Z Zion stands with hills surrounded 201 Zion, to thy Savior singing 126 THE SINGING CHURCH _The Hymns It Wrote and Sang_ By EDMUND S. LORENZ To this author the hymn is not a dry abstraction but an experience of intense reality—of those realities (as of God, Christ, sin, salvation, divine care, eternal life) to which human hearts have responded throughout the ages. His study makes full recognition of the personal elements in hymn development. The singers whose vision of spiritual things is fresh and keen stand out in every age, expanding the permanent content of church hymnody. Here is indeed a book which will set the Church to singing once more, in an effort to proclaim a new awareness of the presence of God—that same awareness which stirred the composers of our greatest hymns. Dr. Lorenz makes visible to us the golden stairway of great hymn writers, shining at every level of its ascent with the glory of the Christian faith. THE CONTENTS Introduction. PART I: The Character of the Hymn. _Chapters_: What Is a Hymn? The Purpose and Value Of Hymns. The Literary Aspect of Hymns. The Emendation of Hymns. The Content of the Hymn. The Gospel Hymn. PART II: History of the Development of the Christian Hymn. _Chapters_: Apostolic Origin and Development. The Post-Apostolic Hymn. The Greek Hymnody. The Latin Hymnody. Luther and the German Hymn. The Later German Hymnody. Metrical Psalmody. The English Hymn before Watts. Isaac Watts and His Period. The Wesleys and Their Era. Hymns in the Church of England. American Hymnody. PART III: Practical Hymnology. _Chapters_: The Study of Hymns. The Practical Use of Hymns. The Selection of: Hymns. The Announcement and Treatment of Hymns. Epilogue. The study is pre-eminently thorough both in literary analysis and in historical research. The altogether practical treatment illuminates the whole field of hymnology and its values. THE SINGING CHURCH _The Hymns It Wrote and Sang_ By EDMUND S. LORENZ This book merits the careful study of the minister, the choir master, the organist, and others who wish to vitalize public and private worship by an intelligent use of our Christian hymnody. The book is at once scholarly and practical. No other treats so informatively and yet so interestingly:— (1) The religious and musical heritage of the hymn writers in the Greek, the Latin, the German, the English, and the American epochs; (2) The outstanding personalities who made valuable and permanent hymnological contributions in those epochs; (3) The occasions and emotional crises out of which many great hymns were born; (4) The critical standards by which hymns may be adjudged great.