The Singing Church: The Hymns It Wrote and Sang

by Edmund S. Lorenz

II. THE TREATMENT OF HYMNS

If a congregation is to sing a hymn, not thoughtlessly and mechanically, but intelligently and with feeling, it must be prepared for the devout exercise. It is the minister’s task to tune his people up for the individual hymn, and create the habit of finding meaning and genuine feeling in all the hymns they sing. Stupid singing is a habit: why not create a habit of singing thoughtfully and feelingly?

That may be done; but it cannot be done overnight. It will call for persistent training, for a wealth of resources, and for an unbroken attitude of genuineness of emotion on the part of the preacher. It is no small undertaking to transform sleepy church members into sons of praise.

We may add to the obligations involved still another. If the hymn to be sung is not merely didactic or meditative, but distinctly emotional in character, is it not the preacher’s duty to create in those who are to sing at least the beginnings of the emotions he asks them to voice?

A rapid sketch of blind Matheson’s experience before writing “O Love that wilt not let me go” will set the heartstrings of the congregation quivering in the emotional key of the hymn. A vivid picture of the death of Christ on the cross in a dozen sentences will inspire a preacher’s people to sing “Beneath the cross of Jesus” with genuine emotion. Drawing a picture with rapid touches of the charge of the Light Brigade as it went to its death at Balaklava, and quoting a few lines of Tennyson’s poem, will stir the pulses for the singing of “Lead on, O King Eternal.” “Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire” may be introduced by a few tender sentences on the vital necessity of prayer to a sincere Christian. A minute’s resume of the influence of the cross of Christ on an individual life, or on the upward sweep of the human race under its influence, will give the people a clue to “In the cross of Christ I glory.” The tender aspect of the atonement made by Christ for sin may be solemnly suggested before singing “Alas, and did my Saviour bleed?”

Where a hymn has allusions not likely to be recognized by the average singer, they ought to be made plain. How many of the millions who have sung the well-known hymn, “Come, thou Fount of every blessing,” knew what the word “Ebenezer” signified? Striking phrases, packed with deep thought and feeling, like Matheson’s

“I lay in dust life’s glory dead,

And from the ground there blossoms red

Life that shall endless be,”

should have their treasures brought to light, lest the average churchgoer should overlook them. In other words, there should be a rapid exposition of unusual and also of over-familiar hymns, so that the congregation may sing with its mind and heart.

The range of possible comment is so wide, and the opportunity of using it is so limited, that only the most striking and impressive illustrations should be considered for actual use. Rhetorical and anecdotal illustrations should be used sparingly—only when they promote an exalted and distinctly spiritual state of mind. They are apt to be prolix, to distract the mind from spiritual contemplation. They are permissible with joyous, aggressive, victorious hymns rather than with those that are tender, emotional, subjective.

The inexorable limitations of time must always be borne in mind. When a hymn is announced the people expect to sing, not to listen to a hymnological dissertation or to a long-winded anecdote. The simile or metaphor, or other oratorical comment, must explode with a very short fuse of preliminary remark. The anecdote must be compact, shorn of unessential preface or background, and reach its peak of interest, or of appeal to feeling, with the succinctness of an epigram. Better limit the illustrations and comments to those that can gracefully and lucidly be uttered in one or rarely two minutes.

Discussions and illustrations of hymns are often confined to the hymns as hymns, which is rarely necessary. It is not the hymn that needs emphasis, much less its writer: it is the message, the burden, the feeling of the hymn that is to be enforced. An instance of the saving of a “down and outer” from the Jerry McAuley mission in New York, or the Pacific Garden mission in Chicago, will create more responsiveness to “Rescue the Perishing” than biographical facts about Fanny Crosby or about the composer, W. Howard Doane. The anecdote of missionary success from the last missionary bulletin or magazine will lead a Congregation to sing “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun” more enthusiastically than an explanation of Watts’ having metricized the seventy-second Psalm with a free hand, making the Jew, David, sing like a Christian. Illustrating the sense rather than the form of the hymn will be found very much more thrilling to the people.

In evening services of song, or in midweek lectures, historical backgrounds will be very helpful and interesting. A series of lectures on the great hymns of the Church, or even a general survey of the development of our Christian hymnody, will lay the foundations of a more intelligent song.

In such services, anecdotal illustrations may have a large place. They need not be emotional under such circumstances, just so they add interest and understanding.

As an occasional variation in the introduction of the hymn, why not have the congregation read it? “It is not done?” All the more reason for doing it! They will get more actual values out of the reading of the hymn and its subsequent singing than in any other way; the very unusualness of the method will give additional effectiveness. Single stanzas can be most impressively treated in this manner. In singing Isaac Watts’ great hymn, “When I survey the wondrous cross,” ask the people to read the third verse softly,

“See, from his head, his hands, his feet,

Sorrow and love flow mingled down!

Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,

Or thorns compose so rich a crown?”

and then sing it very softly and note the effect.

The same method may be used with Mrs. Alexander’s children’s hymn, “There is a green hill far away,” which adults have adopted for their own; have them read the last verse,

“Oh, dearly, dearly has He loved,

And we must love Him too,

And trust in His redeeming blood,

And try His works to do,”

and then sing it quite emotionally.

A great many people deprecate the minister’s reading of the hymns. But that is because so few ministers are able to read hymns with any degree of impressiveness or reality. Perhaps half the ministers who read them leave no desirable impression whatever as the result, for the reading has been without even a thoughtful sense of the meaning of the hymn, much less of its emotional force. To allow one’s voice to fall at the end of every line, or to make a habit of having a rising inflection at the end of each first line and a falling at the end of each second, without variation, is so vile, from an elocutionary standpoint, that one cannot wonder that the general congregation prefers its omission.

On the other hand, if the minister’s mind and heart are profoundly awake to the thought and feeling of the hymn that is to be used, if the minister has a definite purpose which he wishes to realize through the singing of that hymn, if the whole song service is thoroughly vital and earnest, he cannot help reading the hymn in such a way as to impress and interest his people. One need not be a well-trained elocutionist to do this. The genuine feeling will develop a natural elocution and will even neutralize faulty habits and mannerisms of reading that would otherwise make it unendurable.

The fact that the hymn is a familiar one may be only an additional reason for reading it, instead of being an imperative reason for omitting its reading. As coins long in circulation often lose their superscription, these familiar words often lose their meaning and reality by constant use, and these may be restored by intelligent and emotional reading.

A mere habit of reading a hymn through is sheer mechanism, the fatal enemy of interest. The situation, the purpose in view, the character of the service and the time allotted to it, even the preacher’s own passing mood—all are factors that need to be considered.

At this point it is well to drop a word of warning against the unintelligent omission of verses. Some ministers invariably restrict the number to be sung to three or four. If there are five verses, they invariably omit the fourth, or announce, “We will sing the first three verses,” no matter what the development of thought may be. One of the most painful manifestations of ministerial thoughtlessness and indifference to the congregation’s share of the service, is this brutal mutilation of the hymns. The preacher wishes a little more time for his sermon, so he robs God and his people of some of their worship by singing the pitiful remains of a hymn he has deprived of its unity, its progress of thought, and perhaps of its best stanzas. Or he has preached too long and closes with a single verse of some great hymn, unwittingly losing the best climax his sermon could have had. Because of the same egotism and his obsequious regard for the tyranny of the dinner hour, he cuts out the reading and proper introductions of his hymns throughout the service.

The irony of the situation is that by this neglect of his hymns the preacher fails to create the enthusiasm and responsiveness of his hearers essential to the larger success of his sermon. “There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.” (Prov. 11:24.)

It may well be that some of the ministers who read this practical section will throw up their hands at the idea of working out the rather daunting array of suggestions for exploiting the hymn in their church work. The pastor’s task is such a varied one, with such a mass of details, all of seeming importance, that he is in danger of wasting time on comparative trifles, of “puttering” around, feeling very busy while accomplishing little. A common remark at the close of the day is, “I’ve been busy as a nailer all day and can’t see that I have accomplished anything!”

It is this time that is lost by lack of concentration which could quite comfortably be devoted to hymnological studies. The difficulty in most cases is not lack of time, but lack of interest, lack of realization as to how great a contribution the hymn service can make to the success of his work.

God has put into the throat of every member of this preacher’s congregation a marvelous musical instrument with a wide range of tones and of extremely appealing cadences, of great power to express the emotions of the heart of the singer, and to suggest and stimulate the feelings of the minds and hearts of the hearers: is the minister justified in neglecting the opportunity it offers to arouse and quicken the mental and spiritual natures of the people for whose religious life he is responsible?

Is it not a crying piece of egotism, in view of the proven efficiency of hymn singing, to depend exclusively on his own preaching for the realization of the spiritual ends to which his life is devoted? When ministers realize the positive power the hymn service can exert, they will not begrudge the occasional hours for studying and planning it which are necessary to its full success. That success will create

A SINGING CHURCH