Hymn. The usually accepted definition of a Christian hymn is that of St Augustine: 'Do you know what a hymn is? It is singing with the praise of God. If you praise God and do not sing, you utter no hymn. If you sing, and praise not God, you utter no hymn. If you praise anything which does not pertain to the praise of God, though in singing you praise, you utter no hymn.' The hymns of the church which are known to us as existing at the time these words were written (c. 415) were mainly of the character thus defined. With the spread of Christianity, however, changes took place which gave rise to another and broader meaning to the hymn. The expansion of church life and the development of doctrine and practice required that fuller liberty should be extended to sacred song. The outcome of this expansion of the original idea and form of the hymn has resulted in the accumulation of vast stores of sacred lyrics, a large proportion of which have passed from time to time into public use in divine worship. The languages and dialects represented therein number more than two hundred.
I. New Testament Hymns.—The early history of Christianity is in our Sacred Books; and to them we must go for the first examples of Christian song—the Magnificat, the Benedictus, the Angelic anthem (see DOXOLOGY), and the Nunc Dimittis. The fourfold record of our Lord's ministry contains no other songs. In the Acts of the Apostles we read of hymns being sung; but of their structure and contents we have no example. On turning to the epistles of St Paul, St James, and St Peter, we have some indications of the nature of the hymns which were then sung. Fragments of what, to every appearance, were familiar hymns in the early church are found therein, some of which are known as the 'faithful sayings' of Holy Writ. These include 'Awake thou that sleepest,' &c., Eph. v. 14; 'If we die with Him, we shall also live with Him,' &c., 2 Tim. ii. 11, 12; 'Manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit,' &c., 1 Tim. iii. 16; and others, as 1 Tim. vi. 15, 16, Titus, iii. 4-7, and James, i. 17. The songs which St John heard in vision, although true lyrics, cannot be classed as early Christian hymns.
II. Greek.—(1) In Greek, the mother-tongue of Christianity, it is natural for us, when we have closed the Sacred Record, to search for the earliest forms of sacred song. In the Ante-Nicene period we have a few only, some of which are written in the classical metres, and others which are 'more oriental in character, and have an affinity to the Hebrew modes.'
Of the former the best-known instance is that of Clement of Alexandria (died 220?), translated by Dr Dexter as 'Shepherd of tender youth.' Although Clement's authorship is not beyond doubt, yet it is essentially a hymn of his day, and is absolutely confined, in its subject-matter, to the incidents and doctrines of Holy Writ. The hymns and poems of Gregory of Nazianzus (330-389) are all in classical measures. They were probably written after 381, and number about 240 in all, of which 38 are dogmatic, 40 are on moral subjects, 99 relate to his own life, and 60 more are on miscellaneous subjects. Although amongst these sacred pieces there are several splendid hymns, we know not one in a modern hymn-book. Some of the finest are easily attainable in the original in Christ and Paranikas's Anthologia Græca Carminum Christianorum (1871), and in a translated form in A. W. Chatfield's Songs and Hymns of the earliest Greek Christian Poets (1876). Another writer in the classical metres was Synesius (375-430). He was an eloquent bishop, and well read in the philosophy of his own and of older days. His ten hymns are also printed in the Anthologia Græca, and translated by Mr Chatfield and by Alan Stevenson (1865). One of these hymns, translated by Mr Chatfield as 'Lord Jesu, think on me,' is given in a few modern hymnals. 'Though of great spirit, reality, and beauty,' the 'hymns of Synesius lie confessedly on the borderland of Christianity and Neoplatonism, and often it is the Platonic rather than the specially Christian thought that inspires his most refined passages' (Dict. of Hymnology, p. 457). The hymns of Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem (629), are of a still later date, as are also those of Elias Syncellus and St John of Damascus. Of these hymns in the classical measures none, except three canons of St John of Damascus, were incorporated in the services of the Eastern Church.
(2) The link of connection between the Jewish and the Christian hymnody is found not only in the use which was made from the very first of the Jewish Psalter in Christian worship, but also in the adoption of the ancient 'Hallelujah' and 'Hosanna,' and in the alphabetical and other forms of Christian antiphons and versicles. The primitive Greek hymns, as distinct from hymns of the New Testament on the one hand, and the sacred poems in classical metres on the other, were largely derived from Holy Scripture.
The Tcr Sanctus is an expansion of Isaiah, vi. 3, and usually reads 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth: Heaven and earth are full of His glory. Blessed art Thou for ever. Amen.' The germ of the Gloria in Excelsis is the Angelic song at Bethlehem. The Greek form of the Gloria Patri ('Glory be to the Father,' &c.) seems to have had its origin in Our Lord's commission. 'Go ye therefore . . . baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' Besides these, the Trisagion, 'Holy God, Holy and Mighty. Holy and Immortal, have mercy upon us,' the Cherubic Hymn of the Greek liturgies, 'Let us who mystically represent the Cherubim, and sing the holy hymn to the Quickening Trinity, lay by at this time all worldly cares, that we may receive the King of Glory, invisibly attended by the angelic orders. Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia;' the hymn of Justinian, 'Only-begotten Son and Word of God,' &c.; and various clauses in the Te Deum are all based upon separate or accumulated passages of Holy Scripture.
There are also the hymn at lamp-lighting, widely known through Keble's translation, 'Hail! gladdening Light,' which was old in St Basil's time (370); 'The Virgin's Song' of Methodius (died c. 311), translated by Mr Chatfield as 'The Bridegroom cometh!' but not in liturgical use in ancient or modern times; and a few others. Early Greek hymns are few in number but of fine quality, and deal almost exclusively with scriptural subjects.
(3) The liturgical use of hymns in the church's infancy does not seem to have been extensive. Both Pliny and Justin Martyr bear testimony to their use in public worship, and we know that some were in use in the church of Antioch in 269. 'Yet as late as the 4th and 5th centuries there was a scruple against the use of anything but psalms in the eastern monasteries, and in Spain the Council of Braga (561) forbade the use of hymns' (Dict. of Hymnol. p. 460). Ultimately, however, the popularity and power of hymns became so marked through their use by the heretics, and their employment as a counter-check by the faithful, that their exclusion from divine worship became no longer possible. The change was on a limited scale at first, but after the complete separation of the Eastern from the Western Church the hymn in its various forms gradually assumed a prominent and permanent position in the Greek liturgy.
(4) It has been pointed out that the principal link between the early and later hymns is found in a group of pieces discovered by Cardinal Pitra in two rare liturgical MSS. at Moscow and Rome (Cardinal Pitra's Analecta Sacra Inedita, Paris, 1876).
(5) The next period (600-900) is that in which we have the building up of those elaborate service-books of the Greek Church, known to us as the Menæa, the Greater Octoechus, the Lesser Octoechus, the Triodion, the Pentecostarion, the Euchologion, and the Horologion. In these works the number and variety of hymns are very numerous. The hymn-writers of this period were associated at first with Jerusalem and other parts of the Holy Land, and subsequently with Constantinople. (a) The first group includes St Andrew, Archbishop of Crete (660-c. 732), who is known as the author of several canons, triodia, and idiomela, including the great canon of the Mid-Lent week. To the English reader he is best known through the cento, made by Dr Neale, 'Christian, dost thou see them?' Almost contemporary with him was St Cosmas, a monk of St Sabas, near Jerusalem, and afterwards Bishop of Maïuma, near Gaza, who died c. 760. He was the author of several pieces, including a canon for Christmas Day, beginning in Dr Neale's translation, 'Christ is born! tell forth His fame.' At St Sabas with Cosmas was John of Damascus, who became a tower of strength in Greek hymnody. Born at Damascus, he accompanied his foster-brother, Cosmas, to St Sabas, and there he wrote his theological works and his hymns. Late in life he entered the priesthood, and died at a great age (c. 780). His influence upon later Greek hymnody was very great. He arranged the Octoechus in accordance with the Eight Tones, and supplied it with several canons of great merit. His canons are his finest work, that for Easter (beginning in Dr Neale's translation, 'Tis the day of Resurrection') being well known, in part at least, to the English reader. Within the next fifty years St Theophanes, a native of Jerusalem, also of St Sabas, and afterwards Archbishop of Mida, was writing extensively on the martyrs and confessors of the Greek Calendar, which took the form of canons and idiomela. Although largely represented in the Menæa, he is almost unknown to the English reader. (b) The second group of hymn-writers were associated with Constantinople. The first of these is Joseph the Hymnographer (died 883), a native of Sicily, but afterwards founder of a monastery at Constantinople. He was one of the most voluminous of the Greek poets, and is largely represented amongst the canons in the Menæa. His canon for Ascension Day is very fine. Of it, however, but a small portion is familiar to English readers, Ode iv., translated by Dr Neale as 'Jesus, Lord of life eternal,' being the best known. 'Let our choir new anthems raise,' and 'Stars of the morning so gloriously bright,' are also translations by Dr Neale from St Joseph. St Joseph of the Studium, sometime Bishop of Thessalonica, wrote several pieces; but none of them have been translated into English. His elder brother, St Theodore of the Studium (died 826), wrote several canons, notably that on the Judgment, translated by Dr Neale as 'That fearful day, that day of speechless dread,' and regarded by Neale as 'undoubtedly the grandest judgment-hymn of the church previous to the Dies Iræ.' He also wrote 'A song, a song of gladness,' which is a part of his triumphal canon on the victory of the Icons. Methodius II. (died 836) also belongs to this group of poets. Of the few pieces which he wrote Dr Neale has translated one only, 'Are thy toils and woes increasing?' and has given it as by St Methodius I. in error. Theoctistus of the Studium (c. 890), said by Dr Neale to have been a friend of St Joseph's, is not largely represented in Greek hymnody. He is known to English readers through Dr Neale's translation of a cento from his 'Suppliant Canon to Jesus,' as 'Jesus, Name all Names above,' and the Rev. R. M. Moorsom's rendering of the same, 'Sweet Saviour, in Thy pitying grace.'
(6) From this date to the 16th century, when the Greek service-books were practically closed against new compositions, very few names are known. We have Metrophanes (died 910); Euthymius (died 910); Constantine Porphyrogenitus (913-959); Leo VI. (died 917); John Mauropus (died 1060); and Philotheus, Patriarch of Constantinople (died 1376); but only one or two pieces by these writers have been rendered into English.
III. Syriac (170-1370).—Syriac hymnody deals with the churches of Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, and western Persia. Its history extends from the 2d to the 14th century.
The earliest known hymn-writer in this language is Bar-Daisan (Bardesanes, q.v.), born in 154. His son Harmonius was also a hymn-writer. Both father and son had Gnostic tendencies. On the orthodox side we have Simeon bar Sabbæ, Bishop of Seleucia, who suffered martyrdom in 296; and the greatest of all, Ephraem Syrus (q.v.; c. 306-378). His poetical writings were numerous, and included homilies, discourses on Christ's Nativity, the Creation, and other subjects. Most of the Syriac hymns and hymnists are practically unknown to the western world. In the East, however, these hymns form a considerable portion of the service-books of the various divisions of the Syriac churches to the present day. Their English use is very limited. The best-known example is 'Glad sight, the holy Church,' by the Rev. F. Pott.
IV. Latin.—(1) No name is associated with Latin hymns until after the Council of Nicea, 325. Almost immediately afterwards we have three great contemporary writers: in Greek, Gregory of Nazianzus (330-389); in Syriac, Ephraem Syrus (306-378); and in Latin, St Hilary (died 368). The most celebrated of the hymns attributed to the last is the 'Beata nobis gaudia Anni redxit orbita,' which has been in western liturgies from an early date. St Ambrose (c. 340-397) was almost a contemporary writer with the above three. About 100 hymns are attributed to him, but of these only twelve are accepted by the Benedictine editors of his works, including 'Eterna Christi munera,' 'Deus Creator omnium,' 'O Lux beata Trinitas,' and 'Splendor Paternæ gloriæ.' The rest, being in his style and after his manner, are known as Ambrosian hymns. Most of the latter and all of those by St Ambrose are found in the early liturgies of the Western Church. Prudentius (350-410) did not write hymns, but sacred poems, from which portions were taken and incorporated as hymns in the services of the church. For this purpose these extracts were admirably suited and widely used. His 'Corde natus ex Parentis,' which was taken from his poem 'Da, puer, plectrum,' in his Cathemerinon, is a good example of this mode of treatment. The 63d edition of Prudentius' Poems was published at Leipzig in 1860. This is a splendid testimony to his worth. Sedulius, a contemporary of Prudentius, is known in hymnology by one piece, 'A solis ortâs cardine, Ad usque,' of which the second portion, 'Hostis Herodes impie,' is used as an Epiphany hymn in several early breviaries, and altered, as 'Crudelis Herodes Deum,' in the modern Roman Breviary. The 6th century embraces two names of great repute: Venantius Fortunatus (530-609), and Gregory the Great (540-604). Fortunatus' Poems are extant in eleven books. Some ten or twelve hymns bear his name, but his right to several of these is contested. His grandest productions are the Passiontide hymns, 'Vexilla Regis prodecunt' and 'Pange lingua gloriosi prælium certaminis.' Gregory's accredited hymns are about a dozen, including 'Audi benigne conditor,' 'Ecce iam noctis,' 'Rex Christe factor omnium,' and 'Summi largitor præmiî.' The fairly well authenticated hymns of the Venerable Bede (673-735) number ten or twelve only at the utmost, including his 'Hymnum canamus Domino,' and 'Hymnum canentes martyrum.' Another hundred years give us Paul the Deacon (died c. 799) and St Theodulph of Orleans (died 821), the 'Gloria laus et honor' of the latter being long and well known as a processional hymn for Palm Sunday. St Rabanus (776-856), with his 'Christe Sanctorum decus Angelorum,' and St Odo of Cluny (879-942), with his 'Lauda mater ecclesia,' should be mentioned, as also Fulbert of Chartres (died 1028), author of the 'Chorus novæ Hierusalem,' and Robert II., king of France (972-1031), though their claims to hymn-writing are open to question.
(2) Although this brings us to the beginning of the 11th century, the hymn-writers whom we have been enabled to cite are comparatively few. Most of them, however, are names of great standing, and are towers of hymnological strength. When, however, all the compositions of these writers are collected together we still find in the ancient Latin service-books and other MSS. a mass of hymnological literature for which no authorship can be found. This is also the case with regard to the succeeding centuries, and more especially with respect to the Prose or Sequence.
(3) Notker Balbulus (c. 840-912), the father of sequence-writing, was a member of the Benedictine monastery of St Gall, his principal work being literary and scholastic. In connection with divine worship he found it difficult to remember the musical notes (neumes) set to the 'Alleluia' (specially to the final a), which were sung between the reading of the Epistle and the Gospel. The adapting of words to these neumes, instead of sounding them as musical notes only, was suggested to him by another, and the result was a series of Sequences, or, as we now call them, hymns, which to the number of 115 are known as Notkerian Sequences, but of which less than fifty are by Notker. Of those who followed Notker in this mode of composition Adam of St Victor (an abbey at Paris) was the most prominent. The service-books of the middle ages abound with these compositions, but the greater proportion by far are anonymous. The Notkerian Sequence which is best known to the English reader is that for the Epiphany, translated by Dr Neale as 'The strain upraise of joy and praise. Alleluia.'
(4) Whilst the work of composing hymns and sequences was thus prolific, a few names of great note stand forth in their grandeur as composers of sacred poems as distinct from hymns. It will be sufficient to name St Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), and his grand Passiontide poem 'Salve mundi salutare,' and his contemporary, Bernard of Cluny, with his splendid 'Hora novissima,' to show the nature and character of the work which was done. See DIES IRÆ.
(5) The hymns, sequences, and poems referred to above, to the number of several thousands, are those which date from before the 16th century. Some hundreds more were added to the stores of Latin hymnody by the brothers Santeuil and others in the Cluniac (1686), the Paris (1736), and other breviaries in France, additions to the latter being as late as 1820. As to the use made of this mass of sacred poetry, we may add that two-thirds or more have been associated directly with divine worship, and the rest are connected with works of private devotion; and that nearly one-fourth have been translated into English.
V. English.—English hymnody is a very wide subject, and, if we include therein Anglo-Saxon compositions, it dates from Cædmon (died c. 680). Bishop Aldhelm (died 709) sang sacred poems in the vernacular, and is said to have rendered the Psalter into metre; in Chaucer (1340-1400) we have an early English hymn to the Blessed Virgin; in 1414 T. Brampton's Seven Penitential Psalms, and later carols and additional hymns to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The first instalment of hymns in the vernacular of any moment were those translated from the Latin, and included in the Primers which were issued both before and after the Reformation. These translations were followed by others, some of which are preserved to us in the Book of Common Prayer. Translating, however, soon gave way to paraphrasing, and Latin and German hymns to the Book of Psalms. The supplying of the need occasioned by the suppression of Latin hymns in divine worship at the Reformation, by the introduction of the Paraphrase instead of the hymn, is a history in itself. We can only say that from 1561 to 1696 the authorised book in the Church of England was the 'Old Version' of Sternhold and Hopkins, and from the latter date to the adoption of modern hymn-books, the 'New Version' of Tate and Brady. In the meantime the foundations of English hymnody were being extended. A résumé of the work done in the Elizabethan age is given in E. Farr's Select Poetry, chiefly devotional, of the Reign of Elizabeth (Parker Soc. 1845). The speci- mens given are either from books of poetry or works of devotion, and are pious utterances in quaint and rugged verse. Later attempts in the same direction, by Dr Donne in his Poems (1633), G. Herbert in his Temple (1633), C. Harvey in his Synagogue (1640), and others, were of a higher stamp, and bore a greater affinity to the modern hymn. At that time no use of these compositions was made in public worship, except in the case of private institutions. The hymn 'Jerusalem, my happy home,' and others of more than usual excellence are of this period.
The first English hymn-book was the Hymns and Songs of the Church (1623), by George Wither. The king granted him a patent to bind up the book with the Metrical Psalms; but the whole matter resulted in a failure. In 1641 Wither republished the same, with a few alterations, as Hallelujah, Britain's Second Remembrancer, and dedicated it to the Long Parliament, but with no better success. The writings of Herrick, Henry Vaughan, William Barton, Bishop Jeremy Taylor, Samuel Crossman, Richard Crashaw, John Austin, Bishop Thomas Ken, and others bring us down to 1737, when the first hymn-book of the modern type (in which the original hymns of various authors are interspersed with translations from other languages) was published by John Wesley for use in the Church of England.
(1) Church of England.—The title of Wesley's book was Collection of Psalms and Hymns (Charlestown: printed by Lewis Timothy, 1737). The versions of psalms, the translations from Greek and German, and the original compositions were seventy in all. Wesley and his brother Charles soon changed the style of their hymnological productions, and from 1740 to 1780 (the date of the Wesleyan hymn-book) published only their own compositions. John Wesley's hymnological work for the Church of England remained a dead-letter until 1760, when Martin Madan published his Collection of Psalms and Hymns, gathered by him mainly from the Wesleys and Isaac Watts, altered without permission to suit his Calvinistic views, and published without leave.
During 1760-1800 nearly twenty distinct hymn-books were issued. Taken as a whole they were Calvinistic in doctrine, crude in arrangement, and indebted to the Wesleys and Nonconformists for seven-eighths of their contents. Three writers only stand out during this period with marked distinctness—A. M. Toplady, John Newton, and William Cowper. During the next twenty years nearly one hundred hymn-books were issued for use in the Church of England, and the places of publication extended to almost every county in the country. Naturally these books varied in their contents; but their general doctrinal tone was distinctively Calvinistic. There was also a greater and more uniform recognition of the order of the Book of Common Prayer than before. The years 1820-50 produced another hundred of hymn-books, amongst them Bickersteth's Christian Psalmody (1833-41), Elliott's Psalms and Hymns (1835), and Hall's Mitre Hymn-book (1836). Other works of importance were Bishop Heber's posthumous Hymns (1827), Miss Auber's Spirit of the Psalms (1829), Bathurst's Psalms and Hymns (1831), and Lyte's Spirit of the Psalms (1834), the contents of which, in each instance, were mainly by the same writer. During this period also this store was richly increased by the publication of Keble's Christian Year, by the original compositions of several other writers, and by renewed efforts at translation of German and Latin hymns. This immense growth broadened out considerably, and brought the subject of hymnody strongly to the front during the next ten years. The outcome was the publication of over fifty hymn-books in that period, a great accumulation of original hymns and translations, the gradual exclusion of nonconformist hymns, except those of the higher class, from the collections, and a new and intense interest in the whole subject. Additional translations from the Latin and German, together with original com- positions of great merit, created a longing for something better in the form of a hymn-book for public use. Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861) was one answer to this request. Its success was phenomenal. On the one hand it raised a storm of opposition; on the other, during the next twenty-five years it called forth several important works on hymnology, various collections of sacred lyrics for private use, about fifty 'supplements' to and editions of books in common use, and nearly one hundred new hymn-books. Since then new writers whose names have become household words have arisen, and the needs of the increased activity of the church have been met. In the past one hundred and fifty years the Church of England has produced about five hundred hymn-books, and nearly two hundred and fifty authors and translators whose works have been at one time or another in use in public worship. Taken together their original hymns and translations will number ten thousand.
(2) English Nonconformists.—The hymnological work which has been accomplished outside of the Church of England is large and important, and has had great influence in all English-speaking countries. A few facts only can be set forth in each instance. (a) The Baptists from the first quarter of the 17th century to the present have been divided into two sections, the Particular or Calvinistic, and the General or Arminian Baptists. The singing of hymns with the former began with B. Keach, about 1673. It had a stormy birth and childhood, for opposition thereto was great, but at the present time hymn singing is a distinctive feature in their worship. The General Baptists also have their official hymn-books, and singing is an essential part of their worship. English Baptist writers number about one hundred, and their hymns two thousand. (b) The Congregationalists or Independents used hymns in public worship some thirty years before the Baptists. Their hymn-books have been many, and their writers numerous. The latter number over a hundred, and their hymns three thousand or more. Although I. Watts, P. Doddridge, and J. Conder are their pride and towers of strength, there are others who have written lyrics of great force and beauty. (c) The Methodists are broken up into several sections, as the New Connection (1796), Primitive Methodists (1810), the United Methodist Free Churches (an amalgamated body dating from 1857), and the Bible Christians (1815). The first official hymn-book of the old body was published by J. Wesley in 1780, and is the groundwork of all the hymn-books of the various branches of Methodism—the Primitive Methodists alone excepted. Usually Methodist hymnody is said to have had a great influence upon English hymnody everywhere. This, however, is only true of the hymns of John and Charles Wesley. (d) The Unitarians, although numerically a weak body, have produced several hymn-writers of great merit. Of their present hymn-books the best is Dr Martineau's Hymns of Praise and Prayer (1873), which is unequalled amongst Unitarians. (e) Other Denominations, as the Irvingites, the Swedenborgians, the Salvation Army, and many others have each their authors and official hymn-books. The writers and books, however, do not call for special notice.
When the English hymn-writers are counted up and their works are tabulated, we have a total of 1000 writers, and 25,000 hymns.
VI. Irish.—The Roman Catholics, the Protestant Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and others in Ireland have been so closely identified with their brethren in England and Scotland that in most instances the same books have been in use in the three countries. The result has been that Ireland has not shaped a hymnody for herself, although in later years a few hymn-books have been published independently. The Irish Clmh has, however, an authorised hymnal, The Church Hymnal (1873, with supplement of later date). In this respect it is greatly in advance of the Church of England.
VII. Welsh.—There are references in Welsh history which go to show that some of her ancient bards sang hymns of praise to God as early as the 6th century. The most ancient productions now extant date from the 14th century. After the Reformation the lead was taken by the Established Church, by the publication of Archdeacon Pry's version of the Psalms in 1621. Since then hymn-writing has increased somewhat rapidly, especially since the Methodist movement early in the last century; and at the present time the Established Church and the numerous Nonconformist bodies have each their official or quasi-official hymn-books. Welsh hymnody, although very powerful in the principality, has had little or no influence upon the hymnody of other countries.
VIII. Scottish.—One of the most interesting parts of Scottish hymnody is the history of the Scottish Psalter, a work which is interwoven with Scottish history, and has had a powerful influence upon the Scottish mind. The first effectual step taken to provide hymns, as distinct from psalm-versions, for public worship in Scotland, was the appointment of a committee of the General Assembly in 1742. This committee presented a draft collection, which was authorised for private use in 1745. The same year a committee was appointed to revise and enlarge the draft for public use. The result was published in 1781 as Translations and Paraphrases, in Verse, of several Passages of Sacred Scripture, &c. Of the total contents (sixty-seven in all, not counting the five hymns added at the end) twenty-five are by Watts, five by Doddridge, and two by Tate, the rest being by M. Bruce, T. Blacklock, H. Blair, W. Cameron, J. Logan, J. Morison, and other Scottish writers.
Although the addition of the five hymns to the Paraphrases indicated a desire for a larger choice of hymns in public worship, nothing definite and official was done by the principal sections of Presbyterianism until the publication of the Hymn-book of the Relief Church (1794), the Hymn-book of the United Presbyterian Church (1852), The Scottish Hymnbook of the Established Church (1870), and the Psalm-versions, Paraphrases, and Hymns of the Free Church (1873). These have been revised, added to, or superseded—notably by the Hymnary for the Established, Free, and U.P. Churches in Scotland, and the Irish Presbyterian Church (1898). Much activity has been shown by individuals amongst Presbyterians, Scottish Episcopalians, Evangelical Unionists, Baptists, Congregationalists, Glassites or Sandemanians, Roman Catholics, and others, the outcome of which is a mass of hymnological literature, of which a good proportion is of Scottish origin and of high merit. Amongst the ninety to one hundred Scottish authors and translators whose hymns have taken a high place in the hymnody of the church the most eminent are J. Morison, R. Blair, S. Martin, W. Robertson, H. Bonar, Jane Borthwick, M. Bruce, J. D. Burns, Sarah Findlater, R. M. McCheyne, H. M. Macgill, and R. Wardlaw. The prince of these hymn-writers and the Charles Wesley of Scotland is Dr Horatius Bonar (1808–89).
IX. American.—The first book printed in America was the Bay Psalter (1640), consisting of various metrical versions of the Psalms by English authors. The addition of a few spiritual songs in the 2d edition of 1647 was the first departure from the sole use of psalm-versions in that country. This small beginning had at the first a very slow development. The years 1780–1800 witnessed the general recognition of hymns. The Protestant Episcopal Church extended their collection in 1789 to twenty-seven hymns: a collection by the Baptists (the second) was published in 1790; the Congregationalists had their Hartford Selection in 1799; the Wesleyan Methodists a reprint of a Pocket Hymn-book originally published at York, and revised after some years of use in 1802; the Universalists, two collections in 1792; the Unitarians, a selection in 1795; and the Presbyterians, Watts at first, and then an official collection in 1828. In these books American hymn-writers had a very limited representation, most of the hymns being by English authors; but year by year the American element became more pronounced as hymnal followed hymnal in the various religious communions. In 1800 an original hymn by an American was a novelty in any collection; now no American hymn-book of the highest class can do with less than two hundred and fifty authors and translators, and of these not less than fifty should be Americans. This percentage, as the outgrowth of some eighty years, is remarkable. Each religious communion has done its part in bringing about this great result. Of the two hundred and fifty authors and translators, the Baptists and the Unitarians number over forty-five each, the Congregationalists about forty; the Protestant Episcopalians and the Presbyterians about thirty each, the Methodists less than twenty, and the Universalists about ten. The remaining thirty include Quakers, Reformed Germans, Reformed Dutch, &c. Several of these writers have an European reputation, as Bishop Coxe, Bishop Doane, C. W. Everest, and W. A. Mühlenberg (Episcopalians); T. Hastings and J. W. Alexander (Presbyterians); H. M. Dexter, T. Dwight, and Ray Palmer (Congregationalists); P. Bliss, Lydia Sigourney, and S. F. Smith (Baptists); Fanny Van Alstyne and W. Hunter (Methodists); S. G. Bulfinch, W. C. Bryant, W. H. Burleigh, Emerson, Holmes, Longfellow, S. Longfellow, Lowell, and E. H. Sears (Unitarians); and the Quaker poet Whittier.
The number of hymn-books published in America during the past hundred years accounts to a great extent for this great activity in hymn-writing. At the present time each denomination, and there are many, has its official hymn-book, or its quasi-official book or books. For good work opportunities for publication thus abound, and the finer productions are assured a certain circulation and a possible immortality.
X. French.—The French metrical psalters have a history distinct from French hymns and hymn-books. The complete psalter of Marot and Beza (1552–62) was the psalm-book of the Reformed Church until its place was to some extent filled by the new version of Conrart (1677–79), and the revision of the same by Pictet and others in 1695. As in other countries, the psalter subsequently gave way to the hymnal, and the versions of private individuals were mainly of public value in proportion as they yielded suitable pieces for the same. The writing of hymns in the vernacular began in the 16th century as in Germany and elsewhere with translations from the Latin. The Roman Catholics, the Huguenots (in their day), the Reformed Church, the French Moravians, the Methodists, and various evangelical societies, have each their book or books of hymns for divine worship, in which, although there are original compositions by French authors, the larger proportion are translations from English and German hymns. The Réveil has produced the greatest French Protestant hymn-writers, at the head of whom stands César Malan (1787–1864), whose printed and MS. hymns number about one thousand. Associated with him, directly or indirectly, in the same religious movement were Ami Bost, H. Empayaz, Merle d'Anbigné, Felix Neff, Henri Lutteroth, A. Vinet, A. Monod, and others, men of world-wide reputation and influence, who have given a position to French hymnody unknown to it before.
XI. German.—In the German language there are not less than one hundred thousand hymns, of which about ten thousand have passed into German hymn-books of various dates, and nearly a thousand are regarded by German critics as classical. The first were contemporary with the earliest Latin sequences of St Notker and others; the last are the productions of living men.
(1) The First Period begins with Otfrid of Weissenburg (c. 868), and was continued by others until the time of Luther. The greater part of the hymns of this period were translations from the Latin, and all were in strict doctrinal accord with the Church of Rome.
(2) The Second Period (1520-1648) opens with the hymns and psalm-versions by Luther, and embraces the Reformation period to the peace of Westphalia. The principal writers were Luther, Justus Jonas, Alber, Spengler, Hans Sachs, Speratus, N. Decius, and others. The writings of these authors reached to about 1570, and have a distinct churchly character of their own. From 1577 to 1618 hymn-writing and hymn-book making continued very much on the old lines, and numbered amongst the writers Selnecker, Ringwaldt, Herberger, and P. Nicolai. The miseries of the Thirty Years' War changed the whole aspect of hymn-writing for a time by the introduction of a strong personal element of faith and courage, and hope begotten of suffering. The names of a few of these writers will recall some of the finest hymns of this kind in the German language: Opitz, Heermann, M. A. von Löwenstern, Altenburg, Rinkart, Dach, and Rist.
(3) The Third Period was a transitional one, and led up to the Pietistic and Moravian writers of the next era. It had amongst its hymn-writers P. Gerhardt, Franck, Neumark, Scheffler, and Louise Henriette of Brandenburg. Of these the greatest were Gerhardt, who is second only to Luther in German hymnody, and Scheffler, whose love for Christ was first in everything. This orthodox, mystic school, with its deep experimental piety, was soon lost in the Pietism of the next period.
(4) The Fourth Period, commonly known as the Pietistic and Moravian era, 'was a reaction against the dry scholasticism and cold formalism of the Lutheran Church,' and an emphatic pronouncement in favour of 'practical, personal, and experimental piety.' On the Lutheran side the leading writers were Spener, Francke, Richter, Freylinghausen, G. Arnold, J. Lange, Dessler, Rambach, Bogatzky, Schmolck, and Hiller; and on the Moravian, Count Zinzendorf. These names recall numerous hymns of deep spirituality, high refinement, and great power.
During this same period the German Reformed Church broke away from its long-continued and almost exclusive use of the Psalms in metrical form. Their first hymn-book appeared at Zurich in 1540. This was followed by A. Lobwasser's rhymed translation of the French Psalter of Marot and Beza in 1573. Another hundred and fifty years brought them into closer hymnological conformity with their Lutheran brethren, and produced amongst others three well-known hymn-writers, J. Neander, Lampe, and Tersteegen.
(5) The Fifth Period embraced about sixty years (1757-1817), and covers the time when the great wave of Rationalism broke in upon the German churches and for a time changed the whole aspect of their hymnody. Old hymns were altered or entirely rewritten, and new hymns written partaking of the nature of rhymed sermons on the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, the dignity of man, the obligations of moral duties, and kindred subjects. To the hymn-writers of this order there were a few notable exceptions, which included Gellert, Klopstock, J. C. Lavater, and M. Claudius, the greatest being Gellert and Klopstock.
(6) The Sixth Period is rich in writers. Beginning almost with the 19th century, it extends to the present time, and embraces the well-known names of F. von Hardenberg ('Novalis'), E. M. Arndt, F. A. Krummacher, F. W. Kruinnacher, A. Knapp, J. P. Lange, Spitta, and Gerok.
This digest of the hymnological work of more than a thousand years in one language can give only the slightest idea of what was done. Little or nothing has been said about the multitude of hymn-books (Gesangbücher) which were issued and brought into common use in the church and in the home, nor of the metrical versions of the Psalms, which have a history of their own. We can do no more than recall and emphasise the facts, and refer to special treatises for details. The influence of German hymns upon English and American hymnody has been very great. In fact, until the modern revival of translating hymns from the Latin and other languages, German was almost the only source from whence hymns other than English were taken for use in the hymn-books of Great Britain and America; and at the present time, especially in America, it holds a prominent position in the hymnals of almost every party and creed. For the Dutch, Italian, Bohemian, Moravian, and Scandinavian hymns, and those in use in foreign missions (in more than 150 languages and dialects), see the present writer's Dictionary of Hymnology (1892).
Conclusion.—From the outset of the propagation of Christianity throughout the nations of the earth it became a necessity to preach to the people in their own languages, and gradually to supply them with hymns in their own tongues. This has resulted, as we have seen, not only in a great number of languages being represented in Christian hymnody, but also in a vast variety of metrical forms being found therein. Some of these forms are intimately associated with the ancient classical measures, whilst others are widely divergent therefrom, and seem to have had little or no laws of control beyond the fashion of the period or the fancy of the writers. With this broadening out of languages and forms came also a rapid increase in the number of subjects which engaged the attention of Christian poets. At an early stage of church history reverent strophes in praise of the Holy Trinity, and especially in adoration and praise of the Eternal Son, together with a metrical homily or two and a few impassioned songs on the practical side of Christian life, formed the staple of sacred song. We have seen how the expansion of church life and the development of doctrine and practices called forth a fuller and more extended hymnody, until every incident of importance in Bible story, every conceivable shade of Christian doctrine and ritual, every epoch in the church's history, every experience in her children's life, from the sufferings of her little ones to the magnificent self-sacrifices of her martyrs, have been enshrined in sacred song.