[XVII]
THE MINISTRY OF SONG
Scarcely a spiritual movement in the history of Christianity has been without its service of song. The emotions, whether of victory or of devotion or of interest in the salvation of the lost, naturally flow out in singing. Far back in Biblical history we find songs of victory attending the triumphs of the people of God.
The Wesleyan reformation, through its gifted hymn-writer, Charles Wesley, furnished many of the standard spiritual hymns that are in use today. Witness also the immortal gospel hymns that originated with the Moody and Sankey revivals of the last century. Likewise the holiness movement of forty and fifty years ago was characterized by its holiness songs. And so in these last times, when we have come to the full standard of truth and the full development of the church independent of human creeds, when the "ransomed of the Lord" are returning over the "highway" prepared, what wonder is it that they should "come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads" (Isa. 35:10)? In no respect was the inception of the present reformation more marked than in its ministry of holy song.
For the writing of spiritual hymns Brother Warner had a wonderful endowment. It seems that the development of this gift came, however, only with his entrance upon the special work of the reformation. In his earliest writings we find no examples of hymns or poems of any merit. A few verses in his diary betray a lack of familiarity with the principles of prosody, or hymn-writing. Considering the little time he had to devote to the study of those principles, it is marvelous that he produced so many useful, and we may say excellent, hymns during the few short years of his intensive ministerial labor.
His first effort appears to have been the adaptation of existing hymns either by rearrangement of the words or by composing new words to fit the tunes. Thus we have the Glory, Halleluiah song with new words appearing in an early copy of the Gospel Trumpet. The chorus is familiar to all and we omit it.
On the mountain top of vision what a glory we behold!
Eighteen hundred years of victory are tinging earth with gold;
For the saints are overcoming with their testimony bold,
The truth is marching on.