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The whole spirit and implied theory of the Catholic Church is therefore unfavorable to popular hymnody. This was especially the case in the latter Middle Age. The people could put no heart into the singing of Latin. The priests and monks, especially in such convent schools as St. Gall, Fulda, Metz, and Reichenau, made heroic efforts to drill their rough disciples in the Gregorian chant, but their attempts were ludicrously futile. Vernacular hymns were simply tolerated on certain prescribed occasions. In the century or more following the Reformation, the Catholic musicians and clergy, taught by the astonishing popular success of the Lutheran songs, tried to inaugurate a similar movement in their own ranks, and the publication and use of Catholic German hymn-books attained large dimensions; but this enthusiasm finally died out. Both in mediaeval and in modern times there has practically remained a chasm between the musical practice of the common people and that of the Church, and in spite of isolated attempts to encourage popular hymnody, the restrictions have always had a depressing effect, and the free, hearty union of clergy and congregation in choral praise and prayer is virtually unknown.
The new conceptions of the relationship of man to God, which so altered the fundamental principle and the external forms of worship under the Lutheran movement, manifested themselves most strikingly in the mighty impetus given to congregational song. Luther set the national impulse free, and taught the people that in singing praise they were performing a service that was well pleasing to God and a necessary part of public communion with him. It was not simply that Luther charged the popular hymnody with the energy of his [243] world-transforming doctrine,—he also gave it a dignity which it had never possessed before, certainly not since the apostolic age, as a part of the official liturgic song of the Church. Both these facts gave the folk-hymn its wonderful proselyting power in the sixteenth century,—the latter gives it its importance in the history of church music.
Luther’s work for the people’s song was in substance a detail of his liturgic reform. His knowledge of human nature taught him the value of set forms and ceremonies, and his appreciation of what was universally true and edifying in the liturgy of the mother Church led him to retain many of her prayers, hymns, responses, etc., along with new provisions of his own. But in his view the service is constituted through the activity of the believing subject; the forms and expressions of worship are not in themselves indispensable—the one thing necessary is faith, and the forms of worship have their value simply in defining, inculcating, stimulating and directing this faith, and enforcing the proper attitude of the soul toward God in the public social act of devotion. The congregational song both symbolized and realized the principle of direct access of the believer to the Father, and thus exemplified in itself alone the whole spirit of the worship of the new Church. That this act of worship should be in the native language of the nation was a matter of course, and hence the popular hymn, set to familiar and appropriate melody, became at once the characteristic, official, and liturgic expression of the emotion of the people in direct communion with God.
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The immense consequence of this principle was seen in the outburst of song that followed the founding of the new Church by Luther at Wittenberg. It was not that the nation was electrified by a poetic genius, or by any new form of musical excitement; it was simply that the old restraints upon self-expression were removed, and that the people could celebrate their new-found freedom in Christ Jesus by means of the most intense agency known to man, which they had been prepared by inherited musical temperament and ancient habit to use to the full. No wonder that they received this privilege with thanksgiving, and that the land resounded with the lyrics of faith and hope.
Luther felt his mission to be that of a purifier, not a destroyer. He would repudiate, not the good and evil alike in the ancient Church, but only that which he considered false and pernicious. This judicious conservatism was strikingly shown in his attitude toward the liturgy and form of worship, which he would alter only so far as was necessary in view of changes in doctrine and in the whole relation of the Church as a body toward the individual. The altered conception of the nature of the eucharist, the abolition of homage to the Virgin and saints, the prominence given to the sermon as the central feature of the service, the substitution of the vernacular for Latin, the intimate participation of the congregation in the service by means of hymn-singing,—all these changes required a recasting of the order of worship; but everything in the old ritual that was consistent with these changes was retained. Luther, like the founders of the reformed Church of England, was profoundly conscious of the truth and beauty of many of the prayers and hymns of the mother Church. Especially was he attached to her music, and would preserve the compositions of the learned masters alongside of the revived congregational hymn.
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As regards the form and manner of service, Luther’s improvements were directed (1) to the revision of the liturgy, (2) the introduction of new hymns, and (3) the arrangement of suitable melodies for congregational use. Luther’s program of liturgic reform is chiefly embodied in two orders of worship drawn up for the churches of Wittenberg, viz., the Formula Missae of 1523 and the Deutsche Messe of 1526.
Luther rejected absolutely the Catholic conception of the act of worship as in itself possessed of objective efficacy. The terms of salvation are found only in the Gospel; the worship acceptable to God exists only in the contrite attitude of the heart, and the acceptance through faith of the plan of redemption as provided in the vicarious atonement of Christ. The external act of worship in prayer, praise, Scripture recitation, etc., is designed as a testimony of faith, an evidence of thankfulness to God for his infinite grace, and as a means of edification and of kindling the devotional spirit through the reactive influence of its audible expression. The correct performance of a ceremony was to Luther of little account; the essential was the prayerful disposition of the heart and the devout acceptance of the word of Scripture. The substance of worship, said Luther, is “that our dear Lord speaks with us through his Holy Word, and we in return speak with him through prayer and song of [246] praise.” The sermon is of the greatest importance as an ally of the reading of the Word. The office of worship must be viewed as a means of instruction as well as a rite contrived as the promoter and expression of religious emotion; the believer is in no wise to be considered as having attained to complete ripeness and maturity, since if it were so religious worship would be unnecessary. Such a goal is not to be attained on earth. The Christian, said Luther, “needs baptism, the Word, and the sacrament, not as a perfected Christian, but as a sinner.”