SACRED POEMS AND HYMNS, FOR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE DEVOTION

BY JAMES MONTGOMERY

"From young and old, with every breath,

Let prayer and praise arise,

Life be "the daily offering,"--Death,

"The evening sacrifice."

WITH THE AUTHOR'S LATEST CORRECTIONS, AND AN INTRODUCTION BY JOHN HOLLAND.

ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, In the Clerk's office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York.

PREFACE.

In the Christian Psalmist, compiled twenty-five years ago, by the Author of the present Volume, he became known as a Hymn-Writer; and, since then, having frequently exercised his vein in like manner, a considerable number of his compositions have been republished (with or without leave) by Editors of similar Miscellanies, or in authorized Hymn-Books. Of this he has never complained, being rather humbly thankful, that any imperfect strains of his should be thus employed in giving "Glory to God in the highest," promoting "On earth peace," and diffusing "Good will toward men." But of the liberties taken by some of these borrowers of his effusions, to modify certain passages, according to their peculiar taste and notions, he must avail himself of the present opportunity to remind them, that if good people (and such he verily believes them to be) cannot conscientiously adopt his diction and doctrine, it is a little questionable in them to impose upon him theirs, which he may as honestly hesitate to receive. Yet this is the Cross, by which every Author of a hymn, who hopes to be useful in his generation, may expect to be tested, at the pleasure of any Christian brother, however incompetent or little qualified to amend what he may deem amiss in one of the most delicate and difficult exercises of a tender heart and an enlightened understanding. This indeed is "a thorn in the flesh," which the sufferer must learn to bear with meekness, and, if possible, to profit by the humiliation; though a versifier of any other class might, perhaps, be forgiven, if he indignantly resented it. It has been, on this account, that the individual (who now presents himself for judgment at a tribunal from which there is no infallible appeal,) has emphatically entitled his lucubrations,--"Original Hymns, by J. M., meaning only thereby, that they are now given to the world in that form of words, for which he can, at present, hold himself responsible; being persuaded, that they will be generally accepted with the same candour and indulgence with which a few of them have been extensively read by private persons, and introduced to churches and congregations by faithful and true ministers of Christ's Gospel.

Having, on three former occasions, expatiated freely on Hymnology and Sacred Poesy, I will close this egotistical preamble to the most serious work of my long life (now passing fourscore years), with a brief quotation from what may be esteemed a sainted authority on such a subject. Bishop Ken, somewhere, says, beautifully, humbly, and poetically,--

"And should the well-meant song I leave behind,

With Jesus' lovers some acceptance find,

'Twill heighten even the joys of heaven to know,

That in my verse saints sing God's praise below."

And was not this hope prophetic! fulfilling continually to this day, nor ever likely to fail while the Gospel is preached throughout the whole world in the language of Britain! It may even be doubted whether there is a stanza of four lines in the compass of our literature, which has been so often remembered, repeated and sung, as the Doxology, appended to each of the good prelate's inestimable Triad of Hymns, for Morning, Evening, and Night.

"Praise God, from whom all blessings flow,

Praise Him, all creatures here below;

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host,

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."

And who that has learned this rapturous strain on earth, can be presumed to forget it in heaven, if he reaches that consummation of glory, and of bliss?

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

The Mount, Sheffield, January 1, 1853.

See Introductory Essays, by James Montgomery, to the "Christian Psalmist," the "Christian Poet," and an edition of the "Olney Hymns." Published by William Collins. Glasgow.

INTRODUCTION.

Twenty-five years ago, it was my happiness to be commended to the good-will of American readers in their own country, by my honoured friend, James Montgomery: it was one of a thousand acts of unsolicited kindness for which I have been indebted to him during the period of more than a quarter of a century that I have enjoyed his confidence and his counsel. It is now my privilege, publicly,--not to return, but--to acknowledge the obligation "in kind," by presuming, without authority, and mea periculo, to prefix an Introduction to a work of his. I must, however, at the outset, utterly repudiate the possibility of a notion on my part, that any thing from the pen of Montgomery, and least of all such a volume as this, can require to be either introduced or advocated in any place where his mother tongue is spoken, where the love of English poetry is enjoyed, and where the influence of Christianity is recognized as leading not less to the refinement of the intellectual, than to the purification of the moral character of man.

To the literary and educated circles of society in the United States, therefore, on the foregoing as well as on other grounds of universally acknowledged sympathy, the author of "The Wanderer of Switzerland," "The West Indies," "The World [no entity: &] before the Flood," "The Pelican Island," c., has long been as familiar--may I not say always as welcome?--as to similar classes of readers in his own country. It is not, then, with any design of bespeaking for my revered friend a more hearty welcome, much less in any hope of sharing in that welcome, that I venture to present myself in his eompany on the present occasion. For however little any of his former works might have been presumed to require adventitious introduction, the volume now in the reader's hand stands least in need of it. For, to any people keenly alive to the importance of an orthodox expression of evangelical truth, in any form, or through whatever instrumentality, and who are, at the same time, sufficiently free from sectarian trammels to be allowed to welcome it, every new and happy embodiment of a precious Scriptural sentiment, wbether in prose or verse, becomes a fresh and, if not a social, at least a personal source of spiritual enjoyment and edification. I record this opinion the more willingly and distinctly here, because, if it applies generally wherever the mind of the true believer and the Word of God are alike "unfettered," it may perhaps be urged with a more especial and happy significance among a people whose sacred literature is remarkable for its sound, expansive, and practical character. For I entirely agree with Montgomery, that, "In no walk of literature have our trans-atlantic kindred so worthily rivalled, and so nearly equalled, the writers of the parent country as in works of divinity." [3]

It may be objected,--the recognized importance, the influence, and the praise of sermons, whether as delivered from the pulpit or the press, must not be allowed to be tacitly transferred to compositions in rhyme. Perhaps not; and yet the taste for good poetry, the appreciation of congregational singing, and the consequent requirement and requital of the services of the minstrel or the vocalist--not more surely in the saloon than in the sanctuary--are sufficient evidences that the good people of the trans-atlantic cities and villages, have at least the same feelings and enjoyments as those of the "old country" in these matters.

It may also, I presume, be affirmed of the leading orthodox communities of Christians in the United States, as of those in Great Britain, that they generally use in their public worship either some metrical version of the Psalms of David, the Hymns of Dr. Watts, the collection made by the Rev. John Wesley, or selections from some of these, with more or less admixture of "original matter." Into the relative merits or comparative importance of the works here named, or alluded to, it is not my present intention to enter; and this would the less become me, as I shall have occasion to cite higher authority than my own on this subject, in the course of this Preface. With respect to rhythmical versions of the Psalms for choral uses, I may mention, in passing, that having several years ago published a particular work on this subject, I am prepared to assert that while certain adventitious versifiers of the United States, early and late, must be content to share with the elders of their language in Europe the moderate praise of having rather laudably aimed at, than of having perfectly succeeded in the hopeless attempt at giving to the sentiments of the inspired penmen the same impressive tone in the choir service-book that they possess in the "authorized version" of the Bible, they have, nevertheless, exhibited some specimens of a metrical rendering of the sacred songs of the sweet singer of Israel, which are not inferior to the best of those produced in the mother country.

To come now more immediately to the author of the work before us, it may be proper to show what are his qualifications for the attempt to add "new strings to the celestial lyre"--new strains of sacred harmony to those which the church has so long possessed and approved, and this without the risk on his part of lessening a well-earned poetical reputation, by an ill-timed contest for the cheap distinction of a merely religious versifier. Those persons who know any thing of the early life and education of James Montgomery, as sketched by himself in the Preface to his Collected Poems, will remember that he was born and brought up among the Moravians, a people in whose public worship and private devotions singing, whether aided by instrumental accompaniment or not, always formed a large and delightful element. In this branch of divine service, as maintained in the church of his fathers, the youthful poet took an early and an abiding interest; and, as might be expected, in imitations of the simple but heart-touching compositions of the Hymn Book then in use among the Brethren, and long afterwards revised by him, the earliest kindlings of his genius manifested themselves. Soon after he came to reside in Sheffield, some years before the commencement of the present century, and thenceforward, as his poetical reputation increased, and his religious character developed itself, with a singular freedom from sectarian exclusiveness, and coincidently with the origin of those various institutions of piety which have so greatly distinguished our times, he was often called upon to render his rhythmical skill tributary to devotion, by the production of hymns for occasional purposes. Among the welcome, or, at least, willingly gratified petitioners for services of this kind were not merely the managers of Sunday-school, Missionary, and [no entity: &] Bible-Society anniversaries, c., in the town where he resided, and who could urge the local plea of religious citizenship, but the compilers of Hymn Books in every part of the United Kingdom. To such an extent had the taste of the Poet, and the solicitations of his admirers, concurred in this heavenward direction, that, in 1825, he comprised, in a published work, which I shall presently more particularly describe, one hundred Original Hymns. He also tried his hand upon compositions in metre founded on the Psalms; the result of which experiment he published, in 1822, under the title of "Songs of Zion." To these "Imitations," as the author called them--sixty-seven in number--he affixed a very brief preface, in which he says, "he would venture to hope that, by avoiding the rugged literality of some, and the diffusive paraphrases of others, he may, in a few instances, have approached nearer than either of them have generally done to the ideal model of what devotional poems, in a modern tongue, grounded upon the subjects of ancient psalms, yet suited for Christian edification, ought to be." The success and the value of this experiment will, no doubt, be variously estimated by different readers, as they privately peruse, or publicly sing the several specimens of the "Songs of Zion" which are comprised in the contents of the present Hymn Book.

But Mr. Montgomery's connection with hymnology has not been confined to his own metrical achievements in the service of the sanctuary. Willing to impart to others, so far as "the art unteachable, untaught," can be communicated or improved by precept, the secret of his own successful practice, he has, in public lectures, printed essays, prefaces to books, and in private conversations, advocated the claims and explained the relations of sacred literature--and, in his hands, almost all literature became sacred--under the various forms which poetry may assume. At present, however, our concern is mainly with his opinions as they relate to such lyric compositions as are adapted to the elucidation or adornment of religious themes, the exhibition of Scripture facts and doctrines, or most chiefly to the expression of devotional sentiments and feelings in private, social, or public worship. Distributing the matter here alluded to under four heads, we shall have:--

[2]1. An examination of the prejudicial opinion, grounded on some remarks by Dr. Johnson, to the effect that sacred subjects are unfit for poetry, nay, generally incapable of being combined with it.

[3]2. The qualities requisite to give to authors and hymns a title to acknowledged excellence.

[4]3. An estimate of the comparative merits of some of the more celebrated composers of this class; and,

[5]4. A consideration of the claims of Montgomery to his recognised rank as a hymnologist.

I. In proceeding to rebut the ignorant assumption of the incompatibility of poetry with devotion, Montgomery says:--"It is true that there is a great deal of religious verse, which, as poetry, is worthless; but it is equally true that there is a great deal of genuine poetry associated with pure and undefiled religion. With men of the world, however, to whom religion is an abomination, all poetry associated with it loses caste, and becomes degraded beyond redemption by that which most exalts it in the esteem of those who really know what they judge.

"But the prejudice alluded to is not confined to skeptics and profligates; many well-meaning people, who never took the trouble to inquire anything about the matter, in perfect simplicity believe this slander against the two most excellent gifts which God has conferred on intelligent and immortal man, upon the authority of Dr. Johnson. Let us see what that authority is. In his Life of Waller occurs the following passage:--'It has been the frequent lamentation of good men that verse has been too little applied to the purposes of worship, and many attempts have been made to animate devotion by pious poetry; that they have very seldom attained their end is sufficiently known, and it may not be improper to inquire why they have miscarried. Let no pious ear be offended if I advance, in opposition to many authorities, that poetical devotion cannot often please. The doctrines of religion may indeed be defended in a didactic poem; and he who has the happy power of arguing in verse, will not lose it because his subject is sacred. A poet may describe the beauty and grandeur of nature, the flowers of the spring, and the harvests of autumn, the vicissitudes of the tide, and the revolutions of the sky, and praise his Maker in lines which no reader shall lay aside. The subject of the disputation is not piety, but the motives to piety; that of the description is not God, but the works of God. Contemplative piety, or the intercourse between God and the human soul, cannot be poetical. Man admitted to implore the mercy of his Creator, and plead the merits of his Redeemer, is already in a higher state than poetry can confer.

'The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as, by producing something unexpected, surprises and delights. The topics of devotion are few, and, being few, are universally known; but few as they are, they can be made no more; they can receive no grace from novelty of sentiment, and very little from novelty of expression. Poetry pleases by exhibiting an idea more grateful in the mind than things themselves afford. This effect proceeds from the display of those parts of nature which attract, and the concealment of those that repel the imagination; but religion must be shown as it is; suppression and addition equally corrupt it; and such as it is, it is known already. From poetry the reader justly expects, and from good poetry always obtains, the enlargement of his comprehension and the elevation of his fancy; but this is rarely to be hoped for by Christians from metrical devotion. Whatever is great, desirable, or tremendous, is comprised in the name of the Supreme Being. Omnipotence cannot exalted; infinity cannot be amplified; perfection cannot be improved. The employments of pious meditation are faith, thanksgiving, repentance, and supplication. Faith, invariably uniform, cannot be invested by fancy with decorations. Thanksgiving, though the most joyful of all holy effusions, yet addressed to a Being without passions, is confined to few modes, and is to be felt rather than expressed. Repentance, trembling in the presence of the Judge, is not at leisure for cadences and epithets. Supplication to man may diffuse itself through many topics of persuasion; but supplication to God can only cry for mercy. Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the most simple expression is the most sublime. Poetry loses its lustre and its power, because it is applied to the decoration of something more excellent than itself. All that pious verse can do is to help the memory, and delight the ear: and for these purposes it may be very useful; but it supplies nothing to the mind. The ideas of Christian theology are too simple for eloquence, too sacred for fiction, and too majestic for ornament; to recommend them by tropes and figures, is to modify by a concave mirror the sidereal hemisphere.'

One cannot but be amused to imagine how indignantly this wisp of dazzling fallacies and solemn truisms would have been dispersed, had they been brought within the scope of the powerful apprehension of the critic by any other person. Nor can we fail to remember, that the persons who were formerly most prone to adduce the dogmata against the alliance of Religion with "Poetry, the eldest, the rarest, and the most excellent of the fine arts," were almost as commonly the stoutest advocates for the influence of rhetoric and music--if not also for the merely esthetic achievements of architure, statuary, and painting, as auxiliaries to Religion; and this even when they did not also avow their own sources of Polyhymnic idolatry in the inharmonious and unedifying strains of Sternhold and Hopkins. And "the sum of Dr. Johnson's argument," says Montgomery, "amounts to this, 'that contemplative piety, or the intercourse between God and the human soul, cannot be poetical;' and in the sense in which he employs the words poetry and poetical, this may be readily admitted; but that sense is imperfect; for it is limited to the style, rather than comprehending the spirit, of poetry, a distinction quite as allowable as his own, between poetry and motives to piety. He says, 'the essence of poetry is invention;' his own romance of Rasselas is a poem on this vague principle. Poetry must be verse, and all the ingenuity of man cannot say a better definition. Every thing else that may be claimed as essential to good poetry, is not peculiar to it, but may be associated, occasionally at least, with prose. Prose, on the other hand, cannot be changed into verse, without ceasing to be prose. It is true, according to common parlance, that poetry may be prosaic, that is, it may have the ordinary qualities of prose, though it be in metre; and prose may be poetical, that is, it may be invested with all the ordinary qualities of poetry, except metre. There is reason, as well as usage, in the conventional simplicity which distinguishes prose, and the conventional ornament which is allowed to verse; but gorgeous ornament is no more essential to verse, than naked simplicity is essential to prose. This, however, is a subject which cannot be discussed here; the assertion of the fact (and it cannot be contradicted), is sufficient to prove that there must be, in the compass of human language, a style suitable for 'contemplative piety' in verse, as well as in prose; consequently, there may be devotional poetry, capable of animating the soul in its intercourse with God, and suitable for expressing its feelings, its fears, its hopes, and its desires. Of course, this species of poetry will not parade invention, for the purpose of 'producing something unexpected, which surprises and delights;' it will not be 'invested by fancy with decorations;' it will not attempt to exalt Omnipotence, amplify infinity, or improve perfection; but to 'sentiments purely religious', it will give 'the most simple expression,' which will also be 'the most sublime,' and certainly not the less poetical on that account. Its topics will be 'few, and, being few,' will be 'universally known,'--an inestimable advantage in this kind of verse, because, if properly worded (and more is not required), they will be instantly understood, and impressively felt, according to the predisposition of the reader's mind, in all their force and tenderness of meaning. If nothing can be poetry which is not elevated above pure prose, by 'decorations of fancy, tropes, figures, and epithets,' many of the finest passages, in the finest poems which the world has ever seen, must be outlawed, and branded with the ignominy of being prose."

"It is begging the question," continues Montgomery, "to say, that 'man admitted to implore the mercy of his Creator, and plead the merits of his Redeemer, is already in a higher state than poetry can confer.' He is; but what of that? he must follow the counsel of the prophet: 'Take with you words, and turn unto the Lord: say unto Him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously, so will we render the calves of our lips. Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses, neither will we say any more to the work of our hands--Ye are our gods: for in Thee the fatherless findeth mercy' (Hosea, xiv., 2-3). Here is a prayer, dictated by the Spirit of God Himself, which is verse in the original, and ought to be rendered into verse when it would appear to be poetry, not of the simplest and severest, but of the loftiest and most embellished style: and does poetry here 'lose its lustre and power, because it is applied to the decoration of something better than itself?' Our critic says, 'The employments of pious meditation are faith, thanksgiving, repentance, and supplication.' He who denies that there can be a strain of poetry suited to the expression of each of these, in the most perfect manner, without either extravagance or impiety, must be prepared to deny that there is poetry in those very passages of the Psalms, in which, according to the judgment of all ages since they were written, there may be found the greatest sublimity and pathos." [5]

The volume to which these sentiments are prefixed, comprises "selections in verse on sacred subjects," from one hundred and fifty English poets, many of whom, it must be admitted, have no other title to the special epithet of "Christian," than because they have occasionally shown themselves well aware that their best strains might be surely derived from, and, as certainly, elevated by, religious subjects: but, of course, many others have holier and higher aims; and have succeeded accordingly.

II. But from the Christian Poet's defence of the use of verse in the service of religion in general, we proceed to his remarks on that form of it which is more particularly adapted to the service of the sanctuary. "A hymn," says Montgomery, "ought to be as regular in its structure as any other poem; it should have a distinct subject, and that subject should be simple, not complicated: so that whatever skill or labour might be required in the author to develope his plan, there should be little or none required on the part of the reader to understand it. Consequently, a hymn must have a beginning, middle, and end. There should be a manifest gradation in the thoughts, and their mutual dependence should be so perceptible, that they could not be transposed without injuring the unity of the piece; every line carrying forward the connection, and every verse adding a well-proportioned limb to a symmetrical body. The reader should know when the strain is complete, and be satisfied, as at the close of an air in music; while defects and superfluities should be felt by him as annoyances in whatever part they might occur. The practice of many good men in framing hymns, has been quite the contrary. They have begun apparently with the only idea in their mind at the time; another, with little relationship to the former, has been forced upon them by a refractory rhyme; a third became necessary to eke out a verse, a fourth to begin one, and so on, till having compiled a sufficient number of stanzas of so many lines, and lines of so many syllables, the operation has been suspended; whereas it might, with equal consistency, have been continued to any imaginable length, and the tenth or ten thousandth link might have been struck out, or changed places with any other, without the slightest infraction of the chain; the whole being a series of independent verses, collocated as they came, and the burden a canto of phrases, figures, and ideas, the common property of every writer who had none of his own, and, therefore, found in the works of each, unimproved, if not unimpaired, from generation to generation. Such rhapsodies may be sung from time to time, and keep alive devotion already kindled, but they leave no trace in the memory, make no impression on the heart, and fall through the mind as sounds glide through the ear,--pleasant it may be in their passage, but never returning to haunt the imagination in retirement, or in the multitude of the thoughts to refresh the soul. Of how contrary a character, how transcendently superior in value, as well as influence, are those hymns, which, once heard, are remembered without effort, remembered involuntarily, yet remembered with renewed and increasing delight at every revival! It may be safely affirmed, that the permanent favorites in every collection are those which, in the requisites before mentioned, or for some other peculiar excellence, are distinguished from the rest. Authors who devote their talents to the glory of God and the salvation of men, ought surely to take as much pains to polish and perfect their offerings of this kind, as secular and profane poets bestow upon their works. "The faults in ordinary hymns, are vulgar phrases, low words, hard words, technical terms, inverted construction, broken syntax, barbarous abbreviations that make our beautiful English horrid even to the eye, bad rhymes, or no rhymes where rhymes are expected, but above all, numbers without cadence. A line is no more metre because it contains a certain concatenation of syllables, than so many crotchets and quavers pricked at random, would constitute a bar of music. The syllables in every division ought to 'ripple like a rivulet,' one producing another as its natural effect, while the rhythm of each line, falling into the general stream at its proper place, should cause the verse to flow in progressive melody, deepening and expanding like a river to the close; or, to change the figure, each stanza should be a poetical tune, played down to the last note. Such subservience of every part to the harmony of the whole is required in all other legitimate poetry, and why it should not be observed in that which is worthiest of all possible pre-eminence, it would be difficult to say; why it is so rarely found in hymns, may be accounted for from the circumstances already stated, that few accomplished poets have enriched their mother tongue with strains of this description." [6]