[1]Comparing the English church with the German, Horder exclaims: “The Puritans, indeed, had in their midst a finer poet than Luther, but they never introduced even Milton’s superb renderings of certain of the Psalms into their worship. What a use Luther would have put Milton to, if he had been a member of his church! What songs he would have written! Aye, what music, too!”
[2]“Thus the psalms have been at once an inspiration and a bondage: an inspiration in that they have kindled the fire which has produced the hymnody of the entire church; a bondage, because, by stereotyping religious expression, they robbed the heart of the right to express in its own words the fears, the joys, the hopes that the Divine Spirit had kindled in their souls.” (W. Garrett Horder, in The Hymn Lover.)
[3]Thomas Wright in his recent Life of Isaac Watts remarks: “Earlier in this work I referred to Watts’ enthusiasm for, and his indebtedness to, John Mason, who deserves rather than any other writer the name of the Father of the Modern Hymn. If there had not been a Mason there would never have been a Watts.”
CHAPTER XV
[1]It is perhaps needless to say that the word “vulgar” did not have the opprobrious connotation that it inevitably brings today. It simply meant “ordinary.”
[2]George W. Garrett Horder, in The Hymn Lover.
CHAPTER XVI
[1]“It was their love of social psalmody that made Methodist hymnody what it was, and it was the desire to better parochial psalmody that furnished John Wesley with the original motive of his work in hymnody.” (Dr. Louis F. Benson, in The English Hymn. [New York: Harper and Bros.] Used by permission.)
[2]“John Wesley was a good writer and preacher, and possessed extensive learning. He was a man of unfailing perseverance, great self-denial, large liberality, singular devotedness to his Master’s service, and eminent piety. But perhaps his most remarkable gift was the power he possessed of making men willing to fall in with his purposes and of organizing systematic action for the benefit of his followers.” (Josiah Miller, in Singers and Songs of the Church.)
[3]“Wesley, like Watts, wrote very freely and spontaneously, as the thousands of lyrics he wrote bear witness. Not all of them were good; much of the verse reminds one of a painter’s tentative sketches. But had he not freely written so many, he might not have written the smaller number so consummately well.” (J. Balcom Reeves, in The Hymn in History and Literature.)