The actual fact is that in the hymn the preacher has a most valuable factor in making his service spiritually effective. Even as a perfunctory exercise it has at least a social value; but if its emotional and spiritual possibilities are fully developed and exploited, it becomes one of the most impressive and thrilling means of securing genuinely religious results among his people. It is a tragedy that so many clergymen have such dull and unattractive services when through a proper use of hymns they might be made thrillingly interesting. Professor H. M. Poteat, of Wake Forest College, does not use too severe language in his _Practical Hymnology_ when he says, “As a result of inexcusable ignorance, carelessness, and laziness, the singing of hymns, in all too many churches, instead of being an act of worship, has degenerated into a mere incident of the service, holding its place solely because of immemorial custom.” It is the purpose of this treatise at least to prevent the ignorance Professor Poteat complains of so bitterly. The other difficulties can be removed only “by fasting and prayer.” THE SINGING CHURCH PART I THE CHARACTER OF THE HYMN _Chapter I_ WHAT IS A HYMN? I. DEFINITION OF THE HYMN _Importance of Accurate Definition._ Before undertaking the study of the hymn in its various aspects and relations, theoretical and practical, it should be very carefully defined. This is all the more necessary because the word “hymn” is used to cover so wide a sweep of religious poetry, and because our discussion is to be largely limited to its practical use in church work. Dr. Austin Phelps’ test of a genuine hymn, “Genuineness of religious emotion, refinement of poetic taste, and fitness to musical cadence—these are essential to a faultless hymn, as the three chief graces to a faultless character,”[1] is a very clear and charming statement of some essentials of a hymn, which needed emphasis in his rather prosaic day, but does not include all the requisites of a useful hymn. _Inadequate Definition._