Before the Reformation England was rich in ballads, but had
practically no hymns. Yet there are in that earlier period a few great
names—Cædmon, Aldhelm, Bede, Alfred—which are beginning to appear in
some modern hymnals.[56]
It is usual to date English hymnody from the days of Dr. Watts. Before
his time, however, a considerable number of hymns had been written in
English, a fair proportion of which were of high poetic character, and
not unsuitable for public worship. But the idea of a hymn-book had
hardly entered the mind of the Church. Many longed for ‘godly ballads’
to supplant the vain songs of the Court, the camp, and the street, but
for the most part they longed in vain. We must not, however, overlook
the preparation made during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The English Reformation had no poet, no one who could give the common
people songs such as Luther had provided for the Germans. Myles
Coverdale (1487-1569), Bishop of Exeter, saw how great the need was;
but he could not supply it, though he did his best. His ‘Ghostly
Psalms and Spiritual Songs, drawn out of the Holy Scripture for the
comfort and consolation of such as love to rejoice in God and His
Word,’ is an unsuccessful attempt to render into English some of the
German hymns. He confesses that the verses are ‘rude in song and
rhyme.’ Yet there is not wanting that yearning after God, that quiet
trust in Christ, that turning to Him with hope and penitence and love
which is the note of all Christian psalmody. I quote a few
verses—modernizing the spelling—from what is, I think, his best
effort.
I call on Thee, Lord Jesu Christ,
I have none other help but Thee:
My heart is never set at rest,
Till Thy sweet word have comforted me.
And steadfast faith grant me therefore,
To hold by Thy word evermore.
Above all thing
Never resisting
But to increase in faith more and more.
Lord, print into my heart and mind
Thy Holy Spirit with ferventness;
That I to Thee be not unkind,
But love Thee without feignedness.
Let nothing draw my mind from Thee,
But ever to love Thee earnestly:
Let not my heart
Unthankfully depart
From the right love of Thy mercy.
Give me Thy grace, Lord, I Thee pray,
To love mine enemies heartily:
Howbeit they trouble me alway,
And for Thy cause do slander me,
Yet, Jesu Christ, for Thy goodness,
Fill my heart with forgiveness,
That while I live
I may them forgive
That do offend me more or less.[57]
Coverdale’s hymns prepared the way for more successful efforts in the
same direction. And it is pleasant to remember that the brave old
reformer, who stood by his friend and tutor, Robert Barnes, the
martyr, when he was summoned to appear before Wolsey as a heretic, and
who devoted so many years to the translation of the Holy Scriptures,
was one of the first who desired to make the English folk love godly
hymns.
It is an ancient fashion to disparage Sternhold and Hopkins’s version
of the Psalms, but it was a great advance upon Coverdale, and ‘marks
an era in the history of sacred song.’[58] Sternhold died in 1549, and
Coverdale survived him for twenty years. He was Groom of the Robes to
both Henry VIII and Edward VI. Probably the popularity of Clement
Marot’s[59] French version may have suggested to Sternhold the attempt
to provide the English Court with similar sacred songs instead of the
profane ballads which pleased both French and English courtiers. Henry
had a sincere regard for him, and remembered him in his will. Edward
loved to hear these metrical psalms sung by their author, and caused
them to be ‘sung openly,’ so that others might learn to love them as
he did. Sternhold was a modest man, and did not claim any great merit
for his songs.
‘Albeit,’ he says, in his dedication to Edward VI, ‘I cannot give to
your Majesty great loaves, or bring into the Lord’s barn full
handfuls ... I am bold to present unto your Majesty a few crumbs
which I have picked up from under the Lord’s board.’
Part of his version of Ps. xviii. is usually given as the best example
of his work.
O God, my strength and fortitude,
Of force I must love Thee.
There are some good verses in Ps. ix., which are of the same type.
O Lord, with all my heart and mind
I will give thanks to Thee;
And speak of all Thy wondrous works
Unsearchable of me.
I will be glad and much rejoice
In Thee, O God, most high;
And make my songs extol Thy name
Above the starry sky.
For evermore in dignity
The Lord doth rule and reign;
And in the seat of equity
True judgement doth maintain.
With justice He doth keep and guide
The world and every wight,
With conscience and with equity
He yieldeth folk their right.
He is Protector of the poor,
What time they be opprest;
He is in all adversity
Their refuge and their rest.
All they that know Thy holy name,
Therefore do trust in Thee;
For Thou forsakest not their suit,
In their necessity.
But sure the Lord will not forget
The poor man’s grief and pain;
The patient people never look
For help of God in vain.
The Old Version, which bears the name of Sternhold and Hopkins, was
the work of several hands. John Hopkins was the largest contributor.
Of his life little is known. Warton called him not the least of the
British poets of his day, and his versions are generally considered
superior to Sternhold’s. They are no doubt smoother, but I cannot see
that they have more poetry in them. Sometimes his lines are
ridiculously divided, and it is difficult to imagine that at any
period they could have been regarded as tolerable.
It was, however, a psalm of Hopkins’s which comforted John Wesley
after hearing a sermon, of which he disapproved, at Bow, in 1738. ‘God
answered the thoughts of my heart, and took away my fear, in a manner
I did not expect, even by the words of Thomas Sternhold. They were
these (sung immediately after the sermon)’—
Thy mercy is above all things,
O God; it doth excel;
In trust whereof, as in Thy wings,
The sons of men shall dwell.
Within Thy house they shall be fed
With plenty at their will;
Of all delights they shall be sped,
And take thereof their fill.
Because the well of life most pure,
Doth ever flow from Thee;
And in Thy light we are most sure,
Eternal light to see.
From such as Thee desire to know,
Let not Thy grace depart;
Thy righteousness declare and show
To men of upright heart.
William Whittingham, Calvin’s brother-in-law, and Knox’s successor as
pastor of the English congregation at Geneva, contributed about twelve
psalms, including the cxix., which runs to over 700 lines. In 1563 he
became Dean of Durham, and was excommunicated by the Archbishop of
York (father of George Sandys). He died in 1579, and was buried in the
cathedral in which he is said to have destroyed the image of St.
Cuthbert and other ancient monuments which were obnoxious to his
Puritan taste. Other writers were John Pullain, another Genevan exile;
Robert Wisdome, who was frightened into a recantation of his ‘errors’
by Bishop Bonner, but shortly after recanted again; Thomas Norton, who
wrote the version of Ps. cxlvii., beginning—
Praise ye the Lord, for it is good
Unto our God to sing;
For it is pleasant, and to praise
It is a comely thing.
William Kethe, author of ‘All people that on earth do dwell;’ John
Marckant, and John Craig.[60] John Marckant, vicar in 1559 of Great
Clacton, and of Shopland 1563-8, was the author of four psalms in the
Old Version. But he is remembered by ‘The Lamentation of a Sinner,’
which is one of the redeeming features of the book. It is known in
modern times almost exclusively in Heber’s revision. The original is
admirable in its pathos and simplicity.