The Singing Church: The Hymns It Wrote and Sang

by Edmund S. Lorenz

And to conquer then.”

THE SINGING CHURCH

PART III
PRACTICAL HYMNOLOGY

Chapter XIX
THE STUDY OF HYMNS

I. IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF HYMNS

It has been said that the two great books which every minister should study are the Bible and human nature. A third great book may be added, in which the foregoing two unite in a new combination—the Hymnbook.

In that collection of hymns the truths of the Bible find their expression in a new form. They are no longer Oriental in spirit, based upon human experiences under different conditions and in a different intellectual atmosphere, but modern, and strong with a fresh vitality. They have passed through the crucible of intense personal feeling and experience, and have been recast in forms more comprehensible to a different race and to a different age.

Next to his library of comment upon the Bible, and of exposition of its doctrines, should be that of the minister’s hymnological books giving the history, the illustrations, and the methods of making effective the hymns he uses in his congregation.

II. PERSONAL ADVANTAGES OF SUCH STUDY OF HYMNS

The first line of the study of hymns should be contributory to his own personal development.