The second most dangerous duty facing a vicar is the removal of pews. But that is nothing compared with the even more dangerous duty of choosing the hymns.
The nature of that danger can be readily expressed. How far are the following words applicable to the chosen hymns: vigorous, sentimental, languid, measured, robust, scriptural? Both words and music can be described meaningfully in most of these terms. After all, a hymn is a poem and it can be assessed like other literary compositions.
Consider one of our best-known hymns: 'There is a green hill far away'. In mostly monosyllabic form Frances Alexander, a bishop's wife, composed in mostly exquisite stanzas a song expressing the heart of the Christian Gospel. But Fanny, as she was known, also allowed herself to write a hymn of such banality that it deserved to vanish from hymn-books as soon as it appeared. 'They cannot rise and come to church with us, for they are dead' is a preposterous line for anybody to sing. ' Once in royal David's city' has considerable merit and the same simplicity as 'There is a green hill' but Fanny falters in her prescription for child-behaviour. She was, after all, a child of her time, part of a land-owning élite surrounded by starving peasants.
The first place to turn for innovators in worship once the Church of England had opted for a vernacular prayer book was the Book of Psalms. Sternhold and Hopkins went down that road. Later Tate and Brady followed the same route. Isaac Watts gave us 'When I survey the wondrous cross' and then Charles Wesley eclipsed everybody else in the field with an array of hymns, woven of scriptural allusions, robust, heartening and never equalled. Today we have traditional style hymns by Timothy Dudley-Smith, agreeable songs by Graham Kendrick, Stuart Townend and others and songs of varying merit from the Antipodes.
We can help a vicar doing his or her duty. We can show a keen interest in the kind of hymns we are expected to sing and we should be prepared to justify the choices we might make if we were in a position to choose. This would probably make life slightly more uncomfortable for a vicar but it would improve congregational health and safety and, hopefully, relieve us all of such sentimental and maudlin songs as ‘All things bright and beautiful.’
Oh, one other thing. We must remember that editors and publishers of hymn-books also have a part to play. They are in a position to assists or impede vicars in the exercise of this perilous duty.
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