HYMNS A VITAL PART OF HAPPY MAN’S RELIGION

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 90, 3 September 1948, Page 7

HYMNS A VITAL PART OF HAPPY MAN’S RELIGION

(Contributed by the Ministers’ Association) Christianity is a happy man’s religion. To express his joy he has often burst into song. The hymns of the Christian Church express the most profound experiences of the human heart. Hymns have been woven into our culture. Especially old favourites such as “Abide With Me,” “O God Our Help in Ages Past” and “Rock of Ages.” What would Christmas be like if we could not join in our well known carols, if we could not sing “The First Nowell” (a traditional French melody) or John Unyan’s “Christians, Awake, Salute the Happy Morn”? What are some of the main types of hymn? First, there is the “Plain Song”—which has come down to us from the days of the monks. These are simple melodies, sung in unison. One the best known of this type, is the hymn frequently used at ordination services, “Come Holy Ghost— Our Hearts Inspire.” Then we owe a great debt to the early Lutherans. Martin Luther himself composed a paraphrase of the 46th Psalm—known today as . “Ein’

Feste Burg.” Heine says “a battle hymn was this defiant song, with which Luther and his comrades entered Worms.” Perhaps the best known of German chorales to our New Zealand congregations is the August Gottlieb Spangenberg hymn, translated by John Wesley “What shall we offer our good Lord, Poor nothings, for his boundless grace? Fain would we his great name record And worthily set forth his praise.” One of the greatest hymn writers of all time was Dr Isaac Watts (1674-1748) of Southampton. From his pen we have many of the old favourites. When John Wesley was dying, he asked those present to sing “I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath; And when my voice is lost in death, Praise shall employ my nobler powers: My days of praise shall ne’er be past, While life and thought and being last, Or immortality endures.” Watts composed a hymn which has expressed for thousands the meaning of the Cross, “When I survey the wondrous Cross.” No article on hymn writers would be complete without some reference to Charles Wesley. It was the hymns of Wesley, together with the .field preaching of the great evangelists which brought new spiritual life to England .during the 18th century. Of him it' has - beep, written, “Charles Wesley, the poet, did as much as John Wesley, the orator, for the permanence of Methodism. The magnetism of personal influence passes away, but the burning life of that wondrous psalmody, sung Sunday by Sunday by congregations full of faith is imperishable. These moving verses have elevated thousands of distressed people to heavenly places.” Finally, one of the greatest Christians of the 20th century v/as Geoffry Studdert Kennedy, “Woodbine Willie” the famous'padre of the first world war. He has expressed the spirit of dedication in one of his hymns—in matchless words, “To give and give and give again What God hath given thee; To spend thyself nor count the cost To serve right gloriously The God who gave all worlds that are, And all that are to be.”