That dear disfigured face.
Personally I should not touch even Faber’s
Sweet Saviour, bless us e’er we go,
though I wish he had used another epithet; and I certainly could not draw a rough pen through Cowper’s tender line
Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power.
There is something due to the men who wrote thus. If they loved much, we should let them speak their love to all the ages in terms of strong affection, and our colder hearts may learn to burn within us as we draw near with them to Him who ‘sought us Himself with such longing and love.’
Bad taste is an error of judgement, not irreverence, but it has very much the same effect upon the worshipper, and it is to be regretted that some very great hymns, consecrated by ten thousand sacred memories, are marred by phrases which will not bear comment or meditation. If the hymn were new, not many modern books would include Cowper’s lines
There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;