CHAPTER XIV

[1]Comparing the English church with the German, Horder exclaims: “The Puritans, indeed, had in their midst a finer poet than Luther, but they never introduced even Milton’s superb renderings of certain of the Psalms into their worship. What a use Luther would have put Milton to, if he had been a member of his church! What songs he would have written! Aye, what music, too!”

[2]“Thus the psalms have been at once an inspiration and a bondage: _an inspiration_ in that they have kindled the fire which has produced the hymnody of the entire church; _a bondage_, because, by stereotyping religious expression, they robbed the heart of the right to express in its own words the fears, the joys, the hopes that the Divine Spirit had kindled in their souls.” (W. Garrett Horder, in _The Hymn Lover_.)

[3]Thomas Wright in his recent _Life of Isaac Watts_ remarks: “Earlier in this work I referred to Watts’ enthusiasm for, and his indebtedness to, John Mason, who deserves rather than any other writer the name of the Father of the Modern Hymn. If there had not been a Mason there would never have been a Watts.”