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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VII. THE HYMNS OF THE OXFORD MOVEMENT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter XVIII
AMERICAN HYMNODY

I. THE TRANSITION FROM PSALMODY TO HYMNODY

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

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

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

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

II. THE INTRODUCTION OF WATTS’ HYMNS

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

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

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

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

III. THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN HYMNODY

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

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

The other verses are equally good, if not superior.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IV. COLLECTIONS OF AMERICAN HYMNS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

V. EPISCOPAL HYMN WRITERS

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

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

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

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

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

VI. UNITARIAN HYMNODY

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

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

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

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

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

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

Especially that last verse of unshaken faith:

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

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

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

VII. LATER ORTHODOX HYMN WRITERS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE SINGING CHURCH

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?