CHURCH HYMNS CONDEMNED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXIII, Issue 57, 28 March 1901, Page 4

CHURCH HYMNS CONDEMNED.

" SENSUOUS, MTJRBTRICi iVS. AND

The R-r. W ; <ir .*t r. meeting of tU>" ;.'; Union, in London, -sc : tly. stH Sue hymns used nthe. c-f'r ■-■ ?i 'h> Cbnrcfc of E»f> land, so [:.r from s'hs-fc shoy ought t3 be, vrre vei-y oftm o'ae emboditnpnt ot aearobic, sickly sentimentality aud melaccbo'ic monafticnl doctrine.

The '' Hymns Ancient and Modem" wtw b? bad ll'ecxl.ri as any in tbis respect, although they had largely, through the nudism o£ the Oxford movement), gninerl some considerable amnant of prestige. For example, No. 97 of chat co'.lecUon one waß directed to obssrva the moral qualities of the tree upon which tka Baviotr died. After remarking Ji»t it alone was ''counted worthy," the hymn Invokes the cross as being made of " sweetest wood and sweetest iron."

Another hymn directed the Christian to smite the powers of evil by the powers of the cross and the virtue of the L°nten fast. In hymn 223 the, angels were invoked by Protestants, who, he thought objected to the invocation of saiat*.

Other hymns inculcated noa-Proteit-ant doctrines, and some directly taught the old bload theology, as, for instance, one praising the " fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins"; another where the blood of Christ was mentioned »s "falling up-ra a* drop by drop." He was bound to say that the reason many intelligent Christian men did not attend church so often was that they objeeted, aud rightly too, to, the sensuous, meretrioious tone and sickly sentimentality of a large proportion of ths hymns.