Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

on God, on that powerful and eternal God, impartial Judge of human actions, irrefutable witness of the greatness of the decline of empires.

With the knowledge of our suffering, may he put into the hearts of our brothers the conviction of the remedy! And may we, under his auspices, give, as did the people of America during their War of Rebellion, the example of the uprising of a great people. Let us ask of genuine Christianity the secret, less material than moral, of these sudden uprisings. With a common heart let us devote ourselves to the work of deliverance. Let us struggle with all our weapons to wrest our country from the detestable yoke of clericalism. Our children's children will then some day place on the façade of our ancient temples, purged of idols and given up to the worship of the Most High, that sentence which Rabelais had inscribed on the portal of his temple of the will: "Enter, and establish here the true faith."

ART. VII. THE REVISED METHODIST HYMNAL. By the revised Methodist Hymnal is meant the collection of hynins made and set to music by the Committee of Fifteen, appointed by the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church under authority imparted by the General Conference held in Baltimore in 1876-a Committee selected from the eastern, middle and western sections of the Church, in view of their estimated efficiency and adaptability for the task.

SUCCESSIVE REVISIONS.

This revision of the standard hymnic manual is the sixth that has been made since the introduction of Methodism into the United States of America. The first American hymn book was used for eleven years, the second for twenty-four years, the third for twelve years, the fourth for twenty-one years, the fifth-now supplanted by the completed work of the revisershas been in use for twenty-nine years. Thus the average age of each revision is less than twenty years.

Churchly experience forbids the expectation entertained by

the five Bishops who signed the address prefixed to the revision of 1849, that another will not be required for "generations to come." The "generations to come" will, doubtless, provide for their own lyrical needs. The business of the General Conference, and of the Committee appointed under its auspices, was to provide for the wants of the present generation. This they have done to the best of their ability. Neither time, nor labor, nor careful thought has been spared in the preparation of as perfect a thesaurus of sacred lyrics as the size of a convenient and portable volume will allow.

REASONS FOR THE SIXTH REVISION.

Every book, and every revision of a book, ought to have a raison d'etre, a sufficient justification for its existence. Especially is this true of hymnic revisions. Changed conditions, new necessities, enlarged demands, warranted all former alterations, and amply vindicate the one just accomplished. The fifth revision, though nominally the joint work of the Revs. D. Dailey, J. B. Alverson, J. Floy, D. Patten, Jun., and F. Merrick, with whom were associated Messrs. R. A. West and D. Cramer-author of the excellent work entitled, "Methodist Hymnology"—was mainly the product of Dr. Floy's tireless energy and assiduous application. Nor is it any disparagement to the labors of one so noble and gifted that many believed the volume, as it left his hands, contained grave imperfections and defects. They contended that, however grand and beautiful as poems some of the included compositions may be, they are none the less unsuited to the demands of public worship. Though favorites for private devotion, they are ineffective as instruments of praise and prayer by the great congregation. The peculiarly difficult metrical structure of many condemns them as unavailable. Others are destitute of special merit. Again, some are purely didactic and comparatively void of devotional spirit, while others include expressions repugnant to good taste and objectionable to judicious criticism. 449. "Me, in my blood, thy love pass'd by, And stopp'd my ruin to retrieve;

Wept o'er my soul thy pitying eye;

Thy bowels yearn'd, and sounded,—Live! "

has been repeatedly adduced as a glaring example.

Another class is composed of commonplace hymns that have every-where failed to win popular favor, and are rarely used as vehicles of religious thought and aspiration. Yet others are so closely akin in thought, style, and diction, that some may wisely be spared to afford room for others of equal merit, varied character, and wider adaptation. Keen scent for doctrinal heresy also detected, or thought it detected, unsoundness in some of Charles Wesley's hymns, probably written before Moravian instrumentality led him out of lifeless formalism into the light and liberty of the children of God. His baptismal hymn, No. 258, must have been composed under the influence of his faith in baptismal regeneration-an unscriptural tenet, energetically repudiated by John Wesley, and no less thoroughly by his disciples. If the prayer embodied in that hymn,

"Make the unconscious lepers clean,"

conscientiously expressed Charles Wesley's convictions as to their moral state, it certainly contrasts strongly with the words of the Lord Jesus: "Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Honest objections were raised to the statement in hymn 397:

"Ne'er was a heart more base

And false than mine has been;
More faithless to its promises,-
More prone to every sin."

Can every one truthfully sing these lines? They give utterance to feelings of deepest self-humiliation and contrition; but are they in harmony with literal fact? Such questioners would fain restrict the poet's license, and force him to sing within the bounds of mathematical precision. From their stand-point this and kindred verses do seem to "lean too much toward Calvinism." They do not wholly harmonize with the doctrines of Scripture, or with those of evangelically Arminian theology. Hymn 1006 "leans too much" in the opposite direction-toward Universalism :

"Rejoice, ye that love him; his power cannot fail;

His omnipotent goodness shall surely prevail;

The triumph of evil will shortly be past,
And omnipotent mercy shall conquer at last."

This is a glowing and spirited quatrain; but it is heterodox. It implies the ultimate annihilation of all moral evil, and the restoration of all intelligent beings to holiness and happiness, and therefore ought to be extruded.

"Imperfect in what it comprises, the hymn book is also defective in what it does not comprise. Where are the hymns for charitable objects, for foreign and home missions, for temperance and social reforms? True, there are some, but they are inadequate in number and quality. Where, too, are the grand old hymns of the ages, made accessible to us within the past twenty years by the translations of Neale, Caswall, Stanley, and Charles? Where are the touching lyrics of Faber, of Elliott, of many modern singers in God's spiritual Israel? The Methodist collection ought to include these, but does not."

All these reasons were repeatedly and forcibly urged to induce the General Conference to provide for another revision. Nor were additional arguments wanting. The Hymn-Tune Book, issued by the Book Concern, failed to win popular favor. Enterprising pastors, willing to profit by its fickle gales, compiled ephemeral collections, and used them in social and public worship. Pushing publishers, also, competed with the standard manual, and, where successful, not infrequently introduced heterodoxy tenfold more dangerous than all Charles Wesley's lapses put together, besides vitiating the poetical taste of the people. We speak of these things as in the past. They are extant now. Lyrically, or hymnically, the Methodist Episcopal Church is demoralized to an extent that would call down the heartiest denunciations of John Wesley, and of St. Paul too, could they enter upon a fresh tour of episcopal supervision. Denominational purity, uniformity, efficiency, and progress, all unite in imperative demand for a revised Hymnal, a demand which the one just perfected is held by the Board of Bishops, who have unanimously indorsed it, to amply supply.

CHARACTER OF THE NEW HYMNAL.

If the revised Hymnal be not the best extant, it is because the Committee were not capable of constructing it. It does not satisfy the ideal conceptions of any one member, nor of any one class in the Church. If it did, the very satisfaction would condemn it as an ecumenical failure; for it ought to

meet the intellectual and moral necessities of all classes, from the élite of metropolitan society, to the emancipates of the rice swamps and cotton plantations. In order to this the needs and tastes of every section of the country were diligently ascertained by the Committee. No source of information was neglected. Conference associates, correspondents, Church papers, were anxiously consulted. Exemption from one-sided criticism is more than can reasonably be anticipated by those acquainted with human nature.

Not unfrequently that one-sided criticism is perfectly sincere. That it is in any degree unjust is not an intentional fault of the critic. It is wholly due to a want of personal acquaintance with the difficulties of the subject. The Committee have selected the best temperance hymns they could find, and embodied them in the Hymnal. That they have not inserted more, and of better and more inspiring quality, is due to their inability to find such hymns, although they sought for them with most painstaking care. The temperance reform has inspired the grandest oratory, the most moving eloquence, but has hitherto failed to impart the poetic afflatus in measure requisite to the production of immortal or universally popular lyrics.

Some may inquire why the Committee did not insert such a collection of popular hymns and choruses as would insure the introduction of the Hymnal into all our Sunday-schools and social meetings. It has inserted such a collection as ought to insure such introduction, and the universal use of the Hymnal for a long period, at least. This is all that any collection of popular hymns and choruses has ever effected, or can effect. Had the Committee inserted as many ephemeral compositions as the best of the thirty-cent manuals contain, the book would have been incumbered with what, in two or three years at longest, would have been antiquated and worn out. Another revision would have been imperatively demanded in less than five years.

Popular favorites in the shape of new hymns, ditties, choruses, and tunes, are almost invariably passing fugitives. They tarry but a while, and then pass from affection and memory into practical oblivion. The demand for "Devotional Melodies," "Zion's Songsters," "Winnowed Hymns," "Hallowed Songs," "Chautauqua Carols," and the whole family of

« ZurückWeiter »