By the early nineteeth century, Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley1, and others had provided thousands of hymns, but those authors were "dissenters;" that is, independent of the state churches. Some congregations in the Established Churches were beginning to sing hymns, even though the law permitted only singing of psalms and other passages from scripture. This provided an additional cause for prejudice against hymn-singing.2
In England, James Montgomery3 (1771-1854) probably did more than any other man to inspire and satisfy the demand for hymns. An orphaned child of a Moravian missionary, he became a newspaper editor, crusading for the abolition of slavery4, foreign missions5, and the Bible Society. He published several volumes of poetry, including 400 hymns6, of which 100 were still in use 100 years later. Perhaps more important, he edited hymnals for the Moravian Brethren7, and helped Cottyer and Cotterill8 edit hymnals for the church of England.
Cotterill's hymnal caused an outcry and triggered a lawsuit seeking to suppress the use of hymns in Anglican churches. It is hard for us to imagine their prejudice against hymns. Responding to the redoubtable Dr. Johnson's fiery arguments, Montgomery passionately argued that human poetry had a place in worship:
"It is begging the question to say, that 'man admitted to implore the mercy of his Creator, and plead the merits of his Redeemer, is already in a higher state than poetry can confer.' [as Johnson had written] He is; but what of that? he must follow the counsel of the prophet: 'Take with you words, and turn unto the Lord: say unto Him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously, so will we render the calves of our lips. Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses, neither will we say any more to the work of our hands--Ye are our gods: for in Thee the fatherless findeth mercy' (Hosea, xiv., 2-3). Here is a prayer, dictated by the Spirit of God Himself, which is verse in the original, and ought to be rendered into verse when it would appear to be poetry, not of the simplest and severest, but of the loftiest and most embellished style: and does poetry here 'lose its lustre and power, because it is applied to the decoration of something better than itself?' Our critic says, 'The employments of pious meditation are faith, thanksgiving, repentance, and supplication.' He who denies that there can be a strain of poetry suited to the expression of each of these, in the most perfect manner, without either extravagance or impiety, must be prepared to deny that there is poetry in those very passages of the Psalms, in which, according to the judgment of all ages since they were written, there may be found the greatest sublimity and pathos."9.
The effective result of the suit was that Anglicans were free to use hymns (often of Cotterill's selection). As a direct result of this newfound freedom, the English language soon came to have a body of hymns second only to German among modern languages.
But what, exactly, ought a hymn to be? Montgomery is justly described as "our first hymnologist; the first Englishman who collected and criticized hymns, and who made people that had lost all recollection of ancient models understand something of what a hymn meant, and what it ought to be." He expressed that ideal:
"A hymn ought to be as regular in its structure as any other poem; it should have a distinct subject, and that subject should be simple, not complicated: so that whatever skill or labour might be required in the author to develope his plan, there should be little or none required on the part of the reader to understand it. Consequently, a hymn must have a beginning, middle, and end ... every line carrying forward the connection, and every verse adding a well-proportioned limb to a symmetrical body. The reader should know when the strain is complete, and be satisfied, as at the close of an air in music ..."
The syllables in every division ought to 'ripple like a rivulet,' one producing another as its natural effect, while the rhythm of each line, falling into the general stream at its proper place, should cause the verse to flow in progressive melody, deepening and expanding like a river to the close; or, to change the figure, each stanza should be a poetical tune, played down to the last note. Such ... is required in all other legitimate poetry, and why it should not be observed in that which is worthiest of all possible pre-eminence, it would be difficult to say..."9a
Even in his day, many hymns were not nearly so carefully structured, or so skillfully polished as this:
"Many good men ... have begun apparently with the only idea in their mind at the time; another, with little relationship to the former, has been forced upon them by a refractory rhyme; a third became necessary to eke out a verse, a fourth to begin one, and so on, till having compiled a sufficient number of stanzas of so many lines, and lines of so many syllables, the operation has been suspended; whereas it might, with equal consistency, have been continued to any imaginable length, and the tenth or ten thousandth link might have been struck out, or changed places with any other, without the slightest infraction of the chain; the whole being a series of independent verses, collocated as they came, and the burden a canto of phrases, figures, sad ideas, the common property of every writer who bad none of his own, and, therefore, found in the works of each, unimproved, if not unimpaired, from generation to generation..."
"The faults in ordinary hymns, are vulgar phrases, low words, hard words, technical terms, inverted construction, broken syntax, barbarous abbreviations that make our beautiful English horrid even to the eye, bad rhymes, or no rhymes where rhymes are expected, but above all, numbers without cadence. A line is no more metre because it contains a certain concatenation of syllables, than so many crotchets and quavers pricked at random, would constitute a bar of music..."
"Authors who devote their talents to the glory of God and the salvation of men, ought surely to take as much pains to polish and perfect their offerings of this kind, as secular and profane poets bestow upon their works..."
Who can read this and not blush to think of hymns in our own book? Montgomery warned of the consequences of this careless slovenliness:
"Such rhapsodies may be sung from time to time, and keep alive devotion already kindled, but they leave no trace in the memory, make no impression on the heart, and fall through the mind as sounds glide through the ear -- pleasant, it may be, in their passage, but never returning to haunt the imagination in retirement, or, in the multitude of the thoughts, to refresh the soul."
In his work on hymns, Montgomery did not forget the Psalms: he published Songs of Zion containing 67 psalm versions, including some of his most famous hymns.10 In its preface he expressed the hope that
"by avoiding the rugged literality of some, and the diffusive paraphrases of others, he may, in a few instances, have approached nearer than either of them have generally done to the ideal model of what devotional poems, in a modern tongue, grounded upon the subjects of ancient psalms, yet suited for Christian edification, ought to be."
Underlying this horrified passion there are genuine scriptural ideals, which we ignore to our peril. All too often, we sing hymns because they are the hymns we sing. Rather than searching out words effective for expressing praise and inspiring spiritual growth, we are in danger of being satisfied with the feeling of contented piety raised by familiar sounds, no matter how clumsy or banal. But merely repeating words that are true is not the same thing as singing with the spirit: any more now than in the time of Amos.
And Montgomery's effort, sustained over many years, indicates how important he considered this ideal. Even so, he frankly admitted that his own hymns did not measure up to the ideals he presented. But Erik Routley ranks him after only Watts and Wesley among English hymnwriters. He is poorly represented in our hymnals,11 and even the few songs we have are seldom used. Perhaps if we shared more of his ideals, we should better value his work.
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Copyright © 2002,2003,2004, Stephen Hutcheson
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| These studies are created by members of the West Allen Church of Christ in Allen, Texas |