Frederick William Faber (1814–1863) is another master of the art of hymn writing. Hark, Hark, My Soul! and There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy are known everywhere. No martial song was ever more inspiring than Faith of Our Fathers, with its thrilling second stanza. I often wonder when people sing that stanza in church, sing it mechanically with their thoughts elsewhere, what would happen if they took it literally:
Our fathers, chained in prisons dark,
Were still in heart and conscience free;
And blest would be their children’s fate,
If they, like them, should die for Thee.
Faith of our fathers, holy faith,
We will be true to Thee till death.
One of the greatest of all hymns, Nearer, My God, to Thee, was written by Sarah Flower, a friend of the young poet Robert Browning. The first time it was ever heard in public was when Sarah and Eliza Flower sang it as a duet in the Rev. Mr. Fox’s church. Little did those sisters guess that they had added to the Christian church all over the world an imperishable song.
Scores of other hymns might be mentioned, hymns that are exalted and passionate in feeling and aspiration and nobly poetic in expression.
It is a pity that we so seldom hear good congregational singing. People nowadays let others do their singing for them, as well as their praying. If one will look at the faces of an audience in church and notice that although their mouths are open no sound emerges, one will be reminded of a cat on the back doorstep on a winter morning. You look at the cat and the animal opens its mouth as if to mew, but has not sufficient energy to bring the articulate mew to the surface—just an expression of vague discomfort. So during the singing of hymns I see people with no animation in their faces and with open, silent mouths, like the dry mew of the cat.