MODERN HYMN BOOKS.
(To the Editor.) Sir, —As one i. ho likes to worship God in a church in company with uiy fellow-men 1 make the following plea, or protest. When will the churches commence a purge of the hymn books? How much longer must we mournfully announce through the hymns that we are feeble, trail children of dust, when in reality we are children of God. strong in His strength? How much longer must we perjure ourselves by sighing for the pearly gates and a better world when life is so precious, so infinitely worth living? Why must we insult God’s glorious world (even though it be marred by man’s folly) by calling it a “wilderness of woe’’ and a “vale of tears’’? Many of our hvmns are beautiful and satisfying—“ Now Thank We All Our God,” foi instance, is almost perfect. Let us preserve all that is best in our hymn books, but cast out all that is unworthy of our heritage. Then we shall be able to worship God through our hymns wholeheartedly and joyfully, and i at least shall no longer need to fight each Sunday the temptation to heave my hymn book at the head of an unoffending cleric (in any case I am a very poor shot!). —Yours liopel u II v, CHURCHGOER.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MS19410430.2.24.2
Bibliographic details
Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 126, 30 April 1941, Page 6
Word Count
219MODERN HYMN BOOKS. Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 126, 30 April 1941, Page 6
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