O for the animating fire
That tuned harmonious Watts’s lyre,
To sweet seraphic strains![106]
She was so modest and devout, suffered and sorrowed so much, that one
is glad to know that some at least of her songs will take their place
among the permanent treasures of Christian song. Her hymns are
generally improved by the omission of some verses, and by slight
changes; but Miss Steele is never guilty of the clumsy and offensive
phrases which mar so many contemporary hymns. Her best-known hymns are
‘When I survey life’s varied scene,[107] and ‘Father of mercies, in
Thy word.’
Here are a few verses from a hymn on the text, ‘Because I live, ye
shall live also’ (John xiv. 19)—
If my immortal Saviour lives,
Then my immortal life is sure;
His word a firm foundation gives:
Here let me build and rest secure.
Here let my faith unshaken dwell:
Immovable the promise stands;
Not all the powers of earth or hell
Can e’er dissolve the sacred bands.
Here, O my soul, thy trust repose!
If Jesus is for ever mine.
Not death itself, that last of foes,
Shall break a union so divine.
Dr. John Ryland (1753-1825), one of the pioneers of the modern
missionary revival, and a few others are still remembered as
hymn-writers, but there is little distinctive about their poetry.
Indeed one is compelled to admit that a very large portion of the
hymns of the school of Watts are dull, formal, and prosaic. For the
most part they were written to suit particular sermons, and the shades
of the meeting-house are about them still. To many of them
Montgomery’s criticism of Beddome applies: ‘His compositions are
calculated to be far more useful than attractive.’
The ‘atmosphere’ was hardly likely to inspire enthusiasm. The long
struggle between King and Parliament, Catholic and Protestant was
stilled, the Toleration Act (1689) had given to orthodox
Nonconformists a religious liberty unknown before, and, though there
were occasional fears lest the old, bad conditions should be revived,
their freedom became gradually larger and more thoroughly established.
Watts and Doddridge represent the best side of the Nonconformity which
settled down after ‘the glorious Revolution’ into sedate, intelligent,
unaggressive, and highly respectable Churches, rejoicing devoutly, but
without enthusiasm, in the right to worship God in their own
sanctuaries, and to ‘sit under’ the ministry of their own pastors.
‘Then had the Churches rest, and walking in the comfort of the Holy
Ghost were multiplied.’ The high character and sound scholarship of
the leading Nonconformist ministers compelled the respect and won the
esteem of their episcopalian neighbours, with whom they lived in
pleasant relationships. It was just the time for a quiet reform in
modes of worship, and it was in the years between the Toleration Act
and the Methodist Revival that the hymn, already known but not yet
loved, won its way to a sure and increasingly honourable place in the
service of the sanctuary. Had the hymns been more original and
aggressive in tone, they would not so readily have won the ear and
heart of Independent congregations at the beginning of the eighteenth
century.
IV
Eighteenth-century Hymns