The Hymn of Meditation.
The hymn of meditation is less emotional than that of personal experience or feeling. It is quiet in rhetorical style and gentle in mood. Its purpose is not didactic, although it often superficially seems to be so. It is occupied with doctrinal truth only in an inferential way. It contemplates all religious truth, whether doctrinal or ethical, in an objective, impersonal way and notes its implications and corollaries. It is, therefore, emotionally negative, blending with the other elements of the service rather than controlling them.
Perhaps as typical an instance as can be cited is Bishop Bickersteth’s
“Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin?
The blood of Jesus whispers peace within.”
Charles Wesley’s meditation on the Christian’s duties, “A charge to keep I have,” is another hymn of this class. Faber’s “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy” (“Was there ever kinder shepherd”) is also in the meditative mood.
The Hymn of Exhortation.
At first blush it may seem a little absurd that the members of a congregation should sing at each other such a hymn as “Stand up, stand up for Jesus” or “Work, for the night is coming.” But this is an artificial and not a genuine objection. The instinct of the human race is toward the singing of just such hortatory songs as these. The Marseillaise Hymn, which was one of the strongest influences leading to the French Revolution, is simply an exhortation, but it swept the French people off their feet and helped prepare the way for the great transformation of the social structure of the nation. The Church has gone on producing and singing these hortatory hymns throughout all generations from the time of David until now, because the impulse is native to the human heart.
The Didactic Hymn.
The hymn may be used to teach truth as well as to express emotion. If we are to accept Paul’s statements regarding the use of song in the churches in his early day, the didactic hymn is the oldest form of the Christian hymn. “Teaching and admonishing one another” is his phrase in Colossians 3:16. Indeed, we can go back to Moses for authority for it, for the ninetieth Psalm is largely didactic. In the Psalms we find more instruction than worship. There is really no reason why an assembly should not sing truth, as well as recite it, as it does in the Apostles’ or in the Nicene Creed.