It Must Have Poetical Form.
The first requirement in this definition is that the hymn must be poetry. It should have meter and rhyme, else there can be no musical setting practicable for congregational use. The first task Calvin and his associates faced, after reaching the conclusion that only the inspired Psalms could be sung in the public religious assembly, was the preparation of a metrical version. True, the Psalms had been sung by the Greek and Roman Catholic churches, but only as chants by priestly choirs. In the English church service, these chants were frequently only led by the choir, the congregation joining in their singing. But this was practicable only in larger and long-established congregations, and even then there was more or less confusion. In general, this chanting was a failure, and the English church adopted the metrical versions. The use of the Psalms for responsive readings in our modern church services is a definitely practicable way of utilizing their liturgical and spiritual values.
The ostensible hymns of the Greek Church, of which Dr. Neale and Dr. Brownlie have furnished translations, or rather transformations, are not verse but prose. They were not sung by the congregations, or put into their hands, but were reserved for the reading of the clergy.
In like manner, the Latin hymns, although poetical in form—often complicated to an absurd degree—were not sung by the people, but were versified devotions inserted in the prose Psalms usually read by the priests.
In the Reformed churches for many centuries the word “hymn” referred to verses of “human composure,” as opposed to metrified inspired Psalms.
The famous American hymnologist, Dr. Louis J. Benson, lays less stress on this metrical form: “A Christian hymn, therefore, is a form of words appropriate to be sung or chanted in public devotions.” This opens the way for the inclusion of the “Te Deum Laudamus,” the “Sanctus,” and other canticles among our hymns. But as these historic texts are rarely or never sung by the people outside of the Church of England service, and used chiefly as texts for more or less elaborate musical compositions sung by choirs, we may accept the common conception of the hymn as a metrical composition.
It Must Be Poetic in Spirit.
While having the superficial music of the regularly recurring accents, and the liquid harmony of the vowels and consonants of the words as they flow through the lines, there must be also the deeper, more entrancing music of the literary grace of spiritual thought singing its beautiful expression. If poetry is “the expression of thought steeped in imagination and feeling,” all the more must the hymn be expressive of religious thought transfigured by deep and sincere emotion.
While a hymn may be didactic, formulating doctrine, or enforcing obligation, it is not a really good and effective hymn unless the thought or exhortation is vitalized by imagination and emotion. Arid versification of Christian doctrines metaphysically conceived, or of ethical discussions with no heat of conviction, will stir no pulses of body, mind, or soul, but will conduce to the all too prevalent sense of the unreality of religious ideas and life.