Like a great many others of their professional brethren, they used the hymn perfunctorily as a traditionally necessary part of the service, with which they really had little or nothing to do; that it has any relation to the needs or the objects they have in view for the service does not occur to them. The unpardonableness of an aimless sermon need not be emphasized, but why should it be easier to forgive a preacher for aimlessly selecting and announcing hymns?
Many churches have hymn boards and even bulletins, making the mechanical interruption caused by the preacher’s announcement of the numbers unnecessary. The people presumably have found the hymn by the time the tune is played through.[1]
Of course, if these devices for announcing the hymn are absent, the preacher must announce the number. If he does so in a listless, mechanical way, he will unconsciously give the congregation an unfortunate emotional keynote, and, in turn, it will sing in a listless, mechanical way. The psychical and emotional value of the singing of the hymn is already discounted. If it has been announced in a joyous, or, at least, in an interested spirit, with only a happy phrase or two, giving a cue to the spirit in which it is to be sung, the congregation will respond in kind. Twenty seconds of effective introduction will make the difference between success and failure.
It should be emphasized that a live preacher will not allow the regular order of service to prevent needed comment on the hymn as it is needed. The order of service has advantages, but if it robs the preacher of freedom and spontaneity, it becomes a curse. Too rigidly followed it makes for dullness and boredom. The congregation should not be allowed to feel that any departure from it is a doubtful liberty on the part of the preacher. Opportunity should be made to dispel any such idea.
If a hymn is curtly announced, or courteously suggested with a “please” or a “kindly” (as if to sing it were a special favor to the preacher), and if no hint is given as to the message to be conveyed, or as to the feeling which is to be expressed, how can the minister hope that the merely improvised singing of an unexpected hymn, perhaps with an unknown tune, will have any stimulating, not to say spiritual, value? If the hymn is well known, it is probably a great hymn, and what gathering of saints can rise at a moment’s notice to its spiritual altitude?
What intelligent minister would presume suddenly to ask a trained elocutionist to read to his audience a poem he had never before seen? Or what honest lawyer would ask a client to sign a legal paper involving obligations without explanations or previous reading? Yet, every Sunday, congregations are asked to sing hymns they have never noticed, expressing they know not what sentiments, promises, or consecrations, in the most solemn and exalted manner. Is it ethical? Is it efficient?
II. THE TREATMENT OF HYMNS
If a congregation is to sing a hymn, not thoughtlessly and mechanically, but intelligently and with feeling, it must be prepared for the devout exercise. It is the minister’s task to tune his people up for the individual hymn, and create the habit of finding meaning and genuine feeling in all the hymns they sing. Stupid singing is a habit: why not create a habit of singing thoughtfully and feelingly?
That may be done; but it cannot be done overnight. It will call for persistent training, for a wealth of resources, and for an unbroken attitude of genuineness of emotion on the part of the preacher. It is no small undertaking to transform sleepy church members into sons of praise.
We may add to the obligations involved still another. If the hymn to be sung is not merely didactic or meditative, but distinctly emotional in character, is it not the preacher’s duty to create in those who are to sing at least the beginnings of the emotions he asks them to voice?