The composing of hymns is one of the surest signs of spiritual life,
and the use of hymns is a wonderful witness of Christian unity; and
the Church of England has been fertile during the last half-century
in the production of hymns which are used by all English Christians,
whilst the confederate Churches of the same period can hardly point
to any additions made by them to the hymns of the Christian
world.[190]
As we have seen, the honours of hymn-writing during the period
referred to are undoubtedly with the Anglicans, though Heber and Keble
belong to an earlier time. But this sweeping assertion of Mr.
Llewellyn Davis ought to have been impossible if he had remembered
Horatius Bonar, certainly one of the greatest English hymn-writers.
There are also George Rawson, T. T. Lynch, T. H. Gill, George
Matheson, and, every Methodist would add, William M. Bunting.
It must be remembered also that the Free Churches were already rich in
hymns when the nineteenth century dawned, whilst the Tractarians had
to make, translate, or borrow from the Nonconformists, hymns for their
special needs. Methodism had an ample supply of hymns for such Church
festivals as it desired, and the observance of festivals and other
ecclesiastical occasions was only gradually adopted in the older
Nonconforming Churches. When at length they felt the need for such
hymns as form the characteristic portions of Anglican hymnody they
were already to hand; and after the first natural prejudice against
everything that savoured of the ritualistic movement had passed away,
they found hymns intended to be the exclusive property of the
Anglicans admirably suited to their own newly awakened Church
consciousness. There is something delightful and even amusing in the
readiness with which such hymns as ‘The Church’s one Foundation’ and
‘Onward, Christian soldiers’ have been adopted by all the
denominations. The Baptist and the Bible Christian sing with as simple
confidence as the highest of Anglicans:
Like a mighty army
Moves the Church of God;
Brothers, we are treading
Where the saints have trod;
We are not divided,
All one body we,
One in hope, in doctrine,
One in charity.
They may have different thoughts as to Apostolic Succession, but as
long as we believe that where Christ is there is the Church such hymns
belong to all.
But though Nonconformity was rich in hymns and could take without
scruple many of the Anglican songs, the nineteenth century was very
far from being altogether barren in regard to the Free Churches.
Two hymn-writers mark the transition from the eighteenth to the
nineteenth century—James Montgomery and Thomas Kelly. They lived, it
is true, into the second half of the last century, but their hymns are
an aftermath of the Evangelical Revival. The later Oxford Movement did
not affect them, and their songs might all have belonged to the
earlier period, save for the missionary enthusiasm which inspires some
of their best efforts.
James Montgomery (1771-1854) was the son of a Moravian minister, who
died in the West Indies whilst the poet was at school. He was born at
Irvine, Ayrshire, lived for a time in Ireland, and having been
educated at the Brethren’s school at Fulneck, after a few unsuccessful
experiments, settled to work at Sheffield as assistant to the editor
of a local newspaper. He was a man of strong convictions, and did not
hide his light under a bushel. He was rewarded by two terms of
imprisonment, which he turned to profitable account by writing poems.
His was the usual fate of honest men persecuted for righteousness’
sake. Montgomery’s name is one of the chief glories of this city,[191]
where he wrought with head and heart and hand for freedom and for
righteousness. ‘The Climbing Boy’ is a memorial of his part in the
great philanthropic movements of which Lord Shaftesbury was the
leader. ‘The West Indies’—a poem which has lines here and there which
Cowper or even William Watson might have written—celebrates the time
When Wilberforce, the minister of grace,
The new Las Casas of a ruined race,
With angel-might opposed the rage of hell,
And fought like Michael, till the dragon fell.
‘Greenland’ commemorates his inherited love of missions, and the
curious ‘Thoughts on Wheels’—a satire upon State lotteries—reminds us
that Montgomery anticipated the _Daily News_ in refusing to insert
advertisements of a ‘national nuisance.’ We are accustomed to think of
Montgomery as a gracious Moravian poet, whose most appropriate place
was the platform of a Methodist missionary meeting, but he passed
through storm and tempest, through privation and struggle, to the
peaceful haven of his later years. Montgomery was a Moravian all his
life, a Methodist the greater part of it, and a Churchman toward the
end. Once again, we may say, ‘Such he was as every Christian Church
would rejoice to have adopted.’ Indeed, through its hymn-book, every
Church has adopted him, and in some of the best modern collections
Montgomery is more often heard than Watts.[192]
Montgomery cherished no illusion as to his poetic powers. He hoped
that his _Poems_ might be read for a generation, but that his _Hymns_
would be his lasting memorial. ‘The World before the Flood’ and ‘The
Wanderer in Switzerland’ are forgotten, and little likely to be
revived; but such hymns as ‘Hail to the Lord’s Anointed’ and ‘For ever
with the Lord’ will be sung through the centuries.
The first of these is not only Montgomery’s finest psalm-version, but
an unsurpassed rendering of a triumphant Messianic psalm. It owes
something to the instinctive wisdom with which the best verses have
been selected, and to a few editorial touches.[193] One can well
imagine the thrill with which it was heard in Pitt Street Chapel,
Liverpool, when the author recited the hymn at the close of a
missionary speech, and how Adam Clarke rejoiced to add this
magnificent rendering of the 72nd Psalm to his _Commentary_. It is, I
think, a finer and a much closer rendering of the ‘Psalm for Solomon’
than Watts’s great version. When urged by Dr. Clarke to attempt a
complete version of the Psalms, Montgomery said that he feared to
touch the harp of Zion. He did, however, paraphrase about fifty or
sixty psalms with more than average success.
It is sometimes said that ‘Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire’ is not
‘in the true sense’ a hymn, but this is to take too narrow a view of
the term. It excellently illustrates the way in which devout
meditation ends in prayer. Had the last verse been omitted, it would
have been a religious poem, not a hymn, but this throws upon all that
precedes it the light of devotion. Each verse looks forward to the
last—
O Thou by whom we come to God,
The Life, the Truth, the Way!
The path of prayer Thyself hast trod:
Lord! teach us how to pray.
It is superfluous to refer to all Montgomery’s contributions to our
hymn-books, but we must ever gratefully remember such pieces as his
Communion hymn
According to Thy gracious word,
and the solemn prayer
In the hour of trial,
Jesus, pray for me,
Lest by base denial
I depart from Thee.
It is remarkable that editors should have thought it necessary to
meddle (as indeed Montgomery himself did) with the second line of this
verse, thinking it ‘unscriptural,’ although the very word ‘pray’ is
taken from the lips of our Lord.