The Story of the Hymns and Tunes

The Story of the Hymns and Tunes

Augustine defines a hymn as praise to God with song, and another writer calls hymn-singing a devotional approach to God in our emotions,which of course applies to both the words and the music. This religious emotion, reverently acknowledging the Divine Being in song, is a constant element, and wherever felt it makes the song a worship, irrespective of sect or creed. An eminent Episcopal divine, (says the Christian Register,) one Trinity Sunday, at the close of his sermon, read three hymns by Unitarian authors: one to God the Father, by Samuel Longfellow, one to Jesus, by Theodore Parker, and one to the Holy Spirit, by N.L. Frothingham. There, he said, you have the TrinityFather, Son, and Holy Ghost. It is natural to speak of hymns as poems, indiscriminately, for they have the same structure. But a hymn is not necessarily a poem, while a poem that can be sung as a hymn is something more than a poem. Imagination makes poems; devotion makes hymns. There can be poetry without emotion, but a hymn never. A poem may 12 / x argue; a hymn must not. In short to be a hymn, what is written must express spiritual feelings and desires. The music of faith, hope and charity will be somewhere in its strain. Philosophy composes poems, but not hymns. It is no love-symphony we hear when the lion thinkers roar, some blunt writer has said. The moles of Science have never found the heavenly dove's nest, and the Sea of Reason touches no shore where balm for sorrow grows. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 18444
Author: Brown, Theron
Release Date: May 24, 2006
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Contributor (Author): Butterworth, Hezekiah, 1839-1905