As many are exercised about the selection of 1856 and its revision, a few words may help by furnishing the light of revealed truth. The wisdom which comes from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruit, without contention, without hypocrisy.
Hymns properly are addressed to God in Himself and His relations, His grace and holiness, His attributes and mercies, His counsels and His ways, &c.; and so with our Lord Jesus in His person and offices, His work, love, glory, coming, and kingdom, &c. A didactic form is surely to be avoided when God or the Lord is approached in praise or thanksgiving; though nothing can in effect more truly instruct and admonish the saints than such outpourings of heart under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In a hymn one looks for the elevated expression of communion rising from true and deep spirituality, or that charming simplicity in celebrating grace and truth, which is due in homage and gratitude to God and His Son, and most widely acceptable. Hence those which address the saints, or again the church, &c., as the rule (not perhaps without exception) fittingly fall into a place separate from what is suited for worship; so those of experience, and of course others of a gospel character. These may be excellent, more so than some of direct praise. But the difference is just, and ought to part many otherwise good.
A didactic statement, like 18, 64, &c. has no real right to a place; nor is Watts' (30) quite suitable, as being a sermonette with a hymnal preface and end, (or Haweis' (32) with its warm individual feeling). Is it well for assembly worship to use verses which teach “Jesus!” or even us the difference between the Levitical economy and Christianity? It may be in the later pieces. The Good Tidings' Hymn Book, again, more appropriately has such as 39, 40, 53, 62, 67, 111, &c. Number 22 is a touching record, but not a hymn. Take 54, 63, 82, 93, 98, 99, &c.: however fine in varying degree, they naturally follow those of adoration.
Undoubtedly, as a literary question, it is due to an author to give his words as they originally or last left his pen; for some of those most valued were often retouched by the author. There may be a delicacy while he lives and refuses his consent to alterations for public use, desirable in the judgment of spiritually competent men. But when he is departed, personal feeling should yield to higher demands. Why should the worship of the assembly lack a hymn admirable but for an error more or less easy of emendation? Or why should they be forced to use one which offends in some serious point? When nothing of moment is gained, the author's form should be observed, as in the opening of Hymns 2, 123, 283, &c.
But the reverence which scripture teaches and forms is of prime moment: else God is not worthily honored, and saints are unconsciously but really injured. How unbecoming to address the Lord by His personal name without some title of respect! It is a habit come down from the early fall of Christendom, through Monkish hymns to Moravians and almost everybody. The book of 1856 abounds with this serious oversight. Can there be a more valid reason for amending Hymn 6? The rest of the stanzas well fall in with the necessary change. “Thy” afterward is quite proper. The fault demands care everywhere, especially in an age of levity, so increasingly far from real reverence or respect even among Christians.
Truth again is of at least equal importance. Take an early and mild instance, “sons and daughters” in Hymn 3: does this express the Christian relationship? The apostle in 2 Cor. 6 refers to Isa. 43:6; 52:116I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth; (Isaiah 43:6)
11Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord. (Isaiah 52:11), and other scriptures for enforcing separation from evil in every sort and degree on the Christian as the condition of his relationship with God. He is no more defining what is special to us (where male and female vanish), than he is holding out a long life on the earth to Christian children in Eph. 6 as the motive for obeying their parents in the Lord. Again, abstract competency to win our love is surely inadequate to express our praise in 6, which is therefore rightly changed to “'Twas Thine alone” &c., though this necessitates a modification of the following line of the stanza. Further, in 7 “sin's” heavy burden needs correction to be scriptural (and so often elsewhere), besides other improvements called for in the same stanza. Nor can any reasonable Christian doubt that in the favorite 8 “The depth of Thy riches,” though alluding to, does not express, Rom. 11:3333O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! (Romans 11:33), but is vague and unmeaning; while the correction is easy, not harsh or extreme as elsewhere. Next, can any one doubt the improvement, at the least cost, of 9? And is it not well to abolish the uncalled for capitals and italics, not only in 10 but in many more? The doctrine of 11 is bad in the second stanza as in others; and 12 is so indifferent that many would reject part if not the whole.
To fair minds it seemed safe to substitute here the hymn of one inferior to none in depth of thought and spiritual feeling, though clothing generally in rugged phrase even his loftiest (as 14, 76, 79); especially as the substitutes for 12 and 25 (a prayer-meeting hymn) were already familiar in the Appendix as 18 and 24, and valued by all capable of appreciating them. Little could one anticipate any outrage now. But he is dead: not a whisper while he lived. Others will not forget nor cease to love and respect. Any one can cast mud; and the hand that could not build a hovel might burn down a palace.
Dismissal hymns, like 17, 161, 247, 248, 311, it is thought best to group with 340; and those speaking of the Lord's Supper near the first half of the book. For this an old one of Sir E. D. is reserved, correcting any word or thought in danger of evil construction, as others were sent about in a not duly corrected proof. Hymns of such effort of thought and swollen words as 24, 26, 31, and not a few others, may not approve themselves to all, any more than new ones of simple language and fuller matter than the ordinary; but in a compilation general edification to the Lord's praise ought to be sought, not to gratify personal taste or prejudice.
When the book of 1856 appeared, great opposition or even animosity was entertained, both by those who resented the public discontinuance (save by a very few for a while) of the “Hymns for the poor of the Flock” (1842), and by those who lost many fine hymns there which deserve and will now have an honored seat. Further, there were strange and sorry importations which astonished even such as shared in its correction, who were few. Yet as a whole the improvement was marked and by degrees appreciated. Still the failure in a measure was felt from the first; and this led more than a dozen years ago to a Revision and a Re-revision, the character of which, whatever the good omissions and changes here and there, as well as the insertion of several fine hymns, did not at all satisfy many intelligent brethren who were expected to use it publicly. It will be the shame of those who are now laboring diligently in the proposed new edition, which is in course of being printed, if a better and more correct Hymn-book be not produced; as true-hearted men helping it on now are assured that by grace it will be.
Understanding of hymns depends sometimes on the right or spiritual feeling of the individual. Moral state not infrequently blinds, to say nothing of capacity. But a few instances in the book of 1858 may prove how pious men, not fitted in all respects to revise, may unintentionally falsify and destroy the sense. Hymn 76 (“Rise, my soul”) had appeared if not before in the 1842 collection; where, though the punctuation was not erroneous, it did not help the slow, or the self-confident, to understand the last splendid stanza. In fact, it was very generally misunderstood. But in 1856 it is printed so mistakenly as to mislead every one who trusts this edition. “Then no stranger,-God shall meet thee, Stranger thou” &c. Not only should the opening word be “There,” but, what is of far more consequence, the punctuation introduced utterly ruins the author's thought, and makes the first line even contradict the second. The true and only intended force is: God no stranger but well-known, meeting the saint a stranger in courts above. Another error equally gross, if not worse, is in the last line of the same author's sweet personal hymn, 82, where he is made to say, as thousands have sung for near forty: years, that “my hopes shall crown Christ,” instead of its reading (as he wrote) that Christ will crown my hopes: the error of printing “shall” for “shalt,” as was pointed out to the publisher many years since. There is a third, which still remains unredressed in the opening stanzas of 79 (of the same author). This nobody can explain or understand as now printed. Proper stops help to make it plain.
There is another class of change, as in the omission of stanza 3 in 65. It is both a poor drop from what precedes, and not in consonance with what follows. The only question is, whether the hymn does not call for another stanza to finish: for a hymn ought to have a beginning, a middle, and a close.
Confessedly the plural for hymns of worship in the assembly is more proper than the singular. Many songs easily lend themselves to this change; not least 48, which seems rather enhanced by the expression of fellowship, or even 49, which is not a mere gospel hymn, the 4th stanza easily made correct English, and the 5th far from pointless. In revision patient consideration in love with regard to the general feeling is of all price: nobody can or ought to have his own will or way.