Although biblical phrases do occur in many hymns, a very close adherence to this rule would stifle the poet’s spontaneity and make his hymn stiff and mechanical, like most of the metrical psalms. Such a rule may seem very devout to the cursory reader, but really it is mischievous; it is sheer bibliolatry, an emphasis of the letter that killeth at the expense of the spirit that maketh alive.
V. THE HYMN MUST BE FITTED FOR MASS SINGING
That the hymn is a distinctly social expression, participated in by the varied personalities massed in a congregation, introduces marked limitations that cannot be evaded.
Congregational Singing Is a Pronounced Christian Exercise.
It is a remarkable fact that only in Hebrew and Christian worship is a congregational use of hymns conspicuous. With all their literary and poetic urge for expression, the Greeks had no singing connected with their temple rites.[5] In so far as the Egyptians had musical elements in their temple ritual, it was choral and not congregational. In visiting pagan temples, one is struck by the utter absence of organized assembled worship; what worship occurs is individual only.
The Vedic hymns were not singing hymns, but reading hymns, for recital and meditation. According to Max Mueller, the only share the women had in the sacrifices was that the wife of the officiating priest, or head of the house, should recite the necessary hymns. Although in India there is singing connected with great festivals and processions, the songs used are so obscene that respectable Hindus are making an effort to have the public singing of them forbidden. They are usually sung by the female attendants of the idol, temple prostitutes, who are the professional singers of these ostensibly religious songs.[6]
The reason for this absence of true hymns is correctly indicated by W. Garrett Horder in his The Hymn Lover: “But so far as the material before us enables us to form an opinion, it is that hymns, as an essential of worship, have been mostly characteristic of the Christian and, in a less degree, of its progenitor, the Hebrew religion. Nor is this much to be wondered at, since it is the only religion calculated to draw out at once the two elements necessary to such a form of worship—awe and love—awe which lies at the heart of worship, and love which kindles it into adoring song.”
Meter Essential to Mass Singing.
The form of the verse is practically of commanding importance. The musical form of the hymn tune definitely fixes the form of the stanza. It must not be complicated or free in form, else the tune loses its needed simplicity and symmetry. More elaborate forms of stanza may do for solo or choral numbers, where skilled composers write music that follows the vagaries of the form of the text; but the general congregation cannot be expected to sing tunes of elaborate and confusing structure. Although an occasional hymn of unusual form of stanza is fortunate in finding a happy musical mate, like “Lead, kindly Light” or “O Love, that wilt not let me go,” the usual hymn must be adapted to one of about a dozen fundamental meters. Although the Gospel song is not so circumscribed in its form, because its setting goes with it, its forms are only rhythmical variations of the standard meters.