HYMNS TODAY
Si,—The Rev. Albert H. Walker states that 1875 and not 1885 is the date of the Methodist collection of hymns. My old copy gives the date as 1885, but that may be a reprint. Nevertheless the preface bears the date 1876. The following short history may be of interest. In 1779 John Wesley felt urged to publish such a hymn book as might be generally used in all the Methodist congregations, a collection "large enough to contain such a variety of hymns as will not be worn threadbare, large enough to contain all the important truths of our religion, whether speculative or practical, and to prove them both by Scripture and reason. In effect, this book is a little body of experimental and practical divinity. In what other publication of this kind have you so distinct and full account of scriptural Christianity? In these hymns there is no doggerel, no botches, nothing put in to patch up the rhyme, no cant expressions, no words without meaning."
The" New Supplement" to Wesley's "Collection of Hymns" originally published in 1780, was compiled under the direction of a Committee appointed by the Methodist Conference in 1874, the primary object of the committee being to consider the necessities of public worship. The committee, however, while mainly desirous of providing for the wants of congregations, did not restrict themselves to that object, but included hymns adapted to personal and private worship.
It may be interesting to add that many poems of Charles Wesley, which existed only in manuscript, were for the first time published for congre- gational use.
I may perhaps be allowed to differ from your correspondent when he refers to the " bogey " of the decline in church attendance being dye to (perhaps too frequent) revisions in the hymns ; the revising committees have not always been sufficiently alert to the "necessities of public worship," and congregations do not always appreciate the attempts to "educate" them in inferior new tunes and new verse. It is generally conceded that one of the chief fundamentals of a revival of church atten- dance will be a revival of congregational singing; and when that comes about a more definite union of the churches will not be far off.—Yours,
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