OUR HYMNS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 249, 20 October 1928, Page 8

OUR HYMNS.

Matthew Arnold, when Professor of Poetry at Oxford, held up a copy of Palgrave's "Golden Treasury" in one hand and a copy of "Hymns Ancient and Modern" in the other, and asked why it was that there was hardly anything that was bad in the first and hardly anything that was good in the second. It is seldom that hymns attain any very high level as poetical compositions. They are limited in regard to form and metre. You cannot have a sonnet as a hymn; neither is the pure lyric suitable. A hymn ought to be either an expression of worship or adoration, or else it ought to be something in the nature of a religious meditation or a prayer. There are hymns by Milton, Heber, Keble and Newman which attain a high level of poetic thought and diction. But many favourite hymns are valued, not for their poetic charm, but for the sentiments which they express. Numbers of hymns are cherished because of their associations. A new hymn book which contained the old familiar words and tunes of the best-laiown hymns, together with others of higher qualities both as poetry and as musical compositions, would be welcomed by many. But there is always a danger that in rooting out the tares we may root out the wheat with them. Revisions of familiar words have not always been successful. Because of the supposed doctrinal error of the words "His earthly parents" two lines of a verse of one of our most familiar hymns were altered to read "In all humility obeys, a simple carpenter." This, however, was not quite as bad as an alteration said to have been made in a parish church on the occasion of an episcopal visit. The lines as altered read:

Ye little hills, why do ye skip? Ye mountains, why do ye hop? Is It because ye are so glad To see my Lord Bishop?

Dean Stanley said that he could never quite reconcile himself to hearing a lot of healthy English public school boys singing that they lay awake at night weeping for Zion. There is often a marked incongruity in some of the words of our hymns as sung by some congregations. But for many the words hardly count as long as there is a good tune. Perhaps when the words to which exception is so often taken about the rich man in his castle and the poor man at his gate were written, the castle was a possession which had been in the family for generations. In that case the owner might claim that his position was made for him. But when so many castles are now inhabited by profiteers, who rightly call themselves self-made men, it is hardly fitting that Providence should be saddled with the responsibility. —ANGLICAN,