T
Take me, O my Father, take me 218
Take my life, and let it be 207
The bird, the messenger of day 122
The church’s one foundation 84
The day is past and over 115, 206
The God of Abraham praise 189
The Head that once was crowned with thorns 201
The heavens are not too high 162
The indorsement of supreme delight 36
The Lord is King, lift up thy voice 204
The Lord is my Shepherd, no want shall I know 202
The Lord our God is clothed with might 37, 198, 203
The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want 154
The morning light is breaking 91, 216, 263
The ransomed spirit to her home 214
The rivers on of Babilon 156
The roseate hues of early dawn 206
The royal banners forward go 122
The Savior bids thee watch and pray 216
The Son of God goes forth to war 199
The spacious firmament on high 167
The spirit in our hearts 219
The sun is sinking fast 205
The voice that breathed o’er Eden 201
Thee will I love, my strength, my tower 140
There is a fountain filled with blood 48, 60, 65, 197, 254
There is a green hill far away 206, 271
There is an hour of peaceful rest 214
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy 83, 206
There’s sunshine in my soul 245
They who seek the throne of grace 213
Thou art the way, to Thee alone 219
Thou hidden source of calm repose 184
Thou wast, O God, and Thou was blest 166
Thou, whose almighty word 203
(Though love may weep with breaking heart) 145
Through all the changing scenes of life 155
Thy way, not mine, O Lord 60
’Tis midnight, and on Olive’s brow 59, 214
’Tis the day of resurrection 206
To our Redeemer’s glorious name 191
True-hearted, whole-hearted 207

U
Unser Herrscher, unser Koenig 142

V
Veni, Creator spiritus 124, 134, 152
Veni, Redemptor gentium 134
Veni, Sancte Spiritus 124
Verzage nicht, du Haeuflein klein 138
Vexilla regis prodeunt 122, 124
Von Himmel hoch da komm ich her 135

W
Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme 137
(Wait on the Lord) 90
(Wake, awake, for night is flying) 138
Waked by the Gospel’s joyful sound 211
Walk in the light; so shalt thou know 203
(Was there ever kindest Shepherd) 206
Watchman, tell us of the night 204
We are but strangers here 61
We are living, we are dwelling 223
We give Thee but Thine own 207
We may not climb the heavenly steeps 240
(We praise and bless Thee, gracious Lord) 145
We would see Jesus, for the shadows lengthen 223
Welcome, sweet day of rest 60, 73
Wer nur den lieben Gott laesst walten 138
When all Thy mercies, O my God 167, 262
When I can read my title clear 38
When I survey the wondrous cross 38, 59, 79, 171, 176, 237
When marshaled on the mighty plain 203
When morning gilds the skies 205
When our hearts are bowed with woe 200
When the roll is called up yonder 245
When the weary, seeking rest 208
Where cross the crowded ways of life 87, 224
While shepherds watched their flocks by night 155
While with ceaseless course the sun 196
Who can behold the blazing light 212
Wie schoen leuchtet der Morgenstern 137
Work, for the night is coming 83

Y
Ye holy angels bright 164
Ye servants of God, your Master proclaims 73, 263
Yet God’s must I remain 161

Z
Zion stands with hills surrounded 201
Zion, to thy Savior singing 126

THE SINGING CHURCH
_The Hymns It Wrote and Sang_
By EDMUND S. LORENZ

To this author the hymn is not a dry abstraction but an experience of
intense reality—of those realities (as of God, Christ, sin, salvation,
divine care, eternal life) to which human hearts have responded
throughout the ages. His study makes full recognition of the personal
elements in hymn development. The singers whose vision of spiritual
things is fresh and keen stand out in every age, expanding the
permanent content of church hymnody.

Here is indeed a book which will set the Church to singing once more,
in an effort to proclaim a new awareness of the presence of God—that
same awareness which stirred the composers of our greatest hymns. Dr.
Lorenz makes visible to us the golden stairway of great hymn writers,
shining at every level of its ascent with the glory of the Christian
faith.

THE CONTENTS

Introduction. PART I: The Character of the Hymn. _Chapters_: What Is a
Hymn? The Purpose and Value Of Hymns. The Literary Aspect of Hymns.
The Emendation of Hymns. The Content of the Hymn. The Gospel Hymn.

PART II: History of the Development of the Christian Hymn. _Chapters_:
Apostolic Origin and Development. The Post-Apostolic Hymn. The Greek
Hymnody. The Latin Hymnody. Luther and the German Hymn. The Later
German Hymnody. Metrical Psalmody. The English Hymn before Watts.
Isaac Watts and His Period. The Wesleys and Their Era. Hymns in the
Church of England. American Hymnody.

PART III: Practical Hymnology. _Chapters_: The Study of Hymns. The
Practical Use of Hymns. The Selection of: Hymns. The Announcement and
Treatment of Hymns. Epilogue.

The study is pre-eminently thorough both in literary analysis and in
historical research. The altogether practical treatment illuminates
the whole field of hymnology and its values.

THE SINGING CHURCH
_The Hymns It Wrote and Sang_
By EDMUND S. LORENZ

This book merits the careful study of the minister, the choir master,
the organist, and others who wish to vitalize public and private
worship by an intelligent use of our Christian hymnody.

The book is at once scholarly and practical. No other treats so
informatively and yet so interestingly:—

(1) The religious and musical heritage of the hymn writers in the
Greek, the Latin, the German, the English, and the American epochs;

(2) The outstanding personalities who made valuable and permanent
hymnological contributions in those epochs;

(3) The occasions and emotional crises out of which many great hymns
were born;

(4) The critical standards by which hymns may be adjudged great.

No less important is the closing section of this impressive study,
_Practical Hymnology_. Here Dr. Lorenz discusses the ways and means of
utilizing the hymn in achieving a new awareness of the presence of
God.

Edmund S. Lorenz, LL.D., Mus.Doc., became interested in church music
very early in life, and helped himself through the years of his
academic and seminary training (at Otterbein University, the United
Brethren Seminary, and Yale Divinity School) by writing gospel songs
and editing various songbooks. After two years in the ministry and a
year as president of Lebanon Valley College, where at the beginning of
the second year overwork brought on a complete collapse, he turned
again to music. In 1890, he began the business known as Lorenz
Publishing Company.

Dr. Lorenz has had many years of experience as editor of Sunday-school
Songbooks, church hymnals, and choir magazines. This experience and
his years of close contact with the work of the Church have given him
a peculiar qualification for the writing of services, choir cantatas,
sheet music solos, organ compositions, and songbooks. He has written
many books, such as _Practical Church Music_, _Church Music—What a
Minister Should Know about It_, _Music in Work and Worship_,
_Practical Hymn Studies_. At home and abroad, he has been in wide
demand as a lecturer on church music.

COKESBURY PRESS NASHVILLE TENNESSEE
_Publishers of Cokesbury Good Books_

Transcriber’s Notes

--Retained publication information from the printed edition: this
eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.

--Silently corrected a few palpable typos.

--In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.

--Collated Table of Contents against headings in the text; removed the
reference to the (nonexistant) Chapter XV section VI and renumbered
subsequent sections.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Singing Church - The Hymns It Wrote and Sang" ***

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