If vivacious twenty-year-old Anne Boleyn had not snared with her dark eyes the heart of forty-one-year-old Henry VIII there might not have been any English hymnody.—A. E. Bailey.
WHILE it is historically inccurate to assume that the English Reformation was brought about by the "marrying monarch's" desire for a divorce, nevertheless it is a fact that this love affair was one of a series of events that was to lead to a break with the Roman Church. "The episode was the occasion of the Reformation not its cause."—Norman Sykes, The Crisis of the Reformation, p. 110. It was during the early days of the English Reformation that Latin hymns were discarded from church worship.
For three years Henry waged his cold war with Rome. Cardinal Wolsey paid the penalty, not, as he claimed upon his deathbed, for having served his king better than his God, but for having served himself better than his king. Thomas Cranmer became Archbishop of Canterbury and through him, Henry had his hopes fulfilled. One of Cranmer's greatest deeds for the Reformation was the encouragement he gave to the sale and translation of the Bible. In 1539 a parliamentary order saw that every church had a copy of the English Bible placed in an accessible position. The Renaissance in Italy and the Netherlands, along with Luther's Reformation in Germany, unloosed a flood of ideas in England that helped Cranmer break the Roman grip. He discouraged the veneration of saints, images, and relics, and he put out the candles. Henry and Cranmer were able to effect the break with Rome and establish a national church, but the problem was, what were they to do with the entire service of prayers, hymns, sacraments, and mass that was in Latin? They must make it over into an English Church.
In the new ritual that had to be made, Cranmer omitted all hymns. Ordinary citizens could not read Latin and without choirs of monks who were experienced in plain-song tunes, congregational singing was impossible. Thus was discarded, at a stroke, the hymnology that the Roman Church had built up during a thousand years.
Glorious hymns such as Bernard of Clair-vaux's "Jesu, the Very Thought of Thee, With Sweetness Fills My Breast," were lost sight of in English-speaking Christendom until the middle of the nineteenth century. Medieval hymns from the time of Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis, along with hymns from the days of Charlemagne and even from the time of the barbarian invasions of the fourth and fifth centuries, were all swept out of sight for three hundred years. Treasures like Bernard of Cluny's "Jerusalem the Golden," the sixth century "O Christ, Our King, Creator, Lord," the ninth century "Creator Spirit, by Whose Aid," the incomparably beautiful "Jesu, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts," "Jerusalem, My Happy Home," and many others were discarded in the urgent clamor to dispense with anything connected with Rome. Bailey says, "Cranmer has made a clean sweep of the hymnic treasure of the centuries."
S. T. Bindoff, in Tudor England, page 155, says, "In one thing only Cranmer failed. He could not render the hymns of the Catholic Breviary into singable English, and three centuries were to pass before Hymns Ancient and Modern was to complete, with the Prayer Book and the Authorized Version, the splendid trilogy with which the Anglican Church has endowed the English-speaking world."
A healthy trend developed at that time, however, in church architecture, for in 1549 Cranmer did away with the divided chancel, so that the pulpit now occupied the central position in the church. In 1550, Ridley ("Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man") replaced the altar with the communion table, which took its place just in front of the preaching desk, as can be seen in that later model of all Protestant churches—Wesley's church in London. Worship now became pulpit-centered rather than altar-centered. Scripture came more and more to the fore and was especially important in the English Reformation. Norman Sykes says, "The importance of the vernacular Bible was as great in England as in Germany, perhaps even greater, for the English Reformation gave birth to no such outbursts of hymnody as the Lutheran movement."—Crisis of the Reformation, p. 118.
It was during the reign of Henry's successor, the boy king Edward VI, that the singing of psalms became popular. Thomas Sternhold, a Groom of the Robes, set Psalm 23 to a Genevan tune, and the youthful monarch liked it so much that he commissioned Sternhold to produce more. In 1549 there appeared the book by Sternhold "Certayne Psalmes, chose out of the Psalter of David and drawe into Englishe metre by Thomas Sternhold, grome of ye kynge's Maiesties robes." This was the beginning of an endless procession of Metrical Psalters that dominated the Established Church and the Non-Conformists for centuries, until the genius of Isaac Watts "broke its stranglehold and led the way to the use of true hymns of 'human composure.' "
Altogether 326 metrical versions of the psalms were produced and by Act of Parliament (for the Established Church), and by General Assembly (for the Presbyterians) their use was enforced. Calvinism at Geneva still further rooted the idea of Metrical Psalms. Only the Scripture words were considered appropriate for hymns. Exiles from Bloody Mary's persecutions, who had found refuge in Geneva, came flocking back to England when Elizabeth came to the throne, and they brought with them an enthusiasm for psalm singing on a greater scale. Psalms were "roared aloud" not only in church but in every street. Shakespeare mentions "singing Psalms to hornpipes." Elizabeth herself had very little time for these "Geneva jiggs" as she called them. Bishop Jewell wrote: You may now sometimes see at Paul's Cross after the sermon, six thousand persons, young and old, of both sexes, all singing together and praising God. This madly annoys the mass-priests and the devil.
When Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans came to power in 1649, organs and stained glass went from the churches. Psalms were set to popular tunes and sung everywhere—"at Lord Mayors dinners, by soldiers on the march and at parade," and by families sitting in window seats overlooking the streets.
The Puritans felt that antiphonal singing and part-singing were too much like popery.
Concerning the singing of Psalms, we allow of the people's joining with one another in a plain tune, but not of tossing the Psalm from one side to the other, with the intermingling of organs.
While England went on psalm singing for the next two centuries, quite oblivious of the needs of developing hymns in the vernacular, in Germany, the land of the Reformation, a prodigious number of hymns of human experience were developed. There was much in life to give rise to this lyric religion—the fighting spirit of the Reformation, the tragedy and misery of the Thirty Years' War that led to penitence and introspection, the deplorable condition of the peasants, and the great Moravian missionary movement, just to mention a few. The religious toleration under Frederick William the Great Elector and under Frederick the Great did much to foster German hymn singing. It has been said that possibly 100,000 sacred songs were produced in Germany during these years. Wesley translated some of them for us and others have continued to do so.
What more wonderful hymn can one imagine than the Pietist Joachim Neander's song of praise "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation"? While a university student, and leading a riotous life, Neander was converted to Christ. He only lived to the age of thirty, but he left nineteen hymns. His familiarity with the beautiful Heidelberg region and the streams of the Neanderthal awakened his appreciation of the revelation of God in nature.
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear, Now to His temple draw near;
Join ye in glad adoration!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew What the Almighty can do
If with His love He befriend thee.
While the holocaust of the Thirty Years' War was drawing to a close, Matthaus Von Lowenstern was writing the stirring hymn,
Lord of our life, and God of our salvation,
Star of our night, and hope of every nation,
Hear and receive Thy church's supplication,
Lord God Almighty.
The second stanza reflects the age of conflict,
Lord, Thou canst help when earthly armor faileth;
Lord, Thou canst save, when deadly sin assaileth.
And the beautiful prayer for the peace of God in our hearts no matter what the exigencies of life,
Peace in our hearts our evil thought assuaging;
Peace in Thy church, where brothers are engaging;
Peace, when the world its busy war is waging;
Send us, O Saviour.
When John Huss was condemned at the Council of Constance and burned at the stake in 1415, religious wars broke out in Bohemia (Czechoslovakia), and war and dissension continued for many years. The Counter Reformation purge in the 1620's in Bohemia allowed Protestants six months to leave the country. Thousands moved to Silesia. They carried with them the songs and hymns of their homeland. There was no involved theology in these beautiful peasant lyrics but there was the fragrant breath of the country air, of the cornfields and the woodlands.
One of these hymns was recorded in the town of Glaz in Silesia, where so many of the refugees had found asylum. It is a hymn that becomes even more meaningful to the worshiper when sung on a gorgeous spring morning with all nature bathed in bright sunshine.
Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all nature,
O Thou of God and man the Son!
Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor,
Thou art my glory, joy, and crown.
Fair are the meadows, Fairer still the woodlands,
Robed in the blooming garb of spring;
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,
Who makes the woeful heart to sing.
Fair is the sunshine, Fairer still the moonlight,
And all the twinkling, starry host;
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer
Than all the angels heaven can boast.
With the coming of Isaac Watts (1674-1748) English hymnology cast aside the Psalter, and the hymns of human composure came into being. Our hymnals today are liberally sprinkled with Watts's hymns —"When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," "Praise Ye the Lord," "O God, Our Help," "I Sing the Mighty Power," "Joy to the World," "Jesus Invites His Saints," "Come, We that Love the Lord," et cetera.
Following Isaac Watts came the great religious revival of the Wesleys and the Methodist beginning. John Wesley was a dynamo of energy. He covered a quarter of a million miles on horseback, preached about forty thousand sermons, and was instrumental in converting at least one hundred thousand persons. He published 233 original tracts and booklets. A terrible storm at sea and the bravery of Moravian missionaries convinced Wesley of the value of hymn singing—there being none at that time in the Anglican Church. Even psalm singing had fallen a good deal into disuse.
John Wesley wrote many hymns but his main work lay in the editing and publishing of those of his brother Charles. It is said that Charles wrote some 6,500 hymns. They all breathe the very atmosphere of heaven—"Jesus, Lover of My Soul," "Love Divine," "O for a Thousand Tongues," "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing" and that rousing song of the resurrection,
Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!
Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply, Alleluia!
Then came those majestic expressions such as: "Love's redeeming work is done," "Death in vain forbids Him rise," "Soar we then where Christ has led," "Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!"
After hundreds of years, hymns were now coming back to church worship. The psalms were giving way to the touching favorites of our day. Many, many great hymn writers endowed the church with their consecrated genius as the years rolled by, but we must mention a little of the American contribution of the last century. Fanny Crosby, the blind poet, wrote 6,000 hymns and gospel songs. Her songs went straight to the human heart and thousands of people found themselves singing or whistling them. The Moody-Sankey evangelistic revivals used many of Fanny Crosby's songs. John Greenleaf Whittier was the greatest of all the American hymn writers. A Quaker, with nevertheless a fighting spirit when it came to opposing slavery, Whittier brings us in humility to the great God of all in the words of his grand hymn of worship:
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
In simple trust like theirs who heard,
Beside the Syrian sea,
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word,
Rise up and follow thee.
O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above!
Where Jesus knelt to share with thee
The silence of eternity,
Interpreted by love.
How wonderfully God has enriched the church with the hymn treasures of the centuries. For every occasion and every human emotion there is a hymn that speaks to our soul.
"Sing ye praises with understanding" (Ps. 47:7).
