Aside from the topical symmetry referred to, this principle will find other applications in the practical use of hymns. Some inferior hymns have for some occasions a greater immediate effect than much better ones, perhaps because of a more singable tune or because its sentiment fits into the situation or because it makes a desired impression in a more efficient way. _Chapter II_ THE PURPOSE AND VALUE OF HYMNS I. THE IMPULSE TO WRITE HYMNS The writing of the best hymns of the Christian Church was not a matter of ulterior purpose, any more than is the singing of the hermit thrush in the wilderness. They are the result of the urge for expression that lies back of all the best architecture, literature, and art of the human race. There is the vision, the sense of reality, the subjective response to truth, to beauty, and to exalted experiences that must find an objective bodying-forth in some appropriate form. The great doctrines of Christianity loom up in their dignity and majestic sweep, in their adequacy to the highest and deepest needs of the human soul. The spontaneous hymn is but a cry of astonished delight, of exalted inspiration, of self-forgetful contemplation of the revealed glory, an instinctive appeal to other souls to share the rapture of the vision. Such a hymn is not calmly planned; it forces itself upon the mind of the rapt poet. II. PURPOSE IN WRITING HYMNS _The Influence of Purpose._ This instinct for sharing with others, for winning their attention and participation in a blessed experience, may produce a measure of premeditation and become a more or less clearly defined purpose. The idea of the needs of other souls, or of the Church at large, may become an additional factor, bringing in the recognition of the importance of adaptation to the mental processes of those to be helped, or of practical methods of reaching them. Also the originating impulse may grow, as in the case of Isaac Watts, out of the call of some perceived need among the writer’s fellows, or of some lack in the work of the Church. The emotional and poetic elements may be marshaled by bringing up the memory of some past exalted vision of the truth, or of some former quickening spiritual experience, or (better yet!) by an abiding realization of the truth of some doctrine, or by a perennial flow of devout feeling.