Chapter XIII: Part II: History of the Development of Hymns (4)

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 the _Olney Hymns_ continued in use by the Evangelical wing of the Established Church, there continued to be _Psalms and Hymns_ issued 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.

IV. HYMN WRITERS OF THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL

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 his _Religious Musings_, Wordsworth his _Ecclesiastical Sonnets_, Moore his _Sacred Songs_, and the libertine Byron his _Hebrew 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 his religious poems and his hymns. In 1827 John Keble’s _The Christian Year_ made 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 the _Christian Observer_ as 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 perished by 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 of _Lalla Rookh_, Thomas Moore (1779-1852), enrolled among our English hymn writers. The charm of his secular verse and songs is found also in his _Sacred 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 was _The Christian Year_ by 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 “The voice 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.

V. CONTEMPORARY HYMN WRITERS

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 of _Scripture Hymns_ finally 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 years a 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’s _Selection 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 Hymnal_ has 8, the _New Presbyterian Hymnal_ 9, _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.”

VI. MINOR HYMN WRITERS

There are some minor writers in this and the succeeding generation that deserve passing mention. The man of a single hymn sometimes strikes twelve.

Among these is John Marriott (1780-1825), a Church of England vicar whose “Thou, whose almighty word” is in the first rank because of its dignity and sustained feeling. It is one of our best missionary hymns.

James Edmeston (1791-1867), a London architect, served his day and generation with hundreds of hymns for adults and children; only one of them has become a permanent addition to English hymnody, the evening hymn, “Saviour, breathe an evening blessing.”

Another layman, Sir Robert Grant (1785-1838), was conspicuous in his day as a statesman, and finally as Governor of Bombay; he was a man of deep piety and elevation of mind. He wrote a number of thoughtful and impressive hymns, but he made his most permanent contribution to the Christian Church’s sacrifice of praise in his noble “Oh, worship the King, all-glorious above,” which is in the first rank for its noble poetry as well as its profound devotion.

Another writer of high merit is the butcher’s son, Henry Kirke White (1785-1806), whose death at the early age of twenty-one years, after writing at the age of seventeen some poems of such merit as to arrest the attention of the literary world, was a distinct loss to English hymnody. How great that loss can be judged from the high quality of his “The Lord our God is clothed with might,” “Oft in danger, oft in woe,” and his Christmas hymn, “When marshaled on the nightly plain.” His struggles with poverty in seeking an education, with skepticism in finding peace of soul, with dread disease to which he had to succumb, invest his story with a poignant pathos.

Another hymnist deserving attention was Bernard Barton (1784-1849), a Quaker banker, twenty of whose hymns came into general use. Two of them seem to have won a permanent place in our hymnody, “Lamp of our feet, whereby we trace” and “Walk in the light! so shalt thou know”—not great hymns, but extremely useful.

Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847) entered the church as a profession, but presently was led into a deep religious experience by attending the dying bed of a neighboring clergyman who, too, had looked upon his work as a means of livelihood. The fruit of this experience was the hymns that have been so loved and appreciated on both sides of the ocean. The favorites among them are “Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide,” “Jesus, I my cross have taken,” “As pants the hart for cooling streams,” and “Praise, my soul, the King of heaven.” The pathetic story of his last days has touched the hearts of God’s people as they have sung his swan song, “Abide with me”—the finest evening hymn of the Christian church—if it is accepted as an evening hymn.

That a Unitarian, Sir John Bowring (1792-1872), should have written so noble a hymn about the cross of Christ as “In the cross of Christ I glory,” expressing all its spiritual implications, can be explained only by his orthodoxy of heart. His superficial reasonings were the outgrowth of his early educational and social environment, and were not in co-ordination with his deeper convictions. He was a voluminous writer. His extraordinary genius for languages is revealed in his series of “Specimens” from the poetry of no less than five European languages. Politically he was even more conspicuous than Sir Robert Grant, but, like him, his name will be ever revered for a single great hymn, “In the cross of Christ I glory.” Other hymns in common use are “Watchman, tell us of the night” and “God is love; his mercy brightens.”

Josiah Conder (1789-1855), the compiler of the _Congregational Hymn Book_, wrote fifty-six hymns for it, one of which is very impressive and worshipful, “The Lord is King! lift up thy voice,” which will undoubtedly live through coming generations. His other hymns are uniformly good and of a high literary standard, but with less appeal.

VII. THE HYMNS OF THE OXFORD MOVEMENT

Cardinal Newman held that John Keble was the originator of the Oxford Movement[1] by his great Assize sermon on “The Great Apostasy” preached at Oxford, and by his emphasis of the church’s calendar in his _The Christian Year_; but he can hardly be associated with the school of hymn writers that grew out of it, for some of them repudiated the literary hymn entirely.

John Henry Newman (1801-1890) was the leader of the movement back to the ideals of the pre-Reformation church. He wrote some poetry, notably “The Dream of Gerontius,” and a few hymns. Of these, “Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom” is the most widely known, because of its attractive music, as he himself testifies. “Praise to the Holiest in the height” is really a more serviceable hymn for actual church services.

His disciples, Edward Caswall (1814-1878) and John Mason Neale (1818-1866), opened new veins of hymnic wealth in their translations from the Latin and the Greek, with which they greatly enriched the treasury of sacred song. In the enthusiasm evoked by their success, the suggestion was seriously made that all the post-Reformation hymnody be set aside to give way to the medieval and even earlier hymns!

Caswall devoted himself to the Latin medieval hymns and sequences and made some surpassing translations, or, if you please, transformations—e.g., “Jesus, the very thought of Thee,” “The sun is sinking fast,” “My God, I love Thee, not because,” and “When morning gilds the skies” from the German. He was a Church of England man, but in 1847 he entered the Roman Catholic Church, following his leader, Dr. Newman.

Dr. Neale did not leave the English Church, but was quite prominent in High-Church circles. He was intensely interested in the liturgics of his church, which led to his studies of the early Greek church and its breviaries. He brought to his translations of Greek hymns a literary skill, a spiritual insight, and a fervor that made him the primate among those who found their inspiration in these ancient books of service and breathed into these ancient lyrics the breath of modern life. Among his most notable successes are: “Art thou weary, art thou languid?” “Christian, dost thou see them?” “The day is past and over,” “Fierce was the wild billow,” “’Tis the day of resurrection,” “Brief life is here our portion,” “Jerusalem the golden.” It must be remembered that these are not literal translations, but English hymns made up of ideas suggested by phrases in the originals. Only a poet imbued with devout feelings, responding to the vague suggestions of the often obscure originals, could have produced them.

Another disciple of Cardinal Newman who also followed him into the Roman Catholic Church was Frederick W. Faber (1814-1863), a poet by the grace of God, a devout Christian, a man of intense convictions, but somewhat temperamental and impulsive. Among his many good hymns are: “My God, how wonderful thou art,” “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy” (sometimes beginning “Was there ever kindest Shepherd”), “O Paradise! O Paradise,” “Hark, hark, my soul! angelic songs are swelling,” “Faith of our fathers! living still.” Few that sing the last-mentioned hymn realize that it refers to the faith of the Roman Catholic saints and that the hymn had to be cleansed of its Mariolatry before being used in our Protestant hymnals. Nevertheless, in its present form it is a very impressive and valuable hymn that has been redeemed from the propagandist vagary of its original writer.

Still under the influence of the Oxford High, or Anglo-Catholic Church, we find Mrs. Cecil Frances Alexander, (1823-1895), the writer of many hymns, especially for children, among which are a number that promise permanent usefulness: “There is a green hill far away,” “Jesus calls us, o’er the tumult,” “The roseate hues of early dawn.”

Bishop W. W. How (1823-1897) wrote a number of excellent hymns for his hymnal, _Psalms and Hymns_, some of which have since found their way into other hymnals. Perhaps those that have appealed most are “O Jesus, Thou art standing,” “We give Thee but Thine own,” “O Word of God incarnate,” “Soldiers of the cross, arise,” “Summer suns are glowing.” His hymns are thoughtful, devout, and full of tender feeling; their literary quality is admirable.

A very copious writer of the same generation was Frances Ridley Havergal (1836-1879), whose devotional poetry touched the heart of her generation to a remarkable degree. Her pen was quite facile, and not all she wrote had more than transient value: but some of her hymns the Christian Church will permanently treasure: “Take my life, and let it be,” “I could not do without Thee,” “True-hearted, whole-hearted,” “Lord, speak to me, that I may speak,” “I gave my life for thee.” Miss Havergal was a woman of profound Christian experience, which is voiced by her hymns.

Among the later writers is Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1927), voluminous writer on a variety of topics as well as a fairly popular novelist. He wrote the stirring “Onward, Christian soldiers” for a local processional of school children and assured himself of an immortality by a half hour’s writing that all his laborious literary work would not have won him. He also wrote an appealing evening hymn, “Now the day is over,” that Joseph Barnby has made popular by his pleasing tune, “Merrial.”

In spite of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns and a number of minor poets, and in spite of a wealth of charming folk songs, to prove that the spirit of song dwells in the Scottish breast, Scotland has made but a small contribution to English hymnody. The metrical psalm ruled the Scotch religious heart with a rod of iron. Only during the last generation has Scotia almost unwittingly made an important contribution. Horatius Bonar (1808-1889) was an industrious writer on many topics. He allowed no hymns to be sung in his church, but by a strange anomaly he issued three series of _Hymns of Faith and Hope_—in 1856, 1861, and 1866. While these hymns were being increasingly sung around the world, his church sang metrical psalms! More than one hundred of his hymns are in common use. Among them are the following: “I heard the voice of Jesus say,” “I lay my sins on Jesus,” “Go, labor on; spend and be spent,” “Beyond the smiling and the weeping,” “A few more years shall roll,” “I was a wand’ring sheep,” “When the weary, seeking rest.”

Another Scotchman, George Matheson (1842-1906), the blind preacher, has written, among many others, a hymn whose beauty and mystical suggestiveness has rapidly given it wide usefulness: “O Love, that wilt not let me go.” Fortunate in having a very pleasing and effective tune, St. Margaret by Albert L. Peace, it promises to be a permanent fountain of blessing.

_Chapter XVIII_
AMERICAN HYMNODY

I. THE TRANSITION FROM PSALMODY TO HYMNODY

The metrical versions used in New England were Ainsworth’s in Plymouth and vicinity under Pilgrim influence, and Sternhold and Hopkins’, where Puritan influence controlled. The New England ministers were scholarly and knew their Hebrew Bible. The Sternhold and Hopkins version was unsatisfactory, not so much for its literary deficiencies, but because it was not literal enough, did not reproduce the Hebrew minutely enough. This led, as we have seen in Chapter X, to the Bay Psalm Book of 1640, which was widely adopted, although Sternhold and Hopkins still had its partisans.

These versions could not but find sharp critics among a more or less scholarly ministry and in time their absurdities weakened their hold upon the New England churches.

The utter collapse of the congregational singing due to the lack of tunes in the psalm books, and the absence of competent precentors,[1] hastened the revolt among some of the Churches against the versions. Yet the tyranny of “use and wont” kept most of the churches in line, only a few of them adopting the later version of Tate and Brady.

The interest aroused by the “singing school,” and by the organization of choirs due to the multiplication of tune books, both English and American, delayed the abolition of the older metrical versions and postponed the introduction of Watts’ Imitations and Hymns for several decades, but the complaints from the larger and more cultured churches and their scholarly ministers became more vociferous.[2] The combination of the absurdities of the metrical versions, and those created by the senseless repetition made necessary by the fugue tunes then in use, became unendurable.

II. THE INTRODUCTION OF WATTS’ HYMNS

Watts’ _The Psalms of David Imitated_ was very well adapted to serve as an entering wedge. It brought a certain sanction by making David’s Psalms the foundation. They were still psalms, not hymns, and so satisfied to some degree the claims of tradition, and placated those who would have balked at hymns of “human composure.” Benjamin Franklin in 1729 was the first to reprint the Imitation, but complained that the copies remained on his shelves unsold. The demand evidently grew, for in 1741 he issued a second edition. The first reprint of Watts’ Hymns appeared in 1739 in Boston. Three years later, in 1742, Franklin reprinted them in Philadelphia, and years later still, they were republished in New York.

Whitfield’s visit to America and the outburst of singing of the Great Awakening (1742), with its profound religious experiences that could find no adequate expression in the Psalms alone, gave Watts’ Hymns a larger opportunity. In 1744 the singing of Watts’ Hymns was one of the diversions of the people when they met together.

It was not until after the Revolution that the introduction of Watts’ Psalms and Hymns became general. There were a number of issues with such abridgments or changes as were made necessary by Watts’ references to British conditions, by Joel Barlow, a patriotic poet, author of the _Columbiad_, and later U. S. Minister to France, and by Nathan Strong, Samuel Worcester, and Timothy Dwight, the distinguished president of Yale College. All these had considerable vogue, especially the last which contained metrical versions of the Psalms Watts had omitted and other psalms versified anew. President Dwight’s “I love Thy kingdom, Lord” appeared as a versification of Psalm 137. It is a classic, one of the two leading hymns on the Christian Church, and is rarely omitted in our hymnals. Besides the Psalms it contained 263 hymns, 168 of which were by Watts.

The contentions which had occurred over methods of singing—the “Deaconing” or lining out of the hymns, the use of choirs, the fugal tunes—now gave way to differences over the use of various editions of Watts, or over the use of hymns in church service. The tradition, happily unjustified now, that the music of the church constituted “the war department” seems to have been originated during that century of conflict.

III. THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN HYMNODY

Wherever Watts had been able to overthrow the tyranny of the metrical versions, he seemed to have instituted a tyranny of his own, to the detriment of the development of an American hymnody. But here and there lonesome birds were singing songs of their own, early harbingers of the springtime of American sacred song.

Samuel Davies, the eloquent President of the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, began writing hymns in the middle of the eighteenth century that were accepted in English hymnbooks before they became generally known in America. Their quality may be judged from his hymn of consecration:

“Lord, I am thine, entirely thine,
Purchased and saved by blood divine;
With full consent thine I would be
And own thy sovereign right in me.”

The other verses are equally good, if not superior.

Mather Byles, the brilliant Tory preacher of Boston, was a poet of no mean pretentions and in close touch with Swift, Pope, and Watts. He wrote hymns that served their purpose in his day and generation, but have not been recognized since, partly because of his political attitude and his advanced views, being one of the first to use Watts’ Hymns in his congregation. His somewhat oratorical style is evident in his hymn on the greatness of God:

“Who can behold the blazing light?
Who can approach consuming flame?
None but thy wisdom knows thy might;
None but thy word can speak thy name.”

Another early songbird was Samson Occom, the Mohegan Indian, who raised the money in England which later became the financial nucleus of the present Dartmouth College. His autobiographical hymn, “Waked by the Gospel’s joyful sound,” was widely used in England and translated into Welsh, among whom it was used in their revivals and “led many hundred sinners to the cross of Christ.”

Harry Alline (1748-1783) was the most copious hymn writer of that early day, his _Hymns and Spiritual Songs_ containing four hundred and eighty-seven Hymns, all from his own pen. His

“Amazing sight, the Saviour stands,
And knocks at every door!
Ten thousand blessings in his hands
To satisfy the poor,”

was quite a favorite for many years, but was finally submerged in the larger tide of sacred song that sprang up through the years.

The scholarly and eloquent Nathan Strong in his _Hartford Selection_ used several hymns of his own. His patriotic hymn, “Swell the anthem, raise the song,” has had a long life of wide usefulness.

While Watts still reigned supreme during the next quarter of a century, the impulse and the ability to write acceptable hymns was rapidly developing. Eccentric Elder John Leland (1754-1851) among a lot of almost amusing trash wrote an evening hymn that had very wide acceptance. Dr. Duffield characterizes it as a “classic in its unpretending beauty,” and Dr. Charles S. Robinson esteemed it so highly as to exclaim, “May it live forever and ever!” Unfortunately the supply of fine evening hymns is so great that in the competition Leland’s hymn has fallen by the way. The last verse will enable the reader to savor its quality:

“And when our days are past,
And we from time remove,
Oh, may we in Thy bosom rest,
The bosom of Thy love.”

How many ministers who sing “Coronation” so heartily are aware that the composer, Oliver Holden (1765-1844), was a hymn writer as well as a musician? Yet one of his hymns had a wide use in both America and England:

“They who seek the throne of grace
Find that throne in every place;
If we live a life of prayer,
God is present everywhere.”

After a long and useful life, it, too, has practically disappeared from our hymnals.

IV. COLLECTIONS OF AMERICAN HYMNS

By 1824 the evangelistic movement, partly a heritage from the Great Awakening, partly due to the Methodist aggressiveness, and partly to the religious needs of a widely scattered and pioneer population, made it evident that the hymns of Watts and his school, with minds set on worship in more or less formal services for the edification of the elect, and ignoring the needs of an urgent discipling, were not fitted for revival work. Rev. Asahel Nettleton, an evangelistic minister greatly interested in foreign missions, issued his _Village Hymns_, containing six hundred hymns, only fifty of which were by Watts. Some of Charles Wesley’s hymns were included, but most of these were credited to other authors. While other English sources were drawn upon, the book was noteworthy for the American hymns that appeared in it. Hymns by Davies, Occom, Alline, Strong, and Dwight were used. An eager quest for new American hymnists was rewarded by contributions from William B. Tappan (“’Tis midnight; and on Olive’s brow” and “The ransomed spirit to her home”); from Phoebe Hinsdale Brown (“I love to steal awhile away”); and from Abby B. Hyde (“Dear Saviour, if these lambs should stray”).

William B. Tappan (1794-1849) was a largely self-educated man, having attended school but six months. His hymn “There is an hour of peaceful rest” was widely published in America and England, and on the Continent, and used to be inevitable in the hymnbooks of sixty years ago. His “’Tis midnight; and on Olive’s brow” still holds its place, though largely descriptive, but none the less impressive and useful.

Mrs. Phoebe Hinsdale Brown (1783-1861) still is represented in most of our hymnals by her “I love to steal awhile away,” with its pathetic story of her misunderstood habit of prayer among the scenes of nature. Greater than the hymn, valuable as it has been, is her contribution to the progress of Christ’s Kingdom in the work of her missionary son, Rev. Samuel R. Brown, in China and Japan and that of her grandsons in the latter country.

But the revival took on an intenser form under the preaching and praying of Charles G. Finney and, bright as was the spirit of the _Village Hymns_, it called for something more vigorous and with a greater appeal to the unsaved people who were to be won, especially in the music. Rev. Joshua Leavitt, a Congregational minister, a militant reformer, enemy of intemperance and slavery (a dangerous attitude in those days), and an ardent believer in the revival work of Finney, issued his _The Christian Lyre_ in 1830, which created quite a sensation. Its hymns did not differ much from those of _Village Hymns_, but it was more practical in that it supplied the music on the page opposite to each hymn, no small advance on the ponderous tune book that had to be held in one hand and the hymnbook in the other. Lowell Mason and Thomas Hastings had been editing these tune books filled with dull and stupid music, in whose abundant chaff an occasional grain of gold occurred, which the Christian Church has been glad to cherish. The music in _The Christian Lyre_ was bright and popular, being secular melodies the people were singing. Leavitt had taken a leaf out of the book of the old mass-writers, who used popular melodies for their descants, and of Luther and Bourgeois, in taking popular tunes to reach the people. It was an anticipation of Horace Waters’ policy in his _Sabbath School Bell_ in 1859. It was also an anticipation of Moody and Sankey’s _Gospel Hymns_, except that Leavitt had no Fanny Crosby or Lydia Baxter to supply new texts, and no reserve of popular music by Lowry, Doane, Bliss, and others to draw upon.

As Horace Waters stimulated Bradbury into developing the popular Sunday school music, one of whose by-products was the Gospel song, so Leavitt stirred up Mason and Hastings to begin the issue in 1832 of _Spiritual Songs for Social Worship_, in twelve parts, more nearly the archetype of the future _Gospel Hymns_. _The Christian Lyre_ left no residuum for future generations, but Spiritual Songs, edited by men of wide experience, in touch with the most cultivated clerical circle of the day, one of them a hymnist of both facility and felicity, made important permanent contributions not only to American but to universal Christian hymnody.

In this collection appeared Thomas Hastings’ “Hail to the brightness of Zion’s glad morning,” “Gently, Lord, O gently lead us,” “How calm and beautiful the morn,” “Child of sin and sorrow.” Here also appeared his enlargement of Thomas Moore’s “Come, ye disconsolate.” Add to these his tunes “Ortonville,” “Retreat,” “Zion,” “Toplady,” and others and his other hymns, “Return, O wanderer, to my home,” “Delay not, delay not, O sinner, draw near,” “The Saviour bids thee watch and pray,” and it will be seen that Thomas Hastings, even if he is not in the first rank as hymnist or composer, deserves well of the Christian Church.

In this same volume of Spiritual Songs first appeared Rev. Samuel F. Smith’s two great hymns, “The morning light is breaking” and “My country, ’tis of thee.” He was still a theological student, twenty-four years of age, when these were written. The theme of the latter was suggested in a general way by Lowell Mason, who needed a patriotic song for his children’s singing schools, and who supplied him with some music he had recently received from Germany. During a leisure moment his eye fell on “Heil dir im Sieger-Kranz,” the German “God Save the King,” written to the English tune, “God Save the King.” This latter fact he did not know, but liked the tune and was moved to write unknowingly our National Hymn. Sung by Lowell Mason’s children’s chorus, it was rapidly introduced and was presently _viva voce_ accepted as the long-desired National Anthem. Practically an improvisation, not intended for wide use, it is open to criticism; but it is greatly superior to its only competitor for national honors, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” because of its practicability in singing, its dignity, and its noble expression of the American spirit. That it refers to hills and not to prairies, and speaks of “pilgrim’s pride” (without the capital) is open only to captious criticism.

His “The morning light is breaking” was due to the missionary spirit that was prevalent in the theological seminaries during that period. It is the peer of Heber’s “From Greenland’s icy mountains” as a missionary hymn; many recent critics greatly prefer it.

Another great hymn that made its premier appearance in _Spiritual Songs_ was “My faith looks up to Thee,” by Dr. Ray Palmer (1808-1887), set to one of Lowell Mason’s best tunes, “Olivet.” Meeting Dr. Palmer on the street, Mason asked him whether he had not an appropriate hymn for his forthcoming book; young Palmer remembered he had some verses in his pocketbook and handed them to Mason. Meeting Palmer a few days afterwards on the street, Mason with great earnestness exclaimed: “Mr. Palmer, you may live many years and do many good things, but I think you will be best known to posterity as the author of ‘My faith looks up to Thee!’” The prophecy, so literally fulfilled, speaks well for Mason’s critical acumen. Ray Palmer, despite Bishop Wordsworth’s objection to the pronouns of the first person, wrote “My faith,” “I pray,” “my guilt,” for his hymn was not intended to be sung, but simply to express his own spiritual experience. It was a personal prayer none the less that it took a metrical form. It is one of the great factors in its world-wide appeal that it becomes the personal expression of every individual who sings it.

But Dr. Palmer was not the author of only a single song: he wrote many others of almost equal value. Writing a sermon on the words of Peter, “Jesus Christ, whom having not seen ye love,” he was suddenly overwhelmed by his rapture of love for the Christ, and, the sermon forgotten, he wrote down the hymn the church will never allow to die:

“Jesus, these eyes have never seen
That radiant form of thine;
The veil of sense hangs dark between
Thy blessed face and mine.

I see thee not, I hear thee not,
Yet art thou oft with me;
And earth hath ne’er so dear a spot
As where I meet with thee.”

In his dying hour he was heard to repeat with broken voice the last stanza of this hymn:

“When death these mortal eyes shall seal,
And still this throbbing heart,
The rending veil shall thee reveal,
All glorious as thou art.”

Other important hymns of Dr. Palmer’s are: “Come, Jesus, Redeemer, abide Thou with me,” “O Jesus, sweet the tears I shed,” “Take me, O my Father, take me,” “O Christ, the Lord of heav’n, to Thee,” “Come, Holy Ghost, in love.” His translation of “Jesu, dulcedo cordium,” the Paris cento of “Jesu, dulcis memoria,” by an unknown Spanish abbess, is most highly esteemed: “Jesus, Thou joy of loving hearts.” This cento is made up of selected verses from “Jesu, dulcis memoria,” from which Edward Caswell took his admirable “Jesus, the very thought of Thee.”

Dr. Leonard Bacon (1802-1881), the son of a missionary among the Indians of Michigan, is noteworthy in two particulars: he issued, at the age of twenty-one, the first collection of missionary hymns printed in America, and he wrote the New England patriotic hymn still used in our churches,

“O God, beneath thy guiding hand
Our exiled fathers crossed the sea;
And when they trod the wintry strand
With prayer and psalm they worshiped Thee.”

Born in Detroit, he sang the praise of the divine hand that founded the New England churches.

V. EPISCOPAL HYMN WRITERS

While the Anglican Church remained faithful to the traditional metrical versions well into the nineteenth century, the American Episcopal Church was hospitable to hymns much earlier. Already in 1789 the House of Bishops ratified the addition of hymns to the psalter. From decade to decade the demand for additional hymns grew until in 1823 William A. Muhlenberg, a rector of Lancaster, Pa., issued his _Church_ _Poetry_, consisting of psalms and hymns, which was adopted by the rectors of other Episcopal churches. In 1827 appeared _Hymns of the Protestant Episcopal Church_, the majority of whose hymns were by Watts, Doddridge, Steele, and Charles Wesley. Its most distinctive feature was the new hymns supplied by five Episcopal writers, Dr. H. U. Onderdonk, Dr. William Augustus Muhlenberg (1796-1877), Bishop George W. Doane (1799-1859), J. W. Eastburn, and Francis S. Key (1779-1843).

Of Dr. Onderdonk’s nine hymns one came into general use, “The Spirit in our hearts.”

Dr. Muhlenberg was more successful, for three of his five are recognized as a part of American Hymnody: “I would not live alway; I ask not to stay,” “Shout the glad tidings, exultingly sing,” and the baptismal hymn, “Saviour, who thy flock art feeding.”

Bishop Doane was represented by two hymns, both of which still find a place in our hymnals: “Thou art the way; to thee alone,” “Softly now the light of day.” The latter is one of our most acceptable evening hymns. Fully as useful is his vigorous missionary hymn, which, with its very appropriate tune, “Waltham,” by J. Baptiste Calkin, is adding inspiration everywhere to the cause,

“Fling out the banner! let it float
Skyward and seaward, high and wide;
The sun, that lights its shining folds,
The cross, on which the Saviour died.”

Francis S. Key, the well-known writer of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” to whom Baltimore has erected an elaborate statue, furnished a fine hymn of praise, “Lord, with glowing heart I’d praise Thee.”

VI. UNITARIAN HYMNODY

The production of original hymns in New England took a peculiar course. After Samuel F. Smith, the spirit of praise left the Orthodox churches and took refuge with the ostensible Unitarians. The reaction against the rigid and harsh Calvinism was not so much against the doctrine of the deity of Christ, as against the false corollaries drawn metaphysically from the noble doctrine of the Sovereignty of God, as well as the crass, materialistically conceived, conception of the state of the impenitent dead, that was painted so luridly and offensively in song as well as in sermon.

Henry Ware, Jr. (1794-1843), was the son of Professor Henry Ware, who held the chair of Divinity in Harvard College for thirty-five years. He himself became professor of Pulpit Eloquence and Pastoral Care in the same institution in 1830. The pastor for thirteen years of a prominent Unitarian church in Boston, he never wavered in his faith in the deity of Jesus Christ. How otherwise could he have written that triumphant Easter hymn:

“Lift your glad voices in triumph on high,
For Jesus hath risen, and man cannot die;
Vain were the terrors that gathered around him,
And short the dominion of death and the grave.”

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), America’s first great poet, wrote five hymns for Henry D. Sewall’s Unitarian Church hymnal in 1820. He was a member of the First Congregational Unitarian Church in New York City. Yet in 1865 he could write a hymn containing the following stanza:

“Lo! in the clouds of heaven appears
God’s well-beloved Son;
He brings the train of brighter years;
His Kingdom is begun;
He comes, a guilty world to bless
With mercy, truth, and righteousness.”

In 1875 he could still write in a hymn on “The Star of Bethlehem,”

“Yet doth the Star of Bethlehem shed
A luster pure and sweet;
And still it leads, as once it led,
To the Messiah’s feet.”

An even more remarkable Unitarian was Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), the great physician, but even greater poet. He had the reputation of being rather radical in his religious views; he was a humorist whom human life rather amused than impressed seriously (though he was tender enough to human suffering), but, when a hymn seemed an appropriate close for one of his genial essays, he could write,

“Lord of all being, throned afar,
Thy glory flames from sun and star;
Center and soul of every sphere,
Yet to each loving heart how near.”

But unless in the deeper depths of his soul there still lingered faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, how could he write,

“O Love divine, that stooped to share
Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear,
On thee we cast each earthborn care;
We smile at pain while thou art near.”

Especially that last verse of unshaken faith:

“On thee we fling our burdening woe,
O Love divine, forever dear;
Content to suffer while we know,
Living and dying, thou art near.”

What might not Oliver Wendell Holmes have done for Christian hymnody, had he had Charles Wesley’s evangelical experience and piety?

Another Unitarian deserving recognition was Edmund Hamilton Sears (1810-1876), who is not remembered because of his successful pastoral career of forty years, nor by his theological treatises and religious writings, but by his two Christmas hymns, perhaps the best written in America (not forgetting Bishop Brooks’ “O Little town of Bethlehem”)—“Calm on the listening ear of night” and “It came upon the midnight clear.” The first was written soon after his graduation from Harvard College in 1834, and the other in 1849 after he had been in the pastorate over a decade. Of course, he was a firm believer in the deity of Christ, else he could not have written these hymns.

After Dr. Ray Palmer, our best American hymnist is John G. Whittier (1807-1892), who never aspired to such honors! His hymns have been most deftly extracted from longer poems and, despite their being mere fragments, are distinctive hymns in progress of thought and structure. Moreover, they are the very choicest passage in these longer poems. The additional marvel is that this Unitarian Hicksite Quaker, who was not taught to sing hymns in his youth, should have given finer expression than any other writer to the sense of present intimate communion with Christ:

“But warm, sweet, tender, even yet
A present help is He;
And faith has still its Olivet,
And love its Galilee.”

VII. LATER ORTHODOX HYMN WRITERS

To this generation George Duffield, Jr. (1818-1888), may be said to have belonged. His hymn, “Stand up, stand up for Jesus,” is never omitted from any reputable collection of hymns, liturgic or popular. He was a foremost figure in the Philadelphia revival of 1857 and 1858, being associated with Alfred Cookman, the Methodist, and Dudley A. Tyng, the Episcopalian, whose dying words suggested the hymn.

Old Dr. Lyman Beecher was a giant in his day, but his chief glory was in his remarkable family of children. While Henry Ward was most conspicuous in his day, he was hardly more so than Harriet Beecher Stowe (1812-1896), the author of _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, which, with Hanby’s _Darling Nellie Gray_, prepared the heart of the North to buy at a tremendous cost of treasure and blood the Emancipation Proclamation. But Mrs. Stowe is not simply a historic character whose work is done; she is living still in her hymns, notably the exquisite morning hymn, “Still, still with thee, when purple morning breaketh,” a fitting mate for Lyte’s evening hymn, “Abide with me; fast falls the eventide.”

Mention should be made of Anna Warner (1820-1915), whose children’s hymn, “Jesus loves me, this I know,” set to Bradbury’s simple pentatonic melody has girdled the globe. Other hymns by Miss Warner are “One more day’s work for Jesus” and “We would see Jesus; for the shadows lengthen.”

Among later American hymn writers is Mary Artemisia Lathbury (1841-1913), who wrote “Break Thou the bread of life” (not a communion hymn, by the way) and “Day is dying in the West,” with William F. Sherwin’s tunes, which are to be found in all our hymnals and which are very tender, very useful.

The American Episcopal Church has supplied some admirable hymns through Bishop Arthur Cleveland Coxe (1818-1896), who wrote “Oh, where are kings and empires now,” the almost apocalyptic “We are living, we are dwelling,” and the missionary “Saviour, sprinkle many nations,” all hymns of high worth; and Bishop Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), whose “O little town of Bethlehem” is a favorite Christmas carol.

Mrs. Frances Crosby Van Alstyne (1820-1915), familiarly known as “Fanny Crosby,” would be the premier hymn writer of America if the criteria were quantity and wideness of use. There can be no question as to the evangelistic and devotional value of her hymns, whatever their literary quality or permanent appeal may be. “Safe in the arms of Jesus,” “Rescue the perishing,” “Blessed Assurance,” “Pass me not, O gentle Saviour,” “Saviour, more than life to me,” “I am thine, O Lord, I have heard thy voice,” “Jesus, keep me near the cross,” and many others will probably be permanent in hymnals and song collections of a popular and evangelistic type.

Valuable hymns of the same practical gospel song type have been written by Mrs. Lydia Baxter, Philip Paul Bliss, Annie Sherwood Hawks, Mrs. Ellen Huntington Gates, Rev. E. A. Hoffman, Miss E. E. Hewitt, Mrs. C. H. Morris, President J. E. Rankin, D.D., and many others.

Mrs. Elizabeth Prentiss (1818-1878), daughter of the saintly and greatly beloved Rev. Edward Payson, wrote _Stepping Heavenward_, a book that stimulated and cheered multiplied thousands and lifted their spiritual ideals. Of her 123 _Religious Poems_, one has won a permanent place in our hymnals, “More love to Thee, O Christ.” It is not a substitute for Mrs. Adams’ “Nearer, my God, to Thee,” but a complement.

Other writers of single hymns that the Church has used with great effect are Dr. Washington Gladden’s (1836-1918) “O Master, let me walk with Thee,” a hymn of Christian service; Dr. Sylvanus Dryden Phelps’ “Saviour, Thy dying love;” Dr. Edward Hopper’s “Jesus, Saviour, pilot me;” Dr. Joseph Henry Gilmore’s (1834-1918) “He leadeth me, O blessed thought;” Ernest W. Shurtleff’s (1862-1917) “Lead on, O King eternal;” Frank Mason North’s (1850-1935) “Where cross the crowded ways of life”; the second, third, and fourth of the songs just mentioned have a Gospel song origin.

More recent writers are Rev. Frederick L. Hosmer and Rev. William C. Gannett in whose _The Thought of God_ are found hymns of deep piety and strong religious feeling. Room is made for two stanzas of Dr. Hosmer’s “Found,”

“O Name, all other names above,
What art thou not to me,
Now I have learned to trust thy love
And cast my care on thee?

What is our being but a cry,
A restless longing still,
Which thou alone canst satisfy,
Alone thy fullness fill?”

A more important recent hymn writer is Rev. Louis F. Benson, D.D. (1855-1930), the editor of the current Presbyterian hymnals. This history of Christian hymnody cannot close more fittingly than to quote part of a stirring hymn by this greatest of American hymnologists:

“Forward! singing ‘Glory
To our Lord the King’;
Forward! Trusting only
In the name we sing.
See the day is breaking
And the road points far;
March, with eyes uplifted
To the Morning Star.

Blessed is the Kingdom;
Blessed be the King!
Crowned is every duty
His commandments bring.
Now to serve like soldiers,
Now to work like men;
Oh, to love as God loves
And to conquer then.”

THE SINGING CHURCH