Our study of English hymns has carried us through three centuries and
a half—from the rough, halting lines of Coverdale to the smooth and
easy rhythm of the hymn-writers of to-day.
From Sternhold and Hopkins to the modern hymn-book is a long and
delightful journey. ‘I envy not in any mood’ the man who finds in
devotional poetry only matter for criticism. If it be true that the
heart makes the theologian, it is more true that the heart makes the
hymnologist.
The earlier stages of our study may yield little actual fruit in the
shape of hymns which a modern editor would delight to add to his
hymn-book. But it yields much in the way of inspiration, bringing us
into communion with men like Herbert, Donne, Sandys, Vaughan, and, in
his measure, Wither—men who might have lived the courtier’s life had
they not chosen to serve the King of kings. So far as their poems are
concerned, it is a mere accident that Herbert and Donne were in
orders. They are not clerical hymn-writers, but, like others of their
school, are poets of the inner and individual life. They touch our
hearts, not because they have written what expresses the common need
of a congregation, but because they speak in graceful form what most
of us can feel but could never put into words. Campion and the two
Austins represent the devout laymen of the professional class—men who
might, if they pleased, have been mere men of the world. It would be
quite possible to discuss English hymns with scarce a mention of such
names, but, it seems to me, that in losing them our study would lose
its richest charm.
Ken may be considered the first of the Anglican, Mason of the
Evangelical, and Watts of the Dissenting hymn-writers. They wrote, not
simply for their own delight or relief, but for the sake of others.
Ken had no immediate successors, though he is the founder of the
school of Heber, Lyte, Keble, and Ellerton. Mason’s immediate
successors were Shepherd, Newton, and Cowper; Watts was the first of a
long succession of the later Puritans.
It is usual to call the eighteenth century the golden age of
hymn-writing; but I am not sure that this will be the final verdict. I
confess that in many respects I find both the earlier and the later
period more attractive. If we leave out of the account Wesley’s hymns,
many of which owe their long use in the Methodist Churches to other
than poetic considerations, the vast majority of the
eighteenth-century hymns have disappeared from modern use. It is
interesting to compare the hymn-books of 1750-1850 with those issued
within the last twenty years. Rippon’s _Selection_, in its various
editions; Collyer’s _Hymns_; Dobell’s _New Selection of Nearly Eight
Hundred Evangelical Hymns_; Bickersteth’s _Christian Psalmody_; and
Snepp’s _Songs of Grace and Glory_, compared with the most recent
hymn-books, show not only what great additions have been made to the
treasury of Christian song, but how many hymns once regarded as almost
indispensable are now forgotten, and are never likely to be revived.
The formal, didactic, preaching hymns, so popular a hundred years ago,
have been steadily losing ground. They not only fail to touch the
heart of present-day worshippers, they have no element of distinction,
nothing that could or should give them a permanent place in the songs
of the Church of Christ. Hymns of the period before Watts are much
more common in twentieth-century hymn-books than in those of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but the hymns characteristic of
the eighteenth century are rapidly disappearing. They were written to
meet the needs of the Dissenting meeting-house and the Evangelical
Revival. But among them are many which voice the experience, ‘not of
an age, but of all time’; they speak the language of the soul that
seeks and finds and follows the Saviour.
Nineteenth-century hymns were largely affected by the great Anglican
Revival—a much wider term than ‘the Oxford Movement.’ The best known
and loved of the hymns of the last eighty years are those which, in
one way or other, emphasize the idea of the Church, which help the
worshipper to realize that he belongs to that Holy Church which,
throughout all the ages and in all lands, acknowledges God to be the
Lord. It is one of the unexpected and undesired fruits of the Anglican
Revival that every denomination now claims its place in an undivided
Church. The longing for unity which led the Tractarians first to look
and then to move toward Rome, led the Free Churches to reconsider
their own position, and to seek for a larger and more scriptural
conception of the Church. A narrow Calvinism had, on the one hand,
kept many coldly isolated from their brethren; and, on the other, a
narrow fervour, a too literal belief that Methodism, and Methodism
alone, was Christianity in earnest, made others keep themselves warm
by their own firesides, under the impression that their neighbours sat
by cold hearths or crouched over smouldering embers. For this
estrangement of brethren, the earlier hymn-books are to some extent
responsible. The spirit of Christian charity, of genial mutual
appreciation, has wonderfully developed since denominational
hymn-books became shining evidences of unity in diversity. Some of
Wesley’s earlier hymn-books illustrate this, and it is to be regretted
that he did not make a more liberal use of the work of other men when
he issued his final hymn-book for the people called Methodists. The
earliest great catholic Collection with which I am acquainted is the
Moravian book of 1754.[206] Disfigured as it is by a number of the bad
Moravian hymns, it yet deserves a place—considering the time at which
it was issued—beside Palgrave’s _Treasury of Sacred Song_. It was a by
no means unsuccessful effort to do for the Moravians of the
mid-eighteenth century what the _Methodist Hymn-book_ has done for our
own Church at the beginning of the twentieth century. It gathers into
one volume most of the best hymns of other Churches, while preserving
those peculiarly suited to the needs and tastes of its own members.
In this regard the hymn-books of the Methodist and of the Anglican
Church represent a different type from those of the principal
Nonconformist Churches. The latter include very little that is
distinctive of the Churches for whose use they are prepared. Where
they differ it is usually a matter of taste, not of doctrine. The
Presbyterian, Baptist, and Congregational books might be used by any
or all of these Churches. And there is much to be said in defence of
the elimination of denominational characteristics.
On the other hand, there is, I believe, more to be said in favour of
the hymn-book which is designed to aid the Church in its specific work
and teaching. It would be impossible to exaggerate the influence of
Wesley’s _Hymns_ upon the Methodist Churches. And there can be no
question that _Hymns Ancient and Modern_ has had an immense influence,
both for good and ill, upon the Anglican Revival. It was originally
issued in 1861, when the Movement was taking firm hold of the clergy,
and beginning to change the whole tone of the teaching and the whole
spirit of public worship in hundreds of parishes. Its success was
enormous, only paralleled by that of Watts and Wesley. The title was
in itself a confession of faith in the new Movement. The first edition
was, in comparison with the popular hymnals of the Evangelicals, a
marked advance toward High Church worship; but it is very modest and
tentative when compared with its latest edition. I say nothing of its
doctrine, for I have no space for criticism. I commend the principle
upon which the work was done—the education of the worshipper in the
faith and practice which the compilers believed to be most truly in
accordance with the Divine ideal of the Church.
On the same general principle the _Methodist Hymn-book_ has been
compiled. It is made, not for other people, but for ourselves. Some
friendly critics see, ‘with a scornful wonder,’ the number of Charles
Wesley’s hymns which still survive, and talk of superstitious
reverence for a name. But they do not understand that these hymns,
perhaps especially those which are unknown to other Churches, enshrine
what we regard as most precious in Methodist life and teaching. From a
literary or poetic point of view, it may be that our hymn-book is
inferior to the Baptist, the Presbyterian, and the Congregational, and
perhaps especially to such a book as Mr. Horder’s _Worship-Song_. But
the hymn-book of a living, working Church should not be constructed on
purely literary lines. It is not a treasury of religious poetry, not a
sacred anthology, but a book of common prayer and praise, for use in
particular congregations.
Next to _Hymns Ancient and Modern_ the most influential of
nineteenth-century hymn-books is _Sacred Songs and Solos_, the chief
memorial of the mission of Moody and Sankey. They introduced the
lighter ephemeral songs which suited large undenominational
gatherings, and caught the ear and reached the heart of the man and
the child in the street. I cannot regret that few of these ditties
find their way into Church hymnals; yet I am not ashamed to admit that
in many an East End meeting I have been thankful for ‘Sankey’s Hymns.’
In any review of English hymns this popular collection cannot be
overlooked.
I have spoken of the advantage of diversity in Church hymnals, but
there remains a further and very interesting question. How far does
the study of hymns and hymn-books encourage the hope of a reunion of
hearts in the Church of God, rent, as it now is, by many unhappy
divisions?
In an Appendix I give a list of nearly a hundred and sixty hymns,
which are found in the four representative Non-episcopal hymnals and
in one or both of two representative Anglican books. These hymns are
the foundation material of what may be called the hymn-book of the
modern Church. Canon Ellerton said, ‘The study of Nonconformist
hymn-books does not encourage me in any hopes of what is sometimes
called Home Reunion.’ My own study of modern hymn-books leads to an
opposite conclusion. It is a commonplace of hymnology that in all good
hymn-books you find contributions from men of widely different
theological schools. But it is not in the fact that the choir of the
Church includes Watts, Wesley, Heber, Montgomery, Newman, Keble, Lyte,
Charlotte Elliott, Mrs. Alexander, Faber, S. J. Stone, Caswall, Bonar,
Rawson, Neale, and others, that I see the most hopeful sign. A still
more notable and instructive sign of the times is that alike in the
most familiar and in the most solemn moments of life we draw nigh to
God with the same words. Our morning and our evening hymns, our
Christmas carols and our Easter anthems, are one. In the time of
utmost need we turn to the Saviour with the same cry—
Just as I am, without one plea
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come.
Our battle-songs, our penitential prayers, our hymns of adoration, are
the same. We even tell the story of our conversion in the same words—
I heard the voice of Jesus say,
Come unto Me and rest.
We teach our children to sing the same songs in school and in the
family.
Even more impressive is the fact that in the Holy Communion the same
hymns are sung in the great cathedral, where men kneel before the high
altar, and in the homely village chapel, where simple folk sit down at
the Lord’s Table. Charles Wesley the poet of Methodism, Doddridge the
Nonconformist pastor, Montgomery the Moravian bookseller, Rawson the
Congregational lawyer, Bonar the Scotch Presbyterian, Bickersteth the
Anglican bishop, are the writers whose hymns are common to all
Englishmen as they break the bread and drink the wine in memory of
their Redeemer’s death.