1. In the nearly forty years which have elapsed since "Plymouth Collection" was published, there has been, not only a great development in hymns and tunes, but also in that religious experience of which hymns and tunes are the expression. The Puritan theology developed an experience of awe and reverence perhaps more profound, certainly more unmixed with other emotions, than the later theology. But it did not develop the experience of trustful love for God, nor the spirit of ethical zeal, in the sense of military ardor, nor the aggressive missionary spirit. The ministry of such men as Lyman Beecher, Charles G. Finney, Leonard Bacon, Horace Bushnell, Phillips Brooks, and, certainly not least, Henry Ward Beecher, not to mention other like prophets of the new life in the Old World, has not been in vain. The hymn-book of to-day must have expressions of these later experiences, born of that theology which has made the fatherhood of God and the responsibility of Man its central teaching. No better expressions of awe and reverence can be found than in the stirring hymns of Watts; but beside these must be in the hymn-book of to-day the voices of Whittier, Holmes, and Faber. 2. Musically the development of the churches has taken two directions, one towards a broader, the other towards a higher, musical culture. Through the leadership of such men as Mr. Sankey and Mr. Stebbins, and through their musical compositions and those of some of their contemporaries of the same musical school, music has become an expression of the spiritual life for thousands who before were without a voice in public. worship, and, as suppressed feeling easily dies, were often without any share in public worship. I desire to put on record my profound sense of the obligation of the Christian Church to those whose musical service has been rendered through what are known as "The Gospel Songs." But with this development, for which the Church is chiefly indebted to the United States, there has gone on another towards a higher musical life, for which it is chiefly indebted to England. Dykes, and Barnby, and Smart, and Hopkins, and Monk, have created a new school of music far superior spiritually, as well as musically, to anything available for church hymnology which existed. half a century ago. The editor of to-day is no longer shut up to German. chorals, which are almost uniformly unmelodious, and unsuited to American life, or to adaptations more or less successful, but always hazardous, from either oratorios, symphonies, or operas, by the great masters. The great English tune-writers are themselves masters in their own department. Their tunes are not fragments; each tune has its distinctive character; and the best of them are not wanting in that melodic quality which is almost essential to the congregational tune. What Mr. Beecher wrote in 1855 is no longer true: "The tunes which burden our modern books, in hundreds and thousands, utterly devoid of character, without meaning or substance, may be sung a hundred times, and not a person in the congregation will remember them. There is nothing to remember. They are the very emptiness of fluent noise." Thanks to the great tune-writers of the last fifty years, it is possible to-day to make a hymn and tune book which will realize in fact what could only be a prophet's ideal forty years ago: "But let a true tune be sung, and every person of sensibility, every person of feeling, every child even, is aroused and touched. The melody clings to them. On the way home, snatches of it will be heard on this side and on that; and when, the next Sabbath, the same song is heard, one and another of the people fall in, and the volume grows with each verse, until at length the song, breaking forth as a many-rilled stream from the hills, grows deeper and flows on, broad as a mighty river! Such tunes are never forgotten. They cling to us through our whole life. We carry them with us upon our journey. We sing them in the forest. The workman follows the plough with sacred songs. Children catch them, and singing only for the joy it gives them now, are yet laying up for all their life, food of the sweetest joy. Such tunes give new harmony and sweetness even to the hymns which float upon their current. And when some celestial hymn of Wesley, or of the scarcely less than inspired Watts, is wafted upon such music, the soul is lifted up above all its ailments, and rises into the very presence of God, with joys no longer unspeakable, though full of glory!" Orders of Service. The customary order of service in non-liturgical churches is too familiar in its general characteristics, and admits of too great variety in details, to allow of insertion here. In addition to this accepted form, however, the following orders of service are suggested. Of these orders, the first may be used where there is no choir. Where there is an organ, all services should begin with an organ prelude, and close with an organ postlude. I. 1. ONE OR MORE OF THE SENTENCES ON PAGES XX-xxiii by the choir, or by the minister where there is no choir. 2. GENERAL CONFESSION. This and the following prayer to be said by the people, with the minister, all devoutly kneeling : ALMIGHTY AND MOST MERCIFUL FATHER; We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou those who are penitent; according to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake; that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, to the glory of thy holy name. ΑΜΕΝ. A GENERAL THANKSGIVING: ALMIGHTY GOD, Father of all mercies, we thine unworthy servants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us, and to all men. We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all, for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful, and that we show forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives; by giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honor and glory, world without end. AMEN. |