PART III

PRACTICAL HYMNOLOGY

_Chapter XIX_ THE STUDY OF HYMNS

I. IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF HYMNS

It has been said that the two great books which every minister should study are the Bible and human nature. A third great book may be added, in which the foregoing two unite in a new combination—the Hymnbook.

In that collection of hymns the truths of the Bible find their expression in a new form. They are no longer Oriental in spirit, based upon human experiences under different conditions and in a different intellectual atmosphere, but modern, and strong with a fresh vitality. They have passed through the crucible of intense personal feeling and experience, and have been recast in forms more comprehensible to a different race and to a different age.

Next to his library of comment upon the Bible, and of exposition of its doctrines, should be that of the minister’s hymnological books giving the history, the illustrations, and the methods of making effective the hymns he uses in his congregation.

II. PERSONAL ADVANTAGES OF SUCH STUDY OF HYMNS

The first line of the study of hymns should be contributory to his own personal development.

_Literary Pleasure._

A great delight awaits the minister of cultivated taste and sensibility, for there are not only ten really good hymns, as a famous literary doctor[1] once insisted, but hundreds of them, whose distinction and beauty of phraseology, whose fresh and orderly development of ideas, and whose elevation and glory of thought give unfailing literary pleasure. How can one read Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Still, still with Thee,” that best of American morning hymns, without exquisite delight?

“Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh, When the bird waketh, and the shadows flee: Fairer than morning, lovelier than daylight, Dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with Thee.”

Prominent among these literary hymns will be that hymn of majestic praise by Sir Robert Grant:

“Oh, worship the King, all-glorious above, Oh, gratefully sing his power and his love; Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of days, Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.

Oh, tell of his might, oh, sing of his grace, Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space: His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form, And dark is his path on the wings of the storm.”

Here are majesty and beauty of thought, flawless phraseology, and musical numbers. No editor has found excuse to alter or amend it.

Even Isaac Watts, who boasted his freedom from literary trammels and who illustrated that freedom all too often and too perversely, proved his latent poetic powers in the noble poetry of

“Our God, our Help in ages past, Our Hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home.”

That the literary quality of Adelaide A. Procter’s hymn, “My God, I thank Thee who hast made,” is high no one would deny:

“My God, I thank Thee, who hast made The earth so bright, So full of splendor and of joy, Beauty and light; So many glorious things are here, Noble and right.”

The minor chord in the third verse but renders more poignant the high glory of her praise:

“I thank Thee more that all our joy Is touched with pain; That shadows fall on brightest hours, That thorns remain; So that earth’s bliss may be our guide, And not our chain.”

There is a mine of inestimable literary wealth awaiting the search of discriminating taste.[2]

_Literary Culture._

But many ministers of limited native susceptibility to literary and poetic beauty, and perhaps of none too efficient literary opportunities, will not be able at once to enter into the delight of the literary qualities of hymns. All the more will it be important for them to study their hymnal for the sake of its opportunity for deepening their capacity for enjoying literary values. Their imaginations need to be stimulated. Their response to the charm of musical phrases, to the clearness and lucidity of the thought expressed, to the fitness of the unexpected and pleasing metaphors used, to the nice selection of the words employed to weave a garb of beauty for the message the hymn is intended to convey, can be and must be developed, if not only the proper appreciation of the hymns but also their highest efficiency as preachers are to be secured.

Few preachers realize the importance of this literary culture; yet, apart from his deity, Jesus Christ was the greatest literary man the race has developed. His parables, his similes, his aptness of phrase, his wit, his clearness of style, despite the great topics on which he discoursed, cannot be paralleled in any literature. The literary value of the Gospels is one of the reasons of their agelong and race-wide appeal.

The effort of the preacher to sensitize his mind and spirit, in order to appreciate what his hymnal offers, will give him more of the extraordinary winsomeness of his Master’s style.

While not all hymns are distinctly literary in style and vocabulary, most of them have some poetical and imaginative qualities, and a great many of them have marked literary value. A careful canvass of these values will develop literary discrimination and taste. Hymns like Keble’s “Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear” and Heber’s “Brightest and best of the sons of the morning” must stimulate genuine literary appreciation. To segregate carefully in his mind the genuinely literary hymns—those that are full of imagination, symmetrical in structure, gracious in phraseology—will be a literary exercise of inestimable value.

_Development of Emotional Nature._

But the finest literary discrimination and the highest literary delight cannot be secured without an emotional responsiveness that ministers do not always bring to their reading of hymns. But this emotion must not simply be poetic, it must be spiritual, based on an actualization of the profound spiritual truths expressed in the hymns.

The most common fault among ministers is an aridity of mind, a dryness of feeling, a habit of abstract, academic thinking which have no response to the emotional values in the doctrines they preach. It is the secret of many an empty church, of many a barren pastorate.

To some men who lack emotional and poetic insight, the hymnbook may appear dry and uninteresting. It certainly is unappealing to the unspiritual man, no matter how poetical he may be, and this will account for the occasional attack upon the hymns of the Christian Church as being without poetical power or merit. But the Christian minister, who deals with spiritual things, for whom the emotions of the human heart are a great opportunity, ought to find in the study of his hymnbook a great deepening of emotional intuition.

Here he comes in touch with the saints of the Church who have risen to the greatest heights of spiritual insight, and who have sung because the feelings within them were so impelling that they could not do otherwise than sing. His own deficient emotion and his own dull insight into spiritual truth are here inspired and stimulated until he too stands upon the mountaintop. For his own spiritual edification, therefore, there is nothing, outside the Bible, so likely to be of spiritual help as the hymnbook. When he is discouraged, its hymns of inspiration and encouragement cannot but lift the cloud. When his heart is dull, and his vision of his Lord obscured, such hymns as “Jesus, I love Thy charming name,” by Philip Doddridge,

“Jesus, these eyes have never seen That radiant form of Thine,”

by our own Ray Palmer, or

“Jesus, the very thought of Thee With sweetness fills my breast,”

by that unknown saintly abbess of the Middle Ages, surely will once more set his spiritual pulses in motion and thrill him with the vitalizing vision of his Lord.

It is with this emotional attitude alone that a minister should study his hymns; otherwise, he will fail in realizing any of their values. To come to them coldly dissecting them with knife and scalpel is to miss their beauty, their spiritual appeal. The minister who prays over his sermon would do well to pray with equal fervency over the hymns he studies and selects. If he vitalizes them for himself, that fresh vision of their meaning will reach the congregation directly and indirectly.

III. THE PRACTICAL VALUES OF INDIVIDUAL HYMNS

Not the least important consideration in the study of hymns is clearly to envisage their several effective values. To know the literary worth and the spiritual stimulus of a given hymn is most desirable; but to realize what spiritual results it is fitted to secure, and how, is even more important. Each hymn has its individual force, its individual adaptation to definite mental and spiritual results; for the minister not to recognize these varying effects is like the failure of a physician to know the differing reactions of baking soda and strychnine. To announce “All hail the power of Jesus’ name,” when the situation calls for the tenderness of “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds,” is malpractice none the less that it is so frequently done.

_Classifying Hymns by Their Nature._

It will be helpful to classify hymns, deciding to which group each one belongs. Some are purely didactic, bearing instruction rather than emotion. Others are meditative, combining elements of instruction and personal experience. Another class expresses personal experience and the resultant emotion; such hymns may be tender or joyous or even exultant. Taking another step upward, we find hymns of inspiration and exhortation, fundamental expressions of faith and enthusiasm. Rising high above all the foregoing are the hymns of worship and adoration, thanksgiving and praise.

This is the primary process in evaluating the practical possibilities of hymns. It is in these pigeonholes of his memory that the minister finds the hymn called for by a given situation.

_Classifying Hymns by Their Fitness for Definite Purposes._

Then there is the classification of fitness for different purposes, organizing them according to the particular work each is fitted to do. Some hymns are distinctly liturgical, fitting only into a solemn and stately service by the great congregation—e.g., Faber’s “My God, how wonderful Thou art,” Watts’ “Before Jehovah’s awful throne,” or Tersteegen’s “Lo, God is here: let us adore.”

In a less formal class are Van Dyke’s “Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee,” Grant’s “Oh, worship the King, all-glorious above,” “Praise the Lord! ye heavens, adore Him,” and many others in which rejoicing in the Lord takes a less majestic but none the less genuine form, fitting smaller assemblies and what without derogation may be called ordinary church services.

Hymns of still another class, represented by Robinson’s “Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,” Wesley’s “O Love divine, how sweet Thou art,” Keble’s “Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear,” are still distinctly worshipful, but have an intimacy of communion in which tenderness and joy veil the sense of infinite majesty.

The foregoing classes of worshipful hymns are available for the regular services of the church, although some of them call for a preparation of the worshipers for their intelligent and sincere singing. They are helpful to devout people in their approach to the Triune God.

Jesus Christ is not only God in the fullest, truest sense; he is our Redeemer, our Mediator, our Sharer of the deeper experiences of the soul, our Comrade in the march of life, our intimate Friend in time and eternity. Hence, there are many hymns of praise and adoration of Jesus Christ that are elevated in mood, even majestic, like Wesley’s “Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing,” Robinson’s “Mighty God, while angels bless thee,” Hammond’s “Awake and sing the song,” which will fit into the most exalted service of worship. There are many others like “Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all nature,” Medley’s “Oh, could I speak the matchless worth,” Havergal’s “O Saviour, precious Saviour,” which are keyed a little lower, but are still most appropriate for an average church service.

In addition to these there are hymns of communion with Christ, of love for and delight in him, yea, even of intimate affection, like Caswall’s “My God, I love Thee, not because,” Newton’s “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds,” Palmer’s “My faith looks up to Thee,” which are so fine in feeling, so heartfelt, so intimate, that they require preparation of the congregation before they can be sung sincerely. Some of them are so intense, like “I need Thee every hour,” “My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine,” and Palmer’s “Jesus, these eyes have never seen,” that their use seems limited to assemblies, small or large, entirely made up of earnest believers. Indeed, there are many of our intensest hymns of devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ that can be worthily sung only in prayer meetings where there is profound emotion to be expressed. Some of them cannot be sung by the general congregation except when the tide of religious fervor runs high.

Without further analysis, enough has been said to show that in the practical classification of hymns two major factors must be considered: the character, depth, and quality of the emotional burden of the hymn, and the character and the emotional responsiveness of the people who are expected to sing it. Ignorance of the former and lack of proper diagnosis of the latter will bring defeat to the minister who is depending on his hymns for help in securing spiritual results.

IV. THE MINUTE STUDY OF HYMNS

There can be no adequate knowledge of a hymn without a survey of the whole field of hymnology. It is necessary to understand the character and limitations of the hymn, to visualize its history and development, in order to secure its proper interpretation and use. It is unfortunate that too many ministers are satisfied with this general knowledge which is, after all, only a preparation for the study of the individual hymn. It is only in the individual hymn that the point of contact with practical results is reached. One may know all about Isaac Watts and yet know so little of his great hymn “When I survey the wondrous cross” as to announce it at a church banquet before all the people are done eating! Imagine John, Peter, and the rest munching dried figs or dates as they stand before the cross on which their Master is dying!

Only as the individual hymns are fully understood as to their meaning, and as to the methods required to get that meaning transformed into experience and character, can hymnology become a practical force.

_Analysis of the Hymn._

1. The first step is the investigation of its structure. The form of the stanza, the kind of measure used, the proper occurrence of accents, the schedule of rhymes all are important, controlling the music and the reading of the hymn.

The logical structure is even more important as governing the development of thought. Recognition of the relation of the several verses to the general plan of the hymn will reveal their individual value and prevent mutilation when circumstances demand omission of verses. This structure is more evident in didactic and homiletical hymns, of course, but the progress of thought usually lies near the surface. The doctrinal teachings should be clearly and explicitly thought out.

2. There is a logic of emotion more or less paralleling that of thought. There are ebb and flow of feeling, radical change of feeling, one feeling merging into another, that must be recognized. The climaxes of interest in the succeeding verses, rising higher and higher and culminating in the supreme climax of the last verse, should be noted that they may be expressed in the reading and the singing. This recognition of the emotional character of the hymn is absolutely essential to its real effectiveness. The hymn is fundamentally an expression of emotion, and only as such has it practical value.

3. After this general analysis of the structure and thought and of the general emotion of the hymn, there will need to be a study of its detailed phrases. The minister ought to study it line by line and phrase by phrase. The Scriptural allusions need to be located and their connections noted. What did Charles Wesley mean in his great hymn, “Love divine, all loves excelling,” by the phrase in the second verse, “the second rest”? Why did he pray “Finish, then, thy new creation”?[3] What is the Scriptural justification for the phrases of Newton’s “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds”?[4] In Doddridge’s “Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve,” what Biblical authority has he for “cloud of witnesses,” or the ideas of “prize” and “race”?[5] What did Watts mean in the third verse of his “Not all the blood of beasts,”

“My faith would lay her hand On that dear head of Thine, While like a penitent I stand And there confess my sin”?

Without the picture of the high priest laying his hands on the head of the scapegoat and confessing the sins of the people before sending it out into the wilderness (Lev. 16:21), what meaning can these lines convey?

_The Background of the Hymn._

1. The interpretation of the hymn cannot be complete without a recognition of the person who wrote it. His type of mind, his responsiveness to divine truth, his conception of the work of the Church, stamp themselves on the product of his pen. The personality of Watts, of Wesley, of Whittier, and of Faber interpret their several hymns.

Knowledge of the circumstances under which a given hymn was written will add to the value and correctness of the interpretation, by giving a sense of actuality to the thought and feeling expressed.

2. The age in which a hymn was written will be a large factor in its interpretation. The sheer objectiveness of the ancient hymns, the meditativeness of the medieval hymns stressing the sufferings of Christ on the cross, the worship character of the pre-Wesley hymns, including those of Watts, the warm, tender, experiential hymns of the Wesleyan Revival, all stamp their several hymns ineffaceably with their characteristics. “A mighty fortress is our God” bears the _stigmata_ of the opening battles of the German Reformation. “Jesus, the very thought of Thee” is permeated by the peace and ardent piety of the Spanish nunnery whose devout abbess wrote the Latin original. “Stand up, stand up for Jesus” sounds the militant note of the great Philadelphia revival of 1857 and the Antislavery campaign that was so soon to drench the South with the noblest blood of both sections.

Watts’ hymns must be analyzed in the light of the prevailing psalmody, of the religious aridity of his time, and of the formalism, not of the Established Church only, but of that of the Nonconformist societies as well. Wesley’s hymns cannot be understood except as expressing the struggle between extreme worldly-mindedness, sensuality, and social decay outside of the Church, allied with the mere formalism and the cold and sheerly pharisaic morality within, on the one side, and the emphasis of conversion, profound religious experience, and aggressive evangelistic propaganda on the other. The objectivity and essentially liturgic spirit of Watts’ hymns and the subjective warmth and the poetic glow of those of Charles Wesley immediately become full of meaning and historic vitality.

3. The greater hymns gather about themselves the noble associations of the many generations which have lived and died with their lines upon their lips. Would “Rock of Ages, cleft for me” or “Jesus, Lover of my soul,” if written now, speedily win the place they now hold in our Christian hymnody? Would “Come, Thou Fount of every blessing” be widely sung, if it were not that in England and America it had been an impressive voice of worship in chapel and home, in stately church, and in mountain schoolhouse on the American frontier? Lips now trembling with age lisped them in childhood; memories of father and mother, of thrilling religious experiences, when the very heavens seemed to open to the soul, cluster about them.

4. Only in this way can he secure a clear idea of what parts of a hymn will serve his immediate purpose, which lines and phrases will enrich his discourses or bring his points to an incandescent glow, or which verses when sung will assure the definite effect he has in mind. There may well be occasions when he will want his people to sing, not the first verse of Whittier’s tender hymn, “We may not climb the heavenly steeps,” but the second,

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

or the even more comforting third verse,

“The healing of the seamless dress Is by our beds of pain; We touch him in life’s throng and press, And we are whole again.”

Such a study in interpretation will greatly enhance the spiritual values of the hymns to the minister himself, enriching mind and heart. It will make it possible for him to interpret them to his people. To any person the hymn is what he understands it to mean, no more; its effect on him is in due proportion to the completeness of his interpretation of it. The minister, therefore, is in duty bound to supply each singer in his congregation with an accurate and complete understanding of the hymns that are sung.

_Making a Hymnal of His Own._

The minister who has given his hymnal the study that has been suggested will wish to garner and organize the materials he has thus won. He will proceed to make a little hymnal of his own by selecting a given number of the hymns that appeal to him—say one hundred—in his regular hymnal. This will constitute his inner hymnal to which from time to time he will make additions.

These hymns will be marked in his own copy of the church hymnal, a wide margined one, or an interleaved one, if it can be secured. As he analyzes each one, finding the joints in its structure, he will indicate the results by lines of division with the proper captions. His dissection of the phrases will disclose more or less obscure allusions needing explanation, like “Siloam’s pool,” “Mt. Nebo’s lonely height,” “Gog and Magog,” “Ebenezer” and many others that convey no meaning to the average mind. These should be underlined for explanation. Some phrases are so suggestive, so packed with meaning, that their value eludes the ordinary singer—for instance, the second verse of Monsell’s “My sins, my sins, my Saviour.” These should be put in quotation marks to remind the preacher to unpack by spirited comment their wealth for the edification of his people.

Numbers referring to his card index or commonplace book will bring to mind helpful facts about the hymn, or its writer, or illustrations that will quicken both mind and heart. Enclosing a verse or verses in brackets will mark those that can be omitted without wrecking the symmetrical progress of the thought. That will eliminate the usual thoughtless phrase, “We will omit the third verse.” If there is a choice of tunes, the most practicable one can be indicated; or a tune better known to the congregation elsewhere in the hymnal may be suggested with its number.

Verses to be read by the congregation, or to be sung by the choir or by a soloist, before being sung by the people may be starred. Changes of force, or speed, may be marked _p._ for soft singing, or _f._ for loud singing. A passage marked _rit._ will be retarded, or hurried if marked _accel._ A repeat sign, _bis_, after a verse will suggest that a verse may be profitably repeated. Scripture references will suggest passages that can be used to emphasize the sentiment of the hymn, such as Genesis 28:10-13, for the hymn, “Nearer, my God, to Thee.” _M_ before a verse may mark it as a memory verse to be sung with closed hymnal. _P_ may indicate that it is a prayer, to be sung before the long prayer. Dates connected with a hymn will show when it has been sung, and so prevent its unduly frequent repetition from mere force of habit. Every alert-minded minister will have methods and devices of his own that should be recorded in connection with the hymns so treated.

Such a hymnal, individual, practical, wealthy in resources, will be of incalculable value to the wide-awake, aggressive minister, rendering him independent of moods, of dull spirits, of disturbing environments. He needs but open his hymnal, a treasure house of practical suggestions, and his resources, immediately accessible and fully prepared, await his use.

A personal hymnal like this will not be made in a day or a month. Week by week, as hymns are selected, they are fully investigated and studied and their points recorded in the preacher’s copy. His skimming of newspapers and magazines, his daily experiences, his hearing of addresses and sermons; his reading of history and literature, no less than his study of hymnological literature, will pay heavy tribute to such a royal treasury.

The books of hymnic material, pretty largely historical, are fairly numerous, and their help should not be despised, for they offer very useful illustrative matter. Robinson’s _Annotations upon Popular Hymns_ is not as up-to-date nor as scholarly exact as the later Duffield’s _English Hymns_, or as Nutter and Tillett’s _Hymns and Hymn Writers of the Church_, but is richer anecdotally and more suggestive of expository comment. Dr. Benson’s still later _Studies of Familiar Hymns_, Series I and II, will be found very rich in practical material. The present writer’s _Practical Hymn Studies_[6] offers help most ministers need. The matter found in these and other like collections should be carefully sifted and recorded. A condensation of the selected items, particularly of the longer anecdotes, may be ample for all practical purposes.

Is it necessary to suggest again that all this varied material should be well organized in a loose-leaf blank book small enough to be carried about or, better yet, in a rebound, interleaved hymnal?

In making such a thorough study of as many hymns as he has leisure to analyze, the minister is really editing a hymnal of his own, none the less his own that it is embedded in the larger collection. There are very few preachers who do not have such an inner hymnal made up of the hymns they are in the habit of using; the pity is that it is frequently so small, so poorly selected, so unsymmetrical, so dependent on an unresponsive memory, and so lacking in the materials that would help to make the hymns effective.

_Memorizing Hymns._

A large number of hymns should be committed to memory for his own mental enrichment and comfort. It will enlarge his devotional vocabulary, his power of expression of spiritual things—nay more, increase the spontaneity and spirituality of his thinking and feeling, for memory lies nearer the springs of subconscious intuition and impulses than the printed word. A wealth of spiritual thought, of sanctified imagination, of vibrant religious feeling, of apt and expressive phrase and vocabulary, is provided by such a well-stocked memory.

The subconscious mind will furnish the fitting quotation, whether he writes his sermon or speaks _ex tempore_. In unexpected emergencies, when there is no time to leaf over the hymnal for a verse to be sung, the mind automatically supplies it. In personal work, in cheering the sick, in comforting those who mourn, in inspiring the lagging and discouraged ones, the apt quotation will be exceedingly effective. There are moments in a service, unexpected episodes of an emotional character, climaxes of feeling in a discourse, when a verse of a hymn sung by the congregation will exceed in impressiveness any oratorical outburst; if the minister can trust his memory, he can carry the faltering memories of his people and realize an effect otherwise impossible, not only not losing any momentum, as he would if it were necessary to refer to the hymnal, but indefinitely increasing it. The great hymns of the Church should be made a part of his mental furniture, become a large share of his clerical working capital. He should not be satisfied to have less than a hundred hymns at his mental fingers’ ends for efficient use at a moment’s notice.

V. A STUDY OF METHODS OF USE

But it is not enough to gather the materials and study the individual hymns. A magazine of blasting powder has immense possibilities of power; but unless methods are invented for applying that power to desired ends, it is a liability and not an asset. Having learned all about hymns, the next study is how efficiently to use them, to organize the best methods of exploiting the social, mental, and spiritual values their singing offers.

_Using Hymns in Sermons._

Few ministers utilize the possibilities of apt Scripture quotations in their sermons; fewer still know how to draw on the treasures found in their hymnals to increase interest and intensify emotion. In many cases the very finest climax to a section of a sermon, or to the sermon itself, will be found in one or more verses of a hymn which brings the emotion of the theme to its high culmination. There is no lack of material; for the expression of every Christian doctrine that lends itself to lyric feeling there are intense and poignant phrases and lines steeped in transcendent emotion. Abstract truth has intellectual value of course, but has spiritual value only when transmuted into the gold of intense conviction in the heart of true believers. It is the genuine hymn that raises the temperature to the transmuting point, if properly introduced and emotionally used.

_Studying Responsiveness of the Congregation._

The intelligent preacher will study his congregation and its capacities of song to determine what he can do. He will canvass their responsiveness to certain classes of hymns, solemn, cheerful, aggressive, meditative, emotional, didactic—literary, popular. Their taste in the tunes to be used will need to be carefully considered. It would be folly to announce “When the Roll is Called up Yonder” in a congregation used to singing and enjoying Luther’s “Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott”; equally so to ask a congregation that enjoys singing “There’s sunshine in my soul” to sing Iron’s version of the “Dies Irae.”

A survey must needs be made of the musical resources and of the adaptability of musical helpers. In some cases such adaptability needs to be trained and developed. Their pliancy in rapidly taking up new methods, and executing unexpected plans of the preacher quickly, will require training.

_Studying Methods of Announcement and Securing Participation._

An important study will be how to announce and introduce the hymns in such a way as to awaken the interest and to win the sympathetic attention of the members of the congregation, and also how to help the people to sing with their minds and hearts, as well as with their vocal cords.

The methods to be used in securing full participation in the singing, without losing sight of the deeper meaning of the hymn, will need to be formulated or borrowed from successful leaders of song. The problem is not met by merely urgent demands that everybody sing; they must all be moved upon to want to sing. Can it be done by illustrations, by moving anecdotes, by tender appeals bearing on the thought and feeling of the hymn in hand? The kind of anecdotes and how they are to be used, before or during any given hymn, will call for careful discrimination. How shall the preacher acquire the power of introducing a hymn in a very few well-chosen words, vibrant with the feeling the hymn expresses, striking the spiritual key connecting up the hymn with the religious purpose of the whole service? Year after year, by observation of other ministers and song leaders, by his reading, by experiments of his own, he will acquire a body of efficient methods with which to vitalize his song service.

_Studying Use of Hymnal for Specific Purposes._

This will include methods of using hymns for specific purposes. Is his congregation indifferent with regard to some particular line of work that he wishes to present—missions, for instance: what hymns, and methods of using them, will stimulate their minds and prepossess them for this as yet unappealing topic? Are they careless or irreverent in mood as they gather: can he sober their minds and awe their souls with a consciousness of God’s actual presence with a solemn hymn and its impressive tune? How shall he use the singing of the hymns to affect and win the unsaved whom he plans to invite to accept Jesus Christ as Saviour and Master? In a thousand ways the intelligent and adroit minister can make his hymns count largely in accomplishing his beneficent purposes.

VI. A STUDY OF THE TUNES

One of the most important lines of study will be that of the tunes to which the hymns are to be sung.[7] To use a botanical figure, a hymn will not bear fruit unless it is pollenized by a vital tune. Who would be even aware of Cardinal Newman’s “Lead, Kindly Light,” if it were not for Dykes’ tune? Without Lowry and Doane’s music what recognition would the modest lyrics of Fanny Crosby have won? Wesley’s “Hark, the herald angels sing” owes the wideness of its Christmas use to Mendelssohn’s tune. Tennyson’s “Sunset and Evening Star” and “Sweet and Low” were brought to wide public attention by Barnby’s two settings. Without the wings of melody few hymns would get very far in place or time. A mediocre hymn with a good singable tune will do vastly more good than a great hymn with an impracticable one.

Hence it is the minister’s business to study the tunes. Not the notes, not the harmony: he can leave them to his musical experts, if he has them. He must study the singability of the tune, its appeal to his particular people, its adaptation to the sentiment of the hymn with which it is associated. Its age, its traditional or conventional use, its style, its composer, its elaboration of harmony—all these are merely incidental. That it is singable, fitted to express and intensify the sentiment of the hymn, to give it access to the hearts of the congregation, to create the contagion of feeling in the assembly—these are the essentials of a good tune.

Just as the sales departments of our great manufacturing establishments make an intensive study of the psychology of salesmanship in all its phases, so the ministry of the church, in its schools of preparation and in its several organizations, should increase its efficiency as salesman of vital religion by a like study of the psychology of the hymn and of its use.

_Chapter XX_ THE PRACTICAL USE OF HYMNS

I. THE HYMN AS A MEANS TO AN END

While our discussion attempts to consider every phase of the Christian hymn, its chief interest to us lies in it as a means to an end. It may be a work of literary art, the expression of a noble genius admirable in itself; it may be an interesting epitome of some noble doctrine that calls for appreciation of its lucidity and comprehensiveness; but for us its primary quality must be its adaptation to meet spiritual needs, in other words, its usefulness in religious work. In some way it must help in the work of the church, if it is to come within the sweep of our present horizon.

II. ANALYSIS OF PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF HYMNS

There are two values in the singing of hymns that must needs be taken into consideration: one is the sheerly musical or nervous value; the other is the message or burden of the hymn. The two must co-operate for the best results.

There are two lines of application in using hymns: the one is the expression and further intensification of an existent religious feeling; the other, the creation of religious interest or emotion where none exists. The two types of hymns must be clearly distinguished, if proper and efficient use is to be made of them.

The first type is worshipful, religiously emotional, based on personal experience, tenderly meditative. The second is didactic, inspirational, or hortatory.

III. THE USE OF HYMNS FOR CREATING RELIGIOUS INTEREST

In selecting hymns for the opening of a religious meeting, the existing nervous and emotional condition of the congregation is an important factor. That condition may be due to an unlimited number of influences. Are they gathering under the open sky, in a tent, in a rough tabernacle, or amid churchly surroundings? What is the character and background of the assembled people? In a distinctly unreligious environment, the crowd will be disorganized, in a nervous flutter, in a secular state of mind, more consciously interested in securing a desirable seat than in the purpose of the meeting. The people need to be psychically organized as a unit, need to have their attention concentrated on the occasion of the meeting, need to be brought into a religious state of mind. There is nothing better than the singing of a hymn to secure these very essential results. The unifying effect of common action, the nervous calming of the music, the religious suggestiveness of the hymn itself, all will co-operate in creating the proper attitude of mind.

What hymn shall we use to secure such a diversified result? Shall it be “My faith looks up to Thee,” or “O Love that wilt not let me go”? They are both superexcellent hymns, but they would be utterly out of place. They belong to the first type, the expression of existent religious feeling; but there is little or no such feeling under the proposed circumstances. The people are not in a state of mind to sing them sincerely and earnestly. It would lead to the all too common hypocrisy of indifference.

Moreover, the tunes to these hymns are not of the organizing or stimulating type, fine as they are. They are tunes of expression of existing feeling, not of exhilaration or inspiration.

For such a miscellaneous crowd as has been described, a much less emotional hymn with a somewhat livelier tune is called for, such as “Blow ye the trumpet, blow,” “Come, we that love the Lord,” or “Onward, Christian soldiers.” In most cases a lively Gospel song, such as “Sunshine in my soul,” “Rescue the perishing,” or even, in extreme cases, “Brighten the corner where you are” is more effective. The problem is not so much that of making a religious impression, as of preparing the people to receive a religious impression. To use tender, deeply emotional, profoundly spiritual hymns for such preliminary treatment is to flout psychology.

If the congregation meets in a church or other distinctly sacred edifice, the religious associations will simplify the problem. In part, at least, the secular attitude will have given place to a hospitality of mind for religious ideas and impressions. Under favorable circumstances the nervous strain will relax and religious susceptibilities will begin to function. These nervous and mental transformations of mood will be deepened by the organ prelude, if that has been wisely selected and effectively played.

In some conservative, devout congregations where solemn earnestness is the prevailing mood, and the bowed head on entering the pew is not a mere convention, the usual Doxology may be used after the call to worship; but usually an introit, such as “The Lord is in His holy temple” or “Oh, come, let us worship,” sung by the choir, will be the wiser preparation for the preacher’s invocation. The “Gloria Patri” should prepare the congregation for some solemn hymn of profound worship, such as “My God, how wonderful Thou art,” or “Lord of all being, throned afar.” By the time this is sung, the members of the congregation should be united in sympathy and responsiveness to the worshipful exercises that follow.

If the service is to be a joyous one, with an aggressive purpose, the hymns should still be strictly worshipful, but more animated. “Come, sound His praise abroad,” “Oh, worship the King, all-glorious above,” or “Kingdoms and thrones to God belong” should be the unifying spiritualizing agency.

But if the social instincts are allowed to find expression as the people gather, and more or less furtive conversation and even gossip are heard, or worse yet, if the Sunday school has overflowed into the auditorium or, for lack of separate room, has occupied it, and the going out of the school and the coming in of the congregation make a confusion that submerges the hallowed associations of the place, a much more difficult problem is faced, and a more conscious effort must be made to prepare the people in mind and heart for the experience of the hour.

The prelude must be calculated to cover disturbing sounds and to call the people to order—an entirely different type of prelude from that used in the previous hypothetical situation. Once quiet and order are secured, the music may begin a quieter, more religious movement. But the high ecstasy of the Long Meter Doxology is out of the question. An earnest Call to Worship by the preacher, and a quiet sentence or introit by the choir, will hush the people’s minds into sympathy with the invocation, that may possibly be somewhat longer and more earnest, which in turn will prepare them for a sincere and thoughtful participation in the “Gloria Patri.” The wise and observant preacher will have been able to anticipate their state of mind and decide whether they are ready to Sing with sincerity “O day of rest and gladness,” “Safely through another week,” or the more elevated “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,” or “Before Jehovah’s awful throne.”

By the time this hymn is sung, the fate of the service has practically been settled. The people will have been won and are ready to go on to a deeper interest and to a fuller yielding of themselves to the influence of the service; or they are dull and unresponsive, even somnolent, with an unconscious resentment that they have not been stirred and quickened. The failure of the service is assured, unless a miracle happens.

If the minister is a slave to the conventional order of service, that miracle will not happen. He may be so complacent over the smooth unfolding of the wonted numbers as not to recognize that the interest in the minds of his people has dropped.

In such a situation the best means to redeem it is a hymn with a profound appeal. But it cannot function, if it is used in the ordinary, conventional way. If the minister is alert and senses the stupor that is shadowing the minds of his people, and if the success of his service is more important to him than the mechanical regularity of the usual order of events, he can bring the miracle to pass by the use of the next hymn in an unexpected, thrilling way.

If the scheduled hymn does not lend itself to his purpose, he can exercise the audacity without which no public man can hope to succeed, by changing it to one that will, and by that act will storm the first defense of Morpheus, the god of sleep. Of course, he will always keep in mind practical considerations of teamwork with his musical helpers, taking enough time in introducing the substituted hymn in an interesting way to enable them to find it and decide to what tune it is to be sung. Usually that takes but a moment. Announcing the hymn, he will explain the message of the hymn in doctrine or in feeling, as a preliminary to its intelligent and sympathetic singing; or he may make emotional comment, or relate a fitting anecdote that will grip the feelings, leaving historical data for some other occasion; or he may ask the congregation to join him in silent prayer for divine guidance into the heart of the hymn to be sung; or he may ask his people to read the first verse in concert, in order that they may sing it with more intelligence; or if he has a sympathetic soloist, he can ask him or her to sing a verse, letting the people sing the rest of the hymn.

If the people are submerged in indifference and stupor, he may treat the whole hymn in like fashion, verse by verse, always careful to make his few words count, for prolixity will defeat his purpose. He will be even more careful that there shall be a _crescendo_ movement of increasing impressiveness and deepening feeling.

Such a jolt to the passive attitude of an unresponsive people, genially administered in a confident manner, and with sincere feeling, will waken the most indifferent congregation and avert the impending defeat. It will make the frequent use of such unusual methods unnecessary by creating a latent expectation of the unexpected.

Fortunate is the minister who has a native sensitiveness to the tides of feeling that ebb and flow in his congregation, to whom the faces and attitudes of his people are an open book. Most ministers must develop such a power by keen and persistent observation and by intelligent experimentation. This psychical _en rapport_ is very important to the minister. As well might an organist play without hearing his instrument as for a minister to be ignorant of the states of feeling of his congregation. He is a blind man trying to paint a picture.

Some ministers think themselves lacking in magnetism, in sensitiveness to outside influences, and make no effort to develop their latent powers. This inferiority complex is wrong; the very sense of limitation is a proof that the capacity for it exists. It is too essential to the largest success that a man should not use every possible effort and method to develop it.

IV. THE HYMN AS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR TEACHING TRUTH

Another practical use of the hymn that will prove very valuable is to make those hymns that are didactic or meditative the occasion of discussing for a few minutes the doctrines they express, and so to teach, to bring back to memory, or to vitalize the articles of their faith which average Christians are apt to forget. There are Christian beliefs that do not call for elaborate discussion in a sermon, that are best impressed by emotional treatment in connection with a hymn. “Depth of mercy! can there be,” with a background of pure-minded Charles Wesley’s consciousness of sin, will give an opportunity of impressing the people with sin’s subtle and soul-destroying power. “There is a fountain filled with blood” will be the basis of a very short but a clear and tender exposition of the atonement made for sin by Christ on the cross. That a person may be conscious of salvation, of acceptance by God through Jesus Christ, will find fitting explanation in an exposition of “Rock of Ages, cleft for me.” What better opportunity for emphasizing the Christian’s dependence on Christ could be afforded than a study of “Jesus, Lover of my soul”? Our inability to understand the ways of God’s providences, and our need of a faith that does not demand explanations, may well be stressed in an analysis of “God moves in a mysterious way.” A score of such hymn discussions at irregular intervals during the year would prove illuminating, and help to remove the haze that prevents clear definition in the minds of the people of the doctrines on which their spiritual life must rest. Singing the hymn after such comments will make it more effective and fasten the Christian teachings in the minds of the hearers with links of steel.

V. HYMN SERMONS AND HYMN SERVICES

The versatile and adaptable preacher, full of resources, quick to take advantage of unusual methods, will find the Song Sermon, or rather the Hymn Sermon, a most attractive and impressive way of using hymns. Instead of finding an appropriate proof text from the Scriptures for each leading point of the discourse, search out a hymn, or a single verse, expressing it in a lucid and emotional way and have it sung by the congregation, by the choir, or by a soloist. Comment on the hymn and its illustration, consonant with the development of the general theme, will supply a new line of most interesting materials. Care must be taken not to let the hymn hem the momentum of the sermon, but to make it add to the tide of interest. There will be no time for playing the tune or to find the hymn, while the preacher is silently waiting. Close connection and sharp attack are absolutely essential. Such a sermon will be sure to win a great hearing.[1]

A less formal use of hymns may be made in the Song (or Hymn) Service in which eight or ten hymns with historical, illustrative, and devotional comment are sung by soloists, choir, and congregation. Less valuable in formal teaching than the Hymn Sermon, it will probably win larger popular acceptance. Such a religious service should not be allowed to degenerate into merely a Sacred Concert.

VI. THE USE OF HYMNS IN EMERGENCIES

There are occasional disturbing and disorganizing occurrences during services—a violent storm, a noisy epileptic, a fanatical intruder, a fire where a panic would be disastrous—when it is important to keep the disturbance down to a minimum, or even to control the congregation. The singing of an efficient hymn is often the solution of the problem when there is a leader of presence of mind (preferably the minister) who will promptly start it. It must be a hymn that everybody knows; it must not be a tender, experiential hymn, but one with a stirring spirit to a stimulating tune that everybody can sing, such as “Onward, Christian soldiers.”[2]

Such occasions sometimes suggest fitting hymns that turn what might have been disaster into a spiritual victory. In such a case there must be a peculiar fitness to the difficulty, an adaptation to the form it takes. In case of a death, or paralytic stroke, the hymn will not be loud, but tender like “Rock of Ages,” “He Leadeth Me,” or “The Sweet By and By.” Softly sung, the episode will be turned from a shock into a deep spiritual impression.

_Chapter XXI_ THE SELECTION OF HYMNS

I. SELECTION SHOULD SECURE UNITY OF SERVICE

Next in importance to the minister’s selection of his text comes the selection of his hymns. If he has a clear conception of the real unity of his service, it will appear in this more than in anything else.

_Narrow Conception of Unity._

If the minister is a narrow, mechanically-minded man, with a sense of the need of mere logical unity, he will make the subject of his sermon the governing consideration in all parts of his service. The hymns will needs be all or nearly all didactic, the type with the least emotional or inspiring value.

The early hymns of the service will in an ineffective way anticipate the points of his discourse and, in so far as they have effectiveness, weaken by their more lucid and concise statement the discussion in the sermon. As the congregation usually does not know what the topic of the discourse is to be, the pertinency of the selection is not evident. The same is true of the Scripture lesson, if it is read before the long prayer. Logically the whole basis of selection is absurd.

_Broader Conception of Unity._

The sermon is simply a co-ordinate part of divine service, not its governing feature to which all things else must be subordinated. The early hymns should not be selected with reference to the theme of the sermon; the last hymn should sum up not so much the ideas of the sermon as its emotional values.

_Unity Based on Purpose._

Among heathen people instruction must be the leading purpose of any meeting held for their benefit; but among well-taught Christian people, the chief purpose should be worship, to which the sermon should be simply one of several aids. The hymns should be emotional, worshipful, and not exclusively didactic, and should harmonize with the sermon by being subordinated, with the sermon, to the clearly-conceived worshipful purpose of the entire service. Dr. Austin Phelps, more than three-fourths of a century ago, enunciated the right policy: “It aims at unity of worship, not by sameness of theme, but by resemblance of spirit. It would have a sermon preceded and followed, not necessarily by a hymn on the identical subject, but by a hymn on a kindred subject, pertaining to the same group of thought, lying in the same perspective, and enkindling the same class of emotions.” To announce the theme of the coming sermon in the first hymn, to read a Scriptural passage as a basis for it, to grope around that theme in the prayer, to emphasize another phase in the second hymn, is a case of professional egotism so flagrant that its only shocking mitigation is that it is the accepted clerical estimate of the situation.

Now every service, of whatever form or character, is properly intended to bring the soul into conscious relation with God. Every phase of the soul’s activities is to be brought under the influence of this dominating purpose. As it cannot comprehend God in His completeness at any one moment, different attributes of His nature and the varied relation of these several attributes to manifold human needs furnish an endless abundance of worshipful themes. They will appeal to the understanding through the truth, to the heart through an emotional realization of that truth, and to the will by the choices offered to the soul’s supreme tribunal. Here, then, in this clearly-conceived phase of worshipful attitude, you find the basis for the logical unity of the service—a living unity that moves heart and will as well as reason.

There is in this no fetter to the intellectual activity of the preacher, but rather a fresh stimulus and source of suggestion. It brings to bear vital forces within the speaker’s own soul that too often find little exercise, and changes the emotional elements of the service, the prayer, and the music—now too often mere haphazard, characterless excrescences—into definite sources of power for the realization of the desired spiritual results.

A preacher whose heart is a barometer of the spiritual condition of his people has no difficulty in finding subjects and texts for his sermons. If the needs of his people press upon him, those needs furnish an arc light that illuminates the Bible, and a suggestiveness that brings him an embarrassment of homiletical riches. Given a clear recognition of a definite immediate need and the consequent definite purpose, it will not only make sermonizing easy but will control the rest of the service. Not the theme of the sermon, but the purpose of the service as a whole, will be the organizing vitality.

II. SUGGESTIVE SELECTIONS OF HYMNS

Here is an earnest pastor who is impressed with the growing materialism, or worldliness, of his people. How shall be best dredge the stagnant shallows of their souls? He decides, not upon a single sermon, but upon a series of services with cumulative power, whose whole outlook shall be upon the Person and Character of God as the basis of his claims upon his creatures. There will be sermons upon these high themes of course, but they will call for noble and elevated co-ordinate co-operation in the rest of the service. Now these sermons should all be peculiarly worshipful, but that worship will be set to different keys.

_Hymns for Service on God’s Omnipotence._

The sermon on the Divine Omnipotence calls for a noble enthusiasm. The hymns should be majestic and joyful. After profoundly worshipful preliminary exercises it will not be wise to sing Watts’ hymn,

“Let all the earth their voices raise, To sing the great Jehovah’s praise, And bless His holy name,”

to the tune “Ariel” for the first hymn in spite of its appropriateness of thought: first, because it is not sufficiently elevated, and secondly, because the tune is too light. Watts’ more majestic hymn,

“Before Jehovah’s awful throne, Ye nations bow with sacred joy,”

sung to “Old Hundredth,” would be more harmonious with the general purpose of the service. By the time the second hymn is reached there must be some exhilaration of spirit. It will not be desirable therefore to select

“All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice”;

first, because it is in exactly the same key of feeling as the previous hymn; second, because for that reason no tune is quite so fitting to it as “Old Hundredth,” which is already provided for; and third, because the presumable intensifying of feeling by this time calls for a brighter text and more spirited music. But it must be a hymn of worship, none the less; we choose, therefore,

“Oh, worship the King, all-glorious above; Oh, gratefully sing His power and His love,”

the interrupted dactylic measure and triple time tune giving both dignity and movement.

If the prelude was a joyfully majestic composition, the anthem one of elevated praise—e.g., a “Venite” or a “Jubilate”—the responsive reading and the choir responses reverent and worshipful, the long prayer of the preacher exalted with genuine adoration (forgetful of the routine catalogue of petty petitions), and the Scripture passage noble with inspiring truth, the service might close at this point as having already realized its prime object of worship. There must have been something radically wrong in the spirit and management of it, if the preacher does not find his people responsive and himself inspiringly attuned to his noble theme. At the close of his discourse on the Divine Omnipotence, his people will presumably be ready to sing

“Let all on earth their voices raise, To sing the great Jehovah’s praise, And bless His holy name.”

to the exhilarating movement of the tune “Ariel.” The organist’s postlude will be characterized by a joyful solemnity, some strong _maestoso_ movement.

_Hymns for Service on God’s Love._

A service devoted to the worship of God, as manifested in His love, offers a wider range of possibilities. Is it the love manifested in the atonement? there may be the somber element of the crucifixion combined with its nobly elevated aspects; is it the love manifested to His children? there will be a chastened ecstasy in the hymns and prayers; is it the love that consoles and comforts? there will be the tender and sympathetic development of the theme—each will call for its own selection of hymns. As the last is perhaps the most difficult, let us see what program we should prepare for it.

_a._ Tender Service.

The organ prelude will be soft, sweet music, full of chromatic chords that melt one into the other, or a tender, emotional melody with soft accompaniment. The usual opening doxology will give way to an introit, sung very gently by the choir, set to a text expressing divine sympathy or a prayer for help. The invocation will be a plea for God’s manifest presence among His needy people. The first hymn sung by the congregation will sustain the feeling already established,

“Lord, we come before Thee now, At Thy feet we humbly bow,”

sung to the tune “Aletta” or “Pleyel’s Hymn.” The responsive reading may be the forty-second and forty-third Psalms. The choir, having been advised in good time what was desired, sings some sympathetic setting of the twenty-third Psalm, or of the forty-second Psalm, or of the hymn “Just as I am.” If the preacher has kept step in his heart with the emotional progress of his service, the long prayer will be an expression of the need of the people and of a tender appreciation of God’s loving sympathy, closing with an ascription of praise to His limitless love. The people ought now to be ready to sing

“Love divine, all loves excelling, Joy of heaven, to earth come down.”

After the discourse, a hymn in direct didactic relation to it may be sung in a bright and joyous spirit:

“God is love; His mercy brightens All the path in which we rove.”

The postlude will be tenderly joyous and sympathetic in style.

There are many preachers whose nervous organizations would not enable them to adjust themselves to so tender an emotional key in developing the service. On the other hand, many congregations would not follow it, but would be lulled to sleep by it.

_b._ Joyful Service.

They would be entirely right in selecting as the opening hymn one of general praise and worship:

“Come, Thou Almighty King, Help us Thy name to sing, Help us to praise”;

or even the quietly majestic hymn,

“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee.”

The second hymn may be more prayerful and tender:

“Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah, Pilgrim through this barren land,”

or

“When all Thy mercies, O my God, My rising soul surveys.”

The final hymn may be more didactic:

“God is the refuge of His saints, When storms of sharp distress invade”;

or the more stirring and forceful

“Give to the winds thy fears; Hope, and be undismayed”;

or that wonderful paean of faith in the divine love and providence,

“How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, Is laid for your faith in His excellent word.”

In this case the postlude will be bright and joyous, preferably with some soft and tender episodical passages.

_Hymns for a Missionary Service._

The preacher plans a missionary discourse: what is his order of service to be?

That means an aggressive, spiritual program whose purpose is stimulation of enthusiasm, of courage, of conquering faith, of bold decision.

The organist will be asked to play a bright prelude with pronounced but dignified rhythm, and striking harmonic progressions. The anthem by the choir may be based on some text of praise from the Psalms with stirring, somewhat rhythmical music that will stimulate the nerves of the people rather than soothe them. The responsive reading should be a Psalm of triumph, say the ninety-sixth. The long prayer for once may drop out of the omnibus conventionality and lead the people in magnifying the irresistible power and the conquering love of God, with enough reference to current sorrows in the congregation to serve as a contrast, to make the realization of the strong right arm of God more vivid.

The hymns should be in keeping with this joyous recognition of God’s invincibility and assured triumph.

The first hymn may be Charles Wesley’s “Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing.” This is worship—mingled with faith and with aggressive purpose, it is true, but nevertheless distinctly worship.

An equally appropriate selection from Charles Wesley would be “Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim.” Care should be taken that the tune used for either is vigorous and well known. A dull tune for either would be a stumble on the threshold of the service.

The point in the service has not yet been reached where a distinctly missionary hymn is called for; aggressiveness in the Lord’s service is still the mood to be created. There would be a choice between Shurtleff’s vigorous “Lead on, O King Eternal,” with its specific dedication of self to any forward movement of the Christian Church, or Baring-Gould’s marching hymn with its American tune written by an English composer, “Onward, Christian soldiers,” which can hardly fail to stimulate the pulses of a presumably already stirred congregation, unless it is sung in a drawling, unaccented way.

If by this time the congregation is not prepared to be thrilled by an unexpected missionary sermon, eloquent with an appeal hardly to be equaled by any other topic connected with the Church’s activities, there has been something wrong with the preacher or his people.

At the close of the sermon the hearts of the people will be glad to express themselves either in Smith’s “The morning light is breaking,” or in Watts’ noble Christianized version of the seventy-second Psalm, “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun.” For once the organist can pull out all his stops and play a brilliant but not flippant postlude without disturbing the mind and nerves of thoughtful and devout people.

In these suggested programs it has been evident that the unity is one of feeling and not of logic. This gave room for the interest which the unexpected supplies. There must be progress of feeling as well as of thought. The long prayer or the music after it, be it organ or choir or hymn, should be the climax of emotion. It should be allowed to subside a little during the announcements and offering, in order to rise to a still higher climax in the sermon and closing hymn.

In a tender, sympathetic service there is more danger of not taking the audience with you. If the music and the feelings suggested by the hymns are too quiet and depressing, there is danger of its acting as a lullaby, putting the people to sleep. Many a preacher wonders why some of his hearers are asleep before his text is fairly announced. In nine cases out of ten, it is due to the depressing character of the music used in the devotional part of the service.

III. IMPORTANCE OF THE TUNES

As has been incidentally suggested in the course of the illustrative progress, no small importance is to be attached to the selection of the tunes to be used with the hymns. The preacher cannot always afford to trust the compiler of the hymnal which he uses. That learned gentleman does not know what tune the preacher’s people can sing with a given hymn to the best advantage. He has to meet the difficulty of providing every hymn with an appropriate tune without having well-known and effective tunes enough to go round; he cannot repeat them over and over, but must use less popular tunes. Who shall judge him harshly, therefore, if in this dilemma he occasionally follows his own personal taste rather than the vaguely conceived needs of miscellaneous congregations.

But the minister must study the tunes in his hymnal lest he limit his song service to the small number he happens to know well. To use a dozen or so tunes again and again will cut the nerve of musical interest in his musical helpers and in his congregation as well.

Hence, it is the minister’s task to re-edit the hymnal in part, remating hymns and tunes in order to secure the greatest results with his own people. Nor need he suffer with a sense of presumption. The important consideration is the results of the singing of hymns in an effective way, not loyalty to his church hymnal at the expense of those results.

_Chapter XXI_ THE ANNOUNCEMENT AND TREATMENT OF HYMNS

I. THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF HYMNS

It may seem quite superfluous to give any attention to the mere announcement of hymns; but in many cases the spiritual success or failure of the congregational song is determined there. It is generally assumed that any one can announce a hymn and initiate its singing, but probably the least successful work of ninety-nine out of a hundred ministers is their management of the service of song in their churches. The writer remembers one minister who would baldly announce the number and then turn round and stare at the choir and organist until they began to sing. The awkwardness and helplessness of the man invariably produced a most unfortunate effect upon the congregation. Many ministers announce the number and read the first line. It makes no difference whether the first line is complete in meaning or not; they have identified the hymn.

Like a great many others of their professional brethren, they used the hymn perfunctorily as a traditionally necessary part of the service, with which they really had little or nothing to do; that it has any relation to the needs or the objects they have in view for the service does not occur to them. The unpardonableness of an aimless sermon need not be emphasized, but why should it be easier to forgive a preacher for aimlessly selecting and announcing hymns?

Many churches have hymn boards and even bulletins, making the mechanical interruption caused by the preacher’s announcement of the numbers unnecessary. The people presumably have found the hymn by the time the tune is played through.[1]

Of course, if these devices for announcing the hymn are absent, the preacher must announce the number. If he does so in a listless, mechanical way, he will unconsciously give the congregation an unfortunate emotional keynote, and, in turn, it will sing in a listless, mechanical way. The psychical and emotional value of the singing of the hymn is already discounted. If it has been announced in a joyous, or, at least, in an interested spirit, with only a happy phrase or two, giving a cue to the spirit in which it is to be sung, the congregation will respond in kind. Twenty seconds of effective introduction will make the difference between success and failure.

It should be emphasized that a live preacher will not allow the regular order of service to prevent needed comment on the hymn as it is needed. The order of service has advantages, but if it robs the preacher of freedom and spontaneity, it becomes a curse. Too rigidly followed it makes for dullness and boredom. The congregation should not be allowed to feel that any departure from it is a doubtful liberty on the part of the preacher. Opportunity should be made to dispel any such idea.

If a hymn is curtly announced, or courteously suggested with a “please” or a “kindly” (as if to sing it were a special favor to the preacher), and if no hint is given as to the message to be conveyed, or as to the feeling which is to be expressed, how can the minister hope that the merely improvised singing of an unexpected hymn, perhaps with an unknown tune, will have any stimulating, not to say spiritual, value? If the hymn is well known, it is probably a great hymn, and what gathering of saints can rise at a moment’s notice to its spiritual altitude?

What intelligent minister would presume suddenly to ask a trained elocutionist to read to his audience a poem he had never before seen? Or what honest lawyer would ask a client to sign a legal paper involving obligations without explanations or previous reading? Yet, every Sunday, congregations are asked to sing hymns they have never noticed, expressing they know not what sentiments, promises, or consecrations, in the most solemn and exalted manner. Is it ethical? Is it efficient?

II. THE TREATMENT OF HYMNS

If a congregation is to sing a hymn, not thoughtlessly and mechanically, but intelligently and with feeling, it must be prepared for the devout exercise. It is the minister’s task to tune his people up for the individual hymn, and create the habit of finding meaning and genuine feeling in all the hymns they sing. Stupid singing is a habit: why not create a habit of singing thoughtfully and feelingly?

That may be done; but it cannot be done overnight. It will call for persistent training, for a wealth of resources, and for an unbroken attitude of genuineness of emotion on the part of the preacher. It is no small undertaking to transform sleepy church members into sons of praise.

We may add to the obligations involved still another. If the hymn to be sung is not merely didactic or meditative, but distinctly emotional in character, is it not the preacher’s duty to create in those who are to sing at least the beginnings of the emotions he asks them to voice?

A rapid sketch of blind Matheson’s experience before writing “O Love that wilt not let me go” will set the heartstrings of the congregation quivering in the emotional key of the hymn. A vivid picture of the death of Christ on the cross in a dozen sentences will inspire a preacher’s people to sing “Beneath the cross of Jesus” with genuine emotion. Drawing a picture with rapid touches of the charge of the Light Brigade as it went to its death at Balaklava, and quoting a few lines of Tennyson’s poem, will stir the pulses for the singing of “Lead on, O King Eternal.” “Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire” may be introduced by a few tender sentences on the vital necessity of prayer to a sincere Christian. A minute’s resume of the influence of the cross of Christ on an individual life, or on the upward sweep of the human race under its influence, will give the people a clue to “In the cross of Christ I glory.” The tender aspect of the atonement made by Christ for sin may be solemnly suggested before singing “Alas, and did my Saviour bleed?”

Where a hymn has allusions not likely to be recognized by the average singer, they ought to be made plain. How many of the millions who have sung the well-known hymn, “Come, thou Fount of every blessing,” knew what the word “Ebenezer” signified? Striking phrases, packed with deep thought and feeling, like Matheson’s

“I lay in dust life’s glory dead, And from the ground there blossoms red Life that shall endless be,”

should have their treasures brought to light, lest the average churchgoer should overlook them. In other words, there should be a rapid exposition of unusual and also of over-familiar hymns, so that the congregation may sing with its mind and heart.

The range of possible comment is so wide, and the opportunity of using it is so limited, that only the most striking and impressive illustrations should be considered for actual use. Rhetorical and anecdotal illustrations should be used sparingly—only when they promote an exalted and distinctly spiritual state of mind. They are apt to be prolix, to distract the mind from spiritual contemplation. They are permissible with joyous, aggressive, victorious hymns rather than with those that are tender, emotional, subjective.

The inexorable limitations of time must always be borne in mind. When a hymn is announced the people expect to sing, not to listen to a hymnological dissertation or to a long-winded anecdote. The simile or metaphor, or other oratorical comment, must explode with a very short fuse of preliminary remark. The anecdote must be compact, shorn of unessential preface or background, and reach its peak of interest, or of appeal to feeling, with the succinctness of an epigram. Better limit the illustrations and comments to those that can gracefully and lucidly be uttered in one or rarely two minutes.

Discussions and illustrations of hymns are often confined to the hymns as hymns, which is rarely necessary. It is not the hymn that needs emphasis, much less its writer: it is the message, the burden, the feeling of the hymn that is to be enforced. An instance of the saving of a “down and outer” from the Jerry McAuley mission in New York, or the Pacific Garden mission in Chicago, will create more responsiveness to “Rescue the Perishing” than biographical facts about Fanny Crosby or about the composer, W. Howard Doane. The anecdote of missionary success from the last missionary bulletin or magazine will lead a Congregation to sing “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun” more enthusiastically than an explanation of Watts’ having metricized the seventy-second Psalm with a free hand, making the Jew, David, sing like a Christian. Illustrating the sense rather than the form of the hymn will be found very much more thrilling to the people.

In evening services of song, or in midweek lectures, historical backgrounds will be very helpful and interesting. A series of lectures on the great hymns of the Church, or even a general survey of the development of our Christian hymnody, will lay the foundations of a more intelligent song.

In such services, anecdotal illustrations may have a large place. They need not be emotional under such circumstances, just so they add interest and understanding.

As an occasional variation in the introduction of the hymn, why not have the congregation read it? “It is not done?” All the more reason for doing it! They will get more actual values out of the reading of the hymn and its subsequent singing than in any other way; the very unusualness of the method will give additional effectiveness. Single stanzas can be most impressively treated in this manner. In singing Isaac Watts’ great hymn, “When I survey the wondrous cross,” ask the people to read the third verse softly,

“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?”

and then sing it very softly and note the effect.

The same method may be used with Mrs. Alexander’s children’s hymn, “There is a green hill far away,” which adults have adopted for their own; have them read the last verse,

“Oh, dearly, dearly has He loved, And we must love Him too, And trust in His redeeming blood, And try His works to do,”

and then sing it quite emotionally.

A great many people deprecate the minister’s reading of the hymns. But that is because so few ministers are able to read hymns with any degree of impressiveness or reality. Perhaps half the ministers who read them leave no desirable impression whatever as the result, for the reading has been without even a thoughtful sense of the meaning of the hymn, much less of its emotional force. To allow one’s voice to fall at the end of every line, or to make a habit of having a rising inflection at the end of each first line and a falling at the end of each second, without variation, is so vile, from an elocutionary standpoint, that one cannot wonder that the general congregation prefers its omission.

On the other hand, if the minister’s mind and heart are profoundly awake to the thought and feeling of the hymn that is to be used, if the minister has a definite purpose which he wishes to realize through the singing of that hymn, if the whole song service is thoroughly vital and earnest, he cannot help reading the hymn in such a way as to impress and interest his people. One need not be a well-trained elocutionist to do this. The genuine feeling will develop a natural elocution and will even neutralize faulty habits and mannerisms of reading that would otherwise make it unendurable.

The fact that the hymn is a familiar one may be only an additional reason for reading it, instead of being an imperative reason for omitting its reading. As coins long in circulation often lose their superscription, these familiar words often lose their meaning and reality by constant use, and these may be restored by intelligent and emotional reading.

A mere habit of reading a hymn through is sheer mechanism, the fatal enemy of interest. The situation, the purpose in view, the character of the service and the time allotted to it, even the preacher’s own passing mood—all are factors that need to be considered.

At this point it is well to drop a word of warning against the unintelligent omission of verses. Some ministers invariably restrict the number to be sung to three or four. If there are five verses, they invariably omit the fourth, or announce, “We will sing the first three verses,” no matter what the development of thought may be. One of the most painful manifestations of ministerial thoughtlessness and indifference to the congregation’s share of the service, is this brutal mutilation of the hymns. The preacher wishes a little more time for his sermon, so he robs God and his people of some of their worship by singing the pitiful remains of a hymn he has deprived of its unity, its progress of thought, and perhaps of its best stanzas. Or he has preached too long and closes with a single verse of some great hymn, unwittingly losing the best climax his sermon could have had. Because of the same egotism and his obsequious regard for the tyranny of the dinner hour, he cuts out the reading and proper introductions of his hymns throughout the service.

The irony of the situation is that by this neglect of his hymns the preacher fails to create the enthusiasm and responsiveness of his hearers essential to the larger success of his sermon. “There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.” (Prov. 11:24.)

It may well be that some of the ministers who read this practical section will throw up their hands at the idea of working out the rather daunting array of suggestions for exploiting the hymn in their church work. The pastor’s task is such a varied one, with such a mass of details, all of seeming importance, that he is in danger of wasting time on comparative trifles, of “puttering” around, feeling very busy while accomplishing little. A common remark at the close of the day is, “I’ve been busy as a nailer all day and can’t see that I have accomplished anything!”

It is this time that is lost by lack of concentration which could quite comfortably be devoted to hymnological studies. The difficulty in most cases is not lack of time, but lack of interest, lack of realization as to how great a contribution the hymn service can make to the success of his work.

God has put into the throat of every member of this preacher’s congregation a marvelous musical instrument with a wide range of tones and of extremely appealing cadences, of great power to express the emotions of the heart of the singer, and to suggest and stimulate the feelings of the minds and hearts of the hearers: is the minister justified in neglecting the opportunity it offers to arouse and quicken the mental and spiritual natures of the people for whose religious life he is responsible?

Is it not a crying piece of egotism, in view of the proven efficiency of hymn singing, to depend exclusively on his own preaching for the realization of the spiritual ends to which his life is devoted? When ministers realize the positive power the hymn service can exert, they will not begrudge the occasional hours for studying and planning it which are necessary to its full success. That success will create

A SINGING CHURCH

EPILOGUE

_Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter._ Eccl. 12:7.

In traversing the long history of the human use of song in religious services, rites, and ceremonies, we have found that

1. The hymn has been recognized in every age, in every generation, by every race, whether savage or cultured, under every sky, as an expression of religious emotion, and as the generator of such emotion.

2. Religious emotions are of various types. It may be the earnestness of strong conviction; it may be the hot indignation against sin and evil, against neglect of the soul’s highest obligations. It may be the depressing sense of conscious unworthiness, rising into repentance for sin, into the tenderness of grateful recognition of the divine love and forgiving grace, expressed in tears, joy over the assurance of salvation expressed in beaming countenance or in ejaculations of delight, or even in shouts of victory. The human heart becomes an Æolian harp from which the winds of the Spirit of God evoke an infinitude of melodies, grave and solemn, tender and sweet, joyous and triumphant, or vigorous and inspiring,—a very symphonic orchestra.

3. As an expression of religious emotion the hymn has been effective in moving the human will, stubborn in its revolt against God, by intensifying the mental and spiritual power of religious ideas.

4. The religious idea is primary, of course, but its emotional response in the heart gives it vitality. It is the team of idea and its normal emotion that exerts the power of the hymn. An abstract idea, abstract because its emotional reflex has been abstracted, has no motive power.

5. In the effective use of the hymn the clear apprehension of its ideas must be enforced by the vital reproduction of the original emotion of its writer which urged its composure. A dry hymn written without vitalizing feeling has no power to inspire; it gives no sense of reality. Dry sermons, not pollinated by emotional vigor, can bear no fruit. The effectiveness of sermon or hymn will be determined by the intensity of the feeling behind it.

6. The emotional appeal must be genuine, both writer and singer must be sincere. Artificial emotion, the mere pretense of a feeling that does not exist, has no power. It is not merely unappealing, it is offensive.

7. But emotion necessarily implies an intelligence and a susceptibility to be moved—in other words, a personality. It also implies that one person’s feelings can call forth like emotions in other persons. The merely outward expression may even create a like emotion among others who do not fully apprehend the primary idea that set the original emotion to vibrating, creating a very contagion of feeling.

8. It follows that in actual aggressive work, largely depending on emotional transmission, the minister or the leader must supply the initiating impulse. If the minister has a dry mind—there are ministers who desiccate every topic they discuss—religious ideas suffer a blight of aridity, killing all sense of reality, this sense of reality being the _sine qua non_ of all spiritual effectiveness. If he is fortunate in having a vivid imagination and a heart responsive to religious truth, he can multiply his mental gifts twentyfold by intensifying the truths he expresses.

9. Treated in this way, the hymn becomes the peer of the sermon in influencing power, and assures the minister eager for spiritual results a large harvest of souls, saved and spiritualized.

REFERENCES AND NOTES

INTRODUCTION

[1]Genesis 4:21, 23.

[2]Genesis 31:27.

[3]Exodus 15:1-21.

[4]Numbers 21:16, 17.

[5]Psalm 90.

[6]Joshua 6:16.

[7]Judges 5:1-31.

[8]I Samuel 2:1-16.

[9]I Samuel 10:5.

[10]I Chronicles 9:22; 11:4, 11:5.

[11]Mark 14:26.

[12]Acts 16:25.

[13]Colossians 3:16.

[14]James 5:13.

[15]Revelation 5:9; 7:9-12; 11:15-18; 14:2,3; 15:3,4; 19:1-7.