Hymns in Human Experience

The sacrificial loyalty to Christ is seen when

A Mother Answered with a Hymn

A missionary secretary of one of the Methodist churches in England once went to see a mother whose only remaining son had offered himself for foreign mission service. Two other sons had gone to the same country and there they had laid down their lives in the service of Christ and the natives. The secretary sympathetically referred to this pathetic fact, and wished to ascertain from the mother whether the last of her boys was to go with her full consent.

The mother grasped the trend of the visitor’s conversation, and, without waiting for the secretary to put the direct question, she very quietly repeated the lines she so often sang in church, which conveyed her spirit of surrender:

There was no need for further questioning. The secretary said in my hearing, “I knelt with that mother and her boy and we had a tearful but beautiful season of prayer.”

It is not surprising that in the soldiers’ hours of danger, according to The War Romance of the Salvation Army, by Booth and Hill,[10]

Mother Held Her Place in Their Hearts

The night of the St. Mihiel drive was the blackest night ever seen. It was so dark that one could positively see nothing a foot ahead of him. All that was heard was the sound of thousands of feet tramping, through the mud and slush, as the soldiers went to the front. In groups they were singing softly as they went by. One group was singing “Mother Machree.”

The simple pathos of the men’s voices, many of whom were tramping forward to their death, brought tears to the eyes of the Salvation Army lassies in the canteen.

After an interval, sweetly and solemnly through the chill of the darkness there came floating by, with a thrill in the words, another group of voices:

CHAPTER IV
When Preachers Sing

Even in these days of pulpit exchanges, ministers show their denominational alliances in their sermons. Not so when it comes to hymns, which are more catholic and comprehensive than creeds and other ecclesiastical pronouncements. Indeed, the hymnal of any church contains the writings of Catholics and of Protestants of every variety, for most hymns express the deeper aspirations of the soul without any sectarian accent. They are admitted into these compilations because of their intrinsic worth as transcripts from Christian experience, dealing with the essential truths of the Gospel. There is a healthy omission of those incidentals which interrupt whole-hearted Christian fellowship with all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and accept Him as their central authority.

If our preaching were as free and fervent as the hymns sung by ministers and people, and if our practice more closely harmonized with the sentiments in hymns, the day of Christian union would come more quickly. Here are some incidents which illustrate the ability of ministers to make melody in their hearts as unto the Lord.

It is in a crisis that the depths of the heart are exposed as here when

A Minister Requested His Favorite Hymn

Dr. R. W. Dale, of Birmingham, England, preached a beautiful sermon in memory of his college friend, the Rev. E. S. Glanville, of Warwick. He told how the dying minister had requested his father and sister to sing to him his favorite hymn, and they sat in the chamber of death and sang:

Equally significant was the

Marching Song of Veteran Ministers

When the names of the forty-five retired ministers were called in the Baltimore Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1930, these men who were facing the sunset period of life stood and sang:

“The light that never was on sea or land” crept into their faces as they recalled the days and the songs of their pilgrimage, and blended their voices in the triumphant refrain:

Then, to give emphatic expression to their Christian joy, when Dr. Charles W. Baldwin, a veteran leader, ninety-one years of age, gave the signal, they exclaimed in unison: “Hallelujah!”

But those who are in active service show their spirit of consecration by being

Ready for Another Day’s Work

The business had been transacted, the committees had reported, and the resolutions of appreciation had been read. The closing moments of the Methodist Conference were approaching. Soon the presiding bishop would read the appointments, and one hundred and eighty ministers would enter on a new year of ministry. Several of these would be assigned to new fields.

Many had seen years of service. For some of them this would probably be the closing year, for it generally happens that during the year some fall at the post of duty. But among the number there were nine young men who for the first time would enter on their great adventure of ministerial service.

The closing hymn selected was one rarely heard at such a moment, yet it was impressively appealing, and soon all the ministers were blending their voices in the words of Miss Warner:

In connection with what was said above about young ministers, it was an impressive occasion

When a Bishop Sang at the Ordination Service

A group of young men were ordained into the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church on a glorious Sunday afternoon in May in the presence of many hundreds of ministers, relatives and others. The service apparently was about to end when Bishop Adna W. Leonard knelt inside the altar by the side of these young preachers. By pre-arrangement with the organist, the strains of music softly came and then the voice of the bishop was heard singing the expressively appropriate words:

The young ministers who had just taken upon themselves the solemn vows of the ordination service then joined with the soloist in the chorus:

The voice of the bishop was again heard:

Then for the second time, the young ministers united their voices with the one who was leading them in song, as together they rendered the chorus.

The third stanza followed, by the Bishop:

Hundreds of eyes by this time were mist-filled, and it was with difficulty that many could control their voices when Bishop Leonard asked the entire company to sing the refrain. Soon, however, about twelve hundred voices were songfully pledging their loyalty to their Lord as they sang the words of the chorus.

Few were the words spoken by the leader of the service before another hymn was rendered:

These lines voiced a prayer for divine strength, guidance and blessing. With the young ministers now standing at the altar, young people were asked to consecrate their lives to the service of Christ. From all parts of that historic church young men and young women moved forward until sixty of them had publicly registered their decision. Some of them for the first time took their stand for Christ, others expressed a desire to become ministers, missionaries, workers in their home churches.

The effects of this service will remain for many years. For there went forth from that church in the central part of the Empire State of New York a great company of hearts touched by the Spirit of God and resolved to render faithful devotion to Christ’s cause.

The consciousness of the divine providence was emphasized in the confession:

“Thou My Daily Task Shall Give”

When sixty ministers, heads of various Summer Schools of Ministerial Training in the Methodist Episcopal Church, met in Evanston, Illinois, to review the work of the previous year and to plan for the future, the leader of the devotions one morning called attention to a hymn of great personal value. Then, on that January day, it was sung with deep feeling as the ministers were just entering on their task for another year. This hymn was written by a layman, Josiah Conder, who “passed a busy life as bookseller, editor and author.” It is well worth committing to memory; at least, such was the conviction of that group of ministers who sang:

The assurance of divine guidance was expressed in the declaration:

“All My Help From Thee I Bring”

“When ... storms of unpopularity and tempests of financial disaster threaten the tiny bark upon life’s troubled seas,” wrote Sir Henry Lunn, “my friend and colleague, Hugh Price Hughes, whose ministry in some small degree I shared, asked me to believe with confidence that there was One ‘in the heavens to give attention to our personal concerns,’ and taught me to say with a new emphasis, ‘Thou, O Christ, art all I want,’

“And now that the limit of three score years and ten is passed and life’s journey must be drawing to a close, I say triumphantly: ‘Here I raise my Ebenezer. Hitherto the Lord hath helped me and hither by His grace I have come.’”

Episcopal dignity was enriched on a recent occasion when, according to Zion’s Herald,

Bishops Sang Their Special Hymn

When the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church held their semi-annual meeting in San Francisco, in November, 1929, they were given a reception and a banquet. Eight hundred persons assembled to do them honor, including officials of the city and the state. The bishops contributed a vocal number to the evening’s entertainment. Bishop Francis J. McConnell, with his richly melodious voice, led his colleagues in the episcopal hymn, ‘Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be.’ Those present insisted on an encore, but as the episcopal repertoire is limited to a single number, the bishops could only modestly bow their acknowledgments to the sustained applause.

But these bishops are not really confined to just one hymn, for they also sang on another occasion

“Land Me Safe on Canaan’s Side”

The most remarkable feature of the singing of the Board of Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, wrote Bishop Francis J. McConnell, when reporting one of their meetings in Boston in May, 1930, consisted in their skill in fitting almost any song to the “only tune which I have heard them sing with any conspicuous success.” Reference was then made to a dramatic moment “when that one tune was sung with marvelous power.” Bishop Earl Cranston, at the age of eighty-nine, “had just made a farewell speech in which he had said that he did not see how he could again attend the Bishops’ Meeting. At the conclusion of the address the bishops sang, adapting their favorite tune, the stanza: ‘When I tread the verge of Jordan.’”

One can easily imagine that scene, and how deeply affected the others were after listening to the words of the veteran leader. It is difficult to conceive anything which would have been more appropriate for such a time than the words in which the company blended their voices:

This confidence of immortality is also shared by others as seen on a memorable occasion when

Ministers Sang Their Hope

Many ministers had assembled to pay their last tribute to a comrade who had fallen while in the ranks of service. Words of commendation were spoken concerning the fidelity and devotion of the one whom God had called in the prime of life. Prayers were offered. Soon the body, accompanied by the bereaved relatives, would start for the little cemetery in the boyhood home. But before leaving the church where the services were conducted, the ministers stepped forward, surrounded the casket, and united their voices in singing:

The refrain voiced the assurance of immortality cherished and preached by that company of pastors:

CHAPTER V
Songs of Soldiers

When faced by the stern realities of life and death, it is not easy for any person to practice the subtle art of camouflage so far as faith and destiny are concerned. The experiences of G. A. Studdert-Kennedy, one of the war chaplains at the Front, were similar to those of other men engaged in ministering to the religious needs of the soldiers. He was once brought face to face with one of the boys in a crisis, and was asked the pointed question: “What is God like?” The soldiers who know that God is like Christ the Sufferer and Sympathizer, have an assurance that gives them courage to go through the rough and distracting ordeal on the field of battle. This was true in the World War and in all similar grim encounters.

Another chaplain, Thomas Tiplady, wrote that when the great hours draw near, and even in the lighter hours, the soldiers like hymns most of all, and at the religious services they cannot have too many hymns. They care little for patriotic songs since they are living their patriotism in the severe struggle with the enemy. The hymns for which they have a special preference are those which give them cheer and hope and deepen their consciousness of the presence of the Comrade Christ.

These incidents belong to our Civil War and to later wars. But in essence they bear on the same themes and frankly reveal the recesses and the resources of the soul.

The unexpected turns in war are illustrated in

A Memory of Pickett’s Brigade

Reminiscences were being exchanged by veterans of both sides of the Civil War at a banquet given in their honor by the Board of Trade of New York City. Colonel J. J. Phillips, of the Ninth Virginia Regiment, Pickett’s Division, presided. Speaking of night attacks, he recalled one in particular because of the peculiar circumstances which resulted almost in the compulsory disobedience of orders, in response to a higher command.

“The point of attack had been carefully selected,” said Colonel Phillips, “the awaited dark night had arrived, and my command was to fire when General Pickett should signal the order.

“There was that dread, indescribable stillness; that weird ominous silence that always settles over everything before a fight. You felt that nowhere in the universe was there any voice or motion.

“Suddenly the awesome silence was broken by the sound of a deep, full voice rolling over the black void like the billows of a great sea, directly in line with our guns. It was singing the old hymn, ‘Jesus, Lover of My Soul.’

“I have heard that grand old music many times in circumstances which intensified its impressiveness, but never had it seemed so solemn as when it broke the stillness in which we waited for the order to fire. Just as it was given there rang through the night the words:

“‘Ready, aim! Fire to the left, boys!’ I said.

“The guns were shifted, the volley that blazed out swerved aside, and that ‘defenseless head’ was ‘covered’ with the shadow of His wing.”

A Federal veteran who listened to this story spoke up and said, “I remember that night, Colonel, and that midnight attack which carried off so many of my comrades. I was the singer.”

Such confirmation produced a deep impression, and after a silence “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” was again sung as on the fatal night in 1864 when it rang across the lines at Bermuda Hundred.

The reference to the same leader is brought out under exceptional circumstances in

The Song of the Defeated

“Written in Defeat, After the Battle of Five Forks,” is the heading given to a letter written by General George E. Pickett to his wife, April 2, 1865. It is included by Arthur Crew Inman in his volume, A Soldier of the South.[12] Here is part of it:

“All is quiet now, but soon all will be bustle, for we march at daylight. Oh, my darling, were there ever such men as those of my division? This morning after the review I thanked them for their valiant services yesterday on the first of April, never to be forgotten by any of us, when they fought one of the most desperate battles of the whole war. Their answer to me was cheer after cheer, one after another calling out, ‘That’s all right, Marse George!’ and ‘We only followed you!’ Then in the midst of these calls, silencing them, rose loud and clear old Gentry’s voice, singing the old hymns which they all knew I loved:

“Voice after voice joined in till from all along the line the plea rang forth:

“I do not think, my Sallie, the tears sounded in my voice as it mingled with theirs; but they were in my eyes, and there was something new in my heart.

“When the last line had been sung, I gave the order to march ...”

What the soldiers felt in the depths of their life is revealed in

A Chorus of Ten Thousand

The night after the Battle of Shiloh, when there were thousands of wounded on the field, one Christian soldier as he lay there dying under the starlight began to sing, “There is a land of pure delight.” When he reached the next line there were scores of voices singing, “Where saints immortal reign.” The song was caught up all through the fields among the wounded until it was said there were at least ten thousand wounded men uniting in the triumphant closing verse of that beautiful hymn:

Mrs. Margaret Bottome relates an incident about

Marching to Music

“I had a brother who was in the Battle of the Wilderness during the Civil War. He told me of a day in that dreadful wilderness when the Connecticut regiment was traveling through such deep mud that they could hardly pull their boots out of it as they took one step after another. They were thoroughly dispirited and they had no music—the band was far in the rear, but all at once they heard the sound that told them the band was coming, and as it drew nearer they caught the strain. The band was playing a tune known to every Methodist:

“My brother said it acted like magic on that regiment, the largest proportion of which were Methodists; new life entered into them. A moment before their feet had stuck in the mud, and they did not see how they were ever to get along, for again and again they had to pull their boots out of the mud with their hands, but from the time that tune, with the words that memory made so distinct, was heard, not a step faltered.”[13]

This story from the Crimean War might be duplicated from other wars for it tells of

A Soldier Saved by Song

Duncan Matheson, a Bible reader to the soldiers in the Crimea, was returning one night to his lodgings in an old stable. Sickened by the sights he had seen, and depressed with the thought that the siege of Sebastopol was likely to last for months, he trudged along in the mud, knee-deep. Happening to look up, he saw the stars shining calmly in the clear sky. Weariness gave place to the thought that in heaven is rest, and he began to sing aloud the old hymn:

The next day was wet and stormy. While going his rounds he met a soldier, soiled and in ragged clothes; his shoes so worn that they did not keep his feet from the mud. In the course of conversation this man said:

“I am not what I was yesterday. Last night I was tired of life and of this blundering siege. I took my musket and went down yonder, determined to blow out my brains. As I got around that hillock I heard some one singing, ‘How bright these glorious spirits shine!’ It recalled to me the Sunday School where I used to sing it, and the religious truths I had heard there. I felt ashamed of being such a coward. I said to myself, ‘Here is a comrade as badly off as I am, but he is not a coward—he’s bearing it!’ I felt that man had something which I did not possess to make him accept with cheerfulness our hard lot. I went back to my tent, and today I am seeking that thing which made the singer so happy.”

Here is another from the World War, related in The War Romance of the Salvation Army, by Booth and Hill,[14] how

Sunshine Came Into a Soldier’s Heart

It was one Sunday afternoon in Bazeilles, France, at a service conducted by three Salvationists. One of the girls sang:

The sequel is best explained in a letter written to his mother by one of the boys:

“You will be surprised to hear that I am in the hospital, but I am getting well quickly and am having a good time. But best of all, some Salvation Army people came along and sang and talked about sunshine, and while they were talking the sunshine came through my window—not into my room alone, but into my heart and life as well, where it is going to stay. I know how happy this will make you.”

An incident from the Spanish-American War reveals the unity of Christian faith in the way

American Soldiers Greeted Christmas

Christmas Eve, 1898, found the Seventh Army Corps encamped along the hills at Quemados, near Havana, Cuba. Suddenly from the camp of the Forty-ninth Iowa rang a sentinel’s call, “Number ten; twelve o’clock, and all’s well!” Lieutenant-Colonel Curtis Guild thus wrote about it:

“It was Christmas morning. Scarcely had the cry of the sentinel died away, when from the bandsmen’s tents of that same regiment there rose the music of an old, familiar hymn, and one clear baritone voice led the chorus that quickly ran along the moonlit fields: ‘How firm a foundation ye saints of the Lord!’ Another voice joined in, and another, and another, and in a moment the whole regiment was singing, and then the Sixth Missouri joined in with the Fourth Virginia, and all the rest, till there on the long ridges above the city ... a whole American army corps was singing:

Protestant and Catholic, South and North, singing together on Christmas day in the morning,—that’s an American army!”

We next go to Palestine for two stories. One is about

Soldiers and Sankey’s Hymns

At a meeting in Blackheath, London, some time ago, according to a writer in The British Weekly, a missionary to the Jews related one of his experiences at a Jewish settlement in Palestine. He asked to see the head of the settlement, who said, “Are you an Englishman?” He answered, “Yes,” feeling that perhaps he would not be pleased. Then he said, “Are you a missionary?” And he answered “Yes,” feeling certain now he would not be pleased. To his astonishment the man said, “Oh, I am so glad, so very glad. And can you play the piano?” to which he answered “Yes.”

The missionary was then told that when the soldiers were there they came almost daily and played Sankey’s hymns on the piano, and sang them. The people in the house crowded round to listen, and others gathered outside. The result was that there were about thirty people in the settlement who wanted to become Christians, and the missionary stayed there for a month, at the end of which time they were baptized.

The other is from Mrs. Carrie J. Bond about

Marching Men

“A few years ago I was in Jerusalem in the American Colony Home. It was a bright moonlight night and I heard the marching feet of soldiers. Soon they began singing ‘The End of a Perfect Day.’ I looked out to see about twelve soldiers marching by. In the morning I asked my host about it and he brought out an old worn sheet of ‘A Perfect Day’ and told me this story: Two American boys had been billeted to the American Colony House and every evening during their stay one had played and the other had sung that song. When they were well enough to leave they left the music as a token of their gratitude.”

Now we go to the Transvaal for a testimony to the influence of Fanny Crosby’s hymn, “Blessed Assurance,” as related by Mr. Sankey,[16] which might be entitled

“Six Further On”

“‘During the recent war in the Transvaal,’ said a gentleman in my meeting in Exeter Hall, London, in 1900, ‘when the soldiers going to the front were passing another body of soldiers whom they recognized, their greetings used to be, “Four-nine-four, boys, four-nine-four;” and the salute would invariably be answered with “Six further on, boys; six further on.” The significance of this was that, in “Sacred Songs and Solos,” a number of copies of the small edition of which had been sent to the front, Number 494 was “God Be With You Till We Meet Again”; and six further on than 494, or Number 500, was “Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine.”’”

The last incident brings us back to the World War in the touching words,

“Sing It Again, Laddie”

In times of stress, Scotsmen turn toward God, for in the heart of them they are all religiously inclined. During the World War a service in the historic church in Ayr, Scotland, began with that beautiful Psalm paraphrase: “I to the hills will lift mine eyes”, sung to the tune of “French.”

The sermon had a reference to a young Highlander who was wounded in a recent battle and lay stretched on the field. In his youth he had learned “I to the hills” in Gaelic. He now began to sing that old Psalm in his native tongue, and out over the field his singing reached as far as his voice would carry. Just then a Scotch regiment came marching by and the men heard it. One of them noted the spot from which the song proceeded and at night, after the conflict, he went back to look for the singer.

All was quiet as this Highlander wandered backward and forward and it seemed as though his quest would be futile. He then raised his voice and called out: “Sing it again, laddie, sing it again.” The laddie heard and responded and sang on till the searcher found him and carried him back to the base. In due course he returned home wounded but thankful that He had not slumbered who kept him.

The higher unity of faith carries further than the discordant notes of mere nationalism. This was illustrated by a writer in the Kansas City Times, relating the experience of

A Violinist in the Trenches

Outside of the dugout, shells whined and machine guns spattered with a staccato of rat-tat-tats. Inside a violin sang and sobbed. The magic of its music made men forget. They forgot the homesickness. They forgot the mud. They forgot the cold. They forgot the ever presence of danger and death.

They listened, heads propped up on sand bags and feet wrapped in blankets as they stretched on mattresses of sand bags covering the rough planks of their underground cots.

In another dugout, across No Man’s Land on the German side, others were also listening. They heard the strains of Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song,” as sweet and gentle and refreshing as an early summer shower. A strange thing happened. A German picked up a cornet, and floating to the Allies’ dugout came the notes of the horn harmonizing with the violin.

CHAPTER VI
Heard Within Prison Walls

Some of the world’s greatest books were written in prison. Think of the Epistles of St. Paul which came from such secluded confines. The Pilgrim’s Progress, which has been translated into more languages than any other book except the Bible, was written by Bunyan in Bedford Jail. Silvio Pellico, an Italian man of letters, recounted his ten years of imprisonment at Spielberg, Austria, and declared that religion was his chief consolation. The singing of St. Paul and Silas during their imprisonment at Philippi had memorable results. There are many other instances of beneficial consequences in connection with these dismal incarcerations.

The incidents in this chapter have to do with the influences upon the prisoners themselves and how they were converted to Christ and comforted in their distress. Such transcripts of life under inconceivably trying circumstances give evidence of the power of the Gospel. One of the most remarkable recent books is entitled A Gentleman in Prison, giving the experiences of Tokichi Ishii, a converted Japanese criminal, who was executed in due course for murder.

The first one tells how

Prisoners Sang “The Glory Song”

“The Glory Song” attained a marvelous popularity soon after it was published in 1900. In less than five years it was being sung in many languages all over the world. Several interesting incidents are related of its influence but one that Homer Rodeheaver wrote in Zion’s Herald, Boston, is worthy of note:

“I have heard it in a number of instances sung by over ten thousand people, but the most impressive rendering I ever heard given to it was by a certain audience of over one thousand men. These men were all dressed in steel gray suits, and sat with folded arms; the man who played the organ and the man who held the baton and led the song were dressed in exactly the same way. Down the right side, across the rear and up the left side of the chapel room, on high stools, sat a row of men in blue uniforms, holding heavy canes across their knees, these men seemed never for an instant to take their eyes from certain spots in front of them. Not a man whispered during the service—for it was a state’s prison. Among the congregation of 1077 men, 256 were there for life—there to live and die—and on each of their cell doors, where they would read it every time they left and re-entered, was that startling word ‘Life.’

“How strangely their voices impressed me—these men without a country, without a home, without a name, deprived of every privilege accorded to all men by the Almighty, and known only by a number. As I sat before them, the prison pallor of their faces against its background of gray within that frame of blue, made a picture never to be forgotten. With few exceptions, every man sang. Here sat one with downcast eyes, there another with mute lips, while yonder near the center a large, strong fellow was weeping like a little child—but silently. They told me he had been there but a short time, and I wondered if he had heard the song before, under different circumstances—and where, for he had a kindly face. Softly they sang that last stanza:

The song ended, the chaplain said a brief prayer, and that great crowd of men, at signals from the guards in blue, marched out squad by squad, keeping step to the music of the organ played by the man in gray.”

Their deepest feelings are portrayed in

The Hymn of the Prisoner

Describing a chapel service in Auburn (New York) prison, a newspaper correspondent wrote:

“One of the hymns the men sang was ‘Pardon the Debt and Make Me Free.’ They sang that over and over again, and it seemed to express the feelings of every convict.”

The extraordinary circumstances in which a hymn was used are described in this incident when

A Condemned Man Wanted “Face to Face” Sung

The story of the writings of Mrs. Carrie Ellis Breck, who spent her girlhood days on her father’s fruit farm in New Jersey, was related by A. L. Lawson in The Christian Herald. From that article the following is taken: