On the other hand, there is, I believe, more to be said in favour of the hymn-book which is designed to aid the Church in its specific work and teaching. It would be impossible to exaggerate the influence of Wesley’s Hymns upon the Methodist Churches. And there can be no question that Hymns Ancient and Modern has had an immense influence, both for good and ill, upon the Anglican Revival. It was originally issued in 1861, when the Movement was taking firm hold of the clergy, and beginning to change the whole tone of the teaching and the whole spirit of public worship in hundreds of parishes. Its success was enormous, only paralleled by that of Watts and Wesley. The title was in itself a confession of faith in the new Movement. The first edition was, in comparison with the popular hymnals of the Evangelicals, a marked advance toward High Church worship; but it is very modest and tentative when compared with its latest edition. I say nothing of its doctrine, for I have no space for criticism. I commend the principle upon which the work was done—the education of the worshipper in the faith and practice which the compilers believed to be most truly in accordance with the Divine ideal of the Church.
On the same general principle the Methodist Hymn-book has been compiled. It is made, not for other people, but for ourselves. Some friendly critics see, ‘with a scornful wonder,’ the number of Charles Wesley’s hymns which still survive, and talk of superstitious reverence for a name. But they do not understand that these hymns, perhaps especially those which are unknown to other Churches, enshrine what we regard as most precious in Methodist life and teaching. From a literary or poetic point of view, it may be that our hymn-book is inferior to the Baptist, the Presbyterian, and the Congregational, and perhaps especially to such a book as Mr. Horder’s Worship-Song. But the hymn-book of a living, working Church should not be constructed on purely literary lines. It is not a treasury of religious poetry, not a sacred anthology, but a book of common prayer and praise, for use in particular congregations.
Next to Hymns Ancient and Modern the most influential of nineteenth-century hymn-books is Sacred Songs and Solos, the chief memorial of the mission of Moody and Sankey. They introduced the lighter ephemeral songs which suited large undenominational gatherings, and caught the ear and reached the heart of the man and the child in the street. I cannot regret that few of these ditties find their way into Church hymnals; yet I am not ashamed to admit that in many an East End meeting I have been thankful for ‘Sankey’s Hymns.’ In any review of English hymns this popular collection cannot be overlooked.
I have spoken of the advantage of diversity in Church hymnals, but there remains a further and very interesting question. How far does the study of hymns and hymn-books encourage the hope of a reunion of hearts in the Church of God, rent, as it now is, by many unhappy divisions?
In an Appendix I give a list of nearly a hundred and sixty hymns, which are found in the four representative Non-episcopal hymnals and in one or both of two representative Anglican books. These hymns are the foundation material of what may be called the hymn-book of the modern Church. Canon Ellerton said, ‘The study of Nonconformist hymn-books does not encourage me in any hopes of what is sometimes called Home Reunion.’ My own study of modern hymn-books leads to an opposite conclusion. It is a commonplace of hymnology that in all good hymn-books you find contributions from men of widely different theological schools. But it is not in the fact that the choir of the Church includes Watts, Wesley, Heber, Montgomery, Newman, Keble, Lyte, Charlotte Elliott, Mrs. Alexander, Faber, S. J. Stone, Caswall, Bonar, Rawson, Neale, and others, that I see the most hopeful sign. A still more notable and instructive sign of the times is that alike in the most familiar and in the most solemn moments of life we draw nigh to God with the same words. Our morning and our evening hymns, our Christmas carols and our Easter anthems, are one. In the time of utmost need we turn to the Saviour with the same cry—
Just as I am, without one plea
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come.
Our battle-songs, our penitential prayers, our hymns of adoration, are the same. We even tell the story of our conversion in the same words—