[1]James Martineau, vol. ii. p. 99.
[2]Christian Year (Fifth Sunday in Lent).
[3]Ibid. (Preface).
[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.
[6]Ordained.
[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]??? t? t???? ?? ?????, ?a??? t? ’?s?f, ?d? p??? t?? ’?ss?????.
[13]Neh. ix. 5.
[14]Ps. xxii. 3 (R.V.), margin.
[15]Isa. lx. 18.
[16]Cf. Jer. xlix. 25.
[17]Cf. Eph. v. 20: e??a??st???te? p??t?te.
[18]Heb. xiii. 15.
[19]C. G. Rossetti.
[20]C. Wesley.
[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.
[37]Cheyne.
[38]Cheyne.
[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).
[47]Eusebius, vii. 24.
[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.
[55]Masters, 1852.
[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.’
[77]Arundel Hymns, 77.
[78]Poems (1872), p. 62.
[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.
[87]Religio Medici.
[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.
[99]Lives of the Poets.
[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.
[103]Julian, p. 831.
[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.’
[108]Julian, p. 332.
[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.
[124]Col. ii. 19.
[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.
[134]Works, vol. xiii.
[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.
[145]Cf. Phil. i. 9.
[146]I am inclined to think there is a reference here to the ????at?? ?a? ?d??ta? 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.
[154]Ibid., 88.
[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.
[156]Julian, p. 1149.
[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.
[158]Apologia.
[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.
[163]Supra, p. 111.
[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.’
[173]Advent Sunday.
[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.
[205]Arundel Hymns, 145.
[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.
