“When I survey the wondrous crossOn which the Prince of Glory died,My richest gain I count but loss,And pour contempt on all my pride.”
“When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.”
Is there a tenderer strain in all English hymnody than the third verse?
“See, from his head, his hands, his feet,Sorrow and love flow mingled down!Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,Or thorns compose so rich a crown?”
“See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?”
Not in the same exquisite vein of noble tenderness, but perhaps all the more useful for its reduced voltage, is his other hymn of the Crucifixion,
“Alas! and did my Saviour bleed?And did my Sovereign die?Would he devote that sacred headFor such a worm as I!”
“Alas! and did my Saviour bleed?
And did my Sovereign die?
Would he devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I!”
Its last verse has deepened the consecration of unnumbered millions as they sang the sacred vow:
“But drops of grief can ne’er repayThe debt of love I owe;Here, Lord, I give myself away—’Tis all that I can do.”
“But drops of grief can ne’er repay
The debt of love I owe;
Here, Lord, I give myself away—
’Tis all that I can do.”
The list of the great hymns that have come down to us from Isaac Watts is too long to be given here, but they enrich the pages of all our hymnals and exalt the spirit of all our church services.
The criticism often urged that Watts wrote too much cannot well be gainsaid, but the striking fact confronts us that most of the great hymns were written by men who wrote too much! The same is true of the composers of our greatest music, as, for instance, Mendelssohn and Handel. Much writing develops technic, ease, spontaneity, unselfconsciousness, that make the heights of feeling and expression more accessible. But what Watts needed was not so much to write less, but to have a competent editor like John Wesley to eliminate his vulgar and often grotesque lines.
That Watts should find plenty of antagonists to pick up the gauge of challenge he threw out was inevitable. His hymns were called “Watts’ Whims” in sardonic derision. It is noteworthy that the opposition did not prove so heated against his hymns as against hisThe Psalms of David Imitated(1719). In daring to amend the Judaism of David he had committed sacrilege! This volume practically closed his work of reforming the service of song in the English language. He was but forty-four years old at this time and he lived thirty years more—spent in theological, educational, and devotional writings.
The hymns of Watts slowly found their way among the Nonconformist churches. Before his death a large part of the Presbyterian and Congregational churches were nearly monopolized by them. However, the Established Church still clung to the Psalm Versions.
A contemporary of Watts, Simon Browne (1680-1732) issued a collection of hymns in 1720,Hymns and Spiritual Songs, designed as a supplement to Dr. Watts, containing one hundred and sixty-six hymns which had considerable vogue during the next generation. Now only one hymn, “Come, gracious Spirit, heavenly Dove,” survives in some of our hymnals.
Another contemporary was John Byrom (1691-1763), scientist and mystic, whose “Christians, awake, salute the happy morn” is still a Christmas favorite and whose “My spirit longeth for Thee” is “terse and tender in a very high degree.”[2]MacDonald speaks of his few hymns as a “well of the water of life, for its song tells of the love and truth which are the grand power of God.”
Another hymn writer of Watts’ day was Robert Seagrave (1693-?), who added fifty of his own hymns to a collection prepared for his own church at Lorimer’s Hall, Cripplegate, London, all of which had a high degree of excellence, of which “Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings” is found in most of our current hymnbooks.
A greater than any of the above was Philip Doddridge (1702-1751), who was a close friend of Isaac Watts, although nearly thirty years younger. He wrote three hundred and seventy-five hymns, most of them as pendants to sermons, recapitulating and enforcing the points of his discourse. They were not collected and published until four years after his death. The fine character and high ability displayed by Doddridge endeared him to many of the most important people of his day. The devoutness, literary grace, and adaptation to actual use of his lyrics were immediately recognized. Their distinctly homiletical character, combined with deep religious feeling and tenderness, and their varied topics, greatly appealed to ministers, and they were recognized as second only to Watts. The Church owes some of its most useful hymnsto him: “Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve,” “Grace; ’tis a charming sound,” “How gentle God’s commands,” “O happy day, that fixed my choice,” “My gracious Lord, I own thy right,” are among the many found in all our hymnals. His relative standard may be inferred from the use made of leading hymn writers by Dr. Benson in hisRevised Presbyterian Hymnal: Watts 49, Charles Wesley 24, Doddridge 13.
The line of hymnic succession between Watts and the Wesleys was direct and not through Doddridge, for the latter’s hymns did not appear until 1754. One-half of John Wesley’sAmerican Collection, the first hymnbook published in America, issued in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1737, after two years’ work in the new Colony of Georgia, consisted of Watts’ hymns. It goes without saying that Watts’ hymnbooks, with others like Tate and Brady’sNew Version, George Herbert’s poems, the hymns of John Austin, of Henry More, and of Norris of Bemerton, were so well known, and so appreciated, that copies of them were included among the books carried to America. In early manhood they met the already elderly Watts, and as they walked they sang together. Indeed, with Dr. Benson we may “infer that Watts’Psalms and Hymns, in connection with Tate and Brady’sNew Version, furnished the materials for the singing of the ‘Holy Club.’”
It is evident from the list of hymnbooks, and from the list of Wesley’s selections for hisAmerican Collection, that Watts was not the only influence that gave the impulse and fashioned the Wesleyan ideals of the public song service. It is noteworthy that Barton and Mason were not included. The High-Church Anglican Wesleys were not so prejudiced against Watts’ Nonconformist hymns as to exclude them.
With the Wesleys perhaps the strongest influence was that of the family and the home. Their grandfather, John Wesley, was a Nonconformist clergyman, and, what is more to the point, a poet. Their father, Samuel Wesley, was quite a voluminous poet (sixteen volumes), owing his Epworth rectorship to Queen Mary’s approval of hisLife of Christ, an Heroic Poem. One of his hymns, “Behold the Saviour of mankind,” still appears in some of our current hymnals.
Their maternal grandfather was Rev. Samuel Annesley, LL.D., a scholarly Nonconformist clergyman. Their mother, Susanna Annesley, is recognized as a woman of extraordinary force of character, organizing ability, and intense piety, the “Mother of Methodism,” and even more gifted than her gifted but less steady and dependable husband. It will be noted that both grandfathers were dissenting clergymen.
The Epworth rectory life was intellectual, intensely devout, and full of the singing of psalms and hymns, for it was “a nest of singing birds.” When students at Oxford, John and Charles used to walk out into the meadows and sing songs and hymns together.[1]
As we shall see, another extremely important influence was that of the Moravians on their personal religious experience, which under the Moravian guidance, on the Atlantic voyage and later, became intense and profound, furnishing tremendous motive power for all their work. The Moravian missionaries brought the realization of the power the Christian hymn can wield, and of the deep spirituality it may be used to express. It was not only the hymns the Moravian brethren sang that impressed John Wesley, but the spirit and genuineness of feeling with which they sang.
John Wesley was born at Epworth in 1703. He inherited his mother’s organizing and administrative ability, no less than her deep religious nature. He was to Methodist hymnody what John Calvin was to the Reformed psalmody, its initiator and director. He added a critical power and a practical sense of relation of means to ends his younger brother lacked—Charles Wesley wrote the hymns and John winnowed and edited them. At Oxford he was called the “Father of the Holy Club.” His aggressive spirit drove him to Georgia as a missionary, where he was a misfit, but where he was subjected to needed spiritual discipline, and to the influence of the Moravian pietism and absorption in spiritual things, so valuable for his symmetrical preparation for his future work. It led to his conversion—or, if you prefer, to his baptism of the Holy Spirit—and that of Charles, in 1738, which opened out to them both a new spiritual dimension. It also led to his interest in the Moravian “Gesangbuch,” or hymnbook, from the German of which he translated several hymns for hisCharleston Collection. On his return to England he took an early opportunity to visit Herrnhut, Saxony, the parent society of the connection. He was delighted with the atmosphere of piety and Christian song which he found there. His pietistic and mystical tendencies were greatly strengthened by his intercourse with Count Zinzendorf and Rothe whom he there met.
On his return to London John Wesley kept up his association with the Moravian brethren for some time; but his active temperament could not long be content with their quiet, contemplative attitude, nor could he overcome his dislike for the emphasis they placed on the merely physical aspects of the life and death of Christ which they had brought over from the Roman Catholic mystics. So they presently parted company to the advantage of the aggressive spirit the Wesleys were developing.
John Wesley was a scholarly man who had acquired all the culture of seven generations of intellectual family life and of the literary training of a great English university. He had the critical faculty well developed, a nice sense of the value of words, and the ability to marshal them for the expression of his thoughts. His sermons and his theological treatises reveal his logical and analytical mind. His feelings were strong, but not of the effusive character.
With this type of mind, it was not strange that as a hymn writer he would succeed better as a translator than as an original hymnist. His important contribution, therefore, consisted of translations from the German of Tersteegen, Gerhardt, Scheffler, Spangenberg, and Zinzendorf, and the amendment or even recasting of hymns by Watts, or of poems by George Herbert. Perhaps his greatest work in hymnody lay in encouraging as well as editing the work of his younger brother, Charles.[2]
In John Wesley’s plans to elevate the degraded population of England both spiritually and mentally, the hymn bears an important part. His keen and critical literary faculty was brought to bear upon its cultural as well as spiritual aspects, and his drastic corrections and revisions, as well as his translations, did much to lift the hymnody of his age to a higher literary plane.
Charles Wesley was born at Epworth in 1707, being four and a half years younger than John. He inherited a full portion of the family religious nature, but with his mother’s mental energy he combined a double portion of the Wesley poetic temperament. With less of the rigid will of his older brother, he had a more sensitive spirit, a more emotional nature, a greater literary impulse. Critics scold that he wrote too much.[3]As well scold the mockingbird for being so prodigal of its notes or that it occasionally merely twitters.
When he “got religion,” his religion made him sing. Did he rejoice? His joy found utterance in a joyous hymn, “O for a thousand tongues to sing.” Had he trials? What more natural than a hymn of prayer, “My God, my God, to Thee I cry”? Was there a riot about him? A hymn of steadfastness, “Thou hidden Source of calm repose,” sang in his heart. The impulse to write was not always accompanied by creative insight, so, of course, he wrote inferior hymns. The urge to write was too spontaneous that it should wait for the critical attitude. Let John supply that! Charles had the joy of writing and John winnowed the product. There was chaff, of course, but the golden wheat cannot grow without chaff.
It must not be assumed that Charles was only a hymn writer. Immediately on his conversion, he began to preach the need of the new birth, and for fifteen years he vied with John in field work in behalf of the new movement. With his background, his culture and education, his poetic nature and wealth of vocabulary and depth of experience, Charles might be expected to preach a vivid, glowing, flaming message—and such was his style. His meetings carried him into all parts of England, Wales, and Ireland.
What a team the Wesley brothers were! John with his masterly logical sermons and profound theological writings, Charles with his hymns and his sermons aflame with feeling, the Annesley organizing instinct in both of them. What a spiritual force they set in motion that transformed the spiritual and moral life of England and saved its soul—nay more, it swept around the whole earth, and determined the character of nations yet waiting to be born.
By the necessities of the situation, by the character of the work, and by his own temperament, Charles Wesley was led to write subjective, emotional hymns, keeping personal experience to the fore. But his emotionality was not shallowsentiment, but spontaneous and genuine feeling, based on clear recognition of the actual truths of the Scriptures. In a very intense way he had actually experienced the sorrow for sin, the joy of salvation from its guilt and power, complete assurance of divine acceptance, the longing for divine communion, the sense of the love of God as it planned and fashioned his inner as well as his outward life, the certainty of safety from the power of sin in sanctification. He could write affecting invitations to sinners, for he knew their condition and danger, and also the results of peace and joy, of power and efficiency, that the acceptance of Christ would bring. The truths of the Gospel in passing through the crucible of his personality acquired an actuality, a poignancy of appeal, that made his hymns a mighty power, not only in the immediate campaigns of the Wesley brothers, but in the life and work of the Church in the generations to come.[4]
That was the difference between Wesley and Watts. The latter was objective, reasonable, formal. The majesty of a sovereign God appealed to him. He delighted in the infinite perfections of the divine nature. He surveyed the wondrous cross. He trembled before it, as did the children of Israel before the Holy Mount. His attitude was that of the Old Testament. Watts viewed the sovereignty of God objectively; Wesley felt the facts of salvation as actual experiences.
Charles Wesley was subjective; he expressed the feelings that the truths of the Gospel produced in him.[5]
God to him also was great, but as a Saviour, companion, friend. Why should he tremble? He was not Moses viewing the burning bush, but John leaning on the breast of Jesus. He shared the ecstasies of the apostles and disciples portrayed in the New Testament.[6]
So Watts gives dignity and majesty to the early topics of our hymnbooks on the attributes of God, his worship, the awe ofthe soul in the presence of its sovereign Lord in hymns like “Before Jehovah’s awful throne,” “Great God! how infinite thou art,” “I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath,” “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun,” “Our God, our help in ages past,” while Charles Wesley fills the sweeter, tenderer, more intimate departments of salvation, forgiveness, communion with God, with the odor of the spikenard of his heart in hymns like “Depth of mercy! can there be,” “I know that my Redeemer lives,” “Jesus, Lover of my soul,” “Love divine, all loves excelling.” How well these singers of the Lord’s song supplement each other, and how much more symmetrical and complete are our hymnals because both have written in their own lines and styles!
Which is the greater hymn writer? That is a mooted question that need not be decided here. In Scriptural content the older man is superior, as, at his best, he is in majesty of style. For formal services of worship his hymns are more fitting and impressive. On the other hand, Wesley was superior in quantity and in the number of hymns of high quality. It must be granted that he is more poetical, more graceful, more suave and human. His range is more extensive, his emotion deeper and more noble. In immediate results on the lives of the people Charles Wesley is incomparably richer than Watts, for his hymns then and since turned multitudes unto righteousness.[7]
Space is wanting, and the profit would be slight, to give a catalogue of the sixty-four original issues of hymns that John published from 1737 to 1790, the mass of them for the use of the evangelistic campaign. They were largely occasional, issued to meet a pressing but only temporary need. They varied from a single sheet containing but a single hymn (Charles Wesley’s hymn praying for his brother’s long life) to the two volumes with two thousand and thirty short hymnson Scripture passages. It was not until 1780 that a regular hymnbook “for the use of the people called ‘Methodists’” was issued, containing five hundred and twenty-five hymns.
So practical a mind as that of John Wesley, who had from childhood engaged in sacred song, would not be expected to overlook the great importance of the tunes to which the new hymns were to be sung. In 1742 he printed aCollection of Tunesin which only three of theOld Versiontunes appeared. Tunes were freely borrowed from the musicalSupplement to the New Version, six were secured from German Moravian sources, and a few were new. Tunes were later supplied by Handel and Lampe; popular melodies which the Wesleys picked up in their preaching tours were also adopted.
Some twenty years later fugal tunes became popular among the churches, but became known as “Old Methodist Tunes,” although they had never been officially recognized and had first been written in Scotland.
When we regard the quantity and quality of the Wesleyan hymns, or their adaptation to the spiritual and evangelistic purposes for which they were written, or the body of teaching they conveyed, or the spiritual fervor they created and are still creating in millions of souls, or the influence they exerted on all subsequent hymnody, we do not find the sweeping statement of Dr. James Martineau, the Unitarian divine and hymnbook editor, as exaggerated: “After the Scriptures, theWesley Hymn Bookappears to me the grandest instrument of popular religious culture that Christendom has produced.”
The contemporary prejudice against the Wesleyan hymnody was very strong and bitter. There were many influences against them: the conservative devotion to the psalm versions, “New” and “Old,” the Nonconformist loyalty to the psalmsand hymns of Watts, the Established Church’s resentment against the revolters against established rule and custom within her bounds, the formalist objection to what seemed to them the fanatical, extravagant, and effusive type of piety, the emotional, subjective, experiential style of the hymns, and (worst of all!) the low social class that constituted the bulk of the followers of the Wesleys. The result was that both in Great Britain and in America the Wesleyan hymns crept very slowly into the hymnbooks of the churches outside the Methodist movement. It was many years before any appeared in the English church hymnals; even when they did, Charles Wesley’s name did not appear with them; it even happened that other writers were credited with them. In America, where the Methodists were the Salvation Army of their day, the Wesleyan hymns were slow of recognition. This was partly due to the general, almost fanatical, devotion to Watts’ hymnody.
The Arminian attitude of the Wesleys, as against the rigid Calvinism of both the Established and the Nonconformist churches, led to acrid theological discussions that intensified the opposition to the movement they headed. Even among those favorable to the spiritual reformation was there an element antagonistic to the Wesleys. Whitefield, Toplady, and the Countess of Huntingdon were leaders in this revolt.
The fact that Charles Wesley rather monopolized the writing of hymns undoubtedly had its adverse influence. John Wesley did not encourage others to write.[8]This accounts for the fact that comparatively few of their immediate associates wrote hymns, and some of these drifted into other relations. What else could a man expect who fearlessly amended, revised others’ hymns, and then warned the general hymnbook maker regarding the Wesleyan hymns as follows: “Hymn-cobblers should not try to mend them. I really do not think they are able.”
Among these transient supporters was Edward Perronet (1726-1792) of Huguenot stock. He wrote “All hail the power of Jesus’ name,” which makes so noble a climax for many of our services. For a time he was a preacher in the Wesleyan connection. He then adopted Calvinistic views, and joined the forces of the Countess of Huntingdon, preaching under her direction. His caustic Gallic wit, exercised against the Established Church, offended his patroness and he became the pastor of a small congregation of dissenters.
Another associate of the Wesleys was Thomas Olivers (1725-1799), who had small educational advantages, but was an indefatigable worker. One of his hymns has kept its place in our hymnals, “The God of Abraham praise.” Montgomery says of it: “This noble ode, though the essay of an unlettered man, claims special honor. There is not in our language a lyric of more majestic style, more elevated thought, or more glorious imagery.”
John Bakewell, the head of a prominent academy at Greenwich, was a local preacher of whom his tombstone, near to that of John Wesley in the cemetery of the City Road Chapel, records that “he adorned the doctrine of God, our Saviour, 80 years and preached his Gospel 70 years.” He is remembered by the hymn, “Hail, Thou once despised Jesus,” which is found in most of the current hymnals.
There were no poetic restraints felt by the adherents of the Calvinistic wing of the Methodist movement as met the associates of the Wesleys, and the number of hymn writers in its ranks is larger.
William Williams (1717-1791), “the Watts of Wales,” spent his life in working in the Welsh Calvinistic-Methodist connection. Early in his career the need of appropriate Welsh hymns was so pressing that recourse was had to a sort ofEisteddfod of hymn-writing in which he easily won first honors. He was an indefatigable preacher, taking all Wales for his parish. His chief claim to immortality is his hymn, “Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,” originally written in Welsh, but soon used in the Whitefield Methodist Connection in England. His missionary hymn, “O’er the gloomy hills of darkness,” while not so popular, has had a wide use.
John Cennick (1718—1755) was originally associated with the Wesleys as a preacher, but the burning question of Calvinism separated them and he became associated with Whitefield and later with the Moravians. Two hymns of his were extremely popular both in Great Britain and in the early years of Methodism in America: “Jesus, my all, to heaven is gone,” and “Children of the heavenly King.” The former was used as the verse basis of a great many “spiritual” choruses in pioneer times. His “Lo! He comes with clouds descending” was reshaped and rewritten by Charles Wesley and Martin Madan. The literary quality of his hymns is not high, but their sincerity and adaptation to universal Christian experience give them practical value.
Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-1778) was associated with the Wesleys and with the Calvinistic-Methodist leaders, but was a Church of England clergyman. He wrote four hundred and nineteen hymns; only a few continue in use. Notable among these is “Rock of Ages, cleft for me,” which has been almost universally used and most mercilessly amended and revised. It has been translated into many languages: Gladstone having translated it into Latin, Greek, and Italian.
Montgomery says of Toplady’s hymns: “There is a peculiarly etherial spirit in some of these, in which, whether mourning or rejoicing, praying or praising, the writer seems absorbed in the full triumph of faith.” Another hymn of Toplady’s, “Deathless principle, arise,” has been characterized as “almost peerless,” but it is rather a reading hymn.
While the Methodists were enriching the hymnody of the Christian Church, the Baptists were not idle. The second reformation of England did not leave them unaffected, even though they were not officially associated with it.
Their chief hymn writer was Anne Steele (1716-1778), an invalid of great spirituality and piety and of much literary felicity as well as facility. She wrote one hundred and forty-four hymns and thirty-four versions of psalms. Her hymns are meditative in style, graceful and gentle in spirit. She is best remembered by her hymn of resignation, “Father, whate’er of earthly bliss.” Other hymns still widely used are “Now I resolve with all my heart,” the hymn regarding the Scriptures, “Father of mercies, in Thy word What endless glory shines,” and the (for her) enthusiastic hymn of praise to Christ, “To our Redeemer’s glorious name.” Her vogue in America at one time was very great.
John Fawcett was another Baptist hymnist of note. He issued one hundred and sixty-six hymns, three of which are standards in our day: “How precious is the book divine,” “Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing,” and “Blest be the tie that binds.” Besides the duties of a heavy pastorate at Wainsgate (with a salary of less than two hundred dollars) he did a great amount of literary work. The third hymn mentioned above has done more for Christian unity than all arguments and commissions.
Another hymn writer of note, who may be classed as a Baptist, was Robert Robinson (1735-1790). Converted under Whitefield’s preaching, he later took a Baptist pastorate at Cambridge. He was very active in a literary way. He began aHistory of Baptistsin 1781 which appeared in 1790, but in spite of laborious research it did not reach the completeness he desired. Besides eleven hymns of but moderate value written for Whitefield, he wrote a Christmas hymn, “MightyGod, while angels bless Thee” and the ever-useful and prayerful “Come, Thou Fount of every blessing.” This was another favorite basis for “Spiritual” revival choruses in America. There was a lack of steadiness in his temperament. After writingA Plea for the Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, he later came under suspicion as a Unitarian and Socinian.
Samuel Medley was a midshipman in the navy, but being sorely wounded in a terrible naval battle off Cape Lagos, he refused to continue as a naval officer. During his recovery he was soundly converted under the influence of his grandfather Tonge. After being at the head of a school for a time, he accepted a Baptist pastorate. Medley wrote a number of hymns, of which “O could I speak the matchless worth,” “Awake, my soul, to joyful lays,” “I know that my Redeemer lives,” and “Mortals, awake, with angels join,” are still found in most of our hymnals. He claimed no literary merit for himself, but his hymns have found a hearty response in England, and even more in America.
Joseph Grigg (1720-1768) was not a Methodist or a Baptist, but a Presbyterian. He is further noteworthy as an “infant phenomenon,” having written a very familiar hymn, “Jesus, and shall it ever be?” at the age of ten years. He was in humble circumstances at first, “a laboring mechanic.” He was assistant minister in a prominent London Presbyterian church for four years, then “married well” and retired, still writing and preaching. His “Behold, a Stranger at the door,” with a stirring tune by T. C. O’Kane, has been widely used in America as an evangelistic hymn with a refrain.
Although the Wesleys were Church of England clergymen, the tide of religious feeling they set in motion could not sweep over the mass of the population without its waves dashing across all ecclesiastical and traditional barriers. But John Wesley’s somewhat arrogant spirit, the extreme methods which he found necessary to reach the lower classes, so desperately in need of a new religious impulse, above all, his sharp reaction against the high Calvinistic theology of the Church, repelled many who had been deeply affected by the Methodist atmosphere that enveloped them and had felt a new sense of obligation to bring back their people to a true religious life.
The effectiveness of the spontaneous Methodist singing was evident enough and the Evangelical ministers of the Established Church felt the need of collections of hymns that should achieve the same results without what seemed to them the doctrinal vagaries and emotional extravagances of the Wesleyan hymns. Nor were they at first willing to set entirely aside the psalmody that had served the church for so many generations.
As might be expected, the earliest collections of hymns foruse in the Established churches were largely based on Nonconformist and Wesleyan materials, since most of their editors, and the churches they wished to serve, were under the influence of the Countess of Huntingdon, who in turn was in close touch with the Calvinistic-Methodist movement.
One of the first of the collections of the Evangelical wing was that of Martin Madan,Psalms and Hymns, containing 170 hymns without order or arrangement, except that sacramental hymns had a department by themselves. Madan used a free hand in revising and remodeling the hymns he selected, sometimes for good, frequently for ill. He was quite a musician, supplying tunes, thirty-three of which were his own composition, of which “Huddersfield” and “Helmsley” still occasionally appear in our hymnals. His book was used to a considerable extent and helped to hasten the introduction of hymns in the Church of England. Other collections of the same name and type were issued by Berridge and Conyers.
More important was Toplady’sPsalms and Hymns, issued in 1776. Despite his virulent attacks on the Wesleys, he used quite a number of their hymns, without credit and drastically revised. His collection contained 418 hymns, some by Watts and by other Nonconformists. His revisions were not wholly on doctrinal grounds, but on literary as well—“God is the God ofTruth, of Holiness, and of Elegance. Whoever, therefore, has the honor to compose, or to compile, anything that may constitute a part of his worship should keep those three particulars constantly in view.” In this remark, found in his preface, Toplady anticipated the later period of the literary hymn by Heber, Keble, and Milman. This collection continued in use for nearly fifty years.
With the exception of this later collection of Toplady these hymnbooks were mere compilations. The impulse of this Evangelical wing to write hymns of their own did not longdelay. The most notable of these hymn writers were John Newton (1725-1807) and William Cowper (1731-1800). They co-operated in the issue ofOlney Hymns, so called after the village of which Newton was the curate.
John Newton was born in London. His mother, who was a pious Dissenter, and had dedicated her boy from his birth to the Christian ministry and had tried to train him in preparation for this work, died when he was but seven years old. He grew up to be a wild, profligate, wicked young man; he speaks of himself as “once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa.” At the age of twenty-three he again came under religious influences and became an ardent Christian.
It was not until he was nearly thirty-nine years old that he entered the ministry of the Established Church, being appointed curate of the village of Olney. He had always had an impulse, even during his wildest years, to read and study and to add to his general culture. Hence, in spite of his vagrant life (having spent eighteen years on the sea) and his secular pursuits, he came into the ministry with a rough-hewn education, and a practical and resourceful attitude of mind, that served him well in his aggressive ministry. His spiritual experience was deep and intense. He had been in close touch with Whitefield, the Wesleys, and other leaders in the great evangelistic movement.
For his work as a curate in the Established Church, the hymns of Watts lacked the deep personal spirituality for which his own soul sought expression. The Wesleys supplied that element abundantly, but their hymnbooks did not express his Calvinistic attitude, nor fit his local needs. His own urge to write hymns and his intimacy with Cowper, which undoubtedly seemed a providence, encouraged him to produce Olney Hymns, which contained 280 hymns by Newton and 68 by Cowper.
Newton sympathized with Watts in his objection to pronouncedlypoetic elements in hymns; in his preface he remarks that “the imagery and coloring of poetry, if admitted at all, should be admitted very sparingly.” The book was dedicated to “the use of plain people,” to promote the faith and comfort of sincere Christians. To secure these, “perspicuity, simplicity, and ease” were sought. Yet some of Newton’s best hymns closely approach the best of his friend, the poet Cowper. Genuine feeling gave lyric wings.
Of his 280 hymns, the most successful in maintaining a place in our hymnals are: “Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,” “Approach, my soul, the mercy seat,” “Glorious things of thee are spoken,” “Come, my soul, thy suit prepare,” “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds,” “Safely through another week,” “While with ceaseless course the sun,” “One there is, above all others.” What a noble chaplet of pearls for his Lord is this amazing contribution by the former “servant of slaves”!
Newton’s famous coworker on theOlney Hymns, William Cowper, was the son of one of the chaplains of George II and was born in Hertfordshire in 1731. He was frail and shy, and had a very painful experience among the boys of the Westminster School which he attended for ten years. Doubtless his later mental affliction was due in large part to the bullying of his schoolmates. He studied law, but did not find it to his taste. At the age of thirty-six he moved to Olney, where he met John Newton, who became his close friend and protector as well as his leader in the writing of hymns. He co-operated with Newton’s religious work as lay reader and wrote his hymns for the cottage prayer meetings that were a feature in Newton’s work.
While his literary work shows no trace of his melancholia, being cheerful and even humorous, his hymns frequently show traces of it, notably in “God moves in a mysterious way” and “Oh, for a closer walk with God.” Newton’s habit of introspection may have influenced him, and the obscurity of the people and of the occasions for which he wrote may havegiven him a sense of freedom in expressing his deeper, subconscious experience. He was an exceedingly spiritual-minded man. It was said of him by one who often heard him, “Of all the men I ever heard pray, none equaled Mr. Cowper.” He had a vivid and intense experience when he was converted: “For many succeeding weeks tears were ready to flow if I did but speak of the Gospel, or mention the name of Jesus. To rejoice day and night was all my employment. Too happy to sleep much, I thought it was lost time that was spent in slumber.”
Cowper’s literary work was done after he was fifty years old—indeed, after his contributions toOlney Hymnshad been made. His hymns were really preliminary studies for his secular work.
Cowper made a very important contribution to the Christian hymnody of the ages: “God moves in a mysterious way,” “Oh, for a closer walk with God,” “Jesus, where’er thy people meet,” “Sometimes a light surprises,” “There is a fountain filled with blood,” “Hark, my soul, it is the Lord,” which will all survive as long as devout hearts meditate and sing.Olney Hymnswas very widely accepted and had more to do with the introduction of hymns into Anglican services than any other hymnbook up to that time. It was speedily reprinted in America and was very popular there.
Beyond all its Church of England predecessors, it established the ideal of the hymn as evangelical, as an expression of personal spiritual experience, as a vehicle for the conveying of spiritual truth. It was closely akin to the Methodist ideal, but more sober and sedate, with less of the poetical element. The hymnbook was the crystallizing force of the Evangelical party and its unifying discipline. It did not win the co-operation of the whole Church, by any means, but it prepared the way for the final acceptance of the hymn as an inherent part of the Church service in that communion.
While theOlney Hymnscontinued in use by the Evangelicalwing of the Established Church, there continued to bePsalms and Hymnsissued by various compilers, Basil Woodd, Simeon Bidulph, Cecil Venn, and others, all giving increasing attention to the hymns, and extending their use, in the church service.
If in the actual singing hymn up to this time there had been any definitely literary quality or poetic spirit, it had been in spite of a theory that the hymn must be plain and simple and adapted to plain people, as in those of Watts and Newton, or somewhat unconsciously so by reason of an imagination vitalized by deep feeling, as in those of Charles Wesley. The hymn had been a practical religious vehicle for expressing feeling and impressing truth, not an artistic and a literary effort.
From this time on the Romantic movement in literature began to affect the ideal of the hymn. Since the hymn was to become a part of the religious service, instead of a Nonconformist addition to the sermon, and since the metrical psalm was to pass away because of its literary shortcomings and absurdities, it was felt that the opportunity had come to put a higher literary quality, a more vivid imagination, a more definitely poetic element into the hymn—hence the literary singing hymn came into being.
This was all the more opportune, since literature was turning to religion for its themes. Coleridge issued hisReligious Musings, Wordsworth hisEcclesiastical Sonnets, Moore hisSacred Songs, and the libertine Byron hisHebrew Melodies. In 1807 the literary remains of the lamented Henry Kirke White, including his ten hymns, among which was the sublime “The Lord our God is clothed in might” and his spiritually autobiographical “When marshalled on the mighty plain,” were edited by Robert Southey. It is also worth while noting that from 1809 to 1816 Reginald Heber printed hisreligious poems and his hymns. In 1827 John Keble’sThe Christian Yearmade its appearance with its materials for singing hymns. In the same year the hymns of Bishop Heber and of Henry Hart Milman greeted the Christian public.
As early as 1809 Heber was considering the use of a hymnal in his parish church. In 1811 he published four hymns in theChristian Observeras specimens of a series he was contemplating. He proposed a hymnbook that should be “a collection of sacred poetry.” He sought the help of Sir Walter Scott, Robert Southey, and other literary men of prominence, but only Henry Hart Milman, the great church historian, responded. The ecclesiastical authorities sympathized, but thought the church unready for an authorized hymnbook.
After Heber’s death in India in 1826, his widow brought the manuscript back to England and it was published in 1827—not as a hymnbook, however, but in the form and style of current poetic issues. In this book appeared fifty-seven hymns by Heber and twelve by Milman. Having due regard to its size, it was probably the richest contribution ever made to Christian hymnody.
After the lapse of a century, his hymns are still in current use, many of them inevitable in every hymnal whether churchly or popular, such as “From Greenland’s icy mountains,” “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,” “The Son of God goes forth to war,” “By cool Siloam’s shady rill,” “Bread of the world, in mercy broken,” “Brightest and best of the sons of the morning.”
The beauty of Heber’s style was recognized from the first. His hymns were distinctly literary in flavor, poetically conceived, with varied rhythms and forms of stanza. But he did not transgress the limitations of the singing hymn, as had the literary men of a century and more before, nor did he ignore the practicability of the small number of verses. The hymns were poems, but they were congregational hymns none the less. But they might have been all this and yet perishedby the way. It was their deep spirituality, their lucid expression of Christian truth, transmuted by intense conviction and personal experience into a personal appeal that was abiding, that have made them immortal.
Dean Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868) was a brilliant scholar and church historian and a poet of great reputation. His hymns are strong, churchly, thoughtful to a high degree, but they lack the poetic charm of those of Heber. Of the eleven that appeared in Heber’s posthumous collection, and of others that were printed later, only one, his Palm Sunday hymn, “Ride on, ride on in majesty,” is certain to be included in every hymnal. The litany, “When our hearts are bowed with woe,” and “Oh help us, Lord, each hour of need,” are only occasionally used.
Like Saul among the prophets, we find the author ofLalla Rookh, Thomas Moore (1779-1852), enrolled among our English hymn writers. The charm of his secular verse and songs is found also in hisSacred Songs, from which his ever-useful and tender “Come, ye disconsolate” has been taken; it is found in most of our hymnals. Less often do his “Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea” and “O Thou who driest the mourner’s tear” find a place. Not directly associated with ecclesiastical circles and lacking in religious fervor, he yet deserves a place among distinctly literary hymn writers.
No small factor in the development of the literary hymn wasThe Christian Yearby John Keble (1792-1866). It was not a collection of hymns, but a series of poems appropriate to all the several sacred times and seasons; but out of it were salvaged a number of hymns that have served the needs of high liturgical churches on special days.Hymns Ancient and Modern, the High-Church hymnal so popular in Great Britain and its dominions, contains no less than eleven of these adapted hymns. The Christian Church at large is a grateful debtor to this devotional poetry for the two hymns, “Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear,” the evening hymn, and “Thevoice that breathed o’er Eden,” the wedding song. Beyond the value of these excerpts from his poems was the poetic stimulus that enriches all subsequent hymnody by raising the literary quality of the ideal hymn.
It was this literary quality of the work of the foregoing writers, their definite recognition of the liturgic needs of the Church, and their high church ideals and sympathies, that won the final victory of the hymn over the metrical psalm in the Church of England. This party had been the last stronghold in England of metrical psalmody.
Although contemporary with the foregoing romantic school, Thomas Kelly (1769-1854), originally an Evangelical Church of England clergyman, later on an Independent, was not particularly influenced by them. He was an indefatigable hymn writer; his collection ofScripture Hymnsfinally contained 765 hymns, all original. His ideal was still that of Watts, Wesley, and Newton—the useful hymn. He had no conscious striving after literary quality, but, like Newton, frequently rose to a high standard in this particular when lifted by his theme. He was an earnest, pious, zealous, enthusiastic preacher, and liberal with his large wealth. His influence in Ireland was widespread and counted largely for piety and for evangelistic aggressiveness.
Some of our most widely used hymns are from his pen: “Hark, ten thousand harps and voices,” “Look, ye saints, the sight is glorious,” “On the mountain’s top appearing,” “The Head that once was crowned with thorns,” “Zion stands with hills surrounded.”
Another distinguished contemporary, James Montgomery (1771-1854), was probably more directly influenced by the literary impulses of the times. A Moravian layman, the son of a Moravian minister, he was a professional writer and editor of a secular newspaper of considerable influence. For yearsa worldling, he was forty-two years old before he publicly professed his acceptance of Christ.
He had written quite a good deal of secular poetry up to this time; now he turned to writing hymns, which he had ceased to do since he was a boy of fourteen. His poetry was highly appreciated at the time, but it is now forgotten, although his hymns keep his memory green. He had served a full literary apprenticeship and had formulated his theories of the hymn—its character, its content, its limitations—before he began writing, so that his hymns have an average excellence and effectiveness that can be paralleled only by those of Bishop Heber. His critical attitude is very evident in his introduction to his second book,Christian Psalmist: “The faults in ordinary hymns are vulgar phrases, low words, hard words, technical terms, inverted construction, broken syntax, barbarous abbreviations that make our beautiful English horrid even to the eye, bad rhymes, or no rhymes where rhymes are expected, but above all numbers without cadence.” It is not surprising that, with this keenly critical approach, he made many alterations in Cotterill’sSelection of Psalms and Hymns, which he was asked to edit, nor that he almost rewrote the Moravian hymnbook on which he labored for twelve years.
The list of Montgomery’s widely accepted hymns is very large:The New Methodist Hymnalhas 8, theNew Presbyterian Hymnal9,Hymns Ancient and Modern(1904 Ed.) 13.
The most widely used of Montgomery’s hymns are: “Angels from the realms of glory,” “Forever with the Lord,” “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed,” “Hark the song of jubilee,” “In the hour of trial,” “Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,” “Oh, where shall rest be found,” “The Lord is my Shepherd, No want shall I know.”
There are some minor writers in this and the succeeding generation that deserve passing mention. The man of a single hymn sometimes strikes twelve.