The source and inspiration of Christian song is the word of Christ.
‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom.’ The common
phrases of common life cannot satisfy the soul filled with the Spirit
and rich with the wealth of Christ’s indwelling word. Religious
emotion finds truer and more fitting expression in poetry than in
prose. If God had not given to His Church poets, as well as apostles,
evangelists, pastors, and teachers, the best that is in us could never
have been uttered. Words and phrases that are large enough for
intercourse with our fellows become cramped and inexpressive when we
speak to God. Praise and penitence alike would often be silent in the
congregation of the saints if they could not at once veil and reveal
their profoundest feelings in psalms and hymns. Poetry gives to
devotion those robes of glory and beauty without which it would, at
times, be almost unseemly to join in the public worship of God or to
disclose the heart’s secrets in the presence of fellow-worshippers.
Our theme, then, is peculiarly sacred, since it deals with the
spiritual songs in which earnest and sincere men have uttered, in the
very presence of God, their most secret thoughts, confessions, and
aspirations. Every true hymn was first spoken by one man to God alone,
was prayed before it was sung, though now it may be heard daily from
ten thousand voices. Harsh or flippant criticism is out of place here,
an irreverent impertinence, like the interruption of private prayer.
In the study of hymns
Put off thy shoes from off thy feet;
The place where man his God shall meet
Be sure is holy ground.[2]
Yet St. Paul himself reminds us that the word of Christ is to dwell
wisely as well as richly in our hearts. ‘Let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly in all wisdom.’ ‘Next to a sound rule of faith, there is
nothing of so much consequence as a sober standard of feeling in
matters of religion.’[3] Morbid, insincere, fanatical, or exaggerated
emotion is as much to be deprecated as doctrinal error, and its evils
are at least as disastrous. The diffusion of false or superficial
sentiment in the household of the faith is like the spreading of a
subtle disease which saps the strength and mars the beauty of
devotion, while error bears a charmed life if it comes in the words of
a familiar and attractive hymn. Moreover, it is in the hymns of the
Church rather than in its formal declarations of faith and doctrine
that we find the truest and generally the most favourable revelation
of its character. Hymnology is a more important element in the history
of religion than most Church historians and theological writers have
recognized.[4]
The present time is in many respects peculiarly appropriate for a
consideration of the growth and development of the hymns of the modern
Church. We are in a state of rest or pause after tumult. The great
religious ‘movements’ of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are
matters of history, and we can regard even the most recent of them
calmly and without the prejudice which while conflict rages may, not
altogether unfairly, be regarded as patriotism. The Methodist Revival,
the Evangelical Awakening, the Oxford Movement, the Salvation Army
Campaign, the Undenominational Evangelism of Messrs. Moody and Sankey,
may all be taken into account in considering the material and
character of the hymn-book of the modern Church.
Again, it is interesting to remember that of the hymn-writers of the
nineteenth century few survive. For the moment there is neither
evangelist nor poet to give us new songs. Our fathers made hymn-books;
we re-edit them. Within the last few years the standard Presbyterian,
Baptist, Anglican,[5] and Methodist hymn-books have appeared in new
and revised editions, whilst in the _Arundel Hymns_ we have the most
recent Roman Catholic hymnal. Dr. Barrett’s _Congregational Church
Hymnal_, issued in 1887, is of the modern type, though it preserves
many of the features of the older Nonconformist books. Mr. Garrett
Horder’s _Worship-Song_ represents the taste of an individual, not of
a committee or community; but it is in many respects the best and most
complete collection of the hymns of the modern Church. These books
enable us to discover current opinion and taste in regard to hymns
which are worthy to take their place in the service of the Christian
sanctuary, and both in their unity and diversity are of great value as
indicating the life and thought of the Churches they represent.