3. After this general analysis of the structure and thought and of the general emotion of the hymn, there will need to be a study of its detailed phrases. The minister ought to study it line by line and phrase by phrase. The Scriptural allusions need to be located and their connections noted. What did Charles Wesley mean in his great hymn, “Love divine, all loves excelling,” by the phrase in the second verse, “the second rest”? Why did he pray “Finish, then, thy new creation”?[3] What is the Scriptural justification for the phrases of Newton’s “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds”?[4] In Doddridge’s “Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve,” what Biblical authority has he for “cloud of witnesses,” or the ideas of “prize” and “race”?[5] What did Watts mean in the third verse of his “Not all the blood of beasts,” “My faith would lay her hand On that dear head of Thine, While like a penitent I stand And there confess my sin”? Without the picture of the high priest laying his hands on the head of the scapegoat and confessing the sins of the people before sending it out into the wilderness (Lev. 16:21), what meaning can these lines convey? _The Background of the Hymn._ 1. The interpretation of the hymn cannot be complete without a recognition of the person who wrote it. His type of mind, his responsiveness to divine truth, his conception of the work of the Church, stamp themselves on the product of his pen. The personality of Watts, of Wesley, of Whittier, and of Faber interpret their several hymns. Knowledge of the circumstances under which a given hymn was written will add to the value and correctness of the interpretation, by giving a sense of actuality to the thought and feeling expressed. 2. The age in which a hymn was written will be a large factor in its interpretation. The sheer objectiveness of the ancient hymns, the meditativeness of the medieval hymns stressing the sufferings of Christ on the cross, the worship character of the pre-Wesley hymns, including those of Watts, the warm, tender, experiential hymns of the Wesleyan Revival, all stamp their several hymns ineffaceably with their characteristics. “A mighty fortress is our God” bears the _stigmata_ of the opening battles of the German Reformation. “Jesus, the very thought of Thee” is permeated by the peace and ardent piety of the Spanish nunnery whose devout abbess wrote the Latin original. “Stand up, stand up for Jesus” sounds the militant note of the great Philadelphia revival of 1857 and the Antislavery campaign that was so soon to drench the South with the noblest blood of both sections.