held, this is the original), and to us through translations made at the period, and found the English of Miss Winkworthin the Primers of 1545 and 1559, from the latter of which the following Morning Hymn is taken : "Fear not, O little flock, the foe; and to two hymns, not without considerable merit, one by Spegel, Archbishop of Upsala, 1714, the other by Franzén, Bishop of Hernösand, 1818. The author tells also of a "fresh stream of song" now flowing in Sweden “in a language which combines the homely strength of the German with the liquid music of the Italian." But to proceed on our course. In the rise of English hymns we find a remarkable illustration of the difference of character between the German Reformation and our own. In Germany the whole movement came from the middle and lower "Ales diei nuntius. "The bird of day Messenger «Upon Jesus let us cry, Weeping, praying, soberly, Life and grace into us pour. Amen." It appears, then, that even if unlicensed singing was used-and some think it was during the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., it was to a very trifling extent; and at any rate, those who might refuse to indulge their love of singing at the expense of obedience were left without hymns till the reign of Elizabeth. And even then Psalms of David, by Sternhold, Hopkins, they obtained only a metrical version of the and others, which was published in 1562, and received the permissive authorization hold for the task-which, considering his of the Queen. The qualifications of Sterntimes, were not to be despised, including, as they did, a knowledge of the original of the King's Bedchamber; yet at the same Hebrew-are rather surprising in a Groom time, or perhaps rather earlier, Clement Marot, holding a corresponding office in the court of Francis I., executed a similar classes, and was only afterwards taken up by secular princes, and not at all by the hierarchy: consequently, its leaders had to assume the guidance and furtherance of it as best they could, and to make way with weapons of their own making: and one of the most obvious means of grafting their doctrines on the masses was by giving them ready formulas in hymns. In our case, on the contrary, royal and political difficulties first blew into a flame the smouldering discontent; kings, therefore, and chancellors, archbishops and bishops, were its ruling agents: the people's grievances were considered, but their support and their consent were not needed; their feelings, therefore, were checked rather than roused, and very little was done for them at first beyond giving them the prayers and lessons in English. This, instead of increasing, rather diminished the popular element in public worAfter this first attempt to versify the ship, as it took away the Latin hymns and Psalms, for a very long period all the enerdid not replace them by others. Why they gies of England's sacred poets seem to have not translated with the prayers-been expended upon a succession of new whether because there were no poets (Stern- versions. hold and Hopkins forgive us!), or because within ten years printed his, but it was Archbishop Matthew Parker questions of doctrine and discipline engrossed all attention, or whether hymns I. was found at his death to have versified never published. The versatile King James were thought of no consequence, we cannot tell. This, however, is clear, that, the old channels of devotional poetry being shut off with the Latin hymns, our forefathers were left stranded, if we may so say, on the dry land of prose; and patiently they seem to have borne it. Cranmer gave up, and no one else undertook, the task of translating the old hymns; and it was well left undone, if we may judge from the specimens of were work in French. the whole Psalter, and his son Charles published and authorized it for use; Sir Philip Sidney and his sister the Countess of Pembroke about 1580; Francis Rouse in 1641; William Barton in 1654; Tate and Watts in 1719; Sir Richard Blackmore * in Brady in 1696; Dr. Patrick in 1715; Dr. * with an asterisk have been by some sort of authorBeside Sternhold's version, all those marked ity" allowed to be used in churches." * 1721; Archdeacon Churton ("the Cleve- angels and he now sing in heaven." Still land Psalter"); two anonymous translators almost every hymn of this period is excluded -one in Oxford, the other in Cambridge- from modern Hymn-books by the compliand Mr. Cayley, among living writers, and others, to the number of thirty-two in all, have taken in hand the task-confessed by more than one of them at the outset to be impossible of making an entire metrical Psalter. Besides these, the attempts, many of them very successful, to versify detached Psalms, are beyond number. † cated metres which were then in vogue, or "Throw away thy rod, Take the gentle path."-The Temple, 151. But to return, in search of original hymnwriters or translators of hymns; one of Sternhold's coadjutors, John Mardley (others say Sternhold himself, "in a moment of un- The nation was not yet weary of Sternusual inspiration "), wrote the well-known hold's Psalms, and there was therefore no "Lamentation of a Sinner," generally demand for hymns, except as aids to private printed with the Old and New Versions. meditation, and of such we find plenty; for The metrical Psalms, however, seem to sacred poetry flourished very especially in have monopolized all the talent for hym- those times, and rather later, in the writnography during Elizabeth's reign; for in a Collection of Sacred Poetry of that time, published by the Parker Society, there are very few other pieces written for singing, and none of them calling for special notice. Vaughan, Francis Quarles, and others, kept Bishop Cosin has given us in his Book of up the succession, but more as poets than as Devotions both translations of Latin hymns hymn-writers. (very little better than those in the Primers) and original hymns, of which the following is a fair example :— And saying sing forever, Blest be my Lord ing of George Sandys, Browne, Crashaw, Giles Fletcher, and the great Milton; and during the Protectorate, Bishop Jeremy Taylor in his retreat at Lord Carbery's, Henry Neither the supremacy of the Puritans, nor the return of the Stuarts, seems to have been favorable to the rise of Hymnology. In the first it received a direct blow from the general overthrow of the Church, and the introduction of Scotch paraphrases and John Knox's Psalms from over the Border; and in the second it probably found too little encouragement from the dissolute spirit of the times to enable it to recover from its depression. For so completely had the Puritans silenced Church music, and crushed it out, that at the Restoration it was found necessary to bring over a choir from Paris to conduct the services in the King's Chapel.* In 1668, John Austin, a bencher of Lincoln's Inn (whose brother William also had published his "Devotionis Austinianæ Flamina" That did my soul deliver. Amen." During the early part of the reign of Charles I. lived and wrote George Wither, in the last reign), published his well-known and that sweet singer of the Temple, Master Devotions after the way of Antient Of-; George Herbert, whose whole life was melfices." They contain, besides prayers, a ody, and "who sung on earth," says his biographer, "such hymns and anthems as the great number of "Psalms" of his own composing, after the model of those of David, * Now known to be the author of the "Chris- in the same musical prose; of which Dr. Orton says, that "such noble and sublime strains of devotion are not to be met with anywhere else but in the Bible ; " and placed at tian Year." Holland in his "Psalmists of Britain" gives "Records Biographical and Literary" of upwards of one hundred and fifty authors who rendered the whole or parts of the Book of Psalms into English verse. *Newland," Confirmation Lectures." own, intervals are also metrical hymns, mostly his of great beauty and still greater fervor, such as might be expected from one so transported with the love of his Maker as to welcome his approaching death with the repeated exclamation, "Satiabor, Satiabor, cum apparebit gloria tua ;" and to meet it when it came with the cry, "Now, heartily for heaven through Jesus Christ." One hymn of this period which deserves more favor than compilers in general have conferred upon it is that of the celebrated Richard Baxter : "Lord, it is not for us to care Whether we live or die." The saintly Bishop Ken was the only other whose hymns, written in this century, have formed for themselves any position among us; and of these, few are familiar with any besides his Morning and Evening Hymns, suggested, it is thought, by the memory of the "Jam lucis orto sidere" of St. Ambrose, which, as a Winchester boy, he had been accustomed to sing in the college, and to which his hymns certainly bear some affinity descend to praise, but not to adopt. The prolific yield of hymns which followed this first opening, and increased tenfold with the Wesleyan revival, has been already spoken of in its bearing upon collections now in use in the Church; but there are some features in the rise and character of these hymns worthy of further remark. The multitude not only of hymns but of writers was marvellous. Independent of the labors of those unwearied Sisyphi who persisted one after another in the impossible task of versifying the Psalter, the number of original writers who put into the treasury of sacred rhyme, some their mites, but more their shekels, if not "talents," from the time when the Wesleys first moved, in 1739, to the time of their deaths, about fifty years afterwards, cannot be less, and is probably much more, than two hundred. Of course, the gold is scarce; but there are some exceedingly fine contributions to be picked out; and, considering the very narrow range of thought, which Mr. Montgomery attributes to "a predilection for certain views of the Gospel," their want of variety is not surprising. "The high calling of Methodism," writes one of their euFor the first fifty years after the Revolu- logists, " is experimental religion. To depict tion the cold and worldly spirit which pre- experimental religion was the high calling vailed was calculated to stunt rather than of the bard of Methodism." This title beassist the growth of original Church poetry. longs par excellence to Charles Wesley, but The old version of the Psalms, however, was the above statement will apply to all their beginning to loose its hold, and King Wil- hymn-writers. It was this personal and subliam's chaplain and poet laureate, after a jective side of the Gospel which they strove sharp struggle, obtained the mastery for to bring into prominence by their hymns; their" New Version." But still the Church and this is curiously illustrated by Mr. Burproduced scarcely anything original; the gess, though unconsciously, in his "Wes"Court" approved of "Tate and Brady," leyan Hymnology," where he expresses his and the Church was content: with the ex-gratitude to the writers, for that "he has ception of Addison's well-known "When all thy mercies, O my God," nothing occurs to us as having appeared at this time. Not so with the Nonconformists: hitherto they had patiently shared with Church people the infliction, by prescription, of the old Psalms; but Tate and Brady had dispelled the charm; and Isaac Watts, as we have already said, unfettered by any feelings of respect for court influence, struck the note of freedom at once with his Psalms and Hymns, which Bishop Compton and Dr. Johnson could con in character. He adopted Crashaw's translation of the "Lauda Zion." This book was "reformed" (for Austin was a Romanist) by Lady Hopetoun, and was afterwards edited more than once by Dean Hickes, who added several hymns of his own. often been instructed and admonished, reproved and stimulated, comforted and animated, while singing these songs of Zion." He measures a hymn by the same standard as he would a sermon, by its effects upon the feelings of the congregation; he does not look for-so does not miss-the "Dei" of S. Augustine's canon; it appears to be but a secondary part of the Methodist notion of a hymn, that it is a channel of praise from man to God. One consequence of this reflective character in these hymns is, that a large majority of them are written in the singular number, a thing consistent enough with this self-inspection by each person, but not with the united song of a congregation looking Godward; it is a sure mark of the a letter. "I can't go," he replied; "I am late date of a hymn, being a point in which writing a hymn." "You write a hymn, inthe moderns "a moribus Ecclesiæ antiqui- deed! nonsense! go with the letter, and I oris quam maxime abhorrent."* Even within will finish the hymn." He went, and rethe period of the Wesleyan movement this turned. The preacher had taken it up at deteriorating tendency to personal hymns is the third verse, and his muse had forsaken visible; for in the earlier publications of him at the eighth. "Give me the pen," John and Charles, especially in the "Sacra- said the porter, and wrote off:mental Hymns" (which, by the way, are so "high" in their doctrine that their followers now repudiate them), the hymns are much more congregational. They brought His chariot from above To bear Him to His throne, Clapped their triumphant wings, and cried, The glorious work is done."" In spite of these drawbacks English hym- But we must proceed. In the beginning of nology owes much to Wesleyanism, and not the present century the impetus of the Metha little to other denominations. To Dr. odist revival had expended itself; there was Watts we are indebted for that famous a lull, and then another stirring of the wahymn,—the language of which unhappily is ters, but this time chiefly within the Church as open to criticism as its spirit is above it, of England, by Bishop Heber, Dean Mil-"When I survey the wondrous cross; "man, Sir Robert Grant, Lyte, and Bishop and to another Calvinist, though a Churchman, Augustus Toplady, for "the most deservedly popular hymn; perhaps the very favorite very beautiful it is." For such is Dr. Pusey's encomium, quoted by Mr. Pearson, † upon the hymnt "Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee," etc. Dr. Doddridge, Cowper, and Newton, and other voluminous writers of different denominations, must not be forgotten, though their Mant. But to the last-named prelate we owe a change which has gone far to revolutionize our hymnology, though in a good direction. Here and there along the course we have been following since the Reformation we might have found isolated attempts to translate some choice Latin hymn; Crashaw, Drummond, Dryden, and Hickes had each contributed one or two; but Bishop Mant went a step further, and, taking the Roman Breviary, translated, with few excep number is too great for us to notice them tions, all that it contained. This leading individually. From the Wesleyans themselves, as represented in their "poetical Bible," as their collection has been called, compilers for the Church have drawn freely; no church in England probably has not resounded with the hymn of the Welsh blacksmith, Thomas Olivers, and its popular, but questionable, tune was followed with such zeal by Mr. Williams (who did the same by the Paris Breviary), by Mr. Copeland, Mr. Chandler, Dr. Pusey, Mr. Caswall, Mr. Wackerbarth, Mr. Blew, Dr. Neale, and many more, that there have been produced almost as many Anglo-Latin as new and original English hymns during the last thirty years. And here several curious reflections arise. This resuscitation of the Latin hymns coincided in time with the remarkable Church movement at Oxford, identified with the "Lo! He comes with clouds descending." Olivers also wrote the fine lyric stanzas beginning, "The God of Abraham praise; ""Tracts for the Times." As was the case and the origin of another hymn is traced to two brothers, also in a humble situation in life, the one an itinerant preacher, the other a porter, of whom the following story is told in reference to the composition of the hymn. The preacher desired the porter to carry him "Hymni Ecclesiæ," p. 243. It has been contested in favor of hymns in the first person that many of the Psalms of David are so written: this was satisfactorily answered by the writer of the Article in the Quarterly, July, 1828. "Oxford Essays," 1858. with the Wesleyan revival in the last century, so with this Church revival, it gave an unusual impulse to hymnology, leading to the conclusion that there is a peculiar aptitude in hymns on the one hand for giving expression to the religious feelings of the writer, and on the other for the propagation of those feelings among others. Again, the Oxford movement was to a great extent a counter-movement, not in the sense of an opposition, but a reaction, or rather re-ad justment; therefore, whereas the Wesleyans, | Churches of the Old World, still, we repeat, who sought new paths for themselves, sought we must never surrender our claim as true also new hymns of a new character, the Catholics to the common store of ChristenChurch party, who aimed at recovering the dom. Like Tennyson's Ulysses, we return old paths that had been lost, were naturally home to our Ithaca to feel led to take up the ancient hymns. The Wesleyan, again, with a predilection for the experimental side of Christianity, found the spiritual food most congenial to him in the ecstatic raptures of the Methodist hymns; the Churchman, on the contrary, restoring, perhaps unconsciously, the balance, by leaning more to the objective expression of truth, welcomed the calm narrative songs of primi tive and mediæval times. It is not meant by this that the productions of modern Church hymn-writers are exclusively translations; far from it: the names of Keble, Neale, Moultrie, Monsell, Alford, Archer Gurney, J. H. Gurney, are of themselves sufficient to vindicate the claim of the Church in these days to originality; but this may be said truly, that the study of the ancient models has had a marked influence on these modern hymns. Our own space and our reader's patience would fail us if we attempted to push out now into the Atlantic, and follow our emigrant hymn-writers in the New World, or even to dive into the recesses of the Scotch and Welsh glens; yet there they are to be found. The late venerable Bishop Doane, of New Jersey; the Rev. A. C. Coxe, of Baltimore; and Mr. Bullock, of Nova Scotia, are all claimants on our gratitude, for their hymns are found in several of our collections. From the Welsh Methodist, W. Williams, we have (a translation by him of his own Welsh original) the well-known missionary hymn, " O'er the gloomy hills of darkness," and "Shepherd of thine Israel, guide us." From Scotland we have Logan's "O God of Abraham, by whose hand," and several others; and the Kirk is largely supplied with her vigorous paraphrases. Our travels are over. We have spied out, not, we think, the nakedness, but the richness, of the lands. We have seen the works of the Anakim of sacred song; we have brought home of the grapes and pomegranates, not as thieves, but as having a right in them. Cut off though we be geographically from the rest of mankind, and separated, too, as to external communion, from the "I am a part of all that I have met." But with special reference to the practical purpose with which we set out-what is the feasibility of some regulation and amendment of our present condition? Assuming that it must be brought about by the preparation of an approved and authorized hymnbook, there is little doubt that good as well that it has given us time and opportunity to as bad has come of past delay, if it is only look round us. But it is not less certainas this hasty and superficial sketch will have shown-that our knowledge of the subject is yet far from ripe; even the materials that without much more revision and re-arrangenow lie within reach are rough and unfit, ment, to be worked up satisfactorily. conclusion to be drawn from all this as to the But let the English Church appreciate her position in this matter- -a position such as no Church ever held before for undertaking this work; let her lay the whole world under tribute; let her rejoice in being able to take as she will of the soft utterances of Asia, and the deep teaching of the Greek odes, the terse diction and subdued fire of the Latins, and the bold energy of the Germans, and to weld them together with the fervent raptures of those at home who have wandered from her fold, and the chastened devotion of her more dutiful children. It is a great work; it is a great opportunity; we cannot but long for its accomplishment; yet we dread a failure. There is just so much already at hand as to tempt us into action; there is just that amount of half-preparedness to make us act in haste, and repent at leisure. There is a proverb-and we would write it over this subject-" Wait a little, and make an end the sooner." It is unbecoming the dignity and high character of our Church to be ever making and unmaking her formulas; let her bishops and doctors then begin, if they will, at once, but with the determination to spare neither labor nor time, even if years pass away before they can with confidence lay before us a "Hymnarium" worthy of our history and our language; thoroughly consonant with the tone that the Church of our time may set to it and teaching of our Prayer-book; and such her seal, and hand it down to posterity, a Krua eiç deì to future generations, and a lasting monument of the present. |