2. As a spontaneous expression of personal experience, the hymn had to be individualistic. Not often, if ever, are particular religious experiences common to a body of believers at a given moment. 3. The high peaks of religious experience which are most valuable as furnishing ideals and stimulus to the members of a singing congregation can be reached only by individuals, not by a mass of people. To restrict the expression of religious experience to that common to all Christians, would be to omit the most inspiring and helpful hymns, and keep our song service at a dead level of inferior value. 4. It must not be forgotten that it is not the congregation that sings; it is its individual units! The congregation is an abstraction, a merely mental conception. The singing of each member is fundamentally as purely individual as if he were absolutely alone! Hence the “I and My” hymn is entirely fitting. Each sings what is, or ought to be, his own individual experience. Indeed, he makes his best contribution to the collective effect if he is intensely individualistic in his singing. 5. In all ages this individualistic participation in mass singing has been natural and spontaneous. The children of Israel sang an individualistic “I and My” hymn in rejoicing over the army of Pharaoh. The psalms are largely “I and My” hymns of praise, of prayer, and of confession. David sings, “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.” It is too much to expect that every singer shall apprehend the full import of the words he sings; to accuse him of insincerity and hypocrisy if he fails to rise to their level, or if he takes them on his lips thoughtlessly, is uncharitable. In most cases the fault lies with the leader of the service who does not bring out the meaning and does not prepare the minds and hearts of the singers for the hymn about to be sung. It is, therefore, not a question of the first person singular, but of the kind of personal experience that finds a voice. Is it artificial or genuine? Is it morbid or wholesome? Is it depressing or stimulating to the spiritual life? Is it an experience to which all have attained or may attain, in terms all can accept, or is it morbid, fanatical, extravagant? No congregation should be expected to sing offhand with Faber, “I love Thee so, I know not how My transports to control,” or “Oh, dearest Jesus, I have grown Childish with love of thee.”