Finally, the Biblical character of the true church hymn reveals itself also in the style of language, which follows very closely Biblical expression, idiom and form. The language of the church hymn harmonizes very well with that type of religious language which has attained a deep appreciation among Christians; the language of the popular old religious books of the Church; Biblical language. This old hymnic language possesses very decidedly a character of immortality, depending upon the character of the content, whose linguistic garb it is, and with which it has become so closely united. As the content is rooted in eternity and fundamentally consists of God’s incorruptible thoughts and works, so the hymnic language, which is the vessel for these realities of the eternal world, in a way also attains a character of eternity. The history of the church hymns also shows very clearly that whenever this peculiar character of hymnic language has been disregarded, whenever there have been vigorous attempts at modernization of the good old church hymns, when new and modern hymns have been sought, to satisfy some modern aesthetic or aristocratic need, then the true church hymn has suffered very greatly and lost much of its original soundness and genuineness. Indeed, the hymn writer, like any other poet, is influenced more or less by his age; his hymns may show more or less the influence of the peculiar turn of mind, the stage of development and the demands of the age in which he lives; personal ability as a poet and personal life experiences may be distinctly reflected in his hymns. But it should also be true, that if the poet is a sincere student and lover of the Bible and delights in singing its praises, then his hymns ought to possess Biblical tone and content, since there is a very close union between content and form in every human religious product. A church hymn possessing Biblical tone and language ought to be understood and appreciated by the present age. Biblical language is antique but it will never be antiquated; it is old but eternally new and youthful. In all ages and in all churches the thoroughly Biblical church hymn holds the prize for youthful health and beauty.
2. The congregational character of the church hymn:
In the second place, the church hymn should be suitable for use in the congregation, it should possess a congregational character. This quality of the church hymn implies, of course, that it must not contain anything which is at variance with the confession or the doctrines of the Church. The Lutheran Church may use hymns that have been written by non-Lutheran hymn writers, provided these hymns contain nothing offensive to sound Lutheran doctrine. So Lutheran hymnals may contain hymns taken from the Reformed Churches, and Reformed church hymnals may contain many Lutheran hymns.
The congregational element in the Lutheran church hymn further means that it must be free from all unsound and unjustifiable subjectivity. The church hymn is the work of a poet who is vitally united with the religious organism—he is a member of the Church—and from this consciousness of perfect communion his hymns emerge. Writes Dr. Martin Luther: “Church hymns are so called, because the Church has accepted them and uses them as if produced by the Church and as her own hymns. We do not say: thus sings Ambrose, Gregory the Great, Prudentius, Sedulius; but we say: thus sings the Christian Church. It is the songs of the Church that Ambrose, Prudentius and others sing with the Church and the Church with them; when they are dead and gone, the Church remains, and continues to sing their songs.” Personal poetic gifts and temporal conditions and circumstances influence the church hymns. The true church hymn does not lack individuality; but it is free from individualism. The experiences which the church hymn expresses, the soul states which it describes, should not be of an extreme, a singular or an abnormal character, but they should be normal and common to the Church. Not that the church hymn must restrict itself to what every member, in whatsoever condition of spiritual life, would readily subscribe to. Such a requirement would be unreasonable, because the participants in divine worship have reached different stages of spiritual development; in fact, this would restrict the subject matter of the church hymn to only certain general facts and abstract ideas. But it must be required of every church hymn that it express only such religious experiences as are in the main common to the whole communion of the faithful, only such soul states and spiritual stages of development as are essentially experienced by every true Christian.
If the requirement of community in the church hymnody permits dealing with special situations and experiences in the realm of spiritual life, then it ought to follow that this character of community will not be violated if the content of the church hymn bears upon certain external conditions and circumstances in which the entire congregation never can find itself at any one time. Since there are liturgical acts which directly affect only certain individuals in the congregation, not the congregation as a whole, there may be church hymns for certain individuals and special occasions. There are church hymns for marriage, confirmation, ordination, etc. It is also perfectly well to have church hymns for the aged, for the sick, for the dying, for prisoners, in time of war, etc. Since the church members should be kindly and lovingly interested in each other, the congregation may well give expression to certain sympathetic feelings in the church hymns. But such conditions and circumstances in the life of an individual as are quite exceptional and of special interest only to him, not to the congregation as such, are unsuitable as subjects for church hymns, since they may quite easily form a disturbing digression from that character of community which should distinguish the church hymns as such. Hymns “for a father or a mother at New Year, for a poor young man, for a young lady, for a blind man,” and the like, really have no place in the hymnal.
The congregational character of the church hymn also finds expression in the language and style of presentation. This must be plain and clear, so that the hymn may be easily understood and appreciated by all who possess a reasonable religious training, young or old. The mode of expression is original, naive, true-hearted and graphic. The true church hymn avoids startling phrases, prettiness, and mere rhetoric.
THE POETICAL QUALITY
The other point of view from which the church hymn may be considered is the poetical; the church hymn is a song thus a product of poetical art. Before attempting to analyze the poetical quality of the church hymn, it may be well to consider what kinds of poetry are used in the hymnody of the Church.
The three main kinds of poetry are the epic, the drama, and the lyric. Epic and drama are not extensively used in the Lutheran Church. Works exist which show that the graphic and plastic style of epic poetry has been employed in the Christian Church when stories from sacred history were paraphrased in metrical form. The Gospel lessons have often been read or chanted in metrical form, as hymns. This poetical work may be classified as didactic hymnody with an epic touch. The epic, strictly speaking, requires an imaginative adornment of the historical material to be treated, and this cannot very well be applied to Biblical history without a certain amount of injury. Besides, it would be difficult to excel the beauty of the Biblical presentation, with its pre-eminent epic vividness and simplicity. The mediaeval Church employed the dramatic form in the mysteries and miracles, religious plays, which were used especially at great festival occasions to present to the laity in a dramatic and effective way the historical facts pertaining to the festival. More closely related to the Christian cultus was the Passion play, performed by the clergy in the churches during Lent. The Passion play, and a number of dramatic-liturgical ceremonies, especially at Christmas and Easter, were quite freely employed in the early Lutheran Church. But this dramatic activity did not remain permanently in the Lutheran Church. Perhaps the Church felt that the dramatic reproduction of Biblical history did not harmonize very well with that element of personal truth which must exist throughout the cultus and which may suffer injury as the dramatic illusion becomes greater.
While epic and dramatic poetry have little or no place in the Evangelical Lutheran cultus, and so can not very well be employed in the hymnody of the Church, the third kind of poetry, the lyric, is very extensively used. A noteworthy characteristic of lyrical poetry is that the object of the song is most closely united with the singing subject; they are as one; the object lives within the subject and is the real content of the subject. If the cultus is a meeting between God and the Church, in which God imparts his gifts to the congregation and the latter faithfully receives, enjoys, and acknowledges the divine gifts of grace; a meeting, in other words, in which the divine objects join the worshipping subject, in which the latter is permeated by the former, then it seems only very natural that religious lyrical poetry should here find its proper use; when the worshipping congregation gives expression to its life of faith and love through sacred song, through the hymns of the Church, these hymns are lyrical poetry.