Watts did not hesitate to incorporate in his hymns lines and even whole stanzas from the hymns of others. John Wesley had no scruples in rewriting lines and stanzas and even whole hymns already in print. Toplady’s alterations were often quite radical, as, for example, his drastic revision of Charles Wesley’s “Blow ye the trumpet, blow”[1] to suit his intensely Calvinistic views.
The Abuse of the Editorial Revision.
Dr. Worcester, in this country, who issued several collections of psalms and hymns, chiefly by Watts, was lavish in his alterations, mostly for the worse—so much so that the New England churches revolted. Lord Selborne said of these mutilations by many hands, “There is just enough of Watts left here to remind one of Horace’s saying that ‘you may know the remains of a poet even when he is torn to pieces.’”
The needless alteration of hymns that occurred in these early days is to be greatly deplored, especially of those most widely known. “Rock of Ages” and “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” were fair targets for the editorial spear—out of the twenty-four lines of the former only eleven have escaped change. The line “When mine eyestrings break in death” was the only one peremptorily demanding a change, although a few other alterations may be accepted as slight improvements, as, for instance, “wounded” instead of “riven” side. So many people have committed this hymn with its differing lines to memory that when it is sung there is frequently the clash of these variations instead of the desirable uniformity of utterance.
The same is true of Wesley’s hymn. In spite of John Wesley’s warning against changes in the Methodist hymns—“Hymn-cobblers should not try to mend them. I really do not think they are able”—more than thirty variations occur in the first stanza of “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.”
The pity is that while uniformity is extremely desirable in these and many other hymns, it is now out of the question. The several variations have their partisan upholders.
James Montgomery spent years of his life amending and modifying the hymns of others, but asked that others should not change his verses. He insisted that if good people could not conscientiously adopt his doctrines and diction, it was a little questionable in them to impose theirs on him.
It is interesting to note that Montgomery could not “conscientiously adopt the doctrine and diction” of the first verse of Cowper’s “There is a fountain filled with blood” and substituted a verse of his own of which he said, “I think my version is unexceptionable.” But hymnal editors did not find it so and unanimously repudiated it. It was regarded as “faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null.”
The Return to Originals.
This abuse of the editorial revision produced a reaction, and in the last half century, under the leadership of Dr. Louis F. Benson, a strong movement appeared among hymnal editors whose slogan was “Back to the originals!” In many cases that was not practicable, as the changes made were evident improvements, but the new tendency often proved to be a very useful one in restoring many a good original phrase in place of a much inferior alteration.