[1]James Martineau, vol. ii. p. 99.
[2]Christian Year (Fifth Sunday in Lent).
[4]‘The general Church histories mostly neglect or ignore
hymnology, which is the best reflection of Christian life and worship.’—
Schaff:
Mediaeval Christianity, ii. 403. See also
Lilly’s Christianity
and Modern Civilization, ch. v., ‘The Age of Faith.’
[5]Church Hymns (revised edition, 1903). A new edition of
Hymns
Ancient and Modern is being prepared.
[7]John Ellerton:
Principles of Hymn-book Construction, p. 228.
[8]Keble’s Occasional Papers and Reviews, 1877, p. 92. This
essay, a review of
Josiah Conder’s Star in the East, was published in
the
Quarterly Review, 1825. The quotation from Burns will remind
many readers of Keble’s own lines (Third Sunday in Lent)—
There’s not a strain to Memory dear,
Nor flower in classic grove,
There’s not a sweet note warbled here,
But minds us of Thy love.
[9]The words rendered ‘meditation’ in these verses are not the same. The one perhaps suggests the devout meditation which is murmured half aloud, the other silent converse or communing with oneself.
[10]Lightfoot’s Colossians.
[11]Trench’s Synonyms of New Testament.
[12]Εἰς τὸ τέλος ἐν ὕμνοις, ψαλμὸς τῷ ’Ασάφ, ᾠδὴ πρὸς τὸν ’Ασσύριον.
[14]Ps. xxii. 3 (R.V.), margin.
[17]Cf. Eph. v. 20:
εὐχαριστοῦντες πάντοτε.
[21]The Holy Year, pp. xxxii., xxxiii.
[22]The Hymn Lover, p. 146.
[23]Hymns of the Christian Church and Home (Preface).
[24]Longfellow’s The Singers.
[25]Herbert’s A True Hymn.
[26]Cary’s Dante, Par. xiv.
[27]There is an article in the
Journal of Sacred Literature for July
1864, on ‘Eccentricities of Hymnology: Early Moravian Hymn-books,’
which gives abundant illustrations to justify Southey’s statement that
‘the most characteristic parts of the Moravian hymns are too shocking
to be inserted here’ (
Life of Wesley).
[28]‘Viatrix,’ in an article on ‘The Tramp Ward,’ in the
Contemporary
for May 1904, says, ‘I have discovered that this (“Lead, kindly
Light”) and “Abide with me,” with “Jesu, Lover of my soul:” are
tramps’ favourites.’
[29]Matthew Arnold’s Progress. These lines were altered, much for the worse, in later editions.
[30]Martineau’s Hymns for Church and Home (Preface).
[31]Ps. lxxxi. 1 (P.B.V.).
[32]St.
Augustine on Ps. lviii.
[33]Ps. lxviii. 20 (R.V.), ‘God is unto us a God of deliverances.’
[34]Exod. xv. ‘The song is, of course, incorporated by E from an earlier source, perhaps from a collection of national poems.... Probably, however, the greater part of the song is Mosaic, and the modification or expansion is limited to the closing verses; for the triumphant tone which pervades it is just such as might naturally have been inspired by the event which it celebrates.’—
Driver’s Literature of the Old Testament.
[35]Wordsworth’s Ode to Duty.
[36]Edward Irving’s The Book of Psalms, Works, i. p. 410.
[39]Kirkpatrick’s Psalms (Cambridge Bible).
[40]Irving’s Introduction to
Horne’s Psalms, Works, vol. i. p. 416 (slightly abridged).
[41]The
Holy Year, p. xxxviii. The Bishop refers in a note to ‘one
modern hymn, beginning, “My God, the spring of all my joys,” and
consisting only of twelve (
sic) lines, in which the pronouns
I and
my
occur no less than eleven times.’ He might have added that in the
twelve lines of Ps. xxiii. personal pronouns occur seventeen times,
and that ‘My God’ occurs fifty-eight times in the Psalter.
[42]There are, of course, Psalms of the Old Testament not included
in the Psalter admirably adapted for Christian worship. See Part II.
of Dr.
Barrett’s Congregational Church Hymnal.
[43]‘We have been especially glad to mark the essentially metrical structure of the Lord’s Prayer in St. Matthew’s Gospel, with its invocation, its first triplet of single clauses, with one common burden, expressed after the third but implied after all, and its second triplet of double clauses, variously antithetical in form and sense.’—
Westcott and
Hort, Introduction, p. 320.
[44]W.H., Introduction, p. 320.
[45]‘
Adfirmabant autem, hanc fuisse summam vel culpae suae vel erroris,
quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire, carmenque Christo,
quasi deo, dicere secum invicem.’—
Pliny,
Ep. x. 97.
[46]Eusebius:
Ecclesiastical History, x. 28 (Bohn’s translation).
[48]Confessions, ii. pp. vi., vii.
[49]Trench’s Sacred Latin Poetry, pp. 81, 82.
[50]‘Most old MSS. read
munerari. The common reading, “
in gloria numerari,” does not appear to be found in any MSS., but is in many (not all) printed editions of the Breviary from about 1491 onwards. Mr. Gibson suggests that it is not so much due to the natural confusion of letters as to the well-known words added by Gregory the Great to the canon of the Mass
in electorum tuorum jubeas grege numerari.’—
Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 1121.
[51]Cf. Pss. xxxiii. 22; xxxi. 1; lxxi. 1 (P.B.V. & R.V.).
[52]Hutton’s English Saints, p. 208.
[53]The Sarum Breviary reads,
Et nox fidei luceat.
[54]Mone’s Hymni Latini, i. 381.
[56]Church Hymns, 586, Cædmon, Tr. R. M. Moorsom; 212, Bede, Tr. C. S. Calverly.
[57]Coverdale’s Remains (Parker Society, 1846). The original is a German hymn beginning
Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ. Miss Winkworth, in her
Chorale Book, described it as anonymous, but Julian ascribes it to Johannes Agricola (1492-1566). Miss Winkworth’s translation begins, ‘Lord, hear the voice of my complaint,’ Rev. A. Tozer-Russell’s, ‘Lord, Jesus Christ, I cry to Thee.’
[58]Miller’s Singers and Songs of the Church.
[59]‘We mention the name of Clement Marot, important here chiefly
for the influence he might have had. For he translated the Psalms
into French verse, put them to tunes, and set the Court singing them.
Let us think for a moment what England owes to those sweet and
simple hymns which it is our godly fashion to sing in the churches
and in the homes from earliest childhood, and which form a link to
connect our religion with our daily life. Let us only try to think
what we should be without these. And then give praise to Marot, for
it was he who gave to France what should have been the foundation
and beginning of a national book of praise and service of song, had
not the bigots, the stupid mischievous bigots, stopped the singing
because they pretended to see heresy in the words—David’s words.
And France is without hymns to this day.’—
Besant’s Essays and
Historiettes, ‘The Failure of the French Reformation,’ p. 78.
[60]A full and interesting account of the Old Version is given in
Julian. Holland’s notices of these writers are also good.
[61]Wode or
wood, Anglo-Saxon = mad, violent.
[62]‘This literary curiosity occurs at the end of a book entitled,
A godly Medytacion of the Christian Soule, &c., compyled in Frenche, by Lady Margarite, Quene of Naverre. This psalm is reprinted in Park’s edition of
The Royal and Noble Authors of Great Britain.’—
Farr’s Select Poetry of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (Parker Society), 1835.
[63]Pight = pitched, laid.
[64]This hymn appeared in Bickersteth’s
Christian Psalmody in three verses, of which Miller says, ‘two stanzas bear no resemblance’ to Sandys’s original. The
Methodist Hymn-book cento is much nearer to Sandys, though it has many variations.
[65]Farr’s Select Poetry of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. The poem has ten verses. Most are unsuited for congregational use, as may be judged from the following lines:—
The carrion crow, that loathsome beast,
Which cries against the rain,
Both for her hue and for the rest
The devil resembleth plain:
And as with guns we kill the crow,
For spoiling our relief,
The devil so must we o’erthrow
With gunshot of belief.
[66]Palgrave’s Treasury of Sacred Song, p. 333. Palgrave gives five of his poems.
[67]Condor gives three verses, but the third is very inferior to
these. The two I quote are included by Professor Palgrave and
Mr. Quiller-Couch in their anthologies. Conder apparently did
not know the author’s name. He took the verses from an ‘old collection.’
[68]From a MS. in the British Museum. Cf. the very full and interesting article in
Julian, p. 580.
[69]Life of Ken, ii. p. 201.
[70]Altered later to ‘I wake, I wake.’
[71]Altered to ‘void of.’
[72]Plumptre’s Life of Ken, vol. ii. p. 268.
[73]Plumptre’s Life of Ken, vol. ii. p. 288.
[74]Christian Psalmist, Preface, xviii.
[75]Preface to Austin’s
Devotions, Edinburgh, 1789.
[76]Dictionary of Hymnology, Article: ‘Roman Catholic Hymnody.’
[79]I quote Austin’s text. Wesley’s changes do not improve it.
[80]This hymn is from the
Office for Monday Lauds.
[81]From
Farr’s Select Poetry of the Reign of James I.
[82]Presbyterian Hymnal, 531.
[83]Ken’s hymn for St. Matthew’s Day was edited by Bishop
Walsham How, and in that form appears in
Hymns Ancient and
Modern, and in
Church Hymns.
[84]Worship Song, 15;
School Hymns, 6.
[85]There is a good sketch of Wither in Willmott’s
Lives of the
Sacred Poets, and an excellent biographical introduction by Mr. Edward
Farr in
The Hymns and Songs of the Church (Library of Old Authors).
Both these volumes give striking portraits, the latter one of the poet
in his twenty-first year, surrounded by the punning motto, ‘I grow
and wither both together.’
[86]Barton did not always reach so high a level. One of his versions of the ‘Te Deum’ is in this fashion—
The blest Apo-
stles glorious company,
Do praise Thy ho-
ly Name continually.
[88]The best illustration is the hymn beginning
Saviour, if Thy precious love,
Could be merited by mine.
No. 37 in the first edition of Wesley’s Hymns, No. 24 in the last. I am sorry it was omitted from the Methodist Hymn-book.
[89]There is a delightful chapter on George Herbert in Lady McDougall’s
Songs of the Church.
[90]Introductory Essay, by
J. H. Shorthouse, to Unwin’s facsimile
reprint of
The Temple.
[91]Julian, ‘Psalters, English,’ p. 919.
[92]The story of the Scotch psalms and paraphrases I must leave.
It is well told in outline in
Julian. The Scotch version has few
literary or poetic graces, but it has held the heart and guided the
mind of many generations, to whom it has been infinitely more precious
than the smoother and more poetic verses of Addison, Heber, and
Keble could ever be.
[93]This small witticism was repeated by Romaine in the preface to
his
Treatise on Psalmody, though he had the good sense to strike it
out of his second edition, at the request, it is said, of Lady Huntingdon.
[94]Preface to
Christian Psalmist.
[95]Treasury of Sacred Song, p. 349.
[96]Watts has been unfortunate in his biographers. Mr. Paxton
Hood’s book is lively and interesting, but its style is amazingly
slovenly. Here is a curious sentence: ‘His daughter and sole
heiress, Margaret, married Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, so the estate
descended to the Howard family, and became the Duke’s place; he
lost his head; passing to his eldest son, he sold it in 1592 to the
mayor, corporation, and citizens of London.’ The writer adds,
naïvely, ‘This is a singular piece of history’ (p. 55).
[97]Julian, Article: ‘Congregational Hymnody.’
[98]Preface to
Psalms. Dr. Martineau justified his own editing of
Watts’s hymns by this sentence. ‘Every adaptation of a Jewish
psalm to Christian worship affords an instance of theological adaptation;
and the same rule which is applied to Dr. Watts’s hymns when
their Trinitarianism is expelled, Watts himself has systematically
applied to David’s writings, in reforming and spiritualizing their
Judaism.’—Preface to
Hymns for the Christian Church and Home.
[100]One of Wesley’s Communion hymns begins—
Come to the supper, come,
Sinners, there still is room.
[101]The hymn has seven verses. It is given with slight alterations, and the omission of one verse in Barrett’s
Congregational Church Hymnal, 497.
[102]Henry Ward Beecher included this song in his
Plymouth Collection.
[104]The Training of the Twelve, p. 24.
[105]‘Joseph Hart,’ by the late Rev. B. A. Gregory, M.A.,
City Road
Magazine, December 1876.
[106]Poems by
Theodosia, vol. ii. (1780).
[107]Often begins in hymn-books with the third verse, ‘And O
[Father] whate’er of earthly bliss.’
[109]Telford’s Charles Wesley, p. 245.
[110]Cf.
Lightfoot’s Colossians, i. 27, iii. 16.
[111]Green’s History of the English People.
[112]Short Hymns, 2 Tim. i. 7.
[113]Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739).
[114]Church Hymns (1903), Preface.
[115]This verse is from the ‘hymn on my conversion,’ mentioned by C. Wesley in his
Journal, May 23, 1738. It was written at Mr. Bray’s, Little Britain. Five verses are in the
Methodist Hymn-book, 358.
[116]Watts wrote ‘very.’ ‘Every’ is Wesley’s emendation.
[117]I quote the following verse as an illustration: in doing so there is no risk of spoiling a hymn dear to anybody:—
Exempted from the general doom,
The death which all are born to know;
Enoch obtained his heavenly home
By faith, and disappeared below.
[118]Reprinted by Pickering in 1868 as ‘Bishop Ken’s
Christian Year.’
[119]These hymns are in
Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739). The Epiphany hymn is in
Church Hymns, 115, with alterations.
[120]Cf.
Paradise Lost, bk. 1.
That with reiterated crimes, he might
Heap on himself damnation.
I cannot refrain from saying how much I regret the omission of this hymn from the Methodist Hymn-book. It is retained by the American Methodist Episcopal, Primitive Methodist, and others, though the Primitive Methodist most unfortunately changes ‘flaming’ into ‘loving’ eyes in verse 3, apparently overlooking the reference to ‘His eyes were as a flame of fire.’
[121]Hymns on the Lord’s Supper, by John and Charles Wesley, presbyters of the Church of England. With a preface concerning the Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice, extracted from Dr. Brevint, Bristol. Printed by Felix Farley,
M DCC XLV.
[122]Canon
Carter’s Altar Hymnal has eight of Wesley’s hymns. He
also ascribes to C. Wesley Miss Leeson’s translation of
Victimae
Paschali.
‘Christ, the Lord, is risen to-day,’
Christians, haste your vows to pay.
[123]The whole book was reprinted, in 1871, with Wesley’s
Companion
for the Altar (extracted from
Thomas à Kempis), and an Introduction
by Mr. W. E. Dutton, under the title,
The Eucharistic Manuals of John
and Charles Wesley. Mr. Dutton’s design was to show that ‘the
Wesleys held opinions and taught doctrines now known as Catholic,
yet far in advance of the times in which they lived, and very different
from the doctrines taught by that body of men now called by their
name.’ I may also mention another interesting book, now out of print,
Mr. Warrington’s
Echoes of the Prayer-book in Wesley’s Hymns.
[125]Methodist Hymn-book, 729.
[126]Hymns Ancient and Modern, 553.
Altar Hymnal, 151.
[127]Cf. ‘And here we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves,
our souls and bodies;’ with verse iv., ‘Take my soul and
body’s powers,’
Methodist Hymn-book, 562.
[128]‘The ordinary position of the ‘Gloria in Excelsis’ in ancient
liturgies was at the beginning, not at the end of the office. It so
stood in our own Liturgy down to 1552, when it was placed at the
end of the service.... It may be truly said that there is no Liturgy
in the world which has so solemn and yet so magnificent a conclusion
as our own.’—
Proctor and
Maclear’s Introduction to the Book of
Common Prayer.
[129]Tyerman’s Whitefield, vol. i. p. 465.
[130]Poetical Works, vol. iii.
[131]Tyerman’s Whitefield, vol. i. p. 478.
[132]The hymn has seventeen verses, some of which are, as Whitefield says, ‘very bad.’
Methodist Hymn-book, 65.
[133]Wesley Poetry, vol. iii. p. 60.
[135]Poetical Works, vol. iii. p. 78;
Methodist Hymn-book, 435.
[136]Tyerman’s Wesley’s Designated Succession, vol. i. p. 88, 89.
[137]Cf.
Tyerman’s Wesley and
Horne’s History of the Free Churches.
[138]Poetical Works, vol. iv. p. 446.
[139]Ibid., vol. iii. p. 23.
[140]Poetical Works, vol. iii. p. 21.
[141]Ibid., vol. iii. p. 73.
[142]Telford’s Charles Wesley, p. 245.
[143]Poetical Works, vol. v. p. 133.
[144]Methodist Hymn-book, 366. Wesley himself closed this hymn with Ken’s doxology.
[146]I am inclined to think there is a reference here to the
ἀγρἁμματοί καὶ ἰδιῶται of Acts iv. 13.
[147]Trench’s Notes on the Parables.
[148]Charles Wesley wrote
favour. John Wesley improved both the sense and sound by changing the word to
mercy.
[149]Poetical Works, vol. x. p. 57. Charles Wesley wrote
bleeds; the change to
grieves was made in John Wesley’s hymn-book.
[150]Poetical Works, vol. i. p. 50.
[151]Hymns and Sacred Poems (1749);
Poetical Works, vol. v. p. 306.
[152]Wesley included forty-nine hymns under the heading, ‘For
Believers Groaning for Full Redemption,’ and twenty-six under the
heading, ‘Believers Brought to the Birth.’ These sections were,
later, united under the title, ‘Seeking for Full Redemption.’ The
Methodist Hymn-book has forty-four, of which thirty-seven are Charles
Wesley’s, three translations by John Wesley, two by Miss Havergal,
one by Dr. Bonar, and one by T. Monod.
[153]Methodist Hymn-book, 905.
[155]The hymn, ‘When quiet in my house I sit,’
Methodist Hymn-book, 264, is made up of Nos. 300-303 in the
Short Poems.
[157]Julian, p. 478, thinks that Bakewell wrote a very small portion
of this hymn. Some readers will be interested to know that more
than thirty years ago a great-grandson of John Bakewell’s was selling
newspapers in the streets of a town in the North of England—friendless,
homeless, ragged, and in delicate health. He came to The
Children’s Home, and grew up worthy of his remote ancestors. He
became an architect, and did some excellent work, but died in early
manhood of consumption.
[159]See
Wright’s Town of Cowper.
[160]John Wesley was very indignant at the refusal of ordination to
John Newton, but was probably too loyal to the Church to suggest
his becoming a Methodist preacher.—
Journal, March 20, 1760.
[161]It was to the first Lord Dartmouth that Ken, on the recommendation
of Pepys, became chaplain in the Tangier Expedition of 1683.
His character may be judged from a letter, in which he writes that
he has ‘to answer to God for the preservation of so many souls He
hath been pleased to place under my care.’—
Plumptre’s Life of Ken.
[162]Hazlitt’s English Poets, p. 123.
[164]Wesley’s Journal, May 25, 1750.
[165]Tyerman’s Whitefield, ii. 174.
[166]Julian, p. 681, gives the three versions.
[167]Julian, p. 971. The three-verse cento, dear to Methodists, is slightly varied from that of Thomas Cotterill, of Sheffield.
[168]In early hymn-books there is often confusion between Wesley
and Toplady. At the end of his reprint of
Toplady’s Poetical
Remains, Sedgwick gives a list of seventeen hymns of Charles Wesley’s,
attributed to Toplady.
[169]Elvet Lewis’s Sweet Singers of Wales, p. 29.
[170]Lewis’s Sweet Singers, ch. iii. There are other Welsh singers included in this little book who deserve to be more widely known, but my limited space does not allow further quotation.
[171]Smith’s Heber, p. 84.
[172]It is curious how widespread the fear of Methodism was. Crabbe added to his beautiful and touching lines, beginning
Pilgrim, burthened with thy sin,
Come the way to Zion’s gate,
a note explaining that it had been suggested to him that ‘this change
from restlessness to repose in the mind of Sir Eustace is wrought by
a Methodistic call.’ He protests, however, that ‘though evidently
enthusiastic in respect to language,’ they ‘are not meant to convey
any impropriety of sentiment.’
[174]This was written in 1825, two years before the publication of
Heber’s
Hymns and of the
Christian Year.
[175]Barry’s Newman, pp. 51, 52.
[176]John Ellerton, p. 185.
[177]Lyte wrote some verses, ‘The Dying Christian to his Soul,’ which are in a much more triumphant strain, but they are not equal to Toplady’s poem.
[178]Holy Year, xi. Dr. Wordsworth was then (1862) Canon of Westminster.
[179]‘Conversation of an hour and a half with Anstice on practical
religion, particularly as regards our own situation. I bless and praise
God for his presence here.’—
Morley’s Gladstone, vol. i. pp. 55, 56.
[180]It is omitted from the
Methodist Hymn-book. It was No. 990 in
the former book, and is in the Presbyterian (469) and Baptist (641).
[181]This hymn is not in
Hymns Ancient and Modern, but it is in
Church Hymns, Presbyterian, Baptist, Congregational, Horder’s, Primitive Methodist, and many other hymn-books.
[182]Westminster Abbey Hymn-book, 288;
Young People’s Hymnal, 161.
[183]Michael Bruce’s ‘Ode to the Cuckoo.’
[184]Preface to
Poems, p. xviii.
[185]The hymn has seven verses,
Poems, p. 59.
[186]Methodist Hymn-book, 520.
[187]Congregational Hymnal, 127;
Baptist Hymnal, 128.
[188]The last lines differ from the usual version. The change was made by Professor Palgrave himself, and, at his wish, the verse was given in this form in the
Young People’s Hymnal.
[189]The Household of Faith, p. 8.
[190]‘The Church, Dissent, and Nation,’
National Review, July 1903.
[191]This lecture was delivered in Sheffield.
[192]Cf.
Church Hymnary (Presbyterian),
Church Hymns (S.P.C.K.),
Westminster Abbey Hymn-book.
[193]The most important of these is in the last line. Montgomery
wrote first, ‘His name—what is it? Love.’ He was, of course, dissatisfied
with this anti-climax, and altered the line to ‘That name to
us is Love.’ But the change in
Hymns Ancient and Modern (said to
be Keble’s) is a great improvement, ‘His changeless name of Love.’
It is remarkable that Montgomery did not include this hymn in his
Christian Psalmist.
[194]He made a most unpoetic recast of Wesley’s ‘All ye that pass by’;
but in the Index he is too honest to give Wesley’s name, and (I
presume) had too much self-respect to give his own. Many alterations
in hymns make one sympathize with Miss Ailie’s notice, ‘Persons
who come to steal the fruit are requested not to walk on the flower-beds’
(
Barrie’s Sentimental Tommy).
[195]A verse of this hymn is omitted in the
Methodist Hymn-book.
The hymn is, I think, improved by the omission.
Silent Spirit, dwell with me,
I myself would quiet be;
Quiet as the growing blade
Which through earth its way has made;
Silently, like morning light,
Putting mists and chills to flight.
[196]This hymn is usually rearranged in our hymn-books. Our first
verse is sixth in the original.
[197]The only collection in which, so far as I know, this hymn has
been included, is the
Young People’s Hymnal. It is an excellent
school-hymn.
[198]Our Own Hymn-book, 41. The hymn has six verses. The
Baptist Hymnal gives a hymn of Spurgeon’s for an early morning prayer-meeting (633).
[199]This verse is given in Horder’s
Worship-Song ad in the
Primitive Methodist Hymn-book.
[200]Hymns of Faith and Hope. First Series.
[201]Arundel Hymns. Tr. Father O’Connor from the Latin—
Angelus ad Virginem
Subintrans in conclave
Virginis formidinem
Demulcens inquit, Ave!
[202]Crashaw’s English Poems (Tutin’s edition), vol. ii. 60. I have made two slight changes to suit the metre or indicate the connexion of thought. The poem has fifty-six lines.
[203]Julian, p. 975 (‘R. C. Hymnody’).
[204]Faber’s Hymns, Preface.
[206]A Collection of Hymns of the Children of God in all Ages, From the
Beginning till Now. In Two Parts. Designed chiefly for the Use of the
Congregations in union with the Brethren’s Church. London. Printed,
and to be had at all the Brethren’s Chapels.
M DCC LIV.