XXXVIIHYMNS
The church to which I belong has this very day furnished itself with a new set of hymn-books; when I enter my accustomed pew tomorrow morning I shall find there attractive new volumes. Which fact leads me to the consideration of hymns in general.
The worst verses in the world are to be found among epitaphs and encomiums of the dead. I remember a certain town in Connecticut where the local poet hovered over the bedside of the dying, like a vulture watching a sick horse. Before the corpse was cold, this poetical ghoul had his poem on the “remains” in the village paper. You had to get up very early in the morning to die before he beat you to it, as Matthew Arnold would not say. He added new terrors to death.
Well, probably, in the number of bad verses, hymns rank a good second to epitaphs. There are so many bad hymns that some scoffers think there are few good ones. Such a generalisation is wide of the truth. The literature of hymnologycontains many masterpieces; innumerable hymns of the church are as beautiful in poetic art as they are devout in aspiration. If we took all the hymns out of English literature, the loss would be huge.
If a secret ballot could be taken among all classes of people to discover the choice of the favourite hymn, I think it would appear that Cardinal Newman’sLead, Kindly Lighthad a majority of votes.
I happened to be in London at the time of Newman’s death in 1890, himself just as old as the nineteenth century. Then were the old bitter controversies forgotten; Catholics, Protestants and the unclassed united in tributes to the genius and beauty of the great Cardinal’s mind and character. And as creeds were for the moment forgotten, so there came instinctively to every one’s lips the words of Newman’s creedless hymn, as creedless as the Lord’s Prayer.
The vicissitudes of literary fame are beyond divination. Who, including first of all Newman, could have dreamed that when the young man composed that poem, it would outlast his scholarly, controversial, pietistic and literary prose of eighty years? Yet such is the fact.
On June 16, 1833, while in a calm at sea, on board an orange-boat and thinking of his doctrinalperplexities, these lines came into Newman’s mind; as suddenly, as inexplicably, as fortunately as the stanzasCrossing the Barcame to Tennyson on a ferryboat crossing the Solent. Newman called the poem,The Pillar and the Cloud.
For details concerning its composition and for some interesting criticisms on the poem itself I will refer readers to Dr. Joseph J. Reilly’s admirable book,Newman as a Man of Letters.
Two of our best American hymn writers are two of our national poets—Whittier and Holmes. The hymns of Whittier are beautiful in their simplicity, sincerity, and universal application:
In simple trust like those who heard,Beside the Syrian sea,The gracious calling of the Lord,Let us, like them, without a word,Rise up and follow Thee.
In simple trust like those who heard,Beside the Syrian sea,The gracious calling of the Lord,Let us, like them, without a word,Rise up and follow Thee.
In simple trust like those who heard,Beside the Syrian sea,The gracious calling of the Lord,Let us, like them, without a word,Rise up and follow Thee.
In simple trust like those who heard,
Beside the Syrian sea,
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word,
Rise up and follow Thee.
and the universally known hymn, beginning
We may not climb the heavenly steeps.
We may not climb the heavenly steeps.
We may not climb the heavenly steeps.
We may not climb the heavenly steeps.
The splendid hymn by Oliver Wendell Holmes, commencing
Lord of all being, throned afar,
Lord of all being, throned afar,
Lord of all being, throned afar,
Lord of all being, throned afar,
is sung somewhere every Sunday.
Two hymns by Addison, written more than two hundred years ago, are familiar to all churchgoers—one,The spacious firmament on high, which was a favourite with Thackeray, and the other, beginning
When all Thy mercies, O my God.
When all Thy mercies, O my God.
When all Thy mercies, O my God.
When all Thy mercies, O my God.
I have always especially liked one stanza of this hymn:
Ten thousand thousand precious giftsMy daily thanks employ;Nor is the least a cheerful heartThat tastes those gifts with joy.
Ten thousand thousand precious giftsMy daily thanks employ;Nor is the least a cheerful heartThat tastes those gifts with joy.
Ten thousand thousand precious giftsMy daily thanks employ;Nor is the least a cheerful heartThat tastes those gifts with joy.
Ten thousand thousand precious gifts
My daily thanks employ;
Nor is the least a cheerful heart
That tastes those gifts with joy.
After enumerating many blessings for which he is grateful to God, Addison quite rightly includes the gift of a cheerful heart. Those who are ever fastidious, difficult to please and not grateful for anything miss much happiness.
The king of hymn-writers is Isaac Watts (1674–1748). Although churchgoers sing his hymns every Sunday, he has never received due literary credit for his magnificent sacred poems.When I Survey the Wondrous Crossis a hymn of tremendous passion. In one of his novels Arnold Bennett calls it “that amazing hymn.” In other hymns by Watts there is an austere grandeur.
Frederick William Faber (1814–1863) is another master of the art of hymn writing.Hark, Hark, My Soul!andThere’s a Wideness in God’sMercyare known everywhere. No martial song was ever more inspiring thanFaith of Our Fathers, with its thrilling second stanza. I often wonder when people sing that stanza in church, sing it mechanically with their thoughts elsewhere, what would happen if they took it literally:
Our fathers, chained in prisons dark,Were still in heart and conscience free;And blest would be their children’s fate,If they, like them, should die for Thee.Faith of our fathers, holy faith,We will be true to Thee till death.
Our fathers, chained in prisons dark,Were still in heart and conscience free;And blest would be their children’s fate,If they, like them, should die for Thee.Faith of our fathers, holy faith,We will be true to Thee till death.
Our fathers, chained in prisons dark,Were still in heart and conscience free;And blest would be their children’s fate,If they, like them, should die for Thee.Faith of our fathers, holy faith,We will be true to Thee till death.
Our fathers, chained in prisons dark,
Were still in heart and conscience free;
And blest would be their children’s fate,
If they, like them, should die for Thee.
Faith of our fathers, holy faith,
We will be true to Thee till death.
One of the greatest of all hymns,Nearer, My God, to Thee, was written by Sarah Flower, a friend of the young poet Robert Browning. The first time it was ever heard in public was when Sarah and Eliza Flower sang it as a duet in the Rev. Mr. Fox’s church. Little did those sisters guess that they had added to the Christian church all over the world an imperishable song.
Scores of other hymns might be mentioned, hymns that are exalted and passionate in feeling and aspiration and nobly poetic in expression.
It is a pity that we so seldom hear good congregational singing. People nowadays let others do their singing for them, as well as their praying. If one will look at the faces of anaudience in church and notice that although their mouths are open no sound emerges, one will be reminded of a cat on the back doorstep on a winter morning. You look at the cat and the animal opens its mouth as if to mew, but has not sufficient energy to bring the articulate mew to the surface—just an expression of vague discomfort. So during the singing of hymns I see people with no animation in their faces and with open, silent mouths, like the dry mew of the cat.