MORBID HYMNS

Otago Witness, Issue 3443, 9 March 1920, Page 43

MORBID HYMNS

OUTRAGE ON TEE YOUNG. \ Picking up a modern hymn book, I was surprised, wrote H. R. S. i-ecently in the Daily Mail, to see in it familiar lines which were the nightmare of my childhood and the childhood of many others whose misfortuno it was to be born in the late Victorian era. They are hymns of a peculiarly morbid nature, which I imagined had all long s ince been banished from our more enlightened homes and schools of to-day. Hero is a sample. The following note is printed at thtJ head of a hymn: '"Some time ago the writer listened to an interesting discourse by a minister, in which he related ' the folio-wing incident: A mother, who was preparing some flour to bake into bread, left it for a few moments, when little Mary, with childish curiosity to see what it was, took hold of the dish, which fell to the floor, spilling the contents. The mother struck the child a severe blow saying, with anger, that she was 'always in the way.' A fortnight afterwards- litHe Mary sickened and died. On her deathbed, while delirious, she asked her mother if there would be room for her among the angels. T was always in your way, mother: you had no room for little Mary. And! shall I be in the angels' way V The brokenhearted mother then felt no sacrifice too great, could she save her child." The second verse runs like this: Mother, raise me just a moment;' You'll forgive me when 'I say you were angry when you told me I was always in your way. You were sorry in a moment, I could read" it on your brow; But you'll not recall it, mother, You must never mind it now. This might have served as a' deterrent in Dickens's time, when brutal parents were much more- common than they are now, but the effect on the minds of nervous, impressionable children must bo very harmful. Here is another specimen, which would bo merely ludicrous were it not for the painful shock it be to many anxious mothers: If we. knew the baby fingers Pressed against the window pane Would be cold and stiff to-morrow— Never trouble us again— Would the bright eyes of our darling Catch the frown upon our brow, Would the prints of rosy fingers Vex U 6 then as they do now ? I should like to know what some of our religious leaders and education experts think of the foregoing, and also, of the amazingsentiment of the following gem: "I should like to die." said Willie, "If my papa could die too. But he says he isn't ready—'Cause he has so much to do. , . . There will be none but the holy— I shall know no more of sin. . . « But I'll have to tell the angel when I meet him at the door That he must excuse my papat, 'Cause he couldn't leave the store." A censorship of hymns like these would surely do nothing but good.