THE NEW YOR PUBLIC LIBRAN .. The .. ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS Public Library Magazine. A GUIDE TO READERS AND BOOKBUYERS. HYMNS THAT ARE NO HYMNS. SOME of my readers may remember a passage in one of Charles Lamb's delightful essays, beginning: "Homes. there are which are no homes-the homes of the very poor." The phrase recurred to me the other day, when joining, as best I could, in the singing of two hymns. They were both new to me, and were sung by the congregation with considerable fervor. As I tried to realize the thoughts to which the hymns were intended to give utterance, a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness came over me. Surely, said I to myself, no person can be allowed to write such nonsense as this and call it a hymn! The first of the two was named "The Golden Key," and ran as follows: "THE GOLDEN KEY." 1. Prayer is the key For the bended knee To open the morn's first hours; To the starry skies, Like perfume from the flowers. 2. Not a soul so sad, Nor a heart so glad, And some darkness turn to light. 3. Take the golden key In your hand and see, Is a crown of gold, Thro' the weary hours of day. Is sobbing its low refrain, To the toil-worn feet 5. Soon the year's dark door Shall be shut no more; Life's tears shall be wiped away, And the gold harps ring Now, if one tries to analyze the language of the above hymn and to gather from phrase, line and stanza the imagery which the writer seeks to impress upon the reader, he finds himself at once in a maze of mixed metaphor. How can the knee open a door with a key? The door being opened, why should incense rise? And why, at the ordinary hour of morning prayer, are the skies described as starry? In the golden hours of morning the sun obscures the lesser lights, and the stars are hidden behind a "glorious canopy of light and blue." The starry sky is the glory of night, not of morning. The second verse is not so grotesque, but the close is weak; "a daybreak song turning some darkness into light" is feebleness itself. In the third verse we get back into all the horrors of mixed metaphor. By the drifting away of a night-tide we are enabled to see the head of a golden key turning into a crown of gold, which mysteriously lightens the labors of the day. How this result is effected is left in the dim mists of the unknowable. The fourth verse is equally objectionable. The first three lines suggest a very lachrymose bell; but why this bell should be the signal for a garland to encircle the feet, either actually or figuratively-except for the impertinent fact that feet rhymes with sweet-passes comprehension. Two things only can safely be prescribed for weary feet, a bath or rest; garlands would neither be comfortable nor appropriate. The last stanza begins with the objectionable phrase, "the year's dark door," by which the gate of Death, I suppose, is meant. When it opens, tears are wiped away, in the delight of rushing in through pearly gates and hearing the orchestra strike up; a vul gar piece of imagery, reminding one of a crush at a vaudeville entertainment. The last line is a weak piece of padding, altogether divorced from the previous imagery. The next hymn is entitled "Consecration," and the theology is so execrable that it might make Cotton Mather or Jonathan Edwards turn in his grave. There is a clear and logical Christian doctrine of sacrifice and of the atonement. The ancient Jews formerly offered up the best and fairest of the flock before they would kill and eat for themselves. This act signified that the great Jehovah was their lord and master to whom they owed everything, and that the best only was to be offered to him. Herein lay devotion and sacrifice. the Christian church such symbolism has, like Mary's gift, passed away. Christ once for all offered himself as a sacrifice, a "lamb without spot or blem For To talk of a Christian offering himself, body and soul and spirit, on an altar as a sacrifice pleasing to God; to picture him as waiting like Elijah for the fire to consume this sacrifice, is either rank nonsense or rank heresy. The result of this "consuming" is a "cleansing and making whole," and making whole," and some "washing" and "sealing" complete the unimaginable process. CONSECRATION. 1. My body, soul and spirit, Jesus I give to Thee, CHORUS. My all is on the altar, I trust in Thy great name; And cleanse and make me whole. 4. I'm thine, O blessed Jesus, Washed by Thy precious blood; Now seal me by Thy spirit, seam. A sacrifice to God. Bad hymns are like bad money--they drive out the good. This crazy quilt of shreds and patches torn from a dignified and consistent theology is sung with unction and considered "so sweet." The noble hymns of the past are meanwhile neglected and unknown. I have been at many a gathering of missionaries in a foreign land where hymnsinging was a pleasant feature of the intercourse. Those who had but lately arrived from America were always startlingly ignorant of the best hymns. Such masterpieces as "Pleasant are Thy courts above," or, "Jesus, the very thought of Thee," instinct with real spiritual life and thought, had never been heard of; while miserable jingles, flimsy in thought and language as the bargains on a cheap warehouse counter, could be rattled off ad libitum and ad nauThis is really a great danger to the churches. A minister who gives out two such hymns as the above incurs no little responsibility. If they interpret his sermon and supplement its teachings then no honest thinker or ' truth-lover can gain good from such a service; if his sermon has been an intelligent and manly effort, the hymn is then a wretched opiate, destructive of its legimate effect. I have a profound admiration for a good hymn. To make a really good hymn one's own possession is to gain a lifelong companion which will soothe and stimulate in times of vacancy or depression. But to apply the name hymn to such productions as the above-and they are not selected because of their especial badness, but are fairly typical-is to misuse a term which ought to be associated only with what is dignified, worthy and sacred. JAMES MAIN DIXON. THE WORLD AND CHRIST. "And we are here as on a darkling plain."-Arnold. Is our world grown so vast, So multiform, so mighty, so endued With fullness of self-knowledge, long pursuedAnd turning now to ashes in her hands That Christ, the King, Is shrunk into a poor, unmeaning thing, Is our world grown so wise? For I have read, In volumes of the lives that touch on mine, Above the travail and triumph of the age, The sterile air, a spirit, as a dove, But, turning, cries, "Our life is all Be true; the human love is all your gain.'' So smiled, O Christ, the world of sovereign Rome, Whereto thou camest in that iron age; As now, the sages smiled; the rabble's rage, Thrust Thee, not gently, forth. Their memory's dower Is silence: lo, we judge not! From the foam, Above the ruin of their realm submerged, A spirit of desire had birth Desire of knowledge, beauty and of powerWhich, scorning first the earth, Mingled anon with men, and took the name Of Christ upon her garments, though unpurged. Thus, in lowly guise, she bare The lamp and cross, and had her meed of fame; But now, by men enthroned too high, Mindless of whom she served, puts by, With shameless hands, Her maiden vesture, crying to all lands, "Behold me, free-and fair!" We worship, knowing not We worship but ourselves; we bow To wooden gods, thinking we stand erect. Dear Christ, forgive, wash out the crimson stains. If pride, self-hung in torturing chains, Revile Thee, yet, Lord, pardon us, and blot The sins whereby our faith was wrecked. Lord, save us now! Save us! surely Thou knowest The grief of man. Surely we need Thee, Lord. A sorrowing generation should not lose Thee. And if thou goest To joy prepared, whither we may not follow, The growing glories that suffuse Thee Are not so fierce but we may see Thy face. By Thee we walk through perilous chasms We faint not in the race. [hollow, And now, with one accordLoving Thy natal hour, and fain to make The season joyous for thy sakeWe set apart a day of pure delight, Filling the time with gleeful rite. Rise up, O, ye down-trodden of the earth, In the season of his birth, The babe who broke your sorest bands; And, O, ye strong Whether ye lead the van of truth for God, |