UNQUOTABLE HYMNS | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 28, 1902

UNQUOTABLE HYMNS.

The Christian.

Has any one noticed how few hymns are quoted in these days? One minister has said that about the entire body of Christian truth with which his people were acquainted, was contained in the hymn book. The hymns they sang had fastened themselves on their minds. But there is a recent and large class of hymns which are scarcely ever quoted; indeed, they are hardly remembered; for there is little or nothing in them to remember or quote. Flighty jingles, vain repetitions, rattling choruses, and jumbled fugues may tickle the ear and please the crowd, but when one settles down to read them in cold, plain English, the interest felt in them vanishes, and they appear stale and stupid, flat and unprofitable.

To quote a hymn, a man must remember it; and if a man is to remember a hymn, there must be something in it to remember. Very many of the pieces sung to-day are not remembered, and for that let us be thankful! Persons can sing them as long as they can follow the jingle of the tune; but as for thoughts and ideas, there are very few to be retained.

And is it not true that ministers are forgetting how to read hymns? There are men whose reading of a hymn is as good as a sermon, and far better than some sermons. The earnest, heartfelt pathos which marks the reading of a hymn when divine truth mingles with solid thought and pure devotion, has often brought tears to the eyes of those that heard; but it was because there were tears in the hymn, and in the heart of the one that wrote it.

If we can get rid of the light and frivolous rhymes which very few remember, and which nobody thinks of quoting, and get hold of those deep, solid, devout, and devotional hymns, which the Church of God have loved to sing for generations, we shall find that such hymns will strike down into the hearts of men, and write within them truth which is more precious than gold. And if these hymns can be set to decent tunes—tunes which breathe the pathos of Christian emotion and the reverence due to the Almighty—tunes which are fitly joined to hymns of praise and worship, hymns which angels might gladly sing, and to which the Saviour himself might bend to listen,—the service of song may then come to be what it should be—the worship of God rather than the amusement of men.

There is nothing more shocking to a devout ear and a cultured taste than to hear a sacred hymn, like, “There is a fountain filled with blood,” set to the music of some jigging tune which reminds one of the thumbing of a banjo or the movements of a plantation dance. Such singing is not worship; it is profanation; and the thoughtless souls which delight in it need to be silent in the presence of the Lord, and pray for grace whereby they “may serve God acceptable with reverence and godly fear.”