How gentle God's commands! How kind his precepts are! Hark! hark, my soul! angelic songs are swelling There are many single lines of exquisite poetry which, because they are so familiar, fail immediately to arouse the imagination. In the cross of Christ I glory, Towering o'er the wrecks of time. A startlingly magnificent lyrical summary of history is the second line. "Rock of Ages, cleft for me," becomes a more strangely rich verse as one regards it longer. Its six words comprise a trope of the Eastern deserts of the wildly imaginative quality of the story of "Open, Sesame"; an epithet, "Rock of Ages," traced by scholars at least three thousand years back; and a cry of fervent piety from the heart of rural England. Following are other lines which may be considered illustrative of the imagery and feeling of the hymnbook. Some carry a feeling of elemental sadness, some of militant high resolve, some of sanguine praise and hope: Time like an ever-rolling stream The tumult and the shouting dies; Still stands thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. A few more years shall roll From every stormy wind that blows, As pants the hart for cooling streams Thou wast their rock, their fortress, and their might, Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well-fought fight. His are the thousand sparkling rills And yet, he said, "I thirst." Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings. Hell's foundations tremble At the shout of praise. O, beautiful for patriot's dream These scattered lines from the hymn-book indicate how this type of lyric, though it uses few and simple words and the simplest form of verse, and though it may appear excessively plain, can convey large ideas and stir deep emotions. And Poetry is to the discerning mind none the less gracious when, meetly clad, she moves as a ministering spirit among all sorts and conditions of men, bearing consolation and courage and amplitude of spirit, inspiring charity and rightness of life and faith in eternal Providence. CHAPTER II HYMNS ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL HE congregational singing of hymns came into THE the Christian church by unbroken tradition from the old Hebrew worship. Both the hymns and the manner of singing them were continued, clearly, by the primitive Christians without any sense of change. The compilation of the old Hebrew book of religious lyrical poems, it seems, was begun for the Temple by that marvelous figure, David, who stands a towering figure as musician, statesman, warrior, athlete, economist, king, deep sinner, great man of God, and world's greatest hymnist; and it not only continued to be the hymn-book of the primitive church but is to-day still unaltered-except as translations necessarily alter poetry-a treasury of hymnody for general Christendom. The various branches of the church have various hymnals, official and unofficial, but the Book of Psalms is the book of lyrics that all agree upon and use. There is no good book of worship of any kind used by any section of Christianity in which the Psalms do not hold an important place. It is perhaps not going too far to name this old book of hymns as the most often quoted and generally the most familiar single book in the possession of Occidental civilization. It is not 52 strange, therefore, considering the place it holds today and considering the peculiar intimacy of the early Christians with it, that they quite naturally retained it as their own. One may not read the records far and fail to perceive indications of its continuous presence in the thought and affection of these people; that is, if one is at all familiar with the spirit and poetical manner of the Psalms. How near this book of poetry is to the heart of Christianity is indicated by its intimate connection with the life of Christ himself, from the story of the Annunciation on. His last words from the cross are quotations from the hymns of his people, Psalms 32:1 and 31:5. The writers of the gospel and the epistles, concise and swift-moving as their style generally is, find time and occasion, according to a careful study made by Professor Crawford H. Toy, of Harvard, in his "Quotations in the New Testament," for 137 quotations from the Psalms. That the writers of the New Testament in their stupendous earnestness quote verses of lyrical poetry to so large an extent has its significance. It shows surely that this poetry was not only deeply based in the common popular affection but it stood in a place of highest intellectual power and literary dignity. The early Christians continued to sing, as their forefathers had done, from their most familiar and best beloved book. But while this was the main source of its hymns, the church did not confine itself, even from the very early days, entirely to the Psalms. In the Book of Luke, Chapters I and II, are recorded four new |