Even so finished a poet as the distinguished historian Milman disfigured his noble Palm Sunday hymn, “Ride on, ride on in majesty,” by such a line as “Thine humble beast pursues its road,” which Murray changed to the graceful and appealing line, “Saviour meek, pursue thy road.”
Space is wanting to exhaust the various changes in hymns that are amply justified if their most effective use is to be secured. It is sufficient to say that changes of text must increase the perspicuity, precision, propriety, and force of the hymn. Single phrases may wisely be modified if a change corrects a wrong accent, makes a line more euphonious, adds to its vividness, expressiveness, or vigor, increases its dignity, clarifies the sense, or better adapts it to public use.
Chapter V
THE CONTENT OF THE HYMN
The hymn is not an independent entity, sufficient unto itself, whose whole purpose is to be beautiful and to give pleasure to those responsive to its charm. The hymn has a definite message, is big with purpose.
It is related to its writer in satisfying the urge for expression of ideas that will give him power over the thoughts and feelings of others, or of emotions that demand to be voiced forth in the mystic expressiveness of rhythm and rhyme.
It is related to God as the original source of its impulse and as the recipient of its response in love and praise.
It is related to the church in the aid it affords to its collective life and to the reader or singer whose spirituality is to be inspired, developed, and expressed.
It is the content expressing these several relations and purposes that separates the hymn from purely literary ideals and criticisms.