Although the fusion of the object and the subject is a characteristic feature of all religious lyrics, it is to be noted that these two elements, the objective and the subjective, are never present in equal degree in the church hymns, but that the one or the other element predominates, wherefore it becomes necessary to classify the church hymns into the relatively objective hymns and the relatively subjective hymns. To the former class belong the hymn proper and the didactic or doctrinal hymns; the latter class, the lyrical hymns in a narrower sense, consists of what may be called hymns of experience and sacrifice. The hymn proper sings the praises of God’s majesty and highness, God’s glorious works and attributes, not as something wholly outside of the subject, yet something which is looked up to with worshipful joy and admiration. “A mighty Fortress is our God” is a good example of this class of church hymns. The didactic or doctrinal hymn presents for quiet and instructive contemplation either certain facts from sacred history or certain parts of the Lutheran doctrine. Examples of this kind are “Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g’mein” and “Es ist das Heil uns kommen her.” In these relatively objective hymns, true church hymns, the objective element is more or less permeated by the life, emotion, and sympathy of the subject. In the hymn proper the subject sings its own joy and its jubilation in the great God and His glorious works. The didactic or doctrinal hymn is not merely rhymed history or rhymed dogmatics, but in it the divine events and truths are celebrated as treasures of faith, sources of spiritual life; by means of it the congregation embraces, acknowledges and utters its confident Yea and Amen to the divine revelation of salvation. The relatively subjective church hymns, the lyrical church hymns in a restricted sense, may be characterized as hymns of experience, because they describe and express religious life in its inner experience, emotions, conditions and manifestations, or because they include meditations which a Christian engages in because of his inner and outer condition; to this class of church hymns belong also the so-called hymns of sacrifice, which are more directly an expression of individual devotion to Jesus Christ. Since the chiefly subjective hymns, because of their nature, are subject to the danger of losing themselves in the individual and the incidental, it is very important that they be supported and permeated by a sound religious philosophy. God’s revelation of salvation, especially Jesus Christ, who in His person and work is at once the vital cause, the life, and the living standard of all the various phenomena and forms in the world of divine grace and truth, must form the background which everywhere gleams forth in the hymnody of the Church, the sun that gives light and warmth to the content, the perfect law which restricts the description and keeps the subjectivity within proper bounds.
Since the church hymn is lyrical poetry, it should be beautiful. But the beauty of the church hymn consists in what? It must be emphasized that this beauty is not something applied to the church hymn from without, but this beauty grows up naturally and spontaneously out of the subject which is to be celebrated in song. This beauty is nothing else than the faithful reflection, the telling concrete revelation of its inner harmony, nobility and sublimity. The communion of the congregation with God through Jesus Christ, which seeks concrete expression in the church hymn, is in itself the highest, the most noble, and the most harmonious of all the realities of human life. When this divine communion seeks expression in the church hymn, then the poetical art to be employed must be such as will adequately express and convey the emotions and experiences peculiar to this communion. The inner harmony of the matter should reveal itself in the poetical form of presentation as outer harmony, as beauty. The entire tone of the church hymn will then become, by an inner necessity, graceful, elevated, sublime. It is to be noted that this hymnic beauty is modified according to the specific character of the hymn. In the church hymn proper, like “Ein’ feste Burg,” this hymnic beauty is more elevated, majestic, sublime. In the didactic or doctrinal hymn, it is characterized by the purity, positiveness, and sonorousness of the faithful testimony of truth. In the lyrical church hymn in a restricted sense, it is more colored by subjective qualities such as fervor, sincerity, and affection. The lyrical beauty of the church hymn is free from ostentation; it is distinguished by simplicity and naturalness. This simplicity of expression is a poetical as well as a congregational requirement. Also, the entire presentation of the subject must bear the impress of spontaneity, of freshness. The church hymn should not present abstract ideas, reflective thought, conceptions, and definitions; but, instead, it should present to the eyes of the heart living pictures, concrete realities; just as the Biblical presentation, which the church hymn must follow, and Christianity itself, which the church hymn must reflect, pre-eminently possess this character of concrete and vital reality.
The beauty of the church hymn implies further that its line of thought and disposition be clear and well arranged, that each stanza express a complete thought, and that there be not too many stanzas—the church hymn must not be too long. The phraseology, syntax and metrical form must be free from such defects as mar and desecrate the sublime content of the hymn or make it offensive, unclear, or even incomprehensible to the congregation. This does not mean to commend that vandalism whereby modernists have sought to remove from the old church hymns every obsolete word and construction as well as everything which seemed to be at variance with the rules of secular poetry—a process whereby many excellent old church hymns have been deprived of their original power and simplicity. Most certainly, revision and purification of the outer form of the old church hymns is sometimes necessary, in order to make them popularly intelligible and usable. But such revision and purification should be undertaken only by Christians of poetic mind and sound authority.
SECTION II
THE LUTHERAN HYMN BOOK OR THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE HYMNS IN THE HYMNAL
Two different hymnological methods of disposition have arisen historically within the Church, namely, the dogmatic or the dogmatic-ethical method, and the liturgical method. The former method came into existence in the eighteenth century. By this method the hymns in the hymnal are arranged according to the usual order of dogmatics. For an illustration of this method of arranging the hymns, look into almost any good hymnal of the Reformed Church; The Methodist Hymnal, for example. The liturgical method is the original, the standard, and the correct method of disposition. In support of this assertion, it may be well to observe that since the Lutheran hymnal is a liturgical book, a book intended for the needs of the worshipping congregation, the succession of the hymns as well as their content and character should reflect the spirit of the Church, as it finds immediate expression in the cultus and its various acts, and as it seeks indirectly to exert a hallowing influence on social life in larger or smaller circles.
It may be well to take a general view of the main factors or stages of this liturgical work of the Church, so as to see more clearly what subjects may be considered in the hymn book and in what order the various subjects or rubrics may follow each other.
The reason and the vital basis for the existence of the Church is God’s revelation of salvation through Jesus Christ, i. e., the incarnation and the work of redemption of the Son of God and the sending of the Holy Spirit; and these divine works of salvation are the great objectives of the three great church festivals, Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, around which the cycles and days of the church year are grouped. The Church is the result of this revelation. Therefore our attention turns towards the Church, her nature, her establishment, and her extension in this world through missionary activity; further, toward her inner growth, by which she gives expression to her religious and harmonious life as a communion in solemn divine worship, and through her sacred acts and order consecrates human life unto a vessel for divine life. But this self-edification is brought about in the Church only through the Holy Spirit who dwells and lives within the Church and in and through the Church and her institutions of grace produces in the hearts of the redeemed personal conversion, sanctification, and salvation. Thus the Church grows both outwardly and inwardly and proceeds towards her eternal perfection. But the Church has to do not only with purely spiritual conditions, things divine and eternal. By her life she seeks to permeate, sanctify, and glorify all conditions, even the temporal. The Church seeks to penetrate, in a highly beneficial way, the civic community, to ennoble its affairs and impart support and exhortation both to the governing and the governed, in times of prosperity and in times of trouble. The Church is deeply interested in her educational institutions, these nurseries of time and eternity; the Christian school is not only a creation of the Church, but it needs the whole-hearted support of the Church. The Church is also deeply interested in the welfare of domestic life—she seeks to make the home a happy Christian home. The Church also desires to support and accompany the individual member throughout his course of life, especially in its more difficult stages, so that this temporal life may lead to eternal life.
If these are the most important factors in ecclesiastical-liturgical activity, and if the church hymnal is to be in perfect harmony with the life of the Church, then the hymns in the hymnal may be arranged as follows: 1. Festival Hymns, arranged according to the festivals, cycles and holy-days of the church year—Advent, Christmas, New Year, Epiphany, etc. 2. Hymns about the Church and ecclesiastical acts: the Word, the Church, Missions, ecclesiastical acts (worship, Holy Baptism, Holy Communion, confirmation, ordination and installation, dedication of churches, etc., also marriage and burial). 3. Hymns about the Christian life: repentance, faith, justification and state of grace, sanctification (the fruits of regeneration, prayer, cross and consolation), the completion (the resurrection, judgment, eternity). 4. Hymns for certain people, times and circumstances: the Christian community (fatherland, the authorities and the subjects, judges and those suing for justice, temporal necessities, war and peace, plagues and calamities, etc.), the Christian school or Christian education, the Christian home (husband and wife, parents and children, master and servant, morning and evening hymns, etc.), conditions in the life of an individual (health, sickness, death, etc.).