Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 57:227 (Jul 1900)
Article: The Lesson Of The New Hymnals
Author: Edward Dickinson

BSac 57:227 (July 1900) p. 570

The Lesson Of The New Hymnals

Professor Edward Dickinson

The publication within the past few years of a rather remarkable number of hymn-books of superior merit—implying, of course, a demand for this species of literature— indicates that there is something going on in our American churches that is favorable to a renewed zeal and improved practice in congregational song. This movement, whatever it may be, is certainly not coming with observation; there is no sudden outburst of hymn-singing enthusiasm, parallel to that of the Lutheran or Wesleyan movements, for such a musical impulse is always the accompaniment of some sudden and powerful religious awakening, of which there is just now no sign. The significance of these recent hymnals lies rather in the evidence they give of the growth of higher standards of taste in religious verse and music, and also of certain changes in progress in our churches in the prevailing modes of religious thought. The evident tendency of hymnology, as indicated by the new books, is to throw less emphasis upon those more mechanical conceptions which gave such a hard precision to a large portion of the older hymnody. A finer poetic afflatus has joined with a more penetrating and intimate vision of the relationship between the divine and the human; and this mental attitude is reflected in the loving trust, the emotional fervor, and the more delicate and inward poetic expression which prevail in the new hymnody. It is inevitable that the theological readjustment, which is so palpable to every intelligent observer, should

BSac 57:227 (July 1900) p. 571

color and deflect those forms of poetic and musical expression which are instinctively chosen as the utterance of the worshiping people. Every one at all familiar with the history of religious experience is aware how sensitive popular song has been as an index of popular feeling. Nowhere is the power of psychologic suggestion upon the masses more evident than in the domain of song. Hardly does a revolutionary religious idea, struck from the brains of a few leading thinkers and reformers, effect a lodgment in the hearts of any considerable section of the common people, than it is immediately projected in hymns and melodies. It is not too much to say that no idea has a real vital energizing power which does not so manifest itself. So far as it is no mere scholastic formula, but possesses the power to kindle an active life in the soul, it will quickly clothe itself in figurative speech and musical cadence, and in many cases it will filter itself through this medium until all that is crude, formal, and speculative is drained away, and what is essential and fruitful is retained as a permanent spiritual possession.

If we were able to view the present movement in popular re...