The Singing Church: The Hymns It Wrote and SangLorenz, Edmund S. (Edmund Simon)
Religion
The Singing Church: The Hymns It Wrote and Sang
Lorenz, Edmund S. (Edmund Simon)
Hymns -- History and criticism
After the lapse of a century, his hymns are still in current use, many
of them inevitable in every hymnal whether churchly or popular, such
as “From Greenland’s icy mountains,” “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God
Almighty,” “The Son of God goes forth to war,” “By cool Siloam’s shady
rill,” “Bread of the world, in mercy broken,” “Brightest and best of
the sons of the morning.”
The beauty of Heber’s style was recognized from the first. His hymns
were distinctly literary in flavor, poetically conceived, with varied
rhythms and forms of stanza. But he did not transgress the limitations
of the singing hymn, as had the literary men of a century and more
before, nor did he ignore the practicability of the small number of
verses. The hymns were poems, but they were congregational hymns none
the less. But they might have been all this and yet perished by the
way. It was their deep spirituality, their lucid expression of
Christian truth, transmuted by intense conviction and personal
experience into a personal appeal that was abiding, that have made
them immortal.
Dean Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868) was a brilliant scholar and church
historian and a poet of great reputation. His hymns are strong,
churchly, thoughtful to a high degree, but they lack the poetic charm
of those of Heber. Of the eleven that appeared in Heber’s posthumous
collection, and of others that were printed later, only one, his Palm
Sunday hymn, “Ride on, ride on in majesty,” is certain to be included
in every hymnal. The litany, “When our hearts are bowed with woe,” and
“Oh help us, Lord, each hour of need,” are only occasionally used.
Like Saul among the prophets, we find the author of _Lalla Rookh_,
Thomas Moore (1779-1852), enrolled among our English hymn writers. The
charm of his secular verse and songs is found also in his _Sacred
Songs_, from which his ever-useful and tender “Come, ye disconsolate”
has been taken; it is found in most of our hymnals. Less often do his
“Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea” and “O Thou who driest
the mourner’s tear” find a place. Not directly associated with
ecclesiastical circles and lacking in religious fervor, he yet
deserves a place among distinctly literary hymn writers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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