Part 1 — Chapter I WHAT IS A HYMN?

I. DEFINITION OF THE HYMN

Importance of Accurate Definition.

Before undertaking the study of the hymn in its various aspects and relations, theoretical and practical, it should be very carefully defined. This is all the more necessary because the word “hymn” is used to cover so wide a sweep of religious poetry, and because our discussion is to be largely limited to its practical use in church work.

Dr. Austin Phelps’ test of a genuine hymn, “Genuineness of religious emotion, refinement of poetic taste, and fitness to musical cadence—these are essential to a faultless hymn, as the three chief graces to a faultless character,”[1] is a very clear and charming statement of some essentials of a hymn, which needed emphasis in his rather prosaic day, but does not include all the requisites of a useful hymn.

Inadequate Definition.

The narrow etymological definition of a hymn would confine it to sacred poems that, in at least some part of them, are directly addressed to some person of the Deity. St. Augustine limits the word “hymn” to “songs with praise to God—without praise they are not hymns. If they praise aught but God, they are not hymns.” Even now there are hymnologists who insist upon this limited conception. No less a writer than W. Garrett Horder, in his fresh and illuminating The Hymn Lover, insists that “the cardinal test of a hymn should be that it is in some one, if not the 26 whole of its parts, addressed to God.” This shuts out the use of sacred poetry in instruction, inspiration, exhortation, and special practical applications of hymns. Moreover, if the hymn is to be limited to worship, then the unconverted can never sing sincerely in the public service, and the ancient and medieval churches were justified in withdrawing the privilege of religious song from the general laity.

Definition Must Be Based on Practical Considerations.

The hymn is simply a means to the supreme end of all religious effort. That form of the hymn, that method of its use, and that musical assistance, which realize most fully the immediate and ultimate ends in view under given circumstances can be approved and used. This practical basis of actual spiritual results must govern in formulating the conception of the Christian hymn, as well as in forms of worship and prayer, in preaching, or in church organization.

Since our discussion of the hymn has in view its contributing efficiently to concrete spiritual results, its definition must have a practical basis. Etymological, scholastic, traditional, abstractly idealistic considerations can have only minor weight.

Types of Hymns.

The hymn may be viewed from too many angles to confine it to any one definition. Hence we must recognize different types of the hymn: (a) There is the poem regarding religious life and feeling that cannot be brought within the limitations of a musical setting, constituting the Reading Hymn; (b) we have the formless, but elevated, expression of worship or religious truth that at best can only be chanted, which we may call the Canticle, in which may be included such hymns as the Te Deum, the Sanctus, and unmetrical psalms; these, together with poems that are expressions of emotion, yet are not fitted for mass singing but may be effectively set to music of a different order, may be recognized as Solo, or Choral, Hymns, such of The Stabat Mater, The Dies Irae, and Sunset and Evening Star.

There is left us the sacred poem of such a form and type 27 that it may be called the Congregational or Singing Hymn, which is really the subject of the present practical discussion, and may be strictly defined as follows:

Definition of the Congregational Hymn.

The Congregational Hymn is a poem expressing worship, praise, thanksgiving, and prayer on the Godward side; personal spiritual experience, emotion, and inspiration on the human side; and instruction on the religious side. It must be adapted to mass thinking and expression, in a form fitted to be sung by a Christian congregation, and calculated to express and stimulate or create religious feeling and purpose.

II. THE HYMN MUST BE POETRY

To Be Poetry, It Must Be Emotional.

The initiating force of all poetry must be emotion of some kind. That emotion may be mere earnestness, it may be satire, it may be satisfaction in contemplation of beautiful scenes, or satisfaction in ideas and memories, or displeasure at impressions painful or abhorrent. Few of us realize how unfailing is the flow of emotion in our minds responding to the world about us and in us.

To view life and the world through the eye of reason is valuable, of course; but if that vision lacks the support of the eye of emotion, it brings only a silhouette, without perspective, wanting a sense of reality. That is the weakness of abstract thinking, whether in theology or political economy.

If the hymn, therefore, is to perform its functions, it must be definitely emotional to a greater or less extent. This is particularly true of hymns of Christian experience or in the hymn’s functioning in inspiration and exhortation. To confuse animal excitement with emotion is bad psychology. The genuine emotionality of a hymn is the best criterion of its practical value, for only through emotion can the will be reached.

It Must Have Poetical Form.

The first requirement in this definition is that the hymn must be poetry. It should have 28 meter and rhyme, else there can be no musical setting practicable for congregational use. The first task Calvin and his associates faced, after reaching the conclusion that only the inspired Psalms could be sung in the public religious assembly, was the preparation of a metrical version. True, the Psalms had been sung by the Greek and Roman Catholic churches, but only as chants by priestly choirs. In the English church service, these chants were frequently only led by the choir, the congregation joining in their singing. But this was practicable only in larger and long-established congregations, and even then there was more or less confusion. In general, this chanting was a failure, and the English church adopted the metrical versions. The use of the Psalms for responsive readings in our modern church services is a definitely practicable way of utilizing their liturgical and spiritual values.

The ostensible hymns of the Greek Church, of which Dr. Neale and Dr. Brownlie have furnished translations, or rather transformations, are not verse but prose. They were not sung by the congregations, or put into their hands, but were reserved for the reading of the clergy.

In like manner, the Latin hymns, although poetical in form—often complicated to an absurd degree—were not sung by the people, but were versified devotions inserted in the prose Psalms usually read by the priests.

In the Reformed churches for many centuries the word “hymn” referred to verses of “human composure,” as opposed to metrified inspired Psalms.

The famous American hymnologist, Dr. Louis J. Benson, lays less stress on this metrical form: “A Christian hymn, therefore, is a form of words appropriate to be sung or chanted in public devotions.” This opens the way for the inclusion of the “Te Deum Laudamus,” the “Sanctus,” and other canticles among our hymns. But as these historic texts are rarely or never sung by the people outside of the Church of England service, and used chiefly as texts for more or 29 less elaborate musical compositions sung by choirs, we may accept the common conception of the hymn as a metrical composition.

It Must Be Poetic in Spirit.

While having the superficial music of the regularly recurring accents, and the liquid harmony of the vowels and consonants of the words as they flow through the lines, there must be also the deeper, more entrancing music of the literary grace of spiritual thought singing its beautiful expression. If poetry is “the expression of thought steeped in imagination and feeling,” all the more must the hymn be expressive of religious thought transfigured by deep and sincere emotion.

While a hymn may be didactic, formulating doctrine, or enforcing obligation, it is not a really good and effective hymn unless the thought or exhortation is vitalized by imagination and emotion. Arid versification of Christian doctrines metaphysically conceived, or of ethical discussions with no heat of conviction, will stir no pulses of body, mind, or soul, but will conduce to the all too prevalent sense of the unreality of religious ideas and life.

The Hymn Must Have Unity.

It must have unity of thought, emotion, and expression, all growing out of a definite vision of emotion, having a beginning, middle, and end, which mark the progress of the idea or feeling seeking formulation.[2]

The Poetical Element Is Contributory Only.

Yet this element must be felt in the spirit of the hymn rather than in intention. Preciosity of phrase, elaborate metaphors and similes, obscure allusions, flights of fancy, are rarely in place. John Newton, the great hymn writer, speaks to this point in his usual forceful way: “Perspicuity, simplicity, and ease should be chiefly attended to; and the imagery and coloring of poetry, if admitted at all, should be indulged in very sparingly and with great judgment.” Sir Roundell Palmer is more detailed in his criticism: “Affectation or visible artifice is worse than excess of homeliness; a hymn is easily spoiled by a single falsetto note.”[3]

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The emphasis of the literary and poetical elements in hymns has produced some most valuable sacred lyrics, notably the hymns of Keble and Heber; but occasionally it has also led to such refinement, to such sought-out subtlety, and to such conscious preciosity that the virility and emotional contagion of what might have been an otherwise really effective hymn have been lost.