[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.”