III. EFFECT OF CHANGES ON QUALITY
Loss of Original Writer’s Vision.
It has been strongly urged that the emendation of hymns is dangerous to their quality; that the original writer was a better judge of both thought and phrasing than the cold critic whose very attitude prevents the high feeling that must inspire the most appealing forms of expression.
But the protest overlooks the fact that the very fervor and urge of fresh vision and its consequent emotion may prevent attention to nice details of phraseology or even to the proper balance of parts of a hymn. Furthermore, the writer with the creative urge may lack the critical faculty and fine discrimination necessary to polish up his verses after the impulse of writing has spent its force.
This being true, the editor who supplies the wanting critical attitude shows no presumption, provided his vision is clear and his skill in supplying more accurate, more melodious, or more practical phraseology adds value to the hymn. Martin Madan was no hymn writer, but when he rewrote Watts’ hymn,
“He dies, the Heavenly Lover dies!
The tidings strike the doleful sound
On my poor heartstrings; deep he lies
In the cold caverns of the ground,”
and gave us the noble stanza,
“He dies, the Friend of sinners, dies;
Lo! Salem’s daughters weep around;
A solemn darkness veils the skies,
A sudden trembling shakes the ground,”
he not only gave it a dignified and Biblical content and form, but he rescued the hymn for the spiritual edification of coming generations.
Biblical Precedent.
There is plenty of Biblical precedent. The original compiler and editor of the Psalms, be he Asaph or Ezra, inserted a version of the eighteenth psalm differing from the original as found in the twenty-second chapter of Second Samuel. It cannot escape the most casual reader of the New Testament that its quotations from the Old Testament, whether poetical or prose, are by no means accurately reproduced. Moreover, the writers of psalm versions from Marot and Luther down to Watts did not hesitate to condense, alter, or interpolate new ideas in their transcriptions of the sacred originals. They had no sense of presumption; their minds were preoccupied with the practical ends they were trying to serve.